Deportations of Immigrants

[Ken]

Just conduct the proceedings over Zoom. That’s how most local courts are operating these days.

I did a project for a nearby prison 2 decades ago setting up video links for people in immigration detention, who were being held at contract jails operated by county level governments. They would conduct a video arraignment and other procedural stuff (if the detainee consented, which they almost always did) as opposed to flying in handcuffs from Podunkville, IA to somewhere near DC, saying “Yes I’m guilty”, and then flying back.

It doesn't matter how you conduct the proceedings. Zoom is fine. You still need the immigration judges to hear the cases and you need all the support staff. I expect doing hearings over zoom doesn't affect caseload management at all. Judges aren't going to be able to process more cases in a 40 hour week. Might even be less due to all the technical delays and such rather than just having a line of people outside the courtroom waiting for their turn with the next person due into the courtroom the minute you gavel the previous case.

[Josh]

The current situation is most people don’t show up for their immigration hearing, and they aren’t stored in detention or made to pay significant bonds to ensure their appearance.

Such a situation isn’t reasonable, and isn’t solved by being lots of judges to preside over empty courtrooms.

[Ken]

The current situation is most people don’t show up for their immigration hearing, and they aren’t stored in detention or made to pay significant bonds to ensure their appearance.

That is not even remotely true. It depends on what numbers and years you look at but one recent study which looked at data over an 11-year period found:

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil. ... show-court A new report released today by the American Immigration Council examines 11 years of government data on the rate at which immigrants appear for hearings in U.S. immigration court. The report, “Measuring In Absentia Removal in Immigration Court,” concludes that an overwhelming 83% of immigrants attend all their immigration court hearings, and those who fail to appear in court often did not receive notice or faced hardship in getting to court...

[in addition] 96% of nondetained immigrants represented by a lawyer attended all of their hearings.

According to the latest information that I can find, the current absentee rate was about 10% in 2021 which means that 90% of immigrants showed up for their hearings and only 10% did not. Source: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/po ... 823253002/

[Josh]

The in absentia rate for fiscal year 2021 was 10%; for the first quarter of 2022, October to December 2021, it was 18%

Notice the trend of the absent is rate skyrocketing.

See https://documentedny.com/2023/11/03/dep ... s-shelter/ ; the latest excuse by illegal aliens and their advocates is they move around so much they keep missing their mail about their upcoming court cases. (Apparently, they haven’t heard of General Delivery, which is the appropriate way to handle such situations, and is free.)

[Ken]

The in absentia rate for fiscal year 2021 was 10%; for the first quarter of 2022, October to December 2021, it was 18%

Notice the trend of the absent is rate skyrocketing.

See https://documentedny.com/2023/11/03/dep ... s-shelter/ ; the latest excuse by illegal aliens and their advocates is they move around so much they keep missing their mail about their upcoming court cases. (Apparently, they haven’t heard of General Delivery, which is the appropriate way to handle such situations, and is free.)

No, the appropriate way to deal with such things is to give them all free online accounts with the government that they can log in and check for updates and messages so they don't bother with paper mail at all. The cost would be less and no one would have an excuse for every claiming they didn't get notified. It would be their obligation to check their accounts which could be done anywhere from any phone or computer, even a free one in the library. Then no excuses. They have to keep the government informed of their whereabouts electronically and check in that way.

That might require new laws or at least new regulations and probably new money to get such a system up and running. Paper mail is the stupidest of all possible ways to track and inform immigrants. But no one in Congress seems to want to change anything or spend any more money on immigration processing so here we are.

In any event, you should be happy that absentee rates are increasing (if they are since the article you cited doesn't actually provide any data). Because that means deportations will increase and those who miss appointments can simply be deported without having to bother to even hear their case. The harder it is for them to process through the system, the easier it is to deport them, right?

The article does say that deportations orders are being issued at double the rate numbers of the peak of the Trump Administration in 2019. I should think that would make you happy that Biden is deporting twice as fast as Trump. But it the article doesn't actually say that absentee rates at court appearances are increasing. For example, if the number of hearings also doubled then the absentee rate hasn't changed at all.

[Josh]

Or they could do something like get a PO box.

Important legal matters don’t take place with email. You have use regular mail. This is what every U.S. citizen deals with.