President Trump – Page 59 – immigrationcourtside.com

POLITICS: Dems Should Not Go “Trump Lite” — Trump’s Highly Unsuccessful White Nationalist Restrictionist Approach Is Unpopular Outside His Base — There’s “no strong argument for Democrats to abandon their moral principles and practical stances to try to win more votes.”

https://apple.news/AAOOjWWx8TW-dG6_ahR4T6Q

Zack Beauchamp writes in Vox:

Democrats don’t need to tack right on immigration to win

Pundits like David Frum and Andrew Sullivan want Democrats to move right on immigration. They’re wrong.

In the years since Donald Trump’s victory, a cottage intellectual industry has sprung up arguing that Democrats and European center-left parties need to move right on immigration if they want to win.

Its proponents include anti-Trump conservative writers like David Frum and Andrew Sullivan (themselves both immigrants to the United States), center-right academics like Oxford’s Paul Collier and University of London’s Eric Kaufmann, and even a few leftists like essayist Angela Nagle. The basic argument is pretty consistent: There’s a rising populist revolt against mass immigration in the West, and liberals need to adjust to this reality rather than try to fight it.

This industry has gone into overdrive in recent weeks, driven largely by the results of Denmark’s early June election. Denmark’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SDP), which had tacked hard right on immigration in recent years, defeated the conservative incumbent and won the most seats in parliament, while the far-right populist Danish People’s Party (DPP) lost more than half of its support. This, the immigration skeptics argue, is proof that they are right: Democrats and other center-left parties can co-opt Trump and the European far right simply by leaning into their anti-migrant bona fides.

“Imagine if [Elizabeth] Warren were to model her campaign on the newly elected social democrats in Denmark,” Sullivan writes. “A Democratic adoption of tighter immigration policies and less stridently leftist cultural stances could dominate” among many voters.

The reality of Denmark’s election is much more complicated than Sullivan’s morality play. The Danish campaign debate focused heavily on climate change and welfare state issues, with immigration playing less of a role than some external observers believe. Only a small percentage of DPP voters seemed to switch to the SDP. Perhaps most importantly, the SDP won only one more seat than it had in the 2015 election — an election it lost. Instead, the SDP benefited from a surge in support for smaller, relatively pro-immigration left-wing parties that could support it in a coalition.

The problems with the anti-immigration analysts’ view of Denmark mirror problems with their broader thesis. Political scientists have studied whether center-left parties benefit from tacking right on immigration, and the best evidence strongly suggests that they don’t.

What’s happening is an example of what my colleague Matt Yglesias calls “the pundit’s fallacy”: a writer’s conviction that their preferred policy ideas must be popular, and that a party who adopts their views will win because of it. But there’s substantial reason to think moving further right on immigration would hurt the center left, and no strong argument for Democrats to abandon their moral principles and practical stances to try to win more votes.

What do we know about the center left and immigration?

After the Danish election, Harvard PhD student Sophie Hill put together a Twitter thread summarizing the leading research on European social democratic parties and immigration. Her read of the literature is clear: “Should centre left parties ‘get tough’ on immigration? No!”

Hill, following an influential 2010 paper, argues that there’s a trade-off inherent to center-left parties’ positioning on the issue. If they maintain their traditional liberal positions, they lose ground with culturally conservative and less educated voters in the working class. If they move right, they risk alienating their cosmopolitan base on the left. (A third option is ignoring and downplaying immigration, but that can be tricky given how important the issue is in public debate.)

Two major questions follow: Does moving to the right on immigration win over a significant number of working-class voters? And, if so, is it enough to offset the losses among the left-wing base?

Research by German scholar Kai Arzheimer, whose work I’ve looked at before, suggests the answer to the first question is no. Arzheimer studied 16 European center-left parties with varying approaches to immigration, developing a model that attempts to estimates the effect of immigration positions on working-class vote share. He found that parties that tacked to the right on immigration did no better with the working class than those that maintained their traditional pro-migrant stances.

When it comes to the working class, he concludes, “it does not make a difference whether the Social Democrats stick to their traditional positions on immigration or whether they try to toughen up their policies.”

This makes intuitive sense. If you’re someone who really cares about immigration restrictionism, and you have a choice of a far-right party that’s long been obsessed with that issue or a liberal Johnny-come-lately, why would you vote for the latter?

Center-left parties “shouldn’t be purely focused on winning back the voters who went to the radical right, because when push comes to shove, a significant part of that electorate is deeply nativist,” Cas Mudde, a scholar of the European far right at the University of Georgia, told me in a 2017 interview. “They want a party that is nativist; the only way to win them back is pretty much by becoming radical right or radical right-light.”

If that’s true, then it should follow that tacking right hurts these parties overall: With no gains in the working class, it’s likely that the losses in support from culturally liberal voters wouldn’t be offset. That’s exactly what research by Tarik Abou-Chadi, a political scientist at the University of Zurich, suggests.

The following chart from Abou-Chadi’s work maps European social democratic parties’ immigration positions on a scale of 3 to 7; the higher the number, the more anti-immigrant they are. The trend lines at the top clearly suggest that the more anti-immigrant a party is, the less likely people in their country are to vote for them.

Another study from two scholars at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg took a look at how this played out on a granular level.

Using data from a survey sent out to roughly 13,000 local Swedish politicians, they tried to identify what happened when social democratic parties moved to the right on immigration. It turns out that in regions where that happened, support for far-right parties actually went up. Rather than stealing votes from the far right, they argue, the center left was legitimizing their positions, making it morally acceptable for voters to act on their anti-immigrant sentiments.

All this data points to a clear conclusion: Even if the 2019 Danish elections do turn out to be a story of the left winning based on a rightward shift on immigration, which doesn’t seem likely, there’s little reason to believe that this strategy would work elsewhere — and good reason to think it might backfire.

Europe’s lessons for the Democrats

Obviously, you can’t draw one-to-one lessons from European social democratic parties to the American Democratic Party. But much of the same logic applies: Democrats depend on high turnout from their educated, culturally liberal white voters, and likely won’t benefit by being seen as “Republican-lite” on a key cultural issue.

What’s more, Democrats get backing from several voting constituencies composed of both naturalized and native-born citizens who have a real stake in the issue. Latinx people are the obvious example, but so are Asian Americans and Jewish voters: people who identify with immigrants due to their own family stories of coming to the United States, and would see a move toward restrictionism as a threat and a betrayal.

And, once again, there’s statistical support for this line of thinking.

One paper compared data on Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008, which had a comparatively generic outreach program to Latinos, to its 2012 campaign, which focused heavily on turning out Latino voters by emphasizing pro-immigration positions like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The data concluded that “Obama’s Latino targeted outreach was (1) remarkably effective at winning over Latino voters; and (2) it had coattail effects for Democratic Senate candidates.”

There’s reason to believe this could be even more true in the Trump era. While Trump has mobilized a vocal minority of anti-immigrant voters in the Republican Party, survey after survey has shown that this has led to a backlash among the rest of the population, with numbers of Americans expressing support for immigration reaching historic highs in tracking polls.

There’s another reason to believe moving toward immigration restrictionism would be counterproductive for Democrats: New citizens themselves are an important Democratic constituency.

A study by three economists tried to study how the changes in America’s population wrought by mass immigration — more Latino voters, for example — were changing American politics. They found that “immigration to the U.S. has a significant and negative impact on the Republican vote share,” largely because “naturalized migrants [are] less likely to vote for the Republican party than native voters.” Why spit in this group’s face by adopting restrictionist positions, which seem to be unpopular with the majority of Americans, on the off chance that they might win over some Trump voters?

Look, it’s possible that all of this data is incorrect. Social science is tricky, and it’s possible the experts are measuring things wrong (or measuring the wrong things). Maybe the US is nothing like Europe, and Latinos will turn out for Democrats regardless of what they say about immigration. Maybe being Trump-lite on immigration really would help Democrats.

But there’s no reason to take that gamble given that the best evidence goes the other way — unless you already believe that mass immigration is bad for the United States.

If you’re a Democratic politician who believes believe that immigrants depress native-born wages, or undermine the social cohesion necessary to maintain liberal democracy, then you’re probably willing to gamble that all the research is wrong. But that’s not what most Democrats believe, for very good substantive reasons. There’s no real political case for them go back on those convictions now.

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Due process, a functional independent U.S. Immigration Court, expanded legal immigration and refugee programs that put many more would-be migrants through pre-screening and into legal channels while addressing American’s need for economic growth, international cooperation, smart development, and reprogramming money misallocated to ultimately futile and inhumane “civil enforcement” to real law enforcement activities is a winning program.

By contrast, Trump’s program of hate, fear, and oppression divides America, wastes money right and left, and is ineffective. Dems should not be afraid to take on Trump’s irrational xenophobia to appeal to the “better angels” of American voters with smarter, better, practical, and humane ideas.

PWS

06-18-19

READ ERIC POSNER: The Right’s “New Human Rights” Incorporates Hate, Intolerance, Fear Of Others!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-administrations-plan-to-redefine-human-rights-along-conservative-lines/2019/06/14/5e456caa-8def-11e9-b162-8f6f41ec3c04_story.html

Posner writes in the WashPost:

The State Department recently published a brief, enigmatic notice announcing the formation of a new Commission on Unalienable Rights. With a modest budget of $385,074 and merely advisory powers, the commission received little attention beyond head-scratching over its strange name. Yet the significance of the endeavor should not be overlooked. It puts the government’s imprimatur on an assault upon one of the cornerstones of modern liberalism: international human rights.

According to the commission’s draft charter, its job will be to explore “reforms of human rights discourse where it has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights” — rights of the sort that Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. upheld as ideals, the charter says.

This language may sound unusual to a modern ear, but it is easily translated. Start with that ungainly name of the commission. If “unalienable” sounds anachronistic, that’s because it is. Today, we normally use the word “inalienable.” But in the 18th century, the more common term was “unalienable.” The Declaration of Independence refers to “unalienable rights,” and there is little doubt the commission’s name is meant to recall that, in the words of the Declaration, the people are endowed with those rights “by their Creator.”

The State Department recently published a brief, enigmatic notice announcing the formation of a new Commission on Unalienable Rights. With a modest budget of $385,074 and merely advisory powers, the commission received little attention beyond head-scratching over its strange name. Yet the significance of the endeavor should not be overlooked. It puts the government’s imprimatur on an assault upon one of the cornerstones of modern liberalism: international human rights.

According to the commission’s draft charter, its job will be to explore “reforms of human rights discourse where it has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights” — rights of the sort that Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. upheld as ideals, the charter says.

This language may sound unusual to a modern ear, but it is easily translated. Start with that ungainly name of the commission. If “unalienable” sounds anachronistic, that’s because it is. Today, we normally use the word “inalienable.” But in the 18th century, the more common term was “unalienable.” The Declaration of Independence refers to “unalienable rights,” and there is little doubt the commission’s name is meant to recall that, in the words of the Declaration, the people are endowed with those rights “by their Creator.”

This supposition is reinforced by the references to “natural law” and “natural rights,” terms that have also fallen out of fashion. In the 18th century, educated people used the phrases to refer to universal moral laws that transcended national boundaries and that generally (though not always) were thought to reflect God’s will. With the rise of nationalism in the 19th century, these abstractions lost much of their grip on people’s loyalties.

Finally, there is “human rights discourse.” Normally, we refer to “human rights law,” embodied in numerous treaties that were negotiated and (mostly) ratified after World War II. With names like the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, these treaties purport to bar governments from mistreating their citizens. Yet “discourse” means “talk.” The implication here is that the human rights that people talk about are not, despite the treaties, actually law. They’re something else — advocacy. And this advocacy is wrong: It has “departed from . . . natural law and natural rights.”

The protections offered by modern “human rights law” differ from those of the “natural rights” regime of the 18th century. Those were (more or less) embodied in the British constitutional tradition, the common law, and the U.S. Bill of Rights: rights to political participation — freedom of speech, for example — and protection of person and property. Modern human rights are both broader and narrower, encompassing “economic rights” (for example, rights to work, to health care and to education), rights to not be discriminated against on the basis of race or ethnicity, and, according to some interpreters, expansive rights to reproductive freedom. Modern human rights law de-emphasizes property rights and, to some extent, speech rights. In a word, it’s lefty.

Modern human rights have also morphed into something like a system of universal moral values that transcends specific treaties. The United States, virtually alone among nations, has refused to ratify most of these treaties and accordingly is technically not bound by them. But much “human rights discourse” rejects the notion that countries can opt out of the rights system. Quite a few scholars and an occasional U.S. Supreme Court justice believe, to the intense irritation of conservatives, that left-leaning human rights treaties that the United States has never ratified nonetheless override American law. The influence of “foreign law” — including “human rights discourse” — has been apparent in Supreme Court opinions limiting the death penalty and striking down the criminalization of same-sex “sodomy.” Most of the offending decisions were written by the court’s most enthusiastic proponent of foreign law, then-Justice Anthony Kennedy. As the late justice Antonin Scalia put it : “The Framers would, I am confident, be appalled by the proposition that, for example, the American peoples’ democratic adoption of the death penalty . . . could be judicially nullified because of the disapproving views of foreigners.”

But today, other conservatives see an opportunity, and the Commission on Unalienable Rights is their declaration of intent. Its plainly stated goal is not just to wipe away the baleful foreign influence of human rights “discourse” but to revive (conservative) 18th-century natural law.

What does natural law require? Liberals, already dimly perceiving that they are about to be hoisted with their own petard, worry that natural law, in the hands of conservatives — specifically, Catholic conservative intellectuals, who kept alive the academic tradition of natural law long after mainstream secular intellectuals forgot what it was — means goodbye to reproductive rights and protections for sexual minorities. (ABC News reported that the Princeton professor Robert George, a prominent Catholic intellectual, natural-law theorist, and opponent of abortion rights and same-sex marriage, played a role in the creation of the commission; George did not respond to requests for comment from ABC or from The Washington Post.) The Commission on Unalienable Rights will, in other words, provide the ideological justification for the antiabortion foreign policy that the Trump administration has undertaken.

Natural law can also be used by conservatives to argue for expanded religious freedoms that override statutes with secular goals, and to push back against progressive government programs like universal health care. The “right to health,” a centerpiece of “human rights law,” is firmly rejected by natural-law theorists like George.

But the mission of the commission may be even bolder. If we take the idea of natural law seriously, it not only overrides statutes in foreign countries that protect abortion rights and respect same-sex marriage. It also overrides American laws that protect abortion rights and respect same-sex marriage. One can imagine a day when a Supreme Court justice, taking a page from Kennedy, invokes natural law — supposedly endorsed by the founders, after all, and embodied in the sacred Declaration — to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and to prepare the path for an even holier grail, the abolition of state laws that grant abortion rights.

Liberals hoped that human rights, sanctified by the sacrifices of the victims of totalitarianism, would provide common ground in a world of competing ideologies. But what human rights actually helped produce was a liberal international order that has offended a great many people who do not share liberal values. The backlash began years ago in authoritarian countries, in developing countries that saw human rights as an affront to their traditions and as a mask for imperialist goals, and in highly religious countries. These countries advanced interpretations of human rights law that conform with their values or interests but made little headway against dominant elite opinion. What is new is that the government of the world’s most powerful nation, long acknowledged (if grudgingly) as the leader of the international human rights regime, has officially signed on to that backlash. Most of the offending decisions were written by the court’s most enthusiastic proponent of foreign law, then-Justice Anthony Kennedy. As the late justice Antonin Scalia put it : “The Framers would, I am confident, be appalled by the proposition that, for example, the American peoples’ democratic adoption of the death penalty . . . could be judicially nullified because of the disapproving views of foreigners.”

But today, other conservatives see an opportunity, and the Commission on Unalienable Rights is their declaration of intent. Its plainly stated goal is not just to wipe away the baleful foreign influence of human rights “discourse” but to revive (conservative) 18th-century natural law.

But the mission of the commission may be even bolder. If we take the idea of natural law seriously, it not only overrides statutes in foreign countries that protect abortion rights and respect same-sex marriage. It also overrides American laws that protect abortion rights and respect same-sex marriage. One can imagine a day when a Supreme Court justice, taking a page from Kennedy, invokes natural law — supposedly endorsed by the founders, after all, and embodied in the sacred Declaration — to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and to prepare the path for an even holier grail, the abolition of state laws that grant abortion rights.

Liberals hoped that human rights, sanctified by the sacrifices of the victims of totalitarianism, would provide common ground in a world of competing ideologies. But what human rights actually helped produce was a liberal international order that has offended a great many people who do not share liberal values. The backlash began years ago in authoritarian countries, in developing countries that saw human rights as an affront to their traditions and as a mask for imperialist goals, and in highly religious countries. These countries advanced interpretations of human rights law that conform with their values or interests but made little headway against dominant elite opinion. What is new is that the government of the world’s most powerful nation, long acknowledged (if grudgingly) as the leader of the international human rights regime, has officially signed on to that backlash.

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Professor Posner confirms what folks like me have been saying for some time now: under Trump and his version of the GOP, America aspires to go from being a defender of human rights to being a leading abuser of those rights.

Forget the attempted “slight of hand” redefinition of human rights by a White Nationalist minority who has seized control of our Government. Kids in cages, abusing women, enabling gangs and cartels, suspending due process, blocking access to voting, dehumanizing the Hispanic and LGBTQ communities, greed, selfishness, grift, undermining the hard earned rights of African Americans, and promoting and protecting religious bigotry, among other disreputable developments, neither conforms to any version of human rights nor represents the views of the majority of Americans.

Make no mistake about it. No matter how flawed , the human rights instruments crafted as a result of “liberal Western democracy” in the post-World War II era have saved millions of human lives and prevented unfathomable additional human carnage. Undoubtedly, that makes Trump and some of his supporters supremely unhappy.

Those of us who continue to maintain the “quaint” view that all persons are entitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (no matter how imperfectly conceived and disingenuously implemented by our Founding Fathers) had better wake up and join the battle! For, Trump and his far right minority zealots have every intention of reversing the results of World War II and making the hate, bias, disregard for truth, toxic nationalism, and contempt for the majority of the world’s humans exhibited by the “the then losers” the new international norm.

Don’t let them turn back the clock to 1939 in 2019!

PWS

06-18-19

HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST: Trump/Pence Scheme To Declare Guatemala A “Safe Third Country” Is “Ludicrous” – An Affront To Human Rights & Honest Government!

https://reut.rs/2Kk259M

Eleanor Acer
Senior Director for Refugee Protection, Human Rights First

Sophia Menchu reports for Reuters:

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – A U.S. plan to make asylum seekers from Honduras and El Salvador seek refuge in Guatemala instead of the United States would endanger, not protect, refugees, a prominent rights group said on Friday as U.S. negotiators met Guatemalan officials.

U.S. rights group Human Rights First said it was “simply ludicrous” for the United States to assert that Guatemala was capable of protecting refugees, when its own citizens are fleeing violence.

“The Trump administration is doubling down on its efforts to block, bar and punish refugees for attempting to seek asylum in the United States,” said Eleanor Acer, senior director for refugee protection at Human Rights First.

“These policies put the lives of refugees in great danger.”

Guatemala, like its neighbors Honduras and El Salvador, suffers high levels of violence, driven largely by transnational street gangs including MS-13, which operate across borders in all three countries. Many asylum seekers cite gang threats as the reason they come to the United States for refuge.

Tens of thousands of people have left Guatemala to seek U.S. asylum this year. Nearly 150,000 undocumented Guatemalan families have reached the U.S. border since October, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, many of them citing fear of violence in their home country for seeking asylum.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said this week the two nations had a deal under which Guatemala would take asylum seekers from neighbors. “They ought to be willing to apply for asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive,” he said.

Details of the plan have not been made public, and Guatemala has not publicly confirmed talks that the U.S. State Department said were taking place in Guatemala on Friday.

The talks were about a range of initiatives aimed at reducing illegal immigration, including “improved asylum processing,” a State Department spokeswoman said on Friday in response to a Reuters question about the Guatemala asylum plan.

The emerging plans flow from a U.S.-Mexican deal struck to avert tariffs threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump to push Mexico to do more to stem immigration through its territory.

That deal included sending 6,000 members of Mexico’s National Guard to the border and expanding a separate asylum program under which U.S. asylum seekers are sent back to Mexico to await U.S. court hearings.

If those measures fail, Mexico has agreed to consider becoming a “safe third country” where all asylum seekers passing through the country would have to apply for refuge, instead of the United States

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said other countries should share the load, including Guatemala.

Guatemala, one of the poorest countries in the Americas, has little experience receiving large numbers of asylum seekers and a large wave of refugees would strain limited resources. Just 262 people applied for refugee status in Guatemala between January and November 2018, according to data from the U.N. rights agency UNHCR.

By comparison, nearly 155,000 families from El Salvador and Honduras have been apprehended at the U.S. border since October, with many of them requesting asylum.

Guatemala holds presidential elections on Sunday, after a campaign that has highlighted the lack of rule of law in the country, including the influence of drug traffickers on politics in the country.

Trade and immigration between Mexico and the United States – tmsnrt.rs/2Khd82D

Editing by Bill Berkrot

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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As pointed out in the article, Guatemala is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for its own citizens. It doesn’t even have a functioning asylum system. So, how could it provide access to a “full and fair” asylum adjudications to non-citizens as required by our law. The answer is simple – it can’t, by any stretch of the imagination. After all, living long enough to apply, even if there were a functional asylum adjudication system, would be a prerequisite to a legitimate “Safe Third Country” process.

Seems like clear abuses of authority like this by Trump and Pence that should be enough to remove both of them from office forthwith in a functioning democracy. But, that’s not going to happen before 2021, if then.

In the meantime, Dems should make a note that when responsible Government returns at some point in the future, the law should be amended to require at least Senate ratification of any future “Safe Third Country Agreement” to prevent future Executive abuses like this. Indeed, the failure of this Congress to revoke Trump’s authority to enter into these clearly bogus and ill-intended “Safe Third Country” agreements is an indelible stain upon its reputation.

“Safe Third Country” was intended to be about refugee burden sharing among countries with substantially comparable due process systems for adjudicating claims under the Refugee Convention. It was never intended to allow the U.S. to “outsource” asylum adjudication to dangerous, major human rights violators with dysfunctional asylum adjudication systems. What Trump and Pence are proposing is little more than outright murder and human rights abuses inflicted on asylum seekers in violation of both international and U.S. laws.

