A View from the Bench

Hon. Denise Noonan Slavin & Hon. Dorothy Harbeck, The Federal Lawyer, Oct/Nov 2016- "What is the view from the immigration court bench? Frankly, it is difficult to see anything because there are so many cases! As of January 2016 there were 474,025 cases pending with the U.S. immigration courts. With about 250 immigration judges who hear cases nationwide, each judge has an average caseload of about 1,900 pending cases. This number is not likely to get better anytime soon. The immigration courts have been under-resourced for well over a decade. ... None of the changes proposed here will be lasting unless we change the structure of the immigration court. Pouring more resources into the court would be akin to putting more gas in a car with a leaking gas tank. More resources will provide a momentary cure, but adding more resources will not address the problem with how we got to the point we lacked the necessary resources in the first place. More importantly, as the Federal Bar Association’s own Tara Lundstrom put it, “Money can’t buy fairness.” The current placement of the immigration court within a federal law enforcement agency does not allow for adequate resourcing or a transparent and fair complaint and evaluation process — but even worse, the law enforcement mission of the DOJ cannot be reconciled with the immigration court’s mission “to adjudicate immigration cases in a careful and timely manner … while ensuring the standards of due process and fair treatment for all parties involved.” Simply stated, the law enforcement mission of the DOJ is detrimental to judicial independence."