The Washington Post writes:
“Trump’s spending blueprint released Thursday is light on specifics, but makes clear that his campaign pledge to confront illegal immigration is a top priority. Even as he plans to cut the Justice Department’s budget by more than $1 billion, Trump is asking for hundreds of millions of dollars to hire 60 federal prosecutors and 40 deputy U.S. Marshals to focus on border cases.
He also wants to boost immigration courts by $80 million to pay for 75 additional teams of judges. That would speed up removal proceedings for people in the United States illegally and address a backlog of more than 540,000 pending cases. The plan foreshadows a greater emphasis on prosecuting people who cross the border illegally, those who come back after being deported, and anyone tied to human and drug smuggling.
Trump’s proposal also calls for adding $1.5 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s budget to find, detain and deport immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, along with more than $300 million to hire 500 new Border Patrol agents and 1,000 immigration agents.
The president’s budget is the first step in a lengthy process of funding government agencies, and it’s not clear which of Trump’s priorities will be approved by Congress.”
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My take:
Undoubtedly, the Immigration Court needs more Immigration Judges. On the positive side:
The Administration recognizes the need;
By referring to “teams” it appears that the Administration recognizes that judges can’t function without support, space, computers, etc.
On the negative side:
Given EOIR’s recent past performance, it could take the rest of the Administration to fill these new positions and expand Immigration Court facilities to accommodate the new judges. There currently are approximately 70 vacant IJ positions, most from the last Congressional increase;
There are likely to be a fair number of judicial retirements, compounding the hiring problems;
What kind of Immigration Judges would Sessions hire? He has never shown much respect for due process, fairness, or the rights of migrants. So, if he hires “Immigration Judges in his own image,” as he is legally entitled to do, that’s going to be a “due process disaster” for individuals seeking justice in Immigration Court;
Even with 449 fully trained judges on the bench, it would take nearly 1.6 years just to adjudicate currently pending cases. Piling more “priority” cases on top without any reasonable plan for deciding the currently pending cases is likely just to add to the backlogs and waiting times and further compromise due process and justice. It will undoubtedly result in more “aimless docket reshuffling” (“ADR”) which expends effort without producing any final dispositions.
There is no mention of needed reforms in Immigration Court structure, administration, and technology. Without those needed reforms, more judicial positions are unlikely to solve the Immigration Court’s deep existing problems in delivering due process and justice in a timely fashion.
Meanwhile, some sources have reported that existing Immigration Judges have been asked to be available for possible details outside of their “home” courts for up to 10 months of the year. As I have pointed out before, each time a sitting Immigration Judge is detailed, he or she leaves behind a full docket of cases which must be rescheduled.
Ordinarily, this results in cases scheduled for the near future being “reset” to dates at the end of overcrowded dockets, usually several years in the future. Plus, every act of mass rescheduling creates staff burdens that result in defective notices or other important work (such as answering phones, logging in new cases, or filing briefs and motions for upcoming cases) being put on hold.
PWS
03/16/17