The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the Lawyers

by Jason Dzubow

Late last Friday evening, the Trump Administration issued an Executive Order targeting lawyers–and specifically immigration lawyers–who “engage in actions that violate the laws of the United States or rules governing attorney conduct.” The order is part of a broader push by the Administration to target law firms that stand in the way of its agenda, and is aimed at intimidating attorneys and preventing us from doing our jobs. 

What effect will this EO have on the legal profession, and how will it affect immigrants and asylum seekers?

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Trump Administration to Asylum Officers and IJs: Go Faster!

by Jason Dzubow

By now, you’ve probably heard that the Trump Administration is not a fan of immigrants. They have been making changes to detain and deport more non-citizens, more quickly, and with fewer due process protections. To that end, the Administration is pressuring Asylum Officers and Immigration Judges to adjudicate more cases. These civil servants are already stretched thin, and so the additional work is likely to reduce decision quality, as well as damage morale. It will also make litigating cases more difficult for asylum seekers and other non-citizens, as they will have less time to present their cases, and–most probably–less time to prepare.

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“Massacre” at the BIA Portends Bigger Changes at EOIR

by Jason Dzubow

Last week, 13 of 28 members of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) were purged. Those targeted include appellate judges appointed by the Biden Administration, some of whom were still on probation (BIA judges have a two-year probationary period) and others who had completed their probation. The firings, which go into effect next month, seem not to have complied with proper legal procedures, and are likely to be challenged in court by at least some of the terminated judges.  

Having talked with people on the inside, this mass firing sounds like it is only the beginning. I’m told that the Trump Administration plans to radically re-make the Immigration Court system in order to dramatically reduce due process protections for non-citizens.

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Let the Purge Begin

by Jason Dzubow

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.  (more…)

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Testifying in Immigration Court

by Jason Dzubow

For asylum seekers in Immigration Court, the Individual Hearing is where they tell their story to the judge and get a decision. Even with a kind Immigration Judge (IJ) and a reasonable DHS Attorney (prosecutor), testifying in court can be intimidating and stressful. Here, we’ll talk about the Individual Hearing and what is expected from respondents (non-citizens seeking protection) and witnesses.

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The Asylum Office Is Not Working – It’s Time to Try Something New

by Jason Dzubow

There’s a scene in the iconic 1994 movie Clerks where Dante Hicks says to his friend and fellow slacker Randall Graves: “You hate people!” Randall responds, “Yes, but I love social gatherings–isn’t it ironic?” This is basically the opposite of my feelings towards the Asylum Office. The people are (mostly) great, but the organization is a disaster. Interviews are routinely delayed for years on end, decisions are delayed for months or years after that. The Asylum Offices rarely give sufficient notice before the interview, so there is little time to prepare, and the interviews themselves are often inefficient and interminably long.

In a recent post, I discussed Faiza W. Sayed’s bold ideas for reforming the Asylum Office and reducing the backlog (which currently stands at well over 1.3 million cases). But the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the Asylum Office cannot be saved. It should be eliminated. (more…)

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Breaking Down the 2023 Immigration Court Data

by Jason Dzubow

Data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review–the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts–is notoriously unreliable. Nevertheless, we have to use what’s available. In that spirit, let’s take a look at EOIR’s statistics for Fiscal Year 2023 (which cover the period from October 1, 2022 to September 30, 2023) and see what we can learn. (more…)

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The Immigrant’s Thanksgiving (Some Reasons to Be Thankful)

by Jason Dzubow

Thanksgiving is the immigrant holiday because it is a day to remember and celebrate new arrivals in a new land, and friendship between immigrants and indigenous people. It is also the anti-immigrant holiday, since things did not end too well for the indigenous people in the original T-Day story.

These days, though, we need to take our good news where we can get it, and so in that spirit, I want to focus on the positives of Thanksgiving. In particular, I’d like to discuss some reasons for asylum seekers to be thankful. And yes, there are a few. (more…)

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Asylum Data from Immigration Court Raises More Questions Than It Answers

by Jason Dzubow

The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the organization that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts, has released new data about asylum grant rates by country of origin. While EOIR deserves credit for trying to be more transparent, it is difficult to know what to make of these numbers. They are confusing, poorly organized, and–for lack of a better word–strange.

Here, we’ll take a look at the data and try to parse some meaning from EOIR’s madness. (more…)

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The Difference (or Lack Thereof) Between “Democratic” and “Republican” Immigration Judges

by Jason Dzubow

Question: Who do you think is more likely to deny an asylum case, an Immigration Judge appointed by a Republican president or an Immigration Judge appointed by a Democratic president?

