🇺🇸 BLACK HISTORY: In 1838, The Jesuits Of Georgetown University “Saved” Their School By Literally Selling Their Enslaved African-American Workers “Down The River” (In This Case, Down The Mississippi To Louisiana)! — That Fateful Decision Reverberates Today!

Slavery & Jefferson
Slavery, its wonton cruelty, negative impact on America, and the stories of the enslaved African Americans who persevered can’t ultimately be “swept under the carpet” by GOP white nationalists. 
IMAGE: Public realm

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/28/books/review/the-272-rachel-swarns.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

David W. Blight reviews Rachel Swarns’s new book “The 272” For The NYT:

. . . .

“The 272,” Rachel L. Swarns’s deeply researched and revelatory new book, is the story of the remarkable Mahoney clan and how their lives, nearly a century and a half after Ann Joice’s, intersected with those of Mulledy, McSherry and the Jesuits in one of American slavery’s most withering tragedies. “The 272” is a fascinating meditation on the meaning of slavery and of people converted to property and commodities — assets of wealth and objects of sale. It’s a book that journeys to slavery’s heart of darkness: to the separation of families, the terror of being sold into the vast unknown and of bodies transformed into profits and investments. But it is also the moving human story of some of the people who endured and survived this ordeal, and who have long awaited rediscovery.

Swarns, a contributing writer for The New York Times and a professor of journalism at N.Y.U., is an African American Catholic who was raised on Staten Island. Beginning with an article in The Times in 2016, she revealed the story of the Jesuits as slaveholders and traders, leading to a stunning reckoning by Georgetown University with its past as well as one within the Jesuit order itself. Swarns writes with a keen eye and distinctive voice both about her Black subjects and about the hypocrisy and brutality of their onetime owners. The Jesuits were no monolith of greed and evil, however; Swarns sustains empathy for some who tried, largely unsuccessfully, to protect the enslaved people they had known so closely from the agony of sale that looms over this story.

. . . .

What comes through most effectively is the sorrow and the determination to survive of the enslaved people whom Swarns brings to light through her sleuthing and resonant prose. (Of Ann Joice, Swarns writes, “She would have no wealth, no land and no savings to leave her family, but she still had her story. … The story would be her legacy.”) Swarns also underscores the importance of Georgetown’s ongoing efforts at serious reparations for the deeds of its early leaders. An independent nonprofit, the Georgetown Memory Project, has identified around 6,000 living descendants of the original 272. In turn, the university has offered descendants formal “legacy” status for admission, sought atonement through a highly publicized apology and created a fund that would dedicate $400,000 a year to community projects, including support for health clinics and schools, likely to benefit descendants. Leaders of the Jesuit conference of priests have also vowed to establish a $100 million trust to benefit descendants and promote racial reconciliation.

No single work of history can remedy the vexing issue of repair for slavery in America, but “The 272” advances the conversation and challenges the collective conscience; without knowing this history in its complexity we are left with only raw, uncharted memory.

David W. Blight is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom” and the forthcoming “Yale and Slavery: A History.”

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

Read Blight’s full review at the above link.

This is the kind of important, often intentionally buried, history that GOP white nationalists like DeSantis, Trump, and others don’t want read and honestly discussed. But, as with most artificially suppressed works, the truth will out! There are just too many people speaking it these days for even the neo-fascist censors to silence them all.

It also illuminates the heretofore unknown and unheralded stories of enslaved African-Americans like Ann Joice who, against the odds, persevered in a grotesquely unjust and horrible system so that future generations could have a chance at a better life. These are are among the real heroes of  American history who helped make our country what it is today. Their stories deserve to be told and studied.

Full disclosure: I am an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law School.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-09-23

☠️⚰️🏴‍☠️HAITI IS NOT “SAFE,” & THE PERVASIVE GANG VIOLENCE APPEARS TO BE POLITICALLY MOTIVATED! — “They raped women, burned homes and killed dozens of people, including children, chopping up their bodies with machetes and throwing their remains to pigs. . . . It was organized by senior Haitian officials, who provided weapons and vehicles to gang members to punish people in a poor area protesting government corruption!” — So, Why Are Biden, Harris, Mayorkas, & Garland Illegally Returning Refugees There Without Hearing Their Asylum Claims?  👎🏽🤮

 

 

Catherine Porter
Catherine Porter
Toronto Bureau Chief
NY Times
PHOTO: NY Times website
Natalie Kitroeff
Natalie Kitroeff
Foreign Correspondent
NY Times
PHOTO: NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/world/americas/haiti-gangs-kidnapping.html?referringSource=articleShare

By Catherine Porter and Natalie Kitroeff

They raped women, burned homes and killed dozens of people, including children, chopping up their bodies with machetes and throwing their remains to pigs.The gruesome massacre three years ago, considered the worst in Haiti in decades, was more than the work of rival gangs fighting over territory. It was organized by senior Haitian officials, who provided weapons and vehicles to gang members to punish people in a poor area protesting government corruption, the U.S. Treasury Department announced last year.

Since then, Haiti’s gang members have grown so strong that they rule swaths of the country. The most notorious of them, a former police officer named Jimmy Cherizier, known as Barbecue, fashions himself as a political leader, holding news conferences, leading marches and, this week, even parading around as a replacement for the prime minister in the violent capital.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of this gruesome, yet telling, report at the link.

Over 21 years on the Immigration Bench as both a trial and appellate judge, I adjudicated thousands of asylum claims. The circumstances described on this article undoubtedly would give rise to many potentially valid asylum and withholding claims, based on actual or implied political opinion and/or family or gender-based “particular social groups” and Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) grants based on torture with government acquiescence or actual connivance!

So, how do Biden, Harris, Mayorkas, and Garland, who to my knowledge have never represented an asylum applicant or adjudicated an individual asylum case among them, “get away” with simply suspending the rule of law, under false pretenses, for those entitled to seek asylum?

Stephen Miller must be on “Cloud Nine” as Biden & Co. carry out his White Nationalist plans to eradicate asylum, particularly when it protects women and people of color! This is even as Miller and his neo-Nazi cohorts (a/k/a “America First Legal”) are gearing up to sue the Biden Administration to block every measure that might aid immigrants, particularly those of color.

Stephen Miller Monster
He’s delighted with Biden’s abuse of  asylum seekers of color! Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com

By contrast with Miller’s delight, human rights NGOs have “had it” with the Biden Administration’s grotesque anti-asylum agenda! See, e.g.,https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2021/10/18/2058777/–We-refuse-to-be-complicit-Advocates-leave-Biden-admin-meeting-in-protest-of-Remain-in-Mexico-plan?detail=emaildkre

Haiti Corpses
NGOs don’t share the Biden Administration’s vision of what a “safe” Haiti looks like. Neither do kidnapped American missionaries!
PHOTO: Marcelo Casal, Jr., Creative Commons License

Angering and alienating your potential allies and supporters to aid the far-right program of your enemies who are determined to do whatever it takes to undermine, discredit, and destroy your Presidency! Obviously, I’m no political expert. But, sure sounds like an incredibly stupid, “designed to fail” strategy to me!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

1-23-21

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️⚖️ MAKING THEIR CASE: The Competition For “America’s Most Dangerous Court” 🏆🤮 Is Fierce, But The Far-Right Scofflaw Fifth Circuit Is Coming On Strong! — The Righty Supremes Fight Back With Gross Abuses Of “Shadow Docket” — Is There Another “Top Contender” Out There Operating Below The Radar Screen?

These two op-eds make compelling cases for the 5th Circuit rivaling the Supremes as the most scofflaw, out of control, and dangerous court in America! But, hey, is there a “dark horse” in this righty “race to the bottom?” 🐴 (Curiously enough, “owned” and “trained” by Biden-Garland Stables!)

First, let’s hear from my friend, NDPA Stalwart, Houston Law Immigration Clinic Director, Professor Geoffrey Hoffman:

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

CAT a “dead letter” in the Fifth Circuit? I respectfully dissent

 

By Geoffrey A. Hoffman

 

This week a panel of the Fifth Circuit issued Tabora Gutierrez v. Garland, interpreting the Convention Against Torture’s (CAT’s) state action requirement so restrictively that it led the dissenting judge to call CAT a virtual “dead letter” in most cases (in the Fifth Circuit, at least).

 

In this piece, I want to consider this dire prognostication and also think about what it may mean for future practice – at least for those of us in the Fifth Circuit.

 

Two panel members found that petitioner failed a key requirement for relief: that the government in Honduras “consented or acquiesced” to the torture. In dissent, Judge W. Eugene Davis remarked, “I agree with the IJ, the BIA, and the majority that [petitioner] will likely be tortured by MS-13 gang members. . .[but] I read the record to compel a conclusion that the torture will be with the acquiescence of a public official.” According to Judge Davis, the majority raised the bar so high regarding this requirement under CAT that “for most if not all” people CAT will be out of reach, if they are from countries with (merely) corrupt policy or police without the will or courage to protect them from brutal gangs.  While I agree with Judge Davis, the fact is CAT need not be a “dead letter” in the Fifth Circuit.

 

I was moved to comment on another split panel decision previously in the Fifth Circuit in Inestroza-Antonelli v. Barr, see my prior post here, and I am similarly moved to write about this present decision.

 

Significantly, the majority here carefully acknowledges up front that the BIA and IJ below found petitioner “likely to be tortured or killed” if returned to Honduras, and even catalogued the horrible injuries he had already suffered, mentioning “gruesome photos” that are part of the record in the case.

 

Because I think the majority erred, and would agree with most of what the dissenting judge says, let me address three issues where I think the majority got it wrong: (1) what it means for a record to “compel” a different conclusion on appeal; (2) what it means for a government to consent or acquiesce to torture and (3) the notion that Petitioner waived his argument about the correct standard of review merely by failing to bring it up in a motion to reconsider.

 

I address all three of these points below.

 

First, the majority importantly conceded in its opinion that the police “failed to investigate” petitioner’s injuries. However, because the Board and IJ interpreted these “failures” of the police as “better explained” by the fact the petitioner “was unable to disclose the specific identity of any of his attackers” this showed the police did not “willfully ignore” the attacks. The majority reasoned that the “evidence” did not “compel” a contrary conclusion and therefore the IJ’s findings, adopted by the BIA, were considered “conclusive.”

 

I am struck here by the notion that just because the BIA and IJ had inserted their own explanations for the unrebutted record evidence showing lack of any police action that this must have meant (according to the majority) that the appellate court was constrained to accept this explanation and would not disturb the lower tribunal’s interpretation of the evidence.

 

Such a reading of the word “compel” means that judges can have an “out” anytime they want to rubber stamp any decision of the Board, all they have to do is say the explanation offered characterizing the evidence in one way or another was good enough and must not be disturbed. But this is a very troubling proposition.

 

Take, for example, the present case where the supposition on the part of the BIA and IJ was that the petitioner was somehow at fault for not being able to identify his attackers by name. Think about that for a minute…Police are not acquiescing and not at fault and should not be held to have “turned a blind eye” because the victim was unable to identify his attackers.

 

But this does not make sense.

