Tent Courts at the Border
Federal officials are operating makeshift courts on the southern border to process tens of thousands of cases for migrants forced to wait in Mexico while their requests for legal status wind through the immigration system.
The Trump administration began operating the tent-style court facilities this fall as just the latest expansion of its Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” program, a sweeping set of measures designed to dissuade Central American migrants from pursuing asylum claims in the United States.
At least 55,000 migrants have been forced back into Mexico after crossing the border this year.
New Hurdles for Asylum Seekers
De Novo immigration attorney Jill Seeber recently traveled to Laredo, Texas, where she assisted asylum seekers ordered to plead their case in one of these makeshift court complexes. Seeber leads our Family Detention Project, which provides legal assistance to immigrant mothers and children in Massachusetts after they are released from family detention facilities in Texas. She was alarmed by the violations of due process in Laredo.
Immigration judges, located hundreds of miles away, are presiding overcrowded dockets entirely by videoconference. Technical difficulties, including poor video and sound quality, are common. Translation services are provided remotely or not at all. Proceedings are closed to the public, including media, and difficult for attorneys to access.
Of the 162 asylum seekers on one judge’s docket for a single day, just one had an attorney and less than half were able to safely arrive to the tent court.
Those who were unable to navigate the precarious journey back to a port of entry for their scheduled hearing date were ordered deported in absentia, losing their chances at asylum and triggering a five- or ten-year ban on future entry into the U.S.
Lack of Access to Legal Counsel
Unlike in criminal proceedings, immigrants do not have a right to an attorney because their cases are considered civil matters. Few migrants can afford legal counsel, and those lucky enough to be assisted by a volunteer attorney like Seeber are given just a few minutes to discuss their case in person before and after their hearing.
Even if they could afford legal representation, very few lawyers in Mexico are licensed to practice law in the U.S., and they are unwilling to brave Mexico's dangerous border towns to meet with migrant clients.
Asylum seekers stranded in Mexico face homelessness, kidnapping and violence while they await entry into the U.S.
During one of her trips to the border, attorney Seeber interviewed migrants by phone who have been stranded in dangerous cities in Mexico, waiting for court dates that are months away.
She heard first-hand how most “returned” migrants are living without access to shelter or medical care. With no place to live, those returned to Nuevo Laredo have become easy targets for kid-napping, assault and extortion by the narco trafficking cartel Los Zetas that control the region.
One Honduran mother and her six-year-old daughter had been kidnapped as soon as they were returned to Nuevo Laredo to await their hearing date. They were held for 11 days, given very little food or water, and managed to fight off a sexual assault, until a family member paid their ransom. They were unsure how or if they would be able to safely return to the border crossing for their scheduled court date.
Similar accounts were told by other asylum seekers who had missed their immigration hearings because they were kidnapped while traveling back to the U.S. border for their scheduled court date. Often, migrants are abducted at a bus station or carjacked, or they are grabbed while walking along the several mile stretch between their shelters and the U.S.-Mexico border.