A 4-year-old girl with her black hair tied in pigtails peered through the bars of the court railing while her mother talked to an immigration judge.
The girl’s name is Emily. She was born in Honduras, a small, impoverished, violent North American nation riven by decades of natural and man-made disasters.
Her mother brought her to the United States, a large, wealthy, less violent North American nation, a couple of years ago.
U.S. border processing facilities were being overwhelmed. The man who was U.S. president then called it a humanitarian crisis and allowed noncitizens to enter the country temporarily. The current U.S. president calls it an invasion and wants to send them back.
The judge asked Emily’s mother, through an interpreter, why she hadn’t applied for asylum in the United States. The mother said she hired an attorney to do so, “but he never sent any documents to me.” She said she called three other attorneys. No one answered.
The judge noted that Emily and her mother are living in Savannah, Georgia, about 650 miles from Memphis. “Why are we hearing this case in Memphis?” Judge Irma Newburn asked. “The court in Atlanta is a lot closer to them.” No one knew.
The judge told Emily’s mother that she will transfer her case to the immigration court in Atlanta. “It’s much closer to Savannah,” the judge said. “There’s no reason for you to have to drive this far. And you don’t have to bring your daughter to court with you, if you don’t want to.”
Emily’s mother thanked the judge, unaware that immigration judges in Atlanta are denying asylum cases at an even higher rate than those in Memphis.
On her way out of the courtroom, Emily smiled and waved at a Catholic priest sitting in the back row. Rev. Val Handwerker, a retired priest who grew up in Memphis, smiled and waved back.
“I want them to know that they are beloved children of God, that God is with them, the church is with them. That they are not alone,” said Handwerker.
“The Lord Protects Strangers”
Three other Memphis priests and two Christian Brothers have joined Handwerker in recent weeks to observe immigration court proceedings.
They go to offer spiritual and moral support, especially to children and families. Most of the families are from Central America. Most of them are Catholic.
The priests go to follow dozens of biblical commands to show hospitality, compassion, and justice to those who are displaced from their native lands — often translated into English as strangers, foreigners, or aliens.
They go to raise their voices “in defense of God-given human dignity,” as more than 200 U.S. Catholic bishops said last month in a rare pastoral letter. The bishops said they “oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and “pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.”
The Most Rev. J. Terry Steib, who served as bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Memphis from 1997 to 2016, joined Handwerker in immigration court last month. “So many of our people are suffering because of this immigration crackdown,” Steib said. “So many good people are afraid.”
Afraid to go to the store or the doctor. Afraid to send their children to school or to church. Afraid to go to Mass.
Hispanics account for nearly 71 percent of the growth of the U.S. Catholic population since 1960, according to The Catholic Review. Roughly 40 percent of all U.S. Catholics are Hispanic.
The numbers are rapidly declining.
Attendance at church schools has evaporated. St. Michael Catholic Church on Summer recently canceled its regular catechesis classes for more than 500 youth.
Attendance at local Spanish-language worship services has dropped by more than half in recent months. Two Spanish-language masses at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Whitehaven, once attended by hundreds of families every Sunday, now count dozens. The parish canceled in-person catechism classes.
“Children are scared. Parents are scared. They see what is happening,” said Rev. Tony Romo, pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church and another clergy court observer. “ICE is not taking and deporting criminals. They are taking hard-working people who are simply trying to protect and support their families.”
Romo said several members of his congregation have been deported in recent weeks, leaving wives and children behind. Romo grew up in Mexico. He studied for the priesthood at the Society of the Divine Word in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
He studied the Psalms, where it says, “The Lord protects strangers.”
He studied Exodus, where it says, “You shall not oppress an alien,” and Leviticus, where it says, “You shall treat the alien who lives with you no differently than the natives born among you.”
He studied the Gospels, where Jesus says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
He studied the Epistles, where the Apostle Paul says, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor” and “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.”
He’s preparing to celebrate the birth of the Christ child, whose family left their home and fled to a foreign land to escape the wrath of a king.
In recent weeks, he’s seen dozens of families in immigration courtrooms who left their homes in Central America and fled to a foreign land to encounter the wrath of a president.
A president who launched his first campaign in 2015 warning that undocumented immigrants were “bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and their rapists” to the U.S.
A president who launched his second campaign in 2023 warning that immigrants are “destroying the blood of our country, they’re destroying the fabric of our country.”
A president who has promised to deport millions of “illegal aliens” because they “present significant threats to national security and public safety, committing vile and heinous acts against innocent Americans. Others are engaged in hostile activities, including espionage, economic espionage, and preparations for terror-related activities.”
A president who has been paid more than $1.3 million in royalties for endorsing the God Bless the USA Bible, according to White House disclosure forms.
“It was bad under the first Trump administration,” Romo said. “Now it’s worse. I wish the president could find a way to deport actual criminals and terrorists. These people are mothers and fathers and children, not criminals or terrorists.”
The War on Immigrants
Millions of families like Emily and her mother have become casualties of wars.
The Cold War turned Honduras and other countries in Central America into ideological proxies, political pawns, and killing fields in the winner-take-all struggle between American capitalists and Soviet communists.
That resulted in long and bloody civil wars in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, instigated, supported, or politicized by every U.S. president since the 1950s.
Drug wars converted Central American countries into illegal drug labs and distribution lines run by corrupt government and military leaders, brutal gangs, and deadly cartels, all working to serve U.S. customers.
