⚔️🛡️⚖️🗽👩🏽‍⚖️ ROUND TABLE AMONG ORGS ENDORSING THE BIPARTISAN CHILDREN’S IMMIGRATION COURT BILL! — Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) Among Co-Sponsors!

Cecelia M. Espenoza
Hon. Cecelia M.Espenoza
Former Appellate Immigration Judge, BIA; Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
Source:
Denverdemocrats.org
Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

 

“Sir Jeffrey” Chase reports:

Hi all: The bipartisan Children’s Immigration Court bill that we endorsed was introduced today.

The press release of Sen. Michael Bennet included this quote from Cecelia!

“The most vulnerable people in immigration proceedings are unaccompanied children. The Immigration Court Efficiency and Children’s Court Act of 2023 not only improves the process for children, it also provides necessary support and guidance to the overburdened immigration court system to address the needs of these children,” said Cecelia M. Espenoza, Former Appellate Immigration Judge.

A link to the full press release is here:

https://www.bennet.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?id=26F938C9-0426-41DA-8F25-1BF08FD8E4AE

And this accompanying list of sponsoring organizations includes the Round Table (at #28):

https://www.bennet.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/8/5/85527130-70b8-40ab-8324-4ecc466712c5/E717DE48CC2EA2E5166E595774B666E5.children-s-court-supportive-orgs.pdf

Feel free to amplify/share/distribute.

Thanks to all! – Jeff

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Thanks to Sen. Michael Bennett (D-CO), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.), Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI), and Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR)! This is long, long overdue! A great bipartisan idea! 😎

Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI)
Credit: Ike Hayman
SOURCE: Wikipedia

Rep. Hillary Scholten, the only former EOIR attorney in Congress, and an indefatigable advocate for good government, due process, common sense, and the well-being of children had this to say:

“Let’s be clear about one thing–infants and children should not be in a situation where they have to stand trial in immigration court,” said Scholten. “We have a deeply broken immigration system in this country. But as we continue the long and complicated work for repairing it, of fighting for justice in a political climate that has grown callous to the suffering of children, the next best option is creating a court that works to accommodate their unique needs. As a mom, I’ll never stop fighting for these vulnerable kids.”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-4-23

🇺🇸🗽👩🏾‍🎓 INVESTING IN AMERICA’S FUTURE: MAINE MAKES EFFORT, WELCOMES NEW STUDENTS FROM ASYLUM-SEEKING FAMILIES!  — “School leaders say the work can be challenging and puts a significant strain on resources, but it’s also a privilege to welcome new students into the community.”

 

Gillian Graham
Gillian Graham
Staff Writer
Portland Press Herald

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/08/28/schools-make-last-minute-push-to-prepare-for-new-students-from-asylum-seeking-families/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Daily+Headlines%3A+Hundreds+celebrate+return+of+Gray-New+Gloucester%2FRaymond+Little+League+team&utm_campaign=PH+Daily+Headlines+ND+-+NO+SECTIONS&auth0Authentication=true

Local schools make last-minute push to prepare for new students from asylum-seeking families

In Freeport and Sanford, schools have hired English instructors and made other adjustments needed to welcome dozens of new students.

BY GILLIAN GRAHAM STAFF WRITER

Maine welcomes students
Maine welcomes students

 

Children catch bubbles Aug. 17 at a free barbecue organized by the Lewiston School Department to mark the end of its summer outreach program that provided numerous services for students and families. It also gave the School Department the opportunity to connect with students and parents, hand out schedules, sign students up and make connections before the start of school. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

With just a week to go before the first day of school, staff from Freeport schools headed to a local hotel to meet their newest students.

The 67 students, all from asylum-seeking families, had just moved to the Casco Bay Inn from the Portland Expo, where nearly 200 people had been staying in the temporary shelter before it closed. The families all decided to send their kids to Freeport schools instead of busing them to Portland to attend classes, said Jean Skorapa, superintendent of Regional School Unit 5 in Freeport.

“Our first goal is to get them enrolled and in a class,” she said. “That piece is done. Now we look at how to best serve their needs.”

The scramble to welcome new students and connect them with the services they need is becoming a familiar challenge in Freeport and other Maine communities where the families are settling.

For the past several years, school districts in southern Maine have had to make quick adjustments as they enroll dozens of students from asylum-seeking families, many of whom come from African countries and speak little or no English when they arrive. To meet their needs, they’ve had to hire more teachers for English learners, add social workers and support staff, and make sure translation services are in place to communicate with parents.

“For us, this is a new experience,” said Steve Bussiere, assistant superintendent in Sanford, where 38 students enrolled in May when their families arrived in the city. There will be 55 students from asylum-seeking families in Sanford schools this year, he said.

School leaders say the work can be challenging and puts a significant strain on resources, but it’s also a privilege to welcome new students into the community.

“We’ve had new Mainers with us over the past year and a half. They’ve made us a more well-rounded, diverse district,” Skorapa said. “They’re a wonderful addition to our school community and we welcome them with open arms and are thrilled to have them with us.”

. . . .

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Read the complete article at the link.

Congrats to educational and political leaders in Maine for making the system work as it should! Immigrants becoming Mainers and settling down there is making a positive difference! Seems like the Feds, not to mention other states and localities, could use some of this same positive approach and enlightened, courageous leadership.

The Portland’s Press Herald’s Editorial Board echoed this view in an editorial published yesterday:

Our View: To invest in immigrant pupils is to invest in the future

A big effort by Maine schools to accommodate English language learners will have a big return for their communities.

A new experience.

That’s how Steve Bussiere, assistant superintendent in Sanford, described Sanford schools’ addressing the needs of 55 new students from asylum-seeking families this coming school year.

It’s a new experience for the kids, too, and thanks to thoughtful, time-intensive efforts by Bussiere’s colleagues and other schools around Maine – hiring additional teachers to teach English to English language learners, hiring more social workers and more support staff and refining translation services so that school staff and administrators can communicate with new pupils’ parents – it can be a good experience.

The focus on multilingual learners requires a serious effort and will make a serious difference to our state.

Thankfully, the Maine Legislature expressed its understanding of that fact in July, including $3.5 million for the support of English language learners – via the English Language Learner Hardship Fund – in the special supplemental budget.

This valuable funding becomes available to schools at the end of October. Portland’s public schools will receive more than $784,000; Lewiston, $631,000; South Portland, $302,000; Biddeford, $192,000, Brunswick, $150,000; Saco, $110,000; Freeport, $109,000, and Westbrook, $93,000.

In Freeport, arrangements have been made for 67 new students who recently moved with their families from the temporary shelter at the Portland Expo to the Casco Bay Inn. Jean Skorapa, superintendent of Regional School Unit 5 in Freeport, struck a crystal-clear and exceedingly warm note earlier this week – sounding like many other Maine educators on the same subject in recent years.

“We’ve had new Mainers with us over the past year and a half. They’ve made us a more well-rounded, diverse district,” Skorapa said. “They’re a wonderful addition to our school community and we welcome them with open arms and are thrilled to have them with us.”

In other school districts, efforts such as these have been up and running for a while. According to our reporting Monday, Lewiston schools work with students who speak a total of 38 languages. The school district there has a multilingual center that works with families and offers vital help with paperwork and orientation. Portland has been supporting new students from asylum-seeking families for years; in July, we reported that one-third of the district’s roughly 6,500 students were multilingual.

The numbers make it clear as day: The downside risk of underfunding English language learning is now way too steep for these parts of Maine to run. Yes, there’s a moral imperative here; it is also a legal requirement of our public schools. We trust that, on the strength of existing work in this realm, the practice of funding multilingual learning education becomes just that – a practice. Rep. Michael Brennan, D-Portland, House chair of the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee, expressed his commitment to continue funding the program “in the coming years.”

Appropriate investment in these students fosters a sense of belonging, reduces the risk of pernicious, hard-to-close learning gaps and, as students find themselves better and better equipped to support their families locally, has wide-reaching benefits. To say nothing of what it means for school graduates of the future. On top of that, successive studies have shown that the teaching techniques that assist English language learners assist all students.

That’s not to say there won’t be hurdles to overcome. In recent days, tense and ugly anti-immigrant rallies in Manhattan, Staten Island and Woburn, Massachusetts, laid bare the style of racist, isolationist thinking that continues to oppose even the most commonsense steps towards integration and inclusion.

Our schools need more support, and they need it to be specific. The calls for increased attention to the new members of the student body need to be sustained in their volume and their clarity. It makes sense, at every level, to seize this opportunity to enrich our classrooms and our communities.

Kids are our future. It’s definitely worth the effort!

Helping Hand
A Helping Hand.jpg
Image depicts a child coming to the aid of another in need. Once we have climbed it is essential for the sake of humanity that we help others do the same. It is knowing that we all could use, and have used, a helping hand.
Safiyyah Scoggins – PVisions1111
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
White Nationalist Xenophobes like Trump, DeSantis, Abbott, & Ducey have abandoned Traditional Judeo-Christian values in favor of neo-fascism. But, the rest of us should hold true to our “better angels.”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-31-23

☹️THE BORDER ISN’T THE ONLY PLACE WHERE GOP REVELS IN MAKING KIDS SUFFER — Ludicrous (Yet Predictable) Delay In Choosing House Speaker By “Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” 🤡 Makes For Long, Disappointing Day For Families Of Those Waiting To Be Sworn In!

Hillary Scholten
Incoming Rep.Hillary Scholten (D-MI), an NDPA Superhero, patiently waits with family for the GOP Clown Show 🤡 to end. It didn’t on Day 1 of the 118th Congress!
PHOTO: Matt McClain/Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/03/speaker-house-vote-mccarthy-new-congress/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere_AMP&location=alert#link-ITWUC7BTSNEGJFZXA6XFSCLKUQ

“Newly elected members can’t be sworn in until the House has a speaker.”

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

The promised GOP Clown Show in the House gets off to a super clownish start! 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-02-22

🎊HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023 FROM COURTSIDE — A RETROSPECTIVE — From The 12-26-16 Edition Of “Courtside” — The NDPA Has Gotten Stronger; Our Political, Judicial, & Bureaucratic Officials, Not So Much!

Starving Children
If these kids survive, what will they think about a rich nation that turned its back on the world’s most vulnerable in their hour of need?
Creative Commons License

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/newsheadlines/archive/2016/10/18/saving-child-migrants-while-saving-ourselves-hon-paul-wickham-schmidt-ret.aspx?Redirected=true

Originally published by LexisNexis Immigration Community on Oct. 18, 2016:

SAVING CHILD MIGRANTS WHILE SAVING OURSELVES 

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

They cross deserts, rivers, and territories controlled by corrupt governments, violent gangs, and drug cartels. They pass through borders, foreign countries, different languages and dialects, and changing cultures.

I meet them on the final leg of their trip where we ride the elevator together. Wide-eyed toddlers in their best clothes, elementary school students with backpacks and shy smiles, worried parents or sponsors trying to look brave and confident. Sometimes I find them wandering the parking garage or looking confused in the sterile concourse. I tell them to follow me to the second floor, the home of the United States Immigration Court at Arlington, Virginia. “Don’t worry,” I say, “our court clerks and judges love children.”

