excalibur
Diamond Member
- Mar 19, 2015
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What a feckless, America-hating group Biden and his people are.
www.washingtontimes.com
The union for immigration judges has asked the Justice Department to revisit its ouster of several judges hired during the Trump administration, questioning whether the firings were illegal — and calling them unseemly at the very least.
Three judges had each received satisfactory performance evaluations during their two-year probationary periods. That made the decision by the Executive Office for Immigration Review to kick them out of their jobs at the end of probation rather than convert them to permanent positions all the more striking, the National Association of Immigration Judges said in its letter.
Ordering the judges out of their offices without a chance to collect their belongings was “unprofessional and unbefitting,” the union said.
“They deserved better,” Mimi Tsankov and Samuel B. Cole, the union’s president and executive vice president, wrote to David Neal, director of EOIR, in a letter obtained by The Washington Times.
The letter is dated June 23, days after The Times reported on the firings as the latest in a series of politically charged upheavals under the Biden team at EOIR, which runs the immigration courts.
Four of the top officials at the agency have been ushered out of their posts, in addition to what one source said has been more than a half dozen immigration judges.
One ousted judge, Matthew O’Brien, told The Times that his termination letter didn’t give any real justification and only vaguely referred to “performance and/or conduct” as the reason he was being let go.
A Justice Department source said Mr. O’Brien’s supervisor, who worked for an immigrant rights group until he was hired less than a year ago at EOIR, recommended Mr. O’Brien’s termination. Mr. O’Brien served for years at the Homeland Security Department and used to work at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for stricter immigration controls.
“There was both a clear political motivation and a conflict of interest for her action, and the agency ignored it,” the department official said.
Activist immigration lawyers also took credit for getting Mr. O’Brien ousted. After news of his departure leaked, some took to Twitter to boast. They said they had orchestrated a campaign to “crowdsource” complaints about Mr. O’Brien to feed to his supervisors.
One lawyer said his firm drafted a recusal motion against Mr. O’Brien and circulated it to immigration lawyers who practiced in the immigration court based in Arlington, Virginia, where Mr. O’Brien was stationed.
EOIR declined to comment for this article.
In their letter, the union leaders asked Mr. Neal to review the firings to determine whether they were “in full compliance with the law.”
They said the way the judges were axed is having “a substantial and negative effect on judge morale” across the country.
Four of the top officials at the agency have been ushered out of their posts, in addition to what one source said has been more than a half dozen immigration judges.
One ousted judge, Matthew O’Brien, told The Times that his termination letter didn’t give any real justification and only vaguely referred to “performance and/or conduct” as the reason he was being let go.
A Justice Department source said Mr. O’Brien’s supervisor, who worked for an immigrant rights group until he was hired less than a year ago at EOIR, recommended Mr. O’Brien’s termination. Mr. O’Brien served for years at the Homeland Security Department and used to work at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for stricter immigration controls.
“There was both a clear political motivation and a conflict of interest for her action, and the agency ignored it,” the department official said.
Activist immigration lawyers also took credit for getting Mr. O’Brien ousted. After news of his departure leaked, some took to Twitter to boast. They said they had orchestrated a campaign to “crowdsource” complaints about Mr. O’Brien to feed to his supervisors.
One lawyer said his firm drafted a recusal motion against Mr. O’Brien and circulated it to immigration lawyers who practiced in the immigration court based in Arlington, Virginia, where Mr. O’Brien was stationed.
EOIR declined to comment for this article.
In their letter, the union leaders asked Mr. Neal to review the firings to determine whether they were “in full compliance with the law.”
They said the way the judges were axed is having “a substantial and negative effect on judge morale” across the country.
Union calls for DOJ to review its firing of Trump immigration judges
The union for immigration judges has asked the Justice Department to revisit its ouster of several judges hired during the Trump administration, questioning whether the firings were illegal — and calling them unseemly at the very least.
www.washingtontimes.com
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