Zellner wins big in the Senate special election

The Trump administration's newly launched "mega master" court system has quickly devolved into mass chaos that leaves defendants, guards, lawyers and judges "terrified," according to a new report.

"Attorneys and former judges say mega master hearings serve as the latest tool for the Trump administration to deport large numbers of people," the Chicago Sun-Times reported Friday. "This time by causing chaos and confusion in the courts."

Courtroom 11 at Chicago's immigration court barely seats 25 people — but one July morning saw 60 people, mostly unrepresented asylum seekers, crammed in wall-to-wall by 9:10 a.m., the Sun-Times reported.

This is a "mega master" calendar hearing, a new procedural format instituted by the Trump administration at the end of May that packs between 100 and 185 people into a single judge's morning docket — up from an average of just 30 before the change.

Chicago's courthouse at 55 E. Monroe has logged more of these mass hearings than any other immigration court in the country, according to immigration scholar Austin Kocher.

The scale has created conditions former immigration judges call dangerous.

On days when multiple mega hearings are scheduled simultaneously, hundreds of people — including families with strollers — spill into hallways narrower than an adult's arm span, waiting for hours to be called.

On one recent Thursday, roughly 200 people queued in the heat outside courtrooms designed to hold a fraction of that number.

"This is not good," one guard was overheard saying. Former judges have raised concerns that the overcrowded hallways amount to a fire hazard.

Attorneys and former judges argue the hearings serve to discourage immigrants from showing up at all, then fast-tracking deportations for those who don't.

In June, for the first time since 2019, more immigrants missed their Chicago court dates than attended — 58 percent of the 10,370 people summoned nationwide in June were marked absent, according to data from the nonprofit Mobile Pathways. Missing court can trigger an automatic in absentia deportation order.

Compounding the pressure, notice periods have collapsed. Median lead time for a Chicago hearing fell to just 34 days in June, down from 229 days in May.

The Justice Department, which oversees immigration courts, says the expanded scheduling is meant to clear long-standing backlogs.

But former judge Elizabeth Treacy, who resigned in June after presiding over three mega hearings with up to 150 people each, said the volume makes errors — and injustice — nearly inevitable.

She noted that indigenous asylum seekers with limited Spanish fluency are especially unlikely to speak up when they don't understand proceedings in a crowded, intimidating room.

“It’s not a coincidence, but another tactic to facilitate deportations,” said Stephanie Spiro, an attorney with the National immigration Justice Center.

“It’s much more efficient for the government to deport people without even having to read any briefs, without having to have a full hearing, without having to schedule hundreds of people, and actually listen to their claims, and afford them due process.”

That fear caused Carolina, an immigrant from Venezuela who just gave birth, to question whether she should show up for her hearing.

She and her husband eventually decided to risk deportation and bring their three children to court.

“I was terrified," she said.

The way President Donald Trump honored late Sen. Lindsey Graham's coffin left onlookers disgusted online.

Sen. Lindsey Graham was mourned at his Washington, D.C., funeral on Tuesday after he died unexpectedly at the age of 71 earlier this month. Trump created plenty of noteworthy moments at the occasion, including by apparently falling asleep and by delivering a stunning ad-lib during the tribute.

However, he also drew online criticism by tapping Graham's casket as he passed. In a post on X, journalist and policy consultant Adam Cochran called Trump a "performative jack—" who "thinks he's testing a watermelon."

"Biggest narcissist ever," posted New York Times opinion writer Elizabeth Spiers on Bluesky. "Has Trump ever felt sad for someone else ever? If he has, it has never come up in any profile or coverage of him — going back to the mid 80s."

"Press F to pay respect," joked writer Aidan Moher.

"It's called the Narcissist's Knock, reserved for moments when a person incapable of giving a crap about another human being pretends to give a crap about another human being and fails spectacularly," posted writer Rex Huppke.

"One last pat on the head of the loyal senator who gave up his dignity for TV hits and free hats," mocked journalist Mike Rothschild.

"This is the sort of thing you do when you're the only one at the funeral who knows that the deceased is actually still alive in the coffin and you want to taunt them once more before the first shovel of dirt lands," wrote historian Charles Louis Richter.

"Biggest narcissist ever. (Not that Graham deserves an outpouring of feeling.)," Elizabeth Spiers, an opinion writer for the New York Times, posted on Bluesky. "Has Trump ever felt sad for someone else, ever? If he has, it has never come up in any profile or coverage of him — going back to the mid 80s."

CNN analyst Andrew McCabe on Tuesday pointed out that the Department of Justice never responded to President Donald Trump's IRS lawsuit — and how that could impact Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's nomination.

The former deputy director of the FBI told CNN anchor Kasie Hunt that, as Blanche's nomination remains in limbo ahead of Thursday's vote, further questions about Trump's former personal attorney have come to light.

"Let's remember, there essentially was never really a true lawsuit here," McCabe said. "The president sued the IRS for $10 billion. The Department of Justice never even answered the complaint. So, there were never two opposing parties. The Justice Department never stood up and defended the United States in the way that it did in every other suit brought by the same leak from the same person."

This was unusual, McCabe explained.

"And because of that oddity, that's a very suspicious decision on the part of people like Todd Blanche and others," he said. "The lack of a true controversy meant that the entire thing was about to get dismissed. Before that could happen, they entered into these agreements. One of them, of course, created the weaponization fund, and the second one essentially granted complete immunity forever to Donald Trump, his family members and businesses."

McCabe described the situation further.

"It was basically a giveaway from the Department of Justice to the president," McCabe said. "How this thing stands or was ever conceived — I have no idea. I've been around many, many settlements of criminal matters, some of which involved IRS criminal matters, and have never seen any language like this. I think it's absolutely unprecedented and an incredibly bad idea."

The IRS settlement became a sticking point for some Republican senators during Blanche's confirmation hearing. On Tuesday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said there is no deal on Blanche's confirmation because of the settlement and the so-called anti-weaponization fund, Politico reported.