Noteworthy among the opinions issued today by the USCA for the 7th Circuit is an immigration case, GUCHSHENKOV, IVAN v. ASHCROFT, JOHN D., where Judge Posner writes about the immigration judge:
Her analysis fell far below the minimum required to support an administrative decision. It is one more indication of systemic failure by the judicial officers of the immigration service to provide reasoned analysis for the denial of applications for asylum. We are mindful that immigration judges, and the members of the Board of Immigration Appeals, have heavy caseloads. The same is true, however, of federal district judges, and we have never heard it argued that busy judges should be excused from having to deliver reasoned judgments because they are too busy to think. The two cases under review, like the other cases in which we have reversed the board of late, are not so difficult that it is unreasonable for a reviewing court to expect and require reasoned judgments at the administrative level. The errors that have compelled us to reverse in these cases despite the deferential standard of judicial review of agency action are not subtle. Asylum seekers should not bear the entire burden of adjudicative inadequacy at the administrative level.The panel here consisted of Posner, Rovner, and Evans. Judge Evans, in a concurring opinion, begins:The petitions for review are granted, the orders of removal vacated, and the cases returned to the immigration service for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We urge that these two cases be reassigned to other immigration judges in view of the striking inadequacy of the analysis by the immigration judges whose decisions we are vacating.
Although I join the majority in voting to remand these two consolidated asylum petitions for further proceedings, I write separately to express my concern, and growing unease, with what I see as a recent trend by this court to be unnecessarily critical of the work product produced by immigration judges who have the unenviable duty of adjudicating these difficult cases in the first instance.Judge Evans then goes on to quote some prior language of the Court, in a paragraph that begins: "Recently, in failing to find substantial evidence in the record sufficient to affirm the decisions of the immigration judges, we have made disparaging comments about the quality of their work: * * *." Posted by Marcia Oddi at April 29, 2004 12:43 PM