"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt and Dr. Alicia Triche, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
Eliza C. Klein, a retired immigration judge, said the asylum case backlog “creates a second class of citizens.”Credit…Taylor Glascock for The New York Times
My good friend and Round Table colleague, Judge (Ret.) Eliza Klein, is among the all-star faculty.
Please note that this is a “live only” webinar that will NOT be recorded or repeated. Register now at the above link!
Retired Immigration Judges and Former Members of the Board of Immigration Appeals Statement in Response to Attorney General’s Decision in Matter of A-B-.
As former Immigration Judges with decades of experience at the trial and appellate level, we consider the Attorney General’s decision an affront to the rule of law. As former judges, we understand that in order to be fair, case law must develop through a process of impartial judicial analysis applying statute, regulations, case law, and other proper sources to the facts of the case.
The life-or-death consequences facing asylum applicants makes it extremely important to keep such analysis immune from the political considerations that appointed cabinet members are subject to.
The BIA’s acknowledgment that a victim of domestic violence may qualify for asylum as a member of a
particular social group was the culmination of a 15 year process through the immigration courts and BIA. The issue was certified by three different Attorneys General (one Democrat and two Republican), who all chose in the end to leave the final determination to the immigration judges and the BIA. The private bar, law enforcement agencies (including DHS), the BIA, and the circuit courts all agreed with this final determination.
What is more, a person who suffers persecution that is perpetrated by private parties whom their government cannot or will not control, is equally eligible for asylum protection under both US law and international refugee treaties.
For reasons understood only by himself, the Attorney General today erased an important legal development
that was universally agreed to be correct. Today we are deeply disappointed that our country will no longer offer legal protection to women seeking refuge from terrible forms of domestic violence from which their home countries are unable or unwilling to protect them. We hope that appellate courts or Congress through legislation will reverse this unilateral action and return the rule of law to asylum adjudications.
Sincerely,
Honorable Steven R. Abrams
Honorable Sarah M. Burr
Honorable Jeffrey S. Chase
Honorable Bruce J. Einhorn
Honorable Cecelia Espenoza
Honorable Noel Ferris
Honorable John F. Gossart, Jr.
Honorable William P. Joyce
Honorable Carol King
Honorable Elizabeth A. Lamb
Honorable Margaret McManus
Honorable Susan Roy
Honorable Lory D. Rosenberg
Honorable Paul W. Schmidt
Honorable Polly A. Webber
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List of Retired Immigration Judges and Former BIA Members
The Honorable Steven R. Abrams served as an Immigration Judge in New York City from 1997 to 2013 at JFK Airport, Varick Street, and 26 Federal Plaza. From 1979 to 1997, he worked for the former Immigration and Naturalization Service in various capacities, including a general attorney; district counsel; a Special U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York and Alaska. Presently lectures on Immigration law in Raleigh, NC.
The Honorable Sarah M. Burr served as a U.S. Immigration Judge in New York from 1994 and was appointed as Assistant Chief Immigration Judge in charge of the New York, Fishkill, Ulster, Bedford Hills and Varick Street immigration courts in 2006. She served in this capacity until January 2011, when she returned to the bench full-time until she retired in 2012. Prior to her appointment, she worked as a staff attorney for the Criminal Defense Division of the Legal Aid Society in its trial and appeals bureaus and also as the supervising attorney in its immigration unit. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Immigrant Justice Corps.
The Honorable Jeffrey S. Chase served as an Immigration Judge in New York City from 1995 to 2007 and was an attorney advisor and senior legal advisor at the Board from 2007 to 2017. He is presently in private practice as an independent consultant on immigration law, and is of counsel to the law firm of DiRaimondo & Masi in New York City. Prior to his appointment, he was a sole practitioner and volunteer staff attorney at Human Rights First. He also was the recipient of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s annual pro bono award in 1994 and chaired AILA’s Asylum Reform Task Force.
The Honorable Bruce J. Einhorn served as a United States Immigration Judge in Los Angeles from 1990 to 2007. He now serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, California, and a Visiting Professor of International, Immigration, and Refugee Law at the University of Oxford, England. He is also a contributing op-ed columnist at D.C.-based The Hill newspaper. He is a member of the Bars of Washington D.C., New York, Pennsylvania, and the Supreme Court of the United States.
The Honorable Cecelia M. Espenoza served as a Member of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”) Board of Immigration Appeals from 2000-2003 and in the Office of the General Counsel from 2003- 2017 where she served as Senior Associate General Counsel, Privacy Officer, Records Officer and Senior FOIA Counsel. She is presently in private practice as an independent consultant on immigration law, and a member of the World Bank’s Access to Information Appeals Board. Prior to her EOIR appointments, she was a law professor at St. Mary’s University (1997-2000) and the University of Denver College of Law (1990-1997) where she taught Immigration Law and Crimes and supervised students in the Immigration and Criminal Law Clinics. She has published several articles on Immigration Law. She is a graduate of the University of Utah and the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. She was recognized as the University of Utah Law School’s Alumna of the Year in 2014 and received the Outstanding Service Award from the Colorado Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in 1997 and the Distinguished Lawyer in Public Service Award from the Utah State Bar in 1989-1990.
