Wisconsin Congressman Wants to Make Changes to Immigration Courts
Monday, February 10th, 2020 -- 8:39 AM
(WRN) -One Wisconsin Republican says he wants to put some bite into immigration courts to help solve a backlog.One Wisconsin Republican says he wants to put some bite into immigration courts to help solve a backlog. Congressman Mike Gallagher says he wants to give immigration judges simple contempt authority, the way most trial judges have in the US.
"So you have people who come here illegally, they get tied up in the court system, but they know that the case can go on and on and on, and because the judges don't have simple contempt authority, they can't enforce order."
Gallagher says it currently takes on average 760 days to handle a single immigration case, and giving judges the authority to enforce contempt in their cases ought to speed that up.
"They can't crack down on lawyers who do useless continuances, and they can't bring that 760 day average down a little bit."
He says that until there's more judges in place, this could give the ones that are currently on the bench the edge they need to speed up the process.
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