No. of Recommendations: 7
The existence of the 60% pretty much confirms the gaming. Why else would the people be let in to stay under a notice to appear if not for a pending asylum hearing?
Because losing a court case doesn't mean that you never had a decent argument. People with decent, colorable, good faith arguments to support their cases lose in court all the time. That doesn't mean they're "gaming the system," it doesn't mean they're making bad-faith arguments, it doesn't mean that they didn't have a legitimate chance of winning. It just means that they lost their hearing. That's especially true of people who are so poor (and lack other resources) that they can't afford to hire paid private counsel.
If 40% are winning their cases, it means that there's a much larger percentage that are proceeding in good faith with legitimate claims that deserve to be heard by an immigration judge, even if ultimately it goes against them - and don't deserve summary expulsion without even a hearing. The people are being let in to stay for that hearing because we don't decide questions that could result in someone dying in a summary interview if they've made enough of a showing to deserve a full hearing.
