Interior Enforcement – Page 56 – immigrationcourtside.com

Applicants For Immigration Benefits Busted — Will This Become the Norm?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/04/06/they-met-with-immigration-officers-to-apply-for-legal-residency-only-to-be-arrested-by-ice/?hpid=hp_rhp-more-top-stories_no-name%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.eebb0333a5d5

Kristine Phillips resorts in the Washington Post:

“Leandro Arriaga has been in the United States illegally since 2001.

He stayed despite a deportation order and over the past 16 years has made a living fixing and remodeling homes. He also started a family. But the father of four had grown tired of “living in the shadows,” his attorney said.

So last week, he went to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office for his marriage petition interview — the first step to legalize his presence in the United States through his wife, a naturalized citizen. The process, called an I-130 visa petition, is a common way for foreigners to gain legal residency through their relatives or spouses.

But Arriaga was arrested that day, along with four others who also showed up at the USCIS office in Lawrence, Mass. All five have deportation orders, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.”

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Are such incidents merely anecdotal, or do they represent a clear change in policy? Maybe the effect is the same. If migrants believe that visiting DHS field offices to apply for immigration benefits will put them at risk, they will stop doing it, regardless of what the “actual policy” might be.

I’d be interested in any comments from readers about what you are seeing or hearing in your areas.

PWS

04/06/17

National Immigrant Justice Center (“NIJC”) & Others Accuse ICE Of Due Process Violations In Night-Time Removal Of Indiana Father!

http://www.noblelawfirm.com/ice-violates-due-process-roberto-beristain

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Click the link to read the complete press release. Sometimes Article III Federal Courts are willing to intervene in alleged unlawful removal cases, sometimes not. I’ve been on both sides and in the middle on this issue during my career.

Thanks to Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis Immigration Community for passing this along.

PWS

04-06-17

WashPost: ICE Arrests 82 In DC Area — 75% Have Criminal Convictions!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/ice-arrests-82-in-five-day-sweep-in-virginia-maryland-and-dc/2017/04/05/9b5b6304-1a30-11e7-855e-4824bbb5d748_story.html?hpid=hp_local-news_iceraid-756pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.8c98e3403a5e

Patricia Sullivan reports:

“Agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 82 people in Virginia, Maryland and the District last week, including one who they said was identified as an officer in command of a Somali organization known for human rights abuses, rape, torture and killings.

The arrests included 68 people with previous criminal convictions, ICE said in a news release that described the five-day operation as a routine, “targeted immigration enforcement.”

Those who have outstanding orders of deportation, or who returned to the U.S. illegally after being deported, can be immediately removed from the country. Others will remain in custody awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge, or pending deportation arrangements.

The Somali, a 50-year-old male, was picked up in Falls Church and was a second lieutenant in the Somalian National Security Service and had a felony drug conviction, ICE said.

Agents also took into custody two people who have ties to the MS-13 street gang, ICE said, two who already had been given final deportation orders and three who had overstayed their visas.

ICE said two of the targeted individuals had pending local charges and one was wanted by a foreign law enforcement organization. Three more had unlawfully entered the U.S., the agency said.

Most were arrested in Virginia but two were arrested in the District and one in Maryland. Their names were not released.”

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On its face, this appears almost identical to the “targeted enforcement” that the Obama Administration was doing by 2016. What if the Trump Administration had said that it was simply going to refine and build on the prioritization of criminals system already established by the Obama Administration? Would they have engendered so much opposition? Did the melodramatic Executive Orders, the dumb statements by guys like Stephen Miller, and boneheaded expansion of the “criminal alien” concept actually hinder community support for targeting individuals convicted of serious crimes? Has the Trump Administration converted the beginnings of a “smart enforcement” program into a “dumb enforcement” program without actually changing much of the substance?

PWS

04-05-17

LA TIMES EDITORIAL #3: “Trump’s Authoritarian Vision”

“Trump’s Authoritarian Vision”

“In a way, Trump represents a culmination of trends that have been years in the making.

Conservative talk radio hosts have long blasted federal judges as “activists” and regulators as meddlers in the economy, while advancing the myth of rampant election fraud. And gridlock in Washington has led previous presidents to try new ways to circumvent the checks on their power — witness President George W. Bush’s use of signing statements to invalidate parts of bills Congress passed, and President Obama’s aggressive use of executive orders when lawmakers balked at his proposals.

What’s uniquely threatening about Trump’s approach, though, is how many fronts he’s opened in this struggle for power and the vehemence with which he seeks to undermine the institutions that don’t go along.

It’s one thing to complain about a judicial decision or to argue for less regulation, but to the extent that Trump weakens public trust in essential institutions like the courts and the media, he undermines faith in democracy and in the system and processes that make it work.
Trump betrays no sense for the president’s place among the myriad of institutions in the continuum of governance. He seems willing to violate long-established political norms without a second thought, and he cavalierly rejects the civility and deference that allow the system to run smoothly. He sees himself as not merely a force for change, but as a wrecking ball.

Will Congress act as a check on Trump’s worst impulses as he moves forward? One test is the House and Senate intelligence committees’ investigation into Russia’s meddling in the presidential election; lawmakers need to muster the courage to follow the trail wherever it leads. Can the courts stand up to Trump? Already, several federal judges have issued rulings against the president’s travel ban. And although Trump has railed against the decisions, he has obeyed them.

None of these institutions are eager to cede authority to the White House and they won’t do so without a fight. It would be unrealistic to suggest that America’s most basic democratic institutions are in imminent jeopardy.

But we should not view them as invulnerable either. Remember that Trump’s verbal assaults are directed at the public, and are designed to chip away at people’s confidence in these institutions and deprive them of their validity. When a dispute arises, whose actions are you going to consider legitimate? Whom are you going to trust? That’s why the public has to be wary of Trump’s attacks on the courts, the “deep state,” the “swamp.” We can’t afford to be talked into losing our faith in the forces that protect us from an imperial presidency.

This is the third in a series.”

Read the complete editorial here: http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ed-trumps-authoritarian-vision/

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PWS

04/04/17

WashPost EDUCATION: Alexandria, VA School PTA Helps Families Deal With ICE Fears — Alexandrians Stand With Their Immigrant Community Neighbors!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/know-your-rights-clinic-in-school-cafeteria-aims-to-allay-immigrant-fears/2017/03/29/fe8af9cc-0fe9-11e7-9d5a-a83e627dc120_story.html?utm_term=.a5bbff25be59

Moriah Balingit reports:

“In a school cafeteria adorned with whimsical children’s artwork, the men and women hunched over thick packets of paper one recent night, fiddling with pen caps and rubbing their foreheads as they confronted a challenge: preparing for what happens if immigration agents show up at the door.

