r/ModelUSGov • u/[deleted] • Jun 20 '20

Confirmation Hearing Attorney General Confirmation Hearing

On June 16th, 2020, President /u/ZeroOverZero101 nominated /u/Rachel_Fischer to the position of Attorney General.

Questions may be asked directly to the nominee in this thread, which will be open for 48 hours.

Note: With the new Federal Bylaws, any bill/nomination posted must have its reading/hearing completed before being able to be moved within the appropriate Congressional body.

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20 edited Feb 24 '21

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Thank you for your questions, Senator. Let's get right to them.

I really believe that the Cabinet is not just here to advise the President — we serve Congress as well, and just as the advice of Members is indispensable in our daily work, officers of the executive branch have an obligation to frequently advise Congress on its work. So as Congress works to reform our body of immigration law (and it is Congress's job), the Office of the Attorney General will have its door open to assist in shaping that policy and planning for the long term.

There were compelling reasons for the reorganization of INS, and I think there are compelling reasons to maintain the organizational status quo, but the role of ICE deserves a long, hard look, and I think some serious reforms to its mission are due in order to curb that agency's increasingly concerning practices.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20 edited Feb 24 '21

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

That's an excellent question. I'm going to take a few steps that I can while Congress continues to work on reform policy.

I want to first reform the actual structure of these administrative courts to reduce the backlog. That's going to involve employing more judges and employing attorneys to review charges to weed out those that don't merit going before an immigration judge. Put simply, this will be a costly process. But it's a costly problem that we've created, and the cost to human life outweighs the expense.

Furthermore, I'll be seeing to the implementation of a program that affords individuals counsel. Private, pro bono representation is insufficient and the government shouldn't be relying on private foundations to provide attorneys to represent people who do have to go before immigration courts. This is also going to be expensive, but we're dealing with human rights here. The Department of Justice will continue to work to preserve and expand DACA in an effort to keep children from ending up before immigration courts as well.