Exclusive - Immigration judges headed to 12 U.S. cities to speed deportations

[rooster59]

Exclusive - Immigration judges headed to 12 U.S. cities to speed deportations

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

 

FILE PHOTO:A man, who was deported from the U.S. seven months ago, receives candy from his nephew across a fence separating Mexico and the United States as photographed from Tijuana, Mexico, March 4, 2017. Picture taken from the Mexican side of the border. REUTERS/Jorge Duenes/Files

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is developing plans to temporarily reassign immigration judges from around the country to 12 cities to speed up deportations of illegal immigrants who have been charged with crimes, according to two administration officials.

How many judges will be reassigned and when they will be sent is still under review, according to the officials, but the Justice Department has begun soliciting volunteers for deployment.

The targeted cities are New York; Los Angeles; Miami; New Orleans; San Francisco; Baltimore, Bloomington, Minnesota; El Paso, Texas; Harlingen, Texas; Imperial, California; Omaha, Nebraska and Phoenix, Arizona. They were chosen because they are cities which have high populations of illegal immigrants with criminal charges, the officials said.

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department's Executive Office of Immigration Review, which administers immigration courts, confirmed that the cities have been identified as likely recipients of reassigned immigration judges, but did not elaborate on the planning.

The plan to intensify deportations is in line with a vow made frequently by President Donald Trump on the campaign trail last year to deport more illegal immigrants involved in crime.

The Department of Homeland Security asked for the judges' reshuffle, an unusual move given that immigration courts are administered by the Department of Justice. A Homeland Security spokeswoman declined to comment on any plan that has not yet been finalised.

Under an executive order signed by Trump in January, illegal immigrants with pending criminal cases are regarded as priorities for deportation whether they have been found guilty or not.

That is a departure from former President Barack Obama's policy, which prioritised deportations only of those convicted of serious crimes.

The policy shift has been criticized by advocate groups who say it unfairly targets immigrants who might ultimately be acquitted and do not pose a threat.

The cities slated to receive more judges have more than half of the 18,013 pending immigration cases that involve undocumented immigrants facing or convicted of criminal charges, according to data provided by the Justice Department's Executive Office of Immigration Review.

More than 200 of those cases involve immigrants currently incarcerated, meaning that the others have either not been convicted or have served their sentence. The Justice Department did not provide a breakdown of how many of the remainder have been convicted and how many are awaiting trial.

As part of the Trump administration crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Justice Department is also sending immigration judges to detention centres along the southwest border. Those temporary redeployments will begin Monday.

'AIMLESS DOCKET RESHUFFLING'

Former immigration judge and chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Schmidt said the Trump administration should not assume that all those charged with crimes would not be allowed to stay in the United States legally.

"It seems they have an assumption that everyone who has committed a crime should be removable, but that's not necessarily true. Even people who have committed serious crimes can sometimes get asylum," Schmidt said.

He also questioned the effectiveness of shuffling immigration judges from one court to another, noting that this will mean cases the judges would have handled in their usual courts will have to be rescheduled. He said that when he was temporarily reassigned to handle cases on the southern border in 2014 and 2015, cases he was slated to hear in his home court in Arlington, Virginia had to be postponed, often for more than a year.

"That's what you call aimless docket reshuffling," he said.

Under the Obama administration, to avoid the expense and disruption of immigration judges travelling, they would often hear proceedings from other courthouses via video conference.

The judges' reshuffling could further logjam a national immigration court system which has more than 540,000 pending cases.

The cities slated to receive more judges have different kinds of immigrant populations.

Imperial, California, for example, is in one of the nation's largest agriculture hubs, attracting large numbers of immigrant farmworkers from Mexico and Central America.

Bloomington, Minnesota, near St. Paul, is home to a large number of African immigrants, many of whom travelled from war-torn countries like Somalia to claim asylum in the United States.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-03-18

[jesimps]

Nothing wrong with prioritising the deportation of those who are there illegally anyway.

No doubt the left will claim that it's racist and some judge or other will stop it.

[keep it real]

respect and abide by the the law and you have nothing to fear in america, break the law and you are dealt with by a country with strong constitutional rights for it's citizens and those accused of crimes as well: nothing racist here boys and girls, don't go there.

 

New buzz term is "nationism", america first, now Britain has engaged it, focus on nationism. Back to normalcy. I'm all for it.