The Honorable Noel Ferris served as an Immigration Judge in New York from 1994 to 2013 and an attorney advisor to the Board from 2013 to 2016, until her retirement. Previously, she served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1985 to 1990 and as Chief of the Immigration Unit from 1987 to 1990.
The Honorable John F. Gossart, Jr. served as a U.S. Immigration Judge from 1982 until his retirement in 2013 and is the former president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. At the time of his retirement, he was the third most senior immigration judge in the United States. Judge Gossart was awarded the Attorney General Medal by then Attorney General Eric Holder. From 1975 to 1982, he served in various positions with the former Immigration Naturalization Service, including as general attorney, naturalization attorney, trial attorney, and deputy assistant commissioner for naturalization. He is also the co-author of the National Immigration Court Practice Manual, which is used by all practitioners throughout the United States in
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immigration court proceedings. From 1997 to 2016, Judge Gossart was an adjunct professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law teaching immigration law, and more recently was an adjunct professor of law at the University of Maryland School of Law also teaching immigration law. He has been a faculty member of the National Judicial College, and has guest lectured at numerous law schools, the Judicial Institute of Maryland and the former Maryland Institute for the Continuing Education of Lawyers. He is also a past board member of the Immigration Law Section of the Federal Bar Association. Judge Gossart served in the United States Army from 1967 to 1969 and is a veteran of the Vietnam War.
The Honorable William P. Joyce served as an Immigration Judge in Boston, Massachusetts. Subsequent to retiring from the bench, he has been the Managing Partner of Joyce and Associates with 1,500 active immigration cases. Prior to his appointment to the bench, he served as legal counsel to the Chief Immigration Judge. Judge Joyce also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Associate General Counsel for enforcement for INS. He is a graduate of Georgetown School of Foreign Service and Georgetown Law School.
The Honorable Carol King served as an Immigration Judge from 1995 to 2017 in San Francisco and was a temporary Board member for six months between 2010 and 2011. She previously practiced immigration law for ten years, both with the Law Offices of Marc Van Der Hout and in her own private practice. She also taught immigration law for five years at Golden Gate University School of Law and is currently on the faculty of the Stanford University Law School Trial Advocacy Program. Judge King now works as a Removal Defense Strategist, advising attorneys and assisting with research and writing related to complex removal defense issues. The Honorable Elizabeth A. Lamb
Judge Margaret McManus was appointed as an Immigration Judge in 1991 and retired from the bench after twenty-seven years in January 2018. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Catholic University of America in 1973, and a Juris Doctorate from Brooklyn Law School in 1983. Judge McManus was an attorney for Marion Ginsberg, Esquire from 1989 to 1990 in New York. She was in private practice in 1987 and 1990, also in New York. Judge McManus worked as a consultant to various nonprofit organizations on immigration matters including Catholic Charities and Volunteers of Legal Services from 1987 to 1988 in New York. She was an adjunct clinical law professor for City University of New York Law School from 1988 to 1989. Judge McManus served as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society, Immigration Unit, in New York, from 1983 to 1987. She is a member of the New York Bar.
The Honorable Lory D. Rosenberg served on the Board from 1995 to 2002. She then served as Director of the Defending Immigrants Partnership of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association from 2002 until 2004. Prior to her appointment, she worked with the American Immigration Law Foundation from 1991 to 1995. She was also an adjunct Immigration Professor at American University Washington College of Law from 1997 to 2004. She is the founder of IDEAS Consulting and Coaching, LLC., a consulting service for immigration lawyers, and is the author of Immigration Law and Crimes. She currently works as Senior Advisor for the Immigrant Defenders Law Group.
The Honorable Susan Roy started her legal career as a Staff Attorney at the Board of Immigration Appeals, a position she received through the Attorney General Honors Program. She served as Assistant Chief Counsel, National Security Attorney, and Senior Attorney for the DHS Office of Chief Counsel in Newark, NJ, and then became an Immigration Judge, also in Newark. Sue has been in private practice for nearly 5 years, and two years ago, opened her own immigration law firm. Sue is the NJ AILA Chapter Liaison to EOIR, is the Vice Chair of
was appointed as an Immigration Judge in September 1995. She received
a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of Mt. St. Vincent in 1968, and a Juris Doctorate in 1975 from St.
John’s University. From 1983 to 1995, she was in private practice in New York. Judge Lamb also served as an
adjunct professor at Manhattan Community College from 1990 to 1992. From 1987 to 1995, Judge Lamb
served as an attorney for the Archdiocese of New York as an immigration consultant. From 1980 to 1983, she
worked as senior equal employment attorney for the St. Regis Paper Company in West Mark, New York. From
1978 to 1980, Judge Lamb served as a lawyer for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services in
New York. She is a member of the New York Bar.
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the Immigration Law Section of the NJ State Bar Association, and in 2016 was awarded the Outstanding Pro Bono Attorney of the Year by the NJ Chapter of the Federal Bar Association.
