SAN DIEGO — Outside one of the nation’s busiest immigration courts, dozens of migrant families streamed out of a pair of buses that had just pulled in from the Mexican border, all of them hoping to fight deportation and ask for refuge in the United States.

They filed into two packed waiting rooms at the busy federal compound southeast of San Diego. Mothers tried to soothe crying babies. Security guards escorted people to bathroom breaks. Inside the courtrooms, people waiting their turns before the judges slouched on wooden benches as the long hours wore on.

The hearings unfolding several days a week in Southern California are unlike most of the asylum proceedings that have dominated immigration court dockets since Central American families began arriving in large numbers at the southern border in 2014. For the 158 migrants brought in through the San Ysidro port of entry that day in July, their stay in the United States would be brief: Nearly all of them would be returned to Mexico at the end of the day to await, at a distance, what for some of them could be a life-or-death decision.

“I am afraid the Barrio 18 gang will beat me, rape my daughter to hurt me, cut us in pieces and kill us,” a Baptist preacher from El Salvador, who identified himself only as Carlos, wrote in his petition to the court. “I am a pastor of a church who preaches that youth should follow God instead of gangs.”

For decades, those who could reasonably argue they were fleeing persecution in their homelands could enter the United States and obtain temporary residence and often a work permit while they consulted with a lawyer and prepared to present a full asylum petition to the immigration court.

That all changed under a Trump administration program that began in January. The program requires many migrants seeking admission to the United States to be sent back to Mexico for the duration of their court proceedings, allowing them to cross the border only for their hearings.

The program is proving disastrously difficult for many asylum seekers, who show up for critical court hearings like the ones in San Diego with no legal representation and little understanding of what is needed to successfully present a case. Some have not even been informed of when their cases would be heard, or were given the wrong date or the wrong courthouse.

According to a new analysis of immigration court data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, 1,155 cases under the so-called migrant protection protocols, often known as the “Remain in Mexico” program, had been decided by the end of June. Only 14 of these petitioners — 1.2 percent — had legal representation. Out of 12,997 cases still pending, 163 were filed with the aid of a lawyer, or 1.3 percent.

Access to counsel is a challenge even for those pursuing their cases from within the United States: Only 37 percent of them have representation. But for those waiting in Mexico, the border can pose an insurmountable barrier. Even if a migrant can afford to pay, finding a lawyer willing to take the case of a client living in Mexico is a challenge. In San Diego, the two legal aid organizations accepting clients in Tijuana are overwhelmed.

“You see all these people in court and can’t help them,” said Margaret Cargioli, a lawyer with a nonprofit called Immigrant Defenders.

One judge hearing cases that day in San Diego opened 52 cases over the course of the afternoon. Not a single respondent listed on his docket had a lawyer. In one courtroom, about half of the migrants scheduled on the docket failed to appear at all.

The requirement that petitioners remain in Mexico while their cases are in progress was intended to send a deterrent message to Central America, from where migrant families fleeing violence and poverty have been arriving in record numbers this year.

Because of a lengthy court backlog, many migrants apprehended at the border and then allowed into the country while their cases proceed have disappeared before or after their claims were denied, federal immigration officials say.

The program is one of the few Trump administration border initiatives that has not been halted by the courts. In May, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit allowed the program to proceed while it considers its legal merits, after a federal judge had initially blocked it.

The program began at the San Ysidro port of entry near San Diego. By mid-March it had expanded to El Paso, requiring migrants to wait in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. In June, the program was rolled out in Laredo, Tex., returning migrants to neighboring Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where kidnappings, robbery and murder are rampant.

Thus far, about 23,000 migrants have been returned to Mexico.

Administration officials are trying to set swift court hearings, and migrants are depending on that: The Mexican government has provided work visas only to some of those waiting for hearings, leaving many others with few options while they are waiting for their cases to be resolved. To help speed things up, the Department of Homeland Security is planning to erect tents in the Texas cities of Laredo and Brownsville for hearings, with judges to preside via video teleconference.

A department official said options for additional temporary hearing locations are being evaluated along other parts of the southern border.

“The sheer volume of cases that are being assigned to the courts is growing at a rapid rate, and the expectation is that they can be handled quickly. But judges are grappling with logistical and legal issues,” said Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

Because so many petitioners lack counsel, “the judge has to walk a fine line between being a judge and ensuring the person is given the best opportunity to present their case,” she said. “It requires a greater amount of time just to explain the nature of proceedings and charges.”

At the hearings that afternoon in San Diego, migrants donned headsets as they took their turns in the respondent’s chair, straining to understand the proceedings translated into Spanish by an interpreter.

“Often, they are struggling to understand basic information that the judge is trying to relay to them,” said Ms. Cargioli, the immigration lawyer.

Judge Ana L. Partida, presiding over cases in Courtroom 3, terminated deportation proceedings against six out of 13 no-shows on her docket, ruling they should get another chance because they had received “defective” notices to appear in court. She ordered the other seven deported because they had been informed in person of their court date at a previous hearing.

In Courtroom 2, the government lawyer, Dan Hua, told the judge that a request for an asylum seeker and her son to undergo a psychological evaluation in the United States — important evidence for her claim, according to their lawyer — had been denied because “we don’t have enough personnel available to escort and monitor them.”

“What if it were done in the courtroom?” asked the judge, Scott Simpson, with a puzzled look.

“It would hold up others from returning to Mexico,” Mr. Hua responded.

The problem was not resolved; the judge scheduled another hearing.

“If I can’t get a lawyer, is there still a possibility of asylum?” a man in Courtroom 4 asked Judge Philip S. Law, who had already given him an extension.

“You must appear with or without representation,” the judge replied.

Most of the migrants had been provided a list of pro bono legal services by United States authorities. But that had not helped, they said.

In Courtroom 2, a Honduran migrant named Silvia said, “I called them all. No one wants to help me because I’m in Tijuana.”

Carlos, the Baptist preacher from El Salvador, said he had fled to the United States after his 14-year-old daughter began receiving death threats. They waited a month in Tijuana for their number, 2036, to be called for processing at the San Ysidro port of entry.

But instead of allowing the pair into the United States to stay in Alabama with Carlos’s brother, a legal permanent resident, border officials ordered them to return to Tijuana.

Without a lawyer, Carlos said he had tried his best to build a strong asylum case. He woke up at dawn to get on the bus from Tijuana to San Diego, and sat before the judge with bloodshot eyes. In two manila envelopes, he had attached several documents to his completed application. The judge reviewed them from the bench.

“I received two very organized documents, one for the adult respondent and another for the child. Thank you,” said Judge Simpson.

The judge said he would hear the merits of his asylum case in December, but warned that another case was set for the same day and time. If there was no time to hear both cases, the judge said, he would have to reschedule Carlos’s case — and the pastor would have to wait in Mexico even longer.

Carlos quietly thanked the judge and walked out of the courtroom with his daughter, heading for the bus that would return them to Mexico.

Source: Read Full Article