Billy Botsch stands in front of his closet every weekday morning wondering what to wear. He narrows his choices down to two colors of the same shirt. He makes sure its a shirt bearing the acronym of American Friends Service Committee, the immigration advocacy group he works with.
He is headed out on an hour long trip south to a courtroom in Miami. His wardrobe choice matters.
"Since the immigration courts style themselves as federal courts, you do not want to dress insufficiently formally that you upset the judges with your lack of decorum," he said. "But I also do not want to dress so formally that I give the impression that I'm one of the lawyers practicing in the building."
He has learned to opt for a white or black polo shirt with his organization's name on it.
WLRN asked Billy Botsch to keep a diary for one day spent observing immigration court in Miami.
When he first started this ritual last spring, he wore shirts without any AFSC markings until one day when he exited a courtroom and was stopped by Immigration and Customers Enforcement agents. They demanded to see his ID, he said.
"Once they let me go and I walked down the hallway, I saw the next guy out of the courtroom also had on a blue collar shirt," he recalled.
That was one of the first tip-offs he had that something was changing in immigration court. He realized ICE agents were learning about defendants in court and waiting for them outside to detain them.
READ MORE: 'Heartbreaking': Images of ICE agents 'hunting people down' across Broward spur anger
Botsch, who goes by both William and Billy, has spent thousands of hours watching immigration court processings in downtown Miami. He's there to observe. He is not a lawyer nor a court witness. He is not a court reporter nor a journalist.
Instead, he observes, takes notes and shares what he knows with desperate family members searching for information for loved ones who are detained after leaving court. He talks with legal advisors about seeing migrants arrested after showing up for their scheduled immigration court appearance.
"There's a lot of people who are there and confused and they don't have anybody to turn to. And by sitting there, I can at least amass information that I can convey to families who are in similar situations," he said.
Botsch travels from his home in Broward County to the Miami immigrant court four days a week. He has watched hundreds of people appear before immigration judges and documented almost 200 people arrested after their appearance before the U.S. justice system.
WLRN asked him to keep an audio diary of his day bearing witness on the frontlines of President Trump’s immigration enforcement crackdown. To follow his day and listen to his entries, click below.
Wednesdays and not in court
Botsch breaks up his courtroom schedule on Wednesdays. He heads west instead of south, joining a weekly gathering on a sidewalk across the street from the ICE facility in Miramar.
The Miramar Circle of Protection began several years ago with volunteers helping family members coming to the facility to check in with immigration authorities by offering them water, food and a folding chair that would be right at home on the the sidelines of a kids soccer game.
Botsch was there in a red American Friends Service Committee t-shirt on a Wednesday in mid-December. The facility across the street is ringed in black wrought iron fencing. A private patrol shooed off people hoping to park on the grass on the ICE-side of the street. Department of Homeland-marked vehicles and other cars and trucks drove in and out of the gated parking lot.
READ MORE: Trump's immigration halt for Cubans, Haitians, Venezuelans draws rebuke from Salazar
Botsch keeps a watchful eye for unmarked 12-passenger vans. He grabbed his cell phone as he saw one preparing to drive out, possibly with detainees on board headed to a detention facility like Alligator Alcatraz. He recorded video on his phone and recognizes them.
"Every once in a while you'll see a couple caravans of like cruisers and SUVs. And sometimes they have people in the back," he said. "I try to see if I recognize anybody. We try to get some photos just so we have that in case somebody's like, 'Hey, a family member got picked up. We're trying to figure out where they go.'"
The Miramar ICE facility is responsible for Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It's 25 miles from the immigration courtrooms along the Miami River in downtown Miami.
"Here it's very much emphasis on enforcement," he said about the Miramar location. "There's a lot of suspicion that the employees direct towards the people who have to check in here."
The court facility has a more "helpful" environment, he said. "These are two distinct but inter-operating components of the immigration system."
He noted the lack of legal representation for many migrants. "They're trying to navigate a very byzantine bureaucratic system on their own. A lot of them do a really impressive job, even when a lot of them don't speak English," he said.
Providing more legal assistance is one change in the process he would like to see. And more broadly, after spending hundreds of hours in immigration court hearings, he would like the country to "reexamine why we're so eager to say people shouldn't come here. We're a big country. We're a very low population density country. We have lots of needs." he said.
Botsch has a quiet voice despite the raging debate over immigration. He moved quick when spotting a van leaving the facility than may be carrying detainees. He recalled Proposition 187 in California when he was growing up in the 1990s. Voters passed the initiative to deny some public services like education and healthcare to people without legal status. It was eventually ruled unconstitutional.
Botsch moved to South Florida in 2019. He started attending the gathering outside the ICE facility soon after. Six years later, he is spending most days watching how the U.S. justice system is responding to the crackdown on immigration since the re-election of Donald Trump.
" It feels very frustrating at times to see things happen and know there's not a lot I can do to directly influence it," he said, as an inter-faith vigil was beginning nearby.
" I can only imagine it's so much more powerless when you're going through it with somebody you love and you don't understand what is going on because so much has changed recently."
WLRN asked ICE about housing detainees overnight and sometimes for several nights at the holding facility in Miramar.
"Individuals are typically not held for extended periods; however, processing times may vary depending on operational requirements or case-specific circumstances," ICE responded.
The agency also said all basic needs are provided "in accordance with established ICE standards."
