⚖️👩🏽‍⚖️ MORE NDPA CLE: Ellsberg, Harris, Schmidt, Among Headliners @ Inaugural Fourth Circuit Asylum Law Conference @ William & Mary Law on March 11!

Dr. Mary Ellsberg
Dr. Mary Ellsberg
Founding Director
Global Women’s Institute
George Washington University
PHOTO: GWU
Professor Lindsay Muir Harris
Professor Lindsay Muir Harris
UDC Law
Me
Me

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-inaugural-fourth-circuit-asylum-law-conference-tickets-203071732017?aff=speaker

The Inaugural Fourth Circuit Asylum Law Conference

MAR

11

The Inaugural Fourth Circuit Asylum Law Conference

 

11

The Inaugural Fourth Circuit Asylum Law Conference

by William & Mary Law School Immigration Clinic

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Join us for a full-day virtual conference discussing Fourth Circuit asylum law and best practices with experts. 6.5 VA & NC CLE credits.

About this event

Join the William & Mary Law School Immigration Clinic, William & Mary Center for Racial and Social Justice, and Immigrant Justice Corps for the Inaugural Fourth Circuit Asylum Law Conference.

Conference Schedule:

Panels and Sessions include:

  • One Year In: The Biden Administration and Asylum Policy
  • Developments in Fourth Circuit Case Law
  • Increasing Access to Pro Bono Counsel in Underserved Areas: Virginia as a Case Study
  • Working Across Disciplines: Best Practices for Attorneys and Mental Health Professionals in Asylum Seeker Evaluations
  • Country Conditions: From Page to Practice

CLE Credit and DOJ Accredited Representative Certifications

This event has been approved for 6.5 credit hours of CLE credit from Virginia and North Carolina. Attorneys seeking CLE credit must purchase tickets indicating that CLE credit is provided (indicated by “CLE” listed by the ticket type).

Attorneys from other jurisdictions who are not seeking CLE credit from Virginia or North Carolina are welcome to attend.

DOJ Accredited Representative certifications will be provided to those who register as DOJ Accredited Representatives seeking certification.

Zoom Webinar Information

Zoom information for the event will be sent to the email address used to register. For security reasons, we do not post the Zoom link information. All Zoom registration information will be provided in a separate email closer to the date of the event.

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Date and time

Fri, March 11, 2022

9:00 AM – 5:00 PM EST

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Online event

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Eventbrite’s fee is nonrefundable.

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William & Mary Law School Immigration Clinic

Organizer of The Inaugural Fourth Circuit Asylum Law Conference

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Our panel will be “Country Conditions: From Page to Practice.”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-25-22

⚖️🗽OUTING THE BIG NATIVIST LIE: EOIR/DHS CLAIM THAT MIGRANTS DON’T SHOW UP FOR HEARINGS REFUTED BY USG’S OWN DATA — Professor Ingrid Eagly & Steven Schafer Analyzed Millions Of Records To Show How False Narratives Drive Draconian Policies — Eagley, Shafer, Reichlin-Melnick, Schmidt Set Record Straight @ Press Conference!

Professor Ingrid Eagly
Professor Ingrid Eagly
UCLA Law
PHOTO: Twitter
Steven Shafer ESQUIRE
Steven Shafter, Esquire
Managing Attorney
Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project
Los Angeles, CA
Photo: Esperanza website

 

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
Policy Counsel
American Immigration Council
Photo: Twitter
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Me
  • PRESS RELEASE

11 Years of Government Data Reveal That Immigrants Do Show Up for Court

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January 28, 2021

WASHINGTON—A new report released today by the American Immigration Council examines 11 years of government data on the rate at which immigrants appear for hearings in U.S. immigration court. The report, “Measuring In Absentia Removal in Immigration Court,” concludes that an overwhelming 83% of immigrants attend their immigration court hearings, and those who fail to appear in court often did not receive notice or faced hardship in getting to court.

As the new administration of President Joe Biden considers how to reform the immigration system, including the immigration courts, this report reveals how reliance on detention, access to legal representation, and immigration judges’ docket management impact immigrants’ appearance rate.

The report draws on government data from 2,797,437 immigration court removal proceedings held between 2008 to 2018. It documents how individuals who were never detained and those who were released from detention proceeded through court and what obstacles they faced in pursuing their immigration cases.

The report finds that people released from immigration detention and individuals with attorneys overwhelmingly attend their hearings. Data also show that immigration judges have a vital role in maintaining due process. The findings further demonstrate that the creation of an independent structure for the immigration courts would help reduce the prevalence of unwarranted in absentia removal orders and give immigration judges more discretion in managing their dockets and individual case decisions.

The main findings of the report include:

  • 83% of nondetained immigrants with completed or pending removal cases attended all of their hearings.
  • 96% of nondetained immigrants represented by a lawyer attended all of their hearings.
  • 15% of those who were ordered deported because they did not appear in court successfully reopened their cases and had their removal orders rescinded. In some years, as many as 20% of all orders of removal for missing court were later overturned.
  • Individuals who apply for relief from removal have especially high rates of appearance.
  • Appearance rates vary strongly based on the immigration court’s location.
  • The Executive Office for Immigration Review’s method for measuring the rate at which immigrants fail to appear in court presents a limited picture of the frequency of missed court appearances.

“The empirical research presented in this report debunks the myth that immigrants don’t show up for court,” said Ingrid Eagly, professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. “Relying on the government’s own immigration court data, co-author Steven Shafer and I find that, since 2008, 83% of all immigrants in nondetained deportation cases have attended all of their court hearings. In addition, over the 11 years of our study, 96% individuals represented by an attorney attended all of their court hearings.”

“Today’s report verifies what those who have worked in the immigration court system already knew: immigrants overwhelmingly show up in court. We hope that this data finally puts to rest a false narrative about immigrants’ appearance rates that past administrations used to justify restrictive and cruel immigration policies,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council. “After previous administrations spent years funding immigration enforcement to address a small set of individuals who miss court, the Biden administration has the opportunity change course. To ensure even higher appearance rates, the new administration should focus on updating immigration court technology, providing better resources to orient immigrants, and working to ensure that all immigrants navigating our removal system are represented by counsel. As Congress debates immigration reform, this report shows that it’s time to revisit harsh and punitive laws that require judges to enter deportation orders for a single missed hearing and which limit the ability of the government to appoint counsel.”

“The findings of this timely report confirm what many of us formerly on the immigration bench have known for years: represented asylum seekers appearing before fair, knowledgeable judges show up for virtually all of their immigration court hearings,” said Paul Wickham Schmidt, former immigration judge and board member for the Board of Immigration Appeals. “The findings refute one of the many ‘big lies’ and ‘bogus narratives’ promoted by the last administration to demean and dehumanize asylum seekers and wrongfully deprive them of their legal and constitutional rights. The Biden administration should pursue changes that would provide immigration judges greater independence and discretion and support the creation of an independent structure for the immigration courts.”

 

###

For more information, contact:

Maria Frausto at the American Immigration Council, mfrausto@immcouncil.org or 202-507-7526.

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Ingrid’s and Steven’s full report is available at the above link.

Here’s a printout of my opening remarks:

No Shows — Final

 

Lies promoted by Government officials and turned into cruel, counterproductive, and biased policies cost lives and undermine our system of justice!

A stunning 96% of represented respondents appear for all hearings! The obvious step for the Biden Administration is to “repurpose” resources squandered by the defeated kakistocracy’s cruel, expensive, ineffective “enforcement gimmicks” like detention in the “New American Gulag,” ludicrous Immigration Judge “dashboards,” walls, bogus protocols, and illegal anti-asylum rules and instead invest in public-private partnerships to achieve universal representation. Building on existing programs, it should be possible to get all respondents represented by trained and competent counsel or accredited representatives. 

Notably, Professor Michele Pistone @ Villanova already runs VIISTA, an innovative, first class asylum litigation training program for accredited representatives. Put some Federal grant money into expanding it to meet the need for representation throughout America. These are “obvious steps” ignored by a captive “court system” run by malicious incompetents implementing a White Nationalist agenda.

Professor Michele Pistone
Professor Michele Pistone
Villanova Law

Combined with a restoration of the rule of law at EOIR and rational DHS enforcement priorities, that’s the way to establish manageable Immigration Court dockets compliant with Due Process and fundamental fairness. Create a model court system that will be a source of pride, rather than a national disgrace. 

Of course a legislatively-enacted, independent, professionally administered expert Article I Immigration Court is absolutely necessary. But, due process and fundamental fairness can’t wait! Lives and futures, not to mention our national values, are at stake. Judge Garland must end the dysfunction and start making urgently needed improvements @ EOIR immediately!

Removing (former) Director McHenry — who promoted the kakistocracy’s anti-immigrant myths, bogus statistics, and “worst management practices” — is a great start. But, it’s certainly not the end of the urgent changes that must be made to implement Due Process and professional court administration at EOIR. In particular, the current BIA is a due process, human rights, and asylum expertise “disaster zone!”

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

1-29-21

NDPA SUPERSTAR 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 SCHOLAR-INNOVATOR PROFESSOR MICHELE PISTONE’S CREATIVE, AMAZING VIISTA PROGRAM IS CHANGING THE FACE OF PRO BONO REPRESENTATION FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS ⚖️— At A Time Of Grotesque Stupidity 🤮 & Management Catastrophe ☠️ Inflicted By The EOIR Kakistocracy, Michele & Her Talented, Problem-Solving Colleagues In The NDPA Are EXACTLY What America Needs To Replace The “Clown Show” With Real Practical Scholars Who Will Lead the New Due Process Revolution!  ⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️🗽🇺🇸

Professor Michele Pistone
Professor Michele Pistone
Villanova Law

Creator & Developer of VIISTA

Michele writes:

I am thrilled to report that VIISTA is getting rave reviews.  The inaugural class of students is really enjoying the course.  They will be finishing Module 1 next week and will start Module 2 (with its focus on immigration law) in January.  I am really impressed so far with their work product and the quizzes and other assessments confirm that they are learning what we want them to learn.

Students in the inaugural class come from diverse backgrounds.  My current students include a Stanford college senior who aims to work as a paralegal next year, and eventually go to law school.  Other students are recent college grads interested in peace and justice/law/social work who want to make an immediate impact for immigrant families.  Some students are first-generation immigrants, others are children of immigrants.  Some students are retirees or those seeking an encore career, like empty nesters and parents coming back into the workforce. Three PhDs also enrolled in the program.  Many are volunteers with immigrant serving organizations.

I am now focused on getting the word out.  Attached and linked here is a recent article from the Chronicle of Higher Education and here is a link to an article from the Columbus Dispatch.  And here is a link to the website, immigrantadvocate.villanova.edu.

Please help me to spread the word about VIISTA in your networks, including among volunteers with your organizations.  You can also let folks know that scholarships are available for the Spring term, which starts on Monday, January 11.

The Scholarships are offered through ADROP, Augustinian Defenders of the Rights of the Poor.

You can read about the scholarship, the application process and apply at ADROP’s website: https://www.rightsofthepoor.org/viista-scholarship-program.

If you have any questions about the process, please feel free to reach out to Lacie Michaelson (cced here).  She is the Executive Director of ADROP and took VIISTA herself as a student in the pilot.

Please note that the deadline to apply for a scholarship for Spring of 2021 semester is Monday, December 14th, 2020.

Thanks for helping me to spread the word and identify passionate advocates for immigrant justice who want to become part of the solution.

Warmly,

Michele

Michele R. Pistone

Professor of Law

Villanova University, Charles Widger School of Law

Founding Faculty Director, VIISTA: Villanova Interdisciplinary Immigration Studies Training for Advocates

Founder, VIISTA Villanova Interdisciplinary Immigration Studies Training for Advocates

Director, Clinic for Asylum, Refugee & Emigrant Services (CARES)

Co-Managing Editor, Journal on Migration and Human Security

**********************

Michele, my friend and colleague, YOU are amazing!🦸‍♀️😎

With the echoes of my AILA keynote speech yesterday still reverberating across Ohio, here we are with the perfect example of why the EOIR Clown Show must go and be replaced by competent judges and administrators from the NDPA! https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/12/04/🇺🇸good-morning-ohio-my-keynote-speech-to-aila-this-morning-🗽-an-ndpa-call-to-action-⚖%EF%B8%8F-the-eoi/

Over the past four years, what passes for “management” at DOJ and EOIR has wasted millions of dollars, squandered thousands of hours of time, and kept the private bar on a treadmill with a steady stream of moronic, cruel, and inept “enforcement only” gimmicks, each seemingly stupider and more counterproductive than the last, driven by a White Nationalist nativist agenda. The result is a backlog that has exploded to astounding levels, (even with twice as many judges on the bench, many of them with questionable credentials and little if any expertise in immigration and human rights laws) and a totally dysfunctional mess that threatens to topple the entire Federal judicial system.

