Immigration Courts Are Relying on Bad Tech
Immigration courts increasingly rely on video teleconference hearings, but those proceedings come with their own problems
As immigration court backlogs balloon to nearly 900,000 cases, the Trump administration has taken at least one decidedly technocratic approach to governance: expanding the use of video teleconference (VTC) court hearings, in which detained migrants, or the judges themselves, can beam into court. As long as wires aren’t crossed and the technology is running smoothly, the hearings are meant to proceed as normal. But the “solution,” as anybody who has ever conducted an office videoconference surely knows, comes with its own problems.
The Department of Justice claims that such VTC hearings save money and time. While the increased efficiency is in dispute by attorneys and advocates, it does seem to be resulting in more deportations. But immigration attorneys claim that VTC hearings undercut their clients’ access to due process and contribute to the growing backlog of pending immigration cases. Given the ever-expanding role such a process plays in immigration courts — in 2018 there were more than 125,000 TVC hearings, a 14.5% increase from the previous year — it’s quite possible that, in the near future, people coming to this country seeking asylum will…
