Speech #980214234

Mr. Chairman. while the procedures for handling exclusion. deportation. and political asylum have been vastly improved over the present law. the bill before us fails to create a clearly independent article 1 court and in its court review procedures leaves the door open for the use of delay tactics by those claiming political asylum and whose primary interest is just staying in this country. not resolving the issues expeditiously and justly. The Select Commission on Immigration Reform recommended an article 1 immigration court to streamline the process of handling all immigration matters. and I proposed such a court in the early deligerations on the SimpsonMazzoli bill. However. there were fears expressed by a number of key players that this proposal would get bogged down in the article 1 court debate. which has stymied our efforts at Bankruptcy Court reform and the idea was dropped in favor of the administrative law judge system. which appears in the bill. Unfortunately. the administrative law judge system set up in H.R. 1510 does not contain the efficiencies that could be obtained under a true court and. consequently. we have left intact the opportunity for those who want to make mischief with our judicial system in the area of immigation to do so by employing several layers of judicial tactics which result in long delays in resolving exclusion and deportation issues. In order to correct the deficiencies. the amendment Im offering will consolidate all judicial review of deportation. exclusion. and asylum matters and all requests for habeas corpus and other extraordinary relief regarding immigration matters in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC]. Since it is a nationwide court. using the court of appeals for the Federal circuit assures uniformity of decision and would streamline the process. while not diminishing the rights of judicial review. In recent testimony. officials of the Justice Department have testified that the immigration caseload of recent has expanded beyond their expectation. The largest growth has been in the area of habeas corpus petitions and deportation review petitions. where the Attorney Generals Civil Division Office is receiving over 500 petitions a year. A great many of these are political asylum cases. There are now over 170.000 asylum applications pending. whereas there were only 3.800 in 1978. There is a virtually endless review potentially available to those claiming asylum through the use of habeas corpus petitions in Federal district courts or the seeking of other extraordinary relief in such courts. Under the bill. there will be a limited right to a review of virtually all decisions affecting those aliens subject to exclusion. deportation. and asylum determinations in the circuit courts of appeal around the country. Furthermore. the exhaustion of appeal in this arena does not preclude the habeas corpus petition in the lower Federal courts and an extended review process of those determinations with indeterminable delays just as is found in the handling of criminal cases today. The key to a constitutional and due process solution to the potential abuses in this area is the placing of exclusive jurisdiction for review and habeas corpus and other extraordinary writ applications in the hands of the new Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit as is done in my amendment. Under this procedure. all petitions for habeas corpus relief regarding immigration matters would be filed in that single court. and if any hearings were necessary to determine a question of fact. those hearings would be conducted by an administrative law judge under the direction of the court. In this manner. the court of appeals would not be bogged down in fact finding. but the potential for delay inherent in the present system where an asylum claimant can apply to the many Federal district courts would be greatly reduced. I make no claim that the time for any normal and full appeal in any individual case would be any less by using the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit than using the various circuit courts of appeal around the country. but I strongly believe that my proposed consolidation of judicial review into one court will deter frivolous filings and substantially reduce delays involving habeas corpus and other extraordinary relief seeking. When a single court is making uniform decisions applicable to all of the issues raised in asylum. exclusion. and deportation matters. there will no longer be the opportunity for exhausting a straight line appeal and then going into the Federal district courts on a habeas corpus petition and appealing that to a circuit court of appeals and possibly the Supreme Court and then maybe even going back in on some other claim under habeas corpus and trying it all over again. As we all know. that is precisely what has been happening in our criminal justice system that has delayed the carrying out of sentences and kept us from having the swiftness and certainty of punishment in the criminal system necessary to effectively deter crime. It is the same unending cycle of court reinvolvement that my amendment will correct in the immigration area. What we need in immigration. as well as in criminal law. is not only due process. but also swiftness in the process and finality in court decisions. This amendment is a necessary complement to the administrative law judge system in the bill and is critical if we are going to unclog the backlog of asylum cases and not get into this situation again. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote "yes" for this amendment.