DESTROYING DEMOCRACY: BILLY THE BIGOT GOES TO WAR WITH DOJ — Rips Career Prosecutors — Advocates Politicization Of Justice In America!🏴‍☠️

Billy Barr Consigliere Artist: Par Begley Salt Lake Tribune Reproduced under license, Large
Bill Barr Consigliere
Artist: Pat Bagley
Salt Lake Tribune
Reproduced under license

https://apple.news/ABgTGgYnLQRq-WHQT_ZVQ8g

BY DEVLIN BARRETT AND MATT ZAPOTOSKY report for WashPost:

Attorney General William P. Barr delivered a scathing critique of his own Justice Department Wednesday night, insisting on his absolute authority to overrule career staff, whom he said too often injected themselves into politics and went “headhunting” for high profile targets.

Speaking at an event hosted by Hillsdale College, a school with deep ties to conservative politics, Barr directly addressed the criticism that has been building for months inside the department toward his heavy hand in politically sensitive cases, particularly those involving associates of President Trump.

“What exactly am I interfering with?” he asked. “Under the law, all prosecutorial power is invested in the attorney general.”

Barr’s comments were remarkable, in that the head of the Justice Department catalogued all of the ways in which he thought his agency had gone astray over the years, and in its current formulation harms the body politic. Barr has drawn considerable criticism for intervening in criminal cases in ways that help benefit the president’s friends.

Barr said it was he, not career officials, who have the ultimate authority to decide how cases should be handled, and derided less-experienced, less-senior bureaucrats who current and former prosecutors have long insisted should be left to handle their cases free from interference from political appointees.

Barr said that argument, in essence, means “the will of the most junior member of the organization” would make decisions, but he insisted he would not “blindly” defer to “whatever those subordinates want to do.”

“Letting the most junior members set the agenda might be a good philosophy for a Montessori preschool, but it is no way to run a federal agency,” Barr said.

The attorney general, the nation’s top law enforcement official, spent much of the speech eviscerating the idea of the Justice Department as a place where nonpolitical career prosecutors should be left to decide how sensitive cases are resolved.

. . . .

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Read the rest of the article at the link.

I’m sure this does wonders for morale at the DOJ! But, demoralizing all the career lawyers and pushing them out the door appears to be part of the program. After all, the regime initially tried to “buy out” the holdover members of the BIA. Morale at the Immigration “Courts” is already at an all-time low!

Career civil servants at the DOJ and elsewhere actually work for the people of the U.S., not personally for Billy, other political appointees, or the President. Government employees take an oath to uphold the Constitution, not of loyalty to the President, the AG, or any other political official. 

Billy clearly has been running the Immigration “Courts” as a politically weaponized part of the regime’s White Nationalist, authoritarian, race-driven immigration enforcement agenda. Funny how long it has taken the overall legal community to see that Barr basically considers the entire legal system, including the Article III Courts, as just as subservient as the Immigration “Courts.” And, to date, the Supremes have done little to discourage that view.

As former Deputy AG Don Ayer pointed out in his recent Amicus podcast, featured here on Courtside, Billy is not serving the people of the U.S., for whom he has nothing but contempt unless they happen to share his bigoted right wing views. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/09/13/america-on-red-alert%f0%9f%86%98%f0%9f%8f%b4%e2%80%8d%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%a4%ae%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f-theocrat-autocrat-liar-race-baiter-anti-democracy-activist-billy-the-bigot-barr-conspires-wit/

He is carrying out a personal agenda of replacing representative democracy with an authoritarian state where everybody and everything is subservient to an all-powerful totally unconstitutional “Unitary Executive” (actually a bogus right-wing “invented concept” with no actual legitimate basis in American political history, as cogently “debunked” by Ayer in his podcast). That certainly makes him one of the two most dangerous men in America!

Billy did say one thing I agree with. Politicos, particularly hacks like Billy and Trump, can be held accountable at the ballot box. Indeed, given the feckless performance of the GOP Senate and the overall failure of the Federal Courts to stand up to tyranny, that appears to be the very last hope for our democracy.

Had enough of the Liar in Chief, Billy the Bigot, Moscow Mitch, & Co? Vote the GOP out of every public office at every level this Fall, while there is still a chance to save our democracy!

This Fall, vote like your life and the continued existence of American democracy depend on it! Because they do!

PWS

09-17-20

INSIDE THE NEW AMERICAN GULAG🤮 — Whistleblower Says DHS Turns “Uterus Collector” Loose On Migrant Women Imprisoned In Gulag — “‘That’s his specialty, he’s the uterus collector,’ Wooten said of the doctor . . . .”

 

Uterus
Woman’s Body Part or “Collector’s Item?”
https://www.scientificanimations.com
Creative Commons License

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/whistleblower-ice-hysterectomies-georgia_n_5f60d307c5b68d1b09c812b6

Sara Boboltz reports from HuffPost:

. . . .

“I’ve had several inmates tell me that they’ve been to see the doctor and they’ve had hysterectomies and they don’t know why they went or why they’re going,” she said.

Although the women are told that they have severe menstruation issues requiring the procedure, Wooten doubts that is really the case, saying, “everybody’s uterus cannot be that bad.”

“Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy ― just about everybody. He’s even taken out the wrong ovary on a young lady [detained immigrant woman],” Wooten said in the complaint. The patient was supposed to have her left ovary removed due to a cyst, but the doctor allegedly took out her right ovary.

 . . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

Not surprisingly, DHS brushes off the complaint. Among other BS, they incorrectly refer to the allegations as “anonymous.” That’s an outright lie. The allegations are being made by Dawn Wooten, an experienced LPN who worked in the DHS Gulag. There were anonymous sources who confirmed the truth of Wooten’s complaint, quite a difference from “anonymous allegations.”

Of course, lies, misrepresentations, cover-ups, and distortions are endemic at today’s DHS.

Here’s the section of the complaint relating to the “uterus collector.” Judge for yourself.

D) Detained immigrants and ICDC nurses report high rates of hysterectomies done to immigrant women.

Several immigrant women have reported to Project South their concerns about how many women have received a hysterectomy while detained at ICDC. One woman told Project South in 2019 that Irwin sends many women to see a particular gynecologist outside the facility but that some women did not trust him.93 She also stated that “a lot of women here go through a hysterectomy” at ICDC.94 More recently, a detained immigrant told Project South that she talked to five different women detained at ICDC between October and December 2019 who had a hysterectomy done.95 When she talked to them about the surgery, the women “reacted confused when explaining why they had one done.”96 The woman told Project South that it was as though the women were “trying to tell themselves it’s going to

89 Project South Interview with Detained Immigrant, Summer 2020. 90 Id.

91 Id.

92 Id.

93 Project South Interview at the Irwin County Detention Center, October 2019. 94 Id.

95 Project South Interview with Detained Immigrant, Summer 2020.

96 Id.

9 GAMMON AVENUE • ATLANTA, GEORGIA 30315 • (404) 622-0602 OFFICE • (404) 622-4137 FAX www.projectsouth.org

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 be OK.” She further said: “When I met all these women who had had surgeries, I thought this was like an experimental concentration camp. It was like they’re experimenting with our bodies.”97

Ms. Wooten also expressed concern regarding the high numbers of detained immigrant women at ICDC receiving hysterectomies. She stated that while some women have heavy menstruation or other severe issues that would require hysterectomy, “everybody’s uterus cannot be that bad.” Ms. Wooten explained:

Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy—just about everybody. He’s even taken out the wrong ovary on a young lady [detained immigrant woman]. She was supposed to get her left ovary removed because it had a cyst on the left ovary; he took out the right one. She was upset. She had to go back to take out the left and she wound up with a total hysterectomy. She still wanted children—so she has to go back home now and tell her husband that she can’t bear kids… she said she was not all the way out under anesthesia and heard him [doctor] tell the nurse that he took the wrong ovary.

Ms. Wooten also stated that detained women expressed to her that they didn’t fully understand why they had to get a hysterectomy. She said: “I’ve had several inmates tell me that they’ve been to see the doctor and they’ve had hysterectomies and they don’t know why they went or why they’re going.” And if the immigrants do understand what they’re getting done, “some of them a lot of times won’t even go, they say they’ll wait to get back to their country to go to the doctor.”

The rate at which the hysterectomies have occurred have been a red flag for Ms. Wooten and other nurses at ICDC. Ms. Wooten explained:

We’ve questioned among ourselves like goodness he’s taking everybody’s stuff out…That’s his specialty, he’s the uterus collector. I know that’s ugly…is he collecting these things or something…Everybody he sees, he’s taking all their uteruses out or he’s taken their tubes out. What in the world.

Intertwined with the issue of the reported high rates of hysterectomies is the issue of proper informed consent. Regarding the hysterectomies, Ms. Wooten explained: “These immigrant women, I don’t think they really, totally, all the way understand this is what’s going to happen depending on who explains it to them.” Ms. Wooten stated that the sick call nurse tries to communicate with the

97 Id.

9 GAMMON AVENUE • ATLANTA, GEORGIA 30315 • (404) 622-0602 OFFICE • (404) 622-4137 FAX www.projectsouth.org

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 detained immigrants and speak Spanish to detained immigrants by simply googling Spanish or by asking another detained immigrant to help interpret rather than using the language line as medical staff are supposed to.

One detained immigrant reported to Project South that staff at ICDC and the doctor’s office did not properly explain to her what procedure she was going to have done.98 She reported feeling scared and frustrated, saying it “felt like they were trying to mess with my body.” When she asked what was being done to her body, she was given three different responses by three different individuals. She was originally told by the doctor that she had an ovarian cyst and was going to have a small twenty-minute procedure done drilling three small holes in her stomach to drain the cyst. The officer who was transporting her to the hospital told her that she was receiving a hysterectomy to have her womb removed. When the hospital refused to operate on her because her COVID-19 test came back positive for antibodies, she was transferred back to ICDC where the ICDC nurse said that the procedure she was going to have done entailed dilating her vagina and scraping tissue off. The nurse first told the detained immigrant she was going to get this procedure done because she had heavy bleeding, but then told her it was because she had a thick womb. The woman quickly responded that she never had heavy bleeding in her life and was never told by the doctor that she had a thick womb. Instead she stated that the doctor had described an entirely different procedure that did not involve scraping her vagina. She stated: “I tried to explain to her that something isn’t right; that procedure isn’t for me.” The nurse responded by getting angry and agitated and began yelling at her. She told Project South that seeing the nurse’s nervous and angry response confirmed “that something was not right.”

This is just a portion of the Project South official complaint. It’s chock full of disgusting and disturbing details about the grossly deficient “health care” in the Gulag, much of it focusing on the now-well-established in ligation DHS systemic failure to take anything approaching adequate COVID-19 precautions.

Notably, although the DHS’s failures are systemic (some would say intentionally calculated as part of a concerted effort to punish asylum seekers and migrants with cruel and inhuman treatment and, in some cases, death) emergency causing, and health and life threatening, our broken legal system has chosen to deal with them on a piecemeal basis. Our justice system is simply not up to effectively confronting the avalanche of illegality, dishonesty, frivolous litigating positions, and other shenanigans launched by the Trump regime in its attempt to crush oversight, eliminate accountability, and blow the Constitution to smithereens.

