Tag Archives: Justice Department

U.S. police deaths on duty spiked in 2016: FBI

New York Police officers take part in a procession carrying the body of Sergeant Paul Tuozzolo, who was fatally shot in a shootout, at the Jacobi Medical Center in the neighborhood of Bronx in New York, U.S. November 4, 2016. REUTERS

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sixty-six police officers were killed on the job by felons in 2016, up about 61 percent from 41 deaths a year ago, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Monday.

The number was the second highest since 2011, when 72 officers were killed by felons, according to the FBI report.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a statement called the numbers “shocking” and “unacceptable,” and said the Justice Department would work toward reducing violent crime.

The findings bolster the so-called Blue Lives Matter movement, which advocates tougher hate-crime sentences for the murder of police officers. It was launched in response to Black Lives Matter, a campaign against police brutality toward black men, and gained momentum last year after police officers were killed in both Dallas and Baton Rouge.

Forty-one officers killed last year were employed by city police departments, and 30 officers were located in the U.S. South, the annual data show.

The most common circumstances involved ambushes, followed by responses to disturbance calls.

Accidental deaths of police officers in 2016 rose to 52 from 45 in 2015, mostly involving vehicles, the data show.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Justice Department to develop strategies to better protect law enforcement officials and pursue legislation to increase penalties against those who kill or injure officers in the line of duty.

 

 

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Richard Chang)

 

Violent crime in U.S. rose in 2016 vs. 2015: Justice Department

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Violent crime rose 4.1 percent nationwide in 2016 compared to the 2015 estimates, the U.S. Justice Department said on Monday.

Violent crime, which the report defines as non-negligent killings, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, had steadily dropped since 2006, but had increased slightly in 2015, according to the annual report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“The report … reaffirms that the worrying violent crime increase that began in 2015 after many years of decline was not an isolated incident,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

The report said an estimated 1.2 million violent crimes took place across the country in 2016, an increase of 4.1 percent over the 2015 estimate.

In cities with populations larger than 100,000, the violent crime rate in 2016 was up 3.4 percent compared to the estimate from 2015.

President Donald Trump, who took office in January, has said he would do more to fight criminal gangs and would send in federal help to stem violent crime in Chicago.

The Justice Department has reversed or distanced itself from many of the Obama administration’s policies, including consent decrees to reform police departments and limits on transferring certain types of military gear to local law enforcement agencies.

 

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Bill Trott)

 

As shootings soar, Chicago police use technology to predict crime

A Chicago police officer attends a news conference announcing the department's plan to hire nearly 1,000 new police officers in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. on September 21, 2016.

By Timothy Mclaughlin

CHICAGO (Reuters) – In a control room at a police headquarters on Chicago’s South Side, officers scan digital maps on big screens to see where a computer algorithm predicts crime will happen next.

Thrust into a national debate over violent crime and the use of force by officers, police in the third-largest U.S. city are using technology to try to rein in a surging murder rate.

And while commanders recognize the new tools can only ever be part of the solution, the number of shootings in the 7th District from January through July fell 39 percent compared with the same period last year. The number of murders dropped by 33 percent to 34. Citywide, the number of murders is up 3 percent at 402.

Three other districts where the technology is fully operational have also seen between 15 percent and 29 percent fewer shootings, and 9 percent to 18 percent fewer homicides, according to the department’s data.

“The community is starting to see real change in regards to violence,” said Kenneth Johnson, the 7th District commander.

Cities like Philadelphia, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Denver, Tacoma, Washington, and Lincoln, Nebraska have tested the same or similar technologies.

The techniques being used in Chicago’s 7th District’s control room, one of six such centers opened since January as part of a roughly $6 million experiment, are aimed at complimenting traditional police work and are part of a broader effort to overhaul the force of some 12,500 officers.”We are not saying we can predict where the next shooting is going to occur,” said Jonathan Lewin, chief of the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Technical Services. “These are just tools. They are not going to replace (officers).”

