Official White House Photo
Public Realm
Here’s the audio:
The relevant remarks are at 1:59.
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While it’s always good to be optimistic, to date, “as independent as possible” has meant “as independent as four years of White Nationalist weaponization and meddling from Trump, Miller, Sessions, Barr, Whitaker, Hamilton, McHenry, et al, left them.” That’s NOT independent at all! Quite the OPPOSITE. In many ways there is less judicial independence and more political interference at EOIR now than there was when it was located within the “Legacy INS” before EOIR was created in 1983.
I personally will believe it to the extent that it’s reflected in actions. That means things like vacating restrictive anti-immigrant precedents, restoring asylum for gender-based violence, re-instituting and encouraging Administrative Closing, slashing the backlog by working with parties to remove the vast majority of “non-priority” cases that could be handled in alternative ways, installing e-filing, eliminating bogus “performance work plans,” repudiating “production quotas,” replacing Trump’s BIA with better-qualified judges, revising judicial recruiting and hiring practices to attract more diverse expert candidates from the private/NGO sector, considering stakeholders’ views and recommendations on important policies BEFORE announcing them, establishing a transparent complaint and tenure review process involving the private bar, re-establishing a robust asylum system at the border, upgrading judicial training and using “outside DOJ” experts to conduct it, eliminating the unnecessary “Office of POlicy” from the bloated bureaucracy, hiring experts in judicial management for administrative positions, encouraging written over oral decisions on cases likely to be appealed, expanding the number of judicial law clerks assigned to judges, eliminating agency bureaucracy and redirecting resources to improving local courts and furthering independence, re-recognizing the NAIJ and listening to their suggestions, working cooperatively with the pro bono bar to increase representation, rethinking the overuse of televideo and the presence of “courts” in detention center settings (e.g., prisons in the “New American Gulag”), selecting and retaining only judges who will treat all parties, counsel, and court personnel with respect and professionalism, actively working to overcome the “culture of denial, White Nationalism, and misogyny” that has permeated EOIR over the past four years and still exists, ending docket meddling from Falls Church and DOJ and returning control to local judges, eliminating “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” by politicos and their enablers, reducing the use of single-judge orders at the BIA, selecting expert Appellate Judges for the BIA who will issue some positive as opposed to only negative precedents, refusing to open and closing “courts” located in obscure, out of the way prison locations selected by DHS in large part because of the absence of pro bono lawyers, returning full authority to grant continuances to local judges, no longer referring to DHS (but not respondents’ counsel) as “our partners,” ending the use of derogatory terms and false claims by DOJ officials to Immigration Judges about private lawyers, stopping the intentional manipulation of statistics bv DOJ and EOIR management to further political agendas, ending the “muzzle” on Immigration Judges and encouraging them to participate in public professional activities, promoting best practices rather than institutionalizing worst practices, and again making “through teamwork and and innovation, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all” the absolute touchstone at EOIR, for starters.
To date, NONE of the things on the foregoing list has been accomplished or proposed by Garland and his team. Indeed, a number of his actions, like engaging in “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” by establishing a “Dedicated Docket” for new asylum cases without consulting the stakeholders in advance, and appointing 17 new judges selected by Barr under defective and flawed procedures that discouraged diversity and “disfavored” private sector candidates, are in direct contravention of due process and best practices and serve to discourage, rather than nurture, judicial independence.
Moreover, as I have previously said, I see no evidence that Garland has hired or reached out to any of the types of progressive experts who could actually implement these reforms necessary to achieve judicial independence and promote due process. You can’t get the job done for judicial independence and due process without a radical personnel shakeup at EOIR! The current group at both DOJ and EOIR just doesn’t cut it, as ever a casual observer could tell Garland.
So, until I see some ACTUAL progress, beyond mushy rhetoric, color me skeptical about Garland’s plans for EOIR.
🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!
PWS
06-10-21