Read AILA's Response to the DHS Open Letter to Immigration Attorneys

Last month, James Percival, DHS's General Counsel, wrote an open letter to AILA purporting to blame immigration attorneys for the asylum backlog and characterizing asylum applications as "meritless."

AILA's Executive Director Benjamin Johnson's thoughtful response is available here. In it, he writes:

Among its many claims, your letter displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of immigration attorneys. Immigration lawyers did not create asylum law or the immigration system. Congress did. Immigration lawyers do not decide immigration cases. Government adjudicators and judges do. The law defines a clear role for immigration lawyers within the adversarial structure of the American legal system: advancing legal arguments, challenging government actions, and fulfilling their professional obligations to defend their clients and ensure that
petitioners and beneficiaries receive the fair process that the law guarantees. That is not abuse. Nor is it obstruction, as your letter asserts. It is the rule of law.