🤯 THEY JUST CAN’T GET IT RIGHT! — Biden Administration Combines Some Improvements In Refugee Processing Abroad With Cruelty & Mockery Of Asylum Law At The Border — “People seeking asylum at United States borders will be subjected to fast-track credible fear interviews while in Border Patrol custody and barred under the asylum ban, fueling wrongful deportations to persecution and torture.”

Eleanor Acer
Eleanor Acer
Senior Director for Refugee Protection, Human Rights First

https://humanrightsfirst.org/library/human-rights-first-welcomes-resettlement-condemns-bars-to-asylum-seekers/

Human Rights First Welcomes Resettlement, Condemns Bars to Asylum Seekers

WASHINGTON – Human Rights First welcomes today’s announcement of the Biden administration’s plans to expand refugee resettlement and family reunification parole in the Americas while reiterating the organization’s call for the administration to abandon its planned asylum ban and the conduct of fast-track credible fear interviews in Border Patrol custody.

“The Biden administration is rightly expanding refugee resettlement from the Americas, an overdue step towards addressing a long-standing gap for people in need of international protection,” said Senior Director of Refugee Protection Eleanor Acer. “This initiative should swiftly bring refugees to safety and not be used to reduce the resettlement of refugees from other regions. The Biden administration should focus on measures like increasing refugee resettlement and regular pathways and abandon its plan to impose an asylum ban that would be a legal, moral, and political mistake.”

In today’s announcement, the Biden administration confirmed its plans to implement its proposed ban on asylum, which would violate U.S. and international refugee law and has sparked widespread opposition from faith leaders, civil rights organizations, unions, and many Members of Congress. People seeking asylum at United States borders will be subjected to fast-track credible fear interviews while in Border Patrol custody and barred under the asylum ban, fueling wrongful deportations to persecution and torture.

“The Biden administration rightly ended and should not resurrect Trump-era policies that conduct credible fear interviews in Border Patrol custody where access to legal counsel is restricted,” Acer said. “This due process disaster, along with the imposition of the planned asylum ban, will be a sham process for deporting refugees who qualify for asylum. Instead of implementing policies that punish people seeking asylum, the United States should lead in upholding refugee protections and human rights.”

Human Rights First and other groups have long urged the U.S. government to step up refugee resettlement from the Americas and offer safe pathways for migration. We recommend the Biden administration focus on transformational steps like increasing refugee resettlement and regular pathways and maximizing asylum capacity at ports of entry rather than pursuing its misguided plan to impose a new bar on asylum.

Today’s announcements are part of the Biden administration’s plans to address regional migration and initiate punitive policies as the use of the Title 42 public health order ends on May 11. Human Rights First has repeatedly documented human rights abuses inflicted by the Title 42 policy, including over 13,000 attacks against migrants and asylum seekers blocked in or expelled to Mexico under Title 42 during the Biden administration. The organization has also repeatedly detailed the harms and violations of law that would be caused by the Biden administration’s proposed ban on asylum.

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

The “official” DHS statement can be found here: https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/dhs-dos-announces-sweeping-new-actions-to-manage-regional-migration.

To me, the DHS/DOS statement (referenced by HRF) sounds like folks who expect to fail, want to “tamp down” expectations, and intend to blame the victims (asylum seekers and their advocates) and Congress for their (likely) failure.

Almost everybody agrees that reforms in our immigration system are overdue. But, there is no agreement whatsoever in Congress on what those reforms should be, as shown by the absolutely insanely “bonkers” proposal from the House GOP which seeks to make everything infinitely worse!

So, we’re not going to get the needed expansions and simplification of our legal immigration system, including more generous treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, in the foreseeable future. That’s not a surprise! After two plus years in office, the Biden Administration should have foreseen the obvious and come up with ways to make the current law work. 

As almost any expert will tell you, our existing legal asylum system can be made to work in a fair, timely, and reasonable manner at the borders. But, that’s not going to happen with the current personal, poor leadership, bad attitudes, lousy precedents, and a badly failed Immigration Court system.

A fair, functional, properly run asylum system, in conjunction with a robust realistic overseas refugee program, will result in more individuals being admitted into the U.S. as legal immigrants through the refugee and asylum processes. That’s how they are supposed to work (but generally have not) as key components of our legal immigration system.

It’s also a fulfillment of our important international obligations that we intentionally took on after our questionable performance on Jews fleeing Europe just prior to, and even during, WWII. While we can absorb, even need, more legal immigrants, Administrations don’t want to admit and deal with the obvious. Forced refugee migrations aren’t going to disappear any time in the foreseeable future, much as politicos of both parties might want them to!

Yes, these are legacies of the Trump Administration, and, to a lesser extent, the Obama Administration. But, one of the reasons why the Biden Administration is in office is to make things work, not just to whine and wring their hands.  

Sure, the Trump Administration undermined the rule of law (and, I might add, largely got away with it). But, that’s no excuse for Biden and Harris not to have listened to experts (like, for example, Eleanor Acer), replaced personnel at DHS and DOJ with “practical experts” who can get the job done, and established at least a working operational framework for a successful, orderly, refugee and asylum admission system. Over-relying on coercive and inhumane detention, denial-oriented decision-making, bogus bars to asylum, criminal prosecutions, threats, and a dysfunctional Immigration Court system are NOT that framework.

Of course the Administration’s proposals to increase refugee admissions, reprogram resources, and develop a better resettlement program for refugees and asylees in the U.S. are good ideas. But, they are basically “no brainers” that HRF and other experts urged even before “day one” of this Administration. They should be in place and operating by now! We’ll see how much due process and fairness this Administration can actually deliver, or whether their proposed solutions devolve into yet another “uber-enforcement fueled” fiasco with the most vulnerable humans as the victims!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-28-23 

🇺🇸🦸🏽‍♀️🏆 NDPA LEADERBOARD: Professor Paulina Vera (GW Law) Joins Dean Kevin Johnson & Other Distinguished “Practical Scholars” On Hispanic National Bar Association (“HNBA”) National Task Force on Hispanic Law Faculty and Deans!

Paulina Vera
Paulina Vera
Professorial Lecturer in Law
GW Law

 

Paulina writes:

Excited to announce that I will be part of the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) National Task Force on Hispanic Law Faculty and Deans! I am honored to be included in a group of Latine law professor giants, whom I have long admired. I look forward to continuing working on a personal passion of mine, which is diversifying the legal profession and legal academia. ¡Adelante!

Press release available here:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 24, 2023                  Contact: Communications@HNBA.com

 

The Hispanic National Bar Association Launches New Task Force on

Law Faculty and Deans

 

Washington, DC – The Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) announces the launch of the first-of-its-kind National Task Force on Hispanic Law Faculty and Deans, aimed at addressing the alarming lack of Hispanic/Latino representation among U.S. law school professors and administrators (including deans), as well as the shortage of professional development resources specifically for Hispanic/Latino professors, deans, and other administrators already in the legal academy.

According to the most recent ABA Profile of the Legal Profession, only 5.8% of lawyers in the U.S. are Hispanic/Latino, even though we constitute over 19% of the general population. The shortage of Hispanic/Latino lawyers across the nation mirrors the paucity of Hispanics in legal academia. Only 9 of the almost 200 deans of ABA-accredited law schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia are Hispanic/Latino. Estimates have the percentage of full-time Hispanic/Latino law professors at only 5%.

Hispanic/Latino law professors and law school deans are leaders of the profession and play seminal roles in educating future generations of lawyers and law-related professionals. Legal educators are visible role models and mentors to young people aspiring to careers in law. In addition, Hispanic/Latino legal academics – like other legal academics – frequently are tapped for senior government appointments, judgeships, and other key roles in our democracy. The urgency of this initiative is heightened further by the U.S. Supreme Court’s looming affirmative action decision, which threatens to make the shortage of Hispanic/Latino law students, lawyers, and legal academics even worse.

HNBA President Mariana Bravo has appointed as Co-Chairs of the Task Force Raquel M. Matas and Anthony E. Varona. Raquel Matas is the former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Miami School of Law and has served as HNBA’s National Law School Liaison. Anthony E. Varona is Dean and Professor at Seattle University School of Law, the first law school dean of Hispanic/Latino heritage of any law school in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Varona was the first Hispanic/Latino dean at University of Miami School of Law, where he was appointed dean emeritus after the conclusion of his deanship.

President Bravo said, “An increase in the number of Hispanic/Latino law professors and law school deans will translate into an increase in law school enrollment by Hispanic and Latino/a students inspired by educators who hail from their same communities, share their backgrounds and struggles, and in many cases, share a bilingual heritage. The work of this Task Force is long overdue, and I am delighted that former Associate Dean Matas and Dean Varona, with many decades of distinguished nationally recognized service in legal education between them, will lead us in this important work.”

The Task Force will oversee the development of annual summer nationwide online workshops for prospective and existing Hispanic/Latino law faculty and law school deanship aspirants, through programs such as the Michael Olivas Summer Writing Institute and the GO LILA summer workshops, collaboration with other established workshops, and by organizing new initiatives to increase Hispanic and Latino/a diversity in the legal academy. The Task Force will plan in-person “how to become a law professor” workshops at the annual HNBA conferences, assist with matching law faculty and law dean aspirants with suitable mentors, support the professional development of and networking opportunities for currently appointed Hispanic/Latino law faculty, promote better data tracking by national accreditation and membership associations, and otherwise promote more Hispanic and Latino/a representation in the legal professoriate and decanal ranks.

In addition to Matas and Varona, the HNBA Task Force on Law Faculty and Deans will include as members nationally renowned legal education leaders, known for their dedication to diversifying the legal profession and the academy, including:

Dolores S. Atencio, Esq., Visiting Scholar, U. of Denver Latinx Center|Sturm College of Law

Steven Bender, Prof. & Assoc. Dean for Planning & Strategic Initiatives, Seattle U. School of Law

Kevin R. Johnson, Dean and Mabie-Apallas Prof. of Public Interest Law & Professor of Chicana/o Studies, UC Davis School of Law

José Roberto (Beto) Juárez, Jr., Dean & Prof., Nova Southeastern U. Broad College of Law

Jenny Martinez, Lang Prof. of Law and Dean, Stanford Law School

Margaret Montoya, Prof. Emerita of Law (and Medicine), U. of New Mexico

Jennifer Rosato Perea, Dean & Prof. of Law, DePaul U. College of Law

Hon. Jenny Rivera, Associate Judge, New York Court of Appeals

Ediberto Román, Prof. of Law, Florida International U. College of Law

Krista Contino Saumby, Esq., Assoc. Director of Career Dev., Elon University School of Law

Paulina Vera, Professorial Lecturer in Law, George Washington U. Law School

This Task Force shall operate as a Presidential Special Committee.

###

The Hispanic National Bar Association is an incorporated, not-for-profit, national membership association that represents the interests of over 78,000+ Hispanic attorneys, judges, law professors, legal assistants, law students, and legal professionals in the United States and its territories. Since 1972, the HNBA has acted as a force for positive change within the legal profession by creating opportunities for Hispanic lawyers and by helping generations of lawyers to succeed.

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

Congrats to Paulina, Dean Kevin Johnson, and all the other outstanding scholar/leaders named to this group. Another place where more diversity is long overdue is the Federal Bench. In particular, despite the disparate impact of Immigration Court decisions on Hispanic-American communities, they are underrepresented on the bench at EOIR.

As the awesome talent represented by this Task Force shows, it isn’t for lack of exceptionally well-qualified judicial candidates available in the private sector. It’s a recruiting and cultural problem at DOJ, along with severe credibility problems stemming from perceptions of overall hostility at EOIR to asylum seekers, other migrants, and their lawyers, often directed at Hispanics and other individuals of color. The “culture” at EOIR really can only be changed by getting on the “inside” — that means getting on the bench or into the EOIR supervisory structure. 

I have spoken to the Hispanic National Bar Association and urged private sector lawyers with immigration, human rights, civil rights, and due process expertise to apply for Immigration Judge vacancies. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/04/08/⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️camille-j-mackler-just-security-gets-it-how-come-judge-garland-the-biden-admini/

On a positive note, one of my fellow panelists on that occasion, Hon. Claudia Cubas, is now an Immigration Judge at the Hyattsville (MD) Immigration Court!

