📖 BOOKS: BLITZING ⚡️ BORDER MYTHS & SACKING 🏈 SELECTIVE HISTORICAL AMNESIA — Jonathan Blitzer Takes On Generations Of Official Misconduct, Human Misery At The Border — PLUS: Here’s Your Chance To Hear From Those Migrants Whose Voices Are Ignored By U.S. Politicos & Media, Courtesy Of Immigration Law & Justice Network & The Hope Border Institute!

Jonathan Blitzer
Jonathan Blitzer
American Author & Staff Writer, The New Yorker
PHGOTO: Linkedin

Read Manuel Roig-Franzia’s WashPost review of Jonathan Blitzer’s book “Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here:”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/02/05/everyone-gone-here-blitzer-review/

Blitzer’s villains include “[n]umerous U.S. institutions, bureaucrats, and presidents” who supported and enabled “savage governments responsible for vast numbers of people killed — many of them poor and Indigenous.” 

Blitzer has particular contempt for “one of the most ineptly titled American officials ever — the State Department’s assistant secretary for human rights, Elliott Abrams — [who] tried to suppress information about the massacre of 978 people, including 477 children, in the Salvadoran village of Mozote.” Abrams, later was convicted of misdemeanors for withholding information from Congress in connection with the Iran-Contra scandal, but was pardoned by Bush I. 

Our political bureaucracy continues to have infinite capacity for inventing intentionally misleading, mocking titles that directly contravene truth, particularly when it comes to abusing human rights. For example, the so-called “Migrant Protection Protocols” (a/k/a “Remain in Mexico”) were quite specifically intended to unlawfully reject migrants who had established a “credible fear” of persecution! The MPP resulted in numerous “publicly documented cases of rape, kidnapping, assault, and other crimes committed against individuals sent back under MPP.” See https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjq1pmw_qWEAxUwL1kFHUbSDMIQFnoECBAQAw&url=https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/migrant-protection-protocols#:~:text=According%20to%20Human%20Rights%20First,individuals%20sent%20back%20under%20MPP.&usg=AOvVaw2ehZRBR_jXYoI41NZZN2DK&opi=8997844.

According to U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal, the MPP “trapped [] asylum seekers in Mexico in dangerous conditions that impeded their ability to access the U.S. asylum system or obtain legal representation.” See https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjLgaLW_6WEAxUqFmIAHb5MDlEQFnoECCYQAQ&url=https://immigrationimpact.com/2023/03/24/where-the-migrant-protection-protocols-stand-four-years/&usg=AOvVaw18vgP5kU86mgTigCBEFLNY&opi=89978449%0A%0A.

Among Blitzer’s unsung heroes are “relentless US. immigration advocates,” the late Rep. Joe Moakley (D-MA) who “grasped all the nuances of U.S.-manufactured border crises,” and of course, an “array of migrants” who bravely persevered in the face of treacherous, dishonest, ill-informed, and often deadly U.S. immigration policies intended to “break them” and destroy their humanity. That disgraceful process continues today — on steroids!

The review ends on a perhaps unexpectedly optimistic note:

And yet, after reading Blitzer’s book, one can’t help but think that the impossible might be possible — that maybe, just maybe, this could be fixed. He’s not trying to lay out a set of policy solutions. He’s making a more nuanced plea, a rejection of the “selective amnesia” of politics in favor of a deeper understanding of how we — as a nation and as a region — got here.

It is a book with a “mission,” he writes, a nudge for U.S. decision-makers and a platform for voices on the other side of the border, a “kind of go-between: to tell each side’s story to the other; to find a way to bring the Homeland Security officials into the housing-complex basement; and to allow the migrants in the basement to participate, for once, in the privileged backroom conversations that decide their fate.”

Hopefully, those with the power to change things will listen.

Manuel Roig-Franzia is a Washington Post features writer and formerly served as The Post’s bureau chief in Miami and Mexico.

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

Following up on the last point — the “seldom-heard and never-heeded by our politicos and media” voices of those whose lives and humanity are threatened by our failed policies, this Thursday, Feb. 15, @ 3 PM EST, Immigration Law & Justice Network & The Hope Border Institute will present a free webinar, “Stop The War On The Border: Migrants Speak: 

pastedGraphic.png

Stop the War on the Border: Migrants Speak – Detengan la Guerra en la Frontera: Migrantes Hablan

Date & Time

Feb 15, 2024 03:00 PM in

Description

ILJ Network and our partners invite you to participate in this webinar and hear directly from migrants in the northern Mexican border and the U.S. interior on how restrictions to asylum and humanitarian parole impact their lives.

ILJ Network y compañeros de coaliciones los invita a participar en este evento virtual para escuchar directamente de migrantes, ubicados entre la parte Norte de México y el interior de los Estados Unidos, acerca de cómo dichas restricciones al derecho de asilo y de parole humanitario impactan sus vidas.

Webinar Registration

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_efx1ZeUqTCmSOVCBNTRxrg#/registration?os=ipad

Information you provide when registering will be shared with the account owner and host and can be used and shared by them in accordance with their Terms and Privacy Policy.

This is very timely! Rarely do we hear from those whose lives, dignity, and safety are being bargained away and devalued as if they were “commodities” at the disposal of disingenuous politicos and interests who have turned their misery and desperation into “profit centers” and political rallying cries.

🏈🏆Finally, on another topic, congrats to Coach Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs, and “Chiefs’ Superfan” Taylor Swift on their second consecutive Lombardi Trophy and third in five seasons.  As almost everyone in sleep-deprived America knows by now, KC outlasted the SF 49ers in yesterday’s Super Bowl ending with a thrilling overtime finish 25-22!

For everyone else, including my Green Bay Packers, it’s “wait till next season!”😎

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-12-24

🤮 AMERICAN ASYLUM POLICY: GOP POLITICOS PANDER, ADMINISTRATION BUILDS WALLS, DEMS PREPARE TO THROW ASYLUM SEEKERS UNDER THE BUS (AGAIN) — What Happens To Those Waiting To Use “CBP One” At The Border? — They Get Raped & Extorted!   — “It’s the saddest, most horrible thing that can happen to a person!”

""Rape of the Sabine Women"
“Rape of the Sabine Women”
Peter Paul Rubens
Circa 1635
Public Domain

From Reuters:

https://www.voanews.com/a/migrants-being-raped-at-mexico-border-as-they-await-entry-to-us-/7291239.html

REYNOSA, MEXICO —

When Carolina’s captors arrived at dawn to pull her out of the stash house in the Mexican border city of Reynosa in late May, she thought they were going to force her to call her family in Venezuela again to beg them to pay $2,000 ransom.

Instead, one of the men shoved her onto a broken-down bus parked outside and raped her, she told Reuters. “It’s the saddest, most horrible thing that can happen to a person,” Carolina said.

A migrant advocate who assisted Carolina after the kidnapping, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, confirmed all the details of her account.

The attack came amid an increase in sexual violence against migrants in the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros, both major transit routes for immigrants seeking to enter the U.S., according to data from the Mexican government and humanitarian groups, as well as interviews with eight sexual assault survivors and more than a dozen local aid workers.

“The inhumane way smugglers abuse, extort, and perpetrate violence against migrants for profit is criminal and morally reprehensible,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Luis Miranda said in response to questions about the rise in reported rapes.

Criminal investigations into the rape of foreign nationals, excluding Americans, were the highest on record in the two cities this year, according to state data from 2014 to 2023 obtained by Reuters through freedom of information requests.

The U.S. State Department considers Tamaulipas, where the two cities are located, to be the most dangerous state along the U.S.-Mexico border.

. . . .

A Venezuelan migrant said he was kidnapped in May in Reynosa by a cartel while traveling to the border for his confirmed CBP One appointment. He couldn’t raise the full $800 ransom, so he was forced to work for two months to pay off the remaining $200, he said.

Two other migrants who said they were held at the house during the same time period confirmed the man was forced to work against his will, and that they heard female migrants being raped.

On the nights the Venezuelan man was tasked with standing guard over the other migrants, he said he watched the cartel members ask the man in charge of the house for permission to rape the women of their choosing.

He said the answer was always the same: “Take her.”

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

Read the full article at the link.

Walls, detention, eliminating the right to asylum aren’t going to solve this. But, solving it doesn’t  seem to be the objective. Blaming the victims is a lot easier than treating them as human beings. 

As my friend Debi Sanders (who alerted me to this report) said: “Terrifying!” Yup! 🤯🏴‍☠️

How disingenuous is the Biden Administration’s latest attempt to “get tough” at the border with more proven to fail deterrence?  Well, just this week, DHS announced plans to deport more individuals to Venezuela. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-restarting-direct-deportations-venezuela-senior-official-2023-10-05/

Yet, just a few days earlier, in deciding to extend TPS to nearly a half million Venezuelans in the US, that same DHS found:

Overview

Venezuela continues to face a severe humanitarian emergency due to a political and economic crisis, as well as human rights violations and abuses and high levels of crime and violence, that impacts access to food, medicine, healthcare, water, electricity, and fuel, and has led to high levels of poverty. Additionally, Venezuela has recently experienced heavy rainfall in the spring and summer of 2023 which triggered flooding and landslides. Given the current conditions in Venezuela, these issues contribute to the country’s existing challenges.

Venezuela is experiencing “an unprecedented political, economic, and humanitarian crisis.” [5] “Venezuela is suffering one of the worst humanitarian crises in the history of the Western Hemisphere,” which has been characterized by “[h]igh levels of poverty, food insecurity, malnutrition, and infant mortality, together with frequent electricity outages and the collapse of health infrastructure.” [6] Though there were some positive developments in Venezuela in 2022 “as the economy stabilized and showed signs of economic growth,” the effects of these changes were not felt across the Venezuelan population and did not offset the impact of the large-scale economic contraction which resulted in significant humanitarian challenges that continue today and will take time to address.[7]

Political Repression and Human Rights

The Maduro regime has closed off channels for political dissent, restricting enjoyment of civil liberties and “prosecuting perceived opponents without regard for due process.” [8] The UN Human Rights Council’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (IIFFM) found in its September 2022 report, “Venezuela’s military and civilian intelligence agencies function as well-coordinated and effective structures in the implementation of a plan” to “repress dissent.” [9]

Crime and Insecurity

Venezuela has one of the highest rates of violent deaths in the world.[10] Additionally, “Venezuelans face physical insecurity and violence from several sources, including irregular armed groups, security forces, and organized gangs.” [11] Corruption in Venezuela exacerbates insecurity. InSight Crime has reported that “criminal groups and corrupt state actors together form a hybrid state that combines governance with criminality, and where illegal armed groups act at the service of the state, while criminal networks form within it.” [12] Human trafficking remains a serious concern. Traffickers exploit and subject Venezuelans, including those fleeing the country, to egregious forms of exploitation, including sex trafficking and forced labor.[13] Members of non-state armed groups that operate in the country with impunity, subject Venezuelans to forced labor and forced criminality, and recruit or use child soldiers.[14]

