Immigrants skipping EOIR hearings in North Texas

The Dallas Observer piece ran March 11, 2026 and recounts a named Dallas attorney, Paul Zoltan, whose client missed a hearing after panic attacks tied to viral videos of courtroom arrests Dallas Observer). Local reporting and video footage documented plainclothes ICE arrests at the Earle Cabell federal courthouse on May 22, 2025, with agents detaining people in hallways and inside courtrooms, according to WFAA’s coverage that day WFAA). Community groups in Dallas, including Vecinos Unidos DFW, began training volunteer court observers this spring and have been documenting daily arrests and hallway detentions since at least August 2025, per KERA/Texas Standard reporting Texas Standard/KERA). Regional enforcement activity in North Texas has been intense: local reporting relayed that Dallas-area ICE operations detained roughly 12,000 people over a recent 10‑month period, a figure highlighted by NBCDFW citing Dallas Morning News reporting NBCDFW/Dallas Morning News). Federal oversight found EOIR’s case system does not systematically record whether respondents appear at hearings, prompting a December 2024 GAO recommendation that EOIR add and publicly report hearing‑appearance data; EOIR officially concurred with those recommendations GAO). National analyses show variation in in‑absentia and appearance rates: an American Immigration Council fact sheet reports that historically about 14–23 percent of nondetained respondents received in‑absentia orders while overall appearance rates for nondetained groups in several studies ranged from roughly 77–86 percent, with representation sharply increasing appearance likelihood American Immigration Council).