I look forward to Paulina and other NDPA superstars 🌟 like her joining Judge Cubas on the bench in the near future. Positive change requires working “at all levels” to pump due process, fundamental fairness, and decisional excellence into a broken justice system.

Under AG Garland, at least some semblance of a “merit-based” selection system, one that honors immigration representation and human rights experience, has taken hold at EOIR. Therefore, Immigration Judge positions are the ideal “entry level” for those seeking careers in the Federal Judiciary.

Also, the “hands on” experience with making difficult decisions at the critical “retail level” of American justice will be an asset in any career path. Every correct decision at EOIR is potentially life-changing and life-saving! There aren’t many other areas where you can say that! These decisions are far, far too important to individuals and to our nation’s future to be left to the “amateur night at the Bijou” aura that unfortunately (tragically) has permeated EOIR in recent years!

Very proud to say that Paulina is a “distinguished alum” of the “Legacy” Arlington Immigration Court Internship Program and a “charter member” of the NDPA! 😎⚖️🗽

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-26-23

🏴‍☠️☠️🤯 NO EXCUSE: BIDEN’S BUMBLING BORDER POLICY MOCKS LAW, MORPHS INTO TRUMPIST RACIALLY-DRIVEN DETERRENCE! — Experts Outraged, Demand Withdrawal Of Wrong-Headed Proposals! — “The answer to long backlogs in asylum processing, and the associated delays in granting meritorious claims and denying unmeritorious ones, is not to devise new ways to shut the door to refugees. It is to allocate adequate resources to the asylum system: to ensure there are enough asylum officers, immigration judges, and administrative staff to fairly, humanely, and expeditiously hear and adjudicate asylum claims,” Says USCIS Asylum Officers’ Union!

Caleb Ecarma
Caleb Ecarma
Staff Reporter
Vanity Fair
PHOTO: Twitter

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/04/its-getting-harder-tell-difference-between-bidens-trumps-border-failures?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=vf&utm_mailing=VF_HIVE_041923&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd67c363f92a41245df49eb&cndid=48297443&hasha=8a1f473740b253d8fa4c23b066722737&hashb=26cd42536544e247751ec74095d9cedc67e77edb&hashc=eb7798068820f2944081a20180a0d3a94e025b4a93ea9ae77c7bbe00367c46ef&esrc=newsletteroverlay&source=EDT_VYF_NEWSLETTER_0_HIVE_ZZ&utm_campaign=VF_HIVE_041923&utm_term=VYF_Hive

Caleb Ecarma reports for Vanity Fair:

More than two years have passed since Joe Biden took office on the promise of a more humane approach to immigration and the border. But in many ways, the president has struggled to distinguish himself from his hard-line predecessor: His administration has expanded Title 42, the anti-immigration loophole authorized by Donald Trump; failed to resolve the family separation crisis; and proposed a new spin on Trump’s “transit ban” that would make a large percentage of migrants ineligible for asylum.

What’s more, the Biden administration has also apparently failed to adequately protect thousands of migrant children from labor trafficking inside the US. On Monday, The New York Times reported that the Department of Health and Human Services did not intervene after receiving repeated warnings about underage migrants the agency had sent to sponsors who then forced them to work grueling hours in dangerous conditions. While the department is required by law to vet sponsors to help ensure that children placed in their care will not be trafficked or exploited, those vetting requirements reportedly went by the wayside in 2021 amid a scramble to home those children.

The Times noted that at least five HHS staffers have said they were pushed out of their roles after sounding the alarm about child safety concerns. Jallyn Sualog, a former HHS official tasked with overseeing the agency’s response to unaccompanied migrant children, told the paper that she went to great lengths to warn her superiors that children were being put at risk. “They just didn’t want to hear it,” said Sualog, who said she was moved to a different post in 2021 after filing a complaint with the department’s internal watchdog. (She later accused the department of retaliation before settling with the agency and resigning.)

The paper traced the crisis back to Susan Rice, the president’s domestic-policy adviser. In 2021, as Rice was attempting to move throngs of unaccompanied migrant children from HHS shelters to homes, she and her aides reportedly received a memo detailing accounts of abusive sponsors but did nothing. (White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told the Times that Rice “did not see the memo and was not made aware of its contents.”

Since the summer of that year, the number of migrant children being trafficked or exploited has skyrocketed. Monthly calls to the HHS reporting trafficking, neglect, or abuse have more than doubled in the two years since Biden entered office, per the Times.

. . . .

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

Read Caleb’s full article at the link.

Two years of ignoring experts, appointing the wrong folks, and NOT FIXING what could and should have been a success in showing how robust, legal, properly generous, refugee and asylum programs, staffed and run by experts, could be a model of good government! Go figure!

The Trumpist GOP “plays” to a right wing extremist base — wedded to un-American and generally unpopular “culture wars” targeting a wide range of groups who basically are America’s future!

By contrast, the Biden Administration “disses, and runs away from” key parts of the Dem Coalition whose humane practical expertise and leadership should be at the core of the message. It’s certainly not that Biden’s misguided “Miller Lite” approach to asylum seekers and children at the border has “peeled off” any Trumpist support or is going to be a “winner” among independent voters!

How bad are the Biden Administration’s proposals? They generated an amazing 51,000+ public comments, the vast majority in opposition, despite a ridiculously short 30-day comment period apparently intended to “squelch” dissent. 

Human Rights First has helpfully “catalogued” and summarized the opposition comments from experts, including, of course, our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges and the USCIS Asylum Officers’ Union!  https://humanrightsfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Asylum_ban_comments_summary1.pdf

It reads like a “who’s who” of the Dem Social Justice and Racial Equity Coalition! The Dems have a great message to deliver on social justice, immigration, tolerence, women’s rights, individual freedom, and immigration’s positive impact on the economy! Practical, humane, sensible immigration policies are much more “politically salable” on the “grass roots level,” even in some surprising places, than the out of touch “policy wonks” at the Biden White House recognize! See, e.g., https://www.salon.com/2023/04/14/immigration-reformers-quietly-rack-up-series-of-wins-at-state-level/;  https://immigrationimpact.com/2023/03/10/state-bills-banning-immigration-detention-centers/.

Robust, generous, properly staffed, legal refugee and asylum admissions, under existing law, are an essential part of America’s legal immigration system. It both benefits many communities in America and is essential for America’s economic future. See, e.g., https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/4/17/bacow-ace-conference/; https://www.ft.com/content/9974c765-3258-4b5c-a244-95ee6fda419f.

Dems need to stop “running scared” on social justice issues and promote American values including the benefits of immigration and the importance of robust, generous, orderly legal asylum and refugee programs! See, e.g., https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/18/biden-democracy-fight-republican-extremism/ (Perry Bacon, Jr. gets everything right in his critique of Biden’s failure take on GOP extremism, EXCEPT for his glaring omission of immigrants rights as a primary “driver” of social justice in America and vice versa).

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-20-23

⚖️👩‍⚖️ EOIR NEWS: HON. SHEILA McNULTY NEW CHIEF IMMIGRATION JUDGE!

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up” — Can new Chief Immigration Judge Sheila McNulty get this poor little fella back on his feet? Only time will tell!

Sources report that A.G. Merrick Garland has appointed Judge Sheila McNulty to be the Chief Immigration Judge at EOIR. Previously, she was the Regional Deputy Chief Immigration Judge. 

The position had been vacant since the resignation of the previous Chief Immigration Judge, Tracy Short, in July 2022. Unlike Short, who came from ICE with no prior judicial experience, Chief Judge McNulty has been an Immigration Judge since 2010. For the last reported period that she was an Immigration Judge at the Chicago Immigration Court, 2014 -2015, Judge McNulty granted 52.3% of asylum cases, according to TRAC. She became an Assistant Chief Immigration Judge in 2015, and was promoted to Regional Deputy Chief Immigration Judge in 2021.

Her official EOIR bio is below.

Sheila McNulty
Regional Deputy Chief Immigration Judge [Now Chief Immigration Judge]

Sheila McNulty was appointed as Regional Deputy Chief Immigration Judge in March 2021. Judge McNulty received a Bachelor of Arts in 1984 from Miami University of Ohio and a Juris Doctor in 1991 from New England School of Law. From November 2015 to March 2021, she served as an Assistant Chief Immigration Judge, and during this time, from February 2020 to March 2021, she also served as Acting Deputy Chief Immigration Judge for the West. From October 2010 to November of 2015, she served as an Immigration Judge at the Chicago Immigration Court. From 2000 to 2010, Judge McNulty served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney with the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in the Chicago Office of the U.S Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. From 1991 to 2000, she served as a trial attorney for the former INS, entering on duty through the Attorney General’s Honors Program. From 1985 until 1988, Judge McNulty worked as a community activist and organizer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Judge McNulty is a member of the Illinois Bar.

Congratulations and good luck to Chief Judge McNulty in her new leadership role. The Immigration Judge program needs help — lots of it! 

Anti-asylum attitudes among some judges, wildly inconsistent decisions, “asylum free zones,” poor training, unprofessional conduct, lack of expertise, little quality control, emphasis on “productivity over due process,” inadequate law clerk support, over-reliance on oral decisions, debilitating backlogs, shortage of courtrooms and chambers, unreliable technology, “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” to meet the agenda of DOJ politicos, poor relations with the bar, lack of a due process vision, and cratering morale are among the many existential problems facing the new Chief Judge!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-19-23

☠️🤮 TAKE MY UPDATED “TOUR” OF AMERICA’S STAR CHAMBERS, A/K/A “EOIR” — “Due Process Doesn’t Live Here Any More!”

Star Chamber Justice
“Justice”
Star Chamber
Style

DUE PROCESS DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANY MORE: WEAPONIZED IMMIGRATION COURTS ARE AMERICA’S STAR CHAMBERS

By

Paul Wickham Schmidt

Retired U.S. Immigration Judge

“Immigration 101”

Renaissance Institute

 Notre Dame University of Maryland in Baltimore

April 18, 2023

 

I.  INTRODUCTION

 

Good morning. Thank you so much for inviting me, and for coming out on this beautiful Spring day. It’s an honor to be here. 

 

Today, I’m going to tell you the sad story of how our Immigration Courts, housed in an agency called the Executive Office for Immigration Review (acronym “EOIR” for you “Winnie The Pooh” fans) within the U.S. Department of Justice, went from being the “Jewel in the Crown” to becoming “America’s Star Chambers,” where due process and human dignity are trampled daily. I will intertwine EOIR’s saga with my own career. Because, in many ways, my history and EOIR’s are the same. But, there’s a larger story in here that I hope you will pick up and that will tie together much of what you will learn in class.

 

Now, this is when I used to give my comprehensive disclaimer providing “plausible deniability” for everyone in the Immigration Court System if I happened to say anything inconvenient or controversial. But, now that I’m retired, we can skip that part.

 

However, I do want to hold Professor Rabben, the Renaissance Institute, the University, your faculty, trustees, you, and anybody else of any importance whatsoever “harmless” for my remarks which are solely my own views. No party line, no bureaucratic doublespeak, no sugar coating, no BS. Just the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as I see and have lived it for five decades.

 

Also, because today is Tuesday, and you are such a great audience, I’m giving you my famous, industry-best, absolute, unconditional, money-back guarantee that this talk will be completely free from computer-generated slides, power points, or any other type of distracting modern technology that might interfere with your total comprehension or listening enjoyment. In other words, I am your “power point.” 

 

II. CAREER SUMMARY

 

I graduated in 1970 from Lawrence University a small liberal arts college in Appleton, Wisconsin, where I majored in history. My broad liberal arts education and the intensive writing and intellectual dialogue involved were the best possible preparation for all that followed. 

I then attended the University of Wisconsin School of Law in Madison, Wisconsin, graduating in 1973. Go Badgers! 

 

I began my legal career in 1973 as an Attorney Advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) at the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) under the Attorney General’s Honors Program. Admittedly, however, the BIA’s Executive Assistant culled my resume from the “Honors Program reject pile.” 

