SPLIT FOURTH CIRCUIT HAMMERS SCOFFLAW SESSIONS’S BOGUS RATIONALE FOR DACA TERMINATION — White Nationalist Former AG’s “Malicious Incompetence” Continues to Be “Outed” — Casa De Maryland v. DHS

Casa De Maryland v. DHS, 4th Cir., 05-17-19, published

DACA decision-May 17 2019-4thCir

PANEL: KING, DIAZ, and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges.

OPINION BY: JUDGE DIAZ

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION: Judge Richardson

KEY QUOTE FROM MAJORITY:

Plaintiffs argue that DACA’s rescission was arbitrary and capricious because the
Department of Homeland Security failed to give a reasoned explanation for the change in policy, particularly given the significant reliance interests involved. We agree.17
17 Plaintiffs also assert that (1) the district court failed to consider evidence of “bad faith” and “animus” underlying the decision to rescind DACA presented in their complaint and (2) the Department’s conclusions about DACA’s legality are substantively incorrect. Given our disposition, we decline to address these arguments.

30

As we have explained, DACA was rescinded based on the Department’s view that the policy was unlawful. But neither the Attorney General’s September 4 letter nor the Department’s Rescission Memo identify any statutory provision with which the DACA policy conflicts. Cf. Encino Motorcars, 136 S. Ct. at 2127 (rejecting as insufficient agency statement regarding statutory exemption proffered in support of policy change where agency did not “analyze or explain” why statute should be interpreted as agency suggested).
The Attorney General’s letter does mention that the Fifth Circuit affirmed the injunction against the DAPA policy on “multiple legal grounds” in the Texas litigation, J.A. 379, and the Rescission Memo cites to this ruling. The Fifth Circuit’s ruling was based in part on its determination that the DAPA policy likely ran counter to the INA’s “intricate process for illegal aliens to derive a lawful immigration classification from their children’s immigration status.” Texas, 809 F.3d at 179. There is no dispute here, however, that “DACA has no analogue in the INA.” NAACP, 298 F. Supp. 3d at 239 (internal quotation marks omitted). Further, as the Fifth Circuit explained in reaching its conclusion, “DACA and DAPA are not identical.” Texas, 809 F.3d at 174.
The Attorney General’s letter also asserts that DACA suffered from the same “constitutional defects that the courts recognized as to DAPA.” J.A. 379. The courts in the Texas litigation, however, did not address constitutional claims. And while the Attorney General urged in his letter that his office had a duty to “defend the Constitution” and “faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress,” J.A. 379, he does not explain how
allowing the DACA policy to remain in effect would violate that duty.

The Attorney General’s letter and the Rescission Memo also proffer the concern— based on the Attorney General’s determination that the DAPA and DACA policies share the same legal defects—that “potentially imminent” litigation would result in a ruling in the Texas litigation enjoining DACA. Entirely absent, however, is an explanation why it was likely that the district court in the Texas litigation would have enjoined DACA.
Further, the 2014 OLC Opinion outlining the Department’s authority to implement the DAPA policy identified “from the nature of the Take Care duty” at least “four general…principles governing the permissible scope of enforcement discretion,” J.A. 137-38; 2014 WL 10788677, at *5-6, and noted that concerns “animating DACA were . . . consistent with the types of concerns that have customarily guided the exercise of immigration enforcement discretion,” J.A. 149 n.8; 2014 WL 10788677, at *13 n.8.
The point is that the Department had before it at the time it rescinded DACA a reasoned analysis from the office tasked with providing legal advice to all executive branch agencies that supported the policy’s legality. Yet the Department changed course without any explanation for why that analysis was faulty. Cf. Fox Television Stations, 556U.S. at 516 (“[A] reasoned explanation is needed for disregarding facts and circumstances that underlay . . . the prior policy.”).
Nor did the Department adequately account for the reliance interests that would be affected by its decision. Hundreds of thousands of people had structured their lives on the availability of deferred action during the over five years between the implementation of DACA and the decision to rescind. Although the government insists that Acting

Secretary Duke18 considered these interests in connection with her decision to rescind DACA, her Memo makes no mention of them.
Accordingly, we hold that the Department’s decision to rescind DACA was arbitrary and capricious and must be set aside.

KEY QUOTE FROM CONCURRENCE/DISSENT:

Just as in BLE, there is a nonsensical implication in the plaintiffs’ position: that the Executive’s discretion is more constrained when it gives a “reviewable” reason for its actions than when it gives no reason at all. If the Acting Secretary was wrong about the likely illegality of DACA,5 then this might mean that she had provided no lawful reason for the rescission. But in the context of the Executive’s enforcement discretion, this is perfectly appropriate. The Executive need not explain why it makes particular enforcement and non-enforcement decisions. The Judicial Branch cannot bootstrap review of decisions committed to the discretion of the other branches simply because the reasons provided are of a type that judges consider themselves competent to evaluate.
5 Evaluating the actual legality of DACA requires considering whether and how a court may adjudicate an alleged violation of the Take Care Clause. See Kendall v. United States ex rel. Stokes, 37 U.S. (12 Pet.) 524, 613 (1838). But it also requires addressing the distinct question of whether and how one presidential administration may determine that a previous administration’s policy was inconsistent with the constitutional obligation to take care that the nation’s immigration laws be faithfully executed. Cf. Letter from President George Washington to Sec’y Alexander Hamilton, U.S. Dep’t of the Treasury (Sept. 7, 1792) in 32 WRITINGS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON 144 (John C. Fitzpatrick ed., 1939) (writing in 1792 about enforcing unpopular tax laws, President Washington explained that it was his “duty to see the Laws executed: to permit them to be trampled upon with impunity would be repugnant to it”).

In any event, the Acting Secretary’s rescission memorandum was not a mere statement on the legality of DACA. Instead, the memorandum considered various court rulings as well as the Attorney General’s letter before concluding that the “DACA program should be terminated.” Duke Memorandum at 4 (emphasis added). She did not say that DACA must be terminated or that she lacked the legal authority to enforce DACA or a DACA-like program. And in declaring the rescission of DACA after a six- month wind-down period, the Acting Secretary invoked her statutory authority to “establish[] national immigration policies and priorities.” Id. The Acting Secretary’s legal analysis was only one aspect of her reasoning for rescinding DACA, and, of course, a prosecutor may consider beliefs about the law when setting enforcement policy, see BLE, 482 U.S. at 283.
For these reasons, I conclude that the plaintiffs’ APA claims are not reviewable and would dismiss them.

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

The “good guys” win again! The forces of White Nationalist irrationality and lawless behavior are thwarted, at least for the present.

Interestingly, Judge Titus was the only Federal Judge that I’m aware of to have upheld the Government’s termination of DACA. Even the Supremes, the majority of whom Trump widely and contemptuously advertises the GOP has “brought and paid for,” weren’t eager to intervene in the Administration’s idiotic “war on DACA, human decency, and common sense” at this point.

But, let’s not forget that we’re only at this point because the Obama Administration and the Dems failed to solve the DACA issue in 2009 and 2010. Never again!

PWS

05-17-19

 

GW CLINIC REPORT: Justice Finally Triumphs — 7-Year Battle On Behalf Of Abused Refugee Woman Succeeds!

