Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan has found a controversial new engine. Forget individual, painstaking trials: the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) has begun implementing so-called “mega-hearings.”
These are simultaneous appointments where more than a hundred immigrants are crammed into a single day, an express strategy that seeks to relieve the monumental backlog of 3.5 million pending cases at the expense of the legal defense of those affected.
School-style trials and the danger of absence
🇺🇸🔎🚶 The #Trump administration has not only decided to implement the #greencards, but immigration courts have begun to hold the famous “mega hearings.” pic.twitter.com/ziLdJc1onu
– El Sol de México (@elsolde_mexico) June 2, 2026
Lawyers from the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) have set off alarm bells.
Traditionally, a judge would receive a controlled group of 20 to 30 people.
Today, cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and San Antonio cram 100+ people into venues that do not have the physical capacity to accommodate such magnitude.
Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, AILA advisor, denounced that some magistrates are conducting litigation “in the style of a school classroom”, addressing blocks of 40 people simultaneously and asking them to raise their hands if they “understand” the process.
The risk is lethal: the speed of appointments means that many notifications do not arrive on time, resulting in automatic “in absentia” deportation orders for those who do not show up.
Cleansing of judges: Executive control
🟡 #EnNoticia | Immigration courts in the United States have begun implementing ‘mega hearings’, where more than a hundred immigrants are summoned simultaneously to answer for their processes, an unprecedented tactic that, experts told EFE, seeks to elevate… pic.twitter.com/FsOfIXs5Lm
– Globovisión (@globovision) June 1, 2026
How was this radical change achieved? Unlike the independent judicial system, the U.S. immigration courts are directly dependent on the Executive Branch.
This allowed the Trump Administration to fire more than 100 judges who did not align with its heavy-handed agenda.
He replaced them with related profiles and eliminated the requirements of experience in immigration law to speed up the appointments.
The goal of one million deportations
Immigration courts in the United States implement “mega-hearings”, where more than 100 immigrants are summoned simultaneously, an unprecedented tactic that, according to experts, seeks to increase the number of deportations.https://t.co/NkaxgAwTpO
– La Prensa Grafica (@prensagrafica) June 1, 2026
During 2025, the U.S. Government removed more than 442,000 people.
While the figure is massive, it fell short of Trump’s pledge to reach one million deportations annually.
With the deployment of the “mega calendars” in Texas and other entities, the government apparatus is looking to step on the gas, while activists fear the return of ICE agents outside courthouses to immediately arrest those who leave their appointment.
Filed under: Mega immigration hearings