[ad_1]
Staff and judges were briefed on the shift on Wednesday morning in a note from Acting Deputy Attorney General John Carlin. The move will take effect on Sunday.
“Jean will provide continuity in the leadership of EOIR until a new director is selected,” Carlin wrote, according to one person who received the memo.
The staff change comes after complaints from immigration advocates who were troubled to see McHenry’s name on the agency-wide list that the Justice Department released last Thursday of those in positions of high level on an interim or continuous basis during the first few weeks of Biden’s presidency.
McHenry’s presence on the list of officials remaining in the new administration prompted immigration reformers to seek an immediate change in leadership for an operation with enormous power over immigrants accused of being in the United States. illegally.
“I saw this list… and I was just shocked,” said Jeremy McKinney, an immigration lawyer in Greensboro, NC, before Wednesday’s announcement. “The policies he was putting in place in terms of his attempts to control what judges do inside the courtroom, these efforts have been monumental over the past three years. To see that he’s one of the skirmishes is very surprising.
“To have someone like that at the head of EOIR, who does not buy into the vision of restoring due process and fairness … that would undermine that goal and that hope,” said Marielena Hincapie from the National Immigration Law Center last week.
McHenry was appointed interim head of EOIR in May 2017 and received the title of permanent director the following January. As a senior executive officer overseeing immigration courts, McHenry has spearheaded a series of political initiatives that harassed immigration advocates, including efforts to curtail asylum standards and lobby on immigration judges to close cases faster.
An immigration advocate said Biden’s transition staff at the Department of Homeland Security seemed more urgent on immigration matters, as those issues appeared to be on the back burner by those planning the Department of Justice.
This perception was reinforced by a report last week that the career manager that Biden’s team hired to act as interim attorney general Monty Wilkinson played a role in an internal dust there is. several years linked to the Trump-era policy of separating immigrant children. from their parents at the Mexican border.
As an official running the office that oversees U.S. lawyers, Wilkinson approved the reassignment of a line prosecutor who was seen as resistant to an early pilot of the controversial family-splitting effort, which Trump officials abandoned in 2018 following public outcry and bipartisan pressure from Congress.
Given the attention to Wilkinson’s minor role in this widely denounced policy, it was noteworthy that when the Department of Justice formally abandoned part of that policy this week, the announcement came in a note from Wilkinson. . The new directive said the department was abandoning a so-called zero tolerance rule that required almost all adults who cross the border illegally to be criminally prosecuted.
“A policy requiring a prosecutor to indict every case referred to prosecution[…]regardless of individual circumstances is inconsistent with our principles, ”Wilkinson wrote.
Greg Chen, director of government affairs for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, called McHenry’s exit a necessary precursor for Biden to complete his immigration agenda.
“AILA has deep concerns about the current director and others currently appointed to head EOIR, who have stripped the judges of the basic authorities that prevent them from making fair and consistent decisions,” Chen said. “If he is allowed to remain in office, the many steps he has taken to move cases through the courts for removal order will continue quickly.” Its removal is imperative for the new administration to implement its vision of making the courts more fair and efficient.
Some attorneys have said civil service laws may have made it difficult for the Biden administration to quickly reassign McHenry. A legal provision creates a 120-day moratorium on the reassignment of certain senior career managers following a change in agency management. But with Attorney General-designate Merrick Garland still awaiting confirmation, it’s unclear whether the Justice Department has shifted from an Acting Attorney General under President Donald Trump to one appointed by Biden set that clock on. 120 days.
However, several lawyers said they were convinced the department had the power to remove McHenry from his post at least temporarily. A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment on the staff change.
Regardless of specific legal requirements, the Biden administration may be reluctant to involuntarily reassign members of senior management because of concerns about breaches of civil service protections. The Trump administration has often appeared to be at war with the public service and with federal workers’ unions, the subject of much criticism during the previous president’s four-year tenure.
Last October, Trump issued an executive order that could have led to the conversion of tens of thousands of government positions from public service positions to positions where employees can be dismissed without cause. Trump officials did not complete this process until inauguration day.
Last Friday, Biden signed an executive order rescinding numerous actions related to Trump’s public service, which the new president said had “undermined the foundations of the public service and its principles of the merit system.”
In 2018, more than a dozen liberal lawyers sent a letter complaining that those appointed by Trump were abusing senior executives by reassigning them in retaliation and potentially in violation of public service protections. . This story may have left the new administration sensitive to any perception that it was bypassing laws and rules.
While immigration advocates have sharply criticized McHenry’s tenure, the Trump administration has bragged about the success and effectiveness of the immigration courts under his supervision.
McHenry made major strides to replace the archaic paper court filing system with a computerized one, hired a record number of new immigration judges, and sharply increased the number of cases closed each year – at least before Covid-19 does not strike.
Immigration judges concluded a record 276,000 cases in fiscal 2019 and were close to closing 400,000 cases in fiscal 2020 before the pandemic nearly brought the justice system to a halt. immigration.
McKinney, the North Carolina immigration lawyer, said McHenry deserved credit for his frankness about EOIR’s policies and policy changes, even though they proved controversial in many backgrounds. “He was always consistent when he met us to answer our questions. While we didn’t always like his answers, he always provided those answers, ”McKinney said.
Carlin’s new memo said McHenry will spend next week in a lower-profile position within EOIR, heading the Office of the Director of Administrative Hearings – a unit that primarily hears cases involving companies accused of hiring knowingly from undocumented immigrants or discriminating against aliens who have the right to work in the United States
Unlike other federal courts, immigration courts operate within the executive branch under the authority delegated by the Attorney General. Prosecutors in these proceedings come from the Department of Homeland Security, and decisions of immigration courts can be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is also part of the Department of Justice, and then to a court of federal appeal.
Many immigration judges and immigration lawyers have called for immigration courts to be moved out of the Department of Justice to give them greater independence.
[ad_2]
Source link