Immigration judgeship appointments under scrutiny

[struggle4progress]

By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 06/23/2007 06:50:02 PM MDT

Guadalupe Gonzalez is the chief counsel for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in El Paso, a lawyer with more than 20 years of experience in immigration law and a stellar record. In 2002, she made the next logical career move, she applied to become an immigration judge.

"I love El Paso. It is my home.I was born and raised here, and it's important for me personally to contribute in a role that is both vitally important to our country and of particular importance to the El Paso community," she said.

But the job went to a white, male candidate with no reported immigration experience. In 2004, when two other judgeships opened, they went to two other white males, both of them Gonzalez's subordinates with markedly less expertise in immigration law than Gonzalez.

Gonzalez, 56, sued the Attorney General for discrimination on the basis of gender and national origin and the suit is pending in a Washington, D.C. court. ~snip~

http://www.elpasotimes.com/breakingnews/ci_6214186

[Kagemusha]

1. My understanding is, scrutiny or not there's basically nothing to be done about it

Which is a darn shame, but this is one of those 'elections matter' things.

[struggle4progress]

2. There's nothing to be done about discrimination resulting from Hatch Act violations ?

Do forgive me if I don't adopt that particular view ...

[Kagemusha]

3. I mean removing the judges.

Just because installing them because of politics is wrong does not mean that removing them because they were installed because of politics is proper. In and of itself, anyway.

I wish the worst of them were simply removed, period, but the murkiness of the process and the slow wheels of Congress make that difficult too unfortunately.