Setting the record straight: Real talk about immigration courts

  The Trump administration’s recent “fact sheet” on U.S. immigration proceedings excludes critical information about the immigration system and only serves to spread misinformation and distrust of immigrants and asylum seekers.

  The document, issued by the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review sparked former immigration judges and members of the Board of Immigration Appeals to object to such “political pandering” that makes a mockery of the agency’s obligation to ensure the full and fair resolution of immigration cases. The document’s claims have also been rebutted by advocates and the media. What’s more, at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative, our clients and attorneys have witnessed the routine abuses of a court system increasingly bent on deporting individuals rather than administering justice.

  Because Americans deserve the truth, here are some real facts about the immigration courts.

He said he'd be murdered if deported. He was.

  He said he would be murdered if he were deported back to Honduras. He was.

  Nearly a year after a judge rejected Santos Chirino’s case for asylum, his 18-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son returned to the very same courtroom to plead their own.

  “Your honor, this is a difficult case,” their father’s lawyer, Benjamin Osorio, told Judge John Bryant. “I represented their father, Santos Chirino Cruz. … I lost the case in this courtroom. ... He was murdered in April.”

Detention system forces people to give up claims to stay in U.S.

  Before fleeing Somalia, Yuusuf was a teacher.

  He was dedicated to education and its ability to empower the next generation of Somalis. But Yuusuf’s passion for teaching also put him in the crosshairs of al-Shabab, the al-Qaida-linked extremist group that has terrorized his country.

  The group opposes Western-style education and is willing to kill teachers and students alike to stop its spread in the region. In 2015, extremists attacked Yuusuf’s school, slaughtering his fellow teachers.