⚖️🛡⚔️ROUND TABLE AMICUS BRIEF IN SUPREMES’ SANTOS-ZACARIA V. GARLAND (EXHAUSTION BEFORE EOIR) GETS “PLAY” ON “STRICT SCRUTINY PODCAST” WITH PROFESSORS LEAH LITMAN (MICHIGAN LAW) & KATE SHAW (CARDOZO LAW)!

Professor Kate ShawCardozo Law PHOTO: Cardozo Law Website
Professor Kate Shaw
Cardozo Law
PHOTO: Cardozo Law Website
Professor Leah Litman
Professor Leah Litman
University of Michigan Law
PHOTO: Michigan Law Website

Kate and Leah were live from the University of Pennsylvania in Strict Scrutiny’s first live show of 2023! Penn Law Professor Jasmine E. Harris joined the hosts to recap arguments in a case that could impact disability rights. Kate and Leah recap two other arguments, in a case about immigration law and another about the ability to criminally prosecute corporations owned by foreign states. Plus, a major update about the Supreme Court’s “investigation” into who leaked the draft opinion of Dobbs last spring. And Temple University Law School Dean Rachel Rebouche joined the hosts to talk about some concerning updates in abortion access– an unfortunately commemoration of the 50th  anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
• Here’s the report summarizing the Supreme Court’s investigation into who leaked the Dobbs opinion. (TLDR: they still don’t know who did it, but they tried their best? Former United States Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said so.)

To hear the comments on our amicus brief “tune in” at 14:00 (lots of other “interesting commentary” on other cases if you listen to the entire program):

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strict-scrutiny/id1469168641?i=1000596018641

Here’s a copy of our amicus brief drafted by our pro bono heroes at Perkins Coie LLC:

Round Table Amicus Santos Zacaria v. Garland

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

“With the highest possible human stakes,” amen, Kate! I get that, you get that, those stuck in the “purgatory of EOIR” get that! But, sadly, Biden, Harris, Garland, Mayorkas, their too often bumbling bureaucrats, and a whole bunch of Federal Judges at all levels DON’T “get” the dire human consequences and the practical impact of many of their decisions. That’s particularly true of those that give EOIR a “pass” on bad interpretations, opaque procedures, and a “super-user-unfriendly” forum that all too often defies logic and common sense!  If they did “get it,” EOIR wouldn’t be the dystopian, likely unconstitutional, and life-threatening mess that it is today!

All you have to do is imagine yourself to be an unrepresented individual, who doesn’t speak English, on trial for your life in this messed up and unaccountable “court” system that holds millions of lives in its fumbling hands! Seems like a “modest ask” for those who have risen to the Federal Bench. But, for many, it’s a “bridge too far!” Let’s just hope that the Court does the “right thing” here!

Thanks to Round Table Maven Judge “Sir Jeffrey” Chase for spotting this!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-26-22

🤯TITLE 42 MADNESS: Even As DC Circuit Bars Returns To Persecution &/Or Torture, Trump Federal Judge In Texas Abuses Children!🤮☠️ — Circuit Findings Of Illegal Returns To “Stomach-Churning” Conditions & No Evidence Supporting Bogus Title 42 Orders Fails To Motivate “Robed Ones” To Reinstate The Rule Of Law! — Meanwhile, In Texas, Rogue Righty Judge Takes Over Immigration, Targets Vulnerable Kids For Rape, Torture, Death!

“Floaters”
Trump Judge Mark T. Pittman has a very explicit vision of the future for brown-skinned children seeking protection from “White Nationalist Nation.”
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)

Here’s the DC Circuit Decision:

https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/F6289C9DDB487716852587FB00546E14/$file/21-5200-1937710.pdf

Here’s the decision by Trump scofflaw U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.347182/gov.uscourts.txnd.347182.100.0_1.pdf

Here’s a link to “Instant Twitter Analysis” by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Policy Counsel at the American Immigration Council:

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
Policy Counsel
American Immigration Council
Photo: Twitter

https://twitter.com/reichlinmelnick/status/1499891832569876481?s=21

ThreadOpen appSee new TweetsConversationAaron Reichlin-Melnick@ReichlinMelnick🚨Absolute madness. The same day the DC Circuit rules that families can’t be expelled under Title 42 to places they will be persecuted, a federal judge in Texas just overruled the CDC and ordered the Biden administration to expel unaccompanied children. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.347182/gov.uscourts.txnd.347182.100.0_1.pdf…

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Aaron’s feed at the link.

Although the DC Circuit basically confirmed that the evidence produced by plaintiffs showed illegal returns to death and that there was little, if any, support for the draconian Title 42 exclusion order, the relief granted was unacceptably narrow. The order merely directed the Administration to cease returning individuals to countries where they would be persecuted or tortured.

That order is weak because:

  • It doesn’t specify any particular fair procedure that must be followed by DHS in determining who faces persecution or torture. That appears to leave open the possibility of DHS employing bogus “summary determinations by enforcement agents” rather than using Asylum Officers and having cases referred to Immigration Courts.
  • There are no limits on the Government’s ability to detain individuals and/or return them to other countries.
  • The standard for so-called “withholding of removal” to persecution is “more likely than not” as opposed to the more generous “well-founded fear” or “reasonable possibility” standard for asylum (although individuals should be able to invoke the regulatory “presumption of future persecution” arising out of past persecution).
  • Even if granted, withholding of removal does not provide individuals with “durable legal status” nor does it allow them to access the asylum system, from which they apparently would remain barred under Title 42.

Judge Mark T. Pittman of the Northern District of Texas is a Trump appointee with strong ties to the Federalist Society and a very loose grasp on domestic and international laws and procedures for protecting children.

It’s interesting, if disheartening, to compare the “overt wishy-washiness” of the DC Circuit Judges who were timidly, “sort of” trying to protect at least some minimal legal and human rights with the “in your face,” overtly anti-immigrant, arrogant tone and ridiculous self-assuredness with which activist righty District Judge Mark Pittman advanced his absurdist notion that the White Nationalist agenda of “protecting” America from the “non-threat” of brown-skinned children merited his simultaneous assumption of the roles of President, Secretary of DHS, Attorney General, and for a good measure, Congress.

Obviously, the “judicial restraint,” supposedly a hallmark of modern conservatism, was just a “smoke screen” for the GOP’s activist anti-social, anti-immigrant, racially charged agenda. That’s not news to many of us, although it seems to have gone “over the head” of many in the Biden Administration and many Dems on the Hill.

It shows once again why “Team Garland’s” indolent, often uninformed, and floundering approach to immigrant justice under law is being steamrolled by Trump holdovers and crusading right-wing Federal Judges. And, you wonder why Dems can’t figure out what they stand for and what their “line in the sand” is!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Garland and other weak-kneed Biden officials can’t decide how much of the leftover “Miller Lite” anti-asylum, anti-humanitarian, anti-due-process policy they want to retain and defend and how much effort, if any, they want to put into re-establishing human rights and the rule of law.