As those of us who understand immigration know, the key to a successful EOIR is representation! With an adequate supply of good representation, cases get sorted out at the earliest possible levels, claims are properly documented and presented, individuals show up at their hearings at remarkably high rates, and results are much more likely to be fair. Presto, “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” by EOIR shrinks, parties are encouraged to stipulate and get right to the contested issues, results at trial are more likely to be fair, appeals, petitions for review, and remands decrease, and the backlogs go down as the dockets come under control. Moreover, as the Immigration Court litigation experience improves, more practitioners get the “positive vibes” and are willing to undertake pro bono or low bono cases. Best practices developed to achieve fairness on EOIR’s high-volume docket find their way into other parts of the Federal Court system. It’s an all-around winner! Or, at least it should be!

So, any competent, rational, and knowledgeable “management group” at EOIR would make increasing representation “job # 1.” They would work cooperatively and harmoniously with bar groups, NGOs, states, and localities, to increase availability and improve quality of representation. They would eschew unnecessary detention, which inhibits representation, and insure than courts are reasonably and conveniently located in areas where private representation is abundantly available.

Of course, that’s not what the clowns at EOIR have done! Instead, they have gone out of their way to inflict misery on respondents and their representatives. Far from inspiring more folks to undertake cases, we have all seen stories of how the intentional rudeness and abuse inflicted in Immigration Court and the dysfunctional system actually demoralizes lawyers and causes them to leave the field. Their “stories of woe” are hardly encouraging  for others to donate time and effort.

Fortunately, while EOIR was busy ”kneecapping justice,” someone outside the “EOIR twilight zone” was thinking about how to solve the problem! With help from her friends, Michele designed the VIISTA program to train more non-attorney representatives to represent asylum seekers, convinced folks to fund it, recruited initial classes, and has it up and running. (By contrast, after two decades of wasted resources and incompetent meanderings, EOIR is still without a functioning e-filing system. Think that might have helped or saved some lives during the pandemic?) 

And the training is not only a bargain (with scholarships available), it is beyond first class in substance and content. Essentially, it’s “what you really need to learn in law school in less than a year.” The curriculum would put to shame any training we received at EOIR, even before the current Clown Show. My Round Table colleague Judge Jeffrey Chase (a/k/a “Sir Jeffrey”) has reviewed the curriculum and agrees.

The solution is painfully obvious to anyone who takes the time to think about it. On January 21, 2021, give the hook to the Clown Show in Falls Church, and bring in the scholar/problem solvers like Michele and her NDPA colleagues to lead the due process revolution that will transform EOIR into a place where teamwork and innovation will produce the world’s best court system guaranteeing fairness and due process for all. That was once the “EOIR vision” before “serial mismanagement” transformed it into the ugly, dysfunctional Star Chamber that confronts us today. 

It need not and should not be that way. But, the vision of true due process at EOIR will only be realized if the Biden Administration puts the right people — folks like Michele and others like her from the NDPA — in place immediately upon assuming power.

Let your contacts in the Biden Administration know that you have had more than enough! The EOIR Clown Show must go!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-05-20

EOIR clown Show Must Go T-Shirt
“EOIR Clown Show Must Go” T-Shirt Custom Design Concept

   

🇺🇸“GOOD MORNING OHIO!” — MY KEYNOTE SPEECH TO AILA THIS MORNING 🗽— AN NDPA CALL TO ACTION! ⚖️— “The EOIR Clown Show Has Got To Go!”🤡👨🏻‍⚖️👎🏻

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”
Star Chamber Justice
“Justice”
Star Chamber
Style
Me
Me

Friends, you know, and I know, what is the biggest crisis facing the American justice system today. One that undermines and threatens racial justice, social justice, equality before the law, voting rights, American values, and indeed the very foundations of our democratic institutions and our justice system.

It’s imperative that our incoming Administration and its leaders fully recognize the overwhelming importance and extreme urgency of immediately ending the ongoing, deadly, and dangerous “Clown Show” at EOIR – the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

Under the defeated but not yet departed regime, EOIR has been weaponized by White Nationalist nativists to function as America’s Star Chambers. Once envisioned by its founders, including me, as a potential “jewel in the crown” of American justice, EOIR now has become an ungodly nightmare of anti-due process, anti-immigrant propaganda, bad judges, bogus stats, uncontrollable backlogs, malicious incompetence, stupid regulations, daily doses of irrationality, abuse of private attorneys, and institution of “worst practices.” But, it doesn’t have to be that way! No, not at all!

With courage, bold action, and, most important, the right people in place in leadership and key judicial positions, EOIR can be fixed: sooner, not later. The Immigration Courts can, indeed, through teamwork and innovation become the world’s best courts guaranteeing fairness and due process for all, promoting a model of best practices for the Federal Judiciary as a whole, and providing a trained and ready source of due-process oriented judges with strong immigration, human rights, and equal justice backgrounds for the Article III Judiciary and public policy positions.

EOIR will then be positioned for the essential transition to an Article I independent U.S. Immigration Court when we have the votes.

But, it will require a far more progressive, visionary, and aggressive approach than past Democratic Administrations. We must immediately (and legally) clear out the deadwood and get the problem solvers from the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”) — mostly now in the NGO, clinical, and private sectors, folks like you and your colleagues — in place to fix this horribly broken system.

Read my complete speech here:

OHIO AILA

DUE PROCESS FOREVER!

PWS

12-04-20

CONGRATS TO PROFESSOR MICHELE PISTONE! – NDPA LEADER WINS PRESTIGIOUS KAPLAN AWARD & GRANT FOR VIISTA PROJECT TO MAKE LOW COST LEGAL SERVICES FROM HIGHLY TRAINED & CERTIFIED “NONATTORNEY REPRESENTATIVES” AVAILABLE TO THOUSANDS MORE MIGRANTS IN NEED!

Professor Michele Pistone
Professor Michele Pistone
Villanova Law

From: Tara Magner [mailto:tara.magner@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2019 8:13 AM

 

Dear Friends:

 

Please join me in congratulating our dear friend and wonderful colleague Michele Pistone on winning the JM Kaplan Innovation Prize for her project, VIISTA. Michele has been developing this idea for a few years now, with the thoughtful contributions of many on this list. It is wonderful to see her work recognized and even more exciting to imagine how VIISTA will vastly expand high-quality, low cost legal services for immigrants.

 

Here is the text from the Kaplan announcement, but please go to this link and watch the video, too. It is inspiring.

https://www.jmkfund.org/awardee/michele-pistone/

 

Congrats Michele!  Best — Tara

 

MICHELE PISTONE

VIISTA

PENNSYLVANIA

Project Overview

Immigrants in America face a profound justice gap: six out of ten confront the immigration system without a lawyer. And that carries dire consequences: the Vera Institute of Justice found that immigrants with legal representation had an 1,100% increase in successful immigration court outcomes compared to unrepresented cases—leaving far fewer families torn apart by deportation orders. Unlike criminal proceedings in which defendants have the right to representation, immigrants are not entitled to court-appointed lawyers. And in a vast number of cases, immigration attorneys are out of reach due to access or cost constraints. As a bold solution, the Villanova University Interdisciplinary Immigration Studies Training for Advocates (VIISTA) program will offer the first university-based, online certificate program to train non-lawyers to assist immigrants. VIISTA seeks to revolutionize immigration law by educating a new category of legal advocates, much like the role nurse practitioners play in health care. Under existing regulations, graduates will be eligible to apply to become Department of Justice “accredited representatives” who can provide low-cost representation. VIISTA’s scalable and affordable platform will build a nationwide pipeline for hundreds, if not thousands, of passionate advocates fighting to advance immigrants’ rights.

 

FIVE QUESTIONS

1What needs does VIISTA address and how?

Unlike criminal proceedings in which defendants have constitutional rights to representation, immigrants are not entitled to court appointed lawyers. Six out of ten immigrants confront the immigration system without a lawyer. Even child migrants are not granted free representation. The consequences are substantial: the Vera Institute found that immigrants are 12 times more likely to obtain available relief when they have an advocate. Lack of advocacy disrupts families and communities in life-altering ways. With each deportation order, families are separated, employers lose employees, and communities lose valued neighbors and friends. It is understood within the immigrant-serving community that we need more immigrant advocates. Most look to lawyers for the solution. However, they are out of reach for poor migrants. The problem requires an innovative approach. VIISTA represents a bold new solution.

 

2Tell us about a moment that inspired your project.

Every time I walk into an immigration court I feel angry and ashamed. Angry and ashamed that we have an immigration legal system designed for failure. A system that is not primarily designed to focus on truth or justice. But that is primarily designed—like a shoddy assembly line —to push the product through. In this case the product is immigration cases—just get them out the door; send them back home. I believe that immigrants confronting the immigration system deserve justice. That belief drives me every day as I work to establish the first university-based, comprehensive, online, scalable, and affordable immigration-focused education. VIISTA will create a nationwide pipeline of advocate champions committed to securing justice for immigrants.

 

3What is the biggest challenge you face?

I have three broad challenges: First, how to build a vibrant, cohesive, online community? Prospective and pilot students want to study in community, share resources, post questions to mentors, and form study groups, and to feel part of a community of like-minded advocates for immigrant justice. Second, how to scale the educational program without losing its teaching effectiveness? The need for advocates is huge, but immigrant allies need education so they can meaningfully help. At scale, VIISTA is a bridge that links two growing needs. And third, how best to evaluate the impact of the program, set goals, develop benchmarks, and collect data?

 

4What other leaders have informed your work?

I am blessed to have been and continue to be informed by many leaders in the immigration field. Many of the largest national organizations working with immigrants are helping me to build the curriculum, including Catholic Relief Services, Immigrant Justice Corps, and Kids in Need of Defense (KIND).

 

5What is the exponential impact you think the Prize can have for your idea?

The Prize will help me to scale VIISTA. My goal is to graduate 10,000 immigrant advocates over the next ten years. And, it is realistic. Then, if every one of those new immigrant advocates helped just one immigrant family each month, they would help 660,000 immigrant families over ten years. And, the impact could be even greater than that because this program could be a model for using non-lawyers to provide legal services in other areas of law as well, like housing, evictions, simple divorces, and veteran’s affairs. Just like the medical field provided space for nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

 

Learn more about VIISTA:

https://www1.villanova.edu/university/professional-studies/academics/professional-education/viista.html

 

***********************************************

I was privileged to have assisted in some small ways my good friend Michele with some of the early planning and development of this amazing program, including early “brainstorming sessions” and a video appearance before one of her first classes.

Suppose our Government “immigration bureaucracy” were led by brilliant, humane, yet practical individuals like Michele instead of the White Nationalist kakistocracy now in charge! Even the current, concededly broken, system could be made fairer, more efficient, and more functional with real leaders, out to solve pressing problems rather than intentionally aggravate them, instead of the “malicious incompetents” foisted on us by the Trump Administration.

Representation is perhaps the biggest single positive factor in immigration proceedings. Represented individuals understand the system, appear for nearly 100% of hearings, are released from detention more often, and succeed in their claims at multiples of those who are unrepresented. Those who truly have no defense are much more likely to accept results when competently represented by those who can realistically advise them as to their chances of success and their realistic alternatives in language they can understand. Courts at all levels are aided when competent representatives sharpen and present the legal issues for adjudication. (Although non-attorney representatives can’t appear in Article III Courts, they can certainly work with pro bono attorneys in a “paralegal capacity” to assist and facilitate such representation when necessary.)

In an Administration that trusted and honored its prosecutors’ judgement and expertise, representatives could work with Assistant Chief Counsel and the Immigration Courts to reduce the number of unnecessarily backlogged cases on the dockets.

A smart, humane Administration would “can” all of the expensive, inhumane, time wasting, and often illegal “gonzo enforcement” gimmicks and instead put the time and money toward working with states, localities, NGOs, and other private entities to achieve at least something approaching universal representation. Without minimizing the need for Article I Immigration Courts and other legislative reforms, an enlightened Administration, committed to due process and responsible enforcement, could drastically reduce Immigration Court backlogs, advance the delivery of justice, and improve conditions for everyone involved, including the Assistant Chief Counsel and the Immigration Judges who suffer many of the effects of this Administration’s “malicious incompetence” along with migrants, their families, and their representatives.

