Page 6 - ARUBA TODAY

A6 U.S. NEWS
Monday 9 July 2018
California, long a holdout, adopts mass immigration hearings
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A fed-
eral judge was irritated
when an attorney for doz-
ens of people charged
with crossing the border il-
legally asked for more time
to meet with clients before
setting bond.
It was pushing 5 p.m. on
a Friday in May, and the
judge in San Diego was
wrestling with a surge in her
caseload that resulted from
the Trump administration’s
“zero-tolerance” policy to
prosecute everyone who
enters the country illegally.
“It’s been a long week,”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Nita
Stormes said, suggesting border illegally, are apprehended by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in San Diego.
In Tucson, Arizona, a judge
sees up to 75 defendants a
day, about five to seven at
a time, in hearings that last
about two hours.
In the McAllen, Texas, fed-
eral courthouse 73 people
who were cuffed at the
ankles lined up in six rows
of wood benches. They
pleaded guilty at the same
time in a morning session
last month. About two-thirds
were sentenced to the few
days of time served. The
rest got between 10 and
60 days because they had
been previously deported
or had criminal convictions.
Carol Lam, the U.S. attor-
In this June 28, 2018, file photo, a Guatemalan father and son, who crossed the U.S.-Mexico ney in San Diego when
Streamline began until
Associated Press 2007, said zero-tolerance
that the court needed compared to other border programs are “ultimately
more judges and public districts that have been ineffective,” saying they
defenders. doing mass hearings for boost conviction numbers
On Monday, the court will years. The Southern District but don’t have a propor-
try to curb the caseload by of Texas’ four border-ar- tionate impact on reduc-
assigning a judge to over- ea courts handled nearly ing crime.
see misdemeanor immi- 9,500 illegal-entry cases in “The sentences become
gration cases and holding the eight weeks after zero much shorter to the point
large, group hearings that tolerance took full effect, where everyone is getting
critics call assembly-line jus- though those courts saw time served or a few weeks
tice. The move puts Califor- their numbers balloon too. in custody, and they’re
nia in line with other border The District of Arizona car- turned around and come
states, and it captures the ried more than three times back in again,” she said.
strain that zero tolerance California’s number of cas- “At the end of the day, the
has put on federal courts, es in May. system grinds down to a
particularly in the nation’s The mass hearings can be halt and things start dete-
most populous state, which traced back to Decem- riorating.”
has long resisted mass ber 2005, when the Border Attorney General Jeff Ses-
hearings for illegal border Patrol introduced “Opera- sions, who has held up
crossing. tion Streamline” in Del Rio, Streamline as a model, was
Immigration cases were Texas, to prosecute every the first attorney general
light for the first few months illegal entry. Over the next to seriously challenge Cali-
of the year in the Southern three years, the practice fornia’s position. In May,
District of California. There spread to every federal he announced that the
were no illegal-entry cas- court district along the Homeland Security Depart-
es in February, only four in border except California, ment would refer every ar-
March and 16 in April, ac- whose federal prosecu- rest for prosecution, which
cording to the clerk’s of- tors argued that scarce led to widespread separa-
fice. But when zero toler- resources could be better tion of children from their
ance took full effect, the spent going after smug- parents. Adam Braverman,
caseload skyrocketed to gling networks and repeat the newly appointed U.S.
513 in May and 821 in June. crossers with serious crimi- attorney in San Diego, had
Those numbers pale when nal histories. no room to push back.q