Deportation Traffic Court

I went to the shiny new Federal courthouse in Tucson and found the courtroom for the special deportation program "Operation Streamline". I went with Diane Dowgiert, minister of the Unitarain Universalist congregation in Tucson. Without her, I probably would not have actually gotten there and done it, and I'm usually pretty good at getting to things on my own. It was that intimidating! I had accidentally brought my little camera, which I had to leave at the checkpoint. They let us keep our phones and did not make us take off our shoes.

We found the courtroom, where people involved in the proceedings were being held not only in all the places to sit in the "business" section of the courtroom, but also in the benches normally used for the public, over on the left of the room. They asked us to sit way over on the right, leaving the large middle section empty. Public defenders were also everywhere.

The translator went through the rows of prisoners passing out headphones so they could hear the translation of the proceedings. I noticed he used hand sanitizer afterwards, but I guess anyone would after handing out forty or so headphones to a bundh of strangers.

It became clear as people were called forward to participate in court proceedings that they were manacled with chains around their waists, and shackled. A few had orange prison t-shirts. Most were in the nondescript, faded clothes that seem typical of Hispanic working people. Almost all of them were men.

Everything was well organized and civil. There had been a sorting out of cases, so the great bulk of them were people who had accepted plea deals for some prison time with deportation afterward. (I learned that first-time offenders of being in the country illegally are convicted of a misdemeanor and deported, but that any subsequent occurrence of being in the country illegally is a felony. These were all felony cases.)

A few cases that were going to go to trial or be dismissed were handled at the beginning of the session. The rest was a litany of accepting plea deals through the translator. I wondered if everyone had understood their options. I wondered if all the public defenders spoke good enough Spanish. I wondered what conditions were like in detention. It looked and sounded respectful, but so much took place before anyone appeared in open court. Is this okay? I'm thinking probably not.

It was chilling to realize the size of the flow of deportations from this one place. This court meets three times a week. I heard that Tucson has the largest volume of deportations in the country. Surely there is a better way.