From the Editor

By Peter Allen
     
      During the past year, immigration judges have been under a microscope, eyeballed by both the media and the judges' boss, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. Last January, Gonzales ordered a comprehensive performance review of the immigration courts. In August, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC)?a research organization associated with Syracuse University?analyzed almost 300,000 asylum cases from a five-year period and found a wide disparity among courts in the rates at which they grant asylum. Although the median denial rate for the more than 200 judges handling such cases is 65 percent, the range among the individual judges is astonishing: One Miami judge denied asylum to 97 percent of the immigrants who came before her, whereas a New York judge granted asylum in 90 percent of her cases. (TRAC says it provides independent and nonpartisan information about all sorts of federal enforcement, staffing, and spending. It maintains a nifty site at www.trac.syr.edu.) At about the time the study was released, Gonzales announced reforms to the system, including performance evaluations of sitting judges and competency exams for incoming judges.
      Los Angeles and San Francisco have two of the country's four busiest immigration courts handling asylum cases (the others are in Miami and New York City, according to statistics from the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review). In November, after contributor Bill Blum submitted this month's cover story looking at the Los Angeles immigration court ("Crossing to Safety," page 18), the Daily Journal reported that the DOJ is investigating six immigration judges?including Anna Ho of Los Angeles?whose rulings or behavior were criticized in federal appellate cases. Blum, who practiced immigration law briefly more than 20 years ago, was not surprised by the DOJ's actions. But he takes issue with those who say all the immigration courts are bad. "From what I observed, the immigration court in Los Angeles is generally run well," he says. "And attorneys I talked to in L.A. thought it was run well compared to courts in other parts of the country."
      Critics of the immigration courts have two main contentions: that judges need more resources; and that they should be independent, not DOJ employees. Blum believes the appointment of more judges is the greatest priority. "The judges deciding these cases have one of the most difficult and demanding jobs around," he says. "Each judge handles about 1,600 cases a year, and each case involves weighty, and sometimes life-and-death, issues. It's not surprising they feel rushed or make mistakes." Blum does see some cause for optimism in the recent selection of judges. "In the past, judges tended to be selected from the Immigration and Naturalization Service?they were career prosecutors who worked their way up. Now we're seeing them come from all segments of the bar, and that has to be a good thing."
     

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