“TORTURE” UNDER U.N. DEFINITION! ☠️— “GOVERNMENT-SANCTIONED CHILD ABUSE!” — WHAT HAVE WE BECOME AS A PEOPLE & A NATION? — AMERICA HAS PUT NOTORIOUS CHILD ABUSERS AND SHAMELESS “PERPS” OF “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” IN CHARGE — We Now Have A Chance To Throw Them Out & Start The Return To Human Decency As An Overriding National Value! 🗽

 

Here’s an array of reports on how America under the Trump regime has joined the ranks of dictatorships, torturers, child abusers, persecutors, and human rights criminals!

Eugene Robinson
Eugene Robinson
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post
Source: WashPost Website

Eugene Robinson @ WashPost:

What kind of people are we? As a society, are we so decadent and insecure that we show “toughness” by deliberately being cruel to innocent children? Is this what our nation has come to? Or are we better than that?

This election demands we answer those questions. The choice between President Trump and Joe Biden is not just political. It is also moral. And perhaps nothing more starkly illustrates the moral dimension of that decision than the Trump administration’s policy of kidnapping children at the southern U.S. border, ripping them away from their families — and doing so for no reason other than to demonstrate Trump’s warped vision of American strength.

We learned this week that some of those separations will probably be permanent. As NBC News first reported, 545 boys and girls taken as many as three years ago — the children of would-be immigrants and asylum seekers, mostly from Central America — have not been reunited with their parents and may never see their families again.

These are not among the nearly 3,000 families separated at the border in 2018, when children were kept in cages like animals or shipped away to facilities across the country, hundreds or thousands of miles from the border. We now know, thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union and other pro bono lawyers, that an additional 1,500 children were torn away from their families beginning in 2017, when the Trump administration conducted a trial run of the separation policy.

Please think about that. The shocking scenes we saw two years ago did not result from a sudden spasm of presidential anger. They didn’t stem from a Fox News segment Trump might have seen one evening. Rather, the administration rehearsed this form of cruelty.

What the administration did not plan for was how to reunite the children taken in 2017 with their families. Many of the parents were deported, and their children were placed in shelters around the country, then ostensibly released to parents or guardians, placements that the ACLU is still trying to confirm.

[Our Democracy in Peril: A series on the damage Trump has caused — and the danger he would pose in a second term]

The ACLU and other organizations have sent investigators to towns and villages in Central America in an attempt to find the kidnapped children’s families — an effort complicated not just by time and distance, but also by the covid-19 pandemic. Parents of 545 children have not been found, the ACLU reported this week.

Disturbingly, the Department of Homeland Security suggested that some of the parents declined to get their children back so they could remain in the United States. Keep in mind that most of these families were seeking asylum from deadly violence in their home countries. The Trump administration changed immigration guidelines to make it unlikely that the families would ultimately be allowed to stay in the United States, but federal law gives them the right to apply for asylum and to have their cases heard. They did nothing wrong. They should never have been asked to choose between parenting their children and getting them to safety — not by their home countries, and not by the United States.

Trump’s racism and xenophobia have been hallmarks of his presidency from the beginning, so perhaps it should be no surprise that he would preside over such an outrage. But he didn’t do this by himself. He had plenty of help.

Former attorney general Jeff Sessions seized an opportunity to make his rabid antipathy toward Hispanic immigration into policy. White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, a former Sessions aide in the Senate, was the architect of Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. Then-White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly said in 2018 that the children taken would be “taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.” Former homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said last year that she regretted that “information flow and coordination to quickly reunite the families was clearly not in place” — but not the separations themselves.

. . . .

Read the rest of Eugene’s article here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/do-we-tolerate-the-kidnapping-of-children-this-election-is-our-chance-to-answer/2020/10/22/0f60d17c-1496-11eb-ad6f-36c93e6e94fb

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Elise Foley
Elise Foley
Deputy Enterprise Editor
HuffPost
Photo Source: HuffPost.com

Elise Foley @ HuffPost:

President Donald Trump’s administration started and carried out a policy that took more than 4,000 children from their parents, at least 545 of whom are still split apart years later. But at Thursday’s debate, the president insisted that he did nothing wrong at all ― blaming his Democratic predecessors and even insisting the kids are doing fine.

“They are so well taken care of,” Trump said of the children taken from their parents by his administration. “They’re in facilities that were so clean.”

Trump’s first term was marked by a full-out assault on immigration, both legal and unauthorized. The most dramatic was his “zero tolerance” policy on unauthorized border-crossing, used in a 2017 pilot program and expanded more broadly in 2018, that led to criminal prosecution of parents and locking up their kids separately. Splitting up families was intentional and calculated, according to multiple reports.

Thanks to mass public outrage and a court order, Trump was forced to stop his family separation policy. Most families were reunited, but the American Civil Liberties Union, which was part of the lawsuit against the government that stopped the policy, said this week that at least 545 kids are still away from their parents.

“Their kids were ripped from their arms and separated,” Democratic nominee Joe Biden said during the debate. “And now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It’s criminal.”

. . . .

Read the rest of Elise’s article here:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-debate-family-separation_n_5f924368c5b62333b2439d2b

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Ruth Marcus
Washington Post Columnist Ruth Marcus, moderates a panel discussion about chronic poverty with Education Secretary John B. King and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, during the National Association of Counties at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park, in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016. U.S. Department of Agriculture photo by Lance Cheung.

Ruth Marcus @ WashPost:

545.

That is the number of children still separated from their families by the Trump administration — separated deliberately, cruelly and recklessly. They might never be reunited with their parents again. Even if they are, the damage is unimaginable and irreparable.

545.

