"I'm supporting more judges at the border."
"We've been asking Congress to give us the resources to give us more judges so we can
adjudicate these cases faster."
"That's why I've introduced dramatically accelerates the processing of these claims, doubles the
number of federal immigration judges."
To keep up with the Trump administration's beefed-up immigration enforcement, some lawmakers
on both sides of the aisle want hundreds of immigration judges to be hired as soon as
possible.
They hope that it would help reduce the notoriously huge backlog of immigration cases – which
is quickly getting worse.
At the time of writing, it stands at more than 700,000 cases.
"All because we don't have enough immigration judges at the border"
But the hiring process is long and tedious.
And President Donald Trump says adding hundreds – if not thousands – of immigration judges
is unrealistic and unwanted.
"I don’t want judges; I want border security.
I don't want to try people, I don't want people coming in.
Thousands and thousands of judges they want to hire.
Who are these people?
When we vet a single federal judge, it goes through a big process."
The administration wants to solve the backlog with a different strategy: annual quotas and
performance standards.
But the head of the union that represents immigration judges says that could undermine
the independence of the courts.
"There's no independent judge in the nation that is put in a place where he or she has
to worry about keeping their job if they don't produce a certain number of cases.
But because we are in the Department of Justice, the Attorney General is essentially treating
us as attorneys, and he's trying to select these quotas and deadlines, which in fact,
have to make the backlog even worse and completely compromise the integrity of the court."
"That sounds counterintuitive, because it sounds like with quotas you're able to get
through cases faster."
"You cannot put efficiencies or timeliness over the substantive rights of the parties.
And that when you do that, that's when it invites litigation and it backfires.
The parties will no longer have the same respect or same confidence in the court, which means
that anytime the judge says 'No, the case needs to go forward now,' or tells a witness
to check, you know, stop talking about a certain area, the parties are going to start questioning
whether the judge is doing that because the case requires it or that the judge is worried
about trying to meet a certain deadline or is trying to squeeze in another case into
that day.
The Justice Department – which oversees immigration courts – say concerns over the
700-cases-per-year quotas are overblown because judges already complete an average of 680
cases a year.
As for Tabaddor, she wants up to a thousand additional judges hired.
She says additional funds and resources for immigration courts are long overdue – especially
when compared with the rapid expansion of immigration enforcement.
"Imagine a one lane highway and one exit ramp, and you now double or triple the lanes and
still keep the same exit ramp, you are going to have traffic, you're going to have this
bottleneck.
And that's where we find ourselves is that for years and years of neglect, we have not
had the budgeting.
So I believe based on that alone, it's quite evident that for the numbers to work out,
you need more judges to be able to handle the influx of the cases particularly now where
the emphasis on enforcement of the law is at its maximum level."
"Does the process allow for hiring that many judges at once?"
"Good question.
And that is a very, very difficult — it's a logistical challenge.
Because it's not only an issue of hiring a judge.
When a judge gets hired, there needs to be a team – a support team also hired with
that judge.
So you need to have the courtroom space, the office, that file space, then you need the
technological support.
So you need to have the computers and the furniture and all of that the procurement
and the logistics of being able to rev up to that very quickly is very challenging,
and the department has very much struggled with that over the years and continues to
struggle with that now."
While not exactly what Tabaddor recommends, Congress did approve funds to increase the
number of immigration judges from 334 – the current number – to 484 by 2019.