Ending, not extending, the rocket docket in immigration court
An opinion piece by Kica Matos at the Vera Institute appeared in CNN. After acknowledging some significant strides from the Biden administration on reversing damaging asylum law policies an practices (including Attorney General Merrick Garland’s reversal of Matter of AB), she writes:
if the Biden administration wants to be truly courageous and turn the page completely on former President Donald Trump’s xenophobic immigration agenda, it must go further and rescind its own policies against asylum-seeking families.
She explains the Biden administration’s announcement in May 2021 that it would continue to maintain a dedicated docket for asylum cases that permits it to fast-track asylum cases at the border. These accelerated case proceedings, known pejoratively as “rocket dockets,” set the expectation for immigration judges in 10 locations to decide the fate of asylum seekers within 300 days of their initial hearings. The theory is that this will lead to fairer and more efficient case processing for the asylum seekers and others waiting behind them in the queue. However, immigration advocates express concern that the fast timing makes it difficult for immigrants to obtain counsel and can compromise due process during the hearings. The lack of attorney representation can negatively impact the outcomes as well. Also, the 300-days, even if not mandatory, is even faster than the 365-day deadline set by the Trump administration. Matos also expresses concerns about the electronic surveillance of asylum seekers as their cases move through immigration court, billed as an alternative to detention, and says that this surveillance is unnecessary for this subset of nondetained immigrants to show up in court.
The full article is here. More on access to legal representation for immigrants (here) and an analysis of the due process implications of rocket dockets (here).
MHC
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