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Immigration court is and can be complex.
To help you make sense of the immigration court system, Cascade PBS spoke with immigration attorneys and advocates in Washington to answer questions regarding recent federal changes and our region’s unique challenges. This information may help you better understand why you have been summoned to court, or how you can seek help if facing potential arrest and detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
This explainer is not legal advice or assistance, and any specific questions should be directed to an attorney licensed to practice immigration law regarding your specific situation.
Cascade PBS accepts story tips about how recent changes in federal law have impacted Washington’s immigration courts. They can be shared with our investigations editor at jacob.jones@cascadepbs.org or reporter farah.eltohamy@cascadepbs.org.
What is immigration court? And why have I been summoned?
In technical terms, immigration court is an administrative court that falls under the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), a sub-agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. EOIR has the jurisdiction to conduct removal proceedings – meaning an immigration court judge will decide whether a person is eligible to stay in the United States or can be deported.
People who are in the country without valid immigration status can be deported by the U.S. government. One can lose their immigration status for a number of reasons, including prior criminal convictions.
“What we often see is someone who does not have valid immigration status, either because they have never had status or their status has expired, comes to the attention of ICE because of a criminal charge,” Larkin VanDerhoef, a private immigration attorney, told Cascade PBS via email. “That can be enough to put them in deportation proceedings.”
VanDerhoef added that, depending on one’s immigration status, a criminal arrest or charge could be enough to revoke a person’s visa – “but in most cases, they would need to be convicted first to be deportable.” If they are without any immigration status, they can be deported for a charge “regardless of how the criminal charge resolves.”
There are two documents a person will receive (either in-person or by mail) if they have been summoned to immigration court: a “Notice to Appear” and a “Notice of Hearing in Removal Proceedings.” The first document (also referred to as an NTA or Form I-862) formally begins the immigration court proceedings against a person – outlining the reasons why the U.S. government is seeking to deport them. The NTA will include information on your hearing and an immigrant identification number called an “A Number.”
It’s important to know your A Number, as you will need it to check on the status of your immigration court hearing and proceedings. It is possible for an immigration court to change the date of a hearing after the NTA has been issued.
To check the date of your hearing, you can use the EOIR’s online system or contact the Immigration Case Information Hotline at 800-898-7180.
Once you log your A Number into the system, you should see four blocks on the page. They include information about: your next hearing, court decisions and motion information, appeals and how to contact the court. This information should still be accessible online even after a person has been deported.
To look up people you know who are in detention, you can instead use the ICE Detainee Locator System. You can search people either by their A number or their first and last name plus their country of birth.
The detainee locator works only for people who have been in ICE custody for more than 48 hours, and will yield no results once someone is released or deported.
The second NTA document will inform you of the type, time, place and date of your hearing.
VanDerhoef told Cascade PBS that it is your responsibility to notify the court if you move and change your address, as the court will mail a NTA to a person’s last recorded address.
“I’ve had a number of clients who didn’t know they had a hearing – but when you look at it – it’s unfortunately something like they had just moved and didn’t tell the court, or even sometimes it was sent to the right address and they just simply did not get it,” VanDerhoef said. “We could have them write a sworn declaration saying, ‘I swear I was living at that address, I had properly updated my address. I never got a hearing notice.’ But unfortunately, the law is pretty unforgiving.”
VanDerhoef added that if a person already has an attorney, then the attorney will be notified – so it is important to keep your information up to date with your lawyer.
Who does not have the right to a hearing?
If a person has been deported before, they do not have the right to another immigration hearing – instead, they can be deported under their previous order. However, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, “if you tell the immigration agents you are afraid to return to your home country, you might be able to have your case heard by an immigration judge.”
This is called a reasonable fear interview, in which an asylum officer can determine whether a person can apply for a withholding of removal or deferral of removal (both of which constitute a separate category from asylum).
Another group that does not have the right to a hearing are people who have been issued an expedited removal order.
“The concerning thing about these people’s cases getting dismissed is then they can be placed into expedited removal, which is very concerning to us, because people can be erroneously deported,” said Anarose Reardon-Helferd, a removal defense attorney for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project in Seattle. “There’s inadequate protections for people who do fear returning to their home countries. There’s very little to no judicial review of expedited removal.”
If you are issued an absentia order, your attorney can file a motion to reopen the case. If that motion to reopen a case is then denied, you have the right to appeal the denial to the Board of Immigration Appeals.
VanDerhoef noted that a person is responsible for explaining their absence from court if he or she decided to file a motion to reopen, “and it has to be for particular reasons” such as proving that the court sent a NTA to the incorrect address. A judge can also utilize their sua sponte authority – meaning they can reopen a case at their own discretion depending on factors such as fairness or efficiency.
How do I seek a lawyer?
Unlike in a criminal justice court, the government is not required to provide you with legal counsel. This means a person must seek their own counsel – even when detained by ICE. A person can technically represent themselves in immigration court, but lawyers and advocates advise against that.
For many, the first place to seek assistance in Washington is the nonprofit Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. Individuals in Western Washington can reach the Seattle office at (206) 587-4009 or 1-800-445-5771 or the Tacoma office at (206) 816-3893 or 1-877-814-6444 on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Residents of eastern and central parts of the state can contact the organization’s Granger office at (509) 854-2100 or 1-888-756-3641 on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., or reach the Wenatchee office at (509) 570-0054 or (866) 271-2084 weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
NWIRP does not have the capacity to represent all people who inquire about their services, nor staff them with an attorney who can represent them specifically in deportation proceedings. However, their staff can direct you to resources and attorneys outside of their network.