PWS

06-17-19

DUE PROCESS: 9th Cir. Might Be Afraid Of Trump, But U.S. Immigration Judge Scott Simpson Isn’t!

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/story/2019-06-14/judge-orders-dhs-to-keep-man-in-u-s-for-immigration-hearings-instead-of-returning-to-mexico

Kate Morrissey reports for the San Diego Union-Tribune and LA Times:

Judge orders U.S. to hold asylum seeker

Doubtful about his mental state, jurist prevents migrant from being sent to Mexico.

By Kate Morrissey

SAN DIEGO — An immigration judge has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to keep a Honduran asylum seeker in the United States while he waits for his court proceedings, instead of returning him to Mexico again under a Trump administration program.

Judge Scott Simpson said that after evaluating the man’s mental competence in a special hearing on Friday, he found that the man would need safeguards in his case to ensure due process. He ordered one put in place immediately: to remove the man from a program known officially as Migrant Protection Protocols and more widely as “Remain in Mexico.”

“I find that he lacks a rational and factual understanding of the nature of the proceedings,” Simpson said in issuing his order.

This is the first time that a judge has made such a ruling since the program was implemented in January, according to advocates who have been monitoring immigration court proceedings.

The program requires certain asylum seekers from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to wait in Mexico while their cases progress in immigration court. The man has been waiting in Tijuana as part of the program for several months.

A Customs and Border Protection guide for officials implementing the program says that migrants with known physical or mental health issues should not be included.

“It’s a big deal that a judge recognized that there was a predatory nature to having put this person in the ‘Migrant Persecution Protocols,’ ” said Ian Philabaum of Innovation Law Lab, calling the program a name used by some immigrant rights advocates. “He wasn’t going to have a chance, and now he gets a chance.”

At the man’s first hearing in March, Simpson quickly became concerned that the man might have a mental competency issue that would make him ineligible for the program or require other protections. He ordered DHS to evaluate the man’s mental state.

Simpson asked government attorneys at each hearing after that whether the man’s mental state had been evaluated and whether the government believed he should continue to be included in the program.

Each time, the government attorney responded that the man should continue in MPP.

Still skeptical, Simpson told Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney Dan Hua to be prepared to give details Friday about DHS’s evaluation of the man before he was returned to Mexico. When the judge came into court Friday morning, Hua was not able to answer that question.

“The government’s inability to provide that information is simply not excusable,” Simpson said. He gave Hua 30 minutes to find out answers.

Hua said immigration officials at the port of entry had evaluated the man each time he’d come to court, meaning that as of Friday, he’d been evaluated four times.

The attorney could not produce evidence showing what the evaluation observed or what standard it used when the judge pressed for more details.

Philabaum said that fact was significant.

“That assessment of the mental competency was performed on four different occasions, and on four different occasions, according to the U.S. government attorney, their assessment was he was perfectly competent to proceed with his immigration case representing himself,” Philabaum said. But in the man’s “first hearing, it took the immigration judge approximately two minutes to realize there was an issue of competency here.

“Whatever type of standard that CBP has instituted to assess the competency of an individual to be eligible, according to the immigration judge today, it has failed.”

DHS officials, CBP officials and Department of Justice officials did respond to a request for comment.

Simpson decided to do his own evaluation of the man’s mental state under an immigration court precedent known as the Matter of MAM.

He listed the rights that the man has, such as the right to present evidence and the right to question witnesses. He asked if the man understood his rights.

“Um, yes. I need more,” said the man through a Spanish interpreter. “I need more because here I only have some letters, some birth certificates. They’re not translated into English yet.”

“Sir, I’m the immigration judge in your case. It’s my job to decide whether you can stay in the United States,” Simpson said. “In your own words, tell me who am I and what’s my job.”

“I cannot understand you,” the man responded.

In the end, the man was only able to appropriately respond to simple questions such as the date and what city he was in. He told the judge he had not had much schooling and couldn’t read or write.

ICE later confirmed the man is pending transfer to the agency’s custody. He could be taken to an immigration detention facility or released “on parole” into the U.S. to a sponsor while he waits for his next hearing.

Simpson said that depending which option the government chooses, other safeguards may be necessary, including providing an attorney for him if he’s detained.

Morrissey writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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Every day the human carnage mounts as the 9th Circuit continues to “sponsor” Trump’s illegal, deadly, and unconstitutional “Remain in Mexico Program.” Interesting how a few non-life-tenured Immigration Judges in San Diego and one courageous U.S. District Judge in the Southern District of California seem to be the only Federal officials interested in either the rule of law or the Due Process Clause of our Constitution. Go figure!

Congrats to Judge Scott Simpson for standing up for the rule of law and the rights of the most vulnerable in the face of massive dereliction of duty by those higher up the line.

Sadly, unlike the 9th Circuit, Judge Simpson lacks authority to enjoin further violations of the law and human rights by the Trump Administration. How many more human beings will suffer, be wronged, and perhaps die as a result of the 9th Circuit’s complicity in scofflaw behavior having little or nothing to do with protecting our borders or any other legitimate policy end and everything to do with punishing and dehumanizing those who seek justice under our laws.?

PWS

06-17-19

CONTINUING JUDICIAL EDUCATION FOR ARTICLE III JUDGES: “Kids In Cages” Ought To Be Displayed Outside Every Federal Courthouse & The Supremes So That “Robed Enablers” Can See The Results Of Their Abdication Of Constitutional Duties!

https://apple.news/Au_bQMKN3QxmsBKokkqyP3w

Sarah Ruiz’s-Grossman reports for HuffPost:

U.S. NEWS

06/12/2019 05:25 PM EDT

Cages With ‘Kids’ Pop Up Around NYC To Protest Immigrant Detention

The art installations were meant to bring awareness to the horrific conditions children and other migrants face at the southern U.S. border.

Some people in New York City were confronted with an alarming image as they walked down the street on Wednesday morning: a chain-link cage on the sidewalk containing a child-size mannequin wrapped in a foil blanket, with audio playing of migrant children crying.

More than 20 cages were placed around Manhattan and Brooklyn ― from Union Square to the Barclays Center sports arena ― as part of a campaign called #NoKidsInCages by immigration nonprofit RAICES and ad agency Badger & Winters.

It was meant to draw Americans’ attention to the children and other migrants being held in alarming conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Speakers in the cages played the viral recording released by ProPublica last summer of kids wailing for their “mamá” and “papá” after having been separated from them at the border as a result of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy.

“We want to bring this back to the consciousness of the American people,” RAICES CEO Jonathan Ryan told HuffPost. “One of the many unfortunate consequences of the repeated traumatic stories coming from the border is that, as horrified and angry as people have been, we also become desensitized. It’s important for people … to be confronted with the reality that this is about children, human beings, whose lives are forever affected.”

“This is being done in our name by people who we elected,” he added. “And if we don’t do something to stop this, this will become who we are.”

About two dozen cages were dropped around the city from about 4 a.m. to 5 a.m., Ryan said. By midafternoon most of them had been taken down by police or city employees, with three remaining around 2 p.m., per Ryan. The New York Police Department confirmed to HuffPost that more than half a dozen cages had been removed around Manhattan, but did not respond to questions as to why.

The online campaign associated with the installations recalls the family separations under President Donald Trump’s hard-line zero-tolerance policy, which led to the separation of thousands of children from their parents last year. The policy sparked protests nationwide and was reversed by executive order in late June. But a January report from the Department of Health and Human Services found the administration may have separated thousands more kids from their families than was previously known, and it did not know how many or whether they were reunited.

RAICES also wants people to become aware of other issues migrants face, Ryan said.

He noted undocumented immigrant families are still separated “routinely” at the border, including when migrant kids are split from other guardians like uncles and aunts or older siblings. Separations occur inside the country too, he said, when a child’s undocumented mom or dad is arrested by immigration agents, for instance in a workplace raid.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended over 109,000 people at the border in April ― more than double the number of migrants detained during that month last year. A majority of the migrants apprehended were either families traveling together or unaccompanied kids.

A Department of Homeland Security watchdog, reporting on Border Patrol facilities in El Paso, Texas, found last month that detained migrants were kept in dirty and extremely crowded conditions, forcing some people to stand on toilets to get some breathing room.

Last week, Trump said he reached an agreement with Mexico that includes “rapidly” returning to Mexico anyone who crosses the border seeking asylum in the U.S. Advocates are concerned about the dangerous conditions in cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, where more migrants will now be forced to wait as their claims are processed.

“When the American people hear stories of this problem being fixed by the ‘remain in Mexico’ policy, it hasn’t been fixed, it’s just further from their view,” Ryan said. “The suffering will only increase.”

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

Ah, life in the ivory tower of the Article III Federal Judiciary, where you seldom are confronted with the human faces or ugly reality of your abuses and failures to protect the human rights of others.

The “Remain in Mexico” Program is an ongoing affront to our Constitution, the rule of law, and simple human decency for which the judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals who are enabling this ongoing humanitarian outrage and giving it “legal cover” should be held fully morally and historically accountable!

PWS

06-13-19

9TH CIRCUIT JUDGES COMPLICIT IN HUMAN RIGHTS & LEGAL VIOLATIONS INFLICTED ON TERRIFIED TEEN ASYLUM APPLICANTS: Reuters Study Exposes How Disingenuous Article III Judges Are Letting Trump Administration “Get Away With Potential Murder” Under Clearly Illegal, Unconstitutional, & Incompetently Administered “Remain In Mexico” Abomination!

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-returns-exclusive/exclusive-asylum-seekers-returned-to-mexico-rarely-win-bids-to-wait-in-u-s-idUSKCN1TD13Z

(Reuters) – Over two hours on June 1, a Honduran teenager named Tania pleaded with a U.S. official not to be returned to Mexico.

Immigration authorities had allowed her mother and younger sisters into the United States two months earlier to pursue claims for asylum in U.S. immigration court. But they sent Tania back to Tijuana on her own, with no money and no place to stay.

The 18-year-old said she told the U.S. official she had seen people on the streets of Tijuana linked to the Honduran gang that had terrorized her family. She explained that she did not feel safe there.

After the interview, meant to assess her fear of return to Mexico, she hoped to be reunited with her family in California, she said. Instead, she was sent back to Mexico under a Trump administration policy called the “Migrant Protection Protocols”(MPP), which has forced more than 11,000 asylum seekers to wait on the Mexican side of the border for their U.S. court cases to be completed. That process can take months.

Tania’s is not an unusual case. Once asylum seekers are ordered to wait in Mexico, their chances of getting that decision reversed on safety grounds – allowing them to wait out their proceedings in the United States – are exceedingly small, a Reuters analysis of U.S. immigration court data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) shows.

. . . .

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

Read the full description of the Trump Administration’s judicially enabled all out assault on the legal, Constitutional, and human rights of vulnerable asylum seekers at the above link.

A complicit panel of 9th Circuit Judges vacated a proper lower court injunction that was preventing this type of intentional child abuse by the Trump Administration. Here’s that panel’s “head in the sand” opinion in Innovation Law Labs. https://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Innovation-Law-Lab-19-15716.pdf.