Congrats again, Michele!  You’re amazing, and a spectacular role model for what America could and should be in a better future under wiser, honest leaders committed to our Constitution and human values!

DUE PROCESS FOREVER!

 

PWS

11-15-19

PROVING MY POINT: DOJ/EOIR “NO-SHOW” STATS LIE, PARTICULARLY WHEN IT COMES TO ASYLUM SEEKERS!

http://immigrationimpact.com/2019/01/30/asylum-seekers-show-up-for-court/

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick writes for Immigration Impact:

Immigration restrictionists have often repeated a bold and erroneous claim: that there is a serious problem of asylum seekers who come to the U.S. border and disappear once released from detention. But both fact-checkers and independent studies show this is not true. In reality, the vast majority of asylum seekers diligently attend all of their immigration court hearings.

Given that studies consistently show a high appearance rate for asylum seekers, why do some people keep getting this wrong? Boiled down to its simplest answer: the only government measurement on failures to appear in court has been unreliable for years.

If an immigrant fails to appear for a scheduled immigration court hearing, they may be issued an order of removal “in absentia” (or “while absent”). Each year, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) reports the total number of cases that were “completed” by immigration judges. The government report looks at cases that finished with a grant of relief from removal or an order of removal, as well as the percent of case completions which involved an order of removal for failure to appear.

In Fiscal Year 2017, there were 41,384 orders of removal for failure to appear issued out of 149,436 total cases completed. EOIR reported this as a 28 percent failure to appear rate. However, immigration court cases often require multiple hearings before they can be completed and, due to skyrocketing backlogs in the last decade, the average immigration court case takes almost three years to complete.

The government’s statistic counts failures to appear only against the number of cases that are fully completed. By doing this, it neglects to account for the many immigrants who appeared in court in ongoing cases that have not yet reached completion.

As a result, because tens of thousands of immigrants appeared in court in 2017 but did not have a case completed, EOIR’s number does not represent the rate at which immigrants missed court.

Since there are now more than 800,000 people in immigration court, the failure to include these incomplete cases is extremely misleading.

In addition, by only reviewing initial case completions, the statistic doesn’t consider cases where an immigrant missed court through no fault of their own (like in the event of an emergency) and then successfully overturned a removal order. According to an analysis from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), excluding cases where the immigrant successfully overturned a removal order for failure to appear “significantly impacts and reduces the calculated rates.”

From 2012 to 2017, over 1.25 million new cases were filed in immigration court, but only 151,000 removal orders were issued for failure to appear; 13.5 percent of the total. When looking only at 2017, cases in which an immigrant was ordered removed for failure to appear constituted just five percent of the 802,503 cases pending or completed in immigration court.

Despite the flaws with using the failure to appear rate as a proxy for the rate at which immigrants miss court proceedings, the government continues to use this number to make policy. This is a mistake; good policy can only be made based on good data.

Given this error, what is the actual rate at which immigrants fail to appear in court? Unfortunately, there is no exact answer for this. But a series of studies has made one thing clear: the vast majority of asylum-seekers attend all their immigration court hearings.

The Detaining Families report, for example, reviewed every case between 2001 and 2016 where a family was detained by ICE and then released. It determined that 86 percent of families had not missed a single court hearing. This number rose to 96 percent when a member of the family filed an application for asylum.

Other studies have come to similar conclusions. According to a review of immigration court records by TRAC, only 22.9 percent of the 167,219 women and children who entered the United States between 2014 and 2017 were ordered removed for failure to appear. Those who managed to obtain counsel were the most likely to appear for their hearings; only 2.3 percent of that group were ordered removed for failure to appear.

Even government studies show similar results. In 2018, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published a study analyzing the outcomes of every person encountered by Customs and Border Protection in 2014. Of the roughly 60,000 individuals who sought asylum at the border that year, only 14 percent had been issued an order of removal that ICE was not able to carry out—likely because the asylum-seeker failed to appear in court and fled.

As long-term studies show, when you actually track individual cases from start to finish, most asylum-seekers diligently appear in court. The government should make policy based on this reality and not their own flawed metrics.

*********************************

Trump, Miller, Nielsen, Sessions, Whitaker, and the rest of the “Band of Sycophants” make immigration policy based on a false White Nationalist agenda incorporating intentional lies, distortions, misrepresentations, and racist myths.

Not only do the stats show that asylum applicants show up for Immigration Court, but the also show a high correlation between represented respondents and appearance.

Rather than disgracefully wasting money on all sorts of expensive, ineffective, and often illegal “gimmicks,” one of the best things the Government could do is work with NGOs, pro bono organizations, and the private bar to achieve “universal representation.” It’s much more “doable” and infinitely more effective than the “Wall folly.” The Government could also help facilitate more trained, non-attorney “accredited representatives” to increase Asylum Office and Immigration Court representation.

Instead, Jeff Sessions slandered and went out of his way to disrespect immigration lawyers and make their already difficult jobs next to impossible. And, Nielsen went out of her way to bar, that’s right, bar, attorneys from initial interviews under her inaptly named “Migrant Protection Protocols.” Those protocols also obviously are a thinly veiled attack on representation at the Immigration Court level.

The Trump Administration and its motley crew of corrupt political officials should be confronted with and held accountable for their tireless lies and White Nationalist distortions that endanger the lives and rights of migrants. Harm to one of the most vulnerable among us is harm to all! And, intentional and unnecessary harm to the most vulnerable is a staple of the Trump Administration!

PWS

01-31-19

 

TRUMP’S “OFFER” MIGHT WELL BE A STUNT – BUT, IT’S ALSO AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE DEMS TO STEP UP, SAVE LIVES, AND GOVERN RESPONSIBLY – They Should Make A Counterproposal – Here’s The “SMARTS Act Of 2019!”

There are opposing “schools of thought” on Trump’s latest immigration statement. For example, the LA Times says it another “Trump stunt to shift blame” that the Dems should resist.  https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-trump-shutdown-daca-20190119-story.html

Makes sense.

 

On the other hand, the Washington Post says that notwithstanding Trump’s annoying tactics, it’s an opportunity to reopen the Government and save the Dreamers that the Dems should pursue. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/make-a-deal-to-help-the-real-people-behind-the-rhetoric/2019/01/19/f5b18866-1c17-11e9-88fe-f9f77a3bcb6c_story.html?utm_term=.5b08d589dfa9

Also makes sense.

 

I understand the Dems reluctance to enable Trump’s “hostage taking” strategy. But, I doubt they can solve that with Trump and the GOP controlling two of the three political arms of Government.

 

Indeed, a better idea would be for Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader McConnell to get together “when the smoke clears” and see what they can do jointly to take back and fix the bipartisan Congressional budget process and protect it from overreach by Executives of both parties.  For two of the major legislative “gurus” of our age in the twilight of their careers, that would be a great “bipartisan legacy.”

 

But, for the time being, folks are suffering, and lives are in danger: Government employees, those that depend on Government, asylum applicants, Dreamers, TPSers, those in Immigration Court, and the families of all of the foregoing. So, I think the Dems should make a “robust” counterproposal that gives Trump at least part of his “Wall,” but also includes other important reforms and improvements that will diminish the impact of border migration issues in the future. Most important, almost everything in this proposal would save or improve some human lives and benefit America in the short and long run.

 

So, here’s my outline of the “SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019”

 

SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019

 

  • Federal Employees
    • Restart the Government
    • Retroactive pay raise

 

  • Enhanced Border Security
    • Fund half of “Trump’s Wall”
    • Triple the number of USCIS Asylum Officers
    • Double the number of U.S. Immigration Judges and Court Staff
    • Additional Port of Entry (“POE”) Inspectors
    • Improvements in POE infrastructure, technology, and technology between POEs
    • Additional Intelligence, Anti-Smuggling, and Undercover Agents for DHS
    • Anything else in the Senate Bill that both parties agree upon

 

  • Humanitarian Assistance
    • Road to citizenship for a Dreamers & TPSers
    • Prohibit family separation
    • Funding for alternatives to detention
    • Grants to NGOs for assisting arriving asylum applicants with temporary housing and resettlement issues
    • Require re-establishment of U.S. Refugee Program in the Northern Triangle

 

  • Asylum Process
    • Require Asylum Offices to consider in the first instance all asylum applications including those generated by the “credible fear” process as well as all so-called “defensive applications”

 

  • Immigration Court Improvements
    • Grants and requirements that DHS & EOIR work with NGOs and the private bar with a goal of achieving 100% representation of asylum applicants
    • Money to expand and encourage the training and certification of more non-attorneys as “accredited representatives” to represent asylum seekers pro bono before the Asylum Offices and the Immigration Courts on behalf of approved NGOs
    • Vacate Matter of A-B-and reinstate Matter of A-R-C-G-as the rule for domestic violence asylum applications
    • Vacate Matter of Castro-Tumand reinstate Matter of Avetisyan to allow Immigration Judges to control dockets by administratively closing certain “low priority” cases
    • Eliminate Attorney General’s authority to interfere in Immigration Court proceedings through “certification”
    • Re-establish weighing of interests of both parties consistent with Due Process as the standard for Immigration Court continuances
    • Bar AG & EOIR Director from promulgating substantive or procedural rules for Immigration Courts — grant authority to BIA to promulgate procedural rules for Immigration Courts
    • Authorize Immigration Courts to consider all Constitutional issues in proceedings
    • Authorize DHS to appeal rulings of the BIA to Circuit Courts of Appeal
    • Require EOIR to implement the statutory contempt authority of Immigration Judges, applicable equally to all parties before the courts, within 180 days
    • Bar “performance quotas” and “performance work plans” for Immigration Judges and BIA Members
    • Authorize the Immigration Court to set bonds in all cases coming within their jurisdiction
    • Fund and require EOIR to implement a nationwide electronic filing system within one year
    • Eliminate the annual 4,000 numerical cap on grants of “cancellation of removal” based on “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship”
    • Require the Asylum Office to adjudicate cancellation of removal applications with renewal in Immigration Court for those denied
    • Require EOIR to establish a credible, transparent judicial discipline and continued tenure system within one year that must include: opportunity for participation by the complainant (whether Government or private) and the Immigration Judge; representation permitted for both parties; peer input; public input; DHS input; referral to an impartial decision maker for final decision; a transparent and consistent system of sanctions incorporating principles of rehabilitation and progressive discipline; appeal rights to the MSPB

 

  • International Cooperation
    • Fund and require efforts to work with the UNHCR, Mexico, and other countries in the Hemisphere to improve asylum systems and encourage asylum seekers to exercise options besides the U.S.
    • Fund efforts to improve conditions and the rule of law in the Northern Triangle

 

**********************************************

No, it wouldn’t solve all problems overnight. But, everything beyond “Trump’s Wall” would make a substantial improvement over our current situation that would benefit enforcement, border security, human rights, Due Process, humanitarian assistance, and America. Not a bad “deal” in my view!

 

PWS

01-20-19

 

 

 

CHECK OUT MY 17-POINT “IMMIGRATION CONSUMERS’ PROTECTION PROGRAM” (“ICPP”)!

IMMIGRATION CONSUMERS’ PROTECTION PROGRAM (“ICPP”)

BY Paul Wickham Schmidt, United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

  • Get a lawyer.
  • Make sure lawyer is real & reputable.
    • Confirm bar admission and check complaints online.
    • Firm website should confirm that immigration is a primary area of practice.
    • Google published immigration cases and check results.
  • Get it in writing.
    • In a language you understand.
  • If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.
  • Play to tell the truth.
    • With lawyer, court, DHS.
  • Keep your appointments with your lawyer.
    • Time is money – YOUR money!
    • Lawyer needs complete and accurate information to help.
  • Show up for all Immigration Court hearings at least 30 minutes early.
    • Failing to appear (“FTA”) is the worst possible thing you can do in Immigration Court.
    • FTA = Final Order of Removal = Arrest, Detention & Immediate Removal = YOU become “low hanging fruit” for DHS’s “jacked up” removal goals!
  • Dress the part.
    • No cutoffs, t-shirts, flip-flops, halter-tops, crop tops, underwear showing, muscle shirts, flashy distracting jewelry, “rainbow hair,” shirts with (particularly political) slogans, baseball caps in Immigration Court.
    • Dress as you would to go to the funeral of someone you respected.
  • Avoid the “Big Five:”
    • Alcohol
    • Drugs
    • Domestic violence
    • Gangs
    • Driving violations of all types.
      • OWLs can be a problem and eventually turn into felonies in Virginia!
      • That’s what busses, trains, friends, co-workers, bikes, and strong legs are for.
    • Keep all documents – originals and at least one copy.
      • Never give away originals (unless the judge requires it) or your only copy of a document.
    • Pay taxes.
    • Stay in school or keep employed.
    • Ask questions.
      • Insist on an explanation that you understand in a language you understand.
    • Don’t sign anything you don’t understand.
      • Make sure everything has been translated for you.
    • Comply with all court orders.
    • Use available resources:
      • Internet
      • 1-800 number
      • Immigration Court Practice Manual (“ICPM”) (online).
    • Don’t forget family and friends.
      • They can be some of your best resources.

