What you are about to read is an excerpt from WOMN, a collaborative effort of the women of Minnesota who kept showing up during Operation Metro Surge, holding the grief, the rage, the tenderness, and the fierce love that women know so well.
If you see yourself in these pages,
Pass it to the soul next to you.
“You’re welcome to come forward,” the judge says with a gentle inviting tone. An attorney is appearing remotely, on a screen in front of the judge, but the client is somewhere in the room.
When a young man with thick moppy hair shuffles forward, Nicole takes him for a teenager but then thinks she’s just too old to judge the age of a young adult anymore.
Nicole had arrived early, with a friend, to Fort Snelling Immigration Court inside the Whipple Federal Building where ICE is headquartered, to observe the 8am docket. They found only two of the five courtrooms were active and randomly chose one. They had wanted to observe the hearings for people who are currently detained in Whipple and could potentially be released, but somehow ended up in a courtroom addressing asylum requests and other immigration proceedings.
Nicole looks around the courtroom. Two court observers sit in the gallery, each holding a clipboard with a piece of paper. In addition to the young man with moppy hair, a few attorneys and some clients wait for their cases to be called.
Nicole appreciates that the judge had taken her time to read the case number, the client’s name, and what legal representation is present before inviting the moppy haired young man to come forward. The judge looks right at the client as he stands before her, barely able to see her through his long scraggly bangs.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she says, through an interpreter, and the young man grunts.
She turns to look at the attorney, “do you waive your right to an interpreter?”
“Yes Ma’am, we waive our right to an interpreter.”
Nicole watches the young man as the representing attorneys speak with the judge. Once the judge makes the determination to move the case forward, providing the attorneys more time to prepare the case, she explains to the client, through the interpreter, that his case will move forward with another hearing at another date, and thanks him for coming forward before excusing him from the court.
After a few more cases, Nicole determines that the judge has taken the time to organize the cases by attorney. If a particular attorney has several cases, the judge takes them back-to-back before moving on to the next attorney. She is thorough, managing multiple screens and the projection for clients calling in on video-chats.
For each case, the judge reads the docket information, careful to be clear and intentional about naming the case number, the client’s name, and what legal representation is present. She invites all present parties to introduce themselves, adjusting herself from looking directly into the camera on her computer or looking directly at the person or persons standing in front of her bench.
“Well, this is a quite, quite a young person.” The judge says, reading from her computer screen, speaking to an attorney on video chat. “It looks like, what I’m reading here, this is a 10-year-old seeking asylum.”
That’s when Nicole realizes what she has been witnessing and her heart drops to the floor as she gasps.
We are in Kids’ Court!
The whole docket is young people.
As the judge works through case by case, Nicole pays closer attention to who is in the room. The two observers continue to scribble on their clipboards as the few attorneys wait their turns. Some of the kids are there alone, like the moppy haired young man, with attorneys dialing in via video chat. Others have traveled in with guardians or family members from North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa.
Then Nicole notices who is not there.
The courtroom isn’t full of other people like her, people who care enough to sit and bear witness. She wonders about all the people who have decided there is nothing they can do or choose to look away.
These children need to be held by the community.
They deserve to have people bear witness to their circumstances.
“You can come on forward,” the judge says again, raising the tone of her voice slightly to be more inviting. A young girl with long beautiful hair clipped with several glittery butterfly clips shyly walks forward. Her attorney appears on the projected screen. She sits in the chair at the table in front of the judge and slouches her shoulders.
“I see you came here from South Dakota, is that correct?” the judge asks softly. The girl nods.
As the judge continues to speak to the girls’ attorneys, Nicole contemplates the fragility of the situation. Clearly, this judge is committed to the process, to being intentional and precise, and most of all, kind, in her execution of due process of law. But everything happening in this courtroom is based on her will, and her will alone. What would happen if this were another judge, one not so conscientious, one not so compassionate? We are in a time where it is literally down to the will of each individual person to uphold the rule of law and human dignity or not.
A different courtroom can look entirely different. There are no standards or guardrails. There’s no container, no checks or balances, no guarantees, and no guiding code. There is no overarching commitment or philosophy. Right now, there is just this rogue will of each individual in power to use that power as they so desire. Right now, in this moment in history, there is nothing holding protection constant.
If this were another judge, one less compassionate, what could I do about it?
But she isn’t in another court. She doesn’t have to see any kids being forced to choose between voluntary departure or forced deportation. As she watches the glitter hair clips sparkle in the light each time the girl nods at the judge, Nicole feels a whoosh of gratitude for this judge and this moment. At least this court is a dignified setting for young people.
“Thank you for talking with me,” the judge says to the girl, “You may be excused.”
The girl walks back through the gate, and the older man she had been sitting with wraps her in a big hug.
This is an excerpt from WOMN- a book about the women of Minnesota and what Operation Metro Surge made of us.
It’s a mutual aid effort — written by us, for us, moving hand to hand the way love does when it’s real. New excerpts will be released as I write them, every Tuesday, here on Fierce Love. When the manuscript is complete, I plan to release it the grassroots way. Self-published, and supported by grief at grounding community gathering events and independent bookstores.
If this chapter found you, it found you for a reason.
If you want to support this effort, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Paid subscribers will receive full chapters (not just excerpts) with my author’s commentary about my process and experience at least once a month.
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That’s how this works.
That’s how we work.
I love you fiercely,
TeriLeigh 💜
My breath caught on this one. I read the title, but not the subtitle. When the statement about it being a kid's court finally showed up, it knocked the breath out of me. Yes, these children need to be seen and supported.