⚖️👩🏻‍⚖️👨🏼‍⚖️ SOME FORMER IMMIGRATION JUDGES SPEAK OUT AGAINST DRACONIAN TEXAS BORDER MEASURE!

Texas Border
Abuse of migrants has a long ugly history in Texas.
Public Realm (1948)

“Sir Jeffrey” Chase forwarded coverage from the Dallas Morning News containing these quotes:

 

Former immigration judges

Two former federal immigration judges, appointed by Republican and

Democratic presidents, raised concerns over state judges being tasked with

handling immigration cases.

“It makes no more sense for a state magistrate trained in state law to engage in

the interpretation and application of federal immigration law than it does for a

federal immigration judge …trained in federal to engage in an interpretation

and application of Texas law,” said Bruce J. Einhorn, a former immigration

judge appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.

“It’s hard to comment on something that’s just so plainly unlawful and plainly

unconstitutional,” said Rebecca Bowen Jamil, a former federal immigration

judge appointed by President Barack Obama in 2016. “The state court judge

doesn’t have the training — doesn’t have the expertise — to protect the

constitutional rights of that individual before them.”

Einhorn and Jamil were among dozens of former federal immigration

judges who signed a statement saying the proposal violates the law.

Dallas Morning News article 11.14

CLARIFICATION: While a number of members of the Round Table signed this letter in a “personal capacity,” the Round Table, as an organization did not take a position on this issue.

For a deeper dive into the history of “Juan Crow” racism in Texas — the truth that Gov. Greg Abbott and the GOP don’t want you to know, see, e.g.,  https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/history-racism-against-mexican-americans-clouds-texas-immigration-law-n766956.

Juan Crow in Texas
Signs like the one in this undated image were displayed at various restaurants and other pubic accommodations under a system known as “Juan Crow” laws.Russell Lee / Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-16-23

UPDATE FROM HON. “SIR JEFFREY” CHASE:

Hi all: The Texas state law was passed by both houses of the Texas legislature, and is expected to be signed into law.

The letter from 30 individual members of this group was specifically mentioned yesterday on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper.

I think this link will take you to the section in which the former judges’ letter is mentioned (at the 2:52 mark).

Best, Jeff

DPF!

 

PWS

11-16-23

⚖️🗽U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE SUSAN ILLSTON (ND CA) SHREDS, ENJOINS EOIR’S ANTI-DUE-PROCESS ☠️🤮“MIDNIGHT RULES” — Judge Praises, Cites Round Table’s 🛡⚔️ Amicus Brief!

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”
Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-likely-to-block-trump-era-changes-to-immigration-court/

Here’s an excerpt from a report by Nichols Iovino @ Courthouse News: 

. . . .

The judge added that she found an amicus brief submitted by 37 former immigration law judges particularly illuminating because it helped illustrate some of “real-life consequences” of the rule.

The former immigration judges wrote that the rule “makes it more difficult for applicants and defense counsel to brief relevant issues and present evidence, creates new challenges for immigration judges to consider extraordinary changes in circumstances and to control the timing of their own docket, and severely limits the [Board of Immigration Appeals’] authority to make legally sound decisions and remain an apolitical rung in the immigration system.”

A motion for a preliminary injunction is also pending in separate lawsuit challenging the same Trump-era rule in the District of Columbia.

******************

Yesterday, Judge Illston issued a blistering 73-page order enjoining EOIR’S illegal rules: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.372189/gov.uscourts.cand.372189.59.0.pdf

The case is CENTRO LEGAL DE LA RAZA v. EOIR.

“Sir Jeffrey” Chase reports:

Judge Illston referenced our brief four times throughout the opinion (p.5, n.2, and pp. 39, 52, and 55).

Jeffrey also added:

The brief (drafted by Steven Schulman and his team at Akin Gump) was based on our Round Table’s comments to the proposed regs. [Judge] Ilyce [Shugall] organized and filed the comments, and the drafting committee was made up of [Judges] Ilyce [Shugall], Rebecca [Jamil], Joan [Churchill], Cecelia [Espenoza] and myself.

So proud to be part of this team that is “making a difference for the NDPA,” and more importantly, for the vulnerable human lives at stake in the EOIR Star Chambers. 🏴‍☠️ And thanks so much to Steven Schulman and his pro bono team at Akin Gump for making this happen.

So, here’s my question: Why is the Biden Administration defending this totally illegal, disingenuous, not to mention stupid, attempt by EOIR to deny due process and fundamental fairness while implementing the “worst practices imaginable?”

Judge Garland must get a handle on the awful, festering mess 🤮🤡☠️ at EOIR sooner rather than later!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-11-21

ROUND TABLE 🛡 LANCES EOIR’S LATEST PROPOSAL TO SCREW ASYLUM SEEKERS, DENY DUE PROCESS!

You can read the comments on EOIR’s latest regulatory proposal here:

Procedures for asy and WH regulation comments

Many thanks to the “drafting team:” Judges Ilyce Shugall, Jeffrey Chase, Lory Rosenberg, and Rebecca Jamil.

Hon. Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Director, Immigrant Legal Defense Program, Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Assn. of San Francisco.
Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
Lory Rosenberg
Hon. Lory Diana Rosenberg
Senior Advisor
Immigrant Defenders Law Group, PLLC
Rebecca Jamil
Hon. Rebecca Jamil
U.S. Immigration Judge (Ret.)
Source: Twitter
Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-26-20 

ROUND TABLE 🛡 JOUSTS AGAIN WITH DARK KNIGHTS ☠️  OF THE REGIME ON COURT STRUCTURE REGS!

