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Post by jafo on Sept 19, 2016 7:24:26 GMT -5
Back to topic... Does anyone know how long the "second interview" processing (for Nov 2015 applicants) will or may last? Since they are looking to fill over 300 IJs this fiscal, I believe, I'm assuming it may take quite some time to get through the second round as it involves not just chief IJs but also other DOJ personnel to sit on the panel. Put another way, those who haven't received a call for a 2d interview by ....(x).. should probably stop hoping. Thanks. Second interviews are continuing. Not sure about the 300 number - may I ask where you got that figure? The 2016 FY ends in a few days so they aren't going to do a lot of hiring in the next few weeks. EOIR does seem to have a goal of filling every empty IJ courtroom as well as filling vacancies caused by retirement. It appears that this will continue through FY17 although I haven't been able to find any specific language stating hiring goals nor have I found the actual count of vacant courtrooms. |
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Post by foghorn on Sept 19, 2016 14:52:41 GMT -5
Spoke with a friend who became an IJ last year. First time sent in resume heard nothing for a year and a half. Then told about potential openings resubmitted. He said that there were 8,000 applicants (initiallY) for the slots then!
He ran into someone who'd been on his interview panel, and was told the reason he got the nod was that in addition to immigration specific experience he was noted to have quasi judicial experience. Another friend of his was, in addition to being a practiioner, a part time professor who taught immigration law at a Law school.
My friend was with HSA, was also military reserve. But in addition to all that they wanted something extra. For what that's worth.....
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dvsw
Full Member
Posts: 63 
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Post by dvsw on Sept 20, 2016 9:02:06 GMT -5
Thank you for the replies and kind words. I believe the 300+ number was mentioned at the first interview for this cycle.
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Post by jafo on Sept 20, 2016 13:16:35 GMT -5
I was also given the 8,000 +/- number for the 2014 announcement with even a higher number for 2015. It was also explained that this was a true total number of applicants with many pursuing multiple locations (not 2000 applicants each applying for 4 cities = 8,000).
This is a bit of a "friend of a friend of a friend" intel so I can't vouch for the veracity of the information, but they were told/heard/guessed/invented that some future second round interviews may be held outside of D.C. to accommodate those with longer travel times. Their guess is either a southwest or west coast city. I'm still trying to confirm this.
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Post by breen68 on Sept 20, 2016 17:47:55 GMT -5
Yes, a friend of mine had a 2nd IJ interview in San Francisco just after Labor Day. I have no Intel on how many were conducted or about any future plans to conduct additional interviews in SF.
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Post by jafo on Sept 20, 2016 19:00:55 GMT -5
Yes, a friend of mine had a 2nd IJ interview in San Francisco just after Labor Day. I have no Intel on how many were conducted or about any future plans to conduct additional interviews in SF. Finding out that it actually occurred, my confidence in the accuracy of the information is now growing. LOL |
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Post by SaveMeASeat on Sept 20, 2016 23:33:40 GMT -5
Curious whether these interviews are for West Coast/SW positions.
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Post by SaveMeASeat on Sept 21, 2016 17:27:38 GMT -5
This info is from a friend of a friend who states that the recent San Francisco interviews were first round interviews.
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Post by wacokid on Sept 27, 2016 20:16:32 GMT -5
Does anyone here know if they inform you after a second interview if you are NOT selected?
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Post by jafo on Sept 29, 2016 8:13:35 GMT -5
Does anyone here know if they inform you after a second interview if you are NOT selected? I don't know of anyone personally that was told no. I do know some that waited a fair amount of time after their second interview to be told yes, |
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Post by SaveMeASeat on Sept 29, 2016 10:51:44 GMT -5
IMMIGRATION LEADERSHIP
MONTHLY LUNCHEON SERIES
Presented by
Doug Letter - Tom C Clark Award program_Page_1_Image_0001
District of Columbia Chapter of the Federal Bar Association and
The Immigration Law Section of the Federal Bar Association
Speaker: MICHAEL C. McGOINGS,
CHIEF IMMIGRATION JUDGE (Acting)
Office of the Chief Immigration Judge
Executive Office for Immigration Review
U.S. Department of Justice
Date: Wednesday, October 12th, 2016
Time: 11:30am – 1:30 pm
Location: Carmine’s
425 Seventh St, NW
Washington, DC – Tel: 202-737-7770
Topic: The State of the Immigration Court. It will include recent developments in the court and cover topics such as temporary immigration judges, immigration judge hiring, how the court is addressing the backlog of cases, and immigration court expansion.