 

Such a blame-the-victim mentality goes against the motivation and underlying rationale behind other federal types of relief immigrants have available, for example, U visas for crime victims, VAWA, T visas, etc., premised in many cases on the victim’s cooperation with law enforcement and their investigation. Just because a victim does not know the exact identities of their attackers does not disqualify them from relief. Would that be a reasonable interpretation for example of the U visa statute and attendant regulations?

 

In addition, let’s consider the use of the “compel” standard for a minute and where it came from exactly. This standard, as acknowledged by the majority, comes from a previous case, Chen v. Gonzales, 470 F.3d 1131, 1134 (5th Cir. 2006), among other cases.  Chen in turn cites 8 USC 1252(b)(4)(B) and emanates from the Supreme Court’s famous decision, INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478 (1992), authored by Justice Scalia.

 

Chen was a case about a Chinese petitioner who converted to Christianity after entry into the U.S. and so her applications did not rely on past persecution but a well-founded fear of future persecution based on religion. The IJ in the former case found that there were “many Christians in China” and that Chen’s claims of future persecution were allegedly “highly speculative.”  The facts of Chen and the current case relating to police inaction in Honduras could not be further apart. Moreover, the Fifth Circuit in Chen was not considering past persecution, as here, but the more difficult to prove “future persecution” and well-founded fear standard.

 

Similarly, Justice Scalia in Elias-Zacarias was concerned about proof supporting a political opinion claim.  In that case, the Supreme Court found that the petitioner could not produce evidence “so compelling” that no reasonable factfinder could fail to find the requisite fear of persecution on account of political opinion.  The “so compelling” language has been used by many courts to deny asylum on many other grounds throughout the past decades and has not been limited to political opinion claims.

 

But the reliance in the present case for the “compel” standard on the statute in question, 8 USC 1252(b) here is misguided. The statute states in pertinent part as follows:  “the administrative findings of fact are conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary . . . .”  But the “consent and acquiescence” determination under CAT is not a determination of “administrative facts” but is certainly a mixed question of law and fact.  As such, the entire structure of the “compel” standard should not have been applied but instead de novo review applied.

 

And this brings me to the practice pointer that this case so unfortunately stands for. Although on appeal before the circuit court the issue of standard of review was raised by petitioner, it was rejected by the majority on the theory that he had to have filed a “motion to reconsider” before the Board to preserve the issue for appellate review.

 

This waiver argument has always seemed to me a weak and tenuous one.

 

For example, what if the petitioner (i.e., the respondent before the BIA) argued in his brief to the Board that the correct standard of review was de novo due to the mixed question raised by a very complicated “consent or acquiescence” determination under CAT, and courts have so held, but the BIA decided to just rubber stamp the IJ and refused to overturn the IJ’s finding based on clear error. Wouldn’t that have preserved the issue?  Why is there a need for a litigant to then file a motion to reconsider after  the fact to preserve an issue which had already been preserved?  To make matters worse it appears Mr. Tobora Gutierrez appeared pro se, see page 3 of the Fifth Circuit majority decision, at least initially. The decision does not reveal if he had appellate counsel before the BIA. But if he did not it would be an especially onerous requirement to impose an “after the fact” requirement that a litigant must file a “motion to reconsider” to preserve an issue for appellate review, especially if he is unrepresented.

 

All of that said, the practice take-away here is: (1) everyone must file a very carefully drafted and thorough motion to reconsider on all issues that could be in any way (mis-)interpreted to be subject to waiver so you preserve all issues for review before the circuit courts;  and (2) everyone should read Judge Davis’ cogent and reasoned dissenting opinion, which hopefully will be followed instead of the majority’s strained application of the “compel” standard.   Judge Davis was right: the evidence does compel a different outcome. Judge Davis does a wonderful job also of distinguishing the prior case law in this area and showing how Mr. Tobora Gutierrez’s case is fundamentally different. As he says, “if the egregious facts of this case are not sufficient to support a finding of public-official acquiescence, CAT relief will be a dead-letter to most if not all individuals who live in countries where the police are corrupt or simply do not have the will or courage to protect them from brutal gang attacks.”

 

Judge Davis is right, this is a most troubling decision but not just for the reason he provides.  It is troubling for the further reason that the majority applies the wrong legal standard here, the “compels” standard versus a de novo review. The majority also leaves the door open for “deferred action,” for this sympathetic and horrendous case, although it declines to recommend it. Most importantly, it also leaves the door open for de novo review, in future cases, at least where those litigants are perceived to have preserved the issue. Litigants can do this by filing a motion to reconsider with the BIA, then filing (another, second) petition for review when the motion to reconsider is denied, and then (following the procedure mandated by section 1252) consolidating the two cases.

 

(Institution for identification only)

Geoffrey Hoffman

Clinical Professor, UHLC Immigration Clinic Director

Let’s not forget that Garland’s DOJ defended this grotesque miscarriage of justice. In a grim way, Geoffrey’s “practical scholarship” ties in nicely with Ruth Marcus’s recent op-ed in WashPost on the righto-wacko 5th Circuit’s dangerous assault on American justice:

Ruth Marcus
Washington Post Columnist Ruth Marcus, moderates a panel discussion about chronic poverty with Education Secretary John B. King (blue tie) and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack (striped tie), during the National Association of Counties (NACo), at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park, in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016. U.S. Department of Agriculture photo by Lance Cheung.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/31/5th-circuit-is-staking-out-claim-be-americas-most-dangerous-court/

Opinion: The 5th Circuit is staking out a claim to be America’s most dangerous court

Opinion by Ruth Marcus

August 31 at 6:37 PM ET

The Supreme Court is, no doubt, the nation’s most powerful court. But the 5th Circuit, the federal appeals court that covers Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, is staking out a claim to be the most dangerous — the least wedded to respecting precedent or following an orderly judicial process.

The 5th is arguably the most conservative among the country’s dozen appeals courts. It inclined in that direction even before President Donald Trump managed to install six nominees. And they constitute quite a bunch: Stuart Kyle Duncan, who said the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling establishing a right to same-sex marriage “imperils civic peace” and “raises a question about the legitimacy of the court.” Cory Wilson, who tweeted about Hillary Clinton using the hashtag #CrookedHillary, called the Affordable Care Act “illegitimate” and said he supported overturning Roe v. Wade. James C. Ho, who issued a concurring opinion lamenting the “moral tragedy of abortion.”

How conservative is the court, where 12 of 17 active judges were named by Republican presidents? “As conservative a federal appeals court as any of us have seen in our lifetimes,” says Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, noting that even as the circuit’s conservatives tend toward the extreme end of the spectrum, its liberals aren’t all that liberal.

One measure: During each of the last two Supreme Court terms, with conservative justices firmly in the majority, the high court has reviewed seven cases from the 5th Circuit. It reversed 6 of 7 decisions in the 2019-2020 term and 5 of 7 in 2020-2021.

These included the appeals courts’ rulings striking down the Affordable Care Act and upholding the constitutionality of a Louisiana abortion law, identical to a Texas statute the justices had tossed out several years earlier — another 5th Circuit special reversed by the high court. If you thought the appeals court judges would have learned their lesson the first time, you don’t know the 5th Circuit.

Texas can ban the abortion procedure most commonly used to end second-trimester pregnancies, a federal appeals court ruled on Aug. 18. (Reuters)

The circuit’s latest shenanigans involve, unsurprisingly, abortion, and Texas’s latest attempt to eviscerate abortion rights. This Texas law, which goes into effect Wednesday, is both blatantly unconstitutional (it purports to prohibit abortion once there is a detectable fetal heartbeat, around six weeks into pregnancy) and an audacious effort to evade judicial review (it leaves enforcement of the ban up to private vigilantes, not state officials.)

In this effort to end-run and effectively overturn Roe v. Wade, the 5th Circuit has already proved itself an eager co-conspirator. Texas abortion clinics filed suit in federal court challenging the law and seeking to block it from taking effect. A federal judge had scheduled a hearing on whether to grant such an injunction.

But on Friday a panel of the 5th Circuit — two Trump judges and one Reagan appointee — issued an extraordinary order preventing the district judge from going ahead with the hearing, thus letting the law take effect in the interim — all this even as the appeals court refused to speed up its consideration of the case. In a sign of their desperation, the clinics appealed that action to the Supreme Court, not exactly a friendly venue these days for abortion rights.

. . . .

Read the rest of Ruth’s op-ed at the link.

But, the right-controlled Supremes aren’t going quietly into the night in this competition. The right to a reasoned decision from a fair and impartial decision-maker is fundamental to Constitutional due process — except at the Supremes. The righty majority now employs the “shadow docket” to avoid explanation and accountability for some of it’s most outrageously scofflaw decisions! Many of these have hurt or even killed migrants. David Leonhardt @ NY Times explains:

David Leonhardt

Davide Leonhardt
Journalist
NY Times
PHOTO: Wikipedia

Rulings without explanations

The Supreme Court opinion allowing Texas to ban nearly all abortions was different from most major rulings by the court.
This one came out shortly before midnight on Wednesday. It consisted of a single paragraph, not signed by the justices who voted for it and lacking the usual detailed explanation of their reasoning. And there had been no oral arguments, during which opposing lawyers could have made their cases and answered questions from the justices.
Instead, the opinion was part of something that has become known as “the shadow docket.” In the shadow docket, the court makes decisions quickly, without the usual written briefings, oral arguments or signed opinions. In recent years, the shadow docket has become a much larger part of the Supreme Court’s work.
Shadow-docket rulings have shaped policy on voting rights, climate change, birth control, Covid-19 restrictions and more. Last month, the justices issued shadow decisions forcing the Biden administration to end its eviction moratorium and to reinstate a Trump administration immigration policy. “The cases affect us at least as much as high-profile cases we devote so much attention to,” Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor, told me.
Shadow-docket cases are frequently those with urgency — such as a voting case that must be decided in the final weeks before an election. As a result, the justices don’t always have time to solicit briefs, hold oral arguments and spend months grappling with their decision. Doing so can risk irreparable harm to one side in the case.
For these reasons, nobody questions the need for the court to issue some expedited, bare-bones rulings. But many legal experts are worried about how big the shadow docket has grown, including in cases that the Supreme Court could have decided in a more traditional way.
“Shadow docket orders were once a tool the court used to dispense with unremarkable and legally unambiguous matters,” Moira Donegan wrote in The Guardian. “In recent years the court has largely dispensed with any meaningful application of the irreparable harm standard.”
Why the shadow docket has grown
Why have the justices expanded the shadow docket?
In part, it is a response to a newfound willingness by lower courts to issue decisions that apply to the entire country, as my colleague Charlie Savage explains. By acting quickly, the Supreme Court can retain its dominant role.
But there is also a political angle. Shadow-docket cases can let the court act quickly and also shield individual justices from criticism: In the latest abortion case, there is no signed opinion for legal scholars to pick apart, and no single justice is personally associated with the virtual end of legal abortion in Texas. The only reason that the public knows the precise vote — 5 to 4 — is that the four justices in the minority each chose to release a signed dissent.
Critics argue that judges in a democracy owe the public more transparency. “This idea of unexplained, unreasoned court orders seems so contrary to what courts are supposed to be all about,” Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a Harvard law professor, has said. “If courts don’t have to defend their decisions, then they’re just acts of will, of power.”
During a House hearing on the shadow docket in February, members of both parties criticized its growth. “Knowing why the justices selected certain cases, how each of them voted, and their reasoning is indispensable to the public’s trust in the court’s integrity,” Representative Henry Johnson Jr., a Georgia Democrat, said. Representative Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, said, “I am a big fan of judges and justices making clear who’s making the decision, and I would welcome reforms that required that.”
The shadow docket also leaves lower-court judges unsure about what exactly the Supreme Court has decided and how to decide similar cases they later hear. “Because the lower-court judges don’t know why the Supreme Court does what it does, they sometimes divide sharply when forced to interpret the court’s nonpronouncements,” writes William Baude, a University of Chicago law professor and former clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts. Baude coined the term “shadow docket.”
Six vs. three
The court’s six Republican-appointed justices are driving the growth of the shadow docket, and it is consistent with their overall approach to the law. They are often (though not always) willing to be aggressive, overturning longstanding precedents, in campaign finance, election law, business regulation and other areas. The shadow docket expands their ability to shape American society.
The three Democratic-appointed justices, for their part, have grown frustrated by the trend. In her dissent this week, Justice Elena Kagan wrote, “The majority’s decision is emblematic of too much of this court’s shadow-docket decision making — which every day becomes more unreasoned, inconsistent and impossible to defend.” In an interview with my colleague Adam Liptak last week, Justice Stephen Breyer said: “I can’t say never decide a shadow-docket thing. … But be careful.”
Roberts also evidently disagrees with the use of the shadow docket in the Texas abortion case. In his dissent, joining the three liberal justices, he said the court could instead have blocked the Texas law while it made its way through the courts. That the court chose another path means that abortion is now all but illegal in the nation’s second-largest state.
The justices are likely to settle the question in a more lasting way next year. They will hear oral arguments this fall in a Mississippi abortion case — the more traditional kind, outside the shadows — and a decision is likely by June.

