Tag: immigration judges
In a controversial move, the Department of Justice recently announced new case completion quotas for immigration judges. These new quotas will result in time constraints and pressure for judges to reach decisions quickly, impacting individuals’ ability to have a fair day in court. The Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), the DOJ component that runs […]
In a sharp departure from the practice of immigration courts around the country, immigration judges in North Carolina are refusing to conduct bond hearings for detained immigrants who come before the Charlotte Immigration Court. This unlawful, alarming, and unconscionable practice deprives noncitizens of their basic due process rights.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly intending to implement numerical quotas on Immigration Judges as a way of evaluating their performance. This move would undermine judicial independence, threaten the integrity of the immigration court system, and cause massive due process violations. As it currently stands, Immigration Judges are not rated based on the number […]
For more than a decade, the immigration court system has struggled with an enormous backlog. The latest figures from (TRAC) record the backlog at an all-time high of 521,676 as of the end of October, the first month in Fiscal Year (FY) 2017. The data release coincides with reports of President-Elect Donald Trump’s plan for […]
This summer, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) in its lawsuit seeking the disclosure of unredacted versions of complaints filed against immigration judges. To date, the government has refused to turn over the names, locations, and genders of immigration judges against whom complaints […]
The latest figures show that the number of cases pending in immigration court continue to grow. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), there were 486,206 cases in the backlog as of the end of March. This is almost 30,000 more pending cases than Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) Director Juan Osuna reported […]
Last Tuesday, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in a case filed by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), which seeks the disclosure of unredacted versions of complaints filed against immigration judges and related documents. To date, the government has refused to turn over the names, locations and genders of […]
Although this year’s presidential primary contests are dominated by the topic of immigration, the focus is on politically charged, hot-button issues like border walls and birthright citizenship. And while the media remains transfixed by the inflammatory rhetoric of some candidates, more mundane yet equally important problems go unaddressed. Case in point: immigration court backlogs. While […]
This week, the House Appropriations Committee recommended the largest increase in immigration judges in history—$74 million for 55 new immigration judges, and other court improvements. The bipartisan bill acknowledges that a severe shortage of immigration judges has plagued the U.S. immigration system for years. While Congress has increased immigration enforcement funding exponentially over the past […]
If there is any aspect of immigration reform over which there should be no partisan disagreement, it is the dire need to increase the number of immigration judges. As most Republicans and Democrats can probably agree, immigration judges are essential for the functioning of immigration enforcement (removing people who shouldn’t be here) and for the […]
