Young Min Burkett; Texas judge is not a US citizen
Bobo sends us a link from Corpus Christi, Texas where folks discovered that one of their municipal judges wasn’t a citizen. Young Min Burkett was placed on unpaid lave and given 90 days to get her US citizenship before she could return to the bench;
“She’s a great lady. She’s a hard worker. Very smart. Very, I mean, just great person, but because she doesn’t have that qualification, you know, unfortunately, we had to tell her that she couldn’t, be removed from the bench and she could not serve,” [Lucy Rubio, chairman of the Municipal Court Committee] says.
Rubio says it’s city policy and state law, but doesn’t know how human resources missed the fact that Burkett isn’t a citizen. Rubio agrees with the unpaid leave, but doesn’t question any of the judge’s rulings.
“She’s a very fair lady. I’ve gotten no complaints from her. Everybody that has worked with her says she’s very pleasant. She’s a hard working individual and would rule very fairly,” Rubio says.
So, Burkett couldn’t vote, but somehow she ran for office.
UPDATE: She’s returned to her job.
After being removed from the bench in May, Burkett was given 90 days to obtain her citizenship. Burkett successfully applied for an expedited decision and became a citizen 51 days later.
“Although I lacked one requirement, now I am qualified,” Burkett told the council members.
Community and council comments on Burkett’s citizenship has been mixed.
Some contend it was the city’s fault for hiring Burkett to the approximately $98,000-position without checking her qualifications.
Still…
Category: Who knows
Really a great job there done by their Human Resources department! I’m sure she could get a job in San Fransisco?
Strange, indeed. How did she get hired?
Well, if she does a good job, I do hope she gets to return to it.
Judges are elected in Texas.
My bad. She was an appointed municipal judge.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea magna culpa.
EVERY case she heard in the fraudulent capacity of an elected judge can now be challenged by the party who didn’t like the verdict. The legal liability here is huge. In Arkansas you have to be registered to vote to run for office. This is a great example of hour weak our voter registration laws are. The national voter fraud committee wants all to prove they are an American before being permitted to register to vote. This is a great example of why.
Reminds me of the Massachusetts forensics lab tech that screwed up thousands of cases.
Isn’t it funny how fast they can get things done when ‘THEY’ want it? 51 days to citizen? gimme a freaking break!
Just doing one of those dirty jobs that Americans wont do….
Indeed.
Can I be a judge?
Where do I apply?
I have been a citizen for 13 years.
Also, how do we know she meets the other requirements?
Is she a lawyer? Did she pass the bar?
Graduated from where?
This smells bad.
I would like to get a gander of her I-9, the documents used for certification and who was the person in HR that physically verified.
You can get citizenship in 90 days?
That was my question.
A former colleague of mine is trying to get a work visa (she will retain her Romanian citizenship) and the process has taken 1 1/2 years so far. Until it’s approved, she can’t travel out of the country.
I suppose Ms. Burkett got a pass to satisfy the “diversity” quota.
Only if you are a Democrat.
Why blame HR? I’m curious about a judge, trusted to enforce the law, who herself doesn’t know or follow the law.
I’d give her 90 days to get her affairs in order before either locking her up or deporting her.
In this case I do blame HR. The city should know the requirements for the jobs it advertises, and I don’t blame the applicant for not researching whether the city forgot to announce all of the requirements for the job. As noted in the story I linked to below, the city asked only whether she could legally work in the US, which she could, and she truthfully disclosed her status in her application. So I do blame HR for not picking up on it.
While she had permanent residence status since the age of 25 (she like 41 now) and had married an American citizen, as an attorney she had no excuse for not completing the required paperwork.
Agree on the liability issue for the losing plaintiffs in all of the cases she heard.
She should probably be referred to bar for a license suspension.
I disagree, lud.
It appears that they filled out the application completely and truthfully, was up front about her citizenship status, and – from reports – did a good job in her capacity.
That the city did not ask about citizenship status, nor double-checked it, puts the fault on the city HR department.
If she properly informed the locality of her status then it is somewhat on the HR department; however, she is supposed to know the law, and I would think looking up and understanding the legal requirements “for the office I am about the enter” would appear to the average person as obligatory.
Her reasons for keeping one legal status over another is somewhat irrelevant to me, but her argument appears somewhat suspect. I wonder if her intent was to be able for her children to have dual citizenship?
If I understand correctly, those requirements are in the City Charter. Not something that is in the Texas Civil Statutes.