Read more from David in “The Morning” e-mail from the NYT.

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Abrogating a treaty, intellectual dishonesty, neutering Federal statutes and regulations, scoffing at Constitutional due process, disregarding decency and human life (at least “life after birth”), AND illegally sending another human back to be tortured to death is indeed a “hard act to follow” and makes the 5th a serious contender. But, remember where this “opportunity to dump on migrants” came from!

Immigration practitioners will tell you never to underestimate the sloppiness, lack of expertise, irresponsibility, disdain for due process, and disregard for human lives that has become institutionalized at Garland’s “Miller Lite” captive appeals “court,” the BIA! And, like the Supremes and unlike the 5th Circuit, the BIA has nationwide jurisdiction and sets national precedents. But, unlike the Supremes, who decide fewer than 100 cases in an average year, the BIA assembly line charms out 20,000 to 30,000 cases annually through its defective processes, and it’s lousy, one-sided, anti-immigrant precedents and reactionary guidance that destroy thousands of lives and futures in Immigration Court every day!

So, when it comes to worst court of today, don’t count out the BIA!

As described by Charlotte Klein and former Acting SG Neal Kaytal @ Vanity Fair, the extremist right GOP is now fulfilling it’s long-promised “gruesome blueprint” to overthrow liberal democracy and perpetuate far-right, minority, authoritarian, in many ways neo-Nazi rule in America. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/09/gruesome-blueprint-texas-assault-on-abortion-rights-could-have-snowball-effect

Charlotte Klein
Charlotte Klein
Staff Writer
Vanity Fair
PHOTO: Twitter

The “Commanding Generals” of this effort are unprincipled, far-right GOP jurists. Their initial targeted victims are, of course, the usual vulnerable suspects: migrants, asylum seekers, women, voters of color, transgender kids, the poor, union members, etc. But, eventually, all of us who reman true to liberal democratic values will be targeted for some kind of punishment. Immigration “led the way” in the “Dred Scottfication of the other” by the Supremes at the behest of  the Trump kakistocracy. But, don’t think that’s where this heinous resuscitation of one of the worst cases in American jurisprudence will end!

Meanwhile, this latest phase of the assault has unleashed the usual Dem arsenal of feckless weaponry, including:

  • Statements of outrage untied to realistic possibilities; 
  • Largely meaningless public demonstrations that are “media events” and not much else; 
  • Idle threats of reprisals; 
  • A barrage of op-eds decrying that the fringe radical right and their relatively unpopular agenda has once again outflanked liberals who represent the views and values of the majority;
  • Statements of fact that have no material effect (public support for the complete elimination of abortion, al la Texas, the 5th, and the Supremes holds steady at 8%, while a large majority of Americans favor abortion in some form or another — explain how that has made a difference — also, does anybody really think that these right wingers give a fig that many women will die from illegal abortions and others will be saddled with unwanted children — the only part of human life that creates much compassion or empathy for this righty gang is that which occurs prior to birth);
  • Appeals to precedent, fairness, decency, reasonableness, confirmation promises, and respect for the law addressed to a party and its jurists who value none of these things if they get in the way of their authoritarian agenda.

But, Dems, here’s a better idea! For once, why not try a different approach and actually work within what you DO control and CAN change? Something that will showcase the positive attributes of honest, expert, progressive judging while developing best practices and saving lots of  lives in the process. What do you have to lose, Dems? Can actually doing something to combat right-wing control of the judiciary rather than just impotently raging against it produce a worse result than you have already achieved — even when controlling the Executive, House, and Senate? 

There is not much in the immediate future that Biden and the Dems can (and are willing to) do to change the composition and tenor of the Supremes and the 5th Circuit. But Biden and Garland have complete control over the “Miller Lite” BIA and the Immigration Courts!

A new, well-qualified, BIA comprised of progressive expert judges unswervingly committed to scholarship, quality, due process, respect for migrants and their attorneys, and correct results could (and should) be installed by now. But, disgracefully, it isn’t! Progressives need to hold Biden’s and Garland’s feet to the fire until they create the positive change they promised, but have not delivered!

Then, once a new BIA is in place, go to work on re-competing all Immigration Judge jobs on a merit basis, incorporating key progressive values and real-life experiences, and also involving input from practitioners and outside experts in the area. Create a better progressive Federal Immigration Judiciary and let it lead the way to restoring due process, best practices, efficiency, humanity, fundamental fairness, and integrity to our broken immigration system!

Humanity is suffering! Garland must pull the plug 🔌 on the “BIA Clown Show” 🤡 before it kills ⚰️ anyone else! Pull the BIA from the “Most Dangerous Court In America Competition” before they can “win” it. A “win” for the BIA would certainly be a “loss” for America!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever! Bad Judges, Never!  

PWS

09-03-21

🇺🇸⚖️🗽NY TIMES EDITORIAL MAKES THE CASE FOR ARTICLE I — “It’s hard to imagine a more glaring conflict of interest than the nation’s top law-enforcement agency running a court system in which it regularly appears as a party.” — Garland’s Abject Failure To Fix EOIR, Bring In Experts Highlighted, As Constitutional Due Process, Ethical, Human Rights, Racial Justice, Gender Equity, Diversity, & Management Farce @ EOIR Continues Under His Disgraceful Lack Of Awareness & Failure Of Courageous, Progressive Leadership!  — Progressives Can’t Remain Silent, Must “Raise Hell” 👹With Biden Administration About Garland’s Lousy Performance @ EOIR, As He Continues To Stack Immigration “Judiciary” With “Miller Lite Holdovers” 🤮 To The Exclusion of Progressive Experts Who Helped Put Biden Administration In Office!

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress” — Garland’s failure to set tone of due process, human rights, excellence, independence @ EOIR threatens U.S. Justice System — could led to downfall of American democracy!
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/08/opinion/sunday/immigration-courts-trump-biden.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Because of it’s critical importance and it’s “right on” expose of the most glaring problem in American justice today, this timely editorial is quoted in full:

Immigration Courts Aren’t Real Courts. Time to Change That.

May 8, 2021

Image

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

President Biden took office with a promise to “restore humanity and American values” to the immigration system. If he’s going to succeed, it will take more than shutting down construction on his predecessor’s border wall. The most formidable obstacle to making the U.S. immigration system more humane and functional is invisible to most Americans: the nation’s broken, overwhelmed immigration court system.

Every day, hundreds of immigration judges slog through thousands of cases, unable to keep up with a crushing backlog that has more than doubled since 2016. Many cases involve complex claims of asylum by those who fear for their safety in their home countries. Most end up in legal limbo, waiting years for even an initial hearing. Some people sit in detention centers for months or longer, despite posing no risk to the public. None have the right to a lawyer, which few could afford anyway.

“The system is failing, there is no doubt about it,” one immigration judge said in 2018. As long as the system is failing, it will be impossible to achieve any broad-based immigration reform — whether proposed by Mr. Biden or anyone else.

The problem with these courts isn’t new, but it became significantly worse under the Trump administration. When he took office in 2017, President Donald Trump inherited a backlog of about 540,000 cases, already a major crisis. The administration could have used numerous means to bring that number down. Instead, Mr. Trump’s team drove it up. By the time he left office in January, the backlog had ballooned to nearly 1.3 million pending cases.

How did that number get so high? Some of the increase was the result of ramped up enforcement of immigration laws, leading to many more arrests and detentions that required court attention. The Trump administration also reopened hundreds of thousands of low-priority cases that had been shelved under President Barack Obama. Finally, Mr. Trump starved the courts of funding and restricted how much control judges had over their own dockets, making the job nearly impossible for those judges who care about providing fair and impartial justice to immigrants.

At the same time, Mr. Trump hired hundreds of new judges, prioritizing ideology over experience, such as by tapping former Immigration and Customs Enforcement prosecutors and others who would help convert the courts into a conveyor belt of deportation. In 2018, then Attorney General Jeff Sessions imposed an annual quota of 700 cases per judge. One judge testified before a House committee last year that Mr. Trump’s system was “a widget factory management model of speed over substance.”

By some measures, the plan worked: In 2020, the immigration courts denied 72 percent of asylum claims, the highest portion ever, and far above the denial rates during the Obama and George W. Bush administrations.

If the goal was to empty the United States of all those asylum seekers, Mr. Trump clearly failed, as evidenced by the huge backlog he left Mr. Biden. But the ease with which he imposed his will on the immigration courts revealed a central structural flaw in the system: They are not actual courts, at least not in the sense that Americans are used to thinking of courts — as neutral arbiters of law, honoring due process and meting out impartial justice. Nor are immigration judges real judges. They are attorneys employed by the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is housed in the Department of Justice. It’s hard to imagine a more glaring conflict of interest than the nation’s top law-enforcement agency running a court system in which it regularly appears as a party.

The result is that immigration courts and judges operate at the mercy of whoever is sitting in the Oval Office. How much money they get, what cases they focus on — it’s all politics. That didn’t used to be such a problem, because attorneys general rarely got involved in immigration issues. Then Mr. Trump came along and reminded everyone just how much power the head of the executive branch has when it comes to immigration.

