DOJ Is Lowering Criteria for Temporary IJs After Firing Qualitified IJs

As ABC news is reporting, the DOJ will be lowering the standards for hiring temporary IJs who are needed to fill in for the 100+ IJs that the administration has fired or pushed out. 

Previously, temporary immigration judges had to be former appellate immigration judges, EOIR administrative law judges, or attorneys with more than 10 years of experience in immigration law.

Here is a link to the Federal Register final rule.

The government argues this change is just fine given that permanent IJs can be hired without any prior immigration experience. Of course that argument ignores the training that new IJs receive that temporary IJs won’t. But wait! The government has a response to this: training isn’t set by regulation. So. you know. They can do whatever they want.

This all skips the very obvious point that WE WOULD NOT NEED TEMPORARY IJs IF THE ADMINISTRATION DID NOT FIRE PERFECTLY QUALIFIED IJs ON THE BASIS OF THEIR POLITICS. 

I almost titled this post “dumbassery” but held back. And yet I still descended into the ranks of all caps. There’s only so much holding back I can do.

-KitJ