🍂FALL FOLLIES: BIA FUMBLES BASIC STANDARDS FOR FUTURE FEAR AND INTERNAL RELOCATION, SAYS 6TH CIRCUIT — Lin v. Garland

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/23a0205p-06.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca6-on-future-fear-internal-relocation-lin-v-garland

“The question before us is whether the BIA’s determinations are supported by substantial evidence. As will be explained below, the BIA’s rationale does not allow us to make that determination. So we grant Lin’s petition and remand for further proceedings. … It is difficult to imagine that a reasonable person in Lin’s position, under the circumstances demonstrated in the record, would feel safe returning home. The determination that Lin failed to show a reasonable likelihood of individualized persecution in China is contravened by the record and compels us to conclude otherwise. … [H]ere, where we are left with no indication that the BIA undertook the appropriate inquiry and significant indications that it likely did not, remand for full consideration is proper.”

[Hats off to Henry Zhang!]

 

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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PWS: “Another “Big Whiff” by the BIA! Sounds like assembly line denials to me!”

HON. “SIR JEFFREY” CHASE: “Whether a reasonable person returning home would feel safe – the correct standard cited by the circuit, is rarely if ever applied by the current BIA. I would really love to see the IJ training material on this standard.”

This is life or death folks! Why isn’t getting it right at the “retail level” an urgent mission for the Government?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-13-23

⚖️😎☹️ AFTER  RARE VICTORY FOR RESPONDENT IN MATTER OF  C-G-T- (UNWILLING/UNABLE TO PROTECT, POLICE REPORT, HIDING SEXUAL ORIENTATION), BIA REVERTS TO FORM BY DENYING ADJUSTMENT TO CONDITIONALLY PAROLED CUBANS (MATTER OF CABRERA-FERNANDEZ)   

 

Here’s the link to Matter of C-G-T-, 28 I&N Dec. 740 (BIA 2023):

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1594626/download

Here’s the link to Matter of Cabreara-Fernandez, 28 I&N Dec, 747 (BIOA 2023):

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1595041/download

*******************************

This e-mail exchange among experts says it all about Cabrera-Fernandez:

Expert 1: Wow – they never miss a chance to hurt noncitizens, do they?

Expert 2: The cruelty is the point.

The Cruelty Is The Point
“The Cruelty Is The Point”
IMAGE: Amazon.com

With an available interpretation that would have allowed regularization of status, what purpose is served by devising a way to keep these otherwise qualified Cubans in limbo? Why would the DHS appeal a decision like this? Why would the BIA reward them for pursuing a result that is 1) inhumane, 2) undesirable, and 3) entirely avoidable with a little creativity and common sense (see, IJ in this case)?

No wonder we have backlogs everywhere an a dysfunctional system that nobody in charge seems interested in fixing — even when fixes are available and basically “cost free?” Better leaders and more enlightened decision-makers would be helpful.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-12-23

🤯 🤯 DOUBLE TAKEDOWN: 4th Circuit Slams BIA For 1) Mindlessly Trying To “Snuff” Allies From Afghanistan War☠️; & 2) Producing Incomprehensible Legal Gibberish 🤪 In Life Or Death Cases! — Two Recent Cases Show Deep Quality, Expertise Problems In Dem-Controlled “Courts” At The “Retail Level” Of U.S. Justice! 🤯🤬

Ben Winograd
Ben Winograd, Esquire
Immigrant & Refugee Appellate Center
Falls Church, VA

1. Ben Winograd, Esquire, is an all-star appellate litigator who would have made a great BIA Chair/Chief Appellate Judge!

Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis reports:

CA4 on Internal Relocation: Ullah v. Garland

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/221026.P.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca4-on-internal-relocation-ullah-v-garland

“The United States’ war in Afghanistan required regional allies willing to aid the effort. One such ally was Shaker Ullah, a Pakistani businessman who sold supplies to coalition forces. This invoked the wrath of the Pakistani Taliban, which demanded exorbitant payments from Ullah under threat of death. Ullah repeatedly refused, and the Taliban attempted to carry out its threat, promising to hunt him until it succeeded. After losing his business, home, and nearly his life, Ullah fled to the United States seeking asylum. The Immigration Judge and Board of Immigration Appeals both recognized that Ullah suffered past persecution entitling him to a presumption that the Taliban would continue to target him if he returned to Pakistan. But they agreed with the government that because Ullah lived in Islamabad (the capital of Pakistan) for a few weeks without the Taliban finding him, he could live in a new area of the country without fear of reprisal. We disagree. Ullah’s brief sojourn to Islamabad—where he never left the house— doesn’t rebut the presumption that a notorious terrorist organization continues to imperil his life. Since the record would compel any reasonable adjudicator to conclude Ullah faces a well-founded threat of future persecution, we grant Ullah’s petition for review, reverse the Board’s denial of Ullah’s preserved claims, and remand with instructions that the agency grant relief.”

[Hats way off to superlitigator Ben Winograd!  Listen to the oral argument here.]

pastedGraphic.png

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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Tamara Jezic ESQUIRE Jezic & Moyse Fairfax, VA PHOTO: J&M

2.  “Legacy” Arlington Immigration Court superstar Tamara Jezic runs circles around EOIR and OIL!

Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis reports:

Multiple Failures Trigger Remand to BIA: Chen v. Garland

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/211371.P.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/multiple-failures-trigger-remand-to-bia-chen-v-garland

“Petitioner Zuowei Chen is a native of China admitted to the United States on a student visa in 2009. Chen now seeks review of a Board of Immigration Appeals order denying his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. If removed to China, Chen fears, he will be persecuted and tortured by Chinese authorities, who in 2008 allegedly imprisoned and violently beat him because of his Christian beliefs and practices. We find there are aspects of the agency’s decision that require clarification before we can meaningfully review Chen’s claims. Accordingly, we vacate the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals and remand for further explanation, consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats off to Tamara Jezic!  https://jezicfirm.com/attorneys/tamara-jezic/ Listen to the oral argument here.]

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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Notably, and refreshingly, in Ullah, the 4th Circuit took the unusual step of directing the BIA to grant asylum, rather than just remanding for the BIA to screw it up again! In Chen, Trump appointee Circuit Judge Marvin Quattlebaum was part of the unanimous panel! Condemnation of EOIR’s deficient performance is uniting Article III jurists across ideological lines!

The GOP is “out for Garland’s scalp” for all the WRONG reasons! It’s actually Dems who should be demanding an accounting for his inexcusable, miserable, democracy-eroding (non)performance at EOIR!

Garland’s mess at EOIR isn’t “theoretical,” “academic,” or “speculative!” It’s ACTUALLY endangering lives, eroding democracy, and creating unnecessary chaos on a daily basis! His intransigence is also diverting HUGE amounts of resources that could be used to DEFEND American democracy, rather than seeking to hold a tone-deaf Dem Administration accountable!

In the meantime, Dems are fecklessly moaning and groaning about a lawless and ethics-free Supremes. Yet, a Dem Administration is operating a huge, nationwide “court” system presenting these same problems, in spades!♠️

And, the victims of EOIR’s substandard judging are overwhelmingly people of color, literally fighting for their lives in a dysfunctional system that the Biden Administration is unwilling and/or unable to fix. In these cases, the victims were fortunate enough to be represented by two of the “best in the business,” Ben Winograd and Tamara Jezic. But, too many others face this biased and unfair system unrepresented, a situation that Garland not only has failed to remedy, but has made worse in some ways.  What “message, does this send, particularly to the younger cohort of “social justice” voters whom the Dems are counting on for the future?

Trial By Ordeal
Following the 2020 election, human rights advocates and experts expected and deserved dramatic, long overdue progressive improvements in justice at EOIR. Instead, Garland inexplicably has retained many of the most regressive features of injustice at EOIR, developed and reinforced during the Trump years. Frustration abounds, while justice for the most vulnerable among us suffers under a Dem Administration! Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal”
17th Century Woodcut
Public Realm
Source: Ancient Origins Website
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160

How bad is EOIR under Garland? One informed observer put it this way:

BIA staff attorneys are rewarded for the number of signed decisions per month. With the present make-up of the Board, their only incentive is to crank out denials.

Dems love to talk about “change!” The GOP actually achieves it, even though the results are overwhelmingly negative, regressive, and existentially damaging to democracy! Something’s got to give here!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-08-23

⚖️🗽 TWO MORE (PREVIOUSLY) UNHERALDED ASYLUM VICTORIES FOR CENTRAL AMERICAN WOMEN!  — From Colorado & NY Immigration Courts!

 

Pooja Asnani reports from Sanctuary For Families NY:

Hi all,

 

I wanted to share a recent asylum grant won by my colleagues, Deirdre Stradone, Amalia Chiapperino, and Kelly Becker-Smith, before IJ McKee at the NYC immigration court.

 

Client is Honduran Garifuna woman who survived DV and gang violence, and, importantly for the grant of asylum, forced sterilization. Below is a quick summary of the case, and I’m highlighting this asylum grant because our team, specifically Deirdre, has been seeing more and more cases of forced sterilization among Central American women.

 

Respondent is a forty-five-year-old Honduran Garifuna woman who has been the victim of forced sterilization, severe verbal, physical, and sexual violence, robbery and death threats by gang members, and intentional deprivation of law enforcement assistance and medical attention due to her race and gender.  Overwhelming evidence affirms the horrific practice of forced sterilization against Garifuna women, as well as the high levels of domestic and gang violence in Honduras that take place with impunity. The evidence shows that government authorities largely fail to respond to complaints of abuse, or when they do respond, fail to do so effectively. 

 

Deirdre has been collaborating with the Mt. Sinai Human Rights program to study the forced sterilization of Central American women, a topic she had encountered over and over again in her asylum cases, with the researchers agreeing that  this particular violation of human rights is likely more common than is being research and reported.  Deirdre has found several reports and studies conducted regarding indigenous, mainly Garifuna, women living with HIV who have been victims of this practice.  As you all probably know, and stemming from the response to China’s one-child policy, forced sterilization is defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) as “per se persecution on account of political opinion.”

 

I wanted to share this because we’re realizing that that it may be a more wide-spread practice than we initially thought, and often times, clients don’t even realized they have been sterilized when they come to us. We have been asking specific questions about this in our intakes, and often have been sending our clients to get a medical evaluation to determine whether they have been sterilized. Unfortunately, we have had a several clients discover in the course of our representation that they had been sterilized without their consent, and we believe that many other women may have experienced this without realizing.

 

While we have worked on several cases with similar facts, but interestingly, this is the first asylum case we have had were the IJ (McKee) granted specifically based on the forced sterilization claim (political opinion), and not on the ARCG DV claim.

 

Our team at Sanctuary is working to put together a training to help issue-spot, discuss common fact patterns, and how to prepare and brief these cases; stay tuned for more details.

 

CC’ing the team who worked on this case, including Deirdre, if folks have questions.

 

Thanks,

 

Pooja

Deirdre Stradone
Deirdre Stradone
Attorney
Sanctuary for Families NY
Kelly Becker-Smith
Kelly Becker-Smith
Attorney
Sanctuary for Families NY
Amalia Chiapperino
Amalia Chiapperino
Sanctuary for Families NY

********************

Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/asylum-victory-in-colorado-indigenous-guatemalan#

Christina Brown writes: “I wanted to share the attached decision in case it is helpful to others. IJ Burgie granted the asylum claim of an indigenous Guatemalan applicant finding past persecution based on severe economic deprivation (DHS failed to rebut). She also granted based on a pattern and practice of severe economic persecution of indigenous Guatemalans.”

[ICE did NOT appeal.  Hats way off to Christina Brown!]

Christina Brown
Christina Brown ESQ

****************************

Many congrats and much appreciation to all involved!

Even as the Biden Administration and GOP nativists push their “big myth” that most seeking asylum at the Southern Border are “mere economic migrants” not “true refugees,” these results from those fortunate enough to have expert lawyers, fair Immigration Judges, and reasonable time to prepare, document, and present continue to show the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the racially-biased restrictionist claims. Indeed, to get to the “any reason to deny” nonsense, which also is often mis-employed by the BIA, one has to intentionally ignore or misconstrue both the real country conditions in the Northern Triangle and the inclusive “at least one central reason” mixed motive language of the INA. 

These are NOT “one offs!” No, they are actually recurring situations! A properly functioning, fair, expert BIA, committed to a correct and generous interpretation of asylum laws, would have incorporated these and other recurring “grant” situations into a series of binding precedents. These, in turn, would allow lawyers, Asylum Officers, IJs, and ACCs to recognize and prioritize these cases for “fast track grants.” 

That, in turn, would enable many asylum applicants to be timely admitted in legal asylum status, work authorized, and on the way to green cards and naturalization. Significantly, it would also avoid the largely self-created, self-aggravated, ever-growing EOIR backlogs that seem to “drive” the “haste makes waste,” sloppy, “any reason to deny” decision-making that still exists throughout our broken and biased asylum system.

The REAL problem here its that meritorious cases like or similar to these that require expert recognition, proper preparation and documentation, and officials committed to “protection not rejection,” are likely to be summarily rejected and wrongfully pushed back across the border by the “Biden/Miller Lite” procedures and toxic official attitudes toward asylum now being promoted by both the Administration and the GOP.

It’s disturbingly clear that the needed positive changes in the immigration legal system are NOT “coming from the top” in the Biden Administration. Consequently, in addition to recruiting, training, and mentoring ever more members of the NDPA (including non-attorney accredited representatives), to hold the system accountable, it is ESSENTIAL that we get more NDPA “practical experts” on the Immigration Bench to spread and force due process, fundamental fairness, and best interpretations/practices on a resistant system from the “retail level” — the “grass roots” if you will.

That requires that NDPA experts with the qualifications apply for Immigration Judge vacancies en masse! You can’t be selected if you don’t apply! And, without better Federal Judges at all levels not only will injustice continue to prevail for immigrants, but our entire democracy will be imperiled! Better judges for a better America!