 

At that time, before the creation of the Executive Office for Immigration Review – “EOIR” — the Board had only five members and nine staff attorneys, as compared to today’s cast of thousands. Among other things, I worked on the famous, or infamous, John Lennon case, which eventually was reversed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.[1]  

The Chairman of the BIA at that time was the legendary “immigration guru” Maurice A. “Maury” Roberts. Chairman Roberts took me under this wing and shared his love of immigration law, his focus on sound scholarship, his affinity for clear, effective legal writing, and his humane sense of fairness and justice for the individuals coming before the BIA. A sense, I might add, that is conspicuously absent from today’s EOIR.

 

In 1976, I moved to the Office of General Counsel at the “Legacy” Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”). There, I worked for another legendary figure in immigration law, then General Counsel Sam Bernsen. Sam was a first-generation immigrant who started his career as a 17-year-old messenger at Ellis Island and worked his way to the top of the Civil Service ranks. Perhaps not incidentally, he was also a good friend of Chairman Roberts. 

 

At that time, the Office of General Counsel was very small, with a staff of only three attorneys in addition to the General Counsel and his Deputy, another mentor and immigration guru, Ralph Farb. At one time, all three of us on the staff sat in the same office! 

 

In 1978, Ralph was appointed to the BIA, and I succeeded him as Deputy General Counsel.  I also served as the Acting General Counsel for several very lengthy periods in both the Carter and Reagan Administrations. 

 

Not long after I arrived, the General Counsel position became political. The incoming Carter Administration encouraged Sam to retire, and he went on to become a name and Managing Partner of the Washington, D.C. office of the powerhouse immigration boutique Fragomen, Del Rey, and Bernsen. He was replaced by my good friend and former colleague, the late Judge David Crosland, who selected me as his Deputy. Dave was also the Acting Commissioner of Immigration during the second half of the Carter Administration, one of the periods when I was the Acting General Counsel. 

 

The third General Counsel that I served under, during the Reagan Administration, was one of my most “unforgettable characters:” the late, great Maurice C. “Mike” Inman, Jr. He was known, not always affectionately, as “Iron Mike.” His management style was something of a cross between the famous coach of the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi, and the fictional Mafia chieftain, Don Corleone. 

 

Although we were totally different personalities, Mike and I made a good team, and we accomplished amazing things. It was more or less a “good cop, bad cop” routine, and I’ll let you guess who played which role. 

 

Among other things, I worked on the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the Cuban Boatlift, the Refugee Act of 1980, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (“IRCA”), the creation of the Office of Immigration Litigation (“OIL”), and establishing what has evolved into the modern Chief Counsel system at Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”). 

 

I also worked on the creation of EOIR in 1983, which combined the Immigration Courts, which had previously been part of the INS, with the BIA to improve judicial independence. Interestingly, and perhaps ironically, the leadership and impetus for getting the Immigration Judges into a separate organization came from Mike and the late Al Nelson, who was then the Commissioner of Immigration. Prosecutors by position and litigators by trade, they saw the inherent conflicts and overall undesirability, from a due process and credibility standpoint, of having immigration enforcement and impartial court adjudication in the same division. 

 

I find it disturbing that officials at today’s DOJ have actually recreated and aggravated many of the problems and glaring conflicts of interest that EOIR originally was created to overcome. Indeed, as I will discuss later, they have allowed the Immigration Courts to become “weaponized” as a tool of immigration enforcement. 

For example, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions unethically and improperly referred to supposedly fair and impartial Immigration Judges as “in partnership” with DHS enforcement. A.G. Garland has done little to dispel this notion.

 

By the time I left in 1987, the General Counsel’s Office, largely as a result of the enactment of IRCA and new employer sanctions provisions, had dozens of attorneys, organized into divisions, and approximately 600 attorneys in the field program, the vast majority of whom had been hired during my tenure.

 

In 1987, I resigned from INS and joined Jones Day’s DC Office, a job that I got largely because of my wife Cathy and her “old girl network.” I eventually became a partner specializing in business immigration, multinational executives, and religious workers. Among my major legislative projects on behalf of our clients were the special religious worker provisions added to the law by the Immigration Act of 1990 and the “Special Immigrant Juvenile” provisions of the INA. 

 

Following my time at Jones Day, I succeeded my former boss and mentor Sam Bernsen as the Managing Partner of the DC Office of Fragomen, Del Rey & Bernsen, the leading national immigration boutique, where I continued to concentrate on business immigration. Immigration is a small community; you need to be nice to everyone because you keep running into the same folks over and over again in your career. While at Fragomen, I also assisted the American Immigration Lawyers Association (“AILA”) on a number of projects and was an asylum adviser to the Lawyers’ Committee on Human Rights, now known as Human Rights First. 

 

In 1995, then Attorney General Janet Reno appointed me Chairman of the BIA. Not surprisingly, the late Janet Reno was my favorite among all of the Attorneys General I worked under. I felt that she supported me personally, and she supported the concept of an independent judiciary, even though she didn’t always agree with our decisions and vice versa. 

 

She was the only Attorney General who consistently came to our Investitures and Immigration Judge Conferences in person and mixed and mingled with the group. She had a saying “equal justice for all” that she worked into almost all of her speeches, and which I found quite inspirational. 

 

She was also hands-down the funniest former Attorney General to appear on “Saturday Night Live,” doing her famous “Janet Reno Dance Party” routine with Will Farrell immediately following the end of her lengthy tenure at the DOJ.  Can you imagine Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr, or Merrick Garland making live appearances on SNL, and laughing at themselves. Not likely! 

 

Among other things,  as Chair, I oversaw an expansion of the Board from the historical five members to more than 20 members, a more open selection system that gave some outside experts a chance to serve as appellate judges on the Board, the creation of a supervisory structure for the expanding staff, the establishment of a unified Clerk’s Office to process appeals, implementation of a true judicial format for published opinions, institution of bar coding for the tens of thousands of files, the establishment of a pro bono program to assist unrepresented respondents on appeal, the founding of the Virtual Law Library, electronic en banc voting and e-distribution of decisions to Immigration Judges, and the publication of the first BIA Practice Manual, which actually won a “Plain Language Award” from then Vice President Gore. 

 

I also wrote the majority opinion in my favorite case, Matter of Kasinga, establishing for the first time that the practice of female genital mutilation (“FGM”) is “persecution” for asylum purposes.[2]  The “losing” attorney in that case was none other than my good friend, then INS General Counsel David A. Martin, a famous emeritus immigration professor at University of Virginia Law, who personally argued before the Board. 

 

In reality, however, by nominally “losing” the case, David actually won the war for both of us, and more important, for the cause of suffering women throughout the world. We really were on the same side in Kasinga — the side of protecting vulnerable women. 

 

During my tenure as Chairman, then Chief Immigration Judge (now BIA Judge) Michael J. Creppy and I were founding members of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges (“IARLJ”). This organization, today headquartered in The Hague, promotes open dialogue and exchange of information among judges from many different countries adjudicating claims under the Geneva Convention on Refugees. 

 

In 2001, under pressure from the incoming Bush Administration and new Attorney General John 

Ashcroft, I stepped down as BIA Chairman, but remained as a Board Member until April 2003. At that time, Ashcroft, who was not a fan of my opinions, invited me to vacate the Board and finish my career at the Arlington Immigration Court, where I remained until my retirement on June 30, 2016. 

 

So, I’m one of the few ever to become an Immigration Judge without applying for the job. Or, maybe my opinions, particularly the dissents, were my application and I just didn’t recognize it at the time. But, it turned out to be a great fit, and I truly enjoyed my time at the Arlington Court.

 

I have also taught at George Mason School of Law and at Georgetown Law where I am still an Adjunct Professor. 

 

As a sitting judge, I encouraged meticulous preparation and advance consultation with the DHS Assistant Chief Counsel to stipulate or otherwise narrow issues. There currently are approximately two million pending cases in Immigration Court, a backlog that grows every day. Because of this overwhelming workload, efficiency and focusing on the disputed issues in court are particularly critical.

 

III. THE DUE PROCESS VISION

 

Now, let’s move on to the other topics: First, vision. The “EOIR Vision” once was: “Through teamwork and innovation, be the world’s best administrative tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” In one of my prior incarnations, I was part of the group that developed that now abandoned and disrespected vision statement. Perhaps not surprisingly given the timing, that vision echoed the late Janet Reno’s “equal justice for all” theme. 

 

Sadly, the Immigration Court System has moved ever further away from that due process vision. Instead, years of neglect, misunderstanding, mismanagement, and misguided priorities imposed by the U.S. Department of Justice have created judicial chaos with an expanding backlog now at an astounding two million cases, continuing to grow, with no clear plan for resolving them in the foreseeable future. Indeed, former AG Sessions actually maliciously and intentionally tried to add a potential 300,000 previously closed cases to those already on the active docket. 

 

There are now more pending cases in Immigration Court than in the entire U.S. District Court System. Notwithstanding the hiring of hundreds of new judges by the past two Administrations, most in the Trump Administration from the ranks of Government prosecutors, the backlog continues to grow by leaps and bounds.

 

The Government has added hundreds of thousands, of new cases to the Immigration Court docket, again without any transparent plan for completing those already pending cases consistent with due process and fairness. They have done this despite efforts by the Biden Administration to re-establish sensible enforcement priorities and prosecutorial discretion that were trashed by the Trump Administration. 

 

Even under Attorney General Garland, inexcusably, the “flavor of the day” is haphazardly advanced before pending cases which, in turn, are “orbited” to the end of the years long line. This results in what I call “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” or “ADR, EOIR-style.” 

Notably, and most troubling, the only things that aren’t “priorities” for any Administration are fairness and due process in the immigration hearing process which have clearly been “thrown from the train” as the deportation express hurtles down the track. The Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution – has become “the enemy” in today’s disgracefully dysfunctional Immigration Courts.

 

Nobody has been hit harder by this preventable disaster than asylum seekers, particularly scared women and children fleeing for their lives from the Northern Triangle of Central America. In Immigration Court, notwithstanding the life-or-death issues at stake, unlike criminal court there is no right to an appointed lawyer. 

 

Individuals who can’t afford a lawyer must rely on practicing lawyers who donate their time or on nonprofit community organizations to find free or low-cost legal representation. Although the Government stubbornly resists the notion that all asylum seekers should be represented, studies show that represented asylum seekers are at least five times more likely to succeed than those who must represent themselves. For recently arrived women with children, the success differential is an astounding fourteen times![3] 

Although the Biden Administration promised to do better, they actually are using somewhat improved technology to make matters worse for lawyers, mindlessly overbooking cases without advance consultation with counsel — sometimes simultaneously scheduling cases for the same attorney in different cities at the same time.

 

An Assistant Chief Judge for Training in the Obama Administration infamously claimed that he could teach immigration law to unrepresented toddlers appearing in Immigration Court. Issues concerning representation of so-called “vulnerable populations” continue to haunt our Court System. Even with Clinics and Non-Governmental Organizations pitching in, there simply are not enough free or low-cost lawyers available to handle the overwhelming need. 

 

To make matters worse, Administrations of both parties engage in a number of legally questionable and morally reprehensible “gimmicks” and “schemes” to keep asylum applicants at the Southern Border from getting fair hearings in Immigration Court.  

Whether it’s “dedicated dockets,” Remain in Mexico, abusive use of Title 42, family detention, child separation, invented “bars” to asylum, or forcing applicants stranded in dangerous conditions in Mexico to use failing technology to schedule appointments, the objective is to prevent asylum applicants from receiving due process. Instead, they are often wrongfully “orbited” back to Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and El Salvador.

 

These are among the world’s most dangerous countries, some basically without functional governing systems. Once there, many suffer kidnapping, extortion, rape, torture, and even death at the hands of the same forces from which they originally fled. 

 

It’s a total and intentional perversion of asylum law and American values. Worst of all, complicit Article III Courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court, regularly “tank” in their duties to protect asylum applicants’ legal and constitutional rights. Instead, they “go along to get along” or pretend not to see or understand the grotesque human tragedy that they have enabled.

Customs and Border Protection officials brag about how limiting or eliminating asylum protections helps solve “the problem” and “reduce the numbers” at our Southern Border. In their view, refugees seeking legal protections under our laws and international conventions are a “problem” and human lives are merely “numbers” to be “reduced.” 

