⚖️😮‍💨 MR. LINCOLN 5, JEFF DAVIS 4 — Union Guts Out A Narrow Win Over Confederates Before Supremes — 4 Reb Judges Appointed By GOP Dissent! — The Erstwhile “Party Of Lincoln” Has Lost It’s Way!

Jay Kuo
Jay Kuo
American Author, Producer, CEO of The Social Edge
PHOTO: Facebook

https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/on-a-razors-edge?r=330z7&utm_medium=email

Jay Kuo writes in The Status Kuo on Substack:

On Monday, the Supreme Court lifted an injunction that had prevented the Border Patrol from cutting and removing concertina razor wire that the state of Texas had installed along a migrant crossing at the Rio Grande.

Federal officials view the razor wire as exceedingly dangerous because it could trap bodies in rapid flowing waters, leading to drownings. According to officials, last week three family members—a mother and her two children—died at the river in part because Texas guard and state troopers prevented the Border Patrol from reaching them.

The conservative Fifth Circuit had ordered the injunction put in place pending its final decision, keeping the razor wire intact. But a slim majority of the Supreme Court, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the three liberals, overruled the panel.

At stake is more than whether the Border Patrol can safely do its job and help prevent deaths like those that occurred last week. Our entire federal system is premised upon the principle that the federal government has exclusive authority to enforce border policy. States like Texas should not have the right to run interference or act as if they are the border patrol.

And yet, four extremist justices—Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh—would have left the federal government powerless for now to remove a dangerous barrier illegally erected by Texas.

The latest battle over the border should be viewed within the broader question of what is the proper role of the states when it comes to immigration. And this isn’t the only battle that Texas Governor Greg Abbott and extremist Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have picked to try and claim more of that power for the states.

Today, I’ll discuss how the Supreme Court came to review this case about the cutting and removal of razor wire at the border. Then I’ll zoom out so we can see how this fits into a larger challenge to federal authority over immigration.

pastedGraphic.pngSubscribed

Razor wire and the Texas federal courts

When Texas first erected razor wire at the river—the kind designed to catch clothing and tear flesh—it was roundly condemned by human rights organizations, and legal scholars quickly pointed out that Texas was acting extrajudicially. After all, at the border, it is the federal government that oversees enforcement, including what kinds of barriers to erect and how to treat and handle migrants. Many of the border crossings are by asylum seekers, and they are therefore there legally in accordance with international law.

Allowing Texas to insert itself as a state actor would upend all traditional notions of federalism and the limit of states’ rights when it comes to questions of homeland security. But a federal district judge and later the Fifth Circuit didn’t see it that way. On December 19, 2023, a panel in New Orleans temporarily barred Border Patrol agents from cutting or removing the wire in the area around Eagle Pass, with an exception for “medical emergencies.” This was a shocking opinion given its apparent disregard of settled law establishing exclusive federal power over immigration policies and execution.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that the injunction barred border agents from doing their jobs, specifically, from having clear access to the U.S.-Mexico border and “reaching migrants who have already entered U.S. territory.” Moreover, the exception for medical emergencies was insufficient because it takes time to cut through the wire, and while the clock is ticking there is a “very real” risk of serious injury or death for those trapped.

Texas claimed that federal border agents were not actually apprehending and processing migrants even after they passed through the gaps in the wire that had been cut by the feds some twenty times. The state had property rights of its own, Texas argued, as well as an interest in stopping “deadly fentanyl,” human trafficking,” and to “minimize the risks to people, both U.S. citizens and migrants, of drowning while making perilous journeys to and through illegal points of entry.” (The fentanyl argument is a red herring; the vast percentage of fentanyl entering the country arrives not via migrants crossing the river at the border, which would be a decidedly foolish way to try and transport drugs, but through smuggling by U.S. citizens and legal residents.)

In January, Texas upped the stakes by moving to block federal agents entirely from the area where they normally launch patrol boats and conduct mobile surveillance. This contributed to the three family members’ deaths because fedeal agents had no clear access to the river. In fact, they couldn’t even determine whether a “medical emergency” was occurring, as Prelogar pointed out.

Prelogar won her appeal for the U.S. government and got the injunction lifted by the High Court, but by only a single vote.

The State of Texas keeps trying to enforce national border policy

Governor Abbott has a multi-billion dollar program in place called “Operation Lone Star” that includes massive allocation of personnel to the border, the erecting of illegal and often dangerous barriers, and most recently a new law that authorizes state and local law enforcement to arrest migrants crossing from Mexico.

This has set up yet another showdown with the federal government. That law goes into effect in March, and it is seen as a test case to challenge a 2012 case, Arizona v. United States, that narrowly left the power to determine immigration policy to the federal government, not the states.

Texas and Louisiana already lost a case where they had challenged the Biden administration’s immigration guidelines and its deportation policies. Those guidelines had been halted nationwide by a federal judge in Texas, who ruled they violated federal law. In that case, by a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court initially and rather alarmingly had allowed the injunction to remain in place. But ultimately it ruled 8-1 in June of 2023 against Texas and Louisiana, with only Justice Alito in dissent, reaffirming the federal government’s central role on matters of immigration policy.

Where things go from here

Governor Abbott and state Attorney General Paxton remain keen to find where the new conservative majority on SCOTUS might rule their way. So they keep pushing and testing the limits. In the razor wire case, while there’s no way to know why four extremist justices dissented from the lifting of the injunction—and it conceivably could have been because the full matter will be taken up shortly anyway by the Fifth Circuit in February—the impression it has left is unmistakable.

As CNN legal analyst and University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck observed, “Whatever one thinks of current immigration policy, it ought not to be that controversial that states cannot prevent the federal government from enforcing federal law—lest we set the stage for Democratic-led states to similarly attempt to frustrate the enforcement of federal policies by Republican presidents.” He added, “That four justices would still have left the lower-court injunction in place will be taken, rightly or wrongly, as a sign that some of those longstanding principles of constitutional federalism might be in a degree of flux.”

In response to the loss before the Supreme Court, a spokesman for Abbott put out a statement claiming that the “absence of razor wire and other deterrence strategies encourages migrants to make unsafe and illegal crossings between ports of entry.” He added that the governor “will continue fighting to defend Texas’ property and its constitutional authority to secure the border.”

But this assertion about unsafe crossings was disputed by federal officials, underscoring the need for a single government policy. Said a White House spokesperson, “Enforcement of immigration law is a federal responsibility. Rather than helping to reduce irregular migration, the State of Texas has only made it harder for frontline personnel to do their jobs and to apply consequences under the law. We can enforce our laws and administer them safely, humanely, and in an orderly way.”

This was for now only a battle over a temporary injunction. The Fifth Circuit will next consider the full case in February, incluing whether to lift the injunction permanently. But it will do so with an understanding that five SCOTUS justices view Texas as unlikely to succeed on the merits. An appeal back up to the Supreme Court is likely, no matter which side prevails at the appellate level.

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

Texas’s legal argument was frivolous. The vote at the Supremes should have been 9-0. That it wasn’t should make us all fear for our country’s future as a nation that operates under the rule of law!

Jeff Davis
Jefferson Davis
Racist, traitor, insurrectionist
President of Confederate Stares of America
Public Realm
 John C. Calhoun
John C.Calhoun
White Supremacist, racist, nullifier
U.S. Vice President
Public Realm

Jeff Davis and John C. Calhoun would be proud of the dissenters — although, ironically, those two “nullifiers” wouldn’t even recognize one of the dissenters, Justice Thomas, as a “person” with any rights at all, let alone the ability to sit on our highest Federal Court! Remarkably, despite claiming to be a student of history, Thomas was unable to connect the dots between Calhoun’s and Davis’s rebellious, racist, dehumanization of African Americans and Greg Abbot’s rebellious, racist, dehumanization of legal asylum seekers of color!

The Federal Government’s authority to stop State Governments seeking to nullify and deny Federal authority matters! That’s particularly true when those acts of nullification are based on racial animus! That today’s righty-dominated Supremes won’t unite behind this straightforward principle of Federalism is a blow to equal protection under the Constitution!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-24-23 

🇺🇸🗽 INSPIRING AMERICA: Dreamer Viridiana Chabolla “Pays It Forward” — Big Time! — “How can I help aside from placing my hopes in a Congress that is more concerned about building borders than dealing with these issues?”

 

Viridiana Chabolla ’13, who was brought to the U.S. from Mexico at 2 years old, on the day she became a U.S. citizen in 2021.
Viridiana Chabolla ’13, who was brought to the U.S. from Mexico at 2 years old, on the day she became a U.S. citizen in 2021.
PHOTO: Pamona College Magazine

https://magazine.pomona.edu/2023/summer/all-the-way-to-the-supreme-court/

Carla Maria Guerrero writes in Pomona College Magazine: 

There are not a lot of big wins for Viridiana Chabolla ’13 in her line of work. It’s not for a lack of trying, or a lack of sweat and tears. Her commitment has been tested over the years but she remains determined. Chabolla is an attorney working in immigration law. The landscape is grim, she says. It can be heartbreaking. Demoralizing. She’s not just an attorney. She is an immigrant, too, and for most of her life she was undocumented.

In February, the Los Angeles Times wrote a story about one of her recent clients. Leonel Contreras, a U.S. Army veteran, was a legal permanent resident before being deported to Mexico after serving time for a nonviolent crime. Contreras had grown up in the U.S., but after his deportation he worked and lived in Tijuana for at least a decade before the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles took his case and Chabolla helped him return to his family members in California. He became a U.S. citizen earlier this year.

“It’s really nice to wave an American flag at a naturalization ceremony,” says Chabolla, who began working at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef) in October 2021. “Immigration law is so harsh and when it’s not harsh, it’s just not helpful. It’s hard to have a win. When you have those moments, you have to grab on and make them last.”

Chabolla was born in Guanajuato, Mexico. Her mother came to the U.S. to escape a bad relationship and start a new life. A 2-year-old Chabolla and the rest of her mother’s family joined her soon after. Chabolla grew up with her grandparents, aunts and cousins all living close to each other in East Los Angeles. “I’d remember seeing my mom and aunts getting ready for work at ridiculous hours of the day,” she says of the early-morning hubbub. “I remember always being surrounded by people and conversations. There were a lot of disagreements but a lot of love.”

When she was 11, Chabolla met a group of lawyers who worked in East L.A. Although she didn’t know what exactly they did, she recalls thinking that they seemed to hold a lot of power. They seemed to have some kind of authority to help her and others like her—people who were not born in the U.S.

