🇺🇸 MIGRANTS, W/ OR W/O DOCS, ARE AGAIN BAILING OUT FLA, DESPITE DeSANTIS’S RACIST STUNTS — Don’t Expect Reality To Change The White Nationalist False Narrative!

https://apple.news/AFdtHuzYiQS-N1caP0gT6UA

Ciara Nugent
Ciara Nugent
Staff Writer
Time
PHOTO: Time.com

From Time Maggie:

Migrants Are Leading Clean-up Efforts in Florida, Despite DeSantis’ Crusade Against Them

Migrant workers are flooding-in to help Florida rebuild after Hurricane Ian, even as Governor Ron DeSantis wages a crusade against them.

CIARA NUGENT

Three days after Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida on Sept. 28 as a Category 4 storm, Johnny Aburto arrived in Port Charlotte, a mostly white community of 64,000, popular with retirees, on the state’s southwestern coast. The town suffered extensive damage during the storm: roofs blown off, homes flooded, power lines downed. There is a lot of work to be done.

Aburto, 42, is here to do it. Originally from Nicaragua, he is part of a large, informal, overwhelmingly immigrant workforce that travels the U.S. cleaning up after increasingly frequent climate-related disasters. Once a hurricane hits, these crews are bussed in by contractors desperate for workers, or they drive to the area themselves and wait in Walmart or Home Depot parking lots to be picked up for a day’s work. Aburto, a skilled laborer, was in New Orleans after Katrina in 2005, Baton Rouge after Louisiana’s floods in 2016, Panama City Beach after Michael in 2018, and Lake Charles after Laura in 2020. “These kinds of events really affect people,” he says. “We do our bit to help them.”

In Port Charlotte, Aburto is now busy covering roofs with tarpaulins—a crucial first step to keep homes safe from future rain, so that power can be restored and residents can come back. He’s also cleaning out soaked debris from interiors. When that kind of work is done, he says, many of his colleagues will stay on to make more permanent repairs.

. . . .

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

Read the complete article at the link.

Sadly, America has a long disreputable history of denying the humanity and rights of those whose labor and skills built our nation and made it great. African Americans,  Chinese-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Filipino-Americans, Haitian-Americans, and many others have all felt the sting of racism, demonizing myths, dehumanization, exploitation, and grotesque ingratitude. 

I happen to be reading UVA Professor Amanda Frost’s outstanding book on “citizenship stripping.” I was struck by this quote about the exploitation of Mexican workers during the “Bracero Program” which was followed by “Operation Wetback” — the Eisenhower Administration’s totally illegal mass removal of Mexicans, including lawful immigrants and U.S. citizens!

“As one grower put it, “We used to own our slaves. Now we just rent them.” 51”

You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers by Amanda Frost

https://a.co/0BsTPuZ

Amanda Frost
Amanda Frost
Professor UVA Law
Author, “You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers “
PHOTO: UVA Law

It would be nice to think this time will be different — that we have advanced as a nation. But, I wouldn’t bank on it!

Floridians have a golden opportunity to replace DeSantis with a real Governor, Charlie Crist, who would serve all people, use government resources prudently, and govern in the public interest. Polls, however, say that such a “Florida epiphany” is unlikely. But, it’s still possible.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-08-22

🤯 OUTRAGE BOILS OVER AT MERRICK GARLAND’S  “MILLERESQUE” WAR ON DUE PROCESS AT EOIR & HIS GROTESQUE MISMANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRATION COURTS! — Garland Might Be A Greater Threat To Our Democracy Than DeSantis and Abbott!

Jason Dzubow
Jason Dzubow
The Asylumist

The latest report on Garland’s accelerating disaster @ EOIR from Jason Dzubow, “The Asylumist:”

https://www.asylumist.com/2022/09/21/due-process-disaster-in-immigration-court/

Due Process Disaster in Immigration Court

It is not easy to convey the magnitude of the ongoing disaster at EOIR, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts. Simply stated, the agency is rescheduling and advancing hundreds–maybe thousands–of cases without notifying attorneys, checking whether we are available to attend the hearings or checking whether we have the capacity to complete the cases.

On its face, this appears to be a mere scheduling problem. But in effect, it is a vicious and unprecedented assault on immigrants, their attorneys, and due process of law.

pastedGraphic.png

“Advancing hearings with no notice and no time to prepare? Why didn’t I think of that?!”

For me at least, the problem started small. A few cases were rescheduled and advanced without anyone at the Immigration Court bothering to inquire about my availability: Your case that was scheduled for two years in the future has been advanced and is now set for two months in the future. I was angry and upset, but I did not want to let my clients down. So I set other work obligations aside. I set family time aside. I put off doctors appointments. And I completed the cases, which were approved. I hoped that these cases were anomalies and that EOIR would stop this unfair and abusive practice. But that was not to be.

Instead, EOIR has dramatically expanded its effort to reschedule cases, often without providing sufficient notice–or any notice–to get the work done for our clients. As best as we can tell, the problem is occurring in California, Colorado, Maryland, and Virginia. I myself have had about a dozen cases rescheduled and advanced (so far). These cases had been scheduled for 2023 or 2024, and suddenly, they are now set for the fall of 2022. Other attorneys have had 20, 30 or more cases advanced, including some that were double booked. One lawyer reported having seven cases scheduled for the same week and 47 cases set for one month. Another lawyer purportedly told a judge that if she had one more case scheduled within the next six months, she would commit suicide.

Here, I want to break down what is happening, so noncitizens in Immigration Court can at least have some idea about EOIR’s disruptive practices.

First, when I say that EOIR is not providing notice of the hearings, that is not entirely accurate. They are not sending us a notice or contacting us in advance. Instead, they are posting the new hearing dates on our portal. What does this mean? Each attorney has access to a portal page with a calendar. We can scroll through the calendar one month at a time. Days with hearings are highlighted, and we can click on those days to see what is scheduled. When I review my calendar, I often find new hearings that were not previously on the schedule. The only way to know whether a new hearing has been scheduled is to scroll through our portals month-by-month and compare what’s there with our existing calendar–a burdensome process that leaves plenty of room to overlook a date. Needless to say, every time I sign on to the portal, I feel a nauseous sense of dread about what I might find.

Once we discover the new date, we need to review the file, contact the client, and determine whether we can complete the case. This all takes time. If we cannot complete the case, or we do not have an attorney available on the scheduled date, we need to ask for a continuance. Of course, clients who have been waiting years for a decision usually want to keep the earlier hearing date. They do not understand why we cannot complete the work or why we are not available that day. Their perspective is perfectly reasonable, but they only have one case, where lawyers have many and we are daily being ambushed by EOIR with additional work. All this can result in conflicts between clients (who want their cases heard) and lawyers (who need time to get the work done). It also makes it difficult to serve our other clients, who must be pushed aside to accommodate the new work randomly being dumped on us.

Even if the client agrees to request a continuance, that does not solve the problem. Motions to continue can be denied. Even when they are granted, the judges tend to reset the date for only a few weeks in the future, which is often not enough time to properly complete the work. Other times, judges simply do not rule on the motion, so we are left to prepare the case, not knowing whether it will go forward or not.