One observation: After more than one-year in office, the Biden Administration is no closer to having an orderly, functional, due-process-oriented asylum system in place and ready for the border than they were on January 20, 2021! The expert Asylum Officers and qualified Immigration Judges who are necessary to operate such a system are still few and far between, and the program to facilitate legal assistance for those seeking legal protection at the border is all but non-existent.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-05-22

⚖️BIA BLOWS OFF SUPREMES, AGAIN! — This Time On “Crime Of Child Abuse” — Judge Aaron Petty With Rare Dissent — Matter of AGULAR-BARAJAS, 28 I&N Dec. 354 (BIA 2021)

 

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1419101/download

Matter of Jose AGUILAR-BARAJAS, Respondent

Decided July 30, 2021

U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review Board of Immigration Appeals

(1) The offense of aggravated statutory rape under section 39-13-506(c) of the Tennessee Code Annotated is categorically a “crime of child abuse” within the meaning of section 237(a)(2)(E)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) (2018).

(2) The Supreme Court’s holding that a statutory rape offense does not qualify as “sexual abuse of a minor” based solely on the age of the participants, unless it involves a victim under 16, does not affect our definition of a “crime of child abuse” in Matter of Velazquez-Herrera, 24 I&N Dec. 503 (BIA 2008), nor does it control whether the respondent’s statutory rape offense falls within this definition. Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions, 137 S. Ct. 1562 (2017), distinguished.

FOR RESPONDENT: Sean Lewis, Esquire, Nashville, Tennessee

FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Peter Gannon, Associate Legal Advisor

BEFORE: Board Panel: HUNSUCKER, Appellate Immigration Judge; NOFERI, Temporary Appellate Immigration Judge. Concurring and Dissenting Opinion: PETTY, Appellate Immigration Judge.

HUNSUCKER, Appellate Immigration Judge [Majority Opinion]

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

Key Quote From Judge Petty’s Dissent:

The Supreme Court has held that the generic age of consent is 16. Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions, 137 S. Ct. 1562, 1572 (2017). Accordingly, absent aggravating circumstances, consensual sexual activity between an adult and a minor over 16 is not categorically “abusive.” If a statutory rape statute sweeps more broadly than the generic definition (in other words, if it sets the age of consent above 16) it cannot form the predicate offense for removability under section 237(a)(2)(E)(i) of the Act for having been convicted of a crime of child abuse. There can be no categorical “child abuse” where the criminalized conduct is not categorically abusive. Here, the respondent was convicted of violating a statute that sets the age of consent at 18. Because the Supreme Court has left us no other option, I would dismiss the DHS’s appeal and terminate the respondent’s removal proceedings.

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

In the Pereira fiasco, the BIA’s unwillingness to follow the Supremes’ lead when it conflicted with their “mission” of helping out DHS enforcement (a stated objective of Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions) created big time practical problems that could and should have been avoided. 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-01-21

🤮🏴‍☠️👎🏽RACE-BASED CHILD ABUSE & SEXUAL ABUSE OF KIDS MUST STOP — Demand An End To Scofflaw Behavior By Our Government!

Crimes Against Humanity
Thomas Cizauskas Crimes against humanity
Creative Commons License — The Biden Administration promised to stop these crimes committed by our Government, but hasn’t.

https://www.newsweek.com/we-fled-honduras-fearing-our-lives-immigration-officers-abused-my-child-opinion-1605760p

Daniel Paz writes in Newsweek:

“Welcome to hell.”

 

Those were the words I heard from an immigration officer not long after I entered the United States near El Paso, Texas in May 2018. I thought I had just reached safety with Angie, my 7-year-old daughter. I was wrong.

Once we arrived at the border, immigration officers processed me and my daughter at a detention facility, and led us to a crowded cell packed with 50 to 60 other families. It smelled terrible—like urine—and everything was gray. We were so cold. They didn’t even offer us one of the cellophane blankets you see on TV. I had to take my shirt off to wrap it around Angie and keep her warm. I was shivering.

pastedGraphic.png

The journey to this point had been excruciatingly painful. Fearing for our lives, we had to make the decision to flee. I had a good life in Honduras. I was a businessman and I owned my own home. I knew it would be hard to leave everything I worked so hard to build behind. Starting a new life in a new country with a different culture wouldn’t be easy. But desperate circumstances called for desperate measures. Hope of reaching a safe place for my family kept me going.

At the detention center, many fathers began hearing rumors that immigration officials were going to take our children away from us. Take them where? Take my daughter? To another cell? A new facility? On the inside I was panicking, but I knew I needed to show strength for my daughter. I needed to be brave and prepare her if the rumors were true. You will contact your grandparents in Ohio, I told Angie.

In the cell, we practiced memorizing their phone numbers, repeating them over and over. To be extra safe, I then wrote the numbers with a ball-point pen on my daughter’s arm, her belly, her foot and on the inside of her jeans hoping she’d have the chance to make a phone call before immigration officials washed off the ink.

Then my nightmare happened. They came to take our children. I witnessed pain, agonizing cries and a deep sense of helplessness. Some of the immigration officers joked as they handcuffed the parents. Others expressed a cruelty I never would have expected. Rather than trying to ease our pain, they were somehow enjoying their power. As if they believed their actions were the right thing to do. I don’t know how anyone believes separating a child from a parent is right.

. . . .

While being transferred to a detention facility for children, an immigration officer sexually abused her. When she fought back, the officer threatened her, saying if she told anyone she would never see her parents again. Then Angie witnessed the same officer sexually abuse two girls who were even younger than her. Angie stayed quiet about the experience even months after we were reunited.

We were reunited after several weeks, though the separation felt eternal. The Angie the U.S. government returned to me is not the same girl they took out of my arms in that detention center. She cannot forget what happened to her. And she wants me to share what happened to her because she is worried the officer who abused her is still an immigration official. We do not know the officer’s name—let alone whether the officer is still working in government.

“What if that officer is still hurting other kids?” Angie asked me.

As a father I want to tell Angie not to worry. That is why I am asking President Joe Biden to act. Reuniting families and making sure they have immigration status in the U.S. is critical—but it is not enough. The government can make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of asylum seekers who are being turned away at the border right now. All asylum seekers should be allowed to seek protection and refuge in the U.S. without fear.

The government must also investigate every allegation of sexual abuse and mistreatment by immigration officers. Those officers must immediately be identified and removed from their positions so they cannot hurt anyone else. President Biden, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice together have the ability to ensure that families like mine can begin to heal.

It is hell to leave your home and risk everything so your child can be safe. It shouldn’t be hell once you have reached what you thought would be a safe haven.

