Rep. Mike Gallagher Files Bill Giving Immigration Judges Contempt Authority.

Ronald Reagan once quipped, “They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong.” That’s a lesson Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., proved on Jan. 29 with his simple, but much needed, bill to improve our overburdened immigration courts.

His bill, barely more than a page long, would fix a long-standing weakness of the immigration courts by giving immigration judges the power to hold lawyers and litigants in contempt if they disobey court orders or ignore deadlines.

This would give immigration judges a power that every other state and federal trial court judge in the country has. It also would address a big reason the immigration courts are crushed under enormous and seemingly irreducible caseloads.

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