😘 NEW “DREAM TEAM” FOR EOIR REFORM? — Judge (Ret.) Dana Leigh Marks & Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)  Blast 💣Garland’s “Muzzling” Of NAIJ, Demand Change! 🤯

Star Chamber Justice
“Justice” —  While totally unjustifiable, it’s perhaps understandable why A.G. Merrick Garland wants to suppress criticism from IJs of his courts’ failure to provide due process and uphold the rights of asylum seekers at the border and elsewhere! It’s a major driver of disorder at the border!

Two items from the indomitable Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis:

  1. “LEXISNEXIS EXCLUSIVE: How Low Will They Go? – An Outraged Retired IJ Speaks (Because She Can)”

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/exclusive-hon-dana-leigh-marks-on-eoir-gag-order

Judge Marks says:

. . . .

This broad edict applies even when a judge seeks to speak at an event in their personal capacity and agrees to provide a clear disclaimer that the views expressed do not
reflect an official position of EOIR or DOJ. It means a judge cannot explain the basics of immigration law to a church group interested in sponsoring refugees or even a middle
school civics class. The application of this process to NAIJ officers ignores the well known fact that many reporters operate on deadlines of mere hours and do not provide their questions in advance. It is also hard to understand how EOIR dismisses the clear disclaimer, scrupulously provided, that NAIJ comments do not represent the Department’s views.

Perhaps most puzzling about this turn of events is how this step can be taken during the Biden administration, one which says it seeks to empower federal workers and their
unions. It is simply breathtaking in the worst of ways that the DOJ through EOIR is taking this step in clear violation of the First Amendment. The United States Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that federal employees don’t check their First Amendment rights at the door when they accept employment. To the contrary, the Court has
recognized the unique “special value” to the public of speech by public employees on matters related to their employment. In stark contrast to EOIR’s position, the Code of
Conduct for U.S. Judges affirmatively encourages federal judges to speak, write, lecture, teach and participate in other activities concerning the law, the legal system and
the administration of justice. And whatever happened to whistleblower protections? Are they suspended when they reveal information which can be viewed as critical of an agency?

In defense of its action, EOIR cites the tepid, generic excuse that it is merely promoting the efficiency of the service it is charged with performing. It asserts that using personal
capacity speech (as opposed to official speech by its designated spokespersons), even with a disclaimer, can have real adverse effects on the agency’s mission. It claims that
the SET process was established to promote public confidence in IJ impartiality, despite clear Supreme Court guidance that judicial partiality is narrowly defined as a lack of bias
for or against a party in the proceeding. If that is not clear enough, that standard was set forth in a decision which protected the rights of judicial candidates to announce their
views on disputed legal or political issues, a bridge NAIJ officers never cross because NAIJ is a nonpolitical professional organization whose members’ personal viewpoints
span the spectrum.

EOIR’s gag order against NAIJ officers is an outrageous and dangerous policy that should not go unnoticed and unremedied. Those of us who can speak must speak out
and take action to prevent this policy change from being continued.”

The Honorable Dana Leigh Marks (retired) served as an Immigration Judge in San Francisco from January 1987 until December 2021. During her tenure she was an active member of NAIJ from the start, serving seven two-year terms as President and two two-year terms as Vice President. Since ending her term as president in 2017 she has served as President Emerita of NAIJ. The opinions expressed here are her personal ones and are not intended to set forth the formal position of NAIJ on the matters discussed. To hear their views, you will have to contact its officers. Uh oh. I guess you can’t…….

Hon. Diana Leigh Marks
Hon. Dana Leigh Marks
Retired U.S. Immigration Judge
Past President, National Association of Immigration Judges, Member of The Round Table of  Former IJs.

2. ACROSS THE BOARD OUTRAGE: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) Sends Garland Scathing Letter: “Completely Unacceptable!”

https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/grassley_to_doj_-_eoir_disclosures_to_congress.pdf

I write to you regarding concerning allegations that the Biden Justice Department is unlawfully attempting to prohibit its employees from making legally protected disclosures to Congress. It’s been reported that the Justice Department Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) Chief Immigration Judge Sheila McNulty issued an order on February 15, 2024, prohibiting immigration judges from speaking publicly without prior agency approval.1 The news report claims that the issuance of this order comes as some immigration judges have spoken out publicly on significant case backlogs at the immigration court, testified before Congress, participated in panel discussions, and made themselves available to the media.2 It’s been reported that the order prohibits immigration judges from speaking with Congress without prior agency approval, and it’s speculated that Chief Immigration Judge McNulty issued this directive in response to the testimony Immigration Judge Mimi Tsankov gave before Congress last fall.3 In that October 18, 2023, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Tsankov said that the Justice Department lacked leadership and was ineffective in its management of the immigration courts.4 It’s critically important that immigration judges communicate with Congress particularly when the Biden administration’s leadership and policy failures have created an unprecedented immigration crisis at our Southern Border. If the allegations that the Justice Department has sought to silence immigration judges from communicating with and testifying before Congress are true and accurate, the Biden Justice Department’s conduct is absolutely unacceptable.

. . . .

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)Official Photo
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Official Photo

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Read the full statements of Judge Marks and Sen.Grassley at the links above.

Thanks for speaking out, Dana, my friend and Round Table colleague! As Dana points out, the Speaking Engagement Team (“SET”) process acts to deter IJs from public speaking at educational and other events. It’s an example of how within DOJ, EOIR “management” gets sidetracked with creating unnecessary bureaucratic “gatekeepers” and “handlers” rather than focusing on due process, fundamental fairness, best practices, and quality control! Those are the things that are broken at EOIR.

The idea that the SET is “necessary” to promote “public confidence in IJ impartiality,” is preposterous in light of the growing body of documentation of racism, anti-immigrant bias, and defective decision-making within Garland’s dysfunctional courts. For sure, EOIR has an extreme “public confidence and institutional bias problem!” But, it’s got nothing to do with the NAIJ speaking to Congress or in any other public forum. Ask the good folks over at the Ohio Immigrant Alliance who just issued a scathing report on racism and other grotesque institutional abuses going on at EOIR on Garland’s watch! See https://immigrationcourtside.com/2024/03/06/%f0%9f%a4%90-busted-eoir-squelches-ijs-union-administration-moves-to-silence-outspoken-uncensored-critic-of-dysfunctional-court-system-news-comes-on-heels-of/.

Also, well-known immigration commentator Nolan Rappaport provided the following helpful resource on Federal employee rights to communicate with Congress:

https://www.justsecurity.org/66433/know-your-rights-conversations-with-congress/

More “Unforced Errors” By Garland

Here’s what Garland should be doing to promote “order at the border:”

  • Prioritize fairness and efficiency in asylum and immigration court adjudications.

  • Respect and maintain the fundamental right of migrants to seek asylum at the border, regardless of manner of entry or transit.

https://wp.me/p8eeJm-9PM

Instead, Garland, once again, has unnecessarily and incompetently, stepped into a “hornet’s nest!” And, the Biden Administration, inexplicably and indolently, has allowed him to do so.  Sen.Grassley is “spot on” in this letter. And, that’s something I don’t often say. 

Now, if the Senator will just call up his colleague Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and get behind the Article I legislation effort, the problem can be solved in a bipartisan manner that will give a huge boost to the quality of justice in America! The evidence that EOIR is not “viable” within DOJ or any other Executive Agency is overwhelming. This is just a graphic illustration of why we need the Article I change that Judge Mimi Tsankov, (Ret) Judge Dana Marks, and many other experts and legislators have been supporting before Congress and in other public forums! See, e.g.https://youtu.be/MEJ093pDGI4%C2%A0.

In the interim, the Administration should immediately appoint an “Immigration Czar” and expert task force along the lines recommended by Heidi Altman of NIJC to supersede Garland’s and Mayorkas’s incompetent and damaging “management” of existing migration programs and policies and lay the groundwork for a smooth transition to Art 1. https://wp.me/p8eeJm-9PM.

DISCLOSURE: I am a proud retired member of the NAIJ.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever

PWS

03-14-24

😎⚖️🗽

😎🤮 CONTRAST: AS CONGRESS, FEDS FAIL, SOME STATES STEP UP AND LEAD THE WAY ON ASSISTING MIGRANTS 🗽😎, WHILE GOP STATES DOUBLE DOWN ON CRUELTY, STUPIDITY, GROSS SQUANDERING OF PUBLIC FUNDS! 🏴‍☠️🤮 — Reports From Emerson Collective & Border News Show Contrast

Wall Hits Sea
The border between Tijuana and California. Studies indicate an increase in the number of drowned migrants at this point on the border. David Ludwig’s photo is licensed as Attribution-ShareAlike.
Certainly, Biden & the Dems can promote a better version of “border security” than this deadly and ultimately failed “hangover of Trumpism!”
  1. Some States Step Up With Innovation & Humanity, While GOP-Led States Fall Down On Migrant Reception, Assistance, Resettlement — From Emerson Collective

https://substack.com/redirect/75874ce8-e696-4b78-9496-2d47a6f109e6?j=eyJ1IjoiMXNlNzhtIn0.8hVV2FxILD3e6tMtjfLdJqJhstwOJgxvhGPCBO-pvCg

STATE LEVEL DIVERGENCE IN RESPONSE TO THE MIGRATION SURGE

While legislative reform continues to be blocked at the federal level, states across the country have adopted diametrically opposed responses to the surge of migrants that have reached the U.S.-Mexico border in search of safety and economic opportunity.

On one side of the split screen, we see real innovation happening with 20 states now having dedicated, high-level staff focused on immigrant integration and building a more welcoming, inclusive America. That includes programs designed to better incorporate immigrants and refugees into state workforce systems, expand the capacity of legal and direct service providers, and ensure access to other support systems that welcome new arrivals with dignity and care.

On the other side of the screen, we see Governor Abbott (TX) continuing to sow constitutional chaos. Building on his claim that Texas has a “right to self-defense” that supersedes the Constitution – a claim endorsed by 25 Republican governors – he announced his intention to “build an 80-acre base to house up to 1,800 Texas National Guard members near Eagle Pass.” This base could “expand to incorporate up to 2,300 personnel” and “cements a large law enforcement infrastructure in the region,” The state is also targeting a Catholic migrant shelter with “human smuggling”, elevating the state’s challenge to federal supremacy over immigration and border enforcement.

We are undoubtedly facing a unique set of pressures at our southern border and in states and cities throughout the country as a result of historic levels of migration throughout the hemisphere. Our current inability to effectively respond to these pressures is the result of decades of Congressional failure to forge compromise on the contours of a flexible system that can effectively manage migration. As states take steps to fill the breach, we are seeing very different visions of what the future may hold.

2) U.S. Judge In Texas Tosses GOP States’ Frivolous Challenge To Successful Parole Program — From The Border News

https://open.substack.com/pub/bordercenter/p/drownings-spike-along-san-diego-coastline?r=1se78m&utm_medium=ios

🌍 Humanitarian Asylum Program Survives States’ Challenge, Federal Judge Upholds Entry for Migrants from Four Countries

The Associated Press’s Eric Gay.- A federal judge in Texas dismissed a lawsuit from Republican-led states challenging a Biden administration program that allows a certain number of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds. U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton ruled that the states failed to demonstrate financial harm caused by the humanitarian parole program, which admits up to 30,000 asylum seekers each month from the specified countries. The program aims to offer lawful pathways while reducing unauthorized border crossings. The White House hailed the ruling, emphasizing the program’s role in addressing labor shortages and enhancing border management. Despite the legal challenge, over 357,000 individuals have benefited from the program, with Haitians being the largest group. The decision underscores the administration’s use of parole authority for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit, marking an important victory for immigration advocates and the migrants they serve.

