The Accidental History of the U.S. Immigration Courts

April 19, 2021
West Virginia University law professor Peck debuts with an eye-opening look at how the history and structure of U.S. immigration courts contribute to present-day problems. Unlike the Supreme Court and other courts of the federal judiciary, immigration courts are housed within the Department of Justice and overseen by the attorney general, a political appointee who can overrule immigration judges “at any time, in any case.” Peck documents how political pressure and overhyped fears of a “fifth column” of Nazi supporters in the U.S. led President Roosevelt to shift immigration and naturalization services from the Labor Department to the Justice Department in 1940, and laments that when the Department of Homeland Security was created in the wake of 9/11, an opportunity for reform was missed. She spotlights attorney general Jeff Sessions’s controversial 2018 opinion overruling the granting of asylum to a victim of domestic violence from El Salvador as an example of how the current system creates confusion by allowing decisions to be “based on politics rather than law,” and calls on Congress to pass legislation creating a fully independent immigration court system. Supported with lucid legal analysis and incisive historical details, this is a persuasive call for change.