Also, while we sometimes discover a new date that is a few months in the future (and so in theory, we might have time to do the work), other times, the new date is only a few weeks in the future. Since the evidence, witness list, and legal brief are due at least 15 days before the hearing, and since even a “simple” asylum case takes 20 or 30 hours to prepare, this is not nearly enough time. Worse, some cases are randomly advanced and placed on the docket after the evidence is due, and so by the time we have “notice” of the case, our evidence is already late.

Adding insult to injury, another common problem is that cases are still being cancelled at the last minute. And so we drop everything to prepare a case, only to have it postponed once all the work is done. Since this is all utterly unpredictable, it is impossible to prioritize our work or advise our clients.

Again, if this were only a few cases, attorneys could set aside other work and get the job done. But lawyers who do immigration law tend to have many cases, and we are seeing dozens and dozens of cases advanced with no notice. This is such a blatant and obvious abuse of due process that it is impossible to believe it is accidental. I might have expected this policy from the Trump Administration, which was hell-bent on restricting immigration by any means necessary. But as it turns out, President Biden’s EOIR is far worse than President Trump’s. Indeed, the current level of callousness would make even Stephen Miller blush.

The solution to these problems is so basic that it should not need to be said, but here it is anyway: EOIR should stop advancing and rescheduling cases without notice and without consideration for whether we have time to complete the work. Unless something changes, we can expect many noncitizens to be unfairly denied protection, immigration attorneys will leave the profession (or worse), and EOIR will become illegitimate. Let us hope that sanity and decency will soon return to the Immigration Courts.

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

Ever wonder why Dems struggle to govern and often lose elections they should win?  This is a pretty good example of how the Biden Administration, through cowardice, ignorance, arrogance, and failure to prioritize racial justice and immigrant justice are “shooting themselves in the foot, over and over!”

They are going into midterms where every vote counts. They need “all hands on board” in the human rights community to help bail them out of the gross failures of the White House, Garland, and Mayorkas to reestablish a fair, efficient, and properly robust system for legally admitting refugees and processing asylum claims at the borders and the interior. This, in turn, has empowered disingenuous nativists like DeSantis and Abbott to “play games with human lives.” 

But, the Biden Administration “strategy” is to do everything possible to offend and drive a wedge between them and some of their most loyal and important groups of supporters — the immigration, human rights, and racial justice communities. (Make no mistake: The ongoing disaster at Garland’s EOIR disproportionally targets individuals of color.)

Garland seems to be impervious to his self-inflicted disaster at EOIR.  I think that advocates are going to have to sue to bring his “Stephen Miller Lite” travesty of justice at EOIR to a grinding halt. Those are resources that could and should be used to help asylum seekers “orbited” around the country by DeSantis and Abbott. 

I, for one, have been saying for a long time that Garland’s unfathomably horrible performance at EOIR is a threat to our entire justice system and to the future of our nation. Sadly, every day, Garland proves me right!

The real shame: It was all so preventable with just a modicum of competence and backbone from our failing AG!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever! Merrick Garland’s deadly Clown Courts 🤡, Never!

PWS

09-21-22

🇺🇸🗽⚖️NDPA ACTIVISTS HELP BEAT BACK GOP NATIVIST SPOILER AMENDMENTS TO RECONCILIATION BILL — Dems Need To Win Midterms To Thwart Newest GOP Immigration Hate Plan!

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

“Sir Jeffrey” Chase reports:

Hi: I just heard that all of the anti-immigration measures that Republicans attempted to add as amendments to the reconciliation bill were defeated.

I’m so in awe of the advocates who were up all night monitoring the process and weighing in with Senators’ offices.

Best, Jeff

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

James “Jim” Crow
James “Jim” Crow
Symbol of American Racism, Now At The Heart of The GOP Immigration Agenda

 

But, don’t relax or breathe a sign of relief. The GOP is very up front about the Jim Crow hate agenda they plan to roll out if they gain control of Congress in the midterms. Here is is in all it’s dishonesty, cruelty, and racist agitation:

https://republicans-homeland.house.gov/media/2022/07/Border-Rollout-one-pager_FINAL_formatted.pdf

Yes, you can expect Biden to veto any of this. But, it still will disrupt the business of Congress and will lead to hate rhetoric, lies, and racist stereotypes being hurled against immigrants and people of color. There is virtually no chance that the GOP would have the votes to override the vetoes in both Houses. 

Still, upcoming generations of younger Americans will have to decide whether they want to live and raise their children in the the “American Hungary” — a neo-Nazi state where racial and ethic hatred and anti-Semitism will be at the center of all authoritarian Government policy. If not, the younger generation of the NDPA needs to come up with ways of keeping the GOP out of political power from the top to the bottom. 

However welcome, the latest hard-fought victory over racist nativism and xenophobia was just the beginning of the struggle for the heart and soul of America.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-08-22

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮👎🏽 ILLEGAL & IMMORAL: HRC’s Stunning Indictment Of Biden Administration’s Continuing Abuse Of Legal Asylum Seekers — “The Title 42 policy discriminatorily targets Haitian and other Black asylum seekers, spurs disorder at the border, undermines security, and separates families.”

“Floaters”
Although most senior Biden Administration officials work hard to avoid the border and confronting scenes like this, trauma, death, destruction, and dehumanization of the world’s most vulnerable will remain as indelible parts of their toxic legacies. “Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers”
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)
Stephen Miller Monster
Carrying on and defending this guy’s cruel, inhuman, deadly, dishonest, and illegal policies wasn’t part of the Biden-Harris campaign pledge. Or was it? Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com

From ImmigrationProf Blog:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/two-years-of-suffering-biden-administration-continues-use-of-discredited-title-42-order-to-flout-refugee-law

Two Years of Suffering: Biden Administration Continues Use of Discredited Title 42 Order to Flout Refugee Law

Human Rights First, Mar. 16, 2022

“For two years, the U.S. government has illegally blocked and expelled people seeking refuge at the southern U.S. border despite U.S. laws and treaties created to protect them. Since March 20, 2020, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has used orders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), purportedly issued under Title 42 of U.S. law, to prevent asylum seekers from requesting U.S. asylum and returning thousands to persecution, torture, and other horrific violence. In March 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found that the use of Title 42 to expel people to places where they would face persecution or torture is likely illegal, violating U.S. refugee laws and international treaty obligations.

The grave human rights abuses faced by people turned away under Title 42 continue to mount every day that U.S. officials allow this policy’s use to evade refugee law. Human Rights First has now tracked at least 9,886 kidnappings, torture, rape, and other violent attacks on people blocked in or expelled to Mexico due to the Title 42 policy under the Biden administration – a new record of suffering.

Flouting refugee protection laws as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic is not and never was justified as a public health measure. Initially issued by the CDC under orders from senior Trump administration officials and despite objections by CDC experts, the Biden administration has continued the policy for migration policy and/or political reasons, according to various reports. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky re-issued a new version of the Title 42 order in August 2021, and has subsequently repeatedly extended it. The CDC must review whether to continue, modify, or end the Title 42 order by March 30, 2022.