Hon. Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Director, Immigrant Legal Defense Program, Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Assn. of San Francisco.
Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
Judge Joan Churchill
Honorable Joan Churchill
Retired U.S. Immigration Judge
Member Round Table of Retired Judges
Cecelia M. Espenoza
Hon. Cecelia M.Espenoza
Former Appellate Immigration Judge, BIA
Source:
Denverdemocrats.org
Rebecca Jamil
Hon. Rebecca Jamil
U.S. Immigration Judge (Ret.)
Source: Twitter

The Round Table of Former Immigration Judges is composed of 47 former Immigration Judges and Appellate Immigration Judges of the Board of Immigration Appeals. We were appointed by and served under both Republican and Democratic administrations. We have centuries of com- bined experience adjudicating asylum applications and appeals. Our members include nation- ally-respected experts on asylum law; many regularly lecture at law schools and conferences and author articles on the topic.

Our members issued decisions encompassing wide-ranging interpretations of our asylum laws during our service on the bench. Whether or not we ultimately reached the correct result, those decisions were always exercised according to our “own understanding and conscience,”1 and not in acquiescence to the political agenda of the party or administration under which we served.

We as judges understood that whether or not we agreed with the intent of Congress, we were still bound to follow it. The same is true of the Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security, and for that matter, the President.

INTRODUCTION

Initially we note that the current practice of reducing the time for notice and comment, severely undermines the ability for the public to digest and comment on rules. The reduction of time to

1 See Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 347 U.S. 260, 266-67 (1954). 1

 

30 days violates the intent of Congress to give full deliberation to regulatory changes. As experi- enced adjudicators, we are in a unique position to contextualize these changes, but even with our experience, the breadth of these proposed regulations should allow for additional time to review and comment.

Next, we note that the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), contains changes that continue to diminish the role and function of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) as an independent adjudicatory body free from political pressure. For example, the granting of certification author- ity to judges who are supposed to be subject to the appellate review of the BIA, does not further the objectives of finality or due process. Further, these rules are slanted in ways that diminish actions and take away tools used by Immigration Judges and Board to manage dockets and en- sure consideration of changed circumstances that might arise for either party. Under the NPRM, the Department of Homeland Security is invited to utilize unlimited power to reopen cases for negative information, and all opportunity for respondents to obtain reopening for new infor- mation have been removed.

In our review we do not object to the clarifications and changes regarding: 1) finality; 2) the ex- pansion of the authority to grant voluntary departure to the BIA; and 3) having cases that only need security checks being placed on hold by the BIA.

However, we do object to: 1) the proposed shortened briefing schedule; 2) simultaneous briefing in non-detained cases; 3) the prohibition from receiving new evidence on appeal, remanding a case for the immigration judge to consider new evidence in the course of adjudicating an appeal, or considering a motion to remand based on new evidence; 4) the elimination of the ability of immigration judges to consider issues beyond the express scope of the remand; 5) giving Immi- gration Judges Certification Authority over BIA decisions; 5) the proposed elimination of admi- nistrative closures; 6) the proposed elimination of the delegation of sua sponte reopening author- ity; 7) removal of BIA certification authority; 8) the imposition of new deadlines and timeframes for adjudication of appeals with those failing to be adjudicated in the specified time being re- ferred to the EOIR Director for adjudication; and 9) the elimination of Immigration Judge review of transcripts.

In short, there is little in the NPRM, that furthers the interests of ensuring a fair and neutral adju- dication. We are concerned with the overall diminishment of the BIA as an appellate body.

Read the full 17-page comment with the names of all the signers here:

BIA restructure regulation comments_FINAL

**********************************

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

Many thanks to Ilyce, Jeffrey, Joan, Cecelia, and Rebecca for spearheading this effort!

B/T/W, “diminishment’ is a polite term for “dumbing down!” In this case, “further dumbing down.”

Due Process Forever!

 

PWS

09-26-20

 

🛡⚔️⚖️ROUND TABLE RIPS REGIME’S FRAUDULENT PROPOSED REGS ELIMINATING ASYLUM IN 36-PAGE COMMENTARY — “The proposed rules are impermissibly arbitrary and capricious. They attempt to overcome, as opposed to interpret, the clear meaning of our asylum statutes.”

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

Asylum Ban Reg Comments_July 2020_FINAL

INTRODUCTION

In their introduction, the proposed regulations misstate the Congressional intent behind our asylum laws.2 Since 1980, our nation’s asylum laws are neither an expression of foreign policy nor an assertion of the right to protect resources or citizens. It is for this reason that the notice of proposed rulemaking must cite a case from 1972 that did not address asylum at all in order to find support for its claim.

The intent of Congress in enacting the 1980 Refugee Act was to bring our country’s asylum laws into accordance with our international treaty obligations, specifically by eliminating the above- stated biases from such determinations. For the past 40 years, our laws require us to grant asylum to all who qualify regardless of foreign policy or other concerns. Furthermore, the international treaties were intentionally left broad enough in their language to allow adjudicators flexibility to provide protection in response to whatever types of harm creative persecutors might de- vise. In choosing to adopt the precise language of those treaties, Congress adopted the same flexibility. See e.g. Murray v. The Schooner Charming Betsy, 6 U.S. 64 (1804), pursuant to which national statutes should be interpreted in such a way as to not conflict with international laws.

The proposed rules are impermissibly arbitrary and capricious. They attempt to overcome, as opposed to interpret, the clear meaning of our asylum statutes. Rather than interpret the views of Congress, the proposed rules seek to replace them in furtherance of the strongly anti-immigrant views of the administration they serve.3 And that they seek to do so in an election year, for political gain, is clear.

In attempting to stifle clear Congressional intent in service of its own political motives, the ad- ministration has proposed rules that are ultra vires to the statute.

*****************

Read our full comment at the above link.

Special thanks to the following Round Table Team that took the lead in drafting this comment (listed alphabetically):

Judge Jeffrey Chase

Judge Bruce Einhorn

Judge Rebecca Jamil

Judge Carol King

Judge Lory Diana Rosenberg

Judge Ilyce Shugall

Due Process Forever! Crimes Against Humanity, Never!

