Thread: 2 Phoenix immigration judges retire as Trump administration pushes for faster deport

2 Phoenix immigration judges retire as Trump administration pushes for faster deportations

Daniel González, Arizona Republic
Published 6:00 a.m. MT Sept. 29, 2018

Arizona Republic reporters explain the difference between seeking asylum at the border and attempting to immigrate illegally. Carly Henry, The Republic | azcentral.com



(Photo: Tom Tingle/The Republic)


Two longtime Phoenix immigration court judges are retiring this week, just as quotas kick in as part of the Trump administration effort to clear huge case backlogs by accelerating deportations.

The retiring judges are Wendell Hollis and John Richardson, who served on the bench for nearly 30 years, making him the most senior member among the five immigration judges in the Phoenix immigration court.
In a court system stacked with former immigration prosecutors, Richardson was known for his fairness, independence and humanity in deciding immigration cases, which can carry life-or-death consequences for people ordered to deport to countries where their lives are in danger.

Richardson received national attention in 2005 when he threw out a deportation case against the Wilson Four, a group of undocumented students from Wilson Charter High School brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents when they were young.

MORE: Immigration judges union alleges DOJ, Jeff Sessions interfering in cases

Hollis, a former INS prosecutor, was appointed an immigration judge in 2003 and was regarded by immigration lawyers as a tough but fair judge.

"They will be sorely missed. Both Judge Richardson and Judge Hollis have been hallmarks of the Phoenix immigration court ... particularly Richardson who has been on the court for 28 years, he's a landmark, " said Delia Salvatierra, a Phoenix immigration attorney. "Both judges were just, both judges were fair, they understood the complexities of immigration law and the complexities of the human aspects of enforcement of immigration laws and they took their authority to exercise discretion very seriously."

There is no comprehensive study that analyzes the costs of deportation, and experts say there are too many variables to consider. Wochit

Session calls for faster deportations

They leave at a time when immigration judges feel like their discretion is under attack.

Although both judges are of retirement age — Hollis is 65, Richardson is 75 — court observers have noted the timing of their departures, coming as immigration judges have clashed with Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his efforts to clear backlogs and speed deportations by imposing quotas, restricting the discretion of immigration judges to continue or terminate deportation cases, and limiting their ability to grant asylum to victims of gang violence or domestic abuse.

Under the Trump administration, how immigration judges are evaluated has shifted, said Evelyn Cruz, director of Arizona State University's Immigration Law and Policy Clinic. "The new new test is how quickly can you get rid of that body, basically, how quickly can this case be closed," Cruz said.

Unlike federal judges, immigration judges are employees of the Department of Justice. They wield enormous power, serving as judge and jury in deciding whether a person should be deported, or meets the legal criteria to remain in the U.S., Cruz said.

But Sessions has sought to limit the leeway immigration judges have in making those determinations, she said.

In April, the Justice Department informed immigration judges that evaluation of their performance would include how quickly they close cases. The backlog through June of this year had grown to more than 732,000 cases, up nearly 300 percent since 2008, according to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts.

MORE: Trump admin's lower limit on refugees delays a reunion for one Arizona family

In August, the union representing immigration judges filed a formal grievance against the Justice Department, accusing Sessions of trying to exert too much influence over immigration judges. The complaint by the National Association of Immigration Judges said Sessions had pulled more than 80 cases from the docket of an immigration judge in Philadelphia after he closed the case of a Guatemalan who entered the U.S. illegally in 2014 when he was 17.

Sessions used the case as the basis to order that immigration judges no longer had the power to (administratively) close most cases, essentially bringing deportation proceedings to an end, and allowing immigrants to remain in the U.S. despite not having legal status.

Over the past decade, immigration judges had closed more than 350,000 cases, according to USA TODAY.

The Obama administration used the practice to put many cases on hold so that immigration judges could focus on deportation cases involving immigrants with criminal records.

Retirements on the rise?

Richardson and Hollis are retiring at the end of the federal fiscal year, on Sept. 30. The new quotas, which reportedly ask immigration judges to close 700 cases a year—on average three a day—officially kick in with the start of the new fiscal year, on Oct. 1.

