"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
EOIR HQ, Falls Church, VA (a/k/a “The Tower of Babel”) — EOIR and their DOJ handlers imposed designed-to-fail “dedicated dockets” on the public over the objections of advocates. Now they need the same experts they “blew off” to help them save their “due-process-denying rocket dockets!” By Pieter Bruegel The Elder Public Domain
Contact: Communications and Legislative Affairs Division Phone: 703-305-0289 PAO.EOIR@usdoj.gov
www.justice.gov/eoir @DOJ_EOIR
Oct. 17, 2023
EOIR to Host National Stakeholder Meeting Seeking to Increase
Pro Bono Representation for Immigration Courts with Dedicated Dockets
SUMMARY: The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) invites immigration law school clinical communities and pro bono organizations to attend a national stakeholder meeting for an open discussion on how to increase pro bono representation in immigration courts with Dedicated Dockets.
At this meeting, EOIR seeks input and recommendations on how the agency can better encourage and facilitate pro bono advocacy, either in person or remotely, at the following immigration courts with established Dedicated Dockets: Boston, Denver, Detroit, El Paso, Los Angeles – N. Los Angeles Street, Miami, New York – Broadway, New York – Varick, Newark, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. See EOIR’s Policy Memorandum 21-23 for more details on this initiative.
EOIR continues to work to increase the representation rate and the number of practitioners available to represent noncitizens in immigration proceedings. Practitioners who volunteer their time to help those unable to afford counsel are a critical part of that effort.
Please join us for a targeted discussion with the goal of strengthening pro bono representation for the Dedicated Dockets.
DATE: TIME: LOCATION:
Oct. 26, 2023
1 p.m. – 2 p.m. Eastern Time
Live via Webex – Meeting Registration
All media inquiries should be directed to pao.eoir@usdoj.gov.
In reality, these ill-conceived and poorly-planned dockets have been “dedicated” to maximizing denials, minimizing due process, impeding effective representation, and developing an unfriendly atmosphere that will discourage asylum seekers from fully exercising their legal rights.
Some DOJ politicos and EOIR bureaucrats must belatedly be worrying about their “legacy,” future employability, or eventually being held accountable for plotting to deny due process to thousands of the most vulnerable humans! As usual, the immigration bureaucracy creates unnecessary problems, then leaves it to the NGO/advocacy community to bail them out!
It’s a deadly, counterproductive, wasteful, frustrating “downward cycle” that needs to stop! Why not “cut out the nonsense” by putting in charge those with the comprehensive knowledge, creative ideas, advanced skills, moral courage, and realistic foresight to solve these problems BEFORE they become self-created “crises?” Those needed leaders and judges are primarily OUTSIDE the USG right now. They need to be brought on board to solve the problems that are demonstrably beyond the ability, will, and skill set of the current immigration bureaucracy at DOJ and DHS!
Only those Immigration Judges granting at or above the (already substantially suppressed) national average should be allowed to hear asylum cases.
Reassign those BIA Appellate Judges who are not recognized asylum experts, and replace them with qualified asylum experts committed to providing and enforcing some positive guidance and best practices for asylum adjudication.
Identify and promptly grant the hundreds of thousands of meritorious asylum cases now moldering in the EOIR backlog (many victims of EOIR’s ADR) so that these refugees can get on with their lives and contribute fully to American society and our economy.
Dems have the power to reform EOIR — a huge “Federal Court system” that they exclusively control! Why are they afraid to use that power “to promote justice and resist evil?”
In the meantime, please take advantage of this chance to “enlighten” EOIR bureaucrats about what it’s really like to attempt to provide pro bono representation on “dedicated dockets” while dealing with their ADR on already-prepared cases that could and should have been granted long ago. Hopefully, some members of the media will also tune in to get a dose of the challenges of trying to fight for justice in America’s worst and least-user-friendly “courts!”
The wheels are off and the wagon rotting away at EOIR! PHOTO: Creative CommonsAlfred E. Neumann has been “reborn” as Judge “Teflon” Merrick Garland! “Not my friends or relatives whose lives as being destroyed by my ‘Kangaroo Courts.’ Just ‘the others’ and their immigration lawyers, so who cares, why worry about professionalism, ethics, and due process in Immigration Court?” PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons
The undersigned 106 legal service providers, court observers, and allied organizations located in the cities where the Dedicated Docket now operates. Together, we have observed hundreds of cases on the Dedicated Docket throughout the country. Our collective experience reveals a process rife with unfairness: lack of legal representation, expedited and arbitrary timelines, removal orders against pro se respondents (including young children), as well as courts marked by confusion and in some cases hostility.
What’s going on here!? As due process and equal justice are trashed, and lives and futures endangered, some of the best legal minds in America are forced to spend time pointing out the obvious to our “disconnected from reality” AG! What a waste!
This inexcusable disaster was totally predictable in advance! NO expert recommended this stupid, “sure to fail” “haste makes waste” approach to asylum in a faux “court system” already reeling from bias, management incompetence, hostility to due process, worst practices, far too many poorly qualified judges (some selected by Sessions and Barr for their perceived willingness to “railroad” asylum seekers), a notoriously anti-asylum appeals board, and rock bottom morale! Yet, Garland went ahead!
And NOBODY among his subordinates — not DAG Lisa Monaco, not AAG Vanita Gupta, not AAG/Civil Rights Kristen Clarke, not SG Elizabeth Prolager— at the DOJ had the guts to stand up and JUST SAY NO to his life-threatening nonsense. They all share the blame for this completely avoidable blot on our justice system and on their records (something progressives should remember when these irresponsible folks show up looking for jobs someday, as they inevitably will).What a disgrace! It didn’t have to be this way!
Why isn’t practice before the Immigration Courts and demonstrated commitment to human rights and due process a MINIMUM requirement for being the Attorney General or a top DOJ official in a Democratic Administration? No more “ivory tower” “tone deaf” appointments to key justice jobs from Democrats! End the deadly, wasteful nonsense! How many more innocents will be abused and systemically denied fundamental justice by EOIR before Biden and Harris pay attention to what’s happening “on their watch?”
