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Law360 (March 14, 2020, 12:01 PM EDT ) The Seattle immigration court is closed for the next month, while immigration courts in New York City, San Francisco and four other cities will scale back hearings to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the U.S. immigration court system, said in a Friday night statement that immigration courts in New York City, Newark, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento will postpone all preliminary hearings for immigrants who are not currently detained.
These hearings "require larger groups of people from diverse geographic locations to remain in close contact with others," the spokesperson said.
Immigrants and their attorneys with master calendar hearings scheduled in these cities will receive notice of their new hearing dates at least 10 days beforehand, the spokesperson said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has cautioned people to avoid crowds in an effort to control the spread of the virus, which causes the disease known as COVID-19.
The Seattle immigration court, which had closed earlier this month after Washington state was hit particularly hard by the outbreak, will remain closed until April 10, the spokesperson said. In the meantime, attorneys can submit emergency filings to the Tacoma immigration court.
"EOIR takes seriously the health of its employees and those with business before the immigration courts. In recognition of the various stages of outbreak in the communities of each of our locations throughout the Nation, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution for our courts," the spokesperson said.
While immigration courts in these six cities are scaling back hearings, EOIR, which runs immigration courts in 31 states and territories, has not closed or limited hearings in courts in other major cities like Phoenix, San Diego, Miami and Atlanta.
Ashley Tabaddor, president of the immigration judges' union, told Law360 on Saturday that the agency's response to the outbreak has been "wholly inadequate."
"To choose those cities and not the others, frankly, just boggles the mind. It just makes no sense," she said. "It's a step in the right direction, but it's miles behind where they should be."
She also said that the union is reaching out to stakeholders, including judges, trial attorneys and the private bar, to craft their own recommendations, including that immigration courts implement screening procedures outside of courtrooms and other protocols to prevent crowds from gathering in waiting areas of courthouses, even if the number of people in the courtroom is limited.
The EOIR's announcement follows criticism from the immigration judges' union, legal services organizations and lawmakers over the office's decision to keep immigration courts open, even as federal and state courts across the U.S., including the U.S. Supreme Court, limit their activities and restrict access.
Acting Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli said Friday that federal courts near the border in Arizona and New Mexico would suspend prosecutions of certain illegal reentry offenses.
The union had warned in a Thursday letter to EOIR Director James McHenry that master calendar hearings, which are initial scheduling hearings, can bring in dozens of immigrants and their attorneys into the courtroom at once, facilitating the spread of the virus.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association and more than 100 other legal services providers also signed on to another Thursday letter expressing their "extreme concern at the lack of guidance or proactive initiatives" taken by the EOIR to protect immigration courts in New York, some of the busiest in the country.
Additionally, without guidance from the EOIR, immigrants experiencing flu-like symptoms may still show up to their hearings to avoid being deported in absentia, the organizations had said.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, and Ed Markey, D-Mass., had also requested information on the steps immigration courts planned to take to combat the virus.
--Editing by Katherine Rautenberg.
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