The department’s efforts come after a Justice Department investigation published in January found officers engaged in racial discrimination and routinely violated residents’ civil rights.

That probe followed street protests triggered by the late 2015 release of a video showing a white police officer fatally shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald a year earlier.

Some critics of the department fear the technology could prove a distraction from confronting what they say are the underlying issues driving violence in the city of 2.7 million.

“Real answers are hard,” said Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia who has written a book on police technology. “They involve better education, better economic opportunity, dealing with poverty and mental illness.”

 

‘KILLING FIELDS’

Chicago’s recent rash of shootings – 101 people were shot over the Independence Day weekend alone – prompted President Donald Trump to bemoan the response of city leaders to the bloodshed, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to describe some of its areas as “killing fields.”

One of the technologies being used in the 7th District is HunchLab, a predictive policing program made by Philadelphia-based company Azavea. It combines crime data with factors including the location of local businesses, the weather and socioeconomic information to forecast where crime might occur. The results help officers decide how to deploy resources.

Another is the Strategic Subject’s List, a database of individuals likely to be involved in shootings that was developed by the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Police are tight-lipped about how it is compiled, saying only that the algorithm looks at eight factors including gang affiliation and prior drug arrests to assign people a number between 0 and 500. A higher number reflects higher risk.

They are also using the gunfire detection system made by ShotSpotter Inc which uses sensors to locate the source of gunshots. Police officials declined, however, to say how many such devices were installed in the 7th District.

“We can’t give away the kitchen sink and tell them all of our secrets,” district commander Johnson said.

 

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin; Editing by Ben Klayman and Lisa Shumaker)

 

U.S. Justice Department orders tougher criminal punishments

FILE PHOTO: Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivers remarks at the Ethics and Compliance Initiative annual conference in Washington, U.S., April 24, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration called for tougher charges and longer prison time for criminals in a move to return to strict enforcement of mandatory minimum-sentencing rules, according to a memo the U.S. Department of Justice released on Friday.

In a two-page memo to federal prosecutors, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed course from the previous Obama administration and told the nation’s 94 U.S. attorneys to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense.”

The move is in line with tough campaign rhetoric against criminals by U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican who had also pledged to support police and law enforcement.

“It ensures that the Department enforces the law fairly and consistently, advances public safety and promotes respect for our legal system,” Sessions said in the memo dated on Wednesday.

Sessions will make additional comments on the changes later on Friday, the Justice Department said in a separate statement.

Under former president Barack Obama, a Democrat, the Justice Department had sought to reduce mandatory sentencing to reduce jail time for low-level drug crimes and ease overcrowding at U.S. prisons.

Obama’s then-attorney general Eric Holder had advised prosecutors to avoid pursuing the toughest charges in certain cases, such as more minor drug offenses, that would have triggered mandatory sentencing under laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s.

In recent years, however, there has been growing bipartisan interest among some in Congress, the U.S. states and the courts to reevaluate lengthy prison terms.

Sessions’ memo rescinds the Obama-era policy, saying prosecutors must now disclose all information about a case to the courts and follow current sentencing rules. It also requires prosecutors seeking a different sentence to get approval and make a case in writing.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will oversee the new policy’s implementation and issue any additional guidance or clarifications, Sessions wrote.

(Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Judges hit Trump lawyer with tough questions over revised travel ban

FILE PHOTO: A member of the Al Murisi family, Yemeni nationals who were denied entry into the U.S. last week because of the recent travel ban, shows the cancelled visa in their passport from their failed entry to reporters as they successfully arrive to be reunited with their family at Washington Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia, U.S. February 6, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Lawrence Hurley

RICHMOND, Va. (Reuters) – Federal appeals court judges on Monday peppered a U.S. Justice Department lawyer with tough questions about President Donald Trump’s temporary ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority nations, with several voicing skepticism that protecting national security was the aim of the policy, not religious bias.

