Immigration attorney Bashir Ghazialam did a double-take when he saw that one of his cases had been assigned to senior judge Leslie Kobayashi.
That's because Ghazialam is representing an immigrant in California, and Kobayashi is a federal judge for the District of Hawaiʻi. Beginning this month, at least five federal judges in Hawai'i have been assigned more than 40 immigration cases from three districts in California.
They're the fastest-growing category of immigration lawsuits — called habeas corpus petitions.
A full text version of this story will be available later today.
