⚖️🗽OUTING THE BIG NATIVIST LIE: EOIR/DHS CLAIM THAT MIGRANTS DON’T SHOW UP FOR HEARINGS REFUTED BY USG’S OWN DATA — Professor Ingrid Eagly & Steven Schafer Analyzed Millions Of Records To Show How False Narratives Drive Draconian Policies — Eagley, Shafer, Reichlin-Melnick, Schmidt Set Record Straight @ Press Conference!

Professor Ingrid Eagly
Professor Ingrid Eagly
UCLA Law
PHOTO: Twitter
Steven Shafer ESQUIRE
Steven Shafter, Esquire
Managing Attorney
Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project
Los Angeles, CA
Photo: Esperanza website

 

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
Policy Counsel
American Immigration Council
Photo: Twitter
Me
Me
  • PRESS RELEASE

11 Years of Government Data Reveal That Immigrants Do Show Up for Court

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January 28, 2021

WASHINGTON—A new report released today by the American Immigration Council examines 11 years of government data on the rate at which immigrants appear for hearings in U.S. immigration court. The report, “Measuring In Absentia Removal in Immigration Court,” concludes that an overwhelming 83% of immigrants attend their immigration court hearings, and those who fail to appear in court often did not receive notice or faced hardship in getting to court.

As the new administration of President Joe Biden considers how to reform the immigration system, including the immigration courts, this report reveals how reliance on detention, access to legal representation, and immigration judges’ docket management impact immigrants’ appearance rate.

The report draws on government data from 2,797,437 immigration court removal proceedings held between 2008 to 2018. It documents how individuals who were never detained and those who were released from detention proceeded through court and what obstacles they faced in pursuing their immigration cases.

The report finds that people released from immigration detention and individuals with attorneys overwhelmingly attend their hearings. Data also show that immigration judges have a vital role in maintaining due process. The findings further demonstrate that the creation of an independent structure for the immigration courts would help reduce the prevalence of unwarranted in absentia removal orders and give immigration judges more discretion in managing their dockets and individual case decisions.

The main findings of the report include:

  • 83% of nondetained immigrants with completed or pending removal cases attended all of their hearings.
  • 96% of nondetained immigrants represented by a lawyer attended all of their hearings.
  • 15% of those who were ordered deported because they did not appear in court successfully reopened their cases and had their removal orders rescinded. In some years, as many as 20% of all orders of removal for missing court were later overturned.
  • Individuals who apply for relief from removal have especially high rates of appearance.
  • Appearance rates vary strongly based on the immigration court’s location.
  • The Executive Office for Immigration Review’s method for measuring the rate at which immigrants fail to appear in court presents a limited picture of the frequency of missed court appearances.

“The empirical research presented in this report debunks the myth that immigrants don’t show up for court,” said Ingrid Eagly, professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. “Relying on the government’s own immigration court data, co-author Steven Shafer and I find that, since 2008, 83% of all immigrants in nondetained deportation cases have attended all of their court hearings. In addition, over the 11 years of our study, 96% individuals represented by an attorney attended all of their court hearings.”

“Today’s report verifies what those who have worked in the immigration court system already knew: immigrants overwhelmingly show up in court. We hope that this data finally puts to rest a false narrative about immigrants’ appearance rates that past administrations used to justify restrictive and cruel immigration policies,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council. “After previous administrations spent years funding immigration enforcement to address a small set of individuals who miss court, the Biden administration has the opportunity change course. To ensure even higher appearance rates, the new administration should focus on updating immigration court technology, providing better resources to orient immigrants, and working to ensure that all immigrants navigating our removal system are represented by counsel. As Congress debates immigration reform, this report shows that it’s time to revisit harsh and punitive laws that require judges to enter deportation orders for a single missed hearing and which limit the ability of the government to appoint counsel.”

“The findings of this timely report confirm what many of us formerly on the immigration bench have known for years: represented asylum seekers appearing before fair, knowledgeable judges show up for virtually all of their immigration court hearings,” said Paul Wickham Schmidt, former immigration judge and board member for the Board of Immigration Appeals. “The findings refute one of the many ‘big lies’ and ‘bogus narratives’ promoted by the last administration to demean and dehumanize asylum seekers and wrongfully deprive them of their legal and constitutional rights. The Biden administration should pursue changes that would provide immigration judges greater independence and discretion and support the creation of an independent structure for the immigration courts.”

 

###

For more information, contact:

Maria Frausto at the American Immigration Council, mfrausto@immcouncil.org or 202-507-7526.

MEDIA CONTACT

Maria Frausto, Senior Communications Manager

mfrausto@immcouncil.org

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***********

Ingrid’s and Steven’s full report is available at the above link.

Here’s a printout of my opening remarks:

No Shows — Final

 

Lies promoted by Government officials and turned into cruel, counterproductive, and biased policies cost lives and undermine our system of justice!

A stunning 96% of represented respondents appear for all hearings! The obvious step for the Biden Administration is to “repurpose” resources squandered by the defeated kakistocracy’s cruel, expensive, ineffective “enforcement gimmicks” like detention in the “New American Gulag,” ludicrous Immigration Judge “dashboards,” walls, bogus protocols, and illegal anti-asylum rules and instead invest in public-private partnerships to achieve universal representation. Building on existing programs, it should be possible to get all respondents represented by trained and competent counsel or accredited representatives. 

Notably, Professor Michele Pistone @ Villanova already runs VIISTA, an innovative, first class asylum litigation training program for accredited representatives. Put some Federal grant money into expanding it to meet the need for representation throughout America. These are “obvious steps” ignored by a captive “court system” run by malicious incompetents implementing a White Nationalist agenda.

Professor Michele Pistone
Professor Michele Pistone
Villanova Law

Combined with a restoration of the rule of law at EOIR and rational DHS enforcement priorities, that’s the way to establish manageable Immigration Court dockets compliant with Due Process and fundamental fairness. Create a model court system that will be a source of pride, rather than a national disgrace. 