Paulina Vera, Esq.; Professor Alberto Benitez; Rachel Petterson

Friends,
Please join me in congratulating S-P-G-G, from El Salvador, whose asylum application was granted by IJ David Crosland on February 26.  We received the decision today.  When told of the grant, S-P-G-G screamed.  She can start the process of bringing her minor son to the USA.  Please also join me in congratulating Rachael Petterson, Julia Navarro, Solangel González, Chen Liang, Xinyuan Li, Abril Costanza Lara, Allison Mateo, and Paulina Vera, who worked on this case.
The IJ found that S-P-G-G warranted humanitarian asylum because she established compelling reasons arising from the severity of her persecution.  Among other things, she had been raped by her sister’s ex-boyfriend, which resulted in her becoming pregnant, and giving the child up for adoption.  S-P-G-G testified that she experiences recurring nightmares, suicidal feelings, a sense of hopelessness, and fear as a result of her persecution.
FYI.  The client’s initial hearing was on December 18, 2012, IJ Crosland denied asylum, she appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which remanded to the IJ, he denied asylum again, she appealed to the BIA, which denied asylum, she appealed to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which remanded to the IJ, and he finally granted asylum on February 26.
**************************************************
Alberto Manuel Benitez
Professor of Clinical Law
Director, Immigration Clinic
The George Washington University Law School
************************************
Congrats to SPGG and her wonderful team at the GW Immigration Clinic! More than six years of litigation, two wrongful denials, two appeals to the BIA, one incorrect BIA decision, and a remand from the Fourth Circuit before justice was finally done.
Illustrates four things:
  • The absolute BS of those like Sessions and other restrictionists who say asylum cases can be raced through the system on an assembly line;
  • The further BS of claiming that asylum applicants and their lawyers are “gaming” the system when many delays, like this, are caused by poor anti-asylum decision-making within EOIR combined with the DOJ’s incompetent administration of the Immigration Courts;
  • The importance of full appellate rights, including review by a U.S. Court of Appeals that is actually an independent, fair, and impartial court, not a Government agency masquering as a court;
  • The absurdity of claiming that unrepresented asylum seekers can receive anything approaching Due Process in the EOIR system, particularly when they are held in inherently coercive “civil immigration detention.”

What if we had a fair, expert Immigration Court system that made every effort to do right by asylum seekers in the first instance by interpreting and applying the law in the generous and humanitarian manner to protect those in need as originally intended in the Refugee Act of 1980 and described by the Supremes in Cardoza-Fonseca?

What if we had a Government that cared about Due Process and worked to promote it rather than attempting to whack it out of shape to screw the most vulnerable among us at every opportunity?

What if the emphasis in the Immigration Courts was on fairness, scholarship, respect, and teamwork with all concerned (not just “partnership” with the prosecutor and politicized Administration goals) rather than on “haste makes waste” methods and gimmicks.

Hey, we could have a working court system where justice was served and more things got done right in the first place, instead of the disgraceful mess that EOIR has become under DOJ’s highly politicized mismanagement!

PWS

03-07-19

16 STATES SUE TRUMP ON BOGUS NATIONAL EMERGENCY — Nolan Says Trump Ultimately Likely To Prevail — “Slate 3” Appear To Agree!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/coalition-of-states-sues-trump-over-national-emergency-to-build-border-wall/2019/02/18/9da8019c-33a8-11e9-854a-7a14d7fec96a_story.html

Amy Goldstein reports for WashPost:

A coalition of 16 states filed a federal lawsuit Monday to block President Trump’s plan to build a border wall without permission from Congress, arguing that the president’s decision to declare a national emergency is unconstitutional.

The lawsuit, brought by states with Democratic governors — except one, Maryland — seeks a preliminary injunction that would prevent the president from acting on his emergency declaration while the case plays out in the courts.

The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, a San Francisco-based court whose judges have ruled against an array of other Trump administration policies, including on immigration and the environment.

Accusing the president of “an unconstitutional and unlawful scheme,” the suit says the states are trying “to protect their residents, natural resources, and economic interests from President Donald J. Trump’s flagrant disregard of fundamental separation of powers principles engrained in the United States Constitution.”

. . . .

Read the rest of Amy’s article at the above link.

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But, over at The Hill, Nolan Rappaport predicts that Trump ultimately will prevail:

Family Pictures

Nolan writes:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer claim that President Donald Trump’s Southern Border National Emergency Proclamation is an unlawful declaration over a crisis that does not exist, and that it steals from urgently needed defense funds — that it is a power grab by a disappointed president who has gone outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve through the constitutional legislative process.
In fact, this isn’t about the Constitution or the bounds of the law, and — in fact — there is a very real crisis at the border, though not necessarily what Trump often describes. It helps to understand a bit of the history of “national emergencies.”
As of 1973, congress had passed more than 470 statutes granting national emergency powers to the president. National emergency declarations under those statutes were rarely challenged in court.
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, which was decided in 1952, the Supreme Court overturned President Harry S. Truman’s proclamation seizing privately owned steel mills to preempt a national steelworker strike during the Korean War. But Truman didn’t have congressional authority to declare a national emergency. He relied on inherent powers which were not spelled out in the Constitution.
Trump, however, is using specific statutory authority that congress created for the president.
In 1976, Congress passed the National Emergencies Act (NEA), which permits the president to declare a national emergency when he considers it appropriate to do so. The NEA does not provide any specific emergency authorities. It relies on emergency authorities provided in other statutes. The declaration must specifically identify the authorities that it is activating.
Published originally on The HIl.
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While many of us hope Nolan is wrong, his prediction finds support from perhaps an odd source: these three articles from Slate:

Nancy Pelosi Put Her Faith in the Courts to Stop Trump’s Emergency Wall

Big mistake.

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

Trump Is Trying to Hollow Out the Constitutional System of Checks and Balances

The other two branches might let him.

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

JURISPRUDENCE

Trump Isn’t Just Defying the Constitution. He’s Undermining SCOTUS.

The president defended his national emergency by boasting that he’ll win at the Supreme Court because it’s full of his judges.

********************************************
We’ll see what happens.  While the arguments made by Trump in support of his “Bogus National Emergency” were  totally frivolous (and, perhaps, intentionally so), the points made by Rappaport, Hemel, Shane, and Lithwick aren’t. That could spell big trouble for our country’s future!
Trump doesn’t have a “sure fire legal winner” here; he might or might not have the majority of the Supremes “in his pocket” as he often arrogantly and disrespectfully claims. Nevertheless, there may be a better legal defense for the national emergency than his opponents had counted on.
Certainly, Trump is likely to benefit from having a “real lawyer,” AG Bill Barr, advancing his White Nationalist agenda at the “Justice” Department rather than the transparently biased and incompetent Sessions. While Barr might be “Sessions at heart,” unlike Sessions he certainly had the high-level professional legal skills, respect, and the “human face” necessary to prosper in the Big Law/Corporate world for decades.
Big Law/Corporate America isn’t necessarily the most diverse place, even today. Nevertheless, during my 7-year tenure there decades ago I saw that overt racism and xenophobia generally were frowned upon as being “bad for business.” That’s particularly true if the “business” included representing some of the largest multinational corporations in the world.
Who knows, Barr might even choose to advance the Trump agenda without explicitly ordering the DOJ to use the demeaning, and dehumanizing term “illegals” to refer to fellow human beings, many of them actually here with Government permission, seeking to attain legal status, and often to save their own lives and those of family members, through our legal system.
Many of them perform relatively thankless, yet essential, jobs that are key to our national economic success. Indeed, it’s no exaggeration to say that like the Trump Family and recently exposed former U.N Ambassador nominee Heather Nauert, almost all of us privileged and lucky enough to be U.S. citizens who have prospered from an expanding economy have been doing so on the backs of immigrants, both documented and undocumented. Additionally, migrants are some of the dwindling number of individuals in our country who actually believe in and trust the system to be fair and “do the right thing.”
But, a change in tone, even if welcome, should never be confused with a change in policy or actually respecting the due process rights of others and the rule of law as applied to those seeking legally available benefits in our immigration system. That’s just not part of the White Nationalist agenda that Barr so eagerly signed up to defend and advance
It’s likely to a long time, if ever, before “justice” reasserts itself in the mission of the Department of Justice.
PWS
02-19-19

NOTE: An earlier version of this post contained the wrong article from Dahlia Lithwick.  Sorry for any confusion.


THE HILL: Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) Points Finger @ Trump For Bogus Border Crisis!

https://apple.news/AJe1kxmmyRdi0l-QX8e70xQ

By Brett Samuels in The Hill:

Dem Senator: Trump administration’s policies ‘caused anxiety at the border’

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) on Monday blamed the Trump administration for causing “anxiety” at the southern border a day after border agents fired tear gas in response to migrants attempting to breach the border.

“There’s a better way to handle this. The United States, the Trump policies has caused anxiety at the border,” Cardin said on CNN’s “New Day.”

