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>> judges around the nation are sometimes termed the hidden judiciary. some of them are not able to attend social security theories. americans don't know what is happened at this courts. at the same time the likelihood that an american will see the inside of a federal courtroom, these have a kind of course they will appear before. in addition, in recent months, immigration courts have very much been headlines and yet we don't know a lot about what goes

on in immigration courts with immigration judges. today we will try to take the cloak of the hit in the judiciary. speaking today will be randall frye. he is president of the association of administrative law judges which represents hundreds of social security judges across the country and the president of the national association of immigration judges who represents to better 37 judges across the nation. i will turn it over to judge frye now and after judge mark speaks, we will take questions. >> thank you very much. our sincere thanks to the national press club for providing this wonderful opportunity to make visible some

of the issues that affect our judges on a daily basis. my thanks, too, to the ifpe for helping to make this opportunity available to us. we want to bring important issues to the american people through the press because these are issues that are terribly concerned to most of our judges. it involves threats that are made on a regular basis and, of course, in some instances, it absolutely -- it's sometimes involves physical assault. let me provide to you some examples of the kind of threats we're talking about. it is not just the kind of threat that i will see you later. let me give you some quotations of the threats we face.

in one city in illinois, one hearing office, equipment -- a claimant threatened he would come to the court with a baseball bat and beat the blank out of the judge or shoot him with a gun. another threat made by a claimant is that," i guess i will have to get a job and shoot the judge." he was one dissatisfied with the judge's ruling. another example of the kind of threats we are facing on a regular basis. a. clement said he would break the legs of any doctor who failed to submit medical evidence on his behalf and stated further that if the judge does not find him disabled, he would take care of him also.

another claimant said he had feelings of wanting to kill everyone in a hearing office including the judge. there are many, many more of these kind of threats. i will not repeat them at this juncture, but i wanted to give you a sampling of what we are facing. let me give you a little example or some history of who we are. jamie horowitz referred to us as the hit in judiciary and i suspect that is true in some respects, perhaps even more so with the social security administration because our hearings are closed to the public. that is not so true with some of the other regulatory agencies. what do administrative law judges do addict -- in a typical hearing room where the parties are present and making their

case? you have to remember -- you have to get a physical picture in your mind of what our court rooms are like. they are not normally what you would think of as a palatial setting where justice is provided to the american people. our hearing rooms are approximately 300 square feet or less, slightly larger than your average bedroom. in an average house in america. what we know from our research is that distance and location of various objects in a courtroom are very important for safety. in their courtroom, you have dais and immediately in front of that is a table for the parties including those who will testify. when i say distance is important, i will give you an example where this had a terrible effect of one of our judges. at the conclusion of a hearing, the judge, making her notes and

getting ready to prepare the final decision in the case was not looking forward but rather looking down writing her notes. the claimant in that case picked up a chair and because of the railing separating the dais and -- in the hearing room was too close to the bench and because the hearing room was so small the claimant was close to the judge, if the judge over the head which resulted in her being forced to take disability retirement. our judges do what most trial judges do in their hearings. we examine witnesses. we call witnesses. wheat subpoena witnesses. at the conclusion of a hearing, we typically prepare our instructions for the written decision. we issue the written decision which includes the findings of facts as well as a recommended

that decision. not unlike the average trial court in america. but the difference is that we are attached to a federal agency. to be sure, we are constitutional judges but not under article three as both judge is that you think of. we are constituted -- established under article one but week -- but we hear of cases under article 2. seedings. -- proceedings. we don't have the same kind of security you would normally find in an article 3 courtroom. we are not in federal buildings for the most part. we are not in federal court buildings for the most part. where you will always seek entry level kinds of security items, detection equipment, scanning. x rays can lin

we are usually higher than the second floor. the entry to those private buildings because many other businesses will occupy the building, there is no security. you go to the floor where you would find our courtrooms and in the common areas there, there is no security. was to enter our reception area is the first sign of any of any security and that would be a contract guard at that is responsible for not only the reception area that may, at times, include up to 30 people, responsible for that area and responsible for 4-6 court rooms at the same time to secure and make say the whole area. we believe that is unacceptable in today's world.

