With subject-matter expertise and a national footprint, The Associated Press produced an inside look at U.S. immigration courts – an overlooked, broken system where judges make potentially life-altering decisions every day under a crushing backlog of more than 1 million cases.
Led by reporters Amy Taxin, based in Southern California, and New York’s Deepti Hajela, the AP harnessed its vast geographic reach and expertise on the topic of immigration to deliver a striking, all-formats examination of the nation’s beleaguered immigration court system.
The idea for the story started with Taxin proposing that AP journalists fan out across the U.S. to illustrate chaos in the nation’s immigration courts, which are plagued by a 1 million case backlog that has grown worse under President Donald Trump’s crackdowns at the border.
The team settled on a plan to sit in on courts in 11 different cities over a two-week period, choosing a mix of locations big and small, on and off the border.
The result was a story that drew from more than a dozen contributors and showed the system’s major fault lines: judges setting hearing dates for 2023, young children crying everywhere in cramped courtrooms, a paper-based system where files are often misplaced, translation snafus and mind-numbingly complex laws that constantly change and leave immigrants bewildered.
Audencio Lopez, center, who crossed the border illegally as a teenager in 1997, is seated with two of his children, Anaias, 12, left, and Mercy, 8, at their home in Lynn, Mass., Nov. 21, 2019. After navigating the immigration court process for seven years, Lopez was told at a court hearing this past fall that the government won’t oppose granting him a visa due to his “exemplary” record and community service. But the family’s joy is tempered by uncertainty because his wife’s immigration status remains unresolved.
AP Photo / Steven Senne
Audencio Lopez, a 39-year-old native of Guatemala, is interviewed at his home in Lynn, Mass., Nov. 21, 2019. The 39-year-old left a Guatemalan farming town to cross the border illegally as a teenager in 1997 and soon found a job at a landscaping company where he still works, maintaining the grounds at area schools. But it was just this past November that he headed to the imposing Boston courthouse, where the government’s attorney said she wouldn’t oppose granting Lopez a visa due to his “exemplary” record and community service, which means he’ll likely be able to stay. His wife’s status remains unclear.
AP Photo / Steven Senne
Mechanic Miguel Borrayo works on a car in Ogden, Utah, Nov. 22, 2019. Borrayo says he never had any trouble with the law after slipping across the border from Mexico in 1997, until he pulled into a McDonald’s parking lot on a family outing and came close to a man who turned out to be an immigration agent. Borrayo was arrested and a judge gave him a month to leave the country.
AP Photo / Rick Bowmer
Mechanic Miguel Borrayo works on a car in Ogden, Utah, Nov. 22, 2019. Borrayo tried to find a lawyer to help him argue he should be allowed to stay in the country with his American-born children, despite lacking legal papers. But he was told it would cost up to $8,000 and he didn’t have a strong case. He was given a month to leave the country.
AP Photo / Rick Bowmer
Michael Navas Gomez, a political activist from Nicaragua, poses for a photo at his attorney’s office in Los Angeles, Jan. 6, 2020. Navas Gomez, who was detained in a remote detention facility in Louisiana for five months, was granted asylum in the U.S.
AP Photo / Damian Dovarganes
Andres Irigoyen meets with his attorney at the National Immigration Justice Center in Chicago, moments after winning his bid for asylum in immigration court, Nov. 14, 2019. Irigoyen, who arrived in August, said he faced repeated discrimination and violence for being openly gay in his native country of Ecuador. “Freedom,” he said. “Nothing compares with this. I feel completely happy right now.”
AP Photo / Noreen Nasir
Asylum seekers from Central America and Cuba follow an Immigration and Customs Enforcement guard into the Richard C. White Federal Building in El Paso, Texas, Nov. 19, 2019. They are among thousands of migrants forced to wait in Mexico pending their applications for asylum, and are only allowed into the U.S. in ICE custody for court hearings.
AP Photo / Cedar Attanasio
The reporting uncovered personal stories of immigrants entangled in the system, including a man in Boston who won a victory in his case 22 years after arriving and an immigrant in Utah who ended up being deported after a chance encounter with an ICE agent at a local McDonald’s.
Atlanta-based Kate Brumback, reporting from a remote immigration court in rural Georgia, provided a compelling opening scene and reflected the caliber of the reporting contributed by her colleagues around the country.
The Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., seen through the front gate, Nov. 15, 2019. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said that some 1,650 males were being held in the detention center in late November.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Detainees lie on their bunks at the Stewart Detention Center, in Lumpkin, Ga., Nov. 15, 2019.
AP Photo / David Goldman
A detainee sits in a holding cell at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., Nov. 15, 2019.
AP Photo / David Goldman
About 140 miles southwest of Atlanta, the razor-wire ringed Stewart Detention Center sits on the outskirts of tiny Lumpkin, Ga. The rural town’s 1,172 residents were outnumbered by the roughly 1,650 male detainees that ICE said were being held in the detention center in late November.
AP Photo / David Goldman
A puzzle of the Statue of Liberty sits on a table at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., Nov. 15, 2019. The detention center’s remote location compounds the difficulties faced by immigrants trying to fight deportation.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Lucia approaches the Stewart Detention Center to visit her brother-in-law, Nov. 10, 2019, in Lumpkin, Ga. Lucia’s husband was deported a year ago from the same ICE facility where her brother-in-law is now detained. “You think the second time would get easier,” said Lucia. “But it doesn’t get easier. It’s the same emotions, the same anxiousness of what could happen.”