The solution is clear: Congress needs to take immigration courts out of the Justice Department and make them independent, similar to other administrative courts that handle bankruptcy, income-tax and veterans’ cases. Immigration judges would then be freed from political influence and be able to run their dockets as they see fit, which could help reduce the backlog and improve the courts’ standing in the public eye. Reform advocates, including the Federal Bar Association, have pushed the idea of a stand-alone immigration court for years without success. The Trump administration made the case for independence that much clearer.

In the meantime, there are shorter-term fixes that could help restore a semblance of impartiality and professionalism to the immigration courts.

First, the system must be properly staffed and funded to deal with its backlog. One way to do that is by hiring more judges, and staff members to support them. Today there are about 550 immigration judges carrying an average of almost 3,000 cases each, which makes it nearly impossible to provide anything like fair and consistent justice. Earlier this week, Attorney General Merrick Garland asked Congress for a 21 percent increase in the court system’s budget. That’s a start, but it doesn’t come close to solving the problem. Even if 600 judges were able to get through 700 cases a year each — as Mr. Sessions ordered them to — it would take years to clear up the existing backlog, and that’s before taking on a single new case.

This is why another important fix is to stop a large number of those cases from being heard in the first place. The Justice Department has the power to immediately remove as many as 700,000 cases from the courts’ calendar, most of them for low-level immigration violations — people who have entered the country illegally, most from Mexico or Central America, or those who have overstayed a visa. Many of these cases are years old, or involve people who are likely to get a green card. Forcing judges to hear cases like these clutters the docket and makes it hard to focus on the small number of more serious cases, like those involving terrorism or national-security threats, or defendants facing aggravated felony charges. At the moment, barely 1 percent of all cases in the system fall into one of these categories.

A thornier problem is how to stamp out the hard-line anti-immigrant culture that spread throughout the Justice Department under Mr. Trump, Mr. Sessions and the former president’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller. For instance, a 2019 department newsletter sent to immigration judges included an anti-Semitic reference and a link to VDare, an anti-immigrant group that regularly publishes white nationalists.

One of Mr. Biden’s first steps in office was to reassign the head of the immigration court system, James McHenry, who played a central role in many of Mr. Trump’s initiatives. But it’s generally hard to fire career civil servants, like the many judges and other officials tapped to promote Mr. Trump’s agenda. The Biden administration can reduce their influence by reassigning them, but this is not a long-term fix. While these judges are subject to political pressures, there can be no true judicial process.

If there’s any silver lining here, it is to be found in Mr. Trump’s overreach. The egregiousness of his administration’s approach to immigration may have accelerated efforts to solve the deeper structural rot at the core of the nation’s immigration courts.

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

We know that they aren’t “real courts;” but, they could and should be — progressive, due process oriented, model courts to boot! It will never happen, however, with the tone-deaf way Garland has approached EOIR in his first 60 days!

As progressives, immigration, human rights, women’s rights, due process, and racial justice advocates well know, Garland’s incredibly poor, downright insulting stewardship @ DOJ has already made things worse at EOIR! Every day this “fake” court system — a massive “big middle finger” to the integrity of American justice and a shocking betrayal of those who fought to preserve justice and bring the Biden Administration into power — continues is a “bad day” for equal justice, racial justice, and gender justice in America! 

It’s also an inexcusable squandered opportunity for the Biden Administration to “recreate” the broken, biased, lacking in competence “Immigration Judiciary” as an independent progressive judiciary that was promised in rhetoric, but has been mocked in action.

Can any progressive imagine how the Heritage Foundation or the Federalist Society might have reacted if Trump, McConnell, Miller, and the DOJ had treated their recommendations for creating a reactionary far-right judiciary with the callous disregard and total disrespect that Garland has shown for the blueprint set forth by progressives for rapidly reforming the Immigration Judiciary into the model progressive judiciary needed to save American justice (not to mention save the lives of many of the most vulnerable, deserving, and needy among us)?

For Pete’s sake, Garland just gave Stephen Miller, “Billy the Bigot” Barr, and “Monty Python” “deference” on his first 17 totally inappropriate “judicial picks” while telling fighters for due process and human dignity to “go pound sand.” We weren’t even given the courtesy of being informed — Kowalski and I had to “smoke it out” with the help of “DT-21.” 

“Courtesy and deference” for Miller, Barr, and “Monty Python;” total disrespect for the NDPA and the humans (“persons” under the Constitution) we represent? Come on, man! 

The BIA has “restrictionist judges” going all the way back to the Bush II political travesty supplemented by Miller, Sessions, and Barr. Yet, there is not a single, not one, true progressive practical scholar-immigration/human rights expert among this “Gang of 23”  — a group that includes a number of “appellate judges” who distinguished themselves with their overt hostility, to immigrants’ rights, rudeness to attorneys, and denial of nearly 100% of asylum claims coming before them. These are “Garland’s Judges?” 

Worse, yet another totally inappropriate “insider appointment” to the BIA by Garland— bypassing the numerous far better qualified “practical scholars” in the private sector — is rumored to be in the offing! NO! This outrageous, tone-deaf performance and disrespect for progressive human rights experts by Garland must stop!

As the editorial correctly suggests, starting to fix EOIR, even in the absence of long overdue congressional action, is not rocket science! The incompetent senior “management” @ EOIR and the entire membership of the BIA can and should be reassigned. Tomorrow!

Experienced, highly competent, scholarly, creative, courageous, progressive judges already on the EOIR bench — like Judge (and former BIA Appellate Judge and DOJ Senior Executive) Noel Brennan (NY), Judge Dana Marks (SF), and Judge Amiena Kahn (NY) — should be detailed to Falls Church HQ to start fixing EOIR and getting the BIA functioning as a real appellate court — focused on due process, high quality scholarship, best practices, and holding ICE accountable for following the law — until more permanent appointments and necessary due process reforms can be made. 

In the meantime, competent, progressive, temporary leadership can bring in temporary appellate judges at the BIA with sound records of fair asylum adjudication to end “refugee roulette” and eradicate the disgraceful “asylum free zones” being improperly run by unqualified IJs in some Immigration Courts. Reform of this disgustingly broken system can’t “wait for Godot” any longer!

As Judge Jeffrey Chase cogently stated in Law360, further “permanent” judicial appointments @ EOIR should be frozen pending development of merit-based criteria and active recruitment aimed at creating a more diverse, progressive judiciary. All existing “probationary judges” selected by Barr should have their positions “re-competed” under these merit-based criteria, with avenues of public input built into the permanent selection system.

Progressives, colleagues, members of the Round Table, members of the NDPA, if you’ve had enough of Garland’s lousy, insulting, tone-deaf, indolent, due-process-disparaging performance at EOIR let your voices be heard with the Biden Administration! What is going on at EOIR every day under Garland is not acceptable! The life-threatening, demeaning, totally unnecessary EOIR Clown Show must go! Now!

EOIR Clown Show Must Go T-Shirt
“EOIR Clown Show Must Go” T-Shirt Custom Design Concept — Continues to be in demand under Garland!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-09-21

🏴‍☠️HISTORY & THE GOP PARTY OF TREASON — “The lie outlasts the liar.” — Historian Professor Timothy Snyder On Why The GOP Is, & Will Remain, A Repudiation Of & An Existential Threat To Truth & Our Democracy!

Timothy Snyder (Professor für Geschichte, Yale University), Foto: www.stephan-roehl.de
Timothy Snyder (Professor of History, Yale University), Photo: www.stephan-roehl.de
Creative Commons License

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html?referringSource=articleShare

From The NY Times:
. . . . .

  The lie outlasts the liar. 

The idea that Germany lost the First World War in 1918 because of a Jewish “stab in the back” was 15 years old when Hitler came to power. How will Trump’s myth of victimhood function in American life 15 years from now? And to whose benefit?

On Jan. 7, Trump called for a peaceful transition of power, implicitly conceding that his putsch had failed. Even then, though, he repeated and even amplified his electoral fiction: It was now a sacred cause for which people had sacrificed. Trump’s imagined stab in the back will live on chiefly thanks to its endorsement by members of Congress. In November and December 2020, Republicans repeated it, giving it a life it would not otherwise have had. In retrospect, it now seems as though the last shaky compromise between the gamers and the breakers was the idea that Trump should have every chance to prove that wrong had been done to him. That position implicitly endorsed the big lie for Trump supporters who were inclined to believe it. It failed to restrain Trump, whose big lie only grew bigger.

The breakers and the gamers then saw a different world ahead, where the big lie was either a treasure to be had or a danger to be avoided. The breakers had no choice but to rush to be first to claim to believe in it. Because the breakers Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz must compete to claim the brimstone and bile, the gamers were forced to reveal their own hand, and the division within the Republican coalition became visible on Jan. 6. The invasion of the Capitol only reinforced this division. To be sure, a few senators withdrew their objections, but Cruz and Hawley moved forward anyway, along with six other senators. More than 100 representatives doubled down on the big lie. Some, like Matt Gaetz, even added their own flourishes, such as the claim that the mob was led not by Trump’s supporters but by his opponents.

Trump is, for now, the martyr in chief, the high priest of the big lie. He is the leader of the breakers, at least in the minds of his supporters. By now, the gamers do not want Trump around. Discredited in his last weeks, he is useless; shorn of the obligations of the presidency, he will become embarrassing again, much as he was in 2015. Unable to provide cover for their gamesmanship, he will be irrelevant to their daily purposes. But the breakers have an even stronger reason to see Trump disappear: It is impossible to inherit from someone who is still around. Seizing Trump’s big lie might appear to be a gesture of support. In fact it expresses a wish for his political death. Transforming the myth from one about Trump to one about the nation will be easier when he is out of the way.

As Cruz and Hawley may learn, to tell the big lie is to be owned by it. Just because you have sold your soul does not mean that you have driven a hard bargain. Hawley shies from no level of hypocrisy; the son of a banker, educated at Stanford University and Yale Law School, he denounces elites. Insofar as Cruz was thought to have a principle, it was that of states’ rights, which Trump’s calls to action brazenly violated. A joint statement Cruz issued about the senators’ challenge to the vote nicely captured the post-truth aspect of the whole: It never alleged that there was fraud, only that there were allegations of fraud. Allegations of allegations, allegations all the way down.

Image

The big lie requires commitment. When Republican gamers do not exhibit enough of that, Republican breakers call them “RINOs”: Republicans in name only. This term once suggested a lack of ideological commitment. It now means an unwillingness to throw away an election. The gamers, in response, close ranks around the Constitution and speak of principles and traditions. The breakers must all know (with the possible exception of the Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville) that they are participating in a sham, but they will have an audience of tens of millions who do not.

If Trump remains present in American political life, he will surely repeat his big lie incessantly. Hawley and Cruz and the other breakers share responsibility for where this leads. Cruz and Hawley seem to be running for president. Yet what does it mean to be a candidate for office and denounce voting? If you claim that the other side has cheated, and your supporters believe you, they will expect you to cheat yourself. By defending Trump’s big lie on Jan. 6, they set a precedent: A Republican presidential candidate who loses an election should be appointed anyway by Congress. Republicans in the future, at least breaker candidates for president, will presumably have a Plan A, to win and win, and a Plan B, to lose and win. No fraud is necessary; only allegations that there are allegations of fraud. Truth is to be replaced by spectacle, facts by faith.