Yes, as I have acknowledged in prior posts, EOIR can be a tough place to work. But, human lives and the future of our democracy depend on our changing the system, from “the bottom up” if that’s the only way. This system is too important, with too much at stake, to be left to the whims and false agendas of tone-deaf politicos and inept, “go along to get along” bureaucrats!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-02-23

⚖️🗽👨🏻‍⚖️TEAMING UP FOR GENDER-BASED ASYLUM JUSTICE IN NEW ORLEANS — Judge Eric Marsteller, Professor Hiroko Kusuda (Loyola NO Law), ICE ACC Robert Weir Show How Courts Should Work — “Honduran Women” Is A PSG In 5th Cir.

Professor Hiroko Kusuda
Professor Hiroko Kusuda
Clinical Professor & Director of Immigration Law Section
Loyola U. Of New Orleans College of Law
PHOTO: Loyola New Orleans

Here’s Judge Marsteller’s decision as reported to Dan Kowalski by Professor Kusuda:

Hi Dan,

New Orleans IJ granted asylum after we filed a post-Jaco supplemental brief.  DHS did not appeal.

Hiroko Kusuda

Clinic Professor

Loyola University New Orleans College of Law

Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic & Center for Social Justice

Immigration Judge Asylum Decision 5-6-2022 – Redacted

*****************

Here’s a comment from Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase of the Round Table:

You probably already know this, but Hiroko [Kusuda] is a real NDPA star.  She was awarded AILA’s Excellence in Teaching Award a few years ago, and received the NGO Attorney of the Year Award this year from the FBA’s Immigration Law Section.  She has tirelessly represented the respondent in Matter of Negusie for years.

Beautifully written and reasoned decision by Judge Marsteller. Highly effective presentation by Professor Kusuda and the Loyola NO Immigration Clinic. No appeal of correct decision from ACC Robert Weir. It all adds up to a proper, efficient application of the law to save a life!

In addition to his very cogent analysis of why “Honduran women” is immutable, particularized, and socially distinct, Judge Marsteller got the nexus, “unwilling or unable to protect,” and reasonably available internal relocation issues in Honduras correct. These are things that too many Immigration Judges get wrong on a frequent basis — life-threatening mistakes that the BIA seldom corrects and never provides “positive guidance” in a precedential cases! Why?

The process could work like this in every case! Why doesn’t it?

This case is is a great illustration of a well-functioning system that EOIR, DHS, and the private bar could “build upon” to restore order, integrity, and efficiency to the Immigration Courts. It’s a shame that Garland hasn’t installed the right dynamic, practical, expert, due-process-oriented “leadership team” at EOIR and the BIA to get the job done! 

Many congrats to Hiroko and all involved in this success story.

Here’s an obvious question: Why aren’t Hiroko and many other “practical scholars” like her appellate judges on the BIA, fashioning the positive practical precedents on asylum and other forms of relief and articulating and requiring “best practices” that will “move” cases through the Immigration Courts in an efficient and orderly manner — without stomping on anybody’s legal and human rights?

Why not have Judge Marsteller teach his colleagues at EOIR how to “get to yes” in the many similar cases now languishing and often being wrongly denied in Immigration Courts? 

Why was Judge Marsteller able to figure out the correct answer when it often eludes the BIA?

Why can’t EOIR under Garland “build on success” rather than “institutionalizing failure?”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-10-22

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️GARLAND’S FAILURES LOOM LARGE AS EOIR’S ABUSES OF BLACK REFUGEES EMERGE! 🤮 —  Biased, Thinly Qualified “Judges” Fingered In HRF Report On Wrongful Returns To Cameroon Remain On Bench Under Garland — Anti-Asylum BIA & Ineffective Leadership From Trump Era Retained By Garland In EOIR Fiasco!

Kangaroos
What fun, sending Black Cameroonian refugees back to rape, torture, and possible death! We don’t need to know much asylum law or real country conditions here at EOIR. We make it up as we go along. And, Judge Garland just lets us keep on playing “refugee roulette,” our favorite game!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
Creative Commons License

 

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/02/deported-cameroonian-asylum-seekers-suffer-serious-harm.html


From HRF:

. . . .

Nearly all of the deported people interviewed had fled Cameroon between 2017 and 2020 for reasons linked to the crisis in the Anglophone regions. Human Rights Watch research indicates that many had credible asylum claims, but due process concerns, fact-finding inaccuracies, and other issues contributed to unfair asylum decisions. Lack of impartiality by US immigration judges – who are part of the executive branchnot the independent judiciary – appeared to play a role. Nearly all of the deported Cameroonians interviewed – 35 of 41 – were assigned to judges with asylum denial rates 10 to 30 percentage points higher than the national average.

. . . .

*****************

The complete report gives a totally damning account of EOIR’s incompetence, ignorance of asylum law, poor decision making, “rigged” assignment of bad judges, and systemic bias directed against asylum seekers, primarily people of color. Although human rights conditions have continued to deteriorate in Cameroon, asylum grant rates have fluctuated dramatically depending on how the political winds at DOJ are blowing.

For example, judges denying asylum because of imaginary “improved conditions” in Cameroon falls within the realm of the absurd. No asylum expert would say that conditions have improved.

Yet, in a catastrophic ethical and legal failure, there is no BIA precedent “calling out” such grotesque errors and serving notice to the judges that it is unacceptable judicial conduct! There are hardly any recent BIA published precedents on granting asylum at all — prima facie evidence of the anti-asylum culture and institutional bias in favor of DHS Enforcement that Sessions and Barr actively cultivated and encouraged!

How bad were things at EOIR? Judges who denied the most asylum cases were actually promoted to the BIA so they could spread their jaundiced views and anti-asylum bias nationwide. See, e.g.https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/11/01/corrupted-courts-no-stranger-to-improper-politicized-hiring-directed-against-migrants-seeking-justice-the-doj-under-barr-doubles-down-on-biased-ideological-hiring-promot/

Even more outrageously, these same members of the “asylum deniers club” remain in their influential appellate positions under Garland! As inexplicable as it is inexcusable!

The HRF report details the wide range of dishonest devices used by EOIR to cut off valid asylum claims: bogus adverse credibility determinations; unreasonable corroboration requirements; claiming “no nexus” when the causal connection is obvious; failing to put the burden on the DHS in countrywide persecution involving the government or  past persecution; bogus findings that the presence of relatives in the country negates persecution; ridiculous findings that severe harm doesn’t “rise to the level of persecution,” failure to listen to favorable evidence or rebuttal; ignoring the limitations on representation and inherent coercion involved in intentionally substandard and health threatening ICE detention, to name just some. While these corrupt methods of denying protection might be “business as usual” at EOIR “denial factories,” they have been condemned by human rights experts and many appellate courts. Yet Garland continues to act as if nothing were amiss in his “star chambers.”

This bench needs to be cleared of incompetence and anti-asylum bias and replaced with experts committed to due process and fair, impartial, and ethical applications of asylum principles. There was nothing stopping Sessions and Barr from “packing” the BIA and the trial courts with unqualified selections perceived to be willing and able to carry out their White Nationalist agenda! Likewise, there is nothing stopping Garland from “unpacking:” “cleaning house,” restoring competence, scholarly excellence, and “due process first” judging to his shattered system!

Unpacking
“It’s not rocket science, but ‘unpacking’ the Immigration Courts appears beyond Garland’s skill set!”
“Unpacking”
Photo by John Keogh
Creative Commons License

All that’s missing are the will and the guts to get the job done! Perhaps that’s not unusual for yet another Dem Administration bumbling its way through immigration policy with no guiding principles, failing to connect the dots to racial justice, betraying promises to supporters, and leaving a trail of broken human lives and bodies of the innocent in its wake. But, it’s unacceptable! Totally!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-11-22

☠️NEW KIND REPORT SHOWS CRISIS OF PERSECUTION OF WOMEN & CHILDREN IN NORTHERN TRIANGLE EXACERBATED BY PANDEMIC — More Evidence Of Legal, Factual, & Moral Bankruptcy Of Administration’s Bogus “Deterrence Policies” As Well As Grotesque Failure Of U.S. Courts At All Levels To Uniformly Require Granting Of Asylum To Qualified Refugee Women & Children!

 

pastedGraphic.png

*Cover photo by photojournalist Guillermo Martinez shows a boy in El Salvador wearing a protective mask from his home during a COVID-19 lockdown. Photo credit: Guillermo Martinez/APHOTOGRAFIA/ Getty Images

 

New Report: Dual Crises

 

 

 

Gender-Based Violence and Inequality Facing Children and Women During the COVID-19 Pandemic in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras

 

 

 

Gender-based violence has long been one of the main drivers of migration from Central America to the United States. Widespread violence, including sexual abuse, human trafficking, and violence in the home and family, combined with a lack of access to protection and justice forces children and women to flee in search of safety. Drawing on existing research and interviews with children’s and women’s rights experts, this report lays out how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated already pervasive forms of violence against children and women in Central America, as well as the deeply entrenched gender inequality that leaves children and women even more vulnerable to violence.

Here’s a link to the full report: http://us.engagingnetworks.app/page/email/click/10097/1093096?email=C9P0Zhj6QQc0L7Si0LDouAN%2BRR2ul1GhmZAK81VjEpg=&campid=z6owwwxd2r6ZkArzVWMSmA==

 

 

 

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Successful implementation of the U.S. Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America must start by acknowledging that gender-based violence is a primary driver of migration and includes most violence against children.

Obviously, mindless, failed enforcement and deterrence-only policies that tell women and children to “suffer and die in place” rather than flee and seek asylum are absurdly out of touch with the realities of both human migration and the real situation in the Northern Triangle. This report shows that increased flight from the Northern Triangle probably has more to do with the aggravating effects of the pandemic on the already untenable situation of many women and children in the Northern Triangle than it does on any policy pronouncements, real or imagined, on the part of the Biden Administration.

An honest policy that recognizes the reality that gender-based persecution is a major driver of forced migration in the Northern Triangle would go a long way toward addressing the largely self-created situation at our Southern Border.

As many of us keep saying, to no visible avail, asylum isn’t a “policy option” for politicos and wonks to “discuss and debate.” It’s a legal and moral requirement, domestically and internationally, that we are currently defaulting upon!

Wonder why “democracy is on the ropes” throughout the world right now? Perhaps, we need look no further than our own horrible example!

A robust overseas refugee program in the region and a uniform, consistent, timely policy of granting asylum to qualified applicants applying at ports of entry at our borders would be a vast improvement. 

Sure, it would undoubtedly result in the legal immigration of more refugees and asylum seekers. That’s actually what refugee and asylum laws are all about — an important and robust component of our legal immigration system. 

Although our needs are not actually part of the “legal test for asylum,” the fact is, we need more legal immigrants of all types in America right now.

It should be a win-win for the refugees and for America. So why not make it happen, rather than continuing failed policy approaches that serve nobody’s interest except nativist zealots trying to inflame xenophobia for political gain?

An additional point: On February 2, 2021, to great ballyhoo, President Biden issued Executive Order 14010. A key provision of that order required that:

(ii) within 270 days of the date of this order, promulgate joint regulations, consistent with applicable law, addressing the circumstances in which a person should be considered a member of a “particular social group,” as that term is used in 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(42)(A), as derived from the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.

270 days have long passed. In fact, its been more than 300 days since that order. Yet, these regulations are nowhere in sight. Perhaps, that’s a good thing.

This doesn’t come as much of a surprise to “us old timers” who have “hands on” experience with the unsuitability of the DOJ regulation drafting process for this assignment. Indeed, this assignment is actually several decades “overdue,” having originally been handed out by the late former Attorney General Janet Reno prior to her departure from office in January 2020!

The problem remains lack of expertise. With the possible exception of Lucas Guttentag, I know of nobody at today’s DOJ who actually has the necessary experience, expertise, perspective, and historical knowledge to draft a proper regulation on the topic. Past drafts and proposals have been disastrous, actually seeking to diminish, rather than increase and regularize, protections for vulnerable women and others facing persecution on account of gender-based particular social groups.

Indeed, one proposal was even used by OIL as an avenue in attempting to “water down” the all-important, life saving “regulatory presumption of future persecution arising out of past persecution!” Talk about perversions of justice at Justice! Why? Because OIL had suffered a series of embarrassing, ego-deflating setbacks from Article III Courts calling out the frequent failure of the BIA and IJs to properly apply the basics of the presumption. Sound familiar?

At DOJ, the “normal solution to lack of expertise and competence” is to simply eliminate expertise and competence as requirements! In many ways, “good enough for government work” has replaced “who prosecutes on behalf of  Lady Justice” as the DOJ’s motto!

It’s also yet another reason why the DOJ is a horribly inappropriate “home” for the U.S. Immigration Courts!


😎Due Process Forever! 

PWS

12-16-21

⚰️☠️👎🏻🤮ALL-MALE GOP PANEL OF 8TH CIR. GOES “FULL SALEM” ON SALVADORAN WOMAN — “If You Survive Your Ordeal, Woman, You Can’t Possibly Be a Refugee! Come Back And See Us After You’re Dead & Maybe We’ll Believe You,” Is The Wacko Message Delivered By Brain-Dead, Life-Tenured Male Jurists — American “Justice” Takes Yet Another Bizarre, Kafkaesque Turn As Judge Garland Silently Sits & Thinks Great Thoughts Without Taking Any Actions To End The Daily Abuses Against Humanity In His Name By Unqualified “Prosecutor-Owned & Operated Judges” & Ethically Challenged DOJ Attorneys Promoting Nonsense Before Federal Circuit Courts!

CELEBRATING WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH WITH THE BOYS FROM THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT!

 

Trial by Ordeal
Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal”
17th Century Woodcut
Public Realm
Source: Ancient Origins Website
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160
Trial By Ordeal
Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal”
17th Century Woodcut
Public Realm
Source: Ancient Origins Website
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160

https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/21/03/202248P.pdf

Guatemala-Pineda v. Garland, 8th Cir., 03-26-21

PANEL: SMITH, Chief Judge, ARNOLD and STRAS, Circuit Judges.

