😴NQRFPT: After A Year Of “Blowing Off” Recs Of Progressive Experts, Garland’s Dysfunctional Courts Appear Shockingly Unprepared To Handle Influx Of Kids!🆘 — Mike LaSusa Reports for Law360 Quoting Me, Among Others!

NQRFPT = “Not Quite Ready For Prime Time” — Unfortunately, it’s a more than apt descriptor for the Biden Administration’s overall inept and tone-deaf approach to due process and immigrants’ rights in the beyond dysfunctional and unjust “Immigration Courts” under EOIR @ Garalnd’s DOJ.

Mike LaSusa
Mike LaSusa
Legal and Natioanl Security Reporter
Law369
PHOTO: Twitter

Influx Of Solo Kids Poses Challenge For Immigration Courts

By Mike LaSusa

Law360 (March 31, 2022, 2:44 PM EDT) — Unaccompanied minors arriving in increasing numbers at the southern U.S. border are likely to face a tough time finding legal representation and navigating an overwhelmed immigration court system that has no special procedures for handling their cases.

The number of unaccompanied children encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection has risen sharply over the past year, to an average of more than 10,000 per month, according to CBP data. Those kids’ cases often end up in immigration court, where they are subject to the exact same treatment as adults, no matter their age.

“Nobody really thought of this when the laws were enacted,” said retired Immigration Judge Paul Wickham Schmidt, now an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law. “Everything dealing with kids is kind of an add-on,” he said, referring to special dockets for minors and other initiatives that aren’t expressly laid out in the law but have been tried in various courts over the years.

About a third of the immigration court cases started since October involve people under 18, and of those people, 40% are 4 or under, according to recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which operates the courts.

It’s unclear how many of those cases involve unaccompanied children and how many involve kids with adult relatives, and it’s hard to make historical comparisons because of changes in how the EOIR has tracked data on kids’ cases over the years.

But kids’ cases are indeed making up an increasing share of immigration court dockets, according to Jennifer Podkul, vice president of policy and advocacy for Kids in Need of Defense, or KIND, one of the main providers of legal services for migrant kids in the U.S.

“The cases are taking a lot longer because the backlog has increased so much,” Podkul said. Amid the crush of cases, attorneys can be hard to find.

. . . .

The immigration courts should consider “getting some real juvenile judges who actually understand asylum law and have real special training, not just a few hours of canned training, to deal with kids,” said Schmidt, the former immigration judge.

. . . .

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Those with Law360 access can read Mike’s complete article at the link.

For what seems to be the millionth time with Garland, it’s not “rocket science.”🚀 He should have brought in Jen Podkul, her “boss,” Wendy Young of KIND, or a similar qualified leader from outside Government, to kick tail, roll some heads, clean out the deadwood, and set up a “Juvenile Division” of the Immigration Court staffed with well-qualified “real” judges, experts in asylum law, SIJ status, U & T visas, PD, and due process for vulnerable populations. 

Such judicial talent is out there. But, that’s the problem with Garland! The judicial and leadership talent remain largely “out there” while lesser qualified individuals continue to botch cases and screw up the justice system on a regular basis! Actions have consequences; so do inactions and failure to act decisively and courageously.

And, of course, Garland should have replaced the BIA with real judges — progressive practical scholars who wouldn’t tolerate some of the garbage inflicted on kids by the current out of control, undisciplined, “enforcement biased,” anti-immigrant EOIR system. 

Instead, Garland employs Miller “restrictionist enforcement guru” Tracy Short as his “Chief Immigration Judge” and another “Miller holdover” David Wetmore as BIA Chair. No immigration expert in America would deem either of these guys capable or qualified to insure due process for kids (or, for that matter anyone else) in Immgration Court. 

Yet, more than a year into the Biden Administration, there they are! It’s almost as if Stephen Miller just moved over to DOJ to join his buddy Gene Hamilton in abusing immigrants in Immigration Court. (Technically, Hamilton is gone, but it would be hard to tell from the way Garland and his equally tone-deaf lieutenants have messed up EOIR. Currently, he and Miller are officers of “America First Legal” a neo-fascist group engaged in “aiming to reinstate Trump-era policies that bar unaccompanied migrant children from entering the United States,” according to Wikipedia.)

Meanwhile, the folks with the expertise to solve problems and get the Immigration Courts back on track, like Jen & Wendy, are giving interviews and trying to fix Garland’s ungodly mess from the outside! What’s wrong with this picture? What’s wrong with this Administration?

We’re about to find out! Big time, as Garland’s broken, due-process denying “court” system continues it’s “death spiral,” ☠️ taking lots of kids and other human lives down with it!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-01-22

SPLIT 7th CIRCUIT VACATES EXPEDITED REMOVAL — FINDS IL OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE NOT AN AGFEL — VICTORIA-FAUSTINO V. SESSIONS

http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2017/D08-01/C:16-1784:J:Williams:aut:T:fnOp:N:2003083:S:0

Key quote:

“In light of the Ninth Circuit’s decision to remand the petition to the Board for further proceedings, we will not defer to the In re Valenzuela Gallardo articulation of what constitutes a crime relating to the obstruction of justice under the INA. See Cruz v. Sessions, No. 15‐60857, 2017 WL 2115209, at *1 (5th Cir. May 12, 2017) (remanding petition to the Board for further proceedings because the Board relied on “the now‐vacated Valenzuela Gallardo decision … .”) (unpub.). This leaves us with the definition as articulated in In re Espinoza‐Gonzalez. Because the Illinois statute under which Victoria‐Faustino was convicted does not require interference with the proceed‐

No. 16‐1784 13

ings of a tribunal, it cannot be said that the statute categorically fits within the meaning of the INA’s definition of obstruction of justice. Therefore, we must remand this petition to the Board for further proceedings. We caution that we do not, and need not, determine at this juncture whether Victoria‐Faustino is removable under the INA. Rather, we hold that Victoria‐Faustino was improperly placed in the expedited removal proceedings based upon his 2000 Illinois conviction under 720 ILL. COMP. STAT. 5/31‐4.”

PANEL: CIRCUIT JUDGES FLAUM, MANION, and WILLIAMS

OPINION BY: JUDGE WILLIAMS

DISSENTING OPINION: JUDGE MANION

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Interesting that the 7th Circuit remands to the BIA, even though it does not appear that proceedings were ever conducted before a U.S. Immigration Judge or appealed to the BIA. In dissent, Judge Manion found that 1) the respondent failed to exhaust administrative remedies, thereby depriving the court of jurisdiction, and 2) that the crime of obstruction of justice under IL law is an agfel.

PWS

08-03-17