DOJ’s IMITATION OF DHS “SERVICE CENTERS” IN VA MIGHT OFFER LITIGANTS A CHANCE AT BETTER LAW!  😎 — Hon. Jeffrey Chase Points Out How DOJ’s Efforts To “Dumb Down” 😩 Immigration Courts & Replace Judicial Decision-Making With “Rote Adjudication” Could Unintentionally Give Individuals A Better Due Process Option!

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2022/8/16/the-4th-circuit-on-jurisdiction

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The 4th Circuit on Jurisdiction

On June 30, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued a decision that might not have received the attention it deserved.  The end result of the court’s published decision in Herrera-Alcala v. Garland was to affirm an Immigration Judge’s denial of asylum based on a lack of credibility.1

But before reaching the merits, the court addressed a jurisdictional issue, and that is where our interest lies.  At his removal proceeding, the petitioner was detained at a Louisiana correctional facility, which placed him physically within the territory of the Fifth Circuit.  For some reason, the Administrative Control Court (which is where the administrative record for the case was created and maintained, and where documents were filed by the parties) having jurisdiction over that Louisiana correctional facility was in Fort Snelling, Minnesota, which is physically located within the Eighth Circuit’s jurisdiction.

However, the immigration judge who conducted the hearing remotely by video and rendered the decision was sitting at the Immigration Adjudication Center in Falls Church, Virginia, which is within the geographic jurisdiction of the Fourth Circuit.  So after the BIA dismissed the petitioner’s appeal, his counsel sought review with the Fourth Circuit.  The Department of Justice moved to change venue to the Fifth Circuit, arguing that the petitioner’s location was determinative. And an amicus brief filed by an immigrants’ rights group took the position that venue properly belonged in the Eighth Circuit, where the control court was located.

The Fourth Circuit resolved the question of jurisdiction using the language of the relevant statute.  Since 8 U.S.C. section 1252(b)(2) states that the “petition for review shall be filed with the court of appeals for the judicial circuit in which the immigration judge completed the proceedings,” the court interpreted that to mean it is the location of the judge that determines jurisdiction.  And as the judge in this case was in Virginia, it found proper jurisdiction to be with the Fourth Circuit.

The decision yields an immediate benefit, as there are presently nineteen Immigration Judges sitting in the two Immigration Adjudication Centers that are located within the Fourth Circuit’s jurisdiction (in Falls Church and Richmond, VA).  Based on the Fourth Circuit’s ruling, any of the thousands of noncitizens whose cases were heard by one of these Virginia-based judges now have the option of seeking judicial review in the Fourth Circuit.

The impact of this becomes apparent when we look at the BIA’s precedent decision in Matter of L-E-A-.2  In that case, the Board held that the respondent’s family constituted a valid particular social group for asylum purposes, but then denied asylum by finding that a nexus had not been established between that family membership and the feared persecution.  In fact, the decision created an unreasonably high standard for nexus in a commonly occurring type of asylum claim.   But the decision contains a footnote recognizing that the Fourth Circuit holds a significantly different view of nexus in such cases, adding that L-E-A- did “not arise in the Fourth Circuit.”3

Although the Board doesn’t go as far as saying so, applying Fourth Circuit case law to the facts of L-E-A-  would have resulted in a grant of asylum.  As I discussed in far greater depth in this blog post in December, the Fourth Circuit has repeatedly reversed the Board on nexus, citing the latter’s error of focusing on why the persecutor targeted the group in question, instead of asking why they targeted the asylum applicant themself.  For example, if the group in question is a family, it doesn’t matter if the persecutor is targeting that family for an unprotected reason such as money, revenge, or self-preservation.  Per the Fourth Circuit, if the asylum seeker themself wouldn’t be targeted if not for their membership in that family, then nexus has been established, regardless of the reason the family is at risk in the first place.4

In addition to its more favorable take on nexus, the Fourth Circuit is also among the handful of circuits to consider verbal death threats to constitute persecution.5  This is  important, because one who has been threatened in those circuits has thus established past persecution, causing burdens of proof regarding future fear and internal relocation to then shift to the government to rebut, and further opening the possibility for humanitarian grants of asylum even where the government meets its burden of rebuttal.6

The Fourth Circuit has also imposed on Immigration Judges a strong obligation under international law to fully develop the record in hearings involving asylum claims, particularly (but not exclusively) where the respondent is pro se, and considers an IJ’s failure to meet this obligation to be “presumptively prejudicial.”7   Any attorney who is representing on appeal an asylum applicant who appeared pro se below where the IJ had been sitting in Virginia might want to review the record to see if the duties imposed by the Fourth Circuit to develop the record, which includes a “broad and robust duty to help pro se asylum seekers articulate their particular social groups,” was satisfied.8

In spite of the above-listed benefits, advocates have identified a potential downside to the ruling in Herrera-Alcala should the Fourth Circuit’s view on jurisdiction be adopted nationwide.  To illustrate this concern, I’ll use a hypothetical example arising in a circuit such as the Fourth with a body of case law favorable to asylum applicants.  Let’s imagine that after briefing and documenting the claim in line with that circuit’s law, the presiding judge in Baltimore is out sick on the day of the merits hearing.  A deserving asylum seeker could have a likely grant of asylum upended if a judge stationed in a jurisdiction with far less favorable case law is enlisted to hear the case by video under EOIR’s “No Dark Courtrooms” policy.9  While the intent behind substituting in a remote judge might be an innocent one, the impact on the asylum seeker of unexpectedly having to overcome a much tougher standard for nexus or a narrower definition of persecution could be devastating, as the Matter of L-E-A- example illustrated.

The Fourth Circuit’s view is presently limited to the Fourth Circuit.  But should it come to be the universal rule, while whether a particular circuit will accept jurisdiction over a petition for review is beyond EOIR’s control, the agency may itself still choose which circuit’s case law its own Immigration Judges should apply in individual cases before the Immigration Courts.  EOIR would do well to look to the example of USCIS, which advises its asylum officers conducting credible fear interviews that where there is disagreement among the circuits as to the proper interpretation of a legal issue, “generally the interpretation most favorable to the applicant is used when determining whether the applicant meets the credible fear standard.”10

I mentioned above the Fourth Circuit’s recognition of the duty of Immigration Judges to ensure that the record is fully developed in asylum claims.  Scholars credit that obligation to the legal requirement on nations to implement treaties in good faith.  For example, in discussing the adjudicator’s duty to develop the record in asylum cases, two leading international refugee law scholars explain the duty to implement treaties in good faith as holding states “not simply to ensuring the benefits of the Convention are withhold from persons who are not refugees, but equally to doing whatever is within their ability to ensure recognition of genuine refugees.”11

But shouldn’t that same obligation apply to not only developing the evidence of record, but also to deciding which law to apply when, as in Herrera-Alcala, there is more than one option?  If there is an obligation on our government to do everything in its ability to ensure recognition of genuine refugees, then isn’t that obligation breached where an individual sitting in a geographic area in which the law deems her deserving of asylum is then denied protection because the judge being beamed into that courtroom is sitting in a place with less enlightened precedent?

Copyright Jeffrey S. Chase 2022.  All rights reserved.

Notes:

  1. Herrera-Alcala v. Garland, Nos. 20-1770, 20-2338, ___ F.4th ___ (4th Cir. June 30, 2022).
  2. Matter of L-E-A-, 27 I&N Dec. 40 (BIA 2017).
  3. Id at 46, n.3.
  4. Perez Vasquez v. Garland, 4 F.4th 213, 222 (4th Cir. 2021).
  5. See Sorto-Guzman v. Garland, No. 20-1762, ___ F.4th ___ (4th Cir. Aug. 3, 2022) (restating the court’s repeated holding that “the ‘threat of death’ qualifies as persecution.”); Bedoya v. Barr, 981 F.3d 240, 246 (4th Cir. 2020) (emphasizing that “under our precedent, as we have repeatedly explained, a threat of death qualifies as past persecution”).
  6. 8 C.F.R. §§1208.13(b)(1), 1208.13(b)(3)(ii), and 1208.13(b)(1)(B)(iii); see also Matter of D-I-M-, 24 I&N Dec. 448 (BIA 2008); Matter of L-S-, 25 I&N Dec. 705 (BIA 2012).
  7. Arevalo Quintero v. Garland, 998 F.3d 612, 642 (4th Cir. 2021) (italics in original).
  8. Id. at 633.
  9. March 29, 2019 Memo of EOIR Director, “No Dark Courtrooms,” OOD PM 19-11.
  10. USCIS Asylum Division Officer Training Course, Credible Fear of Persecution and Torture Determinations (Feb. 13, 2017), at 17.
  11. James C. Hathaway and Michelle Foster, The Law of Refugee Status (2d Ed.), Cambridge Univ. Press, 2014, at 119.

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Jeffrey S. Chase is an immigration lawyer in New York City.  Jeffrey is a formerImmigration Judge and Senior Legal Advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals.He is the founder of the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, which was awarded AILA’s 2019 Advocacy Award.Jeffrey is also a past recipient of AILA’s Pro Bono Award.He sits on the Board of Directors of the Association of Deportation Defense Attorneys, and Central American Legal Assistance.

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

At the “Legacy INS,” the acronym for what were then called “Remote Adjudication Centers” was “The RACK” — with good reason! Once upon a time, EOIR went out of the way to emphasize the differences with, and independence from, INS —  it ran “courts” not “adjudication centers,” and it was comprised of “judges” NOT “adjudicators.”

Indeed, I can remember a past (in person) IJ National Conference where a senior DOJ official received a rather chilly reception for referring to the IJs in the room as “highly paid immigration examiners who worked for the AG.”

But, times change, and passage of time does not always bring progress. In many important ways EOIR is going backwards. Over the years, particularly 2017-2021, it probably has become more “politicized, compromised, weaponized, and subservient to immigration enforcement” than it was when it operated within the “Legacy INS.” Now, its bloated hierarchical bureaucracy, unmanageable backlogs, lousy public service, and emphasis on “productivity” and carrying out DOJ policies, looks more and more like DHS — the successor to the agency from which it declared “independence” back in 1983. What an unforgivable mess!

Star Chamber Justice
The “RACK” “processes” another “adjudication.”

Here’s a recent post with my “take” on Herrera-Alcalahttps://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/07/02/⚖%EF%B8%8Fvenue-venue-whos-got-the-venue-the-4th-circuit-herrera-alcala-v-garland/

As a “vet” of thousands of Televideo Hearings during my 13+ years on the bench at Arlington, I can definitively say that they are inferior to in person hearings, for many reasons. But, sometimes bureaucratic attempts to “depersonalize” justice, cut corners, and achieve bureaucratic goals produce unanticipated outcomes!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-28-22

🤯HASTE MAKES WASTE — DEFENDING IT’S WORSE: IJ’s Due Process Errors During 4-Min. Hearing 11 Years Ago Touch Off 4 Years Of Litigation Ending In Another Crushing Rebuke Of Garland’s DOJ By 4th Cir! — As Judge Wayne Iskra said, “This system is broken!”

U.S. v. Fernandez-Sanchez, 4th Cir., 08-25-22, published

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/204061.P.pdf

WYNN, Circuit Judge:

Bonifacio Fernandez Sanchez, a Mexican citizen who migrated to the United States

illegally as a minor in 2006, was deported in 2011 following a four-minute removal hearing. During that hearing, the immigration judge neglected to advise Fernandez Sanchez about his eligibility for voluntary departure or inform him of his right to appeal. Then, in his written summary order, the immigration judge indicated that Fernandez Sanchez had waived his right to appeal—even though this was never discussed during the hearing.

In the years since, Fernandez Sanchez has returned to the United States and been deported multiple times. Upon discovering him in the country once again in 2018, the Government opted to arrest and charge him with illegal reentry in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). Fernandez Sanchez moved to dismiss his indictment, arguing that the 2011 deportation order underlying his § 1326 charge was invalid.

The district court agreed, finding that the immigration judge’s failure to advise Fernandez Sanchez regarding his eligibility for voluntary departure rendered his 2011 removal fundamentally unfair. However, while this appeal was pending, we effectively rejected the district court’s reasoning in United States v. Herrera-Pagoada, 14 F.4th 311 (4th Cir. 2021). Fernandez Sanchez nevertheless maintains that the district court’s decision must be affirmed on an alternative basis: that the immigration judge’s denial of his right to appeal also prejudiced him. We agree, and therefore affirm the dismissal of Fernandez Sanchez’s indictment.

. . . .

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

To me, it sounds like the 4th Circuit having “buyer’s remorse” about their questionable decision in United States v. Herrera-Pagoada, There, the court found that an IJ’s erroneous failure to advise a respondent of the availability of pre-hearing voluntary departure (“VD”)  was not a constitutional violation because there was no constitutional right to be advised of potential relief from deportation, even though a DOJ regulation required it! Huh?

