Immigrants are being told last minute about new in-person hearings at previously undisclosed courtroom locations. That's according to five immigration attorneys who reviewed notices or observed the hearings and spoke to NPR about them. The last-minute notifications appear to be another tactic in a broader strategy from the Trump administration to short-circuit immigrants' already limited due process options to speed up arrests and deportations.
NPR has learned that over the past few weeks, immigrants who were scheduled to appear in coming months for hearings out of the Hyattsville and Baltimore immigration courts in Maryland and the Sterling court in Virginia have instead been rescheduled to two other buildings: one in Washington, D.C., and another in Falls Church, Va. Neither of these buildings currently has an immigration court that's set up for in-person hearings. The D.C. location has no listed affiliation with the Justice Department.
Instead, the building is listed as being occupied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to one source familiar with the project who was not authorized to speak publicly. Immigrants were notified about the change in location within days of the newly scheduled appointments — or were not notified at all, in at least two cases identified by NPR. Kel White, an officer of the D.C. chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, attended one such hearing this week.
"The most unusual thing I've ever seen" in her more than 15 years of practicing the law is how she described having an immigrant appear in person at the unusual location before a judge and prosecutor who were remote-only. She also said the last-minute changes and lack of notice violates regulations as set by the Justice Department, which oversees all such immigration courts. "People need to receive at least ten days' notice in order for there to be a response," White said.
She cited a policy manual that indicates immigrants should get ample notice of a new hearing date. "My concern about these hidden tribunals is that essentially people are not getting notice of them or that the mail would not arrive in time for them to even know that they need to go to court," she said. The notices appeared to be targeted at immigrants who did not have legal representation at the time, the attorneys told NPR.
Most immigrants who seek to argue their case to stay in the U.S. don't have a lawyer. And any immigrant who doesn't show up for a scheduled hearing, even by mistake, can be issued a so-called "in-absentia order of removal," which allows immigration officers to detain and deport the person. As part of the Justice Department, the Executive Office for Immigration Review runs some 60 immigration courts and adjudication centers.
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