And, folks, don’t forget the almost unfathomable “system costs” of having the knowledge, creativity, energy, and resources of these 106 organizations tied up in resisting and publicizing Garland’s stupidity and disdain by for equal justice and racial justice in America! They should be running EOIR, issuing great precedents on the BIA, solving problems in a practical, humane, legal manner as Immigration Judges, and redoing the broken and dysfunctional administrative system at EOIR.
The knowledge, personnel, creativity, and courage to establish a “model due process court system” are available “out here” — in spades. Instead, this avoidable human rights and racial injustice disaster is inflicted on our nation and some of the must vulnerable therein, by a tone-deaf Democratic Administration unwilling or unable to live up to their campaign promises! Disgusting! 🤮
Garland’s Dedicated Courts: Deny and deport, deny and deport, deny and deport, deny and deport . . . . .” Creative Commons License
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
5,000 Asylum-Seekers Added to the Migrant Protection Protocols 2.0, Few Are Granted Asylum
During the last six months, over 5,000 asylum seekers have been required to remain in Mexico under the current implementation of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP)—also known as MPP 2.0—while awaiting their Immigration Court hearings. Cases in MPP are generally being completed within the 180-day time frame set by the administration, but the problem with low rates of access to attorneys and unusually low rates of asylum success that plagued the first implementation of MPP continue this year.
As a result of low representation rates and accelerated hearings, just 27 people out of the 5,100 asylum seekers in MPP 2.0 so far, have received asylum or some other form of relief. These 27 cases account for just 2.4 percent of the 1,109 MPP 2.0 cases which have been completed to date. By contrast, during the same period of FY 2022, fully half of all Immigration Court asylum decisions decided for people inside the United States resulted in a grant of asylum or other relief.
While MPP 1.0 under Trump had also been designed to attempt to expedite processing of these asylum cases, MPP 2.0 is intended to speed case completions even further. Under current guidelines, cases assigned to MPP should be completed within 180 days. The Biden administration has been largely successful in meeting this deadline. During December 2021, a total of 129 asylum seekers were assigned to MPP 2.0, which means that most of these cases are reaching their 180-day deadline now (or soon). For these initial 129 cases, over eight out of ten (81%) were completed at the end of May. Nonetheless, it may be difficult for the Court to maintain this same processing pace as the monthly total of new MPP court filings has steadily grown to over 2,000 in May 2022.
MPP 2.0 cases have not been evenly spread among hearing locations. Cases added to MPP 2.0 in December were primarily heard by the El Paso Immigration Court which received 109 cases. The El Paso MPP court currently has 923 cases assigned to it. By contrast, the MPP Brownsville Immigration Court has now been assigned 2,752 new cases—more than half (54%) of all MPP 2.0 assigned cases as of the end of May. The MPP Laredo, Texas (Port of Entry) Immigration Court has been assigned 404 MPP cases, and an additional 76 cases have been assigned to the Laredo Immigration Court. The MPP Court San Ysidro Port has received 386 cases so far.
It is still early in the implementation of MPP 2.0, and TRAC’s report on MPP 2.0 should be understood as a preliminary analysis However, these findings do raise concerns similar to MPP 1.0. Further detailed analysis will be warranted as more cases are added to the current implementation of the Migrant Protection Protocols.
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:
David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University Peck Hall
601 E. Genesee Street
Syracuse, NY 13202-3117
315-443-3563
trac@syr.edu
https://trac.syr.edu
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse is a nonpartisan joint research center of the Whitman School of Management (https://whitman.syr.edu) and the Newhouse School of Public Communications (https://newhouse.syr.edu) at Syracuse University. If you know someone who would like to sign up to receive occasional email announcements and press releases, they may go to https://trac.syr.edu and click on the E-mail Alerts link at the bottom of the page. If you do not wish to receive future email announcements and wish to be removed from our list, please send an email to trac@syr.edu with REMOVE as the subject.
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Garland’s performance on EOIR is disgraceful. Question is, what will advocates do about it?
Curiously, going into difficult midterms where every vote supposedly counts, the Biden Administration appears to have decided that they don’t need the support and votes of their base. They might well be following “Miller Lite” or “Miller Genuine” policies of abusing asylum seekers. But, I doubt they will be getting any votes from the “Miller Right!”
An interesting “strategy” to be sure. We’ll see how it works out!
Garland’s vision of “justice” for refugee children appears to be little different from that of Stephen Miller and his White Nationalist predecessors at DOJ! EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)Cindy Carcamo Immigration Reporter LA Times
After drug traffickers killed his little brother, William and his 6-year-old son, Santiago, fled Colombia last September to seek asylum in the United States.
Unbeknownst to William, who ended up in Los Angeles with a friend, he and his son immediately became part of a cohort of thousands of families in a “dedicated docket” program that the Biden administration established in 11 cities, including Los Angeles, in May 2021.
In response to a sudden rise of apprehensions last spring of families and children at the Southwest border, Biden promised the accelerated docket would resolve cases “more expeditiously and fairly.” These sorts of programs have existed in various forms under previous administrations; Biden’s program pushes immigration judges to resolve cases in 300 days, significantly shorter than the 4.5-year average of asylum cases in immigration court.
But according to a new Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA Law report, the docket’s fast-track timeline has imposed new hardships on many asylum seekers and created additional obstacles that ultimately lead to higher rates of deportation orders, sometimes based on legal technicalities.
For William — who didn’t want his last name published, fearing reprisal against his family still living in Colombia — the docket’s expeditious nature meant he had only six weeks to secure legal representation before his first court hearing, leaving him to navigate a complex and often confusing system without an attorney. Immigration officials provided him with documents heavy with legal jargon in English. He could read only in Spanish.
In addition, those on the docket are released with “alternatives to detention,” which means they are monitored, either with an ankle bracelet or via a phone application. Immigration officials shackled William with a GPS monitor on his ankle before releasing him and his son.
Ultimately, an immigration judge ordered William and his 6-year-old to be deported in “absentia” when they didn’t show up for their court hearing at U.S. Immigration Court in downtown Los Angeles. In fact, at the time the judge gave the order, William was in the building, but was three floors below the courtroom in a waiting area at the direction of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official. By the time William was told he was in the wrong place, the judge had already ordered the father and son’s removal from the U.S.
