A man in line for the elevator bank at the federal immigration court in San Antonio, Texas, on a morning in mid-July told the security guard that he had an attorney. “You’re special,” the guard replied, with genuine surprise.
Upstairs, inside Brittany A Rodriquez’s courtroom, the young judge with stark blond highlights gave an asylum seeker a month-and-a-half to turn around an application for protection or be ordered deported. Another person who told her “I don’t have a lawyer, I only have God” was given until September to find legal representation, or the judge indicated she would move forward with the case regardless.