 

It’s part of a concerted effort to “dehumanize the other” and convert them to “non-persons” under the law.  I call this “Dred Scottification” after the infamous pre-Civil War Supreme Court case that declared that Blacks were not “persons” under our Constitution, although I hardly originated this term.

 

Notwithstanding today’s legal, Constitutional, and human rights disaster, I, for one, still believe that with proper enlightened leadership and some guts the “EOIR vision” could be fulfilled.

 

IV. THE ROLE OF THE IMMIGRATION JUDGE

 

Changing subjects, to the role of the Immigration Judge: What’s it like to be an Immigration Judge? As an Immigration Judge, I was an administrative judge. I was not part of the Judicial Branch established under Article III of the Constitution. 

The Attorney General, part of the Executive Branch, appointed me, and my authority was subject to her regulations. I might add that I also served at her pleasure, something that GOP Administrations “get,” but ineffectual Democratic Administrations, not so much.   And, that has lots to do with the abysmal state of justice in the Immigration Courts under Garland.

 

We should all be concerned that the U.S. Immigration Court system, between 2017 and 2021, was totally under the control of Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, who consistently took negative views of immigrants, both legal and undocumented. Both failed to recognize the many essential, positive contributions that immigrants make to our country. They were also unfailingly biased against migrants in Immigration Court and their attorneys, in their negative and unethical “precedents,” and in prosecutor-friendly, immigration experience light, criteria for appointing new Immigration Judges and Appellate Judges at the BIA.

 

Indeed, in February 2020, a group of more than 2,500 former DOJ officials from Administrations of both parties, including me and many of my colleagues from the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, took the extraordinary step of publicly calling on Barr to resign for corruption and compromising the independent role of the DOJ.[6] Among other things, we “strongly condemn[ed] President Trump’s and Attorney General Barr’s interference in the fair administration of justice.” Certainly, that was reflected in his mishandling of the Immigration Courts and “weaponizing” them against migrants and their lawyers

The late Judge Terence T. Evans of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals offered one of the best descriptions of what it’s like to be an Immigration Judge: 

Because 100 percent of asylum petitioners want to stay in this country, but less than 100 percent are entitled to asylum, an immigration judge must be alert to the fact that some petitioners will embellish their claims to increase their chances of success. On the other hand, an immigration judge must be sensitive to the suffering and fears of petitioners who are genuinely entitled to asylum in this country. A healthy balance of sympathy and skepticism is a job requirement for a good immigration judge. Attaining that balance is what makes the job of an immigration judge, in my view, excruciatingly difficult.[5]

 

My good friend and colleague, Judge Dana Leigh Marks of the San Francisco Immigration Court, who is the past President of the National Association of Immigration Judges, offers a somewhat pithier description:  “[I]mmigration judges often feel asylum hearings are ‘like holding death penalty cases in traffic court.’”[7]

 

An actual practitioner before today’s dysfunctional Immigration Courts was even blunter in an interview appearing in Mother Jones, one of my favorite scholarly publications: “An [expletive deleted] disaster that is designed to fail.”[7]

 

Certainly, balance, Due Process, and fundamental fairness have been sacrificed in today’s Immigration Courts in favor of expediency and “weaponizing” the Immigration Courts as tools of DHS enforcement. In other words, they are now structured to be little more than a whistle-stop on the deportation express as the complicit Article IIIs look on. 

Barr even took the extreme, unethical, step of moving to “decertify” the Immigration Judges union, the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”), of which, for full disclosure, I am a retired member. Actually, I believe my appearance here today was arranged through Linda contacting the NAIJ!

 

One of the keys to the Immigration Judge’s job is supposed to be issuing scholarly, practical, well-written opinions in the most difficult cases. That ties directly into the job of the Immigration Court’s Judicial Law Clerks (“JLCs”) assisted by legal interns from local law schools. Obviously, however, quality and care took a back seat to “productivity” under the Trump Administration’s program of “dumbing down” the Immigration Courts — not by any means effectively countermanded under Garland. Indeed, the already-strained ratio of Immigration Judges to judicial law clerks has gotten much worse over the past few years. 

V. RECLAIMING THE VISION 

Our Immigration Courts are going through an existential crisis that threatens the very foundations of our American Justice System. Earlier, I told you about my dismay that the noble due process vision of our Immigration Courts has been derailed and trashed. What can be done to re-establish it?  

 

First, and foremost, the Immigration Courts must return to the focus on due process as the one and only mission. We must end the improper use of our due process court system by political officials to advance enforcement priorities and/or send “don’t come” messages to asylum seekers. 

 

Ultimately, that will take an independent Article I Immigration Court, which has been supported by groups such as the ABA, the FBA, and the NAIJ, and was introduced in the last Congress by Subcommittee Chair Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).  

Indeed, in February 2020, a hearing on “The State of Judicial Independence and Due Process in U.S. Immigration Courts” took place before Chair Lofgren’s Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship. Our 50+ strong “Round Table of Former Immigration Judges” filed a written statement in support of Due Process and creation of an independent, Article I Court. 

You can find it on my blog “Immigrationcourtside.com,” which, of course, I highly recommend for anyone trying to understand what’s really happening in immigration these days.[8] We also joined 53 other distinguished organizations and NGOs in writing to Congress urging them to establish an independent Immigration Court.[9]

But, Article I is still a future dream. In the meantime, there is no excuse for Garland’s failure to make needed personnel, structural, and “cultural” changes at EOIR to restore due process.

Second, there must be radical structural changes so that the Immigration Courts are organized and run like a real court system, not a highly bureaucratic, headquarters bloated, enforcement agency. This means that sitting Immigration Judges, like in all other court systems, must control their dockets. 

We must end the practice of having often clueless administrators in Falls Church and political bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., none of whom are sitting judges responsible for daily court hearings, manipulate and rearrange local dockets in an attempt to achieve policy goals unrelated to fairness and due process for individuals coming before the Immigration Courts.

 

Additionally, the judicial hiring process over the past 22 years has failed to produce the necessary balance because judicial selectees from private sector backgrounds – particularly those with expertise in asylum and refugee law –have been so few and far between. Indeed, during the Obama Administration nearly 90% of the judicial appointments were from Government backgrounds.

In the Trump Administration, nearly 100% of judicial appointments by Attorney General Barr came from prosecutorial or other public sector backgrounds. A number of these conspicuously lacked expertise in immigration and human rights laws!

Garland has done better in bringing in expert practical scholars and even getting rid of a few of the most horribly unqualified judges. But, in an out-of-control system with more than 600 judges, and growing, it’s going to take more than this “nibbling around the edges” to restore due process.

 

 

Third, there must be a new administrative organization to serve the courts, much like the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Currently, the unwieldy hiring process, inadequate courtroom space planning and acquisition, and unreliable, often-outdated technology are simply not up to the needs of a rapidly expanding court system. 

EOIR basically has “institutionalized worst practices.” This includes limiting legitimate continuances and placing judges under “performance plans” designed to hustle cases through the system, with insufficient quality control, while producing “assembly line injustice.”

 

 

Fourth, I would repeal all of the so-called “Ashcroft & Barr reforms” at the BIA and put the BIA back on track to being a real appellate court, as the “Appellate Division” of a new independent Immigration
Court.  A properly comprised and well-functioning Appellate Division should transparently debate and decide important, potentially controversial, issues, publishing dissenting opinions when appropriate. 

 

All Appellate Judges should be required to vote and take a public position on all important precedent decisions. The Appellate Division must also “rein in,” rather than encourage and enable, those Immigration Courts with asylum grant rates so incredibly low as to make it clear that the generous dictates of the Supreme Court in Cardoza-Fonseca[9] and the BIA itself in Mogharrabi[10] are not being followed.

 

Well over a decade has passed since Professors Andy Schoenholtz, Phil Shrag, and Jaya Ramji-Nogales published their seminal work Refugee Roulette, documenting the large disparities among Immigration Judges in asylum grant rates.[11] The BIA, the only body that can effectively establish and enforce due process within the Immigration Court system, has not adequately addressed this situation. 

 

Indeed, among the still-serving Barr appointments to the BIA are Immigration Judges who deny asylum nearly 100% of the time and are the subject of complaints from the private bar and NGOs about bias, rudeness, and other unprofessional behavior. In other words, Barr implemented  “worst practices and policies” at the BIA and in the Immigration Courts in an attempt to “snuff out” every remnant of fundamental fairness and due process for migrants. He and Sessions particularly targeted the most vulnerable asylum seekers and their families for unfair treatment.

Inexplicably, and outrageously, Garland has failed to “clean house” and bring in the necessary qualified experts to reshape the Immigration Courts in a due process image. In particular, Trump holdovers contain due to dominate the BIA and turn out lousy, anti-immigrant, anti-due process decisions, many of which are slammed by the Circuit Courts on review.

 

This is hardly “through teamwork and innovation being the world’s best administrative tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!” The sharp drop-off in Immigration Court asylum grant rates during the Trump Administration was impossible to justify in light of the generous standard for well-founded fear established by the Supreme Court in Cardoza-Fonseca and the BIA in Mogharrabi, the regulatory presumption of future fear arising out of past persecution that applies in many asylum cases,[14] and the simple fact that there has been no worldwide diminution in the conditions causing refugees to flee. Indeed, they have gotten worse, in many cases. 

 

The BIA’s chronic inability or unwillingness to aggressively stand up for the due process rights of asylum seekers and to enforce the fair and generous standards required by American law have robbed our Immigration Court System of credibility and public support, as well as ruined the lives of many who were denied protection that should have been granted.  We need an Appellate Division that functions like a Federal Appellate Court and whose overriding mission is to ensure that the due process vision of the Immigration Courts becomes a reality rather than a cruel, intentionally unfulfilled promise.

 

Fifth, and finally, the Immigration Courts need better public service now! Without it, the courts are condemned to “files in the aisles,” misplaced filings, lost exhibits, and exorbitant courier charges. The public receives a level of service disturbingly below that of any other major court system. 

That gives the Immigration Courts an “amateur night at the Bijou” aura totally inconsistent with the dignity of the process and the critical importance of the mission. Yet, after two decades of largely wasted effort, EOIR has failed to produce and implement a coherent, professional, user friendly court management system. 

VI. GETTING INVOLVED  

Bleak as this picture is, there is some good news. There are hundreds of dedicated and courageous lawyers out there who are former JLCs, interns, my former students, and those who have practiced before the Immigration Courts.  

    

They form the nucleus what I call the “New Due Process Army!” You can be members, and I hope you will.

 

Thanks to an innovative new online program called VIISTA Villanova, developed by my friend Professor Michele Pistone, retirees who are not lawyers can train to become accredited representatives of recognized nonprofit organizations and actually represent asylum seekers in Immigration Court. Check it out on the internet. 

VII. CONCLUSION 

In conclusion, in the process of describing my career, I have introduced you to one of America’s largest and most important, yet least understood and appreciated, court systems: The United States Immigration Court. Right now, it is, inexcusably, clearly and beyond any reasonable doubt America’s worst and most dysfunctional court system.

I have shared with you that court’s once-noble due process vision and how it has been viciously and cruelly trampled, first to advance a xenophobic, White Nationalist Qrestrictionist agenda and then because Garland has failed to do his duty. 

 

I have also shared with you my ideas for effective court reform that would restore and elevate the due process vision. 

My friends, both our Immigration Courts and our democratic republic are in a grave existential crisis. There are powerful and well-organized forces with a very dark, exclusive vision of America’s future: one that reverses generations of human progress and knowledge and actively promotes intolerance, misinformation, dehumanization, and deconstruction of our democratic institutions and fundamental human values. 

 

It’s an intentionally “whitewashed” version of American history. One that denies the ingenuity, creativity, and forced labor of generations of African Americans who literally built our country!  It disregards the courage, tenacity, skill, and strength of Asian Americans who built our Transcontinental Railroad and literally brought our nation together. And, of course, it dismisses the legions of Hispanic Americans who have been “making America great” since before “America was America,” with their culture, hard work, determination, and commitment to the “real” American dream, not the “whitewashed” version.

 

The future envisioned by these dark forces “x’es out” some of you in this room. Don’t let their darkness and willful ignorance be your future and that of generations to come. 

