For the new Executive Order click here:
For other materials from DHS relating to the travel ban click here:
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PWS
03/06/17
Month: March 2017
WashPost OPINION: Bipartisan Duo Of Prosecutors Sets Forth Case Against Sessions — Cites Kleindienst Example — Meanwhile, See Kate McKinnon As Jeff Sessions On SNL!
Philip Lacovara and Lawrence Robbins write in the Washington Post:
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions made a seemingly false statement under oath during his confirmation hearing. Admittedly, not every potential perjury case gets prosecuted, and Sessions may well have defenses to such a charge. But as lawyers at the Justice Department and attorneys in private practice who have represented individuals accused in such cases, we can state with assurance: Federal prosecutors have brought charges in cases involving far more trivial misstatements and situations far less consequential than whether a nominee to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer misled fellow senators during his confirmation hearings.
. . . .
Certainly there is precedent for a prosecution in this context. Part of the fallout from Watergate included the special prosecutor’s investigation of Richard Kleindienst, who had resigned from his position as attorney general, for alleged false statements during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Kleindienst was asked whether the White House had interfered with a Justice Department antitrust action against the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation. He stated, “I was not interfered with by anybody at the White House” — but President Nixon and one of his top aides had each called Kleindienst regarding the case. Kleindienst pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for “refus[ing] and fail[ing] to answer accurately and fully” questions at a congressional hearing.
Those facts left no room for any colorable defense on the “knowledge” issue. But when Justice Department officials decide whether to bring a case against Sessions — or, more appropriately, when an independent counsel is appointed and resolves that question — this must be done against the backdrop of other perjury cases that the department has chosen over the years to bring. And the department has prosecuted individuals who advanced defenses very similar to Sessions’s arguments here, often where there was far less at stake.”
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Read the full piece at the link:
And, Here’s Kate McKinnon as Jeff Sessions on SNL from Saturday, March 4:
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/jeff-sessions-gump-cold-open/3480395
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PWS
03/06/17
The Optimist, Ruy Teixeira Says That While Trump Will Inflict Some Damage, Liberal Democratic Values Are Destined To Prevail!
Ruy Teixeira writes in the Washington Post:
“Public-opinion data is quite clear that the United States has become more, not less, liberal in all these areas over time and that these trends are continuing. Take the standard question about whether immigration levels should increase, decrease or stay the same. The 38 percent of people who say “decrease” is about as low as it ever has been since Gallup started tracking the question in the 1960s. The current number represents a massive drop, of about 30 points, since the early 1990s, when Pat Buchanan first raised his pitchfork high at the Republican National Convention. There has also been a considerable change in views about whether immigration is a good or bad thing for America — and it’s positive, not negative, change, even if one confines the data to white Americans. According to Gallup, the “good thing” response by whites was as low as 51 percent in the early 2000s but has been around 70 percent in the past two years.
Nor has there been any kind of spike in negative racial attitudes in recent years — in fact, according to the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey , such attitudes were far more prevalent in the early 1990s than they are today, including among white Democrats and Republicans. This is true even as perceptions of the quality of race relations have been dimming, thanks primarily to conflict around police shootings and to a tiny minority of genuine haters whose rhetoric and actions have been widely covered. But the underlying trend toward racial liberalism continues.
So the idea that Trump will somehow successfully relitigate the role of immigrants, minorities, gays and women in American society is scary but absurd. He may continue the Republican campaign to restrict voting rights. He may seek to overturn Roe v. Wade (supported by 70 percent of the American public). He may promote prejudice against Muslim Americans. Such actions may in fact be cheered on by his hard-core supporters. But he will ultimately fail, because what he wishes to do is both massively unpopular and runs against the grain of legal precedent and institutional norms.
And he can’t hold back the one true inevitability in demographic change: the replacement of older generations by newer ones. Underappreciated in November’s election was the continuing leftward lean of young voters, once again supporting the Democratic candidate by around 20 points — and with younger millennials, including both college-educated and noncollege whites, even more pro-Democratic than older ones. That is huge. And don’t expect these voters to shift right as they age. Political science research shows that early voting patterns tend to stick.
Another locus of disquiet, if not hysteria, on the left is the environment. But consider this: In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire; in 1979, when Obama was attending college in Los Angeles and remembers constant smog, there were 234 days when the city exceeded federal ozone standards. Our water and air are now orders of magnitude cleaner than they were back then.
Trump will not be able to suddenly wipe out all these gains. Sure, he says he will severely cut environmental regulations, especially ones put in place by Obama; hollow out the EPA; somehow bring back the coal industry; and much more. But saying and doing are two different things. Getting rid of Obama-era rules such as the Clean Power Plan would take years and be challenged by litigation. Reversing the decline of the coal industry is economically impossible. Abolishing the EPA and gutting the clean air and water acts is politically impossible. When the George W. Bush administration tried to eliminate one Clinton-era rule on levels of arsenic in drinking water, it ran into a political buzzsaw and had to retreat.”
