Court Observations: Month One
Or: Theater of the Absurd
Setting: Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) Federal Immigration Courtrooms in El Paso, Texas. Also: sidewalks, elevators, garages, digital spaces. Time is now, or later, or on repeat play.
Prior to 2018, all courthouses were generally considered protected or sensitive spaces for immigrants, to encourage cooperation with law enforcement and to protect victims of crimes. During the first Trump administration, this was no longer the case, and for a few years arrests for civil violations sporadically occurred in these spaces. Now, with the administration’s goal of mass deportations, the courthouses again are the scene of mass immigrant arrests for what are normally routine hearings.
As reports began surfacing in May of masked ICE agents detaining migrants immediately upon exiting administrative EOIR hearings, local community organizers and activists banded together to accompany, warn, protest, observe, and pray with those showing up for their hearings. Some have come daily for months. They are a diverse group with different skills, backgrounds, faiths (or lack thereof) and motivations, but they serve as a collective, and often witness in groups. For the past month, I have only been an occasional citizen observer, in different courtrooms. I have not photographed or videoed anything, and I try to treat everyone as I would want to be treated. I would challenge anyone to come for even a morning, and see how this bears resemblance to any kind of justice.
Some judges try to make it plain that there is no coordination between their office and ICE. Some go to pains to explain to migrants that they understand there are ICE agents outside of the courtroom, and they may be detained.
Signal Chat* (or Greek Chorus): Judge X this morning extended all cases. Everyone is coming out with smiles and tears of happiness. It was a good morning. All from out of town – Midland, Odessa.
Heard from a court watcher that despite the judge's "release," ICE took them anyway.
(Chorus of song and prayer as people are led away.)
I had observed federal immigration court in 2019, when recently-arrived migrants were slated for mass deportations, and it was a perfunctory and horrific spectacle. I was in the back of the courtroom with my notebook. The judge asked their country of origin, what their job was, and if they had entered the country on such-and-such date. Some of the respondents had the audacity to ask where their children had been taken. I sat in the back row and wept. I had also never seen 20 human beings in shackles, tied together. It was chilling.
Six years later, this is awful in a different and new way, in that many of the people arriving to court entered the country lawfully under the government’s application, CBP-One, applied for asylum, and have been living and working in various communities in the U.S. over many years. They come to court with their children, dressed in their finest, with nothing but respect for the system and the judiciary. In Spanish, they use the most floral language in addressing the court.
Respondent 1: Estimada y honorable juez…
They are apologetic, sensing they might have made a mistake in compiling their case, or could be missing something. They don’t yet realize that none of this matters anymore.
Respondent 2: Aquí en la carpeta tengo toda la evidencia. Quizás me faltaba algo… un detalle.
They are gracious to the judge, even after their case is dismissed, saying thank you.
They are dignified upon exiting the courtroom, waiting for their appeals package with fixed gazes, even knowing they are likely to be detained.
Signal Chat: Two children just escorted out of the front doors and taken in a van. Escorted by dudes in street clothes, I assumed ICE. It happened fast and behind other cars parked on the street. Felt like kidnapping.
Signal Chat: A whole family, mom, two kids and the husband, the daughter.... 10 people, eight arrested....The last count was six people detained. They released a Cuban woman and her husband but took mom and her brother, she broke down outside. The dad was outside waiting.
Signal Chat: That was heart wrenching to see, I can't imagine what they must be living. Tantos sacrificios que hicieron para llegar aquí. It's hard to even know what to say or what to do, just to even console folks.
The first time I came as a witness, I was outside the courthouse translating, and just looking out in the distance as I was telling people what was likely about to happen to them. When I (as just a translator) broke character and asked them where they were from, they would surprise me, and answer, “Nashville” or “Houston.” It wasn’t Venezuela or Cuba – they had established businesses, lives, and identities as Americans.
Family members reacted in shock realizing their loved one had already been taken out from the parking garage; that they now had to drive somewhere alone.
It was heartbreaking.
