National Courts Monitor

‘Border Kids’ Moves Into New ‘Crisis Of Process’

Posted: March 12, 2015

Photo from the LA Times report, “7,000 immigrant children ordered deported without going to court,” 3/6/15

Just when you think the “Border Kids” crisis where thousands of minor asylum seekers flood the borders, the situation takes a turn for the worse. Now, the Los Angeles Times reports, “… more than 7,000 immigrant children have been ordered deported without appearing in court since large numbers of minors from Central America began illegally crossing the U.S. border in 2013, federal statistics show.”

Not that anyone knows much beyond those orders. The Times notes that immigrant advocates say many of those children were never notified of their hearing date because of problems with the immigration court system. Times sources say that some notices arrived late, some went to the wrong address or perhaps there was no notice delivered at all. Those sources also say some children were ordered to appear in a court where they were initially detained, not where they are living now.

Also, nobody really knows how many of those children choose to just not show up for the hearing, or how many were actually notices. “What was a border crisis has now become a due process crisis,” said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, an advocacy group, in the Times report. Oh, and it is also not known how many of those children facing deportation orders have been sent home – you have to wonder if they even know the hearings happened.

NPR Follow-Up Humanizes Those Border Kids Cases

by NCM Staff

Updated: March 10, 2015

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As the United States punts on its obligation to deal with asylum seeking children on its southern border, a new NPR report follows up on the story of Jose, no last name or country used for fear of gang retaliation, who is “… one of almost 60,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America now living with family and friends in the United States. Most of the youths are awaiting court hearings to determine whether or not they can stay in the country. Many are also going to school and trying to get settled in new homes and new communities.”

NPR says that “a recent study by Syracuse University found that two-thirds of unaccompanied minors do not have legal representation — and that having it makes a big difference; those with attorneys are far more likely to be allowed to stay in the United States.”

As we have noted before, immigration courts have the look and feel of regular courts, but are actually civil proceedings and the judges are actually Justice Department employees In effect, the “courts” are hearings and NPR quotes one legal-services activist saying “… these kids are facing exile and in some cases death. It’s also very hard to represent yourself pro se when you’re a 10-year-old in a new country and you don’t speak the language.”

See the story here: Many Unaccompanied Minors No Longer Alone, But Still In Limbo

‘Amazon Tax’ Case Illustrates Fed v. State Jurisdictions

by NCM Staff

Updated: March 4, 2015

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While the U.S. Supreme Court decision on Colorado’s “Amazon tax” law focused on decades-old decisions on how much federal regulation can reach into state taxation, it also tackled the idea of federal courts being “more fair” to out-of-state interests facing local courts. The Denver Post coverage began its story by saying the high court “… stripped Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman of home field advantage” in the case, which concerns the Mile High state’s law requiring retailers to report purchases made by their Colorado customers for tax purposes – if they do not collect the state tax, Colorado says they have to pay it themselves.

An appeals court had barred the legal challenge to the 2010 law. This week’s decision means it can go ahead. The Direct Marketing Association, the plaintiff, made the case for federal jurisdiction, saying in a satement that it “… believes national businesses having access to a neutral, federal forum is a critical aspect of our judicial system.” The Post story also noted the case had venue implications: “Carolyn Tyler, a spokeswoman for {state AG] Coffman, said the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t address the merits of the underlying case and that the core legal arguments can now move forward. “They issued a procedural ruling on a technical question regarding jurisdiction and found that this case could proceed in the 10th Circuit,” Tyler said.

National retailers are not the only ones looking at the federal courts as better venues for their cases, and it will be interesting to see if the tax case has wider lawsuit implications. Read the Post’s well-reported story here: Supreme Court kicks Colorado online tax case to federal court

AZ Murder Case May Focus On Immigration Courts Issue

by NCM Staff

Updated: March 3, 2015

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A high-profile Arizona murder case is bringing calls for immigration court reform, especially increasing capacity for the Justice Department’s process. In an editorial, the Arizona Republic newspaper called for less focus on a border fence, for example, in favor of more judges. The paper wrote that “… the folly of seeing immigration enforcement in isolation is clearly illustrated by the crisis in immigration courts. Funding for the courts has not kept pace with increased enforcement efforts. The result is inefficiency and Kafka-esque backlogs in the system.”

The paper also noted that “… thousands of immigrants seeking legalization were recently notified that their court dates had been rescheduled for November 2019.” And that comes in the context of the Apolinar Altamirano, “… the undocumented man accused in the fatal shooting of Grant Ronnebeck at a QuikTrip store in Mesa last month. Altamirano was a convicted felon and therefore a high priority for deportation. He should have been in detention, but ICE had released him pending the outcome of removal proceedings in immigration court.”

With the context of an undocumented murder suspect, and the reporting that the killing was over cigarettes, the case offers a vehicle to bring the courts crisis into the national political narrative. Read the cry for help here: Forget the border fence: We need more judges

Judges Renew Calls For Immigration Court Reform

by NCM Staff

Updated: February 26, 2015

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After a period of relative quiet, the immigration judges facing hundreds of thousands of cases are speaking out, calling for help amid a crisis. A new NPR report explains that “… as Congress debates the fate of President Obama’s immigration policies, the nation’s immigration court system is bogged down in delays exacerbated by the flood of unaccompanied minors who crossed the southern border last summer. The administration made it a priority for those cases to be heard immediately. As a result, hundreds of thousands of other cases have been delayed until as late as 2019.”

NPR adds that “even before this past summer’s surge of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum, the immigration courts were already clogged, says Judge Dana Leigh Marks, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. There were too many cases for too few judges, and adding in the cases of the unaccompanied minors only made matters worse. There are currently more than 429,000 cases pending in the courts with just 223 judges.

The “judges” are not part of the usual judicial system, but are actually employees of the Justice Department – that means, for example, that they could not hold government agents – really, their co-workers – in contempt of court during one of the hearings. Read more here: http://www.npr.org/2015/02/23/387825094/immigration-courts-operating-in-crisis-mode-judges-say