PWS

07-14-20

😰YET ANOTHER  SAD DAY FOR  AMERICAN JUSTICE:  Competence, Professionalism, Fairness, & Human Decency Depart EOIR — Every American Who Cares About Due Process & Color Blind Justice In America Should Be Outraged About Former Acting Chief Immigration Judge Christopher Santoro’s Untimely Departure & Thankful That He Had The Guts To Speak Truth To Power!

 

https://apple.news/AHkgjeG2HQQKcxUA5LntKNg

Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:

A Top Immigration Court Official Called For Impartiality In A Memo He Sent As He Resigned

The judge was replaced by the Trump administration with the former top Immigration and Customs Enforcement prosecutor.

Posted on July 3, 2020, at 1:52 p.m. ET

Hamed Aleaziz

BuzzFeed News Reporter

A leading immigration court official stepped down Thursday after sending a pointed email to court employees emphasizing the importance of the appearance of impartiality and the benefits of providing protections for people fleeing to the US. The message came on the same day the Trump administration tapped the former top Immigration and Customs Enforcement prosecutor to take his position, a move that outraged immigrant advocates.

The Trump administration selected Tracy Short, previously the lead ICE prosecutor, for the chief immigration judge role. ICE prosecutors often take up roles as immigration judges, but the selection of Short, formerly ICE’s principal legal adviser, left some claiming the move would undercut the appearance of neutrality at the court.

Christopher Santoro, the acting chief immigration judge, appeared to signal that in his message to court employees announcing his resignation.

His resignation and Short’s hiring comes as the Trump administration has undertaken a monumental overhaul of the way immigration judges work: placing quotas on the number of cases they should complete every year, restricting when asylum can be granted, and pouring thousands of previously closed cases back into court dockets. In the meantime, the case backlog has increased and wait times have continued to skyrocket to hundreds of days.

“There will always be those who disagree with a judge’s (or jury’s) decision and our court system is no different,” he wrote in the email on Thursday, which was obtained by BuzzFeed News. “But for the public to trust a court system, for the public to believe that a court is providing fair and equitable treatment under the law, that court system must not only dispense justice impartially but also appear to be impartial. Maintaining the appearance of impartiality and fairness can often be more difficult than being impartial and is a goal each of us – regardless of our role – must strive for every day.”

Santoro, who had himself served as a senior ICE advisor during the Obama administration, said he delivers this message in training to immigration judges and it applied to everyone involved with the court.

“Santoro’s emphasis on impartiality and protecting vulnerable populations is a sharp departure from this administration’s priorities, which have focused around speedy adjudications and reducing the backlog,” said Sarah Pierce, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “Someone who recognizes the dire need for impartiality in this system has to watch a prosecutor lead the charge in his wake.”

Two Department of Justice employees said the decision to tap Short was misguided. The Office of the Chief Immigration Judge “provides overall program direction, articulates policies and procedures, and establishes priorities” for the court.

“His hiring is further confirmation that the Executive Office for Immigration Review leadership wishes EOIR to be a tool for enforcement agencies, focused on removal orders and nothing else,” said one employee, who could not speak publicly on the matter. The employee said that Santoro is “incredibly respected, and, in normal times, he would have been the chief immigration judge.”

Another DOJ employee said that Short’s appointment was “one step closer to the death knell for impartiality at the Immigration Court and more persuasive evidence that our code of American justice and fairness is not being followed at the Department of Justice.”

Ashley Tabaddor, who heads the union that represents immigration judges, said they were sad to hear of Santoro’s departure, adding that he is “a well-respected judge and will be tremendously missed.”

In his email, Santoro praised the immigration court for its work in recent years.

“Despite the many challenges thrown our way – ranging from changing priorities to lapses in appropriations to the temporary loss of our case management system to our million-plus pending caseload – you have risen to meet and exceed expectations each and every time. I have never worked with a finer group of professionals,” Santoro wrote.

He later said that the “nation benefits when we welcome those who bring different skills, perspectives, and experiences, and when we protect those who would be persecuted or tortured in their home country. We also benefit when we ensure that our laws are enforced fairly and consistently.”

Observers of the court — including current and former officials — said the email was eye opening.

“I’m heartened, but not surprised, to see Judge Santoro join the dozens of judges who have resigned from this administration and expressed a deep concern for the due process rights of vulnerable asylum seekers in our immigration court system,” said Rebecca Jamil, a former immigration judge who stepped down due to the administration’s immigration policies. “For a court system to mean anything, the public has to trust that it is fair and unbiased, and the Immigration Court simply does not have that important contract with the current Attorney General. I’m grateful that Judge Santoro reached the same conclusion that I did.”

. . . .

*********************

Read the rest of Hamed’s article at the link.

This is yet another disgraceful incident in three years of unconstitutional bias and failure of due process at EOIR. The competent, scholarly, fair, and impartial are driven out and replaced by unqualified politicos. 

Just heard this statement on TV in connection with yet another racially motivated killing: “We have a morality problem in America!” EOIR has both a competency and a morality problems. When will someone put an end to this unconscionable and deadly nonsense?

As I have said before, Judge Santoro was our Assistant Chief Immigration Judge during some of my time in Arlington. A “straight-up” professional who cared about both public service and the health and welfare of Court employees in very stressful situations.

What a squandering of public funds and goodwill when the competent are pushed out and replaced by those stunningly unqualified to serve in any type of judicial position, let alone one calling for ethical and moral leadership.

Thanks for your service, Chris.😎

Also, proud to be a member of the Round Table along with our courageous colleague, Judge Rebecca Jamil!

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-03-20

ROUND TABLE MEMBER TAKES US INSIDE THE EOIR DISASTER IN NEW JERSEY!

Hon. Susan G. Roy
Hon. Susan G. Roy
Law Office of Susan G. Roy, LLC
Princeton Junction, NJ
Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

Former Judge Sue Roy reports:

The [Elizabeth] court was open today (and has been for days) and they had already started hearings this morning, with detainees and others in the courtrooms and the holding areas, when 2 detainees tested positive for COVID-19. They frantically shut down the court.