Immigration attorneys say nationally a number of immigration judges have retired or left out of frustration as Sessions has sought to exert more control over immigration courts.

Gail Montenegro, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review, would not provide statistics on the number of judges retiring at the end of this fiscal year, saying the agency "does not discuss attrition prior to its occurrence."

Forty-four new immigration judges were to be sworn in on Friday, bringing the total number to 395 nationwide, she said.

MORE: Gov. Ducey, Garcia battle on issues of education and immigration in debate

Under Sessions, the Department of Justice is rapidly hiring more immigration judges, while at the same time reducing the hiring process from two years to 10 months, and as little as two months. EOIR is authorized for a total of 484 positions, Montenegro said.

There were 7,662 cases pending in the Phoenix immigration court as of the end of August, down 60 percent from a high of 12,216 in fiscal year 2013, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

It was unclear whether any of the newly hired immigration judges would be assigned to fill the positions left by Richardson and Hollis.

"EOIR constantly monitors its caseload nationwide and shifts resources to meet needs in the most efficient manner possible," Montenegro said.

'What judge does that?'

Several immigration lawyers expressed concern that the Phoenix immigration court is losing two experienced and well-regarded immigration judges when pressure to clear backlogs and speed deportations could undermine the due process rights of immigrants.

They particularly lamented the loss of Richardson.
Several years ago when ICE agents began showing up at the Phoenix immigration court to arrest people, Richardson put a stop to it, recalled Judy Flanagan, a Phoenix immigration lawyer for 20 years.

In December 2002, Richardson was so incensed when three top officials with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officials failed to appear in court for an asylum hearing, he cited them for contempt.

"What judge does that?" Flanagan said. "For most immigration attorneys there was a sense the playing field was much more even when you were in front of Judge Richardson. We didn’t always get what we wanted from him, but it was more often than in front of other judges. It was a sense of fairness."

MORE: President Trump's immigrant roundups increasingly net non-criminals

Flanagan said Richardson demonstrated that fairness in 2005 when he tossed out the deportation case against the Wilson Four.

Flanagan, who represented the Wilson Four, made the then-rare argument that U.S. border officials had violated the students' Constitutional rights under the Fourth and Fifth amendments by targeting them based on their ethnicity. At the time, the students were among a group of Latino students competing in a solar boat competition in New York State when they made a side trip with their teacher to Niagara Falls. While still on the U.S. side, they were questioned about their citizenship by U.S. border officers after asking if they could cross over into Canada and use their school IDs to cross back into the U.S.

Richardson agreed with Flanagan's argument and tossed out the case.

Afterward, Richardson was branded an activist judge by critics on conservative talk radio. But he was vindicated when his ruling was upheld by a federal immigration appeals board after Immigration and Customs Enforcement appealed.


'Welcome to the United States'

The Wilson Four case landed in his courtroom because Richardson oversaw the juvenile docket, which often involves some of the most delicate and difficult asylum cases of children who unaccompanied by parents had fled horrific violence in their home countries seeking refuge in the U.S.

When the number of unaccompanied minors arriving in the U.S. began rising in the 1990s, Richardson was instrumental in creating a program to provide pro-bono lawyers to represent undocumented children, who under the law are not entitled to lawyers at government expense.

In 1996, after Richardson saw that children in detention were showing up for hearings without legal representation, he sent a memo to the State Bar Association pleading, "Please help the children!!!"

MORE: Trump wants to cut family-based immigration. The results would be seismic.

The Bar Association began providing lawyers to represent juveniles in immigration court, which led to the creation of the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, a non-profit organization that provides legal assistance to detained immigrants and children in Arizona.

"Anyone who ever dealt with (immigration cases involving) juvenile or unaccompanied minors knows Judge Richardson would go way beyond what was required to make sure they were taken care of," said Emilia Bañuelos, a Phoenix immigration attorney for 25 years.