But, here the court finds that the IJ’s improper failure to advise of the availability of prehearing VD combined with his failure to advise of appeal rights WAS a due process violation. Why? Because, if properly advised, the individual probably would have appealed, been successful, received a remand from the BIA, and then received VD from the IJ, thus avoiding deportation. Huh? 

The problem here is that as currently staffed and operated by the Executive, EOIR is one “walking, talking violation of due process.” If Congress won’t solve the problem by enacting a long overdue Article I Immigration Court, then the Article IIIs need to “take the bull by the horns!” 

They should place this entire, festering conflict of interest, and hotbed of substandard quasi-judicial performance OUT of the control of the nation’s Chief Prosecutor, the AG. Until Congress acts to establish a constitutionally compliant system, EOIR should be placed under the supervision of an independent, expert “Special Master” qualified to fairly administer one of the nation’s most important, yet totally dysfunctional and highly unfair, court systems!

Interestingly, much of the court’s reasoning is based on the premise that on appeal the BIA would have corrected the IJ’s clear errors. But, as those who follow Federal immigration litigation are aware, the BIA’s “assembly line” appellate review, sensitivity to due process, and willingness to apply precedent favoring the respondent are often as slipshod and driven by undue haste as this 4-minute IJ hearing. 

Ironically, the IJ who mishandled this case is generally regarded as one of the “best in the business” — experienced, knowledgeable, fair, and sensitive to the rights of individuals coming before him. So, while this screw-up might be an aberration for this particular IJ, it’s clearly not a systemic rarity. 

In the haste makes waste, hopelessly backlogged, “anything goes” “world of EOIR” goofs like this are likely happening every hour of every day that the Immigration Courts are in session. But, since many folks are unrepresented or underrepresented, some mistakes are simply buried or deported.

Indeed, I had my share of 4-minute (or less) “hearings” during 13 years on the bench. Inevitably, I made some mistakes — some were caught, some inevitably weren’t. Hopefully, I learned from the ones brought to my attention. With “Master Calendars” often consisting of upwards of 50 cases in a 3-hour “slot” in a courtroom overflowing with humanity — and the need to provide stressed out interpreters court clerks, counsel, and me with suitable “breaks” — you can do the math!

Once I did a 100 case Televideo Master in Ohio where 1) I had no files; 2) the ICE ACC who had been detailed to the hearing location had no files; and 3) the interpreter spoke a language other than the one of the majority of the respondents on the calendar. Afterwards, I told the then Chief IJ that I had spent the day in “Clown Court!’” 🤡 He was not amused.

To quote my friend and former colleague retired Judge Wayne Iskra: “This system is broken!”  “Numbers,” “final orders,” “expediency,” and “productivity” to satisfy bureaucratic enforcement goals or to support Government myths about immigrants drive the EOIR system. Due process, fundamental fairness, compliance with the statute and regulations, and meaningful analysis are not this dysfunctional system’s focus. But, they must be!

Clearly, “dedicated dockets,” regulatory time frames, form orders, remote “Adjudication Centers,” and other “designed to fail” gimmicks tried under Garland are NOT going to solve the chronic quality-control and due process problems plaguing EOIR!

In other words, EOIR as currently constituted and “operated” is a “due process sham!” The 4th Circuit and other Article IIIs need to “dig deeper” into the glaring constitutional and professional quality problems plaguing Garland’s broken Immigration Courts! If neither he nor Congress will solve the problems, somebody must!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-26-22

😰IMMIGRATION 101: SUMMER GRADES POSTED: GARLAND, BIA, & OIL GET “F’s” FROM 1ST (FRENTESCU TEST) & 3RD (CATEGORICAL TEST) CIRS! — Meanwhile, NDPA Litigators Get “A+’s”

Dunce Cap
With lives on the line, the BIA’s performance leaves something to be desired.
PHOTO: Creative Commons

From Dor v. Garland, 1st Cir.

http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/20-1694P-01A.pdf

Given our familiarity with the record at this point, we are prompted to note that it is not at all apparent to us how an application of the Frentescu factors to Dor’s case would lead to a particularly-serious-crime determination. For instance, consider again the June 1 incident — the BIA relied on a police officer’s assessment that Dor had a “large amount” of marijuana on him, but this on-the-scene appraisal by an officer is largely irrelevant to an immigration-law-driven determination that a crime is particularly serious pursuant to the guiding statutes, especially when the actual amount (25 grams, a small amount) is available. See Matter of Castro Rodriguez, 25 I. & N. at 703; Moncrieffe, 569 U.S. at 194 n.7. Consider, too, that while the BIA identified the type of sentence imposed as a Frentescu factor but never mentioned (or weighed) Dor’s sentences, we observe that

– 23 –

Dor received lenient sentences with respect to both offenses (a two-year probation and a one-year suspended sentence that never went into effect since Dor completed a violation-free probation period).

As to Dor’s involvement in trafficking as part of the calculus here, based on the amount in question, and again on the face of this record, this characterization seems ambitious. The May 20 offense officers observed Dor sell “20 bucks[‘ worth]” of marijuana to another individual; the June 1 incident revealed Dor had in his possession a digital scale, a large amount of U.S. currency, and 25 grams of marijuana.

Bottom line: The BIA’s particularly-serious-crime conclusion is devoid of any actual application of the Frentescu factors, and even if we considered it a solid application of the law to Dor’s case, we still do not have a sufficiently rational explanation of the BIA’s particularly-serious-crime conclusion as to Dor’s minor marijuana offenses, and a rational explanation is necessary to ensure Dor was appropriately precluded from obtaining the humanitarian relief he seeks.

DEAN’S LIST: A+‘s go to :

Edward Crane, with whom Philip L. Torrey, Crimmigration Clinic, Harvard Law School, Shaiba Rather, Lena Melillo, and Katie Quigley, Law Student Advocates, Crimmigration Clinic, Harvard Law School, were on brief, for petitioner.

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

From Vurimindi v. AG, 3rd Cir.

https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/191848p.pdf

In sum, the Government has identified no evidence that supports divisibility. The statute, the case law, and the available state court documents all support the opposite conclusion.11 Because Pennsylvania’s stalking statute is indivisible as to intent, we apply the categorical approach. And under the categorical approach, Section 2709.1(a)(1), which sweeps more broadly than its generic counterpart in the INA, is not a categorical match. Vurimindi’s offense of conviction therefore does not qualify as a removable offense.

DEAN’S LIST: A+‘s go to DLA Piper’s:

Courtney Gilligan Saleski

https://www.dlapiper.com/en/us/people/s/saleski-courtney-gilligan/

Courtney Gilligan Saleski
Courtney Gilligan Saleski
Partner
DLA Piper

and

Rachel A.H. Horton

https://www.dlapiper.com/en/us/people/h/horton-rachel/

Rachel A.H. Horton
Rachel A.H. Horton
Associate
DLA Piper

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

Interestingly, the BIA’s defective decision in Dor involved improper reliance on police reports. This comes just as a new NIJC report shows how improper reliance by EOIR on police reports means that “racism and inequities in the criminal legal system and policing carry over into the immigration system.” https://default.salsalabs.org/T59538212-844f-4d6d-ade1-0428b5eef400/e9c83407-de3b-4bcf-a318-704cbcd599a2. 

The Dor case also presents a familiarly outrageous characteristic of American immigration policy — still going strong in the era of Biden, Harris, and Garland — “Dred Scottification” — that is systemic injustice — directed at Black Haitian refugees. Indeed, Dor is lucky to be in the “system” at all — no matter how biased and poorly functioning. Following in the footsteps of the overtly racist and xenophobic Trump Administration, under Biden more than 25,000 potential Haitian refugees have been arbitrarily returned under Title 42 with no process at all — not even the “veneer of due process” provided by EOIR! See https://www.wola.org/2022/05/weekly-u-s-mexico-border-update-title-42-ruling-family-self-separations-more-drownings-haiti-expulsion-flights/.

The cases described above have been pending for three and six years, respectively. EOIR presents the worst of both worlds: lengthy delays and backlogs without due process and careful expert consideration of the issues involved. Injustice at a high cost, in more ways than one!

After trips to three levels of our broken immigration justice system, countless hours of legal time, and untold trauma and uncertainty for the individuals subjected to this dysfunctional system, these cases remain far from final resolutions. Now they go back into Garland’s incredible nearly two million case backlog!

Sometimes, the BIA uses this as an opportunity to invent a new “bogus theory of denial.” Other times, the files get lost or reassigned. In other words, they are subject to EOIR’s “specialty:” “Aimless Docket Reshuffling!”

Garland doesn’t lose any sleep over it because: 1) not his life on hold, 2) not his time and money being wasted, and 3) he isn’t paying attention! This is unacceptable public service! Plain and simple! And, there appear to be few, if any, real consequences for anybody except the individuals whose lives and futures are at stake and their (often pro bono) lawyers!

How completely “out of touch” is Garland? He has put bogus, “Mickey Mouse” time limits on new asylum adjudications. Doing incompetent and biased adjudications faster isn’t going to solve the problem. It will actually make backlogs worse and more importantly, increase the number of defective asylum denials — already at beyond unacceptable levels.

You can’t fix a broken system by making it “pedal faster!” Why, after all  these years, Garland doesn’t understand that “fundamental rule of Goverment bureaucracy” is totally beyond me!

The obvious solution: Put emphasis on getting these cases right at the first instance. That means “canning” the “anti-immigrant default and assembly line process” and getting expert IJs willing to rule in favor of individuals where appropriate and a revamped BIA of expert judges willing to issue precedents favorable to individuals and insure that IJs properly follow them. It also means a BIA who will follow precedent even where it doesn’t produce a “DHS Enforcement-friendly result.”  

Additionally, “lose” OIL’s often-dilatory or quasi-frivolous arguments designed to cover up EOIR failures and block justice! (HINT: The Assistant AG, Civil, one of the key sub-cabinet positions at DOJ, and OIL’s “boss,” remains unfilled approaching the halfway point of the Biden Administration.) This system is broken from top to bottom, including the litigation “strategy” that attempts to shield unfair and legally incorrect EOIR decisions from critical substantive review by Article III judges independent from the Executive. 

Yes, Garland recently has “pruned” some of the deadwood at EOIR and brought in a few widely-respected expert “real judges.” That’s some progress.

But, he’s barely scratched the surface of the anti-immigrant culture, “haste makes waste” atmosphere, and shoddy decision making at EOIR and the poorly conceived litigation strategies at OIL! In particular, the dysfunctional DOJ immigration bureaucracy glaringly lacks inspired progressive due-process-committed, human-rights-focused, racial-justice-sensitive leadership willing to stand up for individual rights against Government overreach and abuses!

Of course, the “real” solution is to get the Immigration Courts out of DOJ and into an independent Article I structure. But, unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen tomorrow.

In the meantime, there is plenty that Garland could be doing to improve due process and professionalism and to “pave the way” for the eventual transition to Article I. The more dysfunctional Garland makes his system the more difficult and rocky that transition will be.

Garland isn’t getting the job done! Everyone who cares about the future of our nation and the rule of law should be asking why and demanding better from Garland and his “asleep at the switch” lieutenants!

High-powered lawyers like Courtney Saleski, National Co-Chair of DLA’s White Collar Practice, who successfully litigated Vurimindi in the 3rd Circuit have some “juice.”  They need to team up with the ABA, FBA, AILA, ACLU, Human Rights First, NIJC, the NAACP, Catholic Conference, HIAS, and other human rights and civil rights groups and “camp on Garland’s doorstep” until he “pulls the plug” on his dysfunctional, unprofessional EOIR and brings in due-process-focused competence! How many resources and human lives can our nation afford to waste on Garland’s EOIR disgrace?

Alfred E. Neumann

Individuals whose lives are subject to systemic injustice and their hard-working, often pro bono, attorneys might “dissent” from Garland’s dilatory approach to long overdue due process reforms and key personnel changes in his stunningly  dysfunctional Immigration Courts!
PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-24-22

🇺🇸⚖️🗽AN AMERICAN LEGAL HERO LEAVES BEHIND LEGACY OF COURAGE, SCHOLARSHIP, INNOVATION, COMPASSION: A HEARTFELT TRIBUTE TO HON. WILLIAM VAN WYKE BY HON. “SIR JEFFREY” CHASE!

Judge William Van Wyke
Judge William Van Wyke (D – Aug. 14, 2022)
U.S. Immigration Judge (Ret.)
Member Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
“A True Due Process Visionary”
PHOTO: the world.com

 

 

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2022/8/22/william-van-wyke-2

William Van Wyke

On August 14, the immigration law community lost a true giant. William Van Wyke, a former Immigration Judge, advocate, and scholar unexpectedly passed away.