 

Try breaking the immigration rules in thailand and see where that gets you. You'll wish you weren't born!

Edited March 18, 2017 by keep it real

[SpeakeasyThai]

1 hour ago, keep it real said:

respect and abide by the the law and you have nothing to fear in america, break the law and you are dealt with by a country with strong constitutional rights for it's citizens and those accused of crimes as well: nothing racist here boys and girls, don't go there.

 

New buzz term is "nationism", america first, now Britain has engaged it, focus on nationism. Back to normalcy. I'm all for it.

 

Try breaking the immigration rules in thailand and see where that gets you. You'll wish you weren't born!

I agree with the last comment.Thailand is a very racist nation.

[docshock13]

I don't understand this part:

""It seems they have an assumption that everyone who has committed a crime should be removable, but that's not necessarily true. Even people who have committed serious crimes can sometimes get asylum," Schmidt said."

So the rights of an illegal immigrant and violent criminal supercede the rights of law-abiding citizens and victims? 

Sadly, have a similar situation in my home country. 

Our most recently elected PM is a complete idiot. He pledged to take in x number of "refugees" by a certain date just to get elected without ensuring they could be housed, trained and integrated into the workforce. As a result, the govt is stealing money from the defense budget to house "refugees" on Cdn forces bases as well as building mosques on those bases and buying prayer rugs and Korans (among other things). Further, we have young Syrian MEN assaulting Cdn high school students with whom they share classes. Most are not "refugees" as they claim. Most are MALE economic opportunists of military age. Where are the real refugees (e.g. women and children fleeing ISIS?). Pathetic. 

[hdkane]

Most people who are against these immigration policies are pretty blind to the realities of the situation. There is a limited amount of money to care for people in the US.  What liberals do not understand is that when the govt bestows benefits on illegals and the undeserving, money is diverted from other programs that should benefit citizens exclusively.  There are 20 million illegals...and about 2,000 enter every day.  While liberals sweat over the issue of health care, they don't realize the simple fact that the problem would be fixed if the US could expel the illegals.  Canada's PM loves to appear sympathetic and compassionate...but most Canadians don't realize that the refugees taken in are getting substantially more than they typical Canadian retiree.  How compassionate would Canadians be if their acceptance of refugees and illegals begins to actually hurt their elderly citizens?  The US is at that point.  But liberals effectively end the discussion and real solutions by shouting "racist". Liberalism will eventually devour itself because of such stupidity.  

[Tawan Dok Krating Daeng]

3 hours ago, hdkane said:

Most people who are against these immigration policies are pretty blind to the realities of the situation. There is a limited amount of money to care for people in the US.  What liberals do not understand is that when the govt bestows benefits on illegals and the undeserving, money is diverted from other programs that should benefit citizens exclusively.  There are 20 million illegals...and about 2,000 enter every day.  While liberals sweat over the issue of health care, they don't realize the simple fact that the problem would be fixed if the US could expel the illegals.  Canada's PM loves to appear sympathetic and compassionate...but most Canadians don't realize that the refugees taken in are getting substantially more than they typical Canadian retiree.  How compassionate would Canadians be if their acceptance of refugees and illegals begins to actually hurt their elderly citizens?  The US is at that point.  But liberals effectively end the discussion and real solutions by shouting "racist". Liberalism will eventually devour itself because of such stupidity.  

 

Anti-immigrant bigots just keep on trying to feed us alternative facts and straight out lies.

 

Public finance does not work they way your fevered imagination believes. What monies and how much are being diverted? From what programs specifically? What is the correlation between healthcare funding and immigration?

 

We are supposed to treat these nonsense claims seriously? It is a verifiable fact that all studies on the issue conclude that immigration provides an economic net benefit to the host country. All of them. All the superficial, economically illiterate and fact free rants about immigrants taking away other people's benefits are voided by the simple and clearly established fact that immigration benefits the host country.

 

There were 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. in 2014, a total unchanged from 2009

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/03/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/

 

How did that become 20 million? Or is it ok to just make stuff up to spread you nonsense?

[biggles45]

"? It is a verifiable fact that all studies on the issue conclude that immigration provides an economic net benefit to the host country."

 

I am willing to bet that these studies were all done by groups that had a definite agenda to increase/maintain immigration numbers. In many areas in the western world 70% of "refugees" are still unemployed and on welfare years after their entry. Many have little education, speak very little of the language of their adopted country and are pretty much unemployable. Perhaps their children will have better prospects, but at what a cost to the country. 