“There’s an orderly process that should have been used,” he added. “Should we fix our immigration system? Absolutely. But this administration has made no effort to fix our immigration system.”

President Trump has repeatedly blamed Congress and Democrats, in particular, for failing to pass legislation hardening the country’s immigration laws. The White House and lawmakers have been unable to reach an agreement on a host of immigration issues, though Congress has provided some funding for border security.

Cardin said Monday that the Trump administration has enacted policies that have exacerbated the problem at the border with the so-called caravan of Central American migrants, citing the White House’s move to curb immigrants’ ability to claim asylum and the previous policy of separating families who illegally cross the border.

“So they’re making the circumstances worse, and here we look at children being subject to tear-gassing,” Cardin said. “That’s the United States causing that. That’s outrageous.”

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Sunday shut down the busy San Ysidro port of entry near San Diego as hundreds of migrants approached. Tensions flared further when dozens of migrants broke away from a larger group to try and breach the border.

CBP said in a statement that officers fired tear gas into the crowd after attempted illegal crossings and after some migrants threw rocks at border agents.

Trump on Monday morning called on Mexico to deport the migrants back to their home countries and threatened to permanently close the southern border. The president has for weeks painted the group of migrants as an imminent security threat, prompting fierce criticism from Democratic lawmakers.

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

“There’s an orderly process that should have been used.” Yup! But, Trump refuses to use it and make it work! And, it could have been done for less money and fewer resources than the estimated $200 million military boondoggle at the border.

I also hope Sen. Cardin will urge Rep. Cummings (D-MD) and his colleagues in the House to exercise some “oversight” involving the senior Border Patrol officials who publicly proclaimed that most of those arriving at the border, who have been neither interviewed nor screened because of intentional delays by the US Government, are “economic refugees” not “real refugees.”

I tend to doubt that these loud-mouthed law enforcement officials, who have allowed themselves to become political puppets of the Trump White House, have any idea of what makes someone a “real refugee” under the law. Fact is, that in some Immigration Courts away from the Southern Border, the Immigration Judges continue to be fair and knowledgeable (NOT places like Atlanta, Charlotte, and Stewart). Those Immigration Judges take the necessary hours to fairly and impartially hear asylum cases (apparently largely disregarding artificial “quotas”). And, as a result, some properly documented domestic violence, family based, religious based, and political opposition to gang cases continue to be granted to applicants. Shows what happens when rather than prejudging cases like Trump, Sessions, DHS Senior Officials, and, sadly, some Immigration Judges, have done, asylum applicants from the Northern Triangle aren’t hustled through the “assembly line” and are given a fair chance to be represented and to gather the documentation necessary to overcome Sessions’s badly warped misconstruction of country conditions and intentionally misleading dicta in Matter of A-B-.

So, how can these Border Patrol folks tell by “eyeballing” thousands of individuals from the other side of the border whether their claims are “bona fide” or not? That, even after Trump’s and Sessions’s best efforts to “game” the system, the majority of arrivals from Central America still manage to pass “credible fear” examinations from the USCIS Asylum Office suggests that these Border Patrol officials are blowing (dangerous) “hot air” into an already volatile situation. That’s totally irresponsible  Time for some accountability all up and down the line for those carrying out Trump’s misguided immigration policies with no visible resistance to actions that at best strain, and quite possibly violate, our established asylum laws and procedures!

PWS

11-26-18

PROFESSOR MAUREEN SWEENEY ON WHY THE BIA DOESN’T DESERVE “CHEVRON” DEFERENCE – JEFF SESSIONS’S ALL OUT ATTACK ON THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE IMMIGRATION JUDICIARY IS EXHIBIT 1!

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2018/08/immigration-article-of-the-day-enforcingprotection-the-danger-of-chevron-in-refugee-act-cases-by-mau.html

Go on over to ImmigrationProf Blog at the  above link for all of the links necessary to get the abstract as well as the full article. Among the many current and former Immigration Judges quoted or cited in the article are Jeffrey Chase, Ashley Tabaddor, Dana Marks, Lory Rosenberg, Robert Vinikoor, and me. (I’m sure I’m missing some of our other colleagues; it’s a very long article, but well worth the read.)

In an article full of memorable passages, here is one of my favorites:

Full enforcement of the law requires full enforcement of provisions that grant protection as well as provisions that restrict border entry. This is the part of “enforcement” that the Department of Justice is not equipped to fully understand. The agency’s fundamental commitment to controlling unauthorized immigration does not allow it a neutral, open position on asylum questions. The foundational separation and balance of powers concerns at the heart of Chevron require courts to recognize that inherent conflict of interest as a reason Congress is unlikely to have delegated unchecked power on refugee protection to the prosecuting agency. In our constitutional structure, the courts stand as an essential check on the executive power to deport and must provide robust review to fully enforce the congressional mandate to protect refugees. If the courts abdicate this vital function, they will be abdicating their distinctive role in ensuring the full enforcement of all of our immigration law—including those provisions that seek to ensure compliance with our international obligations to protect individuals facing the danger of persecution.

This is a point that my friend and colleague Judge Lory Rosenberg made often during our tenure together on the BIA. All too often, her pleas fell on deaf ears.

The now abandoned pre-2001 “vision statement” of EOIR was “to be the world’s best administrative tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” Nothing in there about “partnering” with DHS to remove more individuals, fulfilling quotas, “sending messages to stay home,” securing the border, jacking up volume, deterring migration, or advancing other politically motivated enforcement goals. Indeed, the proper role of EOIR is to insure fair and impartial adjudication and Due Process for individuals even in the face of constant pressures to “just go along to get along” with a particular Administration’s desires to favor the expedient over the just.

Under all Administrations, the duty to insure Due Process, fairness, full protections, and the granting to benefits to migrants under the law is somewhat shortchanged at EOIR in relation to the pressure to promote Executive enforcement objectives. But, the situation under the xenophobic, disingenuous, self-proclaimed “Immigration Enforcement Czar” Jeff Sessions is a true national disgrace and a blot on our entire legal system. If Congress won’t do its job by removing the Immigration Courts from the DOJ forthwith, the Article III courts must step in, as Maureen suggests.

PWS

08-23-18

RESTRICTIONIST IMMIGRATION POLICIES HIT LOCAL CRAB INDUSTRIES!

Crab crisis: Md. seafood industry loses 40 percent of workforce in visa lottery

 
Celia Serna, a guest worker at the J.M. Clayton processing plant in Cambridge, Md., picks crabs. (Lloyd Fox/Baltimore Sun)
May 3 at 6:35 PM

Maryland’s seafood industry is in crisis: Nearly half of the Eastern Shore’s crab houses have no workers to pick the meat sold in restaurants and supermarkets.

They failed to get visas for their mostly Mexican workforce, including many women who have been coming north to Maryland for crab season for as long as two decades. The Trump administration for the first time awarded them this year in a lottery, instead of on a first-come, first-served basis.

“This is going to cause the price of crabmeat to go out of sight,” said Harry Phillips, owner of Russell Hall Seafood on Hooper’s Island. “There’s not going to be hardly any Maryland crabmeat. . . . It looks like it’s a matter of time before they’re going to shut all of us down.”

Visa shortages have been a perennial issue for the crab industry since the last generations of Eastern Shore women who once picked crabmeat aged out of the tedious seasonal work. In the 1980s, crab houses started bringing workers from Mexico through a program that lets them live and work in the United States during the warmer months and then return to Mexico in the winter, when watermen are prohibited from crabbing.

But crab house owners say these are the most dire circumstances they have faced. They hope federal immigration officials issue more visas in response to skyrocketing demand for seasonal foreign workers. But if they have to compete in another lottery, they say, they worry there won’t be enough workers to fill their facilities.

“Companies that have been relying on this system for 25 years suddenly have no workers,” said Bill Sieling, director of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association. “It’s totally unfair and irrational, really.”

The crisis is hitting just as crab season begins. Watermen were allowed to start dropping crab pots into the Chesapeake and its tributaries on April 1, but with cold weather through the month, crabs were slow to emerge from hibernation.

As temperatures rise, this year’s crop of crustaceans is now emerging.

