🏴‍☠️LOTS OF TALK, BUT ICE’S ACTIONS SHOW LITTLE RECOGNITION THAT BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IS IN CHARGE — Deportations Of Victims, Deaths In Gulag, Defending Inhumane & Wasteful Policies In Court Continue “As Usual”

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/01/el-paso-mass-shooting-survivor-deported-to-mexico?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Outrage after survivor of El Paso mass shooting deported to Mexico

Police reportedly stopped the woman due to a non-functioning brake light, took her to a local jail and then soon deported her

pastedGraphic.png

Kenya Evelyn in Washington

Published:

12:00 Monday, 01 February 2021

Follow Kenya Evelyn

A survivor of a Walmart mass shooting that killed 23 people in El Paso, Texas, and targeted Latino people has been deported to Mexico, triggering widespread outrage among activists and local politicians.

Police reportedly stopped the woman – who was not named in full – due to a non-functioning brake light, then took her to a local jail. She was then placed into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), where she was soon deported to Mexico.

Best

The legal defense team working on her behalf confirmed to local KVIA that city police arrested the woman, identified as just Rosa. She was booked into the El Paso county jail annex.

Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services told local KTSM that on Wednesday, the survivor was pulled over and, during the traffic stop, found to have two, five-year-old citations still outstanding.

By Friday morning, Rosa had been deported to Cuidad Juárez where she has remained ever since.

On a Saturday morning in early August 2019, a 21-year-old man walked into the El Paso Walmart Super Center and opened fire, first into the parking lot before taking aim at the store’s entryway. The attack killed 13 Americans, eight Mexicans and one German.

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link.

Undoubtedly, it’s hard to “get a handle” on the failed DHS bureaucracy — a more than willing enforcer of Trump’s cruel, White Nationalist, often illegal immigration agenda.

But, if the Biden Administration wants to change policy, they must find the right people to do just that — sooner, rather than later! Otherwise, like past Dem Administrations, they will end up with a file (or drive) full of reasonable policy memos that everyone ignores.

PWS

02-01-21

TO ADDRESS REFUGEE FLOW FROM CENTRAL AMERICA AT ITS SOURCE, BIDEN PLAN  MUST ADDRESS ENDEMIC GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION!

“Floaters”
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers”
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)
Trump Dumping Asylum Seekers in Hondiras
Dumping Asylum Seekers in Honduras
Artist: Monte Wolverton
Reproduced under license

https://www.univision.com/univision-news/opinion/bidens-immigration-policy-needs-anti-corruption-focus-in-central-america

 Last week, 9000 Hondurans were beaten and tear-gassed in Guatemala as they tried to make their way to the U.S. border. More will be coming. The Biden administration just introduced the most comprehensive immigration bill since Ronald Reagan and also hopes to embark on a new strategy for the Northern Triangle of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

This is undisputedly good news for a region ravaged by two Category 5 hurricanes in 2 weeks and an economy devastated by the Covid pandemic. But, unless that aid directly addresses the rampant corruption that has taken hold in the region, it will not stop thousands of desperate people from fleeing countries that give them little hope to survive much less flourish.

Make no mistake, it is corruption that has stolen hope from the region. Elites steal from school and hospital budgets to fund political campaigns and line pockets. Politicians give family members and supporters coveted government positions that should go to those most qualified. Police are bribed and threatened to look away while drug traffickers and gangs shatter communities.

Until this staggering systemic corruption is dismantled and the education, health and security institutions strengthened, Central Americans have little reason to hope for a future in their own countries.

During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden issued just one policy position for the Western Hemisphere and it was on Central America. In it he proposed a number of worthy initiatives, but one merits special consideration– a Central American anti-corruption commission that operates outside the control of the elites who are most threatened by its existence.

To be successful, this commission must learn from past experiences in Guatemala (CICIG), Honduras (MACCIH) and El Salvador (CICIES). While the first two enjoyed significant success, as soon as U.S. and local political pressure waned even a little, the local elites joined together to expel them.

. . . .

Authors! James D. Nealon is a former U.S. Ambassador to Honduras and Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security. Eric L. Olson is a Wilson Center Global Fellow. Kurt Alan Ver Beek is Co-Founder and President of the Association for a More Just Society – Honduras

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

Easier said than done. Many of the corrupt governing elites in Central America have close ties to our Government. They aren’t lightly going to let foreign assistance, whether from governments, NGOs, or private agencies go anywhere but their own pockets.

Also, Republicans in Congress have shown no willingness to deal with the overt corruption, grafting, and grafting of the Trump regime. 

But the article is spot on about two things. Most Central American migration is driven by political punishment and exploitation of the people by corrupt government elites and those allied with them (gangs, in many instances). Far from being “random violence” or “common crime” as many restrictionists and border bureaucrats claim, it’s simply a variation of classic political, ethnic, and social group persecution. Those fleeing this abuse are refugees. Only by abdicating the law, intentionally skewing it, and too often just overtly violating it (sometimes with the complicity of courts, sometimes in violation of court orders) has our Government been able to avoid granting them the legal protection they deserve.

Second, desperate refugees are going to continue to come as long as they perceive it’s safer here than in their broken home countries or any of the other countries they will have to cross to get there. No walls, prisons, death at the border, violations of domestic and international law, racist rhetoric, illegal deportations, child abuse, misogyny or or other cruel, inhuman, and immoral policies will stop human migration.

Interestingly, the “first edition” of Courtside on December 31, 2016, dealt with the failure of Obama Administration’s cruel, yet highly ineffective, “get tough border policies.” https://immigrationcourtside.com/2016/12/31/family-detention-raids-expediting-cases-fails-to-deter-scared-central-americans/ Then, the Trump Administration “quadrupled down” on the cruelty, illegality, and stupidity.

We know roughly how many have been illegally returned and imprisoned. We have some “guesstimates” as to how many additional border crossers our failed policies have killed. 

But, we have little or no idea how many have taken to heart our message about the falseness of our claim to be a “nation of laws” and the readily apparent bankruptcy of our legal system. Undoubtedly, those who “get it” have or will in the future simply keep crossing the border until they die in process or get to the interior where their chances of melding in and surviving are much better than their chances of getting a asylum or other protections from an EOIR that still appears to be carrying out the Steven Miller White Nationalist agenda.

The “government policies” of actively discouraging and punishing asylum applicants who apply in an orderly way at the border is as insanely stupid as it is cruel and illegal. Actually, allowing individuals to apply for asylum at the border “regardless of status” is a hallmark of the Refugee Act of 1980!

A few thousand desperate refugees who walk here from Central America pose no realistic threat to America or our national security. They merely detract attention from the real threats: armed right wing insurrectionists launching a deadly attack on our Capitol, right wing domestic terrorists energized by Trump, and maskless “magamorons” running around spreading deadly disease. 

Process those applying at the border promptly under the appropriate generous legal criteria after giving them access to trained asylum advocates. Admit those who qualify after proper health and security screening. Work with the UNHCR and NGOs on how to handle those who don’t meet refugee criteria. Just aimlessly returning them to danger zones in the middle of a pandemic is obviously a nonstarter. So, we’re going to need smarter people, with real expertise and a humanitarian outlook, working on better solutions. We know lots about what DOESN’T work. Now, we need to come up with what WILL work.

PWS

02-01-21

☠️🤮🦹🏿‍♂️ CHILD ABUSERS IN ROBES! —- Three Trump Appointees On DC Circuit OK Child Abuse @ Border!

Trump Dumping Asylum Seekers in Hondiras
Dumping Asylum Seekers in Honduras
Artist: Monte Wolverton
Reproduced under license
“Floaters”
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers”
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)

Here’s the opinion, with no discernible rationale for this unprincipled and irrational action:

DC CIRCUIT APPROVES CHILD ABUSE

 

Here’s the “death to children” ☠️⚰️ panel: Katsas, Rao, and Walker, Circuit Judges. As long as it’s not THEIR children  . . . . 

Bad things happen to countries that make child abuse an “official policy” and reward child abusers with lifetime judicial appointments!

The Biden Administration needs to move quickly to get a handle on what’s happening in their name at the border. Also, might want to take a look at the Government lawyers who defend the indefensible in Federal Court.

Better Judges For a Better America! No more child abusers on the Federal Bench!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Child Abusing Circuit Judges🤮, Never!

 

PWS

01-30-21

 

⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”

Dan Kowalski
Dan Kowalski
Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)

Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immigration Community:

9th Thwarts Anti-Asylum Misogyny For Gang-Rape Victim:

Woman Tortured
“She struggled madly in the torturing Ray”
Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca9-on-asylum-india-persecution-kaur-v-wilkinson

CA9 on Asylum, India, Persecution: Kaur v. Wilkinson

Kaur v. Wilkinson

“The BIA erred in imposing evidentiary requirements of ongoing injury or treatment beyond the sexual assault itself in order to show persecution. Kaur’s credible testimony about the attempted gang rape is sufficient to show persecution. Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim. We grant Kaur’s petition for review and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats off to Douglas Jalaie!]

1st Calls Out Violation Of Regs, Incredibly Stupid Denial Of Reopening For Approved U Visa Petition Beneficiary Waiting For “Number:”

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca1-on-u-visa-waitlist-granados-benitez-v-wilkinson

CA1 on U Visa Waitlist: Granados Benitez v. Wilkinson

Granados Benitez v. Wilkinson

“Petitioner Carlos Antonio Granados Benitez seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA” or “Board”) denial of his motion to reopen his removal proceedings and to remand to the immigration judge (“IJ”) for further consideration in light of the fact that he had been placed on a waiting list by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) for a U-1 nonimmigrant visa (“U visa”) pursuant to the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (“VTVPA”), Pub. L. No. 106-386, § 1513(a)(2)(A), (b), 114 Stat. 1464 (2000) (codified as amended at 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(U)). Because we find that the BIA abused its discretion, in that it failed to render a reasoned decision that accords with its own precedent and policies, and it further failed to consider the position of its sister agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), we grant the petition. In so holding we join the views of the Seventh Circuit in Guerra Rocha v. Barr, 951 F.3d 848, 852- 54 (7th Cir. 2020).”

[Hats off to Paige Austin, with whom Philip L. Torrey, Make the Road New York, and the Harvard Law School Crimmigration Clinic were on brief, for petitioner, and Brian D. Straw, Gregory E. Ostfeld, and Greenberg Traurig, LLP on brief for ASISTA Immigration Assistance, Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, National Network to End Domestic Violence, Safe Horizon, and Tahirih Justice Center, amici curiae!]

3rd “Perplexed” By BIA’s Ignorance Of “Equitable Tolling,” Own Authority:

Kangaroos
“Hey, guys, ever hear of something called “equitable tolling?”  “Nah, is it spelled D-E-N-I-E-D?” “Equitable TROLLING,” I’ve heard of that?”https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
Creative Commons License

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca3-on-equitable-tolling-nkomo-v-atty-gen

CA3 on Equitable Tolling: Nkomo v. Atty. Gen.

Nkomo v. Atty. Gen.

“Because Nkomo properly raised equitable tolling before the BIA, the BIA erred in failing to consider her request for equitable tolling on the merits. We remand for the Board to do so in the first instance.”

“The BIA’s suggestion that it does not have the authority to make decisions on equitable grounds is perplexing. The BIA has authority to equitably toll the deadline for motions to reopen the precise relief Nkomo sought.”

[Hats off to Jerard A. Gonzalez!]

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

Demeaning rape victims! ☠️🤮👎🏻 So, what else is new @ EOIR? “Gonzo” Sessions 🦹🏿‍♂️ set the tone for anti-asylum, racially motivated misogyny in Matter of A-B- and “his judges” have taken it from there! (I repeat my oft-made observation: What kind of “due process” system lets a characters like Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr “own” judges?  How would you like to be a woman on trial for her life before a “judge” selected, directed, and “owned” by the likes of  these men with clear records of “applied contempt” for equal justice? Sessions, Whitaker, Barr, & Jeffrey Rosen are gone — but their legacy of bias and injustice lives on @ EOIR!)

One of my esteemed Round Table 🛡⚔️ colleagues summed up the latest set of outrageous miscarriages of justice from Falls Church:

All of these decisions demonstrate the degree of careful and detailed analysis that these cases require.And yet the BIA couldn’t keep staff attorneys after McHenry capped them at GS-13 (entry level), and keeps increasing the monthly quotas for BIA staff attorneys.Plus of course the Board Members themselves are now all these types who only review the decisions to make sure they end in the word “dismissed.”