OPINION BY: Judge Arnold

Because you have to “see it to believe it” that these three guys actually graduated from law school and got promoted to the Federal Judiciary, the opinion is set forth in full here:

United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________

No. 20-2248 ___________________________

Yeemy Guatemala-Pineda

lllllllllllllllllllllPetitioner

v.

Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General of the United States1

lllllllllllllllllllllRespondent ____________

Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals ____________

Submitted: February 17, 2021 Filed: March 26, 2021 ____________

Before SMITH, Chief Judge, ARNOLD and STRAS, Circuit Judges. ____________

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

After Yeemy Guatemala-Pineda entered the United States unlawfully, she applied for asylum so she wouldn’t have to return to her home country of El Salvador.

1Merrick B. Garland is serving as Attorney General of the United States, and is substituted as respondent pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 43(c).

She feared that if she returned there gangs would persecute her because of her religious activities. After a winding course of immigration proceedings that began more than ten years ago, the Board of Immigration Appeals ultimately denied her request for asylum. We deny the petition for review since we think substantial evidence supports the BIA’s decision.

Guatemala-Pineda, whom we will call Pineda as her real name is Yeemy Michael Pineda, attempted to enter the United States in 2010 at age 22 but was apprehended by immigration authorities and charged with being inadmissible as an alien without proper documentation. See U.S.C. § 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I). She conceded that the charge was true but applied for asylum, which protects, among others, refugees present in the United States who are unable or unwilling to return to their home country because they have a well-founded fear that others will persecute them on account of their religion. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(42)(A), 1158(b)(1)(A). Pineda testified before an immigration judge that she was a practicing Christian who had participated in a church project of door-to-door evangelization that specifically targeted gang members. She related that a handful of gang members had at one time “cornered” and “grabbed” her during a church function and tried to recruit her to their gang, explicitly telling her that they did not want to see her working with the church. Though they also threatened to “take [her] by force” and find her wherever she went, they did not otherwise physically harm her.

After that incident Pineda stopped attending church, opting instead to participate in religious services at other people’s homes. During one of these home services, Pineda testified, gang members appeared outside and demanded that the group stop singing. She believed they were the same gang members who had threatened her before; they specifically called her by name and said they were “coming for” her. Two weeks later, at another home gathering, gang members again appeared outside, announced they were armed, and demanded that she come outside

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or “they were going to get” her. The people inside threw themselves on the ground and waited about two hours until the gang members departed.

At that point, Pineda testified, she obtained a job selling clothes in San Salvador, which was about ninety minutes from her home. She explained that gang members did not bother or threaten her while at work, though one time she had to crouch down when she heard gunshots directed toward another person.

The immigration judge concluded that, even though Pineda had not demonstrated past persecution, she did have a well-founded fear of future persecution, and so granted her application for asylum. When the government appealed to the BIA, the BIA remanded the case to the immigration judge to consider, among other things, whether Pineda could reasonably relocate within El Salvador to avoid future persecution. On remand, Pineda testified that, if forced to return to El Salvador, she would return to her mother’s house because she had no other place to go. She noted that her entire family lives in the same city and that she could not relocate to another city as a single Christian woman. She also elaborated on her time working in San Salvador, explaining that she commuted alone and worked three to five days a week for a few months before leaving for the United States. Pineda also testified that, though she did not experience difficulties from gang members in San Salvador or while commuting, thieves did steal her paycheck three or four times and her cell phone twice, often while she was riding on a bus.

Pineda also presented testimony from an expert on Central American gangs. He testified that El Salvador is “the most violent country in the world for women” and that four things put Pineda “at not only high but very predictable risk” of harm should she return to El Salvador: her religious practices and activities, her past refusal to comply with gang demands, her flight from El Salvador to escape gang threats, and the ability of gangs to learn of her return. Further, he opined, Pineda would be at high risk anywhere in El Salvador because she is a young, single woman with no

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protective family network, making “internal relocation a very, very difficult proposition.”

The immigration judge again granted Pineda’s request for asylum, concluding that she had carried her burden to show that internal relocation was unreasonable, as “[s]he is a young single woman returning to a country the size of Massachusetts where abuse and violence against women is one of the principal human rights problems.” The judge acknowledged that Pineda had worked in San Salvador for three months without interference from gangs but pointed out that during that time she had been robbed of her paycheck or cell phone at least five times and “did not proselytize in the streets.” In sum, there were simply no other parts of the country “that are any better than the area that gave rise to [Pineda’s] original claim.” On appeal, however, the BIA pointed out that Pineda was able to avoid gang persecution while working in San Salvador. It also noted that, even though Pineda was the victim of crimes during her commute, it was unclear whether she could have avoided these and similar crimes by moving to San Salvador instead of commuting from her hometown. The BIA therefore remanded for the immigration judge “to reconsider the overall reasonableness of any relocation by the respondent throughout El Salvador.”

On remand, Pineda’s case was assigned to a different immigration judge. The new judge concluded, after receiving additional arguments from the parties and what he termed “extensive country condition evidence,” that Pineda had failed to shoulder her burden to show that she could not relocate elsewhere in El Salvador since she was able to avoid gang persecution while working in San Salvador. The BIA upheld that determination.

In her petition for review from that holding, Pineda challenges the determination that she failed to show she could not safely relocate to another part of El Salvador. We review both the BIA’s decision and the immigration judge’s decision to the extent the BIA adopted the findings or reasoning of the immigration judge. See

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Degbe v. Sessions, 899 F.3d 651, 655 (8th Cir. 2018). We will uphold the decision so long as substantial evidence supports it. See Cinto-Velasquez v. Lynch, 817 F.3d 602, 607 (8th Cir. 2016). When applying that “extremely deferential” standard, we will not reverse “unless, after having reviewed the record as a whole, we determine that it would not be possible for a reasonable fact-finder to adopt the BIA’s position.” See Eusebio v. Ashcroft, 361 F.3d 1088, 1091 (8th Cir. 2004).

Since Pineda does not contend that she has shown past persecution, she must show she has a well-founded fear of future persecution to prevail. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A); see also 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b). But “[a]n applicant does not have a well-founded fear of persecution if the applicant could avoid persecution by relocating to another part of the applicant’s country of nationality.” 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(2)(ii). Because Pineda has not demonstrated past persecution, and the gangs she fears are not government or government sponsored, she bears the burden to show that relocation would not be reasonable. See id. § 1208.13(b)(3)(i). In these circumstances relocation is presumed to be reasonable. See id. § 1208.13(b)(3)(iii).

We hold that substantial evidence supports the BIA’s determination that Pineda could relocate to another part of El Salvador if forced to return. We believe that a reasonable factfinder could give substantial weight to the lack of gang harassment Pineda suffered while working in San Salvador for a number of months. Even if gangs generally have significant reach throughout the country and are able to locate people like her quickly, as Pineda maintains, the fact that they did nothing to her for months as she worked in San Salvador is hard to overlook. And even though the first immigration judge to preside over Pineda’s proceedings found that internal relocation would not be reasonable, that does not necessarily mean that substantial evidence did not support the second immigration judge’s decision. It might just go to show that the reasonableness of relocation in this case is one on which reasonable people could disagree.

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To bolster her case, Pineda emphasizes that she suffered other serious harm in San Salvador when she had paychecks and cell phones stolen from her. Pineda is right that, to prevail, she need not show that she suffered other serious harm on account of a protected ground, such as religion. See Hagi-Salad v. Ashcroft, 359 F.3d 1044, 1048 n.5 (8th Cir. 2004). But that other harm must rise to “the severity of persecution” for her to carry the day. Id. “Persecution is an extreme concept,” involving things like death or the threat of death, torture, or injury to one’s person or freedom. See De Castro-Gutierrez v. Holder, 713 F.3d 375, 380 (8th Cir. 2013). Pineda did not describe anything that occurred to her during her commutes to and from San Salvador or her employment there that approaches this high standard.

We therefore conclude that substantial evidence supports the BIA’s determination, considering that Pineda worked for months in San Salvador without trouble from gangs. Though we recognize that Pineda’s expert opined that she was at risk, we think the BIA did not unreasonably focus on there being no evidence that she was persecuted during the months she worked in San Salvador. We have upheld a decision on this kind of question based on less, as, for instance, where an asylum seeker had stayed in another part of a country without being harmed for five weeks. See Molina-Cabrera v. Sessions, 905 F.3d 1103, 1106 (8th Cir. 2018).

Though we sympathize with Pineda’s subjective fear of returning alone to a different part of El Salvador, we cannot say that the BIA’s relocation determination is unsupported by substantial evidence. Because we uphold this portion of the BIA’s decision, we do not consider whether substantial evidence supported the BIA’s conclusion that the government of El Salvador was unwilling or unable to control the gangs that Pineda feared.

Petition denied.

______________________________

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***************************

No, it’s not, as Judge Arnold disingenuously claims “something on which reasonable people could disagree.” No reasonable adjudicator qualified in asylum law and due process could reach this ridiculously wrong result!

Naturally, not understanding asylum law (why would that be a requirement for an Article III Judge, just because it’s probably the #1 and certainly most hotly contested topic in Federal Civil Litigation these days), Judge Arnold and his “boys club” out on the Great Plains fail to give this credible respondent “the benefit of the doubt” to which she is entitled under UNHCR guidance.

Indeed, as I used to tell my former BIA colleagues, usually to little avail before launching another dissent, “if reasonable people could differ, the result should be clear — the respondent wins because she gets ‘the benefit of the doubt.’” Sadly, even at a time when the BIA functioned at a much much higher level than it does today, it was the Immigration Judge and immigration enforcement who often in practice got the “benefit of the doubt” from many of my former colleagues, not the asylum applicant.

As my friend Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis Legal Community summed up: “Proves the point that ‘the only true refugee is a dead refugee.’” Unlike the various BIA Judges and Circuit Judges involved in this deadly travesty, Dan actually understands asylum law, due process, and human values. 

One might fairly ask the question of why “practical scholars” like Dan are on the “outside” and lesser talents are on the Federal Bench at all levels? The answer has much to do with why there is an “institutionalized racism crisis” in today’s American justice system. “Trial By Ordeal,” really isn’t that great a “look” for 21st Century American Justice! (Any more than is institutionalized racism and “The New Jim Crow”).

Dan Kowalski
Dan Kowalski
Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)

Conveniently, this “gang of three” CJs showed little real understanding of 8 C.F.R. 208.13 as it existed at the time of the BIA’s second decision, which states:

adjudicators should consider, but are not limited to considering, whether the applicant would face other serious harm in the place of suggested relocation; any ongoing civil strife within the country; administrative, economic, or judicial infrastructure; geographical limitations; and social and cultural constraints, such as age, gender, health, and social and familial ties. Those factors may, or may not, be relevant, depending on all the circumstances of the case, and are not necessarily determinative of whether it would be reasonable for the applicant to relocate.

Just on the information regurgitated in their opinion, Ms. Guatemala-Pineda showed by expert witness testimony and by her own credible testimony and experiences that there is no “reasonably available relocation alternative” in El Salvador. There clearly is “ongoing civil strife” in El Salvador. And, anyone with even minimal knowledge of the country would know that (to put it charitably) the “administrative, economic, and judicial infrastructures” are somewhere in the zone between dysfunctional to non-existent. She also credibly pointed out why it would not be reasonable under the circumstances to require her to leave her mother’s home and move to San Salvador. 

Forcing someone to commute to a job 90 minutes away, for 3-5 days per week work, in what is perhaps the most dangerous city in the country, during which she already suffered “three or four paycheck robberies and a cell phone robbery” in about three months — that’s a total of five robberies” in a relatively short span — is by no means a “reasonable internal relocation alternative” based on all relevant factors! 

Additionally, that she felt unable to proselytize in accordance with her religious beliefs in San Salvador also indicates that relocation there is unreasonable. Freedom to carry out reasonable religious commitments without fear of harm is a fundamental human right.

Very interesting to compare how GOP Circuit Judges treated very clear interference with Ms. Guatemala-Pineda’s ability to fulfill her religious beliefs in this case with how many GOP judges in the U.S. swoon over every minor interference with right wing religious beliefs — even those grounded in obvious bigotry — in the U.S. Here, by contrast, the GOP Circuit Judges fobbed off the interference with Ms. Guatemala-Pineda’s evangelical activities — at one point she felt unable to worship publicly at her church — as of no particular concern.

Not to mention that Ms. Guatemala-Pineda’s expert confirmed that:

El Salvador is “the most violent country in the world for women” and that four things put Pineda “at not only high but very predictable risk” of harm should she return to El Salvador: her religious practices and activities, her past refusal to comply with gang demands, her flight from El Salvador to escape gang threats, and the ability of gangs to learn of her return. Further, he opined, Pineda would be at high risk anywhere in El Salvador because she is a young, single woman with no protective family network, making “internal relocation a very, very difficult proposition.”

In plain terms, it’s only a matter of time before Ms. Guatemala-Pineda is persecuted, seriously harmed, or killed if returned to El Salvador. But, her life, as a woman of color, is obviously of little concern to the “gang of three.”

Let’s look at it another her way. Suppose we were tell Judges Smith, Arnold, and Staus that they had to relocate in a way that meant every third or fourth paycheck would be stolen and that they would be robbed of their cellphone every three months, with no recourse to a functioning police system. (Note that these dudes would be much better able to absorb such losses of income and expensive property than Ms. Guatemala-Pineda.) Or, that we were going to relocate their cushy ivory tower jobs to a place where they would be required to commute 90 minutes by public transportation every day. Or, that they might occasionally have to get down behind the bench to avoid rampant gunfire. Or, that they no longer could worship at their church of choice or openly engage in religious activities in their communities, but must limit themselves to “in-home worship” — not just during the pandemic, but permanently. Or, they had to live in a place where “GOP-Judiciacide” was at the highest level in the world and the police offered little or no protection, indeed were often involved themselves in abuse and killings of judges or turned a blind eye to the perpetrators. 

