On most mornings in the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building in San Diego, the fourth-floor hallway feels like a gauntlet. Eight immigration courtrooms, their doors spaced evenly along off-white walls, open onto a corridor where masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents lean and wait, arms crossed, boots pressed against the walls—marks of habitual occupation. Immigrants step off the elevator into a narrow passage that can end with a van ride to Otay Mesa Detention Center. For Pham, the