⚖️🧑🏻‍⚖️🍅FOOD FIGHT ERUPTS IN 5TH CIRCUIT AS EN BANC MAJORITY DECIDES TO FOLLOW LAW EVEN WHERE IMMIGRANT WINS! — 3 Trump Appointees, 1 Bush II Appointee, Join All Dem Appointees To Thwart 8 GOP Scofflaws’ Efforts To Overturn Rodriguez v. Garland!😎 

Food Fight
Far right activist  5th Circuit Judges reacting to colleagues who followed law and ruled in favor of immigrants. PHOTO: Creative Commons.

The issue is whether an in absentia removal order can be based on a statutorily defective notice. The panel followed the Supreme’s decision in Niz-Chavez and rejected the BIA’s conflicting decision in Matter of Laparra. In other words, the panel required the Government to follow the statute, a process known as “complying with the law.” This sent some of this most conservative circuit’s most far-right judges over the edge. Here’s the en banc decision:

https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/20/20-60008-CV1.pdf

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  • Credit Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis for the “food fight” characterization.
  • The scofflaw GOP dissenters cited “deference” to the Executive, something they have pointedly refused to apply to Biden Administration precedents and policies favoring migrants. 
  • The majority says: “[The BIA] flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s Pereira decision, which Laparra ignored.” 
  • Incredibly, Garland is on the “wrong side” of this controversy, defending the legally incorrect misinterpretation of his “Trump holdover” BIA!
  • The statutory requirement at issue: That a “Notice to Appear” before the Immigration Court inform the individual of the time and place of the hearing. How difficult does that sound? Not very, unless you are bumbling bureaucrat at DHS and EOIR who chose, even after the Supremes’ initial decision, to  violate that decision and the statute in almost 100% of the cases instituted before the Immigration Courts! 
  • Kudos to the 3 Trump appointees and one Bush II appointee who joined 3 Obama appointees and 2 Clinton appointees to uphold the rule of law and thwart their GOP scofflaw colleagues.
  • Interestingly, and perhaps mildly encouraging, the “Trump appointees” split 3-3 on this one.
  • Apparently nothing drives a wedge between conservative judges like the scary prospect of following the law when it gives immigrants a win!
  • Future ambitious academic study: How much of the current out of control backlog can be traced to the Government’s, and particularly the BIA’s, inept handling of straightforward notice requirements set forth in the statute?
  • There’s a reason why I keep referring to Garland’s out of control EOIR backlogs as “largely self-created,” albeit in fairness not exclusively by him. The Trump Administration, and to a lesser extent the Obama Administration, also “excelled” at “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” driven by “prioritizing” improper political goals over due process, fundamental fairness, quality, and practical scholarship in the Immigration Courts.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-21-22

THE ECONOMY: TRUMP’S “GONZO” ENFORCEMENT POLICIES LIKELY TO HINDER HOUSTON REBUILDING — “The truth is, there are not a lot of people jumping up and down to do civil construction work in Texas. It’s hot, and these jobs are pouring concrete or, worse, hot asphalt.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/if-they-deport-all-of-us-who-will-rebuild-day-laborers-seen-as-key-to-texas-recovery/2017/09/04/53a22acc-914d-11e7-89fa-bb822a46da5b_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_harveylaborers-815pm-display%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.e2695f062e16

Arelis R. Hernandez and Aaron C. Davis report for the Washington Post:

. . . .

“More than 200,000 homes sustained damage in the storm, including more than 13,500 that were destroyed, according to early local estimates that don’t provide solid numbers for some of the hardest-hit areas. Leaders in the construction industry have begun sounding alarms that there will not be enough American-born workers to rebuild as quickly as needed.

“If they would relax the rules, honestly, that would be great, we could use it,” said Jeffrey Nielsen, executive vice president of the Houston Contractors Association, whose members include the city’s largest firms that build roads, bridges and other public works.

 

Nielsen said that even before Harvey hit, almost every member of the association was grappling with a shortage of workers. With a crushing list of jobs now growing by the day, thousands need to be hired — and fast.

Nielsen said he and other construction industry officials were told at a weekend briefing that roughly 30 percent of all roads in and around Houston will remain impassable without some construction work.

“The truth is, there are not a lot of people jumping up and down to do civil construction work in Texas. It’s hot, and these jobs are pouring concrete or, worse, hot asphalt,” Nielsen said. “That’s the reality of it, and we need more people than ever.”

There are plenty in and around Houston who might consider taking on the work, which can pay $20 an hour or more, if ID requirements were relaxed, construction industry officials say.

Federal contractors are required to ensure their employees have the proper immigration status to work. (John Taggart/For The Washington Post)
The Houston metropolitan area has the third-largest illegal immigrant population in the country, about 575,000 people, according to a Pew Research Center report this year. Those workers already make up roughly a quarter of all construction laborers citywide, according to the study. Some estimate it could be closer to half.

.  .  .  .

The couple and a crew of local church volunteers are doing some initial work, but soon they will need more specialized help for wiring, reassembling walls and putting in new floors. Would they hire day laborers to help?

“Oh yeah. They need the help too. The government helps us, we help them, and all of us help the economy,” Dave Bushnell said, pointing to a crew of three men pulling up a tree stump at an adjacent home. “You see how hard they work. They’ve probably lost everything too, but they can’t sit and wait for a handout. They’ve got to work.”

.  .  . .

“We are undoubtedly going to need immigrant workers to rebuild Houston,” said Kevin Appleby, director of policy for the nonprofit Center for Migration Studies of New York. “It is clear that immigrants, including those without status, helped to rebuild New Orleans.”

Stan Marek, chief executive of Marek Construction in Houston, sees the damage left by Harvey as big enough to hopefully reset the national debate over illegal immigration.

He and other contractors want a permanent solution that will absorb the existing workforce and train them for the kinds of jobs that Houston and other parts of Texas will need. The storm, Marek said, provides an opportunity to solve an immigration problem in the state while advancing social justice.

“With some supervision and some training, we could kick-start this whole thing to basically integrate these people into society,” Marek said. “Let’s take them out of the shadows and give them the protection of our laws.”

Roberto Benavidez, 45, a Nicaraguan, has been thinking the same thing as he paces in front of a Home Depot in West Houston looking for odd jobs.

“For the country to rebuild Houston, it will need amnesty for immigrants,” Benavidez said. “I get it. It seems like we are busting in the door of your house and asking to stay, but in reality, we are knocking on the door and offering a service.”

For a larger fix, advocates say Bush’s decision after New Orleans can’t be looked at as a model. In September of 2005, the Department of Homeland Security waived worker identification requirements for “victims” of Katrina for 45 days. Critics said it was impossible to determine who was a victim, and it let illegal immigrants from across the country descend on New Orleans and be hired as subcontractors.

Appleby said he sees three likely scenarios under Trump: “Either he does not waive and continues to be strict, or he does not waive but also does not enforce, or he does relax regulations,” he said.

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The thing about ideological White Nationalist policies is that they never take reality, practicality, humanity, decency, or the best needs of the country into account. And, you can bet that lots of GOP restrictionists down in the Lone Star State will exploit immigrant labor for all it’s worth to rebuild their privileged lifestyle before voting to kick the Latinos out. Want to bet on how many of Lamar Smith’s gerrymandered GOP constituents rely on some form of undocumented workers to maintain their lifestyles?

PWS

09-05-17