Inside the windowless courtrooms of Salt Lake City Immigration Court, the most consequential decisions often come after hearings end.
As the day wrapped up in the late afternoon, when all the respondents had left, Judge David C. Anderson tallied up the number of no-shows. He read the names and case numbers to the attorney representing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Fifty-two people didn’t come to court. Because of their absence, Anderson ordered them all deported.
These immigrants had missed their master calendar hearings, when many cases are scheduled for the same time slot. Respondents gather in the courtroom and are called up individually or with family members, during which a judge typically reviews the basics of a case, then schedules another hearing where the individual can present evidence for why they should be allowed to stay in the United States.
At Utah’s immigration court, these hearings have ballooned in size in recent weeks.
Anderson’s July 6 master calendar docket had 93 cases in the afternoon alone. The next day’s calendar showed 130 spread across the day for Judge Brock Taylor.
There’s no exact cutoff when a hearing becomes a so-called “mega master,” a term used by attorneys, but this is a significant increase from previous daily dockets. Anderson had 59 hearings scheduled on one day in February and 53 on one day in mid-June, as observed by KUER.
These marathon hearing days began elsewhere in the country in late May, according to NPR. In Utah, it’s a more recent development. Ysabel Lonazco, an attorney in West Valley City, said the court clerk recently told her the practice started the last week of June.
“If immigrants were vulnerable before, these unprecedented hearings make you even more vulnerable,” she said.
Given his caseload on that day in court, Anderson told immigrants who wanted more time to find an attorney that they could go. To those who decided to represent themselves, he said to wait in the lobby, and he would get to them if he had time after his next round of hearings.
With the new stuffing of the court docket, Lonazco is concerned that people won’t know when they’re supposed to appear in court. It’s an immigrant’s responsibility to update their mailing address with the courts, but many fail to do so. That means they might not receive notice of a new hearing. As a no-show, they’ll most likely end up deported.
On top of that, people whose hearings were scheduled for 2028 or 2029 might assume they don’t need to check on their case. Lonazco warned that hearings are now being moved sooner. Cases that have been closed for years can be reopened, and an attorney might not have a way of contacting their former client. Some immigrants might stay home due to fear of arrest in court.
And sometimes, notices to appear are sent to the wrong address.
Lack of proper notice is a violation of due process rights, Lonazco said, which “does not allow you the opportunity to fully present a case.”
The swelling of these hearings primarily affects immigrants without representation, said attorney Clay Alger. In Utah’s immigration court, he said, master calendar hearings are typically canceled for those with lawyers. Lawyers handle paperwork outside of court until an individual hearing. That means those attending master calendar hearings are often representing themselves, so the odds are already against them.
But things are speeding up for individual hearings as well, Alger said. Some that were scheduled for 2029 have been moved much sooner, giving him just a couple of months to prepare.
“It is unfortunate because attorneys and respondents rely on the court setting dates, but then when the court alters those, it can really throw you off guard,” he said.
Another way deportations are speeding up, Lonazco said, is through pretermissions, when an asylum claim is denied before an individual hearing. An April 2025 memo from the then-head of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts, stated that asylum cases can be terminated if the respondent doesn’t make it clear up front that they’re eligible. The likelihood of a pretermission varies by judge.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review told KUER in an email that it prioritizes the timely handling of cases. While three judges left the Utah court in 2025, new ones have joined in recent months, including Judge Stephanie Arrache, who was appointed to begin hearing cases in June.
The court now has five regular judges and one temporary one — up from a total of five in the spring of 2025.
“As it continues to add new immigration judges, EOIR will continue to make scheduling adjustments to ensure all cases are handled in a timely and lawful manner,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
Outside of court, Lonazco also noticed an increase in local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests in late June. She said they seemed to target people who looked Hispanic and were going about their lives.
“I was in shock because I usually get consults, like, they vary, you know, but these two weeks were 100% detention work,” she said.
Fellow attorney Christopher Vizcardo noticed a similar increase in ICE activity, particularly in West Valley City and the Rose Park neighborhood of Salt Lake City, which are both largely Latino. In recent months, he’s also received calls about St. George, where “it seems like ICE almost weekly will just go out and try to get people without any rhyme or reason,” he said.
For those with court cases, Lonazco recommends checking their status frequently.
“The same way you look at social media, you need to go and look at your case status,” she said.
If the case status is unavailable on the EOIR website, she encourages people to call the immigration court. If they can’t get a hold of a staff member, they need to visit the court in person, she said.
And above all, she recommends hiring an attorney or finding help at a pro bono clinic.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
