THE GIBSON REPORT — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Managing Attorney, NIJC — HEADLINER: Biden Administration Hatches Plans To Dump On Haitian Refugees; Abuses Of Black Detainees; Stranded Venezuelans — Once In Office, The Biden-Harris Racial & Immigrant Justice Campaign “Talk Doesn’t Walk!” 🤬

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

pastedGraphic.png

 

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

 

PRACTICAL UPDATES

 

New I-765 and I-589 are mandatory starting next week: Starting Nov. 7, 2022, USCIS will only accept the 07/26/22 editions.

 

NEWS

 

With a possible surge of Haitian migrants ahead, the Biden admin is weighing holding them in a third country or at Guantánamo

NBC: The Biden administration is weighing options to respond to what could soon be a mass exodus of migrants from Haiti, including temporarily holding migrants in a third country or expanding capacity at an existing facility at the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to two U.S. officials and an internal planning document reviewed by NBC News.

 

Thousands of Venezuelans are stranded in Mexico after the U.S. shut doors to them

NPR: Tens of thousands of Venezuelans are stranded south of the U.S.-Mexico border. The U.S. recently shut the door to them and is returning most Venezuelans who arrive seeking asylum to Mexico. See also Venezuelans struggle with new reality in Tijuana after expulsions from United States.

 

At least 853 migrants died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in past 12 months — a record high

CBS: The figure, which far exceeded the previous record of 546 migrant deaths recorded by Border Patrol in fiscal year 2021, is likely an undercount due to data collection limits, migration policy analysts said.

Report: Abuse reports by Black immigrant detainees are disproportionately high

LA Times: After analyzing the records of nearly 17,000 calls between 2016 and 2021 from its national immigrant detention hotline, Freedom for Immigrants released a report Wednesday that it and other advocacy groups say indicates a pattern of racism and abuse toward Black migrants.

 

Hundreds of Thousands at Imminent Risk of Deportation and Family Separation After Negotiations in Ramos v. Mayorkas Collapse

ACLU: After 16 months of negotiations, settlement talks between the Biden administration and plaintiffs in Ramos v. Mayorkas officially collapsed yesterday afternoon, leaving more than 260,000 people at risk of deportation. Beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and their US citizen children first brought the lawsuit in 2018 after Trump revoked protections for individuals from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, and later for Nepal and Honduras.

 

U.S. removes Trump-era barriers to citizenship-test waivers for disabled immigrants

NPR: After months of public feedback, the federal agency has shortened and simplified its disability waiver, which is used to exempt immigrants with physical, mental or learning disabilities from the English and civics test requirements.

 

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey Defies Biden With Border Wall Made of Shipping Containers

Intercept: On Monday, Gov. Doug Ducey began dropping the first of thousands of shipping containers along a 10-mile stretch of national forest in open defiance of federal authorities. In the days since, the Republican governor has transformed a remote section of rugged desert into what looks like a junkyard.

 

Poll finds broad support in battleground states for legalizing unauthorized immigrants

CBS: Seventy-three percent of surveyed voters in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin said they backed giving immigrants living in the U.S. without legal permission an opportunity to “earn” lawful status and ultimately citizenship if they meet certain requirements, including passing background checks.

 

The Migrant Crisis, Eric Adams and Politics 101

NYT: Adams said he’s hopeful that changes President Biden recently announced to federal immigration policy could help reduce the flow of migrants to New York. See also Migrant crisis is ultimate test of NYC schools; Asylum seekers facing legal challenges.

 

LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES

 

9th Circ. Says It Can’t Hear Salvadoran’s ‘Transit Bar’ Case

Law360: A split Ninth Circuit declined to revive the asylum bid of a Salvadoran man ordered deported after traveling through Guatemala and Mexico before entering the U.S., saying its hands were tied when it came to reviewing expedited removal orders.

 

Split 9th Circ. Orders New Look At Guatemalan’s Torture Claim

Law360: A split Ninth Circuit has ordered the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals to reconsider a Guatemalan man’s deportation relief bid, saying the agency wrongly ruled out government acquiescence in the man’s account of being tortured by Guatemalan police officers.

 

10th Circ. Declines Review Of 1999 Deportation Order

Law360: The Tenth Circuit declined to review a former conditional green card holder’s challenge of a 1999 deportation order, saying his chances of tossing the decades-long order stopped at the immigration courts due to his unlawful reentries into the U.S.

 

USCIS Retracts T Visa Denial After Judge’s Rebuke

Law360: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved a Mexican woman’s application for a T visa, designated for sex trafficking victims, after an Illinois federal judge faulted the agency’s earlier refusal to accept an immigration judge’s waiver of inadmissibility, the woman said.

 

Juvenile Migrants Differ From Trafficking Victims, Judge Says

Law360: A California federal judge tossed an equal protection claim brought by young immigrants who were abused or neglected by their parents, dismissing on Wednesday their argument that the government was unfairly treating them differently from trafficking victims in doling out work authorization.

 

Florida judge orders DeSantis to hand over migrant flights records

Politico: The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but lawyers representing the Florida Center for Government Accountability said they anticipated there would be an appeal.

 

Mastermind behind massive marriage fraud conspiracy sentenced to 10 years in prison

ICE: The organization was responsible for organizing well over 500 sham marriages in exchange for substantial amounts of money solely for the alien beneficiary to obtain immigration benefits.

 

Senate Dems Seek To Expand Haitian Deportation Shield

Law360: Senate Democrats called on the Biden administration to broaden Haitian immigration protections to cover Haitians who have fled political and economic turmoil over the past year, saying Wednesday that conditions in Haiti have only worsened since the administration last offered relief

 

EOIR Announces 32 New Immigration Judges

EOIR: The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) announced the appointment of 32 immigration judges to courts in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

 

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

 

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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

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

When all else fails, picking on vulnerable Black Haitian refugees is always a popular way to buff up your “restrictionist creds” for Administrations of both parties. But, the GOP already has the White Nationalist/nativist vote locked up. So, what the Biden folks hope to get by throwing Haitians “under the bus” and driving back and forth over their bodies is a mystery to me. 

Despite the gratuitous abuses heaped on Haitians by the USG and White Nationalist pols like Trump over the years, and the overall indifference of the Dems, Haitians are one of the most successful and well-assimilated immigrant groups in America. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjYiZXSk437AhXpLFkFHV09AWIQFnoECA8QAQ&url=https://www.cato.org/blog/haitians-assimilate-well-united-states&usg=AOvVaw2iOnJGCn89Lr7und5Cho6S

They are also the second largest political group among Black immigrants, following Jamaicans. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjYiZXSk437AhXpLFkFHV09AWIQFnoECCEQAQ&url=https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2015/07/20/haitian-americans-come-of-age-politically&usg=AOvVaw2iv_ZCo_fQAjBZT3qSLQgA

Hey, I’m only a retired Immigration Judge, not a political wonk. But, I can’t see what Biden and Harris stand to gain with their cruel, anti-Haitian policies. 

Why not set up viable refugee programs in Haiti, as we did for Cubans, if we don’t want more refugees taking to the sea in leaky boats? Why not prioritize immigrant visa processing for qualified immigrants from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, the Northern Triangle, and other Western Hemisphere countries? Migration from these nations to the U.S. is a reality that benefits both the migrants and our nation. Why not use the tools at hand to channel legal immigration rather than flailing around with questionable built to fail “deterrents.” 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-01-22

⚖️THE GIBSON REPORT — 06-13-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, Managing Attorney, NIJC — Biden Administration’s Increase In Haitian Deportations Undermines “Los Angeles Declaration” From The Git Go — “Do As I Say, Not As I Do,” Still Administration’s “Message” On Immigration, Racial Justice, Human Rights!

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

pastedGraphic.png

 

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

 

Some immigrants can be detained at least six months without bond hearing, Supreme Court rules

CNN: The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the federal government can continue to detain certain immigrants in removal proceedings without giving them a bond hearing after six months, in case where the Biden administration has prevailed over the immigration activists who opposed the government in the case.

 

Federal judge in Texas throws out Biden administration immigration enforcement guidelines

CNN: A federal judge in Texas vacated guidelines set by the Biden administration over who is to be prioritized for immigration enforcement, according to a Friday ruling.

 

The Supreme Court gives lawsuit immunity to Border Patrol agents who violate the Constitution

Vox: Justice Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion in Egbert v. Boule, moreover, has implications that stretch far beyond the border. Egbert guts a seminal Supreme Court precedent, Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents (1971), which established that federal law enforcement officers who violate the Constitution may be individually sued — and potentially be required to compensate their victims for their illegal actions.

 

Biden and Latin American Leaders Announce Migration Deal

NYT: The agreement, called the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, commits the United States to taking 20,000 refugees from Latin America during the next two years, a threefold increase, according to White House officials. Mr. Biden also pledged to increase the number of seasonal worker visas from Central America and Haiti by 11,500.

 

U.S. Accelerated Expulsions of Haitian Migrants in May

NYT: The Biden administration expelled nearly 4,000 Haitians on 36 deportation flights in May — a significant increase over the previous three months — after renegotiating agreements with the island nation, which has been crippled by gang violence and an expanding humanitarian crisis.

 

ICE searched LexisNexis Database over 1 million times in just seven months

Intercept_: Immigration and Customs Enforcement searched a massive database of personal information provided by LexisNexis over 1.2 million times in just a seven-month period in 2021, according to documents reviewed by The Intercept. Critics say the staggering search volume confirms fears that the data broker is enabling the mass surveillance and deportation of immigrants.

 

Lawyers for migrants say U.S. officials slowed family reunifications

WaPo: Weeks into the Trump administration’s family-separation policy, immigration officials fired off emails saying something was awry. The children were being reunited too quickly with their parents, an official wrote on a Friday night in late May 2018.

 

ICE limits migrants’ legal rights, raising deportation risk, ACLU report says

USA Today: Immigrants detained in civil cases face “monumental barriers in finding and communicating with attorneys,” which renders their right to legal representation “essentially meaningless,” according to the report released Thursday.

 

ICE To Consider Military Service In Deportation Decisions

Law360: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will take into account whether noncitizens have served in the U.S. military when making decisions about whether to try to deport them, the agency announced Tuesday.

 

Big Tech calls for Biden administration to let foreign workers’ adult kids stay in the US

CNN: Without intervention, as many as 200,000 children in the United States risk “aging out” of their parents’ immigration status and face having to enter the immigration system as adults themselves, the companies wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

 

Mexico issues nearly 7,000 temporary documents and transit visas to migrants

NPR: In its statement, the Mexican migration agency did not specify what kind of documents were issued but most of the migrants showed papers that gave them a period of one month or more to leave the country or begin regularization procedures in Mexico. Most want to use the documents to reach the U.S. border.

 

Venezuelans big presence in caravan after visa requirement

AP: Before that change, Venezuelans had flown to Mexico City or Cancun as tourists and then made their way comfortably to the border. Many made it from home to the U.S. border in as little as four days.

 

U.S. loosens restrictions on Cuba travel, remittances amid summit blowback

Reuters: The United States on Wednesday moved to lift some Trump-era restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba even as it fended off criticism for blocking the Communist-run island and long-time foe from attending a regional summit this week.

 

LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES

 

Justices Deny Right To Bond Hearing For Migrants

Law360: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that immigrants do not have a right to bond hearings when the government can show they are a flight risk, and that district courts lack the authority to order the government to provide such hearings on a class-wide basis.

