Emiliano Tahui Gómez, Austin American-Statesman
| Hearst – Austin Transition
SAN ANTONIO — Carlos Morales Almario’s court hearing ended almost as soon as it started.
Minutes after the Venezuelan immigrant took a seat Monday morning in a San Antonio courtroom, a government attorney asked the judge to dismiss the man’s case. The judge obliged.
“You’ve been dismissed,” the judge told Morales Almario, who stood up abruptly with a puzzled look on his face. He didn’t know it yet but a group of federal immigration agents were waiting outside to arrest him.
Just before that, he would be confronted by another federal official: Congressman Greg Casar, an Austin Democrat who visited theSan Antonio Immigration Court on Monday on what he described as a fact-finding mission.
For two months, the Austin Democrat, whose district stretches south to San Antonio, had received complaints from immigrant advocates and attorneys about a lack of due process and access to hearings as arrests at the court have intensified. They reported that immigration judges had begun dismissing cases during preliminary hearings and were allowing immigration agents to arrest entire dockets-worth of individuals. Advocates like Carolina Canizales, the director of Texas organizing at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, have reported being kicked out of hearings or barred from the courtroom entirely.
The result has been that many immigrants aren’t attending their hearings in person, or at all. After observing proceedings for a few hours Monday, during which Casar said he heard a judge threaten to immediately deport individuals who attempted to continue to attend hearings virtually, the congressman said he couldn’t blame them.
“I thought I was going to be watching immigration court; I didn’t realize I was coming to an unconstitutional death row,” Casar said in an interview. “After what I saw today, I think I may have to tell people: You shouldn’t go to court anymore.”
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Some Austin immigration advocates, like those from the Austin Sanctuary Network, have complained that congressional offices, like Casar’s, have not done more to help secure the release of immigrants and track them within the detention system. Colin Diersing, Casar’s spokesman, said the office has had trouble getting information from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement but nevertheless encouraged families to reach out to the congressman’s office if they need help. In some cases, he said, the office has been able to help.
The second Trump administration has continuously sought to expand the scope of expedited removal, a part of immigration law that allows the federal government to end proceedings and quickly remove individuals who are in the country without authorization.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to the American-Statesman that the increased arrests were an effort by the government to enforce immigration law and place immigrants in expedited removal “as they always should have been.”
“Secretary Noem is reversing Biden’s catch and release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets,” McLaughlin said, adding that those with a “valid credible fear claim” will see their immigration proceedings continue.
When Morales Almario exited the courtroom Monday, Casar asked the man if he understood what happened during the hearing and that he was likely to be arrested now. Morales Almario did not. He showed the congressman his nail-less thumb and a scar on his neck, both of which he said were proof of the torture at the hands of the Venezeula’s authoritarian government. Down the hall, a group of U.S. immigration agents shuffled out of a waiting room to block the floor’s only exit.
A fact-finding mission
Casar’s visit, alongside Austin District 4 councilman and immigration attorney José “Chito” Vela, confirmed the numerous secondhand accounts of what was happening in the court. It also showed the congressman’s powerlessness to do much in the moment.
As Morales Almario exited the court building, Casar wedged himself between the broad shoulders of federal agents who were pushing the immigrant toward a white bus that transports detainees to ICE facilities. Casar explained to the agents that he did not believe the immigrant had received a fair chance to explain his case before his arrest, translating some parts of the arrested man’s fears over the possible fatal consequences of a return flight to Venezuela.
The officers were mostly quiet.
Casar later took pictures of a Temporary Protected Status card Morales Almario held up to the tinted bus window so that Casar’s office could keep track of the man.
A sense that an immigration court visit is synonymous with an arrest has become common knowledge for many immigrants, said Griselda Barrera, co-director of programs and operations at immigration legal aid group American Gateways.
American Gateways has set up shop in the court’s parking lot during the past two months. During that time Barrera said she’s noticed attendance numbers decline steadily. These days, she said she rarely sees no more than ten individuals a day head into the building for their morning court appearances.
Dockets on the third-floor continue to show dozens of daily hearings. And many are still showing up — and traveling far distances to do so. One man who appeared in the courtroom that Casar sat in told the clerk he had traveled in from Tampa Bay.
Pointing the finger
After witnessing the morning’s first arrest, Casar and Vela approached the stand of the judge, Rifian S. Newaz.
They asked Newaz why he had dismissed Morales Almario’s case, about the adequacy of translation services, and if ICE arrests were hindering immigrants’ faith in the courts. Newaz mostly demurred, saying he didn’t know in what context arrests were happening outside his courtroom.
“I don’t condone the actions; I don’t do the actions,” Newaz said. “I’m not working in the department. I’m following the law to the best of my ability.”
Related: Record number of immigrants in Austin, US face re-entry charges, raising resource concerns
Carrizales, of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said Casar’s visit was helpful because she and other advocates are increasingly being kicked out of immigration hearings, often with no explanation given, she said.
“Unfortunately, it has to take a congressman for people to be able to observe the court,” Carizales said. “We’re not gonna have a congressman every day, right?”
The Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts, did not immediately respond to requests for comment about alleged limitations to observations.
After observing immigration agents walk another immigrant man out to the white bus in handcuffs, Casar left.
Still in the parking lot, a Venezuelan woman juggled her three-year-old son and a newborn in the back seat of her red SUV. She had told her husband, a San Antonio delivery driver by the name of Andres Calderon, not to show up that day, she said. But he had insisted.
At around 11 a.m., the slender, bearded Calderon walked by surrounded by federal agents.
“I love you, my love,” Calderon said in Spanish, his eyes pink with tears.
“I told you not to come,” she yelled through the open window. “I told you.”
Then she put her face back into her hands and wept.