The Court is inside the detention center, uses the same antiquated ventilation system, same entrance, same guards and facility employees, etc.

And last week EOIR was trying to force Newark Immigration Judges to cover in Elizabeth IN PERSON.

The callousness and disregard for their own staff, much less everyone else, is staggering.

Sue

**************

Thanks for speaking out, my friend!

The mindless cruelty and bad judgment just “keeps on keeping on!”

PWS

04-08-20

MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE @ LA TIMES:  Conscientious Immigration Judges Continue To Jump Ship As Regime Turns Immigration “Courts” Into DHS Deportation Offices, Where Due Process & Humanity Die Under A White Nationalist Agenda

Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Houston Bureau Chief
LA Times
Hon. Charles Honeyman
Honorable Charles Honeyman
Retired U.S. Immigration Judge
Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

 

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=b5c81c57-52fe-4cd7-a092-fc7c8da23f05&v=sdk

 

HOUSTON — Immigration Judge Charles Honeyman was nearing retirement, but he vowed not to leave while Donald Trump was president and risk being replaced by an ideologue with an anti-immigration agenda.

He pushed back against the administration the best he could. He continued to grant asylum to victims of domestic violence even after the Justice Department said that was not a valid reason to. And he tried to ignore demands to speed through cases without giving them the consideration he believed the law required.

But as the pressure from Washington increased, Honeyman started having stomach pains and thinking, “There are a lot of cases I’m going to have to deny that I’ll feel sick over.”

This month, after 24 years on the bench, the 70-year-old judge called it quits.

Dozens of other judges concerned about their independence have done the same, according to the union that represents them and interviews with several who left.

“We’ve seen stuff which is unprecedented — people leaving the bench soon after they were appointed,” said A. Ashley Tabaddor, an immigration judge in Los Angeles and president of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges union.

“Judges are going to other federal agencies and retiring as soon as possible. They just don’t want to deal with it. It’s become unbearable.”

Especially worrying to many is a quota system that the Trump administration imposed in 2018 requiring each judge to close at least 700 cases annually, monitoring their progress with a dashboard display installed on their computers.

Tabaddor called the system “a factory model” that puts “pressures on the judges to push the cases through.”

Jeffrey Chase, who served as an immigration judge in New York City until 2007, founded a group of former immigration judges in 2017 that has grown to 40 members.

“They say they would have gladly worked another five or 10 years, but they just reached a point under this administration where they can’t,” he said. “It used to be there were pressures, but you were an independent judge left to decide the cases.”

The precise number of judges who have quit under duress is unclear. Kathryn Mattingly, a spokeswoman for the courts, said a total of 45 left their positions in the fiscal year that ended last September, but she declined to provide a breakdown of how many of those were deaths, planned retirements or promotions to the immigration appeals board.

More information may become available Wednesday, when a House judiciary subcommittee is scheduled to hear testimony on the state of judicial independence and due process in the country’s 68 immigration courts.

The Trump administration has been adding new judges faster than old ones are leaving. Between 2016 and last year, the total number of judges climbed from 289 to 442.

That increase as well as the quota system and other measures are part of a broad effort by the Trump administration to reduce a massive backlog that tripled during the Obama presidency and then grew worse as large numbers of Central Americans arrived at the U.S. border.

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security filed 443,000 cases seeking deportations and immigrants made a record 200,000 asylum applications — both records. More than a million cases remain unresolved.

Still, James McHenry, director of the immigration courts, told the Senate Homeland Security committee in November that the new rules have started to turn around a court system that had been hobbled by neglect and inefficiency.

On average, immigration judges met the quota last year while the number of complaints against judges decreased for the second year in a row, he said.

“These results unequivocally prove that immigration judges have the integrity and competence required to resolve cases in the timely and impartial manner that is required by law,” McHenry testified.

But many judges came to see the new guidelines as a way for the Trump administration to carry out its agenda of increasing deportations and denying asylum claims, which the president has asserted are largely fraudulent.

Those judges say it is impossible to work under the new system and still guarantee migrants their due process rights.

“There are many of us who just feel we can’t be part of a system that’s just so fundamentally unfair,” said Ilyce Shugall, who quit her job as an immigration judge in San Francisco last March and now directs the Immigrant Legal Defense Program at the Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Assn. of San Francisco. “I took an oath to uphold the Constitution.”

The Trump administration was “using the court as a weapon against immigrants,” she said.

Rebecca Jamil, who was also a judge in San Francisco before quitting in 2018, called it a “nearly impossible job.”

She said the judge appointed to replace her left after less than a year.

The judges union has taken up the cause, fighting to end the quota system and make immigration courts independent from the Justice Department.

In response, Justice officials petitioned the Federal Labor Relations Authority last August to decertify the union, arguing judges are managers and therefore not entitled to union protections. The board is expected to issue a decision later this year.

The conflict intensified after the union filed a formal complaint about a Justice Department newsletter that included a link to a white nationalist website that waged anti-Semitic attacks on judges.

Honeyman, who is Jewish, makes no secret of the empathy he felt for the asylum seekers who appeared in his courtroom in Philadelphia and during temporary assignments to courts in Louisiana, New Mexico and Texas.

His grandparents had come from Eastern Europe through New York’s Ellis Island. “I always thought, ‘But for some quirk of the immigration system, I would be on the other side’ ” of the bench, he said.

He granted asylum more often than many other judges. Between 2014 and 2019, immigration judges across the country denied about 60% of asylum claims, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Honeyman denied 35% of claims in his courtroom.

Reflecting on his career in a speech at his retirement party this month, Honeyman said he had been inspired by the cases he heard, including that of a Central American girl who wrote to thank him for granting her asylum. She had graduated from college and was applying to law school “so that she could give back to the America that had saved her life.”

Honeyman said he decided to leave the bench because of “the escalating attack over the past few years on the very notion that we are a court in any meaningful sense.”