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

Notes:

How unhinged was Texas’s parole challenge?  U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton is a Trump appointee, certainly not known for being sympathetic to migrants or the Biden Administration. Previously, he probably was best known for his attempt to block the so-called “Mayorkas Memo” on prosecutorial discretion, which decision later was overturned by the Supremes. See, e.g.https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/08/19/%f0%9f%8f%b4%e2%80%8d%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%a4%aetexas-style-racism-trumpy-usd-judge-tipton-in-bid-to-take-over-ice-reinstate-gonzo-white-nationalist-enforcement-directed-at-comm/.

Biden must step up on reception and resettlement. This should be a huge “win-win” for the Administration and the nation. With some states, localities, and NGOs already doing the “heavy lifting,” what’s needed is White House leadership and resources! That’s exactly what Heidi Altman of NIJC and other experts recommend with a White House Task Force.  See, e.g.,https://immigrationcourtside.com/2024/03/10/%F0%9F%A4%AE-the-presidential-candidates-are-feeding-us-fear-driven-bs-%F0%9F%92%A9-on-the-border-w-o-meaningful-pushback-from-the-complicit-media-get-some-constructive-practical-humane/. 

But, without new expert, dynamic “kick ass” leadership, empowered to supersede those currently bobbling this program at the national level, it will remain a sore point, a horrendous missed opportunity for the Administration, and a “de-energizer” for his core progressive supporters. 

Come on, Joe, lead and build on the good work already done by your friends, rather than undermining it by spreading the fears and parroting “lite” versions of the xenophobic approaches of your opponents! Instead of challenging Trump to join you in “closing the border to asylum seekers,” invite everyone to join you in developing and implementing humane, achievable, solutions for fairer and more efficient asylum processing at the border and elsewhere!

Biden must “lose the Miller Lite BS on the border” and tout his successes, like the parole program. Joe, Joe, Joe! Think it through! Trump is going to “win” the “race to the bottom on the border” because he’s a natural “bottom dweller.” So, you need to pivot and emphasize and expand upon the positive things you have done to solve migration problems, like these parole programs! 

Additionally, as recently pointed out by David J. Bier of the Cato Institute, your legally and morally correct decision to eliminate the scofflaw Title 42 “bogus border closing” has resulted in an unprecedented drop in the “number of known successful evasions of Border Patrol (“gotaways”) [which] have fallen to just 800 per day in fiscal year 2024.” See  https://substack.com/redirect/a275d25f-333e-4e38-9951-2b452d9b1ea3?j=eyJ1IjoiMXNlNzhtIn0.8hVV2FxILD3e6tMtjfLdJqJhstwOJgxvhGPCBO-pvCg.

Logically, re-opening ports of entry for asylum claims (despite the huge widespread problems with “CBP One”) and incentivizing those who can’t wait at the ports to turn themselves in to CBP in an orderly manner for asylum screening after crossing elsewhere (despite both physical impediments and artificial legal obstacles to doing so) works to reduce the number of those seeking to avoid screening! This is directly contrary to the nativist blather surrounding Title 42!  

As Bier says, “This should force the many members of Congress and the administration who opposed ending Title 42 to rethink their position.” While there is zero chance that the GOP will do this, because their position is based on spreading fear and xenophobia for perceived political gain, you and your advisors should reverse your disastrous public stance on how to best promote real, durable, achievable border security.

As Heidi and others have cogently suggested, future success will come from investing in better asylum screening, processing, adjudication, and resettlement, NOT from bombastic threats to “close the border” and effectively eliminate the fundamental right to seek asylum! 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-11-24

 

🤮 THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES ARE FEEDING US FEAR-DRIVEN BS 💩 ON THE BORDER (W/O Meaningful Pushback From the Complicit Media) — Get Some Constructive, Practical, Humane Alternatives From Rev. Craig Mousin and NIJC Policy Director Heidi Altman On The “Lawful Assembly” Podcast! 💡🗽😎⚖️

Rev. Craig Mousin
Rev. Craig Mousin
PHOTO: DePaul Website
Heidi Altman
Heidi Altman
Director of Policy
National Immigrant Justice Center
PHOTO: fcnl.org

Craig on Linkedin:

Instead of listening to our two primary presidential contenders vie over which one is tougher on immigration, let’s consider reframing the debate for a meaningful immigration reform that benefits our nation instead of depriving it of resources wasted on ineffective enforcement policies:

Let’s Reshape Immigration Policy

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Today we talk about 10 points to reshape and improve immigration policy in the USA. We used the National Immigrant Justice Center’s 10 points as a backdrop for our discussion:

Let’s Reshape Immigration Policy

Lawful Assembly

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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lets-reshape-immigration-policy/id1724492762?i=1000648467773

  • Show Notes 

Today we talk about 10 points to reshape and improve immigration policy in the USA. We used the National Immigrant Justice Center’s 10 points as a backdrop for our discussion:

https://immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/humane-solutions-work-10-ways-biden-administration-should-reshape-immigration-policy

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-02-29/immigration-crisis-border-migrants-united-states-mexico-election-biden-trump

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

Listen to the podcast and get a copy of NIJC’s “ 10 points” at the above links.

Thanks, Craig, for highlighting the work of my friend and former Georgetown Law colleague Heidi Altman, Director of Policy at NIJC. Heidi is the embodiment of what real leadership, innovation, humane, creative thought on immigration and the border looks like. She stands in dramatic contrast to the pathetic fear mongering (Trump) and fear of standing up for values (Biden) “leadership” coming from our candidates and reflected in the failure of politicos of both parties to embrace humane, cooperative, beneficial solutions for those seeking asylum at the border.

Heidi is a particularly great representative and leadership role model for Women’s History Month.  

I had additional thoughts on this podcast:

  • Better judges, not just more judges. To be effective and efficient, EOIR judges at both levels must be recognized experts in asylum, human rights, and due process who are not afraid to set positive precedents, grant protection to those who qualify under a properly generous interpretation of the law, simplify evidentiary requirements and state them in clear, practical terms, establish and enforce best practices, and steadfastly oppose the political abuse of the Immigration Courts as “deterrents” or as extensions of DHS enforcement. The failure of Garland to clean house at EOIR, particularly the BIA, and of Mayorkas to do likewise at the Asylum Office has been a national disaster driving much of the “disorder at the border.”
  • Incorporate “Judges Without Borders” into the solutions. See  https://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-admin/about.php. It’s a great concept waiting to happen!
  • Invest in VIISTA Villanova and other innovative programs to expand pro bono and low bono representation. See https://www1.villanova.edu/university/professional-studies/academics/professional-education/viista.html. Reach beyond lawyers and NGOs to train students, retirees, social justice advocates, and “ordinary citizens” who want to help by becoming “Accredited Representatives” for “Recognized Organizations” and represent asylum seekers before the AO and EOIR. The programs is top-notch, online, and “scalable.” The Biden Administration’s failure to tap into it and “leverage” it is another dramatic failure of leadership.
  • Better leadership needed in the Biden Administration. As we have seen over the last three years, all the great ideas (and there is a plethora of them) in the world are meaningless without the dynamic, courageous, effective leadership to make it happen! Garland, Mayorkas, the White House Domestic Policy Office, and the Biden Campaign are dramatic negative examples of folks who lack  the hands-on expertise, courage, creativity, and skills to lead on effective administrative immigration reform. I endorse Heidi’s proposal to create a White House Task Force. But, without expert, dynamic, empowered leadership, that Task Force will be ineffective. (Take it from me, over 35-years in the USG, I was on lots of “task forces” and other “action/study groups” whose voluminous reports and well-meaning proposals went directly into a dusty file cabinet or paper shredder.) Think Julian Castro, Dean Kevin Johnson, Judge Dana Marks, Professor Karen Musalo, Beatriz Lopez, Professor Michele Pistone, Anna Gallagher, Camille Mackler, Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr, Heidi Altman, Alex Aleinikoff, Mary Meg McCarthy, Paula Fitzgerald, et al — any of these folks, or a combination, or other “battle tested experts” like them would be head and shoulders over the inept gang advising on and “implementing” (and I use this term loosely) immigration policy for the Administration and the campaign. Leadership counts! And, time’s a wasting to start fixing this asylum system before the election!
  • Acquiescence gets Dems the same place as activist racism. I “get” that the nativist border agenda now being shoved down our throats by both campaigns is driven by GOP fear-mongering and Dem acquiescence. That’s classic Jim Crow! I doubt that every White person south of the Mason-Dixon Line during my youth was overtly racist. Yet, a whole bunch of them were happy to acquiesce in segregation (and worse) because it served their political, social, or business purposes. For example, ”I’ve personally got nothing against Blacks, but if I hired one at my store all my business would go elsewhere.” In calling for “bipartisan” joining with the Trump-generated racist proposal to “close the  border,” Biden and many of his supporters are basically endorsing a lawless, cruel, anti-humanitarian program that couldn’t succeed if enacted. Does that he might be doing it as an act of “political strategy,” “shifting the blame,” or “one-upmanship,” rather than “genuine” racism, xenophobia, and hate, like Trump and MAGA nation, somehow make it more palatable? Not to me!
  • Stop the candidate’s negative campaigning. If Joe can’t think of anything better to say about human rights and the border than to point fingers at the GOP and try and match Trump’s cruelty, lawlessness, and stupidity on the issue, better he say nothing at all. 
  • Don’t get suckered by “whataboutism.” Undoubtedly, there are those in our community genuinely concerned that helping asylum seekers resettle and succeed will deflect resources and attention from existing problems like homelessness and poverty. Nevertheless, few, if any, of my friends and acquaintances who have actually spent their lives, or substantial portions thereof, helping the less fortunate in our communities express this fear. They believe that that if we treat all of our fellow humans as humans, we can expand opportunities and economic activities across the board so that there will be enough for everyone. It’s a  derivation of something we say every Sunday at the community church we attend: “All are welcome at Christ’s table.” Also, asylum seekers and other migrants disproportionately give back to communities, particularly low income communities, rural communities, or others in need. By contrast, many of those raising these fears are the same GOP folks who steadfastly want to cut meals for kids, slash after-school programs, defund proven-to-work programs that reduce poverty, and restrict or limit other existing aid programs. It’s not like these folks would “repurpose” any of the very limited funds spent on assisting migrants to helping the homeless or the less fortunate. No, they would almost certainly spend it on more deadly, yet ineffective walls, “civil” prisons, unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthy, and/or more counterproductive, wasteful, costly border militarization. Don’t get suckered by their “crocodile tears” for the poor and needy!

Contrary to the BS 💩 that is peddled every day by the presidential candidates, spineless politicos of both parties, and the mainstream media, the border is solvable with common sense, humane, innovative legal reforms. More cruel, wasteful, and essentially mindless enforcement and restriction is NOT the answer, nor will it ever be!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-10-24

🗽 THE HUMANITY, DECENCY, HOPE, & PATIENCE OF THOSE SEEKING LEGAL REFUGE @ OUR BORDER CONTRASTS WITH THE BIPARTISAN LIES, MYTHS, & BIAS DRIVING OUR HORRIBLE POLITICAL “DIALOGUE” — “U.S. politicians treat migrants as dangerous, flat, or faceless, and claim enforcement is the only solution to the ‘crisis.’ A shelter in Nogales offers a different perspective.” — Todd Miller @ The Border Chronicle Reports From South Of The Border!