It’s unclear whether or how quickly the problem could be resolved or what effect it could have on crab prices this year. Many of the crabs sold in Maryland come from the Carolinas and Louisiana, and some meat comes from Asia and Venezuela. But a premium is placed on local meat, with a state program called True Blue to identify and market Maryland crabs.

Crab processors theorized that a drastically reduced supply from a shortage of workers could send the price of picked meat skyrocketing. But it could lower the price of steamed crabs, flooding the market with many of the female and undersize crabs that would otherwise get picked.

“We need these processing plants to keep the market running smooth,” said Bryan Hall of G.W. Hall and Sons on Hooper’s Island.

G.W. Hall was able to get the 30 visas it applied for, but Hall says he doesn’t feel fortunate.

“I got them, but I don’t feel right having them,” he said. “It’s not right for me to have them and my fellow people who I deal with not to have them. They depend on them just as much as I do, and they’ve got families to feed just as much as I do.”

Maryland’s 20 licensed crab processors typically employ some 500 foreign workers each season, from April to November, through the H-2B visa program, Sieling said. The visas are for seasonal workers in nonagricultural jobs. Pickers are paid by the pound of meat they produce, and the most productive ones make up to $500 a week.

“Nobody wants to do manual labor anymore,” Sieling said. “It’s just a very, very tight labor market right now, particularly in industries that are seasonal.”

But in February, Sieling said, applications for about 200 of those visas were denied. That leaves women used to making an annual pilgrimage to Maryland stuck at home, with limited options to feed their families.

“Our families depend on us, and going to the United States is the best option because here in Mexico it is very difficult to find a job, and apart from that, you face the risk of so much crime,” Anayeni Chavarria Ponce, a crab picker from the Mexican state of Hidalgo, said via text message in Spanish. “Not to mention you can’t reach a salary even to buy the basics.”

Federal labor officials said there was “unprecedented” demand for H-2B visas in January. They received applications for 81,000 foreign workers when only 33,000 visas were available for work from April through September. The visas have become increasingly desirable over the past five years as overall U.S. unemployment falls.

In the second part of a two-step visa application process, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received applications to bring some 47,000 workers into the United States for that six-month period. Because there were so many requests, officials decided to award visas by lottery.

Congress included a provision in the $1.3 trillion spending plan it approved in March that authorizes federal immigration officials to issue more H-2B visas. The crab industry is expecting a lottery for 15,000 more to be announced sometime this month. But a spokesman for the federal immigration agency said he had no information about whether or how many new visas might be permitted.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) requested that the federal government “take immediate action” to raise the visa cap in a recent letter to the secretaries of homeland security and labor.

“Many of these businesses operate in rural parts of our state and have relied on guest workers for decades,” he wrote. “They will be forced to shut their doors or start importing crab meat if this issue is not addressed immediately.”

The industry has been in a position of begging for mercy in the past, often to powerful former senator Barbara A. Mikulski. The senior Democrat intervened in the early 2000s when northern ski resorts and Florida landscapers were scooping up visas before Maryland crab houses had a chance to apply. She championed a change that divided the annual 66,000-visa allowance into two semiannual allotments.

Now, businesses are asking President Trump for help, in the hope that the guest worker program doesn’t get lost in the administration’s efforts to tighten immigration policies.

“This is not an immigration issue,” said Morgan Tolley, general manager of A.E. Phillips & Son on Hooper’s Island. “They come here, abide by rules, they pay their state and federal taxes, their social security taxes, and they send the majority of their money home to support their family. They are a very important part of our local economies.”

Tolley said he supports the president and trusts that he has businesses’ interests at heart, but Tolley is skeptical and disappointed with the administration’s changes to the visa program.

“I voted for Donald Trump, and I’d vote for President Trump again,” he said. “But I think in small rural towns in America, we’re getting the short end of the stick on labor.”

Waterside communities such as Hooper’s Island are left hoping this visa scare, like others, will pass — and not be the final blow to their industry.

“Nobody’s ever been closed down,” Harry Phillips said. “No doubt there’s been some threats and there’s been some times we’ve been a little late getting them. But we’ve always gotten them.”

— Baltimore Sun

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Pretty depressing. Even when confronted with direct evidence of the stupidity of their own votes, and the irrationality of the Trump GOP’s bias and restrictionist positions on legal immigration, these folks are still in denial. Can’t connect the dots. I guess that’s how democracies disappear.

Maybe guys like Jeff Sessions and Tom Cotton will go out and do some ‘pickin for these employers. Who needs foreign workers? They take all these really great jobs that every American wants! Why, I’ll bet almost every kid over at TC Williams High here in Alexandria aspires to be  a seasonal crab picker after graduation! And, the truth is that picking crabs is actually skilled work that arrogant, out of touch, White GOP politicos couldn’t actually do very well. Guys like Sessions & Cotton would last 10 minutes max on the line.

PWS

05–04-18

 

HERE’S MY TESTIMONY BEFORE THE MONTGOMERY COUNTY (MD) COUNCIL ON A SPECIAL APPROPRIATION FOR REPRESENTING COUNTY RESIDENTS IN U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT!

Testimony for Montgomery County Council Hearing

May 1, 2018

Special Appropriation

Judge Paul W. Schmidt

 

Good evening, Council President, Vice Council President, Council Members,

 

For 21 years, I served as an Appellate Judge on the Board of Immigration Appeals, and a U.S. Immigration Judge at the Arlington Immigration Court.  I was the Chair of the Appeals Board for six years. Though I am since retired, I follow with great interest and concern the immigration court’s troubling trajectory.

There is a real crisis in the immigration system today: the attack on Due Process in our U.S. Immigration Courts.  This crisis has been many administrations in the making.  However, the current administration has done more damage to Due Process more quickly than any prior administration.  Its most recent insistence on quotas for immigration judges, the attempted dissolution of the Legal Orientation Program, combined with increased immigration enforcement, and inhumane detention policies, has eradicated any semblance of Due Process.

I applaud the Council for recognizing the need to ensure Due Process for its immigrant residents facing removal by funding deportation defense.  I further urge you to make that deportation defense universalby providing legal representation to all Montgomery County residents facing removal regardless of any previous interactions with the criminal justice system

All immigrants facing removal are entitled to Due Process.  No person should be denied access to justice.  The only way to ensure that an immigrant has Due Process in the current immigration system is by providing competent legal representation.  Without an attorney, there is simply no other way an immigrant can navigate the extremely complex legal immigration system.

When an immigrant appears without an attorney, the Immigration Judge must rely on the attorney for the government; the person who is fighting to remove the immigrant from this country, to present the immigrant’s case.  Despite a judge’s best efforts, it is simply not possible to ensure that the immigrant has had all of the relevant facts about his or her case presented and that all legal defenses to removal have been explored, explained, and understood.  While some judges might like to believe that they are capable of ensuring that those appearing before them without counsel have the same chance of relief as those appearing with counsel, I know from my experience that this is simply not possible. I also know that my courtroom ran more efficiently when all parties were represented; frivolous arguments decreased, continuances decreased, and the number of appeals decreased as well. Simply put, a good judge knows that having competent counsel representing both parties yields a more efficient and just outcome.

Allow me to assure this council that, though representation by an attorney dramatically enhances any immigrant’s chance of success in immigration court, it by no means guarantees success.  The immigration laws are sometimes rigid, by design. Relief is only available in those cases where the law explicitly permits it.

Moreover, serious criminal convictions often will exclude, by operation of law, even the most sympathetic petitioner from relief. In some instances, the presence of the conviction precludes relief altogether, in other cases, the judge must balance the equities, and for immigrants who have committed serious crimes, the equities usually weigh in favor of removal. 

However, I maintain that all immigrants should have access to counsel, regardless of their history with the criminal justice system, because the only way an immigration judge can make a just, informed decision is if the immigrant facing removal has Due Process.  And Due Process, particularly now, can only be guaranteed through the competent representation of an attorney.

I urge this council to leave to the immigration judges, a body expert in the immigration law, the task of determining what consequences a criminal conviction should have upon an immigrant’s ability to remain in the United States.  Do not deny Due Process to any member of your community. Do not deny access to justice to immigrants facing removal, simply because of their criminal history.  In doing so, you put the deserving and the underserving in the same category and risk denying relief to vulnerable, deserving members of your community.

The erstwhile vision of the Immigration Court, the vision which I helped develop in the late 1990s was for the court to “be the world’s best administrative tribunal[s] guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”  Instead, the Department of Justice’s ever-changing priorities and morbid fascination with increased detention as a means of deterrence have turned the Immigration Court system into a tool of enforcement.

I urge this council to vote in favor of the special appropriation and thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

 

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

My friend and pro bono superstar Claudia Cubas, Litigation Director of the Capital Area Immigrants Rights (“CAIR”) Coalition was the “lead witness”  favoring the proposal. It was “democracy in action” as folks with strong views both ways on the issue appeared to express their views to their elected representatives. As it should be!

 PWS

05-02-18

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BIA BUSTED AGAIN — 4TH CIR REAMS MATTER OF JIMINEZ-CEDILLO, 27 I&N DEC. 1 (BIA 2017) — Jiminez-Cedillo v. Sessions, March 20, 2018, Published — Unexplained Departure From Prior Rulings!

Jiminez-Cedillo v. Sessions, 4th Cir., March 20, 2018, Published

PANEL: Circuit Judges Thacker and Harris; Senior Circuit Judge Shedd

OPINION: Judge Pamela Harris

SUMMARY (FROM LEXISNEXIS IMMIGRATION COMMUNITY):

CA4 Vacates , 27 I&N Dec. 1 (BIA 2017)

Jimenez-Cedillo v. Sessions – “Pedro Josue Jimenez-Cedillo, a native and citizen of Mexico, was ordered removed from the United States after the Board of Immigration Appeals determined that sexual solicitation of a minor in Maryland, to which Jimenez-Cedillo pled guilty, is a crime involving moral turpitude. Under Maryland law, sexual solicitation of a minor does not require that the perpetrator know the victim’s age. And before this case, under Board of Immigration Appeals precedent, a sexual offense against a child categorically involved moral turpitude only if the perpetrator knew or should have known that the victim was a minor. Because the Board failed to explain its change in position, we grant Jimenez-Cedillo’s petition for review and remand for further proceedings. … Here, we are without a reasoned explanation from the Board for its change in position. … Because the Board’s “path” from the Silva-Trevino cases to Jimenez-Cedillo’s cannot “reasonably be discerned,” its decision is arbitrary and capricious and must be set aside. … If on remand the Board takes the position that a change in Silva-Trevino I’s approach to mental culpability is appropriate, then it also should consider whether, under the traditional factors that bear on retroactivity analysis, see ARA Servs., Inc. v. NLRB, 71 F.3d 129, 135–36 (4th Cir. 1995) (citing Retail, Wholesale & Dep’t Store Union v. NLRB, 466 F.2d 380, 389–90 (D.C. Cir. 1972)), that new position may be applied to Jimenez-Cedillo and other aliens similarly situated.”

Here’s a link to the oral argument.

Hats way off to Ben Winograd (argued) and Helen L. Parsonage (on brief)!

********************************************
Congrats to my friends Ben Winograd and Helen Parsonage for holding the BIA accountable once again!
The BIA is caught improperly creating a harder, anti-immigrant line of legal precedent without complying with the basic legal requirements — like legal analysis!
A “real” Attorney General would certainly: 1) slow down the “Falls Church assembly line;” and 2) insist that the BIA take the time and care necessary to insure that its decisions, particularly published precedents, comply with basic legal and analytical requirements. That’s essentially “Due Process 101.”
Instead, White Nationalist xenophobe Jeff Sessions actually is taking steps to  make the a system with the “wheels coming off” go even faster and to truncate full hearings and proper legal analysis, while attempting — without providing basic due process — to change long-standing substantive rules of law to further screw migrants. How sick is this Dude!? How disgusting is it that he carries out his destructive agenda without any meaningful oversight by Congress?
The best way to solve this unacceptable situation, before our entire legal system is in shambles, is to see that both the individuals responsible for placing Jeff Sessions in office and those who have abdicated their duties to oversee his activities are removed from office through the ballot box. We know who is responsible for these miscarriages of justice. Now is the time to insure that they are no longer able to carry out their program of destroying America!

Join the New Due Process Army! Due Process Forever!

PWS
03-21-19

THE SLATEST FROM THE SPORTS WORLD — #16 UMBC Pulls “Upset For The Ages” Over #1 UVA In March Madness! — 135 Game Losing Streak For #16 Seeds Ends In Emphatic Fashion! 🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀

https://slate.com/culture/2018/03/how-no-16-seed-umbc-beat-virginia-and-made-the-mount-rushmore-of-sports-upsets.html

Nick Greene reports for Slate:

“Yes, Virginia, There Is a Cinderella

How No. 16 seed UMBC pulled off the biggest upset in NCAA Tournament history.

CHARLOTTE, NC - MARCH 16: Jairus Lyles #10 of the UMBC Retrievers reacts after a score against the Virginia Cavaliers during the first round of the 2018 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 16, 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
Jairus Lyles #10 of the UMBC Retrievers reacts after a score against the Virginia Cavaliers during the first round of the 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 16, 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

It happened. It actually happened. At the 136th time of asking, a No. 16 seed finally beat a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. And it wasn’t even close. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County Retrievers absolutely pantsed the top-ranked Virginia Cavaliers, 74-54.

How did this happen? Forgive me for getting technical, but the Retrievers kicked Virginia’s butt.

Virginia plays slow. No one in the country plays at a slower tempo. Given the environmental predicament in which we currently find ourselves, calling them “glacial” would be woefully inappropriate. They operate on a cosmic timeline. They grind you into dust with defense and wait for that dust to evaporate. But the Retrievers were impatient. They were having none of Virginia’s slow-cooked nonsense.

Teensy Retrievers point guard K.J. Maura kept pushing the pace and setting up his teammates in rhythm for three-pointers. Against Virginia’s all-universe defense, UMBC went 12 for 24 from behind the arc.

There was no shortage of great individual performances. Forward Arkel Lamar scored 12 points and pulled down 10 rebounds. Joe Sherburne added 14.

And then there’s Jairus Lyles. The senior guard was nothing short of heroic. He went 9 for 11 from the field, drove at will, and finished a variety of circus shots at the rim. Lyles played through cramps throughout the second half, but he still finished with 28 points. All that’s left is to figure out who will play him in the movie.

I mean, just look at this guy.

The game was tied at halftime, 21-21, but it only took four minutes for the Retrievers to burst to a 14-point lead in the second half. It was the biggest deficit Virginia had faced all season. That deficit would get bigger. The Cavaliers are supposed to be the boa constrictor, not the hare—forgive me, Aesop—and they had no clue how to catch up. UMBC was relentless, and it was a joy to watch.

Sure, Virginia played without the injured De’Andre Hunter, the Cavaliers’ most versatile defender, but cutting them any slack would be needlessly charitable. They came in as the tournament’s overall No. 1 seed, yet you’d struggle to pick a single moment from Friday night in which the Cavaliers looked to be worthy of sharing the floor with the mighty Retrievers, who needed a last-second shot against Vermont to even make it to the NCAA Tournament. In the end, the Cavs were lucky to only lose by 20.

After the game, Virginia coach Tony Bennett said his team, which finished the year 31-3, had a “historic season.” If there’s a bright side for Virginia, it might be that the Cavaliers had already suffered what’s widely considered the biggest upset in college basketball history, losing to tiny Chaminade as the nation’s top-ranked team in 1982. Naturally, a storied institution like Virginia will take pride in honoring such a cherished tradition.

With its win on Friday night, UMBC improved to 25-10, and they’ll have a chance to make the Sweet 16 with a win over Kansas State on Sunday. Going into the tournament, you would’ve been hard pressed to pick the Retrievers’ best games of the season. Yes, that three-point win over Vermont in the America East title game was nice. But what else? That squeaker against Northern Kentucky in December? Their well-rounded effort against Coppin State?

Now, UMBC can claim the most amazing performance in NCAA Tournament history. But even that’s not going far enough. After the game, TNT’s Kenny Smith compared UMBC over Virginia to Buster Douglas over Mike Tyson and the Miracle on Ice. That’s not hyperbole. The Retrievers just made the Mount Rushmore of sports upsets. Hell, let’s put them on there twice.”

Read the rest of Slate’s coverage of the 2018 NCAA Tournament.

We Failed Grayson Allen by Not Hating Him More

How Good Was Loyola-Chicago’s Last-Second Game Winner?

Cody or Caleb? How to Tell Nevada’s Twin Basketball Stars Apart.

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

What a “bracket busting stunner!” Go Retrievers!

It’s been a “different” March Madness this year. For the first time in about two decades, my Wisconsin Badgers are “out of the dance” — quite properly since they had their first losing season in about 20 years.  Wait till next year!

The good part, is that I’ve been able to follow the NCAA Men’s BB Tournament with a little more “objectivity” and less stress than usual. And, one of the many “bennies” of being a Federal retiree is that I can now 1) watch every game live on TV, and 2) enter any pool I want to without any of those tiresome (but necessary, I guess) Ethics Office warnings about all the potential civil and criminal penalties for getting “March Madness” at the office! I guess stuff like that doesn’t apply if you’re employed by someone like Warren Buffet. But, hey, want does he know? At any rate, at least Warren’s potential million dollars annually for life payout for the perfect bracket is safe for another year, thanks to the Retrievers! And, “Luna the Dog” our curly coated retriever was pleased with the outcome.

PWS

03-18-18

US DISTRICT JUDGE ROGER W. TITUS IN MD REJECTS DACA CHALLENGE — Basically Finds Rescission Dumb But Legal, While Barring DHS From Using DACA Info In Removal Proceedings — Casa de Maryland v. DHS

Casa de Maryland v. DHS, D. MD., 03-05-18, Judge Roger W. Titus

While the Administration and right-leaning media are touting this as a  “smashing victory” here’s what District Judge Titus really said:

  • The original Obama Administration DACA program was an exercise of prosecutorial discretion on which reasonable minds can differ as to its legality.
  • The Trump Administration had discretion either to continue the DACA program or not as an exercise of prosecutorial discretion.
  • The decision by the Administration to phase out DACA was subject to judicial review and the plaintiffs had standing to challenge it.
  • The DHS’s decision to phase out DACA upon receiving an opinion from Attorney General Sessions that it might well be held illegal in a threatened court action was reasonable.
  • The sometimes ill-advised and inflammatory statements by President Trump were not relevant to the basis for termination of DACA.
  • Although Judge Titus personally would have chosen a different policy approach from that of the Administration, under Constitutional separation of powers that policy decision was vested in the Executive and Congress, not the Courts, and the Administration had acted reasonably in this case.
  • The DHS is estopped from using information gathered during the DACA application process against individuals in Removal Proceedings except if “the Government needs to make use of an individual Dreamer’s information for national security or some purpose implicating public safety or public interest, the Government may petition the Court for permission to do so on a case-by-case basis with in camera review.”

Judge Titus’s decision actually more or less undermines the Administration’s frequent claims that DACA was “illegal” and that the Administration had “no choice” but to terminate it. Rather, the court held that legitimate unresolved questions had been raised about the DACA program’s legality and that in the face of those questions the Administration’s choice to proceed with a phased termination rather than trying to defend DACA in court was reasonable.

Additionally, as I had predicted, the court was unwilling to allow DHS to use DACA information against the individuals in Removal Proceedings. While this aspect of the case was :”under the radar” in most reports, it could well be another major practical/legal roadblock to the Administration’s actually removing many DACA recipients even if the injunctions against DACA termination eventually are lifted.

Here’s a “KEY QUOTE” from Judge Titus’s decision:

“The result of this case is not one that this Court would choose if it were a member of a different branch of our government. An overwhelming percentage of Americans support protections for “Dreamers,” yet it is not the province of the judiciary to provide legislative or executive actions when those entrusted with those responsibilities fail to act. As Justice Gorsuch noted during his confirmation hearing, “a judge who likes every outcome he reaches is probably a pretty bad judge, stretching for the policy results he prefers rather than those the law compels.”

This Court does not like the outcome of this case, but is constrained by its constitutionally limited role to the result that it has reached. Hopefully, the Congress and the President will finally get their job done.”

In other words, the decision to rescind DACA was “dumb but legal.” Hardly the ringing endorsement that the Trumpsters claim. What this case actually did is to vindicate their right to make bad policy decisions. Ultimately, the remedy for that type of poor governance is at the ballot box.

Here’s the full decision in Casa de Maryland v. DHS so you can judge for yourself:

JudgeTitusDACAOp

PWS

03-06-18

 

HERE’S MY AMICUS BRIEF IN PEREIRA V. SESSIONS IN THE U.S. SUPREME COURT – Issue: Proper Notice & The “Stop-Time Rule”

PEREIRAVSESSIIONS,SCT,AMICUS17-459 tsac Former BIA Chairman & Immigration Judge Schmidt

Many thanks to the amazing Eric F. Citron, Partner, and his team at GOLDSTEIN & RUSSELL P.C., Bethesda, MD for making this possible! More members of the New Due Process Army!

Eric is a former Supreme Court Law Clerk. No way I could have done this without him and his great colleagues! It’s  very gratifying that the “best and the brightest” in the legal community, like Eric, are coming to the aid of WESCLEY FONSECA PEREIRA and others like him. Too often in the past, part of the Government’s litigation strategy has been to create a “mismatch” between the Solicitor General’s Office and the attorneys representing migrants, who often aren’t Supreme Court “regulars.”  Brilliant, committed lawyers like Eric are “leveling the playing field.” Thanks again, Eric, for all that you and your “Terrific Team” do! And, many, many thanks to GOLDSTEIN & RUSSELL P.C. for making it possible for Eric to participate in this critically important case!

 

PWS

03-01-18

“GANGDOM” THRIVES IN VIEW OF CAPITOL — Michael E. Miller and Dan Morse @ WashPost Tell The Shockingly Ugly “Inside Story” Of How Gangs Terrorize The Undocumented Community In Langley Park, MD! — The Trump/Sessions “Gonzo” Approach To Immigration Seems Likely To Make Things Even Worse!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/people-here-live-in-fear-ms-13-menaces-a-community-seven-miles-from-the-white-house/2017/12/20/6cebf318-d956-11e7-b859-fb0995360725_story.html

Miller & Morse write:

‘People here live in fear’: MS-13 menaces a community seven miles from the White House
By Michael E. Miller and Dan Morse December 20 at 8:00 AM

Abigail Bautista, 34, of Langley Park, Md., describes what MS-13 did to her and then to her son. “People here live in fear,” she said. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
It took Abigail Bautista less than a month of living in Langley Park to learn that her new neighborhood in Maryland had its own set of laws, written not in statutes but in gang graffiti and blood.

The Guatemalan mother of five was pushing a cart of merchandise along University Boulevard one winter morning in late 2012 when three young men approached.

“Do you know who we are?” one asked her in Spanish.

Bautista shook her head.

“We are La Mara Salvatrucha,” he said. “And here, there are rules.”

Pay $60 “rent” per week or there would be trouble, he said. Undocumented and afraid of being deported if she went to police, Bautista began handing over the cash.

She had heard of the international street gang growing up in Central America, where MS-13, as it’s known, controls cities through brutality and corruption. But she had lived for the better part of a decade in the United States without crossing its path.

Now, she realized, she’d unwittingly moved into MS-13 territory a mere seven miles from the White House.

As the gang has grown in strength in recent years, so has its sway over communities across the country. From Boston to Northern Virginia to Houston, a string of grisly MS-13 murders has highlighted its resurgence, drawing a response from the White House.

“One by one, we’re liberating our American towns,” President Trump said this summer in Long Island, where MS-13 has been linked to more than a dozen recent killings.

Left out of Trump’s speeches, however, is the fact that most of the gang’s victims are not Americans but undocumented immigrants like Bautista. And when it comes to the gang’s infamous motto of “kill, rape, control,” it’s the third — enforced daily through extortion and intimidation — that defines life for some immigrants in places such as Langley Park.

“They are preying on the communities that they are living in,” said Michael McElhenny, a supervisory special agent for the FBI in Maryland.

More than a decade after a string of MS-13 killings shook the heavily Latino neighborhood, Langley Park is still struggling to shake off the gang’s influence. Despite aggressive policing, the area continues to be plagued by MS-13 drug dealing, prostitution, robbery, extortion and murder, according to court records and interviews with residents, activists, prosecutors and gang experts, as well as local and federal law enforcement officials.

. . . .

Federal authorities say the racketeering case and two other recent MS-13 indictments show they are serious about again dismantling the gang in Maryland. But Bautista won’t be satisfied until authorities lock up the man she suspects of leading MS-13 in Langley Park.

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Two weeks after her son’s body was found, and a few days before his vigil, she said, a letter was slipped under her door.

“If you keep talking, there will be consequences,” it warned in childlike handwriting, according to Bautista.

It was signed, she said, by the roofer.

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Read the entire, much longer, article at the link.

One thing is clear: The gang problem isn’t going to be “solved” by having having clueless, anti-Hispanic, White Guys like Trump and Sessions uttering threats against the entire immigrant community from Washington.

No, the irony is that prosecutions and deportations, although they might rack up impressive statistics, really don’t bother gangs much. Gangs control big chunks of the prisons, both in the US and, even moreso, in the Northern Triangle. To some extent, a prison sentence is just a “temporary work reassignment.”

And, deportations: well that’s actually how the MS-13 grew, when the US deported LA gang members to El Salvador during the Reagan Administration without thinking about how to deal with the long term problem — how they would grow to control and terrorize the places to which they were being deported.

It doesn‘t take a “rocket scientist” (just someone smarter and less racist than Trump and Sessions) to figure out that the overheated anti-immigrant rhetoric that lumps gang members with generally law abiding workers and asylum applicants is a “made to order” recruitment tool for the MS-13 and other gangs.

”Trump and Sessions don’t respect you and don’t want you in America. They don’t even like the ‘good’ immigrants, so don’t waste your time on the false ‘American Dream.’ We’re you’re ‘REAL’ family that isn’t afraid of Trump, and will give you power, respect, and control, as long as you remain loyal to us. What’s Trump got to offer Hispanic youth?”

Reducing gang violence will require a nuanced, time consuming, labor intensive multi-cultural approach that:

  • Treats Hispanic youth, documented and undocumented, with respect and shows them they are valued by society;
  • Provides positive role models from the Hispanic community;
  • Gives youth viable alternatives to gangs;
  • Gains the trust of all members of the Hispanic community, whether documented or not;
  • Involves bilingualism, more Hispanic police officers, and potentially dangerous undocover operations in the community;
  • Recognizes and deals with the problems of gang control in US prisons;
  • Deals with the difficult question of what happens when we deport gang members back to the Norther Triangle.

With respect to the latter point, if we merely send U.S. gang members back to terrorize communities in the Northern Triangle, that will lead more terrorized community members to flee to the U.S. The cycle will continue.

The Trump Administration’s ham-handed immigration policies taken from the “White Nationalist restrictionist playbook” will likely only exaberrate the problem of gangs and gang violence in the long run.

PWS

 

 

SURPRISE: GONZO LIES! — MISREPRESENTS DOJ’S CRIME STATS!

http://www.newsweek.com/jeff-sessions-crime-statistics-misrepresented-747409

Josh Saul reports for Newsweek:

“While delivering a speech in Baltimore on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions misrepresented Department of Justice statistics in claiming there had been a 13 percent spike in the violent crime rate. The report he was citing clearly said there had been no measurable change.

Sessions started his speech on one of his favorite themes: what he sees as a troubling increase in violent crime. He noted the high rates of rape and murder in Baltimore, and reminded the audience that on the day he was sworn in, President Donald Trump ordered him to reduce crime in America.

“Violent crime is up in many places across the country,” Sessions said. “Last week, the department released its annual National Crime Victimization Survey. It shows that the rate of Americans victimized by violent crime is up more than 13 percent.”

That 13 percent figure comes from comparing the rates of violent crime in 2015 (18.6 victimizations per 1,000 people) to rates in 2016 (21.1 per 1,000).

But the report for the 2016 National Crime Victimization Survey says on its first page that the 2016 data aren’t comparable to those for past years. And among the geographical areas that can be accurately compared, there was no increase in violent crime between 2015 and 2016.
That’s because the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an agency within the Justice Department, in 2016 changed the counties and cities it surveys in order to better reflect U.S. Census data. And because the new areas included in the 2016 survey had higher rates of violent crime than the areas they replaced, any comparison between the two years would show an artificial increase in the violent crime rate.

“The National Crime Victimization Survey sample went through a routine redesign in 2016, which resulted in the 2016 data not being comparable to data from prior years,” the survey released last week states on its first page. “Among counties that remained in sample from the previous design, there was no measurable change in the rates of violent, serious violent, or property crime from 2015 to 2016.”

Grace Kena, one of the BJS statisticians who wrote the report on the 2016 National Crime Victim Survey, reiterated that it isn’t appropriate to compare the two years.

“It’s apples and oranges,” Kena told Newsweek of the violent crime rate in the two surveys. “The only comparison that can be made is there was no change, statistically speaking, in violent crime rates.… In those counties that remained in the survey, the rate between those two years was stable.”

The National Crime Victim surveys focus on a representative sample of Americans aged 12 and older. The surveys are different from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program, which is based on the number of crimes reported by local law enforcement agencies.

A Justice Department spokesman said the 13 percent figure Sessions used in Baltimore was accurate given the violent crime numbers per 1,000 people in 2015 and 2016.

“The survey shows an increase in the violent crime victimization rate both in the counties that remained in the sample and between the outgoing 2015 sampled counties and the new 2016 sampled counties,” spokesman Ian Prior told Newsweek in an email.

“The survey confirms what we’ve seen in the FBI’s uniform crime report, which finds an increase in violent crime and an increase in murders over the last two years. These trends are troubling, and this administration is committed to reversing them and making our neighborhoods and communities safer.”

Both Trump and Sessions have been accused at times of misusing crime statistics to achieve political goals like building a border wall or passing strict immigration and “tough on crime” policies.

“The murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in 47 years, right? Did you know that? Forty-seven years,” Trump said during a White House roundtable with local sheriffs in February. (Politifact rated that statement as “False” and noted the murder rate was much higher in the early 1990s.)

In a Washington Post opinion piece in September titled, “Sessions’s big lie on crime,” conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin highlighted a new study that contradicted the Trump administration’s argument that the U.S. was in the midst of a crime wave.

“Sessions is entitled, within legal and constitutional limits, to change enforcement policies for the federal government,” Rubin wrote. “He should not, however, use a blatant lie to justify such moves.”

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This is getting tiresome. We shouldn’t normalize intentional misrepresentations and incredible, facially ridiculous explanations from our nation’s top lawyer in support of his anti-American White Nationalist agenda!

Gonzo is a racist, a White Nationalist, a homophobe, xenophobe, bully, and congenital liar. Even with Franken gone, it’s time for Democrats to demand an investigation by the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General.

Unless that investigation provides a plausible justification for Gonzo’s facially dishonest conduct, he should be removed from the office for which he is so spectacularly unqualified. Someone should also notify the Alabama Bar so that they can commence the process for revoking his license to practice law.

Then, the Democrats should prevail on two of their more moderate GOP colleagues to block the appointment of any more political hacks to the job. The DOJ deserves a qualified lawyer of integrity for its leader.

Dreamers, TPSers, and the overwhelming majority of so-called undocumented individuals are making positive contributions to America every day. Gonzo, not so much.

