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Nearly a year after , his 18-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son returned to the very same courtroom to plead their own.

鈥淵our honor, this is a difficult case,鈥� their father鈥檚 lawyer, Benjamin Osorio, told Judge John Bryant. 鈥淚 represented their father, Santos Chirino Cruz. 鈥� I lost the case in this courtroom. ... He was murdered in April.鈥�

As Maria Sacchetti described for TheWashington Post, 鈥淥sorio paused, and the judge blanched and stammered.鈥�

鈥淵ou said their father鈥檚 case 鈥� did I understand I heard [it]?鈥� Bryant asked, eyes wide.

鈥淣o,鈥� Osorio said. 鈥淚n this court. Not before your honor.鈥�

鈥淲ell good, because 鈥� all right, my blood pressure can go down now,鈥� Bryant said. 鈥淵eah. I mean. Okay.鈥�

Chirino is one of , according to Columbia University鈥檚 Global Migration Project; the government doesn鈥檛 keep track of what happens to asylum-seekers who are deported.

When Chirino appeared in immigration court, his lawyer told a judge how MS-13 gang members had stabbed Chirino with a screwdriver at a soccer game in Northern Virginia.

He told him that Chirino鈥檚 testimony had helped send the men first to jail, and later back to Honduras, where they were waiting for him to be deported, too. He read letters from Chirino鈥檚 relatives in Honduras describing how 鈥渄eath [wa]s waiting for him鈥� there.聽

But Osorio failed to persuade the judge to grant his client asylum, and Chirino was deported.

A little more than six months later, the lawyer answered a phone call from Chirino鈥檚 daughter, screaming: Chirino had been found in a red Toyota pickup, shot in the throat. His brother had been found nearby, his head apparently bashed in with a rock found next to his body.

Chirino鈥檚 children are two of the 750,000 immigrants currently facing deportation in U.S. immigration courts. Many of them will tell judges about the danger they face back home. But as Sacchetti :

Judges鈥� powers are limited, immigration lawyers say, by outdated asylum laws that were designed to protect people from repressive governments rather than gangs or other threats. In Central America, many migrants flee towns where gangs and drug cartels are in control, not the government. If migrants don鈥檛 meet the strict definition of an asylee, judges must send them back to dangerous situations.

And the . A decade ago, just one in 100 border-crossers were seeking asylum or humanitarian relief, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Today, it鈥檚 one in three. Sacchetti :

The intensifying caseload 鈥� nearly 120,000 asylum cases filed last year alone, four times the number in 2014 鈥� has upped the pressure on one of America鈥檚 most secret and controversial court systems.

Judges say they must handle 鈥渄eath-penalty鈥� cases in a traffic court setting, with inadequate budgets and grueling caseloads. Most records aren鈥檛 public, most defendants don鈥檛 speak English and many don鈥檛 have lawyers to represent them. Cases often involve complex tales of rape, torture and murder. Approval rates can vary widely.

The Trump administration has imposed production quotas and ordered judges to close cases more quickly. They also must enforce a stricter view on who deserves protection in the United States. 鈥� Before he was forced to resign Nov. 7 , Attorney General Jeff Sessions ruled that victims of gangs or domestic abuse generally would not qualify for asylum. He told a crop of new immigration judges that 鈥渢he vast majority鈥� of claims are invalid, and warned them not to rule based on a sense of 鈥渟ympathy.鈥�

We can鈥檛 say whether the judge who ruled in Chirino鈥檚 case felt 鈥渟ympathy鈥� for him. But we can say 鈥� with certainty 鈥� that our country is , and ultimately .

Something has to change.聽

The Editors

P.S. Here are some other pieces that we think are valuable this week:

• by Brian Palmer and Seth Freed Wessler for Smithsonian Magazine
• by Max Blau for Politico
• by Will Wright, Caity Coyne and Molly Born for The GroundTruth Project
• by Joaquin Sapien and Tom Jennings for ProPublica

人兽性交鈥檚 Weekend Read聽is聽a weekly summary of the most important news reporting and commentary from around the country on civil rights, economic and racial inequality, and hate and extremism.聽Sign up to receive the Weekend Read聽every Saturday morning.