 

Look around you at the real history and the real America. The future is ours! Don’t let the forces of darkness and a “past that never was” deny our destiny!

 

Now is the time to take a stand for Due Process, fundamental fairness, human rights, human dignity, and human decency! Join the New Due Process Army and fight to make equal justice under law and the constitutional and human rights of everyone a reality rather than an unfulfilled promise! Due process forever!    

 

Thanks again for inviting me and for listening. 

  

(04/19/23) 

 

[1] Matter of Lennon, 15 I&N Dec. 9 (BIA 1974), rev’d Lennon v. INS, 527 F.2d 187 (2d Cir. 1975).

[2] Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1996).

[3] TRAC Immigration, “Representation is Key in Immigration Proceedings Involving Women with Children,” Feb. 18, 2015, available online at http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/377/.

[4] “Immigration Director Calls for Overhaul of Broken System,” NBC Bay Area News, May 27, 2015, available online.

[5] Guchshenkov v. Ashcroft, 366 F.3d 554 (7th Cir. 2004) (Evans, J., concurring).
[6] Hon. Thomas G. Snow, “The gut-wrenching life of an immigration judge,” USA Today, Dec. 12, 2106, available online at http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/12/12/immigration-judge-gut-wrenching-decisions-column/95308118/

[7] Julia Preston, “Lawyers Back Creating New Immigration Courts,” NY Times, Feb. 6, 2010.

[8] INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987).

[9] INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987).

[10] Matter of Mogharrabi, 19 I&N Dec. 4379(BIA 1987).

[11] Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Andrew I. Schoenholtz, and Philip G. Schrag, Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication, 60 Stan. L. Rev. 295 (2007);

[12] All statistics are from the EOIR FY 2015 Statistics Yearbook, available online at https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/fysb15/download,

[13] See Emory Law/SPLC Observation Study Rips Due Process Violations At Atlanta Immigration Court — Why Is The BIA “Asleep At The Switch” In Enforcing Due Process? What Happened To The EOIR’s “Due Process Vision?” in immigrationcourtside.com, available online at http://immigrationcourtside.com/2017/03/02/emory-lawsplc-observation-study-rips-due-process-violations-at-atlanta-immigration-court-why-is-the-bia-asleep-at-the-switch-in-enforcing-due-process-what-happened-to-the-eoirs-due-proces/

[14] See 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(1).

[15] See, e.g., Matter of Y-S-L-C-, 26 I&N Dec. 688 (BIA 2015) (denial of due process where IJ tried to bar the testimony of minor respondent by disqualifying him as an expert witness under the Federal Rules of Evidence). While the BIA finally stepped in with this precedent, the behavior of this Judge shows a system where some Judges have abandoned any discernable concept of “guaranteeing fairness and due process.” The BIA’s “permissive” attitude toward Judges who consistently deny nearly all asylum applications has allowed this to happen. Indeed the Washington Post recently carried a poignant story of a young immigration lawyer who was driven out of the practice by the negative attitudes and treatment by the Immigration Judges at the Atlanta Immigration Court. Harlan, Chico, “In an Immigration Court that nearly always says no, a lawyer’s spirit is broken,” Washington Post, Oct. 11, 2016, available online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/in-an-immigration-court-that-nearly-always-says-no-a-lawyers-spirit-is-broken/2016/10/11/05f43a8e-8eee-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html

How does this live up to the EOIR Vision of “through teamwork and innovation being the world’s best administrative tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all?”   Does this represent the best that American justice has to offer?

© Paul Wickham Schmidt 2023, All Rights Reserved

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

We need to keep challenging this mockery of justice from all angles until the system changes! Keep raising the EOIR farce with Dems at all levels — let them know that due process at EOIR is a “front burner” issue they can’t keep sweeping under the rug!

Help groups that are assisting individuals stuck in this bureaucratically-created “Hell on Earth.” The EOIR system “feeds” on (picks on) the unrepresented, uninformed, traumatized, and desperate! Help people get effective representation, win cases, save their lives, and bring systemic attention to the gross injustices being inflicted on a daily basis by this dysfunctional system!

We can’t wait for change from above from those who are indifferent to the rule of law, human lives, and our nation’s future! NDPA members need to get on the Immigration Bench and start changing culture and outcomes at the “retail level.” See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/04/15/%f0%9f%87%ba%f0%9f%87%b8%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%97%bd%f0%9f%91%a8%f0%9f%8f%be%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%a7%91%f0%9f%8f%bb%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%91%a9%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f/

The “powers that be” at DOJ and the White House have little interest in leading and institutionalizing due process and excellence in judging at EOIR. But, neither are they positioned to prevent it from taking hold and growing on its own. That’s particularly true because Immigration Judges with practical expertise, courtroom skills, and a commitment to enforcing and vindicating individual rights ultimately “move” dockets more efficiently, motivate others to work together toward the ends of justice, and create fewer problems and embarrassments.

It’s unlikely that well-qualified, expert, due-processed-focused judges will be generating scathing public “kickbacks” from the Article IIIs. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/04/17/%f0%9f%a4%af2d-cir-savages-bias-anti-asylum-precedent-matter-of-y-i-m-27-i-n-dec-724-b-i-a-2019-phantom-discrepancies-lunch-over-lives-no-time-to-lis/

Even the BIA can’t screw up cases they don’t get! At some point, even inept and largely tone-deaf Dem politicos and their bureaucratic minions start “warming” to proven solutions rather than recreating failures and flailing away with bone-headed “deterrence” gimmicks.

The BIA might eschew precedents favorable to individuals. But, thanks to litigation against EOIR by the NY Legal Assistance Group, unpublished decisions are more widely available now on the internet. Even at the IJ level, advocacy organizations have established online networks and banks of good decisions by Immigration Judges granting relief.

These recognize and credit outstanding, exemplary, courageous judicial performance in a way that EOIR never does. Perhaps more importantly, these “unheralded victories” provide “road maps” and inspire others! Also, every concrete example of how good judging and good lawyering, on both sides, can work at EOIR serves as a condemnation and rebuke of the Administration’s lack of concern about due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices at EOIR.

While the picture is undoubtedly ugly, we must keep “painting it” — with vivid colors — until complacent folks in the power structure (particularly tone-deaf Dems) can no longer look away, cover their eyes and ears, and deny the truth about the “third world” system they are disingenuously passing off as American “justice.”

The message is straightforward: Due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices work! For everyone! It’s past time for Garland and the rest of this Administration to “get their collective heads out of the sand” and start heeding and acting decisively on that truth!

Head in the Sand
Bury your head in the sand
Sander van der Wel from Netherlands
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
It’s way past time for AG Merrick Garland and Biden politicos to change this highly ineffective approach to the EOIR due process disaster!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-19-23

👂📢 ATTN NDPA: Attend An EOIR “Listening Session” On the All-Important Topic Of “Enhancing Pro Bono Representation!” 

Hey Listen
Hey listen!
Quinn Dombrowski from Berkeley, USA
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0

EOIR to Host Listening Session Seeking Input on Enhancing Pro Bono Representation

SUMMARY: The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) will host six listening sessions to facilitate conversations with law school clinical communities nationwide about creating best practices for practical and clinical representation and empowering immigration judges and staff to leverage the pro bono resources law schools provide. EOIR’s objective is to build the capacity of representation in immigration court proceedings by cultivating and maintaining interest in pro bono advocacy.

As the “Access EOIR” initiative continues, EOIR seeks to engage law school clinical communities about their needs. During the meeting, EOIR would like to hear from participants about:

  • Any communities or areas of focus for law school clinics, including whether they represent noncitizens in removal proceedings, and whether they focus on specific case types or dockets.
  • The average number of removal cases handled per year.
  • The types of interactions with immigration courts, especially for those not
    providing representation in removal proceedings.
  • The intake processes across law school clinics.
  • Suggestions on how EOIR can better support law school clinics.
    EOIR encourages professors and leaders from law schools to attend the meeting for their clinic’s region but welcomes all such individuals to attend any session that works for their schedules. Professors and leaders of law school clinics who are unable to attend any of the sessions, including those who were unaware of the sessions in advance, may request a session by sending the name(s) of the attendee(s) and the law school clinic, the date and time requested, and a valid email address to: engagewitheoir@usdoj.gov.

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DATES:

April 14 at noon (CT) –

April 17 at 1:00pm (ET) – April 20 at 10:30am (ET) – April 21 at noon (PT) – April 27 at 1:00pm (ET) – April 28 at noon (PT) –

AR, IA, IL, IN, KY, MI, MN, MO, NE, ND, OH, SD, TN, WI

DC, DE, MD, NC, NJ, PA, SC, VA, WV CT, MA, ME, NY, PR, RI, VT
CA
FL, GA, LA, TX

AK, AZ, CO, GU, HI, ID, KS, MP, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY

LOCATION: Live via WebEx.

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From my vantage point, the current EOIR system is not particularly “pro bono friendly!” So, this is a chance for those of you who are actually providing, or trying to provide pro bono assistance to weigh in with your ideas on how the system could be better!  

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-12-23

🇺🇸⚖️🗽👍🏼 TWO RECENT UNHERALDED CASES SHOW HOW DUE PROCESS & FUNDAMENTAL FAIRNESS CAN BE “INSTITUTIONALIZED” @ EOIR — Kudos To Filipe Alexandre ESQ & Professor Elizabeth Jordan

 

NDPA stalwart Felipe Alexandre reports on LinkedIn:

Felipe Alexandre
Felipe Alexandre ESQ
Immigration Attorney
Rowland Heights, CA
PHOTO: Linkedin

Felipe Alexandre (艾飛力)

View Felipe Alexandre (艾飛力)’s profile

• 1st

U.S. Immigration Attorney-美国移民和人权律师

2d • 

On Friday we had a challenging issue with our Asylum case in immigration court.

The case was heavily documented and our NYC team did such an amazing job with the package that DHS was already willing to stipulate to a Withholding of Removal (which actually requires proving a higher probability of persecution than asylum, but is a much more restrictive form of relief). Client is a bona fide Falun Gong practitioner and has publicly opposed the Chinese government’s vicious and ruthless persecution of FLG followers in China, so it was a victory on its merits just from looking at the filing and before taking testimony.

However, the reason the government would not stipulate to Asylum is because there was a one year issue in the case. Normally, clients are required to apply for asylum within one year of their last entry into the United States, unless they can prove they qualify for one of the exceptions in the statute.

This was an unfortunate case where USCIS lost the filing and by the time client found out about this, she was so mentally distraught with the persecution of her family back home that she simply could not muster the necessary focus to work on the application. Her symptoms persisted for two years until after her family was released and she finally was able to file.

We showed several receipts, USPS labels, brought a witness who was aware of the challenges client was facing at the time, and took detailed testimony where client explained the mental anguish she was suffering at the time and how this affected her ability to focus.

Asylum granted Baby!

I love this TEAM!

 #immigration #team #asylum #falungong #chinahumanrights

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Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

Elizabeth Jordan ESQUIRE
Elizabeth Jordan Esquire
Director, Immigration Detention Accountability Project (IDAP)

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/denver-ij-grants-cat-withholding-relief-el-salvador-psg

Denver IJ Grants CAT, Withholding Relief (El Salvador, PSG)

Prof. Elizabeth Jordan writes: “DU clinic students Anni Winan and Sharon Malhotra got a win in Judge Caley’s courtroom a few weeks ago on behalf of a Salvadoran who fears return to El Salvador under the State of Emergency declared by President Bukele. Notably, Caley found “Salvadoran men with tattoos erroneously perceived to be gang members” cognizable as a PSG, departing from Matter of EAG, and found that the conditions in Salvadoran prisons under the SOE amount to torture. [ICE did NOT appeal.] We would highly recommend Dr. McNamara as an expert as well.”

[Hats way off to Prof. Jordan (Director, Immigration Law & Policy Clinic, University of Denver Sturm College of Law) and her students!]

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

Congrats to everyone involved! Fairness, scholarship, timeliness, respect, and teamwork succeeds!