If you were trying to create a recipe for disaster, you couldn’t have planned it better.

I heard the latter comment twice yesterday from immigration/human rights/due process experts on opposite sides of our country who observe and participate in the system at various levels.

To quote Justice Sotomayor’s recent dissent: “This is not justice.”

Historical Footnote:  One of my first actions as BIA Chair in 1995 was to establish a “GS-15 Career Ladder” for all Attorney Advisors at the BIA. This made the BIA competitive with the rest of the DOJ. 

It allowed us to attract and retain not only “top talent” coming from the “DOJ Honors Program” (how I got my first job at the BIA in 1973), but also outstanding career attorneys who wanted an opportunity to do research, writing, and “applied scholarship” that made a difference in individuals’ lives. Indeed, at various times the BIA has had on its staff former Senior Executives seeking a “change of  focus” to a career that allowed them to do the things they liked best about the law.

One of them was a former SES colleague at the “Legacy INS” who found in transferring to a GS-15 BIA Attorney Advisor position a career satisfaction, fulfillment, and sense of meaningful contribution that person had been missing in INS management at that time.

Reducing the top grade for Attorney Advisors is not only professionally and personally demeaning, it also marks the entire organization as “second class” and shows just how stupid and incompetent (and, in recent history, overpaid) EOIR “management” has become! And, as pointed out in my colleague’s comments above, it has not only adversely affected careers but the human lives in the balance on the BIA’s docket.

As I understood my “mission” from then Attorney General Janet Reno in 1995, the BIA was supposed to be about “attracting the best and the brightest judges and supporting them with the best and brightest staff.” Essentially getting it to function like the “12th Circuit” was a description mentioned during my interview process for the Chair job. 

Sadly, now, it has become an assembly line of expediency, injustice, shoddy legal work, mindless “corner cutting,” unprofessional behavior, and human misery.

To repeat my colleague’s comment: “If you were trying to create a recipe for disaster, you couldn’t have planned it better.”

All of these cases should have been resolved in the foreign national’s favor without ever getting to the Courts of Appeals! Bad judging, grossly incompetent administration, and lack of qualified, dynamic, judicial leadership from respected “practical scholars” costs lives, produces unacceptable and unfair inconsistencies, and clogs the Article III Courts with unnecessary litigation.

Indeed, the First Circuit’s decision in Granados basically reveals OIL’s “smorgasbord” of bogus arguments to uphold the BIA’s incorrect decision as “without merit” — actually frivolous! There are deep problems @ DOJ resulting from the ongoing corruption and disregard for ethics and professional leadership from the now-departed kakistocracy! They go far beyond the mess at EOIR!

Sure hope that Judge Garland, Vanita Gupta, and their incoming team @ DOJ have a comprehensive plan for replacing the BIA and reforming EOIR! The human beings suffering in this disgracefully inept and abusive “court system” and their courageous, long suffering attorneys are counting on you! Think of it this way: What if YOUR daughter were the rape victim demeaned, dehumanized, and denied justice by EOIR?

🇺🇸⚖️🗽👍🏼👨🏻‍⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-30-21

🇺🇸⚖️🗽TELLING IT LIKE IT IS! — Calling Out The White Nationalist Kakistocracy @ EOIR!

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”
Star Chamber Justice
“Justice”
Star Chamber
Style
Woman Tortured
“She struggled madly in the torturing Ray”
Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Kangaroos
BIA Members Unwind After Harassing Another Expert, Overruling Circuit Court, & Aiding Their “Partners” At ICE In Demeaning Justice
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
Creative Commons License
Four Horsemen
BIA Asylum Panel In Action
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

‘White Nationalism’ In Immigration Courts Must Go: Ex-Judge
By Jennifer Doherty
Law360 (January 28, 2021, 9:48 PM EST) — A former immigration judge called on the Biden administration to reorient the mission of immigration courts on Thursday, saying that a “white nationalist program” had taken root under the Trump administration and needs to be eradicated.
Speaking on a panel about a new report showing that the vast majority of non-detained migrants appear at their immigration court hearings, retired Judge Paul Wickham Schmidt called out Trump administration officials over “big lies and bogus narratives” promoted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Executive Office of Immigration Review, including claims that detention was necessary to prevent migrants from disappearing.
Judge Schmidt, who used to be the chair of the Board of Immigration Appeals, pointed to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ intervention in immigration cases to relitigate cases such as whether women who suffer domestic abuse in regions with high rates of femicide qualify for asylum, as well as the former administration’s messaging to immigration judges that their role was an extension of DHS’ enforcement mechanism.
“It’s all been part, I think, of the Stephen Miller white nationalist program, that there is no such thing as a good immigrant; all the immigrants are here to take our jobs or to evade the system,” Judge Schmidt said, referring to one of former President Donald Trump’s senior advisers.
Meanwhile, Thursday’s report from the American Immigration Council, an advocacy nonprofit group, confirmed what many immigration judges have known for years, according to Judge Schmidt.
Relying on a sample of 2.8 million immigration court cases where migrants were either released or were never detained, the report found that 83% of respondents with pending or completed removal cases showed up for every hearing, a share that increased to 96% for immigrants represented by counsel.
“Represented asylum-seekers appearing before fair, knowledgeable judges show up for virtually all of their EOIR merits hearings,” Judge Schmidt said.
Based on those findings, the report recommended four policy reforms, including reducing immigration detention and ending the Migrant Protection Protocols, which have forced over 70,000 people to wait in Mexico for decisions in their asylum cases.
The report also called for additional training for immigration judges and the rollback of a law requiring judges to issue orders of removal for migrants who failed to appear, an occurrence the authors found was frequently due to faulty notices to appear.
Creating an Article I, also called a legislative court, would also give immigration judges more independence in their review of individual cases and relieve them from pressure to meet case quotas, according to the report.
UCLA School of Law professor Ingrid Eagly, co-author of the report, said that additional training would serve to reduce inconsistencies between immigration courts and ensure that judges held the
government accountable for its responsibility to notify migrants of their court dates.

. . . .

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

Those with access can read the rest of Jennifer’s article on Law360.

Jennifer Doherty
Jennifer Doherty
Reporter
Law 360
Photo: Twitter

I was talking to a lawyer/reporter this afternoon. Her comment was: “Could anybody have designed a worse system for deciding life or death cases?” She was told in “pro bono training” to observe how certain judges like the chairs arranged in the courtroom because it could affect the outcome of her client’s asylum case!

Another attorney I spoke with who had practiced personal injury law couldn’t believe that no immigration cases ever “settled.” Even those with clear merit bounce around the system for years and then go to full hearings, sometimes with inconsistent results!

How can a system operate like this? It can’t! That’s why doubling the number of questionably qualified “judges” has resulted in at least doubling, perhaps tripling, the “backlog.”

Under pressure from White Nationalists like Miller, Sessions, Hamilton, and Barr, EOIR has generated an artificially created “backlog” consisting largely of : 1] cases that could have easily been granted in a fair, functional, practical system; 2) cases that could be granted or placed in line at USCIS (another broken and dysfunctional agency); and 3) cases that never should have been filed in a rational system!

An incompetent BIA has failed to set forth the precedents for granting asylum and other relief that are necessary to restore the rule of law and common sense to a broken system! And they have totally failed to hold biased anti-asylum and nativist-enabling judges accountable! That’s because the BIA itself has become an organ of White Nationalist restrictionist bias bearing little, if any, resemblance to a “court” within the common understanding of the term. “Judicial independence,” impartiality, expertise, due process, and rationality have become “bad jokes” at EOIR!

And, for the past four years, the folks “running” this godawful system haven’t set foot in a courtroom in years (if ever) and don’t have a clue about asylum law or representing humans (rather than “agencies” or “nativists” as clients). It’s a friggin’ inexcusable disaster. FUBAR+++++++!

Judge Garland must end it!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️👍🏼Due Process Forever!

PWS

 

⚖️🗽OUTING THE BIG NATIVIST LIE: EOIR/DHS CLAIM THAT MIGRANTS DON’T SHOW UP FOR HEARINGS REFUTED BY USG’S OWN DATA — Professor Ingrid Eagly & Steven Schafer Analyzed Millions Of Records To Show How False Narratives Drive Draconian Policies — Eagley, Shafer, Reichlin-Melnick, Schmidt Set Record Straight @ Press Conference!

Professor Ingrid Eagly
Professor Ingrid Eagly
UCLA Law
PHOTO: Twitter
Steven Shafer ESQUIRE
Steven Shafter, Esquire
Managing Attorney
Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project
Los Angeles, CA
Photo: Esperanza website

 

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
Policy Counsel
American Immigration Council
Photo: Twitter
Me
Me
  • PRESS RELEASE

11 Years of Government Data Reveal That Immigrants Do Show Up for Court

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January 28, 2021

WASHINGTON—A new report released today by the American Immigration Council examines 11 years of government data on the rate at which immigrants appear for hearings in U.S. immigration court. The report, “Measuring In Absentia Removal in Immigration Court,” concludes that an overwhelming 83% of immigrants attend their immigration court hearings, and those who fail to appear in court often did not receive notice or faced hardship in getting to court.

As the new administration of President Joe Biden considers how to reform the immigration system, including the immigration courts, this report reveals how reliance on detention, access to legal representation, and immigration judges’ docket management impact immigrants’ appearance rate.

The report draws on government data from 2,797,437 immigration court removal proceedings held between 2008 to 2018. It documents how individuals who were never detained and those who were released from detention proceeded through court and what obstacles they faced in pursuing their immigration cases.

The report finds that people released from immigration detention and individuals with attorneys overwhelmingly attend their hearings. Data also show that immigration judges have a vital role in maintaining due process. The findings further demonstrate that the creation of an independent structure for the immigration courts would help reduce the prevalence of unwarranted in absentia removal orders and give immigration judges more discretion in managing their dockets and individual case decisions.

The main findings of the report include:

  • 83% of nondetained immigrants with completed or pending removal cases attended all of their hearings.
  • 96% of nondetained immigrants represented by a lawyer attended all of their hearings.
  • 15% of those who were ordered deported because they did not appear in court successfully reopened their cases and had their removal orders rescinded. In some years, as many as 20% of all orders of removal for missing court were later overturned.
  • Individuals who apply for relief from removal have especially high rates of appearance.
  • Appearance rates vary strongly based on the immigration court’s location.
  • The Executive Office for Immigration Review’s method for measuring the rate at which immigrants fail to appear in court presents a limited picture of the frequency of missed court appearances.

“The empirical research presented in this report debunks the myth that immigrants don’t show up for court,” said Ingrid Eagly, professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. “Relying on the government’s own immigration court data, co-author Steven Shafer and I find that, since 2008, 83% of all immigrants in nondetained deportation cases have attended all of their court hearings. In addition, over the 11 years of our study, 96% individuals represented by an attorney attended all of their court hearings.”

“Today’s report verifies what those who have worked in the immigration court system already knew: immigrants overwhelmingly show up in court. We hope that this data finally puts to rest a false narrative about immigrants’ appearance rates that past administrations used to justify restrictive and cruel immigration policies,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council. “After previous administrations spent years funding immigration enforcement to address a small set of individuals who miss court, the Biden administration has the opportunity change course. To ensure even higher appearance rates, the new administration should focus on updating immigration court technology, providing better resources to orient immigrants, and working to ensure that all immigrants navigating our removal system are represented by counsel. As Congress debates immigration reform, this report shows that it’s time to revisit harsh and punitive laws that require judges to enter deportation orders for a single missed hearing and which limit the ability of the government to appoint counsel.”

“The findings of this timely report confirm what many of us formerly on the immigration bench have known for years: represented asylum seekers appearing before fair, knowledgeable judges show up for virtually all of their immigration court hearings,” said Paul Wickham Schmidt, former immigration judge and board member for the Board of Immigration Appeals. “The findings refute one of the many ‘big lies’ and ‘bogus narratives’ promoted by the last administration to demean and dehumanize asylum seekers and wrongfully deprive them of their legal and constitutional rights. The Biden administration should pursue changes that would provide immigration judges greater independence and discretion and support the creation of an independent structure for the immigration courts.”

