An end to tainted judges

EARLIER THIS summer, the inspector general of the US Justice Department reported that, under former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, the department illegally picked immigration judges and other officials based on their conservative politics. The judges, like other career professionals in the department, are supposed to be chosen strictly on merit. Now it turns out that, not surprisingly, the judges chosen with a partisan filter are significantly more likely to reject immigrants' bids for asylum. Ridding the immigration courts of this political bias should be a priority of Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

The political vetting of job applicants began in 2004 and ended in 2007. The White House liaison to the department, Monica Goodling, frequently asked applicants about their political beliefs and researched their campaign contributions. During this period, the administration used political standards to pick 31 of the department's total of over 200 immigration judges. Twenty-eight are still in their positions.

A research group at Syracuse University has studied the decisions of 16 of the 28 who have ruled in at least 100 cases. According to the Syracuse data, nine of the 16 rejected asylum bids at a rate significantly higher than other judges in the same jurisdiction, and three were more lenient.

Requiring the 28 judges to reapply for their positions is not the answer to the problem - the same civil service law that was supposed to ensure that merit was the only criterion in their hiring also protects them from firing. Mukasey has dismissed this suggestion by stating, "Two wrongs do not make a right." He has promised a "swift and unambiguous response" if any immigration judges are found to be deciding cases "based on politics." One solution, which would be permissible under civil service, would be to switch them to nonadjudicatory positions at the same salary levels. If the department does nothing to correct this injustice, it faces the prospect of immigrants' attorneys seeking new hearings for clients whose asylum bids were rejected by judges chosen on political grounds.

The firing in 2006 of nine US attorneys, all Bush appointees, for raw partisan reasons demonstrated the inability of then-attorney general Gonzales to protect his department from politicization. Mukasey, who succeeded him, promised at his confirmation hearing to keep partisan politics out of law enforcement. To fulfill that promise, he needs to ensure that immigrants seeking asylum will know that the judges hearing their cases have only the facts and the law in mind.