Economic Collapse

Since 2014, Venezuela has suffered from an “economic recession marked by hyperinflation, shortages of basic goods and a collapse in public services such as electricity and water.” [15] Recently, Venezuela’s economy has shown some signs of recovery; however, it is still in a precarious condition.[16] In a report covering the period from May 2022 through April 2023, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) noted that while economic growth which occurred in 2022 “would bring hope for improved economic prospects, persistent challenges and other factors continued to negatively affect essential public services, transport, education, and health.” [17]

In its annual report covering 2022, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) noted “the high rates of poverty and inequality in the country, in which there are estimates that more than 90% of the population lives in poverty.” [18] The same report stated that “as of March 2022, HumVenezuela estimated that 94.5% of the population would not have sufficient income to cover items such as food, housing, health, education, transportation and clothing.” [19]

Health Crisis

Various sources have referred to severe problems with health systems in Venezuela, including the IACHR, Human Rights Watch, and the Congressional Research Service (CRS).[20] Per The Associated Press, Venezuela’s “health care system crumbled long before” the start of the COVID–19 pandemic.[21] Likewise, in its 2022 annual report, the IACHR acknowledged that while the COVID–19 pandemic “has had significant impacts on the health sector and the population, the serious affectations of the system preceded the health emergency.” [22] Elaborating on this topic, the IACHR identified “shortages of medicines, supplies, materials and medical treatment” as of 2018, and that the “situation has been worsening since 2014, and it is important to highlight that the health system has reportedly collapsed due to its persistent precariousness, which would have been exacerbated by the pandemic.” [23]

According to OHCHR, health centers in Venezuela “report structural underfunding and understaffing resulting in for example, regular blackouts and water shortages.” [24] In its report on the humanitarian situation in Venezuela in 2022, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted that “[h]ealth services continue to be affected by insufficient water and sanitation conditions and the lack of electricity supply in facilities.” [25] Similarly, Human Rights Watch stated in its annual report covering 2022 that “[p]ower and water outages at healthcare centers—and emigration of healthcare workers—were further weakening operational capacity.” [26] Furthermore, the IACHR has reported that “98% of the hospitals in the country lack medicines, electrical plants and water, as well as failures in laboratories, reagents and wards. As a result, it is estimated that only between 3 and 10% of the hospitals have medical and surgical material to solve medical circumstances.” [27]

Food Insecurity

In a humanitarian response plan published in 2023, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) identified food insecurity as “the most pressing challenge for the population.” [28] Human Rights Watch stated in its annual report covering 2022 that HumVenezuela reported in March 2022 that “most Venezuelans face difficulties in accessing food, with 10.9 million undernourished or chronically hungry. Some 4.3 million are deprived of food, sometimes going days without eating.” [29] Moreover, the IACHR noted in its 2022 annual report that “32% of children live in a situation of chronic malnutrition.” [30]

Heavy Rains and Flooding

Since May 26, 2023, as hurricane season began, Venezuela has experienced heavy rains which resulted in flooding that affected several areas of the country.[31] According to ACAPS, “Between June and July there have been 19 tropical waves, that have brought heavy rains, floods and landslides across the country.” [32] As of July 11, 2023, the meteorological situation in Venezuela indicated “that rainfall and resulting damages are expected to be more severe than previous years.” [33] Reports of the damage caused by the heavy rains include 5,100 people affected with damage to houses and blockages in the drainage system in the state of Portuguesa.[34] In another area—Delta Amacuro state—around 7,500 people are affected by the 2023 floods.[35]

In summary, extraordinary and temporary conditions continue to prevent Venezuelan nationals from returning in safety due to a severe humanitarian emergency which has resulted in food insecurity and the inability to access adequate medicine, healthcare, water, electricity, and fuel. Additionally, human rights violations and abuses, high levels of poverty, high levels of crime and violence, and heavy rains and flooding prevent Venezuelan nationals from returning in safety and permitting Venezuelan noncitizens to remain in the United States temporarily would not be contrary to the interests of the United States.

Based on this review and after consultation with appropriate U.S. Government agencies, the Secretary has determined that:

• The conditions supporting Venezuela’s designation for TPS continue to be met. See INA sec. 244(b)(3)(A) and (C), 8 U.S.C. 1254a(b)(3)(A) and (C).

• There continues to be extraordinary and temporary conditions in Venezuela that prevent Venezuelan nationals (or individuals having no nationality who last habitually resided in Venezuela) from returning to Venezuela in safety, and it is not contrary to the national interest of the United States to permit Venezuelan TPS beneficiaries to remain in the United States temporarily. See INA sec. 244(b)(1)(C), 8 U.S.C. 1254a(b)(1)(C).

• The existing designation of Venezuela for TPS (Venezuela 2021) should be extended for an 18-month period, beginning on March 11, 2024 and ending on September 10, 2025. See INA sec. 244(b)(3)(C), 8 U.S.C. 1254a(b)(3)(C).

• Due to the conditions described above, Venezuela should be redesignated for TPS beginning on October 3, 2023, and ending on April 2, 2025. See INA sec. 244(b)(1)(C) and (b)(2), 8 U.S.C. 1254a(b)(1)(C) and (b)(2).

  • For the redesignation, the Secretary has determined that TPS applicants must demonstrate that they have continuously resided in the United States since July 31, 2023.
  • Initial TPS applicants under the redesignation must demonstrate that they have been continuously physically present in the United States since October 3, 2023, the effective date of the redesignation of Venezuela for TPS.
  • There are approximately 243,000 current Venezuela TPS beneficiaries who are eligible to re-register for TPS under the extension.

It is estimated that approximately 472,000 additional individuals may be eligible for TPS under the redesignation of Venezuela. This population includes Venezuelan nationals in the United States in nonimmigrant status or without immigration status.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-10-03/pdf/2023-21865.pdf

Does this sound like a country that will “ensure orderly, safe and legal repatriation?” Duh!

As for the DHS attempt to “blame the victims” for not taking advantage of legal opportunities, the legal right to apply for asylum in the U.S. attaches at the border to ANYONE “who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status.” INA, section 208.

With huge backlogs at both the Asylum Office and EOIR, and some problematic adjudicators, judges, administrators, and poor precedents, just how could hundreds of thousands of legal removals take place without huge systemic changes that to date the Administration has failed to make at either DHS or EOIR? Sounds like a prescription for massive legal and human rights violations!☠️

Yes, we’re going to hear chants of “we can’t take them all” from all sides. But, the truth that few acknowledge is that we haven’t and won’t be “taking them all” — not by a long shot! Of the more than 7 million who have fled the Maduro regime in Venezuela, only approximately 10% (about 750,000) have come to the U.S.! https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66875264. The vast, vast majority — approximately 90% — have taken refuge elsewhere in Latin American, in poorer countries far less able than the U.S. to absorb them! But, hey, when does truth and reality ever enter into the U.S. political debate on immigration?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-05-23

🤯 CAT-ASTROPHE: TOM MOSELEY DOWNS OIL, AS 3RD REACTS TO EOIR’S DISDAIN FOR FOLLOWING CIRCUIT PRECEDENT!

Train wreck
Train wreck — 
“A heck of a way to run the railway!”
Public Realm

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca3-on-cat-procedural-failures-not-following-instructions-llanes-quintero-v-atty-gen

“On Petition for Review of a Final Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. (Agency No. A209-343-065). Immigration Judge: David Cheng. … As for Quinteros’s Convention Against Torture claim, our precedent requires the agency to follow certain steps. Yet neither the judge nor the Board did so. … Here, neither the immigration judge nor the Board followed our instructions. … Those procedural failures infected the agency’s decisions. Neither the immigration judge nor the Board considered a separate death threat and beatings that Quinteros got from gang members. In gauging the likelihood and severity of future harm, the agency should have considered the gang’s death threat too. See Herrera-Reyes v. Att’y Gen., 952 F.3d 101, 112 n.5 (3d Cir. 2020). So we will grant the petition as to Quinteros’s Convention Against Torture claim, vacate the Board’s order, and remand.”

[Hats off to Thomas E. Moseley!]

Thomas E. Moseley
Thomas E. Moseley ESQ

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

Gee whiz, applying and following Circuit precedent seems like “Immigration Judging 101!” Yet two levels of supposedly “expert” EOIR judges blew it — badly! Fortunately, this respondent was represented by experienced Federal litigator Thomas E. Moseley, who is never afraid to go to the Article IIIs to correct EOIR’s errors.

But, most respondents aren’t so lucky.  So, it’s likely that for every defective adjudication “outed” by a Circuit, multiple, potentially deadly or at least life changing, mistakes go uncorrected. Worse yet, some are even “institutionalized!” Seems like a “heck of a way to run the railway,” particularly for a former Article III Judge who was once nominated for the Supremes!

Unforced error after unforced error in life or death cases from Garland’s substandard “courts!” Would brain surgeons 🤯☠️ who kept on screwing up critical operations still be “on staff.” I doubt it! So, why aren’t “DOJ attorneys” carrying out quasi-judicial functions subject to some quality controls? In theory, that’s supposed to be the BIA’s function. But, the BIA has firmly established itself as “part of the problem, NOT the solution!” 

Congrats to my long-time friend and former “Legacy INS” colleague Tom Moseley. As a former INS Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the SDNY (in the time of “Crazy Rudy”) during the “Inman/Schmidt Era” at INS General Counsel, Tom has also seen both sides of the system!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-27-23

☠️👎🏼 ANOTHER SUPER-SHODDY PERFORMANCE BY BIA ON CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM OUTED BY 9TH CIR. — Reyes-Corado v. Garland

Four Horsemen
BIA Asylum Panel In Action. It’s hard to ignore the BIA’s violent, deadly, abuse of asylum seekers, particularly those of color. But, somehow, Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, Vanita Gupta, Kristen Clarke, and other DOJ officials manage to look the other way, as do Congressional Dems! Too busy fecklessly complaining about Justice Clarence Thomas to look at their own house?
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

SUMMARY** Immigration

The panel granted a petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appealsdenial of Francisco Reyes-Corados motion to reopen removal proceedings based on changed circumstances, and remanded.

The Board denied reopening based, in part, on Reyes- Corados failure to include a new application for relief, as required by 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(1). The government acknowledged that under Aliyev v. Barr, 971 F.3d 1085 (9th Cir. 2020), the Board erred to the extent it relied on Reyes- Corados failure to submit a new asylum application for relief. Here, however, unlike in Aliyev, Reyes-Corado did not include his original asylum application with his motion to reopen. Consistent with the plain text of § 1003.2(c)(1) and various persuasive authorities, the panel held that a motion to reopen that adds new circumstances to a previously considered application need not be accompanied by an application for relief.