 

Todd Miller
Todd Miller
Border Correspondent
Border Chronicle
PHOTO: Coder Chron

https://open.substack.com/pub/theborderchronicle/p/the-garden-at-the-migrant-shelter?r=1se78m&utm_medium=ios

Todd writes:

When we entered the garden, Tomás’s face relaxed. We were at the Casa de la Misericordia de Todas las Naciones in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, where he had resided for six months with his wife, Cristina, and three children. Before we entered the garden, Cristina and Tomás told me that a criminal group had abducted their 20-year-old son, Carlos, in the small rural community where they lived in the mountains of the Mexican state of Guerrero. Carlos returned to the family, but they knew he was under threat, that the whole family was in danger. As we spoke under the shade of a large tree, children raced around and played on a swing set in front of a yellow building that housed primarily mothers with young children. About 120 people, including entire families, were staying at this shelter, which was designed for people seeking asylum. Cristina did most of the talking, but at the end Tomás asked me if I wanted to see the garden. Cristina had to return to the kitchen, which was her responsibility this week. For his part, Tomás had been the encargado of the garden, in charge of it, he told me, since they arrived.

He showed me the radishes, the calabazas, the zanahoria. He showed me what remained of the tomatoes and chiles that got blasted by the cold. He showed me the lombrices, earthworms burrowing in the composting soil topped with banana peels. As he showed me all the plants, Tomás talked about how much he loved farming, how much he loved planting seeds, how much he liked caring for these plants and watching them grow. In Guerrero he had tended his milpa (small parcel of land) of squash, beans, and corn every day. As he spoke, I tried to envision his rural mountain community; over the years I have met many campesinos, small farmers, across southern Mexico, in his state of Guerrero, in Oaxaca, in Chiapas. Having knelt in the soil of the milpas before, I understood how this small garden in Nogales was like a sanctuary, especially in the face of a scary situation, as Cristina and Tomás had told me, away from home, away from your roots, your child’s life in danger, wondering if you would get asylum. When they arrived six months earlier, they applied for asylum on the glitchy, confusing, and difficult-to-use CBP One app with the help of staff at the Casa, a service they offer to all people staying in the shelter. Tomás told me that when things got stressful, “I come here to the garden. And the stress goes away.” He made a motion with his hand. His hand then touched the soil, searching for the plants. He looked up, and his face was serene.

From where we talked in the garden, we had a sweeping view of Nogales. The Casa is perched on a hill above a working-class neighborhood called Bella Vista, where the bustle often starts in the early morning as maquila workers head to the factories. For line workers making Samsonite suitcases, General Electric lightbulbs, or Masterlocks, the wages are a pittance—giving Nogales a feel of a city in constant strain and struggle.

Also, from the Casa you can look north toward the border with Arizona. Last Thursday, President Joe Biden and Donald Trump came to the border in “dueling visits,” but in faraway Brownsville and Eagle Pass, Texas. People like Tomás and Cristina and family were in the news again, not as their full human selves but as flat numbers and statistics. The “narrative of overwhelm,” as Erika Pinheiro put to The Border Chronicle in an audio interview, was full steam ahead. Alarmist rhetoric filled the airwaves, including the omnipresent “record numbers” of people crossing in every report. In Brownsville, in a proposal that might have seemed like fiction if we went back in time to the 2020 campaign, Biden challenged Trump to “show a little spine” and help him tighten the border by supporting the enforcement-heavy border bill shot down by the Senate in early February. For Trump’s part, he referred to people crossing the border as the “Joe Biden invasion”and as a “vicious violation to our country.” At this point in a heating-up U.S. presidential campaign, the age-old depiction of migrants as either dangerous or a mass of faceless numbers arriving to the benevolent U.S. doorstep was in full effect. More enforcement, both sides were clearly stating, was the solution.

Tomás knelt down to the soil. He showed me the garlic and onions he had planted as an experiment. “Do you want to try a radish?” he asked me in Spanish. “Yes,” I said, “please.” He plucked a radish out of the soil. I wiped off the soil and took a bite. I don’t know if it was because I was hungry (I was), or if it was the force of the stories Tomás and Cristina had shared (probably that too), or just watching Tomás work the soil, tenderly touch the plants, his face soft and concentrated, the perils of asylum-seeker limbo temporarily forgotten, that I knew that this type of care would render something delicious. The radish was so succulent that I finished it too quickly, but I was too bashful to ask for another, even though I wanted one. We could still hear the voices of playing kids coming up from below; there were people from all over Mexico, from Central America, from Peru, Colombia, and from across the world like China, Iran, and Senegal. Before talking with Tomás and Cristina, I visited the tortillería, where three young men worked making tortillas. I visited a workshop where people made weavings and other art projects. 

I visited a gigantic bread oven—where people from different countries baked bread in their own traditions, and I visited the kitchen and dining room where banners celebrating the Chinese New Year hung from the walls. One new year celebratory sign read in English, “Be patient, Be light, Be love, Be you!” Another read in Spanish, “La amabilidad es la llave de todas las fortunas” (Friendliness is the key to all fortune). 

The shelter is run by its director, Alma Angélica Macías, but the effort was a community one, and a binational one. I was there with a small group of people from the Good Shepherd UCC church in Arizona who bring food to the Casa every Thursday. And given that the shelter allows people to stay as long as the asylum process takes, the Casa had a feel of a multinational hub where people of different nationalities had formed deep bonds, and as I stood there with Tomás, I was moved by this beautiful, alternative view of the border that rarely sees the light of day in the media.

Right as I was about to leave the garden, Tomás’s 20-year-old son came to ask him a question. Tomás introduced me to Carlos, and as I looked into his young face, I remembered the threats to his life that had led them there. As I stood waiting, they talked among themselves, and I thought again about the presidential race, the constant push for more border enforcement, the rightward drift of that debate, the talk that the U.S. government was going to clamp down even harder on asylum seekers—all while watching the father and son talk in calm, sweet tones in that lovely garden. When they were finished, there was a pause. One last moment to take in the garden and the sweeping view around us. I used the pause to thank Tomás for showing me the garden, for showing me his gift with the land. I didn’t know what to say except that I thought it was beautiful and that I felt inspired. And then—after a quick, tender, and vulnerable look to young Carlos, who was still by his side—Tomás told me, as if he didn’t want to have to say it, “I hope they give us asylum.”

*For the story, I altered the names of the family from Guerrero at the request of the shelter.

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

Click the above link for the original article with Todd’s wonderful border photography!

As I often say, we can diminish ourselves as a nation, (as both Trump and Biden are doing with their “misleading dehumanizing rhetoric” and spineless “scapegoating”), but it won’t stop human migration. Dehumanization and victimization in the end highlight the humanity of the victims while diminishing the dehumanizers.

Notably, this family has spent months trying “to do things the right way” by scheduling an appointment through the woefully inadequate “CBP One App” and appointment system. Yet, it appears that they have not even been given the interview to which they are entitled by law, nor have they been given a date for the fair merits adjudication they deserve! 

The immense backlogs that everyone complains about (and which actually hurt legitimate asylum seekers like Tomás and his family) are largely self-created by years of USG over-investment in ridiculously expensive and ultimately ineffective enforcement accompanied by grotesque “under-investment” in timely, professional, and humane screening and adjudication of claims. 

Both Biden and Trump know or should know that “the app” and the system it engenders are hopelessly defective. Yet, rather than moving to fix it (Biden) or urging supporters to invest in fixing it (Trump), both candidates shamelessly dump on the victims of their joint misfeasance and urge “further punishment” of those victims, apparently to “CTAs” for their own legal and moral failures. 

Such is the “bogus border debate” — actually not a “debate” but rather a “one-sided nationalistic lie-fest” highlighted by obscene finger-pointing and journalistic malpractice on a catastrophic scale. All this happens with human lives and the very future of our democratic republic hanging in the balance!

Eventually, the judgement history on this disingenuous “bipartisan exercise in neofascism” will fall on the shameless politicos, the complicit media, and those who fail to call them out for their lies and misdeeds. Whether that judgement will come in time to save Tomás, Cristina, Carlos, and others like them seeking only justice and humanity from our nation is a different question. Like Tomás, one can only hope! 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-08-24

☠️🤯 IN DHS’S NEW AMERICAN GULAG (“NAG”), THEIR SPELLING MISTAKE CAN GET YOU DEPORTED! — NDPA Superstar Marty Rosenbluth Saves Another Life (For Now)!

Marty Rosenbluth Immigration Attorney Lumpkin,GA PHOTO: Linkedin
Marty Rosenbluth
Immigration Attorney
Lumpkin,GA
PHOTO: Linkedin

Marty writes on LinkedIn:

Major flying rainbow Unicorn starfish today. We actually got a client pulled off a deportation flight while the plane was on the tarmac in Louisiana. We have been emailing ICE since last week when we first heard that he had been moved from Stewart to Louisiana and was going to be deported, despite the fact that he has a hearing pending in the immigration court here. This of course would be entirely illegal, but since when does ICE care about the law? 

It wasn’t until today that we finally got ICE to admit that they were wrong!!! The poor kid is only 18 and doesn’t speak any English!!! I doubt they had an interpreter who speaks his language. He must have been scared to death!  I am sure he had no idea why he was on the plane, but I trust he was relieved when they pulled him off!  Only about a dozen emails later. 

To their credit ICE actually apologized! Sort of. They said that the asylum office had his name spelled wrong. Pffffft!!!!

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

Way to go, Marty! Thanks for all you do for American justice!  

This is what really happens when politicos and bureaucrats push for restrictions on asylum and tout summary removals. More innocent, vulnerable humans who seek only to have the U.S live up to its legal and moral obligations will die or be tortured without due process. THAT’S what “bipartisan consensus” really means.

The system is already dysfunctional. Speeding things up and eliminating legal rights will only make things worse. Why aren’t politicos discussing ways to fix the broken system, rather than penalizing asylum seekers by eliminating it? This also shows the need for life-saving representation to achieve due process!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-04-24

 

🇺🇸🗽 BIDEN MUST STOP FUELING THE XENOPHOBIC NARRATIVE ABOUT THE BORDER, SAYS MIGRATION EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO @ LA TIMES — “[T]hat narrative is false: The border is manageable, and rather than being a danger to Americans, immigrants are a net positive economically and socially.”

Karen Musalo
Professor Karen Musalo
Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Hastings Law

Karen writes in the LA Times:

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=9f2230a5-0663-484d-ae19-a64bb095d7ac

Multiple news sources report that President Biden is considering implementing executive action to try to close the U.S.-Mexico border, including to asylum seekers. It would be an extreme move, and a violation of the Refugee Act of 1980 and the country’s international obligation to protect those fleeing persecution. Only one other president — Donald Trump — has blatantly breached that obligation before. With the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext, Trump invoked Title 42 of the U.S. Code, which allowed him to curb migration in the name of public health.

Biden, who came into office harshly criticizing his predecessor’s anti-immigrant policies, now seems poised to resurrect them. Administration sources concede that the president’s border plans are driven by politics, the belief that the immigration situation is “an election liability.”

This view is no surprise. We’ve been fed a narrative that the border is in crisis, overwhelmed by an unprecedented number of immigrants who pose a grave danger to the health and safety of the nation. But that narrative is false: The border is manageable, and rather than being a danger to Americans, immigrants are a net positive economically and socially.

 . . . .

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

Read the full op-ed at the link. Thanks for speaking out, Karen!

If only Biden & Harris would listen to migration experts rather than those who erroneously claim that violating asylum laws and stomping on human and civil rights is a “winning political strategy!”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-92-24

🤯☠️ SURPRISE (NOT): SPINELESS 🐥 DEMS, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, REPORTERS AFRAID TO CONSULT EXPERTS, HEAR FROM THOSE THEY DEHUMANIZE & CONDEMN! — Report By Todd Miller @ The Border Chronicle! — “It is for those who view politics as merely a game to be won rather than a moral terrain to advance the greatest good of all people. If you were to take this logic to its extreme, Democrats could also support an abortion ban or decertify the 2020 election. I mean, where does it end? President Biden could get that face-off surgery and become Trump himself.”

