Cleveland Heights, OH – The U.S. immigration courts have flown under the radar screen for decades. But decisions made by immigration judges have life-altering outcomes. Both the structure of the courts themselves, and the laws they are charged with implementing, were fashioned on a foundation of racism, power imbalance, and coercive control.
“The System Works As Designed: Immigration Law, Courts, and Consequences” shows how this quasi-judicial structure—filled with legal landmines and subjective standards open to bias, underpinned by political ideology instead of impartiality—is failing the people they purport to protect.
Said Breanne J. Palmer, Esq., a key contributor to the work, “Our report confirms what immigrants, legal advocates, and even immigration judges have experienced firsthand for decades: that our nation’s immigration court system is not exempt or immune from the anti-Black racism that pervades all U.S. institutions. The interviews and research underlying this report highlight connections between the criminal-legal system, mass incarceration, mass detention, and the inner workings of immigration proceedings. We hope this report will help usher along the complete overhaul of our immigration law and court systems in favor of accessibility and meaningful due process for all who seek safety in the United States.”
“The System Works As Designed” reviews how U.S. immigration laws and policies were built to control immigrants and “whiten” the population. The immigration courts were designed to offer the illusion of justice, while answering to the U.S. Attorney General, a member of the Executive Branch, rather than operating as an independent judiciary. Other design flaws include 1) a government is represented by attorneys 100% of the time, while immigrants often have to argue their cases without a legal guide; 2) subjective “credibility determinations” that are rife for abuse; and 3) the pressure for quantity over quality decision-making, directed from the top—among many others.
The paper includes a primer on immigration court cases and outcomes, making the system understandable to any reader, whether they’ve set foot in an immigration courtroom or not.
“The System Works As Designed” is the third in a series of reports from the Ohio Immigrant Alliance (OHIA) about the experiences of Black immigrants in U.S. immigration courts. The final project—featuring extensive data analysis, interviews with migrants and attorneys, and more—will be published in Spring 2024.
Check out OHIA’s previous publications in this series, “Behind Closed Doors: Black Migrants and the Hidden Injustices of US Immigration Courts,” at illusionofjustice.org, as well as “Broken Hope: Deportation and the Road Home,” co-authored by Lynn Tramonte and Suma Setty, with research by Maryam Sy.
“Dystopia, Then Deportation” summarizes insights and recommendations from a strategy session co-hosted by OHIA, the Mauritanian Network for Human Rights in US, and Cameroon Advocacy Network at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in 2023. “Dystopia” was authored by Nana Afua Y. Brantuo, Ph.D, Founder and Principal of Diaspora Praxis LLC.
“Diaspora Dynamics” is an annotated bibliography of over eighty studies into the lives of Black migrants in the U.S., published between 1925 and 2023. “Diaspora Dynamics” was curated by Nana Afua Y. Brantuo, Ph.D, Founder and Principal of Diaspora Praxis LLC with Ilyas Abukar, M.A.
“The System Works As Designed” reveals how U.S. immigration courts—a quasi-judicial structure filled with legal landmines and subjective standards open to bias, underpinned by political ideology over impartiality—are failing the people they purport to protect.
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