In cases where immigrants, often with deportation in the balance, won their cases and were granted legal permanent status, known as green cards, several immigration lawyers recalled that Richardson would congratulate each one by getting off the bench, shaking hands and saying, "Welcome to the United States."

"No other immigration judge has ever done anything like that. There was that sense of humanity, of graciousness," Flanagan said. "It was a lovely gesture. I always thought it was great and my clients thought it was amazing. It's just a symbol of what kind of person he is."

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news...ns/1427755002/

Deport them ALL

Let their country "take care" of them!

You aren't "JUDGES", you're CLERKS, you are by law if not by name, ADMINISTRATIVE CLERKS to enforce the laws. Your only actual legal assignment is to verify their status and if illegal issue a damn one sentence DEPORTATION ORDER. You are not there to listen to their whines, wails, complaints and life history. You are THERE to ask 2 questions and verify the answers if not already verified by ICE:

1. are you a citizen of the US, yes or no, verify
2. if no, do you have valid unexpired documents to be in the US, yes or no, verify
3. if no and no, then out you go, i. e. DEPORT the whole family unit.

They should stop calling them "JUDGES", because they are not "JUDGES", they are immigration control administrative CLERKS.

IMMIGRATION JUDGE

EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW (EOIR)


OFFICE OF THE CHIEF IMMIGRATION JUDGE


ATTORNEY


FALLS CHURCH, VA 22041
UNITED STATES

About the Office:
This position is in the Executive Office for Immigration Review, Office of the Chief Immigration Judge. The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) seeks highly-qualified individuals to join our team of expert professionals in becoming a part of our challenging and rewarding Agency. The primary mission of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is to adjudicate immigration cases by fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly interpreting and administering the Nation's immigration laws. Under delegated authority from the Attorney General, EOIR conducts immigration court proceedings, appellate reviews, and administrative hearings.

EOIR consist of three adjudicatory components: the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge, which is responsible for managing the numerous immigration courts located throughout the United States where immigration judges adjudicate individual cases; the Board of Immigration Appeals, which primarily conducts appellate reviews of the immigration judges' decisions; and the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer, which adjudicates immigration-related employment cases. EOIR is committed to providing the fair, expeditious, and uniform application of our Nation's immigration laws in all cases. EOIR's Headquarters is located in Falls Church, Virginia, about 10 miles from downtown Washington, DC.


Job Description:

Immigration Judges preside in formal, quasi-judicial hearings. Proceedings before Immigration Judges include but are not limited to deportation, exclusion, removal, rescission, and bond. Immigration Judges make decisions which are final unless formally appealed. In connection with these proceedings, Immigration Judges exercise certain discretionary powers as provided by law, and are required to exercise independent judgment in reaching final decisions.

Immigration Judges may be required to conduct hearings in penal institutions and other remote locations.


Qualifications:
In order to qualify for the Immigration Judge position, applicants must meet all of the minimum qualifications listed below.

Education: Applicants must possess a LL.B. or a J.D. degree. (Applicants must submit transcripts)

-AND-
Licensure: Applicants must be an active member of the bar, duly licensed and authorized to practice law as an attorney under the laws of a U.S. state, territory, Puerto Rico or the District of Columbia (include the date of your admission to the bar).

-AND-
Experience: Applicants must be U.S. citizens and must have practiced as an attorney, post-bar admission, for a minimum of seven (7) years at the time the application is submitted.

IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE MAY NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE
Qualifications must be met by the closing date of the announcement. In addition to the minimum qualifications above, applicants must submit a writing sample which demonstrates their ability to author legal documents (not to exceed twenty-five (25) pages) and a document addressing the Quality Ranking Factors (See "How You Will Be Evaluated" section) in order to be considered for this position. Failure to submit these documents will result in your application being removed from consideration


Salary:
$130,397.00 to $172,100.00 / Per Year


Travel:
50% or Greater - Immigration Judge may be required to travel frequently, including weekends. (May include short detail assignments.)


Application Process:
You must submit a complete application package by the closing date of the announcement.