Many will find justice in Arlington, particularly if they have a lawyer. Notwithstanding the expedited scheduling ordered by the Department of Justice, which controls the Immigration Courts, in Arlington the judges and staff reset cases as many times as necessary until lawyers are obtained. In my experience, retaining a pro bono lawyer in Immigration Court can be a lengthy process, taking at least six months under the best of circumstances. With legal aid organizations now overwhelmed, merely setting up intake screening interviews with needy individuals can take many months. Under such conditions, forcing already overworked court staff to drop everything to schedule initial court hearings for women and children within 90 days from the receipt of charging papers makes little, if any, sense.

Instead of scheduling the cases at a realistic rate that would promote representation at the initial hearing, the expedited scheduling forces otherwise avoidable resetting of cases until lawyers can be located, meet with their clients (often having to work through language and cultural barriers), and prepare their cases. While the judges in Arlington value representation over “haste makes waste” attempts to force unrepresented individuals through the system, not all Immigration Courts are like Arlington.

For example, according to the Transactional Records Clearinghouse at Syracuse University (“TRAC”), only 1% of represented juveniles and 11% of all juveniles in Arlington whose cases began in 2014, the height of the so-called “Southern Border Surge,” have received final orders of removal. By contrast, for the same group of juveniles in the Georgia Immigration Courts, 43% were ordered removed, and 52% of those were unrepresented.

Having a lawyer isn’t just important – it’s everything in Immigration Court. Generally, individuals who are represented by lawyers in their asylum cases succeed in remaining in the United States at an astounding rate of five times more than those who are unrepresented. For recently arrived women with children, the representation differential is simply off the charts: at least fourteen times higher for those who are represented, according to TRAC. Contrary to the well-publicized recent opinion of a supervisory Immigration Judge who does not preside over an active docket, most Immigration Judges who deal face-to-face with minor children agree that such children categorically are incompetent to represent themselves. Yet, indigent individuals, even children of tender years, have no right to an appointed lawyer in Immigration Court.

To date, most removal orders on the expedited docket are “in absentia,” meaning that the women and children were not actually present in court. In Immigration Court, hearing notices usually are served by regular U.S. Mail, rather than by certified mail or personal delivery. Given heavily overcrowded dockets and chronic understaffing, errors by the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) in providing addresses and mistakes by the Immigration Court in mailing these notices are common.

Consequently, claims by the Department of Justice and the DHS that women and children with removal orders being rounded up for deportation have received full due process ring hollow. Indeed a recent analysis by the American Immigration Council using the Immigration Court’s own data shows that children who are represented appear in court more than 95% of the time while those who are not represented appear approximately 33% of the time. Thus, concentrating on insuring representation for vulnerable individuals, instead of expediting their cases, would largely eliminate in absentia orders while promoting real, as opposed to cosmetic, due process. Moreover, as recently pointed out by an article in the New York Times, neither the DHS nor the Department of Justice can provide a rational explanation of why otherwise identically situated individuals have their cases “prioritized” or “deprioritized.”

Rather than working with overloaded charitable organizations and exhausted pro bono attorneys to schedule initial hearings at a reasonable pace, the Department of Justice orders that initial hearings in these cases be expedited. Then it spends countless hours and squanders taxpayer dollars in Federal Court defending its “right” to aggressively pursue removal of vulnerable unrepresented children to perhaps the most dangerous, corrupt, and lawless countries outside the Middle East: El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), the institution responsible for enforcing fairness and due process for all who come before our Immigration Courts, could issue precedent decisions to stop this legal travesty of accelerated priority scheduling for unrepresented children who need pro bono lawyers to proceed and succeed. But, it has failed to act.

The misguided prioritization of cases of recently arrived women, children, and families further compromises due process for others seeking justice in our Immigration Courts. Cases that have been awaiting final hearings for years are “orbited” to slots in the next decade. Families often are spread over several dockets, causing confusion and generating unnecessary paperwork. Unaccompanied

2

children whose cases should initially be processed in a non-adversarial system are instead immediately thrust into court.

Euphemistically named “residential centers” — actually jails — wear down and discourage those, particularly women and children, seeking to exercise their rights under U.S. and international law to seek refuge from death and torture. Regardless of the arcane nuances of our asylum laws, most of the recent arrivals need and deserve protection from potential death, torture, rape, or other abuse at the hands of gangs, drug cartels, and corrupt government officials resulting from the breakdown of civil society in their home countries.

Not surprisingly, these “deterrent policies” have failed. Individuals fleeing so-called “Northern Triangle” countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have continued to arrive at a steady pace, while dockets in Immigration Court, including “priority cases,” have mushroomed, reaching an astonishing 500,000 plus according to recent TRAC reports (notwithstanding efforts to hire additional Immigration Judges). As reported recently by the Washington Post, private detention companies, operating under highly questionable government contracts, appear to be the only real beneficiaries of the current policies.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We could save lives and short-circuit both the inconsistencies and expenses of the current case-by-case protection system, while allowing a “return to normalcy” for most already overcrowded Immigration Court dockets by using statutory Temporary Protected Status (known as “TPS”) for natives of the Northern Triangle countries. Indeed, more than 270 organizations with broad based expertise in immigration matters, as well as many members of Congress, have requested that the Administration institute such a program.

The casualty toll from the uncontrolled armed violence plaguing the Northern Triangle trails only those from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. TPS is a well- established humanitarian response to a country in crisis. Its recipients, after registration, are permitted to live and work here, but without any specific avenue for obtaining permanent residency or achieving citizenship. TPS has been extended among others to citizens of Syria and remains in effect for citizens of both Honduras who needed refuge from Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and El Salvador who needed refuge following earthquakes in 2001. Certainly, the disruption caused by a hurricane and earthquakes more than a decade ago pales in comparison with the very real and gruesome reality of rampant violence today in the Northern Triangle.

Regardless, we desperately need due-process reforms to allow the Immigration Court system to operate more fairly, efficiently, and effectively. Here are a few suggestions: place control of dockets in the local Immigration Judges, rather than bureaucrats in Washington, as is the case with most other court systems; work cooperatively with the private sector and the Government counsel to docket cases at a rate designed to maximize representation at the initial hearings; process unaccompanied children through the non-adversarial system before rather

3

than after the institution of Immigration Court proceedings; end harmful and unnecessary detention of vulnerable families; settle ongoing litigation and redirect the talent and resources to developing an effective representation program for all vulnerable individuals; and make the BIA an effective appellate court that insures due process, fairness, uniformity and protection for all who come before our Immigration Courts.

Children are the future of our world. History deals harshly with societies that mistreat and fail to protect children and other vulnerable individuals. Sadly, our great country is betraying its values in its rush to “stem the tide.” It is time to demand an immigrant justice system that lives up to its vision of “guaranteeing due process and fairness for all.” Anything less is a continuing disgrace that will haunt us forever.

The children and families riding the elevator with me are willing to put their hopes and trust in the belief that they will be treated with justice, fairness, and decency by our country. The sole mission and promise of our Immigration Courts is due process for these vulnerable individuals. We are not delivering on that promise.

The author is a recently retired U.S. Immigration Judge who served at the U.S. Immigration Court in Arlington Virginia, and previously was Chairman and Member of the Board of Immigration Appeals. He also has served as Deputy General Counsel and Acting General Counsel of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, a partner at two major law firms, and an adjunct professor at two law schools. His career in the field of immigration and refugee law spans 43 years. He has been a member of the Senior Executive Service in Administrations of both parties.

4

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Recently, NDPA stars have achieved important senior positions in the Congress, the judiciary, and the immigration bureaucracy. We will need many, many more in such positions to finally turn around the limping ship of state on human rights, immigration, racial justice, smart economics, and values-based practical leadership! In the end, it’s going to be up to the “newer generations” to overcome the mistakes of my generation and create a better America and a better world — one in which individual rights and human dignity are respected and everyone can achieve their fullest potential.

Here’s a New Year’s greeting from New York courtesy of Round Table leader, talented photographer, and proud new granddad, Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase:

Happy New Year in NY 2023
Happy New Year in NY 2023
PHOTO: Jeffrey Chase

😎🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-01-23

🦸🏻‍♀️🦸🏻🥇⚖️🗽 SATURDAY’S NDPA HEROES’ SPOTLIGHT 💡: Dalia Castillo-Granados & Yasmin Yavar Leverage Their Skills To Create “Children’s Immigration Law Academy” — Amanda Robert Reports For ABA Journal!

Amanda Robert
Amanda Robert
Legal Affairs Writer
ABA Journal

https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/meet-the-two-attorneys-behind-the-aba-childrens-immigration-law-academy?mibextid=Zxz2cZ

IMMIGRATION LAW

Meet the two Texas attorneys behind the Children’s Immigration Law Academy

BY AMANDA ROBERT

NOVEMBER 23, 2022, 1:24 PM CST

Dalia Castillo-Granados and Yasmin Yavar.
Dalia Castillo-Granados and Yasmin Yavar. So far this year, the Children’s Immigration Law Academy has responded to more than 300 legal technical assistance questions. It has coordinated five in-depth virtual trainings and hosted eight webinars that attracted more than 1,600 attendees.

Dalia Castillo-Granados had just begun her fellowship with the St. Frances Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance, a program of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, when she met Yasmin Yavar in 2008.

Like Castillo-Granados, Yavar focused a lot of her attention on special immigrant juvenile status cases as the pro bono coordinator of Kids in Need of Defense’s new office in Houston. Despite changes in the law that allowed more children to apply for this form of immigration relief—which gives those who have been abused, neglected or abandoned a pathway to lawful permanent residence in the United States—attorneys were just beginning to test the waters in this area.

After collaborating on a case, Castillo-Granados and Yavar stayed in touch and created their own support system.

“There was a very small community of attorneys, even nationwide, representing unaccompanied children,” says Castillo-Granados. “In Houston, Yasmin and I were trying to get into state court and educating judges about why we were there. We had each other on speed dial, calling to talk over strategy and get suggestions and push the cases forward.”

Several years later, as an increasing number of unaccompanied children crossed the United States-Mexico border, Castillo-Granados and Yavar wanted to support the legal service providers and volunteer attorneys who were taking their cases. They drafted a plan for a legal resource center focused on children’s immigration law, and Yavar, who had worked with the ABA’s South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project in Harlingen, Texas, shared it with Commission on Immigration Director Meredith Linsky.

At the time, Linsky met regularly with the ABA Working Group on Unaccompanied Minor Immigrants. Its members liked the idea, and in September 2015, Linsky helped Castillo-Granados and Yavar launch the Children’s Immigration Law Academy.

“We decided to do exactly what we did for each other back when we were starting, but for everyone else,” says Castillo-Granados, who serves as CILA’s director.

. . . .

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Read Amanda’s full article at the link.

Here’s an interesting contrast in problem-solving, creative thinking, dynamic leadership, and effectively using resources. Between 2008, when they met, and 2021, Dalia and Yasmin experienced an approximately 15X growth in the number of unaccompanied children, from 8,000 to 120,000. Faced with this stressful situation and a U.S. Government that under Administrations of both parties has displayed a rather callous indifference to child welfare, it would have been easy to give up and take their talents to another area of law!

Because they worked for an NGO, the couldn’t demand more resources or claim that drastic reductions in children’s rights, harsher enforcement, or “deterrence” were the “only solutions.” Interestingly, these were exactly the type of “rote, alarmist, reactionary reactions” that the Obama Administration had and that the Trump Administration tried to “implement” without the benefit of legislation.