 

Justices Refuse To Broaden Border Agents’ Personal Liability

Law360: Border agents can’t be sued in federal court for damages over alleged constitutional violations, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, citing concerns that broadening the legal liability of agents could negatively impact national security.

 

Fake SSN Card Is Grounds For Deportation, 9th Circ. Says

Law360: The Ninth Circuit denied a Honduran man’s bid to stay in the U.S., finding that his conviction in California for possessing a forged social security card with a counterfeit government seal is grounds for deportation as a crime involving moral turpitude.

 

CA9 On Particularly Serious Crime: Mendoza-Garcia V. Garland

LexisNexis[The BIA] applied a “presumption” that Petitioner’s conviction was a particularly serious crime and required him to “rebut” this presumption…The BIA committed an error of law, and abused its discretion, in failing to apply the correct legal standards in assessing whether Petitioner’s offense was a “particularly serious crime.”

 

IJ Distinguishes Jaco, Grants Asylum (PSG = Honduran Women)

LexisNexis: The particular social group of “Honduran women” was not at issue in Jaco, however, and the Fifth Circuit’s comment related to this group was incidental to the disposition of the case. Therefore, the Fifth Circuit’s comment regarding “Honduran women” as a particular social group is dicta and is not binding on this Court’s decision.

 

Texas Judge Axes Biden’s ICE Enforcement Policy Nationwide

Law360: A Texas federal judge on Friday threw out the Biden administration’s policy for prioritizing immigration enforcement, saying the guidance ran counter to a legal requirement to detain certain categories of immigrants.

 

Biden’s ICE Curbs Can’t Moot Immigrant Activists’ Speech Suit

Law360: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement couldn’t shake off claims that it targeted its critics for removal, as a Washington federal judge ruled on Thursday that the Biden administration’s curbs on immigration enforcement operations didn’t moot the retaliation suit.

 

Immigrants’ Negligence Claim Axed In $6M Suit Against Gov’t

Law360: A Washington federal judge tossed a negligence claim against the federal government from a father and son seeking $6 million after being forcibly separated at the southern border, saying the pair did not allege the government owed a duty of care.

 

Indiana Challenges Biden’s Immigrant Parole-Granting Policy

Law360: The Biden administration is facing yet another lawsuit over its immigration policies at the Southern border, this time from the state of Indiana, alleging that the administration is unlawfully granting parole to migrants and burdening state taxpayers as a result.

 

Asylum-Seekers Accuse USCIS Of Preventing Work Eligibility

Law360: A group of asylum-seekers have hit U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services with a proposed class action, saying its policies and practices unlawfully prevent them and other asylum applicants from obtaining work authorization pending decisions on their asylum claims.

 

4th Circ. Revives Immigration Judges’ Free Speech Suit

Law360: The Fourth Circuit has revived a challenge by federal immigration judges to a Trump-era policy barring them from speaking up about the immigration courts, after a labor official formally dissolved their union.

 

DC Circ. Urged To Nix Order Busting Immigration Judge Union

Law360: The National Association of Immigration Judges asked the D.C. Circuit in a petition late Wednesday to overturn the Federal Labor Relations Authority’s 2020 decision that immigration judges cannot unionize, arguing that the FLRA’s order violated its members’ due process rights and protected liberty interest in joining a labor union.

 

DHS Notice of Designation of Cameroon for TPS

AILA: DHS notice of the designation of Cameroon for TPS for 18 months, effective 6/7/22 through 12/7/23. (87 FR 34706, 6/7/22)

 

USCIS Issues Policy Alert on SIJ Classification and Adjustment of Status

AILA: USCIS updated policy guidance to incorporate changes from the Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) Final Rule, including updated citations, new definitions, and clarifications. The updates apply to SIJ petitions and AOS applications filed or pending on or after 4/7/22.

 

CBP Announces Spanish Option for I-94 Features in the CBP One Mobile App

AILA: CBP announced that users of the CPB One mobile application will be able to select a Spanish-language version of the features that allow them to file applications for or receive electronic versions of I-94s. More information about Form I-94 is available.

 

CDC Lifts Requirement that International Air Travelers Have Negative COVID Test

AILA: The CDC issued an order rescinding a 17-month-old requirement that people arriving in the country by air test negative for COVID-19, effective at 12:01 am (ET) on Sunday, June 11, 2022, saying it is “not currently necessary.”

 

USCIS to Issue Corrected Form I-765 Receipt Notices

AILA: From May 4, 2022, to June 2, 2022, USCIS issued certain I-765 receipt notices with incorrect information. Corrected notices with language confirming the 540-day automatic extension should reach affected applicants by the third week of June.

 

DOS Announces Expansion of Immigrant Visa Processing in Havana to Include All Immediate Relative Categories

AILA: DOS announced that the U.S. Embassy Havana will schedule all immediate relative immigrant visa appointments to include spouses and children under 21 of U.S. citizens (IR/CR-1 and IR/CR-2), with interviews beginning in July 2022. More information in notice.

 

ICE to Consider Military Service When Determining Civil Immigration Enforcement

AILA: ICE announced a policy directive to consider U.S. military service when making discretionary determinations with regard to civil immigration enforcement actions against noncitizens.

 

State Dept. Looks For Refugee Resettlement Project Ideas

Law360: The U.S. State Department said it is seeking project ideas from nonprofits and other institutions on how to strengthen its refugee resettlement program in areas such as housing, community engagement and program participation.

 

RESOURCES

 

GENERAL RESOURCES

 

EVENTS

 

NIJC EVENTS

 

 

GENERAL EVENTS

 

Note: CLINIC has cancelled and will be rescheduling two previously listed COIL courses.

 

 

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.

 

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

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

As I said, there are good reasons to be skeptical that the “Los Angeles Declaration” is anything other than meaningless rhetoric meant to deflect attention from the Biden Administration’s actual dismal performance on human rights, racial justice, and immigration.  https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/06/12/%f0%9f%8c%8ethe-americas-the-l-a-declaration-on-migration-protection-blueprint-for-action-or-more-empty-rhetoric/

It would be hard to imagine an action more out of line with the “LAD” than ramping up deportations of Black migrants to the dangerous, chaotic, failed state of Haiti. As the article from the NYT highlighted by Elizabeth above says:

The situation in Haiti has worsened over the past year. The International Organization for Migration, the largest nongovernmental aid group there, said that there were more than 200 kidnappings in May. Poverty is everywhere, and nearly half the country does not have adequate access to affordable and healthy food, according to the United Nations.

. . . .

In September, the Biden administration gave the organization $13.1 million intended to help Haitians getting off expulsion flights, providing cash and other assistance to help them to reintegrate. Many had been living in other countries in South America for years before making the journey to the United States.

The situation in Haiti has worsened over the past year. The International Organization for Migration, the largest nongovernmental aid group there, said that there were more than 200 kidnappings in May. Poverty is everywhere, and nearly half the country does not have adequate access to affordable and healthy food, according to the United Nations.

. . . .

The systemic issues that drive migration out of Haiti are expected to come up during the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles this week. Haiti’s interim prime minister, Ariel Henry, is in attendance.

President Biden ran for office promising to bring compassion to U.S. immigration policies, particularly those involving asylum. But rolling out new policies amid a sharp increase in migration and during a pandemic has proved difficult. Some Trump-era policies remain in place.

So, why is the Administration squandering  money, resources, and, incredibly, the goodwill of folks who actually voted for Biden/Harris to “ramp up” deportations and exclusions of migrants of color, many of them asylum applicants subject to a biased and unfair system, when we could actually use their skills in our economy, as this quote from an article by Dany Bahar at Brookings points out:

At the same time, 2021 resulted in the highest number of migrants entering or attempting to enter through the southern border to the United States. There is no reason to think this won’t continue in 2022. These migrants, mostly from the Northern Triangle countries (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador), are desperate to join the U.S. labor force, as they flee poor economic conditions—particularly after the economic slowdown caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic—as well as violence and instability in general. In response to this flow, the Biden-Harris administration has focused on significantly

increasing investment toward Central America, including Mexico, while at the same time telling immigrants in Guatemala “

do not come.”

pastedGraphic_1.png

Dany Bahar

Nonresident Senior Fellow – Global Economy and Development

Twitter dany_bahar

The irony is clear; if there was any time in the modern history of the United States to promote a flexibilization of its migration policies, it is now. It is the most efficient and easiest way to offer a smart solution to the unprecedented tightness in U.S. labor markets. It is a no-brainer for several reasons.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2022/02/24/president-biden-tear-down-those-walls-and-let-immigrants-take-jobs-in-high-demand/

It might be a “no brainer,” as Dany says, but it appears to be “above the pay grade” of Biden’s inept immigration policy team. They seem to be mostly “Stephen Miller fellow travelers.” Why? 

I suppose the only “silver lining” is that I can always count on inept policy officials in the Biden Administration to prove my points about what a horrible job they are doing for immigrants, for racial justice, for Due Process of law, for America, and for humanity!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-14-22

👎🏽👩🏾‍🦱RACE @ THE BORDER: RECENTLY ARRIVED WHITE REFUGEES GO TO FRONT OF LINE WHILE BLACK & LATINO ASYLUM SEEKERS WAIT IN SQUALOR! 🏴‍☠️ — Volunteers Fill Gap In DHS Preparedness!

 

Elliott Spagat
Elliott Spagat
Reporter
Associated Press

Elliot Spagat for HuffPost:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ap-lt-ukraine-refugees-united-states_n_624ff4bde4b0e97a350f8346

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — The United States has sharply increased the number of Ukrainians admitted to the country at the Mexican border as even more refugees fleeing the Russian invasion follow the same circuitous route.

A government recreation center in the Mexican border city of Tijuana grew to about 1,000 refugees Thursday, according to city officials. A canopy under which children played soccer only two days earlier was packed with people in rows of chairs and lined with bunk beds.

Tijuana has suddenly become a final stop for Ukrainians seeking refuge in the United States, where they are drawn by friends and families ready to host them and are convinced the U.S. will be a more suitable haven than Europe.

Word has spread rapidly on social media that a loose volunteer coalition, largely from Slavic churches in the western United States, is guiding hundreds of refugees daily from the Tijuana airport to temporary shelters, where they wait two to four days for U.S officials to admit them on humanitarian parole. In less than two weeks, volunteers worked with U.S. and Mexican officials to build a remarkably efficient and expanding network to provide food, security, transportation and shelter.

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link.

Volunteers to the rescue, largely as I predicted!

But, why can’t NGOs and DHS work together to run similar orderly processing programs for asylum applicants from Haiti, Latin America, Cameroon, Ethiopia, and the rest of the world, some of whom have been patiently waiting in vain for years for fair processing that never comes!  As CGRS and others have pointed out, there are many legitimate, readily grantable asylum claims among “the waiting.” See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/04/08/%f0%9f%8f%b4%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%91%8e%f0%9f%8f%bdgroups-expose-racism-myths-in-biden-administrations-abuse-of-haitian-asylum-seekers-each/

Why not begin screening, processing, and admitting these refugees now, rather than creating an unnecessary and artificial rush on May 23?

It would take only modest creativity to invoke legal refugee admission procedures and begin processing of Haitians, Central Americans, Ukrainians, and other refugees directly from camps in Mexico and other countries. That would allow immediate legal admission, thus bypassing both the overloaded Asylum Office and Garland’s dysfunctional Immigration Courts. 

Refugee admissions would also facilitate Government grants and other funding for resettlement in communities across America.