Six Democratic appointees on a court dominated by judges named by Democratic presidents showed concerns about reviving the Republican president’s March executive order that prohibited new visas to enter the United States for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for three months.

But three Republican appointees on the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals seemed to lean toward the administration, asking whether the president should be second-guessed when it comes to protecting the country’s borders and whether the plaintiffs bringing the suit had been sufficiently harmed by the order during arguments before 13 judges.

Based on the judges’ questions, a ruling could hinge on whether the appeals court agrees with a lower court judge that past statements by Trump about the need to prevent Muslims from entering the United States should be taken into account. That would be bad news for a young administration seeking victory on one of its first policy changes.

“This is not a Muslim ban,” Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, arguing for the government, told the judges during the hearing that lasted two hours, twice as long as scheduled.

Judge Robert King, named by Democratic former President Bill Clinton, told Wall that Trump has never retracted previous comments about wanting to impose a ban on Muslims.

“He’s never repudiated what he said about the Muslim ban,” King said, referring to Trump’s campaign promise for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

POLITICAL DEBATE

Wall told the judges past legal precedent holds that the court should not look behind the text of the Trump’s executive order, which does not mention any specific religion, to get at its motivations. He warned that despite the “heated and passionate political debate” about the ban, there was a need to be careful not to set legal precedent that would open the door to broader questioning of presidential decision making on security matters.

Judge Paul Niemeyer, appointed by Republican former President George H.W. Bush, told Omar Jadwat, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing the plaintiffs who challenged the order, that they were asking the court to rule on a president’s national security judgments.

“You have the judiciary supervising and assessing how the executive is carrying out his office,” Niemeyer said, pressing Jadwat, who seemed to stumble at times after pointed questioning by the judges. “I just don’t know where this stops.”

The revised travel ban was challenged in Maryland by refugee organizations and individuals who said they were being discriminated against because they were Muslim and because they had family members adversely affected by the ban. They argue the order violated federal immigration law and a section of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment barring the government from favoring or disfavoring a particular religion.

The administration appealed a March 15 ruling by Maryland-based federal judge Theodore Chuang that put the ban on hold just a day before it was due to go into effect.

The arguments marked the latest legal test for Trump’s ban, which also was blocked by federal judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii in a separate legal challenge. An earlier version of the ban was also blocked by the courts.

Chuang, in Maryland, blocked the part of Trump’s order relating to travel by people from the six countries. Watson, in Hawaii, also blocked another part of the order that suspended the entry of refugees into the United States for four months.

‘HOW IS THIS NEUTRAL?’

To a packed audience in the ornate pre-Civil War era courthouse, Judge Pamela Harris said Trump’s action clearly had a disparate impact on Muslims, asking, “How is this neutral in its operation as to Muslims?” Judge Barbara Keenan, who like Harris was appointed by Democratic former President Barack Obama, said the order could affect some 200 million people.

Regardless of how the 13 judges rule, the matter is likely to be decided ultimately by the U.S. Supreme Court. The full 4th Circuit took up the appeal but two Republican-appointed judges did not participate. That left nine judges appointed by Democratic presidents, three Republican appointees and one judge originally appointed by a Democrat and later re-appointed by a Republican.

It was unclear when the court would rule.

Trump issued the March executive order after federal courts blocked an earlier version, issued on Jan. 27 a week after he took office, that also had included Iraq among the nations targeted. That order, which went into effect immediately, triggered chaos and protests at airports and in several cities before being put on hold due to legal challenges.

The second order was intended to overcome the legal problems posed by the original ban.

The administration’s appeal in the Hawaii case will be heard in Seattle on May 15 by a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The three judges assigned all are Democratic appointees.

Wall said the temporary ban was intended to give the government time to evaluate whether people from the six countries were being subjected to adequate vetting to ensure they did not pose a security threat to the United States.