AP Photo / David Goldman
Maria Campos, 52, fights back tears while approaching the Stewart Detention Center with her grandkids to visit her son, Nov. 10, 2019, in Lumpkin, Ga. Campos had one son deported a year ago from the same ICE facility where another son is now detained. “My first son, my heart is broken because he’s not here. I don’t want the same for the second one,” she said. “This place is a horrible place because not all the lawyers want to go there and fight for our family members.” Only three immigration lawyers work in the rural town full time.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Mario Campos stands in the kitchen of El Refugio, an organization that houses families visiting loved ones at the nearby Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., before she visits her son, Nov. 10, 2019. Campos had a son deported a year ago from the same ICE facility where another son is now detained. “It’s mixed emotions,” said Campos of having to return to visit. “I’m happy to see my son but I feel guilty I'm not doing enough,” she said. “I think in another state, another place, they have more help from the lawyers. We're still praying.”
AP Photo / David Goldman
A resident leaves a meeting at the Stewart County courthouse on the town square in Lumpkin, Ga., Nov. 12, 2019. A mile and a half from the Stewart Detention Center ICE facility, the courthouse sits in the center of a tidy lawn with a monument to Confederate soldiers in a shaded corner. The courthouse is ringed by commercial buildings, almost all of them empty or closed, even during the business hours posted in the windows.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Attorney Marty Rosenbluth puts his tie on before heading to immigration court at the Stewart Detention Center, Nov. 13, 2019, in Lumpkin, Ga. He recently bought a home in town with spare bedrooms to encourage attorneys to make the journey and attend hearings in person. “There’s so much that happens in the court that, you know, body language, eye contact, all these other intangibles that, you just lose if you were telephonic,” said Rosenbluth. “But most important. I think it makes the biggest difference to the clients themselves.”
AP Photo / David Goldman
From left, Ariel Forcade, Ancermo Rivero and Yasnier Palacio Nieves, all asylum seekers from Cuba, browse clothing in a donation room set up in the home of Rita Ellis, a founding member of the organization Paz Amigos, in Columbus, Ga., Nov. 6, 2019. When detainees are released from the Stewart Detention Center, it’s often in the evening. If they aren’t fortunate enough to have family waiting for them in the parking lot, they’re driven 30 minutes away to Columbus and left at one of two bus stations in town.
AP Photo / David Goldman
In Columbus, Ga., Nov. 6, 2019, Yasnier Palacio Nieves, an asylum seeker from Cuba, walks past photos of Laurel and Hardy and Marilyn Monroe that hang on the wall of a local resident who opens her home to immigrant detainees released at night from the rural Stewart Detention Center.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Asylum seekers Jose Diaz, from Cuba, right, and Cai Han, from China, settle in to the Columbus, Ga., hotel room they’re sharing after their release from Stewart Detention Center, Nov. 14, 2019. The two men had never met before this and were put up by Paz Amigos, an organization that helps between 40 and 50 men a month who are released from the ICE facility.
AP Photo / David Goldman
In Columbus, Ga., Nov. 6, 2019, Yasnier Palacio Nieves boards a bus for the airport to be reunited with his fiancee in Miami after his release on parole from the Stewart Detention Center. The couple entered the U.S. from Cuba together to seek asylum.
AP Photo / David Goldman
In Columbus, Ga., Nov. 14, 2019, volunteer Laura Kessling uses a translation app on her phone to communicate with Cai Han, an asylum seeker from China, that was recently released on bond from Stewart Detention Center. Kessling, a volunteer with Paz Amigos, finds accommodations in hotels or the homes of fellow volunteers for detainees who are released from the rural ICE facility at night at a bus station and have no place to stay.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Attorney Matt Boles with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative returns home, Nov. 13, 2019, in Lumpkin, Ga. Boles is one of only two immigration attorneys who live permanently in the rural town. “It’s given me an appreciation for how difficult it is for lawyers to come here,” said Boles of living in Lumpkin.
AP Photo / David Goldman
A detainee transport van travels the rural road back to the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., Nov. 15, 2019.
AP Photo / David Goldman
The package also did something that few stories accomplish in the secretive world of immigration courts, as AP journalists produced strong images and a video package despite courtrooms that are off-limits to cameras. Their work included an in-depth look at a Georgia detention facility by global enterprise photographer David Goldman, and video shot and produced by Chicago video journalist Noreen Nasir. Her colleague, Sophia Tareen, reported on a legal advocacy group helping immigrants navigate the court system in Chicago.
In an impeachment-dominated news cycle, the story received strong play. Newspapers that prominently displayed the story in print editions included the San Francisco Chronicle, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and Dayton Daily News, with front-page play in newspapers in Arizona, Louisiana and Tennessee.
The package was the kind of effort that the AP is uniquely positioned to pull off, with its footprint of team-focused journalists and immigration experts.
For a revealing look at a legal system struggling to cope with the influx of immigrants, and families caught up in the grinding legal process, Taxin, Hajela, Brumback, Goldman and Nasir share this AP’s Best of the Week honors.