From The Marshall Project:
Earlier this summer, after watching horrifying footage of masked immigration agents snatching civilians off the street under the guise of fighting crime, I decided to volunteer as an immigration court observer at New York City’s 26 Federal Plaza. This is one of many federal immigration courts across the country where President Trump’s brutal leadership has dispatched agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as well as a hodgepodge of other federal agencies, to arrest immigrants who are dutifully showing up to long-scheduled court hearings. Many of these people have no idea they are walking into a trap. I’ve watched judges grant people 18-month continuances, only to have those masked federal agents — usually burly men of all races — take them away to a holding floor. They are held in rooms without basic accommodations for several days before being shipped off to a larger detention center somewhere in the U.S.
The point of court watching is not merely to observe. We’re there to gently, calmly tell immigrants awaiting their hearings that there is a chance they might be taken away regardless of their hearing outcome. We ask these people — whom we call “immigrant community members,” “neighbors,” or “compas,” short for compadres in Spanish — if they will share their vital information. We ask for their name, phone number, immigration number and their emergency contacts. If they are indeed detained, we can let their contacts know and also try to connect them to legal aid. Often, we are the only link between a compa and the outside world once they are effectively disappeared.
We are not there to obstruct, jeer at, or otherwise mix it up with the masked agents doing the disappearing. Doing so could not only get us arrested, it could also jeopardize the entire court-watching effort. Though it’s perfectly legal for citizens to be in the building and observe the hearings, court administrators have threatened us with expulsion should we interfere too much. Continue reading >>>
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