The Trump administration's zero tolerance policy is intended to make every person found entering the country illegally face misdemeanor charges in court. That change has vastly increased the number of people who have to be prosecuted and defended in immigration court. So the government has introduced Operation Streamline under the program. Dozens of people can be in court at the same time charged and sentenced in under a half hour. The speed is supposed to take pressure off an already burdened immigration court system. But a new report says it has led to errors here in San Diego. Joining me is Max Rivlin. Nadler reporter with the appeal a news organization that focuses on criminal justice reporting. Max welcome to the program. Good to be here. This expedited system has changed the way federal defenders can interact with their clients. How much time can they spend learning about these individual cases because their clients are brought over from a border patrol station most likely early in the morning and taken to the garage of a federal building in downtown San Diego. They have very few minutes to speak with their lawyers individually and they're doing so in this large room. So what used to be a program and a system that would take you know several hours allowing a lawyer to understand what their client has gone through. Now take several minutes and things get lost in the process. Well in at least one case the interview was so rushed that an error was made. Tell us about the case of the girl you call Sabrina. Sabrina came to the United States in late July. She crossed the border near Toccata. So by the time she came to the basement of that federal building for an interview with her lawyer she had been wearing the same clothes for three days. She'd had limited access to food and water and she had a very brief interview with her lawyer during which time she told her that she was 18 years old which turned out not to be the truth of the matter. And that's a huge difference in federal court because under the statute you can't be prosecuted for a federal misdemeanor of illegal entry if you are a minor. And in federal court that means you are under 18. Now when this error was discovered as I understand it she had already been deported is that right. She had already been deported. And more importantly she'd already been sentenced. So in the normal course of action before Operation Streamline there'd be several days between your initial appearance or what we think of most as a as an arraignment. And when you either take a plea deal or get sentenced or have a trial during that time both prosecutors and defense attorneys look into the facts of the case as we're used to in the normal course of action. What happened in this situation was because everything was so rushed no one was able to contact family members the officials in the state of Mexico where she's from to try to confirm her age and that's something that's done in the normal course of action that was skipped in this process. Now a judge in San Diego wanted federal defenders to declare that their clients hadn't been coerced to plead guilty. But the attorneys refused. Why they believe these are specifically attorneys from the Federal Defenders of San Diego which is a non-profit that takes the majority of cases in federal court or just over half. And they believe that the system is so sped up that it's coercive that their clients don't really have an opportunity to argue for their innocence to get on the record to make a claim as to why they should not be found guilty of this crime. So when they were asked Is your client willingly and voluntarily pleading guilty. They weren't super comfortable saying that and because of that the judge refused to take the plea deals and their clients were kept in Border Patrol custody for longer because of that. What ended up happening actually is they went to another judge at a higher court and they were able to get the judge there to side with them and say no that shouldn't be an impediment for your client to take a plea deal admitting that they were not coerced. And so eventually they were able to stay on the record as not saying that they believe they were coerced and they're guilty pleas were allowed to be entered. Now there is audio in your report of that same judge Judge block counting down seconds in order to get a defense attorney to speed up. Let's listen to that. The court is to control its calendar. I'll give you 60 seconds 60 seconds. Think you just wasted time got that he true. Because he just wasted time in history there is a 40 year old father of two children his 10 year old daughter passed away. And he got Max. What ultimately happened what ultimately happened as the individual took a plea deal and they ended up with a federal misdemeanor. But as you heard in that piece the circumstances under which people come to the United States are really important. Normally in the course of action these circumstances would come out but because things are so expedited under this program they really only have 60 seconds or less than a minute to give the circumstances under which the crime was committed and because of this it's so important for defense attorneys they believe to get their story out there. And as you heard in the clip they literally had to deal with a count down by a judge who was believing that these proceedings were taking too long. Now the attorney did get a chance to say what she wanted to the judge did give her more than 60 seconds. But that was the way he approached it in the beginning. Max Operation Streamline is new to San Diego but it's been operating in other states for a while. Have there been legal challenges to these expedited proceedings. I believe there have but there hasn't been one recently and there certainly hasn't been one in the Southern District of California. I do believe that that is something we will begin to see in the coming months as a challenge to this process as well as some ways to not legally challenge. One way that people and community members around here have been fighting back against Operation Streamline is bonding people out. So if you bond somebody out they go to immigration custody right. ICE has placed a detainer on them very rarely when somebody leaves the custody of the federal government and goes into ICE custody which is a different wing. Does ice bring them back to court and eventually the case is dismissed. So you're seeing this grassroots movement that is getting cases dismissed by bombing people out of federal custody and that's a challenge that's not necessarily a legal challenge but it's one that is kind of slowing down what Operation Streamline ins to do which is to criminalize as many people crossing the border as possible. I've been speaking with Max Rivlin Nadler a reporter with the appeal. And Max thank you. Thank you.
The Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy is intended to make every person who enters the country illegally face misdemeanor charges in federal court. That change has vastly increased the number of people who are prosecuted and defended in court.
In July, the government introduced Operation Streamline in San Diego. Under the program, dozens of people can be in court at the same time, charged and sentenced in under a half-hour.
RELATED: Federal Courts In San Diego Begin Group Hearings On Illegal Immigration
The speed is supposed to take pressure off an already burdened court system. But a new report found it has led to errors, including the prosecution of a minor as an adult.
Max Rivlin-Nadler, a journalist with The Appeal, a criminal justice news organization, reports that a teenager charged with a misdemeanor for illegal entry into the U.S. told her lawyer she was 18 and was deported before the court realized she was actually a minor. As a minor she would not have faced a misdemeanor charge for illegal entry.
Rivlin-Nadler talks about the hurdles to getting migrants a fair trial Monday on Midday Edition.
