Over 50 Rights Groups Call on Congress to Establish an Independent Immigration Court

Re: Congress Must Establish an Independent Immigration Court

Dear Member of Congress:

We, the undersigned international, national, state, and local immigration, civil rights, faith-based, government accountability, and labor organizations respectfully call on Congress to establish an immigration court system that is independent of the Department of Justice (DOJ) so that it can guarantee due process and a fair hearing for immigrants.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which manages the Immigration Court and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), is currently housed under DOJ. While trial-level immigration prosecutors are housed under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Attorney General supervises the Office of Immigration Litigation (OIL) which defends immigration cases on behalf of the government in the circuit courts of appeals. This inherent conflict of interest is made worse by the fact that immigration judges are considered merely government attorneys, a classification that fails to recognize the significance of their judicial duties and put them at the whims of the Attorney General.

For years we have seen the detrimental effects of these politicized courts. Administrations have repeatedly made policy decisions not because they’re efficient or legally sound, but because they’re politically expedient. For example, in an attempt to achieve policy goals, administrations have manipulated and shuffled the court dockets to prioritize certain cases, moving cases to the back of the line and further growing the already enormous case backlog. For a long time, the courts were also drastically under-resourced due to DOJ hiring freezes and competing funding priorities. The immigration courts now face crisis-level backlogs of over one million cases.[i]

While the immigration courts have been plagued by systemic problems for a long time, the Trump administration has severely and irreparably undermined due process for the sole purpose of accelerating deportations. For example, DOJ imposed case-completion quotas, tying judges’ individual performance reviews to the number of cases they complete.[ii] A strict timeframe for case completion interferes with a person’s right to examine and present evidence, as well as to provide adequate time to find an attorney, secure expert witnesses, and obtain evidence from overseas. This kind of rushed, assembly-line justice is unacceptable to impose on judges who are making important, often life-or-death, decisions.[iii]

The Trump administration has also weaponized the certification authority, which allows the Attorney General to render precedent-setting immigration decisions.[iv] Under the previous administration, Attorneys General employed this power only four times over the course of eight years.[v] By contrast, the Trump administration has already certified twelve cases, with Attorneys General issuing precedent decisions that strike at the heart of a respondent’s ability to have a full and fair hearing.[vi] Certification decisions have also taken aim at asylum-seekers, attempting to prevent people fleeing domestic violence and gang-based persecution from qualifying for asylum; permitting judges to deny hearings to asylum seekers without conducting a full evidentiary hearing; and limiting bond for asylum seekers.[vii]

We can no longer afford to have a system that can be so easily manipulated. We respectfully ask that Congress establish an independent court system that would restore due process and judicial independence. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Laura Lynch (llynch@aila.org, 202-507-7627).

Sincerely,