(12-10-17)

This outline contains some of the points that I emphasized during my two Spanish-language radio appearances in Richmond, Virginia on Friday, December 8, 2017!

 

PWS

12-10-17

 

 

 

 

 

 

ASYLUM: LAW YOU CAN USE: All-Star Professor Michele Pistone Of Villanova Law Writes & Directs “Must See TV” — “Best Practices in Representing Asylum Seekers”

Go on over to Dan Kowalski’s LexisNexis Immigration Community here for all the links to the 19-part series on You Tube made possible by the American Law Institute with an introduction by none other than Justice Sandra Day O’Connor:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/immigration-law-blog/archive/2017/11/16/video-series-best-practices-in-representing-asylum-seekers.aspx?Redirected=true

Thanks, Michele, for all you do for the cause of Due Process for migrants and better Immigration Court practices!

PWS

11-17-17

 

JOE PATRICE @ ABOVE THE LAW: WE NOW HAVE “SCIENTIFIC PROOF” THAT IMMIGRATION LAWYERS ARE “INCREDIBLY USEFUL” — IN FACT, THEY ARE ESSENTIAL TO DUE PROCESS — So, Why Are Sessions & His Minions Smearing Lawyers & Trying To Railroad More Migrants Through The System Without Fair Hearings?

We Have Scientific Proof That Lawyers Are Incredibly Useful

Patrice writes:

“So instead of fighting whether or not the feds can order cops to bust up the local Motel 6, cities can just hire some lawyers.

This is the lie of every talking head that praises building a wall but adds, with all faux sincerity, that they have “no problem with legal immigrants.” Almost half of the people shuttled through assembly line deportation hearings actually fit within legal immigration protections, but the complexity of the system — not to mention language barriers — make them victims of the bureaucracy.

If that projection is correct, NYIFUP cases result in immigrant victories 48 percent of the time. As Oren Root, director of the Vera Institute’s Center for Immigration and Justice, puts it, that means that of every 12 immigrants who are winning at Varick Street right now, 11 would have been deported without a lawyer.

That finding challenges a widely held assumption about immigration court: that most immigrants who go through it don’t qualify for the types of protection that Congress has laid out for particularly compelling cases. The Vera finding implies that, in fact, many immigrants do deserve relief as Congress and the executive branch have established it — but that hundreds of thousands of them have been deported without getting the chance to pursue those claims.

New York’s program has inspired 12 more cities to adopt the program. It’s put up or shut up time for the Department of Justice — if they’re really committed to proving some undocumented migrant is in violation of the law, then stand up and make that case in court.

Against a real attorney.

Unless they’re chicken.”

********************************

Read the complete article at the link. I have previously reported on the VOX News Article and the Vera study.

I think Patrice has hit the nail on the head. Sessions, Miller, Bannon and the White Nationalist crowd are biased bullies picking on the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Like all bullies, they have absolutely no desire to compete fairly on a level playing field.

The Vera report confirms what many of us involved in the field have been saying for years: a significant portion of those going through Immigration Court, probably 50% or more are entitled to be in the US. Without lawyers, such individuals have little or no chance of making and succeeding on claims that would allow them to stay. Since at least one-third of individuals (and a much higher percentage of detained individuals) are unrepresented, we are unlawfully removing tens of thousands of individuals each year, in violation of due process. And nothing aggravates this unfairness more than unnecessary detention (in other words, the majority of immigration detention which involves individuals who are not criminals, security threats, or threats to abscond if they are represented and understand the system).

A competent and conscientious Attoyney General would work cooperatively with private bar groups, NGOs, and localities to solve the representation crisis and drastically reduce the use of expensive and inhumane immigration detention. But, Sessions is moving in exactly the opposite direction, in violation of constitutional principles of due process, practical efficiency, and basic human decency.

PWS

11-13-17

ATTN: “NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY” & ALL INTERESTED ATTORNEYS: Pro Bono Immigration Lawyers Needed In NOVA — Training Will Be Provided By Catholic Charities Legal Services!

Our minister, Pastor Deborah Porras of Beverley Hills Community Methodist Church in Alexandria, VA sent me the following:

———- Forwarded message ———
From: NOVASanctuaryCongregationsNetwork <novasanctuarycongregationsnetwork@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 13, 2017 at 1:16 PM
Subject: Seeking attorneys for pro bono immigration cases
To: NOVASanctuaryCongregationsNetwork <novasanctuarycongregationsnetwork@googlegroups.com>

 

Please pass the following on to attorneys who may want to help with pro bono immigration cases:

 

 

Are you a lawyer? Would you like to use your legal skills to help keep our immigrant neighbors safe? One of the most pressing needs we hear from immigrant organizations in the DC area is “more lawyers” – and with DACA recipients now needing to look at what other options they may have to remain in the country, the need for legal services is especially great right now.

 

The All Souls (Unitarian) Church Sanctuary Movement Support Committee is sponsoring a training for lawyers who are interested in volunteering on a pro bono immigration case. Catholic Charities Immigration Legal Services will provide the training, coordinate case assignments, and support volunteers who are handling cases.

Immigration Legal Services Training
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
6:30-8:45 p.m.
All Souls Church Unitarian
1500 Harvard Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
The training will include a general overview of immigration law as well as specific information on U visas for immigrants who have been the victim of a crime. Volunteers will be initially assigned to cases involving U visas.
Volunteers must be lawyers who are currently licensed to practice and may not be federal employees. If you’re interested in volunteering, click here to register for the required training, or contact Maya Hermann at hermann.maya@icloud.com.

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “NOVASanctuaryCongregationsNetwork” group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to novasanctuarycongregationsnetwork+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to novasanctuarycongregationsnetwork@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/novasanctuarycongregationsnetwork/66f7c2fb-6ef2-427b-b6e8-3f7efb9cc3cf%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Sent from Pastor Deborah with blessings!

*************************************

There is no greater due process need in America today than the need for pro bono lawyers to represent migrants appearing before the USCIS and in the U.S. Immigration Courts. Unlike criminal cases, Government appointed counsel is not available to those facing removal from the US, even if they have been here for decades or have green cards.

Lawyers make a difference!  In Immigration Court represented migrants are 5 to 17 times more likely to “win”  their cases than are those who are forced to appear without counsel. I’m sure the same is true before USCIS in the area of “U” visas for victims of crime. The “U” visa process is complicated and requires meticulous documentation and effective presentation. I personally can’t imagine how anyone could successfully navagate this process without a highly competent lawyer!

Sign up now to make a difference in someone’s life and to make America and the world a better place.

Note: In my “cut and paste” I wasn’t able to reproduce the “live” links in the original e-mail. So those interested should contact Maya Hermann at her e-mail address in bold above!

PWS

09-13-17

 

TIME MAGGIE: DUE PROCESS TAKES ANOTHER HIT IN IMMIGRATION COURT WITH EOIR’S DISINGENUOUS MEMO DISCOURAGING CONTINUANCES IN IMMIGRATION COURT! — When Will The Article III Courts & Commentators Expose The REAL Fraud Being Fobbed Off On The Public By The Sessions DOJ & EOIR? — The DOJ Is Trying To Blame The “Champions Of Due Process” (Private Lawyers) For The “ADR” — Aimless Docket Reshuffling — That The DOJ Created And Actually Mandated— Hold The DOJ Fully Accountable For The Failure Of The U.S. Immigration Courts!

http://time.com/4902820/immigration-lawyers-judges-courts-continuance/

Tessa Berenson writes in Time:

“The president and attorney general have vowed to crack down on illegal immigration, and the new directive could help move cases through the system at a faster clip. Most immigration lawyers agree that the overloaded courts are a major issue. But they fear the end result will be more deportations as judges use the wide discretion afforded to them to curtail continuances. The Immigration and Nationality Act doesn’t establish a right to a continuance in immigration proceedings, Keller’s letter notes. They’re largely governed by a federal regulation which says that an “immigration judge may grant a motion for continuance for good cause shown.”

Immigration lawyers often rely heavily on continuances for their prep work because immigration law grants limited formal discovery rights. Unlike in criminal cases, in which the prosecution is generally required to turn over evidence to the defense, immigration lawyers often have to file a Freedom of Information Act request to find out what the government has on their client. These can take months to process.

“If their priority is speed, we all know that sounds really good, to be more efficient, but usually due process takes a hit when your focus is efficiency,” says Andrew Nietor, an immigration attorney based in San Diego. “By the time we are able to connect with our clients, that first court appearance might be the day after we meet somebody, so we haven’t had the opportunity to do the investigation and do the research. And up until several months ago, it was standard to give immigration attorneys at least one continuance for what they call attorney preparation. Now it’s not standard anymore.”

The Justice Department’s guidance says that “the appropriate use of continuances serves to protect due process, which Immigration Judges must safeguard above all,” and notes that “it remains general policy that at least one continuance should be granted” for immigrants to obtain legal counsel.

But the memo is more skeptical about continuances for attorney preparation. “Although continuances to allow recently retained counsel to become familiar with a case prior to the scheduling of an individual merits hearing are common,” it says, “subsequent requests for preparation time should be reviewed carefully.”

It remains to be seen if this careful review will streamline the ponderous system or add another difficulty for the harried lawyers and hundreds of thousands of immigrants trying to work their way through it. For Jeronimo, it may have been decisive. In mid-August, the judge found that the defense didn’t adequately prove Jeronimo’s deportation would harm his young daughter and gave him 45 days to voluntarily leave the United States. Now Jeronimo must decide whether to appeal his case. But he’s been held in a detention center in Georgia since March, and his lawyers worry that he has lost hope. He may soon be headed back to Mexico, five months after he was picked up at a traffic stop in North Carolina.”

***********************************************************

Read the complete article at the link.

OK, let’s have a reality check here. The tremendous backlog is NOT caused by giving respondents time to find an attorney in an already overwhelmed system or by giving those overworked and under-compensated private attorneys time to adequately prepare their clients’ cases.

No, it’s caused by two things both within the control of the Government. The first is the abuse of the system, actively encouraged by this Administration, for cases of individuals who are law abiding members of the U.S. community, helping our nation prosper, who either should be granted relief outside the Immigrant Court process, or whose cases should be taken off the docket by the reasonable use of prosecutorial discretion (something that the Trump Administration eliminated while outrageously calling it a “return to the rule of law” — nothing of the sort — it’s a return to docket insanity enhanced by intentional cruelty).

Your tax dollars actually pay for the wasteful and counterproductive abuses being encouraged by the Trump Administration! Eventually, Congress will have to find a solution that allows all or most of these folks to stay. But, mindlessly shoving them onto already overwhelmed Immigration Court dockets is not that solution.

The second major cause is even more invidious: Aimless Docket Reshuffling (“ADR”) by the Government! The problematic continuances being given in this system — those of many months, or even many years — are forced upon Immigration Judges by EOIR and the DOJ, usually without any meaningful input from either the sitting Immigration Judges or the affected public. Immigration Judges are required to accommodate politically-motivated “changes in priorities” and wasteful transfer of Immigration Judges wth full dockets (which then must be reset, usually to the end of the docket, sometimes to another Immigration Judge) to other locations, often in detention centers, to support enforcement goals without any concern whatsoever for due process for the individuals before the court or the proper administration of justice within the U.S. Immigration Court system.

There is only one real cure for this problem: removal of the U.S. Immigration Courts from the highly politicized U.S. Department of Justice to an independent Article I Court structure that will focus  on due process foremost, and efficient, but fair, court administration. But, until then, it’s up to the press to expose what’s really happening here and to the Article III Courts to call a halt to this travesty.

The “heroes” of the U.S. Immigration Court system, dedicated NGOs and attorneys, many of them acting without compensation or with minimal compensation, are under attack by this Administration and the DOJ. Their imaginary transgression is to insist on a fair day in court for individuals trying to assert their constitutional right to a fair hearing. They are being scapegoated for problems that the U.S. Government has caused, aggravated, and failed to fix, over several Administrations.