The Board also denied reopening after concluding that Reyes-Corado did not establish materially changed country conditions to warrant an exception to the time limitation on his motion to reopen. Reyes-Corado initially sought asylum relief based on threats he received from his uncles family members to discourage him from avenging his fathers murder by his uncles family. The Board previously concluded that personal retribution, rather than a protected

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

REYES-CORADO V. GARLAND 3

 ground, was the central motivation for the threats of harm. In his motion to reopen, Reyes-Corado presented evidence of persistent and intensifying threats.

As an initial matter, the panel explained that the changed circumstances Reyes-Corado presented were entirely outside of his control, and thus were properly understood as changed country conditions, not changed personal circumstances. The panel also held that these changed circumstances were material to Reyes-Corados claims for relief because they rebutted the agencys previous determination that Reyes-Corado had failed to establish the requisite nexus between the harm he feared and his membership in a familial particular social group. The panel explained that the Boards previous nexus rationale was undermined by the fact that the threats, harassment, and violence persisted despite the lack of any retribution by Reyes-Corados family against his uncles family for at least fourteen years after Reyes-Corados fathers murder, and where multiple additional family members were targeted, including elderly and young family members who would be unlikely to carry out any retribution. Thus, the panel held that the Board abused its discretion in concluding that Reyes-Corados evidence was not qualitatively different than the evidence at his original hearing.

The panel also declined to uphold the Boards determination that Reyes-Corado failed to establish prima facie eligibility for relief because Reyes-Corados new evidence likely undermined the Boards prior nexus finding, and the Board applied the improperly high one central reason” nexus standard to Reyes-Corados withholding of removal claim, rather than the less demanding a reason” standard.

4 REYES-CORADO V. GARLAND

 The panel remanded for the Board to reconsider whether Reyes-Corado established prima facie eligibility for relief and to otherwise reevaluate the motion to reopen in light of the principles set forth in the opinion.

COUNSEL

David A. Schlesinger

(argued), Kai Medeiros, and Paulina

Reyes, Jacobs & Schlesinger LLP, San Diego, California, for Petitioner.

 

Enitan O. Otunla (argued), Trial Attorney; Bernard A. Joseph, Senior Litigation Counsel; Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General; Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice; Washington, D.C.; for Respondent.

OPINION

KOH, Circuit Judge:

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

Congrats to David A. Schlesinger & colleagues!

I’ve often discussed  EOIR’s all-too-frequent use of bogus nexus determinations – basically turning normal legal rules on causation on their head – to deny protection to bona fide refugees, particularly those from Latin America and Haiti.

There is a growing body of evidence that EOIR is systematically unfair to Central American asylum applicants. But, Garland, his lieutenants, and Congressional Dems have basically looked the other way as this stunning, widespread denial of due process and equal protection under our Constitution continues to unfold in plain view on their watch! Why? Where’s the dynamic, values-based, expert, ethical leadership we should expect from a Dem Administration?

This particular example of substandard “judging” literally reeks of pre-judgement and “endemic any reason to denialism!”

Dems wring their collective hands about Justice Clarence Thomas, who is essentially unaccountable and untouchable! But, they have done little or nothing to address serious competence, bias, and ethical issues festering in a major “life or death” Federal Court System they totally control!

Lots of “talk,” not much “walk” from Dems!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-15-23

🇺🇸⚖️🗽 GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC STUDENTS SAVE ANOTHER LIFE!😎 — “[He] clicked the trigger of the gun, which made a sound, but did not fire a bullet.”

GW Law Immigration Clinic Director Professor Alberto Benítez & Co-Director Professor Paulina Vera

Professor Alberto Benítez reports:

This past Wednesday, August 2, Immigration Judge (IJ) Dinesh Verma of the Hyattsville Immigration Court granted asylum to Immigration Clinic clients R-R- and her 17-year-old son, D-R-. R-R- and D-R- have been Clinic clients since 2019 and their asylum applications were filed that year with the assistance of the Clinic. Their merits hearing was originally scheduled for 2020, but was postponed until this past Wednesday due to the pandemic. They were represented at their hearing by Immigration Clinic summer intern Brennan Eppinger, a rising 2L.

R-R- and D-R- fled Honduras after R-R- stood up to a gang member who was trying to recruit her son, D-R-, to transport drugs. D-R- was 11 years old at the time. The gang member later broke into their home, put a gun to R-R- ‘s head, asked R-R- if she had ever played Russian roulette, and the quote in the subject line is what happened next. R-R- and D-R- sought safety in the United States shortly after.

Please join me and Professor Vera in congratulating Navil Infante, Alex North, Rachel Kidd and Jasmine Elsmasry, who all worked on the case. IJ Verma is a GW Law alum and was a student in my Immigration Law I class in 1997. Brennan noted this fact on the record but the IJ (who did remember me) and the ICE trial attorney waived any conflict issue.

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

Alberto Manuel Benitez

Professor of Clinical Law

Director, Immigration Clinic

The George Washington University Law School

650 20th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20052

(202) 994-7463

(202) 994-4946 fax             

abenitez@law.gwu.edu

THE WORLD IS YOURS…

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

Many congrats to all involved! 

Interestingly, I used the “Russian Roulette analogy” yesterday in referring to AG Merrick Garland’s dismissive attitude toward the outrageous inconsistencies and abuses in his EOIR asylum adjudications. 

⚖️☠️ BLOWING THE BASICS! — IJ Misapplies “Under Color Of Law Doctrine” In CAT Case; BIA Affirms; 10th Circuit Reverses, Blowing Away Garland DOJ’s BS “No Jurisdiction” Argument In The Process — “[The IJ’s] interpretation defies logic and the law.” — We Deserve Much Better From Dem AG!

This is a wonderful, inspiring result, produced by great student lawyering, a thoughtful IJ, and an ICE ACC with a sense of justice and practicality. It should be the rule, not the exception, in EOIR asylum adjudication! But, sadly, it isn’t!

Alfred E. Neumann
Has Alfred E. Neumann been “reborn” as Judge Merrick Garland? “Not my friends or relatives whose lives as being destroyed by my ‘Kangaroo Courts.’ Just ‘the others’ and their immigration lawyers, so who cares, why worry about professionalism, ethics, and due process in Immigration Court?”
PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons

I virtually guarantee that if this case had been adjudicated at the border, in detention, and/or on one of Garland’s “expedited/dedicated” dockets, the result would have been unfavorable. And, depending on the circumstances, it’s not even clear that an applicant with this type of very grantable claim would have access to the asylum adjudication system under Biden’s “enjoined but stayed transit rules!” See, e.g., https://twitter.com/Haleaziz (A “temporary win” for the Biden Administration, engineered by two 9th Cir. Dem judicial appointees, is a big loss for humanity and the rule of law, defended only by dissenting Trump appointee, Judge VanDyke, a result that should leave advocates scratching their heads about their place in today’s mushy Dem Party.)

Cases like this illustrate how the EOIR system could be run in a fair, efficient, professional, and properly humane manner! But, they don’t answer the question of why isn’t set up to run that way in every case under Garland!

Also, and quite perversely, the failure of the Biden system to produce fair and equitable results at the border puts a premium on individuals who can avoid border processing and get to the interior (the exact opposite of the result Biden claims to be trying to achieve)! 

This is a totally screwed up system being “administered” by a Dem Administration that sorely lacks both courage and a clear vision of how to insure that asylum seekers and other immigrants, particularly those of color, receive due process and justice in America!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-04-23 

⚖️🗽 TRIPLE HEADER!  — Cornell Immigration Clinic Wins 3 @ BIA!

Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr
Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr
Cornell Law

Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr reports:

Paul: Thanks to the excellent work of our law students, our Cornell asylum clinic received three BIA remands this spring.  A short summary of each case follows.  A longer summary of each case is attached, as well as redacted versions of the BIA’s decisions. If anyone wants redacted copies of our briefs, have them contact me directly.

 

Please mention on Immigration Courtside.  Thanks, Steve

 

1: IES is a citizen of Mexico and a former gang member.  The immigration judge (IJ) denied withholding and CAT relief, holding that his conviction in California was a particularly serious crime and that our client did not meet the requirements for CAT relief. For the particularly serious crime argument, our brief argued that the IJ improperly analyzed IES’ offense, ignored credible evidence that the drugs were for personal use, and relied on boilerplate sentencing documents instead. As a result, the IJ failed to analyze IES’s motivation and intent at the time of the offense. We used case law where crimes like sexual contact with a minor (Afridi v. Gonzalez) and strangulation (Flores-Vega v. Barr) were remanded because the facts and circumstances of the offense had not been considered.

 

For our CAT argument, we focused on 6 IJ errors: 1) the IJ did not consider that his prolonged mental pain would cause future torture (we had psychological evaluation reports and decided to use them for this argument). This is an underutilized argument in CAT claims, so there isn’t much case law. We used the interpretation from an OLC opinion on prolonged mental harm to bolster this argument. 2) The IJ did not consider future torture from gangs and cartels despite an expert saying this risk was at 80%. 3) The IJ did not consider country conditions and did not admit 400 pages into evidence. 4) The IJ mischaracterized his attempts to flee cartels 8 times as “relocation.” 5) The IJ did not think there was police acquiescence even though the police, the local Attorney General, and the judicial police ignored IES’ complaints. 6) The IJ did not aggregate IES’ risk of torture. The BIA remanded.

 

2: LRG is a citizen of El Salvador who fled to the US in 1989.  While in the US he joined the MS-13 gang. He is in U.S. prison for a criminal conviction. The IJ denied withholding and CAT relief. Our client’s info was part of the November 2022 ICE data leak, but the IJ did not address that concern.

 

Our brief argued that our client is more likely than not to face torture if removed to El Salvador. We posited several theories under which our client is likely to be tortured: 1) by the Salvadoran government, especially if our client is incarcerated there; 2) by Salvadoran gangs, in or out of prison, with the acquiescence of the Salvadoran government; and/or 3) by Salvadoran anti-gang death squads, with the participation or acquiescence of the Salvadoran government. We argued that our client’s identifying characteristics, including his gang tattoos and criminal history, would subject him to targeting and torture by any of these groups. We also argued that the IJ insufficiently aggregated our client’s risk of torture in El Salvador and that the IJ erred by failing to consider the impact of the ICE data leak on our client.  Finally, we argued that the IJ afforded insufficient weight to the evidence offered by our client. The IJ admitted Dr. Patrick McNamara’s universal expert declaration only as background evidence, rather than for his expert opinions. The BIA remanded.

 

3: REC is a citizen of El Salvador who fled to the US in 2022.  REC was not a gang member, but his brother was, and was killed by the police.  REC’s family filed a lawsuit against the police for murdering REC’s brother, and the police retaliated against REC.  The IJ denied asylum, withholding, and CAT relief.

