Valley gets new federal judges
Following up on a Donald Trump Administration executive order from March, the Executive Office for Immigration Review has reassigned two immigration judges to the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico on Monday.
Edward Barcus and Paul Habich will begin hearing cases this month according to published reports. They are part of 14 new immigration judges announced by the EOIR, a branch of the Department of Justice.
“We’re happy to welcome these 14 appointees,” said Chief Immigration Judge Mary Beth Keller. “These new immigration judges will enhance the agency’s ability to process detained cases.”
These assignments are not intended to be temporary, said Kathryn Mattingly, assistant press secretary of the EOIR. The judges were appointed by Loretta Lynch, former Obama Administration attorney general. This brings the national total of immigration judges to 312 with 62 vacancies remaining.
Barcus, who earned a Juris Doctor in 1988 from the University of Texas has been the interim executive director of Iron Gate, a soup kitchen in Tulsa, Okla., and previously a district judge for the Tulsa County District Court.
Habich earned a Juris Doctor in 2008 from Arizona State University. From 2009 to 2017, he served as assistant chief counsel for the Office of Chief Counsel, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
As of January there was a backlog of 542,646 immigration cases that included 20,856 people who were held in detention centers, according to the Associated Press.
Of these, 3,500 are for the Imperial Court and 3,750 are for San Diego, noted the EOIR.
San Diego has six judges assigned to it, while the nearby Otay Mesa center has two judges. The Imperial detention facility had no judges since two prior judges retired several years ago.
Also in March, President Trump issued an executive order directing undocumented immigrants with criminal cases will be a priority for deportation even if they have yet to be found guilty, a divergence from the former Obama Administration that prioritized deportations only for those convicted of serious crime.
The detention centers are facilities to hold people waiting to be deported or to see an immigration judge.
This includes asylum seekers, unauthorized immigrants arrested inside the border, recent border crossers and green card holders who have committed crimes.
Kelly Smith, an immigration attorney with offices in El Centro and Yuma, Arizona previously told the IV Press, in her opinion, the move to reassign judges is a show of getting something done by the Trump Administration with the undocumented who may be charged with a crime but not convicted.
Although an individual may go before an immigration judge it does not mean he or she will be deported even if he or she has a conviction. There are a number of different types of releases where the undocumented with charges or a conviction can obtain a release, most notable, the Cancellation of Removal, which up to the discretion of the judge, Smith remarked.
Inquiries to the DOJ Office of Public Affairs in Washington D.C. we’re not returned by press deadline.
There are 700 people a day in the Imperial Detention Center who stay an average of 62 days. And even some detained at San Ysidro, near San Diego, are transported to Imperial. This center is run by a private contractor with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.