Four members of Hawaiʻi's congressional delegation sent a letter Thursday demanding the Department of Justice explain why immigrants and their attorneys are now required to appear in person for Honolulu immigration court hearings far more often than they used to, and what the agency plans to do to keep travel costs from triggering deportations. The letter lands as neighbor-island residents describe scrambling to catch pre-dawn flights just to make an 8:30 a.m. hearing.
The push from Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono and Reps. Ed Case and Jill Tokuda follows a Civil Beat investigation into a dramatic shift at Hawaiʻi's only immigration court. According to Honolulu Civil Beat, the lawmakers cited reporting showing that new Trump-appointed judges now require immigrants and attorneys to appear in person four times as often as their predecessors did. The letter asks why longstanding virtual hearing practices were abruptly reversed and how the DOJ will prevent travel costs from resulting in removal orders.
The numbers behind that reporting are stark. Neighbor-island residents with immigration hearings were required to appear in person 87% of the time in July and August of this year, up from just under one-third during the same two months in 2025. People with out-of-state addresses saw an even steeper jump, from 14% appearing in person in mid-2025 to 82% a year later.
A Single Courtroom, An Island Chain Apart
Hawaiʻi's immigration court sits in Honolulu, meaning anyone living on Maui, Kauaʻi or Hawaiʻi Island must fly in — often covering their own airfare and, at times, their attorney's travel as well — just to sit in front of a judge. Morning hearings start at 8:30 a.m., but the earliest flight out of Maui departs at 6 a.m., leaving little room for delay or error.
Bettina Mok, executive director of the Legal Clinic, a Honolulu-based nonprofit serving immigrants, said the state's island-spread population creates travel challenges not just for hearings but for biometric checks and ICE check-ins too. In-person requirements, she said, make it harder for people to meet their immigration case obligations. The stakes of missing a hearing are severe: an in-absentia decision can trigger an almost automatic removal order.
Federal law makes an in-absentia removal order conditional: the government must show the person received required written hearing notice and that removability is established. The law allows a motion to reopen within 180 days when exceptional circumstances caused the absence, or at any time in specified situations such as lack of notice. Those remedies have defined legal limits, giving added significance to the delegation’s request for the number of in-absentia removal orders. Federal law sets out the conditions and reopening rules.
Rescinded Guidance Behind the Shift
The policy reversal traces back to a 2022 Biden-administration memorandum that directed the Executive Office for Immigration Review to approve appropriate remote-hearing requests, reflecting what the agency has long described as a standing practice of allowing hearings by video conference. That memorandum was rescinded during the early months of the second Trump administration, and the DOJ has since argued that the EOIR director lacks authority to instruct judges how to rule on remote-hearing motions.
The current EOIR practice manual allows immigration judges to hold hearings in person, by video or by telephone; telephone testimony in a merits hearing requires the respondent’s consent after notice of the right to appear in person or by video. At a respondent’s or attorney’s request, a judge may waive either person’s appearance at a specific hearing. The rules permit remote participation but do not create a blanket right to it, leaving individual rulings at the center of the dispute. EOIR’s hearing-format rules describe that discretion.
Leilani Stacy, immigrant rights staff attorney at the ACLU of Hawaiʻi, said a formal executive-branch directive limiting remote appearances could restrict access to justice. Her warning comes as the delegation's letter seeks any written guidance, training materials or informal direction discouraging video or telephone appearances, along with performance metrics or judicial expectations that could be shaping how judges decide remote-hearing motions.
Lawmakers Want Records and a Policy Reversal
Beyond explanations, the delegation is asking for hard data: remote-hearing motion counts broken out by who requested them, where they live and whether they're detained, plus counts of motions to transfer jurisdiction and in-absentia removal orders covering June through September of this year and the same stretch in 2025. The DOJ has been asked to respond by November 5.
The Honolulu dispute unfolds against a national system that uses both formats: EOIR data analyzed by the Government Accountability Office show that about 63% of nearly 6 million immigration hearings in fiscal years 2022 through 2025 were in person and 37% were remote. In interviews and observations at selected courts, judges and attorneys cited reduced travel costs and greater access to private lawyers as benefits of remote hearings, while also noting uneven judicial preferences and limits on language interpretation technology. The GAO’s 2026 review of remote immigration hearings documents both the national figures and those tradeoffs.
The lawmakers also proposed concrete fixes — monthly immigration hearings on Maui, Kauaʻi and Hawaiʻi Island, held by video or in person, and a return to the policy allowing remote participation whenever attendees would otherwise have to fly to Honolulu. Whether the DOJ will act on either request remains an open question tied directly to how the agency responds by its early-November deadline.