Think our “tone-deaf group of guys in robes” would take a different view of “reasonable” if they put themselves in Ms. Guatemala-Pineda’s place and it were happening to them? You betcha!

A few other things to note about this gross miscarriage of justice:

  • Two panel members were appointed by Bush II, one by Trump;
  • Ms. Guatemala-Pineda originally won her case before the Immigration Judge, who after hearing all the evidence and carefully considering relocation found that Ms. Pineda has shown that there was no “reasonably available relocation alternative” in El Salvador;
  • The BIA baselessly remanded the case on ICE’s appeal to a new IJ to get the “preferred result” — a denial of relief and potential death sentence for a woman of color (See, e.g., Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions & Matter of A-B-);
  • In a functioning system staffed by asylum experts, this case could easily have been granted at the Asylum Office rather than kicking around the dysfunctional EOIR system for a decade — two merits hearings before the IJ — two appeals to the BIA — and Circuit Court review — all to REACH A CLEARLY INCORRECT AND UNJUST RESULT THAT NO TRUE ASYLUM EXPERT I KNOW WOULD AGREE WITH!
  • And, we wonder why EOIR has more than doubled the number of IJs yet still almost tripled their uncontrolled backlog to a mind-boggling 1.3 million cases! Ten years to turn an easy asylum grant into a denial (yet other cases are rushed through to denial on an assembly line without any real deli]beration or analysis) might give us a hint of why the system is totally dysfunctional and completely unfair (not to mention patently unconstitutional)!
    • Since EOIR is known for its incompetent record keeping, I’m willing to bet that there are thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of additional “lost in space” files, warehoused somewhere that are simply “off docket” and unaccounted for.

Cases like this aren’t “academic exercises” — the judicial attitude that “screams off the pages” of this gross miscarriage of justice. They have real life, potentially deadly consequences for real humans beings, the most vulnerable of human beings, like Ms. Guatemala-Pineda. She has the same right to live as do the Circuit Judges, the BIA Judges, and the second Immigration Judge who got her case wrong! 

After a decade, this monstrosity is the best our “justice system” can offer? Gimme a break! I think I could choose any three students over at the CALS Asylum Clinic at Georgetown Law who would run circles around the cavalier analysis of these three supposedly “senior jurists” in this case! Cases like this basically are indictments of our Article III system, not to mention the ongoing mockery of justice at EOIR.

The anti-asylum, anti-immigrant bias, incompetent adjudication, and systemic mis-management at EOIR are of monumental proportions! The gross inconsistencies, lack of overall immigration, human rights, sensitivity to racial justice, and “practical due process” expertise at the appellate level of the U.S. Courts and particularly at the Supremes is very disturbing and threatens the very existence and legitimacy of our legal system.

Judge Garland has the power to start fixing this, today! He must vacate all the bogus Trump-era anti-immigrant precedents; toss the entire BIA, and replace them with real judges who possess the required subject matter expertise and overriding commitment to due process and fundamental fairness; establish merit-selection criteria for Immigration Judges honoring experience representing asylum applicants in court, immigration knowledge, human rights expertise, commitment to due process for individuals under law, sensitivity to racial justice, and demonstrated practical problem solving experience.

Then, apply those criteria to new Immigration Judge selections as well as to retention decisions for all current Immigration Judges. And, for Pete’s sake, “can” the incompetent bureaucracy and get some real professionals in there who can run an independent court system — starting with a functioning nationwide e-filing system and some competent judicial training as well as assisting IJs in managing their own dockets rather than constantly interfering and trying to “micromanage” from Falls Church and the 5th Floor of the DOJ (a process known as “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” honed by the Trump kakistocracy @ DOJ).

When you’re done, Judge Garland, you’ll have: 1) many fewer bad decisions heading off the the Courts of Appeals; 2) a functioning Immigration Judiciary of experts who can help keep order and provide helpful expert guidance to the rest of the now out of control system; and 3) a great source of “battle trained and proven” well-qualified, progressive judicial talent who can change the trajectory of the now often moribund (yeah, even some of the younger Trump appointees are basically “brain dead,” so the term fits) and dilatory Article III Judiciary and who are also available to fill other high-level policy positions with competence, common sense, and humanity.

You’d also go down in history as a judge who got out of the ivory tower and actually solved pressing problems, implemented our Constitution, and built a better, fairer court system that made a difference in human lives and the future of our nation. Perhaps, even something like “thorough teamwork and innovation, built the world’s best courts guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” That’s quite a legacy for future generations.

I can only hope Judge Garland finally pays attention to what’s happening across the river in Falls Church and takes immediate action to end the deadly and debilitating clown show 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ @ EOIR. Otherwise, I fear he will find himself buried in immigration litigation and his tenure mired in the muck of responsibility for grotesque racial injustice and “running” the worst, most incompetent, unfair, and blatantly unconstitutional “court” system in America! 

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever! Hey Hey, Ho Ho, The Deadly EOIR Clown Show ☠️🤡 Has Got to Go!

EOIR Clown Show Must Go T-Shirt
“EOIR Clown Show Must Go” T-Shirt Custom Design Concept

Hey, maybe next year, we could all celebrate Women’s History Month with some decisions incorporating serious scholarship by progressive women judges that actually recognize, honor, and institutionalize relief from the unfair struggles faced by refugee women and people of color.

PWS

03-27-21

☠️WITH LIVES ON THE LINE, BIA CONTINUES TO GET BASIC ASYLUM ANALYSIS WRONG! — We Need Change!

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/memoranda/2021/02/24/19-71375.pdf

Here’s a recent unpublished decision from the 9th Circuit in Deepak Lama v. Wilkinson, (Feb. 24, 2021):

Before: HURWITZ and BRESS, Circuit Judges, and FEINERMAN,** District Judge.

This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

**

The Honorable Gary Feinerman, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation.

Deepak Lama, a citizen of Nepal, petitions for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing his appeal of an Immigration Judge (IJ) order denying his claims for asylum and withholding of removal.1 We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We grant the petition and remand.

The IJ found that Lama had suffered past persecution on account of his political activity and was entitled to a presumption of a well-founded fear of future persecution. See 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(1). But, the IJ also found that the government had rebutted the presumption, and the BIA then dismissed Lama’s appeal on the sole basis that Lama could safely and reasonably relocate within Nepal, to Chitwan, where he previously resided for five years without incident. Our review is limited to the ground on which the BIA relied. Qiu v. Barr, 944 F.3d 837, 842 (9th Cir. 2019).

When the presumption of a well-founded fear of future persecution applies, the government bears the “burden of showing that relocation is both safe and reasonable under all the circumstances” by a preponderance of the evidence. Afriyie v. Holder, 613 F.3d 924, 934 & n.8 (9th Cir. 2010), overruled on other grounds by Bringas-Rodriguez v. Sessions, 850 F.3d 1051, 1070 (9th Cir. 2017). “Relocation analysis consists of two steps: (1) ‘whether an applicant could relocate safely,’ and (2) ‘whether it would be reasonable to require the applicant to do so.’” Singh v. Whitaker, 914 F.3d 654, 659 (9th Cir. 2019) (quoting Afriyie, 613 F.3d at 934). We

1 The BIA found that Lama forfeited his claim under the Convention Against Torture. Lama does not challenge that ruling in this court.

2

conclude that the BIA’s limited relocation analysis does not satisfy the applicable legal requirements.

First, the agency “failed to take into account the numerous factors for determining reasonableness outlined in 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(3).” Knezevic v. Ashcroft, 367 F.3d 1206, 1215 (9th Cir. 2004). Relying on Lama’s stay in Chitwan between 2003 and 2008, the agency provided no analysis of whether it would be reasonable for Lama to relocate there at the time of his hearing, in 2017. Lama demonstrated that he experienced persecution in Nepal both in his hometown and later in Kathmandu, and that this persecution took place both before and after he lived in Chitwan. While his time in Chitwan appears to have been without incident, he last lived there many years ago. The government presented no evidence that Lama could safely and reasonably return there now, considering both the current political situation in Chitwan and Lama’s personal circumstances. See Singh, 914 F.3d at 661.

Second, the BIA’s analysis rests on an apparent misapprehension of the record. The BIA stated that “[t]he record contains no evidence that it would no longer be safe or reasonable for [Lama] to once again return to [Chitwan] where he had previously voluntarily relocated and resided for approximately 5 years without incident.” (Emphasis added.) But the record contains a 2016 letter written to Lama from his uncle, with whom he lived in Chitwan, indicating that Lama would not be

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safe there. The BIA did not consider this evidence. And to the extent the BIA “erroneously presumed that relocation was reasonable and improperly assigned the burden of proof to [Lama] to show otherwise,” Afriyie, 613 F.3d at 935, it erred in that respect as well. See also 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(3)(ii) (burden of proof).

Gomes v. Gonzales, 429 F.3d 1264 (9th Cir. 2005), does not support the government’s position that because Lama once resided in Chitwan without incident, “it is axiomatic that he can do so again.” In Gomes, unlike this case, the petitioners had not shown past persecution and thus bore the burden to show that relocation was unreasonable. Id. at 1266–67 & 1266 n.1. In addition, unlike Lama, it appears that the petitioners in Gomes had safely resided in the area in question immediately prior to entering the United States. See id. at 1267. Gomes also did not involve the BIA failing to address evidence (here the letter from Lama’s uncle) indicating that relocation to the designated area could be unsafe.

For the foregoing reasons, we grant the petition and remand this matter to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this decision. Any relocation analysis must comport with the governing regulations and this court’s precedents. See 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(3); Singh, 914 F.3d at 659–61. We also dismiss as moot the portion of Lama’s petition challenging the BIA’s denial of his motion to remand.

PETITION FOR REVIEW GRANTED IN PART AND DISMISSED IN PART; REMANDED.

4

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Once again, this is nothing profound, difficult, or controversial. Just basic application of EOIR’S own regulations, consideration of all the evidence presented by the respondent, and basic analysis, with some fundamental fairness and common sense thrown in. That’s probably why the panel didn’t deem it worthy of publication. But, it does further illustrate a disturbing pattern at the BIA and the Immigration Courts.

During my time as an Immigration Judge, I was sometimes involved in the nationwide judicial  law clerk (JLC)  training program. One of my key points to the JLCs was that many Immigration Judges, even then, continued to get basic “burden shifting” and further analysis wrong once the respondent established past persecution, thereby invoking the regulatory presumption of future persecution.

The DHS then has the burden of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence either 1) fundamentally changed conditions that would eliminate any well-founded fear of individualized persecution; or 2) a reasonably available internal relocation alternative under the applicable regulations. 

Because conditions seldom materially improve in most refugee-sending countries, and reasonable relocation alternatives that would eliminate a well-founded fear of persecution (not hiding in someone’s basement or in a cave in the forest) can seldom be established, in my experience, the DHS almost always failed to rebut the presumption. This was particularly the case because then, as now, the ICE counsel usually presented no testimony or other evidence to rebut the presumption beyond that contained in the State Department Country Report, which seldom was definitive on this type of highly individualized analysis.

Even where the DHS rebuts the regulatory presumption, the respondent still can win protection if she or he shows 1) compelling reasons for not returning arising from the past persecution, or 2) a reasonable possibility of other serious harm if returned.

These regulatory standards are consistent with the generous intent of the refugee definition as described by the Supreme Court in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca. They should result in rather easy grants of protection in most cases involving past persecution,

However it appears that EOIR judges haven’t improved in this area. If anything, result-oriented decision-making geared to make denial of asylum the “administrative norm” evidently has been substituted for careful, professional, expert analysis. Indeed, correct analysis by expert judges knowledgeable in asylum law would probably result in most cases like this being granted at the Immigration Judge level, or even the Asylum Office, thus discouraging the DHS from taking largely meritless appeals to the BIA and reducing the workload in the Circuit Courts.

Instead the sloppy, biased, “any reason to deny” attitude that infects today’s EOIR means that justice for asylum seekers requires skilled lawyers, a “lucky draw” on judges at some level of the system, and, all too often, endless remands and time spent on “redos” to correct elementary errors. No wonder this system is running an astounding 1.3 million case backlog, even with many more IJs on the bench at both the trial and appellate levels! 

This is a “system designed to fail.” And, failing it is, at every level, spilling over into the Article III Courts and placing the foundation of our entire U.S. justice system — due process for all under law — in jeopardy.

Quality, expertise, understanding, and a fair and humane attitude toward asylum seekers is much more important than quantity in asylum adjudication! This the exact opposite of the message delivered by the last Administration.

Here’s my basic thesis:

    • Granting relief wherever possible and at the lowest possible levels of the system speeds things up and promotes best practices and maximum efficiency without stomping on anyone’s rights. (And, it saves lives).
      • En masse denials and trying to run a “deportation railroad” eventually leads to gross inefficiencies and systemic failure. (And, it kills innocent individuals).

I’m not the only one who believes this. As one of my esteemed Round Table colleagues recently quipped: “The sloppiness of the BIA in case after case is alarming.” Indeed it is; but, sadly, not particularly surprising or unusual. 

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-01-21

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮👎INJUSTICE WATCH: 4th Cir. Judge Stephanie Thacker Cogently Castigates Colleagues For Misapplying “Standard Of (No) Review” To Approve BIA’s Sloppy, Clearly Erroneous, Deadly Anti-Asylum Farce! – Portillo-Flores v. Barr — – “[A]t worst nonsensical and cursory at best”

Judge Stephanie D. Thacker
Honorable Stephanie D. Thacker
U.S. Circuit Judge
Fourth Circuit
Photo From Ballotpedia

 

Portillo-Flores v. Barr, 4th Cir., 09-02-20, published

Portillo decision

 

PANEL:  THACKER, QUATTLEBAUM, and RUSHING, Circuit Judges.