Some at this clinic in Northern Virginia were undocumented, and others had relatives in that situation. Some had legal status but were not permanent residents, and they wondered what shifts in federal immigration policy would mean for them and their relatives.

Juan Torres, a carpenter from Honduras and father of four, has temporary protected status, but he has family members who are undocumented.

“Of course, I was very worried, because the majority of my family doesn’t have documents, and at any moment they could be arrested or detained,” Torres said.

He was one of about two dozen people who came to William Ramsay Elementary School in Alexandria to learn about their rights while President Trump moves to tighten immigration enforcement and speed up deportations.

Recent arrests in Alexandria and elsewhere have heightened stress. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “sensitive location” policy restricts enforcement actions at schools and churches. But agents last month arrested homeless men who had just left a church warming shelter in nearby Fairfax County and a father in Los Angeles who had just dropped his daughter off at school.

With anxiety rising in immigrant communities, educators and parents are taking steps to allay fears. The PTA at Ramsay Elementary sponsored the March 22 clinic, supplying pizza and providing volunteers to care for children of those who came to hear from immigration lawyers and other experts.

About a quarter of Alexandria’s residents in 2010 were foreign-born, census data shows. Hundreds of unaccompanied minors, many of whom fled violence in Central America, have entered the United States in recent years without parents and landed in the city’s schools. Students in Alexandria hail from more than 130 countries. Hallways at Ramsay Elementary display dozens of flags to show international spirit.”

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Try as they might, The Trump Administration is not going to be able to dislodge migrants from communities throughout the US. They will, however, succeed in generating massive resistance to their unrealistic, unneeded, and xenophobic policies. Sooner or later, either Congress must pass needed reforms giving some status and protection to migrants, or the resistance will eventually tie the already dysfunctional system into knots.

PWS

04-03-17

THE HILL: N. Rappaport Asks Whether Trump’s Next “Sanctuary Cities” Strategy Will Include Criminal Prosecutions For Harboring?

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/327050-trumps-next-immigration-showdown-sanctuary-cities-and

Nolan writes:

“Gregg Jarrett, a Fox news anchor and former defense attorney, has observed that if this approach fails to force city officials to abide by the law, President Trump can consider charging them with crimes.

According to James H. Walsh, who was an associate general counsel for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, there are several federal statutes that apply to state and local officials and others who interfere with the enforcement of our immigration laws.

I have found at least one provision in the INA that seems to be an appropriate basis for such prosecutions, 8 U.S.C. §1324(a)(1)(A)(iii). It provides criminal penalties for concealing, harboring, or shielding aliens from detection who are in the United States illegally.

It does not specify what actions constitute “harboring.” This has been left to the courts, and the courts have not settled on one uniform definition. But the most frequent characteristic the courts have used to describe “harboring” is that it facilitates an immigrant’s remaining in the United States illegally, and this seems to be the primary reason for sanctuary cities and municipal ID card programs.

Criminal prosecution of responsible government officials is preferable in some ways to withholding federal funding. Withholding federal funding mainly would hurt the people who depend on the funds. It would not have a direct impact on the responsible officials the way prosecuting them would.

Also, the Supreme Court has held that such restrictions on federal funds must “bear some relationship to the purpose of the federal spending,” which may be difficult to establish in this situation.

In any case, we appear to be headed for major conflicts between the Trump administration and state and local governments, which could take a very long time to resolve.”

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Go on over to The Hill at the above link to read Nolan’s entire article.

Regardless of whether or not criminal prosecutions become part of the Trump Administration’s arsenal, I totally agree with Nolan’s conclusion that we’re heading for a major confrontation.

PWS

03-03-17

SLATE: Into The Void — Appalled Attorney Dan Canon Says Immigration Detention Diminishes, Dehumanizes All Of Us!

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2017/04/ice_detainees_enter_an_unbelievably_cruel_system_designed_to_make_them_disappear.html

“A couple of weeks ago, for the first time ever, I represented an undocumented worker in deportation proceedings. Or rather, I tried to. My attempts to navigate this system were not what I would call successful. Part of this may be due to the fact that, though I have been a practicing attorney for 10 years, this was my first go at immigration law. But another part of it—most of it, I’d venture—is due to the fact that the U.S. immigration system is designed to be opaque, confusing, and inequitable.

Under most circumstances, I would not wade into this kind of thing at all. I’m primarily a civil rights lawyer, and immigration is a highly specialized area of law with a unique set of risks awaiting unwary practitioners. I would not, for example, take someone’s bankruptcy case or file adoption papers. I would refer those to lawyers with experience in those areas. But the crisis of unrepresented detainees is too big and too pressing to leave to the few organizations and individual practitioners with expertise in immigration law. One recent study found that only about 14 percent of detainees have representation. That’s out of nearly 300,000 cases in the immigration courts every year.*

If I killed someone on the street in broad daylight, I‘d be entitled to an attorney. But those summoned before the immigration courts, including infants who have been brought here by their parents, have no right to counsel. They can hire immigration lawyers, but only if they can pay for them. Most of them can’t, and volunteer lawyers are scarce. So children, parents, and grandparents are locked up for months, sometimes years, waiting for a day in court. When they show up in front of a judge, they do so alone and terrified. Those who don’t speak English are provided an interpreter who tells them what’s being said, but no one is there to tell them what’s really happening.

Undocumented people who live here in Louisville and southern Indiana are driven 90 minutes to the jail in Boone County, Kentucky. There, they are placed in the general population with locals who have actually been accused of crimes. That’s where my client, who was assigned to me by an overburdened immigration firm, was taken after he was scooped up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the parking lot of his apartment building.

Entering the United States, even without proper documentation, is not a criminal offense. The only “crime” my client committed is trying to get his family away from the drug cartels that overtook his Central American village. Unlike many who come here fleeing crippling poverty, he and his family were getting along fairly well in their home country. A little success, it turns out, can make you a target for violent extortionists. His wife, who fled the exact same situation in the exact same place, was apparently catalogued as an asylum-seeker, but her husband was not.

