Trump's DOJ Hands Out New Guidelines Putting Immigration Judges on Notice
The Department of Justice is going to start evaluating immigration judges based on how quickly they are able to close cases, The Wall Street Journal reported.
DOJ officials laid out the new rules in an email sent Friday to immigration judges, The Journal reported.
Under the new rules, immigration judges will be required to complete at least 700 cases per year.
Judges will also have no more than 15 percent of their decisions sent back by a higher court.
https://twitter.com/NewsToppers/status/980945470276227073
Some judges have completed fewer than 700 cases a year over the past half decade, while others have closed over 1,500.
Other changes include demanding 85 percent of removal cases be closed within three days of a hearing on the merits of a case.
Some changes set the bar even higher, demanding stricter case closing dates for removal cases.
The new standards will not take effect until Oct. 1.
Administration officials claim the new standards are designed to increase the effectiveness of the administration’s immigration policies.
The new standards for immigration judges, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, have not been released publicly. https://t.co/LOpu1Y2bWQ
— WSJ Politics (@WSJPolitics) April 2, 2018
“The purpose of implementing these metrics is to encourage efficient and effective case management while preserving immigration judge discretion and due process,” James McHenry, director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, told law enforcement officials in the Friday email.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions and others within the department have repeatedly said there is too much backlog in the courts, which is keeping illegal immigrants subject for removal within the U.S.
Immigration courts are currently experience a backlog of over 684,000 cases, according to a Syracuse University tracker.
California has the most backlogs with more than 128,000, according to the Syracuse report.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.
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