Epidemiologists and medical experts have exhaustively established that Title 42 does not protect public health, and in fact exacerbates the spread of COVID-19. The claimed public health justification for the Title 42 order has become even more transparently unjustified as the administration lifts other pandemic-related international travel restrictions and with mask mandates lifted in all 50 U.S. states. In March 2022, the CDC partially terminated the Title 42 order as to unaccompanied children following a federal court ruling that would have compelled the resumption of expulsions of unaccompanied children. In a notice explaining the decision, the CDC cited declining COVID-19 cases nationwide, including in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border, increased vaccination rates in the United States and countries of origin, and widespread availability of COVID-19 testing and other mitigation measures at facilities receiving migrants. Despite these factors applying equally to all people seeking refuge in the United States, the CDC has so far disingenuously maintained the Title 42 order to expel families and adults.

At this shameful second anniversary of the Title 42 policy, the Biden administration continues to illegally turn away asylum seekers without access to the U.S. asylum system. It is carrying out dangerous expulsions to countries refugees have fled, including: El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and Mexico, as well as expelling some Venezuelans to Colombia. The Title 42 policy discriminatorily targets Haitian and other Black asylum seekers, spurs disorder at the border, undermines security, and separates families. While some Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion have been allowed to cross into the United States at southern border ports of entry, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) continues to cite Title 42 to illegally block others and to discriminatorily turn away many asylum seekers of other nationalities and races who have often been waiting for months or years in danger in Mexico to seek U.S. asylum protection.

The Biden administration must immediately end this disastrous policy and restart the asylum processes required under U.S. law along the border, including at ports of entry, as Human Rights First has recommended. In recent weeks, dozens of members of Congress have publicly called for an end to the Title 42 policy with Senate leadership condemning the Biden administration’s decision to continuing sending asylum seekers “back to persecution and torture” as “wrong.” The United States has the capacity to welcome people seeking refuge. Many faith- and community-based organizations along the border and throughout the United States are standing by ready to assist the families, adults, and children seeking refuge.

This factsheet updates prior research on the Title 42 policy by Human Rights First in February 2022January 2022December 2021, November 2021 (with Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project), October 2021, August 2021, July 2021 (with Hope Border Institute), June 2021, May 2021 (with RAICES and Interfaith Welcome Coalition), April 2021 (with Al Otro Lado and Haitian Bridge Alliance), December 2020, and May 2020.

pastedGraphic.png

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

How will Harris, Mayorkas, Garland, Walenksy, and other senior Biden Administration officials who have spinelessly furthered these inexcusable, illegal, abusive, and deadly anti-humanitarian policies deal with their toxic legacies? Also, Deputy AG Lisa Monaco, Associate AG Vanita Gupta, SG Liz Prelogar, and Assistant AG for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke stand out as irresponsible, “look the other way,” fundamentally flawed public officials who have failed to “rise to the occasion” in the time of democracy’s and humanity’s greatest needs! Carrying out “Miller Lite,” Jim Crow, xenophobic, racially targeted policies, often endorsing false narratives and using obvious pretexts, directed against some of the world’s most courageous, vulnerable humans, deserving of humane treatment and fair access to refuge, is “NOT OK!” 

Perhaps the most telling observation about our exercise in national failure is this:

The United States has the capacity to welcome people seeking refuge. Many faith- and community-based organizations along the border and throughout the United States are standing by ready to assist the families, adults, and children seeking refuge.

It’s not rocket science! All it would have taken to get his right would be some political courage and empowering those with the skills and vision to change the way we treat refugees, asylees, and other immigrants!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-2.0-22

🤮👎🏽SPOTLIGHT ON GOP HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSERS! — New Tool From Justice Action Center (“JAC”) Keeps Tabs On Xenophobic, Dehumanizing Litigation By GOP State AGs!☠️🏴‍☠️

From Tasha Moro, Communications Director @ Justice Action Center:

Tasha Moro
Tasha Moro
Communications Director,,Justice Action Center
PHOTO: Justice Action Center

Hi friends!

In response to states like TX, FL, AZ and others engaged in unrelenting legal challenges to defend Trump-era policies that harm immigrants, JAC is launching our litigation tracker microsite—an interactive, searchable index of anti-immigrant legal challenges, decoded and technical legal summaries, court filings, news coverage, and advocacy tools. We hope it’s useful to advocates and litigators alike!

As a compliment to the tracker, we also send out a biweekly newsletter summarizing the latest case updates, which you can subscribe to here. Feel free to explore the microsite, and read our press release below, and RT our thread here!

All the best,

Tasha

JAC’s New Litigation Tracker Follows States’ Legal Efforts to Uphold Trump-Era Immigration Policies

https://justiceactioncenter.org/jacs-new-litigation-tracker-follows-states-legal-efforts-to-uphold-trump-era-immigration-policies/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 15, 2022

LOS ANGELES—Justice Action Center (JAC) launched a litigation tracker microsite that follows states’ legal challenges to inclusive federal immigration policies. Since President Biden took office, states like Texas, Arizona, Florida, and others have poured immense resources into impeding progress and defending Trump-era policies that demonize, endanger, and discriminate against immigrants. Updated continuously, the JAC litigation tracker decodes these complex legal battles using accessible language, and includes court filings, news coverage, and resources.

One example of such a case detailed in the tracker is Biden v. Texas, the critical Remain in Mexico (also known as “MPP” or “RMX”) case that the Supreme Court announced last month it would hear on an expedited schedule. Over the last year, Texas has challenged President Biden’s attempts to end Trump’s cruel and inhumane RMX program, which has stranded tens of thousands of asylum seekers in dangerous conditions in Mexico while awaiting their immigration court hearings in the U.S.

Like other cases, JAC’s litigation tracker outlines the history of Biden v. Texas as it worked its way up the federal court system. Providing critical analysis, the tracker explains how the Supreme Court’s decision will not only determine the future of asylum in the United States, but also have far reaching implications on executive powers. Users will find continuously updated news coverage and resources that can be used to take action on this and other important immigration related litigation.

“It is crucial that the American public is informed of various states’ attempts to obstruct inclusive immigration policies that would benefit our communities, culture, and economy. JAC’s litigation tracker decodes these legal moves to empower people of conscience to engage in smart, creative advocacy to counter them—whether they have a law degree or not,” said JAC legal director Esther Sung.

As a complement to the tracker, JAC sends out a bi-weekly newsletter outlining the latest courtroom updates, which users can subscribe to here.

Justice Action Center (JAC) is a new nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting for greater justice for immigrant communities by combining litigation and storytelling. JAC is committed to bringing additional litigation resources to address unmet needs, empower clients, and change the corrosive narrative around immigrants in the U.S. Learn more at justiceactioncenter.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

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The bad news: These morally debilitated heirs to the slave-owning class and Jim Crow politicians exist and, like those antecedents, hold influential positions of public trust that they use to pick on and dehumanize the vulnerable.

The good news: You’ll no longer have to look under rocks and other dark places where slimy creatures hang out to see what shenanigans they are up to now!

