Five days, 12 arrests: A week inside San Diego Immigration Court
Inside a courtroom tucked away on the second floor of the San Diego federal building a man lately spent his last limited hours of liberty Orlando had applied for asylum a month before He didn t speak English He didn t have a lawyer he couldn t afford one He didn t want to be detained But the only attorney present in court representing the Department of Homeland Protection notified the judge it was no longer in the ruling body s best interest to pursue his situation Instead the attorney explained they sought to transfer him to expedited removal proceedings In other words ICE was about to arrest him The asylum-seeker in Courtroom noted he was afraid He explained he didn t want to be deported He pleaded asking if there was anything else he could do The judge explained that he still had the opportunity to express his fear in detention Please keep fighting for yourself Judge Jos Luis Pe alosa Jr mentioned The man crying walked to the back of the courtroom to make one last phone call before he stepped outside And when he walked out the door he did what the judge reported him to do He cooperated Head down he walked to the elevator with the seven ICE agents waiting to make the arrest He solicited nothing and reported nothing This has been the fate of the more than people who have been arrested in the hallway of San Diego Immigration Court as they exited their proceedings since May Little is known about the day-to-day operations of a federal immigration court Unlike other federal and state courts no online database exists allowing citizens access to filings There is also no online listing of cases to be heard on a specific day There is however a docket displayed on a TV in the immigration court check-in room but even that list isn t comprehensive Times of San Diego observed arrests and court proceedings that were open to the constituents for five consecutive days During that period from June to June individuals were arrested Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have occurred at immigration courts statewide as a part of President Donald Trump s deportation campaign one that has grown exponentially in latest months These courtroom arrests do not occur at random nor do they even necessarily target those with criminal records despite the suggests of the federal regime Before arrests the ruling body dismisses a person s event To do so the attorney cites either a change in enforcement priorities and policies or states that pursuing the incident is no longer in the executive s best interest The people being detained are the people that were paroled under the Biden administration that entered the country somewhat legally because parole gives them a temporary legal status commented immigration attorney Wismick Saint-Jeans What the Trump administration did is terminate the parole thereby rendering those people somewhat illegal When the DHS attorney terminates for expedited removal these people have no status and ICE can detain them Expedited removal was created in and used only at port of entries until when it was expanded to allow undocumented individuals present in the U S for under two weeks and within miles of a U S land demarcation to be categorized on a fast-track to deportation Following the January executive order that Trump issued on the first day of his second term the two-week requirement has been expanded to two years and the -mile specification has been scrapped to include the entire country In a announcement sent to Times of San Diego DHS declared Secretary Kristi Noem is reversing former President Joe Biden s catch and release procedures that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets This Administration is once again implementing the rule of law
