Via the LA Times

The complaints about immigration judges were alarming.

In San Francisco, a U.S. citizen was wrongly deported to Mexico after a judge failed to verify the authenticity of his birth certificate and tax records — actions that drew harsh criticism from a federal appeals court.

In Chicago, an appellate board found that a political asylum case involving an Albanian citizen was mishandled because the judge relied on testimony from a document expert who did not speak or read Albanian.

And in Boston, a judge was suspended for more than a year after he referred to himself as "Tarzan" during a court proceeding for a Ugandan woman named Jane.

Describing the conduct of some judges as "intemperate and even abusive," U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales recently announced that the Justice Department was launching a comprehensive review of the nation's immigration courts.

"To the aliens who stand before you, you are the face of American justice," Gonzales wrote in a Jan. 9 memo to immigration judges. "I insist that each be treated with courtesy and respect."

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