No, Immigration Courts Should Not Be ‘Independent’
The article critiques the independence claimed by some immigration judges, highlighting comments made by Judge Holly D’Andrea in an interview with The New York Times. D’Andrea emphasized the necessity for immigration courts to be separate from the Department of Justice to prevent political influence and allow judges to enforce laws without policy interference. Though, the piece argues that her statements reveal a desire to insulate the judiciary from accountability, aligning with broader Democratic efforts to establish unelected power structures resistant to electoral control. The article criticizes her and similar officials for supposedly acting under the influence of the current administration, prioritizing rapid removal of individuals with weak asylum claims. It underscores that such notions of independence are a guise for avoiding political oversight and maintaining power outside democratic processes,asserting that ultimately,voter sovereignty is the only true source of authority.
If President Trump is still trying to weed out government workers who are threatening to undermine his agenda from within, he might want to take a look at one of his immigration judges named Holly D’Andrea.
In an interview with The New York Times (repackaged this week for The Daily podcast), D’Andrea said something that’s a dead giveaway when someone wants to thwart elections and impose their own agendas— that certain government institutions and agencies need independence from the president, or separation from the political process.
“We’re getting to a point now where it’s just getting more and more necessary to have that full separation of power and have the immigration courts separate from the Department of Justice,” D’Andrea said. “Take the policy influence away from the courts, so the courts can just enforce the law. That’s all any of the immigration judges want. We want to be able to enforce the law and not be subject to just the policies.”
D’Andrea’s predictable gripe is that she and her peers in the immigration court system have been instructed by the administration to execute the president’s agenda. Namely, to burn through the obscene backlog of “asylum” cases as quickly as possible — and no, that doesn’t mean adding indefinite hearings and reports that seem to sustain the lives of both immigration judges and lawyers. It means to expedite the removal of foreigners who illegally entered the U.S., the vast majority of whom have no legitimate asylum claim and who have instead exploited our laws in order to secure a low-wage job in America.
For too long government employees like D’Andrea have operated under the belief that they have no boss and, in fact, should never have to answer to anyone. But they do and his name is the American voter. At the moment, Donald Trump is the voter’s chosen representative, and he got the job promising deportations.
The whole concept of an “independent” judge, agency, or office that operates within the executive branch has proven to be a sham; it’s the way Democrats have managed to set up their permanent power structures in Washington and elsewhere, immune from elections, thus permitting them to maintain control of the country even when they lose elections. The only thing that’s independent is the voter’s will, expressed at the national level every two years. To advocate “separation” from that will is to express contempt for it.
Maybe D’Andrea isn’t a terrible judge in every other aspect. But those comments she made to the Times indicate that there remains a big problem in the immigration courts.
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