The Brief

There’s nothing grand about Santa Ana Immigration Court. Tucked in the corner of an office park between two county health agencies, you’d hardly know it was there. Which is why a group of volunteer court observers shows up on a daily basis — to keep tabs on immigration policies that seem to change by the week, and to channel resources to people facing deportation.

“People feel comforted by just seeing us there, especially that we are people of faith,” said Jennifer Coria, who coordinates the immigration court observer program for the group Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, or CLUE. Observers come from churches and other religious entities across Orange County and L.A. They're encouraged to wear something that signals their faith, or, if they’re clergy, to show up in religious attire.

“We want the judges to know that we are coming from a faith community and they see that there's moral presence in these spaces,” Coria said.

Why now?

The immigration court observer program is among dozens of grassroots efforts that have popped up around Southern California and across the country in response to the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. Other groups are patrolling neighborhoods to alert residents of ICE raids, delivering food boxes to immigrant families scared to leave their homes, and posting up at Home Depots to accompany day laborers who have been a frequent target of the raids.

LAist recently spent a morning inside Santa Ana Immigration Court with a group of observers to get a peek into the legal side of the federal deportation campaign. After President Donald Trump’s first full year in office, his administration continues its rapid pace of removals, in fulfillment of his campaign promises.

In an email to LAist, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said more than 700,000 immigrants had been arrested under Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, 70% of them with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges in the U.S. That statistic doesn't account for those wanted in their home countries for suspected crimes, the spokesperson added.

LAist has requested clarification on the government’s figures, which contrasts with other sources. For example, the Deportation Data Project estimates that the Trump administration deported fewer than 300,000 from the interior of the country during its first year, not counting immigrants caught or turned away at the border. The project is run largely by a group of law professors and lawyers who publish reports based on government datasets.

Why it matters

In immigration court, the administration’s deportation campaign has meant faster proceedings, and fewer immigrants allowed to remain in the United States, according to data maintained by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a project of Syracuse University. The data also shows that less than 2% of new deportation cases filed in 2026 allege that the person was involved in criminal activity beyond entering the country illegally.

The court observers in Santa Ana aren’t there to protest inside courtrooms or try to block deportation orders. But they say they’ll keep showing up to offer pro bono legal resources and, at the least, moral support for vulnerable members of their community.

“They're my neighbors. It's like, why wouldn't I defend them?” said Diedre Gaffney, one of the court observers.

Immigration court is an administrative court within the Department of Justice.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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A day in immigration court

For court observers, the morning starts in the lobby, scanning a wall of electronic displays with the day’s docket. They usually look for courtrooms holding what’s known as master calendar hearings — rapid-fire, preliminary hearings that can have life-changing outcomes for people fighting deportation or seeking asylum.

The observers are familiar with the judges by now, and know which ones might not welcome their presence. Members of the public are generally allowed to attend immigration court hearings. But judges can close hearings or limit attendance at their discretion.

After a brief discussion, the observers decided to head to Judge Wilbur Lee’s courtroom. The room is small and sparse. A flag stands in one corner. A big screen for virtual appearances takes up the other.

The judge sits behind a computer monitor at the front of the room, flanked by a copy machine and a Spanish language interpreter.

Lee had more than 20 cases on his docket for the morning. Some people were seeking asylum; others hoped to adjust their status, which provides a pathway to legal residency, for example, for immigrants who have married a U.S. citizen. Most of the hearings lasted only a few minutes, either postponed to another date, or scheduled for a subsequent hearing. Sometimes language, and the lack of an interpreter, delayed the hearing — there was a Nicaraguan man who spoke only Miskito, an indigenous language, and another from Kazakhstan who spoke Kazakh.

Respondents — that’s the official term for people facing immigration proceedings — had traveled, or video-conferenced in, from Irvine, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Riverside, San Fernando, Eastvale and Rialto.

One of the court observers spotted something new in the courtroom that day: a bright blue flyer on the desk where respondents sit to answer questions from the judge. It read, in all caps, “MESSAGE TO ILLEGAL ALIENS: A WARNING TO SELF-DEPORT.”