Dalia and Yasmin viewed the problem as challenging, yet solvable, came up with a plan, and sold it to other members of the legal community — on its merits, not its “scare value.” They were able to “leverage” their experience, skills, and dynamic leadership to pool resources, create teamwork, and “teach and inspire others to help those in need.” 

They actually expanded, improved quality, and increased efficiency, thus multiplying rather than diluting their effectiveness. The also relied largely on existing tools and frameworks, but “leveraged” them in a creative and more efficient manner.

I submit that this is the exact opposite of how the broken bureaucracies at DHS, DOJ, and ORR have reacted to most immigration issues. Given lots of personnel, considerable resources, a workable, if not “perfect,” legal framework, and ample flexibility to redirect and repurpose wasted or misused resources, the last three Administrations have fallen “flat on their overstuffed and moribund bureaucratic faces.” 

With billions in taxpayer dollars, thousands of employees, and a legal framework that actually provides plenty of useful options, the USG has underachieved, to put it charitably. It has fallen back on wasteful, disruptive, and inefficient “proven to fail” deterrence “gimmicks;” ludicrous rhetoric; mythical threats; aimless reshuffling and churning of existing workload; bolloxed priorities; victim shaming and blaming; cruelty; and most disturbingly, massive scofflaw actions, crackpot proposals, and blatant curtailment of important human and legal rights.

To make matters worse, at least the Biden Administration has had access to what is probably the greatest “talent pool” of human rights, immigration, and child welfare experts on the face of the earth — almost all of it in the private/NGO/advocacy/academic sectors! Yet, they have resisted sound expert advice and creative solutions, while largely passing over available dynamic and inspiring leadership to overstuff their bloated immigration bureaucracy largely with a mixture of Trump holdovers, Obama retreads, and lesser lights. 

Obviously, talented NDPA superstars like Dalia and Yasmin are the wave of our future — not just in immigration and human rights, but in government, politics, our legal system, and American society! The issue is how we can force unwilling, “stuck in reverse” Dem Administrations to grow some backbone, enforce the values they espouse during elections, “clean house” in the bureaucracy and the ranks of ineffective, often clueless, politicos, and “repopulate and reform” the USG immigration bureaucracy and the beyond dysfunctional Immigration Courts with stars like Dalia and Yasmin. That is, courageous, visionary, experts who can actually solve problems rather than creating new ones and blaming the victims and those striving to hep them! 

Many thanks to Roberto Blum, Esquire, of Houston Texas for sending this article my way. Roberto says “they are the real heroes!” I concur, my friend, 100%!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-03-22

  

THE GIBSON REPORT — 10-10-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Managing Attorney, NIJC — AMONG HEADLINERS: Ignoring Kids At Risk; Biden’s Marihuana Pardon Unlikely To Help Many Migrants; Garland’s DOJ On Wrong Side Of IJ “Muzzling” Suit!

 

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Managing Attorney
National Immigrant Justice Center
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

Weekly Briefing

 

This briefing is designed as a quick-reference aggregation of developments in immigration law, practice, and policy that you can scan for anything you missed over the last week. The contents of the news, links, and events do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Immigrant Justice Center. If you have items that you would like considered for inclusion, please email them to egibson@heartlandalliance.org.

 

CONTENTS (jump to section)

  • NEWS
  • LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES
  • RESOURCES
  • EVENTS

NEWS

 

Appeals Court Says DACA Is Illegal but Keeps Program Alive for Now

NYT: The decision from the three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit — one of the country’s most conservative federal appellate courts — affirmed a 2021 lower court decision. The Biden administration will need to continue its legal fight to enroll new applicants in the program, called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

 

Biden’s marijuana pardon not likely to help many immigrants with deportation cases

SD Union-Trib: Simple marijuana possession is usually charged at the state rather than federal level, so if governors follow Biden’s lead, there could be a wider impact on immigration court cases…Biden’s Thursday proclamation also explicitly says that undocumented noncitizens are not eligible for the pardon.

 

New York Faces Record Homelessness as Mayor Declares Migrant Emergency

NYT: Mayor Eric Adams stepped up calls for state and federal aid as the number of people in city shelters topped 61,000. See also Democrat-led Texas city steps up migrant busing to New York, outpacing Republican effort; Documents: Florida migrant transport planning began in July.

 

“A Failure on All Our Parts.” Thousands of Immigrant Children Wait in Government Shelters.

ProPublica: The public has largely stopped paying attention to what’s happening inside shelters and other facilities that house immigrant children since President Donald Trump left office, and particularly since the end of his administration’s zero tolerance policy, which separated families at the southern border.

 

Migrants from three countries are driving the spike in encounters at the southern border, swamping a backlogged immigration system

CNN: Migrants from just three countries – Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba – made up about 56,000 of those encounters, or about 28 percent, federal data shows. See also US immigration: Why Indians are fleeing halfway around the world.

 

Blinken Announces Aid for Migrants, Refugees

VOA: Shortly before attending OAS ministerial talks on the perplexing question of migration in the western hemisphere, Blinken told reporters of “new humanitarian and bilateral and regional assistance” to the tune of $240 million. See also United States fell far short of refugee goal last fiscal year

 

Critic of Biden border policy in line to oversee DHS budget

Roll Call: With Cuellar in line to be the top Democrat in the next Congress on the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, which oversees the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection budgets, some Democrats and advocacy groups are growing concerned.

 

Border agents fired fatal shots after migrant grabbed weapon, FBI says

WaPo: A Mexican man who was shot fatally inside a Border Patrol station in Texas this week had grabbed an “edged weapon” off a desk inside the facility and continued to approach U.S. agents after they attempted to stop him with a Taser, the FBI said in a statement late Wednesday.

 

2 Russians Seek Asylum in US After Reaching Remote Alaska Island

VOA: Two Russians who said they fled the country to avoid military service have requested asylum in the U.S. after landing in a small boat on a remote Alaska island in the Bering Sea, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office said Thursday.

 

Undaunted by DeSantis, immigrant workers are heading to Florida to help with hurricane cleanup

CNN: Word that immigrants are now coming to help clean up some of his state’s most storm-ravaged communities hasn’t softened the governor’s stance.

 

LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES

 

High Court Won’t Review ‘Unfair’ Deadline For Deported Man

Law360: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a deported Salvadoran man’s bid to look into an allegedly “unfairly” crafted deadline for filing deportation order reconsideration requests, ending his decades-long hope of returning to the U.S.

 

5th Circ. Affirms Toss Of DACA, Asks For Review Of Final Rule

Law360: The Fifth Circuit on Wednesday affirmed a Texas judge’s ruling that vacated the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has protected some young immigrants from deportation, and barred new applicants, but asked the lower court to review the Biden administration’s recent final rule on the DACA program.

 

CA5 On Evidence, CAT, Cameroon: Ndifon V. Garland

LexisNexis: Ndifon claims the BIA failed to consider country conditions evidence when separately analyzing his CAT claim. We agree.

 

CA9 on Consular Reviewability: Muñoz v. Dept. of State

LexisNexis: Because we conclude that the government failed to provide the constitutionally required notice within a reasonable time period following the denial of Asencio-Cordero’s visa application, the government was not entitled to summary judgment based on the doctrine of consular nonreviewability.

 

Matter Of Bador, 28 I&N Dec. 638 (BIA 2022)

LexisNexis: A fraud waiver under section 237(a)(1)(H) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(H) (2018), does not waive a respondent’s removability under section 237(a)(1)(D)(i) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(D)(i), where conditional permanent residence was terminated for failure to file a joint petition

 

Minn. Judge Ends Migrant Detention Suit, After $80K Deal

Law360: A Minnesota federal judge ended an American Civil Liberties Union-backed suit alleging that U.S. Customs and Border Protection assaulted and degraded two teenagers in its custody, after the agency agreed to pay the girls $80,000 to resolve the claims.

 

Fla. Seeks Trial Over Alleged US Policy Not To Detain Migrants

Law360: Florida pushed for a trial to resolve its contention that the Biden administration has a policy of releasing immigrants subject to detention, but asked a federal judge to first declare that the state has standing to challenge the alleged policy.

 

Feds Want Immigration Judges’ ‘Muzzled’ Speech Suit Axed

Law360: The head of a U.S. Department of Justice office on Friday asked a Virginia federal judge to nix a suit filed by an immigration judges association claiming they are “muzzled” by a policy that they say bars them from discussing their personal views on immigration, contending that a new policy encourages speech and simply requires supervisory approval.

 

USCIS 30-Day Notice and Request for Comment on USCIS Online Account Access

AILA: USCIS 30-day notice and request for comment on USCIS’s Online Account Access system, formerly called Identity and Credential Access Management (ICAM). Comments are due 11/7/22.

 

CBP Announces CDC Screening of Individuals with Travel Nexus to Republic of Uganda

AILA: Following an outbreak of Ebola in the Republic of Uganda, the CDC announced enhanced public health screening for flights departing after 11:59 pm (ET) on 10/10/22, for flights carrying travelers with nexus to Uganda. Said flights will be funneled through JFK, EWR, IAD, ATL, and ORD.

 

RESOURCES

 

EVENTS

 

 

To sign up for additional NIJC newsletters, visit:  https://immigrantjustice.org/subscribe.

 

You now can change your email settings or search the archives using the Google Group. If you are receiving this briefing from a third party, you can visit the Google Group and request to be added. If you receive an error, make sure you click request access.

 

Elizabeth Gibson (Pronouns: she/her/ella)

Managing Attorney for Capacity Building and Mentorship

National Immigrant Justice Center

A HEARTLAND ALLIANCE Program

224 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 600, Chicago, IL 60604
T: (312) 660-1688| F: (312) 660-1688| E: egibson@heartlandalliance.org

www.immigrantjustice.org | Facebook | Twitter

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

Given the disgraceful mess @ EOIR, it’s understandable that Garland & Co. fear IJ’s speaking out in public. It’s just not a justifiable position, particularly for a Democratic Administration.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-11-22

🤮☠️ AMERICA’S KIDDIE GULAG:  CRUEL, INHUMAN, GROTESQUE, UNNECESSARY, INDEFENSIBLE! — The Biden Administration Knows That! — Yet, They Destroy Our World’s Future Promise For A Thoroughly Debunked & Discredited White Nativist Immigration/Racial Agenda! — WHY? 🤯

Julia Preston
Julia Preston
American Journalist
The Marshall Project
Anna Flagg
Anna Flagg
Senior Data Reporter
The Marshall Project

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/16/border-patrol-migrant-children-detention-00039291

INVESTIGATION

‘No Place for a Child’: 1 in 3 Migrants Held in Border Patrol Facilities Is a Minor

Thousands of kids have been routinely detained in cold, overcrowded cells built for adults, while authorities have resisted improving conditions.

By ANNA FLAGG and JULIA PRESTON

06/16/2022 04:30 AM EDT

  • .ST1{FILL-RULE:EVENODD;CLIP-RULE:EVENODD;FILL:#FFF}

Anna Flagg is The Marshall Project’s senior data reporter.

Julia Preston is a contributing writer at The Marshall Project.

This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

During their harrowing journey from Venezuela to the Texas border, the three Zaragoza children liked to imagine the refuge they would find when they reached the United States, a place where they would finally be free from hunger and police harassment and could simply be kids

Instead, when they reached the border in March, they were detained — dirty with mud from the Rio Grande and shivering with cold — in frigid cinder block cells. They spent sleepless nights on cement floors, packed in with dozens of other children under the glare of white lights, with agents in green uniforms shouting orders.

