April 17, 2018

The Honorable Chuck Grassley                                  The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
135 Hart Senate Office Building                                331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510                                            Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Feinstein,

On behalf of the 24 national unions in the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO (DPE), I write regarding the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Executive Office of Immigration Review’s (EOIR) intention to include production quotas and case completion deadlines in the performance evaluations of Immigration Judges (IJ). DPE believes that such measures will threaten the professional integrity of the IJs and the political independence of the immigration courts, without actually producing the desired efficiency.

IJs should have their performance fairly evaluated in a manner that is in line with established judicial standards of evaluating the job performance of judges. Production quotas and case completion deadlines do not allow for a fair, accurate assessment of an IJ’s performance. Instead these performance measures merely indicate the speed at which IJs move cases through the docket. While we all desire efficient public services, an undue focus on expediency in a setting like the immigration courts can and will come at the expense of individuals’ due process rights and the immigration courts’ own independence.

DPE recommends that you take immediate steps to stop DOJ and EOIR from evaluating IJs based on production quotas by working with appropriators to defund implementation of the planned quotas policy through the Fiscal Year 2019 (FY2019) Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill. We also recommend that you introduce and work to pass bipartisan legislation that removes the immigration courts from DOJ’s jurisdiction in order to safeguard the immigration courts’ role as a neutral, independent body.

If you have any questions, please contact DPE Legislative and Outreach Director, Michael Wasser at (202) 638-0320, x119.

Sincerely,

Paul E. Almeida, President