Cameras aren’t allowed, and dockets aren’t public. Sometimes, entire hearings, with life-changing results, are carried out without immigration attorneys or even their clients present.
For more than 8,000 immigrants in San Diego County, a visit to Immigration Court is their final opportunity to prove they should remain in the United States. What happens inside the courthouse is largely unseen by the public.
NBC 7 Investigates spent weeks inside, attending over 400 hearings, documenting the impact of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
While those who’ve shown up for hearings are trying to “do it the right way,” some have found themselves in handcuffs instead. ICE agents, often masked and armed, lined courthouse hallways, arresting people immediately after hearings.
Attorneys, advocates, and even former immigration judges describe a process that feels less like justice and more like intimidation.
Officials in the Trump administration say the tougher approach is a response to four years of failed Biden immigration policies. They say courthouse arrests are safer than those in the streets, and insist that it’s a return to law and order, not a departure from it.
NBC 7 Investigates also found the federal government restarted tens of thousands of long-paused deportation cases nationwide, flooding already overwhelmed courts. The result: attorneys stretched to exhaustion, asylum seekers afraid to appear, and families torn apart in a courthouse that they once hoped would be their pathway to legitimacy.
BY THE NUMBERS: Immigration Court Hearings
Some big-picture findings by NBC San Diego’s review of immigration court hearings.
Additional contributions
Photography, animation, and editing: Monica Wemyss
Data analysis: Lucia Walinchus
Web design: Nelson Hsu
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