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Post by wacokid on Sept 29, 2016 20:35:17 GMT -5
Does anyone here know if they inform you after a second interview if you are NOT selected? I don't know of anyone personally that was told no. I do know some that waited a fair amount of time after their second interview to be told yes, Thanks, jafo. Much appreciated. |
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Post by anonbz634 on Sept 30, 2016 15:56:25 GMT -5
Well--I got the call with a provisional offer dependent on the security clearance from the Nov 2015 posting. Many thanks to the board members and particularly ALJWatch and Jafo for the specific Intel on IJ positions! It has been invaluable! Breen68 - we are on similar timeliness. I got the call and accepted an offer right around the time you did. Just wondering - have you heard anything further re start date? I'd obviously like to start with EOIR asap. |
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Post by breen68 on Sept 30, 2016 21:34:55 GMT -5
Well--I got the call with a provisional offer dependent on the security clearance from the Nov 2015 posting. Many thanks to the board members and particularly ALJWatch and Jafo for the specific Intel on IJ positions! It has been invaluable! Breen68 - we are on similar timeliness. I got the call and accepted an offer right around the time you did. Just wondering - have you heard anything further re start date? I'd obviously like to start with EOIR asap. Congrats Anonbz634!! I'm completely with you and trying to be patient. I have not heard anything regarding a start date and am hoping things move somewhat quickly. |
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Post by weisstho on Oct 4, 2016 13:09:45 GMT -5
NEW YORK TIMES – OCTOBER 4, 2016
U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES LOOK WITHIN TO MINIMIZE BIAS
By: CAITLIN DICKERSON
SAN FRANCISCO —
One of the immigrants appearing before Judge Dana Marks in a crowded court here was a boatworker from the former Soviet Union who stared in silence as a prosecutor asked about his criminal history. Another was a mother who started praying after testifying that she had fled Honduras because her husband beat her. She sought divine rather than judicial intervention.
In all, 336 people from 13 countries and even more ethnic backgrounds appeared in San Francisco’s immigration court recently over three days. All of them were facing possible deportation, because they either were in the United States illegally or had committed crimes serious enough to jeopardize their legal presence as noncitizens. One challenge facing Judge Marks was deciding whether to deport some of them immediately after they had testified. Another challenge was her own biases.
“You have to go through some hypotheticals in your brain,” said Judge Marks, wrestling with the weighty decisions she must make, the little time she has to make them and all the impressions she and her judicial colleagues form from the bench about the immigrants before them.
“Would I treat a young person the same way I’m treating this old person?” she said. “Would I treat a black person the same way I’m treating this white person? This situation of rush, rush, rush as fast as we can go, it’s not conducive to doing that.”
Keeping implicit biases out of immigration court decisions is both critical and daunting. Claims often rise and fall on testimony alone. Cultural and linguistic misunderstandings are common.
Now, as the country struggles with how these instinctive judgments shape our lives, the Justice Department is trying to minimize the role of bias in law enforcement and the courts. More than 250 federal immigration judges attended a mandatory anti-bias training session in August, and this summer the Justice Department announced that 28,000 more employees would go through a similar exercise.
Several current and former immigration judges said they thought the sessions were badly needed. But they doubted it would be enough.
Few other areas of the law involve as much discretion — judges approve and deny cases at vastly different rates. And immigration judges handle more than 700 cases a year, twice as many as Federal District Court judges.
While there are 277 immigration judges today, more than ever before, their combined backlog peaked this summer at over half a million cases, the most in history. For years, the judges union has lobbied Congress, with limited success, for more law clerks and other support staff to offset their burden.
Experts say the conditions that immigration judges work under — fast paced, high pressure and culturally charged — make some misjudgments all but inevitable.
“If we have a high cognitive load, you tend to make more mistakes,” said Kelly Tait, who led the judges’ training session.
When the brain has to process large volumes of information quickly, there is a tendency to rely on past experiences rather than on unique details in the present. In judging people, for instance, this can mean falling back on generalizations about race, age, country of origin, religion or gender.
Immigration judges suffer higher burnout rates than hospital workers and prison wardens, according to a 2008 study. And since that study was published, many of the same courtroom pressures have held strong.
The result means judges often must decide the fate of foreign families in the time it takes to consume a fast-food lunch, wondering whether they are making the right decisions on who deserves to stay and who should go.
Judge Marks, who spoke as president of the National Association of Immigration Judges because judges are otherwise barred from speaking to the news media, tends to be more lenient than some of her colleagues. But she said decisions were frequently far from clear-cut.