Even one would be too many. Each one represents a unique tragedy. Imagine being ripped from your parents, or having your child taken from you. Imagine the desperation that the parents feel, the trauma inflicted on their children.

545.

That number represents an indelible stain on President Trump and every individual in his administration who implemented this policy, flawed at the conception and typically, gruesomely incompetent in the execution. It is, perhaps in the technical sense but surely in the broader one, a crime against humanity. It is torture.

545.

That number — I will stop repeating it, yet it cannot be repeated enough — represents a moral challenge and responsibility for the next administration. If Joe Biden is elected president, he must devote the maximum resources of the federal government to fixing this disaster. The United States broke these families; it must do whatever it takes to help them heal.

Nothing like that would happen in a second Trump term, because Trump himself doesn’t care. He doesn’t grasp the horror that he oversaw. He doesn’t comprehend the policy, and he is incapable of feeling the pain it inflicted.

Those truths could not have been clearer cut than during Thursday night’s debate.

Moderator Kristen Welker of NBC News asked the president a simple question: “How will these families ever be reunited?”

First, Trump misstated the situation: “Their children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they’re brought here, and they used to use them to get into our country.”

No. These are children separated from their families, not separated from smugglers. They are children brought by their parents in desperate search of a better life, desperate enough that they would take the risk of the dangerous journey.

Then Trump pivoted to the irrelevant: “We now have as strong a border as we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles of brand new wall. You see the numbers. And we let people in, but they have to come in legally.”

Welker persisted: “But how will you reunite these kids with their families, Mr. President?”

Trump responded by pointing his finger at his predecessor: “Let me just tell you, they built cages. You know, they used to say I built the cages, and then they had a picture in a certain newspaper and it was a picture of these horrible cages and they said look at these cages, President Trump built them, and then it was determined they were built in 2014. That was him.”

This is typical Trumpian deflection, bluster undergirded by ignorance. The “cages” are ugly but irrelevant to the topic at hand: the deliberately cruel plan to deter border-crossing by separating children from parents. That was a Trump administration special, implemented with callous sloppiness and so extreme that even the Trump administration abandoned it.

Welker, for the third time: “Do you have a plan to reunite the kids with their families?”

At which point Trump made clear that he did not: “We’re trying very hard, but a lot of these kids come out without the parents, they come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs.” The children, he added later, “are so well taken care of, they’re in facilities that were so clean.”

. . . .

Read the rest of Ruth’s op-ed here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/545-children-are-still-separated-from-their-families-what-if-one-of-them-were-yours/2020/10/23/63d3be04-154f-11eb-ba42-ec6a580836ed_story.html

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Bess Levin
Bess Levin
Politics & Finance Writer
Vanity Fair


Bess Levin
@ Vanity Fair:

The third and final presidential debate gave Donald Trump and Joe Biden the opportunity to make their final pitch to the American people before the 2020 election. For the Democratic nominee, that meant driving home the point that he believes in science, that he’ll take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously, that climate change is real, and that systemic racism must be dealt with. For Trump, it meant making it clear that in addition to being a science-denying, QAnon-promoting dimwit, he’s also an actual monster who thinks separating small children from their parents, in some cases permanently, is absolutely fine.

Asked by moderated Kristen Welker about the news that parents of 545 children separated at the border—60 of whom are under the age of five—cannot be located, Trump defended the policy and gave no explanation for how the government plans to find these people and reunite their families. “Children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they’re brought here and they used to use them to get into our country,” Trump said, which is objectively false, as they are brought here by their parents, which is why it’s called the family separation policy. “We now have as strong a border as we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles of brand new wall. You see the numbers and we let people in but they have to come in legally.”

pastedGraphic.png

Noting that Trump hadn’t answered the question, Welker pressed: “But how will you unite these kids with their families?”

“They built cages, they used to say I built cages…that was him,” Trump said, pointing to Biden and referring to the fact that the Obama administration did build temporary enclosures but failing, naturally, to mention that his predecessor did not separate families.

“Do you have a plan to reunite the kids with their parents?” Welker asked a third time. Again, Trump responded by claiming that the children “come without the parents, they come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs.”

At this point, Joe Biden was given a chance to weigh in and used his time to describe the policy implemented by Trump as the horror show all non-sociopaths know it to be. “Parents, their kids were ripped from their arms and they were separated and now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone, nowhere to go. It’s criminal.”

Then Trump interjected with what he apparently believed was an important point that would cast his administration in a much more favorable light and perhaps might even win it some awards or sainthood by the Catholic church. “Kristen, I will say this,” he told the moderator, of the children stolen from their parents. “They’re so well taken care of. They’re in facilities that are so clean.

pastedGraphic_1.png

With regard to that claim, NBC News reporter Jacob Soboroff weighed in on that after the debate, telling Rachel Maddow: “I was one of the reporters I guess the president mentioned, they invited me to go to the epicenter of this policy…what I saw was little children sitting on concrete floors, covered by mylar blankets, supervised by security contractors in a watchtower, it makes me sick every time I recall it. And Physicians for Human Rights…called this torture…the American Academy of Pediatrics called this state-sanctioned child abuse, and the president of the United States I guess interprets that as children being well taken care of.”

pastedGraphic_2.png

Read the rest of The Levin Report here:

https://mailchi.mp/c4319dce073e/levin-report-trumps-heart-bursting-with-sympathy-for-his-buddy-bob-kraft-2882762?e=adce5e3390

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Jacob Soboroff
Jacob Soboroff
NBC Correspondent
Jacob Soboroff at the ABC News Democratic Debate
National Constitution Center. Philadelphia, PA.
Creative Commons License

Here’s a video from NBC New’s  Jacob Soboroff, who has actually been inside “Trump’s Kiddie Gulag.” Surprise spoiler: It’s not “nice.” More like “torture” and “child abuse.”

