Did you know federal judges have a union? I didn’t, until I read an article about President Trump’s new policy on improving our immigration courts. Apparently, our so-called public servants are incapable of processing this tidal wave of illegal aliens in an efficient manner. Here is an excerpt:
The White House says it aims to reduce an "enormous" backlog of 600,000 cases, triple the number in 2009, that cripples its ability to deport immigrants as President Donald Trump mandated in January.
The National Association of Immigration Judges called the move unprecedented and says it will be the "death knell for judicial independence" in courts where immigrants such as political dissidents, women fleeing violence and children plead their cases to stay in the United States.
"That is a huge, huge, huge encroachment on judicial independence," said Dana Leigh Marks, spokeswoman and former president of the association and a judge for more than 30 years. "It's trying to turn immigration judges into assembly-line workers."
First of all, why do we allow federal judges to have a union? This really didn’t sink in until I read the following paragraph and then I knew unions for judges actually existed:
The judges' union says its current contract language prevents the government from rating them based on the number of cases they complete or the time it takes to decide them.
But now, they say, the department is trying to rescind that language, and advocates say it could violate a federal regulation that requires judges to "exercise their independent judgment and discretion" when deciding cases.
This is amazing! Shouldn’t this raise a red flag to everyone? Exactly how are these judges supposed to “exercise their independent judgement and discretion” when they belong to a union. Unions promote a socio-political ideology that is the antithesis of independence and free thought. Name a union that’s not!
Come to find out this is more pervasive than I thought. Administrative judges in Washington D.C. voted to join a union in 2014. Here is an excerpt from a press release:
Washington DC -- Administrative law judges who work for the District of Columbia’s Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH), the office which provides adjudication services for several DC agencies, voted overwhelmingly Thursday to join the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE). Eighty percent of judges voting cast ballots for the union. Judge Jesse Goode, who hears cases related to unemployment insurance, said, “This has been a long time in coming. We wanted a union because we wanted a voice in making improvements to our courts. We specifically wanted to be members of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers because IFPTE represents nearly 2,000 federal administrative law judges. Sometimes the wheels of justice turn slowly even for judges, but today democracy prevailed and the union was voted in.”
Now they want an independent court system completely outside of the Department of Justice:
WASHINGTON — The federal immigration court system should be separated from the Justice Department and operated independently of federal law enforcement, the top two leaders of the immigration judges’ union said Wednesday.
Judge Dana Leigh Marks, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said immigration judges act as arbiters in deportation cases being argued by Homeland Security Department lawyers but judges also are treated as attorneys for the government.
This is a serious problem.
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