Litigation

?Credibility? of Immigration Courts at Stake?

By Peter Hardin

Newly published media reports continue to highlight an important study done for the American Bar Association about the nation’s immigration courts, and the crushing overload and shortcomings they face.

In the Palm Beach Post, the author of a commentary quoted Marisol Zequiera, an immigration lawyer, as underscoring questions raised in the report:

“At stake here is the credibility of the courts…If they don’t have independence and neutrality, then there’s no reason to believe they can deliver justice.”

The commentary author, Dan Moffett, raised another concern for policy-makers after reviewing the study. He wrote, “Immigration politics trump immigration justice too many times.”

A detailed article by IPS News spotlighted the study’s conclusion that the current deportation system “is severely flawed and fails to afford fair process to all non-citizens facing deportation from the United States.” The article sought to alert readers about the dramatic changes, and burdens, facing the system:

“The number of people deported from the U.S. annually has grown from just over 69,000 to over 356,000 in the past eight years, while resource-starved immigration judges issue decisions without sufficient time to conduct legal research and analyse the complex cases they are asked to decide.”

The bar association voted in support of the idea of creating a new, independent court system to replace the one that now is a part of the U.S. Justice Department. You can learn more by clicking on Gavel Grab.

Full post as published by The Gavel on February 16, 2010 (boomark / email).