🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️👎🏻CRIME & (NO) PUNISHMENT: Not An Administration, An Ongoing Criminal Conspiracy, Says Max Boot!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/31/this-isnt-an-administration-its-an-ongoing-criminal-conspiracy/

Max Boot in WashPost:

It is entirely fitting that Donald Trump — the least law-abiding president in our history — was renominated at a convention that was itself a seeming cavalcade of crime. Every night featured apparent violations of the 1939 Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities “in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties by an individual employed or holding office in the Government of the United States.”

The White House certainly qualifies as such a facility. Yet Trump used it as a convention prop, even going so far as to televise a naturalization ceremony for immigrants — some of whom did not realize they would be shown at the Republican convention — as part of the nightly show. Trump not only flouted the law but also reveled in doing so. During his acceptance speech, he boasted, “We’re here — they’re not,” and the New York Times reported that Trump “relished the fact that no one could do anything to stop him.”

While the president is exempt from the civil provisions of the Hatch Act, he could be subject, once he leaves office, to criminal penalties if he should “intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce … any employee of the Federal Government … to engage in … any political activity.” That is a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.

This is, of course, barely scratching the surface of an administration that should more accurately be described as an ongoing criminal conspiracy. While many of Trump’s awful acts — e.g., confining children in cages or unleashing riot police on peaceful protesters — are merely violations of democratic norms, there is also plentiful evidence of lawbreaking on his part.

The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York has identified Trump as “Individual-1” in a conspiracy with his attorney Michael Cohen to violate campaign finance laws by secretly paying off two women with whom Trump allegedly had affairs. Cohen went to prison; Trump, who as president claims immunity from prosecution, wasn’t indicted.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III uncovered a great deal more potential illegality. He found 10 instances when Trump might have obstructed justice, and in at least four of those cases he found evidence that Trump’s conduct met all three elements of the obstruction-of-justice statute. Each violation carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The recent report from the Senate Intelligence Committee suggests that Trump also lied to Mueller when, in written testimony, he claimed not to remember speaking to Roger Stone about WikiLeaks. If he committed perjury, that would subject him to up to five years’ imprisonment.

. . . .

Trump could try to short-circuit justice by seeking to pardon himself before he leaves office — or even by resigning a few hours early and having Vice President Pence sworn in to issue a pardon (as President Gerald Ford did for Richard Nixon). In that case, the special counsel would be limited to investigating Trump’s accomplices (unless they are also pardoned) and helping state prosecutors. But the special counsel should still issue a comprehensive report on Trump’s lawbreaking. We must expose and root out this ethical rot before it eats away at the foundations of our democracy.

**********

Read the rest of Boot’s article at the link. Actually, Max understates the case. Trump long ago ate the ethical underpinnings of American democracy for lunch, with the “JR Five” providing “table service.”

Under “normal” circumstances, the scenario outlined by Boot in his final paragraph would be beyond preposterous! But, in the failed state of American democracy under Trump, it’s perfectly plausible. Whose going to stop him from the “final abuse and mockery of our republic?” Feckless Congress? The Supremely and Serenely Complicit ones? No way. Trump will exploit the moral cowardice and spinelessness of the other failed two branches of Government until the end!

It started about the time that Roberts and his colleagues threw Muslims, refugees, and migrants under the bus in their ridiculously wrong and intellectually dishonest “Travel Ban Fiasco.” The “Dred Scottification” of migrants and people of color and open corruption, aided and abetted by Roberts and his gang, have continued largely unabated since then.

Max’s use of the term “rot” brings to mind the refugees from many nations, most people of color, rotting in Mexico, futilely waiting for “asylum hearings” that might never come and where denial without due process has been predetermined. This is what “American Justice” has become under Trump, Billy the Bigot, Wolfman the Illegal, and Roberts the Complicit!

Actually, separating families, misrepresenting the policy to Federal Courts, and long-term “civil” detention of families in life-threatening conditions as a “deterrent” to exercising important, fundamental legal and human rights might well be criminal violations in a functioning justice system. Sadly, America basically lacks the latter these days because of the Supremes’ coddling of the “crimes against humanity” committed by Trump, Miller, Barr, Wolf, Cooch, and their co-conspirators.

As those of us with experience adjudicating asylum cases know, lack of accountability before the courts and failure of the judiciary to exercise independent judgment to control a corrupt and tyrannical executive are hallmarks of failed states and banana republics.

Let’s see! America’s founders created an independent judiciary to insure the right of the “King” to use the Government as his personal servants to violate the Bill of Rights, exploit the nation for his own gain, and create “alternate Kings’ Courts” where the “judges” are his employees, he makes the rules, the results are largely preordained by the King’s personal biases and the interests of his royal cronies, and the penalty can be “death without due process.” Not likely!

But, that’s what happens when judges’ fealty to ideology, party, or personality often exceeds their loyalty to the Constitution and to the human rights and human dignity of their fellow men, women, and children. It happens when we create an elitist, right-leaning judiciary, out of step with and non-representative of the majority of Americans, where actual knowledge and experience defending the human rights of individuals against Government overreach, courage to speak truth to power, and demonstrated unswerving commitment to equal justice under law is far, far undervalued, even intentionally ignored. Where practical problem-solving skills and human empathy, perhaps the two most important qualities for fair and honest judging, are all too often disrespected and even demeaned.

Better Federal Judges for a better, fairer, functional America! One where the humanity of all persons is honored and respected, rather than being mocked by those in positions of power and privilege. One where the highest Court finally stands up for and enforces the hard-fought Constitutional right to vote, regardless of skin color or ethnicity, rather than aiding and abetting the blatant schemes of the GOP to suppress voting and deny deserved political power to Americans of color. One where an honest Court enforces to the maximum degree the Voting Rights Act rather than intentionally and disingenuously gutting it at the demand of some in the White power structure.

These travesties have unfolded right in front of us. Yet, even so called “liberal-progressive” commentators largely shrug them off as somehow “normal” or “just the way the system functions.” That’s BS! It’s “judicial malpractice.” It’s a major reason why two centuries after our founding we have not yet achieved racial justice and why our nation is coming apart at the seams under grotesque misgovernance and judicial complicity.

The current Federal Judiciary has facilitated the takeover of our Government by an ongoing criminal conspiracy, as described by Boot. We need change! Sooner rather than later! And, it can’t and won’t happen with the current cast of characters in the Executive, the Senate majority, and the Article III Judiciary.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-04-20

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮👎INJUSTICE WATCH: 4th Cir. Judge Stephanie Thacker Cogently Castigates Colleagues For Misapplying “Standard Of (No) Review” To Approve BIA’s Sloppy, Clearly Erroneous, Deadly Anti-Asylum Farce! – Portillo-Flores v. Barr — – “[A]t worst nonsensical and cursory at best”

Judge Stephanie D. Thacker — Honorable Stephanie D. Thacker
U.S. Circuit Judge
Fourth Circuit
Photo From Ballotpedia

Portillo-Flores v. Barr, 4^th Cir., 09-02-20, published

Portillo decision

PANEL: THACKER, QUATTLEBAUM, and RUSHING, Circuit Judges.

OPINION BY: Judge Quattlebaum

DISSENTING OPINION: Judge Stephanie D. Thacker

KEY QUOTES FROM JUDGE THACKER’S DISSENT:

The majority opinion begins its analysis with a reminder of the applicable standard of review, emphasizing the importance of deference in this context. But the majority fails to mention a threshold requirement for the application of deference — in order to be accorded deference, agency decisionmakers below must conduct sufficient analysis to which we can defer. See Cordova v. Holder, 759 F.3d 332, 338 (4th Cir. 2014) (“[T]he Supreme Court long ago instructed that ‘the process of review requires that the grounds upon which the administrative agency acted be clearly disclosed and adequately sustained.’” (quoting SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 94 (1943))). Here, neither the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) nor the Board of Appeals (“BIA”) provide even the bare minimum level of explanation that our precedent requires. This failure is an abuse of discretion.

The agency decisions here are precisely the kinds of cursory opinions we have repeatedly rejected for their failure to engage with an applicant’s arguments and evidence. I therefore respectfully dissent.

