The Deportees Whose Stories We'll Never Know

"One morning in March, as ICE was building momentum in carrying out President Donald Trump's mass-deportation campaign, dozens of people who had recently been detained throughout Virginia were being rushed through preliminary hearings. The government was using Zoom to save time, so Judge Karen Donoso Stevens sat in a mostly empty courtroom, adjourning some proceedings in less than two minutes each."

""I'm very worried about my three babies," he said in a slow, shaky voice. "The officers arrested me in front of the two littlest ones, who are 2 and 4." He began to cry, explaining that his youngest had been sick, and that his 4-year-old's first words to him since his arrest had been to ask if the officers who took him away had hurt him."

In March, ICE accelerated deportation operations while Virginia detainees were processed through preliminary hearings over Zoom. Judge Karen Donoso Stevens presided in a mostly empty courtroom and adjourned some proceedings in under two minutes. She reprimanded and confused detainees during rapid hearings and prioritized logistics over expressed fears. Several detainees requested more time for lawyers or applications. One detained man from El Salvador, cuffed and in an orange jumpsuit, sobbed about his three young children and described being arrested in front of them. Attorneys attempted contact after the hearing but could not reach him, and his whereabouts became unknown.

Read at The Atlantic