Backlogs – Page 55 – immigrationcourtside.com

WASHPOST: DON’T SEND TROOPS, GUNS, & MONEY – SEND JUDGES!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-send-troops-to-the-border-send-judges/2018/11/02/cd54d0f0-deda-11e8-85df-7a6b4d25cfbb_story.html

The Post Editorial Board writes:

PRESIDENT TRUMP has based his midterm election campaign on the specter of an “invasion” by immigrants marching from Central America to the southern border. His demagoguery is disgusting and irresponsible. But there is a real problem of migrants — one that his administration is failing to address.

Many people are crossing the border with their children and applying for asylum, overwhelming existing mechanisms for dealing with asylum seekers. They are feeding what the president calls a “catch-and-release” revolving door for migrants freed as they await hearings to adjudicate their cases, and contributing to a backlog of some 750,000 cases in immigration courts.

A rational response would be to add substantially to the approximately 350 immigration judges, who cannot handle the tens of thousands of asylum claims flooding the immigration courts annually. The administration this year hired a few dozen new judges, a fraction of what is required. As the caseload has more than quadrupled since 2006, the number of judges has not even doubled, according to congressional testimony in April by Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

Despite that, Mr. Trump has sneered at the idea of hiring more, even after aides pressed him to do so. “Who are these people?” he raged, before suggesting darkly that adding many new judges would somehow corrupt the system. “Now can you imagine the graft that must take place?” he said.

Granted, the hiring could be challenging, in vetting and cost. But any major challenge involves scaling up resources and personnel, and it’s hard to see why that’s beyond the government’s capabilities.

On the other hand, maybe Mr. Trump prefers having an issue to a solution. He has made it clear he believes the immigration question propelled him into the White House. Now, by ramping up his inflammatory rhetoric, and by advancing over-the-top measures such as sending thousands of troops to the border to fulfill a mission for which they are not trained — Congress has barred troops from law enforcement duties — it seems apparent Mr. Trump has opted for crisis instead of constructive improvements to what he rightly calls a broken system. Instead of deploying thousands of troops, why not hire hundreds of judges?

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

Certainly on the right track here!

But here’s what really needs to happen to address the issue in a rational way:

Send more Asylum Officers to do credible fear interviews at the border;
Send enough private attorneys to represent all arriving migrants before both the Asylum Office and the Immigration Courts;
Allow Asylum Officers to grant temporary withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) to the many applicants who have a probability of torture upon return, which clearly happens with “government acquiescence” — or in many cases actual participation or connivance — in the Northern Triangle;
Put the asylum claims of those granted CAT withholding on the “back burner” (thus keeping them from clogging the Immigration Courts) while working with the UNHCR and other counties in the Hemisphere (including, of course Mexico and Canada) on a more durable solution for those currently fleeing the Northern Triangle;
Otherwise, individuals who pass credible fear should be released on minimal bonds and allowed to go to locations where they will be represented by pro bono lawyers (thus avoiding the money wasted on “tent cities” and other types of expensive and arguably illegal detention) — contrary to the Trump Administration lies, almost all represented asylum applicants show up faithfully for their Immigration Court Hearings;
If the Administration wants to “prioritize” the cases of recent arrivals before the Immigration Courts, this can and should be done without creating more “Aimless Docket Reshuffling.” Not “rocket science.” Here’s how:
- Hundreds of thousands of those now unnecessarily clogging the Immigration Court dockets are long-time residents eligible to apply for “Cancellation of Removal for Non-Lawful Permanent Residents.” Take those with no serious criminal records off the Immigration Court docket and send them to USCIS Adjudications for initial processing. No rush, since only 4,000 “numbers” are available each year for grants;
- Those granted can be put in a line for green card numbers maintained by USCIS;
- Those denied who have committed serious crimes should be referred back to the Immigration Courts;
- For others who don’t qualify for cancellation of removal, the Administration should sponsor bipartisan legislation to provide legal status to such long-term residents. With Administration support, such legislation clearly could pass both Houses and be enacted into law.
The Immigration Courts could then return to real priorities: detained cases; cases of recently arrived individuals with or without asylum claims; cases of immigrants who have committed crimes; and cases of other individuals who don’t fit within our legal system, as properly administered.
Sure, this doesn’t match the “White Nationalist game plan.” But, it’s a practical, legal solution that would be good for immigration enforcement, the legal system, and the country as a whole. And, until the final step of legalization of long-term residents, it can be achieved under the current law.
And, I’ll bet you the overall cost would be much less than some of the “designed to fail” and perhaps illegal schemes now being pursued by the Administration. That’s particularly true because applications to USCIS and legalization programs actually “pay their own way” through application fees — perhaps even turning a slight profit for the Government.

PWS

11-03-18

CNN: FRAUD, WASTE, & ABUSE: DOJ & DHS Continue To Thumb Noses At Supremes & Congress, Forcing Migrants To Dutifully Appear For Bogus Immigration Court Hearings At Knowingly False Dates & Times! – It’s “Kakistocracy In Action” & Nobody Has The Backbone To Put An End To It!

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/31/us/immigration-court-fake-dates/index.html

Catherine E. Shoichet reports for CNN:

(CNN)Lines snaked around the block outside immigration courts across the United States on Wednesday. But many people standing in them later learned they had no reason to be there.

More than 100 immigrants showed up to court carrying paperwork ordering them to appear before a judge, only to find out that their court dates hadn’t actually been scheduled, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). And as a result, uncharacteristically long lines were reported outside at least 10 immigration courts, the association said.

Lawyers told CNN it’s part of a troubling trend that shows how dysfunctional the system has become and how chaotic the Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement can be.

“From a humanitarian point of view, it’s sickening what you’re seeing happening here, because they’re toying with these individuals’ lives in many cases. … This is widespread, it’s national and it’s outrageous,” said Jeremy McKinney, AILA’s treasurer and an immigration attorney in North Carolina.

Sessions criticizes immigrants’ attorneys before immigration judges

Attorneys say the practice began after the US Supreme Court ruled in June that notices to appear — the charging documents that immigration authorities issue to send someone to immigration court who’s accused of being in the United States illegally — must specify the time and place of proceedings in order to be valid.

Since then, immigration lawyers across the country have reported that officials are increasingly issuing such notices with so-called “fake dates,” ordering immigrants to appear at hearings that, it later turns out, were never scheduled in immigration courts.

In recent months, lawyers have reported examples of notices issued for nonexistent dates, such as September 31st, and for times of day when courts aren’t open, such as midnight.

A NOTICE TO APPEAR AT MIDNIGHT (p. 1)

Atlanta immigration attorney Rachel Effron Sharma says this is an example of a notice a client received, ordering the client to report to an immigration court at a time when the court was closed.

View the entire document with DocumentCloud

US Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Daniel Hetlage said in a statement that initial dates on notices issued by his agency and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are “based on guidance on upcoming docket dates from local EOIR, an agency within the US Department of Justice responsible for administering the immigration courts.”

EOIR, Hetlage said, “is responsible for setting and re-setting appearances dates upon receipt of Notices to Appear filed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcements and other components of the US Department of Homeland Security.”

A spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Notices issued for dates that don’t exist, times when court is closed

On Wednesday, reports of the so-called “fake date” practice were far more widespread, and attorneys reported seeing larger numbers of people affected than previously, said Laura Lynch, AILA’s senior policy counsel.

Attorneys observed long lines at courts in Baltimore, Charlotte, Atlanta, Orlando, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Phoenix and San Diego. Immigrants with “fake dates” were also seen at courts Wednesday in Las Vegas and Denver, Lynch said, but lines there weren’t as long.

In this screengrab from a handout video provided by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, people are seen lining up outside the Atlanta Immigration Court on October 31.

“The line was around the corner,” said Jorge Gavilanes, an immigration attorney in Atlanta who witnessed the crowds gathering Wednesday. “Security was unprepared for this. The court was unprepared for this. They were scrambling to check every single one of these cases to see if these cases have been already filed with this court.”

This isn’t the first time such situations have been reported.

The Dallas Morning News documented the practice occurring in court there in September.

It may sound like a small bureaucratic glitch, Lynch said, but such mix-ups can take a significant toll on immigrants’ lives.

“Clients are driving like eight hours and taking off of work in order to appear at these hearings, only to find out that it’s not the actual correct hearing date. The impact is their jobs, it’s their life, and also just the anxiety,” she said.

Attorney: ‘People were obviously fearful’

Sometimes, lawyers say they’re able to confirm with courts beforehand that certain noticed hearing dates aren’t accurate, but then struggle to convince their clients not to show up in court anyway.

“They’re so anxious to cooperate. They don’t want any problems with ICE or with the authorities,” says Rachel Effron Sharma, an immigration attorney in Atlanta who tried to explain the situation to clients this week. “They got a letter telling them to go that day. They didn’t understand how it would be possible that there would be a date that was just made up.”

Two lawyers. One court. And their fight against the odds.

Gavilanes said he’s found himself in a similar predicament, trying to reassure clients who know that if they don’t show up for a scheduled court hearing, the consequences could be severe.

“People were obviously fearful that if they miss their hearing, they were going to get deported in their absence, and they didn’t want to take that chance,” he said. “They’d rather show up at the court and have them tell them go home instead of not showing up and worry(ing) about it.”

On Wednesday, Gavilanes said he fielded questions from numerous immigrants who were baffled by the situation.

“I don’t think people really understand why this is happening,” he said.

CNN’s Angela Barajas and Bilal Vaughn contributed to this report.

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

Thank you, Catherine, for helping to expose the corrupt administration of the Immigration Courts and DHS Enforcement under Trump, Sessions, & Nielsen!

Not only are individuals being denied due process, but taxpayer money is literally being poured down the drain when cases have to be reset by the courts, rather than being rationally and correctly set in the first place. Since the Immigration Courts have been so incompetently managed that they are virtually an “automation free zone” every mistake has to be corrected manually by already overwhelmed Court Clerks who already are struggling to keep up with all of Sessions’s other “Gonzo priorities.”

The whole process is what I call “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” or (“ADR”). While ADR certainly was practiced by both the Bush II and Obama Administrations, Sessions has taken ADR to new heights of dysfunction, irrationality, and intentional cruelty. The Government and the Immigration Courts actually exist to serve the public interest (including, of course, the interest of the people summoned before them), not to satisfy the outlier restrictionist agenda that Jeff Sessions failed to enact during his many wasted years in Congress.

With competent, professional, independent, non-political Administration, by folks who understand the system and are willing to work with the public and the lawyers, the money could be spent creating a system that would actually be fair, just, and efficient — no, not tomorrow or the next day, but certainly in the foreseeable future.

But, as long as folks like Sessions are in charge, “Good Government” has no chance whatsoever! And, that’s bad for all of us!

Many thanks to my good friend Laura Lynch over at AILA National for passing this item along.

PWS

11-01-18

READ MY SPEECH TO THE PRO BONO TRAINING @ CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY SPONSORED BY THE FBA AND THE TAHIRIH JUSTICE CENTER ON OCT. 26, 2018: “A Brief Audio Tour Of The Arlington Immigration Court – 2018 Edition”

A Brief Audio Tour of the Arlington Immigration Court

A Brief Audio Tour of the Arlington Immigration Court

Judge Paul Wickham Schmidt
United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

Federal Bar Association & Tahirah Justice Center Pro Bono Training

Columbus School of Law

Catholic University of America

Washington, DC.