In Los Angeles, an estimated 99% of the 449 cases completed on the dedicated docket as of February of this year resulted in removal orders and about 72% of those cases were issued to people who missed their court hearing — “in absentia” — according to a report released Wednesday by the Center for Immigration Law and Policy and Immigrants’ Rights Policy Clinic at UCLA School of Law
Perhaps most striking, the report shows that almost half of those in absentia removal orders are for children, many 6 and younger.
In addition, court data analyzed in the report show that an estimated 70% of people on this particular docket don’t have legal counsel. In contrast, an estimated 33% of those on the Los Angeles court’s non-accelerated docket lack legal counsel.
The nature of the accelerated dockets made it nearly impossible for asylum-seekers to get a fair hearing, the report’s authors concluded. The high absentia rate, the report concluded, is a red flag that the dedicated docket isn’t working as it should.
. . . .
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Read the rest of Cindy’s totally disturbing article at the link!
Sadly, this news will come as no surprise to readers of “Courtside.” Having watched these types ofefforts to co-opt the Immigration Courts as a vehicle of unfair, racially motivated “deterrence” and “enforcement,” I could see that this program was going to be an unmitigated disaster at EOIR, given Garland’s failure to install progressive judicial leadership and human rights and due process expertise into the broken and biased system he inherited from Sessions and Barr.
The NDPA is going to have to “dig in” and fight Garland and Mayorkas every step of the way, at every level of the system, to save as many lives as possible from their disgraceful continuation of a “Miller Lite” White Nationalist, anti-immigrant program of abusing and dehumanizing asylum seekers — most individuals of color and many of them children or other “vulnerable individuals.”
🇺🇸 Due Process Forever! Garland’s dysfunctional, biased, leaderless, soul-less, ethically challenged EOIR, never!
These findings raise serious questions about whether the Biden administration’s Dedicated Docket is achieving its stated goals or, more seriously, why this program was created in the first place given that it doesn’t appear to actually be benefitting anyone involved. These are my takeaways and not necessarily the views of TRAC as an organization.
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Read Austin’s findings at the link.
The idea was idiotic, the execution amateurish, the human impact catastrophic, and the failure both inevitable and totally predictable! Totally predictable, that is, to anyone who actually understands how broken our Immigration Courts are. That, obviously, doesn’t include Garland or anyone on his senior management team.
Gotta hope that the upcoming “Lofgren hearings” will highlight and document the ridiculous nonsense that’s going on under Garland and crank up the pressure on him to take the human lives at stake here seriously and to do better.
NPR: President Biden had an ambitious agenda to overhaul the nation’s border policies. But as the end of the year approaches, many of those proposals have been blocked, reversed or simply abandoned.
Reuters: The Biden administration on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court whether it needed to continue to implement a Trump-era policy that has forced tens of thousands of migrants to wait in Mexico for the resolution of their U.S. asylum cases. See also ‘Remain In Mexico’ Renewal May Bring More Solo Migrant Kids
AP: Since the U.S. withdrawal, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has received more than 35,000 applications for humanitarian parole, of which it has denied about 470 and conditionally approved more than 140, Victoria Palmer, an agency spokesperson, said this week. See also Months later, Afghan evacuees abroad and at US bases still wait to be resettled.
KQED: Advocates say the current system has more safeguards for migrant families and isn’t placing them in detention facilities, but the accelerated pace still makes it tough for asylum seekers like López to find legal representation.
Law360: Federal courts in 2022 will grapple with immigration law questions ranging from the extent of the president’s authority to set immigration enforcement priorities to federal courts’ ability to review immigration decisions made by the executive branch. Here, Law360 breaks down the cases to watch.
ImmProf: The petition, which asks to review a decision of the Fifth Circuit court of appeals, addresses issues relating to the Migrant Protection Protocols, commonly known as the “Remain in Mexico” program.
CA2: In light of the recent surge in Covid-19 infections, beginning January 4, 2022 oral arguments will be conducted remotely, by Zoom or teleconference.
LexisNexis: Lima-Gonzalez v. Garland “Lima-Gonzalez’s NTA did not contain the information required to trigger the stop-time rule. See Niz-Chavez, 141 S. Ct. at 1478-79, 1485; see also § 1229(a)(1)(A)–(G). Neither did any of the subsequent notices of hearing. As a result, the Government has not furnished Lima-Gonzalez with the “single compliant document” required by statute. Niz-Chavez, 141 S. Ct…
WaPo: Three Illinois counties with such federal agreements faced a Jan. 1 deadline to end contracts. While one in downstate Illinois complied last year, two others are involved in a federal lawsuit challenging the law. The case was dismissed last month, but a federal judge on Thursday granted an extension while an appeal is considered. Authorities in McHenry and Kankakee counties now have until Jan. 13.
AILA: DOS proposed rule which would raise several nonimmigrant visa application processing fees, the fee for the Border Crossing Card for Mexican citizens age 15 and over, and the waiver of the two-year residency requirement fee. Comments are due 2/28/22. (86 FR 74018, 12/29/21)
AILA: USCIS and EOIR interim final rule further delaying until 12/31/22 the effective date of the final rule “Security Bars and Processing” (85 FR 84160, 12/23/20). Comments on the extension of the effective date as well as the possibility of a further extension are due 2/28/22. (86 FR 73615, 12/28/21)
AILA: Effective December 31, 2021, 12:01 am (ET), Presidential Proclamation 10315 was revoked, thus rescinding travel restrictions on Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Vaccine requirements remain in effect.
AILA: USCIS stated that healthcare workers with a pending EAD renewal application, Form I-765, and whose EAD expires in 30 days or less or has already expired, can request expedited processing of their EAD applications. Proof of employment will be required.
Somalia: Situation of ‘Westernised’ Returnees (AFR2021-16)
Mexico: Persecution by and local/national presence of Cartel Jalisco and Familia Michoacana (AME2021-17)
Afghanistan: Treatment of Family Members of Human Rights Activists and Former Government Supporters after the Taliban Take-over (ASI2021-13)
Afghanistan: Availability of Psychiatric Treatment for Returnees with Mental Health Conditions and Treatment of Returnees with Mental Health Conditions by the Taliban (ASI2021-12)
Egypt: Opposing Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Social Impact, and Availability of State Protection (MEN2021-18)
Egypt: Christians in Egypt & Obtention of Citizenship (MEN2021-17)
EOIR: Appearance Requirements at the New York – Varick Immigration Court (attached)
The problem with “ADR” @ EOIR is chronic! It’s one that Garland seems determined to repeat, despite ample advice to the contrary.