It was during Chabolla’s junior year at Pomona that the Obama administration established an immigration policy that changed her life. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) allowed certain immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and also become eligible for a work permit.

For the first time, Chabolla was able to have a job on campus. She saved her first pay stub. It wasn’t much in terms of money, but it was significant for Chabolla.

With DACA, Chabolla’s future seemed a bit brighter. She could now apply for jobs after graduation. Her first work after Pomona was as an organizer with the pro bono legal services nonprofit Public Counsel, a choice that set her on a course for a win of historic proportions.

For four years, Chabolla took down the stories of plaintiffs for cases being handled by Public Counsel. As time passed, she began to feel more empowered to share her immigration status with her director, Mark Rosenbaum, even as the national political landscape was transitioning from an Obama presidency to a Trump one.

“When Trump was elected, I broke down,” she says. She remembers Rosenbaum calling her to tell her she didn’t have to go to work the next day: “Go be with your family, go through your emotions,” he told her.

“We didn’t know what Trump would do first. We just hit the ground running,” says Chabolla, who worked on the defense case for Daniel Ramirez Medina, the first person to have his DACA permit taken away. “With everything going on, we focused on putting out fires. Trump wasn’t taking out DACA in one go just yet. He was creating all of this panic everywhere first.”

Her time at Public Counsel rekindled Chabolla’s original interest in law.

“I kept thinking of the best way I could help others. I loved the idea of gaining new knowledge, and a degree in law would allow me to have a sense of power,” she says. The attorneys at Public Counsel, like her boss Rosenbaum, not only practiced law and led big cases but they also wrote articles and taught university-level courses.

In September of 2017, the Trump administration announced it was officially rescinding DACA. Chabolla had just started at the UC Irvine School of Law. Her initial response was to focus on school and wait.

Then Chabolla got a call from Rosenbaum. “He called me to be a plaintiff in a case against the United States. I felt terrified.”

Chabolla phoned her mother and her family. “If I shared my story, I would have to share their story,” she says. She also was married by then and discussed the possible ramifications with her husband.

Her family was supportive. Chabolla felt compelled to help.

The Public Counsel lawsuit led by Rosenbaum was filed as Garcia v. United States. As it made its way through the higher courts, it was merged with four other cases and ultimately became known as Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California by the time it reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

As a plaintiff in the case, Chabolla shared her story with a lawyer for a written declaration. While she never testified before any judges, she did have to share her immigration story multiple times as the case garnered national media attention.

On June 18, 2020, the Supreme Court delivered its 5-4 decision blocking the Trump administration’s elimination of DACA. Chabolla was in Washington for the hearing. “A few of us got to go inside,” she recalls. “Some DACA students were there, too. And it was really powerful. These justices were hearing arguments on this huge case…but I know maybe for them all cases they hear are huge. But we occupied half the room and that was really powerful and really unusual.”

Chabolla took notes during the hearing. “I remember writing down something that Justice [Sonia] Sotomayor said: ‘This is not about the law; this is about our choice to destroy lives.’

“So much of what Trump did was done without following administrative law,” explains Chabolla about how they “won” this case. “Trump didn’t follow procedure,” she says. “If they had taken their time and done it right, it would have passed. But I remember taking the win.”

Chabolla, who had just recently become a U.S. resident through marriage, remembers feeling relief for the DACA community.

“The DACA victory in the Supreme Court is a testament to the vision, commitment and tireless efforts of many, and Viri’s name would surely be at the top of that list,” says Rosenbaum. “I had the privilege of working with Viri at Public Counsel, first as an organizer…and then to come forward as a plaintiff in Garcia to inspire others to do the same and make the case that our nation needs DACA recipients to build a kinder and more inclusive community for all of us.”

Upon returning home, Chabolla once again focused on school—it was her second-to-last semester at UC Irvine. She spent a year as a graduate legal assistant with the Office of the Attorney General for the California Department of Justice. It was a tough gig for a newly graduated lawyer. After one year, she left for her current job as a staff attorney at ImmDef, a legal services nonprofit with a post-conviction unit that drew her interest. “They take on clients who have criminal convictions like possession of marijuana from 40 years ago with deportation orders—deportation is not a fair punishment for everyone.

“Many of our clients have been living here as legal permanent residents for more than 20 years. Most find out they’re getting deported just when they’re going to be released,” she says. “The statistics show that immigrants commit fewer crimes than the general population and our clients have already served their time—in jail, or prison, they’ve paid their dues and they’ve even paid their fines. Adding deportation is a way of saying ‘I don’t like that you’re an immigrant.’ It’s extra punishment.”

The work is tough. “My supervisor has shared that sometimes we have to redefine what a win is,” says Chabolla. “It makes up partially for the times when we have a clinic and all these people show up thinking they can apply for residency when they actually can’t.”

She says that the immigrants she talks to are so full of hope. They believe that an attorney—like herself—can do it all. “Every situation is different. No lawyer has a miracle cure.

“It’s heartbreaking to know how many people are becoming elders who don’t have a nest egg, who paid taxes into the system but they can’t access Social Security, can’t access Medicare,” Chabolla adds. “It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about in the past two years: How can I help aside from placing my hopes in a Congress that is more concerned about building borders than dealing with these issues?”

In 2021, Chabolla became a U.S. citizen. The day was bittersweet and laden with guilt. “It was one of those moments where I felt I was further abandoning my undocumented community, but I know that’s not true,” she says. Although her mother recently became a U.S. resident, some of her family remains undocumented.

Chabolla says she’s been able to find some balance as an ally who was once directly impacted by immigration policies. “I’m trying to find a place where I can remain hopeful in my job and be a zealous lawyer and advocate.”

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

Congrats and way to go Viri! You have already established yourself as a “New Generation Leader” of the NDPA! Awesome! 

For years, the GOP has been mindlessly blocking various versions of DACA, at a great human cost as well as a huge cost to our nation. Dreamers who are able to achieve citizenship, without special help from Congress, and other “New Generation” members of the NDPA must follow the lead of Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) by getting into the “power structure” and forcing long overdue progressive changes. 

Thanks to Chief Justice Roberts, the Supremes got this one right, barely 5-4. One vote has made a huge difference in literally hundreds of thousands of lives, and helped to shape American’s future for the better. By contrast, the Trump Administration’s failed attempts to undo this important program was a disgraceful abuse of Government resources! The inability of GOP-controlled states to let this issue go — essentially too keep bullying and threatening some of the most productive and deserving members of our society — is beyond disgusting.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-20-23

🤮 ANOTHER SUPREME GRIFTER: Like Thomas, Alito Finds That Accepting Largess From GOP Billionaires With Business Before The Court Just Comes With The Job — His WSJ “Defense” Flunks “The Straight-Face Test!” 🤣

Justice Alito gets acquainted with billionaires he hardly knew while holding salmon he never previously met and NOT drinking $1,000 peer bottle wine. His "fish story" in the WSJ is a real whopper!Photo: Pro Publica
Justice Alito gets acquainted with billionaires he hardly knew while holding salmon he never previously met and NOT drinking $1,000 per bottle wine. His “fish story” in the WSJ is a real whopper!
Photo: Pro Publica
Jay Kuo
Jay Kuo
American Author, Producer, CEO of The Social Edge
PHOTO: Facebook

Jay Kuo writes in Substack:

In some ways it was bound to happen. For months the public focus has been on Justice Clarence Thomas. Per excellent reporting by ProPublica, Thomas had secretly accepted myriad unreported gifts from billionaire-with-an-archvillain’s-name Harlan Crow: lavish private flights, luxury trips, years of private tuition for a family member, and money for the sale and renovation of his mother’s home (where she still lives rent free). With all that rotting out in the open, it was naturally time to look at the records and practices of other justices who seem to operate outside ethical rules.

This time in the barrel belongs to Justice Samuel Alito, the author and possible leaker of the Dobbs decision that struck down 50 years of federal abortion rights protections under Roe v. Wade. Like Justice Thomas, Alito has been cozy with his own billionaire, hedge fund owner Paul Singer. According to a new blockbuster report from ProPublica by the same team of reporters who brought us the corrupt tales of Justice Thomas, billionaire Singer flew Alito to Alaska on a private plane for a salmon fishing retreat back in 2008.

These billionaires sure like making friends with Supreme Court justices.

As with Thomas and Crow, Alito never disclosed the trip or his relationship with Singer, even though Singer had many cases that regularly came before the Court for review. This included a doozy in which Alito joined the majority in handing Singer’s company an outcome worth $2.4 billion. More on that below.

This controversy is further unique because Alito, seeking to get out ahead of the story, went to his buddies at the Wall Street Journal Opinions department and got them to publish an OpEd written by him entitled “ProPublica Misleads Its Readers.” It purported to “respond” to the ProPublica report hours before it was published. It is awkward and frankly embarrassing to see a justice opine on something he hasn’t even read, all in the hopes of saving his own petard.

Alito’s stated rationales for why he didn’t report the trip, along with his downplaying of his relationship with Singer, are unconvincing and in many ways ludicrous. More on that below, too. But his words do nothing to change the fact that we now have two sitting justices who are trying to explain away apparent efforts to buy influence with the Court.

As Ronald Reagan once put it, if you’re explaining, you’re losing.

Let’s look at the basic facts uncovered in the ProPublica reporting, and then at Alito’s lame responses in his OpEd. If Chief Justice John Roberts thought the scrutiny and collapsing public faith in the High Court had subsided, he thought wrong.

. . . .

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

Read Jay’s full op-Ed at the link.

Alito’s “defense” explained in plain English:

Here’s the deal. I’m only a humble Supreme’s Justice, so I didn’t really understand Federal ethics law. Rather than wasting time getting an opinion from an impartial expert, I looked at what others (defined as “my GOP judicial cronies Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia”) were doing. I reasonably concluded that since the wine I was served at dinner cost less than $1,000 a bottle, there was no problem.

Moreover, please understand that I hardly knew the guy who offered me the $100,000 trip on his private jet. That’s why I found it necessary to take a vacant seat on his private jet, to keep it from going to waste.

Since that put me in Alaska anyway, I figured why not get in a couple of days of salmon fishing with some GOP fat cat donors while roughing it in $1,000/night rustic accommodations like most Alaskans live in. It put me more in touch with the average billionaire and allowed me to empathize with their dire predicament in a socialist society.

Moreover, I’m a busy guy. How could I possibly know or predict that some of these random billionaires would have business before our Court or would have their financial interests materially affected by our rulings?

Would the “woke crowd” at Pro Publica be raising a stink if I had taken the same trip with homeless folks or asylum applicants being flown to Alaska by Gov. DeSantis or Gov. Abbott. I doubt it! Clearly, the liberal media’s double standard is being applied here.

