GQ: “Immigration Judges Are Rebelling Against the White House’s Efforts to Turn Courts into Deportation Machines”
After Attorney General Jeff Sessions removed an immigration judge from a case and reassigned the case to himself and then to another judge who consequently ordered the individual to be removed (i.e., deported), immigration judges and advocates have voiced their protest. The case involved Judge Steven Morley of Philadelphia who used “administrative closure” to suspend a case when a man named Reynaldo Castro-Tum failed to appear before him in immigration court. Administrative closure is used, for example, when the individual couldn’t make it to court for logistical reasons, including the summons being sent to the wrong address. Sessions responded by assigning the case to himself, issuing a decision that severely restricts the use of administrative closure, and instructed Morely to deport the individual if he didn’t show up again.
Read moreABC News: Immigration Judges Eligible to Retire
ABC News reports that nearly half of the judges in the immigration court system will be eligible for retirement next year:
The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the nation's 59 immigration courts, says the court already has 32 vacancies, contributing to the current backlog of nearly 350,000 cases. Judges are overwhelmed, and immigrants with legitimate asylum claims can spend years in legal limbo.
Retirement could add to the case backlog, and may not be unexpected given the large caseload and that the judges have "no bailiff, no court reporter and aren't guaranteed a court clerk" and that a Georgetown Immigration Law Journal article found immigration judges "exhibited more burnout 'than prison wardens and physicians in busy hospitals.'"