"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Liz Mineo, Staff Writer, interviews Professor Neuman in The Harvard Gazette:
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What should be done about border security, enforcement, and the immigration court backlog?
In terms of enforcement, there is no easy solution. A border fence is merely a symbol and no solution. Clearly, the adjudication system needs more resources, and adjustments to improve both efficiency and fairness. For both sides, justice delayed is justice denied, and that should be an important part of the focus.
Another priority, contrary to some claims, is to reduce reliance on detention. The U.S. is engaged in arbitrary detention of migrants who really don’t need to be detained; they could be subject to surveillance.
The country should also respect its international obligations not to send people back to countries where they will be persecuted, tortured, or killed. It cannot suspend its international obligations on that front, and it should not openly violate them, as it did under COVID.
What measures should be taken to reduce the flow of migrants into the U.S?
In terms of enforcement, the important point to stress is that this is not an issue that the U.S. can solve unilaterally. There must be a regional solution. It’s obvious to anyone who looks at the logistics of the problem that the solutions depend on cooperation with Mexico. Congress can’t just impose a solution and assume that Mexico will go along with it. More broadly, there are other countries that need to be involved in protecting refugees and in solving some of the problems that lead to migration.
Some experts say the asylum system is a parallel immigration system and that it should be revamped. What’s your take on this?
I’d like to use the term asylum broadly, not legalistically, to cover forms of protection from persecution, killing, and torture. The U.S. asylum system is too opaque and too inconsistent: Valid claims may be rejected, and claims that are made in perfectly good faith may turn out to be invalid.
On the other hand, some people seek desperately to come to the U.S. for reasons that are not covered by asylum, such as poverty, loss of livelihood, or to join family members. The system needs to winnow those claims out while remaining open to valid claims for protection. It would also benefit from greater clarity on which claims are valid, and from more consistent adjudication, but now, the system is not meeting its obligations to persecuted people.
Finally, what are your realistic hopes for changes in immigration policies?
For now, my hopes would be that any new legislation would increase funding and would help give the public the sense that the border situation is being addressed.
And meanwhile that the executive would use the authority that it already has to manage the situation better, including by negotiating with other countries. The executive should resist efforts that obstruct its compliance with its obligations.
There is danger that any new legislation would decrease protection, which would mean that we would be taking no steps forward, and several steps backward, and that nonetheless, issues about migration would remain just as divisive as they are now.
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Read the full (edited) interview at the link.
“Decrease protection” seems to be a toxic bipartisan goal of Congress and the Administration. What’s preventing it? They can’t agree on the amount of cruelty, suffering, and dehumanization to inflict on vulnerable forced migrants who overwhelmingly seek only to have the USG process their legal claims for protection in a fair and timely manner! That reality has clearly been lost in the rancid, one-sided, often secret “negotiations” in Congress; the insipid statements of the Biden Administration promising more border closures, cruel, inhuman, degrading, expensive, and wasteful detention; and treacherous “bipartisan” abrogation of well-established “life or death” legal rights to fair consideration of claims!
Professor Neuman says “this is not an issue that the U.S. can solve unilaterally.” There is general consensus among migration experts on this fundamental truth! Yet, Congress and the Administration keep pretending otherwise, with little critical, informed “pushback” from the media.
Why isn’t Kristen Welker interviewing Professor Neuman and other migration experts, rather than making “Meet the Press” a “Foxlike Forum” for those promoting White Nationalist lies about the border and national security? Welker hasn’t bothered to inform herself about the human lives and human rights involved with forced migration at the border. Therefore, her feeble attempts to stop GOP nativist politicos from rambling on with their border myths are somewhere between ineffective to pathetic, but certainly must be maddening to anyone involved with assisting the actual humans seeking protection under our dysfunctional legal system!
Garland’s inexcusable failure to fix EOIR and get it working fairly, professionally, expertly, and in real time is a drag on the Biden Administration immigration policies and an existential threat to our democracy!
Amy E. Pope Director General International Organization for Migration PHOTO: IOMFilippo Grandi United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees PHOTO: UNHCR
Pope is the Director General (DG) of the International Organization for Migration; Grandi is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
F
rom the sands of the Sahel to the waters of the Mediterranean, from the wilderness of the Darien in Central America to the Bay of Bengal, millions of refugees and migrants journey along routes that are synonymous with desperation, exploitation and lost lives. As the heads of the two U.N. agencies that protect and support people on the move, we believe this is one of the great global challenges of our time.
The loudest political response has been to claim that only tougher action can resolve it. Most recently, a number European states have announced plans to “offshore” or simply deport asylum seekers and/or make conditions around immigration and asylum more hostile.
Such plans are increasingly in vogue. They are also wrong. They overly concentrate on deterrence, control and law enforcement, and disregard the fundamental right to seek asylum. This approach is ineffective and irresponsible, leaving people stranded or compelling them to take even greater risks.
We do not want to understate the scale of the challenge created by today’s population movements. But to meet it, bigger thinking and bolder leadership are needed. The right strategy would tackle every stage of the journey, through a comprehensive and route-based approach of engagement. So, what should such a strategy look like?
First, we need to address the issues that compel people to leave home in the first place. Resolving conflicts, improving security, reinforcing human rights, providing sustained and reliable financial support to boost growth and resilience—all address the root causes of displacement and migration by investing in people’s futures. Failing to make these investments and cutting development aid are false economies.
Nonetheless, millions of people have no choice but to leave home—protracted conflicts, widescale rights abuses, intolerable poverty, and the devastating effects of climate change are just some of the causes. Yet the same point applies: offer hope and opportunity and people will take it.
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Two ingredients are essential for our proposals to succeed: cooperation and real responsibility-sharing between governments, even in these divisive times; and attention to every part of the journey. An approach focused mainly on deterrence will fail—indeed, it is already failing.
“Offer hope and opportunity and people will take it!” That’s essentially what the Supremes said 35 years ago in the landmark decision INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca requiring a suitably generous interpretation and application of the international “refugee” definition that also governs asylum.
Over the next several decades, slow but noticeable progress was made toward “realizing the full promise of Cardoza.” At one point, largely as a result of some Court of Appeals interventions, and a few positive BIA precedents granting asylum in the mid to late 1990’s, the “combined protection granted rate” for asylum, withholding, and CAT by EOIR, the primary precedent-setter and adjudicator of asylum law in the Executive Branch, exceeded 60% for those actually able to get to merits hearings in the somewhat haphazard system.
However, over the past several Administrations most of that progress has been reversed, sometimes intentionally, other times negligently. The dysfunction, mounting backlogs, poor precedents, lack of asylum expertise, endless “any reason to deny gimmicks,” and the dreaded “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” have made a mockery of justice for asylum seekers at EOIR. It has also generated a tidal wave of failure and mindless attempts by the USG to evade the rule of law and their responsibilities to fairly adjudicate asylum claims that goes far beyond our borders.
None of the nativist, restrictionist, proposals now being discussed in the Senate would help this situation! Indeed, they would undoubtedly make everything worse in the long run! They will also compromise our national security and enrich and embolden human smugglers and cartels. Nativist deterrence is definitely a “lose-lose proposition” even if many U.S. politicos are unwilling or unable to admit that!
In many ways, the “head in the sand” approach of prosperous nations to human migration reminds me of their past attempts to deny or ignore the effect of climate change — something that is directly related to forced migration and not adequately addressed by the post WW II refugee framework.
