A Broken Immigration Court System

Hans von Spakovsky / June 21, 2010

We all know how bad the federal government is at controlling our border, but we face the same problem in the system set up to handle immigration cases. Many people do not realize that illegal aliens who are caught end up in immigration courts that are part of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. These courts are presided over by administrative judges; they are not Article III federal courts.

On Thursday, as BP’s CEO was being pummeled on Capitol Hill, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law held a hearing of its own. Mark Metcalf, a former immigration judge, was one of the witnesses, and he had some startling testimony that went completely unnoticed by the media (full disclosure: Mark and I worked together at the Justice Department). (more…)