 

On asylum and withholding, we argued that the IJ erred by ignoring the Salvadoran government as a persecutor of REC and by failing to assess the proper particular social group that REC had proposed, based on his membership in his family. On CAT, we argued that the IJ effectively ignored part of REC’s claim by failing to analyze whether the MS gang would be more likely than not to torture him. We further argued that the IJ’s analysis about the Salvadoran government as a torturer of REC was flawed because the IJ herself found that Salvadoran officials “misused their power” when they beat him. We argued that the IJ also erred because she did not aggregate all potential sources of torture, including the government and the MS gang. The BIA remanded.

Stephen Yale-Loehr

Professor of Immigration Law Practice, Cornell Law School

Faculty Director, Immigration Law and Policy Program

Faculty Fellow, Migrations Initiative

Co-director, Asylum Appeals Clinic

Co-Author, Immigration Law & Procedure Treatise

Of Counsel, Miller Mayer

Phone: 607-379-9707

e-mail: SWY1@cornell.edu

Twitter: @syaleloehr

Check out my Green Card Stories book:

http://www.greencardstories.com.

 

See more of my books at amazon.com/author/stephenyaleloehr

You can access my papers on SSRN at: http://ssrn.com/author=109503

Cornell 1 Cornell 2 Cornell 3 Cornell 4 Cornell 5 Cornell 6

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

Get all the details in the six attachments above!

Thanks, Steve! And, congrats and “hats way off” (as my friend Dan Kowalski would say) to the clinic students involved! 

Interesting to contrast the careful work of the clinic with the sloppy, result-oriented work of the IJs in these cases. 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-29-23

🏴‍☠️ FOURTH FINDS BIA’S NEXUS ABUSE CONTINUES UNDER GARLAND 🤮 — Dem AG Permits His “Courts” To Engage In Specious “Any Reason To Deny” Misconduct That Artificially Suppresses Asylum Grants!  ☠️ — Marvin A.G. v. Garland (published)!

Four Horsemen
BIA Asylum Panel In Action — Garland, a former Article III Appeals Judge, employs appellate judges who routinely misconstrue asylum law to wrongfully deny legal protection, thus artificially suppressing what should be much higher success rates for asylum seekers in a functional legal system properly applying asylum law! The law and precedents establishing a properly generous application of the well-founded fear standard for asylum are routinely ignored or disingenuously avoided by Garland’s biased anti-asylum “courts!” BIA panels routinely butcher “mixed motive” cases to deny asylum to deserving refugees!
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/221499.P.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca4-on-nexus-marvin-a-g-v-garland

“Upon our review, we conclude that the Board abused its discretion by applying an incorrect legal standard in its nexus analysis for the petitioner’s asylum and withholding of removal claims. We also hold with regard to these two claims that the Board abused its discretion by arbitrarily disregarding the petitioner’s testimony about the threat of future persecution. However, we reject the petitioner’s argument that the Board abused its discretion with regard to his CAT claim. The Board provided specific reasons for finding the petitioner’s testimony insufficient to meet his burden of proof, and appropriately evaluated the evidence under the futility exception. We thus grant in part and deny in part the petition for review, vacate in part the Board’s order denying reconsideration, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. … We thus conclude that the IJ erred by applying an incorrect standard in the nexus analysis, and that the Board abused its discretion because it “compounded the [IJ’s] error by failing to recognize it.” Perez Vasquez, 4 F.4th at 223. In addition, both the IJ and the Board failed to address substantively the petitioner’s testimony about the threat of future persecution. … The Board thus applied the incorrect legal standard for the nexus analysis and arbitrarily disregarded relevant evidence. Accordingly, we hold that the Board abused its discretion in denying the petitioner’s motion to reconsider his asylum and withholding of removal claims, and we remand for the agency to “meaningfully consider [the petitioner’s] evidence” under the correct legal standard.”

[Hats off to Eric Suarez!]

Eric Suarez
Eric Suarez ESQUIRE
Partner
Sanabria & Associates
PHOTO: Firm website

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

EOIR judges and the BIA routinely butcher “mixed motive” cases like this one! This endemic problem at EOIR badly distorts asylum adjudication nationwide, produces false statistics suppressing the significant number of wrongful asylum denials (particularly targeting asylum applicants of color for unfair, unjust adjudications), and refutes the Article III’s disingenuous treatment of the BIA as an “expert tribunal” entitled to Chevron deference. In that way, it seriously undermines the integrity of our entire judicial system!

In this case, counsel specifically pointed our the BIA’s errors in a timely motion to reconsider, only to have it “blown off” with basically fabricated boilerplate BS!  

The petitioner appealed the IJ’s decision to the Board. After the Board affirmed the IJ’s conclusions and dismissed the appeal, the petitioner filed a motion to reconsider. The Board denied the motion, concluding that the IJ did not clearly err in its nexus determination, and reiterating the IJ’s conclusion that family membership was “incidental or subordinate” to the other reasons the gang targeted the petitioner, namely, for monetary gain and gang recruitment.

Another of my favorite parts of this decision addresses the BIA’s pronounced tendency to invent specious “non-protected” reasons for the persecution and then dishonestly characterize that at the sole or primary motivations. 

The Board’s cursory conclusion that the gang had targeted the petitioner for “monetary gain and gang recruitment” does not remedy the Board’s error. Indeed, we fail to see how family membership necessarily was subordinate to these other motivations when the sole basis the petitioner presented for his fear of future persecution was that the gang would target him due to his relationships with his siblings.

Friends, this is NOT the competent, impartial, professional, expert adjudication that due process and fundamental fairness requires! Nor is it the improvement from Trump’s institutionalized White Nationalist approach to asylum and immigration promised by Biden and Harris during their 2020 campaign! It’s basically a “bait and switch” by Dems! Additionally, it sets a horrible example for Immigration Judges (many of whom lack relevant expertise in asylum law) and Asylum Officers nationwide.

Garland’s has refused to “clean house” and employ solely competent, unbiased, impartial asylum experts as BIA Appellate Immigration Judges, selected on a merit basis from among those possessing the requisite practical asylum expertise, temperament, and  widely-acknowledged qualifications for these critically important judgeships. 

Garland’s failure to perform his job, in turn, is having a deleterious effect on every aspect of our asylum, protection, and immigration systems and is undermining the entire rule of law. It also promotes false narratives about asylum seekers and inhibits effective representation of this vulnerable and deserving group. It’s wrong; it’s inexcusable, and it’s a “big deal!’

I leave you with this thought from an expert who actually practices before EOIR and understands what competent asylum adjudication should be:

We really do need better judges at the BIA. [Hope that this] decision that will make a dent in their current dysfunction.

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges — Maybe HE should be in charge of selecting and training BIA Appellate Immigration Judges!

Or as my Round Table colleague Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase suggests:

Maybe the Board should read my article on the proper test for nexus:

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2021/12/21/the-proper-test-for-nexus1

Great idea! But, don’t hold your breath!

SeniorCircuit Judge Barbara Milano Keenan wrote the opinion, in which Judge Thacker and Judge Heytens joined.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-28-23

 

 

🏴‍☠️  BREAKING: SCOFFLAW ALERT: LACKING COMPETENCE & ABILITY TO FAIRLY ADMINISTER REFUGEE & ASYLUM LAWS, LIKE TRUMP BEFORE HIM, BIDEN PROPOSES NEW “GIMMICKS” TO REWRITE LAW BY FIAT RATHER THAN LEGISLATION! — Expanded Use Of “Emergency Parole” To Replace Law’s Existing Refugee & Asylum Programs Appears Illegal! 

Biden Border Message
“Border Message”
By Steve Sack
Reproduced under license

Biden’s new immigration plan would restrict illegal border crossings

The measures are likely to draw legal challenges. They would expand rapid expulsion for illegal border crossers but allow more migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela.

Read in The Washington Post: https://apple.news/ARS8hkdNCShagYwOQlpmHkA

BY CLEVE R. WOOTSON JR., NICK MIROFF AND MARIA SACCHETTI report for WashPost, January 5, 2023 11:22 AM

President Biden on Thursday will announce new immigration restrictions, including the expansion of programs to remove people quickly without letting them seek asylum, in an attempt to address one of his administration’s most politically vulnerable issues at a time when the nation’s attention is focused on Republican disarray in the U.S. House.

The measures will expand Biden’s use of “parole” authority to allow 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela to come to the United States each month, as long as a U.S. sponsor applies for them first. But those who attempt to migrate through the region without authorization will risk rapid expulsion to Mexico, as the administration plans to expand its use of the pandemic-era Title 42 public health policy. Mexico has agreed to take back 30,000 border-crossers from those nations each month, U.S. officials told reporters during a briefing Thursday morning.

The measures, which are likely to draw legal challenges from immigration advocacy groups,”will expand and expedite legal pathways for orderly migration and result in new consequences for those who fail to use those legal pathways,” the White House announced.

Biden, who has said he will seek reelection in 2024, is contending with the political and operational fallout of two consecutive years of record numbers of migrants taken into custody at the Mexican border, in part because of his more welcoming policies.

Before taking office, Biden said he wanted an orderly system, not “2 million people on our border.” The number of border apprehensions jumped to 1.7 million during his first year in the White House, however, and soared to nearly 2.4 million in his second year. Biden campaigned on the promise that his administration’s immigration system would be “safe, orderly and humane”; his pivot toward amped up enforcement suggests the White House sees immigration as a 2024 liability.

The administration’s solution is legally thorny and will likely anger immigration advocates and even some Democrats — and will probably do little to silence Biden’s Republican critics.

. . . .

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

Read the complete story at the link:

  • Biden’s plan effectively imposes arbitrary geographic and ideological restrictions on those seeking protection — something that Congress specifically intended to eliminate when enacting the Refugee Act of 1980;
  • Biden’s plan leaves out asylum seekers and refugees from the Northern Triangle, some of those most in need of protection;
  • It imposes arbitrary and illegal numerical limits on those who might otherwise seek asylum;
  • It continues the illegal and expanded use of Title 42 as a border enforcement mechanism having nothing whatsoever to do with public health — a position that the Administration itself has refuted in Federal Court all the way up to the Supremes;
  • It leaves those “paroled” in limbo with no clear path to legalization in the U.S., other than perhaps eventually applying for asylum in overloaded and often biased system with a backlog of many years;
  • Any future path to legal status for these parolees would require legislation agreed to by the GOP — not likely to happen — thus making these individuals “bargaining chips” for nativists seeking further restrictions on legal immigration and the right of asylum;
  • The “mass use” of parole at a rate of 30,000/month appears a direct violation of section 212(d)(5) of the INA, as amended by the Refugee Act of 1980, which specifically intended to end the “mass use” of parole as a substitute for admitting refugees under the legal framework set up by the Refugee Act of 1980, as amended.

 Here’s a “spot on” comment by Margaret Cargioli from the Post article:

Margaret Cargioli, a lawyer with the Immigrant Defenders Law Center said the program was effectively screening out migrants who lack U.S. connections or money to buy airplane tickets. She said Title 42 was “put in place by a racist and xenophobic administration” bent on stopping immigration, not protecting public health.

