Cases flood Chicago Immigration Court as system reckons with new landscape

Scores of people here illegally are being processed daily through a court network that has become heavily backlogged as it reckons with the new priorities of the administration of President Donald Trump, who rode a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment to the White House.

As recently as 2010, the immigration court in Chicago had fewer than 13,000 pending cases on its docket. By the end of March, that figure had risen to 24,844, according to statistics provided by the federal Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is part of the Department of Justice.

The crunch is partly the result of policy changes under the Obama administration, which made a priority of quickly handling cases that involved children and recent border crossers, particularly in the face of an influx of immigrants coming into the U.S. illegally from Central American countries around 2014. But the Trump administration has contributed to the crunch as well, emphasizing the deportation of detainees who have had contact with the criminal justice system, though even those without records have been caught up in the efforts.

Earlier this month the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency reported that in the first 100 days since Trump signed executive orders on immigration policy, arrests nationally have increased more than 37 percent over the same period last year.

In the more than three months since Trump took office, the number of people detained in the Chicago area has more than doubled compared with the same period in 2016, from 412 to 940 people, according to data from ICE. The number without criminal records rose from 271 to 407 over the same period.

And the Chicago number likely would be higher if not for the city and Cook County’s resolve to stand firm in their sanctuary status and not cooperate with ICE agents or allow them access to those being processed at the Cook County Jail.

All of that, though, mattered little to Casas-Torres, who faced the choice of uprooting his son and taking him to Mexico or leaving him in Bloomington with the boy’s mother. His case was among those being handled by the new two-judge “detained detail” created in response to the Jan. 25 Trump executive order that made detained immigrants who are in the country illegally the top priority for deportation.

The fluorescent-lit room Casas-Torres appeared in had just a few seats, with his attorney and a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security facing each other across two connected desks. A loud air conditioner sitting on the floor provided the only airflow.

With yellow handcuffs on his wrists, Casas-Torres occasionally had to raise both hands from his lap to wipe tears as he described being separated from his 9-year-old son, recounting how he had told the boy only that he has been working and will be home soon.

“For me, being away from my family has been hard emotionally and physically,” he told the judge through an interpreter. “Knowing they are struggling financially, due to the fact I didn’t know how to be responsible.”

Casas-Torres entered the country some 20 years ago and had a good job leading a cleaning crew at local hotels, according to his lawyer. But he admitted he had used his father’s name and his father’s legal papers to get the work. What’s more, he acknowledged that he had been given a chance to fix his immigration status after a first DUI arrest, in 2012 — but that he had failed to do so.

“I am not perfect,” he told Immigration Judge Eva Saltzman. “But I know you will do your job the best that you can.”

Lawyers working in the court system said the new courtrooms have added pressure to the overburdened docket at the main Chicago Immigration Court on the fifth floor of an office building a few blocks away at 525 W. Van Buren St.

While judges rotate onto the monthlong assignments, their regular caseloads tend to languish, according to lawyers who work in the courtroom. The move also seemed redundant to some of the lawyers because the main court already funnels cases involving detained people to a single courtroom or two each day.

“It’s a bit of theater,” said Keren Zwick, a managing attorney for the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, which takes referrals from the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations that help immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

Court officials declined to respond directly to charges that the new courtrooms are merely window dressing. But they said the Executive Office for Immigration Review works to place judges where case needs are highest.

“The agency continues to evaluate the need for immigration judges across the country, to include those locations most important to carry out President Trump’s executive orders,” court spokeswoman Gail Montenegro wrote in an email.

Court officials said uneven funding over several years led to the backlog; even after Congress and the Obama administration sought to boost funding, a federal hiring freeze in 2011 hampered efforts to expand the court system. There are now nine sitting judges in Chicago’s Immigration Court, which primarily handles cases from Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and part of Kentucky.

Funding for the Executive Office for Immigration Review has lagged money being spent for DHS’ law enforcement mission, Montenegro wrote, meaning that, for years, more cases were being created than the court system was funded to handle.

According to data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, the primary country of origin for those appearing at the Chicago court is Mexico. More than 10,600 people in the system here at the end of March were Mexican nationals, clearinghouse data show. Others are natives of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, with more than 2,000 people linked to each of those countries.

Obtaining data about the system’s performance can be difficult, and ICE did not immediately process a records request seeking detailed information on those detained in the Chicago area, such as their names, places where they are being held and any criminal records.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review publishes data by fiscal year that includes the number of incoming cases, known as notices to appearin court jargon. Those records show that during the fiscal year ended in September 2015, Chicago Immigration Court received 7,160 new notices to appear, but that number dipped below 7,000 in the last fiscal year. In the first six months of this fiscal year, however, the Chicago number was 4,574 — putting the system on pace for a significant increase of new cases over last year.

Receiving a notice to appear starts the process for someone allegedly in the country illegally, whether he or she has been taken into custody or not. Those being held are first processed at the closest ICE suboffice and are then shuffled to one of a few local holding centers, a list that includes McHenry County Jail and Kenosha County Detention Center in Wisconsin.

Zwick’s group, the justice center, which assists many who appear in immigration court without a lawyer, visits the two facilities twice a month. But she said the new push to process detainees quickly could lead to some in custody being missed and not getting the right representation as they move through the system.

