The Miami immigration courthouse will reopen Monday more than six months after shutting its doors and as COVID cases continue to rise in the state.

In an announcement Thursday, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a sub-agency of the United States Department of Justice whose chief function is to conduct deportation proceedings in immigration courts, said the government will resume in-person hearings. Face masks will be required in all waiting rooms, corridors and courtrooms, the statement said. Children under 2 and people with certain medical conditions that prevent them from wearing a mask are exempt.

The sudden reopening of the Miami immigration courthouse — located at 333 S. Miami Ave. — comes as COVID-19 cases rose to the most Florida has tallied in a single day since Sept. 19, according to the Florida Department of Health. The single-day case count on Thursday — 3,356— is the most Florida has reported since mid-September, bringing the state’s known case total to 744,988 and resident death toll to 15,736.

Announcements of court closings were made via midnight tweets without any explanation — even to court staff — on how the government was selecting which courts to keep open. The court was ultimately partially closed; it remained open for administrative filings and very limited hearings for people held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers.

The partial shutdown of the national immigration court system in the wake of COVID-19 has impacted hundreds of thousands of immigrants awaiting their day in court. As the country’s case backlog surpassed 1.2 million due to canceled or postponed hearings, immigrants will face delays of months or years, according to federal data released in late August.

Monthly case completions before the March shutdown in January and February 2020 were running at roughly 40,000. However, during the period from April 2020 to July 2020 they fell precipitously to less than 6,000 a month — a historic low, according to researchers who analyze immigration data at Syracuse University. In July 2020, only 5,960 cases were completed, federal data shows.

Despite the backlogs and closures, Miami led the list with 216 case completions in July 2020. Only one other court location — Baltimore, Maryland, completed at least 200 cases.

While the shutdown nationwide caused immigration judges’ productivity to plummet, data shows that as of May, ICE filed more than 100,000 new immigration cases nationwide during just the first two and a half months of the shutdown, contributing heavily to the backlog.

At the beginning of the year, the Florida legislature passed a bill amending Florida Statutes § 689.01 which eliminated the requirement of having two witnesses for the execution of a lease on real property.

On June 27, 2020, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 469 into effect, and it became law on July 1, 2020. The Bill amends Florida Statute §689.01 by removing the requirement that two witnesses must be present for a commercial or residential property lease to be valid. Prior to the amendment of the Statute, each of the parties were required to have two witnesses present when signing a lease for a term of more than one year. The House Bill provides that subscribing witnesses are no longer required to validate instruments conveying or pertaining to a lease of real property.

Under the new amended law, which is now in effect, no subscribing witnesses will be required for leases of real property in Florida.

While this change in the law is small, it is widely welcomed. The removal of the witness requirement improves the speed and efficiency of transactions by making electronic lease signatures much more easily obtainable. This not only has the potential to save time in the execution of leases by allowing a lease to be signed by just the two parties, it also removes one potential pitfall to invalidating a lease.

Caserta & Spiriti Law Firm Summer Internship 2020

The Caserta & Spiriti Summer Internship program welcomed its new interns for the Summer term of 2020. It is a 12-week program that allows students to earn experience in the workforce, as well as valuable training. The program focuses internships in business/legal, accounting, and social media. Attorney Joseph Spiriti, who is one of the main directors of the program says, “The internship program is something I am very proud of. The interns are a legacy of skill, knowledge, and experience, that gets past down from intern to intern.” Spiriti believes in the importance of gaining real world experience and how the overachieving culture that has developed between the interns has thus far been amazing.

Alongside Spiriti, attorney David Caserta also encourages gaining experience in the work field. Caserta says, “For 20 years, through my Young Professional Career Network, I have had the opportunity to share with college students across the Country the value of acquiring as many virtues of great character, as a foundation for a successful life both personal and in a career of choice.”  The team decided to create the internship program that would cater to students from respected colleges and universities across South Florida.

This year the internship program focuses on a group of distinguished students with different educational backgrounds who all share an interest for the field of law.

Ruby Pendas is a junior at the Nova Southeastern University majoring in Paralegal Studies minoring in Writing. Pendas has learned how to deal with clients and how to understand the steps taken regarding potential clients. She believes that this internship will put her a step ahead when looking for a job after law school.

Ashley Marrero is a rising junior high school student, who attends the Hialeah Gardens High School. Some of the tasks she does on a daily basis include clerical work, as well as filing, and reaching out to clients. Marrero says that one of her favorite things about the program is that the hands-on activities she does now, will help later in the real world. She aspires to become a criminal defense lawyer once she graduates from college.

Yunyun Tang is a student obtaining her masters degree in Finance, at the University of Miami. She decided to participate in the Internship Program in order to get some exposure in the field of Accounting. As an Accounting Interns some of the tasks she focuses on are processing payments, collecting payments-account receivable, account payable, and reconciliation.

Claudia Baez-Sola is a rising senior at the University of Miami majoring in Public Relations and Media Management. As a Social Media Intern, she works on ensuring reliability of published data on companies, communicates with firm associates about marketing goals, and maintaining the firm’s social media presence. Baez-Sola decided to participate in the Internship Program because it aligns perfectly with both of her passions for the field of communications and law.

The Caserta & Spiriti Law Firm Internship Program is looking forward to continuing working with new students who are interested in gaining real world experience. For information about the application processes we invite you to visit our website for additional details.