Immigration courts urged to accomodate coronavirus
The union representing immigration judges called for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the agency that houses immigration courts, to implement steps to protect judges and their staff and provide guidance on how to proceed with court business amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Judge Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, wrote in a letter that immigration court functions “may not lend themselves to telework.”
“As you know, our work requires us to be in close contact with the public on a daily basis, often in very large numbers and groups… Beyond our own employees, the respondents who come before us may also be at high risk for developing serious illness. Because we order their appearance and they face the prospect of removal if they don’t appear, sick respondents and respondents vulnerable to serious illness will keep coming to court unless we take action.”
One conflict between public health and immigration that arose directly from these developments and has since been resolved is the suitability of hanging a Center for Disease Control flyer on how to identify coronavirus symptoms and prevent the spread of germs in immigration court. Longer-simmering conflict are the incentives created by the public charge rule for immigrants to avoid public benefits (such as Medicare) that may designate them “likely at any time to become a public charge” and disqualify them for subsequent immigration benefits and the prospect of a coronavirus outbreak at the borders or in detention.
As it stands, immigration court is severely backlogged with years-long delays in pending cases. The government shutdown last year resulted in additional cases being postponed and exacerbated the backlog. There are more than 1 million pending cases before the immigration courts, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse or TRAC, which tracks immigration court data.
MHC (H/T Liz Keyes)
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