🇺🇸🗽🙏 THANKSGIVING 2023: Asylum Seekers Give Thanks, Give Back, Deal With Trauma of Forced Migration 

Happy Thanksgiving Vegan Turkey
Many turkeys are giving thanks for a vegan Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving from the “Courtside Family!”
By Cathy Schmidt

Ray Sanchez reports for CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/migrants-thanksgiving-new-york-city?cid=ios_app

. . . .

For many of the thousands of asylum-seekers from all over the world who have arrived in New York City in the last year, Thanksgiving is just another day – considering what they’ve been through. And what lies ahead.

The holiday is one more day to focus on immigrations papers, jobs to secure, a new language to learn, and a cold and sprawling city to navigate.

“We want to adapt to new traditions,” said Garcia, speaking Saturday at a Manhattan middle school where she and other migrants baked pumpkin pies they distributed to homeless shelters with the help of a nonprofit that provides free legal representation for children and families.

“We will always have Venezuela in our hearts. But we will need to adapt to new customs in order to survive here.”

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link.

Survivors, contributors, adaptors, seeking the same universal human rights: safety, security, meaningful work, a better future! Don’t let the myths and fears bury the truth and humanity! Also, this article highlights the essential role of the many NGOs who have stepped up to make the system work, sometimes in spite of itself!

🇺🇸 HAPPY THANKSGIVING & DUE PROCESS FOREVER!

PWS

11-23-23

🇺🇸😎🗽 GOOD NEWS FROM VA, OHIO, KY — DEMS & THEIR ISSUES JUST KEEP WINNING ELECTIONS, EVEN IN “RED” STATES — Tuesday Was A Victory For Women, Decency, & Democracy! — Another Defeat For GOP “Forced Birthers!”

“V” for Victory
“V” for Victory
Creative Commons
It was a good night for the “good guys!”

From CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/webview/politics/live-news/election-live-updates-11-07-23/index.html?cid=ios_app

Democrats have big night as abortion rights take center stage. Here are takeaways from Tuesday’s elections

From CNN’s Gregory Krieg

For all the sound and fury around Tuesday’s elections, there was one clear signal: Abortion rights are politically popular, no matter where or when they are on the ballot.

And that, no matter how you slice it, is good news for Democrats as the parties plot their strategies ahead of the 2024 elections.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin – the Virginia Republican who believed he could crack one of the most intractable issues in American politics with the promise of “reasonable” abortion restrictions – will not lead a GOP-controlled legislature in the Commonwealth, which denied the party control of the state Senate and put a swift end to both his plan for a 15-week abortion ban and rumors he might pursue a 2024 presidential bid.

Meanwhile, voters in Ohio decisively said they wanted a constitutionally protected right to abortion with the passage of a ballot measure – only a few months after they rejected another measure that would have made it harder for them to shield abortion rights.

And in Kentucky, the Democratic governor defeated his Republican challenger, a state attorney general with close ties to former President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, after a campaign in which abortion became a flashpoint.

. . . .

***********

Read the full article at the link.

Thankfully, VA’s right-wing extremist Gov. Glenn “Junkman” Youngkin’s vile plans for limiting women’s rights, further bullying the LGBTQ+ community, and continuing to “dumb down” public education in the Commonwealth just took a big, timely, well-deserved hit!  His “stealth campaign” to disguise and present himself as a “jollier version of Trumpist extremism” in a future presidential run also suffered a setback! 

If only the GOP showed a fraction of the concern they supposedly have for human lives for those children already born into poverty and hopelessness, as well as those arriving at our borders in flight from horrific conditions in their native countries! GOP right wing politicos have opposed or dismantled a number of government programs and initiatives shown to have effectively reduced childhood poverty in the U.S. Talk about screwed up priorities!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-08-23

🏴‍☠️ 🤯 ABSURDIST SCOFFLAW TEX “GOV” ABBOTT BLOWN AWAY IN ROUND I OF “BUOY BATTLE!” — Texas Federal Judge Rejects Ludicrous “Invasion Defense!”

Priscilla Alvarez
CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Priscilla Alvarez
Politics Reporter, CNN

Priscilla Alvarez reports for CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/06/politics/texas-mexico-border-water-barriers-migrants/index.html

CNN  —

A federal judge ordered Texas to remove floating barriers in the Rio Grande and barred the state from building new or placing additional buoys in the river, according to a Wednesday court filing, marking a victory for the Biden administration.

Judge David Alan Ezra ordered Texas to take down the barriers by September 15 at its own expense.

The border buoys have been a hot button immigration issue since they were deployed in the Rio Grande as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative known as Operation Lone Star. The Justice Department had sued the state of Texas in July claiming that the buoys were installed unlawfully and asking the judge to force the state to remove them.

In the lawsuit, filed in US District Court in the Western District of Texas, the Justice Department alleged that Texas and Abbott violated the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act by building a structure in US water without permission from United States Army Corps of Engineers and sought an injunction to bar Texas from building additional barriers in the river. The Republican governor, meanwhile, has argued the buoys are intended to deter migrants from crossing into the state from Mexico.

Texas swiftly appealed the judge’s order.

. . . .

Ezra also found Texas’ self-defense argument – that the barriers have been placed in the face of invasion – “unconvincing.”

. . . .

Ezra also found Texas’ self-defense argument – that the barriers have been placed in the face of invasion – “unconvincing.”

. . . .

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

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

Who knows how this will play out in the 5th Circuit and the Supremes, given the composition of those courts. But, at least for a day, Judge Ezra has brought some common sense and the rule of law to bear on out of control grandstanding Texas “Governor” Greg Abbott. 

In addition to being cruel and illegal, Abbott’s $140 million buoy boondoggle is predictably a failure from a deterrence standpoint. See, e.g., https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi-5saEvpiBAxUXpIkEHU1VBwoQFnoECBoQAQ&url=https://www.livemint.com/news/texas-floating-border-wall-fails-to-deter-migrants-11693942981798.html&usg=AOvVaw0TX6bBkO0Fv0MezJLQPJkk&opi=89978449. (Although Abbott and his White Nationalist supporters falsely claim otherwise.) But, as my friends Dan Kowalski and Judge “Sir Jeffrey” Chase often say, effective deterrence isn’t the point — the cruelty and dehumanization is!

We should also remember that the vast majority of those whom Abbott and the nativists bogusly call “invaders” seek only to turn themselves in to U.S. authorities so they can exercise their clear legal rights to apply for asylum — rights that attach regardless of status or manner of entering the U.S. (Rights that also have improperly been diminished and impeded by the Biden Administration’s ill-advised asylum regulations, currently under legal challenge).  

If successful (under a legal system intentionally rigged against them), these so-called “invaders” will use their skills and work ethic to expand our economy and help Americans prosper while saving their lives and those of their families. To anybody other than Abbott and other White Nationalists, that sounds like a potential “win-win” that could and should be “leveraged” for everyone’s benefit!

Judge Ezra’s opinion in the aptly-named U.S. v. Abbott can be found here:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172749163/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172749163.50.0.pdf?ftag=YHF4eb9d17

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-07-23

🤯COURTING FAILURE: GOP HAS “LEVERAGED” COURT CONTROL TO ENACT UNPOPULAR FAR-RIGHT ANTI-DEMOCRACY AGENDA BY FIAT — MEANWHILE, DEMS WON’T BRING PROGRESSIVE PRO-EQUAL-JUSTICE CHANGE TO COURTS THEY “OWN!”☹️ — The GOP Plays Hard Ball ⚾️, While Garland & Dems Play Whiffleball @ EOIR!🤮

Whiffle Ball
When it comes to playing “judicial hardball” with the GOP, Garland and the Dems are ill-equipped!
Creative Commons 3.0

Stephen Collinson writes at CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/30/politics/conservatives-remake-america-courts

. . . .

In recent years, the [GOP’s] blind loyalty to Trump’s radicalism – especially his election lies – has caused it to even challenge the structure of democracy. A sense of national crisis and imminent political extinction, for example, ran through Trump’s rhetoric in the aftermath of the 2020 election, prompting some of his followers to use violence as a way of settling their political grievances on January 6, 2021.

Conservative Supreme Court decisions over the last two years have been especially hard for liberals to accept because they believe that the current majority is ill gotten.

The right’s dominance of the court happened in large part because then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to even grant a confirmation hearing to Obama’s final pick for the top bench, Merrick Garland, who now serves as attorney general in the Biden administration. This allowed Trump to name Justice Neil Gorsuch as his first Supreme Court nominee in 2017. But McConnell later turned his back on his own questionable principle that Supreme Court nominees should not be elevated in an election year by rushing through the confirmation of Trump’s final pick, Amy Coney Barrett, in 2020 – which enshrined the current 6-3 conservative majority.

The move not only confirmed Trump’s status as a consequential president whose influence will be felt decades after he left office. It cemented McConnell among the ranks of the most significant Republican Party figures in decades and ensured conservative policies will endure even under Democratic presidencies and congressional majorities.

Recent revelations about questionable ethics practices by some of the conservative justices have further fueled fury about the legitimacy of the court among liberals.

But not all of the court’s recent decisions have infuriated the White House and Democrats. Earlier this week, for instance, liberals were hugely relieved when the court rejected a long-dormant legal theory that held that state courts and other state entities have a limited role in reviewing election rules established by state legislatures when it comes to federal elections. The so-called Independent State Legislature Theory, a favorite of the Trump campaign, had led to fears that Republican state legislatures in some states could simply decide how to allocate electoral votes regardless of results.

Still, the broad trajectory of the court – on issues including gun control, race, business, regulation, climate and many other issues – is firmly to the right.

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

It’s no coincidence that the Trumpist far-right assault on democracy began during the 2016 campaign with unprovoked attacks on Mexican migrants and bogus claims about the border and immigration. It was skillfully, if corruptly, followed up with weaponization of the immigration bureaucracy and packing of the Immigration Courts by the likes of Miller, Sessions, Barr, and Cooch. 

We have seen the GOP’s assault and dehumanization of migrants carry over into attacks on a wide range of disadvantaged groups in American society including African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, Muslim-Americans, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and many others.

Although the Supremes have held that every “person” in the United States is entitled to due process under law, that concept is ludicrous as applied to the U.S. Immigration Courts, where anti-asylum, anti-immigrant, pro-DHS bias still drives much of the decision making, prosecutors appoint the judges and write the rules, the Government can change results that don’t match its political agenda, and individuals are on trial for their lives without a right to appointed counsel or many times even the ability to fully understand the proceedings against them. Predictably, the overwhelming number of individuals stuck in this abusive system are persons of color, many women and children!  

This is “colorblind” American justice? Gimmie a break!

Although Dems acknowledged many of these outrageous defects in the Immigration Courts while campaigning for votes in 2020, once in power, they have shown little inclination to correct this unacceptable situation that undermines our democracy.

In particular, given a chance to reform the Immigration Courts, re-compete on a merit basis judicial positions filled under questionable procedures (at best) during the Trump Administration, bring in competent judicial administrators laser-focused on due process and best practices, and remake the Immigration Courts into a bastion of great progressive judging —  driven by due process and equal protection, Garland and the Dems have whiffed. In that way they have largely followed the Obama Administration’s failure to take seriously due process for persons who happen to be in Immigration Court. 

The failure of Dems to take immigrant justice seriously, and their inexcusable blown opportunity to reshape the Immigration Courts into a training and proving ground for the best and most qualified candidates for Article III judgeships ties directly into the anti-democracy shift in the Article IIIs and the GOP’s ability to carry out its right-wing agenda through a Supremes majority highly unrepresentative of Americans and our values.

An informed observer might well wonder “If the Dems are unwilling and unable to reform and improve the Federal Courts they do control — and apparently are ashamed of the progressive values they espouse — how will they ever counter the right’s anti-democracy agenda?”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-02-23

🤮INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE/DEFECTIVE COURTS — 3rd Cir. Exposes Massive Due Process Failure @ Garland’s EOIR! — St. Ford v. A.G.

 

https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/211729p.pdf

From Judge Roth’s opinion:

The need for effective assistance of counsel applies in immigration law just as it does in criminal law. Aliens, many of whom do not speak English and some of whom are detained before their immigration hearings, can be particularly susceptible to the consequences of ineffective lawyers.

 

Petitioner Arckange Saint Ford paid a lawyer to represent him in removal proceedings, but Saint Ford’s requests for relief from deportation were denied after the lawyer failed to present important and easily available evidence going to the heart of Saint Ford’s claims. Saint Ford retained new counsel, and his new lawyer asked the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen his case because of his former attorney’s ineffective assistance. The Board declined to do so. Because Saint Ford presents a meritorious ineffective-assistance claim, we will vacate the Board’s decision and remand.

And concurring Judge Ambro had a harsh assessment of the IJ, the BIA, and most of all A.G. Garland, who has been remarkably “tone deaf” about correcting the grotesque expertise and due process problems in his “wholly owned, astoundingly dysfunctional” Immigration “Courts:”

Arckange Saint Ford will get a second shot at canceling the Government’s order of removal—that’s what matters. The majority is remanding because of his former counsel’s deficient performance at Saint Ford’s removal hearing. I agree with that and concur in full.

But former counsel was not the only one who made significant missteps at the hearing. The Immigration Judge did as well. I therefore would have granted Saint Ford’s initial petition for review and remanded on that basis. I write separately to explain these errors in the hope that similar ones will not be made at Saint Ford’s new hearing.

. . . .

Here, though it was reasonable to request Saint Ford corroborate his testimony about the identity and motive of his harassers, the IJ did not tell him what corroboration she needed or give him a chance to present that evidence. There is no indication she engaged in the Abdulai inquiry as required before skipping straight to “hold[ing] the lack of corroboration against [Saint Ford].” Id. (alterations adopted). She went from first to third across the pitcher’s mound. Our Abdulai inquiry is there to ensure these important corners aren’t cut.

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

What’s wrong with this picture? Going on two decades after the enactment of the REAL ID Act, this IJ gets basic corroboration wrong on a life or death asylum case. Then, she compounds the error by failing to apply a two-decades old circuit precedent. The case sails through the BIA. Then, Garland’s OIL defends the indefensible. “Corner cutting” has become institutionalized, permitted, and even encouraged in today’s broken  EOIR!

Meanwhile, it’s left to Circuit Judge Ambro to do the jobs of Garland, his failed BIA, and an IJ badly in need of remedial training! This is an expert tribunal? This is justice? This is due process? Gimmie a break! 

This is squarely on Garland! He enables and defends defective, due-process-denying decisions by EOIR. His grotesque failure to appoint and empower a BIA that will end this nonsense and insist on competent legal performance from ALL Immigration Judges in these life or death cases is disgraceful!

Cases like this also “give lie” to the bogus claims that today’s EOIR is comprised of “experts” who can be trusted to remedy due process defects, model best practices, or (perhaps most absurdly) insure that the rights of all respondents, including the unrepresented, are protected. Why is a Dem Administration running a “due process denial machine?” Why is OIL defending the indefensible? Why is Garland still the AG, despite showing little interest and scant skill in creating a due process/fundamental fairness oriented tribunal at the “retail level” of our staggering justice system! 

You don’t have to be a “rocket scientist” to trace the disrespect for the Constitutional, statutory, and human rights of migrants, largely individuals of color, to hate crimes, misogyny, curtailment of voting rights, and disrespect for equal justice and racial justice throughout our nation. The stunningly poor performance of the U.S. Immigration Courts under Garland also sets an unfortunate tone for the staggering and highly politicized Federal Court system from bottom to top!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-19-22

🤯“MAINSTREAM MEDIA” FINALLY CATCHES UP WITH “COURTSIDE” — Trump’s Evil Cruelty, Biden’s “Slows” Combine To Shaft Ukrainians, Russians, Other Refugees, While Failing Our Allies! — It’s An Inexcusable Mess, Just As Many Of Us Predicted!☠️🤮

Screwed
“Screwed”
By Pearson Scott Foresman
Public Domain

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Special Report

March 18, 2022

For the last year, “Courtside” has been ripping the incredibly poor, timid, stunning lack of vision leadership, expertise, common sense, and morality in the Biden Administration’s failure to restore and expand a robust overseas refugee program and to enforce the rule of law and due process in our asylum system at the border and in the US. Even as I write this, Garland’s failed BIA, with too many Trump restrictionist holdover judges, continues to crank out bad asylum precedents and anti-immigrant legally incorrect appellate decisions and precedents. 

DOJ mindlessly continues to advance and defend the indefensible in Federal Court. It’s “Miller Lite” on steroids! Squandering taxpayer money, wasting scarce pro bono resources, and worst of all, endangering human lives!

Stephen Miller Monster
This guy has to be thrilled with Garland’s approach to human rights, racial justice, and due process @ DOJ! Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com

Essential human rights issues like providing definitive, generous, positive guidance to move gender-based asylum cases through the system, correcting “intentionally overly restrictive” and ridiculously hyper-technical, legally wrong, highly impractical applications of supposedly “generous” asylum laws, lack of common sense, expertise, understanding, and humanity remain endemic in Garland’s broken “court” system and the USCIS Asylum Offices which are supposed to be under their legal guidance. 

