It’s only 17 of over 500 of them….
(Biden should be picking over a 100 more)
But progressive immigration people are ‘alarmed’ with the Biden choices which seem to point to Biden watering down his pledges for better immigration system that would allow more controlled and MORE immigrants into America….
Immigration has turned out to be a much more difficult program for the Biden admin making it easier for Republicans to attack Biden….
In fact?
Pieces of the very Trump[ admin that Democrats and media attacked Trump over?
Have stayed in place and may remain in place for a long time ….
Under the Trump administration, the Justice Department, which oversees the immigration court system, filled roughly two-thirds of the 520 seats on the bench, often picking those with long careers in ICE who argue in favor of deporting people.
“The Trump administration was very astute when it came to the importance of who sits on the bench. That was as true of the Supreme Court as it was all of the federal circuits and the federal district courts, and to their immense credit they did not have a blind spot for the immigration court,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a professor at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law.
“I think it’s important for the administration actually putting these individuals on the bench to decide if they have the information they need to make this decision or delay the process or to take ownership for making these appointments,” he added.
Biden’s budget calls for hiring 100 new immigration court judges — a figure many argue will hardly make a dent in a backlog of 1.3 million cases that will take an estimated four years to get through.
And his designated White House counsel wrote in a letter to lawmakers in December seeking suggestions for who to nominate to the bench, writing that they were “focused on nominating individuals whose legal experiences have been historically underrepresented on the federal bench, including … those who represent Americans in every walk of life.”
For many, that means the immigration court system needs to be filled with more immigration defenders.
“The bottom line is that the president has been clear and forceful that he wants to put judges on the bench with diversity that had been lacking in past, and that’s not just in terms of race and other markers but that diversity in professional background is just as important,” said Peter Markowitz, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University….
…
“I haven’t seen much evidence to back up their initial claim they want to be fair and just to asylum seekers. It’s just Stephen Miller Lite.”
And example of the issues the Biden admin is trying to fix piece meal….
Biden administration officials have insisted that they have gotten better control of a surge of migrant children that has swamped detention centers at the U.S.-Mexico border.
But documents obtained by The New York Times indicate that the problem has moved to other facilities, like convention centers in Dallas, San Diego and Long Beach, Calif., which are nearing capacity as funds for more space are scarce.
The migrant children are far better cared for at the new facilities, operated by the Department of Health and Human Services, than they were at crammed jails run by the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection, according to administration officials. But health department officials are taking about a month on average to move the children and teenagers out of government custody and into the care of a family member or sponsor in the United States.
The White House this week allowed the Department of Health and Human Services to redirect $850 million to migrant care, according to an internal document dated May 6. Another nearly $850 million could be available in the coming weeks. Before that transfer was completed, the administration estimated that it would need another $4 billion before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, according to the document….