In the meantime, her lawyers have appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "I think this is the classic example of the errors Ashcroft has forced the [Board of Immigration Appeals] to make," said Tom Hutchins, one of her attorneys.
The growing number of appeals filed in the federal court system has been most severe in the 9th Circuit, which includes California and much of the West. Court Clerk Cathy Catterson expects immigration cases in 2002 may exceed 3,000, nearly triple that of 2001.
So many new immigration appeals are pouring in -- 150 a week in recent months -- that the 9th Circuit is automatically issuing temporary stays of all deportation orders, defeating the intent of Ashcroft's rules to resolve cases more quickly.
In the 5th Circuit, which covers Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, the Justice Department sought more time to answer the increasing number of immigration appeals, but the judges there refused. The department told court clerks that they could not keep up with the paperwork demands to respond to the appeals. "They have a big backlog. They asked for additional time," said clerk Charles Fulbruge. He said the court could handle the caseload for now, but not necessarily the future. "Every time we have an increase in workload, there's a problem," he said. "We'll just have to see how long it takes for these cases to get through the system."
One Justice Department official said he expected the federal courts to ship back to the immigration appeals board some of the hastily decided cases.
"You can't just wave a wand on this backlog and have it disappear," he said.
The Justice Department also plans to cut the Board of Immigration Appeals in half -- from 23 members to 11 -- once the backlog is reduced, even though Ashcroft had expanded the board in 2001.
The pending cutback has focused acute pressure on individual board members to process cases swiftly. Ashcroft has said that productivity -- broadly, the number of rulings each board member makes -- is one of the factors he will consider in determining who stays on the board.
As some critics see it, the cutback looms as a threat to any board member who would speak out against the Justice Department and its increasingly tough approach toward immigrants.
"To me, this is a thinly veiled political threat," said Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn., which has filed suit with the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition to rescind the new rules.
