Increase in ICE detentions leading Bay Area immigrants to apply for virtual court hearings

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- As immigration detentions at court hearings increase, Bay Area lawyers are urging their clients to instead apply for a virtual hearings.

Images of ICE agents waiting outside of immigration court hearings and detaining people is amplifying fear through the immigrant community.

"The problem is that they have to show up. If they don't show up they are going to get ordered deported, so they are between a rock and a hard place. They have to show up," said Bill Hing, professor of law and migration studies at the University of San Francisco.

Professor Hing's students have witnessed detentions at the immigration building in San Francisco. Situations that have led many legal experts to suggest a different approach.

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"People are panicking and so they have heard that there is an ability to ask permission to appear virtually rather than in person, so more and more people are doing this. I would say every week a couple dozen people," said Prof. Hing.

We went to the offices of the nonprofit La Raza Centro Legal. Their team of attorneys and volunteers have been helping undocumented immigrants file out the form for a virtual hearing.

"This cover page allows people to say what matters is, their A number which is their identification number with the court and the big chunk of your motion will be here in the argument as to why you need to change the hearing format," said April Calvo-Perez, immigration attorney at La Raza Centro Legal in San Francisco.

Legal experts say they have to submit the form two to three weeks before their clients' in-person hearing to give judges enough time to decide.

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"As an organization, we have helped about 70 people file these motions pro se. Meaning they don't have lawyers - they are just community members who are helping out with this one-time service, and roughly about half have been granted," said Jordan Weiner, legal director of the removal defense program at La Raza Centro Legal.

Among the most common reasons judges do grant the exception - medical reasons.

"Reason that is specific to your circumstances if you have one that gives the judge more of a reason to say yes, I don't recommend citing fear of ICE arrests because that is something everyone is scared of and the more general ''you' reasons, if they apply to every person, the less likely an immigration judge is going to grant it," said Weiner.

In the past, undocumented immigrants who didn't show up to their immigration court hearings paid a $110 fee to appeal their absence. That fee has recently gone up to $900.

Application immigration attorneys are filing can be found here.