The Honorable Paul W. Schmidt served as an Immigration Judge from 2003 to 2016 in Arlington, virginia. He previously served as Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals from 1995 to 2001, and as a Board Member from 2001 to 2003. He authored the landmark decision Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1995) extending asylum protection to victims of female genital mutilation. He served as Deputy General Counsel of the former INS from 1978 to 1987, serving as Acting General Counsel from 1986-87 and 1979-81. He was the managing partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Fragomen, Del Rey & Bernsen from 1993 to 1995, and practiced business immigration law with the Washington, D.C. office of Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue from 1987 to 1992, where he was a partner from 1990 to 1992. He served as an adjunct professor of law at George Mason University School of Law in 1989, and at Georgetown University Law Center from 2012 to 2014 and 2017 to present. He was a founding member of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges (IARLJ), which he presently serves as Americas Vice President. He also serves on the Advisory Board of AYUDA, and assists the National Immigrant Justice Center/Heartland Alliance on various projects; and speaks, writes and lectures at various forums throughout the country on immigration law topics. He also created the immigration law blog immigrationcourtside.com.
The Honorable Polly A. Webber served as an Immigration Judge from 1995 to 2016 in San Francisco, with details in Tacoma, Port Isabel, Boise, Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Orlando Immigration Courts. Previously, she practiced immigration law from 1980 to 1995 in her own private practice in San Jose, California, initially in partnership with the Honorable Member of Congress, Zoe Lofgren. She served as National President of AILA from 1989 to 1990 and was a national officer in AILA from 1985 to 1991. She has also taught Immigration and Nationality Law for five years at Santa Clara University School of Law. She has spoken at seminars and has published extensively in this field, and is a graduate of Hastings College of the Law (University of California), J.D., and the University of California, Berkeley, A.B., Abstract Mathematics.
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The AP already picked up our statement in this article:
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said the decision was “despicable and should be immediately reversed.” And 15 former immigration judges and Board of Immigration Appeals members signed a letter calling Sessions’ decision “an affront to the rule of law.”
“For reasons understood only by himself, the Attorney General today erased an important legal development that was universally agreed to be correct,” the former judges wrote. “Today we are deeply disappointed that our country will no longer offer legal protection to women seeking refuge from terrible forms of domestic violence from which their home countries are unable or unwilling to protect them.”
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Also, I was quoted in this article by Alan Pyke posted yesterday in ThinkProgress:
The attorney general also took care to remind the judges that his decisions aren’t advice from a fellow lawyer but binding instructions from their one true boss. Though they are termed “judges” and wear robes behind a bench in court, the immigration judiciary is essentially a staff arm of the Attorney General rather than the independent arbiters that most envision when hearing their job titles.
Sessions’ frank expression of expectations was jarring to retired immigration judge Paul Schmidt. When attorneys general addressed the training conference in the past, Schmidt said, they stuck to the kind of collegial rah-rah stuff common to executives addressing underappreciated staff — but also stressed an expectation of careful, diligent, and independent professional conduct.
“I’ve never seen an AG come and basically tell the judges they’re part of the border enforcement effort. It’s outrageous,” Schmidt said. “Whether they’re inside DOJ or not, this is supposed to be an administrative court that exercises independent judgment and decisionmaking. And he’s reduced to to where they’re little enforcement officers running around carrying out the AG’s border policies.”
Sessions did go briefly off-book on Monday to offer one conciliatory note, looking up from his notes after calling the current backlog in immigration courts“unacceptable” to acknowledge that it’s been a tougher problem than he expected. “We thought we could get those numbers down, but they’re not going down yet,” Sessions said, before returning to his prepared remarks. He did not acknowledge that his own policies have contributed to the swelling of the backlog, which hit an all-time high in May.
Immigration court backlog hits all-time high, days before Sessions speech to immigration judges
Sessions is redrawing lines more tightly atop an already perversely narrow system.
A separate ruling last Friday helps underline the severity of the limits on traumatized migrants’ rights to seek protection in the United States. In a decision pertaining to the immigration courts’ handling of those accused of providing “material support” to terrorist organizations abroad, the Board of Immigration Appeals decided even labor compelled with death threats counts as grounds to bar someone from the United States.
The Salvadoran woman whose appeals gave rise to the case had been married to a sergeant in El Salvador’s army during a bloody civil war there. Guerrillas kidnapped the woman and her husband, made her watch as he dug his own grave and was shot dead, then made her wash clothes and do other menial chores for the rebel fighters while in captivity.
This clothes-washing and death-avoiding makes her, in the DOJ’s immigration overseers’ eyes, a terrorist no better than the unnamed group — presumably the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMNL) — who killed her husband in front of her and forced her into servitude.
The board denied her appeals and used the case to set a broader line across all immigration courts. Violently coerced labor while imprisoned by a terror organization will permanently bar you from crossing the U.S. border to seek protection. If you try it, we’ll send you back to your captors — presumably after first taking your kids away from you, pursuant to Sessions’ new policy mandating all immigrants crossing the border without documentation be referred to criminal court and thus separated from any minors who accompanied them.
