This story has been republished with permission from Tennessee Lookout. Read the original story here.
As federal prosecutors push harder for swift deportations and accounts of immigration officers arresting people at court hearings circulate, a Memphis-based legal nonprofit and clergy members are working together to ensure these events don’t go unwitnessed.
Advocates for Immigrant Rights (AIR) is in the early stages of building what the law firm hopes will become a robust immigration court watch program run with clergy volunteers, Executive Director Casey Bryant said.
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The firm provides affordable legal help and support services to immigrants, serving people in Tennessee, North Mississippi, Arkansas and sometimes Kentucky — all areas handled by the Memphis immigration court. There are 126,623 pending immigration cases in the Memphis court as of July 31, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a Syracuse University organization that gathers federal data.
This spring, immigration attorneys began to take note of a new legal tactic across the country. When immigrants who have been released at the border show up for their assigned court dates, prosecutors are pushing for their cases to be dismissed, leaving them without the protection of the court process. When they leave, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are waiting to arrest them and sometimes quickly deport them in a process called expedited removal, Bryant said.
A Department of Homeland Security notice issued in January walked back Biden-era limits on expedited removal in an effort to “apply expedited removal to the fullest extent authorized by Congress.” In July, advocates filed a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of 12 immigrants from several countries who were arrested after their first court hearing and face expedited removal orders.
“Secretary (Kristi) Noem is reversing Biden’s catch-and-release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets,” the Department of Homeland Security wrote in a May statement to CBS News regarding the administration’s shift in policy.
Bryant said the tactic “blindsided” court advocates. Most immigrants do not have legal representation, meaning “a ton of people were just getting whisked away from immigration courts with no witness except for the staff of the court,” Bryant said.
That’s where Catholic priest Juan Antonio “Tony” Romo comes in. Members of his majority-Hispanic congregation at his Memphis church have been arrested and deported, and the church community is afraid, he said. Romo saw a news story about a bishop in San Diego who attended immigration court hearings and felt compelled to act.
Romo and Monsignor Valentine Handwerker — a retired Memphis priest who spent nearly 50 years in ministry and remains concerned with social justice issues — reached out to ask Bryant to attend hearings with them and explain what they were seeing.
Inside immigration court
Romo recalled an immigration immersion trip he made with other clergy members and nuns in southern Arizona a few years ago. They traced immigrants’ paths through the desert and attended a court hearing. Romo said immigrants were led in wearing jail uniforms and chains, with no representation.
“The judge would just say, boom … you are deported, boom, you are deported,” he said. “It was a pretty disgusting experience of the way the people were mistreated.”
Romo said he cares about social issues — issues “faced by the people of God beyond the spiritual.”
“I’m a missionary,” he said. “I don’t call myself an immigrant, but in some ways, I am. I came to the U.S., not in the way of making a better life, but in a way to minister, to serve the people of God. But to the (Trump) administration and for most people, I’m an immigrant.”
Romo was born in Mexico and moved to the United States after completing two years of law school to join the Society of the Divine Word, a Catholic clerical congregation. He completed his undergraduate and masters degrees in Iowa and Illinois, and spent two years training as a missionary in Portugal. Romo has lived in California, Florida and Washington, D.C., according to the Saint Joseph Catholic Church, where he has served as pastor since 2012.
In the Memphis immigration court, Romo’s experience was different. None of the immigrants he saw had legal representation, he said, but translators were available and Romo described one judge as calm and caring.
“As we engaged in conversation with (the judge), he told us about people who are already frightened when they come to court,” Romo said. “And he said, ‘Why make it worse?’”
Romo did not see any arrests or ICE presence during his first two visits.
“Everyone got another day in court,” he said. “Their judges asked them for more documents and to edit their application for asylum.”
When Romo first walked into the building, he saw three people there to appear in court. He introduced himself and Handwerker as priests who “decided to just come and be present for people” and asked if they would like the priests to attend their hearings.
“The smiles on their faces — it was like, yes, Father, please,” he said.
Later, they thanked the priests as they left.
“That told us how people feel when they see their priest is standing up with them,” Romo said. “Just being there. Even if you cannot do anything, even if you cannot say anything, just being there means a lot to them.”
Bryant envisions a program where there is always someone in each courtroom bearing witness to the court proceedings and decisions made.
“It’s also about people seeing friendly faces” in a “process that is so dehumanizing,” Bryant said.
Next steps
The next steps to build a formal court watch program include recruiting more court watchers and obtaining buy-in from the court’s administration, Bryant said.
AIR partners with multiple organizations, including Catholic Charities of East and West Tennessee, and Bryant said the nonprofit is also working with the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope, a group that has connections with clergy from different denominations.
Ultimately, AIR will develop training for volunteers to familiarize them with court decorum and protocol.
Getting the court to recognize the program is the next key step, Bryant said. While immigration court hearings are generally open to the public for observation, Bryant said the court’s formal blessing would “ensure volunteer observers could get into the courts without hassle.” It could also help with scheduling volunteers if the program gets advance notice on which judges have hearings on which days.
Bryant said the Memphis court directed AIR to contact court administration on the national level. Bryant is awaiting their response.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which administers the immigration court system, doesn’t have a formal pathway to set up a court watch system, but it does offer a Model Hearing Program that explains the court’s procedures and offers opportunities to observe live model hearings with a review of relevant law.
Religious and advocacy groups have successfully set up immigration court watch programs in other cities, including Chicago Courtwatch and the Human Rights Defender Project in Minnesota. Depending on the program, volunteers are sometimes asked to collect data and observations on court proceedings.
Court watch programs also reach beyond immigration court across the United States. The programs “ensure scrutiny and evaluation,” according to the American Bar Association (ABA). “They serve to highlight the realities of our legal system by recording data, uncovering stories, identifying trends, and highlighting problems” that can potentially drive reform, ABA states.
In the meantime, Romo has told his parishioners that he will do his best to attend immigration hearings for anyone who wants him to be there.
Bryant said court watching is also an opportunity for people to see the system in action, and perhaps challenge misconceptions.
“I really think that bringing people to court, even if it’s just one time, will open their eyes to the way that people are being treated in this country, and it will change their mind,” Bryant said. “If they think one way, I think they’re going to see it’s something totally different.”
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