Border Death
Spineless Dem politicos think that by ignoring the deadly human consequences of their sell-out to the nativist right, they will escape moral accountability. This is a monument for those who have died attempting to cross the US-Mexican border. Each coffin represents a year and the number of dead. It is a protest against the effects of Operation Guardian. Taken at the Tijuana-San Diego border.
Tomas Castelazo
To comply with the use and licensing terms of this image, the following text must must be included with the image when published in any medium, failure to do so constitutes a violation of the licensing terms and copyright infringement: © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.
Todd Miller
Todd Miller
Border Correspondent
Border Chronicle
PHOTO: Coder Chron

https://open.substack.com/pub/theborderchronicle/p/the-bipartisan-border-consensus-moves?r=1se78m&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

The Bipartisan Border Consensus Moves Right: A Q&A with Media Analyst Adam Johnson

“I went through dozens of reports, scores of articles, on the discussion of this migration bill, and the reporters talked to zero migrants and zero migrant rights groups.”

TODD MILLER
FEB 22

In recent weeks, longtime media analyst Adam Johnson has been looking through scores of articles and analyzing Democrats’ rhetoric to see how the border was being framed. One of the texts he looked at was the emergency national security supplemental bill that emerged for a vote on the Senate floor. This bipartisan border bill had been at the negotiation table for months, and it included provisions for military aid for Ukraine and Israel. The bill was ultimately voted down, after Donald Trump rejected it and the Republican Party followed suit. In our conversation, Johnson talks about his deep dive into the coverage surrounding the deal, and he speculates on what that means in this election year: that Democrats have entered new political terrain around the border and immigration enforcement. This interview is based on articles Johnson wrote for The Real News (“Media ‘Border Deal’ Coverage Erases Actual Human Stakes) and The Nation (“The Democrats’ Hard-Right Turn on Immigration Is a Disaster In Every Way”), both places that he contributes to regularly. He also wrote “Top 10 Media Euphemisms for Violent Bipartisan Anti-immigrant Policies,” at his Substack, The Column. Johnson cohosts the popular podcast Citations Needed, where they discussed the border on their February 21 edition. Johnson’s media analysis spans back nearly a decade, much of it for Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.

Adam Johnson
Adam Johnson

Let’s start with the “border deal.” In The Real News you write that it dehumanizes migrants. Can you tell us a little bit about what the border deal is, and some key points about the coverage?

It’s a Republican border deal by framing and admission. Senators Chris Murphy, Tina Smith, and Mark Warner have framed it as a Republican border deal. Almost entirely. It is a 90 to 95 percent Republican deal in nature. They’ve repeatedly said that Republicans demanded XYZ and they gave them XYZ. This is how they’re framing it, because otherwise the hypocrisy gotcha doesn’t really work.

Can you clarify what you mean by “hypocrisy gotcha”?

If it’s not an overwhelming Republican bill, then the idea that they’re abandoning their won bill in service of Trump—which has been their primary gotcha—doesn’t make sense.

But let’s look at the substance of what the bill is.

Among other things, it has $8 billion in emergency funding for ICE, which more than doubles ICE’s enforcement budget. Do you remember “abolish ICE,” back five years ago or so?

It includes $3 billion in increased detention, a mechanism to shut down the border, and $7 billion to Customs and Border Protection, including the continuation of Trump’s wall. And so this is both objectively and how the Democrats describe a far-right Republican bill. That’s the appeal of it.

And the clever idea behind this is that a typical triangulation, that is, if you take a right-wing policy and adopt it as your own, you therefore take away that issue a little quicker come election time. It is for those who view politics as merely a game to be won rather than a moral terrain to advance the greatest good of all people. If you were to take this logic to its extreme, Democrats could also support an abortion ban or decertify the 2020 election. I mean, where does it end? President Biden could get that face-off surgery and become Trump himself.

. . . .

All this is laundered through euphemism, which I wrote about on my Substack and in The Real News, where I talk about the various ways in which the human costs are obscured. According to the International Organization for Migration, the U.S.-Mexico border is the deadliest land crossing in the world. And so if you double the enforcement, and triple the broader security apparatus, bring in more surveillance drones, more weapons, invariably more people will die. There is a real human cost to this type of militarization.

. . . .

Keep in mind, too, that Biden in 2020 mobilized a lot of the immigration activists who opposed Trump’s policies. He rode that wave to pick up a lot of young votes, a lot of progressive voters, a lot of people who are sympathetic to or adjacent to immigrant communities. And this cruel policy shift has really moved them to the right. In the days after Democrats embrace this hard-right bill, Trump began to double down on things like internment camps, shipping off immigrants, because he has to differentiate himself from the Democrats, at least rhetorically.

We’re gonna have this fortress America mentality. No one wants to deal with any of the underlying issues. And we have to deal with global inequality. No one wants to deal with climate change. That’s too egg heady and academic and difficult. We’re just going to do what we always do, which is cops and cages. And cops and cages are the solution to every social ill, whether it’s homelessness, crime, or whatever. That’s the order of the day. The bipartisan consensus. Democrats and Republicans both want it. The worst place for a vulnerable group to be is on the business end of a bipartisan consensus.

. . . .

Many Border Chronicle readers are interested in shifting the narrative. But how do you shift the narrative? Is it just too entrenched?

Some members of Congress have pushed back on this. But I think they’ve been pretty quiet. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pushed back in an interview, but I don’t think she’s really tweeted about it. Once you have this “we have to defeat Trump in 2024 above all else,” then everybody shuts up and goes along with it.

And I think that’s absolutely wrong. I think now is the time to stand up to this demagoguery. Adopting a Republican bill is not the solution. And, hopefully, if enough people stand up to this, then it can become politically costly for Democrats to continue doing this.

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

Read the full report at the link.

The worst place for a vulnerable group to be is on the business end of a bipartisan consensus.

These days, on immigration issues the term “bipartisan consensus” is actually a  euphemism for “Dem giveaway of others’ rights to GOP nativists.” And, of course, even after the giveaway, the GOP shows absolutely no interest is such one-sided “bipartisanship” because Der Fuhrer tells them they must vote it down.

Yet, the disingenuous media and pundits keep misusing the term “bipartisanship” as if it had real meaning! And, although holding power in two of the three political branches, while the GOP struggles mightily to cling to its narrow margin in one, Biden and the Dems “wimp out” time after time on immigration, human rights, and racial justice.

The GOP proudly advertises that it has no values beyond whatever Trump wants on any particular day.

By contrast, Dems claim to have values. But a campaign being run against those professed values and their own core voters suggests that they too have become a “transactional party of no enduring values.” 

Does America really need two political parties that stand for nothing beyond gratuitous cruelty to others and getting elected?

“Go along to get along.” Unhappily, that’s what today’s Dems appear to stand for. 

Frankly, that has been at the heart of many of the problems at EOIR, particularly in Dem Administrations that were afraid of taking the bold and sometimes controversial actions necessary to change culture, institutionalize due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices. Current AG Merrick Garland is a classic example of this failed Dem model. As a result, EOIR is a dramatically dysfunctional and unjust agency.

Will the Democratic Party keep mindlessly following in EOIR’s footsteps? What’s it going to take for the next generation of Democrats to halt the slide into moral vapidity and political irrelevance?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-23-24

👏 CORNELL LAW IMMIGRATION CLINICS ARE ON A LIFE-SAVING 🛟 ROLL! 🛼

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

Two reports from Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr:

1)  Hi all: Our Cornell asylum appeals clinic recently won a difficult withholding/CAT case at the BIA.  On remand, the IJ granted CAT.  And the client won release through habeas. 

Pasted in below is a summary of the case. 

Kudos go to Eva Charles and Isaac Belenkiy, the two Cornell law students who worked on the case.  Even by the high standards of our clinic, they both went above and beyond for the client.  And as you will see from the summary, pro bono attorneys from Morrison Foerster and the public defender’s office also worked hard to get our client CAT protection and release from detention.  It takes a village to win immigration relief!    

The habeas decision is at 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 173280.  The BIA decision is too big to attach.  If anyone wants it, please email me offline.  

Thanks, Steve Yale-Loehr

2023 Mexico Withholding and CAT Case Summary [IES]

Stephen Yale-Loehr, Evangeline Charles, Isaac Belenkiy

 

IES is a 41-year-old man from Mexico who first came to the U.S. when he was 18 years old. As a youth, IES joined a gang. He was arrested in 2005 for possessing a small quantity of drugs and was sentenced to four years in prison for “transporting drugs.” While in prison, IES defected from the gang and, following his release, was removed to Mexico in 2008. There, his tattooed physical appearance caught the attention of gangs and cartels like the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, who attacked him and his family, prompting him to relocate eight times within Mexico. Unable to find safety in Mexico, IES fled back to the United States in 2010. 

 

In 2022, IES was detained by ICE and held at the Golden State Annex (“GSA”), a private for-profit prison, in McFarland, CA. IES applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). The Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denied all forms of relief, finding that IES’s 2005 conviction was a “particularly serious crime” (“PSC”) that rendered him ineligible for asylum and withholding of removal. 

 

At this point, the Cornell asylum appeals clinic took on IES’s appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”). Our brief addressed two main issues: 1) IES warranted relief under withholding of removal because his 2005 conviction was not a PSC; and 2) the IJ erred in analyzing IES’s eligibility for CAT relief. 

 

For the PSC argument, we argued that the IJ improperly analyzed IES’s offense, ignored credible evidence that the drugs were for personal use, and instead relied on boilerplate sentencing documents. As a result, the IJ failed to analyze IES’s motivation and intent at the time of the offense. 

 

For the CAT argument, we focused on 6 errors: 1) the IJ failed to consider that IES’s prolonged mental pain would cause future torture; 2) the IJ did not consider future torture from gangs and cartels despite an expert saying this risk was at 80%; 3) the IJ failed to admit 400 pages of country conditions reports into evidence; 4) the IJ mischaracterized IES’s 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’s complaints; and 6) the IJ did not aggregate IES’s risk of torture. 

 

On June 16, 2023, the BIA sustained our appeal in IES’s favor and remanded the case back to the IJ. Notably, the BIA agreed with our PSC argument, the IJ’s failure to consider all evidence, and the IJ’s failure to aggregate IES’s risk of torture. 

 

After this, IES’s case was transferred to a public defender, who represented him on remand. The clinic team worked closely with the public defender’s office to transfer all files and get them up to speed on the case.

 

Parallel to our BIA filing, we participated in other advocacy efforts. While at GSA, IES participated in a labor strike in 2022 and a hunger strike in 2023. The aims of these protests were to draw attention to the abysmal conditions at private immigration detention facilities like GSA, to call for a minimum wage for detainee labor, and to demand safe and sanitary living conditions for detained migrants. The 2023 hunger strike was a coordinated effort by detainees and activists, supported by lawyers working for immigration justice. This protest resulted in a class action lawsuit on behalf of the detainees and the submission of release requests on behalf of individual detainees.  

 

During the protests at GSA, our team filed a release request for IES. Our request explained that IES should be released because he was neither a flight risk nor a danger to society. ICE denied the request. IES continued to participate in the hunger strike and was mistreated by ICE personnel and medical officers. This prompted our clinic to file complaints to ICE and DHS about this mistreatment, which violated ICE’s own regulations.  At the same time, we filed FOIA requests asking for IES’s detention, removal, and medical records. We decided to build a record of release requests to show administrative exhaustion so that IES can get a bond hearing. We also found a law firm (Morrison Foerster) to represent IES pro bono for a habeas corpus petition.