. . . .

In conclusion, I borrow from the majority opinion, which likens the standard of review to an offensive lineman in football. In light of the limited analyses below, which were at worst nonsensical and cursory at best, the standard of review “offensive lineman” in this case cannot protect the decision below. Instead, the weak analysis of the agencies left their blind side wide open.

I dissent.

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

“[A]t worst nonsensical and cursory at best.” Those prophetic words from Judge Thacker’s dissent should outrage every American! Don’t vulnerable individuals, effectively on trial for their lives, deserve better from the U.S. Justice system? Is the “half-baked” standard applied by the panel majority really the way we would want ourselves or our loved ones judged in any matter of importance, not to mention what is in many ways a “capital case?” What’s going on in our Article III Judiciary?

Read the full opinion at the link. This is a prime, very disturbing example of the “any reason to deny” standard used by the Trump regime to subvert justice for asylum applicants of color. Here, as effectively pointed out by Judge Thacker it was (laboriously and wordily) “rubber stamped” by two complicit Article III Judges.

To call this “second class justice” would be far too generous. It’s basically no justice at all and a damning illustration of how intellectual absurdity and race-driven results have become institutionalized and acceptable, not just in the Immigration Courts, but in various places throughout our judicial system that is failing to deliver on the Constitutional requirement of “equal justice for all.”

Any activists who think that the problems of racial tension in America are going to be resolved without addressing the systemic judicial failure to stand up against the illegal, racially-biased mistreatment of asylum seekers and other migrants by the likes of Trump, Miller, Sessions, Barr, and Wolf, as enabled by the Supremes and other Article III Judges who have “swallowed their whistles,” is mistaken.

As cogently pointed out by Judge Thacker, this was a “no brainer remand” under any application of the proper standards. Indeed, the panel majority spent more time and effort, and killed more trees, looking for ways to “paper over” the BIA’s indefensible and unprofessional performance than it would have taken them to correct it! This panel majority appeared much more interested in “rehabilitating the BIA” and “codifying injustice” (probably as an aid to rubber stamping more assembly line injustice in the future) than it was in achieving justice for the young man whose life was at stake.

Indeed, Judge Quattlebaum and Judge Rushing are so arrogantly “tone deaf” and impervious to human suffering that they employ a “snarky sports analogy” in essentially imposing a potential death sentence on a young Salvadoran refugee without any serious pretense of due process or effective and intellectually honest judicial review. Is this how Quattlebaum and Rushing would like to be “judged” if they or their loved ones (or someone they considered “human”) were on trial for their lives? No way! So why is it “due process” for this young man?

Obviously, these are two judges who are confident in a privileged life “above the fray” that puts them beyond moral and legal accountability for the unjust human misery and suffering that they cause. It’s all a “sports joke” to them. But, not so funny to those whose lives are at stake in what once was supposed to be a serious legal process but now has devolved into a deadly and totally dysfunctional “Clown Show.”

It’s also a national disgrace and a serious indictment of our entire justice system that this type of clearly “dangerous and defective judging” goes on in our life-tenured judiciary. America deserves better from our Article III Judiciary!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-04-20

🇺🇸🗽⚖️RACE & CULTURE: HISPANIC AMERICANS ARE BOTH UNDER-APPRECIATED FOR THEIR MANY ESSENTIAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICA & INTENTIONALLY UNDER-REPRESENTED IN THE AMERICAN “POWER STRUCTURE” — Trump, His White Nationalist Brigade, “Moscow Mitch,” & The Roberts’ Court Majority Aim To Keep It That Way!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/opinion/latinos-trump-election.html

By Elizabeth Méndez Berry and Mónica Ramirez in The NY Times:

Ms. Méndez Berry is a journalist, cultural critic and editor. Ms. Ramírez is the founder of the Latinx House, and the author of the “Dear Sisters” letter that helped inspire the Time’s Up movement.

The story about Latinos in America is an old one. And it isn’t true. Created generations ago by whites to demonize Mexicans and then Puerto Ricans, the racist caricature of Latinos as a menacing foreign monolith persists, even as two-thirds of us were born here and we come from more than 20 different countries.

While we are everywhere in this country, from big cities to small towns, Latinos are largely missing from American media and culture, which makes us vulnerable. President Donald Trump knows this and exploits these fictions for political gain.

Mr. Trump has accomplices. White gatekeepers in media, art and entertainment have long excluded or misrepresented Latinos, particularly Indigenous and Black Latinos, building the cultural scaffolding for the current administration. To defang these old falsehoods, we have to go after their enablers, transform media and cultural power structures and amplify and defend Latino storytellers. We must flex our power as a community.

Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas gave voice to this in a recent column for Variety: “There is a dangerous nexus between the racist political rhetoric and the negative images of Latinos as criminals and invaders that Americans see on their screens.” Mr. Castro added, “Hollywood needs to reckon with its systemic injustice and exclusion of our communities.”

Indeed, all media and culture industries must be held accountable, along with the advertisers, investors and funders who bankroll their behavior.

. . . .

We are the second largest ethnic group in this country. Many of us were here before the ancestors of most people who call themselves Americans. Others came as casualties of U.S. colonial experiments, covert operations and trade deals.

No matter how we got here or when, this country should be grateful for the Latino community: during this pandemic, farmworkers, 80 percent of whom are Latino, have put food on the table for us all and scores of other Latino workers have propped this country up, often at great cost to themselves.

The United States must reckon with the fact that Latinos are essential to its survival and to its splendor, and have been for generations. We Latinos need to know it too.

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

Read the full article at the link.

Another place where Hispanics are spectacularly under-represented is among the ranks of U.S. Immigration Judges. It’s largely a bastion of White male, White female power, with a smattering of African Americans and Asian Americans thrown in. Very few judges of Hispanic ancestry.

Worse yet, a number of Immigration Judges appointed or promoted by this regime have notorious records of anti-immigrant, anti-asylum bias. Much of this bias has been directed specifically against Latino asylum seekers from Central America, particularly women refugees fleeing well-documented systematic persecution because of gender.

Indeed, anyone who actually took the time to educate themselves about conditions in Central America would recognize Jeff “Gonzo Apocalyoto” Sessions’s largely fictionalized “put down” of clear persecution of a Latino female refugee from El Salvador in Matter of A-B-, 27 I & N Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018) for what it really is: an essay promoting anti-immigrant racism, false narratives, and misogyny disguised as jurisprudence. For the true story of Ms. A-B- and her suffering see: https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/01/25/the-human-agony-of-asylum-spend-4-min-with-ms-a-b-human-womens-rights-expert-professor-karen-musalo-beaten-raped-threatened-with-death-by-her-husband-hounded-throughout-h/

The Trump regime’s overtly racist attack on Hispanic migrants, particularly women, children, and asylum seekers, obviously has a larger target: Hispanic Americans as a group, the legitimacy of their political power as citizens, and their very humanity. As I say over and over, it’s what “Dred Scottification,” and its acceptance and disgusting furtherance by a majority of our highest Court, is all about!

Hispanics are going to have to fight for their fair share of power at the ballot box, no easy task given the GOP’s all-out assault on minority voting rights and the Supremes’ majority’s disgraceful failure to defend the voting rights of Americans of color.

But, it would be in everyone’s interest if we stopped playing the “race game” in America and actually made equal justice and full participation by all in society, regardless of race, the touchstone of a better future for America. Only then, will we rid ourselves of the unnecessary burdens of the past and reach our full potential as a nation of peace, prosperity, productivity, creativity, and humanity!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-03-20

🏴‍☠️🤡BIA’S LATEST ANTI-ASYLUM PRECEDENT CONTINUES ASSAULT ON DUE PROCESS — MATTER OF R-C-R-

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

Matter of R-C-R-, 28 I&N Dec. 74 (BIA 2020)

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1311336/download

BIA HEADNOTE:

(1) After an Immigration Judge has set a firm deadline for filing an application for relief, the respondent’s opportunity to file the application may be deemed waived, prior to a scheduled hearing, if the deadline passes without submission of the application and no good cause for noncompliance has been shown.