That means that in some cases, the regime is literally “getting away with murder.” The Trump regime is full of dullards. But, apparently not so dull or incompetent that they haven’t been able to figure out how to “outflank and co-opt” a Federal Judiciary where backbone, creativity, common sense, duty, and urgency, particularly at the Supremes, have “flown the coop.”

Here’s a link: OIG-ICDC-Complaint-1

We should also remember that these women should never been have been prisoners in the Gulag in the first place! They idea that they are either “security risks of threats to abscond” is preposterous! They are imprisoned in heath and life threatening conditions for the “crime” of asserting their legal right to due process. Is this really the America we want to pass on to future generations?

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

PWS

09-16-20

THE GIBSON REPORT — 09-15-20 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group

THE GIBSON REPORT — 09-15-20 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

COVID-19

Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify the latest information on the relevant government websites and with colleagues on listservs as best you can.

 

New

 

Closures

 

Guidance:

 

TOP NEWS

 

Panel Tosses Nationwide Freeze on Trump’s Public Charge Rule

Bloomberg: A nationwide injunction blocking a Trump administration rule that denies legal status to immigrants receiving public assistance was stayed by a Second Circuit panel. The Southern District of New York…likely lacked jurisdiction to enter the injunction while the appeal of its previously-issued injunction was pending, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said Sept. 11.

 

USCIS Wants Sponsors To Repay Gov’t For Benefits

Law360: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Thursday announced an initiative to hold immigrant sponsors legally responsible for reimbursing the government for benefits used by their immigrant sponsees.

 

US seeks sweeping DNA collection of immigrants, sponsors

AlJazeera: Its proposal also vastly expands the biological information that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) collects beyond genetic material to include eye scans, voiceprints, and palm prints, the department’s US Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a notice published in the Federal Register.

 

After a Pandemic Pause, ICE Resumes Deportation Arrests

NYT: Since mid-July, immigration agents have taken more than 2,000 people into custody from their homes, workplaces and other sites, including a post office, often after staking them out for days.

 

The Life and Death of Administrative Closure

TRAC: TRAC’s detailed analysis of the court records on administrative closure yields four key findings. First, administrative closure has been routinely used by Immigration Judges to manage their growing caseloads as well as manage the unresolved overlapping of jurisdictions between the EOIR and other immigration agencies. Second, TRAC finds that far from contributing to the backlog, administrative closure has helped reduce the backlog. Third, data from the Immigration Courts show that immigrants who obtain administrative closure are likely to have followed legal requirements and obtain lawful status. Fourth, the EOIR significantly misrepresented the data it used to justify this rule.

 

Immigration to New York City Declines, Amplifying Economic Concerns

WSJ: Immigration to New York City dropped 45% between 2016 and 2019, with about 34,000 immigrants moving to the city last year compared with 62,000 in 2016, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau population estimates by William Frey, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. City officials and immigration advocates say tighter federal immigration policies and delays in processing visa applications during the pandemic ave reduced the flow of transplants.

 

US revokes visas for 1,000 Chinese students deemed security risk

BBC: The move follows a proclamation by President Donald Trump in May aimed at Chinese nationals suspected of having ties to the military. He said some had stolen data and intellectual property. China has accused the US of racial discrimination. Nearly 370,000 students from China enrolled at US universities in 2018-19.

 

Americans are renouncing U.S. citizenship in record numbers – but maybe not for the reasons you think

The Conversation: In surveys and testimonials, these people say they’re dropping their U.S. citizenship because American anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism regulations make it too onerous and expensive to keep.

 

DHS Whistleblower Complaint Includes Surprising Insights on Immigration Policy

ImmProf: Mr. Murphy believes former DHS head Kirtjen Nielsen presented Congress with “knowing and deliberate submission of false material information” about the number of [known or suspected terrorists] crossing the southern border.

 

Immigration agency cuts of 800 Kansas City jobs expected to trigger backlogs, delays nationwide

Kansas Reflector: Members of Congress from the Kansas City region scored a victory last month when a federal immigration agency backed off plans that would have led to thousands of layoffs of government employees in the metro area. But their relief was short lived, as the agency now intends to furlough 800 of its local private contractors instead — a move expected to set off immigration backlogs and processing delays throughout the nation.

 

Trump administration considers postponing refugee admissions, U.S. official says

Reuters: The refugee cap was cut to 18,000 this year, the lowest level since the modern-day program began in 1980. So far, roughly half that many refugees have been let in as increased vetting and the coronavirus pandemic have slowed arrivals.

 

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

 

Federal court blocks Trump plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from census count used to allocate seats in Congress

CNN: The court ruled Thursday that the President’s July order violates the federal laws that set out how congressional seats are apportioned, and granted a permanent injunction blocking the rule. The court did not decide if the President’s memorandum violates the Constitution.

 

Md. Judge Finds Wolf Likely Appointed Illegally At DHS

Law 360: A Maryland federal judge held Friday that acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf was likely illegally appointed, and temporarily barred the Trump administration from enforcing new asylum restrictions on members of the advocacy organizations that challenged them.

 

District Court Issues Consent Order and Final Statement in Class Action Challenging Delay in Issuance of EADs

On 8/21/20, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio (Eastern Division) entered a Consent Order and Final Statement in the class action lawsuit challenging delays in issuance of EADs by USCIS following approval of Form I-765 applications. (Subramanya v. USCIS, 8/21/20) AILA Doc. No. 20080438

 

Immigrants detained at Buffalo Federal Detention Center in Batavia sue contractor over $1-a-day work program

Batavian: The Worker Justice Center of New York (WJCNY) has filed suit in New York’s Supreme Court against the private, for-profit company, Akima Global Services (AGS), for its exploitation of detained immigrants at the Buffalo Federal Detention Center in Batavia.

 

CA1 Vacates Preliminary Injunction Against ICE Courthouse Arrests in Massachusetts

The court held that the district court abused its discretion in finding plaintiffs were likely to succeed in showing that the INA implicitly incorporates a common law privilege against civil arrests for individuals attending court on official business. (Ryan, et al. v. ICE, et al., 9/1/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090831

 

CA1 Upholds BIA’s Denial of Motion to Reconsider Where Petitioner’s VAWA Self-Petition Was Pending

Where the petitioner had premised his motion to reopen on a pending Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) self-petition, the court upheld the denial of his motion to reconsider, holding that the BIA did not err by finding he had failed to make a prima facie case. (Franjul-Soto v. Barr, 8/24/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090331

 

CA1 Finds Petitioner’s Conviction in Massachusetts for Drug Possession with Intent to Distribute Was an Aggravated Felony

The court held that the petitioner’s Massachusetts’ drug conviction for possession with the intent to distribute amounted to “illicit trafficking in a controlled substance” and was thus an aggravated felony under INA §101(a)(43)(B). (Soto-Vittini v. Barr, 8/24/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090330

 

CA2 Stays Nationwide Injunction on DHS Public Charge Rule

The court stayed the district court’s July 29, 2020, preliminary injunction in the DHS public charge rule, thus allowing USCIS to require the Form I-944 in all jurisdictions. (State of New York, et al., v. DHS, et al., 9/11/20) AILA Doc. No. 20091190

 

CA3 Upholds Asylum Denial After Finding Syrian Militia Is a Tier III Terrorist Organization Under INA §212(a)(3)(B)(vi)(III)

The court upheld the denial of asylum to the petitioner, who fled involuntary military service in a government-controlled militia in Syria, finding that the militia was not beyond the scope of the Tier III provision under INA §212(a)(3)(B)(vi)(III). (A.A. v. Att’y Gen., 9/2/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090834

 

CA3 Holds That “Substantial Evidence” Standard of Review Applies to an IJ’s Reasonable Fear Determinations

After holding that the substantial evidence standard applies to an IJ’s reasonable fear determinations, the court found that substantial evidence supported the IJ’s conclusion that the Mexican petitioner did not have a reasonable fear of persecution or torture. (Romero v. Att’y Gen., 8/25/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090333

 

CA3 Says It Lacks Jurisdiction to Review BIA’s Discretionary Denial of Petitioner’s Motion for Certification of Late-Filed Appeal

Concluding that the “settled course exception” did not apply in the context of the case, the court held that it lacked jurisdiction to review the BIA’s discretionary decision to decline to self-certify the petitioner’s late-filed appeal. (Abdulla v. Att’y Gen., 8/20/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090332

 

CA4 Finds Petitioner Failed to Establish That Salvadoran Government Was Unable or Unwilling to Control MS-13

Finding that the record did not compel the conclusion that the Salvadoran government was unwilling or unable to control the MS-13 gang, the court upheld the IJ and BIA’s conclusion that the petitioner did not qualify as a refugee under INA §101(a)(42)(A). (Portillo-Flores v. Barr, 9/2/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090835

 

CA5 Upholds Denial of Motion to Reopen Where BIA Found Petitioner Had Failed to Pursue His Rights Diligently

The court held that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in finding that the Mexican petitioner’s motion to reopen, which was filed seven years after the entry of his removal order, was untimely and not entitled to equitable tolling. (Flores-Moreno v. Barr, 8/24/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090334

 

CA8 Finds District Court Correctly Dismissed Petitioners’ Request for Nunc Pro Tunc Adjustment of Status

The court held that the district court properly dismissed the petitioners’ request for nunc pro tunc adjustment of status, because they had failed to adjust their status to lawful permanent residents, and thus could not meet the requirements for naturalization. (Al-Saadoon v. Barr, 8/28/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090336

 

CA8 Affirms Denial of EAJA Attorney’s Fees Where Government’s Position Was Substantially Justified

The court held that the district court did not err in concluding that the government’s litigation position was substantially justified, and thus affirmed the district court’s order denying the petitioner’s attorney’s fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). (Garcia v. Barr, 8/20/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090335

 

CA9 Finds Domestic Violence Waiver Under Special Rule Cancellation of Removal Did Not Cover Petitioner’s Drug Conviction

The court held that the domestic violence waiver established under INA §237(a)(7), and made applicable to cancellation of removal by INA §240A(b)(5), is limited to crimes of domestic violence and stalking, and thus did not cover petitioner’s drug conviction. (Jaimes-Cardenas v. Barr, 9/1/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090836

 

CA9 Reverses IJ’s and BIA’s Adverse Credibility Determination as to Asylum-Seeking Member of Minority Somali Clan

The court held that substantial evidence did not support the IJ’s and BIA’s adverse credibility determination, finding that, in light of the totality of the circumstances, the evidence compelled the conclusion that the Somali petitioner’s testimony was credible. (Iman v. Barr, 8/25/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090339

 

CA9 Defers to BIA’s Interpretation of Perjury and Holds That Conviction for Perjury in California Is an Aggravated Felony

Deferring to the BIA’s interpretation of “perjury” as used in the aggravated felony definition of INA §101(a)(43)(S), the court held that perjury under section 118(a) of the California Penal Code is an aggravated felony. (Yim v. Barr, 8/25/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090338

 

CA9 Says Petitioner Seeking to Reopen Proceedings Was Not Required to Attach a New Application for Relief

The court held that the BIA abused its discretion in finding 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” under 8 CFR §1003.2(c)(1). (Aliyev v. Barr, 8/24/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090337

 

CA11 Finds BIA Erred in Retroactively Applying Stop-Time Rule to Pre-IIRAIRA Conviction of Petitioner Seeking Cancellation

The court held that because the petitioner had pled guilty before the stop-time rule was enacted via the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA), applying the stop-time rule retroactively to his conviction was impermissible. (Rendon v. Att’y Gen., 8/26/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090340

 

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

(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.