But he said the administration had not been able to proceed on all the work it wanted to do because of the litigation, noting “we have put our pens down.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York and Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Will Dunham and Mary Milliken)

Two Florida men plead guilty to planning to help Islamic State

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) – Two Florida men have pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State by planning to travel to Syria to join the militant group, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.

Both men are U.S. citizens and live in Palm Beach County.

Dayne Antani Christian, 32, and Darren Arness Jackson, 51, each pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to provide material support to Islamic State. Jackson made his plea on Tuesday and Christian pleaded last week, each to U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg.

Each man faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted on the conspiracy charges. Christian also pleaded guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm, and faces up to 10 yeas in prison if convicted for that charge.

The two men, along with co-defendant Gregory Hubbard, 53, were arrested by the FBI, after Jackson last July drove Hubbard and an FBI confidential informant to Miami International Airport for a flight to Germany.

Court records show that prosecutors claim that Hubbard bought a ticket for Berlin and planned to travel by train to Turkey and then cross into Syria to join Islamic State.

A July 2016 indictment returned by a grand jury charged all three men with conspiring and attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

That indictment says that at least as far back as July 2015 and continuing until their arrests, Christian and Jackson told Hubbard and the FBI confidential informant about supporting Islamic State and of a desire to travel to Syria for that purpose, the Justice Department’s press statement issued on Tuesday shows.

The same indictment says Christian and Jackson provided firearms and training in a remote area of Palm Beach County so that Hubbard and the FBI source could learn to shoot.

All three have been detained since their arrests. Hubbard is scheduled for trial on Oct. 30.

Forces backed by the United States, Turkey and Russia are advancing on Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa. Iraqi government forces also retook several Iraqi cities last year and the eastern part of the city of Mosul.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Scott Malone and James Dalgleish)

Justice Department asks for 90 days to review agreement with Baltimore

A young boy greets police officers in riot gear during a 2005 march in Baltimore. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

(Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Monday asked a federal court for 90 days to review an agreement reached with Baltimore for the city to enact a series of police reforms in how officers use force and transport prisoners, court documents showed.

The city and justice department reached the agreement, known as a consent decree, in January, almost two years after the death of a black man, Freddie Gray, of injuries sustained while in police custody sparked a day of rioting and arson in the majority-black city. It also led to an investigation that found the city’s police routinely violated residents’ civil rights.

Gray, 25, died of injuries sustained in the back of a police van in April 2015. His was one of a series of high-profile deaths in U.S. cities from Ferguson, Missouri, to North Charleston, South Carolina, that sparked an intense debate about race and justice and fueled the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Justice Department needs the 90 days to review the agreement as it develops strategies to support law enforcement agencies throughout the U.S., lawyers for the department said in a motion filed in United States District Court for the District of Maryland.

“The Department has determined that permitting it more time to examine the consent decree proposed in this case in light of these initiatives will help ensure that the best result is achieved for the people of the City,” they wrote, asking for a hearing set for Thursday to be postponed until June.

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh opposes the request for an extension, she said in a statement.

“Much has been done to begin the process of building faith between the police department and the community it seeks to serve. Any interruption in moving forward may have the effect of eroding the trust that we are working hard to establish,” she said.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a memo also filed to the court that the Justice Department will review all consent decrees and other police reform agreements that are in place with more than a dozen cities.

The 227-page consent decree agreement in Baltimore was reached in the final days of the Obama administration. It was the result of months of negotiations after a federal report released in August found that the city’s 2,600-member police department routinely violated black residents’ civil rights with strip searches, by excessively using force and other means.

(This version of the story was refiled to add word “with” in headline)

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Michael Perry)

Massachusetts challenges immigration detention in state court

A demonstrator holds a sign during a rally at the City College of New York (CCNY) to protest the immigration and deportation policies of the U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) – The state of Massachusetts on Tuesday asked its top court to find that state authorities lack the authority to detain illegal immigrants who come in contact with the legal system to buy time for federal authorities to take them into custody.