Oct. 26, 2018

Thanks so much to our FBA Immigration Section Chair Betty Stevens, Danielle Beach-Oswald, and Kursten Phelps of The Tahirih Justice Center for putting this great program together and inviting me. It’s always an honor to be on a panel with my good friend Professor Maureen Sweeney the Director of the Immigration Clinic at UMD Baltimore. Unlike me, (I’m just an “interested observer” at this point) Professor Sweeney and her clinic students “walk the walk and talk the talk” in Immigration Court all the time. So, please direct all of your questions to Professor Sweeney.
I call this speech “A Brief Audio Tour of the Arlington Immigration Court.” It gives you a very compact introduction to what happens in Immigration Court, namely the U.S. Immigration Court in Arlington, Virginia.
Our tour today consists of two parts, both concentrating on asylum cases, since those are a significant part of the docket and the topic of this training. First, I will give you an overview of the Arlington Immigration Court, as much of it as I still understand as an “outsider” who was once an “insider.” Second, I will describe the mechanics of an asylum case in Immigration Court. When I am done, you should have at least some idea of what happens at the “retail level” of our immigration system.
As some of you know, I used to give a comprehensive disclaimer. But, I’m retired now, so I don‘t have to do that. But, I do want to hold the FBA, The Tahirih Justice Center, Catholic University, Professor Sweeney and everyone else concerned harmless for my remarks today which are my opinion and mine only. No sugar-coating, no bureaucratic doublespeak, no “party line,” no BS – just the unvarnished truth, as I see it!
As your tour guide, and because this is Friday, and you are such a great audience, I also give you my absolute, unconditional, money-back guarantee that this tour will be completely free from computer-generated slides, power points, or any other type of distracting modern technology that might interfere with your total comprehension or listening enjoyment. In other words, I am the “power point” of this presentation

I. Immigration Court Overview

For those of you unfamiliar with the Immigration Court system, while it’s called a court, and sort of looks like a court, it’s actually a dysfunctional mess that has little resemblance to any other real court system in America! Your challenge will be to figure out how to get a broken system to work well enough to provide justice for your client in your particular case. The good news: It can be done!
And, I will say that your chances of doing that in Arlington and Baltimore, where the judges have a history and a reputation of treating all parties fairly, impartially, professionally, and courteously will be better than in many other courts.
The Arlington Immigration Court is part of the Executive Office for Immigration Review — affectionately known as “EOIR” for you Winnie the Pooh fans — a separate branch of the U.S. Department of Justice. There are approximately 350 Immigration Judges in more than 50 court locations nationwide, with another 100 or so additional judges “on order.”
As an Immigration Judge, I was an administrative judge appointed by the Attorney General. I was not a judge under Article III of the Constitution, like a U.S. District Judge, who is appointed for life by the President and confirmed by the Senate. My powers and authority were delegated by the Attorney General and limited by his or her regulations.
Unfortunately, that means that the Immigration Judges currently work for Jeff Sessions. He is an unapologetic immigration restricitonist and enthusiastic cheerleader for DHS immigration enforcement. He has expressed great antipathy for asylum seekers and their attorneys – namely you! His actions have stripped Immigration Judges of effective control over their dockets and made it much more difficult for refugees from Central American, particularly women, to obtain protection which they desperately need and richly deserve under our laws as properly interpreted and applied.
One of the best descriptions of what it’s like to be an Immigration Judge was offered by the late Judge Terence T. Evans of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals who said:
Because 100 percent of asylum petitioners want to stay in this country, but less than 100 percent are entitled to asylum, an immigration judge must be alert to the fact that some petitioners will embellish their claims to increase their chances of success. On the other hand, an immigration judge must be sensitive to the suffering and fears of petitioners who are genuinely entitled to asylum in this country. A healthy balance of sympathy and skepticism is a job requirement for a good immigration judge. Attaining that balance is what makes the job of an immigration judge, in my view, excruciatingly difficult.
Unfortunately, the need for balance and some sympathy for the situation of asylum seekers has been completely subsumed by this Administration’s fixation with deporting more migrants – at any cost. Indeed, in a recent outrageously inappropriate and unethical speech to newly hired Immigration Judges, Sessions actually told them “not to act out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of the respondent.” What a crock! Interpreting a humanitarian relief statute without humanity and empathy – it’s the polar opposite of “good judging” as described by the late Judge Evans!
My good friend and colleague, Judge Dana Leigh Marks, the President of the National Association of Immigration Judges, told the New York Times that “immigration judges often feel asylum hearings are ‘like holding death penalty cases in traffic court.’” I viewed my job as an Immigration Judge as half scholar, half performing artist.
Currently, there are 13 judges sitting at the Arlington Immigration Court. While at one time, all the judges were “generalists,” handling all types of cases, that had started to change even before my retirement in June 2016. For example, Judge Bryant was assigned full time to the juvenile dockets, while other of my colleagues worked full time on detained cased, and others of us did only the non-detained docket.
I clearly recognize the hazards of peppering you with statistics, particularly on the first presentation of the morning. Nevertheless, I am going to throw out a few numbers just to give you some perspective on our workload. We must keep in mind, however, that these figures and percentages represent real people, with very human stories, encompassing all of the hopes, dreams, schemes, flaws, tragedies, and triumphs of mankind.
According to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (known as “TRAC”), as of August 2018, there were nearly 43,000 pending cases at the Arlington Immigration Court, of which approximately 500 were on the detained docket. The average pending docket, therefore, is approximately 3,000+ cases per judge, giving rise to an average wait of 830 days – more than two years – for a case to be decided, and leading to a mushrooming nationwide backlog in excess of 750,000, notwithstanding additional judges on the bench.
This Administration’s misguided policies and mismanagement are rapidly destroying the U.S. Immigration Court System as we speak. Typically, Sessions tries to shift the blame elsewhere – primarily to the victims: you and your clients and the demoralized U.S. Immigration Judges caught up in this nightmare parody of a court system.
At one time, each Arlington Judge had a detained and a non-detained docket, and each of those was subdivided into Master Calendar and Individual Calendar dockets. The majority of the time was spent on the non-detained docket. In Arlington, detained cases are heard exclusively by TeleVideo connections, mostly with the DHS Contract Detention Center in Farmville, and sometimes with various regional jails in Virginia. Farmville is conveniently located in in the rural southern part of the state, far away from Arlington or any other major metropolitan area.
At one time, there were case priorities in the Immigration Courts. However, my understanding is that those have been abolished except for detained cases. Apparently, all non-detained cases are now of equal priority, meaning that none are priorities. This leads to a phenomenon I’m sure you will experience that I call “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” or “ADR.” Cases are arbitrarily and inexplicably moved around the judges’ dockets at the whim of the politicos at the DOJ and their subordinates at Falls Church.
Each judge conducts at least one Master Calendar, sometimes more, per week. The Master Calendar is basically the court’s intake and triage system, similar to an arraignment or preliminary hearing in the criminal court system.
The most important aspects of a Master Calendar are finding out the type of case, taking pleadings, ascertaining interpreter requirements, accepting applications for relief (including asylum), checking the status of fingerprints and biometrics, checking the address, giving warnings, ruling on preliminary motions, and, most important, ensuring that the alien, known as the “respondent” in our “Removal Proceedings” gets a lawyer, at no expense to the Government. If the respondent does not have a lawyer at the initial Master Calendar, the judge hands out the official list of free or low-cost legal service providers in the area and reset the case to another Master.
Of course, given the backlogs and ever shifting priorities, most free or nominal cost legal service providers are already overwhelmed and can’t take additional cases on the unrealistic schedules sometimes set by the courts at Sessions’s urging. This perverse system runs largely without regard to, and sometimes with intentional disregard of, the availability and professional needs of the hard-working, often pro bono or “low bono,” attorneys who are literally “keeping it afloat.” Indeed, I predict that at some point you will feel that you are the only ones honestly trying to make this system work. Otherwise, from top down, it’s largely “programmed for failure.”
Once the preliminaries have been satisfied during the Master Calendar process, the case is assigned a date for an Individual Calendar hearing. This is the hearing on the merits, which most often involves an application for relief from removal by the respondent. At the Individual hearing, the judge will admit evidence, listen to witnesses, hear arguments by both counsel and either render an oral decision on the merits or schedule a date for issuing a written decision.
The Arlington Immigration Court does a full range of cases. In addition to asylum-related matters, this includes custody and bond proceedings for individuals in detention, cancellation of removal for both residents and non-residents, contested issues of removability, returning permanent resident aliens, adjustment of status, and various types of waivers of grounds of removability, many of them related to criminal convictions. The judges also decide many motions, some of them dispositive, in chambers. Historically, the majority of Individual Calendar time in Arlington has been spent on asylum and related cases such as withholding of removal or relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”).
Judges are under pressure to complete more cases and have been directed to schedule at least three, sometimes more, merits cases per day. Part of the system for pressuring judges involves new “performance quotas” that ultimately can be used in making retention decisions for the judges.
Remarkably, while EOIR hasn’t been able to produce a functioning nationwide e-filing system after nearly two decades of failed efforts (in which both Betty Stevens and I were involved during our Government careers, well over a decade ago), they miraculously have been able to produce the “Immigration Judge Automated Dashboard.” Thus, every Immigration Judge’s computer now has a “stress screen” that reminds them of how they are doing on their “quotas” and “time limits.”
It’s all a question of priorities! Sadly, at the “New EOIR,” public service and Due Process take a back seat to the restrictionists’ political agendas.
Asylum cases reach Immigration Court in two basic ways. One is through “affirmative applications” filed initially at the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) Asylum Office in Arlington and “referred” to the Immigration Court for a de novo, that is, “entirely new,” hearing if that office is unable to grant. The other way is by “defensive applications” filed initially with the Immigration Court after a Notice to Appear has been issued.
During most of my career at Arlington, the number of affirmative filings exceeded defensive filings. However, according to EOIR statistics, in recent years there has been a dramatic reversal so that defensive applications now greatly exceed affirmative applications by a ratio of approximately 16:1 in FY 2016. Perhaps not surprisingly, affirmative application grant rates are substantially greater than those for defensive filings.
According to the latest TRAC reports, for the period 2012-2017, for one representative Immigration Judge in Arlington approximately 25% of the asylum cases were from Ethiopia, followed by El Salvador (16%), PRC (13%), Cameroon (5%), and Eritrea (5%). According to media reports and U.S. Department of State Country Reports, none of these countries is exactly a “garden spot” with respect to human rights and, with the exception of China, none would be major tourist destinations. In fact, according to EOIR statistics, China, Ethiopia, and Eritrea have been among the “top ten” asylum grant countries for many years, with China leading the pack.
The Immigration Court nationwide asylum grant rate has been falling steadily since the “high-water mark” of nearly 56% approvals in FY 2012. It was 43% in FY 2016. Still, in that year the grant rate for Arlington was 62%, well above the national average.
In Arlington, the attorney representation rate for asylum seekers historically has been at or above 90%. Nationwide, it was approximately 80% during FY 2017. Generally, representation rates are significantly lower for asylum seekers in detention.

