Host Carlos Chavez interviews Paul Grussendorf next Wednesday, June 29th at 9-10am. They discuss his new book (e-book) My Trials: What I learned in Immigration Court. This will be a call in program, so we welcome your questions at (503) 231-8187.
Judge Grussendorf has spent a career of twenty years dealing with the immigration court system, first as an attorney representing asylum applicants and other individuals who were being deported, and later as an immigration judge in Philadelphia and San Francisco. He began his career representing asylum applicants at the Central American Refugee Center in Washington, DC. at the height of the wars in Central America. He was then named director of the immigration law clinic at George Washington University Law School, where he championed the rights of immigrants and asylum applicants, and later became an immigration law judge. Many of his decisions in the courts of Philadelphia, Baltimore and San Francisco were cutting-edge precedents affording protection to battered spouses, gays, and refugees from civil strife in Africa, Central America and Asia. His book is the first and only publication by an insider of the court system.
Judge Grussendorf's book views the dilemma posed by the nation's dysfunctional immigration court system with sober compassion. He offers solutions both for immigration reform and reform of the courts; proposes a drastic overhaul of the country's asylum system; and includes proposals for reform of legal education in America.