Just when you think the GOP couldn’t sink any lower, they dredge up these sleazy “public officials” who show that there is no lower limit.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-15-22

LIVES OF AFGHAN REFUGEES ILLUSTRATE RECURRENT COURTSIDE THEME: “We Can Degrade Ourselves As A Nation, But It Won’t Stop Human Migration!”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/opinion/refugees-migrants-afghanistan.html?referringSource=articleShare

From “We’ve Never Been Smuggled Before” by Matthew Aikins in the NYT:

. . . .

But the plight of Afghan refugees can be an opportunity to rework migration and asylum policies for a future that will increasingly blur the distinction between traditional refugees and migrants fleeing economic and social disasters, including those that are the result of climate change.

It’s not just former translators and journalists who need help. Afghans migrating out of hunger and desperation are also the victims of the West’s failed war. Even if mass starvation is averted, Afghans will continue to leave their country, out of a combination of fear and because they want a better life. The Afghan middle class, which has seen its savings and livelihoods evaporate, will use the resources they have to emigrate. The outflow of Afghan migrants will not end in the short term; nor should it. Indeed, Afghan migration should be seen for what it is, a rational strategy undertaken by people who find agency in the midst of great adversity. Afghans are capable of helping their own communities, if we allow them. Remittances, or money sent home by migrants, contribute three times more to the developing world than international aid.

Whether we meet them with compassion and reason, or prejudice and violence, people will never stop trying to cross borders.

. . . .

**********************
Read the complete article at the link.

The future will belong to countries that figure out how to harness the power of human migration and deal with its inevitability.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

O2-14-22

CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: “Biden has delivered the worst of all worlds: inhumane, immoral, potentially illegal policy — and bad-faith political blowback about “open borders” all the same.”☠️🏴‍☠️🤮🤯👎🏽⚰️🆘

 

Catherine Rampell
Catherine Rampell
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

Catherine writes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/17/year-into-his-presidency-biden-has-kept-some-trumps-worst-immigration-policies-place-why/

. . . .

But these are, mostly, obscure policy changes or unrealized proposals. When Miller et al. condemn Biden’s “immigration record,” they zero in on his decisions at the Southern border.

Which is, frankly, odd. You’d never know it from the right-wing hysteria about Biden’s supposedly “open borders,” or Biden’s own campaign promise to “end Trump’s detrimental asylum policies.” But Biden has continued Trump’s most restrictionist, inhumane and possibly illegal border policies.

In some cases Biden has even expanded them.

As evidence of Biden’s supposedly lax border policies, Republicans sometimes cite his attempt, on Day One of his presidency, to end the program informally known as “Remain in Mexico.” This Trump-created program forced asylum seekers to wait in dangerous camps in Mexico while their U.S. cases were processed; there, vulnerable immigrants have been frequent targets for rape, kidnappings, torture and murder.

If Biden had terminated the program, that would have been a good thing, from a human rights perspective (not a Republican priority, apparently). But Biden did not succeed. After a legal challenge, a federal judge ordered the program to be resurrected — and the Biden administration not only obeyed but also expanded the program’s scope to cover even more categories of immigrants.

[Catherine Rampell: Joe Biden is president. Why is he maintaining Trump’s immigration agenda?]

Worse, Biden has maintained Trump’s Title 42 order. This likely illegal order involves automatically expelling hundreds of thousands of people encountered at the border without ever allowing them to apply for asylum, in contravention of rights guaranteed under both U.S. and international law. Both Trump and Biden have cited a little-used public health provision as pretext for this policy, even though legions of public health experts have argued that it doesn’t protect public health.

Perversely, continuing this Trump policy has also given ammunition to the hard-right nativists, because it has the unintended consequence of inflating the count of U.S. border crossings. Many of those expelled immediately turn around and attempt another crossing; in fiscal 2021, 27 percent of individuals were apprehended multiple times by Border Patrol, nearly quadruple the share in 2019.

The disconnect between GOP claims about “open borders” and Biden’s actually-quite-Trumpy border policies, is enormous. Two of Biden’s own political appointees who resigned last fall lambasted his actions as “inhumane” on their way out the door; six other high-level immigration officials have recently announced they were leaving the administration, without much public explanation.

It’s unclear why Biden has maintained his predecessor’s policies. One possibility is politics — that these choices were intended to stave off right-wing attacks about lax enforcement. If that was the motivation, though, it failed. Instead, Biden has delivered the worst of all worlds: inhumane, immoral, potentially illegal policy — and bad-faith political blowback about “open borders” all the same.

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

Yup! It’s what “Courtside” has been saying all along!  Read her complete article at the link!

Catherine sees much more clearly than any member of the Biden Administration the ridiculous failings of their so-called “immigration policies” (actually a series of disjointed, often self-contradictory, knee-jerk responses that sometimes undermine each other and reflect a total lack of thoughtful, morally courageous, informed leadership).

And, Catherine doesn’t even highlight the single biggest failure — one that cuts across every failure she mentions and also goes to the heart of our legal system!

That’s, of course, the abject failure of Biden AG Merrick Garland to bring due process reforms and better judges to his totally dysfunctional, grotesquely unfair, wholly-owned U.S. Immigration Courts. These “courts” — that function more like 21st Century Star Chambers than anyone’s concept of a “real court” — were “weaponized” by Garland’s Trumpy predecessors, Sessions and Barr.

They filled the courts at all levels with less than well qualified judges, many with no immigration experience or prosecutorial experience only, who were intended to help carry out the White Nationalist, anti-asylum, anti-immigrant policies developed by Gauleiter Stephen Miller. Garland has not replaced these unqualified judges with better talent, selected in a open, transparent, merit-based process with “outside input.”  He has failed to make the substantive and procedural reforms necessary to bring order and some semblance of efficiency to his hopelessly backlogged “courts.”

He has declined to remove poor leaders appointed by his predecessors; nor has he tapped the large supply of progressive, expert human rights/immigration talent who could begin the process of restoring due process. He has continued to promote enforcement “gimmicks” — like “Dedicated Dockets” and the illegal use of Title 42 — that accelerate “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and have led to even higher backlogs. 

His refusal to bring common sense, achievable reforms, and better judges to the Immigration Courts has demoralized lawyers and made pro bono representation even more difficult. 

He has ignored the pressing need for better judicial training implemented by qualified outside experts. He hasn’t bothered to engage with those like the VIISTA Villanova program turning out exceptionally well-trained potential “accredited representatives” who could help reduce the staggering representation gap in his courts. Worse yet, he has allowed EOIR bureaucrats to create entirely new backlogs in the agency process for recognizing pro bono organizations and accrediting their representatives. 

