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Master calendar hearings are when immigrants in deportation proceedings first appear before a judge and are informed of their rights and the charges they may be facing. It’s a crucial first step in deportation proceedings that can occur on an individual basis or in groups of a few people.
But in recent weeks, attorneys like Perez said they are seeing as many as 100 people slotted for the same time with little to no notice in advance, prompting them to call these hearings “mega masters,” which they say could be a new tactic by the Trump administration aimed at deporting as many people as quickly as possible.
Multiple attorneys told ABC News that, in some cases, scheduled master calendar hearings are being abruptly canceled and consolidated into larger proceedings.
On Monday, attorney Briana Carlson represented a client in Virginia at one of the hearings and the judge announced she had 80 cases on the docket, she said. Her client’s hearing had originally been scheduled for July.
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Carlson said that when she reached out to an immigration court in Sterling, Virginia, for a different case that had also been rescheduled, a clerk notified her that the court had received a nationwide directive to advance master calendar hearings if they’re scheduled in July or later.
A spokesperson for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, an agency within the Department of Justice that oversees immigration courts, did not deny the existence of the directive, and in part, said the agency “prioritizes the timely completion of all cases.”
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Reports of the massive hearings across the country have prompted the American Immigration Lawyers Association to issue guidance to lawyers, urging them to constantly check their online calendars to see if their cases have been rescheduled.
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The post Immigration Attorneys Say Some Courts Are Holding Over 100 Case Hearings Daily appeared first on American Renaissance.
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