A San Francisco civil rights group and a national immigration nonprofit are suing the federal government to obtain records related to “mega master” hearings, where upward of 100 immigration cases may be slated for a single hearing.
The suit, filed on Oct. 15, compels the federal government to release records explaining why the government is now scheduling these kinds of mass hearings where dozens of cases are being heard at a time.
“Mega master” hearings have proliferated at the Concord immigration court since June, as reported by Mission Local. They present serious due process issues, immigration attorneys say, because immigrants often learn of their hearings just weeks in advance, if at all.
In many cases, immigrants who had hearings scheduled years in the future have them abruptly pushed forward without what attorneys argue is the time to prepare. According to the lawsuit, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency that runs immigration courts, recommended in its own standards back in 2017 that no more than 25 people be included in a group hearing.
If an immigrant fails to appear, they can be ordered removed in absentia, which means they are subject to deportation. Hundreds have been ordered deported in this way, Mission Local has reported. Failure to appear in court also ends an immigrant’s ability to seek legal status in this country.
The attorneys behind the case argue that immigrants do not always receive the translation services they need at these mega hearings, nor do they receive individual review from immigration judges during what are crowded procedures.
“We want to make sure laws are being applied in a fair way such that people have notice and can actually defend themselves,” said Jacob Gonzalez, an attorney with Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, which filed the suit alongside attorneys from the National Immigration Project.
Gonzalez said he has heard examples from around the country of immigrants who attended these mega hearings and were ordered deported because they did not hear the judge call their name due to a language barrier.
The lawsuit is over information related to the hearings. It argues that the federal government has not released records within deadlines set by the Freedom of Information Act after the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights submitted a records request on July 15.
The group requested records like policies, communications, scheduling data, affected immigration courts, and data on in-absentia removal orders issued during these mass hearings, according to the lawsuit.
So far, the federal government has not released a single record, attorneys say.
The Office for Immigration Review did not respond to Mission Local’s questions about why it began holding master calendar hearings and why it has not responded to the records requests. Instead, it said it “declines to comment on litigation-related matters.”
The Bay Area’s immigration court in Concord, where San Francisco immigrants have had to attend court since the fall, continues to hold these “mega” master calendar hearings. There were 17 such hearings in September, according to the latest data collected by Concord court observer and data analyst Jere Ramsey.
In Concord, between June and September, there have been an average of 80 immigrants scheduled for mega master hearings, according to Ramsey’s data.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, asks a federal judge to order the Executive Office for Immigration Review to release the records.
The plaintiffs hope to receive a response by early next year, according to Gonzalez.
Ultimately, he said, they would like the mega master calendar hearings to stop. But first, they need to receive initial records from the federal government to understand the facts of what is going on and why.
“The immigration system needs to be fundamentally fair,” said Gonzalez, “regardless of your stance on immigration.”