The City lawyer(s) will know what is in the City Charter, but unless her duties took her to that document, it is unlikely she would read it, or be expected to.
I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt at this stage. It was an oversight which she remedied – and quickly – when it surfaced. From all appearances she has behaved professionally and honorably.
There may be mitigating factors of which I am not aware. But if anything, it shows just how complex our legal system is, and how difficult it is to ensure one is in total compliance with all applicable laws.
I’m with you on this. Also, it does not appear she was elected to this municipal judgeship. She applied for it and was appointed by the city council. The primary fault for this lies with the city’s HR department and with whomever drafted the application form for the position.
As I understand it, she intentionally kept her ROK citizenship so she could return there and visit/care for her parents. I shouldn’t think getting a visa with a US passport would be that big a deal, but what do I know. (Never had a Korea assignment.)
She could’ve also done dual status citizenship as well.
Not an immigration expert. But my wife (a naturalized US citizen and South Korean native) has not been to law school, but knows there’s somethings you could not do as a non citizen…like say, run for judge. Our son, however is an attorney, and I’m pretty sure a requirement for him to take the NC bar exam was to be a US citizen.
Not unprecedented, Jonn. At least not at the Federal level.+
Rep. Thomas J. Lane, D-MA, was convicted of tax evasion in the mid-1950s and served 4 mo in Federal prison. Lane was re-elected to Congress in 1956 after he’d served his prison sentence. He was again re-elected in 1958 and 1960.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Lane
Given the amount involved ($38+k) and the era, I’d bet that was a felony conviction – and would likely have rendered him ineligible to vote in Mass in the 1950s and 1960s.
In this case it’s not an elected office anyway. In Texas municipal judges are typically hired by the city (as here), as opposed to county and state court judges who are elected.
True. However, in both cases the individual would have been ineligible to vote, but held office (in Ms. Burkett’s case, albeit temporarily) anyway.
That was the point I was making: that holding public office while ineligible to vote was not unprecedented.
In fact, at the Federal level there is no requirement to be eligible to vote to hold Federal elective office, and I’ve known a couple of non-citizens who’ve held Federal civilian jobs. So I’m pretty sure there’s not any requirement to be eligible to vote in order to be employed by the Federal government.
States may have different laws, and Texas apparently does.
She’s now a citizen and has been reinstated to her job. Apparently she told the truth about her immigration status on her job application, which did not ask whether she was a citizen, only whether she could legally work in the US.
http://www.caller.com/story/news/local/2017/07/19/corpus-christi-municipal-court-judge-reinstated-after-citizenship-saga/490482001/
According to the State Bar of Texas website, she’s been licensed to practice law since 2007.
Interesting. I was under the impression that one had to be a citizen in most states in order to practice law.
I know when I filled out my bar application in 2006 (for Colorado) I had to note my citizenship status (I always get tasked to provide extra documentation of my citizenship since I was born in Germany.)
Why would it be a requirement to be a citizen to practice law?
Words no lawyer should utter when in comes to filling forms: “I was under the impression….”
Not only need one not be a citizen — every bar has a list of what information re immigration status must be provided — in CA and FL you probably don’t need to be here legally to practice.
In California it probably gives you preference points to not be here legally to practice law or get a job.
A judge that lies by omission or otherwise distorts the truth for personal gain IMO should never even be able to judge as much as a pie eating contest again. SMH
Yep
AND, don’t you have something else to say about her, IDC SARC? 😉
I’ll step in here …I’d hit it! She is cute.
Me too, but not after Guard Bum, I hear those guard types are Nasty….
Just a note on this… she never lied or attempted to dissemble in any way regarding her status. Her employment application clearly shows that she was a permanent resident. Which would also have passed muster on her I-9. Definitely looks like it was an HR issue, but I also have to assume (I’d like to assume) that she was interviewed by someone with a legal background prior to hire. So there were 2 steps in the process where someone should have seen an issue with the citizenship status.
However, permanent resident is almost, not quite, citizenship in the eyes of a lot of national policies. For instance, Export Controlled information, such as Commerce ECCN controlled items and ITAR (military-type exports) both require a license prior to being provided to a non-US citizen. However, under the DOS and DoC rules they may be transferred to a permanent resident without any such requirement.
“is almost, not quite”
Just fukking stop.