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/soboroff-the-conditions-of-migrant-children-trump-described-as-well-taken-care-of-made-me-sick-94450757764

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Julia Edwards Ainsley

And, here’s another video from NBC News’s always incisive and articulate Julia Edwards Ainsley:

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/10/21/lawyers-cant-find-parents-of-545-migrant-children-separated-by-the-trump-administration.html

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There is neither moral nor legal justification for what the Trump regime has done to asylum seekers and other migrants over the past four years as part of their racist, White Nationalist, nativist agenda. But, we can show that we’re a better country than his horrible vision by voting him and all of his enablers out of office! Vote ‘Em out, vote ‘Em out!

PWS

10-25-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️🤡FRIDAY SPECIAL: COMBINED KAKISTICROCY KORNER ☠️ & CLOWN COURT 🤡 REPORT — EOIR GOES TOTAL FUBAR! — Local Chief Federal Prosecutors To Decide If, How, & When So-Called Immigration “Courts” (More Accurately, “Star Chambers”) Will Reopen!

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

 

Subject: Re: [fedcourtlitigation] immigration court reopening in the hands of us attorney offices?

 

It was confirmed by EOIR Director McHenry today during the EOIR forum during the AILA conference.

 

 

Sabrina [Damast]

 

On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 2:31 PM Jorjani, Raha; Public Defender wrote:

It was announced yesterday at an IJ townhall that the decision of whether, when, and how to reopen Immigration Courts across the nation was in the hands of local U.S. Attorney offices. Has anyone seen any official support for this suggestion? I can’t seem to find a memo or other policy directive about it.

 

RAHA JORJANI| Supervising Immigration Defense Attorney, [Alameda County Public Defenders]

 

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

The solution seems pretty obvious. With a coronavirus stimulus package coming up, the Dems should insist on:

  • Defunding of EOIR;
  • Transfer of all EOIR responsibilities and remaining funding for this fiscal year and any future fiscal years until an Article I or Article III Immigration Court is established to U.S. Magistrate Judges and the Administrative Office for U.S. Courts;
  • Absolute prohibition on any contact with the transferred functions by any employee of the Executive Branch except 1) a Government Attorney appearing in a particular matter; and 2) attendance at a meeting including representative members of the public to discuss fair and efficient Immigration Court administration.

Problem would be solved, for now. Moreover, this would provide the necessary “incentives” for the Article III Courts to establish a fair and efficient due process framework for Immigration Court proceedings that could be a model for the eventual Article I or Article III legislation. Put an immediate end to “malicious incompetence” by the DOJ and the Trump regime!

Due Process Forever! America’s Star Chambers,☠️⚰️ Never!

PWS

07-24-20

KAREN TUMULTY @ WASHPOST: “ASSEMBLY LINE JUSTICE” IS ALREADY THE NORM IN U.S. DISTRICT COURTS AT THE BORDER AS “GO ALONG TO GET ALONG” U.S. MAGISTRATE CONVICTS BEWILDERED AND DAZED NON-CRIMINALS WHILE MUTTERING MISLEADING PLATITUDES!

  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-what-trumps-assembly-line-justice-looks-like/2018/06/27/16a67354-7a12-11e8-aeee-4d04c8ac6158_story.html?utm_term=.92044d40e736

When Magistrate Judge Peter E. Ormsby stepped into the federal courtroom here Tuesday morning, 75 defendants rose to their feet.

Their ankles were shackled, and they wore headsets through which the proceedings would be translated into Spanish. In the hallway, just beyond the door, was a pile of handcuffs that had been removed before they entered the courtroom.

Most of the defendants appeared dressed in the same filthy, sweat-saturated clothes they had been wearing two days before, when they were apprehended crossing the Rio Grande aboard rafts.

In all but 11 of their cases, this criminal misdemeanor was the first time they had ever been found to have violated U.S. law.

Ormsby informed them his was not an immigration court. Many had already signed away their rights to further proceedings and had orders for what is known as “expedited removal.” They had done that before the 17 lawyers of the public defender’s office had met with any of them for the first time, just hours before.

The next two hours would see each one of them plead guilty and be sentenced, most to time already served.

With few exceptions, each case would be dealt with in under 75 seconds.

This was just the morning docket. It is what President Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy looks like here, where busloads of recently detained migrants roll up to the federal courthouse several times a day. Ormsby invited me and a handful of other observers there to sit in the jury box, because there was no room anywhere else.

The president contends that even this assembly-line version of justice is more than what those caught entering the country illegally should get.

“We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order.”

On that latter point, the president is correct — but it is for the reverse of the reasoning he offers. His zero-tolerance policy is putting even more stress on a legal system that already gives migrants far less than their day in court.

The outcome for many might be different if they had fuller access to the legal system, to which they are entitled in theory if not practice, and given an opportunity to make their case to stay in this country.

Trump has mocked proposals for adding to the number of immigration judges, who handle separate proceedings for those who want to remain.

“We have thousands of judges already,” he has claimed. That is incorrect. The number actually stands at fewer than 350 across the country. They are facing a backlog of more than 700,000 cases.

Just as critical as the scarcity of judges is the fact that so few migrants ever have a chance to consult an attorney.

Only about 14 percent of those who are detained have access to counsel, says American Bar Association President Hilarie Bass, who was here from Miami. She added that migrant adults with lawyers win slightly more than half their cases and get to stay in this country, while 9 out of 10 of those without representation lose and are deported.

For unaccompanied children, the disparity in outcomes is even greater. As Bass noted: “How can you ask a 12-year-old to walk into court and make a case for themselves?”