I was heartened to see among the recommendations in this article:
But this is not just about policies and strategies. It means engaging more closely with the people in mixed movements, such as offering practical and legal advice on accessing protection, to guidance on applying for third-country options. Such a chain of engagement might require new, bespoke models of collaboration but, if done strategically, would address a range of situations.\
Volunteer retired judges from various State and Federal systems could potentially assist the USG and NGOs by advance screening applicants, inside and outside the U.S., for asylum with an eye toward helping individuals make good choices and directing those unable to meet the current refugee and asylum criteria to humane alternatives. It’s exactly the type of new, creative, “model of collaboration” (and cost efficiency) that the authors recommend!
Given the current state of the world, with active wars on several fronts, and many corrupt and/or repressive governments, it’s highly likely that forced migration will continue to increase in the foreseeable future. That makes it essential that developed nations work with each other and humanitarian experts on viable, durable solutions that recognize the complexity, the opportunities, and the inevitability of human migration.
On Meet the Press today, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spouted virtually every “border myth” in the book, without much effective pushback from moderator Kristen Welker. In particular, Welker continued her practice of not featuring any experts who actually work with forced migrants at the border. Meanwhile, Graham was unwilling to condemn Trump’s Hitlerian language about immigrants “poisoning the blood” despite numerous opportunities by Welker for him to do so.
What Graham didn’t do, and Welker didn’t press him on, was establish any connection between eliminating asylum and either reducing terrorist threats or fighting drug smuggling which has been shown time and again to have little or nothing to do with individuals struggling to get appointments through “CBP One” or turning themselves in to CBP upon entry to submit to asylum screening.
Additionally, Graham continued to repeat, without evidence (other than one lame anecdote), the nativist claim that almost nobody coming to the border has a legitimate fear of return. That contradicts almost all reports from those who actually work with forced migrants at the border and elsewhere. It’s also remarkable because the vast majority of those who have been allowed into the U.S. in the past year have not had an opportunity to document and present their claims in the fair merits hearing required by law. Yet the “border debate” remains largely one-sided and reality free!
That’s not to minimize the failure of the Biden Administration to heed expert advice and make major administrative, personnel, and expertise changes in the asylum adjudication system and the Immigration Courts on “Day One.” Nor does it excuse their failure to set up an organized, mutually beneficial, system for resettling those screened the into the country away from border points of entry.
Again, the absence of coherent rational discussion of asylum adjudication by experts by Meet the Press and other so-called “mainstream media” is both telling and disturbing. Certainly, internationally-recognized experts like Filippo Grande and Amy Pope must be available to Welker. Why don’t we ever hear from them?
Demand that Congress and the Biden Administration stop the toxic nonsense of “trading” the lives and rights of forced migrants for bombs and weapons to fight foreign wars. It’s time to get serious about developing immigration and refugee policies that operate in the “real world” of human migration, eschew expensive, cruel, proven to fail “deterrence only,” and give primacy to the humanity and rights of migrants and the opportunities they present for our world’s future!
T. Swift, Entertainer, Entrepreneur, Economic Dynamo! LOS ANGELES – Swift at 2019 iHeartRadio Music Awards on March 14, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Glenn Francis/Pacific Pro Digital Photography) Creative Commons License.
The Economy (Taylor’s Version)
Taylor Swift’s record-shattering Eras Tour — set to bring in more money than any other concert in American history — is heading to 8,500 movie theaters this weekend.
Call it a gold rush: Taylor Swift is adding billions to the U.S. economy.
Swift’s record-shattering Eras Tour is set to be the most lucrative concert run in American history. But the massive production not only provided a jolt of money to sold-out stadiums — it also infused the American economy with a trickle-down flow of cash.
Now, as the show heads to movie theaters this weekend, millions more will experience — and shell out cold, hard cash for — a moment with Swift.
As she hits the silver screen, here’s a look at The Economy (Taylor’s Version).
The biggest windfall is headed straight to Swift, who stands to make as much as $4.1 billion from the Eras Tour, according to estimates from Peter Cohan, an associate professor of management at Babson College.
That’s assuming the pop star ends up keeping the standard artist’s share of roughly 85 percent of her tour’s revenue, with average ticket prices of $456. Swift’s earnings would be the most from a single tour for any musical act to date — and more than the yearly economic output of 42 countries, including Liberia, which has more than 5 million people.
But the impact of the Eras Tour extends far beyond what Swift takes home. In one of the few efforts to assess spending by concertgoers, software company QuestionPro quizzed 592 Swifties who responded to an opt-in online survey. Based on their answers and average concert attendance, the company estimates that Swift’s fans spent about $93 million per show — yes, on tickets, but also on merchandise, travel, hotels, food and outfits.
Add all that up, and by the end of the U.S. tour, you’ve got a $5.7 billion boost to the country’s economy. That’s enough to give $440 to each person in Swift’s home state of Pennsylvania. Or almost enough to send every American a $20 bill.
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The tour’s economic boost spread far past the walls of Swift’s stadium venues, as fans traveled from near and far to any show they could get their hands on. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia even put the Swift effect in a report — saying concertgoers provided a sizable boost to hotel revenue in May.
Hotels, restaurants and shops around the country felt the upswing, with millions of dollars flowing into the 20 U.S. cities Swift visited this summer. Cincinnati estimated that it would see about $48 million in additional economic impact, according to Visit Cincy and the Cincinnati Regional Chamber’s Center for Research and Data.
In Los Angeles, where Swift performed six shows, the California Center for Jobs and the Economy predicted a $320 million boost to the county. Kansas City tourism organization Visit KC said the region got an estimated $48 million impact from the tour’s July stop. The Common Sense Institute, which studies the state of Colorado’s economy, predicted the boom from Swift’s Denver performances would add up to $140 million statewide.
“The [Eras Tour] was a shot in the arm to a part of the regional economy that’s really been lagging,” said Mike Kahoe, chief economist for the California center. “It brought some much-needed dollars to the tourism industry.”
Hotel analytics group STR calculated tour cities produced a $208 million bump in hotel room revenue, over and above normal seasonal levels.
In Seattle, Swift set a record for single-day revenue for downtown hotels — notching $7.4 million, about $2 million more than the record set during a Major League Baseball All-Star Game earlier the same month, according to Visit Seattle and STR.
“To put the impact into context, $208 million is basically the combined room revenue generated in New York City and Philadelphia in one week,” STR senior research analyst M. Brian Riley wrote. And that’s just for the actual nights of the tour, not including fans who arrived early or stayed longer.
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Not only are there more jobs in and around Eras stadiums, but they pay better, too: The average hourly rate offered on Instawork within a five-mile radius of Swift’s May 13 show in Philadelphia was $20.57, $2 higher than usual.
There have been longer-term lifts in employment, too. In Los Angeles, Swift’s six-day stop was estimated to generate enough revenue to fund 3,300 new jobs, according to the California Center for Jobs and the Economy. That would be enough to staff every bookstore and news stand in the L.A. area.
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Swift also passed on some of that karma — and cash — to her employees.
She gave every truck driver on the tour an extra $100,000 this summer, and she gifted bonuses to sound technicians, caterers, dancers and other staff, People magazine reported in August.
. . . .
Eras, too, is onto its next phase. In November, the pop star will take her 146-show tour international, with stops in South America, Asia, Australia and Europe. But first, Swift heads to the movies — where global pre-sales have already surpassed $100 million, according to AMC. Fans, the movie chain said, are turning up “from the largest cities to the smallest towns.”
