Suspected Illegal Immigrants Deported Without Getting Their Day in Court - Due process is a vitally important tenet of liberal democracy.

More immigrants than ever are signing away their rights to a day in court before they are deported. But do they understand what they are doing?

The National Immigrant Justice Center recently received more than 80,000 records from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) profiling the U.S. government’s use of stipulated orders of removal since 1997. Stipulated orders are deportation orders that immigration officers ask detainees to sign to agree to be deported without taking their case before an immigration judge.

NIJC and other immigration legal aid providers have long suspected, based on stories that our clients tell us, that immigration officers frequently pressure detainees into signing these deportation orders and often do not translate them properly. We have heard numerous stories about the orders being used following raids, when detained workers are too frightened to question what the papers mean. Many immigrants sign the orders without fully understanding the consequences, which include a 10-year bar from reentering the United States.”*

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