Immigration Reporter
NY Times
Christina Goldbaum reports for the NY Times:
- 10, 2019
The Justice Department has moved to decertify the union of immigration judges, a maneuver that could muffle an organization whose members have sometimes been openly critical of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.
The department filed a petition on Friday asking the Federal Labor Relations Authority to determine whether the union, the National Association of Immigration Judges, should have its certification revoked because its members are considered “management officials” ineligible to collectively organize, according to a Justice Department spokesman.
The move suggested escalating tensions between overwhelmed immigration judges desperate for greater resources and a Justice Department pushing them to quickly address a backlog of immigration cases.
“This is a misguided effort to minimize our impact,” said Judge Amiena Khan, vice president of the judges’ union, which has publicly criticized the use of a quota system in immigration court and other attempts to speed up proceedings.
“We serve as a check and balance on management prerogatives and that’s why they are doing this to us,” said Judge Khan.
Unlike other federal judges who are part of the judicial branch, immigration judges are appointed by the attorney general and are employees of the Justice Department. Though sitting judges are prohibited from speaking publicly about issues that could be considered political, representatives of the immigration judges’ union can speak publicly about Justice Department policies on behalf of its members.
This is not the first time an administration has challenged the organization. The Clinton administration also tried to decertify the immigration judges’ union, a move that the Federal Labor Relations Authority rejected, according to former immigration judges.
Both Judge Khan and the union president, Judge Ashley Tabaddor, have spoken out repeatedly against what they say is an attempt to turn immigration judges from neutral arbiters of the law to law enforcement agents enacting the White House’s policies. They have called for immigration judges to be independent of the Justice Department.
Last year, the union criticized the department’s quota system, which required immigration judges to complete 700 cases per year, as well as a move to bar judges from an administrative tool they had previously used to reduce their caseloads. The union says the focus on efficiency impedes judges’ ability to work through complicated cases and could affect the due process rights of immigrants in court.
The pressure to hear more cases more quickly amounts to “psychological warfare,” Judge Tabaddor said last year.
Addressing some of the union’s concerns, the Justice Department has tried to tackle the backlog, which now totals more than 830,000 cases, by hiring more immigration judges. Judges appointed by President Trump now make up 43 percent of the nation’s immigration judges, a larger share than under any of his five predecessors, according to a recent analysis by The Associated Press. A large number of his appointees are former military or Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyers, the analysis found.
But that hiring has not been accompanied by other necessary support, Judge Khan said.
“I can’t work alone, I am reliant on support staff,” said Judge Khan. “Right now there are two judges to one support staff person,” which has delayed the progress of cases despite the additional judges, she said.
The judges’ union plans to officially respond to the Justice Department’s petition once it receives official notification from the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
If the attempt to decertify the union is successful, it could leave judges without recourse for their already overwhelming workload, judges said.
“The union won’t be able to help judges with overall working conditions at a time when most all judges would tell you working conditions are worse now than they have ever been,” said Paul Schmidt, a former immigration judge.
Judge Khan called the Justice Department’s petition part of “a systematic attack on unions” representing federal employees under the Trump administration. Last year, Mr. Trump signed a series of executive orders that rolled back the workplace role of unions for at least two million federal workers and made it easier to fire them. The administration said the move would make the government more efficient.
The Justice Department’s recent petition will most likely prompt an investigation by the Federal Labor Relations Authority, according to a department spokesman.
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Seems like the investigation ought to be into ethical violations and attempts to misuse Federal labor laws by Bill Barr. A substantially identical challenge to the NAIJ was soundly rejected by the same agency, the FLRA, back in the late 1990’s under the Clinton administration.
Since then, over the strong objection of the NAIJ, the status of Immigration Judges has been even farther reduced to that of glorified “deportation clerks.” The idea that individuals whose little remining discretion has been removed have somehow morphed into “management officials” is both totally absurd and a confirmation that so-called “management officials” in the Federal Government under the Trump Administration have nothing to manage.
Seems like this clear abuse of our legal system by Barr and his cronies should be a subject for investigation by the House Judiciary Committee and would warrant commencement of impeachment proceedings against arrogant, anti-American scofflaw Bill Barr. Not that Barr hasn’t already been found in contempt of Congress and the American people – he has. He’s a disgusting character – a disgrace to public service and the legal profession.
I suppose he will escape accountability in his lifetime. But, the “Jefferson Davis of the Justice Department” will certainly receive the judgement of history against him for his betrayal of his country and his racist, White Nationalist misconduct clothed in a thin veneer of undeserved credibility based on his success in the corporate legal world. If anything, that a sleazy and corrupt character like Barr could prosper in the world of “white shoe corporate law” is an indictment of that system and its total lack of values and ethical standards.
Meanwhile, it appears that the actions of the NAIJ have been successful in striking a nerve among the DOJ kakistocracy. As with the corrupt, inept, and racist-infested DHS, the current inability of the DOJ as an institution to stand up to Barr’s dishonesty, corruption, and lawless behavior certainly merits a reexamination of the role and structure of the DOJ down the line with an eye toward determining how an institution supposedly staffed with “officers of the court” could be so cowardly and inept when it comes to standing up against internal abuses and contempt for our Constitution.
In addition, the latest abuse of authority by Barr emphasizes the need for immediate removal of the Immigration Courts from Barr’s control and a reversal of the “Chevron doctrine” of “judicial task avoidance” that has granted the DOJ’s immigration kakistocracy clearly unwarranted and unjustified “deference.”
Finally, I pass along my favorite quip from one of my former colleagues about the exalted “management role” of today’s Immigration Judges: “I often say I am not even permitted to manage the pencils in my courtroom.”
While there is a certain type of “dark humor” in the actions of Barr and the other “malicious incompetents” in the Trump Administration, there is nothing funny about the innocent lives being lost or threatened by their actions or the damage that these “evil clowns” are inflicting on our Constitution and our instructions.
PWS
08-10-19