08/17/2026
🚨 Contempt for Thee, Not for Me
The Department of Justice has proposed giving Immigration Judges the power to initiate civil monetary penalties against private attorneys, accredited representatives, respondents, and nongovernment witnesses for “contemptuous” conduct.
Among the conduct that could trigger sanctions? Language in court filings that “impugns the integrity of the court” or “unfairly maligns” an Immigration Judge’s competence or impartiality. There’s just one interesting exception:
Federal government attorneys are exempt from this monetary penalty regime.
So DHS counsel and an immigrant’s attorney can litigate the same case, before the same government-employed Immigration Judge, but only one side faces this particular threat of personal financial sanctions. That raises serious questions about the First Amendment, due process, vagueness, viewpoint discrimination, and the chilling effect on lawyers whose professional obligation sometimes requires them to argue that an Immigration Judge demonstrated bias, prejudged a case, misstated the record, or denied their client a fair hearing.
Lawyers can and should be held accountable for genuine obstruction, threats, knowingly false statements, and misconduct. But criticizing government adjudicators is not the same thing as contempt. And giving the criticized adjudicator the power to initiate monetary sanctions against the person doing the criticizing should concern anyone who cares about fearless advocacy and due process.
Our latest analysis takes a close look at EOIR’s proposed rule, its constitutional implications, and why immigration practitioners should pay attention—and submit comments before the September 28 deadline.
There is something almost admirable about the Trump administration’s capacity to make parody obsolete. After a year in which immigration adjudication has become increasingly punitive, increasingly …
