Tag: Nolan Rappaport

🗽NOLAN RAPPAPORT RESURFACES AN IDEA FOR IMMIGRATION COMPROMISE: REGISTRY  — THE HILL

Nolan Rappaport
Nolan Rappaport
Contributor, The Hill

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/574240-registry-is-a-reasonable-work-around-to-legalize-undocumented-aliens

Democrats suffered a major blow when the Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, decided that they could not include immigration provisions in their $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill. According to MacDonough, the effect that the immigration provisions would have on the budget would be incidental to their overall policy effect.

The rejected provisions would have provided legalization for undocumented immigrants who were brought here illegally as children, often called “Dreamers;” undocumented immigrants with Temporary Protected Status; and undocumented essential workers. This would have made lawful status available to more than 8 million undocumented immigrants.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) claims that there is another option, which is to narrow the immigration reform provisions such that Democrats can navigate it through the Senate’s Byzantine rules. He thinks this can be done with an update to the registry provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

Registry is a process that permits undocumented immigrants to become lawful permanent residents (green card holders) on the basis of their long-standing presence in the country, regardless of their status or the way they entered the country.

I don’t think updating the registry provision will be acceptable to MacDonough either — It’s just another way to legalize undocumented immigrants.

But it might be possible to move a registry update through the regular legislative process. The registry process has been in place for nearly a century. It reflects our nation’s historical sense of fairness to allow undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country for a very long time an opportunity to obtain legal status, and it hasn’t been updated since 1986.

. . . .

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

Read Nolan’s complete article at the link.

Nolan’s article was highlighted in ImmigrationProf Blog. https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2021/09/the-clamor-for-updating-registry-continues.html

As Dean Kevin Johnson noted in his ImmigrationProf  post, Nolan correctly predicted that the Parliamentarian would reject registry as part of budget reconciliation. But, the possibility for bipartisan legislation doesn’t end there.

Any time we have Nolan and ImmigrationProf Blog resident expert Professor Kit Johnson talking about the same possible solution, folks in Congress on both sides should wake up and take notice! Doesn’t mean they will. But they should think about proposed solutions from thoughtful subject matter experts, who have been involved in the process for years, and who often come at problem-solving from different angles. 

Kit Johnson
Kit Johnson
Associate Professor of Law
University of Oklahoma Law School

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-29-21

Related posts:

  1. KIT JOHNSON & NOLAN RAPPAPORT UNITED IN CAUSE OF JUSTICE FOR MARIA ISABEL BUESO — Different Methods, But One Objective: Justice!
  2. 🗽⚖️ “COURTSIDE” IN THE NEWS: BOTH NOLAN @ THE HILL & KEVIN @ IMMIGRATIONPROF BLOG HIGHLIGHT MY BLISTERING ANALYSIS OF BIDEN’S FIRST-YEAR IMMIGRATION POLICIES! — Garland’s Monumental EOIR Fail Writ Large Among “Underreported News” Of 2021 — Mishandling Of Immigration Courts Creates Key “Enthusiasm Gap” Among Progressives Heading Into 2022 Midterms!
  3. THE HILL — NOLAN SAYS LEGALIZATION SHOULD BE #1 CONCERN FOR THOSE THREATENED WITH REMOVAL!
  4. 🇺🇸🏴‍☠️RACE IN AMERICA: CARRIE ROSENBAUM “GETS IT,” EVEN AS MAYORKAS, GARLAND, HARRIS & THE OTHER BIDEN HYPOCRITES PRETEND NOT TO:  “Immigration reform, and a more robust application of the Equal Protection doctrine to all those inside the country, and at our borders, is necessary to move towards meaningfully dismantling systemic racism.”

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

Nolan Rappaport
Family Pictures
Nolan Rappaport
Opinion Writer
The Hill

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

By Nolan Rappaport

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Published originally on The Hill.

 

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

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

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

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

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

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-21-21 

Related posts:

  1. ⚠️🚸V.P. HARRIS IS GOING TO THE BORDER: SHE SHOULD TALK WITH THE REAL VICTIMS OF HER GOVERNMENT’S, ILLEGAL, WRONG-HEADED, IMMORAL, AND INEFFECTIVE BORDER DETERRENCE POLICIES — Avoid The CBP “Dog & Pony Show,” & The GOP’s Cowardly “Gunboat Cruz” — Cross Over The Border, View The Human Rights Catastrophe We Have Created, Understand People Have A Right To Seek Legal Refuge, & Fix The Legal Asylum System At Ports Of Entry & Immigration Courts With Humane, Practical Experts! — “The vice president seems to have bought into the… I can’t use another word, but the nativist party line, that somehow these immigrants are the cause of the problem when, in fact, they’re the victims of multiple problems in many cases.” — Stop Blaming, Shaming, & Dehumanizing The Victims & Start Fixing Our Asylum System & Solving The Problems That Force Them To Migrate!
  2. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE REPORT: GENDER VIOLENCE ☠️⚰️DRIVES CONTINUING REFUGEE FLOW TO U.S. — Dishonesty Of Sessions’s Misogynistic Attack In Matter Of A-B- 🤮 Exposed Again! — Yet, Garland Fails To Take Action To End Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Culture @ EOIR, Even As He Also Fails To Insist On The Restoration Of The Rule Of Law @ Our Borders! —  WHY?🤯
  3. NOT ROCKET SCIENCE, 🚀 BUT BIDEN ADMINISTRATION LACKS EXPERT PROGRESSIVE LEADERSHIP WHO “GETS IT” — Will VP Harris Be Able To Break Out Of The “Death Spiral” ☠️ Of “Proven, Guaranteed To Fail” Racist Immigration Deterrence? — “It’s Groundhog Day at the border, and Biden is mindlessly laying the foundation for more problems in a few years. We’ve watched it all play out before. Immigration deterrence doesn’t work.” 
  4. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!

THE GIBSON REPORT — 12-14-20 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Dumbing Down EOIR 👎🏻🤯 — How America’s Immigration Courts Became “Amateur Night At The Bijou” 🤹 With Humanity At Stake & Other Horror Stories ☠️ From The Dying ⚰️ Kakistocracy!

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”
Star Chamber Justice
“Justice”
Star Chamber
Style
Kangaroos
BIA Members In Training Session
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
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Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

COVID-19

Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify information on the relevant government websites and with colleagues as best you can.

 

EOIR Status Overview & EOIR Court Status Map/List: Hearings in non-detained cases at courts without an announced date are postponed through, and including, January 1, 2020 (This is the date announced last week. It is unclear whether there will be an update this week, since a longer-than-usual postponement was announced last week, likely in light of the holidays). NYC non-detained remains closed for hearings.

 

TOP NEWS

 

Trump Administration Enacts Rule Gutting Protection for Refugees and Asylum Seekers

HRW: In the waning days of the current administration, the Trump U.S. Departments of Homeland Security and Justice have rammed through a sweeping final rule, set to go into effect on January 11, 2021, that guts what remains of protection for refugees seeking asylum in the United States…Under the rule, the Trump administration is likely to, among many other harmful actions: Deny asylum to refugees who improperly entered the United States…Deny asylum to a woman who is harmed for gender-based violence…Deny asylum to LGBTQ refugees… Redefine persecution…Redefine “political opinion”… increasing the complexity of credible fear screenings… new grounds for declaring asylum applications “frivolous,”… See also EOIR Memo on implementation of the regs.

 

US Extends Temporary Protected Status for 6 Disaster-Hit Countries

VOA: The so-called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for some citizens of El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, Honduras and Nepal was extended by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) until at least October 2021.

 

DOJ Reins In Immigration Appeals With Final Rule

Law360: The rule, proposed in August, will curtail the ability of immigration appellate judges to hear cases on their own accord, impose a time limit on appeals, and create a mechanism for lower immigration judges to seek reversal of appellate judges at the Board of Immigration Appeals by petitioning a political DOJ appointee.

 

DOJ Floats E-Filing Rule In Immigration Courts

Law360: The U.S. Department of Justice proposed implementing electronic filing across all immigration courts, allowing immigration attorneys to submit documents, access case files and view court decisions virtually.

 

The Trump administration expelled unaccompanied migrant children in violation of a court order

Vox: The Trump administration has expelled at least 67 unaccompanied migrant children who arrived on the US-Mexico border since November 18, continuing to invoke Covid-19 as a rationale in defiance of a court order.

 

Tracking the Trump Administration’s “Midnight Regulations”

ProPublica: The administration is rushing to implement dozens of policy changes in its final days. We’re following some of the most consequential and controversial.