Common threads:

  • Great representation of the respondent;
  • Great preparation;
  • A well-prepared, thoughtful ICE Assistant Chief Counsel committed to working for a fair, correct, result;
  • An Immigration Judge who inspired the parties to excellence, paid attention to the law and the issues, listened carefully, and allowed both counsel to do their jobs;
  • An Immigration Judge who encouraged the parties to work cooperatively, narrow the issues, and focus on the key dispositive issue;
  • Great teamwork and professionalism produced a great result, with efficiency, and without gimmicks or corner cutting.

What’s needed:

  • Precedents establishing, enforcing, and reinforcing due process and best practices;
  • Working with the private bar and NGOs to establish universal representation;
  • Prioritizing represented grantable cases on the docket;
  • Dynamic judicial leadership focused on institutionalizing due process, fundamental fairness, and correct, high-quality decisions;
  • Highest quality judicial training and continuing judicial education. (It exists out here in the “real world” with inspiring, effective, creative, problem-solving  “practical scholar/teachers.” But, according to EOIR sources, currently available only through the NAIJ!)

Due process, fundamental fairness, best practices, and maximum efficiency, consistent with due process, can be achieved at EOIR! It just takes expertise, will, a plan, and the right personnel to make it happen! Leadership makes a difference!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-06-23

⚖️🗽🛡⚔️ LISTEN TO ROUND TABLE “FIGHTING KNIGHTESS” JUDGE (RET.) ILYCE SHUGALL ON KEVIN GREGG’S “IMMIGRATION REVIEW PODCAST!”

Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S Immigration Judge (Ret)
Managing Attorney at ILD and Senior Counsel in the Immigration Program at Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, CA
Adjunct Professor, VIISTA Villanova
Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
PHOTO: VIISTA Villanova
Kevin A. Gregg
Kevin A. Gregg, Esquire
Partner
Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt
Coral Gables, FL
Host Immigration Review Podcast
PHOTO: KKPT

Get the podcast here:

https://www.kktplaw.com/immigration-review-podcast/

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Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

It was a pleasure working with my friend Ilyce during an exciting two-day workshop at VIISTA Villanova recently, attended by some of her VIISTA students now out using their skills to promote and realize social justice!

Round Table members are literally everywhere these days, fighting, teaching, advocating, and educating for due process and fundamental fairness for all persons in America!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-31-23

⚖️🗽🛡⚔️ ROUND TABLE MEMBERS JUDGE JOAN CHURCHILL & JUDGE STEVEN MORLEY EXTOLL NEED FOR INDEPENDENT ARTICLE I IMMIGRATION COURT AT ABA EVENT! — 150 Legal Organizations Stress Urgency, As EOIR Continues Downward Spiral & Backlog Mushrooms 🍄 Out Of Control!

Judge Joan Churchill
Honorable Joan Churchill
Retired U.S. Immigration Judge
Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
Judge Steven Morley
Judge (Ret.) Steven Morley
Of Counsel,Landau, Hess, Simon, Choi & Doebley
Philadelphia, PA
Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
PHOTO: Linkedin

 https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2023/03/immigration-courts-independent/

ABA News

March 27, 2023 JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE

Ex-judges: Immigration courts should be independent

Two retired immigration judges urged Congress to create an independent immigration court system, removing the courts from under the U.S. Justice Department, where they currently reside.

Panelists on a recent ABA webinar argued that immigration judges are not truly independent as long as they answer to the U.S. attorney general.

The former judges made their call at a panel discussion March 17 — “Adjudicatory Independence: Are Immigration Judges a Warning or a Model?” — organized by the American Bar Association Judicial Division. They and other panelists argued that immigration judges are not truly independent as long as they answer to the U.S. attorney general, who can overturn their decisions, fire them and create new immigration policies that they must follow.

Steven Morley, a retired immigration judge in Philadelphia, talked about a case he handled in 2018, called the Matter of Castro-Tum, which he considered a red flag for judicial independence.

The case involved an unaccompanied minor who illegally entered the United States, was detained by authorities, then released to relatives in the United States pending a hearing to force him to leave the county. Hearing notices were sent to the relatives’ address, but the boy did not appear. Finally, after four postponements, Morley administratively closed — or indefinitely suspended — the case, ruling that the Department of Homeland Security could not show it had a reliable address to notify the boy of his hearing.

At that point, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions referred the case to himself and overturned the judge’s decision. Sessions ruled that immigration judges do not have the authority to administratively close cases as Morley did. The new policy made it harder for immigration judges across the country to indefinitely suspend cases. This caused an uproar among immigration judges and advocates.

Three years later, in 2021, Merrick Garland — a new attorney general in a new administration — overturned Sessions’ action.

Such actions undermine the independence of immigration judges, Morley said. “The flaws in the system allow this to happen, and we should always be concerned for the integrity of the court system.”

Morley said attorneys general under President Donald Trump referred immigration cases to themselves to overturn judges’ decisions 17 times in four years, a large number compared to previous administrations. “This is no way to run immigration policy, to have ping-ponging back and forth of policy, from one attorney general to another attorney general.”

Joan Churchill, a retired immigration judge in Northern Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., also emphasized the importance of maintaining due process in immigration courts, particularly hearing notices to defendants. “Adequate notice of the hearing is on everybody’s list as a requirement of due process,” she said.

Churchill noted that the U.S. Supreme Court, in a decision a few years ago, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, found that notices in immigration court often were not constitutionally adequate. “Justice Gorsuch said any notices that did not include the time and place of the hearing — which many of them did not; they just said time and place to be determined — those were not adequate notice of the hearing and therefore the cases were defective.”

In 2010, the ABA House of Delegates adopted a policy supporting the creation of an independent Article I system of immigration courts. More than 150 organizations support this position, including the National Association of Immigration Judges and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Churchill said.

The program was co-sponsored by the ABA Commission on Immigration, ABA International Law Section, National Association of Women Judges, ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice and ABA Civil Rights and Social Justice Section.

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

Thanks, Joan and Steve for forwarding this report and for doing such an outstanding job of highlighting the compelling, urgent need for this long-overdue reform. 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-29-23

🤙CALLING TAYLOR SWIFT! — Christy Gleason @ Save The Children Calls For Elected Leaders To Investigate The Deadly & Disgusting CBP One Farce Destroying Families & Separating Children At The Border! 🤮

Christy Gleason
Christy Gleason
Executive Director
Save The Children Action Network
PHOTO: Save The Children

Christy Gleason writes in WashPost!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/20/immigration-app-harming-children-families/

March 20, 2023 at 4:06 p.m. ET

I’m concerned about the impact of the CBP One app on children and families seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. The March 12 front-page article “At the border, a technology wall” underscored the injustice inflicted on these families.

Children and families fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries arrive at the U.S. border needing safety and security. Unfortunately, because of the failures of the CBP One app, many are denied access to the asylum process. Our colleagues at Save the Children Mexico have documented at least 30 instances in which families have chosen to separate instead of remaining in danger together. Additionally, they have seen countless cases of fraud and extortion related to the use of this app. The U.S. government is again causing family separations, this time because of the improper rollout of this app, causing children and families to become victims to extortion and abuse.

But even if the app functioned properly, it would exclude anyone without a cellphone, internet access or the ability to navigate this complicated technical system. Owning a phone and having access to the internet should not be obstacles to seeking safety from violence.

Our elected leaders and the Homeland Security Department need to better address the various issues with the CBP One app to ensure that asylum seekers can seek safety and protection in the United States through an orderly and fair process.

Christy Gleason, Washington

The writer is executive director of the Save the Children Action Network and vice president of policy, advocacy and campaigns for Save the Children.

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

Thanks for speaking out Christy! Recently, with the “Ticketmaster Disaster” we all saw that Taylor Swift and her legion of fans are one of the few forces in America who can strike bipartisan fear and spark action in the wacky and self-centered halls of Congress!

Perhaps, Christy and her colleagues can convince Swift that the plight of vulnerable families and children facing rape, robbery, extortion, exploitation, beatings, sexual slavery, death, and dismemberment, who are being shafted by CBP One’s failed technology and its abusive use as a “gatekeeper,” are at least as important as the trauma facing those denied concert tickets by Ticketmaster! Maybe Swift could exert her outsized influence to demand Congressional investigation and corrective action!

Taylor Swift
T. Swift. Loss of chance to attend her latest concert due to Ticketmaster SNAFU caused immediate bipartisan Congressional outrage and hearings! Loss of chance to plead for life because of DHS CBP One App SNAFU, not so much! Dehumanization of our fellow humans degrades our society.
LOS ANGELES – Swift at 2019 iHeartRadio Music Awards on March 14, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Glenn Francis/Pacific Pro Digital Photography) Creative Commons License.

Maybe Swift also could do a “benefit concert” at the border to draw attention to the human rights abuses and dehumanization being inflicted by cowardly politicos from both parties on vulnerable asylum seekers who only want our “nation of laws” to live up to its long-standing legal obligations to provide refuge and fair, dignified treatment. The proceeds could go to asylum seekers and the amazing NGOs and volunteers who have been doing the jobs that the Biden Administration, the State of Texas, GOP restrictionists, and the Mexican Government all shirk!

One common thread: Like Ticketmaster, CBP is basically a “failed monopoly” that provides lousy services — and then lies and blames the user — because there is no competition (except criminal enterprises) and little meaningful oversight or accountability.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-22-23

☠️⚰️ THE BORDER: FORGET WALLS & MILITARIZATION: SEND MORE BODY BAGS & REFRIGERATED MORGUE TRUCKS:  Title 42, Biden Administration, GOP Nativists Drive Deadly Increase In Border Deaths, As U.S. Cedes Control Of Protection To Smugglers, Cartels, With Deadly Consequences  For Humanity! 🤮

Alicia A. Caldwell
Alicia A. Caldwell
Immigration Reporter
Wall Street Journal
Angel of Death Artist: Evelyn De Morgan 1880 Public Realm The Angel of Death (“AOD”) comes for another asylum seeker at the border. Biden border policies have created “full employment” for tge AOD!
Angel of Death
Artist: Evelyn De Morgan 1880
Public Realm
The Angel of Death (“AOD”) comes for another asylum seeker at the border. Biden border policies have created “full employment” for the AOD!

 

Santiago Perez & Alicia Caldwell report for the WSJ: 

EAGLE PASS, Texas—Local officials keep a refrigerated truck to hold the bodies of migrants who drown in the currents of the Rio Grande while trying to cross the border into the U.S.

Across the river, families having picnics or walking along the waterfront promenade of Piedras Negras, Mexico, say they sometimes see bodies floating by or bobbing among the reeds under a bridge. “We had times when we received four or five bodies a week,” said Hugo González, owner of Funerarias González in Piedras Negras. “At one point, there were a lot of corpses and there was nowhere to put them. We just didn’t have enough refrigerators at the funeral home.”

A spike in deaths along the most dangerous stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border reflects the escalating number of migrants seeking to cross into the U.S. from troubled home countries. At the same time, U.S. immigration policies are allowing fewer of them legal entry. Many migrants have turned to human smugglers and WhatsApp messages to help them navigate more lightly patrolled—and treacherous—sections of the border to enter illegally, U.S. officials said.

. . . .

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Those with WSJ access can read the full article at the link. Those without can register for a limited number of free articles.

Remarkably, the existing law provides a legal framework for encouraging refugees to apply in or near their native countries and also for legal asylum seekers to apply in an orderly fashion at legal ports of entry. It also, for better or worse, provides DHS with an “expedited removal” process for those at the border who can’t establish a “credible fear” of persecution after initial proper screening by a trained expert Asylum Officer. This process does not require full Immigration Court hearings.

Sadly, the Trump and now the Biden Administrations have chosen to avoid or evade these existing legal tools for granting refuge in a timely and orderly fashion. Instead, encouraged by nativists, they have chosen to employ extralegal “gimmicks” like Title 42 to close down the legal avenues for seeking asylum at ports of entry. 

Those who are allowed into the system face a series of the Government’s intentionally-imposed hurdles. These include: impeding access to representation; punitive imprisonment in substandard conditions in obscure places; deficient technology used as a “gatekeeper;” poorly-qualified adjudicators who lack expertise and “real life” experience assisting asylum seekers; unduly restrictive interpretations of what are supposed to be generous, protection-oriented asylum laws; a mismanaged and backlogged system that moves either too fast too slow for due process, but never “just right;” random scheduling and politicized resettlement; lack of adequate notice of the legal requirements they are supposed to meet. 

