One quick followup to  last month’s jeremiad on outgoing Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s last-minute decision to single-handedly invalidate any Constitutional basis for counsel in immigration removal proceedings in the awkwardly-titled decision that we’re all just calling Compean:

At the time that I wrote that, George W. Bush was still (technically, but not that anyone really noticed) President of the United States. Now that the Change-o-Meter has been set a-whirrin’, however, it looks like there is a real chance that Compean may be hitting the shredder shortly.

AILA has recently published incoming Attorney General Eric Holder’s responses to a number of written questions from Senator Orrin Hatch submitted in advance of his confirmation last week. When asked directly for his thoughts on Compean, Holder responded:

The Constitution guarantees due process of law to those who are the subjects of deportation proceeding. I understand Attorney General Mukasey’s desire to expedite immigration court proceedings, but the Constitution requires that those proceedings be fundamentally fair. For this reason, I intend to reexamine the decision should I become Attorney General.

Immigration Appeals Attorney General, immigration