“It really does go against the nature of … ‘My life is in danger. I need to get out,’ ” she said at a Dec. 29 news conference. “And that is what the essence of an asylum seeker is.”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-05-23

☠️⚰️💀GARLAND’S STAR CHAMBERS — “SLOW VIOLENCE” ON PEOPLE OF COLOR!🥵— Bias, Bad Law, Bungling Bureaucracy! — “Where Due Process Goes To Die!” 🤮 — Upcoming Book Will Expose Garland’s Lawless, Cruel, Inhumane “Court” System!

 

Slow Injustice @ EOIR
Garland’s approach to immigrant justice in his courts harkens back to “the bad old days.” Yet he remains impervious — and unaccountable!
The Wasp 1882-01-06 cover Slow but sure.jpg
Slow, but Sure. Cartoon depicts Lady Justice riding a tortoise, about to hang a man.
George Frederick Keller
Public domain

Dean Kevin Johnson @ ImmigrationProf Blog previews upcoming book by Professor Maya Pagni Barack:

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/10/from-the-bookshelves-the-slow-violence-of-immigration-court-procedural-justice-on-trial-by-maya-pagn.html

Friday, October 21, 2022

From the Bookshelves: The Slow Violence of Immigration Court Procedural Justice on Trial by Maya Pagni Barak

By Immigration Prof

The Slow Violence of Immigration Court Procedural Justice on Trial by Maya Pagni Barak (forthcominng March 2023, NYU Press)

The publisher’s description of the book reads as follows:

“Each year, hundreds of thousands of migrants are moved through immigration court. With a national backlog surpassing one million cases, court hearings take years and most migrants will eventually be ordered deported. The Slow Violence of Immigration Court sheds light on the experiences of migrants from the “Northern Triangle” (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) as they navigate legal processes, deportation proceedings, immigration court, and the immigration system writ large.

Grounded in the illuminating stories of people facing deportation, the family members who support them, and the attorneys who defend them, The Slow Violence of Immigration Court invites readers to question matters of fairness and justice and the fear of living with the threat of deportation. Although the spectacle of violence created by family separation and deportation is perceived as extreme and unprecedented, these long legal proceedings are masked in the mundane and are often overlooked, ignored, and excused. In an urgent call to action, Maya Pagni Barak deftly demonstrates that deportation and family separation are not abhorrent anomalies, but are a routine, slow form of violence at the heart of the U.S. immigration system.”

KJ

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

The ongoing national disgrace called “EOIR” continues to mete out injustice and inane bureaucratic nonsense under a DEMOCRATIC Administration that pledged to return the rule of law and humanity to our broken Immigration Court system! 

That system is “headed and controlled” by a DEMOCRATIC AG, Merrick Garland. He is a former Federal Appellate Judge who certainly knows that what passes for “justice” in his broken “court” system is nothing of the sort! Also this ongoing debacle doesn’t say much good about Garland’s “lieutenants:” Deputy AG Lisa Monaco, Associate AG Vanita Gupta, Assistant AG for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke, and Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar.

They have all “looked the other way,” defended, or failed to condemn this travesty undermining our entire justice system, unfolding under their collective noses at EOIR every day! At some point in the future, all these guys will be “making the rounds” of major law firms, NGOs, universities, mainstream media, and corporations — seeking to “cash in” on their DOJ “experience.” Then, folks should remember how they ACTUALLY PERFORMED (or didn’t) when they had a chance to fix “America’s worst courts” — hotbeds of racial and ethnic injustice, purveyors of bad law, and a haven for ridiculously dysfunctional procedures!

Perhaps a suitable future for these willfully blind “public servants” would be to require them to spend the balance of their careers practicing on a pro bono basis before the “star chambers” they inflicted on others! See how they like being “scheduled,” with no or inadequate notice, to do 15 or 20 asylum cases per month; appearing before too many ill-qualified “judges” who have already decided to deny regardless of the law and facts; appealing to a captive “appellate court” dominated by individuals, working for the Executive, whose main “judicial qualification” was that they denied close to 100% of the asylum claims that came before them in Immigration Court and were known for their rude and dismissive treatment of asylum applicants and their lawyers! See, e.g., “Confronting The American Star Chamber . . .,” https://wp.me/p8eeJm-4Vm.,

Here’s Professor Barak’s bio from the U of Michigan-Dearborn website:

Maya Barak, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Studies

Maya P. Barak
Maya P. Barak, PhD
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Studies
U. of Michigan -Dearborn
PHOTO: UM-D Websitew

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

College-Wide Programs

mbarak@umich.edu

1070 Social Sciences Building | 4901 Evergreen Road | Dearborn, MI 48128

Personal Website

Teaching Areas: Arab American Studies, Criminology & Criminal Justice Studies, Master of Science in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Women’s & Gender Studies

Research Areas: Capital Punishment, Criminal Justice, Criminology, Gangs, Immigrants / Crimmigration, Legal Sociology, Procedural Justice, State-Corporate Crime

Biography and Education

I am an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. I hold a PhD in Justice, Law and Criminology from American University (2016), an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Eastern Michigan University (2011), and a BA in Social Anthropology and Peace and Social Justice from the University of Michigan (2009). My research brings together the areas of law, deviance, immigration, and power, utilizing interdisciplinary approaches that span the fields of criminology, law and society, and anthropology.

Education

Ph.D. in Justice, Law and Criminology

Teaching and Research

Courses Taught

Selected Publications

Books

Gould, Jon B. and Maya Barak. 2019. Capital Defense: Inside the Lives of America’s Death Penalty Lawyers. New York: NYU Press.

Selected Articles

Barak, Maya. 2021. “Can You Hear Me Now? Attorney Perceptions of Interpretation, Technology, and Power in Immigration Court.” Journal on Migration and Human Security (https://doi.org/10.1177/23315024211034740).

Barak, Maya. 2021. “A Hollow Hope? The Empty Promise of Rights in the U.S. Immigration System”/ “¿Una promesa vacía? La ilusión de “los derechos” en el sistema migratorio de los Estados Unidos.” Las Cadenas Que Amamos: Una panorámica sobre el retroceso de Occidente a todos los niveles.

Barak, Maya. 2021. “Family Separation as State-Corporate Crime.” Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime Vol. 2(2), 2021, pp. 109-121 (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2631309X20982299). (2021 Outstanding Article or Book Chapter Award, Division of White-Collar and Corporate Crime, American Society of Criminology)

Barak, Maya, Leon, K., and Maguire, Edward. 2020. “Conceptual and Empirical Obstacles in Defining MS-13: Law-Enforcement Perspectives.” Criminology and Public Policy (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9133.12493).

Barak, Maya. 2017. “Motherhood and Immigration Policy: How Immigration Law Shapes Central Americans’ Experience of Family.” In Forced Out and Fenced In: Immigration Tales from the Field, edited by Tanya Golash-Boza. New York: Oxford University Press.

Advocates and all Americans committed to racial justice and equal justice under law need to keep raising hell — and supporting progressive candidates — until this horrible system is replaced by a real court system, with subject matter expert judges, totally focused on delivering due process, fundamental fairness, and best judicial practices to all!

What’s happening to individuals (fellow humans, “persons” under our Constitution) and their lawyers at EOIR is NOT OK, nor is it acceptable from a DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION!

Yeah, “there’s trouble, right here in River City!” And, it begins with “E,” ends with “R,” and rhymes with “EYORE!”

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-22-22

⚖️🗽👨🏻‍⚖️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

🗽🧑🏻‍⚖️ BIA APPELLATE JUDGES LIEBOWITZ, BROWN, MANUEL WITH STRONG REVERSAL OF HIGH-DENYING IJ IN FIFTH — Nexis, PSG — Roberto Blum Reports!  — “This makes the need to populate the Immigration Court bench with independent, highly qualified, experienced, non-political unbiased individuals with appropriate temperament even more urgent,” Says Says Brooklyn Law Associate Dean Stacey Caplow!

 

Roberto writes:

Hello Judge,

Here’s another remand you might like to read. This time it was Nexus and PSG with IJ Monique Harris (previously in Houston). According to TRAC she has a 96.5 asylum denial rate. The prior remand I shared was IJ Khan who is at 97% denial rate. Clearly these IJs are getting a lot of “matter of life and death” decisions wrong. As you say, haste makes waste. This case (like the previous one) should have been easy grants with all of the supporting documents that were included. I appeared at the individual hearing and my colleague Bryan Russell Terhune (from the same office) worked on the BIA Brief.

P.S. you can see this news article:  https://sv.usembassy.gov/court-inaugurated-memory-pnc-agent/ ,  from our own U.S. Embassy in El Salvador where they inaugurated an athletic court in the Usulutan Police Delegation, named after the PNC officer Nelson Panameño, who was killed. Panameño was one of the instructors from the Gang Resistance Education and Training Program (GREAT) which my client closely worked with for many years helping him and the PNC gain trust with the community and local youth. This was part of the record, plus a lot more evidence showing this specific connection and the specific and imminent warnings that Panameno gave to my client before his own murder. This was just one of the many great things this client did in El Salvador to try and make his country a better place. We are lucky to have him and his family in this country now.

Best,

DPF!

RB 

pastedGraphic.png

Here’s the panel decision:

BIA APPEAL REMAND (Redacted)

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

Thanks, Roberto.

As Roberto says:

This was just one of the many great things this client did in El Salvador to try and make his country a better place. We are lucky to have him and his family in this country now.

That this respondent is here to contribute to our country is due to Roberto and his colleagues in the Law Office of Juan Reyes, Houston, and to this particular panel of BIA Appellate Judges. But it is “no thanks” to the IJ who got this case egregiously wrong below!

Nor, is it thanks to an Attorney General who has allowed injustice, bad judgment, and poor quality decision-making to flourish at the “retail level” of his wholly-owned “court” system. What about the many folks who don’t have Roberto or someone like him for a lawyer or who get members of the “BIA asylum deniers club” appointed under Trump to “pack the BIA for an anti-asylum agenda” instead of this panel of conscientious appellate judges?

I note that Judge Elise Manuel and Judge Denise Brown are currently denominated “Temporary” Appellate Judges. At least in this case, along with Judge Ellen Liebowitz, they “got it” at a level at odds with the work of too many of their so-called “permanent” colleagues. Why has Garland allowed this obviously problematic situation to continue to fester with human lives at stake?

Judge Ellen Liebowitz’s compact, cogent, powerful opinion is a terrific “mini-primer” on how PSG and “one central reason” nexus cases properly should be decided! As Judge Liebowitz demonstrates, you don’t have to write a lot to say a lot. You just have to know what you’re doing!

The gross, fundamental errors in the application of basic statutory terms by the IJ below in this case are, unfortunately, repeated on a regular basis by many of her colleagues across America who are improperly “programmed to deny” clearly grantable asylum cases.