while guards are important and they are well trained, one guard is not adequate in a busy disability adjudication process. we have a tremendous backlog and we have multiple hearing rooms, courtroom running simultaneously throughout the day. it is a very busy operation. quite frankly, is a stressful operation. not only is the claimant who comes under stress and quite frankly understandable distress because of delays in the hearing and the unfortunate economic circumstances that these individuals often times find themselves in. some are even homeless. some families are going without regular meals because they are waiting on disability decisions. nonetheless, that does not excuse in our view the

government's responsibility to provide a safe and secure courtroom for administrative law judges to conduct these hearings. and safe and secure areas for the american people who come to us. this is critically important. what i would like to suggest to do is that there are a number of things that we believe should be considered. remember, the threats that i offered to you involve only five or six cases over the past four years. there have been approximately 200 similar kinds of threats. unfortunately, some of those threats have been acted on. let me give you some things i think the government has to do to be more responsible.

hearing rooms, court rooms of our educator's have to be larger. they simply are not large enough to design a safe working arrangement. as i indicated, you are forced to have the parties sit with the trial tables touching the judge's bench. this is an important aspect of security. we need adequate railings in every courtroom, railings that are sufficiently high enough to not stop -- we know they won't stop anyone who wants to jump over them -- but at least to slow the individual down to give the judge and the judge's staff an opportunity to escape. that is the purpose of the railings.

other areas that i think are critically important is that rather than have one guard available in this rather huge operation, we need multiple guards available. , guards that would be in the reception area. guards that would be available to go into a hearing room when a judge needs a guard in the hearing room. we need the agency to change its present procedure that requires the judge, believe it or not, to actually seek the clement's approval before a guard is brought into the hearing room regardless of what kind of information you may have in the file about the propensity of the individual committing a hostile act toward the judge.

we believe also that consideration should be given if to opening our hearings to the american people and to the press. we believe that justice is better served when it is achieved in the light of day. another very important factor that needs more focus is that all stephanie courtroom hearing office operation -- all staff courtroom during office operation need to security-type training on how to respond to these kinds of crises that we have had over the years. also, we need the agency to require the guards who now

complete an incident report when a threat is made. what the agency does not require is a report on what happens to that report. it is one thing to make note of threats being made or even make note of some physical contact, quite another for the agency to take action. as we understand the process presently, there is no final report being made and certainly, if so, none that would be made available to us. or to the judge. we know that there is a great cost factor in security. it is an unfortunate circumstance that we find ourselves in when we cry out for additional security, but we also

believe that no judge should be sitting in a courtroom in circumstances where he or she may be fearful of physical harm. that is wrong. that is wrong anywhere but particularly wrong in this wonderful democracy. there are obviously things congress can do in the budget arena, but we believe there are things the agency can do. one example is that we have, as part of the office of disability adjudication and review which is the administrative judiciary component of the social security administration, we have regional offices. we believe that those offices who have little or no hands-on

responsibility for disposing of disability cases should be reduced substantially in size, saving hundreds of millions of dollars, and those resources be placed into the security of our court rooms. we also believe that it is probably appropriate for congress to take a hard look at whether it is now time for a separate administrative judicial agency, that is, removing the disability judges from the parent social security administration into a separate judicial operation. we're security could be better controlled and better managed. with that, i will close my remarks and note that at the end of our presentation when judge marks and finishes, we will be

available to answer any questions. at that time, you will see another judge,, judge marc brown, who is the chair of our health and safety committee because he may be able to answer some questions that you may have perished in any event, thank you very much. i now yield to judge marks. >> good morning and thanks to everybody for coming. i would like to express the sincere appreciation of the national association of immigration judges to the national press club and the international federation of professional and technical engineers, our parents union who has helped us have this opportunity to make our concerns more broadly known. my name is a judge danilee marks. i am an immigration judge in california and the president of immigration judges. people are often surprised that

