Reforms would target unfit immigration lawyers

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Reforms would target unfit immigration lawyers

By RICHARD B. SCHMITT Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has quietly proposed an overhaul of the discipline process that aims to crack down on abusive and incompetent lawyers practicing before the nation's immigration courts.

The proposed changes would set new minimum standards of conduct for the attorneys and give greater power to judges to punish wrongdoers. The changes are part of a broader overhaul of the immigration court system being sought by the Justice Department that until now has focused principally on judges.

"Immigration judges should have the tools necessary to control their courtrooms and protect the adjudicatory system from fraud and abuse," said the Executive Office for Immigration Review, an arm of the Justice Department, which circulated the rules for public comment late last month. "This proposed rule seeks to preserve the fairness and integrity of immigration proceedings, and increase the level of protection afforded to aliens in those proceedings."

Current rules make immigration lawyers subject to sanctions when deemed "in the public interest." That has been interpreted to include cases in which a lawyer has engaged in criminal and other serious misconduct.

The proposed rules spell out more specific grounds on which lawyers could be sanctioned, including when they fail to adequately communicate with their clients or fail to exercise "diligence" in filing court pleadings and taking other action. Lawyers would also be subject to discipline for conduct that is "prejudicial to the administration of justice or undermines the integrity of the adjudicative process."

The rules would replace a system that has long deferred to state bar regulators in setting professional discipline. The immigration review office has taken action against nearly 400 immigration lawyers since 2000, but most of those actions piggybacked on moves by state regulators. Critics say the process has been time-consuming and has failed to protect clients from abuses.

The new rules would empower the executive office to summarily discipline lawyers convicted of a "serious crime" or whose license has been suspended without waiting for final action by state regulators.

"We have an acknowledged crisis in the immigration courts," said Michele M. Benedetto, a professor at Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco. "The simple fact of focusing on ethical issues ... is a step in the right direction."

The Bush administration launched a review of immigration courts after reports of judges wrongly deporting people or denying bids for political asylum based on faulty evidence or incompetence. The reports included cases of intemperate and abusive jurists and complaints about a growing backlog of cases.

The Justice Department announced a series of reforms aimed at improving the quality of judging in August 2006, including proposals to subject judges to performance evaluations and law exams.

Critics say the department has been slow to implement the changes. The reform effort was also dealt a blow by disclosures that department aides had used political and ideological criteria to select immigration judges under former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales.

Immigrant advocates said they supported raising standards for lawyers. But they expressed concern that the proposed rules were overly vague and could end up hurting efforts to provide effective representation to needy clients.

The Justice Department said it would consider public comment on the proposal until Sept. 29.

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