It belies the bogus claim that EOIR is an “expert subject matter tribunal!” That expertise is, at least in part, what the questionable doctrines of “Chevron deference” and “Brand X abdication” by the Supremes rest upon. Shouldn’t it make a difference that in EOIR’s case, it’s a lie?

Why is Garland allowing this to happen when it could be remedied? Make this case a precedent and start removing, retraining, or reassigning so-called “judges” who don’t follow it and who continue to disregard the law and the rights of asylum seekers! 

Why isn’t this case a precedent? Why is an IJ who is so clearly unqualified to decide asylum cases still on the Immigration Bench under Garland? Why aren’t cases like this being used to end the “asylum free zone” improperly established by some Houston IJs?

These are the “tough questions” that Garland should have addressed. Why hasn’t he? Why is “refugee roulette” still plaguing EOIR and American justice — 15 years after the problem was first “outed” by my Georgetown Law colleagues Professors Schrag, Schoenholtz, and Ramji-Nogales? How is this “good government,” or even “minimally competent government?”

When compelling, well-documented cases like this are turned down at the trial level, something clearly is rotten in the system! Make no mistake about it, lack of expertise, bad judicial attitudes, widespread anti-asylum bias, counterproductive “haste makes waste gimmicks,” and way, way too many denials are significant “drivers” of the backlog that continues to mushroom under Garland.

The arbitrary and often grotesquely unfair, unprofessional, and results-driven state of “justice” in Garland’s dysfunctional Immigration Courts was recently highlighted by Brooklyn Law Associate Dean Stacey Caplow in her lament about the Supremes’ abdication of responsibility in Patel v Garland.

Stacy Caplow
Stacy Caplow
Associate Dean of Experiential Education & Professor of Law
Brooklyn Law
PHOTO: Brooklyn Law website

As Dean Caplow cogently points out:

Patel shuts the door firmly and unequivocally, preventing independent review of fact-finding by Immigration Judges, however irrational and indefensible once the Board of Immigration Appeals has affirmed. This makes the need to populate the Immigration Court bench with independent, highly qualified, experienced, non-political unbiased individuals with appropriate temperament even more urgent. Perhaps this case will provide new impetus for reform such as Real Courts, Rule of Law Act of 2022 voted by the House Judiciary Committee in May just days before the Supreme Court’s decision.

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/the-pathos-of-patel-v-garland

While an independent, subject matter expert Article I Immigration Court is the obvious answer, unfortunately, it’s not immediately on the horizon. Meanwhile, the innocent and vulnerable continue to suffer daily injustices, sometimes gratuitous humiliation or dehumanization, in Garland’s broken system. It DOESN’T have to be this way!

As Dean Caplow says, we “need to populate the Immigration Court bench with independent, highly qualified, experienced, non-political unbiased individuals with appropriate temperament.” It’s not “rocket science” 🚀— just intellectual excellence, courage, and a fair-minded approach to justice!

There are literally hundreds of extraordinarily well-qualified individuals out there in the private sector who could outperform the IJ in this case in every critical aspect of the job! Why hasn’t Garland actively recruited them for his courts? Why isn’t his system functioning correctly “on the retail level?”

Garland has the authority to take the bold action necessary to redirect, refocus, and re-populate his current parody of a court system to laser-focus on due process, fundamental fairness, judicial expertise in immigration and human rights, and efficiency (without sacrificing due process or decisional excellence). All of us who care about the future of American justice should be asking why he isn’t doing his job!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-31-22

👎🏽ANOTHER 4TH CIRCUIT PUTDOWN FOR GARLAND — AO & IJ COMPLETELY BOTCH “REASONABLE FEAR REVIEW” — OIL COMPOUNDS PROBLEM BY ADVANCING SEMI-FRIVOLOUS DEFENSES!

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis:

Tomas-Ramos v. Garland

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/201201.P.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca4-on-nexus-tomas-ramos-v-garland#

“After Adan de Jesus Tomas-Ramos, a citizen and native of Guatemala, reentered the United States illegally in 2018, a removal order previously entered against him was reinstated. But because Tomas-Ramos expressed a fear of returning to Guatemala, an asylum officer conducted a screening interview to determine whether he reasonably feared persecution or torture in his home country. The asylum officer determined that Tomas-Ramos failed to establish a reasonable fear of such harm, and so was not entitled to relief from his reinstated removal order. An Immigration Judge (“IJ”) concurred with that determination. Tomas-Ramos now petitions for review of the IJ’s order on two grounds. He first contends that the IJ’s finding that he lacked a reasonable fear of persecution or torture was erroneous. We agree. The primary ground for the IJ’s decision was that there was no “nexus” between the harm Tomas-Ramos faced and a protected ground. But the agency incorrectly applied the statutory nexus requirement. Instead, the record compels the conclusion that Tomas-Ramos was persecuted on account of a protected ground, in the form of his family ties. And in light of that error, we cannot determine that the other reason given by the IJ for her decision – that Tomas-Ramos could avoid harm by relocating – was supported by substantial evidence. Accordingly, we grant the petition for review, vacate the agency’s decision, and remand for further proceedings.”

[Hats off to Michael D. Lieberman, Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, Stacy M. Kim, Paul F. Brinkman, and Michael A. Francus!]

 

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

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    • DOJ’s error-studded performance (or lack thereof) in this case is disgraceful!
    • I guarantee that there are plenty of other unjust, legally defective reasonable fear and credible fear decisions where these came from. Just most folks never get any meaningful judicial review.
    • Both the IJ and the AO got the basics of nexus and the applicable 4th Circuit case law totally wrong here. How are is this acceptable performance from what are supposed to be “expert” courts? Why hasn’t Garland brought in real experts, committed to due process and best practices, to take charge and straighten out this mess?
    • Disturbingly, the Biden Administration wants to turn this type of clearly inadequate procedure with poorly trained officers and judges and incorrect applications of the law loose on the merits determinations for all asylum seekers at the border!
    • Rather than being a check on bad judges, Garland’s OIL continues to “defend the indefensible” with arguments that don’t meet “the straight-face test.” Aren’t ethical codes equally applicable to Government lawyers?
    • Worse yet, Garland continues to unethically defend the scofflaw behavior of the Biden Administration by using a Stephen Miller era “COVID pretext” to deny most asylum seekers at the Southern Border any process, even the pathetic one used here!
    • The “wheels have come off” @ Garland’s DOJ and he’s driving on the axel hubs! When is someone going to pull him over and make him fix it?
    • Believe it or not, these are life or death cases! ☠️ Why is Garland allowed to treat the lives and rights of migrants and those associated with them so frivolously?
    • The IJ’s attempt to bar the R’s attorney from participating in the “credible fear” review is ridiculous! It shows the deep problems in Garland’s broken system which too often is deaf to due process, hostile to attorneys, and immune from common sense and best practices! Why would the “default” for regulatory silence be “no participation” rather than a “strong presumption that attorneys can fully participate?” What kind of “court” bars attorneys from speaking for their clients? Why would any judge not want to listen to attorneys, who are there to help them make correct decisions? The IJ’s conduct here was particularly egregious given that she had already made a clearly wrong decision before cutting off the attorney’s attempt to point out her errors! What a complete farce that Garland has failed to address!
    • This is another case where Circuit Judge Allison Jones Rushing, a Trump appointee with solid conservative credentials, once thought to be a possible contender for the “ACB seat,” joined her colleagues (Judge Harris and Chief Judge Gregory) to overturn a wrong, anti-immigrant decision by EOIR. Her approach in this and another recent case shows more sensitivity to due process, scholarship, and the rights of individual immigrants than many decisions emanating from Biden’s Immigration Courts under Garland.
    • I’m not suggesting that Judge R is necessarily going to become a leading defender of due process for immigrants. But, based on these somewhat random “snippets,” she seems more “reachable” and open to sound arguments on the issues than some other Trump appointees, points worth keeping in mind for NDPA advocates!
    • She’s also young. So, she will be reviewing immigration cases and making law for decades to come.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-02/22

🌬🤯MORE BLOWBACK FOR GARLAND’S “COURTS” — Problems Emerge On Credibility (1st Cir., 10th Cir.), Agfel (9th Cir.)

From Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/en-banc-ca1-credibility-remand-diaz-ortiz-v-garland

En Banc CA1 Credibility Remand: Diaz Ortiz v. Garland

Diaz Ortiz v. Garland

“Cristian Josue Diaz Ortiz, a native of El Salvador, seeks review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming the denial of his claims for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). The Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) rejection of Diaz Ortiz’s petition for relief rested on an adverse credibility determination that primarily drew its support from a “Gang Assessment Database.” Flaws in that database, including its reliance on an erratic point system built on unsubstantiated inferences, compel us to conclude that the credibility judgment — and, in turn, the rejection of Diaz Ortiz’s request for relief — is not supported by substantial evidence. Accordingly, we grant the petition for review and remand for new immigration proceedings.”

[Hats way off to Kristin Beale, Ph.D., Ellen Scordino and Sameer Ahmed!]

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And here’s one sent in by Round Table leader and scholarly blogger Judge “Sir Jeffrey” S. Chase:

https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/files/opinions/010110629330.pdf0

Takwi  v. Garland, 10th Cir., 01-10-22, published

Nkemchap Nelvis Takwi seeks review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing his appeal from a removal order entered by an Immigration Judge (IJ) and denying his motion to remand. Exercising jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, we grant the petition for review. We remand this matter to the BIA because the IJ did not make an explicit adverse credibility determination, and the BIA did not afford Mr. Takwi the required rebuttable presumption of credibility.

Just for a good measure, the 9th Circuit also “busted” Garland’s BIA on an agfel issue:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca9-on-agfel-togonon-v-garland

CA9 on AgFel: Togonon v. Garland

Togonon v. Garland

“Petitioner Longinos Togonon, a native and citizen of the Philippines, was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 2013. In 2015, he was convicted of arson in violation of California Penal Code § 451(b) and sentenced to three years of imprisonment. In 2018, the Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against Togonon, alleging (as relevant for our purposes) that his arson offense qualifies as an “aggravated felony.” See 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) (“Any alien who is convicted of an aggravated felony at any time after admission is deportable.”). The Immigration and Nationality Act defines the term “aggravated felony” to include “an offense described in” 18 U.S.C. § 844(i). 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(E)(i). The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) held that a conviction under California Penal Code § 451(b) is an offense described in 18 U.S.C. § 844(i) and that Togonon is therefore subject to removal from the United States. Reviewing that decision de novo, see Sandoval v. Sessions, 866 F.3d 986, 988 (9th Cir. 2017), we conclude that the BIA erred in so holding. We accordingly grant Togonon’s petition for review.”

[Hats off to pro bono publico appointed counsel Matthew N. Ball (argued), Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Denver, Colorado; Paul J. Collins, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Palo Alto, California; Andrew T. Brown and Matt Aiden Getz, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Los Angeles, California!]