Not rocket science!🚀 So, why doesn’t the Biden Administration “get it?” Was VP Harris too busy celebrating the historic, yet largely symbolic, confirmation of soon to be Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to address the real, life or death problems of immigrants and asylum seekers of color who are being mistreated and abused by White Nationalist programs, policies and “official attitudes” at our borders?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-09-22

IT’S HELL TO BE A  REFUGEE! 😭— But, It Still Pays To Be White! — Racism Dominates US Border Policy As Ukrainians Welcomed, Black & Brown Refugees, Not So Much!🤮 — “Racial Justice” Takes a L.O.A. At Mayorkas’s DHS & Garland’s DOJ!

 

Haitians at the Border
U.S. Border Patrol Haiti
By Bart van Leeuwan
“Haitians and other refugees of color probably wish they could pass for White Ukrainians!”
Republished by license

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/02/with-no-direct-pathways-united-states-hundreds-ukrainian-refugees-are-gathering-us-mexico-border/

Kevin Sieff
Kevin Sieff
Latin America Correspondent
Washington Post

Kevin Sieff reports for WashPost:

. . . .

Tijuana was often indifferent to the iterations of migrants and refugees who arrived here. But the support for Ukrainians was immediate.

“We will work together so you can achieve your dream,” said the city’s mayor, Montserrat Caballero, when she visited the encampment on Thursday. “Welcome to Tijuana.”

On Friday evening, one woman serenaded the refugees while strumming an acoustic guitar. An inebriated American man handed hundreds of dollars in cash to a Ukrainian American volunteer, cursing out Russian President Vladimir Putin as he distributed the money.

“I love Ukrainians,” he slurred.

No. 319 was 21-year-old Svyastoslav Urusky, from Lviv, whose grandparents lived in Sacramento and were waiting for him on the other side of the border crossing.

Like many of the Ukrainians in Tijuana, Urusky had visited U.S. embassies and consulates in European capitals after leaving Ukraine, inquiring about a path to refugee status in the United States.

“They told us, ‘Sorry, we don’t have any options for you yet,’ ” Urusky recounted an embassy official in Poland saying.

So he and his family, after reading the guidance on a Telegram channel, booked flights to Mexico. At 1 p.m. on Friday afternoon, his number was called.

. . . .

At the Tijuana border crossing, U.S. officials have given orders that only Ukrainians can be put on the list. A policy known as Title 42, due to be lifted in May, has prevented asylum seekers from crossing the border to make their claims since the beginning of the pandemic. It has been used in about 1.7 million migrant expulsions over the past two years.

On Friday, a family of Honduran asylum seekers, turned away at the border, passed by the Ukrainian encampment to ask for small change.

U.S. officials have carved out an exemption to Title 42 for Ukrainians. But many Russians are fleeing simultaneously, including some with Ukrainian relatives. No. 939 was a Ukrainian woman whose 18-year-old son had a Russian passport.

“Will they let us across?” she asked a volunteer. No one could answer.

. . . .

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

Read the complete story at the link.

I’m in favor of fair, humane, generous, and dignified treatment of all refugees and asylum seekers! That’s actually what our laws and international treaties to which we are party require. 

Sadly, under Trump, the U.S. Government, aided to a large extent by feckless and often right-leaning Federal Courts, simply “normalized” racism-driven violations of legal and human rights. So far has our political system and the rule of law deteriorated that the Biden Administration, and even some Dem pols (e.g., Joe Manchin, Henry Cuellar), speak of illegal racist treatment of refugees and migrants as “options” and “strategies” rather than legal and moral perversions. 

According to these folks, we should check the polls, keep an eye on the midterms, and heed the chatter on Sunday talk shows before deciding whether it’s “good policy” to treat persons of color as human beings entitled to seek legal protection or whether to keep knowingly and intentionally violating the law by treating their lives as expendable because it might “play better” at the polls. (It actually won’t).

Perhaps the “low point” of the recent discussion of the long-overdue, still well in the future, elimination of the “illegal Title 42 ruse” came on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. There, Chuck quipped that an anonymous Biden Administration source had said something to the effect of: “It’s a long time till May 23, perhaps we’ll have a ‘new strain’ of COVID by then.” 

In other words, perhaps not surprisingly given their scofflaw, racist, demeaning, and dehumanizing actions at the border to date, some within the Biden Administration are secretly (or not so secretly) “hoping” for another “fake emergency.” That will allow them to continue to violate the legal and human rights of Haitians, Latin Americans, and other persons of color while offering preferential treatment to their White Brothers & Sisters (“folks just like us”) fleeing Ukraine!

Once you violate our law 1.7 million times, with deadly, disastrous human consequences, it’s hard to stop! It’s also hard to talk credibly about “equal justice” and the “rule of law” when your actions repeatedly are contrary to both. That’s a problem that the Biden Administration, and particularly Garland and his complicit group at DOJ, have yet to come to grips with!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-04-22

🗽PROFESSOR GEOFFREY A. HOFFMAN @  U HOUSTON LAW REPORTS: Round Tablers ⚔️🛡Chase, Schmidt Among Headliners @ Recent Judge Joseph A. Vail Asylum Workshop!

Professor Geoffrey Hoffman
Professor Geoffrey Hoffman
Immigraton Clinic Director
University of Houston Law Center

https://www.law.uh.edu/news/spring2022/0207Vail.asp

Joseph A. Vail Asylum Workshop shares valuable immigration insights in the era of the Biden Administration

pastedGraphic.png

Retired Immigration Judge, U.S. Immigration Court and Former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt discusses growing immigration court backlogs.

Feb. 7, 2022 – More than 350 practitioners attended the annual Joseph A. Vail Asylum Workshop recently. The four-hour virtual event held on Jan. 28 was presented by the University of Houston Law Center’s Immigration Clinic and co-sponsored by Interfaith Ministries of Greater Houston. Interfaith Ministries joined this year to shed light on the plight of Afghani refugees who have settled in Houston since the government in Afghanistan collapsed and the Taliban takeover.

The goal of the workshop was to provide an update on immigration practices since President Biden took office. For example, while Biden halted the building of the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico and removed Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) – where asylum seekers must remain on the Mexican side of the border while awaiting U.S. immigration court dates – a federal court order forced MPP to be reinstated. Immigration court backlogs continue to grow with former Board of Immigration Appeals Chairman Paul W. Schmidt predicting them reaching over 2 million by the end of 2022.

The first panel, moderated by Immigration Clinic Director Geoffrey Hoffman, explored the Biden Administration’s focus on Prosecutorial Discretion, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Migratory Protection Protocols (MPP), recent circuit court decisions, Afghan and Haitian case precedents, and immigration court backlogs.

“I hope you are emboldened to take a pro-bono client,” said Hoffman. “You can reach out to any of us on this call and use us as mentors.”

Panelist Magali Candler Suarez, principal at Suarez Candler Law, PLLC warned practitioners that Title 42 – a public health and welfare statue that gives the Center for Disease Control and Prevention the power to decide whether something like Covid-19 in a foreign country poses a serious danger of spreading in the U.S. – was being applied to Haitians in a racist manner.

“Many Haitians are being turned back at the border,” said Candler Suarez. “They are being denied the right to apply for asylum.”

The second panel, moderated by Parker Sheffy, a clinical teaching fellow at the Immigration Clinic, was a refresher on asylum, withholding of removal and CAT. Panelist Elizabeth Mendoza from the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), which supports immigration attorneys in this work, spoke about challenges because of newly appointed immigration judges and evolving Covid practices.

“Unfortunately, things are in flux this month,” said Mendoza. “It’s not out of the ordinary to be given conflicting information.”

Well known former U.S. immigration judge, Jeffrey S. Chase, was the final panelist in this group and focused on the future of asylum in the U.S. “The Biden Administation issued a paper on climate change and migration,” said Chase. “[What] they were really talking about [though was] asylum and how climate change will impact that.”

A third panel offered insights on the use of experts in removal proceedings. UH Law Center Professor Rosemary Vega moderated the discussion which ranged from psychological experts to country experts and where to find them.

“The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies has a giant list of experts on many topics,” said panelist and UH Law Professor Lucas Aisenberg. “It’s the first place I go to when I’m working on a case.”

The workshop wrapped up with speakers from Interfaith Ministries of Greater Houston explaining what it is like to be a refugee from Afghanistan and how hard it has been to meet the needs of Afghan refugees that have arrived in the last year.

“Two years ago, we resettled 407 Afghan refugees,” said Martin B. Cominsky, president, and CEO of Interfaith Ministries of Greater Houston. “Since September 2021, we have resettled 11,081 refugees.” He implored practitioners on the call to help in any way they can.

The Joseph A. Vail Asylum Workshop has been held annually since 2014 in memory of the University of Houston Law Center Immigration Clinic’s founder. Since the clinic’s inception in 1999, it has become one of the largest in the nation, specializing in handling asylum applications for victims of torture and persecution, representing victims of domestic violence, human trafficking, and crime, and helping those fleeing civil war, genocide, or political repression. The clinic has served over 2,000 individuals who otherwise could not afford legal services.

For a full list of speakers at this year’s event, click here.

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

“Immigration court backlogs continue to grow with former Board of Immigration Appeals Chairman Paul W. Schmidt predicting them reaching over 2 million by the end of 2022.”

“Aimless Docket Reshuffling” is thriving @ Garland’s EOIR. Instead of gimmicks designed to “prioritize for denial and deterrence” (how about those “engineered in absentia dockets?”) why not work with the private bar and DHS to prioritize at both the Asylum Office and EOIR those with the most compelling cases from countries where refugee flows are well-documented?

For example, why not “prioritize” represented Uyghur and Afghani cases which should be “slam dunk” asylum grants? What’s the purpose of making folks who are going to be part of our society unnecessarily spend years in limbo? 

Will Ukrainians soon be in the same boat, asks Jason “The Asylumist” Dzubow on his blog?  https://www.asylumist.com/2022/01/27/preemptive-asylum-for-ukrainians/. Good question!

Is anybody in the Biden Administration actually planning for a possible human rights catastrophe, or just waiting for it to happen and then declaring yet another “migration emergency.”

Contrary to the uninformed view of many, backlogs aren’t just a workload problem or a hindrance to enforcement. There are huge human, psychological, economic, societal, and institutional costs with maintaining large uncontrolled backlogs. 

Most of those costs fall on the individuals with strong, likely winning cases who constantly are “orbited to the end of the line” to accommodate ever-changing, ill-advised, enforcement agendas and misguided “quick fix” initiatives. That’s so that DHS and DOJ can misuse the legal system as a deterrent — by prioritizing the cases they think they can deny without much due process to “send messages” about the futility of asking for protection or asserting rights in the U.S. legal system! And, those with strong cases (and their attorneys) “twist in the wind” as denials and deterrence are prioritized.

Trying to prioritize “bogus denials” (often without hearings, lawyers, time to prepare, or careful expert judging) also creates false statistical profiles suggesting, quite dishonestly, that there is no merit to most cases. These false narratives, in turn, are picked up and repeated by the media, usually without critical examination. 

Like the “Big Lie,” they eventually develop “a life of their own” simply by repetition. When occasionally “caught in action” by Article IIIs, the resulting backlog bolstering remands and “restarts” are inevitably blamed on the individuals (the victims), rather than the systematic Government incompetence that is truly responsible!

The truth is quite different from the DOJ/DHS myths. Over the years, despite facing a chronically unfair system intentionally skewed against them, some hostile or poorly qualified Immigration Judges and Appellate IJs, and wildly inconsistent results on similar cases before different judges (so-called “Refugee Roulette”), asylum seekers have won from 30% to more than 50% of the time when they actually receive an opportunity for a full, individual merits determination of their claims. 