These outrageous charges against me and GOP billionaires I hardly know are just more proof that under Democrats, America has become hostile territory for billionaires. No “reasonable person” (defined as a “GOP Judge who hobnobs with billionaires they hardly know”) would see an “appearance of impropriety” here!

How many “average American reasonable persons” other than me find themselves harassed by the press just for weekending with random billionaires in Alaska? None! Has there ever been a clearer case of media bullying?

As I always say, ignorance of the law is no excuse when applied to poor criminal defendants or unrepresented immigrants who can’t understand the complexities and illogic of our immigration laws. But, I’m not a criminal defendant nor am I a migrant, who, in my view, isn’t a “person” at all under our Constitution. Let them eat cake or drink $1,000 bottles of wine. Moreover, bad judgement is not a crime nor is it a legal disqualification from being a Justice and continuing to pass final, un-reviewable judgement on others.

Finally, I want to say that I am being persecuted by far left journalists who are threatening to publish facts in an article I’ve not yet read. They gave me a chance to respond in advance, but I stonewalled it in favor of an op-ed that was immediately run by my buddies over at the WSJ editorial board. That’s what any “reasonable person” would do when falsely accused of accepting favors from billionaires they hardly know.

Let’s look at this another way. Immigration Judge X accepts a $100,000 private plane ride and a couple of days of salmon fishing and uber-expensive dinners at an exclusive, $1,000 per night fishing camp in Alaska. Judge X claims that he barely knew the guy who offered him the trip, but merely went to keep an otherwise vacant seat on the private plane from going unused. Judge X was later shocked to learn that his benefactor’s spouse had a removal case pending before Judge X, which Judge X later heard and decided in the spouse’s favor. 

Raise your hand 🙋🏼‍♀️if you think Judge X would still have a job after these facts surfaced! Would Judge X get a chance to “rebut the allegations in advance” in the WSJ?

Think that there is “equal justice for all” in America?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-22-23

🏴‍☠️ SUPREMELY CORRUPT! 🤮 — Clarence & Ginni Thomas Wined & Dined “Off The Books” By GOP Fat Cat! 🤑 “Let’s just say that none of the trips Thomas took with Crow on his yacht and to his private resort in the Adirondacks resembled a Walmart parking lot.“ 👎🏼

Clarence Thomas Gifts

Clarence Thomas Gifts
Cartoonist: Dave Whamond
Republished under license

https://open.substack.com/pub/steady/p/a-great-piece-of-journalism?r=330z7&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner write on Substack:

A hallmark of great journalism is that it shines a bright light on information that is in the public’s interest but that powerful forces and actors desperately want to remain hidden.

A perfect example of this came today with a blockbuster investigative report from ProPublica about serious ethical questions concerning Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. 

In a thorough examination of Thomas’s two-decade relationship with billionaire and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, reporters Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, and Alex Mierjeski detail a series of trips gifted to Thomas and his wife, Ginni, that on the open market would likely have totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars.

None of these were disclosed by Thomas, who likes to portray himself as a man of simple tastes. The report notes that in a recent documentary about his life, Thomas stated, “I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it.” Let’s just say that none of the trips Thomas took with Crow on his yacht and to his private resort in the Adirondacks resembled a Walmart parking lot.

It is fitting that this news would drop a day after we wrote about the election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The reporting on Thomas shows the utter hypocrisy of those on the political right claiming that progressive judges are the ones undermining faith in our judicial system.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts likes to intone on how much he cares for the integrity of the court. But under his watch, the court’s standing with the public has dropped precipitously. And he need look no further than his ideological counterparts in the court’s right-wing majority.

The damage to the court’s reputation has been manifest in a series of rulings that have made a mockery of the ideas of judicial restraint and precedent. These have overturned Roe v. Wade, emboldened unrestricted gun rights, and undermined our representative government through gerrymandered elections. And that’s just the beginning.

Then there is the personal conduct of the justices, of which Thomas, a hero to the right, is a particularly egregious example. Here he is hobnobbing with rich, powerful interests and not letting anyone know. There he was refusing to recuse himself from a case involving the January 6 insurrection even though his own wife was implicated. It is clear he feels he has no need to defend his actions to anyone. He is completely unaccountable and flaunts it.

Senate Democrats today called for an ethics code for the Supreme Court. But color us skeptical that anything will change anytime soon.

This is a time of great tension in the function (or perhaps more aptly, the dysfunction) of our democracy. It feels as if we have been walking a high wire for years. But the tension still increases. In just the last few days, we have seen a state legislator in North Carolina who had run as a solid Democrat switch parties, giving Republicans a supermajority. In Tennessee, Republicans in the state’s House expelled two Democratic representatives who had joined students in protesting inaction on gun violence. And this on top of what we saw in Wisconsin.

There is also the backdrop of the former president facing numerous strands of legal peril.

There has always been an element of hardball in politics. There have always been public officials who skirted or crossed the lines of ethics and the law. There have always been judges who had dubious connections. Democracy is always precarious.

But there is a sense that now the danger is building. Voters are angry. The will of the majority is being undermined on issues like abortion and gun safety. Power is being accrued for its own sake and not to address the needs of the people.

These are times when we need a fearless press to explain where there is peril and where there is promise around the ability of our nation to regain its footing and thrive. Kudos to ProPublica for its contribution to the health of American democracy.  

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

For the last several weeks, the so-called “mainstream media” has been providing “wall to wall” coverage of a “non-event” that eventually “morphed” into yet another tawdry episode in the tawdry life of America’s most visible anti-democracy fascist! They worked hard to give “equal (or greater) time” to a unified disingenuous effort by this guy’s supporters to portray him as “the victim!” In perhaps a new “modern journalistic low” they willingly provided a platform for dangerous wacko conspiracy theorist “MTG” to spew forth her vile “sicko-fascist” rantings — with little pushback and no fact checking!

Fortunately, as pointed out by Rather and Kirschner, somebody, in this case Pro Publica, was out there doing serious investigative journalism while their “mainstream” colleagues indulged their fantasies!

For more on the GOP’s concerted, nationwide assault on democracy and fundamental values, read historian Heather Cox Richardson, here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/april-6-2023?r=330z7&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-07-23

👨‍⚖️BREAKING: C.J. ROBERTS ISSUES TEMP STAY IN FIGHT TO END TITLE 42 CHARADE!

Michelle Hackman
Michelle Hackman
Immigration Reporter
Wall Street Journal

Michelle Hackman reports for the WSJ:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-administration-races-to-change-asylum-rules-as-title-42-expiration-looms-11671460300?st=wjf0spwkrvg9wrw&reflink=article_copyURL_share

  

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The temporary stay doesn’t address the merits. It just allows the full Court to consider the the State GOP AG’s frivolous challenge to reinstitution of the rule of law at the Southern border which was set to take effect on Wednesday, Dec. 22.

Frivolous as the challenge might be, it’s unclear how the current GOP-dominated Supremes will react to this latest right-wing abuse of our legal system and war on human rights and the rule of law!

Stay tuned!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-19-22

⚖️ 👨🏻‍⚖️ THE LEVIN REPORT: AS FEALTY TO GOP’S OUT OF TOUCH EXTREME RIGHT AGENDA ROBS SUPREMES OF CREDIBILITY, ALITO BLAMES JUSTICE KAGAN FOR STATING THE OBVIOUS!

Bess Levin
Bess Levin
Politics & Finance Writer
Vanity Fair

Bess Levin writes:

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As recent polls have shown, Americans’ confidence in the Supreme Court is at an all-time low, which presumably has something to do with the decision by the Court’s conservatives to inflict their medieval ideas about bodily autonomy on the country and end the national right to an abortion in June. Might it also have something to do with one of the justice’s spouses reportedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election and another securing his lifetime appointment without actually being properly vetted by the FBI? Yes, sure. But the biggie is no doubt the overturning of Roe v. Wade. (No, really: You don’t have to be a constitutional law expert to figure this out, seeing as a majority of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most instances.)

 

Justice Elena Kagan—who happens to be one of the few people on the Court who doesn’t believe half of the population should be treated like second-class citizens—recently pointed this out. At a July judicial conference in Big Sky, Montana, she told an audience: “If, over time, the Court loses all connection with the public and with public sentiment, that is a dangerous thing for democracy.” Earlier this month, while speaking on a panel at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, she declared that a court is legitimate “when it’s acting like a court,” and that it’s a problem when justices attempt to impose their personal preferences on society. And last week, she made similar remarks at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island, saying that throughout the Court’s history, “The very worst moments have been times when judges have even essentially reflected one party’s or one ideology’s set of views in their legal decisions. The thing that builds up reservoirs of public confidence is the Court acting like a court and not acting like an extension of the political process.”

 

Kagan’s comments don’t appear to be sitting very well with certain male justices. As Chief Justice John Roberts told a judicial conference in Colorado Springs, “Simply because people disagree with an opinion is not a basis for questioning the legitimacy of the Court.” But it was Samuel Alito’s response that was the most creepy, given the very clear problem he has has with women.

 

In a comment to The Wall Street Journal, the archconservative said: “It goes without saying that everyone is free to express disagreement with our decisions and to criticize our reasoning as they see fit. But saying or implying that the Court is becoming an illegitimate institution or questioning our integrity crosses an important line.” In other words, he wants Elena Kagan to shut her liberal mouth, which is not only some anti-free-speech bullshit but a convenient way for him to ignore the fact that he shares a large portion of the blame for the widely held view that the Court has no integrity.

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Unfortunately, Alito’s comment to the Journal shouldn’t surprise many people who’ve kept up with his work. Not only did he author the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade in June, but he gleefully noted that his inspiration for doing so was a 17th-century English jurist who supported marital rape and had women executed for witchcraft. Later, after a 10-year-old rape victim was denied an abortion in her home state, Alito was doing comedy routines about taking away a pregnant person’s right to choose.

 

Of course, let’s not forget the other justice who’s done his part to erode confidence in the Supreme Court

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Trial By Ordeal
Alito’s brand of “justice” harkens back to glorious days of yore when all-male judges had a range of methods for dealing with uppity women who thought they were entitled to control their own bodies and lives! — Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal”
17th Century Woodcut
Public Realm
Source: Ancient Origins Website
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160

 

Read the rest of The Levin Report and subscribe at the above links.

Yesterday, new Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was invested. As I’ve observed before, after the niceties and handshakes, her right wing extremist GOP colleagues will return to their chambers and continue to plot ways to bend and distort the law to dehumanize, disenfranchise, and demean Justice Brown Jackson, others like her, and all of the genuine American values she represents.

