It’s the President’s duty to fix a broken system through executive action.

Sunday, September 7th, 2014

There was immigration-practice-related developments in the main stream news this week. First, the President announced that any executive orders he will make about immigration law will be after the November (2014) elections.  Also, it was reported that the immigration court backlog has reached 400,000. The popular wisdom is that the President needs to issue executive orders to placate the pro-immigration forces that are part of his base. As the President cannot run for president again, why he has to keep…

The President is not the only determinant in deportation numbers.

Sunday, May 4th, 2014

For all these past five or six years we have been reading about how President Obama is the deporter in chief because of the large numbers of deportations under his watch. Recently, data has been published that shows that these deportations have not been happening in immigration court, but rather at ports of entry. Critics of the President somehow are (mis)construing the data as proof that the President has not been a party to the deportation numbers, somehow divorcing him…

United States v. Garcia-Santana, more chipping away at the Almanza-Arenas / Young burden of proof issue.

Thursday, March 13th, 2014

When an alien applies for relief from removal, he has to prove eligibility for the relief according to INA § 240(c)(4)(A). For some forms of relief, principally voluntary departure and Cancellation of Removal for Certain Nonpermanent Residents, one of the requirements for relief is that the applicant not have had any convictions for crimes of moral turpitude. Whether a crime is a crime of moral turpitude is indubitably among the issues most addressed by courts of appeals. A big problem…

TRAC immigration court report leads to unsupported conclusion.

Monday, February 17th, 2014

TRAC, a data gathering, data research, and data distribution organization at Syracuse University, reported that immigration judges are deporting fewer aliens as a percent of those in removal proceedings. The report states: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has had diminishing success in convincing Immigration Judges to issue removal orders.  Such orders are now granted only about 50 percent of the time, the lowest level since systematic tracking began more than 20 years ago. For years, the rate at which removal…