In (Attempted) Defense of Banning Iranian-American Immigration Judges

If you follow the news from the Executive Office for Immigration Review or EOIR–the office that oversees the Immigration Courts–you are aware of the recent lawsuit filed by Judge Afsaneh Ashley Tabaddor. Judge Tabaddor is an IJ in Los Angeles. She was appointed in 2005 and has been serving ever since. Judge Tabaddor also happens to be Iranian-American.

Judge Tabaddor has been mistreated by the executive branch. We hope she doesn't leave, and we are root-ing for her.
Judge Tabaddor has been mistreated by the executive Branch. We hope she doesn’t Leave. We are Root-ing for her.

According to Judge Tabaddor’s complaint against EOIR, trouble began for her in the summer of 2012 when the White House–considered by some a radical Muslim organization–invited her to attend a “Round Table with Iranian-American Community Leaders.” After some hemming and hawing over the nature of the event, EOIR granted the Judge leave to attend. But afterward, EOIR banned Judge Tabaddor from adjudicating cases involving nationals from Iran. So in other words, an Iranian American Judge who is active in her community is not permitted to hear cases where the alien is from Iran.

On it’s face, EOIR’s decision seems completely ridiculous and indefensible. It would be like forcing members of the National Association of Women Judges to recuse themselves in cases involving women, or stopping members of a Jewish judges association from hearing cases involving Jews, etc., etc. But can EOIR’s decision somehow be justified? Does it make sense to ban an Iranian-American who is involved in her community from hearing cases form Iran? Permit me to try to make that argument (as an asylum lawyer, tilting at windmills is my specialty).

Perhaps EOIR is concerned about the Judge because Iran is considered our enemy (or–on a good day–our rival). Allowing Judge Tabaddor to hear Iranian cases would be like allowing an American originally from the Eastern Block to serve in the White House during the Cold War (Zbigniew Brzezinski) or like allowing a German-American to lead the fight against Germany in WWI (John J. “Black Jack” Pershing) or against the Nazis in WWII (Major General Carl Spaatz). Hmm, maybe that argument doesn’t work so well after all. Let me put it another way. If you are at war with Japan, you’d better imprison all Japanese-Americans. Wait. Maybe that is not such a good argument either. Let’s try this a little differently. 

It could be that EOIR is worried about the appearance of bias. Appearance is very important for judges. If an IJ is perceived as biased, it reduces our confidence in her decisions. It would be as if five Republican-appointed judges voted to end an election recount, giving the victory to the Republican presidential candidate. Oy. Let me give you a better example. Maybe it would be like allowing a Russian figure skating judge who is married to the director of the Russian Figure Skating Association to serve as a judge at the Sochi Olympics. And then the Russian skater miraculously wins. Harrumph. I guess that one doesn’t work too well either. Maybe we should look at the problem another way.

What if we assume that Judge Tabaddor is, in fact, biased in favor (or against) Iranian respondents. If that is the case, why should the recusal order be limited to cases from Iran? Iran and Iraq fought a war recently, so probably the IJ is biased against Iraq and should not hear cases from that country either. Iran also fought a war with Greece back in the day, and if I were Iranian, I’d still be bitter about the Battle of Thermopylae. So the Judge should also be banned from hearing cases involving Greeks, or at least Spartans. Iran has endured invasions by Mongols and Arabs, so Judge Tabaddor obviously should not hear Mongolian or Arab cases, and since Mongolians were mixed in pretty good with the Chinese, we’d better also ban her from Chinese cases–just to be safe. And of course, Iran doesn’t much like Christians, Baha’is or Jews, so the Judge should probably be kept away from cases involving those faiths. In addition, Iran has disputes with Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Saudi Arabia. The Judge would have to be banned from hearing cases involving those nationals as well. And don’t even get me started about cases involving Israelis. So basically, if Judge Tabaddor is biased, as EOIR seems to assume, the only cases she should decide involve people from Guyana or New Zealand. And maybe São Tomé, but I’m not even sure that’s a country.

In the end, I really don’t know whether Judge Tabaddor’s lawsuit will succeed. IJs exist to implement the authority of the Attorney General. If the AG chooses to prevent certain IJs from reviewing cases from certain countries, that may be within his discretion. While the law may not be clear (at least to me), I have no doubt about which side is right. If an IJ behaves in an inappropriately biased manner, she should be removed from her job. But where–as here–there seems to be no question as to the Judge’s integrity, her docket should not be restricted in this insulting and discriminatory way.

