Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2022/7/25/correcting-course
Blog Archive Press and Interviews Calendar Contact
Correcting Course?
On July 21, we were treated to the news that our nation’s immigration courts will no longer be run by a chief judge specifically installed by the prior administration as part of its plan to undermine those courts’ independence and fairness. The fact that this development took a year and a half to occur, evoked surprise, and was met with accusations of wrongdoing and threats to investigate from conservative corners that read as parody says a lot about the present state of those courts.
The Chief Immigration Judge should be in charge of the hiring and training of judges, and in setting policy for the courts. The holder of that title is the person most responsible for creating the environment in which the Immigration Courts function. Unfortunately, the choice to fill this position has too often been an afterthought. And the Trump Administration succeeded in stripping the office of pretty much all authority; one of its appointees was effectively reduced to internally disclaiming “it wasn’t my decision” in response to every controversial directive issued from his office.
It is therefore extremely important for the Biden Administration to give much thought to its next appointee, and in doing so, clearly define what the position is meant to be. And although that appointee serves at the will of the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, formerly a distinguished circuit court judge, is particularly qualified to understand the need for a strongly independent Chief Immigration Judge willing to push back against threats to due process. He should thus afford his choice for the position the authority to do just that. Because when courts fulfill their proper function of providing a fair reading of the law and protecting against government error and overreach, we all benefit.
It is important to note that no Chief Immigration Judge has been chosen from the ranks of immigration law scholars. I think this is partly because unlike their counterparts at the B.I.A., the Chief Immigration Judge is not actively involved in deciding cases; theirs is an administrative job. However, it is high time for that view to change. Now would be an ideal opportunity to appoint someone to the position who knows the law at least as well as the judges they will oversee.
Among other reasons, that degree of knowledge is necessary to allow a chief judge to differentiate between legitimate actions taken by judges based on their good faith interpretations of the law, and alternatively false justifications disguised as legal reasoning offered by those whose real goal is to carry out a particular agenda. The ability to clearly articulate the difference is needed to protect the former, eliminate the latter, and rebut the inevitable claims of political motivation in response to such actions.
As a brief recap, under the Trump Administration, we saw plenty of examples of improper political motive. For instance, the Immigration Courts issued not one but two broadsheets of anti-immigrant propaganda unironically titled “Myths vs. Facts” (in spite of being devoid of the latter). In addition, a highly respected Immigration Judge was wrongly chastised for correctly doing his job because his concern for the due process of the non-citizen was not shared by the then powers that be. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the judicial equivalent of a “hit man” was dispatched from D.C. to Philadelphia for the sole purpose of entering an order of deportation in that case, due process concerns be damned. The entire exercise was clearly intended as a message to other judges of the consequences of acting as anything other than a rubber stamp.
When in spite of such warnings, many Immigration Judges continued to grant asylum claims because the correct application of the law required it, the Trump Administration hired new and unqualified judges who would place loyalty to its nativist agenda above all. One of those hires had actually written a shockingly insulting article only months before his appointment, labeling as “rebels without a clue” all of his soon-to-be colleagues who had issued scholarly, well-reasoned opinions granting asylum to female victims of domestic violence. The author demonstrated what should have been a disqualifying lack of knowledge in broadly characterizing all such claims as falling outside the scope of our asylum laws, and in further accusing more learned judges who concluded otherwise of “grossly exceeding their authority” and engaging in a “gross violation of legal ethics.”
What was needed then was a Chief Immigration Judge willing to say “over my dead body” to these hirings and other abusive actions. It is greatly hoped that the next chief judge will possess both the integrity and authority to do just that, with the knowledge that higher-ups within the agency will stand behind their decisions.
And since we won’t always have a former Circuit Court judge serving as Attorney General, it might be worthwhile while we do to ask for regulations (or at least some form of guidance from above) clarifying what will henceforth be expected of those filling the position, and calling on all personnel within the Department of Justice to encourage and support the independence of their colleagues charged with carrying out judicial functions.
Copyright 2022 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.
JULY 25, 2022
Reprinted by permission.
***************************
Very timely and “spot on,” Sir Jeffrey!
Why The Chief Immigration Judge & BIA Chair Must Be “Working Judges” — No More “JINOS” (“Judges In Name Only”)!
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
July 26, 2022
Time (actually “long past time”) for dynamic change! As Chief IJ, we need an “intellectual powerhouse” who is a nationally recognized expert in immigration, human rights, constitutional law, equal justice, racial justice, and an acknowledged, widely-respected intellectual leader with the guts and the “juice” to stand up to bureaucratic meddling and political interference. That’s in addition to having a “big picture” outlook and some actual experience in legal administration.
One additional key change I would make: The Chief Immigration Judge should also function as a “working judge” hearing and deciding at least some cases on a regular basis! There is no substitute for “actual time on the bench” for understanding the Immigration Judge’s proper role.
It puts the CJ in touch with both the DHS Counsel and the private bar on a regular basis. It also exposes BS and nonsense that’s going on in the Immigration Court system. A huge difference exists between “policy and procedural memos issued in a vacuum” from “on high” and actually having to apply them on a daily basis.
