Dean Johnson Comments on Immigration Appeals for Daily Journal
Dean Kevin R. Johnson commented for the Daily Journal on a federal court's rejection of appeals by two immigrants whose attempts to appeal deportation orders were denied by a lower court after their petitions for review did not arrive in time due to a mistake by a courier service and a storm.
Last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it lacked jurisdiction to review the issue, with Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld filing identical dissents in both cases, stating that "The issue of lateness affects innumerable cases, and it is a matter of chance whether an alien attempting to appeal falls into this pit, " and criticizing the Board of Immigration Appeals' current filing system, which "does not provide for any means of filing notices of appeal other than showing up in Falls Church, Virginia."
"I think the dissent is interesting because Judge Kleinfeld is basically saying the resources the immigration courts have are not enough to satisfy the demand for their services," Dean Johnson commented. "It says they should be accepting things electronically. Again we see an exception with an immigration bureaucracy not having the technical capabilities, such as electronic filing, that one would expect in the 21st Century."
Kevin R. Johnson is dean and Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law and Chicana/o Studies at UC Davis School of Law. He is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of immigration law and policy, refugee law, and civil rights.