This piece has been updated with additional context about Sessions’ immigration policies and further perspective from immigration policy experts.
Read Alan’s full analysis at the above link. According to many observers, the “small aside” by Sessions in the article is the closest he’s ever come to accepting responsibility for a mess that he, the Trump Administration, and the two previous Administrations actually have caused with their horrible and highly politicized mismanagement of the U.S Immigration Courts.
For the most part, the ever disingenuous Sessions, has tried to shift blame for his gross mismanagement to the victims: migrants (particularly asylum seekers); private attorneys (particularly those heroic attorneys performing pro bono); and the beleaguered, totally demoralized U.S. Immigration Judges themselves who have been stripped of dignity, wrongfully accused of laziness, and placed under inane, sophomoric, “performance standards” — incredibly developed by Sessions and other politicos and “Ivory tower” bureaucrats who have never themselves been Immigration Judges, have no idea what is happening in Immigration Court, and are driven entirely by political bias and/or a desire to keep their comfy jobs on the 5th floor of the DOJ or in the Falls Church Tower — well away from the results of the havoc they are wreaking on local Immigration Courts every day!
What a way to “manage” one of the nation’s largest and most important court systems! The real blame here goes to Congress which created this awful mess, yet has done nothing to remove this joke of a system from the toxic incompetence of the DOJ and create an independent court system where fairness, Due Process, quality, respect, and efficient, unbiased decision-making will be the hallmarks!
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UPDATE:
The fabulous Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis also reminds me that our statement was the “banner, above the fold” headline on today’s bibdailyonline!
Here’s the link which also includes tons of other “great stuff” that Dan publishes!
Amicus Brief Filed in 10th Cir. Petition for Remotely-Detained Asylum Seeker
An amicus brief was filed yesterday by attorneys at the law firm of Sidley Austin on behalf of an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo in the case of Matumona v. Sessions. Fleeing for his life and seeking asylum in the U.S., the petitioner upon arrival was detained by DHS in the Cibola County Detention Center in New Mexico.
To call Cibola remotely located is truly an understatement. If you Google Map it, you will see that the detention center is surrounded on the east, south, and west by the stunningly scenic, 263,000 acre El Malpais National Conservation Area. Moving out a bit further, the map shows reservations of the Zuni, Navajo, and Apache nations, beyond which lies the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, and both the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests.
In fairness, Albuquerque is an hour and a half drive away. However, that city has a total of 36 attorneys who are members of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, working for 25 offices or organizations. By comparison, New York City has well over a thousand AILA members (not including many others located in the surrounding suburbs). The problem of representation is compounded by the fact that the petitioner, although detained at Cibola, had his removal hearings in the Immigration Court in Denver, 500 miles away. The National Immigrant Justice Center was able to identify only 21 attorneys in all of New Mexico and Texas who would be willing to represent detainees at Cibola in their removal proceedings. For those requiring pro bono representation, the options are even fewer. According to the latest figures provided by DHS, there were 689 non-citizens being detained in Cibola, and that was less than the facility’s full capacity.
Therefore, close to none of those detained at Cibola are able to exercise their constitutional right to be represented by an attorney, as assigned counsel at government expense does not exist in immigration proceedings. A study by the Vera Institute of Justice found a staggering 1,100 percent increase in successful outcomes when universal representation was made available to the detained population at the Varick Street Detention Facility in New York City. I will note that universal representation was possible there because the Varick Street facility is located in the heart of New York City, within walking distance of a multitude of immigration law offices, law school clinics, and not-for-profit organizations.
Left to represent themselves, asylum seekers detained at Cibola and other similar remote facilities are further hampered in their limited access to phones (which are necessary to contact friends and relatives abroad who might provide evidence to corroborate the asylum claim), and lack of access to the internet (which would allow detainees to research the law and to access and download country condition materials in support of their claims). Additionally, detention centers tend to have inadequate law libraries. Furthermore, detainees are required to complete their applications, conduct research, and file supporting documents in English, which is incredibly difficult for someone such as the petitioner, whose native language is Lingala. EOIR’s own statistics show that only ten percent of respondents in removal proceedings last year had enough of a command of English to allow them to participate in their proceedings in that language. As asylum seekers have often suffered torture or other violence, post-traumatic stress disorder and other physical or psychological remnants of their past mistreatment (which might be further exacerbated by their detention) creates an additional obstacle to self-representation. All of this overlooks the fact that U.S. asylum law is highly complex even for educated English-speakers.
The latest amicus brief raises these and other points on behalf of a group of former immigration judges and BIA Board members. The brief further makes recommendations for practices to be adopted by immigration judges to help mitigate the above-cited obstacles to pro se applicants in pursuing relief. These recommendations include having the immigration judges explain the applicable legal standard (and any bars to relief) to pro se applicants; introducing country condition evidence (as well as making applicants aware of country condition resources available on EOIR’s own Virtual Law Library); and advocating for free, uninterrupted access to telephones for respondents in detention centers.
