Immigration courts in North Carolina are open during government shutdown

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Immigration courts across the country remain open during the government shutdown, including in Charlotte, which is the only immigration court in North Carolina.

Davis Lovvorn used to be a high school Spanish teacher, where he taught several undocumented students.

“The barriers that they faced, with respect to work authorization, with respect to getting into college. Those are not barriers that I faced growing up,” Lovvorn, now an Immigrant Justice Program attorney at the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy, said.

That work, he says, inspired him to become a lawyer.

“It’s really important that we remember that everybody in this country has a right to be treated with dignity, and that includes basic rights of due process,” Lovvorn said.

There is currently a backlog of over 133,000 cases in North Carolina, according Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The Department of Justice says the Executive Office for Immigration Review has a backlog of almost 4 million cases.

“It’s a pretty substantial number. Even for me, I have approximately 60 clients, and maybe four or five have had their cases heard by immigration court at this point,” Lovvorn said.

Lovvorn says that during the last government shutdown, the non-detained docket, meaning people who are not in ICE custody, was put on pause. This time, here in North Carolina, it’s continuing.

“But at this time we don’t know for how long that can practically continue because emergency funding is emergency funding. That doesn’t mean it’s unlimited,” Lovvorn said.

Lovvorn says that if the shutdown continues and non-detained cases stop being heard, the backlog of cases in North Carolina could get worse.