 

COVID-19 Vaccine: What about undocumented immigrants and communities of color?

DocumentedNY: Cuomo announced Wednesday that the Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had agreed to remove the requirements on vaccine reporting data that could determine whether vaccine recipients are U.S. citizens.

 

ICE Mismanagement Created Coronavirus “Hotbeds Of Infection” In And Around Detention Centers

Intercept: By August 1, almost 5.5 percent of total U.S. cases, according to the report, were attributable to spread from ICE detention centers. The report is yet another damning indication that ICE’s dereliction in protecting basic human rights, grievous medical neglect, and lack of transparency in how it detains and treats people in its system of over 200 detention centers is a massive public health threat — both to detainees and the greater U.S. population.

 

Persecuted and marginalized: Black LGBTQ immigrants face unique challenges

ABA: As part of her efforts to build community among LGBTQ immigrants, Gurmu also established the Queer Black Immigrant Project, or QBip, an effort she describes as a black radical lawyering initiative that seeks not only to assist people with asylum claims but also finds solutions to why Black immigrants are leaving their homelands.

 

The United States Has Failed Cameroonian Asylum-Seekers

FP: Fleeing a civil war shaped by the West, Cameroonians have been met on American shores with hostility, high-risk conditions, and now unconscionable deportation.

 

Progressives are getting ready to push Biden on immigration reform

Vox: Biden claims that he would not simply return to the Obama-era status quo on immigration, which involved record-level deportations and an expansion of family detention.

 

How many of our immigration judges are amateurs at immigration law?

The Hill: The problem is the training program for new judges does not spend enough time teaching immigration law to give them the knowledge they will need as immigration judges. Unlike in many courtrooms, these new judges generally will be expected to issue an oral decision at the end of each hearing, which does not give them time to do research or get advice from more experienced judges.

 

Contractors Dynamite Mountains, Bulldoze Desert In Race To Build Trump’s Border Wall

NPR: This is one of 29 construction projects being performed by 13 different contractors from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas. In Arizona, contractors have added shifts — they’re working all night long under light towers to meet Trump’s goal of 450 miles of new barriers before his term is over.

 

How ICE Became The Face Of Trump’s Immigration Crackdown And Where It Goes From Here After Biden Is In Charge

Buzzfeed: BuzzFeed News spoke with 12 current and former ICE officials who served during the Trump administration about their experiences and their thoughts about the future. Many, like Schwab, said the new president must find a way to correct the excesses of the past four years and restore public trust in the agency by revamping policies and tactics. But many also cautioned that it won’t be easy.

 

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

 

Opinion analysis: Justices allow Muslim men placed on “no fly” list to sue FBI agents for money damages

SCOTUSblog: In a brief and unanimous opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court upheld the 2nd Circuit’s ruling. Thomas pointed to the text of RFRA, which allows an individual whose exercise of religion has been burdened to “obtain appropriate relief against a government.” That phrase, Thomas explained, permits someone who has been injured to sue government officials in their personal capacities.

 

Supreme Court puts off ruling on Trump census case to exclude undocumented immigrants

NBC: The Trump administration had urged the court to take the case on a fast track and issue a decision before the president is required to submit the census report to Congress in early January. But by the time the case was argued Nov. 20, the Census Bureau conceded that it has no idea yet know how many people would be excluded or when it will have the answer. It appeared Monday that the justices declined to act for that reason.

 

CA1 Finds Petitioner Abandoned LPR Status After Living and Working in Canada for Six Years

The court denied the petition for review, finding that the petitioner, a Lebanese citizen who was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident (LPR) in 1991, had abandoned his LPR status after living and working in Canada for six years. (Mahmoud v. Barr, 11/30/20) AILA Doc. No. 20120708

 

CA9 Says Derivative U Visa Spouse Need Not Be Married to Principal Applicant at Time of Form I-918 Filing

The court held that to qualify for a derivative U visa as a spouse, a person need not have been married to the principal applicant at the time the Form I-918 application was filed, so long as the marriage exists when the principal applicant receives a U visa. (Tovar v. Zuchowski, 12/3/20) AILA Doc. No. 20120839

 

CA11 Says INA §241(a)(5) Bars Reopening of Reinstated Removal Order Where Noncitizen Unlawfully Reentered After Removal

The court concluded that the plain language of INA §241(a)(5) bars the reopening of a reinstated removal order where a noncitizen has illegally reentered the United States following his or her initial removal, and thus denied the petition for review. (Alfaro-Garcia v. Att’y Gen., 11/30/20) AILA Doc. No. 20120709

 

Feds Can’t Enforce Trump’s No-Visa Policy For 181 Families

Law360: A California federal judge on Friday blocked enforcement of President Donald Trump’s COVID-19-related rule barring noncitizens from moving to the U.S. on new green cards, specifically as the rule pertains to 181 families, finding that the families showed they’d suffer irreparable harm.

 

District Court Rejects Challenge to DHS’s Expedited Removal Pilot Programs

The district court found that DHS’s new detention-placement policy of the Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR) and Humanitarian Asylum Review Process (HARP) programs did not violate statutory, regulatory, or constitutional requirements. (Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center v. Wolf, 11/30/20) AILA Doc. No. 20120838

 

DHS and DOJ Final Rule on Procedures for Asylum, Withholding of Removal, and CAT Protection

DHS and DOJ final rule making multiple changes to the regulations governing the procedures for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT. The final rule adopts the notice of proposed rulemaking published on 6/15/20 with few substantive changes. (85 FR 80274, 12/11/20) AILA Doc. No. 20121030

 

EOIR Issues Memo Providing Guidance on New Regulations Governing Procedures for Asylum, Withholding of Removal, and CAT Protection

EOIR issued a memo (PM 21-09) establishing EOIR policy and procedures regarding new DHS and DOJ regulations, effective January 11, 2021, about credible fear and reasonable fear review screenings and the adjudication of asylum, statutory withholding of removal, and protection under CAT claims. AILA Doc. No. 20121400 See also Final Rule: Procedures for Asylum and Withholding of Removal; Credible Fear and Reasonable Fear Review.

 

EOIR Issues Memo on Pro Bono Legal Services

EOIR issued a memo (PM 21-08) consolidating and updating EOIR policies related to pro bono legal services. This memo replaces OPPM 97-1, Maintaining the List of Free Legal Service Providers, and OPPM 08-01, Guidelines for Facilitating Pro Bono Legal Services. AILA Doc. No. 20121133

 

EOIR Issues Memo Setting Forth Updated Adjournment, Call-Up, and Case Identification Codes

EOIR issued a policy memo (PM 21-07) rescinding PM 20-08, Definitions and Use of Adjournment, Call-Up, and Case Identification Codes, dated February 13, 2020, and setting forth updated codes used to track the case hearing process. AILA Doc. No. 20121038

 

Advance Copy of EOIR Final Rule on Appellate Procedures and Administrative Closure

EOIR final rule amending the regulations on the processing of immigration appeals, as well as amending the regulations regarding administrative closure. The final rule will be published in the Federal Register on 12/16/20 and will be effective 30 days after publication. AILA Doc. No. 20121130

 

DOJ Provides Information on EADs for Six TPS-Designated Countries

DOJ provided a table of EAD expiration dates that were issued under the TPS designations for El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan. EADs with expiration dates listed in the table and a category code of A-12 or C-19 are now valid through October 4, 2021. AILA Doc. No. 20121401

 

Update: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals

USCIS: In compliance with an order of a United States District Court, effective December 7, 2020, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is: Accepting first-time requests for consideration of deferred action under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) based on the terms of the DACA policy in effect prior to September 5, 2017, and in accordance with the Court’s December 4, 2020, order.

 

ACTIONS

 

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

 

ImmProf

 

Monday, December 14, 2020

Sunday, December 13, 2020

Saturday, December 12, 2020

Friday, December 11, 2020

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Monday, December 7, 2020

Fourth Circuit to Rehear En Banc Public Charge Rule Case

 

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Thanks to former EOIR attorney Nolan Rappaport over @ The Hill for highlighting the disgraceful “expertise deficit” at EOIR. Nolan’s article was also cited by Judge “Sir Jeffrey” Chase of the Round Table 🛡⚔️ in a recent post.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/12/15/%f0%9f%9b%a1%e2%9a%94%ef%b8%8f%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%97%bdsir-jeffreys-2021-wish-list-sanity-humanity-due-process-other-great-things-the-importance-of-a-long/

And, as always, thanks Elizabeth, for all you do to keep us well-informed!

