Judges coming in could send immigrants out
Lack of legal staffing delayed court cases in California for years
The federal government has been trying to deport Jaime Hernandez since 2010. Until recently, it hadn’t tried very hard.
Because of the lack of judges in the immigration court in rural Imperial County, Calif., Hernandez hasn’t had a court hearing in seven years. During that time, he was able to get a work permit, open a pool-cleaning business and buy a home for his wife and two U.S. citizen daughters.
“I can work under my own name, I have a Social Security number, I can pay taxes,” Hernandez said. “I can take care of my daughters and make sure they have the best things available to them. They are my priority.”
In April, the Executive Office for Immigration Review hired two judges for the Imperial immigration court. They spent the spring training in San Diego and will begin working in Imperial this summer.
The new hires will have a dramatic impact on the lives of dozens, if not hundreds, of immigrants in the Coachella Valley who have had their cases postponed for years. Men and women will finally have their day in court and find out whether they will be deported after years of living freely in the USA.
“You have a 50-50 chance,” Hernandez said. “We’ve seen people be deported after living here for 30 years and have paid taxes during that time.”
COURT WITHOUT A JUDGE
Hernandez, who was born in Guatemala, entered the USA illegally in 2000. He was pulled over in Rancho Mirage because his license plate was hanging from the bumper in 2010, before California allowed unauthorized immigrants to carry driver’s licenses. Because Hernandez didn’t have an ID, the sheriff ’s deputy called the Border Patrol, which arrested Hernandez and sent him to a federal detention center, he said.
A few months after his arrest, Hernandez was released on a $5,000 bond. Since then, he’s had court hearings scheduled, but they kept getting pushed back.
Imperial’s immigration court didn’t have a sitting judge starting in January 2015. The court used judges from San Diego via teleconference to hear the cases of immigrants detained in El Centro detention centers.
The court stopped hearing most cases for immigrants who weren’t in detention — people such as Hernandez, who were allowed to continue their lives until their day came in immigration court, said Hernandez’s lawyer Gary Finn. The backlog is so large that Finn has cases scheduled for 2020.
Now that the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the federal agency that oversees immigration courts, hired two judges, the court is hearing non-detainee cases once again.
For Hernandez, this means he’ll finally have his day in court. There’s a real possibility that come next May, he will be asked to leave the country.
A DIFFICULT CASE
Hernandez’s lawyer is mounting a two-pronged defense strategy.
If an immigrant can show that deportation would cause an “extreme and unusual hardship” to the family, the government can cancel deportation proceedings.
Hernandez said he is the family’s sole breadwinner. If he were deported, he would lose his poolcleaning business and his house. He said his daughters would grow up without a father and have to rely on government assistance to survive.
That scenario doesn’t always meet the government’s standard of unusual hardship. Hernandez would have a stronger case if one of his daughters had a medical condition that required her to be cared for in the USA, Finn said.
“We will obviously try to fight the case as hard as we can, but it’s a very, very tough case and probably not a winning case,” he said. “A lot of times, people don’t understand how strict immigration law is. Many U.S. citizens that know Jaime say they can’t believe this person is getting deported. He doesn’t have a criminal record, he’s working and he has two daughters who were born here.”
The second prong of Hernandez’s defense involves a petition his mother, a permanent resident, filed to have Hernandez enter the USA. If the petition is approved, Hernandez could be allowed to adjust his legal status, Finn said.
NEW ADMINISTRATION
Finn said Hernandez’s case would have been closed if he had had his day in court when Barack Obama was in the White House.
During the Obama administration, immigration courts would often administratively close cases of immigrants with no criminal record and with clear ties to the community. The closures essentially put the cases on a shelf, so the courts could prioritize cases involving people with criminal backgrounds, Finn said.
Because the Imperial court didn’t hear Hernandez’s case, he was never given that option.
“You have a 50-50 chance. We’ve seen people be deported after living here for 30 years and have paid taxes during that time.”
Jaime Hernandez, immigrant