January 31, 2005

EOIR’s Evil Empire: Juan Corrects Government Executives

It never ceases to amaze me how an entire federal agency, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review [E.O.I.R.], set up by the federal government ostensibly to deport aliens, can hide in plain sight.

I’ve been explaining on VDARE.COM for the past 3 years now what E.O.I.R. is — a built-in litigation gateway to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and the federal courts.

As I’ve written at length here and here, and has been amplified by Michelle Malkin in her 2002 book, “INVASION—How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores," with the EOIR, it’s not over until the alien wins.

But in the pages of the federal bureaucracy’s cheerleading magazine Government Executive (an oxymoron if there ever was one), the invisibility force field surrounding EOIR remains intact.

In a recent story about the government attorneys who serve as prosecutors in the nationwide EOIR hearing system, the four-letter word E-O-I-R is nowhere to be found.

The attorneys profiled in the story work for the beleaguered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), representing the department before the E.O.I.R.. [“Courtroom Fighters,” by Daniel Pulliam, [email him] Government Executive, January 21, 2005]

So here’s what some of the “government executives” quoted in Government Executive had to say:

"’There's a lot of public support groups that spring up, but fortunately there's a court of law to decide whether [asylum seekers] can stay or not,’ said Robert J. Emery, chief of ICE's National Security Law Division. ‘If we win—and hopefully we will—they leave. If we don't, they stay.’"

Juan to attorney Emery: What exactly do you mean by “win”? The EOIR isn’t really a “court of law” at all . . . it’s a perpetual litigation machine in a permanent amnesty bureaucracy.

"’ICE is as committed to securing the homeland in the courtrooms as much as we are on the streets,’ said Russ Knocke, the agency's public affairs director. ‘Before the creation of the Homeland Security Department, it was not uncommon for the federal government's position in these types of [terrorism] cases to be swayed by significant public pressure,’ he said.”

Juan to public affairs director Knocke: Public pressure?—EOIR is now, finally, issuing removal orders against terrorists exactly because of public pressure.

The immigration judges would have their heads handed to them by the American people if they were to let suspected terrorists (who also happen to be deportable aliens) out of immigration detention and back to the streets for no reason…as they’ve been doing for years with the rest of the not-so-high-profile illegal aliens.

Could it be that the DHS has given America security because it needs better public relations?

It could? Well, let’s turn the heat up on the EOIR some more—and shame them into actually deporting aliens.

"’Quite often we can't tell our story in the court of public opinion,’ said William J. Howard, ICE's principal legal adviser. ‘As ICE attorneys, we try our cases in a court of law.’”

Juan to legal advisor Howard: We here at VDARE.com make good use of the internet, so if you have any particularly sticky cases you would like to tell in the “court of public opinion” . . . feel free to pass them on to yours truly, Juan Mann—or to the VDARE.com editors: Email Not For Publication—Email For Publication.

It works—it’s how an American mother got the attention of one of your ICE colleagues.

So back to your desks, government executives (and Government Executive)!

You’ve got some homework to do on the evil empire of EOIR—here on the pages of VDARE.com and the Juan Mann archive.

Juan Mann [send him email] is a lawyer and the proprietor of DeportAliens.com.