The only real question is how much wanton damage can the EOIR Clown Show 🤡🏴‍☠️ inflict on humanity and our legal system before the curtain falls on January 21? Apparently, like the Trump/Barr “holiday execution extravaganza” 🎅🏻⚰️ & “COVID spreading spree,”🤮 they are going for “maximum kills.” ☠️⚰️

PWS

12-16-20

Related posts:

  1. NO EXPERTISE NECESSARY! – At The “New EOIR,” Immigration Judges No Longer Need to Demonstrate Immigration Experience – Just a Willingness To Send Migrants to Potential Death, Danger, or Misery Without Due Process or Fundamental Fairness – When Your Job Is To Impose Arbitrary “Death Sentences,” Maybe It’s Easier If You Don’t Understand What You’re Really Doing!
  2. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⚖️🗽🇺🇸FORMER DEPUTY AG DON AYER, JUDGE MIMI TSANKOV AMONG “HEADLINERS” AT TIMELY UPCOMING NY CITY BAR ASSN. EVENT: “Rule of Law Forum – Preserving the Rule of Law in an Age of Disruption” — Register Now, Right Here!
  3. THE GIBSON REPORT — 10-12-20 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire. NY Legal Assistance Group —  DocumentedNY Takes You Inside The Maliciously Incompetent Kakistocracy Known As Immigration “Courts,” That Aren’t “Courts” At All & Where The Victims Might Never Have Any Idea Of Why They Are Being “Ordered Deported” By “Judges” Beholden To the Regime’s Corrupt & Racist Enforcement Apparatus! (Item #5 Under “Top- News”) — Plus Other News From The Regime’s “Twilight Zone!”
  4. 🦘🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️⚖️👎🏻🤮“KANGAROO KOURTS” MUST GO: NY City Bar Blasts Billy The Bigot Barr’s Deadly Immigration Court Farce, Calls For Article I! — “This step is now more crucial than ever, as ‘the many steps that the current administration has taken to politicize the court…have frayed the bare threads of justice that existed before to the point of a complete rupture, leaving not even the appearance of justice or due process of law.’”

“PURE SOPHISTRY” 🤮— POLITICIZED FLRA MAJORITY REVERSES REGIONAL DIRECTOR, BUSTS IMMIGRATION JUDGES’ UNION!— NAIJ President Judge Ashley Tabaddor Pledges To Continue Fight For Due Process Rights Of Migrants & 1st Amendment Rights Of Judges!

Hon. A. Ashlley Tabaddor
Hon. A. Ashley Tabaddor
President, National
Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”)

Here’s a message Judge Tabaddor sent to all Immigration Judges:

Subject: Update on Agency Action to Decertify NAIJ

 

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF IMMIGRATION JUDGES

 

November 3, 2020

 

Dear Colleagues,

 

Today the Federal Labor Relations Authority reversed two decades of precedent and issued a baseless decision effectively decertifying the National Association of Immigration Judges as the union of immigration judges. See the decision here. We are outraged, though not surprised, by the lack of legal analysis. As dissenting member Ernest DuBester notes, the decision is pure “sophistry.”

 

This decision is not being rendered in a vacuum. We have suffered an all-out assault on labor and unions from the outset of three executive orders designed to decimate bargaining rights of unions to the most recent executive order designed to transform the federal workforce into an ”at-will” and deeply politicized body. And in the context of immigration judges, this is in line with our experience of undue interference and influence in our independent decision making authority.

 

We have lost this battle, but we will win the war. The NAIJ has prepared for just this day. We shall continue to fight. We are pursuing any and all available legal and other options.

 

Your support of NAIJ is now more important than ever. NAIJ needs you. If you have not previously joined NAIJ, join now by contacting us directly. In turn, NAIJ will continue to support immigration judges both individually with management and also as a group through public outreach, media contacts, and work on the Hill. We will need to work together to make sure that misguided policies like quotas and deadlines and micromanagement of IJs are not utilized to target us for discipline or removal from office. Even absent the protection of a collective bargaining agreement, we continue to have rights as federal government employees, including before the Merit System Protection Board. And if nothing else, this highly politicized decision is another compelling exhibit in our case for the creation of an independent Article 1 immigration court.

 

As always, feel free to reach out to myself or any of the NAIJ board members with any questions or concerns. My personal email address is ashleytabaddor@gmail.com and my cell is (310) 709-3580.

 

Ashley Tabaddor

President, NAIJ

— 

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

Unquestionably, the move by the Attorney General to “decertify” the NAIJ (essentially eradicate it) was intended to “punish and silence” Judge Tabaddor and other NAIJ officers who have spoken out about serious due process abuses and chronic mismanagement at EOIR and the DOJ. Indeed, since all other sitting IJs are “muzzled” by the DOJ, and “EOIR Star Chamber” operations have become increasingly more secretive, less transparent, and wildly inconsistent from court to court under the Trump regime, the NAIJ is one of the few sources of accurate information for Congress and the public about the ever-deteriorating conditions in Immigration Court! 

Don’t expect this battle for the “heart and soul” of Federal Civil Service and American democracy to go away any time soon!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-05-20

Related posts:

  1. 🇺🇸⚖️🗽👍🏼🏆👏🏽GOOD GOVERNMENT: BELEAGUERED FEDS WOULD FIND WELCOME RESPITE IN BIDEN ADMINISTRATION! — This Election Could Be “Last Call” For One Of The Cornerstones Of Our Democracy — A Competent, Honest, Career Civil Service!
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. 🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️KAKISTOCRACY WATCH: AILA Blasts Appointment Of Prosecutors Without Judicial Qualifications To Top Judicial Positions in Billy the Bigot’s Weaponized Anti-Due-Process “Court” System — Dysfunction, Bias, Illegitimate Decisions Run Rampant As Congress, Article IIIs Fail to Enforce U.S. Constitution!
  4. TANVI MISRA @ ROLL CALL: The BIA’s Biased Hiring Program Is As Bogus As A Three Dollar Bill — Designed To Empower White Nationalist Nation, Deny Due Process! ☠️👎🏻 — “Everyone knows that [EOIR Director James McHenry] 👺 was changing the process along the way to ensure he got the candidates he pre-selected.” 

R.I.P. JUDGE JAMES P. “PHIL” MORRIS, Former BIA Member & Career DOJ Attorney – 1929 – 2020

Here’s Phil’s obit sent in by retired U.S. Immigration Judge & former senior attorney manager at the BIA Hon. Wayne Stogner. The picture credit of Phil at his desk at the BIA goes to former BIA Attorney Advisor and current contributor to The Hill Nolan Rappaport, a person of multi-talents. The obit is actually based on a summary of Phil’s career prepared by the late BIA Judge Fred W. Vacca for the occasion of Phil’s retirement from the BIA.

Phil Morris
Hon. James P. “Phil” Morris
1929 – 2020
Photographed in his BIA Office by Nolan Rappaport

 

 

Obituary

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James “Phil” Morris a eight year resident of Annapolis and previously of Alexandria, VA passed away on Wednesday, September 23, 2020. Phil was born on February 4, 1929 in Asheville, NC the youngest of four children to the late Frank and Carrie Morris. Phil attended the local high school and was a young teenager when the World d War II broke out. Phil’s’ older brother, Frank, Jr was already serving in Germany as an Armored Calvary Officer and would made the ultimate sacrifice. He is buried in Belgium. Phil volunteered for military service after high school. He trained in the Army infantry and found himself on a troop carrier headed for Japan at the age of 16. After serving for 13 months in the Army of Occupation, Phil was released from active duty. Once Phil returned to Asheville he began his educational career. He later moved to Washington, DC where he completed his undergraduate studies in foreign affairs at George Washington University. A variety of transition jobs following graduation led to a career in law enforcement when Phil was appointed as a special agent with Office of Naval Intelligence, Washington, DC in 1952. Conducting criminal and security investigations by day and studying law at night at George Washington, Phil was a busy man. Nonetheless, he took time out to marry and rear two daughters, Jean and Karen. Upon graduation from law school and admission to the Bar, Phil continued his employment as a investigator for the Navy. His long-term employment with the United States Department of Justice began in 1961, as a trial attorney in the Criminal Section of the Internal Security Division. He would later become a Deputy Section Chief. In 1973 he transferred to the Criminal Division where he was responsible for the Immigration and Extradition Unit. In 1981, Phil was appointed by the Attorney General of the United States as a member of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Phil and his current wife, Margaret enjoyed many mutual interests including golf, skiing and travel. Phil also belonged to a poker group that for 50-years gathered on Friday nights to play their beloved game. In December of 2012 Phil and Margaret moved to Bay Woods in Annapolis. They enjoyed meeting new friends and their time spent together. In addition to his parents, Phil was predeceased by his siblings, Frank, Jr, Donald, and Gena Goldmon. He is survived by his wife, Margaret; daughters, Jean Wilson of Frederick, MD and Karen King of Friendswood, TX.

Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Monday, September 28, 2020 at 10:30 am at St. John Neumann Catholic Church, 620 Bestgate Road. Interment to follow with military honors at Resurrection Cemetery, Clinton, MD.

 

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I knew Phil for many years going back to my days of officing with the late BIA Judge Lauri Steven Filppu at the BIA during our years as Attorney Advisors from 1973 to 1975. The BIA then was on the top floor of the now long gone “International Safeway Building.” Phil worked for the Government Regulations & Labor Section of the DOJ Criminal Division on a floor below us. Phil was the head of the unit whose job in those days was to defend the BIA’s final decisions in the various U.S. Courts of Appeals. We used to ride the elevator and chat together. I had many future occasions to work with Phil during my time in the “Legacy INS” Office of General Counsel in the late 1970s.

 

Eventually, the “Gov Regs & Labor Section” “morphed” into the Office of Immigration Litigation (“OIL”) and “migrated” to the Civil Division during the “Inman-Schmidt Era” at the “Legacy INS.” By then, Phil had been appointed to the BIA. However, Lauri Filppu, then with the Criminal Division, was part of the group that transferred to OIL where he eventually became Deputy Director.

 

Phil had retired by the time Lauri and I were appointed to the Board in 1995. However, the three of us were “reunited” when Phil came out of retirement to serve as a Temporary Board Member for a time during my tenure as Chair.

 

I always remember Phil as a soft-spoken “true gentleman,” thoughtful lawyer, and a good colleague to everyone with whom he worked.

 

My deepest sympathies to Phil’s wife, Margaret, and their two daughters.

 

PWS

 

09-29-20

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  1. NO EXPERTISE NECESSARY! – At The “New EOIR,” Immigration Judges No Longer Need to Demonstrate Immigration Experience – Just a Willingness To Send Migrants to Potential Death, Danger, or Misery Without Due Process or Fundamental Fairness – When Your Job Is To Impose Arbitrary “Death Sentences,” Maybe It’s Easier If You Don’t Understand What You’re Really Doing!
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  4. ⚖️BINGO! — WASHPOST DUO’S REPORT SHOWS TIMELINESS ⏰ OF RAPPAPORT-PISTONE-SCHMIDT PLAN 😎 FOR INCREASING REPRESENTATION AND IMPROVING MPP PROCESS! — All That’s Missing Is The Government Leadership To Engage & Make It Happen! — “But despite the vastly lower numbers, there is still far more demand for pro bono legal services than nonprofit groups and charities can provide, Castro said.”

NO EXPERTISE NECESSARY! – At The “New EOIR,” Immigration Judges No Longer Need to Demonstrate Immigration Experience – Just a Willingness To Send Migrants to Potential Death, Danger, or Misery Without Due Process or Fundamental Fairness – When Your Job Is To Impose Arbitrary “Death Sentences,” Maybe It’s Easier If You Don’t Understand What You’re Really Doing!

Nolan Rappaport
Nolan Rappaport
Contributor, The Hill

 

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/481152-us-hiring-immigration-judges-who-dont-have-any-immigration-law-experience

 

Nolan Rappaport writes in The Hill:

 

. . . .

 

Hiring judges without immigration law experience

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) pointed out that the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) has been hiring as judges lawyers who do not have any immigration law experience.

In fact, the experience requirement in immigration judge vacancy announcements doesn’t even mention immigration law experience:

“Experience: Applicants must have a full seven (7) years of post-bar experience as a licensed attorney preparing for, participating in, and/or appealing formal hearings or trials … Qualifying litigation experience involves cases in which a complaint was filed with a court, or a charging document … was issued by a court, a grand jury, or appropriate military authority…”

EOIR recently swore in 28 new immigration judges, and 11 of them had no immigration law experience.

None.

That’s a problem for justice.

Due process isn’t possible when judges do not fully understand the law — and it takes a long time to learn immigration law. According to the American Bar Association, “To say that immigration law is vast and complex is an understatement.” Rutgers University law professor Elizabeth Hull says that our immigration laws are “second only to the Internal Revenue Code in complexity.”

The concern over judges with no immigration law experience is more than just idealism or theory — the inexperience can impact people’s lives in major ways.

For instance, an otherwise deportable alien may be eligible for lawful permanent resident status if he has been in the United States long enough. 8 USC §1259 permits certain deportable aliens to register for permanent residence if they entered the United States prior to Jan. 1, 1972; have resided in the United States continuously since such entry; have good moral character; and are not ineligible for citizenship.

How many inexperienced immigration judges would know that?

This influx of inexperience may explain why asylum decisions vary so widely from judge-to-judge.

What’s more, these judges might not be able to meet the eligibility standards for an Article 1 court if subject matter expertise is required.

. . . .

 

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You can read Nolan’s full article, from which this is excerpted, at the above link. I agree wholeheartedly with this part of Nolan’s conclusion: “EOIR should not be trying to deal with this backlog by hiring more judges if it can’t find judges with adequate immigration law experience.”

 

 

Here’s an actual anecdote that I received recently from a Courtside reader:

 

I had a merits hearing . . . with a new IJ with no immigration background at all.  It happened to be an old adjustment which the ICE trial attorney had reviewed and agreed in advance to a grant, pending a few questions.  So the ICE TA explained this to the IJ, and I asked the IJ if [he/she] understood the terms involved.  And it turned out that the IJ didn’t know what an I-140 is and didn’t know what 245(i) is.  [He/She] didn’t say a word; we ran the hearing.  The ICE attorney actually had to fill out the IJ’s order for [him/her] to sign; [he/she] had no idea what to write or what boxes to check.

 

What if it had been a contested hearing?

 

 

Yes, indeed, “what if this had been a contested hearing?” I assume that what passes for EOIR/DOJ “new judge training” these days just tells new judges that “when in doubt, kick ‘em out.” Just check the “denied” and “ordered removed” boxes on the form orders. At least this one had a “happy ending.” Many do not!

 

I’ve heard other anecdotes about newer Immigration Judges totally ignorant about asylum law and afraid to admit it who cited Matter of A-B- as basis for “blanket summary denial” of all gender-based asylum claims from Central America. Other newer judges reportedly are largely unaware of the burden-shifting “regulatory presumption of future persecution” arising out of past persecution.

 

Others apparently don’t understand the interplay and differing requirements and consequences among asylum, withholding of removal under the Act, CAT withholding, and CAT deferral. “Mixed motive,” a key life or death concept in asylum cases — you’d be lucky to find a handful of Immigration Judges these days who truly understand how it applies. That’s particularly true because the BIA and the Attorney General have recently bent the concept and many of the Circuit precedents interpreting it intentionally out of shape to favor DHS enforcement and discriminate against bona fide asylum applicants.

The generous interpretation of the “well founded fear” standard required by the Supremes in Cardoza-Fonseca and embodied in the BIA’s Matter of Mogharrabi is widely ignored, even mocked in some of today’s enforcement driven, overtly anti-asylum Immigration Courts.

To be fair, I’ve also heard praise from advocates for some of the newer Immigration Judges who seemed eager and willing to be “educated” by both counsel, weren’t afraid to admit their gaps in knowledge and request amplification, and seemed willing carefully to weigh and deliberate all the facts and law to reach a just and well-explained decision; this contrasts with “summary preconceived denial” which is a common complaint among advocates that also includes some judges who have been on the bench for years.

The larger problem here is that too many of the Circuits Courts of Appeals seem to have gone “belly up” on their duty to carefully review what is happening in the Immigration Courts and to insist on the basics of fundamental fairness, due process, and fair and impartial decision-making.

 

It’s pretty simple: At neither the trial nor appellate levels do today’s Immigration Courts operating under EOIR and DOJ control qualify as “expert tribunals.” It is legally erroneous for Article III Courts to continue to “defer” to decision makers who lack fairness, impartiality, and subject matter expertise.

 

With human lives, the rule of law, and America’s future at stake here, it’s past time for the Article III’s to stop pretending that is “business as usual” in the warped and distorted “world of immigration under the Trump regime.”