 

District Court Grants Preliminary Injunction After Finding It Has Jurisdiction to Review USCIS’s Revocation of I-140 Petition

The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida held that it has jurisdiction to review USCIS’s revocation of the plaintiff’s I-140 petition, and granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction. (6901 Coral Way Management, LLC, et al., v. Cucinelli, et al., 9/10/20) AILA Doc. No. 20091135

 

USCIS Launches SAVE Initiative to Collect Information on Sponsor Deeming and Agency Reimbursement

USCIS launched a new SAVE initiative asking agencies that administer federal means-tested benefits to share how they use sponsorship information in sponsor assessment and agency reimbursement processes, with the goal of helping agencies make eligibility determinations and hold sponsors accountable. AILA Doc. No. 20091032

 

DHS Proposed Rule on Use and Collection of Biometrics

DHS proposed rule on the use and collection of biometrics in the enforcement and administration of immigration laws. Comments on the rule are due on 10/13/20, with comments on associated proposed form revisions due 11/10/20. (85 FR 56338, 9/11/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090494

 

CDC Rule Finalizing Interim Final Rule on Foreign Quarantine

CDC rule finalizing the interim final rule published at 85 FR 16559, which provided a procedure for the CDC to suspend the introduction of persons into the United States from designated foreign countries or places for public health purposes. (85 FR 56424, 9/11/20) AILA Doc. No. 20090833

 

DHS Publishes Privacy Impact Assessment on Immigration-Related Information Sharing with U.S. Census Bureau

DHS released a PIA examining the privacy impact of immigration-related information sharing between DHS and the Census Bureau. DHS is providing administrative records to the Bureau to assist in determining the number of citizens, LPRs, and unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. during the 2020 census. AILA Doc. No. 19122704

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

Note: Check with organizers regarding cancellations/changes

 

ImmProf

 

Monday, September 14, 2020

Sunday, September 13, 2020

Saturday, September 12, 2020

Friday, September 11, 2020

Thursday, September 10, 2020

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Monday, September 7, 2020

 

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

So much outrageous conduct by the regime. So little effective “pushback” from the other two branches who largely continue to treat the dissolution of democracy as “just another day at the office.”

With so much “bad stuff” to choose from, here’s my personal “favorite of the week:”

DHS Whistleblower Complaint Includes Surprising Insights on Immigration Policy

ImmProf: Mr. Murphy believes former DHS head Kirtjen Nielsen presented Congress with “knowing and deliberate submission of false material information” about the number of [known or suspected terrorists] crossing the southern border.

Cabinet Secretary lies to Congress. Regime uses lies to proclaim a bogus “national security emergency” at the Southern Border. Some Federal Courts, including the Supremes, accept the pretexts for furthering the Trump/Miller racist, White Nationalist anti-asylum-seekers of color agenda. 

Nothing happens to the liars. Congress and the Federal Courts “normalize” lying as a “standard Executive practice,” defer to it, and allow regime to impose potential death sentences without due process. Victims are just a bunch of largely non-White vulnerable humans that righty Federal Judges don’t believe are human or “persons” under our law.

As one of my esteemed, now retired, Arlington colleagues used to say: “The system is broken.” 

But, disturbingly, this time it’s not just the Immigration Court system we’re talking about. It’s the whole justice system, the checks and balances, and the separation of powers set up by our Constitution. Lack of accountability for gross misconduct by public officials is the sign of a failing state.

I almost feel sorry for T. Dick Nixon. If he were in office today, the Watergate burglary, conspiracy, and cover-up would have been dismissed by the GOP politicos as “fake news.” And, today’s righty judges on the Supremes and the appellate courts would simply have looked they other way and made up legal gobbledygook and gibberish to cover for their supreme ruler.

Remember, part of Nixon’s downfall was the “missing 18 minutes” of the tapes. There’s nothing missing about the “Trump tapes.”

He’s recorded committing “criminal negligence” in office, lying about it, and endangering the lives and health of tens of thousands of Americans. Then, he and his stooges get up before the public and lie some more about what happened. Then, to prove he really doesn’t give a damn about the American people, he follows up by holding a rally that fails to comply with, and in fact mocks and disparages, his own Administration’s best health advice.

Nixon was a liar. But, I guess not a shameless enough one. And, he didn’t kill as many Americans.

Fortunately for Trump, the dead can’t vote. But, their families, friends, and colleagues can! How many more must die unnecessarily before we finally “throw the bum out” (with apologies to honest bums everywhere) and get a real President into office?’

PWS

09-15-20  

CRIME WATCH: NATION OF CHILD ABUSERS: Trump Regime Illegally Orbits Nearly 9,000 Kids To Potential Doom Without Due Process!

Second Wave
Second Wave
Artist: John Darrow
Reproduced under license

https://apple.news/AA4Yv2KHFSS6YVKxlnKiD0A

Catherine E. Shoichet, reports for CNN:

A court declaration Friday from US Border Patrol Deputy Chief Raul Ortiz revealed the number, which previously hadn’t been released to the public. 

Since the Trump administration invoked a public health law to implement new restrictions at the border on March 20, the agency has expelled more than 159,000 people, according to Ortiz. That figure, Ortiz says, included 8,800 children who were traveling alone and 7,600 family members.

The Border Patrol official’s filing, first reported by CBS News, reveals new details about who has been kicked out of the US under the sweeping public health restrictions, which largely bar migrants from entering the country.

The declaration was filed as part of the government’s appeal of a recent court ruling over a controversial aspect of the coronavirus restrictions: the increasing use of hotels to detain migrant kids rather than licensed and monitored facilities.

Immigrant and civil rights advocates have warned that the secretive system is putting kids in danger. They have criticized the administration for using public health claims as a pretext to impose harsh immigration restrictions.

Last week, US District Judge Dolly M. Gee ruled that detaining migrant children in hotels wasn’t safe and did not “adequately account for the vulnerability of unaccompanied minors in detention.” She has ordered the government to stop the practice by September 15.

. . . . 

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Read the rest of Catherine’s report at the link.

The cowardly and dishonest performance of the U.S. legal system, failure to live up to our Constitutional responsibilities, and welching on our international agreements will haunt us for generations. Eventually, history will document the full extent of the legal and human rights abuses carried out by the Trump regime while the political and judicial branches of Government stood by and watched.

History has not been kind to the Dred Scott decision, Jim Crow politicians, and the many citizens who empowered Jim Crow and institutionalized racism. Likewise, the modern day Jim Crows of the GOP, their supporters, and Federal Judges who help carry out “Dred Scottification” of the other, child abuse, and tormenting the most vulnerable among us in their hour of greatest need will also face an historical reckoning. Their smug, arrogant, immoral, and fundamentally cowardly abandonment of justice and human decency for those seeking legal protection will “live in infamy.”

This Fall, vote like your life and the future of humanity depend on it. Because they do!

PWS

09-15-20

LAW & ORDER: “ILLEGAL” GOES ON MULTI-STATE CRIME SPREE, LEAVING TRAIL OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY! — “WOLFMAN” STILL AT LARGE! — Believed To Be Armed With Racist, Nativist Agenda & Extreme Danger To Constitution & Human Dignity!

Trump Regime Emoji
Trump Regime 
Chad Wolf Toon
Chad “Wolfman” Wolf
Wanted for Impersonating a Cabinet Officer
Creative Commons License
Credit: DonkeyHotey at https://flickr.com/photos/47422005@N04/50216420106.

If you see this man, don’t approach! Call ACLU immediately!

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/14/politics/judge-chad-wolf/index.html

By Laura Ly and Paul LeBlanc, CNN

Updated 11:31 PM ET, Mon September 14, 2020

(CNN)A federal judge in Maryland on Friday ruled that Chad Wolf is likely unlawfully serving as acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and temporarily barred the Trump administration from enforcing new asylum restrictions on members of two immigration advocacy groups, according to court documents.

“In sum, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs are likely to demonstrate (former acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin) McAleenan’s appointment was invalid under the agency’s applicable order of succession, and so he lacked the authority to amend the order of succession to ensure Wolf’s installation as Acting Secretary,” Judge Paula Xinis’ 69-page ruling said.

Xinis also wrote that “by extension, because Wolf filled the role of Acting Secretary without authority, he promulgated the challenged rules also ‘in excess of…authority,’ and not ‘in accordance with the law.'”

CNN has reached out to the department for comment.

Content by CNN Underscored

How to sell your old tech before it loses its value.

CNN Underscored partnered with Decluttr to create this content. When you make a purchase, CNN receives revenue.

The preliminary finding that Wolf is likely unlawfully serving in his position came as a part of temporarily blocking two asylum rules while the lawsuit over those rules is heard. The case is ongoing.

CNN has previously reported that the Government Accountability Office found that Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, the senior official performing the duties of deputy secretary, were appointed as part of an invalid order of succession.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

A cruel, inhuman, and lawless regime targets America and humanity with its illegal, inhuman, racist agenda, spearheaded by a dangerous “illegal.”

The case is Casa De Maryland, Inc. v. Wolf.

Due Process Forever. The “illegals” of the Trump regime never!

PWS

09-15-20

UBER MISOGYNIST TRUMP LOVES TO DEFAME WOMEN!🤮 — BUT, IS IT REALLY PART OF HIS JOB AS PRESIDENT? — Billy the Bigot & His Crew Of Corrupt DOJ Attorneys Think So! — And YOU Are Picking  Up The Tab For This Disingenuous Legal Nonsense!

 

Professor Leah Litman writes in WashPost:

. . . .

This is merely the latest example of Trump’s leveraging of the powers of the presidency to avoid legal accountability. Over the past four years, he has deployed the Justice Department to try to stop a New York grand jury from conducting a criminal investigation into the president’s businesses; Congress from investigating his financial entanglements; and several litigants from requiring the president to divest his financial stake in hotels and businesses that create conflicts of interest — investments that may even violate the Constitution. Now, Trump is using a federal agency to try to ensure that he faces no consequences for — if Carroll’s account is true — lying about an incident that she describes as rape.

The legal theory that the Justice Department is pursuing now is also at odds with another theory that the department has advanced to help the president avoid accountability, in a case involving whether Trump can block critics on Twitter. In that instance, the department has argued that the president can block people on the social media site because his Twitter feed amounts to purely private speech, not official actions. That’s a bold claim — made bolder when the department insists that Trump’s comments about a private citizen, about an episode from the 1990s, constitute actions within the scope of his duties as president.

The goal is the same, though the methods vary: Protect Trump at all costs. It’s one thing for lawyers in private practice to pursue contradictory and outlandish tactics like these. It’s quite another for the Justice Department to do so, at taxpayers’ expense.

Leah Litman is an assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School and host of the podcast “Strict Scrutiny,” about the Supreme Court.

***********

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

The DOJ’s position is nonsense. But, with a corrupt and complicit DOJ led by Billy the Bigot, a feckless Congress, and listless Federal Courts, who’s going to stop Barr and Trump from destroying American justice?