How does one capture William’s essence? I’m going to attempt to do so through his own words (in bold), taken from both public sources and emails he wrote to his former Immigration Judge colleagues in conversations after his retirement from the bench.

“The fearful and crude ideas get put into practice by reflex; compassionate and thoughtful ones wait around until everyone agrees with them. – William” – April 1, 2021 email.

My first real impression of William came from reading his 1992 article “A New Perspective on ‘Well-Founded Fear,” which appeared in AILA’s conference handbook that year.1 In very simple, easy to understand language, WIlliam turned the existing method of asylum adjudication on its head, using an easy to apply concept that correctly brought the process in line with international law. It was absolutely brilliant. Thirty years later, we are still waiting around for the government agencies overseeing asylum adjudication to agree with it.

Prior to authoring that article, WIlliam had spent nine years pioneering the representation of Central American refugees before the Immigration Courts in Washington and Baltimore, beginning this work when the 1980 Refugee Act was still new.

“’We have a law that was intended to be generous, that, when it is well understood, would cover many cases — many, many more cases — than those that are granted,’ Van Wyke says.” –  Quote in Eyder Peralta, “Why A Single Question Decides The Fates Of Central American Migrants,” NPR, Feb. 25, 2016.

In one 1990 case in which his clients were denied asylum, William succeeded in persuading the Immigration Judge to rule that those clients could not be deported to their native El Salvador as long as the civil war continued there. William achieved this result by arguing customary international law, and analogizing a refugee’s flight from war to the customary practice of allowing a ship in distress the right to enter a port without authorization. The Washington Post quoted an immigration law authority who called the decision “one of the most impressive victories ever in an immigration court.” The decision was the subject of a law review article the following year.3

“My own experience is that people with anti-immigrant sentiments, whether in INS, DHS, EOIR or anywhere else, have always cringed at the idea of an IJ giving an unrepresented person sufficient information to make genuinely informed decisions… I remember a talk by Janet Reno at one of our conferences 20 years ago when she mentioned ‘compassion’ 12 times — I counted them. But try to actually be compassionate in specific cases in a legally appropriate and consequential way and you’re accused of overstepping judicial bounds. Didn’t I know that compassion is supposed to be a decoration, not something that actually helps the people before us?”  – Email, Sept. 18, 2019

William’s appointment as an Immigration Judge in March, 1995 sent a message of hope to the immigration law community. On the bench, William maintained his methodical, detail-oriented approach.  Early in his career on the bench, William reported that the INS trial attorneys had given him the nickname “the Van Wyck Expressway,” a reference to the similarly named NYC roadway that most know from traveling to or from JFK Airport. When William pointed out to one of those INS attorneys that his courtroom actually moved quite slowly, the attorney responded: “So does the Van Wyck Expressway.”

While we were both on the bench, I heard that William had developed a highly unique seating plan for his courtroom, and asked him about it one day. He showed it to me, explaining in detail his deeply thought out reasoning for the placement of every chair in the room. I don’t remember the specifics so many years later, but it was a perfect example of the strong sense of responsibility WIlliam felt towards all who set foot in his courtroom.

That sense of responsibility became even more heightened when WIlliam transferred from the court in New York to what he used to call “plain old York,” meaning the detained immigration court in York, Pennsylvania, located inside of the York County Prison.4

In one case he heard there, a non-citizen sat in jail awaiting approval of a green card petition filed by his U.S. citizen wife that could have saved him from deportation. But approval of visa petitions is not something an immigration judge can do; that power lies with the same government agency that was seeking the non-citizen’s deportation (at the time, that was INS; it is now DHS). After continuing the case multiple times to allow for a decision on the visa petition, WIlliam was repeatedly informed by INS’s attorney that no action had been taken.  The INS attorney further refused to inquire as to when a decision might be expected, and insisted that rather than wait, the non-citizen should be ordered deported.

Although at the time such action required the consent of both parties, WIlliam took the bold step of administratively closing the case over the government’s objection, writing a detailed decision explaining the necessity of doing so under the facts presented.

Remarkably, rather than appeal William’s denial to the Board of Immigration Appeals, the INS attorney privately and most improperly contacted the Chief Immigration Judge by phone, who in turn improperly reopened the matter and placed it back on for hearing.

In a decision that should be required reading for all EOIR management, WIlliam fired back at both INS and his own higher-ups, stating that it would be a “manifest injustice” to deport the respondent “simply because INS has not performed its Congressionally-mandated adjudication in a timely fashion.”

Detailing the extensive efforts he had undertaken to get INS to adjudicate the visa petition, WIlliam further noted that “[t]he asymmetry of ordering one party, but asking, begging, pleading and cajoling the other party hearing after hearing without effect, can only diminish the court as an authoritative and independent arbiter in the public’s eyes.”

WIlliam took the INS and the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge to task for their unethical ex parte communication, and the latter’s unauthorized action in response to such conversation:

The Chief Immigration Judge is an administrative and policy officer without appellate or other legal authority to overrule the immigration judge’s procedural decisions in the case, see 8 CFR 3.9, 3.1(b), and ethical rules require the Chief Immigration Judge as well as immigration judges to refrain from taking action in a specific case following an ex parte communication about the case by one of the parties.

William further noted that his “decision to close the case temporarily was not a mere administrative one subject to OCIJ’s general direction, but a legal decision made as an integral part of the adjudicatory process in an individual case.” William cautioned that the private communication, which denied opposing counsel the right to be heard, protected INS from having to defend its position in an appeal to the BIA, thus giving

a procedural and tactical advantage to the INS by demonstrating to respondent, rightly or wrongly, that an INS call to the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge may be enough to undo what the immigration judge does in open court, while encouraging the INS to continue to seek results from the OCIJ privately that it might not be able to get from the BIA publicly.

William concluded:

Unable to establish or enforce the standards of conduct that this judge believes must apply, he will recuse himself from further consideration of the case. In the court’s view, only the OCIJ, which went beyond mere administrative action to direct a particular course of action in this case, is in a position to cure the appearance of impropriety its intervention has produced. The court will therefore refer this case back to the Chief Immigration Judge for whatever action he may deem fit and appropriate.

The extraordinary nature of the matter was reported in an article in the New York Times.5

In retirement, William was a member of our Round Table that filed an amicus brief in an important case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Velasco-Lopez v. Decker.  The case challenged the practice of requiring a detained non-citizen to themself prove that they would not pose a flight risk or danger to the community in order to warrant their release from detention. In its precedent decision, the circuit court agreed that such burden should be borne by the government, and not the detainee.

I share here part of William’s response to the decision

In this decision, the important starting point is that due process applies to every person in their relation to the power of government. This principle humanizes immigrant “others” and shows that when Big Government (i.e. the kind that wields power in favor of the already rich and already powerful) treads on anyone, everyone’s rights are in jeopardy. The principles relevant in bond decisions –– having ties to our communities and not being a danger to others –– are strong values that most of us honor and share, whether recent immigrants or earlier-generation immigrants, and should make all of us resist limitations on our freedom by the coercive power of jailing people.

I don’t know if they still staple those little yellow cards with red print onto files of jailed immigrants that used to say, “RUSH: detained at government expense.”  Years ago when I was at York I wrote to… EOIR General Counsel, to ask if we couldn’t change those cards to be more humane, to say, “RUSH: person deprived of liberty,” or at least more neutral: “person deprived of liberty at government expense.” A change, of course, was “unnecessary” because everyone already knew the immigrants’ hardship, even if our boss’s reminder focused only on the government’s. Maybe they’ll change the cards now to remind adjudicators: “Rush: this person should not be deprived of freedom unless the government quickly decides he/she lacks any community ties AND is dangerous.” I won’t hold my breath, though.

I will conclude by saying that just recently, I set about researching a narrow legal issue that I would imagine most Immigration Judges would resolve in a few pages at most. I came across a decision that William had written on the topic shortly before his retirement from the bench that was exactly what I was looking for. It was 39 pages single spaced, and of course, absolutely brilliant.

On behalf of your fellow judges, and of all who have appeared in Immigration Court, thank you, William, for being you, for never lowering your standards. You restored the hope of so many in the power of law to make a positive difference in people’s lives, and so often showed that there was a way forward when we thought there was none. You are already greatly missed.

Notes:

  1. William Van Wyke, “A New Perspective on Well-Founded Fear,” 1992-93 Immigration & Nationality Handbook(AILA, 1992) at 497.
  2. Carlos Sanchez, “Lawyer’s Persistence Helps Reshape Immigration Law,” Washington Post, March 31, 1991.
  3. Cookson, II, Charles W. “In Re Santos: Extending the Right of Non-Return to Refugees of Civil Wars.” American University International Law Review 7, no. 1 (1991): 145-171.
  4. The York Immigration Court was closed on July 31, 2021.
  5. Eric Schmitt, “Two Judges Do Battle in an Immigration Case,” NYT, June 21, 2001.
  6. 978 F.3d 842 (2d Cir. 2020). The author recognized the outstanding representation in this matter by the petitioner’s counsel, Julie Dona (who argued the case) and Aadhithi Padmanabhan of the Legal Aid Society, and to Souvik Saha of Wilmer Hale for his remarkable assistance in drafting our amicus brief.

AUGUST 22, 2022

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Can Keathley Be Applied More Broadly?

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Jeffrey S. Chase is an immigration lawyer in New York City.  Jeffrey is a former Immigration Judge and Senior Legal Advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals.He is the founder of the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, which was awarded AILA’s 2019 Advocacy Award.Jeffrey is also a past recipient of AILA’s Pro Bono Award.He sits on the Board of Directors of the Association of Deportation Defense Attorneys, and Central American Legal Assistance.

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

My first real impression of William came from reading his 1992 article “A New Perspective on ‘Well-Founded Fear,” which appeared in AILA’s conference handbook that year.1 In very simple, easy to understand language, WIlliam turned the existing method of asylum adjudication on its head, using an easy to apply concept that correctly brought the process in line with international law. It was absolutely brilliant. Thirty years later, we are still waiting around for the government agencies overseeing asylum adjudication to agree with it.

. . . .

William spent those years trying to persuade the government of the proper application of the new law.  However, INS and the newly created EOIR remained largely mired in the Cold War-influenced view of asylum that preceded the 1980 changes. And under that Cold War approach, Central Americans fleeing pro-U.S. regimes had nearly no chance to obtain asylum

A 1991 Washington Post article documented how this institutional resistance only caused William to be more persistent and creative in his legal approach.2

Kind of says it all about the entrenched, continuing, institutional resistance at EOIR to correct, generous, fair, practical interpretations of asylum law and other immigration and human rights laws! That’s what helps generate uncontrollable backlogs and brings our entire justice system into disrepute! Worst of all, it threatens the lives of those denied justice by its legal misinterpretations and mis-applications of the law!

What does it say about an institution that no longer touts or actively pursues its noble one-time-vision of “through teamwork and innovation, be the world’s best administrative tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all?” Ironically, William’s life and achievements embody that now-defunct “EOIR vision.” But, nobody in “management” actually acknowledged that during his often-difficult tenure there.

Encouragingly, a number of Garland’s recent judicial appointments are distinguished, expert, widely respected “practical scholars” in the “Van Wyke mold.” Unfortunately, it’s going to take immediate and dramatic changes in moribund, uninspired EOIR leadership and in the “any reason to deny” BIA to overcome the “Cold War mentality,” anti-immigrant bias, assembly line procedures, “institutionalized go along to get alongism,” and unacceptably poor performance of EOIR. Right now, it’s still drag on our entire justice system that puts the future of our nation at risk!

No wonder we already miss William, his outspoken courage, and his wisdom so much. There is a void in our justice system right now where fierce due-process-focused, creative, humane, practical scholars should be leading the way in our institutions of justice! 

It’s up to the “new generation” of the NDPA to break down the walls of official resistance by Garland and other short-sighted bureaucrats and politicos who lack the vision to make racial justice, immigrant justice, and equal justice for all realities rather than disingenuous unfulfilled rhetoric! Guys, your lives and those of your descendants might depend on it! So, dial up the pressure on the intransigents, many of them in the Biden Administration you helped to elect and who expect your support and votes again this Fall!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-24-22

🤯 AS EOIR SINKS INTO THE SEA OF CHAOS & INJUSTICE, GARLAND’S SOLUTION: MORE UNNEEDED BUREAUCRACY!

