Ninth Circuit has New Chief Judge

A previous Immigrant of the Day, Judge Alex Kozinski has become the new Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  Click here for the press release.  the Ninth Circuit decides more immigration appeals than any other circuit in the country.

I have argued immigration cases before Judge Kozinski and have found him demanding but fair.  Judge Kozinski has authored numerous immigration opinions on the Ninth Circuit.  One of particular interest to readers of this blog is his concurrence in Rodriguez-Roman v. INS, 98 F.3d 416 (9th Cir. 1996), an asylum case in which the applicant had fled Cuba.  in the concurrence, Judge Kozinski discusses the persecution at the hands of communist regimes, something that his family experienced first-hand in Romania.

KJ