Gabriela Carranza took her infant son out of the hospital, where he was being treated for a urinary infection, a few hours after midnight Friday.

Then she drove 250 miles with her husband and all four of their children for an immigration hearing — which never existed.

In the morning drizzle, they lined up in vain with at least 100 other people outside the San Antonio immigration courthouse for what they all thought would be hearings. The date had been assigned as a placeholder to as many as 10,000 cases here — and 100,000 cases nationally.

Within a half-hour, Carranza, 25, who was born in the United States, and husband Angel Bautista, 30, an asylum-seeker from Honduras, learned Bautista’s hearing had been rescheduled to Feb. 1, 2021 — along with all of the other Friday cases.

They got in their beat-up blue Chevy Silverado pickup and headed right back to the hospital near their home in Cleveland, northeast of Houston.

“We’re basically stuck in the same process,” Carranza said.

Five years ago, when a wave of Central Americans crossed the Rio Grande into South Texas seeking asylum, the federal Executive Office for Immigration Review began temporarily assigning Friday’s date to immigration cases as a placeholder “in order to accommodate other agency priorities,” said Rob Barnes, a spokesman for the office in the Justice Department.

After an initial interview, the asylum-seekers are allowed to stay in the country until their cases are settled.

Some of the hearing dates then were moved up, said Jessica Valenzuela, a case worker for American Gateways, an immigration advocacy organization.

Immigrants who could be tracked down were alerted not to show up Friday. But the court lacked capacity to notify everyone. Signs went up in the immigration court on Dolorosa Street downtown. Some of the immigrants were notified by mail, but others — especially those who didn’t have lawyers, or who’d moved — were not.

“We knew it was going to be chaos in here today,” Valenzuela said. “It’s definitely a big problem.”

The February 2021 date seemed to be another placeholder, and it was unclear whether the hearings now set for that date will be rescheduled. Barnes said his office “constantly monitors its caseload nationwide” and is committed to due process.

An even bigger influx of migrants crossed the southern border this year. The federal government reported taking almost a million migrants into custody during the fiscal year that ended in September. Half were traveling with family members. Many were fleeing poverty and gang violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which tracks federal courts and agencies, last month counted a nationwide backlog of more than 1 million immigration cases. Those included asylum-seekers and immigrants in detention and deportation proceedings. Texas had the second-highest number of backlogged cases, with almost 167,000, behind California.

San Antonio’s immigration court was open Friday, but with a skeleton crew of security guards and one judge, Margaret Burkhart, who helped hand out change-of-address forms. A couple of immigration lawyers on an upstairs floor made themselves available to answer questions.

American Gateways set up tables with snacks and water. Volunteers signed immigrants in for their peace of mind and to bolster their cases for later, Valenzuela said. The volunteers helped with forms to change addresses or the venues for hearings.

“The systems are not working as smoothly as we hoped, but I’m glad American Gateways could be here,” said Rebecca Lightsey, the group’s executive director. “We had a suspicion that all the notices had not gone out.”

Immigrants expressed mixed feelings about the delay. Many said they’d come to court anxious and now were relieved they’d have more time to present their cases. But they also wanted the process to move forward in hopes they’d gain work permits and other rights.

Bautista crossed into Texas in 2013, after he said gang members in Honduras tried to recruit him to sell drugs.

“They’ve threatened him if he goes back,” Carranza said.

He’s requested asylum and thought he’d have a chance Friday to prove what’s legally termed a “credible fear” of returning to his country.

Bautista doesn’t have a permit but works for a home construction and renovation company. Carranza said she hasn’t been able to work while raising the children — two of them frequently are hospitalized with health problems, she said.

“We’re all depending on him right now,” Carranza said of her husband.

Priscilla Ulloa Alvarado, 30, came from Honduras in spring 2014 seeking asylum from gang activity. She also said a culture of nepotism, cronyism and and ageism kept people older than 30, without connections, from getting work in Honduras. Alvarado now lives in Austin and helps her aunt around the house, but doesn’t have a work permit.

Alvarado first was given a 2016 court date, which was rescheduled until Friday. Without a lawyer, she drove down from Austin only to learn it had been pushed back. She knew cases often were postponed for two or three months.

“I didn’t think they were going to push me until 2021,” she said in Spanish. “I’m still with this doubt of what’s going to happen with my case, what the judge is going to say to me.”

Not all of the people who’d been given a Friday court date were Central American asylum-seekers. Margarita Tapia, 57, a legal resident who moved to Laredo more than 30 years ago from Mexico, said she’d been told to appear Friday in San Antonio after receiving a traffic ticket.

She left Laredo at 3:30 a.m. with her sister and her 20-year-old nephew, arriving exhausted to learn of the new 2021 court date.

“We’re going to breakfast,” she said in Spanish, waving toward Market Square, “and then let’s go to Laredo.”

Raymundo Cuavasquez, 42, came from Guatemala to Austin four months ago with his 16-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, at about the same time his sister-in-law came with her 6-year-old daughter. Cuavasquez was given a Friday court date. He left Austin at about 7 a.m. with all three children.

He’s optimistic he’ll get a work permit in time, but for now he’s an electrician’s assistant. His goal is to improve the meager home of his parents in Guatemala, for their comfort and safety, and to give his children a better life.

“God’s given me this health,” he said in Spanish. “I want to be the foundation of the family.”

amalik@express-news.net