“This American Life”: Immigration Courts and Consquences

Sep 29

“This American Life” interviewed over a dozen U.S. Immigration Judges about how the Trump administration turned their job into a rubber-stamp for mass deportation, and fired those who refused to give up their limited independence — in just a few months.

“The U.S. immigration courts are the most-consequential, least-scrutinized aspect of our immigration system. Immigration judges have the authority to decide who stays in this country and who has to leave. These are serious decisions that should not be made lightly. Often, they involve people have lived here for decades and built lives anyone would be proud of,” said Lynn Tramonte, Executive Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. “The Trump administration knows this, which is why they are firing judges who don’t agree to rubber stamp their mass deportation agenda. They don’t want judges to make independent decisions based on facts and fairness. They want pawns, plain and simple.

“Instead of making an already dysfunctional system more functional, the Trump administration is making it more broken and chaotic. In just a few months, they fired 60 immigration judges and squeezed out 40 more. The Trump administration also cancelled legal immigration programs to make people who currently have legal status suddenly deportable. They are creating more chaos and dysfunction instead of introducing calm, function, and order.”

Tramonte continued, “The public has ignored the immigration courts for too long. This system already had serious flaws, being housed within an executive branch agency. Judges work under the direction of the U.S. Justice Department, rather than operating with independence. There’s no guaranteed right to counsel for immigrants, but the government is represented in every case, every time. Government attorneys can lie about immigrants in open court and face zero consequences. The list goes on and on.

“We need to understand what is happening in immigration courtrooms across our country, because it affects people we know, and because we care about the law. Instead of letting the administration completely dismantle due process in the immigration courts, we need Congress to step in. Congress has to stop letting the administration do whatever it wants, and create a truly independent immigration court instead.”

To learn more about how the immigration courts operate, read Ohio Immigrant Alliance’s six-part series “Behind Closed Doors: Black Migrants and the Hidden Injustices of U.S. Immigration Courts.” The series includes original research and interviews with dozens of immigrants and immigration lawyers, with real-life examples and testimonies. In particular, see:

“The System Works As Designed: Immigration Law, Courts, and Consequences,” a primer about how the quasi-judicial immigration courts, underpinned by political ideology and subjective standards open to bias, are failing the people they purport to protect.
“Scarred, Then Barred: U.S. Immigration Laws and Courts Harm Black Mauritanian Refugees,” a case study outlining reasons why many Black Mauritanians (and other immigrants) who meet the legal definition of a “refugee” are often denied protection in the U.S. immigration courts, and deported back to the harms they bravely fled.
“Behind Closed Doors: Black Migrants and the Hidden Injustices of U.S. Immigration Courts,” the capstone report in the series, featuring insight from immigrants and immigration attorneys who have direct experience in the U.S. immigration courts. The report also highlights trends that undermine the execution of justice, including the government’s reliance on unfounded fraud narratives; uneven and impossible evidentiary standards; and the legal representation gap — among other design flaws — and provides recommendations for a more just system.

In addition to the Ohio Immigrant Alliance’s original research, we recommend the Cleveland Immigration Court Monitoring Project’s report, “Bearing Witness,” documenting a major lack of due process at the Cleveland Immigration Court during the first Trump administration, based on hundreds of hearings. Also, “A New Paradigm for Humane and Effective Immigration Enforcement,” by Peter L. Markowitz (Center for American Progress), “Private Violence,” by Drs. Carol Cleaveland and Michele Waslin (NYU Press), and the Tahirih Justice Center’s analyses about how the current administration is dismantling access to safety for victims of gender-based violence.

“This American Life”: Immigration Courts and Consquences

Alliance, Instead of Intimidation