Good afternoon, Chicago.

On a May morning, Immigration Judge Peter Kim’s Loop courtroom offered a scene that would help explain how Chicago would soon lead the nation in deportation orders.

In notes kept by a volunteer group of court observers, they described an overflowing courtroom, with people standing two rows deep up to an interpreter’s desk. One observer jotted down: “I’ve never seen this before.” Neither, apparently, had Kim, a recently transferred judge from Los Angeles. According to the notes, he said, “this is so hard. This is not going to work.”

It was the first recorded instance of dozens of so-called “mega-master” hearings: enlarged versions of early-stage hearings where immigrants appear in large groups. Combined with a massive turnover in judges on the Trump-controlled court and less-immigrant-friendly rules, the hearings helped fuel a dramatic rise in the number of removal orders issued by judges there — turning what once was a large but average court into a national trendsetter for the president’s push for mass deportations.

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