Attorney General Bill Barr’s Department of Justice this week emailed all immigration judges and all immigration court employees a link to an anti-Semitic blog post that appears on a nationally-known white nationalist website, VDare, Buzzfeed reports.
The article “’directly attacks sitting immigration judges with racial and ethnically tinged slurs,’ according to a letter sent by an immigration judges union and obtained by BuzzFeed News.”
The National Association of Immigration Judges’ union chief, Ashley Tabaddor, responded to thge DOJ email by sending a letter to the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
“The post features links and content that directly attacks sitting immigration judges with racial and ethnically tinged slurs and the label ‘Kritarch.’ The reference to Kritarch in a negative tone is deeply offensive and Anti-Semitic,” wrote Tabaddor. The VDare post includes pictures of judges with the term “kritarch” preceding their names.
Tabaddor said the term kritarchy is a reference to ancient Israel during a time of rule by a system of judges.
“VDare’s use of the term in a pejorative manner casts Jewish history in a negative light as an Anti-Semitic trope of Jews seeking power and control,” she wrote.
Tabaddor is calling for the email to be withdrawn and for an apology to all immigration judges.
“Publication and dissemination of a white supremacist, anti-semitic website throughout the EOIR is antithetical to the goals and ideals of the Department of Justice,” she added.
VDare is linked to the alt-right, white nationalism, and white supremacism, and appears on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of hate groups.
Although Buzzfeed only touches on this in its reporting, just ten days ago PBS’ NewsHour reported the DOJ has bee trying to dismantle the immigration judges’ union:
“The Department of Justice is challenging the right of the country’s 440 immigration judges to be represented by a labor union in a move the judges said was aimed at silencing their criticism.”