Let the Purge Begin

An organization that claims to watch the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice has published a list of government employee “targets” who would supposedly stand in the way of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. These include the head of the Asylum Division at USCIS, several Immigration Judges, and the Director of the Legal Access Program at EOIR (the Executive Office for Immigration Review – the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts). The clear purpose of the list–which includes personal photos (presumably taken from social media), salary information, and job histories–is to intimidate the “targets” and force them out of government. 

While I am certainly not a big fan of our dysfunctional immigration system, I find the idea of targeting individual government employees to be repugnant and cowardly, and in this case, dishonest and misogynistic. 

The organization behind the target list is called the American Accountability Foundation, which apparently receives most of its funding from the conservative Heritage Foundation. The AAF styles itself, a “government oversight and research organization that uses investigative tools to educate the public on issues related to personnel, policy, and spending.” It is led by Tom Jones, and a team “comprised of researchers, analysts, and former legislative and campaign staffers with decades of experience holding policymakers accountable for their actions.” No members of the “team” are named, which seems a bit odd for an organization that purports to care about accountability. 

The new Immigration Judge training program.

Reviewing the list of AAF “targets,” a few points stand out. First, it is very easy to selectively post information about a person to create whatever narrative you want. In one example, an Assistant Chief Immigration Judge who previously served as a clinical professor in law school is accused of assisting immigrants to “game” the system and of “helping to create the next generation of liberal activist immigration lawyers.” AAF cites no evidence whatsoever to support its contention that the judge “gamed” the system while she was a law professor. Clinical professors help their students learn about the law by working on real-life cases. It is how students become lawyers, and has nothing to do with creating “liberal activists.” 

The AAF analysis is also an object lesson in distorting data. For example, another IJ appears on the target list because he grants 67% of asylum cases. According to AAF, “while immigration judges across the country denied 60.6 percent of claims on average, [this judge] denied only 32.2 percent of claims – a staggering difference from the average.” However, whether this judge’s grant rate is unusual depends on many factors, including whether he reviews detained cases (he doesn’t), which have a much higher denial rate than non-detained cases. Because some judges adjudicate many detained cases, they have lower approval rates, which drives down the average. For this reason, most judges who only hear non-detained cases will have an above-average approval rate. In addition, whether a judge’s denial rate represents a “staggering difference from the average” depends on the distribution of grant rates. In this particular IJ’s court, his approval rate is above average, but it is not an outlier (the only outliers are two IJs whose grant rates are less than 6% and one whose grant rate is more than 82%).

Another AAF target is an Associate Counsel at USCIS who, when she was a law student, supposedly “coached asylum seekers on how to perform better in their ‘credible fear’ interviews.” The implication is that this person helped asylum seekers cheat the system, but again, there is zero evidence to support this contention. Law students engage in volunteer work. It happens all the time and it is how they learn to become good lawyers (and good citizens). 

Other targets include: a pro bono coordinator at EOIR, who helped secure attorneys for vulnerable migrants (according to AAF, “When illegal aliens are armed with a cadre of free lawyers, they are able to clog the system with meritless claims”); an ICE officer who has been “working to expand engagement with the community and immigration advocates” (AAF: “Collaborating with left-wing immigration groups cedes the initiative to these groups to continue hampering the important functions that ICE carries out”); and a USCIS attorney whose “sins” were volunteering with a legal aid society three decades ago, and donating $100 to a New York politician (in 1999) who was later convicted of corruption. There’s more, but I think you get the idea.

Finally, of the 60 AAF targets, 38 are women. Put another way, 63.3% of the “targets” are female. Compare that to DHS’s workforce, which is 31.9% female, and to the Justice Department’s workforce, which is 39.3% female. Based on this data, women appear on AAF’s target list at roughly twice the rate we would expect given the two agencies’ employee makeup. As AAF might say, this difference is “staggering,” and I think it’s fair to ask: Why is AAF disproportionately targeting women?

As the new Administration prepares to take charge, it seems they will use every means at their disposal to target non-citizens. Sadly, they have no appreciation for the benefits we as a country receive from asylum, and no compassion for people fleeing persecution. They also have no respect for the dedicated government workers who have devoted their careers to serving our nation and protecting human rights. While I know it will be difficult, I hope that our public servants will remain in their positions. They are one of the few bulwarks left to protect our immigration system and our democracy. 

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2 comments

  1. sounds good!! let trump clean the country from these illegals and fake asylum seekers and may the good ones who deserve it get approved and remain in the country!!! make America secured again!!

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