Also, he’s ignored the availability of many “practical experts” on the outside who, if appointed to key EOIR positions, could have helped him solve this without stomping on due process (although, I admit the solution would have been easier in March 2021, when Garland was sworn in as AG, than it is after 9 months of his making it worse — not to mention that his “defiant tone-deafness” has probably “turned off” some of the top-flight talent he needed to “reach out” to). As the KQED article points out:
“But there’s a lot of room for improvement, and I don’t know if the people that are being named to supervise this actually know what’s happening in the trenches.”
Duh! That’s what all of us have been saying. Truth is, they aren’t the right people, and they don’t know what’s happening. Not by a long shot!
I also understand why Torres, who’s trying to maintain a relationship with Garland’s “Clueless Crew” is trying to be charitable.
But, as someone not currently “out there in the trenches,” I don’t have to be so reticent. So, I’ll say what she can’t. This is a totally unacceptable and inexcusable performance from Garland!
Another reason why this program is a massive failure is that, like their ADR-promoting, backlog-building predecessors, Garland & Mayorkas started this misguided and mishandled program without seeking the advice, counsel, and support of the pro bono lawyers who have to staff it to make it work!
Think of the total absurdity of what Garland is doing here! While a pro bono (or low bono) lawyer is having already prepared cases “orbited” years out on the docket (a process that usually requires re-preparation of the entire case), the phone is ringing off the hook with desperate, perspective new clients given unrealistically expedited hearing dates that should have been used for the cases “orbited” to the end of the docket.
Also, having not practiced privately for many years, Garland appears to have forgotten the Code of Ethics.
Attorneys are obligated not to take on work (even pro bono work) that they can’t professionally and timely handle.
Yet, Garland is pushing them to do exactly that! The choice is let folks try to prepare their own cases (literally tantamount to a “death sentence” in many cases); or
Take on work you can’t handle (a clear ethical violation that could have the same unfavorable result for the client).
There actually are ways of working with outside experts to increase pro bono representation. One of the most promising is the the amazing VIISTA Program created and run by Professor Michele Pistone at Villanova Law to train non-attorney “Accredited Representatives” to handle pro bono asylum cases.
I have no knowledge that Garland or anyone at EOJ/EOIR has ever reached out to Professor Pistone, despite recommendations that Garland do so.
Worse yet, Garland has allowed his “EOIR Clown Show” to also create a “new backlog” in the approval process for Accredited Representatives! Talk about clueless, counterproductive mismanagement!
Garland’s mis-handling of EOIR and his new round of “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” raises serious issues about his own performance.
Whatever happened to Democratic oversight of EOIR in Congress? Why is Garland getting a “free pass” on mismanagement of EOIR, his furtherundermining of Due Process in Immigration Court, and his disrespectful treatment of the immigration pro bono and low bono bar?
A Salvadoran attorney who fled death threats in her home country and built a new life in Oakland faces a nearly nine-year wait for her day in immigration court. She’s among hundreds of thousands stuck in the same bureaucratic limbo.
Ana and her son first arrived in Oakland in 2016 with a harrowing story and an urgent case for asylum. They had escaped the same gang that chased her niece out of El Salvador three years earlier. Ana said the gang’s leader had stalked and threatened her niece. When she intervened, Ana said, the gang retaliated with threats of sexual violence and death.
“They pressured me to agree to many things that could be in their favor, which I did not agree to,” Ana told The Chronicle in Spanish. The Chronicle is withholding Ana’s last name in accordance with its policy on anonymous sources because of the dangers she faces if sent back.
Ana and her son first arrived in Oakland in 2016 with a harrowing story and an urgent case for asylum. They had escaped the same gang that chased her niece out of El Salvador three years earlier. Ana said the gang’s leader had stalked and threatened her niece. When she intervened, Ana said, the gang retaliated with threats of sexual violence and death.
“They pressured me to agree to many things that could be in their favor, which I did not agree to,” Ana told The Chronicle in Spanish. The Chronicle is withholding Ana’s last name in accordance with its policy on anonymous sources because of the dangers she faces if sent back.
At her first appearance in San Francisco immigration court in 2017, Ana was told to return in 2019 to make her asylum case. That court date was postponed to this past November. Then Ana received notice that her hearing had been canceled again — and rescheduled to May 2025.
Ana represents just one of the 670,000 asylum requests in the U.S., a figure that continues to climb due to the complexity of the cases, Trump administration policies that delayed processing times and the federal government’s slow adaptation to the pandemic. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, the average wait time for an asylum hearing is 1,621 days — or nearly four-and-a-half years.
In an attempt to put a dent in the growing backlog, the Biden administration announced a strategy over the summer that previous administrations have tried to expedite cases for certain groups. President Biden’s “dedicated docket” catapults 5,000 migrants who crossed the southwest border of the U.S. after May 28 to the front of the line.
But critics warn the initiative means these recent arrivals have limited time to prepare their immigration cases while migrants who have been waiting for years, like Ana, must wait even longer.
A growing backlog
Immigration Judge Dana Leigh Marks feels constant pressure to avoid getting sick. She is one of 28 judges in a San Francisco court that is fielding 78,992 immigration cases. That means if Marks needs to cancel court for any reason, the ramifications are years-long delays to “people whose lives hang on our decisions,” she said.
“That is the problem of being so overbooked,” added Marks, who spoke in her role as the president emeritus of the National Association of Immigration Judges. “The number of cases assigned to any judge have exponentially exploded in recent years.”
Like other federal immigration courts, San Francisco’s saw its asylum backlog start its sharp ascent in 2017, as the Trump administration began rolling out policy changes that tightened eligibility while increasing evidentiary thresholds, grinding processing to a halt. The court went from more than 25,000 asylum claims that year to nearly 56,000 this year, TRAC figures show.
The pandemic compounded delays by forcing courts to cancel or significantly scale back in-person hearings. Part of the problem is that the Department of Justice, which runs the nation’s immigration court system, was slow to implement video conferencing technology when judges began working from home in March 2020, Marks said.
“Other state and federal courts across the country pivoted much more quickly to the use of remote technology, which allowed them to keep their caseload moving,” Marks said.