 

###

For more information, contact:

Maria Frausto at the American Immigration Council, mfrausto@immcouncil.org or 202-507-7526.

MEDIA CONTACT

Maria Frausto, Senior Communications Manager

mfrausto@immcouncil.org

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Ingrid’s and Steven’s full report is available at the above link.

Here’s a printout of my opening remarks:

No Shows — Final

 

Lies promoted by Government officials and turned into cruel, counterproductive, and biased policies cost lives and undermine our system of justice!

A stunning 96% of represented respondents appear for all hearings! The obvious step for the Biden Administration is to “repurpose” resources squandered by the defeated kakistocracy’s cruel, expensive, ineffective “enforcement gimmicks” like detention in the “New American Gulag,” ludicrous Immigration Judge “dashboards,” walls, bogus protocols, and illegal anti-asylum rules and instead invest in public-private partnerships to achieve universal representation. Building on existing programs, it should be possible to get all respondents represented by trained and competent counsel or accredited representatives. 

Notably, Professor Michele Pistone @ Villanova already runs VIISTA, an innovative, first class asylum litigation training program for accredited representatives. Put some Federal grant money into expanding it to meet the need for representation throughout America. These are “obvious steps” ignored by a captive “court system” run by malicious incompetents implementing a White Nationalist agenda.

Professor Michele Pistone
Professor Michele Pistone
Villanova Law

Combined with a restoration of the rule of law at EOIR and rational DHS enforcement priorities, that’s the way to establish manageable Immigration Court dockets compliant with Due Process and fundamental fairness. Create a model court system that will be a source of pride, rather than a national disgrace. 

Of course a legislatively-enacted, independent, professionally administered expert Article I Immigration Court is absolutely necessary. But, due process and fundamental fairness can’t wait! Lives and futures, not to mention our national values, are at stake. Judge Garland must end the dysfunction and start making urgently needed improvements @ EOIR immediately!

Removing (former) Director McHenry — who promoted the kakistocracy’s anti-immigrant myths, bogus statistics, and “worst management practices” — is a great start. But, it’s certainly not the end of the urgent changes that must be made to implement Due Process and professional court administration at EOIR. In particular, the current BIA is a due process, human rights, and asylum expertise “disaster zone!”

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

1-29-21

🇺🇸😎BIDEN MOVES QUICKLY TO TAKE CONTROL OF USG — Hacks Out, Pros In @ EOIR & Other Key Agencies — Judge Tabaddor’s Appointment @ USCIS Sends Positive Message For Due Process, Good Government, & That “Courage Counts!”🦸🏻

 

Biden Team Rushes to Take Over Government, and Oust Trump Loyalists

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/us/politics/biden-government.html?referringSource=articleShare

David E. Sanger reports for the NYT:

WASHINGTON — When President Biden swore in a batch of recruits for his new administration in a teleconferenced ceremony late last week, it looked like the country’s biggest Zoom call. In fact, Mr. Biden was installing roughly 1,000 high-level officials in about a quarter of all of the available political appointee jobs in the federal government.

At the same time, a far less visible transition was taking place: the quiet dismissal of holdovers from the Trump administration, who have been asked to clean out their offices immediately, whatever the eventual legal consequences.

If there has been a single defining feature of the first week of the Biden administration, it has been the blistering pace at which the new president has put his mark on what President Donald J. Trump dismissed as the hostile “Deep State” and tried so hard to dismantle.

From the Pentagon, where 20 senior officials were ready to move in days before the Senate confirmed Lloyd J. Austin III as defense secretary, to the Voice of America, where the Trump-appointed leadership was replaced hours after the inauguration, the Biden team arrived in Washington not only with plans for each department and agency, but the spreadsheets detailing who would carry them out.

A replacement was even in the works for the president’s doctor: Dr. Sean P. Conley, who admitted to providing a rosy, no-big-deal description of Mr. Trump’s Covid-19 symptoms last year, was told to pack his medical kit. While all presidents eventually bring in their own doctor, Mr. Biden wasted no time bringing back a retired Army colonel, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who was his doctor when he was vice president.

Mr. Biden had named nearly all of his cabinet secretaries and their immediate deputies before he took office last Wednesday, most of them familiar faces from the Obama administration. But the president’s real grasp on the levers of power has come several layers down.

. . . .

Ashley Tabaddor, a constant critic of the Trump administration as the former head of the union that represents immigration judges, will take over as chief counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal legal immigration agency.

At the Justice Department — where morale was largely decimated and Biden administration officials are eager to begin reversing Trump policies on civil rights, immigration and police oversight — all of the department’s top incoming acting department heads are alumni, some of whom worked under multiple administrations.

Until Judge Merrick B. Garland is confirmed as attorney general, Monty Wilkinson, a longtime career employee who worked closely with Eric H. Holder Jr. when he was attorney general, is serving in an acting capacity.

The acting deputy attorney general is John P. Carlin, who ran the national security division of the Justice Department during the Obama administration. He is holding the office only until Lisa Monaco, who has worked closely with Mr. Carlin over the years, can be confirmed as deputy attorney general. She served as homeland security adviser under Mr. Obama and, during the Trump years, she and Mr. Carlin ran a group studying the hardest issues in cyberpolicy.

Much as the politicization of the Justice Department angered Mr. Trump’s critics, the neutering of the Environmental Protection Agency prompted outrage from progressives, and it is probably no surprise that the agency is already in the throes of transformation.

. . . .

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

Read the complete article at the link.

Trump spent his first week in office spouting lies about the size of his inauguration crowd and launching a White Nationalist assault on Muslim refugees. Biden came in with a detailed plan for governing America and is putting it into effect on multiple fronts notwithstanding the crises and absolute mess left behind by the defeated kakistocracy!

The Biden-Harris plan reflects three truths:

  • Government is a powerful force for the common good;
  • Most governing takes place at the “retail level;” and
  • Competence, honesty, and courage count.

The Tabaddor appointment is a powerful signal to civil servants who stand up for their rights and the rights of others. Judge Tabaddor undoubtedly is one of the most talented, dynamic, and capable leaders at any level of the Federal Judiciary. But, that didn’t protect her from the DOJ/EOIR bureaucracy.

Judge Tabaddor was bullied by EOIR management during the Obama Administration because she had been recognized as an outstanding Iranian American. She sued her tormentors and won a $200,000 settlement.https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/03/454394225/government-settles-lawsuit-filed-by-iranian-american-judge

During the Trump regime, she led the effort of the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”) to expose bias and political interference with judicial functions, gross mismanagement, disregard for due process, and suppression of First Amendment free speech by the DOJ/EOIR kakistocracy.

“Billy the Bigot” Barr & his toady McHenry punished the NAIJ by filing to “decertify” the union — a move to silence Judge Tabaddor and her her colleagues and deflect Congressional attention from the ongoing chaos and dysfunction the Trump DOJ had created in the Immigration Courts. 

Apparently, somebody on the Biden Team was paying attention to this travesty, recognized the grotesque abuses going on at the EOIR Clown Show🤡, and the courage and leadership shown by Judge Tabaddor in the battle for integrity and  “good government.”

So far, so good. Looks like the “EOIR Clown Show”  🤡 is finally “going to go” and be replaced with real judges and pros in judicial administration who will refashion it into a real, functioning, due-process-oriented, model court system that will compliment the legislative initiative to create an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court of which we all can be proud. 

“Through teamwork and innovation be the world’s best tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!” Still the “right vision.” And with the right judicial leadership and judges who are experts in human rights, immigration, and “applied due process” it can become a reality!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-28-21

🌞😎DAWNING OF A NEW ERA — First Gibson Report of The Biden Presidency (01-25-21) Shows Potential For Returning Sanity, Humanity, Focus On Human Rights, Good Government To America While Highlighting Continuing Problems @ EOIR & Deficiencies @ Supremes! — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group! — Judge Garland Must Take Notice & Fix This Outrageous Mess If He Doesn’t Want to Become Part of It! — There Will Be No “Grace Period” For The Continuing Abuses Of Justice @ Justice! — We Have A “Supreme Problem” In Our Failing Justice System!

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

COVID-19 & Closures

Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify information with the government and colleagues.

 

EOIR Status Overview & EOIR Court Status Map/List: Hearings in non-detained cases at courts without an announced date are postponed through, and including, February 19, 2021. NYC non-detained remains closed for hearings.

 

TOP NEWS

 

AILA: First 100 Days of the Biden Administration: Tracking executive actions and proposals.

 

Biden Took Eight Administrative Actions on Immigration. Here’s What You Need to Know

IAC: Here is a summary of eight immigration-related changes the new administration just implemented:

1. Scaling back Trump’s unchecked immigration enforcement.

2. 100-Day moratorium on most deportations.

3. The end of the Muslim and African travel bans.

4. Protecting people with DACA.

5. Expedited and extended access to green card processing for Liberians.

6. Pausing construction on the border wall.

7. Ending Trump’s unconstitutional census executive order.

8. Suspending new enrollments in the so-called “Migrant Protection Protocols.”

 

Biden EO: Early Calendar of Themed Days

White House: January 29: Immigration

1. Regional Migration/Border Processing EO : Directs creation of strategies to address root causes

of migration from Central America and expand opportunities for legal migration, while taking

steps to restore the U.S. asylum system by rescinding numerous Trump Administration policies

2. Refugee Policy EO (tent.) : Establishes the principles that will guide the Administration’s

implementation of the U.S. Refugee Admission Program (USRAP) and directs a series of actions

to enhance USRAP’s capacity to fairly, efficiently, and security process refugee applications

3. Family Reunification Task Force EO : Creates task force to reunify families separated by the

Trump Administration’s Immigration policies

4. Legal Immigration EO : Directs immediate review of the Public Charge Rule and other actions

to remove barriers and restore trust in the legal immigration system, including improving the

naturalization process

 

Texas sues Biden administration over 100-day deportation ‘pause’

WaPo: Paxton’s lawsuit claims the deportation freeze defies an agreement between Texas and DHS finalized Jan. 8 — less than two weeks before Trump left office — requiring the department to provide 180 days notice before making changes to immigration policy and enforcement practices. See also Bronx man set to be deported despite 100-day moratorium, attorney says (flight canceled following advocacy) .

 

Biden is starting to roll back Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program

Vox: The Biden administration announced that, starting Thursday, it will no longer enroll asylum seekers newly arriving on the southern border in a Trump-era program that has forced tens of thousands to wait in Mexico for a chance to obtain protection in the United States. The Homeland Security Department urged anyone currently enrolled in the program, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) or colloquially as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, to “remain where they are, pending further official information from U.S. government officials.”

 

Trump blocks Venezuelans’ deportation in last political gift

AP: With the clock winding down on his term, U.S. President Donald Trump shielded tens of thousands of Venezuelan migrants from deportation Tuesday night, rewarding Venezuelan exiles who have been among his most loyal supporters and who fear losing the same privileged access to the White House during the Biden administration.

 

The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021: Help for Asylum Seekers, U Visas, Military Aides

ImmProf: There’s a lot to unpack there. First: eliminating one-year deadline for filing asylum claims. Second: increasing “protections for U visa, T visa, and VAWA applicants.” Third: raising the cap on U visas for 10,000 to 30,000. Fourth: expanding protections for foreign nationals assisting U.S. troops. But see GOP Lawmakers Propose Major Immigration Restrictions.

 

Biden wants to remove this controversial word from US laws

CNN: Biden’s proposed bill, if passed, would remove the word “alien” from US immigration laws, replacing it with the term “noncitizen.”

 

Sen. Hawley moves to block swift confirmation for Biden’s homeland security pick

WaPo: Homeland security nominee Alejandro Mayorkas told senators he would carry out President-elect Joe Biden’s immigration overhaul while intensifying efforts to combat domestic extremism, during a hearing Tuesday that highlighted Republican opposition to his confirmation.

 

The State of the Immigration Courts: Trump Leaves Biden 1.3 Million Case Backlog in Immigration Courts

TRAC: While the Trump administration hired many new immigration judges and implemented a range of different strategies aimed in part at reducing the Immigration Court backlog, the backlog grew each month. Some of Trump’s changes in court operations arguably slowed case processing. However, the primary driver of the exploding backlog was not only the lack of immigration judges but the tsunami of new cases filed in court by the Department of Homeland Security.