Lawrence Tribe’s tweeted critique of Alito’s disingenuous nonsense (see, full article) is “spot on:” “It’s politically agenda-driven decisions that cross the line by eroding the Court’s legitimacy.”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-01-22

🏴‍☠️🤯👎🏽 CRUMBLING INSTITUTIONS: OF COURSE THE OUT OF TOUCH, POLITICIZED SUPREMES’ GOP MAJORITY IS SHEDDING LEGITIMACY AS THEY IMPLEMENT AN EXTREME FAR-RIGHT POLITICAL AGENDA WITHOUT LEGAL BASIS! — C.J. Roberts’s Incredibly Lame Claim Otherwise Proves It!

John Roberts
His defense of the indefensible went over like a lead balloon with those whose lives have been upended by the radical right Justices’ political agenda!

Every time a GOP politico or media sycophant preferences remarks with “I’m not a racist,” you know that some outrageous racist statement is about to follow. What they are doing is dishonestly attempting to preemptively “shift the blame and focus” to those who call out their vile, dishonest conduct!

Over the weekend, Chief Justice John Roberts, drifted down a similar discredited path of disingenuous “preemptive denial.” In a ludicrously tone deaf statement that echoed Tricky Dick’s “I’m not a crook” speech, Roberts lamely attempted to defend the legitimacy of his Court’s stripping of fundamental human rights from women. In doing so, he basically reinforced critics’ points about the Court’s illegitimate, extralegal, right-wing, political war on individual and human rights with a good bit of misogyny thrown in!

Richard Nixon
Nixon’s “I’m not a crook speech” convinced many that he was, indeed, a crook. Roberts’s “My Court isn’t illegitimate just because it advances a far-right political agenda speech” is heading in the same direction!
PHOTO: Twitter

Never mind that the Court basically aligned itself with authoritarian theocrats promoting “forced birth” and overt subjugation of a woman’s fundamental right to decide whether or not to reproduce. Indeed, advancing that minority political agenda was the fundamental reason why Roberts and his GOP crew are on the Court in the first place! To pretend otherwise is off the wall!

There are some strong moral, societal, economic, and  medical arguments to be made about why women should or should not choose to have children. Under the First Amendment, both those who favor abortion and those who oppose it have always been free to argue their points. 

But, the idea that these choices should be removed from those directly concerned and placed in the hands of political and religious authorities is preposterous. Lacking convincing arguments to persuade all women facing that choice to their side, the far right theocracy did a preemptive strike! And, their “wholly-owned Justices” went along!

Needless to say, Roberts’s insultingly disingenuous defense of the indefensible did not fare well with informed critics. 

Former Sen. Claire McCaskill, now an MSNBC analyist, On Meet the Press:

On Sunday, McCaskill – an MSNBC political analyst – tore into Roberts for taking the country backward and recalled that the jurists who signed onto Alito’s originalist rationalization misled the public during their respective Senate confirmation hearings.

“He’s so so out of touch. I mean really, this interview shows why the numbers for the Supreme Court are so bad. For him to say something like that, he just doesn’t get it. You don’t take away a right that’s been around for 50 years and you don’t have a party go to extremes of trying to make sure rape victims have to have forced birth,” McCaskill said.

“You don’t do that and not have it splash back on the Supreme Court,” she continued. “And they all said they respected precedent when they were confirmed. I heard them. America heard them. Clearly, they didn’t, and you can feel me getting angry at John Roberts right now because he knows better when he says that stuff.”

Professor (and former prosecutor) Joyce White Vance, Professor Leah Litman, Professor Stephen I. Vladeck, Political Scientist Norman Ornstein:

https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/claire-mccaskill-john-roberts-roe/

“Roberts’s failure to understand why the court has lost credibility with so many Americans smacks of ‘Let them eat cake,’ ” Joyce White Vance, a former prosecutor and a distinguished professor of the practice of law at the University of Alabama law school, told me. “The Supreme Court has a proud history of defending our rights, not taking them away. The Roberts court will go down in history as the first one” to strip away people’s rights.

University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman said: “I would be embarrassed to say something that naive and divorced from reality if I had said it as a first-year law student. For the chief justice to say it is just an insult to the intellect of everyone who knows anything about the court, American democracy and politics.”

. . .

If Roberts and the conservative bloc were to engage in just a tiny amount of self-reflection, they would understand that their own actions have brought them to this point. Law professor Stephen I. Vladeck, of the University of Texas school of law, asked me rhetorically: “If the court’s legitimacy doesn’t come from public acceptance of the principled nature of its decision-making, where does it come from?”

While Roberts might not have written the most egregious opinions, he has joined in them, from the abortion ruling in Dobbs, to the prayer-in-schools ruling in Bremerton, to a Brnovich decision on voting rights, written by Alito, that “blatantly ignored the plain language of the law and rewrote it to fit his partisan and ideological views,” as political scientist Norman Ornstein told me. Moreover, Ornstein said, it is Roberts who has “ignored Clarence Thomas’s blatant conflicts of interest and continues to oppose applying the judicial code of ethics to the Supreme Court, even as its credibility plummets.”

He concluded: “John G. Roberts Jr. is far from the worst justice undermining the fundamental legitimacy of the court, but he is surely culpable.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/12/roberts-criticism-supreme-court-whining/

Jennifer Rubin, WashPost opinion writer:

The court has failed to regulate itself and instead has abused its power. None of the six right-wing justices acknowledge, nor do they signal they want to halt, the conduct that has lost the public’s confidence.

So it’s up to Congress and the president to shore up the court’s credibility. Allocating more seats to correct the damage done by Sen. Mitch McConnell’s court-packing, imposing term limits on all justices and enacting a mandatory code of ethics would be good places to start.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/12/roberts-criticism-supreme-court-whining/

Eric Lutz in Vanity Fair:

But it’s not just the outcome, which decimated a right Americans had held for five decades and put a variety of other privacy rights in jeopardy. It’s the way that decision — and others on guns, climate change, and religion — recently came to pass.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/09/john-roberts-defends-supreme-court-against-legitimacy-questions

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In this case, Roberts would have done better to confine himself to “calling balls and strikes.” Sadly, he and his GOP colleagues have gotten out from behind the plate and taken the field in their “Federalist Society” uniforms. He’s going to have to learn to live with objections and catcalls from those in the stands who see what’s really going on here and are understandably upset about the Court’s overreach, substandard legal performance, lack of accountability, absence of self-awareness, and, yes, lack of legitimacy.

Better judges for a better, fairer America — from the Immigration Courts to the Supremes! 

By the way, we can’t change the Supremes overnight. But, Biden, Harris, & Garland COULD have reformed, repaired, and legitimized the Immigration Courts, including the BIA, that they control. That they have failed to do so is the biggest “unforced error” of the Biden Administration — one that will haunt Democrats and Americans for ages! 

Every day Garland’s parody of a court system, still largely bearing the unmistakable stamp of White Nationalists Sessions, Barr and Miller, continues to run roughshod over individual rights, often in life or death cases, while degrading the judicial process. Misogyny and racism are also on full display, as a disproportionate brunt of their unprofessional, wrong-headed, result-oriented “any reason to deny” decision-making falls on refugee women of color (and often on their accompanying children).

There is a very direct connection between “DHS agents in robes” in our Immigration Courts and “right-wing politicos in robes” at the Supremes. Part of the idea is to “normalize” injustice directed at “the other” — just so long as YOUR life isn’t directly affected, who cares? It’s also known as “Dred Scottification.”  It’s the “polar opposite” of Dr. Martin Luther King’s observation that “injustice anywhere is a threat to  justice everywhere.” If Dems don’t “connect the dots,” they might not be able to save our democracy!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-12-22.

😎⚖️🗽👍UNEXPECTED BOOST FOR DUE PROCESS & HUMANITY! — SUPREMES ALLOW BIDEN TO TERMINATE SCOFFLAW, CRUEL, FAILED “REMAIN IN MEXICO” TRAVESTY (A/K/A “LET ‘EM DIE ☠️⚰️IN MEXICO”) INITIATED BY TRUMP! — Biden v. Texas, Narrow 5-4 Majority Thwarts White Nationalist Initiative — C.J. Roberts (Opinion), joined by Justices Kavanaugh, Breyer, Sotomayor, & Kagan Save Humanity, Rule of Law, For Now! 

Here’s a link to the decision:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-954_7l48.pdf

Here’s the Syllabus by Court staff:

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2021 1

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

BIDEN ET AL. v. TEXAS ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR

THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 21–954. Argued April 26, 2022—Decided June 30, 2022

In January 2019, the Department of Homeland Security began to implement the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). Under MPP, certain non-Mexican nationals arriving by land from Mexico were returned to Mexico to await the results of their removal proceedings under section 1229a of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). MPP was implemented pursuant to a provision of the INA that applies to aliens “arriving on land . . . from a foreign territory contiguous to the United States” and provides that the Secretary of Homeland Security “may return the alien to that territory pending a proceeding under section 1229a.” 8 U. S. C. §1225(b)(2)(C). Following a change in Presidential administrations, the Biden administration announced that it would suspend the program, and on June 1, 2021, the Secretary of Homeland Security issued a memorandum officially terminating it.

The States of Texas and Missouri (respondents) brought suit in the Northern District of Texas against the Secretary and others, asserting that the June 1 Memorandum violated the INA and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The District Court entered judgment for respondents. The court first concluded that terminating MPP would violate the INA, reasoning that section 1225 of the INA “provides the government two options” with respect to illegal entrants: mandatory detention pursuant to section 1225(b)(2)(A) or contiguous-territory re- turn pursuant to section 1225(b)(2)(C). 554 F. Supp. 3d 818, 852. Be- cause the Government was unable to meet its mandatory detention obligations under section 1225(b)(2)(A) due to resource constraints, the court reasoned, terminating MPP would necessarily lead to the systemic violation of section 1225 as illegal entrants were released into the United States. Second, the District Court concluded that the June 1 Memorandum was arbitrary and capricious in violation of the APA.

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BIDEN v. TEXAS Syllabus

The District Court vacated the June 1 Memorandum and remanded to DHS. It also imposed a nationwide injunction ordering the Government to “enforce and implement MPP in good faith until such a time as it has been lawfully rescinded in compliance with the APA and until such a time as the federal government has sufficient detention capacity to detain all aliens subject to mandatory detention under [section 1225] without releasing any aliens because of a lack of detention re- sources.” Id., at 857 (emphasis in original).