II. MECHANICS OF AN ASYLUM CASE

Turning to the mechanics of an asylum case in Immigration Court, I will focus on the non-detained docket which historically has comprised the vast majority of cases at Arlington. You should be aware, however, that more and more asylum-related matters do appear on the detained docket, and are, therefore, given a higher priority than non-detained cases. This is likely to increase as Sessions appears to be on track to reverse the BIA precedent allowing bond for those who pass the credible fear process at the border.
A non-detained asylum case referred from the Asylum Office to the Arlington Immigration Court will be given an initial Master Calendar date a number of months in the future. In other words, a non-detained asylum case referred by the Arlington Asylum Office today might not appear on any Master Calendar until sometime next year.
In the past, all cases were randomly assigned to the Arlington Immigration Judges by the Court Administrator, who is analogous to the Chief Clerk of a state court, and our dedicated administrative staff. Each of us received an approximately equal number of new cases. I can’t tell you how they are assigned today. But, I assume there is at least some attempt to distribute the work equally among the judges.
In Arlington, a non-detained Master Calendar usually consists of 40-50 cases in a three-hour time slot. When the case initially appears on Master Calendar, one of two things usually happens. If the respondent has an attorney, the case usually will be set for the next available Individual Calendar hearing, often several years in the future for non-detained cases. Alternatively, a respondent who does not have an attorney will receive the Legal Services List, and the case will be reset for the next available Master Calendar.
Many cases “drop out” during the Master calendar process either when the respondent, having no relief from removal, accepts pre-merits-hearing voluntary departure or when the respondent fails to appear and therefore receives an in absentia removal order.
Additionally, the DHS, which initiates cases before the Immigration Court by issuing a “charging document” known as a “Notice to Appear,” (“NTA”) occasionally is unable to submit sufficient proof of the charge of removability at the Master Calendar hearing. This results in the dismissal or “termination” of the case, without prejudice to later refiling.
In the past cases, were terminated or continued to allow the respondent to apply for status to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”), a branch of the DHS. But, this practice has been severely restricted by recent precedents issued by Attorney General Sessions. The judge can also grant a change of venue (“COV”) to another Immigration Court if the respondent no longer lives within the jurisdiction. The most common COVs in this area are Arlington to Baltimore and vice versa.
Obviously, the Immigration Court has no jurisdiction over U.S. citizens. Therefore, nationality, or alienage, is an important jurisdictional issue. While alienage is usually conceded by the respondent during the Master Calendar process, occasionally merits hearings involving complex questions of U.S. citizenship. This is certainly an important issue that an advocate must always fully explore fully before conceding alienage.
Otherwise, once the preliminaries have been satisfied during the Master Calendar process, the case is assigned a date for an Individual Calendar hearing. This is the hearing on the merits, which most often involves an application for relief from removal by the respondent. As mentioned earlier, at the Individual hearing, the judge will admit evidence, listen to witnesses, hear arguments by both counsel and either render an oral decision on the merits or schedule a date for issuing a written decision.
Not surprisingly, unrepresented asylum cases, those where the respondent cannot find a lawyer and tries to represent him or herself, seldom are happy experiences for anyone involved. Fortunately, as I mentioned earlier, most asylum applicants in Arlington, at least on the non-detained docket, are represented.
Some of the representation, particularly that coming from dedicated and scholarly lawyers, law school clinics, and large law firms appearing pro bono, is truly outstanding. In the case of large law firms and clinics, this might be because those organizations are likely to be willing and able to devote the time, resources, and attention to detail that complex asylum cases require. For example, 20 years ago when I was a partner at a major American law firm we generally budgeted 100 hours of attorney time for a pro bono immigration hearing and 40 hours for any appeal.
Over the years, the Arlington Immigration Court has provided educational outreach and “hands on” practical training opportunities to countless law students, new attorneys, and interested observers from both the private and public sectors.
When I became an Immigration Judge in 2003, fully contested asylum hearings were the norm at the Arlington Immigration Court. Over time, thanks to the joint efforts of the DHS Chief Counsel for Arlington and the local bar, there were many fewer fully contested asylum hearings than in the past. In many cases, particularly those involving natives of countries we saw on a repetitive basis, key issues or eligibility were stipulated, that is, agreed upon by the parties, thus allowing the judges to concentrate on genuinely disputed points or cases.
Additionally, under the Obama Administration policies, the Office of Chief counsel often offered “prosecutorial discretion” or “PD” to individuals with good behavior and substantial equities in the U.S.
However, the Trump Administration has dramatically curtailed the PD program by DHS, while Sessions has removed the authority of Immigration Judges to “administratively close” cases, thus removing them from the docket. Combined with the negative asylum precedents issued by Sessions, and the overwhelming emphasis on enforcement, you should expect that almost all asylum cases will be fully contested by DHS Counsel. In all too many ways, the Immigration Court system is actually regressing in terms of fairness and efficiency as a result of the Trump Administration’s approach to immigration enforcement.
An average contested non-detained asylum hearing before me took approximately three to four hours. That often generated an appellate transcript well in excess of 100 pages. Although not always obvious from the hearing transcript, the hearing time and stress levels substantially increase if we are using a foreign language interpreter, which happens in the majority of asylum cases.
Generally, preliminaries such as marking the record, discussing any evidentiary objections, and opening arguments took approximately 30 minutes. The Assistant Chief Counsel for the DHS, the prosecutor, fulfills a role similar to that of an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney or an Assistant District Attorney in the state criminal justice system, or an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the federal system. The Assistant Chief Counsel usually submits the latest State Department Country Report and other relevant Department of State reports, such as the International Religious Freedom Report, if not submitted by the respondent. This insures that the record reflects the social, political, religious, and historical context in which the persecution claim is made.
I expected opening statements from both counsel identifying and discussing the issues. But, not all Immigration Judges encourage or even permit opening statements. It’s always wise to ascertain the judge’s preferences in advance.
As you can imagine, the primary issue in most asylum hearings is credibility, that is, whether the respondent’s version of what happened or will happen in his or her home country appears to be reliable and true. The efficiency and accuracy of the Immigration Court system has improved markedly with the installation of a Digital Audio Recording system (known as the “DAR”) in each courtroom that replaced totally antiquated and all too often defunct tape recorders.
Usually, the respondent’s direct testimony took approximately one hour with the same amount of time for cross-examination by the Assistant Chief Counsel. In a substantial majority of the cases coming before me, I utilized the services of an EOIR-approved court interpreter. The most frequent foreign languages in my cases are Amharic (the native language of Ethiopia), Spanish, French (as spoken in many West African countries), and Mandarin Chinese. Predictably, as I mentioned earlier, having the hearing in a foreign language both takes considerably longer and increases the stress level in the courtroom.
Most respondents in asylum cases bring one or more corroborating witnesses, although sometimes the corroborating testimony can be summarized and accepted as a proffer. Expert witnesses, normally on country conditions, are not common, but occasionally appear for the respondent. Also, the respondent might present testimony from medical professionals with experience in working with survivors of trauma and/or torture. The judge might also receive notes or materials from the DHS Asylum Office.
For me, probably the most important part of the case was closing argument by both parties. But, not all judges have the same view. Also, as the pressure to produce more cases ramps up, and numerical quotas kick in, some judges will undoubtedly be looking for ways to cut corners and shorten hearings. Strange as it might seem if this were a real court system, eliminating or truncating both opening and closing statements might be one of the ways in which judges under pressure to produce numbers, not justice, choose to cut corners to meet quotas.
I allowed approximately 30 minutes for closings, during which time I normally questioned both parties about their legal and factual positions. I also took this opportunity to test my preliminary theories about the case.
If my notes showed various inconsistencies, omissions, or discrepancies during the examination, I raised these to respondent’s counsel to see how he or she would explain them and what arguments can be advanced as to why they are not fatal to the respondent’s case. Conversely, I challenged the DHS to tell me how and under what authority particular discrepancies could be a basis for disbelieving all of the respondent’s testimony or why the unchallenged documentary or corroborating evidence does not rehabilitate the respondent’s claim.
Often, I could tie portions of the closing argument directly into the analytical portion of my decision. I think that appellate judges, whether at the Board of Immigration Appeals or the Fourth Circuit, also appreciate seeing a demonstrably close relationship between what happened at trial and the merits decision.
At the conclusion, if the Assistant Chief Counsel either announces that he or she is satisfied that the respondent qualifies for asylum or that a grant will not be appealed, provided that fingerprints have cleared, the judge can announce the decision on the spot in a brief oral statement memorialized in a summary form order. I suspect that this will be happening much less often under the current regime. However, if prints have not cleared, the case must be put over to a Master Calendar to check prints and issue the final decision.
If either party is likely to appeal, the judge must issue a detailed decision on the merits. Most of those decisions are rendered orally at the end of the case. Judges are being pressured to issue more contemporaneous oral decisions. These, in turn, are more likely to be problematic when they reach the Courts of Appeals. “Haste makes waste,” as my mother used to say.
If the case is very complex, the judge will take it under advisement and issue a detailed written decision. Often, that involves obtaining the assistance of one of the talented Judicial Law Clerks who serve at the court.
Because of the detail-oriented nature of credibility determinations, and the many legal requirements imposed by the statute, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the Fourth Circuit, I found that the quality and fairness of my final decision was substantially improved by having someone listen to the recorded hearing and compare the testimony with the asylum application, documentation, and country background information in the record. However, as Sessions candidly admitted in a recent speech to Immigration Judges, the emphasis these days is strictly on volume, not quality or Due Process for respondents (ironically, the only reason for the system’s existence).

III. CONCLUSION

In summary, I have shared with you a snapshot of the Immigration Court system. I also have given you an overview of the Arlington Immigration Court and the way in which asylum cases move through our court system, in other words, “due process, or what passes for it these days, at the retail level.” I hope that I have increased your understanding of the Immigration Courts and inspired you to fight to restore balance, fairness, professionalism, and Due Process to this critically important part of our American justice system.
This concludes today’s “mini-tour.” Thank you for listening.

(11-01-18)

READE LEVINSON & KRISTINA COOKE @ REUTERS: HASTE MAKES WASTE: Administration’s Short- Sighted Legal Strategies & Mismanagement Continue To Create Unnecessary Chaos In Already Highly Dysfunctional U.S. Immigration Court System!

http://flip.it/3.h7Lq

Reade Levinson & Kristinas Cooke report for Reuters:

(Reuters) – Liliana Barrios was working in a California bakery in July and facing possible deportation when she got a call from her immigration attorney with some good news.

The notice to appear in court that Barrios had received in her deportation case hadn’t specified a time or date for her first hearing, noting that they would be determined later. Her lawyer was calling to say that the U.S. Supreme Court had just issued a ruling that might open the door for her case, along with thousands of others, to be dismissed.

The Supreme Court case involved Wescley Fonseca Pereira, a Brazilian immigrant who overstayed his visa and was put into deportation proceedings in 2006. The initial paperwork he was sent did not state a date and time of appearance, however, and Pereira said he did not receive a subsequent notice telling him where and when to appear. When he failed to show up in court, he was ordered deported.

The Supreme Court ruled that paperwork failing to designate a time and place didn’t constitute a legal notice to appear in court.

The ruling sparked a frenzy of immigration court filings. Over ten weeks this summer, a record 9,000 deportation cases, including Barrios’, were terminated as immigration attorneys raced to court with challenges to the paperwork their clients had received, a Reuters analysis of data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review shows. The number represents a 160 percent increase from the same time period a year earlier and the highest number of terminations per month ever.

For a graph of the trend, click here: tmsnrt.rs/2QCbeJZ

Then, just as suddenly as they began, the wave of case terminations stopped. On August 31, in a different case, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) ruled that charging documents issued without a date and time were valid so long as the immigrant received a subsequent hearing notice filling in the details, as is the usual procedure.

A Department of Justice official said that as a result of the BIA decision, the issues “have been solved.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to requests for comment, but the agency laid out its thoughts on the terminations in court documents opposing the motions to terminate. In a San Diego case, DHS wrote that the motions were based on a “misreading” of the Supreme Court decision. “If read in a manner most favorable to the respondent, the practical impact would be to terminate virtually all immigration proceedings.” The Supreme Court decision “nowhere purports to invalidate the underlying removal proceedings,” DHS wrote.

The dueling interpretations will now be weighed by a federal appeals court, which could uphold or overturn the BIA decision in coming months. The case could ultimately end up before the Supreme Court.

“ONE GASP”

Having a removal case terminated, as Liliana Barrios and many others did over the summer, does not confer legal status, but it does remove the threat of imminent deportation and provide an immigrant time to pursue legal ways of staying in the country, such as asylum or by accruing enough time in the country to be eligible to stay through a process known as cancellation of removal.

The Supreme Court ruling provided a “brief glimmer of hope”, said immigration lawyer Aaron Chenault, “like when you are almost drowning and you get one gasp.”

The Department of Homeland Security can appeal the case dismissals or it can restart deportation proceedings by issuing a new notice to appear. By the end of August, the most recent date for which records are available, government attorneys had appealed only 2,100 of the cases terminated in the wake of the decision, according to a Reuters analysis.

Roxie Rawls-de Santiago, an immigration attorney in New Mexico, said that for some of her clients, even a few months of not being in active deportation proceedings could make a difference. One woman whose case was terminated, for example, has a U.S. citizen daughter who turns 21 next year, the age at which she can sponsor her mother for permanent residency, and the woman is now hopeful she can stave off deportation proceedings until then.

CHAOS IN THE COURTS

At the Department of Justice, which administers the immigration courts, chaos reigned in the weeks following the June decision. Immigration judges and officials struggled to agree on an interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling, according to internal emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by immigration attorney Matthew Hoppock and shared with Reuters.

“The issue has VERY large implications, in that DHS has put the actual “time and date” on VERY, VERY few NTA’s, if any. Any guidance would be helpful,” wrote Memphis immigration judge Richard Averwater in an email to an assistant chief immigration judge days after the ruling. Averwater declined to discuss the email further.

In San Francisco alone, immigration judges terminated 2,000 cases between June 21 and August 31, sometimes more than 100 a day, according to a Reuters analysis. In San Antonio, more than 1,200 cases were terminated.

“The court was getting dozens and dozens and dozens of those a day,” said Ashley Tabaddor, president of the immigration judges’ union. “The large number of terminations that happened were directly a result of Pereira.”

The door to mass dismissals for such cases could be reopened or remain closed depending on how the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules on the Board of Immigration Appeals decision that stopped them.

For Barrios, 20, who was caught crossing the Southern border illegally with her toddler two years ago, her dismissal has meant more time to file for a special visa for immigrants under the age of 21 who have been abandoned or neglected. Barrios said she was abandoned by her mother.

Having her case terminated “lifted the pressure a bit,” said Barrios, who makes cream for cookies at a wholesale bakery in California during the day and studies English at night. The Department of Homeland Security has appealed her case termination.

Reporting by Kristina Cooke and Reade Levinson; Editing by Sue Horton and Paul Thomasch

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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

Gee whiz, my time of solving Immigration Enforcement’s legal problems for them ended over three decades ago. But it sure seems to me that taking the following very “doable” steps would have forestalled this mess:

Conceding the respondent’s jurisdictional point “arguendo” (in other words, without taking a position on whether it was legally correct or not);
Immediately reissuing and serving the Notice to Appear (“NTA”) containing a correct time, date, and place of hearing; and
Sitting down with EOIR officials and getting back “online” the formerly existing “interactive scheduling system” that allowed DHS officials issuing NTAs to essentially reserve certain actually available court times and dates to place on the NTAs at time of issuance.