 

Bad conduct, leering ‘jokes’ — immigration judges stay on bench

SFChron: Interviews with dozens of attorneys across the country and current and former government officials, as well as internal documents obtained by The Chronicle, show the problems have festered for years. The Justice Department has long lacked a strong system for reporting and responding to sexual harassment and misconduct.

 

Vera Statement on Governor Cuomo’s 2021 State of the State Address

Vera: Gov. Cuomo reaffirmed his commitment to funding the Liberty Defense Project, which provides essential legal services for immigrants across New York State. This is excellent news for families facing separation, deportation and other horrors caused by the federal government’s actions.

 

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

 

District Court Halts Most of EOIR Filing Fee Rule from Going into Effect

A district court judge issued a nationwide stay of the effective date of the 12/18/20 EOIR final fee review rule and a preliminary injunction to enjoin most of its implementation. The rule was set to go into effect on 1/19/21. (CLINIC, et al., v. EOIR, et al., 1/18/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011933

 

White House Issues Memo on Regulatory Freeze Pending Review

White House Chief of Staff Ronald A. Klain issued a memorandum for the heads of executive departments and agencies instituting a regulatory freeze pending review. AILA Doc. No. 21012090

 

DHS and DOJ Delay Effective Date of Final Rule on Pandemic-Related Security Bars to Asylum and Withholding of Removal

Advance copy of a document that will be published in the Federal Register on 1/25/21, delaying the effective date of the final rule “Security Bars and Processing,” which was scheduled to become effective on 1/22/21. The effective date is delayed until 3/21/21. AILA Doc. No. 21012143

 

DHS Acting Secretary Issues Memorandum on Immigration Enforcement Policies

Acting DHS Secretary Pekoske issued a memorandum directing DHS components to conduct a review of immigration enforcement policies, and setting interim policies for civil enforcement during that review. Beginning 1/22/21, DHS will pause removals of certain noncitizens ordered deported for 100 days. AILA Doc. No. 21012136

 

President Biden Issues Executive Order Revising Civil Immigration Enforcement Policies and Priorities

President Biden issued an Executive Order revoking EO 13768 of 1/25/17, and directing the DOS Secretary, the Attorney General, the DHS Secretary, and other officials to review any agency actions developed pursuant to EO 13768 and to take action, including issuing revised guidance, as appropriate. AILA Doc. No. 21012135

 

Presidential Proclamation on Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to the United States

President Biden issued a proclamation revoking EO 13780, PP 9645, PP 9723, and PP 9983. The proclamation directs the DOS secretary to direct embassies/consulates, consistent with visa processing procedures, including any related to COVID-19, to resume visa processing consistent with the revocations. AILA Doc. No. 21012002

 

President Biden Issues Executive Order on Promoting COVID-19 Safety in Domestic and International Travel

President Biden issued an EO, which, among other things, directs government officials to assess CDC’s order requiring a negative COVID test from airline passengers traveling to the U.S., and to take “further appropriate regulatory action” to implement public health measures for international travel. AILA Doc. No. 21012300

 

Presidential Proclamation Terminating Restrictions on Entry of Certain Travelers from the Schengen Area, the U.K., Ireland, and Brazil

In light of a CDC order issued on 1/12/21, President Trump issued a proclamation on 1/18/21, effective 1/26/21, removing travel restrictions from the Schengen Area, the U.K., Ireland, and Brazil. (86 FR 6799, 1/22/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011930

 

DHS Suspends New Enrollments in the MPP Program

DHS announced that it is suspending new enrollments in the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) Program and will cease adding individuals into the program effective 1/21/21. DHS advised current MPP participants to remain where they are, pending further information. AILA Doc. No. 21012001

 

President Biden Issues Memorandum on Preserving and Fortifying DACA

On 1/20/21, President Biden issued a memorandum directing the DHS Secretary, in consultation with the Attorney General, to take all actions he deems appropriate, consistent with applicable law, to preserve and fortify DACA. (86 FR 7053, 1/25/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012130

 

President Biden Issues Memorandum Reinstating Deferred Enforced Departure for Liberians

On 1/20/21, President Biden issued a memo deferring through 6/30/22, the removal of any Liberian national, or person without nationality who last habitually resided in Liberia, who is present in the U.S. and who was under a grant of DED as of 1/10/21. (86 FR 7055, 1/25/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012131

 

President Biden Issues Executive Order Revoking Prior Presidential Actions Excluding Undocumented Immigrants from the Apportionment Base Following the Decennial Census

On 1/20/21, President Biden issued an executive order revoking prior presidential actions that sought to exclude undocumented immigrants from the apportionment base following the 2020 census. (86 FR 7015, 1/25/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012134

 

Presidential Proclamation Terminating Emergency with Respect to the U.S. Southern Border and Redirecting Funds Diverted to Border Wall Construction

President Biden issued a proclamation terminating the national emergency declared by Proclamation 9844, and continued on 2/13/20 and 1/15/21. The proclamation directs officials to pause work on construction on the southern border wall and to develop a plan to redirect funds and repurpose contracts. AILA Doc. No. 21012132

 

President Trump Issues Memorandum on Deferred Enforced Departure for Certain Venezuelans

On 1/19/21, President Trump issued a memo directing DHS and DOS to defer, with certain exceptions, for 18 months the removal of any Venezuelan national, or individual without nationality who last habitually resided in Venezuela, who is present in the U.S. as of 1/20/21. (86 FR 6845, 1/25/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012030

 

Supreme Court Vacates Decision of Ninth Circuit in ICE v. Padilla

The U.S. Supreme Court granted the petition for a writ of certiorari, vacated the judgment of the Ninth Circuit, and remanded for further consideration in light of DHS v. Thuraissigiam. (ICE, et al. v. Padilla, et al., 1/11/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011934

 

BIA Rules §58-37-8(2)(a)(i) of the Utah Code Is Divisible with Respect to the Specific Controlled Substance Involved in Statue Violation

The BIA ruled that §58-37-8(2)(a)(i) of the Utah Code, which criminalizes possession or use of a controlled substance, is divisible with respect to the specific “controlled substance” involved in a violation of that statute. Matter of Dikhtyar, 28 I&N Dec. 214 (BIA 2021) AILA Doc. No. 21012237

 

CA1 Remands Asylum and Withholding Claims of Iraqi National Who Worked for U.S. Army During War

The court vacated and remanded the BIA’s denial of the asylum and withholding of removal claims of the petitioner, who feared that he would be subjected to harm on account of his work as a paid contractor for the U.S. Army during the war in Iraq. (Al Amiri v. Rosen, 1/11/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012039

 

CA4 Remands Plaintiffs’ Claim That DHS Unreasonably Delayed Adjudication of Their U Visa Petitions

Vacating in part the district court’s decision, the court held that the plaintiffs had pled sufficient facts to allege a plausible claim that DHS unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed adjudication of their U visa petitions. (Fernandez Gonzalez, et al. v. Cuccinelli, et al., 1/14/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012048

 

CA5 Finds Petitioner Failed to Show Due Diligence Where He Waited Eight Months After Lugo-Resendez to File Motion to Reopen

The court upheld the BIA’s conclusion that the petitioner did not demonstrate due diligence because he had waited approximately eight months after the court’s decision in Lugo-Resendez v. Lynch to file his current motion to reopen under INA §240(c)(7). (Ovalles v. Rosen, 1/6/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011943

 

CA5 Dismisses for Mootness After Finding Inadmissibility Was Not a Collateral Consequence of BIA’s Withholding-Only Decision

The court held that even if the BIA had erred in denying withholding of removal to the petitioner, inadmissibility was not a collateral consequence of the BIA’s decision, because the petitioner would still be subject to his February 2012 removal order. (Mendoza-Flores v. Rosen, 12/29/20) AILA Doc. No. 21011942

 

CA6 Says BIA Abused Its Discretion by Finding That No Exceptional Circumstances Justified Minor Petitioner’s Failure to Appear

The court held that, based on the totality of the circumstances, including petitioner’s young age and her inability to travel from New York to Memphis for the hearing, the petitioner had established exceptional circumstances justifying her failure to appear. (E. A. C. A. v. Rosen, 1/12/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012040

 

CA6 Says It Has Jurisdiction to Review BIA’s Ultimate Hardship Conclusion for Cancellation of Removal After Guerrero-Lasprilla

The court held that the BIA’s ultimate hardship conclusion is the type of mixed question over which it has jurisdiction to review after the Supreme Court’s decision in Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr, but found that petitioner failed to show the requisite hardship. (Singh v. Rosen, 1/7/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011944

 

CA7 Finds BIA Did Not Err in Denying Asylum to Mexican Petitioner Whose Family Was Targeted by Sinaloa Cartel

The court held that substantial evidence supported the BIA’s determination that the petitioner had failed to establish the requisite nexus between his fear of persecution from the Sinaloa Cartel upon return to Mexico and his family membership. (Meraz-Saucedo v. Rosen, 1/15/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012044

 

CA7 Remands Petitioner’s Request for Administrative Closure After Finding BIA Did Not Exercise Its Discretion According to Law

The court held that the petitioner was entitled to have his request for administrative closure considered as a proper exercise of discretion under law, including BIA precedents and the factors set forth in Matter of Avetisyan and Matter of W-Y-U. (Zelaya Diaz v. Rosen, 1/15/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012041

 

CA8 Affirms BIA’s Denial of Deferral of Removal to Somali Petitioner Who Feared Torture by Al-Shabaab for Minority-Clan Membership

The court affirmed the BIA’s decision denying petitioner’s request for deferral of removal to Somalia, finding that substantial evidence supported the IJ’s and BIA’s conclusions that he was unlikely to be tortured by Al-Shabaab due to his minority-clan membership. (Hassan v. Rosen, 1/15/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012045

 

CA8 Holds That DHS Was Permitted to Substitute CIMTs Charge for Immigration Fraud Charge as Basis for Petitioner’s Removal

The court held that, in seeking the petitioner’s removal, DHS could choose to rely on a claim that the petitioner had committed crimes involving moral turpitude (CIMTs), rather than on the alternative claim that she had committed immigration fraud. (Herrera Gonzalez v. Rosen, 1/4/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011945

 

CA9 to Rehear En Banc Case Involving Derivative Citizenship

The court ordered rehearing en banc and vacated its prior decision in Cheneau v. Barr, which held that the petitioner did not derive citizenship from his mother’s naturalization because his claim was foreclosed by the court’s precedent. (Cheneau v. Rosen, 1/6/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011948

 

CA9 Affirms District Court’s Denial of Government’s Motion to Terminate Flores Settlement Agreement

The court held that the district court had correctly concluded that the Flores Settlement Agreement was not terminated by new regulations adopted by HHS and DHS in 2019, and that the government did not show that changed circumstances justified termination. (Flores v. Rosen, 12/29/20) AILA Doc. No. 21011946

 

CA9 Holds That Petitioner Who Adjusted to Permanent Resident Under SAW May Be Removed at Present Time

The court held that, under the Special Agricultural Worker program (SAW), a noncitizen who was inadmissible at the time of his adjustment to temporary resident status may be removed after his automatic adjustment to permanent resident status. (Hernandez Flores v. Rosen, 12/30/20) AILA Doc. No. 21011947

 

CA9 Reverses and Remands Habeas Petition Denial Where Petitioner Claimed His ICE Arrest Was Retaliation for Protected Speech

Where the petitioner had filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 8 USC §2241 arguing that his immigration arrest and re-detention was retaliation for his protected speech, the court reversed the district court’s denial of the petition and remanded. (Bello-Reyes v. Gaynor, 1/14/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012047

 

CA9 Upholds Denial of Asylum to Pakistani National Who Claimed He Feared Persecution from Taliban

The court held that the IJ had provided the pro se petitioner with a full opportunity to present testimony, and found the BIA did not err in concluding that petitioner’s description of generalized violence failed to meet his burden to show targeted persecution. (Hussain v. Rosen, 1/11/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012046

 

CA11 Says Substantial Evidence Supported BIA’s Finding That Petitioner Committed Fraud with Loss Amount over $10,000

The court upheld the BIA’s finding that petitioner’s Florida convictions for money laundering and workers’ compensation fraud were aggravated felonies because each conviction involved fraud in which the amount of loss to the victim exceeded $10,000. (Garcia-Simisterra v. Att’y Gen., 12/30/20) AILA Doc. No. 21012038

 

Notice of Proposed Settlement Regarding Asylum Applicants with Employment Authorization Who Were Denied Safety Net Assistance in New York

The NY County Supreme Court approved a proposed settlement in Colaj v. Roberts benefiting a class of asylum applicants with work authorization who were denied Safety Net Assistance between 8/7/14 and 11/21/17. Under the agreement, the applicants will get a certain amount of back benefits.AILA Doc. No. 21011935

 

DOS Notice Designating Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism

On 1/12/21, DOS issued a notice designating Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. (86 FR 6731, 1/22/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012233

 

ICYMI: EOIR Issues Guidance on “Enhanced Case Flow Processing” in Removal Proceedings

EOIR issued guidance on the implementation of an enhanced case flow processing model for non-status, non-detained cases with representation in removal proceedings. Memo is effective 12/1/20. AILA Doc. No. 20120130

 

DOS Provides Annual Immigrant Visa Waiting List Report as of November 1, 2020

DOS provided a report from the NVC showing the total number of immigrant visa applicants on the waiting list in the various family- and employment-based preference categories and subcategories subject to the numerical limit as of 11/1/20. The figures only reflect petitions received by DOS. AILA Doc. No. 21012232

 

EOIR Releases Policy Memo on Adjudicator Independence and Impartiality

EOIR issued a policy memo (PM 21-15) reiterating and memorializing EOIR’s policy regarding adjudicator independence and impartiality. The memo notes that it remains EOIR policy that adjudicator decisions should be based solely on the record before the adjudicator and the applicable law. AILA Doc. No. 21012033

 

Duckworth Asks President Biden To Prohibit Deportation Of Veterans And Strengthen Naturalization Process For Servicemembers

Duckworth:  Combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) is urging President Joe Biden to take immediate action to prevent the deportation of Veterans, repatriate deported Veterans, strengthen the military naturalization process and remove barriers to accessing VA care faced by Veterans living broad.