judges have a union. as an employee of the departments of justice, i would not be allowed to speak publicly about policy or my concerns. that is an edict that the department of justice has that applies to all employees. however, as the president of a national labor union, i have the right to speak out. i want to make sure that everyone understands today that i am speaking here in my capacity as president of the national association of immigration judges and not as an immigration judge or a representative of the department of justice. many people do not understand what happens at immigration courts and yet we have some of the highest volume of any tribunal in the united states. last year, there were approximately 275,000 cases which were adjudicated by approximately 230 immigration

judges nationwide. we are the trial-level court that hears the claims regarding whether or not someone is in the united states without proper authorization. the department of a homeland security issues a charging documents and that person has a right, generally speaking, to have a hearing before an immigration judge. when i went to law school, i thought everything was like a lot programs on tv. that is not what you say. what you see an immigration court are settings which are far more like a traffic court which many of us had hat -- have had experience with radar high- volume proceedings where you are given very little time to express your point of view and have the judge listened to what you feel is your side of the story. we also deal with a particularly vulnerable population. we have people who are seeking asylum in the united states. some of these people have been

severely traumatized and physically mistreated. they can be suffering from post- traumatic stress disorder. we have people who are victims of domestic violence come before our courts. we have unaccompanied minors in a strange country all alone without proper supervision. we have people who have mental illness. we have people who are convicted of crimes and the people who come before airport -- before our courts are longtime residents somewhat documentation and some without. sometimes, if the department of homeland security is wrong, we have united states citizens appearing in our tribunal and who need to establish that fact. to understand the volume, it helps to realize that at any given time and immigration judge has a pending caseload of approximately 1200 cases on average while a federal district

court judge has approximately 400. the majority of people who appear before immigration judges do not have legal representation. there is no right to representation at the cost of the government even though the stakes of our proceedings are exceedingly high. many of the people who appear before the immigration judge are detained and ironically, the people who are hearing cases in a detailed settings have better security than those of us like myself who are sitting in non- detained locations. while we are operating in traffic court settings, we are hearing death penalty cases. when someone comes in front of me and says they are afraid of returning to their homeland because they fear persecution, the decision i render could be a death sentence if i am wrong.

if someone has a criminal record but argues that he or she has been rehabilitated after living in the united states for many, many years, if i order that person removed from the united states, i am banishing them from the only country they may have known. that is a pretty emotional issue. on like social security judges, we render decisions at the end of a hearing right there in real time looking eye to eye with the person is claiming relief. if we have to deny their case, they are right there experiencing all that emotion and all that potential anchor if the case does not go their way. similar to social security judges, many of our courts are located in commercial buildings, some are in federal buildings and have the same kind of security that is available to

federal court judges but many, many of our courtrooms are in commercially leased spaces where there is no secure entrance or exit. having just order someone remove, i may go down the elevator with them. there are no separate parking or secure parking facilities in many of those locations. some have no fixed magnetometers, only running guards with ones. like the social security judges, we do not have bailiffs inside the courtroom. on a master calendar for arraignment-type hearing, i can have as many as 50 people in my courtroom. and no bailiff. have as much hard data as the social security judges have compiled because our organization, the department of justice, the executive office

for immigration review, has not compile statistics that have been released to us. i can't tell you some horror stories that police have reported. one colleague reports that the brake lines to her car were cut while in the parking lot at work. another colleague reported that there was a gang graffiti in her courtroom. during the anthrax scare, an immigration judge received a letter containing white powder. another judge was grabbed by the robe by an irate respondent. another judge experienced someone attempting suicide right there in the court room. , distraught over the population of having to leave. -- over the possibility of having to leave. of course we get threatening letters and e-mails. these incidents are extremely disturbing.