The siblings were booked by officers who asked questions they didn’t understand and were told to sign documents in English they couldn’t read. Even after their release three days later, they feared the U.S. would never be the haven they had longed for.

Since early 2017, one of every three people held in a Border Patrol facility was a minor, a far bigger share than has been reported before now, according to an analysis by The Marshall Project of previously unpublished official records. Out of almost 2 million people detained by the Border Patrol from February 2017 through June 2021, more than 650,000 were under 18, the analysis showed. More than 220,000 of those children, about one-third, were held for longer than 72 hours, the period established by federal court rulings and an anti-trafficking statute as a limit for border detention of children.

For most young migrants crossing without documents, the first stop in the U.S. is one of some 70 Border Patrol stations along the boundary line. The records reveal that detaining children and teenagers has become a major part of the Border Patrol’s everyday work. The records also show that conditions for minors have not significantly improved under President Joe Biden. While the numbers of kids in Border Patrol custody peaked in 2019 under former President Donald Trump, they rose again when Biden took office and have remained high.

Those numbers could surge to new highs when the Biden administration eventually lifts Title 42, a public health order that border authorities have used for more than two years to swiftly expel most unauthorized border crossers, including many children.

But the Border Patrol has resisted making changes to its facilities and practices to adapt to children, even while officials acknowledge that the conditions young people routinely face are often unsafe.

“A Border Patrol facility is no place for a child,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the nation’s highest immigration official, has repeatedly said. However, even now, as authorities are scrambling to beef up enforcement and expand detention capacity in preparation for a post-Title 42 influx, the Border Patrol’s basic approach to kids remains the same: Just move them out of custody as fast as possible.

Without broader changes, many thousands of kids seeking protection will remain at risk for harsh, demeaning and sometimes dangerous treatment as their first experience of the United States.

. . . .

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

Read Anna’s and Julia’s complete, disturbing, infuriating report at the link. Unnecessary, immoral, inappropriate, and just plain stupid and evil! Did I mention stupid and evil?

Thanks, in part, to the Trump Administration’s policies of racist child abuse masquerading as “immigration enforcement,” there is a large body of recent, available, accessible empirical data on the devastating effects on children, families, society, and our world’s future of immigration enforcement that targets children, teens, and other vulnerable groups! 

The “perps” of these repulsive policies will “check out” at some point in the future. The Biden Administration, which pledged to do better but disgracefully hasn’t delivered, also can’t and should not escape accountability. 

The damage they are inflicting on future generations and the ability of our world to harness and utilize in a cooperative fashion the “human capital” needed for our planet’s and humanity’s survival is totally unacceptable! People of intelligence, courage, energy, innovation, and compassion must work together to stop this disgraceful abuse. Those chosen as responsible leaders and officials in the future must represent “our better angels!” 😇

While those of us in the “senior generation” who believe in social justice and a better future for humanity will continue the fight, our “time on the stage” is inexorably winding down. It will be up to the NDPA and the rest of the upcoming generation — in America and elsewhere — to decide what kind of world they want to live in and what they are willing to do, and sometimes sacrifice, to make it happen. 

As I have said many times: “We can diminish ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration!” 

It’s past time for a better, more realistic, more human, and “robustly humane” approach to human migration!😎 One that focuses on the long-term welfare of children and society, NOT short-term mythical “enforcement goals” or fears!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-20-22

☠️👎🏽DEM’S CATASTROPHIC DUE PROCESS FAILURE:  AS PREDICTED, GARLAND’S “DEDICATED DOCKETS” ARE “ASYLUM FREE ZONES” TARGETING CHILDREN!🤮

“Floaters”
Garland’s vision of “justice” for refugee children appears to be little different from that of Stephen Miller and his White Nationalist predecessors at DOJ!
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)
Cindy Carcamo
Cindy Carcamo
Immigration Reporter
LA Times

Cindy Carcamo reports for the LA Times: 

BY CINDY CARCAMO STAFF WRITER

MAY 25, 2022 11:56 AM PT

After drug traffickers killed his little brother, William and his 6-year-old son, Santiago, fled Colombia last September to seek asylum in the United States.

Unbeknownst to William, who ended up in Los Angeles with a friend, he and his son immediately became part of a cohort of thousands of families in a “dedicated docket” program that the Biden administration established in 11 cities, including Los Angeles, in May 2021.

In response to a sudden rise of apprehensions last spring of families and children at the Southwest border, Biden promised the accelerated docket would resolve cases “more expeditiously and fairly.” These sorts of programs have existed in various forms under previous administrations; Biden’s program pushes immigration judges to resolve cases in 300 days, significantly shorter than the 4.5-year average of asylum cases in immigration court.

But according to a new Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA Law report, the docket’s fast-track timeline has imposed new hardships on many asylum seekers and created additional obstacles that ultimately lead to higher rates of deportation orders, sometimes based on legal technicalities.

For William — who didn’t want his last name published, fearing reprisal against his family still living in Colombia — the docket’s expeditious nature meant he had only six weeks to secure legal representation before his first court hearing, leaving him to navigate a complex and often confusing system without an attorney. Immigration officials provided him with documents heavy with legal jargon in English. He could read only in Spanish.

In addition, those on the docket are released with “alternatives to detention,” which means they are monitored, either with an ankle bracelet or via a phone application. Immigration officials shackled William with a GPS monitor on his ankle before releasing him and his son.

Ultimately, an immigration judge ordered William and his 6-year-old to be deported in “absentia” when they didn’t show up for their court hearing at U.S. Immigration Court in downtown Los Angeles. In fact, at the time the judge gave the order, William was in the building, but was three floors below the courtroom in a waiting area at the direction of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official. By the time William was told he was in the wrong place, the judge had already ordered the father and son’s removal from the U.S.

In Los Angeles, an estimated 99% of the 449 cases completed on the dedicated docket as of February of this year resulted in removal orders and about 72% of those cases were issued to people who missed their court hearing — “in absentia” — according to a report released Wednesday by the Center for Immigration Law and Policy and Immigrants’ Rights Policy Clinic at UCLA School of Law

Perhaps most striking, the report shows that almost half of those in absentia removal orders are for children, many 6 and younger.

In addition, court data analyzed in the report show that an estimated 70% of people on this particular docket don’t have legal counsel. In contrast, an estimated 33% of those on the Los Angeles court’s non-accelerated docket lack legal counsel.

The nature of the accelerated dockets made it nearly impossible for asylum-seekers to get a fair hearing, the report’s authors concluded. The high absentia rate, the report concluded, is a red flag that the dedicated docket isn’t working as it should.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Cindy’s totally disturbing article at the link!

Sadly, this news will come as no surprise to readers of “Courtside.” Having watched these types of  efforts to co-opt the Immigration Courts as a vehicle of unfair, racially motivated “deterrence” and “enforcement,” I could see that this program was going to be an unmitigated disaster at EOIR, given Garland’s failure to install progressive judicial leadership and human rights and due process expertise into the broken and biased system he inherited from Sessions and Barr.

The NDPA is going to have to “dig in” and fight Garland and Mayorkas every step of the way, at every level of the system, to save as many lives as possible from their disgraceful continuation of a “Miller Lite” White Nationalist, anti-immigrant program of abusing and dehumanizing asylum seekers — most individuals of color and many of them children or other “vulnerable individuals.” 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever! Garland’s dysfunctional, biased, leaderless, soul-less, ethically challenged EOIR, never!

PWS

05-26-22

⚖️ THE GIBSON REPORT — 03-14-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, Managing Attorney NIJC — My Take: Whither Ukrainian Refugees?

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Managing Attorney
National Immigrant Justice Center
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”
Ukraine
How much of Ukraine will look like this by war’s end?
Photo from Previous Russia-Ukraine War by Wojciech Zmudzinski
Creative Commons License

 

 

 

pastedGraphic.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly Briefing

briefing is designed as a quick-reference aggregation of developments in immigration law, practice, and policy that you can scan for anything you missed over the last week. The content of the news, links, and events do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Immigrant Justice Center. If you have items that you would like considered for inclusion, please email them to egibson@heartlandalliance.org.

 

CONTENTS (jump to section)

  • PRACTICE ALERTS
  • NEWS
  • LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES
  • RESOURCES
  • EVENTS

 

PRACTICE ALERTS

 

Virtual EOIR Registration: For new attorney registration, practitioners are no longer required to go to the court personally to show an ID. However, they still may appear personally. To coordinate identification verification please contact: Tina.Barrow@usdoj.gov or by phone at 717-443-9157.

 

Adjustment-Ready Cases: DHS is filing motions for dismissal for about 1,000 cases nationwide for Adjustment-Ready Cases (ARCs) to allow for pursuit of relief before USCIS. If you don’t want the case dismissed, timely file your opposition.

 

ICE Appointment Scheduler: Now available in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole in addition to English.

 

TOP NEWS

 

Senate Democrats ‘deeply disappointed’ in Biden administration’s decision to keep Trump-era rule

Hill: The senators said that although the administration “made the right choice to prevent unaccompanied children from being expelled” in its recent announcement, “it is wrong that they made the decision to continue sending families with minor children back to persecution and torture.” See also U.S. leaning toward ending COVID-era expulsions of migrants at Mexico border – sources; The Biden Administration Has Been Planning To Tell Mexico That A Trump-Era Policy Could Soon End And Attract More Immigrants To The Border.

 

Democrats, Republicans struggle to compromise on border, immigration funds

Hill: Immigration restrictionists celebrated that the bill includes funding increases for ICE and Customs and Border Protection, but worried that the Biden administration will not use those funds to implement the Trump-style strict enforcement measures they favor…“The budget gives ICE money to fund over 5,000 more beds than proposed in funding bills introduced last year in both the House and Senate. These funding levels directly contradict commitments made by the Biden administration and members of Congress to reduce the immigration detention system,” Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center, said in a release.

 

ICE report shows sharp drop in deportations, immigration arrests under Biden

WaPo: Advocates for immigrants said they welcomed many of the Biden administration’s early changes, such as ending the travel ban and increasing the number of refugees allowed into the United States. But they said the most recent spending bill increases funding for immigration enforcement and complained that Biden has not kept his campaign promise to end privately run detention, which accounts for the majority of the ICE system.

 

Biden Administration Fights in Court to Uphold Some Trump-Era Immigration Policies

NYT: The tension has also resonated inside the White House, where senior officials have been anxious that unwinding the Trump-era border restrictions would open the United States to an increase in illegal crossings at the southern border and fuel Republican attacks that Mr. Biden is too lenient on illegal immigration.

 

Even Before War, Thousands Were Fleeing Russia for the U.S.

NYT: More than 4,100 Russians crossed the border without authorization in the 2021 fiscal year, nine times more than the previous year. This fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, the numbers are even higher — 6,420 during the first four months alone.

 

Backlogs force Ukrainians to face long visa waits

RollCall: Now, embassies have shuttered in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. That could increase pressure on other consular posts in the region already feeling the weight of a visa backlog of nearly half a million cases.

 

‘Constantly afraid’: immigrants on life under the US government’s eye

Guardian: Participants in the privately run Isap program, billed as an alternative to detention, describe painful ankle monitors and contradictory rules. See also DHS Taps Church World Service For Detention Alternatives.

 

82,645 Appeals Pending At The BIA

LexisNexis: As of Jan. 19, 2022 there are 82,645 appeals pending at the BIA.