I don’t understand how continuing to litigate this jurisdictional issue or, as some DHS offices have bone-headedly done, issuing NTAs with obviously “fake” dates (like Christmas, weekends, or other holidays) advances either DHS’s particular enforcement needs or the need for an orderly system.

Both Judge Jeffrey Chase and I have commented previously on the problematic nature of the BIA’s decision in Matter of Bermudez-Cota, 27 I&N 441 (BIA 2018), that mindlessly “blew off” the Supreme’s reasoning, hints, and suggestions and enabled yet a new round of somewhat mindless and totally unnecessary litigation. http://immigrationcourtside.com/2018/09/18/supremes-sleeper-case-pereira-v-sessions-roiling-the-waters-in-immigration-courts-dhss-eoirs-questionable-approach-in-thumbing-their-noses-at/

http://immigrationcourtside.com/2018/09/02/hon-jeffrey-chase-on-how-the-bia-blew-off-the-supremes-matter-of-bermudez-cota-27-in-dec-441-bia-2018-is-the-bia-risking-docket-disaster-to/

Nor do I think we can assume that this is “slam dunk winner” for the Administration, even with a supposedly “more conservative” Supreme Court. Indeed, a “plain meaning” or “strict textualist” reading of the INA appears to support the respondents’ position rather than DHS’s. The BIA essentially “rewrote the statute” to reach its result in Bermudez. They certainly weren’t implementing the “plain language” of the statute which clearly and specifically defines what a “Notice to Appear” shall contain.

Sometimes (as I can attest from years of experience) the law is inconvenient for the Government bureaucracy. But, that doesn’t mean it’s not the law. And, it’s always better to “do it right the first time” rather than being forced into “redos” by the Federal Courts.

PWS

10-16-18

POPULATION OF TENT CITIES IN TRUMP’S “KIDDIE GULAG” HAS INCREASED 5X – The Solution, According To Trump, Sessions, Nielsen, & Miller: Detain Even More Children & Families For Longer Periods Of Time!

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amberjamieson/tornillo-tent-city?utm_term=.oolylVZRJr#.oolylVZRJr

Amber Jamieson reports for BuzzFeed News:

TORNILLO, Texas — Having immigrant teens live in the “tent city” in Tornillo, Texas, was always supposed to be a temporary solution, after the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant families at the border meant the government didn’t have enough beds in the shelter system.

It opened in June, and the contractor running the site had a 30-day contract. At that time, 326 children were being housed there.

But four months after its opening, the shelter 30 miles outside of El Paso has grown into a bustling town. It now holds nearly five times its initial population — roughly 1,500 teens — and its contract has been extended until at least Dec. 31.

The tent city’s purpose has changed as well. Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency responsible for the care of unaccompanied child immigrants, say none of the teens currently housed there were detained as a result of family separations. It now holds immigrant children who crossed the border without an adult, in theory as a last stage of their stay in the vast US shelter bureaucracy.

And as the shelter expands, administrative issues have cropped up concerning legal representation and FBI background checks — extending many teens’ stays longer than what HHS says is the average.

Tornillo now has a new football field, math and English classes, and more than 100 tent structures. Staffers zipped around in carts between dozens of portable offices offering mental health services, emergency medical care, legal services, and even a barber. A huge emergency tent has been turned into a sleeping hall for 300 teenage girls, decorated with paper chains and lanterns.

BuzzFeed News toured the Tornillo facility for the second time on Friday, as part of a group of reporters. Like the first and only other tour, instructions were strict. No photographs or recording devices were allowed, and reporters were not permitted to use the names of employees or speak with the teens living at the camp — though HHS was more lenient on the last rule during Friday’s tour. The only photos were provided by the government.

HHS

The facility in Tornillo, Texas.

“I frankly thought we were done here in July,” the facility’s incident commander, who works for the contractor BCFS, told reporters Friday. He spoke from a new command center that is nearly triple the size of the office he occupied in June.

Back then, the same incident commander, who is in charge of running the shelter, called the Trump administration’s family separation policy — which created the need for Tornillo — “an incredibly dumb, stupid decision.” With the rollback of that policy, he said he expected the camp to shut soon afterward.

“I’m still here, ’cause otherwise, where are these kids going?” the commander said.

Only children between ages 13 and 17 stay at the Tornillo facility, which is now the largest in the HHS’s nationwide system. Pregnant teens, and teens requiring behavioral medication, are not allowed — “we’re too big, too high-profile,” the incident commander explained.

Officials said the average length of time that teens spend at Tornillo is 25 days. Yet many of the teens living at the camp have spent weeks or even months in HHS shelters before arriving at Tornillo. In order to clear out those other facilities, teens are sent to the tent shelter to await final processing before they are released to a sponsor in the US.

“This is a last stop, if you will,” said Mark Weber, a spokesperson for HHS.

Ten teens in Tornillo BuzzFeed News encountered had spent between three to five months in government detention — significantly more than the 59 days that HHS says is the average stay for an unaccompanied immigrant minor in its care. That average is up from 48 days in 2017, and around 30 days during the Obama administration.

Christopher Smith / HHS Photo Christopher Smith

And even after arriving in Tornillo, the young occupants find themselves facing a fresh final set of administrative hurdles that threaten to complicate or delay their stay in the US shelter system.

One of the teens BuzzFeed News spoke with last week, a 16-year-old girl from Guatemala, told reporters that she’d been in Tornillo exactly one month on Saturday. Before being transferred to Texas, she had spent four months in an HHS shelter in Miami, meaning she’d already spent five months in HHS care. She was uncertain how much longer she’d remain there.

Her brother, who lives in Texas and had been in the US for a decade, is trying to sponsor her, which should secure her release. But he is undocumented, and he told her that her caseworker is not sure if he will be able to act as a sponsor.

She didn’t want to go back to Guatemala, where her parents are. “I suffered a lot in the journey [to the United States], and what, for nothing?” she said.

Another teenage girl standing next to her told reporters she’d also come to Tornillo from the Miami shelter at the same time, and that she’d crossed the border four months earlier.

The delays stem in part from a new requirement — that the FBI perform a fingerprint background check — imposed by the Trump administration on family members and other adults who wish to sponsor an unaccompanied immigrant minor.

Those changes are delaying how long kids are staying in care, and have created the ongoing need for Tornillo to operate as a temporary shelter to handle the overflow from permanent HHS shelters, said the incident commander. He added that more than half of the children at the Tornillo shelter are there because of FBI delays.

Christopher Smith / HHS Photo Christopher Smith

“It is the extra precaution that HHS has put in place for sponsors,” said the incident commander on Friday. “That is absolutely what has caused this, without any question whatsoever.”

While he applauded the extra care HHS has taken to ensure the safety of unaccompanied minors, the incident commander criticized the length of time the FBI takes to do fingerprint checks. On Friday, 826 of the kids in Tornillo were still awaiting the results of fingerprint checks, the final step needed before they are released, he said.

“I think it should be done quickly,” the incident commander said. “I don’t understand why it’s taking so long. It seems like a system issue. … That is frustrating to me.”

He noted that it takes time to do background checks, but said that HHS is “working through the process [with the FBI] and working to speed it up.” He did not provide further details.

Asked if the teens who end up in Tornillo spend longer than the average stay in the shelter system, Weber replied: “I don’t think that’s [true]. … These kids are very close to being released.”

Weber also argued that the need for the Tornillo facility is “driven by the number of kids crossing the border” — which this year, he said, is set to be the third highest on record. Around 50,000 unaccompanied minors are expected to cross the border this year.

Christopher Smith / HHS Photo Christopher Smith

On Thursday, BuzzFeed News visited the juvenile immigration proceedings in downtown El Paso. Eleven teenage boys from the Tornillo facility, aged between 15 and 17, had been given notice to appear in court on that day.

The boys were dressed in new, matching navy and white polo shirts, denim jeans or khakis, and black, braided leather belts. They had fresh haircuts.

The judge asked the boys if they had copies of their Notices to Appear, a charging document issued by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement informing them of removal proceedings, and read the date on which each NTA had been issued. Dates ranged from June 6 until July 1, meaning the teenagers had been in HHS care for a minimum of over three months — longer than the average stay.

None of the boys had legal representation at the court hearing — they were just accompanied to court by a BCFS employee. All of them asked the judge to delay their cases so they could find an immigration lawyer. They were given until late January to do so.

The HHS spokesperson said it’s just not his agency’s job. “Yes, children are appearing in court, but that is not part of HHS’s responsibility,” Weber told reporters on Friday. “Those legal options are pursued basically after they are released from us.”

Juveniles facing immigration proceedings do not have the right to a government-appointed lawyer. Weber said the children who appeared in court would absolutely have received legal help beforehand.

Everyone in HHS care receives a “Know Your Rights” training, Weber said, and upon arrival to Tornillo, the teenagers are again reminded that they are able to speak with a lawyer. Ten legal representatives — a combination of lawyers and social workers from different legal organizations — are on hand on weekdays in Tornillo to meet with children.

But those lawyers don’t formally represent them. They offer advice to the children.

And those representatives only meet with detainees if the teen specifically asks to see a lawyer, the incident commander said. He estimated that of the approximately 3,100 teens who have been housed at Tornillo since it opened, only about 400 had requested and received a meeting with a legal representative.

Christopher Smith / HHS Photo Christopher Smith

Moreover, to organize a meeting with the lawyers, the children must fill out a form — a difficult task for many of the children at Tornillo. The incident commander said most of the facility’s residents are at a fourth-grade learning level.

Asked how children in the care of HHS with very little education were supposed to be able to navigate the legal system alone, or even the process of arranging and interacting with a lawyer, Weber acknowledged that “negotiating the legal system is incredibly difficult.”

Although the incident commander is hopeful the facility will close on Dec. 31, Weber didn’t commit to that deadline. “It depends how many kids come,” he said.

The facility — its population peaked at 1,637 on Sept. 28 — has 1,400 beds on standby in two giant tents. This is in case the Homestead shelter in Florida — another temporary facility that opened during the family separation crisis — needs to evacuate due to a hurricane.

In immigration court Thursday, Judge Robert S. Hough, who oversees all juvenile immigration proceedings in El Paso, asked the BCFS employee assisting the children before him about Tornillo’s supposed Dec. 31 closing date.

“Hurry up and wrap it up before you get any bigger,” suggested the judge.

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

Once the smokescreen of all the Trump lies and racism clears, how could we ever explain to future generations what we have done to the most vulnerable among us and to children, young people, and young families that are our world’s future? I guess it will go along with explaining how have we let Trump and his grifter buddies destroy, pollute, and poison the universe that also belongs to future generations.

PWS

10-15-18

MILLER & TRUMP ADMINISTRATION HATCHING ANOTHER ILLEGAL CHILD SEPARATION PROGRAM AS THEIR CRUEL & COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WHITE NATIONALIST ENFORCEMENT CONTINUES TO FAIL!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/trump-administration-weighs-new-family-separation-effort-at-border/2018/10/12/45895cce-cd7b-11e8-920f-dd52e1ae4570_story.html?utm_term=.e82d531c008e

Nick Miroff, Josh Dawsey, & Maria Sacchetti report for WashPost:

The White House is actively considering plans that could again separate parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to reverse soaring numbers of families attempting to cross illegally into the United States, according to several administration officials with direct knowledge of the effort.

One option under consideration is for the government to detain asylum-seeking families together for up to 20 days, then give parents a choice — stay in family detention with their child for months or years as their immigration case proceeds, or allow children to be taken to a government shelter so other relatives or guardians can seek custody.

That option — called “binary choice” — is one of several under consideration amid the president’s frustration over border security. Trump has been unable to fulfill key promises to build a border wall and end what he calls “catch and release,” a process that began under past administrations in which most detained families are quickly freed to await immigration hearings. The number of migrant family members arrested and charged with illegally crossing the border jumped 38 percent in August and is now at a record level, according to Department of Homeland Security officials.

Senior administration officials say they are not planning to revive the chaotic forced separations carried out by the Trump administration in May and June that spawned an enormous political backlash and led to a court order to reunite families.

But they feel compelled to do something, and officials say senior White House adviser Stephen Miller is advocating for tougher measures because he believes the springtime separations worked as an effective deterrent to illegal crossings.

At least 2,500 children were taken from their parents over a period of six weeks. Crossings by families declined slightly in May, June and July before surging again in August. September numbers are expected to be even higher.

