On his August 20 show, St. Louis attorney Jim Hacking laid out a pattern he has been watching in immigration court: dockets deliberately overloaded. A master calendar hearing is the short, procedural appearance where a judge takes pleadings and sets deadlines, and courts used to schedule a manageable number.
mic What the Attorney Says
“They started doing these things called mass master hearings. So, instead of scheduling 20 people to show up, they schedule 80 people to show up knowing they’re never going to get to all 80.”
Hacking’s read on the motive is arithmetic. With enforcement in the news, a share of people are too afraid to appear, and the docket is built to convert that fear into orders.
mic What the Attorney Says
“If we can schedule 80 immigrants every morning for court and only 60 show up, do you know what that means? That means we get 20 deportation orders.”
The mechanism is INA § 240(b)(5) (8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(5)), which directs the judge to order removal in absentia when a properly noticed respondent fails to appear. The order enters without testimony, and reopening it later means proving lack of notice or exceptional circumstances. That is why a hearing notice is not something to wait out; missing it is usually the whole case.
Hacking paired that with a second change. Courts used to postpone a removal hearing while USCIS decided a pending marriage petition. Now they don’t.
mic What the Attorney Says
“We’re not waiting for what they call collateral relief over at USCIS.”
The squeeze is real: an I-130 can take a year, but a judge may grant only a month between hearings, forcing applicants to present relief they have not yet had time to build. The defensive takeaways are narrow and worth acting on. Confirm your address with the court, open every notice, and appear even when the room is chaos, because an in absentia order can sit undelivered for years and resurface later. Read what the government actually filed against you, since the document that starts the case is a Notice to Appear, not a biometrics letter, and remember that no one can force you to file a claim you don’t have just to fill a hearing slot.