While the Government’s appeal was pending, the Secretary released the October 29 Memoranda, which again announced the termination of MPP and explained anew his reasons for doing so. The Government then moved to vacate the injunction on the ground that the October 29 Memoranda had superseded the June 1 Memorandum. But the Court of Appeals denied the motion and instead affirmed the District Court’s judgment in full. With respect to the INA question, the Court of Ap- peals agreed with the District Court’s analysis that terminating the program would violate the INA, concluding that the return policy was mandatory so long as illegal entrants were being released into the United States. The Court of Appeals also held that “[t]he October 29 Memoranda did not constitute a new and separately reviewable ‘final agency action.’ ” 20 F. 4th 928, 951.

Held: The Government’s rescission of MPP did not violate section 1225 of the INA, and the October 29 Memoranda constituted final agency action. Pp. 8–25.

(a) Beginning with jurisdiction, the injunction that the District Court entered in this case violated 8 U. S. C. §1252(f )(1). See Garland v. Aleman Gonzalez, 596 U. S. ___, ___. But section 1252(f )(1) does not deprive this Court of jurisdiction to reach the merits of an appeal even where a lower court enters a form of relief barred by that provision. Section 1252(f )(1) withdraws a district court’s “jurisdiction or authority” to grant a particular form of relief. It does not deprive lower courts of all subject matter jurisdiction over claims brought under sections 1221 through 1232 of the INA.

The text of the provision makes that clear. Section 1252(f )(1) deprives courts of the power to issue a specific category of remedies: those that “enjoin or restrain the operation of ” the relevant sections of the statute. And Congress included that language in a provision whose title—“Limit on injunctive relief ”—makes clear the narrowness of its scope. Moreover, the provision contains a parenthetical that explicitly preserves this Court’s power to enter injunctive relief. If section 1252(f )(1) deprived lower courts of subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate any non-individual claims under sections 1221 through 1232, no such claims could ever arrive at this Court, rendering the specific carveout for Supreme Court injunctive relief nugatory.

Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 3 Syllabus

Statutory structure likewise confirms this conclusion. Elsewhere in section 1252, where Congress intended to deny subject matter jurisdiction over a particular class of claims, it did so unambiguously. See, e.g., §1252(a)(2) (entitled “Matters not subject to judicial review”). Finally, this Court previously encountered a virtually identical situation in Nielsen v. Preap, 586 U. S. ___, and proceeded to reach the merits of the suit notwithstanding the District Court’s apparent violation of section 1252(f )(1). Pp. 8–13.

(b) Turning to the merits, section 1225(b)(2)(C) provides: “In the case of an alien . . . who is arriving on land . . . from a foreign territory contiguous to the United States, the [Secretary] may return the alien to that territory pending a proceeding under section 1229a.” Section 1225(b)(2)(C) plainly confers a discretionary authority to return aliens to Mexico. This Court has “repeatedly observed” that “the word ‘may’ clearly connotes discretion.” Opati v. Republic of Sudan, 590 U. S. ___, ___.

Respondents and the Court of Appeals concede that point, but urge an inference from the statutory structure: because section 1225(b)(2)(A) makes detention mandatory, they argue, the otherwise- discretionary return authority in section 1225(b)(2)(C) becomes mandatory when the Secretary violates that mandate. The problem is that the statute does not say anything like that. The statute says “may.” If Congress had intended section 1225(b)(2)(C) to operate as a mandatory cure of any noncompliance with the Government’s detention obligations, it would not have conveyed that intention through an unspoken inference in conflict with the unambiguous, express term “may.” The contiguous-territory return authority in section 1225(b)(2)(C) is discretionary—and remains discretionary notwithstanding any violation of section 1225(b)(2)(A).

The historical context in which section 1225(b)(2)(C) was adopted confirms the plain import of its text. Section 1225(b)(2)(C) was added to the statute more than 90 years after the “shall be detained” language that appears in section 1225(b)(2)(A). And the provision was enacted in response to a BIA decision that had questioned the legality of the contiguous-territory return practice. Moreover, since its enactment, every Presidential administration has interpreted section 1225(b)(2)(C) as purely discretionary, notwithstanding the consistent shortfall of funds to comply with section 1225(b)(2)(A).

The foreign affairs consequences of mandating the exercise of contiguous-territory return likewise confirm that the Court of Appeals erred. Interpreting section 1225(b)(2)(C) as a mandate imposes a significant burden upon the Executive’s ability to conduct diplomatic relations with Mexico, one that Congress likely did not intend section 1225(b)(2)(C) to impose. And finally, the availability of parole as an

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BIDEN v. TEXAS Syllabus

alternative means of processing applicants for admission, see 8 U. S. C. §1182(d)(5)(A), additionally makes clear that the Court of Ap- peals erred in holding that the INA required the Government to continue implementing MPP. Pp. 13–18.

(c) The Court of Appeals also erred in holding that “[t]he October 29 Memoranda did not constitute a new and separately reviewable ‘final agency action.’ ” 20 F. 4th, at 951. Once the District Court vacated the June 1 Memorandum and remanded to DHS for further consideration, DHS had two options: elaborate on its original reasons for taking action or “ ‘deal with the problem afresh’ by taking new agency action.” Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of Univ. of Cal., 591 U. S. ___, ___. The Secretary selected the second option from Regents: He accepted the District Court’s vacatur and dealt with the problem afresh. The October 29 Memoranda were therefore final agency action for the same reasons that the June 1 Memorandum was final agency action: Both “mark[ed] the ‘consummation’ of the agency’s decisionmaking process” and resulted in “rights and obligations [being] determined.” Bennett v. Spear, 520 U. S. 154, 178.

The various rationales offered by respondents and the Court of Ap- peals in support of the contrary conclusion lack merit. First, the Court of Appeals erred to the extent it understood itself to be reviewing an abstract decision apart from the specific agency actions contained in the June 1 Memorandum and October 29 Memoranda. Second, and relatedly, the October 29 Memoranda were not a mere post hoc rationalization of the June 1 Memorandum. The prohibition on post hoc rationalization applies only when the agency proceeds by the first option from Regents. Here, the Secretary chose the second option from Re- gents and “issue[d] a new rescission bolstered by new reasons absent from the [June 1] Memorandum.” 591 U. S., at ___. Having returned to the drawing table, the Secretary was not subject to the charge of post hoc rationalization.

Third, respondents invoke Department of Commerce v. New York, 588 U. S. ___. But nothing in this record suggests a “significant mis- match between the decision the Secretary made and the rationale he provided.” Id., at ___. Relatedly, the Court of Appeals charged that the Secretary failed to proceed with a sufficiently open mind. But this Court has previously rejected criticisms of agency closemindedness based on an identity between proposed and final agency action. See Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, 591 U. S. ___, ___. Finally, the Court of Appeals erred to the extent it viewed the Government’s decision to appeal the District Court’s in- junction as relevant to the question of the October 29 Memoranda’s status as final agency action. Nothing prevents an agency from under- taking new agency action while simultaneously appealing an adverse

Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 5 Syllabus

judgment against its original action. Pp. 18–25. 20 F. 4th 928, reversed and remanded.

ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, and KAVANAUGH, JJ., joined. KAVANAUGH, J., filed a concurring opinion. ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS and GORSUCH, JJ., joined. BARRETT, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS, ALITO, and GORSUCH, JJ., joined as to all but the first sentence.

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Credit where credit is due. At least in this particular case, Chief Justice Roberts and the much-maligned Justice Kavanaugh probably have saved many lives of already-born humans. 

Breyer’s “Last Hurrah.” I think this was Justice Breyer’s last case, fittingly a victory for reasonableness and humanity. As of noon today, he was succeeded by Justice Ketanj Brown Jackson, the first African American female Justice! Good luck to her. I hope she can convince her right-wing colleagues to “do the right thing” on at least a few cases!

Not out of the woods yet? The case now goes back to to the 5th Circuit and a Trumpy USDJ — not the best forum for asylum applicants seeking justice. 

Will they do better? Ending the toxic, inhumane, and ineffective “Remain in Mexico Program” is one thing. Replacing it with a viable asylum adjudication system that will actually efficiently grant protection to the many refugees at our border who have been victims of a biased, anti-asylum, non-expert decision-making process is quite another. It starts with tossing the BIA and the many EOIR Judges who aren’t following asylum law and aren’t able to grant asylum and replacing them with real expert judges who can get the job done, positively guide Asylum Officers, and make sure they follow proper legal interpretations. To date, that’s been something that Garland and the Administration have been unwilling and/or unable to do — at least to the extent required to make due process, fundamental fairness, and the rule of law functional at our borders.

Glimmer of hope (maybe)? In her dissent, Justice Amy Coney Barrett went to great lengths to come up with reasons not to take jurisdiction over this “life or death” matter in its current posture. But, unlike the other three dissenters, she stated that she agreed with the majority “on the merits” of the case. That makes it at least possible that there could be as many as six potential votes for fair and humane treatment of asylum applicants by the Administration if the jurisdictional hurdle can be overcome. No guarantees. But something to think about — particularly in light of Alito’s snarky, White Nationalist nonsense and anti-immigrant myths reflected in his separate dissenting opinion. 

Alioto defines “rock bottom” judicial performance. For example, in the first paragraph of his dissent, Alito says this:

In fiscal year 2021, the Border Patrol reported more than 1.7 million encounters with aliens along the Mexican border.1 When it appears that one of these aliens is not admissible, may the Government simply release the alien in this country and hope that the alien will show up for the hearing at which his or her entitlement to remain will be decided?

First he mis-states the law. By no means are all individuals who come to the border or are apprehended in the vicinity thereof entitled to “hearings” on admissibility. All of those without entry documents are subject to summary removal by a DHS Enforcement Agent. Only those who claim a fear of return to their home countries are entitled to an expeditious review of their claims by a (supposedly) well-trained Asylum Officer. Further, only those who establish the necessary “credible fear” of harm (or in some cases a “reasonable fear”) are entitled to have their cases for asylum determined on the merits by either an Asylum Officer or an EOIR Immigration Judge (or both). So, many of those appearing at the border are summarily removed without any hearings at all.

Thousands of those who pass credible fear and are awaiting “merits hearings” are imprisoned in DHS facilities in conditions that probably would fail constitutional scrutiny if applied to convicted felons. Those poor conditions are intended, at least in part, to demoralize and coerce individuals into abandoning claims for protection. They also exponentially decrease the chances of receiving competent pro bono representation and documenting and presenting their cases for life-preserving protection. This is significant, because they too often face EOIR judges with questionable expert judicial qualifications who are essentially “programmed to deny asylum.” Indeed, a “Garland gimmick” for recent arrivals — so-called “expedited dockets” — produced nearly 100% asylum denials as compared with the nationwide rate of 67%. For years, ICE detention centers, many of them operated by private contractors, have been notorious as places “where asylum cases go to die.” 

Contrary to the bogus implication of Alito’s statement that one has to “hope” that individuals show up for hearings, many have immigration bonds — some punatively high. When given a chance to obtain qualified representation, and thereby to understand the system and their obligations thereunder, the vast majority of asylum applicants voluntarily appear at their hearings (some many times due to the EOIR practice of  “Aimless Docket Reshuffling”), win or lose. And, perhaps not surprisingly, they succeed in winning their cases at rates that are many times higher than those forced to proceed without representation.

Indeed, a government actually interested in making the legal system work, rather than ginning up nativist myths about asylum seekers, would cut the “cruel and inhumane gimmicks” like “Remain in Mexico” and detention in the “New American Gulag” (NAG”) and instead invest in training competent pro bono or “low bono” representatives, temporarily resettling applicants to those jurisdictions with good NGOs and where the Immigration Judges are known to be scholarly and fair in evaluating asylum cases, and replacing poorly qualified Immigration Judges with experts able to competently perform these life or death functions at the “retail level” of our justice system in a fair and efficient matter consistent with due process.

Alito also repeats, apparently for prejudicial dramatic effect, the oft-used but potentially misleading figure of 1.7 million “encounters” by CBP. But, since the legal asylum system at our border was improperly dismantled by the Trump Administration, many of these represent the same individual or individuals, repeatedly encountered and illegally returned without any process whatsoever, who seek only the legal forum to present their claim to authorities to which they are entitled under both domestic and international law. This right has been systematically denied to them by both the Trump and Biden Administrations and by mal-functioning Federal Judges, at all levels, who have failed to uphold the rule of law as it applies to the most vulnerable among us. Additionally, a knowledgeable jurist would take any statistics furnished by the notoriously unreliable DHS with a “grain of salt.”

The lack of understanding of how immigration law operates, the nativist-driven misinterpretations by the Trump Administration embodied in this dissent, and the lack of intellectual integrity in furthering nativist myths and intentional exaggerations to describe a group of individuals who merely seek legal justice under both our laws and international standards is a graphic illustration of who does not belong on our highest Court. If we are really committed to equal justice and fundamental fairness in the American justice system, we should insist that all of those nominated for our Supreme Court demonstrate significant experience representing individual foreign nationals in the Immigration Courts — the “life or death retail level” of our justice system. 

Right now, those so-called “courts” are an embarrassing and dysfunctional “parody of justice” to which neither Justice Alito nor any of his colleagues would want to submit their own lives and futures or those of anyone they truly cared about. That’s the very definition of dehumanization and “Dred Scottification of the other” that Justice Alito seems so curiously eager to advance. Perhaps, that’s because he lacks the necessary empathy and perspective to see life from “the other side of the bench” as the rest of humanity does. 

I’d like to think that Alito is capable of change and growth. Most, if not all, humans are. After all, he’s appointed for life, so he isn’t going anywhere soon. But, I won’t hold my breath.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-29-30

 

🚙🏞HEADING FOR THE HILLS: RADICAL ACTIVIST, RIGHTY, GOP SUPREMES EMPOWER GUNS, STRIP WOMEN OF RIGHTS, HEAD OUT FOR SUMMER VACATION, LEAVING BEHIND CHAOS & A DARK CLOUD HANGING OVER OUR DEMOCRACY’S FUTURE!😱

Dana Milbank
Dana Milbank
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

Dana Milbank @ WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/25/roe-guns-supreme-court-radicals-maximum-chaos/

Nobody should be surprised that the Supreme Court’s conservative justices on Friday jettisoned nearly 50 years of precedent upon precedent in overturning Roe v. Wade. Heck, they didn’t even honor their own precedent articulated 24 hours earlier.

In their opinion Thursday morning forcing New York and other densely populated states to allow more handguns in public, the conservative majority, led by Justice Clarence Thomas, argued that medieval law imposing arms restrictions — specifically, the 1328 Statute of Northampton — “has little bearing on the Second Amendment” because it was “enacted … more than 450 years before the ratification of the Constitution.”

Yet in their ruling Friday morning in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, setting women’s rights back half a century (and cracking the door to banning same-sex marriage and contraception), the conservative justices, led by Samuel Alito (who was also in the guns majority) and joined by Thomas, argued precisely the opposite. They justified abortion bans by citing, among others, “Henry de Bracton’s 13th-century treatise.” That was written circa 1250 and referred to monsters, duels, burning at the stake — and to women as property, “inferior” to men.

The right-wing majority’s selective application of history reveals the larger fraud in this pair of landmark rulings: Their reasoning is not legal but political, not principled but partisan.

Still, there is a commonality to the rulings. Both decisions foment maximum chaos and were delivered with flagrant disregard for the instability and disorder they will cause.

Ruth Marcus: The radical conservative majority’s damage to the Supreme Court cannot be undone

The high court was meant to be the guarantor of law and order. But the conservative justices, intoxicated by their supermajority, have abandoned their solemn duty to promote stability in the law and are actively spreading real-world disruption.

Worse, this invitation to disorder comes as the nation is trying to restore the rule of law after a coup attempt led by a president who appointed three of the five justices in the abortion majority. The spouse of a fourth — Ginni Thomas, Clarence’s wife — aggressively pushed state legislators and the White House to overthrow the election. Yet Thomas, the senior associate justice, has refused to recuse himself from related cases.

After decades of crocodile tears over imagined “judicial activism,” the conservative supermajority has shed all judicial modesty and embraced radicalism. The liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen G. Breyer, wrote in their Dobbs dissent that the majority’s brazen rejection of stare decisis, respect for precedent, “breaches a core rule-of-law principle, designed to promote constancy in the law.”

Opinion: The Supreme Court’s radical abortion ruling begins a dangerous new era

Even Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who joined the gun ruling, scolded fellow conservatives for blithely overturning the Roe v. Wade super-precedent. “Surely we should adhere closely to principles of judicial restraint here, where the broader path the court chooses entails repudiating a constitutional right we have not only previously recognized, but also expressly reaffirmed,” Roberts wrote. The majority’s “dramatic and consequential ruling is unnecessary,” he said, “a serious jolt to the legal system” that could have been avoided with a narrower decision that would have been “markedly less unsettling.”

Alito, in his (characteristically) sneering opinion in the abortion case, dismissed Roberts as unprincipled and public opinion as an “extraneous” concern. He likewise dismissed the pain the ruling would cause, writing that “this Court is ill-equipped to assess ‘generalized assertions about the national psyche.’ ” He washed his hands of answering the “empirical question” of “the effect of the abortion right … on the lives of women.”

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Milbank’s op-ed at the link.

It would be tempting to breathe a “sigh of relief” that while off on their taxpayer-underwritten summer frolic, the “Gang of 6” can’t do any more damage to our Constitution, our nation, our institutions, or humanity. But, unfortunately, that’s not completely true. If and when their party calls on them, they can always go into “emergency session.” 

So let’s hope that there will be no further “emergencies” this summer other than the disorder and divisions already caused by their disingenuous political decrees masquerading as (very thinly to tragicomically inept and inconsistent) “jurisprudence.”

Still, those who enjoy their humanity and their rights (other than gun rights)  shouldn’t get too complacent. Vacation will end; the Supremes will be back at it in October — looking for more ways to turn back the clock and “Dred Scottify the other,” even though the majority of Americans actually are “some kind of other.” With a little help from their GOP friends, they will disenfranchise and dehumanize one group at a time until rights and political power look largely like they did in 1789 — when free White men of property ruled.

As for CJ Roberts, after years of trying to put a “genial spin” on the mockery of a fair, impartial, and qualified judiciary incubating at his Supremes, he has totally lost control of the far-right extremists appointed by his party and, in some cases, pushed through the process in a highly irregular manner. Hard to have much sympathy there. 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-27-22

⚖️👎🏽ETHICS: WSJ INVESTIGATION FINDS WIDESPREAD VIOLATIONS OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST RULES BY U.S. JUDGES! — 131 Judges Illegally Ruled on 685 Cases In Which They Had A Prohibited Financial Interest! 

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/131-federal-judges-broke-the-law-by-hearing-cases-where-they-had-a-financial-interest-11632834421

131 Federal Judges Broke the Law by Hearing Cases Where They Had a Financial Interest

The judges failed to recuse themselves from 685 lawsuits from 2010 to 2018 involving firms in which they or their family held shares, a Wall Street Journal investigation found

By James V. Grimaldi, Coulter Jones and Joe Palazzolo

Sept. 28, 2021 9:07 am ET

 

More than 130 federal judges have violated U.S. law and judicial ethics by overseeing court cases involving companies in which they or their family owned stock.

A Wall Street Journal investigation found that judges have improperly failed to disqualify themselves from 685 court cases around the nation since 2010. The jurists were appointed by nearly every president from Lyndon Johnson to Donald Trump.

About two-thirds of federal district judges disclosed holdings of individual stocks, and nearly one of every five who did heard at least one case involving those stocks.

Alerted to the violations by the Journal, 56 of the judges have directed court clerks to notify parties in 329 lawsuits that they should have recused themselves. That means new judges might be assigned, potentially upending rulings.

When judges participated in such cases, about two-thirds of their rulings on motions that were contested came down in favor of their or their family’s financial interests.

. . . .

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

This is seriously bad stuff that should never have happened.

Admittedly, Federal conflict of interest rules can be both complicated and annoying. But, complicated legal issues are these judges’ “specialty.” “Ignorance is no excuse” is a common judicial cliche!

Even at EOIR, judges got decent training in these types of ethical requirements, including examples that covered the types of conflicts uncovered by the WSJ; they were fairly rare at EOIR given the subject matter at issue in most cases and the relatively modest financial circumstances of most Immigration Judges, many of whom were career civil servants.

Other types of potential conflicts or “appearance” issues did arise more frequently at EOIR. We were advised “When in doubt, sit it out!”

Obviously, the Administrative Office for U.S. Courts (“AOUSC”) isn’t doing its job here! It appears that using the same public information available to the WSJ reporters, the AOUSC could have not only discovered these conflicts much earlier (perhaps before decisions were rendered) but also set up an automated system for discovering potential conflicts in advance. Jones Day had such a system when I was there three decades ago!

