Something is up: the full-court press is on concerning the “overwhelmed” immigration courts, the Executive Office For Immigration Review (EOIR). This time there is a twist—previously the kritarchs’ union at the EOIR was demanding more and independent “immigration judges,” while now the claim is that some immigration judges are the “right” judges, and more subordinate bureaucrats are needed to “end the backlog” at the EOIR.

Kritarch Mimi Tsankov

As with any lie, there is a kernel of truth. Yes, there is a backlog at the EOIR, and that is to be expected. After eight years of the Obama Regime Administrative Amnesty and kritarchs in the EOIR conducting their own amnesty, the backlog was down to just over 500,000 illegal aliens. Of course, that did not solve anything, as illegal aliens who had their cases dropped remained, still liable for arrest and deportation—they went nowhere.

However, with the election of Donald Trump, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) started making arrests again. Then there was the deliberate and very public campaign to flood the border with illegal aliens from Central America organized by left wing groups in the United States. The backlog rose again to over 1 million; then with the advent of the Biden Regime Administrative Amnesty, Open Borders version, hundreds of thousands of cases have been added to the EOIR in the last year.

In the end though, no court system can deal with a million cases, much less 500,000. The backlog will last decades. In the meantime the illegal aliens remain, digging deeper into society, all waiting for the next amnesty, which is the plan: hope that the problem is resolved in their favor while they run out the clock.

Judges, scholars and attorneys all concerned whether people due in court will receive notice before their hearings[.]

America’s immigration courts are struggling to function at the most basic level, with courts that are already woefully understaffed and judges often undertrained now overwhelmed by a growing backlog of more than 1.6m cases, industry leaders have warned.

The system is so damaged that judges, scholars and attorneys all share concerns about whether immigrants due in court will even receive notice before their hearings so they know to show up and aren’t ordered deported in absentia – an urgent concern made worse by volatile immigration policies at the US-Mexico border.

US Immigration Courts Struggle Amid Understaffing And Backlog Of Cases, by Alexander Villarreal, The Guardian, February 21, 2022

And people are concerned, very concerned. And one of those concerned people is Kritarch Mimi Tsankov, who is very worried that she has to work too hard, as she is quite busy with paying work outside of her immigration court duties. She desperately needs more clerks and assistants to get her job done.

“It’s very worrisome. The fundamental requirement for a full and fair hearing is notice of your hearing and the ability to attend your hearing,” Mimi Tsankov, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), said.

“I see incredible efforts being made by the staff – the bare-bones staff in some courts – to try to support these very, very heavy dockets,” she told the Guardian in an exclusive interview in her union leadership capacity. “But it’s extremely challenging for all of us to meet the demands.”

Kritarch Tsankov is not very discreet about the basis of her demands. She explicitly states that the shortage of clerks is causing illegal aliens to not get proper notice of their hearing dates before the EOIR, and consequently not receiving due process. Kritarch Tsankov is slyly handing a legal argument to the Treason Bar and illegal aliens: not enough clerks means you are not getting your day in court.

This is quite strange, as illegal aliens give an address to receive their hearing date if they are not in custody. What Kritarch Tsankov does not explicitly state is that illegal aliens frequently submit change of address notification to the EOIR, but the notices are not getting received and processed. The implication here is that the clerks are lazy and incompetent, but she does not say this outright; she implies that there is a shortage of support staff and that things just get lost in the shuffle. Kritarch Tsankov, instead of explicitly blaming the incompetent and lazy clerks, intimates that this is part of some conspiracy to deny illegal aliens their day in court.

The truth is quite the opposite. Illegal aliens routinely ignore their court dates and routinely fail to notify the court of changes in address. It is also well established that corrupt members of the Treason Bar frequently fail to notify the court of changes in address or ignore appearances in hopeless cases in order to create an avenue for appeal. Here Kritarch Tsankov is colluding with the Treason Bar and illegal aliens, falsely informing the public that the bureaucracy is responsible for illegal aliens getting their due process.

Kritarch Tsankov's political object is also quite obvious: she does not like ordering illegal aliens removed, and complains that too many immigration judges are tough on illegal aliens.

After Trump made hardline anti-immigration policies pivotal to his 2016 presidential campaign, he flooded courts with judges more inclined to order deportations, Reuters reported.

His administration hired so many new immigration judges so hastily that the American Bar Association warned of “under-qualified or potentially biased judges,” many of whom had no immigration experience.

And Kritarch Tsankov does not like being held to a work standard and performance metrics. As a former Federal employee, I was evaluated every year on specific metrics related to my performance. Tsankov does not think that she and other kritarchs should be held to standards. It is obvious that Tsankov does not want to do her assigned duty but instead conduct her own amnesty. That is the ongoing plan of the kritarchs in the EOIR.

And as officials such as then-attorney general Jeff Sessions made sweeping proclamations that “the vast majority of asylum claims are not valid”, judges simultaneously confronted performance metrics demanding they each race through at least 700 cases a year.

Yes, Sleepy Jeff had his days: he especially tweaked the kritarchs at the EOIR. How shameless, making a Federal employee adhere to performance standards!

What Kritarch Tsankov ignores is the real solution to the backlog of cases, that the EOIR cannot handle the problem at any reasonable staffing level. Without tens of thousands of immigration judges and support staff, the backlog is going nowhere.

The real solution is to end the whole farce of the EOIR and deal with illegal aliens administratively. In all cases involving aliens, other than Lawful Permanent Residents (LPR), green card holders who have not previously abandoned their residency, illegal aliens should not have the option of a hearing before a neutral body such as the EOIR but should have their case decided upon by an immigration officer in an expeditious manner, not days, months, or years of delayed hearings, rescheduled hearings, or endless appeals. The current Expedited Removal authority should be expanded to all aliens other than LPRs, including claimants to asylum and refugees applying for admission. Perhaps an alien who has been admitted or adjusted to asylee or refugee status could also have their cases reviewed by the EOIR in cases of deportation, but not for exclusion.

If Kritarch Tsankov is truly concerned about the quality of the work of the EOIR, she should be supportive of this proposal. In this case, the far fewer number of cases, perhaps the fewer than 100,000 LPRs who are in deportation proceedings, can be given the detailed attention such cases deserve and about which Kritarch Tsankov is so concerned. An LPR has at least made the appearance of legality and established residency, while an illegal alien has no claim to residency or legality. Their cases should get more attention from a neutral party, given the implications of an ostensibly legal immigrant being deported, as opposed to an illegal alien who has crossed the border illegally or overstayed a non-immigrant visa. In fact, most cases of illegal aliens are of those who either have fraudulent claims to remain in the United States or are just hoping to run out the clock for the next amnesty, get an easy kritarch like Tsankov, or the next president who orders cases closed.

But Kritarch Tsankov is not serious about solutions. She has her own agenda: self-aggrandizement, power, and political motivation on behalf of illegal aliens.