So, defending misogyny is an essential part of the “religiously woke” America that theocrat, autocrat, anti-democracy activist Billy the Bigot envisions with his perverted view of a right-wing, intolerant, shove it down your throat Christianity that Jesus would never recognize? What a crock! 

This ties in well with the recent Don Ayer/Dahlia Lithwick Amicus Podcast on Billy the Bigot’s conspiracy with Trump to trash our democracy. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/09/13/america-on-red-alert🆘🏴%E2%80%8D☠%EF%B8%8F🤮☠%EF%B8%8F-theocrat-autocrat-liar-race-baiter-anti-democracy-activist-billy-the-bigot-barr-conspires-wit/

PWS

09-14-20

AMERICA ON RED ALERT🆘🏴‍☠️🤮☠️: Theocrat, Autocrat, Liar, Race Baiter, Anti-Democracy Activist Billy The Bigot Barr Conspires With “His Don” To Annihilate Our Constitutional Republic, Says Former GOP Deputy AG Don Ayer  — Trump and Barr: “Really an unholy alliance working for the two of them and against the country,” Ayer Tells Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick on Amicus Podcast!

Don Ayer
Don Ayer
American Lawyer
Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General — Photo www.ali.org
Dahlia Lithwick
Dahlia Lithwick
Supreme Court Reporter
Slate
Wikimedia Commons — Public Domain

Has Bill Barr Broken the Department of Justice Forever?

Bill Barr is not simply doing the president’s bidding, he is following his long-held beliefs about America.

Read in Slate: https://apple.news/Aj7921kJPQbWnLPJtiLhThA

Shared from Apple News

Bill Barr’s American Carnage

The attorney general is not just a Trump enabler, he has his own agenda.

SEPTEMBER 12 2020 10:00 AM

Listen to the episode here.

What is Bill Barr doing, and why is he doing it? Donald Ayer, former U.S. attorney and principal deputy solicitor general in the Reagan administration and deputy attorney general under George H.W. Bush, on the attorney general’s ideology, how it predates Trumpism, and why it’s so dangerous.

In the Slate Plus segment, Mark Joseph Stern breaks down the latest voting breakdown in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, the latest Census case dead end, and the stupidity of Trump’s latest SCOTUS list.

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

How timely! Just yesterday on Courtside, I gave Billy the Bigot the nod over Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions and “John the Con” Mitchell in the hotly contested race for “The Worst AG in Modern American History.” 

I still think that Gonzo could have pulled it out if he had only been given some more time! His overt racism, misogyny, intellectual dishonesty, fraud, stupidity, bias, and “crimes against humanity” set a standard for morally corrupt officials that seemed unassailable until Billy the Bigot went into “full destructo mode.”  

As someone who started working at the DOJ in 1973, I witnessed (if only from the crowd standing outside the Great Hall) the “voluntary departure” of Elliot Richardson following the “Saturday Night Massacre,” where he resigned rather than carry out President T. Dick Nixon’s inappropriate demand that he fire the Watergate Special Prosecutor. Could you imagine Billy the Bigot refusing any demand from “His Don,” no matter how illegal, unethical, and/or outrageous? When it comes to the history of Government corruption and the DOJ, I know what I’m talking about. 

Heck, I even survived long enough to get “purged” myself by Ashcroft in 2003, during my “DOJ reincarnation.” So, I’m no stranger to the imperfections and shortcomings in the supposed “independence” of the DOJ. 

Nevertheless, I heartily agree with Don Ayer that the dishonesty, deceit, bias, bigotry, racism, and scofflaw attitudes installed into DOJ operations by Gonzo and Billy are light years beyond prior abuses I have witnessed during my nearly five decades in the law.

Don Ayer, my former DOJ colleague and partner at Jones Day DC, confirms what I have been saying for a long time on Courtside about Billy the Bigot’s unconstitutional and unethical control of the Immigration Courts.

Listen to this podcast and ask yourself: “How could any foreign national, particularly an asylum seeker, non-Christian, or person of color get a fundamentally fair and impartial hearing before ‘judges’ selected, directed, evaluated, and governed by Billy?” If that’s not enough, if the foreign national does happen to win, Billy just unilaterally intervenes and changes the results, even in cases completed back in the Bush II Administration!

Obviously, this isn’t justice; to use Don Ayer’s term, this is “Banana Republic” authoritarian injustice.

So, how have Congress and the Roberts-led Supremes let Billy get away with this disgraceful unconstitutional mockery of everything our nation stands for?  Good question with no happy answer.

During Watergate, it took a concerted effort by a bipartisan Congress, the Federal Courts including the Supremes, and independent lawyers and investigators working for the Watergate Special Prosecutor within the DOJ to bring about Nixon’s forced resignation in the face of inevitable impeachment and conviction.

By contrast, today’s GOP Senate and the GOP-appointed “JR Five” on the Supremes have shown themselves to be shameless toadies, sycophants, and enablers in the face of clearly abusive Executive overreach and tyranny. The post-Watergate ethical reforms, checks, and balances put in place by former GOP-appointed AG Ed Levi, cited by Don, have been completely dismantled in broad daylight by the Trump regime with no pushback from Congress or the Supremes. This serious, entirely preventable, deterioration and abandonment of the rule of law and ethical norms cuts across all three Branches of Government and threatens the very foundations of our democracy.

Assuming (by no means a certainty) that our nation puts it together this Fall to remove the Trump kakistocracy, we need a careful and thoughtful re-examination of the types of individuals we are rewarding with life-tenured judicial appointments and why those now on the bench, as a group, failed so miserably to uphold the Constitution, protect human dignity and decency, and thwart the outrageous scofflaw agenda of Trump and his cronies like Billy the Bigot and neo-Nazi Stephen Miller.

Don Ayer specifically mentions the outrageous “Wall Charade” where Trump illegally and unethically steamrolled legislation, the Constitution, the public purse, and common sense to divert money to his “Political Wall” using a patently bogus and fabricated “national security” pretext.

But, here’s the rest of the story: When Trump-owned Solicitor General Noel Francisco presented this  “false claim” to the Supremes, disingenuously asserting a clearly fabricated “emergency” he got the JR Five to roll over! Instead of upholding the lower court’s correct injunction and referring Francisco to bar authorities for unethical conduct, they actually approved this farce, by a 5-4 “party line vote.” Of course, that spineless performance has greenlighted other racist-driven White Nationalist policies and an aura of impunity among the Trump regime kakistocracy.

Gee wiz, a Federal Court actually determined some time ago that DHS honchos Chad “Wolfman” Wolf and Ken “Cooch Cooch” Cuccinelli are both illegally serving in their current positions. But, in the “no consequences no accountability” atmosphere established by the Roberts Court, Cooch and Wolfie continue to abuse migrants with arrogant impunity. They obviously have no fear of accountability. Even if  they got in trouble, Trump would simply run over the Constitution to pardon them.

As I constantly say, “it’s not rocket science.” There are scores of talented courageous lawyers out there in the private, NGO, and academic sectors who could have out-performed the “JR Five” in protecting our republic. Why are they stuck in the trenches rather than sitting on the Federal Benches?

When Congress and the Executive fail, the nation turns to the supposedly independent Article III Courts as democracy’s last defender. But, Roberts & Co. have been more than “MIA” — they have actively contributed to the downfall with outrageous derelictions of duty on voting rights, civil rights, and grotesque, unconstitutional “Dred Scottifiction” of migrants of color that actually harms, maims, and kills innocent humans almost every day.

Think that “Dred Scottification” couldn’t happen to you? Guess again! Don Ayer says all of our freedoms and democratic norms will be on the line if Billy and “His Don” get another four years to complete their destruction. Believe him!

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

PWS

9-13-20

🏴‍☠️🤮👎🏻BILLY THE BIGOT GOES “FULL MAFIA” ON YOUR NICKEL!   — “Don The Con’s” Idea Of Pro Bono Legal Services — YOU Pay For His Crimes! — By Pat Bagley @ Salt Lake Tribune

Bill Barr Consigliere Artist: Par Begley Salt Lake Tribune Reproduced under license, Large
Bill Barr Consigliere
Artist: Pat Bagley
Salt Lake Tribune
Reproduced under license

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

Says it all about Billy the Bigot. His “downward sprint to the finish” has rocketed him past “John the Con” Mitchell and Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions as the most corrupt AG in modern American history. 

That’s, of course, not to minimize or trivialize the crimes committed by either of the other contenders. I suspect we’ll still be unpacking the full extent of Gonzo’s “crimes against humanity” decades from now, as the uglier and uglier truth about this “21st Century Jim Crow” dribbles out a bit at a time

Gee, even the “Afternoon Neighborhood Dog Walking Club” — comprised of neither lawyers nor hard core liberals, can’t understand why Barr, this walking, talking ethics cesspool is 1) still in office; 2) not in jail; and 3) still licensed to practice the law. Here’s hoping that all three of these unfathomable mysteries are resolved favorably to the public interest in the near future! In the meantime, Billy serves as a stark reminder of what’s wrong with legal ethics and our justice system at present.

With all the hard-working, talented, pro bono lawyers out there working overtime to save lives and our democracy, it’s simply a national disgrace and a travesty that unqualified, corrupt, unethical creeps like Billy and Gonzo have been “rewarded” with the an office that is supposed to function as “The People’s Lawyer.”

The Don’s felons and fellow conspirators against America get free passes; meanwhile, Americans of color can’t catch a break from a system loaded against them. Go figure!

Due Process Forever! Billy the Bigot, Never!

PWS

09-12-20

DANGEROUS ICE ☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻🏴‍☠️ — Internal Security “Police” Appear To Have Spread COVID, Endangered Detainees & Staff, Overruled Internal Opposition, Made Public Misrepresentations In Bureaucratic Maneuver To Move Armed “Shock Troops” To Suppress Protests & Aid Trump’s Race-Baiting Agenda!

[The Washington Post] ICE flew detainees to Virginia so the planes could transport agents to D.C. protests. A huge coronavirus outbreak followed.

ICE flew detainees to Virginia so the planes could transport agents to D.C. protests. A huge coronavirus outbreak followed.

One current and one former official said the transfers were arranged to skirt rules about who can travel on “ICE Air” flights.

By Antonio Olivo and Nick Miroff

https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/ice-air-farmville-protests-covid/2020/09/11/f70ebe1e-e861-11ea-bc79-834454439a44_story.html

Download The Washington Post app.

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

Under the maliciously incompetent, illegal “leadership” of “Wolfman,” ICE continues to make a strong case for its dissolution and reassignment of those duties that are actually necessary (excludes much of what they have done as Trump’s “Not So Secret Police”) to other entities that will operate professionally and within the law. 

Also, a thorough review of how and why some ICE agents have failed to operate ethically and within the law would be in order, along with recommendations on how to create a more professional workforce that will resist illegal schemes.

Yes, there are some good folks at ICE. I knew many of them in “prior incarnations.” But, ICE’s participation in Trump’s racist, often illegal, and highly counterproductive policies and actions certainly raises some “red flags” that I previously had not seen.

No, ICE isn’t “just enforcing the law.” That idea is preposterous in light of what is undoubtedly the most lawless Administration in U.S. history. One that actively seeks the destruction and ruin of our democratic republic and has nothing but contempt for the actual rule of law.