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

 

ImmProf

 

Monday, January 25, 2021

Sunday, January 24, 2021

Saturday, January 23, 2021

Friday, January 22, 2021

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Monday, January 18, 2021

 

 

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

A better Monday right off the bat, as I had predicted and hoped! But, the work has just begun! 

However welcome the Biden Administration’s immediate actions are, they have barely “touched the tip of the iceberg” on the human rights, civil rights, and human dignity abuses left behind by the just-departed kakistocracy.

There is a mess in the Federal Judiciary, from the lowest levels (EOIR) to the highest levels (Supremes). For example, the Supremes’ totally wrong-headed remand of ICE v. Padilla (described in Elizabeth’s report) shows a deficient Court that overtly fails to uphold the Constitution for asylum seekers and whose false and stilted jurisprudence continues to advance Jim Crow, White Nationalism, and Dred Scottification well into the 21st Century. Totally outrageous!

Let’s think about the Supremes in “real life” terms! The most vulnerable among us — asylum seekers who  are being openly abused by our Government while their lives are being trashed by our legal “system” get the shaft from El Supremos. But, yesterday the same Supremos issued corrupt traitor Prez Trump a “free pass” by going along with a corrupt scheme to “run out the clock” on “emoluments clause cases” that those seeking to uphold the rule of law had won below!

Suffering, death, and unfairness to the most vulnerable; free passes to the powerful and overtly corrupt! The problems with our failing justice system begin at the top and obviously have filtered down to places like EOIR where nobody expects any accountability for “going along to get along” with the Trump-Miller White Nationalist, racist, degradations of humanity!

Quoting Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “This is not justice!” Not even close!

Judge Garland must end the White Nationalist mess at EOIR by replacing (what passes for) administration and the BIA immediately, while quickly developing due process-expert-equal justice-human rights-diversity criteria and meaningful public participation in the judicial appointment process for the Immigration Courts. Then apply those criteria not only to new appointments, but also to retention decisions for the existing judiciary which is the product of a skewed “insider only,” “prosecutor and hard liner biased” defective system. 

Some Immigration Judges are well qualified, fair, and well respected; some are not. Judge Garland needs to figure out quickly who should serve, who shouldn’t, and who the best-qualified, fairest, and most universally respected “experts” are to create “the world’s best administrative judiciary” that will serve as a model for a better Article III Judiciary!

This is also the first step to reform throughout the Federal Judiciary all the way up to the failed Supremes. A functioning due-process-oriented, practical, progressive, independent Immigration Judiciary should become a source of better Article III Judges who handle high volume and promote best practices while actually improving due process and efficiency. A big winner for America!

A “model Immigration judiciary” (in place of the “Star Chambers”) will also be the centerpiece of a new independent legislative Article I Immigration Court that Judge Garland must push aggressively to insure that his reform work is institutionalized and is not destroyed by a future DOJ kakistocracy. 

As one of my esteemed judicial colleagues in the NAIJ said, immediately and radically reforming the current EOIR while pushing forward with Article 1 legislation requires the “ability to walk and chew gum at the same time.” 

Surely, Judge Garland, Vanita Gupta, Lisa Monaco and the rest of the incoming team at Justice have the demonstrated ability to do just that!

It’s up to all of us in the NDPA, the human rights and immigration advocacy community, the civil rights community, and the “good government movement” to keep pressure on Judge Garland and his team to fix EOIR and get the Federal Judicial reform movement moving at full speed. Raise hell if you have to, but don’t let this issue be delayed or “back burnered!”

This is not a “tomorrow” issue! Folks are suffering, dying, and the justice system is deteriorating — from the Supremes to  “America’s Star Chambers” every day that the current EOIR due process and fundamental fairness disaster remains unaddressed. Courageous lawyers who have fought to save our democracy from the “creeping and creepy kakistocracy” are being outrageously abused in “Star Chamber Courts” every day that the Biden Administration fails to take bold corrective action @ EOIR!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Justice @ Justice Can’t Wait! Fix The EOIR Clown Show 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ Now! Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-26-21

⚖️🗽IN ANOTHER DEFEAT FOR NATIVIST ANTI-ASYUM AGENDA @ EOIR, 4TH CIR. FINDS “UNREASONABLE” BIA’S ATTEMPT TO DEFINE PSG IN MATTER OF W-G-R- SO THAT NOBODY EVER QUALIFIES! — Amaya v. Rosen

 

Juan Carlos Amaya v. Jeffrey A. Rosen

Amaya v. Rosen, 4th Cir., 01-25-21, published

PANEL: THACKER, RICHARDSON, and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges.

OPINION BY: JUDGE QUATTLEBAUM

DISSENT: JUDGE RICHARDSON

KEY QUOTE FROM MAJORITY:

Juan Carlos Amaya, a citizen of El Salvador, seeks to avoid deportation to that country, fearing persecution on account of membership in the PSG “former Salvadoran MS-13 members.”1 Appellant’s Br. at 13–16. For that reason, he argued to an immigration judge (“IJ”) that his removal from the United States should be withheld.2 After the IJ denied Amaya’s claims, he appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”). The BIA dismissed Amaya’s appeal, determining that the “former Salvadoran MS-13 members” PSG was “too diffuse” to satisfy the particularity requirement. J.A. 4. Assuming we must afford Chevron deference to the BIA’s decision, our question is whether we think the BIA’s decision is reasonable. Because we do not, we grant the petition in part and remand on this ground.

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

Great opinion by Judge A. Marvin QUATTLEBAUM! He’s a Trump appointee whom I’ve criticized in the past. But, his analysis is “spot on” in this case!

Perhaps the Federal Courts are finally catching on to the BIA’s disingenuous “scissors approach” to PSG. That’s used to “cut off” all PSG asylum claims no matter how meritorious. 

Here’s how it works. They incorrectly find that almost all “particularized” social groups fail the “social distinction” test. But, when you prove “social distinction,” they wrongly characterize the social group as too “amorphous” or “vague” to be particularized. In that manner, the BIA and many IJs can manipulate the law to reject proper “particular social groups” and keep their White Nationalist anti-asylum “handlers” at the DOJ happy, which also helps them retain their positions. 

It will be interesting to see how that works out for them if, as many of us have recommended, Judge Garland actually puts some Appellate Judges on the BIA who understand asylum law and start applying it fairly, correctly, and in accordance with due process?

In making EOIR appointments, the Obama Administration generally eschewed the “best and brightest” with expertise representing asylum seekers and applying the UN Convention and the Refugee Act of 1980 in accordance with their humanitarian intent, rather as ways to advance a restrictionist agenda of deterring asylum seekers by wrongfully denying their claims. After all, how many asylum seekers are fortunate enough to have a good lawyer like Abdoul Aziz Konare represent them in their asylum cases? Not very many!

No, the average asylum seeker, many in detention and without adequate access to counsel or research materials, gets railroaded out with gobbledegook like “Chevron deference,” too “amorphous,” not “socially visible” and citations to cases even experienced Federal Judges often don’t correctly understand. So, getting asylum tends to depend not so much on the strength of your claim (many of which should be pretty easily grantable unless the IJ is “programmed to deny” — the norm these days), but on your lawyer, your IJ, and whether you are fortunate enough to have access to a thoughtful Article III judge like Judge Quattlebaum in this case. He took the time to figure out the bogus nature of the DOJ’s standard “BS arguments.” 

Unfortunately, many Federal Judges would have just “punted” by accepting the “Chevron deference” argument for a “quick kill” without the need for much thought or analysis. After all, Court of Appeals Judges also like to “keep their dockets moving” and what easier victim to “throw under the bus” than an asylum applicant who is going to be deported to a place where he or she will be too busy fighting to stay alive to reflect on the deteriorating quality and lack of concern for fairness in the U.S. Judicial system. 

The Trump kakistocracy actually went a long way toward convincing the world that the once widely admired U.S. Justice system is now little more than a “third world sham” — controlled by nationalist politicos, programmed to reject, deny, dehumanize, and operated largely for the exclusive benefit of the rich white ruling class.

I hope that “Team Garland” will “End the EOIR Clown Show” 🤡 and restore integrity to our system. But, so far, it bumbles along chewing up and spitting out hope, humanity, and lives, while mocking any normal understanding of “justice” on a daily basis. Not something I’d want on my watch!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-25-21

☠️⚰️21ST CENTURY NAZISM: OF COURSE “IT COULD HAPPEN HERE” — Trump Proved That America Has the Key Ingredient Of The Nazi State: Indifference To Human Suffering On A Massive Scale 🤮 — “The Trump administration, in this light, was proposing what one answer could be: dead bodies, piled up until they’re out of view. The country, it seems, can live with that.”

 

Death On The Rio Grande
Supremes Sign Death Warrants For Vulnerable Refugees, Trash Refugee Act of 1980
Trump Dumping Asylum Seekers in Hondiras
Dumping Asylum Seekers in Honduras
Artist: Monte Wolverton
Reproduced under license
Star Chamber Justice
“Justice”
Star Chamber
Style

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/trump-what-we-learned-suffering-death.html

Tom Scocca writes in Slate:  

This is part of What We Learned, a series of reflections on the meaning and legacy of the Trump years.

One of the last things the Trump administration did, while it still had the power to do it, was reportedly kidnap a 9-year-old boy from his family. Customs and Border Protection officials at San Francisco International Airport denied entry to 19-year-old Christian Laporte and his younger brother, Vladimir Fardin, traveling from Haiti on U.S.-issued student and tourist visas respectively last Sunday—and then separated them from each other, declared Vladimir to therefore be an unaccompanied minor, and shipped him off to a detention center.

This was, by this point in Donald Trump’s term, not particularly surprising. Child abuse was at the center of the country’s immigration policy for these past four years, part of an intentional effort to scare people away from trying to come here. Hundreds of children disappeared into custody with no effort to keep track of them or reunite them with their families. A regime that had already been inhumane under President Obama, pushing migrants toward deadly desert crossings, turned fully malignant, with federal agents destroying water supplies and prosecutors targeting humanitarian workers. Asylum laws were cast aside.

On one level, this was straightforwardly racist, joining the goals of white nationalist policymakers like Stephen Miller to the daily bigotry of many border patrol officers. Rhetorically and conceptually, though, it was an effort to roll back the consensus that the United States is a nation of immigrants. The attack extended to legally documented immigration and residency, and on to citizenship itself, breaking precedent to strip people of what had seemed like a secure membership in the nation.

As Adam Serwer indelibly wrote, the cruelty of this was the point. The politics of Trumpism were built around white people sharing in rituals of viciousness and exclusion, coming together to follow their leader’s rejection of their designated enemies and to revel in how far things would go.