After entering the United States to seek safety, Daniel Paz and his daughter were separated for several weeks. Paz and his family were reunited in 2018 and have since won asylum. He is a committed advocate for other families who have faced similar trauma.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

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

Who would have thought that nearly six months into the Biden Administration our Government would still be abusing asylum seekers and ignoring the Constitution, mocking the rule of law, and degrading humanity?

So, how is it that Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke intend to combat racism and unequal justice in America when they have failed to re-establish the rule of law for asylum seekers at the border and continue to run an unjust and grossly mismanaged “court system” @ EOIR filled with too many “Miller Lite” judges?

Tell the Biden Administration and Judge Garland that we need progressive reforms, now! EOIR would be a great starting place!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-06-21

GENDER-BASED PERSECUTION OF WOMEN IN CENTRAL AMERICA IS WIDESPREAD & WELL-ESTABLISHED! — Trump Administration’s Disingenuous Refusal To Treat Them As Refugees Is Illegal & Immoral! –“Homicides will only be brought under control when we teach society that women’s lives are worth more.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/it-is-better-not-to-have-a-daughter-here-latin-americas-violence-turns-against-women-11545237843?emailToken=5cbcc917221424825baa00c26277a3bdzdI+3vtll7KBkMM00Z6+dsoSHU6OaTUnSQQuir5waepAYBzkaUG3llg70bJ/Sf2HOx/vEO/irclDJDwOJpFXRJ2amiJz9BofjN/oVgB1wR4Meq2bA099I4KJFl6mnIF+UPdNqetFe3GINnT3AxJmN+bjIXPxZD7CpkIoH4UmAzE%3D&reflink=article_email_share

Juan Forero reports for WSJ:

Women in Latin America Are Being Murdered at Record Rates

The deadliest region for men has become perilous for women as well, especially in gang-riddled parts of Central America

  • El PLATANAR, El Salvador—Andrea Guzmán was just 17 but sensed the danger. For weeks, the chieftain of a violent gang had made advances that turned to threats when she rebuffed him.

    He responded by dispatching seven underlings dressed in black to the two-room house she shared with her family in this hamlet amid corn and bean fields. They tied up her parents and older brother, covered Andrea’s mouth and forcibly led her out into the night in her flip-flops.

    Hours later, one of her abductors fired a shot into her forehead in a field nearby. And once again, another woman had been slain, one of thousands in recent years in this violent swath of Central America, simply because of her gender.

    “It is better not to have a daughter here,” said her weeping father, José Elmer Guzmán, recounting how he had found his girl, wearing the shorts and a T-shirt she liked to sleep in, off the side of a road. “I should have left the country with my children.”

    ‘Andrea’s only sin was being beautiful,’ said Claudia Solórzano, shown holding a photo of her murdered daughter. (The Wall Street Journal chose to publish the photograph of Andrea Guzmán’s murder, at top of article, because it viscerally shows the reality of violence sweeping Latin America. Her parents provided the image and gave the Journal permission to use it.)
    ‘Andrea’s only sin was being beautiful,’ said Claudia Solórzano, shown holding a photo of her murdered daughter. (The Wall Street Journal chose to publish the photograph of Andrea Guzmán’s murder, at top of article, because it viscerally shows the reality of violence sweeping Latin America. Her parents provided the image and gave the Journal permission to use it.)

    Latin America has the highest homicide rate in the world. The region’s most-murderous corner—the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America, including El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala—annually registers the deaths of thousands of young men who shoot, stab, bludgeon and asphyxiate each other, often in gang-related violence.

    Now, the Northern Triangle is turning deadly for women, too.

    El Salvador, a tiny country of 6 million, has seen homicides of women more than double since 2013 to 469 last year. The death rate per 100,000 women, at 13.5, is more than six times that of the U.S., with Honduras and Guatemala close behind.

    Gang violence has turbocharged the problem here, but doesn’t explain all of it. Women die disproportionately at the hands of men throughout much of Latin America. From Mexico to Brazil, episodes of lethal domestic violence are frequent staples on social media and television.

    Women in Danger

    A total of 2,559 cases of femicide were reported in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2017. Central American nations top the list of the 10 riskiest countries for women.

    *The definition of femicide varies from country to country, but at its narrowest means the intentional murder of women because they are women.

    Source: United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

    In August, Brazilians were horrified after a TV news show broadcast security camera video showing a muscle-bound young man chasing his 29-year-old wife around the underground parking lot in their building and then struggling with her in the elevator as it ascended to their fifth-floor apartment. The camera then captured her lifeless body—she had been strangled, investigators later said—falling from the apartment balcony to the street below.

    A Peruvian man poured gasoline on 22-year-old Eyvi Ágreda Marchena on a public bus in April and set her on fire. The attack so horrified the country that President Martín Vizcarra visited her in the hospital before she died in June from the burns. Her assailant admitted killing her, telling investigators she had spurned his advances.

    “She uses her looks to use men,” he said, according to authorities. “I gave her a stuffed bear and flowers last year when I saw that she was sad. But she was annoyed. She said I wasn’t her boyfriend.”

    Friends and family gather at the wake of 31-year-old Berta Hernández Arce, who was murdered in El Salvador by MS-13 gang members after refusing to pay $8,000 they were trying to extort from her and her husband. The assailants shot her 40 times in front of her 6-year-old niece.

    What amounts to a public health crisis has women of all ages living in fear, according to researchers and interviews with dozens of women in El Salvador. As elsewhere in Latin America, the challenge is enormous for an overtaxed and poorly funded judicial system that can solve only a minority of homicides, let alone effectively prosecute rapes and spousal battery cases, also endemic here.

    The ramifications are broken families and traumatized children. The violence generates migration to the U.S., with women who say they flee to save their lives increasingly filing asylum claims before American immigration judges.

    “Women are looked down upon as they grow up, making them second-class citizens,” said Silvia Juárez, a lawyer with the Organization of Salvadoran Women for Peace, which catalogs violence against women. “Homicides will only be brought under control when we teach society that women’s lives are worth more.”

    Specialists studying violent crime in Central America say the killings of women often come at the hands of their partners, and that the rise of vicious gangs has added a tragic new dimension.

    “Violence against women existed before the gangs,” said Angelica Rivas, a women’s rights lawyer. “The gangs make it worse.”

    Activists hold a candlelight protest against femicides in El Salvador on Nov. 30.
    Activists hold a candlelight protest against femicides in El Salvador on Nov. 30.

    The two gangs that operate in nearly all of El Salvador’s 262 municipalities—MS-13 and Barrio 18—treat women as little more than slaves, say law-enforcement authorities and women’s-rights advocates.

    Once an initiated gang member, or homeboy as they call themselves, takes possession of a teenage girl or young woman, she risks a beating or death if she tries to leave without permission.