Partisan political wars spawned decades of contradictory, counterproductive, and failed U.S. immigration policies, pulling and pushing millions of men, women, and children back and forth across the border.
Hyper-partisan culture wars were fueled and exploited by nativists, jingoists, white supremacists, xenophobes, false prophets, media conglomerates, and political opportunists who cast all noncitizens, including Emily and her mother, as “criminal aliens.”
The war on terror shifted immigration from an economic and human rights challenge to a national security concern, and immigration enforcement from the due process of the Justice Department to the undue harshness of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
And, since January, the war on Central and South American immigrants and refugees has turned fathers, mothers, and children seeking refuge from places where they were hunted and terrorized by masked men with guns into fugitives hunted by masked men with guns.
There are an estimated 12 million noncitizens in the U.S. The last five presidents have deported about 8 million noncitizens. The Trump administration promises to deport millions more. “On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America,” said Trump, himself a convicted felon.
Memphis is one of the cities on the frontlines of that war.
In October, President Trump and Governor Bill Lee, both Republicans, began deploying hundreds of National Guard troops, immigration agents, and other federal law enforcement officers to Memphis “to restore public safety and order.”
But the federal forces deployed to Memphis, as well as Chicago, Charlotte, and several other cities led by Democrats, are also being used to target, arrest, detain, and deport hundreds of immigrants and refugees from Central and South America.
Since January, ICE agents have arrested and detained more than 200,000 “illegal immigrants,” and deported nearly 140,000 “illegal immigrants,” according to the White House.
More than 65,000 immigrants are in real or makeshift federal detention centers awaiting deportation — an all-time high.
The slightly more fortunate ones are getting their day — or at least a few minutes — in immigration court.
Courts in Crisis
The nation’s 73 immigration courts are overwhelmed.
There are 3.5 million immigration cases pending. That includes 2.7 million asylum applications. The courts have received more than half a million new cases this year.
“U.S. immigration courts are in crisis,” says a report published last month by the Migration Policy Institute. “As DHS increases arrests of noncitizens to support Trump’s mass deportation campaign, more deportation cases will be added to the backlog and judges will likely struggle to keep up, especially as many judges have been fired or taken buyouts.”
The immigration court system is part of the executive branch of government, not the judicial branch. Judges work for the president.
A year ago, there were 735 immigration judges. Since Trump took office in January, 141 judges have been fired, resigned, or been reassigned, according to the National Association of Immigration Judges.
Experts estimate the system needs 1,300 judges. Congress has capped the number of immigration judges at 800.
The Memphis court has 125,000 pending immigration cases and 10 judges. The docket is so full, judges are scheduling final hearings into 2028.
On the day Emily and her mother were in immigration court, a dozen other families were there.
Some are from Memphis. Others are from East Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Arkansas, and East Tennessee.
Diego, 17, and Santiago, 19, were with their father.
Cesar, 15, was with his mother. So were Hefferson, 13, and Joshua, 13.
Angel and Angeles, both under 12, were with their mother.
All have been charged with being on this side of the U.S. border without authorization. That is a civil offense, not a criminal one.
None have any felony convictions. Unauthorized entry into the U.S. is a misdemeanor, not a felony.
None have an attorney.
The judge explained the rules to each family.
They must file applications for asylum with the U.S. Immigration Court, even if they already have filed with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
They should hire an abogado (attorney), not a notario (notary). “A notario cannot help you,” the judge said.
They must notify the court of any change in address.
The judge gave each family more time to hire an attorney and file applications for relief from deportation.
The judge gave each family a pink “asylum packet” that includes applications for protection from deportation and a list of potential attorneys and their phone numbers.
The judge scheduled final hearings for some in 2026, and others in 2027 or 2028.
The judge told each family they must attend every scheduled court hearing.
“If you do not, I will have no choice but to deport you,” the judge said.
The Trump administration has authorized ICE agents to arrest immigrants who show up for scheduled court hearings.
“That hasn’t happened in Memphis, as far as we know,” said Casey Bryant, a local immigration attorney and executive director of Advocates for Immigrants Rights, “but people are so afraid of being arrested, a lot of them are not showing up for court at all.”
In May, ICE agents arrested at least eight noncitizens who were attending their scheduled immigration court hearings in Downtown Memphis, immigration attorney Andrew Rankin told Fox13 News. There are no reports of similar incidents since then.
Immigrants who don’t show up for court are subject to an immediate deportation in absentia order by the court. That happened to half a dozen no-shows when Emily and her mother were in court.
“Failure to appear will result in an order of immediate removal” and a possible 10-year ban on reentry, Judge Newburn reminded those in the courtroom.
Asylum denials nationwide have nearly doubled this year, rising to 80 percent in April, the highest rate since 2000, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. In absentia removal orders have spiked. The asylum denial rates for every Memphis judge are higher than last year.
Before Trump, most immigrants facing deportation were allowed to seek release on bond or remain free while their cases worked their way through immigration courts.
But the Board of Immigration Appeals, the executive branch body that oversees immigration courts, recently concluded that immigration judges have no authority to release people detained by ICE.
“The judges don’t have a lot of discretion,” Bryant said. “They are not bad people doing bad things. They are doing the best that they can in a system that isn’t working.”
The same can be said for Emily and her mother.
David Waters is Distinguished Journalist in Residence and assistant director of the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis.