Nichole Rodriguez - email: nichole.rodriguez@usdoj.gov, Jonathan W. Hitesman, Assistant Chief Immigration Judge, John Moss Federal Building He said, Good testimony should be like a skirt should be long enough to cover everything but short enough to keep it interesting, both attorneys recalled in an interview. Six of the 11 complaints resulted in no consequences, either because managers couldnt substantiate the allegations after reviewing the record or the issues raised were matters to be decided in the appeals process. None complained in writing to the Justice Department, saying they feared it would result only in the judge being angry at them and taking that anger out on their clients. This request is currently #35 of 63 pending "complex" requests. I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on June 24, 2018. EOIR operates within a variety of settings across the country, most commonly in federal or leased buildings controlled by the General Services Administration and detention facilities operated by the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to 2008, and when not serving as a member of the Navy-Marine Corps Trial Judiciary, Judge Daugherty served in the Marine Corps in various capacities including deputy staff judge advocate, chief trial counsel (prosecution), prosecutor, senior defense counsel, defense counsel, and special assistant U.S. attorney. The departments main objectives are to enforce the law and defend the interests of the U.S. according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and Find contact details for 700 million professionals. Any records referencing phone conferences regarding the Supreme Court's decision in Pereira v. Sessions from June 21, 2018 to the date this FOIA request is processed. Subject: Freedom of Information Act Request: McHenry and Maggard Correspondence and Calendars on Pereira. It called the current system difficult to use for complainants and judges alike. These records, covering 2008 to 2013, were made public by attorney Bryan Johnson and a coalition of immigration legal groups after they received them through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Please see our Privacy Policy. The Board of Immigration Appeals primarily reviews appeals of decisions by immigration judges. The Chronicle reported in October that the Trump administration canceled all diversity training, including for immigration judges. An acknowledgement letter, stating the request is being processed. Try our Advanced Search for more refined results. uhA7(RhYO'o6hs5oX/K$%zM}$nN_*I4%50}]I^C_J`cM 3"%}D5jW#{?d)yk~kIy.D# WC$0`udG*;K_E08DOc"H/}U 7^54N`mY5P8}k_R&P^jXqN1"I4,/+ Wf]d=u,5Rf;(n}kPxTJ2+l^'t${1axcm*vi\l Window Filing Hours: 8 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. The Justice Department cited its policy of not commenting on personnel matters in declining to answer questions to The Chronicle about Grants banishment. You had assigned it reference number #2018-37357. ), Create custom alerts for specific article and case topics and, I took a free trial but didn't get a verification email. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch appointed Judge Simpson to begin hearing cases in November 2015. ), Create custom alerts for specific article and case topics and, I took a free trial but didn't get a verification email. The Sacramento Immigration Court falls under the jurisdiction of the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge, which is a component of the Executive Office for Immigration Review under the Department of Justice. All times are GMT-5. Under delegated authority from the Attorney General, immigration judges and the Board of Immigration Appeals interpret and adjudicate immigration cases according to United States immigration laws. Cassidy did not respond to requests for comment. Visitors must not bring any cameras, video or recording equipment. Two commercial parking lots, open and covered, are within walking distance to the building. Get contact details including emails and phone numbers Make arrangements to arrive in advance of your hearing so you arrive to the courtroom on time. Subject: RE: Freedom of Information Act Request #2018-37357. Attorneys say Cassidys behavior should not have been a secret to the Justice Department. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not. That lewd expression refers to a womans pubic area. Remember that the immigration court may limit entry. Robert Print Maggard's 2021 pay is 22% higher than the average General Attorney across all agencies. The department said all hiring for immigration courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals follows an open, merit-based process. Please see Google Maps for a map and directions to the immigration court. But, she said, he was in front of him., Atlanta immigration attorney Carolina Antonini says one judges inappropriate comments about women are so cumulative that it becomes like background noise., The Justice Department and McHenry declined to comment on McHenrys relationship to Cassidy or his role in promoting him. Other judges may have been fired, but the department does not separate firings from retirements or resignations in its data. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, who chairs the House subcommittee on immigration policy, has been working on a bill to spin off the courts, but has yet to introduce it. But sources familiar with the situation confirmed it was Grant and that the complaint involved sexual harassment. 3. Search over 700 Elevator wait times may be significantly longer than usual for this reason. To have her deportation canceled, she had to convince Cassidy she was deserving and had a reason to stay in the U.S. That reason, she testified, was her school-age daughter, who was born prematurely and had special needs. A Chronicle investigation revealed numerous similar instances of harassment or misconduct in the courts, and found a system that allows sexually inappropriate behavior to flourish. 161 0 obj <>stream million verified professionals across 35 million companies. Contact the Court Hours: Opening for Filings Only Court Hours: 8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. From 2006 through September 2015, Judge Simpson served as assistant chief counsel, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, in Los Angeles and San Diego, Calif. From 1997 through 2006, both domestically and abroad, Judge Simpson served in various capacities as a member of the U.S. Navys Judge Advocate Generals Corps, including branch chief, officer in charge, and attorney. The Justice Department has long lacked a strong system for reporting and responding to sexual harassment and misconduct. endstream endobj startxref Many e-mail messages are redacted in part with the text "not a responsive record." Learn more. 102 Petty France, London, Greater London SW1H 9AJ, GB, View If the current person in charge didnt know him, I would get it, Antonini said of Cassidys promotion. The three men, all immigration judges still employed by the Justice Department, work for a court system designed to give immigrants a fair chance to stay in the U.S. Every day, they hear some of the most harrowing stories of trauma in the world, many from women who were victims of gender-based violence and who fear that their lives are at risk if they are deported to their native countries. Judge Print also served as an Immigration Judge at the San Francisco Immigration Court from May 2009 to December 2011. The light rail train and buses stop on the 8th Street side of the building. EOIR's immigration judges conduct administrative court proceedings in immigration courts located throughout the nation. Slavin said Bidens first priority should be hiring new judges to deal with a backlog of cases and to counterbalance Trumps hundreds of hires who she said favor deportation, and that he should rescind many of the Trump administrations immigration policy changes. H\ d100Ag The National Association of Immigration Judges said it supports an overhaul of the departments complaint process. of Commerce) or to a sub-agency to process it. It declined to say whether the others who participated in the conversations with Maggard were identified or faced consequences. American Immigration Lawyers Association. The department does not tolerate complaints whose sole purpose is to harass, threaten, intimidate, or retaliate against its adjudicators based on their rulings.. Be prepared have a mask available. Presenting information from an anonymous source occurs extremely rarely, and only when that information is considered crucially important and all other on-the-record options have been exhausted. The Chronicle's detailed policy governing the use of such sources, including the use of pseudonyms, is available on SFChronicle.com. Even when Im saying it now, I feel like Im starting to get red in the face, the attorney said. The 11 new judges, who were appointed by Attorney General Jeff . ( The entire e-mail messages is responsive to this request, and the agency can't redact parts without citing a FOIA exemption. [[To print the PDF on this page please use the print function in the PDF reader. You have to know whats happening with clients, competitors, practice areas, and industries. Its my hope that this hearing will be a first step toward negotiating a bipartisan, workable solution to what is really a crisis in our immigration courts., In her statement, Marks of the National Association of Immigration Judges called an independent court system the only sustainable solution to check against the politics that has plagued the immigration courts over the years.. (business & personal). Grant, who has served on the Board of Immigration Appeals since 1998, is one of 23 judges who weigh appeals from immigrants who have lost cases in the nearly 70 immigration courts around the country. Otherwise, those responsive records will be sent via the method agreed upon with the FOIA processor. The new immigration judges were appointed by U.S. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch. She added that the court system explicitly forbids retaliation.. RjK {02]s)c\P+P`7_pac ;a PE. *Dp+_>g6,aP{PZY@JYAT,'JVpL/q2)p0* The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is an agency within the Department of Justice. hb```l|aB o~a UjB X HRHx6J;-rq# `u3p/d Judge Daugherty is a member of the Ohio Bar. Denise Slavin, who served as an immigration judge from 1995 to 2019, is president emerita of the union that represents immigration judges and still advises the organization. Although the supervisors name was blacked out, multiple sources familiar with the contents of the report confirmed it was Print Maggard. They requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject matter. It really took them pointing out how serious this behavior was for me to realize that this is not ordinary behavior for other (federal) judges. Biden has proposed legislation that would expand training for judges and give them more discretion to grant protections to immigrants. Please find attached this Office's acknowledgment of the above-referenced request. EOIR is committed to ensuring fairness in all of the cases it adjudicates. These judges behavior toward women is not an isolated phenomenon in the immigration courts system. My assistant chief immigration judge once told me, You would have to murder someone, with an ax, with your robe on and nothing on underneath, in court to get disciplined, Slavin said. The agency will soon begin recruiting a new Chief Immigration Judge. MuckRock users can file, duplicate, track, and share public records requests The immigration court has put into place procedures to implement the guidance of public health officials. This is normally due to the referral being transferred to another agency (for example, EPA to Dept. Supervisors concluded that Grant had harassed female staffers, and took an extraordinary step: They banned Grant from the court building. Please use the download button to access the PDF. After the report was completed in November 2019, Maggard was demoted and reassigned to be an immigration judge in Sacramento. Attached is correspondence from the Department of Justice's Office of Information Policy, which is associated with the above-referenced Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. McCloskey did not respond to requests for comment. The immigration courts are housed within the Justice Department, meaning the judges are hired directly by the attorney general, a political appointee with a policy agenda. Rate Your Immigration Judge is an important source of information for other immigrants and their attorneys, but also for the immigration judges. Under the Trump administration, the number of complaints dismissed jumped from roughly 40% in 2015 and 2016 to 60% in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. Sophia Genovese, an immigration attorney, says it was common for immigration judges in Atlanta to make inappropriate remarks. All correspondence mentioning "Pereira" to or from James McHenry or Print Maggard. A joint initiative between the American Immigration Council and AILA seeks to change the playing field for immigrants facing deportation. Kopan graduated with honors from the University of Chicago. He is still there, hearing immigrants' cases but stripped of his. But that leaves Biden with a problem, they add: Does he reform the system to be independent of political influence, or does he use his political control over it to clean it up? Grant issues his rulings without seeing the inside of a courtroom. The agency will soon begin recruiting a new Chief Immigration Judge. Acting Chief Immigration Judge Print Maggard, who presided over the investiture during a ceremony held on January 29, 2016, stated that the new immigration judges would help decrease EOIR's pending caseload. Genovese and other attorneys in Atlanta say such behavior was routine for Cassidy. But she said the Trump administration focused on different priorities namely, speeding up deportation cases and limiting immigrants ability to win asylum. Grant did not respond to requests for comment. The request was for the entirety of each message that mentioned the word "Pereira." The attorney general alone holds the power to fire immigration judges. Acting Chief Immigration Judge Print Maggard presided over the investiture during a ceremony held Nov. 6, 2015, at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington D.C. After a thorough application process, then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. appointed Daniel J. Daugherty to his new position, and Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch appointed Jonathan S. Simpson to his new position. A third, a supervisor based mostly in San Francisco, commented with colleagues about the attractiveness of female job candidates, an internal investigation concluded. like this one. In the interim, Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Print Maggard will serve as the Acting Chief Immigration Judge. The immigration courts do have a system for reporting complaints. No, Im thinking I just need to get through this., She added, If all you have to do is force a smile so that your client is not deported, the answer is obvious what practitioners are going to do.. See all files. . Print Maggard's Email & Phone Number Immigration Judge @ U.S. Department of Justice Location San Francisco, California, United States Work Immigration Judge @ u.s. Department of Justice Deputy Chief Immigration Judge @ u.s. Department of Justice Assistant Chief Immigration Judge @ u.s. Department of Justice see more Education But in practice, there is little to prevent judges from retaliating against someone who complains, attorneys say. Judge-by-Judge Asylum Decisions in Immigration Courts Before and After the Attorney General's Directive : Denial Rate : Immigration Court: . All items will pass through an x-ray machine and are subject to manual inspection if deemed necessary. For this man to have such disregard for women particularly in a professional environment, being reminded that we are first and foremost a sex object for some people.. He was allowed to keep his job, and still has it to this day, though he remains barred from working in the appeals courts headquarters unless his presence is unavoidable, such as in rare instances when the board hears oral arguments. The Chronicle found examples across the country of judges who have made sexual jokes or who habitually made attorneys or staff uncomfortable in the courtroom. For information regarding procedures for practice before the immigration courts, please see the Immigration Court Practice Manual. free lookups / month. The Trump administration did little to change the pattern, The Chronicle found, and in one case even promoted a judge who many women have said made them feel uncomfortable in open court and behind the scenes for years. Many attorneys who have practiced before Cassidy say they decided they were better off brushing aside his conduct toward women than filing complaints. He improperly provided sample questions to a job candidate in advance of the persons interview and escorted a friend to another interview, an impermissible boost to her job application, investigators said. endstream endobj 134 0 obj <>/Metadata 13 0 R/PageLayout/OneColumn/Pages 131 0 R/StructTreeRoot 17 0 R/Type/Catalog>> endobj 135 0 obj <>/ExtGState<>/Font<>/XObject<>>>/Rotate 0/StructParents 0/Type/Page>> endobj 136 0 obj <>stream An official website of the United States government. Justice Department data shows the administration dismissed more complaints against judges than its predecessor. All I remember is him just laughing like he had made a funny comment that we should all think is funny.. She said she recoiled at the joke, but didnt find it out of the ordinary for Cassidy. Any records referencing phone conferences regarding the Supreme Court's decision in Pereira v. . And yes, objectively, I know its a sexist comment, and also its just so commonplace with immigration judges to make inappropriate comments like this and theres just no accountability for it.. Immigration Court Backlog and Reprioritization, AILAs Immigration Law Practice & Procedure Manual, EOIR Announces that Chief Immigration Judge Is Stepping Down. In response to detailed questions before President Biden took office, the Justice Department declined to comment on specific allegations against judges, citing the privacy of personnel matters in some instances and the lack of written complaints in others, but said generally that it follows department procedures on misconduct. Michelle Mendez of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, which provides legal representation to immigrants and helps attorneys report allegations of judicial misconduct, said lawyers face tremendous pressure not to call out judges bad behavior, even though they know ignoring it means it is likely to continue. 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