The Trump administration is effectively declaring that the nation’s roughly 700 immigration judges can no longer count on civil service rules that safeguard their independence by protecting them from arbitrary removal, according to a Department of Justice memo that was sent to the judges. The memo from DOJ—which oversees the immigration courts—was flagged for me by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, or IFPTE, the judges’ union, which believes this will make it far easier to fire judges without cause.
The judges and their representatives fear that this is designed to pave the way for the removal of judges who don’t consistently rule against migrants in deportation and asylum cases—and thus frustrate Trump and his hard-line immigration advisers. Replacing them with judges who will more reliably rule against migrants could theoretically speed up the pace of deportations.
“What they want to do is fire immigration judges that don’t issue rulings to their liking,” said Matthew Biggs, the president of IFPTE, “and replace them with judges that will simply rubber-stamp what President Trump wants.”
This represents a serious escalation of Trump’s assault on the immigration system. Last month, DOJ fired 20 immigration judges with no public rationale; those were largely probationary officials. Then, last week, DOJ let it be known that it will no longer observe restrictions that constrain the removal of administrative law judges, a category that decides federal government agency cases and doesn’t include most immigration judges.
But now, DOJ is signaling that it will disregard restrictions on removal for the broad category of immigration judges as well, according to the DOJ memo, which was addressed to all employees of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, the agency within the DOJ that oversees the immigration courts. The memo acknowledges that under current law, these judges benefit from “multiple layers of for-cause removal restrictions,” meaning they can’t be fired at will. But it adds that EOIR “may decline to recognize those restrictions if they are determined to be unconstitutional.”
Translated into plain English, this means that if restrictions on removing immigration judges are “determined” by the DOJ to be unconstitutional, they will no longer apply, immigration lawyers say. It’s only a matter of time until this “determination” is made.
I am sure it is very smart and not at all inviting trouble to piss off 700 people with deep knowledge of the law. You will surely not regret pissing off 700 people with deep knowledge of the law.
Whoops, all fascism.
Can a judge or someone in power order the arrest of Donald for being a traitor, this is 100% treason and the law demands for him to be convicted.
No, because the president is immune.
Immune to prosecution, but not to Italian plumbers.
“I am eating this baby on live television as an official act as president. It’s going to make for great TV.” - Trump, next week, probably
His approval ratings would go up too
They’d say it must be an immigrant baby because it can’t speak English. And they’d cheer.
or someone in power
The people hold far more power than a judge or single government can.
There’s no “adultier adult” to come save us this time.
This.
Everyone seems to be waiting for someone else to come in and fix things. That isn’t going to happen. The American public has to get up and take to the streets to fix this. It’s time for patriots to stand up and do the right thing.
Can’t wait till they just go fuck this and go straight to the disappearing
Remember that these immigration courts are in a separate system than the other US courts. Immigration courts are wholly within the Department of Justice, an agency overseen by the President, and not part of the separate Judicial branch of the government.
While Presidents normally operate the Executive Branch in service of the people, Trump operates it on his own whims. He views it as a corporation, with himself as the only important decision-maker. So he doesn’t understand why these people, who technically report to him through the organization chart, don’t just do everything he tells them to.
While Presidents normally operate the Executive Branch in service of the people
Not in my lifetime they really haven’t, but that is the way it should be
No, it has been. There hss just been disagreement on who is considered “the people”.
No, it has been. There hss just been disagreement on who is considered “
thepeople”.
If people are still confused why Dem turnout is so low…
It’s because Republicans fight and do shit like this, but for four years Biden kept saying a president has zero control over the government.
When one side continuously refuses to take any action, their voters either stop believing they’ll help, or even worse, they fall for it and then don’t think the president matters. Both of which drastically hurt turnout.
The presidency is important and powerful.
We need to elect Dems that want to do something with that power once elected if we want Dem voters to turnout and vote.
You’re missing important factors like Trump getting help from SCOTUS and agency heads bowing down to him. Biden would never have been allowed to do a fraction of this because none of it would’ve reached the enforcement stage
like Trump getting help from SCOTUS
And he can do that because when McTurtle stole Obama’s last SC seat, the DNC and dem establishment let it happen so that could be used as a reason for people to vote for Hillary…
This is entirely the point I was making.
Republicans fight, no matter what.
Dem establishment sees that and goes:
Oooooih boy, everyone better vote for me now so that doesn’t happen…
But they don’t seem to care if it actually happens or not, and if they win they’ll take no action to solve the problem, because in four years they’ll get to use it as another stick to convince people neoliberals are worth voting for.
If we ran someone who fought for the people, we’d stop having to worry about what Republicans did when they were in control, because Dems would stop losing easy elections.
