For Roscoe Campbell, his family’s quest for asylum in this country has been a “long and rough road, mentally, physically and financially.” But years of fearing deportation when any stranger rang their doorbell or stopped them on the street ended this month with a remarkable and rare turnaround by the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Despite having ruled three times in the last four years against the family’s pleas not to be deported to their native Bahamas, the board on Jan. 11 agreed to reopen the case. The reason: an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility that concluded the immigration judge in the asylum proceeding “engaged in professional misconduct when he acted in reckless disregard of his obligation to be fair and impartial.”