Chief Justice John Roberts must insist that all Article III Judges take their ethical obligations more seriously and that they become thoroughly familiar with the requirements applicable to them. And, he should demand that the AOUSC provide the necessary training and monitor compliance with an automated conflicts identification system!

PWS

09-28-21

⚖️🤮👨🏻‍⚖️☠️ SUPREMELY BAD! — There’s a “problem with late-night emergency orders written as haikus on Post-it notes stuck to the front doors of the Supreme Court . . . !” — The return of “Dred Scottification” & covering for naked White Nationalist policies by our highest Court throws the entire U.S. justice system into chaos!

Grim Reaper
A robed GOP Justice, carrying a copy of Dred Scott and the tool of right-wing extremism, heads for secret meeting to take action against brown-skinned refugees!
Image: Hernan Fednan, Creative Commons License
Dahlia Lithwick
Dahlia Lithwick
Supreme Court Reporter
Slate
Wikimedia Commons — Public Domain
Mark Joseph Stern
Mark Joseph Stern
Reporter, Slate

 

 

https://apple.news/ACG8I3-YvTh2RWP68SwTi2A

The Supreme Court Has Let a Lone Trump Judge Take Over Biden’s Foreign Policy

The six conservative justices blessed a rogue decision reviving Trump’s odious attack on refugees.

by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern

AUGUST 25 2021 8:47 PM

On Tuesday night, the Supreme Court issued one of the most radical orders in recent memory—and it did it in three sentences, unsigned. By a 6–3 vote, the conservative justices attacked the president’s authority to conduct foreign policy (a principle it had vehemently preserved throughout the Trump presidency) by compelling the Biden administration to revive Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required all asylum-seekers who arrive at the Southern border—including many fleeing violence in Central America—to wait for their U.S. immigration hearings in Mexico. This 2019 policy, the product of extensive negotiations between the Trump administration and the Mexican government, has been suspended for about 17 months. On Aug. 13, however, a single federal judge issued a nationwide injunction ordering the government to reinstate the long-dormant program immediately. Late Tuesday, the Supreme Court blessed this unprecedented hostile takeover of the executive’s immigration policies without bothering to explain how or why.

The implications of Tuesday’s decision are profoundly disturbing. . . .

Perhaps the most perverse aspect of the litigation over “Remain in Mexico”—also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP—is that the policy itself is illegal. The Immigration and Nationality Act does allow the government to return a narrow class of migrants to “contiguous territory” while they await hearings. But, as a federal appeals court explained in 2020, the law does not allow the government to send the vast majority of asylum-seekers back to Mexico to await hearings. Doing so violates the United States’ treaty obligations as implemented in the INA, which bar the government from sending refugees back to countries where they fear persecution.

. . . .

As we have suggested in the recent past, the problem with late-night emergency orders written as haikus on Post-it notes stuck to the front doors of the Supreme Court isn’t just that the parties must scramble, without guidance, to discern what it is the court wants them to do. In this case, perhaps tens of thousands of desperate asylum-seekers and their families have absolutely no clue as to what the law is now and why. We have no idea what even constitutes an emergency, or which parties have standing, or what the legal reasoning might be.

Not very long ago, the high court used its shadow docket to spank what it deemed runaway district court judges arrogating power to set immigration policy in violation of Trump’s orders. Now, the same shadow docket is being used to hand federal immigration powers to runaway district court judges, with no rule or principle set forth beyond the fact that Biden should just lose, because they say so.

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

Under Roberts, the Supremes are looking more and more like the deadly EOIR Star Chambers/Clown Courts!☠️⚰️🤡 Shamefully, the “Roberts Six” have “revived” the “essence” of perhaps the worst Supremes’ decision in U.S. history, Dred Scott, and gotten away with applying it to people of color in the 21st Century!

They have elevated utter BS and fabricated “injuries” manufactured in bad faith by vile right wing GOP State AGs over the human rights, lives, and human dignity of refugees seeking asylum! In particular, they have targeted bown-skinned women, children, and families legally seeking refuge! This is progress? Seems like the definition of “judicial cowardice” to me!

What kind of  “crimes against humanity” are the “GOP 6” complicit in? Try refugees “kidnapped, raped and even killed as a direct result of this policy. They came to our doorstep with a belief in America — and our government sent them into danger.” https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-08-24/supreme-court-biden-ending-trumps-remain-in-mexico-policy?utm_id=36127&sfmc_id=2413253

Meanwhile Garland inexcusably has failed to reform his Immigration Courts by replacing unqualified Immigration Judges and BIA Appellate Judges selected by his predecessors under highly questionable procedures with well-qualified progressive judges who are experts in due process and human rights.

Building a progressive Immigration Judiciary at EOIR is absolutely necessary to developing the legal skills to hold the anti-American far right at bay and eventually creating a better Article III Judiciary that will actually stand up for due process and equal justice for all persons in America. Something the “Roberts 6” have scandalously and spinelessly failed to do!🤮👎🏽

Better Judges for better America! 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-26-21

🤮👎🏽🏴‍☠️ SUPREMES’ GOP MAJORITY STUFFS BIDEN, TAKES OVER BORDER  ENFORCEMENT, REINSTATES IMMORAL, ILLEGAL ASSAULT ON REFUGEES OF COLOR — MPP WILL CONTINUE TO VIOLATE HUMAN RIGHTS, CAUSE REFUGEE SUFFERING, DEATHS, AT BORDER & IN MEXICO!

Robert Barnes
Robert Barnes
Supreme Court Reporter
Washington Post

By Robert Barnes @ WashPost

LToday at 9:28 p.m. EDT

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Biden administration must comply with a lower court’s ruling to reinstate President Donald Trump’s policy that required many asylum seekers to wait outside the United States for their cases to be decided.

The administration had asked the court to put on hold a federal judge’s order that the “Remain in Mexico” policy known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) had to be immediately reimplemented. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled earlier this month that the Biden administration did not provide an adequate reason for getting rid of the policy and that its procedures regarding asylum seekers who enter the country were unlawful.

Biden issues new immigration orders, while signaling cautious approach

Over the objections of the three liberal justices, the court’s conservative majority agreed that the administration had not done enough to justify changing the policy.

The administration “failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious,” the court said in a short, unsigned order. In such emergency matters, the court often does not elaborate on its reasoning.

It said Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan would have granted the administration’s request. The three also gave no reason.

The action could be an ominous sign for the new administration. The court is considering a request that it dissolve the pandemic-related evictions moratorium implemented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about which the court’s most conservative justices have already expressed skepticism.

The court often showed deference to the Trump administration in such emergency matters, including when the MPP was first implemented.

. . . .

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

Read Robert’s full article at the link.

“Floaters”
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” — Supremes’ GOP majority makes it clear that it considers asylum seekers of color as something less than human, whose rights and lives simply don’t matter! They are expendable, according to elite ivory tower righty jurists who don’t even give asylees lives a thought and condemn them without rationale. Not their kids, not anyone they can relate to.
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)

Not too surprising, given the Roberts Court’s fairly consistent disregard for human rights, the rule of law, the Due Process Clause of the Constitution, and ill-concealed contempt for racial justice and people of color! They had already gone “belly up” on MPP after it was properly blocked by lower Federal Courts during the Trump regime.

It’s going to be a long four years for American democracy, human rights, and individuals of color if the Dems can’t get it together, eliminate the filibuster, and enact some legislation while they are still in control of all three branches. But, it’s the Dems, so don’t count on much besides some hand-wringing and feckless rhetoric. 

And to be fair, the Biden Administration’s continued  lawless use of Title 42 to suspend the rule of law for many at the border compliments both the Trump regime’s xenophobic policies and the Supremes’ dissing of people of color. Dred Scott is still alive and kicking in 21st Century America, even as our nation grows more diverse. 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-24-21

ADDENDUM:

As recently posted by Dean Kevin Johnson on ImmigrationProf Blog:

I received the following statement on the ruling by e-mail from Kate Melloy Goettel, Legal Director of Litigation at the American Immigration Council

“Thousands of people have suffered the horrible consequences of the Migrant Protection Protocols. The Supreme Court has now upheld the Texas court’s decision and, instead of keeping MPP a stain in the history books, it will continue to be a present-day disaster.

“Forcing vulnerable families and children to wait in provisional camps in Mexico puts their lives at risk, while also making it nearly impossible for them to access the asylum process. The Biden administration can and must work to terminate the policy again immediately. Rather than turning away people fleeing harm, we should ensure people have a fair day in court.”

”Dred Scottification” at its worst.

Better Judges for a Better America!

DPF!

PWS

08-25-21

⚖️ABOVE THE LAW: Trump Treated Ethics, Legal Norms, & Human Values Like A Joke — The GOP Supremes Laughed With Him, As They Insured His Lack Of Accountability & Actively Undermined Those With The Courage To Stand Up To Tyranny!🤮

Jacqueline Thomsen
Jacqueline Thomsen
Courts Reporter
National Law Journal

Jacqueline Thomsen reports for the National Law Journal:

. . . .

Even with an emoluments lawsuit filed against Trump on his first day in office, four years later nothing came of it. After he left office, the lawsuits were declared moot by the U.S. Supreme Court and dismissed.

The struggle to legally hold Trump to account over the alleged emoluments violations were emblematic of the rest of the lawsuits he faced during his presidency, whether they targeted him individually or his administration.

When lower courts ruled against Trump officials—as they did in suits over border wall construction—his administration would go to the U.S. Supreme Court to get an emergency order that allowed them to continue the challenged action. More often than not, Trump got a ruling in his favor.

“Trump could count on them for anything,” Norm Ornstein, a conservative resident scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, said of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

“And certainly that’s the case with Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett,” he added, referring to the three justices Trump appointed to the court.

And the novel legal questions surrounding lawsuits against a sitting president were enough to significantly delay several other challenges against him. House cases dragged out as courts determined whether lawmakers had the ability to sue to enforce subpoenas against the administration, a legal issue that forced similar suits to halt for months.

Despite two impeachments, hundreds of lawsuits against his administration and other litigation targeting him and his businesses, Trump left office relatively legally unscathed. Armed with a litigious past and a grip on his political party, he successfully managed to use the country’s institutions to minimize the blowback and get his way.

. . . .

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

Those with NLJ access (everyone used to get 3 free articles/mo; now it’s down to one) can read the rest of Jacqueline’s article at the link. She’s a great writer. Too bad so much of her work is “hidden behind the wall.”

Lack of accountability for scofflaw behavior, abuse of power, and corruption are hallmarks of third-world dictatorships and authoritarian regimes throughout history. 