Long story short: Swift’s economic dominance is about to begin again.
About this story:
The following songs are referenced in this story:
Abha Bhattarai became a Swiftie during the pandemic, when she listened to “Evermore” and “Folklore” on repeat.
Rachel Lerman managed to get tickets for Swift’s Munich show, where she will be embracing her “1989” era.
Emily Sabens became a Swiftie at age 10 while performing songs from the debut album in her basement with her cousin. She was blessed with “Haunted” as a surprise song at the Eras Tour in Detroit.
Editing by Karly Domb Sadof (who is still trying to get her Eras Tour tickets), Betty Chavarria (who has a song named after her), Jennifer Liberto (mom of a Swiftie), Mike Madden (who is not a Swiftie — yet), Paola Ruano (who is going to the Eras Tour for a second time in London) and Haley Hamblin (who promises to finally listen to 1989 soon).
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Eugene “Gene” Woods “Front Man” Gene Woods and the Soul Alliance CEO Advocate Health PHOTO: Business North Carolina
Healthcare CEO ditches tie, dons guitar to moonlight as jazz player
Gene Woods is a prominent healthcare CEO whose successful side gig as the front man for the jazz band Gene Woods and the Soul Alliance has him strapping on a guitar to pursue a life-long passion of spreading healing in a powerful way. NBC’s Anne Thompson shares his story in this week’s Sunday Spotlight.
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Read, listen, watch at the above links.
Swift is an example of “trickle down economics” actually working. That probably has to do with her personality and generosity.
A fire in a dormitory at a Mexican immigration detention center near the U.S. border left more than three dozen migrants dead, a government agency said Tuesday, in one of the deadliest incidents ever at an immigration lockup in the country.
Hours after the fire broke out late Monday, rows of bodies were laid out under shimmery silver sheets outside the facility in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas. Ambulances, firefighters and vans from the morgue swarmed the scene.
Thirty-nine people died and 29 were injured and are in “delicate-serious” condition, according to the National Immigration Institute. There were 68 men from Central and South America held in the facility at the time of the fire, the agency said.
It was the deadliest incident inside a Mexican immigration facility in recent memory. Authorities are investigating the cause of the fire and the governmental National Human Rights Commission had been called in to help the migrants.
The agency said that it “energetically rejects the actions that led to this tragedy” without any further explanation of what those actions might have been.
The country’s immigration lockups have seen protests and riots from time to time.
Mostly Venezuelan migrants rioted inside an immigration center in Tijuana in October that had to be controlled by police and National Guard troops. In November, dozens of migrants rioted in Mexico’s largest detention center in the southern city of Tapachula near the border with Guatemala. No one died in either incident.
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Human rights experts, advocates, and international organizations have been predicting even more deadly tragedies like this will result if the Biden Administration’s tone-deaf and outrageous “death to asylum seekers regulations” go into effect. The Biden Administration has blown them off!
These are just the most “graphic deaths” resulting from years of ill-advised “deterrence” policies at the border and a continued deterioration of the legal refugee and asylum system. This preventable human rights disaster began under Obama, accelerated dramatically under Trump, and has continued its “death spiral” under the Biden Administration’s “active indifference” to human rights, racial justice, and the rule of law at the border. Significantly, incidents like this don’t account for the tragedies that occur when legal asylum seekers are illegally returned to torture, abuse, and death in home countries or Mexico without receiving any due process from U.S. officials.
Apparently, the Biden Administration believes that “death in Mexico will stay in Mexico” and that bodies and bleached bones along desolate areas of the U.S. borders will continue to be “below the radar screen.” In their own way, Biden policy officials are every bit as cruel, intellectually dishonest, and unaccountable as those in the Trump kakistocracy.
It doesn’t have to be this way! Why aren’t more Dems meaningfully challenging the Biden Administration’s adoption of horrible, deadly, hate-fueled “Stephen Miller border policies?”
“Death to asylum regulations” also mean death to our fellow humans seeking legal protection from the U.S. How is this acceptable “strategic policy” for ANY administration, let alone a Dem one?
“Thrown Under the Bus” Asylum seekers & advocates again expendable to Dems. “Electoral politics trump values when it comes to asylum access.” Creative Commons 2.0 non-commercial license
Biden’s breaks with the left have a common thread: He’s mostly doing it on cultural issues where his party is politically vulnerable, seeking to choke off avenues for the GOP to make inroads with key swing voters. Instead, Biden is trying to keep his focus on economic issues facing the middle class where Democrats hold advantages, such as lowering drug prices and preserving Social Security.
In the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats lost voters who named immigration as their top issue by a 48-point margin and lost voters who cited crime as their top issue by a 16-point margin, exit polls showed. Voters trusted Republicans more than they trusted Democrats on immigration (by 6 points) and on crime (by 9 points).
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Read the full story at the link.
There is another school of thought out there: If Dems once in office performed better on immigration, they could win more elections. Since they don’t effectively “model” the many benefits that immigrants bring to what is, after all, a nation of immigrants, they have little except rhetoric to combat the vicious, xenophobic hate campaigns and nativist lies put up by the GOP.
By failing to effectively and creatively use existing laws, however imperfect, to solve problems and showcase the strength of “normalized” immigration, Dems surrender themselves to the GOP right which has pledged to block any constructive immigration reform.
How might things have been different if Dems had reformed the Asylum Offices and EOIR as recommended by experts; “incentivized” arriving asylum seekers to apply at ports of entry by treating them fairly, humanely, and generously; admitted many more as refugees or asylees, with work authorization and a path to green cards “right off the bat” — rather than “warehousing” them in endless backlogs; worked with NGOs and communities to establish “reception centers” rather than failed and inhumane detention; worked with local development agencies to resettle individuals through regional centers that would match skills with communities needing help, particularly rural areas and areas rebuilding from natural disaster? Think that “outsourcing” asylum seeker relocation to GOP White Nationalist Govs DeSantis and Abbott was a great “strategy?”
Dems could have actual, practical examples of why robust, orderly, immigration, including refugees of all types, is actually a great opportunity for all involved. Perhaps, if more Dem politicos believed in immigration and immigrants’ rights, and acted on those beliefs, rather than treating immigration as a “campaign throwaway issue,” they wouldn’t have to “run and hide” from it when given the chance to govern.
Many voters who view immigration as their “top issue,” are going to be far right anti-immigrant extremists. Dems can “pretzel” 🥨 as much as they want. But, it’s unlikely that they are going to win over many votes among this group!
Others, who favor humane immigration, are probably more likely to view it as one of a number of important issues or to “lump it in” with other social justice issues such as civil rights, voting rights, racial justice, or justice reform.
I doubt that Dems throwing asylum seekers, otherimmigrants, and their supporters “under the bus” is a sound or necessary strategy. Back in 2017, “regular Americans” across the country turned out at airports to welcome those immigrants targeted by Trump’s Muslim ban and to support those challenging Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.
There is recent evidence that despite the GOP’s demonization of immigrants and the Dems basic abandonment of immigrants as a group worthy of aggressive support, there still is a strong constituency among Americans who vote for orderly migration and granting refuge. https://immigrationforum.org/article/new-poll-americans-value-offering-refuge-welcome/
Unfortunately, neither party seems to see supporting immigration and immigrants rights as a “political winner.” And, for all their talent, expertise, and energy, immigration and human rights advocates have failed to “sell” themselves as an important political force to be respected and reckoned with. Contrast this with how a relatively small, non-representative group of extremists, election deniers, and conspiracy theorists plays a dominant role in GOP politics!