Would any Article III Judge subject his or her life to the circus now ongoing at EOIR. Of course not!  Then it’s both legally wrong and morally corrupt for Article IIIs to continue to subject vulnerable migrants to this type of charade and perversion of justice!

 

Due Process Forever; Complicit Courts Never!

 

PWS

 

02-05-20

 

 

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  4. HALLOWEEN HORROR STORY: Opaque & Biased Politicized Judicial Hiring Denies Migrants The Fair & Impartial Adjudication To Which They Are Constitutionally Entitled – Given The Generous Legal Standards, A Worldwide Refugee Crisis, & Asylum Officers’ Positive Findings In Most Cases, Asylum Seekers Should Be Winning The Vast Majority Of Immigration Court Cases — Instead, They Are Being “Railroaded” By A Biased System & Complicit Article III Courts!

KIT JOHNSON & NOLAN RAPPAPORT UNITED IN CAUSE OF JUSTICE FOR MARIA ISABEL BUESO — Different Methods, But One Objective: Justice!

KIT JOHNSON & NOLAN RAPPAPORT UNITED IN CAUSE OF JUSTICE FOR MARIA ISABEL BUESO — Different Methods, But One Objective: Justice!

Kit Johnson
Kit Johnson
Associate Professor of Law
University of Oklahoma Law School
Nolan Rappaport
Family Pictures
Nolan Rappaport
Opinion Writer
The Hill
Kevin R. Johnson
Kevin R. Johnson
Dean
UC Davis School of Law

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/09/trumps-death-sentence-for-immigrant-who-followed-the-law-merits-private-bill.html

Summary from Dean Kevin Johnson @ ImmigrationProf Blog:

Nolan Rappaport: Trump’s ‘death sentence’ for immigrant who followed the law merits private bill

Thursday, September 5, 2019

Kit Johnson has been blogging on the case of Maria Isabel Bueso, who at age 7 came to the United States for specialized health care for a life-threatening matter and now is threatened with removal — and possible death — by the Trump administration.

Nolan Rappaport on the Hill is more optimistic than Kit on the possibilities for a private bill allowing Bueso to gain lawful immigration status and remain in the United States.  He writes, “In 30-some years as an immigration lawyer, I have not seen a more compelling justification for a private bill than the way the administration has treated Maria `Isabel’ Bueso.”

KJ

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Go on over to ImmigrationProf Blog at the link for all the links to the story highlighted by Nolan and Kit.

Sometimes Trump’s immigration policies bring folks together: in united opposition.

Thanks to Nolan and Kit for highlighting this case! Hopefully, unity and publicity will bring success and save lives in this and other cases

PWS

09-07

-19

Related posts:

  1. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!
  2. 18 YEARS AFTER 09-11, THE “BAD GUYS” ARE WINNING THE BATTLE TO DESTROY AMERICAN JUSTICE & SPLIT THE COUNTRY! — Here’s The Disturbing Proof Of What Passes For “Justice” In America Today!
  3. WHEN ARTICLE III COURTS FAIL: U.S. “Orbits” Refugee Families To Dangerous Chaos In Guatemala Under Clearly Fraudulent “Safe Third Country” Arrangements As Feckless U.S. Courts Fail To Enforce Constitutional Due Process & U.S. Asylum Laws In Face Of Trump Regime’s Contemptuous Scofflaw Conduct!
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

THE HILL: Nolan On Pelosi’s Reaction To Trump’s “Sanctuary Cities” Threats — PLUS, “Bonus Coverage” From Tal @ SF Chron!

 

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Bizarro world: Pelosi angry over Trump plan to send illegal crossers to sanctuary cities.  By Nolan Rappaport

Apparently, President Donald Trump is about to make life much easier for aliens with children who are apprehended after making an illegal entry.
The Flores Settlement Agreement prevents him from detaining, for more than 20 days, children apprehended after making an illegal crossing into the United States. And because all Hell broke loose when he separated the children from their parents, he is now releasing their parents, too.
But according to his tweets on Friday, that isn’t all he is going to do for them.

I’m sure he was being sarcastic when he said this should make them very happy, but it really should make the Democrats very happy. The government would be providing these families with free transportation to places that are welcoming undocumented aliens, i.e. the sanctuary cities.

In fact, many of them are headed for sanctuary cities anyway. In 2014, California, which is a sanctuary state, was home to between 2.35 million and 2.6 million undocumented immigrants. Nearly a quarter of the nation’s undocumented immigrants lived there. Roughly one in ten California workers was an undocumented immigrant. And the population of undocumented aliens in California has gotten even largersince then.
But it turns out that Trump was right: The Democrats are upset.
I was astonished to see an article entitled, “Pelosi fumes over White House plan to release immigrant detainees in sanctuary cities.”
Published on The Hill.
Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an executive branch immigration law expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.

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It’s always difficult to take anything Trump says seriously, particularly about immigration.

I think Pelosi was reacting to 1) the tone of Trump’s threat; 2) his use of human lives as pawns and bargaining chips (something he has done before with the Dreamers); 3) his continuing threats to misuse Presidential power to “punish enemies;” and 4) the lack of any serious coordination that would accompany a good faith plan.  

On the other hand, as shown in this article by Tal Kopan of the SF Chronicle, California and San Francisco officials appear ready to welcome and help any migrants sent their way or who are released and choose to settle in California.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Trump-s-idea-to-take-immigrants-to-sanctuary-13763811.php?t=29edb0e3ff

PWS

04-15-19

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  3. HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM COURTSIDE! — I Take A Look Forward @ 2019’s Big Immigration Stories
  4. YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Trump, DHS Promise, “Reign Of Terror” Directed At Families In Ethnic Communities — “Orphaning” U.S. Citizen Children And/Or Feeding Them & Other Vulnerable Kids To MS-13 & Other Gangs As “Fresh Meat” America’s New Objectives! — But, The Law & Reality Could Be Problems For Trump & His Sycophants @ ICE!

THE HILL: NOLAN SAYS TRUMP HAS BETTER OPTIONS ON THE BORDER

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Trump has better options to stop dangerous flood of asylum-seeking migrants

By Nolan Rappaport

trumpdonald_032718getty2_lead.jpg
President Donald Trump has not been able to stop a surge in illegal border crossings, which, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan, is at the breaking point. In February, more than 76,000 migrants were detained, the highest number in 12 years. Most of them were asylum-seeking migrants from Central America.
The State Department told CNN on Saturday that the United States is cutting off aid to those countries.
Apparently, Trump thinks he can gain some control over the situation by pressuring the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (known as the Northern Triangle) into assisting him with his efforts to secure the border.
I think he is mistaken. The amount of the aid he cut off is much smaller than the amount of money migrants from the Northern Triangle are sending home from jobs in America.
In 2017, migrants from the Northern Triangle who work in the United States sent billions of dollars home to their families. These remittancestotaled more than $5 billion for El Salvador, $4 billion for Honduras, and $8.68 billion for Guatemala. This was 20.1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product in El Salvador, 17.4 percent in Honduras, and 11.5 percent in Guatemala.
What is the aid supposed to do?
In 2016, the United States gave $131.2 million in aid to Guatemala, $98.3 million to Honduras, and $67.9 million to El Salvador, and Congress has appropriated about $2.1 billion for the program since then.
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I encourage you to go on over to The Hill at the above link to read Nolan’s complete article.
I generally agree with Nolan’s observations, except for the idea of lengthening the time for family detention. Family detention is inhumane, unnecessary, expensive, and ineffective.
Why not just operate the asylum system in a fair and efficient manner? Fairly and efficiently administer the “credible fear” system in the Asylum Office as established by law. Give those who pass fair access to legal counsel and process their cases fairly and efficiently through the Immigration Courts. Remove the lower priority cases from the Immigration Court docket to allow priority processing of new asylum cases without long waits or increasing the backlogs. Give folks fair, impartial, and unbiased adjudications of their claims and  let the chips fall where they may.
Most of us who are familiar with the asylum system believe that under a fair, impartial, “depoliticized” system that focused on due process and asylum expertise, many, probably a majority, of the arriving cases would be granted asylum or protection under the Convention Against Torture. While the Administration claims otherwise, we can never know because they keep insisting on “gaming” the system against asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle and using gimmicks to prevent individuals from getting the fair determinations to which they are entitled under law.
Trump’s White Nationalism is driving us towards a self-created international economic disaster. Why, when fair administration of our existing asylum system at the border is within our power and capability? Trump just lacks the will, integrity, and competence to make it happen.
PWS
04-02-19

Related posts:

  1. TRUMP’S MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE IS THE REAL “SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS” — AND, A GENUINE HUMAN TRAGEDY — The Legal Tools To Address The Crisis In The Northern Triangle Causing A Refugee Flow Exist; This Administration Stubbornly Refuses To Use Them!
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  4. 18 YEARS AFTER 09-11, THE “BAD GUYS” ARE WINNING THE BATTLE TO DESTROY AMERICAN JUSTICE & SPLIT THE COUNTRY! — Here’s The Disturbing Proof Of What Passes For “Justice” In America Today!

