HPPR By Durrie Bouscaren 11/16/2018
The parents sat stiffly; some had clearly been crying. Their children, largely oblivious, scribbled with crayons on the carpeted floor of a Denver immigration court. In a matter of months, the judge before them will make 71 life-changing decisions.
Earlier this year, the Department of Justice instructed ten immigration courts around the country to speed up cases of families seeking asylum on U.S. soil. In Denver, that directive is being carried out in a series of group hearings, designed to decide cases in less than a year.
On one day in late October, dozens of families sat before Judge Alison Kane for an initial hearing that lasted less than a half hour. Sheets of paper outside listed their countries of origin: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador.
Proponents of fast-tracking these cases say a surge of asylum claims and a massive backlog has drawn out cases for years. Immigration advocates, however, say that cases decided in a matter of months can't possibly allow the evidence to be fully heard - putting families with valid claims in danger.
For one young mother sitting in the Denver courtroom, this is not what she expected. She came to a port of entry between the U.S. and Mexico with her son this summer to ask for asylum. Today, she regrets it.
"I imagined that once I got here, it would be better than crossing illegally," she said through a translator. "They treat us like prisoners. (…) It's like you're being watched with a magnifying glass."
She said she thought claiming asylum was the law-abiding thing to do. Instead, she said she and her son were detained for two days. She was fitted with an ankle monitor and released to join her family, beginning a four-month struggle to navigate the U.S. immigration system amid a flurry of robotic beeps and check ins.
"Because we are both safe, I mean, that I am not worried that one day they will come to the house and kill us," she said. "But it's difficult. Honestly, it's ugly."
In the runup to the midterm elections, President Donald Trump loudly doubled down on anti-immigrant policies, demanding that military troops deploy to the U.S.-Mexico border and threatening to revoke a constitutional right to citizenship for people born on American soil. A proclamation to suspend asylum rights for people who cross the southern border illegally is being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union in federal court.
In an address at the White House on Nov. 1, Trump called the asylum process "the biggest loophole" that draws people to the U.S. while they wait for their cases.
More:
http://www.hppr.org/post/trump-administration-directs-colorado-immigration-court-speed-asylum-cases-families