Unless or until that changes, immigrants and their advocates are likely to remain “political roadkill” ☠️ for both parties! Contrary to the White Nationalist blather, uncritically accepted by some Dems, that’s not going to stop migrants from coming, although it undoubtedly will confine more of them to an exploitable “extralegal community” while enriching smugglers and cartels. But, it will prevent America from reaching our full potential in the future!
Org. Sign-On Letter to the Admin re: Haitians in Guantánamo Bay or third country agreements
Hi everyone –
This morning, Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) along with 288 immigration, civil rights, human rights, and faith-based organizations, sent a letter to President Biden urging him to protect Haitian asylum seekers. In the letter, organizations urged the administration to not send Haitians seeking safety back to Haiti, third countries, or detain them in Guantánamo Bay.
Pretty much says it all! A Dem Administration abandons the values of racial justice and immigrant justice for some “strategy” that sure escapes me.
It’s not like continuing to “beat up” on Haitians and other migrants of color and threatening to inflict even more extreme violations of legal andhuman rights than the Trump Administration has garnered ANY support or acceptance from the far right. They continue to characterize all Administration policies as “open borders,” although nothing could be further from the truth.
Additionally, failure to reinstitute and improve the rule of law at the border for legal asylum seekers has failed to create an orderly process for screening asylum seekers at ports of entry or for refugee status outside the U.S. and timely and generously processing valid claims for protection. The result has been a loss of an important group oflegal immigrants who could have helped reduce inflation and improved the economic outlook. At the same time, shifting asylum screening away from legal ports of entry has overburdened the Border Patrol by forcing everyone seeking protection to cross the border between ports of entry.
As a related point, I defy anyone to explain on what basis some asylum seekers apprehended at the border are allowed to enter and pursue claims and others similarly situated are orbited back into danger with no process whatsoever. It’s certainly NOT the result of the prompt screening by USCIS Asylum Officers that Congress mandated, but the Trump and Biden Administrations have ignored — to everyone’s detriment.
This resulting “disorder at the border” has NOT attracted independent voters to the Administration’s immigration stance.
At the same time it has driven an unwise and entirely unnecessary wedge between the Administration and 1) Democrats who want “order at the border” and a reduction in extralegal entries; 2) Democrats who believe in strictly honoring our legal, Constitutional, treaty, and human rights obligations to asylum seekers regardless of race; and 3) Democrats who believe that both 1) and 2) are achievable!
I have no idea what the Biden Administration’s “vision” of border law and policy is. But, I can tell you for sure that it’s NOT working and that more, harsher, racially discriminatory enforcement without reinstating our refugee and asylum systems and reforming the totally dysfunctional Immigration Courts is NOT the answer!
United We Eat Chef Haroon EshaniUnited We Eat Program Manager Beth BakerUnited We Eat Kitchen Assistant Rozan ShbibEshani and Shbib hard at work in United We Eat. KitchenSbib Shows NBC News Reporter Steve Patterson around United We Eat KitchenUnited We Eat Kitchen Manager Casey Chapman has a tough job, but keeps smiling!
Check out this inspiring video on great people working together, helping each other, and integrating the skills, enthusiasm, and energy of new Americans into the community:
Great story! Congrats to the people of Missoula!😎 A nation of immigrants needs new immigrants and their human potential! Everybody wins when we welcome immigrants to our communities!
OBSERVATION: The Biden Administration has been in office for 17 months. During that time the could have established a realistic, robust refugee program, working with UNHCR and NGOs, to screen and process those waiting in Mexico.
Those who qualified would be admitted in legal status, with permanent work authorization, on their way to green cards and eventual citizenship. No CBP, no Asylum Office Backlogs, no backlogged Immigration Courts, no arbitrary, capricious, wildly inconsistent decisions from EOIR and the 5th Circuit, no expensive and inhumane detention, no ankle bracelets. Those legally admitted would also be eligible immediately for refugee resettlement assistance! America is something like 11 million workers “short” — the answer is staring us in the face!See, e.g., https://www.newsweek.com/us-hits-cap-temporary-work-visas-employers-seek-11-million-workers-1713948
Instead, we get secrecy, fumbling, bumbling, and more “
”gimmicks” guaranteed to stir up litigation and controversy without solving problems, facing reality, and harnessing the great power of human migration.
Also, why on earth would the Administration relocate migrants to Texas — a move guaranteed to generate more racist posturing and pushback from Abbott? Why not work with states, localities, NGOs, religious, and legal aid groups in many localities prepared to welcome immigrants and where their skills could be used in the job market?
It’s also worth noting that the so-called “record numbers” at the border often count the same person over and over — a phenomenon aggravated by arbitrary use of Title 42 to return many individuals without proper legal screening.
“Instead of caving into the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Republicans, Congress should work on real immigration reform that doesn’t exploit an arcane public health authority to deny people their basic, human right to seek asylum,” they wrote.
And the two mayors painted an optimistic picture of border management where security is not at odds with proper asylum management.
“Our offices are working closely with the Biden Administration and with various community organizations on the ground to ensure that there are resources in place to execute a comprehensive plan to process asylum seekers, crack down on cartels, and establish appropriate COVID-19 protocols. We must remain steadfast in our work to provide refuge to those fleeing persecution and violence in their home countries, just as our European allies are doing with Ukrainian refugees,” Romero and Mendez wrote.
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Read the complete article at the link.
Hats off to Mayor Romero (Tucson) and Mayor Mendez (Brownsville) for standing up for the rule of law and human decency and pushing back against false xenophobic rhetoric from both the GOP nativists and their “values challenged” Dem “fellow travelers.”
Thousands of Haitian migrants removed from a makeshift camp near Texas have been sent back to Haiti. Now we’re getting our first up-close look at what they are facing upon their arrival. NBC’s Jacob Soboroff reports for TODAY from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Sept. 30, 2021
Eleanor Acer Senior Director for Refugee Protection, Human Rights First
Human Rights First debunks myth that seekers present a COVID health threat:
ASYLUM DOES NOT THREATEN PUBLIC HEALTH
The last week saw more of the Biden administration’s despicable deportation of Haitians and use Title 42 to deny their right to seek asylum. The administration perpetuates the false claim that their use of Title 42 is not an immigration policy, but a public health one, despite the vehement disagreement of public health experts.
Courtesy Washington Times
Migrants, many from Haiti, wade across the Rio Grande
river to leave Del Rio, Texas to avoid possible deportation.
Human Rights First also responded to the administration’s plans to use Guantanamo Bay as a migrant detention facility.
“Sending people who are seeking protection to a place that is notorious for being treated as a rights-free zone is the last thing that the Biden administration should do,” Eleanor Acer, Senior Director of Refugee Protection at Human Rights First told NPR. “It is nothing more than a blatant attempt to evade oversight, due process, human rights protections and the refugee laws of the United States.”
Maria Sacchetti Immigration Reporter, Washington Post
Even in rolling out otherwise more reasonable enforcement priorities for ICE, Mayorkas insisted on making the bogus claim that recent border arrivals present a “national security threat,” as reported by the WashPost’s Maria Sacchetti:
Mayorkas said in his memo Thursday that migrants who cross the border illegally, particularly those who arrived unlawfully over the past year or so, remain a “threat to border security” and a priority for removal. But the ACLU has argued in its lawsuit that migrants have a legal right to seek asylum.