Hole in the head
This is how much EOIR and its long-suffering stakeholders need a “Chief of the Immigration Law Division” at EOIR!
PHOTO: EOI Teacher @ Twitter

https://www.justice.gov/legal-careers/job/supervisory-attorney-advisor-chief-immigration-law-division

Duties include but are not limited to the following:

  • Plan and direct general legal activities of the Agency with the objective of assuring that all actions taken are in accordance with law and regulation with special emphasis on assuring that actions taken conform to the basic principles of law.
  • Provide interpretation of immigration provisions, laws, and regulations to all segments of the agency.
  • Propose the development of policies and procedures in response to legal cases or problems that have the effect of substantially broadening or restricting the activities of the agency.
  • Advise the Director/Deputy and staff on the legal implications of proposed and newly enacted laws, regulations and policies that will have an impact on the operation of the agency and keeps abreast of current decisions of the courts.
  • Direct professional legal staff in the development, documentation, and operation of both internal processes and administrative/technical controls.
  • Supervise staff in the formulation and direction of proactive, time-sensitive services and/or guidance to EOIR components, unique needs of senior management and responsiveness to the Department and other government or regulatory agencies.

Qualifications:

In order to qualify for the position, you must meet the following minimum qualifications:

  • Education: Applicants must possess an LL.B. or a J.D. degree. (Provide the month and year in which you obtained your degree and the name of the College or University from which it was conferred/awarded.)

AND

  • Licensure: Applicants must be an active member of the bar, duly licensed and authorized to practice law as an attorney under the laws of any state, territory of the U.S., or the District of Columbia. (Provide the month and year in which you obtained your first license and the State from which it was issued.)

AND

Required Experience:

For GS-15: Applicants must have four (4) full years (48 months) of post J.D. or LL.B professional legal experience. Qualifying professional legal experience includes: Direct professional legal staff in the development, documentation, and operation of both internal processes and administrative/technical controls; Advise Senior Management and staff on the legal implications of proposed and newly enacted laws, regulations and policies that will have an impact on the operation of the agency and keeps abreast of current decisions of the courts; and Plan and direct general legal activities of the Agency with the objective of assuring that all actions taken are in accordance with law and regulation with special emphasis on assuring that actions taken conform to the basic principles of law.

(Your resume must CLEARLY demonstrate this experience)

Preferred Experience:

The ideal candidate will have experience with the following:

  • Providing technical and administrative supervision over attorneys and professional staff within an organization.
  • Planning and assigning work to subordinate attorneys based on priorities and difficulty of the assignment.
  • Providing input and advice to Senior Officials on policy decisions.
  • Coordinating with other government offices and/or agencies on legal matters.

NOTE: Qualifying experience is calculated only after receipt of J.D. or LL.B.

IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE MAY NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE.

Salary:

($148,484 – $176,300 per year.

Travel:

Occasional travel

Application Process:

To Apply for this position, please click the below link to access and apply to the vacancy announcement via USA Jobs USAJOBS – Job Announcement . Please read the announcement thoroughly. You Must Submit a complete application package by 11:59PM (EST) on 9/02/2022, the closing date of the announcement.

Applicants should familiarize themselves and comply with the relevant rules of professional conduct regarding any possible conflicts of interest in connection with their applications. In particular, please notify this Office if you currently represent clients or adjudicate matters in which this Office is involved and/or you have a family member who is representing clients or adjudicating matters in which this Office is involved so that we can evaluate any potential conflict of interest or disqualification issue that may need to be addressed under those circumstances.

Application Deadline:

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

Relocation Expenses:

Not authorized

Number of Positions:

1

Updated August 23, 2022

*         *         *

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

The ship is rudderless and sinking! Many of the sailors are inept or think they are working for a different Navy! The solution: More Lt. Commanders on deck, each doing someone else’s job and giving random orders, to add to the confusion and disorder!

Let me be clear: EOIR and its long-suffering “customers” and “stakeholders” need this superfluous position like a hole in the head! Perhaps less! This looks like “EOIR imitating the DHS bureaucracy” that it is supposed to be treating as a “party,” not a “role model!”

The “Office of Policy” — totally unnecessary and inconsistent with the mission of a quasi-judicial court system — is a serious boondoggle created by the last Administration. Eliminating it and redeploying its wasted resources into competent, expert quasi-judicial decision making should have been “Day One Stuff” for Garland. But it wasn’t!

EOIR needs better, expert judges, who know immigration and human rights laws, and are unswervingly committed to due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices! It also needs a “lean team” of well qualified judicial administrators to recruit, hire, train, and support judges and court staff!

Incredibly, most of this PD sounds like it’s right out of the PDs for BIA Chair, BIA Member, CIJ, Director, Deputy Director, or General Counsel. Get folks who can do those jobs and eliminate the Office of Policy and the other “non-operational bureaucratic fat” in Falls Church!

Does the Supreme Court have a “U.S. Law Division?” How about the D.C. Circuit where Garland once served? What on earth is Garland doing with this wasteful nonsense!

For Pete’s sake, the BIA IS the “Immigration Law Division!” If, as I maintain, most of the current Appellate Judges are not capable of performing those functions competently and in accordance with due process and fundamental fairness, then get better judges in there! Now!

Sure, it’s not the “popular solution” within the self-perpetuating bureaucracy. But, it’s the right one!

Stop the unnecessary proliferation of inept bureaucrats at EOIR! “Hey, hey, Ho, ho, the EOIR Clown Show has got to go!” Throwing more “ringmasters” into this circus is NOT the answer!

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

DOJ and Director Neal should be hauled before an Oversight Committee to justify their continuing bureaucratic nonsense in the face of abject “mission failure!” Not going to happen. But, it should! Honestly!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-24-22

💨 FROM THE ROCKIES & THE HIGH PLAINS, THE WINDS OF TRUTH BLOW AWAY THE BS & SHOW HOW GARLAND’S BIA & THEIR SCOFFLAW INTERPRETATIONS HAVE BUILT BACKLOGS — “This petition for review represents the latest chapter in the Government’s ongoing efforts to dig itself out of a hole it placed itself in,” says 10th Cir. in Estrada-Corona v. Garland!

Kangaroos
It’s easy guys, we just do what DHS Enforcement and our political bosses want and we can keep hopping around forever! Backlogs! Ha, the bigger the bigger they get, the more “secure” our jobs!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
Creative Commons License

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

CA10 Stop-Time Victory: Estrada-Cardona v. Garland

Estrada-Cardona v. Garland

“The Attorney General may allow otherwise-removable aliens to remain in the country if, among other things, they have accrued 10 years of continuous physical presence in the United States. We call this form of discretionary relief “cancellation of removal.” Under the statutory “stop-time rule,” the period of continuous physical presence ends (A) when the alien is served with a notice to appear, or (B) when the alien has committed certain criminal offenses. 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(d)(1). Nothing more, nothing less. In the latest installment of “What Triggers the Stop-Time Rule?” the Government asks us to hold that the issuance of a final order of removal is a third, extra-statutory event sufficient to stop the clock. The plain language of the statute supports no such conclusion. Declining to read ambiguity into a statute where none exists, we hold a final order of removal does not stop the accrual of continuous physical presence. … This petition for review represents the latest chapter in the Government’s ongoing efforts to dig itself out of a hole it placed itself in. … After years of statutory short-circuiting, the Government finds itself in the uncomfortable position of being wrong. … Because Congress unambiguously replaced the final-order rule with the stop-time rule, the BIA’s application of the final-order rule was legal error. Petitioner continued to accrue continuous physical presence after the immigration judge issued the order to voluntarily depart. … [W]e hold that because the BIA seems to have considered change-in-the-law equitable tolling arguments before, the BIA abused its discretion in this case by failing to “announce its decision in terms sufficient to enable a reviewing court to perceive that it has heard and thought and not merely reacted.” … We cannot discern why the BIA found no extraordinary circumstance which would warrant equitable tolling, so the BIA abused its discretion. …  On remand, the Government is free to argue that Petitioner should not be granted sua sponte reopening or equitable tolling. This opinion is expressly limited to two conclusions. First, the BIA’s application of the final-order rule was legal error. Second, the BIA’s explanations for denying sua sponte reopening and equitable tolling constituted, as a procedural matter, an abuse of discretion. For the reasons stated herein, we GRANT the petition for review and REMAND to the BIA for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.”

[Hats way off to Jennifer M. Smith and Mark Barr!]

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

“For years, if not decades, the Government sent aliens “notices to appear” which failed to include all the information required by § 1229(a)—like the “time and place at which the proceedings will be held.” 8 U.S.C. § 1229(a)(1)(G)(i). For countless aliens, the only obstacle to being eligible for cancellation of removal was the Government’s position that a time-and-place-to-be-set notice to appear still triggers the stop-time rule. In Pereira, the Supreme Court rejected the Government’s atextual interpretation and held a “putative notice to appear that fails to designate the specific time or place of the [alien]’s removal proceedings is not a ‘notice to appear under section 1229(a),’ and so does not trigger the stop-time rule.” 138 S. Ct. at 2113–14. In one fell swoop, the Supreme Court cleared the way for many aliens, like Petitioner, to seek cancellation of removal.

But the Government quickly erected a new hurdle.”

The BIA could and should have prevented this debacle by insisting from the git go that the statute (“the law”) be followed by DHS and EOIR. Instead, at the behest of DHS, and perhaps to prevent tens of thousands of long-term residents who had received statutorily defective notices from seeking relief, the BIA misinterpreted the statute time after time. 

The real stupidity here is that the requirement the BIA was pretzeling itself to avoid was hardly “rocket science” or burdensome: Serve a notice containing the actual date, time, and place of the hearing! One might ask what purpose is served by a so-called “Notice to Appear” that doesn’t notify the individual of where and when to appear?

Moreover, when the BIA started issuing their incorrect precedents, DHS and EOIR had a then-existing system — called “interactive scheduling” — that would have complied with the statute. The problem was that the “powers that be” at DOJ, EOIR, and DHS consciously decided NOT to use that system. 

The apparent reason was the belief that complying with the law might have interfered with DHS arbitrarily filling the Immigration Courts with large “numbers” of cases to meet various enforcement “priorities” set from “on high.” Rather than doing its job, the BIA chose time and again to “go along to get along” with this nonsense!

Over and over, EOIR lets bogus DHS or Administration “enforcement priorities” or “improperly using the legal system as a deterrent” subvert due process, fundamental fairness, best interpretations, and practical solutions!

And, although Biden and Harris campaigned on a platform of bringing the rule of law and rationality back to immigration, the absurdity and illegality continues under Garland. He even sent OIL in to waste the time of the Article IIIs by mounting essentially frivolous defenses to the BIA’s malfeasance. 

Perhaps worst of all, in addition to being denied timely justice, individuals and their lawyers dealing with Garland’s dysfunctional EOIR often are falsely blamed for causing the backlogs that are the primary result of DHS/EOIR incompetence and political meddling by unqualified bureaucrats. The latter don’t understand what really happens in Immigration Court and how to properly, fairly, and efficiently administer such a large and important court system.

The backlogs will continue to grow and the US justice system will crater because of bad immigration decisions generating skyrocketing litigation. Garland must replace the BIA with real expert appellate judges committed to fair, humane, and reasonable interpretations of immigration and human rights laws — without regard to whether those correct interpretations will be “career enhancing” or “career preserving.” In other words, judges who put justice before personal or institutional “survival.” Competent, expert, independent-minded judicial administrators with the guts to keep DOJ and DHS bureaucratic meddlers “at arm’s length” are also required.

Folks who could do the job are out here. But, that’s the problem! They belong in the key judicial judicial and administrative positions at EOIR where they can put any end to the due-process denying, backlog building dysfunction.

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

Everyone committed to the future of American justice should be asking themselves why Garland hasn’t recruited and hired the right “Team Due Process” for EOIR! American justice can’t afford more of Garland’s inept, “go along to get along,” “afraid to say no to DHS enforcement” BIA and the rest of the EOIR “Deadly Clown Show” largely left over from past, failed Administrations!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-20-21

⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🎩 FREE JUDGE BURMAN! — Sudden, Mysterious Disappearance Of Revered U.S. Immigration Judge Lawrence O. “Larry” Burman From Arlington Bench Surprises, Saddens Local Bar!  

Judge Lawrence O. Burman
Hon. Lawrence O. Burman
U.S. Immigration Judge
Arlington, VA
Pictured addressing conference at CIS
PHOTO: YouTube

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

July 30, 2022

Reliable sources tell Courtside that highly-respected U.S. Immigration Judge Lawrence O. “Larry” Burman has been suspended with pay from hearing cases at the Arlington Immigration Court. Reportedly, for the past three months, the distinguished veteran jurist has been “banned” from chambers and relegated to deciding motions from home electronically.

The genesis of the suspension allegedly is a complaint of sexual harassment in court filed by the ICE Office of Chief Counsel in Arlington. A source close to Burman says that he told them he has not received any detailed notice of exactly what he has been accused of, nor has he been given any timeline or details about the alleged investigation. 

EOIR is notorious for placing judges and others accused of wrongdoing on “administrative leave with full pay” — sometimes for years spanning several Administrations. Meanwhile, they conduct glacially slow “investigations” and dither over what, if any, formal discipline to impose.

