Fwd: Federal building, El Paso: harsh immigration enforcement
Molly Molloy
From: Staudt, Kathleen <kst...@utep.edu>
Date: Fri, Jun 13, 2025 at 6:29 AM
Subject: Federal building, El Paso: harsh immigration enforcement
immigration court: june 11th, 2025
my day as a legal observer at el paso's federal courthouse
A/N: some names are changed for privacy. if you are in el paso, casa carmelita is coordinating the support efforts I joined in this story. please consider joining them. footage from the arrests in this story can be found here.
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here are the facts. I arrived outside the federal courthouse at noon to join a small but loud crowd of protesters. most were young chicanxs, fiercely enduring 102-degree heat. volunteers, many of whom had been there since 8 a.m., moved through the crowd distributing water, masks, and sandwiches. folks covered their faces, but I recognized my people anyway. one of them was jose, an educator and union organizer who had mentored me throughout the pandemic. immigration proceedings were about to start and jose suggested I join him and other observers inside the courtroom.
in the past few weeks, observers have found that immigration cases are being dismissed en masse. that is, the credible fear interview that migrants must pass to claim asylum is completely bypassed, and everyone who crosses the border is indiscriminately placed in expedited removal proceedings. an asylum seeker has the right to appeal this decision, in which case they might buy themselves some time to somehow find an attorney. if you don’t know this - and who the fuck would know this - you might be inclined to think that the dismissal of your case is a good thing, and you should accept it without appealing. after all, why not? no case, no problem.
jose and I went up the elevator with a mother and her teenage daughter on their way to the tribunal.
“do you know your rights?” jose asked urgently. they didn’t respond, kept scrolling on their phones. after a prolonged silence, another observer dug around in her bag and pushed four crumpled-up papers into their hands. they were one-pagers explaining what would happen next: We are allies of the migrant community, they read. It is most likely that you will be immediately arrested after a brief audience with the judge. Prepare your family for a negative result. Memorize the cell phone number of an emergency contact, your belongings will be confiscated.
“whatever you do, appeal the case and don’t sign anything. do you understand? appeal the case, jose said as the doors to the seventh floor opened.
a building guard attempted some small talk while we signed in.
“welcome - you are welcome here… it sure is loud out there today. aren’t those protesters hot?”
“yes, well, they’re young,” replied renowned political scientist Dr. Kathy Staudt, who was among the observers.
“more power to them. more power to us,” the good cop said. he told us that in 16 years of working at the courthouse, he had never seen anything like the proceedings in the last month.
“it’s hard with the kids, you know. we give them candy. they cry when their parents get taken away. we try to be kind, not like the ICE guards. it’s hard.” as he talked, i watched him take a headcount of the observers. he reported our numbers to the cops downstairs so they could deploy enough officers to intimidate us. I didn’t feel bad for him at all.
after everyone signed in, a man from the Jesuit Refugee Service briefed respondents1 on the most recent developments in U.S. immigration law. if I had a hard time understanding his heavily accented spanish, I can’t imagine how confusing it must have been for the families awaiting their hearing. we did our best to translate, emphasize the most important points, and keep everyone calm as we walked into the courtroom.
there were six observers and 13 respondents. four were minors—two pairs of fathers with teenage sons, and one family with two young daughters. the girls wore beautiful pink dresses with matching bows. they looked bored as their parents, stately and groomed, tried to hide their tears. the father looked so much like my dad. I understood that whatever I did, I could not cry too.
also in the courtroom was a comically large man in a pinstripe suit. he was representing the government. almost immediately, he informed the young woman presiding that he intended to terminate the proceedings.
“what is the legal reason?” asked the judge.
“ummmm…. hold on… let me look for it.”
he clicked around on his laptop for a few minutes.
“ah, it’s because the circumstances of the case have changed.” we rolled our eyes as the judge wiped out every single person’s case under 8 U.S.C. § 1158 (INA § 208), which apparently governs that the president can do whatever the hell he wants. the judge explained: "the government is moving to dismiss your asylum application and place you in expedited removal. this is permitted under current law and policy. while less common under previous administrations, the Trump administration now regularly exercises this authority. to appeal my decision you must state that you fear returning to your country. if you do not express such fear, your case will be dismissed without further hearing."
two women pleaded for voluntary return i.e., self-deportation. one of them, a mother from Zacatecas, would be leaving her two young children in Albuquerque. I held my breath as one by one, everyone else confirmed that they feared returning to their country and appealed their case, just as we had advised them to do. it almost felt hopeful. it almost felt like we had won. I almost forgot that right outside the courtroom, masked ICE agents were waiting to arrest everybody, and there was nothing we could do to stop the clock. the judge slowly articulated that “this court has no authority over detention. detention is at the discretion of the department of homeland security. you are always subject to it.” if she tried to warn them with her eyes, only I noticed.
CONTINUE READING: https://gracielablandon.substack.com/p/immigration-court-june-11th-2025