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“Courtside’s” rating of Mayorkas’s claims: 🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥
Who would have thought that more than eight months into the Biden Administration, we’d still be arguing about basics like “migrants have a legal right to seek asylum in the US?” See, INA section 208.
The move will cut down on the ballooning backlog of immigration cases in the U.S., now surpassing 1.3 million, according to data compiled by TRAC out of Syracuse University.
Garland said in his order that immigration judges’ ability to administratively close cases previously allowed “government counsel to request that certain low-priority cases be removed from the immigration judges’ active calendars,” thereby allowing judges “to focus on higher-priority cases.”
Garland previously overturned two other immigration court decisions by his Trump-era predecessors that had made it harder for victims of gang and domestic violence to win asylum.
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Thanks, Julia, for highlighting the “cosmic importance” of this decision and its “good government” potential! Read the rest of Julia’s article at the above link.
Under Biden, crossing the U.S. border has become like a lottery. Timing is everything.
“Sometimes I ask myself why they [let me stay] and they deported others,” said a 20-year-old Nicaraguan man. “And I give thanks to God.”
by Julia Ainsley, Didi Martinez and Kenzi Abou-Sabe | NBC NEWS
Julia Edwards Ainsley Investigative Reporter, NBC News
. . . .
“We will see more deaths. And that’s the sad truth for us,” Copp said.
Immigration advocates also believe uncertainty surrounding the Title 42 policy is driving many migrants to take more dangerous routes to avoid being apprehended all together.
“The Biden administration’s retention of Title 42 and refusal to open the legal ports of entry is having the perverse effect of forcing desperate asylum seekers fleeing danger to cross between the ports, which is to nobody’s benefit,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s immigrants’ rights project and a lead plaintiffs’ lawyer in a lawsuit challenging the use of Title 42.
For now, the Biden administration has made no promises of end dates for the Title 42 policy, even as Covid-19 restrictions ease across the country. Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has said that the policy is in place to protect both migrants, who would need to be kept temporarily in congregate care settings if allowed in, and agents.
Gelernt said the policy of only guaranteeing unaccompanied children entry forces some families to self-separate in order to give their children the best chance of seeking asylum in the U.S.
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Read the full article at the link. A “lottery” for human lives! What’s next for the Biden/Harris Administration, “Hunger Games V?”
Mayorkas’s claim is pure BS! 💩 This inane, illegal, immoral, and unnecessary policy “protects” nobody except smugglers and traffickers! And, the idea that at this point, it is required by COVID is absurd on its face!
By contrast, Lee Gelernt of ACLU, a long-time inspirational leader of the NDPA, speaks truth! The Southern Border can’t be regulated without repealing the illegal Title 42 restrictions and immediately re-establishing the rule of law. That includes timely professional screening by expert Asylum Officers working for USCIS; a fair, robust, generous, practical, due-process-oriented application of asylum and other protection laws by a radically reformed EOIR utilizing the services of real Immigration Judges who are experts in asylum law; and close cooperation and support from NGOs, local governments, religious, and private bar groups to provide universal representation to asylum seekers and to lead and implement resettlement efforts throughout the U.S.
Lee Gelernt Deputy Director ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Program PHOTO: ACLU
The expertise, practical problem solving ability, and resources are available. Most of it is in the private/NGO/academic sectors right now. These are the leaders and experts the Biden Administration should have brought into Government “right off the bat” to solve the problem, but has tragically failed to do so. Not like they were’t told well in advance!
It won’t happen with the bureaucrats and “tunnel visioners” the Biden Administration is relying upon — folks committed to repeating the failures of the past who lack the experience, vision, courage, independence, and creative problem solving ability necessary to lead the way to a better future. Using the law (or lack thereof) as a “deterrent” and issuing threats won’t stop desperate refugees from coming. As we can see, it only “turns them off” on using our (unavailable and now largely defunct) legal system and drives them first into the hands of traffickers and smugglers and eventually into our underground “extralegal” population.
Human migration is eons older than our republic! It won’t be eradicated or turned off and on by the utterances and actions of politicos and law enforcement officials. It requires a thoughtful, informed approach that has been largely absent from our government for decades, which is why the failures and resulting human trauma, wasted resources, and squandered human opportunities persist Administration after Administration, regardless of party and rhetoric.
Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions had no problem running all over the rule of law when he wanted to implement his illegal, White Nationalist, misogynist agenda and degrade asylum seekers with dehumanization and “Dred Scottification” of the other, primarily women, children, and individuals of color.
Unfortunately, by contrast, the Biden Administration, is too weak-kneed to stand up for the rule of law and human dignity!
But, folks like Julia Ainsley and her team are making a permanent public record. As in the Trump Administration, the Biden Administration doesn’t appear to recognize the concept of accountability in Government, particularly as applied to itself. But, I doubt history will be as kind and as accommodating to those, regardless of political affiliation, carrying out these illegal, irrational, inhumane, and “designed to fail” policies.
Perhaps, the “dead can’t speak!” ☠️⚰️ But, others certainly can and will speak for them and see that the abusers of humanity are held accountable.
America has a not so good history of dealing with climate migration. “Migrant Mom” PHOTO BY: Dorothea Lange Public Realm
Kristin Hannah’s latest novel “The Four Winds” centers on the ordeal of a single Mom struggling to save her family during the “Great Migration” of the 1930’s. PHOTO:WashPost.com
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase Jeffrey S. Chase Blog Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
Today, Earth Day, Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, and the University Network for Human Rights released an important White Paper on the issue of climate displacement and its intersection with U.S. immigration laws, including the law of asylum. The report, Shelter from the Storm: Policy Options to Address Climate Induced Migration from the Northern Triangle, is both a call to action by the Biden Administration, and a tribute to the adaptability of international refugee law to address a vast array of serious discriminatory harms, including those related to climate change.
Seventy years after its enactment, the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees has demonstrated its ability to provide protection to victims of domestic violence, female genital cutting, coercive family planning policies, and violence from third-generation gangs, which function in some areas as de facto governments. It has provided status to those targeted because of their sexual orientation or sexual identity. It has served to afford protection to those suffering from physical or mental illnesses or disabilities.
Attention is now turning to those displaced by climate change. The Biden Administration has issued two Executive Orders devoted to the issue of climate change within days of taking office. The second of those, issued on February 4, included the topic of “planning for the impact of climate change on migration.” Section 6 of the order requires the issuance of a report on the topic within 180 days.
To present, the U.S. has responded in some instances to rapid onset climate events such as hurricanes and earthquakes by designating impacted countries for Temporary Protected Status. One of the interesting points raised in the White Paper involves the ordinarily overlooked issue of displacement caused by slow onset climate events. These include desertification, rising sea levels, salinization of farmland, and shifts in precipitation patterns. The issue lends itself to being addressed through an array of legal responses (such as TPS, Deferred Enforced Departure, humanitarian parole, and even the creation of a new climate visa), and the White Paper explains how each of these legal avenues can be employed to provide protection to those displaced by such events. But the White Paper’s discussion of the idea of analyzing some forms of climate-related harm under our asylum laws is particularly intriguing.
Development of the intellectual groundwork for climate change-based refugee law analysis is underway at the international level. As the White Paper notes, in October 2020, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees issued an important document setting forth “legal considerations regarding claims for international protections made in the context of the adverse effects of climate change and disasters.” This follows the 2020 publication of Matthew Scott’s Climate Change, Disasters, and the Refugee Convention, the first full-length treatise on the topic.