 

OPINION BY: Judge Quattlebaum

 

DISSENTING OPINION: Judge Stephanie D. Thacker

 

KEY QUOTES FROM JUDGE THACKER’S DISSENT:

The majority opinion begins its analysis with a reminder of the applicable standard of review, emphasizing the importance of deference in this context. But the majority fails to mention a threshold requirement for the application of deference — in order to be accorded deference, agency decisionmakers below must conduct sufficient analysis to which we can defer. See Cordova v. Holder, 759 F.3d 332, 338 (4th Cir. 2014) (“[T]he Supreme Court long ago instructed that ‘the process of review requires that the grounds upon which the administrative agency acted be clearly disclosed and adequately sustained.’” (quoting SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 94 (1943))). Here, neither the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) nor the Board of Appeals (“BIA”) provide even the bare minimum level of explanation that our precedent requires. This failure is an abuse of discretion.

The agency decisions here are precisely the kinds of cursory opinions we have repeatedly rejected for their failure to engage with an applicant’s arguments and evidence. I therefore respectfully dissent.

. . . .

In conclusion, I borrow from the majority opinion, which likens the standard of review to an offensive lineman in football. In light of the limited analyses below, which were at worst nonsensical and cursory at best, the standard of review “offensive lineman” in this case cannot protect the decision below. Instead, the weak analysis of the agencies left their blind side wide open.

I dissent.

***************************

[A]t worst nonsensical and cursory at best.” Those prophetic words from Judge Thacker’s dissent should outrage every American! Don’t vulnerable individuals, effectively on trial for their lives, deserve better from the U.S. Justice system? Is the “half-baked” standard applied by the panel majority really the way we would want ourselves or our loved ones judged in any matter of importance, not to mention what is in many ways a “capital case?” What’s going on in our Article III Judiciary?

Read the full opinion at the link. This is a prime, very disturbing example of the “any reason to deny” standard used by the Trump regime to subvert justice for asylum applicants of color. Here, as effectively pointed out by Judge Thacker it was (laboriously and wordily) “rubber stamped” by two complicit Article III Judges.

To call this “second class justice” would be far too generous. It’s basically no justice at all and a damning illustration of how intellectual absurdity and race-driven results have become institutionalized and acceptable, not just in the Immigration Courts, but in various places throughout our judicial system that is failing to deliver on the Constitutional requirement of “equal justice for all.”

Any activists who think that the problems of racial tension in America are going to be resolved without addressing the systemic judicial failure to stand up against the illegal, racially-biased mistreatment of asylum seekers and other migrants by the likes of Trump, Miller, Sessions, Barr, and Wolf, as enabled by the Supremes and other Article III Judges who have “swallowed their whistles,” is mistaken.

As cogently pointed out by Judge Thacker, this was a “no brainer remand” under any application of the proper standards. Indeed, the panel majority spent more time and effort, and killed more trees, looking for ways to “paper over” the BIA’s indefensible and unprofessional performance than it would have taken them to correct it! This panel majority appeared much more interested in “rehabilitating the BIA” and “codifying injustice” (probably as an aid to rubber stamping more assembly line injustice in the future) than it was in achieving justice for the young man whose life was at stake.

Indeed, Judge Quattlebaum and Judge Rushing are so arrogantly “tone deaf” and impervious to human suffering that they employ a “snarky sports analogy” in essentially imposing a potential death sentence on a young Salvadoran refugee without any serious pretense of due process or effective and intellectually honest judicial review. Is this how Quattlebaum and Rushing would like to be “judged” if they or their loved ones (or someone they considered “human”) were on trial for their lives? No way! So why is it “due process” for this young man? 

Obviously, these are two judges who are confident in a privileged life “above the fray” that puts them beyond moral and legal accountability for the unjust human misery and suffering that they cause. It’s all a “sports joke” to them. But, not so funny to those whose lives are at stake in what once was supposed to be a serious legal process but now has devolved into a deadly and totally dysfunctional “Clown Show.”

It’s also a national disgrace and a serious indictment of our entire justice system that this type of clearly “dangerous and defective judging” goes on in our life-tenured judiciary. America deserves better from our Article III Judiciary!

Due Process Forever!

 

PWS

09-04-20

‍‍‍🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮KAKISTOCRACY WATCH: BIA Continues To Get Pummeled For Absurdist Anti-Asylum “Jurisprudence” – Are The Article IIIs Finally Catching On? – If So, Why Does The BIA Still Exist? – Jeffrey S. Chase Analyzes Latest BIA Debacle From the 9th Cir. — Akosung v. Barr

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2020/8/16/9th-cir-to-bia-hiding-in-fear-is-not-reasonable-relocation

JEFFREY S. CHASE | OPINIONS/ANALYSIS ON IMMIGRATION LAW
9th Cir. to BIA: Hiding in Fear is Not Reasonable Relocation
In, Akosung v. Barr a young woman from Cameroon had been sentenced against her will to marry the village chieftain, or Fon, in order to settle a family debt. Not wishing to suffer this fate, she first hid locally. After her family’s assets and funds were seized, their crops were destroyed, and they were barred from attending social activities as punishment, she fled town.
Akosung remained a fugitive in Cameroon for over a year. A relative who harbored her in another city for most of that time asked her to leave out of fear of repercussions. After relocating again, she barely evaded capture. The police declined to get involved. Akosung eventually managed to cross into Nigeria, and from there, made her way to the U.S.
After an Immigration Judge denied asylum, the BIA dismissed Akosung’s appeal on two grounds. First, the Board determined that she had not shown harm on account of her membership in a particular social group consisting of “women resistant to forced marriage proposals.” More surprisingly, the Board concluded that, in spite of the above tale of near capture and narrow escape, Akosung could somehow safely relocate to another part of Cameroon.
Asylum will be denied to one who could reasonably relocate within their country. Where a dispute is so localized that it can be ended with a move to the next street, neighborhood, or town, the law sees no reason for international intervention.
However, federal regulations that are binding on immigration judges, asylum officers, and the BIA, recognize the complexity of determining whether such relocation, if possible, would be considered reasonable. Per the regulation:
(3) Reasonableness of internal relocation. For purposes of determinations under paragraphs (b)(1)(i), (b)(1)(ii), and (b)(2) of this section, adjudicators should consider, but are not limited to considering, whether the applicant would face other serious harm in the place of suggested relocation; any ongoing civil strife within the country; administrative, economic, or judicial infrastructure; geographical limitations; and social and cultural constraints, such as age, gender, health, and social and familial ties. Those factors may, or may not, be relevant, depending on all the circumstances of the case, and are not necessarily determinative of whether it would be reasonable for the applicant to relocate.
That’s quite a lot to consider. And in saying that the listed factors may or may not be relevant or determinative, the judge or asylum officer is being told to dive in deep in analyzing what factors exist, and how much they should matter.
Furthermore, the regulations state that where the persecutor is the government, or where the applicant has already suffered persecution, there is a legal presumption that such internal relocation is not reasonable. It’s not clear from the decision whether the issue was considered, but as the facts state that the applicant’s town was ruled by a council, that it was said council that ordered her marriage to the Fon, and that the police ceded jurisdiction over the matter to the council, a strong argument seems to exist that the persecutor in this case is the government.
Not surprisingly, such a detailed, in depth, thoughtful analysis that cedes so much authority to the immigration judge runs contrary to EOIR Director James McHenry’s goal of assembly line, rubber stamp adjudication. Of course, his agency’s recently proposed regulations aimed at destroying asylum directly attack this rule, and seek to replace it with a much simpler one in which the judges would draw a negative inference from the fact that the asylum seeker had managed to reach the U.S. It’s not clear why reaching the U.S. to seek asylum would demonstrate the reasonableness of remaining in the country in which one is being targeted. Perhaps McHenry seeks to imbue an entirely new meaning to the lyric from Frank Sinatra’s ode to my hometown: “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere?”
In Akosung, the Board treated the regulation as if McHenry’s changes were already in effect. It simply saw that it could easily rubber-stamp the IJ’s denial by checking the “internal relocation” box, and certainly did not bother to undertake the analysis that the actual binding regulation requires.
Fortunately, the Ninth Circuit called foul. Noting that the regulation requires a conclusion that, after considering all of the listed factors, it would be reasonable to expect the applicant to relocate, the court noted that “it hardly seems ‘reasonable to expect’ one facing persecution or torture to become a fugitive and live in hiding.”
The court added some additional statements of the obvious: first, that “‘relocate’ most naturally refers to resettlement or a change of residence, not the unstable situation of one who must always be ready to flee.” And also: “living in hiding does little to establish that a person is able to “avoid future persecution.” To the contrary, it establishes the opposite; hence, the hiding.
The Ninth Circuit also found error in the Board’s social distinction determination. The Board upheld the immigration judge’s questioning of “how anyone in society” would be able to recognize someone “as an individual who has declined a marriage proposal from a fon.”
The court first noted that the statement seemed to erroneously apply the “optical visibility” approach to social distinction (i.e. that the group member should be recognizable on sight to members of society), an approach the Board disavowed in Matter of M-E-V-G-. But the court added that even if the Board here meant that society in Cameroon would not recognize the group as distinct, Akosung’s experience, and that of another woman who she described as being successfully hunted down after also attempting to evade marriage to the Fon, demonstrate otherwise.
The court then quoted Matter of M-E-V-G- as requiring the group to be viewed as distinct “within the society in question,” adding that “the Board should have taken that into account.”
The court did not discuss further how “the society in question” should be defined. And the court’s citation was to page 237 of M-E-V-G-. But as I have noted when lecturing on the topic, the Board on page 243 of the same decision clarified that “persecution limited to a remote region of a country may invite an inquiry into a more limited subset of the country’s society, such as in Matter of Kasinga…where we considered a particular social group within a tribe.”
Later, on page 246 of M-E-V-G-, the Board stated that in Matter of Kasinga, “people in the Tchamba-Kunsuntu tribe” would view members of the particular social group in that case to be “a discrete and distinct group that was set apart in a meaningful and significant way from the rest of society.” The Board then stated its conclusion that the social group in Kasinga “was perceived as socially distinct within the society in question.”
Attorneys should cite to Akosung (along with M-E-V-G-) in arguing that the “society in question” to be considered for social distinction purposes is the society their clients inhabit.
Copyright 2020, Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved. Reprinted With Permission.

**********************

Wow! Talk about absurdly unfair and totally biased!

For a “real judge” who is committed to due process and understands asylum law, this should have been a 30-minute hearing resulting in a grant of asylum! Instead two levels of EOIR “judges” got this grotesquely wrong in an attempt to deny asylum and return a refugee to harm or death when she clearly is entitled to protection. Because, that’s what their political “handlers” at DOJ and its wholly owned subsidiary EOIR want from their weaponized parody of a “court system.”

These aren’t “legal errors” or “legitimate differences of opinion.” No, they are evidence of “malicious incompetence” – deep intellectual dishonesty and corruption on the part of a fraudulent “tribunals” that under this regime have ceased to serve any legitimate function.

And, that also doesn’t say much good about Article III Courts who see these clear errors time and again, recognize them, yet fail to take the strong, systemic corrective action necessary to stop the BIA’s gross abuses of our legal system and humanity and to hold Billy the Bigot and his subordinate toadies accountable for their misfeasance! That’s a denial of due process by the Article IIIs; it means that only those with the wherewithal to get good representation and pursue appeals beyond EOIR can get anything resembling “justice.” I call that dereliction of duty by the Article IIIs!

Think about this! If folks don’t immediately leave after suffering persecution, then corrupt EOIR adjudicators will sometimes find them not to be in “real danger” or use it as specious “evidence” that the claim isn’t “credible.” But, if they do leave, then that nonsensically shows they could somehow “relocate.”

So in typical EOIR Kangaroo Court fashion, the refugee loses no matter what the facts! I guess that reinforces the “don’t come because we won’t protect you no matter” message that the “New EOIR” is there to deliver! The real issue, however, is why EOIR is still in existence and threatening both our legal system and those seeking justice in America?

Systemic racial injustice in America is no mystery! It’s fueled by Article III Courts that fail to intervene to stop the Trump regime’s racist assault on migrants of all types! Trump, Stephen Miller, “Wolfman” (actually illegally serving at DHS) make no secret of their racist agenda. But, life-tenured Article III Justices and Judges literally keep letting them get away with murder!

Due Process Forever! EOIR’s corrupt “Kangaroo Courts,” never!

PWS

08-17-20

RIGGED “COURTS” – BIA’S ANTI-ASYLUM BIAS “OUTED” AGAIN, AS 6TH CIR. BLASTS BOGUS DENIAL OF ASYLUM TO GUATEMALAN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVOR – Says Sessions’s “Reasoning” in A-B- “Abrogated” By Judge Sullivan’s Ruling in Grace v. Whitaker — Juan Antonio v. Barr

 

https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/20a0156p-06.pdf

 

Juan Antonio v.  Barr, 6th Cir., 05-19-20, published

 

PANEL: COLE, Chief Judge; BOGGS and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges

OPINION BY: Judge Gibbons

CONCURRING OPINION: Judge Boggs

KEY QUOTES:

Footnote 3:

3Matter of A-R-C-G was overruled by Matter of A-B, which held that the Board in Matter of A-R-C-G- did not conduct a rigorous enough analysis in its determination that the particular social group was cognizable. See Matter of A-B-, 27 I. & N. Dec. 316, 331 (A.G. 2018) (noting that because DHS conceded that particular social group was cognizable, “the Board performed only a cursory analysis of the three factors required to establish a particular social group”). Our sister circuits have determined that this change counsels remand. See Padilla- Maldonado v. Att’y Gen. U.S., 751 F. App’x 263, 268 (3d Cir. 2018) (“While the overruling of A-R-C-G- weakens [the applicant’s] case, it does not automatically defeat her claim that she is a member of a cognizable particular social group. As we remand to the BIA to remand to the IJ, the IJ should determine whether [the applicant’s] membership in the group . . . is cognizable . . ..”); Moncada v. Sessions, 751 F. App’x 116, 118 (2d Cir. 2018) (“This Court, like the BIA, applies the law as it exists at the time of decision. And, where, as here, intervening immigration decisions from the executive branch alter the applicable legal standards, we have previously exercised our discretion to remand the matter to the BIA to apply the new standards in the first instance. Recognizing the wisdom of this practice, we take the same tack here and remand this case ‘for the BIA to interpret and apply the standards set forth in [Matter of A-B-] in the first instance.’” (quoting Biao Yang v. Gonzales, 496 F.3d 268, 278 (2d Cir. 2007) (internal citations omitted)).