To my knowledge, our amicus brief filed with the BIA last summer in the U.S. Supreme Courts remand of Negusie v. Holder was the first time that former immigration judges and Board members identified as a group for amicus purposes. The seven of us who participated in that brief doubled to 14 for the next such brief, filed with the Attorney General last month in Matter of Castro-Tum. I see it as a positive development that in the short time since these briefs were filed, we have been called upon to provide our experience in expertise in two more cases, one filed last week in the Ninth Circuit on the issue of representation for children in immigration proceedings (C.J.L.G. v. Sessions), and now in this case filed yesterday in the Tenth Circuit. Hopefully, this outstanding group will continue to contribute to the cause of justice for vulnerable noncitizens in removal proceedings.
And our heartfelt thanks to the dedicated attorneys at Sidley Austin, Jean-Claude Andre and Katelyn Rowe, for drafting the outstanding brief.
Copyright 2018 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.
FIRST, AND FOREMOST, A BIG THANKS TO THE “REAL HEROES” AT SIMPSON THACHER & BARTLETT LLP, SAN FRANCISCO, AND THEIR OUTSTANDING SUPPORT TEAM, WHO DID ALL THE “HEAVY LIFTING:”
Harrison J. (Buzz) Frahn, Partner
Lee Brand, Associate
HERE’S THE TABLE OF CONTENTS:
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page
IDENTITY AND INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE ………………………………………….. 1 SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ……………………………………………………………………… 3 ARGUMENT ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 4
I. Immigration Judges Cannot Independently Develop a Child’s Case to Permit the Fair Adjudication that Due Process Requires ……………………………………..
4 A. Immigration Judges Are Overwhelmed ………………………………………… 5
B. DOJ Policy Mandates Efficiency and Skepticism ………………………….. 7
C. Immigration Law Is Exceedingly Complex …………………………………… 9
D. Counsel Dramatically Improve Outcomes …………………………………… 12
II. The Panel Vastly Overstates the Value of Existing Procedures for Unrepresented Minors ……………………………………………………………………….. 13
A. The Duty to Develop the Record Does Not Obviate the Need for Counsel …………………………………………………………………………………… 13
B. A Parent Does Not Obviate the Need for Counsel ………………………… 17
C. A Pro Bono List Does Not Obviate the Need for Counsel …………….. 18
HERE’S THE “CAST OF CHARACTERS” & THE SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT:
IDENTITY AND INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE
Amici curiae are former Immigration Judges (IJs) who collectively have over 175 years’ experience adjudicating immigration cases, including thousands of cases involving children. A complete list of amici is as follows:
Sarah M. Burr served as an IJ in New York from 1994 to 2012 and as Assistant Chief Immigration Judge for New York from 2006 to 2011. She currently serves on the board of Immigrant Justice Corps.
Jeffrey S. Chase served as an IJ in New York from 1995 to 2007 and as an advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) from 2007 to 2017. Previously, he chaired the Asylum Reform Task Force of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and received AILA’s pro bono award.
George T. Chew served as an IJ in New York from 1995 to 2017. Previously, he served as a trial attorney at the INS.
Cecelia M. Espenoza served as a member of the BIA from 2000 to 2003 and as Senior Associate General Counsel at the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) from 2003 to 2017.
Noel Ferris served as an IJ in New York from 1994 to 2013 and as an advisor at the BIA from 2013 to 2016. Previously, she led the Immigration Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. 2
John F. Gossart, Jr. served as an IJ from 1982 to 2013. Previously, he served in various positions at the INS. Judge Gossart served as president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, co-authored the National Immigration Court Practice Manual, and received the Attorney General Medal.
Eliza Klein served as an IJ in Miami, Boston, and Chicago from 1994 to 2015.
Lory D. Rosenberg served as a member of the BIA from 1995 to 2002. Previously, she served on the board of AILA and received multiple AILA awards. Judge Rosenberg co-authored the treatise Immigration Law and Crimes.
Susan G. Roy served as an IJ in Newark. Previously, she served as a Staff Attorney at the BIA and in various positions at the INS and its successor Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Paul W. Schmidt served as chair of the BIA from 1995 to 2001, as a member of the BIA from 2001 to 2003, and as an IJ in Arlington from 2003 to 2016. Previously, he served as acting General Counsel and Deputy General Counsel at the INS.