“All of these factors and forces I regret tipped the balance for me,” he said. “It was time for Courtroom 1 at the Philadelphia immigration court to go dark.”

**************************************

The idea that things are “turning around” in a positive way for the beleaguered and weaponized “courts” is, of course, pure regime propaganda. The system, is totally out of control.

The Administration eliminated sensible “prosecutorial discretion” guidelines for DHS that prioritized cases in the manner of all other law enforcement agencies in America. DOJ politicos also stripped Immigration Judges of their well-established authority to manage dockets thorough “administrative closure” and restricted their ability to grant reasonable continuances (likely unconstitutional).

At a time when the world is still producing record numbers of refugees, the regime has artificially suppressed the asylum grant rate by issuing unethical and legally wrong politically generated precedents, blocking access to counsel, using intentionally coercive detention, and pressuring judges to “produce or else” which roughly translates into “deny and deport.” “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”)  is the order of the day. This toxic brand of ADR (not to be confused with “alternative disputes resolution”) is an insanely wasteful bureaucratic practice whereby “ready to try cases,” many pending for years, are shuffled off to the end of dockets that are many years out, often without advance notice to the parties, to accommodate Immigration Judge details, reassignments, and other “new priorities of the day.”

So totally out of control and mismanaged is today’s weaponized “court system” that the independent TRAC Immigration at  Syracuse University recently estimated that it would take approximately another 400 Immigration Judges, in addition to the approximately 465 already on duty, just for the courts to “break even” on the unrestricted and irresponsible flow of incoming cases from DHS enforcement. https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/591/

In other words, to stop creating more backlog. And that would be without further retirements or resignations – something that clearly is not going to happen. Even under those circumstances, the courts would merely be “breaking even.” Eliminating the “backlog” in a fair and legal manner would take additional judges and years, if not generations, if the courts continue to operate as a dysfunctional branch of DOJ dedicated to biased enforcement at the expense of due process, fundamental fairness, and responsible, professional management.

It’s likely that Wednesday‘s House hearings will further document the institutional unfairness and dysfunction of the current “courts” and the urgent, overwhelming need for an independent Article I Immigration court to be established by Congress. But, that reform might not come soon enough for the lives of many of the vulnerable individuals stuck in this “legal hellhole” and the sanity of many of the judges still on the bench.

Due Process Forever!

 

PWS

01-27-20

HOW TO RUIN A COURT SYSTEM: SOME OF THE “BEST & BRIGHTEST” IMMIGRATION JUDGES QUIT IN PROTEST OVER REGIME’S BIASED POLICIES AND “WEAPONIZATION” OF IMMIGRATION COURTS INTO DHS ENFORCEMENT TOOL BY DOJ POLITICOS!

Priscilla Alvarez
CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Priscilla Alvarez
Politics Reporter, CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/27/politics/immigration-judges-resign/index.html

 

Priscilla Alverez reports for CNN:

 

Immigration judges quit in response to administration policies

 

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

Updated 6:39 AM ET, Fri December 27, 2019

 

Washington (CNN)Lisa Dornell loved her job. For 24 years, she sat on the bench in Baltimore’s immigration court, hearing hundreds of cases of immigrants trying to stay in the United States.

“It was an honor. It was a privilege to be able to preside over so many different cases and be able to grant relief to people who needed relief,” Dornell told CNN in an interview.

But she walked away from that job in April — a decision that still invokes a wave of emotion when she recalls it. “The toxic environment made it both harder and easier to leave,” Dornell said.

Over the past year, in the heat of a border migration crisis, 45 judges have left, moved into new roles in the immigration court system — which is run by the Justice Department — or passed away, according to the department. That’s nearly double the number who departed their posts in fiscal years 2018 and 2017, when 24 and 21 judges left, respectively, according to data provided by the judges union.

The reasons why individual judges have moved on from their posts on the bench vary, but in interviews with judges who left in recent months, one theme ties them all together: frustration over a mounting number of policy changes that, they argue, chipped away at their authority.

Their departures come as the Justice Department faces a backlog that exceeds 1 million cases. The bogged-down system has led to immigration cases being pushed out years in the future, leaving many immigrants residing in the US unsure if they’ll be allowed to stay or be ordered removed.

Immigration judges accuse Justice Department of unfair labor practices

President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the nation’s immigration system, specifically taking issue with the practice of releasing immigrants while they await their court dates. To remedy that, the administration has sought to hire more immigration judges. Most recently, the immigration judge corps hit a record high, though the Justice Department still has to contend with judges leaving over policy disagreements.

In a statement to CNN, the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review spokeswoman, Kathryn Mattingly, said the agency “continually plans for attrition, and both improvements to the hiring process and a policy of ‘no dark courtrooms’ help minimize the operational impact of (immigration judge) separations and retirements.”

The agency doesn’t track individual reasons for retirements or departures, Mattingly said.

Immigration judges — employees of the Justice Department — are charged with following the policies set by each administration.

“The nature of the job ebbed and flowed as administrations changed,” Dornell recalled. “It was always tolerable. We all work with a realization that it’s the prerogative of the administration to implement policies as they see fit.”

The Trump administration was no exception. Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, implemented a series of changes to the immigration court system that have continued under his successor, William Barr.

The Justice Department has imposed case quotas, given more power to the director charged with overseeing the courts, reversed rulings, curtailed judges’ ability to exercise discretion in some cases and moved to decertify the union of immigration judges.

Over time, those actions prompted immigration judges, some of whom were retirement eligible and had decades of experience, to leave the department despite initial plans to stay longer.

“I felt then and I feel now that this administration is doing everything in its power to completely destroy the immigration court system, the board of immigration appeal and the immigration system in general,” said Ilyce Shugall, who served as an immigration judge in San Francisco from 2017 until March of this year. “And I just couldn’t be a part of that.”

