The Day the Judge Drew the Line
About the Author: Herlinda Ocampo holds a bachelor’s in psychology from California State University, Long Beach. She is a research assistant with Justice in View.
Abstract: I came to observe a legal process but left realizing how fragile justice can feel when someone’s fate depends on a system that is not always ready for them.
Keywords: Santa Ana; judicial power, accountability
Citation
Ocampo, Herlinda. 2026. “The Day the Judge Drew the Line.” Semi-Structured (Washington, D.C.), On Ethnographic Witnessing: Student Encounters with Immigration Court, vol. 1 (3). https://doi.org/10.57912/34242924
Before attending immigration court, I expected a formal, orderly process similar to media portrayals of the legal system. I imagined clear procedures, careful deliberation, and individualized attention to each case from everyone involved—the judge, both counsels, and the interpreter. I pictured a small courtroom, lined with a few dark wood benches filled with tension and uncertainty. I also assumed that, given the stakes, the judges and attorneys would be highly experienced and fully prepared. A Tuesday morning at the Santa Ana Immigration Court made clear the difference between media and reality.
I arrived at the courthouse at 8:05 am. It was a cold, windy morning. From the outside, you could not tell that the building was a courthouse. Rather than a prestigious facade, the courthouse was in an unassuming business park. The courthouse didn’t even have its own building but instead was crammed on the second floor above the Orange County Environmental Health Department.
That day, I decided to stay and observe both the morning and afternoon dockets in the same courtroom. I sat on the last bench in the back of the room where I could have a full view of the procedures. The morning involved a smaller set of merits hearings while the afternoon was a much longer master calendar hearing. At the start of the morning, two attorneys from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were present, a lead and an assistant attorney. DHS attorneys represent the government. From my prior observations, such an arrangement was common at this court. Typically, the lead DHS attorney was a newbie getting the hang of the ropes, while the assisting attorney supported the lead and jumped in when needed. While many respondents had an immigration attorney representing their case, others were unrepresented.
As the court readied for the morning hearing, whispers and the shuffling of papers punctuated the silence in the room. Respondents appeared for their hearing, some with family and others by themselves. They nervously waited in silence to be called up as they bounced their legs out of nervousness or fiddled with their hands, unsure of what to expect.
From the morning docket, it was clear that the lead DHS attorney was unprepared. I had expected more professionalism and preparedness given that they handle high-stakes matters and must go through a competitive hiring process involving writing samples, interviews, and training prior to taking on any cases.
Throughout the hearing, the judge asked questions about the case and the attorney’s next steps, but she often could not answer promptly or at all. From my past observations, I expected the DHS attorney to be quick to reference information from prior hearings that would help answer the judge’s questions. Instead, this attorney would take long pauses before saying anything. She would scroll through her laptop seemingly looking for an answer with the occasional nervous laughter when unable to respond. At several points, she spoke over the judge, even after he repeatedly told her to “stop talking” because he had “heard enough.”
This continued throughout the morning and into the afternoon session. At first, the judge was patient, repeating and rephrasing the question for her, but his patience only went so far. Over time, he began to raise his voice when repeating himself and questioning why she was taking so long to respond. I could feel the tension and awkwardness in the air. Some of us in the gallery exchanged glances as we noticed her lack of preparedness.
By the end of the afternoon docket, the judge had lost patience. He told the lead attorney to stop speaking and turned to the assisting attorney, asking her to take over for the remainder of the hearing. The lead tried to explain herself, but the judge raised his voice.
“STOP! GET OUT OF MY COURTROOM!”
She continued speaking instead of gathering her things and leaving as instructed. The judge stepped out of the courtroom, perhaps to regain his composure; it was clear that she needed to be gone before he returned.
I had a knot in my stomach, as if I was the one who he yelled at. Despite feeling both tension and disbelief, I wrote even faster, attempting to capture every detail. Sitting at the back of the courtroom with my notebook in hand, I felt acutely aware of how important it was to witness these interactions.
It was both unsettling and frightening to realize that the fate of immigrants seeking safety and protection in the United States can rest, in part, in the hands of DHS attorneys unprepared for the gravity of their role. At the same time, it also underscored the immense power judges hold in these proceedings, even when under considerable pressure by the White House to speed up deportations. The judge did not appear to be driven by impatience with immigrants but rather impatience with DHS’s incompetence. By disciplining the attorney and walking out of the proceeding, the judge had refused to let someone who lacked preparation and professionalism continue in life-or-death matters of asylum.
Observing such unprofessionalism made me think about how much training and preparation matter in immigration court where people’s lives and futures are on the line. I did not expect to see this level of unprofessionalism from a DHS attorney, much less see them yelled at and removed from the courtroom for it. I wondered whether what I witnessed was simply one attorney’s lack of preparation or a symptom of a larger system pressured to move cases and deportations more quickly.
I came to immigration court expecting a formal process with clear procedures and prepared attorneys on both sides. Instead, I saw how fragile this process can be and how lines can be drawn at incompetence. However, at a time when roughly one in seven immigration judges have been removed from the bench, I wonder how easily that line can shift — and who ultimately decides where it is drawn. Although the judge reasonably drew the line that day, he may have risked his career by doing so.
About this issue
This article is part of On Ethnographic Witnessing: Student Encounters with Immigration Court, a special issue of Semi-Structured. This collection features the work of 22 student ethnographers, who offer insights, analysis, and experiences based on hundreds of hours in immigration courtrooms across the country over the last few years. Through their work in observation projects under the direction of scholar-activists Lauren Heidbrink, Amelia Frank-Vitale, and Rebecca Galemba, students gained critical training in ethnographic practice and a crash course in immigration law, especially in the disjunctures between law on the books and law in practice. Understanding that wider audiences would benefit from hearing and learning directly from their students, Heidbrink, Frank-Vitale, and Galemba approached Semi-Structured to steward this thoughtful, ambitious collection. We are honored to run this issue and invite readers to consider what student observers witnessed, felt, and learned in court and why ethnographic observations are important to broader publics.
Semi-Structured is the open-access journal from the Public Ethnography Lab. The journal is dedicated to showcasing ethnography as it unfolds in the world. This journal exists because we believe ethnographic work matters beyond the academy—that the insights generated through sustained engagement with communities, organizations, and institutions can and should inform decisions, shape practices, and drive meaningful change.