With a green card you can even buy a gun legally. His statement may look dumb to you but is pretty accurate. The more that comes out, this seems like a non-story – someone in HR screwed up screwed up, she thought she met the qualifications they laid out, someone narked on her, she corrected the deficiency. I lean towards Perry’s stance below – politics is mixed in. Same reason I accepted that Obama was US born – you KNOW the Clintons checked thoroughly into such a get-out-of-jail-free issue back in 2008.
I agree David, though one more point in reference to obama. The truth is, it doesn’t matter where he was born ( a point “birthers” miss, and make themselves look stupid by ignoring). Since his mother was a citizen, he could have been born on the moon, and he’d still be a citizen, which is the requirement to be President. Don’t think for a second that means I think he was truly qualified for the position, just legally qualified.
Not necessarily. Even today, the child of a US citizen born overseas is NOT always AUTOMATICALLY a US citizen at birth. There are some other requirements that must be satisfied as well.
Specifically, the US citizen parent must have lived IN THE US for a specified amount of time as an adolescent. And the law has also changed since SCoaMF O was born in 1961, becoming more lenient regarding the amount of US physical residency required by the US citizen parent for the child to automatically gain US citizenship at birth.
At the time the prior POTUS was born, Federal law required substantial physical residency in the US for the citizen parent of a child born to that US citizen and an alien spouse for said child acquire citizenship at birth – much more than it does today. Were SCoaMF O actually born outside the US, there’s significant doubt that his mother met those physical US residency requirements at the time he was born.
The requirements effective in 1961 are contained in the following link. See the section titled “7 FAM 1133.2-2 Original Provisions and Amendments to Section 301” in the following:
https://fam.state.gov/fam/07fam/07fam1130.html
It’s a moot point if SCoaMF O was born within the physical US, as his birth certificate apparently indicates. In that case, under the 14th Amendment he’d be a citizen regardless of his parents’ citizenship.
But it’s a significant issue if he was actually born outside the US, as some claim. He may well not meet requirements for automatic birth citizenship for a one-US-citizen parent married to a non-US citizen and born outside the US.
Some of the “Birthers” also demand that their view on “natural born citizen” be accepted: born in a -state- of the USA, from two parents each born in a state of the USA. Some of the “birthers” go further: grandparents.
None of which appears in the Constitution.
But, my oh my, can they spin sophistry in support of their “obvious” claims.
*sigh*…..just cant make this shit up…
Marion Barry grins.
Ok… lets play the obtuse perspective game….a convicted felon barred from owning a firearm walks into Walmart and answers all questions truthfully and fills out the forms truthfully to purchase a firearm…. the incompetence of the employee at the counter and the incompetence of the background check system balloons into complete stupidity somehow and he is allowed to purchase a firearm… does he get a pass? Allowed 90 days to petition the Governor for clemency to have his felony record expunged and his gun rights returned? He can claim ignorance of the law too…. how is this difFerent?
A better analogy would be if the government were to announce that a felony conviction no longer barred you from owning a firearm – because that’s what happened here. The government (i.e., the city of Corpus Christi) announced a job and laid out the requirements for it. Applicant met the announced requirements and was hired. It was the government’s mistake in the first place, so in my view it’s fair for the government to give the judge a chance to correct the deficiency after the government’s error was discovered.
Wonder how much this is going to cost taxpayers, with any and all losers in her courtroom demanding her judgements be vacated and adjudicated?
Dunno. It’s not like she swam the Rio Grande 19 times, beat up a few senior citizens and stole their cars, and sucks up a 12-pack each day ending in the letter “Y”.
Burkett apparently came to the U.S. in 2001 at the age of 25. She went to college, law school, and passed the bar in 2007. Somewhere along in there she got married to a U.S. citizen. She also became a permanent legal resident after what was likely a fairly long legitimate process.
Evidently the issue about full citizenship was because she wanted to retain her Korean passport to make it easier to visit her parents who are in poor health. If one of them goes in the hospital, it might make sense for Burkett to not want to wait days or weeks for a ROK travel visa.
There’s an apparent conflict between the City of Corpus Christi asking if a job applicant is legally allowed to work in the U.S., and the city charter which evidently specifies that a judge must be a citizen. One problem is that if you walked into the office of any city in the country, there’s a very good chance nobody would be able to tell you where to even find the city charter. It’s sort of like the mythical land-use general plan people talk about, but often can’t seem to lay their hands on because it’s always evolving.