The DOJ is creating a knowingly false narrative to cover up their failure to deliver due process in the U.S. Immigration Courts and to shift the blame to the victims and their representatives. A simple term for that is “fraud.”

If we allow this to happen, everyone will be complicit in an assault not only on American values but also on the U.S. Constitution itself, and the due process it is supposed to guarantee for all. If it disappears for the most vulnerable in our society, don’t expect it to be there in the future when you or those around you might need due process of law. And, when you don’t get due process, you should also expect the Government to blame you for their failure.

PWS

08-19-17

 

THE ASYLUMIST: The Importance Of Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect & Collegiality In Immigration Court

http://www.asylumist.com/2017/06/08/us-versus-them-in-immigration-court/#comments

Jason Dzubow writes in The Asylumist:

“Unlike perhaps some areas of law, immigration law has a strong ideological component. Many of the attorneys who represent immigrants do so because they believe in human rights and they want to keep families together. For such attorneys—and I include myself among them—our work represents an expression of our moral and/or religious values. In other words, it’s more than just a job; it’s a mission.

Does this make it harder for us to work cooperatively with opposing counsel (DHS)? Is it more urgent that we do so? For me, the answer to both these questions is yes. When our clients’ lives and futures are on the line, it can be very difficult to maintain a cordial relationship with a government attorney who is fighting to have that client deported. But even in the hardest-fought case, there is value in maintaining lines of communication. For example, even where the DHS attorney will not compromise and is fighting all-out for removal, there still exists the possibility of stipulating to evidence and witnesses, and of a post-order stay of removal. Severing the connection does not serve the client (though it may satisfy the ego), and certainly won’t help future clients, and so to me, there is little value in burning bridges, even when I believe DHS’s position is unjust.

All that said, there is no doubt that we will often disagree with our opposing counsel, and that we will fight as hard as we can for our clients. This is also a duty under the Rules of Professional Conduct (zealous advocacy), and for many of us, it is an expression of our deeply held belief in Justice.

With the ascension of the Trump Administration, and its more aggressive approach towards non-citizens, I believe it is more important than ever for us lawyers to keep good relationships with our DHS counterparts. While some government attorneys are glad to be “unleashed” and to step-up deportation efforts, many others are uncomfortable with the Administration’s scorched-Earth strategy. These DHS attorneys (and I suspect they are the majority) take seriously their obligation to do justice; not simply to remove everyone that ICE can get their hands on.

While the environment has become more difficult, I plan to continue my Old School approach. It works for me, it has worked for my clients, and I think it is particularly crucial in the current atmosphere. We lawyers–the immigration bar and DHS–should continue to lead by example, and continue to maintain the high ethical standards that our profession sets for us. In this way, we can help serve as a counter-balance to our country’s leaders, whose divisive, ends-justify-the-means approach has no use for the basic principles of morality or comity that have long served our profession and our democracy.”

**********************************************

Read Jason’s complete blog at the link.

This is terrific advice for lawyers and judges, particularly those just starting out.

Fairness, scholarship, timeliness, respect and teamwork are the things I have tried to promote throughout my career. I found all of them at the Arlington Immigration Court. “No way” I would have lasted 13 years on the trial bench  without lots of help and cooperation from the whole “court team.”

PWS

06-14-17

 

AMERICA’S REAL IMMIGRATION CRISIS: THE ATTACK ON DUE PROCESS IN THE UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION COURTS — Read My Keynote Speech FromThe Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center’s “Light Of Liberty Awards” Ceremony Last Night!

AMERICA’S REAL IMMIGRATION CRISIS: THE ATTACK ON DUE PROCESS IN THE UNITED STATES IMMIGRATON COURTS

 

Keynote Address by

 

Paul Wickham Schmidt

 

United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

 

LIGHT OF LIBERTY AWARDS

 

Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center

 

Heritage Hills Golf Resort

 

York, PA

 

JUNE 7, 2016

 

  1. I. INTRODUCTION

 

 

Good evening. Thank you so much for inviting me to speak at this wonderful event. I’m honored to be here. The PIRC is a terrific organization that provides critical legal services to the most vulnerable during one of the most difficult periods in our recent history.

 

The York area has a well-established tradition of humanitarian generosity and support for the most needy that was highlighted during the Golden Venture episode and described in the book Snakehead. I learned today that PIRC was formed to respond to the needs of the Golden Venture detainees. The U.S. Immigration Court in York has one of the highest representation rates for detained individuals in the nation, over 50%.

 

By contrast, the Arlington Immigration Court, where I used to sit, and the Baltimore Immigration Court had detained representation rates of around 20% and 10% respectively. And, it’s even worse in other parts of the country.

 

Back in February, I had the pleasure of working with your amazing Executive Director, Mary Studzinski, at a group session directed at improving training for non-attorney representatives authorized to practice before the U.S. Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals. We bonded instantly. That’s “human bonding” rather than “immigration bonding,” of course. Mary’s kinetic energy, practical knowledge, tremendous dedication, and incisive contributions to the group were simply stunning. I must admit, I thought she was the Managing Attorney of the organization until she explained her role to me. You are so fortunate to have of someone who cares so deeply about your mission leading you. Mary is just what America needs right now.

 

Speaking of what America needs, I of course want to be the first to congratulate the five extraordinary individuals and two groups we are honoring tonight with well-deserved “Light of Liberty” Awards. Your energy, knowledge, and willingness to give of yourselves to others is making a much needed positive difference in this community and in our world. Each of you is indeed changing the course of history for the better. And, I’m pleased to announce that I have bestowed on each of tonight’s award recipients the rank of “General” in the “New Due Process Army. “

 

And, of course, thanks again to our great sponsors, mentioned by Mary, for supporting PIRCV and tonight’s awards.

 

II. THE DUE PROCESS CRISIS IN IMMIGRATON COURT

 

As most of you in this room probably recognize, there is no “immigration crisis” in America today. What we have is a series of potentially solvable problems involving immigration that have been allowed to grow and fester by politicians and political officials over many years.

 

But, there is a real crisis involving immigration: the attack on due process in our U.S. Immigration Courts that have brought them to the brink of collapse. I’m going to tell you seven things impeding the delivery of due process in Immigration Court that should be of grave concern to you and to all other Americans who care about our justice system and our value of fundamental fairness.

 

First, political officials in the last three Administrations have hijacked the noble mission of the U.S. Immigration Courts. That vision, which I helped develop in the late 1990s, is to “be the world’s best administrative tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”

 

Instead, the Department of Justice’s ever-changing priorities, aimless docket reshuffling, and morbid fascination with increased immigration detention as a means of deterrence have turned the Immigration Court system back into a tool of DHS enforcement. Obviously, it is past time for an independent U.S. Immigration Court to be established outside the Executive Branch.

 

Second, there simply are not enough pro bono and low bono attorneys and authorized representatives available to assist all the individuals who need representation in Immigration Court. As I mentioned, this problem is particularly acute in detention courts. We know that representation makes a huge difference. Represented individuals succeed at rates four to five times greater than unrepresented individuals.

 

There have been a number of studies documenting the substandard conditions in immigration detention, particularly those run by private contractors, which in some cases prove deadly or debilitating. Some of these studies have recommended that immigration detention be sharply reduced and that so-called “family detention” be discontinued immediately.

 

A rational response might have been to develop creative alternatives to detention, and to work closely with and support efforts to insure access to legal representation for all individuals in Removal Proceedings. Instead, the response of the current Administration has been to “double down” on detention, by promising to detain all undocumented arrivals and to create a new “American Gulag” of detention centers, most privately run, along our southern border, where access to attorneys and self-help resources is limited to non-existent.

 

Third, the Immigration Courts have an overwhelming caseload. Largely as a result of “aimless docket reshuffling” by Administrations of both parties, the courts’ backlog has now reached an astounding 600,000 cases, with no end in sight. Since 2009, the number of cases pending before the Immigration Courts has tripled, while court resources have languished.

 

The Administration’s detention priorities and essentially random DHS enforcement program are like running express trains at full throttle into an existing train wreck without any discernable plan for clearing the track!” You can read about it in my article in the latest edition of The Federal Lawyer.

 

Fourth, the immigration system relies far too much on detention. The theory is that detention, particularly under poor conditions with no access to lawyers, family, or friends, will “grind down individuals” so that they abandon their claims and take final orders or depart voluntarily. As they return to their countries and relate their unhappy experiences with the U.S. justice system, that supposedly will “deter” other individuals from coming.

 

Although there has been a downturn in border apprehensions since the Administration took office, there is little empirical evidence that such deterrence strategies will be effective in stopping undocumented migration in the long run. In any event, use of detention, as a primary deterrent for non-criminals who are asserting their statutory right to a hearing and their constitutional right to due process is highly inappropriate. Immigration detention is also expensive, and questions have been raised about the procedures used for awarding some of the contracts.

 

Fifth, we need an appellate court, the Board of Immigration Appeals, that functions like a real court not a high-volume service center. Over the past decade and one-half, the Board has taken an overly restrictive view of asylum law that fails to fulfill the generous requirements of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Cardoza-Fonseca and the Board’s own precedent in Matter of Mogharrabi. The Board has also failed to take a strong stand for respondents’ due process rights in Immigration Court.

 

Largely as a result of the Board’s failure to assert positive leadership, there is a tremendous discrepancy in asylum grant rates – so-called refugee roulette.” Overall grant rates have inexplicably been falling. Some courts such as Atlanta, Charlotte, and some other major non-detained courts have ludicrously low asylum grant rates, thereby suggesting a system skewed, perhaps intentionally, against asylum seekers. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Board has become totally “government-dominated” with no member appointed from the private sector this century.

 

Sixth, the DOJ selection process for Immigration Judges and BIA Members has become both incredibly ponderous and totally one-sided. According to a recent GAO study, it takes on the average nearly two years to fill an Immigration Judge position. No wonder there are scores of vacancies and an unmanageable backlog!

 

And, it’s not that the results of this glacial process produce a representative immigration judiciary. During the Obama Administration, approximately 88% of the Immigration Judge appointments came directly from government backgrounds. In other words, private sector expertise has been almost totally excluded from the 21st Century immigration judiciary.

 

Seventh, and finally, the Immigration Courts need e-filing NOW! Without it, the courts are condemned to “files in the aisles,” misplaced filings, lost exhibits, and exorbitant courier charges. Also, because of the absence of e-filing, the public receives a level of service disturbingly below that of any other major court system. That gives the Immigration Courts an “amateur night” aura totally inconsistent with the dignity of the process, the critical importance of the mission, and the expertise, hard work, and dedication of the judges and court staff who make up our court.

 

III. ACTION PLAN

 

Keep these thoughts in mind. Sadly, based on actions to date, I have little hope that Attorney General Sessions will support due process reforms or an independent U.S. Immigration Court, although it would be in his best interests as well as those of our country if he did. However, eventually our opportunity will come. When it does, those of us who believe in the primary importance of constitutional due process must be ready with concrete reforms.

 

So, do we abandon all hope? No, of course not!   Because there are hundreds of newer lawyers out there who are former Arlington JLCs, interns, my former students, and those who have practiced before the Arlington Immigration Court.

           

They form what I call the “New Due Process Army!” And, while my time on the battlefield is winding down, they are just beginning the fight! They will keep at it for years, decades, or generations — whatever it takes to force the U.S. immigration judicial system to live up to its promise of “guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!”

           

What can you do to get involved now? The overriding due process need is for competent representation of individuals claiming asylum and/or facing removal from the United States. Currently, there are not nearly enough pro bono lawyers to insure that everyone in Immigration Court gets represented.

          

And the situation is getting worse. With the Administration’s expansion of so-called “expedited removal,” lawyers are needed at earlier points in the process to insure that those with defenses or plausible claims for relief even get into the Immigration Court process, rather than being summarily removed with little, if any, recourse.

 

Additionally, given the pressure that the Administration is likely to exert through the Department of Justice to “move” cases quickly through the Immigration Court system with little regard for due process and fundamental fairness, resort to the Article III Courts to require fair proceedings and an unbiased application of the laws becomes even more essential. Litigation in the U.S. District and Appellate Courts has turned out to be effective in forcing systemic change. However, virtually no unrepresented individual is going to be capable of getting to the Court of Appeals, let alone prevailing on a claim.

 

Obviously, the PIRC is a fantastic way to contribute to assertively protecting the due process rights of migrants. Internships and JLC positions at the Immigration Courts are also ways for law students and recent law grads to contribute to due process while learning.