The border effectively remains illegally and irrationally closed to refugees seeking asylum! Absurdly, the decisions as to who lives and who dies are left to the unfettered, unreviewable, “discretion” of Border Patrol Agents who are glaringly unqualified to make them. There aren’t even any known criteria in effect!

Indeed, that’s the precise reason why Congress created Asylum Officers and put them and Immigration Judges into the life or death asylum screening process, only to have Trump abrogate the law as Federal Courts meekly and fecklessly stood by! Hardly America’s finest moment!

There is plenty of irresponsibility to go around! But, dilatory “What Me Worry” AG Merrick Garland and his feckless lieutenants Lisa Monaco, Vanita Gupta, Kristen Clarke, and Liz Prelogar, along with DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, deserve “special censure” for the brewing, unnecessarily out of control humanitarian and equal justice crisis!

Alfred E. Neumann
Garland’s tone-deaf approach to human rights and the rule of law now threatens the international order and the lives of perhaps millions of refugees and asylum seekers!
PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons

The WashPost finally “gets” it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/16/united-states-open-doors-ukraine-refugees/

The Biden administration’s immigration policy to date has been shambling. It can now do one big thing right: step up, grant humanitarian parole and help resettle Ukrainian refugees.

Catherine Rampell
Catherine Rampell
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

So does Catherine Rampell, writing in WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/17/ukrainians-are-suffering-consequences-of-our-broken-immigration-system/

Trump’s xenophobic policies had consequences beyond the cruelty inflicted while he was in office. Ultimately, they hobbled our ability to provide aid during a humanitarian catastrophe and thereby protect our own national security interests. Now, Biden must not only respond to the current crisis but also repair our institutions so that we have greater capacity to deal with future ones.

I’m sure traumatized Ukrainians and Russian dissidents being improperly turned back at our border were comforted by the following tone-deaf blather from Mayorkas as reported by Deepa Fernandes in the SF Chron:

 

Deepa Fernandes
Deepa Fernandes
Immigration Reporter
SF Chronicle
PHOTO: SF Chron

https://www.sfchronicle.com/us-world/article/They-protested-Putin-and-fled-their-country-Now-17010445.php

On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas told reporters that Border Patrol agents were reminded they have some leeway with regard to enforcing Title 42, particularly when it comes to those fleeing the crisis in Ukraine, BuzzFeed News reported.

“This was policy guidance that reminded (border officers) of those individualized determinations and their applicability to Ukrainian nationals as they apply to everyone else,” the online news outlet quoted Mayorkas as telling reporters.

Come on, man! You’ve got to be kidding me!

Belatedly, it appears that the Biden Administration is now “considering” restoring the rule of law at the borders (something they actually promised during the election), according to Alexandra Meeks over at CNN:

Alexandra Meeks
ALexandra Meeks
Current News Reporter
CNN
PHOTO: Linkedin

 

 

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https://e.newsletters.cnn.com/click?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

The Biden administration is preparing for the potential of mass migration to the US-Mexico border when a Trump-era pandemic emergency rule ends. The influx is expected because officials are considering the possibility of terminating a public health order known as Title 42, which border authorities have relied on to turn away migrants, sources familiar with the discussions said. Internal documents, first reported by Axios, estimate around 170,000 people may be coming to the US border and some 25,000 migrants are already in shelters in Mexico. The Department of Homeland Security has asked department personnel to volunteer at the Mexico border in response.

But, it’s not clear that they have any real plan in mind. That’s certainly the case in Garland’s dysfunctional, astoundingly backlogged (1.6 million known cases) Immigration “Courts” led by a Trump restrictionist BIA. “Gauleiter” Stephen Miller must evilly chuckle every morning at how Garland has left his “designed for White Nationalism” system largely in place and continuing to shaft and screw asylum seekers on a daily basis.

And, no, 170,000 migrants arriving at the border, not all of whom are seeking asylum, isn’t a “mass migration” emergency! It’s a fairly predictable movement of migrants at a pace that should be well within the capabilities of our nation. 

Treat them with respect. Promptly and properly screen them with qualified Asylum Officers. Timely welcome those many who qualify for protection with competent expert Immigration Judges. End the anti-asylum nonsense and move the many grantable asylum, withholding, and CAT cases through the system. Develop humane, orderly responses for those who are rejected. Get in place a new BIA that understands asylum law, due process, and human rights. Empower them to “knock heads” of IJs and Asylum Officers who won’t let go of the White Nationalist “reject, don’t protect” program!” 

It’s not “rocket science.” 🚀 Not by a long shot!

No, an “emergency mass migration situation” is 3.2 million refugees fleeing war in Ukraine in three weeks and arriving in allied nations like Poland, Romania, and Moldova who have far fewer resources and ability to respond than the U.S.! These are also nations who legitimately fear that they could be next on Russia’s “hit list.”

And, while the humanitarian crisis is brewing, what’s Garland up to? He beefing up his already-record-setting Immigration Court backlog with “kiddie cases” (0-4 year olds, incredibly) — to the extent anyone can even figure it out, given his notoriously flawed and unprofessional record keeping at EOIR. See, e.g., https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/681/. 

Toddler
Garland and his top lieutenants are too busy filling the Immigration Courts with these desperados in the 0-4 age group to worry about restoring due process or treating asylum seekers fairly!
PHOTO: Sean Choe, Creative Commons License

Honestly! But, don’t say that “Courtside,” Jeffrey Chase Blog, Dan Kowalski, ImmigrationProf Blog, CGRS, Human Rights First, NIJC, AILA, KIND, NCIJ, ABA, and many other experts didn’t warn against this grotesque failure long ago — often predating the 2020 election!

I understand that “no fly zones” are more complicated than most American pols and media wags think and that there are challenges to waging war from afar without actually declaring war on Russia. But, repairing our refugee, asylum, and immigration systems, and restoring due process to our courts are not in this category of difficulty. 

It’s beyond time for the Biden Administration, particularly Mayorkas and Garland, to get the lead out, grow backbones, get rid of the remnants of Trumpism in their ranks  — personnel, substance, process — and run a refugee and asylum legal system that serves our and our allies’ needs. One that is values and law based! One that our nation can be proud of, rather than embarrassed before the world! End the Clown Show, in Falls Church and throughout our muddling immigration and (non) human rights bureaucracy!🤡

Amateur Night
The Garland/Mayorkas “Plan” for human rights and immigrant justice is proving as deadly as it is dysfunctional.
PHOTO: Thomas Hawk
Creative Commons
Amateur Night

Time’s a wasting and people are dying! ⚰️ Enough of “Amateur Night at the Bijou.”☠️ Nobody’s laughing!🤮

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-18-22

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ @ CNN EXPOSES BIDEN’S SECRET, DUE-PROCESS-FREE, DEPORTATIONS OF VENEZUELANS TO COLOMBIA! ☠️🤮 — Venezuela’s Repressive Left-Wing Dictatorship — So Horrible It’s Not Even Recognized By The US — Has Sent Millions Of Refugees Fleeing — That Hasn’t Stopped Biden From Arbitrarily Rejecting Them!

Priscilla Alvarez
CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Priscilla Alvarez
Politics Reporter, CNN

Priscilla’s latest:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/31/politics/border-venezuela-colombia/index.html

US begins quietly flying Venezuelan migrants to Colombia under controversial border policy

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

Updated 12:27 PM ET, Mon January 31, 2022

(CNN)The Biden administration, unable to return an increasing number of Venezuelans arrested at the US-Mexico border to their home country, is now sending those migrants to Colombia if they previously resided there, according to two Homeland Security officials.

White House officials have grown increasingly concerned about the large numbers of single adults continuing to cross the US southern border, particularly from countries that Mexico won’t accept under a controversial Trump-era policy, two sources familiar with discussions said.

The flights of Venezuelans to Colombia, which have not been previously reported, marks another effort by the administration to try to stem the flow of migrants, pushing those who arrive further away from the US-Mexico border including those seeking asylum.

In December, US Customs and Border Protection encountered more than 13,000 single adults from Venezuela on the US southern border, compared with 96 in December 2020, according to agency data.

A humanitarian crisis and political instability have taken hold of Venezuela in recent years. Around 6 million people have fled the country, according to the United Nations, usually fleeing to other parts of Latin America which have also struggled during the pandemic.

There’s been bipartisan acknowledgment of the deteriorating situation in Venezuela. Last year, Sens. Marco Rubio, a Republican, and Bob Menendez, a Democrat, introduced a Senate resolution expressing alarm over the situation in the country.

Colombia also granted temporary legal status to Venezuelans who had fled there, allowing them to legally work in the country. But for those who opted to journey to the US-Mexico border to seek protections in the US, expulsion to Colombia now puts them thousands of miles away from the possibility of claiming asylum in the US.

The handling of the US-Mexico border has dogged the Biden administration since the early days of Joe Biden’s presidency as a growing number of migrants journey to the United States, fleeing deteriorating conditions in the western hemisphere. Republicans have recently seized on the releases of migrants — some of whom can’t be expelled because of their nationality — citing it as another example of what they describe as the administration’s poor management of the border.

Under a public health authority, known as Title 42, authorities can swiftly remove migrants encountered at the US southern border, effectively barring those seeking asylum from doing so and marking an unprecedented departure from previous protocol. The authority was invoked at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, despite suspicions among officials that it was politically motivated.

The White House has repeatedly referred to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the future of the policy, saying the agency deems it necessary given the Delta and Omicron variants.

Last Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security returned two Venezuelan nationals to Colombia, where they had previously resided, the department told CNN, adding that flights to Colombia are expected to take place “on a regular basis.”

“As part of the United States COVID-19 mitigation efforts, DHS continues to enforce CDC’s Title 42 public health authority with all individuals encountered at the Southwest border. However, DHS’s ability to expel individuals may be limited for several reasons, including Mexico’s ability and capacity to receive individuals of certain nationalities,” DHS said in a statement, adding that the department has removed migrants to third countries in the region where they had lived or had status.

DHS has also acknowledged the precarious situation in Venezuela by granting a form of humanitarian relief for Venezuelans already in the United States.

Still, the Biden administration has continued to rely on the public health authority and recently defended it in court — a move that received criticism from immigrant advocates and Democratic lawmakers. The latest decision to expel migrants from Venezuela — a country in crisis — to Colombia reveals a further dependence on the public health authority amid a growing number of Venezuelans arriving at the US-Mexico border.

In December, US Customs and Border Protection encountered 24,819 Venezuelans at the US southern border including single adults, families and minors, up from the previous month and continuing an increasing trend. As a point of comparison, in December 2020, CBP encountered only around 200 Venezuelan migrants, according to agency data.

While tens of thousands of migrants have been turned away at the US-Mexico border, some, like South Americans, aren’t accepted by Mexico and therefore those nationals largely can’t be expelled. Under the public health authority, DHS has removed migrants to Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Brazil.

Some migrants from Venezuela crossed the border in Yuma, Arizona — often flying to an airport in Mexico and then crossing at a gap along the Colorado River, cutting the journey down to just days. It’s the most viable option for many Venezuelans and Brazilians, for example, who can’t obtain a visa that allows them to work in the US — or can’t afford the years-long wait for the legal immigration process. Mexico recently put new visa restrictions in place for Venezuelans traveling to Mexico.

The US has previously taken measures to try to lower the number of migrants at the US-Mexico border. Last year, the administration started flying migrants apprehended at the southern border and subject to the Trump-era border policy linked to the pandemic to the interior of Mexico.

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

Let’s see. Colombia, a country of approximately 50 million, has taken in about 1.7 million Venezuelans. https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2021/10/31/supporting-colombian-host-communities-and-venezuelan-migrants-during-the-covid-19-pandemic

The US, a far larger and more prosperous country with approximately 7x the population of Colombia, has taken fewer than 350,000. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/09/us-temporary-protection-venezuelans

Forced migration is real, no matter what fictions and myths Administrations of both parties use to deny it. 

Pretending otherwise, and that lawless deportations and “deterrence” will materially change the forces that drive it, is both immoral and ultimately futile.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-03-22

🤯👎🏽MORE CIRCUIT REJECTS FOR GARLAND & PRELOGAR — 1st & 3rd Cirs “Just Say No” To DOJ’s Ill-Advised Positions On “Theft Offense” & Derivative Citizenship!  — It’s Part Of A Larger Leadership Failure @ Garland’s Broken DOJ!

From Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca1-on-categorical-approach-da-graca-v-garland

CA1 on Categorical Approach: Da Graca v. Garland

Da Graca v. Garland

“Aires Daniel Benros Da Graca petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (the “Board”) affirming his order of removal and denying his requests for cancellation of removal and voluntary departure. Because we find that a conviction under Rhode Island General Laws (“RIGL”) § 31-9-1 is not categorically a theft offense, we grant the petition for review, vacate the decision below, and remand for further proceedings.”

[Hats off to Randy Olen and Robert F. Weber!]

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

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca3-derivative-citizenship-victory-jaffal-v-director

CA3 Derivative Citizenship Victory: Jaffal v. Director

https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/203148p.pdf

 

“Appellant Imad Jaffal, born in Jordan, seeks a declaration that he is entitled to derivative U.S. citizenship under former 8 U.S.C. § 1432(a). That statute provides that “a child born outside the United States automatically acquires United States citizenship if, while the child is under the age of eighteen, the parent with legal custody of the child is naturalized while that child’s parents are legally separated.” Jaffal’s father was naturalized when Jaffal was seventeen years old, and Jaffal presented evidence to the District Court that he was in the sole legal custody of his father when his father was naturalized and his parents were separated. The District Court, however, declined to accept Jaffal’s evidence of his parents’ divorce. Because we conclude that was error, we will reverse the order of the District Court and remand the matter with instructions to issue a judgment declaring Jaffal to be a national of the United States.”

[Hats way off to Alexandra Tseitlin!]

pastedGraphic.png

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

Here’s my favorite quote from Judge Torresen’s decision in  Da Garcia v. Garland:

Despite this apparent disconnect between RIGL § 31-9-1 and the Board’s definition of theft offense, the Board in Da Graca’s case determined that to prove the statute’s overbreadth, the Petitioner was required to identify actual cases in which Rhode Island had enforced the statute against de minimis deprivations of ownership interests. Da Graca contests the Board’s imposition of an actual case requirement and argues that he “need not necessarily proffer specific examples of Rhode Island prosecutions in order to establish a ‘realistic probability’ that the state would apply its statute to conduct that falls outside the generic definition of a crime.” We agree with Da Graca.

Essentially, Garland’s BIA “makes it up as it goes along” to reach a denial, then Prelogar’s DOJ attorneys defend the illegal result. Sounds like a really bad system, lacking accountability, expertise, common sense, and, sometimes, professional responsibility. 

Lest you think that the legal nonsense being produced by Garland’s BIA and the USCIS is “below Prelogar’s radar screen” in her exulted position, that’s NOT true! Every adverse decision suffered by the USG must be reported to the SG’s Office with an analysis and recommendations from the agency’s attorneys, the litigators who handled the case, the appellate section of litigating division (here the Civil Division), and the SG’s staff. No appeal, petition for rehearing en banc, or petition for cert. can be filed without the express authorization of the SG’s Office. 

So, Prelogar is well aware of the bad positions, unfairness, and poor work product DOJ attorneys are defending (sometimes with a lack of candor or misleading the courts) and their abuses of the time of the Article IIIs. 

Even with the “real” (Article III) Federal Courts moving markedly to the right (following four years of Trump-McConnell appointments and eight years of lackadaisical performance by the Obama Administration), and rules that strongly favor the Government on judicial review, DOJ’s haphazard performance under Garland and Prelogar continues to earn a stream of avoidable “kickbacks” from the Article IIIs. The DOJ system is broken in many places — EOIR is just the most obvious, most pressing, and most easily addressed area of failure.

There is a tendency of immigration advocates, perhaps still hoping to curry favor with an Administration that largely ignores and despises them, to overemphasize the largely cosmetic and low impact “positive” changes made by the Biden Administration. See, e.g., https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/biden-at-the-one-year-mark-a-greater-change-in-direction-on-immigration-than-is-recognized;

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/01/biden-keeps-trump-immigration-policiesand-stephen-miller-is-loving-it.html

At the same time they acknowledge but downplay the existential crippling effects of Garland’s failure to bring progressive reforms to EOIR, his defense of disgraceful, immoral, and inhumane “Miller Lite” positions in Federal Court, his intentional indifference to human suffering and the complete breakdown of the rule of law at our borders, and his disdain for removing the Trump enablers, deadwood, and poor lawyers from DOJ — at all levels.

I have a radically different perspective on the future of meaningful progressive immigration reforms, based on my nearly 50 years of involvement with the system on both sides and at all levels — more than most folks. 