 

On September 27, 2023, the U.S. district court for the Northern District of California granted IES’s habeas petition on the grounds that “his prolonged detention without an individualized hearing violates his procedural due process rights.” A bond hearing was granted to IES. The government appealed this ruling, but their appeal was dismissed. 

 

In fall 2023, IES was released on bond. A week later, the IJ granted him protection under CAT. IES is now back home with his wife and children. He can now get a work permit and cannot be deported to Mexico. 

 

In the triumph of IES’s journey from detention to liberation, our team found a beacon of hope and resilience. The hunger strikes, the legal battles, and the relentless pursuit of freedom for IES were not in vain. As our clinic celebrates his freedom, we are grateful to our partners—advocacy groups in California and lawyers and public defenders who provided advice and guidance on appeal and zealously advocated for IES on remand—and to IES’s family, who never stopped providing support and information despite their own personal struggles. 

 

The clinic’s fight for immigration justice is far from over, but IES’s triumph serves as inspiration to press onward and advocate for other clients who are plagued by inequities in our immigration system.

2) Asylum granted! 

Beginning in spring 2023, a group of thirteen 1L and advanced Immigration Law & Advocacy Clinic students worked tirelessly to file individual asylum applications for a family from Afghanistan. The clients had their interviews in April, and the clinic just received the good news that the requests were approved. Congratulations to the team!

 

Part of the legal team is pictured here (from left): Katie Rahmlow ’23, client, client, Don Izekor, Esq. ’23, Alisa Whitfield, interpreter Hamid Rezaee (CIS ’26), Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer, client, Amy Godshall ’23.

 

Not pictured: Deborah Morales ’25, Oscar F. Ruiz ’25, Nathaniel Squires ’25, Rodrigo Tojo Garcia ’25, Aaliyah Channer ’25, Yubin “Lucy” Oh ’25, Arina Gorokhovska ’25, Miriam Mars ’24, Tori Staley ’23, Jared Flanery ’23.

Cornell Law Life Savers

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

Congrats to the “next wave” of the relentless NDPA! 

These are outstanding examples of why claims that unrepresented individuals receive constitutionally-required due process in Immigration Court are absolute poppycock! They also illustrate why responsible legislators and policy makers should be investing in representation rather than just spending wildly and fruitlessly on “gonzo” immigration enforcement.

No single nation, no matter how rich and powerful, can unilaterally change 21st century worldwide patterns of forced migration, which is what is generating the humanitarian situation at our Southern Border. But, we can more effectively address due process issues in our Immigration Courts, the “retail level” of the U.S. justice system! 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

O2-20-24

⚖️👩🏾‍⚖️💡FIXING THE IMMIGRATION COURTS! 👨‍🔧 — Preoccupied With Nativist Schemes & Expensive, Cruel, Wasteful, & Demonstrably Counterproductive Mega-Enforcement Gimmicks, Neither Congress Nor The Administration Has Done Realistic Planning For Eliminating The Immigration Court Backlog! — So Don & Brendan Kerwin Have Done Their Work For Them — Their “Interactive Toolbox” 🧰 Is Now Available To EVERYONE Right Here!

Donald M. Kerwin
Donald M. Kerwin
Senior Researcher, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23315024241226645

Executive Summary

This paper examines the staffing needs of the US Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), as it seeks to eliminate an immigration court backlog, which approached 2.5 million pending cases at the end of fiscal year (FY) 2023. A previous study by the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) attributed the backlog to systemic, long-neglected problems in the broader US immigration system. This paper provides updated estimates of the number of immigration judges (IJs) and “judge teams” (IJ teams) needed to eliminate the backlog over ten and five years based on different case receipt and completion scenarios. It also introduces a data tool that will permit policymakers, administrators and researchers to make their own estimates of IJ team hiring needs based on changing case receipt and completion data. Finally, the paper outlines the pressing need for reform of the US immigration system, including a well-resourced, robust, and independent court system, particularly in light of record “encounters” of migrants at US borders in FY 2022 and 2023.

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

Wow! This is beyond amazing! Kudos and thanks to Don and Brendan for this incredibly helpful and informative analytical tool. Get the full report and access to all the charts and interactive features at the above link!

Just yesterday, my friend, Arizona “practical humanitarian” Robb Victor, was asking about how legislators and policy makers could do better planning for hiring Immigration Judges and Asylum Officers to reduce the backlog and address processing problems at the border. This is for you, Robb!

As Don and Brendan cogently point out, hiring alone can’t solve the problem! America needs positive, due-process-oriented, reforms to our legal immigration system embracing the reality and the economic power of robust orderly refugee and asylum acceptance and increases in legal immigration of all types. 

The longer we ignore the need for these positive changes, and embrace the dangerous and defective myth that we can or should continue the failed program of attempting to enforce our way out of the migration realities and opportunities of the 21st century, the longer the disorder and grotesque waste of human lives and fiscal resources by our nation will continue.

And, of course, the innovative, low budget, potentially high-impact “Judges Without Borders” proposal by Judge Tom Lister and me should be part of any legislative package to improve the asylum system! See https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/12/13/%F0%9F%91%A9%F0%9F%8F%BD%E2%9A%96%EF%B8%8F%F0%9F%91%A8%F0%9F%8F%BB%E2%9A%96%EF%B8%8F-%E2%9A%96%EF%B8%8F%F0%9F%97%BDjudges-without-borders-an-innovative-op/.

Why not plan for success rather than investing in failure? As my friend Robb says, “give peace a chance!”✌️ 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-18-24

  

☠️ THE REAL BORDER CRISIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BS 💩 BEING HURLED BY POLITICOS & THE MEDIA! — Todd Miller Reports From The Border For The Border Chronicle — “‘Border crisis’ rarely refers to people like the injured, sick, wet, and shivering asylum seekers at the border, who on Saturday included children and pregnant women.”

Asylum seekers walk along the border wall near Sasabe in 34-degree weather after snowfall on February 10. (Photo credit: David Damian Figueroa)
Asylum seekers walk along the border wall near Sasabe in 34-degree weather after snowfall on February 10. (Photo credit: David Damian Figueroa)
Todd Miller
Todd Miller
Border Correspondent
The Border Chronicle
PHOTO: Coder Chron

 

https://open.substack.com/pub/theborderchronicle/p/what-is-the-border-crisis-a-snowstorm?r=1se78m&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

. . . .

During the week, the term “border crisis” was featured prominently in the national airwaves in both political rhetoric and media coverage. Perhaps the term would be appropriate and accurate if it referred to people freezing in the snow and rain, or dying crossing the desert in the summer. Yet, even though thousands have died crossing the world’s most dangerous land border—including record numbers in the past two years—this is almost never mentioned in media reports on the “border crisis.” Instead, the most prominent “crisis” is the right wing narrative of an overrun, open border. Everything else follows. The Border Patrol is overwhelmed. The enforcement apparatus is overwhelmed. Washington is overwhelmed. An NBC headline alarmingly suggested that ICE and CBP might have budget shortfalls, or entirely run out of money (spoiler: that’s not going to happen). “Border crisis” has been used so frequently that it has become both abstract and mind numbing, a term deployed either to gain political points or to justify more funding for border and immigration enforcement, which has received more than a hefty $400 billion since DHS opened its doors in 2003. “Border crisis” rarely refers to people like the injured, sick, wet, and shivering asylum seekers at the border, who on Saturday included children and pregnant women.

Perhaps instead of portraying the border as in crisis, we should say that the border, by its very design, creates crisis. I thought about this on Monday when I went down with a group of Green Valley Samaritan volunteers to where the asylum seekers had crossed. The snow was gone, but the mud puddles were not. The makeshift camp where many of the 400 people had stayed was empty. I kneeled by a tent made of aluminum blankets where a single kid’s sandal was on the ground. I meditated on that sandal and wondered how many times I’d seen this same scenario over the decades in Arizona—a kid’s Mickey Mouse suitcase, a stuffed animal, a small pair of pants or a shirt—in places where people had camped. How many times had I seen the electrolyte bottles, black bottles, empty tin cans in desolate places of the desert where people couldn’t possibly carry enough water to get where they were going?

A child’s sandal left behind at the makeshift camp along the border near Sasabe on February 12. (Photo credit: Todd Miller)
A child’s sandal left behind at the makeshift camp along the border near Sasabe on February 12. (Photo credit: Todd Miller)

The border is designed to create crisis; that is the deterrence strategy. Right next to the camp were two idly parked Caterpillar excavators, presumably used to construct the border wall. Staring at them over the tents and makeshift shelters, I assumed that it was machinery from Spencer Construction—a company that received more than $600 million in contracts from CBP in the summer—for “border maintenance.” Now Spencer construction crews cruise up and down the border road, “filling in the gaps” of the border wall, as the Biden administration puts it. They filled in one such gap much closer to Sasabe several months ago, and now people crossed much farther away. With its focus on enforcement, the now-rejected border bill would have injected $14.4 billion into CBP and ICE (on top of a 2024 budget that was already more than $28 billion), including more funds for wall construction. Also included in the bill was money dedicated to surveillance technology, such as more autonomous towers (in addition to the nearly 400 such towers already installed), and the further digitization of the border, including systems for taking DNA samples from border crossers, and ground and maritime drone systems (yes, boat drones). Detention Watch Network describes the bill’s proposed expansion of ICE’s detention and deportation apparatus as the “largest appropriation of funds for immigration detention custody and surveillance operations in ICE’s history,” which included a daily capacity for detainment rising from 34,000 people to 50,000. Mind you, many of ICE’s detention facilities are run by private companies, so, as with surveillance, the profit motive is always lurking behind the scenes.

In short, the bill was what GOP lawmakers wanted, yet they rejected it. Democrats such as Chuck Schumer and Kyrsten Sinema (or excuse me ex-Democrat, now independent) lamented that Republicans weren’t taking the border seriously—an accurate critique, since the bill was only offering more fortification, including an unprecedented provision that gave Washington the authority to shut down the border (though it was unclear what closing the border meant exactly). Even more confusing was that Donald Trump opposed ramping up enforcement. It all makes sense, however, when the election is considered: Trump wants to run against Biden on this issue, but he can hardly do that if Biden is pounding the iron fist. As ABC News reported, “Trump probably still does benefit politically from a protracted [and manufactured!] border crisis.” However, Senator Chris Murphy, who was the chief Democratic negotiator for the bill, wrote: “Republicans can’t claim that the border is in crisis and then vote against the bipartisan bill, written by their own leadership, that would fix the problem.” He concluded, “Quite simply, we risk losing the 2024 election if we do not seize this opportunity to go on offense on the issue of the border and turn the tables on Republicans on a key fall voting issue.” The Senate Democrats took Murphy’s challenge and went on the offensive with a slick video on Twitter showing Democrats as hardline border enforcers. For his part, Biden stated, “Every day between now and November the American people are going to know the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.” In other words, the so-called border crisis has become a race to see which candidate can better fortify the border.

As for the people freezing and in various states of medical distress, this border cold war (and the proposed border bill) only makes matters worse. On top of that, according to a press release by No More Deaths on Saturday, Border Patrol agents told the humanitarian aid organization that they were “informed of the situation,” of people stranded in potentially life-threatening conditions, “but did not plan to drive out to address it.” Volunteers began to transport people from the border wall to the Border Patrol substation, also known as its processing center, so refugees could turn themselves in. Volunteers reported that Border Patrol agents in Sasabe detained and threatened them, and took pictures of their driver’s licenses. At one point there was a “rolling roadblock” of Border Patrol trucks. One volunteer reported a situation in which two agents spoke to them at “yelling volume” that seemed to be “backed with a bunch of anger.” The agents told the volunteers that they were “breaking the law” and threatened to arrest them and impound vehicles. But the volunteers persisted, driving the 15 miles or so back to retrieve more people. More and more asylum seekers assembled in front of the Border Patrol processing center. Eventually, the school in Sasabe was opened as a temporary shelter for the night. By the end of the day, the humanitarian aid organizations evacuated every person from the border. On Sunday morning all migrants were in Border Patrol custody. And as Arizona Public Media reported, “Seemingly at odds with the aid workers’ account, Customs and Border Protection says they prioritized the humanitarian response to the migrants abandoned in the cold.”