[sirineou]

For years while we needed their services  we benefited from their low wage labor.

We covertly invited them here with a wink a nod.

They made lives here many of them with children who have never known any country other than the US.

If their behavior was illegal wouldn't also those who benefited by said "illegal" behavior be also culpable .

If they are to be punished for their illegal behavior what should our collective punishment be  ?

Remember it takes two to tango.

[Scott]

On 3/18/2017 at 7:00 PM, docshock13 said:

I don't understand this part:

""It seems they have an assumption that everyone who has committed a crime should be removable, but that's not necessarily true. Even people who have committed serious crimes can sometimes get asylum," Schmidt said."

So the rights of an illegal immigrant and violent criminal supercede the rights of law-abiding citizens and victims? 

Sadly, have a similar situation in my home country. 

Our most recently elected PM is a complete idiot. He pledged to take in x number of "refugees" by a certain date just to get elected without ensuring they could be housed, trained and integrated into the workforce. As a result, the govt is stealing money from the defense budget to house "refugees" on Cdn forces bases as well as building mosques on those bases and buying prayer rugs and Korans (among other things). Further, we have young Syrian MEN assaulting Cdn high school students with whom they share classes. Most are not "refugees" as they claim. Most are MALE economic opportunists of military age. Where are the real refugees (e.g. women and children fleeing ISIS?). Pathetic. 

 

 

Here's the portion of your post where things start to go wrong in a discussion:

 

So the rights of an illegal immigrant and violent criminal supercede the rights of law-abiding citizens and victims? 

 

The judge made no such comment about violent criminals.   His reference was to serious crimes.  

 

The immigration judges are hardly raging liberals.   They deal with the legal aspects of people who have broken a variety of laws/rules/regulations and how to deal with them.   Some people cannot be deported because the home country won't take them.   Some won't be deported until after they have served a sentence for a crime and some, as stated, but rarely, might be eligible for asylum based on other factors.  

 

When a person is serving time in jail or prison for a serious, felony offense, then the court has to get the order to hold them or to deport them before the time served is up.   If they do not, the person usually needs to be released and re-arrested on the immigration charge.  

 

If they want to speed up the removal process, then they are going to have to assign more judges, I would think.  

 

 

[Tawan Dok Krating Daeng]

7 hours ago, biggles45 said:

"? It is a verifiable fact that all studies on the issue conclude that immigration provides an economic net benefit to the host country."

 

I am willing to bet that these studies were all done by groups that had a definite agenda to increase/maintain immigration numbers. In many areas in the western world 70% of "refugees" are still unemployed and on welfare years after their entry. Many have little education, speak very little of the language of their adopted country and are pretty much unemployable. Perhaps their children will have better prospects, but at what a cost to the country. 

 

 

Economists generally agree that the effects of immigration on the U.S. economy are broadly positive

http://www.budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2016/1/27/the-effects-of-immigration-on-the-united-states-economy

 

One study that looks at the impact of migration on economic growth for 22 OECD countries between 1986 and 2006 demonstrates a positive but fairly small impact of the human capital brought by migrants on economic growth. 

https://www.oecd.org/migration/OECD Migration Policy Debates Numero 2.pdf

 

The available evidence suggests that the economic benefits from immigration are relatively small, on the order of $7 billion, and almost certainly less than $25 billion, annually. 

http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic803549.files/Week 5-October 6/borjas_economic.pdf

 

Wharton, OECD and Harvard do not have a pro-immigration agenda.

 

Since I provided examples of studies that back up my statement, perhaps you will provide some evidence of your claim that 70% of refugees are unemployed and unemployable.

[stander]

It's a revolving door. Once the wall goes up, it's time for some new rules:

1) Country of origin pays for costs of incarcerating convicts, directly or by punitive tariff;

2) Deportation after serving full sentence with a large bond paid for the same way as in 1.

[Blindedbythelight]

57 minutes ago, stander said:

It's a revolving door. Once the wall goes up, it's time for some new rules:

1) Country of origin pays for costs of incarcerating convicts, directly or by punitive tariff;

2) Deportation after serving full sentence with a large bond paid for the same way as in 1.