Of course a legislatively-enacted, independent, professionally administered expert Article I Immigration Court is absolutely necessary. But, due process and fundamental fairness can’t wait! Lives and futures, not to mention our national values, are at stake. Judge Garland must end the dysfunction and start making urgently needed improvements @ EOIR immediately!

Removing (former) Director McHenry — who promoted the kakistocracy’s anti-immigrant myths, bogus statistics, and “worst management practices” — is a great start. But, it’s certainly not the end of the urgent changes that must be made to implement Due Process and professional court administration at EOIR. In particular, the current BIA is a due process, human rights, and asylum expertise “disaster zone!”

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

1-29-21

🤮GRIFTER GOLFS⛳️, TWEETS 🐥WAY THROUGH CHRISTMAS DAY, AS AMERICANS CONTINUE TO SUFFER🤮, DIE⚰️, DESPAIR😰 UNDER HIS CRUEL, STUPID, CORRUPT MISRULE🏴‍☠️!

 

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

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=76ac9ea9-44ee-42d2-8687-9a29216e9507

AP reports:

. . . .

The bipartisan compromise was considered a done deal and won sweeping approval in the House and Senate after the White House assured GOP leaders that Trump supported it.

If he refuses to sign the deal, which is attached to a $1.4-trillion government funding bill, it will force a federal government shutdown, in addition to delaying aid checks and halting unemployment benefits and eviction protections in the most dire stretch of the pandemic.

“Made many calls and had meetings at Trump International in Palm Beach, Florida. Why would politicians not want to give people $2000, rather than only $600?” he tweeted after leaving the golf course Friday afternoon. “It wasn’t their fault, it was China. Give our people the money!”

Trump’s attack on the bill has been seen, at least in part, as punishment for what he considers insufficient backing by congressional Republicans for his push to overturn the Nov. 3 election results with unfounded claims of fraud.

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

Read the full article at the link.

Of course it’s not about China; it’s about the worst President in history and his totally worthless party of sycophants, bigots, and anti-American “situational skinflints.” 

Plenty of public funding for tax breaks, unneeded walls, environmental destruction, and abusive “law enforcement.” Not so much for American workers, small businesses, essential workers, teachers, civil servants, and others struggling to survive during the crisis unnecessarily deepened by the “malicious incompetence” of the “Evil Clown Prez”🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ and his anti-democracy party.

BTW, is Lindsay “Scumbag” Graham 🤮going for the title of “third worst human on the public dole” — right behind the “ECP”🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ & the Grauleiter☠️? 

26 days and counting to the end of the kakistocracy🏴‍☠️!

PWS

12-26-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮👎🏻IN NYT OP-ED, FORMER TRUMP DOJ ATTORNEY ERICA NEWLAND ADMITS COMPLICITY! — Having Undermined Democratic Institutions, Sold False Narratives To (Too Often Willing) Federal Judges, & Participated In Racist-Inspired “Dred Scottification” (“Dehumanization”) Of the Other Is Actually a BIG Deal! — So Is The Destruction Of Due Process & Fundamental Fairness In The Immigration Courts (Now, “Clown Courts”🤡, or “America’s Star Chambers”☠️) 

Erica Newland
Erica Newland
Former DOJ Attorney
Photo source: lawfareblog.com

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/opinion/trump-justice-department-lawyer.html?referringSource=articleShare

. . . .

Watching the Trump campaign’s attacks on the election results, I now see what might have happened if, rather than nip and tuck the Trump agenda, responsible Justice Department attorneys had collectively — ethically, lawfully — refused to participate in President Trump’s systematic attacks on our democracy from the beginning. The attacks would have failed.

. . . .

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

Read the full op-ed at the link. That’s right Erica. Lack of ethics, morality, and failing to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law have consequences. Helping to “custom design” obvious pretexts for racist and hate inspired policies, for consumption by right-wing judges who only seek “cover” for going along  to get along with fascism, is wrong. Duh!

It’s no surprise that the clearly unconstitutional and racially and religiously bigoted “Travel Ban,” willingly embraced by an intellectually dishonest and morally compromised Supremes majority, was first on the list in Erica’s “confession.” 

But, don’t expect any apologies from the vast majority of Trumpist lawyer/enablers who violated their oaths of office or from the big time law firms (one where I was formerly a partner) who have granted them undeserved refuge at fat salaries! Nor should we expect large-scale redemption from the legions of Government lawyers in DOJ, DHS, and elsewhere who will assert the “Nuremberg defense” of “just following orders.”  But, that doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t demand some accountability for participation in  what are essentially “crimes against humanity.” 

Erica’s article largely echoes what my friend and colleague Judge Jeffrey Chase, many of our colleagues in the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, ⚔️🛡 and numerous members of the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”) have been saying throughout this Administration. Indeed, I frequently have noted that the once-respected Solicitor General’s Office and EOIR operated as basically “ethics free zones” under the disgraced “leadership” of Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr.

It’s also why the the Biden-Harris team that takes over at DOJ must: 

  1. immediately remove all the current “executives” (and I use that term lightly) at EOIR as well as all members of the BIA and transfer them to positions where they can do no further damage to asylum seekers, migrants, their (often pro bono or low bono) lawyers, or the rest of humanity; 
  2. replace them with qualified individuals from the NDPA; and 
  3. be circumspect in eventually making retention decisions for Immigration Judges, taking into account public input as to the the degree to which each such judge’s jurisprudence during the Trump kakistocracy continued to reflect adherence to constitutionally required due process and fundamental fairness to migrants, respect for migrants and their representatives, best practices, and interpretations that blunted wherever reasonably possible the impact of the kakistocracy’s xenophobic, racist, White Nationalist policies. 

American justice has been ill-served by the DOJ and the Immigration Courts over the past four years. That’s something that must not be swept under the carpet (as is the habit with most incoming Administrations). 