There will be no meaningful, sustainable immigration reforms without a radically reformed, remade, Immigration Court system with a judiciary of due-process-oriented progressive experts who have the courage to “speak truth to power,” stand up for the legal, constitutional, and human right of the most vulnerable, and put integrity, humanity, and the best interests of our nation above career advancement, survival, or “ingratiation with the powers that be.” That’s NOT Garland’s DOJ — which remains largely the out of control, often ethically challenged morass that he inherited from his predecessors.

Let’s not forget that through intentional misuse of precedents, weaponization of EOIR, and White Nationalist litigation strategies, Jeff Sessions was able to largely disable the entire asylum system, including USCIS Asylum Offices, and shift USCIS Adjudications from service to “enforcement only,” in preparation for the “final eradication” of asylum and crippling of our entire legal immigration system by his crony and former subordinate, Stephen Miller. And, the folks who helped him do that and “went along to go along” with abuses are still largely on board and in key positions in Garland’s DOJ — actually operating with his apparent “stamp of approval.” Outrageous!

From a due process, human rights, progressive, good government, equal justice, racial equality standpoint, as well as from any aspect of moral leadership on fundamental values, Garland’s performance at DOJ has been unacceptable. Has Garland visited any of the camps in Mexico or gone to the “New American Gulag” to witness first-hand the human carnage for which he is responsible? Heck no! That’s a job for progressive experts whose input and advice he then shuns, ignores, and “tunes out!”

For progressive advocates to downplay the Biden Administration’s gross failures or “over-cheer” incremental progress that means little without fundamental reforms at EOIR and the DOJ only deepens the fecklessness of their own positions and furthers the disrespect and under-appreciation of their efforts, potential power, and value that has become an endemic feature of the Democratic Party. 

The Biden Administration might talk a good game, particularly around election time; but, in reality, they are governing largely in fear of and like nativist Republicans — but getting no “political return” whatsoever for betraying their supposed values and their base (see, Catherine Rampell). Advocates reward and tolerate such disgraceful and intellectually dishonest conduct at their own peril!

Meanwhile, Suzanne Clark, President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, certainly no “progressive shill,” speaks truth about the need for and our ability to accept more immigrants:

Allowing more immigrants into the US would help mitigate both soaring inflation and the current labor shortage, the CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce said.

“We need more workers,” Suzanne Clark told reporters Tuesday, per CNN. “We should welcome people who want to come here, go to school, and stay.”

“That is a place the government could be particularly helpful and we do believe it would be anti-inflationary,” she said, per CNN.

https://apple.news/AT8YmOLhiTOCuUFZijTLJCQ

Those immigrants are right in front of us: rotting in camps at the border, being returned to danger or death with no process — both as a result of Garland’s failure to re-establish our legal asylum system at the border — or languishing in Garland’s mushrooming 1.6 million Immigration Court backlog! It doesn’t take a “rocket scientist” to see that instead of wasting time, money, and resources on mindless “enforcement” intended to deter and discourage those who might help us by helping themselves, we should have set up fair and timely processing systems, staffed by experts, that would identify the many individuals at the border and already in the U.S. who can qualify to remain under fair and properly generous interpretations of asylum law, withholding, CAT, U & T visas, “stateside processing waivers,” cancellation of removal” (for those already here), TPS, and other possibilities. 

This is just as much”law enforcement” and “maintaining the integrity of our system” as are the efforts to increase deportations, terrorize communities, or close borders to “deter” migrants (primarily those of color) that has been practiced to some degree by every Administration. It also makes sense, economically, practically, and ethically.

It starts with an Attorney General and DOJ with the courage and vision to end the “deterrence only” misconstruction of our laws and stand up for the legal and human rights of migrants, regardless of race, color, creed, or manner of entry. That’s not what Garland has been doing to date! Too bad, because there will be no resolution of immigration issues — nor will there be racial justice in America — without an AG who will stand up for the real rule of law rather than the parody of the law and justice purveyed by Miller and his White Nationalists and still being parroted and too often defended by Garland and his minions.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever.

PWS

01-21-22

🤮🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️ GARLAND’S “SHAMEFUL RECORD” GETS EVEN WORSE AS HE DEFENDS STEPHEN MILLER’S DEGRADATION OF HUMANITY AT OUR BORDERS!

Stephen Miller Monster
Biden’s “Shadow Attorney General” speaks through the likeness of Merrick Garland! Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com
Priscilla Alvarez
CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Priscilla Alvarez
Politics Reporter, CNN

Priscilla Alvarez reports for CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/title-42-biden/index.html

. . . .

“Today we heard the same unconvincing arguments from the Biden administration that we’ve been hearing for the last year about this xenophobic and baseless policy, arguments that have already been rejected in federal court. Title 42 unjustly and unnecessarily inflicts harm on families seeking asylum at our border, and we will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that this policy ends once and for all,” said Diana Kearney, senior legal adviser with Oxfam America, in a statement.

In a recently released report, Human Rights First found nearly 9,000 reports of kidnappings and other violent attacks against people who had been expelled to Mexico or blocked from seeking protection in the US.

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

Read Priscilla’s full story on the bottomless depths to which Garland has taken American “justice” and the Department of “Justice” at the link.

I can always count on Garland to illustrate and punctuate my points about his unfitness for the job of achieving racial equality, re-establishing the rule of law, and promoting human rights in America, not to mention his total unsuitability and inability to run a fair, impartial, due-process-oriented court system! He probably would have been right at home with the “GOP Six” on the Supremes.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-20-22

⚖️🗽CHAMPIONS OF JUSTICE, MAKING A DIFFERENCE: 🛡⚔️ Round Table’s Fight For Better Policies, Best Practices, Earns Acclaim!

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table
Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

From “Sir Jeffrey” Chase:

Our statement yesterday on MPP was referenced and quoted by CNN at the end of this article by Priscilla Alvarez and Geneva Sands on the MPP restart:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/06/politics/biden-remain-in-mexico/index.html

Priscilla Alvarez
CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Priscilla Alvarez
Politics Reporter, CNN
Geneva Sands
CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Geneva Sands

This morning, Democracy Now referenced our letter in a segment covering the issue, saying:

 A group of former immigration judges released a statement condemning the return of the program as the “antithesis of fairness.”  

Here is the link:

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/12/7/biden_trump_era_remain_in_mexico

Furthermore, in oral arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday in Patel v. Garland, our amicus brief received a brief mention:

  • JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: — questions, how 

  • 10  could an appellate court — and this question 

  • 11  cuts both ways, so — but how can an appellate 

  • 12  court look at a cold record and determine a 

  • 13  factual error when it relates to credibility, 

  • 14  for example, or something like that? Just give 

  • 15  me some examples where this will matter, I 

  • 16  guess. 

  • 17  MR. FLEMING: Well, there — as the 

  • 18  amici, the American Immigration Lawyers 

  • 19  Association and the EOIR judges, point out, it 

  • 20  — it’s not uncommon.Best, Jeff

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

And, here’s more coverage from Human Rights First:

Courtesy Paul Ratje — AFP via Getty Images

 

A man sits in a migrant camp near Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico.

The new version of MPP expands its focus to asylum seekers from across the hemisphere, stranding even more people seeking safety in dangerous conditions at the border.

 

Kennji Kizuka, Associate Director for Research and Analysis, Refugee Protection, appeared on Democracy Now! and detailed the many human rights violations faced by asylum seekers processed under the “Remain in Mexico” policy.

 

“It’s extraordinarily concerning that the Biden administration is not only restarting this policy but expanding it,” said Kizuka.

Human Rights First also announced the resumption of our research documenting the human rights abuses suffered by people turned away to wait in danger under MPP.

 

Human Rights First’s Associate Attorney, Refugee Protection Julia Neusner and Advocacy Strategist for Refugee Protection Ana Ortega Villegas are on the ground in Ciudad Juárez to monitor the first days of MPP’s reinstatement.  Please follow their live updates and other reports through Human Rights First’s twitter account.

Our team’s view of the Mexican government’s

staging area in Cuidad Juárez for Remain in Mexico 2.0

 

Our position is gaining widespread support from those who understand the issue.  The Roundtable of Former Immigration Judges condemned

MPP as the “antithesis of fairness,” concluding that there has been “no greater affront to due process, fairness and transparency,” and called for administration to “permanently end the program.”

 

The union for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asylum officers tasked with MPP screenings call it “irredeemably flawed.”  They said that restarting MPP “makes our members complicit in violations of U.S. federal law and binding international treaty obligations of non-refoulement that they have sworn to uphold.”