The flyer, which was also posted in the courtroom lobby, laid out benefits (“leave on your own terms,”) and consequences (“immediate deportation,” “no opportunity to get your affairs in order”) of taking or not taking the government’s advice. A QR code on the flyer led to a website for the government’s self-deportation incentive program, which includes a bonus for immigrants who choose to self-deport. The amount was upped in January from $1,000 to $2,600. Some news outlets have reported problems with the program, including people not receiving the promised bonus once back in their home country.

The observers’ evolving mission

The fliers are the latest example of how quickly policies and procedures are changing, often without warning, adding to the dizzying nature of the proceedings.

Last summer, when the Trump administration began its crackdown in earnest, ICE officers would often sit inside, or just outside courtrooms, and take people into custody as soon as their case was dismissed. At the time, the court observers concentrated on getting personal information from the detainees so they could contact their families and help them locate their loved ones in ICE facilities.

These days, observers say they haven’t seen ICE agents in courtrooms since the fall. So the observers’ mission has shifted to trying to get legal representation for people facing deportation proceedings without a lawyer.

About half the people facing deportation proceedings in California do not have a lawyer, according to data compiled by TRAC at Syracuse University. Without a lawyer, respondents are more than three times more likely to face a deportation order than those who have one, according to the data. By law, there is no requirement to provide legal representation.

Now, when the volunteer court observers notice that a respondent is facing the judge alone, they follow them out of the courtroom and text or hand them a list of pro bono attorneys — often with an explanation aided by Google translate, or a few memorized lines in Spanish.

“I tell them to call everyone on the list,” said Erin Moncure, a court observer from Lake Forest, noting that immigration lawyers are overwhelmed with the onslaught of cases over the past year.

Moncure, who doesn’t speak Spanish, said she’s nevertheless talked to hundreds of strangers at immigration court to try and connect them with pro bono attorneys. Often she asks for their cell phone number so she can text them a list.

“There really is no reason for them to trust me,” she said. “That’s how desperate people are.”

Rapidly changing policies

The new flyer in immigration courtrooms urging people to self-deport is just one of many changes court observers have noted since they’ve been attending immigration hearings in Santa Ana over the past six months.

Now, rather than detaining people at courthouses, the Trump administration is focusing on other ways to speed up deportation. One of them is by increasingly sending asylum seekers already in the U.S. to third-party countries to seek asylum there instead. The first Trump administration signed deals in 2019 with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to re-route people seeking asylum in the U.S. to those countries.

The Biden administration ended these agreements, and Trump reinstated them again last year. He’s also made new agreements with other countries to take asylum seekers and deportees, including with Ecuador, Paraguay, Belize and Uganda. In DHS’s statement to LAist, a spokesperson wrote that the third country agreements “ensure due process under the U.S. Constitution” and “ are essential to the safety of our homeland and the American people.”

Government attorneys and immigration judges are facing increasing pressure to use this option to cut off asylum cases early in the process, said Blaine Bookey,  legal director at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Law San Francisco. Many of the cases on Lee’s morning docket involved a request from the DHS lawyer to remove the person to a country other than the one they had left to come to the U.S.

What this actually means

In one case, a woman and her teenage daughter were seeking asylum after they said their lives were threatened in Guatemala stemming from their relatives’ involvement in local politics.

They hadn’t yet had a chance to plead their asylum case to remain in the U.S. when the judge began to ask them hard questions: if they feared returning to Guatemala, what about being sent instead to Honduras? The women seemed caught off guard.

Ultimately, the judge determined that the two didn’t have a legally valid fear of being sent to Honduras, and ordered them deported there to seek asylum.

The DHS spokesperson told LAist that ending cases before they have a hearing, called pretermission, “is nothing new or unusual” and that the mechanism prevents prolonged custody for immigrants who have been detained while they await the outcome of their legal case.

"We are applying the law as written,” the spokesperson wrote. “If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period. All aliens in ICE custody receive due process and have any claims heard before a judge.”

