At immigration court in San Antonio, newly appointed judge Brittany A Rodriquez processed a docket that included a 6-year-old Mexican girl and a 3-year-old Cuban boy possibly appearing without adult supervision, and ordered 20 people removed 'in absentia' for missing hearings, some scheduled on short notice. Rodriquez, on the bench about a month after nearly six years as a government enforcement attorney, gave one unrepresented asylum seeker only until September to find a lawyer.
Advocates say the tactic — scheduling hearings with little notice and defaulting no-shows into removal orders — has become central to the administration's deportation strategy, leaving people unaware they even have removal orders until a traffic stop or run-in with local police triggers arrest. Retired immigration judge Paul Schmidt said the courts now function as 'an adjunct of DHS enforcement' rather than a check on wrongful removal.
EOIR, which sits under the Justice Department rather than the judiciary, defended the practice as necessary to prevent 'unnecessary delay' in a system with a nearly 3.2 million case backlog. Critics counter that speed is being prioritized over the due process protections — notice, representation, individualized review — that the court system is supposed to guarantee.
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