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The First Circuit decision was 4-3. It appears that the respondent’s lawyers, experts, and the majority did the careful, critical analysis that the BIA failed to perform. Even the dissenters, who got it wrong, appear to have spent more time and thought on this issue than Garland’s BIA.

The Tenth Circuit decision highlights “Basic Asylum 101” failures by both the IJ and the BIA. It’s not that hard to make a specific credibility finding in every case. I did it in every contested asylum case I heard over 13 years on the bench. Nor is applying the presumption of credibility on appeal profound.

I’ll concede that the 9th Circuit agfel issue was more tricky. But, the BIA’s practice of almost always going with the most expansive, pro-DHS interpretations of the agfel definition to maximize deportation and minimize relief doesn’t help.

Go NDPA!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-12-22

🤮👎🏽WASHPOST SLAMS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FOR ABANDONING NEGOTIATIONS WITH FAMILIES WHO SUFFERED CHILD ABUSE BY SESSIONS & MILLER! — “Having condemned a policy that traumatized children and their parents, Mr. Biden now leads an administration fighting in court to deny recompense to those same families.”

“Floaters”
So, what’s the “dollar value” of brown-skinned human lives to Biden, Harris, &  Garland?  We’re about to find out!
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/05/president-biden-broke-his-promise-separated-migrant-families/

Opinion by the Editorial Board

January 5 at 2:18 PM ET

When the Trump administration wrenched migrant babies, toddlers and tweens from their parents as a means of frightening away prospective asylum seekers, it was guilty of emotionally torturing innocent children. Americans of every political leaning expressed revulsion toward the policy implemented in 2018, especially when it became clear that the government had kept no clear records linking parents with their children — in other words, no ready means to reunite the families.

President Biden, as a candidate and also once in office, made clear his own disgust at the so-called zero-tolerance policy, calling it “criminal.” He said, correctly, that it “violates every notion of who we are as a nation.”

Now the president, having explicitly endorsed government compensation that would address the suffering of separated migrant family members, has apparently had a change of heart — or political calculation. In mid-December, the Justice Department abruptly broke off negotiations aimed at a financial settlement with hundreds of affected families. Having condemned a policy that traumatized children and their parents, Mr. Biden now leads an administration fighting in court to deny recompense to those same families.

The government has no means of alleviating the trauma inflicted by the previous president’s egregious treatment of those families. That is particularly true as regards the children, whose torment has been described and documented by medical professionals, advocates and journalists. The babies and toddlers who didn’t recognize their own mothers when they were finally reunited; the depression; the fear of further separations, even brief ones — the human aftershocks of Donald Trump’s heartlessness will linger for years, and for lifetimes in some cases.

The administration compounds the hurt by breaking off negotiations on compensating victims. The government must be held accountable; compensation is the most potent and credible vehicle for achieving that.

Granted, there may be a political price to pay. Republicans had a field day blasting the White House after media reports this fall suggested the government might pay $450,000 to separated family members — a settlement that could amount to $1 billion if applied to the several thousand affected migrants. Mr. Biden, apparently unaware of the status of negotiations at that time, said the reports, first published in the Wall Street Journal, were “garbage.” He later backed away from that remark, saying he did not know how much money would be suitable but that some amount was certainly due.

Now, it seems, all bets are off. In the absence of a negotiated settlement, the government would enter into what would likely be years of costly litigation, in which Mr. Biden’s Justice Department would be in the awkward position of defending a policy that Mr. Biden himself — and most Americans — have condemned as evil. There is no predicting how individual judges or juries might react to documented accounts of harm done to children. No one should be surprised if some were to award enormous damages — conceivably in amounts that exceed the $450,000 contemplated in the now-stalled negotiations.

By walking away from the bargaining table, Mr. Biden has broken an explicit, repeated promise. Whatever the political calculus behind that decision, it is morally indefensible.

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

Garland fails to stand up for the rights of families of color — again. At the same time, he ties up resources on a frivolous DOJ defense of the indefensible!

“Replacement theory,” White Nationalism, and racism always have been and remain at the core of the GOP’s anti-democracy insurrection. It’s no coincidence that Trump’s plans to de-stabilize American democracy began with cowardly attacks on vulnerable migrants (enabled by a failed Supremes) and culminated in open insurrection.

The dots aren’t that hard to connect. But, Garland doesn’t seem to be able to do it!

If Garland can’t handle the “low hanging fruit” — like settling these cases and creating a progressive judiciary at EOIR who will stand up  for the rights of all persons while using expertise and “practical scholarship” to replace dysfunction with efficiency, his pledge to hold the January insurrectionists and their leaders accountable rings hollow!

I’m not the only one to note and question Garland’s uninspiring performance as Attorney General at a time of existential crisis. https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Merrick-Garland-isn-t-going-to-save-16752522.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headlines&utm_campaign=sfc_opinioncentral&sid=5bfc15614843ea55da6b8709

For those who read the LA Times, there was a “spot on” letter to the editors today accurately characterizing Garland as the “Attorney General for different era.”

As I’ve noted before, this is NOT Ed Levi’s, Griffin Bell’s, or Ben Civiletti’s DOJ. It isn’t even Janet Reno’s DOJ. (I ought to  know, as I worked under each of the foregoing.)

It’s an organization that has become increasingly politicized over the last two decades (as it was during Watergate), and that allowed itself to be weaponized by Trump’s White Nationalist regime. EOIR, Executive Orders, and immigration litigation were perhaps the most obvious, but by no means the only, examples.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-07-22

☠️⚰️👎🏽🤮 SHAFTOLA! — RIGHTY JUDGES USE UNREPRESENTED CASE TO STICK IT TO FEMALE REFUGEES PERSECUTED BY DOMESTIC VIOLENCE! — America’s Worst Circuit Strikes Again! — Jaco v. Garland

https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/20/20-60081-CV0.pdf

PANEL:  Jolly, Elrod, and Oldham, Circuit Judges.

OPINION: Jennifer Walker Elrod, Circuit Judge

KEY QOUTE:

We will start, as we did in Gonzales-Veliz, with the state of immigration law. In Matter of M-E-V-G-, the BIA synthesized prior BIA decisions addressing the definition of “particular social group.” 26 I. & N. Dec. 227, 228 (BIA 2014). In doing so, it clarified that an applicant must show that the group is (1) composed of members who share a common immutable characteristic, (2) defined with particularity, and (3) socially distinct within the society in question. Id. at 237. Furthermore, there must

3 The Attorney General issued A-B-II to clarify questions arising from A-B-I. Matter of A-B-, 28 I. & N. Dec. 199 (A.G. 2021) (A-B-II).

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be a nexus between the particular social group and its persecution; the persecution must be “on account of” membership in the group. Id. at 242; 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42).

In clarifying these requirements, the BIA carefully distinguished between the existence of a social group and the nexus between that social group and its persecution. As to the existence of a social group, drawing on the language of the statute, prior BIA decisions, and federal circuit court decisions, the BIA stated that the “social group must exist independently of the fact of persecution,” and that “this criterion is well established in our prior precedents and is already a part of the social group analysis.” M-E-V-G-, 26 I. & N. Dec. at 236 n.11 (citing Matter of A-M-E- & J-G-U-, 24 I. & N. Dec. 69, 74 (BIA 2007) and Lukwago v. Ashcroft, 329 F.3d 157, 172 (3d Cir. 2003)); see also id. at 242 (referencing the text and structure of 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)).

This does not mean that past persecution is irrelevant. Rather, it means that the group must be sufficiently defined and particularized by characteristics other than persecution. See W-G-R-, 26 I. & N. Dec. at 216 (“Circuit courts have long recognized that a social group must have ‘defined boundaries’ or a ‘limiting characteristic,’ other than the risk of being persecuted, in order to be recognized.”). To illustrate, the BIA considered a hypothetical group of former employees of a country’s attorney general. M-E-V-G-, 26 I. & N. Dec. at 242–43. The employees’ shared experience of working for the attorney general satisfied the requirement of an immutable characteristic. And the group would also be sufficiently particularized. But the group, without more, may not be considered sufficiently distinct in its society. In this case, government persecution may “cataly[ze] the society to distinguish the former employees in a meaningful way and consider them a distinct group.” Id. at 243. But “the immutable characteristic of their shared past experience exists independent of the persecution.” Id.

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In a decision released on the same day as M-E-V-G-, the BIA elaborated on the nexus requirement. W-G-R-, 26 I. & N. Dec. 208 (BIA 2014). In W-G-R-, the BIA stated that “membership in a particular social group [must be] a central reason for [the] persecution.” Id. at 224. This common-sense definition highlights the importance of the distinction between the existence of a group and the persecution that it suffers. In the BIA’s words: “The structure of the Act supports preserving this distinction, which should not be blurred by defining a social group based solely on the perception of the persecutor.” Id. at 218. To define a social group by its persecution collapses the “particular social group” and “persecution on account of membership” inquiries into the same question, contrary to the structure of the INA. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42).

Nevertheless, later in the same year the BIA decided A-R-C-G-. 26 I. & N. Dec. 388 (BIA 2014). In A-R-C-G-, the petitioner claimed that “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship” constituted a particular social group. Id. at 388–89. Whereas the IJ determined that the woman’s husband did not abuse her “on account of” her membership in this group, the BIA reversed on appeal. Professing to apply M-E-V-G-, it determined that the “immutable characteristics” of “gender,” “marital status,” and “the inability to leave the relationship” combined “to create a group with discrete and definable boundaries.” A-R-C-G-, 26 I. & N. Dec. at 393.

In 2018, however, the Attorney General overruled A-R-C-G- in A-B-I. 27 I. & N. Dec. at 316. After the BIA recognized the group “El Salvadoran women who are unable to leave their domestic relationships where they have children in common [with their partners],” the Attorney General directed the BIA to refer the decision for his review. Id. at 316–17, 321; see also 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(h)(1)(i). Upon review, the Attorney General reversed. He reiterated that “[t]o be cognizable, a particular social group must ‘exist

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independently’ of the harm asserted in an application for asylum or statutory withholding of removal.” Id. at 334 (citing M-E-V-G-, 26 I. & N. Dec. at 236 n.11, 243; W-G-R-, 26 I. & N. Dec. at 215; and a collection of federal circuit court cases). He reasoned that “[i]f a group is defined by the persecution of its members, then the definition of the group moots the need to establish actual persecution.” Id. at 335. For this reason, he concluded that “[g]enerally, claims by aliens pertaining to domestic violence or gang violence perpetrated by non-governmental actors will not qualify for asylum.” Id. at 320.

A-B-I, however, was itself overruled by the Attorney General in 2021. On February 2, 2021, the President issued an executive order directing the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to address the definition of “a particular social group.” Exec. Order No. 14010, § 4(c)(ii), 86 Fed. Reg. 8267, 8271 (Feb. 2, 2021). Because A-B-I and A-B-II addressed that definition, the Attorney General vacated both decisions in anticipation of further rulemaking. He also instructed immigration judges and the BIA to follow “pre-A-B-I precedent, including A-R-C-G-.” A-B-III, 28 I. & N. Dec. at 307.