Trump’s coup attempt of 2020-21, like other failed coup attempts, is a warning for those who care about the rule of law and a lesson for those who do not. His pre-fascism revealed a possibility for American politics. For a coup to work in 2024, the breakers will require something that Trump never quite had: an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence, ready to add intimidation to an election. Four years of amplifying a big lie just might get them this. To claim that the other side stole an election is to promise to steal one yourself. It is also to claim that the other side deserves to be punished.

Informed observers inside and outside government agree that right-wing white supremacism is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. Gun sales in 2020 hit an astonishing high. History shows that political violence follows when prominent leaders of major political parties openly embrace paranoia.

Our big lie is typically American, wrapped in our odd electoral system, depending upon our particular traditions of racism. Yet our big lie is also structurally fascist, with its extreme mendacity, its conspiratorial thinking, its reversal of perpetrators and victims and its implication that the world is divided into us and them. To keep it going for four years courts terrorism and assassination.

When that violence comes, the breakers will have to react. If they embrace it, they become the fascist faction. The Republican Party will be divided, at least for a time. One can of course imagine a dismal reunification: A breaker candidate loses a narrow presidential election in November 2024 and cries fraud, the Republicans win both houses of Congress and rioters in the street, educated by four years of the big lie, demand what they see as justice. Would the gamers stand on principle if those were the circumstances of Jan. 6, 2025?

To be sure, this moment is also a chance. It is possible that a divided Republican Party might better serve American democracy; that the gamers, separated from the breakers, might start to think of policy as a way to win elections. It is very likely that the Biden-Harris administration will have an easier first few months than expected; perhaps obstructionism will give way, at least among a few Republicans and for a short time, to a moment of self-questioning. Politicians who want Trumpism to end have a simple way forward: Tell the truth about the election.

America will not survive the big lie just because a liar is separated from power. It will need a thoughtful repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a public good. The racism structured into every aspect of the coup attempt is a call to heed our own history. Serious attention to the past helps us to see risks but also suggests future possibility. We cannot be a democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small. We cannot be a democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small. Democracy is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.

Timothy Snyder is the Levin professor of history at Yale University and the author of histories of political atrocity including “Bloodlands” and “Black Earth,” as well as the book “On Tyranny,” on America’s turn toward authoritarianism. His most recent book is “Our Malady,” a memoir of his own near-fatal illness reflecting on the relationship between health and freedom. Ashley Gilbertson is an Australian photojournalist with the VII Photo Agency living in New York. Gilbertson has covered migration and conflict internationally for over 20 years.

**********

Read Professor Snyder’s entire, rather lengthy, analysis at the link.

Democracy is under attack from one of our two major parties. It will take a concerted effort, determination, and courage by the majority of us to preserve our nation in the face of GOP led and enabled treason and insurrection that is fueled by their web of lies, racism, selfishness, and false narratives,

Tour the Holocaust Museum for a glimpse of the future of our nation if the GOP prevails!

Also, remember that as all the GOP-induced distracting disorder of this week roil Washington, 4,000 plus Americans a day, disproportionately African Americans and Latinos, continue to die, many unnecessarily, as a result of the “malicious incompetence,” false narratives, and anti-science, anti-American lies actively promoted and endorsed by Trump and his GOP party of treason!

Professor Snyder’s last sentence encapsulates my own view of what 21st Century American Democracy should look and act like:

We cannot be a democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small. Democracy is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.

I still hear GOP politicos falsely claim that “nobody could see this coming.” What total unadulterated BS! 💩 Trump planned and instigated this insurrection of thugs in public, even while his goons Cruz, Hawley, and McCarthy were actively promoting it in Congress and Moscow Mitch was more or less “in his shell” looking the other way. Many of us have been “calling out” GOP fascism for the last four years. A party that thrives on lies can’t survive truth!

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! The GOP 🥷🏻⚰️☠️Never!

PWS

01-11-21

PACKERS: Rodgers Letting His Play Do The Talking — Helping Team Win & Raising Level Of Everyone’s Play, Including His Own!

Aaron Rodgers
Aaron Rodgers
Photo by: original: Mike Morbeck
derivative: Diddykong1130
Public realm
Green Bay Packers
Green Bay Packers

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/sports/football/aaron-rodgers-green-bay-packers.html

From The NY Times:

By Mike Tanier

  • Sept. 30, 2020

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has a reputation as someone who always wishes to speak to the manager.

To the public he is the beer snob who turns up his nose at all 500 brewpub taps, the faultfinding co-worker whose arrival prompts everyone to politely excuse themselves from the break room with their lunches half-eaten. No pass route is ever run precisely enough for Rodgers, no game plan creative enough for his talents, and dissatisfaction radiates from him with the passive-aggressive fury of a million failed marriages.

Nevertheless, Rodgers’s 2020 season is off to an excellent start. The Packers are 3-0 after a 37-30 victory in Sunday night’s duel with Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints. Rodgers is tied for third in the N.F.L. with nine touchdown passes, ranks sixth with 887 passing yards and third with a 121.1 efficiency rating.

His success should be unsurprising for an eight-time Pro Bowl selection and former Super Bowl champion, except that 2020 was supposed to be the year that the perpetually disgruntled 36-year-old Rodgers earned his comeuppance at the hand of a rookie heir apparent, Jordan Love.

. . . .

In the wake of so much melodrama, this Packers season was expected to be part “All About Eve” and part “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with a dash of “Sunset Boulevard.” But Rodgers has proved that he is still ready for his close-up.

He is also playing nicely with others: With his favorite receiver, Davante Adams, hobbled, Rodgers has been connecting with his secondary targets instead of heaving the ball out of bounds and lamenting his lack of weapons in postgame interviews. Rodgers is even operating comfortably within LaFleur’s system, distributing short tosses while waiting for ideal opportunities to unleash his (still magnificent) deep ball.

Perhaps Rodgers has become a model employee out of sheer spite, though if Rodgers were truly motivated by spite he might have conquered the world by now. Perhaps it took a rookie’s arrival to persuade both sides — Rodgers and the coaching staff — to work things out for the sake of a Super Bowl instead of plunging the team into free agency and a rebuilding era. Or, just maybe, Rodgers’s churlish reputation is somewhat overblown, as were observations about his deteriorating skills.

Whatever the cause of Rodgers’s resurgence, it has caught N.F.L. talk-show dramatists without a narrative arc for him. He is not yet a venerable warrior like Brees or Tom Brady. He’s certainly not a young hero like Mahomes or Lamar Jackson. He never fell far enough for comeback player of the year redemption and he won too many accolades to join Russell Wilson on a quest for validation. And he refuses to play the role of arrogant heel as cast. He is just a future Hall of Famer on the inside track toward a return to the Super Bowl.

Ho hum.

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

So far, so good.

Russell Wilson of the Seahawks, who transferred to the Wisconsin Badgers and “lit up” the Big-10 in his final season, is another grossly underrated player. Many pundits claimed Wilson was “too short” to play in the NFL. All he does is pass, run, score, win, and lead, under a variety of conditions! Seems like that should be enough to put him at or near the top of the “upper echelon” of NFL QBs.

PWS

10-01-20

KAKISTOCRACY UPDATE: In a Crisis, It’s Bad To Have Your Country Run By A Narcissist Sociopath & His Gang Of Incompetents — “With the exceptions of Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, Trump has surrounded himself with a Z-team of dangerously inexperienced toadies and flunkies — the bargain-bin rejects from Filene’s Basement — at a time when we require the brightest and most imaginative minds in the country.”

Jennifer Senior
Jennifer Senior
Opinion Columnist
NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/opinion/trump-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare

Jennifer Senior writes in the NYT:

Since the early days of the Trump administration, an impassioned group of mental health professionals have warned the public about the president’s cramped and disordered mind, a darkened attic of fluttering bats. Their assessments have been controversial. The American Psychiatric Association’s code of ethics expressly forbids its members from diagnosing a public figure from afar.

Enough is enough. As I’ve argued before, an in-person analysis of Donald J. Trump would not reveal any hidden depths — his internal sonar could barely fathom the bottom of a sink — and these are exceptional, urgent times. Back in October, George T. Conway III, the conservative lawyer and husband of Kellyanne, wrote a long, devastating essay for The Atlantic, noting that Trump has all the hallmarks of narcissistic personality disorder. That disorder was dangerous enough during times of prosperity, jeopardizing the moral and institutional foundations of our country.

But now we’re in the midst of a global pandemic. The president’s pathology is endangering not just institutions, but lives.

TWITTER CHATS During these extraordinary times, Opinion columnists and writers will be going live on Twitter every weekday at 1 p.m. Eastern to chat with viewers. This was Jennifer Senior’s conversation.

Let’s start with the basics. First: Narcissistic personalities like Trump harbor skyscraping delusions about their own capabilities. They exaggerate their accomplishments, focus obsessively on projecting power, and wish desperately to win.

What that means, during this pandemic: Trump says we’ve got plenty of tests available, when we don’t. He declares that Google is building a comprehensive drive-thru testing website, when it isn’t. He sends a Navy hospital ship to New York and it proves little more than an excuse for a campaign commercial, arriving and sitting almost empty in the Hudson. A New York hospital executive calls it a joke.

Second: The grandiosity of narcissistic personalities belies an extreme fragility, their egos as delicate as foam. They live in terror of being upstaged. They’re too thin skinned to be told they’re wrong.

What that means, during this pandemic: Narcissistic leaders never have, as Trump likes to say, the best people. They have galleries of sycophants. With the exceptions of Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, Trump has surrounded himself with a Z-team of dangerously inexperienced toadies and flunkies — the bargain-bin rejects from Filene’s Basement — at a time when we require the brightest and most imaginative minds in the country.

Faced with a historic public health crisis, Trump could have assembled a first-rate company of disaster preparedness experts. Instead he gave the job to his son-in-law, a man-child of breathtaking vapidity. Faced with a historic economic crisis, Trump could have assembled a team of Nobel-prize winning economists or previous treasury secretaries. Instead he talks to Larry Kudlow, a former CNBC host.

Meanwhile, Fauci and Birx measure every word they say like old-time apothecaries, hoping not to humiliate the narcissist — never humiliate a narcissist — while discreetly correcting his false hopes and falsehoods. They are desperately attempting to create a safe space for our president, when the president should be creating a safer nation for all of us.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

Yup, you heard it here @ “Courtside” long ago — kakistocracy is dangerous to our democracy and our health. Who could have known?

PWS

04-07-20

AS U.S. DISTRICT JUDGES DITHER, DYSFUNCTIONAL IMMIGRATION COURTS THREATEN NATION’S HEALTH & SAFETY — “I think it’s about time the American people woke up to the fact that EOIR’s willingness to perpetuate and extend this pandemic will inevitably bring the virus to their hometown!” ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻😰😰😰😰😰⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️🦠🦠🦠🦠🦠🧫🧫🧫🧫🧫🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘

Liz Robbins
H Liz Robbins
Legal Reporter
NY Times

https://apple.news/AiFcpYTPESciTT51hvpMdOQ

Liz Robbins reports for The Appeal:

One government lawyer who appeared in a crowded Newark, New Jersey, immigration court last month is in a medically induced coma. A New York immigration lawyer and her client are both sick. Immigration judges are being denied sick leave when they use anxiety or safety as reasons. Migrant children are asking their lawyers if they will fall ill if they go to court, and whether they’ll be deported if they don’t show up.