Under Trump’s zero-tolerance policy, more migrants are being prosecuted and deported on the border, rather than being sent to other parts of the country where they can await trial while staying with relatives or others who can take them in. That has compounded the challenge, because it adds to the backlog in this region and makes it more difficult for migrants to find lawyers.

In the current crisis, platoons of lawyers are arriving weekly to volunteer their services, but there are not nearly enough, says Kimi Jackson, director of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project. “What we need most here are Spanish-speaking immigration attorneys, particularly ones who can stay a little longer.” The need will remain for the foreseeable future, long after the journalists and cameras have moved on to the next story.

And even if help comes, it will be too late for most of those who appeared before Ormsby. As he worked his way through their cases, he expressed sympathy for the circumstances of poverty and violence that brought them from dangerous places in Honduras and El Salvador and Mexico to his courtroom. He wished them and their families well and urged them to go through the process of coming to the United States legally.

“Seeing the type of people you appear to be,” the magistrate added, “I hope that you will be successful with that.”

But everyone there knew that was a wish, and one unlikely to come true.

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

  • Mostly first offenders who didn’t belong in criminal court anyway.
  • Why would nonviolent first offenders be shackled in court?
  • Anybody understand what they are pleading guilty to?
  • Everybody understand that they have a right to a full trial at which the Government would have to prove guilt?
  • Anybody understand what a port of entry is?
  • Anybody just looking for an officer to apply for asylum?
  • Anybody realize there are strong legal arguments that criminal sanctions can’t be invoked against good faith asylum seekers under international treaties to which the U.S. is party?
  • Anybody know the name of their court-appointed lawyer?
  • Anybody have a chance to speak with their lawyer in private in Spanish?
  • Anybody have a “know your rights” presentation about the immigration system?
  • Anybody know what a “credible fear” interview is, how to request one from the DHS, and how to get review of a denial?
  • Anybody know that asylum applicants who pass credible fear can request bond?
  • Anybody understand the consequences of a conviction?
  • Anybody pressured to plead guilty to get their kids back or get out of detention?
  • Anybody know how the asylum process works and how to apply?
  • Anybody know how important lawyers are for asylum seekers and how to get in touch with local pro bono lawyers?
  • Anybody separated from kids?
  • Anybody know that the Government has been ordered by a more conscientious Federal Judge to reunite families?

We’ll probably never know the answers, because that might have exceeded Judge Ormsby’s 75 second attention span and cut into his productivity stats.

I’ve commented before on the Judge Ormsby’s judicial performance (or lack thereof).

https://wp.me/p8eeJm-2E9

Judge Ormsby should be in line for a Jeff Sessions “Volume Is Everything — Due Process Is Nothing” award! He appears to be just the type of subservient judicial toady Trump & McConnell would love to have on the Supremes. And, I wouldn’t let the U.S. District Judges who are in charge of this judicial farce off the hook either.

Someday, the true history of the abuses of human values, human rights, and our Constitution now going on at our border under a White Nationalist regime will be written. And the “go along to get along” crowd will be held accountable for their conduct; by the judgment of history, if not by the law.

PWS

06-29-18

READ THE DOJ/EOIR’S (HIGHLY BUREAUCRATIC) RESPONSE TO THE NEWS 4 I-TEAM — The DOJ/EOIR “Plan” Is “No Plan” Because They Are Clueless As To How To Solve The Self-Created Court Backlog Problem Without Stomping All Over Due Process!

jhttp://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/US-Department-of-Justice-Executive-Office-for-Immigration-Review-Responses-to-I-Team-Immigration-Backlog-Report-446936203.html

“U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review Responses to I-Team Immigration Backlog Report

 

What steps have been taken by DOJ/EOIR to combat the backlog?

EOIR is committed to a multi-level strategy to maximize our adjudicatory capacity, including the hiring of more judges, working with our federal partners to make the immigration process more efficient, and the increased use of video-teleconference capabilities. EOIR is undertaking a broad, agency-wide effort to review and reform its internal practices, procedures, and technology in order to enhance immigration judge productivity and ensure that cases are adjudicated in a fair and timely manner across all of the agency’s courts. EOIR records show that through the end of August 2017, the immigration courts had 628,698 pending cases. Although multiple factors may have contributed to this caseload, immigration judges must ensure that lower productivity and adjudicatory inefficiency do not further exacerbate this situation. To this end, EOIR recently issued Operating Policies and Procedures Memorandum 17-01: Continuances (available at https://www.justice.gov/eoir/oppm-log), which provides guidance on the fair and efficient handling of motions for continuance.

How many immigration judges have retired and how many have been sworn in the last two years?

The number of immigration judges who retired or separated during each of the following fiscal years (FY) is as follows: FY 2016, 13, and FY 2017 (through Sept. 15, 2017) 21. EOIR hired 56 immigration judges during FY 2016, and 64 immigration judges during FY 2017 (through Sept. 15, 2017).

How many open positions are there currently for immigration judges?

There are currently 329 immigration judges nationwide, out of EOIR’s current authorized level of 384.

Judge Marks discussed how she thinks the number of immigration judges should be doubled. Is there a goal by EOIR on how many new judges to hire?

As noted in EOIR’s FY 2018 budget request (available here: https://www.justice.gov/jmd/page/file/968566/download), the largest challenge facing the immigration courts is the growing pending caseload. The agency’s FY 2018 budget strategy is a sustained focus on increasing adjudicative capacity in order to meet EOIR’s mission to adjudicate immigration cases by fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly interpreting and administering the nation’s immigration laws.

To implement EOIR’s strategy, EOIR’s FY 2018 budget request includes a requested increase in immigration judge teams (each team consists of one immigration judge and five support staff) that would increase EOIR’s immigration judge corps to 449 and provide 225 additional full-time employees for mission support.”

