A new Trump administration tactic, which is to boost deportations by drastically reducing the notice given to people for their immigration court dates, is already having an impact in San Diego and across the country.
Immigration judges nationwide issued more than 50,000 deportation orders for people who did not show up to court last month, according to federal data.
The data show a sharp increase in what are officially called absentia removal orders, resulting from this new practice of scheduling hundreds of immigration court hearings at once with relatively little notice. They are known as “mega master” calendar hearings.
Immigrant rights advocates sounded alarms as soon as the fast-tracked hearings began in late May. They said it is a denial of due process.
“This puts numbers to a lot of what people had been reporting from on the ground all over the country,” said Joseph Gunter, who co-authored a report on the impact of these hearings.
Their research found an unprecedented number of absentia removal orders in June — more than 53,000. It was a 55% increase from May, which was already a record month.
In some immigration courts, including one in Hartford, Connecticut, almost 90% of cases completed in June resulted in absentia removal orders.
Brandon Marrow, another of the study’s co-authors, said the data raises questions about the integrity of the immigration court system.
“It represents how the system is functioning,” he said. “Are judges spending a lot of their time adjudicating cases or are they spending a lot of time issuing these orders and quickly moving through these cases?”
In June, a Justice Department official said in an emailed statement to KPBS that the hearings are part of an effort to reduce its backlog.
"Reducing the immigration court backlog remains one of the highest priorities for this administration," the statement said. "The Justice department is restoring integrity to our immigration system by hearing cases fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly, in accordance with the law."
Marrow said some immigration courts felt the dramatic increase in removal orders more harshly than others. For example, in a court outside of Boston, there were only six absentia removal orders in May, but 307 in June.
Their data also include breakdowns of individual judges’ caseloads.
For example, in San Diego, one judge had a regular master calendar hearing and a mega master calendar hearing in the same week in June.
On the regular hearing day, the judge heard 27 cases and issued zero absentia removal orders. The hearings were scheduled, on average, five months in advance.
During the mega master hearing day, the same judge heard 90 cases and issued 51 absentia removal orders. The hearings were only scheduled with 30 days’ notice.
Gunter and Marrow said the mega master hearings are just the latest in a long list of tactics the Trump administration has deployed to meet its goal of detaining and deporting as many people as possible. Others included courthouse arrests, the elimination of temporary protected status, third-country deportation agreements and indefinite detention.
“We’ve seen tactics that look very different on the face, but all have the same ultimate effect which is to close people’s cases without being heard on the merits,” Gunter said.
Marrow noted that people with absentia removal orders can still fight their deportations through appeals and other legal procedures. He recommended people contact an immigration lawyer or find legal resources through organizations like the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project.