PWS

09-12-20

THE SADNESS OF PROPHECY WITHOUT POWER: Two Years Ago, I Gave A Speech Warning Of The Consequences Of “1939 Germany” — Now, We’re In “Germany 1938” With 1939 Just An Election Away! — Moscow Mitch, Lindsey The Toad, Texas Ted & The Rest Of The GOP Fellow Travelers & Cultists Would Be Right At Home With Franz van Papen!

 

This morning, Joe Hagan wrote in The Hive For Vanity Fair:

On the latest episode of Inside the Hive, former Republican strategist Stuart Stevens described the GOP under Donald Trump as a party of cynics, stooges, racists, and obsequious enablers whose profiles in cowardice bear an uncomfortable resemblance to 1930s Germany. “When I talk to Republican politicians, I hear Franz von Papen,” he says, referencing the German chancellor who convinced Germans that so-called radical leftists were a far greater threat than Adolf Hitler. “They all know that Trump is an idiot. They all know that he’s uniquely unqualified to be president. But they convinced themselves that he was a necessity.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/ex-republican-strategist-surveys-the-wreckage-of-trumps-gop

All too disturbingly true. For those who didn‘t notice, the GOP now has no platform. None! They are nakedly running on lies, racism, fear, White Supremacy, hate, misogyny, xenophobia, intentionally false narratives, anti-science, anti-intellectualism, and corruption. Sound familiar? It should to those of us who studied Modern European History and World War II. 

Two years ago, before the International Association of Refugee & Migration Judges meeting at Georgetown Law, fresh from a visit to the Holocaust Museum in DC, I gave a speech warning of a return to “Eve of the Holocaust thinking.” 

It was, of course, “extreme hubris and total self-delusion” to think anyone was paying attention. Nevertheless, it doesn’t lessen my “extreme sadness” of watching the disintegration of our nation, without being able to prevent it.

Here’s a “reprint” of that speech from the Summer of 2018:

JUST SAY NO TO 1939: HOW JUDGES CAN SAVE LIVES, UPHOLD THE CONVENTION, AND MAINTAIN INTEGRITY IN THE AGE OF OVERT GOVERNMENTAL BIAS TOWARD REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS

IMPLICIT BIAS IARMJ 08-03-18

JUST SAY NO TO 1939:  HOW JUDGES CAN SAVE LIVES, UPHOLD THE CONVENTION, AND MAINTAIN INTEGRITY IN THE AGE OF OVERT GOVERNMENTAL BIAS TOWARD REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS

 

By Paul Wickham Schmidt,

U.S. Immigration Judge, Retired

Americas Conference

International Association of Refugee & Migration Judges

Georgetown Law

August 4, 2018

INTRODUCTION

 

Good afternoon. I am pleased to be here. Some twenty years ago, along with then Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Michael J. Creppy, I helped found this Association, in Warsaw. I believe that I’m the only “survivor” of that illustrious group of “Original Charter Signers” present today. And, whoever now has possession of that sacred Charter can attest that my signature today remains exactly as it was then, boldly scrawling over those of my colleagues and the last paragraph of the document.

 

As the Americas’ Chapter Vice President, welcome and thank you for coming, supporting, and contributing to our organization and this great conference. I also welcome you to the beautiful campus of Georgetown Law where I am on the adjunct faculty.

 

I thank Dean Treanor; my long-time friend and colleague Professor Andy Schoenholtz, and all the other wonderful members of our Georgetown family; the IARMJ; Associate Director Jennifer Higgins, Dimple Dhabalia, and the rest of their team at USCIS; and, of course, our Americas President Justice Russell Zinn and the amazing Ross Patee from the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board who have been so supportive and worked so hard to make this conference a success.

 

I recognize that this is the coveted “immediately after lunch slot” when folks might rather be taking a nap. But, as the American country singer Toby Keith would say “It’s me, baby, with you wake up call!” In other words, I’m going to give you a glimpse into the “parallel universe” being operted in the United States.

 

In the past, at this point I would give my comprehensive disclaimer. Now that I’m retired, I can skip that part. But, I do want to “hold harmless” both the Association and Georgetown for my remarks. The views I express this afternoon are mine, and mine alone. I’m going to tell you exactly what I think. No “party line,” no “bureaucratic doublespeak,” so “sugar coating.” Just the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

 

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we don’t have an implicit bias problem in the U.S. asylum adjudication system. The bad news: The bias is now, unfortunately, quite explicit.

 

Here’s a quote about refugees: “I guarantee you they are bad. They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people.”

 

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

 

Here’s another referencing the presence of an estimated 11 million undocumented residents of the U.S.: “Over the last 30 years, there have been many reasons for this failure. I’d like to talk about just one—the fraud and abuse in our asylum system.”

 

Here’s yet another: “We’ve had situations in which a person comes to the United States and says they are a victim of domestic violence, therefore they are entitled to enter the United States. Well, that’s obviously false but some judges have gone along with that.”

 

You might think that these anti-asylum, and in many cases anti-Latino, anti-female, anti-child, anti-asylum seeker, de-humanizing statements were made by members of some fringe, xenophobic group. But no, the first two are from our President; the second two are from our Attorney General.

 

These are the very officials who should be insuring that the life-saving humanitarian protection purposes of the Refugee Act of 1980 and the Convention Against Torture are fully carried out and that our country fully complies with the letter and spirit of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees which is binding on our country under the 1967 Protocol.

 

Let me read you a quote that I published yesterday on my blog, immigrationcourtside.com, from a young civil servant resigning their position with “EOIR,” otherwise known as our Immigration Court system, or, alternatively, as the sad little donkey from Winnie the Pooh.

 

I was born and raised in a country that bears an indelible and shameful scar—the birth and spreading of fascism. An ideology that, through its different permutations, almost brought the world as we know it to an end. Sadly, history has taught me that good countries do bad things—sometimes indescribably atrocious things. So, I have very little tolerance for authoritarianism, extremism, and unilateral and undemocratic usurpations of Constitutional rights. I believe that DOJ-EOIR’s plan to implement individual annual numerical performance measures—i.e., quotas—on Immigration Judges violates the Due Process clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and the DOJ’s own mission to “ensure the fair and impartial administration of justice.” This is not the job I signed up for. I strongly believe in the positive value of government, and that the legitimacy of our agency—and any other governmental institution for that matter—is given by “the People’s” belief in its integrity, fairness, and commitment to serve “the People.” But when the government, with its unparalleled might and coercive force, infringes on constitutionally enshrined rights, I only have two choices: (1) to become complicitous in what I believe is a flagrant constitutional violation, or (2) to resign and to hold the government accountable as a private citizen. I choose to resign because I cannot in good conscience continue serving my country within EOIR.

 

Strong words, my friends. But, words that are absolutely indicative of the travesty of justice unfolding daily in the U.S. Immigration Courts, particularly with respect to women, children, and other asylum seekers –- the most vulnerable among us. Indeed, the conspicuous absence from this conference of anyone currently serving as a judge in the U.S. Immigration Courts tells you all you really need to know about what’s happening in today’s U.S. justice system.

 

Today, as we meet to thoughtfully discuss how to save refugees, the reality is that U.S. Government officials are working feverishly at the White House and the U.S. Department of Justice on plans to end the U.S. refugee and asylum programs as we know them and to reduce U.S. legal immigration to about “zero.”

 

Sadly, the U.S. is not alone in these high-level attacks on the very foundations of our Convention and international protection. National leaders in Europe and other so-called “liberal democracies” — who appear to have erased the forces and circumstances that led to World War II and its aftermath from their collective memory banks — have made similar statements deriding the influence of immigrants and the arrival of desperate asylum seekers. In short, here and elsewhere our Convention and our entire international protection system are under attacks unprecedented during my career of more than four decades in the area of immigration and refugee protection.

 

As a result, judges and adjudicators throughout the world, like you, are under extreme pressure to narrow interpretations, expedite hearings, view asylum seekers in a negative manner, and produce more denials of protection.

 

So, how do we as adjudicators remain loyal to the principles of our Convention and retain our own integrity under such pressures? And, more to the point, what can I, as someone no longer involved in the day-to-day fray, contribute to you and this conference?

 

Of course, you could always do what I did — retire and fulfill a longtime dream of becoming an internet “gonzo journalist.” But, I recognize that not everyone is in a position to do that.

 

Moreover, if all the “good guys” who believe in our Convention, human rights, human dignity, and fair process leave the scene, who will be left to vindicate the rights of refugees and asylum seekers to protection? Certainly not the political folks who are nominally in charge of the protection system in the US and elsewhere.

 

So, this afternoon, I’m returning to that which brought this Association together two decades ago in Warsaw: our united commitment to the letter and spirit of the 1951 Convention; additionally, our commitment to fairness, education, international approaches, group problem solving, promoting best practices, and mutual support.

 

In the balance of my presentation, I’m going to tell you four things, taken from our Convention, that I hope will help you survive, prosper, and advance the aims of our Convention in an age of nationalist, anti-refugee, anti-asylum, anti-immigrant rhetoric.

 

 

 

 

BODY

 

Protect, Don’t Reject

 

First, “protect, don’t reject.” Our noble Convention was inspired by the horrors of World War II and its aftermath. Many of you will have a chance to see this first hand at the Holocaust Museum.

 

Our Convention is a solemn commitment not to repeat disgraceful incidents such as the vessel St. Louis, which has also been memorialized in that Museum. For those of you who don’t know, in 1939 just prior to the outbreak of World War II a ship of German Jewish refugees unsuccessfully sought refuge in Cuba, the United States, and Canada, only to be rejected for some of the same spurious and racist reasons we now hear on a regular basis used to describe, deride, and de-humanize refugees. As a result, they were forced to return to Europe on the eve of World War II, where hundreds who should and could have been saved instead perished in the Holocaust that followed.

 

Since the beginning of our Convention, the UNHCR has urged signatory countries to implement and carry out “a generous asylum policy!” Beyond that, paragraphs 26 and 27 of the UN Handbookreiterate “Recommendation E” of the Convention delegates. This is the hope that Convention refugee protections will be extended to those in flight who might not fully satisfy all of the technical requirements of the “refugee” definition.

 

Therefore, I call on each of you to be constantly looking for legitimate ways in which to extend, rather than restrict, the life-saving protections offered by our Convention.

 

Give The “Benefit Of The Doubt”

 

Second, “give the benefit of the doubt.” Throughout our Convention, there is a consistent theme of recognizing the difficult, often desperate, situation of refugees and asylum seekers and attendant difficulties in proof, recollection, and presentation of claims. Therefore, our Convention exhorts us in at least four separate paragraphs, to give the applicant “the benefit of the doubt” in assessing and adjudicating claims.

 

As a sitting judge, I found that this, along with the intentionally generous “well-founded fear” standard, enunciated in the “refugee” definition and reinforced in 1987 by the U.S. Supreme Court and early decisions of our Board of Immigration Appeals implementing the Supreme Court’s directive, often tipped the balance in favor of asylum seekers in “close cases.”

 

 

 

 

Don’t Blame The Victims

 

Third, “don’t blame the victims.” The purpose of our Convention is to protect victims of persecution, not to blame them for all societal ills, real and fabricated, that face a receiving signatory country. Too much of today’s heated rhetoric characterizes legitimate asylum seekers and their families as threats to the security, welfare, heath, and stability of some of the richest and most powerful countries in the world, based on scant to non-existent evidence and xenophobic myths.

