The Department of Justice-operated immigration courts are making tens of thousands more immigrants eligible for deportation every month through a backdoor change to how quickly and often court cases can be scheduled.
Since late spring, the Trump administration has dramatically increased the number of immigrants scheduled every day for initial hearings before the court.
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Those who fail to show for the last-minute master hearings are documented as being “in absentia,” or absent, and are immediately eligible to be arrested and deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement despite never having had the chance to make a case for asylum or humanitarian protection.
The move is being described by immigration analysts as an attempt to make far more immigrants eligible for deportation without having to wait until they have gone through the normally yearslong immigration process in court. It means very quickly, tens of thousands more people are now available for arrest and immediate removal by ICE, and would not have to be detained pending trial.
Austin Kocher, an independent immigration data researcher formerly associated with Syracuse University’s Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse, noted in a Substack post video that mass-scheduling immigrants, knowing that many will not show up, was the “most recent phenomenon around politicizing the immigration courts.”
“Instead of proceeding at a normal rate, where let’s say on a given morning an immigration judge may hear 20, 30, maybe 35 cases … they’re saying we actually want to put 100 or 150 cases in that room,” Kocher said. “If you show up, you’ll get another hearing later, and if you don’t show up, you’ll get what’s called an in absentia removal order, which means you weren’t at your hearing, and if you’re not at your hearing one time, it’s a one strike and you’re out policy.”
With 3.2 million cases backlogged before roughly 600 immigration judges nationwide, immigrants must wait years to go through the process. Only at the end of the process can ICE typically deport someone.
Bulk-scheduling court appearances gives the Trump administration a political way to maneuver the DOJ-controlled Executive Office for Immigration Review into doing away with countless cases before the defendant has the opportunity to make his or her case at the final court appearance, according to Kocher.
A blog posted to Bklg.org, an immigration data service that helps lawyers organize their deportation defense cases, states that new court data showed absentia court orders hit a record high in June, topping 53,800. That figure was a 55% increase over the 34,725 absentia orders issued in May, the first month bulk scheduling began, according to authors Joseph Gunther and Brandon Marrow.
Given ICE’s well-documented pattern of arresting immigrants who show up for routine court proceedings prior to this spring, many immigrants may fear going to court for the hearings out of concern that they may be swept up by ICE.
In addition, immigrants are being notified hours to days ahead of mandatory hearings, rather than weeks to months in advance, making it more logistically challenging to accommodate last-minute court dates.
Given that most immigrants are unable to hire attorneys to represent them, their ability to track court proceedings and changes to their court dates is low, according to Kocher. For immigration attorneys, it means very short notice to get the necessary documents and prepare for court.
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“This is a major problem, of course, because these are not cases that are actually being heard. They’re not being decided on their merits. There are a lot of people who have good arguments for staying in the country,” Kocher said.
“Part of my concern here is that mega masters by themselves, in my view, dramatically undermine due process and the integrity of the court system,” Kocher added. “It is very hard to take an immigration judge or the immigration court seriously.”