Still, the majority of those appearing on an average day for what are known as “master calendar” hearings are not in custody. Those preliminary hearings are used to go over the alleged violation with the person being accused of being in the country illegally, allow the judge to make a determination as to whether there are grounds to remove the person from the U.S. and perhaps set a bond if he or she is detained.

So it is that, on many days, people crowd the waiting area for their turn to walk a narrow corridor and enter one of the rooms where their case will be called. Often families enter the rooms together, some with infants in their arms. All hope to be remain in the country.

On one recent day, a government lawyer asked a judge to keep a man in detention as a danger to the community because he had a theft conviction in his record from 20 years ago. The judge, who seemed surprised by the government’s effort, declined to do so and instead set a $2,000 bond, noting that the man had ended up in ICE custody only because the police had stopped him and determined he was driving without a valid license.

Lawyers and advocates for immigrants say a new tone has set in at immigration court under the Trump administration. The lawyers say that government attorneys appear more aggressive, while they also have less discretion to give breaks to immigrants in the country illegally.

“They have essentially told us that isn’t happening anymore,” said Dario Castaneda, the lawyer for Casas-Torres.

In spite of the aggressive government stance, the average number of days to complete a case in Chicago Immigration Court has continued to grow. The newest data from the clearinghouse show that in 2010, the average number of days to process a case was 381, a figure that swelled to 962 days by the end of March this year.

The lag in the system is noticeable at many court hearings. At one, a woman sat at the respondent’s table with her 12-year-old daughter, both of whom are in the country illegally, and was told the girl wouldn’t have to return to court for the next time the case was called.

That next time will be April 6, 2020.

Many people who wind up in court welcome the long gaps between dates. That gives them time to try to work with DHS to clear up their case, or even to change their immigration status. A woman from Latvia, who was accused of staying in the country longer than she was allowed, was told by a judge that the woman’s mother might be able to sponsor her for a visa. The judge gave her a next court date in April 2021.

“We’ll be anxiously awaiting our new president,” her lawyer, Richard Trais, quipped to the judge.

But the hearings also can produce quick results, as they did for a man being held in McHenry County Jail who appeared in court via television and identified himself as Rodrigo Cosme-Mezo. The man, who had no lawyer, acknowledged he entered the country illegally in 2006, was convicted of a burglary that included great bodily harm to a victim in 2008 and had spent much of the time since then in prison.

Immigration Judge Robin Rosche told him he had little hope of receiving asylum or otherwise blocking his deportation. Cosme-Mezo said he would not fight his removal. He asked how long it might take before he would be flown to Mexico.

“It usually takes a couple of weeks,” Rosche answered. “It depends how long it takes the detention officers to get your travel documents.”

And with that, Cosme-Mezo stood and walked off the screen.

According to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the number of completed cases in Chicago court ending in removals in fiscal year 2016 was 2,358. In the first six months of this year, that figure has already hit 1,662 cases.

For those with a chance of fighting deportation, another hearing is set where a decision is made on their future — a proceeding known as a merits hearing or individual hearing, like the one where Casas-Torres was pleading his case.

Respondents can file for asylum on a number of grounds, and often do. On a recent day in one of the two basement courtrooms on Congress, another man from Mexico successfully argued that he should not be removed because he is a longtime U.S. resident who has resisted joining a drug cartel in his homeland and could be punished if he returned. He was granted asylum to stay in the country.

Things did not go as well for a man from Eritrea in Africa, who addressed Judge Saltzman through an interpreter in his native Tigrinya language. The man told the judge a winding story that began in Eritrea, where he said he had been arrested last year while walking with friends and accused of practicing a banned religion because one of them was carrying a Bible. He had escaped, he said, and was smuggled to Sudan and Dubai, and flown to Brazil; then he made a harrowing journey through Central America and Mexico.

He was arrested when he arrived at the Texas border in January and sought asylum.

DHS lawyer Caitlin Corcoran confronted the man and asked whether he ever had been to Europe. He had not, he answered.

Corcoran then showed him a photocopied picture of him arriving at an airport in Panama in October and presenting customs workers with papers showing he has refugee status in Switzerland as well has permission to live there as a resident.

It was a rare “Perry Mason moment” in immigration court.

After a long pause, the man slumped and admitted it was true. He had actually lived in Switzerland since 2008.

“It was difficult over there for me, so I came here,” he said sheepishly.

Saltzman quickly found the man had lied to the court and filed a frivolous asylum request, and ordered him flown to Eritrea in June. His lawyers said they would try to persuade U.S. officials to send him back to Switzerland instead.

As for Casas-Torres, his son’s fate swayed Saltzman. The two DUIs, the judge said, were not enough to offset the damage that would be done to the boy, who was born in Illinois and would face either losing his father to deportation or relocating to Mexico as well.

“A young U.S. citizen child would go from an unusually stable situation to an unusually unstable one,” Saltzman said, telling Casas-Torres his case was a very close question for her but ultimately welcoming him to the United States.

Casas-Torres visibly exhaled and lowered his head.

“Muchas gracias,” he said. And through his interpreter: “God bless you and your family.”

jcoen@chicagotribune.com