Nick Miroff reports in the WashPost:
. . . .
The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the immigration court system run by the Justice Department, did not respond to requests for comment, because its public affairs staff has been furloughed.
But Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, the union that represents the country’s approximately 400 judges, said the impact of the disruption has been “immense.”
Immigration judges all received furlough notices on Dec. 26, she said, but many have since been instructed to return to court to adjudicate cases of detainees in immigration custody. The judges are also working without pay.
Some of those judges have their calendars booked three to four years in advance because of the backlog of cases, Tabaddor said, so hearings that have been canceled in recent days cannot be rescheduled until 2021 or beyond.
“The irony is not lost on us,” Tabaddor said, “that the immigration court is shut down over immigration.”
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Read Nick’s complete report at the link.
This confirms what many have been saying all along: Trump neither knows nor cares about effective immigration enforcement. No, he’s all about blowing racist “dog whistles” for the benefit of a White Nationalist “base.”
I remember how previous shutdowns were the beginning of the “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” that has so damaged our Immigration Courts and artificially jacked up the backlog. First, the politicians show their disdain for the Government they are supposed to be running and the civil servants who are actually doing the work of that Government. Then the politicos at DOJ show their disrespect by designating most Immigration Court functions as “nonessential.” Then, when work resumes, EOIR basically says “no heroics, just put all the cancelled cases at the end of the docket.” So much for urgency, priorities, Due Process, and respect.
In fact, an operating, well-staffed, highly professional Immigration Court with expertise in asylum and other complex provisions of immigration law and an unswerving commitment to enforcement of Due Process for all individuals within its jurisdiction is essential for effective immigration enforcement. Indeed, this was “at least one central reason” for the removal of the Immigration Courts from the “Legacy INS” and the establishment of EOIR as a separate quasi-judicial entity within the DOJ during the Reagan Administration.
For a time, EOIR made substantial progress toward professionalism and judicial independence until the advent of Attorney General John Ashcroft and his notorious nativist sidekick Kris Kobach in 2001. Thereafter, it’s been pretty much straight downhill, starting with Ashcroft’s trashing of the BIA and continuing through Sessions’s gross mismanagement and overt attacks on judicial independence, due process, and substantive asylum law.
Today, the Immigration Court system is in shambles, unable to provide either consistent fairness and Due Process to respondents or timely removal orders for those who might be legitimate enforcement priorities for the DHS. The BIA fails to provide true deliberation, commitment to Due Process, and expertise, particularly in the areas of asylum, CAT, and the provisions for removal of certain criminals. This, in turn, erodes deference and debilitates efficient review from the “real” Article III Courts.
The Trump Administration has made a complete hash out of the immigration laws. However, at some point, reasonable, responsible leadership will return to the political scene. When it does, an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court must be at or near the top of the legislative agenda.
Until then, the dysfunction will increase unless and until the Article IIIs figure out and impose a temporary fix. Otherwise, they are likely to have little if any judicial time to devote to anything other than the chaos thrust upon them by the rapidly failing Immigration Court system.
PWS
01-05-19