Justice Department to set quotas on immigration judges

  One of the reasons we have been told we need immigration reform which includes amnesty is because the immigration courts are backlogged and cannot keep up with the cases. In the eyes of amnesty supporters the answer to the court backlog is to send less cases to the courts by granting amnesty to those who came into the country illegally.

  Now, while these issues are two parts of the immigration problem logically they should be dealt with separately because the problem is two-fold. The whole two birds with one stone philosophy never seems to work out. We can debate the issue of amnesty and immigration reform as a means to solve that problem, but the backlog in the courts naturally calls for some type of streamlining of the court system. We can solve the illegal immigration problem but it should not be seen as a solution to the immigration court problem because that problem will still be there unless it is dealt with.

  Jeff Sessions is introducing a plan to streamline the immigration courts by implementing quotas and performance ratings on the immigration courts. Here is more:

In a move to speed up deportations, the Justice Department has decided that it will link clearing cases to the performance reviews of federal immigration judges.

The minimum quotas, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, will require judges to clear 700 cases a year and to see that fewer of their rulings are sent back by a higher court.

Along with those requirements, judges will also need to meet thresholds in other areas including a demand that 85 percent of cases for people that have been detained be completed in three days after a judge has heard the merits of the particular case.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has previously stressed the work his department is doing to reduce the immigration case backlog, which numbers into the hundreds of thousands.

  Opponents of this move will surely claim this is draconian but, according the article I linked to above, the average immigration judge already clear an average of 678 cases a year while many judges clear much more than that. Of course this means logically that some judges clear much fewer cases and now their performance rating will be linked to their performance, while those judges who approve more will most likely see their performance rating improved. What a radical idea!

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium