DAN RATHER & ELLIOT KIRSHNER: TRUMP’S VERSI0N OF A “WEST WING NUDIST CAMP” — CHECK YOUR DECENCY @ THE DOOR, ENTERING AN “ETHICS FREE ZONE!” — “The naked self-interest was so rampant that Trump’s West Wing could be considered a nudist colony where decency was shed instead of clothing.” 🏴‍☠️

Clothing/Ethics Optional in MAGALAND
Ethics Prohibited Beyond This Point! “The naked self-interest was so rampant that Trump’s West Wing could be considered a nudist colony where decency was shed instead of clothing.” CREATIVE COMMONS.

They Knew. They All Knew.

Cowardice, Cynicism, Contempt, Rationalizations

Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner

6 hr ago

1,403

476

Documents seized from Donald Trump’s Florida home (credit: Department of Justice)

Sometimes we write a lot of words on Steady. Today will be an exception. Because for all that there is to say, for all that needs to be said, for all that an accounting for history requires we say, the general sentiments are quite simple:

They knew. They all knew.

It was clear to anyone who had an ounce of appreciation for what the job of the presidency entails, to anyone who respected the constitutional order of our government, to anyone who worried about the health and safety of this nation, to anyone with a moral compass, to anyone who prizes the common sense of purpose that great leaders can summon, that Donald J. Trump had no business anywhere near the presidency.

Now, as he melts down in the face of a serious criminal investigation, as we see pictures of how he stored classified material and his utter disregard for our nation’s most sensitive secrets, as we are left to wonder what he was up to and what damage was done, we should recognize that we would not be where we are today without his enablers, apologists, and hangers-on.

They heralded his outrageousness in a chorus of sycophancy.
They feted his vileness.
They viciously attacked those who pointed out the obvious, that Trump was mentally, emotionally, intellectually, morally, and constitutionally unfit for his office.

And who are they? They are the Republican politicians, the so-called serious ones who expressed their concerns in private even as they used Trump to achieve their desired tax cuts and judges. They are the members of his administration — senior and junior — who jockeyed to maximize their career benefit at the expense of doing the necessary work for the American people. They are the lawyers who twisted themselves into pretzels to try to legalize his inherent lawlessness. They are the media personalities who saw Trump as a printing press for their accrual of wealth and power. They are the capitalists who put corporate earnings ahead of the well-being of the nation.

While Trump’s voters were primed with a toxic stew of hatred, bigotry, and divisiveness, the small cabal playing the inside game didn’t bother with the MAGA hats. They were too busy trading access for favors. The naked self-interest was so rampant that Trump’s West Wing could be considered a nudist colony where decency was shed instead of clothing.

But make no mistake…

In their cowardice, they knew.
In their cynicism, they knew.
In their contempt, they knew.
In their rationalizations, they knew.
In their acquittals of his conduct, even for impeachment, they knew.

They knew when they could have stopped him — before he became president, and once he was president.

But they didn’t stop him. And with their inaction, they encouraged him.

As the Trump bubble begins to pop, all these people who knew what he was all along will likely scurry like cockroaches when the lights go on. They will make all sorts of excuses for their complicity. They will gaslight, lie, and try to rewrite history. You can already see it in many of their so-called tell-all books. Except what they are telling is only the story they want people to hear. It is not the truth.

The truth is that they don’t dare say what we all know. They knew.

Note: If you are not already a subscriber to our Steady newsletter, please consider doing so. And we always appreciate you sharing our content with others and leaving your thoughts in the comments.

***********************
Throughout history, despots and would-be despots have surrounded themselves with motley crews of sycophants, toadies, and retainers. Trump has excelled at it!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-01-22

😎🗽⚖️ OF COURSE, GREAT LAWYERING MAKES A DIFFERENCE IN IMMIGRATION COURT! — Only Nativists & Former Director McHenry Would Bogusly Claim Otherwise! — Another “Real Life Success Story” From Professors Benitez & Vera @ The GW Law Immigration Clinic! — Garland’s DOJ “Goes Molasses In November” On Improving Access To Counsel & Elevating The “Pro Bono Experience!”

 

Please thank them all on my behalf. I’m extremely grateful for what each of them did on my case.” This is what our client, E-K- said upon receiving well wishes from several of his former student-attorneys after he was sworn in as a U.S. citizen yesterday. Please see the attached photo of E-K- with Prof. Vera after his oath ceremony. E-K- authorized our use of his picture. 

E-K- became a Clinic client in 2009 after an unsuccessful interview at the Arlington Asylum Office. In February 2010, E-K-, a native of Cameroon, had his first Individual Calendar Hearing based on his political opinion and imputed political opinion following his involvement in a sit-in and his presence during a protest. DHS appealed the initial grant of asylum and on remand the Board of Immigration Appeals instructed the Immigration Judge to pay attention to credibility. However, the Immigration Clinic and E-K- prevailed again in 2013 and the asylum grant was finalized! The Clinic then assisted E-K- with his green card application, naturalization application, and naturalization interview. Next up: his wife’s green card application!

Please join me in congratulating Alexa Glock, Anca Grigore, Rebekah Niblock, Victoria Braga, Alex North, Jonathan Bialosky, and Paulina Vera, who all worked on the case.

pastedGraphic.png

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

Alberto Manuel Benitez

Professor of Clinical Law

Director, Immigration Clinic

The George Washington University Law School

650 20th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20052

(202) 994-7463

(202) 994-4946 fax             

abenitez@law.gwu.edu

THE WORLD IS YOURS…

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

Real life success stories from real life humans represented by well-trained law students in a “Surreal Immigration Court System!”

Brings to mind the disgraceful incident when former Trump-Era EOIR Director James McHenry created a bogus “Fact Sheet” with a ludicrous narrative in a dishonest attempt to show that lawyers and knowing individual rights in Immigration Court were irrelevant to success.

McHenry’s lies, myths, and intentional distortions were universally panned by immigration experts as reported by Courtside at the time.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/05/16/the-asylumist-weighs-in-on-eoirs-fact-sheet-sometimes-myths-and-facts-get-mixed-up-especially-in-the-trump-administration-which-has-redacted-human-rights-report/

https://www.naij-usa.org/images/uploads/newsroom/

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/05/16/truth-matters-setting-the-record-straight-aila-blasts-eoirs-false-unethical-anti-asylum-screed-together-the-documents-deceptive-information-and-polarizing-r/

Under Judge Garland, the DOJ claims to recognize and promote representation in Immigration Court. But, leaving aside the mushy rhetoric, their actions say otherwise:

    • “Dedicated Dockets” and sloppy mail-out notices established without consultation with the private bar;
    • Proposed asylum regulations almost universally opposed by the private bar;
    • Failure to slash the overwhelming, due process inhibiting, 1.5 million case backlog;  
    • Continued “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” fueled by changing and misplaced administrative “priorities”that totally ignore the needs of the pro bono bar; 
    • Continuing support for “imbedded Immigration Courts and TV Courts” established in or near DHS Detention Centers located in obscure places where attorneys are not easily obtainable;
    • Overly restrictive and widely inconsistent bond determinations in Immigration Court that inhibit effective representation;
    • Ridiculous backlog of Recognition and Accreditation applications that impedes new opportunities for well-qualified pro bono representatives in Immigration Court (See, e.g., VIISTA Program, Villanova Law); 
    • Failure to “swap out” a legally substandardly performing BIA and some Immigration Judges for “real, well-qualified Judges with immigration and due process expertise;” 
    • Long-delayed e-filing, making pro bono representation more difficult  and less efficient; 
    • Overall lack of dynamic court management and appropriate professional dialogue with the private bar;
    • Substandard EOIR “judicial training” that puts undue burden on private attorneys, particularly those operating  pro bono;
    • Lack of positive precedents, particularly on asylum, that would help parties and judges move many “grantable” asylum cases through Immigration Courts fairly, efficiently, and consistently with due process and “best practices;”
    • Continuing lawless use of Title 42 @ Southern Border causing diversion of legal resources that could otherwise be channeled into representation!

In other words, the DOJ under Garland has failed to deliver on the promise of restoring the rule of law and promoting representation in Immigration Court. Seems like nothing short of Article I will “get the job done!”

It’s painfully obvious that the politicos running the dysfunctional Immigration Courts @ DOJ have never actually had to practice before them, particularly pro bono! So, they just go on repeating many of the uninformed mistakes of their predecessors!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-19-21

 

⚖️”THEY BELONG IN THE TRASH BIN” 🗑☠️ — NAIJ CAUTIOUSLY HOPEFUL THAT END OF QUOTAS WILL BRING MEANINGFUL CHANGE — Will Director David Neal Topple Toxic Top-Down Paramilitary Bureaucratic Structure @ EOIR? — Courts Aren’t “Agencies” & Can’t Be “Micromanaged” By “Edicts From On High” — Meaningful Advance Input From Judges, Court Clerks, Stakeholders, Outside Judicial Experts Has Been MIA @ EOIR For Decades, & Disaster & Dysfunction In Courts Show It!

Honorable Mimi Tsankov
Honorable Mimi Tsankov
U.S. Immigration Judge
President, National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”)

For immediate release – October 20, 2021

Contact: Jamie Horwitz, jhdcpr@starpower.net, 202/549-4921

An End to a Highly Controversial Quota System Imposed on Immigration Judges

This week Immigration Judges received an email message from Chief Immigration Judge Tracy Short stating that the performance metrics imposed by the Trump administration which violated judicial ethics are now “suspended.”

WASHINGTON –A deeply flawed and inefficient U.S. Department of Justice program that evaluated Immigration Judges primarily on the number of cases they heard, has been “suspended.” The DOJ will no longer evaluate judges on the number of cases they decide Chief Judge Tracy Short wrote in an email sent to the nation’s roughly 500 Immigration Judges this week.

Over the past three plus years, Immigration Judges have looked over their shoulders, worried about being disciplined, just for doing their jobs — providing due process.

“This week’s actions by the Department of Justice under Executive Office for Immigration Review Director David Neal are a step in the right direction toward restoring a greater measure of integrity to our nation’s Immigration Courts,” said Mimi Tsankov, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. “Our organization looks forward to working with management to restore a fairer process that allows judges to focus on doing their jobs properly. The performance metrics developed by the Trump administration were a violation of judicial ethics, they belong in the trash bin.”

“The Agency is in the process of developing new performance measures, drawing from past successful measures and appropriate input, that will accurately reflect the workload of an immigration judge,” the chief judge wrote in his emailed message. “These new performance measures will focus on balance and equity for the various types of docket assignments.”

In 2018, then U.S. Attorney General Jeff Session imposed a quota of 700 decisions per year on each Immigration Judge, tied to performance reviews, regardless of the complexity of the cases.

The Trump administration also attempted to silence NAIJ from speaking out on the quota system and other policies by decertifying the union. While the union-busting efforts of the previous administration were not completely successful, full collective bargaining rights have yet to be restored to NAIJ.

The National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), founded in 1971, is a voluntary organization formed with the objectives of promoting independence and enhancing the professionalism, dignity, and efficiency of the Immigration Court.

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

Hon. David. L. Neal
Hon. David L. Neal
Director
Executive Office For Immigration Review
USDOJ
PHOTO: C-SPAN

Can David Neal bring all the real parties in interest “to the table,” fashion workable, realistic judicial policies and procedures driven by due process and the realities of Immigration Court practice, keep DOJ’s political meddling at bay, and then tap “new talent” that can actually implement positive change in a judicial, non-bureaucratic manner that achieves “systemic buy-in?” Does he even want to? If so, will Team Garland empower him to succeed, or undermine him?

One thing in Director Neal’s favor: He already retired from EOIR once and presumably could do so again if pressured to elevate political agendas over due process and best practices.

On the flip side, at least one other Director in that same position chose to “go along to get along” with decisions and policies from the DOJ that actively undermined due process and substantially decreased confidence in government.

We’ll see whether the NAIJ’s “cautious optimism” about the “Neal Era @ EOIR” is justified or just another dashed dream about due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-24-21

THE GIBSON REPORT — 09-27-21 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — EOIR Rolls Out Umpteenth “E-Filing Pilot Program,” In NYC-Varick With “Promise” For Nationwide Implementation By End of 2022 Or The Next Millennium, Whichever Comes Later!🤡

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

ALERTS

 

EOIR Courts & Appeals Systems (ECAS) Locations: Electronic filing went live on 9/23/2021 at NYC-Broadway and will be available at NYC-Varick on 9/30/2021 (remember that electronic filing is not available for cases that commenced before those dates). No date has been announced for NYC-Federal Plaza, although EOIR has previously indicated all courts should have ECAS by 2022.

ECAS Resources:

 

Reviewing ROPs: There have been reports of attorneys successfully scheduling appointments to review the record of proceeding at Varick and 290 Broadway. The clerk answering the main phone line at 26 Federal Plaza indicated she was unaware of any policy allowing in-person review of ROPs at this time but stated people could try making a request.

 

NEWS

 

Biden administration unveils new plan for young immigrants

ABC: The proposed regulation attempts to satisfy concerns of a federal judge in Houston who ruled in July that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was illegal. It takes on heightened importance as prospects for legislation have dimmed.

 

Biden Chooses Local ICE Critic To Be The Agency’s Top Prosecutor

WGBH: The Office of the Principal Legal Advisor sends its prosecutors to litigate deportation cases before the Executive Office for immigration Review, the body that oversees the nation’s immigration courts. Doyle has been an outspoken critic of the agency and has led many lawsuits against it.

 

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Announces Appointment of David Neal as Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review

EOIR: Most recently, Mr. Neal was a consultant specializing in immigration policy and practice. Previously, he held positions at EOIR over two decades. From 2009 to 2019, he served as Chairman of the BIA at EOIR, where he was chief judge of the appeals board and managed judicial and administrative operations.

 

Biden Administration Seeks A Contractor For A Migrant Facility At Guantanamo

NPR: As the Biden administration scrambles to relocate thousands of Haitian migrants camped in a small Texas border town, it’s also looking for a private contractor to help operate a migrant detention facility at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — and to hire at least some guards who speak Spanish and Haitian Creole.

 

Thousands of Haitians Allowed to Stay in U.S. as Texas Camp Clears Out

NYT: Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported about 2,000 migrants in recent days on chartered flights to Haiti as the Biden administration tries to deter more people from rushing to the border. But the authorities have also permitted thousands more to travel to cities across America, where they may live for months or years as they await immigration hearings. See also Democratic and Republican administrations have long agreed on one thing — discriminating against Haitian refugees; DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas Defends Deporting Haitians, Calls Immigration System ‘Broken’.

 

The Biden administration will raise the cap on refugee admissions to 125,000.

NYT: Mr. Biden’s decision is unlikely to affect two groups of people most recently in the news: tens of thousands of people from Kabul fleeing the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and more than 15,000 Haitians in a sprawling, makeshift camp under a bridge at the southern border.

 

Parents of 303 migrant children separated at border under Trump have still not been found, court filing says

CNN: Since August, the parents of 34 of those children whose whereabouts had been previously unknown have been found, according to Wednesday’s filing.

 

It’s not just Republicans. Everyone’s mad at Biden over migration.

Politico: President Joe Biden’s migration troubles don’t start at the U.S.-Mexico border. They’re a symptom of a Western Hemisphere in crisis — a crisis with domestic political implications for the 2022 elections and beyond. See also Biden’s Approach To Immigration Is Causing A Huge Internal Rift And Leading To A Lot Of Confusion.

 

Watchdog: CBP improperly targeted Americans as caravans approached border

Politico: The inspector general also found that a Customs and Border Protection official asked the Mexican government in December 2018 to block 14 U.S. citizens from entering Mexico as the caravan approached the U.S. border even though it had “no genuine basis” to do so.

 

Opinion: Adoptees Have the Same Right to Citizenship as Biological Children

NYT: Among the many cruelties of our immigration system is this: Transnational adoptees, whose stories begin with a rupture from their birth families and home countries, have often found themselves deprived of U.S. citizenship and at risk of deportation.

 

California to replace the word ‘alien’ from its laws

AP: Newsom on Friday signed a law that removes the word from various sections of the California state code. California passed laws in 2015 and 2016 that removed the word from the state’s labor and education code.

 

Advocates urge NY to boost $2B fund for undocumented workers

AP: But contrary to expectations, nearly all 92,000 people approved for aid so far have qualified for the maximum $15,600 available under the program, the state’s website showed Thursday afternoon. Roughly 223,500 claims have been submitted overall, with a rush coming in recent days.

 

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

 

Arambula-Bravo, 28 I&N Dec. 388 (BIA 2021)

BIA: A Notice to Appear that does not specify the time and place of a respondent’s initial removal  hearing  does  not  deprive  the  Immigration  Judge  of  jurisdiction  over  the  respondent’s  removal  proceedings.

 

Rare BIA Victory For Gay Jamaican Man

LexisNexis: Spring, Texas attorney Veronica Semino scored this unpublished BIA remand for her client, who is still detained in Oakdale. In the single-member decision dated Aug. 5, 2021 , Temporary Appellate Immigration Judge Gabriel Gonzalez wrote: “[W]e agree with the respondent that the harm he suffered in Jamaica rises to the level of persecution.

 

3rd Circ. Says BIA Ignored Evidence Of Yemeni’s Persecution

Law360: The Third Circuit Wednesday vacated a Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision that denied a Yemeni man’s request for protection from deportation, saying the board ignored “overwhelming evidence” that the man had been persecuted and could be tortured for his political beliefs.

 

CA5 CAT Remand: Abushagif V. Garland

LexisNexis: Abushagif v. Garland “Abushagif contends that the BIA abused its discretion by entirely failing to address his CAT claim. On that point, he is correct. A CAT “claim is separate from . . . claims for asylum and withholding of removal and should receive separate analytical attention.” Efe v. Ashcroft, 293 F.3d 899, 906–07 (5th Cir. 2002). Moreover, the BIA must not leave asserted CAT claims unaddressed.

 

CA9 Finds BIA Erred in Relying on Probation Report to Conclude Petitioner Had Been Convicted of Particularly Serious Crime

AILA: The court held that the BIA erred by failing to require DHS to make a good faith effort to present for petitioner’s cross-examination the author or declarant of a probation report upon which it relied to make its particularly serious crime determination. (Alcaraz-Enriquez v. Garland, 9/16/21)

 

CA9 Upholds BIA’s Refusal to Allow Petitioner to Seek Asylum in Light of Reinstatement of His Prior Removal Order

AILA: The court held that because the petitioner’s prior removal order was reinstated, he had no right under the INA to seek asylum and no constitutional right to have DHS consider whether, as a discretionary matter, to decline to reinstate that order. (Iraheta-Martinez v. Garland, 9/7/21)

 

Chinese Asylum-Seeker Loses In 9th Circ. Over Arrest Lie

Law360: The Ninth Circuit denied a Chinese national’s bid for asylum over religious persecution, finding that she failed to disclose her 2013 arrest by U.S. authorities and could not offer a plausible explanation for her omission.

 

9th Circ. Revives Forced Abortion Asylum Case

Law360: Two immigration courts improperly dismissed evidence supporting a Chinese woman’s claims that government officials forced her to undergo an abortion in her home country, according to the Ninth Circuit, which revived her family’s asylum case.

 

Migrant Teens Win Approval For Plan To End ICE Detention

Law360: A D.C. federal judge approved a plan requiring U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to attempt to place migrant teens who turn 18 in government custody in less-restrictive housing options than adult detention facilities, stipulating changes to documentation and officer training.

 

Judge Finds Parts Of Fla. Anti-Sanctuary Law Unconstitutional

Law360: A Florida federal judge on Tuesday struck down key portions of a 2019 state law banning “sanctuary” immigration policies as unconstitutional, finding a South Florida city and immigration advocates proved discriminatory intent and violations of equal protection rights at a bench trial in January.

 

Vermont Supreme Court Deals Blow To Border Agents’ Roving Patrols

LexisNexis: Derek Brouwer, Vermont Seven Days, Sept. 24, 2021 “Border patrol officers can search Vermonters’ cars without a warrant under their special federal authority to conduct “roving” patrols within 100 miles of the U.S. border. But, as of Friday, evidence they collect during the controversial searches can no longer be used to prosecute crimes in state courts, a narrow majority of the Vermont Supreme Court.

 

Migrants Double Down On Asylum Turnback Suit Monitoring

Law360: A class of asylum-seekers has asked a California federal judge to oversee the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s compliance with two orders directing authorities to process some asylum claims, saying the federal government’s foot-dragging has proven the need for court oversight.

 

States Say Feds Are Slow-Walking ‘Remain In Mexico’ Reboot

Law360: Texas and Missouri have blasted the Biden administration’s delays in complying with a court order to restart a Trump-era program requiring asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico, saying the government need not hash out an agreement with Mexico before reinstating the policy.

 

ACLU Asks DC Circ. To Not Vacate Transit Ban Ruling

Law360: The American Civil Liberties Union urged the D.C. Circuit to maintain a lower court ruling that blocked a Trump-era asylum bar, saying that though the regulation is now moot, vacating the injunction would create “perverse incentives” for the government.

 

USCIS Extends Flexibility for Responding to Agency Requests

AILA: USCIS announced that, in response to the ongoing COVID pandemic, it extended the flexibilities for responding to certain agency requests. This flexibility applies if the issuance date listed on the request, notice, or decision is between March 1, 2020, and January 15, 2022, inclusive.

 

DOJ Announces Non-U.S. Citizens Can Request Social Security Card Through USCIS Forms

AILA: DOJ announced that non-U.S. citizens can request new or replacement Social Security cards using USCIS Forms I-765 or I-485, instead of visiting a local Social Security Administration office. Cards should be received within two weeks after receiving Employment Authorization Documents.