Garland’s horrible failure to energize and attract the progressive leadership and judicial talent who know how to begin solving these problems (rather than aggravating them) might eventually go down as one of the biggest “blown opportunities” for due process reforms in modern American legal history! This is the “low hanging fruit” that Garland and the Biden Administration has allowed to “rot on the tree.” What a (needless and deadly) tragedy!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-18-22

HISTORY: THE IMMIGRATION ACT THAT MADE AMERICA WHAT WE ARE TODAY🇺🇸🗽

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/07/opinion/asian-americans-1965-immigration-act.html

OPINION

JAY CASPIAN KANG

The Enduring Importance of the 1965 Immigration Act

Oct. 7, 2021

pastedGraphic.png

pastedGraphic.png

Credit…

Alberto Miranda

pastedGraphic_1.png

By Jay Caspian Kang

Opinion Writer

What follows is an excerpt from my book  which will be published on Oct. 12. (I also published an excerpt this week in the Times magazine.) The book is a meditation on the 1965 Immigration Act, which I argue is the starting point of the multiethnic society we live in today.

***

On Oct. 3, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson stood in front of the Statue of Liberty and said something that would be proved wrong: “This bill that we sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives.” He was referring to the Hart-Celler Immigration Act, a landmark piece of legislation that lifted restrictive quotas on immigration from Asia, Africa and southern and Eastern Europe.

Its opponents at the time it was finally passed described apocalyptic scenarios in which the United States and its white population would be overrun by a horde of foreigners. Johnson, for his part, assured the public that the easing of restrictions would have only a mild effect on the demographics of the country. Most people, he believed, would stay in their home countries.

Over the next five decades, the Hart-Celler Act would bring tens of millions of immigrants from Asia, southern and Eastern Europe, and Africa. No single piece of legislation has shaped the demographic and economic history of this country in quite the same way.

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link.

“Just say no” to nativism and White Nationalism!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-08-21

☠️⚰️👎🏽BIDEN ADMINISTRATION EMBRACES “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” — SUPREMES LIKELY TO HELP THEM OUT!🤮

Gulag
Inside the Gulag — PHOTO: Creative Commons
In the fine tradition of Josef Stalin, like US Presidents before him, President Biden finds it useful to have a “due process free zone” to stash people of color and other “undesirables” whose “crime” is to demand due process under law! How subversive!

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2021/08/supreme-court-to-review-bond-hearings-for-detained-immigrants.html

Dean Kevin Johnson posts on ImmigrationProf Blog:

Monday, August 23, 2021

Supreme Court To Review Bond Hearings For Detained Immigrants

By Immigration Prof

Share

The Supreme Court has decided a number of immigrant detention cases in recent years.  Next Term brings another case.    Alyssa Aquino for Law360 reports that the Court agreed today to review a Ninth Circuit decision that required bond hearings for immigrants who have been detained for more than six months with final removal orders.  A split ruled that the Immigration and Nationality Act requires the federal government to hold bond hearings for detained migrants, and that the government bears the burden of proving that detainees are a flight risk or public safety threat.

The consolidated  cases are Garland. v. Gonzalez and Tae D. Johnson v. Guzman Chavez.  Amy Howe on SCOTUSBlog offers some background on the cases her.

 

KJ

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

Notice any difference between the Biden-Harris campaign rhetoric and actual performance once elected?

Never know when a “due process free zone” where individuals not charged with crimes can be detained forever without individualized bond determinations will be a handy hammer to have in your toolbox!

And, don’t forget those huge profits being raked in by the private detention industry, so beloved by DHS and politicos who receive contributions and can tout the “job creation” in the Gulag! Also, states and localities who rent out substandard prison space on questionable contracts love the Gulag!

Significantly, none of the lower court decisions the Biden Administration seeks to overturn requires the release of anyone! Nope! All the lower courts have done is to give the “civil prisoners” a right to plead their cases for release and to require the Government to provide an individualized rationale for continued indefinite detention! Sure sounds like simple due process to me!

Maybe, if Garland, Mayorkas, and the Supremes had a chance to spend a few “overnights in the Gulag” they would take the Fifth Amendment’s application to people of color in our nation and pleading for their lives at our borders more seriously!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever! The “New American Gulag,” Never!

PWS

08-24-21

🧑🏽‍⚖️🇺🇸⚖️THE NATION: CHIEF U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE MIRANDA M. DU (D NV) COURAGEOUSLY & CORRECTLY  EXPOSED THE RACISM, WHITE SUPREMACY BEHIND OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS — Expect Appellate Judges At Both Ends Of The Spectrum To Discredit & Suppress “Uncomfortable Truths!” — “A lone federal judge cannot stop 100 years of bigoted policies, but if you want to know what a truly progressive legal analysis looks like, Judge Du just spelled one out.“

Chief Judge Miranda M. Du
Chief Judge Miranda M. Du
USDC Nevada
PHOTO: US Courts, Public Realm
Elie Mystal
Elie Mystal
Justice Correspondent
The Nation
PHOTO: The Nation

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/immigration-crime-law/

ELIE MYSTAL, Justice Correspondent, writes in The Nation:

. . . .

The opinion is thorough and well-reasoned, and Judge Du’s arguments are so obvious in retrospect that it’s kind of amazing they aren’t a staple of the immigration debate in this country. But this is where Judge Du’s background perhaps becomes important.

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Miranda Du was born in Ca Mau, Vietnam, in 1969. Her family fled the nation after the Vietnam War when she was 9, first to Malaysia, before eventually making its way to Alabama. She went to Berkeley for law school and was an employment lawyer in Nevada when Harry Reid and Barack Obama made her a federal district judge in 2011. I would imagine that Judge Du looks at the US immigration system with a fresh perspective, at least as compared to a person like me, who was born here and has been taught to just accept a background level of bigotry as an immutable fact of immigration law. One of the more striking parts of her opinion in this case is the section in which she calls out other courts for not doing this sooner. She essentially says that courts in other jurisdictions that have looked at Section 1326 have blindly accepted the government’s reasoning that the 1952 reauthorization cleansed the statute of its racial bias, without really looking at the 1952 Congress.

The opinion is brilliant, and I’m going to print it out so I’ll still have a copy of it when Justice Samuel Alito and the other conservatives on the Supreme Court reverse it and order Du’s opinion to be nuked from orbit. There is, practically speaking, no chance this ruling survives Supreme Court review. The high court will skate over the disparate impact analysis by saying that any person, regardless of race, who crosses the southern border will experience the same over-enforcement. Or the court will reverse the ruling of racist intent by finding, as other courts have, that the 1952 Congress did cleanse the statute of racism. Or they’ll find that the government does have a legitimate and permissible interest in discriminating against southern border crossers. After all, the Supreme Court found bigotry to be okay in Trump v. Hawaii, which upheld the Muslim ban, so finding a reason to uphold Section 1326 will be child’s play for the conservatives who like a little bigotry in their immigration rulings.

And that’s if the case even makes it to the Supreme Court, which it probably won’t. Judge Du’s ruling will first be appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and I could see it getting reversed there. It’s unlikely that other liberal judges will even want to open this can of worms. As I said, Judge Du relies on a disparate impact analysis, and I can think of at least three Supreme Court justices who might be in the mood to overturn disparate impact analysis altogether.

MORE FROM MYSTAL

WHY ARE WE STILL USING TRUMP’S BROKEN CENSUS?