For example, Jose Roberto, who asked that his last name not be used because of his legal predicament, looked every bit like the hard-working patriarch of a Guatemalan-American family that he is, sitting tall on the witness stand, wearing a sharp gray suit jacket.
He said he was a loyal employee, working the same job at a San Francisco hotel for 31 years, dutifully filing his taxes each year. But he had also been convicted in 2005 of assaulting a lover, which sent him to jail for eight months. Since then, he explained to the judge, he had reconciled with his disabled wife, whom he pledged to care for if he were allowed to stay in the United States.
It was not clear whether his downcast eyes were a sign of contrition or evasion. Still, Judge Marks ended up ruling in his favor.
An immigrant’s ability to persuade a judge that the testimony given is true is “the most important factor in any case,” she said later. “That, of course, can be one of the most difficult things to convince someone of when you can’t corroborate with documentation.”
Adding to the confusion, deportation hearings are many immigrants’ first experience in a formal legal setting.
“I think it’s almost overwhelming or insurmountable for many of them,” said Eliza Klein, who retired as a federal immigration judge in 2015 after more than 20 years. “The stakes are incredibly high. It’s a foreign system.”
More than 40 percent of immigrants come to court without a lawyer, but even when lawyers are involved, they say immigrants who are educated, articulate and white have an easier time winning the court’s sympathy.
“Something that is familiar is going to feel right even if it’s not,” Ms. Tait, from the judges’ training session, said.
Groups that oppose illegal immigration argue that judges spend too much time on weak claims. “The judges are allowing too many cases to be dragged out for too long, which clogs the system,” said Jessica M. Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports giving border patrol and other immigration enforcement officers the power to order deportations to alleviate pressure on the courts. “It’s a self-inflicted problem,” she said.
In court, where most testimony is filtered through interpreters, even simple questions can lead to unexpected delays.
The boatworker appearing before Judge Marks, who said he had never become a citizen of any country after the Soviet collapse, interrupted the proceedings at one point because he did not understand a question from several minutes earlier about his arrest.
Down the hall, Judge Rebecca Jamil called Frankly Vasquez-Perez, a 1-year-old boy from Guatemala, for his preliminary deportation hearing.
Frankly’s mother, Esmeralda Perez-Roblero, stepped forward with him on her hip. But when Judge Jamil asked her through an interpreter about her immigration status — the mother and child appeared to have crossed the Mexican border together — she stayed silent.
“At home, what language do you speak?” the judge asked.
When she failed to respond again, a lawyer who volunteers to help immigrants in preliminary hearings shuffled through her documents. “Her family is probably of indigenous ancestry,” said the lawyer, Marco Ambron.
Judge Jamil continued the hearing, but it was unclear if Ms. Perez-Roblero knew what was going on.
In August, at the judges’ training session, Ms. Tait went over strategies to counteract bias, like focusing on something as innocuous as the color of an immigrant’s shirt to prevent cases from bleeding together.
She explained that people who know they are biased against a particular group can try to picture an exemplar of that group whom they hold in high esteem. One of the judges she taught said that when he had felt himself tensing up next to a large African-American man on the witness stand, he pictured President Obama. Another judge said that under similar circumstances he had thought of Nelson Mandela.
The simplest and most effective way to combat bias, however, is to avoid rushing and take breaks, Ms. Tait said. But with more than 500,000 cases pending, immigration judges say that slowing down is not an option.
Instead, they will have to resign themselves to cutting corners to get through their work, according to Judge Klein, as she had to do during her career.
“Over time, I think you just get used to those pressures,” she said. “So then the quality of justice erodes over time as well.”
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Post by wacokid on Oct 6, 2016 21:14:27 GMT -5
Anyone here know whether the October 1 new FY -- with attendant lack of a budget so far -- is having any effect on EOIR continuing to extend IJ offers?
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Post by stevil on Oct 12, 2016 9:38:48 GMT -5
Just heard a former deputy who was selected to be an IJ just accepted an ALJ position with ODAR instead. Apparently EOIR is taking too long in setting EOD dates - or the guy didn't want to have to deal with a 2-year probationary period with EOIR - or he was just sick of immigration - or a combination of these factors.
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Post by SaveMeASeat on Oct 13, 2016 12:49:13 GMT -5
Does anyone on the Board have info to share about ACIJ McGoings comments yesterday at Federal Bar Association event at Carmine's in DC? Curious as to any statements regarding EOIR hiring and temp judges. I could not attend this event due to distance,
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