(2) The respondent failed to meet his burden of establishing that he was deprived of a full and fair hearing where he has not shown that conducting the hearing by video conference interfered with his communication with the Immigration Judge or otherwise prejudiced him as a result of technical problems with the video equipment.

PANEL: MULLANE, KELLY, and GORMAN, Appellate Immigration Judges

OPINION BY: GORMAN, Appellate Immigration Judge

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

30 days to file an application for asylum for an unrepresented, detained, non-English speaking applicant appearing by televideo, huh? “Full and fair hearing?” Only in the “Never Never Land” of EOIR in the 5th Circuit,

I can guarantee that this bogus “30-day-filing standard” will be used to railroad lots of hapless and clueless asylum applicants out without due process.

The good news: Outside the “Judicial Wasteland” of the Fifth Circuit, at least some reviewing Circuits likely will “blow the whistle” on this disingenuous nonsense and abdication of Constitutional duties and send the cases back to the meat packing plant (a/k/a EOIR) for redos, thus adding to the “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and astronomical backlog.

There is actually a reason why fundamental fairness and competent court management are required by Due Process! In the long run, following the Constitution and the statute, as well as having “judges” with actual expertise, independence, courage, and some “practical common sense,” as opposed to EOIR’s endless “haste makes waste” enforcement gimmicks and one-sided, bias-driven judging, makes for a more efficient justice system for everyone. But, that will require a “full housecleaning” at EOIR.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-01-20

“POPPYCOCK!” — Conservative U.S. District Judge Richard Leon “Zeroes In” On Racist, Disingenuous, BS Presented In Court By Trump Regime To Justify “Crimes Against Humanity” Committed Against Asylum Seekers By USG! — Contrasts With Disingenuous Enabling Of Racist Immigration Agenda By Supremes’ Majority! — As Reported By “Legal Clairvoyant” 🔮 Jacqueline Thomsen @ NLJ!

“POPPYCOCK!” — U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s Characterization Of Trump Regime’s Defense Of Asylum Seeker Abuse By DHS & Barr’s Unethical & Frivolous Arguments!

Jacqueline Thomsen
Courts Reporter
National Law Journal & Legal Clairvoyant

https://link.law.com/click/21370303.6876//5162eb9334b9b0a8048a6907C27093cdb

Due Process “Legal Eagle” Jacqueline Thompsen reports for the National Law Journal’:

. . . .

The federal immigration law requires that officers who conduct the interviews—in which migrants must show they face at least a 10% chance of persecution due to certain factors in order to be eligible for asylum—receive significant training on handling the applications

In responding to the administration’s claims that the border patrol agents received similar training as asylum officers, Leon wrote, “Poppycock! The training requirements cited in the government’s declaration do not come close to being ‘comparable’ to the training requirements of full asylum officers.”

“To make matters worse, the January MOA precludes any individual CBP agent from conducting credible fear interviews for longer than 180 days, meaning that CBP agents cannot gain the experience necessary to appropriately apply the complex asylum laws and regulations,” the judge added. “These procedures plainly violate Congress’s requirements.”

The Trump administration has administered a widespread crackdown on asylum proceedings, adopting a slew of policies that make it more difficult for migrants fleeing persecution in other countries to obtain protections in the United States.

The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by attorneys with Tahirih Justice Center and the Constitutional Accountability Center, on behalf of four mothers and their seven children from Honduras, Ecuador and Mexico seeking asylum in the U.S. All of the migrants failed to pass the credible fear assessment conducted by CBP agents, which were upheld by immigration judges.

Leon also found in Monday’s ruling that it “would certainly seem unlikely” that CBP agent interviews of migrants could be considered to be “nonadversarial proceedings with a neutral decision-maker,” as required under federal regulations and guidelines. He noted that border patrol agents are considered law enforcement, and said federal authorities’ statements on measures they have taken to minimize the possibility of the interviews becoming adversarial “hardly seems sufficient.”

Leon wrote the training requirements for those conducting the credible fear assessments “are essential for a functioning asylum process, which is why Congress required them,” describing the legal framework surrounding U.S. immigration, asylum, and other similar processes as “complex, to say the least.”

“After all, an asylum officer who is not adequately trained in the applicable legal requirements is less likely to ask the right questions of an asylum seeker, or for that matter, to gather the facts necessary to make an accurate determination of whether an asylum seeker has a credible fear of persecution,” he continued. “Indeed, the record here contains several examples of the effects of inadequate training: one CBP agent failed to follow up with questions about an asylum-seeking plaintiff’s sexual abuse, and another failed to inquire into another asylum-seeking plaintiffs husband’s murder investigation.”

Leon also found the immigrants in the case would face irreparable harm, if he did not issue a preliminary injunction to block their removal from the U.S.

***********

Why isn’t it an ethical and professional problem for “Billy the Bigot’s” DOJ to make nonsense arguments to a Federal Judge in support of unlawful actions? Private members of the bar arguing “poppycock” in a civil case could well find themselves referred for disciplinary action. Why are Cabinet Officials and their attorneys exempt from normal professional and ethical considerations?

You can read Judge Leon’s clearly written and cogently reasoned 22-page decision in A.B.-B. v. Morgan here: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.216698/gov.uscourts.dcd.216698.32.0.pdf.

If only more judges at all levels could write with such clarity and in plain English!

The rejection at the “credible fear” stage of the bona fide asylum claims described by Judge Leon is beyond appalling! These are essentially totally and intentionally unqualified and biased U.S. Government employees committing “crimes against humanity” and getting away with it! These aren’t “legal errors.” It’s systemic malfeasance, otherwise known as “malicious incompetence” with a heavy dose of racism and misogyny thrown in for a good measure!

If substantiated during the immigration hearing process that should have taken place, all these applicants should have been “slam dunk” grants of asylum, withholding of removal, and/or relief under the Convention Against Torture in a properly functioning justice system. Instead, but for the efforts of pro bono counsel, they would have been illegally returned to harm, torture, and/or death with no legitimate process at all!

No wonder “Billy the Bigot’s” Immigration Courts are out of control and the borders are a deadly mess when individuals who with proper screening and access to competent counsel should have been quickly legally admitted to the U.S. under protection laws are instead being “rejected” by biased and unqualified Border Patrol Agents impersonating Asylum Officers!

Here’s my favorite quote (among many) from Judge Leon’s decision:

Of course, the Government has a strong interest in the “prompt execution of removal orders.” Nken,556 U.S. at 436. However, the Government and public can have little interest in executing removal orders that are based on statutory violations, League of Women Voters of U.S. v. I,{ewby,838 F.3d l,12 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (“There is generally no public interest in the perpetuation of unlawful agency action.”), especially where those statutory violations may compromise the accuracy of such removal orders. R.I.L.-R. v Johnson, 80 F. Supp. 3d 164, 191 (D.D.C. 2015); Grace, 344 F. Supp. 3d at 14144 Indeed, the public has an interest “in preventing aliens from being wrongfully removed, particularly to countries where they are likely to face substantial harm.” Nken,556 U.S. at 436. As such, the balance of interests here weighs in favor of preliminary injunctive relief.

The last point, “the public has an interest ‘in preventing aliens from being wrongfully removed, particularly to countries where they are likely to face substantial harm,’” Nken,556 U.S. at 436, has basically been ignored by the Supremes’ majority recently in sending refugees to their death or into harm’s way without any semblance of due process, based on various lies, distortions, and racist schemes by the Trump regime intentionally mischaracterizing “national security” and “national emergency.” As Judge Leon would say: “Poppycock!”

Perversely, the Trump regime and the Supremes’ have made execution of illegal removal orders, resulting from racist White Nationalist schemes, a “national priority.” Truly, this is a system broken from the top down in need of immediate repair and injections of intellectually honesty, moral courage, and ethics — something that seems “out of vogue” in all three branches of our failing democracy these days

I recently had a conversation with Jacqueline in which she basically predicted this decision based on her study of the arguments and trends among U.S. District Judges, regardless of philosophy or appointing party, in DC. Nice going Jacqueline! Congrats on your clairvoyance!