what is disturbing as well is the fact that these incidents are not tracked or reported to the immigration judges in any kind of coordinated fashion. the news is full lately with information and press releases about the fact that the department of home unsecured will be ramping up enforcement. and yet, not only our immigration judge as part of the hidden judiciary as administrative judges, we are often the forgotten piece of the immigration in. equations we are the trial-level course that will be hearing these cases and yet we don't have the resources allocated to us to handle those cases promptly and efficiently. people come to court after waiting may be years to have their hearing heard and then feel sometimes that they are one of 50 courses and they are rushed through and they don't have time to make their viewpoint known which of course

understandably can cause temporary. to flare -- tempers to flare. we believe there needs to be a coordinated focus on security for the immigration courts. we believe there needs to be additional funding allocated towards that. we believe that an overall restructuring of our court would be appropriate. there is a large concern by our association that the public does not perceive us as independent. because we are a component of the park and of justice, many people believe we do not have the independence necessary to render their decisions, that we are too closely aligned to the prosecutorial side of the government. because of that, we are advocating that an article one court be created for immigration proceedings and that we taken out of the department of justice.

with regard to security specifically, we have three recommendations. we recommend that data be accumulated and a strategic. planned be drafted we believe is imperative to augment personnel and have increased bailiffs' available so you do not just have someone speaking in the door every half an hour to make sure you are okay which is what i have an san francisco right now. we believe that long-term physical side considerations have to be accommodated. we should be placed in federal buildings, the appropriate instruction to have the safety of the appropriate kind of safeguards which now exist in other federal court rooms. thank you for this opportunity and i look forward to taking your questions. >> thank you.

we will now open it up to questions but i would like to ask the first question to judge frye. i'm curious if any of the social security judges have had to apply for disability because of assaults in the courtroom? >> yes, in fact i mentioned one judge who had to take disability retirement in 2008 after being hit over the head with a chair while she was in the court room. there are a couple of other judges. one was physically assaulted in the government facilities in all cop -- in hall. he was repeatedly kicked and had to take disability retirement. those kind of things should

never happen in a courtroom in a judicial operation. >> thank you. let's open up to questions from the floor. mark? if you wouldn't mind standing in stating where you are from. >> a question for both of you but first for judge marks. you mentioned you are speaking in your capacity as a union officer. what has your union dog to raise the issue with your bosses? >>the iodt has helped us with lobbying issues. and guidance. it is a great opportunity for us to be the younger sibling of the

social security judges since they are such a larger unit then we are. we benefit from the experience of being a sibling unions and having the opportunity to rely on them for their expertise and union. judge brown has given me some invaluable information on helping us in terms of what contract provisions we should include in our next collective bargaining agreement of what kinds of committees we can have and how our members can be active using the umbrella of a labor organization to address some of these issues to the extent. >> carrie? >> who is responsible for providing security at buildings that are not federal buildings? it's is thattsa? how long a term do judges in your court serve? >> federal protective services

is responsible for the security and commercially leased spaces through the gsa. that is my understanding. in terms of the term of office for an immigration judge -- that is your question -- we are civil servants and therefore we have the same merit system protection board provisions as long as we don't engage in misconduct. we have our job waiting for us for a federal service career. >> i cannot say that my answer would be terribly different. there is a distinction in terms of tenure. as an administrative law judge, we are appointed pursuant to the administrative procedure act. there is a little more tenure ostensibly than other kinds of

judges in the federal government. if that answers your questions -- the tenure as a judge is basically a lifetime absent some behavior that would warrant your removal. >> yes, please. tell us where you are from paren. >> you are administrative judges but you are subject to review by the federal courts. does that mean that important part of the judicial system is being threatened with integrity and its ability to function? >> we are the trial-level tribunal for immigration proceedings. we are those on the front lines, as it were, to hear the