While some migrants worried about separations, others felt seeking asylum was worth the risk

For some seeking asylum, family separations were worth the risk: ‘Whatever it took, we had to get to this country’ (Zoeann Murphy, Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)

While some inside the White House and DHS are concerned about the “optics” and political blowback of renewed separations, Miller and others are determined to act, according to officials briefed on the deliberations. There have been several high-level meetings in the White House in recent weeks about the issue. The “binary choice” option is seen as one that could be tried out fairly quickly.

“Career law enforcement professionals in the U.S. government are working to analyze and evaluate options that would protect the American people, prevent the horrific actions of child smuggling, and stop drug cartels from pouring into our communities,” deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley said in an emailed statement.

Any effort to expand family detentions and resume separations would face multiple logistical and legal hurdles.

It would require overcoming the communication and data management failures that plagued the first effort, when Border Patrol agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and Department of Health and Human Services caseworkers struggled to keep track of separated parents and children.

The Trump administration believes it is on solid legal ground, according to two officials, in part because U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw, who ordered the government to reunite separated families in June, approved the binary-choice approach in one of his rulings. But a Congressional Research Service report last month said “practical and legal barriers” remain to using that approach in the future and said releasing families together in the United States is “the only clearly viable option under current law.”

‘Administration officials said the CRS report cited earlier legal rulings. But the American Civil Liberties Union, which launched the separations lawsuit, disputed that interpretation and said it would oppose any attempt at expanded family detentions or separations.

“The government need not, and legally may not, indiscriminately detain families who present no flight risk or danger,” ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said in an email. “It is deeply troubling that this Administration continues to look for ways to cause harm to small children.”

Another hurdle is that the government does not have detention space for a large number of additional families. ICE has three “family residential centers” with a combined capacity of roughly 3,000 parents and children. With more than four times that many arriving each month, it is unclear where the government would hold all the parents who would opt to remain with their children.

But Trump said in his June 20 executive order halting family separations that the administration’s policy is to keep parents and children together, “including by detaining” them. In recent weeks, federal officials have taken steps to expand their ability to do that.

In addition to considering “binary choice” and other options, officials have proposed new rules that would allow them to withdraw from a 1997 federal court agreement that bars ICE from keeping children in custody for more than 20 days.

The rules would give ICE greater flexibility to expand family detention centers and potentially hold parents and children longer, though lawyers say this would be likely to end up in court.

Officials have also imposed production quotas on immigration judges and are searching for more ways to speed up the calendar in its courts to adjudicate cases more quickly.

Federal officials arguing for the tougher measures say the rising number of family crossings is a sign of asylum fraud. DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has blasted smugglers for charging migrants thousands of dollars to ferry them into the United States, knowing that “legal loopholes” will force the administration to release them pending a court hearing. Federal officials say released families are rarely deported.

Advocates for immigrants counter that asylum seekers are fleeing violence and acute poverty, mainly in Central America, and deserve to have a full hearing before an immigration judge.

“There is currently a crisis at our southern border,” DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman said in a statement, adding, “DHS will continue to enforce the law humanely, and will continue to examine a range of options to secure our nation’s borders.”

In southern Arizona, so many families have crossed in the past 10 days that the government has been releasing them en masse to shelters and charities. A lack of available bus tickets has stranded hundreds of parents and children in Tucson, where they sleep on Red Cross cots in a church gymnasium.

At a Senate hearing Wednesday, Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) told Nielsen that migrants were “flooding into the community” and that authorities there had “no ability to do anything about it.”

Nielsen said lawmakers needs to give DHS more latitude to hold families with children in detention until their cases can be fully adjudicated — a process that can take months or years because of huge court backlogs.

DHS officials have seen the biggest increase this year in families arriving from Guatemala, where smugglers called “coyotes” tell migrants they can avoid detention and deportation by bringing a child, according to some community leaders in that country.

On Friday, Nielsen called for a regional effort to combat smuggling and violence in the region and to “heighten our penalties for traffickers.”

“I think there’s more that we can do to hold them responsible, particularly those who traffic in children,” she said in a speech in Washington at the second Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America.

More than 90,000 adults with children were caught at the southwest border in the first 11 months of fiscal 2018. The previous high for a single year was 77,600 in 2016

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

My recollection is that 1) the DOJ conceded in court that a policy of intentionally separating families is unconstitutional; and 2) Federal Courts have held that detention of individuals who are neither security risks nor likely to abscond for the primary purpose of “deterrence” is illegal.

So, if this facially illegal program is put into action, why shouldn’t Stephen Miller go to jail and be held personally liable for all the damages he causes with his scofflaw racist policies? Why shouldn’t Nielsen, Sessions, and others who are part of the Miller White Nationalist scheme also be held personally liable?

More cruelty, more wasting of taxpayer resources, more abuse of the judicial process by the Trump Administration.

Oh, and by the way. although today’s out of control U.S. Immigration Court backlogs began with “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” during the Bush II and Obama Administrations, Sessions and the Trump Administration have pushed them to astounding new levels with their incompetence and anti-asylum bias. Don’t blame the victims for the Government’s irresponsible actions!

If folks who believe in human decency and the rule of law don’t get out and vote, these abuses and degradations of our national values will continue.

PWS

10-12-18

NEWLY DISCLOSED ICE MEMO RESTRICTS PROSECUTORS’ ABILITY TO OFFER PROSECUTORIAL DISCRETION (“PD”) – Also Requires Review Of Previously Administratively Closed Cases With Eye Toward Re-Docketing (Thereby Increasing The Court Backlog)

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/trump-ice-attorneys-foia-memo-discretion

Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:

An ICE Memo Lays Out The Differences Between Trump And Obama On Immigration Enforcement

Among the instructions: Attorneys were told they no longer had to check the inbox where immigration lawyers emailed requests for deportation relief.

Hamed Aleaziz

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on October 8, 2018, at 3:09 p.m. ET

John Moore / Getty Images

Attorneys for Immigration and Customs Enforcement were restricted from granting reprieves for certain immigrants facing deportation, ordered to review and potentially reopen previously closed cases, and told that nearly all undocumented immigrants were priorities for deportation, according to a previously unreleased memo obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The memo, which was issued Aug. 15, 2017, and obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, provided a roadmap for how ICE attorneys were to prosecute cases under the Trump administration. It was written by Tracy Short, ICE’s principal legal adviser and head of the attorneys who handle deportation cases in court.

While immigration lawyers had long reported anecdotally that such changes had taken place in the courtroom, the memo is the first detailed explanation of how government attorneys were told to handle deportation cases and how to implement Trump’s executive order on immigration enforcement issued Jan. 25, 2017.

“Prosecutorial discretion is an act of administrative leniency, it is not an entitlement,” Short wrote.

Under the Obama administration, ICE attorneys were encouraged to request the dismissal or indefinite suspension of deportation cases of immigrants who were not serious criminals or national security threats. To do so, the administration directed ICE attorneys to look for qualifying cases and encouraged immigration attorneys to email ICE with requests for “prosecutorial discretion.”

Obama administration officials believed their approach would focus ICE’s limited resources on those unauthorized immigrants with the worst criminal records, as opposed to those who were largely contributing members of society.

Short’s memo told attorneys they were no longer required to check the email inbox used to receive requests for leniency from immigration attorneys. Short also wrote that ICE attorneys could consider prosecutorial discretion for immigrants in certain circumstances, such as a relative of a military member, has an obvious claim to status, has an “extraordinary humanitarian factor,” or is an asset to state or federal law enforcement. Even then, ICE attorneys must receive written approval from senior leadership in Washington for such a request.

Still, attorneys across the country have rarely seen immigrants granted reprieves, regardless of their circumstances, said Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

“The revelation of the memo is important because it shows how the ICE trial attorneys were instructed to stop exercising prosecutorial discretion in all but the most extreme circumstances,” said David Leopold, an immigration attorney at Ulmer and Berne in Cleveland. “The memo changed prosecutorial discretion by all but forbidding ICE prosecutors from using their common sense or showing any compassion.”

Sarah Pierce, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said the “memo is in line with the broader interior enforcement goal of the administration: Enforce immigration laws against everyone.”

The memo also directed ICE attorneys to review previously closed cases, instructing them to look for cases that don’t fit the administration’s new immigration enforcement priorities, which include practically all undocumented immigrants, and to prioritize reopening cases in which individuals had a criminal history or evidence of fraud. At the same time, attorneys were told that practically all undocumented immigrants were now priorities for deportation in the court.

As of August 2018, the government had requested the reactivation of nearly 8,000 deportation cases that had been administratively closed. The previous fiscal year, which included nearly four months of the Obama administration, there were nearly 8,400 such requests. The pace of such requests is nearly double that of the last two years of the Obama administration, when there were 3,551 and 4,847 such requests, respectively. Attorney General Jeff Sessions limited the ability for immigration judges to indefinitely suspend deportation cases in June.

“This is an unrelenting, unremitting deportation push. From that point of view, it is eye-opening in its scope, trying to make sure that no stone is unturned,” said a government official familiar with the memo who was not authorized to speak about it. “It systematically took any possibility where some independent judgment could be exercised by a government attorney and made it very clear they know what their marching orders are.”

Sessions Urged Immigration Judges To Show Less Sympathy, Setting Off A Firestorm Of Complaints

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

A copy of the memorandum in question accompanies the full article at the above link.

So, ICE Assistant Chief Counsel will be “going to the mat” — thereby requiring “full” hearings — in almost every one of the 760,000 cases currently on the docket, plus perhaps hundreds of thousands of previously administratively closed cases.

At the same time, U.S. Immigration Judges are improperly being pressured by Sessions to set three or four merits cases per day, when most experienced judges would have difficulty completing two such cases in a fully professional manner consistent with Due Process.

Something has to give here. That something is likely to be Due Process for the respondents — the only real purpose of the system in the first place.

How long will this mockery of justice and parody of a “court system” be allowed to go on? Will Article III Judges be satisfied to be “rubber stamps” on a process that violates the Constitution? Or, will they step in and insist that the Immigration Courts comply with the Constitution — something that scofflaws like Jeff Sessions, Kirstjen Nielsen, and the other Trumpists have no intention of doing?

Only time will tell! But, history will record and remember what they did!

PWS

10-08-18

READ NOLAN ON FAMILY DETENTION — Congress Should Solve It!

http://discuss.ilw.com/blogs/immigrationlawblogs/389151-does-a-mandatory-detention-provision-prohibit-the-release-of-alien-families-in-expedited-removal-proceedings-by-nolan-rappaport

Nolan writes:

President Donald Trump is being criticized for detaining alien families, but President Barack Obama did the same thing in 2014, when there was a rapid increase in the number of families crossing the border illegally.

Obama’s DHS Secretary, Jeh Johnson, explained the decision this way: “Frankly, we want to send a message that our border is not open to illegal migration, and if you come here, you should not expect to simply be released.”

Opponents of Obama’s family detention policy claimed that it violated the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement, which established a nationwide policy for the detention, release, and treatment of unaccompanied alien minors.

In 1962, a U.S. Court of Appeals acknowledged that the Flores litigation focused initially on the problems facing unaccompanied minors, but it heldthat the underlying policies applied equally to alien minors who are with a parent.

This created a no-win situation in expedited removal proceedings.

Alien families that are apprehended at or near the border after making an illegal entry are placed in expedited removal proceedings. If they want asylum, they are given an opportunity to establish that they have a credible fear of persecution. If they succeed, they are placed in regular removal proceedings for an asylum hearing before an immigration judge. Otherwise, they are deported without further proceedings.

Detention is mandatory in expedited removal proceedings, “Any alien subject to the procedures under this clause shall be detained pending a final determination of credible fear of persecution and, if found not to have such a fear, until removed.”

The Board of Immigration Appeals held that the mandatory detention period ends when a credible fear has been established, but Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently directed that decision to himself for a determination of whether it should be overruled.

DHS, however, has the discretion to parole an alien in expedited removal proceedings for “urgent humanitarian reasons” or “significant public benefit.”

. . . .

Congress is aware of these problems.

A Senate Committee recently held a hearing on the implications of extending the Settlement Agreement to children who are with a parent. According to Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, (R-WI), “it is well past time for Congress to act.”

The most promising solution may be to amend the mandatory detention provision and provide funding for the development of effective alternatives to detention.

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an executive branch immigration law expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.

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

Go on over to ILW.Com at the above link to read Nolan’s full article.

Nolan reminds us that this, and a number of other policies that Dems now harshly criticize, actually originated during the Obama Administration. I find it interesting to hear Jeh Johnson and others now “back pedal” from the full implications of their questionable policy decisions.

I also agree with Nolan that it would be better if Congress would solve this problem in a bipartisan manner rather than leaving it to the Federal Courts.