By the time I arrived on Monday, the real crisis had come and gone. There was the shoe, the blankets now drying on the mesquite trees, the construction workers driving up and down the road in their vehicles, and a 30-foot border wall meant to push people further into the desert. No More Deaths and Samaritans volunteers cleaned up the mess in the aftermath. What played out was not just a battle between humanitarian aid and the Border Patrol. It was a battle over what the crisis really was.

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

Read the complete article at the link.

Sigh! 😮‍💨

So, our brave nation and our courageous leaders are “existentially threatened” by a bunch of desperate unarmed people patiently waiting in misery to turn themselves in to the Border Patrol for asylum screening because our Government can’t process them in a fair and timely manner through legal ports of entry as required by law! That’s despite the relative predictability of flows of forced migrants and their slow progress toward the border.

If our “intelligence” services can’t foresee very public flows of forced migrants northward, and our nation can’t prepare to fulfill our legal and moral obligations to our fellow humans, Lord help us!

$600 million for annual “border maintenance,” but not enough trained Asylum Officers to screen asylum seekers at ports of entry? $28 billion for ineffective “deterrence,” but they can’t run resettlement programs that get asylum seekers and those granted asylum to the many places in the U.S. that need their skills? Gimmie a break!

This is the human face 😢 of our shameful and preventable bipartisan failure to meet our legal, humanitarian, and moral obligations to forced migrants at the border and elsewhere! No wonder cowardly politicos and complicit media don’t have the guts to “look their victims in the eye!”👁️ 🐥

And, the failed bogus bipartisan Senate bill that the Administration and many Dems tout and the media fawn over, would have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING  to solve this real humanitarian crisis at the border. Indeed, as almost all real border experts agree, it would have made the suffering and dereliction of duty by our Government immeasurably worse for these our fellow humans in need!

Thanks to folks like Todd Miller and Melissa del Bosque for bearing witness, speaking truth, and refusing to let our nation’s grotesque abuses of, and intentional misrepresentations about, forced migrants be swept under the carpet.

 

Border Death
Cowardly U.S. politicos and the media don’t want to take responsibility for the foreseeable deadly consequences of their chronic border failures. They would rather see their victims dead and buried, preferably on the other side of the border where they will be “out of sight, out of mind!” This is a monument for those who have died attempting to cross the US-Mexican border. Each coffin represents a year and the number of dead. It is a protest against the effects of Operation Guardian. Taken at the Tijuana-San Diego border.
Tomas Castelazo
To comply with the use and licensing terms of this image, the following text must must be included with the image when published in any medium, failure to do so constitutes a violation of the licensing terms and copyright infringement: © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-16-24

🎁 CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST “CHANNELS” LOPEZ & SCHMIDT —  THE MIGRANT “SURGE” IS A GIFT TO AMERICA’S ECONOMY & TO DEMS: Will Latter Be Able To  “Quit The Miller Lite” & Get Back “On Message?” — Tuesday’s Dem Victory In NY Could Be An Opportunity ONLY IF Dems Ignore The Mainstream Media & Showcase Sane, Humane, Solutions! — How About “Judges Without Borders?” — The Disgusting Immorality & Irresponsibility Of The Media!

Catherine Rampell
Catherine Rampell
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post
PHOTO: Linkedin

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/13/immigration-economy-jobs-cbo-report/

Catherine writes in WashPost:

As the economy has improved and consumers have begun recognizing that improvement, Republicans have pivoted to attacking President Biden on a different policy weakness: immigration. After all, virtually everyone — Democrats included — seems to agree the issue is a serious problem.

But what if that premise is wrong? Voters and political strategists have treated our country’s ability to draw immigrants from around the world as a curse; it could be a blessing, if only we could get out of our own way.

Consider a few numbers: Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released updated 10-year economic and budget forecasts. The numbers look significantly better than they did a year earlier, and immigration is a key reason.

The CBO has now factored in a previously unexpected surge in immigration that began in 2022, which the agency assumes will persist for several years. These immigrants are more likely to work than their native-born counterparts, largely because immigrants skew younger. This infusion of working-age immigrants will more than offset the expected retirement of the aging, native-born population.

. . . .

Instead, GOP lawmakers scaremonger about the foreign-born, characterizing immigration as an invasion. As Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) dog-whistled last week, “Import the 3rd world. Become the 3rd world.”

Alas, the faction working to turn the United States into a developing country is not immigrants but Collins’s own party. It’s Republicans, after all, who have supported the degradation of the rule of law; the return of a would-be dictator; the gutting of public education and health-care systems; the rollback of clean-water standards and other environmental rules; and the relaxation of child labor laws (in lieu of letting immigrants fill open jobs, of course).

America has historically drawn hard-working immigrants from around the world precisely because its people and economy have more often been shielded from such “Third World”-like instability, which Republican politicians now invite in.

Ronald Reagan, the erstwhile leader of the conservative movement, often spoke poignantly of this phenomenon. In one of his last speeches as president, he described the riches that draw immigrants to our shores and how immigrants in turn redouble those riches:

Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.

— https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/remarks-presentation-ceremony-presidential-medal-freedom-5

Reagan’s words reflected the poetry of immigration. Since then, the prose — as we’ve seen in the economic numbers, among other metrics — has been pretty compelling, too.

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

Read Catherine’s full article at the link. Compare it with the observations that Beatriz Lopez and I recently made in Substack and Courtside about Dem short-sightedness on immigration, particularly in light of all the “good stories” about immigrants that Dems are afraid to tell out here. See  https://immigrationcourtside.com/2024/02/13/🤯dems-miller-lite-strategy-🤮-could-spell-disaster-☠%EF%B8%8F-in-november-time-to-regrow-spines-put-fight/.

Already the media are “at it again,” most attributing Democrat Tom Souzzi’s easy win over his GOP opponent for the House seat vacated by George Santos to his “move right” on immigration. But, as Catherine suggests above, “what if that premise is wrong?”

There is certainly support for a more nuanced view, both anecdotally and in polls.  “Suozzi, [a voter]  said, would ‘protect us but also be fair to those who are seeking asylum.’” https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/02/13/new-york-district-3-special-election-george-santos/. Sadly, and outrageously, the so-called Senate “compromise” border bill that Souzzi touted and which has become the “darling” of the tone-deaf mainstream media does neither. Not even close!

Yet, supposedly responsible journalists are falling all over themselves touting the benefits to Dems of a horrible “Miller-Lite” bill that essentially would have destroyed the right to asylum while turning the border over to cartels and smugglers to exploit some of the world’s most vulnerable who are victims of our own failings. Today’s wrong-headed WashPost editorial is a particularly egregious piece of such media sophistry. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/14/immigration-border-suozzi-mayorkas-special/.

We don’t have to “guess” at the human consequences of the nativist-inspired “bipartisan” non-solution at the border being trumpeted and glorified by Post editorialists safely ensconced in their “ivory tower!” We know! The results of recent half-baked attempts to close the border and eliminate asylum seekers are clear and well documented: death and human carnage inflicted on legal asylum seekers! See, e.g.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.

We also know that abuses of forced migrants at our borders fall disproportionately on the who are Black, Hispanic, or other people of color. See, e.g., https://humanrightsfirst.org/library/card-us-discrimination-against-black-migrants-refugees-and-asylum-seekers-at-the-border-and-beyond/ .

So, here’s a more intellectually honest “rewrite” of today’s lead editorial:

POST EDITORIAL BOARD: Death, Murder, Rape, Torture, Assault, Robbery, Extortion, Kidnapping of Hispanics, Blacks, Other Forced Migrants A Small Price To Pay For Bipartisan Deal To Outsource Migration To Gangs, Cartels, and Traffickers!

We Must Not Only “Turn Away The St. Louis,” But Torpedo It So Every Man, Woman, & Child Goes To The Bottom Where They Will Be Effectively Deterred From Ever Again Invoking Our Laws & Moral Obligations!

Nowhere, and I repeat nowhere, are the voices of those with decades of actual hands on experience working with migrants at the border, and the voices of those migrants themselves, being heard and heeded in this “non-debate” that resulted not in a “compromise” but in a “human rights giveaway.” What gives us the right to arrogantly and immorally give away rights and human lives that are NOT ours in the first place as if they were “table favors at a political fundraiser?“

As Beatriz so pointedly said:

Hanging above our heads like a Florida cockroach threatening to fly into our faces was the fact that the Biden administration, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Chris Murphy, and Democrats who voted for the bill had officially moved the goalpost on immigration.

Thanks to the moral vapidity of Dem politicos and the Administration the “game” for the lives, rights, future, and human dignity of asylum seekers is now being “played” between the “Good Guys’”goal line and their ten yard line! We are being offered a “choice” between “cruel and stupid” and “crueler and dumber!” Certainly, the Dems and our nation could and should do better!

Supporting fairness, orderly processing, and actions that protect asylum and the community would be a far more prudent choice for Dems than the virulent “death to asylum craze” (the unstated part of which is that it also means “death to asylum seekers”) that currently seems to be “in vogue” with both parties and mindlessly hyped by the media. 

It’s quite possible that Souzzi won not because of his extreme position on asylum, but because his position was “less extreme” that that of his GOP opponent and her openly xenophobic party. This conclusion is actually supported by polls that show that while most voters understandably want “order at the border,” they also want to protect the right to claim asylum and a fair process for doing so. See, e.g.https://wp.me/p8eeJm-9hU.

There is opportunity here for Dems to change minds and create a stronger coalition for asylum seekers and other immigrants. NGO experts like Beatriz Lopez need to partner with Congressional Dems who understand asylum and the border (like Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX)) to reach out and meet with Rep. Souzzi and others like him to explain practical solutions and useful changes at the border that would create order while maintaining and enhancing fair and timely asylum processing. 

Among these is the low-budget, common sense proposal advanced by retired Wisconsin Judge Thomas Lister and me for “Judges Without Borders,” essentially “leveraging” voluntary service by trained, retired State and Federal Judges to work with groups informing and advising individuals before they make the dangerous journey to our Southern Border. Budget-friendly humane solutions that can reduce the pressure on the border should be a bipartisan winner. Read more about our proposal here! See https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/12/13/%F0%9F%91%A9%F0%9F%8F%BD%E2%9A%96%EF%B8%8F%F0%9F%91%A8%F0%9F%8F%BB%E2%9A%96%EF%B8%8F-%E2%9A%96%EF%B8%8F%F0%9F%97%BDjudges-without-borders-an-innovative-op/

Beyond that, advocates must explain and model how migrants themselves can help resolve the problems facing Rep. Souzzi’s district and improve the quality of life for all. They must show how migrants are “part of the solution,” perhaps, for example, by establishing public-private partnerships that would involve migrant communities in constructing high-quality, attractive affordable housing that would help the entire community. Working on various civic improvement projects might also be a mutually beneficial option.

Advocates, NGOs, and political supporters of migrants must do more than just point to graphs and cite statistics about the long-term economic and societal benefits of immigration. They must actually model and create practical joint projects and expand opportunities for the benefit of migrants and the communities to which they have been relocated. 

Problem-solving needs to be brought into the “here and now” rather than just being presented to U.S. communities as a vague promise of future benefits. My experience is that most people react to what’s before them today rather than than relying on a constructed view of tomorrow, now matter how attractive and statistically supported that future vision might be.