Within the bureaucracy, “never-ending investigations” are sometimes used as a device to “persuade” employees out of favor with “management” to retire or resign. In reality, Courtside is unaware of any full-time trained investigative staff assigned to EOIR.

Significantly, DOJ policies do not appear to require suspension of the employee from public duties in a case such as this. “Danger to the personnel” or “disruptive presence” are the primary considerations. See HR ORDER DOJ1200.

Those who know and have worked with Judge Burman would find it absurd to believe that either of these situations apply to him. Indeed, one source interviewed for this article suggested, perhaps tongue in cheek, that “a propensity toward giving respondents a fair hearing” might help explain ICE’s and EOIR’s enthusiasm for having Judge Burman “off the bench.”

Recently, Courtside described Judge Burman and one of his Arlington colleagues as the “gold standard” for fair, expert Immigration Judges. See https://wp.me/p8eeJm-7Ko. From that standpoint, the sudden suspension appears particularly unusual.

The action caught members of the private immigration bar in the DMV area by surprise. One attorney confirmed having merits cases recently scheduled before Judge Burman “orbited” several years out on the docket for no given reason except that Judge Burman was “out” and therefore unable to hear the cases. “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and “churning” of cases is an endemic problem at EOIR, which is running an astounding, yet rapidly increasing, backlog of 1.8 million cases. 

Other attorneys contacted by Courtside reacted with shock, sadness, and concern for Judge Burman’s well being. “I feel so bad to hear that. He is such a nice man and a good judge,” said one local practitioner.

Judge Burman has been an Immigration Judge for nearly a quarter-century, serving at the Los Angeles and Memphis Immigration Courts before arriving in Arlington. He has been a leader in court-related CLE, serving as a past chair of the FBA’s Immigration Section and the creator and editor emeritus of The Green Card, that section’s educational newsletter. He also has been an officer of the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”), where (perhaps ironically) he successfully represented a number of colleagues charged with disciplinary infractions or wrongfully denied benefits.

Until “grounded” by the Trump DOJ, Judge Burman was one of a limited number of local judges eager and willing to participate in educational events sponsored by bar associations and other groups. A graduate of UVA and Maryland Law, and a U.S. Army veteran, Judge Burman had careers in the “Legacy INS” and private practice before being appointed to the bench by then Attorney General Janet Reno in 1998.

☹️ BLEAK HOUSE II: MATTER OF JARNDYCE (“JARNDYCE IV”) — A 21st Century Dickensonian Tale Of Delay, Dithering, & Dereliction — Featuring “EYORE” & “Judge Garland” — A Sad, But True, Story Of “Aimless Docket Reshuffling On Steroids!” — Illustrated!

Bleak House
Matter of Jarndyce: “The suit does not sleep; we wake it up, we air it, we walk it about. We remand. We reverse. We re-remand. We re-reverse. We reschedule. We order briefs. Thats something.  But, we never, ever come close to completing the case at hand. That’s what ‘Aimless Docket Reshuffling’ is all about. THAT’S how we build a 2 million case backlog!”
Inspired by  “Bleak House” by Charles Dickens (1895).
PHOTO: Public Realm

 

As told to “Courtside” by a leading American lawyer!

CHAPTER ONE: Eighteen Years

18 years ago today, July 21, 2004, ICE put my USC (native-born) client into (non-detained) removal proceedings.  We are now at the BIA for the 4th time.  At the IJ level, I won the first two rounds, lost the third, and won the last round…the IJ ordered termination with prejudice…again.  ICE appealed, again.  Really getting tired of this nonsense.  

There is a structural flaw in the INA if the BIA can evade judicial review by remanding the case back down to the IJ, over and over again, forever.  And as for timing on the last round, the BIA briefing closed in April 2021, well over a year ago.

No need to reply, just venting….

CHAPTER TWO: Count Your Blessings

It could have been worse. Much worse! 

If the brief got lost in Eyore’s disorderly system or was a day late, the BIA might have “summarily dismissed” the appeal! Even now, they might well decide the case without reading the record or considering the briefs!

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

But, rest assured, whatever nightmare happens, there will be no accountability from Judge Garland. If the BIA blows it, issues a “final” order, and the Circuit reverses, it will go back to the BIA again. If they get  around to it, they will send it back to the IJ.

This could go on until the client dies, the attorney retires, the file gets lost, EOIR collapses, or all four of the foregoing. 

CHAPTER THREE: Count Your Blessings, The Eyore View

Charles Dickens
He might look like 19th Century writer Charles Dickens. But, 21st Century AG/Judge Merrick Garland knows how to delay, obfuscate, and “churn” cases without achieving results with the best of them. The key is poorly functioning “judges,” incompetent administrators, and lack of guts to end the nonsense and insist on due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices!
Public Realm

This U.S. citizen client is quite lucky. He has been allowed to hang around for 18 years in limbo! So, what’s the problem?

You want “priority treatment?” Get detained! Or, claim that you are an unrepresented Haitian asylum applicant at the Southern border. Then you will see what “expedited handling” is all about!

CHAPTER FOUR: It’s Not Unusual

Witness the 18-year saga of poor Mr. Negusie, previously “low lighted” on “Courtside.” “A microcosm of all that’s wrong with our Immigration Court System — 17 years, 4 Administrations, 5 different tribunals (including the Supremes), 0 Final Resolution!” https://wp.me/p8eeJm-76y

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

The INA has its problems. But, I’m skeptical that’s the real issue here.

Poorly functioning judges, a substandard appellate body, weak and/or incompetent judicial administrators, an anti-immigrant “culture,” antiquated “user unfriendly” procedures, political interference, lack of true judicial independence, grotesque inconsistencies, lack of accountability, no discernible values, no commitment to due process, lack of creative problem solving, and unwillingness to stand up to far-right White Nationalists and tell them to “buzz off” is what’s dragging EOIR (“Eyore”) down, inhibiting racial justice, and threatening our democracy. Seriously, this is “big time systemic failure” with existential consequences!

That’s largely within Garland’s power to fix! But, beyond removing a few of the “worst of the worst,” appointing a modest number of “bright lights” to the judiciary, and reversing some of the worst anti-immigrant, legally inane, and practically disastrous “precedents” ever (basically “Day One Stuff”), he hasn’t’ gotten the job done!

Undoubtedly, there are many talented folks — experts in immigration, human rights, due process, and racial justice — who could have correctly and finally resolved this case more than a decade ago. The problem is that they are “out here” and far lesser qualified judges and inept administrators are “calling the shots” at EOIR.

End the nonsense, bring in the talent, and fix the system! Sure, nativists and far right xenophobes are “invested” in a failed justice system — for various reasons, none of them valid. They will go ballistic if it starts functioning and treating individuals fairly and justly.

Great! The more they bluster and spread their White Nationalist BS and outright lies, the better Garland is doing. Up until recently, the far right crowd has been largely indifferent to what’s going on at EOIR. That’s because the Biden Administration has done little at EOIR that would make the “Stephen Miller crowd” unhappy. Their recent absurdist, disingenuous reactions are proof that Garland is finally making a few, long overdue, reforms and personnel changes that “hit home” and advance judicial competence, due process, fundamental fairness, and better practices.

The key is to fix EOIR, and tell the anti-due-process crowd to “go pound sand!” That’s exactly what neo-Nazi activist Stephen Miller and his motley crew would do if the situation were reversed!

There is, of course, a potential happy ending here. Replace the BIA with real judges! Hire real judicial professionals to administer the Immigration Courts. Take Eyore out of the DOJ and turn him into an independent Article I Court.

The alternatives are grim — for our nation and for future generations! Wake up folks, before it’s too late!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-24-22

⚖️🗽 NDPA SUPER HERO 🦸🏻‍♀️MICHELLE MENDEZ BESTS BIA ON MTR IN 5TH — Ludicrous EOIR Decision Would Have Required Individual To Travel From Portland, OR to El Paso, TX For No Particular Reason! — No Wonder Garland’s Inept & Biased “Courts” Are Building Unnecessary Backlog @ Record Pace!  🤮

Twilight Zone
CAUTION: You are about to enter AG Merrick Garland’s “Twilight Zone” — where “judges” operating in a parallel universe make surreal decisions without regard to facts, law, or common sense applicable in this world!
The Twilight Zone Billy Mumy 1961.jpg
:PHOTO: Public Realm

Another timely report from Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/unpub-ca5-exceptional-circumstances-remand-perez-vasquez-v-garland

*Daniel M. Kowalski

22 Jul 2022

Unpub. CA5 “Exceptional Circumstances” Remand: Perez-Vasquez v. Garland

Perez-Vasquez v. Garland

“Perez-Vasquez is correct that the BIA erred by failing to address key evidence. See Cabrera v. Sessions, 890 F.3d 153, 162 (5th Cir. 2018). Specifically, the BIA did not consider several factors he raised in his motion to reopen as to whether exceptional circumstances prevented his appearance at his removal hearing, including evidence of: (1) Perez’s multiple attempts to contact both the Portland and El Paso immigration courts; (2) the fact that he filed two change of address forms because the El Paso immigration court sent the notice of hearing to the wrong address after he filed his first one; (3) the fact that his hearing was set in El Paso—where his son was detained—as opposed to Portland despite informing officials that he was going to reside in Oregon; (4) his financial constraints in travelling to El Paso with three-days notice. See Matter of S-L-H- & L-B-L-, 28 I. & N. Dec. 318, 321 & n.4 (BIA 2021); see also Magdaleno de Morales v. INS, 116 F.3d 145, 148 (5th Cir. 1997) (considering whether alien attempted to contact the immigration court prior to hearing). Additionally, the BIA failed to address evidence of Perez’s regular check-ins with immigration officials and his diligence in filing a motion to reopen, which tend to show an incentive to appear. See Matter of S-L-H- & L-B-L-, 28 I. & N. Dec. at 321. … Perez-Vasquez’s petition for review is GRANTED in part, DISMISSED in part, and DENIED in part. His case is REMANDED to the BIA for the limited purpose of considering—in light of the totality of the circumstances of his individual case—whether exceptional circumstances prevented his appearance at his removal hearing.”

[Hats off to NIPNLG Director of Legal Resources and Training Michelle N. Méndez!]

Michelle N. Mendez
Michelle N. Mendez, ESQ
Director of Legal Resources and Training
National Immigration Project, National Lawyers Guild
PHOTO: NIPNLG

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

The facts of this case are somewhere out there in the “twilight zone.” Would any other tribunal in America waste two decisions denying an individual a fair hearing in this situation? 

But, sadly, it’s what we have come to expect from a failing organization that is more interested in denying the right to be heard than in conducting hearings! Of course, EOIR is building record backlogs with “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” lousy leadership, bad, often anti-immigrant, jurisprudence, and infinite tolerance for substandard performance within its ranks! Enough!

Congratulation Michelle, my friend, to you and your all-star team over at NIPNLG. Perhaps the worst mistake that Garland has made as AG was not immediately “cleaning house” at EOIR and appointing folks like Michelle and others from the NDPA to fix the system: At long last, bring practical scholarship, creative thinking, “experience in the trenches,” and an unswerving commitment to due process into a dysfunctional organization and “take names and kick tail” of those judges and others who are still “with” the mindless, immoral, counterproductive, and wrong-headed “any reason to deny/courts as a soft deterrent” approach of the former Administration. 

The EOIR system needs real, dynamic intellectual leaders and widely-respected, innovative, courageous “practical scholars” like Michelle! A few such folks exist in today’s EOIR. But, they are essentially buried in the “forest of intellectual and moral deadwood” that Garland has not yet cleared out!

We are well into the Biden/Harris Administration; but, bad and poorly qualified judges and weak or inept administrators from the Trump and Obama Administrations (or even Bush II) are still wreaking havoc on American justice and threatening our democracy.

By contrast, if not invited to fix the broken EOIR system “from the inside” Michelle and the other members of the NDPA are going to force change from the outside! You can count on it! They will keep at it until this dysfunctional, unfair, and mal-administered system either reforms or collapses under the weight of its own incompetence, cruelty, inefficiency, and just plain stupidity!

Consistently getting these cases right (an MTR, for Pete’s sake) isn’t “rocket science.” A competent IJ would have taken about 5 minutes or less to mark this “granted” and change venue to Portland. A competent appellate tribunal would have reversed and rocketed it back to the IJ with instructions to “cut the BS.” 

But, it continues to be elusive for Garland’s “gang that can’t shoot straight!” This system “coddles” poorly performing judges at both levels!

Meanwhile, they “throw the book” at desperate individuals trying their best to navigate EOIR’s broken, irrational, and intentionally “user unfriendly” parody of a “court system.” It is truly the “Twilight Zone of American Justice!”