 

ICE Releases Updated COVID-19 ICE Detainee Statistics

AILA: ICE provided updated statistics on COVID-19 in ICE detainees, by facility. As of 9/23/21, there are 526 positive cases currently in custody among a total detainee population of 22,442.

 

Executive Order Adding Measles to the List of Quarantinable Communicable Diseases

AILA: On 9/17/21, President Biden signed an executive order adding measles to list of quarantinable communicable diseases. (86 FR 52591, 9/22/21)

 

Executive Order Imposing Sanctions on Certain Persons With Respect to the Humanitarian and Human Rights Crisis in Ethiopia

AILA: On 9/17/21, President Biden signed an executive order imposing sanctions on persons determined to be responsible for humanitarian and human rights violations in Ethiopia, including suspending the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of such persons. (86 FR 52389, 9/21/21)

 

DOS Provides Proposed Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for FY2022

AILA: DOS provided the President’s Report to Congress on the proposed Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for FY2022. The report recommends an increase in the refugee admissions target from 62,500 in FY2021 to 125,000 in FY2022, prioritizes admissions, states ORR goals, and more.

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

 

ImmProf

Monday, September 27, 2021

Sunday, September 26, 2021

Saturday, September 25, 2021

Friday, September 24, 2021

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Monday, September 20, 2021

 

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

Blast from the past:

Thursday, July 29, 2018

“After 16 years of inexcusable delays, I am proud that EOIR’s dedicated work over the past year has culminated in the piloting of a comprehensive electronic filing and case management system,” said [then] EOIR Director James McHenry. “With this important initiative, EOIR joins other court systems in the U.S. that have long provided such capabilities. ECAS will aid the parties and assist judges in hearing cases expeditiously and fairly, and will further augment EOIR’s efforts in tackling the pending case backlog.”

. . . . The program will extend to all remaining immigration courts in 2019. 

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/pr/eoir-launches-electronic-filing-pilot-program

Las Vegas is giving 50-1 odds that this won’t be in full operation by the end of 2022. Anyone want to bet on “America’s Clown Courts” 🤡 to beat the odds and deliver?

Bozo the Clown
Meet the New Chief of E-Filing @ EOIR (Looks alot like predecessors). Reportedly, he has a “nose” for the business!
PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-30-21

😎🗽👍⚖️FINALLY, SOME GOOD NEWS FROM THE EOIR TOWER! — Trump “Burrower” 🤮👎 Carl C. Risch Out As Deputy Director!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

May 7, 2021

Hamed Aleaziz @ BuzzFeed News tweeted https://twitter.com/Haleaziz/status/1390724674825326593?s=20 this afternoon that “Trump burrower” Carl C. Risch has resigned as Deputy Director @ EOIR. This move fulfills a prediction made earlier this week by Courtside source “DT-21.” https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/05/05/🤮👎🏻shocking-betrayal-justice-garland-disses-progressive-experts-with-secret-appointments-of-17-unqualified-immigration-judges-n/

It follows an inquiry from Senate Judiciary Chair Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and others to the Garland DOJ about the much-criticized and obviously questionable last minute appointment of the former DOS politico to a SES job at EOIR. Chairman Durbin, in turn, was no doubt spurred into action by complaints from members of the NDPA and others in the due process advocacy community. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/04/20/⚖%EF%B8%8Fas-garland-dawdles-chairman-dick-durban-d-il-homes-in-on-eoir-deputy-director-illegally-appointed-burrower-carl-c-risch-what-should-have-b/

Risch’s last-minute appointment at EOIR was particularly egregious, since he had no known Immigration Court experience. EOIR currently is in an existential crisis that threatens to topple the entire U.S. Justice System, with a highly politicized “judiciary” and an astounding, largely self-inflicted 1.3 million case backlog.

That  backlog multiplied much faster than the additional Immigration Judges that Sessions and Barr used to “pack” the Immigration Courts with restrictionists and judges sympathetic to ICE enforcdement and often hostile to asylum seekers and their lawyers. As many experts have observed, the Trump era hires often had highly questionable judicial qualifications, many lacking any immigration law expertise or experience. Perhaps, that’s a reason why the backlog continued to grow exponentially even as Sessions and Barr tried gimmick after gimmick, a number of them blatantly illegal and enjoined by Federal Courts, to cut corners and “rev up” the “Trump Deportation Railroad @ EOIR.”

Obviously, throwing an unqualified political hack like Risch into this mess in a senior “management” position was just another example of the Trump Administration’s abuse of government resources and manipulation of personnel practices @ DOJ. It took some time for Judge Garland to get this one right. But, better late than never.

However encouraging the news of Risch’s departure might be, there is still much more “housecleaning” to be done by Garland at the EOIR Tower. That should start with BIA Chair David Wetmore, a Stephen Miller/Gene Hamilton crony with no positive reputation for scholarship or expertise in the immigration/human rights community and no known experience representing asylum seekers or other migrants in Immigration Court.

It’s little wonder that with “appellate judges” who have earned little respect in the legal community at large comprising the BIA, the system is a mess, turning out poor work product and elementary errors, “outed” by the Article IIIs on a regular basis.

Due Process Forever!

 

PWS

05-07-21

 

⚖️AS GARLAND DAWDLES, CHAIRMAN DICK DURBAN (D-IL) HOMES IN ON EOIR DEPUTY DIRECTOR & ILLEGALLY APPOINTED “BURROWER” CARL C. RISCH! — “What Should Have Been A “Day One” Removal Of Unqualified Miller Crony From Executive Job @ Failing Agency “Impersonating A Court System” Has Demoralized The Career Staff Left @ EOIR!

Here’s the letter:

https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Letter%20to%20DOJ%20-%20RFI%20Trump%20Appointees%20EOIR.pdf

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

The failure of Garland to remove an obvious, unqualified political hack — neither Immigration Court nor judicial experience — from his job at an agency clearly failing in its mission to provide anything approaching due process and fundamental fairness to migrants clearly has come to the attention of  honest civil servants at EOIR who have struggled to keep the flames of justice alive over the past few years. And, as Chairman Durbin’s letter points out, this is by no means the only example of “hackism” and contempt for basic competence in civil service at Justice.

The problems were well known and well-documented long before Garland was sworn in. Not dealing with them swiftly, competently, and decisively is failed leadership on restoring due process, competence, and independence in the most obviously broken and dysfunctional part of the U.S. Justice System — the Immigration Courts.

Judge Garland’s failure to “step up” for justice @ Justice is literally killing American Justice!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

04 -21-20

POWER FAILURE @ GARLAND’S DOJ THREATENS LIVES, WASTES MONEY, ENDANGERS BIDEN’S SOCIAL JUSTICE AGENDA, TURNS ALLIES INTO OPPONENTS! — NBC News “Gets It!” — Why Doesn’t Judge Garland? — Unqualified Trump/Miller “Burrower” Carl C. Risch Draws Fat Salary From Judge G. @ EOIR As Asylum Seekers, Battered Women, People Of Color Continue To Be Abused In His “Star Chambers!” — Outrage At Garland’s Lousy Performance On EOIR Reform Grows Among Members Of The Due Process Army!

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

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1262234

By Adam Edelman @ NBC News:

. . . .

Meanwhile, government watchdog groups expressed concerns over two people whose initial conversion requests had since been approved.

One such conversion was that of Carl Risch, whose October conversion request to be the deputy director, the No. 2 job, at the Executive Office for Immigration Review within the Department of Justice (a civil service job), was approved in December. Risch had been an assistant secretary for consular affairs at the State Department, a political job. His new job came with a $10,000 raise.

His is at least the second conversion in the last year to land at the EOIR, which conducts removal and deportation proceedings in immigration courts across the country.

Recommended

DONALD TRUMP

Documents show high number of permanent job requests from Trump appointees in final year

“It’s a red flag when there are multiple people being converted to jobs at a single entity. It really raises an even larger concern,” Stier, of the Partnership for Public Service, said. “The process is supposed to be that a political appointee in no way has a leg up on the competition for a career job, but when you see multiple go to the same agency, you really have to wonder how it can be possible that the best qualified individuals are not once, but multiple times, people who are political appointees.”

Risch did not respond to multiple requests for comment. EOIR spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly said Risch went through the standard pre-hiring review process with the OPM and that the agency had approved his new position.

. . . .

**************
Read the full article at the link.

So, the folks who saved due process and stood up for the Constitution and racial justice while Judge Garland was enjoying his cushy ivory tower job at the D.C. Circuit over the past four years remain on the outside, twisting in the wind ⚰️ while their clients and colleagues suffer daily abuse in “Garland’s Star Chambers!” Nice touch!

Meanwhile, Garland hands out the big bucks and a hideout for a notoriously unqualified Trump/Miller political hack imported from the DOS. What does Risch know about immigrant justice or court management? Nothing? Oh, but why is that a problem at EOIR?

He occupies what is supposed to be a key senior management position in America’s most dysfunctional “court system” — running a simply astounding 1.3 million (known) case, largely self-created backlog, grinding out sloppy, unprofessional, biased opinions regularly rejected by even conservative Courts of Appeals, setting horrible anti-immigrant precedents and endangering the lives, health, and safety of those who are caught up in EOIR’s continuing White Nationalist cesspool of cruelty, mismanagement, and gross incompetence?

Star Chamber Justice
Judge Garland: “Go faster Carl and David (Garland BIA Chair Wetmore), see how much it takes to make this worthless respondent scream! Remember what your mentor Stephen Miller taught you about the lives and rights of ‘the other.’ Why do you think I’m paying you the ‘big bucks’ and letting you ‘burrow in’ if not to punish and deter those who dare seek due process and humane treatment in MY wholly-owned Star Chambers! I couldn’t have done this at the DC Circuit, but here there are NO RULES, except those we make up for our own benefit, and I aim to keep it that way!”

Is it any wonder that immigrant justice and racial justice remain in free-fall under Biden and Garland?

Let’s lay it on the line! By now, Garland should have cancelled all the Trump-era precedents (“day 1 stuff”), cleaned house at EOIR HQ, and transferred the entire BIA to somewhere where they can inflict no more damage on the American legal system!

That would also have sent a powerful  “signal” to the many Immigration Judges who have established “asylum free zones” in Immigration Courts throughout the U.S. over the past two Administrations that there will be a return of due process and fundamental fairness for asylum seekers and other immigrants at EOIR. 

Judges can get with the program, start granting asylum and other protection as the law requires, thereby reducing backlogs the “old fashioned way” — consistent with due process and fundamental fairness. Or, they can ship out and sign up with Stephen Miller’s “Aryian Nation Legal Team” — where it appears that many of them would be more at home.

Garland should have brought in folks already on the payroll like Judges Dana Marks, Noel Brennan, & Amiena Khan, all experts in due process, judicial management, immigration, and human rights laws, all of whom have demonstrated true leadership, consistent courage, and independence throughout their distinguished careers, on at least a temporary basis to start restoring justice, rationality, and order in the Immigration Courts. 

They would already have identified qualified sitting judges who know how to grant asylum to serve as Acting Appellate Judges at the BIA to start turning things around by enforcing due process and issuing precedents that advance, rather than retard, due process, fundamental, fairness, and judicial efficiency. 

Meanwhile, they would be developing legitimate merit selection criteria to recruit and hire as judges practical experts who will fairly and efficiently apply due process and fundamental fairness to all asylum seekers and other respondents, regardless of race, color, or creed. These criteria could be used to recruit and  hire a diverse progressive group of permanent Appellate Judges and Immigration Judges, to determine which “probationary IJs” should be retained, and eventually to re-compete all existing IJ positions to insure a real, diverse, independent, due-process focused, Immigration Judiciary comprised of the “best and brightest” American law has to offer! 

Greg Chen (AILA) and Professor Peter Moskowitz (Cardozo Law) should be on the EOIR payroll implementing their very achievable program for drastically slashing the unnecessary backlog without stomping on anyone’s rights.

IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE! 🚀 — GREG CHEN & PROFESSOR PETER MARKOWITZ CAN CUT THE IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOG IN HALF IMMEDIATELY WITH NO ADDITIONAL RESOURCES! — And, That’s Just The Beginning! — “Team Garland” Needs To Get The “A-Team” In Place @ EOIR & End The Nonsense, Injustice, & Waste Of “America’s Star Chambers!”

Garland should already have hired Professor Michele Pistone (Villanova Law, VIISTA) to develop quality, due process oriented training programs for everyone at EOIR.

Instead, Garland is bankrolling the current crew of proven incompetents, holdovers, hangers on, and Trump/Miller White Nationalists. In other words, he’s wasting our taxpayer money, destroying the lives and futures of the most vulnerable (and often most deserving) among us, undermining racial and social justice in America, and abusing and endangering the health and safety of members of the NDPA trying to bring some semblance of the rule of law and human decency into our disgustingly dysfunctional Immigration Courts.

Could it get any worse? How? 

Think about this! Neo-Nazi Stephen Miller and his fellow White Nationalists apparently were so impressed with the effective legal work done by courageous immigration/human rights/due process advocates in blocking many parts of his racist authoritarian agenda — basically the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”) and its “Senior Fighting Division” The Round Table of Former Immigration Judges — that they are forming their very own neo-Nazi legal advocacy group to help GOP AGs stymie any attempt by the Biden Administration to promote racial justice, social justice, and immigrant justice. 

Given the rather incompetent (not to mention ethically questionable) performance of many DOJ attorneys during the Trump regime, Garland is going to need all the help he can get to fend off Miller and the GOP. Rather than enlisting members of the NDPA on his team, letting them solve problems, and actively soliciting their support and alliance on litigation, he is turning them into highly motivated opponents!

How dumb and counterproductive is that! Turn your would-be friends into enemies? Sounds like something only a tone-deaf Dem politico could pull off!

I’m not a politico. But, I do understand the necessity in politics, as in almost any field, of being able to distinguish your friends from your enemies. Perhaps, Judge Garland has spent so much time in the ivory tower that he has forgotten how to play the game out here in the real world.

I’ve been hanging around the Washington legal scene for almost 50 years now. In that time, I might have witnessed a more inept start by an Attorney General of either party. But, really, I can’t remember when!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! If the NDPA must take the fight to end ☠️⚰️ deadly “Clown Courts” 🤡 to Judge Garland, so be it!

PWS

04-11-21

COURTSIDE EXCLUSIVE! — A FIRST, DISTURBING LOOK INSIDE “JUDGE GARLAND’S FAILED EOIR” –  SOURCES CLAIM JUDGE’S APPROACH TO DUE PROCESS @ EOIR TIMID, INEFFECTIVE 🤮☠️ — HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE 🍇 – Judge Apparently Dissing Calls By Experts, Advocates For Bold, Common Sense Actions To Restore Due Process, & Promote Judicial Independence @ EOIR — Appears Ready To Allow Miller‘s White Nationalist “Plants,” Go Along To Get Along Judges, To Continue Mocking Due Process @ Dysfunctional Courts – Will Ex-Federal Judge Become Latest In Line Of Failed Dem AGs To Allow Institutionalized Racism, Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Attitudes, Mistreatment Of Migrants, & Administrative Chaos To Flourish In America’s Worst “Courts?”

EYORE
“Oh no! Is Judge Garland really going to leave me in this position for the next four years?”

 

COURTSIDE EXCLUSIVE! — A FIRST, DISTURBING LOOK INSIDE “JUDGE GARLAND’S FAILED EOIR” –  SOURCES CLAIM JUDGE’S APPROACH TO DUE PROCESS @ EOIR TIMID, INEFFECTIVE 🤮☠️ — HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE 🍇 – Judge Apparently Dissing Calls By Experts, Advocates For Bold, Common Sense Actions To Restore Due Process, & Promote Judicial Independence @ EOIR — Appears Ready To Allow Miller‘s White Nationalist “Plants,” Go Along To Get Along Judges, To Continue Mocking Due Process @ Dysfunctional Courts – Will Ex-Federal Judge Become Latest In Line Of Failed Dem AGs To Allow Institutionalized Racism, Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Attitudes, Mistreatment Of Migrants, & Administrative Chaos To Flourish In America’s Worst “Courts?”

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive 
April 9, 2021

Although the information is unverified, and the sources anonymous, Courtside has pieced together an emerging disturbing picture of Judge Garland’s “master plan” to make only cosmetic changes and allow the continued mistreatment of asylum seekers and unprofessional performance of many so-called “judges” in his Immigration Courts, generally known as America’s worst and most dysfunctional tribunals where life threatening institutionalized White Nationalism, sloppy work product, and lack of human rights expertise have become the order of the day.

As we know, DOJ quickly reassigned the former EOIR Director, James McHenry, notorious for “leading” the courts into total failure in pursuit of a White Nationalist political agenda. Apparently, the head of Administration and the “IT honcho” were also forced out at “The Tower.” Presumably, this has to do with EOIR’s remarkable two-decade failure to implement anything approaching a functional nationwide e-filing system. 

That’s the “good news.” But, reportedly Judge Garland has little intention of removing the BIA Chairman or the Deputy Director. Sources say that unqualified (never served as a judge) Chief Immigration Judge Tracy Short, who was sent over from DHS Enforcement by the Trump folks, could be on thin ice. But, some in the know point out that he has the least authority to influence anything because he doesn’t actually adjudicate cases and must get approval from “on high” for any further policy changes. 

The Deputy Director, Carl C. Risch, whom I’ve reported on before, was a Trump political appointee who “burrowed in” right at the end. According to sources Risch, a “bureaucratic refugee” from the State Department (the only kind of “refugee” recognized by the Trump regime) was mostly interested in finding a “soft landing on the public dole,” and not many people have paid attention to him. 

The BIA Chair, David Wetmore, was a confidante of neo-Nazi White Nationalist Stephen Miller at the White House before he became an advisor to the Deputy A.G. and then the Chair. Reportedly, his appointment was driven by Miller and other senior Trump people. 

Potentially, in a competent system, the BIA Chair (Chief Appellate Judge) would be one of the most powerful and influential Federal Judges in America, short of the Supremes. Wetmore has supposedly politicized everything. Some say that with his “probationary period” expiring next month, he’s just trying to “hang on.” 

DOJ leadership, therefore, could and certainly should remove him in his probationary period with no repercussions. However, Dem incompetence at EOIR and elsewhere in DOJ is legendary when it comes to making such bold personnel moves that, by contrast, are the “bread and butter” of the process by which GOP Administrations seize control of the bureaucracy for their political aims. Dem Administrations all to often appear more than happy to leave GOP “plants, burrowers, and holdovers” in key positions while leaving  human rights experts and their own supporters “out in the cold.”

There are also rumors that DOJ has prepared a “100-page plan” for EOIR. That, in of itself, is both interesting and disturbing in light of the glaring absence of any known immigration/human rights expert with intimate knowledge of the dysfunction at the Immigration Courts and how to fix it at DOJ Headquarters downtown. As I’ve mentioned before, the few “DOJ insiders” qualified to lead such a project are some field Immigration Judges, most associated with the NAIJ.

Reportedly, “the plan” has some “good stuff” including free counsel for unaccompanied children. But it doesn’t call for what’s really needed — independent courts! 

Nor is it apparent that the Garland team intends to treat the Immigration Courts as “real courts” and to appoint the qualified, diverse, expert judiciary necessary to end institutionalized racism and “Dred Scottification” in the American justice system. 

This is likely to leave many of those talented and dedicated lawyers who led the defense against the degradation and dehumanization of women and people of color in the Immigration Courts over the past four years fuming! I’ve said it before, it’s a strange way for a supposedly progressive Administration to treat those who should be their staunchest allies with the potential to solve problems others can’t!

Judge Garland appears determined to repeat the deadly mistakes of past Dem Administrations by leaving the best, most powerful, and most achievable opportunity for reforming the Federal Judiciary on the table yet again. He will also neuter and discredit his plans for equal justice and racial justice before even getting them out of the box. 

Some report that advocacy groups might temper their calls for judicial independence and a better qualified judiciary at EOIR to avoid criticizing the new Administration. Sadly, that would also be a huge mistake, repeating past catastrophic failures!

I’ve seldom heard or witnessed a bigger “crock” than “revolution by evolution.” Revolution comes from kicking tail, taking names, and bold aggressive due process enhancing actions. For Pete’s sake, Miller and Sessions understood the power of decisive action! Are they really that much smarter and more motivated than the Dems? Sadly, it appears so!

Last time, I watched from the “inside” as the Obama Administration left the immigration advocacy/human rights community “standing at the station” while the train pulled out, with mostly the wrong engineers at the controls. It was painful. It might be even more painful watching it happen again, despite all the warnings from those of us in the NDPA!

If an independent EOIR is ever going to happen it must be now! By the end of this year, it likely will be too late. The cost in human lives, frustration, and squandered potential for a better America and a better world will be incalculable.

Unhappily, those of us who had hoped to litigate and criticize less and help more appear destined for another four years of fighting an intransigent and tone-deaf Administration from the outside.  

My three recommendations:

1) Those working on Article I better “get cracking,” because Judge Garland doesn’t appear to be interested in meaningful fixes at EOIR.

2) The human rights community had better reload and redeploy the “litigation artillery.” Because it looks to me like the only way of getting the Garland DOJ to address the festering problems undermining justice in America will be by beating them in court, over and over, until their “star chambers” finally collapse in total chaos. 

3) Keep documenting the “lack of justice at Justice” — make sure that Judge Garland and his team “own” their failure to take seriously immigrant justice in the Immigration Courts and their disrespect for human rights experts who should be running and staffing our Immigration Courts!

Sure, it’s all anonymous and unverifiable. But, it sounds eerily similar to the arrogant incompetence with which the Obama Administration failed to institute achievable reforms in the Immigration Court system. So, I give it credence.

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

Grim Reaper
“Oh, goody! I hear Judge Garland is going to keep me at EOIR! I can’t wait to tell my buddy Gauleiter Miller that the slaughter of innocents will continue!”
Image: Hernan Fednan, Creative Commons License

 

 

PWS

04-10-21

 

🏴‍☠️🤡SLOPPINESS, POOR ANALYSIS, MISCONSTRUING RECORD, CONTEMPT FOR COURTS CONTINUE TO PLAGUE BIA’S DENIAL CULTURE!

Kangaroos
Anybody remember the last time we interpreted the law or facts in favor of a human? 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
Creative Commons License

Here are four more recent screw-ups:

  1. Misinterpreting “Realistic Possibility” — 8th Cir.

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca8-on-realistic-probability—lopez-gonzalez-v-wilkinson

CA8 on “Realistic Probability” – Lopez Gonzalez v. Wilkinson

Lopez Gonzalez v. Wilkinson

“The question in this case is whether the categorical approach requires a petitioner seeking cancellation of removal to demonstrate both that the state offense he was convicted of is broader than the federal offense and that there is a realistic probability that the state actually prosecutes people for the conduct that makes the state offense broader than the federal offense. We conclude that it does not. … Because the BIA’s decision relied on a misinterpretation of the realistic probability inquiry, we grant the petition for review, vacate, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats off to Jamie Arango!]

2) Wrong Interpretation Of Child Status Protection Act — 2d Cir.

Cuthill v. Blinken

https://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/05b681bb-4767-4cf6-b370-6f0ee77ad5d2/3/doc/19-3138_opn.pdf

D. Chevron Deference

Lastly, the government argues that we should defer to the decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) in Matter of Zamora-Molina, 25 I. & N. Dec. 606, 611 (B.I.A. 2011), in which the BIA adopted the same interpretation as the Department of State. Even assuming, without deciding, that Chevron deference applies when one agency (the Department of State) seeks to rely on the interpretation of another agency (the Department of Justice), we agree with the district court and with the Ninth Circuit that Chevron deference does not apply here because “the intent of Congress is clear.” Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842 (1984); see also id. at 842–43 (“If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.”); Tovar, 882 F.3d at 900 (declining to apply Chevron deference to Zamora-Molina because “traditional tools of statutory construction” and “the irrationality of the result sought by the government” combine to “demonstrate beyond any question that Congress had a clear intent on the question at issue”). As discussed above, the text, structure, and

33

legislative history of the CSPA conclusively show the “unambiguously expressed intent of Congress” to protect beneficiaries like Diaz. Chevron, 467 U.S. at 843.7

3) Ignoring Previous Circuit Ruling On Related Case — 10th Cir.

https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/20/20-9520.pdf

Ni v. Wilkinson, unpublished

After we determined that conditions in China had materially worsened for Christians, Mr. Ni moved again for reopening. Despite our opinion in his wife’s case, the Board of Immigration Appeals concluded

2

again that Mr. Ni had failed to show a material change in country conditions.

This conclusion is unsupportable. Mr. Ni’s evidence of worsening

conditions in China largely mirrored his wife’s evidence, which had led us

to grant her petition for review. Mr. Ni’s evidence was even stronger than

his wife’s because China had recently adopted a regulatory crackdown on

practicing Christians. We thus grant Mr. Ni’s petition for review.

4) Misconstruction Of Record — 1st. Cir.

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca1-on-albania-changed-circumstances-lucaj-v-wilkinson

CA1 on Albania, Changed Circumstances: Lucaj v. Wilkinson

Lucaj v. Wilkinson

“To support his case for reopening, Mr. Lucaj submitted an affidavit complaining in particular about two events that occurred after his removal proceeding in 2006: The Socialist party took power in 2013, and then in 2019 the Socialists’ corruption and connections with organized crime deterred the opposition party from even participating in the 2019 elections. Mr. Lucaj provided, among other things, the State Department’s 2018 Human Rights Report on Albania, the Freedom House “Freedom in the World 2018” Report on Albania, and articles from 2018 and 2019 about corruption in Albania and the Socialist Party’s success in recent elections. We do not know whether those submissions show materially worsening conditions for Democratic Party members in Albania, however, because the BIA refused to compare those reports to available evidence of conditions from 2006, claiming that Mr. Lucaj had not “explained how the proffered . . . country condition documentation show[s] qualitatively different conditions from 2006.” Plainly, though, he did so by pointing out the two cited, post-2006 events as evidence of changed conditions. The BIA’s failure to assess whether those changes were sufficient was arbitrary and capricious. … Therefore, we reverse the decision by the BIA and remand Mr. Lucaj’s case so that the BIA can review available evidence to examine whether conditions for members of the Democratic Party in Albania have deteriorated since 2006 and, if so, whether Mr. Lucaj has established a prima facie case for relief.”

[Hats off to Gregory G. Marotta!]

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

America and humanity deserve better from a supposed “expert tribunal” which actually functions more like a “denial factory” without much, if any, “quality control.” No wonder these guys are running an out of control, ever-expanding 1.3 million case backlog!

Denying continuances, not closing cases that belong at USCIS, rushed briefing, IJ’s “certifying” BIA remands to the Director (who should have no judicial role), dismissing applications for failure to fill in irrelevant blanks, raising fees, and a host of other nonsensical proposals that EOIR has had shot down by the Article III Courts recently won’t reduce the backlogs. They actually will make it worse, as have all the other “gimmicks” tried by EOIR to eradicate due process and dehumanize migrants over the past four years!

See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/03/11/%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%97%bdu-s-district-judge-susan-illston-nd-ca-shreds-enjoins-eoirs-anti-due-process-%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%a4%aemidnight-rules-judge-p/

Who ever heard of lower court judges providing “quality control” for appellate judges, working through a bureaucrat who (at the time the proposal was supposedly “finalized”) had never presided over a case in Immigration Court? And, let’s remember, these are haphazardly selected trial judges, a decidedly non-diverse, non-representative group, whose own qualifications, expertise, judicial temperament, and training have been widely criticized by experts in the field. Few of today’s Immigration Judges and BIA Judges would be “household names” among immigration, human rights, and constitutional law experts and scholars! 

See,e.g.,  https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/03/08/%f0%9f%8f%b4%e2%80%8d%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8finside-a-failed-and-unjust-system-reuters-report-explains-how-the-trump-administration-destroyed-due-process-fundamental-fairness-humanity-in-the-u-s-immig/

The current mess is largely the result of Aimless Docket Reshuffling imposed on the Immigration Courts by unqualified politicos at the DOJ and their equally unqualified toadies at EOIR HQ. Also, DHS has more often than not ignored the realities of good docket management and the prudent exercise of prosecutorial discretion. It is not the fault of the vulnerable migrants and their lawyers victimized by this absurdly politicized, biased, and mal-administered system!

Restoration of justice at EOIR will require radical due process oriented changes starting with new, professional leadership from “practical scholars” in immigration and human rights as well as replacing BIA Judges with better qualified jurists selected from the ranks of those “practical scholars.” Quality control, expertise, competence, common sense, and human understanding are all lacking at today’s EOIR!

Judge Garland must “clean house!” Now!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-12-21

⚖️🗽U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE SUSAN ILLSTON (ND CA) SHREDS, ENJOINS EOIR’S ANTI-DUE-PROCESS ☠️🤮“MIDNIGHT RULES” — Judge Praises, Cites Round Table’s 🛡⚔️ Amicus Brief!

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

https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-likely-to-block-trump-era-changes-to-immigration-court/

Here’s an excerpt from a report by Nichols Iovino @ Courthouse News: 

. . . .

The judge added that she found an amicus brief submitted by 37 former immigration law judges particularly illuminating because it helped illustrate some of “real-life consequences” of the rule.

The former immigration judges wrote that the rule “makes it more difficult for applicants and defense counsel to brief relevant issues and present evidence, creates new challenges for immigration judges to consider extraordinary changes in circumstances and to control the timing of their own docket, and severely limits the [Board of Immigration Appeals’] authority to make legally sound decisions and remain an apolitical rung in the immigration system.”

A motion for a preliminary injunction is also pending in separate lawsuit challenging the same Trump-era rule in the District of Columbia.

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

Yesterday, Judge Illston issued a blistering 73-page order enjoining EOIR’S illegal rules: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.372189/gov.uscourts.cand.372189.59.0.pdf

The case is CENTRO LEGAL DE LA RAZA v. EOIR.

“Sir Jeffrey” Chase reports:

Judge Illston referenced our brief four times throughout the opinion (p.5, n.2, and pp. 39, 52, and 55).

Jeffrey also added:

The brief (drafted by Steven Schulman and his team at Akin Gump) was based on our Round Table’s comments to the proposed regs. [Judge] Ilyce [Shugall] organized and filed the comments, and the drafting committee was made up of [Judges] Ilyce [Shugall], Rebecca [Jamil], Joan [Churchill], Cecelia [Espenoza] and myself.

So proud to be part of this team that is “making a difference for the NDPA,” and more importantly, for the vulnerable human lives at stake in the EOIR Star Chambers. 🏴‍☠️ And thanks so much to Steven Schulman and his pro bono team at Akin Gump for making this happen.

So, here’s my question: Why is the Biden Administration defending this totally illegal, disingenuous, not to mention stupid, attempt by EOIR to deny due process and fundamental fairness while implementing the “worst practices imaginable?”

Judge Garland must get a handle on the awful, festering mess 🤮🤡☠️ at EOIR sooner rather than later!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-11-21

🏴‍☠️INSIDE A FAILED AND UNJUST SYSTEM: Reuters Report Explains How The Trump Administration Destroyed Due Process, Fundamental Fairness, & Humanity In The U.S. Immigration Courts!

Reade Levinson
Reade Levinson
Reporter, Reuters
Kristina Cooke
Kristina Cooke
Reporter, Reuters
Mica Rosenberg
Mica Rosenberg
National Immigration Reporter, Reuters
Four Horsemen
BIA Asylum Panel In Action
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-trump-court-special-r/special-report-how-trump-administration-left-indelible-mark-on-u-s-immigration-courts-idUSKBN2B0179

Reade Levinson, Kristina Cooke, & Mica Rosenberg report for Reuters:

(Reuters) – On a rainy September day in 2018, Jeff Sessions, then U.S. attorney general, addressed one of the largest classes of newly hired immigration judges in American history.

“The vast majority of asylum claims are not valid,” he said during a swearing-in ceremony in Falls Church, Virginia, according to his prepared remarks. If judges do their job, he said, “the number of illegal aliens and the number of baseless claims will fall.”

It was a clear message to the incoming class: Most of the immigrants who appear in court do not deserve to remain in the United States.

As U.S. President Joe Biden works to undo many of the restrictive immigration policies enacted by former President Donald Trump, he will confront one of his predecessor’s indelible legacies: the legion of immigration judges Trump’s administration hired.

The administration filled two-thirds of the immigration courts’ 520 lifetime positions with judges who, as a whole, have disproportionately ordered deportation, according to a Reuters analysis of more than 800,000 immigration cases decided over the past 20 years.

Judges hired under Trump ordered immigrants deported in 69% of cases, compared to 58% for judges hired as far back as the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Because hundreds of thousands of immigrants have cases before the court each year, that 11 percentage-point difference translates to tens of thousands more people ordered deported each year. Appeals are rarely successful.

Biden has promised to dramatically expand the courts by doubling the number of immigration judges and other staff. That’s a worthwhile effort, said Stephen Legomsky, a former chief counsel of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services who is now a professor emeritus at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. “But the challenge is going to be tremendous.”

Although there are no statutory limits on the number of judges who can be hired, expanding the court would be costly and could take years, immigration law experts said.

“The fact that these (Trump-era) judges are already in place inhibits him a great deal,” Legomsky said of Biden.

Stephen Miller, the key architect of Trump’s immigration agenda, told Reuters that the administration had aimed to hire more immigration judges as part of an effort to “create more integrity in the asylum process” and quickly resolve what he termed meritless claims to cut down on a massive backlog.

“Most of the people that are coming unlawfully between ports of entry on the southwest border are not eligible for any recognized form of asylum,” Miller said in an interview. “There should be a very high rejection rate.”

Under U.S. law, immigrants are eligible for asylum only if they can prove they were being persecuted in their home countries on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or their political opinions. Miller said many migrants arriving at the border are coming for economic reasons and present fraudulent asylum claims.

Sessions, who as attorney general had the final say in hiring immigration judges, told Reuters that “the problem is not with the Trump judges. The problem was with some of the other judges that seemed to not be able to manage their dockets, or, in many cases, rendered rulings that were not consistent with the law.

The Trump administration’s successors to Sessions, who was forced out in 2018, did not respond to requests for comment.

. . . .

“There has been a significant lack of basic understanding of immigration law and policy with many – not all – but many of the new hires under the Trump administration,” said Susan Roy, an attorney and former immigration judge appointed during the administration of President George W. Bush who has represented immigrants before some new judges.

Reuters spoke with eight other former immigration judges, five of whom served under Trump, who generally echoed her view. Sitting immigration judges are not permitted to speak to the media.

Even for judges with immigration backgrounds, the type of experience they have has been controversial. In 2017, a report commissioned by the Justice Department found a lack of diversity of experience among judges hired, due to an excess of former prosecutors here from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the report at the link.

Hon. Sue Roy is a distinguished member of our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges 🛡⚔️ now in private practice representing asylum seekers and other migrants in Immigration Court.

Hon. Charles Honeyman, quoted elsewhere in the article, is also a member of the Round Table who actually was removed from a case for failing to carry out what he believed to be improper instructions from his “supervisors” who were implementing Sessions’s anti-immigrant policies.

Stephen Legomsky is a former USCIS Senior Executive and esteemed retired Professor who generally is acknowledged as one of American’s leading scholar-experts on immigration and human rights.

Judge Dana Leigh Marks, quoted elsewhere in the article, is a former President of the National Association of Immigration Judges who also successfully argued the landmark  Supreme Court  case INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, which established the generous well-founded fear standard for asylum.

Sessions and Miller are notorious White Nationalist xenophobes who have neither represented asylum seekers nor been Immigration Judges. Their efforts to eradicate international norms and legal protections for vulnerable asylum seekers, and their particular bias against female asylum seekers, have been widely criticized and panned by human rights experts throughout the world, as well as enjoined or overruled by some U.S. Courts. They were architects of the widely condemned child separation policy and the New American Gulag (“NAG”).

EOIR is the failed DOJ agency that houses the dysfunctional Immigration Courts.

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! 

PWS

03-08-21

 

PROPHET 🔮 IN HIS OWN TIME: IN 2015, PROFESSOR GEOFFREY HOFFMAN CALLED FOR BETTER IMMIGRATION JUDGES 🧑🏽‍⚖️👩‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️⚖️ — The Situation Is 10X Worse Now! — Judge Garland Must Act To End This National Disgrace That Otherwise Will Quickly Become A Blot On The Biden Record! — “[L]et’s draw from the ranks of those with proven compassion, like the YMCA directors, legal aid attorneys, and people who will never belittle a child, never lose themselves in the power and prestige, and be resilient and persevere in one of the hardest jobs imaginable.”

Professor Geoffrey Hoffman
Professor Geoffrey Hoffman
Immigraton Clinic Director
University of Houston Law Center

From LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/newsheadlines/posts/geoffrey-hoffman-eoir-needs-better-immigration-judges

Geoffrey Hoffman: EOIR Needs Better Immigration Judges

Prof. Geoffrey Hoffman, Nov. 24, 2015 – “It is important, I think, to note the import but also the paradox behind the BIA’s latest precedent decision, Matter of Y-S-L-C-, 26 I&N Dec. 688 (BIA 2015) that admonishes IJ’s not to bully minors. In the decision, the Board discusses conduct by an Immigration Judge that can be construed as “bullying or hostile” behavior and says it is “never appropriate,” particularly in cases involving “minor respondents,” concluding such behavior may result in remand to a different Immigration Judge. I am glad that the Board is finally taking to task this kind of egregious IJ behavior. On the one hand, we should applaud the Board for pointing out this behavior and finally holding it up to the light of day in an important new precedent decision. On the other hand, it is a sad commentary on the behavior of some judges that the appellate body of the EOIR has to even say this publicly. Of course judges should not behave this way, and the fact that recusal is mandated by the BIA in such situations is something to congratulate the Board for now getting behind. But, one wonders whether this response is at all sufficient. Whether, as an IJ, I can now say, “Well, the worst that will happen is that I will have the case taken away from me on remand, and therefore I do not have to deal with this mess anymore.” It doesn’t seem like much of a deterrent.

In a case which I handled on appeal, the IJ denied the respondent’s attorney the opportunity to call a psychologist to testify about the respondent’s mental condition and disease (bipolar disorder), a fact which went directly to the particular social group and seemed particularly relevant to me. When the attorney respectfully requested permission to put on the expert witness, and specially whether the witness could testify about any medications the respondent had taken or was taking the IJ in response asked the attorney whether she was on any medications. Was she on any medications? I read and re-read that line again and again as I prepared the appeal thinking perhaps I had missed the joke. But this wasn’t a joke. It was simply intemperate behavior by an IJ. Thankfully, the BIA correctly and compassionately remanded the case but based on the bipolar condition, recognizing that it could form a valid PSG. No mention was made of the issue of judicial impropriety I had raised in the brief. In other appeals I have done before the Board, I have noticed that when raising issues with the Board about IJ’s missing evidence or even misconstruing the factual background, the Board does not seem to deal with these issues head-on but instead bases their decisions on some other ground, preferring to adjudicate the appeal on a legal ground rather than on the basis of judicial misconduct or judicial mistake. And there is nothing surprising here, with the Board insulating IJ’s from admonishment and not highlighting their misunderstandings of the record, but there is I think a cost which has been underreported or perhaps not even appreciated. The cost is that IJs become used to behaving in a way that can be described as intemperate at best and demeaning or demoralizing and abusive, at worst.

This said, I do have a lot of sympathy for many IJs, having worked very hard myself for a federal judge for two years after law school, and seeing and appreciating the incredible stress and responsibilities of being a judge. The IJs, it should be mentioned, have it worse: they have to juggle a case load of hundreds and hundreds of cases, while at the same time maintaining compassion and composure at all times, and at the same time providing a clear, cogent and correct legal analysis in all cases and contexts. However, and this needs to be said, I think some IJs should not be IJs and should not have been selected to be IJs. If we want to make the immigration court system work we need to do a better job in vetting these judges, choosing based on temperament and suitability to deal with the rigors of handling all these cases with compassion and professionalism.

This is the time now (at this very moment) to make this statement as loudly and boldly as possible, since EOIR right now is advertising for 50+ new judgeships across the country. Since we have approximately 250+ judges, this represents an approximate 20 percent increase. I implore EOIR to make these decisions with due regard to how the judges might act in future, not just whether they have experience deporting people, working for the government in other capacities, or experiences such as being in the military. While those are factors, let’s draw from the ranks of those with proven compassion, like the YMCA directors, legal aid attorneys, and people who will never belittle a child, never lose themselves in the power and prestige, and be resilient and persevere in one of the hardest jobs imaginable.”

Geoffrey A. Hoffman

Director-University of Houston Law Center Immigration Clinic

Clinical Associate Professor

4604 Calhoun Road

TU-II, Room 56

Houston, TX 77204-6060

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

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration ignored Geoffrey’s plea. Instead of creating a well-qualified, independent, progressive judiciary that could achieve the “EOIR Vision” of: “Through teamwork and innovation becoming the world’s best tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all,” the Obama Administration handed out immigration judgeships like they were service awards for DHS prosecutors, DOJ attorneys, and other government lawyers.

The Obama selections appeared designed primarily to avoid appointing anyone who might have the background, backbone, and courage to “rock the boat” and stand up for immigrants’ rights even when it meant rejecting ill-advised and legally questionable Administration enforcement policies and procedures. In other words, truly independent judging and thinking was discouraged in favor of a “go along to get along” atmosphere mischaracterized as “collegiality.” 

Sure, collegiality has its benefits. But, in the end, independent judging is about justice for the individuals coming before the courts, not about institutional survival, job preservation, making friends, achieving bureaucratic performance goals, or pleasing political “handlers” who don’t want to read about their “subordinates” in the “funny papers.” When I was ousted from the BIA as part of the so-called “Ashcroft purge,” I noticed that those those judges who were “collegial” but outspoken about immigrants’ legal rights got punished right along with those who were perceived as “less collegial” in standing up for the same rights.

Moreover, the Obama folks designed an unwieldy and astoundingly inefficient “Rube Goldberg selection system” that took more than two years to fill an average IJ vacancy — much longer than the Senate confirmation process! This was at a time when backlogs were building and the NAIJ and the “line IJs” were begging “EOIR management” for help. “Management” could have achieved comparable results simply by throwing darts at a board containing the names of government attorneys. And, it would have cut the red tape. 