Those with NLJ access (anyone can get “three free” per month by registering) can read the complete article at the link.

Judge Leon’s linear, straightforward, and “no BS” treatment of the regime’s absurdist, unethical, and scofflaw legal “defense” of essentially “crimes against humanity” contrasts sharply with the disingenuous and essentially “brain dead” treatment of similar BS by the “JR Five” on the Supremes. There, the patently unconstitutional and illegal (not to mention immoral) agenda of neo-Nazi racist Stephen Miller and the unethical maneuvers of SG Noel Francisco are often wrongfully rewarded. By contrast, the the Supremes’ majority routinely trashes the legal and constitutional rights of vulnerable people of color, particularly asylum seekers, migrants, and voters beneath an avalanche of bogus “Dred Scottification” jurisprudence.

Additionally, Judge Leon is “onto something” that has been swept under the carpet by the Supremes and the Circuit Courts when he questions “whether CBP agents could ever lawfully be given authority to conduct asylum interviews and adjudicate asylum claims, see Compl. ‘]Tfl 108-09, it would certainly seem unlikely under these circumstances. After all, law enforcement officers typically “function as adversaries” whose role is “to investigate criminal activity, to locate and arrest those who violate our laws, and to facilitate the charging and bringing of such persons to trial.” New Jersey v T.L.O.,469 U.S. 325,349 (1985) (Powell, J., concurring).”

Similarly, many of us have argued that Immigration “Judges” who work for uber-enforcer and Trump shill “Billy the Bigot” and have been “repurposed” and “weaponized” into DHS enforcement support staff can not possibly be the “fair and impartial” quasi-judicial adjudicators required by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment!

Better Justices and better Federal Judges for a better America, particularly for people of color and other minorities. It’s actually quite simple and straightforward. It starts with throwing Trump and the GOP out of every political office this Fall.

Then, we need some real Justices and Federal Judges who will stand against systemic racism and enforce equal justice in America! Not, rocket science! Just knowledge of the Constitution, awareness of human rights and immigrants’ rights, a focus on racial justice, courage to speak truth to power, and a demonstrated commitment to human dignity and human decency. One could easily wonder why those haven’t been the minimal requirements for Federal judicial service in the past.

Past is past, particularly for life-tenured judges. But, America can’t afford any more disastrous judicial appointments, at any level, who lack the guts and human decency to stand up to scofflaw, neo-fascist racists like Trump, Miller, and their cronies.

The top to bottom overall failure of the American judiciary to put an end to unconstitutional and unfair racism and “Dred Scottification” of “the other” in our society is aiding and abetting the dark, lawless forces aligned with the regime destabilizing our country and ripping it apart! No more!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-31-20

⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️SOURCE OF RACIAL TENSION & ENDEMIC INEQUALITY 🤮: U.S. COURTS: Nan Aron Of Alliance For Justice Speaks Out On Why We Need Progressive Judges!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-biden-supreme-court/2020/08/28/0f0a8158-e937-11ea-bc79-834454439a44_story.html

By Seung Min Kim in the WashPost:

. . . .

But Democrats all but ignored the Supreme Court in their four-day convention earlier this month, even after the party spent Trump’s first term reckoning with the consequences of Republicans confirming two justices, including a reliably conservative justice who replaced the court’s swing vote.

The contrast worries liberal activists who see it as further evidence that the Democratic Party isn’t paying enough attention to an area where conservatives have made big inroads in recent years: control of the courts.

“The fact that Democrats spent so little to no time discussing the federal bench failed to take into account that their critically important goals for the future will be challenged in the courts,” said Nan Aron, the president of the liberal judicial advocacy group Alliance for Justice.

She added: “It’s a major misstep, given the fact that these 200 judges will make it very difficult, if not impossible in many cases, for the Democrats to accomplish their worthy goals going forward.”

. . . .

************************
Read the full article at the link,

Thanks, Nan, for speaking out! I’ve always been astounded by the Dems’ failure to recognize the importance of getting demonstrated advocates for due process, fundamental fairness, human rights, equal justice under law, and best practices on the Federal Bench.

Heck, look at the Dems beyond disastrous and just plain incompetent approach to the Immigration Bench in the Obama Administration — an administrative court controlled entirely by the Attorney General. Can’t blame Mitch and the GOP for:

- Ridiculously convoluted and entirely unnecessary 2-year hiring process (under former Director Anthony C. Moscato, the Clinton Administration could sometimes do it in a fraction of that time with better, or at least no worse, results);
- Eschewing progressive judicial candidates, including well-qualified underrepresented groups, with scholarly credentials and practical expertise in immigration, asylum, human rights, and due process in favor of an endless stream of largely “insider only, don’t rock the boat” picks;
- Leaving numerous positions unfilled at the end of the Administration for White Nationalist xenophobe Jeff Sessions to fill;
- Ignoring obvious, achievable management reforms like e-filing!

The Trump Administration is teeming with malicious incompetents, particularly in the Immigration-related agencies. Notwithstanding that, they immediately figured out how to expedite Immigration Judge hiring and to load the bench with some of the worst, most unqualified, and biased so-called “judges” in modern American legal history!

In other words, Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr shamelessly and rapidly weaponized the Immigration Courts and made them subservient shills and zealots for DHS enforcement and Stephen Miller’s White Supremacist agenda. And feckless Article III Courts, now also stuffed with Trump judges, have, with a few notable exceptions, looked the other way as the slaughter of Constitutional due process and vulnerable humans (including kids) unfolds. You couldn’t write a worse script for the rule of law and future of humanity!

Democrats pretended that the Immigration Courts existed merely to “go along to get along with the policy flavor of the day.” They did not reinforce due process, fundamental fairness, or view the Immigration Bench as a source of expertise, creativity, progressive legal thinking, or creative legal problem solving. The backlogs grew, morale slid (although admittedly not at the breakneck pace under the Trump regime), and the bodies of those who should have been saved but weren’t started to pile up. Simple reforms — try e-filing, for example — were left unaccomplished!

It wasn’t “malicious incompetence” — just good old fashioned “administrative incompetence.” But the latter paved the way for the former to “go on steroids” during the Trump regime. This isn’t just political malpractice and academic debate! Real people have lost their lives, families, or futures because of the Dems’ diddling approach to justice — including America’s largest and perhaps most significant court system over which they had total control!

It’s actually pretty simple: Better judges (from the Supremes to the Immigration Courts) for a better America! And, time for the immigration/human rights community to wake up, join the NDPA, and demand that the Dems do better next time around!

Due Process Forever! Repeating past mistakes, never!

PWS

08-30-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️WELCOME TO COLFAX, LA: DEADLY WHITE SUPREMACY DEEPLY ROOTED IN U.S. LEGAL HISTORY: “The Colfax Massacre” Lives On In Roberts’ Court’s Willingness To Sacrifice Constitutional, Statutory, & Human Rights Of People Of Color To The Trump/Miller Nakedly White Supremacist & Clearly Illegal Agenda!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/opinion/black-lives-civil-rights.html?referringSource=articleShare

From The NY Times:

By William Briggs and Jon Krakauer

The authors are writers.

Aug. 28, 2020

. . . .

In March 1876, Bradley and his fellow Supreme Court justices decreed that he was correct in rescinding the convictions of William Cruikshank and the other white defendants, ruling that although the 14th Amendment gave the federal government authority to act against violations of civil rights by state governments, it did not apply to acts of racist violence by private citizens against other citizens. Furthermore, the court ludicrously declared, the prosecution failed to show that crimes against the murdered Black men were committed “on account of their race or color.” All 98 defendants escaped accountability, emboldening white supremacists across the land.

The Cruikshank decision reinforced a grotesque judicial precedent that severely limited the power of the federal government to prosecute violent crimes against the formerly enslaved. Given free rein by the Supreme Court, white supremacists continued their coordinated campaign of terror against Black people, hastening the demise of Reconstruction. By 1877, every Southern state had been “redeemed,” and they would remain under the control of their white redeemers for decades.