Outside the courtroom, the two women from Guatemala fought to contain tears as they digested the news.

“What kind of life can we expect in Honduras? It’s pretty much the same as Guatemala,” the mom said in Spanish.

Bookey, from the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, said the women's concern was a legitimate one, especially with regards to third-country asylum deals with Central American countries.

“Given the sort of porous borders in that area … you're basically returning someone to their home country directly because their persecutor can easily track them down or find them there,” she said.

Now, the only recourse for the two women from Guatemala is to appeal their case, normally a costly and lengthy process. But even that right might be curbed in the future: the Department of Justice plans to implement a rule next month that will shorten the amount of time respondents have to file an appeal, and raise the bar for granting them.

A judge’s perspective

In the highly politicized climate over immigration, judges are in a tough spot. Immigration courts are under the executive, not the judicial branch of government. Immigration judges have the legal authority to make independent decisions, but some say that independence is being challenged by the current administration.

Judge Jeremiah Johnson was one of around 100 immigration judges abruptly fired last year. He told LAist judges are under intense pressure from the Trump administration to fall in line with its policies.

“Judges are terrified of losing their job,” said Johnson, who still serves as the executive vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, a voluntary labor organization.

The loss of judges, and the administration’s shifting priorities, has meant a constant shuffling of case dockets among remaining judges, causing delays and backlogs, and also, increasing pressure to end cases quickly, Johnson said. Currently, there are more than 3 million immigration cases pending across the country, according to TRAC, around six times more than courts were facing a decade ago.

Johnson said the pressure to close cases, including by sending asylum seekers to other countries, threatens people’s right to due process.

“Due process to me is a full and fair hearing,” he said. “These are life or death claims, and so you really need to make sure you get this right.”

Recently, the administration began recruiting for “deportation judges,” including a signing bonus, to replace the immigration judges who were fired or resigned. Johnson called the change in job title “insulting” and a mischaracterization of the role.

“It's not an enforcement position, it's to adjudicate the laws fairly,” Johnson said. “I took the job to uphold the law. That oath was very solemn to me and all the judges on that bench,” he said.

What the observers are trying to accomplish

Court observers have seen some positive changes at Santa Ana Immigration Court since they started observing last summer. On the day LAist visited Lee’s courtroom, many of the respondents had lawyers — a big change, observers said, from just a few months ago.

CLUE also started a fund to pay bonds for non-criminal immigration detainees, and they’ve been able to release more than a 100 people from detention while they wait for their day in court.

Jennifer Caria, Diedre Gaffney, and Nate Hadinata, immigration court observers with Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, CLUE.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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Nate Hadinata, from Saddleback Church, sees his role as a “ministry of presence,” and not just for immigrants at risk of deportation.

“ I'm actually here for everybody in the courtroom,” Hadinata said, “because I start to see that the judges are frustrated with the remote lawyers on WebEx, where the internet connection for some reason is shoddy, … the DHS attorneys, I could see they’ve got cough drops on the table, so they're working through illness,” he said.

Earlier this month, a DHS lawyer in Minnesota, exhausted by the avalanche of work, made headlines after telling a judge, “This job sucks.”

Hadinata said attending court proceedings has also allowed him to share his first-hand observations about the current immigration crackdown with his fellow parishioners.  

“When you think that people are criminals in here and you actually get firsthand accounts, you actually start to realize, ‘Oh, I just see families,'" he said. “And aren't we all about strong family?”

Biweekly vigil for the 'disappeared'

Besides the court watching and the bond fund, CLUE holds a bi-weekly prayer vigil in front of Santa Ana Immigration Court. Last Thursday, Nathan Hill, pastor at Church of the Foothills in North Tustin, stood in front of the courthouse next to a sign that read, “We are people of faith praying for the disappeared.”

Hill, wearing a cream-colored stole with brightly embroidered crosses, led a group of nearly 30 people in prayer and song. Some of the attendees wore pink bandanas, an homage, they said, to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, women who demonstrated during Argentina’s so-called “Dirty War” to pressure the military dictatorship for information about their disappeared children.

