It started when former AG Pam Bondi fired the top three judges on the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), the body that oversees immigration courts throughout the country. Then the BIA was reshaped to push mass deportations, irrespective of the asylum statute of 1980, and various other laws relating to immigration. Then judges who granted asylum were being fired, one while even in the middle of a hearing.
Then the BIA started eliminating certain groups of people from asylum, not to mention from other forms of relief. Then the BIA came up with a scheme to eliminate asylum hearings by “pretermitting” applications without even a hearing so that asylum seekers, especially those fleeing domestic violence could not even present a case.
The fact that the authorities in a home country may be corrupt or even collude with an abuser does not matter. And immigration judges, who took an oath to do justice, afraid of being fired, cave in. It doesn’t matter how awful the abuse was or how terrible the country conditions are. There are a few left with integrity and they are leaving.
Prayer for the Day
You command us to do justice, O God,
To protect, the widow, the orphan, the stranger;
You command us to show mercy O Lord,
But those in charge have only the knife of death.
Open our eyes, arouse us, so we do not fail you,
And bring justice and mercy to our land once more.
In the name of the One who gives us strength,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
What I worry about is that the access to this important protection is being limited. And that's being limited in a number of ways, not just by the inability to apply for asylum, but those who are also here in the United States who have applied to have their cases terminated or pretermitted or denied without a full hearing on their asylum application.
Jeremiah Johnson, fired immigration judge
I can tell you that today, the immigration courts are substantively dead. They are completely absent of due process. Of fair hearings. They exist only for show, and in name only. Period. The courts are dead. If you’re concerned about doing due process of fair hearings, they’re gone. So we can start from that position.
George Pappas, fired immigration judge
You must not distort justice; you must not show partiality; and you must not accept bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and occupy the land the Lord your God is giving you.
Deuteronomy 16: 19-20