 

Florida OKs bill aimed at keeping immigrants out of state

AP: All Florida government agencies would be barred from doing business with transportation companies that bring immigrants to the state who are in the country illegally under a bill sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday.

 

Coast Guard has returned to Haiti most of the 356 Haitians who arrived in Keys this week

Miami Herald: Nearly 200 Haitian migrants were returned to Haiti on Friday by the U.S. Coast Guard after their bid to reach U.S. shores ended with their overloaded sailboat running aground behind a wealthy North Key Largo resort in the Upper Florida Keys and some of their compatriots making a harried dash to freedom in the choppy waters. See also Black Immigrants to the U.S. Deserve Equal Treatment.

 

2020 Census Undercounted Hispanic, Black and Native American Residents

NYT: Although the bureau did not say how many people it missed entirely, they were mostly people of color, disproportionately young ones. The census missed counting 4.99 of every 100 Hispanics, 5.64 of every 100 Native Americans and 3.3 of every 100 African Americans.

 

ICE Conducted Sweeping Surveillance Of Money Transfers Sent To And From The US, A Senator Says

Buzzfeed: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents obtained millions of people’s financial records as part of a surveillance program that fed the information to a database accessed by local and federal law enforcement agencies, according to a letter sent Tuesday by Sen. Ron Wyden to the Department of Homeland Security inspector general requesting an investigation into whether the practice violated the US Constitution.

 

U.S. International Student Enrollment Dropped As Canada’s Soared

Forbes: “International student enrollment at U.S. universities declined 7.2% between the 2016-17 and 2019-20 academic years, before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic,” according a new analysis from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP). “At the same time, international student enrollment at Canadian colleges and universities increased 52% between the 2016-17 and 2019-20 academic years, illustrating the increasing attractiveness of Canadian schools due to more friendly immigration laws in Canada, particularly rules enabling international students in Canada to gain temporary work visas and permanent residence.”

 

LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES

 

High Court Told Self-Removal Ruling Creates Circuit Split

Law360: A Salvadoran woman urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review an Eleventh Circuit decision greenlighting her deportation based on a decades-old removal order issued after she voluntarily left the country, saying the ruling conflicted with Fifth and Seventh Circuit precedents.

 

CA2 Revives Asylum Bid Due To Faulty Credibility Ruling

Law360: The Second Circuit on Thursday revived an asylum application from a man who says he fled political violence in Guinea, finding a string of errors in an immigration judge’s determination that he wasn’t credible.

 

CA4 Denies Reh. En Banc In Pugin V. Garland (Obstruction Of Justice)

LexisNexis: Dissent: I respectfully dissent from this court’s denial of rehearing en banc on the issue of whether to grant Chevron deference to the Board of Immigration’s (“Board”) recent interpretation of § 1101(a)(43)(S), providing that an aggravated felony under the INA is “an offense relating to the obstruction of justice, perjury or subornation of perjury, or bribery of a witness.” …Namely, this decision is the first and only to uphold the Board’s 2018 redefinition as reasonable—repudiating the Ninth Circuit’s 2020 decision. Accordingly, by no longer requiring a nexus element, this opinion expands the list of possible state crimes that could trigger immigration deportation consequences for many persons who may not have been otherwise subject to deportation. This is a sizeable impact for many people in our country.

 

CA5 On Stop-Time, Niz-Chavez: Gregorio-Osorio V. Garland

LexisNexis: The Government indicates that the matter should be remanded, in part, to the BIA for consideration of her request for voluntary departure in light of Niz-Chavez. Thus, the petition for review is granted as to the stop-time issue, and this matter is remanded to the BIA for consideration under Niz-Chavez and other relevant precedents.

 

CA7 On BIA Abuse Of Discretion: Oluwajana V. Garland

LexisNexis: The  Board granted one extension but denied a second, suggesting that Oluwajana instead submit his brief with a motion seeking leave to file it late. When he did so, less than two weeks after the submission deadline, the Board denied the motion in a cursory-and factually erroneous-footnote. And having rejected the brief, the Board upheld the removal order without considering Oluwajana’s allegations of error by the immigration judge. Based on the undisputed circumstances of this case, we conclude that the Board abused its discretion by unreasonably rejecting Oluwajana’s brief.

 

CA9 Judge Pans State-US Law Mismatch In Rape Case

Law360: The Ninth Circuit ordered the Board of Immigration Appeals on Wednesday to decide if an immigrant’s rape conviction bars deportation relief, with a dissenting judge saying the decision only delays the “unpalatable” conclusion that the man can seek a removal waiver.

 

Matter of M-M-A-, 28 I&N Dec. 494 (BIA 2022)

BIA: When  the  Department  of  Homeland  Security  raises  the  mandatory  bar  for  filing  a  frivolous asylum application under section 208(d)(6) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(d)(6) (2018), an Immigration Judge must make sufficient findings of fact and conclusions of law on whether the requirements for a frivolousness determination under Matter of Y-L-, 24 I&N Dec. 151 (BIA 2007), have been met.

 

Unpub. BIA Equitable Tolling Victory: Matter Of Siahaan

LexisNexis: Additionally, the respondents assert that despite informing immigration officials of their intent to get a new attorney and “sort out [their] case,” ICE officials told them that they were not priorities for deportation and there was nothing more they could do with respect to their case (Respondents’ Mot., Tab G). Accordingly, under these circumstances, we will equitably toll the filing deadline for the respondents’ motion to reopen.”

 

Ill. Judge Tweaks Order To Satisfy DOJ’s Funding Appeal

Law360: An Illinois federal judge closed the book on Chicago’s lawsuit challenging certain Trump-era conditions for recipients of a federal public safety grant on Tuesday when he put the final touches on his judgment blocking conditions for receiving the grant to resolve the case’s outlying issues.

 

Affidavit Of Support Enforcement Victory: Flores V. Flores

LexisNexis: Defendant executed an I-864 Affidavit of Support; therefore, he is contractually obligated to provide Plaintiff and J.K.M.F. any support necessary to maintain their household at an income that is at least 125 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines. Plaintiff has received no financial support from Defendant since fleeing to a shelter on October 21, 2021…Accordingly, Plaintiff has alleged a meritorious claim against Defendant for breaching his contractual duty.

 

ICE To Loosen NY Detainee Bond Rules Under Settlement

Law360: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s New York office will overhaul its policy on people suspected of civil immigration offenses while on bond, settling claims it detained suspects beyond what the law allows without a chance to post bail.

 

Judge Orders Feds To Release Names In Asylum Project

Law360: A D.C. district court ordered the federal government to disclose the names of border officers who screened migrants’ asylum claims under a pilot program, saying Friday that asylum-seekers needed to know if they were unwittingly placed in the since-suspended project.

 

Court Tosses Immigrant Spouse’s Stimulus Check Challenge

Law360: A woman’s suit contending she was wrongly deprived of pandemic relief payments from the IRS because of her marriage to an immigrant is barred by a federal law prohibiting court challenges that restrain tax collection, a Maryland federal court ruled.

 

USCIS to Offer Deferred Action for Special Immigrant Juveniles

USCIS: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it is updating the USCIS Policy Manual to consider deferred action and related employment authorization for noncitizens who have an approved Form I-360, Petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant, for Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) classification but who cannot apply to adjust status to become a lawful permanent resident (LPR) because a visa number is not available.

 

DOS Provides Guidance for Ukraine Nationals

AILA: DOS provided guidance for nationals in Ukraine seeking to enter the United States. The guidance clarifies information on nonimmigrant visas, immigrant visas, COVID-19 entry requirements, humanitarian parole, refugee status, and more.

 

EOIR Updates Procedure for Requesting ROPs in Part I of the Policy Manual

AILA: EOIR updated procedures for parties to request ROPs in chapters 1.5(d) and 2.2(b) in Part I of the policy manual.

 

EOIR Updates Appendix O of the Policy Manual with Adjournment Code 74

AILA: EOIR updated appendix O of the policy manual with adjournment code 74. The reason is “Public Health,” and the definition is “Adjourned for public health reasons.”

 

RESOURCES

 

NIJC RESOURCES

 

GENERAL RESOURCES

 

EVENTS

 

NIJC EVENTS

 

GENERAL EVENTS

 

To sign up for additional NIJC newsletters, visit:  https://immigrantjustice.org/subscribe.

 

You now can change your email settings or search the archives using the Google Group. If you are receiving this briefing from a third party, you can visit the group page and request to be added.

 

Elizabeth Gibson (Pronouns: she/her/ella)

Managing Attorney for Capacity Building and Mentorship

National Immigrant Justice Center

A HEARTLAND ALLIANCE Program

224 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 600, Chicago, IL 60604
T: (312) 660-1688| F: (312) 660-1688| E: egibson@heartlandalliance.org

www.immigrantjustice.org | Facebook | Twitter

 

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

Thanks, Liz!

The “Top News Section” is a good rundown of the Biden Administration’s “mixed bag” on immigration policy, particularly as it relates to our largely defunct asylum system and the refugee system (still reeling from Trump-era “deconstruction”) that does not appear to be prepared for the inevitable flow of Ukrainian refugees. It also highlights some of the lingering damage to our democracy (e.g., racially biased census undercount) done by the Trump regime and its toady enablers.

My Take: Ukrainian Refugees & The U.S. Response

So far, largely meaningless political rhetoric from the Administration concerning Ukrainian refugees has been predictably “welcoming.” But, the actions to date have amounted to nothing more than taking the obvious step of granting TPS to Ukrainians actually here.

That does little or nothing to address the nearly 3 million refugees who have fled Ukraine in recent weeks. If the Administration has a coherent plan for admitting our share of those refugees and resuming processing of Ukrainians and all other refugees seeking asylum at the border, they have not announced it.

For example, despite U.S. and worldwide condemnation of China’s treatment of Uyghurs — some characterizing it as “genocide” — the Administration has done nothing to speed the processing of the very limited number of Uyghur refugees languishing in our still largely dysfunctional asylum system. If, as I’ve pointed out on numerous occasions, the Administration is unable to address “low hanging fruit” like Uyghurs and Immigration Court reform, in a bold and timely matter, how are they going to respond to more difficult human rights issues?  

As this op-ed in today’s NY Times points out, “generous” responses to large-scale refugee situations are often short-lived. As refugees flows inevitably continue and grow, the initial positive responses too often “morph” into xenophobia, nativism, racism, culture wars, and restrictionism.  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/15/opinion/ukraine-refugee-crisis.html

Ukrainian refugees have two potential “advantages” over those from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Venezuela, Ethiopia, DRC, and the Northern Triangle that could help them realize “more durable” protection. They are 1) mostly White Europeans, and 2) mostly Christian.

Neither of these is a legally recognized international criterion for defining refugees. Fact is, however, that they were not universally descriptive of those aforementioned groups who have often received less enthusiastic receptions from Western democracies. As a practical matter, “cultural attitudes” influence the Western World’s acceptance of refugees, probably to a greater extent than the actual dangers which those refugees face in the lands from which they have fled.

Here’s more on the differing receptions between Ukrainian refugees and refugees from Latin America from Dean Kevin Johnson over at ImmigrationProf Bloghttps://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/03/the-long-history-of-the-us-immigration-crisis-compare-the-global-embrace-of-ukrainian-refugees-and-t.html

Also, as usual in refugee situations, women and children in Ukraine have paid the highest price, according to the UN.  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/un-women-pay-highest-price-in-conflict_n_62304567e4b0b6282027aa6a

But, that has also been true in Haiti, Syria, Central America, the DRC and many other trouble spots. It has made little positive difference to the U.S. The Trump regime, led by Uber racist-misogynist refugee deniers “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions and “Gauleiter” Stephen Miller actually went out of their way to target the most vulnerable women and children fleeing persecution for further abuse.