• To begin, click Apply Online to create a USAJOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USAJOBS resume and/or other supporting documents and complete the occupational questionnaire.
• Click the Submit My Answers button to submit your application package.
• It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date.
• To verify your application is complete, log into your USAJOBS account, https://my.usajobs.gov/Account/Login, select the Application Status link and then select the more information link for this position. The Details page will display the status of your application, the documentation received and processed, and any correspondence the agency has sent related to this application. Your uploaded documents may take several hours to clear the virus scan process.
• To return to an incomplete application, log into your USAJOBS account and click Update Application in the vacancy announcement. You must re-select your resume and/or other documents from your USAJOBS account or your application will be incomplete.

Relocation Expenses:
Not Authorized


Number of Positions:
Multiple

Updated June 9, 2017

* * *
Department Policies

Equal Employment Opportunity: The U.S. Department of Justice is an Equal Opportunity/Reasonable Accommodation Employer. Except where otherwise provided by law, there will be no discrimination because of color, race, religion, national origin, political affiliation, marital status, disability (physical or mental), age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, genetic information, status as a parent, membership or non-membership in an employee organization, on the basis of personal favoritism, or any other non-merit factor. The Department of Justice welcomes and encourages applications from persons with physical and mental disabilities. The Department is firmly committed to satisfying its affirmative obligations under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, to ensure that persons with disabilities have every opportunity to be hired and advanced on the basis of merit within the Department of Justice.

Reasonable Accommodations: This agency provides reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities where appropriate. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application and hiring process, please notify the agency. Determinations on requests for reasonable accommodation will be made on a case-by-case basis.

Outreach and Recruitment for Qualified Applicants with Disabilities: The Department encourages qualified applicants with disabilities, including individuals with targeted/severe disabilities to apply in response to posted vacancy announcements. Qualified applicants with targeted/severe disabilities may be eligible for direct hire, non-competitive appointment under Schedule A (5 C.F.R. § 213.3102(u)) hiring authority. Individuals with targeted/severe disabilities are encouraged to register for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Shared List of People with Disabilities (the Bender Disability Employment Registry) by submitting their resume to resume@benderconsult.com(link sends e-mail)and referencing "Federal Career Opportunities" in the subject line. Additional information about the Bender Registry is available at www.benderconsult.com(link is external). Individuals with disabilities may also contact one of the Department’s Disability Points of Contact (DPOC). See list of DPOCs.

Suitability and Citizenship: It is the policy of the Department to achieve a drug-free workplace and persons selected for employment will be required to pass a drug test which screens for illegal drug use prior to final appointment. Employment is also contingent upon the completion and satisfactory adjudication of a background investigation. Congress generally prohibits agencies from employing non-citizens within the United States, except for a few narrow exceptions as set forth in the annual Appropriations Act (see, https://www.usajobs.gov/Help/working.../non-citizens/). Pursuant to DOJ component policies, only U.S. citizens are eligible for employment with the Executive Office for Immigration Review, U.S. Trustee’s Offices, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Unless otherwise indicated in a particular job advertisement, qualifying non-U.S. citizens meeting immigration and appropriations law criteria may apply for employment with other DOJ organizations. However, please be advised that the appointment of non-U.S. citizens is extremely rare; such appointments would be possible only if necessary to accomplish the Department's mission and would be subject to strict security requirements. Applicants who hold dual citizenship in the U.S. and another country will be considered on a case-by-case basis. All DOJ employees are subject to a residency requirement. Candidates who have lived outside the United States for two or more of the past five years will likely have difficulty being approved for appointments by the Department Security Staff. The two-year period is cumulative, not necessarily consecutive. Federal or military employees, or dependents of federal or military employees serving overseas, are excepted from this requirement.

Veterans: There is no formal rating system for applying veterans' preference to attorney appointments in the excepted service; however, the Department of Justice considers veterans' preference eligibility as a positive factor in attorney hiring. Applicants eligible for veterans' preference must include that information in their cover letter or resume and attach supporting documentation (e.g., the DD 214, Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty and other supporting documentation) to their submissions. Although the "point" system is not used, per se, applicants eligible to claim 10-point preference must submit Standard Form (SF) 15, Application for 10-Point Veteran Preference, and submit the supporting documentation required for the specific type of preference claimed (visit the OPM website, www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/SF15.pdf for a copy of SF 15, which lists the types of 10-point preferences and the required supporting document(s).

