Immigration Court breakdowns

Yesterday I wrote about the great day in Immigration Court in Chicago. All 15 minutes of it were great.

And now about the rest of the day.

On Monday at 5:14PM some faceless, nameless employee of the Immigration Court system called and left a message for me to have a registered alien, for whom I had filed a bond in 2010, in court on Tuesday. Sure is nice to get plenty of advance notice; right? I assumed that I had received the call because I am the person who posted his bond a little over a year ago.

I called back on the number left with the message for information. First surprise? I heard a message that sounded like a personal message on a woman's home phone. The message began, "The person you have dialed can't take your call now ..." No business organization name. No employee name. Nothing to indicate that the telephone was not attended 24/7. After all, if they call me at 5:14PM, then they might just still be there an hour later.

I also called my friend, the African student here on a student visa, and his landlady. He had not received any notification of the court hearing, either by mail or phone. I called the court number (or ICE or whoever's number it was; I still don't know) three more times. Not only did no one call back Monday night, no one has ever called back!

I called other numbers for ICE that could have been 24/7 numbers and left messages; and no one has called back, even to this posting on Wednesday.

Then I called the automated Court Information line and learned, for the first time, the correct location for Tuesday's court hearing.

Do you know what happens when a registered alien misses a court date? I was told on Tuesday that, had he not been at court, an order to pick him up would have been issued and he would have been deported.

Keep in mind that this is a documented alien. He is in the U.S.A. legally on an approved status while he gets his student status worked back out.

Oh, the rest of the story? The instructions in the message left for me on Monday directed us to arrive at 8:00AM Tuesday at 55 East Monroe St., Suite 1900. And we were there right on time.

And facing a locked door. At 8:02AM I rattled the door handle, after exercising great patience for two whole minutes. A security guard opened the door and announced that the office opened at 8:15AM. So why were we told to be there at 8:00AM?

And next? We were to have a discussion with some unknown person before court started at 9:00AM, according to Monday's message. When we got inside and passed through the scanner, the same security guard informed me that the information window opened at 8:30AM and I should inquire there about any special meeting.

At 8:30AM I duly inquired and was told just to have a seat and wait for court to start at 9:00AM "or after". For us it was "after", and well after, because all the attorneys get their say first with their represented clients. At 11:45AM the Court Clerk refused to estimate when we might be allowed in the courtroom (we were sitting in a dull, boring hallway outside the courtrooms). At 1:15PM the good judge went to lunch. At 2:15PM we were allowed into the courtroom, while the judge finished up the left-over "represented" cases.

As I wrote yesterday, all's well that ends well. About 3:10PM the judge and my friend got started in French, and the show was on. It was so cool to watch their communication, and I knew today would end up well. Ten minutes later, the judge told my friend to come back on December 4. That's December 4, 2012!

How's that for a continuance!