Kangaroo court report #1 - a primer

MINNEAPOLIS — At first glance the immigration court rooms located inside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis look like any other court in Minnesota, but as you sit and soak in your surroundings, you begin to realize that something is off. This isn’t a courtroom, this is an ethnic cleansing program.

It should come as no surprise, considering the building is located at Fort Snelling, a site used as a base of operations for Minnesota’s ethnic cleansing of native people during the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.

The rooms are designed to look like a standard court, complete with wood benches for observers. A wooden gate separates the general public from government lawyers whose job it is to help carry out the Trump regime’s desire to eradicate non-whites from American soil.

The immigration employees tasked with overseeing the deportation program are even dolled up in black robes to look like respectable judges in a courtroom with moral authority, but they are not judges. Their nameplates read "Immigration Judge," but they are Department of Justice employees who serve at the pleasure of the Executive Branch.

These "judges" aren't using the Constitution as their guide, nor is the judgment passed down comprised of common sense or decency. Instead, they use haphazard and confusing guidelines designed to make simply existing as a non-white person in America impossible to navigate.

In fact, these courtrooms aren't courtrooms at all. The DOJ rents out these rooms and applies their own rules about who can be there, what they can do and who deserves to be heard or not.

After watching the process, the only conclusion is that these proceedings are a quasi-judicial exercise unlike the judicial process most Americans are familiar with.

Last week, I watched Immigration Judge Monte Miller tell several people arrested by ICE that while he’s sure they are good, hardworking people, they simply cannot be in the country without a valid reason. Working, staying law abiding and paying taxes are not good enough. They must go through the correct process, even if the government does not.

One woman last week was detained by ICE following a speeding violation. She happened to be married to a U.S. Citizen, meaning she has a clear path forward to citizenship. She is not supposed to be targeted by the Department of Homeland Security for deportation.

However, she was targeted anyway, and now she sits in the Douglas County jail, waiting for the right paperwork with the right words to be submitted so she can be set free to be back with her family.

At the hearing, Miller told the DHS lawyer, David Hackworthy, that he’s perturbed by her detainment, which Hackworthy readily agreed with. Hackworthy said he’ll tell the higher-ups about Miller’s displeasure with the pair's ICE co-workers, who are also under the direction of the Executive Branch.

Miller was appointed as a DOJ employee to oversee this government sponsored genocide by former Attorney General William Barr in October 2019. Prior to that, Miller served as a judge advocate and military judge from 1994 until his appointment.

He very much gives off the vibe that he’d love to help. But you see, his hands are tied. That’s because his one and only job is to thread the needle between an attempt at being a moral person and appeasing his bosses who wish to see non-white immigrants eradicated from the country.

In this court, though, the eye of needle does not exist. The thread simply bashes against it, refusing to let ethics play a role in determining who gets to live here and who gets sent back to a country that is no longer their home.

Hackworthy, for his part, plays the familiar, comfortable role that honorable men have always played while doing dishonorable things.

As both Miller and Hackworthy listen to a Chinese man detained by ICE after he flew a drone over Duluth Harbor, Hackworthy says the man has no friends or family in the state and is unemployed, something the men denies.

But the man does not have the paperwork to prove this and so he must go, according to Hackworthy.

A drone enthusiast is a danger to the state, according to a government that is now routinely gassing its own citizens. It would be ironic if it wasn’t so horrifying watching the banality of evil perpetrated by people like Miller and Hackworthy.

Historically, lawyers have always played their part in genocide, making extrajudicial procedures legal and acceptable. Many of those planning the Nazi Holocaust were also lawyers concerned with removing "undesirables" from Germany. Lawyers wrote up the legal basis for U.S. torture during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Lawyers helped protect Ronald Reagan from punishment after he funded far-right South American death squads in violation of federal law.

Any U.S. government looking to hurt its own residents or brown people across the world is awash with lawyers ready to make human rights violations a normal part of society – making it something that does not need to be debated because it has been settled. It’s legal now. Why bother?

Hackworthy easily fills this role as he sips his morning coffee as person after person appears on a giant TV screen that shows a county jail room where detainees are allowed to plead a case that is often ignored.

Most are without a lawyer and have gotten tired of being held in jail. Many decide to let DHS deport them to the country they were born in.

One man says he is doing so because he does not have access to a phone in jail. He cannot hire a lawyer, so what’s the point of fighting? Miller tells him he has no authority to tell the jail what to do.

Others agree to voluntarily deport, meaning they will be let out of jail to make their way to back to their place of birth but only if they can pony up the $743.76, payable to Uncle Sam, for the pleasure of being kicked out of the country.

One woman from Haiti spoke through a Creole interpreter, saying that she’s employed and has temporary protected status. Miller informs her that the program she's referencing has been ended and she needs a valid reason to stay in the country.

Hackworthy agrees, saying DHS will not be granting any more cases. The goal is to push these people out. And so she must also go.

This is the first in a series of dispatches from immigration courts in Minnesota. Subscribe to Misfits Media to stay up to date.