{"id":18467,"date":"2021-02-01T13:10:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T13:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inthesetimes.com\/article\/virtual-courts-immigration-asylum-seekers-immigration-court"},"modified":"2021-02-01T13:10:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T13:10:00","slug":"the-trump-administrations-cruelty-haunts-our-virtual-immigration-courts-how-judicial-black-sites-have-come-to-shape-our-immigration-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/01\/the-trump-administrations-cruelty-haunts-our-virtual-immigration-courts-how-judicial-black-sites-have-come-to-shape-our-immigration-system\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trump Administration’s Cruelty Haunts Our Virtual Immigration Courts – How \u201cjudicial black sites\u201d have come to shape our immigration system."},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t\t\t\t
Lisa Koop, associate director of legal services for the National Immigrant Justice Center<\/a> (NIJC), stood with her client in immigration court in September 2019. The client (name withheld for privacy) had escaped violence in Central America and fled to the United States with her young daughter. Here, they were taken into custody by immigration authorities, which landed them in this courtroom, waiting to hear whether they would be granted asylum.<\/p>\n They were initially scheduled with a traditional, in-person immigration judge. But that judge retired and the case was transferred to an \u201cimmigration adjudication center.\u201d This new judge video conferenced in. Koop says the judge did not allow an opening statement, was not familiar with relevant precedent and did not ask Koop to address any particularities of the case in the closing argument. The judge ruled that, while the case was \u201cvery sad,\u201d it did not meet the criteria for asylum, then wished Koop\u2019s client \u201cgood luck\u201d following deportation. This experience is not unique. According to the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR)\u2014the Justice Department agency that oversees these immigration adjudication centers\u2014nearly 300,000 <\/a>asylum cases have been heard via videoconference in the past two years.<\/p>\n Many of those cases were likely held through these new adjudication centers, which were introduced by the Trump administration <\/a>in 2017. The operations of immigration adjudication centers remain so opaque that some critics call them \u201cjudicial black sites.\u201d The NIJC, which advocates on behalf of immigrants, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with other immigrant rights groups in March 2020 to learn how they work, seeking a list of the centers, their procedures and planned expansions.<\/p>\n When their request went unfulfilled, the groups followed up in October 2020 with a lawsuit against the EOIR and the Justice Department, accusing them of unlawfully expediting deportations under the pretense of efficiency: \u201c[The Justice Department\u2019s] purported aim in expanding courts and creating [immigration adjudication centers] is to address backlogs,\u201d the lawsuit states. \u201cHowever \u2026 these efforts instead amount to the facilitation of assembly-line justice, in which cases are rapidly funneled with little oversight or regard for due process.\u201d<\/p>\n
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