‘It started to wear on me’

Over his nearly two-year tenure as attorney general, Sessions transformed the courts by flexing his authority to overrule decisions, hire more immigration judges and set a case quota for judges.

One of Sessions’ addresses to the workforce, in particular, resonated with judges. In a June 2018 speech in Washington, Sessions denounced the system, which he believed was encouraging migrants to make baseless asylum claims, and reminded judges of their role in cracking down on those claims.

“You have an obligation to decide cases efficiently and to keep our federal laws functioning effectively, fairly and consistently,” Sessions said. Later that day, he issued a ruling that removed asylum protections for victims of domestic violence and gang violence.

“To be honest with you, in that meeting room, there were a number of judges that cheered and clapped when he announced it,” said former immigration judge Rebecca Jamil, referring to the ruling that would follow his address. “It was grotesque to me.”

Jamil, who had been based in the San Francisco immigration court, had a docket that included migrants who had fled their home countries, claiming they were victims of domestic violence. Sessions’ decision took direct aim at those cases.

Another judge in attendance at Sessions’ speech, Denise Slavin, recalled jaws dropping. Slavin had become a judge in 1995, serving in Florida before finishing her tenure in Baltimore in April of this year.

Sessions’ address and follow-up ruling was among a series of policy changes that began to wear on judges.

“When you’ve been around that many administrations, you learn to adapt. You see a lot of different things. Nothing like this,” said James Fujimoto, a former Chicago immigration judge who started on the bench in 1990 and also retired in April.

In particular, the administration began rolling out changes that dictated the way judges were expected to proceed with cases, thereby tightening control of the immigration courts. For example, the Justice Department said it would evaluate immigration judges on how many cases they close and how fast they hear cases.

Earlier this year, the Justice Department also issued a new rule that gives more power to the director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review. It allows the Justice Department-appointed director — currently James McHenry — to step in and issue a ruling if appeals are not completed within a certain time frame.

“It started to wear at me,” said Jennie Giambastiani, a former Chicago immigration judge who joined the bench in 2002 and left this year. “The great number of cases coming in and the way it was expected we handle them.”

Judge Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, told CNN that for the majority of people leaving their roles it’s a result of the “hostility and insulting working conditions.”

Tabaddor noted that there’s been a pattern of new judges either leaving to return to their old jobs or taking other jobs within the government.

“This is not what they signed up for,” Tabaddor said, referring to policies designed to dictate how judges should handle their dockets.

Judges who have since left the department expressed similar concern over those policies. Dornell called the situation “intolerable.”

Shugall recalled the challenges she had faced in trying to move forward with cases in a way she thought was appropriate. “I felt like as more and more policies were coming down, it was making it harder and harder to effectively hear cases in the way that I felt was appropriate and in compliance with the statute regulations and Constitution,” Shugall said.

At an event earlier this year, McHenry rejected criticism that judges are vulnerable to pressures from the attorney general.

“Most judges that we’re familiar with, and I don’t think that immigration judges are any exception, when they’re on the bench, they know what their role is as a judge,” he said. “We’ve had no allegations of anyone reaching down to specific judges telling them, ‘You have to rule this way; you have to rule that way.’ ”

 

Justice Department hires new judges

Earlier this month, the Justice Department announced 28 new immigration judges, bringing the number of such judges to more than 465, a record high. The majority come from government backgrounds.

It’s not unusual for administrations to hire people who’ve worked in government, but under the Trump administration, Booz Allen Hamilton, at the direction of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, issued a report recommending that the agency diversify the experience of immigration judges.

The Justice Department’s hiring practices have been criticized by House Democrats, who say whistleblowers have previously raised concerns about political discrimination in the hiring of immigration judges. The department has denied that political ideology has been a factor.

The direction of the nation’s immigration courts is also a source of concern among immigrant advocate groups. This month, groups filed a wide-ranging lawsuit, alleging that the Trump administration has manipulated the immigration court system to serve an “anti immigrant agenda.”

It remains to be seen what changes, if any, are in store for the court system, but some of those who have already left their posts as judges carry guilt for departing, concerned about who may fill their jobs.

“The biggest thing I contended with is who is going to replace me,” Jamil said. “I knew I was a fair judge.”

 

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I’m proud to say that all of the quoted former Immigration Judges are members of our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, committed to preserving and advancing Due Process and judicial independence.

 

Apparently, EOIR headquarters and DOJ bureaucrats now refer to Immigration Judge decisions as “policy decisions,” thereby dropping any pretense that they are fair and impartial quasi-judicial adjudications under the law.

 

As for the ludicrous claim that this is anything approaching a legitimate independent judiciary, as one of my Round Table colleagues succinctly put it: “The political arm of DOJ’s assertion that IJs are treated independently is so much BS.”

 

Yup! Congratulations and many thanks to Judge Dornell and the others who spoke out in this article!

So, Immigration Judges, who lack the life tenure and protections of independence given to Article III Judges, put their careers and livelihoods on the line for Due Process and the rule of law, and, frankly, to save vulnerable lives that deserve saving. Meanwhile, the majority of Supreme Court Justices and far too many Article III Courts of Appeals Judges just bury their judicial heads in the sand and pretend like the outrages against Due Process, fundamental fairness, and the rule of law aren’t really happening in Immigration Court and that human lives aren’t being ruined or lost by their derelictions of duty. Has to make you wonder about their ethics, courage, and commitment to their oaths of office, as well as what the purpose of life tenure is if all it produces is complicity in the face of tyranny that threatens to destroy our Constitution and bring down our republic.

The Article IIIs are providing some rather sad examples and bad role models for today’s aspiring lawyers.

PWS

12-27-19

 

JUDICIAL BRAIN DRAIN: As Outlaw Administration Attacks Due Process & Attempts To Institutionalize Xenophobic Bias, Experienced, Conscientious U.S. Immigration Judges Head For The Exits – Abandonment Of Scholarship, Fairness, Commitment To Due Process Threatens Entire U.S. Justice System!