There’s a whiff of politics in this story. It wouldn’t be a surprise if somebody, for whatever reason, decided to sandbag Burkett as part of a factional squabble.
Especially in Corpus.
Just sayin’
The comments here make me suspect that TAH is moving left of center.
How is this even remotely ok?
A judge must know the requirements to be a judge, otherwise have no business being a judge. Which means she either knew and lied, or didn’t know and she is incompetent.
How often does a job posting ask whether someone is a US citizen? In most cases, the most you ever hear is “are you in the country legally and can you legally work here” and that is about all.
To be judge?
Are you fuckin kiddin me?
How the hell are supposed to judge your fellow citizens when you are not a citizen?
You are trying to troll me, right?
What you are saying doesn’t even make sense!
Give me the name of a single country in the hole wold in which you can be a judge without being a citizen.
I challenge you.
Don’t know about other countries, but re-read what I wrote: who knew someone had to be a citizen to be a judge at any level> I for one have never really thought aout it, and I suspect this woman may not have either – if there was no explicit requirement stated and they asked questions she honestly could answer positively hell, if I had been her I probably would not have questioned it either. This is s municipal judgeship, not the Supreme Court.
I checked requirements to be a judge in Texas and http://www.txcourts.gov/media/48745/Judge-Qualifications-6_26_14.pdf and for at least three types of judgeship, there is either no requirement to be a citizen or requirements are set by the city/jurisdiction. Odd but true.
My view is that it’s not up to us. It’s up to the City of Corpus Christi. As long as it doesn’t violate state or federal law, Corpus can allow Greta the Golden Retriever to be a muni judge if that’s how they want to roll.
Since they don’t get to tell my town who gets to sit on a local bench, why should my town tell them who sits on theirs?
If they paid me 98000 dollars a year too I’d take the job in a NY Minute.
Not arguing the point for a judge, but since you asked, every firefighter job I’ve ever applied for required you to be a citizen, not just legally work here
AND, this being the BIG question, if she could get her citizenship in 51 days, why the hell didn’t she get it earlier?
So, do you mean she got her citizenship because it was a job requirement, not because she was proud AND loved the country she immigrated to?
Why do we keep importing people that don’t love America?
Fuck them all. They can go back to the shithole they came from. We got enough problems with the collectivists born here to be importing more.
WTF!!!???
Yef,
She qualified to be a citizen, became one, and is a productive memeber of society.
If she delayed the last step, to facilitate care of her -parents-, i do not find a deficiency.
And last time I checked, South Korea is an allied country, and well-developed.
From all the times I was in South Korea I kept meeting the girls that didn’t want to come back to the land of the big PX. They were perfectly happy living in the ROK and had no plans of leaving, other than for vacation.
Agreed, same with those from Japan. The handwringing about girls looking for that ticket to the U.S. might have been accurate after WWII or if referring to some Southeast Asian countries, but not so much present-day ROK or Japan.
In my opinion if you are to practice Law in the United States you should be a citizen.
If you are determined enough to get a law degree and pass the Bar, you should be able to become a citizen.
Same-same if you are a judge.
I see no issues with what this lady did here. She was completely honest in filling out her employment application, and had a valid reason for keeping her citizenship in South Korea.
From what I read she is hard working and competent.
She violated no laws, however the laws need to be re-written.
Just for clarification, she’s a municipal judge. In Texas, municipal judges aren’t elected, they’re hired and appointed by the City Council.
If you do run for election in the state of Texas, you are required to provide proof of residency and citizenship to the Secretary of State (through the county elections office.)
Basically, a municipal judge is just a job that’s applied for. This should of been caught by HR and it was quite stupid that it was allowed to happen.
I just wanted to set the record straight that this isn’t a position you get elected to.
Good grief people, she’s from South Korea. Flocks of South Koreans aren’t exactly flooding the U.S. job market and working under the counter for the privilege of not living in the third world. South Korea is a developed country with civil liberties and quality of life comparable to the U.S. Lots choose to stay home or retain their passports for personal reasons. I agree completely about clamping down on illegals (mainly from Mexicant) but this is apples and oranges.
So apparently she herself made no misrepresentation or did anything illegal. OK, fine. So who did? Another case of everyone assuming that someone else did their job so I don’t gotta?
Who hired her? The Council? Then they are responsible. They can’t blame some low level flunky in HR for their own failure.
Might make one observation, though. If municipal judges only enforce local/municipal law, then wouldn’t they need to know what’s in the city charter? If not them, then who?