John Oliver shows us the stark reality of immigration courts

John Oliver talks immigration courts, toddlers in the legal system and courtroom reality TV on the latest episode of Last Week Tonight.

This week, John Oliver chose to focus on a very particular kind of court system. Yes, it’s arguably true that courts are “the backbone of daytime TV,” but that’s not why we’re here. Instead, Oliver and the crew at Last Week Tonight chose to focus on a type of justice not seen on television – immigration courts.

You’ve likely seen plenty of stories about ICE and people being hauled away to detention centers. But what about the courts involved in these cases? There are about 60 of them throughout the U.S. While an immigration court may not have the lurid drama of Judge Judy or Hot Bench, the results of a hearing can drastically change someone’s path. In worst-case scenarios, it could even end someone’s life.

“Sadly,” said Oliver, “the system is a complete mess.” That’s not just his opinion. Take it from former immigration court judges, including one who said that “essentially, we are doing death penalty cases in a traffic court setting.”

So, how did it all get so bad? According to Last Week Tonight, there are at least three big factors that have contributed to the mess present in many immigration courts.

First, it started with a surge in immigration from Central America, paired with a serious lag in hiring new judges to hear cases. This created a massive backlog that can put someone in limbo for years. The average wait time to get a hearing is three years in San Francisco, four years in Atlanta, and a whopping five years in Chicago. That means that witnesses can go missing or evidence can become irrelevant while someone is waiting to see a judge.

Civil versus criminal courts

Of course, it’s not just long wait times that have created such a major problem. It turns out that immigration courts are civil courts. People going through this system don’t have access to the same things that a person in criminal court has, like public defenders. In immigration hearings, if someone can’t afford a lawyer (on average, only 37 percent have access to one, said Oliver), they have to represent themselves. That includes undocumented children as young as preschool age.

However, said Oliver, “some judges are apparently fine with it.” For instance, Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jack H. Weil didn’t see much of a problem with toddlers representing themselves in court. He’s stated, “I’ve taught immigration law literally to 3 year olds and 4 year olds. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of patience. They get it. It’s not the most efficient, but it can be done”.

An immigration lawyer attempted to put this theory to the test by conducting a mock trial of sorts with a handy three-year-old. This lawyer, Amy Maldonado, has conducted a series of these mock-court hearings with young children. These videos are, predictably enough, simultaneously adorable and depressing. One girl asked to be deported to “pizza.” Sounds pretty good, until you realize you’re being sent to a Papa John’s, as Oliver joked. Such are the consequences of being three.

The location of someone’s hearing and the judge they are meeting may have a major effect on someone’s case. “Whether you have a lawyer or not, your odds of success — to a frightening degree — may be dictated by where you are,” said Oliver.

Someone facing deportation in New York City has to deal with a 24 percent deportation rate, while someone in an Atlanta immigration court must face an 89 percent deportation rate. It’s true that each case is somewhat different, but Oliver said that this was still an “alarming disparity.”

What does the Department of Justice have to do with all of this?

Immigration courts are not as independent as you might think. In fact, they are run by the Department of Justice, meaning that immigration courts are actually part of the executive branch. This is opposed to practically any other court in the United States, which would be part of the judicial branch.

This is where our very own Keebler elf from Hades and the U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, comes in. He’s hardly been friendly to immigrants, for one. This makes his growing power over immigration law especially concerning. Sessions can even step into immigration cases within these courts and review them himself.

Even without Sessions taking part, some hearings are downright heartbreaking. “You can have cases that don’t even seem to resemble justice,” said Oliver.

Oliver played the entirety of “Elena’s” hearing (whose name was changed to protect her identity). No, you don’t need to settle in for a long, boring legal case. The hearing consisted of two questions and lasted for just under two minutes.

The judge summarily dismissed her application, even though she was fleeing gang violence in Honduras. Why? She didn’t try to live elsewhere in Honduras before traveling to the United States. When she returned to Honduras, Elena was subject to the very same gang violence she had feared.

“In some cases, deportations do turn out to be a death sentence,” Oliver said. He related her story to Constantino Morales’ case, a former police officer from Mexico. Morales fought against drug cartels and gang members, putting him at particular risk for violence. Just over six months after his deportations, Morales was killed by the same gang violence that he said would target him.

What can we do?

How should we go about fixing this system, then? Sessions wants to hire more judges, but also wants them to move more quickly and to focus on so-called “fake immigration claims.”

“Ideally, the biggest change would be to make the court fully independent from the D.O.J.,” said Oliver. However, that’s unlikely to happen, given that Congress is pretty friendly to the current executive branch. At the very least, no one should have to represent themselves alone in the courts. Children especially shouldn’t have to do this.

So, Oliver and everyone else at Last Week Tonight did what they do best — satire. This time, it’s in the form of “the stupidest courtroom show imaginable,” Tot Bench. Like Amy Maldonado’s videos, this courtroom staffed by 3 and 4-year-olds is both adorable and deeply unsettling.

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That’s probably how the lone adult, a defendant (played by H. Jon Benjamin), must feel. Turns out that a 3-year-old lawyer may not have passed the bar exam with flying colors. “Will anyone share their snacks with me?” asks Benjamin to an uncaring courtroom.

“Is it any dumber than how America’s immigration courts are run?” asks the Tot Bench narrator. “Barely.”