Tag: immigration court
Court Blocks Deportations Of Several Central American Families

Court Blocks Deportations Of Several Central American Families

By Franco Ordonez, McClatchy Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — The nation’s highest immigration court has delayed the deportations of four families out of hundreds of Central American migrant adults and children rounded up in raids over the New Year’s weekend as part of a nationwide effort to combat illegal immigration, according to the families’ lawyers. They expected to win a fifth stay Wednesday.

The Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision, made late Tuesday, is a small yet potentially significant breakthrough for lawyers fighting the raids, as it raises questions about Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson’s assurances to the public earlier this week that those being deported had exhausted all their legal options.

The families’ lawyers said the stays of deportation had been granted to allow time to appeal their cases to the Board of Immigration Appeals — a step none of them had yet taken. The families had been scheduled to be deported from the United States on Wednesday morning back to their home countries of El Salvador and Honduras.

“What does it mean when we get five out of six cases stayed? That means something is wrong here,” said one of the lawyers, Laura Lichter, general counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “If there was no case, nothing here, we wouldn’t have gotten the stay.”

Johnson said this week that 121 people had been taken into custody, mainly in Georgia, North Carolina and Texas. The Obama administration operation focused on adults and their children who’d been apprehended as of last spring after crossing the southern border illegally, had been issued orders of removal by an immigration court and, Johnson said, “have exhausted appropriate legal remedies.”

“As I have said repeatedly, our borders are not open to illegal migration; if you come here illegally, we will send you back consistent with our laws and values,” Johnson said in a statement Monday.

The holiday raids were the first in a large-scale effort focused on Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence, and they drew swift criticism from activists. Lawyers advised the migrants to simply not open the door if approached by immigration agents.

Lichter and other lawyers, organized through the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project, charged the Obama administration with rushing to deport the families without properly screening whether they had exhausted their due process rights. The attorneys filed requests to stop the deportations for five out of a half-dozen cases they’d reviewed. The declarations to the Board of Immigration Appeals included the families’ affidavits explaining why they feared returning to their home countries.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest reminded critics of President Barack Obama’s November 2014 immigration priorities, which placed more emphasis on recent arrivals of individuals who’d crossed the border without proper legal documentation.

“This is consistent with the kinds of priorities that the president himself has talked about; that our enforcement efforts need to be focused on deporting felons, not families, and with a particular focus on individuals who have only recently crossed the border,” Earnest said.

©2016 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson talks to the media about holiday travel at Union Station in Washington, November 25, 2015. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas 

 

Under ‘Rocket Docket,’ Kids Race Time — Few Of Them With A Lawyer

Under ‘Rocket Docket,’ Kids Race Time — Few Of Them With A Lawyer

By Dianne Solis, The Dallas Morning News

Lawyers call them “rocket dockets” — court schedules that speed deportation hearings for Central American children who crossed the U.S. border without a parent.

Some question whether the children are getting proper legal representation as immigration judges work their way through the fast-paced dockets. Leaders of the National Association of Immigration Judges said it is a mistake to move up cases of vulnerable children in an already backlogged system.

“We deal with cases that are often, in effect, death penalty cases,” said Dana Leigh Marks, union president and a San Francisco-based judge. “Immigration law enforcement must stand on its own and not be allowed to overshadow or to control the immigration judicial process.”

The Obama administration issued the fast-track order in July to discourage Honduran, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan families from sending children north.

Now, family dramas unreel at a furious pace before Judge Michael Baird, who hears the juvenile cases in a starkly lit courtroom in the Earle Cabell Federal Building in downtown Dallas. Children sit on their guardians’ laps. Attorneys crowd the center aisle. Mothers wipe tears as they tell the judge of deportation fears for their sons and daughters.

On a recent day, attorney Bill Holston surveyed the scene and then did quick client-lawyer prep work. He gave a fist bump to 11-year-old Jordan, a skinny Honduran boy who wore a gray-and-black shirt with a fierce-looking eagle. Within minutes, the two took their turn before Baird.

The mother, a pregnant housekeeper, came to the initial hearing three days earlier and was given time to look for an attorney. She found Holston, the executive director of the Human Rights Initiative of North Texas, a pro bono agency with a track record of victories.

Baird granted Holston more time to prepare. “You are well aware these cases are moving at a very brisk pace,” the judge told them. Baird said he has orders to follow from the government.

At least Jordan has a lawyer. Many children do not. Some families can’t find a lawyer who can quickly return to court with them. Some can’t afford the thousands of dollars in attorney fees. Others turn to agencies that do pro bono work, but those lawyers struggle with the load.