The hearing amounted to a challenge to requests by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency for courts and law enforcement agencies to keep illegal immigrants facing civil deportation orders in custody for up to 48 hours after their cases are resolved, a practice expected to step up under the administration of President Donald Trump.

The state argued that keeping someone in custody after his or her case is resolved amounted to a fresh arrest of the person without sufficient legal justification.

“Probable cause for civil removability is simply not a basis for arrest under Massachusetts law,” Jessica Barnett, an assistant state attorney general told the court. She noted that state law does not specifically give law enforcement agencies the power to arrest people facing civil deportation proceedings.

The U.S. Justice Department argued the detainer requests reflect basic practices of cooperation between various law enforcement agencies.

“From our perspective, all states have an inherent authority to police their sovereignty,” said Joshua Press, the lawyer representing the Justice Department.

The case was sparked by the arrest last year of Sreynuon Lunn, a man who Press said entered the United States as a refugee in 1985 and was ordered deported to Cambodia in 2008 after a series of criminal convictions.

Cambodia had declined to accept him and he was released. He was arrested in Boston on an unarmed robbery charge and ordered released in February after prosecutors failed to present a case. While he was waiting to be let out from his court holding cell, federal ICE officials took him into custody.

As a practical matter, his arrest by ICE makes the case moot but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed to take the case on premise that cooperation between law enforcement in the state and ICE would come up again.

Trump has made immigration enforcement a centerpiece of his presidency, vowing to wall off the Mexican border, deport an estimated 11 million undocumented people living in the country and cut off Justice Department grants to cities that fail to help U.S. immigration authorities.

Attorneys for Lunn and the state largely agreed on the matter, with both sides contending that state agencies lacked authority to comply with the ICE detainer requests. But Lunn’s attorneys went further, arguing that the detainer process violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of due process because judges are not involved in issuing them.

“There is no fixing the constitutional problems here,” said Emma Winger, a public defense attorney representing Lunn.

Lunn’s attorneys have declined to answer questions about the status of the deportation case. The court did not immediately rule on the matter.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Marguerita Choy)

Seattle sues Trump administration over threat to ‘sanctuary’ cities

FILE PHOTO: The skyline of Seattle, Washington, U.S. is seen in a picture taken March 12, 2014. REUTERS/Jason Redmond/File Photo

By Tom James

SEATTLE (Reuters) – The city of Seattle sued U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday over its executive order seeking to withhold federal funds from “sanctuary cities,” arguing it amounted to unconstitutional federal coercion.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray told reporters the Constitution forbade the federal government from pressuring cities, “yet that is exactly what the president’s order does. Once again, this new administration has decided to bully.”

“Things like grants helping us with child sex trafficking are not connected to immigration,” Murray said, adding: “It is time for cities to stand up and ask the courts to put an end to the anxiety in our cities and the chaos in our system.”

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened on Monday to strip Justice Department grants from cities and other local governments that choose to shield illegal immigrants from deportation efforts.

Trump, who made tougher immigration enforcement a cornerstone of his campaign, directed the government in his Jan. 25 executive order to cut off funding to sanctuary jurisdictions. That order has yet to be put into effect, but Sessions’ announcement seemed to be the first step in doing so.

Trump administration officials say the immigration crackdown is focused on illegal immigrants convicted of serious crimes.

Responding to the Seattle lawsuit, a U.S. Justice Department representative said in a statement: “Failure to deport aliens who are convicted of criminal offenses makes our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on our streets.”

Seattle’s action was the latest legal salvo over the Trump immigration order from local governments across the country, including the city of San Francisco and California’s Santa Clara County.

Police agencies in dozens of “sanctuary” cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, have barred their officers from routinely checking on immigration status when making arrests or traffic stops. They have also refused to detain people longer than otherwise warranted at the request of federal agents seeking to deport them.

Supporters of the policy argue that enlisting police cooperation in rounding up immigrants for removal undermines communities’ trust in local police, particularly among Latinos.