Source: U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review Responses to I-Team Immigration Backlog Report – NBC4 Washington http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/US-Department-of-Justice-Executive-Office-for-Immigration-Review-Responses-to-I-Team-Immigration-Backlog-Report-446936203.html#ixzz4toZyt2D9
Follow us: @nbcwashington on Twitter | NBCWashington on Facebook

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No guys, I’m sorry! Much as I love you, and much as I realize that it was was a bunch of meddling politicos and out of touch bureaucrats, with lots of help from a willfully blind Congress, that created these problems over the past 15 years, it’s going to take more than politicos at the DOJ and bureaucrats in Falls Church to solve it.
Committing “to a multi-level strategy to maximize our adjudicatory capacity,” whatever that primo piece of bureaucratic gobbledygook might mean in plain English, isn’t going to cut it. Nor is just throwing more judges and more money at it going to do the trick.
And the answer certainly isn’t more truncation of due process and typical bureaucratic “haste makes waste bogus efficiencies and streamlining” which actually wastes massive amounts of time and money while not getting the job done. The courts are already in a due process crisis. “Speeding up the assembly line” or setting bogus production goals is not the answer. However, some “smart court administration” and “smart enforcement” are part of the solution. Sadly, it’s just not within the “skill set” of the group at DOJ and EOIR who are flailing away at court administration.
Nor, frankly, does it appear to be within the expertise of current DHS/ICE management without some Congressional oversight and accountability (things that have been remarkably absent in this Congress). Old saying:  Garbage In = Garbage Out, and right now ICE Enforcement, Detention, and Legal Counsel Programs are in “Garbage Truck Mode.” If Congress doesn’t step in, I think the Article III Courts eventually will, if only as an act of self-defense. Nor is evading the Immigration Court system with unconstitutional proposals for expanding “expedited removals” the answer. 
The DHS Enforcement System and the Immigration Courts are already squandering resources and wasting the taxpayers money at alarming rates. “Big-time reforms” must precede the injection of massive resources into a totally broken system. And that goes for putting some Congressional brakes on the “gonzo” enforcement now being carried out by DHS, and their mismanagement of the ICE Legal Program, which is a key part of the problem.
Next up: My Response:  I take on the DOJ/EOIR Bogus  “Strategy” and tell you what really needs to be done to restore due process to a broken court system.
PWS
09-26-17

DEPORTATIONS RISE UNDER TRUMP, BUT BORDER CROSSINGS ALSO CONTINUE TO TICK UPWARDS! — Read My OpEssay: “Due Process Disaster Is Brewing In The U.S. Immigration Courts — Is Anybody Paying Attention?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/deportation-orders-up-under-trump-fewer-prevail-in-immigration-court/2017/08/08/d3f0a6a6-7c74-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html?utm_term=.848b8a83c250&wpisrc=nl_daily202&wpmm=1

Maria Sacchetti reports in the Washington Post:

“Federal immigration courts ordered 57,069 people to leave the United States in the first six months of the Trump administration, up nearly 31 percent over the same period last year, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Additionally, 16,058 people prevailed in their immigration cases, or had them closed, allowing them to stay in the United States, according to the data, which tallied orders issued from Feb. 1 to July 31. That total marked a 20.7 percent drop from the 20,255 immigrants who prevailed at the same time last year.

In a news release, the Justice Department said the notoriously backlogged court system is making a return to the “rule of law” under President Trump, who has vowed to speed deportations. But officials did not say how many of the orders were issued in absentia, meaning to immigrants who did not attend their hearings and therefore could not immediately be deported.

The Washington Post reported last week that thousands of immigrants, some seeking protection from violence in their homelands, have missed their court dates in recent years, often because they did not know about them or were afraid to show up. Advocates for immigrants have also raised concern about the lack of legal aid for immigrants, especially for those in immigration jails.

Last month, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges said courts are severely understaffed, with about 300 immigration judges juggling a quickly rising caseload. An estimated 600,000 cases are pending nationwide.

United We Dream, an immigrant youth-led organization, protested ICE raids at Lafayette Square near the White House in February. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

Unlike the traditional federal court system, which is independent of the executive branch of government, immigration courts are administered by the Justice Department.

That agency said that from Feb. 1 to July 31, judges issued 73,127 final immigration decisions, an increase of 14.5 percent over the same period in 2016.

Of those decisions, 49,983 were deportation orders, an increase of nearly 28 percent from the same period in 2016. The rest were orders to leave the United States voluntarily, a process by which immigrants generally face fewer barriers if they wish to apply to return to the United States in the future.

Federal officials attributed the increase in case completions to Trump’s Jan. 25 executive order dispatching more than 100 immigration judges to immigration jails across the country. More than 90 percent of cases heard in jails have led to orders to leave the United States. The department has also hired 54 new judges to work in immigration courts since Trump took office. More are being hired every month.

Dana Leigh Marks, an immigration judge based in San Francisco who heads the national association, wrote in Newsday last month that immigration courts should be separated from the Justice Department to ensure “judicial independence and protection from political influences.”

“More skilled court management, provided by experienced court administrators, rather than a law enforcement agency with priorities other than fairness and efficiency, would greatly enhance our ability to complete the tasks,” she wrote. “For example, cases would not be docketed to make political statements or serve as a show of force by the U.S. government.”

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Due Process Disaster Is Brewing In The U.S. Immigration Courts — Is Anybody Paying Attention? 

by Paul Wickham Schmidt

U.S. Immigration Judge (Retired)

Meanwhile, according to CQ Roll Call, arrests of undocumented individuals at the Southern Border rose 13.1% in July, the second consecutive monthly increase. Overall, DHS’s CBP reports arresting more family units and fewer unaccompanied children during the first 10 months of FY 2017.