The Kentucky facility doesn’t allow a phone call, even for an attorney, without an appointment. Requests to call your client must be made by fax. Sometimes the jail will call you to say your 2 p.m. time slot has been changed to 6 p.m., and sometimes you won’t get any notification at all. The visitation restrictions for families are no more accommodating. Visitation amounts to 45 minutes a week, tops. If my client’s wife, daughter, or grandkids want to visit him, they have to drive 90 minutes and hope for the best.

. . . .

What happened to my client and his family wasn’t anomalous. It wasn’t even unusual. It happens all over the country, every single day. Part of what makes our immigration system so reprehensible is that it’s so easy to ignore. Most of us don’t ever have to deal with it in any meaningful way or even think about it. But stop and consider that this practice of moving detainees from place to place randomly, with no notice given to their families or their attorneys, is indescribably cruel. Stop and consider that locking up human beings in jail for months to coerce them into submission is maddeningly unjust. And then consider the possibility that the whole system is not just dysfunctional, but utterly diabolical.

Further consider that the practice of breaking up families and making people disappear into black holes is the result of a set of loosely defined policy goals that are in no way based on reality. There’s no real evidence to support the notion that undocumented immigrants are any more dangerous than anyone else, or that they “steal” jobs from Americans, or that they do anything but contribute to the economy overall. There is no policy reason for inflicting this misery on people. It’s just cruel.

Lest anyone think this is just more liberal railing against the Trump administration, this system pre-dates the orange guy. The Obama administration sucked more than three million people into the lungs of this administrative monster and spit them out all over the world. Having seen up close what this system does to families, it’s hard to forgive that, especially when you consider that American trade policies contributed to the collapse of Latin America. But hell, we’re all complicit in this. We let it happen every day.

I’m going to suggest something I have never suggested to any working person: If you are part of this machine—if you are a guard, an agent, a janitor, or anything in between—quit. Walk off your job. Right now. You’ve got bills to pay? A family to support? I get it. So do the people who come here looking for a better existence. The system you are contributing to is preposterously evil. It separates mothers from their children. It kills innocent people. It exists only to make easy punching bags out of those damned by their circumstances, some of whom have already lived through unspeakable horrors.

For everyone else: If you’ve never thought about your tacit support for this system, start thinking about it. Start resisting it. Start demanding its abolition. A Kafkaesque bureaucracy needs participants, both willing and unwilling. We have the power to dismantle it.”

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As noted in Canon’s article, immigration detention originated long before the Trump Administration. The Obama Administration certainly wasn’t afraid to use detention as an attempted deterrent to asylum seekers. Additionally, the Obama administration essentially argued for “eternal detention” pending final determinations in Removal Proceedings in a case that is currently pending decision before the Supremes. Jennings v. Rodriguez, see previous blog here: http://wp.me/p8eeJm-kp. The often prolonged detention of women and children asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle by the Obama Administration will go down as one of the darker chapters in American human rights history.

Unfortunately, however, we haven’t hit bottom yet. The Trump Administration’s plans for enhanced immigration enforcement will certainly involve even more widespread use of immigration detention as a tool of deterrence, coercion, and denial of due process, with all of the additional human abuses that is likely to engender.

One qualification/explanation of Canon’s statement that: “Entering the United States, even without proper documentation, is not a criminal offense.” In fact, it usually is. Under 8 U.S.C. 1325, “improper entry by an alien” is a misdemeanor, although often not prosecuted. A second conviction is a felony.

An individual without documentation who appears at a U.S. port of entry ands applies for asylum would not be committing a criminal offense. But, according to a number of recent media accounts, such individuals currently are being sent back to Mexico and told to await “an appointment.”

Additionally, the Trump Administration has indicated that it would like to develop a process to return non-Mexican asylum seekers to Mexico while they are awaiting hearings in U.S. Immigration Court. So far, the Mexican government has indicated that it would not agree to such a program.

PWS

04/03/17

ALERT: Weekly Summary of Trump Administration’s Attack On Human Rights, Civil Rights, Due Process, & America — Blocking Public Monitoring Of Immigration Detention High On List!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/03/31/trump-watch-volume-6-more-immigration-crackdowns-sessions-defends-cops-in-st-louis-and-jared-kushner-renaissance-man/?utm_term=.0fc52897ff4c

Radley Balko reports in an op-ed in the Washington Post:

“Here’s the latest from the Trump administration on civil liberties and criminal justice:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears to be attempting to end public monitoring of immigration detention centers.
In the battle for control of President Trump’s drug policy, it’s shaping up to be good cop New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (treatment) against bad cop Attorney General Jeff Sessions (enforcement).
When he isn’t brokering Middle East peace, ending opioid addiction and streamlining the federal bureaucracy, Jared Kushner will apparently be handling criminal justice reform.
Democrats in some states are pushing back against Trump’s immigration crackdown by trying to prevent local law enforcement from sharing immigration information with federal officials.
More “bad hombres” — a single dad brought here at age 8 who has raised his daughter by himself for the last 14 years has just been deported over a 17-year-old marijuana possession charge.
Jeff Sessions gave a speech in St. Louis Friday. He said Ferguson has become the “emblem of the tense relationship between law enforcement and the communities we serve.” He also said that cops are “unfairly maligned,” and blamed “viral videos.” He made no mention of the area’s aggressive fines and predatory municipal courts that are such a huge part of the problem.
Other recent ICE and immigration actions: Five Massachusetts immigrants, at least three of whom were there for green card interviews, were arrested when they showed up for appointments at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office this week. In Portland, Ore., three ‘dreamers’ have been arrested. In Chicago, ICE agents broke into a home and shot someone who may have been the father of the man they were looking for. And in Indiana, a Trump voter feels betrayed after her husband is taken into custody and scheduled for deportation.
The Trump administration boycotted the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights conference earlier this month. It’s the first time in at least 20 years that the U.S. government not shown up to the event.
Finally, the man Trump just appointed assistant secretary for health technology at the Department of Health and Human Services has some interesting opinions. Among them, “Not all Goths are drug addicts, but a high percentage experiment with all types of drugs, including hallucinogens,” and “when kids cross the line into pot use, they are crossing the line, figuratively and literally, toward a life of illegal drug use and probable addiction.” He also thinks women who view pornography at a young age may suffer from “a phobia to male genitalia,” and thinks there’s a strong links between drug addicts and people who get tattoos.
Trump again floats the idea of changing libel laws, this time so that truth is no longer a defense in lawsuits against public figures. But he also doesn’t appear to understand how libel laws actually work.”