The career Civil Service overall, and particularly complicit and often ethics-free government lawyers,  failed to put up the necessary resistance to an overtly anti-American regime with an illegal and immoral agenda. Lives were lost or irreparably ruined as a result. That’s a big-time problem that if not addressed and resolved will likely make continuance of our national democratic republic impossible.

⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️👍🏼🇺🇸Due Process Forever! Complicity Never☠️🤮🏴‍☠️👎🏻!

PWS

12-21-20

EOIR Clown Show Must Go T-Shirt
“EOIR Clown Show Must Go” T-Shirt Custom Design Concept

   

🇺🇸🏈👍🏼 FORMER PACKER SUPERBOWL-WINNING 🏆 HEAD COACH MIKE HOLMGREN WITH SOME GREAT ADVICE: GET TRUMP OFF THE FIELD BEFORE HE CAN DO ANY MORE DAMAGE!

Mike Holmgren
Coach Mike Holmgren
Lambeau Field 1998
Photo: David Wilson – Flickr: 19981213 24 Mike Holmgren, Lambeau Field,
Creative Commons License

https://madison.com/wsj/opinion/column/mike-holmgren-vote-to-take-president-trump-off-the-field/article_5857f1a8-6d58-56d2-acd5-19b8c1b1cac2.html

From the Wisconsin State Journal:

In more than three decades of coaching, I’ve come to learn one thing: You cannot be afraid to take a player off the field if it will help the team.

Donald Trump said he alone could fix the challenges facing our country. But as we’ve seen during these past four years, he’s in over his head — and we’re all paying the price for that. It’s time to take President Trump off the field.

Months into this pandemic, coronavirus cases are continuing to skyrocket in Wisconsin. More than 1,500 Wisconsinites have lost their lives to the pandemic. Green Bay, a city I love dearly, is seeing some of the highest infection rates in the country. Hospitals are overflowing, people are hurting, and families are needlessly suffering. More than 4,000 fewer people in Green Bay are employed now, compared to when President Trump took office. Far too many small businesses have had to close their doors for good. And the heart and soul of Green Bay — our game days with thousands of fans at Lambeau Field — are no more.

President Trump’s failure to mount a forceful response to the coronavirus pandemic will go down as one of the most consequential failures of government in American history. In Green Bay alone, the indefinite hold on fans at Lambeau Field — yet another consequence of President Trump’s failed leadership — is proving devastating to Green Bay’s small businesses. Each Packers home game provides $15 million in economic impacts to the city of Green Bay — but not this year.

. . . .

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

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

Trump is the biggest loser in US presidential history! Even now, he has no coherent plan for anything — just inane and largely fabricated personal grievances, insults, and childish, moronic chants and slogans! What kind of nation puts someone like this “on the field” with survival in the balance?

By contrast, Biden and Harris care about America and have intelligent plans for solving problems like health care, getting America back to work, addressing the pandemic in a scientifically credible way, protecting our environment, treating all persons equally before the law, ending racism and misogyny, and re-establishing our world leadership.

Vote like your life and the world’s future depend on it! Because they do! Get the maliciously incompetent loser off the field and put proven winners and decent human beings in charge!

PWS

10-18-20

🇺🇸🗽⚖️🆘NY TIMES WITH THE TRUTH: A VOTE FOR TRUMP IS A VOTE AGAINST AMERICA! — The Worst President In History, Not To Mention That Beyond Being Totally Incompetent & Unqualified, A Truly Horrible Human Being With NO Redeeming Values!

Trump Clown
Donald J. Trump
Famous American Clown
(Officially titled “Ass Clown”)
Artist: Scott Scheidly
Orlando, FL
Reproduced by permission
Darth Vader
D. Vader
Minister of Justice
Banana Republic of Trump
Trump Regime Emoji
Trump Regime

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.

Mr. Trump’s ruinous tenure already has gravely damaged the United States at home and around the world. He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations. He has subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and political interests. He has shown a breathtaking disregard for the lives and liberties of Americans. He is a man unworthy of the office he holds.

The editorial board does not lightly indict a duly elected president. During Mr. Trump’s term, we have called out his racism and his xenophobia. We have critiqued his vandalism of the postwar consensus, a system of alliances and relationships around the globe that cost a great many lives to establish and maintain. We have, again and again, deplored his divisive rhetoric and his malicious attacks on fellow Americans. Yet when the Senate refused to convict the president for obvious abuses of power and obstruction, we counseled his political opponents to focus their outrage on defeating him at the ballot box.

Nov. 3 can be a turning point. This is an election about the country’s future, and what path its citizens wish to choose.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the editorial here:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/16/opinion/donald-trump-worst-president.html

Amen! Take back our country! 🇺🇸 We can’t survive another four years of the maliciously incompetent, racist kakistocracy🏴‍☠️!

PWS

10-17-20

 

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

Tara Golshan
Tara Golshan
Politics Reporter
HuffPost
UW- Madison Grad

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

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

By Tara Golshan

For HuffPost

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . . .

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

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

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

By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Courtside Exclusive
Aug. 29, 2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PWS

08-29-20

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

DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN pastedGraphic.png

Album version

Music & Lyrics by Bruce Springsteen

Well, they’re still racing out at the Trestles

But that blood it never burned in her veins

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

And a style she’s trying to maintain

Well, if she wants to see me

You can tell her that I’m easily found

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

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

There’s a darkness on the edge of town

Well, everybody’s got a secret, Sonny

Something that they just can’t face

Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it

They carry it with them every step that they take

Till some day they just cut it loose

Cut it loose or let it drag ’em down

Where no one asks any questions

Or looks too long in your face

In the darkness on the edge of town

In the darkness on the edge of town

Well, now some folks are born into a good life

And other folks get it anyway anyhow

Well, I lost my money and I lost my wife

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

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

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

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

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

For wanting things that can only be found

In the darkness on the edge of town

In the darkness on the edge of town

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

Nicole Narea
Nicole Narea
Immigration Reporter
Vox.com

https://apple.news/AyEIE9zXYSTeZ-TvO2TLZAQ

Nicole writes at Vox:

. . . .

