Disorder in The Court – Point of No Return

Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy has created unimaginable chaos. I went to an immigration court to see it up close.

- By Fernanda Echavarri. Ilustration by Brian Stauffer

SAN DIEGO IMMIGRATION COURT, COURTROOM #2 Judge Lee O’Connor has been in his courtroom for all of two minutes before a look of annoyance washes over his face.

Eleven children and six adults—all from Central America, all in immigration court for the first time—sit on the wooden benches before him. They’ve been awake since well before dawn so they could line up at the US-Mexico border to board buses to downtown San Diego, bulletproof-vested federal agents by their side. Like the dozens of families jampacked in the lobby and six other courtrooms in this building, they’ve been waiting out their asylum cases in Mexico, as required by the Trump administration’s controversial Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as “Remain in Mexico.”

O’Connor’s docket is full of MPP cases today, like every day. The policy has further clogged up the already backlogged immigration court system, stranding judges in a bureaucratic morass and leaving asylum seekers with little hope for a resolution anytime soon. San Diego has one of the busiest MPP courts, due to its proximity to Tijuana, where tens of thousands of asylum seekers have been living in shelters and tent cities.