Your daily ration of civil justice rationing
Sara Warner, Founding Publisher of the National Courts Monitor & California Courts Monitor
Courts Monitor Publisher Sara Warner, in a Huffington Post blog, makes her case that fixing the swamped immigration courts should be a low-hanging issue for bi-partisian action. Although, perhaps the parties have differing motivations.
See her argument here:
Swamped Immigration Courts Are A Bi-Partisian Fix Opportunity
A naturalization ceremony at Ellis Island last year. Investigators at United States Citizenship and Immigration Services say that possible corruption among contract workers is going unexamined and puts the immigration system at risk. Credit John Moore/Getty Images
The New York Times is reporting that:
“Dozens of cases of possible wrongdoing by contract workers at the Department of Homeland SecurityĀ agency responsible for citizenship, visas and green cards have sat idle for two years because internal investigators say they have been denied the authority to look into the allegations, interviews and documents show.”
The story says that investigators at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services allege they have repeatedly warned top managers of the problem among contractors that “could put the immigration system at risk.”
Read the truly alarming story here:
Claims of Corrupt Immigration Contractors Go Unexamined, Investigators Say
Photo credit: WNYC Audio Report, 1/17/17
New York’s WNYC radio has an excellent report on why the Big Apple’s immigration courts are backed up, noting that more than a half-million cases are pending nationwide and tens of thousands of those are in NYC. The reporter visits one of the city’s 28 immigration courts, which are actually not federal courts but administrative functions of the Justice Department. The story follows one immigrant and notes ” the whole process took about five minutes for each case, and Khan was scheduling future court appearances as late as August of 2018. This isnāt so bad given, that Schmidt said he was scheduling hearings for 2021 before retiring last summer.”
The reporting is in the context of Donald Trump presidency and any attempt to increase the pace of court-ordered deportations. The take-away is that there’s no real capacity to increase or even keep pace
See the story here: Why New York’s Immigration Courts Are Overwhelmed
Children hold up “Parent Revolution” signs during a press conference held next to Desert Trails Preparatory Academy in Adelanto in 2013. Parents used a state law to transform their local low-performing public elementary school into a not-for-profit charter campus. (Los Angeles Times)
As Democrats leveled sharp questions at Betsy DeVos, president-elect Donald Trump’s education nominee, this week, they stressed her decades of support for the charter school movement. Clearly, the Trump Administration and the GOP-controlled Congress will make “school choice” a spotlight issue, including the “parent trigger” movement that didn’t really come up in the DeVos questioning, perhaps because her efforts have mostly been in Michigan.
Parent trigger is the idea that parents can more or less take over a failing school. A half-dozen states have some level of parent trigger law, but the one that’s been most lawsuit-tested is California’s. The Golden State actually passed the nation’s first such law in 2010, and of course litigation came shortly after.
Natasha Lindstron, a respected reporter who has covered the California Parent Trigger since its passage, offers a good overview report here http://hechingerreport.org/parent-trigger-showdowns-loom-nationwide/
And if you’d like to see how The Los Angeles Times, which supported the original parent trigger legislation, feels about it now, check that out here:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-parent-trigger-20150803-story.html
BEACON FILE PHOTO
After months of community meetings, a Montana panel has found (among other things) “… that low- to moderate-income Montanans most often face legal crises stemming from housing problems, custody disputes, domestic violence, and debt collection. These issues are often compounded with other complicating factors, the report said, such as mental illness or diminished capacity, substance abuse, physical disabilities, threats to safety, and child care. Many of these issues are intersectional, meaning they affect and intensify the other.”
The Flathead Beacon reported on the panel’s findings, noting that “… many Montanans donāt realize, for instance, that they donāt have the right to an appointed attorney while facing civil issues. They can be evicted, lose custody of their children, or lose their home without ever having the right to an attorney.”
The Beacon also reported that the Access to Justice Commission “… concluded that there needs to be a statewide inventory of services and programs available in each region, and a means for making this inventory known in those regions. Along with the inventory, the commission said there should be a means for linking Montanans with legal problems to the programs and service providers.”
Read the report, and find a link to the Commission’s complete findings, here:
Report Details Need for Education, Increased Access to Civil Legal Resources – Flathead Beacon