By eviscerating crucial protections of the 14th Amendment, the Cruikshank ruling ensured that the most basic constitutional rights of Black citizens would be denied well into the 20th century. The crabbed, inhumane logic of Cruikshank provided legal cover that allowed systemic racism to flourish and denied civil rights to millions of Americans, perpetuating what John Lewis called a “soul-wrenching, existential struggle.”

A straight line can be drawn from Colfax and Cruikshank to the race riots in East St. Louis in 1917 and in Omaha, Chicago and other cities two years later; to the abhorrent crimes committed in the 1921 Tulsa race massacre; to the criminal brutality unleashed on African-Americans in Selma and Birmingham, Ala., in the 1960s; to the present-day instances of police and white nationalist violence in Ferguson, Mo., Charlottesville, Va., and now Kenosha, Wis.; to the shameful, plain-sight attempts to suppress the Black vote in the 2020 elections. Lest we forget that white supremacy and racial injustice are still endemic in America, we need to remember Colfax and the lasting harm it wrought.

William Briggs is an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Colorado, Denver, and author of “How America Got Its Guns: A History of Gun Violence in America.” Jon Krakauer is the author of numerous books, including “Into Thin Air” and “Missoula.”

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

Read the full article at the link.

I’ve previously highlighted the Colfax Easter Massacre and the Supremes’ disgusting historical ties to racism, White Supremacy, and the suppression and murder of people of color on Courtside!

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2017/04/16/history-lest-we-forget-the-u-s-justice-system-the-supreme-court-have-sometimes-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history-justice-remembering-the-easter-sunday-massacre-in-colfax-la-the-racist-su/

It’s an ugly and disturbing story. But, the worst part is that the ugliness is being repeated in the bogus, White Supremacist friendly jurisprudence of the Roberts’ Court’s GOP majority!

Great deference is given to the illegal and overtly racist schemes of Trump, Miller and their cronies. By contrast, short shrift is given to the voting rights of African Americans and Hispanic Americans. The rights and lives of asylum seekers and other migrants are treated as beyond the realm of humanity. Who cares what abuses the scofflaw regime heaps on them. After all, they aren’t really “persons” entitled to exist.

Pulling out a few toenails? Hey, A-OK with the JR Five just as long as it’s not their toenails and their exalted positions protect them from having to hear the screams of the tormented or get blood and gore all over their pristine black robes!🤮⚰️☠️👎🏻

It’s called “Dred Scottification” or “dehumanization of the other.” It has no place in 21st Century America. And, neither do the public officials and complicit Justices and judges who enable rampant racism and inhumanity. The “JR Five” would have felt right at home on the “Cruikshank Court.” They are masters at finding disingenuous legal gobbledygook to avoid protecting the rights and lives of people of color from invidiously Executive tyranny and abuse!

Had enough? If we want equal justice under law in America, we must start by taking back control of our nation at the ballot box. Get enough voters and even the Trump regime and the GOP Supremes won’t be able to suppress the results and keep the majority from exercising political power.

This November, vote like your life, our nation, and the world’s future depend on it! Because they do! And, this may be our last chance to save our sinking Ship of State!

PWS

08-30-20

🏴‍☠️THE TRUTH ABOUT THE “TRUMP ECONOMY” — Good For Trump Family & Other “Fat Cats” — Not So Much For Most Working Folks — Contempt For Workers Runs Deep In Today’s Elitist GOP & The Trump Kakistocracy! — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: IMMIGRANTS & THEIR ADVOCATES NEED TO MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD, NOW! (A “PWS Mini-Essay”)

Tara Golshan
Politics Reporter
HuffPost
UW- Madison Grad

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-american-dream-economy-pandemic_n_5f494aebc5b64f17e13d6e4d

Unemployment is in double-digits, renters are scared of eviction notices, aid is stuck, and economic recovery seems to have slowed.

By Tara Golshan

For HuffPost

Republicans want Americans to believe that Joe Biden would “demolish” the American dream.

“This election will decide whether we save the American dream,” Trump said while accepting the Republican nomination for president on the final night of the Republican National Convention. “Or whether we allow a socialist agenda to demolish our cherished destiny.”

Speaker after speaker repeated the same message: Trump is the only candidate who can save the American dream, Democrats’ insistence on expanding the social safety net will stymie individuals’ opportunities, and Republicans are the party of dreaming big.

“Let me assure you, socialism doesn’t offer opportunity. Socialism deprives,” Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez said on the second night of the convention. “We can go down a dark road of chaos and government control, or we can choose the path of freedom and opportunity that was paved by those who sacrificed everything to preserve the American dream for future generations.”

But for many working Americans, policies under the Trump administration and Trump’s response to the pandemic have put the American dream further out of reach.

Trump’s message that he’s the savior of the American dream comes as the nation is in the middle of a widespread coronavirus outbreak, which public health experts and a vast majority of Americans say was worsened by Trump’s slow response. Unemployment sits at 10 percent, and the economy’s recovery has slowed over the summer months. Federal aid, which economists say kept upwards of 10 million people out of poverty, has been slashed or cut completely, as Republicans remain reluctant to continue unemployment benefits at the same levels.

Even before the pandemic hit and the economy appeared to be doing fine, Americans were dubious that there was an equality of opportunity afforded to everyone under Trump’s leadership.

In a January Pew Research Center survey, 70% of Americans said the economy was rigged in favor of the wealthy. There are partisan divides in the poll, with Republicans generally seeing the economy under Trump as fairer than Democrats do. But notably, 79% of lower-income Republicans said the wealthy had too much power today, and Democrats and Republicans agreed that small businesses were being overtaken by major corporations.

. . . .

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

Thanks, Tara! Read Tara’s complete article at the link. Tara is a UW-Madison grad!

IMMIGRANTS & THEIR ADVOCATES NEED TO MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD, NOW!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

Aug. 29, 2020

Truth is, Trump has no plan for reviving the American economy and is firmly opposed to equality. He hopes that the virus will go away or that he can shift the blame for his abject failure to deal with it to someone else (a false narrative already well underway). He has no clue on how to deal with businesses that will never reopen, jobs that no longer exist, industries (e.g., travel, hospitality, education) whose “traditional models” no longer will be economically viable, and workers whose ability to return to former jobs is limited by the long-term effects of COVID.

What’s the regime’s plan to deal with mental health issues arising from unemployment or loss of loved ones? Beyond berating them for being sick or out of work, Trump and the GOP have no plan! Cut their unemployment, take away their health insurance, promote unsafe and exploitative working conditions, and immunize careless or negligent employers from liability — that’s the Trump/Moscow Mitch plan.

While I’m not a labor economist, I see evidence that the Trump regime’s gross mishandling of the pandemic, it’s glorification of myth over science, its open disdain for workers and their health and safety, and its nativist immigration restrictions will eventually cause a long term shortage of healthcare workers and teachers — essential workers whose lives and expertise are almost daily demeaned and devalued by the Trump regime and the GOP.

What’s Trump’s plan for African-American, Latino, and low-income communities that have been disproportionately affected by COVID and its collateral effects? More police brutality? Terrorism by DHS agents? Forced labor? Starvation? Disenfranchisement? Public assistance cuts? Lousy education? Slash Social Security? Tax cuts for the rich? Dirty air? Polluted water? How will folks living “paycheck to paycheck” (at best) save for retirement? Work till they drop dead to support the Trumps and McConnells of the world and finance more tax breaks for the rich and powerful?

Biden and Harris have an established record of concern for all workers and all communities. They are certainly American worker’s best chance for a better life and a better future!

My observation is that the immigrant and particularly refugee and asylee communities have a disproportionate number of entrepreneurs, businesspeople, innovators, risk takers, and practical problem solvers who have been able to reinvent and often retrain themselves under the most difficult circumstances imaginable with minimal outside assistance. This community, their colleagues, and immigration and human rights advocates need to be working at the highest levels with the Biden/Harris campaign on a plan to reestablish legal immigration (including refugee and asylum programs) as an essential part of the overall plan to create jobs, develop new or improved industries and businesses, and get all Americans back to work in jobs that will be both satisfying and economically viable.