While CBP “fobs off” the increases as “seasonal,” they do cast some doubt on whether the Trump Administration’s “send ’em all back asap” enforcement approach is really going to decrease undocumented migration in the long run. It might simply be a case of professional human smuggling operations revising their methods and raising their prices to adjust to higher risk factors and the “market” taking time to adjust to the changing practices and price increases. Moreover, to date, neither increases in removal orders, some as noted by Horwitz undoubtedly “in absentia orders” issued without full due process protections, nor increases in the number of U.S. Immigration Judges has stopped the growth of the backlog of cases before the U.S. Immigration Courts, currently estimated at more than 610,000 pending cases!

Apparently, under the Trump/Sessions regime success in the U.S. Immigration Court System is no longer measured by improvements in due process and fairness or by insuring that the individuals coming before the court get the protections and relief to which they are entitled under the law. Nope! The “rule of law” in Immigration Court now appears synonymous with turning that Court System into a “deportation mill” — just another whistle stop on the “deportation express.”

In other words, we’ve now come “full circle” since 1983. Then, EOIR was created to get the Immigration Courts out of INS to enhance due process and overcome a public perception that the courts were merely functioning as adjuncts of INS enforcement. The U.S. Immigration Courts and EOIR essentially have been “recaptured” by DHS  enforcement.

EOIR has once again become an insulated “inbred” agency. Judicial appointments are made by DOJ politicos almost exclusively from the ranks of government attorneys, primarily DHS and DOJ prosecutors, just like when the “Legacy INS” ran the courts. Dockets are out of control, management is haphazard, technology is outdated and inadequate, and clerical staffing shortages are chronic. Staffing and docketing priorities are designed to accommodate enforcement priorities and to maximize removals, rather than to promote due process and fairness. Training and attention to the real “rule of law” are afterthoughts. Public service is a dirty word.

Morale among those at EOIR who care about the due process judicial mission has been steadily declining even as already sky-high stress levels continue to ratchet up. Numbers and removals have replaced fairness, professionalism, and unbiased decision making as objectives.

There are rumors that the Immigration Courts are going to be taken out of the DOJ and “reintegrated” into DHS to reflect their “true function” as part of the deportation mechanism. I think it’s unlikely unless Sessions becomes the new Secretary of DHS. But, really, what difference would it make? Sessions basically “reassumed” the immigration enforcement functions that once were in the Attorney General’s portfolio but were sent over to DHS when it was created after 9-11. Kelly merely signed off and nodded agreement to what Sessions told him to do.

A move by the DOJ apparently is afoot to revamp the judicial “evaluation system” to rate Immigration Judges more like “lower level DOJ attorneys” rather than judicial officials exercising independent judgment. Such bureaucratic ratings systems often elevate “productivity” above quality, value “following agency priorities” over exercising independent judgment, and serve to give the politicos at the DOJ more control and leverage over the day to day functioning of what is supposed to be a judiciary free from political influence or intimidation. Moreover, such ratings are often prepared by “supervisory judges” many of whom hear no cases and most of whom have little daily contact with the Immigration  Judges they nominally “supervise.” In a well-functioning judicial system, the local “Chief Judge” is a leader and problem solver, not a “supervisor” of her or his peers.

At this point, the Trump Administration clearly has no interest in fixing the festering problems in the U.S. Immigration Courts; they are determined to make things worse. While there is some bipartisan support in Congress for an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court, to date it hasn’t coalesced into any specific, politically viable legislation.

That basically leaves it to the Article III Federal Courts to decide whether or not to fix the Immigration Courts. One possibility is that they will decide that it is too much: just forget due process for foreign nationals, rubber stamp the removal orders, stay above the fray, and become another “whistle stop on the deportation express.”

A more optimistic possibility is that they will draw the line on the due process nightmare in the U.S. Immigration Courts being promoted by the Administration. But, that will make the Article III Courts a major “track block” on the deportation express. The trains will derail and pile up on the doorstep, and the Article III Courts can count on little if any help or resources from Congress in untangling the mess and getting things back on track. Understandably, from a practical if not a legal point of view, some Article III Judges aren’t going to want to go there.

One thing is certain — things can’t continue they way they are going now. Something has got to give! And, when it does, the Article III Courts will be forced to do some self-examination and decide whether they are going to be part of the problem, or part of the solution. Are life-tenured Article III judgeships in essence about securing life sinecures, or about taking a perhaps unpopular and labor intensive stand for Constitutional Due Process for all, even the weakest and most vulnerable among us? We’ll soon find out!

PWS

08-09-17

NAIJ PRESIDENT JUDGE DANA LEIGH MARKS DETAILS MELTDOWN IN U.S. IMMIGRATION COURTS — CALLS ON CONGRESS FOR URGENT ACTION ON ARTICLE I IMMIGRATION COURT!

https://www.naij-usa.org/images/uploads/publications/NAIJ_-_Snapshot_CRISIS_FACING_OUR_IMMIGRATIONJune_2017.pdf

Judge Marks writes:

“SNAPSHOT OF THE CRISIS FACING OUR IMMIGRATION COURTS TODAY SALIENT FACTS AND URGENT NEEDS

June 2017

As America wrestles with unprecedented challenges to our immigration system, we are once again at a delicate juncture where we must avoid repeating the mistakes of our past. The most overlooked and often forgotten piece of the complicated immigration puzzle facing the nation is our immigration court system. Action is needed NOW to protect these unique courts from politicization and dysfunction. They are often the only face of American justice that non-citizens experience, and our values must be embodied by them. What is needed is an efficient, fair system that assures independent and timely decisions which protect the public from those who may be dangerous to our communities, and allows noncitizens who qualify (because of close family connections, employment here, or persecution in their home country) to stay here.

