One day, over 100 cases, one judge

Chaotic mass hearings have overwhelmed immigration courts, spurring deportations.

- ITZEL LUNA

IMMIGRANTS must attend these hearings in person or face automatic removal.

A line stretched around the downtown Los Angeles immigration courthouse before doors even opened. Immigrants crowded waiting rooms and spilled into hallways as clerks raced to process around 100 people scheduled for an administrative hearing that morning.

In the last two months, these master calendar hearings have been coined "mega master" hearings, as dockets nationwide have exploded with four or more times the number of respondents they had before, part of the Trump administration's latest push to fasttrack asylum cases.

Over 120 immigration cases had a hearing scheduled for the same judge on a Wednesday in early June, a Times reporter observed.

On another day, one courtroom had 96 people scheduled at the same time.

Respondents must attend in person, which has strained an already overwhelmed system and further complicated the legal landscape, attorneys working in the court say.

The quickness of these proceedings, coupled with confusion on how they operate, means immigrants are much more likely to miss their hearing, advocates said. Those who don't show up become eligible for removal.

At a hearing on June 24 observed by The Times, 14 immigrants didn't make their appointment, and were ordered removable by the end of the day.

"What we're experiencing in court is, in a sense, worse than what we saw on the streets of Minneapolis, but it happens in secret," said Vera Weisz, a Los Angeles immigration lawyer.

Maura, who did not want to give her last name for fear of being singled out by ICE, made the nearly two-hour journey from Bakersfield to the Van Nuys immigration courthouse in late May for her hearing.