WASHINGTON — Oct. 22, 2021 — The Association of Administrative Law Judges, which has continually called for an end to quotas that attempt to undermine due process, is empowered by the recent end of similar quotas foisted upon U.S. immigration judges.
The National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) reports that the U.S. Department of Justice has stopped its “highly controversial quota system.”
Judge Melissa McIntosh, president of the AALJ, says, “It's our hope that President Biden’s appointee, Acting Social Security Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi, will direct Deputy Commissioner Theresa Gruber to end the unsupported anti-claimant scheduling quota at Social Security. As we know, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office study confirmed that the Agency has no basis for its scheduling quota. AALJ remains fortunate that we never lost our full collective bargaining rights, as NAIJ did, because we blocked then-Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul and Gruber from their union busting efforts.”
As the GAO found, the Social Security Administration set expectations for their judges to issue between 500–700 decisions or dismissals each year. This expectation has remained the same despite changes that affected judges' workloads, such as the increased size of case files. The pandemic also disrupted judges’ work, making it harder to meet expectations.
AALJ is a local of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, AFLCIO.
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Adam Shapiro
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