Whatever country the illegal people come from, should pay all costs for the arrest, transport, deportation to the original country. If the country does not agree to the terms. Trump will drop a small nuclear bomb on that countries, alcohol factory.

[mrwebb8825]

On 3/19/2017 at 11:05 AM, Tawan Dok Krating Daeng said:

 

Anti-immigrant bigots just keep on trying to feed us alternative facts and straight out lies.

 

Public finance does not work they way your fevered imagination believes. What monies and how much are being diverted? From what programs specifically? What is the correlation between healthcare funding and immigration?

 

We are supposed to treat these nonsense claims seriously? It is a verifiable fact that all studies on the issue conclude that immigration provides an economic net benefit to the host country. All of them. All the superficial, economically illiterate and fact free rants about immigrants taking away other people's benefits are voided by the simple and clearly established fact that immigration benefits the host country.

 

There were 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. in 2014, a total unchanged from 2009

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/03/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/

 

How did that become 20 million? Or is it ok to just make stuff up to spread you nonsense?

"The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a conservative advocacy group that favors tighter immigration laws, argues that the answer is clear: illegal aliens cost U.S. taxpayers more than $100 billion each year."

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/illegal-immigrants-cost-us-100-billion-year-group/story?id=10699317        

 

or is ABC a biased media group in your opinion?

Edited March 20, 2017 by mrwebb8825

[ilostmypassword]

6 minutes ago, mrwebb8825 said:

"The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a conservative advocacy group that favors tighter immigration laws, argues that the answer is clear: illegal aliens cost U.S. taxpayers more than $100 billion each year."

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/illegal-immigrants-cost-us-100-billion-year-group/story?id=10699317        

 

or is ABC a biased media group in your opinion?

No, but FAIR definitely is.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/01/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-illegal-immigration-costs-113-bi/

 

[stander]

Philadelphia's Largest Cinco de Mayo Celebration Canceled in Fear of Immigration Crackdown..................A target rich environment for ICE!

 

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Philadelphias-Largest-Cinco-de-Mayo-Celebration-Cancelled-in-Fear-of-Immigration-Crackdown-416456053.html

[Tawan Dok Krating Daeng]

5 hours ago, mrwebb8825 said:

"The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a conservative advocacy group that favors tighter immigration laws, argues that the answer is clear: illegal aliens cost U.S. taxpayers more than $100 billion each year."

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/illegal-immigrants-cost-us-100-billion-year-group/story?id=10699317        

 

or is ABC a biased media group in your opinion?

 

The ABC network did not prepare the analysis. It merely reported on it. You do realize the difference?

 

When you find an objective analysis of the economic impact of immigration that does not demonstrate positive impacts, then please post a link. I have no interest in anti-immigrant propaganda.

[stander]

This is ICE's first report but I think we will finally start getting some truthful stats on illegal alien crime in the US.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/dhs-releases-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-declined-detainer-outcome-report

[ilostmypassword]

8 minutes ago, stander said:

This is ICE's first report but I think we will finally start getting some truthful stats on illegal alien crime in the US.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/dhs-releases-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-declined-detainer-outcome-report

The previous ones clearly being dishonest because they don't support your prejudices.

https://www.cato.org/blog/immigration-myths-crime-number-illegal-immigrants

[55Jay]

I followed the link in Post#7.  From that one I clicked another, and then another to arrive at Pew's methodology for the 11 million data point used with so much authority.  Not saying HDKane didn't pull 20 million out of his butt or off Fox "News", but acting like pompous arse based on an estimate of an estimate, is roughly the same thing.   Just because it has "PEW" at the top of the page doesn't make it sacred text.  http://www.pewhispanic.org/2016/09/20/methodology-10/

 

And this is not about illegals in the US.  They are illegal.  Period.   End of.

 

This is about dealing with a portion of that illegal demographic who are criminals and more to the point, are in the legal system for committing crimes. 

 

Chucking them out with a porous border doesn't make a lot of sense though.

 

 

Edited March 22, 2017 by 55Jay

[craigt3365]

5 hours ago, stander said:

This is ICE's first report but I think we will finally start getting some truthful stats on illegal alien crime in the US.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/dhs-releases-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-declined-detainer-outcome-report

Their reporting now is no different than in the past.  Stats are not easy to come up with.  But they do their best.  Just don't listen to Trump.  There are not 1 million illegal immigrants in the US waiting to rape and pillage the country! LOL