25 January 2006
From: Executive Director, Malcolm Rich
To: Members/Friends of the Chicago Council of Lawyers
     & the Chicago Appleseed Fund For Justice
In this e-Newsletter:

The Chicago Council of Lawyers seeks comments regarding the reappointment process for Magistrate Judges Nolan and Schenkier

The Clerk of the United States District Court is requesting comments from the Chicago Council of Lawyers regarding reappointment of Magistrates Nan Nolan and Sidney Schenkier, whose eight-year terms end in July and October, 2006, respectively. If you have had cases before either of these magistrates and would like your views to be reflected in the Council's comments (without your name, of course), please send an e-mail or fax to Malcolm Rich by January 27 (email:  ccl@chicagocouncil.org or fax:  312-654-8644). The Council's comments will be forwarded to the Magistrate Judge Advisory Panel.  The comment period ends on January 31.  


The Council's Federal Courts Committee to meet on January 27

The Council's Federal Courts Committee, chaired by Adam Goodman, will be meeting on Friday, January 27th to review a proposed rule change for the District Court in the Northern District of Illinois. The proposed rule change involves imposing a maximum number of facts that can be offered in support of a motion for summary judgment. The group will meet on:

January 27, 2006
Lovells
12 noon
330 N. Wabash  19th Floor (IBM Plaza)

Lunch will be provided so please RSVP to this email or call Malcolm Rich (312-988-6552) if you plan to attend.


Chicago Appleseed and Appleseed Foundation Release Report Calling for Transparency in the United States—Mexico Remittance Market

Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice and the Appleseed Foundation released in January 2006 a ground-breaking report "Creating a Fair Playing Field for Consumers: The Need for Transparency in the U.S.—Mexico Remittance Market." Remittances, the billions of dollars that immigrants in the United States send home to family members living in their native countries, are accompanied by sometimes unfair and widely fluctuating service fees. The report provides remitters and policymakers with vital information necessary on how the remittance market actually functions and sets forth recommendations to create greater protection for this vulnerable consumer group while allowing the industry to maintain market control.  The Report and its Executive Summary are available at www.chicagoappleseed.org.


The Council, Chicago Appleseed, and the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago issue a policy statement on the use of videoconferencing in deportation hearings
 
The following was sent as a Letter to Editor of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin on December 21, 2005 

Your continuing articles on the response of the Seventh Circuit to the increase in appeals from immigrants seeking asylum in the United States highlight an immigration court system that needs reform. You reported Judge Posner’s observation that the Seventh Circuit had reversed the Board of Immigration Appeals in a "staggering 40 percent" of the cases it considered on the merits. He concluded that administrative adjudication in these cases fell below "the minimum standards of legal justice."

In cases appealed to the Board, decisions under the new summary affirmance policy are one-line dismissals, giving no hint of how the Board reached its result. This new policy of "streamlining" appeals, which permits a single Board member to affirm the decision of an immigration judge, merely shifts the burden of first-level review from the Board to the Courts of Appeals, producing more appeals to those Courts, and more remands and outright reversals than ever before, particularly in asylum cases.

The immigration hearing process is flawed in other ways as well. For example, the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice and the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago have recently published a study of videoconferencing in immigration hearings. In such hearings, a detained immigrant facing removal is brought to a Homeland Security holding center in suburban Chicago. The immigrant sits in a small room with a television set and a t.v. camera. From there, the immigrant watches as the immigration judge, the government attorney, and his/her own attorney (if he/she has one) conduct his hearing in a downtown Chicago courtroom. The study found that the videoconferencing process did not allow detainees to communicate effectively with their counsel, and frequently led to difficulties in presenting documentary evidence. Technological malfunctions and foreign language interpretation created added difficulties.

The Chicago Council of Lawyers, the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, and the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago recommend that:

  1. The Board amend its streamlining policy so that, in any case where a hearing is held on the merits of an immigrant’s application to remain in the U.S., the Board must review the decision of the immigration judge and issue its own written decision, making that decision sufficiently detailed to permit meaningful judicial review.
  2. The Attorney General increase the number of Board members if that will help the Board handle the large number of appeals responsibly.
  3. Congress provide whatever additional resources the Board needs to process appeals appropriately.
  4. There be a moratorium on videoteleconferenced hearings for detainees facing removal until proper technical standards are developed and procedures are implemented to allow for in-person hearings if good cause is demonstrated.

Gordon Waldron, Chicago Council of Lawyers

Diana White, Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice

Lisa Palumbo, Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago


An invitation to all friends and members of the Chicago Chicago Council of Lawyers and Chicago Appleseed:  Chicago Appleseed Information Series: Voter Education in Judicial Elections

In 2004, Chicago Appleseed initiated the www.voteforjudges.org campaign in an attempt to improve non-partisan voter education in judicial elections. The Chicago Council of Lawyers has worked with the political action committee, The Committee to Elect Qualified Judges for decades in an effort to distribute sample judicial ballots to voters. As part of the Chicago Appleseed Information Series, Chicago Appleseed Board member Chuck Smith, Partner at Skadden Arps Meagher & Flom, is hosting a session on voter education in judicial elections on Thursday, February 23 at 4:30 p.m. Friends and members of the Chicago Council of Lawyers and Chicago Appleseed are cordially invited to attend and to offer your ideas.  

For more information and to RSVP to the event, please contact Amanda Grant at 312-988-6599 or agrant@chicagoappleseed.org. We look forward to seeing you there!