And, to date, the Biden Administration’s promise to do better and regularize the treatment of those fleeing gender-based violence has been a huge “nothingburger.” Whatever happened to those promised “gender-based regulations” and the “common-sense recommendations” to replace the restrictionist holdover, bad-precedent-setting BIA with real judges who are experts in gender-based asylum?

The flow of refugees from Ukraine, and a much smaller (at this point) flight of dissidents from Russia, has already “exceeded projections” and is not likely to diminish in the coming weeks and months. Moreover, with Russia focusing on civilian targets and leveling parts of many major metropolitan areas in Ukraine, the essential infrastructure and “livability” of many areas is rapidly being destroyed. 

Thus, even if a “truce” were declared tomorrow (which it won’t be), many who have fled would not be able to return for the foreseeable future, perhaps never, even if they wanted to. The latter is a particular risk if Russia makes good on its threats to eradicate the current Ukrainian Government and replace it with a Russian puppet regime.

Refugee planning has consistently lagged foreign policy developments even though that has been shown to be problematic over and over. When will we ever learn?

We can’t necessarily prevent all foreign wars and internal upheavals, worthy as that goal might be. But, we can learn to deal better with inevitable refugee displacements. 

Indeed, that was the purpose of the UN Convention and Protocol on the Status of Refugees, to which we and the other major democracies are parties. That more than 70 years after the initial Convention was signed we are still groping for solutions (indeed, we have shamefully abrogated a number of our key responsibilities under both domestic and international law) to recurring, somewhat predictable, and inevitable dislocations of humanity is something that should be of concern to all. 

Despite all of the nativist propaganda, the truth is that nobody wants to be a refugee and that it could happen to any of us for reasons totally beyond our control! The similarity of the lives of many Ukrainians, up until a few weeks ago, to daily life in Western Democracies has perhaps “brought home” these realities in ways that the equally bad or even worse plight of other refugees in recent times has not.

I hope that we can learn from this terrible situation and treat not only Ukrainian refugees, but all refugees, with generosity, humanity, compassion, kindness, and as we would hope to be treated if our situations were reversed. Because, in reality, nobody is immune from the possibility of becoming a refugee!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-15-22

REUTERS: MICA ROSENBERG & TEAM REPORT ON UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN, FAMILY REUNIFICATION!

Mica Rosenberg
Mica Rosenberg
National Immigration Reporter, Reuters

Hi there all,

 

I wanted to share with you our latest Reuters investigation about unaccompanied minors released to the town of Enterprise, Alabama where the chicken industry is booming and we profiled a teen who easily found work after she was released from federal custody. We detail how last summer U.S. Department of Health and Human Services temporarily halted releases from shelters to the town, as several federal agencies probed whether migrants were at risk. While no child trafficking has been found, labor exploitation of migrants there is being investigated.

Read more, and share, here: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immigration-alabama/

 

This follows our coverage of the reunification of one migrant family separated in 2017 at the U.S.-Mexico border under Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy who was reunited in January. We have been in touch with the family since 2020.

Here is the story with a graphic that shows the scale of the work of the Biden administration’s reunification task force:

https://widerimage.reuters.com/story/split-up-at-the-us-mexico-border-family-finally-reunites

and here is the story with additional photographs of this family’s long and painful journey:

https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-IMMIGRATION/REUNIFICATION/byprjxlnzpe/index.html

 

We also were able to report on another heartwarming reunion, after a family lost their baby in the chaos of the evacuation of Afghanistan. Our story published last November helped lead to tips that located the baby in Kabul so he could be reunited with relatives there and hopefully soon taken to the United States to join his parents who have resettled in Michigan:

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/exclusive-baby-lost-chaos-afghanistan-airlift-found-returned-family-after-long-2022-01-08/

 

We are continuing coverage of all these important issues so please keep in touch with tips and story ideas!

All the best,

Mica

………………………………………………….

Mica Rosenberg

Reuters News

National Immigration Reporter

www.reuters.com

 

3 Times Square, 18th Floor

New York, NY 10036

Cell/signal/whatsapp/telegram: +1 (646) 897-4851

Teams: +1 (332) 219-1353

email: mica.rosenberg@thomsonreuters.com

www.linkedin.com/in/micarosenberg/

 

***********

Thanks, Mica, for giving us an in-depth look at the “human side” of these issues!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-07-22

 

☠️NEW KIND REPORT SHOWS CRISIS OF PERSECUTION OF WOMEN & CHILDREN IN NORTHERN TRIANGLE EXACERBATED BY PANDEMIC — More Evidence Of Legal, Factual, & Moral Bankruptcy Of Administration’s Bogus “Deterrence Policies” As Well As Grotesque Failure Of U.S. Courts At All Levels To Uniformly Require Granting Of Asylum To Qualified Refugee Women & Children!

 

pastedGraphic.png

*Cover photo by photojournalist Guillermo Martinez shows a boy in El Salvador wearing a protective mask from his home during a COVID-19 lockdown. Photo credit: Guillermo Martinez/APHOTOGRAFIA/ Getty Images

 

New Report: Dual Crises

 

 

 

Gender-Based Violence and Inequality Facing Children and Women During the COVID-19 Pandemic in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras

 

 

 

Gender-based violence has long been one of the main drivers of migration from Central America to the United States. Widespread violence, including sexual abuse, human trafficking, and violence in the home and family, combined with a lack of access to protection and justice forces children and women to flee in search of safety. Drawing on existing research and interviews with children’s and women’s rights experts, this report lays out how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated already pervasive forms of violence against children and women in Central America, as well as the deeply entrenched gender inequality that leaves children and women even more vulnerable to violence.

Here’s a link to the full report: http://us.engagingnetworks.app/page/email/click/10097/1093096?email=C9P0Zhj6QQc0L7Si0LDouAN%2BRR2ul1GhmZAK81VjEpg=&campid=z6owwwxd2r6ZkArzVWMSmA==

 

 

 

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

Successful implementation of the U.S. Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America must start by acknowledging that gender-based violence is a primary driver of migration and includes most violence against children.

Obviously, mindless, failed enforcement and deterrence-only policies that tell women and children to “suffer and die in place” rather than flee and seek asylum are absurdly out of touch with the realities of both human migration and the real situation in the Northern Triangle. This report shows that increased flight from the Northern Triangle probably has more to do with the aggravating effects of the pandemic on the already untenable situation of many women and children in the Northern Triangle than it does on any policy pronouncements, real or imagined, on the part of the Biden Administration.

An honest policy that recognizes the reality that gender-based persecution is a major driver of forced migration in the Northern Triangle would go a long way toward addressing the largely self-created situation at our Southern Border.

As many of us keep saying, to no visible avail, asylum isn’t a “policy option” for politicos and wonks to “discuss and debate.” It’s a legal and moral requirement, domestically and internationally, that we are currently defaulting upon!

Wonder why “democracy is on the ropes” throughout the world right now? Perhaps, we need look no further than our own horrible example!

A robust overseas refugee program in the region and a uniform, consistent, timely policy of granting asylum to qualified applicants applying at ports of entry at our borders would be a vast improvement. 

Sure, it would undoubtedly result in the legal immigration of more refugees and asylum seekers. That’s actually what refugee and asylum laws are all about — an important and robust component of our legal immigration system. 

Although our needs are not actually part of the “legal test for asylum,” the fact is, we need more legal immigrants of all types in America right now.

It should be a win-win for the refugees and for America. So why not make it happen, rather than continuing failed policy approaches that serve nobody’s interest except nativist zealots trying to inflame xenophobia for political gain?

An additional point: On February 2, 2021, to great ballyhoo, President Biden issued Executive Order 14010. A key provision of that order required that:

(ii) within 270 days of the date of this order, promulgate joint regulations, consistent with applicable law, addressing the circumstances in which a person should be considered a member of a “particular social group,” as that term is used in 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(42)(A), as derived from the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.

270 days have long passed. In fact, its been more than 300 days since that order. Yet, these regulations are nowhere in sight. Perhaps, that’s a good thing.

This doesn’t come as much of a surprise to “us old timers” who have “hands on” experience with the unsuitability of the DOJ regulation drafting process for this assignment. Indeed, this assignment is actually several decades “overdue,” having originally been handed out by the late former Attorney General Janet Reno prior to her departure from office in January 2020!

The problem remains lack of expertise. With the possible exception of Lucas Guttentag, I know of nobody at today’s DOJ who actually has the necessary experience, expertise, perspective, and historical knowledge to draft a proper regulation on the topic. Past drafts and proposals have been disastrous, actually seeking to diminish, rather than increase and regularize, protections for vulnerable women and others facing persecution on account of gender-based particular social groups.

Indeed, one proposal was even used by OIL as an avenue in attempting to “water down” the all-important, life saving “regulatory presumption of future persecution arising out of past persecution!” Talk about perversions of justice at Justice! Why? Because OIL had suffered a series of embarrassing, ego-deflating setbacks from Article III Courts calling out the frequent failure of the BIA and IJs to properly apply the basics of the presumption. Sound familiar?

At DOJ, the “normal solution to lack of expertise and competence” is to simply eliminate expertise and competence as requirements! In many ways, “good enough for government work” has replaced “who prosecutes on behalf of  Lady Justice” as the DOJ’s motto!

It’s also yet another reason why the DOJ is a horribly inappropriate “home” for the U.S. Immigration Courts!


😎Due Process Forever! 

PWS

12-16-21

⚖️🗽🇺🇸👍🏼👩🏻‍⚖️ JUSTICE FOR KIDS IN COURT — ROUND TABLE ⚔️🛡 “WARRIOR QUEEN” 👸🏻 HON. SARAH BURR SPEAKS OUT FOR “FAIR DAY IN COURT FOR KIDS ACT OF 2021!” — “We cannot in good conscience allow any unaccompanied children to appear in immigration court alone.”

Hon. Sarah Burt
Hon. Sarah Burr
Retired U.S. Immigration Judge
Knightess of The Round Table
Photo Source: Immigrant Justice Corps website
Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/578076-why-are-children-representing-themselves-in-immigration-court

From The Hill:

As a retired immigration judge, I have watched with concern reports of the surge of unaccompanied immigrant children crossing the border into the United States. There are many reasons for concern—their housing, their health, their safety. To me, there is an additional, very real, and often overlooked question looming on the horizon: What will happen when these children, even toddlers and babies, appear alone in immigration court?

Yes, alone. While a person in immigration proceedings is entitled to be represented by a lawyer if they can afford it, there is no constitutional or even statutory right to appointed counsel in immigration proceedings. That means those who cannot afford a lawyer must appear in court alone, including children.

While I am pleased to see the Biden administration plans to provide government-funded legal representation for certain immigrant children in eight U.S. cities, this new initiative is still a far cry from the universal representation needed to support children in removal proceedings.

Imagine, if you can, a child — 2 years old, 10 years old or 17 years old — appearing before an immigration judge alone. How does a child, already intimidated and confused by the courtroom setting, understand the nature of the court proceedings and the charges against them? How can a child understand the complexities of immigration law, their burden of proof, and possible defenses against deportation? The short answer is they cannot.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the op-ed at the above link.

