Detained and Isolated in Rural Georgia: A Fight Against the Odds in Stewart Immigration Court.

By Maria Florencia Cornu.

Court observation serves many purposes and was one of the many formative and transformative tasks we performed in our week working for SIFI. For students, it provides an amazing educational experience, getting to see the law in action, understanding the dynamics of a hearing, the roles in court, the expected preparation and demeanor of every actor. It is also a powerful tool to improve the quality of justice in the long term because it provides information about relevant aspects of the functioning of the process, from judges and attorneys’ legal competency, to respect for the rule of law and the Respondent's human dignity and individual rights.

It has been said, also, that observation impacts positively on the observed situation itself, motivating all actors to present the best version of themselves.

Courtrooms at Stewart are not small, but there was little room for observers. Unfortunately, it was not because of the presence of family or friends (rural Georgia is not a very accessible place); it is because there are too many respondents having their hearing at the same time. At the beginning of the hearing, the Immigration Judge (IJ) would ask them to raise their hands to answer some common questions, like whether they have a lawyer, or if they need more time to find one.

The IJ asked if anyone believed that he has the right to claim US citizenship because their parents or grandparents were US citizens. Four people stood up. The IJ asked each one individually about the basis for his beliefs. As the IJ goes case by case, vetting individuals because they have misunderstood the question, one can feel the disappointment on the faces of the ones remaining.

The dynamic resembles a classroom where confused children try to decipher the instructions of a teacher that speaks in a complicated and unknown language. No matter who these men were or what they did before their time here – they could have been accountants, farmers, builders or journalists --that is how vulnerable they seemed to me.

For many of them, this was the first time in Court. Most of them have no criminal record. Yet no matter how many times one repeats that Immigration cases are civil cases, not criminal, it never feels that way for those who are sitting on the accused’s bench, dressed in inmates’ orange jumpsuits, wearing crocs on their feet, deprived of their liberty, and locked in a medium-security facility like the Stewart Detention Center.

Out of dozens of cases we observed, only two persons had an attorney. One was in the courtroom, but in the second case, a bond hearing, the attorney was on the phone. The government’s attorney was not on the phone, was right there, in front of the Judge. The judge questioned the respondent about the relationship between him and the sponsor. One could see where the questions were heading. The government attorney did not ask any questions, but I was wondering why the respondent’s attorney did not ask anything that might help his client’s case. As expected, the IJ found the relationship between the sponsor and the respondent too tenuous and concluded that he was a flight risk. As a consequence, the IJ denied the bond. When the judge asked the respondent’s attorney if he was going to appeal, we all found out that his prolonged silence was because the connection was lost.

When the connection was resumed, the attorney said that he had not heard the last 10 minutes of the hearing. The Judge made a summary for the respondent’s attorney, who reserved the right to appeal. It is hard to guess if the outcome would have been different if the respondent’s attorney had been in the room, or if he had heard the full hearing, or if he had asked any further questions, but the naked fact was the attorney was not there for the last 10 minutes of the hearing.

In one of the courtrooms we observed, the respondents were called in pairs, grouped by country of origin. Virtually all the Respondents were Spanish speakers, with the exception of one Portuguese and two English speakers. One of the English speakers was a young man. I never saw his face, but I have his story engraved on my mind. He never saw me either. But, from the back of the courtroom I witnessed what probably was one of the most crucial moments of his life: the moment in which he told the IJ that he wanted voluntary departure from the country which saw him grow from a toddler to the young man he became, from the only place he ever knew as home.

Some years ago, he had a rage episode and acted with violence, hitting and breaking things at his own home and resisting arrest. That single episode, one spring day, led to several charges. I tried to write them down, but there were so many that I lost track. Even though he had been diagnosed with a mental disorder, the insanity defense was not available for him in his state. Making one mistake was not available to him either.

He was convicted of all the charges, with each sentence for less than a year, but he ended up spending two years in jail. Immediately after he served his time, he entered ICE custody for deportation to his birth country (not his home country, because as many of the kids brought here by their parents, the only home he ever knew was the United States).

Here he was, trying to explain to the Immigration Judge that everything looked worse on the paper than it really was.

Here he was, finally, realizing that his only chance was to obtain voluntary departure, so he would be, eventually, maybe, able to seek admission to the country again.

Here he was on his own, asking the Immigration Judge to send him to a country he had never visited since his mother brought him to the United States when he was just a little kid.

The government attorney opposed voluntary departure: they wanted deportation, to be sure, to bar him from seeking admission for ten years. We knew they were doing their job, but one cannot stop thinking, what about if all these resources were applied to prosecute and deport real criminals instead of a mentally ill young man?

There he was, and there was I, entirely out of my role as observer. During that hearing, I stopped being a lawyer or a law student, he stopped being the respondent, and he becomes just a son. I pictured his mother, many years ago, taking him out of his country to save him. Save him from poverty, from the generalized violence, from the gangs, or even from his own father. I pictured her walking with him, carrying him across borders, rivers, and countless dangers. I imagined her working hard to educate him, and I could even see her tears of joy when he graduated from high school. Or her loneliness when he was first diagnosed with his disorder. I could see her impotence when he stopped taking his meds. I could hear the desperation in her voice, that spring day when she called 911 and their lives changed forever.

There was no one in the room for him: no attorney, no family, no friends. The Court and the detention center’s location contribute to the isolation, the lack of resources and support. I have no confirmation whether that is a preconceived plan, but it is, indeed, the effect.