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If there are two things Donald Trump doesn’t like… well, it’s people of color and women. But if there are four things Donald Trump doesn’t like, independent judges and labor unions would vie for those spots.
It should therefore come as no surprise that the Trump administration is trying to get the National Association of Immigration Judges decertified. From Courthouse News:
The petition, which is not publicly available, argues the union should be decertified because the judges contribute to making policy for the Department of Justice, according to the Associated Press.
[National Association of Immigration Judges Executive Vice President Judge Amiena Khan] said the move to decertify the union would imperil much of the work it has done, including bringing to a halt its efforts to push for independence for the country’s immigration judges. Immigration judges are appointed by the attorney general and are employees of the Justice Department, but the NAIJ has advocated for Congress to create an independent immigration court system.
Khan added that if the Justice Department is successful in decertifying the union, the judges would lose the ability to speak out on department rules that impact their working conditions or other policies.
Whether you are one of these Trump nutjobs who believes the “invasion” rhetoric spewed by the White House, or merely a mainstream “both side-er” who thinks “something must be done” about a “problem” you saw from a nutjob’s Facebook posts, immigration judges are probably people you should listen to. They understand the system, and they understand how the system is over-stressed. They understand the resources and policies they need in order to do the difficult work of processing immigration and asylum claims on a case-by-case basis as the Constitution and international human rights laws require.
Trump not only won’t listen to these people, he’s now actively trying to silence them. His administration is actively working against the judges, primarily because they do not go along with his anti-immigration narrative. Now, he’s trying to nerf their ability to organize and speak out.
All Trump wants “his” judges to do is “send them back.” He wants the judges to be loyal to him, not to the Constitution or the law.
Feds Move to Invalidate Union for Immigration Judges [Courthouse News Service]
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.