Immigration

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am honored to rise in concert with my friend and colleague from Virginia Senator Kaine for this measure that is going to be pending on the floor.

I rise in support of S.J. Res. 190 to disapprove of an interim final rule entitled ``Appellate Procedures for the Board of Immigration Appeals,'' a regulation from the Justice Department that would greatly limit opportunities for appeal in immigration courts.

This rule would reduce the time to file an appeal from 30 days to just 10 days, and if an applicant manages to meet this unreasonable deadline, the appeal is still likely to be thrown out under this regulation. That is because the regulation requires that appeals be summarily dismissed unless a majority of the Board of Immigration Appeals agrees to take on the case.

This new regulation is just the latest in a series of actions by the Trump administration to end judicial independence in our immigration court system.

Last year, the Trump administration fired hundreds of immigration judges. There is a huge, multithousand backlog that needs to be decided by our immigration courts. The response by the Trump administration: eliminate immigration judges.

Make sense? Of course not.

One of those who was eliminated was Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jennifer Peyton. She worked for nearly 10 years at the Chicago Immigration Court, through Democratic and Republican administrations.

What was the cause for the dismissal of this woman who had spent almost 10 years before the court? I can tell you because I witnessed it personally. Do you know what she did? Do you know what she had the nerve to do?

When I called the immigration court and said: Can I sit in the audience and listen to an immigration hearing, she said: I will meet you at the front door and escort you to the courtroom. She met me, introduced herself, took me to the courtroom, and left. I didn't see her again that day.

That was grounds for dismissal by the Trump administration. The fact that she would communicate with a Member of Congress, actually shake hands with a Member of Congress, actually escort a Member of Congress into her courtroom into what was supposed to be a public setting: grounds for dismissal. Gone. The end of a career.

Why would the Trump administration want to fire an experienced, nonpolitical judge like Judge Peyton? Well, I explained it to you. She was dismissed and fired without any stated cause whatsoever.

The administration has taken the same approach with the Board of Immigration Appeals, firing 13 judges appointed during the Biden administration and decreasing the number of Board judges from 28 to 15.

These firings paved the way for the administration to hire what they are calling ``deportation judges.'' The name says it all. These changes are not about efficiency; they are about finality, the end of the road for people who have been following the law every step of the way. They are finished. They are about dismantling due process and destroying any means by which an immigrant might have a fair chance at making their case.

Make no mistake, this policy has Steve Miller written all over it. He may be the President's closest adviser, but I will also tell you he is relentless in his war against immigrants. Whether they are here legally or illegally makes no difference to him. He wants them gone.

Just take the Board of Immigration Appeals' recent decision in ``Matter of Santiago.'' It confirmed what we already knew: Even though DACA is supposed to protect Dreamers from immigration enforcement, this administration wants to find a way to deport Dreamers.

Well, of course, they are going after the worst of the worst: the rapists, the murderers, the terrorists, the criminally insane, the child predators. They snuck across the border, and now they have to go.

But wait a minute; that is not DACA. DACA is about kids, children, infants brought to the United States, living their whole life in the United States, who go through a background check, which includes serious efforts to determine whether there is any criminal activity in their background. Then they pay a $600 filing fee. Then they are protected for 2 years to work in the United States without fear of deportation.

Does that sound like the worst of the worst criminals?

They are teachers. They are nurses. They are doctors. They are police. They are members of our military. But they have to be gone in the world of Steve Miller. They might have an accent or something or maybe look like they are Hispanic, which tends to be, for Mr. Miller, just enough to deport them. And that is what we are up against.

This decision paved the way for immigration judges to issue deportation orders to DACA recipients who grew up in this country and are legally protected from deportation. But even that is not enough for the Trump administration.

I urge my colleagues to reject the attempt to cut due process in our immigration court system and vote in support of this resolution.

How many times have I heard my Republican colleagues say: Oh, well, I am not against immigration; I am just against illegal immigration.

Really? If you eliminate the legal process where an individual who is seeking status in America can assert their rights under the law, it seems to me you have already prejudged the case.

I am happy to join with Senator Kaine in supporting this measure on the floor.

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