It’s worth noting that almost every “ameliorating exception” described in the first paragraph of the panel’s opinion is demonstrably untrue — children and those clearly in danger are being returned and the “discretionary parole” is largely a fraud that seldom is granted — according to the Government’s own data (which likely is also falsified or manipulated to some extent to mask or distort abuses). In other words, a “three-reporter panel” of Reuters is more interested and capable of getting to truth than a panel of life-tenured judges.

Oh, that it could be these judges’ kids or grandkids separated from family and sent to live on the mean streets of Tijuana while pursuing their legal rights under US law. Really, how do these child abusers and human rights scofflaws hiding in judicial robes sleep at night?

Guess the can’t hear the screams and moans of those whose rights they are failing to protect and whose human dignity they reject. I’ve heard eyewitness accounts and seen video evidence from the pro bono lawyers courageously (and sometimes at the risk of their own health and safety) trying to protect the lives and rights of asylum seekers at the Southern Border from these abuses of human rights that are enabled by “Remain in Mexico” (a/k/a the disingenuously named “Migrant Protection Protocols”). The truth is no secret for those who actually seek it rather than to ignore it.

Complicit Article III Judges and Government lawyers are keys to Trump’s “dehumanization” program. History must hold them accountable for their abuses of humanity.

PWS

06-13-19

AMERICA’S SHAME: Congress Dithers, Life-Tenured Article III Circuit Judges & Supreme Court Justices Shirk Their Duty, While Trump’s “False Courts” Violate Constitutional, Statutory, Treaty, & Human Rights On A Daily Basis With Impunity! — History Will Remember Those Who Are Complicit In & Who Are Morally Responsible For Unlawful Killings & Other Unspeakable Acts Committed Against Those Most Vulnerable Who Are Merely Seeking Fairness Under Our Broken & Fraudulent Justice System!

NEW REPORT EXAMINES WEAPONIZATION OF IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM

Advocates Launch Immigration Court Watch App to Ensure Greater Accountability, Transparency.

No, American institutions aren’t “standing up” to Trump. From the Supremes legally wrong , immoral, and unconstitutional decision in Jennings, to their licensing of blatant racial and religious bias in Travel Ban 3.0, to the Ninth Circuit’s complicity in the mocking of legal, statutory, and Constitutional rights under the fraudulent and illegal “Remain in Mexico,” which they now “own” lock stock, and barrel, to the Eleventh Circuit’s refusal to stop the “law, asylum, justice, and human dignity free zone” in the Atlanta Immigration Courts, Article III Judges are ignoring their oaths of office and turning blind eyes to immigration outrages that are transparent on the records they review and have been building in plain sight for years.

Those in positions of power who fail to fulfill their Constitutional duty to prevent abuse of the most vulnerable among us deserve to be condemned by public opinion and by history. And that goes for Article III Judges, as well as legislators, politicos, and bureaucrats.

PWS

06-12-19

PWS

06-12-19

NATIONAL FRAUD: IMMIGRATION COURTS ARE NOT “COURTS” — New Scholarship Shows How Immigration “Courts” Are Actually Hierarchical Bureaucracies Masquerading As Courts, Incorporating The WORST Features Of Both!

Bureaucrats in Robes final

BUREAUCRATS IN ROBES: IMMIGRATION “JUDGES” AND THE TRAPPINGS OF “COURTS”

AMIT JAIN*ABSTRACT

As U.S. immigration policy and its human impact gain popular salience, some have questioned whether immigration courts—often the first-line adjudicators of deportation—are “courts” at all in the American adversarial legal tradition. This Article aims to answer this question through a focus on the role of the immigration judge (IJ). Informed by in-depth interviews with twelve former IJs and three former supervisory officials, I argue that immigration courts present with superficial hallmarks of adversarial courts, but increasingly exhibit core features of a tightly hierarchical bureaucracy. Although not all features of an immigration bureaucracy are inherently unde- sirable, masking a bureaucracy with judicial trappings results in a deceptive facade of process that likely limits scrutiny from federal courts and calms public discontent with harsh immigration laws. In light of this phenomenon, enhancing IJ independence through the creation of an Article I immigration court would solve some problems with immigration adjudication but risk papering over others. Instead, achieving a fair system will require both procedural and substantive reforms.

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

Read Amit’s full article at the above link.

Yes, I recognize that Amit undercuts my arguments for an immediate halt of this system and change to Article I without waiting for other reforms to “humanize” immigration law and put them more in line with the actual national perception of immigrants (which, as Amit points out, is nowhere near as racist and inhuman as Trump’s White Nationalist restrictionist abomination now being peddled by Trump, Pence, many in the GOP, at DHS, and most disturbingly, at DOJ. For example, most Americans would favor taking care of “Dreamers” now, without all the restrictionist “poison pills” attached). I agree that other practical and humanizing reforms are necessary; but without immediate Immigration Court intervention and reform every other immigration reform becomes meaningless and innocent people will continue to die, be tortured, and be abused “on our watch.”

Immigration Court reform can’t wait! Every day, the statute, our Constitution, international treaties, our national values, and human dignity are being mocked and destroyed by what is happening in our Immigraton Courts under the “Minister of Injustice” Bill Barr and his lawless and spineless sycophants in EOIR Management.

It’s past time for the Article III Courts to stop screwing around, do their Constitutional duty, and put a screeching halt to this abomination and blot on our national conscience. Stop these “Fake Courts” in their tracks!

No more “removal orders” until Congress creates an independent Immigration Court system that passes legal and Constitutional muster and complies with our treaty obligations. And, until that happens, the DOJ should be forbidden from any further meddling in the Immigration Courts. If the Immigration Court System is to continue to operate on an interim basis, it should be under an “Order of Supervision” from Article III Circuit Judges just as was done with Constitutionally deficient and defiant school systems in the South following Brown.

Either that or the Article III Courts should appoint an active or retired Article III Judge as a “Special Master” with authority to insure fair, impartial, and legal operation until Congress corrects these flaws.

Allowing human beings to be “degraded and railroaded” back to life threatening situations, often after having been abused, humiliated, threatened and mistreated by so-called “judges” and their White Nationalist overlords is no laughing matter! It’s a national disgrace, the elimination of which should be our highest national priority!

PWS

06-12-19

FRANZ KAFKA’S AMERICA: At the “Jena Gulag” Everyone’s A Criminal Including Attorneys Committing The “Crime” Of Representing Their Clients!

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/06/guest-post-m-isabel-medina.html

From ImmigrationProf Blog:

Escobedo v. Illinois(1964) – I remember the case from law school and it is one of those cases that stay with you. It’s a case that spoke so firmly to our profession and the constitutional right that our profession guards – the right to counsel.   It’s the case where the attorney is trying to see the client, and the client keeps asking to see the attorney, and they are both at the police station, but the police continue to deny both the ability to meet and talk before the person is interrogated by police. The case fascinated me because the situation seemed so remarkable, really, incredible, and, of course, the Supreme Court, at that time, gave what I thought the correct response. I still think it is the correct response but what I missed then, and sometimes now, is how many of us think, then and now, it was not. But Escobedo is a Sixth Amendment case that applies in the context of criminal prosecutions so although I have thought of it often in the past three weeks, it is uncertain precedent to rely on in the context of immigration proceedings. It also strikes me now who Escobedo is, and I remember when we first discussed this case in law school, the complete absence of a discussion about his race and national origin, in the classroom.

I also think often of Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893) and the U.S. Supreme Court’s reasoning that “The order of deportation is not a punishment for crime,” And what this reasoning means in a world where persons are incarcerated, prevented from touching, hugging and kissing their closest relatives, including their children, simply because they are immigrants in removal proceedings (a civil process, the Court continues to tell us – not a criminal process) and where persons are not allowed to meet with their attorneys in a room in which they can go over documents or testimony together, but instead meet only in cubicles that are completely separated from each other except for a quarter inch slit at the bottom of a plastic/glass divider. So it is literally physically impossible to point at a statement in a document and ask the client a question about that statement. And it is in fact physically impossible for a client to hand over to their attorney documents. They have to be taken apart and slipped across through that quarter inch slit. It took a client over an hour to slip over to me part of the file.

This is the world at La Salle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana, one of the Geo owned and managed detention centers in Louisiana that currently houses only immigrant detainees. But the guards at La Salle know better – they are housing criminals at La Salle and the guards think of them as criminals, call them criminals, and treat them like criminals. Criminals, apparently, are undeserving of any kind of protection. The reason for the cubicle, I am told, is to make impossible the passing of contraband. I ask what contraband. I ask further, by attorneys? Attorneys are bringing in contraband? I ask amazed. And the answer I am given is yes, you’d be surprised. And I persist, What? What kind of things are attorneys bringing in? And the answer I get eventually is things like food.

At La Salle, inmates are separated and designated by clothing of different colors into different groups based on their alleged “dangerousness” or “security.” Inmates are written up for asking questions or making requests or complaining about things like missed mail or failures to deliver mail. Inmates are also restricted in accessing outside time, private time, and so many of the things those of us who are free take for granted, and those of us who are committed to serve a criminal sentence are denied. But these “inmates” aren’t serving a criminal sentence, as I remind the guards. They are civil detainees – they are not supposed to be treated like criminals serving a criminal sentence.

At La Salle, civil detention is criminal detention.   I have had greater physical access to persons convicted of murder or persons who’ve been accused of criminal offenses. I’m somewhat nonplussed by the restrictions on meeting with someone who is facing removal from this country; and the impact of those restrictions on their right to counsel.

But I am even more nonplussed when those restrictions start being applied directly to me. In order to see a client, I have to turn my car keys in to the facility. I cannot take my bag or purse with me. This is for my safety I am told. Every time I visit a person at La Salle, I ask for access to the person. I know there is a room at La Salle in the visiting area that allows for that. I know that the facility has made this room available to consular officials visiting persons in the facility. But the facility refuses to make this room available for attorney-client visits. I ask every time and am refused every time. I leave multiple phone messages for the Warden but no one ever calls me back and no one with authority ever agrees to talk to me.

When I come for the hearing at La Salle Immigration Court with the family of a person I am representing, the guard refuses to allow the children of the person into the courtroom. I ask why not. Federal policy is that children 12 and older can attend court proceedings. There are signs in the waiting room at the facility that state this. But when I come with six law students and the family, the officer says no they have to be 15 and older (after looking the children over). So I ask why again. I explain that I’ve checked with the Court administrator and federal guidelines and the ICE–ERO on the case and the Court administrator said the children were allowed to attend. No one had indicated otherwise. So the officer goes off to check with someone. When she returns she says the ICE officer in charge of the facility has determined that the children cannot go in. I ask why? She says that’s what he’s decided. I say may I speak to him. That is not consistent with the federal policy and the court administrator approved it. I’d like to speak to him. She goes out again and comes back a bit later. Then a person not in uniform comes in waves to me and takes me into a bigger office. There he proceeds to threaten me with arrest – first, it sounds like he is going to arrest me himself but then he threatens that he is going to call the sheriff and have the sheriff arrest me. I ask him why he would do that.  I am just trying to find out why the children can’t attend the hearing, given that it’s federal policy and I’ve gotten approval of the court administrator. He is physically shaking with anger as he tells me again he is going to call the sheriff and have me arrested. I agree to be arrested but remind him that the facility operates by force of law and regulation – it can’t operate as if law doesn’t apply here. I am an attorney, I explain, I have to be able to assert my client’s interests.

