The lawsuit, now unfolding in a federal courtroom in D.C., names the Baton Rouge Immigration Courtroom as one instance of a courtroom the place plaintiffs have been unlawfully disadvantaged of their rights to attend and observe immigration courtroom issues and proceedings. Baton Rouge courtroom workers have persistently barred observers from particular person hearings since first opening final yr, the go well with alleges. 

Native plaintiffs embrace retired Louisiana trainer Bonnie Byland, who submitted a declaration that she was turned away from particular person hearings in immigration courtroom 13 occasions between November 2025 and Might 2026, every time by safety guards or courtroom personnel. At one level, Byland stated, she was capable of ask a decide concerning the denied entry. The decide advised her that the hearings “had many particulars of delicate nature.” Byland requested if she may attend if she had the permission of a respondent showing in courtroom that day. “The decide said that there’s the potential of a respondent signing a waiver to permit observers,” Byland said, however the decide “didn’t consider that any respondent had the ‘capability to know’ what they may be signing.”

The Advocates for Human Rights, which is predicated in Minneapolis, first filed the case in March after courtroom watchers encountered boundaries to immigration courtroom entry there. The go well with asks that the courtroom direct the DOJ to offer an evidence in any and each occasion that limits public entry to immigration courtroom proceedings. Together with Byland, Nancy Grush, one other volunteer with Baton Rouge Courtroom Watch, joined the case in June as a plaintiff. 

The EOIR had already been alerted to the sample of denials eight months earlier than Ashworth’s e mail, through a earlier grievance filed by Quigley in October 2025, which requested the EOIR to intervene and implement entry. On June 17, the day that the latest grievance was filed, a reporter from The Lens tried to attend a person listening to in Baton Rouge, and was advised by each a safety guard and courtroom personnel that observers weren’t permitted per judges’ discretion.

One week after authorized grievance filed, Ashworth emails courtroom workers
Hooked up to Ashworth’s June message to courtroom workers was one other e mail, from EOIR director Daren Margolin, dated March 2026, which opens: “EOIR’s immigration courts are open each day to the general public.” Margolin’s e mail included excerpts from EOIR’s coverage handbook.

The day after Ashworth despatched her e mail, attorneys for the DOJ filed a memorandum in help of their movement to dismiss the case.  The submitting features a declaration made by Ashworth, dated June 25, asserting that the entry denial was not coverage, and noting she’d despatched an e mail to courtroom workers and judges “reiterating the significance of public entry to hearings.” 

Ashworth’s sworn declaration saying she had emailed courtroom workers seems to be timestamped on June 25 at about 5pm CST — two hours earlier than the e-mail to workers went out.

“Hearings on the Baton Rouge Immigration Courtroom are presumptively open to the general public,” reads Ashworth’s declaration. “I’m conscious of Plaintiffs’ assertions that sure safety guards have said to Plaintiffs that there’s a categorical bar on public entry to particular person calendar or deserves hearings on the Baton Rouge Immigration Courtroom. To the extent these statements had been made, “they don’t precisely describe the listening to entry guidelines on the Baton Rouge Immigration Courtroom.” 

Ashworth additionally notes that “safety guards on the Baton Rouge Immigration Courtroom are contractors underneath the Division of Homeland Safety, not EOIR,” implying that the guards’ actions didn’t replicate courtroom coverage.

The DOJ likewise seems to be deflecting blame to the guards in Baton Rouge. ”The statements attributed to sure safety guards on the courtroom — people who should not EOIR staff — don’t precisely state the courtroom’s coverage concerning public entry to hearings,” reads the submitting. The memorandum argues that the plaintiffs skilled solely “sporadic denials of entry,” together with situations the place “complicated or inaccurate steerage was allegedly supplied by courtroom workers or safety.”

The DOJ makes this declare regardless of Byland’s dialog with the decide and a separate declaration by Grush that she was denied entry to particular person hearings all 20 occasions she visited the courtroom, by each safety and courtroom personnel.

In June, a entrance desk worker on the Baton Rouge Immigration Courtroom additionally advised a reporter from The Lens that members of the general public weren’t permitted to attend particular person hearings. 

[Disclosure: The Lens reporter referenced above has submitted a declaration about what she was told in the Baton Rouge Immigration Court. It was filed with the D.C. court case on Friday. To avoid any appearance of conflict of interest, that reporter will not contribute to any further reporting regarding this matter.]

Regardless of e mail and DOJ claims, courtroom entry denials continued

Ashworth despatched that e mail on Thursday, June 25. However on Monday, courtroom watch volunteers nonetheless had points moving into the Baton Rouge courtroom.

The account of courtroom watch volunteer Jami Prince, who had already been turned away practically a dozen occasions, illustrates how your complete courtroom, from workers to the judges themselves, gave the impression to be in consensus that the general public wouldn’t be allowed in.

Prince tried to attend a person listening to on June 29, she stated, and was initially advised by entrance desk workers that she wouldn’t be allowed to attend. 

As an alternative of leaving, she instructed that the worker search for the June 25 e mail from Ashworth stating that the hearings are open to the general public. The worker regarded up the e-mail, printed it, learn it aloud, after which gave Prince permission to proceed into the courtroom she needed to look at. 

In that courtroom, Courtroom Three, the decide and authorities legal professional had been current in particular person, whereas the respondent, his legal professional, and the interpreter had been attending nearly.

The decide, Romaine White, additionally tried to show Prince away, saying, “I’m sorry, that is a person listening to, you’re not allowed to look at.”

Once more, Prince stated, she pointed to the e-mail from Ashworth. 

White then relented, saying that Prince may keep —with the permission of the respondent. The respondent, an asylum seeker from Guatemala, gave his okay. Prince stayed and watched. White denied the person’s asylum declare. 

It was the primary particular person listening to Prince had been allowed to attend. Since then, she stated, members of the Courtroom Watch group have usually been capable of watch immigration hearings, with solely “a number of little bumps within the street.”

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