Without an attorney, deportation is a 90 percent certainty, according to a Syracuse University research center called the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

The Human Rights Initiative now passes out guidelines to immigrants on how to represent themselves. The director of legal and immigration services at Catholic Charities of Dallas says it performs legal triage, picking cases most likely to win.

The Dallas chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women started a court-watching program. Their concern: “full and fair hearings for the kids,” said attorney Cheryl Pollman, the group leader.

More than 63,000 children have been apprehended this fiscal year crossing the border without parents. Many were sent on the dangerous journey by their families, who hope they will find refuge from the poverty and gang violence of their home countries. Some come looking for their parents or other family already in the United States.

The number of apprehensions this year is already eight times that in 2008. But the flow is slowing: In July, about 5,500 children were picked up, compared with 10,000 in June.

Now the children are going through the nation’s immigration courts, where there is a backlog of about 375,000 cases of adults and juveniles from around the world. Juvenile cases make up about a tenth of that backlog.

In Dallas, the five immigration judges, who serve North Texas and the entire state of Oklahoma, have a backlog of about 5,200 adult and juvenile cases, according to TRAC.

“These children are coming off a traumatic journey,” said Jonathan Ryan, executive director of Raices, a San Antonio pro bono law firm that represents juveniles. “It takes time for a person to decompress and be able to process through these experiences. … You want to cram them through a legal process, a legal gantlet in which they have no representation? The due process is essentially gutted.”

Marks, president of the immigration judges association, warned that children need more time, particularly when there’s trauma involved. “There is only so far you can go without compromising fairness,” she said.

She noted that judges face disciplinary action if they refuse to speed ahead. “A truly independent court needs separation from the executive branch’s enforcement prerogatives,” she said.

During a July hearing on Capitol Hill, Juan Osuna, head of the Justice Department agency that runs the immigration courts, responded to criticism.

“The utmost priority for every case … will remain — that every fact is considered and that every application of law is correct and that people appearing before our immigration judges receive due process of law,” Osuna said. “We will do these cases quickly, but we will do them right.”

In Dallas, Baird’s courtroom staff schedules five to six rocket dockets a week, up from one a month last year.

Baird, a former assistant district attorney in Georgia, has a laser focus on the bench, and his “yes” rate is restrained. Over five years, he denied asylum petitions about 60 percent of the time, according to government records obtained by TRAC. The national average is about 50 percent.

On a recent day, Brian, a 5-year-old Honduran, smiled through the gravity of his initial hearing. He slipped into a big black leather chair to face the judge. His legs didn’t touch the ground, but the loose laces of his sneaker did.

He playfully poked his 8-year-old sister, Evelyn, during the hearing. His 26-year-old mother was given a continuance to hunt for an attorney.

That same day, Holston, the seasoned attorney, showed up with Jordan and waited his turn with his battered leather briefcase. After watching several other hearings and then getting his own continuance, Holston walked out red-faced, angered by what he’d witnessed.

Baird is in a “very difficult position,” Holston said, but “this rocket docket is so upsetting. … They speed the process so lawyers can’t do their jobs.

“It is an ugly thing to watch.”

AFP Photo/Stan Honda

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Migrant Children Face Test In Dallas Immigration Court

Migrant Children Face Test In Dallas Immigration Court

By Dianne Solis and David Tarrant, The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS — In a packed Dallas immigration courtroom, Elsy Garcia sits next to her 16-year-old brother, Jose. She last saw him when he was 9, when she fled their home in Usulutan in southern El Salvador.

Now Jose is facing deportation. His case is confusing. His sister, a 28-year-old mother of three U.S.-born children, is now his guardian. She fears she will fail him. They have no attorney.
Yet Judge Michael Baird tells her she’s not named as her brother’s legal custodian. Someone she doesn’t know is listed on the document. “You did the right thing coming back with him today,” Judge Baird finally says.

Many like Jose came on their own or paid a smuggler. Their journeys often involved dashes through gang-controlled Honduran neighborhoods, cramped bus rides along Mexican roads, or a trip of terror atop a cargo train. Now, after being apprehended, these young people have ended up in court to face their biggest test — one that can determine whether they stay in the United States.

What happens in Baird’s courtroom lies at the heart of a heated debate over how the U.S. government should handle the recent surge of juvenile migrants.

The latest order from President Barack Obama’s administration: Prioritize and speed up hearings on removal of these unaccompanied minors, whose apprehensions total 57,000 so far this fiscal year.

Immigration courts have a record backlog of 375,500 cases — both juveniles and adults from all countries, said Juan Osuna, director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review at the U.S. Department of Justice. The numbers have doubled since 2008.

