Observers say that immigration courts inside 26 Federal Plaza have devolved into “kangaroo courts” as proceedings and ICE detainments continued even after eight judges were fired by the Trump administration earlier this week.
Masked ICE agents were once again spotted outside a courtroom on the 12th floor of 26 Federal Plaza on Dec. 3, as they have been for months this year. However, something was different this time. The nameplate of preceding Judge Lori Adams, who had held hearings in that court room, had been scraped clean from the wall. She was one of the eight fired jurists.
Inside, however, proceedings went on. The court clerk sat in her chair overlooking a confused cluster of respondents.
Immigrants, many of them families, continued to arrive at Federal Plaza on Wednesday for their legally mandated hearings on their pending immigration cases, only to find the clerk in the ousted judge’s place, adjourning cases.
But the adjournments were a curse in disguise.
“It’s more of just a disadvantage to the respondents than anything else. I don’t think it really impacts ICE enforcement. It’s more like, now someone has a 2029 hearing, they’re probably not going to get a hearing for many more years,” one lawyer said. “It’s a kangaroo court.”
With cases being adjourned, the ICE agents outside the courtroom took advantage of the situation and began seizing people.
They grabbed one woman in the doorway of the courtroom and hurried her down the corridor. Other ICE agents stepped in front of press cameras and blocked the hallway, preventing cameras from following. What happened next was unclear.
Not much is known about the woman taken into custody. She was said to be the mother of an adult son.
Peter Melck Kuttel, a Court observer and man who donates his time to aid families of those taken by ICE, says that proceedings continuing without judges and with ICE waiting in the wings have only added to what he calls the chaos and confusion.
“The last two days have just added to the chaos and confusion that plagues the already overburdened system of immigration court. Those who have become accustomed to a particular Judge’s courtroom customs will now be subjected to an entire new world as each court operates with different amounts of flair,” Kuttel said. “It’s hard enough for attorneys to make the switch, I cannot imagine how it will be for those representing themselves. Their entire life rested in the hands of a judge that is no longer there, and now they will have embark on that emotional journey all over again.”