    “When you have a woman, she becomes property for you, and only for you, no one else,” said Wilfredo Cabrera, who is 24 and recently left a gang.

    The safe houses the gangs use to store weaponry, cash and contraband are also used to imprison girls, some as young as 12 and 13. Gang rape is not uncommon.

    Lisseth, a slight, 21-year-old woman, cried gently as she described her life in such a house of horrors. Escaping an abusive family at 12, Lisseth said she was lured by gang members “who said they would take care of me and give the love that my family had not given me.”

    Instead, she was forcibly kept in the basement of a safe house. At one point, she recalled, 12 gang members took turns raping her. “When they wanted to use me, they’d say, ‘Come on up,’” said Lisseth, who made an escape and is now in a home that protects women who have been victims of violence.

    Lisseth, 21, poses for a portrait while in hiding from the gang MS-13 in El Salvador.
    Lisseth, 21, poses for a portrait while in hiding from the gang MS-13 in El Salvador.

    Families with girls in gang-controlled regions know they, too, can be targeted if a homeboy takes an interest. Saying “no” isn’t an option.

    The local gang overlord in Manuel Juárez’s neighborhood on the outskirts of San Salvador wanted his oldest daughter, he recounted. He warned her that if she didn’t go along with him, her family would be killed.

    “He would see her. He would touch her, kiss her wherever, in the street,” Mr. Juárez, 45, said. “He came and told me, ‘I’m going to take your girl. Do not look for her or else I will kill you.’ ” Mr. Juárez was too afraid to go to the police.

    Gang members did take his daughter, leaving her pregnant before the family was able to get her, eventually, to a new life in Spain. Now, Mr. Juárez worries about his youngest daughter, just 16, and whether one option might be to flee to the U.S. should gang members take interest.

    It’s too late for Mr. Guzmán and his wife, Claudia Solórzano. They can only recount the sense of hopelessness and anguish they felt as gang members began to notice Andrea, with her blue eyes and long black hair.

    First it was a chieftain nicknamed Thunder, who dated Andrea. But when he was jailed, the homeboy who replaced him, who went by the alias Little Spoon, wanted her for himself, said her mother, Ms. Solórzano.

    He followed Andrea. He phoned her constantly. Sometimes, he’d wave his semiautomatic handgun at her father, making clear he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

    “He’d come across, tell her, ‘Be careful. You look real good,’ ” Ms. Solórzano said. “She would say, ‘I don’t want to be the girlfriend of a gang member.’ When he sent her chocolates, she didn’t eat them.”

    Andrea seemed to sense that her life could be cut short. Ms. Solórzano said that near the end, her daughter went so far as to tell a neighbor she wanted two black roses placed on her casket.

    Prosecutor Graciela Sagastume, who heads a new unit that investigates violence against women, said attacks have been so commonplace that Salvadoran society had become inured. She said that may be changing in the wake of several high-profile killings of professional women at the hands of their partners, among them a Health Ministry doctor beaten to death by her husband in January.

    “Sadly, it took the death of a woman doctor for us to take note that the deaths of women due to domestic violence exist,” Ms. Sagastume said. “They are everyday cases.”

    The casket had to be closed at the wake of Berta Hernández Arce because her body was so badly mutilated.
    The casket had to be closed at the wake of Berta Hernández Arce because her body was so badly mutilated.

    Last year in El Salvador, 345 women became victims of what authorities classified as femicides, the killing of a woman for no other reason than her gender.

    Unlike the killings of men, women slain here usually know their killers. In more than half the cases, it was a partner, ex-partner, family member or other acquaintance, including a gang member known to the victim.

    Intentional Homicide Rate (per 100,000 people)

    Sources: Igarapé Institute (El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala); FBI (U.S.); National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Mexico)

    Whereas men are often shot to death, women are killed with particular viciousness, according to a 2015 Salvadoran government study on femicides that noted how some victims had been tortured, had fingers cut off, been raped, tied up or burned.

    “In many cases,” the report said, “the methods used surpassed those needed to cause death.”

    Ms. Sagastume said the violence sometimes arises when men are threatened by women who challenge the traditional gender roles of Salvadoran society.

    Those factors were at play in the case of Karla Turcios, a newspaper columnist asphyxiated in April, her body left on the side of a road. Prosecutors charged her husband, Mario Huezo. He is jailed, awaiting trial and says he is innocent.

    Ms. Sagastume said various aspects of the relationship between Ms. Turcios and Mr. Huezo led investigators to conclude he bristled at her success.

    He would drive her to work and then wait in the parking lot until she finished her shift. She couldn’t spend time with co-workers or friends. He held control of her bank accounts.

    Yet, she had been the one with the salaried job. She owned the car. She paid for the couple’s daily needs. Her death came after she asked him to contribute his fair share, Ms. Sagastume said, adding, “He felt humiliated by her.”

    Mario Huezo, the accused husband of slain journalist Karla Turcios, is led away by police after a court hearing in San Salvador.
    Mario Huezo, the accused husband of slain journalist Karla Turcios, is led away by police after a court hearing in San Salvador. PHOTO: RODRIGO SURA/EPA-EFE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

    The Salvadoran government, with aid from the U.S., is developing courts to deal with violence against women and staffing them with specially trained prosecutors, judges and other personnel, among them psychologists, to work with victims. The number of cases of homicide processed has risen to 270 in 2017, from 130 in 2015. Convictions are still a minority of all cases but they rose from 76 in 2015 to 117 last year.

    Judge Glenda Baires said the new system, which also handles assaults and sex crimes against women, is persuading more women to denounce their assailants. “Women are now saying, ‘I’m going to say something before I get killed,’” she said.

    In a ballad popular here and elsewhere in Latin America, “Kill Them With An Overdose of Tenderness,” the singer advises an extreme response when confronting heartbreak.

    “Get a gun if you want, or buy a dagger if you prefer, and become a killer of women,” the lyrics go.

    It’s a melodic refrain sung with gusto at parties.

    More than a quarter of women in El Salvador reported being a victim of violence in their lifetime while 43% said they had suffered a sexual assault, according to a national household survey in 2017 by the country’s statistics agency.

    Women from the “La Cachada” theatre troupe perform a play about the struggles of informal street vendors in El Salvador based on their personal experiences. The troupe has delved into issues of gender-based violence both as a cathartic exercise for themselves and as a public service.
    Women from the “La Cachada” theatre troupe perform a play about the struggles of informal street vendors in El Salvador based on their personal experiences. The troupe has delved into issues of gender-based violence both as a cathartic exercise for themselves and as a public service.

    In San Salvador, Meghan López, an American expert on family violence working on her doctorate at Johns Hopkins University, is carrying out research on the impact of parenting skills on children in dangerous, poverty-stricken environments.