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

Who are the “real criminals” here?

It takes lots of corruption, cowardice, and complicity to make this happen: A Congress that doesn’t care, a Supreme Court that disingenuously manufactures ridiculous legal fictions and turns a blind eye to glaring Constitutional violations, Article III Courts who can see that the results are inherently biased, coercive, and unfair but look the other way, a thoroughly corrupt Attorney General who has no interest whatsoever in justice, complicit politicos and bureaucrats at DOJ, EOIR, and DHS willing to violate ethical standards and their oaths of office, and those minions at the “bottom of the pyramid” who glory in the chance to exercise power in an arbitrary and abusive way.

Thanks goodness for dedicated, courageous lawyers like Isabel who are members of the “New Due Process Army,” fight for the legal rights of the most vulnerable among us, refuse to give in to the oppressors, and document and expose the vileness and lawlessness of the Trump Administration and its many enablers and retainers like Geo and its guards.

Your tax dollars at work!

PWS

06-11-19

ANALYSIS: Trump Lays Another Egg On Immigration — Everybody Loses, But It Could Have Been Much, Much Worse

By Paul Wickham Schmidt for immigrationcourtside.com

Alexandria, VA, June 9, 2019. After a week of petulance, threats, and self-created drama, Trump produced a resounding trade and immigration dud. Faced with advisors telling him that he was endangering the economy, the only thing propping up his sagging popularity, a potential rebellion among GOP legislators, and an unexpectedly tough and resolute Mexico, Trump backed off of his insane and blatantly illegal plan to ignore U.S. asylum obligations and thereby rocket the U.S. to the upper echelons of international scofflaws and human rights violators.

The latter scheme, known as “safe third country,” would have mis-designated Mexico and, incredibly, Guatemala, two clearly “unsafe” countries to do the U.S.’s job by processing tens of thousands of asylum applications from those fleeing the Northern Triangle. Neither of the two countries has a viable, fair, and effective asylum adjudication system and both have major safety and human rights issues.

Instead, Trump accepted a vague compact by which Mexico and the U.S. basically agreed to do what they had already been doing without taking any decisive or effective action to address the actual humanitarian crisis in the Northern Triangle that Trump and his flunkies have consistently mischaracterized as a “law enforcement emergency.” Indeed, the New York Times reported that most of Mexico’s “unprecedented steps” had already been worked out in secret with deposed DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen months ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/us/politics/trump-mexico-deal-tariffs.html. Those interested can read the summary of the agreement prepared by Trump’s own State Department here. https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-us-mexico-tariffs-declaration-20190607-story.html.

To be sure, desperate and vulnerable asylum seekers, particularly women and children, will continue to abused, raped, beaten, extorted, obscenely tortured, and killed with impunity and little if any recourse as a result of this week’s actions. But, at least for now, the U.S. and Mexico are maintaining much of the basic framework of domestic and international protection laws.

Contrary to the lies and false narratives spread by Trump and his DHS cronies, U.S. law is not filled with “loopholes.” Rather, it is a fairly straightforward implementation of the international protection regime and treaties that have been in effect since World War II to prevent another holocaust from occurring on our watch.

If anything, since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980, the U.S. has watered down its asylum commitment somewhat by adding a legally tenuous “credible fear” process to “pre-screen” arriving asylum applicants in mass migration situations. However, to date, the DHS under Trump has been too incompetent, misdirected, and frankly downright stupid to utilize this streamlined screening process fairly and efficiently.

By treating a somewhat predictable humanitarian refugee flow as a bogus “law enforcement problem” and mindlessly shoving cases into a “captive” court system that they already had abused, mismanaged, and destroyed, the Administration lost effective control. In panic, they have tried to blame the refugees, Democrats, Mexico, Obama, judges, the media, and even the truly hapless failed states of the Northern Triangle for their largely self-created human and operational disaster.

The first of the “unprecedented steps,” involves Mexico sending approximately 6,000 National Guard troops to the Guatemalan border to control illegal crossings. Never mind that the Mexican National Guard is a recent creation that exists largely on paper. Also, forget that Mexico has a questionable record of controlling corruption and systematic human rights abuses among its existing police and military forces.

The U.S., a much larger, better organized, and more prosperous country than Mexico, has resorted to militarizing the border, mass incarceration, family concentration camps, kids in cages, malicious criminal prosecutions, family separations, walls, fences, overt political interference in the asylum adjudication system, and violating international protection norms. These “gonzo” enforcement efforts not only failed to stem the tide, but have actually aided smugglers and traffickers and increased the flow of migrants.

Will newly minted, untrained Mexican troops succeed where the might of the U.S. has failed miserably? Don’t count on it.

Also, the last time I checked, it appeared that most of the Mexican coast and some parts of the U.S. are reasonably accessible by boat from the Northern Triangle. So, assuming that the Mexicans could “shut down” their land border with Guatemala, why wouldn’t smugglers “take to the sea?” How’s that Mexican Navy?

The second “unprecedented step,” is a continuation and expansion of the existing “Remain in Mexico Program.” This toxic gimmick punishes those who have been legally determined to have a “credible fear” of persecution by making them remain in some of the most dangerous locations in the world where they are intentionally and illegally impeded in many ways from pursuing their U.S. asylum claims from Mexico. To date, this program has only been implemented in a few locations, like San Diego where it has been an unmitigated failure according to a report from Kate Morrissey of the San Diego Union-Tribune. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/06/06/cruel-yet-really-stupid-trumps-remain-in-mexico-policy-denies-due-process-while-creating-court-chaos-enfeebled-judges-fume-as-aimless-docket-reshufflin/.

The results of this ill-advised effort by Trump to circumvent U.S. asylum laws reads like a “legal toxicology report:” “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” mass confusion, lack of information, insufficient and deficient hearing notices, massive violations of the statutory right to be represented by counsel, no opportunity to fairly prepare, document, and present asylum claims, interference with the attorney-client relationship by DHS, and few actual case completions to name just a few of the many abuses. And, how will an already dysfunctional EOIR deal with yet another round of “new priorities” and more “Aimless Docket Reshuffling?”

A Federal District Judge actually enjoined this circus before it could get rolling. But, a “tone-deaf panel” of the Ninth Circuit allowed Trump’s assault on the rule of law to go forward, at least for now.

Nevertheless, the case remains pending with the Ninth Circuit. As EOIR’s rushed and sloppy work product starts to accumulate on their docket and the bodies and horror stories start to pile up in Mexico, more responsible Circuit Judges might actually force the Administration to comply with the law and the Constitution, not to mention simple human decency.

Mexico has pledged to “accept and protect” those sentenced to remain there. But, the Mexican border locations to which individuals are forced to return are dangerous for a reason. Presumably, if Mexican can’t maintain safety and order for its own citizens, it won’t do any better for vulnerable asylum seekers.

Finally, in third “unprecedented step,” Mexico and the U.S. agreed to promote the “Comprehensive Development Plan launched by the government of Mexico in concert with the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras” to create “prosperity, good governance and security in Central America.” This part of the agreement makes the most sense. But “promoting” in this case appears limited to using development funds that were “already in the pipeline” in both countries. In other words, nothing really new here.

This was a golden opportunity for the U.S. to show real leadership by dramatically increasing its investment in bringing stability and prosperity to Mexico and Central America. Additionally, we could have created incentives (rather than threats) and benchmarks for Mexico to improve its asylum adjudication system and human rights performance. Partnering with non-governmental-organizations and legal assistance groups on both sides of the border also would bring much needed expertise in resolving asylum issues to the table.

But, that would have taken a President with vision, empathy, compassion, courage, competency, intelligence, and creative problem solving ability. Trump is the exact antithesis of all of these qualities.

Consequently, sooner or later we can expect Trump’s “latest egg” to fail, like all of his other gimmicks and maliciously incompetent schemes on immigration. Our “child president” will undoubtedly then embark on a new barrage of lies, false narratives, idiotic tweets, idle threats, blame shifting, insults, racist dog whistles, and general nonsense aimed at diverting attention from his own failures as a leader and more critically, as a human being.

Innocent people will be harmed and die, America and Mexico will be embarrassed and diminished, and the world will be a worse place. But, until America figures out how to use its democratic institutions to remove the kakistocracy, the disaster will continue. That it could have been worse, is only small consolation.

Why not strive to be the “best that we can be,” rather than just “not as bad as we might have been?”

ABUSE OF POWER: Eleanor Acer Of Human Rights First Blasts Administration’s Latest Scheme Promoting A Massive Hemispheric Violation Of Human Rights!

https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/press-release/mexico-border-deal-avoid-tariffs-would-endanger-lives

June 06, 2019

Mexico Border Deal to Avoid Tariffs Would Endanger Lives

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Refugee Protection

New York City—In response to reports that the Mexican government is planning to make a deal with the United States to avoid tariffs threatened by President Trump, Human Rights First’s Eleanor Acer issued the following statement:

President Trump is trying to bully another country into endangering the lives of vulnerable men, women, and children, who want nothing more than to live in freedom and safety. Mexico and Guatemala are not—in a legal or practical sense—safe countries for many refugees. In Mexico too many refugees face kidnapping, assault, and murder.

People seeking refuge are not required to seek asylum in the first country they set foot in. In fact, many face grave dangers in neighboring countries, as well as serious risks that they will be returned to their country of persecution.

Such a plan would not only makes a mockery of U.S. law and treaty commitments, but would also return refugees to places where their lives are in danger. It is yet another abdication of leadership, setting an abysmal example for other countries around the world.

Instead of more attempts to block and punish people seeking refuge, the United States needs real solutions that restore order and uphold America’s refugee laws and treaty commitments, including:

Tackle the root causes pushing people to flee the Northern Triangle countries through a targeted strategy that leverages both diplomacy and aid, focusing on effective programs that reduce violence, combat corruption, strengthen rule of law, protect vulnerable populations and promote sustainable economic development.

Launch a major initiative to enhance the capacity of Mexico and other countries—which are already hosting growing numbers of refugees—to provide asylum, host, protect, and integrate refugees, along with a robust regional resettlement initiative that provides orderly routes to the United States and other countries while safeguarding asylum.

Immediately end the dysfunction at the border, and instead launch a public-private humanitarian initiative and a long overdue case management system to actually manage asylum cases.

Fix the asylum and immigration court adjudication systems to provide fair, non-politicized and timely decisions.

For more information see Human Rights First’s blueprint: The Real Solution: Regional Response Rather than Border Closures, Mass Incarceration, and Refugee Returns. To speak with Acer contact Corinne Duffy atDuffyC@humanrightsfirst.org or 202-370-3319.

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As usual, Trump’s outrageously illegal and immoral proposal relies on:

Bullying weaker countries;
A gullible public;
A cowardly GOP Congress;
Complicit courts.

A simple perusal of the country condition materials publicly available on the EOIR and Department of State websites shows that the idea that either Mexico or Guatemala are “safe” countries where refugees “would have access to a full and fair procedure for determining a claim to asylum or equivalent temporary protection,” as required by U.S. law, is preposterous.

Mexico’s asylum adjudication system is plagued by bribery, corruption, and incompetence. It adjudicated only about 10, 000 cases in the last reported period, denying the overwhelming majority. Moreover, gangs and cartels operate freely throughout the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico. Our State Department Report acknowledges that the same organized gangs who force people to leave the Northern Triangle can also harm them in Mexico.