This past summer, over a year into the pandemic, immigration hearings began taking place over Webex, a video conferencing platform. Still, only six of San Francisco’s 28 immigration judges have been set up with government-issued laptops and special audio recording capabilities to conduct the video hearings, Marks noted, and the current average wait between asylum hearings has ballooned to 1,715 days.
Ana was not given the option of a video hearing, said Julie Hiatt, Ana’s attorney from Centro Legal De La Raza. Armed with detailed legal briefs and hundreds of pages about conditions in El Salvador, Hiatt said she was ready to present her client’s gender-based persecution claim for asylum in November. But the judge couldn’t be in court that day and the hearing was pushed to the judge’s next available opening — more than three years away.
Despite believing her client has a strong asylum claim, Hiatt said the lengthy wait will make it harder to win Ana’s case, and not because the facts of the case have changed.
“I worry about memory fading, circumstances changing and everything that can happen that could impact on her ability to confidently tell her story when it comes time to do so,” Hiatt said.
Immigration advocates worry President Biden’s dedicated docket plan to cut down processing times could end up hurting asylum seekers, by rushing ill-prepared new arrivals through the process while supplanting immigrants whose cases have languished for years.
History appears to be repeating. Current Justice Department data shows that of San Francisco’s 1,138 dedicated docket cases being heard right now, 1,008 — nearly 90% — do not have legal representation.
“This docket is not fair to asylum seekers,” said Milli Atkinson, an attorney with the Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco who has witnessed local dedicated docket hearings. “These expedited dockets make it extremely difficult for respondents to find counsel and puts enormous pressure on them to move forward with their case without an attorney.”
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“What if Garland had to hang out with us in his backlogs?” Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Read Deepa’s full article at the link.
Notably, a 9-year wait for a merits hearing in Immigration Court more than spans the tenure of even a two-term Administration!
The scary thing is that San Francisco probably is by no means the most screwed up Immigration Court in the nation. The 9th Circuit, which reviews some of their cases and establishes precedents for the Circuit, does sometimes “call out” chronically poor performance by EOIR and poorly reasoned, anti-immigrant “precedents” emanating from the BIA and Garland’s predecessors as AG.
But, with a large number of Trump/McConnell right wing appointees, many of them younger, even the 9th Circuit is moving rightward. So, unless Biden can stem the tide, one of the last “fail safes” in a dysfunctional system might be neutered.
Although Garland has (too slowly) undone some of the worst precedents, he has yet to generate the positive legal guidance necessary to ”move dockets” by granting more cases like Ana’s. Without a new BIA, he lacks the “onboard, progressive, expert, due-process-oriented legal and judicial talent” to fashion and enforce the long overdue and badly needed “enlightened precedents” that will save lives and straighten out the law on a nationwide basis.
As pointed out by this article and other critics, EOIR is “far behind the eight-ball” in using technology to meet the challenges of justice in the age of COVID. Although EOIR has been using some form of televideo for over a quarter of a century, they fell behind other court systems when it came to adapting to COVID. After more than two decades of largely wasted time and money, the Immigration Courts still lack a functional e-filing system, which greatly compounded both dangers and chaos during COVID.
Worse yet, what limited technology that is available at EOIR appears to be used primarily for the benefit of EOIR and its bureaucrats, not for the convenience of the public it supposedly serves. How does this “practical nonsense,” unfolding on a daily basis, without meaningful engagement with judges and parties before the courts, meet any definition of competent “service to the public?” Garland has ignored aspirational, achievable, visions and progressive goals for a culture of “good enough for Government work” and “who cares, it’s only aliens and their ‘dirty’ attorneys!”
Moreover, his continuation of the unconscionable, scofflaw use of Title 42 to suspend the asylum process and send legal asylum seekers to danger or death without due process undermines his credibility and integrity as a leader and role model. Although Garland pretends otherwise, judicial, and legal leadership has a moral element that requires a sense of urgency, courage, and demonstrated competence. Garland’s leadership (and that of his “Senior Team” of political appointees at the DOJ) has fallen woefully short!
Judge Dana Leigh Marks is a good example of Garland’s exceptionally poor approach. One of the best judges in America, on any court, including the Supremes, Marks is a proven fearless leader and extraordinary legal mind. Her victory at the Supremes in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, establishing the “well-founded-fear” international standards for asylum, is probably the Court’s most important humans rights’ case of the 20th Century. Her dynamic, inspiring leadership of the National Association of Immigration Judges has helped expose the grotesque shortcomings of EOIR @ DOJ while giving rise to the national movement for an Article I independent Immigration Court outside the DOJ.
I daresay that Judge Marks can “move” asylum cases through the system without tromping on anyone’s due process tights. She, and others like her, both currently in and outside the system, could set a new tone and lead the way toward a better, fairer future!
Too many of her fellow judges, and most members of the BIA not named Saenz, lack the expertise, experience, motivation, and courage to do that. So, cases like Ana’s, which actually might serve as positive precedents for documenting and granting other asylum cases, languish among Garland’s inconceivable backlog while other potentially grantable cases are unfairly pushed to the front of the line without attorneys, adequate preparation time, or accountability for judges programmed to deny rather than stand up for due process and asylum seekers’ legal rights! Much, but by no means all, of this predictably sloppy work product is returned by the Article IIIs for “redos,” thus adding to the backlog, chaos, and “institutionalized arbitrariness” of this approach to “justice!”
Judge Marks is an articulate, energetic experienced public spokesperson for immigration and court reform. She knows where the “bodies are buried” and the “deadwood stored” at EOIR; she has has actual solutions and ideas for addressing many problems now infecting our Immigration Courts. And, unlike past generations of EOIR bureaucrats and “go along to get along judges,” she has no fear and can’t be intimidated!
Judge Marks is already on the payroll. Garland could and should have tapped her on “Day One” to be part of a “Transitional Leadership Group” at EOIR to start “knocking heads and making long overdue due-process-driven changes” while Garland and his Team, with outside input, conducted an expedited emergency, merit-based process to recruit and replace the BIA and Senior Management at EOIR with a diverse team of progressive “practical scholars” as judges and dynamic, progressive, problem-solving leaders and administrators of the Immigration Courts. These sensible recommendations actually were made during the transition period, only to be totally ignored by Garland!