B.

Swept up in this flurry of overrulings is our decision in Gonzales-Veliz. In that case, we faced the question whether the group “Honduran women unable to leave their relationship”—defined identically to Jaco’s proposed social group—qualified as a particular social group. 938 F.3d at 223. Issued after A-B-I but before A-B-III, we relied in part on A-B-I in concluding that the group was not cognizable. Thus, keeping in mind our duty to exercise Chevron deference, we must determine whether the overruling of A-B-I gives us reason to depart from our decision in Gonzales-Veliz. We hold that it does not.

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In holding that the group in Gonzales-Veliz was not cognizable, we relied in part on A-B-I. Yet we relied on A-B-I not out of deference to it but based on the quality of its reasoning. Indeed, our decision hinged on the inherent circularity involved in defining a particular social group by reference to the very persecution from which it flees. We held that the group was “impermissibly defined in a circular manner. The group is defined by, and does not exist independently of, the harm—i.e., the inability to leave.” Id. at 232. For this reason, we concluded that such an interpretation would “render the asylum statute unrecognizable.” Id. at 235.

In contrast, we recognized that the Attorney General’s “interpretation of the INA in [A-B-I] is . . . a much more faithful interpretation” of the statute. Id. This interpretation was, we said, “a return to the statutory text as Congress created it and as it had existed before the BIA’s A-R-C-G- decision.” Id. That our conclusion had support in the overwhelming weight of BIA precedents shows only that our reading of the statute was correct, not that A-B-I or any other decision was necessary for our conclusion.

Nor does Chevron deference affect our conclusion here. Although we review the BIA’s legal conclusions de novo, we grant Chevron deference to the BIA’s precedential decisions interpreting statutes that it administers. E.g., Rodriguez-Avalos v. Holder, 788 F.3d 444, 449 (5th Cir. 2015). Chevron entails a two-step process for determining whether deference is appropriate. First, the relevant statutory provision must be ambiguous. And second, the agency’s interpretation must be reasonable. E.g., Dhuka v. Holder, 716 F.3d 149, 154 (5th Cir. 2013). Here, even assuming arguendo that the phrase “particular social group” is ambiguous and that A-R-C-G- requires upholding the cognizability of Jaco’s group, that interpretation would be unreasonable for the reasons we gave in Gonzales-Veliz. Relying on circular reasoning is a logical fallacy. An interpretation that renders circular a

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No. 20-60081

statute’s reasoning is unreasonable and therefore unworthy of deference

under Chevron.4

In the alternative, we hold that even if Gonzales-Veliz were not good law, Jaco’s petition would still be denied.5 Following pre-A-B-I precedent, as A-B-III instructs, would not change the result. In A-B-III, the Attorney General instructed immigration judges and the BIA to follow “pre-A-B-I precedent, including [A-R-C-G-].” A-B-III, 28 I. & N. Dec. at 307. This was also the relevant law at the time of the IJ’s decision, and the IJ correctly distinguished Jaco’s case from that upheld in A-R-C-G-. Because A-R-C-G- is not clearly on point and did not overrule prior case law, we must

4 Our circuit has consistently refused to recognize particular social groups defined primarily by the persecution they suffer. This is true before and after both A-R-C-G- and Gonzales-Veliz. E.g., Orellana-Monson v. Holder, 685 F.3d 511, 518–19 (5th Cir. 2012); De Leon-Saj v. Holder, 583 F. App’x 429, 430–31 (5th Cir. 2014) (per curiam); Suate-Orellana v. Barr, 979 F.3d 1056, 1061 (5th Cir. 2020); Gomez-De Saravia v. Barr, 793 F. App’x 338, 339–40 (5th Cir. 2020) (per curiam); Serrano-de Portillo v. Barr, 792 F. App’x 341, 342 (5th Cir. 2020) (per curiam); Hercules v. Garland, 855 F. App’x 940, 942 (5th Cir. 2021) (per curiam); Argueta-Luna v. Garland, 847 F. App’x 260, 261 (5th Cir. 2021) (per curiam).

This is true even after A-B-III. See Castillo-Martinez v. Garland, No. 20-60276, 2021 WL 4186411, at *2 (5th Cir. Sept. 14, 2021) (per curiam); Santos-Palacios v. Garland, No. 20-60123, 2021 WL 3501985, at *1–2 (5th Cir. Aug. 9, 2021); Temaj-Augustin v. Garland, 854 F. App’x 631, 632 (5th Cir. 2021) (per curiam).

Some, but not all, of our sister circuits have agreed with this anti-circularity principle. Sanchez-Lopez v. Garland, No. 18-72221, 2021 WL 3912145, at *1 (9th Cir. Sept. 1, 2021); Del Carmen Amaya-De Sicaran v. Barr, 979 F.3d 210, 217–18 (4th Cir. 2020); Amezcua-Preciado v. United States Attorney General, 943 F.3d 1337, 1345–46 & n.3 (11th Cir. 2019) (per curiam); but see Juan Antonio v. Barr, 959 F.3d 778, 789 n.2, 791–92 (6th Cir. 2020) (observing that “married indigenous women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship” constitutes a cognizable particular social group); Corea v. Garland, No. 19-3537/20-3252, 2021 WL 2774260, at *3–4 (6th Cir. July 2, 2021) (remanding to the BIA to consider whether “Honduran women unable to leave their relationships” is a cognizable social group in light of A-B-III).

5 Alternative holdings are not dicta and are binding in this circuit. Texas v. United States, 809 F.3d 134, 178 n.158 (5th Cir. 2015).

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read it in light of prior BIA decisions, including M-E-V-G-. Cf. Gonzales- Veliz, 938 F.3d at 235 (“[A-B-I] did not alter [prior immigration law]; it simply restated established legal principles and overruled A-R-C-G- because A-R-C-G- deviated from those principles.”).

Indeed, multiple factors counsel toward reading A-R-C-G- narrowly, including (1) the fact that DHS had conceded the existence of a particular social group, and (2) A-R-C-G-’s own statement that “where concessions are not made and accepted as binding, these issues will be decided based on the particular facts and evidence on a case-by-case basis as addressed by the Immigration Judge in the first instance.” 26 I. & N. Dec. at 392–93, 395. For these reasons, Jaco’s group would not be recognized even if Gonzales-Veliz were not the law of this circuit.

We also reject Jaco’s argument that intervening BIA decisions since the time of the IJ’s decision require a remand of her case. A-R-C-G- was the relevant law at the time of the IJ’s decision. Now that A-R-C-G- has been revived, a remand would place Jaco back where she started. And her claims have already been correctly rejected under that standard. Alternatively, regardless of the controlling decision, only an unreasonable interpretation of the INA can support her proposed group.

A remand is also inappropriate because it would be futile. See, e.g., United States v. Alvarez, 210 F.3d 309, 310 (5th Cir. 2000) (per curiam) (declining to remand where a remand would be futile); see also Villegas v. Stephens, 631 F. App’x 213, 214 (5th Cir. 2015) (per curiam) (same). Applicants for asylum or withholding of removal must show that the government “is unable or unwilling to control” the applicant’s persecution. See Tesfamichael v. Gonzales, 469 F.3d 109, 113 (5th Cir. 2006) (citing 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(1)). As the IJ held—and as the BIA affirmed in its first decision—Jaco failed to make this showing. Jaco received child support and

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a restraining order from the Honduran government against her former partner. While her former partner appeared to violate the restraining order on at least two occasions, Jaco reported only one occasion to the judge, and never informed the police. Rather than being unable or unwilling to protect her, the record reflects that the government was responsive to her fears when apprised of them. Therefore, even if Jaco could show membership in a cognizable particular social group, a remand would be futile because it would not change the disposition of her case.6

In holding that Jaco’s proposed group is not cognizable, we do not hold that women who have suffered from domestic violence are categorically precluded from membership in a particular social group. We hold only that a particular social group’s immutable characteristics must make the group sufficiently particularized and socially distinct without reference to the very persecution from which its members flee. E.g., Perez-Rabanales v. Sessions, 881 F.3d 61, 67 (1st Cir. 2018) (“A sufficiently distinct social group must exist independent of the persecution claimed to have been suffered by the alien and must have existed before the alleged persecution began.”); Rreshpja v. Gonzales, 420 F.3d 551, 556 (6th Cir. 2005) (“The individuals in the group must share a narrowing characteristic other than their risk of being persecuted.”).

Accordingly, even if Jaco’s group meets the immutable characteristic and nexus requirements, we still hold that her group is neither particularized nor socially distinct.7 In Gonzales-Veliz, we determined that—even as defined by the persecution that it suffers—the group “Honduran women unable to leave their relationships” lacked the requisite particularity and

6 See supra note 5. 7 See supra note 5.

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social distinction. 938 F.3d at 232; see also Suate-Orellana v. Barr, 979 F.3d 1056, 1061 (5th Cir. 2020); Orellana-Monson v. Holder, 685 F.3d 511, 521–22 (5th Cir. 2012). The same is true here. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s conclusion that her group is neither particularized nor distinct. And without the illicit element of persecution, the group “Honduran women” is even less particularized. Jaco’s proposed group fails this test.

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Judge Elrod’s opinion is as preposterous as it is intellectually dishonest and legally wrong. Of course “Honduran women” — whether in a relationship or not — are both socially distinct in society and “particularized” as it excludes men and women of other nationalities. And, there can be little doubt based on empirical reports about femicide and its causes that Honduran women suffer disproportionately.

Indeed, until the BIA went to work restricting the definition following the “Ashcroft Purge of ‘03” the “touchstone” for recognizing a particular social group was “immutability” (including “fundamental to identity”). See,e.g., Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1996).

Indeed, most refugee NGOs and experts view the BIA’s departure from the “immutability test” as both improper and intellectually dishonest. “Social visibility” actually was put forward by the UNHCR as a way of expanding the refugee coverage by insuring the inclusion of groups that strictly speaking might not be “immutable” or “fundamental to identity.” 

Contrary to Judge Elrod’s claim, the 1951 Refugee Convention, upon which our Refugee Act of 1980 was modeled, was intended to protect, not reject, refugees to insure that there would be no repetition of the Western democracies’ disgraceful performance prior to and during the Holocaust!

The best comment I have seen so far is from my friend and immigration guru Dan Kowalski: 

This is a travesty.  For such an important case, the Court should have appointed counsel.  I hope pro bono counsel will step in to petition for rehearing and/or en banc review.

“Travesties of justice” are what right wing Federal Judges and White Nationalist restrictionist politicos stand for. The only question is when, if ever, is Congress finally going to act to put an end to this continuing national disgrace that actually harms and kills refugees?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-27-21