 

In my experience, nobody really wants to be a refugee. Almost everyone would prefer living a peaceful, productive stable life in their country of nationality. But, for reasons beyond the refugee’s control, that is not always possible.

 

Yes, there are some instances of asylum fraud. But, my experience has been that our DHS does an excellent job of ferreting out, prosecuting, and taking down the major fraud operations. And, they seldom, if ever, involve the types of claims we’re now seeing at our Southern Border.

 

I’m also aware that receiving significant numbers of refugee claimants over a relatively short period of time can place burdens on receiving countries. But, the answer certainly is not to blame the desperate individuals fleeing for their lives and their often pro bono advocates!

 

The answer set forth in our Convention is for signatory countries to work together and with the UNHCR to address the issues that are causing refugee flows and to cooperate in distributing refugee populations and in achieving generous uniform interpretations of the Convention to discourage “forum shopping.” Clearly, cranking up denials, using inhumane and unnecessary detention, stirring up xenophobic fervor, and limiting or blocking proper access to the refugee and asylum adjudication system are neither appropriate nor effective solutions under our Convention.

 

 

 

 

Give Detailed, Well-Reasoned, Individualized Decisions

 

Fourth, and finally, “give detailed, well-reasoned, individualized decisions.” These are the types of decisions encouraged by our Convention and to promote which our Association was formed. Avoid stereotypes and generalities based on national origin; avoid personal judgments on the decision to flee or seek asylum; avoid political statements; be able to explain your decision in legally sufficient, yet plainly understandable terms to the applicant, and where necessary, to the national government.

 

Most of all, treat refugee and asylum applicants with impartiality and the uniform respect, sensitivity, and fairness to which each is entitled, regardless of whether or not their claim under our Convention succeeds.

 

CONCLUSION

 

In conclusion, I fully recognize that times are tough in the “refugee world.” Indeed, as I tell my Georgetown students, each morning when I wake up, I’m thankful for two things: first, that I woke up, never a given at my age; second, that I’m not a refugee.

 

But, I submit that tough times are exactly when great, independent, and courageous judging and adjudication are necessary to protect both applicants from harm and governments from doing unwise and sometimes illegal and immoral things that they will later regret.

 

I have offered you four fairly straightforward ways in which adhering to the spirit of our Convention can help you, as judges and adjudicators, retain integrity while complying with the law: protect, don’t reject; give the benefit of the doubt; don’t blame the victims; and give detailed, well-reasoned, individualized decisions.

 

Hopefully, these suggestions will also insure that all of you will still be around and employed for our next conference.

 

Thanks for listening, have a great rest of our conference, and do great things! May Due Process and the spirit of our noble Convention and our great organization guide you every day in your work and in your personal life! Due Process forever!

 

 

(08-06-18)

 

 

 

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

In addition to the Moscow Mitches, Grahams, and other corrupt GOP pols who have sold out our nation, the disgraceful performance of Chief Justice John Roberts and his GOP colleagues in the face of the regime’s overtly racist, White Nationalist, deadly abuses of asylum seekers in violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Constitution, the Refugee Act of 1980 (b/t/w, ignored and abrogated, but never repealed), the Geneva Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol, and the Convention Against Torture will fit well within the “Judicial Aid and Complicity Section” of the future “Museum Honoring Victims of Crimes Against Humanity Committed By The Trump Regime.”  

The Constitution is remarkably clear: All “persons” within the jurisdiction of the U.S. are entitled to due process and equal protection under our laws. Unquestionably, refugees seeking legal protection within our court system, some actually being detained, deported, or forced to relocate by our Government, are within our jurisdiction. An L1 law student knows that! It’s not rocket science!

So, the only way that the Supremes’ majority could abrogate legally required protections is through intentionally disingenuous “legal mumbo jumbo and gobbledygook” and ridiculous “legal fictions” that, at heart, convert refugees and migrants of color into “non-persons” under the law. Similar to their approach to the voting rights of African Americans and Latinos.

That’s how you abandon your duties to your fellow human beings and tank on your Constitutional oaths. Sounds pretty overtly racist to me. And, I must say, it sounds pretty racist to most lawyers who understand immigration and human rights laws.

Too bad and too late for those deserving justice and protection, men, women, children, members of the LGBTQ community, religious and political activists, most highly vulnerable and semi-defenseless in the face of lawless tyranny, whose lives have been sacrificed or ruined forever by lousy, ideological, tone-deaf, anti-human-dignity judging. 

It’s too late for them. But, it’s not too late for America to turn away from 1939 and advance to a better 2021 with a commitment to making “equal justice for all” under the law a reality rather than a cruel, unfulfilled, bogus promise! That would at least honor the memory of the dead, tortured, raped, broken, mutilated, and ruined who have been unnecessarily sacrificed by the GOP and their complicit judges who failed in their duties to our Constitution and to humanity.

We can’t change yesterday. But, we can stop repeating its mistakes!

 

PWS

09-11-20

EXPOSING THE KAKISTOCRACY 🏴‍☠️ — LATEST TRAC “DATA DIVE” SHOWS WHY THERE ARE LIES, DAMN LIES, & EOIR’S “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” ☠️🤮👎 – The Round Table & Other Immigration Experts, As Well As Some Article III Judges, Have Been Saying It Ever Since “Gonzo” Sessions’s Unethical & Dishonest Opinion In Castro-Tum: “TRAC finds that far from contributing to the backlog, administrative closure has helped reduce the backlog. [T]he EOIR significantly misrepresented the data it used to justify this rule.”

 

 

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

The Life and Death of Administrative Closure 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

In August 2020, the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) proposed a new rule that would effectively eliminate administrative closure as a docket management tool for Immigration Judges. The EOIR justified this proposed rule by claiming that administrative closure has “exacerbated both the extent of the existing backlog of immigration court cases and the difficulty in addressing that backlog in a fair and timely manner.” TRAC analyzed the EOIR’s claims as well as the historical data on administrative closure from 1986, and has just published its findings in a detailed report. The link to the report is below.

TRAC’s detailed analysis of the court records on administrative closure yields four key findings. First, administrative closure has been routinely used by Immigration Judges to manage their growing caseloads as well as manage the unresolved overlapping of jurisdictions between the EOIR and other immigration agencies. From FY 1986 to 2020, 6.1 percent (or 376,439) deportation and removal cases had been administratively closed during their lifespan. Each year, between 1 percent and 30 percent of cases are administratively closed, with high percentages of administrative closures during the Reagan and Bush Administrations in the late 1980s and early 1990s and during the Obama Administration between 2012 and 2016.

Second, TRAC finds that far from contributing to the backlog, administrative closure has helped reduce the backlog. If the 292,042 cases that are currently administratively closed and not yet recalendared were brought back onto the Court’s active docket, this would suddenly increase the Court’s active workload from its current backlog at the end of July 2020 of 1,233,307 cases to 1,525,349 cases. This would produce a 24 percent jump in the court’s already clogged hearing schedules, pushing the resolution of other backlogged cases off for many additional months if not years.

Third, data from the Immigration Courts show that immigrants who obtain administrative closure are likely to have followed legal requirements and obtain lawful status. When cases were administratively closed, recalendared, and decided, most immigrants met the legal standard to remain in the country lawfully. For example, for those cases in which the government was seeking removal orders, six out of ten (60.1%) immigrants met the high legal threshold of remaining in the country. The largest proportion of these had their cases terminated since the Court ultimately found there were no longer valid grounds to deport them. Just three out of ten (30.3%) immigrants were ultimately ordered removed.

Fourth, the EOIR significantly misrepresented the data it used to justify this rule. Specifically, the agency claims to show low numbers of case completions during the Obama Administration and high numbers of case completions during the Trump Administration. In reality, the data behind this argument artificially eliminates cases that were administratively closed. Its argument also fails to recognize that average annual case completions per Immigration Judge have actually declined from 737 closures per judge to 657 per judge during the past four years, not increased, perhaps due to the changes introduced by the current Administration.

Read the full report at:

https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/623/

TRAC’s free web query tools which track Immigration Court proceedings have also been updated through July 2020. For an index to the full list of TRAC’s immigration tools and their latest update go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/imm/tools/

If you want to be sure to receive a notification whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

https://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1

Follow us on Twitter at:

https://twitter.com/tracreports

or like us on Facebook:

https://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
Suite 360, Newhouse II
Syracuse, NY 13244-2100
315-443-3563
trac@syr.edu
https://trac.syr.edu

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse is a nonpartisan joint research center of the Whitman School of Management (https://whitman.syr.edu) and the Newhouse School of Public Communications (https://newhouse.syr.edu) at Syracuse University. If you know someone who would like to sign up to receive occasional email announcements and press releases, they may go to https://trac.syr.edu and click on the E-mail Alerts link at the bottom of the page. If you do not wish to receive future email announcements and wish to be removed from our list, please send an email to trac@syr.edu with REMOVE as the subject.

 

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

“Significantly misrepresented” — That’s a euphamism for “blatantly lied.” Of course, that’s what the head of the regime does on life or death matters. So, I suppose we wouldn’t expect anything else from the “toadies on parade” filling out the kakistocracy.

 

Look, you don’t “jack” the backlog to at least twice its “pre-regime” level with twice the number of Immigration Judges without some pretty grotesque mismanagement, cover-ups, falsification of data, dishonesty, and denial of rights to migrants.

 

Moreover, TRAC specifically shows the “false narrative” peddled by the racists in the Trump regime that administrative closing is some type of “evasion” that is not in the public interest. As Judge Richard Leon would say “poppycock.” It’s exactly the opposite! TRAC finds that “data from the Immigration Courts show that immigrants who obtain administrative closure are likely to have followed legal requirements and obtain lawful status.”

 

Administrative closure is a sane, reasonable, well-established, entirely legal, and absolutely necessary procedure. Gee whiz, one of the original proponents of administrative closure and its aggressive use as a docket management tool was the late first Chief Immigration Judge William R. Robie. Chief Judge Robie was a Republican appointee during the Reagan Administration. He also was a devotee of fundamental fairness and judicial efficiency. He had led a number of professional organizations and was known and respected in the DC Legal Community as a “guru of timeliness and efficient legal administration.”

 

What’s abusive are the illegal tactics, lies, and mismanagement at both DOJ and DHS that have been concocted to justify racist, White Nationalist policies that do not serve the public interest!

Due Process Forever!

 

PWS

09-10-20

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

Here’s an Addendum from Margaret Stock:

From: Margaret Stock [mailto:MStock@CASCADIALAWALASKA.COM]
Sent: Saturday, September 12, 2020 10:17 AM
To: Benson, Lenni B.
Cc: Immprof (immprof@lists.ucla.edu)
Subject: Re: [immprof] FW: The Life and Death of Administrative Closure

The Administration is most definitely putting out misleading information (as usual). Example: one often overlooked “administrative closure” group has been members of the US military who got tossed into removal proceedings for one reason or another (usually because of a referred asylum case or failure to file an I751 or denial of an I751 by USCIS). They almost always naturalize after being put into proceedings, then reopen and terminate. Lately, they’ve had to hire a lawyer to keep showing up at master calendar hearings, usually for a couple of years. The judges can’t hear the case because they’ve got naturalization applications pending. But the judges have to keep wasting docket time on them because there’s no such thing as admin closure anymore. It’s foolish and costly for the service members.