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Go to the original article at the above link to get links to more in depth reporting on each of these reported incidents.

Trying to block monitoring of immigration detention centers is a particularly nice touch. Given some of the grim reports about conditions, particularly in much-criticized privately-run detention centers which appear to be near and dear to Sessions, I can see why DHS and DOJ don’t want anyone to know what’s really going on. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of the Trump Administration the entire immigration detention system will be under some sort of court-appointed monitor.

Sadly, some more folks are probably going to have to die in immigration detention before we get to that point.

PWS

04-02-17

Turning Back The Hands Of Time — Sessions Seeks To Restore AG’s Lead Role In Immigration Enforcement!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/seeking-central-role-on-immigration-attorney-general-jeff-sessions-plots-border-visit-to-arizona/2017/03/30/34fc8596-1550-11e7-833c-503e1f6394c9_story.html

David Nakamura and Matt Zapotosky report in the Washington Post:

“The Justice Department is seeking to play a more muscular role in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement strategy, a move that is alarming immigrant rights advocates who fear Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s hard-line ideology could give Justice too much clout in determining policy.

To highlight the department’s expanding role, Sessions is considering making his first trip to the southern border in mid-April to Nogales, Ariz., a busy border crossing region that features a major patrol station and already has miles of fencing and walls designed to keep out illegal immigrants from Mexico. Aides emphasized that his itinerary is still being developed and the stop in Nogales — which would come as Sessions travels to a conference of state police officials from around the country 200 miles away in Litchfield Park — is still tentative.

If he follows through, the border visit would come at a time when President Trump is asking Congress for billions of dollars to begin construction on a longer and larger wall between the United States and Mexico, a central campaign promise.

In recent weeks, Sessions has taken steps to increase his department’s focus on immigration.

. . . .

But legal experts said Sessions could significantly restructure the Justice Department by ramping up the number of immigration judges sent to the border to speed up hearings and by pursuing more criminal prosecutions against immigrants in the United States beyond those associated with drug cartels and human smugglers that past administrations have focused on.

The Sessions Justice Department also could move to strip some protections from undocumented immigrants, such as how much time they have to find a lawyer; more robustly defend DHS enforcement policies that are challenged in court; and use the Office of the Special Counsel to aggressively prevent employers from discriminating against American workers by hiring undocumented workers, said Leon Fresco, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Obama administration.

“I think they will be incredibly active,” said Fresco, who helped draft the 2013 immigration bill while serving as an aide to Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). The only thing that could slow Sessions, he added, was “finding enough individuals with expertise and the willingness to speed these issues along.”

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Prior to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), the Attorney General had responsibility for nearly all aspects of domestic immigration enforcement and adjudication. Most of those functions were reassigned to the DHS, leaving the AG responsible primarily for the Immigration Courts (through the Executive Office for Immigration Review – “EOIR”) and for conducting immigration litigation in the Article III Federal Courts (through the Office of Immigration Litigation — “OIL”).

Apparently, Attorney General Sessions finds these legal roles too “passive” for his enforcement-oriented outlook. Sensing a vacuum because of his closeness to the President and DHS Secretary Kelly’s relative inexperience in immigration issues, Sessions now seeks to make, rather than just defend or adjudicate, immigration policy.

What does this say about the chances that Sessions will promote a fair and impartial administrative hearing system through the U.S. Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals over which he exercises ultimate control.

PWS

03/31/17

LA TIMES: Retired U.S. Immigration Judge Bruce J. Einhorn Speaks Out For Due Process — Challenges City Of L.A. To Provide Lawyers For Those Facing Removal!

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-einhorn-immigration-lawyers-deportation-ice-20170327-story.html

Like many of us, Bruce has witnessed first-hand the patent unfairness of requiring individuals to represent themselves in U.S. Immigration Court. In this L.A. Times op-ed he urges Los Angeles to follow the City of New York’s fine example in providing effective pro bono legal representation to those whose lives and futures are on the line in Immigration Court:

“In December, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the creation of a $10 million fund to provide lawyers to immigrants facing deportation. But the parameters of the program are still being determined. In order to be effective, the program needs to be implemented soon and expanded quickly.
For defendants in deportation proceedings, the stakes can be life or death, since some face torture or worse upon returning to their home countries. This is why a fellow immigration judge, Dana Marks, once said that deportation cases are “death penalty cases heard in traffic court settings.” Many other defendants face permanent separation from their families.

Yet immigrants who cannot afford a lawyer must argue against government prosecutors. More often than not, this includes immigrants who are detained — that is, jailed — while their cases move through the courts. Detention almost always means loss of income, while lawyers cost more than the majority of immigrants can afford. A person who speaks little or no English must gather information from police officers or medical experts, submit written declarations in English or find evidence to support their asylum claims, all without access to the Internet or to affordable phone calls. There are an estimated 3,700 immigrants in detention across the greater L.A. area, according to the mayor’s office.

With one side at such a great disadvantage, it becomes much harder for judges to apply the law in a just manner, increasing the risk of flawed decisions. Especially in cases where defendants are detained, a day in court without a lawyer isn’t a day in court at all. A recent study found that detained immigrants who are represented by an attorney are five times more likely to win their cases than immigrants without representation.

A court system without lawyers is not merely unjust — it is also inefficient and wasteful. Without adequate legal representation for immigrants, judges can’t spend their time making decisions. Instead, they must constantly explain the legal process, reschedule cases and answer questions. In some instances, judges issue decisions only to cover the same ground again if the defendant is lucky enough to find a lawyer and get the case re-heard.

All this waste results in a heavily backlogged immigration court system, and nowhere more so than in California, where almost 100,000 cases are waiting to be decided. In San Francisco, for instance, an immigrant in court today will have his next hearing over two years from now.

. . . .

After 17 years on the bench, I’m troubled to see a wave of new raids that are sure to clog the dockets for years to come. But I also see an opportunity for local leaders to take a stand and provide immigrant communities with the fair and responsive representation they deserve.”

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Bruce makes an important point that many outside observers miss. In addition to being inherently unfair, hearings involving unrepresented individuals are tremendously inefficient. That is, if the Immigration Judge takes to time to provide at least some semblance of due process.

Aspects of the hearing system that lawyers understand have to be explained in detail, in simplified language, through an interpreter to the unrepresented respondent.