But, getting that individual hearing has proved challenging in a system that constantly puts expediency and enforcement before due process, fundamental fairness, and human dignity! No matter how the Government tries to hide it, that means that there lots of bona fide asylum seekers out there whose cases are languishing in a broken system.

The creation of the USCIS Asylum Office was supposed to be a way of dealing with this issue through so-called affirmative applications and “quick approvals” of meritorious cases. But, during the Trump Administration even that flawed system was intentionally and maliciously “dumbed down,” “de-functionalized,” “re-prioritized,” and hopelessly backlogged. It was so bad that the Asylum Officers’ Union actually sued the Trump Administration for acting illegally.

More “gimmicks” like Garland’s failed “dedicated dockets” won’t fix his dysfunctional system. Fundamental leadership, personnel, substantive quality, procedural, and “cultural” changes are necessary to address backlogs while achieving due process and fundamental fairness at EOIR. Ironically, that was once the “EOIR Vision.” ⚖️ It’s too bad, actually tragic, Garland doesn’t share it!🤯

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-08-22

🤮DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO: BIDEN CLAIMS TO BE A STRONG ADVOCATE FOR RACIAL JUSTICE — BUT, HIS POLICIES SAY OTHERWISE: Biden Administration Continues One Of America’s Longest-Standing Racial Traditions: Shafting Haitian Asylum Seekers! — Nicole Narea Reports For Vox News!

Biden’s immigration polices leave Haitians stranded in Mexico

Friday, January 21, 2022

By Immigration Prof

Nicole Narea of Voxreports that the U.S. has deported nearly 14,000 Haitians to Mexico since September, according to data released by UN’s International Organization for Migration. In 2021, Mexico received more than 131,ooo asylum applications, of which an estimated 45% were Haitians and their Chilean-born children. Haitians in Mexico “face pervasive racism, and many are unable to work, have no access to medical care, and are targets for criminals,” Narea writes.

Mexico is seeing an uptick in Haitian asylum applicants.

The Biden administration continues to enforce pandemic-related border restrictions that have kept out the vast majority of asylum seekers, including Haitians.

KJ

 

Current Affairs | Permalink

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This disingenuous action by the Administration comes at a rather inopportune time, just as they are “getting heat” for failing to deliver on promises to Black voters. Additionally, the latest Pew Study shows that immigrants now make ump 10% of the U.S. Black population and that they are “more than holding their own” in terms of education and economic contributions.

https://www.pewresearch.org/race-ethnicity/2022/01/20/one-in-ten-black-people-living-in-the-u-s-are-immigrants/

Looks like many of the “immigrants we need” (and who also need us), according to Suzanne Clark of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have mindlessly been dumped in Mexico at great human and fiscal cost that actually results in a “negative achievement.” (That’s notwithstanding the White Nationalist myths perpetrated by the 5th Circuit and GOP AGs and not always effectively opposed by the Biden Administration. How do you purport to end “Remain in Mexico” while denying asylum seekers any right to seek refuge at the border? Not very effectively, it appears!)

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-22-22

👍🏼PROGRESSIVE LEGAL ICON HAROLD KOH RIPS BIDEN’S BOGUS “STEPHEN MILLER LITE” XENOPHOBIC POLICIES, RESIGNS DOS POST, AMID A CRESENDO OF ADMINISTRATION LIES! — “I believe this Administration’s current implementation of the Title 42 authority continues to violate our legal obligation not to expel or return (“refouler”) individuals who fear persecution, death, or torture, especially migrants fleeing from Haiti.”

Harold H. Koh
Harold H,. Koh
American Legal Scholar
PHOTO: Wikipedia

Here’s a report from Politico:

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/04/top-state-adviser-leaves-post-title-42-515029

Here’s a key quote from Koh’s memo:

. . . .

I have spent much of my legal career, inside and outside the government, seeking to ensure that the United States abides by its non-refoulement obligations under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (“CAT”), and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (“Refugee Protocol”), which modifies and incorporates the terms of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (“Refugee Convention”). Article 3 of the CAT categorically prohibits State Parties from expelling, returning, or extraditing any person, without exception, to any State where there are “substantial grounds for believing he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.” Article 33 of the Refugee Convention, subject to certain narrow exceptions, flatly prohibits State Parties from expelling or returning (‘refouler’) refugees in any manner whatsoever to “the frontiers of territories” where their life or freedom would be threatened on one of [the designated grounds].

I write first, because I believe this Administration’s current implementation of the Title 42 authority continues to violate our legal obligation not to expel or return (“refouler”) individuals who fear persecution, death, or torture, especially migrants fleeing from Haiti. Second, my concerns have only been heightened by recent tragic events in Haiti, which had led this Administration wisely to extend temporary protected status (TPS) to Haitians already in the United States. Third, lawful, more humane alternatives plainly exist, and there are approaching opportunities in the near future to substitute those alternatives in place of the current, badly flawed policy.

. . . .

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First, let me assure you that the DOS’s ridiculous claim that Koh’s departure was “long planned,” and its equally ludicrous suggestion that he would continue to play a meaningful role as a fake “consultant” is pure, unadulterated BS!💩 Indeed, I’d encourage the DOS Inspector General to investigate and report on just what are Koh’s new “consulting duties,” his compensation arrangements, and exactly what he produces after today!

You don’t hire high level Administration officials with “a long planned expectation” that they will depart in fewer than nine months. Come on, man, how dumb do you think we are?

Losing someone of Koh’s reputation and abilities is a huge, yet well deserved, “black eye” for an Administration that has ditched the progressive human right experts who helped them get into the dance in the first place! 

And, for what? It’s not that so-called “moderates,” fickle “independents,” and GOP nativists have been lining up to congratulate Biden, Harris, Mayorkas, and Garland on their continuation of bogus, racially charged restrictionist policies at the border. Abandoning your stated values, dissing campaign promises, pissing off your allies, while still earning slings and arrows from your opponents has to be the world’s dumbest policy!

Second, what’s also pure unadulterated BS 💩 is the Administration’s assertion, unethically defended by Garland’s DOJ, that misuse and gross abuse of Title 42 in a cowardly attempt to thwart asylum seekers of color has anything whatsoever to do with science or public health.

The truth is is stark as it is ugly:

There was no science involved, only anti-immigrant and anti-asylum animus. “That was a Stephen Miller special. He was all over that,” a former Pence aide told the AP.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/10/02/%f0%9f%a4%%f0%9f%8f%b4%e2%80%8d%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8fgarlnd-doj-polishes-otherwise-lackluster-litigation-record-with-big-win-for-stephen-miller-his-neo-nazi-anti-asylum-policy/

Of course there wasn’t! Even Stephen Miller didn’t pretend very hard that there was.

He just counted on a complicit Supremes and enough right wing toady judges afraid to do their jobs to get away with it. He was dead wrong about District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.

But, in the end, that didn’t make any difference. Although he probably hadn’t predicted it, Miller found a key ally in “what me worry, not my family, only some non-white asylum seekers” AG Merrick Garland.

Alfred E. Neumann
Merrick Garland’s ancestors were saved! Why should he worry about the  people of color he condemns without due process in his dysfunctional and biased Immigration “Courts” and  by defending Stephen Miller’s neo-Nazi anti-asylum, White Nationalist border policies?
PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons

Garland inexplicably and despicably took up Miller’s unethical, illegal, and immoral cause and found some bad judges on the DC Circuit willing to help trash Black Haitians and other migrants of color. This was certainly not one of American law’s better episodes, as history will eventually document.

There is no sugar coating it! When it comes to treatment of asylum seekers of color at our Southern Border, the Biden Administration is carrying out the “Miller Lite” version of neo-Nazi Stephen Miller’s deadly White Nationalism. Shame!🤮 We’re no closer to a coherent, practical, moral, legal asylum policy at our Southern Border today than we were on Jan. 20!

As Koh points out, there have been better alternatives on asylum seekers and the border since day one of the Administration! They have just refused to take them!

Also, a complicit AG Garland who has consistently failed to stand up for the human and legal rights of migrants of color and to  “just say no” to Stephen Miller’s illegal policies and contrived, clearly pretextual justifications, has been a major cause of this ongoing political, moral, legal, and humanitarian disaster. 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-04-21

WHY BIDEN’S CRUEL, ILLEGAL, IGNORANT BORDER NON-POLICY OF DETERRENCE WILL CONTINUE TO BE A “KILLER ☠️FAILURE” 🤮 — Telling Folks “Doomed In Place” ⚰️ What They Already Know, That The Potential Life-Saving Trip Is “Dangerous” ⚠️ & That White America Would Rather See Them Die, 💀 Out Of Sight & Out Of Mind, Is As Insulting As It Is Stupid & Ineffective!

Theresa Vargas
Theresa Vargas
Reporter
Washington Post

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/filmmaker-darien-gap-black-migrant/2021/10/02/b0bbb85a-230b-11ec-8200-5e3fd4c49f5e_story.html

Theresa Vargas reports for WashPost:

. . . .

“I believe when I go to do this work, I need to integrate myself into the lives of the people I’m covering,” he says. “I don’t want them to see me as above them. We’re on the same level; we’re human.”

That context is needed to understand why Dennison entered the Darién Gap several weeks ago and why, unlike other photographers and videographers, he didn’t take any security guards with him.

That decision would end up giving him a different experience from that of others who have gone there to document the harrowing passage. They have left that jungle and come home with photos that show the horrific struggles of others. He almost didn’t leave the jungle, and he came home with only a fraction of the photos he took and with his own horrific story.

“What he’s been through is horrible and really disturbing,” says Erika Pinheiro, a lawyer who is the litigation and policy director of Al Otro Lado, an advocacy and legal aid organization that serves migrants, refugees and deportees on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The organization has been working with Dennison to create a film that captures the experiences of U.S.-bound Black migrants.

“The only way to understand it is to see it, and that’s what he’s providing,” Pinheiro says. “It’s really important that people understand what’s happening, and that it’s not over in Del Rio.”

The Biden administration recently cleared out a border camp in Del Rio, Tex., where an estimated 15,000 migrants, most of them Haitian nationals seeking asylum, had gathered. The clearing out of the camp came after viral images and video footage showed Border Patrol agents on horseback grabbing migrants and charging at them. In one video, a young girl in a mint-green dress scrambles to get out of the way of a horse heading toward her.

President Biden decried the agents’ actions, and the Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation into the incident.

But what happened in Del Rio captures only part of what many Haitians experience to get to the United States. Many pass through the Darién Gap, some with children in tow and infants strapped to their backs or chests. Officials in Panama have said that a record 70,000 people traveled the 66 miles through the terrain this year.

Before going, Dennison did extensive research on what to expect: spiders with bites that can cause death within six hours, criminals who routinely rob travelers, and polluted water that if not filtered can sicken you. But nothing, he says, could have prepared him for what he experienced.

“When you’re in the jungle, you’re no longer a filmmaker,” he says. “You’re no longer a humanitarian. It becomes about survival.”

. . . .

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

Read the full story at the link.

Sad as truth is, it’s not rocket science:

  1. Desperate people do (and will continue to do) desperate things;
  2. For forced migrants, the dangers of staying will always exceed those of leaving;
  3. “Die in place” isn’t a “policy;”
  4. “Deterrence only” can’t work in the long run;
  5. While institutionalized racism has a long history in U.S. immigration policy, it’s never been a good policy for America, nor will it ever be!

Honestly, where does the Biden Administration get these folks who don’t “get the obvious,” lie about it, and then expect good results?

