The Trump administration announced Wednesday that new immigration courts in tents on the Texas border with Mexico will be closed to legal observers, the press and the public.
Immigration lawyers condemned the restrictions as a violation of the due process rights of asylum seekers.
Federal contractors built the two massive tents along the Rio Grande in the cities of Brownsville and Laredo this summer at a cost of $25 million.
The so-called “port courts” were designed to host hearings for the more than 42,000 asylum seekers who were returned to Mexico while their cases proceed under the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” program that started in January, according to acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan.
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