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PWS
03/06/17
Paul Fanlund In The Cap Times (Madison, WI): The Demise Of Experts?
“I was in the lobby at the car wash, killing time, when I noticed a birthday card on sale depicting the U.S. Capitol dome with these words: “For a relaxing birthday, take a tip from Congress.” The answer inside was predictable: “Do nothing.”
Yes, to many, politicians are uniformly worthy of scorn. The card brought to mind a passage I had just read in a long essay in the magazine Foreign Affairs.
“Americans have developed increasingly unrealistic expectations of what their political and economic systems can provide,” wrote Tom Nichols, “and this sense of entitlement fuels continual disappointment and anger.
“When people are told that ending poverty or preventing terrorism or stimulating economic growth is a lot harder than it looks, they roll their eyes. Unable to comprehend all the complexity around them, they choose instead to comprehend almost none of it and then sullenly blame elites for seizing control of their lives.”
That’s a tidy if unflattering take on today’s populism: Droves of regular, hard-working taxpayers losing faith in government to address their problems or even operate honestly. It’s a complaint rooted in the Watergate era, one that gained currency and momentum through the years and today has begat President Donald Trump.
Hand-wringing around that trend is not new, but Nichols’ principal theme struck me as even more worrisome under this headline: “How America Lost Faith in Expertise.” Nichols is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and adapted his essay from his new book on the same subject titled “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters.”
To illustrate his thesis via anecdote, Nichols described a poll after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 asking respondents to locate Ukraine on a map. Only one in six could, but that didn’t stop those who thought the country was in South America or Australia from being more likely than average to support military intervention. Pause on that: “I don’t know where it is, but let’s send troops.”
Such attitudes are becoming commonplace, Nichols wrote. “It’s not just that people don’t know a lot about science or politics or geography. They don’t, but that’s an old problem.
“The bigger concern today is that Americans have reached a point where ignorance — at least regarding what is generally considered established knowledge in public policy — is seen as an actual virtue. To reject the advice of experts is to assert autonomy, a way for Americans to demonstrate their independence from nefarious elites — and insulate their increasingly fragile egos from ever being told they’re wrong.”
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Read the complete article at the link.
PWS
02/05/17
Arlington Immigration Court Report: New — 10 Judges, No Waiting (Well, At Least The First Part Isn’t “Fake News”)
The local AILA Chapter reports that effective on March 6, 2017, the U.S. Immigration Court in Arlington, Virginia will have ten publicly accessible courtrooms, on two floors “up and running.” Here’s the “lineup:”
2nd floor
Courtroom 1 – Judge Robert P. Owens
Courtroom 2 – Judge Thomas G. Snow
Courtroom 3 – Judge Lawrence O. Burman
Courtroom 4 – Judge J. Traci Hong
Courtroom 5 – Judge Rodger C. Harris
Courtroom 6 – Judge John M. Bryant
Courtroom 7 – Judge Quynh V. Bain
Courtroom 8 – Judge Emmett D. Soper
4th floor
Courtroom 15 – Judge Karen D. Stevens
Courtroom 16 – Judge Roxanne C. Hladylowycz
And, there are plans to open the 3rd floor with six new courtrooms and judges in the near future! Combined with the news that the Immigration Court has been exempted from the hiring freeze by AG Jeff Sessions, http://wp.me/p8eeJm-qP that should bring much-needed relief to the conscientious, hard-working judges of Arlington, the local immigration bar, and the Office of Chief Counsel, and the many individuals with cases pending in Arlington. With at least 30,000 cases by last count, help could not come fast enough!
The only question I have: Will progress be derailed by detailing some or all of the Arlington Judges to the Southern Border as part of the Administration’s new immigration enforcement and detention initiative? Only time will tell. Stay tuned.
But, for now, congrats to the Arlington Immigration Court and to EOIR for a job well done and for making needed progress on the due process front!
PWS
03/05/17
Temple Law Professor & Immigration Superstar Jaya Ramji-Nogales Is March 2017 ABA Journal Headliner!
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/female_first_chairs
Wow! I opened my March 2017 ABA Journal and told my wife, Cathy, “Hey, I know her. It’s Jaya!” Spectacular picture of a brilliant lawyer, teacher, clinician, advocate, humanitarian, role mode, and just all-around great human being!
For those of you who don’t know her, Jaya was a CALS Asylum Clinic Faculty Fellow working with Professors Andy Schoenholtz and Phil Schrag at Georgetown. Together, they wrote the “instant classic” Refugee Roulette, the seminal work on inconsistencies in U.S. asylum adjudication. And, according to the latest report about the Atlanta Immigration Court, that problem continues to fester.
