Amid ICE sweeps, judges are protecting the rights of immigrants

Washington Post

4 hours ago

The Trumpian vision of the U.S. immigration system is dramatic and nightmarish: clots of agents showing up at schools, government offices, courthouses, workplaces and homes, dressed in the jackets of an alphabet soup of agencies, sometimes masked, often armed. They scoop up undocumented immigrants and ship them off to wherever they came from — or to whatever godforsaken place will take them, if for a price.
But the federal government is a hulking iceberg of bureaucracy, and deep inside its wounded guts, a quieter force persists: Even with the layoffs, buyouts, cutbacks and frequent storms of executive commands, the machine grinds on, dispensing something closer to justice.
In Hyattsville, Maryland, about 12 miles from Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in D.C., on the sixth floor of a largely unmarked federal office building in the middle of a struggling suburban retail development, the U.S. immigration apparatus is still accepting and protecting newcomers from the chaos created by the president and his SWAT-team-wannabe acolytes.
Across the Potomac River in Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) ordered state law enforcement to cooperate with the feds, leading to raids on hundreds of immigrants. In the District, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who often spoke of Washington as a 'proud sanctuary city,' has done a 180 and is cooperating with the president's enforcement efforts because there's little she can do to stop ICE, and, as she put it last month, 'this is Donald Trump's America.'
But here in Hyattsville, 16 immigration judges churn through their endless dockets — hundreds of people, handing over reams of paperwork, speaking through tears to emotionless translators and empathetic judges, searching for some way to get legal status, some way to stay in the country that, even now, offers them their best shot.
These immigrants, the great majority of whom arrived illegally, have hit the lottery: They've landed in a courthouse where judges actually seem inclined to help them find a way to stay.
Let's visit Judge Rebecca Niburg's courtroom. Niburg denied asylum to only 35 percent of the people who came before her between 2019 and 2024, which is pretty much on par with her colleagues in Hyattsville but way below the national average of 58 percent.
As the cases flit by, each taking only a few minutes, the stories blur: Yudy Estrada, a Bolivian woman here with her toddler, is having trouble getting records from her hometown that might convince a judge that she would face bodily harm if she went back.
When the judge asks Breyser Medina Gutierrez, a refugee from Colombia who said he illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in September, what country he should be sent to if he's found ineligible for asylum, the man says, 'I don't have any country I would feel safe in except this country.'
Too bad, the judge rules seconds later: 'I will designate Colombia as the country you'll be sent to if you're found to be removable.'
The people coming before Niburg this day are mostly from Venezuela or Colombia. (The only English-speaking immigrant to appear is from Nigeria.)
Dirimo Marin has brought a huge stack of documents to court. It's his application for asylum. The judge leafs through the pile and asks who helped put it together.
'An attorney,' Marin says.
'Probably not an attorney,' Niburg replies. There's no signature on the line where the attorney is supposed to sign — a mistake a legit lawyer probably wouldn't make.
'It's a guy,' Marin concedes. 'He's in Venezuela.'
Marin's next stop is a final hearing on whether he may remain in this country, but Niburg offers to let Marin postpone that day of reckoning.
'How much time do you need?' she asks.
'As much time as you can give me,' Marin replies.
Time for a helpful leading question: 'Is that because you are trying to gather evidence?'
Oh, yeah, that, Marin says. He tells the judge about being struck in the back by authorities back home. The doctor who treated him was in hiding, so there are no records of his injury.
He takes a deep breath and tries for a big extension: 'November?'
Granted. Next case.
Over and over, the same routine, the same stretching out of cases well into next year. The overall vibe here is kindly: The judge patiently explains each step, dispensing advice on how to get asylum applications in order, repeatedly offering to extend the time before their final hearing.
Although these judges work for Attorney General Pam Bondi, their demeanor and approach couldn't be more different. For all the damage Elon Musk's minions have done to the government's ability to serve taxpayers, it marches on, doing its work, if fitfully at times.
Down in the guts of the system, you see how much of the Trump assault is show. He and his devout MAGA appointees would have you believe they are tossing immigrants out of the country at record levels. False. The reigning champion of deportations remains President Barack Obama. The Trump administration would like us to think it pioneered the push to get undocumented immigrants to self-deport. False. As immigrants await hearings in Hyattsville, they're offered a 'self-help guide' titled 'Do You Just Want to Go Home?' It's a handy packet with instructions on how to self-deport — published by the Biden administration.
This is not to say Trump and de facto immigration czar Stephen Miller are playacting. No, Miller has been pushing since his teens to clean foreigners out of the country. He and his fellow policymakers are gleefully stretching the limits of the law, fighting to expand the president's power, skirting due process and putting people on outbound planes.
In response, some immigrants are lying low and some are leaving the country. Among politicians, some erstwhile supporters of newcomers have gone silent and some are groveling before Trump.
But even as ICE agents show up at immigration courts and whisk people into vans that take them to who knows where, the 'deep state' can still push back. Simply by doing their job, feds who know and respect the law can mitigate Trump's lunge for authority and chaos. In federal offices across the country, largely shielded from public view, that's exactly what they're doing.