{"id":218477,"date":"2026-07-27T19:29:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T19:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trumps-deportation-crackdown-accelerated-by-potent-court-tool-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T19:29:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T19:29:05","slug":"trumps-deportation-crackdown-accelerated-by-potent-court-tool-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trumps-deportation-crackdown-accelerated-by-potent-court-tool-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s deportation crackdown accelerated by potent court tool – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mass hearings, removal orders \u2018in absentia\u2019 \u2013 judges are wrapping up immigration cases in unprecedented numbers
The second Trump administration recorded its highest number of immigration arrests<\/a> so far last month. One significant and alarming reason that is far less noticeable than armored, masked agents swaggering in the streets with weapons may be a sudden change in America\u2019s immigration courts.
Here, in recent months, accelerated mass hearings are giving people facing existential questions about their future little time to prepare for their cases, and judges are often ordering vulnerable immigrants deported without them even being in the courtroom.
Coast to coast, many judges are swiftly wrapping up immigration cases in unprecedented numbers<\/a>. More than 100,000 immigration cases were closed in June alone, driven first and foremost by courts across the US issuing orders to deport.
While thousands of people received these removal orders without ever having the chance to defend themselves, others were shuttled en masse into crowded hearings that attorneys are calling \u201cmega-masters\u201d, nicknamed after their size and the type of court appearance known as a master calendar hearing.
The results of this policy were on clear display in Chicago earlier this summer, where, for instance, a single immigration judge in the US\u2019s third<\/a> largest city oversaw as many as 185 fast-tracked cases<\/a> in one sitting, a huge number compared with a more typical 20<\/a> previously.
From March to June, Chicago judges\u2019 orders greenlighting someone\u2019s deportation have suddenly shot up by 120%<\/a>. And more than 78%<\/a> of completed cases last month ended in what\u2019s called a removal order in absentia, where the judge decides an immigrant or asylum seeker should be deported because they were no-shows at their hearings.
Notwithstanding that many immigrants<\/a> have said they never received a letter telling them their appointments had been rescheduled, often to months or years earlier than their previous dates. Or that people are scared to attend their hearings after high-profile arrests<\/a> at immigration courts across the country. Or even that the Chicago court is scheduling so many of these mass hearings with different judges around the same time that up to 611 people<\/a> are being told to arrive at the courthouse at once, causing chaos.
Immigrants who receive absentia removal orders unbeknown to them were bably going about their days, thinking they had filed applications for relief and are following the law to the letter, unaware that they ever had a change to their court date or that they are now at imminent risk of deportation.
Historically, master calendar hearings have been for basic administrative tasks, like the judge reading immigrants their rights and responsibilities, determining if the allegations in their immigration records are accurate, and setting dates for hearings to determine if they qualify for asylum or another form of immigration relief.
But under the second Trump administration, these hearings \u2013 often a person\u2019s earliest interactions with the court \u2013 have become increasingly perilous, amid courthouse arrests and attempts to disqualify cases not on their merits, but instead because of unpaid<\/a> fees or the possibility that the federal government could send<\/a> someone to another country they have never even visited.
Master calendar hearings are also typically a group affair, with more than one person or family on the schedule. But the sheer scale of today\u2019s \u201cmega masters\u201d \u2013 70, 100, 150 cases at once \u2013 was relatively rare<\/a> up until May, when the phenomenon started ballooning, before exploding in June<\/a>.
Once people\u2019s court dates are suddenly rescheduled, even if they are among the lucky ones who receive notice, it means taking time off work, sometimes traveling hours, maybe paying for a hotel \u2013 all logistics that require time, savings and plans that can be extra difficult to make happen at short notice.
When the same judge in Kansas City considered<\/a> two dockets in early June, the first \u2013 where 93 people had a median lead time of, at most, 15 days to be alerted that their court date had changed \u2013 resulted in 56 absentia orders. The second, where 96 people had a median lead time of 196 days, ended with just nine, showing the disproportionate toll of mega masters that have especially fast timelines.
By one count, mega masters last month resulted in more than 20,000 absentia orders nationwide. That represents<\/a> nearly two out of every five absentia orders in June, despite only a fraction<\/a> of the country\u2019s roughly 700 immigration judges presiding over these mass hearings and other, smaller master calendar hearings proceeding as normal.
At the same time, absentia orders constituted more than two-thirds of all removal decisions<\/a> from immigration judges last month, which clocked in at just under 79,000 in total. Only 1,883 completed cases \u2013 or fewer than<\/a> 2% \u2013 ended with the person winning any form of relief.
That\u2019s part of what makes the mega masters, and the absentia orders that follow, such a potent tool for the Trump administration\u2019s mass deportation campaign<\/a>: those immigrants who didn\u2019t show up, often for no fault of their own, have now lost the chance to make their case for asylum or other protections. They simply won\u2019t advance to the next stage where they could argue their eligibility to stay in the US legally.
In theory, they could try to reopen<\/a> their cases, but doing so is complicated, and unless they have access to an attorney, they are unlikely to succeed. Legal representation is hard to come by, with just over one in five immigrants<\/a> having a lawyer when they were ordered deported in June.
And, once people have a removal order, they are generally fair game for deportation, whether that\u2019s after being identified by immigration agents or increasingly by local and state law enforcement through partnerships<\/a> with the federal government. That means a routine traffic stop can easily turn into a detention, and now with so many more active removal orders out there, it\u2019s no surprise that immigration arrests have increased<\/a> in recent weeks.
This erosion of due process may not be as visible as the dramatic scenes of immigration agents patrolling Los Angeles, Chicago and Minnesota earlier in Trump\u2019s second term. But it has the same consequences, for many of the same communities: more<\/a> people are being detained in life-threatening<\/a> conditions, and vanishingly few are getting the justice they seek.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mass hearings, removal orders \u2018in absentia\u2019 \u2013 judges are wrapping up immigration cases in unprecedented numbersThe second Trump administration recorded its highest number of immigration arrests so far last month. One significant and alarming reason that is far less noticeable than armored, masked agents swaggering in the streets with weapons may be a sudden change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":218478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}