Right now, after nearly eight months, the Biden Administration still appears  to be in no better position to process the next border influx than they were on January 20, despite numerous warnings and eight months of graphic practical and humanitarian failures. Racially charged rhetoric and more cruel, wasteful, dishonest enforcement and removals won’t do it!

We need reopened legal border ports of entry staffed with more and better Asylum Officers overseen by a pragmatic progressive corps of expert Immigration Judges and a BIA composed of progressive asylum experts with the guts to knock heads and get our broken border legal system back to functionality. To state the obvious, that would promote consistency, transparency, and take some of the pressure off of the Article III Courts!

Because neither Mayorkas nor Garland is committed to taking the bold actions necessary to change the dynamics at the border, America, the Biden Administration, and vulnerable legal asylum seekers appear headed for another four years of avoidable failure with all of its unhappy human and political consequences!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-03-21

🗽🇺🇸WASHPOST: Our Need To Absorb Current Undocumented Residents & Expand Legal Immigration Remains As Clear As Ever — All We Lack Is The Political Will & Courage To Do The Obvious!

From the WashPost Editorial Board:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/26/immigration-reform-is-back-square-one-way-forward-is-clear/

. . . .

There are enormous downsides to border disorder, to immigration policy paralysis and to leaving the fates of more than 11 million current immigrants without any path to a secure future — even beyond the reinforcement it provides to the United States’ growing international reputation for dysfunction. No one gains by the chaos except smugglers who soak desperate migrants financially on their way north in hopes of a better life. The losers include not only the “dreamers” brought to this country as children, who must live in perpetual anxiety, but also the country as a whole, which loses the value of immigrants, skilled and otherwise, who would turbocharge entrepreneurship, create jobs and help the economy grow.

There are available solutions if Congress could overcome its horror of bipartisan compromise. The goal should be to establish a realistic annual quota of immigrant visas for Central Americans, Haitians and others desperate to reach this country who otherwise will cross the border illegally — a number that recognizes the U.S. labor market’s demand for such employees. That must be supplemented by a muscular guest worker program that enables legal border crossing for migrants who want to support families remaining in their home countries.

. . . .

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

Read the complete editorial at the link.

It’s worth adding that the current “border disorder” is largely the result of White Nationalist, legally defective, anti-immigrant policies of the Trump regime compounded by the failure of Mayorkas and Garland to take the obvious, available, common sense steps necessary to reopen legal border ports of entry, to make the long overdue necessary reforms to establish a fair, efficient, and generous legal asylum system at the USCIS Asylum Offices and the Immigration Courts, and to insist on the creation of a robust, functional refugee program for Latin America and the Caribbean.

None of the this is “rocket science!” 🚀 Plenty of great blueprints for administrative reforms and the potential expert leadership to implement them were “out there for the taking” at the beginning of the Biden Administration. By dawdling, tapping the wrong leaders, and continuing enforcement policies and bad judicial practices that were proven failures, the Administration predictably put itself “behind the eight-ball” in establishing order and implementing the rule of law at our borders!

Until the Biden Administration ends its disgraceful, cowardly, illegal, cruel, ineffective, and inhumane reliance on bogus “Title 42” restrictions to suspend orderly legal processing at the border, they will continue to bobble the next predictable “border crisis.” The GOP will continue to spout nativist nonsense. Desperate people will continue to do desperate things. Only a tone-deaf Administration would continue to ignore this reality!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-27-21

NOT ROCKET SCIENCE! 🚀 “Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum . . . .” INA section 208(a). Black Organizations File Complaint About Biden Administration’s Scofflaw Actions Targeting Black Haitians & Other Asylum Seekers Of Color!

Sanjana Karanth
Sanjana Karanth
Politics Reporter
HuffPost

 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-immigration-groups-demand-biden-halt-deportations-haitian-asylum_n_6150a453e4b00164119567a9

Sanjana Karanth reports for HuffPost:

Several Black immigration organizations have filed a formal complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, demanding that the Biden administration halt its continued deportations of Haitian asylum seekers.

The complaint filed by four groups ― the Haitian Bridge Alliance, UndocuBlack Network, African Communities Together and Black Alliance for Just Immigration ― requests that any potential witnesses of Border Patrol abuses be allowed to remain in the U.S. while their asylum claims are investigated. The complaint was first reported by theGrio, and signed by dozens of advocacy groups.

More than 13,000 Haitians were camped along the river at the Texas border town of Del Rio last weekend when Border Patrol officers on horseback charged at some of those gathered there, verbally assaulting and appearing to whip them. Photos of the violence shocked the public.

. . . .

The complaint by the organizations notes that the migrants have been denied access to attorneys, interpreters, adequate medical care, fear-based screening and proper nourishment and sanitation, all under intense heat. It also highlights physical intimidation and violence against migrants by Border Patrol officers, and misleading statements made by Homeland Security officers to Haitians about where they were being flown to.

“We’re not living up to our obligation as a nation to be a place of refuge for people seeking a better life,” former Obama administration Cabinet member Julián Castro told HuffPost earlier this week. “And in the least, asylum seekers, whether they’re from Haiti, or from one of these Northern Triangle countries should be allowed to make their asylum claim, instead of being severely expelled from the country. This was not the change we were hoping for on immigration policy.”

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

Mayorkas’s defense of his grotesque, “Trumpist” misuse of Title 42, which actually has been rejected by a Federal Judge, on “Meet the Press” was as disgraceful as it was dishonest!  

Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr succinctly nailed it in a recent interview for National Geographic: “The United States has to realize that more people are on the move in the world than ever before.  We’re never going to be able to shut off our borders.” https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/expert-u-s-immigration-laws-don-t-match-current-reality

Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr
Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr
Cornell Law

Either Mayorkas doesn’t understand reality, or he’s too intellectually dishonest to speak truth! Regardless, it’s not good! 

Re-establishing the rule of law and treating asylum seekers fairly and generously, as the law requires, is not an option! It’s a legal and moral obligation! There is absolutely no reason to “apologize” for treating asylum seekers fairly and humanely, no matter what racist GOP nativists like Texas “Governor Death” Greg Abbott and Senator “Cancun Ted the Insurrectionist” Cruz say!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-27-21

U

🏴‍☠️MAYORKAS DOUBLES DOWN ON USE OF TRUMP’S BOGUS TITLE 42 RATIONALE TO DEPORT HAITIANS — ABSURDLY & DISINGENUOUSLY CLAIMS HAITI IS “SAFE” FOR RETURNS!

Amanda Holpuch
Amanda Holpuch
Reporter
The Guardian

Amanda Holpuch reports for The Guardian: 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/26/haiti-deportations-covid-biden-homeland-secretary-mayorkas?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, on Sunday defended the Biden administration’s decision to send thousands of Haitians to a home country they fled because of natural disasters and political turmoil.

White House criticizes border agents who rounded up migrants on horseback

Mayorkas told NBC’s Meet the Press the removals were justified because of the coronavirus pandemic, a point disputed by advocates and public health experts.

“The Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention, or CDC] has a Title 42 authority that we exercise to protect the migrants themselves, to protect the local communities, our personnel and the American public,” Mayorkas said.

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“The pandemic is not behind us. Title 42 is a public health policy, not an immigration policy.”

Since Donald Trump’s administration implemented Title 42 in March 2020, advocates and dozens of public health experts have called for its end.

Under Title 42, people who attempt to cross the border are returned to Mexico or deported to their home countries without an opportunity to test asylum claims.

In January, Joe Biden stopped the rule from applying to children. Despite that, at least 22 babies and children were deported to Haiti in February.

More than 30 public health experts wrote to Mayorkas and the head of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, earlier this month, saying Title 42 was “scientifically baseless and politically motivated”.

This coalition has repeatedly said the policy violates the right to seek asylum and ignores how basic public health measures can reduce the spread of Covid-19.

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“Title 42 runs counter to the government’s own commitment to address Covid-19 globally,” the coalition said. “The absence of effective Covid-19 mitigation services at the border and the expulsion of people to situations in which they may be exposed to Covid-19 and unable to practice prevention are contrary to the US government commitment to address Covid-19 globally.”

On Sunday, Mayorkas told CNN about 4,000 Haitians who arrived in the past two weeks have been expelled, 13,000 others had been allowed to enter the US to pursue their immigration cases in court and 8,000 had voluntarily chosen to return to Mexico.

NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd questioned Mayorkas about why thousands were being sent to Haiti even though they had traveled to the US from South America.

“These are Haitian nationals,” Mayorkas said. “Some of them don’t have documents from the countries from which they just left. So they are subject to removal.”

. . . .

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

Of course, Haiti clearly is not a safe place to return migrants:

‘They treated us like animals’: Haitians angry and in despair at being deported from US

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/26/they-treated-us-like-animals-haitians-angry-and-in-despair-at-being-deported-from-us?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘They treated us like animals’: Haitians angry and in despair at being deported from US

Haitian deportees arriving from Texas say they were ‘rounded up like cattle and shackled like criminals’

Joe Parkin Daniels in Port-au-Prince

Published:

05:00 Sunday, 26 September 2021

Follow Joe Parkin Daniels

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When Evens Delva waded across the Rio Grande with his wife and two daughters, he had dreams of starting a new life in Florida. But less than a week later, he and his family stepped on to the tarmac in Port-au-Prince, the sweltering and chaotic capital of Haiti, with nothing except traumatic memories and a feeling of bubbling anger.

Delva, along with nearly 2,000 other Haitians, was deported from southern Texas this week to Haiti, despite having lived in Chile for the past six years and having few remaining connections to his home country. His younger daughter, who is four, does not hold Haitian citizenship, having been born in Chile, and speaks more Spanish than Haitian Creole.

“I don’t know what we’ll do, we don’t have anywhere to stay or anyone to call,” the 40-year-old said, moments after getting off the plane in the blistering midday Caribbean heat. “All I know is that this is the last place I want to be.”

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Evens Delva and his wife at Port-au-Prince airport in Haiti on Friday after being deported from Texas. Photograph: Joe Parkin Daniels/The Guardian

It is not hard to understand why. Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, is mired in overlapping crises. Gasoline shortages and blackouts are a daily reality, while warring gangs routinely kidnap for ransom and wage battle on the streets.

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The grim situation only worsened when the president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in his home on 7 July, triggering a political power struggle and further instability and street violence. On 14 August, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck the country’s poor southern peninsula, killing more than 2,200 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

US envoy to Haiti resigns over ‘inhumane’ decision to deport migrants

The Biden administration’s decision to deport thousands of Haitians under such circumstances drew opprobrium around the world, and prompted the US envoy to Haiti to resign in protest. Haiti is “a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs in control of daily life”, he wrote in his resignation letter. “Surging migration to our borders will only grow as we add to Haiti’s unacceptable misery.”

Last week, the world was shocked by images of police officers on horseback charging at desperate Haitian migrants near a camp of 12,000, set up under the Del Río-Ciudad Acuña International Bridge. Delva was on his way to buy food and water for his family when the cavalry charge sent him and dozens of his compatriots running in a frenzy.

“We were rounded up like cattle and shackled like criminals,” he said, having spent the six-hour flight from San Antonio with his hands and legs tied.

“They treated us like animals,” added Maria, his wife.. “We’ll never forget how that felt.”

. . . .

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

David Shipler
David K.Shipler
American Author
PHOTO: Twitter

David Shipler does a great job of exposing the hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty of Mayorkas and other Biden Administration immigration officials.

