Chaos reigns in immigration courts in the US

In a closed courtroom, inside a complex surrounded by barbed wire, immigration judge Jerome Rothschild waits, and lets time pass.

The Spanish interpreter is late because he has a flat tire. Rothschild tells the five immigrants ahead of him that a break will be taken before the sessions begin. He hopes to delay the process long enough so that these people do not have to sit down without understanding what is happening while deciding their future.

“We are, which is not unusual, without an interpreter,” Rothschild tells a lawyer who enters the Stewart Detention Center room after driving from Atlanta, 225 kilometers (140 miles) away.

In its disorder, this is a typical day in the chaotic, overwhelmed and confusing immigration system of the United States, where the Rothschild room is just a small corner.

Wrapped up in secrecy, the immigration courts managed by the US Department of Justice have been dysfunctional for years, and have only worsened. An uptick in the arrival of asylum seekers and the campaign of the Donald Trump government over the southwest border and illegal immigration have left more people in deportation proceedings, shooting at one million the number of cases accumulated.

“It’s a huge, cumbersome system, and yet one government after another arrives and tries to use the system for its own purposes,” said immigration judge Amiena Khan in New York City, speaking as vice president of the National Association of Judges. Immigration.

“And each time, the system does not change one iota, because you can’t turn the Titanic,” he added.

The Associated Press visited immigration courts in 11 different cities more than two dozen times over a period of 10 days in late fall. In Boston to San Diego courts, reporters attended dozens of views that showed how an overwhelming workload and regulatory changes have plunged the courts into an unprecedented situation.

For example, some judges try to make the work rate more efficient by scheduling double or triple appointments. As it is not possible to complete them, many cancellations occur. Immigrants receive new appointments, years apart.

There are small children everywhere, sitting on the floor, standing or crying in crowded courtrooms. Many immigrants do not know how to fill out the forms, get translations of their documents or present their home.

Frequent changes in the law and rules on how judges manage their rooms make it impossible to know what the future will hold when immigrants get their day in court. Often, documents are lost. Frequently, there are no interpreters.

In Georgia, the interpreter assigned to the Rothschild room ends up arriving, but the hearing is interrupted shortly after when the lawyer of a Mexican man is not located, who had to intervene by telephone. They leave Rothschild on hold, and the lively music on hold plays in the living room.

The judge goes on to other cases – a Peruvian asylum seeker, a Cuban who asks for a bond – and postpones the case of the missing lawyer to the afternoon session.

By then the lawyer does respond, and apologizes between coughs for not being available before, explaining that she is sick.

Now the interpreter is in another room, which leaves Rothschild in what the judge describes as the “awkward position” of judging the case of someone who does not understand what is happening.

“I hate a man getting out of sight without having any idea what happened,” he says, and asks the lawyer to summarize the outcome of the process to his client in Spanish.

After some discussion, the lawyer agrees to withdraw the bail petition and resubmit it when she can show that the man has been in the country longer than the government believes, which could increase her options.

For now, the man returns to detention.