Hill began the vigil:

María Elena Perales,  with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, said she helped start the prayer vigils in June as a way to show public support for local families targeted in the immigration raids.

“Many of them do not go grocery shopping, many of them do not send their kids to school. Kids are being traumatized as we speak,” she said of the raids’ effect on immigrant families. “A lot of people do not understand, maybe, what our families are suffering. This is an opportunity to engage people and say, ‘come and join us in prayer, and hear about the stories.’”

As the prayer vigil wound down, people began to trickle through the doors of immigration court. The afternoon session would soon begin, and with it, dozens more lives in the balance.

Some of the nation's leading defense lawyers have been trying to wrap their heads around what they consider abnormal behavior by the U.S. Department of Justice over the past year.

Now, they're debuting a tool to help track criminal cases that appear to involve irregular charging practices, including aggressive legal theories and possible political retribution against President Donald Trump's foes.

"We created the Case Tracker because you cannot defend against an enemy you cannot see," said Steven Salky, a lawyer in the Washington, D.C., area who oversees the project. "The Tracker is intended to spotlight for the next several years the unusual cases being prosecuted by the Department of Justice."

The new database includes the federal cases against Sean Charles Dunn, who threw a sub sandwich at a federal immigration officer, and Jacob Samuel Winkler, a homeless man accused of directing a laser pointer toward the Marine One presidential helicopter. Juries in Washington, D.C., acquitted both men.

The tracker, sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), also monitors cases where government charges of resisting federal law enforcement have been undercut by videos and eyewitness accounts from protesters.

Last week, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Pam Bondi batted away allegations that politics have motivated federal law enforcement decisions.

"I came into office with the goal of refocusing the Department of Justice on its core mission after years of bloated bureaucracy and political weaponization," Bondi said. "The Department of Justice's core mission is to fight violent crime; protect the American people; and defend the rule of law above all else. While our work is never done, we have made tremendous progress to make America safe again."

But judges and juries have been turning a skeptical eye toward the work of the Justice Department. Federal jurists have questioned whether the executive branch is complying with court orders on immigration and other issues at the heart of Trump's agenda — giving rise to concerns that federal prosecutors will no longer get the benefit of the doubt in court.

Grand juries across the U.S. have rejected efforts by prosecutors to bring indictments, once considered to be a cinch because of the low bar to charge defendants at that early stage in the criminal process.

The new tracker features a map that allows people to follow some of these trends across states, a way to search for specific statutes, and links to key court filings and judges' decisions.

"This tracker is an essential tool for an era where federal overreach has become the standard operating procedure," said NACDL Executive Director Lisa Wayne.
Copyright 2026 NPR

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has entered the fray around the fate of embattled Olympics head Casey Wasserman, saying he should resign for his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The comments, made on CNN Monday, turn up the heat on Wasserman, who has been under fire since a series of flirty 2003 emails between him and Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell surfaced in files released by the Justice Department. Wasserman said last week he would sell his namesake talent agency but remain in his role leading the Olympic Games.

"My opinion is that he should step down," Bass told CNN's Dana Bash.

It was a shift for Bass, who at first declined to weigh in on whether Wasserman should stay or go. And it comes after councilmember Nithya Raman entered the mayoral race — she and four other other councilmembers have said the Olympics head should step down.

But even the mayor of Los Angeles has only limited ability to influence the make-up of the private organizing committee tasked with putting on the Olympics in two years' time.

Despite its role as host city and financial guarantor of the coming mega-event, the city of Los Angeles isn't the one calling the shots on the Olympic Games. LA28 is in charge, with Wasserman at the helm.

And last week, the executive committee of LA28's board of directors said it was keeping Wasserman on top.

"LA28, which is the committee that is involved with the Olympics, has the discretion. The board made a decision," Bass said on CNN. "I think that decision was unfortunate."

LA28 operates mainly behind closed doors

The board's decision — and Bass's comments — highlight a dynamic that has some in the city increasingly uncomfortable as the Games draw nearer.