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

So proud to be a part of this group and so grateful for the leadership of colleagues like Judges Jeffrey Chase, Ilyce Shugall, Lory Rosenberg, Carol King, Joan Churchill, Denise Slavin, Sue Roy, John Gossart, Charles Honeyman, Charlie Pazar, Sarah Burr, Cecelia Espenoza, Bruce Einhorn, Tue Phan-Quang, Bob Weisel, Paul Grussendorf, Jennie Giambastini, and many, many, many others! 

As an “appreciative fellow NDPA member” told me yesterday, “it’s a true team effort!“ This type of teamwork for the public good was once encouraged at EOIR and even incorporated into the “leadership vision,” but now, sadly, it has “fallen by the wayside” in what has basically become a “haste makes waste race to the bottom.”

Fortunately, the Round Table and other members of the NDPA still share a “vision of what American justice should look like” and are willing to speak up for what’s legal and right rather than just “expedient!”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-09-21

🛡⚔️👍🏼“SIR JEFFREY” CHASE — Garland’s Immigration “Judges” Pull The Ol’ “Bait & Switch” — They Only Are “Judges” When “OIL” Is Trying To Convince Ethically & Legally Challenged Article III Courts To “Defer” To EOIR Decisions — Otherwise, They Are Expected To Act Like DOJ ”Grundoons” Mindlessly Carrying Out The Executive’s Agenda Cloaked In Quasi-Judicial Disguise!

Grundoon
Grundoon
From Walt Kelly’s “Pogo”
SOURCE: Pininterest

Grundoon: A diapered baby groundhog (or “woodchunk” in swamp-speak). An infant toddler, Grundoon speaks only gibberish, represented by strings of random consonants like “Bzfgt”, “ktpv”, “mnpx”, “gpss”, “twzkd”, or “znp”. Eventually, Grundoon learns to say two things: “Bye” and “Bye-bye”. He also has a baby sister, whose full name is Li’l Honey Bunny Ducky Downy Sweetie Chicken Pie Li’l Everlovin’ Jelly Bean. [From the Walt Kelly comic strip “Pogo.”]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_(comic_strip)

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2021/4/29/the-dojs-contradictions

Contact

The DOJ’s Contradictions

In a recent blog post, I discussed the difficulty in establishing asylum based on a political opinion expressed against MS-13.  In the specific case discussed, the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed the Immigration Judge’s finding that the asylum-seeker had expressed a political opinion to MS-13 members.1  In reversing the Immigration Judge, the BIA specifically stated as to MS-13 that “the gangs are criminal organizations, and not political or governmental organizations and gang activities are not political in nature.”  The BIA has repeatedly expressed this same view (using this or similar boilerplate language) in its decisions denying asylum.  In the particular case discussed in my blog post, a split panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals could not find enough evidence of record to compel the majority to overturn the BIA’s conclusion.

The BIA is of course a part of the U.S. Department of Justice; its judges are appointed by and employed by the Attorney General.  Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was one of the Department officials to make the following point to a class of new Immigration Judges in March 2019:

Immigration judges appointed by the Attorney General and supervised by the Executive Office for Immigration Review are not only judges. First, you are not only judges because you are also employees of the United States Department of Justice. It is a great honor to serve in this Department. In the courtyard just outside the entrance to this Great Hall, high up on the interior wall of the Main Justice building, there is a depiction of the scales of justice and an inscription that reads, “Privilegium Obligatio.” It means that when you accept a privilege, you incur an obligation. In this Department, our duty is in our name. We are the only cabinet agency with a name that articulates a moral value.

Justice is not measured by statistics. Our employees learn from day one that their duty is to gather the facts, seek the truth, apply the law, and respect the policies and principles of the Department of Justice.

The second reason that you are not only judges is that in addition to your adjudicative function – finding facts and applying laws – you are a member of the executive branch. You follow lawful instructions from the Attorney General, and you share a duty to enforce the law.2

The clear message being conveyed is “Don’t get any big ideas of judicial independence and neutrality; you work for ‘Team Justice,’ and you will behave accordingly.”  Am I alone in thinking that the motto cited by Rosenstein, “when you accept a privilege, you incur an obligation,” here comes across as a boss reminding new employees where their loyalties lie rather than as a commitment to truth and justice?

As wrong as this message is when conveyed to judges who are supposed to enjoy the independence and neutrality to rule against the Department of Justice and the Attorney General when the facts and law compel such an outcome, let’s examine this view for the consistency of its application as to all DOJ employees.  Presumably, the Board’s official stance that MS-13 is not a political organization and that its activities are criminal and not political in nature enjoys the Department’s seal of approval.  In fact, other Department of Justice attorneys, working for the Office of Immigration Litigation, defend that view when the BIA”s decisions are reviewed on appeal by the Circuit Courts.  I’m not aware of any Attorney General action to certify a BIA decision expressing this view in order to correct the Board’s position on this issue, or even to remand to the Board for further consideration of its position in light of other conflicting views within the Department.

Regarding such conflicting views, I was recently made aware of a criminal indictment drafted by the U.S. Attorneys’ Office in the Eastern District of New York.3  The indictment was filed in December, 2020, while the Trump Administration was still in office.  The opening paragraph of the indictment states that MS-13 is a transnational criminal organization engaged in terrorist activity, and that its members use violence “in order to obtain concessions from the government of El Salvador, achieve political goals and retaliate for government actions against MS-13’s members and leaders.” (emphasis added).

The indictment contains a specific section titled “Political Influence in El Salvador.”  The indictment states that a unit of MS-13, the Ranfla Nacional, “gained political influence as a result of the violence and intimidation MS-13 exerted on the government and population of El Salvador.”  It continued that the organization exercised leverage on the Salvadoran government through its control on the level of violence.  The indictment states that in 2012, MS-13 exercised its leverage to negotiate a truce with the ruling FMLN party and its rival 18th Street “to reduce homicides in El Salvador in return for improved prison conditions, benefits and money.”  According to the indictment, MS-13 also negotiated a similar agreement with the rival ARENA party, promising to deliver votes in return for benefits.  The indictment states that over time, “the Ranfla Nacional continued to negotiate with political parties in El Salvador and use its control of the level of violence to influence the actions of the government in El Salvador.”

The indictment also contains a section explaining the purpose of the Ranfla Nacional.  The second specific goal listed is: “Influencing the actions of governments in El Salvador and elsewhere to implement policies favorable to MS-13.”

The attorneys who made the above claims in an indictment filed in Federal District Court are also employees of the U.S. Department of Justice.  They are also members of the executive branch, following lawful instructions from the Attorney General, and sharing a duty to enforce the law.   In the Second Circuit case I recently discussed, other Department of Justice attorneys in their brief to the court defended the Board’s decision by depicting MS-13 as “an institution that is entirely non-governmental – that is…a group of criminals who, in fact, reject the rules set out by the government.”  Noticeably absent from the same brief was any mention that this “rejection of the rules set out by government” includes strategies to pressure said government into undertaking specific actions, as well as its entering into negotiations and ultimately agreements with political parties, the terms of which include MS-13’s delivering votes in return for the parties’ commitment to enacting beneficial policies.

So how can it be that attorneys in one office of the Department of Justice argue that MS-13 as an organization is engaged in exerting political influence to achieve its political goals, and at the same time, another group of attorneys within the same Department of Justice can sign orders sending victims of the same MS-13 to their death by employing a boilerplate sentence that MS-13 is not a political organization and its activities are not political in nature?  And that the decisions of that latter group are then defended by a third group of Department attorneys on appeal who make no mention of the conflicting arguments?  Let’s remember that, according to Rosenstein, these attorneys were taught from day one that their duties as Department of Justice employees include gathering the facts and seeking the truth.

In 1997, a very different BIA wrote the following in a decision that, although still binding as precedent, seems long forgotten:

immigration enforcement obligations do not consist only of initiating and conducting prompt proceedings that lead to removals at any cost. Rather, as has been said, the government wins when justice is done. In that regard, the handbook for trial attorneys states that “[t]he respondent should be aided in obtaining any procedural rights or benefits required by the statute, regulation and controlling court decision, of the requirements of fairness.” Handbook for Trial Attorneys § 1.3 (1964). See generally Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas Co. v. FERC, 962 F.2d 45, 48 (D.C. Cir. 1992)(finding astonishing that counsel for a federal administrative agency denied that the A.B.A. Code of Professional Responsibility holds government lawyers to a higher standard and has obligations that “might sometimes trump the desire to pound an opponent into submission”); Reid v. INS, 949 F.2d 287 (9th Cir. 1991)(noting that government counsel has an interest only in the law being observed, not in victory or defeat).4

This matter deserves the immediate attention of Attorney General Merrick Garland.  The ability of asylum seekers to receive a fair review of their claims based on accurate information is a matter of life and death.  At this early stage of the Biden Administration, it is critical that the Department send a clear message that the “obligation” mentioned in its motto is to serve an ideal of justice that is independent of the particular politics of those temporally in charge.