Tragically, while Administrations and nativists disingenuously claim the opposite, this “dual lack” of competence and integrity has essentially left control of refuge in the U.S. to extra-governmental actors — basically smugglers, cartels, and other organized criminal enterprises. With legal avenues for seeking protection cut off or unduly restricted, refugees who need protection will resort to extralegal methods to save themselves and their families. 

In addition to “empowering the bad guys to run the system,” the Government’s short-sighted approach actually dilutes border enforcement. That’s because it improperly and unnecessarily “lumps in” refugees and legal asylum seekers with individuals and groups actually seeking to enter for purposes unrelated to seeking legal protection under our laws. 

It’s little wonder that despite questionable claims of lower numbers, the most obvious empirical effect of years of bad border policies and inept administration of the law has been to increase the number of border deaths, as related in the above article.

It would be nice to think that some day, our nation will have leaders who actually value human lives, rather than just viewing human rights as a “throwaway line” — subservient to their desire to amass and maintain political power. Until then, more will needlessly die.☠️🤮

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-21-23

🤪TWILIGHT ZONE: IN THE SURREAL WORLD OF EOIR, IT’S UP TO NDPA ADVOCATES & CIRCUITS TO ENFORCE LEGAL STANDARDS ON THE “ANY REASON TO DENY” BIA! — Will Lawless, “Trump-Packed Parody Of A Court System” Be Major Legacy Of Former Federal Judge Merrick Garland? — BIA Goes Down Again In 9th Cir!👎🏼

Twilight Zone
CAUTION: You are about to enter AG Merrick Garland’s “Twilight Zone” — where judges operating in a parallel universe make surreal decisions without regard to facts, law, or common sense applicable in this world!
The Twilight Zone Billy Mumy 1961.jpg
:PHOTO: Public Realm

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

CA9 on Standard of Review: Umana-Escobar v. Garland

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2023/03/17/19-70964.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca9-on-standard-of-review-umana-escobar-v-garland#

“Josue Umana-Escobar petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) order upholding the immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). He also challenges the BIA’s determinations that defects in the Notice to Appear (“NTA”) did not require termination of his proceedings and that the BIA lacked authority to administratively close his case. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We dismiss the defective NTA claim for lack of jurisdiction and deny the petition as to the CAT claim. We grant the petition and remand as to the administrative closure issue, given the government’s recommendation that we should do so based on an intervening decision by the Attorney General. We also grant the petition and remand as to the asylum and withholding of removal claims because the BIA applied the wrong standard in reviewing the IJ’s determination that the evidence failed to establish the requisite nexus between a protected ground and past or future harm.”

[Hats off to Sabrina Damast and Jose Medrano!]

 

 

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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The initial hearing was in 2013, merits hearing in 2017, Circuit remand in 2023. After a decade, a fairly routine asylum case is still unresolved! 

This case probably shouldn’t even be in Immigration Court, as it was affected by “Gonzo” Sessions’s wrong-headed, backlog-building, interference with administrative closing, later reversed by Garland, but not until substantial, systemic damage to EOIR had already been caused.

When it’s “any reason to deny, any old boilerplate gets by!”🤬 Bogus “no nexus” findings — often ignoring the “at least one central reason” standard and making mincemeat out of the “mixed motive doctrine” — are a particular EOIR favorite! That’s because they can be rotely used to deny asylum even where the testimony is credible, the harm clearly rises to the level of persecution, is likely to occur, and relocation is unreasonable! 

In other words, it allows EOIR to function as part of the “deterrence regime” by sending refugees back to harm or death. What better way of saying “we don’t want you” which has become the mantra of Biden’s “Miller Lite” policy officials! 

GOP, Dems, neither are competent to run a court system. That’s why we need an independent Article I court!⚖️

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-20-23

🗽⚖️ DESPITE DOJ’S “LIP SERVICE” TO THE VALUE OF LEGAL REPRESENTATION, GARLAND’S EOIR CRUSHES DEFENSELESS MIGRANTS 🤮 WITH “GIMMICKS” TO KEEP THE “NUMBERS” FLOWING, ABUSE “COURTS” AS “DETERRENTS,” & DEMORALIZE ADVOCATES! ☠️ — As A Retired USIJ, Here Are My “Practical Tips” For Those Facing An Intentionally Hostile & User Unfriendly System Alone!

Child Alone
Immigration Court can be a daunting experience even for veteran litigators. For folks like this, alone with no representation, it’s “mission impossible.” Yet Biden A.G. Merrick Garland has done little to fix the systemic “user unfriendliness” and sometimes outright hostility to pro se litigants in his totally dysfunctional “courts in name only!” (“CINOs”).
PHOTO: Victoria Pickering, Creative Commons License

Unrepresented respondents do not receive full due process in America’s dysfunctional Immigration Courts! See, e.g., https://sgp.fas.org/crs/homesec/IF12158.pdf.

Clearly, gimmicks rolled out by Garland and the Biden Administration, including stunts like “dedicated dockets,” “expedited dockets,” “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” detention courts in the middle of nowhere, unregulated bond procedures, lousy precedents, wasteful litigation against practitioners, proposed regulations irrationally “presuming” denial of asylum, abuse of Title 42, assigning asylum seeker resettlement to GOP nativists like DeSantis and Abbott, and refusal to bring in qualified experts with Immigration Court experience to fix this disasterous system have made the already horrible plight of the unrepresented worse! See, e.g.,https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/674/.

With respect to DHS detainees awaiting hearing, a few are subject to so-called “mandatory detention without independent review” as a result of statutes. Others are imprisoned because ICE claims that they are so-called “arriving aliens” (a designation that even some IJs struggle with, but that has huge consequences for a respondent), “likely to abscond,” or ”security risks!” 

But, a significant “unstated purpose” of immigration detention, often in substandard conditions, is to coerce detainees into giving up legal rights or waiving appeals and to punish those who stubbornly insist on asserting their rights. 

When the almost inevitable “final order of removal” comes, officials in Administrations of both parties believe, without much empirical evidence, that detainees will serve as “bad will ambassadors,” carrying back woeful tales of wonton cruelty and suffering that will “deter” others from darkening the doors of “the world’s most generous nation.” 

In spite of this overall “institutionalized hostility,” there is a small, brave cadre of “due process/fundamental fairness heroes” known as the Office of Legal Access Programs, or “OLAP” at EOIR!  Forced into “the darkest corners of the EOIR Tower dungeon” during the reign of terror of “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions and “Billy the Bigot” Barr, they have finally been released into daylight.

Dungeon
The Dungeon
Former A.G. Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions had a special place in the EOIR Falls Church Tower for those trying to assist pro se litigants in Immigration Court.
Public Realm

As an interesting aside, I note that “Gonzo Apocalypto” actually had the audacity to attempt to eliminate the wildly popular and effective “Know Your Rights” presentations to hapless immigration detainees. See, e.g., https://www.westword.com/news/department-of-justice-reverses-decision-to-fund-legal-orientation-program-for-immigrants-in-detention-10205735. “Gonzo” apparently believed that the only thing detainees needed to “know” was that they had “no rights.” Of all the illegal, unethical, and racially directed “shots” that Gonzo took at migrants and their hard-working advocates in his disasterous two-year tenure, this is the only one that bipartisan outrage on the Hill forced him to abandon.  See, e.g., https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/politics/2018/04/26/doj-restores-funding-for-immigrant-legal-aid–.

But, make no mistake about it — these courageous folks at OLAP aren’t helping to “drive the train” at EOIR under Biden and Garland, as they certainly should be! No, as was the case before Trump, they are racing down the station platform to catch the train as it departs without them.

How do I know? It’s actually pretty obvious. If Garland & the Administration were actually serious about promoting representation, they would:

  • Require a positive report from the OLAP before opening any new Immigration Court;
  • Subject all existing detained “courts” (that aren’t really “courts” at all, within the common understanding of the term) to an OLAP analysis, involving input from the pro bono bar, and close any location where pro bono counsel can’t be made reasonably available to all detainees who want it; 
  • Make part of the IJ hiring process input from the OLAP and the public into the demonstrated commitment of each “finalist” for an Immigration Judge position to working to maximize representation; and
  • Work with outside programs like Professor Michelle Pistone’s innovative “VIISTA Villanova Program” for training accredited representatives to “streamline and expedite” the Recognition & Accreditation process housed within OLAP.

To my knowledge, none of these obvious “first steps” to address the representation crisis at EOIR have been instituted. Tells us about all we need to know about the real importance of the OLAP in Garland’s galaxy. 

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting with Alicia de La O, her attorneys, and interns at the ABA who are helping the OLAP “staff” the “pro se hotlines” for detainees in immigration proceedings. Of course, they can’t provide “legal advice,” although they can direct pro se litigants to available “self help” materials prepared by OLAP and reliable pro bono NGOs. But, as I pointed out, just being available to speak with isolated detainees, listen sympathetically, and direct them to available resources is a “big deal” from both a human and a practical perspective.

ALICIA DE LA O
Alicia de la O
Senior Attorney/Chief Counsel, ABA Commission on Immigration
PHOTO: Linkedin

Remarkably, the amazingly talented, informed, and energetic undergraduate interns working with the ABA had a far better understanding of the corrosive effect on democracy and America’s future of the mocking of due process, fundamental fairness, racial justice, and human dignity in Immigration Courts than inept and often clueless Biden Administration so-called “immigration policy officials” have acknowledged with their words and deeds. Indeed, one of the undergraduate interns had already completed the VIISTA program. He therefore probably knows more about the Immigration Courts at the “retail level” than some of the clowns Garland has running EOIR!

The energy and commitment of these interns to take on existential challenges that our “leaders” from both parties have shunned, gave me some hope for America’s future. That is, if democracy can survive the overt attacks from the right and its tepid defense by Democrats, by no means an assured outcome.

This opportunity to meet with those working on the front lines of helping the most isolated, vulnerable, and intentionally neglected among us got me thinking about what I might say to a pro se litigant stuck in the “EOIR purgatory,” based on my experience. I note, with some pride, that during my time on the trial bench, almost every pro se individual who wanted to appeal one of my orders was able to file timely with the BIA based on the detailed instructions I gave them at the end of the hearing. 

So, as promised, here’s “my list!”

PRO SE CHECKLIST

Judge (Ret.) Paul Wickham Schmidt

March 1, 2023

1) Be careful in filing out the I-589. Everything in the application, including mistakes, omissions, and failure to answer questions can be used AGAINST you at the hearing. Filing a fraudulent application can have severe consequences beyond denial of your case.

2) Do NOT assume that significant omissions or errors in the I-589 can be corrected or explained at the hearing without adverse consequences.

3) If you use a translator, ask that the application be read back to you in FULL for accuracy, before signing. Generally, there is no such thing as an “insignificant error” on an asylum application. All inaccuracies can and will be considered by the IJ in determining whether you are telling the truth.

4) Obtain any relevant documentation supporting the claim and attach to the application. All documents in a foreign language MUST be translated into English. A certificate of accuracy from the translator must also accompany the document. DO NOT expect the court interpreter to translate your documents during the hearing.

5) Understand NEXUS to a “protected ground;” merely claiming or even proving that you will suffer harm upon return is NOT sufficient to win your case; many pro se cases fail on this basis.

6) Any pro se case claiming a “Particular Social Group” will need help in formulating it. Do NOT expect the IJ or ACC to assist in defining a qualifying PSG.

7) Keep a copy of the application and all evidence submitted.

8) Sign your application.

9) Make sure that the original signed copy goes to the Immigration Court and a copy to the ACC.

10) Keep documents submitted by ICE or the Immigration Court.

11) Do NOT rely on your translator, friends, relatives, or “jailhouse lawyers” for advice on filling in the application. NEVER embellish or add incorrect information to your I-589 just because someone else tells you to or says it’s “the only way to win your case.”

12) DO NOT let friends, detention officers, the IJ or anyone else (other than a qualified lawyer working for you) talk you out of pursuing a claim if everything in it is true. You must “tune out chatter” that everybody loses these cases, and therefore you are wasting your time.

13) Do NOT tell the IJ and/or ACC that everything in your application is true and correct if it is not true!