You can also access lists of attorneys licensed to practice immigration law through organizations such as the American Association of Immigration Lawyers, Latino Bar Association of Washington and Washington State Bar Association – but be sure to inquire specifically about a law practice’s ability to take on deportation defense.
VanDerhoef noted it’s good practice to have a family member record as much information as possible on a person’s basic demographics, immigration status and any criminal history before inquiring on someone else’s behalf.
What types of hearings are there?
The first hearing in the immigration court process is the master calendar hearing. These hearings will generally consist of a few questions from the immigration judge, where the respondent is required to plead to a list of facts about them and their case, such as: their native country, country of citizenship, date of entry to the U.S., and immigration charges.
The judge will also ask the respondent what applications they will prepare to submit for immigration relief.
According to the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, if you are a green-card holder or have any other form of immigration status, “It may be possible that you are not actually deportable, so it is very important that you consult with a lawyer before you admit that the government can deport you, or if you cannot consult with a lawyer, you can deny that you are deportable and make the prosecutor prove that you are.”
At the end, the judge will schedule a date for the individual calendar hearing. A respondent has the ability to request continuance to be given more time to seek legal counsel and figure how to go about their case.
At the individual calendar hearing, a respondent will be able to testify, present evidence and argue why their application for relief should be granted. The government will usually provide its own counsel as well, building their case as to why a person is deportable. The judge will make a decision to approve or deny an application.
If a person’s application is denied and they are detained by ICE, they have 30 days to appeal the decision and may be eligible to request what is called a bond hearing (at which a judge may set a bond amount for their release). VanDerhoef noted this hearing can be requested only once.
If you do not appeal, then the judge’s decision is final and you will not be eligible for bond unless you show "circumstances have meaningfully changed,” VanDerhoef explained. He also said that whether a person is eligible for bond depends on a number of particular circumstances, including immigration status when they entered the country, their immigration case status and criminal history.
He advised to not request a bond hearing until you have strung enough documents together, such as proving you are not a flight risk nor a risk to society. At this hearing, a judge will also consider your likelihood for appearing at other future court hearings.
What issues are unique to Washington?
Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, advocates and lawyers have reported that Tacoma’s Northwest ICE Processing Center is verging on its full capacity of 1,575 detainees. As a result, as NWIRP’s Reardon-Helferd explained, “there are attorneys waiting almost all day to visit their clients.”
She said there are not that many private attorneys who do detained work in Washington because it’s on “such an expedited timeline” alongside other issues of access.
There are also more tangible barriers for lawyers once they make it inside the detention center, she explained. For example, as NWIRP attorney Elizabeth Benki explained, the NWIPC has been slow in hiring staff to keep up with the ever-increasing number of detentions in the facility. There aren’t enough staff to escort detainees to their appointments, which include meetings with their attorneys – who can often spend hours waiting for that chance to meet with their clients.
“Preparing for that type of bench trial is very time-consuming, and it requires many, many hours of time, and generally multiple visits over a course of weeks or months, and it’s very difficult to do that when there’s only seven attorney visit rooms,” Benki said. “So there’s always been issues at various times with long wait times, several hours or something like that, when you want to see your client.”
And although the NWIPC recently introduced video calls, Benki said the facility holds these meetings in the visitation rooms — “taking up a room that an attorney could otherwise be used to meet with a client.”
The UW Center for Human Rights issued a 2024 report on immigration enforcement trends that found Washington had lower rates for release on bond than many other states, including Louisiana and Texas.
“Perhaps as a result of the inaccessibility of bond, the average length of detention in Tacoma also tops the national average. And whether detained or not, immigrants in our region are less likely to be granted relief from deportation in the immigration courts here when compared to the national average,” the UW Center for Human Rights 2024 report stated.
A recent class-action lawsuit filed against the Tacoma Immigration Court by NWIRP alleges that the majority of its judges have routinely denied bonds in what has been a unique pattern compared to other immigration courts in the country.
Judges were ruling against people who had entered the country without inspections, Benki explained, as there were disputes over who could be considered bond-eligible under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act. However, NWIRP’s argument was that immigration judges were applying the incorrect section of the law.
Benki said that the federal court agreed with NWIRP’s argument, but for the time being – the decision applies only to the one named plaintiff in the class action.
“So far, the Tacoma judges have continued to follow the policy and finding that there’s no jurisdiction,” she added.
How can I protect myself and my loved ones?
If you or a loved one are at risk of ICE detention or deportation, the most important thing to do is to make a plan – especially as more and more people have been detained outside of immigration court.
“I would suggest for parents to have some family safety planning and think about who would care for kids,” Benki said. “There’s also a financial power of attorney that you could do in order to have a family member get access to a bank account and things like that – just with the caveat that it can be tricky.”
Local groups, such as Latinos en Spokane, can help draft a family preparedness plan.
You can also consider reaching out to an immigration attorney prior to the possibility of being detained, as communication from within an immigration facility can be quite limited.
For further questions, Washington’s immigrant rights organizations have also compiled a wealth of information about the U.S. immigration system through their own resource guides, some of which are listed below:
WA-based resource guides
- Know Your Rights - Immigration Court (NWIRP)
- New Community Rights with Police and Federal Immigration Authorities in Washington State (NWIRP)
- Safety Plan for Youth and Children (Legal Counsel for Youth and Children)
This report is not to be considered legal advice or assistance. Please contact an attorney to discuss your specific situation.