witnesses and the stories that people have to tell. any level above that is just on the record that we have created, a paper record, not the emotional verbal presentation of the witnesses before a. us. we feel neglected and misunderstood because we feel we are a hidden part of the judiciary and that we are a component of the process that often is forgotten and it is essential because what we do every day in court sets the stage in that particular case. that is the record that someone will have to stay with throughout the entire proceeding as they progress all the way up to the united states supreme court. immigration cases eventually can be heard at the united states supreme court. >> does this threaten the

integrity of that part of the judiciary? >> if you can imagine a judge receiving a threat before a hearing, is certainly would affect not the outcome but would affect one's ability to emotionally deal with the process of a hearing. we are a trial court as well and our process and procedure is very much the same as judge marks identified. , particularly in circumstances where we do -- don't have a bailout or guard and a corporate. i think it imposes a threat to justice. >> there are many cases due to changes in policy. how is the caseload for you guys? >> i will i get into the political or reno but we have a tremendous backlog. the backlog was created because

during a past administration, for eight years, the administration was underfunded. we could not hire or pork judges breed we could not hire staff. the backlog built to a point where congress with the president's support increase our budget. hopefully by next year, our complement will be well over 1400 judges. in the past few years, it has been in the range of 1000-1200 and we are making inroads to the backlog. our productivity is at the highest level in the history of the organization. >> judge marc mentioned that immigration judges said in a traffic court setting and are handling death cases in many ways. with katrina and the results we see how desperate people can be.

is it that crucial? are people's lives hanging on your decisions? >> there is no question they are. i can give you many examples from my own experience because of the backlog that built up where you appear for a hearing and the claimants chair is vacant because death came before the date of the hearing. does not just that to get the disability benefit, often times the most important element of our cases is providing medicare or medicaid. once you are disabled, you get the benefit of health insurance and oftentimes these kind of in impairments they suffer can be treated. yes, it is routinely a life and death scenario. >> if i may, my name is mark

brown, i am an administrative judge with the social security administration. some of the claimants that we represent our child's cases. you get parents coming in advocating for the. our children as you all know, there is no stronger emotional tie for many people than the parent trying to advocate on behalf of their minor child. there is a strong emotional component there. we also have other high-risk claimants that appear before us. they can include a. x convex there are many ex-convict who apply as soon as they get out of the penitentiary. they see us as a form of potential free money and they figured they have nothing to lose than to apply for benefits. of course, they have often

times a exhibited some of the antisocial behavior that resulted in them getting incarcerated in the first place. we also have many drug addicts and alcoholics who because of their use of recreational drugs don't have the same grasp of societal norms as most regular people. we also have a category of claimants who are literally acute psychotic. the judge never knows until the morning of the hearing when that person walks into the room whether that person is still taking their anti-psychotic medications or not. one of the hallmarks of the acute psychotic is they will take the medication to the point where they get back more in touch with reality and they say they are functioning and they don't need to take this stuff

and they tet stop taking it. another unfortunate category of clements that appear before us are military veterans who are on for chambly suffering from a version of post-traumatic stress disorder from their time in the military. they no longer want to deal with any form of governmental agency. they, of course, oftentimes, have been trained in the use of weapons. that is just a reality. lastly, as judge marks said, we have people who are just hanging on by a shoestring and to see us as being their last best hope for getting these benefits for themselves and their families and if they cannot prove that they meet the definitions of disability and we have to deny them, they are just devastated

and that is one of the things that ends of generating a lot of these death threats. >> while you're at the microphone, since you are familiar with this incident reports, would you mind describing some of the others? >> i have had a climate who threatens to bring anduzi to that hearing. some of you may be able to recall a person who came to the u.s. capitol building and shot and killed two capitol policeman and wounded a third one. that man sat before me for one hour in his own application. the only reason i can refer to him is that it was reported in the general press that he was on social security benefits. i am fortunate he was not homicidal and acutely psychotic during the hours he spent in front of me.