This plan that would include rebuilding, strengthening, and creating new opportunities within our healthcare, safety net, educational, and vocational programs rather than destroying and looting them as Trump and his cronies have done. It’s called “teamwork, innovation, and best practices,” and it’s an anathema to Trump and the GOP — the party that promotes systemic economic inequality and despises and ridicules expertise and cooperative efforts.

Immigrants of all types and statuses have helped all of us get through the pandemic, notwithstanding the racist abuse heaped on them by Trump, Miller, Wolf, and the GOP. Robust legal immigration is, as it always has been, part of the solution, not (as the Trump/Miller false narrative would have it) part of the problem.

And, to state the obvious, most of the so-called “undocumented population” in the US, residing (many with families including U.S. citizens or green card holders) working, paying taxes, and otherwise contributing to our society, mindlessly targeted by Trump and GOP nativists, could and should long ago have been integrated into our legal immigration system at some level.

But, it’s up to the immigration and human rights experts to get into the “inner circles” of the Biden/Harris campaign now, and to place immigration in its rightful place as one of the keys to American equality and prosperity, rather than that being “left on the sidelines” as happened with Obama.

In many ways, Trump and his fundamentally anti-America policies, as masterminded by neo-Nazi Stephen Miller, are the price we have paid for the Obama Administration’s negligent failure to harness the positive power of immigration and of the notable absence of true immigration/human rights policy experts and advocates from the key positions in his Administration.

Immigrants and their advocates can’t let history repeat itself! Policy, legislation, administration, and indeed judging are just variants of “advocacy.” In this case “advocacy” of due process, fundamental fairness, human rights, practical problem-solving, and human dignity. That’s something that the GOP right wrecking crew “gets” but to which Dems and liberals sometimes seem willfully oblivious!

We can’t afford to get it wrong again. And, neither can the Biden/Harris campaign or the American people! The stakes are simply too high!

This November, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does!

Also, immigration and human rights advocates need to make their voices heard by Biden/Harris campaign! Now!

PWS

08-29-20

🇺🇸GEORGE PACKER @ THE ATLANTIC ON WHY JOE BIDEN SHOULD GO TO KENOSHA TO LISTEN & DELIVER A NEEDED MESSAGE OF PEACE, HOPE, & UNITY!

https://apple.news/AY0ybevmoTUe6tKe-0t8z3Q

Packer writes:

. . . .

Nothing will harm a campaign like the wishful thinking, fearful hesitation, or sheer complacency that fails to address what voters can plainly see. Kenosha gives Biden a chance to help himself and the country. Ordinarily it’s the incumbent president’s job to show up at the scene of a national tragedy and give a unifying speech. But Trump is temperamentally incapable of doing so and, in fact, has a political interest in America’s open wounds and burning cities.

Biden, then, should go immediately to Wisconsin, the crucial state that Hillary Clinton infamously ignored. He should meet the Blake family and give them his support and comfort. He should also meet Kenoshans like the small-business owners quoted in the Times piece, who doubt that Democrats care about the wreckage of their dreams. Then, on the burned-out streets, without a script, from the heart, Biden should speak to the city and the country. He should speak for justice and for safety, for reform and against riots, for the crying need to bring the country together. If he says these things half as well as Julia Jackson did, we might not have to live with four more years of Trump.

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

Read the rest of Packer’s article at the link.

Seems like a sound plan. Joe probably should take Kamala with him to Kenosha. Get the input of the residents and public officials living with this horrible situation every day and see what common ground they might suggest for both repairing the damage that has been done (to the extent it can be repaired — obviously, there is no restoring Mr. Blake to his pre-shooting condition) and moving forward as a united community and as a country. Assuming, as I do, that the vast majority of Americans favor both justice for all and peaceful, prosperous communities, what are some specifics about how we might get there by working together and across racial and party lines.

Threats and more force won’t solve the problem. We know that. But just that knowledge isn’t enough to solve the problem.

I think it also would be a good idea for Joe and Kamala to seek the views of individuals like LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Steph & Ayesha Curry, George Hill, Kenny Smith, Colin Kaepernick (who was born in Milwaukee and spent the first four yers of his life in Fond du Lac, WI)and others in the African-American community. How would they solve the problem of racial injustice while building community harmony. How could they use their influence to help. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Sen. Doug Jones (to name just a few) might also have some good ideas to contribute.

Donald Trump is not, and never will be, a thoughtful, unifying problem solver. It’s just not in his makeup or “skill set.” He has no coherent plan for anything.

By contrast, Joe Biden has shown himself to be thoughtful, willing to admit and move by past mistakes, and able to build on his experience and past views to address the present. Now, he needs to put it all together in “real time” and show America what a competent, caring, and listening Government could do for the common good. Without necessarily “becoming Elizabeth Warren,” he and Kamala “need a plan for that.” And listening to the “real people of Kenosha” seems like the place to start.

PWS

08-28-20

🤡☠️SOMETIMES A VIDEO SAYS IT BEST: Trumpism In Motion (It Ain’t “Poetry In Motion”): “Send In The Clowns . . . .

Trump Clown — Donald J. Trump
Famous American Clown
(Officially titled “Ass Clown”)
Artist: Scott Scheidly
Orlando, FL
Reproduced by permission

Eddie Colla

August 24 at 9:29 PM·

The montage I did for opening night of The Republican National Convention was rejected, unfortunately.

https://www.facebook.com/1122343656/posts/10218552451658834/

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

“Don’t bother, they’re here!”🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

Great work, Eddie (and, of course artist Scott Scheidly for the enduring image of our “Clown Prince” reproduced, with permission, above)! Many congrats! Can’t see why the RNC rejected this masterpiece!

Another four years of Trumpism threatens not only the livelihood of hard-working professional clowns, but also is guaranteed to bring unnecessary suffering, lasting harm, and otherwise avoidable death to many. Perhaps you, your family, or your loved ones will be among the kakistocracy’s victims!

Better get out the vote for Joe, Kamala, and their better, more humane, more unifying program for America!

This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

PWS

08-28-20

😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?

DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN

Album version

Music & Lyrics by Bruce Springsteen

Well, they’re still racing out at the Trestles

But that blood it never burned in her veins

Now I hear she’s got a house up in Fairview

And a style she’s trying to maintain

Well, if she wants to see me

You can tell her that I’m easily found

Tell her there’s a spot out ‘neath Abram’s Bridge

And tell her there’s a darkness on the edge of town

There’s a darkness on the edge of town

Well, everybody’s got a secret, Sonny

Something that they just can’t face

Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it

They carry it with them every step that they take

Till some day they just cut it loose

Cut it loose or let it drag ’em down

Where no one asks any questions

Or looks too long in your face

In the darkness on the edge of town

In the darkness on the edge of town

Well, now some folks are born into a good life

And other folks get it anyway anyhow

Well, I lost my money and I lost my wife

Them things don’t seem to matter much to me now

Tonight I’ll be on that hill ’cause I can’t stop

I’ll be on that hill with everything I’ve got

Well, lives on the line where dreams are found and lost

I’ll be there on time and I’ll pay the cost

For wanting things that can only be found

In the darkness on the edge of town

In the darkness on the edge of town

——— Source: springsteenlyrics.com, click here for music: https://www.springsteenlyrics.com/lyrics.php?song=darknessontheedgeoftown

Nicole Narea
Immigration Reporter
Vox.com

https://apple.news/AyEIE9zXYSTeZ-TvO2TLZAQ

Nicole writes at Vox:

. . . .

As he seeks a second term, [Trump has] also made it clear that he hasn’t finished. He still wants to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program once and for all, drive out the millions of unauthorized immigrants living in the US and curb their political power, enact what he calls “merit-based” immigration reform, and pursue a slew of restrictive immigration regulations.

The US has already seen the harms of Trump’s first-term immigration policies, which could cut deeper if he’s given another four years: Legal immigration is plummeting, stymying growth in the labor force and threatening the US’s ability to attract global talent and recover from the coronavirus-induced recession. The US has abdicated its role as a model for how a powerful country should support the world’s most vulnerable people. And the millions of immigrants already living in the US, regardless of their legal status, have been left uncertain of their fate in the country they have come to call home.

