Dorothy Harbeck is both the Secretary-Treasurer for the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), a union representing judges who operate under the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), and a U.S. Immigration Judge serving in New York City Immigration Court.
Data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), part of Syracuse University, reveals that Harbeck denied asylum in just 27.9 percent of the cases she adjudicated over the last five years. In total, she granted asylum to 523 individuals who appeared in her court, as well as some other type of relief to 10 more, while denying asylum to 206 individuals.
Her rate of denial for application cases is less than half of the nationwide average, as TRAC reported judges denied 57.7 percent of asylum requests during the period, whereas Harbeck denied less than one-third of asylum requests.
Harbeck (pictured above) notably served in New York, and TRAC reveals that the largest share of those in her court during this period were individuals originally from Asia, including 30 percent who were Chinese nationals, and 8 percent who were citizens of India.
Another 15 percent of cases handled by Harbeck involved citizens of El Salvador, while an additional 12 percent came from Honduras or Guatemala. Thirty-four percent came from an “other” nation.
Harbeck has been an immigration judge in New York since 2019, but first began working as an immigration judge in New Jersey in 2006.
She was first publicly tied to NAIJ in 2012, when Harbeck was thanked as a “sister Immigration Judge” in a scholarly article that mentioned the immigration lawyer union.
Another citation suggests Harbeck published an article in association with NAIJ in January 2016, when she wrote alongside a coauthor, “The immigration courts have been under-resourced for well over a decade… None of the changes proposed here will be lasting unless we change the structure of the immigration court.”
Harbeck would serve as the NAIJ Eastern Region Vice President by 2018, and was in her current position of Secretary-Treasurer by the start of 2020, when NAIJ lobbied Congress to make institutional changes, as she recommended in coordination with NAIJ in 2016.
In a presentation delivered by former NAIJ President Ashley Tabbador to a House committee in January 2020, the organization argued that placing immigration courts under the supervision of EOIR “has fostered improper cooperation between EOIR and DHS.”
The group also claimed that EOIR’s supervision over immigration courts has curtailed the “independence of immigration judges,” through “quotes and time-based criteria, which improperly pressure immigration judges to speed up and deport more.”
Through her NAIJ position, Harbeck in 2018 helped organize the New York Immigration and Asylum Conference at the New York Law School, according to a newsletter showing the event included speakers from the United Nations (U.N.), High Commissioner for Refugees, U.N. Children’s Fund, the Legal Aid Society, and Catholic Charities, among other experts from nonprofits and non-governmental organizations.
Notably, NAIJ has been affiliated with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), a union representing legal professionals, since 2000.
The president of the IFPTE recently lambasted the EOIR under the Trump administration, in remarks to National Public Radio, after 15 judges were informed their contracts would not be renewed.
“It’s outrageous and against the public interest that at a time when the Congress has authorized 800 immigration judges, we are firing large numbers of immigration judges without cause,” said IFPTE President Matt Briggs, calling it “hypocritical,” and claiming the Trump administration could not hope to “enforce immigration laws when you fire the enforcers.”
A political action committee associated with IFPTE primarily donates to Democrats, with more than 90 percent of its contributions going to the party’s candidates during the 2022 midterm elections.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Dorothy Harbeck” by Rutgers Law School.