When the city of Los Angeles made a deal to play host for the 2028 Olympics, it agreed to cover cost overruns — exposing taxpayers to an essentially unlimited amount of risk. But it handed LA28 the reins to fundraise, execute and finance a privately run Games.

" Now we're seeing the perils of hiding an Olympic bid behind a private curtain," said Jules Boykoff, a politics professor at Pacific University who studies the Olympics.

LA28 has to report to the city council periodically, and the mayor has six appointees on LA28’s board. But beyond that, the organizing committee mainly operates behind closed doors and without the transparency required of government agencies.

LA28 has not said which of its 35 board members are on the executive committee that determined Wasserman’s fate. The meeting was private. A statement from the board's executive committee said that it had brought in outside counsel to review Wasserman's past interactions with both Maxwell and Epstein, and that Wasserman had cooperated with the review.

"The Executive Committee of the Board has determined that based on these facts, as well as the strong leadership he has exhibited over the past ten years, Mr. Wasserman should continue to lead LA28 and deliver a safe and successful Games,” the statement read, in part.

Bass's office confirmed that three of her appointees are on the executive committee: lawyer Matt Johnson, real estate developer Jaime Lee, and labor leader Yvonne Wheeler.

Mike Bonin, head of Cal State L.A.'s Pat Brown Institute and a former L.A. city councilmember, told LAist that those appointees present a potential source of leverage for the city.

"I think a lot of people are beginning to feel more like, 'Alright, where is our voice in this? How is it being heard?'" Bonin said. "People probably want to know more about what the mayor is saying to her appointees. And what are her appointees saying to the broader board?"

LAist reached out to the three board members for their comments. Wheeler declined to comment. Johnson and Lee did not respond before publication. The mayor's office also did not respond to a request for more information on how Bass is corresponding with city-appointed board members and whether she spoke with them before the Wasserman vote.

The LA28 board also has several prominent allies of President Donald Trump, who were quietly added to the roster late last year.

Richard Grenell, the former director of national intelligence in the Trump Administration, said in a post on X that Bass's statements against Wasserman spelled trouble for the city.

"Karen vs Casey is very troubling for the Olympics," he wrote. "The LA Olympics are now in turmoil — and the city is facing questions about being able to pull them off."

Calls for transparency grow

The storm around Wasserman comes as some in the city have already been demanding more transparency from Olympics organizers.

Citing fears around how ramped up immigration enforcement might affect the Games, the city council passed a motion requesting that LA28 produce a detailed report on President Donald Trump's federal Olympics task force on security. But the council has no way to enforce the motion, and LA28 hasn't yet produced such a document.

Others have expressed alarm that a key agreement between the city and LA28 over what extra city resources Olympics organizers will need to pay for — like policing — is more than four months overdue. If the agreement leaves L.A. exposed to unexpected or additional expenses, taxpayers could end up paying many millions.

Los Angeles civil rights attorney Connie Rice told LAist that's where local officials, including the mayor's lead on special events Paul Krekorian, should be focusing their energy.

" Casey Wasserman's resignation is a red herring," she said. "What the mayor, the city attorney, and the council and Mr. Krekorian need to be focused on is making sure that taxpayers of the city of Los Angeles aren't left holding a billion dollar bag of cost payments that they shouldn't have to pay."

A divided Los Angeles Unified School District Board voted 4-3 Tuesday to issue preliminary layoff notices to 657 employees, as part of a plan to reduce the budget after several years of the district spending more money than it brings in.

Even as California is poised to fund schools at record high levels, Los Angeles Unified and other districts have grappled with increased costs. For example, LAUSD hired more staff to support students during the pandemic, and now the federal relief dollars that initially funded those positions are gone. For the last two years, the district has relied on reserves to backfill a multi-billion-dollar deficit.

The “reduction in force” vote is the first step in a monthslong process that could result in layoffs for a still-to-be determined number of positions.

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the focus on cutting jobs at the district’s central office was intended to protect schools.