The Supremes’ enabling started with the Travel Ban cases and continued to the Capitol insurrection, which “the complicit ones” were able to watch unfold from their marble palace across the street.

So, the Supremes, the institution whose most important job is to protect American democracy, democratic institutions, due process, and individual rights when the other two branches fail, wasn’t up to the job! Despite the Supremes’ best efforts to undermine democratic governance, and their active furthering of the GOP’s race-driven voter suppression agenda, 81 million voters bailed us out this time around. But, it’s highly unlikely that American democracy could survive another “Trump-type” authoritarian regime. Don’t expect any help from the Supremes as currently comprised.

⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️Better judges for a better America!🇺🇸🗽

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-04-21

🗽⚖️STACEY ABRAMS @ WASHPOST: The GOP Is Out To Gut Democracy! — Here’s What It Will Take To Save It! — “No thinking person can deny that the communities of color disproportionately suffering and dying from this pandemic are also the people whose votes — and ability to hold failed leaders accountable — have been continuously suppressed.”

Stacey Abrams
Stacey Abrams
Democratic Political Strategist & Voting Rights Maven
Photo: TV Sister via YouTube
Creative Commons License

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/07/stacey-abrams-democracy-test-future/

. . . .

Make no mistake: Democracy may have survived this year, but President Biden and Vice President Harris were elected despite, not thanks to, weakened electoral systems. Together with the Democratic Congress, they now have the opportunity to implement reforms that reaffirm our nation’s promises that our country represents and works for everyone. We as Democrats must act before it is too late.

Our democratic system faces extraordinary threats today because of sustained attacks from Republican leaders who throw up roadblocks to voting and, among the worst actors, stoke the flames of white supremacy and hyper-nationalism to cling to power. There can be no clearer example than the covid-19 pandemic. The deaths of more than 450,000 people in the richest country in the world are symptomatic of a democracy in crisis and a political system that rewards cronyism over competence. Despite strong public support for the Centers for Disease Control’s work, the Affordable Care Act, and other economic justice and safety-net policies that could save lives, millions nevertheless continue to contract the disease without adequate access to health care.

No thinking person can deny that the communities of color disproportionately suffering and dying from this pandemic are also the people whose votes — and ability to hold failed leaders accountable — have been continuously suppressed.

The pandemic has been a collision of tragedy and corroded institutions, and the challenge is in how we respond. We can either engage in collective amnesia about what we have just lived through, and leave an unaccountable government in place, or we can rise to meet this moment by fixing the broken social compact. Defeating Trump was not enough. Meaningful progress on health care, racial justice and the economy requires aggressive action on voting rights, partisan gerrymandering and campaign finance.

One of the first steps must be an overhaul of the Senate filibuster, which has long been wielded as a cudgel against the needs of millions who struggle. Today, the parliamentary trick creates a more sinister threat to our nation: the ability of a minority of senators, who represent 41.5 million fewer people than the Senate majority, to block progress favored by most Americans.

Democrats in Congress must fully embrace their mandate to fast-track democracy reforms that give voters a fair fight, rather than allowing undemocratic systems to be used as tools and excuses to perpetuate that same system. This is a moment of both historic imperative and, with unified Democratic control of the White House and Congress, historic opportunity.

The agenda to restore democracy also includes passing the For the People Act to protect and expand voting rights, fight gerrymandering and reduce the influence of money in politics; the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore the full protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act; and the Protecting Our Democracy Act to constrain the corruption of future presidents who deem themselves above the law. These landmark bills have broad-based support, and would have passed long ago were it not for obstructionist leaders who fear losing their own influence if the American people have more power of their own.

. . . .

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

The Trump GOP lies, insurrections, and blatantly false claims attempting to undermine the very clear Biden-Harris victory have been a smokescreen for the real voting problems — the unrelenting efforts of the GOP — “The Party of the New Jim Crow” — to suppress the votes of Americans of color. Read the rest of Abrams’s op-ed at the link.

And, as Abrams cogently points out, one reason for the denial, downplaying, and maliciously incompetent mishandling of the pandemic by the Trump regime was that so many of the victims were among communities of color — those they never cared about and whose humanity they continuously tried to deny and disparage. Death is a great way of disenfranchising minority voters. Not to mention a little fear and intimidation thrown in for a good measure.

There is a very clear connection between the dehumanization of asylum seekers and other migrants and the disenfranchisement of voters of color. It’s all part of “Dred Scottification” — a disgraceful practice sanctioned by none other than the GOP’s Supremes’ majority!

Our future as a nation depends on Judge Garland, Vanita Gupta, and their incoming team at DOJ “connecting the dots” — beginning with dismantling and replacing the White Nationalist nativist kakistocracy at EOIR. Immigrants’ rights are civil rights are human rights! The GOP actually “gets” that (in a purely negative way)! Will the Dems finally show that they do too!

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-09-21

⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️👩‍⚖️THE JUDICIARY: Has Justice Kagan Been Reading “Courtside?” (Her Recent Dissent Sounds Like It!)  — Plus:  The New Face Of A Better Federal Judiciary That Represents American Society Rather Than The Federalist Society?

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/covid-elena-kagan-supreme-court-kill.html

From Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom:

I fervently hope that the Court’s intervention will not worsen the Nation’s COVID crisis. But if this decision causes suffering, we will not pay. Our marble halls are now closed to the public, and our life tenure forever insulates us from responsibility for our errors. That would seem good reason to avoid disrupting a State’s pandemic response. But the Court forges ahead regardless, insisting that science-based policy yield to judicial edict.

Justice Elena Kagan
Justice Elena Kagan
Photo: Mike Ball
Creative Commons License

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

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ketanji-brown-jackson-dc-appeals-court/2021/02/05/543bfeda-67f1-11eb-8468-21bc48f07fe5_story.html

Ruth Marcus writes about U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in WashPost: 

 . . . .

Still, Jackson, named to the district court by Obama in 2013, brings to the bench an intriguing — and for the Democratic Party’s restless progressives, attractive — piece of career diversity as well: experience as a public defender.

No current Supreme Court justice has the perspective of having been a public defender, representing indigent defendants, although several — Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Sonia Sotomayor and Brett M. Kavanaugh, in his role as associate independent counsel — have prosecutorial experience.

For Jackson, the daughter of two public school teachers (her father later became a lawyer), the criminal justice system has an unusually personal wrinkle as well: Her uncle was convicted of a low-level drug crime when she was a senior in high school, and was sentenced to life in prison under a draconian three-strikes law. (He had been convicted previously of two minor offenses.) He ended up receiving clemency from Obama after serving three decades.

She also brings the real-world perspective of a working mother. In a remarkably candid speech at the University of Georgia in 2017, Jackson described the challenges she encountered juggling private practice at a major law firm, marriage to a surgeon and motherhood to two young daughters.

“I think it is not possible to overstate the degree of difficulty that many young women, and especially new mothers, face in the law firm context,” she observed. “The hours are long; the workflow is unpredictable; you have little control over your time and schedule; and you start to feel as though the demands of the billable hour are constantly in conflict with the needs of your children and your family responsibilities.” How refreshing to hear from a self-confessed non-Superwoman.

. . . .

But a more obscure ruling, involving William Pierce, a deaf D.C. man who was imprisoned for 51 days after a domestic dispute, may offer more insight into Jackson’s belief in law as a mechanism for achieving justice. Corrections officials did nothing to accommodate Pierce’s disability, as the law requires, ignoring his repeated requests for a sign-language interpreter.

Jackson assailed prison officials’ “willful blindness regarding Pierce’s need for accommodation.” She said it was “astonishing” for D.C. to claim that it had done enough, when “prison employees took no steps whatsoever” to figure out how to help him. And she took the unusual step of ruling for Pierce even before trial.

You can learn a lot about a judge by the way she handles the biggest-profile cases, involving those at the highest levels of government. But perhaps the more revealing test is how she applies the law to help those with the least power and the greatest need for justice.

U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
Washington D.C.
Official Photo
Creative Commons License

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Read the full articles at the above links. “Willful blindness” and intentional abuses intended to “dehumanize” are daily occurrences in our warped and broken “immigration justice system” as almost any immigration/human rights/civil rights lawyer could tell you. It just operates below the radar screen, on the border, or in foreign countries (to which vulnerable humans seeking legal refuge are arbitrarily and capriciously “orbited”) where the very human trauma, torture, sickness, desolation, despair, and death are “out of sight, out of mind” to most Federal Judges and Justices. 

Yes, eventually journalists and historians will document for posterity the disastrous human rights abuses in which the Federal Judiciary is complicit. But, by then it will be far too late for those who have suffered and died while those in black robes shirked their legal and moral duties!

Judge Jackson understands exactly what’s missing from today’s all too often elitist, non-diverse, non-representative Federal Judiciary (including much of the Immigration Judiciary) who are tone-deaf to, and insulated from, responsibility for the human trauma and injustice caused by their bad decisions.  

Additionally, I can assure Justice Kagan that vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers (including children) have died and unnecessarily suffered lifetime trauma from the Supremes’ willful failure to enforce the Constitution against overt Executive tyranny in cases involving the “Remain in Mexico” (“Let ‘Em Die In Mexico”) Program, return of asylum seekers to torture and death with no due process whatsoever, and the “Muslim Ban.” 

Indeed, the Supremes’ majority’s abdication of responsibility in the latter case led directly to Trump’s eventual insurrection against the Capitol. He was assured early on by Roberts and others that he was above the Constitution, uncountable, and exempt from normal conventions governing human decency and treatment of the most vulnerable among us in the 21st Century. I/O/W, “Dred Scottification” of the “other”  — a 21st Century “Jim Crow Regime” — was A-OK with the GOP Supremes’ majority “forever insulat[ed] . . . from responsibility for [their] errors.”

Today in particular, our nation still struggles with the sense of impunity and unaccountability improperly conferred by a dilatory Supremes’ majority on their party  and its leader. Insurrection, violence, attempted overthrow of democracy — it’s all “no problem” to a tone-deaf Supremes’ majority unconcerned with the fate of our democracy.

After all, the Trump’s magamoron rioters weren’t storming their marble halls — just those of the supposedly co-equal branch across the street. But, what might have happened if they had actually stood up against Trump? He might have identified them as “the enemy” and sent his rioters their way! Worth thinking about, Oh Cloistered Ones far removed from the pain and suffering you help cause and countenance!

A better judiciary 🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️👩‍⚖️ for a better America! Bring on the “practical scholars” and those with actual experience representing the mostly vulnerable among us (asylum seekers are a prime example) in court. 

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-09-21