Guatemala is a highly corrupt country basically without a functioning asylum adjudication system. It is a major sender of asylum applicants to other countries. The Guatemalan Government is unable to maintain order and protect its own citizens, let alone refugees from nearby countries.

Also, we are encouraging Mexico and Guatemala to use troops and military force against asylum seekers — something our own laws do not permit.

Essentially, the Trump Administration seeks to “get away with murder.” In two years they have turned the U.S. from a leading defender of human rights to a major international human rights violator. So, why are we allowing our Government to get away with such dishonest, morally bankrupt, and illegal proposals?

Even if these corrupt proposals go into effect, it seems doubtful that they will stem the follow of refugees in the long run. While there might be a short term downturn, eventually smugglers will adjust to the new policies and desperate individuals will find different routes to the United States. They will be more dangerous, so more will die.

Perhaps we will see “Central American Boat People” and more deaths at sea. Maybe there will be more “Golden Ventures.” More deaths at the border will be inevitable as smugglers seek to evade the Border Patrol and get to the interior. Perhaps the human smuggling action will switch to the even longer U.S. Canada border. How about a “Northern Wall” from the Atlantic to the Pacific?

As long as the U.S. stubbornly refuses to acknowledge and address the causes of migration it will continue, in extralegal channels as necessary and as the market “push pull factors” determine. More focus on barring refugees means less focus on drug smugglers and others who present a real threat to our safety and security.

Also, smugglers will be able to change a premium — so those who are willing to take the risk and outsmart the new system will reap even higher profits than the increased ones Trump has already conferred upon them with his maliciously incompetent policies to date. Finally, walls, jails, cages, abuses, family separations, prosecutions, racist rhetoric, armed violence, tariffs, exploitation, massive violations of our Constitution and international laws, or whatever won’t stop desperate refugees from coming. But we will eventually convince refugees to give up on the U.S. legal system and just find ways to get beyond the border and lose themselves in the interior. No enforcement system, no matter how cruel, repressive, expensive, and lawless will be able to get rid of more than a fraction of those who don’t want to be found after reaching the interior.

Moreover, if Trump’s actions succeed in destabilizing Mexico, then Mexican migration, which has actually been a negative flow recently, will resume in large numbers, also adding to the pressure on our borders. The worse things get in Mexico, the less likely that the Mexican Government will stop their citizens from heading north. So, there is every reason to believe that Trump’s “malicious incompetence” will make things even worse for everyone — but particularly for those who are most vulnerable — desperate asylum seekers!

Another future possibility to ponder: Tired of being publicly bullied, humiliated, and dealing with a dishonest unreliable idiot and his incompetent sycophants, Mexico and Canada will “wise up” and cut a trade deal with China that really gives them leverage and puts the squeeze on the U.S. And, why wouldn’t China love a chance to establish factories just across our Northern and Southern borders that could also serve as “listening posts” and repositories for hijacked U.S. technology? Maybe the EU and India could also be cut into the deal.

We are diminishing ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration!

PWS

06-07-19

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION INTENDS TO PUNISH MIGRANT KIDS! No Education, Recreation, Legal Help For Those in Kiddie Gulag! — How’s That Likely To Work Out For America?

https://apple.news/AcqynTMA8TqGuaYtxnsPw6g

Angelina Chapin reports for HuffPost:

POLITICS

06/05/2019 09:24 PM EDT

Trump Administration To Deprive Migrant Kids In Shelters Of English Lessons, Legal Aid

Immigrant advocates say the government is using child welfare rights as a political lever to secure more funding.

Unaccompanied immigrant children in government detention centers across the U.S. will no longer have English classes, recreational programs or legal aid, according to Department of Health and Human Services emails first obtained by The Washington Post.

The shelters will “begin scaling back or discontinuing” the funding for “activities that are not directly necessary for the protection of life and safety, including education services, legal services, and recreation” due to an influx of unaccompanied children crossing the border and a lack of funding, Evelyn Stauffer, a spokesperson for HHS’ Administration for Children and Families, told HuffPost.

The move could be illegal ― immigrant kids in custody must be taught English five days a week and have at least one hour of recreation time per day, under the terms of the 1997 Flores court settlement. But immigrant rights advocates fear the Trump administration is using child welfare rights as a political bargaining chip to secure funds from Congress. The administration has urged Congress to approve billions more in funding for the U.S.-Mexico border, including emergency funds that would increase shelter capacity and pay for part of President Donald Trump’s wall.

“It’s beyond the pale to threaten to take away the most basic protections [for children],” said Neha Desai, director of immigration at the National Center for Youth Law. “Once again this administration is using children as pawns for their broader political goals.”

And while the administration is blaming a border crisis and lack of government funds for these program cuts, immigrant rights experts said the government has itself to blame.

The number of unaccompanied immigrant children coming to the border and being placed in government custody reached a record high of 11,000 in May, and the number of kids in shelters has increased by 57% since last year, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

There’s no doubt these numbers are stretching government resources, and HHS likely needs more funding to deal with this growing population. But immigrant youth advocates told HuffPost that the government has responded by enacting inhumane policies that exacerbate the system’s problems, such as family separation and sharing information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“This is a management crisis,” said Michelle Brané, director of the Migrant Rights and Justice Program at the Women’s Refugee Commission. “These policies create chaotic and dangerous situations and harm children.”

Rather than tackling the root issues that are spurring immigrants to flee their home countries, the Trump administration has responded with draconian policies to deal with border apprehensions that do not work as deterrents, said Cory Smith, vice president of policy, advocacy and communications at Kids In Need of Defense, a group that provides legal representation to unaccompanied kids.

“I think there’s a lot of the policies that have manufactured a crisis and are self-inflicted wounds,” Smith said.

Desai said that if shelters maintained by HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement ran efficiently and released kids promptly ― as they are required to do by the Flores settlement ― it would free up money for the kinds of programs the department is now cutting. Instead, kids are spending an average of roughly 66 days in detention, according to an HHS official, which is close to double the average length of stay before Trump took office.

The amount of time children spend in detention began increasing last May after the government began separating families, sending 3,000 more kids into unaccompanied children’s shelters.

And though the zero tolerance policy ended last June, the government is still separating families on a smaller level, which is unnecessarily adding to the volume in detention centers. “A lot of children in ORR custody should not be there in the first place,” Brané said. “We have a disturbing numbers of family separations [still] occurring.”

Last May, the government further prolonged shelter stays by requiring that everyone in a sponsor’s household be fingerprinted before they could be released. The Trump administration has since rescinded this requirement, but it still shares sponsor information with ICE, which immigration advocates say has made undocumented sponsors afraid to come forward for fear of being arrested and deported.

In February 2018, HHS reopened a temporary unlicensed shelter in Homestead, Florida, to handle an influx of kids crossing the border, which costs more than $1.2 million a day. In a recent court filing, some children described being held in Homestead for more than six months due to major inefficiencies with the case management process, such as having their sponsors rejected without explanation and having their cases passed to multiple managers.

Smith said depriving children of legal aid could also keep them in shelters for longer, since they won’t have reminders of when to show up to their court dates, or guidance about how to navigate difficult decisions.

Peter Schey, one of the lead attorneys representing detained children as part of an ongoing lawsuit, has contacted the government about how nixing educational, recreational and legal programs violates child welfare standards. He said that if the policy is not promptly withdrawn, his team will ask a U.S. District Court to block its implementation.

“I think these policy changes are heartless and unnecessarily cruel,” he said. “They plainly violate both federal laws and the Flores settlement.”

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

More Trump sleaziness. The Trump Administration appears to be pretty creative when out comes to finding money for building useless and unauthorized “walls.” Not so much when it comes to the welfare of children.

Idle hands, unoccupied minds, pent up energy, time on their hands: sounds like another “Trump generated recruiting opportunity” for gangs and bullies!

How low we have fallen as a nation to accept this kind of conduct from our “government.”

PWS

06-06-19

CRUEL, YET REALLY STUPID: TRUMP’S “REMAIN IN MEXICO POLICY” DENIES DUE PROCESS WHILE CREATING COURT CHAOS — Enfeebled Judges Fume As “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” Bloats Backlogs! — Article IIIs Complicit! — “The policy’s name is migrant protection, but they send you to the most dangerous city in Mexico.”

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=e1be401d-5763-4c8b-abee-151232bd287e

Kate Morrissey reports in the LA Times:

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego immigration court has been overwhelmed by the number of cases judges are hearing under a Trump administration program that returns asylum seekers to Mexico while they wait for hearings in the U.S.

Normally, asylum seekers coming to the California border would be distributed to immigration courts across the country, either because they would be held somewhere in the federal government’s national immigration detention system or because they would be released to reunite with family and friends already in the U.S.

Now, the increasing number of people picked for the administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols, known widely as the Remain in Mexico program, across the California border are all being sent to immigration court in downtown San Diego.

“Other than wallow through it, I don’t know what we can do,” said Immigration Judge Lee O’Connor shortly before walking out of his courtroom at 6:21 p.m. one evening last week after hearing a string of MPP cases. Court staff, including security, had left the building long before.

Immigration judges are already working under performance quotas set by the Trump administration to reduce the immigration court backlog, which has grown nationally to nearly 900,000 cases, according to data from the Transactional Record Access Clearinghouse of Syracuse University.

The San Diego court has more than 5,700 cases pending, up from 4,692 cases in fiscal 2018, a 22.4% increase. Nationally, the backlog has grown about 16.2% in fiscal 2019.

“This is a reflection of the constant doublespeak we’ve been highlighting. The agency has internally conflicting priorities,” said Ashley Tabaddor, speaking in her capacity as head of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges. “It creates chaos.”

On a given day, three of San Diego’s seven judges generally have afternoons full of MPP cases. On a recent Tuesday afternoon, 82 people were scheduled to appear before three judges, 28 of those before O’Connor.

“The judges have no control in terms of how many cases are being scheduled,” Tabaddor said.

Border officials who initially receive migrants either requesting protection at a port of entry or after they’re apprehended crossing illegally are responsible for scheduling the first court appearance for returnees.

Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment. The Department of Homeland Security was unable to respond to questions in time for publication.

Several of the judges assigned to hear cases in San Diego have pushed back on the government for a laundry list of issues that could be violations of the government’s due process responsibilities under immigration law.

Tabaddor said she’s heard a number of concerns from her union members who are trying to make sure “all of the T’s are crossed and all of the i’s are dotted” in implementation of the new program. “That’s what the oath of office is,” Tabaddor said. “You’re supposed to make sure all the rules are followed.”

One that has come up over and over again is the address put down initially on each asylum seeker’s case documents by border officials. Along the California border, Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol have written some version of “Domicilio conocido,” or “known address.”

Some have “Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico.” Others simply say “Baja California” without the city or the country noted.

Having an accurate address on file is key to showing that immigrants were given proper notice of their court hearings. That proof of notice is a crucial part of a judge’s decision to proceed “in absentia” and order a person deported if he or she doesn’t show up for a hearing.

“This whole program, I don’t understand it,” said Immigration Judge Jesús Clemente on his first day of hearing MPP cases. “How are we ever going to tell this person that he has a hearing?”

