A father has waited 10 years for his case in Denver’s immigration court to be decided. Because of the shutdown, he could wait years more.
After 10 years of slogging through federal immigration court in Denver, Joel Simental’s judgment day seemed to draw near. Finally, he would have a chance to appear before a judge and explain why he shouldn’t be deported to Mexico.
He crossed the border illegally as a 12-year-old, escaping an abusive father and a violent hometown. He entered the immigration court system in 2009 after officials were alerted to his undocumented status during a traffic stop in Arapahoe County for a broken tail light.
In the time Simental, a Thornton resident, has waited for a decision, two of his four children were born. He has watched one son grow from a toddler to a middle schooler, the stress of possible deportation hanging over the family the whole time.
A hearing scheduled for Jan. 7 was supposed to end the uncertainty. Simental, now 40, has been eager to have a judge decide whether he qualifies for permanent residency in the U.S. He was optimistic about his case.
Then, just before Christmas, much of the federal government closed. Lawmakers deadlocked over funding for security at the border that Simental crossed illegally in 1992. The judges and staff at Denver’s immigration court were furloughed. The court closed.
Over the next 35 days, hundreds if not thousands of hearings in Denver’s immigration court were canceled, including Simental’s. And because of a na- COURT » 4A
tionwide backlog in the immigration court system, he and all the others with cases pending in Denver could wait years before they get a new hearing.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” Simental said in Spanish on Monday. “The government doesn’t even know when the next date is. Nobody knows. All I want to know is when my day will be.”
The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the federal agency that oversees administrative immigration courts like Denver’s, did not know how many hearings were canceled in Denver during the shutdown, spokeswoman Terri Kaltenbacher said. The canceled hearings — which are not criminal proceedings — will be rescheduled for the assigned judge’s earliest available date, she said.
In Denver, that likely means years in the future, immigration attorneys said.
“The current immigration courts in Denver are scheduling cases for 2020, 2021 and beyond,” said David Kolko, a Denver immigration attorney who had multiple clients affected by the shutdown. “I was in court yesterday and (the judge) was setting cases for 2021.”
“Everything lined up”
Denver’s immigration court remained closed for 22 business days because of the shutdown. It was scheduled to reopen with the rest of the federal government on Monday, Jan. 28, but a snowstorm that dropped several inches of snow on the city delayed it one day further.
Immigration attorneys contacted for this story noted a litany of problems caused by the shutdown.
If they were hired for a new case, they couldn’t access their clients’ files because the courts were closed. Clients who live hours from Denver’s court — which handles cases across the state and from Wyoming — didn’t know if they’d have much notice to make the drive for their hearings once the government reopened. Witnesses and experts who had scheduled flights in from other states had to cancel trips. Because all filings for the court are done via mail or in person, attorneys weren’t sure whether court-set deadlines were still in effect. They mailed in filings and hoped the postmark would prove they had filed on time.
“As the shutdown continued, the degree of complications and problems simply cascades into a larger and larger dilemma,” Kolko said. “It put an enormous amount of strain and stress on a deeply underfunded agency. It just got worse and worse.”
Attorneys were told that judges would be understanding of the confusion surrounding the shutdown, said Travis Helm, a Wyoming attorney who represents clients in the Denver court.
“But that’s pretty high stakes to be hoping you got the right judge,” he said.
When the courts opened for the first time in more than a month on Jan. 29, clients and attorneys formed lines out the door to talk to a clerk and find out the status of their cases, said Karen McCarthy Santric, an attorney from Summit County who was in court that day.
“The clerk’s office is completely overwhelmed with a month’s worth of motions that need to be filed,” she said.
The six judges in Denver’s immigration court sometimes each have up to 40 hearings in a day, she added.
“I don’t know how they’re going to reset all these thousands of hearings,” said Sandra Saltrese-Miller, a Boulder-based attorney. “I imagine 2022? I don’t know.”
The shutdown’s effects were especially complicated for immigrants who are attempting to navigate the courts without a lawyer, said attorney Hans Meyer. Unlike in criminal court, people in Denver’s immigration court have no right to a public defender. It’s possible people traveled across the state for a hearing during the shutdown, not knowing the court was closed, he said.
“They’re trying to do the best they can in an information vacuum,” Meyer said.
Many attorneys have not received notice of when their canceled hearings will be rescheduled.
For Simental, who works in construction, it will be the second time he has had to reschedule his individual hearing, during which a judge hears evidence in a person’s case that will influence their final decision on residency. Immigration judges consider a wide variety of factors when deciding whether an immigrant who entered the country illegally should be able to remain, including how long the person has lived in the U.S., evidence of good moral character and how deportation will affect any dependent family members.
Simental was scheduled for such a hearing last March. His children’s therapist — one of his sons has autism and another has a developmental disorder — was going to speak on his behalf, as well as his boss and his brother, who is a U.S. citizen.
That hearing was canceled because the judge was unavailable, said Beatriz Lynch, Simental’s attorney. It was rescheduled for Jan. 7, only to be canceled again because of the shutdown.
“We had everything lined up,” she said. “Twice.”
Simental estimated he has spent about $40,000 on attorney fees and other court costs, much of that to his first lawyer, who he said scammed him. Other hearings have been canceled and rescheduled multiple times, he said.
“Iwanttohavemycourt date because I want to be done with this,” Simental said. “I have spent my entire life in this country. The thing I wish for most is to keep living here in this country. Because I feel American, to tell the truth … I don’t want to keep walking around worrying about immigration officials and deportation.”
“Unmanageable burden”
The Denver court had about 11,500 pending cases as of November, more than double the number of cases a decade ago, according to a national database maintained by Syracuse University. Almost all the cases are for immigrants from Mexico and Central America, the data show.
“Most of the judges are considerate,” Saltrese-Miller said. “It’s not the judges we’re talking about here. It’s the system that’s really the problem. It’s systemic.”
The administrator for Denver’s court did not return a call requesting an interview for this story. But the National Association of Immigration Judges sent a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate on Jan. 9 outlining the system’s problems.
Nationwide, more than 800,000 cases wait to be decided by approximately 400 judges. The shutdown furthered that backlog and “has placed an unmanageable burden on our nation’s Immigration Courts,” the letter states.
“Those with strong cases, who might receive a legal immigration status, see their cases become weaker,” the letter states. “Meanwhile, those with weak cases — who should be deported sooner rather than later — benefit greatly from an indefinite delay.”
Attorneys fear that even more of their clients will be affected if lawmakers can’t reach an agreement on the country’s spending bill before the current stopgap measure runs out Feb. 15.
“The scary thing is that it may happen again in three weeks,” McCarthy Santric said.
In the meantime, Simental’s children — ages 6, 9 and 12 — will keep asking the question they have been pestering their dad with for years.
“They always ask, ‘Dad, what’s going to happen to your case?’ ” Simental said. “‘Are they going to send you to Mexico?’ ”
He doesn’t even know when he can expect to get the answer.