Judge Holly D’Andrea

They definitely don't want to be detained for years and years that it might take, you know, for some people to hear their cases.

There's been due process issues with that.

And so I think that people are like, this is frustrating, and so I'm just going to leave.

I think that the way we do things matters, right?

It matters.

And you can do something quickly, but it's not sustainable.

And I think that in this circumstance, like we've done something quickly, but it isn't long-term sustainability that the court needs to maintain that same pattern of keeping the backlog down.

Right.

The system is working the way it's designed, but its design is dysfunctional.

So this is a structural issue with the immigration court.

It's not so much a policy issue.

It's not so much an issue with the law.

It's an issue with the actual structure of the immigration court.

And when you take the immigration court out from underneath the executive influence, you have long-term stability and you have a better court system that's more fair for everybody involved in it.

We're getting to a point now where it's just getting more and more necessary to have that full separation of power and have the immigration courts separate from the Department of Justice.

take the policy influence away from the courts so the courts can just enforce the law.

That's all any of the immigration judges want.

We want to be able to enforce the law and not be subject to just the policies.

In this moment, it is incredibly hard to be doing this work.

You know, the testimony that immigration judge listens to sometimes involves torture.