Because there is no lawyer to question the respondent, and it would be inappropriate to rely on the DHS lawyer to present the respondent’s case, the Immigration Judge effectively becomes the respondent’s “substitute attorney” — an impossible conflict of interest. I usually conducted the examination of an unrepresented respondent using a format similar to that I used for client intake interviews in private practice. It takes time to do a fair and thorough job.

Dictating a decision in an unrepresented detained case is a long, painstaking process. Where an attorney is involved, and the interpreter is with me in court, which is the norm, the attorney normally “waives” a verbatim contemporaneous interpretation in favor of a short summary and a promise to fully explain my ruling to the client afterwards.

But, with no attorney, I must stop every few sentences for the interpreter to do a “serial interpretation” to the respondent on televideo. The “simultaneous interpretation” system is not currently designed to work with the televideo system.

Appeals by the losing side are fairly common in detained unrepresented cases. When both sides have attorneys, I just say a few words reminding them about how strictly the BIA enforces filing deadlines.

But, when an unrepresented respondent is involved, I have to give a short “how to seminar” in the art of filing an appeal with a fee waiver in a timely manner. Occasionally, the detention center doesn’t even have the correct appeal and waiver forms available, so I have to note that “officer promised to serve forms” while attaching an “insurance copy” to my “minute order” (which itself might not actually get to the detained respondent until weeks after the hearing — halfway through the 30 day appeal period).

Also, Bruce accurately points out that if the respondent finally is able to find a pro bono lawyer during the appeal process, the chances of a remand for further development of the record before the Immigration Judge are significant.

Although claiming to be supportive of the role of pro bono counsel in Immigration Court, and providing some support to some programs, overall the U.S. Immigration Court is “user unfriendly” to the pro bono community. In all Administrations, artificial political prioritization of cases driven by the Department of Justice and decisions to “kowtow” to DHS enforcement by placing so-called “courts”‘ within out of the way detention centers (rather than insisting, as true independent court system would, that detention centers be located in the vicinity of already established courts, where there is an established immigration bar and family support is often available) actively undermine both access to, and effective participation by, pro bono attorneys.

It’s sad but clear that the current Administration has “no time” for due process for migrants. They appear to have every intention of taking an already out of control, user unfriendly court system and making it even worse.

Only the Article IIII Courts stand between this Administration and their apparent goal of a “deportation express” with “no station stops” for due process. And, the only way that vulnerable migrants are going to be able to get into, and draw the attention of, the Article III Courts is by being well-represented by attorneys every step of the way.

That’s why it is critically important for Los Angeles and other cities who value their immigrant communities to heed Bruce’s call for the establishment of pro bono programs. Otherwise, the due process travesty being planned by this Administration will go forward unabated and become an indelible stain on American legal, political, and Constitutional history.

Other than that, I have no strong views on the subject.

PWS

03/31/17

PETULA DVORAK IN THE WashPost: Forget The Administration’s Fear-Mongering — There Are Many Amazing Kids In Our Midst Seeking Survival & A Chance To Contribute! These Are The Kids I Met In Immigration Court — And I Am Still Moved & Inspired By What Many Of Them Have Achieved & Their Potential!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/theyve-survived-untold-horrors-undocumented-teens-dont-deserve-to-be-demonized/2017/03/27/518dcebe-09b5-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?hpid=hp_regional-hp-cards_rhp-card-columnists%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.346ab2350bee

Petula Dvorak writes in her regular local column in the Washington Post:

“Their dreams — to become a lawyer, an interior decorator, a sailor in the Navy — are a lot like the dreams that other kids at their Maryland high school have.

It’s their nightmares — seeing relatives killed, paying off coyotes, being raped at the border, spending weeks in a detention center, being homeless in a new country — that make them so different.

“They’ve survived untold horrors,” said Alicia Wilson, the executive director at La Clinica Del Pueblo, which is working with Northwestern High School to help these teenagers.

The Hyattsville school has absorbed dozens of these students — part of a wave of more than 150,000 kids who have crossed the U.S. border over the past three years fleeing violence in Central America.

We usually hear about these young immigrants only when they’re accused of committing heinous crimes — such as the two undocumented students charged with raping a 14-year-old classmate in a bathroom at Rockville High School. Or when they become victims of heinous crimes — such as Damaris Reyes Rivas, 15, whose mother wanted to protect her from MS-13 in El Salvador but lost her to the gang in Maryland.

In country with a growing compassion deficit, plenty of people resent these kids, demonizing them along with other undocumented immigrants. But I wish those folks got to spend the time with them that I did. They’re funny, vulnerable, hard-working and stunningly resilient.”

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

Exactly what I found in more than a decade as a trial judge at the Arlington Immigration Court. The young people were among the most memorable of the thousands of lives that passed through my courtroom. “Funny, vulnerable, hard-working and stunningly resilient,” yes they were all of those things. To that, I would add smart, courageous, talented, motivated, and caring.

Many appeared at the first Master Calendar speaking only a few words of English. By the time the second Master rolled around (often 9-12 months on my overcrowded docket) they were basically fluent. And, they often were assisting others in the family to understand the system, as well as taking on major family responsibilities with parents or guardians holding down two, or sometimes three jobs.

I checked their grades and urged/cajoled them to turn the Cs into Bs and the Bs into As. Many brought their report cards to the next haring to show me that they had done it.

I recognized the many athletes, musicians, chess players, science clubbers, and artists who were representing their schools. But, I also recognized those who were contributing by helping at home, the church, with younger siblings, etc.

Just lots of very impressive young people who had managed to put incredible pain, suffering, and uncertainty largely behind them in an effort to succeed and fit in with an strange new environment. They just wanted a chance to live in relative safety and security and to be able to lead productive, meaningful lives, contributing to society. Pretty much the same things that most off us want for ourselves and our loved ones.

More often than not, with the help of talented, caring attorneys, many of them serving in a pro bono capacity, and kind, considerate Assistant Chief Counsel we were able to fit them into “the system” in a variety of ways. Not always, But, most of the time. Those who got to stay were always grateful, gracious, and appreciative.

Even those we had to turn away I hope left with something of value — perhaps an education — and the feeling that they had been treated fairly and with respect, that I had carefully listened and considered their claim to stay, and that I had explained, to the best of my ability, in understandable language, why I couldn’t help them. Being a U.S. Immigration Judge was not an easy job.

Overall, I felt very inspired when I could play a positive role in the lives of these fine young people. “Building America’s future, one life at a time, one case at a time,” as I used to say.

