Advocates Letter to A.G. Holder
Today, the American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF) is joined by more than 130 immigrants’ rights organizations, law firms, and lawyers from across the country in calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to reverse a last-minute legal decision issued by outgoing Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Mukasey’s legal opinion unraveled decades of precedent guaranteeing due process to people facing life-changing consequences – namely, deportation.
AILF is encouraged by Attorney General Holder’s testimony during his confirmation process, where he said he would reexamine the Compean decision.
“The Constitution guarantees due process of law to those who are the subjects of deportation proceedings. I understand Attorney General Mukasey’s desire to expedite immigration court proceedings, but the Constitution requires that those proceedings be fundamentally fair. For this reason, I intend to reexamine the decision should I become Attorney General.”
AILF is submitting a letter to Attorney General Holder today, asking him to vacate and reconsider Mukasey’s legal opinion in Matter of Compean, 24 I & N Dec. 710 (A.G. 2009). In that decision, Mukasey declared that there is no legal or constitutional right to a lawyer in removal proceedings, therefore, people have no right to complain or request a new hearing when their lawyer is incompetent. For decades, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and most federal courts have operated under the principle that people DO have such rights.
“We are very encouraged that Attorney General Holder appreciates the import of Mukasey’s action and already has said he intends to reexamine the Compean decision,” said Nadine Wettstein, the Director of AILF’s Legal Action Center. “As we say in our letter to Mr. Holder, Mukasey’s decision was wrong on the law and would require years of litigation to fix. Mukasey’s decision, if left in place, will create years of confusion in the immigration and federal court system and throw deserving people out of the country.”
“Mukasey’s decision was yet another in a long line of midnight changes and an example of the Bush administration’s disregard for fundamental principles of due process of law,” said Ben Johnson, AILF Executive Director. “We are gratified that Attorney General Holder has expressed a higher regard for the fundamental principles of due process and improving the integrity of immigration court decisions.”
AILF’s letter to Holder and related materials are available at: http://www.ailf.org/lac/lac-ineffective.shtml
Mukasey’s decision in Matter of Compean, 24 I & N Dec. 710 (A.G. 2009) is available at: http://www.usdoj.gov/eoir/vll/intdec/vol24/3632.pdf
Eric Holder’s Congressional testimony is available at: http://judiciary.senate.gov/nominations/AttorneyGeneral-EricHolder-QuestionsForTheRecord.cfm.
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For further analysis of the decision, contact Nadine Wettstein, Director, American Immigration Law Foundation, Legal Action Center, phone 202-507-7523 or nwettstein@ailf.org
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