America’s Callous Border

 

By David K. Shipler

Several years ago, a gray-haired passport control official at Heathrow Airport in London, noting “writer” under “occupation” on my landing card, asked me what I wrote. I was finishing a book on civil liberties, I told him, with a chapter on immigration. That caught his interest. He leaned forward, glanced around, lowered his voice and said, “I loathe borders.”

Funny line of work you’re in, I said. We shared a chuckle, he stamped my passport, and I crossed the border that he loathed.

We have nation states, and so we have borders. Dictatorships need them to keep people in, lest their countries be drained of the talented and the aspiring. Democracies need them to keep people out—often those with talent and aspiration who are fleeing to safety and opportunity. So far, the United States is lucky enough to be the latter. So far.

When desperate fathers and mothers are drawn with admiring naïveté to the beacon of America, when they carry their children through months of torment by mountain jungles and predatory gangs, when their courage and towering fortitude set them apart from the masses, shouldn’t they be embraced when they reach the final border of a nation of fellow immigrants that touts its compassion and humanity?

Cut through the crazy tangle of immigration laws, regulations, and inconsistent enforcement to the essential ethic, and the answer is an obvious yes. But the obvious is not obvious in the White House or in the Department of Homeland Security or in the ranks of the beleaguered Border Patrol, whose horsemen scramble, as if herding cattle, to intercept frantic Haitians wading from the Rio Grande onto the banks of freedom and promise.

Instead, a new torment is found: Haitians with enough grit to leave their country a decade or so ago and build lives on the margins in Brazil, Chile, and elsewhere are taken from their first steps onto U.S. soil and summarily—summarily, without due process—deported. And where to? To Haiti, a failed state where many have long since lost family or work or even places of shelter. To Haiti, which has collapsed into such violence and disarray that the State Department warns Americans on its website: “Do not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and COVID-19.”

What is wrong with the air in the White House? Is there not enough oxygen? What accounts for the impaired thinking that seems to transcend administrations, from Republican to Democratic. Where is the regard for human dignity? Why is it so often absent in the calculations that create policy? 

Donald Trump wore callousness on his sleeve and was proud of it. His base hooted its applause at his vilification of Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers. By contrast, Joe Biden wears a badge of empathy. His mantra is compassion. “Horrible” and “outrageous” were the words he found to describe the photographed attacks on Haitians from horseback. He halted the use of horses and vowed that agents responsible “will pay.” He also said, “It’s simply not who we are.”

But it is who we are. The images have been compared to old photos of white overseers on horseback commanding enslaved Blacks in the fields. The Border Patrol in cowboy hats have been compared to Texas Rangers “who were celebrated for their excellent ‘tracking skills’ that were put to use to hunt and capture enslaved people,” said historian Monica Martinez of the University of Texas.

These are compelling analogies with painful resonance. They are also flawed as parallels, for the Black migrants at the border are not slaves. They are clamoring to be here, crossing illegally, seeing the border as a threshold. They were not brought here in chains against their will. Some are being removed in chains against their will.

Nevertheless, in a sense they are enslaved by their blackness. If white Canadians tried this up north, does anybody truly believe that they would be treated as the Black Haitians are? Animating America’s conscience should not require reaching back to the sin of slavery. The present ought to be enough.

Our borders always put our split personality on display: We are cruel and welcoming, hateful and helpful, defined by doors closed at times to entire ethnic groups and then opened to invigorate the nation with willing hands and vital contributions.

In fact, if the country is not sufficiently moved by simple morality, then it might consider self-interest. The U.S. population growth rate has been falling steadily since 2008, dropping to a mere 0.58 percent from 2020 to 2021. Many regions lack skilled workers, as homeowners and small business owners and even hospitals can testify from trying to hire carpenters, plumbers, electricians, welders, mechanics, and nurses. We should have winced when one Haitian deportee was quoted as describing himself as a welder and carpenter.

Using abuse to manipulate determined people did not work under Trump—a lesson that Biden and his advisers might have learned. Trump’s administration separated children from their parents at the border, his aides reasoning that families heading north would get the message and—what?–abandon their fortitude and survival instincts, turn around, and head back to life-threatening misery?

So, too Biden officials are reportedly figuring that tossing Haitian expatriates into Haiti’s maelstrom will dissuade others from coming. In other words, don’t be humane, and folks will give up. But they won’t give up. They will still roll the dice, because there’s always a chance, especially since some are being allowed to stay, at least for a while, pending proper examination of their asylum claims as the law requires. When your ship has sunk, you don’t stop clinging to a piece of flotsam just because some shipmates have slipped off into the sea.

What the Biden White House needs is somebody in an influential position who has made this journey, who has shepherded family and children through jungles and ganglands to reach this supposedly promised land. That official might bring to the Oval Office a glimmer of understanding and respect for the force of personality and perseverance that drive a person toward our callous border.

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

Something about the DHS Secretary job seem to require checking honesty, common sense, historical perspective, and humanity at the door, not to mention the true “rule of law.”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-26-21

🤮☠️ARMED GUYS ON HORSES ROUNDING UP AND WHIPPING BLACKS ACCURATELY REPRESENTS AMERICA’S UGLY RACIAL HISTORY & BIDEN’S ASYLUM POLICIES! — That’s Why The Administration Is So Eager To Disingenuously Disown The Actions They Have Encouraged & Enabled! — Blacks & Hispanics Saved Biden’s Candidacy — THIS Is Their “Reward?” — U.S. Envoy To Haiti Quits In Protest Of Biden’s Human Rights Policies, As “Strange Departures” Continue To Roil Biden’s Bumbling, Failing Immigration Bureaucracy!

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/23/men-on-horses-chasing-black-asylum-seekers-sadly-america-has-seen-it-before?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The Biden administration has condemned abuses at the border – while maintaining the policies underlying these abuses. That’s beyond cynical

Published:

06:22 Thursday, 23 September 2021

Follow Moustafa Bayoumi

You’ve probably seen a photograph haunting the internet this week: a white-presenting man on horseback – uniformed, armed and sneering – is grabbing a shoeless Black man by the neck of his T-shirt. The Black man’s face bears an unmistakable look of horror. He struggles to remain upright while clinging dearly to some bags of food in his hands. Between the men, a long rein from the horse’s bridle arches menacingly in the air like a whip. The photograph was taken just a few days ago in Texas, but the tableau looks like something out of antebellum America.

The image is profoundly upsetting, not just for what it portrays but for the history it evokes. What’s happening at the border right now puts two of our founding national myths – that we’re a land of liberty and a nation of immigrants – under scrutiny. To put it plainly, we don’t fare well under inspection.

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US border patrol agents on horseback search for migrants trying to enter the United States along the US-Mexico border. Photograph: José Luis González/Reuters

. . . .

Without review, it’s impossible to know who is facing real threats of persecution when returned to Haiti. The United Nations human rights spokesperson, Marta Hurtado, said that the UN “is seriously concerned by the fact that it appears there have not been any individual assessments of the cases”. Why does the Biden administration not share her concern?

One has to wonder if the same policies expelling Haitians from the US today would be in effect if those arriving at the border were Europeans or even Cubans. If history is any guide – for decades, the US privileged Cubans over Haitians and other Caribbean peoples in immigration matters – the answer is no.

It’s one thing for the Biden administration to condemn abuses conducted by its own government that recall the worst parts of our national history. But it’s quite another to do so while maintaining the policies that enable those abuses. That’s not just cynical. It’s despicable.

  • Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America

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

Read the complete article at the link.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/us-special-envoy-to-haiti-resigns-over-migrant-expulsions_n_614c7f70e4b00164119101a3

Foote’s sudden departure leaves a void in U.S. policy toward Haiti and adds another prominent, critical voice to the administration’s response to Haitians.

AP By Joshua Goodman and Matthew Lee, September 21, 2021

The Biden administration’s special envoy to Haiti has resigned, protesting “inhumane” large-scale expulsions of Haitian migrants to their homeland wracked by civil strife and natural disaster, U.S. officials said Thursday.

Daniel Foote was appointed to the position only in July, following the assassination of Haiti’s president. Even before the migrant expulsions from the small Texas border town of Del Rio, the career diplomat was known to be deeply frustrated with what he considered a lack of urgency in Washington and a glacial pace on efforts to improve conditions in Haiti.

Foote wrote Secretary of State Antony Blinken that he was stepping down immediately “with deep disappointment and apologies to those seeking crucial changes.”

“I will not be associated with the United States inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti, a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs to daily life,” he wrote. “Our policy approach to Haiti remains deeply flawed, and my policy recommendations have been ignored and dismissed, when not edited to project a narrative different from my own.”

Two U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the matter confirmed the resignation on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

One official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters and spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Foote had consistently sought greater oversight of Haiti policy and that the administration did not believe his requests were appropriate.

Foote’s sudden departure leaves a void in U.S. policy toward Haiti and adds another prominent, critical voice to the administration’s response to Haitians camped on the Texas border. The camp has shrunk considerably since surpassing more than 14,000 people on Saturday – many of them expelled and many released in the U.S. with notices to report to immigration authorities.

The White House is facing sharp bipartisan condemnation. Democrats and many pro-immigration groups say efforts to expel thousands of Haitians without a chance to seek asylum violates American principles and their anger has been fueled by images that went viral this week of Border Patrol agents on horseback using aggressive tactics against the migrants.

. . . .

___

Goodman reported from Miami, Lee from New York on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly meetings.

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

Read the complete article at the above link.

And, there are more “strange happenings” within the flailing Biden immigration/human rights bureaucracy. 

Over at ICE, “Immigration pro” John Trasviña is out at OPLA after only a few months in office:

https://www.wgbh.org/news/national-news/2021/09/22/biden-chooses-local-ice-critic-to-be-the-agencys-top-prosecutor

By Sarah Betancourt

September 22, 2021

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The Biden administration has appointed seasoned Boston immigration attorney Kerry Doyle to become its immigration enforcement agency’s top prosecutor.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed to GBH that Doyle, previously of Graves & Doyle, will be its principal legal advisor. The office she will lead is the largest legal program within the Department of Homeland Security, with over 1,250 attorneys and 290 support personnel.

The Office of the Principal Legal Advisor sends its prosecutors to litigate deportation cases before the Executive Office for immigration Review, the body that oversees the nation’s immigration courts.

Doyle has been an outspoken critic of the agency and has led many lawsuits against it.

She is a graduate of the American University Washington School of Law, and George Washington University. She started her career as a legislative assistant to former U.S. Rep. Bob Wise (D-W.Va.), and became an attorney for Legal Services for Vietnamese Asylum Seekers in 1993. She was managing attorney for the International Institute of Boston from 1998 to 2001, before founding Graves & Doyle with partner William E. Graves Jr.

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The Boston-based firm handled a breadth of immigration issues, from citizenship, to business and family immigration, federal litigation, asylum, and deportation cases.

Doyle took the case of Iranian student Mohammad Shahab Dehghani Hossein Abadi, who was enrolled at Northeastern University and deported because it was assumed by Logan Airport border patrol agents that he would remain in the U.S. beyond the time frame of his student visa. She co-authored an op-ed in The Boston Globe about Abadi’s case, entitled “Customs and Border Protection gone rogue.”

Doyle has also been particularly outspoken against ICE on Beacon Hill, including one appearance in January 2020, where she called ICE “out of control” during a hearing over the Safe Communities Act, which would limit how state and local municipalities interact with federal immigration enforcement.

Doyle declined to comment on her appointment, asking GBH to speak with ICE’s media office, which did not return requests for comment.