Think of it: Four years, three tribunals, at least five Federal Judges, and a bevy of lawyers and clerks have spent time on this case. And, EOIR is no nearer to getting to the merits than the day the NTA was issued! This system needs “practical problem solvers” like Michelle, NOT “stuck in the mud” bureaucrats masquerading as judges, professional judicial leaders, and role models.

Tell Garland it’s time for a better, smarter approach to justice at EOIR! The real talent is out here! What’s he waiting for?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-23-22

☹️👎 EXECUTIVE BRANCH “JUDGES” ARE CONSTITUTIONALLY PROBLEMATIC: EOIR Might Be The Worst, But By No Means The Only Agency Where Quasi-Judicial Independence Is Compromised By Politicos & Their Subservient “Managers!”  — Reuters Reports!

 

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-watchdog-says-pressure-patent-officials-affected-agency-rulings-2022-07-21/

U.S. watchdog says pressure from patent officials affected agency rulings

Blake Brittain July 21, 20224:11 PM EDTLast Updated a day ago

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(Reuters) – U.S. Patent and Trademark Office administrators improperly influenced decisions by the office’s patent-eligibility tribunal for years, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a preliminary report released Thursday.

The report said two-thirds of judges on the PTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board felt pressure from higher-ups at the office to change aspects of their decisions, and that three-quarters of them believed the oversight affected their independence.

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While the report said management “rarely” influenced decisions on whether to cancel a patent, it said it did affect judges’ rulings on questions like whether to review a patent.

A PTO spokesperson said the report “reflects GAO’s preliminary observations on past practices,” and that current director Kathi Vidal has “prioritized providing clear guidance to the PTAB regarding the director review process” since taking office in April.

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The U.S. Supreme Court decided last year that the PTO director should be able to review board decisions.

The PTAB allows parties to challenge the validity of patents based on preexisting inventions in “inter partes review” proceedings.

A committee of volunteer judges began peer reviewing decisions in such cases for style and policy consistency and flagging them for potential management review in 2013, the report said. PTAB management began informally pre-reviewing board decisions on important issues and offering suggestions in 2017, and management review became official PTO policy in 2019.

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Some PTAB judges said their decisions had been affected by fears of negative career consequences for going against the suggestions. One judge said in the report that the review policy’s “very existence creates a preemptive chilling effect,” and that management’s wishes were “at least a factor in all panel deliberations” and “sometimes the dominant factor.”

The report said the internal review policies were not made public until May.

Republican Congressman Darrell Issa of California said during a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee hearing Thursday that the report of officials influencing PTAB decisions “behind closed doors” was “disturbing.”

Andrei Iancu was appointed PTO director by former President Donald Trump and took charge of the office in 2018. Iancu, now a partner at Irell & Manella, had no comment on the report.

Issa, the subcommittee’s ranking member, and its chairman, Democratic Congressman Hank Johnson of Georgia, called on the GAO last year to investigate the PTO director’s potential influence on PTAB cases.

(NOTE: This story has been updated with comment from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.)

Read more:

U.S. Supreme Court reins in power of patent tribunal judges

U.S. Senators Leahy, Tillis introduce bill to revamp patent review board

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Thomson Reuters

Blake Brittain reports on intellectual property law, including patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. Reach him at blake.brittain@thomsonreuters.com

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

While it might once have seemed like a great idea, after more than a half-century the so-called “Administrative Judiciary” has proved to be a failure. It often delivers watered-down, sloppy, political, expedient, or “agency friendly” decisions with the “window dressing” of due process and real judicial proceedings.

Moreover, contrary to the original purpose, in most cases it is neither truly “expert” not “efficient.” Indeed, the Immigration Courts have built “one of the largest backlogs known to man!” That just leads to more misguided “gimmicks” and pressure to “speed up the quasi-judicial assembly line!” Individual lives and rights are the “big losers.”

To make matters worse, under the “Chevron doctrine” and its “off the wall” progeny “Brand X,” the Article IIIs “cop out” by giving “undue deference” to this deficient product.

It’s time for all Federal Judicial tribunals to be organized under Article III or Article I of the Constitution and for the legal profession and law schools to take a long, critical look at the poor job we now are doing of educating and preparing judges. We need to train and motivate the “best, brightest, and fairest” to think critically, humanely, and practically. Then, encourage them to become judges — out of a sense of public service, furthering the common good, promoting equal justice for all, and a commitment to vindicating individual rights, not some “ideological litmus test” as has a become the recent practice.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-22-22

🛡⚔️THE ROUND TABLE RIDES AGAIN! — INJECTING A DOSE OF REALITY INTO 1ST CIR. LITIGATION — No, “Briefing Completed” Doesn’t Mean That A BIA Decision Is Imminent — With An 80K+ Appellate Backlog, No Leadership, No Coherent Plan, Many Appellate Judges “Programmed To View Only Removals With Urgency,” & “Priorities” That Change On Political Whim, It’s A Grave Mistake To View EOIR “Through The Lens Of A ‘Normal’ Court System!”  🤯

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

“Sir Jeffrey Chase forwards our Round Table’s latest effort to promote reality, reasonableness, and due process in EOIR’s dysfunctional world:

Amici curiae are 38 former immigration judges (““IJs””) and members of the 2

Board of Immigration Appeals (““BIA””).2
Amici have dedicated their careers to improving the fairness and efficiency of

the United States immigration system, and have an interest in this case based on their combined centuries of experience administering the immigration laws of the United States. Amici collectively have presided over thousands of removal proceedings and thousands of bond hearings in connection with those proceedings, and have adjudicated numerous appeals to the BIA.

In denying Anderson Alphonse’’s (““Mr. Alphonse”” or ““Petitioner””) petition for writ of habeas corpus, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (Saylor, J.), relied in part on the premise that it was ““readily foreseeable that proceedings will conclude in the near future”” because Mr. Alphonse’’s appeal to the BIA was ““fully briefed.”” This premise—at best aspirational when made in January 2022—has proven erroneous: nearly six months later, Mr. Alphonse’’s BIA appeal remains undecided. This is, regrettably, unsurprising given the surging caseload in the immigration courts, which now exceeds 1.8 million

1
1Amici state that this brief was not authored in whole or in part by counsel for any

party, and no person or entity other than Amici or their counsel made a monetary contribution to fund the preparation or submission of this brief.

2
2 See the appendix for a complete list of signatories.

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1

Case: 22-1151 Document: 00117894678 Page: 10 Date Filed: 07/05/2022 Entry ID: 6505717

pending cases. This crushing backlog—adding significantly to the backlog facing the BIA—-iis extremely relevant to the question of when a removal proceeding is likely to conclude. In fact, it might be the most important factor in this equation. Yet this factor is absent from the First Circuit’’s current analytical framework, opening the door to erroneous suppositions and conclusions based on a cursory review of a removal proceeding’’s posture, such as the one made by the District Court here.

Thus, Amici write to respectfully urge the Court to reassess the impact the backlog of cases facing the immigration courts may have on the ability of courts to accurately forecast when removal proceedings will conclude. Given their extensive experience with the immigration courts and BIA appeal process, Amici are uniquely positioned to provide insight into this narrow, but critical, issue.

The case is Alphonse v. Moniz, currently pending in the 1st Cir. Here’s a complete copy of our brief:

Round Table – Alphonse (1st Cir) FILED Amicus Brief – 7.5.22

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

Many thanks to our wonderful pro bono counsel Matthew Levitt and Evan Piercy at MINTZ, LEVIN, COHN, FERRIS, GLOVSKY AND POPEO, P.C. 

Although BIA decisions, particularly in non-detained cases, might take many months or even years to decide, the appellant is given only a relatively short period of time to file a brief — 21 days. A single 21 day extension may be requested and is usually granted, although it is common for the appellant not to be notified that the extension has been granted until after the extension period has expired.

Requests for additional or longer extensions are rarely granted. Motions to accept late-filed briefs, even those only a day or two tardy, are often denied. On the other hand, failure to file a timely brief after requesting a briefing schedule is a potential ground for summary dismissal of an appeal regardless of the merits! 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(2)(i)(E).

These rigid procedures might give the false impression that the EOIR system is driven by a sense of urgency in dispensing justice. Additionally, BIA and AG decisions often disingenuously pontificate about the supposedly “critical importance” of finality in immigration decisions. It’s all BS!

As you might note, the only “urgency” at EOIR is the potentially severe consequences imposed on the appealing party, usually the migrant. One the “compressed briefing” is complete, there is no particular assurance that the appeal will be decided on the merits for months, years — or ever! Additionally, the BIA can sometimes make dismissal of an appeal easier by ignoring an untimely brief or even by summarily dismissing an appeal for failure to file a brief without dealing with the merits.

Moreover, the hopelessness of the 1.82 million case EOIR backlog and the “assembly line justice” encouraged by EOIR’s “political masters” at DOJ results in a sloppy, “haste makes waste” approach to “justice.” This, in turn, means wrongful removals or unnecessary “remands” from Circuit Courts.

But, not to worry — there is neither penalty nor accountability for the BIA’s poor performance. Wrongly deported individuals are “out of sight, out of mind” — assuming they are even still alive.

Moreover, court remands actually give the BIA unlimited opportunities to correct their sloppy and unprofessional work, often with the benefit of a more thoughtful analysis from the Circuit Court. Not that such beneficial treatment by the Circuit necessarily means the BIA will get it right on remand. The BIA has been known to get “chewed out” by Circuit Courts for ignoring or “blowing off” their mandates.

“Red flags” 🚩 should be popping up all over the Falls Church horizon — so big that even the often “asleep at the wheel” immigration policy folks at the Biden Administration can see them! But, don’t hold your breath! Our Round Table, however, will continue “speaking truth to power” and revealing the real, awful due process mess at EOIR.

The respondent in this case is ably represented by Associate Dean Mary Holper of Boston College Law and her Immigration Clinic. In a way, this is a classic illustration of why Garland has been unable to fix EOIR. Dean Holper is an accomplished, universally-respected litigator, teacher, writer, practical scholar, and administrator. She is exactly the type of NDPA All-Star/Expert whom Garland should have recruited on “Day 1,” brought in, and empowered to fix EOIR and reinstate and realize its due process mission. Instead, Garland’s EOIR continues to flail and fail while the talent who could fix it are lined up in court against him!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-18-22

☹️ 1.82 Million Souls Left In Limbo — Due Process Denying “Gimmicks” & Minor Tinkering Fail To Stem EOIR’s Burgeoning Backlog! — There Is No Substitute For Long-Overdue Practical Progressive Reforms!

Bleak House
Jarndyce v. Jarndyce: “The suit does not sleep; we wake it up, we air it, we walk it about. Thats something.”
From “Bleak House” by Charles Dickens (1895).
Garland has created a “Dickensonian” nightmare @ EOIR — including rushing some arbitrarily selected poor souls through his broken system to deportation orders with little or no process at all, let alone due process of law!

TRAC Immigration reports:

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

Pace of Immigration Court Processing Increases While Backlog Continues to Climb

The latest case-by-case records show that the Immigration Court backlog reached 1,821,440 at the end of June 2022. This is up 25 percent from the backlog just at the beginning of this fiscal year. These figures are based on the analysis of the latest court records obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

New Immigration Court cases continue to outstrip the number of cases being closed. So far during the first nine months the court received 634,594 new cases, but has only managed to dispose of 287,711. These closures took 1,130 days on average or more than three years from the date of the Notice to Appear (NTA) to the court’s disposition. Part of the delay represents the time it took from the Department of Homeland Security to actually file the NTA after it was issued. This delay reached record levels during the Trump administration three years ago, but NTAs are being filed much more promptly under the current administration.

The pace of court closures also has been accelerating. After the partial government shutdown in March 2020, court closures averaged just 6,172 per month for the remainder of that fiscal year. During FY 2021, court closures roughly doubled to 12,055 on average per month. By the end of the first six months of FY 2022, monthly closures had again doubled to an average of 23,957 per month. And this last quarter covering just the three-month period from April – June 2022, monthly closures doubled again to 47,991 on average each month.

According to court statistics, immigration judges on board at the beginning of this past quarter had increased just 6 percent over levels at the beginning of FY 2022. Thus, the increase in judge hiring only accounts for some of this speedier pace. A more important factor appears to be the many changes implemented by the Biden administration to increase the speed that court cases get scheduled and decided. However, as TRAC has reported, the increase in speed has come with heightened due process concerns, increasing the number of asylum seekers unable to secure legal representation which then greatly diminishes their opportunity to adequately prepare and present their asylum claims.