THE HILL: NOLAN ON THE CURRENT BORDER CRISIS

 

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Will Democrats be held accountable for diverting attention from border crisis when there was time to fix it?

By Nolan Rappaport
migrants_border_1126.jpg
As Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, Congressman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) must know what is happening at the border. Yet he asserted at a recent hearing that President Donald Trump issued a national emergency declaration on the basis of a “nonexistent emergency” at the border.
Thompson claimed that when it comes to border security, the Trump administration is misleading the American people. Maybe, but I watched a video of the hearing and it seemed to me that the Democrats are the ones who are misleading the American people.
According to the testimony of the hearing’s only witness, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, the country is facing a very real humanitarian and security crisis. Uncontrolled illegal migration is posing a serious and growing risk to public safety, national security, and the rule of law.
She is not the first DHS Secretary to make that claim. Every DHS Secretary since the Department’s inception has sounded the alarm about our unsecured border.
Nielsen testified that DHS expects to apprehend more migrants crossing the border illegally in the first half of fiscal 2019 than it did in the entirety of fiscal 2017, and the numbers are rising. This, however, is not the only problem.
There also has been a change in who is making the illegal crossings.
Historically, illegal crossers were predominantly single adult males from Mexico who generally could be removed within 48 hours if they had no legal right to stay. Now, more than 60 percent of them are family units and unaccompanied alien children.
The detention facilities were intended to be short-term processing centers that would hold adult men for 72 hours or less. They are not suitable for lengthy detentions of women and children.
Published originally on The Hill.
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Please go on over to The Hill at the link to read Nolan’s complete article.
  • Based on EOIR’s own statistics, the actual overall 2018 asylum grant rate on the merits in Immigration Court was 36.7%.
  • The actual merits asylum grant rates for 2018 for applicants from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala were 23%, 20% and 18% respectively.  https://immigrationcourtside.com/2018/12/11/upi-analysis-of-latest-eoir-asylum-stats-actually-shows-that-many-from-northern-triangle-particularly-el-salvador-have-valid-claims-for-protection-but-sessionss-political-actions-and-contr/
  • There is little actual risk to releasing families who apply for asylum pending Immigration Court hearings. Most released on “alternatives to detrention” appear for their hearings, regardless of expected outcome. And, for those represented by counsel the appearance rates are very high — over 90%.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/07/11/how-big-a-risk-is-it-to-release-migrant-families-from-custody-before-evaluating-asylum-claims/
  • The Trump Administration has manipulated both the asylum legal system  and asylum statistics in an attempt to prove their false narrative about widespread fraud and abuse. Indeed, it’s notable that even with all these political machinations and roadblocks to fair asylum adjudication, approximately 20% from the Northern Triangle succeed — certainly a significant number. Moreover, many of those who fail actually face danger if returned — they just can’t fit it within our somewhat arcane asylum system. Failing to be granted asylum is not an indication of fraud and has little or nothing to do with our obligation to provide fair and unbiased asylum adjudications consistent with Due Process. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/02/15/heidi-altman-heartland-alliance-how-eoir-other-trump-toadies-lie-distort-statistics-to-support-a-white-nationalist-immigration-agenda/
  • Something that jumps out: those who are represented succeed at a significantly higher rate, understand the system better, and are highly likely to appear. Therefore, the single most cost efficient and obvious measure to take would be providing funding for universal representation of asylum seekers. It’s much cheaper than cruel, expensive, and unnecessary “civil” detention and walls that will have no effect on the current rule flow of asylum seekers. And, as more cases are granted the less necessary it becomes for DHS to waste court time by contesting every case and the more the “problem of removals” diminishes.  Those granted asylum don’t have to be removed  or monitored — they can actually go to work and begin contributing to our society.
  • Addressing the causes of the human rights debacle in the Northern Triangle would also be more helpful, logical, and cost effective in the long run than more gimmicks and futile attempts to solve a refugee situation unilaterally at the “receiving” end by “designed to fail” enforcement efforts, while ignoring or intentionally aggravating the causes of the refugee flow.

PWS

03-28-19

Related posts:

  1. TRUMP’S MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE IS THE REAL “SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS” — AND, A GENUINE HUMAN TRAGEDY — The Legal Tools To Address The Crisis In The Northern Triangle Causing A Refugee Flow Exist; This Administration Stubbornly Refuses To Use Them!
  2. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  3. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  4. NY TIMES: Trump Mocks & Dehumanizes Vulnerable Refugees & His Administration Claims It’s OK To Return Them to Honduras; BUT The Facts Say The Opposite: Honduras Is An Armed Conflict Zone Where Gangs Exercise Quasi-Governmental Control & Those Who Resist Are Severely Punished, Often Maimed, Tortured Or Killed!

THE HILL: Nolan Says That Border Security Is Now In Speaker Pelosi’s Hands

 

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Pelosi has won — and she’s now the only one able to secure the border

By Nolan Rappaport
Pelosi has won — and she's now the only one able to secure the border
© Greg Nash
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) claims that “Democrats are committed to border security,” but the Democrats have opposed President Donald Trump’s efforts to do that.
Pelosi supported the joint resolution to terminate Trump’s declaration of a National Emergency at the Southern border. The resolution was passed in both chambers and sent to Trump on March 14. He vetoed it the next day.
Congress appears unlikely to override the veto, so the fate of the declaration probably will be decided by the same Ninth Circuit Courts that flouted precedent to block Trump’s travel ban, which almost certainly will result in another lower court defeat for Trump. The Supreme Court, however, may reverse the lower courts, as it did in the travel ban case. But that could take quite some time.
The Catch-22 at the heart of the matter
During the Bill Clinton administration the government entered into a settlement agreement that makes it difficult to remove aliens who bring their children with them when they make an illegal border crossing.
This became apparent last May, when Trump announced a zero-tolerance border security enforcement policy. Illegal entries are a crime: The first offense is a misdemeanor and subsequent offenses are felonies. Trump tried to use a no exceptions threat of a criminal prosecution as a deterrent. “If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you,” he said — no exceptions for aliens who bring their children with them.
The problem was prosecution of an alien who has his child with him requires the government either to detain the child with him while he is being prosecuted or separate him from his child.
Published originally on The Hill.
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Go on over to The Hill at the above link to read Nolan’s complete article.
Seems like the Government’s best bet would be to work cooperatively with NGOs and pro bono groups to link families who pass credible fear or who have court challenges pending to pro bono attorneys and to charitable organizations who can aid in temporary resettlement. In those situations, represented families almost always show up for their court hearings and keep the courts, DHS, and the lawyers properly informed of their whereabouts.
If the Government deems it a “priority” to move these cases to the “front of the court line” then they can remove some of the cases that are more than three years old and do not involve individuals with crimes from the already overcrowded Immigration Court dockets. The hundreds of thousands of pending and moribund  “Non-Lawful Permanent Resident Cancellation of Removal Cases” would be fairly easily identifiable and logical candidates.
That will allow the Immigration Courts to concentrate on fair and timely adjudications of the more recent asylum claims without contributing to the overwhelming backlog. Some fair precedents by the Article III Courts (under this DOJ, the is no chance of fair asylum precedents being issued administratively) as to what claims do and do not properly qualify for asylum and relief under the CAT would eventually help provide meaningful guidance to Asylum Officers, Immigration Judges, BIA Appellate Judges, and the private bar, and well as DHS Attorneys. This in turn, would help minimize the court time spent on cases that either were “slam dunk grants” or had “no chance” even under the most favorable view of the facts for the applicant. Both the DHS and the private bar would thus be motivated to spend time on the cases that really needed to be litigated in Immigration Court.
Additionally, greater predictability in the U.S. asylum system might also assist human rights groups working with individuals in the Northern Triangle and in Mexico to make better, more informed, and more realistic decisions as to whether to pursue humanitarian resettlement opportunities in Mexico and other countries in the hemisphere that might offer such.
If Congress were going to act, the most helpful changes would be 1) establishing an independent Article I immigration Court to replace the dysfunctional mess that has  been created over the past several Administrations but severely and unnecessarily aggravated by this Administration; 2) amend the Act’s definition of “asylum” to make it clear that “gender” is a subset of “particular social group” persecution; 3) authorizing some type of “universal representation program” for asylum applicants in Immigration Court; and 4) requiring the Administration to reinstitute a meaningful “outside the U.S.” refugee processing program for Latin America in conjunction with the UNHCR;
No, it wouldn’t solve all problems overnight. Nothing will. But, it would certainly put an end to some of the Administration’s wasteful and bad faith “gimmicks” and unnecessary litigation that now clog our justice system. That’s at least the beginning of a better future and a better use of resources.
PWS
03-18-19

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  4. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”

NOLAN ASKS: “Is rigid partisanship the real reason for rejecting Trump’s border crisis claim?”