PWS

03/28/17

Adios Amigo! — Xenophobia Trumps Rationality, Humanity, As ICE Boots Law-Abiding Indiana Hispanic Businessman Whose Wife Voted For Trump — “Mixed Family” Learns The Hard Way They Aren’t Welcome In The Trump-Pence America!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/25/she-thought-trump-would-deport-bad-hombres-instead-hes-deporting-her-law-abiding-husband/?hpid=hp_no-name_hp-in-the-news:page/in-the-news&utm_term=.b30be44bad1e

Peter Holley reports in the WashPost:

“Stories such as Beristain’s — in which law-abiding parents are deported because of their immigration status — have inundated the news media in recent months. The Twitter account “Trump Regrets” has amassed nearly 260,000 followers by retweeting disappointed and angry Trump voters.

“Previously,” as The Post’s Samantha Schmidt and Sarah Larimer reported last month, “the Obama administration prioritized the deportation of people who were violent offenders or had ties to criminal gangs. Trump’s executive order on Jan. 25 expanded priorities to include any undocumented immigrants who had been convicted of a criminal offense.”

“Personally, I think the president should be giving him a handshake,” Flora said. “Either Trump was lying when he said we were only deporting bad guys, or Trump’s view of bad guys is so expansive it can literally include every single immigrant.”

Days after Beristain’s arrest, Flora said, he filed a “stay of removal” to prevent deportation, but it was rejected March 15.

“Once the case is finalized and done, there’s really no reason to keep him around in their eyes,” Flora said, referring to ICE. “They think, ‘Why take up jail space for no reason if all the legal options have been exhausted?’ ”

Flora said the decision to deport Beristain is a “wildly disproportionate” response when measured against the law he broke nearly two decades ago.

“If you asked 100 people to paint you a picture of a bad guy, no one would draw anyone remotely resembling Roberto,” he said.
Helen Beristain told the Tribune that — in their effort to get her husband U.S. citizenship — the couple has had 10 attorneys over the past 18 years. Many of those attorneys, she said, told them that they had no choice but to wait for immigration laws to change.

Instead of changing in the couple’s favor, the laws evolved to make her husband more vulnerable to deportation, a development the Beristains never expected. She told the Tribune that Trump’s deportation measures — the one’s she thought her family would be exempt from — are harming “regular people.”

“I understand when you’re a criminal and you do bad things, you shouldn’t be in the country,” Helen told the CBS TV affiliate WSBT. “But when you’re a good citizen and you support and you help and you pay taxes and you give jobs to people, you should be able to stay.”

“We were for Mr. Trump,” she added. “We were very happy he became the president. Whatever he says, he is right. But, like he said, the good people have a chance to become citizens of the United States.”

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

And, folks can thank restrictionist, white nationalist “fellow travelers” like then-Senator, now Attorney General Jeff Sessions, egged on by the likes of current Presidential Advisors Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, for blocking sensible immigration reform efforts in Congress. So, we’re spending taxpayer money and Government resources to make American a worse place by deporting members of the business community who have done nothing but good things for the country and those around them. You’d have to reside somewhere deep in the bowels of the “GOP Swamp” to make sense of this type of policy.

PWS

03/26/17

Spend A Few Minutes With Me Behind The Bench! — Read My “Detained Master Calendar” Vignette From The “Journal on Migration and Human Security!”

Part IV: The Immigration Judge

There is widespread consensus that immigration courts are overwhelmed with immense caseloads, inadequate staffing, and lengthy backlogs (Arnold & Porter 2010). Non-detained immigrants in removal proceedings often wait two to three years to have their cases adjudicated. Cases on the detained docket move much faster. Despite the considerable time it takes to access counsel, determine eligibility for defenses to deportation, and gather evidence, the average life of a pro se detained immigrant’s case totals a mere 23 days (Eagly and Shafer 2015, 63).

In addition to facing institutional pressure to quickly move cases while immigrants are detained at government expense, judges are overburdened with the number of detained cases that must be efficiently adjudicated (Lustig et al. 2008). In 2015, immigration judges adjudicated and completed 51,005 detained cases, constituting 28 percent of all immigration cases completed that year (EOIR 2016, gure 11). Judges have very little face time with immigrants in their courtroom, and about half the time spent with pro se detainees involves requests for continuances to seek counsel (Eagly and Shafer 2015, 61). Furthermore, as administrative law judges, immigration judges have obligations to the respondents who appear pro se and are often required to step into the role of counsel in order to fully develop the record through interrogating, examining, and cross-examining an immigrant and any witnesses.”14

Below, a former immigration judge provides a snapshot of a few minutes on the detained docket.

*****

Prelude15

Wednesday afternoon, detained master calendar. Feeling love and dread. Love: Fast-paced, meaningful, live audience, prepared attorneys, challenging legal questions, teamwork, mediation, problem solving, saving lives, teaching, performing, drama, positive messages, mentoring, full range of life and legal skills in use and on display. Dread: Hopeless cases, sobbing families, watching goodbyes, “not-quite-ready-for-primetime” (“NQRFPT”) attorneys, bad law, missing files, missing detainees, lousy televideo picture of respondent, equipment failures, claustrophobic courtroom, clogged dockets, imprisoned by the system, due process on the run, stress.

Pregame Warm-up

“How many today, Madam Clerk?”

“Fourteen, five bonded, two continued.”

“Thanks, Madam Clerk. Let’s make it happen!”

Showtime.

Politeness, patience, kindness. Listen.

“Please rise, the United States Immigration Court at Arlington Virginia, is now in session, Honorable Paul Wickham Schmidt, presiding.”

Jam-packed with humanity. Live. Uncomfortably hot. Bandbox courtroom. Ratcheting tensions. America’s most important, most forgotten courts. Lots of moving pieces. Put folks at ease. Performance begins.

The Damned

“We’re on the record. This is Judge Paul Wickham Schmidt at the United States Immigration Court in Arlington, Virginia; we’re on a televideo hookup with the DHS Farmville Detention Center, the date is . . . , and this is a master calendar removal hearing in the case of Ricardo Caceres, File number A123 456 789. Counsel, please identify yourselves for the record.”

“Bonnie Baker for the respondent, Mr. Caceres.”

“April Able for the DHS.”
“What are we here for Ms. Baker?”