Elie Mystal

A QUICK REMINDER THAT MANDATING VACCINES IS TOTALLY CONSTITUTIONAL

Elie Mystal

Judge Du is right about the bigotry inherent in our immigration laws, but conservatives like the bigotry and liberals will be afraid that trying to stop it will just piss off the conservatives.

But at least this opinion exists now. It’s out there, and future lawyers and judges can read it and maybe think differently about the core assumptions at the heart of our immigration system. A lone federal judge cannot stop 100 years of bigoted policies, but if you want to know what a truly progressive legal analysis looks like, Judge Du just spelled one out.

Now, President Biden just needs to read it and go out and nominate 100 judges who agree.

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

Read the full article at the link.

Biden could start by telling Garland to “redo” the U.S. Immigration Courts with well-qualified, expert, progressive judges in the “ Chief Judge Miranda Du” image! 

Different backgrounds and new, “real life” perspectives! That’s why two decades of appointments of almost exclusively prosecutors and government bureaucrats, to the exclusion of human rights experts and advocates, to the Immigration Judiciary has produced such unfair and disastrous results for humanity and American law! Similar to other “blind spots” in American law, it has also created misery and cost innocent lives.

For the most part, judges of all philosophies hate being confronted with “ugly truths” about the system they are a part of. Consequently, the impetus to sweep historical truth and logical legal reasoning under the carpet when it produces uncomfortable, unpopular, and highly controversial results is overwhelming on all sides of the judicial spectrum, with the exception of a few “brave souls” like Chief Judge Du.

One of the most obvious and disgraceful of these “dodges,” is the abject failure of the Article IIIs to confront head on the clear Fifth Amendment unconstitutionality of the Executive’s “captive Immigration Courts,” particularly as currently staffed and still operating in “Miller Lite, White Nationalist mode.” 

But, courageous decisions like this will be a part of our permanent legal history and come back to haunt today’s go along to get along Federal Judges, at all levels!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-23-21

🛡⚔️👍🏼“SIR JEFFREY” CHASE — Garland’s Immigration “Judges” Pull The Ol’ “Bait & Switch” — They Only Are “Judges” When “OIL” Is Trying To Convince Ethically & Legally Challenged Article III Courts To “Defer” To EOIR Decisions — Otherwise, They Are Expected To Act Like DOJ ”Grundoons” Mindlessly Carrying Out The Executive’s Agenda Cloaked In Quasi-Judicial Disguise!

Grundoon
Grundoon
From Walt Kelly’s “Pogo”
SOURCE: Pininterest

Grundoon: A diapered baby groundhog (or “woodchunk” in swamp-speak). An infant toddler, Grundoon speaks only gibberish, represented by strings of random consonants like “Bzfgt”, “ktpv”, “mnpx”, “gpss”, “twzkd”, or “znp”. Eventually, Grundoon learns to say two things: “Bye” and “Bye-bye”. He also has a baby sister, whose full name is Li’l Honey Bunny Ducky Downy Sweetie Chicken Pie Li’l Everlovin’ Jelly Bean. [From the Walt Kelly comic strip “Pogo.”]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_(comic_strip)

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2021/4/29/the-dojs-contradictions

Contact

The DOJ’s Contradictions

In a recent blog post, I discussed the difficulty in establishing asylum based on a political opinion expressed against MS-13.  In the specific case discussed, the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed the Immigration Judge’s finding that the asylum-seeker had expressed a political opinion to MS-13 members.1  In reversing the Immigration Judge, the BIA specifically stated as to MS-13 that “the gangs are criminal organizations, and not political or governmental organizations and gang activities are not political in nature.”  The BIA has repeatedly expressed this same view (using this or similar boilerplate language) in its decisions denying asylum.  In the particular case discussed in my blog post, a split panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals could not find enough evidence of record to compel the majority to overturn the BIA’s conclusion.

The BIA is of course a part of the U.S. Department of Justice; its judges are appointed by and employed by the Attorney General.  Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was one of the Department officials to make the following point to a class of new Immigration Judges in March 2019:

Immigration judges appointed by the Attorney General and supervised by the Executive Office for Immigration Review are not only judges. First, you are not only judges because you are also employees of the United States Department of Justice. It is a great honor to serve in this Department. In the courtyard just outside the entrance to this Great Hall, high up on the interior wall of the Main Justice building, there is a depiction of the scales of justice and an inscription that reads, “Privilegium Obligatio.” It means that when you accept a privilege, you incur an obligation. In this Department, our duty is in our name. We are the only cabinet agency with a name that articulates a moral value.

Justice is not measured by statistics. Our employees learn from day one that their duty is to gather the facts, seek the truth, apply the law, and respect the policies and principles of the Department of Justice.

The second reason that you are not only judges is that in addition to your adjudicative function – finding facts and applying laws – you are a member of the executive branch. You follow lawful instructions from the Attorney General, and you share a duty to enforce the law.2

The clear message being conveyed is “Don’t get any big ideas of judicial independence and neutrality; you work for ‘Team Justice,’ and you will behave accordingly.”  Am I alone in thinking that the motto cited by Rosenstein, “when you accept a privilege, you incur an obligation,” here comes across as a boss reminding new employees where their loyalties lie rather than as a commitment to truth and justice?

As wrong as this message is when conveyed to judges who are supposed to enjoy the independence and neutrality to rule against the Department of Justice and the Attorney General when the facts and law compel such an outcome, let’s examine this view for the consistency of its application as to all DOJ employees.  Presumably, the Board’s official stance that MS-13 is not a political organization and that its activities are criminal and not political in nature enjoys the Department’s seal of approval.  In fact, other Department of Justice attorneys, working for the Office of Immigration Litigation, defend that view when the BIA”s decisions are reviewed on appeal by the Circuit Courts.  I’m not aware of any Attorney General action to certify a BIA decision expressing this view in order to correct the Board’s position on this issue, or even to remand to the Board for further consideration of its position in light of other conflicting views within the Department.

Regarding such conflicting views, I was recently made aware of a criminal indictment drafted by the U.S. Attorneys’ Office in the Eastern District of New York.3  The indictment was filed in December, 2020, while the Trump Administration was still in office.  The opening paragraph of the indictment states that MS-13 is a transnational criminal organization engaged in terrorist activity, and that its members use violence “in order to obtain concessions from the government of El Salvador, achieve political goals and retaliate for government actions against MS-13’s members and leaders.” (emphasis added).

The indictment contains a specific section titled “Political Influence in El Salvador.”  The indictment states that a unit of MS-13, the Ranfla Nacional, “gained political influence as a result of the violence and intimidation MS-13 exerted on the government and population of El Salvador.”  It continued that the organization exercised leverage on the Salvadoran government through its control on the level of violence.  The indictment states that in 2012, MS-13 exercised its leverage to negotiate a truce with the ruling FMLN party and its rival 18th Street “to reduce homicides in El Salvador in return for improved prison conditions, benefits and money.”  According to the indictment, MS-13 also negotiated a similar agreement with the rival ARENA party, promising to deliver votes in return for benefits.  The indictment states that over time, “the Ranfla Nacional continued to negotiate with political parties in El Salvador and use its control of the level of violence to influence the actions of the government in El Salvador.”