    She uses a research tool called the Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire, or ACE-IQ, which identifies 13 factors in young lives that can lead to problems in adulthood. Those ACEs, which include violence, sexual abuse, family dysfunction, neglect, poverty and other factors, are each assigned a point.

    Ms. López’s work is still preliminary, but she has found that parents of young children in the four communities she is examining score an average of 8, which she calls “astronomical.” In the U.S., a 4 would be considered high.

    Exposure to ACEs can alter the development of a child’s brain as well as their hormonal system, stunting the cognitive tools they need as adults to rationalize and react calmly to stressful situations, Ms. López said. That can cause the brain’s more primitive areas to overdevelop while those responsible for emotional control can be underdeveloped.

    What that means on a national scale is violence is bred from one generation to another in El Salvador, a country already buffeted by pervasive violence and the legacy of civil war in the 1980s.

    “If we don’t break the cycle of violence,” said Ms. López, “it’s not going to get better.”

    A mural painted by artist Julia Valencia on a wall in San Salvador denounces femicide.
    A mural painted by artist Julia Valencia on a wall in San Salvador denounces femicide.

    Write to Juan Forero at Juan.Forero@wsj.com

    Appeared in the December 20, 2018, print edition as ‘Latin America Turns Deadly for Women.’

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

    Go to the link above for the full article and to be able to read the charts!

    Folks, this is the Wall Street Journal, bastion of conservative thought and rhetoric, for Pete’s sake! It’s not HuffPost or Slate. And, it’s not just Latin American Countries that are guilty of devaluing the lives of women. Trump, Pence, Sessions, Kelly, Nielsen, Whitaker, Francisco, U.S. Immigration Judge Couch, some BIA Appellate Immigration Judges, EOIR Officials, DOJ Politicos, Pompeo, GOP Legislators, to name just a few dehumanize women and trash their legal rights on a regular basis by pushing a scofflaw restrictionist immigration agenda targeting people of color, particularly women and girls of color.

    “Women in [X Country]” clearly fits the three basic criteria for a “particular social group” protection under asylum and refugee law:  1) immutable/fundamental to identity; 2) particularized; 3) socially distinct. It’s not material that not all women are equally in danger. Those harmed clearly are targeted largely (sometimes entirely) because of their gender. So, there’s a clear “nexus” or “at least one central reason” as the law states. The idea pushed by Sessions and other restrictionists that countries in the Northern Triangle are “willing and able” to protect them is preposterous, as this article demonstrates.

    Also women who are activists, members of religious groups opposed to gangs, political candidates, or members of indigenous populations are targeted for political, racial, or religious reasons.

    In other words, refugee women fleeing Central America often fit squarely within “classic” refugee protection.

    Some are granted protection by conscientious and courageous U.S. Immigration Judges who simply refuse to let the anti-refugee, anti-Central-American bias of their “superiors” in the Administration influence their decisions. But, many other female refugees find themselves improperly denied (or denied any hearing at all by the Asylum Office) by those anxious to please the White Nationalist restrictionists in power, to “expedite” dockets by looking for anti-immigrant “handles” in Sessions’s skewed precedents, or actually relish their chance to release their own anti-asylum biases on women of color.

    And, in the absence of positive BIA precedents requiring grants and recognizing the truth about female refugees from Central America, justice is terribly uneven and depends largely on the “luck of the draw.” Traditionally, U.S. Immigration Judges serving in DHS Dentition Centers and at the border often have been less willing than others to recognize legitimate refugees by granting asylum. Not incidentally, those also happen to be locations where representation rates for asylum seekers are lowest.

    The treatment of these legitimate refugees by our country is a national disgrace! Recently, in Grace v. Whitaker, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan (what a difference a real, truly independent judge makes) began the arduous process of exposing the legal flaws and bias in the Sessions-initiated attack on justice for vulnerable refugees from Central America.

    But, it will take much more effort, as well as a continuing outcry of public outrage, for justice to be restored to the system corrupted by Sessions and his restrictionist ilk. It’s also something that Democrats must and should address for the record during the upcoming Barr confirmation hearings.

    No more “Jeff Sessions” as Attorney General! We need a U.S. Attorney General (regardless of party) who will uphold human dignity and enforce the legal rights and privileges of everyone under our Constitution, not just the privileged. We also need an Attorney General with the confidence in and respect for our justice system to let the BIA and the Immigration Courts operate in an independent manner and set their own dockets and legal standards, free from political interference and White Nationalist restrictionist agendas.

    PWS

    12-26-18

    THE UGLY ABOMINATION OF CHILDREN BEING DOPED & ABUSED IN DETENTION BEGAN IN THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION – TRUMP & SESSIONS DOUBLED DOWN ON THAT TARNISHED LEGACY – IT’S PAST TIME FOR BIPARTISAN ACTION IN CONGRESS TO END THIS GROTESQUE BLOT ON OUR NATIONAL CHARACTER!

    https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/immigrant-children-abuse-drugged-shiloh-treatment-center.html

    Daniel Engber reports for Slate:

    A federal court has given the Trump administration until Friday, Aug. 10, to figure out a plan for the 28 immigrant children still detained at the Shiloh Treatment Center in southeast Texas. Any child who is not deemed to pose “a risk of harm to self or others” must be transferred to a less restrictive facility, per Judge Dolly Gee’s July 30 ruling in a lawsuit filed earlier this year. She also addressed the lawsuit’s claims that residents at Shiloh have been given forced injections and prescribed antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and antipsychotic drugs without consent. The government must stop this practice, she determined, and make sure that psychotropic drugs are given to detainees at Shiloh only in accordance with Texas child welfare laws and regulations.

    For weeks now, this misuse of psychiatric medications has been cited as a prime example of the White House’s “despicable,” “reprehensible,” “inhumane and unconscionable” border policies. “President Donald Trump’s zero tolerance policy stands to create a zombie army of children forcibly injected with medications,” said the article from the Center for Investigative Reporting that first brought the allegations to light. “The president has to be ordered not to give children psychotropic drugs, but I’m the one that’s tripping?” one Democratic candidate for Congress said a few days ago, in defending progressives’ call to defund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    The standard gloss on this medication scandal—that the Trump administration isn’t merely ripping children from their parents but turning all those children’s brains to mush—is substantially misleading. It makes it sound as though the problem was created by our current president when the blame could just as well be placed on the Obama administration. Unaccompanied immigrant children first arrived at the Shiloh Treatment Center in 2009, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting, despite the fact that three children had already died at Shiloh and affiliated centers while being physically restrained by staffers. These were not the only horrific incidents on record. Another time, for example, staff encouraged a group of girls with cognitive disabilities to fight each other gladiator-style for after-school snacks. And while Trump is now responsible for the children in federal custody, and certain medication-related abuses appear to have continued under his watch, most of the cases of abuse included in the lawsuit occurred before he set foot in the Oval Office.

