Judge Holly D’Andrea

So like for asylum, you have to show that somebody has been persecuted.

Maybe like proof of genocide going on in another country or proof of a country being war-torn.

Some judges in the United States have dockets on upwards of 12,000 cases per judge.

So that's an astronomical amount of cases.

If you've got 12,000 cases set, then you're going to be setting cases out 5, 10 years from now.

Well, obviously, there was very strong enforcement.

Donald Trump is very well known for strong enforcement.

There was a focus, I think, on criminal immigrants coming into the country.

Prior to Donald Trump, the entire immigration system was a lower priority.

And when he came into office, it actually became one of the top priorities for the nation.

And that may have been necessary at the time.

Well, when Biden took office, obviously there was a polar opposite policy base that came in from the stronger enforcement to a more lenient enforcement of the immigration laws.

Like, this is a whipsaw by politics in the immigration courts every four years based on the politics of whichever executive is in office at the time.

Broadly, the message was to be more lenient, but you're still bound by the law.

But I can say that under the prior administration, there was more pressure on the judges to be more lenient and to grant more as opposed to deny the cases as often.

Yeah.

There was a pressure from above to grant asylum.

It was like you're kind of soft pressured to grant more cases.

How did I feel it?

I mean, you just feel it.