The indictment also contains a section explaining the purpose of the Ranfla Nacional.  The second specific goal listed is: “Influencing the actions of governments in El Salvador and elsewhere to implement policies favorable to MS-13.”

The attorneys who made the above claims in an indictment filed in Federal District Court are also employees of the U.S. Department of Justice.  They are also members of the executive branch, following lawful instructions from the Attorney General, and sharing a duty to enforce the law.   In the Second Circuit case I recently discussed, other Department of Justice attorneys in their brief to the court defended the Board’s decision by depicting MS-13 as “an institution that is entirely non-governmental – that is…a group of criminals who, in fact, reject the rules set out by the government.”  Noticeably absent from the same brief was any mention that this “rejection of the rules set out by government” includes strategies to pressure said government into undertaking specific actions, as well as its entering into negotiations and ultimately agreements with political parties, the terms of which include MS-13’s delivering votes in return for the parties’ commitment to enacting beneficial policies.

So how can it be that attorneys in one office of the Department of Justice argue that MS-13 as an organization is engaged in exerting political influence to achieve its political goals, and at the same time, another group of attorneys within the same Department of Justice can sign orders sending victims of the same MS-13 to their death by employing a boilerplate sentence that MS-13 is not a political organization and its activities are not political in nature?  And that the decisions of that latter group are then defended by a third group of Department attorneys on appeal who make no mention of the conflicting arguments?  Let’s remember that, according to Rosenstein, these attorneys were taught from day one that their duties as Department of Justice employees include gathering the facts and seeking the truth.

In 1997, a very different BIA wrote the following in a decision that, although still binding as precedent, seems long forgotten:

immigration enforcement obligations do not consist only of initiating and conducting prompt proceedings that lead to removals at any cost. Rather, as has been said, the government wins when justice is done. In that regard, the handbook for trial attorneys states that “[t]he respondent should be aided in obtaining any procedural rights or benefits required by the statute, regulation and controlling court decision, of the requirements of fairness.” Handbook for Trial Attorneys § 1.3 (1964). See generally Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas Co. v. FERC, 962 F.2d 45, 48 (D.C. Cir. 1992)(finding astonishing that counsel for a federal administrative agency denied that the A.B.A. Code of Professional Responsibility holds government lawyers to a higher standard and has obligations that “might sometimes trump the desire to pound an opponent into submission”); Reid v. INS, 949 F.2d 287 (9th Cir. 1991)(noting that government counsel has an interest only in the law being observed, not in victory or defeat).4

This matter deserves the immediate attention of Attorney General Merrick Garland.  The ability of asylum seekers to receive a fair review of their claims based on accurate information is a matter of life and death.  At this early stage of the Biden Administration, it is critical that the Department send a clear message that the “obligation” mentioned in its motto is to serve an ideal of justice that is independent of the particular politics of those temporally in charge.

Copyright 2021 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

Notes:

  1. Zelaya-Moreno v. Wilkinson, No. 17-2284, ___ F.3d ___ (2d Cir., Feb. 26, 2021).
  2. https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/deputy-attorney-general-rod-j-rosenstein-delivers-opening-remarks-investiture-31-newly.
  3. E.D.N.Y. Docket No.: 20-CR-577 (JFB).  The Department of Justice’s Press Release can be found here: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/ms-13-s-highest-ranking-leaders-charged-terrorism-offenses-united-states.
  4. Matter of S-M-J-, 21 I&N Dec. 722, 727 (BIA 1997).

APRIL 29, 2021

Reprinted by permission.

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

As most outside the nativist world know, the BIA’s position that Northern Triangle gangs aren’t political in nature and action is absurd! For Pete’s sake, these guys negotiate “peace treaties”  with governments, control large swaths of territory, manipulate “public death rates” for political gain, aid or punish political candidates and police, collect taxes, control jobs, and have economic policies. Sure sounds like a quasi-governmental, clearly political entity to me. Somewhere, there is a dissent of mine in an old published CAT case saying approximately that.

At least at one point, gangs in El Salvador controlled more jobs than did the Salvadoran Government! No competent, unbiased group of adjudicators (not to mention supposed “experts”) could have reached the BIA’s ridiculous, clearly politicized conclusions!

Sadly, to date, Judge Garland has followed in the footsteps of his dilatory Dem predecessors by destroying lives, promoting injustice, and blowing the Dems’ best chance to build a progressive, due process oriented, human rights advancing judiciary that also would help resolve America’s failure to come to grips with the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention and its key role in our legal immigration system as well as being a prerequisite to achieving racial justice in America.

Supposedly, these are the goals of the Biden Administration. Unfortunately, Garland, Monaco, and Gupta haven’t gotten the message, although it has been “delivered” time after time by numerous experts and advocates!

A few historical notes:

  • I was on the en banc BIA that decided Matter of S-M-J-, cited by Jeffrey. It was written by Judge Michael J. Heilman, a fellow Wisconsinite who once had worked for me at the “Legacy INS” General Counsel, following service as a State Department consular officer. That case “originated” on a three-member panel of Heilman, the late Judge Lauri Steven Filppu, and me. It reflects the “government wins when justice is done” message that I had incorporated into INS attorney training years earlier, as well as fealty to UN Handbook standards encouraged by the Supremes in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, and the “best practices” that bygone BIA was consciously and aggressively advancing.
  • Former DAG Rod Rosenstein was once a respected career prosecutor who served Administrations of both parties. Then, he “sold out” to the Trump Administration and its neo-fascists. Although that probably should have ended his legal career, he’s currently enjoying life in “big law” while those victims harmed and wronged by the illegal and unethical policies (or, in some cases their survivors) he furthered continue to suffer.

Radical progressive due process reforms @ EOIR, starting with wholesale personnel changes and revocation of restrictionist, racist, misogynist policies and practices is long overdue. Nearly two months into his tenure Judge Garland has yet to demonstrate awareness of the need for immediate, decisive action. Meanwhile the bodies continue to pile up and the “adverse decisions” from the Article IIIs bearing his name and tarnishing his reputation continue to roll in! 

Actually, Judge, each wrong decision from the BIA represents a human life ruined, often irrevocably. Is that the type of “impact” on American justice that you intend to leave as your “legacy?”

 

Tower of Babel
EOIR HQ, Falls Church, VA (a/k/a “The Tower of Babel”)
By Pieter Bruegel The Elder
Public Domain

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-01-21

🧑🏽‍⚖️⚖️🗽🇺🇸WHO’S JUDGE IS IT ANYWAY? — The Crisis Of Independence In Our Immigration Courts! — Coming April 7, 2021! — Sponsored By The HNBA! — Don’t Miss It!

HBNA
HBNA

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

The answer to the question posed is actually simple. As of today, DHS Enforcement and politicos at the DOJ “own” the so called Immigration “Courts” lock, stock, and barrel!

That’s an overt violation of the clear Fifth Amendment requirement that those whose lives and property are at stake be judged by a fair and impartial adjudicator — by definition one who is an expert in asylum law, human rights, and has demonstrated the ability to conduct fair hearings.