Susan Church of Demissie & Church has known and worked with Doyle for over two decades.

“She actually taught me much of what I know about immigration law,” said Church. “I can’t imagine a better, more knowledgeable attorney to run that agency because she knows the immigration system in and out.”

Church and Doyle co-filed a 2017 federal lawsuit against former President Donald Trump with the American Civil Liberties Union after he banned entry to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The Office of the Principal Legal Advisor has control over whether immigrants are released from detention, what financial amounts — or bonds — are set for them to be released, or whether a lawsuit gets postponed.

“There will be a tremendous opportunity to craft policy procedures, rules and the like to make sure that immigrants receive a fair day in court and a fair hearing and have a fair shot at getting a life in the United States,” said Church.

Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has been criticized for continuing to keep immigrants detained with high bond amounts, but Church thinks Doyle’s appointment shows there may be a shift.

“I think it’s clear that the Biden administration is following the path of the progressive district attorney and installing somebody in charge who cares about safety issues, but also cares deeply about the rights and the protections for immigrants,” she said, referring to the recent nomination of Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins to be the U.S. attorney.

Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, also applauded the pick. “We hope Kerry Doyle’s outstanding track record of fighting for immigrants’ rights continues in her new position at ICE,” Rose said. But, she added, “the ACLU remains committed to holding this and other government agencies accountable.”

The former principal legal advisor John D. Trasviña announced his retirement at the beginning of September.

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

On one hand, Kerry Doyle is well qualified and presumably will work to restore professionalism, common sense, and humanity to what had been a misdirected, counterproductive, and totally out of control agency under Trump and his toadies.

But, there has to be more to Trasviña’s “retirement” than meets the eye. One does not normally accept a senior level policy position in a new Administration while planning to “retire” within a few months.

So, something else is going on here. Many of us had applauded the appointment of  Trasviña, a high profile, nationally respected, experienced expert in immigration, civil rights, human rights, and racial justice, at OPLA. During his short tenure, he issued helpful memos and guidance expanding the use of prosecutorial discretion (“PD”) at ICE. More aggressive and sensible use of PD is critical to controlling and eventually eliminating the largely Government-created 1.4 million case Immigration Court backlog.

Best wishes to Kerry in her new position!

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

Immigration and human rights are a mess because Biden and his advisors ignored expert advice to move quickly and aggressively to restore robust refugee and asylum systems and to institute long overdue progressive reforms and personnel changes at EOIR. Right now, there appears to be neither an overall plan nor the dynamic progressive leadership and better Immigration Judiciary to carry it out.

It’s going to take more than a few intellectually dishonest expressions of “outrage” from Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki and a bogus “investigation” of Border Patrol Agents who were only carrying out the cruel, inhumane, and racist policies developed and approved at the highest levels of the Biden Administration, to wipe out the images of the abuse of asylum applicants at our border and the deep-seated racial prejudices and biases it represents. 🏴‍☠️It’s all about dehumanization and continuing “Dred Scottification” of the “other”🤮☠️ — predominantly courageous, yet vulnerable, people of color!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-24-21

SCHUMER RIPS BIDEN’S XENOPHOBIC ASYLUM POLICIES, 🤮 ILLEGAL EXPULSIONS OF HAITIANS TO DANGER ZONES!☠️

Border Patrol on Horses
The Biden Administration’s treatment of Black folks trying to apply for asylum has a certain “Jim Crow” appearance!
PHOTO: times of Israel.com

Igor Bobic reports for HuffPost:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/haiti-migrants-biden-chuck-schumer_n_6149f781e4b077b735eb78f3

. . . .

“We cannot continue these hateful and xenophobic Trump policies that disregard our refugee laws,” Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor. “We must allow asylum-seekers to present their claims at our ports of entry and be afforded due process.”

. . . .

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

Exactly what I’ve been saying at Courtside!

Fact is, nobody appears to know what’s really happening at the border and what policies and criteria are applied. One moment, the Biden Administration brags that Haitians are being rapidly and arbitrarily excluded with no due process. A little later, they claim that many Haitians are being allowed to come into the U.S. for “processing.” https://madison.com/news/national/many-haitian-migrants-released-in-us-trump-sues-niece-ny-times-biden-doubles-vaccine-purchase/article_89244157-a530-500b-9095-ba676e4a2307.html

Who knows what “processing” is? Meat processing? Removal processing? Asylum processing? Who’s making these life or death decisions? What criteria are they using?

I see little evidence that the key decisions are being made by trained Asylum Officers. Rather, the Haitians appear to be at the whim and the mercy of the Border Patrol Agents who encounter them! “Apprehend” seems like a very misleading term for those mostly seeking just to turn themselves in and apply for asylum in the absence of a functioning legal screening system at ports of entry.

One thing we know for sure: Myorkas’s claim that it is “safe” to indiscriminately return individuals to Haiti, a nation every true expert agrees is in total physical and political crisis, is pure BS! The kind of thing that Gauleiter Miller and his toadies would say!

Almost all experts, and Courtside, emphasized the need for the Biden Administration to use the time between the election and the inauguration to “hit the ground running” to have a comprehensive plan ready to deal with asylum cases at ports of entry. This included reopening the ports, getting trained and well-qualified Asylum Officers in place, and fixing the dysfunctional mess at EOIR on at least a temporary basis with real experts on asylum law replacing the BIA and some of the other Immigration Judges unqualified to fairly decide asylum cases.

Instead, they dawdled and did same old old, same old. EOIR remains a dysfunctional mess with a total lack of guidance and a shortage of Immigration Judges skilled in fair adjudication of asylum claims.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09–22-21

🤮☠️👎🏻 BIDEN ADMINISTRATION DOUBLES DOWN ON ONE OF THE UGLIEST AMERICAN RACIST TRADITIONS: SHAFTING BLACK HAITIAN REFUGEES! — But Cruel, Illegal, Deterrence Gimmicks Won’t Stop Haitian Migration!

 

Here’s the “policy:’

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Office of Public Affairs

DHS Outlines Strategy to Address Increase in Migrants in Del Rio

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is immediately implementing a new, comprehensive strategy to address the increase in migrant encounters in the Del Rio sector of South Texas.  It has six key components.

First, within the next 24-48 hours, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will have surged 400 agents and officers to the Del Rio sector to improve control of the area.  If additional staff is needed, more will be sent. The Del Rio Port of Entry has temporarily closed, and traffic is being re-routed from Del Rio to Eagle Pass to more effectively manage resources and ensure uninterrupted flow of trade and travel.

Second, U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) is coordinating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard to move individuals from Del Rio to other processing locations, including approximately 2,000 yesterday, in order to ensure that irregular migrants are swiftly taken into custody, processed, and removed from the United States consistent with our laws and policy.

Third, DHS will secure additional transportation to accelerate the pace and increase the capacity of removal flights to Haiti and other destinations in the hemisphere within the next 72 hours.

Fourth, the Administration is working with source and transit countries in the region to accept individuals who previously resided in those countries.

Fifth, DHS is undertaking urgent humanitarian actions with other relevant federal, state, and local partners to reduce crowding and improve conditions for migrants on U.S. soil.  DHS has already taken a number of steps to ensure the safety and security of individuals as they await processing, including having Border Patrol emergency medical technicians on hand and providing water, towels, and portable toilets.

Finally, the White House has directed appropriate U.S. agencies to work with the Haitian and other regional governments to provide assistance and support to returnees.

The majority of migrants continue to be expelled under CDC’s Title 42 authority.  Those who cannot be expelled under Title 42 and do not have a legal basis to remain will be placed in expedited removal proceedings.  DHS is conducting regular expulsion and removal flights to Haiti, Mexico, Ecuador, and Northern Triangle countries.

Beyond the six steps outlined above, the Biden Administration has reiterated that our borders are not open, and people should not make the dangerous journey.  Individuals and families are subject to border restrictions, including expulsion.  Irregular migration poses a significant threat to the health and welfare of border communities and to the lives of migrants themselves, and should not be attempted.

# # #

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

Here’s the reality:

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/US-nears-plan-for-widescale-expulsions-of-Haitian-16469378.php

Haitians on Texas border undeterred by US plan to expel them

JUAN A. LOZANO, ERIC GAY and ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press

Updated: Sep. 18, 2021 10 p.m.

48

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48A dust storm moves across the area as Haitian migrants use a dam to cross into and from the United States from Mexico, Saturday, Sept. 18, 2021, in Del Rio, Texas. The U.S. plans to speed up its efforts to expel Haitian migrants on flights to their Caribbean homeland, officials said Saturday as agents poured into a Texas border city where thousands of Haitians have gathered after suddenly crossing into the U.S. from Mexico.Eric Gay/APShow More

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48Haitian migrants use a dam to cross into and from the United States from Mexico, Saturday, Sept. 18, 2021, in Del Rio, Texas. The U.S. plans to speed up its efforts to expel Haitian migrants on flights to their Caribbean homeland, officials said Saturday as agents poured into a Texas border city where thousands of Haitians have gathered after suddenly crossing into the U.S. from Mexico.Eric Gay/APShow More

DEL RIO, Texas (AP) — Haitian migrants seeking to escape poverty, hunger and a feeling of hopelessness in their home country said they will not be deterred by U.S. plans to speedily send them back, as thousands of people remained encamped on the Texas border Saturday after crossing from Mexico.

Scores of people waded back and forth across the Rio Grande on Saturday afternoon, re-entering Mexico to purchase water, food and diapers in Ciudad Acuña before returning to the Texas encampment under and near a bridge in the border city of Del Rio.

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Junior Jean, a 32-year-old man from Haiti, watched as people cautiously carried cases of water or bags of food through the knee-high river water. Jean said he lived on the streets in Chile the past four years, resigned to searching for food in garbage cans.

“We are all looking for a better life,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security said Saturday that it moved about 2,000 of the migrants from the camp to other locations Friday for processing and possible removal from the U.S. Its statement also said it would have 400 agents and officers in the area by Monday morning and would send more if necessary.

The announcement marked a swift response to the sudden arrival of Haitians in Del Rio, a Texas city of about 35,000 people roughly 145 miles (230 kilometers) west of San Antonio. It sits on a relatively remote stretch of border that lacks capacity to hold and process such large numbers of people.

. . . .

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

Not surprisingly, Haiti wants no part of the Biden Administration’s scofflaw nonsense:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/19/world/americas/us-haitian-deportation.html

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

As one of my esteemed colleagues summed up the Biden Administration’s latest attack on the rule of law and humanity: “Not a word about asylum, withholding, CAT, humanitarian parole.…”

The Biden Administration has thrown down the gauntlet! Progressive human rights experts had better get out the big litigation guns! Because Biden has basically ripped up “sign-on letters of outrage and concern” and thrown the pieces to the wind. He has delivered a Washington Monument sized “big middle finger” 🖕 to human rights advocates and Black supporters of Haitian refugees! What, if anything, will they do about it! 

Whatever happened to our first Black Veep, Kamala Harris? Once, she was a strong voice for an end to racism and fair, humane treatment of asylum applicants, regardless of race. Now, she seems to have disappeared from the racial justice playing field!

Vice President Elect Kamala Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris — Our first Black Veep has “disappeared” on the issue of human rights for Black Haitian asylum seekers!
Official Senate Photo
Public Realm

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS 

09-20-21

👎🏽☠️ 8 MONTHS INTO ADMINISTRATION, MAYORKAS’S & GARLAND’S FAILURE TO RE-ESTABLISH LEGAL ASYLUM SYSTEM AT BORDER CREATES UNNECESSARY HUMANITARIAN TRAUMA & CHAOS FOR HAITIANS & OTHERS SEEKING PROTECTION! — 71 Human Rights NGOs Excoriate Biden Administration’s Callous Trashing Of Human Rights & Campaign Promises! — “[W]e, the 71 undersigned organizations, are appalled that you have chosen to file a notice of appeal in the Huisha-Huisha litigation, resisting an order to process the protection claims of families with children who seek asylum.”