Sickness, panic, and confusion in the midst of a pandemic: These are the acute side effects of immigration courts continuing to operate as the novel coronavirus races across the country. Despite three weeks of intense pleading to close all 69 courts—across a united front of immigration lawyers, the union representing lawyers for ICE, and the immigration judges’ union—more than two-thirds of them remain open. 

The courts that have been closed by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the federal agency that runs them, have often only been shuttered in reaction to a confirmed case of COVID-19 or suspected exposure. The closures are often last-minute, and not clearly communicated, except on Twitter. This week, several immigration legal associations filed two separate federal lawsuits to close the courts because they fear that the government has put their lives in danger. 

“I think it’s about time the American people woke up to the fact that EOIR’s willingness to perpetuate and extend this pandemic will inevitably bring the virus to their hometown,” Rebecca Press, the legal director at UnLocal in New York, said Thursday via email. She contracted coronavirus two weeks ago and at least one of her clients is sick. “The longer courts remain open even for filing, and the longer the courts require attorneys and immigrants to engage in the work of preparing evidence, the more likely it becomes that the virus will be brought right back to another community.”

Government lawyers are affected, too. Fanny Behar-Ostrow, the president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 511, the union representing ICE lawyers, is getting calls at all hours of the day from members who worry they have been exposed to the virus. “They are panicked, frightened, desperate, upset,” she said. 

In addition to the 36,000 adults in ICE detention facilities, there are some 3,500 migrant children in government custody who are affected by the disarray in the courts. In most courts, children must still attend in-person hearings, putting them at exposure risk. In New York City, the current epicenter of the pandemic, lawyers from Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) have not been told whether EOIR will reschedule cases for next week. They are also unclear about whether the minors even need to come to court at a time when state and city officials have issued stay-at-home orders. 

“We are receiving phone calls from children who had their safety net shaken,” said Maria Odom, vice president for legal services for KIND, which is a nonprofit organization contracted to represent unaccompanied minors. “For us serving vulnerable children, there are so many moving pieces and at a time when we should be able to look to the government, they are just contributing to the chaos.”

Lawyers, judges, and advocates wonder: What will it take for EOIR to close courts nationally?

“I hope that it won’t take a death, but I worry that it will,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration lawyer and policy counsel for the American Immigration Council. His organization is one of the groups behind a lawsuit filed Monday by the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.

. . . .

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Read the rest of Liz’s article at the link.

Looks like the dead bodies will have to pile up before the Article IIIs and EOIR will take action. As the rest of us know, but to which U.S District Judges & EOIR appear willfully blind, by the time individuals show symptoms and begin dying, it’s too late to stop the spread. The larger community has already been infected.  

I wonder what it is that gives both EOIR officials and Article III Judges such great confidence that they and their families will escape the consequences of their irresponsible behavior? Maybe, it’s that both EOIR Senior Execs and Article III Judges manage to studiously avoid “direct exposure” to Immigration Courts. “Below their pay grade,” so to speak. 

But, according to folks like Dr. Fauci, who possibly knows even more about infectious diseases than EOIR Director McHenry and the Federal Judges who continue to defer to the irresponsible EOIR “guidance,” nobody will be immune. 

So far, the U.S. has done the worst job of any developed country in the world of “flattening the curve.” Inevitably, we eventually will become the “world leader” in coronavirus deaths. After observing the inept response of EOIR and the failure of the U.S. District Courts to promptly intervene on the side of medical knowledge, common sense, and preserving human lives, I can now see why we are failing as a nation to take the extreme measures necessary for self-preservation.

I would think that as lawyers, judges, and other members of the legal community start dying as a result of EOIR’s policies, that the officials responsible eventually will face legal actions brought by surviving family members and colleagues. Life tenure and the judicial doctrine of “absolute immunity” will protect the feckless Federal Judges from legal accountability. But, it won’t protect them and their reputations from moral accountability and the “judgements of history” which are likely to be harsh and as unforgiving as the Trump Immigration Kakistocracy’s treatment of the most vulnerable among us and their brave lawyers.

Due Process Forever! Trump’s Immigration Kakistocracy & Feckless Federal Courts, Never!

PWS

04-04-20

TIME FOR SOME GOOD NEWS: Waterwell’s Immigration Court Drama “The Courtroom,” Featuring Roles By Some “Judges Of The Roundtable,” Makes NY Times “Best Theater of 2019” List! — “[W]e citizens are on trial, too. What kind of a nation are we? How cruel have we permitted ourselves to be?”

 

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog

Retired Judge Jeffrey S. Chase, leader of our “Roundtable of Former Immigration Judges” reports:

Waterwell’s wonderful play The Courtroom, in which the script is an actual transcript of an immigration court hearing, and in which three of us (Betty Lamb, Terry Bain, and myself) so far have acted along with stars of Broadway, TV, and film, was named today by the New York Times to its  “Best Theater of 2019” list!

 

Waterwell plans to hold a performance a month through next September or so, so if you are coming to NYC, you can still see it (or maybe act in it!)

 

BTW, the role played by some of us was the judge performing the naturalization ceremony at the end of the play, in which the entire audience stands and takes the oath.  The best anecdote I have heard so far was after a performance at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where a non-citizen audience member asked a member of the Waterwell staff if that was a real judge performing the scene.  When told yes, it was, the audience member replied “Well, then I guess I’m a U.S. citizen now!”

 

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Here’s the link to the NY Times and the summary of “The Courtroom” by Laura Collins-Hughes:

Laura Collins-Hughes
Laura Collins-Hughes
Arts Journalist
NY Times

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/arts/best-broadway-theater-show.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

 

LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES

Political Punches

One of the most heart-gripping shows of the year could hardly be simpler: It’s not even a full production, just a staged reading of trial transcripts.

Michael Braun and Kristin Villanueva in “The Courtroom.”Credit...Maria Baranova
Michael Braun and Kristin Villanueva in “The Courtroom.”Credit…Maria Baranova

In Waterwell’s The Courtroom,” the accused is an immigrant in danger of deportation, her unassuming American life at risk of being torn apart over a mistake she insists was innocent. The sneaky thing about this riveting re-enactment, though, is that in watching it, we citizens are on trial, too. What kind of a nation are we? How cruel have we permitted ourselves to be?

That work, recently returned for monthly site-specific performances around New York, is part of 2019’s thrillingly vital bumper crop of political theater — shows that implicate the audience with bracing artistry.

 

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Some of you have probably heard me say that being an Immigration Judge was “half scholar, half performing artist.”

Congrats to Waterwell and to “Roundtable Drama Stars” Retired Judges Jeffrey S. Chase, Betty Lamb, and Terry Bain, all formerly of the NY Immigration Court. Proud of you guys! There are so many ways in which our Roundtable contributes to the New Due Process Army’s daily battle to restore Due Process and save our democracy, beyond filing amicus briefs throughout the country (which we do almost every week, with lots of pro bono help from our talented friends at many law firms)!

Many of those contributions are through the arts. See Judge Polly Webber and her triptych “Refugee Dilemma” fiber artwork, which has received national acclaim and recognition. https://wp.me/p8eeJm-48d As I said just today in an earlier blog about the disturbingly poor and tone deaf performance by three life-tenured judges of the 11th Circuit, this really is not about different legal views any more. https://wp.me/p8eeJm-4RO

It’s a moral and ethical battle to preserve our democracy and its commitment to humanity from the forces of evil, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, authoritarianism, corruption, and White Nationalism that threaten to destroy it. It so happens that courtrooms are among the most visible battlegrounds. But, it goes far beyond that – to the very fabric of our society and our values — to our very humanity and how we view our fellow human beings.

That’s why complicit judges are so dangerous to the system. As with “Jim Crow,” there is only one “right side of history” here! We deserve better performance from America’s judges, particularly those with Article III protections!

As Laura so cogently said in her review:

[W]e citizens are on trial, too. What kind of a nation are we? How cruel have we permitted ourselves to be?

“The Courtroom” should be required viewing for every judge, law professor, judicial law clerk, law student, legislator, congressional staff member, and immigration bureaucrat in America!

Due Process Forever!

 

PWS

12-04-19

 

 

 

NYT: TRUMP IS A CHILD ABUSER — Here’s How to Stop Him: Speak, Educate, Donate, Vote!

NYT: TRUMP IS A CHILD ABUSER — Here’s How to Stop Him: Speak, Educate, Donate, Vote!

The NY Times Editorial Board writes:

From his promise of a “beautiful wall” to his false alarms about caravans of alien marauders at the gate, President Trump has exploited immigration as his marquee issue. He is right, there is a crisis: Not of undocumented immigrants or thousands seeking refuge, as the president would have it, but a crisis of American values, a crisis of America’s premier tradition as a welcoming and humane haven. A crisis Mr. Trump has created, even as Congress has fueled it.

That is not to deny that comprehensive immigration reform is urgently needed, as is funding for the overstretched facilities where undocumented immigrants, and most horribly the children of undocumented immigrants, are held.

But, by his divisive, incoherent and barbaric policies, Mr. Trump has only made agreeing on an approach to immigration in the United States far more difficult. He has done so by systematically creating a false narrative of immigrants as job-stealing criminals, by insisting that there is a crisis of illegal immigration where there is none and, most maliciously, by dreaming up schemes to torment these people in the perverse notion that this would deter others from trying to reach the United States.

The most appalling of these has been the separation of children from their parents and detaining them in conditions no child anywhere should suffer, and certainly not children in the care of the American government. At a recent hearing before a federal appeals court in San Francisco, judges were stunned by the administration’s arguments that children sleeping on concrete floors in frigid, overcrowded cells, without soap or toothbrushes, were being kept in “safe and sanitary” facilities, as required by law. “You’re really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn’t a question of safe and sanitary conditions?” asked one judge.

Mr. Trump’s latest display of cruel bluster was the announcement, and then the delay, of nationwide raids to deport undocumented families. In fact, deporting immigrants who have exhausted their legal claims is not uncommon — President Obama, remember, was often referred to by immigration groups as “deporter in chief” — and the targets of these raids are not random. But Mr. Trump sought to use the operation to strut before his base and extract concessions from Democrats, and spread panic through immigrant communities. His announcement delayed action by Congress and made the operation that much more difficult by warning those targeted for deportation. Then he tweeted that he was delaying the raids for two weeks.

The United States urgently needs an immigration policy that combines border security, justice and humanity. President Trump has promoted policies that undermine all these goals, and Congress has failed to agree on a coherent vision. You can help turn that around. Here’s how:

. . . .

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Read the complete editorial for the “game plan.”

Amen!

Of course, we should never forget that the “Original National Child Abuser” is Jeff Sessions who developed the original “Family Separation” program for which he has escaped accountability to date.

PWS

06-24-19

HERE’S WHAT A RACIST, WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION POLICY LOOKS LIKE, AS TRUMP ATTACKS LEGAL IMMIGRATION! — “[C]ultivating xenophobia, as President Trump has done from the beginning of his campaign, and then trading on that fear to drum up votes, does not create much of a foundation for rational dialogue.”