But the longer the administration wore on, the more the cruelty seemed to have another, horrifyingly practical point behind it. Trumpism was not just testing how hateful the country could be. It was exploring the limits of America’s capacity for indifference.

By the end, there were no limits to be found. The people thrown into detention at the border or deported at random may have been the first to be treated as nonpersons, but they soon had more company than anyone could count. Hurricane Maria hit U.S. territory in Puerto Rico, and the administration simply failed to respond, leaving hundreds and then thousands of people to die. It was Katrina all over again, except it wasn’t: No real lasting blame attached itself to the government’s deadly failure. The death toll rarely made it to the top of any lists of the president’s wrongdoing.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article t the link.

Readers of Courtside over the past few years know all about this: “Dred Scottification” — dehumanization of “the other” — often the most vulnerable among us.

It’s the the basic policy of large numbers of GOP politicos, many Federal Judges (including, disgracefully, GOP-appointed Supremes who routinely hide their inhumanity behind wooden, wrong-headed legalisms and complete gobbledygook designed to screen them from the stench of decaying humanity they have betrayed), lots of bureaucrats, and about 74 million American voters who voted to retain a cruel, incompetent, neo-Nazi and his regime based on 30,500 outrageous lies and false narratives, most of them overtly racist, misogynist, bigoted, dehumanizing, or all all of the foregoing. 

These are NOT “differences of opinion” or “conservative v liberal philosophy.” Not by any means! They are differences in humanity: how we value truth, justice, and the essence of our fellow humans’ right to exist. 

The good news is that there were at least seven million more of those of us willing to give humanity a shot. But, coming to an “equilibrium” in a democracy where nearly half the voting population rejects the basic principles of democracy and indeed the humanity of much of our majority and most of the world beyond us, won’t be easy. 

PWS

01-25-21

🇺🇸⚖️🗽PROFESSOR CRISTINA RODRIGUEZ @ YALE LAW:  Biden’s Lasting Immigration/Human Rights/Social Justice Reforms & Legacy Will Depend On Replacing 🧹 The Bureaucratic Immigration Kakistocracy 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮 Left Behind By The Regime! — It’s Time For “The EOIR Clown Show” 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️☠️ To Go! — BONUS PWS MINI-ESSAY: “THE BATTLE FOR DUE PROCESS @ JUSTICE ISN’T OVER: Flailing, Failing Department Needs A Bureaucratic House-Cleaning, Now!”

Cristina Rodriguez
Professor Cristina Rodriguez
Yale Law
Photo: Twitter

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/fixing-trumps-damage-to-government-will-take-more-than-executive-orders/2021/01/22/5e3c50f8-5c2d-11eb-8bcf-3877871c819d_story.html

Professor Christina Rodriguez in WashPost:

. . . .

As the Migration Policy Institute has shown, the Trump-era changes to the immigration system numbered in the hundreds and consisted of dramatic reinterpretations of the laws alongside seemingly clerical changes, such as revised application forms for visas, higher fees and tighter deadlines in immigration courts — all to advance a maximalist enforcement agenda and slow down the ordinary gears of immigrant admissions. High-level White House advisers, working with knowledgeable allies in the Homeland Security and Justice departments, pushed out regulation after regulation to render asylum laws more restrictive and make it harder for noncitizens to present their case in immigration courts. Trump’s attorneys general exerted unprecedented authority to define asylum laws to severely limit claims by victims of domestic and gang violence, and to constrain immigration judges’ ability to grant relief and manage their dockets in a way that provides a semblance of due process.

. . . .

And yet, the new administration’s policy agenda will not be complete unless legislative proposals are accompanied by concerted executive action across the administrative state, and not just because ambitious legislation on any issue faces an uphill climb in a Senate with the narrowest of Democratic majorities. Even when it comes to pass, legislation emerges from a bargain, leaving issues unaddressed, introducing new concepts to be interpreted and creating new programs that demand administration. Changing the direction of our government requires not only executive vision, but also multilayered strategies that make their way through the bureaucracy and down to the ground — along with the stamina and patience to see them through.

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

THE BATTLE FOR DUE PROCESS @ JUSTICE ISN’T OVER: Flailing, Failing Department Needs A Bureaucratic House-Cleaning, Now!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

Jan. 24, 2021

Read Cristina’s complete article at the link. The book that she and Adam Cox wrote The President and Immigration Law along with that of my friend and colleague Professor Phil Schrag, Baby Jails, should be required reading for all incoming Biden-Harris officials.

A “democracy” that doesn’t understand how it came to run prisons for vulnerable kids and star chambers for legal asylum seekers, and how to end them immediately, can expect little success in achieving social justice, promoting economic equality and prosperity for all, or leading and advocating for democracy abroad. 

It all starts with immigration. I can draw a straight line from the Muslim Ban, to the Roberts’ Court’s disgraceful and cowardly abdication of responsibility to stop it in its tracks (grotesquely undermining the many lower court Federal Judges who had courageously “mapped it out for them”), to GOP politicos running around undermining our free and fair elections, to “magamorons” and other traitor/crazies storming the Capitol. Folks “get” the abdication of moral responsibility and legal accountability when it is delivered by those who should be standing up for democracy.

The failure of career civil servants at all levels to “just say no” and rebel against these outrageous failures of Constitutional governance and simple human decency, combined with a horribly deficient Supremes’ majority that abandoned both legal legitimacy and moral leadership, created a beyond dangerous pattern that came very close to toppling two centuries of the “democratic experiment” and still has the future of our democratic republic “on the ropes.” 

Just look at what happened at the DOJ in the final weeks of the regime! Government officials who knew better settled for “heading off” a President’s treasonous acts rather than exposing them to the public, the Vice President, and leaders of Congress (perhaps other than treacherous co-conspirator Kevin McCarthy) who could have taken action for the immediate removal of this “clear and present threat” to our national security from the office for which he was so completely unqualified. Who knows, they might even have stopped the insurrection!

Look at the failed and ethically vapid Solicitor General’s Office (once, but no longer, one of the “Jewels in the Crown” of Government) that time and time again moved forward to defend unethical and unconstitutional policies before a willing Supremes’ majority based on patently false narratives and obvious pretexts (not very convincingly) concealing the overt racist, White Nationalist agenda of Trump, Miller, and the other neo-Nazis who had seized control of large portions of our governing machinery. Who, with the disgraceful complicity of the Supremes, turned American asylum law from the life-saving humanitarian refuge it was intended to be to instead an ugly weapon of racism, xenophobia, misogyny, child abuse, death, torture, unjust imprisonment, and overall dehumanization of the most vulnerable among us! What’s wrong with this picture? Everything!

Checks and balances and the courage and integrity of a professional career civil service are supposed to halt abuses like this, even in the face of failure of one of our two major political parties and our highest Court to act with integrity and adhere to democratic norms! But, with a few exceptions, courageous folks like U.S. Immigration Judge Ashley Tabaddor, Col. Alexander Vindman, and others like them, it did not happen over the past four years. That nearly cost us our country! (Note that Tabaddor, Vindmin, and others like them were punished, with the disgraceful treasonists from the GOP looking on and actually cheerleading, for speaking out and upholding their oaths of office.) 

Buried in the carnage of the departed regime are the many lives unnecessarily lost, futures ruined, and lasting trauma — trauma that will continue to adversely affect our nation far into the future — caused by failure to stop the kakistocracy’s unconstitutional, cruel, and inhuman abuses. From intentionally inept COVID policies, to “politicizing” masks, to deaths in detention, to unlawful deportations to torture, to unfair, clearly political misapplications of the death penalty (basically “legalized murder”), to officially-sanctioned misogyny — this damage can’t be swept away overnight. 

Like legislative and judicial failures, bureaucratic failure comes at a cost — a huge one! The fact that it might be largely “out of sight, out of mind” to the arrogant, largely white, privileged, ruling elites and ivory tower “High Court” jurists doesn’t mean the harm isn’t real. Just that our society has enabled some in power to look away and avoid meaningful contact with the human wreckage and lasting pain and damage they have caused and or tolerated!

Already, we can see how the Biden-Harris Administration’s inexplicable failure to “take charge” at a broken DOJ is undermining the long-overdue and well-thought-out progressive immigration agenda they announced with such fanfare. Here’s what’s come to light in just the past few days at the broken and dysfunctional DOJ:

  • Seeking the illegal deportation to Haiti of a mentally ill individual denied due process by the EOIR kakistocracy;
  • Failure to repudiate scurrilous, misogynist attacks on well-known refugee woman “Ms. A-B-“ by unqualified then “acting” AG Jeffrey Rosen; 
  • Issuance by the “EOIR Clown Show” of more false narratives and anti-migrant “precedents” — basically delivering the “big, public middle finger” to the new Administration and the AG-designate;
  • Release of a blockbuster investigative report on misogyny and misconduct within the Immigration Judiciary — with no response or plan for corrective action from the DOJ;
  • Appointment of a bunch of bureaucratic nobodies to “caretaker” duties at the DOJ — including one quickly found by reporters — but apparently missed by the incoming Administration — to have had ties to the grotesque child abuse program run by White Nationalist former AG “Gonzo” Sessions;
  • Release by the IG of a report showing the role of Sessions, Rosenstein, and other DOJ officials in “official child abuse” –  without any promise of accountability for past or future misconduct;
  • A treasonous plot by the President, a GOP Congressman, and a corrupt DOJ political hack that, although thwarted, went unreported until uncovered by reporters from The NY Times!

To state the obvious, why weren’t folks with known integrity, courage, and ability — professional decision-makers with track records of upholding our Constitution — like Judge Ashley Tabaddor and her colleagues in the leadership of the National Association of Immigration Judges — put in charge of the DOJ debacle to “ride herd”on this mess, restore some integrity, and prevent any more damage until “Team Garland” arrives? Few folks at Justice know as much about the “inept DOJ bureaucracy and failure of justice at Justice” than the NAIJ leadership which has been “at war” with the kakistocracy for years!

The solutions are still out there. But, it will take boldness, courage, and some “quick thinking outside the box” by “Team Garland” to get this completely (and unnecessarily) unacceptable situation under control!

That begins with an immediate clean-up of the “immigration kakistocracy/bureaucracy” throughout Justice — starting with the “EOIR Clown Shown.” Bring in the immigration/human rights/due process experts and let them start fixing the problems! 

Stop defending the unprofessional garbage being aimlessly tossed into the Federal Courts by the EOIR White Nationalist deportation factory still running under orders from Miller and Hamilton. Have all these cases reviewed by experts in immigration/human rights/due process and racial justice! 

Fire anyone in the SG’s office who presents bogus arguments concerning fake “immigration emergencies” and illegally promulgated “regulations” to the Supremes. End the unethical practice of using one-sided “precedents” to develop anti-immigrant “litigating positions” for OIL. 

Stop appointing unqualified individuals to precious Immigration Judgeships. Remove the entire BIA and replace it with real expert appellate judges unswervingly committed to fundamental fairness and due process for all. Replace “worst practices” with “best practices.” Stop the “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” at EOIR. Cut the largely self-created Immigration Court “backlog.”

Bring in Professor Rodriguez, Professor Schrag, Professor Ingrid Eagly, Judge Dana Marks (who argued and won the landmark Cardoza-Fonseca case before the Supremes), Judge (and former BIA Judge and high-ranking DOJ official) Noel Brennan, Judge Amiena Khan, Judge Mimi Tsankov, Marielena Hincapie (NCIJ), Dean Kevin Johnson (UC Davis Law), and a “due process brain trust” of others like them! Let them start “kicking some tail,” fixing the problems, and restoring sanity, humanity, and due process to the broken immigration kakistocracy at DOJ. Now, before any more lives are lost or futures irrevocably ruined! 

Let “practical scholars” like Rodriguez, Schrag, Eagly, and Johnson “turn their research and great thoughts into action.” “A little less talk, and a lot more action,” as Toby Keith would say!

The NDPA has already shown that it can out-litigate and out-strategize the Government immigration kakistocracy. In many ways, only the abject failure of the Supremes’ majority to stand up for the Constitution, rule of law, and human decency has prevented the NDPA from completely annihilating the kakistocracy, wiping out all of its misdeeds by judicial decree, and perhaps even holding criminals like Miller and Wolf accountable for their “crimes against humanity.” 

