Contrary to conventional wisdom, Trump and his supporters do not only object to illegal immigration. As this editorial summarizes so well, the current administration’s policies and proposals in regard to legal immigration processes are intended to slash legal immigration, thus hurting our economy and attacking the long-held principle that family unity is a positive goal.
Timothy R. Bakken
Founder
Ever since Trump took office, international enrollment in U.S. universities has been on the decline. Foreign schools are taking advantage of this fact by targeting students who would normally come to the U.S., and as a result, university enrollment outside of the U.S. is increasing significantly. It’s no coincidence that talented international students are having second thoughts about studying in the U.S. in light of Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. Read more here.
In another attempt to restrict immigration, the current administration is considering ways to remove domestic violence and sexual abuse as qualifying grounds for asylum applicants. Instead of considering victims of domestic violence and abuse as potentially worthy of protection in the United States, Attorney General Sessions has implied that such claims are often fake and a significant factor in the huge docket backlogs in immigration courts.This is an issue of basic human rights and if Sessions has his way, the result will be less and less due process for vulnerable people.
Timothy R. Bakken
Founder
In this commentary, an immigration judge explains how the judge quotas proposed by the Department of Justice is a terrible idea because it will strip them of their ability to be fair and impartial judges simply because they will not have the time to give due process to each case. She argues that they will no longer be judged on the work they do, but rather the number of cases they see, which is the wrong way to look at law, especially when people's lives are at stake.
Last Friday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a new policy for immigration courts that requires judges to go through more cases in a day than they are currently. The new quota requiring judges to complete 700 cases a year is a direct threat to due process and fundamental fairness because immigrants facing deportation, including those seeking asylum in the immigration courts, will have less time to get a lawyer and immigration judges will be unnecessarily rushed in the consideration and adjudication of each case. This is clearly a violation of due process. Read more here.
