Seattle (AP) -In that the seattle immigration judge dismissed the deportation case for a Colombian man-fed for his accelerated removal-people sat with him at the end of the courtroom, taking his car keys safely, helping him memorize his phone numbers and collect family names.
When Judge Brett Parchert asked why they were doing it in court, volunteers said the immigration and individual executive officers were behind the door waiting for the man to be detained, so it was the only opportunity for them to help him in order. “The ice is in the waiting room?” the judge asked.
As President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign focuses on cities and states led by Democrats and freed the fear among the asylum seekers and immigrants, their legal defenders went to court this week in search of arrest from arrests for immigration court hearings. Meanwhile, these volunteers take action.
Different bands – faith leaders, college students, grandmothers, retirees lawyers and professors – have appeared in immigration in the courts throughout the nation to escort immigrants who are risking disguise ice officers. They provide families with moral and logistical support and testify when people are deprived of.
Northwest immigrant rights draft has been flooded by so many members of the community who want to help that they have created a volunteer teaching video, created a “Know Your Law Language Road Language and started a Google sheet where people sign up for shifts, said Stephanie Gai, employees’ lawyer working in Seattle.
“We couldn’t do it without them,” GI said. “Some volunteers ask for a job so they can come and help.”
Robby Rohr, a retired, non -profit director, said she was regularly voluntarily.
“Being here makes people feel remembered and recognized,” she said “it’s such a bureaucratic and confusing process. We try to help them.”
Record videos of detention that can be written online
Volunteers and legal aid groups provided free legal orientation in court for a long time, but arrests have caused new challenges. Since May The government requested the referees to reject deportation cases.
When the judge agrees, ICE officers seize them in the hallway and put them in a quick deportation process, no matter which legal immigration they could go. Once apprehended, it is often harder to find or afford a lawyer. Immigration judges are executive staff, and some in some cases opposed the dismissal of homeland security lawyers, many are given to many.
The Masked Ice agents grabbed the Colombian man and led him to the hallway. The volunteer took his backpack to give his family when he was deprived. Other immigrants who participated in the daily document were immigrants who did not appear. Parchert gave the orders of the “removal of removal”, allowing the ice to arrest them later.
Asked about these arrests and immigration court volunteers, the Senior Representative of the Internal Security Department said ICE is again implementing a rule of law, withdrawing the “biden capture and release policies allowing millions of non -evaluation of illegal foreigners to be free on the streets of America.”
Some volunteers captured arrests in the courtroom corridors, traumatic scenes that are increasing online. How many similar scenes take place across the country. The executive immigration review body has not released many cases, rejected or arrests made in or near the courts.
Although most volunteers did this work without incidents, some were arrested for interference with ice agents. New York City Controllers and Democratic Candidate Brad Lander was arrested by locking weapons with a person, unsuccessfully trying to prevent his detention. Lander’s wife, a lawyer, Meg Barnette has just joined him while walking with migrants from the courtroom to the elevator.
Help families find their loved ones when they disappear
It turned out that the Act of Volunteer Witnesses was important because people disappear into a detention system, which may seem chaotic, leaving families without any information about their location for several days.
In the waiting room serving the New York Immigration Court Halls, a Spanish -speaking woman with her long dark curly hair was worried with her daughter after she and her husband held separate hearings. Now he was not found anywhere.
Fabián Arias, an observer of the Volunteer Court, said the woman whose name is Alva appealed to him asking, “Where is my husband?” She showed him a photo of him.
“Ice detained him,” Arias said, trying to comfort her when she was shaking, later sipping her tears. The judge did not rule out his husband’s case, giving him a lawyer by October. But that did not prevent ice agents from handcuffs and deprive him of him as soon as he left the court. The news has led to outrageous resentment of immigration, city officials and congressmen. At the press conference, she only gave her name and asked her daughter to be detained.
Brianna Garcia, a college student in El Paso, Texas, said she was attending immigration court hearings for several weeks, where she informs people about their rights, and then registers the ice agents who adopt people in custody.
“We accompany people, so they are not harassed and help people memorize important phone numbers because their belongings are confiscated,” she said.
Paris began volunteering in the court of immigration in the court of immigration, hearing about his efforts through the church network. Wearing a straw hat, he recently waited in the heat of noon until people arrived at the afternoon hearing.
Tom presented people with a small paper flyer indicating his rights in Spanish on one side and on the other. One man walking with a woman told him, “Thank you.” Another man hugged him.
Denver volunteer Don Marsh said they offer people to go to their cars after the court’s appearance, so they can contact lawyers and family if the ice arrests them.
Marsh said he had never done anything like this before, but he wants to do something to preserve the nation’s “laws” now that unidentified government agents “grabbed” people on the streets.
“If we are not all safe, nothing is safe,” he said.
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Attani reported from New York and Slevin from Denver.