“What I witnessed this morning was the most disturbing government proceeding I’ve ever seen in my 10 years of being a member of Congress and a City Council member,” Greg Casar told the Chronicle Monday afternoon. “It was straight out of George Orwell’s 1984 – a dystopian and disturbing show trial.”
Casar, a U.S. congressman representing parts of Austin and San Antonio, was referring to his July 28 visit to a San Antonio immigration court to see how immigrants seeking asylum are being treated under the Trump administration. A Venezuelan man named Carlos Morales Almario appeared in court for a hearing that morning. When Morales Almario’s case came up on the docket, a government attorney asked that it be dismissed. The judge immediately agreed. Morales Almario left the courtroom in confusion and was taken into custody by ICE officers stationed outside. Casar walked beside Morales Almario, followed by Austin City Council member and immigration attorney José “Chito” Vela, before the asylum seeker was pushed onto a waiting bus.
“He’s a legally present person, a person with legal status,” Casar insisted. “He showed me his protected status ID card. He fled Venezuela because he was persecuted and tortured. He showed me his thumb that had been cut in half when he was tortured and wounds from bullets in his neck.”
“Lawyers may start advising people not to go to court, if court is no longer safe.” – Congressman Greg Casar
Casar is one of a growing number of Democrats who are traveling to immigration courts, alarmed by reports that judges are dismissing the cases of people applying for asylum without even hearing them. After the dismissals, ICE officers use a formerly obscure process known as expedited removal to quickly deport the immigrants, sometimes in less than a day. Expedited removal has been around since 1996 but Trump radically expanded its scope in January. Before, federal agents rarely made arrests at court buildings, on the theory that such arrests discourage immigrants from following the legal process to gain citizenship. Now, ICE agents follow proceedings inside the courtrooms and set up patrols outside, in an effort to meet the agency’s goal of arresting 3,000 people a day.
Casar said that after Morales Almario was arrested, the San Antonio immigration judge took up the cases of other asylum seekers. One asked that his hearing be reset, to allow him time to get a lawyer. The judge told him to appear the next week or face immediate deportation. As Casar spoke to reporters about Morales Almario’s arrest, he said he saw another man dragged weeping onto the bus.
Casar pointed out that these people were faithfully following the rules applying to asylum. “These are law-abiding folks showing up at court, wanting to check in with the judge. They have a right to apply and these judges should be listening to these cases. But they are just being handed right over to ICE officials to be sent to a criminal detention facility. So now, lawyers may start advising people not to go to court, if court is no longer safe.”
Video posted to X show that several of the agents who took Morales Almario into custody were masked, something Casar criticized as a likely violation of the Constitution. He said he is co-sponsoring a bill that will prohibit federal law enforcement officials from hiding their faces during arrests. He added that he believes the judge’s summary dismissal of Morales Almario’s asylum case is also a violation of the Constitution, particularly the 14th Amendment’s due process clause, which requires judges to treat everyone fairly and follow the law when deciding cases.
“Once there’s no due process or constitutional rights for some of these immigrants, the next thing could be no due process for U.S. citizens, too,” Casar said. “That should send a chill down the spine of every American. Because once a judge is allowed to just not listen to you and throw you onto a bus because you’re an immigrant, it could be anyone else next.”
This article appears in August 1 • 2025.
