Barr Adds 3 New Hardliners to BIA

EOIR, Aug. 7, 2020

"The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) today announced the appointment of Michael P. Baird, Sunita B. Mahtabfar, and Sirce E. Owen as appellate immigration judges in EOIR’s Board of Immigration Appeals. Biographical information follows..."

[Former BIA Chairman Paul W. Schmidt, who knows whereof he speaks, says:

"Here’s what you really need to know about these so-called “judges.”

Baird – Asylum denial rate 91.4% (74th highest of 456 ranked)

Mahtabfar – Asylum denial rate 98.7 (8th highest of 456 ranked – but remember the 7 worse “judges” are probably already on the BIA)

Owen – Didn’t deny enough asylum to make the TRAC charts. Served mostly as a prosecutor and “management judge” (A/K/A “JINO” or “Judge In Name Only”). But rest assured – she hails from the Atlanta Immigration “Court” – deemed an “Asylum Free Zone” in “a petition filed before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).” https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/these-jurisdictions-have-become-asylum-free-zones/ 

As my Round Table colleague Judge Jeffrey S. Chase summed it up: “Under [EOIR Director James] McHenry, a “liberal” is defined as one whose asylum denial rate is lower than their body temperature.”]