randy had a list of other examples that he gave. i have a list of a lot more in my file about people who are doing things like not only threatening the judge but they go on expensively that they threatened the life of the president at the same time. their anger is that expensive. i am aware of at least two that threatened in the last four years that have threatened the life of president-elect obama, at that time, or even one before that that threaten the president bush. that answersif your question. >> that is good but can you perhaps give us a sense of how many threats there have been over the last four years or so? >> first of all, under our

contract with our agency, the agency every six months has to give to our union a list of all the threats against judges that have occurred within the last six months. within the last four years, based on the data we have received from them, there have been at least 200 such threats either to judges or the more generic threat where they say they will block the office or start shooting and that threat is an expansive and not the judges are included in the potential list of targets. we have had at least a couple of people who say they will drive their truck through the front window of the office. >> do we have some other questions? >> do you know how much

potential security would cost if you made the pitch to congress? if you are both representing unions, is there something you can do contractually with your agency to beef up security or make promises in that regard? >> i cannot say that we have any specific budget figures with one exception. we made a presentation to the agency several years ago where we were trying to get people to walk through magnetometers. at the time, we had about 130 home offices plus we also have permanent remote sites which is a different animal. at the time, we had gotten an estimate from one of the providers of the -- of these walk through magnetometers that it would cost about $3,000 for each individual magnetometer for our offices.

i forget the exact map but it is simple to project that it would have been less than $500,000 for the agency to provide those walk through magnetometers for our offices. their problem was that they felt they provided them for us at the judicial level and they would have to provide them for the roughly 1300 field offices where most people go just to get a social security number or to file their original claim. that changed the figure from $500,000 to over $5 million which was a different animal. i am aware of that expense. i also know -- you ask a question about the guards -- fps provide the guards through contract services by getting a

guard company to provide the services in each individual city. the rough figure for each card is roughly $50,000 per year. every time they added another guard, it would roughly be another annual cost of $50,000. >> the only thing i can add to that, thank you for the specific figures, we have approximately 58 immigration courts around the country. i honestly don't know the breakdown of how many are housed in an immigration and customs enforcement detention facility. that absorbs some of those costs. those are actually the most secure because there are guards on site. >> any other questions? perhaps from someone we have not heard from?

>> [inaudible] >> i can honestly say it has been one of the best associations we have never formed. the professional organization that provides all kinds of support on capitol hill in the negotiation process and in the litigation process. they have vast experience in helping professional employees and i have never been disappointed in any assistance they provided and i have never refused to provide any assistance so that have been very wonderful. we are in the mets' presently of renegotiating our collective bargaining agreement.

the initial agreement was so good that we had extended it. it was negotiated in 2000 and was extended through 2010 because it was such a wonderful working agreement with very positive provisions. that agreement was actually negotiated by the general counsel of theifpe. she sat at the table with us for months and helpless carve out a very important document. as i said, along the way, they are available for guidance and assistance on any contract issue on a daily basis. yes, there assistance has been absolutely invaluable. >> if i could get onto that response -- one of my positions with our union is that i am the co-chair of the health and

safety labor-management committee. every three months, i go to washington, d.c. to meet with administration officials to talk with them about health and security issues. i have two other union judges with me and management judges are there as well. i can say that over the passage of time, we have slowly made a lot of progress. if i could compare the way we were back in 2000 and 2001, there have clearly been improvements. we now have guards. we did not initially. in fact, the thing that precipitated it was a claimant but that a denial decision, went to the office wanting to talk to the judge denied his case. it turned out the judge was physically not going to be there. he would not have been allowed to talk to the judge in any event because it would have been off the record and we don't allow the judges to have those conversations because they can claim that the judge called them

a blithering idiot or they never grant benefits to certain people. ae never let them have b conversation like that. the man kept telling the clerk to come out into the reception room. they said the judge was not here and you could not talk to him anyway. he tried to get her to come out to the reception room. they told him he would have to leave. he pulled a revolver out of his pocket and shot himself in the head. the revolver had one more bullet in it. the logical inference is that one was for the judge and one was for himself. it was after that that we finally at least got guards. for years, the agency would not allow the guards to have the tools to do their job. they would not give them a want to find out if the person was