Judge Garland is a smart person. The “smart thing” would be to get the “NDPA on the inside at Justice,” creating order from chaos and re-establishing justice @ Justice now! 

Otherwise, smart or not, he’s likely to spend the bulk of his tenure as a “caption” on the never-ending avalanche of new legal actions filed against the deadly immigration bureaucracy by the NDPA. Because, I promise that the fight for due process in immigration and human rights isn’t over! It has just begun! 

There is lots to be gained by working together to solve these problems. But if it takes litigation, continuing conflict, and a never-ending political and press crusade against an Administration I otherwise support to get the job done, so be it!

The battle isn’t over until the kakistocracy is removed, at every level, and due process, fundamental fairness, equal justice, and respect for human dignity — all both Constitutional and human rights — become a reality for all persons in America (including those physically present at our borders) rather than just the cruel, unfulfilled promises they have been to date.

Due Process Can’t And Won’t Wait! Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-24-22

 *******************

GO PACK GO!

Green Bay Packers
Green Bay Packers
Aaron Rodgers
Aaron Rodgers
Quarterback
Green Bay Packers
Devante Adams
Devante Adams
Wide Receiver
Green Bay Packers

 

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮GOP TREASON! — AS TRAITORS TRUMP🦹🏿‍♂️, REP. SCOTT PERRY (R-PA)🦹🏿‍♂️, & DOJ POLITICAL HACK JEFFREY CLARK 🦹🏿‍♂️ PLOTTED TO OVERTHROW ELECTION RESULTS & FILE FRIVOLOUS LITIGATION AT SUPREMES, DESPERATE OFFICIALS THWARTED PLOT FOR DOJ TAKEOVER, BUT THEN FAILED TO REPORT IT TO PUBLIC, CONGRESS, OR VICE PRESIDENT! — Failing To Report Threat Against Nation’s Security, Covering For President Plotting Treason Is Crime! — The 25th Amendment Should Have Been Invoked! — Conviction Of Trump, Life Bar From Office Should Be Immediate & Unanimous Following Expulsion Of Perry & Other GOP Traitors Who Promoted (& Continue To Promote) Fraudulent Attempts To Undermine Elections & Democracy!

 

Trump Regime Emoji
Trump Regime

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/23/us/politics/scott-perry-trump-justice-department-election.html

From The NY Times:

Pennsylvania Lawmaker Played Key Role in Trump’s Plot to Oust Acting Attorney General

The congressman’s involvement underlined how far the former president was willing to go to overturn the election, and Democratic lawmakers are beginning to call for investigations into those efforts.

Representative Scott Perry first made President Donald J. Trump aware that a relatively obscure Justice Department official was sympathetic to Mr. Trump’s view that the election had been stolen.

Credit…

Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times

pastedGraphic.pngpastedGraphic_1.png

By Katie Benner and Catie Edmondson

  • Jan. 23, 2021
    Updated 10:15 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — When Representative Scott Perry joined his colleagues in a monthslong campaign to undermine the results of the presidential election, promoting “Stop the Steal” events and supporting an attempt to overturn millions of legally cast votes, he often took a back seat to higher-profile loyalists in President Donald J. Trump’s orbit.

But Mr. Perry, an outspoken Pennsylvania Republican, played a significant role in the crisis that played out at the top of the Justice Department this month, when Mr. Trump considered firing the acting attorney general and backed down only after top department officials threatened to resign en masse.

It was Mr. Perry, a member of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, who first made Mr. Trump aware that a relatively obscure Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, the acting chief of the civil division, was sympathetic to Mr. Trump’s view that the election had been stolen, according to former administration officials who spoke with Mr. Clark and Mr. Trump.

Mr. Perry introduced the president to Mr. Clark, whose openness to conspiracy theories about election fraud presented Mr. Trump with a welcome change from the acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, who stood by the results of the election and had repeatedly resisted the president’s efforts to undo them.

Mr. Perry’s previously unreported role, and the quiet discussions between Mr. Trump and Mr. Clark that followed, underlined how much the former president was willing to use the government to subvert the election, turning to more junior and relatively unknown figures for help as ranking Republicans and cabinet members rebuffed him.

Mr. Perry’s involvement is also likely to heighten scrutiny of House Republicans who continue to advance Mr. Trump’s false and thoroughly debunked claims of election fraud, even after President Biden’s inauguration this week and as Congress prepares for an impeachment trial that will examine whether such talk incited the Capitol riot.

It is unclear when Mr. Perry, who represents the Harrisburg area, met Mr. Clark, a Philadelphia native, or how well they knew each another before the introduction to Mr. Trump. Former Trump administration officials said that it was only in late December that Mr. Clark told Mr. Rosen about the introduction brokered by Mr. Perry, who was among the scores of people feeding Mr. Trump false hope that he had won the election.

But it is highly unlikely that Mr. Trump would have known Mr. Clark otherwise. Department officials were startled to learn that the president had called Mr. Clark directly on multiple occasions and that the two had met in person without alerting Mr. Rosen, those officials said. Justice Department policy stipulates that the president initially communicates with the attorney general or the deputy attorney general on all matters, and then a lower-level official if authorized.

As the date for Congress to affirm Mr. Biden’s victory neared, Mr. Perry and Mr. Clark discussed a plan to have the Justice Department send a letter to Georgia state lawmakers informing them of an investigation into voter fraud that could invalidate the state’s Electoral College results. Former officials who were briefed on the plan said that the department’s dozens of voter fraud investigations nationwide had not turned up enough instances of fraud to alter the outcome of the election.

Mr. Perry and Mr. Clark also discussed the plan with Mr. Trump, setting off a chain of events that nearly led to the ouster of Mr. Rosen, who had refused to send the letter.

After The New York Times disclosed the details of the scheme on Friday, the political fallout was swift. Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told the Justice Department in a letter on Saturday that he would investigate efforts by Mr. Trump and Mr. Clark to use the agency “to further Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election.”

. . . .

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

Uh, seems like criminal schemes to interfere with free and fair elections, manufacture false claims, pressure Government officials to falsely endorse clearly baseless claims, file bogus suits before Supremes are acts of treason, even if eventually thwarted!

“The beginnings of a Congressional investigation by Dems” seems like a totally inadequate response! These are crimes, and all who participated, particularly Trump, Perry, and Clark belong behind bars. Action should also be taken against the officials who stopped them, but failed to disclose the plot to those who might have taken immediate action to remove the unhinged, patently unqualified to serve Traitor/President.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever! Treason & Insurrection, Never! No “Bogus Unity” With Insurrectionists!

PWS

01-23-21

🏴‍☠️🦹🏿‍♂️☠️ “COUP @ JUSTICE” BARELY AVERTED — TRAITOR TRUMP, CORRUPT DOJ LAWYER🤮 WHO SUPPORTED BOGUS VOTER FRAUD CLAIMS, REPORTEDLY CONSIDERED STAGING COUP @ DOJ IN SUPPORT OF INSURRECTION AGAINST AMERICAN DEMOCRACY! 

Trump Regime Emoji
Trump Regime
Storming The Capitol by Randall Enos, Easton, CT
Storming The Capitol by Randall Enos, Easton, CT
Republished under license

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-justice-department-overturn-election/2021/01/22/b7f0b9fa-5d1c-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html

By Matt Zapotosky, Devlin Barrett and Carol D. Leonnig

January 22 at 10:38 PM ET

Then-President Donald Trump in early January entertained a plan to replace the acting attorney general with a different Justice Department lawyer who was more amenable to pursuing his unfounded claims of voter fraud, nearly touching off a crisis at the country’s premier federal law enforcement institution, people familiar with the matter said.

The plan — if enacted — would have pushed out Jeffrey Rosen as the acting attorney general and installed in his place Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump had appointed to lead the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and who later would come to lead the Civil Division. Clark, then, could have taken steps to wield the Justice Department’s power to help keep Trump in office. But the president was ultimately dissuaded from moving forward after a high-stakes meeting with those involved, the people said.

The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a politically sensitive matter. The move was first reported by the New York Times. Legal analysts said it amounted to a disastrous attack on the Justice Department’s independence, and perhaps something worse.

“Before the insurrectionist assault on the US Capitol, there was an attempted coup at the Justice Dept. — fomented by the President of the United States,” former Justice Department official David Laufman wrote on Twitter.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment, as did Rosen.

. . . .

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

So, here’s the deal! 

“Billy the Bigot” was pushed out because his thorough corruption and well-established toadiness did not extend as far as plotting treason against the nation. He was replaced by misogynist Jeffrey Rosen who used his brief time in office to dump on a courageous abused refugee woman from El Salvador who had already been screwed by racist, White Nationalist, misogynist and notorious child abuser Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions.

But, wait, there was an even more slimy and treasonous scumbag hiding in the halls of “Justice.” A dude named Jeff Clark, who apparently believed in the Q-Anon/Ted Cruz/Josh Hawley/Kevin McCarthy election conspiracy theories and wanted to make a name for himself by sucking up to the Big Orange Traitor, disenfranchising voters of color, and, oh yeah, incidentally, overthrowing the US Government.

Meanwhile, a few folks in the White House were desperately trying to talk the unhinged traitor out of his harebrained scheme for committing treason in public view. But, nobody thought this plot against our Constitution and our Government was important enough to blow the whistle, inform then Vice President Pence or the U.S. Congress, or join the call for invocation of the 25th Amendment!

Oh, and it gets worse! Insurrectionist Traitor and House Leader of the Party of Treason, Kevin McCarthy wants to assure you that YOU, that’s right YOU, caused the insurrection, not just Trump, his supporters, and those GOP crazies who actually planned, encouraged, and carried it out. And, of course, not Kevin the Traitor himself. “Accountability” and “honesty” just aren’t terms within the lexicon of modern day Republicanism! https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kevin-mccarthy-everybody-capitol-attack_n_600b9785c5b6f401aea48948

I’m as pleased with President Biden’s tone, generosity, and calls for national unity as anyone. But, unfortunately, “Cousin Steve” Schmidt had it right: There can be “No unity with traitors.” https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/01/18/cousin-steve-schmidt-speaks-out-on-nicole-wallace-show-no-unity-with-seditionists-traitors-like-cruz-hawley-mccarthy-must-be-defeated-bani/

It’s not like some morning guys like McCarthy, Cruz, Hawley, Graham, et al are going to wake up and find they actually believe in American democracy, equal justice, and our Constitution. 

The majority of us are going to have to learn to live with, beware of, and develop strategies to consistently overcome the “Party of Insurrection and Treason” and their followers. Otherwise, there will be no America for future generations!

Ever think it’s strange that the cowardly “Party of Jim Crow” that happily abridges the voting rights, civil rights, and due process rights of people of color and the most vulnerable among us falls all over itself with concerns about “full due process” for the Big Orange Traitor — who of course gets mondo due process — in the incoming impeachment trial?

Yeah, holding a former President accountable for inciting a treasonous, violent insurrection would be “divisive.” I guess lies, insurrection, and treason are the only real “unity” that the GOP will recognize! So far, President Biden’s calls for national unity have been met with more lies, threats of obstruction, and condescending BS from the GOP. We can’t “unify” with those who seek our nation’s destruction and steadfastly refuse to apologize, acknowledge truth, and comport themselves with simple human decency.

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-23-21

🏴‍☠️☠️“BAD TO THE BONE” — TRUMP JUSTICE DEPT. SO CORRUPT THAT EVEN THE GUY WHO RAN THE LIBRARY 📚 & SUPPORT SERVICES (“ACTING” AG MONTY WHATSHISNAME) HAS DIRTY HANDS! — Judge Garland Had Better Show Up With A Broom🧹, A Plunger 🪠, The Code of Professional Responsibility, & Lots Of New Lawyers From the Private Sector If He Plans To Restore Justice @ Justice! 