As usual, CNN’s Tal Kopan and her colleague Tami Luhby give us one of the best summaries of what’s happening:

\

How Trump’s new definition of ‘public charge’ will affect immigrants

By Tami Luhby and Tal Kopan, CNN

The Trump administration is seeking to give itself broad latitude to reject immigrants from the US if they have too little income and education, which could effectively impose a merit-based immigration system without an act of Congress.

The change is put forth in a proposed regulation, which would dramatically reshape how the government defines an immigrant likely to be dependent on the government.

President Donald Trump has long touted what he calls a merit-based system of immigration, backing a legislative proposal that would have heavily favored English-speaking, highly educated and high-earning immigrants over lower-skilled and lower-income applicants.

Quietly announced Saturday night, the proposed regulation could give the administration the authority to reshape the population of US immigrants in that direction without legislation.

The rule would mean many green card and visa applicants could be turned down if they have low incomes or little education because they’d be deemed more likely to need government assistance — such as Medicaid or food stamps — in the future.

The proposal applies to those looking to come to the US and those already here looking to extend their stay. And even if immigrants decide not to use public benefits they may be eligible for, the government could, under the proposed rule, still decide they are likely to do so “at any time in the future” and thus reject them from the US.

The administration says the proposed revamp of the so-called public charge rule is designed to ensure immigrants can support themselves financially.

“This proposed rule will implement a law passed by Congress intended to promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Saturday.

But immigration advocates say it goes far beyond what Congress intended and will discriminate against those from poorer countries, keep families apart and prompt legal residents to forgo needed public aid, which could also impact their US citizen children.

They also say it will penalize even hard-working immigrants who only need a small bit of temporary assistance from the government.

“(The proposed rule) would radically reshape our legal immigration system, putting the wealthy at the front of the line, ahead of hardworking families who have waited years to reunite,” a coalition of more than 1,100 community advocacy groups wrote in a statement this week. “No longer would the US be a beacon for the world’s dreamers and strivers. Instead, America’s doors would be open only to the highest bidder.”

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/25/politics/immigration-public-benefits/index.html

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Meanwhile, editorials in the NY Times and the LA Times blasted the Administration’s latest anti-immigrant actions:

The NY Times says:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/opinion/editorials/immigrants-welfare-benefits-trump-administration.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20180925&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=2&nlid=79213886emc%3Dedit_ty_20180925&ref=headline&te=1

An Unhealthy Plan to Drive Out Immigrants

Denying green cards or visas to those on Medicaid or food stamps will only cost the United States more later.

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

The Department of Homeland Security, headed by Kirstjen Nielsen, has proposed a new rule that would deny green cards or visas to immigrants here legally who have used public assistance.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

The Trump administration has taken another step in its program to use fear and cruelty to drive out legal, as well as illegal, immigrants.

On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a rule that would enable it to deny green cards and visas to immigrants here legally who have used public health and nutrition assistance, including Medicaid and food stamps.

The United States already denies green cards and visas to applicants likely to become “public charges.” But that designation has generally referred only to a narrow set of people who need cash assistance or long-term institutionalization.

The new rules would also offer some exemptions — participation in the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program and the Children’s Health Insurance Program would be excluded, for example, as would refugees and asylum seekers and minors with Special Immigrant Juvenile status, meaning they had been abused or neglected.

But it’s not clear that those exemptions would provide sufficient protection. The Kaiser Family Foundation has indicated that fear of being denied residency would most likely cause immigrants to withdraw from both the targeted and the exempted programs. As Politico has reported, even when the current proposal was just a rumor, immigrants began withdrawing from these programs in droves. What’s more, not everyone who should be able to seek asylum or obtain special juvenile status is able to do so.

The Department of Human Services estimates that as many as 382,000 people would be affected by the new rule each year. There is no estimate yet on how many of them would be deemed to be public charges, but that number is likely to be far higher than under the current rules.

Which, of course, is the point. In an announcement on Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that she expected the rule to “promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers.”

That rationale is both callous and foolish: Scaring vulnerable populations off public assistance is likely to cost much more in the long run, in part because neglecting preventive health care and basic medical problems makes patients only more expensive to treat down the road. What’s more, Kaiser estimates that more than eight million children who are citizens but have at least one noncitizen parent will be caught in the cross hairs.

The Trump administration, however, is betting that a very public effort to crack down on immigrants, whether they’re here legally or not, will motivate its political base in time for the midterm elections. It’s just one more part of a package that has so far included an effort to detain indefinitely minors who have crossed the border and another to cap the number of refugees at its lowest level ever. It’s the border wall, without the wall.

There’s a real debate to be had over the criteria to decide who can stay in this country and who must go. What is the right way to manage family migration? Or evaluate asylum claims? Or weigh American labor needs against the skills of prospective visa holders? But cultivating xenophobia, as President Trump has done from the beginning of his campaign, and then trading on that fear to drum up votes, does not create much of a foundation for rational dialogue.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion).

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Here’s what the LA Times had to say:

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=b270b5ea-1b78-4f77-86a2-3aa238bcde0b

The ‘public charge’ pretext
In an effort to make it more difficult for legal immigrants to live and work in the United States, the Trump administration proposed new rules over the weekend giving officials the right to withhold green cards from applicants who take advantage of a wide range of government programs to which they are legally entitled, including food and housing aid.
And for prospective immigrants who apply for visas from overseas, government officials would have broad power to reject people whom they believe might someday in the future tap government programs for financial support. That change, experts say, will reduce the overall flow of immigration and skew it toward people seeking to emigrate from more advanced countries.
These are unnecessarily strict and hard-hearted rules aimed at solving a problem that social scientists say doesn’t exist.
The government has for decades rejected visa requests and green card applications from people who are likely to become “public charges,” defined since 1999 as “ primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.” That has usually been interpreted, reasonably, to mean people who rely on cash support or people who would require institutional care. Furthermore, the Clinton-era welfare reforms already put major aid programs out of reach for most legal immigrants until they’ve been here for five years; undocumented immigrants are barred from nearly all public support.
Now, however, the administration wants to consider a legal immigrant a “public charge” if he or she receives government benefits exceeding $1,821 (15% of the federal poverty guidelines) over 12 months. The net effect, advocates for immigrants argue, will be a self-purging of people living and working here legally from the rolls of Medicaid, food subsidies and housing support, among other programs.
The government estimates that the new regulations would negatively affect 382,000 people, but advocates say that is likely an undercount. And the rules would keep people from coming to the country who economists say are vital for the nation’s economic growth . President Trump’s xenophobic view of the world stands in sharp contradiction not only to American values, but to its history. We are a country of immigrants or their descendants, and as a maturing society we will rely more and more on immigration for growth. Research shows that even those who start out in low-wage jobs, and thus are likely to get some financial help from the government, often learn skills that move them into higher income brackets and help the overall economy .
These proposed regulations would force immigrants in low-paying jobs to reject help to which they are legally entitled — and which could speed them along the path to financial security — or to jeopardize their ability to remain here. That’s a cruel Solomon’s choice.

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The “Trump GOP” has clearly abandoned the pretense that they are only against illegal immigration. By attacking refugees and other legal immigrants they are making it clear that immigrants no longer are welcome in our “Nation of Immigrants.” Sounds pretty stupid, not to mention unrealistic. But, that’s the essence of “Trumpism.”

PWS

09-25-18

JULY 4, 2018 IN TRUMP’S UGLY AMERICA – FORMER CBP AGENT SAYS RACISM, BIAS, DISRESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE AND HUMAN DIGNITY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A PART OF THE “CBP CULTURE” – Disgracefully, Under Trump & Sessions, It’s Now A Key National Policy! — “In the aftermath of our nation’s outcry against family separation, it is vital that we direct our outrage toward the violent policies that enabled it.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/opinion/sunday/cages-are-cruel-the-desert-is-too.html

Francisco Cantu writes in the NY Times:

. . . .

After a month of outrage at the cruelty of President Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, last week we saw a stream of confounding and divergent statements on immigration: The president suggested depriving undocumented migrants of due process; Attorney General Jeff Sessions insisted that every adult who crossed illegally would be prosecuted; and the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection announced that families would once again be released together to await trial. Meanwhile, thousands of separated children and their parents remain trapped in a web of shelters and detention facilities run by nonprofit groups and private prison, security and defense companies.

It is important to understand that the crisis of separation manufactured by the Trump administration is only the most visibly abhorrent manifestation of a decades-long project to create a “state of exception” along our southern border.

This concept was used by the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to describe the states of emergency declared by governments to suspend or diminish rights and protections. In April, when the president deployed National Guard troops to the border (an action also taken by his two predecessors), he declared that “the situation at the border has now reached a point of crisis.” In fact, despite recent upticks, border crossings remained at historic lows and the border was more secure than ever — though we might ask, secure for whom?

For most Americans, what happens on the border remains out of sight and out of mind. But in the immigration enforcement community, the militarization of the border has given rise to a culture imbued with the language and tactics of war.

Border agents refer to migrants as “criminals,” “aliens,” “illegals,” “bodies” or “toncs” (possibly an acronym for “temporarily out of native country” or “territory of origin not known” — or a reference to the sound of a Maglite hitting a migrant’s skull). They are equipped with drones, helicopters, infrared cameras, radar, ground sensors and explosion-resistant vehicles. But their most deadly tool is geographic — the desert itself.

“Prevention Through Deterrence” came to define border enforcement in the 1990s, when the Border Patrol cracked down on migrant crossings in cities like El Paso. Walls were built, budgets ballooned and scores of new agents were hired to patrol border towns. Everywhere else, it was assumed, the hostile desert would do the dirty work of deterring crossers, away from the public eye.

. . . .

Such defenses also gloss over the patrol’s casual brutality: I have witnessed agents scattering migrant groups in remote areas and destroying their water supplies, acts that have also been extensively documented by humanitarian groups.

The principle of deterrence is behind the current administration’s zero-tolerance policy. In an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News, Mr. Sessions, pressed on whether children were being separated from parents to deter crossers, conceded, “Yes, hopefully people will get the message.”

Administration officials have claimed that even this policy is “humanitarian,” in part because it may dissuade future migrants from bringing their children on the dangerous journey.

This ignores decades of proof that no matter what version of hell migrants are made to pass through at the border, they will endure it to escape far more tangible threats of violence in their home countries, to reunite with family or to secure some semblance of economic stability.

Policymakers also ignore that new enforcement measures almost always strengthen cartel-aligned human trafficking networks, giving them cause to increase their smuggling fees and push vulnerable migrants to make riskier crossings to avoid detection.

Jason De León, the director of the Undocumented Migration Project, argues that the government sees undocumented migrants as people “whose lives have no political or social value” and “whose deaths are of little consequence.”

This devaluation of migrant life is not just rhetorical: CNN recently revealed that the Border Patrol has been undercounting migrant deaths, failing to include more than 500 in its official tally of more than 6,000 deaths over 16 years — a literal erasure of lives.

The logic of deterrence is not unlike that of war: It has transformed the border into a state of exception where some of the most vulnerable people on earth face death and disappearance and where children are torn from their parents to send the message You are not safe here. In this sense, the situation at the border has reached a point of crisis — not one of criminality but of disregard for human life.