In addition to the misguided “Miller Lite nonsense” from the editorial board and, disappointingly, even the usually responsible and insightful Karen Tumulty, today’s WashPost contained useful observations from Eduardo Porter about the need to get migrants to places in the U.S. where they, their job skills, and their work ethic would be welcomed, appreciated, and useful.

But, both the Biden Administration and Congress have shamefully failed to convert this “low-hanging fruit” into reality. Even worse, that has allowed White Nationalist demagogues like Abbott and DeSantis to waste and divert millions in public funds to make the situation worse and to convert those who want to help America succeed and prosper into hapless “political footballs” being tossed back and forth between GOP nativists and wimpy Dem politicos who long-ago lost their moral bearings. Although NGOs and advocates are weary and overburdened, if they don’t take the initiative to make this happen, on at least some scale, the opportunity will be lost and the nativist myth-makers will prevail.

Only by modeling actual results in real time will we be able to demonstrate the fallacy and counterproductivity of the GOP’s nativist “burden myths.” There’s no time like the present to start!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-15-24

😩TIRED OF PANDERING POLITICOS BASHING HUMAN RIGHTS & DEHUMANIZING BORDER COVERAGE BY THE MEDIA? — Here’s Some Straight Talk On The Border From Migration Expert Harvard Law Professor Gerald L. Neuman! ⚖️🗽 — “There is danger that any new legislation would decrease protection, which would mean that we would be taking no steps forward, and several steps backward, and that nonetheless, issues about migration would remain just as divisive as they are now.”🤯

Professor Gerald L. Neuman
Professor Gerald L. Neuman
J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law
Harvard Law
PHOTO: Harvard Law

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/02/immigration-roars-back-in-headlines-time-finally-come-for-reforms/

Liz Mineo, Staff Writer, interviews Professor Neuman in The Harvard Gazette:

. . . .

What should be done about border security, enforcement, and the immigration court backlog?

In terms of enforcement, there is no easy solution. A border fence is merely a symbol and no solution. Clearly, the adjudication system needs more resources, and adjustments to improve both efficiency and fairness. For both sides, justice delayed is justice denied, and that should be an important part of the focus.

Another priority, contrary to some claims, is to reduce reliance on detention. The U.S. is engaged in arbitrary detention of migrants who really don’t need to be detained; they could be subject to surveillance.

The country should also respect its international obligations not to send people back to countries where they will be persecuted, tortured, or killed. It cannot suspend its international obligations on that front, and it should not openly violate them, as it did under COVID.

What measures should be taken to reduce the flow of migrants into the U.S?

In terms of enforcement, the important point to stress is that this is not an issue that the U.S. can solve unilaterally. There must be a regional solution. It’s obvious to anyone who looks at the logistics of the problem that the solutions depend on cooperation with Mexico. Congress can’t just impose a solution and assume that Mexico will go along with it. More broadly, there are other countries that need to be involved in protecting refugees and in solving some of the problems that lead to migration.

Some experts say the asylum system is a parallel immigration system and that it should be revamped. What’s your take on this?

I’d like to use the term asylum broadly, not legalistically, to cover forms of protection from persecution, killing, and torture. The U.S. asylum system is too opaque and too inconsistent: Valid claims may be rejected, and claims that are made in perfectly good faith may turn out to be invalid.

On the other hand, some people seek desperately to come to the U.S. for reasons that are not covered by asylum, such as poverty, loss of livelihood, or to join family members. The system needs to winnow those claims out while remaining open to valid claims for protection. It would also benefit from greater clarity on which claims are valid, and from more consistent adjudication, but now, the system is not meeting its obligations to persecuted people.

Finally, what are your realistic hopes for changes in immigration policies?

For now, my hopes would be that any new legislation would increase funding and would help give the public the sense that the border situation is being addressed.

And meanwhile that the executive would use the authority that it already has to manage the situation better, including by negotiating with other countries. The executive should resist efforts that obstruct its compliance with its obligations.

There is danger that any new legislation would decrease protection, which would mean that we would be taking no steps forward, and several steps backward, and that nonetheless, issues about migration would remain just as divisive as they are now.

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

Read the full (edited) interview at the link.

“Decrease protection” seems to be a toxic bipartisan goal of Congress and the Administration. What’s preventing it? They can’t agree on the amount of cruelty, suffering, and dehumanization to inflict on vulnerable forced migrants who overwhelmingly seek only to have the USG process their legal claims for protection in a fair and timely manner! That reality has clearly been lost in the rancid, one-sided, often secret “negotiations” in Congress; the insipid statements of the Biden Administration promising more border closures, cruel, inhuman, degrading, expensive, and wasteful detention; and treacherous “bipartisan” abrogation of well-established “life or death” legal rights to fair consideration of claims!

Professor Neuman says “this is not an issue that the U.S. can solve unilaterally.” There is general consensus among migration experts on this fundamental truth! Yet, Congress and the Administration keep pretending otherwise, with little critical, informed “pushback” from the media.

Why isn’t Kristen Welker interviewing Professor Neuman and other migration experts, rather than making “Meet the Press” a “Foxlike Forum” for those promoting White Nationalist lies about the border and national security? Welker hasn’t bothered to inform herself about the human lives and human rights involved with forced migration at the border. Therefore, her feeble attempts to stop GOP nativist politicos from rambling on with their border myths are somewhere between ineffective to pathetic, but certainly must be maddening to anyone involved with assisting the actual humans seeking protection under our dysfunctional legal system!

Remarkably, but not surprisingly, many of Professor Neuman’s points relate directly or indirectly to the failure of AG Merrick Garland (amazingly, a former Article III Circuit Judge) and his lieutenants to reform EOIR and get it working in “real time.” The ideas for fixing EOIR and the enlightened expert leadership to do it are available in the private sector. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/12/19/⚖%EF%B8%8F🤯👩🏽⚖%EF%B8%8F👨🏻⚖%EF%B8%8F-as-garlands-backlog-hits-3-million-way-past-time-to-clean/.

Garland’s inexcusable failure to fix EOIR and get it working fairly, professionally, expertly, and in real time is a drag on the Biden Administration immigration policies and an existential threat to our democracy!

Inexcusable indeed! 🤯

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-08-24

 

🇺🇸ROBERT REICH: THE REAL THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY IS TRUMP/MAGA BORDER BS 🏴‍☠️: ‼️”Since he entered politics, Donald Trump has fanned nativist fears and bigotry. Now he’s moving into full-throttled neofascism, using the actual language of Hitler to attack immigrants!”🤮

Robert Reich
Robert Reich
Former US Secretary of Labor
Professor of Public Policy
CAL Berkeley
Creative Commons License

Reich writes on Substack:

https://substack.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.pFgdPGiZaWguI8B4HaJ1QZ0qI3oVZMTyRpUJ6dNXc1I?

Friends,

The long-awaited bipartisan Senate deal on immigration contains no real reforms, such as a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. It’s all about “securing” the border.

pastedGraphic.png

Biden and Senate Democrats have caved to Senate Republican hardliners. Among other restrictions, the bill would make it much harder for people to apply for asylum.

On Friday evening Biden called the bill “the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country.”

Then Biden went further — endorsing a full border shutdown. He said the bill “would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law.”

I very much doubt Biden would shut the border if he signs this bill into law.

So what’s going on here? The underlying politics here has nothing to do with funding Ukraine. It doesn’t have to do with reforming immigration. It doesn’t even have much to do with the practical challenge of securing the border.

It has everything to do with the 2024 election, in which border security has become a big issue.

The nation does have to take reasonable action to stem the illegal flow of immigrants. But Trump has stoked American’s fears with lies (see below).

Trump and Biden are engaged in a giant pre-election kabuki fight over the border.

Biden wants to take the border issue away from Trump and figures this bill will do it. Which is exactly why Trump doesn’t want the bill enacted. “As the leader of our party, there is zero chance I will support this horrible, open-borders betrayal of America,” Trump said on Saturday. “It’s not going to happen, and I’ll fight it all the way.”

Trump says he welcomes criticism from GOP senators. “Please, blame it on me. Please, because they were getting ready to pass a very bad bill.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Trump’s lapdog-in-chief, says the bill is “dead on arrival” in the House. Besides, he now says, it isn’t needed because Biden already has all the authority he needs to close the border.

Um … just last year, Johnson argued that Congress must tighten immigration laws to strengthen the president’s hand. When he was president, Trump sought similar additional authority from Congress.

Meanwhile, House Republicans are about to begin impeachment proceedings against Alejandro Mayorkas, homeland security secretary, for allegedly being too soft on border security — even though Mayorkas worked with Senate Republicans to come up with this hardline border deal.

We need to deal with the border, but Republicans are now the ones sitting on their hands because they’re beholden to Trump. We also need to deal with immigration in a humane way by offering a broad and reasonable path to citizenship, but Democrats seem to have forgotten this basic goal.

The public, meanwhile, is utterly confused by Trump’s demagoguing. Here are Trump’s biggest lies, followed by the truth.

Trump claims Biden doesn’t want to stem illegal immigration and has created an “open border.”

Rubbish. Since he took office, Biden has consistently asked for additional funding for border control.

Republicans have just as consistently refused. They’ve voted to cut Customs and Border Protection funding in spending bills and blocked passage of Biden’s $106 billion national security supplemental that includes border funding.

Trump blames the drug crisis on illegal immigration.

Bull. While large amounts of fentanyl and other deadly drugs have been flowing into the United States from Mexico, 90 percent arrives through official ports of entry, not via immigrants illegally crossing the border. Research by the conservative Cato Institute found that more than 86 percent of the people convicted of trafficking fentanyl across the border in 2021 were U.S. citizens.

Trump claims that undocumented immigrants are terrorists.

Baloney. America’s southern border has not been an entry point for terrorists. For almost a half-century, no American has been killed or injured in a terrorist attack in the United States that involved someone who crossed the border illegally.

Trump says undocumented immigrants are stealing American jobs.

Nonsense. Evidence shows immigrants are not taking jobs that American workers want. The surge across the border is not increasing unemployment. Far from it: Unemployment has been below 4 percent for roughly two years, far lower than the long-term average rate of 5.71 percent. It’s now 3.7 percent.

Trump claims undocumented immigrants are responsible for more crime in America.

More BS. In fact, a 2020 study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, cited by the Department of Justice, showed that undocumented immigrants have “substantially” lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants. Despite the recent surge in illegal immigration, America’s homicide rate has fallen nearly 13 percent since 2022 — the largest decrease on record. Local law enforcement agencies are also reporting drops in violent crime.

Since he entered politics, Donald Trump has fanned nativist fears and bigotry.

Now he’s moving into full-throttled neofascism, using the actual language of Hitler to attack immigrants — charging that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and saying they’re “like a military invasion. Drugs, criminals, gang members and terrorists are pouring into our country at record levels. We’ve never seen anything like it. They’re taking over our cities.” He promises to use the U.S. military to round up undocumented immigrants and put them into “camps.”

The parallels with Nazi Germany are chilling. In 1932, the canny Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels called for “a thick wall around Germany,” to protect against immigrants. “Certainly we want to build a wall, a protective wall.”

Trump and his enablers want us to forget that almost all of us are the descendants of immigrants who fled persecution, or were brought to America under duress, or simply sought better lives for themselves and their descendants.

Immigration has been good for America. As the median age of Americans continues to rise, we’ll need more young people from around the world.

The central question shouldn’t be how to secure our borders. It should be how to create an orderly and humane path to citizenship.