Instead, after a nearly a year, Garland’s tone deaf and dilatory (non)approach to EOIR reform has allowed the system’s continued disintegration, further undermined the credibility of his DOJ, demoralized and “de-enthused” potential supporters in the advocacy community, and continued to degrade and destroy human lives.
Thing is, tough-minded, courageous, ethically-driven, “practical scholars” like Professor Harris, Professor Kit Johnson (who posted Harris’s article on ImmigrationProf Blog), and others like them could and should have been enticed by an “AG with a Plan” to join the BIA, serve on the trial bench at the Immigration Courts, or otherwise occupy key positions @ EOIR.
Better choices for the now-broken and regressive Immigration Judiciary are out there? Why hasn’t Garland tapped them? Kit Johnson Associate Professor of Law University of Oklahoma Law School
Like Judge Marks, these folks would put an end to “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” the culture of mindless denial, the improper use of Immigration Courts as (failed) deterrence, and start holding the “main perpetrators” at EOIR and at DHS accountable for their disregard and disrespect for the quasi-judicial system. They would also know how to write and apply accessible “practical scholarly” precedents (written in plain English, rather than “opaque judicial gobbledygook”) that would fulfill our legal (not to mention moral) obligations to provide fair and generous treatment of vulnerable asylum seekers and others caught up in this now-disreputable and dysfunctional parody of a court system.
Instead, Garland has countenanced a continuation of “Clown Courts” 🤡 and “star chambers” ☠️ that have become contributing factors in the precipitous and perhaps fatal disintegration of democracy in America.
”This is Stephen Miller’s perverted ‘vision of justice in Immigration Court!’ Why hasn’t Garland moved beyond it by bringing in the ‘best and brightest’ to reform his dysfunctional EOIR system?” “Justice” Star Chamber Style
Undoubtedly, the same White Nationalist “replacement theory” motivation that was behind Trump’s weaponization of the Immigration Courts is a driver of the overall anti-democracy movement on the right.
It’s a shame, that given at least a good shot at making a difference, Dems are too timid, distracted, and frankly, inept to pick off the “low hanging fruit” within their reach!
🇺🇸Due Process Forever! And, many thanks to Deepa for putting in the spotlight Garland’s disgraceful failure to lead and institute due process reforms in his dysfunctional, hopelessly backlogged, wholly-owned and unprofessionally operated Immigration “Courts.”
Adrift on a sea of endless incompetence, Garland’s “Dedicated Dockets” won’t save EOIR! U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Sara Francis Public Realm
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Immigration Court Struggling to Manage Its Expanding Dedicated Docket of Asylum-Seeking Families
During the month of August, the Biden administration stepped up the assignment of asylum-seeking families arriving at the border to the Immigration Court’s new “Dedicated Docket” program. As of August 31, 2021, Immigration Court records indicate that a total of 16,713 individuals comprising approximately 6,000 families are now assigned to this program.
But alongside the growing number of asylum-seekers assigned to the new Dedicated Docket, new questions emerge about whether these cases will be completed fairly and within the promised timeline, whether Immigration Judges will be able to manage large Dedicated Docket caseloads, and whether the Court is reliably tracking these cases as promised.
While EOIR has set up Dedicated Docket hearing locations in eleven cities, cases assigned thus far have been unusually concentrated in just a few cities. As of the end of August half of the 16,713 cases were assigned to New York City and Boston.
With the rapid influx of cases at a number of these Dedicated Docket hearing locations, half of the currently scheduled initial master hearings are not being held until after mid-November 2021, and fully one in ten are not currently scheduled until mid-February 2022. In addition, these hearings are largely to be held via video. Only eleven percent of all scheduled hearings are set as in-person hearings.
It also continues to be a relatively small number of judges who are assigned to hear these cases. Six judges now account for nearly two-thirds (63%) of the assigned Dedicated Docket cases. Each of these six judges has already been assigned over a thousand cases just during the first three months of this initiative. Judge Mario J. Sturla in Boston has thus far been assigned the most Dedicated Docket cases for any judge—3,178 cases.
Some basic arrangements are still not in place to ensure that cases assigned to the Dedicated Docket are clearly identified in the Court’s database system which is relied on to manage the Court’s workload. As of the end of August, fully 38 percent of cases assigned to the special hearing locations set up to exclusively handle Dedicated Dockets were not flagged as “DD” cases.
To examine a variety of Immigration Court data, including asylum data, the backlog, MPP, and more now updated through August 2021, use TRAC’s Immigration Court tools here:
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:
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse is a nonpartisan joint research center of the Whitman School of Management (https://whitman.syr.edu) and the Newhouse School of Public Communications (https://newhouse.syr.edu) at Syracuse University. If you know someone who would like to sign up to receive occasional email announcements and press releases, they may go to https://trac.syr.edu and click on the E-mail Alerts link at the bottom of the page. If you do not wish to receive future email announcements and wish to be removed from our list, please send an email to trac@syr.edu with REMOVE as the subject.
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I’m not aware of any “courtroom” at EOIR that actually could hold 129 respondents, their family members, and attorneys (if any). It’s a high volume court with a “mini-court” infrastructure. Our Masters were shut down several times by the Arlington Fire Department for unsafe conditions and blocking handicapped access.
Also, building new “gimmick dockets” without e-filing is totally insane!
I once did a 100-case TV Master in Cincinnati. I had no files! ICE sent their files to Cleveland while sending the Assistant Chief Counsel to appear in person in Cincinnati. They probably crossed “in transit.” EOIR provided a Spanish interpreter. However most of the non-English speakers on the docket were from Mauritania and spoke French or Wolof. It was a complete circus.
Afterwards, I told the then Chief Immigration Judge that it was “friggin’ Clown Court!” He was not amused. Nor was I!
Probably not a “career enhancing” move, but I was “working my way down the ladder” by that time.
Creating more unnecessary “gimmick dockets” at EOIR — just like hiring more new IJs, is NOT going to solve the extreme structural, organizational, personnel, and competence issues infecting the Immigration Courts. Actually, if anyone had bothered to check, “dedicated dockets” were tried during the Obama Administration. They inevitably failed — adding to the “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” while undermining due process, efficiency, and best practices!
It’s not “rocket science.” 🚀 Anybody who actually practices (as best they can, under these near-impossible circumstances) in Immigration Court these days could tell Garland exactly what the problems are.
