Speaker 1: Hello, this is immigration attorney Larissa Davis and I want to talk to you today about immigration court proceedings. If you have a case where you are going to be appearing before an immigration judge and you want to understand the general process, I'm going to go over that today. If you already have an immigration attorney representing you, of course, consult with your lawyer about your specific case. This is for just a basic general understanding for informational purposes only. Okay, so immigration court is where someone, it's called a respondent, meaning a person responding to a notice to appear in immigration court where they have to defend their case. So in the notice to appear, which I go over in other videos I've posted, it will have some allegations. Usually there are three or four, could be more, but generally there are about three or four allegations saying you are not a citizen of the United States, you entered the United States at a certain date and location, and it's going to have some charges. One of them is probably going to say that you are removable. So the removability charge is saying the U.S. government is going to deport you and this is why. This is your notice saying you have to appear in court at a certain location, date, and time. Now if your notice to appear doesn't have a date and court location and time, and instead it just says TBD, to be determined, that means that you're going to get another notice to appear later on in the future that actually has this information in it. Okay, so you've got your notice to appear and there are going to be two different types of hearings. Okay, the first is called a master calendar hearing. And in other types of courts in the United States, this is also known as a pretrial hearing or it's like a pretrial hearing, but in immigration courts it's called a master calendar hearing. And the next kind of hearing I want to tell you about is an individual. Okay, the individual hearing is a lot like what we know as trial in other courts. But these are the words they use in immigration court, master calendar hearing, individual hearing. Why do they say master calendar and individual instead of pretrial and trial? I don't know, but that's what they call it. So let's talk about these. Okay, in the master calendar hearing, the notice to appear with the charges was issued either by USCIS or ICE, Immigration Customs Enforcement, directing you to go to the court at a certain date and time. And it's going to have all your allegations and you're going to go to that court. The master calendar hearing is like a call docket. So lawyers or the immigrant in government are going to go in front of the immigration judge and talk through what the game plan is or what the next steps are in the case. And so it's very administrative. Now because this is only about maybe 10 to 20 minutes long, it's really short, generally immigration judges are allowing these to be done over the phone. So for example, today I was representing my client in a master calendar hearing and I am in Mississippi, my client's in New York, and we both called in on the phone. So in this type of hearing, being able to call in on the phone is pretty much allowed. The Department of Homeland Security will have their own lawyer, okay, representing the U.S. government. And in this case they were present, they were inside the courtroom. But the great thing about these is there's a little bit more flexibility in being able to appear by phone. And that's what we did today. If you are going to appear by phone, make sure you are in a quiet place. You shouldn't be around other people or animals or noises. Don't be in a car. Don't be out in public. Be somewhere that's quiet where the judge can hear you. Remember, you are appearing before a U.S. immigration court judge. You need to be respectful and you need to be in a quiet place. Don't have your phone on speaker. We don't want any interference or loud noises. These immigration judges are very busy. We don't want to make them frustrated or unhappy because there's interference on the phone or other technical issues. And you should know ahead of time how to call in. Immigration courts have websites with instructions for calling in and the codes to put in for the judge's conference line and it's pretty straightforward but you need to know all that information ahead of time. Again, if you have your own lawyer, they will explain these things to you. You should ask questions if you don't. You can give me a call. I represent clients all over the United States and my number is 601-724-9255. Okay, so the judge is going to ask whether or not the person is going to admit or deny these allegations. Admit or concede to these saying, yes, I am not a U.S. citizen, yes, I'm a citizen of another country, yes, I'm removable under the U.S. immigration laws for these reasons. You can admit them or you can deny and then the judge will ask about what kind of relief you're seeking. Maybe it's asylum, maybe it's cancellation of removal. There's something that you are asking of the U.S. immigration court. You're asking for some kind of relief and that's something that you will argue later in the individual hearing at trial with evidence. So once this master calendar hearing takes place, there might actually be a second one scheduled. Sometimes there is, sometimes there's not. Maybe the judge tells you if you don't have a lawyer, get a lawyer and then he'll schedule another master calendar hearing and you can take care of all of this, whether or not you plead to these and there might even be a requirement for written pleadings. Orally over the phone or in front of the judge, you can make those pleadings to the court. Okay, so before the case is ready for trial, if there's some other matters that need to be taken care of, then the judge will set it for another master calendar hearing. So there might be a second one or not and then once the case is ready for trial, it will be set for a trial date. And so while this was just setting up what's going to happen ahead of time and saying whether or not you admit or deny to these charges, this is the actual trial and this is where there's going to be evidence presented to the court in specific ways and procedures that are required by immigration courts and witnesses. So if you have witnesses that are going to testify on your behalf in an immigration court, that's when all of this happens. So this individual hearing is extremely important. This is the real deal here. This is the trial where the judge is going to take all of this information, all of your evidence and decide whether or not you are going to be deported. So, having a lawyer represent you at your trial is extremely important. This is sort of your last shot here. So there are appeals processes after this, but I wanted to make this video to explain these two hearings. So master calendar hearing is number one and then you've got your individual hearing or trial is number two. Right now, and this is just generally, courts have different backlogs. It depends how backed up they are. This individual hearing after the last master calendar hearing, so maybe you have one hearing or maybe you have two, but after you're done with your master calendar hearing, this can be scheduled anywhere from I'd say nine months to maybe a year and a half out. So it gives you a lot of time to gather evidence. There should be a lot of effort made to get affidavits, photos, medical records, whatever it is that your evidence is for your case. You've got to use your time wisely to get all of that together about your country, the conditions, anything supporting your reason for why you're seeking asylum or cancellation of removal or whatever it is that you are asking of the court, that relief that you're asking for so that you're not deported, you need to back it up with some solid evidence. And so using this time to do that is important so that by the time your individual hearing comes up, your trial, you are well prepared and you have what you need to hopefully convince the judge not to deport you. Again, if you need an immigration lawyer, you can give my office a call 601-724-9255 or you can give me an email or send me an email at attorney at L.A. Davis immigration.com. And it's important to also understand this is a trial. So you are going to be there in person, not on the phone, not like this. This could be hours. This could take a whole morning. This is going to be you and your lawyer and the government attorney all there inside the courtroom presenting the case. And so it's very important that you know where you're going and when to be there, get there on time, especially because you're going to have to go through security and everything and you're going to be there in person. So this can be done by the phone or it could be done in person. This has to be physically in person. I hope this was helpful to you. If you have any questions, you can drop it in the comments below and I can either make a video on it or you can give my office a call and we can talk about your specific case.