Inept as the Obama Administration might have been, the Trump kakistocracy of course proved to be our worst nightmare. They “weaponized” the EOIR immigration judiciary into a tool of White Nationalist nativist enforcement, racial injustice, and misogyny. Here are some of the things Sessions and Barr did at the behest of Stephen Miller:

  • “Packed” the BIA with judges known as “asylum deniers” — some with denial rates in excess of 90%;
  • Appointed IJs from the Atlanta Immigration Court, which had generated Matter of Y-S-L-C-, to the BIA in an overt attempt to replicate the “Asylum Free Zone” as Atlanta was known throughout the private bar;  
  • “Rewarded” with BIA appointments several judges who had complaints lodged against them for their rude and unprofessional in-court behavior, open hostility to asylum seekers (particularly women), and unprofessional treatment of private attorneys; 
  • Issued bogus EOIR and BIA precedents, some on their “own motion,” that were almost 100% against respondents and in favor of DHS Enforcement while undoing long-standing rules that had promoted fairness to asylum seekers and sound docket management;
  • Appointed almost all government/prosecutorial background Immigration Judges, many without immigration qualifications, others associated with anti-immigrant or anti-gay groups;
  • “Decertified” the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”) as punishment for speaking out against gross mismanagement at EOIR and DOJ;
  • Imposed due-process-denying unprofessional “production quotas” on IJs intended to increase deportation rates;
  • Deprived IJs of effective management control over their dockets, while engaging in endless “Aimless Docket Reshuffling;”
  • Unethically exhorted IJs to treat the DHS as their “partners” in enforcing immigration laws;
  • Gave the Director — essentially a political appointee disguised as a career executive — authority to interfere with BIA decision making in certain cases;
  • Basically reduced Immigration Judges to the status of “deportation clerks” while falsely claiming that they were “management officials” to “bust” the union;
  • “Dumbed down” immigration judge training;
  • Artificially “jacked up” the Immigration Court backlog to an astounding 1.3 million cases — even with twice the number of IJs on the bench.

As one of my esteemed Round Table colleagues said, “since [Geoffrey’s article] was written, record numbers of good IJs resigned over the past 4 years, many good candidates wouldn’t apply (or if they did, likely weren’t chosen) over the past 4 years, and then just the general drop in quality that comes with that degree of expansion [in the absence of competent planning].”        

The lack of compassion, glaring disregard for the protective purposes of refugee law, and absence of human understanding as to what it means to be a refugee seeking salvation simply screams out from the last four years of perverse AG and BIA precedents as well as from some of the elementary mistakes made by EOIR judges at all levels in the numerous cases reversed by Courts of Appeals over the past four years.  

And, this is just the “tip of the iceberg.” Many seeking protection are denied any hearings at all, railroaded out without understanding what’s happening, or simply give up without appealing wrong decisions and denials of due process — worn down by the abusive and unnecessary detention that EOIR helps promote and the intentionally “user unfriendly” procedures developed to discourage individuals from asserting their legal and human rights. 

While the broken and reeling Department of Justice presents many challenges, I predict that Judge Garland’s tenure will be remembered largely by how he deals, or doesn’t deal, with the total disaster in the U.S. Immigration Courts. The Trump regime’s attack on democracy and people of color began with immigration, and the effort to dehumanize and degrade migrants continued until the final day. 

Will Judge Garland leave behind a reformed, progressive, due-process-oriented system that is a model judiciary? One that finally fulfills the vision of — “Through Teamwork and innovation action becoming the world’s best tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all?” A court that can easily transition out of the DOJ intro an independent Article I Judiciary? Or will he leave behind another disgraceful mess and the dead bodies, broken dreams, and visible betrayals of American values to prove it?

Only time will tell! But, the NDPA will be watching. And, there isn’t much patience out here for more of the “EOIR Clown Show!”🤡🦹🏿‍♂️

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! Better judges 🧑🏽‍⚖️👩‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️ for a better America. And that starts (but doesn’t end) with the U.S. Immigration Courts!

PWS

02-14-21

🏴‍☠️TRUMP REGIME LEFT BEHIND AWFUL MESS 🤡 @ EOIR: BACKLOGS GREW EXPONENTIALLY, CASES TOOK LONGER TO COMPLETE, BUT MORE (LESS QUALIFIED) JUDGES WERE ON THE BENCH — Haste Makes Waste Gimmicks Created “Worst Of All Worlds!”

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

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

Immigrants Facing Deportation Wait Twice as Long in FY 2021 Compared to FY 2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The latest available case-by-case Immigrant Court records show that immigration cases that were completed in the first four months of FY 2021 took nearly twice as long from beginning to end as cases completed in the first four months of FY 2020. Cases that were completed between the beginning of October 2020 and the end of January 2021 took, on average, 859 days compared to 436 days over the same period a year before. The duration was calculated as the number of days between the date the Notice to Appear was issued to the date of completion as recorded in the Immigration Court’s records.

The top ten Immigration Courts with the most case completions thus far in FY 2021 accounted for four out of every ten closures (42%). The Miami Immigration Court was the most active with 2,129 case closures. Completion times at the Miami Immigration Court have increased since November 2020, but were slightly lower than the national average at 832 average days. In November, the Miami court took on average 787 days. The Immigration Court in Los Angeles had the second highest number of case completions with 1,857 case closures, followed closely by San Francisco with 1,849. Baltimore and Dallas were in fourth and fifth place.

The longest disposition times were found in the Atlanta Immigration Court where it took on average 1,577 days to close a case. The Cleveland Immigration Court was close behind, taking an average of 1,573 days. The Arlington Immigration Court was in third place with completion times so far in FY 2021 averaging 1,535 days. Newark and Boston Immigration Courts were in fourth and fifth place. Cases completed by immigration judges in Atlanta, Cleveland, Arlington, and Newark all took, on average, longer than four years.

The full report is found at:

https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/639/

To examine a variety of Immigration Court data, including asylum data, the backlog, MPP, and more now updated through January 2021, use TRAC’s Immigration Court tools here:

https://trac.syr.edu/imm/tools/

If you want to be sure to receive a notification whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

https://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1

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https://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors 

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse 

Syracuse University 

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

Maliciously incompetent management fuels “Aimless Docket Reshuffling!”

It’s what happens when you combine White Nationalism, maliciously incompetent management, bad judging, and endless “enforcement-only” gimmicks that tried to cut corners and short-circuit justice — “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”) to the max. What has been absent from this system for years is leadership that understands immigration, views migrants as humans, and is committed to due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices.

Pretty much what AILA pointed out in today’s report (policy brief).

🎇🧨💣BLOCKBUSTER NEW REPORT MAKES COMPELLING CASE FOR IMMEDIATE END TO EOIR CLOWN SHOW! 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ — Lays Out Blueprint For Restoring Due Process, Enhancing Justice In America’s Most Dysfunctional, Unfair, and Abusive “Courts!”

The system can’t improve without better personnel — not necessarily more — just better qualified to get the job done in a fair and timely manner consistent with due process and human dignity!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-12-21

IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE! 🚀 — GREG CHEN & PROFESSOR PETER MARKOWITZ CAN CUT THE IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOG IN HALF IMMEDIATELY WITH NO ADDITIONAL RESOURCES! — And, That’s Just The Beginning! — “Team Garland” Needs To Get The “A-Team” In Place @ EOIR & End The Nonsense, Injustice, & Waste Of “America’s Star Chambers!”

 

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

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/536794-unclogging-the-nations-immigration-court-system

From Immigration Impact:

. . . .

That is why the Justice Department must also identify categories of non priority immigration court cases that can be dismissed now. One obvious category is the estimated 460,000 cases — an astounding 37 percent of the current backlog — that involve individuals who could qualify, under current law, for legal status. It makes little sense to waste limited enforcement resources by having immigration prosecutors and judges spend years trying these cases in court, when trained adjudicators at another agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, can handle them more efficiently through paper applications.

Another category of cases that should be removed from judges’ dockets are the 200,000 cases that have been pending for more than five years. By definition, these old cases are ones that prosecutors and judges have deemed low priorities.

Biden has noted that the Obama administration “took too long” to begin fixing the nation’s immigration system. His initial steps are a promising indication that he intends to move swiftly to build the fair, humane and functional immigration enforcement system he has promised. To guarantee results, the new president must use his first 100 days to identify and remove the non priority cases bottlenecked in America’s immigration courts.

Greg Chen is senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Peter L. Markowitz is a professor of law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law where he directs the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic.

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

Read the full article at the link.

Presto: 1.3 million million docket becomes 640,000. And that’s just the beginning!

Here are some more low-budget, immediate action “No-Brainers:”

  • Vacate all of the anti-asylum, backlog expanding “precedents” issued by Sessions, Whitaker, Barr, and the BIA over the past four years (immediately returning needed flexibility and some degree of fairness to the system);
  • Reassign the current BIA and replace with expert judges committed to due process who know how to grant asylum and establish precedents on how “clear grants” can be easily identified, properly documented, and consistently adjudicated (eliminate “refugee roulette” — largely a product of an “any reason to deny culture” combined with defective judicial selection, poor training, and lousy leadership);
  • Return all asylum cases denied over the past four years to the USCIS Asylum Office for adjudication without all the anti-asylum precedents and dehumanizing policies of the Trump regime; 
  • Work with the private bar and NGOs to increase representation with universal representation as the goal; 
  • Eliminate inane and demeaning “production quotas” for EOIR judges (thus placing the emphasis back on careful decision making, thoughtful analysis, and getting the correct result the first time — also restoring IJs’ ability to schedule and manage dockets).

Realistically, 500 Immigration Judges can complete approximately 250,000 to 300,000 cases annually. A combination of 1) the “Chen-Markowitz plan;” 2) the “Schmidt Addendum;” and 3) the more sensible and realistic enforcement priorities initiative already underway at DHS will have EOIR “operating in real time” (and, significantly, in the national interest) in no time at all — without legislation or busting anyone’s budget!

Of course, these initial steps are just the “tip of the iceberg” of the reforms necessary at EOIR, leading to the fulfillment of the vision of “through teamwork and innovation becoming the world’s best tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” Congress must at the earliest opportunity create an independent Article I Immigration Court to institutionalize and preserve these reforms and “best practices.” 

But, in the meantime, lives and our national interests are imperiled by the current deadly (and wasteful) dysfunction @ EOIR. There is every reason to fix the system now! And, it’s not “rocket science” — just expertise and common sense.

Which leads me to another obvious point — Members of the NDPA like Chen, Markowitz, Dean Kevin Johnson, Michelle Mendez, Associate Dean Professor Jaya-Ramji Nogales, Professor Phil Schrag, Professor Michele Pistone, up and coming all-star Lauren Wyatt, Judge Dana Marks and other leaders of the NAIJ, experienced due process oriented Immigration Judges like my former BIA colleague Judge Noel Brennan, and many others like them should be in charge of this effort to reform EOIR and create a model court system. 

The Biden Administration must apply the same principles to EOIR Reform that they have elsewhere: Get rid of the “middlemen” and  “bring in the experts” to run the show! Articles, papers, speeches, TV interviews, encounter groups, studies, and blogs are great — but putting the right folks in the right places to take action to solve problems is much better and more efficient! Put the folks with the answers in charge!