    The suspect framing of the Shiloh scandal as a cause for partisan anti-Trump outrage also serves to minimize the problem. When commentators link the overmedication of child immigrants to Trump’s zero tolerance policy at the border, they imply that the children who were forcibly separated from their parents earlier this year are the only ones at risk for this abuse—or, at the very least, that these kids are at higher risk than others in residential treatment. That’s wrong. The 2,500 kids subject to family separation are just a subset of the children held around the country by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. ORR already oversees the placement of some 10,000 minors who arrived at the border on their own, without parents or guardians—and the Shiloh Treatment Center has been housing, treating, and potentially abusing detainees from this larger population for about a decade now.

    But even that doesn’t capture the full scale of the problem, which affects not just immigrants but kids throughout the nation’s child welfare system. The court exhibits from the recent lawsuit suggest a scene out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: In addition to receiving forced injections of antipsychotic drugs to calm them down, former residents say they were dosed with as many as nine different pills at a time without being told what they were taking or why. These medications were allegedly prescribed without consulting the children’s parents or their other adult relatives or otherwise securing a court order. Children who refused to swallow their pills, the lawsuit says, were physically made to do so or were coerced in other ways. “They told me … that the only way I could get out of Shiloh was if I took the pills,” one child explained. “I have not refused taking the pills because I was told that … would make me stay at Shiloh longer,” said another.

    As awful as these details sound, they’re not unique. Experts on the use of psychotropic drugs in foster care and residential treatment settings say overmedication is widespread. Studies find that foster kids are given psychotropic drugs at least twice as often as other children served by Medicaid, despite a lack of solid evidence for these drugs’ efficacy in children and little knowledge of what long-term hazards they might pose to developing brains. (Most such medications are FDA-approved only for adults, so their use with children is off-label.)

    The prescription of several different psychotropic drugs to children at the same time doesn’t represent some new perversion of psychiatry cooked up by the Trump administration or put in place by reckless doctors at a converted trailer park in Texas. Rather, “polypharmacy” is a mainstream approach to medicating children in residential treatment settings. In responding to the recent lawsuit, an ORR official informed the court that Shiloh follows Texas state guidelinesfor the use of such drugs in foster care—which means, she said, that they “strive to use no more than four [psychotropic] medications concurrently.” Again, there’s a lack of data to support this standard practice. “Very few studies have shown safety and efficacy for two or more psychotropics used concurrently in children, and none, virtually, have shown safety or efficacy using three or more,” says Erin Barnett, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth who studies evidence-based practices for traumatized children. “Yet this kind of bad treatment is going on all over the country.”

    There are some specific ways in which the methods reportedly used by Shiloh Treatment Center do stand apart. Even when a given child’s parents were reachable, the lawsuit says, the center did not bother to reach out to them regarding the use of drugs. (This apparent indifference to informed consent provoked a major portion of the judge’s recent ruling.) In practice, though, adherence to the rules on consent does not prevent the overuse of medications in residential treatment settings. Many parents and guardians acquiesce to polypharmacy when it’s recommended by a doctor, and officials tasked with overseeing wards of the state may also sign off on a smorgasbord of psychotropics provided that a child has been diagnosed with several different mental health conditions.

    It’s also not enough to have a relative’s informed consent when treating psychiatric issues in these settings. The kids themselves should also give “assent” to treatment, which means they’re willing to accept the drugs. That’s often not the case in residential treatment settings, though. Kids who have been placed in these facilities tend to have long, complicated histories of treatment and may be suspicious of whatever care they’re being offered. When they do refuse their medication, their behavior is often chalked up to emotional problems—an “oppositional defiant disorder,” perhaps. According to both Barnett and Robert Foltz, a clinical psychologist and member of the board for the Association of Children’s Residential Centers, health care providers will at times cajole these children into taking meds, perhaps by threatening to “remove their privs”—which is to say, depriving them of activities they enjoy. Barnett cites a study of 50 adolescents taking psychotropic drugs, which found that nearly half reported feeling “forced or pushed” to take their medications.

    The use of psychotropic drugs with kids detained at the border raises unique concerns. For one thing, we might guess that these children’s mental health issues stem, in large part, from whatever troubling events led them to leave their home countries, combined with the stress of being held in custody and—for those detained this year under Trump’s family-separation policy—the trauma of having been pried away from their parents. If it is possible to identify clear environmental causes of their distress, or if a child can be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, then medications—even when they’re ethically applied—aren’t likely to be the most useful form of treatment. According to Foltz, psychotropic drugs barely work for PTSD and are not considered front-line treatments; the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recommends cognitive behavioral therapy instead. Another problem arises from the fact that, in most cases, health care providers for these children won’t have access to their patients’ detailed case histories, so whatever psychiatric diagnoses they make will be off the cuff.

    There are many reasons to be furious and fretful over what’s gone on at Shiloh and how the alleged abuse of children there could and should have been avoided. Over the past nine years, the federal government has paid tens of millions of dollars to house troubled detainees at a residential treatment facility with a well-earned, highly suspect reputation. But if there’s any bigger lesson to what happened at this 43-bed facility in rural Texas, it’s not that Trump’s border policies are inhumane. (There are plenty of other, better ways to come to that conclusion.) Nor does it suggest that “anti-child” ideologues have somehow come to power in Washington. No, this ugly scandal spanning two administrations should be taken as a sign of what can happen to the nation’s most damaged and defenseless kids no matter who’s in power.

    There’s more than enough blame to go around on this one. But, blame solves nothing. What needs to happen is for a bipartisan Congress to step up to the plate and end the abuse that Executive officials of two consecutive Administrations have lacked the ethics, common sense, and human decency to do the right thing and stop.
    PWS
    08-12-18

    START YOUR WEDNESDAY WITH SOME UPLIFTING BREAKING NEWS – IT’S A GREAT DAY FOR THE USA: 1) Alabama Comes Through For U.S. By Electing Democrat Doug Jones To US Senate; 2) Aaron Rodgers Cleared To Return To Pack & Will Start Against The Carolina Panthers on Sunday! –- “Ayatollah Roy” Will Not Be Bringing His Agenda Of Bigotry, Hate, & Un-American Views & His Total Scumbag Persona To Washington – One Of America’s Favorite — & Most Fun To Watch – Sports Stars Will Return To “Primetime!”

    First, we can all thank Senator Elect Doug Jones and the voters of Alabama for saving America from the horrible spectacle and damage that would have been caused by the election of the heinous bigot, liar, slanderer, racist, homophobe, xenophobe, theocrat of a false religion, coward, scofflaw, and apparent sexual predator Roy Moore. Jones’s election is a striking rebuke to that other sleazy, corrupt, dishonest, bigoted unrepentant sexual predator in America, Trump. And, by narrowing the GOP advantage in the Senate to a razor-thin 51-49, it raises the possibility that the Democrats with the help of just two responsible Republicans could block substantial parts of Trump’s and the GOP’s insane “War on America” and protect us from some of Trump’s worst excesses.

