Judge Says Toddlers Can Grasp Law, Represent Themselves

March 8, 2016 By
A child of migrant workers in Five Points, Calif. Judge Jack Weil says his comments on youths defending themselves in immigration court were "taken out of context." (Photo Credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times Report, 3/6.16)

A child of migrant workers in Five Points, Calif. Judge Jack Weil says his comments on youths defending themselves in immigration court were “taken out of context.” (Photo Credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times Report, 3/6/16)

A federal immigration judge in Virginia, who helps train other such judges, is making headlines for asserting that even toddlers can defend themselves in court without counsel. The Los Angeles Times is among those quoting from a court transcript that is part of an ACLU case: “I’ve taught immigration law literally to 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of patience,” Judge Jack Weil said. ‘They get it. It’s not the most efficient, but it can be done.'”

The LAT duly notes that “… in immigration court, there is no guarantee of counsel for adults or children. Advocates for immigrants have long argued that a person’s ability to make informed decisions — and their chances of being allowed to stay in the U.S. — are enhanced if an attorney represents them.”

The story also offers this context: “A total of 20,455 unaccompanied youths were caught at the border from October through the end of January, more than double the number during the same period the previous year, which also saw an increase over the year before that, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Youths started streaming in large numbers across the border illegally during the summer of 2014.”

Read the fallout here: http://www.latimes.com/nation/immigration/la-na-immigration-judge-20160306-story.html

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community Tagged With: , ,

Houston Press Outlines How  Broken Immigration Courts Really Are

February 18, 2016 By
 
Illustration by Brian Stauffer used in a report by The Houston Press, "Immigration Backlog Bounces Thousands of Cases to Late 2019," 2/10/16

Illustration by Brian Stauffer used in a report by The Houston Press, “Immigration Backlog Bounces Thousands of Cases to Late 2019,” 2/10/16

The Houston Press newspaper starts with immigration attorney John Nechman explaining how busy he used to be before “all of his removal cases scheduled to be heard in Houston’s downtown immigration court were reset to the same ten-day span in November, 2019.” And he says “it’s like that for every immigration attorney in town.” Obviously, the report points out, there’s no way all the cases actually scheduled for November, 2019 can be heard – it seems like a good holding date that’s still in this decade.
 
There are thousands of cases in Houston and also San Antonio and speculation is that they will actually get bumped back into the next decade. Nechman explains the irony: “good” cases, likely to be allowed to remain in the U.S. get the shaft because they remain in legal limbo for years and years; meanwhile, “bad” cases likely to get sent out of the country get years and years to become part of the culture and remain in the U.S.  Houston has the most pending cases in Texas, and is nationally third behind Los Angeles and New York City.
 
If you’re among those who feel like the immigration court, which is actually an administrative function of the Justice Department and not a federal court at all, has become dysfunctional with its 450,000-case backlog, then this story confirms your worst fears.
Filed Under: Border Kids, Community Tagged With: , , ,

Immigration Court Backlog Nearly A Half-Million Cases

May 18, 2015 By
The latest update from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, the group most-cited for keeping track of the immigration courts backlog, sets the number of pending cases at a new all-time high of 445,000, with “routine” hearings being delayed for up to four years.
 
The Los Angels Times is among those taking notice, saying that the rising caseload “… is a nearly 30% increase since Oct. 1, 2013, the start of the last fiscal year” and “… immigration courts have been overwhelmed since the influx last fiscal year of more than 68,500 unaccompanied children and about as many family units crossing the southern border, most from Central America.”
 
They also noted a changing trend, because “… most backlogged cases involved Mexican immigrants, their backlog has increased only about 4% since the start of last fiscal year, while the backlog has skyrocketed for Central Americans — up 63% for Guatemalans, 92% for Salvadorans and 143% for Hondurans.”
 
Federal data indicates that California, Texas, and New York led the nation with the largest immigration backlogs, followed by Florida and New Jersey.
 
The nation’s “immigration courts” are actually a division of the Justice Department, not really federal courts at all. The system report that it has 233 judges in 58 courts nationwide and officials say 17 more are expected to start by month’s end with 68 more are in the process of being hired. But Judge Dana Leigh Marks, who’s been on the bench for 28 years and is president of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges, told the L.A. Times that some 100 immigration judges were expected to retire this year.
Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases Tagged With: , ,

Tomorrow’s Immigration News Today: Devil In The Details

December 1, 2014 By
Not to equate the United States Justice Department with Lucifer himself, but the old saying that “the devil’s in the details” is holding up with President Obama’s immigration actions. You have to read with a particular eye, but a Washington Post report by  Juliet Eilperin and Jerry Markon notes that “… one of the provisions the Justice Department lawyers included, which they also pushed for during the creation of the 2012 program, was to make clear that federal immigration officials would still have the option of deporting individuals who might otherwise qualify for a deferral.”

Wait, what? With some 400,000 cases pending in the Justice Department’s own immigration courts, they also have the option of deporting people who would “otherwise” qualify for defferral? The WaPo also reports that the “… memo states that the new policy ‘provides for case-by-case determinations about whether an individual alien’s circumstances warrant the expenditure of removal resources, employing a broad standard that leaves ample room for the exercise of individual discretion by enforcement officials.’”

One point of the story is that some people who might qualify for protection under the Obama action will no self-identify to authorities. It’s the kind of uncertainty that has kept some “Dreamers” from stepping forward. From what we’ve seen in the past year, “trust the Justice Department” is going to be a tough sell, and a future headline will be “Few Take Obama Up On Protection Offer.”

You read it here first! And you can see the excellent WaPo work here.
Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Now Nepotism Is Immigration Court Issue

November 10, 2014 By
It turns out that the under-staffed immigration courts still found time to hire family members of officials, sometimes in apparent violation of federal law, according to various reports. Says the Washington Post, “… the Federal investigators found rampant nepotism in recent years within the agency that oversees U.S. immigration courts, including three top officials who used their positions to help relatives land paid internships.
 
Adds WaPo in one of its federal government blogs: “In a report this week, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said about 16 percent of the interns hired between 2007 and 2012 for the Executive Office of Immigration Review’s Student Temporary Employment Program were family members of employees.”
 
Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: , , , , ,

A.G. Holder Exiting Amid ‘Unfinished’ Work With Immigration Courts

September 26, 2014 By
While praising his actions to bring the first Justice Department action against states over immigration laws, a leading immigration activist says U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder – or his replacement – has work to do on the nation’s immigration courts. The civil immigration system is operated by Holder’s Justice Department, and the judges are Justice Department employees.
 
The ongoing immigration court crisis, with its 400,000-case backlog and fast-tracking of suddenly high-profile Central American children seeking entry to the United States, is not gaining widespread coverage as news organizations ponder the Holder legacy. But Marielena Hincapié, director of the National Immigration Law Center, noted the issue after first praising the A.G. for “helping to establish immigration as an important area of civil rights.”
 
She told The Washington Post that “… we really saw an attorney general and a department of justice that was willing to lead on these issues and to take risky moves.” But, the Post added, “… yet she added that Holder (or his successor) still has some important unfinished business with regard to the country’s immigration courts, which are overseen by the Justice Department and are overwhelmed with cases.”
 
Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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