It is important to recognize that asylum is not a cure for all harms that arise in the world. As in the other examples cited above, asylum responds to serious human rights violations from which the state cannot or will not protect that discriminate based on the fundamental characteristics of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. As one scholar has stated, “international standards generally require that the harm be severe and related to a core right as understood under evolving human rights norms.”1 But “the evaluation of persecution requires a universal but flexible standard, capable of evolving and responding to changing conditions and international norms.”2
In the climate change context, governments undertake projects that impact climate issues such as the availability of water, or the contamination of air or farmland, that may benefit one segment of the population at the expense of another. Governments also make politicized decisions whether to address slow-onset climate change (which may include decisions regarding whether to regulate non-state industries engaging in business activities with environmental consequences), and in the speed and scope of their relief efforts on behalf of victims of climate-related disasters. Where these decisions particularly impact a segment of the population in a severe way on account of one of the five statutorily protected grounds, the result may constitute persecution protected under our asylum law. While the impact of these policies may cause serious harm standing alone, it may alternatively serve as the “last straw” in triggering flight where the climate change factors accelerated the degree of harm already suffered on account of a protected ground such as gender or indigenous status.3
Furthermore, a government’s punishment of outspoken critics of its climate change policies or lack of adequate response to a disaster may constitute persecution on account of a political opinion, as that term is defined for asylum purposes.4
Climate change could also play a more indirect but still important role in asylum determinations. For example, an asylum applicant who has established a well-founded fear of persecution must also demonstrate that they could not evade persecution through internal relocation within their home country, provided such relocation would be reasonable under all of the circumstances.5 But in its October 2020 Legal Considerations, UNHCR cautions at paragraph 12 that the progressive effect of slow-onset climate change spreading throughout a country may make relocation “neither relevant nor reasonable.”6 Furthermore, where an applicant who has suffered past persecution is shown to have no future fear due to changed conditions, a grant of humanitarian asylum may be merited where the asylum applicant establishes a reasonable possibility of facing “other serious harm” upon return.7 Harm resulting upon return from climate change should arguably constitute “other serious harm” sufficient to meet this standard.8
The White Paper explains that the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are particularly vulnerable to climate change issues, and that the U.S. bears some responsibility for this fact through its high levels of greenhouse emissions and its historical policies in Central America.9 In the 1980s and 90s, the B.I.A. engaged in logical contortions to avoid providing those fleeing civil wars in the Northern Triangle with the asylum protections it willingly extended to those fleeing similar conditions in other parts of the world.10 And more recently, refugees from violence from third-generation gangs and domestic violence in the region have suffered setbacks to refugee protection through similarly bad precedent decisions of the Attorneys General and the B.I.A.11
As the international community addresses the question of refugee determinations involving factors relating to climate change, it is possible for the U.S. to be at the forefront. Hopefully, today’s White Paper will provide the present administration with useful guidance towards that goal.
This report was coordinated and written by teams from the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC) and the HLS Immigration Project (HIP) at Harvard Law School (collectively “Harvard”) and the University Network for Human Rights, Yale Immigrant Justice Project, and Yale Environmental Law Association (collectively “University Network/Yale”). The coordinators/authors from Harvard were John Willshire Carrera and Deborah Anker. The coordinators/authors from University Network/Yale were Camila Bustos and Thomas Becker. I am greatly honored to be listed as a co-author for my work with the Harvard team.
The following fellows participated in researching and drafting the report: Yong Ho Song (Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Fellow at Greater Boston Legal Services) and Fabiola Alvelais (Harvard Law School Henigson Human Rights Fellow and University Network for Human Rights Fellow).
The following Harvard students participated in researching and drafting the report: Rachel Landry (HIRC), Grant Charness (HIRC), Justin Bogda (HIRC), Regina Paparo (HIRC), Mira Nasser (HIRC), Lily Cohen (HIRC), Kira Hessekiel (HIRC), Nicholas Dantzler (HIRC), Shaza Loutfi (HIRC), Ariel Sarandinaki (HIRC), Gabrielle Kim (HIRC), Katie Quigley (HIP), Gina Starfield (HIP).
The following students supervised by and in coordination with University Network for Human Rights participated in researching and drafting the report: Natasha Brunstein (Yale), Alisa White (Yale), Aaron Troncoso (Yale), Rubin Danberg Biggs (Yale), Ram Dolom (Yale), A.J. Hudson (Yale), Rekha Kennedy (Yale), Liz Jacob (Yale), Eleanor Runde (Yale), Eric Eisner (Yale), Juan Luna Leon (Yale), Karen Sung (Yale), Abby Sodie (Wesleyan), Ericka Ekhator (Wesleyan), Gabrielle Ouellette (Wesleyan), Jesse de la Bastide (Wesleyan), Stella Ramsey (Wesleyan), and Luis Martinez (Vanderbilt).
The report was edited by: Sabrineh Ardalan, James Cavallaro, Nancy Kelly, Ruhan Nagra, Gina Starfield, Katie Quigley, and Cindy Zapata.
Notes:
Deborah E. Anker, The Law of Asylum in the United States (2020 Ed.) (Thomson Reuters) at § 4.4.
Id. at § 4.3.
White Paper at 35.
Id. at 35.
8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(1)(i)(B).
White Paper at 36-37.
8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(2)(i)(C).
See White Paper at 33; Matter of L-S-, 25 I&N Dec. 705, 714 (BIA 2012) (holding that “other serious harm” requires no nexus to a protected ground, and can be found in “situations where the claimant could experience severe mental or emotional harm or physical injury.”
White Paper at 4.
See, e.g., Matter of Maldonado-Cruz, 19 I&N Dec. 509 (BIA 1988); and cf., e.g. Matter of Vigil, 19 I&N Dec. 572 (BIA 1987) with Matter of Salim, 18 I&N Dec. 311 (BIA 1982)
See, e.g., Matter of A-B-, 28 I&N Dec. 28 I&N Dec. 199 (A.G. 2021); Matter of A-C-A-A-, 28 I&N Dec. 84 (A.G. 2020); Matter of E-R-A-L-, 27 I&N Dec. 767 (BIA 2020); Matter of L-E-A-, 27 I&N Dec. 581 (A.G. 2019); Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018); Matter of L-E-A-, 27 I&N Dec. 40 (BIA 2017); Matter of M-E-V-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 227 (BIA 2014); Matter of W-G-R-, 26 I&NM Dec. 208 (BIA 2014).
Copyright 2021 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.
Republished by permission.
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Such important work! These are the folks who should be running Government policy, not just writing “White Papers,” no matter how brilliant.
In this NBC News video from yesterday, Hallie Jackson highlights upper class “climate migrants” already relocating from places like the Georgia coast to Asheville, NC, to insulate themselves from the worst effects of ongoing climate change and global warming. Things are going to get much more serious when Bangladesh and other sea-level nations and island nations (e.g., Indonesia) start going under water. Probably not so good for Florida either!
Hallie Jackson NBC News Correspondent PHOTO: Sharealike, Creative Commons license
Meanwhile, government watchdog groups expressed concerns over two people whose initial conversion requests had since been approved.
One such conversion was that of Carl Risch, whose October conversion request to be the deputy director, the No. 2 job, at the Executive Office for Immigration Review within the Department of Justice (a civil service job), was approved in December. Risch had been an assistant secretary for consular affairs at the State Department, a political job. His new job came with a $10,000 raise.
