Monday morning, when at least two people who showed up for scheduled hearings at San Antonio Immigration Court were led away in handcuffs by federal agents, U.S. Rep. Greg Casar accused the Trump administration of ambushing law-abiding immigrants as they pursued cases to legally stay in the U.S.
During a press conference across the street from the court building, Casar said he’d watched the hearing of a Venezuelan man earlier in the morning who was here on temporary protected status. During the proceeding, an attorney for the federal government said it had dropped its case, which the Democratic congressman said enabled masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to apprehend and handcuff the man, whisking him onto a bus waiting outside.
Casar, whose district includes parts of San Antonio and Austin, said the man planned to testify that he faced torture and possibly death if he’s deported back to Venezuela. The congressman added that the migrant showed him a finger that had been partially amputated and bullet scars in his neck he’d sustained while being persecuted in his home country.
“This is the most disturbing, dystopian government proceeding I have ever seen or could ever imagine,” Casar said as the white detention ICE bus remained parked in front of the court building. “I am going to contact every member of Congress about what I saw today, because this is the end of due process for people in the country perfectly legally.”
As the press conference got underway, the Venezuelan man pressed a federally issued Employment Authorization Card up to the bus window, which showed his identity, his country of origin and stated that he had legal status to work in the United States.
“This was a show trial,” Casar said of the morning’s proceeding. “This was a kangaroo court.”
Casar also told reporters that after the government dropped its case, the judge, Rifian S. Newaz, said in English — a language the plaintiff didn’t understand — that he would likely be arrested as soon as he exited the courtroom.
The same fate has met others who came to San Antonio Immigration Court for their hearings over recent months, according to civil-rights activists. Immigrant advocates maintain that ICE agents have conducted multiple arrests of people leaving their hearings since May, many of them after federal attorneys announced their cases had been dropped.
Despite Monday morning’s arrest and the others conducted over the past few months, Casar said that when several other plaintiffs teleconferenced in for their hearings, Newaz ordered them to show up in person on Monday or Wednesday of next week. The judge did so knowing that ICE agents would likely arrest them as soon as federal lawyers dropped their case, according to the congressman.
“At the end of the day, whether [the judges] are colluding directly or indirectly, what’s happening right now is immigrants who have done nothing wrong — who are the most law-abiding because they’re showing up to court — are being funneled into Donald Trump’s mass deportation and mass incarceration scheme,” Casar said.
The Current reached out to Newaz for comment, but staff referred any questions to the press office of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR. No one from the EOIR responded to the paper’s inquiries about the case or the San Antonio ICE arrests.
Casar said ICE’s sweeps of people showing up for their hearings in San Antonio will deter others from appearing in court to pursue what in many cases are valid claims to remain in the U.S. He warned the arrests are eroding trust not just in the nation’s immigration courts but in the U.S. legal system more broadly.
“If showing up to court means you don’t get to say anything, that you’re just told, ‘Get on a bus, whether you’re legal or undocumented or not, whether this may kill you or not,’ then people will simply stop coming to court,” Casar said. “What Donald Trump is ordering people to do and what’s starting to happen here in the heart of San Antonio could be the very end to the court system as we know it.”
Carolina Canizales, Texas director for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said she’s already seen the number of plaintiffs showing up for hearings at San Antonio Immigration Court dwindle since ICE started ambushing people after their hearings. In May, federal agents were picking up as many as six people daily, she said, adding that the number has dwindled to two or three a day as immigrants hear warnings to avoid the court.
Canizales said Newaz and other immigration judges who insist that plaintiffs show up for in-person hearings rather than conducting them over video are knowingly playing into hands of ICE as it looks to increase arrest rates.
“We believe it’s entrapment, right? Because judges continue to have discretion about whether they can grant virtual hearings,” she added. “Every judge has discretion over their courtroom.”
Immediately after Casar’s press conference, a group of masked ICE personnel led another immigrant from the courthouse into the bus still parked outside the building. The man, wearing dress clothes, wept as he was led onto the vehicle.
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This article appears in Jul 23 – Aug 6, 2025.