“We are facing the largest caseload that the (EOIR) has ever seen,” said Osuna, testifying on Capitol Hill two weeks ago.

Texas immigration courts are among the nation’s busiest. Since 2005, Texas judges have presided over a quarter of the nation’s deportation cases involving juveniles, according to data analyzed by the Syracuse University-based Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, a national research center.

Texas immigration courts are also among the nation’s toughest. In Texas, two-thirds of immigrants, including adults and juveniles, are ordered deported, according to TRAC. The national average is about 50 percent; in California, it’s almost 39 percent.

To deal with the current crisis of juvenile migrants, the Obama administration asked Congress for $3.7 billion, including funding to add 40 more judges for the nation’s 59 immigration courts.
But a prominent federal judge warned it would be a mistake to rush minors through immigration court. “Those are the cases that take longer,” said Dana Leigh Marks, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

“You have to be more solicitous of the person and allow the person to find an attorney. They are particularly vulnerable individuals,” Marks said. “You have to spend more time to make sure they understand the procedures and the rights. How do you do that with frightened children?”

Located on an upper floor of a downtown federal building, Baird’s windowless, fluorescent-lit courtroom is tucked into a corner of a hallway crowded with immigrants from some of the most dangerous places in the world.

The courtroom is a tidy place: beige walls, dark blue carpeting, and a raised desk where the black-robed judge sits in a tall leather chair. Behind Baird are an American flag and the bronze seal of the Justice Department, whose motto, Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur, is Latin for “Who Pursues for Lady Justice.”

About once a week, the judge presides over the juvenile immigration docket in Dallas. “All of you are here today because the government wants to remove you from the country,” he tells the juveniles one recent morning.

He reads them their rights. It is a short conversation. You can have legal representation if you want, the judge tells them, but you don’t have the right to a free lawyer. An interpreter with a booming voice repeats the message in rapid-fire, confident Spanish.

The children in the Dallas courtroom are all classified as unaccompanied minors — meaning they arrived without a parent. Typically, unaccompanied minors are trying to reunite with a relative already living in the United States.

Deportation hearings involving minors can take several years because of the backlog. But the Obama administration now wants such cases moved to the top of court dockets. In the recent past, the Justice Department focused on speeding up the removal of those with criminal records.

Legislation introduced last week by two Texas lawmakers, Sen. John Cornyn, the deputy GOP leader, and Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, would make it possible to deport Central American immigrant children within days of their apprehension.

Unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico and Canada are not subject to expedited removal from the country now. Expedited removal means that someone who is in the United States illegally can be quickly deported without any court appearance or judicial review.

The unaccompanied minors in the Dallas courtroom are all from Central America — El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras — where violence, poverty and false beliefs that U.S. authorities treat minors leniently have fueled the crisis at the border.

Across the nation’s immigration courts, children show up without lawyers more than half the time, according to a recent report by TRAC, which looked at 100,000 juvenile cases since 2005. This makes a huge difference.

In about half of the cases in which juveniles have an attorney, the court has allowed them to stay in the United States, according to the data. In cases in which juveniles did not have a lawyer, 9 out of 10 were ordered deported.

In Baird’s courtroom, Jose Garcia’s hearing ends with the court giving him and his sister time to find a lawyer. But Elsy wonders how much she can do.

Like so many male teens who end up on the juvenile docket, Jose is fleeing gangs, his sister says later. La Mara Salvatrucha, a gang with roots in Los Angeles’ immigrant neighborhoods, made it clear it wanted her brother. Their mother decided to place Jose with a smuggler who took him north to Dallas.

But if he files an asylum claim, he could face difficulties. Immigrants are eligible for asylum if they can prove fear of persecution on one or more of five grounds: race, nationality, religion, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

Especially hard to prove is social group persecution — such as teenagers targeted for gang recruitment.

“U.S. law makes a distinction on those who have humanitarian claims,” said Marc Rosenblum, an immigration specialist at the Migration Policy Institute. “Even if a gang member is going into your house and saying, ‘I am going to kill you if you don’t do X, Y, and Z,’ that won’t make you eligible necessarily for asylum relief.”

Jose arrived in Texas last year and started high school in the Dallas area. Elsy said she knows the odds for her brother aren’t good. Without an attorney, Jose stands little chance of staying in Texas. “They say it is really difficult and you have to have evidence,” Elsy said.

She doesn’t want to fail her mother. “The situation (in El Salvador) is so difficult,” she said in Spanish. “Imagine kids only 12 smoking drugs and getting in gangs. The mothers send their kids here because they fear for the lives of their sons.

“If you don’t join, they’ll kill you.”

Photo: Dallas Morning News/MCT/Rex C. Curry

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