2/29/20

By Lee Goodman

What brought me to tears this time was not the airplanes we watch taking off in the early morning deporting people in shackles to Honduras and Guatemala. That gets to everyone the first time they see it. I have seen it several times.

What got to me was the woman who I talked to as she left the tent courts where asylum seekers plead their cases via video to judges who are miles away. Years ago this woman, an American, had lived in Honduras as a missionary. She became friends with a woman there and they have stayed in touch. The Honduran had helped her raise her children. Now, the American lives in Minnesota. She came to Texas to tell the judge about the dangers the woman faces in Honduras. Most asylum seekers have only their own testimony to present to the judges. Some have a few documents. It is rare to have a live supporting witness who can testify from firsthand knowledge. I would have expected the judge to be eager to hear from the American. But he refused to let her testify. He announced from his remote bench that he had read her affidavit so he didn't need to hear what she had to say.

I wept for our country. Recently I retired from the practice of law. I have been in many courtrooms and seen good judges and bad. I have at times been discouraged by the way our system, which is supposed to dispense justice, falls short. To be confronted by this – the refusal to listen to the facts, in a case where a woman's life is in the balance – that is what got to me.

There can be no justice if we won't listen. People will have no faith in our courts if judges do not show compassion. We will not learn the truth if we turn away those who come to tell it.

I wept to see the legal system that I spent my career in deteriorate so drastically. If we allow this to continue, we will be in the same situation that Central America and parts of Mexico are in, where the people have lost faith in their governments so the gangs and cartels thrive and everyone lives in fear. Capone and his friends brought that sort of terror to Chicago many years ago and it took a long time to eliminate.

The edifice of justice is built case by case, like a brick wall. Every gap weakens the entire structure. It can collapse.