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

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

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

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

. . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PWS

08-27-20

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

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

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

Amen!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PWS

08-28-20

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

Jamelle Bouie
Jamelle Bouie
Columnist
NY Times

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

Jamelle Bouie in The NY Times:

. . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PWS

08-26-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎KAKISTOCRACY KORNER: SPOTLIGHT ON AMERICA’S MOST DANGEROUS HATE GROUP: THE RNC!

 

Paul,

This past weekend, the Republican National Committee caved to white supremacist and other hate groups by adopting a resolution titled Refuting the Legitimacy of the Southern Poverty Law Center to Identify Hate Groups.

The focus of the resolution is that “the SPLC is a radical organization” that harms conservative organizations and voices through our hate group designations.

This attack on our work is an attempt to excuse the Trump administration’s pattern and practice of working with individuals and organizations that malign entire groups of people — immigrants, Muslims and the LGBTQ community — while promoting policies that undermine their very existence. It comes from the same vein as Trump’s claim that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Simply put, it’s an audacious attempt by Trump and the GOP to paper over the bigotry and racism that has been allowed to infect their policies.

This resolution comes at a moment when Trump will argue at the Republican National Convention that he will combat hate and bigotry, despite welcoming the support of QAnon. It also comes days after the indictment of Stephen Bannon, reminding us that Bannon was once the White House chief strategist and senior counselor and CEO of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. And it comes just after our special investigation shined a light on One America News Network’s Jack Posobiec, a reporter at Trump’s favorite network who is aligned with white supremacy and has used his platform to further hate speech and propaganda.

Trump should sever these ties to hate groups and extremists instead of doubling down through this RNC resolution.

The Trump administration has filled its ranks and consulted with alumni and allies from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-immigrant hate group that has ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists. They include Julie KirchnerKris KobachJeff Sessions and, most notably, Stephen Miller.

The Trump administration has worked with hate groups like the Family Research Council (FRC) to roll back LGBTQ rights. FRC was designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group for decades of demonizing LGBTQ people and spreading harmful pseudoscience about them. Over the years, the organization has published books, reports and brochures that have linked being LGBTQ to pedophilia, claimed that LGBTQ people are dangerous to children and claimed that LGBTQ people are promiscuous and violent.

Anti-Muslim groups have also been welcomed into the administration, including the Center for Security Policy (CSP)Fred Fleitz, a longtime staffer, was appointed the executive secretary and chief of staff of the National Security Council. For decades, CSP has peddled absurd accusations that shadowy Muslim Brotherhood operatives have infiltrated all levels of government.

These extremists are seeking a license to continue spreading their bigotry and will do anything to undermine those — like the SPLC, which tracks and monitors hate groups — who expose their extremist views and oppose their attacks on communities. With this resolution, Trump and members of the GOP have shown the extent to which they will carry their water.

This past weekend, the RNC also released a resolution titled Resolution to Conserve History and Combat Prejudice – Christopher Columbus. It’s a remarkably transparent statement that hate and bigotry stem from Black Lives Matter protesters. The RNC and Trump did not denounce organizations that promote antisemitism, Islamophobia, neo-Nazis, anti-LGBTQ sentiment or racism. It only criticized the SPLC for challenging those groups.

Outraged? Here are two ways to take action today:

1.     Sign up for our next Power Hour Virtual Phone Bank on August 27. We’ll be calling likely unregistered voters of color in Georgia to share information on how they can register to vote.

2.    Listen and subscribe to our new podcast, Sounds Like Hate. Episode 2 is about the connections between extremists and the Trump administration.

Onward,

Margaret Huang
SPLC President & CEO

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Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Avenue
Montgomery, AL 36104

Copyright 2020

 

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

Pretty much says it all about today’s GOP and the Trump Administration.

·      No platform

·      No values

·      No truth

·      No humanity

·      No decency

·      No America

·      No inclusion

·      The party of “Dred Scottification,” Jim Crow, and White Supremacy

Sure “Sounds Like Hate” to me!

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

PWS

08-25-20

 

 

 

BEWARE! — BS BONANZA ON THE WAY — Don’t Be Fooled By The Trump/GOP Liefest About The “Greatest Economy Ever!” — Time To Fire The Maliciously Incompetent Exec!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/opinion/trump-convention-economy.html

Steven Rattner in The NY Times:

. . . .

Job growth in July was less than half the pace of the June increase, and August figures may well show a still smaller increase or — amazingly — no job growth at all. And that’s with only 42 percent of the lost jobs having been recovered so far.

There is evidence that a second wave of layoffs and furloughs is already underway — roughly three out of five workers who had reportedly returned to work have either been let go again or been told they are at risk of being sidelined again.

Much of the damage threatens to become irreversible. According to data collected by Yelp, more than half of business closures that were temporary when the virus outbreak began are now considered permanent. More retailers have gone bankrupt in the first eight months of 2020 than in all of 2008, during the Great Recession. Across all industries, Chapter 11 filings in July surged 52 percent over the same month last year, with no end in sight.

And our economy is in even greater jeopardy because Donald Trump, who proclaims himself the greatest dealmaker in history, can’t make a deal with the Democrats on a much-needed next rescue package.

While the proposals he has tried to bring about by executive action may well be illegal, they are indisputably ludicrous in their construct: A “payroll tax cut” that isn’t a tax cut at all — and even if it were, it would be the wrong way to provide help to the average American. Special unemployment benefits of $300 per week, half the amount lawmakers provided in the first round, the CARES Act. Nothing for schools, nothing for virus testing, nothing for state and local governments.

In the business world, when an employee doesn’t perform, we fire him (although not quite the way Mr. Trump did on “The Apprentice.”)

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

Read the rest of the article at the link!

