DOJ Mass Hearings Accelerate Deportations, Raising Due-Process Alarms

The Department of Justice has begun scheduling immigration master calendar hearings with 100 or more individuals at a time, a dramatic shift from previous practice that immigration attorneys say strips due-process protections from some of the most vulnerable people in the federal court system.

The new format represents a significant departure from the prior standard, in which roughly two to three dozen individuals were seen at a single first hearing, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which tracks immigration court trends nationwide. Attorneys familiar with the sessions say the hearings predominantly target individuals who lack legal representation. Anyone who arrives late or fails to appear receives an automatic removal order.

For Treasure Coast families, the stakes are immediate. St. Lucie and Martin counties each carry substantial immigrant populations, many of them with pending immigration proceedings in the Miami or Orlando immigration courts, which serve South Florida. An automatic removal order issued at one of these mass sessions — because a bus ran late, because a parent misread a hearing notice, because an interpreter was unavailable — can end a years-long case in minutes.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association described the tactic as unprecedented and has been documenting the sessions as they spread across the country. Immigration attorneys argue the format makes meaningful legal participation nearly impossible, effectively converting what is supposed to be a preliminary procedural hearing into a de facto deportation proceeding.

The Justice Department has not publicly commented on the legal association's characterization of the sessions. The department has framed its broader immigration enforcement push as necessary to reduce a historically large backlog in immigration courts, which has grown to several million pending cases.

The acceleration of deportation hearings comes as the Trump administration has simultaneously reduced legal aid funding for immigration proceedings, compounding the representation gap the new hearing format exploits, immigration attorneys said.

No date has been set for any congressional oversight hearing on the immigration court tactic.

This article was generated with AI assistance using publicly available information. It was reviewed and approved by a human editor before publication. TC Sentinel uses AI writing tools in accordance with FTC guidelines.