SAN DIEGO _ Jose Dominguez-Vasquez was stopped in a vehicle east of Tecate, Calif., by a Border Patrol agent at 4:13 p.m. on a recent Friday.
He admitted he was not in the country legally, having just crossed the border. He was arrested and spent the weekend in jail.
When it came time for his scheduled appearance before a federal judge in San Diego Monday, he wasn't in court.
Neither was Arturo Garcia-Gomez, or Adriana Hernandez-Jimenez, or several others arrested over the weekend who were supposed to be there.
By the end of the day, public defenders had filed 18 writs of habeas corpus, demanding that their clients be presented in court or be released.
Failures to bring new arrestees to court in a timely manner has been an issue off and on for years in San Diego and Imperial counties, and defense attorneys say that the problem has grown in the past couple of months as the Trump administration said it would criminally prosecute all illegal border crossings under a "zero-tolerance" policy.
The crackdown has put pressure on the federal justice system along the Southwest border as law enforcement, detentions and courts have tried to adjust to the ballooning caseload.
Since mid-April, when U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the new policy, public defenders in San Diego have filed 138 habeas corpus petitions, a civil remedy that in Latin means "produce the body." That's compared with 13 filed over such time last year, according to court records.
The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment on the habeas petitions.
A defendant's initial court appearance is an important first step in a criminal case. It is when a defendant learns of the charges, a judge appoints an attorney and the parties discuss the possibility of bail.
The reasons given for the delays in court appearances have varied, and the responsibilities seem to be shared by several parts of the system.
"It's like Groundhog Day," public defender Ryan Stitt said after bringing a new batch of habeas petitions last week. "The excuses are all the same."
While delays can affect any kind of federal defendant, it is overwhelmingly affecting those charged with immigration offenses. The U.S. attorney's office has been dismissing some misdemeanor illegal entry cases after habeas petitions have been filed.
In mid-May, a computer glitch that affected the national federal prison system, including the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego, or MCC, delayed dozens of arrestees from getting to court in a timely fashion. Prosecutors dropped about 30 of the misdemeanor illegal entry cases and went forward with the few of felony re-entry cases. Another 20 or so cases have been dismissed since then. Those defendants were released into immigration custody to begin the civil deportation process.
The number of dismissed cases is just a small fraction of the more than 1,200 misdemeanor illegal entry cases charged in the Southern District of California since the zero-tolerance policy went into effect.
Instead, what happens most often is a judicial order that gives the defendants an extra day to be produced.
Public defenders say that's not good enough.
Last Monday, when U.S. Magistrate Judge William Gallo moved to continue the court date to the next day for a group of unauthorized immigrants who hadn't been produced, federal public defender Rebecca Fish asked the judge to order their appearance immediately, and said she was willing to go into the evening to make sure her clients had been arraigned.
Gallo didn't go for it.
"I appreciate your willingness to stay late and work, but we're not going to do that," the judge said, according to a transcript of the hearing. "It's bad precedent to set, to continue to work till all hours of the night." He then asked the prosecution why the 16 defendants hadn't been produced for court earlier that morning, when the calendar was lighter.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Davis Loop answered: "Well, your Honor, this is an ongoing issue that my office has been working on. I know it's been a long day today. But unfortunately, we have this many defendants _ which is obviously not their problem _ you're going to have logistical issues.
"Now I know my office took every step it could today to make sure that these defendants could appear in a timely manner and also set down a legion of attorneys to ensure that things went smooth. But I know it's been an ongoing issue, logistically, getting defendants here from MCC, and we continue to work on that."
Fish shot back: "Your Honor, on that point, this has been an issue for longer than I've been practicing in this district _ for years. There's no reason the United States attorney's office, that if they're not able to prosecute this many cases and respect people's rights, they should prosecute this many cases."
She continued that without the judge inflicting consequences, the practice would continue.
The judge noted her points as valid but still ordered the defendants to court the following day.
"Mr. Loop," the judge warned, "you're going to have to do a better job because I may just dismiss the ones that we can't get to."
He added that logistical problems are understandable, but "it's a problem that is created by the executive branch without prior planning of this particular operation. And you're going to have to come up to speed pretty quickly because I hear Ms. Fish loud and clear."
The issue of getting defendants to court on time has been litigated several times in recent years in San Diego. The federal court addressed problems in 2011 during an increase in illegal border crossings, and again in 2015.
As a result, the Southern District of California operates under this rule of thumb: if a person is arrested before 6 a.m., he or she should be arraigned that same day. But if the arrest happens after 6 a.m., it is generally accepted to produce him or her for court the following day.
The court has laid out valid reasons for delay: humanitarian issues, such as a hospitalization; the unavailability of government personnel or judges to complete arraignment; and extra time needed to determine if criminal charges should be filed.
The court has also ruled that problems with the booking process or medical screening at the MCC aren't valid reasons.
Still, those are reasons public defenders most often hear as to why their clients weren't produced in court.
Before defendants can be presented in court, they must first be booked into the MCC and X-rayed for signs of tuberculosis.
Stitt said there have been times when the X-ray technician has called in sick or is stuck in traffic or the X-rays need to be redone or a radiologist is not available to analyze them.
