Who Controls the Immigration Bureaucracy? The Relative Influence of the Three Branches Over Asylum Policy Implementation

Abstract

At the center of contentious debates concerning U.S. asylum policy are immigration judges, bureaucrats who decide life and death cases on a daily basis. Congress, the executive and the courts compete for influence over these key actors — administrative judges distinct from those examined in much of the bureaucratic control literature. They are hired, fired, promoted or demoted by executive officials; face congressional oversight; and must follow circuit law. We argue that, because of the fear of reversal, immigration judges will look most to the courts in the decision-making process. Our results support our theory. Examining over 900,000 immigration judges’ decisions, we find that, although IJs are influenced by a fear of pushback from the elected branches, the impact is conditional on circuit preferences. Our findings inform scholarly understanding of judicial behavior and bureaucratic accountability, and support the pursuit of judicial independence and due process in immigration courts.

How the Trump Administration’s Quota Policy Transformed Immigration Judging

“…With little incentive to be politically responsive in their behavior, strategic-minded immigration judges are free to use their judicial discretion to make decisions based on their own preferences, traits, and experiences-and that's exactly what the prior immigration judging literature has found. Liberal leaning immigration judges are more likely to rule in favor of the noncitizen than conservative judges (Keith, Holmes, and Miller 2013;Miller, Keith, and Holmes 2014;Stobb, Miller, and Kennedy 2023). The same is true for female immigration judges (Beougher 2016;Chand, Schreckhise, and Bowers 2017;Keith, Holmes, and Miller 2013;Ramji-Nogales, Schoenholtz, and Schrag 2007;United States Government Accountability Office 2008; and immigration judges with prior experience working for nongovernmental organizations focused on indigent legal aid (Kim and Semet 2020;Ramji-Nogales, Schoenholtz, and Schrag 2007).…”