Tag: Independent Immigration Court

Still Not Sure We Need U.S. Immigration Court Reform? Read This Explosive New OIG Report — While “Rome Was Burning” In The Immigration Courts, EOIR Senior Exec Was Busy Fiddling Around Hiring Pals, Soliciting Sexual Favors, Taking Kickbacks On Contracts, Lying To Investigators, & Retaliating Against Honest Employees!

INVESTIGATIVE SUMMARY

Findings Concerning Improper Hiring Practices, Inappropriate Interactions with Subordinates and a Contractor, and False Statements by a Senior Executive with the
Executive Office for Immigration Review

The Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) initiated an investigation of a senior executive with the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) based on information it received from DOJ that the official engaged in inappropriate hiring practices, used non‐public information to benefit friends, solicited and accepted gifts from subordinates, maintained inappropriate relationships with subordinates, and participated in an inappropriate quid pro quo scheme with a contract company.

The OIG found that the executive engaged in improper hiring practices when, on seven separate occasions, the executive disregarded merit system principles to hire close friends and associates as DOJ employees or DOJ contract personnel over applicants with superior qualifications for the positions. The OIG also found that the executive initiated and approved the promotion of a friend before the individual was eligible for promotion, nominated a friend for a monetary award without sufficient justification, and promoted a friend who lacked qualifications for the position. The OIG further found that the executive disclosed to friends and acquaintances non‐public information about job opportunities on a pending DOJ contract, and advocated for increasing contractor salaries in support of friends. The OIG found that this conduct violated federal statutes, federal regulations, and DOJ policy.

In addition, the OIG found that the executive maintained an inappropriate personal relationship with a subordinate, and solicited and accepted gifts and donations from subordinates, in violation of federal statutes and regulations, and DOJ policy. The OIG investigation further concluded that the executive engaged in an inappropriate scheme with a DOJ contractor in which the executive sought employment and training from the contractor for personal friends in exchange for the executive actively participating in the creation and awarding of a purchase agreement of substantial monetary value to the contractor, in violation of federal statutes and regulations.

Lastly, the OIG found that the executive lacked candor and provided false statements to the OIG in relation to the executive’s conduct in the above‐described matters, in violation of federal statute and regulation. Prosecution of the executive was declined.

The OIG has completed its investigation and provided this report to EOIR for appropriate action. The OIG also referred to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel its findings that the executive retaliated against employees who refused to hire the executive’s friends.

Posted to oig.justice.gov on June 6, 2017

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The “experiment” with trying to run a major court system as an agency of the USDOJ is over. It has failed! Is Jeff Sessions going to straighten this mess out? No way! In addition to being less than candid under oath during his Senate Confirmation hearing (or perjuring himself in the view of many), the Comey testimony certainly made it appear that Sessions either was under active investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller or soon would be under such investigation.

And, it’s by no means just Sessions. Every Attorney General since Janet Reno has contributed significantly to the downward spiral in the U.S. Immigration Courts (including the BIA). Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who helped push Immigration Court backlogs to incredible new heights with poor hiring practices and politically motivated enforcement priorities, also came out of the Comey hearing looking like someone who put political loyalty before integrity. For the record, she has denied Comey’s charges. But, then so have Trump & Sessions. Not very good company, I’m afraid. And, don’t forget that the whole mess with the announcement on the Hillary Clinton investigation started because Lynch had the incredibly poor judgement to meet with Bill Clinton during the heat of his wife’s Presidential campaign.

This OIG Report comes on the heels of a GAO Report that pointed out a number of chronic management problems in EOIR, including the ridiculous 2-year hiring cycle for U.S. Immigration Judges. The GAO also discussed options for restructuring the Immigration courts as an independent agency, although the report did not make a specific recommendation on that subject. Here’s a link to my blog on the GAO report: http://wp.me/p8eeJm-Uh

 

PWS

06-10-17

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REUTERS: More “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” Underway As U.S. Immigration Courts Shift Priorities And Detail Judges — One Certain Result: Each Detailed Judge Will Leave Behind A Wake Of Rescheduled Cases, Unmet Expectations, & Docket Chaos!

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN16O2S6

Julia Edwards Ainsley reports:

“Former immigration judge and chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Schmidt said the Trump administration should not assume that all those charged with crimes would not be allowed to stay in the United States legally.

“It seems they have an assumption that everyone who has committed a crime should be removable, but that’s not necessarily true. Even people who have committed serious crimes can sometimes get asylum,” Schmidt said.

He also questioned the effectiveness of shuffling immigration judges from one court to another, noting that this will mean cases the judges would have handled in their usual courts will have to be rescheduled. He said that when he was temporarily reassigned to handle cases on the southern border in 2014 and 2015, cases he was slated to hear in his home court in Arlington, Virginia had to be postponed, often for more than a year.

“That’s what you call aimless docket reshuffling,” he said.

Under the Obama administration, to avoid the expense and disruption of immigration judges traveling, they would often hear proceedings from other courthouses via video conference.

The judges’ reshuffling could further logjam a national immigration court system which has more than 540,000 pending cases.

The cities slated to receive more judges have different kinds of immigrant populations.”

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Read Julia’s complete article at the above link.

I can’t point to any empirical study. But, my observation and experience as a U.S. Immigration Judge certainly was that the chance of completing  already scheduled cases on an Immigration Judge’s “home court” docket was much greater than the chance of completing randomly scheduled cases as a “visiting judge.”

The U.S. Immigration Court is a high volume operation. Therefore, the attorneys on both sides are almost always “repeat customers” on a judge’s home docket. That gave me “judicial leverage” to complete cases.

The attorneys knew me and were familiar with my expectations and my prior rulings. Because they saw me week after week, year after year, they had every incentive to work cooperatively with each other and with me to meet my expectations and keep our “joint docket” moving on a reasonable schedule. It was in everyone’s self-interest.

A visiting judge is often confronted with attorneys who are used to doing things “other ways” and have little interest in humoring or meeting the expectations of a temporary judge whom they are unlikely ever to come before again in the future. Therefore, the chances of a visiting judge not getting the extra cooperation he or she needs and not getting the types of preparation and evidence necessary to complete the cases on schedule increases. In other words, a visiting judge is deprived of the important opportunity to establish and enforce “mutual expectations.”

Then, there is the “busy work” created for the staff by having to reset already scheduled cases, answer questions from panicked or angry attorneys on both sides, and deal with the slew of motions which such rescheduling inevitably generates.

The only way to “fix” our broken U.S. Immigration Court system is to allow individual judges to control their own dockets by scheduling cases in a reasonable manner, hearing most cases at the scheduled times, thereby establishing reasonable, predictable case cycles (NOT “rocket dockets), and setting and enforcing reasonable expectations (NOT “case completion goals” set by non-judicial bureaucrats).

Having Immigration Court dockets rearranged and “reprioritized” by bureaucrats in Washington, usually to achieve highly inappropriate enforcement objectives (rather than due process) demonstrably harms the system and the delivery of justice.  The Obama Administration made things worse. The Trump Administration seems determined to make them completely untenable.

It’s time for an independent, due process oriented U.S. Immigration Court!

PWS

03/17/17

 

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