Sent from my iPhone

 

 

 

MOSCOW MITCH: TO HELL WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’S SUFFERING, GIMMIE SOME MORE RIGHTY JUDGES! “A common thread among his court picks is that many are young, white, male and hold extreme ideological views on abortion, LGBTQ rights and other civil rights.” PLUS, PWS MINI-ESSAY: “Why The Private Sector Immigration Bar Holds The Key To A Better Article III Judiciary For America“

 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/senate-republicans-trump-judges-mitch-mcconnell_n_5f590738c5b67602f5ff84e1

Jennifer Bendery reports for HuffPost:

Hundreds of Americans are dying every day from COVID-19. Unemployment is at 8.4%. Everything is fine.

By Jennifer Bendery

WASHINGTON ― The Senate is back in session after a month of recess and Republicans’ first order of business isn’t a comprehensive coronavirus relief bill. Or emergency stimulus in response to high unemployment. Or legislation addressing nationwide unrest over police violence targeting Black Americans.

It’s confirming more judges.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has long said his top priority is getting President Donald Trump’s nominees settled into lifetime federal court seats, didn’t disappoint on Wednesday. At a time when nearly 190,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and unemployment is at 8.4%, the Senate kicked off its first full day of business with a vote to confirm a district court judge, procedural votes to advance two more district court nominees, another vote to confirm one of those nominees, and two more procedural votes to advance two more district court nominees.

Democrats and Republicans are in a standoff over coronavirus relief legislation. The House passed a sweeping $3 trillion package in May that has gone nowhere in the Senate, where Democrats are ready to pass the House bill but Republicans don’t even agree with each other on what to do. Some prefer no action at all on another coronavirus package because it would add to the growing federal deficit.

McConnell will try to pass a narrowly focused COVID-19 relief bill this week, but it’s purely a political exercise ― an effort to give vulnerable Republicans something to run on ahead of the November elections. It includes funding for small businesses and schools and enhanced $300-a-week unemployment benefits. It leaves out another round of stimulus checks, which Republicans previously supported, and does not include rental assistance or aid to cities and states, which Democrats have insisted on. And it’s not even clear if a majority of Republicans will support the bill.

The Senate Judiciary Committee also met Wednesday for the first time in more than a month. The panel, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), has jurisdiction over a number of issues related to the health and economic fallout from COVID-19. Graham could, for example, hold hearings that looked at the needs of state and local law enforcement on the front lines of the pandemic. He could hold hearings on the health and safety of corrections staff and incarcerated people. He could hold hearings on changes in immigration policy tied to the pandemic.

Instead, the committee held a hearing to advance five more of Trump’s judicial nominees.

One of those nominees isn’t even qualified to be a federal judge, according to the American Bar Association. Just as the hearing got underway, the ABA released an embarrassing “not qualified” rating for Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, Trump’s nominee for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

“The nominee presently does not meet the requisite minimum standard of experience necessary to perform the responsibilities required by the high office of a federal trial judge,” reads the ABA’s review of Mizelle’s nomination.

. . . .

Mizelle, 33, is eight years out of law school and has practiced law for four years. She has participated in a total of two trials (as a law student) and has not tried a case, civil or criminal, as lead or co-counsel.

. . . .

“This nominee has been put forward not only because she is an ultraconservative ideologue, but also because she is a Trump loyalist, having worked in the Trump Justice Department to dismantle many critical civil rights protections,” reads a Tuesday letter to senators from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 220 national civil rights groups. “The Senate must reject her nomination.”

Trump’s most lasting legacy will arguably be his judges, who will sit on the nation’s courts for decades after he’s left the White House. He has had confirmed a total of 204 Article III judges, including two Supreme Court justices, 53 appeals court judges and 147 district court judges. A common thread among his court picks is that many are young, white, male and hold extreme ideological views on abortion, LGBTQ rights and other civil rights.

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

Read the complete article at the link.

Why The Private Sector Immigration Bar Holds The Key To A Better Article III Judiciary For America

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

Sept. 10, 2020

Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, the Trump regime🏴‍☠️ has got to go!

And that includes Moscow Mitch and every GOP Senator on the ballot this Fall. The serious long-term damage they have inflicted on our nation is already catastrophic! Let’s not let it become fatal!

Our sinking “Ship of State,” including the failing Federal Judiciary that is largely unrepresentative of our diverse nation, too often lacks engagement with the “human face” of our justice system, and sometimes demeans our best humane national values, can still be saved and put the on the correct course.

It won’t be easy. It won’t happen overnight, particularly with the life-tenured judiciary. But, it must start in November. Remember, the law is about humanity, fairness, and equatable human relations, as embodied in the due process and equal protection clauses of our Constitution.

It’s not the dusty, musty, wooden, racially tone deaf, sometimes intentionally unfair, anti-civil-rights, anti-human rights, and often contrived “anti-social ideologies of the right” that blind a disproportionate number of Trump-Mitch appointees and enable lawless, fundamentally anti-American tyrants like Trump and his cult of sycophants to run roughshod over our country, our national values, and human decency.

Yesterday, Courtside highlighted the monumental achievements of a real American legal heroine and superstar, Attorney Sarah Owings of Atlanta, Georgia. She could have done other things with her skills and her career. Instead, she devoted herself to “working in the trenches of the law,” laboriously making an intentionally unfair and dysfunctional system fairer, and preserving the rights and saving the lives of some of the most vulnerable among us.

That’s what a real lawyer does. Disgracefully, these are the folks now largely missing from our elitist, out of touch with humanity Federal Bench.

Compare her “real life” qualifications, contributions, and courage with those of a strikingly unqualified, lightweight right wing dilettante like Mizelle. That’s one reason why our nation and our judiciary are in failure right now. Lack of leadership and lack of moral courage and human values. It’s literally killing individuals across our nation, a disproportionate number of them people of color. It must stop. Social justice can no longer be demeaned and demolished by those in charge!

It’s past time to stop “undervaluing and ignoring” the outstanding ”practical scholarship” (see, “Law You Can Use”), great courage to speak truth to power, energy, dedication, “retail level litigation skills,” and creative problem solving abilities of the private sector immigration bar, many serving in pro bono, low bono, clinical, or NGO capacities, in Federal Judicial Selection.

As tell law students, “if you can win an asylum case in today’s conditions, everything else you do in law will be a piece of cake.” There are good reasons why some of the largest law firms in America have found pro bono Immigration Court work to be some of the greatest “real life legal training” out there! Also, good reasons why some of the best legal minds and legal strategists in America are working pro bono on amicus briefs for our Round Table of  Former Immigration Judges!

A new, independent, Article I Immigration Court with a “merit-based” judicial selection system should be the ideal training ground and future selection pool for a better, fairer, more efficient, more diverse, more representative, and more effective Article III Judiciary. One that would have an unswerving commitment to Constitutionally required “equal justice under law.” A judiciary that would fairly and efficiently solve problems rather than avoiding and often aggravating them! An Article III Judiciary that would actually understand and appreciate immigration and human rights laws and their fundamental connection to the goal of equal justice for all!

The talent necessary to stop the bleeding and vastly improve the American justice system is out there. What’s lacking right now is the leadership and political power to make a better future a reality, for all Americans.

We must take back our nation, before it’s too late for humanity!

Better Federal Judges for a better America!⚖️🗽

Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-10-20

INSIDE THE NEW AMERICAN GULAG, AN AMERICAN HEROINE 🦸‍♀️ STANDS TALL:  Courageous Defender Of American Justice Sarah Owings, Esquire, Fights For The Lives & Human Dignity Of Some Of Our Most Vulnerable Humans Caught Up In Trump Regime’s Unconstitutional, Perverse, Wasteful, “Detain, Dehumanize, Deport” Debacle! — Sometimes, She (& Justice) Prevail!

Sarah Owings
Sarah Owings, Esquire
Partner
Owings & MacNorlin
Atlanta, GA
Gabby Del Valle
Gabby Del Valle
Immigration Reporter

https://www.theverge.com/21408606/ice-immigrant-detention-centers-video-chats-deportation-refugees-asylum

Gabby Del Valle reports in The Verge:

. . . .

Owings had left Monroe decades earlier to attend a small liberal arts college in Tennessee, where she studied English and Russian. After graduation, she moved to Georgia, where she worked as a preschool teacher for a year before going to law school. During her first seven years as an immigration attorney, she fought for her clients in Atlanta’s notoriously punitive immigration courts.

“For a long time, that was the only place I saw how things worked,” she said, “so I thought it was normal for a judge to be like, ‘Fuck you.’ Because that’s how things are here.”

Owings began taking cases in more isolated parts of the state. Almost every month, she drove 150 miles south of Atlanta, deep into rural Georgia, to visit clients detained at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin. Stewart had opened in 2006, a year before Owings got her license. When it opened, the facility was so remote that it didn’t have a court of its own. The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the federal agency that oversees the nation’s immigration courts, had yet to find judges who wanted to live in Lumpkin, a rural town of fewer than 2,000 pockmarked by vacant storefronts, where there are more immigrant detainees than actual residents. While it scrambled to bring the legal system to rural Georgia, the agency came up with a high-tech solution. Since it couldn’t get judges to come to Lumpkin, it would bring the detainees to Atlanta — not physically, but through videoconference.

Owings could have fought her clients’ cases remotely, too, from Atlanta, but it was important to be with them in person. For most of a decade, she worked this way: Atlanta, Lumpkin, court, new cases, asylum granted — or, more likely, denied.

Ten years and two presidential administrations later, the virtual courtrooms Owings had fought against had expanded to her hometown. Under President Trump, a crop of new detention centers began opening up in Louisiana in 2018 and early 2019, just a few hours from Monroe. “I was mad at my state, my home state, for having allowed this to happen,” she said. Owings expanded her practice to Louisiana in spring 2019 and started flying down to Monroe and crashing at her parents’ house the night before hearings.

In Lumpkin, Owings had seen firsthand how the government used rural, isolated detention centers to warehouse immigrants out of sight, far from their families, their lawyers (if they had any), and from anyone who might care about what happened to them. She had seen how private prison companies wooed local officials, convincing them that turning vacant local jails into immigrant detention centers would reverse decades of economic stagnation. The big business of detainees would save Louisiana’s dying towns.

But Owings understood the cost of opening detention centers. “We have these small jurisdictions that bit down on a dirty nickel hard because they’re starving for money. And so they’re going to lock up a bunch of humans in these conditions,” she said. “There’s going to be civil rights violations, there’s going to be medical neglect, there’s going to be terrible things that happen, and people are going to be put into these little boxes and forgotten about so that they can be disposed of as quickly as possible and made as miserable as possible through the process.”

As Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) network of detention centers spread across the state, Owings’ fears quickly materialized. Like the immigrants she represented in Georgia at the beginning of her career, the people imprisoned in Louisiana are kept hundreds of miles away from lawyers and advocacy organizations that could help them — and now, even from the judges who determine whether they can stay in the country.

One of those jurisdictions is Winn Parish, a rural community in northern Louisiana, an hour-and-a-half drive from Owings’ childhood home. In 2019, the local government agreed to convert a local prison into an ICE detention center. That facility, the Winn Correctional Center, is where Samuel spent four of his six months in federal custody.