Nobody in their right mind would suggest that the “answer” is a “Dedicated Docket” or infusing a large number of additional judges into this mess, although the solution definitely involves replacing some existing judges, starting with the BIA, and includes bringing in real progressive, expert judicial leadership. So, why is Garland rolling out more gimmicks and proposed personnel increases without addressing the REAL problems at EOIR?
Fix the system! Bring in expert progressive judges who know the law and are committed to best practices! Stop the politicized interference! Figure out what the real system requirements are! THEN go out and do additional merit-based hiring, if more judges are really part of the answer! (Hint: The vast majority of the 2+-year-old non-detained, non-priority cases should be administratively closed or referred to USCIS, or both. They are bogging down the system without promoting justice.)
Alas, poor EOIR seems to be adrift on a sea of endless incompetence, mismanagement, and neglect with no safe port in sight.
TRAC IMMIGRATION just released the first statistical profile of the “Dedicated Asylum Docket” created by AG Garland and his subordinates without any coherent public explanation or plan in mind. Here they are:
Stats wonks can check them out, and do their own analyses. As usual, given the haphazard nature and often questionable reliability of Government immigration statistics, it’s impossible to draw definitive conclusions.
But, here are a few things that jump out for me.
No criteria. How do you set up a program that deals with life or death decision-making without having transparent criteria about who gets placed on it and why? Easy, you work for Merrick Garland’s DOJ!
CBP in charge of dockets. Since there are no known criteria, and EOIR seems to have gone belly-up as usual, CBP, a law enforcement branch of DHS, gets to decide who is on this “Dedicated Docket.” CBP, of course, has a questionable record of competence and many issues including allegations of racism in its ranks swirling around it. It also has no known expertise or competence in establishing court dockets. Plus, letting a law enforcement agency with interests often adverse to asylum applicants, whose parent agency is a party to all Immigration Court proceedings, control dockets raises obvious ethical and conflict of interest issues.
Individuals, families, or cases? In its usual confusing manner, EOIR presents its stats in terms of individuals assigned to a docket. But, most (not necessarily all) “family units” are heard as a single “case.” According to TRAC, 4886 “individuals” on the Dedicated Docket (“DD”) represents 1,700 “family units.” That’s approximately “three individuals per family unit.” So, to get the approximate number of actual cases on a particular judge’s DD, we have to divide by three. Therefore, the number 600 assigned to a particular judge on the DD would actually represent 200 cases that require individual merits hearings. Got that? Confusing? Of course!
Who is Judge Francisco R. Pietro, and why? The short answer is that Judge Pietro is a 2019 appointee of GOP “Acting” AG Matt Whitaker, assigned to the NYC Docket and is too recent to have any “asylum grant/deny” statistics in the TRAC System. Remarkably, not to mention inexplicably, Judge Pietro has been assigned approximately 22% of the current Dedicated Docket (“DD”), or 1086 of the 4886 individuals covered by the report. (The rest of the DD is divided, very unequally, among31 other IJs).
Dividing by 3, per above, the 1086 individuals assigned to Judge P represent about 395 “actual cases.”
Now, EOIR currently demands that it’s “Assembly Line Worker/Judges” complete 700 widgets (aka, cases) per year. It also expects judges assigned to the DD to strive to complete cases in 300 days, that is 10 months.
So, completing 395 asylum cases in 10 months would only leave Judge P another 2 months to complete the other 305 cases necessary for him to make his “quota.” Something has to give here, particularly if Judge P, like the rest of us, wants to take vacations and Federal Holidays off, prepare his cases, and occasionally gets sick. Who knows, he might even need some updated asylum training, although practical aspects like that don’t appear to be part of the equation at today’s “numbers driven” EOIR.
And, let’s not forget that Judge P is a recent appointment. Recent appointees are likely to be less efficient and less inclined to grant asylum than experienced judges, according to some studies.
Therefore, to meet his quotas, keep his bureaucratic “handlers” at DOJ happy, and hang onto his job, Judge P might be left with two choices:
Cut corners big time (a traditional EOIR “built to fail” approach) which means denying lots of due process; or
Reassign part of his docket to other judges, which leads to “Aimless Docket Shuffling” and building backlog.
Theoretically, Judge P could also choose to hear asylum cases with the care required to provide due process and quality decisions, without worrying about targets and quotas. This would be a more plausible option if he were actually an independent judicial official rather than the employee of a political agency.
Also, don’t kid yourself about the “operational consequences” of assigning Judge P and others to a DD! Even assuming that he had zero cases on his docket before being assigned to the DD (highly unlikely), his unavailability for the “general docket” will place extra burdens on his judicial colleagues that will almost certainly promote more Aimless Docket Reshuffling and more backlog. This, of course, will be true for most of the other 31 judges assigned to the DD, to differing degrees, depending on their DD caseload (which ranges from 1 to 712 “individuals” for the “other 31”). “Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” like this actually prevents the crew from getting more passengers off in time to save lives.
Where are the lawyers coming from? The good news is that among the “top 10 DD Judges,” (comprising 79% of the DD), four are in NYC (2d Cir.), two in Newark (3d Cir.), one in San Diego (9th Cir.), one in SF (9th Cir.), one in LA (9th Cir.), and one in Boston (1st Cir.). There are active immigration bars, including pro bono bars, in all these locations. More over, none of these Circuits is notorious for systemically mistreating asylum seekers, and one, the 9th Cir., actually has some favorable case law, although probably less so since Trump’s far-right appointees have “rebalanced” that Circuit to the right.
Yet, it’s not clear from this statistical profile, nor has EOIR revealed, what, if any, agreements might be in place with local pro bono groups in these areas to achieve universal representation within a 300 day case-completion target, without disrupting the “regular” dockets. Nor is it shown how many of those 4886 individuals now on the DD already have lawyers. These are big unanswered questions.
Why Ecuador? Individuals from Ecuador make up over 40% of the DD, even though they comprise less than 10% of the “regular” (if there is such a thing) Immigration Court docket. Go figure!
How were these particular IJs and locations selected for the DD? No clue, which is disconcerting.
Other interesting information.