We cannot return to indifference. In the aftermath of our nation’s outcry against family separation, it is vital that we direct our outrage toward the violent policies that enabled it.

Francisco Cantú, a former Border Patrol agent, is the author ofThe Line Becomes a River: Dispatches From the Border.”

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Read Cantu’s full article at the above link.

BTW, when I was at the “Legacy INS” I was told the “Maglite hitting the migrant’s skull” version of the Border Patrol’s definition of “toncs.”

Cantu confirms what I have said many times on this blog. Far from keeping us safer, the cruel, inhuman, dishonest, and racist policies of Trump & Sessions actually “strengthen cartel-aligned human trafficking networks,” thereby making us markedly less safe. They also degrade us as a nation and as human beings by essentially assisting in the deaths of desperate and vulnerable refugees who are only required to use the cartels in the first place because of the willful failures, incompetence, dishonesty, and immorality of our Government officials administering refugee and asylum programs!

Focus on this ugly truth: Under Trump, Sessions, Miller, and their White Nationalist buddies, our government sees undocumented migrants as people “’whose lives have no political or social value’ and ‘whose deaths are of little consequence.'”

Celebrate July 4 by “just saying no” to the Trump regime! Join the New Due Process Army, and stop the ugliness of Trump, Sessions, Miller, and their White Nationalist cabal! Channel your outrage into saving the lives of the most vulnerable among us and resisting the Trump kakistocracy! Restore the optimistic, progressive, inclusive, idealistic vision of America set forth by our Founding Fathers in their Declaration of Independence!

PWS

07-03-18

“LET THE HAITIANS STAY” — IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO!

The NY Times Editorial Board writes:

“The Temporary Protected Status program provides the sort of assistance the United States should be proud to extend to foreigners fleeing civil unrest, violence or natural disasters. Enacted by Congress in 1990, it currently offers safe and legal harbor to 437,000 people from 10 countries. Many stay for a long time, their status regularly extended because of continued turmoil in their homelands.

That, alas, is a far cry from the spirit of the Trump administration. But even President Trump’s bombastic pledges to throw up a Mexican border wall, expel illegal immigrants and bar entry to Muslims are different from expelling people who, though they may have entered the United States illegally, have been allowed to stay legally, often for many years, with solid jobs and large families, while their homelands remain unsettled or dangerous.

On Thanksgiving, of all days, the Department of Homeland Security is to announce whether it will extend the temporary protected status that was granted to about 50,000 Haitians when their country was devastated by an earthquake in 2010. Their stay has been regularly extended, but in May, John Kelly, then secretary of homeland security and now the White House chief of staff, gave them only six more months, explicitly to get ready to go home. Unless their status is extended this week, they must leave by Jan. 22.

By any reasonable measure, Haiti is not ready to take them back. The destitute country has never fully recovered from the 2010 earthquake or the cholera epidemic that followed. Last year, Hurricane Matthew added even more suffering. The country does not have the resources to absorb 50,000 people, and the money they have sent back is a critical source of income for their relatives and homeland.

Every member of Congress who represents South Florida, where most of these Haitians live, is in favor of extending their status. One of them, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Miami, is among the congressional members of both parties who have proposed legislation that would allow these immigrants to eventually apply for permanent residency, which is not possible under current rules.”

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Read the full editorial at the link.

Haitians seem to have gotten the “short end” of US immigration, refugee, and humanitarian policies over the years.

Let’s take a look at the latest Country Report on Human Rights issued by the US State Department:

“The most serious impediments to human rights involved weak democratic governance in the country worsened by the lack of an elected and functioning government; insufficient respect for the rule of law, exacerbated by a deficient judicial system; and chronic widespread corruption. Other human rights problems included significant but isolated allegations of arbitrary and unlawful killings by government officials; allegations of use of force against suspects and protesters; severe overcrowding and poor sanitation in prisons; chronic prolonged pretrial detention; an inefficient, unreliable, and inconsistent judiciary; governmental confiscation of private property without due process. There was also rape, violence, and societal discrimination against women; child abuse; allegations of social marginalization of vulnerable populations; and trafficking in persons. Violence, including gender-based violence, and crime within the remaining internally displaced persons (IDP) camps remained a problem. Although the government took steps to prosecute or punish government and law enforcement officials accused of committing abuses, credible reports persisted of officials engaging in corrupt practices, and civil society groups alleged there was widespread impunity.”

Sound like a place where 50,000 additional refugees can be safely returned and reintegrated? Preposterous!

No, the only thing that has changed here is the political motivation of the Administration; TPS — some of the most successful, efficient, and cost effective migration programs the US has ever run — has become a target of the xenophobic, White Nationalist, restrictionist wing of the GOP.

Allowing 50,000 Haitians already residing here to remain costs the US nothing — in fact their continued presence is good for the US economy and our international image. Not to mention that many of the Haitian TPS holders have relatives with legal status in the US.

On the other hand, pulling TPS and removing these individuals could have catastrophic consequences for the individuals involved, their families, and their US communities. And, it’s likely to overwhelm Haiti, a country that has already proved unable to take care of its existing population.

Anywhere but the Trump Administration, extending TPS for Haitians and others while looking for a long-term solution that would give them some type of permanent status in the US would be a “no brainer.” But, in the Trump Administration immigration and refugee policies appear to be driven largely by a policy of “no brains” — just unnecessary cruelty, wasting resources, diminishing our international humanitarian standing, and playing to the xenophobia, racism, and hate of the White Nationalists.

PWS

11-20-17

MIMI SWARTZ IN THE NY TIMES: Anti-Latino Racism Drives Texas To Pull Up The Welcome Mat For Some Of Its Most Productive Residents!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/texas-immigration-policy.html

Swartz writes:

“A decline in emergency room visits and calls to the police isn’t good news; people are just afraid to ask for help. A domestic abuser will threaten to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement if his spouse threatens to call the cops. A social worker at Las Americas, a public high school for immigrants in Houston, told me despair has set in. Instead of helping families cope with living in the nation’s fourth-largest city, she helps them plan for “when you are deported how can you stay alive the longest.” The students tell her: “Nobody wants me. I have no home.”

They are not wrong; the point of the federal and state legislation is to make Texas so uncomfortable for the undocumented that they move on. I suppose this makes sense if, say, you are constantly faced with competition from the far right, which every Republican, including Gov. Greg Abbott, is. Or if you have seen the growing Latino majority in Texas and know that it isn’t securely nestled in the Republican fold.

But it doesn’t make sense if you are looking at a state whose work force was shrinking even before the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. The people who came to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina aren’t feeling the love here. Why should they?

“There are 47 other states that would love to see Texans fall on their butts,” Stan Marek, who has been in construction for years here, told me. Unless we have fair and sane immigration reform, like the “ID and Tax” plan many business leaders here support because it offers fair wages and work-visa status, our immigrants will vote with their feet, and businesses will follow.

That’s the price for trading a welcome mat for an ankle bracelet.

Mimi Swartz, an executive editor at Texas Monthly, is a contributing opinion writer.”

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Get the full story at the link.

A microcosm of the bias-driven stupidity of the whole Trump-GOP Restrictionist “gonzo” immigration enforcement program. What would really be fitting is if the loss of immigrant population and the businesses that depend on them eventually cost Texas some of those extra Congressional seats that they swiped from the Northeast as a result of undocumented residents and then proceeded to gerrymander to “lock out” Latinos from getting their “fair share of the pie.” Not to mention that the anti-Latino bias in the Texas GOP is in derogation of Supreme Court precedent, which holds that even those state residents without legal status or otherwise ineligible to vote, are entitled to have their interests represented by their legislators (hence the rationale for allowing extra representatives for undocumented population). “Fat chance” in Texas!  The Texas GOP routinely ignores the interests its Latino U.S. citizens as well as its Latino non-citizen residents.

PWS

10-22-17

US Immigration Judge Samuel Cole (CHI) Grants Asylum To Singapore Dissident

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/03/25/us/ap-us-singapore-us-teen-asylum-seeker-.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

The AP reports in the NY Times:

“A blogger from Singapore who was jailed for his online posts blasting his government was granted asylum to remain in the United States, an immigration judge ruled.

Amos Yee, 18, has been detained by federal immigration authorities since December when he was taken into custody at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Attorneys said he could be released from a Wisconsin detention center as early as Monday.

Judge Samuel Cole issued a 13-page decision Friday, more than two weeks after Yee’s closed-door hearing on the asylum application.

“Yee has met his burden of showing that he suffered past persecution on account of his political opinion and has a well-founded fear of future persecution in Singapore,” Cole wrote.

Yee left Singapore with the intention of seeking asylum in the U.S. after being jailed for several weeks in 2015 and 2016. He was accused of hurting the religious feelings of Muslims and Christians in the multiethnic city-state. Yee is an atheist.

Many of his blog and social media posts criticized Singapore’s leaders. He created controversy in 2015 as the city-state was mourning the death of its first prime minister and he posted an expletive-laden video about Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew just after his death.

Such open criticism of political leaders is discouraged in Singapore. The case raised questions about free speech and censorship and has been closely watched abroad.

Cole said testimony during Yee’s hearing showed that while the Singapore government’s stated reason for punishing him involved religion, “its real purpose was to stifle Yee’s political speech.” He said Yee’s prison sentence was “unusually long and harsh” especially for his age.

Singapore’s government criticized the decision.”

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Mr. Yee was successfully represented by Maryland immigration attorney Sandra Grossman of Grossman Law LLC.

As I have mentioned before in this blog, most fully litigated U.S. Immigration Court cases today, particularly those involving asylum or criminal law, involve exceptionally complex, and often sensitive, issues of law and fact which can’t be fairly resolved in a one to two hour time block. Yet, most of the Administration’s recent enforcement initiatives seem to assume that Immigration Court is an “assembly line” and that U.S. Immigration Judges are more or less “assembly line workers” who can be detailed to obscure locations on demand and perhaps required to work “night shifts” to keep the “deportation railroad running at full throttle.”

But, due process is not an assembly line operation. It usually takes time, expertise, careful scholarship, and detailed fact-finding for U.S. Immigration Judges to produce fair decisions that will pass muster upon judicial review in the Circuit Courts of Appeals. (I note that the Administration’s first, high-profile attempt to “ram” an immigration case — “Travel Ban 1.0” — through a Court of Appeals was spectacularly unsuccessful.)

These days, most individuals who are represented by competent counsel and reach the “Individual (Merits) Hearing” stage have at least some plausible defenses to removal. Indeed, a 2016 study by TRAC Immigration showed that more than half (57%)  of the total dispositions in U.S. Immigration Court favored the individual.  http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/435/

And, this was during the Obama Administration which already was prioritizing so-called “serious criminals.”  By expanding the “criminal alien” definition to include minor criminals and non-criminals, the Trump Administration will probably be taking on even more cases where it ultimately will fail to get a “final order of removal” unless concerted attempts are made to “game the system” to insure that individuals lose (for example, by denying individuals fair access to counsel or using prolonged detention in poor conditions as a device to persuade individuals to abandon their claims to remain in the US).

PWS

03/26/17