PWS

12-12-17

THE TRUMP/SESSIONS XENOPHOBIC ANTI-REFUGEE BIAS THREATENS TO DESTROY EVERY ASPECT OF AMERICAN SOCIETY, INCLUDING OUR STAR CHEFS & OUR IMMIGRATION-INSPIRED CRUSINE!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/in-praise-of-refugee-chefs-they-came-from-syria-but-they-represent-an-american-ideal/2017/12/06/64e7c4be-c400-11e7-aae0-cb18a8c29c65_story.html

Marin Cogan reports for the Washington Post:

“On a Thursday morning in June, near the end of Ramadan, Majed Abdulraheem arrives for work at Union Kitchen. The brightly lit, shared commercial kitchen space in Northeast Washington is filled with chef’s tables, pastry racks and the bustling of a dozen cooks building fledgling businesses. It’s Chef Majed’s second time at work today. Fasting makes the daytime heat of the kitchen too hard to manage, and so he was in the kitchen preparing orders late last night, into the early morning.

Abdulraheem, 29, works at Foodhini, a meal delivery service that employs immigrant chefs in Washington. The start-up was founded by Noobtsaa Philip Vang, a child of refugees from Laos, who discovered, after arriving from Minnesota to Georgetown three years ago to get his MBA, that he was missing the Hmong cuisine he grew up with. “I was really craving some of my mom’s food,” says Vang, “and I was thinking I wanted to find a grandma or auntie that was living in the neighborhood somewhere and just buy some of their food.”

He started mulling his own family’s immigration story: When his mom came to the United States, she had limited English skills, and finding work was difficult. His dad sometimes worked multiple jobs, sleeping in his car between shifts, to make sure the family had enough money to survive. What his mother did have, which might have been marketable if only she’d had the resources, was incredible skill as a chef. “There’s got to be a way to create opportunities for people like my mom,” he thought.

Abdulraheem is one of Foodhini’s first chefs. On its website, he offers a menu of his own design: bamiatan, a dish of crisp mini okra sauteed in garlic and topped with cilantro; mutabbal, an eggplant-tahini dip similar to baba ghanouj; and kebab hindi, meatballs cooked in a spiced tomato stew. Like Vang, his love for food and for family are inextricably intertwined: Many of the items on Abdulraheem’s menu are dishes his mother used to make for him when he was a kid growing up in a small town in southern Syria. Even after attending culinary school in Syria, and after years of working in restaurants, he still considers her, his original teacher, to be the better chef.

“You have to love cooking to be good at it,” Abdulraheem tells me through an interpreter. He is preparing the vegetables for fattoush, a staple salad of lettuce, tomato and crunchy pita chips. He stacks long leaves of romaine lettuce, one on top of the other, slicing them crosswise into small confetti ribbons as he talks, before perfectly dicing tomatoes. He cuts huge lemons in half, just once, and squeezes the juice out of them effortlessly. It’s a simple dish but one he loves to make, because it’s both universal and endlessly customizable. “I’m making fattoush, my wife will make fattoush, you can make fattoush,” he says. “But each time it will come out a little bit different, because it’s a reflection of you.”


Majed Abdulraheem and wife Walaa Jadallah at their home in Riverdale Park, Md. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

When Abdulraheem arrived here in 2016, he became part of a long history of immigrants — often refugees — who reached the United States and began making food. You can find this tradition in Eden Center, the Northern Virginia strip mall packed with pho restaurants and pan-Asian groceries, built up by Vietnamese refugees in the 1980s. You can see it in the popular Ethiopian restaurants on U Street; in the restaurants of Peter Chang, who fled Washington’s Chinese Embassy in 2003 and acquired one of the most loyal followings of any chef in America; or in the Thai and Indian restaurants in large cities and small towns across the country.

. . . .

What Abdulraheem and other refugee chefs bring when they come to America has implications beyond the kitchen. Cooking the dishes — sharing the foods of their home country — is a way of ensuring “that identity and heritage are not lost just because the homeland is,” says Poopa Dweck, author of the book “Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews.” They are “documenting history, in some way, for the next generation.”

It’s this diversity — the richness of so many cuisines and cultures, brought from all over the world — that makes American food so outstanding. At the moment, however, that tradition is under threat. The Trump administration has dedicated a lot of energy to barring Syrian refugees like Abdulraheem from coming into the country, while waging a multifront campaign against undocumented immigrants from Latin America. Continuing on this path would have a profound impact — not just on our food, but on our national identity.

It can be hard to explain to people who view immigration as a threat just what we stand to lose when we turn away from this ideal. Maybe a grand argument about American values isn’t the best place to begin. Maybe it’s best to start smaller, somewhere closer to home — somewhere like the dinner table.


Abdulraheem’s kebab hindi (meatballs cooked in a spiced tomato stew). (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

There are things that Majed Abdulraheem doesn’t usually talk about when he’s at work chopping vegetables. But they’re on his mind a lot: How, on his last visit to his parents’ home in 2013, they begged him not to return to his apartment in Damascus but to flee Syria across the border to Jordan instead. How he did as his parents asked. And how he never got to see his father, who became ill during his exile, before he died.

. . . .

The culinary education of refugee chefs is unusual. It is at once cosmopolitan — thanks to the fusing of different influences during the chef’s travels — and narrowly defined by both physical barriers and the limitations of circumstance. The journeys of refugee chefs often spark creativity, born of necessity. The education, just like the migration, is sui generis. Just like America.”

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Read the complete article at the above link.

The irony is certainly not lost on me. Refugees overcome great obstacles to contribute to America’s greatness; immigrants (including, yes, those without legal status) help us prosper as a society; guys like Trump and Sessions are corrosive negative influences who contribute little of positive value and do great damage to our country, our society, and our collective future every day they hold power, despite having having been given every chance to make positive contributions.

America’s continued greatness, and perhaps our ultimate survival as a nation, depends on whether we can use the legal system and the ballot box to remove corrosive influences like Trump, Sessions, and their ill-intentioned cronies from office before they can completely destroy our country.

PWS

12-10-17

WASHINGTON POST – “GOOD STUFF” ABOUT THE “REAL AMERICA” FROM LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Immigrants reflect what makes America great


A newly naturalized citizen holds an American flag during at the Atlanta office of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2016. (Kevin D. Liles/For the Washington Post)
December 6
I applaud the strong statement in The Post’s Dec. 4 editorial “An attack on America.” I agree that the “president’s immigration policies are neither an embrace of legality nor in the national interest.”

This past year, I suffered a mild stroke, and through the swift actions of staff at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, I have thankfully recovered. The staff helped me cope and persist. The cultural diversity of the staff reflected the America I cherish. We are already great because of the gifts such people bring to our shores. Everyone in our country deserves the care I received, not just those of us who are privileged.

I am deeply appreciative to all who administered compassionate care with skill and consistency at that hospital and who represent the many sons and daughters of immigrants to whom we should be thankful — not only those who work in our fields, construction sites, kitchens and bathrooms but also those in the corridors and labs in our hospitals and by the bedside of a frightened patient.

I write this letter also on behalf of the hundreds of immigrants who fill the pews each week in the National Capital Presbytery, where I am a moderator, and who remind us of their gifts and deeply religious and faithful commitment to the well-being of all.

William Plitt, Arlington

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Yup, I had the same thoughts about the nice folks who took care of my Dad during his years in a retirement home and the great surgeon who repaired my broken ankle in Maine this summer.

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The ‘dreamers’ emergency


A woman holds up a sign outside the U.S. Capitol in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on Tuesday in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press)
December 6
Regarding Paul Kane’s Dec. 3 @PKCapitol column, “Republicans savor a win that could be swept aside by shutdown negotiations”:Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said there is no need for action on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program because it is not a crisis or an emergency. Really, is that his management style?Maybe that’s why Congress can come up with money for hurricane recovery but not to help people to move out of houses that flood repeatedly. Still, it seems that about 690,000 people not knowing what is going to happen to them in three months is at least as much of an emergency as the need for a deficit-financed tax cut for a nation with a booming economy and a $20 trillion debt.

Mike Zasadil, Silver Spring

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It’s all about priorities, Mike. For the GOP, greed, selfishness, and rewarding the rich are where it’s at. Human needs and the rest of the populace, not so much. It’s not going to change until those of us who believe differently throw the GOP out of power at the ballot box.

PWS

12-08-17