“It’s a red flag when there are multiple people being converted to jobs at a single entity. It really raises an even larger concern,” Stier, of the Partnership for Public Service, said. “The process is supposed to be that a political appointee in no way has a leg up on the competition for a career job, but when you see multiple go to the same agency, you really have to wonder how it can be possible that the best qualified individuals are not once, but multiple times, people who are political appointees.”
Risch did not respond to multiple requests for comment. EOIR spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly said Risch went through the standard pre-hiring review process with the OPM and that the agency had approved his new position.
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Read the full article at the link.
So, the folks who saved due process and stood up for the Constitution and racial justice while Judge Garland was enjoying his cushy ivory tower job at the D.C. Circuit over the past four years remain on the outside, twisting in the wind ⚰️ while their clients and colleagues suffer daily abuse in “Garland’s Star Chambers!” Nice touch!
Meanwhile, Garland hands out the big bucks and a hideout for a notoriously unqualified Trump/Miller political hack imported from the DOS. What does Risch know about immigrant justice or court management? Nothing? Oh, but why is that a problem at EOIR?
He occupies what is supposed to be a key senior management position in America’s most dysfunctional “court system” — running a simply astounding 1.3 million (known) case, largely self-created backlog, grinding out sloppy, unprofessional, biased opinions regularly rejected by even conservative Courts of Appeals, setting horrible anti-immigrant precedents and endangering the lives, health, and safety of those who are caught up in EOIR’s continuing White Nationalist cesspool of cruelty, mismanagement, and gross incompetence?
Judge Garland: “Go faster Carl and David (Garland BIA Chair Wetmore), see how much it takes to make this worthless respondent scream! Remember what your mentor Stephen Miller taught you about the lives and rights of ‘the other.’ Why do you think I’m paying you the ‘big bucks’ and letting you ‘burrow in’ if not to punish and deter those who dare seek due process and humane treatment in MY wholly-owned Star Chambers! I couldn’t have done this at the DC Circuit, but here there are NO RULES, except those we make up for our own benefit, and I aim to keep it that way!”
Is it any wonder that immigrant justice and racial justice remain in free-fall under Biden and Garland?
Let’s lay it on the line! By now, Garland should have cancelled all the Trump-era precedents (“day 1 stuff”), cleaned house at EOIR HQ, and transferred the entire BIA to somewhere where they can inflict no more damage on the American legal system!
That would also have sent a powerful“signal” to the many Immigration Judges who have established “asylum free zones” in Immigration Courts throughout the U.S. over the past two Administrations that there will be a return of due process and fundamental fairness for asylum seekers and other immigrants at EOIR.
Judges can get with the program, start granting asylum and other protection as the law requires, thereby reducing backlogs the “old fashioned way” — consistent with due process and fundamental fairness. Or, they can ship out and sign up with Stephen Miller’s “Aryian Nation Legal Team” — where it appears that many of them would be more at home.
Garland should have brought in folks already on the payroll like Judges Dana Marks, Noel Brennan, & Amiena Khan, all experts in due process, judicial management, immigration, and human rights laws, all of whom have demonstrated true leadership, consistent courage, and independence throughout their distinguished careers, on at least a temporary basis to start restoring justice, rationality, and order in the Immigration Courts.
They would already have identified qualified sitting judges who know how to grant asylum to serve as Acting Appellate Judges at the BIA to start turning things around by enforcing due process and issuing precedents that advance, rather than retard, due process, fundamental, fairness, and judicial efficiency.
Meanwhile, they would be developing legitimate merit selection criteria to recruit and hire as judges practical experts who will fairly and efficiently apply due process and fundamental fairness to all asylum seekers and other respondents, regardless of race, color, or creed. These criteria could be used to recruit andhire a diverse progressive group of permanent Appellate Judges and Immigration Judges, to determine which “probationary IJs” should be retained, and eventually to re-compete all existing IJ positions to insure a real, diverse, independent, due-process focused, Immigration Judiciary comprised of the “best and brightest” American law has to offer!
Greg Chen (AILA) and Professor Peter Moskowitz (Cardozo Law) should be on the EOIR payroll implementing their very achievable program for drastically slashing the unnecessary backlog without stomping on anyone’s rights.
Garland should already have hired Professor Michele Pistone(Villanova Law, VIISTA) to develop quality, due process oriented training programs for everyone at EOIR.
Instead, Garland is bankrolling the current crew of proven incompetents, holdovers, hangers on, and Trump/Miller White Nationalists. In other words, he’s wasting our taxpayer money, destroying the lives and futures of the most vulnerable (and often most deserving) among us, undermining racial and social justice in America, and abusing and endangering the health and safety of members of the NDPA trying to bring some semblance of the rule of law and human decency into our disgustingly dysfunctional Immigration Courts.
Could it get any worse? How?
Think about this! Neo-Nazi Stephen Miller and his fellow White Nationalists apparently were so impressed with the effective legal work done by courageous immigration/human rights/due process advocates in blocking many parts of his racist authoritarian agenda — basically the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”) and its “Senior Fighting Division” The Round Table of Former Immigration Judges — that they are forming their very own neo-Nazi legal advocacy group to help GOP AGs stymie any attempt by the Biden Administration to promote racial justice, social justice, and immigrant justice.
Given the rather incompetent (not to mention ethically questionable) performance of many DOJ attorneysduring the Trump regime, Garland is going to need all the help he can get to fend off Miller and the GOP. Rather than enlisting members of the NDPA on his team, letting them solve problems, and actively soliciting their support and alliance on litigation, he is turning them into highly motivated opponents!
How dumb and counterproductive is that! Turn your would-be friends into enemies? Sounds like something only a tone-deaf Dem politico could pull off!
I’m not a politico. But, I do understand the necessity in politics, as in almost any field, of being able to distinguish your friends from your enemies. Perhaps, Judge Garland has spent so much time in the ivory tower that he has forgotten how to play the game out here in the real world.
I’ve been hanging around the Washington legal scene for almost 50 years now. In that time, I might have witnessed a more inept start by an Attorney General of either party. But, really, I can’t remember when!
🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! If the NDPA must take the fight to end ☠️⚰️ deadly “Clown Courts” 🤡 to Judge Garland, so be it!
Leon Krauze in the WashPost tells us what’s really happening at the border. WARNING: It has little to do with the myths and false narratives being peddled by the GOP, the Administration, and the media.
The current emergency at the border has found the U. S. media at its most solipsistic. Coverage seems more focused on whether the emergency should be called “a crisis” (it should) and what the political fallout for the Biden administration will be. With few exceptions — like the remarkable work of MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff or Politico’s Sabrina Rodriguez — many news outlets seem utterly uninterested in the stories of the migrants themselves.
This is wrong because it fails to provide one crucial piece of the puzzle: the very concrete context of human suffering.
. . . .
This by no means excuses the stories of anguish and confinement that have emerged over the last few weeks from within the facilities set up by the Biden administration to deal with the number of young migrants crossing the border, nor does it absolve the president himself from delivering on his promise of a humane immigration system, diametrically opposed to Trump’s cruel policies, designed in collaboration with unapologetic racist xenophobes like Stephen Miller.
The Biden administration can and should do better. But the current debate cannot ignore the very concrete despair facing thousands of immigrant families who, under the direct threat of violence or abuse, chose to push their young children to the United States, in search of safety.