Polly A. Webber served as an IJ in San Francisco from 1995 to 2016, with details in Tacoma, Port Isabel, Boise, Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Orlando. Previously, she served a term as National President of AILA. 3
Amici have dedicated their careers to improving the fairness of the immigration system, particularly in the administration of justice to children. In amici’s personal judicial experience, children are incapable of meaningfully representing themselves in this nation’s labyrinthine immigration system. Absent legal representation, IJs cannot independently develop a child’s case to permit the fair adjudication that due process requires. Accordingly, amici have a profound interest in the resolution of this case.1
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
Respectfully, the Panel erred in determining that IJs can and will ensure the due process rights of pro se children without the aid of counsel. This error is painfully clear from the vantage point of IJs, who face overburdened and ever-growing dockets, the complexity of immigration law, and, as Department of Justice (DOJ) employees, the constraints of administrative policy. As such, and as demonstrated by the impact of counsel on a child’s likelihood of success in immigration court, IJs lack the necessary time, resources, and power to ensure that unrepresented minors receive meaningful adjudication of their eligibility to remain in this country. 1 No party’s counsel authored this brief in whole or in part; no party, party’s counsel, nor anyone other than amici or their counsel contributed money that was intended to fund preparing or submitting this brief. All parties have consented to the filing of this brief. 4
The Panel further erred in vastly overstating the value to pro se children of certain extant procedural safeguards. While the Panel correctly identifies an IJ’s duty to develop the record, it fails to understand the practical and procedural limits of this duty in the context of an adversarial proceeding, and wrongly transforms it into a cure-all for the otherwise overwhelming lack of due process an unrepresented minor would receive. The Panel similarly holds up the hypothetical availability of pro bono counsel as a potential due process panacea, and Judge Owens’s concurrence suggests the same of the presence of a parent. But these factors also fall far short of remedying the basic unfairness of forcing children to represent themselves in immigration court.
If the Panel’s decision is not revisited, thousands of minors will be forced to navigate the complex immigration system without representation. In many instances, these children will be returned to life-threatening circumstances despite their eligibility to legally remain in this country. It is hard to imagine a question of more exceptional importance.
HERE’S A LINK TO THE COMPLETE BRIEF FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT, EDUCATION, AND READING ENJOYMENT:
A special “shout out” of appreciation to my 10 wonderful colleagues who joined in this critically important effort. It’s an honor to work with you and to be a part of this group.
14 Former IJs and BIA Members File Amicus Brief with AG
On February 16, the law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP filed an amicus curiae (i.e. “friend of the court”) brief on behalf of 14 former immigration judges and BIA board members with Attorney General Jeff Sessions pursuant to his request in Matter of Castro-Tum. In that decision, the Attorney General certified to himself an unpublished decision, in which he requested amicus briefs on the following: (1) whether IJs and the BIA have the authority administratively close cases, and if so, whether the BIA’s precedent decisions “articulate the appropriate standard for administrative closure” (2) If it is determined that IJs lack such authority, should the AG delegate it, or conversely, if the IJs have such authority, should the AG withdraw it; (3) can the purpose of administrative closure be satisfied through other docket management devices; and (4) if the AG determines that IJs and the BIA lack such authority, what should be done with the cases already closed.
As immigration judges and the BIA have exercised their authority to administratively close cases for decades, the AG suddenly raising these questions on his own would seem to signal his intent to do away with this important docket-management tool. As background, the respondent in Castro-Tum is an unrepresented, unaccompanied minor. When he did not appear for a scheduled removal hearing after the immigration court mailed a notice to what it was told was the minor’s address, the DHS attorney requested the immigration judge to order the child removed from the U.S. However, the IJ had questions concerning the reliability of the mailing address that the government provided to the immigration court, and declined to enter the removal order, administratively closing the proceedings instead. The DHS attorney appealed. It should be noted that the appeal did not challenge an immigration judge’s right generally to administratively close cases; the DHS believed that in this particular case, the evidence of record should have required the IJ to enter an order of removal. The BIA agreed with the DHS, and reversed the IJ’s order. It was at that point that the AG inserted himself into the matter by certifying an already-resolved matter to himself and turning it into a challenge to the overall authority to administratively close any case.
Numerous groups filed amicus briefs in this case; they include those that represent unaccompanied children; immigrant rights groups, and academic clinicians. The American Immigration Council (AIC) argued in its brief that AG Sessions’ history of hostility towards noncitizens renders him unfit to decide the issue raised in Castro-Tum. Our group of former IJs and Board members brought a unique perspective to the issue, based on our many years of collective experience managing case dockets and addressing the issues that administrative closure is designed to remedy.
Immigration Judges exist by statute. Therefore, the inherent powers delegated to them (including the power to control their own dockets, and to administratively close cases as a means of exercising such control) come from Congress, and not the Attorney General. As our brief explains, such authority of judges to control their dockets has been recognized by the Supreme Court and lower federal courts. Federal regulations issued by the Department of Justice grant immigration judges the power to “exercise their independent judgment and discretion,” including the ability to “take any action consistent with their authorities under the Act and regulations that is appropriate and necessary for the disposition” of the individual cases appearing before them.
Furthermore, the BIA has set out the proper standard for determining whether a case should be administratively closed or required to proceed. In Matter of Avetisyan, the Board laid out the criteria that may properly be considered in determining whether administrative closure is appropriate. In Matter of W-Y-U-, the Board added that the most important consideration is whether the party opposing administrative closure has provided a persuasive reason for the case to proceed and be resolved on the merits. The immigration judge is required set forth his or her reasons for administrative closure in a decision which may be reviewed on appeal to both the BIA and the federal circuit courts.