The “Fair Day For Kids in Court Act of 2021” is endorsed by the “Round Table” ⚔️🛡 among many other groups in the NDPA!

Here’s a summary (courtesy of Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” S. Chase):

Senator Mazie Hirono (of [Round Table “Fighting Knightess” Judge] Dayna Beamer’s home state of Hawaii) plans to introduce the attached bill on Thursday, that would provide counsel for unaccompanied children in Immigration Court by:

  • Clarifying the authority of the federal government to provide or appoint counsel to noncitizens in immigration proceedings;

  • Requiring the appointment or provision of legal counsel to all unaccompanied children in proceedings unless they obtained counsel independently;

  • Mandating access to counsel for all noncitizens in CBP and ICE facilities;

  • Requiring that, if the government fails to provide counsel to an unaccompanied child and orders that child removed, the filing of a motion to reopen proceedings will stay removal; and

  • Requiring government reporting on the provision of counsel to unaccompanied children.

Here’s the text of the bill, which will be introduced by Sen. Hirono later this week:

Fair Day Text FINAL

Thanks Sarah and Jeffrey!  So pleased to be part of the “support group” for this long-overdue and badly needed legislation that would do what to date Congress, the Federal Courts, and DOJ have failed to do: Enforce the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment in Immigration Court!

Wendy Young
Wendy Young
President, Kids In Need of Defense (“KIND”)

And, of course, we should never forget the ongoing, daily work performed by NDPA Superhero 🦸🏻‍♂️  Wendy Young and Kids in Need of Defense (“KIND”) in ending the disgraceful blot on American justice of unrepresented kids in Immigration Court:

Dear Paul,

I met Maria* in immigration court.  The judge sat in his robes behind the bench when he called her deportation case.

A trial attorney from the Department of Homeland Security sat at the front, prepared to argue for Maria’s removal from the U.S.. Maria was by herself without a lawyer by her side. 

She was five years old.

She approached the bench, wearing her nicest clothes, clutching a doll. She sat behind the respondent’s desk, barely able to see over the microphone. The judge asked her a number of questions about why she was in the US and about her life here, none of which she could answer. Her eyes grew bigger and bigger as she sat silently, until he finally dismissed her and told her to come back at a later date. As she left the court, he asked her what the name of her doll was. In Spanish, she replied, “Baby Baby Doll.” That was the only question she could answer.

That moment haunts me. I continually wonder about the insanity of asking a five year old to stand alone and defend herself against deportation in a federal courtroom. It should never happen. Which is exactly why KIND has mobilized and trained a powerful group of pro bono attorneys to represent and work with children just like Maria who deserve legal representation in a U.S. immigration court.

This October, KIND is honoring the pro bono attorneys who have helped more than 27,000 children referred to KIND receive legal representation that often means the difference between relief and deportation and, by extension, a child’s safety or danger.

Will you make a tax-deductible donation now to support the children we work with in and out of the courtroom?

Here’s the direct impact your gift today can have for children like Maria:

Paul, these are just a few ways we’ll put your gift to work, but know that your donation in ANY amount is critical to the number of children we can reach, and represent, through the amazing efforts of our pro bono attorney network.

These kids are scared, they are traumatized. They are intimidated. And without the services provided by organizations like KIND, they are all alone.

But that’s why we’re here – and that’s why I hope you’ll consider making a gift today to support this life-changing work. Your donation today will have a direct impact on the lives of refugee children who deserve to have someone in their court.

Thank you so much for your generosity today, and always.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-26-21

 

 

 

💡NOLAN RAPPAPORT @ THE HILL SAYS BIDEN DIDN’T GO FAR ENOUGH WITH HIS CENTRAL AMERICAN MINORS’ (“CAM”) PROGRAM — He’s Right!

Nolan Rappaport
Family Pictures
Nolan Rappaport
Opinion Writer
The Hill

Biden’s program for migrant children doesn’t go far enough

By Nolan Rappaport

Former President Barack Obama established the Central American Minors (CAM) Program in December 2014 to provide in-country refugee processing for children in the Northern Triangle Countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) as a safe, legal, and orderly alternative to them making the dangerous journey to the United States to apply for asylum.

 

But Obama only made the program available to Northern Triangle children who had a parent who was already physically present in the United States and had lawful status.

 

The Trump administration phased out the CAM program in fiscal 2018 because “the vast majority of individuals accessing the program were not eligible for refugee resettlement.”

 

On March 10, 2021, the Biden administration announced that it had restarted the CAM program to reunite children from the Northern Triangle countries with parents who are lawfully present in the United States. Biden also wants to save Northern Triangle children from having to make the dangerous journey to the United States in the hands of smugglers.

 

That’s a noble intent: The trip across the border is incredibly dangerous.

 

On June 15, 2021, Biden announced an expansion of the CAM program which specified that parents and legal guardians lawfully present in the United States may apply on behalf of the children — this now includes parents or legal guardians in the following legal status categories: Permanent Resident Status; Temporary Protected Status; Parole; Deferred ActionDeferred Enforced Departure; and Withholding of Removal.

 

According to David Bier, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, this is a great improvement over requiring children to come to the United States in the hands of smugglers; however, it remains to be seen whether it will dissuade families from sending their children here with smugglers.

 

Biden’s CAM program may be more generous than the Obama administration’s CAM program, but I think Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was right when he observed that illegal crossings were not reduced when the Obama administration tried this program years ago, and there’s no reason to think it will have that effect now.

 

Moreover, Biden should know that his revised CAM program is not going to be an effective alternative to making the dangerous journey with smugglers. His administration has acknowledged that only 40 percent of the children from the Northern Triangle who were apprehended at the border this year had a parent in the United States.

 

I don’t understand why he didn’t make it available to all Northern Triangle children who have a persecution claim. He didn’t have to limit the program to children who have parents or guardians in the United States.

 

Read more at https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/559334-bidens-program-for-northern-triangle-children-doesnt-go-far-enough

 

Published originally on The Hill.

 

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an Executive Branch Immigration Law Expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.  Follow him at https://nolanrappaport.blogspot.com

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

Thanks, Nolan! Go on over to The Hill and read Nolan’s complete article.

Nolan’s proposal sure seems like good government and common sense to me. This expanded policy should be relatively non-controversial. Like Nolan, I don’t understand why the Biden Administration is “missing the obvious here.” Every step helps in better and more humanely managing Central American asylum applications. I’ll bet there are even qualified retired immigration officials from USCIS and Immigration Judges and BIA staff from DOJ who would be willing to return as “rehirees” and travel to Central America to work on a program like Nolan proposes.  

Gotta “pick the low hanging fruit,” as Nolan suggests!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-21-21 

😵TIRED OF LISTENING TO POLITICOS & THE MEDIA TOSSING KIDS’ LIVES AROUND LIKE POLITICAL FOOTBALLS? 🏈 — Here’s The Antidote! — Spend Some “Quality Time” With The Experts, 👩🏻‍🎓Wendy Young Of KIND & Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr @ Cornell Law — Get The Facts & Informed Analysis, Not Myths & Fear-Mongering!😎👍🏼🗽

Wendy Young
Wendy Young
President, Kids In Need of Defense (“KIND”)
Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr
Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr
Cornell Law

 

Protecting unaccompanied children at the US-Mexico border

Cornell Law School and the Cornell Migrations Initiative invite you to an upcoming virtual talk with Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, on Tuesday April 13.Details and registration info below.

Tuesday April 13, 12:15-1:15 pm ET

Wendy Young, President of KIND (Kids In Need of Defense)

A Fresh Focus on the US-Mexico Border: Protection of Unaccompanied Children Grounded in Systemic Reforms

Wendy will discuss recent developments on the U.S.-Mexico border and the need to reform our broken asylum system, especially for unaccompanied children.

Wendy’s talk is free and open to the public. Register at https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dpOtKElOQsCh6KBQPYTcLw

Stephen Yale-Loehr

Professor of Immigration Law Practice, Cornell Law School

Faculty Director, Immigration Law and Policy Program

Faculty Fellow, Migrations Initiative

Co-director, Asylum Appeals Clinic

Co-Author, Immigration Law & Procedure Treatise

Of Counsel, Miller Mayer

Phone: 607-379-9707

e-mail: SWY1@cornell.edu

Twitter: @syaleloehr

Check out my Green Card Stories book:

http://www.greencardstories.com.

See more of my books at amazon.com/author/stephenyaleloehr

You can access my papers on SSRN at: http://ssrn.com/author=109503

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

I’m going to ask the obvious question: Why is Wendy Young, probably America’s leading expert on the rights and treatment of migrant children, giving speeches rather than helping Vice President Harris lead the Biden Administration’s response from the “inside” and being the face of the Administration’s public profile? 

Sports fans, it’s very simple: You can’t win the game with your superstars 🌟 on the bench, or not even on your team! The stunning failure of the Biden Administration to tap the available, recognized experts from the NDPA to re-establish due process, the rule of law, common sense, and humanity in our human rights, immigration, and civil rights policies is both mind-boggling and infuriating!

It’s “designed for failure,” an all too familiar scenario when Dems take on immigration, human rights, and children’s rights. And, not surprisingly, that’s what’s happening so far, particularly in the dysfunctional Immigration Courts, which could be leading the way toward a functional asylum system, and real due process for migrant women and children, but instead continue their “due process death spiral” ☠️⚰️ under Judge Garland!

Let’s hope that Wendy & Steve can find some “light at the end of the (seemingly endless) tunnel” for us! 

One thing even I know: We won’t be able to mindlessly enforce, imprison, deny, abuse, prosecute, kill, lie, deter, or deport our way to an equilibrium! But, as in the past, that doesn’t mean we won’t spend time, money, and human lives recycling all of these past “enforcement only” failures!

More forced migrants will enter the United States! That’s what forced migrants do, until we deal rationally and constructively with the conditions that force them to migrate! The fact that we haven’t been able to do so for the past half-century suggests to me the some different thinking and approaches from some “new faces,” not previously seen in government, is required.

That’s not to say that solving the problem doesn’t involve the private sector. I suspect it does, at least in some significant way. Why not ask folks like Bill & Melinda Gates, McKenzie Scott (formerly Bezos), Warren Buffett, Charles Koch, Diane Hendrickson, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Jose Andres — a philosophically and politically diverse group of highly successful individuals and thinkers to be sure — how they might go about investing in and releasing the positive power of human migration, educating the world’s younger generation for success, addressing racism, and creating viable, mutually beneficial economic opportunities outside our borders while protecting the environment? A tall order to be sure! But, these are all folks with records of thinking and acting creatively to solve problems, overcome challenges, create jobs and opportunities, and succeed at the highest levels.

Our choice as a nation is whether to comply with our Constitution, the Refugee Act of 1980, and our international obligations by setting up a fair, generous, and efficient legal system to screen forced migrants and decide who is entitled to legal protection and admission; or do we continue to ignore the laws and human decency by turning the system over to smugglers and cartels to run as part of a profitable and exploitative extralegal migration apparatus feeding into an exploitable underground population. The latter was the Trump Administration’s approach and the one touted by White Nationalist restrictionists, mostly in the GOP. However, even a few Dems seem pretty happy with it.

