The federal government has rebuffed a claim by the American Immigration Lawyers Association that it is "not playing ball in a serious way" to provide a remote option for immigration hearings, saying the group was the uncooperative party.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review sent a letter to U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez on Tuesday saying the AILA hadn't responded to its proposal to have the immigration court in Newark, New Jersey, offer WebEx video teleconferences for individual merits hearings that are requested and go unadjudicated for 15 days.

"To date, plaintiffs have not responded directly to the government's offer to resolve this matter or otherwise engaged in any discussions regarding resolution with the government since it extended this offer," the EOIR said.

The AILA had criticized the agency's proposal, which has not been disclosed publicly, as only addressing "one narrow aspect" of the group's October motion to allow virtual hearings for attorneys who are immuno-compromised or have other reasons related to COVID-19 not to appear in person.

It told Judge Vazquez in a Jan. 26 letter that any settlement would have to "at least" require immigration judges to explain their decisions on whether to allow remote hearings and consider "good cause" factors like attorneys' concerns about potentially contracting the virus in court and spreading it to immuno-compromised relatives or staff.

The EOIR also pushed back against the AILA's claim that the agency was unwilling to mediate the matter before Judge Vazquez, saying it did not oppose him mediating but preferred to have it handled by a third party who wouldn't also decide the case if a settlement couldn't be reached.

The AILA had said it was concerned that a new mediator's unfamiliarity with the case would delay a resolution of the three-month-old emergency motion.

At a Jan. 9 evidentiary hearing, Judge Vazquez rebuked the EOIR's counsel for not countering the AILA's claims that requests for remote hearings are regularly denied without explanation or are left undecided. He also chided the agency's argument that denials could be attributed to low-bandwidth issues, citing an IT expert's testimony that WebEx did not pose a bandwidth problem.

"What I'm very frustrated about is all your client has done is deny, deny, deny, hasn't given me any hard evidence as to what the technological problems are, hasn't given me any good reasons why they're not timely ruling on these motions, and you have specific judges who are called out by name who supposedly deny these as a matter of course, and you haven't refuted it," Judge Vazquez said.

The matter is scheduled to be discussed at a video teleconference on Friday.

The AILA and the EOIR could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.

The AILA is represented by Akiva Shapiro and Seton Hartnett O'Brien of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP.

The EOIR is represented by Ben Kuruvilla of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey.

The case is American Immigration Lawyers Association et al. v. Executive Office for Immigration Review, case number 2:20-cv-09748, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

--Editing by John C. Davenport.