PWS

10-05-18

JUDICIAL CATASTROPHE: By Any Sane Standard, The U.S. Immigration Court In Baltimore Is A Total Administrative Disaster – But, That Hasn’t Stopped White Nationalist AG Jeff Sessions From Demanding That The Already Overworked & Demoralized Judges Forget About Fundamental Fairness & “Just Pedal Faster!” — “All this is going to be litigated at taxpayers’ expense, but it’s all in the effort to fulfill a political promise,” Says Retired Judge John Gossart, Jr.!

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/xw94ea/leaked-report-shows-the-utter-dysfunction-of-baltimores-immigration-court

Ani Ucar reports for Vice News in an article featuring quotes from “Our Gang” members retired U.S. Immigration Judges Jeffrey Chase and John Gossart, as well as current (soon to be retired, perhaps?) Judge Denise Slavin:

By Ani Ucar Oct 3, 2018

Overwhelmed immigration courts are a national problem, and the growing backlog means an average immigration case is waiting in court for a record 717 days, as of 2018, according to Syracuse University.

But Maryland, with its more than 34,000 pending cases, has the fastest-growing backlog, largely because its sole immigration court, the Baltimore Immigration Court, is one of the most beleaguered and understaffed in the country, according to a confidential Department of Justice review obtained by VICE News.

ADVERTISEMENT

VICE News first obtained a heavily redacted version of the report through a records request but later obtained an uncensored version of the review, which paints a portrait of dysfunction at one of the busiest immigration courts in the country.

Completed in 2018 and covering the years 2014 to 2017, the review shows a department so understaffed that basic functions such as address changes or orders to appear in court were not processed or sent out as caseloads piled up. Failing to process key documents could deny migrants the opportunity to be heard in court. “Poor management of this core process leads to additional work for the Court and can result in respondents being ordered removed in absentia through no fault of their own,” the report says.

Read: Being a kid is a “negative factor” under Trump’s new immigration rule

As the court’s caseload mounted, the number of sitting judges stayed the same, fluctuating between four and five. As a point of reference, Chicago’s immigration court, which has a comparable caseload, has twice the number of sitting judges.

NO HABLA ESPAÑOL

The court’s office had no Spanish speakers on staff, even though 84 percent of its cases involved a respondent who only spoke Spanish. The equipment in the office was dated and often nonfunctional. “The two existing HP copiers in the Baltimore Court have had numerous issues and there have been literally days when the Court is unable to use either copier,” the report said.

A lack of administrative staff meant boxes with thousands of documents were left sitting on the floor or on top of file cabinets, and the report describes “hallway space filled with files, file carts, printers and the like.”

One judge currently on the court told VICE News that as cases and administrative work piles up, the court may not be able to provide due process.

“I’m happy to be retirement-eligible, and quite frankly a lot of us are,” said Baltimore Immigration Judge Denise N. Slavin, who spoke to VICE News in her capacity as president emeritus of the National Association of Immigration Judges. “I feel like if I get pushed to a point to violate due process, or I’m being disciplined for not doing something that I thought would violate due process, I would be able to leave.”

Read: This toddler got sick in ICE detention. Two months later she was dead

As bad as it’s been in the Baltimore Immigration Court, it’s about to get worse. On Monday, a new policy backed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions went into effect mandating that the nation’s roughly 330 immigration judges process at least 700 cases per year. The Department of Justice has said it will hire 100new immigration judges this calendar year to help with the backlog, but current and former immigration judges say more judges without commensurate support staff will only add to the problem.

The confidential report on the Baltimore Immigration Office was performed by a court administrator at the request of the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge, a branch of the DOJ. Unlike state or federal courts, immigration courts are part of the Department of Justice, and therefore part of the executive branch of government.

SURGING CASES

The review took place in November and December of last year, and focused on the time period from 2014-2017, when the Baltimore Immigration Court caseload nearly quadrupled.

Though the caseload was rising during that period, the court was shedding staff: They lost seven full-time permanent employees. “The shortage of staff in the Baltimore Court was so severe the Court did not have enough employees to manage the Court’s core processes,” the report says.

The report coincides with a 2014 surge of crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. Baltimore’s caseload began to grow rapidly afterward. Despite having completed 33.11 percent more cases from 2015 to 2016 combined, the court’s efforts were not enough to keep pace with the mounting backlog. At the end of 2014, the court had 8,331 pending cases, and by December 2017 the pending caseload jumped to 29,184, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse database, or TRAC, at Syracuse University.

“It feels like you are being buried alive”

Backlogs in the immigration courts have historically been impacted by shifting migration patterns, immigration policy changes, and hiring freezes on judges and staff. But since President Trump took office in 2017, the number of pending cases in immigration courts has increased 41 percent, bringing the total to 764,561 as of August 31, 2018, according to TRAC.

“It feels like you are being buried alive,” said Los Angeles Immigration Judge Ashley Tabaddor, speaking as president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. “It’s like this tsunami of cases that just never goes away, and instead of [us] being helped, the department is just adding more pressure.”

QUOTA SYSTEM

Sessions has said the quota system will help cut down the record-high backlog, but immigration judges, both current and retired, have pushed back, saying the standard would threaten due process and judicial independence.

“There’s an overabundance of attention on efficiency and there seems to be little to no concern from higher-ups on getting the decisions right,” said retired New York City Immigration Judge Jeffrey S. Chase.

Read: Jeff Sessions wants to remove immigration judges who aren’t deporting people fast enough

Baltimore’s immigration court is relatively small, but it has been operating with a caseload similar to that of a large immigration court. While more populous states have a number of immigration courts—there are seven courts in California, for instance, and six in New York—the Baltimore facility is the only one in Maryland.

The report describes at length how staff failed to maintain order as paperwork grew. “As of early December 2017, there were approximately 700-1,000 additional filings sitting in the Court that are made up of EOIR-28s, EOIR-33s, returned notices, general correspondence and motions that have not been processed,” the report says. (An EOIR-28 is a notice of appearance in court. An EOIR-33 is a change-of-address form.)

“How the Baltimore court manages motions still needs improvement. Poor management of this core responsibility leads to additional work for the Court, and it sends the message to the private bar and to DHS that the Court is not organized and cannot be relied on,” the report said.

The Department of Justice declined to comment on the report.

At the time of the review, the Baltimore court had 24,142 pending cases in which the respondent spoke Spanish but no Spanish-speakers on staff. At one point, the staff resorted to pulling two judges off the bench to help the front desk with translation needs, said one EOIR employee.

Other times they had to enlist the help of someone in the waiting room to interpret for people. “Sometimes they were not getting the best information or even accurate information about their case,” said the EOIR employee.

“Recruitment of a Spanish Interpreter should be a priority,” the report says, but that position has yet to be filled.

All these issues are expected to worsen with the rollout of the quota system. “We’ll have preliminary success with getting a large number of cases out and temporarily reduce the backlog, but ultimately a large number of those cases will come back on appeal, thus making the backlog even worse,” Slavin said.

At the end of the day, the taxpayer will be on the hook for the cost of the immigration policy, said retired Baltimore immigration judge F. Gossart Jr. “All this is going to be litigated at taxpayers’ expense, but it’s all in the effort to fulfill a political promise.”

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

Wow! An Attorney General who consistently shows bias and maliciousness combined with incompetence. What a horrible combination! And throw into the mix a complete abdication of oversight functions by the GOP-controlled Congress.

Sessions is pouring taxpayer money down the drain in an effort to actually make the system more dysfunctional and less fair. It’s the type of fraudulent, wasteful, and abusive conduct that in normal times might result in criminal prosecutions and jail sentences. We also know that he is promoting similar dysfunction in the criminal justice system with his inane and ineffective “zero tolerance” policy that has also made him the nation’s most notorious un-prosecuted child abuser. Yet, Sessions walks free, while the victims of his misconduct, many vulnerable children and women merely seeking the justice to which they are entitled, rot in his “New American Gulag” and/or suffer grossly substandard “justice” in a totally out of control charade of a “court system” where Due Process is mocked every day.

When the only thing that keeps you going is the knowledge that you can retire any day, you know that your job is really screwed up! (Hint to the un-retired but eligible: The very best time to retire is before you get to the foregoing point.)

If this isn’t your vision of America, then take Willie Nelson’s advice and “Vote ‘Em Out.”

PWS

10-04-18

“A new and dark era as Immigration Judges,” Says Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor, NAIJ President!

Dear Colleagues,

October 1^st marked a new and dark era as Immigration Judges. The Agency is now subjecting us to quotas and deadlines as part of our individual performance evaluations, something that is inherently in conflict with our oath of office(which is the very reason why Congress explicitly excluded ANY individual performance measures for Administrative Law Judges). NAIJ has largely concluded the bargaining with the Agency on “impact and implementation” of these quotas and deadlines and continues to express (to the Agency and the public) our strenuous disagreement with the concept of quotas and deadlines as a matter of principle. However, to the extent that we remain a part of the Department of Justice and are treated as DOJ attorneys (in spite of being judges in our duties and responsibilities), our legal recourse of action is confined to labor laws, which are designed for traditional labor/management relationships and do not deal with issues of judicial independence. Thus, unless and until the Agency takes an adverse action against a particular judge (or Congress steps in with the durable solution of removing the Immigration Court from the Justice Department), we cannot file any grievance or complaints (including the suggestion of several of our judges to file for intentional infliction of emotional distress, which appears to be prohibited by the Federal Torts Claims Act). Thus, we have spent many hours in the past months in bargaining and informal discussions to minimize the impact of this ill-conceived program. We have been able to help craft more favorable interpretations of what will satisfy the metrics, improved the content and design of the Dashboard to make it more user friendly, and been able to point out shortcomings and flaws which we still seek to improve or eliminate. The MOU you will see shortly has been negotiated as an adjunct to Article 22 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement which provides protections for judges in the performance evaluation process. We entered into the MOU in the hopes of improving the position of judges by clarifying that the quotas and deadlines do not stand alone, but must be read in conjunction with specific consideration of each judge’s docket and consistent with Article 22.3.h. We expect the MOU will help provide judges with a measure of protection and help reconcile the quotas and deadlines with the individual demands of our individual dockets and courts. Additionally, the MOU provides for a continuing forum for the NAIJ to raise concerns with the Agency about the operation of the Dashboard or application of performance measures, both on a general level and on behalf of any individual judge. So your continued feedback to NAIJ is a critical part of this process.

Meanwhile I cannot emphasize enough that your oath of office should be your guiding principle throughout these challenging times. As I have said many times before, so long as you put in an honest day’s work and stay true to your oath of office, we will stand by you 100% of the time. “Due process” is the beginning and the end of the conversation. Period. Full Stop.

Thank you for those of you who have been sharing with us your experiences with the Dashboard and your ACIJs regarding the CBA Article 22.3.h. Please keep them coming as we want to make sure that any problematic patterns or practices of the Agency are noted and resolved early.

We also understand that many of you are seeking guidance on how to best navigate this new system. We do have some suggestions for you which we plan to share in our upcoming Q&A sessions on the implementation of the Quotas and Deadlines. I have included a couple of attachments that may also be of help to you in identifying the data entry error or track the 22.3.h factors that your ACIJs should be considering. So please mark your calendars, and plan on joining us for at least one of the sessions.

Wednesday, October 10^th 8:00 a.m. PT, 9:00 a.m. MT, 10:00 a.m. CT, 11:00 a.m. ET

Wednesday, October 10^th 9:00 a.m. PT, 10:00 a.m. MT, 11:00 a.m. CT, 12:00 p.m. ET

Wednesday, October 10^th, 10:00 a.m. PT, 11:00 a.m. MT, noon CT, 1:00 p.m. ET

Thursday, October 11^th, 11:00 a.m. PT, noon MT, 1:00 p.m. CT, 2:00 p.m. ET

Thursday, October 11^th, noon PT, 1:00 p.m. MT, 2:00 p.m. CT, 3:00 p.m. ET

The call-in information for each of the scheduled sessions is as follows: (605) 475-4001 & passcode: 765103#

If you have any questions in advance that you would like for us to address during a meeting, feel free to forward it to my attention.

Thank you for all of your hard work.

Ashley

The Honorable A. Ashley Tabaddor, President

National Association of Immigration Judges

606 S. Olive St., 15^th floor

www.naij-usa.org

213-534-4491 (direct office line)

BEST E-MAIL: ashleytabaddor@gmail.com

DISCLAIMER: The author is the President of the National Association of Immigration Judges. The views expressed here do not necessarily represent the official position of the United States Department of Justice, the Attorney General, or the Executive Office for Immigration Review. The views represent the author’s personal opinions, which were formed after extensive consultation with the membership of NAIJ.

P.S. Please let your fellow NAIJ members know about these call-in session. Should you hear of any NAIJ member who may not have received this email, please let me knowasap and feel free to forward to them as well. Thank you.