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

PWS

08-24-20

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

Sabrina [Damast]

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

PWS

07-24-20

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮 NOT ROCKET SCIENCE: When A Country Allows Itself To Be Governed By An Evil Moron & His Sycophantic Followers, Bad Things Happen!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/19/coronavirus-update-us/

By Derek Hawkins and Felicia Sonmez @ WashPost:

With coronavirus cases rising across the country and the U.S. death toll topping 137,000, President Trump on Sunday dismissed concerns about the spike in infections, telling Fox News that “many of those cases shouldn’t even be cases.”

“Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day,” the president told Fox News host Chris Wallace in an interview. “They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test.”

While young people make up an increasing share of new cases, the virus has affected people in all age groups. A surge of infections is driving deaths back up again after months of decline, and hospitals in hard-hit states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona are facing an influx of patients that health officials say could soon overwhelm medical systems. Nationwide, hospitalizations were on track to exceed their previous peak of roughly 60,000, reached in the pandemic’s early months.

Here are some other significant developments.

• The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in an upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday. The administration is also trying to block billions that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the people said.
• A growing number of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the pandemic. Currently, 38 percent approve of his handling, and 60 percent disapprove, according to a new Post-ABC News poll.
• A study from South Korea could bolster those who argue that reopening classrooms in much of the United States is too risky, suggesting that while children under 10 are less likely to spread the coronavirus, those between ages 10 and 19 will spread it similarly to adults.
• Georgia’s presentation of its coronavirus data is again under scrutiny, with a viral tweet pointing out how the color-coding of a government map has evolved. At the beginning of the month, for instance, a county needed at least 5,959 coronavirus cases to be colored red in the state’s map of the outbreak. Now, a county needs at least 9,597 — with the result that no other county has newly joined the four that have been colored red since July 1, even as the state’s cases have jumped by more than 37 percent in that period.
• Health authorities are seeking to conduct testing faster while conserving resources. The Food and Drug Administration on Saturday reissued an emergency use authorization to Quest Diagnostics for a coronavirus test to be used in pool testing, which involves combining samples from several people and testing them all at once.

Trump’s remarks came after another week of grim data highlighting the uncontrolled spread of the virus. Infections rose in states from every region of the country, with more than a dozen states on Saturday reaching record highs in their seven-day averages for new daily cases.

Georgia, Missouri, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Kentucky reported new single-day case records on Saturday, while states from Vermont to North Dakota to Oregon showed significant increases in their weekly averages, according to tracking by The Washington Post.

More than 20 states are reporting seven-day averages in coronavirus-related deaths that are higher than at the end of June, underscoring the turnaround since May and June, when deaths declined nationally — which Trump had touted as a sign of progress.

Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.), whose district encompasses parts of Miami with widespread infections, pushed back on the notion that the new cases were limited to young, healthy people and weren’t a cause for concern.

“It’s the working poor, it’s seniors, it’s now young people, and it’s totally out of control,” Shalala, a former health and human services secretary, said on ABC News’s “This Week.” “We need to close down again … That’s our worst nightmare, and we’re going to have to do that.”

. . . .

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

You can read the rest of this article about the Trump kakistocracy in action at the link.

It’s a dark and disturbing tale of unrelenting stupidity, evil, corruption, and cowardice on the part of those who refuse to stand up to a would be emperor who has never had any clothes.

PWS

07-19-20

🤡SPOTLIGHTING CLOWN COURTS: HOUSE HOMES IN ON EOIR’S MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE IN APPROPRIATIONS BILL REPORT! — “[T]ying an immigration judge’s performance to case completion threatens due process and affects judicial independence. Section 217 of the bill prohibits EOIR’s use of case completion quotas for immigration judge performance reviews.”

https://appropriations.house.gov/sites/democrats.appropriations.house.gov/files/July%209th%20report%20for%20circulation_0.pdf

The “EOIR Section” of the House Report follows:

EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW (INCLUDING TRANSFER OF FUNDS)

The Committee recommends $734,000,000 for the Executive Of- fice for Immigration Review (EOIR), of which $4,000,000 is from immigration examination fees. The recommendation is $61,034,000 above fiscal year 2020 and $148,872,000 below the request.

The recommendation includes $2,000,000 for EOIR’s portion of the development of the Unified Immigration Portal with the De- partment of Homeland Security (DHS) as well as increased funding for EOIR’s Information Technology (IT) modernization efforts, as requested. The recommendation also supports a level of funding that will allow for the continued hiring of immigration judges and teams. While the Committee recognizes EOIR has not requested any additional increase from its authorized position level from fis- cal year 2020, EOIR is currently well below this level and the Com-

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mittee is concerned that proposed funding increases are for posi- tions who will not be on board in fiscal year 2021.

Legal Orientation Program (LOP).—For the LOP and related ac- tivities the recommendation includes $25,000,000, of which $4,000,000 is for the Immigration Court Helpdesk (ICH) program. The LOP improves the efficiency of court proceedings, reduces court costs, and helps ensure fairness and due process. The Committee directs the Department to continue LOP without interruption, in- cluding all component parts, including the Legal Orientation Pro- gram for Custodians of Unaccompanied Children (LOPC) and the ICH. The Committee directs the Department to brief the Com- mittee no later than 15 days after enactment of this Act on how EOIR is effectively implementing these programs, including the execution of funds and any changes to the management of the pro- gram. The recommended funding will allow for the expansion of LOP and ICH to provide services to additional individuals in immi- gration court proceedings. The Committee supports access to LOP and ICHs and looks forward to receiving EOIR’s evaluation of ex- panding this program to all detention facilities and immigration courts, as directed in House Report 116–101. The Committee is deeply concerned that EOIR plans to use fiscal year 2020 funds for the procurement of a web-based application that is still under de- velopment, but did not actively discuss these changes with the Committee. While the Committee understands the coronavirus pan- demic has impacted court operations and novel approaches may be necessary for continuity, it appears a portion of these specific funds may not be fully executed in fiscal year 2020 in support of the pro- gram to pursue a new operating procedure without additional de- tails on how this will impact the LOP program in future years. The Committee is concerned that plans for a web-based application will not adhere to congressional intent to expand this program to new locations and individuals. The Committee reminds EOIR that fund- ing for this program, in its ongoing, in-person format, is mandated by law, and any diversion of these funds from their intended pur- pose must be formally communicated and convincingly justified to the Committee, consistent with section 505 of this Act.

