Hundreds of illegal aliens are showing up for court hearings across the nation, only to be turned away and told to come back later.
Immigration advocates call it "chaos" -- illegals being given what they describe as "dummy dates" or "fake dates" to show up for court. But Andrew "Art" Arthur, resident fellow in law and policy for the Center for Immigration Studies, says it's more a lack of coordination between ICE and the courts.
“More likely than not what happened was the courts either didn't get them on time or didn't get them entered into the system on time in order to properly calendar them before the courts,” says Arthur.
“This is an embarrassment, but it more reflects a lingering issue that's been going on well before the Trump administration of an inability between the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice to coordinate on the issuance of hearing dates.”
Arthur thinks the Trump administration is possibly working too quickly on processing illegals to meet demand and a court order that notices to appear must have a date.
“Nobody wants to have an alien who is going to be released be held any longer than they have to, so that is part of the reason why these notices to appear were issued originally without a date, time and place.”
The nation’s immigration courts are so overloaded, about 750,000 cases are waiting to be resolved.