What Court Observers Are Seeing Behind Closed Doors
Witness for Justice court observers have documented how routine hearings or interviews can quickly turn into traps in immigration courts across the country. Observers have seen cases denied without full hearings, “voluntary” departures presented as favorable options, and the path to successful appeal narrowing so sharply that it has become inaccessible for many.
To illustrate what “doing things the right way” looks like under current practices, we’re highlighting some of the most common decision points an immigrant may face during the court process, and the high-stakes outcomes tied to each one:
- Attending a scheduled immigration court hearing or ICE check-in
- Seeking relief from immigration detention
- Feeling pressured to leave the U.S. without pursuing relief
- Applying for asylum based on fear of return
- Continuing to fight your case after a denial
Let’s walk this hallway alongside Mr. Mamadou Camara, an asylum seeker from Guinea who fled political persecution. For the past two years he has lived in the United States with his wife and they now have two U.S.citizen children. Despite filing his asylum application on time over a year ago, repeated rescheduling of preliminary status hearings has delayed the individual hearing where his asylum claim would actually be decided, leaving him in prolonged immigration limbo.
As we follow Mr. Camara through the choices placed before him, we’ll see how every door he opens seems to lead to the same place: no meaningful hearing, no real chance, and no way forward.
Attendance at Scheduled Hearings or ICE Check-Ins
For Mr. Camara, the next immigration court hearing should be simple: a quick check-in to keep his asylum case moving. But the climate around immigration enforcement has changed. High-profile immigration courthouse arrests have sent a chilling message, and now even showing up to a required hearing feels risky. This time, attending carries a new fear: simply walking into the building feels like stepping into a trap. As he weighs whether to go, the stakes are painfully clear. Doing what the law requires may expose him to the very harm he came to escape, and he finds himself asking a question no one in his position should have to ask: Is it safe to show up for my own hearing?
Is it safe to show up for my own hearing?
That fear is not unique to Mr. Camara. The highly publicized courthouse arrests at immigration courts earlier this year have had a lasting ripple effect. Even people who were never directly targeted, now hesitate to enter an immigration courthouse at all, worried that appearing for a mandatory check-in or hearing could put them in ICE’s path. Those fears are not unfounded. Former Immigration Judge Chloe Dillon observed a dramatic decline in court attendance that she attributed to the courthouse arrests: “At one master calendar hearing during the summer of 2025, only three people appeared on a calendar of twenty.” Judge Dillon further explained that these arrests “affected [her] ability to fairly administer [her] cases” and “using the courthouse as a dragnet for arresting people for removal . . . affected the perception of the court as separate from the enforcement function and was injurious to the court’s role as the impartial arbiter and neutral decisionmaker.”
In addition to the fear of attending court, abrupt changes in hearing schedules may also play a part in the large number of in absentia removal orders. In San Francisco alone, judges ordered more than 800 deportations in a single week after people failed to appear for hearings, many following sudden schedule changes or court backlogs, according to a recent KQED investigation. Public data show how quickly this dynamic has worsened. In absentia removal rates for asylum seekers have more than doubled from 10.6% in 2024 to 24.0% in 2025 and continued to grow to an alarmingly high 27.9% in the first months of 2026.
For Mr. Camara, the so-called “choice” to stay home so he can care for his family and avoid the immediate risk of detention and separation almost certainly leads to another trap. If he does not appear in court, a judge may order him deported in absentia and his asylum claim will be deemed abandoned. That kind of order ends his case immediately, often after months or even years of waiting, without any decision on his asylum claim.And for those who have already filed applications for relief from deportation, such as based on technicalities or missed deadlines, cutting off any chance to pursue protection. Mobile Pathways stated that in some jurisdictions cases dismissed as “abandoned” now outnumber cases denied on the merits, cutting off relief without ever reaching a substantive decision.
Once someone receives a deportation order, reopening the case becomes incredibly difficult. The rules are strict, the deadlines are short, and many people must navigate this uphill process without a lawyer. Meanwhile, the government can choose to carry out the deportation at any time, which may mean officers showing up at a person’s home or workplace. Families live with a constant fear that someone they love could be taken suddenly.