Other concerns — including the coronavirus, racial justice, and unemployment — have recently eclipsed immigration as a top motivating issue for voters. But for Trump, who currently lags former Vice President Joe Biden in the polls, restricting immigration proved a winning message in 2016, and he will likely try to replicate that strategy again.

“It’s the thing he keeps going back to,” Douglas Rivlin, director of communication at the immigrant advocacy group America’s Voice, said. “It is his comfort zone — to go after people of color and turn them into sort of the specter of scary, violent people as a political strategy.”

. . . .

Whether any version of that proposal will get traction would largely depend on the makeup of the next Congress and whether Democrats win a majority in the Senate. Most immigration policy experts aren’t convinced that Trump will see success in negotiating with Democrats, but the political calculus could change if Democrats control both chambers of Congress and need Trump to sign their legislation.

It also depends on Republicans acting as a unified front on immigration. So far, pro-business Republicans aren’t challenging the restrictions and travel bans Trump has imposed during the pandemic, and as the US continues to grapple with its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and more than a million Americans are out of work, they will likely continue to follow the president’s lead. But in the long term, they might find themselves at philosophical odds with the anti-immigrant wing of the party.

“I think the reality of the economics of immigration and the sort of more ideological agenda are going to come into conflict,” Rivlin said.

But if Trump can overcome those hurdles, the prize would be substantial: the ability the leave his mark on the immigration system beyond a series of executive actions that could be reversed by the next Democrat who assumes office.

“Merit-based immigration reform would be a legacy for him on immigration, more so than a border wall,” the Bipartisan Policy Institute’s Cardinal-Brown said. “That would have impacts on the future of immigration for decades.”

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

Read the rest of Nicole’s gloomy yet (as always) well-written outlook at the link.

Don’t be fooled. In “Trumpspeak” the term “merit-based” means “race-based” (favoring, of course, White guys, preferably rich, English speaking, and prospective GOP toadies). Again, to state the obvious, a “kakistocracy” by definition lacks the ability to recognize and reward true “merit.” That’s why it’s a “kakistocracy,” not a “meritocracy!”

America is a nation of immigrants. To change that, Trump will have to destroy America, which, as this week’s “clown show of hate, fear, loathing, and complete nonsense” (a/k/a “The GOP Convention”) shows, he and his followers are perfectly willing to do.

This perverted “vision” of America also ties in well with the Trump/GOP approach to racism and social justice: Ignore injustice and double down on violence administered by the largely White power structure against communities of color. Kill, maim, blame, punish, jail, intimidate, disenfranchise, and dehumanize the victims rather than looking for cooperative ways to solve the problems. Sow fear, hate, and division to insure that institutionalized racism and White grievance will be indelibly ingrained in America! As these self-inflicted grievances play out, the Trump family and its cronies will use the ensuing chaos as a diversion to loot the Treasury and use what remains of “government” to further their own personal interests, without regard to the common welfare. Nice folks!

It’s doubtful that America as the majority of us have envisioned it can survive another four years of Trump’s corruption, racism, and malicious incompetence. Despite some liberal wishful thinking, our democratic institutions and apparently overrated “checks and balances” are crumbling before our eyes.

The “JR Five” on the Supremes and the GOP Senate already have reached “Penceian levels” (“Pence” rhymes with “incompetence”) of mindless sycophantic subservience to the “Clown Prince” and his entourage. None of them would be able to extract their collective heads from the more than ample Presidential rear to see any daylight during a second term. Trump’s re-election would inevitably convert the “City on The Hill” to a “wealthy universally despised third world kleptocracy.” That’s the real “vision” of Trump and the GOP. (I think that Nicole’s “hypothetical” of a Trump victory and a Dem Senate is the “least likely scenario.”)

This November, vote like your life and the world’s future depend on it! Because they do!

Equal Justice & A Diverse America For All! Trump’s Dark, Evil, Dishonest Vision Of America, Never!

PWS

08-27-20

🤯🤯🤯👽💩🤖👾THE TWILIGHT ZONE “PRESIDENCY” — “There are times I get online, see the latest news, and wonder how we are living in a world where Kafka writes for the Twilight Zone starring the Marx Brothers!” — Dan Rather

Click here for the “Trump Regime/GOP Theme Song:”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b5aW08ivHU

Amen!

This is what American “Government” is these days. An absurdist parody where the architect of death, disorder, hate, inequality, international ridicule, unemployment, and White Supremacist violence blames a former Vice President for the absolute mess the incumbent has made of our nation! And, guess what — a crowd of sycophants actually has the audacity to cheer and (apparently) believe this evil, absurdist fantasy and to claim that their selfish, tone-deaf, dishonest minority views represent the “real America!”

In other words, Trump is essentially “running against his own record” while taking no responsibility for the mess he has made. In a pure Kafka/Twilight Zone moment, his GOP toadies let him get away with it. Worse yet, they contemptuously and arrogantly think the rest of us are stupid or clueless enough to believe this fantastic nonsense!

But, maybe there is some historical reason for this contempt. Trump’s mess is also to some extent the fault of the majority of us who “failed to make the sale” and get out the vote in 2016. We won a clear majority of the votes, but were’t smart, motivated, or diligent enough to turn our majority into political power. Some would call that the height of ineptitude and failure of resolve! That, in turn, has unleashed great, unnecessary, pain, suffering, death, and despair on America and the world.

Even allowing for the unreliability of polls, Trump apparently has never had the support of the majority of Americans, let alone voters. Yet, he “governs” as if the minority he represents are the only Americans! And, the rest of us have let him get away with it!

Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that ended “The American Experiment” and replaced it with “The American Kakistocracy?” We have a chance this Fall to get it right and to put America back on track to fairness, decency, humanity, equality, and a better life for all Americans — to take America to another level and to resume a positive position of world leadership. To address racial and economic inequality and to improve and value the lives of all Americans (including, of course, Trump supporters). The chance might not come again.

So, don’t blow it! Put Joe Biden in office, a decent, experienced, highly competent, thoughtful, caring, forward looking human being with a positive vision for all Americans and a commitment to a better world. Give Joe and his able and inspirational partner Kamala Harris a Democratic-led Senate that will help them govern for the common welfare, rather than for the benefit of one family and a few of their cronies at their top!

This November, vote like your life and the world’s future depend on it! Because they do!

Due Process Forever! Kafka, The Twilight Zone, and the Marx Brothers, Never!

PWS

08-28-20

🇺🇸⚖️🗽👍🏼🏆👏🏽GOOD GOVERNMENT: BELEAGUERED FEDS WOULD FIND WELCOME RESPITE IN BIDEN ADMINISTRATION! — This Election Could Be “Last Call” For One Of The Cornerstones Of Our Democracy — A Competent, Honest, Career Civil Service!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-federal-workers-unions/2020/08/26/62595932-e71c-11ea-a414-8422fa3e4116_story.html

Joe Davidson reports for WashPost:

If Joe Biden is elected president, he promises to overturn President Trump’s aggression against federal employee unions, support regular pay raises for federal employees and protect their workplace rights.

Biden, the Democratic nominee, has pledged to upend Trump’s actions concerning federal labor organizations on Inauguration Day in January. Trump’s assaults were codified in three executive orders he issued in 2018. They systematically undermined the ability of unions to represent not only their members, but all employees in agency collective-bargaining units.

Saying Trump “has loosed a direct attack on our members’ union rights and dignity on the job,” the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) questionnaire to Biden outlines policies the largest federal union wants reversed.

“This includes purging lawful representational activity from government worksites and equipment, weaponizing the bargaining process to propose, and in some cases impose, one-sided contracts, attacking our statutory right to collect voluntary dues, crippling our ability to mediate disputes on duty time, and more,” says the questionnaire’s introduction. “Taken together, these attacks constitute more than just a threat to our members’ livelihoods, they threaten the survival of the merit-based civil service system on which our government is built.”

AFGE endorsed Biden last month. In two internal polls, AFGE said its members supported Biden over Trump by more than 30 points.

The first question asked Biden to commit to overturning the executive orders and other directives that weaken employee due process and collective bargaining rights “on your first day in office.” Biden agreed and said “the federal government should serve as a role model for employers to treat their workers fairly.”

