New immigration court locations throw chaos into due process : NPR

Immigrants are being told last minute about new in-person hearings at previously undisclosed courtroom locations.

That’s according to five immigration attorneys who reviewed notices or observed the hearings and spoke to NPR about them.

The last-minute notifications appear to be another tactic in a broader strategy from the Trump administration to short-circuit immigrants’ already limited due process options to speed up arrests and deportations.

NPR has learned that over the past few weeks, immigrants who were scheduled to appear in coming months for hearings out of the Hyattsville and Baltimore immigration courts in Maryland and the Sterling court in Virginia have instead been rescheduled to two other buildings: one in Washington, D.C., and another in Falls Church, Va. Neither of these buildings currently has an immigration court that’s set up for in-person hearings. The D.C. location has no listed affiliation with the Justice Department. Instead, the building is listed as being occupied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to one source familiar with the project who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Immigrants were notified about the change in location within days of the newly scheduled appointments — or were not notified at all, in at least two cases identified by NPR.

Kel White, an officer of the D.C. chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, attended one such hearing this week. “The most unusual thing I’ve ever seen” in her more than 15 years of practicing the law is how she described having an immigrant appear in person at the unusual location before a judge and prosecutor who were remote-only.

She also said the last-minute changes and lack of notice violates regulations as set by the Justice Department, which oversees all such immigration courts.

“People need to receive at least ten days’ notice in order for there to be a response,” White said. She cited a policy manual that indicates immigrants should get ample notice of a new hearing date.

“My concern about these hidden tribunals is that essentially people are not getting notice of them or that the mail would not arrive in time for them to even know that they need to go to court,” she said.

The notices appeared to be targeted at immigrants who did not have legal representation at the time, the attorneys told NPR. Most immigrants who seek to argue their case to stay in the U.S. don’t have a lawyer.

And any immigrant who doesn’t show up for a scheduled hearing, even by mistake, can be issued a so-called “in-absentia order of removal,” which allows immigration officers to detain and deport the person.

As part of the Justice Department, the Executive Office for Immigration Review runs some 60 immigration courts and adjudication centers.

A statement from EOIR said that as it “continues to add new immigration judges, EOIR will continue to make scheduling adjustments, to include opening new hearing locations as needed, to ensure all cases are handled in a timely and lawful manner.”

EOIR did not respond to questions about why immigrants were being told to appear at these locations and if they were new immigration courts.

The Trump administration has aimed to reduce the backlog of immigration court cases — which numbers some 3.5 million cases. It also has cast doubt on the validity of those claims. Trump has pointed to such courts as an obstacle to rapid deportation.

In a press release from April, the White House touted an “aggressive and successful immigration enforcement overhaul” that “extends to immigration courts.”

Immigrants sent to locations not posted as in-person immigration courts

Attorneys warn this latest step of scheduling hearings at previously unfamiliar locations adds to the confusion and lack of transparency in an already-complicated immigration court system.

White, from the American Immigration Lawyers Association, attended a hearing on Sept. 2 at the Falls Church location in Virginia. It happened inside a government building that houses the Executive Office for Immigration Review headquarters, as well as the Board of Immigration Appeals, two bodies at the Justice Department that make up the immigration court system.

However, neither location is normally a place for immigrants to attend in-person hearings.

White and other attorneys who have practiced in the greater D.C. area for over a decade said the Falls Church location has previously been used as an adjudication center for some remote hearings — not as a regular courtroom.

White described a waiting area with two conference rooms where an immigration judge and an attorney representing the Homeland Security Department were appearing remotely. She said the judge ordered several people to be deported because they did not appear for their hearings.

The fact that the judge and the prosecutor didn’t show up in person for the hearing “really reflects a lopsidedness in the system and in fairness to people who are required to show up, who don’t even know about their hearings,” White said.

The D.C. location, which is slated to hold hearings as soon as September 9, is Federal Center Plaza at 400 C St SW, which also does not have DOJ courtrooms, nor is an EOIR facility.