    How ironic that White Nationalist and “Jim Crow relic” Attorney General Jeff “Gonzo Apocalyopto” Sessions is being replaced by a by a competent and decent person who believes in American democracy and governing for the “common good” rather than as an out of touch ideologue with a strong anti-American, anti-Diversity, hate promoting agenda.

    It’s also ironic that Jones has done the GOP a favor by relieving them of the lengthy circus of both expelling him from their party and ultimately removing him from the Senate. Anything short of that would have been a continuing embarrassment for the party. Quite contrary to Trump’s outrageous statements in support of the Ayatollah, any vote that a party wins because of support of a total scumbag like Moore damages that party as well as our country. (It does, however, raise in my mind the question of when they are going to expel the anti-American, racist, bigot Steve King from their party. There is no room in any major party for the likes of King.)

    Hats off to the African-American community in Alabama who were not deterred by the Sessions/GOP voter suppression anti-Civil Rights initiatives and showed up in the numbers required to make a difference in the election. After being shut out of their fair share of political power in Alabama for over 300 years, African-Americans are finally in a position to make their voices and feelings heard in the U.S. Senate.

    Also, hats off to GOP Southern Senators Richard Shelby of Alabama and Tim Scott of South Carolina for standing up and “Just Saying No” to the Moore nonsense. As pointed out by Shelby, Alabama could do better than Ayatollah Roy (not a very high hurdle), and they now have in the person of Doug Jones.

    Hopefully, Jones will over time find a way to “win over” most of those misguided souls who voted for Ayatollah Roy notwithstanding the very credible evidence of sexual misconduct with minors in his past, his arrogant “not credible” defense, the clear lies that he told in attempting to smear those who came forward, and his scofflaw, anti-American views. What a jerk!

    Here’s the Washington Post’s editorial on Jones’s stunning upset:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/thank-you-alabama/2017/12/12/176388de-df64-11e7-bbd0-9dfb2e37492a_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-d%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.4ea2f1920de1

    “THANK YOU, Alabama.

    In Tuesday’s special election, the state by a narrow margin chose to spare the nation the indignity of seating an accused child molester in the U.S. Senate. Though the stain of electing Republican Roy Moore would have sullied Alabama, seemingly confirming every negative stereotype about the Deep South state, the shame would have been national. Instead, Alabama voters chose Democrat Doug Jones to represent them until 2021.

    Mr. Jones is not in perfect sync with many Alabama voters on some issues, most notably abortion. But he is an honorable man with an admirable record of public service who ran a respectful campaign. His behavior suggests he will serve with decency and care in the Senate. He should make his state proud. None of these fine things could have been said of Mr. Moore. It is beyond heartening that Alabamians refused to overlook or forgive Mr. Moore’s misshapen character.

    Mr. Jones’s victory shows that, while partisanship might be extreme, it still has limits. Even in deep-red Alabama, enough voters refused to succumb to lies about how negative stories on Mr. Moore were merely fake news cooked up by a hostile media.

    Americans do not send senators to Washington merely to vote mechanically on a few hot-button issues, but to exercise judgment when cameras are not rolling, on issues that are important but not headline-grabbing. Good lawmakers also protect the nation’s democratic institutions, preserve the independence of their branch of government and work with people with whom they disagree. It takes character to fulfill these responsibilities. Mr. Jones seems ready to do such work. Mr. Moore did not.

    Mr. Jones’s victory also suggests that the nation’s recent awakening on sexual harassment and assault is spreading across the country. Enough Alabamians believed the women.

    If Americans should feel grateful to Alabama voters, so should the Republican Party, much of which debased itself by following President Trump into the gutter of support for Mr. Moore. Its majority in the Senate will be slightly narrower, but the dignity of the Senate GOP caucus will be at least partially salvaged. Alabama voters spared the Senate Ethics Committee the dilemma of how to handle a senator who was clearly unfit but who nevertheless won a popular election. Instead of inviting controversy and chaos, they elected Mr. Jones, a man who deserves the honor.

    Thanks to Alabama, Americans can wake up Wednesday morning feeling hopeful about the decency and dignity of their democracy.”

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

    On to the other big story, Aaron Rodgers (“AR”). AR’s recovery from a broken collarbone which required surgery, two plates, and 13 screws is about as amazing as Jones’s victory.

    AR is a smart player, tough guy, and great competitor. It’s certainly possible that he will be able to lead the Pack (currently 7-6 and “on the outside looking in” for a playoff spot) to a sweep of the final three games and a possible playoff birth. But, certainly no “slam dunk!”

    The O line will have to do a perfect job of protecting AR. He will have to suppress his tendency to run with the football when nobody is open and the Pack needs a first down.

    If the Pack should lose to the Panthers on Sunday, they will have to make a decision on whether to play AR in the final two games. A defeat would pretty much end any realistic hope of the playoffs this year. So, it might make sense to let backup Brett Hundley (3-4 as a starter in AR’s absence) start the last two games. On the other hand, being the competitor that he is, AR will want to play.

    Congrats to AR on his return, good luck, and stay tuned.

    Here’s a report from the Green Bay Press Gazette on AR’s return:

    http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/sports/nfl/packers/2017/12/12/silence-prevails-packers-ponder-aaron-rodgers-decision/943774001/

    “The news catapults the Packers’ playoff chances from a pipe dream to a legitimate possibility with three games remaining. Conventional wisdom says the Packers must win all three — at Carolina, vs. Minnesota and at Detroit — to have a chance at a wild card in the top-heavy NFC. Accomplishing that feat with Brett Hundley at quarterback was unlikely after he won just three games in seven starts; but with Rodgers the odds shift dramatically.

    Beginning Wednesday, Rodgers will have three days of practice to prepare for his first game since Oct. 15, when a hit from Minnesota Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr resulted in a broken right collarbone. Rodgers underwent surgery in California to stabilize the fracture, and the Packers ultimately placed him on injured reserve. He returned to practice on a limited basis Dec. 2 and spent the last two weeks running the scout team, dazzling his teammates each day.

    His initial return meant nothing, though, if Rodgers could not be medically cleared. He underwent a series of scans Monday to reveal the progress of his collarbone, and the interpretations of those scans by team physician Patrick McKenzie, several outside specialists and general manager Ted Thompson would determine whether the risk of further injury would be worth the reward of having Rodgers for a potential playoff run.

    For a while it appeared bleak. Monday came and went with nothing but party-line comments by coach Mike McCarthy, who reiterated during a news conference that any decision on Rodgers’ future would be made by medical professionals. That Rodgers spun the football during pregame at Heinz Field or zinged passes in the Don Hutson Center was irrelevant, just as his assistant coaching efforts in Cleveland did nothing but reinforce his passion.