 

“On the day I was born

The nurses all gathered ’round

And they gazed in wide wonder

At the joy they had found

The head nurse spoke up

And she said leave this one alone

She could tell right away

That I was bad to the bone

Bad to the bone

Bad to the bone

B-B-B-B-Bad 

B-B-B-B-Bad

B-B-B-B-Bad

Bad to the bone”

—- From “Bad to the Bone” By George Thorogood & The Destroyers (1982)

“Monty” Python
“Monty Python” Whatshisname
Acting U.S. Attorney General
Photo: Ian Jacobs, Creative Commons License

https://www.google.com/search?q=bad+to+the+bone+lyrics&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/22/monty-wilkinson-biden-acting-attorney-general-doj-lawyer-family-separations?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Biden official involved in removal of DoJ lawyer concerned by family separations

Monty Wilkinson worked with Iris Lan in reviewing complaints about prosecutor who said he was ‘disturbed’ by Trump policy

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington

Published:

21:31 Friday, 22 January 2021

Follow Stephanie Kirchgaessner

The Biden administration’s acting attorney general, a longtime career official named Monty Wilkinson, took part in a controversial 2017 decision to remove a justice department (DoJ) lawyer in Texas who had raised concerns about migrant children who were being separated from their parents.

Emails seen by the Guardian show that Wilkinson, who is expected to serve as acting attorney general until Judge Merrick Garland is formally confirmed by the Senate, worked with another longtime career official, Iris Lan, in reviewing complaints about Joshua Stern, a prosecutor who had told colleagues he was “disturbed” by the Trump administration’s separation policy.

Jeff Sessions impeded inquiry into role in Trump’s family separation policy

The policy ultimately led to the separation of about 1,550 children from their parents, hundreds of whom have still not been reunited, although Joe Biden has said he would make that one of his top priorities.

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Stern, who is no longer employed by the DoJ, was ultimately removed from his post as a temporary detailee, two weeks after senior officials in Texas raised concerns about him to officials in Washington DC, including Wilkinson.

Wilkinson, who Biden chose to serve as acting attorney general until Garland is confirmed, had been overseeing human resources, security planning and the library at the justice department before he was elevated to serve as acting attorney general.

A recent report in the New York Times suggested that Wilkinson was a trusted longtime official, and that his “low profile” all but guaranteed that he was not involved in any of the myriad scandals that defined the justice department under Donald Trump and the former attorney general Bill Barr.

But a report published by the Guardian in September 2020 revealed that Wilkinson was one of several career officials who reviewed complaints that ultimately led to the removal of Stern from the western district of Texas in 2017.

The report was focused on the role a senior justice department official, Iris Lan, played in reviewing those complaints. Lan had been nominated to serve in a lifetime appointment as a federal judge, but the nomination was never taken up in the Senate after a number of immigrant rights groups raised concerns about Lan following publication of the Guardian’s article.

It is not clear whether Wilkinson or Lan privately supported or criticized the administration’s child separation policy when they heard about Stern’s concerns.

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link.

It’s not like Courtside hasn’t been saying it for several years now: Cruelty, lawlessness, inhumanity, racism, and dishonesty end up corrupting everyone. Sessions is essentially a “21st Century Nazi war criminal” — everyone who served him is tarnished by his miserable lack of ethics, humanity, intelligence, honesty, and anything close to the basic qualifications for office. The same can be said for Billy the Bigot and short-timer Matt Whitaker. 

Even a guy like “Monty” — basically considered “safe” because he was a bureaucratic nebbish who kept out of sight and off the radar screen — turns out to have been bathed in the slime 🤮 that Sessions and his cronies unleashed on the Department.

Of course, it’s more fun to come “riding in on a white horse” to rally and save the dispirited troops. But, in this case, the “troops” who willingly carried water for the immoral, racist, lawless, White Nationalist, anti-democracy, and ultimately insurgent kakistocracy at the DOJ are part of the problem. And, that goes for some career lawyers who failed to live up to their oaths of office, not just the vile politicos. 

If “Team Garland” doesn’t knock some heads, re-establish ethical standards, provide some moral leadership, and hold some folks who should have known better accountable, they are not going to be able to get the job done! The EOIR kakistocracy is the obvious starting point. But, it can’t be the end of “operation clean sweep!”🧹

In the meantime, the Biden Administration might have to look in the JMD motor pool or the mail room to find an “Acting” AG not tarnished by the Barr-Whitaker-Sessions kakistocracy @ Justice!

⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-22-21

🇺🇸⚖️NOTE TO JUDGE GARLAND AND VANITA GUPTA: MISOGYNY🤮 IS RUNNING RAMPANT IN THE EOIR “COURTS” — Soon To Be “YOUR” Courts! — The White Nationalist, Misogynist, Anti-Due Process “Clown Court Kakistocracy” 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ Has Got To Go!

Woman Tortured
“She struggled madly in the torturing Ray”
Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Four Horsemen
BIA Asylum Panel In Action
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Tal Kopan reports for the SF Chronicle:

Bad conduct, leering ‘jokes’ — immigration judges stay on bench

Chronicle investigation: U.S. Justice Department lacks strong harassment oversight for judges

By Tal Kopan | Jan. 22, 2021

WASHINGTON — One judge made a joke about genitalia during a court proceeding and was later promoted. Another has been banned for more than seven years from the government building where he worked after management found he harassed female staff, but is still deciding cases.

A third, a supervisor based mostly in San Francisco, commented with colleagues about the attractiveness of female job candidates, an internal investigation concluded. He was demoted and transferred to a courtroom in Sacramento.

The three men, all immigration judges still employed by the Justice Department, work for a court system designed to give immigrants a fair chance to stay in the U.S. Every day, they hear some of the most harrowing stories of trauma in the world, many from women who were victims of gender-based violence and who fear that their lives are at risk if they are deported to their native countries.

These judges’ behavior toward women is not an isolated phenomenon in the immigration courts system. A Chronicle investigation revealed numerous similar instances of harassment or misconduct in the courts, and found a system that allows sexually inappropriate behavior to flourish.

In response to detailed questions before President Biden took office, the Justice Department declined to comment on specific allegations against judges, citing the privacy of personnel matters in some instances and the lack of written complaints in others, but said generally that it follows department procedures on misconduct. The Biden White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Interviews with dozens of attorneys across the country and current and former government officials, as well as internal documents obtained by The Chronicle, show the problems have festered for years. The Justice Department has long lacked a strong system for reporting and responding to sexual harassment and misconduct.

And when such behavior has come to its attention, the department has in some instances simply transferred the offenders elsewhere.

The judges’ behavior appears to violate the department’s conduct policies and raises questions about the immigration courts’ ability to function fairly. Attorneys who have been the victims of harassment say they fear that if they try to hold judges accountable, they risk severe consequences, not only for themselves but for vulnerable clients.

“In the moment, you just know that you have to stay calm,” said Sophia Genovese, who has been an immigration attorney for three years and worked in the field of immigration policy for five. “You know if you do anything to piss him off, that’s going to ruin your reputation in his eyes. In that moment, am I thinking that I might be perpetuating sexism in the system? No, I’m thinking, I just need to get through this.”

She added, “If all you have to do is force a smile so that your client is not deported, the answer is obvious what practitioners are going to do.”

Michelle Mendez of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, which provides legal representation to immigrants and helps attorneys report allegations of judicial misconduct, said lawyers face tremendous pressure not to call out judges’ bad behavior, even though they know ignoring it means it is likely to continue.

“An immigration judge might retaliate against the advocate by punishing her clients — and these are people fleeing persecution, rape and even death,” Mendez said. “It’s quite literally a Sophie’s choice that should never happen in the American legal system.”

The Trump administration did little to change the pattern, The Chronicle found, and in one case even promoted a judge who many women have said made them feel uncomfortable in open court and behind the scenes for years. Justice Department data shows the administration dismissed more complaints against judges than its predecessor.

It’s a problem that Biden’s administration has inherited. The very structure of the courts creates the conditions that allow bad actors to escape consequences, experts say. But that leaves Biden with a problem, they add: Does he reform the system to be independent of political influence, or does he use his political control over it to clean it up?

(Much more online)

Here’s a link to Tal’s complete article:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Sexually-inappropriate-behavior-runs-rife-in-15889003.php

Not to “plug too shamelessly” for one of my all-time favorite journalists, but for those of you who aren’t subscribers, “The Chron” is running a “99 Cent Special” on digital subscriptions right now, and having “full access” to Tal and her colleagues would be “cheap at twice the price!”

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

Every day that McHenry and his EOIR gang — acolytes of the “Miller-Hamilton-Sessions Branch” of the”Waffen SS” (all notorious child abusers among other “crimes against humanity”) — remain in power and authorized to abuse migrants, asylum seekers, women, and attorneys is an ongoing national disgrace and a cancer upon our nation and our system of justice!

Great article, Tal! Thanks!

Disgusting problem! How would YOU like to be a woman refugee or female attorney appearing before this ongoing, evil EOIR Clown Show🤡🦹🏿‍♂️? Ties in completely with the continuing gratuitous attacks on Ms. A-B- and her lawyers by outrageously unqualified chauvinists like Jeffrey Rosen! 

What an ongoing national disgrace! The arrogance, audacity, and belief that there will be no accountability for abusing “the other” is both stunning and totally in line with four years of the Trump/Miller/Sessions/Barr/Hamilton/McHenry (surprise, all white males whose collective, genuine immigration and judicial “expertise” would fit in a thimble with room left over) kakistocracy and institutionalized abuses of migrants and their attorneys at EOIR and DOJ.

And many thanks to heroes like Michelle Mendez, Sophia Genovese, and other courageous members of the NDPA, and many “Knightesses” of our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges for having the courage to speak out in so many different and effective ways about the ongoing abuses inflicted by EOIR!

We must keep fighting and publicizing until these abuses end, and justice is restored to this ludicrously abusive, biased, openly misogynistic, anti-asylum, anti-due-process, and intentionally dehumanizing system.

The solution to the “problem” posed in Tal’s last sentence is not rocket science! 

There is nothing wrong with using Executive authority to get rid of the kakistocracy, putting in experts and widely respected “due-process warriors and warrior-queens” as judges and judicial administrators, and giving them independence to reform and reformulate every aspect of this totally broken system and the disgraceful anti-migrant jurisprudence it has spawned. Get rid of the “deadwood” (or worse), put the right folks in charge, and then trust them to solve judicial problems without political interference. That’s how any “real” independent court system works, for Pete’s sake! 

That certainly can and should include a new “merit selection system” for Immigration Judges that values immigration scholarship, human rights expertise, experience representing migrants and asylum seekers in Immigration Court, courage to oppose abuses, diversity, and a demonstrated lifetime commitment to due process and equal justice under our Constitution for all persons in the United States! 

Over time, every judge currently in the system should be required to re-compete for their job under the new merit system. That system must be open, transparent, and involve public input in the selection process. (Unlike the current, largely closed, system designed to favor prosecutors and other government attorneys, and which has produced a remarkably, shockingly non-diverse, non-expert, and non-representative “judiciary,” particularly in light of the communities most involved in, and affected by, the Immigration Court process).

Those incumbent judges who have demonstrated a commitment to guaranteeing fairness and due process for all should have no trouble being retained. But, those who have carried out the departed regime’s “dump on asylum seekers and their lawyers program” should and will be removed and replaced by better-qualified judges. Human lives simply are too important to be at the mercy of bad judges — and, without knowing exactly how many, there are some “bad judges” operating  in the EOIR system!

Remove the Clown Show🤡🦹🏿‍♂️☠️! Put Michelle, Sophia Genovese, and/or other leading members of the NDPA in charge of EOIR & the BIA and let them solve the problems! Empower them to root out the “bad actors” (including members of the “90% Asylum Denial Club” — some disgracefully ensconced at the BIA) in the judiciary, support reform of the process and the law without interfering with judicial independence, then get 100% behind the legislative push for an Independent Article I Immigration Court with expert, due-process-committed, diverse, courageous judges! 

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of well-qualified lawyers in the NDPA out there who could solve these pressing problems!

Stay tuned! Courtside will have lots to say about this until somebody in the Biden DOJ takes notice and solves the problem! The Clown Show has got to go!

EOIR Clown Show Must Go T-Shirt
“EOIR Clown Show Must Go” T-Shirt Custom Design Concept

 I hear the cries of pain from those subjected to this degrading and entirely unnecessary national disgrace! It’s an affront to our Constitution, human dignity, and our entire justice system!

Thanks, Tal, Michelle, Sophia, and others for all you do, and due process 🇺🇸🗽⚖️ 🧑🏽‍⚖️ forever!

Tal Kopan
Tal Kopan
Washington Reporter, SF Chronicle
Michelle Mendez
Michelle Mendez
Defending Vulnerable Populations Director
Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (“CLINIC”)
Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

PWS

01-22-21