As far as I can tell, no one has ever researched this question before; so our team of statisticians here at The Asylumist spent the last few months crunching the numbers, and we now have our answer. If you’re like me, you might find their conclusion a bit surprising. (more…)

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Another Dumb Idea from EOIR

by Jason Dzubow

Here’s one thing that seems clear about the management at EOIR–the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts–no one who works there has ever represented a noncitizen in Immigration Court. How do I know? If the leadership at EOIR had any experience in court or with clients, they would not be implementing so many misguided, destructive, and ineffective policies that are doing great harm to immigrants, their attorneys, and even to DHS attorneys (the prosecutors in court).

The latest dumb idea involves an effort to administratively close cases where the respondent (the noncitizen in Immigration Court) may have some temporary or permanent relief available from USCIS. (more…)

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Due Process Disaster in Immigration Court

by Jason Dzubow

It is not easy to convey the magnitude of the ongoing disaster at EOIR, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts. Simply stated, the agency is rescheduling and advancing hundreds–maybe thousands–of cases without notifying attorneys, checking whether we are available to attend the hearings or checking whether we have the capacity to complete the cases.

On its face, this appears to be a mere scheduling problem. But in effect, it is a vicious and unprecedented assault on immigrants, their attorneys, and due process of law. (more…)

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Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Court

by Jason Dzubow

The Department of Homeland Security (the prosecutor in Immigration Court) has been implementing new rules related to its “enforcement priorities.” These rules apply to people who have cases pending in Immigration Court, meaning that the U.S. government is trying to deport them. Not surprisingly, the government wants to deport some people more than others. Under the new rules, cases that are not a priority for removal may be dismissed as a matter of prosecutorial discretion or PD. When that happens, the government has stopped the removal/deportation process and the noncitizen is able to remain in the United States.

Here, we’ll talk about who might qualify for PD, the different types of PD, and how to request PD from DHS. (more…)

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Ten Suggestions for David Neal, the New EOIR Director

by Jason Dzubow

On September 24, 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that David Neal would take over as Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”), the organization that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”).

Director Neal was Chairman of the BIA, from 2009 to 2019, when he was apparently forced out by the Trump Administration. Mr. Neal also served as Vice Chairman of the BIA, Chief Immigration Judge, Assistant Chief Immigration Judge, Immigration Judge (“IJ”), and Assistant to the Director. Indeed, he comes to the Directorship with probably more and diverse EOIR experience than any prior director. To top it off, he has a Master of Divinity from Harvard University (and of course a JD, but those are a dime a dozen).

The new Director will certainly need to draw on his past experience–and possibly seek divine intervention–as the agency he is now helming is a real mess. Currently, there are more than 1.4 million cases in the Immigration Court backlog. I have not found recent data on the BIA backlog, but in April 2020, it stood at 70,183 cases. To address the court backlog, EOIR is staffing up–from 535 judges to a projected 734 by the end of the current fiscal year (September 30, 2022). We are also seeing an increase in online and training resources for respondents (noncitizens in immigration proceedings) and practitioners.

Even during his short tenure, Director Neal has begun to take some positive steps. Aside from the new resources, EOIR has ended case completion quotas for Immigration Judge and also signaled a willingness to work with the National Association of Immigration Judges (the judges’ union), which the prior Administration had tried to de-certify.

These are encouraging signs, and hopefully we will also start to see improvements related more directly to respondents’ cases in Immigration Court and the BIA. Luckily for David Neal, I am here to offer my own suggestions (and who doesn’t love unsolicited advice?). These are my ten great ideas for EOIR– (more…)

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Chaos in Court

by Jason Dzubow

A few months ago, I wrote that what applicants and lawyers need from the Biden Administration is predictability. Unless we know what to expect from “the system” and when to expect it, people cannot properly prepare their cases or have them fairly adjudicated. Unfortunately, what we have been seeing recently is the opposite of predictability–it is chaos, at least at the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR – the agency that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts). Here, I will offer a few pieces of evidence in support of this proposition–

Exhibit A: The Immigration Court (or lack thereof) in York, PA

The Immigration Court in York, PA is located inside the York County Prison, which houses ICE detainees. After recent negotiations between the feds and the county failed to produce an agreement, ICE announced that all its detainees would be transferred to other facilities by August 12. With immigrant detainees set to leave York, EOIR informed court staff on June 30 that the Immigration Court would close by late July, and that all staff needed to take assignments at other courts (often in distant locations) or find new jobs. Besides being disruptive and demoralizing for EOIR staff (many of whom have been working in York for years, and have their homes and families there), the abrupt decision to close the court has left noncitizen detainees isolated from their families and their lawyers, and will make preparing their cases even more difficult. (more…)

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