Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Trump's Administration Sets Quotas for Immigration Judges


The Justice Department announced in a Memo to Immigration Judges Friday that it is Instituting Quotas to ‘encourage efficient and effective case management’ of Deportation Proceedings.

“The purpose of implementing these metrics is to encourage efficient and effective case management while preserving immigration judge discretion and due process,” James McHenry, Director of the Justice Department’s (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review, wrote in an Email to Immigration Judges.

The DOJ said the average Judge handles under 680 Cases a year, but some Judges cleared well over 1,000. Under the New Guidelines the Quota will be set at 700 completed Cases per Year per Judge. The New System also Sets up additional Benchmarks, Penalizing Judges who Refer more than 15% of certain Cases to Higher Courts, or Judges who Schedule Hearing Dates too far apart on their Calendars. The Guidelines will also tie the Numbers of Processed Cases to Immigration Judges Annual Performance Reviews.

The huge worry here is that the Increase means Less Time for Immigrants to find Legal Representation, and that “some judges affected by the new quotas noted that the emphasis on quantity over quality could damage the system.”

“This is a recipe for disaster. You are going to, at minimum, impact the perception of the integrity of the court.” A. Ashley Tabaddor, President of the National Association of Immigration Judges said. "We don't know of any other court whose judges are subject to individual quotas and deadlines as part of performance reviews and evaluations," she said.

That’s the point, we can only assume. Sessions loves the law, until he doesn’t, and it’s a complete joke that the DOJ would claim any of this is “preserving immigration judge discretion and due process.” What this is about is Speeding up the Deportation Assembly Line by stomping out Due Process for the Vulnerable.

Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions has promised to Stiffen Immigration Enforcement partly by Moving more Aggressively to Clear a Backlog of more than 600,000 Cases pending before the Executive Office of Immigration Review, the Federal Court System that Adjudicates Immigration Cases.

Some Immigrants facing Deportation wait years for a Court Date, but they are typically Authorized to Work in the United States to support themselves during that time, an Arrangement that Critics view as an Incentive to Illegal Immigration.

Immigrant Rights Leader Frank Sharry: “Those concerned with creeping authoritarianism need to understand that Trump and Sessions are pilot-testing bending the rule of law to their will in the arena of immigration, asylum, refugees and visitors.”

The Trump Administration is also seeking to hire dozens of New Judges per year to tackle the Immigration Backlog, an approach that Carl Tobias, a Law Professor at the University of Richmond, said would be a more sensible course.










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