“Your Honor, we’re seeking a reasonable bond for my client, who has been in the United States for more than two decades. He’s a family man, the sole support of his wife and four US citizen children, who are sitting right behind me. He’s a skilled carpenter with a secure job. He pays his taxes. He’s a deacon at his church. His employer is here this afternoon and is willing to post bond for him. The respondent’s wife is out of work, and the family is on the verge of being evicted from their apartment. The oldest son and daughter are having trouble in school ever since their father was detained. The baby has developed asthma and cries all night.”

“I assume he’s in detention for a reason, Ms. Baker. What is it?”

“Well, Your Honor, he had a very unfortunate incident with one of his co-workers that resulted in his one and only brush with the law. I think he probably got some questionable legal advice, too.”

“What’s the conviction?”
“Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.”
“Sentence?”
“18 months, with all but three months suspended, Your Honor.”

“Hmmm. Doesn’t sound very promising. What’s your take, Ms. Able?”

“He’s an aggravated felon, Your Honor, under the BIA and Fourth Circuit case law. Therefore, he’s a mandatory detainee. May I serve the records of conviction?”

“Yes, thank you Ms. Able. Isn’t Ms. Able right, Ms. Baker? He’s mandatory detained under the applicable law, isn’t he?”

“Well, Your Honor, technically that might be right. But we’re asking you to exercise your humanitarian discretion in this extraordinary situation.”

“As you know, Ms. Baker, I’m not a court of equity. The law gives me no discretion here. So, based on what you’ve presented, no bond. What’s next? Are you admitting and conceding removability and filing for relief?”

“The family wanted me to ask for bond, Your Honor.”

“You did, Ms. Baker. What’s the next step?”

“Well, the respondent has instructed me that if you didn’t grant a bond, he just wants a final order to go back to Mexico. He’s been in detention for some time now, and he just can’t wait any longer.”

“You’re sure that’s what Mr. Caceres wants to do?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Mr. Caceres, this is Judge Schmidt, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Because of the crime you committed, the law doesn’t permit me to set a bond for you. Your lawyer, Ms. Baker, tells me that you have decided to give up your rights to a full hearing and be removed to Mexico. Is that correct?”

“Yes, Your Honor. I can’t stand any more detention.”

“You understand that this is a final decision, and that once I enter the order you will be removed as soon as DHS can make arrangements.”

“Yes, judge, I understand.”

“And, you’ve discussed this with your family, sir?”

“I just want to go — no more detention. Can I go tomorrow?”

“Probably not. But the assistant chief counsel and DHS officer in court are noting that you want to go as soon as can be arranged.”

“Your Honor, may his wife and children come up and see him for a moment?”

“Yes, of course, Ms. Baker. Please come on up folks.”

“Your Honor, the respondent’s wife would like to make a statement to the court.”

“I don’t think that’s prudent, Ms. Baker. She’s already hysterical, and there is nothing I can do about the situation, as I’m sure you’ll explain to her. We have lots of other people waiting to see me this afternoon.”

“Understood. Thanks, Your Honor.’

“You’re welcome, Ms. Baker. You did the best you could. Take care folks. I’m sorry you’re in this situation. Mr. Caceres, good luck to you in Mexico. Please stay out of trouble. The clerk will issue the final order. Who’s next, Madam Clerk?”

The “Not-Quite-Ready-For-Prime-Time” (“NQRPT”) Lawyer

“Mr. Queless, we’re here for your filing of the respondent’s asylum application.”
“Um, Your Honor, I’m sorry I don’t have it with me. I didn’t have a chance to get to it.”

“Why’s that, Mr. Queless? Your client has been in detention for some time now, and I gave you a generous continuance to get this done.”

“That’s very true, Your Honor, but the power was out at our office for a day, and my son crashed his car and I had to take care of the insurance and the repairs.”

“All right, come back in three weeks with your filing, without fail.”

“Can I come back next week, Your Honor? My client has been in detention a long time.”

“I know that, counsel. That’s why I wanted you to file today, so we could set an individual date. I’m already overbooked for next week, and I can’t justify putting you in front of others who are prepared.”

“Ah, could we just set an individual date now, Your Honor, and I’ll promise to file within a week?”

“That sounds like a really bad idea, Mr. Queless, in light of actual performance to date. I want to see the completed filing before I assign the individual date. That’s how we do things around here. You’ve been around long enough to know that.”

“Excuse me, Your Honor, but may I be heard?”

“Yes, you may, Ms. Able.”

“With due respect, Your Honor, at the last master calendar you said this would be the final continuance. This detained case has been pending for months, and you have given counsel a more than reasonable opportunity to file for relief. At this point, the DHS must request that you deny any further continuance and move that you enter an order of removal.”

“Well, I sympathize with your position, Ms. Able. I did say this would be the last continuance, and I’m as frustrated as you are. But I note that the respondent is from a country where we routinely grant asylum, often by agreement or with no objection from your office. Therefore, I feel that we must get to the merits of his claim. Let’s do this. Mr. Queless, I’m going to give you an ‘incentive’ to get this filed. If the I-589 is not complete and ready to file at the next hearing — no more excuses, no more ‘dog ate my homework’ — I’m going to agree with Ms. Able, grant her motion, and enter an order of removal against your client. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Your Honor. I’ll have it here at the master in three weeks.”

“Anything further from either counsel?”

“Nothing from the DHS, Your Honor.”

“Nothing from the respondent, Your Honor.”

“Hearing is continued.”

The Skeptic

“How are you this afternoon, Mr. Garcia?”

“Okay.”

“Spanish your best language?”

“Yes.”

“Is this your first appearance before me?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to look for a lawyer before we proceed with your case?”

“Do I need a lawyer, judge?”

“Depends on what you want, Mr. Garcia. I can send you back to Guatemala at government expense or give you voluntary departure if you wish to pay your own way and avoid having a formal removal order on your record. Is that what you want?”

“Oh, no, judge. I don’t want to go back.”

“Then, you need a lawyer, sir. Officer, please give Mr. Garcia the legal services list. Mr. Garcia, this is a list of organizations in Virginia that might be willing to represent you at little or no charge if you can’t afford a lawyer. You should also check with family and friends to see if they can help you nd a free or low-cost lawyer to take your immigration case. I’ll set your case over for three weeks to give you a chance to look.”

“Can I come back next week?”

“You won’t be able to find a lawyer by then, sir. Take the three weeks. If you don’t have a lawyer by then, we’ll go forward without one.”

“Okay, Your Honor.”

