Student’s fate depends on overburdened court

As thousands across the nation took to the streets last Tuesday
to protest legislation that would increase penalties against
undocumented immigrants, Mario Escobar paced nervously in front of
the Los Angeles Immigration Court on Olive Street.

He was waiting for a judge to either deport him to El Salvador,
from which he fled following the country’s civil war, or
grant him political asylum.

Neither happened, as it turned out.

More than a year after Escobar’s court date was delayed
the first time, the fourth-year English and Spanish student’s
deportation hearing was pushed back for an additional six
months.

Judge William Martin Jr. was prepared to hear the case Tuesday,
and Escobar ““ with his wife, his psychologist and a friend in
tow ““ had come to the courtroom expecting resolution in his
bid for political asylum.

But the case was delayed because the counsel for the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security did not have his file.

Kristin Piepmeier, the U.S. government’s counsel, told
Martin she did not have Escobar’s file because, though she
had ordered it on March 17, it was accidently sent to the National
Records Center in Missouri.

“I made a mistake,” Piepmeier said, explaining that
she expected the file to arrive “any day now.”

The judge, visibly frustrated, expressed dismay at having to
delay the case after setting aside plenty of time to hear the
counsel’s position as well as Escobar’s defense and
testimony from his psychologist.

He urged Escobar’s lawyer to work toward an agreement with
the counsel in order to more quickly settle the case, and he
rescheduled the hearing for Sept. 13.

Escobar, who was in tears hours before the scheduled hearing,
said the postponement made him want to scream.

“I’m still in the same predicament,” he said.
“All I want is for this nightmare to be over.”

Escobar, who is an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador, fled
from his home country to the United States more than a decade ago.
He is applying for political sanctuary based on the trauma he
suffered during El Salvador’s civil war.

His father and grandmother were killed in that conflict, which
lasted from about 1979 to 1992. And as an 11-year-old near the end
of the war, Escobar was kidnapped and held for almost a year by
former members of the Salvadorian military.

Escobar’s hearing was not the only one postponed Tuesday.
An asylum hearing scheduled immediately before his was also pushed
back for six months.

Delays are common in Los Angeles’ immigration court, and
with a steady increase in immigration cases nationwide in recent
years, the situation appears unlikely to improve.

For Escobar, a delayed hearing means more months of anxiety, he
said, explaining that his unresolved case is also impeding upon his
efforts to become a professor.

During his time at UCLA, the 28-year-old student took early
steps down that path. He gave a lecture at UC Santa Barbara on the
difficulties Central Americans face in the United States, and spoke
about Roque Dalton, a Salvadorian poet, at California State
University, Northridge.

He is also scheduled to speak on April 7 at the Salvadorian
Embassy in Washington, D.C., about a literary magazine he
established as a forum for Central American issues.

But because of his status as an undocumented immigrant, he has
had to turn down offers to speak in El Salvador and Canada, and he
has had difficulty securing fellowships, he said.

Escobar is one of an estimated 11 million undocumented
immigrants in the United States at whom the Senate and the House
are aiming controversial immigration-reform proposals.

The differences in the two proposals illustrate the deep
ideological divide ““ in both Congress and the country at
large ““ over issues of illegal immigration.

The Senate Judiciary Committee recently released a proposal that
would give many current undocumented immigrants a path to
citizenship and establish a guest-worker program.

In contrast, the House’s bill, passed late last year,
would increase penalties for illegal immigration and erect a
700-mile-long wall between the United States and Mexico.

Opponents of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s proposal
call it an amnesty for illegal immigrants. Critics of the more
stringent bill passed by the House have said it is unnecessarily
harsh, unenforceable and would split up many families who have
undocumented members. Neither proposal is final, and as many of
their provisions are in direct opposition, they are likely to see
fierce debate in Congress before they can become law.

But either bill, if it goes into law as written, would likely
have dramatic effects on the nation’s immigration courts,
which are already dealing with a growing number of cases.

Between 2004 and 2005, the country’s immigration courts
saw a 23 percent increase in the number of cases received
nationwide, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Department
of Justice. The number of cases increased 31 percent from 2001 to
2005, from 282,396 to 368,848.

Los Angeles’ court has 23 judges and received 17,182 cases
in 2005.

The number in 2004 was 15,281.

And in these busy courts, delays caused by administrative
mistakes ““ like the one Escobar experienced ““ are not
uncommon, according to several immigration lawyers.

Armineh Ebrahimian, Escobar’s lawyer, said delays of all
types are common in Los Angeles’ court.

And Joren Lyons, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Asian
Law Caucus, said that though San Francisco’s immigration
court generally runs smoothly, cases are sometimes postponed
because of missing or misplaced files.

If the House’s bill becomes law, immigration courts could
see an additional influx of cases.

The House bill, HR4437, includes a provision that would make it
a felony to be an illegal resident of the United States, and would
make providing assistance to illegal immigrants a felony as
well.

Since the House bill seeks to crack down on illegal immigration
it would, if passed, ramp up deportations and have a “severe
impact on the dockets of the courts,” Lyons said.

Lyons also said the path toward legalization opened by the
Senate Judiciary Committee’s proposal could lessen strain on
immigration courts. But some facets of the proposal could increase
pressure on the courts.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s proposal, for example,
would allow for re-evaluations of undocumented immigrants’
criminal records, which could lead to deportations based on past
offenses, according to analysis of the proposal by the Immigrant
Legal Resource Center.

This provision could increase deportations and lessen the
discretion immigration judges can exercise, thereby increasing
strain on the courts, Lyons said.