Similarly, when an government attorney suggested that it was the asylum seeker’s responsibility to provide an accurate address, Immigration Judge Scott Simpson responded with incredulity. “Are you saying the respondent provided this address?” he asked, referring to the asylum seeker. “Are you saying every respondent in the MPP program provided this address?”

“I can’t speak to that,” the attorney representing ICE responded. “In my experience, the address the respondent provides is what is put down.”

“That’s how it usually works,” Simpson replied. “But I’m not convinced that’s what’s happening now.”

When asked about the address issue recently, San Ysidro Port of Entry Director Sidney Aki said that migrants don’t often know where they will be staying when they’re first returned.

To prevent any miscommunication, Aki said, they’re told to return to the port of entry at a particular date and time.

Normally, if a judge believes that the government violated an asylum seeker’s due process rights, the judge can terminate immigration proceedings against that person, said attorney Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center. Then the asylum seeker can apply for protection outside of immigration court in a process that is less adversarial.

For returnees who are ultimately hoping for asylum in the U.S., termination won’t help them because they’ll be returned to Mexico with no access to the U.S. asylum system, she said.

“It essentially removes their ability to vindicate their due process rights,” Toczylowski said.

Among other issues, the dates on instructions given to returnees that explain when to come back to the San Ysidro Port of Entry to be taken to court don’t always match the dates on their hearing notices. Or, the government fails to file the preliminary paperwork in the case and the immigration court doesn’t have a hearing scheduled for the person when he or she shows up.

“I’m sure you’re frustrated,” Simpson said to a man whose paperwork had not properly been filed by the government, resulting in a delay in the start of his case. “I share your frustration.”

Asylum cases typically have several preliminary hearings, known as “master calendar hearings,” before the “merits hearing,” where evidence is presented for the judge to make a decision on the person’s claim. During those master calendar hearings, asylum seekers are given time to look for attorneys, are told their rights in immigration court, and are given applications to fill out and submit.

Juan, a doctor who fled Honduras after facing threats for his participation in political protest, filed his asylum application in mid-May. His merits hearing was scheduled for November.

Where to live and how to sustain themselves in Tijuana is becoming a larger and larger issue as more asylum seekers are returned. Despite its promises at the program’s outset, Mexico has not given many of the returnees permission to work while they wait.

Tijuana’s migrant shelters are already at or near capacity, and most of the people staying in them are not returnees from the program.

One returnee who had become homeless and tried crossing illegally only to be returned again to Tijuana said he was planning on going back to his country in the coming days. It would be better to die there, he said, than to continue living as he’s been living in Tijuana.

Juan is one of the lucky ones. He is staying at a shelter near the border. Still, he’s worried about the long wait ahead.

“The policy’s name is migrant protection, but they send you to the most dangerous city in Mexico,” he said.

Morrissey writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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

The Ninth Circuit had an opportunity to put at least a temporary halt to this blatant denial of the statutory right to counsel and the constitutional right to adequate notice and Due Process. They “swallowed the whistle.” Eventually, these feckless and complicit Article III courts will find their own dockets overwhelmed with the results of their inaction in the face of a Due Process, operational, and human rights disaster of gargantuan proportions in the U.S. Immigration Courts as mal-administered by the DOJ.

Of course, the real culprit is Congress, which has failed to act to require an independent, constitutional U.S. Immigration Court. But, the word “feckless” doesn’t begin to describe a body that under Mitch McConnell has intentionally ceded its constitutional power to govern and oversee in the overall public interest to an unqualified, scofflaw President who respects neither democratic institutions nor the rule of law.

PWS

06-06-19

BLOWN OPPORTUNITY: THE GLOBAL COMPACT FOR SAFE, ORDERLY & REGULAR MIGRATION WAS AMERICA’S BEST CHANCE TO LEAD ON A GLOBAL PHENOMENON THAT ISN’T GOING AWAY — Trump’s Mindless White Nationalism Made The U.S. Walk Away From A Deal We Probably Need More Than Any Other Country!

http://www.afsa.org/immigration-debate

Former U.S. diplomat David Robinson writes in The Foreign Service Journal:

Closing the distance between legal requirements and humanitarian instincts is a global, rather than national, enterprise.

BY DAVID ROBINSON

Thirty-two years of diplomatic service taught me a number of things. One is that wherever politics and society seem irredeemably dysfunctional, it is not an accident. It is, at some level, intentional. Someone has a vested interest in continuing the chaos. Someone is getting rich, or powerful, or both; and even the most zealous reform efforts will likely fail unless those interests are mollified or neutralized.

The immigration debate follows that lesson. It is shrill, jumbled, disjointed, often illogical—and largely irrelevant to the reality it claims to address. A big, beautiful wall across our southern border may do little to stem the flow of drugs, criminals, terrorists and even unauthorized migrants into the United States—but its promise is pure gold. Like all the other sharp notes in this performance—including the travel ban, chain migration and anchor babies—the cacophony surrounding the wall helps both supporters and opponents puff out their chests and strut their virtue.

The only losers are those who have more than a partisan or emotional interest in resolving the conflict, including actual immigrants and the communities that receive them. They should not expect a resolution to their real and pressing concerns anytime soon.

Yet the scope of irregular migration today—with upward of 65 million people on the move—is such that it cannot be pushed aside. At the same time, no single country can respond adequately on its own. Diplomacy in the interest of fashioning international agreements to manage the problem is the only viable approach.

Legal Requirements vs. Humanitarian Instincts

Public talk about immigration reminds me of every discussion I ever heard in a Bosnian coffee shop during my 2014-2015 tenure as principal deputy high representative, and earlier as a refugee officer. It invariably begins and ends with an impassioned reference to some horrific event that obscures rather than illuminates the issue at hand. Both sides illustrate strongly held opinions with graphic examples excoriating the other point of view. Anti-immigrant zealots demonize immigrants as rapists and murderers; the other extreme sanctifies them as innocent victims of circumstance or malice. Both points of view are dehumanizing. They rely on stirring but distorted images to carry their arguments rather than on real people with complex motives and histories. Their aim is to capture the moral high ground, not to solve the problem.

Focusing on national immigration reform as a response to that wave is neither comprehensive nor realistic.

But manipulating imagery does not change the facts. Immigration has no inherent moral value, and immigrants are neither more nor less virtuous than anyone else. They were pushed or pulled from their homes by a host of different reasons from personal ambition to cataclysmic disaster. Some are victims, some are opportunists; some should be welcomed, some rejected. What separates migrants and non-citizen immigrants from their citizen neighbors is vulnerability. Regardless of wealth, stature or origin, immigrants are at the mercy of authorities and systems over which they have little or no influence. Their voices and images may be emotionally affecting, but their future is beyond their control.

That dependency drives the conflict about immigration reform, setting the rule of law against humanitarian impulse. It also opens the door to diplomacy. National laws deciding who may and may not enter a country always produce inequities; they always leave on the outside someone who has a legitimate need for entry but lacks the appropriate legal category or political timing to gain it. Visa classifications, refugee protocols and asylum guidelines cannot keep pace with global trends—from criminal violence and global warming to new definitions of marriage and family composition. Immigration liberalizers point to the law’s deficiencies and appeal to values over statutes, while build-the-wall advocates tout the law as the final, unyielding authority. The debate has turned into a name-calling melee as the number of migrants and intending immigrants continues to grow.

My own views on migration evolved in two parts. As a junior consular officer in the Dominican Republic, I scrupulously followed the rules and kept away from America’s shores the “wretched refuse” desperate enough to believe our own mythology. Years later, as a refugee officer, I met humanity’s outcasts in the makeshift places they sought shelter. The memory of a refugee child from Kosovo haunts me still. Who had the right to confine a 10-year-old boy behind a chain link fence? Legally, the government of Macedonia, whose border he had crossed; morally, nobody. It is shocking to me that I may now encounter that same scenario in the United States: legally permitted, morally repugnant.

Unproductive Approaches to Irregular Migration

Erasing that image and closing the distance between legal requirements and humanitarian instincts is a global, rather than national, enterprise. No single country has the political or social bandwidth to respond adequately to the growing demands and pressures of irregular migration. Sixty-five million people on the move do not fit into existing categories, either legal or humanitarian. Neither will they be deterred by piecemeal border controls. Focusing on national immigration reform as a response to that wave is neither comprehensive nor realistic. It is akin to promoting air conditioners as the answer to climate change. The problem will just continue to grow until it overwhelms efforts to avoid it.

Equally unproductive is treating irregular migration as principally a development challenge. Initiatives to reduce poverty or end conflict may have merit in their own right, but they are a long-term gamble, at best, and seldom include migrants in their plans and programs. The Dadaab complex in Kenya, a “temporary” shelter to hundreds of thousands of refugees for three decades, is a case in point. By any rational measure, Dadaab is a development challenge rather than a humanitarian crisis, but that transition never happened. In the meantime, its occupants remain in limbo, deprived of relatively normal and productive lives. Those who are able will continue to migrate and seek their futures elsewhere, including in the United States.

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, though nonbinding, marks the first comprehensive effort to address human mobility at the global level.

Sidestepping the challenge of irregular migration leads nowhere. The only realistic starting point for effective, palatable reform is to accept shared responsibility for managing migration in the first place. We cannot eliminate the reasons large numbers of people move unexpectedly, nor can we isolate ourselves from their impact. We can, however, build agreements and networks across borders that establish the norms and rules for their treatment and that address the concerns of the communities that encounter them. We can, through diplomatic agreements, impose a semblance of order on what has become chaos.

There is precedent for this approach. The 1951 Refugee Convention and the subsequent regional agreements it prompted have created a durable framework for the protection of people fleeing persecution and seeking asylum in other countries. They make refugee protection a duty under international law and prohibit forcible return home. The agreements also establish common criteria for adjudicating refugee claims. The regime is imperfect and under stress, but it works. It measures progress, clarifies disputes and assigns responsibility. It is also the basis for a web of public and private, national and international agencies working to implement and improve it. Until recently, the United States was its most generous and reliable supporter.

A Necessary First Step

Extending the principles of protection and due process beyond refugees to all vulnerable migrants seemed within reach as recently as the United Nations General Assembly in 2016. All 193 member-states approved the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants that, among other actions, called for a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. The compact was approved in December 2018. Although nonbinding, it marks the first comprehensive effort to address human mobility at the global level. It extends human rights norms and development goals to previously disregarded people while reaffirming the prerogative of every country to enforce its own laws. While not a permanent solution to runaway migration, the compact is a necessary first step toward diplomatic problem-solving. It is a meeting place, not a traffic cop, and shifts the needle away from blame toward shared responsibility.

Predictably, however, storm clouds gathered early. The United States was the first to jump ship, citing the paper-thin excuse that the compact interfered with sovereign law enforcement even though it explicitly reaffirms state sovereignty on all immigration decisions. A transparently flimsy excuse made even before the document had been fully drafted, it nevertheless emboldened others to follow. By the time the compact came to a vote, 29 countries had abandoned the effort, leaving 164 to endorse it.

Washington’s position on almost any significant issue signals either permission or caution; and at best, when directed skillfully, it compels action.