Here’s a chart that I constructed giving profiles of the “Top 10 DD Judges:”
Overall, the majority (7) are recent GOP appointees from 2018-20. Of the seven with established asylum grant rates, two have grant rates significantly above the national average (Ling, Sagerman), two have grant rates significantly below the national average (Aina, Pope), and three (Auh, Sturia, Pressman) are relatively proximate to the national grant rate for the TRAC period (33.3). None sit within Circuits known for particular harshness to asylum seekers. None, to my limited knowledge, as far as stats are available, are members of the notorious “Asylum Deniers Club.”
So, we’ll see how it all plays out. Perhaps, over time, advocates will grow to “love and cherish” these DDs. More likely, they will eventually develop the same inconsistencies, inefficiencies, and maddening quirks that have accompanied almost all prior DOJ/EOIR “artificial gimmicks” intended to “speed up the treadmill” without meaningful advance input from experts of the private bar.
But, to me, it looks like the “same old” mismanaged, misguided, failing and flailing EOIR.
Should we expect better from the Biden Administration? You betcha! Will we get it? Probably not, without lots of litigation and hell-raising!
“Eyore In Distress” Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up””Just how is a ‘Dedicated Docket’ using current EOIR precedents and methods, and with too many ‘judges’ still ‘programmed to deny asylum for any reason’ going to help me achieve justice? What if I’m sent to an ‘Asylum Free Zone’ or my fate is put in the hands of a judge striving to achieve membership in the ‘90% Denier Club’ encouraged by Sessions and Barr and still running rampant under Garland?” Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal” 17th Century Woodcut Public Realm Source: Ancient Origins Website https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160
ADR = “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” — a DOJ/EOIR specialty now being used by Garland’s DOJ
From: JeanC.King,ActingDirector Date: May 27, 2021
DEDICATED DOCKET
Effective:
OOD PM 21-23
May 28, 2021
PURPOSE:
OWNER: AUTHORITY:
CANCELLATION:
Establishes a dedicated docket for certain individuals in removal proceedings.
Office of the Director
Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) Memorandum, Case Priorities and Immigration Court Performance Measures (Jan. 2018); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.0(b)
Policy Memorandum 19-04
EOIR is initiating a Dedicated Docket to focus on the adjudication of family cases as designated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This docket will run alongside typical court operations in immigration courts in ten cities: Denver, Detroit, El Paso, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New York City, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. DHS has indicated that it will be placing on the Dedicated Docket families who crossed the Southern border and whom DHS has placed on alternatives to detention. Cases will be identified for this docket as of the effective date of this memorandum.
EOIR’s immigration judges will endeavor to issue a decision in each case on the Dedicated Docket within 300 days after the initial master calendar hearing. To facilitate such timeliness while providing due process, EOIR will only schedule these cases before immigration judges who generally have docket time available to manage a case on that timeline, but EOIR recognizes that unique circumstances of each case may impact the ability to issue a decision within that period. As needed, the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge will provide additional case management guidance to assist immigration judges in meeting this goal.
EOIR remains committed to the timely resolution of immigration court cases in a fair and impartial manner. Importantly, the adjudication timeframe established by this policy memorandum (PM) and any subsequent case management guidance is an internal goal. Respondents whose cases are on these dockets have the opportunity to request continuances, as do all respondents in removal proceedings, and immigration judges retain discretion to determine whether a continuance should be granted for good cause. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.29. EOIR expects
1
that its immigration judges will make these determinations with full consideration for a respondent’s statutory right to counsel and consistent with due process and fundamental fairness.
Respondents whose cases are placed on these dockets will be provided with a number of services, including access to information services and possible referral services to facilitate legal representation. Each city in which EOIR has established the Dedicated Docket has an established pro bono network.
EOIR previously tracked certain cases designated by DHS in select immigration court locations. See PM 19-04, Tracking and Expedition of “Family Unit” Cases (Nov. 16, 2018). This effort was discontinued during the COVID-19 pandemic and has not been resumed. Thus, PM 19-04 is rescinded.
EOIR is managing the hearings with full consideration for the safety of its employees and all parties who appear in court. EOIR will continue to implement practices and procedures consistent with information from public health officials and guidance from the Office of Personnel Management and the DOJ Justice Management Division. See PM 20-13, EOIR Practices Related to the COVID-19 Outbreak (June 11, 2020).
This PM is not intended to, does not, and may not be relied upon to create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or equities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
Please contact your supervisor if you have any questions regarding this PM.
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In theory, prioritizing timely adjudication of recently arrived asylum seekers in Immigration Court could be a good idea –along the lines that a number of us recommended to the Biden Transition Team. But, not this way!
This “tone-deaf missive from on high,” as usual, is “designed to fail” rather than “dressed for success:”
It relies heavily on the ready availability of pro bono legal services in certain locations, yet, incredibly, there was NO ADVANCE CONSULTATION & COORDINATION with those key groups;
It is not accompanied by grants or other support to legal assistance groups to help them provide universal representation to asylum seekers;
There is no reason to believe that Immigration Judges in these locations are well-qualified to decide asylum cases merely because they have “docket space available;” indeed there are gross disparities in asylum grant rates among the selected courts;
Anti-asylum precedents issued by the Trump Administration remain in effect which undoubtedly will lead to unfair denials of asylum;
Among these anti-asylum precedents are some incorrectly limiting and discouraging continuances and administrative closing — making the promise of flexibility and fairness totally disingenuous;
Before instituting new programs in consultation with the private bar, the DHS, and the NAIJ (representing the IJs who will actually have to control these dockets), EOIR must slash the backlog by removing from the docket the vast majority of “non-priority” cases forming the astounding, largely self created 1.3 million case backlog;
With better precedents by a new BIA with progressive asylum experts as judges, and some procedural changes, many more asylum cases could be granted “in the first instance” by the Asylum Office, thereby reducing the pressure on the Immigration Courts while reducing the incentives for frivolous opposition to asylum cases by ICE, a big “time waster” in Immigration Court; but no such “progressive thinking or practical problem solving” is reflected in this directive.
Half-baked bureaucratic directives like this won’t solve the problem! It’s just more proof of how completely unqualified Garland’s DOJ and EOIR leadership are to administer a “real court system.” Where are the Article I advocates in Congress? Removing the Immigration Courts from DOJ needs to be one of our highest National priorities.
🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽⚖️Due Process Forever! DOJ/EOIR incompetence, never!
