The immigration court in Tacoma’s Northwest Detention Center is exceptional for its high bonds, with lawyers saying it is difficult to understand why some of their clients receive bonds of $2,500 or $3,000 while others face bonds costing $15,000 and sometimes higher.
According to lawyers, the high bonds are beyond those seen in other places, such as Colorado and Texas, dealing with immigrants parents, separated from their children by the Trump administration’s now-rescinded ‘zero-tolerance’ policy. Judges in Colorado tend to order minimum bonds of $1,500, said Brittany Hurley, the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network. The discrepancy further emphasizes a recent analysis showing that the immigration courts in Tacoma and Hartford, Connecticut hand out the highest bonds in the US.
The analysis, by the TRAC Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, examined 39 courts across the country that held at least 50 bond hearings between 1 October 2017 and 31 May 2018. South Texas immigration lawyer, Jodi Goodwin, said that a bond of more than $10,000 is a ‘ridiculous amount’.
The Tacoma court is not consistently harsher than others, with bonds granted in 50% of cases during the eight months that TRAC analyzed when bonds were rarely granted in some immigration courts. But, lawyers have been surprised by the denial of bonds to some immigrant parents still waiting for reunification with their children.