Immigration Judges "Certainly Capable" of Learning How to Judge Immigration Cases
Reflecting upon Monica Goodling's quest to populate the Department of Justice with ass-kissing straight people, Tim Rutten writes:
When the next administration and Congress begin the urgent work of sorting out precisely how and why the Bush-Cheney regime systematically undermined the rule of law, there are a couple of things that ought to be kept in mind.
One is that their efforts were essentially ideological rather than partisan.
I'm not sure that analysis makes any sense after reading parts of the report (pdf) on hiring-related shenanigans. To what ideology does a potential U.S. attorney subscribe when he answers a question like: What about George Bush makes you want to serve him? Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson also hired dozens of immigration judges, and there is no good evidence that they sought to hire judges based on anything but loyalty to the party. They simply transformed a civil service position into a political thank-you gift, giving men and women with little or no experience in immigration law the power to deport people and refuse asylum to potential refugees. (In defense of one hire with no immigraton-related experience, a former DOJ official reasoned "He is certainly capable of mastering immigration law." )
The only link among the newest crop of immigration judges is a lack of experience and a recommendation from a party member calling in a favor. Reading the report, I was afraid I'd find that Goodling had placed a bunch of restrictionists in positions of power over immigrants with few rights. She seems to have favored Republican lapdogs.