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/immigration-policy-judge-resign-trump

Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:

Being An Immigration Judge Was Their Dream. Under Trump, It Became Untenable.

“It has become so emotionally brutal and exhausting that many people I know are leaving or talking about finding an exit strategy,” said one immigration judge. “Morale has never, ever been lower.”

Posted on February 13, 2019, at 6:15 p.m. ET

Former immigration judge Rebecca Jamil in Fremont, California, on Dec. 28, 2018.

Constanza Hevia for BuzzFeed News

Former immigration judge Rebecca Jamil in Fremont, California, on Dec. 28, 2018.

SAN FRANCISCO — Rebecca Jamil was sitting in a nondescript hotel ballroom in suburban Virginia when she realized that her dream job — being an immigration judge — was no longer tenable. It was June 11, 2018, and then–attorney general Jeff Sessions, her boss, was speaking to a room packed with immigration judges, running through his list of usual complaints over what was, in his estimation, a broken asylum system.

Toward the end of the speech, Sessions let slip some big news: He had decided whether domestic abuse and gang victims could be granted asylum in the US. Advocates, attorneys, and judges had been waiting months to see what Sessions, who in his role as attorney general had the power to review cases, would do. After all, it would determine the fate of thousands of asylum-seekers, many fleeing dangerous situations in Central America.

Sessions didn’t reveal to the room the details of his ruling but Jamil, based in San Francisco since she was appointed in 2016, learned later that day that the attorney general had decided to dramatically restrict asylum protections for domestic abuse victims.

“I’d seen the faces of these families,” the 43-year-old judge said. “They weren’t abstractions to me.”

Hundreds of people overflow onto the sidewalk in a line snaking around the block outside a US immigration office with numerous courtrooms in San Francisco.

Eric Risberg / AP

Hundreds of people overflow onto the sidewalk in a line snaking around the block outside a US immigration office with numerous courtrooms in San Francisco.

Jamil, a mother of two young daughters, had been shaken by the images and sounds that came as a result of the Trump administration’s policy to separate families at the border. As a judge who oversaw primarily cases of women and children fleeing abuse and dangers abroad, this was the last straw.

Soon after, she stepped down from the court.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she told friends. “I felt that I couldn’t be ‘Rebecca Jamil, representative of the attorney general’ while these things were going on.”

In many ways, her resignation underscores the tenuous position of immigration judges, who are overseen by the attorney general and susceptible to the shifting winds of each administration. To avoid potential conflicts, the union that represents the judges has long called for its court to be an independent body, separate from the Department of Justice.

The Trump administration has undertaken a monumental overhaul of the way immigration judges, which total around 400 across the country, work: placing quotas on the number of cases they should complete every year, ending their ability to indefinitely suspend certain cases, restricting when asylum can be granted, and pouring thousands of previously closed cases back into court dockets.

In the meantime, the case backlog has jumped to more than 800,000 under the administration and wait times have continued to skyrocket to hundreds of days.

The quotas in particular have made judges feel as if they were cogs in a deportation machine, as opposed to neutral arbiters given time to thoughtfully analyze the merits of each case.

“The job has become exceedingly more difficult as the court has veered even farther away from being administered as a court rather than a law enforcement bureaucracy,” said Ashley Tabaddor, an immigration judge who heads the National Association of Immigration Judges, a union representing around 350 judges.

And it’s not just Jamil who has departed because of the massive changes to the court undertaken by the Trump administration, according to observers within the Department of Justice and those on the outside. While some, like Jamil, have resigned, others have retired early in large part because of the policies instituted under Trump, they said.

For those remaining at the immigration court, the mood is bleak.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during a news conference on Oct. 16, 2018.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during a news conference on Oct. 16, 2018.

“It has become so emotionally brutal and exhausting that many people I know are leaving or talking about finding an exit strategy,” said one immigration judge who declined to be named. “Morale has never, ever been lower.”

Another Justice Department official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, told BuzzFeed News, “It is exhausting when you feel undervalued by the people at the top of your organization, especially when they are motivated by partisanship and have not spent their careers doing the job that you do.”

Tabaddor, the head of the union, said that her group has noticed a higher rate of retirements and resignations than in the past because of the way judges have been treated under Trump.

Some have been bold in their timing. John Richardson, a former immigration judge in Phoenix, stepped down on Sep. 30, 2018 — the day before the administration instituted a quota for the number of cases to be completed by judges.

“The timing of my retirement was a direct result of the draconian policies of the Administration, the relegation of [judges] to the status of ‘action officers’ who deport as many people as possible as soon as possible with only token due process, and blaming [judges] for the immigration crisis caused by decades of neglect and under funding of the Immigration Courts,” he said in a statement to BuzzFeed News.

Another judge who resigned from the bench in September told staff members in a goodbye email, “I know things are getting difficult for you at [the Executive Office for Immigration Review], but I believe all you will ‘ride through the storm’ and ‘come out with a smile.’”

There have long been work challenges for immigration judges, including heavy caseloads and assignments, leading to comparatively high burnout rates. Justice Department officials told BuzzFeed News that concerns over retirements were nothing new.

According to the agency, from the beginning of fiscal year 2014 through Feb. 12, 2019, 94 immigration judges have retired, separated, or died. More than a third of those judges, 32, have left since Oct. 1, 2017. The agency does not track why judges leave their positions.

To those within the court and others who have recently retired, the situation has worsened to an unprecedented level. Richardson, the former judge in Phoenix, said he would have continued presiding over immigration cases if the status quo had remained.

“Yes, I was 75 years old with over 50 years of honorable federal service with the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice, but had no plans for retirement as long as I was treated with respect, appreciated, and provided adequate support,” he said. “I had 28 years as an IJ and very much enjoyed my job, even with the poor funding and lack of support by Congress and the White House during that 28 years.”

Jeff Chase, a former immigration judge who stepped down years ago and who speaks regularly with others who’ve left the bench, was blunt in his characterization.