Copyright 2021 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

Notes:

  1. Zelaya-Moreno v. Wilkinson, No. 17-2284, ___ F.3d ___ (2d Cir., Feb. 26, 2021).
  2. https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/deputy-attorney-general-rod-j-rosenstein-delivers-opening-remarks-investiture-31-newly.
  3. E.D.N.Y. Docket No.: 20-CR-577 (JFB).  The Department of Justice’s Press Release can be found here: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/ms-13-s-highest-ranking-leaders-charged-terrorism-offenses-united-states.
  4. Matter of S-M-J-, 21 I&N Dec. 722, 727 (BIA 1997).

APRIL 29, 2021

Reprinted by permission.

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

As most outside the nativist world know, the BIA’s position that Northern Triangle gangs aren’t political in nature and action is absurd! For Pete’s sake, these guys negotiate “peace treaties”  with governments, control large swaths of territory, manipulate “public death rates” for political gain, aid or punish political candidates and police, collect taxes, control jobs, and have economic policies. Sure sounds like a quasi-governmental, clearly political entity to me. Somewhere, there is a dissent of mine in an old published CAT case saying approximately that.

At least at one point, gangs in El Salvador controlled more jobs than did the Salvadoran Government! No competent, unbiased group of adjudicators (not to mention supposed “experts”) could have reached the BIA’s ridiculous, clearly politicized conclusions!

Sadly, to date, Judge Garland has followed in the footsteps of his dilatory Dem predecessors by destroying lives, promoting injustice, and blowing the Dems’ best chance to build a progressive, due process oriented, human rights advancing judiciary that also would help resolve America’s failure to come to grips with the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention and its key role in our legal immigration system as well as being a prerequisite to achieving racial justice in America.

Supposedly, these are the goals of the Biden Administration. Unfortunately, Garland, Monaco, and Gupta haven’t gotten the message, although it has been “delivered” time after time by numerous experts and advocates!

A few historical notes:

  • I was on the en banc BIA that decided Matter of S-M-J-, cited by Jeffrey. It was written by Judge Michael J. Heilman, a fellow Wisconsinite who once had worked for me at the “Legacy INS” General Counsel, following service as a State Department consular officer. That case “originated” on a three-member panel of Heilman, the late Judge Lauri Steven Filppu, and me. It reflects the “government wins when justice is done” message that I had incorporated into INS attorney training years earlier, as well as fealty to UN Handbook standards encouraged by the Supremes in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, and the “best practices” that bygone BIA was consciously and aggressively advancing.
  • Former DAG Rod Rosenstein was once a respected career prosecutor who served Administrations of both parties. Then, he “sold out” to the Trump Administration and its neo-fascists. Although that probably should have ended his legal career, he’s currently enjoying life in “big law” while those victims harmed and wronged by the illegal and unethical policies (or, in some cases their survivors) he furthered continue to suffer.

Radical progressive due process reforms @ EOIR, starting with wholesale personnel changes and revocation of restrictionist, racist, misogynist policies and practices is long overdue. Nearly two months into his tenure Judge Garland has yet to demonstrate awareness of the need for immediate, decisive action. Meanwhile the bodies continue to pile up and the “adverse decisions” from the Article IIIs bearing his name and tarnishing his reputation continue to roll in! 

Actually, Judge, each wrong decision from the BIA represents a human life ruined, often irrevocably. Is that the type of “impact” on American justice that you intend to leave as your “legacy?”

 

Tower of Babel
EOIR HQ, Falls Church, VA (a/k/a “The Tower of Babel”)
By Pieter Bruegel The Elder
Public Domain

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-01-21

CNN’S CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR INTERVIEWS NDPA SUPERSTAR 🌟 ANDREA MARTINEZ ON NEED FOR BIDEN’S IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL!

Amanpour & Martinez
CCN Anchor Christiane Amanpour & Immigration Attorney Andrea Martinez
SOURCE: CNN

Watch this video clip from CCN:

https://apple.news/A5fldUh3pTnWBhjhXUz6QOg

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Thanks for speaking out Andrea! Andrea is a former Arlington Immigration Court intern and one of the “charter members” of the NDPA. As captured on this video, she was assaulted by ICE while trying to assist her child client in reuniting with his mother! A civil suit against the agent involved is pending.

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-27-21

CNN: Some Separated Families Reunited; Biden Restores Legal Immigration; “Remain in Mexico” Phaseout Begins!

Priscilla Alvarez
CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Priscilla Alvarez
Politics Reporter, CNN

Immigration

 

Lawyers are slowly making progress in locating and reuniting children and families separated at the southern US border as part of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. A month ago, the parents of 611 children had yet to be located. Now, that number is down to 506. President Biden this month signed an executive order establishing a new task force designed to identify and reunify these separated families. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has lifted an order that temporarily banned certain immigrant visas during the pandemic and will begin admitting some of the hundreds of migrants held in deplorable conditions in tent camps as part of a policy requiring them to stay in Mexico until their US court dates. Both these decisions are reversals of controversial Trump-era policies.

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Progress on restoring the rule of law at the border and in our legal immigration system, although many advocates yearn for much faster remedial action. Links to more detailed analysis, much of it by CNN All-Star 🌟 Immigration Reporter Priscilla Alvarez, are embedded in the above CNN summary.

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-25-21

DEMS INTRODUCE BIDEN’S COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION BILL — “U.S. CITIZENSHIP ACT OF 2021” — Lots Of Good Ideas, But Likely DOA In Narrowly Divided Congress! — Judge Garland Must Begin Immigration Court Reforms NOW!

Priscilla Alvarez
CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Priscilla Alvarez
Politics Reporter, CNN, PHOTO: CNN.com
Lauren Fox
Lauren Fox
White House Correspondent, CNN News
PHOTO: CNN.com

https://apple.news/AATkWfagCTF2iNQGfw6dDOA

White House announces sweeping immigration bill

Priscilla Alvarez and Lauren Fox, CNN

5:00 AM EST February 18, 2021

The White House announced a sweeping immigration bill Thursday that would create an eight-year path to citizenship for millions of immigrants already in the country and provide a faster track for undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children.

The legislation faces an uphill climb in a narrowly divided Congress, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has just a five-vote margin and Senate Democrats do not have the 60 Democratic votes needed to pass the measure with just their party’s support.

Administration officials argued Wednesday evening that the legislation was an attempt by President Joe Biden to restart a conversation on overhauling the US immigration system and said he remained open to negotiating.

“He was in the Senate for 36 years, and he is the first to tell you the legislative process can look different on the other end than where it starts,” one administration official said in a call with reporters, adding that Biden would be “willing to work with Congress.”

The effort comes as there are multiple standalone bills in Congress aimed at revising smaller pieces of the country’s immigration system. Sens. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, and Majority Whip Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, for example, have reintroduced their DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for immigrants who came to the country illegally as children.

Administration officials said the best path forward and plans either to pass one bill or break it into multiple pieces would be up to Congress.

“There’s things that I would deal by itself, but not at the expense of saying, ‘I’m never going to do the other.’ There is a reasonable path to citizenship,” Biden said at a CNN town hall in Milwaukee on Tuesday.

“The President is committed to working with Congress to engage in conversations about the best way forward,” one administration official said.

Officials did not say if they believed that the reconciliation process, a special budget tool that applies only to a specific subset of legislation and allows the Senate to pass bills with a simple majority, would be applicable for an immigration bill. “Too early to speculate about it right now,” one official said.

The Senate is working on passing the President’s coronavirus relief legislation through reconciliation. The expectation is that the administration could also use the process to pass an infrastructure bill.

Biden’s immigration bill will be introduced by Democrats Bob Menendez of New Jersey in the Senate and Linda Sanchez of California in the House.

Here’s what the bill, titled the US Citizenship Act of 2021, includes:

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Priscilla’s & Lauren’s analysis at the link.

The White House “Fact Sheet” on the legislation is also available at the link at the end of the above excerpt.

Here’s what that summary says about the U.S. Immigration Courts:

  • Improve the immigration courts and protect vulnerable individuals. The bill expands family case management programs, reduces immigration court backlogs, expands training for immigration judges, and improves technology for immigration courts. The bill also restores fairness and balance to our immigration system by providing judges and adjudicators with discretion to review cases and grant relief to deserving individuals. Funding is authorized for legal orientation programs and counsel for children, vulnerable individuals, and others when necessary to ensure the fair and efficient resolution of their claims. The bill also provides funding for school districts educating unaccompanied children, while clarifying sponsor responsibilities for such children.

