chillgamesh-the-swing:

wtfisgoingonews:

cthulhulovesewe:

wtfisgoingonews:

Yesterday (Wed. Sept 11) the first court hearings in these tent-courts began and journalists were denied access. The judges will be conducting between 200 and 250 hearings a day over video teleconference and immigration lawyers are already reporting technical difficulties. Immigration courts are normally open to the public but reporters and general residents were all barred from entering. 

This bit of information is also interesting: 

These tent courts weren’t even needed!

According to the article above:

The city had offered to lease Homeland Security an air-conditioned, 21,000 square-foot office building for 18 months for only $1, but Homeland Security officials declined the offer, they said, “because of the importance of having an operational hearing facility within the following two months to ensure timely hearings for migrants.”

Brownsville, Texas literally offered to have these cases in a normal, air-conditioned building but Homeland Security declined and chose to spend $25 million dollars erecting these tents over the summer. 

Now why would they do that? Well these tent courts were explicitly built on Homeland Security land - meaning they set the rules on public access AND there’s a serious lack of jurisdiction over these courts. The cruelty is the point. 

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THESE TENTS?

“… between 200 and 250 hearings a day…”

Calling these kangaroo courts would be way too generous. Fuck the US.

And reminder that this is what we saw a little over a year ago in Brownsville, Texas:

I’d also suggest everyone read the article that accompanied these trial photos: HIDDEN HORRORS OF “ZERO TOLERANCE” — MASS TRIALS AND CHILDREN TAKEN FROM THEIR PARENTS

Some excerpts:

On April 30, Torteya was on duty and was informed that he had 41 “illegal entry” cases — about six times more than usual. Accompanying each of these immigrants’ criminal cases was paperwork from the U.S. Attorney’s office with a label at the top reading “Attorney General Zero Tolerance Initiative.” Attorneys and staff from the Federal Public Defenders were ordered to represent this startling mass of defendants who would go into court at 10 a.m. The public defenders had less than two hours to speak with all 41 people. That worked out to just a few minutes per defendant.

Soon, this scenario was being repeated daily in Morgan’s court, with the added feature of people telling the judge that they were afraid to go back to their countries — and that the U.S. government was taking away their children.

Each day was the same. The courtroom was filled with exhausted immigrants, with hands cuffed and shackled to their waists, their legs in chains — dozens of defendants stumbling, shuffling, clanking, and clanging in tandem. “Raise your right hand,” Morgan commanded as a translator spoke Spanish into their headphones. The shackled defendants struggled to comply.

…

On the second day, he was more laconic and direct, explaining that the government had made “a decision that there is to be zero tolerance.”

It was unclear if the silent defendants had a clue about what the judge was referring to.

Each day, the proceedings continued with the judge offering defendants the chance to take the microphone and address him before they were sentenced. As the week wore on, several did.

One man told Morgan that he wanted to apologize for entering the United States illegally. But he’d done so, he explained, because “I have been kidnapped twice. I have a vegetable business. In my country, I can’t work. That’s all.”

“I can’t do anything about it,” Morgan replied. “Coming in illegally is just going to make a bad situation worse.

A very small, very young woman with chiseled features and disheveled hair spoke. She had been apprehended two days earlier after rafting across the Rio Grande near a county park with big trees and picnic tables that abuts the international line. She wept as she told Morgan, “I’d like to apologize, but the circumstances in my country made me do it.” She said she’d been almost raped and killed there, and she had come to the U.S. for protection and to see if she could help her sisters escape the danger.

“You are going to be sent to one of the immigration camps,” Morgan said.

reminder that asking for asylum is not a crime and overstaying a visa is a civil infraction on par with jaywalking