CHELMSFORD — The Trump administration’s overhaul of the immigration system has propelled days of chaos here this week at the immigration court.
A wave of suddenly rescheduled cases, moved months or years earlier from their original dates, has overwhelmed the infrastructure at the court — leaving immigrants and their attorneys alarmed and confused. Several newly appointed judges taking on cases here lack immigration law experience. One of them appeared unprepared to handle the sheer volume of cases assigned to him.
In courtrooms, families with young children waited more than six hours for their cases to be heard. One judge had about 150 cases on his docket in one day, mechanically issuing deportation orders and denying asylum applications, one after the other. Some courtrooms crowded with dozens of people, overflowing into the hallways, as they strained to hear their names called.
“It was complete disarray,” said Sally Strniste, an immigration lawyer at Humanitas Legal Group in Boston, who went to the court on Tuesday for a client’s case. “It’s astonishing and deeply disturbing.”
Immigrants and their attorneys said they did not get notice that they had to appear for hearings this week — despite the Department of Justice’s own immigration court practice manual stating the court will send notifications by mail if there are any changes to the date, location, or time of an initial hearing.
They had happened to check their online case portals, and rushed to make it. Others missed their cases entirely, likely resulting in deportation orders.
Strniste said she tried to get more information from the court, but her emails and calls went unanswered.
And Strniste, along with many other New England-area attorneys who regularly come to the Chelmsford court, say that the disorganization here isn’t a coincidence. It seems, attorneys say, to be a deliberate move by the Trump administration to dissuade people from pursuing their cases — and serves as a tool to order as many people deported, as quickly as possible.
Strniste called it “chaos with intention.”
Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative group that supports restrictive immigration policies, said the Trump administration was focused on lowering the immense immigration court backlog of more than 3 million cases — and “tightening up on the standards” of asylum applications.
Immigrants can always take decisions up with the Board of Immigration Appeals, the highest administrative body which applies immigration law, Arthur said. “Even if there are concerns, there are still opportunities for review,” he said.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.
In courtroom 18 on the third floor Wednesday, dozens of people packed into immigration Judge Christopher Cooper’s courtroom. They largely came from across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Cooper was appointed to the bench in Detroit by the Trump administration in April. Before that, according to his Executive Office for Immigration Review bio, he was an attorney for the Fraternal Order of Police, and worked in Illinois and Indiana federal courts as a private practice lawyer.
But now, he would be filling in as a judge in Chelmsford for six months, he said in court.
On Wednesday, he appeared remotely and ordered more than 20 people deported at their master calendar hearings, which are usually just an initial scheduling hearing.
For immigrant petitioners, Cooper’s courtroom was particularly confusing, and intimidating. He sided frequently with the requests from the Department of Homeland Security attorney, Daniel Hyuck, who often asked the judge to preemptively deny asylum and order immigrants deported.
Mayra Neimerck, a Woburn-based immigration attorney, had two cases with Cooper on Wednesday. Cooper ordered both of Neimerck’s clients from Brazil, who entered the country between the ages of 18 and 21, deported.
Neimerck was on maternity leave when she noticed around early September on the portal that some of her cases had been suddenly scheduled without notice. Since she could not quickly come to Chelmsford in person, she found an attorney to cover for her — but hopped on a video conference for the hearing.
“It is the court’s due diligence and due process to provide a hearing notice,” Neimerck told the judge sternly. “The respondent didn’t even know that there was a hearing today, because there was no hearing notice issued in the first place.”
Neimerck asked for just a few more days to file an asylum application, and noted that her client, a 20-year-old woman, already had an approved application for a special humanitarian status given to juveniles. This could eventually make her eligible for legal permanent residency.
Cooper appeared unmoved.
Hyuck, the DHS attorney, requested the judge issue a deportation order. Cooper agreed. The young woman, who appeared in person, dabbed her eyes with tissues as the news was given to her.
Throughout the hearings, Cooper also frequently dismissed the validity of asylum claims before him. A number of immigrants had to recount personal — and sometimes violent — experiences.
Typically, these decisions and testimonies would take place down the line, during merits hearings, where both sides fully lay out their case before the judge.
But on Wednesday, Cooper continuously asked asylum seekers and their lawyers to testify about the conditions they endured — then was quick to say they would likely fail to qualify for asylum.
One attorney said her client faced persecution and police brutality based on his gender identity and sexual orientation in his home country of Brazil, including beatings and threats to his life.
Cooper quickly indicated that this wouldn’t be a basis for asylum, saying he was “already super skeptical.”
“Brazil’s not much different from the United States when it comes to treatment of people who are gay,” Cooper said. “Some of the reports indicate the quality of life in Brazil, in fact, is superior to that in the United States.”
Cooper then invoked his own first career as a police officer, saying he had been “a good policeman.” One rogue officer, he said, “doesn’t implicate the whole government.”
In the afternoon, those who had been called to court squeezed together, facing an empty bench and waited. Cooper and a DHS attorney, appeared remotely — it was unclear from where — their faces on screens. The court clerk appeared remotely from Texas, the camera off.
The toddlers and elementary-age school children in the room grew tired and impatient. A 6-year-old boy from Ecuador, who had been at the court for about six hours, lay on the floor. He tugged at his mother’s sleeve. “I want to go,” he told her in Spanish. “I’m hungry.”
Toward the end of the day, Cooper indicated that from his screen, he could not see everyone still in person. A volunteer court observer had to step in. “There’s people here!” the observer exclaimed, exasperated, as she waved at the judge on the screen.
Stella Ko, another volunteer there, took it upon herself to go find a court employee to collect everyone’s information. She felt like she had to triage the situation. “That’s the first time I’ve seen that much chaos,” said Ko, who has been observing hearings since this spring.
A number of cases would soon have to be rescheduled; time was running out and the court was going to close.
Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio can be reached at giulia.mcdnr@globe.com. Follow her @giuliamcdnr.