GOP politicos and the nativist media are apoplectic that the Biden Administration is spending $60 million per week ($ 3 billion annualized) on fulfilling our legal duties to migrant children. (I guess their preferred alternative would be to let them die in Mexico or their native countries — out of sight, out of mind).Yet, that pales in comparison with the $11 billion in taxpayer funds Trump wasted on his bogus “wall,” some of it misappropriated and many millions doled out in legally questionable contracts. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiN09LI5PPvAhXIKVkFHfjcAycQFjAAegQIAhAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2020%2F01%2F19%2F797319968%2F-11-billion-and-counting-trumps-border-wall-would-be-the-world-s-most-costly&usg=AOvVaw1WBkwkyRq-FwNma0CUt3pm

The GOP is heartless, lawless, and morally degraded. The Dems are clueless and leaderless on immigration and human rights. Neither side pays attention to experts with the skills necessary to rebuild immigration and honor human rights obligations. That’s a dangerous combination. And, it’s the reason why children are needlessly suffering, and will continue to do so, “on our watch” — until we harness the knowledge and skills of those actually capable of making things better!

And, for sure, thousands of desperate, often terrified, tired, hungry kids are no threat whatsoever to our “national security.” Those threats, entirely from home-grown right wing thugs, materialized on January 6 and are now embodied and fanned by the “insurrectionist wing” of the GOP. No wonder hacks like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Tom Cotton want to focus attention elsewhere and pick on defenseless brown-skinned children!

Death On The Rio Grande
“Who needs a fair, functioning, asylum system at legal ports of entry? The GOP has the ‘final solution’ for families fleeing for their lives.” PHOTO: Julia Le Duc/Associated Press

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-10-21

🏴‍☠️CLOSING THE BORDER TO LEGAL ASYLUM SEEKERS IS A VIOLATION OF BOTH DOMESTIC & INTERNATIONAL LAW — It’s Neither Something To Tout (Biden Administration) Nor A Solution (GOP) (Except, Perhaps, In The “Hitlerian” Sense) — Our Inability To Solve A Humanitarian Situation By Acting Lawfully, Sensibly, & Humanely Is A Sign Of Gross National Weakness Spurred By Unwillingness To See The Human Tragedies We Are Promoting! — And The Lousy, Misleading, & Tone-Deaf Reporting By The Some Of The “Mainstream Media” Is Making It Worse! — Leon Krauze & Suzanne Gamboa With Simple Truths About Human Migration That Neither Pols Nor Nativists Want You To Hear! — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: Friday Mini-Essay: “Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration”

Leon Krauze
Leon Krauze
Journalist, Author, Educator

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/24/border-crisis-migrants-media-biden/

Leon Krauze in the WashPost tells us what’s really happening at the border. WARNING: It has little to do with the myths and false narratives being peddled by the GOP, the Administration, and the media.

The current emergency at the border has found the U. S. media at its most solipsistic. Coverage seems more focused on whether the emergency should be called “a crisis” (it should) and what the political fallout for the Biden administration will be. With few exceptions — like the remarkable work of MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff or Politico’s Sabrina Rodriguez — many news outlets seem utterly uninterested in the stories of the migrants themselves.

This is wrong because it fails to provide one crucial piece of the puzzle: the very concrete context of human suffering.

. . . .

This by no means excuses the stories of anguish and confinement that have emerged over the last few weeks from within the facilities set up by the Biden administration to deal with the number of young migrants crossing the border, nor does it absolve the president himself from delivering on his promise of a humane immigration system, diametrically opposed to Trump’s cruel policies, designed in collaboration with unapologetic racist xenophobes like Stephen Miller.

The Biden administration can and should do better. But the current debate cannot ignore the very concrete despair facing thousands of immigrant families who, under the direct threat of violence or abuse, chose to push their young children to the United States, in search of safety.

If the alternative was famine, gang violence, kidnapping, rape or sexual slavery, wouldn’t you bet it all on the journey north? If more people understood this, the political debate and the coverage surrounding the crisis would be much more empathetic and we would get closer at delivering concrete, humane solutions.

Now, let’s hear more “simple truth” from Suzanne Gamboa over at NBC News:

Suzanne Gamboa
Suzanne Gamboa, Political Editor, NBCLatino, NBC NewsDate: October 21, 2013
Place: Washington, DC
Credit: Maria Patricia Leiva/OAS
Creative Commons License

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/americas-immigration-impasse-self-inflicted-doesnt-rcna485

America’s immigration impasse — an endless loop across different administrations — is largely self-inflicted, because Congress has repeatedly failed to acknowledge one simple thing: Immigration happens.

Accordingly, immigration laws must be continually adjusted, reformed and revised, experts say.

“People will always want to come to the U.S., and the U.S. will always need people,” said former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who was a top immigration adviser to President George W. Bush.

Until there is a system that allows enough legal immigration to meet the economy’s needs, there will be illegal immigration, Gutierrez said.

“That’s just part of how our economy is set up. It’s part of demographics,” Gutierrez said. “Our birthrate is not high enough to be able to fill the needs of our economy.”

The coronavirus pandemic reinforced the importance of immigrant labor to the American economy, including labor by the undocumented.

It opened many Americans’ eyes to the precariousness of the U.S. food supply, which depends on immigrant and undocumented farmworkers and meat plant workers, as well as to other immigrants’ roles as essential workers, such as home health care aides, nurses and paramedics.

All of those people and many other immigrants, including young immigrants — often called “Dreamers” based on never-passed proposals in Congress called the DREAM Act — will play a key role in helping the economy recover from its pandemic bust.

But immigration requires periodic calibration, and the economics and the changing patterns are lost in the politics.

“People are going to move — as they are all around the world — where they think they can find places to better feed their children. That’s the bottom line, and that’s the history of migration to the United States,” said Luis Fraga, director of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

. . . .

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

Everyone should read the rest of the stories at the above link. 

Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration

By Judge (Ret) Paul Wickham Schmidt

“Courtside” Exclusive
March 26, 2021 

Notwithstanding the endlessly disingenuous and self-centered alarmist rhetoric coming from all directions on the border mess, often mindlessly regurgitated by the press (not just Fox News), the real “crisis” involves the human lives at stake and the unnecessary human misery we are causing by failing to establish, professionally staff, and fairly and competently operate the legal refugee and particularly asylum systems required by law. This “due process crisis” actually has devastating and debilitating practical effects, starting with the dysfunctional immigration, refugee, and asylum system and the beyond dysfunctional Immigration Courts.

Heck, we don’t even pretend to comply with Constitutionally-required due process of law for asylum seekers who present themselves to us seeking life-saving refuge. Most of those who show up at legally-established border ports are told that the border is “closed” and that there is no way for them to apply. OK, so they attempt to cross between ports and immediately present themselves to the Border Patrol. But, they also are told there is no way to apply and are orbited back to some of the most dangerous countries in the world without any process whatsoever, let alone due process of law. Who are we kidding with all our dishonest pontificating about “the rule of law?”

It’s a strange way to implement the statutory command that any foreign national “irrespective of . . . status, may apply for asylum,” along with a constitutional guarantee that “No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Gee, you don’t even need one of those fancy Ivy League law degrees to understand that language. You just have to be able to read, comprehend, and act.

What you do have to do to get where we are today is to view asylum seekers and other migrants (predominantly people of color) as less than human — “non-persons” in a constitutional sense. It’s what some of us call “Dred Scottification of the other” and it has accelerated over the past four years — not just in immigration.

The whole idea of a “court system” being run by the Executive who also is the chief of enforcement is beyond constitutionally preposterous. It’s a “negative tribute” to the Supremes and other Article III life-tenured judges who have grown so distant from their own humanity and immigration stories as to become willfully blind to the ongoing farce that constitutes “justice” and “due process of law” for asylum seekers and other immigrants in the U.S.

Today’s nearly non-existent “asylum system” is a deadly and illegal “catch 22,” with the Supremes sitting in their marble palace refusing to do the primary task that justifies their continued existence: enforce the Constitution against Government misbehavior and in favor of the “little guys” and the “vulnerable.” No thanks, not up to the job! 

The real tragedy is that there are plenty of folks out here with the knowledge, integrity, courage, and ability to establish a legal system that would actually comply with out laws, our Constitution, and further offer the hope of constructively addressing some problems before refugees arrive at our borders. But, they remain “benched,” even by the Biden Team. So the “good guys”are going to keep attacking the corrupt and broken system in court and at the polls for as long as it takes to get some course correction — years, decades, centuries — ask most African Americans how long it takes to achieve the true justice that America promises to all, but historically has only delivered to some. 

In the long run, a fair system would undoubtedly accept many more legal refugees and asylum seekers. That’s what happens in refugee situations — it’s the core of what we call “forced migration” — when you sign on to international conventions intended to prevent the “next holocaust,” and you fairly and humanely apply the rules meant to protect refugees and those who face torture. And, as they have in the past, the overwhelming number of refugees and asylees, like the overwhelming majority of immigrants (essentially all of us, except Native Americans) will adapt, fit in, and contribute to the health, wealth, and future of our nation. They will change, but so will we — ultimately for the better!

Sure, America wouldn’t be as white, “Christian” (to the extent that adherence to a nominal Christian denomination, rather than actually performing Christ’s extremely difficult, self-sacrificing, risky, compassionate mission, defines Christianity), and nominally heterosexual as it was when White Nationalist myths and whitewashed history ruled the roost. But, it would be a better nation — one that actually has a chance of prospering, realizing the full potential of all its residents, and leading the world in the 21st century. A nation that could devote more human, natural, and monetary resources to building and exporting greatness, rather than to an endless stream of cruel, inhuman, stupid, and wasteful enforcement and deterrence gimmicks.

Bottom line, folks are going to come to America, as they have throughout history. Some will stay, some won’t. But, come they will, unless and until those like Trump and the GOP create such a mess that our own people start fleeing to foreign shores. Immigration, regardless of status, is a sign of strength. Xenophobia a sign of fatal weakness.

Our real choice isn’t whether we want to “close” borders, bar refugees, and abuse children as the Cottons, Cruzes, Millers, and Hawleys advocate. It’s whether we create a robust, orderly, rational legal system to screen, regulate, and distribute the inevitable flow or whether, as we have for the past decades, we force millions to reside and work underground — part of an “extralegal” or “black market” system that pols of both parties and those who profit from that underground system have created.

Sprawling mismanaged enforcement bureaucracies, dysfunctional “courts,” armies of publicly-paid lawyers defending the indefensible, for-profit civil prisons, big agriculture, hospitality giants, loads of upwardly mobile professionals who need child care to pursue careers, communities that live off of marketing ethnic culture, meat packing conglomerates, architects and construction firms who are “building America,” even news media fixated on hyping the problem rather than fixing it (see, e.g., yesterday’s Biden press conference), the list of those who profit from a talented, hard working, reliable, loyal, yet politically and socially disenfranchised, workforce is endless.

Even the GOP’s “Cotton-Cruz crowd” benefits from having an imaginary enemy to rant and rail and gin up hate against — safe in the knowledge that the tanking of our economy, upheaval of society, and possible threat to their privilege that would result from realizing their disingenuous call to boot the entire undocumented population will never happen. Their kids and grandkids can continue to reap the privilege that comes from exploiting an essential, yet politically neutered, workforce. It’s really more about institutionalizing racism to maintain economic and political power over the eventual non-white majority that drives their bogus and ugly narratives.

We can degrade ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever! It’s a vision based on a written promise, not a “pipe dream!”

PWS

03-26-21