His late father, Delfino Sr., was a leading Latino activist in the movimiento period of the ’50s and ’60s. Inside the many, many problems of the immigration court system. “This is a backlog that has been building for years and years, over many administrations,” Judge Dana Leigh Marks, president emerita of the National Association of Immigration Judges, told VICE News. Pressure from external forces, internal challenges, and lagging resources for the courts at a time of massive increases in spending on immigration enforcement have contributed to the backlog. Why, then, do people keep coming back alone? Featured Issue: Remain in Mexico and Tent Courts, Recent BIA and Attorney General Decisions: What You Need to Know - Recording (.MP3), How to File a Successful Circuit Court Petition for Review - Recording (.MP3), Incredibly Credible: Preparing Your Client to Testify - Recording (.MP3), 2018 AILA Federal Court Conference: Removal Litigation - Webcast Recording, For information about DOJ and EOIR’s response to COVID-19, please, List to a recording of the March 17, 2020. NEW ORLEANS -- A labor union representing the nation’s immigration judges filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Trump administration, arguing that the government is stifling the judges’ rights to speak publicly on key issues, including the threat of COVID-19 to their lives and to public health. Is he happy? & N. Dec. 509 (A.G. 2019), Matter of L-E-A-, 27 I. Stories of gang violence from young Central Americans, for instance, begin to meld together after a while, making it easy to forget smaller personal details. Even though Haido and those who came here six months after him share identical circumstances, they are treated with different standards, and Haido got the long end of the stick. The use of administrative closure increased 400% over the course of the Obama administration to focus on deporting criminals, rather than have judges devote time to cases of an undocumented person running a stop sign or someone whose visa application is already being processed. People like Varela, who keeps himself going by the reminder that his work can improve a migrant’s chances of achieving legal status by up to nearly nine times. In a separate case, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and other groups filed a federal lawsuit on March 30 in Washington, D.C.,  on behalf of a small group of immigration detainees worried about contracting COVID-19. The delay has given her time to earn more money as a painter on building projects, and she hopes to use the income to hire a lawyer and return to Memphis to resolve her case.

Asked if he’d be willing to share his story, he glances hesitatingly at Varela, who replies that it’ll bring more awareness to immigration. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in New York is cooperating with the judges in the lawsuit. To give migrants the time they needed to prepare for court, judges would have to offer continuances. In criminal court, prosecutors can use plea bargains to help preserve limited court resources. Closing the immigration courts altogether would create thorny issues, particularly for immigrants who are being held in custody. And, according to Politico, of the 1542 deportation orders issued, 94 percent of the defendants were minors with no lawyer.