Immigration courts in our country are set up to determine whether an immigrant has any relief from deportation. But of what use is the system if immigration agents can raid a courtroom and snatch an immigrant even as his matter is being heard before the judge?

It was a typical morning in Immigration Judge Stephen Sholomson’s packed courtroom. Fifty or so people – immigrants, their lawyers, interpreters — crammed into the tiny room on the 17th floor of a bank building next to Pershing Square. More immigrants and lawyers ambled in the hallway outside, waiting to be summoned when their case was called. A security guard tried to manage the chaos.

By Pamela Hartman Refugees from the war in Iraq are resettling in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, bringing with them little more than the shirts on their backs and harrowing tales of kidnap and murder, lives threatened and futures…