Kids Without Lawyers, Immigration Courts 'At The Point Of Implosion, Calendars In Complete And Utter Disarray'

"Newly released government data show an immigration court system under stress as judges face pressure to expedite deportation cases even as thousands of child migrants – many under 14 and with no grasp of English — are still without attorneys to represent them.  The fast pace of arraignments has been quite extraordinary, with 11,392 master calendar hearings held from July 18 to October 21 or more than 800 a week.  Of the 1542 removal orders issued in the same time period, 94 percent fell on children having no counsel.  “That is shocking but it is what the statistics show,” said Dana Leigh Marks, an immigration judge in San Francisco and president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. ... She worries too that so many unrelated but timely immigration cases are caught in the undertow as judges must give a first priority to expediting the child cases.  “We are totally under stress… We are at the point of implosion,” Marks said. “The calendars are in complete and utter disarray.”" - David Rogers, Politico, Nov. 6, 2014.