EOIR SHAKEUP: Chief Immigration Judge, Deputy Director, General Counsel Ousted!
By Paul Wickham Schmidt for Immigrationcourtside.com
Alexandria, VA, June 8, 2019. The nation’s totally dysfunctional and highly politicized Immigration Court System, known as the Executive Office For Immigraton Review (“EOIR”), has ousted three of its top career senior executives, according to a report filed yesterday by Nicole Narea of Law360. Here’s a link to Narea’s story for those with Law360 access. https://www.law360.com/articles/1166974/three-senior-eoir-officials-to-step-down.
Evidently, Chief Immigration Judge MaryBeth T. Keller, General Counsel Jean King, and Deputy Director Katherine H. Reilly all “got the boot” late this week. They are career civil servants. Keller and King were “holdovers” from the prior Administration, while Reilly was appointed to her recent position by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Piecing together bits from anonymous sources, it’s likely that the three clashed with EOIR Director James McHenry and Department of Justice (“DOJ”) politicos over some of the more extreme aspects of the Administration’s “master plan” to demean and degrade Immigration Judges and Appellate Immigraton Judges at the Board of Immigration Appeals, strip them of the last vestiges of judicial independence and docket control, and return the Immigration Courts to their pre-EOIR status as perceived appendages of DHS (then INS) enforcement.
Keller supposedly “retired,” an unusual move given her age group and that senior executives are the civil service equivalent of brigadier generals. King was transferred to the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (OCAHO”), long known as the “Siberia of EOIR” and a repository for prior senior executives who had fallen out of favor with “EOIR Management” and their DOJ “handlers.” Reilly reportedly transferred to a senior executive position with the U.S. Postal Service (“USPS”), another surprising move for a top senior executive attorney at the DOJ.
Predictably, there has been no official announcement from EOIR or the DOJ, nor have any replacements been named. Meanwhile, the backlog mushrooms, morale sinks further, conditions continue to deteriorate, and due process and fundamental fairness are mocked every day in the EOIR “courts” and also by life-tenured Article III Judges who are willing to “rubber stamp” the results of this patently illegal and unjust system.
Keller, King, and Reilly have “escaped from the circus.” But, hopefully there someday will be accountability for those throughout government and the Article III Courts who continue to participate in, enable, and further this ongoing farce and the resulting gross perversion of American law and human values.
EOIR’s three highest ranking women are ousted. All of the men – including the totally inept EOIR director, BIA chair and vice-chair – remain.
If MaryBeth Keller is interested, there is this Round Table of Former Immigration Judges…
Yes, Judge Keller is now eligible to join the “good guys.” I actually don’t think that being accused of misogyny is a concern of this Administration or the DOJ. It seems to be a recurring theme.
“Remain in Mexico” is already causing “ADR” in San Diego where it has been incompetently implemented by DHS without any consultation with judges. Just think of what will happen at EOIR once it is mindlessly “expanded” without planning, coordination, or fixing the current problems.
And as the shoddy work product starts to pile up in the 9th Circuit and the 5th Circuit, and the dead bodies pile up in Mexico, even tone deaf and complicit Article III Appellate Judges (like the “Three-Ostrich Panel” of the 9th Circuit responsible for the current mess) might start showing some awareness of the statute and the Due Process Clause of the Constitution. One could wonder how “the Ostriches” overlooked little things like right to counsel, right to effective notice, and right to a reasonable opportunity to prepare and present a claim, all of which have been abridged or effectively eliminated by the DHS implementation. Not to mention the attorneys hassled by DHS at the border upon returning from seeing clients in Mexico. How does this happen?
Always a possibility that even Article IIIs will take time to read the statute and the Constitution next time around, rather than speaking in opaque legal gibberish. Law students understand exactly what is happening here. I get asked how DHS and EOIR get away with it. There is no good answer. Maybe the judges just stopped thinking. Perhaps, that’s what life tenure does to folks who have insulated themselves from “having any skin in the game.”
PWS
06-08-19