重磅报道揭示特朗普司法部施压资深移民法官 就业危机持续加剧
要点速览
- •在特朗普第二任期的第一年，司法部解雇了全国约700名移民法官中的约100人，并开始以政府所称的“驱逐法官”取而代之。
- •Donoso Stevens，53岁，是Annandale任职时间最长的被拘留者案件法官，曾任国土安全部，2016年进入法官岗位，裁决结果始终与全国平均水平一致。
- •Stevens指控一名上级命令她根据身份不明的“高层”指示推翻四项裁决，且此类干预此后不断升级。
- •代理助理首席移民法官Robert K. Lundberg告知她，她将继续担任法官，但不再负责涉及被拘留移民的案件。
- •她的指控得到同期笔记以及同事、家人和律师访谈的证实，与官员们声称移民法官依法作为独立裁判者的说法相矛盾。
唐纳德·特朗普总统领导下的司法部正以惊人的速度流失人员——既有大规模解雇造成的损失，也有因士气骤降而主动离职的员工。然而据一篇新报道，该部不仅未能扭转引发人员危机的趋势，还在其移民政策已被广泛批评为残酷之时，向司法部最资深的移民法官之一施压，迫使其离开岗位。
移民法官是司法部雇员，负责审理庇护申请并裁决被拘留移民的案件——这些决定可能关系到一个人是获得庇护还是被驱逐出境。
《华盛顿邮报》记者John Woodrow Cox于周日报道称，该部甚至对最资深的移民法官也采取了行动。
"And yet, in the first year of Trump's second term, the Justice Department fired some 100 of the country's roughly 700 immigration judges and began to replace them with what the administration called 'deportation judges,'" Cox写道。他描述的解雇数量约相当于全国移民法官的七分之一——连同新任命一起，这种人员更替正在改变审理此类案件的法官队伍构成。
Cox补充道："Donoso Stevens, 53, should have been insulated from the institutional chaos, according to fellow judges and attorneys whose cases she oversaw. Before joining the bench in 2016, she'd spent a decade at Homeland Security, earning a reputation as a formidable prosecutor. She was Annandale's most tenured 'detained judge,' one of three who decided what to do with migrants in custody, the court's highest-stakes cases."
这位《华盛顿邮报》记者继续写道："Every year, Donoso Stevens had denied asylum in more than half the applications that came before her, a record consistently in line with national averages. She hadn't resisted case quotas imposed by the first Trump administration and seldom took sick leave. She never fell behind on her docket."
他接着写道："But on that morning in Northern Virginia, she feared none of it mattered. By then, Donoso Stevens said, another supervisor had already ordered her to reverse four rulings at the direction of unidentified 'higher-ups,' a violation of judicial authority she once considered inconceivable. The interference, she said, had only escalated since."
Cox解释说，这些指控现在首次公开，是为了让公众了解特朗普政府的行为。
"The allegations, which she's sharing publicly for the first time because of her deep concern for the court's integrity, were corroborated by her extensive contemporaneous notes as well as colleagues, family and private attorneys interviewed by The Washington Post," Cox写道。"They contradict Trump officials' insistence to the public and to The Post that — as required by law — immigration judges serve under the administration as independent arbiters of justice." 她的指控因此超越了单一法庭的范畴，触及了官员们自己对《华盛顿邮报》所强调的、法律对移民法官所要求的独立性。
Cox随后写道："Outside her courtroom, Donoso Stevens tried to make sense of what was happening. She would remain on the bench but no longer oversee cases for migrants in detention, she was told by Robert K. Lundberg, Annandale's acting assistant chief immigration judge, a largely administrative role he'd been moved into a week earlier."