    With Tuesday morning came additional silence, and social media wondered if the lengthy delay lessened Rodgers’ chances of returning. But the results of his scans were sent to specialists around the country, in multiple time zones, and the coordination of gathering various opinions certainly influenced the timeline. It’s quite possible that Rodgers’ surgeon in California, who at this point is unidentified, had a large say in the discussion.

    If nothing else, the painstaking deliberation surrounding Rodgers’ health captures the importance of franchise quarterbacks, and in particular elite franchise quarterbacks. In breadth alone the discussion might have stretched to a dozen people: McKenzie, Thompson, McCarthy, the doctor who performed surgery, several outside experts and, of course, Rodgers himself. The crew needed 36 hours to probe the conundrum from various angles.

    Everything started, of course, with the fairly black-and-white question of whether Rodgers’ collarbone had calcified since two plates and 13 screws were inserted to stabilize the fracture eight weeks ago. Enough time had passed for the bone to heal significantly, though perhaps not entirely, and therein lies the gray area for whoever reviewed the scans. How sturdy must his collarbone be to withstand the punishment of 300-pound defensive linemen or hard-charging linebackers?

    There were also football questions that clouded the equation. At 7-6, the Packers must win out to have a realistic shot at the playoffs — and even then, they could fall short. Why risk Rodgers’ throwing shoulder when the Packers don’t control their postseason destiny? Surely that question irked the conscience of Thompson, whose conservative disposition is well-documented in Green Bay.

    One has to wonder if the two-day uncertainty weighed on Hundley as well. With Sunday’s win over the Browns came the cleansing exhale of accomplishing his primary job: keeping the Packers in playoff contention until Rodgers was eligible to return. He achieved that feat with consecutive overtime victories that cast light on his moxie.

    But narrow escapes against the Browns and Buccaneers bear little resemblance to the challenge of the next three weeks. To beat the Panthers (9-4), Vikings (10-3) and Lions (7-6) — two of which are on the road — the Packers will need reinforcements.

    As it turns out, that’s just what the doctor ordered.”

    Not often these days that we get to wake up to good news. Go Doug, go AR, go Pack, go America!

    PWS

    12/13/17

    NEW PRECEDENT: BIA FINDS THAT SOLICITING AN UNDERCOVER POLICE OFFICER COUNTS AS SOLICITING A “MINOR” UNDER ADAM WALSH ACT — MATTER OF IZAGUIRRE, 27 I&N DEC. 67 (BIA 2017)

    https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/983601/download

    BIA Headnote:

    “An offense may be a “specified offense against a minor” within the meaning of section 111(7) of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, Pub. L. No. 109-248, 120 Stat. 587, 592, even if it involved an undercover police officer posing as a minor, rather than an actual minor.”

    BIA PANEL: Vice Chair/Appellate Immigration Judge Adkins-Blanc; Appellate Immigration Judges Guendelsberger and Mann

    OPINION BY: Judge Ana L. Mann

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

    PWS

    07-22-17

    Led By Justice Thomas, Unanimous Supremes Reject USG’s Attempt To Deport Mexican Man For Consensual Sex With A Minor — “Strict Interpretation” Carries The Day!

    Here is then full text of the opinion in Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions:

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-54_5i26.pdf

    Here’s a key excerpt from Justice Thomas’s opinion:

    “Relying on a different dictionary (and “sparse” legislative history), the Government suggests an alternative “‘everyday understanding’” of “sexual abuse of a minor.” Brief for Respondent 16–17 (citing Black’s Law Dictionary 1375 (6th ed. 1990)). Around the time sexual abuse of a minor was added to the INA’s list of aggravated felonies, that dictionary defined “[s]exual abuse” as “[i]llegal sex acts performed against a minor by a parent, guardian, relative, or acquaintance,” and defined “[m]inor” as “[a]n infant or person who is under the age of legal competence,” which in “most states” was “18.” Id., at 997, 1375. “‘Sex- ual abuse of a minor,’” the Government accordingly contends, “most naturally connotes conduct that (1) is illegal, (2) involves sexual activity, and (3) is directed at a person younger than 18 years old.” Brief for Respondent 17.

    We are not persuaded that the generic federal offense corresponds to the Government’s definition. First, the Government’s proposed definition is flatly inconsistent with the definition of sexual abuse contained in the very dictionary on which it relies; the Government’s proposed definition does not require that the act be performed “by a parent, guardian, relative, or acquaintance.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1375 (6th ed. 1990) (emphasis added). In any event, as we explain below, offenses predicated on a special relationship of trust between the victim and offender are not at issue here and frequently have a different age requirement than the general age of consent. Second, in the context of statutory rape, the prepositional phrase “of a minor” naturally refers not to the age of legal competence (when a person is legally capable of agreeing to a contract, for example), but to the age of consent (when a person is legally capable of agreeing to sexual intercourse).

    Third, the Government’s definition turns the categorical approach on its head by defining the generic federal offense of sexual abuse of a minor as whatever is illegal under the particular law of the State where the defendant was convicted. Under the Government’s preferred ap- proach, there is no “generic” definition at all. See Taylor, 495 U. S., at 591 (requiring “a clear indication that . . . Congress intended to abandon its general approach of using uniform categorical definitions to identify predicate offenses”); id., at 592 (“We think that ‘burglary’ in §924(e) must have some uniform definition independent of the labels employed by the various States’ criminal codes”).

    C

    The structure of the INA, a related federal statute, and evidence from state criminal codes confirm that, for a statutory rape offense to qualify as sexual abuse of a minor under the INA based solely on the age of the participants, the victim must be younger than 16.”

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

    Notwithstanding a supposedly “conservative” Court, going back several Administrations the USG has been losing on a surprisingly regular basis in its attempts to take the most extreme and inclusive interpretations of various already very harsh deportation provisions. And, “strict constructionists” like Justice Thomas and the late Justice Scalia have sometimes had just as much problem with the Government’s overreach as have supposedly more liberal or “middle of the road” justices. That’s why I’m not convinced that Justice Gorsuch (who did not participate in this case) will be as much of a “Government ringer” as some believe, at least in immigration matters.

    Despite a number of notable setbacks at the Court, DHS, DOJ, and the BIA all seem to be rather “tone deaf” to the Court’s message. The Executive Branch continues to take the most extreme anti-immigrant positions even where, as in this case, it requires ignoring the “unambiguous” statutory language.

    Given the “maximo enforcement” posture of the Trump Administration, there is little reason to believe that the Executive Branch will “get” the Court’s message about more reasonable interpretations of deportation statutes. Hopefully, the Court will continue to stand up against such abuses of Executive authority.

    PWS

    05-31-17