Immigration Courtrooms Are Completely Out Of Control

What the hell is wrong with you people?

prison prisoner jail convicted criminalIn an election about building a wall, it’s easy to lose sight of how unbelievably offensive and demeaning America’s immigration policy already is. Like, seriously, for folks whose only crime is trying to get a job — in a country full of businesses more than willing to dangle job opportunities in front of them for pennies on the dollar and then plead ignorance when the feds come to bust heads — there’s probably no reason to roll them into courtrooms like Hannibal Lecter.

And yet

When detained immigrants have their day in immigration courtrooms in Boston and in many other courts around the nation, they almost always spend it in chains. Some of the immigrants have criminal records, but some do not, and the controversial practice has ignited protests from Connecticut to California. Critics say detainees in the civil immigration system are treated more harshly than people accused of violent crimes in state and federal courts. But others say shackling preserves public safety in the courts, where security is limited.

Security is limited? Really? Courthouses aren’t exactly The Raft, but there’s a lot of people with guns walking around. Someone transported that immigration defendant over from the detention facility, where did they go after they plopped the guy in his seat?

As one might imagine, this practice is wildly prejudicial to the ability of these folks to defend themselves and that has some people with pesky faith in fundamental fairness more than a little peeved:

“I absolutely do not think it’s OK to have people testify in shackles,” said Jenny Zhao, a lawyer with the Asian Law Caucus who worked on a class-action lawsuit that in 2014 curtailed the use of shackles in San Francisco’s immigration court. “This is a person’s chance to go in front of a judge and plead for their ability to stay with their families in the United States.”

Some federal judges are even starting to realize that this policy has little to no connection to the reality of the threat posed by the defendant:

Sponsored

Shackling immigrants has rankled some federal judges such as US District Judge Mark L. Wolf, who in 2009 demanded that a court officer remove restraints from an immigration detainee making a rare appearance in federal court.

“I had Gary Sampson, who murdered three people, [mobsters] Frank Salemmi and Stevie Flemmi, and none of them had to be handcuffed,” Wolf said at the time.

Well, yeah, but none of those folks posed the sort of clear and present danger that a 56-year-old woman nabbed after working 25 years as a nanny does. Immigration policy isn’t the traditional home of nuance, but maybe it’s worth taking a second or two to think this through, and sadly it might be up to the judges themselves to follow Judge Wolf’s lead and take back a little more control over their courtrooms.

In this Boston court, chains are a familiar sound [Boston Globe]


Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

Sponsored