Recently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Sayed Naser, an Afghan man who had spent years translating for the U.S. military, as he left an immigration court hearing in San Diego.
Naser had done everything we ask of those seeking safe harbor in the U.S. When Taliban fighters killed his brother and abducted his father from a family wedding for working with the U.S., Naser and his family fled to Brazil, then made the long and dangerous trek here on foot.
In 2024, he made an appointment with U.S. Customs and Border Protection as he entered the country. There, government officials paroled Naser into the U.S., where he applied for asylum and a Special Immigrant Visa created for foreign nationals who work with the U.S. in a war zone.
On June 11, 2025, Naser went to his first hearing before an immigration judge, as was required for his asylum application. When he arrived, however, a lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security claimed that his case had been “improvidently issued.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents waiting outside the courtroom handcuffed him. He is now in immigration detention, and his wife and children are in hiding.
Although shocking, Naser’s case is sadly no longer unusual. Since May, as part of their effort to meet a 3,000 person per day quota, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents across the country have been arresting hundreds of people as they leave their immigration hearings.
Arresting people in and around courthouses used to be largely off limits — and for good reason. Such practices mean that immigrants face an impossible choice: go to court to follow the law and apply for immigration or asylum status legally — and face possible arrest there and then, or fail to appear, give up your legal claims to asylum or a green card, and have the judge order deportation in your absence.
There is another, much less visible way that immigrants’ access to the courts is now in peril as well. If Trump’s budget reconciliation bill passes as written, immigrants and asylum seekers like Naser will face exorbitant fees that will prevent almost everyone from having their day in court.
Under the bill, people paroled into the United States would have to pay a $1,000 fee upon entering plus a $550 work authorization fee. To renew or extend parole — which people would have to do at least every six months — there would be an additional $550 fee. Then, to apply for asylum, there would be another $1,000 fee. And if an applicant needed more time to find a lawyer or to collect documents, the court would charge another $100 for each continuance the person requested in court. Similar fees would apply for people applying for other kinds of status, including for youth traveling alone and for people fleeing countries decimated by war or natural disasters.
Naser — who walked to the U.S. on foot from Brazil — almost certainly does not have thousands of dollars to apply for asylum. Neither most other immigrants and asylum seekers. These fees would effectively deny access to the courts for all but the very wealthy.
Arresting people as they try to do the right thing by going through our legal system — and charging them such high fees that no one can afford to go to court — undermines the rule of law that is the bedrock of our country. Due process, which is enshrined in the Fifth and 14th amendments to the Constitution, requires that the government prove its case in court and give individuals the right to be heard before it can deprive them of life, liberty or property.
Due process protects not only the rights of immigrants (or citizens mistaken as immigrants) from unfair deportation, but it also requires the government to prove its case against someone before imprisoning them, to go to court before taking someone’s property or benefits, and to hold a hearing before removing a person’s child.
Courts play an essential role in our society. Their purpose is to ensure that everyone is treated fairly under the law and insist that the government follows fair procedures. They place a critical check on abuses of power by the executive and legislative branches.
When due process breaks down and people can no longer access immigration courts — whether for fear of what will happen when they appear or simply because the price tag to access justice is too high — that will further stoke fear in immigrant communities and dissuade people from asserting their rights in court. But it should also strike fear in all of us because when access to justice is threatened for some, it is a threat to our entire system of justice, which is a grave threat to us all.
Lauren Jones is the Legal and Policy Director at the National Center for Access to Justice at Fordham Law School