Indeed, a “sitting Chief Judge” wouldn’t have to “study” or ask for “reports” on the problems; she would know first-hand what they are from actual experience. Also, the CJ must get out in person and see what’s happening in the various courts, rather than taking an occasional “official tour” where everything tends to be a “sanitized show & tell.” An engaged Chief Judge could be “proactive rather than reactive.”
Surprising what you can find out by actually getting out of the “Executive Suites” in the Skyline Tower in Falls Church and poking around the “retail level” of the system you are administering! There is no better way of doing that than actually taking the bench and dispensing some justice!
How do I know? Well, during my six-year stint as BIA Chair (1995-2001) I was a “working appellate judge” in addition to be an engaged administrator of a dynamically growing and changing organization. I also served as a Senior Executive at EOIR and was never reticent about expressing my views on overall agency management and EOIR’s sometimes stormy relationship with other parts of the DOJ. At one point, I had the unenviable task, along with the then General Counsel of EOIR, of “barring” the then-Director from attending an en banc conference at which cases were to be discussed.
Upon appointment, from private practice, I was one of only four “permanent” appellate judges then on the BIA. By the time I stepped down in 2001, there were more than 20 appellate judges, the staff had more than doubled, a new management structure was in place, a Clerk’s Office had been created, the Virtual Law Library established, precedents were written and formatted differently, and numerous other changes had been made. Sadly, many of the positives have been erased over the past two decades through a combination of political meddling from DOJ and subservient “management” at EOIR.
I also sat and voted on nearly every one of the more than 200 precedent decisions issued during my tenure. I authored some of them, including the landmark decision Matter of Kasinga, recognizing female genital mutation (“FGM”) as persecution for the first time.
Additionally, I sat on three-member panels, sometimes as a “regular,” other times filling in for those who were out of the office. I took panels “on the road” to hear oral arguments across the U.S. (something now “prohibited” by the mindless “Ashcroft reforms” that accompanied his “purge” of the BIA in ‘02-03”) and to meet with the local judges, bar, and INS Counsel. It was “due process in action” — a real-life, open, accessible demonstration of how “collegial justice” should work! It put a much-needed and now totally absent “human face” on appellate justice. As those who practiced before the BIA at that time can testify, my “unmistakable signature” was on thousands of non-precedent decisions.
I also made regular unannounced visits to the BIA Attorney Advisers and the newly-established Clerk’s Office to chat about what was on folks’ minds. “Chairman alert” was a commonly heard “warning” throughout the various buildings of the Skyline Center where the BIA was located.
Sure, I didn’t get everything right, and there were some problems I couldn’t solve. But, I was always “on top” of what was happening — both legally and “operationally” — at the BIA. I didn’t have to spend lots of time asking for reports from the staff, because I knew from experience what the problems were and whether the solutions we were attempting were working or not.
Yes, my decision to actively participate in adjudication and aggressively advance my legal views put me in constant conflict with many of my more conservative judicial colleagues at the BIA. As the record shows, I got “outvoted” on a regular basis at both en banc and on panels. But, so what! That’s what being a “real judge” and having real views on justice, based on many years of experience in and out of Government, is all about!
An unanticipated benefit: My “hands on” judicial experience was good preparation for the somewhat unexpected “next phase” of my career — when Ashcroft “exiled” me to the Arlington Immigration Court in 2003. I’ll acknowledge that there were some things about being a trial judge that couldn’t be learned from reading transcripts, writing appellate decisions, and occasionally observing hearings in person.
In another life, at the “Legacy INS,” I had basically “created and implemented” the “modern Chief Counsel system” now in use at DHS — over some vigorous “internal opposition” to change and centralized legal control. That system provided independence from the “clients” in district office operations. Then, I basically had to face that creation in court every day for 13 years!
But, I certainly had a good idea of what I was getting into and was able to “hit the ground running” in terms of the substance of immigration law, the “big issues,” and what good trial decisions should be and look like in writing. Indeed, my “former colleagues” on the BIA sometimes mischaracterized my “oral decisions” as “written decisions” because I used the “familiar BIA written format” and constructed them as what I found the “ideal decision” to be for appellate review during my BIA tenure.
Interestingly, I found that as an Immigration Judge the more humane and realistic view of the law that had been an anathema to the majority of my BIA colleagues — and which helped me and my so-called “liberal” colleagues get the boot from Ashcroft and Kobach — was often accepted by both parties at the trial level. Even when appeals were taken, I did much better with my former colleagues as an IJ than I did as Chair. And, I certainly learned first-hand how deeply screwed up EOIR was and how misguided the BIA majority was on many of their precedents. That, in turn, prepared me to become an advocate for radical due process reforms at EOIR upon retirement.
It’s surprising what an administrator can learn if he or she actually “does” some of the “line work” they are administering. We need a functioning, substantively-engaged, well-informed, “real judge” for Chief IJ, not another “JINO!”
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
07-26-22