Mass deportation hearings come to Baltimore under Trump

The Department of Justice is packing more people into group hearings before federal immigration judges in Baltimore and around the country, speeding up cases in a manner that some legal experts say raises concerns about due process.

The introduction of large-scale “master calendar” hearings in some U.S. courts by President Donald Trump’s administration this spring has brought more than 100 people to court during the same time slot, forcing judges to move quickly and hear preliminary cases in groups.

Many of the people waiting outside Judge Nelson Vargas-Padilla’s Baltimore courtroom last Thursday had originally been scheduled to appear months later, but their hearings were moved up with only a week or two of notice. Most were immigrants charged with being in the country illegally who appeared without legal representation because they had not yet found an attorney.

“It’s a way of claiming that you’re providing people with due process, but having that due process be completely empty,” said Valeria Gomez, director of the University of Baltimore School of Law’s immigration clinics.

The introduction of enlarged master calendar hearings is just one of many national changes playing out in Baltimore as the Trump administration remakes immigration court.

A master calendar hearing is a short and sometimes first appearance before a judge, similar to an arraignment hearing in criminal court, Gomez said.

They are a chance for people to hear why the government believes they are deportable, learn about their rights and assert any potential defense to allow them to remain in the country.

Depending on the case, some may come back for multiple hearings. Subsequent master hearing appearances allow people to update the judge on their bids to stay in the country and let attorneys hash out procedural issues.

Immigration judges are not part of the nation’s independent judiciary, but rather an arm of the federal Department of Justice.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which runs immigration courts as part of the Justice Department, did not respond to emailed questions about the hearings.

The Department of Homeland Security wrote in a statement that any immigrant with a final order of removal “has received full due process.” The agency referred questions about docket size to the Justice Department.

The enlarged master calendar hearings, known in some courts as “mega” proceedings, appear to be a way to speed up a historically backlogged and overburdened court system.

A spokesperson for the immigration courts agency told ABC News in late May that unnecessary case delays harm those with lawful claims to remain in the country, and that scheduling changes would continue “to ensure all cases are handled in a timely and lawful manner.”

But the sheer number of people forces judges to speed through cases, raising questions about the thoroughness of their reviews.

On June 4, Vargas-Padilla’s morning docket sheet had 120 names on it — roughly triple the number from the week before.

Marcia Bravo was one of them. She said she was “really scared to come” after receiving a hearing notice two weeks earlier and was worried about what would happen to her son if she were detained.

But she knew the consequence of not showing up: an automatic deportation order.

David Koelsch, a former immigration judge who retired from Baltimore’s court last year, said that though group masters are not new, the quick scheduling turnaround is. The new tactic could result in fewer people showing up for a hastily scheduled hearing, he said.

“It’s another way to jam people,” he added.

Both Koelsch and Gomez worry that as cases get fast-tracked, more people will struggle to find attorneys in time. People who may have legitimate claims for remaining in the country legally could get a deportation order because they didn’t have enough time to prepare for court, they said.

Historically, a little over half of those who go before an immigration judge in Baltimore have attorneys, according to TRAC Immigration. Those with an attorney are far more likely to win their cases, TRAC records show.

Of the 120 called to Vargas-Padilla’s courtroom Thursday, just 17 had attorneys listed. Of about a dozen who spoke with The Banner, most said they had received short notice of their accelerated court date.

The hallway outside the courtroom was packed, and a television inside showed those who had been allowed to appear virtually. The court clerk and interpreter brought people in groups as large as 25 for Vargas-Padilla to read them their rights, and many were sent away with new hearing dates in August.

It took five hours. Vargas-Padilla took just one brief break to get some water. Around 1:30 p.m., he gave his staff and the government lawyer 20 minutes to eat. Then his afternoon docket could begin.

Mass hearings aren’t the only sweeping immigration court change to play out locally.

Nationally, the Trump administration has fired more than 100 judges. While any new administration can make their own appointments to the federal immigration court bench, firings are rare, according to former judges. Critics noted that most who lost their positions had prior experience in immigrant defense or weren’t issuing what the administration considered enough deportation orders.

Among them were two Baltimore judges appointed in 2023 — one with decades of experience in immigrant defense, the other with a résumé that included immigration work at both the DOJ and FBI. Their replacements, as well as three additional new Baltimore judges, have military backgrounds and no experience in immigration law, according to their professional biographies.

The Baltimore judges must now follow a slew of precedent-setting appeals court rulings that have restricted what qualifies an individual for asylum and have led to an increase in mandatory detentions. Trump has also enlarged the pool of those who are considered deportable by canceling some programs that allowed them to stay temporarily.

In March, the most recent month with available data, Baltimore judges denied 93% of all asylum claims, according to TRAC — the highest denial rate in Baltimore’s recorded history.

John Gossart, a retired judge of 30 years and one of the first to hear cases in Baltimore in the late 1990s, criticized that approach, adding that he and other former judges have long advocated for removing the immigration courts from the Justice Department.

That independence, he said, would give judges more control over their dockets and make the court less vulnerable to political headwinds. He hopes that what is happening under the Trump administration is a wake-up call for Congress to pursue that kind of change.

“I’m hopeful, and I really believe, that there are members of Congress who say this is not a good system anymore,” Gossart said.