14) If you discover errors in your application before the hearing, ask the IJ at the beginning of the hearing for an opportunity to correct them. Do NOT wait to see if the ACC brings them up.

15) If you will be testifying through an interpreter, ask the IJ for a brief chance to converse with the interpreter before the hearing to make sure you understand each other. If there is any problem, tell the IJ BEFORE the hearing begins.

16) The Immigration Court hearing is a formal, adversary hearing, NOT an “informal interview” like the Asylum Office.

17) Be courteous and polite to the Immigration Judge, the ICE Assistant Chief Counsel, and the interpreter at all times, BUT BE AWARE:

1) The IJ and the ACC are NOT your friends;

2) They do NOT represent your interests;

3) The ACC’s basic job is to urge the IJ to deny your application and enter an order of removal;

4) The IJ is NOT an independent judge. He or she works for the Attorney General a political enforcement official. Some IJs function with a reasonable degree of independence. But, others see themselves largely as assisting the ACC in in denying applications and rapidly turning out removal orders.

5) The interpreter works for the court, NOT you.

18) YOU will be the only person in the courtroom representing your interests.

19) Don’t answer a question that you don’t understand. Ask the IJ to have it repeated. If it is a complicated question, ask the IJ if it can be broken down into distinct parts.

20) If you really don’t know the answer to a question, don’t “guess!” “I don’t know, your honor” is an acceptable answer, if true.

21) If the ACC introduces evidence at the hearing — say a copy of the Asylum Officer’s notes — ask the IJ for a full translation through the interpreter before answering questions.

22) If documents you submitted support your claim, direct the IJs attention to those documents.

23) When it is time for the IJ to deliver an oral decision, make sure that you are allowed to listen through the interpreter.

24) Bring a pencil or pen and a pad of paper to the hearing. Try to take notes on the decision as it is dictated by the IJ.

25) If the decision goes against you, tell the IJ that you want to reserve an appeal and request copies of the appeal forms. You can always withdraw the appeal later, but once an appeal is waived it is difficult, often impossible, to restore it.

26) If the IJ rules in your favor, and the ACC reserves appeal, understand that the order in your favor will have no effect until the appeal is withdrawn or ruled upon by the BIA. For detained individuals, that probably means remaining in detention while the appeal is resolved, which might take months.

27) If you appeal, fill out the forms completely according to instructions and file with the BIA as soon as possible, the same or next day if you can. That is when your memory will be best, and it maximizes the chance of the BIA receiving your appeal on time. Do NOT wait until the last minute to file an appeal.

28) Be SPECIFIC and INCLUSIVE in stating why you think the IJ was wrong. Attach a separate sheet if necessary. Just saying “The Judge got it wrong” or “I disagree with the decision” won’t be enough and might result in the BIA rejecting your appeal without further review.

29) Remember to file the separate fee waiver request form with the Notice of Appeal.

30) Assume that all filing deadlines will be strictly applied and that pro se applicants will NOT be given any breaks or special treatment, despite mailing difficulties and other problems.

31) DON’T count on timely mail delivery. The Notice of Appeal, brief, or any other document is not “filed” with the BIA until they actually receive it. Merely placing it in the mail before the due date will NOT be considered a timely filing if the document arrives late. Mail early!

32) If you are not in detention, use a courier service to deliver filings to the BIA so you have solid evidence of timely filing.

33) If you check the box on the appeal form saying you will file a brief or additional statement, you MUST do so, even if short. Failing to file a brief or written statement after checking that box can be a ground for the BIA to summary dismiss your appeal without considering the merits.

34) Info about the BIA Pro Bono Project.

NOTICE: The ideas above are solely mine. They are not legal advice, and have not been endorsed or approved by any organization or any other person, living or dead, born or unborn.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-06-23

🤯🤮 AUTOMATED CRUELTY: FAMILY SEPARATION? — THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION HAS AN APP FOR THAT! — Latest Failed Gimmick From Administration Inflicts Unnecessary Chaos On Vulnerable Individuals Trying To Work Within An Incredibly Incompetent &  Poorly Administered System!

Andrea Castillo
Andrea Castillo
Immigration Reporter
LA Times
Source: LA Times website

Andrea Castillo reports for the LA Times:

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=b5d4d78a-33fb-4da8-9a0c-cdc6120dbb7d

Asylum seekers must wait for appointments in U.S. for everyone, or leave some behind.

By Andrea Castillo

WASHINGTON — Inside a tent near the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Jeyson woke up before 3 a.m. every day for a month to fill out applications to request asylum for his family of four through a U.S. government mobile app.

The 25-year-old from Venezuela eventually secured appointments for himself and his wife, but the slots filled up so quickly that he couldn’t get two more for their children. They weren’t worried, though — they had heard about families in similar situations being waved through by border officials.

Instead, he said, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent told them recently that because each member of the family did not have an appointment, “you two can enter, but not your children.” Jeyson asked The Times to withhold his last name out of fear for his family’s safety.

Now, many families like Jeyson’s have found themselves confronted with a seemingly impossible decision: Wait indefinitely for enough appointments for the whole family, or split up. It is unclear how many migrants have been put in this position.

. . . .

“We already risked it all,” he said. “What can we do? We are hopeful that we can get three appointments. Three, in the end, is less than four.”

Advocates said some parents have decided to leave their children with extended family or friends in order to keep their appointments.

Jeyson said a couple from his encampment did just that, leaving their five children at the border bridge and entering the U.S. after managing to get only two appointments.

Children who are unaccompanied by a parent are exempt from Title 42. Those in the care of adults who are not their legal guardians — even if they are extended family — are separated until a guardian can be properly vetted. Jeyson said he watched as the children walked up to a border agent and were taken into custody.

Felicia Rangel-Samponaro, director of the Sidewalk School, a nonprofit that offers education, medical care and other assistance to migrants in Mexican border towns, has organized sessions with parents at various shelters and encampments in Matamoros and Reynosa to explain what will happen if they send their child across the border unaccompanied.

“We don’t want them to think you cross and then your child crosses and will come back to you a day later,” she said. “We were surrounded by parents who were showing us, one after the other, [who] have an appointment but their child does not.”

Rangel-Samponaro recommended to parents that they cancel their appointments and restart their search. But some parents told her they would separate from their kids anyway.

“Family separation has never stopped,” she said, referencing the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” border policy that led to thousands of migrant children being taken from their parents. “The only difference here is that CBP One is now doing it instead of the other ways it’s been done since 2018.”

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

Read Andrea’s complete article at the link.

Let’s start with one undisputed fact: The number of appointments available on CBP One is pathetically, ridiculously inadequate for the KNOWN number of potential applicants waiting in Mexico! Why would this be after the Administration has had over two years to work on this perhaps challenging, yet very solvable problem?

Unnecessary delay is just another form of “bureaucratic deterrence through incompetence” used by the Trump Administration and, inexcusably, continued under Biden.

Just how bonkers is this DHS-created problem? Dependents are included on a primary asylum seeker’s application. Consequently, in most cases one application covers the entire family. 

And, dependents don’t have to “prove” independent eligibility for asylum. Therefore, anything beyond biographical information and perhaps proof of relationship is unnecessary.

There is absolutely no reason for requiring a separate “appointment” for each family member. The current system is “pure harassment and deterrence through bureaucratic incompetence.”

In Immigration Court, a family of five required only ONE asylum hearing slot — NOT FIVE!

Most legal asylum seekers at the border want to “do things the right way” — present themselves to DHS and submit an application. It’s neither profound nor “illegal.”

The BEST way of getting applicants to use the ports of entry is to work with experts and NGOs to establish a user-friendly, generous, timely system that prioritizes the many strong claims and grants them promptly at the Asylum Office rather than feeding them into a backlogged and dysfunctional EOIR. 

In other words, if you BUILD a fair, credible, user-friendly legal application system at legal ports of entry, applicants will USE it. That the Trump White Nationalists destroyed our legal, statutory refugee and asylum systems was well-known at the time. Indeed, Biden and Harris campaigned on a pledge fix the system and restore legal asylum!

Instead, the Administration failed to utilize the skills and experience of experts to have a planned fix ready on “day one.” Since then, over more than two years, they have inexplicably ignored expert advice, wasted time, squandered resources, and bobbled through a bewildering  series of mindless “Stephen Miller Lite deterrence gimmicks,” including “dedicated dockets,” prioritizing the wrong cases, “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” on steroids, a  “Miller Lite holdover” BIA known for hostility to asylum seekers, ignoring the need for pro bono representation, failing to train and deploy enough Asylum Officers to the border, and not working with advocates, NGOs, and asylum seekers to prescreen cases, start granting asylum and moving qualified refugees (and their families) through the system and into durable legal status prior to the lifting of Title 42.

The CBP One screwup is just the latest in a string of “unforced errors” by the Biden Administration that abuse asylum seekers without any systemic benefits to anyone — “random acts of cruelty and stupidity!” This app was obviously designed by non-users for use by USG “gatekeepers” without any idea of what its like to be an asylum seeker stuck in Mexico.

Indeed, it appears that the app’s developers have little idea of how the legal asylum system works. Talk about “amateur night at the Bijou!”

Amateur Night
Perhaps, the Biden Administration should have used a different method for selecting the so-called “developers” of their failed “CBP One App!” 
PHOTO: Thomas Hawk
Creative Commons
Amateur Night

“Family separation” has never stopped; now it has been “automated” — by a Dem Administration that has abandoned humanity and betrayed its campaign promises! Inexcusable!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-27-23

⚖️🗽 “TEA’S COFFEE” ☕️ WITH TEA IVANOVIC, CO-FOUNDER & COO OF IMMIGRANT FOOD:  “2022 was a cluster——- year for immigration!” 2023 isn’t likely to be better! — Watch Tea’s compact video review of 2022 and her interview with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) about what might (or might not) “go down” in the field of immigration for 2023!

Tea Ivanovic
Tea Ivanovic
Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer
Immigrant Food
PHOTO: Immigrant Food

 

Hello friends,
As we move deeper into 2023, you may be, like we are, still
processing 2022 (or 2019, let’s be honest). For immigration, the
new year comes with its own challenges as a divided Congress
makes policy decisions difficult and a shift to the 2024 presidential
race takes hold. Nevertheless, we have to remain hopeful that
progress can still be made. And you can be part of that! To remind
yourself of what happened last year and learn what issues our
government can focus on, check out our special edition of Téa’s
Coffee where she goes to the Senate to meet New York Senator
Kirsten Gillibrand.
We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we do,
-The Immigrant Food Team
Check out the full issue

https://immigrantfood.com/the-think-table/

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

Kirsten Gillibrand
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
D-NY

Several “quick takes” from Tea’s interview with Senator Gillibrand:

  • She has introduced an “Article I Immigration Court Bill” in the Senate and believes it’s the type of bipartisan initiative that might interest enough GOP legislators to form a “working bipartisan majority.” A similar bill introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) in the last House received a hearing and was favorably voted out of Committee, but was never taken up by the full House, see, e.g., https://lofgren.house.gov/media/press-releases/house-judiciary-committee-passes-lofgren-s-legislation-reform-us-immigration; 
  • Sen. Gillibrand’s biggest fear for American democracy is “demonization and racism” of which immigrants and asylum seekers are prime targets;
  • She thinks the “biggest danger” comes from “White supremacist groups” — basically right-wing domestic terrorists.

Both Tea’s 2022 summary and the interview with Sen. Gillibrnd are well worth the watch and can be accessed at links above.

“Social Justice/Business/Courageous Leadership Dynamo”🌪 Tea Ivanovic was recently recognized as one of “Forbes 30 Under 30” by Forbes Magazine and a “Woman Who Means Business” by Washington Business Journal! She is an “NDPA New Generation Super-Star” 🌟 to watch, for sure! And, from a “DMV standpoint,” Tea is a proud Virginia Tech Hokie alum and a former varsity tennis player. Certainly, a person of unlimited talents who has chosen to use them for the public good! You can check out my previous “Courtside profile” of Tea here: https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/09/10/🇺🇸🗽👍🏼-immigrant-nation-teas-truth-wisdom-americans-views-on-immigrants-and-immigration-are-overwhelmingly-positive/

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-17-22