From: Ortiz-Ang, Susana (EOIR)
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2018 3:07 PM
To: All of Judges (EOIR) <All_of_Judges@EOIR.USDOJ.GOV>
Cc: Keller, Mary Beth (EOIR) <MaryBeth.Keller@EOIR.USDOJ.GOV>; Wilson, Donna L. (EOIR) <Donna.Wilson@EOIR.USDOJ.GOV>
Subject: New Performance Measures (On Behalf of Mary Beth Keller, Chief Immigration Judge)

Judges,

Please see the below and attached.

Today, the new performance measures, as incorporated in Element 3 of your Performance Work Plan, become effective. The new Element 3 is attached to this e-mail and will be appended to each of your PWPs. The implementation of these new performance measures is part of a larger effort to make changes across the Agency to better enable us to meet our mission, to fairly and expeditiously adjudicate immigration cases. You are and always have been a dedicated and professional corps, with the competence and integrity to render decisions that are both “timely and impartial,” as required by the regulations. Historically, IJs have been held accountable in performance Element 3 to make timely rulings and decisions as well as to manage calendars efficiently. These measures simply define these goals more specifically in the present day.

I wanted to emphasize a few important points that you also may have heard from your ACIJ during your court meetings:

-Decisions should not be made on individual matters based solely on the performance measures. We remain committed to ensuring due process in each case.

– I hope that each of you has taken an opportunity to review the IJ Performance Data Dashboard (“Dashboard”), which is linked to the OCIJ intranet page under “Quick Links.” Please keep in mind that the Dashboard is not your performance rating. It displays data from CASE as it relates to your progress towards meeting the established goals and benchmarks in Element 3 of the PWP. The new measures apply to your performance for the second year of this cycle, from Oct. 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019. Your overall performance rating will be determined at the end of the two-year rating cycle (ending September 30, 2019), considering your performance in all three elements of the PWP.

– The Dashboard is one day behind. Therefore today it shows data as of September 30, 2018. Tomorrow, it will “zero out,” and show data as of October 1. As of tomorrow, only actions you take from October 1 forward should appear on the Dashboard.

– In addition to the Definitions document that I circulated on September 10 (and attached again here), with the input of NAIJ, we have developed a Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQ”) document, which I have attached here as well. We continue to tweak the data captured in the Dashboard to ensure that it accurately reflects the Definitions document and the FAQ document. We encourage you to bring data issues to the attention of your ACIJ.

– Please carefully review not only the new PWP Element 3, but also Article 22 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the Agency and NAIJ. In particular, in Article 22.3.h., the Agency has agreed to take into account a number of factors that may affect an IJ’s ability to meet the performance standards, including factors not in control of the IJ.

– We have concluded our discussions with NAIJ, and in the near future, we will publish on the intranet the Memorandum of Understanding that both parties agreed to at the conclusion of bargaining. Please review this document carefully when it becomes available.

– We welcome your input throughout the year. We want to hear about the circumstances you feel are hindering your efforts to reach the goals and benchmarks. We also want to hear your suggestions for making the courts and our processes more efficient, and more generally how the courts can better meet our mission.

– If there is something systemic or frequently recurring that you believe is interfering with your ability to meet the measures, please raise your concern with your ACIJ.

– Please be patient, especially during the rollout and at the end of the first quarter, when numbers are likely to be low due to holidays and leave.

Thank you.

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

So, Chief Immigration Judge Marybeth Keller says decisions shouldn’t be made based “solely on the performance measures.” In other words, performance measures can be a basis for decisions so long as the IJ doesn’t identify them as the “sole” basis.

There would be no need for “performance measures” at all unless those imposing them intended that they influence or control results. What kind of “performance measure” isn’t geared at influencing or shaping the “end product” of the “performance.” Or, perhaps the theory of DOJ/EOIR management is that IJs as a group are a bunch of lazy work shirkers who won’t put in a full day’s effort unless watched and threatened at all times with sophomoric “big brother type performance dashboards.”

Maybe that is the purpose of the “IJ Performance Data Dashboard.” This “Dashboard” is a remarkable achievement for an agency that still hasn’t been able to roll out a finalized version of an e-filing system. Clearly it’s a matter of “priorities;” fair adjudication and service to the public obviously aren’t among them!

The purpose of the Dashboard is appparently to insure that the stress levels build and that “judges” remain focused on achieving their “performance goals” (and hence keeping their jobs) rather than on the merits or justice in a particular case. Indeed, in a “real” court system judges would be encouraged to focus solely on providing fair and impartial adjudications in accordance with Due Process and the technology would be devoted exclusively to that end. “Production data,” while perhaps interesting from an intellectual or self-evaluation standpoint, actually has little or nothing to do with justice in a particular case.

Everyone who loses a case in this amazingly depressing “kangaroo court” system should file a petition for review citing the inherent Due Process flaw in having a “judge” who can’t possibly function as an “impartial” adjudicator as required both by the Constitution and by DOJ regulations. Maybe at some point the Article IIIs will fully understand the judicial farce in which they are complicit and act accordingly.

PWS

10-03-18

ANGELO PAPARELLI: The Real “Con Job” Is An Immigration “Court” Lacking Independent Jurists & Run By A Closed Minded Anti-Immigrant Partisan Politico!

https://www.nationofimmigrators.com/immigration-courts/the-long-lived-con-job-structural-injustice-in-the-immigration-courts/

Last week, President Trump held an 81-minute press conference. He traversed wide-ranging territory, including his notions of procedural due process. Discussing the importance of fundamental fairness when trying to distinguish facts from falsehoods, he said:PRES. TRUMP:

Somebody could come and say 30 years ago, 25 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, he did a horrible thing to me. He did this, he did that, he did that and, honestly, it’s a very dangerous period in our country. And it’s being perpetuated by some very evil people — some of them are Democrats, I must say — because some of them know that this is just a game that they’re playing. It’s a con game. It’s at the highest level. We’re talking about the United States Supreme Court. . . .

I’ve used much worse language in my life than “con job.” That’s like probably the nicest phrase I’ve ever used. I mean con job — it is. It’s a con job. You know confidence. It’s a confidence job, but they — it’s a con job by the Democrats. They know it.

Although clearly referring to recent charges of decades-old sexual wrongdoing against Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the president could have been discussing credibility determinations that arise every business day in our nation’s administrative tribunals that are euphemistically called immigration “courts.” The hearings and proceedings in the immigration courts raise one of the highest of stakes, deportation (or as it’s technically termed, removal) from the United States, a process which the Supreme Court in Fong Haw Tan v. Phelan, 333 U.S. 6, 10 (1948), described as “a drastic measure and at times the equivalent of banishment or exile,” and in Ng Fung Ho v. White, 259 U.S. 276, 284 (1922), as a theft of liberty that “may result … in loss of both property and life, or of all that makes life worth living.”

Yet immigration hearings are all too often a con job — not necessarily for any lack of effort at fairness and truth-ferreting by the actual participants, the immigration judges, and the attorneys representing the federal government and the hapless noncitizen known as the “respondent” who must appear in person and respond to one or more allegations that s/he is in the U.S. unlawfully and thus deportable. No, the unfairness is baked into the immigration court system; it’s a feature, not a bug. It was willfully designed by a long-forgotten Congress to be structurally unfair, and intentionally to omit the essential requirement of procedural due process. That is, that the fact-finder — the judge — must be independent and impartial, leaning neither in favor nor against one side or the other. In immigration courts, however, the immigration judge and the “trial attorney,” or counsel for the government, are both Executive-Branch employees. Immigration judges are Department of Justice lawyers appointed by the U.S. Attorney General. Trial attorneys – who often later become immigration judges – are employed by the Department of Homeland Security and are part of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement.

The Attorney General has the power to fire and remove immigration judges, or, on his unexplained whimsy, to punitively relocate them to hear cases at remote detention facilities in the U.S. hinterlands. As seen in recent months by the incumbent Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the AG has approved the imposition of work load production quotas on immigration judges, which inevitably will lead to even more abbreviated hearings, rushed oral and written decisions by immigration judges, and – all too often – reversible errors that must be rectified by the Board of Immigration Appeals and the federal appellate courts, including the Supreme Court.

The present AG has gone even further in advancing his activist agenda, e.g., on August 16 in Matter of L-A-B-R- et al., 27 I&N Dec. 405 (A.G. 2018), by limiting the authority of immigration judges to find good cause to grant continuances, and on June 11, in Matter of A- B,  27 I&N Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018), by taking away the power of immigration judges to find female victims of domestic violence abroad whom the foreign police will not or cannot protect as a social group deserving of protection under the asylum laws of the United States.

Indeed, the con job is even more atrocious because the power of the Attorney General in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) seems to have been inspired by no less a legal authority than Humpty Dumpty:

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’

Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll (Ch. 6)(italics in the original).

The “master” — according to INA § 103(a)(1)  — the arbiter of the meaning of words carrying immigration-related legal consequences, at least for now, is the incumbent, AG Jeff Sessions:

The Attorney General shall be charged with the administration and enforcement of this Act and all other laws relating to the immigration and naturalization of aliens, except insofar as this Act or such laws relate to the powers, functions, and duties conferred upon the President, the Secretary of State, the officers of the Department of State, or diplomatic or consular officers: Provided, however, That determination and ruling by the Attorney General with respect to all questions of law shall be controlling (emphasis added).

Many respected commissions, organizations and individuals have long assailed the systemic deficiencies that make our nation’s administrative system for procedural fairness in deportation proceedings unfair and ineffective (including, Kip T. Bollins, The President of the Federal Bar Association which has proposed model legislation, the Board of Governors of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, the National Immigrant Justice Center, and Ashley Tabaddor, President of the National Association of Immigration Judges, in recent congressional testimony) – a broken and unjust process that by now can only be seen as a con job.

In 1981, Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, President of the University of Notre Dame, chaired the Select Commission on U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy, which issued a 467-page report. The report contained a recommendation (23 VII.C.I.) on the re-positioning of the immigration court from the Justice Department into an independent judicial tribunal:  “The Select Commission recommends that existing law be amended to create an immigration court under Article I of the U.S. Constitution.” The Commission explained its reasoning in Article 23 VII.C.I., page 248, entitled “Structure for Immigration Hearings and Appeals”:

The Select Commission is convinced of the need for a more equitable and efficient method of processing exclusion and deportation cases. Some Commissioners believe that the answer lies in the creation of a U.S. Immigration Board, with statutory independence from INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] and the Attorney General, subject to the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act. Such a mechanism, the Commission members argue, would also be an ideal body for adjudicating noncriminal actions taken against employers under an employer sanctions system. A majority of Commissioners, however, is of the view that such a solution would still suffer from many of the current administrative inadequacies. The institution of an Immigration Court under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, they believe, would result in more efficient and uniform processing of cases. . . .

The Immigration Court recommended by the Commission will include a trial division to hear and decide exclusion and deportation cases and an appellate division to correct hearing errors and permit definitive, nationally binding resolutions of exclusion and deportation cases.* The new court also offers the potential for introducing judicial uniformity into the review of denials of applications and petitions — matters that now occupy the attention of district courts around the country. The elimination of potential disparate rulings by courts of appeals should discourage further litigation. The Commission majority is also of the view that an Article I Immigration Court is more likely to attract outstanding adjudicators. Improvements in the caliber of personnel will enhance the quality of decisions and generally: eliminate any need for further review. Some Commissioners believe that if the Article I Court cannot be instituted for several years, interim measures should be taken to improve the competency of the existing INS.

*The remedy of Supreme Court review by petition for certiorari would remain available for the rare immigration case of great national importance; review of immigration decisions, by U.S. Courts of Appeals would be eliminated.

Congress should of course consider and debate the merits of the Commission’s sub-recommendations. (I would not eliminate the right of petition to the federal appeals courts for the very reason that many immigration rulings are of great national importance and the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket cannot accommodate them.) Still, the fundamental proposition urged by the Select Commission – to remove the immigration courts from the oversight of the Attorney General, and instead structure it as an Article I court – is supported by a multitude of contemporary stakeholders.

One leading voice is Hilarie Bass, President of the American Bar Association (ABA), who offered in her April 18, 2018 Statement submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration Committee, “Strengthening And Reforming America’s Immigration Court System,” the ABA’s compelling reasons:

[The ABA] determined that the Article I model presented the best option for meeting the goals and needs of the system. The Article I model is likely to be viewed as more independent than an agency because it would be a true judicial body; is likely as such to engender the greatest level of confidence in its results; can use its greater prestige to attract the best candidates for judgeships; and offers the best balance between independence and accountability to the political branches of the federal government. Given these advantages, in our view, the Article I court model is the preferred option.