However, Matter of A-B- has since been abrogated. See Grace v. Whitaker, 344 F. Supp. 3d 96 (D.D.C. 2018). Grace found that the policies articulated in Matter of A-B- were arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law. See id. at 126–27 (holding that there is no general rule against claims involving domestic violence as a basis for membership in a particular social group and that each claim must be evaluated on an individual basis under the statutory factors). The district court’s decision in Grace is currently on appeal to the D.C. Circuit. We acknowledge that we are not bound by Grace but find its reasoning persuasive. Because Matter of A-B- has been abrogated, Matter of A-R-C-G- likely retains precedential value. But, on remand, the agency should also evaluate what effect, if any, Matter of A-R-C-G- and Grace have had on the particular social group analysis. See Bi Xia Qu, 618 F.3d at 609 (“When the BIA does not fully consider an issue, . . . the Supreme Court has instructed that a reviewing court ‘is not generally empowered to conduct a de novo inquiry into the matter being reviewed.’ Rather, ‘the proper course, except in rare circumstances, is to remand to the [BIA] for additional investigation or explanation.’” (quoting Gonzales v. Thomas, 547 U.S. 183, 186 (2006))).

. . . .

When an asylum claim focuses on non-governmental conduct, the applicant must show that the alleged persecutor is either aligned with the government or that the government is unwilling or unable to control him. See Khalili, 557 F.3d at 436. An applicant meets this burden when she shows that she cannot “reasonably expect the assistance of the government” in controlling her perpetrator’s actions. Al-Ghorbani, 585 F.3d at 998. For example, in In re S-A, the Board found that an applicant was eligible for asylum when she suffered domestic abuse at the hands of her father. In re S-A-, 22 I. & N. Dec. 1328 (BIA 2000). Relying on evidence showing that “in Morocco, domestic violence is commonplace and legal remedies are generally unavailable to women,” and that “‘few women report abuse to authorities’ because the judicial procedure is skewed against them,” the Board held that “even if the respondent had turned to the government for help, Moroccan authorities would have been unable or unwilling to control her father’s conduct.” Id. at 1333, 1335 (quoting Committees on International Relations and Foreign Relations, 105th Cong., 2d Sess., Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1997 1538 (Joint Comm. Print 1998)).

Here, both the immigration judge and Board agreed that the beatings, rape, and threats Maria suffered were severe enough to constitute persecution, but that she failed to show that the Guatemalan government was unwilling or unable to control Juan. In support of its conclusion,

No. 18-3500 Juan Antonio v. Barr Page 16

the Board noted that the government issued a restraining order against Juan, the mayor fined Juan for beating their daughter, and that Maria and their children were able to remain in their home for the year before she left Guatemala. AR 5, BIA Decision. Maria argues on appeal that the Board’s decision was not supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole. We agree with her.

Taken as a whole, the record compels the conclusion that Maria cannot “reasonably expect the assistance of the government” in controlling Juan. Al-Ghorbani, 585 F.3d at 998. First, the Board’s conclusion that the restraining order effectively controlled Juan is clearly contradicted by the evidence. Maria testified that Juan “did not obey [the restraining order] because there [was] no police” and “[h]e wasn’t afraid” of any consequences, AR 180, Immigration Ct. Tr., and that at some time that year, Juan came to Maria’s home and beat their oldest child with his belt. She further testified that she went to the police station to file a complaint, but the police never investigated the crime. Second, the Board’s conclusion that “the respondent and her children were able to live legally in the family house” for a year does not paint an accurate picture of that year. AR 5, BIA Decision. The year was not a “period of calm,” as the Board characterized it, but rather, a year which affirmed that the Guatemalan government had not effectively gained control over Juan. Id at 5 n.2. Throughout the course of the year, Maria received threats that Juan “was going to kill [her], and if not[,] that he would pay someone to do something.” AR 188, Immigration Ct. Tr. Juan’s girlfriend also “began threatening [Maria] about once a week, yelling at [her] . . . that she and Juan would kill [her] if [she] didn’t move out of the house.” AR 332, I-589 Appl. In May 2014, Juan’s sister told Maria that “Juan had bought a gun and that he planned to kill [Maria].” Id. at 333. The events of that year indicate that the government had not effectively gained control over Juan.

Moreover, that Juan received a fine of approximately $200 for beating up their oldest child (from a judge who no longer works in town, at a courthouse that has since been destroyed) may indicate some willingness of the Guatemalan government to control Juan but it does not indicate its ability to do so. The concurrence points to the restraining order and fine as evidence

No. 18-3500 Juan Antonio v. Barr Page 17

Guatemala is willing to enforce its laws but may not always be successful.4 While the concurrence would emphasize what Guatemala did, it is more important to look at the numerous instances when the government failed to act or even respond as well as the harm the government failed to prevent. The death threats Maria received continued even after Juan was fined. And Juan’s purchasing of a gun—which ultimately led Maria to flee—came after Juan was fined. Moreover, the police failed to respond to Maria’s calls for help on two occasions when Juan came to Maria’s house and threatened her and/or their children. In reviewing this evidence, the immigration court opined that it “would be left to wonder if Juan intended to kill the respondent, the mother of his four children, why would he not have done so.” AR 70, Immigration Ct. Order. But it cannot be that an applicant must wait until she is dead to show her government’s inability to control her perpetrator.

The supplemental evidence regarding Guatemala’s country conditions corroborates that Maria could not “reasonably expect the assistance of the government” in controlling Juan’s actions. Al-Ghorbani, 585 F.3d at 998; see In re S-A-, 22 I. & N. Dec. 1328 (BIA 2000). The evidence Maria submitted shows that “[t]he systemic marginalization of indigenous communities . . . continues with no meaningful efforts by the government to overcome it.” AR 285, State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2015—Guatemala. It also indicates that “[i]mpunity for perpetrators remain[s] very high,” AR 255, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2016, and that for Mayan indigenous women, there is “increased vulnerability and gender-based violence . . . exacerbated by a weak state apparatus that struggles to implement laws and programming to protect these groups.” AR 274, Guatemala Struggles to Protect Women Against Endemic Violence. Indigenous Mayan women are particularly unable to seek help from the government because they speak a different language from most of the country’s authorities. To be sure, the supplemental material does not indicate no willingness on behalf of the Guatemalan government—indeed, the country has taken some steps to codify laws prohibiting violence against women—but rather, the material reinforces the country’s lack of

4The concurrence’s reference to the enforcement of domestic abuse law violations in this country is both inapt and irrelevant.

 

No. 18-3500 Juan Antonio v. Barr Page 18 resources and infrastructure necessary to protect indigenous Mayan women from their perpetrators.

Further, the Board’s conclusion that Maria did not meet her burden of showing that the Guatemalan government was “helpless” relies on a standard that has since been deemed arbitrary and capricious. AR 5, BIA Decision. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia found that the “complete helplessness” standard is arbitrary, capricious, contrary to law, and “not a permissible construction of the persecution requirement.” Grace v. Whitaker, 344 F. Supp. 3d 96, 130 (D.D.C. 2018).

Thus, the Board’s conclusion that Maria did not demonstrate that the Guatemalan government was unwilling or unable to control Juan is not supported by “reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole.” Zhao, 569 F.3d at 247 (quoting Koulibaly, 541 F.3d at 619). Maria’s testimony about her experiences, corroborated by supplemental evidence of the conditions for indigenous Mayan women in Guatemala, compels a contrary conclusion to that of the Board. See Mandebvu, 755 F.3d at 424. Based on the evidence in the record, Maria could not “reasonably expect the assistance of the government” in controlling Juan’s actions. Al-Ghorbani, 585 F.3d at 998. We therefore vacate the Board’s finding that Maria did not show that the government was unable or unwilling to protect her and remand so the agency can reconsider her application consistent with this opinion.

 

*****************************

Thanks to my Round Table colleague Judge Jeffrey Chase for spotting this decision and sending it my way.

And congratulations to Margaret Wong, Esquire, of Cleveland, OH, who represented the respondent so ably before the 6th Circuit. Margaret and the attorneys from her firm appeared before me numerous times during the many years that I was assigned to the Cleveland docket part-time from Arlington, with most of the hearings taking place by televideo.

Margaret W./ Wong
Margaret W./ Wong
Senior PartnerMargaret W. Wong & Associates LLC

The BIA’s bogus “helpless standard” came directly from Matter of A-B-Sessions’s unethical, legally incorrect, and misogynistic attempt to write female domestic violence victims from Central America out of refugee protections as part of his White Nationalist agenda. Judge Gibbons’s opinion found persuasive U.S. District Judge Sullivan’s (D. D.C.) conclusion in Grace v. Whitaker that Sessions’s A-B- atrocity was “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law.”  

This further confirms the problems of a politicized and weaponized Immigration Court system controlled by anti-asylum politicos. How many more “Marias” are out there who are arbitrarily denied protection by the Immigration Courts and the BIA, but lack the ability to obtain competent counsel to assist them and/or are not fortunate enough to have a Court of Appeals panel that takes their case seriously, rather than just “deferring” to the BIA? For example, the Fifth Circuit has “tanked” on the A-B- issue. And, today, the Trump regime is being allowed to turn away asylum seekers at the border in violation of law and without any meaningful opportunity whatsoever to present a claim.

Disgraceful as the BIA’s performance was in this case, worse happens every day in the broken Immigration Court system and the abusive, scofflaw enforcement system administered by the Trump regime. And those charged with putting an end to such blatant violations of law and human rights – the Article III Judiciary – have largely shirked their duty to put an end to this unconstitutional, illegal, unethical, and inhumane “bad joke” of a “court system” and to stop the regime’s illegal abrogation of U.S. asylum laws.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-19-20

 

 

 

“KILLER ON THE ROAD” – EMBOLDENED BY THE COMPLICITY OF THE “ROBERTS’ COURT,” GOP ABDICATION OF LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT, & BREAKDOWN OF DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS AND VALUES, REGIME APPARENTLY PLANNING EXTRALEGAL MOVE TO KILL MORE OF THE MOST VULNERABLE REFUGEES – Refugee Women, Children, LGBTQ Community, Victims Of Government-Enabled Gangs Said To Among Targets of Miller/Trump White Nationalist “American Death Squads!”

Dead Refugee Child
Dead Refugee Child Washes Ashore in Turkey — Stephen Miller Hopes To Kill More Refugees in The Americas
Stephen Miller & Wife
Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Miller Look Forward to Planning Together for More “Crimes Against Humanity” Targeting World’s Most Vulnerable Refugees

“KILLER ON THE ROAD” – EMBOLDENED BY THE COMPLICITY OF THE “ROBERTS’ COURT,” GOP ABDICATION OF LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT, & BREAKDOWN OF DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS AND VALUES, REGIME APPARENTLY PLANNING EXTRALEGAL MOVE TO KILL MORE OF THE MOST VULNERABLE REFUGEES – Refugee Women, Children, LGBTQ Community, Victims Of Government-Enabled Gangs Said To Among Targets of Miller/Trump White Nationalist “American Death Squads!”

 

“There’s a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin’ like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If ya give this man a ride
Sweet memory will die
Killer on the road, yeah”

 

— From “Riders on the Storm” by The Doors (1971)

 

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

Feb. 24, 2019

 

I have been getting “unverified hearsay” reports from Courtside readers and others across the country that an emboldened and now totally unrestrained Trump regime actively is planning an all-out extralegal, extrajudicial onslaught against established asylum laws. It’s likely to claim the lives of many of the most vulnerable and deserving asylum seekers in the United States.

 

Predictably, this atrocious attack on humanity and human dignity is the “brainchild” of newly married neo-fascist White Nationalist hate monger Stephen Miller. Although unconfirmed, these reports have come from diverse enough sources and sound so consistent with the regime’s nativist, xenophobic approach to asylum that I, for one, give them credence. It’s time to start sounding the alarm for the regime’s latest vile assault on the rule of law and our common humanity!

 

I have gleaned that there is a 200-page anti-asylum screed floating around the bowels of the regime’s immigration bureaucracy representing more or less the nativist version of the “final solution” for asylum seekers. The gist of this monumental effort boils down along these lines:

 

[W]ould ban the grant of asylum claims involving PSGs defined solely by criminal activity, terrorist activity, persecutory actions, presence in country with generally high crime rates, attempted recruitment by criminal, terrorist, persecutors, perception of wealth, interpersonal disputes which government were not aware of or involved in and do not extend countrywide; private criminal acts which government was not aware of and do not extend countrywide; status as returned from U.S. and gender. Note the inclusion of “gender” at the end.

 

Thus, in one “foul swoop” the regime would illegally: 1) strip women and the LGBTQ community of their decades-long, hard-won rights to protection under asylum laws; 2) eliminate the current rebuttable regulatory “presumption of countrywide future persecution” for those who have suffered past persecution; 3) reverse decades of well-established U.S. and international rulings that third party actions that the government was unwilling or unable to protect against constitute persecution; and 4) encourage adjudicators to ignore the legal requirement to consider “mixed motivation” in deciding asylum cases.

 

There is neither legal nor moral justification for this intentional distortion and rewriting of established human rights principles. Indeed, in my experience of more than two decades as a judge at both the appellate and trial levels, a substantial number, perhaps a majority, of the successful asylum and/or withholding of removal claims in Immigration Court involved non-governmental parties and/or gender-based “particular social groups.” They were some of the clearest, most deserving, and easiest to grant asylum cases coming before the Immigration Courts.