  • Support asylum seekers and other vulnerable populations. The bill eliminates the one-year deadline for filing asylum claims and provides funding to reduce asylum application backlogs. It also increases protections for U visa, T visa, and VAWA applicants, including by raising the cap on U visas from 10,000 to 30,000. The bill also expands protections for foreign nationals assisting U.S. troops.

Unfortunately, the bill does not contain the most important legislative solution: An Article I  Immigration Court. Nevertheless, a separate Article I bill will be introduced in the House soon. Since the “USCA of 2021” is largely a “talking draft” anyway, there is no reason why Article I couldn’t be combined with the other changes in the bill.

While attention to improving the Immigration Courts is welcome and long overdue, I think this proposal actually misses the major point: What’s needed right now isn’t necessarily more Immigration Judges; it’s better Immigration Judges, starting, but not ending, with a replacement of the current dysfunctional Board of Immigration Appeals. Only with the improvements in the administrative case law, docket management, and “best practices” that better EOIR judges would bring could we really tell whether more judges are actually necessary.

Right now, throwing more bodies into the ungodly mess at EOIR would only create confusion and aggravate existing problems. And, while the proposal correctly spotlights woeful inadequacies in IJ training and professional development, those alone will not be enough to restore due process to a system wracked by decades of bad judicial selection practices that basically have excluded the “best and brightest” immigration experts from the private sector, those with actual experience representing individuals in Immigration Court, from the “21st Century Immigration Judiciary.”

The good news: Judge Garland won’t need legislation to get this system back on track by:

  • Immediately replacing the current BIA with judges who are renowned experts in immigration, human rights, and due process, with special attention to those with actual experience representing asylum seekers;
  • Vacating all of the improper Sessions and Barr precedents, and letting the “new BIA” straighten out the law and implement best practices, including holding IJs who are members of the “Asylum Deniers Club” accountable;
  • Implementing efficient merit-based judicial hiring practices which would involve public input and actively recruit from communities now underrepresented in the Immigration Judiciary;
  • Eventually re-competing all Immigration Judge jobs under these merit criteria, again with public input on the performance of current judges part of the process;
  • Replacing all of EOIR’s incompetent upper “management” with competent professional judicial administrators;
  • Examining the justification and “bang for the buck” in EOIR’s bloated, yet highly ineffective, headquarters operation in Falls Church with an eye toward maximizing support for the local Immigration Courts and minimizing counterproductive and politicized micromanagement and interference with the operation of local courts;
  • Making peace and working with the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”), which is much more “on top of” the real problems in the Immigration Courts than often clueless EOIR “management” in Falls Church;
  • Instituting e-filing and other long overdue 21st Century judicial administration practices in the Immigration Courts;
  • Working cooperatively with the private bar, NGOs, ICE, and local IJs to maximize representation and improve docketing and scheduling practices.

Judge Garland has the authority to make all the foregoing changes, which will immediately improve the delivery of justice at the critical “retail level” of our justice system and make the achievement of racial justice and equal justice for all more than just “pipe dreams.” Immigrant justice is essential for racial justice!

The only question is whether Judge Garland will actually do what’s necessary. If not, he can expect some “aggressive pushback” from those of us who are fed up with the “EOIR Clown Show” 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️☠️ and its daily mockery of American justice!

🇺🇸🗽⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👩‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-18-21

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

UPDATE: Here’s the text of the bill:

2021.02.18 US Citizenship Act Bill Text – SIGNED

PWS

02-18-21

 

 

☠️FASCISM: GOP PARTY OF TREASON, TRAITOR TRUMP BRING “KRISTALLNACHT” TO CAPITOL IN OVERT ACT OF  NEO-NAZISM — Listen To  Arnold “The Terminator” On How This Is, In Fact, “Nazism In Action” Led By Traitor Prez, Promoted By Cruz, Hawley, & McCarthy, & Endorsed By GOP Silence, Denial, Equivocation,  & Cowardly Butt Covering In The Face Of Terrorist🥷🏻🏴‍☠️☠️ Anti-American Insurrection! — This Attack On Democracy Was Aided & Abetted By Spineless GOP Supremes Unwilling To Stand Up For Our Constitution & Humanity In The Face Of Clear Tyranny & The Groundwork For Subversion!

Arnold
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Terminator & Former GOP Governor of California
PHOTO: YouTube

Watch here on YouTube, courtesy of The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/10/capitol-riot-schwarzenegger-rebukes-trump-kristallnacht?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://youtu.be/x_P-0I6sAck

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

How do you I know your country is in “deep dodo?” When Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jessie Ventura become the “voices of reason” and the “President” and his party are the “voices of treason.” 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwil59_mnJTuAhUswlkKHQJrBpAQglR6BAgCEAc&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FGovJVentura%2Fstatus%2F1346932652931219457%3Fref_src%3Dtwsrc%255Egoogle%257Ctwcamp%255Eserp%257Ctwgr%255Etweet&usg=AOvVaw1kp-sHirIW5ahJwlV_VMkm

It’s likely that the movement to hold accountable and remove from Congress traitors like Cruz, Hawley, McCarthy, and the other Republicans who shamelessly and seditiously continued to support the anti-American lies, racist false narratives, and conspiracy theories that fueled Trump’s insurrection and domestic terrorism will die out over time. But, it shouldn’t!

As I write this, the GOP treasonists in the House are blocking what should be a unanimous resolution to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove this dangerous, unhinged, traitor/moron from the office he has abused and disgraced from Day One!

One reason why our democracy is on the ropes is that there hasn’t been any accountability whatsoever for Trump and his kakistocracy of thugs on the public payroll or for the GOP White Nationalist traitors and enablers in Congress who have furthered their grotesque abuses of humanity and our democratic institutions.

The lack of accountability is particularly glaring and disgusting for Trump’s lawyers, both in and out of Government, who have lied, misrepresented, and totally jettisoned ethics and “due diligence” in supporting and furthering Trump’s attacks on our democracy. Why is Rudy Giuliani, who led a coast to coast “conspiracy of lies and treason” in Federal and State Courts, before calling for armed rebellion against our Government, still walking free and “practicing” law? Why are Billy Barr, Gonzo Sessions, Don McGhan, Noel Francisco, and a host of others who lied, misrepresented, and abused their ethical obligations as well as their oaths of office happily ensconced in the private sector rather than being held accountable for their “crimes against humanity?” 

Contrary to all the total BS 💩being spread by GOP Trump toadies, the unconstitutional, racist, illegal, violent, anti-democracy agenda of Trump, Miller, and the rest of of the Thugocracy/Kakistocracy was apparent from the “git go.” 

And, Chief Justice Roberts and the other GOP Justices who helped roll out and encourage “Kristallnacht” by rubber-stamping the “Muslim ban,” “Let ‘Em Die In Mexico,” the “Bogus Wall of Misappropriated Funds,” stripping legal migrants of life-saving and health preserving benefits, helping fuel a DHS “reign of terror” directed at ethnic communities, and other neo-Nazi travesties should also tender their resignations to President Biden as of Jan 21, 2021! Intellectual dishonesty by judges and bad, righty biased (non)jurisprudence have real life consequences! 

Trump and Miller told the Supremes precisely what their invidious racist, religiously biased, politically pandering intent was in all of these cases and the GOP Justices ignored it in favor of bogus, fabricated, right wing, authoritarian, racist driven, anti-democracy agendas thinly camouflaged by legal gobbledygook.

People die and lives are ruined forever when judges who are supposed to protect them instead “take a dive” for the forces of tyranny and cruelty! “Dred Scottification” (“dehumanization”) of Blacks, Latinos, Immigrants, and other People of Color by our highest Court is neither acceptable nor should it be “swept under the rug” as has happened all too often when the Supremes fail democracy and align themselves with anti-democracy racists and authoritarians.

For four years, the GOP Justices on the Supremes have treated due process, democratic institutions, and the lives of asylum seekers and other migrants (and to some extent their pro bono lawyers) as “jokes.” That’s because 1) neither they nor their families are rotting in Mexico or facing torture and death in El Salvador or some other failed state; and 2) this time, the right wing thugs they enable were across the street trashing our Capitol rather than storming the Supremes. Better Justices and Better Federal Judges for a Better America!

🇺🇸🗽⚖️👍🏼Due Process Forever!

Best 

PWS

01-11-21