. . . Removing the adjudication system from the Department of Justice, whose primary function is a law enforcement agency, is vital to assuaging concerns about fairness and the perception of fairness. As a wholly judicial body, an Article I court is likely to engender the greatest level of confidence in the results of adjudication.

An Article I court also should attract highly-qualified judicial candidates and help to further professionalize the immigration judiciary. History has shown the potential for the politicization of the hiring process and an inherent bias toward the hiring of current or former government employees. Removing the hiring function from the Department of Justice also may increase the diversity of the candidate pool. Providing for a set term of sufficient length, along with protections against removal without cause, will similarly protect decisional independence and
make Article I judgeships more attractive. By attracting and selecting the highest quality lawyers as judges, an Article I court is more likely to produce well-reasoned decisions. Such decisions, as well as the handling of the proceedings in a professional manner, should improve the perception of the fairness and accuracy of the result. Perceived fairness, in turn, should lead to greater acceptance of the decision without the need to appeal to a higher tribunal. When appeals are taken, more articulate decisions should enable the reviewing body at each level to be more efficient in its review and decision-making and should result in fewer remands requesting additional explanations or fact-finding.

Unfortunately, Attorney General Sessions seems mired in a false equivalency, asserting that anyone opposing his views on immigration must ipso facto be a proponent of unregulated open borders. He made this clear recently in his remarks welcoming 44 new immigration judges, characterizing immigration lawyers not as officers of the court but as single-objective advocates (essentially as mouthpieces) who will do or say anything to win in immigration court:

Good lawyers, using all of their talents and skill, work every day – like water seeping through an earthen dam – to get around the plain words of the INA to advance their clients’ interests. Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the [INA]. That is our most serious duty.

He said other disturbing things as well in addressing the new immigration judges:

You have an obligation to decide cases efficiently and to keep our federal laws functioning effectively, fairly, and consistently.

And, as the statute states, Immigration Judges conduct designated proceedings “subject to such supervision and shall perform such duties as the Attorney General shall prescribe”.

This last provision gives me responsibility to ensure that our immigration system operates in an effective and efficient manner consistent with law enacted by Congress. Many in this country take a different view. They object to any enforcement that works. They evidence an open borders philosophy. . . .

As you take on this critically important role, I hope that you will be imaginative and inventive in order to manage a high-volume caseload. I do not apologize for expecting you to perform, at a high level, efficiently and effectively.

Your role requires great legal skill. Many of the cases present complex legal issues, but like anyone acting as a judge, you must manage your docket and support staff well.Cases must be moved to conclusion.

And as members of the Executive Branch, it is our duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” When we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation. Your job is to apply the law—even in tough cases.

As we work to restore rule of law in our immigration system, we will send a clear message to the world that the lawless practices of the past are over. The world will know what our rules are, and great numbers will no longer undertake this dangerous journey.

To be sure, the world — indeed, the American people — should know what our rules are. They should also know Lord that their ability to make the arduous journey to settle in America pursuing their opportunity under the facts in their case and our immigration laws to live out the American Dream will be decided by an impartial jurist in an independent tribunal. This is not our fathers’ immigration system. It cannot be learned by a three-year-old. Its laws should not be declared by any Attorney General. Congress must end this con job.

PWS

10-02-18

“OUR GANG” OF RETIRED US IMMIGRATION JUDGES CONDEMNS SESSIONS’S DESTRUCTION OF DUE PROCESS IN US IMMIGRATION COURTS – Calls On US Chief Immigration Judge Marybeth Keller & Her Colleagues To Stand Up To Sessions & Enforce Due Process Over Mindless “Haste Makes Waste” Quotas!

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/statement-of-former-immigration-judges-and-bia-members-opposing-ij-quotas-oct-1-2018

Oct 1 Statement of Former Immigration Judges and BIA Members Opposing IJ Quotas

As former Immigration Judges and BIA Members, we join our former colleagues in the NAIJ in decrying the imposition of much-criticized performance quotas on sitting Immigration Judges. Experience has demonstrated that it is futile to protest to the present Attorney General and his appointed EOIR Director, who have repeatedly demonstrated a callous disregard for due process, fundamental fairness, or judicial independence in the immigration courts. Jeff Sessions has repeatedly demonstrated his personal bias against both immigrants and judges. With the help of his EOIR Director, James McHenry, Sessions has taken a series of steps designed to strip the judges that he controls of all of the independence and powers that distinguish them as judges, and thus turn them into assembly-line workers. And because of Sessions’s disdain for immigrants, in his mind, those assembly lines should be issuing deportation orders, at faster speeds and in larger numbers. Never before, in our experience, has EOIR so directly and strongly undermined the decisional independence of Immigration Judges.

We therefore appeal at present to the leadership of the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge. Holding the title of “judges” themselves, the Chief, Deputy Chief, and Assistant Chief Immigration Judges are entrusted to protect the integrity of the Immigration Courts and the rights and independence of the Immigration Judges they oversee. At present, the OCIJ leadership has completely abandoned these responsibilities, and have instead become complicit with those seeking to undermine the system they are charged to protect. Now more than ever, our country needs leadership within EOIR with the courage and integrity to stand up for what is right. Courage, integrity, and impartiality from political considerations are hallmarks of good judges. It is time for EOIR’s leadership to live up to the trust placed in them and begin to display such characteristics.

Likewise, individual judges must continue to be guided by the need to do what is just and right, and not what is expedient. We have faith that if forced to choose between meeting randomly imposed quotas and doing justice, those on the bench will choose the latter.

We further call for Congress to take the long overdue but critically needed action of making immigration judges part of an independent, Article I court that is outside of the Executive Branch and free from abuse or pressure by politically-appointed officials.

Lastly, we call on the public to observe and insist on accountability for those who abuse the public trust placed in them to dispense justice to those most vulnerable members of our society.

Hon. Steven Abrams

Hon. Sarah M. Burr

Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase

Hon. George T. Chew

Hon. Bruce J. Einhorn

Hon. Cecelia Espenoza

Hon. Noel Ferris

Hon. John F. Gossart, Jr.

Hon. Rebecca Jamil

Hon. William P. Joyce

Hon. Edward Kandler

Hon. Carol A. King

Hon. Elizabeth A. Lamb

Hon. Margaret McManus

Hon. Charles Pazar

Hon. George Proctor

Hon. Lory D. Rosenberg

Hon. Susan Roy

Hon. Paul W. Schmidt

Hon. Polly A. Webber

How do you uphold your oath of office to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” when the chief “enemy of the Constitution” is Attorney General Jeff Sessions, your so-called “boss?”

PWS

10-01-18

DOJ RELEASES BIOS OF LARGEST CLASS OF US IMMIGRATION JUDGE APPOINTMENTS

Here’s the link, courtesy of Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/eoir-announces-largest-ever-immigration-judge-investiture

PWS

09-30-18

NPR: “THIS AMERICAN LIFE” – HEAR ABOUT HOW THE WHITE NATIONALIST RESTRICTIONISTS IN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ARE GOING ABOUT SYSTEMATICALLY AND DISINGENUOUSLY PERVERTING US IMMIGRATION LAWS – Useless, Counterproductive, & Expensive Prosecutions Of Asylum Seekers – When The Facts Don’t Support Your Decisions, Just Delete Or Misrepresent Them!

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/656/let-me-count-the-ways

Yes, youʼve heard about the family separations. Youʼve heard about the travel ban. But there are dozens of ways the Trump administration is cracking down on immigration across many agencies, sometimes in ways so small and technical it doesnʼt make headlines. This week, the quiet bureaucratic war that’s even targeting legal immigrants.

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

Long, but highly documented, compelling, and well worth the listen if you really want to know about the ugly, depraved policies of Trump, Sessions, Miller, Nielsen, Cissna, Gene Hamilton, and the rest of the White Nationalist Racist Brigade.

Regime Change, Regime Change, Regime Change; Vote, Vote, Vote!

PWS

09-29-18

GONZO’S WORLD: HE FIDDLES AS ROME BURNS! — Threats To Judges, Xenophobia, Racism, Cutting Corners, Dissing Respondents & Their Lawyers, Bogus Numbers, Aimlessly Adding Bodies Fail To Stem Tide Of Backlogged Cases In An Obviously Broken System — When Will Congress &/Or The Article IIIs Do Their Jobs By Restoring Due Process, Impartiality, & Competent, Apolitical Court Management To This Sorry Caricature Of A Court System?

Here’s the latest from TRAC:

==========================================
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
==========================================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Greetings. In August 2018, Immigration Courts remained overwhelmed with record numbers of cases awaiting decision. As of August 31, 2018, the number had reached 764,561. In July, the number of cases awaiting decision was 746,049 cases. This is a significant increase – up 41 percent – compared to the 542,411 cases pending at the end of January 2017, when President Trump took office.

California, Texas, and New York have the largest backlogs in the nation at 142,260, 112,733, and 103,054 pending caseloads respectively. While California is the state with the most pending cases, New York City’s immigration court topped the list of immigration courts with highest number at 99,919 pending cases at the end of August.

To view further details see TRAC’s immigration court backlog tool:

http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/

In addition to these most recent overall figures, TRAC continues to offer free monthly reports on selected government agencies such as the FBI, ATF, DHS and the IRS. TRAC’s reports also monitor program categories such as official corruption, drugs, weapons, white collar crime and terrorism. For the latest information on prosecutions and convictions through July 2018, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/bulletins/

Even more detailed criminal enforcement information for the period from FY 1986 through August 2018 is available to TRACFed subscribers via the Express and Going Deeper tools. Go to http://tracfed.syr.edu for more information. Customized reports for a specific agency, district, program, lead charge or judge are available via the TRAC Data Interpreter, either as part of a TRACFed subscription or on a per-report basis. Go to http://trac.syr.edu/interpreter to start.

If you want to be sure to receive notifications whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

http://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1&list=imm

or follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook:

http://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
Suite 360, Newhouse II
Syracuse, NY 13244-2100
315-443-3563

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

At approximately 20,000 more backlogged cases per month, the “Gonzo-ized” version of the US Immigration Courts are on track to jack the backlog up to 1 million by the end of FY 2019! Talk about self-inflicted, totally unnecessary chaos!

Hiring more new Immigration Judges won’t solve the problem because 1) if they do the job right, they will be slow and deliberative, 2) if they are slow, they will be fired, 3) but if they do it “Gonzo’s way” and give Due Process a pass, many of their cases will be sent back by the Courts of Appeals, adding to the mess.

Gonzo’s recent “My Way or the Highway” speech to new IJs where he unethically urged them to violate their oaths of office by ignoring relevant humanitarian factors in asylum cases (which actually are supposed to be humanitarian adjudications) and just crank out more removal orders to carry out the Administration’s White Nationalist agenda is a prime example of why more judicial bodies can’t solve the problem without a complete overhaul of the system to refocus it on Due Process — and only Due Process.

Someday, the Immigration Courts will become independent of the DOJ. That should include a professionally-administered, transparent, merit-based, judicial selection and retention system with provision for meaningful public input. (Such systems now are used for selection and retention of US Bankruptcy Judges and US Magistrate Judges.) When that happens, those Immigration Judges who “went along to get along” with Gonzo’s xenophobic, anti-immigrant, ignore Due Process system might be challenged to explain why they are best qualified to be retained in a new system that requires fair, impartial, and scholarly judges.

This court system can be fixed, but not by the likes of Gonzo Apocalypto; also, not without giving the Immigration Judges back authority over their dockets and leverage to rein in a totally undisciplined, irresponsible, unprofessional, and out of control ICE. (Responsible, professional, practical, humane leadership at DHS and ICE is also a key ingredient for a well-functioning and efficient court system.)

PWS

09-27-18

Related posts:

Notices issued for dates that don’t exist, times when court is closed

Attorney: ‘People were obviously fearful’

Related posts:

Related posts:

CHAOS IN THE COURTS

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

NO HABLA ESPAÑOL

SURGING CASES

QUOTA SYSTEM

Related posts:

I wanted to emphasize a few important points that you also may have heard from your ACIJ during your court meetings:

– We have concluded our discussions with NAIJ, and in the near future, we will publish on the intranet the Memorandum of Understanding that both parties agreed to at the conclusion of bargaining. Please review this document carefully when it becomes available.

– Please be patient, especially during the rollout and at the end of the first quarter, when numbers are likely to be low due to holidays and leave.

Thank you.

Related posts:

Related posts:

Oct 1 Statement of Former Immigration Judges and BIA Members Opposing IJ Quotas

Related posts:

Related posts:

Regime Change, Regime Change, Regime Change; Vote, Vote, Vote!

Related posts:

Related posts: