Quota system for immigration judges
In an effort to implement a more efficient and effective management of cases pending before the immigration courts, the Executive Office of Immigration Review recently rolled out a memo that starting on October 1 of this year, immigration judges are to be evaluated based on the number of cases they could complete. Under the new guidelines, judges would have to complete 700 cases a year in order to be rated as satisfactory with fewer than 15 percent of their cases sent back by the Board of Immigration Appeals or the federal courts. Other metrics include setting a specific deadline for individual hearings to be concluded.
It must be borne in mind that unlike the regular judicial courts, immigration courts are under the authority of the Department of Justice. Thus, the DOJ, through the Attorney General, can issue and impose regulations over immigration courts that may appear to be in line with the present administration's overall policy on immigration. However, immigration judges are still bestowed with independence and judicial discretion in interpreting immigration law and applying it in individual cases before them. But the arrangement of a supposedly independent immigration court being under the authority of a law enforcement agency such as the DOJ, with the latter having the power to make rules such as this new quota system that could affect the jobs and livelihood of immigration court judges, seems to be quite odd. This quota memo only serves to increase more appeals resulting in further delays if either or both parties (the government attorney or the respondent) feel that their cases were only decided because the immigration judge had to reach his quota or that the immigration judge had to save his own job rather than deciding the case based on its merits.
I have been practicing before the immigration court and I have nothing but utmost respect and admiration for the court personnel and the immigration judges I deal with. These are the most professional, fair-minded and independent officers of the court that you can find and I have been fortunate enough to have my clients' cases under them. I am confident that with or without the quota system, cases before them are decided based purely on the application of law on a given set of facts and circumstances. And I am hopeful that in all the other immigration courts, they do the same as well. I just think that this quota system is unnecessary and to some extent only invites a cloud of doubt over how our immigration courts dispense justice.
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