Seeking Relief from Immigration Detention
Despite his fears, Mr. Camara chooses to appear for his next immigration court hearing, believing that showing up is safer than being absent. But at the courthouse, that belief vanishes. He is one of the unlucky ones who gets arrested, immediately separated from his family, and transferred to an ICE detention center. What comes next is not a clear path to release, but a confusing tangle of inconsistent rules and closed doors.
People who show up for immigration court hearings or required ICE check-ins now face a system where the rules about detention and release are unclear and constantly changing. What once felt like a predictable process has turned into a moving target, where even judges disagree on who is eligible for release and who must remain in detention.
For years, many detained people could ask an immigration judge for release from detention on bond, allowing them to return home while their case moved forward. That changed in 2025, when a Board of Immigration Appeals case called Yajure Hurtado stripped immigration judges of the power to release many people on bond if they entered the country without permission. As The New York Times reported, “One of the administration’s most significant changes has been denying bond to many immigrants, as those in custody are more likely to accept deportation.” A federal lawsuit later restored bond eligibility for a nationwide group, but the confusion only deepened. In January 2026, the EOIR Chief Immigration Judge instructed judges to keep applying the restrictive rule in Hurtado anyway. Courts then reversed course again in February, ordering judges to hear bond requests from detained individuals nationwide after all and canceling the ruling in Hurtado.
The policy whiplash was immediately visible in public data. During the first year of the Trump administration, bond hearings dropped sharply from nearly 7,800 in July 2025 to just over 3,000 by November, even as detention increased, then surged again with more than 33,000 bond decisions being made between December 2025 and March 2026 alone. Since Trump returned to office, immigration judges have denied bond over 50,000 times, granted it fewer than 24,000 times, and recorded more than 12,900 withdrawn requests, reflecting a clear shift toward prolonged detention amid ongoing confusion.
For Mr. Camara, attending court means he is taken into custody and separated from his wife and two U.S. citizen children. From detention, he tries to ask for release on bond so he can return home while his case proceeds. But, according to court observers, whether he is even allowed to ask for bond depends on which courtroom he lands in that week. In some hearings, judges say they lack authority to hear bond requests. In others, judges acknowledge a federal class action that allows certain people to request bond—but question whether Mr. Camara qualifies. Sometimes judges delay a decision altogether while DHS argues the order is not final or does not apply. Other times, bond is denied outright and the case moves forward with only days to appeal. And if his case is heard in Texas, Louisiana or Mississippi, a Fifth Circuit ruling can eliminate the possibility of bond entirely, placing Mr. Camara in mandatory detention despite strong family ties and a pending asylum claim. The result is effectively preordained: continued detention, mounting uncertainty, and no clear sense of when—or whether—he will get a real chance to go home.
As bond hearings are routinely denied or stalled under shifting and conflicting guidance, more detained people are turning to habeas corpus petitions as a last resort. These petitions ask a federal judge to review whether someone’s detention is lawful, but they are complex, time-consuming, and difficult to pursue without a lawyer. As ProPublica has documented, immigration-related habeas filings have exploded to historic levels, overwhelming courts and legal advocates alike as people seek any path to challenge prolonged detention. Public court data shows that more than 59,000 immigration habeas petitions have been filed since 2008, with nearly 49,000 of them filed since President Trump’s inauguration. Filings accelerated rapidly in the second half of 2025 and even more in the beginning of 2026, underscoring how denial-heavy, inconsistent bond practices are pushing detained people into federal court in record numbers.
As the data below shows, these pressures are reshaping outcomes. Only a small fraction of habeas petitions are granted, and many remain pending for extended periods. Even when a petition succeeds, it often results only in a new bond hearing where release is frequently denied, leaving many detained people in custody for months without a meaningful chance of being released other than by deportation. During that time, the isolation, inhumane detention conditions, long separation from family, and limited access to legal help take a real toll. Under all that pressure, many people, even those with strong cases for protection, end up giving up and agreeing to leave the country. It’s a result that comes from an enforcement system that leans on detention and uncertainty to push people toward an outcome rather than giving them a fair chance to make their case.
