Kouadio v. Decker, USDC SDNY, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, 12-27-18
KEY QUOTE:
“This nation prides itself on its humanity and openness with which it treats those who seek refuge at its gates. By contrast, the autocracies of the world have been marked by harsh regimes of exclusion and detention. Our notions of due process nourish the former spirit and brace us against the latter. The statutory framework governing those who seek refuge, and its provisions for detention, cannot be extended to deny all right to bail.”
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Check out the full opinion. One interesting aspect concerns the administrative history. Over his 34 months of detention, the respondent’s asylum hearing was continued at least nine times. At least six of those continuances were caused by DHS or EOIR for a variety of mostly avoidable reasons including failure to have the correct interpreter, failure to produce the respondent, and insufficient time to complete the hearing. By contrast, the respondent’s conginuances were all well justified and directly related to Due Process — basically getting an attorney and sufficient time to prepare his case.
Remember, this was supposedly a “priority detained” case. Yet this grotesquely mismanaged parody of a court system bumbled along like an episode of the Keystone Cops.
This is an example of the “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” that has become chronic in Immigration Court. Yet, instead of placing primary blame where it squarely belongs on DHS and DOJ, and making good faith attempts to solve the problems they created, corrupt officials like Sessions and Nielsen tried to shift the blame to the victims: the respondents and their attorneys and often the Immigration Judges themselves.
We need an independent Article I Immigration Court under honest, competent, impartial, apolitical, professional judicial administration. And, we need an Immigration Court that will treat both parties fairly and equally, rather than treating DHS as a “partner” and the “boss” and the respondents and their attorneys as “enemies.”
PWS
12-29-18