That would not only create a “laboratory of best judicial practices” that could be applied to the floundering Article III Judiciary, but also would provide the Biden Administration with source of well-trained progressive candidates for the Article III Judiciary. Leadership, including “leading by example” is critical in any well-functioning judicial system; it has been sorely lacking at EOIR (and in the Article III Judiciary) over the past four years. As the Biden Administration has already recognized, the only real leadership among the Federal Judiciary has come from “resistors” like Judge Ashley Tabaddor, now at USCIS.

Incidentally, in her current position at USCIS, Judge Tabaddor is perfectly placed to work with EOIR in carrying out the “Chen-Markowitz plan” to get cases of those potentially eligible for residence out of the EOIR backlog and into USCIS where they can be handled more efficiently. 

Suggestion for EOIR Acting Director Jean King: Perhaps you weren’t aware that EOIR just posted the following recruitment notice for Attorney Advisor (Counsel to the Deputy Director) (not a joke, sadly): https://lnks.gd/l/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJidWxsZXRpbl9saW5rX2lkIjoxMDAsInVyaSI6ImJwMjpjbGljayIsImJ1bGxldGluX2lkIjoiMjAyMTAyMDMuMzQ1MzcxMTEiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5qdXN0aWNlLmdvdi9sZWdhbC1jYXJlZXJzL2pvYi9hdHRvcm5leS1hZHZpc29yLWNvdW5zZWwtZGVwdXR5LWRpcmVjdG9yIn0.HqH7tPMLAQqeCW9Xc0ooJNBRk_97S44aMG-xy02Pesc/s/842922301/br/97008185548-l

To state the obvious, EOIR needs more “headquarters personnel” like a hole in the head! What you need is a streamlined staff of better-qualified individuals across the board: real judges and professional judicial administrators who will restore due process and get this system functioning again — sooner rather than later.

Additionally, the current Deputy Director Carl C. Risch is a notorious “Trump political burrower” who should be gone by the end of the month. 🧹🪠 https://immigrationcourtside.com/category/department-of-justice/executive-office-for-immigration-review-eoir/office-of-chief-administrative-hearing-officer-ocaho/judge-james-mchenry/carl-c-risch/

Consequently, there is no apparent need for additional “counsel” in his office right now. To say the least, this ill-timed “example of the “Continuing Clown Show at EOIR”🤡 has already become a “internet mini-sensation!” At the very least, you should wait until Risch’s replacement arrives and let her or him make the selection.

Undoubtedly, a reformed IJ tenure program (considering not only discipline but also retention of current judges and improved professional training) that is transparent, fair, and effective is a badly needed and long overdue improvement. But, hiring another bureaucrat (on short notice, which is likely to produce a less than “best qualified” candidate) isn’t the answer.

That being said, I’ve already heard from a number of private practitioners who would love to be in charge of “professional responsibility for Immigration Judges.” They have lots of great ideas for improvements and a number of places where they would start the process immediately, if not sooner!

 

⚖️🗽🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-04-21

❤️⚔️BRAVE NEW WORLD: CIVIL RIGHTS ICONS TO HOLD KEY POLICY POSITIONS @ JUSTICE UNDER GARLAND:  Will Vanita Gupta & Kristen Clarke Finally “Connect The Dots” Between Immigrants’ Rights & Civil Rights, Or Will DOJ Pursue Flawed “Two-Headed” Policy Of Past Dems?

Vanita Gupta
Vanita Gupta
Nominee for Associate AG
Photo: Brookings Institution, Paul Morigi, Creative Commons License
Kristin Clarke
Nominee for Assistant AG, Civil Rights
Photo: NAACP, Creative Commons License

Meet the courageous, dynamic , outspoken, new human-rights-oriented leaders looking to fulfill the Constitution and make “equal justice for all” a reality @ the DOJ and for America. Sam Levine reports for The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/03/kristen-clarke-vanita-gupta-biden-justice-department?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

On her last day at the justice department in 2017, Vanita Gupta considered taking a picture as she left the agency’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. But she decided against it. Gupta, the outgoing head of the department’s civil rights division, once described as the “crown jewel” of the agency, didn’t really want to remember the moment, she told a reporter who was shadowing her for the day.

Jeff Sessions, then the incoming attorney general, was poised to unwind much of the painstaking progress Gupta, 46, and her colleagues had spent the last four years building. It was no secret that Sessions opposed the kind of court agreements the justice department used to fix unconstitutional policing policies across the country (“dangerous” and an “exercise of raw power” in Sessions’ eyes). Nor were there any illusions that Sessions would try very hard to enforce the Voting Rights Act, already on its last legs after the supreme court gutted a key provision in 2013 (Sessions described the landmark civil rights law as “intrusive”).

Many of those concerns came to pass. Trump’s justice department not only did little to enforce some of the country’s most powerful civil rights protections for minority groups, but in several cases it opposed them. It filed almost no voting rights cases and defended restrictive voting laws, tried to undermine the census, challenged affirmative action policies, sought to roll back protections for LGBTQ+ Americans, and limited the use of consent decrees to curb illegal policing practices. Gupta took a job as the head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of civil rights groups across the country, where she became one of the leading figures pushing back on the Trump administration.

Joining Gupta in that effort was Kristen Clarke, a 47-year-old former justice department lawyer who leads the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, founded in 1963 to help attorneys in private practice enforce civil rights. As her group filed voting rights and anti-discrimination lawsuits across the country over the last few years, Clarke spent hours nearly every election day briefing journalists on reports of incoming voting problems. Reports of long lines, voting machine malfunctions, translator issues – no problem was too small. The monitoring sent a message that civil rights groups would move swiftly against any whiff of voter suppression.

Now, after years of leading the fight for civil rights from outside the justice department, both women are poised to return to its top levels, where they can deploy the unmatchable resources of the federal government. Last month, Joe Biden tapped Gupta to serve as his associate attorney general, the No 3 official at the department, and Clarke to lead the civil rights division. If confirmed by the Senate, Gupta would be the first woman of color to be the associate attorney general; Clarke would be the first Black woman in her role.

“They are both independently legit civil rights champions with a long deep history,” said Justin Levitt, who worked with Gupta at the justice department and knows both women well. “They’re going to make a really spectacular, really powerful team.”

Picking two career civil rights lawyers for two of the top positions at the justice department sends an unmistakable signal that civil rights enforcement will be a top priority for the agency over the next four years. Civil rights leaders said they could not remember a prior administration in which two of the department’s highest positions were filled by civil rights attorneys, especially two such as Clarke and Gupta.

“It’s going to be really important and energizing and exciting to be able to be in conversation and discussion with people who understand the department’s role in civil rights enforcement,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), who has worked closely with both women. “But it’s also going to be exciting, and as a matter of resources, to have the department actually do civil rights enforcement.”

. . . .

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Read the rest of these inspiring American profiles 🇺🇸🌟at the link. Don’t you think we need the “Vanita & Kristen” of immigration and human rights to lead the restoration effort at EOIR and the BIA?

Here are the “keys to success:”

  • Immigrants’ rights are human rights;
  • Human rights are civil rights;  
  • There can be neither racial justice nor equal justice in America until migrants are not only fully recognized as “persons” under our Constitution, but actually treated as such (as opposed to the active “dehumanization” and “Dred Scottification” of migrants and persons of color by the Trump regime and the GOP majority on the Roberts’ Court);
  • You can’t possibly “win the game” with the same players who “batted for the White Nationalists” over the past four years.

And, speaking of “Jewel in the Crown.”👑 That’s exactly how many of us in the “Round Table of Former Immigration Judges” 🛡⚔️ once viewed EOIR. The “EOIR Vision” was: “Through teamwork and innovation be the worlds’s best tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” 

So, Vanita, and I hope Kristen also, can imagine the anger and determination to fight with which our Round Table viewed the dismemberment of due process and weaponization of the Immigration Courts under Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr. From aspiring to be the “world’s best tribunals” to “Star Chambers” and a grotesque, dysfunctional national disgrace!

On the plus side: Both Gupta and Clarke are the daughters of immigrants. Both have written and advocated for immigrants’ rights as part of their civil rights leadership.

Caution. Obama Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch were “facially aggressive” on protecting voting rights and police reforms. Yet, at the same time they: helped DHS set deportation records; allowed EOIR to spiral toward dysfunction (to a large extent through failure to procure and properly manage resources and an indolent judicial hiring program that was both “closed and non-diverse in nature” and glacial in operation (2 years to fill an average judicial vacancy!)); supported “baby jails,” the “family gulag,” and toddlers representing themselves on asylum cases in Immigration Court; looked the other way as private prisons treated asylum seekers and migrants worse than convicted criminals; and “went along to get along” with the Administration’s misuse of the Immigration Courts as (a highly ineffective) deterrent to applications for asylum.   

Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr might have been the “Kings of Aimless Docket Reshuffling” at EOIR that helped produce an astounding 1.3 million case plus “backlog.” But, it started in earnest under the Obama Administration.

That’s what I mean by the “two headed policy:” arguing for voting rights for minorities in one courtroom while simultaneously ignoring the human and civil rights of migrants in the next courtroom. Arguing for the right to vote in one case, while arguing (apparently with a straight face) that toddlers who can’t speak English have no right to legal representation in the next case.

Not only that, but with the Biden Administration apparently looking to rapidly fill upcoming Article III vacancies, the Obama DOJ’s mishandling of the Immigration Courts has deprived President Biden of the chance to draw from a diverse group of younger, progressive Immigration Judges whose practical scholarship, commitment to human rights and due process, courage, and proven ability to function in a “high stress” judicial setting would make them strong candidates for the now-reeling Article III Judiciary.

That’s certainly not to say that there aren’t some potential progressive candidates for the Article III Judiciary among today’s present, and particularly recently “retired,” (some essentially “forced out” at relatively young ages as a “matter of conscience”) Immigration Judges. There are! But, only a fraction of the number there would have been if the Obama Administration had taken the Immigration Courts with proper seriousness. 

And, that’s leaving aside the lives that could have been saved and better jurisprudence that could have been “institutionalized” with better, merit-based, judicial selections at EOIR during the Obama Administration!

I sincerely hope that Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke can help Judge Garland get the job done at Justice. The “human rights/immigration world” will be cheering for you. Getting some of the folks from the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”) into key positions at EOIR and the rest of the DOJ will be an “early signal” of whether or not “Team Garland gets it.” 

Removing McHenry at EOIR was a good start! But, it’s only a small step in what has to be done to make racial justice and immigrant justice a reality at the DOJ. The “brooms and plungers” 🧹🚽 need to come out, and the sweeping and plunging has to be quick and widespread.    

On the other hand, there is “no patience for another Obama Administration” out here in the real world. Every day, EOIR and DOJ are killing folks, ruining lives, and abusing the brave and dedicated attorneys of the NDPA! If the rhetoric doesn’t produce short term results and drastic improvements, you can expect the same type of aggressive litigation from the NDPA that stopped the defeated regime from completely destroying the U.S. justice system.  

⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-03-21