SPECIAL: “ROUNDTABLE OF FORMER IMMIGRATION JUDGES” BLASTS EOIR DIRECTOR McHENRY FOR SPREADING LIES & MISREPRESENTATIONS, POLITICAL PANDERING, UNDERMINING JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE, AND GROSS DERELICTION OF DUTY TO PROTECT DUE PROCESS! — “The time for you to renew the agency mission is long overdue. Your job is to insulate the agency from political influences from the Department of Justice and beyond. Nothing short of judicial independence, neutrality, and fairness is acceptable for courts that make life and death determinations such as those which arise in immigration claims.” Today’s EOIR Is A Massive Fraud That Must Be Replaced With Real Courts Committed To Providing Justice To All!

https://www.naij-usa.org/news/setting-the-record-straight

Judge Jeffrey S. Chase, Leader of the Roundtable of Former Immigration Judges

James McHenry, Director
Executive Office for Immigration Review 5107 Leesburg Pike, 26th Floor
Falls Church, VA 22041
Re: EOIR “Myth vs. Fact” memo Mr. McHenry:
As former Immigration Judges and BIA Board Members, we write to state our offense at EOIR’s recently issued memo purporting to present imagined “myths” and wildly inaccurate and mis- leading information labeled as “fact.” The issuance of such a document can only be viewed as political pandering, at the expense of public faith in the immigration courts you oversee.
Even if anything contained in the memo is actually correct, it is simply not EOIR’s place to be issuing such a document. EOIR’s function is to protect the independence and integrity of the hundreds of judges who sit in its Immigration Courts, on the BIA, and within OCAHO.
American courts do not issue propaganda implying that those whose cases it rules on for the most part have invalid claims; that the participation of lawyers in its hearings provides no real value and has no impact on outcome; that the government’s own program to assist litigants in obtaining legal representation is a waste of taxpayer money; or that those unable to surmount the government-created obstacles to filing asylum applications are somehow guilty of deceit. Such statements indicate a bias which is absolutely unacceptable and, frankly, shocking.
We all had the honor of serving as judges within EOIR. Many of us remember when EOIR’s stated vision was “through teamwork and innovation, [to] be the world’s best administrative tri- bunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” We remember a time when EOIR’s lead- ership took that mission seriously, and strove to achieve it.
The time for you to renew the agency mission is long overdue. Your job is to insulate the agency from political influences from the Department of Justice and beyond. Nothing short of judicial independence, neutrality, and fairness is acceptable for courts that make life and death determinations such as those which arise in immigration claims.
May 13, 2019

Hon. Steven Abrams, Immigration Judge, New York, Varick St., and Queens Wackenhut Detention Center, 1997-2013
Hon. Sarah M. Burr, Assistant Chief Immigration Judge and Immigration Judge, New York, 1994-2012
Hon. Esmerelda Cabrera, Immigration Judge, New York, Newark, and Elizabeth, NJ, 1994-2005 Hon. Teofilo Chapa, Immigration Judge, Miami, 1995-2018
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase, Immigration Judge, New York, 1995-2007
Hon. George T. Chew, Immigration Judge, New York, 1995-2017
Hon. Bruce J. Einhorn, Immigration Judge, Los Angeles, 1990-2007 Hon. Cecelia M. Espenoza, Board Member, BIA, 2000-2003
Hon. Noel Ferris, Immigration Judge, New York, 1994-2013
Hon. John F. Gossart, Jr., Immigration Judge, Baltimore, 1982-2013 Hon. Miriam Hayward, Immigration Judge, San Francisco, 1997-2018 Hon. Rebecca Jamil, Immigration Judge, San Francisco, 2016-2018 Hon. William P. Joyce, Immigration Judge, Boston, 1996-2002
Hon. Carol King, Immigration Judge, San Francisco, 1995-2017
Hon. Elizabeth A. Lamb, Immigration Judge, New York, 1995-2018
Hon. Donn L. Livingston, Immigration Judge, New York and Denver, 1995-2018 Hon. Margaret McManus, Immigration Judge, New York, 1991 – 2018
Hon. Charles Pazar, Immigration Judge, Memphis, 1998-2017
Hon. Laura Ramirez, Immigration Judge, 1997-2018
Hon. John W. Richardson, Immigration Judge, Phoenix, 1990-2018
Hon. Lory D. Rosenberg, Board Member, BIA, 1995 – 2002.
Hon. Susan G. Roy, Immigration Judge, Newark, 2008-2010.

Paul W. Schmidt, Chairman and Board Member, BIA, 1995 – 2003; Immigration Judge, Arlington, 2003-2016.
Hon. Denise Slavin, Immigration Judge, Miami, Krome, and Baltimore, 1995-2019 Hon. Ilyce Shugall, Immigration Judge, San Francisco, 2017-2019
Hon. Andrea Hawkins Sloan, Immigration Judge, Portland, 2010 – 2017
Hon. Polly A. Webber, Immigration Judge, San Francisco, 1995-2017

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Right on!  EOIR, which has become an spreader of lies and false marratives, and which has abandoned its due process focused mission, needs to be eliminated. More will be coming on the disgusting “Lie Sheet” put out by EOIR last week. EOIR “Management,” which has demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt its inability to competently administer the Immigration Court system, is also a morass of intellectual dishonesty and political toadyism. What a waste of taxpayer money and public trust!

 

PWS

05-12-19

 

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