New Master Calendar Hearing Date: Dec 22

I’m not sure why DHS wants to delay my immigration court case, but that is essentially what happened after a series of motions and counter-motions of “I see your ego, and I raise you one plus my own ego.”

Essentially, I’m too busy to go to my own deportation hearing between school and surgery. That may strike a lot of people as strange and inappropriate. I thought it would be simple enough to waive appearance, especially when I am blessed to have good representation. A Master Calendar hearing lasts no longer than 5-10 minutes. Why would any of us spend some $400 and a whole day flying to San Francisco for 5 minutes of business especially when I have business to tend here? It makes no sense. So we filed for a motion to waive appearance, where the lawyer would represent me in court, accept or deny the charges against me, and file relevant documents with the court requesting relief.

The DHS prosecutor was having none of it. Essentially, I was told “if her permanent address is in California and she goes to law school in D.C., that’s her problem.” It’s actually not a problem — I love and I am blessed to go to school here. But I am perplexed because opposing the motion to waive appearance makes no sense if the government wants to get on with their massive backlogs of cases and deport me. It just ended up delaying the case, which is usually supposed to help the defense. The longer we delay the case, the less likely I am to be deported.

Now we have it scheduled for Dec 22, 2011 according to my availability in the Bay Area, which I find really amusing. I’m sure we could have pushed it off till summer  but we actually did want this taken care of sooner.

Meanwhile, to show their solidarity, my law school newspaper has released a statement in support along with publishing an autobiographical piece that was originally written for an LGBT magazine. Maybe one day it could make for a memoir that I don’t have time to write.

It is crunch-time with four final exams and a paper, so adios for now.