carrying a firearm were. a knife finally, the agency -- we had enough dialogue with them that they finally agreed to have the guards have they want and that happened in 2005. they refused to allow the magnetometers because of the cost for all the field offices. we have gotten the agency, finally, to ban people bringing mace and pepper spray into our court rooms. it was only through the union that we could get that through. we have finally gotten the agency to insist that the guards would do 100% packet inspections of all briefcases, purses, and the backpacks that anyone brought in. before that, it was a random thing. we finally accomplished that. the agency is finally getting

security from the judge's higher on its radar screen and i acknowledge that and i think the agency for that, but we still have room to go. >> yes, please. >> i am a member of the press club. is there another administrative law judge association conference that is not a union and they are on and -- and are they on board with you with this issue on security? >> there are two other administrative law judge organizations and we work very closely with those organizations. this event came up rather quickly and we did not have the opportunity to invite them to participate. i would open up your they would be part of the process. -- i would hope in the future

they would be part of the process. i hope they have the same security concerns we have. we have traditionally had the support of the american bar association as well as the federal bar association. what we have had in place for a number of years is a coordinating committee of of thealj groups. we try to meet every quarter in washington and representatives from one of the organization's and representatives from fba, willand debt * theifpte assist us on issues. we meet regularly to discuss all kinds of issues. we work in unison, yes. >> you mentioned -- one of your suggestions was to take the

immigration judges out of the department of justice and make it independent. it is my understanding that most variousther alj's in agencies that are article one judges remain in their agencies. they are independent and not located in the parent agencies. all the decisions are reviewable by their agency heads. >> that is where immigration judges are different because most administered a plot is complicated and arcane. most administrative law judges make a recommendation to their agency head. immigration judges are different because the decisions that we issue our final decisions if they are not appealed. 90% of the decisions that immigration judges make are not appealed. >> [inaudible] >> they are appealed directly to

the board of immigration appeals. we are advocating that both the immigration courts and the trial-level board of immigration appeals be moved into an article one tribunal so we would be like the tax court. part of it is because of the confusion the public has. i cannot tell you how many times judge. call me an ♪ ins i have never worked for them. when i first became a judge, the immigration and naturalization service was a large agency under the supervision of the attorney general in the department of justice and the executive office for immigration review was a very small agency. we used to joke that we were the cinderellas of the department of justice because we were so small and mistreated. when there was reorganization into the department of all mine security in 2001-2002, we wanted

separation from the immigration enforcement organization. we felt the most effective way of doing that was by remaining in the department of justice while the department of homeland security was created. we feel that that temporary solution has not gone far enough because of events that have transpired since that time. >> we have time for probably one last question. >> very quickly, one of the problems with our agency is that it makes no concerted effort to track the number of weapons that are stopped from coming into our facilities. right now, the agency policy is that if one of you were to come to my hearing and the guards

stopped you with a one and found that you had a firearm on new and said you cannot come in, the agency policy is if that person takes the firearm back to their car and leaves it in the car and comes back they can come in or they can give it to a relative or a friend that has come down there. the agency refuses to make any concerted effort to collect data on how often that happens. to me, that just does not make any sense. the same thing happens with knives. if the person is stopped from bringing a knife in, they do not make a record of the fact that a person was stopped from being in a weapon. there are only two states in the district and -- and the district of columbia do not have a form for concealed weapons. many people think they have a state permit and they don't realize that on federal property that no longer applies.

>> thank you, mark and thank you judge marks and f judgerye. one place where the ifpte is helping is that this will be posted on their website later today. thank you for coming, we stand adjourned. [inaudible] help yourself to cards. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> we provide coverage of politics, public it is all available on television, radio, on line, and

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