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Kabuki
“Kabuki Theater” with human lives! The REAL “national security threats” — Trump, Abbott, DeSantis, and their MAGA toadies like MAGAMike — subvert our democracy in plain view! 
ATTRIBUTION: Creative Commons 2.0

Lost in the overheated and too often misleading media hype of this issue is a simple truth: Congress and Administrations of both parties have failed to fulfill our Government’s duties under international and domestic laws (which are based on international requirements) to establish a fair, generous, expert, timely asylum adjudication system — one that complies with due process and actually gives asylum applicants the required “benefit of the doubt.”

Now, in a show of supreme political cowardice, egged on by the White Nationalist right and their lies, politicos of both parties and in all three branches of Government seek to cover up their failure by punishing and endangering the lives of their victims! The latter are legal asylum seekers — human beings — who overwhelmingly present themselves to authorities at the border in an orderly fashion to get a fair adjudication of their claims. Our Government routinely denies them that fundamental right through ridiculous delays, bad precedents, poor quality adjudications, underfunding, deficient leadership, and coercive gimmicks like bogus prosecutions, imprisonment, denial of access to counsel, and illegal and immoral family separation.

Meanwhile, Dems are failing to stand up for the human and legal right to seek asylum, which is being violated right and left and which the “Senate compromise” promises even more scofflaw violations of human rights and basic human dignity. 

We can diminish ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration — particularly forced migration!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever! MAGA Fascism Never!

PWS

01-30-24

🇺🇸🗽⚖️👏 ROBERT REICH EXPOSES THE GOP’S BIG LIES ABOUT THE BORDER!

Robert Reich
Robert Reich
Former US Secretary of Labor
Professor of Public Policy
CAL Berkeley
Creative Commons License

“The GOP’s five biggest border lies debunked!” Here’s the video:

https://youtu.be/vJwom3uYyV8?si=adufn9c400aRzSFK

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Unfortunately, the GOP’s “big lie campaign” works! Truth, by contrast, apparently has little power to persuade. 

Heck, 14 so-called “Democrat” Reps voted for the GOP’s disingenuous White Nationalist border agenda! https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/01/17/congress/house-gop-biden-border-rebuke-dems-00136221.

That’s something for human rights activists and progressives to remember when some of these same spineless folks pelt your inbox with requests for your hard-earned dollars and your vote to help them save democracy — a democracy that they and their GOP nativist buddies don’t really believe in or defend!

And, it’s not like the Administration can explain their border policies either! They would just like to change the topic. Biden won’t defend his own policies and is looking to cut a deal with the GOP to trade the lives and human rights of asylum seekers for bombs and guns for Israel and Ukraine! See https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-says-senate-may-come-border-deal-early-week-rcna134832.

Another example of truth losing out: Despite irrefutable evidence to the contrary, a substantial majority of GOP voters believe Trump’s “stolen election” lies. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/70-percent-republicans-falsely-believe-stolen-election-trump/. And, whether or not they actually believe Trump’s falsehoods, almost no GOP office-holders, at any level, have the guts to challenge his absurdist claims.

Indeed, in one of the very few documented examples of voting irregularities, a Virginia county shorted President Biden more than 1,000 votes which would have increased his margin of victory over Trump. See https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwin8b6Rn-yDAxUOFVkFHVOyAeUQFnoECBAQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapnews.com%2Farticle%2Fvirginia-election-errors-biden-trump-6555f052332d06c83ef797852f81fa72&usg=AOvVaw0j63WbXyd0xLTmDhe0Lz3f&opi=89978449.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-20-24

🇺🇸🗽⚖️ ATTN NDPA ALL-STARS 🌟 — HERE’S YOUR CHANCE TO WORK IN A SENIOR LEVEL POSITION FOR ONE OF AMERICA’S PREMIER SOCIAL JUSTICE NGOs: AYUDA Is Hiring A Director Of Legal Programs! 😎

 

YOU can be on the team with these and other NDPA superheroes:

Paula FitzgeraldExecutive Director AYUDA
Paula Fitzgerald
Executive Director
AYUDA
Laura TraskDirector of Development & Communications AYUDA
Laura Trask
Director of Development & Communications
AYUDA

 

📣 Job alert! 📣 Ayuda is seeking an immigrant champion to become our next Director of Legal Programs and lead the continued expansion of our immigration legal services. 

If you share our mission of creating a world in which immigrants thrive, take a look at the full job posting and apply now: https://lnkd.in/e_yypNsk 

Please spread the word 💜

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Apply

Director of Legal Programs 

Washington, DC

Description

ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE

Ayuda is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing direct legal, social and language access services, education, and outreach to low-income immigrants in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Since 1973, Ayuda has provided critical services on a wide range of issues, in the process acquiring nationally recognized expertise in several fields including immigration law, language access, domestic violence and human trafficking. Ayuda has office locations in Washington, DC, Silver Spring, MD and Fairfax, VA.

WHY DO YOU WANT THIS JOB?

Because, just like everyone at Ayuda, you believe:

• In seeing communities where all immigrants succeed and thrive in the United States.

• In the overall success of our organization and all our programs.

• That families should be healthy and safe from harm.

• That all people should have access to professional, honest, and ethical services, regardless of ability to pay or status in this country.

• That diversity and equality make this country better.

WHAT WILL THIS JOB ENTAIL?

• Ensure the delivery of client-centered, high-quality legal services across Ayuda’s offices in DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

• Provide supervision to Legal Managers, and other positions as needed.

• Provide strategic direction for the legal program within Ayuda and lead the team towards meeting goals and objectives.

• Maintain and develop consistent practices and policies across legal programs.

• Oversee financial management of grants for the legal program, including client trust accounts for the low-bono fee-based services.

• Manage legal program budget, including overseeing the overall annual budget as well as providing support and oversight to Managing Attorneys on individual legal grant budgets (preparation, revisions, etc).

• Provide oversight to managers and support to Grants and Finance staff for grant management, including grant reporting and grant applications.

• Manage Ayuda’s delivery of low-bono fee-based immigration legal services.

• Collaborate with Ayuda’s Social Services and Language Access programs to ensure the provision of holistic services.

• Represent Ayuda in meetings with prospective grantors and donors to support Ayuda’ s fundraising efforts.

• Stay informed about legal changes and help to communicate legal changes and their significance to staff.

• Support Communications & Development team by drafting external legal updates and supporting participation in media interviews by legal team.

• Represent Ayuda and its clients at local and regional stakeholder, coalition, and advocacy meetings.

• Participate in Ayuda’s efforts to bring about systemic change on behalf of our clients.

• Represent the legal program as a member of Ayuda’s Senior Management Team, supporting organizational management and strategic planning and implementation.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU CAN DO THIS JOB?

Eligibility: Must be legally able to work in the United States and maintain proper work authorization throughout employment. Must be able to meet the physical requirements of the position presented in a general office environment.

Education/Experience:

• J.D. or L.L.M. degree from an accredited law school and licensed and in good standing to practice law in any U.S. state or territory.

• 3+ years of experience providing legal services to low-income immigrants (immigration, domestic violence/family law and/or consumer law experience preferred but not required).

• 3+ years of supervisory experience.

• Program management and leadership experience required.

• Experience working with low-income immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, child abuse/neglect or other forms of trauma.

Preferred Knowledge & Skills:

• Excellent written and verbal communications skills, flexibility, and good humor.

• Excellent judgment, calm demeanor even under pressure, strong work ethic, resourceful, and able to maintain confidentiality.

• Decisive, with ability to exercise independent judgment.

• Proven ability to develop and maintain and positive team environment and support staff morale and resilience.

• Ability to mentor, train and provide career path guidance to staff.

• Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment and to initiate and follow through on work independently.

• Excellent time management skills and ability to work in a fast-paced environment.

• Ability to adapt to changing priorities.

• Program evaluation and project management skills.

• Knowledge of a second language a plus, with Spanish language skills preferred (examples of other languages commonly spoken by Ayuda’s clients include Amharic, Arabic, Tagalog, French, and Portuguese).

SALARY AND BENEFITS:

The anticipated salary for this position is $125,000 – $140,000, depending on experience.

We are proud of the benefits we can offer that include:

• Platinum-level medical insurance plan 100% employer-paid.

• Dental and vision insurance 100% employer paid.

• Long-term disability insurance 100% employer paid.

• Life and AD&D insurance 100% employer paid.

• Pre-tax 401(k) with Employer match on first 3% of salary.

• Vacation Days: 21 days per year until year 3, 27 per year in years 3-7 and 33 days per year after 7 years employment. Employees begin with 3 days of vacation leave.

• New employees begin with 5 days of Health & Wellness (sick) leave and accrue an additional 5 hours per pay period plus emergency medical leave up to 12 weeks per year.

• 12 weeks paid parental leave/family leave.

• 24 days paid holidays and staff wellness days, including Winter Break the last week of the year.

• Job-related professional development fees (including annual state bar dues and professional memberships).

• Flexible work schedules.

This position is exempt for overtime purposes.

Employees with federal student loan debt may be eligible to apply for Public Service Loan Forgiveness through the Department of Education.  For more information, go to https://myfedloan.org/borrowers/special-programs/pslf.

TO APPLY:

Please apply with resume and cover letter.  Writing samples may be requested.

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until the position is filled. If you have questions about this position, please reach out to us at HR@ayuda.com.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYMENT STATEMENT:

Ayuda is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against based on disability.

We believe that a diversity of experiences, opinions, and backgrounds is integral to achieving our mission and vision. We celebrate diversity and seek to leverage the passion, energy, and ideas of a culturally diverse team.

Apply

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This is a spectacular chance to work with really dedicated professionals performing a meaningful mission to help migrants adapt, prosper, and obtain legal status in our DMV area while enriching and assisting our communities. It’s about working together to build a better America for everyone!

As I have mentioned before, I am a proud member of AYUDA’s Advisory Council. At our meeting held at AYUDA this week, I was surrounded by talented, dedicated folks, who, unlike the often biased and ill-informed politicos out to destroy our legal immigration framework, are committed to solving problems in a humane, creative, legal manner recognizing the humanity and talents of our migrant communities.

Among other things, I heard:

  • Busses continue to arrive in our area without warning and coordination from either the “sending states” or the Feds;
  • The overwhelming number of those arriving are forced migrants with strong asylum claims;
  • Many of the current arrivals are from Venezuela and Nicaragua, countries with repressive leftist dictatorships with established records of persecution and human rights abuses recognized and condemned by Administrations of both parties; 
  • Many arrivals, because of language problems and haphazard Government processing, do not understand how the asylum system operates;
  • Through information sessions, AYUDA and other NGOs are filling an information gap left by poor Government performance;
  • Despite the monumental efforts of terrific pro bono lawyers from across the DMV area (more needed) there is neither rhyme nor reason to the handling of these cases at EOIR and the Asylum Office;
  • Some cases are expedited, some are placed on slow dockets; 
  • There are no BIA precedents or useful guidance on the many recurring situations that should result in grants;
  • Different results on similar material facts are a continuing problem;
  • Delays and “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” by EOIR hinders pro bono representation.

These are the problems that Congress and the Administration could and should be solving! Instead, outrageously, they are focused on spreading dehumanizing myths and devising even more wasteful “enforcement only” gimmicks that are bound to fail and leave more devastation, trauma, and wasted opportunities in the wake! Human lives and human rights are neither “bargaining chips” nor “political props” in an election year! 

AYUDA
Americans are being bombarded by false messages of hate, fear, resentment, and dehumanization directed at out immigrant communities. That’s a HUGE problem for our nation of immigrants’ future! Fight back by joining AYUDA and becoming part of the solution!

AYUDA and other NGOs offer a chance to be part of the solution, save lives, and stand against the disgraceful failure of our Government to honor our legal commitments to asylum seekers and other migrants. Be a champion of migrants who make our “nation of immigrants” really great!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-19-24

⚠️ DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this promotional recruiting message are mine and do not represent the position of AYUDA or any other entity!