{"id":21578,"date":"2019-06-11T18:44:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T22:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=21578"},"modified":"2019-06-12T15:40:15","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T19:40:15","slug":"vice-new-commits-another-sin-against-the-truth-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/06\/11\/vice-new-commits-another-sin-against-the-truth-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Vice News Commits Another Sin Against The Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/j5wa5y\/us-immigration-courts-are-broken-these-5-charts-show-why\"><em>Vice News<\/em><\/a> recently published a piece titled \u201cU.S. Immigration Courts Are Broken. These 5 Charts Show Why.\u201d Rather than showing why the Immigration Courts are backlogged, <em>Vice<\/em> just demonstrates that it knows nothing about how our immigration system works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In between utterly pedestrian observations like \u201cthere are\ntoo many cases and too few judges,\u201d we get stunningly mistaken gems like these:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Since 2005,\u201d\u2026[immigration]judges have gradually\ncompleted fewer cases per year. It\u2019s not because they\u2019re getting lazier; it\u2019s\nbecause the types of cases have changed.\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Except that\u2019s not true. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/trac.syr.edu\/phptools\/immigration\/charges\/deport_filing_charge.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Syracuse University<\/a>, the two biggest categories of cases before the Immigration Court in 2005 were entrants without inspection and aliens being removed on other charges (<em>i.e., <\/em>charges not involving crime, terrorism or national security). In 2019, the two biggest categories of cases before the Immigration Court are \u2013 you guessed it &#8211; entrants without inspection and aliens being removed on other charges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And while asylum requests have increased, a competent Immigration Judge should be able to adjudicate those cases in a timely and efficient manner. Claims that a \u201cmore nuanced analysis\u201d is required \u201cin order to determine whether the asylum law fits them or does not fit them,\u201d are utter nonsense. Most asylum claims could be reviewed and decided much more quickly if the Immigration Judges hearing them <a href=\"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/04\/23\/asylum-law-myth-vs-reality-immigrationreform-com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">stuck to the law<\/a> as it is written.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>\u201cIn criminal court, prosecutors can use plea\nbargains to help preserve limited court resources\u2026. But that option doesn\u2019t\nexist within the immigration court system, because there\u2019s no lesser sentence\nan immigrant can plea to. The consequence is always deportation.\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Where to begin with this one? Immigration proceedings are civil, administrative hearings \u2013 not criminal trials. As the Supreme Court noted in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/149\/698\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Fong Yue Ting v. United States<\/a><\/em>, deportation is \u201cnot a punishment for crime.\u201d Aliens ordered removed from the United States aren\u2019t \u201csentenced\u201d to anything. They are simply returned to the country where they have a legal right to reside. The philosophical purpose behind deportation is to discourage other foreign nationals from breaking our immigration laws. There isn\u2019t any lesser remedy that would accomplish that goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, to an\nextent, several forms of civil \u201cplea bargaining\u201d do occur in the Immigration\nCourts. Certain aliens can admit that they broke our immigration laws, agree to\nleave the U.S. at their own expense and be granted voluntary departure. If they\ndepart the United States in accordance with the terms of their agreement they\nwill not be barred from returning to the U.S. lawfully. Other aliens may\nqualify to admit removability in exchange for other forms of discretionary\nrelief. So, individuals in removal proceedings do have some room to negotiate\nand the consequence isn\u2019t \u201calways deportation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>\u201cThe\nclosest option [to a plea bargain]is called \u2018administrative closure\u2019\u2026 though\nthe judge doesn\u2019t grant a visa or specific form of relief, the undocumented\nperson is no longer in removal proceedings.\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s a case of comparing applies to elephants. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/eoir\/page\/file\/1064086\/download\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Administrative closure<\/a> isn\u2019t anything like a plea bargain, which brings a criminal case to a formal conclusion. It is a temporary measure that pauses a case so that parties don\u2019t need to attend hearings while evidence is being gathered or other preparations are being made. Aliens subject to an administrative closure order remain in active removal proceedings, which can be re-calendared at any time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, in reality,\nadministrative closures are one of the primary reasons the immigration court is\nbacklogged. The temporary suspension of immigration proceedings has been a\npopular way to fudge the numbers and make the Immigration Court look like it is\nreducing its backlog, without really completing any cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Should <em>Vice News<\/em> change its name to <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/05\/07\/more-fake-news-at-the-washington-post-immigrationreform-com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Fake News<\/a><\/em>? Unless it does a better job of reporting accurate information about the immigration issue, the answer to that question is an emphatic, \u201cYes.\u201d Unfortunately, the truth has become a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/05\/16\/ny-times-makes-another-u-turn-away-from-the-truth-immigrationreform-com\/\">malleable commodity<\/a> when it comes to immigration reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vice News recently published a piece titled \u201cU.S. Immigration Courts Are Broken. These 5 Charts Show Why.\u201d Rather than showing why the Immigration Courts are backlogged, Vice just demonstrates that it knows nothing about how our immigration system works. In between utterly pedestrian observations like \u201cthere are too many cases and too few judges,\u201d we<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/06\/11\/vice-new-commits-another-sin-against-the-truth-immigrationreform-com\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":17663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[5079],"tags":[1114,1524,1064,275],"yst_prominent_words":[5825,2019,5819,5823,2836,5816,2249,5817,5813,1963,2573,2571,2196,2580,5818,5815,5814,4937,1933,5820],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21578"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21583,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21578\/revisions\/21583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21578"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}