Red and blue flyers urging immigrants to self-deport have been posted in immigration courts nationwide, including in Kansas City.
Concerns about the notices have been building, with allegations that the flyers are another way the federal government is undercutting due process within the nation’s immigration courts, a system that has long been criticized for its lack of independence.
The nation’s 71 immigration courts aren’t part of the judicial branch of government. Rather, the judges and their decisions fall under the U.S. attorney general, who can insert themself into court decisions and discipline or fire immigration judges.
The structure, critics have long argued, leaves immigration courts open to politicization.
The flyers urging immigrants to self-deport are stamped with the U.S. Department of Justice seal.
“Courts are supposed to be impartial arbiters,” said Genevra Alberti, chair of the Missouri/Kansas chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “There is nothing impartial about these flyers.”
The lawyers association, also known as AILA, is tracking the flyers nationally. It notes that they have been sent to immigrants in emails and mailed along with information advising on appeal processes — even to immigrants who have won their asylum cases.
AILA alleges that the notices have also been emailed to immigration attorneys as an attachment, but not placed into the official record of proceedings on a case.
“The flyers are very misleading and seem to violate the kind of independence that immigration judges should have,” said Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, practice and policy counsel with AILA.
The notices urging self-deportation are described as akin to a defendant entering a courtroom expecting a fair, unbiased adjudication. But instead, the person encounters notices urging them to admit guilt and present themselves for prison.
“This is basically saying, ‘Give up your right to fight to stay here,’“ Alberti said. “And on top of it, the flyer is just incredibly misleading and confusing.”
The press secretary for the Office of Policy/Executive Office for Immigration Review, which manages the courts within the U.S. Department of Justice, declined to comment.
Two of the flyers, in English and Spanish, are posted in the waiting room of Kansas City’s immigration court.
They have also been seen by local immigration attorneys laid on tables where an immigrant would sit during proceedings.
The flyers are part of what critics contend is the Trump administration’s overreach in attempting to fulfill the campaign promise to deport millions of undocumented people.
Critics also contend it’s an effort to do so without addressing the backlog of more than 3.6 million cases in immigration courts, including about 2 million asylum applications.
On Monday, May 5, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would pay immigrants $1,000 and reimburse them for the airline flight if they remove themselves from the U.S.
AILA called those offers “a deeply misleading and unethical trick,” in a statement.
“AILA cautions individuals when reviewing the announcement to understand it is deceptive and gives people the impression there are no consequences, such as being barred from returning in the future.”
Alberti doubts that the government would ever make good on payments, and said the administration is attempting to deceive people into giving up their rights.
“If there was ever a really clear reason why we need independent immigration court that’s not part of the executive branch, it would be this,” Alberti said.
Immigration Court 101
The nation’s 71 immigration courts are administrative.
They are separate from criminal and civil courts, which are forms of judicial proceedings that are more familiar to the public.
The difficulty of explaining immigration court was illustrated last fall, when the Missouri
General Assembly held a series of hearings focused on immigrants.
Kansas City immigration attorney Michael Sharma-Crawford explained to legislators gathered at a Kansas City hearing that people often wrongly equate a migrant’s undocumented status with criminal conduct, in part because of confusion about the role of the nation’s immigration courts in adjudicating issues like an application for asylum.
The act of crossing a border without proper documentation is generally a misdemeanor, he said.
But immigration courts also use terms usually aligned with criminal proceedings.
“When we use the word illegal, what we’re saying is that the person is acting contrary to law, but not that they’re a criminal, even though the immigration process uses terms like arrest, warrant, jail, bond,” said Sharma-Crawford.
The trial-level immigration courts and the appellate-level Board of Immigration Appeals are both managed by the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is part of the Department of Justice.
Kansas City’s downtown immigration court has three judges and a backlog of more than 53,000 cases as of March.
Criticism of the immigration court’s structure is bipartisan and decades old.
The National Association of Immigration Judges has long argued for a different structure.
Ashley Tabaddor, a former immigration judge in Los Angeles, was president of the association from 2017 to 2021, when she was appointed chief counsel of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under the Biden administration.
Tabaddor, in a video recorded while she was president of the judges’ group, called out the fact that the U.S. attorney general can insert themself into an immigration case, essentially switching from the role of the nation’s chief prosecutor to becoming the judge deciding the case.
“Cases are then stripped from the judge’s docket and the attorney general issues a decision, often rewriting the law to suit the whims of the political party in power,” said Tabaddor. “This is not blind justice.”
In January 2022, the National Immigration Forum also urged reform.
The more than 40-year-old advocacy group called out increased politicization of the courts during a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing entitled “For the Rule of Law, An Independent Immigration Court.”
Testimony argued that both Democratic and Republican administrations had made policy changes affecting docket priorities, prosecutorial discretion and the certification of cases to create and/or reexamine legal precedents. Various administrations had done so while also controlling funding of the courts.
The actions are disruptive, “leading to swings from administration to administration,” according to the submitted statement of the National Immigration Forum.
The forum’s testimony also discussed the fact that the U.S. attorney general oversees the immigration courts and the federal district and appeals courts, which are sometimes asked to intervene on immigration matters.
“These competing responsibilities of the attorney general create an inherent conflict of interest that was embedded in the foundation of the immigration court system,” the forum testified.
Big backlogs, especially asylum cases
The structure of the courts also is cited as one reason that backlogs have continued to grow, even while the number of judges appointed to serve has grown dramatically in recent years.
At least 36 of the nation’s more than 700 immigration judges have been terminated since President Donald Trump took office this year. Most were dismissed during their two-year probationary period, said Dojaquez-Torres.
The Trump administration has also cut the number of people on the Board of Immigration Appeals, she said.
Dismissing judges undercuts the courts’ abilities to address the backlogs, said Dojaquez-Torres.
And trying to convince immigrants to drop their claims for legal asylum is horribly misleading, critics said.
“Say your asylum case was granted, but then you’re also getting this flyer calling you an illegal alien and telling you to self-deport,” said Dojaquez-Torres. “That’s very confusing.”
There is no study, beyond anecdotal stories, on whether immigrants are leaving on their own.
The colorful flyers are titled “Message To Illegal Aliens.”
Bold lettering then states: “A Warning To Self-Deport,” followed by language that critics say is intentionally meant to confuse and undercut the due process rights of immigrants to fairly have their cases heard.
The flyers state: “Self-deportation is safe. Leave on your own terms by picking your departure flight. Keep money earned in the U.S. if you self-deport as a non-criminal illegal alien.”
Similar messaging was repeated in a recent announcement asking immigrants to use the CBP Home app to leave the country.
The app, under the Biden administration, had been used to set hearings for applications for asylum.
“Both the flyer and that announcement said self-deportation will allow you to be eligible for future legal immigration options, which is just not true for so many people,” said Dojaquez-Torres.
Charles Kuck, an Atlanta lawyer who recently represented 133 international students, including one from Missouri, was among the first to criticize the flyers.
Kuck was successful in a case that argued to restore the student’s ability to remain in the U.S. to study and work.
On his X account, Kuck posted a photo of the flyer’s English language version and noted, “Posted all over the immigration court in Atlanta. Most of this is not true.”
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