“The fastest growth industry is former immigration judges,” Chase said. Those still on the bench have told him, “It’s horrible. Whatever you think it is, it is much, much worse.”

In the meantime, the Trump administration has hired more than 100 judges to not only fill the vacancies of those who’ve retired but to add numbers to the bench. It’s a rehauling of the courts that could “have a drastic impact,” according to Chase.

Many of the judges retiring in recent months are experienced jurists, hired by the Clinton administration in the mid to late ’90s, he said. These judges, Chase said, were more willing to push back on claims made in court by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement or to allow immigrants extended time to make their cases in what could otherwise be a rushed procedure.

In their place, Chase said, are judges hired by the new administration with case completion quotas, a two-year probation period, and a mandate to avoid showing sympathy for the people appearing before them.

“Even if it doesn’t show up on the sheet, just the level of humanity, that makes a huge difference — that’s what this administration is trying to remove from the immigration judge corps,” he said.

Rebecca Jamil holds her immigration judge certificate.

Constanza Hevia for BuzzFeed News

Rebecca Jamil holds her immigration judge certificate.

For her part, Jamil wanted to become an immigration judge from the earliest moments of her legal career. After working as a staff attorney at the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals, she joined the government as a prosecutor with ICE in 2011, where she was able to use discretion to focus deportation efforts on those with serious criminal backgrounds. Under the Trump administration, ICE attorneys have been told that nearly all undocumented immigrants are priorities for deportation.

In 2014, Jamil took a chance to fulfill her dream: She applied to become an immigration judge. It was a 17-month process, full of drawn-out interviews in Washington, DC, but finally, in 2015 she received a phone call informing her that she got the job.

“I thought, and I must have told most people I know, that this is the last job that I would ever have. It’s all I wanted to do,” she said.

Jamil dedicated herself to the exhausting career. She oversaw a docket made up primarily of families and regularly heard cases in which women and children applied for asylum based on abuse that they had experienced by partners and family members abroad.

Day in and day out, Jamil heard intense testimony of physical and sexual violence against women and children.

“You’re sitting in a windowless room and people tell you the very worst parts of their life and you have to decide if it is enough to stay in the US,” she said. “That is very tiring day after day to be the person who makes that decision.”

Then, under the Trump administration, things started to change. In 2018, Sessions instituted a new policy, severely limiting when judges could suspend certain cases. Suddenly, her docket expanded and she wasn’t allowed to decide which cases deserved to remain in court and which didn’t.

Jamil and fellow immigration judges were in attendance at the Virginia conference where Sessions spoke for annual trainings on courtroom procedure. The year before, jurists heard substantive legal updates and trainings on bias in the courtroom.

This version of the training, however, felt different.

“The entire conference was profoundly disturbing. Do things as fast as possible. There was an overarching theme of disbelieving aliens and their claims and how to remove people faster,” Jamil said. “That is not what I saw my job as an immigration judge to be. I was not trained to do that.”

Soon after she returned home, Jamil put in her resignation. Her colleagues fretted, probing her about whether she had considered the type of judge that could fill her spot on the bench and the impact that could have.

She didn’t have an answer, but she knew that she couldn’t do it any longer.

“Family separations; Sessions making his own case law on asylum; when we could continue cases — I could no longer sit below the seal of the Department of Justice and represent the Department of Justice at that point,” Jamil said. “They just chipped away at our authority on a daily basis. It felt like we weren’t really judges. It was frustrating and demoralizing.”

A former colleague, Laura Ramirez, worked for years as an immigration judge in San Francisco. In December, she retired at the earliest date possible, five days after she turned 60.

The changes put in place by the Trump administration, especially the case quotas, and the politicization of her job, became too much to handle.

The loss of judges like Jamil and others could be immeasurable to both immigrants and Department of Homeland Security attorneys, Ramirez said.

“For the system of justice, there’s these highly qualified, fair, thoughtful people who are being squeezed out of the system for political reasons, basically,” she said. “If people like her are squeezed out, it’s a loss to people who appear before her. The system can’t be fair if good people like her are pushed out.”

***********************************************

Forcing the “best, brightest, and fairest” out. Reinforcing “worst practices.” Enabling judges with well-established records of anti-asylum, nationality-based, and misogynistic bias. Attacking those private attorneys who steadfastly defended legal and Constitutional rights that were being systematically undermined by the Administration. Blaming others for his own incompetence and lack of scholarship. That’s what the “Sessions program” was all about.

The only good news: folks like Judge Jamil, Judge Ramirez, Judge Richardson, and Judge Chase are now part of the ever-growing “Our Gang” of retired Immigraton Judges helping others to fight the injustices and destruction of Due Process being pushed by the Trump Administration and a DOJ that has abandoned its mission in favor of a White Nationalist political agenda. Our voices are being heard in support of the efforts of the “New Due Process Army.”

And, while I doubt that anyone outside of Trump and Miller can match the viscous lies, racism, and knowingly false narratives of Sessions, I wouldn’t expect much improvement under Barr. Barr thought Sessions was “the greatest thing since sliced bread.” That, more than the Mueller investigation, should have caused all Democrats to vote against his confirmation. He’ll just “lose” some of the overtly racist and inflammatory lingo of the White Nationalist restrictionists and attack immigrants on the basis of bogus “strict enforcement” platitudes.

Every American who believes in our Constitution and thinks that America is different from the “Banana Republics” we often criticize will be threatened by this development. Malicious harm to the most vulnerable among us is harm to all; and the collapse of one of the “building blocks” at the “retail level” of the American justice system will adversely affect everybody’s ability to get justice with fairness and impartiality.

Many of us don’t think we will need fair, independent, and impartial courts until we do. Once the Trump Administration destroys them, they won’t easily be rebuilt.

Who will defend your rights when the time comes if you stand by and watch the rights of others being trampled?

PWS

02-14-19