LOP Pilot.—The Committee further directs EOIR, in coordina- tion with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), to pilot the expansion of LOP to at least one CBP processing facility with an added focus on expanding this program to family units. The Com- mittee further directs EOIR, in coordination with DHS, to assess the feasibility of expanding this pilot program nationally, and to re- port findings to the Committee no later than 180 days after the conclusion of the pilot.

Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) Pro Bono Project.—The Committee recognizes the critical work of the BIA Pro Bono Project in facilitating pro bono legal representation for indigent, vulnerable respondents whose cases are before the Board. The Committee urges the continuation of participation of pro bono firms and non- government organizations (NGOs) in the BIA Pro Bono Project to directly facilitate case screening and legal representation. EOIR shall report annually to the Committee on the number of cases re- ferred to NGOs and pro bono legal representatives, the number of EOIR Form E 26 appeals filed against pro se respondents and filed by pro se respondents and make the information publicly available.

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Immigration case quotas.—The Committee remains concerned with the performance review standards that went into effect Octo- ber 1, 2018, which require immigration judges to complete a quota of 700 case completions per year to receive a satisfactory review. Although the Committee appreciates efforts to reduce the current backlog, tying an immigration judge’s performance to case comple- tion threatens due process and affects judicial independence. Sec- tion 217 of the bill prohibits EOIR’s use of case completion quotas for immigration judge performance reviews.

Judicial Independence and Case Management.—All courts re- quire judges to utilize case management tools in order to ensure ef- ficient use of the court’s time and resources. The Committee is con- cerned by recent Attorney General decisions that curtail the ability of immigration judges to utilize critical docket management tools, such as continuances and terminations, that enable efficient man- agement of the court’s dockets. The Committee supports the utiliza- tion of such tools to the fullest extent practicable and reaffirms its support for the authority of immigration judges to exercise inde- pendent judgment and discretion in their case decisions. Further, the Committee supports full and fair hearings for all who come be- fore the courts but remains concerned about decisions that ulti- mately keep asylum seekers, including those seeking relief from do- mestic violence, in detention for longer periods of time.

Video teleconferencing.—The Committee is frustrated by EOIR’s response to information requested in the Explanatory Statement accompanying the fiscal year 2020 Consolidated Appropriations Act regarding the publication of its policies for determining the use and dissemination of video teleconferencing (VTC) for individual merits hearings and tent court facilities. EOIR cites multiple policies on its website, but ultimately no central guidance on VTC appears to exist, outside of an interim policy document from 2004. The growth and dependence on VTC has developed since that time and it is concerning that EOIR does not have consistent rules governing the use of video teleconferencing, nor does it appear to have standards to ensure that the procedural and substantive due process of re- spondents in immigration court are protected. The Committee di- rects EOIR, within 90 days of enactment of this Act, to develop clear and consistent rules on the use of VTC hearings, including when the use of video teleconferencing is appropriate, and to de- velop rules for utilizing VTC hearings for particularly vulnerable groups such as unaccompanied minors, individuals with medical or mental health problems, and those subject to the Migrant Protec- tion Protocols (MPP) program. The Committee also directs EOIR to provide these newly developed policies to the Committee, and to make these policies publicly available.

Rocket Dockets.—The Committee is troubled by recent reports of changes in EOIR practices that expedite case processing and place unaccompanied children in so called ‘‘rocket dockets’’’ commencing their cases through VTC within days of their arrival in the United States. This practice is a shift from former precedent, and it lacks recognition that cases involving unaccompanied children are dif- ferent than detained adults. Immigration court proceedings must be tailored to the circumstances of individual cases in order to pre- serve due process and fundamental fairness, in particular for mi- nors. The Committee is equally troubled by reports that EOIR in-

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tends to expand this expedited case processing for cases involving unaccompanied children, with little knowledge about how this proc- ess impacts children, their opportunity to find counsel, or the chal- lenges with communicating with children of varying ages.

EOIR is directed to report to the Committee no later than 30 days after enactment of this Act on the number of cases involving unaccompanied children that had a Master Calendar hearing scheduled within 30 days of their Notice to Appear (NTA), the loca- tion of these cases, including whether VTC was utilized for the hearing, whether the child had counsel, and the outcome of the pro- ceedings. Further, the Committee notes that EOIR has not commu- nicated with the Committee on this change in practice and is con- cerned that EOIR is piloting and expanding a new program that has not been explicitly authorized by Congress.

Tent Court Proceedings.—The Committee is concerned that the creation of new immigration hearing facilities, often referred to as ‘‘tent courts’’’, along the border, where judges appear via video tele- conferencing (VTC). The Committee is concerned that these new fa- cilities threaten the public nature of immigration court pro- ceedings. The Committee directs EOIR to provide a report within 60 days of the enactment of this Act that provides details on EOIR’s involvement in the creation and operation of such immigra- tion hearing facilities, as well as information detailing how EOIR schedules judges for hearings and a list of judges hearing cases in these facilities. EOIR shall also post to its website information on attorney access at those facilities, as well as policies regarding pub- lic and media access.

Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP) Statistics Publication.—With- in 60 days of enactment of this Act, and quarterly thereafter, EOIR is directed to publish on its public website: (1) the number of MPP Notices to Appear (NTA) received and completed, (2) the number of continuances or adjournments in non-MPP cases due to an immi- gration judge being reassigned to hear MPP cases, (3) the number of MPP hearings that occurred via VTC, and (4) the number of im- migration judges assigned to hear MPP cases. EOIR is also di- rected to publish the number of MPP hearings delayed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the average length of delay. EOIR is further directed to publish all workload-related data cur- rently included on its Workload and Adjudication Statistics website page in separate MPP and non-MPP formats.