 

As mentioned earlier, Mary and I have been working with groups looking for ways to expand the “accredited representative” program, which allows properly trained and certified individuals who are not lawyers to handle cases before the DHS and the Immigration Courts while working for certain nonprofit community organizations, on either a staff or volunteer basis. The “accredited representative” program is also an outstanding opportunity for retired individuals, like professors, teachers, and others who are not lawyers but who can qualify to provide pro bono representation in Immigration Court to needy migrants thorough properly recognized religious and community organizations.

 

Even if you are a lawyer not practicing immigration law, there are many outstanding opportunities to contribute by taking pro bono cases. Indeed, in my experience in Arlington, “big law” firms were some of the major contributors to highly effective pro bono representation. It was also great “hands on” experience for those seeking to hone their litigation skills.

           

Those of you with language and teaching skills can help out in English Language Learning programs for migrants. I have observed first hand that the better that individuals understand the language and culture of the US, the more successful they are in navigating our Immigration Court system and both assisting, and when necessary, challenging their representatives to perform at the highest levels. In other words, they are in a better position to be “informed consumers” of legal services.

           

Another critical area for focus is funding of nonprofit community-based organizations, like PIRC, and religious groups that assist migrants for little or no charge. Never has the need for such services been greater.

 

Many of these organizations receive at least some government funding for outreach efforts. We have already seen how the President has directed the DHS to “defund” outreach efforts and use the money instead for a program to assist victims of crimes committed by undocumented individuals.

 

Undoubtedly, with the huge emphases on military expansion and immigration enforcement, to the exclusion of other important programs, virtually all forms of funding for outreach efforts to migrants are likely to disappear in the very near future. Those who care about helping others will have to make up the deficit. So, at giving time, remember your community nonprofit organizations that are assisting foreign nationals.

 

Finally, as an informed voter and participant in our political process, you can advance the cause of Immigration Court reform and due process. For the last 16 years politicians of both parties have largely stood by and watched the unfolding due process disaster in the U.S. Immigration Courts without doing anything about it, and in some cases actually making it worse.

 

The notion that Immigration Court reform must be part of so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” is simply wrong. The Immigration Courts can and must be fixed sooner rather than later, regardless of what happens with overall immigration reform. It’s time to let your Senators and Representatives know that we need due process reforms in the Immigration Courts as one of our highest national priorities.

 

Folks, the U.S Immigration Court system is on the verge of collapse. And, there is every reason to believe that the misguided “enforce and detain to the max” policies being pursued by this Administration will drive the Immigration Courts over the edge. When that happens, a large chunk of the entire American justice system and the due process guarantees that make American great and different from most of the rest of the world will go down with it.

IV. CONCLUSION

 

In conclusion, I have shared with you the U.S. Immigration Court’s noble due process vision and the ways it currently is being undermined and disregarded. I have also shared with you some of my ideas for effective court reforms that would achieve the due process vision and how you can become involved in improving the process. Now is the time to take a stand for fundamental fairness! Join the New Due Process Army! Due process forever!

            Thanks again for inviting me and for listening. Congratulations again to our award winners and newly commissioned Generals of the New Due Process Army.

 

(06-08-17)

*******************************************

Congratulations to these Light of Liberty Awards winners and newly commissioned Generals in the New Due Process Army:

ATTORNEY OF THE YEAR:

Rosina Stambaugh, Esquire

LAW FIRM OF THE YEAR

Asylum & Human Rights Clinic, University of Connecticut School of Law

CONTINUING COMMITMENT TO JUSTICE INDIVIDUAL:

Professor Jill Family,

Widener University Delaware Law School

INTERPRETER OF THE YEAR

Rosalyn Groff

COMMUNITY VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR:

Dr. Anne Middaugh

CONTINUING COMMITMENT TO JUSTICE ORGANIZATION:

Philadelphia Bar Foundation

VOICE OF COURAGE:

Josia Nunes

 

Out in the audience was superstar lawyer/social worker Hannah Cartwright, a “Charter Member” of the New Due Process Army, now on the legal staff at the PIRC. Hanna, a distinguished Catholic University Law grad, served as a Legal Intern at the Arlington Immigration Court and a Judicial Law Clerk at the Philadelphia Immigration Court.

Pictures and other news from this wonderful event to follow.

PWS

06-08-17

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s My Keynote Address From Today’s FBA Immigration Law Conference In Denver, CO!

LIFE AT EOIR – PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

By

Paul Wickham Schmidt

Retired U.S. Immigration Judge

Keynote Address

2017 Immigration Law Conference

Denver, CO

May 12, 2017

INTRODUCTION

Good afternoon. Thank you so much for inviting me. Its an honor to appear before you.

Funny thing happened to me on the way to this conference. When I arrived at the airport yesterday afternoon, my good friend Judge Lory Rosenberg rushed up to me at baggage claim and said “Oh, I see we’re having you for lunch!” I said “What?” She said “You’re our keynote speaker at lunch tomorrow.” I scoffed at the idea, saying I might be on the after lunch panel with her, but that was it. However, when I actually took the time to look at the program I saw that certainly not for the first time, Lory was right. Unbeknownst to me I was, in fact, listed as the keynote speaker.

I’ve composed this speech on my I-pad, which I’m using as a teleprompter. As you know, those of us who worked at EOIR aren’t used to this new-fangled technology. So, please bear with me.

As we get started, I’d like all of you to join me in recognizing my friend and former colleague Judge Larry Burman for his tireless efforts to make the ILS the best section in the FBA. In the later years, I tried very hard to avoid being at court at nights, weekends, and holidays. But, occasionally I had to go pick up my cellphone or something else I had inadvertently left in my office. And, who should be there but Larry. And he was always working on a FBA project, the Green Card, Conference Planning, recruiting new members, etc. So, please join me in a round of applause for Judge Burman for all he has done for promoting productive dialogue and improving the practice of immigration law.

Now, this is when I used to give my comprehensive disclaimer providing plausible deniabilityfor everyone in the Immigration Court System if I happened to say anything inconvenient or controversial. But, now that Im retired, we can skip that part.

My speech is entitled: Life At EOIR, Past Present, and Future.I will start by introducing myself to you and telling you a bit about how my life and career have been intertwined with EOIR. Then I will briefly address five things: the court systems vision, the judges role, my judicial philosophy, what needs to be done to reclaim the due process vision of the Immigration Courts, and how you can get involved.

CAREER SUMMARY

I graduated in 1970 from Lawrence University a small liberal arts college in Appleton, Wisconsin, where I majored in history. My broad liberal arts education and the intensive writing and intellectual dialogue involved were the best possible preparation for all that followed.

I then attended the University of Wisconsin School of Law in Madison, Wisconsin, graduating in 1973. Go Badgers!

I began my legal career in 1973 as an Attorney Advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) at the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) under the Attorney Generals Honors Program. Admittedly, however, the BIAs Executive Assistant culled my resume from the Honors Program reject pile.One of my staff colleagues at that time, now retired U.S Immigration Judge Joan Churchill, is right here in the audience.

At that time, before the creation of the Executive Office for Immigration Review – “EOIR” for you Winnie the Pooh fans — the Board had only five members and nine staff attorneys, as compared to todays cast of thousands. Among other things, I worked on the famous, or infamous, John Lennon case, which eventually was reversed by the Second Circuit in an opinion by the late Chief Judge Irving Kaufman.[1] As an interesting historical footnote, that case was argued in the Circuit by then Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Maguire Dunne, who went on to become a distinguished Member of the BIA and one of my Vice Chairs during my tenure as Chairman.

I also shared an office with my good friend, the late Lauri Steven Filppu, who later became a Deputy Director of the Office of Immigration Litigation (OIL) in the DOJs Civil Division and subsequently served with me on the BIA. The Chairman of the BIA at that time was the legendary immigration guru” Maurice A. “Maury” Roberts. Chairman Roberts took Lauri and me under this wing and shared with us his love of immigration law, his focus on sound scholarship, his affinity for clear, effective legal writing, and his humane sense of fairness and justice for the individuals coming before the BIA.

In 1976, I moved to the Office of General Counsel at the “Legacy” Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”). There, I worked for another legendary figure in immigration law, then General Counsel Sam Bernsen. Sam was a naturalized citizen who started his career as a 17-year-old messenger at Ellis Island and worked his way to the top of the Civil Service ranks. Perhaps not incidentally, he was also a good friend of Chairman Roberts.

At that time, the Office of General Counsel was very small, with a staff of only three attorneys in addition to the General Counsel and his Deputy, another mentor and immigration guru, Ralph Farb. At one time, all three of us on the staff sat in the same office! In 1978, Ralph was appointed to the BIA, and I succeeded him as Deputy General Counsel.   I also served as the Acting General Counsel for several very lengthy periods in both the Carter and Reagan Administrations.

Not long after I arrived, the General Counsel position became political. The incoming Administration encouraged Sam to retire, and he went on to become a name and Managing Partner of the Washington, D.C. office of the powerhouse immigration boutique Fragomen, Del Rey, and Bernsen. He was replaced by my good friend and colleague David Crosland, now an Immigration Judge in Baltimore, who selected me as his Deputy. Dave was also the Acting Commissioner of Immigration during the second half of the Carter Administration, one of the periods when I was the Acting General Counsel.

The third General Counsel that I served under was one of my most unforgettable characters:the late, great Maurice C. “Mike” Inman, Jr. He was known, not always affectionately, as Iron Mike.His management style was something of a cross between the famous coach of the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi, and the fictional Mafia chieftain, Don Corleone. As my one of my colleagues said of Iron Mike:” “He consistently and unreasonably demanded that we do the impossible, and most of the time we succeeded.Although we were totally different personalities, Mike and I made a good team, and we accomplished amazing things. It was more or less a good cop, bad coproutine, and Ill let you guess who played which role. You can check the “Inman era” out with retired Immigration Judge William P. Joyce, who is sitting in the audience and shared the experience with me.

Among other things, I worked on the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the Cuban Boatlift, the Refugee Act of 1980, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (“IRCA”), the creation of the Office of Immigration Litigation (OIL), and establishing what has evolved into the modern Chief Counsel system at Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”).

I also worked on the creation of EOIR, which combined the Immigration Courts, which had previously been part of the INS, with the BIA to improve judicial independence. Interestingly, and perhaps ironically, the leadership and impetus for getting the Immigration Judges into a separate organization came from Mike and the late Al Nelson, who was then the Commissioner of Immigration. Prosecutors by position and litigators by trade, they saw the inherent conflicts and overall undesirability, from a due process and credibility standpoint, of having immigration enforcement and impartial court adjudication in the same division. I find it troubling that officials at todays DOJ arent able to understand and act appropriately on the glaring conflict of interest currently staring them in their collective faces.

By the time I left in 1987, the General Counsels Office, largely as a result of the enactment of IRCA and new employer sanctions provisions, had dozens of attorneys, organized into divisions, and approximately 600 attorneys in the field program, the vast majority of whom had been hired during my tenure.

In 1987, I left INS and joined Jones Days DC Office, a job that I got largely because of my wife Cathy and her old girl network.I eventually became a partner specializing in business immigration, multinational executives, and religious workers. Among my major legislative projects on behalf of our clients were the special religious worker provisions added to the law by the Immigration Act of 1990 and the “Special Immigrant Juvenile” provisions of the INA with which some of you might be familiar.

Following my time at Jones Day, I succeeded my former boss and mentor Sam Bernsen as the Managing Partner of the DC Office of Fragomen, Del Rey & Bernsen, the leading national immigration boutique, where I continued to concentrate on business immigration. You will note that immigration is a small community; you need to be nice to everyone because you keep running into the same folks over and over again in your career. While at Fragomen, I also assisted the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) on a number of projects and was an adviser to the LawyersCommittee, now known as Human Rights First.

In 1995, then Attorney General Janet Reno appointed me Chairman of the BIA. Not surprisingly, Janet Reno, who recently died, was my favorite among all of the Attorneys General I worked under. I felt that she supported me personally, and she supported the concept of an independent judiciary, even though she didnt always agree with our decisions and vice versa.

She was the only Attorney General who consistently came to our Investitures and Immigration Judge Conferences in person and mixed and mingled with the group. She was also kind to our clerical staff and invited them downtown to meet personally with her. She had a saying equal justice for allthat she worked into almost all of her speeches, and which I found quite inspirational. She was also hands down the funniest former Attorney General to appear on Saturday Night Live,doing her famous Janet Reno Dance Partyroutine with Will Farrell immediately following the end of her lengthy tenure at the DOJ.