Feeling Pressured to Leave the US without Pursuing Legal Relief
After several weeks in detention, Mr. Camara begins to feel the same pressures that many detained immigrants describe. The isolation is constant. His mental health worsens. Being separated from his family day after day becomes unbearable. His bond requests have gone nowhere, denied or endlessly delayed, and with each passing week, his hope of returning to his family while his case continues fades. During short phone calls, his wife and his older daughter ask when he is coming back. He tells them “soon,” even as he starts to doubt that himself.
In this environment, self-deportation starts to seem like an escape. Mr. Camara hears others in detention talk about leaving “on their own” as a way to go home faster. A deportation officer tells him that leaving voluntarily is “better for your record” and suggests it will make things easier in the future. There is even a $1,000 payment that the U.S. government will provide to people who self-deport which would help offset the months of him not working. What he does not hear is the full picture.
These messages blur the difference between self-deportation and voluntary departure and present both as harmless choices. Self-deportation simply means leaving the country before an immigration case is decided. Voluntary departure is a formal agreement to leave by a set date instead of receiving a removal order. Both are often framed as clean exits, but in reality they can carry serious and lasting consequences.
Exhausted and desperate, Mr. Camara begins to believe that agreeing to leaving will allow him to return to Guinea temporarily and then come back legally, reuniting with his family sooner. What he does not realize is that leaving the country, in any form, can trigger years-long bans on returning—even with a visa—and would permanently end his asylum case and undermine any future claim he might wish to make.
Court observers say Mr. Camara’s experience is increasingly common. Across the country, people are choosing to leave not because their cases are weak, but because detention has made every other option feel impossible. Observers report months without family contact, untreated medical needs, and deep detention fatigue. In case after case, the pressure of confinement outweighs even the strength of people’s asylum cases.Judges often describe voluntary departure as a “best option,” reinforcing the idea that relief is out of reach and that leaving is the only way to end the suffering.
The trend shows up in the data as well. According to a CBS News report, in 2025, voluntary departure made up the largest share of completed detained removal cases ever recorded, and the percentage continued to rise as detention populations grew, conditions worsened, and access to lawyers and bond narrowed. Under these circumstances, decisions labeled “voluntary” are often shaped by fear, exhaustion, and lack of information—not by a free and informed choice.
Self-Deportation Flyer
The pressure is amplified by the messaging people encounter in court itself. A striking example is the self deportation flyer displayed in immigration courts nationwide and mailed to respondents along with hearing notices. The flyer—titled “Message to Illegal Aliens: A Warning to Self Deport” and bearing the Department of Justice seal—lists supposed “benefits” of self deportation, such as choosing one’s own flight, keeping U.S. earnings, and preserving future immigration options. It pairs these claims with severe threats for those who do not selfdeport, including immediate removal, daily fines of up to $998, possible incarceration, and long-term bars to lawful reentry.
This messaging is deeply misleading. Self-deportation is not a form of legal relief, and no law creates special protections or guaranteed future benefits for people who choose it. Leaving the country in this way can carry many of the same long-term consequences as deportation, including years-long bars to re-entry, despite assurances to the contrary.
Rather than providing clear and neutral information, these flyers and ads function as pressure tactics, framing departure as the safest or smartest option. For people like Mr. Camara—detained for weeks, cut off from loved ones, worn down by uncertainty, and struggling to understand their rights—this messaging can be the final push toward giving up and leaving, even when they have strong asylum claims and legal options still available.
Applying for Asylum Based on Fear of Persecution
Despite weeks of detention and constant pressure to give up, Mr. Camara decides to keep fighting for asylum based on his fear of political persecution in Guinea. But when his case reaches court, he encounters another major barrier: pretermission—a process that allows a judge to deny an asylum claim based only on paperwork, without allowing the person to tell his story in court.
Since late 2025, court observers have documented a sharp increase in these paper-only denials. Judges are now encouraged to reject asylum cases early if the written application is viewed as legally insufficient, unclear, or too weak on its face. Judges are also being told in recent trainings to grant asylum only in rare cases, with new recruits to EOIR being given brief courses that emphasize faster decisions and more denials. Instead of full hearings, many of these decisions are made during brief scheduling sessions. Courtroom observers documented what public data later confirmed, that by January 2026, more than 1 in 5 people with an asylum hearing faced a government motion to dismiss their case without a hearing, rising to over 1 in 3 at their asylum merits hearings.
