Free Republic

The Department of Homeland Security is opening makeshift immigration tent courts erected along the U.S.-Mexico border to the public, following months of criticism over a lack of transparency. The department established two such border courts—rows of shipping containers beneath large wedding-style tents—at ports of entry in Brownsville and Laredo, Texas, late this summer. Unlike regular immigration courts and most others across the country, journalists, advocates and other members of the public weren’t permitted to enter. The new acting secretary of the department, Chad Wolf, asked staff after assuming his position in November whether it was feasible to open the courts...

BROWNSVILLE, Texas—Each morning well before sunrise, dozens of immigrants line up on the international bridge here to enter a recently erected tent facility at the U.S. border. Inside a large wedding-style tent, the government has converted shipping containers into temporary courtrooms, where flat screens show the judge and a translator, who are in front of a camera in chambers miles away. The tents, which appeared at ports of entry here and up the Rio Grande in Laredo in late summer, are the latest manifestation of the Trump administration’s evolving response to a surge of migrants seeking asylum at the southern...