First thing in the morning, you have hundreds [of people waiting]. There’s no shelter. There’s no place to sit. Tuesdays are the worst days, and you will wait over an hour. Hopefully, you will dress warmly. For us, as attorneys, we can anticipate that. All of us who do it frequently know to bring hats and gloves. But then you see newborn babies, you see elderly people, and they didn’t know they were going to have to wait outside for an hour. It’s really a bad situation. Really a bad situation.
— Eileen King English, chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s immigration law section, commenting on the unfortunate situation at the Peter W. Rodino Jr. Federal Building in Newark, New Jersey, during the morning rush. Lawyers and clients alike must stand in the cold (and sometimes in the rain) for more than an hour to enter the building ever since the immigration court returned to live proceedings in the wake of the pandemic. NJSBA President Jeralyn Lawrence has asked that a second entrance to the courthouse be opened but has yet to receive a response.
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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.