Los Angeles.- The administration of President Donald Trump has proposed a new rule that empowers immigration judges to impose civil contempt sanctions of up to $3,500 on immigrants, their lawyers, or witnesses who fail to comply with court orders.
The regulation proposed by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which governs immigration courts, would allow judges, for the first time, to impose fines of between $1,000 and $3,500 if an attorney or other person persists in disobeying court orders.
However, the rule, published in the Federal Register, does not allow judges to sanction attorneys from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has generated criticism from legal experts.
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In that sense, Gregory Chen, the director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), told CBS that the “totally biased” rule is a new attempt to attack immigration lawyers, “in line with the president’s” intimidation tactics.
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U.S. immigration courts have faced criticism, as they fall under the Executive branch rather than the judicial system, which would allow the Department of Justice to make changes at its discretion.
The proposal entered a 60-day period to receive public comments.
The White House has stepped on the accelerator to impose economic sanctions against immigrants. More than 100,000 foreigners have received letters from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) informing them that they owe $998 for each day they have remained in the United States after an immigration judge ordered their departure, according to data cited by The New York Times.
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The penalties have reached figures of up to 1,820,352 dollars, the fine imposed on a Mexican woman, mother of three Americans, who supposedly should have left the territory since 2013.