For more highlights on the Immigration Court, updated through June 2022, go to:

Immigration Court Quick Facts

For an index to the full list of TRAC’s immigration tools and their latest update go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/imm/tools

If you want to be sure to receive a notification whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

https://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1

Follow us on Twitter at:

https://twitter.com/tracreports

or like us on Facebook:

https://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University Peck Hall
601 E. Genesee Street
Syracuse, NY 13202-3117
315-443-3563
trac@syr.edu
https://trac.syr.edu 

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse is a nonpartisan joint research center of the Whitman School of Management (https://whitman.syr.edu) and the Newhouse School of Public Communications (https://newhouse.syr.edu) at Syracuse University. If you know someone who would like to sign up to receive occasional email announcements and press releases, they may go to https://trac.syr.edu and click on the E-mail Alerts link at the bottom of the page. If you do not wish to receive future email announcements and wish to be removed from our list, please send an email to trac@syr.edu with REMOVE as the subject.

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

Needed:

  • New, visionary, innovative, creative, due-process-focused leadership @ EOIR;
  • Better judges with established records of fair, practical, scholarship and proven expertise in immigration, due process, and constitutional law;
  • An Attorney General who understands the need for the foregoing and has the backbone to put it in place and then let the “pros” solve the problems!

This broken and failing system and its toxic discredited “culture of denial, fake expediency, and false deterrence” needs a radical overhaul — NOW!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-16-22

⚖️🗽👩🏽‍⚖️👨🏽‍⚖️ ROUND TABLE 🛡⚔️ WEIGHS IN ON BURDEN OF PROOF FOR VACATED CONVICTION IN 9TH CIR.  — Jovel v.Garland 

Hon. Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Member Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

A criminal conviction vacated due to a substantive or procedural defect does not qualify as a “conviction” establishing a noncitizen’s removability under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). By the statute’s plain language, vacatur under section 1473.7(a)(1) conclusively establishes that the underlying conviction rested on a substantive or procedural defect: It allows people no longer in criminal custody to seek vacatur of convictions that were “legally invalid due to prejudicial error damaging the moving party’s ability to meaningfully understand, defend against, or knowingly accept the actual or potential adverse immigration consequences of a conviction or sentence.”

Even though a California court vacated the conviction of petitioner Jose Adalberto Arias Jovel under section 1473.7(a)(1), the BIA declined to sua sponte

2 Further statutory references are to the California Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.

-2-

RESTRICTED Case: 21-631, 07/05/2022, DktEntry: 35.1, Page 12 of 34

reopen Mr. Arias’ removal proceedings because it held that, as a noncitizen,

Mr. Arias had the burden to show that his conviction under section 1473.7(a)(1) was vacated on the merits, and Mr. Arias failed to meet that burden. If affirmed, the BIA’s holding creates several problems.

First, the holding requires IJs to second-guess a state court’s determination under section 1473.7(a)(1), despite the statute allowing vacatur only for prejudicial defects. The plain language of section 1473.7(a)(1) requires “prejudicial error” that renders the conviction “legally invalid,” and IJs should accept that the state court must have vacated the conviction due to a substantive or procedural error of law. Precedent requires IJs to apply the INA to a section 1473.7(a)(1) vacatur without second-guessing the state court’s ruling.

Second, even if a section 1473.7(a)(1) vacatur doesn’t conclusively establish a substantive or procedural defect, the burden is not on noncitizens like Mr. Arias to demonstrate their convictions were vacated on the merits. IJs are bound by Ninth Circuit precedent, which holds that the government bears the burden of proving whether a vacated conviction can still form the basis for removal. To shift the burden of proof to noncitizens (who do not have a constitutional right to counsel, may be detained, and often have limited English proficiency) is contrary to the law and will inevitably increase the likelihood of due process violations.

-3-

RESTRICTED Case: 21-631, 07/05/2022, DktEntry: 35.1, Page 13 of 34

Third, the government’s interpretation of section 1473.7(a)(1) will exacerbate the growing backlog of immigration cases and the enormous pressure that IJs face to eliminate the backlog. Given the severe time and resource constraints applied to the immigration court, deviating from the established law governing vacated convictions will greatly hinder the fair and efficient administration of immigration proceedings.

Here’s the full amicus brief:

2022-07-05 (Dkt. 35.1) IJ’s Amici Curiae Brief

Many thanks to NDPA Superstar 🌟 Judge Ilyce Shugall for taking the lead on this!

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

Here’s a nice “thank you” from respondent’s counsel Tomo Takaki at Covington & Burling, LA Office:

Dear former IJs and BIA members and GMSR Counsel,

Apologies for the delayed email, but thank you all again for your excellent and powerful brief.  It was truly invaluable to get the perspective of former IJs and BIA members on this important issue, especially regarding the unworkability of the BIA’s decision here.  It was particularly helpful to get GMSR’s appellate expertise on board here with such well-written advocacy.  Our client, and many like him, I’m sure deeply appreciate your efforts on their behalf.

 

Best,

Tomo Takaki

Covington & Burling LLP

And, of course many, many thanks to our all-star 🌟 pro bono counsel Stefan C. Love and Tina Kuang of  GREINES, MARTIN, STEIN & RICHLAND LLP in Los Angeles. Couldn’t do it without you guys and your excellence in appellate advocacy!

Garland’s DOJ inexplicably defends a bad BIA decision, unworkable and slanted against immigrants! Why don’t we deserve better from the Biden Administration? 

Why are scarce pro bono resources being tied up on wasteful litigation when Garland could appoint a “better BIA” dedicated to due process, fundamental fairness, practical scholarship, and best practices? Why not get these cases right at the Immigration Court level? Why not free up pro bono resources to represent more respondents at Immigration Court hearings? What’s the excuse for Garland’s poor leadership and lack of vision on immigration, human rights, and racial justice?

Sure, there have been a few modest improvements at EOIR. But, it’s going to take much, much more than “tinkering around the edges” to reform a broken system that routinely treats individuals seeking justice unfairly, turns out bad law that creates larger problems for our legal system, and builds wasteful and uncontrolled backlogs. 

Accountability and bold progressive reforms don’t seem to be politically “in” these days.  But, they should be! Responsibility for the ongoing mess at EOIR and the corrosive effects on our justice system rests squarely on Garland and the Biden Administration.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-09-22

WENDY YOUNG @ KIND ON SAN ANTONIO TRAGEDY

Wendy Young
Wendy Young
President, Kids In Need of Defense (“KIND”)

 

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Dear Paul –

 

The entire team at Kids In Need of Defense is devastated by the news that at least 46 people were found dead in an abandoned tractor-trailer in Texas and more than a dozen others in the truck, including children, were taken to local hospitals for treatment. While we wait for more details to emerge, we wanted to share the following statement from our President, Wendy Young.

 

“As rising violence, natural disasters, and other threats force migrants to make impossible choices in their quest to find safety, our nation’s response cannot be to place families and children in further harm by indefinitely closing our borders to people seeking protection and ignoring the dangers they face in their home countries. This most recent tragedy and the disturbing rise in migrant deaths globally underscore the need to create safer pathways to protection for refugees. The Biden Administration should see this heartbreaking tragedy for what it is, a clarion call to abandon deeply flawed and dangerous immigration policies. It must reinstate humane and orderly processing, including reopening official ports of entry, hiring child welfare experts to care for and screen children, and provide fair adjudication of protection claims. It is time for the United States to regain its footing as a leader in the protection of migrant families and children.”

 

– The KIND Team

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

The key part of Wendy’s statement: “including reopening official ports of entry, hiring child welfare experts to care for and screen children, and provide fair adjudication of protection claims.” 

Denial rates for recent arrivals who manage to get hearings (see, e.g., Garland’s bogus “dedicated dockets,” — actually “dedicated to denial” and nothing else), many of them children and unrepresented, hover around 100%. They are “guided” by a “largely holdover,” anti-asylum BIA that lacks true asylum expertise and issues no positive precedents instructing judges on how to consistently and legally grant asylum. Consequently, there is no “fair adjudication” of asylum claims. That feeds the toxic nativist myth that nobody at the Southern Border is a “legitimate” asylum seeker. 

Unless and until Garland tosses the unqualified jurists at EOIR and replaces them with experts committed to due process, fundamental fairness, and correct, generous, practical precedents and proper applications of asylum law, the system will remain in failure. It’s a monumental mistake by the Biden Administration not to fix that which they absolutely control — starting with the Immigration Courts at EOIR.  

Refugees will continue to die at the hands of smugglers who were given control of our immigration system by the Trump Administration and remain empowered by Garland’s & Mayorkas’s  poor performance combined with biased, White Nationalist, Federal Judges appointed by Trump at all levels of our failing justice system!  

Today’s WashPost editorial described how far-right nativists have basically turned our immigration system over to smugglers:

The absence of any workable legal system that would admit migrants systematically, in numbers that would meet the U.S. labor market’s demand, is the original sin of the chaos at the border. That is Congress’s bipartisan failure, a symptom of systemic paralysis for many years. More recently, a public health rule has had the effect of incentivizing unauthorized migrants to make multiple attempts to cross the border. The rule, imposed by the Trump administration, retained for more than a year by the Biden administration, and now frozen in place by Republican judges, allows border authorities to swiftly expel migrants, but with no asylum hearings or criminal consequences for repeated attempts to cross the border. That has been a boon to migrant smuggling networks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/29/san-antonio-migrants-deaths-solutions/

I take issue with the term “bipartisan failure” in the legislative context. It’s true that the Dems inexplicably squandered a golden chance to fix many immigration problems when they had 60 votes in the Senate in Obama’s first two years. But, before and after that time, the failure to achieve realistic, humane, robust legal immigration reform legislation has been on the nativist right of the GOP that now dominates the party. Pretending otherwise is useless and dishonest.

Democrats have made numerous reasonable legislative proposals to bring Dreamers and other long-term productive residents of America out of the underground and into the legal mainstream of our society. Additionally, Veteran Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) has introduced the Refugee Protection Act. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/11/24/professor-karen-musalo-la-times-we-can-restore-legality-humanity-to-u-s-asylum-law-thats-why-the-refugee-protection-act-deserves-everyones-support/ Also, Chairman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has sponsored the “Real Courts Rule of Law Act of 2022.” https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/05/16/%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8fimmigration-courts-article-i-bill-passes-out-of-house-judiciary-on-party-line-vote/.

All of these proposals would have made long-overdue, common sense reforms to eliminate hopeless backlogs, benefit our economy, strengthen our legal system, and facilitate better allocation of Government resources. Yet, there has been scant GOP interest in improving the system. The GOP appears to believe that promoting a dysfunctional immigration system, denying human rights, and guaranteeing a large “extralegal population” available as scapegoats and exploitable labor best serves their parochial political interests.

And, speaking of useless and dishonest, here’s Leon Krausze, WashPost Global Opinions Contributor, on how the disingenuous performance of Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has helped fuel both resurgent Mexican migration and unnecessary deaths at or near the border. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/29/san-antonio-migrant-deaths-trailer-mexico-amlo/.

 The “good guys” — those committed to due process, fundamental fairness, individual rights, equal justice, scholarship, and human dignity — need to fight back at every level of our political and judicial systems — while they still exist! Because if the GOP has its way, that won’t be for long!🏴‍☠️

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-30-22

⚖️🗽SATURDAY MINI-ESSAY: ONE TINY STEP FOR MANKIND: But It’s Going To Take Much More Than Finally Replacing A Few Stunningly Unqualified Judges To Save EOIR!

Four Horsemen
Anti-Asylum Judges In Action! Factual distortions, ignoring evidence, and misapplications of the law are some of the “weapons” wielded by some EOIR judges to stop asylum seekers from getting the life-saving legal protections they deserve! Article III Courts can compound the problem by mis-using “deference” to avoid critical examination of the frequent abuses of humanity and the rule of law inflicted by this parody of a court system.
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

ONE TINY STEP FOR MANKIND: But It’s Going To Take Much More Than Finally Replacing A Few Stunningly Unqualified Judges To Save EOIR!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

June 25, 2022

Over the last few weeks the long overdue and essential process of weeding out poorly qualified Immigration Judges — still on “probation” at EOIR — finally got off to a very modest start. 

Imagine yourself as a refugee fighting for your life in an asylum system that’s already stacked against you and where the “judges” work for the Attorney General, part of the Executive Branch’s political and law enforcement apparatus. 

How would you like your life to be in the hands of (now) former Immigration Judge Matthew O’Brien. He was appointed in 2020 by former AG Bill Barr — a staunch defender of the Trump/Miller White Nationalist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant agenda.

Nativism A “Qualification?”

What made O’Brien supposedly “qualified” to be a “fair and impartial” administrative judge? 

Was it his enthusiastic support for the cruel, inhumane, illegal, and unconstitutional “policy” of family separation? See, e.g., https://www.fairus.org/issue/border-security/truth-about-zero-tolerance-and-family-separation-what-americans-need-know.

