Justice Department Treated Immigration Judges Like Political Appointees

Your daily dose of Attorneygate news. The Attorney General is now being sued for discrimination, after Republican insiders were awarded prestigious appointments as immigration judges over more qualified applicants. From the El Paso Times:

Guadalupe Gonzalez is the chief counsel for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in El Paso, a lawyer with more than 20 years of experience in immigration law and a stellar record. In 2002, she made the next logical career move, applying to become an immigration judge.

...But the job went to a Anglo male candidate with no reported immigration experience. In 2004, when two other judgeships opened, they went to two other Anglo males, both of them Gonzalez's subordinates with markedly less expertise in immigration law than Gonzalez.

One reason may be the political hiring practices of the Justice Department. An analysis by the Washington Post found that,

"at least one-third of the immigration judges appointed since 2004 have had Republican connections or have been administration insiders, and half lacked experience in immigration law."[Italics mine]

The pattern is similar to other Bush administration and Justice Department hiring decisions that are now under scrutiny. Read our past coverage here and here.

Comments (1) «

Were any of them illegal aliens? I wouldn't put it pass the White House if they could get a foreign judge to work for less.

But instead I suppose someone with no experience in immigration law except for some serious Cheney butt kissing is a better candidate in BushWorld.

1

SandyH on June 25, 2007 at 03:19 PM

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