McLean: I just had an interview with the Board of Immigration Appeals in the Department of Justice, and I am still waiting for the results. I have a question about clearance matters. I also applied to be an FBI special agent, and although I made it through the selection process, I failed the polygraph examination. Do you think this will count against me if I get the BIA position?

Derrick Dortch: I am sorry to hear about the polygraph. The FBI’s polygraph process is a very stressful one, so don’t be too discouraged. Keep on applying to federal positions as you are doing.

Now in terms of the polygraph and the DOJ, it should not be held against you. Most DOJ positions, aside from those in the FBI and a few other areas, do not require you to take a polygraph exam. They usually require only a background investigation and sometimes a security clearance. This all depends on who you are working for. Since you received only a conditional offer of employment and you went through only the initial phase of evaluation, which includes the polygraph, you did not go through a background investigation. When you are asked whether you were denied a clearance, the answer would be no because a security clearance background investigation was barely started and was never completed.

We’re anxious to see whether the questioner got the job. If you’re out there, let us know.

Attorney General Eric Holder tapped John Guendelsberger to sit on the Board of Immigration Appeals, the Justice Department announced today. Read the DOJ news release here.

Guendelsberger isn’t new to board, which is kind of like a “supreme court” for the immigration court system. It is the top administrative body for the application and interpretation of immigration law. He was a BIA member from September 1995 until October 2003, when then-Attorney General John Ashcroft cut the number of seats on the board and eliminated his job. The job reductions were part of what immigration lawyers have said was the Bush administration’s attempts to slow immigration by starving the courts of judges and staff.

Guendelsberger then served as a temporary member from May 2007 to July 2009. In addition, he had served as senior counsel to the BIA chairman since October 2003.

The appointee has also worked as an immigration lawyer on a pro bono basis in Ohio and was a law professor from 1980 to 1995 at Ohio Northern University College of Law where he taught immigration law.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association has called for more judges like Guendelsberger, whose background isn’t prosecutorial.

AILA national president Charles Kuck, who has worked with Guendelsberger in the past, said the appointee is a “superb judge.”

“I think it is a wonderful appointment,” Kuck said.

Assistant Attorney General Tony West will bring in some new faces to Main Justice to help him lead the Civil Division, he said in a statement today.

The recently added members to his team include Ann Ravel, new head of the Torts Branch and the Office of Consumer Litigation, and Juan Osuna to be the Office of Immigration Litigation Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Two of West’s colleagues from his old law firm, Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco, have followed him East. They are litigation associates Brian Martinez, West’s chief of staff; and Geoffrey Graber, West’s counsel.

(Santa Clara County Office of the County Counsel)

“We are fortunate to have these talented and committed individuals joining the Justice Department’s Civil Division,” West said in the statement. “I am confident that their service will meet the highest standards of the Division.”

Ravel is counsel for Santa Clara County, Calif., where she met mixed reviews. She had a good track record in Santa Clara County aggressively pursuing civil rights and sexual harassment cases, The San Jose Mercury News reported.

But she hasn’t won everyone over. “Ravel has her detractors, who admire her ambition but say she has valued loyalty over professional competence in some cases,” The Mercury News said.

The Mercury News also pointed out that the 60-year-old Ravel is quite a health nut. She is “an avid runner whose diet is limited to fruit, fish and vegetables,” the newspaper said.

Osuna is the only one of the four that has worked for Main Justice. He was the chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals, the highest administrative body for interpreting and applying U.S. immigration laws.

The new additions will join Appellate Branch Deputy Assistant Attorney General Beth Brinkmann, Federal Programs Branch Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ian Gershengorn and Commercial Litigation Branch Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michael Hertz, who are already in place in the Civil Division.