This backtracking is significant because it reflects pernicious nationalism as much as supposed flaws in the compact itself— such as signaling climate change as a trigger for migration and encouraging the use of detention only as a last resort. Politically manipulated fear of migrants from “shithole countries” (as our president has called them) and Muslim refugees from war zones had advanced a narrative that facts, no matter how twisted, simply did not support. Yet while the threat may be fake news, proclaiming it worked to the advantage of politicians and pundits who trade on isolationism, supremacy and ignorance.

It may not be unusual for countries to walk away from nonbinding agreements, and often their absence goes unnoticed. The United States is an exception to that rule; its absence is always felt and its presence is almost always required for meaningful international agreements to take root. An ambassador from a Middle Eastern country sitting next to me in Geneva in December 2011 groaned and shook his head when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared to the packed audience that gay rights are human rights. I asked him why he had come, knowing the direction of the speech in advance. He smiled, shrugged and said: “The American Secretary of State. Of course I’m here. But I don’t like it.” He didn’t have to like it, but he did have to deal with it—as long as the United States and its allies continued to press the point.

Diplomatic Leadership

While a Secretary of State’s moral and diplomatic authority may be less compelling today than it was then, it still matters. Influence is not optional for the United States. Washington’s position on almost any significant issue signals either permission or caution; and at best, when directed skillfully, it compels action. Not supporting the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is a missed opportunity to set a global agenda that is too complex and ambitious to thrive without U.S. diplomatic and financial support. There are signs of hope, mainly in Africa, in countries that have embraced the compact and are building the legal and humanitarian framework it promotes. They may have some regional success; but globally their influence is no match for the challenge they face.

So the question remains: Where will the global leadership come from? Humanitarian imperatives and rule of law requirements are still on a collision course. The administration apparently hopes the problem will go away if we hide behind a wall. It will not. The rational choice is to join ranks with those seeking a coordinated response to the challenge. That is the direction American diplomacy should take and American diplomats should endorse.

David Robinson retired as a career member of the Senior Foreign Service in 2017, after a 32-year career. In addition to serving as ambassador to Guyana from 2006 to 2008, he served as assistant secretary for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations and coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization from 2016 to 2017. Ambassador Robinson was also a deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration from 2009 to 2013, and special coordinator for Venezuela in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs from 2008 to 2009. He previously served as principal deputy high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, implementing the Dayton Peace Agreement; as assistant chief of mission in Kabul; and as deputy chief of mission in La Paz and Asunción. Currently he is associated with the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.

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

The total failure of Trump’s arrogantly ignorant White Nationalist immigration policy is a great illustration of the truth of what Robinson says. Without “regime change” and a smarter, more courageous, leader willing to cooperate with other nations in addressing migration in a humane, realistic, and mutually beneficial manner, our immigration and refugee policies will continue to founder and fail.

PWS

06-05-19

RUDE AWAKENING? — Some In GOP Finally Concerned About Idiotic Actions Of White Nationalist “Tariff Man” — But Don’t Expect Much Action Given GOP’s Endemic Cowardice In The Face Of Trump!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/us/politics/republicans-mexico-tariffs.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fcatie-edmondson&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection

Catie Edmonson & Maggie Haberman report for the NY Times:

June 4, 2019

WASHINGTON — Republican senators sent the White House a sharp message on Tuesday, warning that they were almost uniformly opposed to President Trump’s plans to impose tariffs on Mexican imports, just hours after the president said lawmakers would be “foolish” to try to stop him.

Mr. Trump’s latest threat to impose 5 percent tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico, rising to as high as 25 percent until the Mexican government stems the flow of migrants, has prompted some of the most serious defiance in the Republican ranks since the president took office.

Republican senators emerged from a closed-door lunch at the Capitol angered by the briefing they received from a deputy White House counsel and an assistant attorney general on the legal basis for Mr. Trump to impose new tariffs by declaring a national emergency at the southern border.

“I want you to take a message back” to the White House, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, told the lawyers, according to people familiar with the meeting. Mr. Cruz warned that “you didn’t hear a single yes” from the Republican conference. He called the proposed tariffs a $30 billion tax increase on Texans.

“I will yield to nobody in passion and seriousness and commitment for securing the border,” Mr. Cruz later told reporters. “But there’s no reason for Texas farmers and ranchers and manufacturers and small businesses to pay the price of massive new taxes.”

The president’s latest foray into a global trade war has troubled economists and roiled stock and bond markets. The Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome H. Powell, hinted on Tuesday that the central bank could cut interest rates if the trade war started to hurt the economy. The remarks sent stocks higher for their strongest day in months.

But senators were mindful of the long-term stakes for their home states.

[Mr. Powell’s comments sent a signal that the central bank was watching Mr. Trump’s trade wars warily.]

Texas would be hit the hardest by the proposed tariffs on Mexican products, followed by Michigan, California, Illinois and Ohio, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A 25 percent tariff would threaten $26.75 billion of Texas imports.

“We’re holding a gun to our own heads,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.

If Mr. Trump were to declare an emergency to impose the tariffs, the House and the Senate could pass a resolution disapproving them. But such a resolution would almost certainly face a presidential veto, meaning that both the House and the Senate would have to muster two-thirds majorities to beat Mr. Trump.

Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, said he warned the lawyers that the Senate could muster an overwhelming majority to beat back the tariffs, even if Mr. Trump were to veto a resolution disapproving them. Republicans may be broadly supportive of Mr. Trump’s push to build a wall and secure the border, he said, but they oppose tying immigration policy to the imposition of tariffs on Mexico.

“The White House should be concerned about what that vote would result in, because Republicans really don’t like taxing American consumers and businesses,” Mr. Johnson said.

Mr. Trump, just hours before at a news conference in London with the British prime minister, Theresa May, said he planned to move forward with imposing tariffs on Mexican imports next week as part of his effort to stem the flow of migrants crossing the southern border.

“I think it’s more likely that the tariffs go on, and we’ll probably be talking during the time that the tariffs are on, and they’re going to be paid,” Mr. Trump said. When asked about Senate Republicans discussing ways to block the tariffs, Mr. Trump said, “I don’t think they will do that.”

He said, “I think if they do, it’s foolish.”

Republicans are still holding out hope that the tariffs can be avoided. Mexico’s foreign minister is leading a delegation to Washington this week to try to defuse the situation with the Trump administration. A White House meeting with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday could prove pivotal.

“There is not much support for tariffs in my conference, that’s for sure,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader. “Our hope is that the tariffs will be avoided, and we will not have to answer any hypotheticals.”

A spotlight on the people reshaping our politics. A conversation with voters across the country. And a guiding hand through the endless news cycle, telling you what you really need to know.

Leaving the lunch, lawmakers complained they were facing too many such hypotheticals. Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, asked the lawyers what the precedent for imposing tariffs through an emergency declaration would be. His question was left unanswered. In fact, since the National Emergencies Act was signed in 1976, it has never been used to impose tariffs on a single country.

Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, said he “would not be inclined to vote on a tariff against a friend,” but ventured that “what you’re likely to see is the Mexican government and our government finding some way to work on this collaboratively and not reach a tariff.”

Others were less convinced.

“He’s committed to this,” said Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, who spoke with Mr. Trump on Sunday and was sure the president would proceed with the tariffs, regardless of the concerns. “He’s serious as four heart attacks and a stroke. He’s moving forward.”

Opponents of the tariffs would use the same motion of disapproval that they tried to use to block the president from grabbing federal money for a border wall that was not appropriated for that purpose. That motion did pass Congress with significant Republican support, but not enough to overcome Mr. Trump’s veto.

Mr. Johnson warned White House officials that they should not count on a veto override vote going the same way. But Mr. Trump has supporters, and Republicans, especially in the House, have been loath to oppose him on immigration. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, once a moderate on immigration policy, took to Twitter to say the president was within his rights to use tariffs to force Mexico’s hand.

Marco Rubio

✔@marcorubio

The law provides @potus broad authority to control transactions with other nations if there is an unusual & extraordinary threat to the national security &/or economy of the U.S.. Unlawful migration & drug flow transiting through #Mexico into U.S. clearly poses such a threat.

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6:28 PM – Jun 3, 2019

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Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, expressed support for the president, as did Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is up for re-election in 2020 and faced blistering criticism after flip-flopping this year on whether he would vote to disapprove the president’s emergency declaration to build the wall.

“I think Mexico could help us solve the crisis down at the border,” Mr. Tillis told reporters. “What’s the tax on handling 80,000 additional illegal immigrants coming across the border, housing them, adjudicating them? You’ve got to look at the total cost of the prices.”

If a revolt comes to pass, it would start in the Senate, but House Republicans would have to join the effort to overturn a veto.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the chairman of the House Democratic caucus, declined to forecast whether the House would try to block the tariffs on Mexico.

“The administration’s tariff policy is erratic and all over the place,” he said. “We will see what the Senate Republicans ultimately decide to do, but we will certainly strongly consider proceeding in a way that is appropriate and consistent with our legislative powers.”

Mr. Trump seemed unimpressed when a reporter noted that Mexican officials said that they had increased the number of migrants they had apprehended coming into their country from elsewhere in Central America. He offered no specifics on what it would take to keep the tariffs from being imposed.

“Look, millions of people are flowing through Mexico,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s unacceptable.”

Catie Edmondson reported from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from London. Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Emily Cochrane and Nicholas Fandos contributed reporting from Washington.

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

Rubio’s pro-Trump tweet seems pretty off-base. Other than the fact that Trump is incompetently using Border Patrol on a self-created emergency that could be handled by Inspectors and Asylum Officers at ports of entry, allowing Border Patrol Officers to focus on more important law enforcement duties, there doesn’t appear to be any known connection between families from the Northern Triangle turning themselves in and applying for legal asylum under our laws and “drug smuggling.” Nor do such individuals who turn themselves in present any known threat to either national security or our economy (particularly since Trump plans to bar them from working unless and until they actually receive asylum under a system he has intentionally skewed against them). Indeed, smugglers would have to be pretty stupid to use individuals who intended to turn themselves in to the Border Patrol at the border as “drug couriers.”

On the other hand, Trump’s incompetent handling of the border situation, his gross misuse of national emergency and tariff authorities, and his attacks on trade with Canada and Mexico, two of our major allies and trading partners, does promise to threaten both our econommy and our national security. Rather ironic that the asylum applicants are the ones using our legal system while Trump is the one trashing it in multiple ways.

Sen. Tillis also seems out of bounds. Individuals have a right to apply for ayslum. Undoubtedly, the number of individuals now applying could be processed fairly and legally for much less than Trump’s tariffs would cost U.S. consumers, not to mention the money wasted on useless walls, unnecessary detention, and misuse of American troops. Even spending some money on helping Mexico improve its system and joining Mexico’s initiative to improve conditions in the Northern Triangle would be more cost effective than tariffs.

Why would Tillis expect Mexico, a smaller and poorer country, to do a better job of stopping the flow than the U.S. has? How would he expect Mexico to process all the migrants without major human rights violations? Wouldn’t wrecking the Mexican economy, along with our own, restart the flow of Mexicans going north that actually has been reversed in recent years? Pretty scary how little the GOP understands about migration and sound immigration policies.

When policy is made based on irrational factors such as White Nationalism, racism, contempt for foreign countries, and disregard for human rights, bad things are going to happen. But, I’m still not betting on the GOP to stand up to Trump. Lots of grumbling; but, in the past, such grumbling has seldom been turned into action.

PWS

06-05-19

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