https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1112036/download
- Bureaucrats at Falls Church “Headquarters,” who are beholden to DOJ politicos, are setting the local Immigration Court docket priorities to the exclusion of sitting Immigration Judges, Respondents’ Counsel, NGOs and the members of the public who actually use the system;
- But one party, the DHS, is effectively being given unilateral authority to establish the Immigration Courts’ “docket priorities;”
- DHS also unilaterally decides which cases will be designated as “family units” and therefore “prioritized;”
- EOIR notes that the prioritization of certain “aliens with children” cases between 2014 and 2017, also at the behest of DHS, was a MASSIVE failure that actually decreased productivity and significantly accelerated the backlog (what I refer to as “Aimless Docket Reshuffling”);
- Nevertheless, EOIR inexplicably decides to “double down” on a known failure just because their “partners” (Sessions’s term) at DHS essentially have ordered them to do so;
- Why “Baltimore, but not Arlington;” “San Francisco, but not San Diego,” “Denver, but not Dallas,” etc.?
- “EOIR remains committed to the timely completion of all cases consistent with due process” — Really?
- Lead by enforcement guru Jeff Sessions and DHS, the Trump Administration has intentionally “artificially jacked” the “backlog” to over 1.1 million cases;
- If the approximately 350 currently authorized Immigration Judges were all on board and each met their 700 case “quota,” the Immigration Court could complete only about 250,000 cases per year;
- If no additional cases were filed, and none of the judges left, the pending cases wouldn’t be completed until the latter half of 2023;
- But of course, under the Trump Administration’s mismanaged and totally undisciplined enforcement program, new cases will be piled into the system without regard to its capacity and judges will continue to burn out and leave;
- So, effectively, there is no cogent program for getting the backlog under control — ever;
- What’s missing from this bureaucratic never-never land is any sense of fairness, competence, or meaningful participation by those most affected by the backlogs and “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and who possess the most expertise at arranging dockets for fairness and efficiency: sitting Immigration Judges, Respondent’s Counsel, NGOs, and respondents themselves (along, of course, with the ICE Chief Counsel unencumbered by the “DHS Enforcement Wackos“);
- Also glaringly absent: any requirement that the DHS justify their requests to prioritize the dockets or exercise any responsible “prosecutorial discretion” to take “lower priority ” cases off the dockets;
- A “no-brainer” in a functioning independent court system would be requiring DHS to remove one (or more) “low priority” cases for each case they wish the court to “prioritize” or otherwise move ahead of other, older pending cases.
The rapidly failing and unfair system needs aggressive oversight and monitoring — from Congress (read the House) and the Article III Courts!
Ultimately, it will continue its “death spiral” until both the EOIR bureaucracy and the Administration politicos who abuse it are permanently removed from the equation and an independent court, run by sitting judges with assistance from other court management professionals with meaningful public input is established. A strong, independent, efficient, unbiased U.S. Immigration Court will also help ICE carry out its law enforcement mission in a professional, legal, non-discriminatory, de-politicized, and humane manner, perhaps bringing enough rationality to the system to save that beleaguered agency from its critics.
PWS
11-18-18
Paul,
As usual, you have hit the nail on the head. In my last few years at EOIR, my mantra was “embrace the implosion” – it was the only way I could survive working in an unworkable system. I thought that, since EOIR seemed incapable of or unwilling to impose reasonable management of cases, resource the court properly or provide any reasonable support to courtroom personnel, an implosion (which seemed inevitable even then) was the only way that reform would come. So, while working as hard as I could, this mantra helped me manage the discouragement that was inevitable working under that system.
But now I have a new fear. I had assumed that an implosion of the current system would open the way for reform involving a more independent, due-process oriented system (preferably an Article 1 court). But considering the rhetoric and actions of this administration, my fear is that they actually want the system to implode so that they can replace it with an enforcement-only system lacking any hearing process or due process at all. We are going to have to be very vigilant about what happens when this system falls apart (as it is bound to do at this rate).
Carol
Absolutely, Carol!
The scheme here seems to be to intentionally break the law and the system in so many ways to convince Congress and the voters that following the Constitution and Due Process is too expensive and impractical. Therefore, almost everyone should be subject to “summary removal” at the whim of DHS. Of course, even then DHS would never be able to remove more than a small fraction of the 11 million or so already here. But, it would promote an authoritarian White Nationalist police state that will spread terror near and wide. And, undoubtedly, many “US citizens of color” would be “mistakenly caught” in the dragnet and removed to “wherever.” It’s how democratic republics disintegrate.
Pretty scary stuff from some pretty scary and unprincipled Dudes masquerading as a political party.
PWS
11-18-18