Applicants should note that SF 15 requires supporting documentation associated with service- connected disabilities or receipt of nonservice-connected disability pensions to be dated 1991 or later except in the case of service members submitting official statements or retirement orders from a branch of the Armed Forces showing that his or her retirement was due to a permanent service-connected disability or that he/she was transferred to the permanent disability retired list (the statement or retirement orders must indicate that the disability is 10% or more).

* * *

This and other vacancy announcements can be found under Attorney Vacancies and Volunteer Legal Internships. The Department of Justice cannot control further dissemination and/or posting of information contained in this vacancy announcement. Such posting and/or dissemination is not an endorsement by the Department of the organization or group disseminating and/or posting the information.

https://www.justice.gov/legal-career...igration-judge

Originally Posted by Judy

You aren't "JUDGES", you're CLERKS, . . .

Qualifications:
In order to qualify for the Immigration Judge position, applicants must meet all of the minimum qualifications listed below.

Education: Applicants must possess a LL.B. or a J.D. degree. (Applicants must submit transcripts)

-AND-
Licensure: Applicants must be an active member of the bar, duly licensed and authorized to practice law as an attorney under the laws of a U.S. state, territory, Puerto Rico or the District of Columbia (include the date of your admission to the bar).

-AND-
Experience: Applicants must be U.S. citizens and must have practiced as an attorney, post-bar admission, for a minimum of seven (7) years at the time the application is submitted.

They are not "JUDGES" and calling them that is misleading the public and the people who serve in the DOJ in this capacity. They are ADMINISTRATIVE CLERKS, they're like the people who give you a birth certificate, a passport, a SS card, your driver's license, your car title, you're car registration, your food stamps, your Medicaid, your Social Security benefits, and tax refunds/audits/assessments, collect your property taxes or decide to lien your property, the people who rule on your workman's compensation claim, disability insurance or unemployment benefits or issue a DACA, TPS work permit or approve immigrants legally into the US for green cards and visas or issue you a diploma from your high school or expel you from school.

They are employees of the Executive Branch which has no judiciary or judicial authority at all whatsoever under the US Constitution.

So the Attorney General needs to order an immediate revision of their internal documents, rules and regulations and published materials and rename these people to properly reflect their actual duties and limits under the US Constitution. Furthermore, you do not need a "law degree" to determine if someone is in the United States illegally and needs to be expelled with a Deportation Order. That just ups the ante for an overpriced employee that reduces the number of clerks available to deal with this massive back-log and the massive numbers still to be deported and removed from the country.

Notice the term they use in the documents JD2 posted "quasi-judicial". There is no such thing in the DOJ under the US Constitution. We have 3 distinct and separate branches of government. Legislative, Executive and Judicial.

Deportation orders are a function of the Executive Branch by law and have nothing to with the Judicial branch of the federal government. Therefore, the US Department of Justice, nor any other agency in the Executive Branch of the federal government has federal JUDGES. You can call them what they are DEPORTATION CLERKS, OFFICERS, REVIEWERS or just DEPORTERS, but they should not be called "JUDGES" because they have NO JUDICIAL AUTHORITY under the US Constitution.

Good, time to get rid of the dead weight. Jeff Sessions is doing a great job. The unintended consequences of his actions are good for us. Getting rid of activist judges is never a bad thing!

"Unlike federal judges, immigration judges are employees of the Department of Justice. They wield enormous power, serving as judge and jury in deciding whether a person should be deported, or meets the legal criteria to remain in the U.S., Cruz said."

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

"Unlike federal judges, immigration judges are employees of the Department of Justice. They wield enormous power, serving as judge and jury in deciding whether a person should be deported, or meets the legal criteria to remain in the U.S., Cruz said."

Yep, they are hired as judges.