That’s also bad news for the Hispanic Community, because for the last four years those wholly owned “courts” have been operating with a clear bias against the civil and human rights of people of color, with Hispanic migrants and asylum seekers being a particular target — one that has adversely affected, even terrorized, Hispanic communities throughout the U.S. Hispanics are also grossly underrepresented among the “Immigration Judiciary” at both the trial and appellate levels, as well as on the Article III Bench — despite there being scores of Hispanic and other lawyers of color out here who would be head and shoulders above many of those currently holding these critical “life or death” judgeships!

The real questions are:

1) What can we do about it, and

2) How can we get Judge Garland and others in the Administration to listen, put an end to “Dred Scottification,” and get started on the task of bringing due process and fundamental fairness to a totally dysfunctional and dangerously biased system?

Tune in on April 7 to join the dialogue on how we can finally force the U.S. Government to make good on its unfulfilled, even mocked, Constitutional promise of due process for all persons!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

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

PWS

03-29-21

 

🏴‍☠️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

 

⚖️BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TAKES INNOVATIVE APPROACH TO KEEPING ICE ENFORCEMENT HONEST — “ICE Case Review Process” Lets Those Affected Seek Review!

 

Hamed Aleaziz
Hamed Aleaziz
Immigration Reporter
BuzzFeed News

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/ice-immigrants-new-appeals-process

Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have created a new appeals process that will allow immigrants and their advocates to challenge arrests, detentions, and deportations as the Biden administration continues to focus enforcement actions on certain populations, officials said Friday.

The new program, which establishes the ICE Case Review Process led by a senior reviewing officer based in Washington, DC, is part of President Joe Biden’s efforts to overhaul the agency and reform not only how it works but which immigrants are arrested and detained.

. . . .

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Read Hamed’s complete article at the link.

Shows that somebody in charge in the Biden Administration understands the scope of the problems they face in bringing ICE under control.

Compliance with agency policies has always been an issue at ICE, going all the way back to the days of the “Legacy INS.” Both on and off the bench, I observed that most policies applied only to the extent that local directors and agents chose to follow them. 

I can remember essentially being told “We don’t follow that policy here,” or words to that effect. Or the time that an ICE Assistant Chief Counsel cheerfully told me in court: “Judge, you can enter any order you want. But, our deportation officer will decide whether this respondent actually gets released from custody.”

No wonder that ACC didn’t feel it necessary to appeal my custody decision after I had ruled against him. Of course, DOJ regulations (actually enacted by the Clinton Administration) give ICE Counsel unilateral authority (“The Clamper”) to stay compliance with IJ release and bond orders pending appeal.  So, ICE always holds the “trump card” in bond proceedings.

Fortunately, represented respondents can threaten to go to U.S. District Court to force ICE compliance with an administrative order, if necessary. (The respondent in my case was represented.) But, for unrepresented individuals facing ICE intransigence, not so much.
That’s probably why a culture of disdain for immigrants’ rights and dislike of lawyers has grown up in so many ICE operations.

I also recollect that even in the Obama Administration, under pressure from ICE Enforcement, EOIR Management pushed Immigration Judges to “keep out of” the manner in which ICE complied with things like the “Morton Memo” or “PD” that should have been keeping certain cases out of court. And the BIA has traditionally stayed away from commenting on or reviewing prosecutorial policies, even when they directly affect court workloads or individual outcomes. 

There were creative ways of skirting many of these bureaucratically-imposed blinders and pushing ICE, at least in court, to act in accordance with their own policies. But, it had to be done subtilely. EOIR was usually eager officially to announce its own fecklessness when it came to getting compliance from ICE.

I often marveled at the BIA’s ability to explain why it didn’t have authority to solve problems or do justice. In some instances, the Article III Courts actually had to instruct the BIA that they had authority to do things that they had claimed to be powerless to do.

In addition to the ICE policy described in Hamed’s article, there are other obvious ways in which compliance could be strengthened. Judge Garland could create a “New EOIR” dedicated to the original vision of due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices. He could also empower Immigration Judges to hold ICE accountable for following its own policies. As part of this, he could confer the long-existing but never implemented authority of EOIR judges to hold attorneys on both sides in contempt of court.

An independent Immigration Judiciary could be an important part of enforcing the rule of law and holding DHS accountable for its actions. But, that’s not possible with the current structural, personnel, and cultural defects that have corrupted EOIR and prevented it from being a progressive force for due process, equal justice under law, and best practices.

Indeed, under the departed regime, lack of accountability, irrationality, open bias, scofflaw behavior, and “worst practices” were institutionalized and celebrated from top to bottom! This was in a “system” already heavily weighted in favor of ICE Enforcement and against individual rights.

It will require “radical due process reforms @ EOIR” from Judge Garland and his team. We’ll soon see whether or not that will be forthcoming. 

Folks who have been happily assisting in abusing and dehumanizing asylum seekers, other migrants, and their lawyers for the past four years are not lightly going to be able to “switch over” to insuring due process and fundamentally fair adjudications under the best interpretations and practices — which actually favor the granting of relief in a timely and efficient manner in many cases. Indeed, in some cases, those serving as “judges” at EOIR appear to lack the capacity, expertise, and will to treat those coming before them fairly, impartially, and humanely, even these requirements are at the heart of constitutionally required due process!

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-07-21      

“ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES” — Biden Administration Ends Trump’s Fruitless Campaign Against States & Cities — Dean Kevin Johnson With A Summary From ImmigrationProf Blog!

Kevin R. Johnson
Kevin R. Johnson
Dean
UC Davis School of Law

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2021/03/justice-dept-asks-supreme-court-to-dismiss-sanctuary-immigration-suits.html

Elections truly do have consequences.  The Biden administration in its early days has removed some high profile immigration cases from the Supreme Court docket, moving in a different direction than the Trump administration.  NBC News reports  (see also CNN and Bloomberg) that, yesterday, the Justice Department asked the Court to dismiss three lawsuits over the lawfulness of the Trump administration’s efforts to de-fund “sanctuary’ cities.

In brief letters to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department said the cases should be dismissed, indicating that the government will no longer seek to enforce that policy.

Lower courts were divided on the legality of the Trump de-funding policy. The Supreme Court had been deferring action on the appeals while the new administration decided how to handle the cases.  The cases are Wilkinson v. San Francisco, 20-666; New York v. Department of Justice, 20-795; and City of New York v. Department of Justice, 20-796.

KJ

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Thanks for the nice summary and links, Kevin!

The Trump regime waged a four-year unsuccessful war against American local governments who were seeking to protect their ethnic communities from ICE abuses and to encourage community cooperation with police in addressing violent crime in those communities. How did they go about it: By threatening to cut off certain Federal funding for local law enforcement. 

If it sounds stupid and wasteful, that’s because it was. It also helped make ICE probably “the most despised law enforcement agency in America.” Again, not an effective strategy for real cooperative law enforcement. 

But, despite all his bluster and false claims, Trump never, ever was about “law enforcement.” That was clear even before he sent his “magamorons” out to attack our Capitol. No, it always was about stoking fear, hate, and throwing “red meat” to his base for political purposes.

PWS

03-05-21