“Does it do it at 100%? No,” Carvalho said. “But this approach reflects the deliberate effort to shield students and frontline educators and support staff from the most severe impacts of this fiscal downturn.”

What positions will be affected? 

LAUSD staff estimate the proposed cuts include less than 1% of its more than 83,000 member workforce.

Notices will go out to 657 positions concentrated in the district’s central office, but which also work at local schools. More than a third of these are IT technicians, by far the largest group.

The plan also calls for reduced hours and pay for several dozen positions.

The board also voted to issue layoff notices to an additional 2,600 contract management employees and certificated administrators as part of a “routine action that’s been taken annually,” said Saman Bravo-Karimi, the district's chief financial officer

What about teachers? 

LAUSD said it expects to need 350 fewer elementary and 400 fewer high school teachers next year because of declining enrollment and the closure of some non-classroom positions.

While some educators may be moved from one school to another, the district said it does not plan to issue layoff notices to teachers for the 2026-2027 school year.

The district's decision is based on attrition and the assumption that a new labor agreement will lower high school junior and senior class sizes, requiring more educators.

“This is a calculated risk that the district is taking on in order to maintain the stability at the schools throughout the spring semester,” said Kristen Murphy, associate superintendent of talent and labor relations .

Were deeper cuts considered? 

Yes.

Murphy said schools also identified about 800 additional certificated position closures, but that the people in those positions would be moved to different jobs as they became available.

The district is also paying $50-60 million to restore planned cuts to classified positions at school sites.

“We have worked with every possible solution we can think of to reduce that number of initial [layoff] notices and keep as many of our employees as possible,” Murphy said.

How did the board vote? 

Yes:

• Board Member Sherlett Hendy Newbill (BD-1)
• Board President Scott Schmerelson (BD-3)
• Board Member Nick Melvoin (BD-4)
• Board Member Tanya Ortiz Franklin (BD-7)

“Every person in our LAUSD community contributed to the academic gains last year,” Schmerelson said. “So whether these RIFs are approved or not we will continue to fight until the very last minute for funding.”

No:

• Board Member Rocío Rivas (BD-2)
• Board Member Karla Griego (BD-5)
• Board Member Kelly Gonez (BD-6)

“I will not accept reductions in force as a default response without a clear discipline showing that this is the most responsible and strategic course available to us,” Rivas said.

Rivas, Gonez and Melvoin are on the ballot in this year’s election.

What do employees say?

Representatives from the unions that represent LAUSD school support staff, teachers and principals asked the board to reconsider the proposed cuts at the start of the meeting and to seek additional funding from the state amid growing revenues from the artificial intelligence industry.

“You can decide to be brave and lead in the state by example and show what a fully functioning school system is,” said SEIU Local 99 Executive Director Max Arias.

SEIU Local 99 members, which include classroom aides, IT technicians and gardeners, are currently weighing whether to give their leaders the authority to call a strike. Members of the union that represents LAUSD teachers, psychologists, counselors and nurses voted to authorize a strike last month.

The unions, as well as several board members, called on the district to share more information about contracts with third-party companies before making cuts to staffing.

“This framing is not an honest engagement around budget priorities,” said Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. “It is a tactic used to scare workers and scare our school communities.”

What happens next? 

By March 15, layoff notices will go out to the 657 impacted employees as well as employees with less seniority in positions that could be “bumped,” to accommodate the employees in the impacted positions.

The district plans to freeze hiring until it can evaluate whether an employee included in the reduction in force can fill any vacant position.

“The district can’t issue these notices and then hire new people if vacancies come up,” Murphy said.

Staff said the board would vote to finalize any un-rescinded layoff notices in May or June.

What else has the district done to save money?

Tuesday’s vote is part of a $1.4 billion fiscal stabilization plan first approved last June.

Bravo Karimi said additional money-saving strategies included transferring $496 million in reserved funding to the district’s general fund and using $796 million to fund future labor agreements.

LAUSD staff’s report to the board said that even if the board approved the reduction in force notices, more cuts will be necessary to balance the budget in future years.