EOIR is also directed to develop a plan to begin tracking the ap- pearance rate of individuals placed into removal proceedings, bro- ken out into MPP and non-MPP cases, calculated by determining the percent of individuals who have attended all scheduled hear- ings in any given quarter, regardless of whether the hearing re- sulted in a completion. The Committee directs EOIR to report on its plans no later than 180 days after enactment of this Act.

Interpreters.—The recommendation includes the requested fund- ing increase for interpretation services. While the Committee recog- nizes that increasing numbers of respondents in immigration courts require the use of interpretation and the ballooning costs as- sociated with these interpretation services, the Committee directs EOIR to pursue cost efficient measures to ensure appropriate lan- guage access for all respondents, including indigenous language speakers, and further directs EOIR to submit a report to the Com-

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mittee, no later than 90 days after enactment of this Act, outlining steps taken to reduce costs. The Committee eagerly awaits EOIR’s quarterly reports highlighting any continuances or adjournments for reasons related to interpretation as well as EOIR’s joint report with DHS on shared interpretation resources as directed in House Report 116–101.

Legal Representation.—The Committee is concerned with the low rate of representation in immigration court, and the recommenda- tion provides $15,000,000 in State and Local Law Enforcement As- sistance for competitive grants to qualified non-profit organizations for a pilot program to increase representation.

Immigration judges.—The Committee directs EOIR to continue to hire the most qualified immigration judges and BIA members from a diverse pool of candidates to ensure the adjudication process is impartial and consistent with due process. The Committee is dis- turbed by recent reports of politicized hiring processes for immigra- tion judges. The Committee directs EOIR to continue to submit monthly reports on performance and immigration judge hiring as directed in the fiscal year 2020 Explanatory Statement and is di- rected to include additional information on the status of hiring other positions that make up the immigration judge teams such as attorneys and paralegals. Finally, the Committee is concerned about a recent Department of Justice petition sent to the Federal Labor Relations Authority requesting the decertification of the Na- tional Association of Immigration Judges. The Committee recog- nizes the importance of our nation’s immigration judges and their ability to unionize.

Immigration Efficiency.—EOIR is encouraged to collaborate with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to explore efficiencies with regard to the co-location of DHS and DOJ components with immigration related responsibilities, including immigration courts, DHS asylum officers, medical care practitioners, and both CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) immigration officers.

Alternatives to Detention (ATD) Program.—The Committee is concerned that many individuals enrolled in ICE’s ATD program will be terminated from the program before their cases are fully re- solved. Getting timely resolution of these cases is complicated by the historic volume of pending cases on EOIR’s non-detained docket schedule. The Committee recognizes the ATD program is managed by ICE, and that EOIR currently lacks information about who is enrolled. However, the Committee also recognizes that the longer an individual remains on ATD while their case is pending before EOIR, the more expensive the ATD program is per enrollee, and the less effective the ATD program is. Prioritizing ATD enrollees’ cases as if they were on the detained docket could potentially in- crease the effectiveness of the program, lower the cost per enrollee, and support more individuals in the program overall. The Com- mittee directs EOIR, in coordination with ICE, to develop an anal- ysis of alternatives to improve the timeliness of resolving cases be- fore EOIR for individuals in the ATD program, and further to con- sider as one such alternative the classification of ATD enrollees as part of the detained docket for purposes of case prioritization. EOIR is directed to brief the Committee on their findings not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act.

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Court Operations during COVID–19.—The Committee under- stands that the novel coronavirus pandemic has forced the majority of Federal Government agencies to alter their normal operating procedures, and changes to court operations is no exception. How- ever, the Committee is frustrated that EOIR relied largely on Twit- ter to communicate its operational status. Many that were travel- ling, especially from Mexico, to appear at immigration court hear- ings, did not receive the updated information that the courts were closed. Even prior to the pandemic, the Committee was troubled by reports concerning the timeliness and receipt of hearing notices, as some were undeliverable as addressed and thus returned to immi- gration courts, and attempts to change addresses with the immi- gration court were often unsuccessful due to current backlogs. As of March 31, 2020, in absentia removal orders were already on the precipice of reaching the total number for all of fiscal year 2019. The Committee is concerned that the pandemic has exacerbated an already confusing process, resulting in an exponential increase in the number of removal orders for respondents who simply did not have the information to appear in court. Therefore, the Committee directs EOIR to submit a report to the Committee, within 90 days of enactment of this Act, that details the specific steps EOIR has taken since March 2020 to accommodate respondents who have missed court appearances due to COVID–19, and steps EOIR has taken to ensure respondents have a centralized mechanism to elec- tronically file an EOIR Form–33 in order to change their address remotely with EOIR, in addition to the current use of paper filings.

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Report language from un-enacted appropriations bills doesn’t have any legal effect. But, it does show that at least on the Democratic side, legislators are beginning to penetrate the various smoke screens that DOJ and EOIR management have used to disguise their gross mismanagement and attacks on due process and to deflect blame to the victims: primarily respondents, their attorneys including pro bono groups, and in many cases their own judges and court staff. It also shows that contrary to DOJ/EOIR propaganda, pro bono programs and Legal Orientation Programs play an essential role in due process.

Let’s be very clear. This “fix-it list” will be ignored by the scofflaw kakistocracy firmly committed to a program of unfairness to migrants, hostility to pro bono organizations, worst practices, demeaning their own employees, not serving the public, and returning asylum seekers to mayhem, torture, and death without due process. However, it is a useful “to do” list for those future judicial leaders and administrators committed to judicial independence and restoring and improving due process and fundamental fairness for all in our Immigration Courts.

