Lawyers Push for Change to Immigration Court Amid COVID-19 Concerns

Immigration attorneys are sounding the alarm about their detained clients, who must still attend immigration court hearings amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and face heightened infection risks in detention.

The U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review has postponed non-detained hearings nationwide, and closed nine immigration courts in Georgia, Texas, New York, California and other states that solely hear those cases of immigrants out of detention. But other immigration courts around the country that handle the hearings for detained immigrants are still open.

Immigration attorneys want those hearings to go on, because they want to get their clients out of detention, where the risk of infection is high because of packed facilities and poor sanitary conditions. Simultaneously, attorneys are concerned for their own health when they have to attend packed immigration court hearings.

People in power are beginning to listen to the voices calling for changes in immigration court.

On Wednesday afternoon, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr and James McHenry, executive director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, urging the suspension of all in-person immigration hearings and the use of telephone bond hearings for detained individuals.

“More must be done to meet the demands of this growing crisis,” Nadler wrote. “These life-saving measures are necessary to minimize the risk of infection to immigration judges and other court personnel, government and private sector attorneys, and noncitizen respondents and their families. Forcing individuals to congregate in crowded waiting areas and courtrooms poses a grave public health threat.”

Charles Kuck, managing partner in Kuck Baxter in Atlanta, said that he’s planning to wear protective gloves and wipe down his chair and table with sanitary wipes the next time he attends a hearing. But Kuck will still be there for his clients.

“You need bond hearings to continue,” he explained, adding that he thinks the government should just grant release to detained immigrants who aren’t a danger to the community. “You certainly want people to have an opportunity to have their day in court, without waiting the next three to six months for COVID-19 to pass.”

Immigration judges do not want to be holding dockets four days per week as the COVID-19 pandemic is spreading, said New York immigration lawyer Andrea Saenz.

Los Angeles Immigration Judge Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, didn’t return an email seeking comment before deadline.

“Detained court dockets are busting at the seams,” said Saenz during a Facebook Live video stream hosted by the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, a Texas-based nonprofit law firm. “It’s just heartbreaking to see how many new cases are on the dockets every day.”

Saenz, attorney-in-charge of the New York Family Immigrant Unity Project at Brooklyn Defender Services, called on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop enforcement actions during the pandemic, and for the government to release people from immigration detention centers.

Detention centers don’t have hand sanitizer or even hand soap for detained clients to avoid contracting the coronavirus, explained Andrea Meza, director of family detention services at RAICES in Austin. The facilities also can’t provide adequate medical care for detainees, should they contract the virus. It’s only a matter of time before someone tests positive for COVID-19 inside the facility, she noted.

“We’re trying to limit our staff from visiting Karnes,” said Meza, referring to the Karnes City Family Detention Center in Texas.

Because detention centers have closed to visitors, it hinders Connecticut attorney Ramiro Alcazar from visiting his clients and preparing to advocate for them at hearings, he said. Alcazar, an attorney at the Law Offices of Ramiro Alcazar in Meriden, said he was thrilled when one of his clients’ hearings was moved up from April 8 to this Thursday, because he wants to get the man out of detention.

He said, “We’re going to have some real leverage to get my client out on bond.”