Signal Chat: Please remember to tell them not to write on their palms because their palms will sweat. I'm bringing a bunch of sharpies. Right? Their cell phones get confiscated when they are nabbed by ICE. Imagine you're in jail and all your contacts are on your phone and not in your head and they confiscate your phone. You're finished, they don't think they're gonna get arrested up there. They need to be prepared. Cell numbers on forearms.
It is like a play, in which everybody is assigned their respective parts.
When studying in Paris, I took a class on French theater – we’d read a play, and then the following week would go see it performed somewhere. We studied the so-called “Theatre of the Absurd,” a category coined by Martin Esslin in 1961 to describe the plays that arose in Europe in the aftermath of World War II, reflecting the profound brokenness of that time. There are patterns in the drama that emerged: the plays often have some sort of temporal suspension, dialogue that consists of non-sequiturs, and themes of isolation and existential despair — think Beckett, Ionesco, Sartre.
The bailiffs are like Sartre’s characters who are static and trapped, only occasionally breaking character to interact with a respondent, to escort them to the bathroom so they are not picked up prematurely, or to whisper how they weren’t able to sleep well.
As in Beckett’s theatre, there is the hint of endless repetition, the infinite cycle of the trial loop – the DHS attorney with her back to the respondents, the judge’s cookie-cutter language - leading one of our observers to call this a kangaroo court.
A migrant politely asking a judge if he may speak begins to plead for mercy, as he will be killed if he is returned to his country, but this is treated as a non-sequitur; it must now be the asylum officer to whom you tell this, once you are detained.
There is a character from Jean Genet: a judge telling migrants that they really should have a lawyer to file their appeal within 30 days, or they have no chance, but (ideally) they need to appear in person, because legal agencies no longer pick up the phone since they are very, very busy. And you need money.
Or the judge explaining to the migrant that there is no lawyer by that name in their city; the money they sent to a legal service page actually doesn’t provide legal services; they will now have to represent themselves.
Finally, there is the isolation and despair of detention – despair that we don’t see, but is just implicated, in the cold white vans that whisk them away to another indeterminate space.
Signal Chat: We're still at 7th floor waiting for the hearing to end. About six masked ICE waiting by the hall that leads to carport elevator.
Signal Chat: Get ready, X, it's a horrific situation to witness.
(Exeunt.)
A man with one eye, mostly deaf, and probable dementia was treated kindly by the judge, and assigned a competency hearing. ICE used their discretion and did not detain him, and he left with his US-citizen daughter and son-in-law through the front door of the courtroom. It is unclear amongst the ICE agents (or perhaps contractors) who has authority or discretion. There are usually multiple agents per respondent – I have seen as many as 20 together, pacing between the elevators and the courtrooms.
Signal Chat: Out of 23 (respondents), only about five showed up. There are children, but I'm in the hallway, so not a good view yet, till they let us in. There is an infant. At least six masked ICE now ...Looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.
Signal Chat: The young woman was telling her mom on the phone, she doesn't care that they deported her but it is heartbreaking, all her hard work.
Signal Chat: ...Keep praying for those going to court, the judges, the guards, the staff of that building, ourselves, and ICE and law enforcement agents.
Who is going to break character and refuse to participate in this charade of justice anymore?
Which judges will write an op-ed slamming the “changes in circumstance”, being the expansion of expedited removal from the presidential order of January 20, 2025, rejecting the notion of invasion?
Which ICE agents will speak out, as they did in this exposé of the agency’s low morale?
Or are we all doomed to watch this churning bureaucracy play on an endless loop?
*Any direct quotes from anonymous Signal chats were used with permission from the moderator.
Vanessa: I was also observing and taking notes during these hearings. You captured the tone, the seriousness of those who presented themselves in front of the judge, the expectatikons they had...and how, at the end, as they were taken away by ICE, this was revealed to be a farce and gross misrepresentation of what is referred to as "justice." Thank you. Callie Weston
Terrible situation, all certainty broke in pieces like a vulnerable glass of a rotten window, society is breaking they don't want brown people they don't want any more cities like El Paso, where almost everyone is Mexican.