Videoconferencing in Removal Hearings: A Case Study of the ...

courts appear to have made informal decisions to use videoconferencing for certain types
of cases but not for others. In Chicago, the court declined to use videoconferencing for
merits hearings up until June 2005, when the Chicago Immigration Court seemed to
abruptly shift its policy and began to use videoconferencing for all hearings, including
merits hearings. Until June, detainees were driven to the Chicago Court for merits
hearings.
EOIR touts the increased efficiency achieved through the use of
videoconferencing. 22 To date, there has been no study evaluating the advantages and
disadvantages of videoconferencing in immigration court. The one federal court to
consider a challenge to the use of videoconferencing in an immigration (asylum) hearing
found that the technology had the potential to skew a judge’s credibility determination. 23
Much of the literature on videoconferencing concerns its use in criminal court. 24
Commentators have focused particularly on the risk that videoconferencing may skew a
court’s perception of defendants or other witnesses through its failure to convey subtle
nonverbal cues, its interference with ordinary eye contact, and the possibility that camera
22 See Rahill letter, Appendix B at page 4.
23 Rusu v. INS, 296 F.3d 316, 322 (4 th Cir. 2002) (“video conferencing may render it difficult for a
factfinder in adjudicative proceedings to make credibility determinations and to gauge demeanor”). The
court also noted the diminished effectiveness of the asylum applicant’s attorney in videoconferencing
cases. Id. at 323. However, the court ultimately denied the applicant’s due process claim, finding that he
could not show actual prejudice from the use of videoconferencing because the changed political climate in
his native Romania defeated his claim that he would suffer persecution there.
24 See, e.g., Anne Bowen Poulin, Criminal Justice and Videoconferencing Technology:The Remote
Defendant, 78 Tul. L. Rev. 1089 (2004); Roth, supra note 12; Diane M. Hartmus, Videotrials, 23 Ohio
N.U. L. Rev. 1 (1996); Jeffrey M. Silbert, Una Hutton Newman & Laurel Kalser, Telecommunications in
the Courtroom: The Use of Closed Circuit Television for Conducting Misdemeanor Arraignments in Dade
County, Florida, 38 U. Miami L. Rev. 657 (1984); Gordan Bermant & M. Daniel Jacubovitch, Fish Out of
Water: A Brief Overview of Social and Psychological Concerns about Videotaped Trials, 26 Hastings L.J.
999 (1975).
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