A day in Immigration Court: Life-altering decisions with no lawyers

A man cradled his infant daughter in his arms as they sat alone before an immigration judge.

Judge Forrest Hoover III asked questions about the man’s asylum claim. After each query, he patiently paused to allow his words to be virtually interpreted into Haitian Creole, and then squawked back through a flat screen TV into the cramped Philadelphia Immigration Courtroom.

The man responded in concise yes or no answers, as the chair next to him — typically reserved for a lawyer — sat noticeably empty.

Behind him, over a dozen people squeezed into the restless gallery of wooden pews on Tuesday morning while they waited to have their case heard. They, too, would soon have to face the judge alone.

“Please start looking for an attorney and working on your asylum application,” Hoover told the man.

The man, who appeared to be in his 30s, returned to his seat with his daughter in her pink Sherpa jacket. The baby then began crawling on the carpeted floor of the Philadelphia Immigration Court before her father picked her up and placed her in the stroller.

Her coos and caws could be heard throughout the subsequent cases. Other children also fidgeted in the three rows of gallery pews. In all, about 15 people, including one from Dover, waited their turn to be heard inside the stripped down courtroom – no bigger than a modest living room.

They were there for a master calendar hearing – a day when numerous initial hearings are heard before an immigration judge and when they can admit or deny charges of removability and file an asylum application.

No one who had their case heard that morning was accompanied by an immigration lawyer.

Lawyers increasingly rare for immigration cases

Hoover, one of 10 judges in the Philadelphia court that also oversees Delaware cases, gave many in the court that day a year before their next hearing so that they could find a lawyer.

But, even with that amount of time, it will likely be a struggle.

In February, nearly 80% of immigrants — including unaccompanied children —  did not have a lawyer to represent them in Immigration Court when a removal order was issued, according to the nonpartisan data research nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

Unlike other courts, noncitizens in Immigration Court are not entitled to free legal counsel.

In Delaware, there are only a handful of immigration lawyers available to help people navigate the extraordinarily complex immigration process in the U.S., which touts a pending court backlog of nearly 3.7 million cases — and growing.

And the number of Delaware lawyers willing to take on such cases pro bono, or for free to clients, are even fewer. 

“It’s getting more and more difficult to be able to take on pro bono cases,” said Gabriela Pedroza Sanchez, senior paralegal with Lupton Law, which has locations in Georgetown and Pennsylvania.

Immigration cases take years to decide, and lawyers’ caseloads are only expected to get heavier as more people seek more legal aid amid the ramped up deportation efforts of the Trump administration.

Pedroza Sanchez said that she has already seen that uptick in the number of people seeking consultations or legal help after being detained.

But the lack of affordable legal help will ultimately lead to more people trying to represent themselves. The Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank concluded in a 2023 report, that those types of conditions lead to less fair outcomes and less efficiency in the court system.

And the yearslong backlog likely leads to people being less likely to be returned to their countries if they are denied asylum.

In the Philadelphia courtroom, Hoover dealt in years — many subsequent hearings were doled out for 2026 or 2027. For a few returning immigrants, it was their first time being seen by a judge in a year.

Life-altering decisions — regarding people’s fear of returning to their home country and the possibility of deportation — were chalked up to about five minutes before the next case was called.

“Judges are making life-or-death decisions, but in the equivalent of traffic court,” Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, said about the Immigration Court system.

In another case before Hoover last Tuesday, a little boy in a teal shirt sat at a table – typically where opposing lawyers would be — with his family sitting in front of the judge.

The judge waved at him from the head of the room.

The boy waved back.

Portuguese, French, English and Haitian Creole all filled the courtroom’s air as cases were heard. Following one 10-minute break, a woman from Brazil sat back down in her wooden seat, sighed and said, “Ay, Jesus Cristo.”

During secondary hearings when people didn’t have a lawyer, Hoover asked, “Do you understand that you have to represent yourself today?”

The answer was always yes. 

Backlog grows longer

Since the start of federal Fiscal Year 2025 in October, there have been 325,149 new cases filed in Immigration Court, according to TRAC. Additionally, there are nearly 2 million immigrants awaiting asylum hearings, which take an average of four years to initially be heard.

“It’s getting longer now because the backlog of the courts has just grown exponentially,” Pedroza Sanchez said in regard to how long it takes to oversee an immigration case.

Pedroza Sanchez’s firm, Lupton Law, has pending cases going back to 2016 with a final hearing date that’s still about two years away, she said. The firm has recently seen an increase in the number of consultation requests alongside people being detained. 

Murphy Law Firm, which has offices in Georgetown and Pennsylvania, was accustomed to having about six to nine clients in immigration detention at a time before 2025, according to Kevin Franco, an attorney with the firm.

Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the number jumped to about 30 clients.

“It puts a strain on us,” Franco said. “If I’m not going to be able to give 100% to a case, I can’t take it.”

In the Philadelphia courtroom, the pews slowly cleared as cases were heard and people were dismissed. Two children in the back pew near the door laughed and played with each other as their parents waited for their case to be called.

Soon, the bailiff stepped in and quietly put his finger to his mouth, gingerly asking the children to quiet down as the proceedings continued.

Finally, only one person remained in the pews. The woman from Brazil was the last one on the docket.

She walked over and sat at the table before Hoover. She was representing herself, she said.

“Are you afraid of returning to Brazil?” Hoover asked.

“At the present time, yes,” she answered.

Her hearing concluded and she, too, left the courtroom. The once-cramped room was finally empty.

Some people may not return to the courtroom for months — many for years. For now, it sat empty.