Thankfully, O’Brien will pass into history. But, the damage inflicted by the “official policy of child abuse” will adversely affect generations.

Or, perhaps it was O’Brien’s intimate connection with a leading nativist group. Immediately prior to his appointment, he was the “Research” Director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (“FAIR”) — a group renowned for sloppy to non-existent “research” and presenting racially-motivated myths and fear mongering as “facts.” 

Here’s a “debunking” of some of their bogus claims by Alex Nowrasteh @ CATO Institute — hardly a “liberal think tank!” https://www.cato.org/blog/fairs-fiscal-burden-illegal-immigration-study-fatally-flawed.

As noted by Nowrasteh, that’s not the only example of FAIR providing “bogus research papers” designed to “rev up hate” and demean the contributions of immigrants both documented and undocumented.

Indeed, recent legitimate scholarly research, based on facts and statistics rather than personal bias, refutes the anti-immigrant myths peddled by FAIR and other nativist shill groups. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/06/13/%f0%9f%93%9abooks-streets-of-gold-americas-untold-story-of-immigrant-success-by-ran-abramitzky-and-leah-boustan-reviewed-by-michael-luca-washpost/.

The Anti-Defamation League (“ADL”), one of America’s most venerable anti-hate, anti-misinformation groups, founded more than a century ago “To stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all,” had this to say about O’Brien’s former employer:

While the majority of the extreme anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. emanates from fringe groups like white supremacists and other nativists, there are a number of well-established anti-immigrant groups such as Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), NumbersUSA and The Remembrance Project which have secured a foothold in mainstream politics, and their members play a major role in promoting divisive, dangerous rhetoric and views that demonize immigrants. A number of these groups have attempted to position themselves as legitimate advocates against “illegal immigration” while using stereotypes, conspiracy theories and outright bigotry to disparage immigrants and hold them responsible for a number of societal ills.  A decade ago, most of this bigotry was directed primarily at Latino immigrants, but today, Muslim and Haitian immigrants, among others, are also targeted.

. . . .

There is a distinct anti-immigrant movement in this country, whose roots can be traced back to the 1970s. Groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) hope to influence general audiences with somewhat sanitized versions of their anti-immigrant views. In their worldview, non-citizens do not enjoy any status or privilege, and any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants or refugees is portrayed as a threat to current citizens. Like some other problematic movements, the anti-immigrant movement also has a more extreme wing, which includes border vigilante groups, as well as groups and individuals that seek to demonize immigrants by using racist, sometimes threatening language.

https://www.adl.org/resources/report/mainstreaming-hate-anti-immigrant-movement-us

Insurmountable Bias

So, perhaps, you say, once actually “on the bench,” Judge O’Brien was able to overcome his biases and knowledge gaps and function as a fair and impartial judicial officer. Nope! Not in the cards!

According to TRAC, O’Brien denied almost every asylum case he heard (96.4% denials). That was, astoundingly, nearly 40% above the average of his colleagues in Arlington and nearly 30% higher than the nationwide asylum denial rate of approximately 67%.

But, to put this in perspective, we have to recognize that this denial rate had already been intentionally and artificially increased by a expanded,”packed,” politicized, “weaponized,” and intentionally “dumbed down” EOIR during the Sessions/Barr era at DOJ. For example, approximately 10 years ago, more than 50% of asylum, cases were being granted annually nationwide, and approximately 75% of the asylum cases in Arlington were granted. See, e.g., https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/judge2014/00001WAS/index.html. And, even then, most asylum experts would have said that the nationwide grant rate was too low.

Gaming The System For Denial

It’s not that conditions in “refugee/asylum sending” countries have gotten better over the past decade! Far from it! The refugee situation today is as bad as it has ever been since WWII and getting worse every day. 

So, why would legal refugee admissions be plunging to record lows (despite a rather disingenuous “increase in the refugee ceiling” by the Biden Administration) and asylum denials up dramatically over the past decade? 

It has little or nothing to do with asylum law or the realities of the worldwide refugee flow, particularly from Latin American and Caribbean countries. No, it has to do with an intentional move, started under Bush II, tolerated or somewhat encouraged in the Obama Administration, but greatly accelerated during the Trump-era, to “kneecap” the legal refugee and asylum processing programs. Indeed, the “near zeroing-out” of refugee and asylum admissions and the illegal replacement of Asylum Officers by totally unqualified CBP Agents by the Trump Administration are two of the most egregious examples. 

This was “complimented” by an intentional move to weaponize the Immigration Courts at EOIR as a tool of Stephen Miller’s White Nationalist immigration enforcement regime. The number of Immigration Judges doubled, hiring was expedited using an opaque and intentionally restrictive process, and most new appointees were from the ranks of prosecutors — some with little or no experience in asylum law. Even conservative commentators like Nolan Rappaport at The Hill expressed grave concerns about the problematic qualifications of many of the new hires.  See, e.g.https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/02/05/no-expertise-necessary-at-the-new-eoir-immigration-judges-no-longer-need-to-demonstrate-immigration-experience-just-a-willingness-to-send-migrants-to-potential/.

Ironically, the EOIR backlog tripled. Under the “maliciously incompetent management” of the Trump group at DOJ, more judges actually meant more backlog! How is that giving taxpayers “value” for their money?

Some of the new judges, like O’Brien and some of the Immigration Judges “elevated” to the BIA, were appointed specifically because of their established records of anti-asylum bias, rude treatment of attorneys, and dehumanizing treatment of asylum seekers and other migrants. 

“Ignorance And Contempt”

It’s not like O’Brien was just your “garden variety” “conservative jurist.”  (I’ve actually worked with many of the latter over the years). No, he was notorious for his lack of scholarship, rudeness, and bias!

Here are a few of the comments he received on “RateYourJudge.com:”

      • “Rarely grants cases. No knowledge of the law, only there to deny cases. He needs to be removed.”

    • “Biased judge, hates immigrants and even kids of immigrants.”
    • “Incompetent.”
    • “One of the most condescending and self-righteous judges I have had the displeasure to hear. His word choice and tone left absolutely no doubt that he considered the Respondent to be beneath his notice, even to the point of referring to her as “the female Respondent” and to her domestic partner as a “paramour”. I have heard other judges’ oral opinions on very similar sets of facts, and they were accomplished in a fifth of the time with no loss of dignity to anyone.”
    • “This guy’s ignorance about immigration law and contempt for the people who appear before him is staggering. The way he threatens lawyers is reprehensible. EOIR is a disgrace.”
    • “Horrible human being with no business being on the bench. Shame on EOIR for allowing him to continue adjudicating cases.”
    • “Late, abusive, made up his mind before the case even started, frequently interrupted testimony, yelled at immigrants and their lawyer, and refused to listen to anything we said. Ignorant of the law and facts of the case. He should go back to directing hate groups.”
    • “If I could give 0 stars I would.”

https://www.ratemyimmigrationjudge.com/listing/hon-matthew-j-obrien-immigration-judge-arlington-immigration-court/

To be fair:

  • Among the stream of negative comments there were three “positive” comments about O’Brien;
  • Most of the comments both positive and negative were “anonymous” or apparent user “pseudonyms;”
  • RateMyImmigrationJudge” is neither comprehensive nor transparent.

Flunking the “Gold Standard”

So, was O’Brien really as horrible as most experts say? Let’s do another type of “reality check.” 

Among the other IJs at the Arlington Immigration Court, two stand out as widely respected expert jurists who have served for decades across Administrations of both parties. Judge John Milo Bryant was first appointed as an Immigration Judge in 1987 under the Reagan Administration. Judge Lawrence Owen Burman was appointed in 1998 under the Clinton Administration. With 66 years of judicial service between them, they would be considered more or less the “gold standard” for well-qualified, subject matter expert, fair and impartial Immigration Judges.

Significantly, according to the last TRAC report, O’Brien’s asylum grant rate of 3,6% was  approximately 1/15th of Judge Bryant’s and approximately 1/22 of Judge Burman’s. https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/judgereports/. Case closed! O’Brien should never have been on a bench where asylum seekers lives were at stake and expertise and fairness are supposed to be job requirements!

“Worse Than O’Brien”

What about now former Arlington Immigration Judge David White who was removed at the same time as O’Brien? Apparently, during his relatively short tenure (appointed by Barr in 2020), White was unable to deny enough asylum to qualify for TRAC’s system (100 decisions minimum). 

Yet, he made an indelible impression on those “sentenced” to appear before him. Here are comments from RateMyImmigrtionJudge.com:

    • “This judge is absolutely terrible. Unfair and biased. He is only here to deny asylum cases regardless of what the person has been through. Completely misstates the facts, doesn’t know the law so goes after credibility (using those misstated facts) as an excuse to say there’s no past persecution. Absolute disgrace.”

    • “Worst judge ever. The clerks at the Immigration Court told the private bar attorneys that they have NEVER seen this judge approve an asylum case. Not one. They have running bets and jokes about him, but he never grants. He writes the denial during the trial instead of listening to the person testify. He is insulting and rude and not at all compassionate about trauma.”

    • “This is the worst immigration judge in Arlington, hands down. He’s even worse than O’Brien, and O’Brien is an former hate-group director.”

    • “Terrible immigration judge. Had his mind made up well before our hearing. Came in with a prewritten denial that misstated the law. Was rude and dismissive about my client’s trauma.”

Wow! Worse than O’Brien. That’s quite an achievement.

GOP Court Packing

Fact is, the overt politicization, “weaponization,” and “dumbing down” of the Immigration Courts goes back nearly two decades to AG John Ashcroft and the Bush II Administration. Ashcroft reduced the size of the BIA as a gimmick to “purge” the supposedly “liberal” judges — those, including me, who voted to uphold the legal rights of migrants against government overreach. In other words, our “transgression” was to stand up for due process and the individual rights of immigrants — actually “our job” as properly defined.

And, the downward spiral has continued. The DOJ Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) actually confirmed some of the Bush II improper Immigration Judge hires. But, they avoided dealing with the “BIA purge” that got the ball rolling downhill at EOIR! The GOP has been much more skillful than Dems in reshaping the Immigration Courts to their liking.

During the Trump Administration, putting clearly unqualified IJs who were some of rudest highest denying in America on the BIA was certainly “packing” and “stacking” EOIR against legitimate asylum seekers. Again, however, the OIG failed to “seal the deal” regarding this outrageous conduct that has undermined our entire justice system, fed uncontrollable backlog, and cost human lives that should and could have been saved. 

Trump’s “court packing scheme” was no “small potatoes” matter, even if some in the Biden Administration are willfully blind to the continuing human rights and due process disaster at EOIR.

Removing two of the most glaringly unqualified Barr appointees in Arlington is a very modest step by AG Garland in the right direction. But, it’s going to take more, much more, decisive action to clean out the unqualified and the deadwood, bring in true expertise and judicial quality, and restore even a modicum of legitimacy and integrity at EOIR.

Reactionaries’ Predictably Absurdist Reaction 

Meanwhile, even this long overdue, well justified, and all too minimal change at EOIR produced totally absurdist reactions from O’Brien and fellow nativists (including some still “hiding out in plain sight” at DOJ) which were picked up by the Washington Times (of course). Don’t believe a word of it!

To understand what really happened and how small this step really was, get the truth in this analysis from Media Matters.  https://www.mediamatters.org/washington-times/washington-times-pushes-absurd-claim-biden-court-packing-immigration-courts

Tip Of The Iceberg

The removal of guys like O’Brien and White — who never had any business being placed in “quasi-judicial” positions where they exercised life or death authority over refugees of color whose humanity and legal rights they refused to recognize, is just a beginning. The ethical, competence, and judicial attitude rot at EOIR goes much deeper. 

Garland has been dilatory in “cleaning house” at EOIR. Vulnerable individuals who were wrongly rejected rather than properly protected have needlessly suffered, and probably even died, as a result. Poor Immigration Judging and lack of effective, correct, courageous, positive asylum guidance by the BIA has helped fuel a human rights disaster and rule of law collapse at the border!

Perhaps, at long last, Garland has slowly started fixing the unconscionable and unnecessary dysfunction and  intentionally ingrained institutional bias at EOIR. But, I’ll believe it when I see it!

Keep Up The Pressure

In the meantime, it’s critical that NDPA members: 1) keep applying for EOIR judgeships; and 2) ratchet up the pressure and demand the removal of all unqualified Immigration Judges and Appellate Immigration Judges who are undermining sound scholarship, due process, fundamental fairness, and human dignity at EOIR!

Human rights matter! Individual rights matter! Immigrants’ rights matter! Good judges matter!

Today, we are surrounded by too many bad judges, at all levels of our justice system, who reject the first three in favor of warped far-right ideologies, dangerous myths, and disregard for human dignity. The existential battle to get good judges into our system has begun. And, Immigration Courts are the primary theater of action! 

Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-25-22