 

At the “pre-Trump” Arlington Immigration Court, many of these cases were so well-documented and clearly “grantable” that they were “pre-tried” by the parties and moved up on my docket by “joint motion” for “short hearing” grants. This, in turn, encouraged and rewarded multiparty cooperation and judicial efficiency. It was “due process with efficiency, in action.”

 

Consequently, in addition to its inherent lawlessness, cruelty, and intentional inhumanity, the regime’s proposed actions will stymie professional cooperation between parties and inhibit judicial efficiency. This is just one of many ways in which the regime has used a combination of wanton cruelty and “malicious incompetence” to artificially “jack up” the Immigration Court backlog to over 1.3 million pending and “waiting” cases, even with the hiring of hundreds of additional Immigration Judges.

 

In a functioning democracy, with an independent judiciary, staffed by judges with knowledge, integrity, and courage, you might expect a timely judicial intervention to block this impending legal travesty and humanitarian disaster as soon as it becomes effective. But, as Justice Sotomayor recently pointed out in a blistering dissent, Chief Justice Roberts and his four GOP colleagues appear to have “tilted” in favor of the regime.

 

They can’t roll over and bend the laws fast enough to “greenlight” each new immigrant-bashing gimmick instituted by the regime. Moreover, as I’m sure is intended, once these new anti-asylum regulations are railroaded into force, the USCIS Asylum Offices will deny “credible fear” in nearly all cases, thus preventing most asylum applicants from even getting a day in court to properly challenge the regulations. All this will happen while the life-tenured Article III Courts look the other way.

 

For Stephen Miller, the coming Armageddon for defenseless asylum seekers must represent the ultimate triumph of fascism over democracy, hate over reason, and racism over tolerance. Miller was recently quoted in a New Yorker article about how screwing asylum applicants, and presumably knowing that they and their families would suffer and die, be tortured, or be otherwise harmed by his unlawful acts, was, in effect, his “life’s dream.” “It’s just that this is all I care about. I don’t have a family. I don’t have anything else. This is my life,” said Miller after a meeting in which he had promoted a fraudulent “Safe Third Country Agreement” with El Salvador, a country he acknowledged was without a functioning asylum system.” https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/stephen-miller-immigration-this-is-my-life.html.

 

It appears that even Miller’s forlorn “love life” has taken an upturn. Although the Trump Administration has been a “coming out party” for racists, White Nationalists, and White Supremacists of all stripes, the “hater dater circuit” has remained somewhat “restricted.” Evidently, not everyone “gets off” on the chance to get “up close and personal” with “wannabe war criminals.”

 

Nevertheless, in the middle of all the suffering he has caused, Miller finally found somebody who apparently hates and despises humanity just as much as he does, in Vice Presidential Press Secretary Katie Waldman. They were recently married at the Trump Hotel in D.C. with the “Hater-in-Chief” himself attending the festivities. How can America “get any greater,” particularly if you have the good fortune not to be a refugee condemned to rape, torture, abuse, family separation, beatings, disfiguration, burning, cutting, extortion or other horribles by this cruel, scofflaw, and “maliciously incompetent” regime?

 

 

 

 

HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/02/05/deported-danger/united-states-deportation-policies-expose-salvadorans-death-and

February 5, 2020

Deported to Danger

United States Deportation Policies Expose Salvadorans to Death and Abuse

Summary

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February 5, 2020

US: Deported Salvadorans Abused, Killed

Stop Deporting Salvadorans Who Would Face Risks to Their Safety, Lives

The US government has deported people to face abuse and even death in El Salvador. The US is not solely responsible—Salvadoran gangs who prey on deportees and Salvadoran authorities who harm deportees or who do little or nothing to protect them bear direct responsibility—but in many cases the US is putting Salvadorans in harm’s way in circumstances where it knows or should know that harm is likely.

Of the estimated 1.2 million Salvadorans living in the United States who are not US citizens, just under one-quarter are lawful permanent residents, with the remaining three-quarters lacking papers or holding a temporary or precarious legal status. While Salvadorans have asylum recognition rates as high as 75 percent in other Central American nations, and 36.5 percent in Mexico, the US recognized just 18.2 percent of Salvadorans as qualifying for asylum from 2014 to 2018. Between 2014-2018, the US and Mexico have deported about 213,000 Salvadorans (102,000 from Mexico and 111,000 from the United States).

No government, UN agency, or nongovernmental organization has systematically monitored what happens to deported persons once back in El Salvador. This report begins to fill that gap. It shows that, as asylum and immigration policies tighten in the United States and dire security problems continue in El Salvador, the US is repeatedly violating its obligations to protect Salvadorans from return to serious risk of harm.

Some deportees are killed following their return to El Salvador. In researching this report, we identified or investigated 138 cases of Salvadorans killed since 2013 after deportation from the US. We found these cases by combing through press accounts and court files, and by interviewing surviving family members, community members, and officials. There is no official tally, however, and our research suggests that the number of those killed is likely greater.

Though much harder to identify because they are almost never reported by the press or to authorities, we also identified or investigated over 70 instances in which deportees were subjected to sexual violence, torture, and other harm, usually at the hands of gangs, or who went missing following their return.

In many of these more than 200 cases, we found a clear link between the killing or harm to the deportee upon return and the reasons they had fled El Salvador in the first place. In other cases, we lacked sufficient evidence to establish such a link. Even the latter cases, however, show the risks to which Salvadorans can be exposed upon return and the importance of US authorities giving them a meaningful opportunity to explain why they need protection before they are deported.

The following three cases illustrate the range of harms:

  • In 2010, when he was 17, Javier B. fled gang recruitment and his particularly violent neighborhood for the United States, where his mother, Jennifer B., had already fled. Javier was denied asylum and was deported in approximately March 2017, when he was 23 years old. Jennifer said Javier was killed four months later while living with his grandmother: “That’s actually where they [the gang, MS-13 (or Mara Salvatrucha-13)] killed him.… It’s terrible. They got him from the house at 11:00 a.m. They saw his tattoos. I knew they’d kill him for his tattoos. That is exactly what happened.… The problem was with [the gang] MS [-13], not with the police.” (According to Human Rights Watch’s research, having tattoos may be a source of concern, even if the tattoo is not gang-related).

 

  • In 2013, cousins Walter T. and Gaspar T. also fled gang recruitment when they were 16 and 17 years old, respectively. They were denied asylum and deported by the United States to El Salvador in 2019. Gaspar explained that in April or May 2019 when he and Walter were sleeping at their respective homes in El Salvador, a police patrol arrived “and took me and Walter and three others from our homes, without a warrant and without a reason. They began beating us until we arrived at the police barracks. There, they held us for three days, claiming we’d be charged with illicit association (agrupaciones ilícitas). We were beaten [repeatedly] during those three days.”

 

  • In 2014, when she was 20, Angelina N. fled abuse at the hands of Jaime M., the father of her 4-year-old daughter, and of Mateo O., a male gang member who harassed her repeatedly. US authorities apprehended her at the border trying to enter the US and deported her that same year. Once back in El Salvador, she was at home in October 2014, when Mateo resumed pursuing and threatening her. Angelina recounted: “[He] came inside and forced me to have sex with him for the first time. He took out his gun.… I was so scared that I obeyed … when he left, I started crying. I didn’t say anything at the time or even file a complaint to the police. I thought it would be worse if I did because I thought someone from the police would likely tell [Mateo].… He told me he was going to kill my father and my daughter if I reported the [original and three subsequent] rapes, because I was ‘his woman.’ [He] hit me and told me that he wanted me all to himself.”

As in these three cases, some people deported from the United States back to El Salvador face the same abusers, often in the same neighborhoods, they originally fled: gang members, police officers, state security forces, and perpetrators of domestic violence. Others worked in law enforcement in El Salvador and now fear persecution by gangs or corrupt officials.

Deportees also include former long-term US residents, who with their families are singled out as easy and lucrative targets for extortion or abuse. Former long-term residents of the US who are deported may also readily run afoul of the many unspoken rules Salvadorans must follow in their daily lives in order to avoid being harmed.

Nearly 900,000 Salvadorans living in the US without papers or only a temporary status together with the thousands leaving El Salvador each month to seek safety in the US are increasingly at risk of deportation. The threat of deportation is on the rise due to various Trump administration policy changes affecting US immigration enforcement inside its borders and beyond, changes that exacerbated the many hurdles that already existed for individuals seeking protection and relief from deportation.

Increasingly, the United States is pursuing policies that shift responsibility for immigration enforcement to countries like Mexico in an effort to avoid any obligation for the safety and well-being of migrants and protection of asylum-seekers. As ever-more restrictive asylum and immigration policies take hold in the US, this situation—for Salvadorans, and for others—will only worsen. Throughout, US authorities are turning a blind eye to the abuse Salvadorans face upon return.

Some people from El Salvador living in the United States have had a temporary legal status known as “Temporary Protected Status” or “TPS,” which has allowed those present in the United States since February 2001 (around 195,000 people) to build their lives in the country with limited fear of deportation. Similarly, in 2012, the Obama administration provided some 26,000 Salvadorans with “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” or “DACA” status, which afforded some who had arrived as children with a temporary legal status. The Trump administration had decided to end TPS in January 2020, but to comply with a court order extended work authorization to January 2021. It remains committed to ending DACA.

While challenges to both policies wend their way through the courts, people live in a precarious situation in which deportation may occur as soon as those court cases are resolved (at the time of writing the DACA issue was before the US Supreme Court; and the TPS work authorization extension to January 2021 could collapse if a federal appellate court decides to reverse an injunction on the earlier attempt to terminate TPS).

Salvadoran asylum seekers are also increasingly at risk of deportation and return. The Trump administration has pursued a series of policy initiatives aimed at making it harder for people fleeing their countries to seek asylum in the United States by separating children from their parents, limiting the number of people processed daily at official border crossings, prolonging administrative detention, imposing fees on the right to seek asylum, extending from 180 days to one year the bar on work authorization after filing an asylum claim, barring asylum for those who transited another country before entering the United States, requiring asylum seekers to await their hearings in Mexico, where many face dangers, and attempting to narrow asylum.

These changes aggravated pre-existing flaws in US implementation of its protection responsibilities and came as significant numbers of people sought protection outside of El Salvador. In the decade from 2009 to 2019, according to government data, Mexican and United States officials made at least 732,000 migration-related apprehensions of Salvadoran migrants crossing their territory (175,000 were made by Mexican authorities and just over 557,000 by US authorities).

According to the United Nations’ refugee agency, the number of Salvadorans expressing fear of being seriously harmed if returned to El Salvador has skyrocketed. Between 2012 and 2017, the number of Salvadoran annual asylum applicants in the US grew by nearly 1,000 percent, from about 5,600 to over 60,000. By 2018, Salvadorans had the largest number (101,000) of any nationality of pending asylum applications in the United States. At the same time, approximately 129,500 more Salvadorans had pending asylum applications in numerous other countries throughout the world. People are fleeing El Salvador in large numbers due to the violence and serious human rights abuses they face at home, including one of the highest murder rates in the world and very high rates of sexual violence and disappearance.

Despite clear prohibitions in international law on returning people to risk of persecution or torture, Salvadorans often cannot avoid deportation from the US. Unauthorized immigrants, those with temporary status, and asylum seekers all face long odds. They are subjected to deportation in a system that is harsh and punitive—plagued with court backlogs, lack of access to effective legal advice and assistance, prolonged and inhumane detention, and increasingly restrictive legal definitions of who merits protection. The US has enlisted Mexico—which has a protection system that its own human rights commission has called “broken”—to stop asylum seekers before they reach the US and host thousands returned to wait for their US proceedings to unfold. The result is that people who need protection may be returned to El Salvador and harmed, even killed.

Instead of deterring and deporting people, the US should focus on receiving those who cross its border with dignity and providing them a fair chance to explain why they need protection. Before deporting Salvadorans living in the United States, either with TPS or in some other immigration status, US authorities should take into account the extraordinary risks former long-term residents of the US may face if sent back to the country of their birth. The US should address due process failures in asylum adjudications and adopt a new legal and policy framework for protection that embraces the current global realities prompting people to flee their homes by providing “complementary protection” to anyone who faces real risk of serious harm.

As immediate and first steps, the United States government should adopt the following six recommendations to begin to address the problems identified in this report. Additional medium- and long-term legal and policy recommendations appear in the final section of this report.

  • The Trump administration should repeal the Migration Protection Protocols (MPP); the two Asylum Bans; and the Asylum Cooperation Agreements.
  • The Attorney General of the United States should reverse his decisions that restrict gender-based, gang-related, and family-based grounds for asylum.
  • Congress and the Executive Branch should ensure that US funding for Mexican migration enforcement activities does not erode the right to seek and receive asylum in Mexico.
  • Congress should immediately exercise its appropriation power by: 1) Refraining from providing additional funding to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) unless and until abusive policies and practices that separate families, employ unnecessary detention, violate due process rights, and violate the right to seek asylum are stopped; 2) Prohibiting the use of funds to implement the Migrant Protection Protocols, the “Asylum Bans,” or the Asylum Cooperation Agreements, or any subsequent revisions to those protocols and agreements that block access to the right to seek asylum in the United States.
  • Congress should exercise its oversight authority by requiring the Government Accountability Office and the Office of Inspector General to produce reports on the United States’ fulfilment of its asylum and protection responsibilities, including by collecting and releasing accurate data on the procedural experiences of asylum seekers (access to counsel, wait times, staff capacity to assess claims, humanitarian and protection resources available) and on harms experienced by people deported from the United States to their countries of origin.
  • Congress should enact, and the President should sign, legislation that would broadly protect individuals with Temporary Protected Status (including Salvadorans) and DACA recipients, such as the Dream and Promise Act of 2019, but without the overly broad restrictions based on juvenile conduct or information from flawed gang databases.

************************

History will neither forget nor forgive the many Article III Judges who have betrayed their oaths of office and abandoned humanity by allowing the Trump regime to run roughshod over our Constitution, the rule of law, and simple human decency.