If the alternative was famine, gang violence, kidnapping, rape or sexual slavery, wouldn’t you bet it all on the journey north? If more people understood this, the political debate and the coverage surrounding the crisis would be much more empathetic and we would get closer at delivering concrete, humane solutions.
Now, let’s hear more “simple truth” from Suzanne Gamboa over at NBC News:
Suzanne Gamboa, Political Editor, NBCLatino, NBC NewsDate: October 21, 2013 Place: Washington, DC Credit: Maria Patricia Leiva/OAS Creative Commons License
America’s immigration impasse — an endless loop across different administrations — is largely self-inflicted, because Congress has repeatedly failed to acknowledge one simple thing: Immigration happens.
Accordingly, immigration laws must be continually adjusted, reformed and revised, experts say.
“People will always want to come to the U.S., and the U.S. will always need people,” said former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who was a top immigration adviser to President George W. Bush.
Until there is a system that allows enough legal immigration to meet the economy’s needs, there will be illegal immigration, Gutierrez said.
“That’s just part of how our economy is set up. It’s part of demographics,” Gutierrez said. “Our birthrate is not high enough to be able to fill the needs of our economy.”
The coronavirus pandemic reinforced the importance of immigrant labor to the American economy, including labor by the undocumented.
All of those people and many other immigrants, including young immigrants — often called “Dreamers” based on never-passed proposals in Congress called the DREAM Act — will play a key role in helping the economy recover from its pandemic bust.
But immigration requires periodic calibration, and the economics and the changing patterns are lost in the politics.
“People are going to move — as they are all around the world — where they think they can find places to better feed their children. That’s the bottom line, and that’s the history of migration to the United States,” said Luis Fraga, director of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
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Everyone should read the rest of the stories at the above link.
Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration
By Judge (Ret) Paul Wickham Schmidt
“Courtside” Exclusive
March 26, 2021
Notwithstanding the endlessly disingenuous and self-centered alarmist rhetoric coming from all directions on the border mess, often mindlessly regurgitated by the press (not just Fox News), the real “crisis” involves the human lives at stake and the unnecessary human misery we are causing by failing to establish, professionally staff, and fairly and competently operate the legal refugee and particularly asylum systems required by law. This “due process crisis” actually has devastating and debilitating practical effects, starting with the dysfunctional immigration, refugee, and asylum system and the beyond dysfunctional Immigration Courts.
Heck, we don’t even pretend to comply with Constitutionally-required due process of law for asylum seekers who present themselves to us seeking life-saving refuge. Most of those who show up at legally-established border ports are told that the border is “closed” and that there is no way for them to apply. OK, so they attempt to cross between ports and immediately present themselves to the Border Patrol. But, they also are told there is no way to apply and are orbited back to some of the most dangerous countries in the world without any process whatsoever, let alone due process of law. Who are we kidding with all our dishonest pontificating about “the rule of law?”
It’s a strange way to implement the statutory command that any foreign national “irrespective of . . . status, may apply for asylum,” along with a constitutional guarantee that “No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Gee, you don’t even need one of those fancy Ivy League law degrees to understand that language. You just have to be able to read, comprehend, and act.
What you do have to do to get where we are today is to view asylum seekers and other migrants (predominantly people of color) as less than human — “non-persons” in a constitutional sense. It’s what some of us call “Dred Scottification of the other” and it has accelerated over the past four years — not just in immigration.
The whole idea of a “court system” being run by the Executive who also is the chief of enforcement is beyond constitutionally preposterous. It’s a “negative tribute” to the Supremes and other Article III life-tenured judges who have grown so distant from their own humanity and immigration stories as to become willfully blind to the ongoing farce that constitutes “justice” and “due process of law” for asylum seekers and other immigrants in the U.S.
Today’s nearly non-existent “asylum system” is a deadly and illegal “catch 22,” with the Supremes sitting in their marble palace refusing to do the primary task that justifies their continued existence: enforce the Constitution against Government misbehavior and in favor of the “little guys” and the “vulnerable.” No thanks, not up to the job!
The real tragedy is that there are plenty of folks out here with the knowledge, integrity, courage, and ability to establish a legal system that would actually comply with out laws, our Constitution, and further offer the hope of constructively addressing some problems before refugees arrive at our borders. But, they remain “benched,” even by the Biden Team. So the “good guys”are going to keep attacking the corrupt and broken system in court and at the polls for as long as it takes to get some course correction — years, decades, centuries — ask most African Americans how long it takes to achieve the true justice that America promises to all, but historically has only delivered to some.
In the long run, a fair system would undoubtedly accept many more legal refugees and asylum seekers. That’s what happens in refugee situations — it’s the core of what we call “forced migration” — when you sign on to international conventions intended to prevent the “next holocaust,” and you fairly and humanely apply the rules meant to protect refugees and those who face torture. And, as they have in the past, the overwhelming number of refugees and asylees, like the overwhelming majority of immigrants (essentially all of us, except Native Americans) will adapt, fit in, and contribute to the health, wealth, and future of our nation. They will change, but so will we — ultimately for the better!
Sure, America wouldn’t be as white, “Christian” (to the extent that adherence to a nominal Christian denomination, rather than actually performing Christ’s extremely difficult, self-sacrificing, risky, compassionate mission, defines Christianity), and nominally heterosexual as it was when White Nationalist myths and whitewashed history ruled the roost. But, it would be a better nation — one that actually has a chance of prospering, realizing the full potential of all its residents, and leading the world in the 21st century. A nation that could devote more human, natural, and monetary resources to building and exporting greatness, rather than to an endless stream of cruel, inhuman, stupid, and wasteful enforcement and deterrence gimmicks.
Bottom line, folks are going to come to America, as they have throughout history. Some will stay, some won’t. But, come they will, unless and until those like Trump and the GOP create such a mess that our own people start fleeing to foreign shores. Immigration, regardless of status, is a sign of strength. Xenophobia a sign of fatal weakness.
Our real choice isn’t whether we want to “close” borders, bar refugees, and abuse children as the Cottons, Cruzes, Millers, and Hawleys advocate. It’s whether we create a robust, orderly, rational legal system to screen, regulate, and distribute the inevitable flow or whether, as we have for the past decades, we force millions to reside and work underground — part of an “extralegal” or “black market” system that pols of both parties and those who profit from that underground system have created.
Sprawling mismanaged enforcement bureaucracies, dysfunctional “courts,” armies of publicly-paid lawyers defending the indefensible, for-profit civil prisons, big agriculture, hospitality giants, loads of upwardly mobile professionals who need child care to pursue careers, communities that live off of marketing ethnic culture, meat packing conglomerates, architects and construction firms who are “building America,” even news media fixated on hyping the problem rather than fixing it (see, e.g., yesterday’s Biden press conference), the list of those who profit from a talented, hard working, reliable, loyal, yet politically and socially disenfranchised, workforce is endless.
Even the GOP’s “Cotton-Cruz crowd” benefits from having an imaginary enemy to rant and rail and gin up hate against — safe in the knowledge that the tanking of our economy, upheaval of society, and possible threat to their privilege that would result from realizing their disingenuous call to boot the entire undocumented population will never happen. Their kids and grandkids can continue to reap the privilege that comes from exploiting an essential, yet politically neutered, workforce. It’s really more about institutionalizing racism to maintain economic and political power over the eventual non-white majority that drives their bogus and ugly narratives.
We can degrade ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration!
🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽⚖️Due Process Forever! It’s a vision based on a written promise, not a “pipe dream!”