“On my first day in office,” he added, “I will restore federal employees’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, restore their right to official time, and direct agencies to bargain with federal employee unions.” Official time allows union leaders to represent employees, including those who are not union members, in grievance procedures and matters involving issues such as workplace safety and productivity, while being paid by the government.

[If he gets a presidential Day 1, Biden has a nearly endless list of ways to spend it]

In addition to Biden’s answers, the Democratic Party Platform promises to “strengthen labor rights for the more than 20 million public-sector employees” at all levels by supporting legislation that would “provide a federal guarantee for public-sector employees to bargain for better pay and benefits and the working conditions they deserve.”

While Trump has been relentless in his federal union offensive, all was not copacetic when Biden served as Barack Obama’s vice president. Government workers vehemently opposed three federal pay freezes imposed under Obama, with congressional approval, during an era of budget tightening.

But the Obama-Biden administration did not seek to fundamentally undermine unions as Trump has done or diminish federal workers. Obama’s stated effort to “make government cool again” contrasts sharply with Trump’s “drain the swamp” attitude toward government. Trump did not respond to AFGE’s questionnaire.

. . . .

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

Read the complete article at the link.

Just another instance where Biden is going to have to separate himself from some misguided, occasionally weak-kneed and shortsighted, Obama-era policies and establish himself as his own man, with a decidedly more practical, aware, and progressive approach. And, as a long-time public servant himself (albeit an elected one) — whose career has in many ways been built and furthered by the skills, expertise, and contributions of civil servants in all branches of Government — I believe he is up to the task. Indeed, he might well be the best-qualified candidate in my lifetime to save and enhance our now reeling and crumbling civil service — one of the “crown jewels” of American democracy now under unrelenting assault from a thoroughly corrupt Trump and his GOP nihilist “wrecking crew.”

For example, look at how the cowardly and totally unethical “Billy the Bigot” Barr tried to “punish” Judge Ashley Tabaddor and the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”) (disclosure: I am a proud retired member) for speaking “truth to power.” As the only ones authorized to speak out on behalf of Immigration Judges (regardless of membership in the NAIJ), Judge Tabaddor and other NAIJ officials exposed the massive corruption, gross mismanagement, improper politicization, and medically dangerous working conditions at EOIR! As a result, Billy tried to silence her and the NAIJ by filing a frivolous action to “decertify” the NAIJ based on bogus reasons, many rejected by the FLRA in the past. This abuse of Government resources and process by Billy has since been dismissed after hearing by a FLRA official, as previously reported in “Courtside.”

As a civil servant for more than 35 years, serving in Administrations of both parties, at levels from “worker bee” to “Senior Exec,” and a veteran of 21 years on both levels of the Immigration Bench (when it actually more resembled a “real court” than the ridiculous parody engineered by Gonzo Apocalypto and Billy the Bigot), I know what I’m speaking about.

Incidentally, I was one of the “founding brothers and sisters” of the BIA employees’ union in the 1970s, and then went on to battle that same union before the FLRA during my tenure as BIA Chair in the late 1990s. So, like many issues in immigration during my career, I understand both sides.

But, I never questioned the BIA union’s authority to speak for the staff. In most ways, it was a good “focal point” for getting important issues out in the open and resolving them, even if the process was occasionally contentious and frustrating. And, I’d have to admit to getting some good ideas on management improvements from union officials. So good, in fact, that I actually hired some of them to become staff managers at the BIA.

Over my career, I was involved in thousands of asylum and refugee cases, many of them successful. Many were fleeing countries with great progressive “paper constitutions” and sometimes even very “facially reasonable” statutory law. A number of these countries had even signed the U.N. Refugee Convention. What often made these countries “persecutors” as opposed to “protectors” was in the “execution” rather than the “black letter law.”

Two characteristics that many of these persecutors had in common were: 1) an authoritarian executive who controlled a corrupt civil service usually “on the take,” staffed with family members, tribe members, or “party regulars,” and personally loyal to the leader rather than the constitution and statutes; and 2) “courts” that were either instruments of the leader and his tribe or party or too feckless to stand up against executive tyranny.

Under Trump and his corrupt GOP cronies, the US is well on its way to this type of “banana republic” public service in all three branches. And, don’t thank that a healthy economy or a robust stock market are “proof” against tyranny. Today’s China, as well as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, are prime examples of how “economic success and power” do not necessarily equate with good government, equality, or lack of repression.

This November, vote like your life and the future of our democracy depend on it! Because they do!

PWS

08-26|-20

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮👎🏻THE GOP HAS A PLAN FOR YOU: “plunder, theft and extraction!”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/opinion/trump-convention-platform.html

Jamelle Bouie in The NY Times:

. . . .

It is not news that the Republican Party has a stagnant governing agenda cobbled together from the long-discredited dogmas and shibboleths of the conservative movement. “The current iteration of the G.O.P. is indifferent to the substance of government,” Steve Benen, a political writer and producer for The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, writes in “The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics”:

It is disdainful of expertise and analysis. It is hostile toward evidence and arithmetic. It is tethered to few, if any, meaningful policy preferences. It does not know, and does not care, about how competing proposals should be crafted, scrutinized or implemented.

What is news is the extent to which the Republican Party has embraced the trappings of its leader, which is to say, the trappings of a right-wing cable news network: a nonstop parade of conspiracy, demagogy and grievance, in service to a cult of personality, all for the sake of a politics of plunder, theft and extraction.

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

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

Pretty good explanation of The Party of Trump (formerly known as “The Party of Lincoln”).

My question is why the so-called “mainstream media” (excluding Jamelle and a few others) handles with “kid gloves” folks like Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, and Melania, who go on national TV and present knowingly bogus, totally disingenuous, fabricated portraits of Trump as a benign presence in U.S. politics. In a vain, continuing search for “normalization” of overt 21st century Jim Crow nationalist fascism, the “mainstreams” appear ready to credit speaking in complete, largely grammatical, sentences in the English language and not screaming racist tropes or absurdist internet conspiracy theories as all that is necessary to be considered “credible” and a “moderating force” in today’s “Trumpized” GOP!

The disingenuous treatment by the “mainstreams” of dishonest attempts to “soften” Trump’s true “Mini-Mussolini” persona as election-season gimmick is a gross dis-service to the public welfare and the abdication of the duty of courageous independent journalism to provide critical coverage — not just regurgitate RNC propaganda!

Why are “the mainstreams” rolling over for the RNC?

This November, vote like your life and the future of the world depend on it! Because they do!

PWS

08-26-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻9th BLASTS BILLY THE BIGOT’S BIA’S BLATANTLY BIASED ANTI-ASYLUM ASSAULT — AGAIN — 2 More Losses For Billy’s Illegal “Any Reason To Deny” Program!

Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immgration Community:

Immigration Law

Q

Daniel M. Kowalski

25 Aug 2020

Somalia

credibility

CA9 on Credibility: Iman v. Barr

Iman v. Barr

“In light of the totality of the circumstances and in the context of the administrative record presented to us, the evidence in this case compels the conclusion that Iman’s testimony was credible. Exercising jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1), we therefore grant the petition and remand to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats of to Doug Jalaie!]

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

CA9 on Asylum, Motions to Reopen: Aliyev v. Barr

Aliyev v. Barr

“We hold that the BIA abused its discretion by determining that a noncitizen who seeks to reopen an earlier application for relief and attaches that application to the motion has failed to attach the “appropriate application for relief” as required by § 1003.2(c)(1). … We therefore grant the petition and remand.”

[Hats off to Corrine Nikolenko and Michael W. Schoenleber!]

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

None of this is “rocket science.” It’s immigration basics. While these 9th Cir. panels “flag” the steady stream of elementary errors, they continue to beg the real question: Why do they allow it to continue?

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-25-20

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IMMIGRANTS & THEIR ADVOCATES NEED TO MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD, NOW!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

Aug. 29, 2020

This November, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does!

Also, immigration and human rights advocates need to make their voices heard by Biden/Harris campaign! Now!

PWS

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