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Cite as "Posted on AILA InfoNet at Doc.
No. 02082644 (Aug. 26, 2002) ."
For immediate release:
Monday, August 26, 2002
Contact:
Amanda Carufel, (202) 216-2404
Ashcroft Changes to BIA: A Slap in the Face to Immigrants
Washington, D.C. – The Attorney General today issued a final
regulation that will negatively impact how the Board of Immigration
Appeals (BIA) functions by severely compromising due process and
the independence of the immigration court system. These changes
join others the Bush Administration has issued in the past year
that fail to balance our enhanced security needs with this nation
of immigrants’ Constitutional guarantees. As the highest administrative
appeals body for immigrants that reviews decisions made by immigration
judges and USCIS officials in individual cases, BIA members make decisions
that ultimately can determine whether someone who has been persecuted
and tortured for his beliefs will live or die and whether U.S. families
will be united or divided.
“The BIA often is the court of last resort for the vast majority
of people seeking review of decisions by immigration judges. It
is vitally important that the BIA remain a robust and vigorous review
body,” said Jeanne Butterfield, Executive Director of the American
Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). “It is troubling that
the Bush Administration talks about reaching out to immigrants on
the one hand, but pulls the appellate rug out from under them with
the other.”
Despite voluminous comments from numerous organizations raising
issues of critical concern, the final regulations are nearly identical
to the regulations proposed last February, and go in the wrong direction.
Immigration laws are incredibly complex and often unclear, Congressional
intent is often ambiguous, and the USCIS itself frequently argues
positions that courts later hold are contrary to congressional intent.
Yet the Administration’s changes seem to assume that the appeals
before the Board do not involve complex questions of law.
“AILA fully shares the Attorney General’s concern that
the Board achieve timely and efficient adjudications and backlog
reductions. But the Administration’s regulations, issued in
the guise of achieving efficiency, will sacrifice justice in the
name of expediency,” said Ms. Butterfield. AILA, along with
dozens of our coalition partners, called on the Attorney General
in a February 11 letter to bring together interested constituencies
to recommend proposals to improve administrative review in a way
that will affirm the independence and impartiality of the BIA, facilitate
immigrants’ access to the BIA, enhance due process, and promote
an efficient adjudications system. The Attorney General never responded
to that call.
The new regulations, slated to go into effect on September 25,
2002, ignore the fact that changes the BIA recently initiated already
had begun to show results by increasing efficiency and reducing
the backlog, without sacrificing due process. These regulations
run counter to these proven changes by reducing the size of the
Board to a mere 11 members, mandating review by single Board members
instead of panels of three, imposing extraordinarily tight briefing
schedules (detained persons must submit their appeal briefs within
21 days, simultaneously with the government’s brief and without
the chance to see the government’s arguments), and severely
circumscribing the discretion of BIA Members to review the facts
of the case before them.
Immigration courts
must be independent, impartial, and include meaningful checks and
balances. To that end, AILA advocates the creation of a separate
and independent immigration court and appellate system. These and
other issues are detailed in testimony AILA presented before the
House Immigration Subcommittee during a February 6, 2002 hearing,
and are currently under consideration by the Senate in the context
of the debate on the creation of a Department of Homeland Security.
“The time has come for an independent court,” concluded
Ms. Butterfield.
###AILA###
Founded in 1946, AILA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization
that provides its Members with continuing legal education, information,
professional services and expertise through its 35 chapters and
over 75 national committees. AILA also advocates before Congress
and the Administration, as well as providing liaison with the USCIS
and other government agencies in support of pro-immigration initiatives.
AILA is an Affiliated Organization of the American Bar Association
and is represented in the ABA House of Delegates.
1ME2001A
(08/27/2002)
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