Court Stripping Provisions of the H.R. 418, the "Real ID Act"

Court Stripping Provisions of the H.R. 418, the ""Real ID Act""
(as passed by House)

As with the rest of the ""Real ID Act,"" these court stripping provisions were not recommended by the 9-11 Commission. These provisions have not received a hearing before any committee of Congress.

""Note from your persecutor"" requirements for asylum-seekers (sec. 101). Asylum officers and immigration judges may impose ""corroboration"" requirements on all asylum-seekers, with judicial review of such decisions severely limited; asylum-seekers who are accused by the governments they are fleeing of being members of terrorist or ""militant"" groups must show political opinion, race, religion or other protected ground is a ""central reason"" for persecution.

*Suspend writ of habeas corpus, severely limiting power of courts to review detention and deportation, including some claims that a detainee will be tortured if returned (sec. 105).

• Limits the power of federal courts to review immigration actions by explicitly suspending, for the first time since the Civil War, the ""Great Writ"" of habeas corpus.
• Substitutes instead an inadequate remedy, requiring all judicial review of detention and deportation to one appeal to the federal courts of appeals.
• Review is under an extremely narrow standard that allows the courts to consider only ""pure questions or law"" or constitutional claims.
• Claims that are explicitly barred from review include -->

o some claims under the Convention Against Torture

o claims for discretionary humanitarian relief (such as a non-citizen father of a severely disabled U.S. citizen child who is the child's sole caregiver), and

o all claims involving criminal convictions, even in cases that occurred years or decades ago involving lawful permanent residents who came to the United States at an early age.