RECALCITRANT CASE BACKLOGS

As of the end of April, 2017, the Immigration Court backlog stood at 585,930.i The caseload of the Immigration Court has more than doubled since 2010. ii

LENGTHY DELAYS

The average number of days a case was pending on the Immigration Court docket until decision was 670 days as of April 30, 2017, although 9 states (in order of descending magnitude: Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, Texas, Michigan, Nebraska, Arizona and California) exceeded that average.iii The longest wait time is in Colorado, which is 1,002 days.iv

SURGING CASELOAD ON THE HORIZON

In 2014, an unprecedented influx of unaccompanied minors at our nation’s southwest border was labeled a humanitarian crisis, prompting the Senate to nearly double the available funding for care and resettlement of child migrants.v Those cases remain on our dockets and are not easily resolved: of the 229,357 pending juvenile cases as of April 30, 2017, 42% had no legal representation.vi It is inevitable that this influx caused dramatic increases in our dockets and will impact our system for years to come.vii Since January of 2017, our courts have been experiencing another significant increase in new cases resulting from the initiatives announced by President Trump and DHS.viii Many observers agree this is overwhelming an already strained system.ix During the first three months following these announcements, immigration arrests increased 38% over the same period one year earlier.x

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FAILURE TO MEET PREDICTABLE STAFFING NEEDS IN A TIMELY FASHION

The inability of the Immigration Courts to meet these surges in caseload is due, in large part, to the chronic lack of sufficient court staff. As long ago as 2006, after a comprehensive review of the Immigration Courts by Attorney General Gonzales, it was determined that a judge corps of 230 Immigration Judges was inadequate for the caseload at that time (approximately 168,853 pending cases) and should be increased to 270.xi Despite this finding, there were less than 235 active field Immigration Judges at the beginning of FY 2015.xii To make matters much worse, 39% of all Immigration Judges are currently eligible to retire.xiii Even with a recent renewed emphasis on hiring, the current number of Immigration Judges nationwide stands at approximately 318 today (298 who are actually in field courts), well below authorized hiring levels of 384.xiv One expert observer recommends adding at least 150 immigration judges to the corps based on its meticulous analysis of past caseload needs.xv The American Bar Association, Administrative Conference of the United States and two expert roundtables convened by Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration have all called for dramatically increased resources to staff up our courts.xvi

INADEQUATE SPACE, FACILITIES AND EQUIPMENT

As caseloads explode, the Immigration Courts find themselves in desperate need of additional physical space and facilities to conduct hearings, to accommodate both staff and the voluminous legal filings. Modernized equipment and electronic filing initiatives are needed immediately in order to respond.xvii The current courtrooms are too small to accommodate the large numbers of families now appearing before our courts, raising serious concerns regarding public safety and security. In addition, we don’t have enough courtrooms or courtrooms in the appropriate places to address the caseload.

FAILURE TO PROVIDE ESSENTIAL TOOLS FOR ADJUDICATIONS

Despite express congressional authorization of contempt power for Immigration Judges in 1996, the Department of Justice still has not promulgated implementing regulations. Without authority to impose civil monetary sanctions for attorney misconduct, Immigration Judges lack an important tool in controlling court proceedings over which they preside.

DEEPENING DISCONNECT IN FUNDING BETWEEN DHS AND THE IMMIGRATION COURTS

In the past decade, budgets for components in the Department of Homeland Security (Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement) rose approximately 300% compared to 70% for the Executive Office of Immigration Review.xviii In the meantime, while grappling with this meteoric rise in our dockets, budget bills fail to “right-size” this funding ratio and properly provide for the predictable needs of our courts. xix

CHRONIC SCARCITY OF RESOURCES CRIPPLES DAILY OPERATIONS OF THE COURT

A catastrophic hardware failure on April 12, 2014 took the docketing system off-line for five weeks, impacting the public hotline, digital audio recording and access to the electronic docketing database.xx We fear occurrences like this are just the tip of the iceberg as our chronically resource-starved system continues to face the unprecedented challenges of aging technology, surging caseloads and potential retirements.xxi We remain behind the curve, lacking state-of-the art-technology, e-filing and a reliable corps of skilled interpreters. Cases are cancelled on a regular basis because of the language services contractor’s inability to provide interpreters and serious due process concerns are implicated as the quality of interpreters which are provided has diminished.

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JUDGES PUSHED TO THE BRINK

More than five years ago, Immigration Judges reported stress and burnout at higher levels than prison wardens or doctors at busy hospitals.xxii After continuing to struggle in an environment of decreased resources and skyrocketing caseloads for so long, morale is at an all-time low and stress at an all-time high. An unprecedented number of retirements is looming.

SOLUTION

While it cannot be denied that additional resources are desperately needed immediately, resources alone cannot solve the persistent problems facing our Immigration Courts. Structural reform can no longer be put on the back burner. Since the 1981 Select Commission on Immigration, the idea of creating an Article I court, similar to the U.S. Tax Court, has been advanced.xxiii In the intervening years, a strong consensus has formed supporting this structural change. xxiv For years experts debated the wisdom of far-reaching restructuring of the Immigration Court system. Now “[m]ost immigration judges and attorneys agree the long term solution to the problem is to restructure the immigration court system….” xxv

The time has come to undertake structural reform of the Immigration Courts. It is apparent that until far-reaching changes are made, the problems which have plagued our tribunals for decades will persist. For years NAIJ has advocated establishment of an Article I court. We cannot expect a different outcome unless we change our approach to the persistent problems facing our court system. Acting now will be cost effective and will improve the speed, efficiency and fairness of the process we afford to the public we serve. Our tribunals are often the only face of American justice these individuals experience, and it must properly reflect the principles upon which our country was founded. Action is needed now on this urgent priority for the Immigration Courts. It is time to stop the cycle of overlooking this important component of the immigration enforcement system – it will be a positive step for immigration enforcement and due process.

