February 21, 2009

A few weeks ago we brought you the story of Kristo Papa, an Albanian refugee seeking asylum here in Central Virginia. He'd been living and working here for eight years. Unfortunately for him and his family, his pleas to the judicial system have fallen on deaf ears.

One of the problems in cases like this is a shortage of judges to handle the thousands of cases brought each year.

An attorney with the Charlottesville Immigration Center says many illegal immigrants in the area have a good case for citizenship, but judges with Immigration Services are over-worked, which means each individual's case isn't getting much attention.

Charlottesville resident Gennady Denisenko will go before a judge this June to make his case to stay in the United States. It's a case that's becoming hard to make.

"You get really frustrated. You often feel like the judge isn't listening to you, making snap judgments, "said Edward Summers, of the Charlottesville Immigration Services. "In the back of your head though you know that the reason that the judge has such a short temper that day is because they're overworked insanely."

Summers says some judges handle up to 10,000 cases a year. Sometimes they're as short as 15 minutes long.

"Those cases take time, and the judges just don't have time to hear them."

Kristo Papa claimed that his lawyer misplaced a file he needed when he was applying for political asylum. Summers says this happened to one of his clients.

"The lawyer for the immigration service didn't have the file with her in court. So we couldn't do anything."

Illegal immigrants in Virginia that are detained stay in the same jail as criminals. Many times they have their hearing via web-cam in the jail.

"You can't see your attorney, you can't see the translator whose asking you questions in Spanish or whatever language you speak," said Summers. "It's not at all how you think of a normal trial."

The Charlottesville Immigration Center has dealt with a handful of these deportation cases very recently. He says most of the people who come forward have mixed families where one spouse is a legal citizen and another spouse is illegal. If the couple has children, their kids are legal U.S. citizens, so the parents would have to file expensive papers to give them a new guardian.

The only Immigration courts in Virginia are in Arlington. The nearest jail where ICE sends Central Virginia detainees is the Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville.

For more information on ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, check out this web site.