Family Pictures
Is rigid partisanship the real reason for rejecting Trump’s border crisis claim?
By Nolan Rappaport
Is rigid partisanship the real reason for rejecting Trump’s border crisis claim?
© Getty
Gallup scientist, Frank Newport, says that President Donald Trump’s wall has become an “RPPI” — a Rigidly Partisan Policy Issue. Opinions “are highly entrenched and largely based on underlying partisan identity.”
Pew Research Center’s recent poll found that 82 percent of Republicans favor expanding the border wall, compared to only 6 percent of Democrats. Pew analysts noted that “partisan differences [on the wall] are now wider than they have ever been.”
And the RPPI is even stronger in congress.
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) introduced a joint resolution, which, with favorable action in the Senate would terminate the national emergency declaration that Trump is using to obtain funding for his wall. Castro refers to it as “Trump’s fake emergency declaration.”
The resolution was cosponsored by 232 Democrats and one Republican. It passed on a roll call vote of 245 yeas and 182 nays. All of the nay votes were from Republicans.
Situation is worse than Trump is indicating
The failure to secure the border has resulted in a population of undocumented aliens so large that effective immigration enforcement in the interior of the country is no longer possible.
According to ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Report for fiscal 2018, the number of aliens deported from the interior of the country rose from 65,332 in fiscal 2016, to 95,360 in fiscal 2018.
A study by MIT and Yale professors, however, indicates that the number of undocumented aliens in the United States could actually be as high as 22.1 million. If interior removals continue at the fiscal 2018 rate, it would take more than 200 years to remove them all.
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Go on over to The Hill for Nolan’s complete article.  I appreciate his “nifty summaries!”
No matter how one views the numbers, removal of everyone here in undocumented status is impossible, not to mention unnecessary. Serious immigration enforcement and control would start with a recognition of the fact that our system has been out of whack for decades and that removing folks who are overwhelmingly contributing members of our society is counterproductive and a waste of time and resources that could be directed elsewhere, at real law enforcement issues.
If anything, we should be asking why our system wasn’t designed to let these folks immigrate legally in the first place.
Additionally, treating asylum applicants who apply at the border or turn themselves in immediately after entering as a “law enforcement issue” is a misnomer. People who voluntarily submit themselves for screening and apply for legal status are not law enforcement issues.
Those individuals who, in fact, are coming solely for jobs can be “screened out” during the “credible fear” process, and summarily removed without placing them in the Immigration Courts for full “removal hearings.” The never get into the “interior.”
The idea that recent arrivals who are applying for asylum won’t show up for their hearings is clearly bogus — most hearings would be months, if not years in the future, so we don’t actually know at this point! If the Government ran a rational system working with NGOs and private bar groups to find placements and pro bono lawyers for asylum seekers, experience and past studies show that the vast majority would show up for hearings. A fairer, more generous, and more realistic interpretation of asylum law would also help.
Use of TPS to both register individuals and keep them out of Immigration Court for the time being would also be a good option for an Administration truly interested in addressing the humanitarian issues.
Rather than a “law enforcement emergency,” these folks present administrative processing, humanitarian relief, and foreign policy issues that this Administration has shown little or no interest in resolving in a constructive manner by using mechanisms available under current law and spending money prudently rather than wasting it on a wall that will take years, if not decades, to build and won’t address today’s concerns.
PWS
03-05-19

Related posts:

  1. THE HILL: NOLAN SAYS TRUMP HAS BETTER OPTIONS ON THE BORDER
  2. THE GIBSON REPORT — 05-13-19 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group
  3. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

16 STATES SUE TRUMP ON BOGUS NATIONAL EMERGENCY — Nolan Says Trump Ultimately Likely To Prevail — “Slate 3” Appear To Agree!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/coalition-of-states-sues-trump-over-national-emergency-to-build-border-wall/2019/02/18/9da8019c-33a8-11e9-854a-7a14d7fec96a_story.html

Amy Goldstein reports for WashPost:

A coalition of 16 states filed a federal lawsuit Monday to block President Trump’s plan to build a border wall without permission from Congress, arguing that the president’s decision to declare a national emergency is unconstitutional.

The lawsuit, brought by states with Democratic governors — except one, Maryland — seeks a preliminary injunction that would prevent the president from acting on his emergency declaration while the case plays out in the courts.

The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, a San Francisco-based court whose judges have ruled against an array of other Trump administration policies, including on immigration and the environment.

Accusing the president of “an unconstitutional and unlawful scheme,” the suit says the states are trying “to protect their residents, natural resources, and economic interests from President Donald J. Trump’s flagrant disregard of fundamental separation of powers principles engrained in the United States Constitution.”

. . . .

Read the rest of Amy’s article at the above link.

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But, over at The Hill, Nolan Rappaport predicts that Trump ultimately will prevail:

Family Pictures

Nolan writes:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer claim that President Donald Trump’s Southern Border National Emergency Proclamation is an unlawful declaration over a crisis that does not exist, and that it steals from urgently needed defense funds — that it is a power grab by a disappointed president who has gone outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve through the constitutional legislative process.
In fact, this isn’t about the Constitution or the bounds of the law, and — in fact — there is a very real crisis at the border, though not necessarily what Trump often describes. It helps to understand a bit of the history of “national emergencies.”
As of 1973, congress had passed more than 470 statutes granting national emergency powers to the president. National emergency declarations under those statutes were rarely challenged in court.
n Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, which was decided in 1952, the Supreme Court overturned President Harry S. Truman’s proclamation seizing privately owned steel mills to preempt a national steelworker strike during the Korean War. But Truman didn’t have congressional authority to declare a national emergency. He relied on inherent powers which were not spelled out in the Constitution.
Trump, however, is using specific statutory authority that congress created for the president.
In 1976, Congress passed the National Emergencies Act (NEA), which permits the president to declare a national emergency when he considers it appropriate to do so. The NEA does not provide any specific emergency authorities. It relies on emergency authorities provided in other statutes. The declaration must specifically identify the authorities that it is activating.
Published originally on The HIl.
****************************
While many of us hope Nolan is wrong, his prediction finds support from perhaps an odd source: these three articles from Slate:

Nancy Pelosi Put Her Faith in the Courts to Stop Trump’s Emergency Wall

Big mistake.

By Daniel Hemel
**************************************************************

Trump Is Trying to Hollow Out the Constitutional System of Checks and Balances

The other two branches might let him.

By PETER M. SHANE

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

JURISPRUDENCE

Trump Isn’t Just Defying the Constitution. He’s Undermining SCOTUS.

The president defended his national emergency by boasting that he’ll win at the Supreme Court because it’s full of his judges.

