Detainees in Mesa Verde Detention Center, located in Bakersfield, California, aren’t likely to meet either their attorneys in person or the judges who’ll decide their fate. Pro bono counsel from San Francisco instead reach their clients by video teleconference (VTC). Attorneys there only get a few minutes to speak with clients, as reported by Mother Jones. Again, when it comes time for a hearing, the detainee appears virtually, not in person.
The drive from Bakersfield to San Francisco and vice versa to meet clients in person or appear in court would take five hours. In California and elsewhere, video conferences save time, precious for immigration attorneys and detainees seeking resolution, and money. They’re even more environmentally friendly if you’re in the market for justifications.
As of 2015, nearly one-third of detained immigrants in the United States appeared in deportation hearings via televideo. In 2017, there were 114,000 hearings that used VTC, a 185 percent increase since 2007.
It’s no wonder VTC is exploding: The Trump administration has made a crusade of deportation, and the more people who are detained, the more facilities we need, the further-flung the facilities become.
VTC’s better than nothing, but VTC and in-person appearances do not have equal outcomes.
Comparing the outcomes of televideo and in-person cases in federal immigration courts, it reveals an outcome paradox: detained televideo litigants were more likely than detained in-person litigants to be deported, but judges did not deny respondents’ claims in televideo cases at higher rates. Instead, these inferior results were associated with the fact that detained litigants assigned to televideo courtrooms exhibited depressed engagement with the adversarial process—they were less likely to retain counsel, apply to remain lawfully in the United States, or seek an immigration benefit known as voluntary departure.
The reasons that VTC reduces detainees’ likelihood of fighting deportation must be innumerable. People may well be more reluctant to speak about the experiences that led them to seek asylum when sitting before a blinking red light rather than a real person. It’s difficult to speak about torture or rape in any setting. How much harder must it be on camera?
Lawyers’ time with clients is even more strictly limited than it would likely be in person, especially given the quality of the interaction: Attorneys have no chance to build rapport. It’s hard to have faith in a lawyer you’ve never met.
Of course, VTC isn’t the only thing that makes detainees lose hope: There’s also the Trump effect.
For the first six months of Donald Trump’s presidency, 7,086 people opted to go home before seeing a judge—58 percent more than during the same time period the year before under President Barack Obama. “Detention itself is a litigation strategy to demoralize people and creates an easier deportation process,” says Graeme Crews of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Until the U.S. implements a rational immigration policy, one that does not needlessly detain tens of thousands of people at a time, the quality of justice will continue to be strained.