The brief additionally points out the inadequacy of other existing tools. In Avetisyan, the immigration judge granted multiple continuances to allow DHS to adjudicate a visa petition filed on behalf of the respondent. However, the petition could not be adjudicated because USCIS (which adjudicates such petitions) was required to keep returning the file to the ICE prosecutor before it could get to the petition because it was needed for the next immigration court hearing (which was only scheduled to check on the status of the visa petition). The file remained in constant orbit, never remaining with USCIS long enough to allow for adjudication of the petition, which in turn would require another continuance. Furthermore, federal regulation specifically requires that immigration proceedings by administratively closed before USCIS will adjudicate certain waivers of inadmissibility. As noted in the brief, DHS defended such administrative closure requirement when its necessity was questioned by a comment on the proposed regulation.
Our group of amici expresses our sincere gratitude to the outstanding attorneys at Akin Gump who provided their pro bono assistance: partner Steven H. Schulman; Andrew Schwerin, the primary drafter; and Martine Cicconi, Mallory Jones, and Chris Chamberlain, who drafted sections of the brief. We also thank Prof. Deborah Anker of Harvard Law School and the staff and students of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic for its invaluable support and insights. The amici included in our brief were former BIA Chair and Board Member and former Immigration Judge Paul W. Schmidt; former Board Members Cecelia M. Espenoza, Lory D. Rosenberg, Gustavo D. Villageliu, and former Immigration Judges Sarah M. Burr, Bruce J. Einhorn, Noel Ferris, John F. Gossart, Jr., William P. Joyce, Edward Kandler, Carol King, Susan Roy, Polly A. Webber, and myself.
Copyright 2017 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.
I hope you’re well. Allow me to introduce you to a team of lawyers from the firm Sidley Austin who are working on an amicus brief on behalf of immigration judges in the 10th Circuit case that I mentioned to you. As we discussed, the case involves an arriving asylum seeker who was detained in a remote facility with no LOP, and with no realistic access to counsel. And, to complicate matters, at the time of his hearing, there was not meaningful phone access to the jail. The goal of the brief will be to address, from a judge’s perspective, the challenges of adjudicating such cases where there’s no real option for counsel and also to hopefully address some of the ways in which IJs have had to work around the absence of counsel to develop an adequate record in such cases.
The team from Sidley will get going on drafting, but in the meantime, I think it would be very helpful if you could work with them to reach out to other IJs who you certainly know better than any of us. We’ve provided Sidley a list of former IJs who have been willing to sign amicus briefs in other contexts, so hopefully that list (and your inside info) will help with the outreach.
If you can help out, please respond directly to the attorney drafting the brief Jean-Claude Andre of Sidley Austin: JCAndre@sidley.com
I recently had the honor and pleasure of working with the Sidley Austin litigators on an Amicus Brief in the 6th Circuit case Hamama v. Homan (Due Process for Chaldean Christians). It was great!
Hope all of you are well. Thanks so much for your help with an amicus brief in support of rehearing en banc in CJLG v. Sessions, our children’s right to appointed counsel case. I’m copying in Buzz Frahn and his team from Simpson Thacher, who have agreed to draft the amicus brief on your behalves. We’ve given Buzz the previous briefs submitted in JEFM, and he and his team are getting started.
I think all of you can take it from here. It would be great if we could get your help in reaching out to other former IJs or BIA members who may be interested in participating as amici in our case.
Please let me know if you have any questions, or if I can do anything else to help. We’ll be in touch with the Simpson Thacher folks regarding some issues that might be worth highlighting in the amicus, and I’m sure they’d welcome feedback from all of you as well. Thanks again and have a great weekend!
Stephen
Stephen B. Kang
Pronouns: he/him/his
Detention Attorney
ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project
39 Drumm Street, San Francisco, CA 94111
415.343.0783 | skang@aclu.org
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In C.J.L.G. v. Sessions, a 9th Circuit 3-Judge Panel found that: 1) the child respondent was denied due process at his Immigration Court hearing; 2) he suffered past persecution; 3) but there was no “prejudice” because he couldn’t establish “nexus.” Therefore, the panel rejected his claim that he had a right to appointed counsel.
The “no prejudice” finding is basically ludicrous! “Nexus” is such a complex and convoluted legal concept that judges at all levels get it wrong with regularity. How do we know that this child couldn’t show “nexus” when he and his mother didn’t have any idea of the legal and evidentiary standards they were required to meet?
On Friday, I attended a FBA Immigration/Asylum program at NYU Law. It was clear from the outstanding panel on Northern Triangle asylum that claims very similar, if not identical, to CJLG’s are being granted in many Immigration Courts.
But, it requires many hours of client interviews, extensive trial preparation, and the knowledge and ability to present claims often under alternative legal theories. No unrepresented child has a fair chance to make such a winning presentation on asylum or Convention Against Torture Withholding in Immigration Court, even though there are “life or death” stakes.
It was a great conference in a great location — Denver. Lots of restaurants and things to do (although I was actually too busy to get out much).
Hats off to Conference Co-Chairs Barry Frager and the Honorable Lawrence O. (“The Burmanator”) Burman for putting the whole thing together and pulling it off without a hitch. Judge Burman, one of the few real judicial leaders at EOIR, also serves as the Chair of the Immigration Law Section (“ILS”) and editor of the outstanding newsletter, The Green Card.