Hopefully, in the future, with some needed regime change this will result in an independent Article I Immigration Court replacing the unmitigated legal and management mess that has become EOIR under DOJ control.

Due Process Forever! Clown Courts Never!

PWS

07-14-20

🏴‍☠️KAKISTOCRACY UPDATE W/ CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: Trump’s Morally & Financially Bankrupt USCIS Stops Making Green Cards — Literally!

Catherine Rampell
Catherine Rampell
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-the-trump-administration-is-turning-legal-immigrants-into-undocumented-ones/2020/07/09/15c1cbf6-c203-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html

By Catherine Rampell

July 9 at 7:30 PM ET

The Trump administration is turning legal immigrants into undocumented ones.

That is, the “show me your papers” administration has literally switched off printers needed to generate those “papers.”

Without telling Congress, the administration has scaled back the printing of documents it has already promised to immigrants — including green cards, the wallet-size I.D.’s legal permanent residents must carry everywhere to prove they are in the United States lawfully.

In mid-June, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ contract ended with the company that had been printing these documents. Production was slated to be insourced, but “the agency’s financial situation,” USCIS said Thursday, prompted a hiring freeze that required it to ratchet down printing.

. . . .

USCIS, which is funded almost entirely by fees, is undergoing a budget crisis, largely caused by financial mismanagement by political leadership. The printing disruptions are no doubt a preview of chaos to come if the agency furloughs about 70 percent of its workforce, as it has said it will do in a few weeks absent a congressional bailout.

In recent conversations with congressional staffers about cutting contracts to save money, USCIS mentioned only one contract, for a different division, that was being reduced — and made no reference to this printing contract, according to a person who took part in those discussions. The company that had this contract, Logistics Systems Inc., did not respond to emails and calls this week requesting comment.

The administration has taken other steps in recent months that curb immigration. Presidential executive orders have almost entirely ended issuance of green cards and work-based visas for people applying from outside the country; red tape and bureaucracy have slowed the process for those applying from within U.S. borders. For a while, the agency refused to forward files from one office to another. The centers that collect necessary biometric data remain shuttered.

These pipeline delays are likely to dramatically reduce the number of green cards ultimately approved and issued this year.

Under normal circumstances, immigrants who need proof of legal residency but haven’t yet received their green card would have an alternative: get a special passport stamp from USCIS. But amid covid-related changes, applicants must provide evidence of a “critical need,” with little guidance about what that means.

“The bottom line is that applicants pay huge filing fees, and it appears that these fees have apparently been either squandered through mismanagement or diverted to enforcement-focused initiatives, to the great detriment of applicants as well as the overall efficiency of the immigration process,” says Anis Saleh, an immigration attorney in Coral Gables, Fla. “The administration has accomplished its goal of shutting down legal immigration without actually changing the law.”

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

It should come as no surprise that an agency under unqualified White Nationalist Ken “Cooch Cooch” Cuccinelli is being run into the ground and has lost its mission through misdirection and mismanagement. That’s basically Cooch’s story in a nutshell as those of us know in Virginia, where we count ourselves most fortunate not to have him as our Governor.

I have written previously about how the regime’s “malicious incompetence” has bankrupted once self-sustaining USCIS while destroying our legal immigration and asylum systems that benefit the US and individual migrants and refugees in numerous ways. I made the rather obvious point that the House Dems should not bail out this regime on USCIS, but rather require that the money be found by reprograming funds from bloated, wasteful, ineffective, and inhumane DHS enforcement programs, starting with the wall.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/07/07/%f0%9f%8f%b4%e2%80%8d%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f%e2%9a%b0%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%a4%ae%f0%9f%91%8ekakistocracy-korner-trumps-malicious-incompetence-bankrupts-once-profitable-immigration-age/

The solution to maliciously incompetent freeloaders like the Trump immigration kakistocracy is not to provide more bailouts as rewards for their misconduct and mismanagement.

A recent report from the American Immigration Council shows how DHS enforcement spending has bloated to over $25 billion annually at then same time the Trump kakistocracy has mismanaged USCIS into bankruptcy. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/the-cost-of-immigration-enforcement-and-border-security

And, we haven’t really gotten much return on that investment, Here’s a key quote from the AIC Report:

What has this spending bought? The United States currently has roughly 700 miles of fencing along the Southern border, record levels of staff for ICE and CBP, as well as a fleet of drones, among other resources. Some of these resources have been spent on ill-conceived projects, such as the $1 billion attempt to construct a “virtual fence” along the Southwest border, a project initiated in 2005 that was later scrapped for being ineffective and too costly. CBP announced a similar project in July 2020 to install a total of 200 “Autonomous Surveillance Towers” along remote areas of the southern border at a reported cost of several hundred million dollars.

Even with record level spending on enforcement, enforcement alone is not sufficient to address the challenges of undocumented migration. It also has significant unintended consequences; according to U.S. Border Patrol statistics, the Southwest border witnesses close to one death per day. All of these efforts that have accumulated in the name of security, however, do not necessarily measure border security properly, or make the border more secure. It is past time for the United States to turn away from costly and haphazard efforts to secure the border and instead focus on reining in the costs of border enforcement.

I argue that the regime’s focus on removing folks who were peacefully residing in the U.S. and contributing to our economy, many with U.S. citizen family members who are then left in dire straits, has actually been detrimental to America, in addition to killing the Immigration Courts.

Likewise, the shutdown of our legal refugee, asylum, and immigration systems without legislation has not only placed our nation among the ranks of human rights violators and harmed or endangered human lives, but also deprived us of individuals with a powerful history of making outsized contributions to our society and our economy.

I doubt that a rational immigration policy and system that looked at the real national interest, rather than the mythologized White Nationalist, fundamentally racist version of it, would require such a huge, yet largely counterproductive, enforcement apparatus. At a minimum, costs for civil detention and removals could be cut substantially in a better system.

Due Process Forever! More public welfare handouts for the kakistocracy, never!

PWS

07-12-20