Future generations must inject integrity, courage, and human decency into the process for appointing and confirming Article III Judges. Obviously, there is something essential missing in the legal scholarship, ethical training, and moral integrity of many of our current batch of  shallow “go along to get along” jurists!  Human lives matter!

Due Process Forever; Complicit Courts Never!

PWS

02-06-20

REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

OUR DISTINGUISHED PANEL:

Eileen Blessinger, Blessinger Legal

Lisa Johnson-Firth, Immigrants First

Andrea Rodriguez, Rodriguez Law

FBA Austin -Central America — Intro

JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW

By

Paul Wickham Schmidt

U.S. Immigration Judge (Retired)

Federal Bar Association Immigration Conference

Austin, Texas

May 17, 2019

Hi, Im Paul Schmidt, moderator of this panel. So, I have something useful to do while my wonderful colleagues do all the heavy lifting,please submit all questions to me in writing. And remember, free beer for everyone at the Bullock Texas State Museum after this panel!

Welcome to the front lines of the battle for our legal system, and ultimately for the future of our constitutional republic. Because, make no mistake, once this Administration, its nativist supporters, and enablers succeed in eradicating the rights and humanity of Central American asylum seekers, all their other enemies” — Hispanics, gays, African Americans, the poor, women, liberals, lawyers, journalists, civil servants, Democrats will be in line for Dred Scottification” — becoming non-personsunder our Constitution. If you dont know what the Insurrection Actis or Operation Wetbackwas, you should tune into todays edition of my blog immigrationcourtside.com and take a look into the future of America under our current leadersdark and disgraceful vision.

Before I introduce the Dream Teamsitting to my right, a bit of asylum history.

In 1987, the Supreme Court established in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca that a well founded fear of persecution for asylum was to be interpreted generously in favor of asylum applicants. So generously, in fact, that someone with only a 10% chance of persecution qualifies.

Shortly thereafter, the BIA followed suit with Matter of Mogharrabi, holding that asylum should be granted even in cases where persecution was significantly less than probable. To illustrate, the BIA granted asylum to an Iranian who suffered threats at the Iranian Interests Section in Washington, DC. Imagine what would happen to a similar case under todays regime!

In the 1990s, the Legacy INSenacted regulations establishing that those who had suffered past persecutionwould be presumed to have a well-founded fear of future persecution, unless the Government could show materially changed circumstances or a reasonably available internal relocation alternative that would eliminate that well-founded fear. In my experience as a judge, that was a burden that the Government seldom could meet.  

But the regulations went further and said that even where the presumption of a well founded fear had been rebutted, asylum could still be granted because of egregious past persecutionor other serious harm.

In 1996, the BIA decided the landmark case of Matter of Kasinga, recognizing that abuses directed at women by a male dominated society, such as female genital mutilation(FGM), could be a basis for granting asylum based on a particular social group.Some of us, including my good friend and colleague Judge Lory Rosenberg, staked our careers on extending that much-need protection to women who had suffered domestic violence. Although it took an unnecessarily long time, that protection eventually was realized in the 2014 precedent Matter of A-R-C-G-, long after our forced departurefrom the BIA.

And, as might be expected, over the years the asylum grant rate in Immigration Court rose steadily, from a measly 11% in the early 1980s, when EOIR was created, to 56% in 2012, in an apparent long overdue fulfillment of the generous legal promise of Cardoza-Fonseca. Added to those receiving withholding of removal and/or relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), approximately two-thirds of asylum applicants were receiving well-deserved, often life-saving legal protection in Immigration Court.

Indeed, by that time, asylum grant rates in some of the more due-process oriented courts with asylum expertise like New York and Arlington exceeded 70%, and could have been models for the future. In other words, after a quarter of a century of struggles, the generous promise of Cardoza-Fonseca was finally on the way to being fulfilled. Similarly, the vision of the Immigration Courts as through teamwork and innovation being the worlds best administrative tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for allwas at least coming into focus, even if not a reality in some Immigration Courts that continued to treat asylum applicants with hostility.

And, that doesnt count those offered prosecutorial discretion or PDby the DHS counsel. Sometimes, this was a humanitarian act to save those who were in danger if returned but didnt squarely fit the somewhat convoluted refugeedefinition as interpreted by the BIA. Other times, it appeared to be a strategic move by DHS to head off possible precedents granting asylum in close casesor in emerging circumstances.

In 2014, there was a so-called surgein asylum applicants, mostly scared women, children, and families from the Northern Triangle of Central America seeking protection from worsening conditions involving gangs, cartels, and corrupt governments.There was a well-established record of femicide and other widespread and largely unmitigated gender-based violence directed against women and gays, sometimes by the Northern Triangle governments and their agents, other times by gangs and cartels operating with the knowledge and acquiescence of the governments concerned.

Also, given the breakdown of governmental authority and massive corruption, gangs and cartels assumed quasi-governmental status, controlling territories, negotiating treaties,exacting involuntary taxes,and severely punishing those who publicly opposed their political policies by refusing to join, declining to pay, or attempting to report them to authorities. Indeed, MS-13 eventually became the largest employer in El Salvador. Sometimes, whole family groups, occupational groups, or villages were targeted for their public acts of resistance.

Not surprisingly in this context, the vast majority of those who arrived during the so-called surgepassed credible fearscreening by the DHS and were referred to the Immigration Courts, or in the case of unaccompanied minors,to the Asylum Offices, to pursue their asylum claims.

The practical legal solution to this humanitarian flow was obvious help folks find lawyers to assist in documenting and presenting their cases, screen out the non-meritorious claims and those who had prior gang or criminal associations, and grant the rest asylum. Even those not qualifying for asylum because of the arcane nexusrequirements appeared to fit squarely within the CAT protection based on likelihood of torture with government acquiescence upon return to the Northern Triangle. Some decent BIA precedents, a robust refugee program in the Northern Triangle, along with continued efforts to improve the conditions there would have sealed the deal.In other words, the Obama Administration had all of the legal tools necessary to deal effectively and humanely with the misnamed surgeas what it really was a humanitarian situation and an opportunity for our country to show human rights leadership!

But, then things took a strange and ominous turn. After years of setting records for deportations and removals, and being disingenuously called soft on enforcementby the GOP, the Obama Administration began believing the GOP myths that they were wimps. They panicked! Their collective manhooddepended on showing that they could quickly return refugees to the Northern Triangle to deterothers from coming. Thus began the weaponizationof our Immigration Court system that has continued unabated until today.

They began imprisoning families and children in horrible conditions and establishing so-called courtsin those often for profit prisons in obscure locations where attorneys generally were not readily available. They absurdly claimed that everyone should be held without bond because as a group they were a national security risk.They argued in favor of indefinite detention without bond and making children and toddlers represent themselvesin Immigration Court.

The Attorney General also sent strong messages to EOIR that hurrying folks through the system by prioritizingthem, denying their claims, stuffingtheir appeals, and returning them to the Northern Triangle with a mere veneer of due process was an essential part of the Administrations get toughenforcement program. EOIR was there to send a messageto those who might be considering fleeing for their lives dont come, you wont get in, no matter how strong your claim might be.

They took judges off of their established dockets and sent them to the Southern Border to expeditiously remove folks before they could get legal help. They insisted on jamming unprepared cases of recently arrived juveniles and adults with childrenin front of previously docketed cases, thereby generating total chaos and huge backlogs through what is known as aimless docket reshuffling(ADR).

Hurry up scheduling and ADR also resulted in more in absentiaorders because of carelessly prepared and often inadequate or wrongly addressed noticessent out by overwhelmed DHS and EOIR court staff. Sometimes DHS could remove those with in absentia orders before they got a chance to reopen their cases. Other times, folks didnt even realize a removal order had been entered until they were on their way back.

They empowered judges with unusually high asylum denial rates. By a ratio of nine to one they hired new judges from prosecutorial backgrounds, rather than from the large body of qualified candidates with experience in representing asylum applicants who might actually have been capable of working within the system to fairly and efficiently recognize meritorious cases, promote fair access to pro bono counsel, and insure that doubtful cases or those needing more attention did not get lostin the artificial backlogs being created in an absurdly mismanaged system. In other words, due process took a back seat to expedienceand fulfilling inappropriate Administration enforcement goals.

Asylum grant rates began to drop, even as conditions on the ground for refugees worldwide continued to deteriorate. Predictably, however, detention, denial, inhumane treatment, harsh rhetoric, and unfair removals failed to stop refugees from fleeing the Northern Triangle.

But, just when many of us thought things couldnt get worse, they did. The Trump Administration arrived on the scene. They put lifelong White Nationalist xenophobe nativists Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller in charge of eradicating the asylum process. Sessions decided that even artificially suppressed asylum grant rates werent providing enough deterrence; asylum seekers were still winning too many cases. So he did away with A-R-C-G- and made it harder for Immigration Judges to control their dockets.

He tried to blame asylum seekers and their largely pro bono attorneys, whom he called dirty lawyers,for having created a population of 11 million undocumented individuals in the U.S. He promoted bogus claims and false narratives about immigrants and crime. Perhaps most disgustingly, he was the mastermindbehind the policy of child separationwhich inflicted lifetime damage upon the most vulnerable and has resulted in some children still not being reunited with their families.

He urged judgesto summarily deny asylum claims of women based on domestic violence or because of fear of persecution by gangs. He blamed the judges for the backlogs he was dramatically increasing with more ADR and told them to meet new quotas for churning out final orders or be fired. He made it clear that denials of asylum, not grants, were to be the new normfor final orders.

His sycophantic successor, Bill Barr, an immigration hard-liner, immediately picked up the thread by eliminating bond for most individuals who had passed credible fear. Under Barr, the EOIR has boldly and publicly abandoned any semblance of due process, fairness, or unbiased decision making in favor of becoming an Administration anti-asylum propaganda factory. Just last week they put out a bogus fact sheetof lies about the asylum process and the dedicated lawyers trying to help asylum seekers. The gist was that the public should believe that almost all asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle are mala fide and that getting them attorneys and explaining their rights are a waste of time and money.

In the meantime, the Administration has refused to promptly process asylum applicants at ports of entry; made those who have passed credible fear wait in Mexicoin dangerous and sometimes life-threatening conditions; unsuccessfully tried to suspend the law allowing those who enter the U.S. between ports of entry to apply for asylum; expanded the New American Gulagwith tent cities and more inhumane prisons dehumanizingly referred to as bedsas if they existed without reference to those humans confined to them;  illegally reprogrammed money that could have gone for additional humanitarian assistance to a stupid and unnecessary wall;and threatened to dumpasylum seekers to punishso-called sanctuary cities.Perhaps most outrageously, in violation of clear statutory mandates, they have replaced trained Asylum Officers in the credible fearprocess with totally unqualified Border Patrol Agents whose job is to make the system adversarialand to insure that fewer individuals pass credible fear.

The Administration says the fact that the credible fearpass rate is much higher than the asylum grant rate is evidence that the system is being gamed.Thats nativist BS! The, reality is just the opposite: that so many of those who pass credible fear are eventually rejected by Immigration Judges shows that something is fundamentally wrong with the Immigration Court system. Under pressure to produce and with too many biased, untrained, and otherwise unqualified judges,many claims that should be granted are being wrongfully denied.

Today, the Immigration Courts have become an openly hostile environment for asylum seekers and their representatives. Sadly, the Article III Courts arent much better, having largely swallowed the whistleon a system that every day blatantly mocks due process, the rule of law, and fair and unbiased treatment of asylum seekers. Many Article IIIs continue to deferto decisions produced not by expert tribunals,but by a fraudulent court system that has replaced due process with expediency and enforcement.

But, all is not lost. Even in this toxic environment, there are pockets of judges at both the administrative and Article III level who still care about their oaths of office and are continuing to grant asylum to battered women and other refugees from the Northern Triangle. Indeed, I have been told that more than 60 gender-based cases from Northern Triangle countries have been  granted by Immigration Judges across the country even after Sessionss blatant attempt to snuff out protection for battered women in Matter of A-B-. Along with dependent family members, that means hundreds of human lives of refugees saved, even in the current age.

Also significantly, by continuing to insist that asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle be treated fairly in accordance with due process and the applicable laws, we are making a record of the current legal and constitutional travesty for future generations. We are building a case for an independent Article I Immigration Court, for resisting nativist calls for further legislative restrictions on the rights of asylum seekers, and for eventually holding the modern day Jim Crowswho have abused the rule of law and human values, at all levels of our system, accountable, before the court of historyif nothing else!

Eventually, we will return to the evolving protection of asylum seekers in the pre-2014 era and eradicate the damage to our fundamental values and the rule of law being done by this Administrations nativist, White Nationalist policies.Thats what the New Due Process Armyis all about.

Here to tell you how to effectively litigate for the New Due Process Army and to save even more lives of deserving refugees from all areas of the world, particularly from the Northern Triangle, are three of the best ever.I know that, because each of them appeared before me during my tenure at the Arlington Immigration Court. They certainly brightened up my day whenever they appeared, and I know they will enlighten you with their legal knowledge, energy, wit, and humanity.

Andrea Rodriguez is the principal of Rodriguez Law in Arlington Virginia. Prior to opening her own practice, Andrea was the Director of Legal Services at the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN). She is a graduate of the City University of New York Law and George Mason University.  

Eileen Blessinger is the principal of Blessinger Legal in Falls Church, Virginia. Eileen is a graduate of the Washington College of Law at American University.  In addition to heading a multi-attorney practice firm, she is a frequent commentator on legal issues on television and in the print media.

Lisa Johnson-Firth is the principal of Immigrants First, specializing in removal defense, waivers, family-based adjustment, asylum and Convention Against Torture claims, naturalization, U and T visas, and Violence Against Women Act petitions. She holds a J.D. from Northeastern University, an LLB from the University of Sheffield in the U.K., and a B.A. degree from Allegheny College.

Andrea, starting with you, whats the real situation in the Northern Triangle and the sordid history of the chronic failure of state protection?

PWS

05-20-19