An impressive group of approximately 400 attended, consisting of private practitioners, NGO lawyers, government attorneys, and several Federal Judges. They came from across the country. They heard from a faculty of dozens of experts covering 60 separate learning sessions over two days.
I particularly enjoyed catching up with old friends like fellow retired U.S. Immigration Judges Joan Churchill, Eliza Klein, and Bill Joyce and my former BIA colleague, Judge Lory Rosenberg. I was pleased to serve with Lory as the other member of the Due Process Panel, and I want to thank her for her very kind remarks about me.
A number of folks commented that they had never seen a happier and more relaxed group of Immigration Judges than our “Gang of Four” retired jurists. I should add that Bill and Eliza are both still actively practicing law, while Joan and I have chosen different retirement paths.
I loved the tremendous energy and spirit that the many younger practitioners brought to the conference. As I pointed out in my three presentations, never has the need for skilled immigration lawyers, ready to strongly and courageously fight the battle for due process, been greater. As one panelist put it, this is the time to show off and improve real legal skills and display creativity and toughness in conducting aggressive litigation in an era where the Government is seeking and intentionally provoking confrontation. Enjoy the moment! And these folks are ready to step up to the plate and give the Trump Administration’s anti-immigrant agenda all it can handle on every front.
It was heartening to see many “charter members” of the “New Due Process Army” (“NDPA”) — folks like Alex Ribe, Claudia Cubas, Eileen Blessinger, Jillian Blake, Robyn Barnard, Paromita Shah, and others — participating in the activities. I believe I also got some “new recruits” for the NDPA.
I’m already looking forward to next year in Memphis!
The Bad
Although The Office of Immigration Litigation (“OIL”), the DHS, U.S. Attorneys, and U.S. Magistrates participated in the panels, not a single current EOIR employee was on the faculty, although a number had been invited. The local U.S. Immigration Judges were “no shows,” although they would have had much to offer the group and vice versa.
Only a handful of EOIR employees attended, in their “personal capacities” and at their own expense. A troubling performance from an agency that amazingly cancelled their badly needed judicial training conference. And, the FBA is the only nationwide bar association concentrating on Federal Practice that encourages and makes possible full membership by both Federal employees and private sector attorneys.
The Ugly
In three words: “The Immigration Courts.” Everyone there, including government attorneys, has been affected in one way or another by the ridiculous backlog of non-detained cases. My references to “ADR” – aimless docket reshuffling – and feeling like I was in “Clown Court” some days struck a real chord with the audience.
Almost every session I attended was replete with descriptions of inappropriate behavior from several courts, Charlotte and Atlanta in particular. Things like Immigration Judges going off record and saying that they didn’t believe in A-R-C-G- (asylum for domestic violence) or asylum for Central Americans. Rude and intimidating treatment of counsel, failure to listen to arguments, unwillingness to grant bond, applying wrong legal standards, and inappropriately going “off record” were among the “horror stories” mentioned. It’s quite obvious that Atlanta and Charlotte, among others, are failing to follow the generous standards for granting asylum set forth by the Supreme Court in Cardoza-Fonseca and reinforced by the BIA in Mogharrabi.
It’s not about what an Immigration Judge personally believes. It’s about fairly and impartially applying the law, particularly to those needing protection. Gosh, I often had to apply BIA precedents that I not only disagreed with, but where I had actually dissented from the majority decision. But, the job of a judge is to follow the law, whether one likes it or not.
Much of the blame goes to the BIA. It sometimes appears to me that certain BIA Appellate Immigration Judges and panels are committed neither to enforcing due process nor their own precedent in Mogharrabi. Some folks are fortunate enough to be in Circuits that hold the BIA to the appropriate standards; others labor away in Circuits that have “blown off” their judicial review function by ”over-deferring” to the BIA. Clearly, the BIA has lost sight of its vision of “being the world’s best administrative tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”
In any event, while some of the behavior issues could perhaps be addressed by EOIR management through the complaint system, that won’t solve the problem. Only the BIA has the ability to correct incorrect applications and attitudes about the law and due process in the U.S. Immigration Courts. Only the BIA can bring “outlier courts” – those with far too many asylum denials – into line with the law.
As I gave my keynote speech involving the history of EOIR, it occurred to me that EOIR, quite sadly, was actually returning to what the Immigration Courts were before the “spinoff” from the “Legacy INS:” inbred, staffed almost exclusively with former prosecutors, not user friendly, mismanaged, lacking necessary technology, and essentially being used as a tool for immigration enforcement. In other words, there is a notable lack of judicial independence. Very sad. It appears that as an due process oriented court system, EOIR has “run its course” in the DOJ and is now returning to it’s origins as a captive of the enforcement system.
The Immigration Courts’ problems have been aggravated by DHS leadership’s apparent decision to limit “prosecutorial discretion,” discourage cooperation and stipulation, and to “go to the mat” on everything. At a time when DHS should be looking for ways to get cases off the dockets, they instead appear to be looking for ways to jam the docket even fuller with cases, many of which are unlikely to be resolved in the next decade.