By DAHLIA LITHWICK

********************************************
We’ll see what happens.  While the arguments made by Trump in support of his “Bogus National Emergency” were  totally frivolous (and, perhaps, intentionally so), the points made by Rappaport, Hemel, Shane, and Lithwick aren’t. That could spell big trouble for our country’s future!
Trump doesn’t have a “sure fire legal winner” here; he might or might not have the majority of the Supremes “in his pocket” as he often arrogantly and disrespectfully claims. Nevertheless, there may be a better legal defense for the national emergency than his opponents had counted on.
Certainly, Trump is likely to benefit from having a “real lawyer,” AG Bill Barr, advancing his White Nationalist agenda at the “Justice” Department rather than the transparently biased and incompetent Sessions. While Barr might be “Sessions at heart,” unlike Sessions he certainly had the high-level professional legal skills, respect, and the “human face” necessary to prosper in the Big Law/Corporate world for decades.
Big Law/Corporate America isn’t necessarily the most diverse place, even today. Nevertheless, during my 7-year tenure there decades ago I saw that overt racism and xenophobia generally were frowned upon as being “bad for business.” That’s particularly true if the “business” included representing some of the largest multinational corporations in the world.
Who knows, Barr might even choose to advance the Trump agenda without explicitly ordering the DOJ to use the demeaning, and dehumanizing term “illegals” to refer to fellow human beings, many of them actually here with Government permission, seeking to attain legal status, and often to save their own lives and those of family members, through our legal system.
Many of them perform relatively thankless, yet essential, jobs that are key to our national economic success. Indeed, it’s no exaggeration to say that like the Trump Family and recently exposed former U.N Ambassador nominee Heather Nauert, almost all of us privileged and lucky enough to be U.S. citizens who have prospered from an expanding economy have been doing so on the backs of immigrants, both documented and undocumented. Additionally, migrants are some of the dwindling number of individuals in our country who actually believe in and trust the system to be fair and “do the right thing.”
But, a change in tone, even if welcome, should never be confused with a change in policy or actually respecting the due process rights of others and the rule of law as applied to those seeking legally available benefits in our immigration system. That’s just not part of the White Nationalist agenda that Barr so eagerly signed up to defend and advance
It’s likely to a long time, if ever, before “justice” reasserts itself in the mission of the Department of Justice.
PWS
02-19-19

NOTE: An earlier version of this post contained the wrong article from Dahlia Lithwick.  Sorry for any confusion.

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. TWO LA TIMES EDITORIALS “SPOT ON” IN CALLING OUT TRUMP’S FAILED BORDER POLICIES, BOGUS EMERGENCY, & ABUSE OF IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY!
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

THE HILL: Nolan’s Take On Intelligence Report

Family Pictures
Nolan writes:
On January 29, 2019, Coats presented the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The assessment is based on the collective insights of the intelligence community.
Although Coats arguably contradicted President Donald Trump in some areas, such as the state of North Korea’s nuclear program, he supported Trump’s claim that the flood of migrants from Central America is causing a security crisis. The assessment includes migration from Central America as one of the threats to national security.
This is not the first time the intelligence community has identified migration from Central America as a security threat. The same finding was included in the Worldwide Threat Assessment that former DNI James R. Clapper’s presented to congress in 2016, which was during the Obama Administration.
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PWS
02-09-19

Related posts:

  1. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  2. 16 STATES SUE TRUMP ON BOGUS NATIONAL EMERGENCY — Nolan Says Trump Ultimately Likely To Prevail — “Slate 3” Appear To Agree!
  3. THE HILL: NOLAN ON THE CURRENT BORDER CRISIS
  4. CRUEL, YET REALLY STUPID: TRUMP’S “REMAIN IN MEXICO POLICY” DENIES DUE PROCESS WHILE CREATING COURT CHAOS — Enfeebled Judges Fume As “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” Bloats Backlogs! — Article IIIs Complicit! — “The policy’s name is migrant protection, but they send you to the most dangerous city in Mexico.”

PAUL WALDMAN @ WASHPOST: Why True Bipartisan Immigration Reform In Our National Interest Will Require “Regime Change:” “[I]t’s highly unlikely that we’ll achieve such reform, even reform most Republicans could live with, without both houses of Congress and the White House in Democratic hands. But that will happen sooner or later. Then we’ll see if we can get closer to a solution that everyone can live with over the long run.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/31/never-mind-wall-theres-more-important-question-we-need-answer/

Waldman writes:

As immigration policy hangs over the ongoing conflict over whether the government is going to remain open, there’s something missing from this discussion, something so fundamental that it’s quite remarkable that we all seem to have forgotten to even ask about it. The president is demanding his border wall, Democrats are fighting against him, and occasionally we bring up issues like the fate of the Dreamers and those here under Temporary Protected Status.

But what nobody asks is this: What kind of immigration system do we actually want?

Not what might happen in the next negotiation or what each side would be willing to give up, but what does each side see as the ultimate goal they’re working toward? If they could look forward ten or twenty years and say “This is where we should get to,” what would that look like?

It’s a vital question, because whatever we’re doing at the moment should be guided by our long-term goals. Once we understand what those goals are, we can think more clearly about where we should go after we get this whole shutdown ridiculousness behind us. And we all ought to be able to agree that there is some future we’re trying to arrive at, a point at which we have a system that works to our satisfaction and immigration isn’t something we’re constantly at each other’s throats about.

That may not be possible, but I’ll start with what liberals would like to see. There are certainly disagreements not just on the left generally but among immigration advocates as well, but there is a basic vision one can identify.

The first thing they want, of course, is to take the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants who are in the country now and give them a path to citizenship. That’s something even some Republicans agree with, and if you put requirements like learning English and paying back taxes on it, support becomes nearly universal.

Second, liberals would like to see an expansion of the legal immigration system, which is a consistent source of frustration and a driver of illegal immigration. When it can take decades to get approved to move to the United States, of course many people are going to opt for the illegal route, even if it can be dangerous and uncertain. If the legal immigration works, people will go through it and not around it.

And if you have a well-functioning legal system, you can make illegal immigration less attractive, with things like an E-Verify process that makes it harder to find work if you’re undocumented. There may always be some kind of black market for workers, but if you’re simultaneously offering people a legal path — both toward permanent residency and with temporary work visas for people who are looking only to make some money and then return to their home countries — it will be much smaller problem.

So in the liberal vision, we might end up with about the same number of immigrants coming into the country as we have now, it’s just that the overwhelming majority would be coming legally. We’d have security at the border, but we wouldn’t need ICE breaking down doors and tearing parents from their children’s arms. We’d have a robust system to evaluate asylum claims so we wouldn’t have to be throwing people in cages. We certainly wouldn’t pretend that one day there will be no more demand in the labor market for immigrant workers.

There are many Republicans who could be okay with that future, even if it wasn’t exactly what they wanted. But the conservative vision is complicated. For years, we heard Republican politicians say, “I’m for legal immigration. I’m against illegal immigration.” They may not usually have been advocating significant increases in legal immigration, but it’s important to remember that the current venomous hostility toward immigrants was not always the standard Republican position. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were both far friendlier toward immigrants than Donald Trump is.

Conservatives might disagree with this characterization, but as I see it, their ultimate goal is a system in which coming into the country illegally is utterly impossible, but levels of legal immigration don’t change much. In other words, we still have immigration, but the flow slows to a trickle. And the Trump administration is making attempts to drastically reduce legal immigration. With the president’s enthusiastic support, domestic policy adviser Stephen Miller is driving a nationalist agenda that seeks to drastically reduce the inflow of immigrants to the country and even looks for every possible means to deport both legal and undocumented immigrants, even if they’ve been living here for years or decades.

That’s a somewhat extreme position even within the Republican Party, but it does reflect a discomfort with immigration that is common on the right. It’s the cultural problem, the fact that many people just don’t like having contact with people who don’t look like them or don’t speak the same language they do or eat the same foods they do. Trump very skillfully played to that discomfort by essentially telling voters he could wind back the clock to the time when they were young, before all this disconcerting change happened. His targets were the people who say “I don’t recognize my country anymore,” and when he said he would make America great again, “great again” meant “like things were when you were young.”

That’s a demand that can never be satisfied, even if it’s only a portion of the Republican electorate that really dreams of an America where there are almost no new immigrants and most of those who are already here just disappear. Unfortunately, that portion currently not only controls the White House but exercises a veto over any attempt at comprehensive immigration reform, because the rest of the GOP is so terrified of them.

Which is why it’s highly unlikely that we’ll achieve such reform, even reform most Republicans could live with, without both houses of Congress and the White House in Democratic hands. But that will happen sooner or later. Then we’ll see if we can get closer to a solution that everyone can live with over the long run.

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

Right on, Paul!  You “nailed” it!  Pretty much what I’ve been saying on “Courtside” all along!

However, the unlikelihood of achieving “comprehensive immigration reform” in the “Age of Trump” shouldn’t prevent the parties from working together in a bipartisan manner on “smaller fixes” such as that relating to child marriage suggested by Nolan Rappaport, posted earlier this week. See https://wp.me/p8eeJm-3Hu

Progress is progress, even by “small steps.”

PWS

02-01-19

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  3. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  4. WASHINGTON POST: GONZO’S IMMIGRATION COURT “REFORMS” WILL CREATE “KANGAROO COURTS!” —Recent “moves to evaluate judges based on the speed with which they handle dockets that typically exceed 2,000 cases, rather than on fair adjudication, is a recipe for assembly-line injustice.”