As an immigration attorney, I am DEEPLY disturbed by the letter Maria Sacchetti revealed in the Washington Post yesterday. Disciplinary Counsel at the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the DOJ sub-organization that runs the immigration courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals, reprimanded several attorneys for calling a hate group a hate group. The organization, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), has a history of hatemongering that was well-documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which formed the basis for the attorneys’ accusation.
Not only that, but it turns out this all started when the Board of Immigration Appeals solicited an amicus brief from FAIR. Which it apparently does regularly. The Board didn’t simply allow FAIR to weigh in through the procedure any political group may choose to use; it actively sought FAIR’s opinion and reprimanded the defense attorneys for pushing back against its attempt to tilt the scales in favor of hate.
Please contact the Board of Immigration Appeals and ask them to stop soliciting amicus briefs from hate groups:
Office of Communications and Legislative Affairs
5107 Leesburg Pike, Suite 1902
Falls Church, VA 22041
703-305-0289
703-605-0365 (fax)
and then contact your representatives in Congress and ask them to demand that the DOJ stop tilting the playing field in favor of hate groups:
Elizabeth Warren
Phone: (202) 224-4543
Ed Markey
202-224-2742
Find your Representative here: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
Is FAIR a hate group? Let us count the ways — from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
This does look appalling. What do you make of the letter being from Obama’s DOJ?
This is odd. I’m all in favor of not seeking comment from this clearly partisan group, but I’m a little leery of the hate group defense linked above. By that definition, the Republican Party might qualify as a hate group.
Definition not defense. I missed a chance to use the edit function.