美国国家公共电台 NPR Sessions Pushes To Speed Up Immigration Courts, Deportations

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The Trump¹ administration has been trying to ramp² up deportations of immigrants in the country illegally. But one thing has been standing⁴ in its way - judges who often put these cases on hold. Now Attorney General Jeff Sessions is considering overruling those judges, as NPR's Joel Rose reports.

JOEL ROSE, BYLINE⁵: I recently met attorney Cheryl David outside Immigration Court in New York City.

You spend a lot of time in there.

CHERYL DAVID: Pretty much every day.

ROSE: David represents hundreds of undocumented immigrants who are facing deportation³. In order to stay in the U.S., some have applied⁶ for a visa or a green card. But there are so many applications pending⁷ that the process can take months, if not years.

DAVID: You know, this is not the private sector⁸ where you pay extra money and you can get it done in two days. Things take time.

ROSE: So David is often asking immigration judges to put those deportation proceedings⁹ on hold while they wait.

DAVID: It gives our clients some wiggle room to try and move forward on applications. These are human beings. They're not files.

ROSE: But Attorney General Jeff Sessions thinks those immigrants are getting too much slack. He's questioning whether judges should be allowed to put deportation cases on hold. Here's Sessions speaking a few months ago.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JEFF SESSIONS: Basically, they have legalized the person who was coming to court because they were illegally in the country.

ROSE: One practice is particularly infuriating to Sessions and other immigration hard-liners. It's called administrative¹⁰ closure. It allows judges to put cases on hold indefinitely, and Sessions is widely expected to end the practice or at least scale it back. Judges have administratively¹¹ closed nearly 200,000 cases in the past five years alone.

ANDREW ARTHUR: Far and away, administrative closure was being abused.

ROSE: Andrew Arthur is a former immigration judge. He's now a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for less immigration. He says many of those cases should have ended in deportation.

ARTHUR: But rather than actually going through that process, the Obama administration simply administratively closed them and took them off the docket to be forgotten.

ROSE: One of those cases caught the attention of Jeff Sessions. It involves a young Guatemalan man who didn't show up for his hearing. The judge wondered if the man ever got the notice to appear in court and put his deportation proceedings on hold. Now Sessions has chosen to personally review his case.

NANCY MORAWETZ: What he wants is he wants an immigration court system which is rapid and leads to lots of deportations.

ROSE: Nancy Morawetz teaches immigration law at New York University. She says the attorney general has the power to revisit immigration court decisions and change them if he wants. It used to be rare for an attorney general to use this power, but Sessions has done it four times in the past three months.

MORAWETZ: It's really quite an unprecedented¹² move by the attorney general to change the way the whole system works.

ROSE: Sessions is also questioning whether judges can continue certain cases and reviewing who should qualify for asylum¹³. He says he's trying to clear a massive backlog¹⁴ of nearly 700,000 cases. But remember, there's also a backlog for visa and green card applications.

BRENDA DELEON: (Speaking Spanish).

ROSE: Brenda DeLeon is applying for a special visa for crime victims. She says her boyfriend beat her up, and she went to the police. DeLeon came to the U.S. illegally from El Salvador in 2015, fleeing from gang violence, and settled in North Carolina.

DELEON: (Speaking Spanish).

ROSE: She says, if she goes back to El Salvador, her life would be in danger, and so would her kids. Right now, a judge has put DeLeon's deportation case on hold while she waits for an answer on her visa application. But that could take years. And like thousands of other immigrants, she's worried that she could be deported¹⁵ in the meantime. Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.

(SOUNDBITE OF KORESMA'S "BACK HOME")

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 ramp   

n.暴怒，斜坡，坡道；vi.作恐吓姿势，暴怒，加速；vt.加速

参考例句：

• That driver drove the car up the ramp.那司机将车开上了斜坡。
• The factory don't have that capacity to ramp up.这家工厂没有能力加速生产。

3 deportation   

n.驱逐，放逐

参考例句：

• The government issued a deportation order against the four men.政府发出了对那4名男子的驱逐令。
• Years ago convicted criminals in England could face deportation to Australia.很多年以前，英国已定罪的犯人可能被驱逐到澳大利亚。

4 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

7 pending   

prep.直到，等待…期间；adj.待定的；迫近的

参考例句：

• The lawsuit is still pending in the state court.这案子仍在州法庭等待定夺。
• He knew my examination was pending.他知道我就要考试了。

8 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

9 proceedings   

n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报

参考例句：

• He was released on bail pending committal proceedings. 他交保获释正在候审。
• to initiate legal proceedings against sb 对某人提起诉讼

10 administrative   

adj.行政的，管理的

参考例句：

• The administrative burden must be lifted from local government.必须解除地方政府的行政负担。
• He regarded all these administrative details as beneath his notice.他认为行政管理上的这些琐事都不值一顾。

11 administratively   

[医]adv.行政上

参考例句：

• Administratively, the country is divided into counties. 这个国家在行政区划分上分为许多郡。 来自辞典例句
• Administratively permission enactment right is the foundation of administrative systems standardization. 摘要行政许可设定权是行政许可制度规范化的基础。 来自互联网

12 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

13 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

14 backlog   

n.积压未办之事

参考例句：

• It will take a month to clear the backlog of work.要花一个月的时间才能清理完积压的工作。
• Investment is needed to reduce the backlog of repairs.需要投资来減轻积压的维修工作。

15 deported   

v.将…驱逐出境( deport的过去式和过去分词 )；举止

参考例句：

• They stripped me of my citizenship and deported me. 他们剥夺我的公民资格，将我驱逐出境。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The convicts were deported to a deserted island. 罪犯们被流放到一个荒岛。 来自《简明英汉词典》