Arelis R. Hernandez
Arelis R. Hernandez
Southern Border Reporter
Washington Post
Nick Miroff
Nick Miroff
Reporter, Washington Post

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/haitian-migrants-mexico-texas-border/2021/09/16/4da1e366-16fe-11ec-ae9a-9c36751cf799_story.html

Arelis R. Hernández and Nick Miroff for WashPost:

DEL RIO, Tex. — Thousands of Haitian migrants who have crossed the Rio Grande in recent days are sleeping outdoors under a border bridge in South Texas, creating a humanitarian emergency and a logistical challenge U.S. agents describe as unprecedented.

Authorities in Del Rio say more than 10,000 migrants have arrived at the impromptu camp, and they are expecting more in the coming days. The sudden influx has presented the Biden administration with a new border emergency at a time when illegal crossings have reached a 20-year high and Department of Homeland Security officials are straining to accommodate and resettle more than 60,000 Afghan evacuees.

The migrants arriving to Del Rio appear to be part of a larger wave of Haitians heading northward, many of whom arrived in Brazil and other South American nations after the 2010 earthquake. They are on the move again, embarking on a grueling, dangerous journey to the United States with smuggling organizations managing the trip, according to border authorities and refugee groups.

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Read the rest of the article at the link.

The arrival of asylum seekers at the Southern Border is predictable. Contrary to GOP right wing nativist BS, asylum seekers don’t present a significant national security threat to the U.S. 

On the other hand, Texas Governor Gregg Abbott and his GOP right wing crazies are a clear and present existential danger to our heath and security as a nation. Don’t let Abbott and his neo-fascist gang shrift the focus away from their lawless, stupid, and immoral behavior — with glaring racial overtones!

The current disorder is the direct result of Mayorkas and Garland not taking the obvious steps to re-establish credible fear screening at ports of entry and the lack of progressive leaders and judges at EOIR who could cut through the self-created backlog and establish and enforce fair precedents and procedures that would enable timely, yet fair and efficient, processing of asylum cases in Immigration Court for those who pass credible fear.

Instead, Garland has gone with inane, backlog-building, aimless-docket-reshuffling encouraging “gimmicks” like “Dedicated Dockets,” and ill-advised proposals to increase use of “expedited removal” and limit the rights of asylum seekers to de novo hearings, without instituting the major EOIR reforms necessary to make such a system credible.

So far, the results have been predictably chaotic and ineffective. By dragging their feet on elimination of the Title 42 farce initiated by Trump & Miller, Garland and Mayorkas now find themselves “between a rock and a hard place” because of District Judge Sullivan’s recent order finding the misuse of Title 42 to “orbit” asylum seekers to doom without any process was likely illegal.

A restored, fair, legal asylum system inevitably would result in the legal admission of more asylees. Again, contrary to the GOP blather, that is something 1) our law requires, and 2) our country needs. Running a viable refugee program for the Americas outside U.S. borders is also something that should already have been in operation and could reduce the necessity for irregular entries.

Restoration of the rule of law and morality at the border would also take the regulation of immigration out of the hands of smugglers and cartels and restore it to the Government. But, that requires both an understanding of the dynamics of human migration and the courage to do the right thing in making the system work — not as a “false deterrent” but as a fair, generous, efficient, and equitable system, led by and composed of progressive human rights experts.

In the wake of the DOJ’s decision to appeal Judge Sullivan’s order and reports that the Biden Administration will begin illegal deportations of Haitians back to danger zones in Haiti without any due process, 71 human rights organizations wrote a letter blasting the Administration’s actions.

Joint Letter to President Biden, Secretary Mayorkas, Attorney General Garland on Title 42_09172021

September 17, 2021
Hon. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. President of the United States 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500
Hon. Alejandro N. Mayorkas
Secretary of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2707 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, SE Washington, DC 20528
Hon. Merrick Garland
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20530
Dear President Biden, Secretary Mayorkas, and Attorney General Garland:
In the wake of multiple federal court decisions holding that your administration’s policies are likely unlawful, we, the 71 undersigned organizations, are appalled that you have chosen to file a notice of appeal in the Huisha-Huisha litigation, resisting an order to process the protection claims of families with children who seek asylum. This decision serves as a particularly disturbing step in what is emerging to be a clear pattern of failure to uphold the refugee laws enacted by Congress. We write to urge you to immediately change course before you further tarnish this administration’s record and inflict even more harm on families, children and adults seeking our country’s protection. We call on the administration to immediately end its embrace, defense, and advancement of illegal and cruel Trump administration policies that harm families and people seeking protection and bolster xenophobic rhetoric by treating people seeking protection as threats. Instead, we urge your administration to restore access to U.S. asylum at ports of entry and also to immediately stop blocking and expelling asylum seekers and migrants to life-threatening dangers.
On September 16, a federal district court held that the government likely does not have authority under U.S. law to implement the Title 42 policy, which subjects people to “real threats of violence and persecution” by returning them to danger in Mexico or the countries they fled, and enjoined the use of the policy against families. Rather than respect human rights and restore asylum in compliance with this ruling, the administration has already filed a notice of appeal in this case. Earlier this month, another federal district court held that the government’s policy of turning back people seeking protection at ports of entry is likely unlawful under the Immigration

and Nationality Act. Your administration must reverse course and accept these court rulings, immediately take steps to restart asylum processing, and permanently end these policies, which were designed to deter and punish people seeking safety in the United States and betray our values and legal obligations towards refugees.
Rather than abiding by campaign promises to uphold the legal right to seek asylum and treat migrants humanely, your administration has embraced and escalated the unlawful Title 42 policy created by the Trump administration to use public health as a pretext to evade U.S. refugee laws. In August 2021, your administration issued a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) order extending the policy and relying on much of the same dangerous and false rhetoric that the Trump administration relied on in its CDC orders.
The human toll of the Title 42 policy during your first eight months in office is enormous. Since January 2021, there have been at least 6,356 public and media reports of violent attacks— including rape, kidnapping, trafficking, and assault—against people blocked from requesting asylum protection at the U.S.-Mexico border and/or expelled to Mexico. The U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and other international bodies have repeatedly condemned the use of Title 42 to return refugees to danger in violation of international law and urged the United States to restore access to asylum. Leading public health experts have warned the administration time and time again that the policy has no scientific basis as a public health measure and urged the use of rational science-based measures to process asylum seekers and migrants to safety. In its ruling enjoining the use of Title 42, the district court also emphasized that the government’s public health arguments were specious.
This month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) expelled dozens of Haitian families and adults to danger in Haiti under Title 42, despite ongoing turmoil following the assassination of the country’s president in July and a major earthquake in August, and flew more than 6,000 Guatemalan migrants and asylum seekers directly to the danger they had fled in Guatemala without an opportunity to apply for U.S. asylum. Since August, DHS has also expelled asylum seekers and migrants directly to southern Mexico, where Mexican immigration authorities forced them to cross the border into remote areas of Guatemala. These expulsions to southern Mexico sparked public condemnation from UNHCR, which warned that this practice “increases the risk of chain refoulement—pushbacks by successive countries— of vulnerable people in danger, in contravention of international law and the humanitarian principles of the 1951 Refugee Convention.”
We further call on your administration to take all necessary legal steps to end the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), most importantly by immediately making a public commitment to issue a new policy memo that provides a fuller explanation for the decision to terminate MPP and that resolves any perceived Administrative Procedure Act (APA) issues identified by the district court in its ruling requiring the government to restart this shameful program. The APA
2

was the singular concern cited by the Supreme Court in its decision upholding the district court’s preliminary injunction, and the administration’s failure to date to commit to issuing a new policy memo raises serious concerns over whether you intend to use the legal challenge as cover to backtrack on your commitment to fulfill your campaign promise to end MPP.
During the two years that MPP was in effect, there were over 1,500 publicly reported cases of violent attacks against people returned to Mexico, including asylum seekers who were brutally murdered. In addition to subjecting individuals to life-threatening dangers under MPP, the program violated the due process rights of asylum seekers and migrants by stranding them in Mexico without access to legal counsel, forcing them to risk their lives to attend their court hearings—there have been numerous reports of asylum seekers in MPP being kidnapped while attempting to reach immigration court—and requiring many to prepare their cases while facing unrelenting fear and insecurity. It is clear that there is no way to make MPP lawful, humane, safe, or rights-respecting. The administration should take all lawful and necessary steps to preserve the MPP wind down and continue processing individuals previously subjected to MPP into the United States while taking immediate steps to address the District Court’s concerns to terminate the policy once and for all.
Policies that turn back, block, expel, and force asylum seekers and migrants to wait in danger are unlawful, as now confirmed by multiple federal courts, and we entreat your administration to immediately stop inflicting violence on people seeking safety in our country by permanently ending these policies and restoring asylum in compliance with U.S. and international refugee laws.
Sincerely,
ADL (Anti-Defamation League) African Communities Together Aldea – The People’s Justice Center Alliance San Diego
America’s Voice
American Friends Service Committee
American Immigration Lawyers Association
Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP)
Bellevue Program for Survivors of Torture
Border Angels
Border Kindness
Border Organizing Project
Bridges Faith Initiative
Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition
CARECEN SF – Central American Resource Center of Northern California
3

Catholic Charities of Southern New Mexico Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) Center for Victims of Torture
Church World Service
Detention Watch Network
Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement
First Focus on Children
Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project Grassroots Leadership
Haitian Bridge Alliance
HIAS
Hope Border Institute
Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative Human Rights First
Human Rights Initiative of North Texas
Immigrant Defenders Law Center
Immigration Equality
International Mayan League
International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) International Rescue Committee
Japanese American Citizens League
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA
Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice of Western MA Justice Action Center
Justice in Motion
Karen Organization of San Diego
Kino Border Initiative
Latin America Working Group (LAWG)
Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG)
National Immigrant Justice Center
National Immigration Law Center
National Immigration Project (NIPNLG)
National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
Oasis Legal Services
Oxfam America
Physicians for Human Rights
Project Blueprint
Refugees International
4

Safe Harbors Network
San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium
South Bay Peope Power
Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice
Tahirih Justice Center
The Advocates for Human Rights
Transgender Law Center
Unified U.S. Deported Veterans resource Center
Unitarian Universalist Refugee & Immigrant Services & Education VECINA
Vera Institute of Justice
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)
Witness at the Border
Women’s Refugee Commission
Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights
5

Obviously, the Biden Administration has little regard for the human rights advocates who helped put them in office. Only time will tell whether disrespecting, antagonizing, and making enemies and adversaries out of a highly talented and motivated group of progressives, who successfully fended off some of the most grotesque human rights violations by the Trump kakistocracy, and who have demonstrated the capacity to consistently “out-litigate” the floundering DOJ, will prove to be a successful strategy!

“Floaters”
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” —  Those who don’t die in the river, the desert, or at the hands of traffickers while trying to seek asylum in an arrogant America that disdains human rights and moral values face arbitrary and illegal removal to potential torture, rape, and death in the countries they fled! Why is the Biden Administration, like the Trump kakistocracy, afraid to make fair and honest determinations of qualifications for asylum? 
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)

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-19-21