Thread of BIA decisions that invoked Brand X to overrule Circuit law - all subject to reversal now

1. Matter of D-R-
BIA invokes Brand X to impose a looser understanding of “materiality” for false statements than some circuits had adopted.

justice.gov/sites/default/…
1. Matter of M-H- BIA "respectfully" overrules the 3rd Circuit citing Brand X, where the 3rd had said an offense must be an aggravated felony to be considered a particularly serious crime for purposes of barring asylum or withholding of removal. immigrationequality.org/wp-content/upl…

It appears Vance H. Spath has been removed from the list of Assistant Chief Immigration Judges. The page says it was updated on the 17th, but there's been no announcement. justice.gov/eoir/office-of… Spath was a Guantanamo judge presiding over cases where the DOJ was a party while he was asking them to hire him as an IJ. The DC Circuit in April 2019 said he had created “an intolerable cloud of partiality.” abajournal.com/web/article/dc…

People should read the OIG report about sexual misconduct in the IJ hiring process. The sex stuff wasn’t found to be misconduct but giving an IJ candidate the questions in advance was. I’m posting the redacted report we received through FOIA here. cdn.muckrock.com/foia_files/202… First, a the report describes senior EOIR employees using “code words” to rate prospective female immigration judge candidates based on how sexually attractive they were. Those men are still employed by EOIR.

Live tweeting the EOIR's "case flow processing" information session. The memo that kicked this off is here. It's pretty openly unlawful, but here we are. justice.gov/eoir/page/file… Opening with Gail Montenegro as moderator. First announcement: This process does not apply to unrepresented respondents (that's what the memo says too). Principal Deputy Chief Immigration Judge (acting) Mary Cheng will do an overview and then they'll do a Q&A.