The General Services Administration, the U.S. agency that manages government facilities and procurement, did not respond to a request for comment on the DOJ’s use of the space.

There is an ongoing “surge” for GSA to acquire space for the DOJ’s immigration court agency by December, according to two sources familiar with the project who spoke with NPR on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details of the public contracts.

One of the sources said the GSA put out a public request for lease proposals that identifies 18 potential locations, requiring space for at least 10 courtrooms.

Still, no new building or conversion of another agency’s existing lease has been publicly announced, either for the D.C. location or the Falls Church one. That adds to the confusion for advocates and immigrants.

No apparent notice in the mail: “I was nervous and scared”

One individual who was scheduled to appear at one of these locations spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity for fear of jeopardizing their legal case. The person said they did not receive a notice in the mail.

Instead, the app MigraConnect, which is used by some people to track their immigration court cases, flagged that a December hearing date in Virginia’s Sterling Immigration court had changed to Sept. 2 in Falls Church with a two-week notice.

“Thank God I had that application because without it they would have put me on a path to deportation, because I never got a notice in the mail,” the person said, referring to the fact that an immigration judge can issue a final order of deportation if an immigrant does not appear for their hearing. “I was nervous, and scared; I have never missed a court date but I didn’t know what would happen in that building.”

Typically, immigrants are assigned an immigration court closest to the address they have on file with the department. And normally, if the Justice Department decides to create a new court, it announces the move before relocating cases.

Neither of those things happened with these new locations.

Lawyers identified some instances where clients were asked to cross state lines to attend hearings in Virginia or D.C. that otherwise would have taken place closer to home.

Lucelia Justiniano, another immigration attorney in the D.C. area, said one prospective client also did not get a mailed notice about a new location and date. The client, who lives in Maryland, was scheduled to appear in Falls Church instead of at her original court location in Hyattsville. And the hearing was moved up to Sept. 2 from a date in October.

“So I called the court; I’m like, ‘This has to be a mistake,'” Justiniano said. The court informed her the new center had opened on Aug. 24.

“It was extremely lucky that she called us a day before and that we were able to check that because she had not gotten the notice,” she said of her client.

When the client arrived, they found out Judge John Rubenstein – who was originally going to hear the case — was appearing remotely on a monitor from his courtroom in Hyattsville. No explanation was given for why the hearing was not held in his courtroom.

James Reyes, an immigration attorney of 15 years, also had a client whose hearings were rescheduled several times before being moved to the Falls Church location, with eight days’ notice.

“I honestly thought it was a glitch. I was like, there’s no way,” Reyes said. He said that there is one courtroom in the Falls Church building for rarely-held oral arguments at the Board of Immigration Appeals, an administrative court that hears appeals of cases.

“But that is not a courtroom that is regularly used in proceedings,” Reyes said.

After Reyes entered himself as the lawyer in the case, it was quickly rescheduled for the Sterling court just days before the client was to appear in Fall Church. There is no new hearing date in that case.

Another strategy to increase final removal orders

Over the last year, the Trump administration has moved to quickly issue final orders of removal for immigrants who seek relief from deportation in immigration courts.

The last-minute changes in location come amid other tactics the administration has used to speed up court proceedings.

For example, across the country, immigration judges are being scheduled for what have been dubbed “mega master calendar” hearings. These are hearings where over 100 immigrants, many without lawyers, are scheduled to appear — and then ordered removed if they do not.

Since mega master calendar hearings started, in-absentia deportation orders have spiked to a record high, according to the legal tech platform bklg. Meanwhile, approvals for asylum in immigration courts have also hit a record low.

Immigration attorneys say the strategies have targeted immigrants who do not have lawyers — particularly when it comes to receiving notice of a new hearing date.

The rates of in-absentia removals for immigrants without lawyers in Baltimore, for example, has increased from 54% in January to 73% in June, according to the group Mobile Pathways, which analyzes immigration court data.

“It’s just stockpiling things against respondents,” Justiniano, the immigration attorney, said, referencing the last-minute notice with a change of venues. “And this just shows one more example of it.”