Murray said the goal of Seattle’s lawsuit was to have the courts declare that federal authorities “cannot force our local police officials to be involved in federal immigration activities.”

(Editing by Patrick Enright and Peter Cooney)

Exclusive: Immigration judges headed to 12 U.S. cities to speed deportations

A man, who was deported from the U.S. seven months ago, receives candy from his nephew across a fence separating Mexico and the United States as photographed from Tijuana, Mexico, March 4, 2017. Picture taken from the Mexican side of the border. REUTERS/Jorge Duenes/Files

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department is developing plans to temporarily reassign immigration judges from around the country to 12 cities to speed up deportations of illegal immigrants who have been charged with crimes, according to two administration officials.

How many judges will be reassigned and when they will be sent is still under review, according to the officials, but the Justice Department has begun soliciting volunteers for deployment.

The targeted cities are New York; Los Angeles; Miami; New Orleans; San Francisco; Baltimore, Bloomington, Minnesota; El Paso, Texas; Harlingen, Texas; Imperial, California; Omaha, Nebraska and Phoenix, Arizona. They were chosen because they are cities which have high populations of illegal immigrants with criminal charges, the officials said.

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review, which administers immigration courts, confirmed that the cities have been identified as likely recipients of reassigned immigration judges, but did not elaborate on the planning.

The plan to intensify deportations is in line with a vow made frequently by President Donald Trump on the campaign trail last year to deport more illegal immigrants involved in crime.

The Department of Homeland Security asked for the judges’ reshuffle, an unusual move given that immigration courts are administered by the Department of Justice. A Homeland Security spokeswoman declined to comment on any plan that has not yet been finalized.

Under an executive order signed by Trump in January, illegal immigrants with pending criminal cases are regarded as priorities for deportation whether they have been found guilty or not.

That is a departure from former President Barack Obama’s policy, which prioritized deportations only of those convicted of serious crimes.

The policy shift has been criticized by advocate groups who say it unfairly targets immigrants who might ultimately be acquitted and do not pose a threat.

The cities slated to receive more judges have more than half of the 18,013 pending immigration cases that involve undocumented immigrants facing or convicted of criminal charges, according to data provided by the Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review.

More than 200 of those cases involve immigrants currently incarcerated, meaning that the others have either not been convicted or have served their sentence. The Justice Department did not provide a breakdown of how many of the remainder have been convicted and how many are awaiting trial.

As part of the Trump administration crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Justice Department is also sending immigration judges to detention centers along the southwest border. Those temporary redeployments will begin Monday.

‘AIMLESS DOCKET RESHUFFLING’

Former immigration judge and chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Schmidt said the Trump administration should not assume that all those charged with crimes would not be allowed to stay in the United States legally.

“It seems they have an assumption that everyone who has committed a crime should be removable, but that’s not necessarily true. Even people who have committed serious crimes can sometimes get asylum,” Schmidt said.

He also questioned the effectiveness of shuffling immigration judges from one court to another, noting that this will mean cases the judges would have handled in their usual courts will have to be rescheduled. He said that when he was temporarily reassigned to handle cases on the southern border in 2014 and 2015, cases he was slated to hear in his home court in Arlington, Virginia had to be postponed, often for more than a year.

“That’s what you call aimless docket reshuffling,” he said.

Under the Obama administration, to avoid the expense and disruption of immigration judges traveling, they would often hear proceedings from other courthouses via video conference.

The judges’ reshuffling could further logjam a national immigration court system which has more than 540,000 pending cases.

The cities slated to receive more judges have different kinds of immigrant populations.

Imperial, California, for example, is in one of the nation’s largest agriculture hubs, attracting large numbers of immigrant farmworkers from Mexico and Central America.

Bloomington, Minnesota, near St. Paul, is home to a large number of African immigrants, many of whom traveled from war-torn countries like Somalia to claim asylum in the United States.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Sue Horton and Alistair Bell)