One of the most aggressive uses of pretermission has involved Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACAs)—government agreements that allow the U.S. to deny an asylum case by claiming the person can seek protection in a different country instead. Once the government designates a country as “safe,” judges are expected to accept that conclusion, even when the asylum seeker has never lived in or traveled to that country and has no evidence or history there. Examples of countries people have been ordered removed to include Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Uganda. As a result, many asylum cases have been denied without testimony and routed toward removal to unfamiliar third countries. Mobile Pathways’ data shows sharp spikes in these ACA-linked pretermissions.
On March 12, 2026, DHS issued nationwide guidance instructing its lawyers to pause new ACA-based pretermission filings. This does not overturn pretermissions that already happened, does not require judges to revisit pending motions, and does not guarantee the pause will last. The practical takeaway is that the grounds for pretermission are shifting, and ACA-based denials could return.
At the same time, case-tracking data shows that pretermission has continued to rise even outside the ACA context. In cases where no third-country transfer was involved, judges still denied asylum on the papers and ordered people removed to their home countries. Case-tracking data from Backlog shows that these non-ACA pretermissions jumped from just 29 cases in March 2025 to more than 1,300 cases in both January and February 2026, showing that paper-only denials are increasingly common regardless of the legal theory used.
For Mr. Camara, this reality hits directly. When his case is called, the government asks the judge to deny his asylum request without letting him speak. They argue that his written application is “legally insufficient” under current Board of Immigration Appeals standards and claim that he is barred from seeking asylum in the U.S. because he could supposedly be sent to a designated third country instead. Recent BIA case law instructs judges to consider these third-country bars before anything else, which makes it easier for the government to secure a paper-only denial.
At the end of 2025, the U.S. government added Uganda to its list of countries designated for these transfers. Court observers have already documented judges naming Uganda as the country of removal in these paper-only denials, even when the person has never been there and no transfer has actually taken place. For someone like Mr. Camara, this means his asylum claim could be rejected without him ever testifying, and he could be ordered removed to a country to which he has no ties and in which he does not speak the language.
Appealing an Asylum Claim after a Denial
For the small number of people who manage to keep fighting their cases through detention and repeated denials, the final step—appealing a loss—offers little real hope. The immigration appeals process technically exists, but in practice under this administration it rarely changes outcomes. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which reviews decisions made by immigration judges, sides with the government in an overwhelming majority of cases. An NPR analysis of publicly available BIA decisions found that in 2025 the board ruled against immigrants in 97 percent of its published cases, a level far higher than under prior administrations, and that trend has largely continued into 2026. As former BIA judges told NPR, the board is no longer functioning primarily as a check on immigration judge errors, but instead as a vehicle for locking in enforcement drivenoutcomes.
Legal scholars have reached the same conclusion at scale. A forthcoming Yale Law Journal analysis of BIA decisions under the Trump administration documents what it calls a “procedural architecture of futility,” showing that across tens of thousands of appeals, grant rates have collapsed and outcomes have become strikingly uniform regardless of the facts, the legal issue, or whether a person has a lawyer. Even when immigrants technically win on appeal, the decisions are often so narrow that they provide little real protection, while losses routinely come in the form of short, opaque rulings that simply affirm the original denial.
In early 2026, the Department of Justice sought to make this system even more unforgiving by issuing a rule that would have drastically shortened appeal deadlines and allowed most appeals to be dismissed without meaningful review. On March 9, a federal judge blocked the harshest parts of that rule preventing a wholesale gutting of the appellate process, but it did not make the system meaningfully more accessible or fair.
Even without those blocked changes, appeals remain extraordinarily difficult, especially for people who are detained or unrepresented. Deadlines are tight, filing fees are high (over $1,000), and the board increasingly uses precedent to foreclose broad categories of claims before individual facts are ever considered. For many detained people, appealing does not feel like a meaningful review by a neutral appellate body. It feels like a final, largely symbolic step before removal.
In practice, this means appeals often delay the inevitable rather than deliver meaningful review. As detention drags on and legal options disappear, many people come to believe that there is nowhere left to turn and that the system is designed to make sure of it.