“Good luck in finding a lawyer, Mr. Garcia. The clerk will issue the notices. Who’s next, Madam Clerk?”

Postlude

Out of court. Satisfied. Tired. Drained — like a Steph Curry three-pointer. Find my colleagues. Fresh air. Walk in the park. Talk sports, politics, weather. Visit Starbucks. Final refill. Recharge batteries. Master tomorrow morning. Fifty non-detained. Too many. The beat goes on. Walking free. Not an “alien.” Glad. Lucky. Thankful.

14 Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) § 240(b)(1).
15 This account is written by Hon. Paul Wickham Schmidt, who served as the chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals before being appointed to the Arlington Immigration Court in May 2003, where he served as an immigration judge for 13 years before recently retiring from that position. While the names he has provided in this account are entirely fictional, the situations he describes are based on his own wealth of experience adjudicating cases in immigration court.

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

The full citation is:

Ahmed, Saba; Jordan, Rachel; Appelbaum, Adina, The Human Cost of IIRIRA — Stories From Individuals Impacted by the Immigration Detention System, 5 JMHS 194, 206-11 (2017). Co-author Adina Appelbaum is a former Arlington Immigration Court legal intern and one of my “all-star” students from “Refugee Law & Policy” at Georgetown Law. Read the entire collection of interesting and moving human stories here:

80-263-2-PB

PWS

03/22/17

NYT EDITORIAL: Like Preceding Administrations, Trump Happy To Punish Workers, But Not So Much Employers Who Violate The Laws — Why We Need Sensible Immigration Reform Including Legalization Now!

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/opinion/no-crackdown-on-illegal-employers.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20170320&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=0&nlid=79213886&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0&referer=

“President Trump began his campaign assailing immigrants as ruthless lawbreakers who steal American jobs with impunity. To halt them, he has vowed to build a wall along the border with Mexico, hire thousands of new immigration agents, ramp up immigrant detention and subject visa applicants to even more rigorous vetting. His administration has been largely silent, however, about the strongest magnet that has drawn millions of immigrants, legal and not, to the United States for generations: jobs.

American employers continue to assume relatively little risk by hiring undocumented immigrants to perform menial, backbreaking work, often for little pay. Meanwhile, as Mr. Trump’s deportation crackdown accelerates, families are being ripped apart, and communities of hard-working immigrants with deep roots in this country are gripped by fear and uncertainty. As long as employers remain off the hook, a border wall and an expanded dragnet can only make temporary dents in the flows of undocumented immigrants.”

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

The truth is pretty obvious. Employers and businesspersons vote and contribute to both parties. And, as we know, “money talks.” It’s also very clear that these workers are fulfilling a continuing need in our economy. So, why not get everyone “on the books,” have taxes withheld, and document them?

While I don’t believe the Administration’s hype about undocumented migrants threatening our national security, I do think that it is a good idea to find our exactly who we have here, get them their own working Social Security numbers, withhold Federal and State taxes, Social Security, and Medicare as appropriate, and run fingerprint and background screening to weed out any serious criminals or genuine security risks.

It’s long past time to ditch the xenophobia campaign and have the parties work together for meaningful immigration reform, including some type of legalization, reasonable and effective enforcement, and an independent U.S. Immigration Court.

PWS

03/20/17

Trump Budget Calls For 75 New U.S. Immigration Judge Teams

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-budget-calls-for-border-wall-border-prosecutions/2017/03/16/eba18240-0a80-11e7-bd19-fd3afa0f7e2a_story.html?utm_term=.76f73186b931

The Washington Post writes:

“Trump’s spending blueprint released Thursday is light on specifics, but makes clear that his campaign pledge to confront illegal immigration is a top priority. Even as he plans to cut the Justice Department’s budget by more than $1 billion, Trump is asking for hundreds of millions of dollars to hire 60 federal prosecutors and 40 deputy U.S. Marshals to focus on border cases.

He also wants to boost immigration courts by $80 million to pay for 75 additional teams of judges. That would speed up removal proceedings for people in the United States illegally and address a backlog of more than 540,000 pending cases. The plan foreshadows a greater emphasis on prosecuting people who cross the border illegally, those who come back after being deported, and anyone tied to human and drug smuggling.

Trump’s proposal also calls for adding $1.5 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s budget to find, detain and deport immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, along with more than $300 million to hire 500 new Border Patrol agents and 1,000 immigration agents.

The president’s budget is the first step in a lengthy process of funding government agencies, and it’s not clear which of Trump’s priorities will be approved by Congress.”

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

My take:

Undoubtedly, the Immigration Court needs more Immigration Judges. On the positive side:

The Administration recognizes the need;

By referring to “teams” it appears that the Administration recognizes that judges can’t function without support, space, computers, etc.

On the negative side:

Given EOIR’s recent past performance, it could take the rest of the Administration to fill these new positions and expand Immigration Court facilities to accommodate the new judges. There currently are approximately 70 vacant IJ positions, most from the last Congressional increase;

There are likely to be a fair number of judicial retirements, compounding the hiring problems;

What kind of Immigration Judges would Sessions hire? He has never shown much respect for due process, fairness, or the rights of migrants. So, if he hires “Immigration Judges in his own image,” as he is legally entitled to do, that’s going to be a “due process disaster” for individuals seeking justice in Immigration Court;

Even with 449 fully trained judges on the bench, it would take nearly 1.6 years just to adjudicate currently pending cases. Piling more “priority” cases on top without any reasonable plan for deciding the currently pending cases is likely just to add to the backlogs and waiting times and further compromise due process and justice. It will undoubtedly result in more “aimless docket reshuffling” (“ADR”) which expends effort without producing any final dispositions.

There is no mention of needed reforms in Immigration Court structure, administration, and technology. Without those needed reforms, more judicial positions are unlikely to solve the Immigration Court’s deep existing problems in delivering due process and justice in a timely fashion.

Meanwhile, some sources have reported that existing Immigration Judges have been asked to be available for possible details outside of their “home” courts for up to 10 months of the year. As I have pointed out before, each time a sitting Immigration Judge is detailed, he or she leaves behind a full docket of cases which must be rescheduled.

Ordinarily, this results in cases scheduled for the near future being “reset” to dates at the end of overcrowded dockets, usually several years in the future. Plus, every act of mass rescheduling creates staff burdens that result in defective notices or other important work (such as answering phones, logging in new cases, or filing briefs and motions for upcoming cases) being put on hold.

PWS

03/16/17

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