. . . .

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

Read Gabby’s complete article at the link, including the unusual “happy ending” for “Refugee Samuel.”

What was the point of Samuel’s detention? Of course, there wasn’t any! No legitimate point anyway!

He wasn’t a danger to society, and he wasn’t a “flight risk,” particularly with Sarah Owings representing him. The real reason was to punish him for seeking legal refugee, to coerce him into giving up his claim, and also to harass Owings by making her life more difficult. Unpleasant as Immigration Court tries to be these days, representing someone in detention in the middle of nowhere can be even worse. What a waste of taxpayer money that could be used to address pressing problems!

I feel for the residents of places like Winn Parish. Certainly, if we put our heads together, we could help them come up with some type of economic development that would use their skills and work ethic, without exploiting the human misery of others. Maybe these are the types of ideas that both immigrant entrepreneurs and immigration/human rights advocates have to work on along with Americans in economic distress. Perhaps refugees like Samuel, creative, courageous folks who have had to “reinvent themselves” in a strange land could help out!

Last night, I was on a “Zoom Seminar” dealing with the lessons from the Netflix series “Immigration Nation.” One of my fellow panelists was a doctor from Cuba who had spent a lengthy time in DHS detention and been treated badly before finally being granted asylum with the help of counsel.

Nobody in the audience could fathom why their taxpayer dollars had been used to unnecessarily detain and abuse this talented individual Obviously, she was neither a security nor a flight risk. Rather, her presence in the U.S. as a recognized refugee benefits both her and our country.

We had to explain to the audience that immigration detention these days has more to do with punishment, coercion, and a race-driven White Nationalist immigration agenda than it does with any legitimate governmental purpose. The “New American Gulag” is just another par of the Trump regime’s false immigration narrative that neither Congress nor the Article III courts have bothered to critically examine.

In some ways, Sarah and Samuel might have caught a break; apparently the San Diego Immigration Judge both understood asylum and protection laws and was unafraid to go against “Billy the Bigot’s” preferred result of deny everything. Hats off to that Immigration Judge for courageously “doing the right thing” even in the face of political pressure to cut corners and railroad refugees out of the country without due process!

All to often, the highly politicized EOIR“Home of The American Star Chamber” stocks detention center “courts” with judges whom they believe to be predisposed to the White Nationalist “deny, discourage, disparage, and deport” program. Seldom are they disappointed; at most detention center “kangaroo” courts the denial rates hover close to 100%.

Adding insult to injury, some of the worst judges, with horrible public reputations for unfair and rude treatment of asylum seekers and their attorneys, and astronomical asylum denial rates, were actually promoted by “Billy the Bigot” to his wholly owned and highly biased appellate “tribunal,” known as the BIA. Some of these unqualified judges were from the Atlanta Immigration Court, whose attitude toward refugees and their attorneys was accurately portrayed by Owings as “so I thought it was normal for a judge to be like, ‘Fuck you.’” 

Advocacy groups have made a well-documented case for Atlanta as an “asylum free zone.” Its “judges” apparently revel in that reputation. So much so, that Billy the Bigot seeks to make Atlanta the “model” for his entire unconstitutional “court system” that isn’t a “court system” in any normal sense of the word — except, perhaps, in as the term would be used in a corrupt third-world dictatorship.

Many thanks to Sarah Owings for dong this work and for doing it so well and faithfully under such difficult circumstances. You are truly an “American heroine,” Sarah!

To state the obvious, a system run in accordance with our Constitution, that honored human dignity, and that actually sought “full due process with efficiency” would have dedicated due process, practical-solution-oriented individuals like Sarah on a new, independent, Article I Immigration Bench. Additionally, the immigration appellate level is sorely hurting for judges with the necessary qualifications. 

I hope that the day won’t be far off when Sarah and many of her courageous and multi-talented colleagues in the “New Due Process Army” will assume their proper roles on the Federal Bench and in the immigration policy apparatus. 

The inexcusable national disgrace and abrogation of justice taking place in Atlanta, Lumpkin, Jena, Winn Parish, and many other “Immigration Star Chambers” is helping to fuel the continuing racial injustices in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Memphis, Rochester, and numerous other locations throughout our nation. 

“Dred Scottification” is all about “dehumanization of the other before the law.” The failure of the Article III Judiciary, starting with the feckless Supremes, and our inept Congress to put an end to these racist-inspired abuses in Immigration Court and elsewhere is a national tragedy of the highest and most debilitating proportions: One that is literally ripping our country apart. 

It also shows why we need a new, diverse, representative, progressive Federal Judiciary with judges committed to due process, equal justice, racial justice, and social justice. We’re a long way from that now; and the existential struggles our nation is experiencing at all levels, and the scandalous inability of our institutions competently to solve problems in a constructive manner, shows why change and progress must start sooner rather than later!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-09-20

KAKISTOCRACY WATCH🤮: JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT THE REGIME COULDN’T GO ANY LOWER: Billy The Bigot Tries To Force Taxpayers To Underwrite Trump’s Verbal Attack On Victim Of His Alleged 1990 Sexual Assault! 👎🏻🤮

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/doj-seeks-defend-trump-suit-e-jean-carroll-who-has-n1239589

Dartunorro Clark is a political reporter for NBC News:

. . . .

Last year, advice columnist E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of sexually assaulting her at Bergdorf Goodman in New York City in the mid-1990s. She said the friendly encounter turned violent when Trump, then a businessman, pushed her up against a dressing room wall, unzipped his pants and forced himself on her. Carroll said she pushed him off and ran from the store.

Trump has denied the claim, saying “she’s not my type” and it “never happened.” Carroll said no attendants were in the dressing room area at the time of the alleged assault, and she did not file a report with the New York Police Department.

Carroll filed a defamation suit against Trump in November after the president denied her allegation. The Justice Department argued that because the president denied the accusation in his official capacity, the agency can defend him against the suit. She is seeking unspecified damages and a retraction of Trump’s statements.

Carroll’s lawyers also served notice to Trump’s legal team this year for Trump to submit a DNA sample for “analysis and comparison against unidentified male DNA” present on the dress she said she wore at the time of the alleged assault. A New York judge last month also denied Trump’s move to temporarily halt the suit.

“Sir, I and my attorney Robbie Kaplan, are ready! So is every woman who has ever been silenced! So is every American citizen who has been trampled by Bill Barr and the DOJ! BRING IT!” Carroll wrote.

Carroll and Kaplan released separate official statements Tuesday night calling the move by the Justice Department offensive.

Kaplan said: “Realizing that there was no valid basis to appeal that decision in the New York courts, on the very day that he would have been required to appeal, Trump instead enlisted the U.S. Department of Justice to replace his private lawyers and argue that when he lied about sexually assaulting our client, explaining that she ‘wasn’t his type,’ he was acting in his official capacity as President of the United States.

“Even in today’s world, that argument is shocking. It offends me as a lawyer, and offends me even more as a citizen. Trump’s effort to wield the power of the U.S. government to evade responsibility for his private misconduct is without precedent, and shows even more starkly how far he is willing to go to prevent the truth from coming out.”

Carroll said in her statement that the Justice Department’s court filing shows that Trump “will do everything possible” to stop the case from going forward. She added, “But Trump underestimates me, and he also has underestimated the American people.”

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Dartunorro Clark

Dartunorro Clark is a political reporter for NBC News.

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Read the rest of the article at the link.

Let’s see: Billy the Bigot has weaponized the Immigration Courts against those individuals whose rights it was supposed to protect. He denies the reality of “institutionalized racism” in the face of “indisputable video evidence” that it is alive and well in the U.S. today. He has failed to protect the rights of the LGBTG community. He has undermined the voting rights and political power of Americans of color. Now, he blatantly misuses DOJ resources to mount a personal defense of a corrupt and dishonest Prez in litigation arising out of his alleged private actions more than a quarter century before he was sworn into his Government office.

Who knows what else “Billy the Bigot” has up his sleeve in his never-ending quest to destroy the U.S. Justice System at your expense, in more ways than one! When the “people’s lawyers” become the personal lawyers of a corrupt would-be authoritarian head of state, you know that you’re well on your way to “failed state” status, no matter how high your GNP might be at present.

A more overriding observation: Trump and his corrupt cronies have managed to manipulate the U.S. Justice system over nearly four years to avoid accountability or public disclosure of his many acts of corruption, starting with hiding his tax returns. That’s a sure sign of systemic institutional failure!

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

PWS

09-09-20

🏴‍☠️DEADLY CONDITIONS ⚰️🤮IN THE NEW AMERICAN GULAG: Health Care Expert Recommends Release Of Vulnerable “Political Prisoners” Held By DHS “Bureaucratic Circus”🤡 @ Farmville, VA!

 

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/health/report-immigration-detention-center-should-release-inmates/2413239/

Matthew Barakat reports for NBC News:

An outside expert who inspected an immigration detention center in Virginia that experienced a massive coronavirus outbreak is recommending that some high-risk inmates be released after finding flaws in the center’s screening procedures.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered the inspection last month after several detainees filed a lawsuit with the help of legal activist groups. Brinkema faulted the detention complex in Farmville for an outbreak that affected more than 90% of the center’s nearly 300 detainees, including a 72-year-old detainee who died. Government officials fought unsuccessfully to block the inspection.

The expert, Homer Venters, inspected the site last month and filed a report made public Friday that says the center does a poor job of screening inmates for COVID-19 symptoms. He recommended that detainees at high risk for the disease be released.

The report cites “multiple and systematic deficiencies” in the complex’s health services and concludes that to be detained there “represents a significant health risk for high-risk patients.”

A report prepared by an expert hired by the detention center reached different conclusions. That expert, William Reese, said the biggest problem he saw was that detainees were refusing to wear masks. Given the inmates’ “lack of cooperation … it is remarkable that the facility has had no new positive tests among Detainees in nearly a month,” Reese wrote.

Venters, in his report, wrote that inmates dismissed staff entreaties to wear masks because they blamed the facility for getting them sick in the first place. The inmates also told Venters that they felt the masks were unnecessary since most everyone in the facility had already contracted the virus.

. . . .

At an earlier hearing, Brinkema criticized a “bureaucratic circus” for causing the outbreak, saying the center violated its own procedures by accepting 74 transfers from facilities in hot spot states Florida and Arizona without implementing any quarantine procedures.

A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined comment on the report, citing the ongoing litigation.

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Read the full report at the link.

Your taxpayer dollars at work, being used by DHS to abuse detainees and cover up Government wrongdoing.

We’ll see what Judge Brinkema makes of this absurdly dysfunctional, taxpayer funded mess. “Kakistocracy in action,” as veteran “DHS Watchers” say!

But, if the immigration justice system were functional, this problem would never have gotten to Judge Brinkema. A “real” Immigration Court, with fair, impartial, expert judges, free from political bias and interference, would have shut down most of the unnecessary and abusive DHS Gulag long ago. A real Appellate Division of that court would have established sensible nationwide precedents requiring release of vulnerable detainees to suitable placements.

Due process, fundamental fairness, and a truly independent and properly qualified judiciary that enforced them would save lives while promoting systemic efficiency. “Regime change” is an essential first step to saving our democracy. It starts in November!

PWS

09-09-20