Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we're discussing, well, the decrease of Immigration Judges as we are seeing the caseload rise. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article. from NPR, that npr.org. Now I know there are some out there that will, I know a lot of people find me sort of obtuse in my opinions regarding things like Immigration because I don't think in partisan terms; it's not a party line thing for me. There are just issues associated with the national interest, there are issues associated with American liberties, I don't like looking at this type of thing as you are a Lib or a Dem or a Republican, or a Conservative or whatever on these issues. No I just look at it as the law and there are ways to follow it and there are ways to deal with it.

That said, this Administration, they have an unenviable task. They have to basically come in and clean up what the last Administration allowed to happen which was darn near tantamount to an invasion of the United States really, and the actions of the prior Administration with regard to Immigration are deplorable in my mind. I mean it's really awful. It's why I made videos at the time just excoriating what was happening at the border. Now that said, there seems to be, I don't know. Let's just jump into this because I don't know how I would do things differently, but I want to say that where we have a huge case load of adjudications that need to be dealt with in an Immigration context, does decreasing the number of Judges help in that regard? I think the immediate answer to that is NO. That being said, I can understand the notion that the administration is saying "look we had a lot of folks that were Immigration Judges in the system that their policy thinking is not in line with ours, and the Administration does have the discretion to fire Immigration Judges or not renew their contracts, whatever. The point being, Immigration Judges are not the same as like Article 3 Judges in the United States. They are not in and of themselves protected under a separate branch of Government from the Executive, they are part of the Executive. So this is kind of one of those situations where the rubber hits the road with regard to policy thinking and elections have consequences. One of the consequences is we now have an Administration that is much more hardline on Immigration and essentially it looks to me like not rehiring Judges that are not in line with their paradigm. But that said, let's jump in here. 

Under the title: U.S. has a quarter fewer immigration judges than it did a year ago. Here's why. Again npr.org. I get it, consider the source, whatever, but this is good pertinent data points. Quoting directly: "The number of judges in the nation's Immigration Courts shrunk by about a quarter in the last year due to firings and resignations - even when accounting for new hires. Twelve Immigration Courts have lost over half of their Judges. Many Courts are down to skeleton crews to handle thousands of cases; two Courts have no Judges at all. In total, the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EIOR, lost over 400 legal assistants, attorney advisors and legal administrative specialists, according to data obtained and verified by NPR. Some former Judges call this a shrinkage of America's Immigration Courts that sends a clear message from the Trump Administration: to green-light mass deportations and get rid of the judges they think stand in the way." 

Yeah look, I have my serious issues with way ICE is operating, especially this notion that like an I-205 form somehow supersedes the notion of warrants under the Fourth Amendment; that's just ridiculous. That said, what the Administration may be doing here with regard to the Immigration Courts, it's in line with, okay, if they want to execute policy of really getting people deported who came into the country illegally, this may be one of the better ways to do it, because if there are Immigration Judges that are effectively standing in the way of that policy - and let's be honest, there have been in the past, again reasonable people can disagree, you can disagree with that, agree with that if you want - but again elections have consequences. We have this Administration now, they have a policy paradigm and they are executing it. Part of that is going to be changing the makeup of what the Immigration Courts look like. Now what I fear is that all we see is firings and they don't actually; it's good, because look, if they reappointed new Immigration Judges who are more likely to deport, presumably the case load would go down, they would clear the case load and we would move along. If all that ends up happening from this is just a bunch of people get fired and nothing moves, that's no good for anybody. So what I will say is with regard to my own opinion on this, I'm going to reserve judgment until I see whether or not the administration actually follows through in replacing these people albeit with folks that have perhaps a different policy paradigm than those they are replacing, but replacing them nonetheless in order to at least clear the case load. That said, quoting further: Quote: "You are telling every other judge that is left that they had better not be following the law or their conscience; that they need to apply the law as you are interpreting it," said Arwen Swink, a former Immigration Judges fired from a San Francisco Court in December." Yeah, first of all I mean a guy that got fired in this capacity, might want to view that with a little grain of salt. That said, quoting further: "You lose a little piece of Justice. You lose some fundamental fairness, and understandably you undermine confidence in the proceedings." But do you? I don't know that that is necessarily the case.

Look, this is a situation where there is a judiciary but it's a judiciary directly subject to the Executive; that's its function. It operates under the power of the President. The President has a lot of, not only legal but plenary power, when it comes to issues associated with Immigration and frankly the Executive should. And we are in this problem because the last Executive didn't take care to quote the Constitution's Take Care Clause, "take care to execute relevant Immigration law." Now that said, do I think this notion of applying the law of the conscience da, da, da - you know, I think a lot of folks in the Administration would say "well that's just a lot of hyperbole for basically people who are soft on illegal immigrants". That's probably what they would say, and frankly from my analysis, I don't think they are too far off. That being said, this will have ramifications because you have got less Judges at least in the interim while this is all taking place, if you want to call this a transitory step whatever.  Again, I'm reserving judgment on all this until I actually see them put in new Judges to replace these folks. And at that time we will deal with that when we get there. And if they do that, then overall I would probably say I agree with you overall notion of doing this. That said, it remains to be seen to be seen if we get there.

That said, quoting further: "The Trump Administration has defended its personnel decisions, saying Judges under the Biden Administration were too lenient with granting asylum or other statuses to those seeking to stay in the U.S." Well yeah, and in fact they were telling people, they just got through the border and then went on some app to get TPS status the minute they arrived. I mean they couldn't have made it much easier for folks who okay they are ostensibly asylum seekers, but they are still illegal aliens in the United States. This stems from problems in the last Administration, suffice it to say. Quoting further: Quote, after four years of the Biden Administration forcing Immigration Courts to implement a de facto amnesty for hundreds of hundreds of thousands of aliens, this Department of Justice is restoring integrity to our Immigration System by following the law, timely completing cases and hiring the most talented legal professionals to join in our mission to protect National Security and Public Safety," a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement to NPR in response to questions about the loss of personnel." 

Okay, my only reservation in any of this comes down to that. "Hiring the most talented legal professionals to join in our mission." Yeah, if they do that, great. I think it will be great for everybody, but here we are. We're sort of still in limbo now: caseloads are rising; there are less Judges themselves. Now again we may not be getting Judges that necessarily folks who are going through these proceedings would like to see, but that being said, again the paradigm, the policy of this Administration is to deal with the illegal immigration problem in the United States. So if they do end up hiring judges to deal with that, frankly I'm pretty well going to be in favour of that. What I really hope we don't see though is they simply fire a bunch of people, don't rehire anybody and then the system overall just seizes up. I mean I'm seeing something akin to that - although I don't think there are mass firings going on within USCIS - but just overall in the Immigration System, I mean we file K-1 Visas, we file CR-1 Visas, IR-1 Visas, K-3 Visas for clients out here in Thailand, and unfortunately the USCIS system has become so obtuse it's like, I don't know, I hesitate to compare it to the Soviet Union but it's not too inaccurate. That being said, it remains to be seen how all of this plays out, so we'll certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.