Here’s the announcement:
https://www.justice.gov/eoir/pr/eoir-announces-appointment-mary-cheng-deputy-director
JUSTICE NEWS
Department of Justice
Executive Office for Immigration Review
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, April 11, 2022
EOIR Announces Appointment of Mary Cheng as Deputy Director
FALLS CHURCH, VA – The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) today announced the appointment of Mary Cheng as the agency’s Deputy Director. Judge Cheng has served EOIR since 2009, including as a Deputy Chief Immigration Judge for the past five years.
“Judge Cheng brings a welcome combination of experience and expertise, preparing her for certain success as EOIR’s deputy director,” EOIR Director David L. Neal said. “Her experience on the immigration bench, her expertise as a managing judge, and her appreciation for the view from both counsels’ tables perfectly position her to help lead the agency to a reinvigorated commitment to our mission and to public service.”
As Deputy Director, Judge Cheng will assist Director Neal in supervising and managing all EOIR components, and developing and implementing agency policies and short- and long-term strategies.
Since April 2021, Judge Cheng has served as the Regional Deputy Chief Immigration Judge for the Eastern Region at EOIR. She previously served as a Deputy Chief Immigration Judge from 2017 to 2021, and she was the Acting Principal Deputy Chief Immigration Judge from August 2020 to February 2021. Judge Cheng has also served in the New York Immigration Court both as an Assistant Chief Immigration Judge from 2015 to 2017, and as an Immigration Judge from 2009 to 2015. Before joining EOIR, she served as Assistant Chief Counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, from 2002 to 2009; and before that, she practiced immigration law in New York from 2000 to 2002. Judge Cheng received her Bachelor of Arts from New York University and a Juris Doctor from the New York Law School. She is a member of the New York State Bar.
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Judge Cheng had a 71.5% asylum grant rate while on the bench in NYC. That makes her an “outlier” (in a good way) among EOIR HQ “honchos” with significant Immigration Court experience.
Judge Cheng spent two years in the private practice of immigration law, albeit several decades ago, as well as serving as a JLC at the NY Immigration Court and an ICE prosecutor. So, she has a more “balanced perspective” on the system than many in EOIR.
Interestingly, Judge Cheng’s record on asylum cases is the “inverse” of the nationwide rate, where 2/3 of the asylum cases are denied and many IJs disgracefully reject almost every asylum case coming before them. So, she knows the system is broken, biased, unfair, and unprofessional!
The question is whether she will use her knowledge and skills to stand up for due process and fair treatment of asylum seekers? Or, will she become another in the long line of EOIR “go along to get along bureaucrats” — willing to sacrifice immigrants’ lives for job security and career advancement?
Hopefully, Judge Cheng will implement some “attitude changes” in an agency still far too committed to the Sessions/Barr “culture of denial” and to misusing, abusing, and mismanaging the Immigration Courts as a “deterrent” — carrying out Administration enforcement “priorities” — rather than acting as an independent court system using “enlightened practical scholarship” to guarantee due process and fundamental fairness for the individuals coming before it. EOIR has lost sight of its mission and Garland doesn’t seem interested in or capable of changing that.
As for the “certain success,” predicted by Director Neal, that’s been elusive for some previous Deputy Directors. Three previous Deputies have gone on to become EOIR Director: The late Kevin Rooney, Judge Kevin Ohlson, and the late Juan Osuna. But, “success” in an organization in failure that lacks a dynamic plan for long overdue fundamental personnel, procedural, and structural reforms looks like a tall order. It’s probably “Mission Impossible!”
The only true measure of “success” is whether the community that EOIR is supposed to serve comes to view the courts as fair, humane, and professional. That depends on changing the results of EOIR’s anti-asylum, often anti-immigrant “assembly line” approach to justice and its chronic, backlog-building “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” produced by attempting to please DOJ politicos at the expense of justice. Bureaucratic metrics and bogus DOJ and Administration political goals and agendas are meaningless in the “real world.”
What kind of “short and long-term strategies” will work in a struggling “court” system plagued by a burgeoning 1.8 million case backlog, endemic “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” an appellate body stuck in reverse, a byzantine “agency management” structure, institutionalized “worst practices,” and too many judges who were the product of a poor selection process and inadequate training? There are some measures that potentially could succeed. But, “Team Garland” has pointedly ignored them with predictably bad consequences.
No one person can change the disastrous trajectory of EOIR. But, someone willing to take risks and give due process and fundamental fairness a chance could make a difference in the lives of the most vulnerable among us. Could Judge Cheng be that person? We’ll see.
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
04-13-22