Among other things, I oversaw an expansion of the Board from the historical five members to more than 20 members, a more open selection system that gave some outside experts a chance to serve as appellate judges on the Board, the creation of a supervisory structure for the expanding staff, the establishment of a unified Clerks Office to process appeals, implementation of a true judicial format for published opinions, institution of bar coding for the tens of thousands of files, the establishment of a pro bono program to assist unrepresented respondents on appeal, the founding of the Virtual Law Library, electronic en banc voting and e-distribution of decisions to Immigration Judges, and the publication of the first BIA Practice Manual, which actually won a Plain Language Awardfrom then Vice President Gore.

I also wrote the majority opinion in my favorite case, Matter of Kasinga, establishing for the first time that the practice of female genital mutilation (“FGM”) is persecution” for asylum purposes.[2] As another historical footnote, the losingattorney in that case was none other than my good friend, then INS General Counsel David A. Martin, a famous immigration professor at the University of Virginia Law who personally argued before the Board.

In reality, however, by nominally losingthe case, David actually won the war for both of us, and more important, for the cause of suffering women throughout the world. We really were on the same side in Kasinga. Without Davids help, who knows if I would have been able to get an almost-united Board to make such a strong statement on protection of vulnerable women.

During my tenure as Chairman, then Chief Immigration Judge (now BIA Member) Michael J. Creppy and I were founding members of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges (“IARLJ”). This organization, today headquartered in The Hague, promotes open dialogue and exchange of information among judges from many different countries adjudicating claims under the Geneva Convention on Refugees. Since my retirement, I have rejoined the IARLJ as a Vice President for the Americas.

In 2001, at the beginning of the Bush Administration, I stepped down as BIA Chairman, but remained as a Board Member until April 2003. At that time, then Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was not a fan of my opinions, invited me to vacate the Board and finish my career at the Arlington Immigration Court, where I remained until my retirement on June 30 of last year. So, Im one of the few ever to become an Immigration Judge without applying for the job. Or, maybe my opinions, particularly the dissents, were my application and I just didnt recognize it at the time. But, it turned out to be a great fit, and I truly enjoyed my time at the Arlington Court.

I have also taught Immigration Law at George Mason School of Law in 1989 and Refugee Law and Policyat Georgetown Law from 2012 through 2014. Ive just agreed to resume my Adjunct position with Georgetown Law for a compressed summer course” in “Immigration Law & Policy.

Please keep in mind that if everyone agreed with me, my career wouldnt have turned out the way it did. On the other hand, if nobody agreed with me, my career wouldnt have turned out the way it did. In bureaucratic terms, I was a “survivor.” I have also, at some point in my career, probably been on both sides of many of the important issues in U.S. immigration law.

One of the challenges that lawyers will face in Immigration Court is that different judges have distinct styles, philosophies, and preferences.   I always felt that although we might differ in personality and approach, at least in Arlington we all shared a commitment to achieving fairness and justice.

As a sitting judge, I encouraged meticulous preparation and advance consultation with the DHS Assistant Chief Counsel to stipulate or otherwise narrow issues. In Arlington, for example, even with a new high of 10 Immigration Judges, the average docket is still 3,000 cases per judge. There currently are more than 30,000 pending cases at the Arlington Court. Because of this overwhelming workload, efficiency and focusing on the disputed issues in court are particularly critical. 

THE DUE PROCESS VISION

Now, lets move on to the other topics: First, vision.   The “EOIR Vision” is: “Through teamwork and innovation, be the worlds best administrative tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.In one of my prior incarnations, I was part of the group that developed that vision statement. Perhaps not surprisingly given the timing, that vision echoed the late Janet Reno’s “equal justice for alltheme.

Sadly, the Immigration Court System is moving further away from that due process vision. Instead, years of neglect, misunderstanding, mismanagement, and misguided priorities imposed by the U.S. Department of Justice have created judicial chaos with an expanding backlog now approaching an astounding 600,000 cases and no clear plan for resolving them in the foreseeable future.   There are now more pending cases in Immigration Court than in the entire U.S. District Court System, including both Civil and Criminal dockets, with fewer than half as many U.S. Immigration Judges currently on board as U.S. District Judges.

And, the new Administration promises to add hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new cases to the Immigration Court docket, again without any transparent plan for completing the half million already pending cases consistent with due process and fairness. In fact, notably, and most troubling, concern for fairness and due process in the immigration hearing process has not appeared anywhere in the Administrations many pronouncements on immigration.

Nobody has been hit harder by this preventable disaster than asylum seekers, particularly scared women and children fleeing for their lives from the Northern Triangle of Central America. In Immigration Court, notwithstanding the life or death issues at stake, unlike criminal court there is no right to an appointed lawyer. Individuals who cant afford a lawyer must rely on practicing lawyers who donate their time or on nonprofit community organizations to find free or low cost legal representation. Although the Government stubbornly resists the notion that all asylum seekers should be represented, studies show that represented asylum seekers are at least five times more likely to succeed than those who must represent themselves. For recently arrived women with children, the success differential is an astounding fourteen times![3]

You might have read about the unfortunate statement of an Assistant Chief Judge for Training who claimed that he could teach immigration law to unrepresented toddlers appearing in Immigration Court. Issues concerning representation of so-called vulnerable populationscontinue to challenge our Court System. Even with Clinics and Non-Governmental Organizations pitching in, there simply are not enough free or low cost lawyers available to handle the overwhelming need. In fact, soon to be former EOIR Director Juan Osuna once declared in an officially-sanctioned TV interview that the current system is “broken.”[4]

Notwithstanding the admitted problems, I still believe in the EOIR vision. Later in this speech Im going to share with you some of my ideas for reclaiming this noble due process vision.

THE ROLE OF THE IMMIGRATION JUDGE

Changing subjects, to the role of the Immigration Judge: Whats it like to be an Immigration Judge? As an Immigration Judge, I was an administrative judge. I was not part of the Judicial Branch established under Article III of the Constitution. The Attorney General, part of the Executive Branch, appointed me, and my authority was subject to her regulations.

We should all be concerned that the U.S. Immigration Court system is now totally under the control of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has consistently taken a negative view of immigrants, both legal and undocumented, and has failed to recognize the many essential, positive contributions that immigrants make to our country.  

Perhaps ironically, the late Judge Terence T. Evans of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals offered one of the best descriptions of what its like to be an Immigration Judge. Judge Evans was not one of us, but saw plenty of our work during his lifetime. Judge Evans said:

“Because 100 percent of asylum petitioners want to stay in this country, but less than 100 percent are entitled to asylum, an immigration judge must be alert to the fact that some petitioners will embellish their claims to increase their chances of success. On the other hand, an immigration judge must be sensitive to the suffering and fears of petitioners who are genuinely entitled to asylum in this country. A healthy balance of sympathy and skepticism is a job requirement for a good immigration judge. Attaining that balance is what makes the job of an immigration judge, in my view, excruciatingly difficult.”[5]

My Arlington Immigration Court colleague Judge Thomas G. Snow also gives a very moving and accurate glimpse of an Immigration Judges life in a recent article from USA Today:

” Immigration judges make these decisions alone. Many are made following distraught or shame-filled testimony covering almost unimaginable acts of inhumanity. And we make them several times a day, day after day, year after year.

We take every decision we make very seriously. We do our best to be fair to every person who comes before us. We judge each case on its own merits, no matter how many times weve seen similar fact patterns before.

We are not policymakers. We are not legislators. We are judges. Although we are employees of the U.S. Department of Justice who act under the delegated authority of the attorney general, no one tells us how to decide a case. I have been an immigration judge for more than 11 years, and nobody has ever tried to influence a single one of my thousands of decisions

And finally, because we are judges, we do our best to follow the law and apply it impartially to the people who appear before us. I know I do so, even when it breaks my heart.[6]

My good friend and colleague, Judge Dana Leigh Marks of the San Francisco Immigration Court, who is the President of the National Association of Immigration Judges, offers a somewhat pithier description: [I]mmigration judges often feel asylum hearings are like holding death penalty cases in traffic court.’”[7]

Another historical footnote: as a young lawyer, then known as Dana Marks Keener, Judge Marks successfully argued the landmark Supreme Court case INS v. Cardoza Fonseca, establishing the generous well-founded fearstandard for asylum, while I helped the Solicitor Generals office develop the unsuccessful opposing arguments for INS.[8] Therefore, I sometimes refer to Judge Marks as one of the founding mothers” of U.S. asylum law.

From my perspective, as an Immigration Judge I was half scholar, half performing artist. An Immigration Judge is always on public display, particularly in this age of the Internet.His or her words, actions, attitudes, and even body language, send powerful messages, positive or negative, about our court system and our national values. Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of those who fail at the job do so because they do not recognize and master the performing artistaspect, rather than from a lack of pertinent legal knowledge.

One of the keys to the Immigration Judges job is issuing scholarly, practical, well-written opinions in the most difficult cases. That ties directly into the job of the Immigration Courts amazing Judicial Law Clerks (“JLCs”) assisted by all-star legal interns from local law schools. The JLC’s job is, of course, to make the judge look smart,no matter how difficult or challenging that might be in a particular case.  

MY JUDICIAL PHILOSOPHY

Next, I’ll say a few words about my philosophy. In all aspects of my career, I have found five essential elements for success: fairness, scholarship, timeliness, respect, and teamwork.

Obviously, fairness to the parties is an essential element of judging. Scholarship in the law is what allows us to fairly apply the rules in particular cases. However, sometimes attempts to be fair or scholarly can be ineffective unless timely. In some cases, untimeliness can amount to unfairness no matter how smart or knowledgeable you are.

Respect for the parties, the public, colleagues, and appellate courts is absolutely necessary for our system to function. Finally, I view the whole judging process as a team exercise that involves a coordinated and cooperative effort among judges, respondents, counsel, interpreters, court clerks, security officers, administrators, law clerks and interns working behind the scenes, to get the job done correctly. Notwithstanding different roles, we all share a common interest in seeing that our justice system works.

Are the five elements that I just mentioned limited to Immigration Court? They are not only essential legal skills, they are also necessary life skills, whether you are running a courtroom, a law firm, a family, a PTA meeting, a book club, or a soccer team. As you might imagine, I am a huge fan of clinical experience as an essential part of the law school curriculum. Not only do clinical programs make important actual contributions to our justice system due process in action but they teach exactly the type of intellectual and practical values and skills that I have just described.

RECLAIMING THE VISION

Our Immigration Courts are going through an existential crisis that threatens the very foundations of our American Justice System. Earlier, I told you about my dismay that the noble due process vision of our Immigration Courts has been derailed. What can be done to get it back on track?

First, and foremost, the Immigration Courts must return to the focus on due process as the one and only mission. The improper use of our due process court system by political officials to advance enforcement priorities and/or send “don’t comemessages to asylum seekers, which are highly ineffective in any event, must end. Thats unlikely to happen under the DOJ as proved by over three decades of history, particularly recent history. It will take some type of independent court. I think that an Article I Immigration Court, which has been supported by groups such as the ABA and the FBA, would be best.

Clearly, the due process focus was lost during the last Administration when officials outside EOIR forced ill-advised prioritizationand attempts to “expedite” the cases of frightened women and children from the Northern Triangle who require lawyers to gain the protection that most of them need and deserve. Putting these cases in front of other pending cases was not only unfair to all, but has created what I call aimless docket reshuffling— “ADR” — that has thrown the Immigration Court system into chaos and dramatically increased the backlogs.  

Although those misguided Obama Administration priorities have been rescinded, the reprieve is only fleeting. The Trump Administration has announced plans to greatly expand the prioritytargets for removal to include even those who were merely accused of committing any crime. The Administration also plans a new and greatly expanded immigration detention empire,likely to be situated in remote locations near the Southern Border, relying largely on discredited private for profitprisons. The Administration also wants to make it more difficult for individuals to get full Immigration Court hearings on asylum claims and to expand the use of so-called expedited removal,thereby seeking to completely avoid the Immigration Court process.

Evidently, the idea, similar to that of the Obama Administration, is to remove most of those recently crossing the border to seek protection, thereby sending a “don’t come, we dont want youmessage to asylum seekers.

Second, there must be structural changes so that the Immigration Courts are organized and run like a real court system, not a highly bureaucratic agency. This means that sitting Immigration Judges, like in all other court systems, must control their dockets. The practice of having administrators in Falls Church and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., none of whom are sitting judges responsible for daily court hearings, manipulate and rearrange local dockets in a vain attempt to achieve policy goals unrelated to fairness and due process for individuals coming before the Immigration Courts must end.  

If there are to be nationwide policies and practices, they should be developed by an Immigration Judicial Conference,patterned along the lines of the Federal Judicial Conference. That would be composed of sitting Immigration Judges representing a cross-section of the country, several Appellate Immigration Judges from the BIA, and probably some U.S. Circuit Judges, since the Circuits are one of the primary consumersof the court’s “product.”

