Category: Malathi Nayak

Trump’s ‘Deportation Machine’ Keeps Growing Despite Pandemic – Bloomberg

Malathi Nayak reports for Bloomberg News:

As President Donald Trump prepares to pause immigration into the U.S., the court system that handles the removal of immigrants is projected to issue nearly 60% more deportation orders than last year.

With the rest of the U.S. legal system grinding to a near halt amid the pandemic, at the nation’s 69 federal immigration courts cleaning crews clad in hazmat suits are regularly used to make sure in-person hearings can continue. The courts are moving at speed to reduce a massive backlog of cases despite outdated technology and criticism from advocacy groups and a union representing most of the nation’s 460 immigration judges, who say the pace is putting people at risk of infection.

“The deportation machine has not stopped,” said Florida immigration lawyer Ira Kurzban. “It’s somewhat outrageous given the current circumstances.”

While the number of people deported from the U.S. fell in March, one research group predicts that the total number of deportation orders will rise for the 2020 fiscal year, despite the pandemic. The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a Syracuse University group that tracks government enforcement actions, estimates there will be 340,500 deportation orders in the year ending Sept. 30, 2020, up from 215,535 for the prior year. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department, which oversees immigration courts, declined to comment on the projection, saying it doesn’t certify third-party statistics.

The National Association of Immigration Judges says the continued operation of the courts is unsafe and has called for them to be closed. The Trump administration in 2018 set a quota for each immigration judge to close 700 cases a year, a requirement that remains in force during the pandemic, said Ashley Tabaddor, president of the union.

‘Hobbesian Choice’

U.S. immigration judges are “being forced into this Hobbesian choice of risking their health and having to keep their jobs,” said Tabaddor. She cites a colleague who is trying to meet his quota while minimizing his health risk as a throat cancer survivor.

Along with the judges, 1,200 support staff work in the nation’s immigration courts. Those courts are taking precautionary steps similar to those elsewhere in the federal system “to reduce the likelihood of exposure to Covid-19,” including holding hearings via phone or video conference whenever possible, according to Kathryn Mattingly, a Justice Department spokeswoman. Hearings involving people not in custody have also been suspended until May 15.

But judges and lawyers said it is harder for the immigration courts to operate remotely than other federal courts. While electronic document filing is routine in other federal courts, the immigration courts have struggled to introduce it, leaving most documents in paper form. Though some filings are now accepted by email, the many court employees without laptops need to come into the office to access them.

“The immigration courts are probably 20 years behind federal courts in terms of technology,” said Jeff Chase, a former immigration judge. Moreover, some immigration courts have rules where opting for a phone hearing means giving up the right to object to documents submitted by ICE, he said.

The current situation has immigration lawyers choosing between their personal well-being and a client’s future, Chase said. “Lawyers should not be put in this position.”

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Read the rest of the article at the link.

Nice quotes from Judges Tabaddor and Chase!

Actually, when the “off docket”cases are factored in, the backlog exceeds 1.4 million cases. Even with artificially accelerated production, and if no new cases were filed by DHS (reality check — receipts have been exceeding completions for years) it would take until 2024 to “clear” the existing backlog. But, the reality is that even by speeding up the “Deportation Railroad,” adding new often inadequately trained judges largely from the ranks of prosecutors, eliminating Due Process, demeaning their own employees, and unethically skewing the law against migrants, EOIR has been unable to reduce the backlog by even one case under the Trump regime! 

Indeed, when all of the pending and “off docket” cases are considered, the already large backlog left behind by the Obama Administration has more than doubled, and is well on its way to tripling, under the Trump regime’s “malicious incompetence” and pattern of often illegal and irrational behavior. Many of the “final orders of deportation” being cranked out by EOIR are either legally wrong or counterproductive — deporting harmless individuals who actually are productive members of our society, often with U.S. citizen family members. This system, including the mindless abuse of docket space by DHS Enforcement and “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” by EOIR, is broken! Yet, it’s allowed to continue grinding away, putting lives in danger in more ways than one.

And, speaking of incompetence, whether malicious or not, I was on the initial “E-Filing Group” that submitted comprehensive recommendations and a detailed plan for implementing e-filing to ”EOIR management” back in 2001 or 2002. Since then, successive waves of EOIR “management” have squandered time, money, and public trust without producing a usable product. Meanwhile, almost every other court in America has designed and implemented e-filing systems. This catastrophic failure in and of itself would more than justify eliminating EOIR and replacing it with a judicially-managed, independent, professionally administered court system that would guarantee due process, efficiency, and fundamental fairness for all.

But, that’s by no means the only problem at EOIR. It’s unconstitutional, unfair, dysfunctional, unprofessional, and downright dangerous. I have posted recently about how Courts of Appeals continue to find that the BIA has grossly misinterpreted, distorted, and/or misapplied both law and facts in “life or death cases.” Is “good enough for government work” really OK for human lives? That neither Congress nor the Article III Courts have had the guts and decency to put an end to this life-threatening farce staining our justice system is an unforgivable national disgrace.

Those of us who understand exactly what’s happening at EOIR under the Trump kakistocracy might at the moment be powerless to change it. But, we’re continuing to challenge the unacceptable status quo and making a public record of this grotesque malfeasance and of those in all three branches of Government who are “papering over” (and by doing so enabling) EOIR’s abuses. Eventually, positive change will come. The only question is how many lives and futures will unnecessarily be lost before it does?

Due Process Forever! Deadly ☠️ Clown Courts, 🤡 Never!

PWS

04-23-20