Towards a New Definition of “Refugee”

There are, in effect, two definitions of “refugee.” There is the legal definition from the 1951 Refugee Convention (codified in U.S. law at INA § 101(a)(42)), and then there is the lay person’s definition.

The legal definition of refugee includes:

any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality… and who is unable or unwilling to return to… that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion

The lay person’s definition is much broader and includes basically anyone who has been forced to flee from their home due to war or an environmental or man-made disaster. Many people who have been displaced by conflict or catastrophe are refugees under the lay definition, but not under the legal definition.

Refugees or "refugees"?
Refugees or “refugees”?

The mass movement of people–especially young people–escaping violence and poverty in Central America has gotten me thinking about these definitions. As our country struggles to respond to the influx, I wonder whether we need a new definition of “refugee.”

Under current U.S. law, if a person is physically present in the country and meets the legal definition of refugee, he will receive asylum. This is quite a nice benefit to receive. People who get asylum are able to remain here permanently. They can eventually become residents and later citizens. They can travel, work, and attend school. They can sponsor certain family members to join them in the United States. They are sometimes eligible for government assistance. These generous benefits are a “pull” factor because they encourage refugees to seek asylum here (as opposed to staying put or seeking asylum somewhere else). The benefits also create an incentive for people to file fraudulent asylum claims.  

To guard against fraud, we have created an elaborate bureaucracy to evaluate the veracity of asylum claims. We have Asylum Officers, Immigration Judges, the Board of Immigration Appeals, the various DHS Chief Counsels’ offices (basically, the prosecutors in Immigration Court), the Forensic Document Lab, and an extensive system of security background checks. All this costs money and takes time. But I can imagine an alternative to this system.

We could simply categorize as a “refugee” anyone who says that they are afraid to return home. In other words, if someone requests asylum in the United States, they would automatically be granted asylum. This sounds like a stupid plan, you say? Everyone and their brother would seek asylum here, including terrorists and criminals. Worse, it would put asylum lawyers out of business. Maybe so, but indulge me for a moment.

There are some obvious benefits to this idea. For one thing, it would completely eliminate the bureaucracy associated with adjudicating asylum applications. Second, we would never mistakenly return a legitimate refugee to her country. Third, people who do not meet the legal definition of refugee, but who fear return for some other reason, could find refuge in the U.S.

There are also some obvious drawbacks. First, if everyone who asked for asylum got it, very likely the number of asylum seekers would increase. Second, terrorists and criminals might exploit the asylum system to enter the United States. Third, we would lose the ability to control who and how many people come to our country.

But what if we could reduce the drawbacks and keep the benefits?

The main question is how to deal with the likely increased demand under this new system? The easiest way to reduce the “pull” of asylum would be to reduce the benefits of asylum. Basic economic theory suggests that if it is easier to obtain asylum, more people will come here, but if the benefits are reduced, less people will come here. So in order to offset the increased number of asylum seekers caused by reducing the barriers to asylum, we would need a corresponding reduction in benefits. How much of a reduction will provide this balance, I don’t know. But let’s say we reduce the benefits to the bare minimum: People who come here for asylum will be placed in a refugee camp indefinitely, they will receive only the supplies they need to survive, and they can leave only to return to their home country or to resettle in a third country. This is more-or-less the situation for Syrian and Iraqi refugees in places like Jordan and Turkey. My guess is that if this regime were strictly enforced, the overall effect would be to reduce the number of people seeking asylum in the U.S. In other words, the ease of obtaining asylum would be more than offset by the lack of benefits. If this is correct, it means we could offer something more than the bare minimum benefits without causing a major increase in the number of people seeking asylum here. The difficult question is how to find the equilibrium.

Another important drawback to my system is that it might attract criminals and terrorists. Of course if these people were confined to refugee camps, their ability to harm us would be quite limited.

Finally, my system might cause us to lose control of our border, since anyone claiming asylum would get it. But again, if the asylum seekers were confined to camps, and then resettled by the UN to third countries or to the United States, we might actually end up with a better controlled border since we could admit as many or as few people for resettlement as we choose.

Depending on the number of people arriving at our borders, it may be impossible to offer them the full range of benefits and due process protections that we have previously given to asylum seekers. But I don’t think we’re there yet–although there has been an increase in the number of asylum seekers arriving in the U.S., the numbers are still nothing close to what countries like Jordan and Turkey have been experiencing. However, if we continue seeing large numbers of people arriving in the U.S. to seek asylum, we may need to start considering alternatives to our current system.