On the morning of 31 January, the queue in front of immigration court in Los Angeles surrounded the building, moved back to the sidewalk on South Olive Street and almost reached the next block. Someone was appointed to the court hearings. Others could only guess why they had been summoned.
The Immigration and customs service (ICE) explained the reason for the huge queue in front of the court that because of the shutdown, there have been delays in administrative work.
Across the country, thousands of immigrants have received subpoenas from the Department of homeland security and came to the court at the hearing, which in fact was not. Lawyers for immigrants accused the Ministry of the fact that the ad «fake» dates have caused riots and even in the courts in Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco and Omaha.
According to the court guards, from 800 to 1,000 people came with invalid subpoenas. In the morning I had to call some more guards, which slowly divides people in 2 turns, when they went to the front door of the court.
Some migrants came alone, nervously clutching the documents in his hands. But there were many women with young children. Whole families stood in the cold just before the start of the weather in Los Angeles.
More than 1,500 immigrants showed up at the Los Angeles Immigration Court on Thursday, many with notices to appear in court from the Department of Homeland Security, though they didn’t actually have scheduled hearings. @latimes @latimesphotos @LANow #immigration #immigration. pic.twitter.com/SCawHe50Xn
— عرفان, Irfan Khan (@latfoto) January 31, 2019
In the confusion on Thursday could be impacted by the decision of the Supreme court in June last year. The court ruled that the authenticity of the notifications that the immigration service shall issue to the persons accused of illegal stay in the country, you need to specify the exact time, date and place of the hearing. Previously, immigration authorities often sent notification date «to be determined».
Some of the failed Thursday hearing has already been postponed to another time. The Ministry of justice, which oversees immigration courts, said that even bad weather conditions at the beginning of this week prevented to inform people until Thursday.
Lawyer immigration services Sabrina Damast said the confusion with the dates brought great discomfort to the lawyers and immigrants, which were not included in the hearing. Many people had time off from work, find someone who will look after their children, and long to get to the courthouse. And all so after a few hours spent in the queue, they were told to go home.