Does that make sense?
They’ve been creating chaos because the only time a neoliberal seems like a good idea is if the only other option is chaos. It’s in their best (selfish) interest to never actually fix anything, especially since that’s why they get a lot of their campaign cash.
How were they supposed to override the “turtle” though? Sure they should’ve fought harder, but what legal options were there?
How were they supposed to override the “turtle” though?
By saying the truth…
That the Senate has an opportunity to vote on SC picks, but that nowhere does it say it needs to happen.
So refusal to hold a vote means implicit approval of the selection.
This was widely talked about at the time, but I understand not everyone was politically active back then, and I’d like to take the opportunity to thank you for paying attention now and asking questions
even if he could he would lose the votes of people like me who want a democracy. I would not be ok with this. So if they could they could get the votes of the ultra left that is left the way the ultra right is right now. which is not at all. and of course they would not because that group always said some new litmus test is not met and would still not vote because of it. but folks like me who want a nice functional social democracy and vote every election. to get folks like me you have to work to have a functional social democracy not the other side of the facist coin.
That comment kind of rambles around…
But I’m not saying Biden should have destroyed the federal government first.
I’m saying when Biden spent four years saying the president has no power over agencies, it was dangerous because that made people think trump as president wouldn’t be bad.
It’s not just that we wasted four years, it’s that those four years made people think the president is powerless, which allowed trump to become president again.
Again though its not just something to say. The independence of agencies is an important part of how our government functions and doing things like trump is unacceptable to me. Its just goofy to encourage that as a solution.
The independence of agencies is an important part of how our government functions and doing things like trump is unacceptable to me.
trump is threatening to replace agency heads who don’t comply…
That’s how Biden got every federal agency to return to office 2 days a week.
So…
Were you just not informed that Biden did what you’re now saying is unacceptable?
My issue is he just wouldn’t do it for things Dem voters wanted, only for things Republican politicians were complaining about.
Because I have a feeling you’re about to say that was ok when Biden did it…
He should not have. It is best for the agencies to make that call. heck its best for places to make that call at the lowest level and then be responsible for their output. Like teams. Trump is not just threatening though. He is flat out tearing it apart and putting in political apointees. Like the pressroom stuff it is things that were fixed in the past to avoid abuses of power. At some point someone says biden saying he has no power over agencies. Thats was just a stupid thing to say. Biden and all presidents run the agencies and have significant power over them. But the civil service has rights as well. They can replace people, especially agency heads, but are expected not to in a haphazard way in order to not destabilize the country. If every agency head had pushed back at biden he would have backed down because replacing every head would be unacceptable. But if only one or even a few had resisted they might have been replaced because that would have been acceptable. You are comparing the scaple with the axe and its just not the same.
Trump is not just threatening though. He is flat out tearing it apart and putting in political apointees.
So you think what makes Biden better, is he wouldn’t have went thru with it?
Or that he didn’t apply the same pressure to the FBI on Trump’s investigation, even tho that lack of pressure led to trump receiving zero consequences and becoming president again?
Even if you used paragraphs, I don’t think I’d have read all that. There’s no consistent logic, so I can’t use logic to help you, and that’s kind of my whole bag…
It’s because Republicans fight and do shit like this, but for four years Biden kept saying a president has zero control over the government.
This really can’t be repeated often enough, the last four years was such a wasted opportunity for everyone outside of the wealthy companies that got climate money and CHIPS act money and other pork barrel crap. If doing that corrupt bullshit is the only way we get infrastructure and semiconductors then whatever, I’ll live with it, but pursuing that crap while ignoring the Republican threat was like baking a cake while the kitchen’s on fire.
people like me who do vote democrat would not if they acted like this. See I like democracy and don’t want facism from either side. So folks like me demand they fix the system from within the system.
and don’t want facism from either side.
I don’t think you know what fascism means…
So folks like me demand they fix the system from within the system.
That’s what I’m complaining Biden didn’t do…
It sounds to me like you were saying biden should use trumps way of doing things like clearing house or whatnot. I really don’t get your complaint then because biden did a lot within the system. It takes congress to repeal the patriot act or citizen united or fisa. Now that ball was dropped when someone says biden or the democrats dropped the ball im like bullshit but if someone actually talks about the specific things that have fucked us like those laws then, yeah, that means something. Are most democrats not working to fix those. yes. are some working to fix those. yes. are any republicans working to fi those. sorta. like one or two although I think they might have been libertarians.
I like to say they enjoy playing golf with the leopards.
It’s all fun and games until they eat your constituents’ faces. Then it’s back to fun and games.
Geez I hope some kind of Lee Harvey doesn’t show up.