Third, there must be a new administrative organization to serve the courts, much like the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. This office would naturally be subordinate to the Immigration Judicial Conference. Currently, the glacial hiring process, inadequate courtroom space planning and acquisition, and unreliable, often-outdated technology are simply not up to the needs of a rapidly expanding court system.  

In particular, the judicial hiring process over the past 16 years has failed to produce the necessary balance because judicial selectees from private sector backgrounds particularly those with expertise in asylum and refugee law have been so few and far between. Indeed, during the last Administration nearly 90% of the judicial appointments were from Government backgrounds. And, there is no reason to believe that pattern will change under the current Administration. In fact, only one of the seven most recent appointments by Attorney Generals Sessions came from a private sector background.

Fourth, I would repeal all of the so-called Ashcroft reformsat the BIA and put the BIA back on track to being a real appellate court.   A properly comprised and well-functioning BIA should transparently debate and decide important, potentially controversial, issues, publishing dissenting opinions when appropriate. All BIA Appellate Judges should be required to vote and take a public position on all important precedent decisions. The BIA must also “rein in” those Immigration Courts with asylum grant rates so incredibly low as to make it clear that the generous dictates of the Supreme Court in Cardoza-Fonseca[9] and the BIA itself in Mogharrabi[10] are not being followed.

Nearly a decade has passed since Professors Andy Schoenholtz, Phil Shrag, and Jaya Ramji-Nogales published their seminal work Refugee Roulette, documenting the large disparities among Immigration Judges in asylum grant rates.[11] While there has been some improvement, the BIA, the only body that can effectively establish and enforce due process within the Immigration Court system, has not adequately addressed this situation.

For example, let’s take a brief “asylum magical mystery tour” down the East Coast.[12] In New York, 84% of the asylum applications are granted. Cross the Hudson River to Newark and that rate sinks to 48%, still respectable in light of the 47% national average but inexplicably 36% lower than New York. Move over to the Elizabeth Detention Center Court, where you might expect a further reduction, and the grant rate rises again to 59%. Get to Baltimore, and the grant rate drops to 43%. But, move down the BW Parkway a few miles to Arlington, still within the Fourth Circuit like Baltimore, and it rises again to 63%. Then, cross the border into North Carolina, still in the Fourth Circuit, and it drops remarkably to 13%. But, things could be worse. Travel a little further south to Atlanta and the grant rate bottoms out at an astounding 2%.

In other words, by lunchtime some days the Immigration Judges sitting in New York granted more than the five asylum cases granted in Atlanta during the entire Fiscal Year 2015!   An 84% to 2% differential in fewer than 900 miles! Three other major non-detained Immigration Courts, Dallas, Houston, and Las Vegas, have asylum grants rates at or below 10%.

Indeed a recent 2017 study of the Atlanta Immigration Court by Emory Law and the Southern Poverty Law Center found:

[S]ome of the Immigration Judges do not respect rule of law principles and maintain practices that undermine the fair administration of justice. During the course of our observations, we witnessed the following [issue, among others]. Immigration Judges made prejudicial statements and expressed significant disinterest or even hostility towards respondents in their courts. In at least one instance, an Immigration Judge actively refused to listen to an attorney’s legal arguments. In another instance, an Immigration Judge failed to apply the correct standard of law in an asylum case. [13]

This is hardly “through teamwork and innovation being the world’s best administrative tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!” These unusually low asylum grant rates are impossible to justify in light of the generous standard for well-founded fear established by the Supreme Court in Cardoza-Fonseca and the BIA in Mogharrabi, and the regulatory presumption of future fear arising out of past persecution that applies in many asylum cases.[14] Yet, the BIA has only recently and fairly timidly addressed the manifest lack of respect for asylum seekers and failure to guarantee fairness and due process for such vulnerable individuals in some cases arising in Atlanta and other courts with unrealistically low grant rates.[15]    

Over the past 16 years, the BIA’s inability or unwillingness to aggressively stand up for the due process rights of asylum seekers and to enforce the fair and generous standards required by American law have robbed our Immigration Court System of credibility and public support, as well as ruined the lives of many who were denied protection that should have been granted.   We need a BIA which functions like a Federal Appellate Court and whose overriding mission is to ensure that the due process vision of the Immigration Courts becomes a reality rather than an unfulfilled promise.

Fifth, and finally, the Immigration Courts need e-filing NOW! Without it, the courts are condemned to files in the aisles,misplaced filings, lost exhibits, and exorbitant courier charges. Also, because of the absence of e-filing, the public receives a level of service disturbingly below that of any other major court system. That gives the Immigration Courts an amateur nightaura totally inconsistent with the dignity of the process, the critical importance of the mission, and the expertise, hard work, and dedication of the judges and court staff who make up our court. 

GETTING INVOLVED 

Keep these thoughts in mind. Sadly, based on actions to date, I have little hope that Attorney General Sessions will support due process reforms or an independent U.S. Immigration Court, although it would be in his best interests as well as those of our country if he did. However, eventually our opportunity will come. When it does, those of us who believe in the primary importance of constitutional due process must be ready with concrete reforms.

So, do we abandon all hope? No, of course not!   Because there are hundreds of newer lawyers out there who are former Arlington JLCs, interns, my former student, and those who have practiced before the Arlington Immigration Court.       

They form what I call the New Due Process Army!And, while my time on the battlefield is winding down, they are just beginning the fight! They will keep at it for years, decades, or generations — whatever it takes to force the U.S. immigration judicial system to live up to its promise of guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!        

What can you do to get involved now? The overriding due process need is for competent representation of individuals claiming asylum and/or facing removal from the United States. Currently, there are not nearly enough pro bono lawyers to insure that everyone in Immigration Court gets represented.     

And the situation is getting worse. With the Administrations expansion of so-called expedited removal,lawyers are needed at earlier points in the process to insure that those with defenses or plausible claims for relief even get into the Immigration Court process, rather than being summarily removed with little, if any, recourse.

Additionally, given the pressure that the Administration is likely to exert through the Department of Justice to movecases quickly through the Immigration Court system with little regard for due process and fundamental fairness, resort to the Article III Courts to require fair proceedings and an unbiased application of the laws becomes even more essential. Litigation in the U.S. District and Appellate Courts has turned out to be effective in forcing systemic change. However, virtually no unrepresented individual is going to be capable of getting to the Court of Appeals, let alone prevailing on a claim.

I have been working with groups looking for ways to expand the accredited representativeprogram, which allows properly trained and certified individuals who are not lawyers to handle cases before the DHS and the Immigration Courts while working for certain nonprofit community organizations, on either a staff or volunteer basis. Notwithstanding some recently publicized problems with policing the system, which I wrote about on my blog immigrationrcourtside.com, this is a critically important program for expanding representation in Immigration Courts. The accredited representativeprogram is also an outstanding opportunity for retired individuals, like professors, who are not lawyers to qualify to provide pro bono representation in Immigration Court to needy migrants thorough properly recognized religious and community organizations.        

Even if you are not practicing or do not intend to practice immigration law, there are many outstanding opportunities to contribute by taking pro bono cases. Indeed, in my experience in Arlington, big lawfirms were some of the major contributors to highly effective pro bono representation. It was also great hands onexperience for those seeking to hone their litigation skills.

Those of you with language and teaching skills can help out in English Language Learning programs for migrants.   I have observed first hand that the better that individuals understand the language and culture of the US, the more successful they are in navigating our Immigration Court system and both assisting, and when necessary, challenging their representatives to perform at the highest levels. In other words, they are in a better position to be informed consumersof legal services.        

Another critical area for focus is funding of nonprofit community-based organizations and religious groups that assist migrants for little or no charge. Never has the need for such services been greater.

But, many of these organizations receive at least some government funding for outreach efforts. We have already seen how the President has directed the DHS to “defund” outreach efforts and use the money instead for a program to assist victims of crimes committed by undocumented individuals.

Undoubtedly, with the huge emphases on military expansion and immigration enforcement, to the exclusion of other important programs, virtually all forms of funding for outreach efforts to migrants are likely to disappear in the very near future. Those who care about helping others will have to make up the deficit. So, at giving time, remember your community nonprofit organizations that are assisting foreign nationals. 

Finally, as an informed voter and participant in our political process, you can advance the cause of Immigration Court reform and due process. For the last 16 years politicians of both parties have largely stood by and watched the unfolding due process disaster in the U.S. Immigration Courts without doing anything about it, and in some cases actually making it worse.

The notion that Immigration Court reform must be part of so-called comprehensive immigration reformis simply wrong. The Immigration Courts can and must be fixed sooner rather than later, regardless of what happens with overall immigration reform. Its time to let your Senators and Representatives know that we need due process reforms in the Immigration Courts as one of our highest national priorities.

Folks, the U.S Immigration Court system is on the verge of collapse. And, there is every reason to believe that the misguided enforce and detain to the maxpolicies being pursued by this Administration will drive the Immigration Courts over the edge. When that happens, a large chunk of the entire American justice system and the due process guarantees that make American great and different from most of the rest of the world will go down with it.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I have introduced you to one of Americas largest and most important, yet least understood and appreciated, court systems: the United States Immigration Court. I have shared with you the Courts noble due process vision and my view that it is not currently being fulfilled. I have also shared with you my ideas for effective court reform that would achieve the due process vision and how you can become involved in improving the process. Now is the time to take a stand for fundamental fairness’! Join the New Due Process Army! Due process forever!        

Thanks again for inviting me and for listening. Have a great conference!

 

 

(05/12/17)

        

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Matter of Lennon, 15 I&N Dec. 9 (BIA 1974), rev’d Lennon v. INS, 527 F.2d 187 (2d Cir. 1975).

[2] Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1996).

[3] TRAC Immigration, “Representation is Key in Immigration Proceedings Involving Women with Children,” Feb. 18, 2015, available online at http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/377/.

[4] “Immigration Director Calls for Overhaul of Broken System,” NBC Bay Area News, May 27, 2015, available online.

[5] Guchshenkov v. Ashcroft, 366 F.3d 554 (7th Cir. 2004) (Evans, J., concurring).
[6] Hon. Thomas G. Snow, “The gut-wrenching life of an immigration judge,” USA Today, Dec. 12, 2106, available online at http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/12/12/immigration-judge-gut-wrenching-decisions-column/95308118/

[7] Julia Preston, “Lawyers Back Creating New Immigration Courts,” NY Times, Feb. 6, 2010.

[8] INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987).

[9] INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987).

[10] Matter of Mogharrabi, 19 I&N Dec. 4379(BIA 1987).

[11] Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Andrew I. Schoenholtz, and Philip G. Schrag, Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication, 60 Stan. L. Rev. 295 (2007);

[12] All statistics are from the EOIR FY 2015 Statistics Yearbook, available online at https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/fysb15/download,

[13] See Emory Law/SPLC Observation Study Rips Due Process Violations At Atlanta Immigration Court — Why Is The BIA “Asleep At The Switch” In Enforcing Due Process? What Happened To The EOIR’s “Due Process Vision?” in immigrationcourtside.com, available online at http://immigrationcourtside.com/2017/03/02/emory-lawsplc-observation-study-rips-due-process-violations-at-atlanta-immigration-court-why-is-the-bia-asleep-at-the-switch-in-enforcing-due-process-what-happened-to-the-eoirs-due-proces/

[14] See 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(1).

[15] See, e.g., Matter of Y-S-L-C-, 26 I&N Dec. 688 (BIA 2015) (denial of due process where IJ tried to bar the testimony of minor respondent by disqualifying him as an expert witness under the Federal Rules of Evidence). While the BIA finally stepped in with this precedent, the behavior of this Judge shows a system where some Judges have abandoned any discernable concept of “guaranteeing fairness and due process.” The BIA’s “permissive” attitude toward Judges who consistently deny nearly all asylum applications has allowed this to happen. Indeed the Washington Post recently carried a poignant story of a young immigration lawyer who was driven out of the practice by the negative attitudes and treatment by the Immigration Judges at the Atlanta Immigration Court. Harlan, Chico, “In an Immigration Court that nearly always says no, a lawyer’s spirit is broken,” Washington Post, Oct. 11, 2016, available online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/in-an-immigration-court-that-nearly-always-says-no-a-lawyers-spirit-is-broken/2016/10/11/05f43a8e-8eee-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html

How does this live up to the EOIR Vision of “through teamwork and innovation being the world’s best administrative tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all?”   Does this represent the best that American justice has to offer?