For additional information, visit our website at www.naij-usa-org or contact:

Dana Leigh Marks, President
National Association of Immigration Judges
100 Montgomery Street, Suite 800
San Francisco, CA 94104
415-705-0140
Dana.Marks@usdoj.gov and danamarks@pobox.com

i Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), Syracuse University, Backlog of Pending Cases in Immigration Courts as ofDecember2016,http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/apprep_backlog.php; TRAC,SyracuseUniversity, Average Time Pending Cases Have Been Waiting in Immigration Courts as of April 2017, http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/apprep_backlog.php/.

ii Id. and Human Rights First, Reducing the Immigration Court Backlog and Delays, http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/sites/default/files/HRF-Backgrounder-Immigration-Courts.pdf

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iii

iv

v

Supra note i.

Supra note i.
See Presidential Memorandum For the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, June 2, 2014,

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/02/presidential-memorandum-response-influx-unaccompanied-alien-

children-acr and David Rogers, Senate Democrats Double Funding for Child Migrants, POLITICO, June 10, 2014,http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/child-migrants-immigration-senate-democrats-107665.html

vi TRAC, http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/juvenile/

vii PBS News Hour, Last year’s child migrant crisis is this year’s immigration court backlog, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Last-years-child-migrant-crisis-is-this-years-immigration-court- backlog.mp3, June 18, 2015

viii Increase in US Immigration Enforcement Likely to Mean Jump in Deportations, VOA, February 3, 2017, https://www.voanews.come/a/increased-us-immigration-enforcement-to-mean-jump-in-deportations/3705604.html

ix Priscilla Alvarez, Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Is Overwhelming a Strained System, THE ATLANTIC, April 21, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/trump-immigration-court-ice/523557

x Caitlin Dickerson, Immigration Arrests Rise Sharply as a Trump Mandate is Carried Out, THE NEW YORK TIMES, May 17, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/us/immigration-enforcement-ice-arrests.html?_r=0

xi See Press Release, Dep’t of Justice, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Outlines Reforms for Immigration Courts and Board of Immigration Appeals (Aug. 9, 2006), available at http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2006/August/06_ag_520.html , and TRAC, Improving the Immigration Courts: Efforts to Hire More Judges Fall Short, http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/189/ .

xii Approximately 20 Immigration Judges are now serving in exclusively or primarily managerial positions with little or no pending caseload. See EOIR Immigration Court Listings, http://www.justice.gov/eoir/sibpages/ICadr.htm. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to precisely calculate the number of IJs at any given point due to the rapid rate of retirements. See Homeland Security Newswire, U.S. Govt. the Largest Employer of Undocumented Immigrants, May 30, 2014, http:www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20140530-u-s-govt-the-largest-employer-of-undocumented-immigrants

xiii GAO, Immigration Courts – Actions Needed to Reduce Case Backlog and Address Long-Standing Management and Operational Challenges, GAO-17-438 (June, 2017).

xiv Supra note xiv; https://www.justice.gov/eoir/eoir-immigration-court-listing
xv See, supra, Human Rights First, Reducing the Immigration Court Backlog and Delays,

Click to access HRF-Backgrounder-Immigration-Courts.pdf

xvi American Bar Association, Reforming the Immigration Court System (2010), Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), “Immigration Removal Adjudication, Committee on Adjudication, Proposed Recommendation,” June 14 – 14, 2012; Georgetown University, Institute for the Study of International Migration, Refugee, Asylum and Other Humanitarian Policies: Challenges for Reform, report on expert’s roundtable held on October 29, 2014, available at https://isim.georgetown.edu/sites/isim/files/files/upload/Asylum%20%26%20Refugee%20Meeting%20Report.pdf

  1. xvii  Supra note xiv.
  2. xviii  See, Marc R. Rosenblum and Doris Meissner, The Deportation Dilemma, Reconciling Tough and Humane Enforcement,

MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE, April, 2014, http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/deportation-dilemma-reconciling-tough- humane-enforcement

xix Erica Werner, Spending Leaves Out Immigration Courts, ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sept. 18, 2014, http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CONGRESS_IMMIGRATION_OVERLOAD?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE- DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-08-18-16-57-40

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xx Elizabeth Summers, Weeks-Long Computer Crash Sends U.S. Immigration Courts Back to Pencils and Paper, PBS NEWSHOUR, May 23, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/weeks-long-computer-crash-sends-u-s-immigration-courts-back- pencils-paper/.

xxi Laura Wides-Munoz, Nearly Half Of Immigration Judges Eligible For Retirement Next Year, Huffington Post, Dec. 22, 2013, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/22/immigration- judges_n_4489446.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref&comm_crv.

xxii Stuart L. Lustig et al., Inside the Judges’ Chambers: Narrative Responses from the National Association of Immigration Judges Stress and Burnout Survey, 23 GEO. IMMIGR. L.J. 57 (2009).

xxiii COMM’N ON IMMIGRATION & REFUGEE POLICY, U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY AND THE NATIONAL INTEREST: FINAL REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE SELECT COMMISSION ON IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE POLICY WITH SUPPLEMENTAL VIEWS BY THE COMMISSIONERS (1981).

xxiv Prestigious legal organizations such as the American Bar Association, Federal Bar Association, and American Judicature Society wholeheartedly endorse this reform. While not as certain as to the exact form of change desired, reorganization has also been endorsed by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and increased independence by the National Association of Women Judges.

xxv Supra, note ii.”

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PROGRAM NOTE:

I am a retired member of the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”).