Jaya and her CALS Clinic students also appeared before me at the Arlington Immigration Court (prior to my appointment as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown which required me to recuse myself from all CALS cases).
The ABA article involving Jaya is “Female First Chairs” by Stephanie Francis Ward. Here’s a quote from Jaya:
“Drawing such attention to the issue also may be helping improve those results. In November, Liebenberg was one of two women appointed as lead counsel in a multidistrict litigation antitrust matter involving the antibiotic doxycycline. Presiding over the case, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania also appointed a woman as the defense’s lead counsel.
“We thought [multidistrict representation] was an important piece of the puzzle. These are high-profile cases. They bring in a lot of money and there’s very few women who get the appointments,” says Jaya Ramji-Nogales, a law professor at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law who is overseeing the MDL survey.
“Basically, these surveys document a phenomena that everyone knows is happening,” she says. “There are social norms that dictate how a woman can ask for things which don’t constrain men.”
There’s a hope that releasing more surveys as part of the ABF/ABA effort will keep attention on the issue of bias against women leading trials.”
Reads the full article at the top link. Congratulations Jaya! You are continuing to make a difference and are an inspiration to all of us!
PWS
03/04/17
REUTERS: Some Good News For The U.S. Immigration Courts: AG Sessions Exempts Immigration Courts From Hiring Freeze!
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-judges-idUSKBN16A2NI
Mica Rosenberg and Kristina Cooke report:
“President Donald Trump’s federal hiring freeze will not apply to immigration court judges under an exception for positions that are needed for national security and public safety, the Executive Office for Immigration Review told Reuters on Friday.
The Trump administration has called for faster removal of immigrants in the United States illegally, but immigration courts, which rule on asylum applications and deportation appeals, are weighed down by a record backlog of more than 542,000 cases.
On Jan. 23, Trump froze hiring for all federal government positions, except for military personnel and in some other limited circumstances.
New Attorney General Jeff Sessions “determined that Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) positions can continue to be filled,” EOIR spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly told Reuters in an email response to questions about the freeze.
“As such, EOIR is continuing to advertise and fill positions nationwide for immigration judges and supporting staff,” Mattingly said. The immigration courts are run by the Justice Department, unlike federal courts which are independent.”
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As noted in the article, there are approximately 50 individuals already in the judicial hiring process. It isn’t clear if these individuals will be appointed or whether the Administration will choose instead to start the process over again. As noted in the article, the process, as currently designed and administered, is lengthy, often taking a year or more. Interestingly, that’s probably as long or longer than it takes to get an average Article III judicial appointee through the Senate confirmation process.
PWS
03/04/17
REUTERS EXCLUSIVE: Will Administration’s Next “Border Deterrence” Plan Be To Separate Women & Their Children — Rep. Henry Ceullar (D-TX) Takes A Stand Against Violating Human Rights!
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-children-idUSKBN16A2ES?utm_source=applenews
Julia Edwards Ainsley reports:
“Women and children crossing together illegally into the United States could be separated by U.S. authorities under a proposal being considered by the Department of Homeland Security, according to three government officials.
Part of the reason for the proposal is to deter mothers from migrating to the United States with their children, said the officials, who have been briefed on the proposal.
The policy shift would allow the government to keep parents in custody while they contest deportation or wait for asylum hearings. Children would be put into protective custody with the Department of Health and Human Services, in the “least restrictive setting” until they can be taken into the care of a U.S. relative or state-sponsored guardian.
Currently, families contesting deportation or applying for asylum are generally released from detention quickly and allowed to remain in the United States until their cases are resolved. A federal appeals court ruling bars prolonged child detention.
President Donald Trump has called for ending “catch and release,” in which migrants who cross illegally are freed to live in the United States while awaiting legal proceedings.
Two of the officials were briefed on the proposal at a Feb. 2 town hall for asylum officers by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services asylum chief John Lafferty.
A third DHS official said the department is actively considering separating women from their children but has not made a decision.
HHS and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.”
. . . .
U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat whose district includes about 200 miles (320 km) of the border with Mexico, slammed the proposal. “Bottom line: separating mothers and children is wrong,” he said in a statement.
“That type of thing is where we depart from border security and get into violating human rights,” he said.”
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I agree with Rep. Cuellar. “Refugee deterrence plans” used by past Administrations of both parties involving mass detention and schemes to make things difficult for families have failed and will continue to do so. Desperate people, fleeing for their lives, will do desperate things, including putting up with detention and other inhumane treatment by the U.S.
Undoubtedly, as in the past, some individuals will be pressured by detention and family separation into giving up claims and accepting return. But, overall, most who face the real possibility of death, torture, extortion, and other abuse upon return will “wait the system out” hoping, even when the the evidence might suggest otherwise, that the U.S. will eventually live up to its ideals of fairness, due process and compliance with laws on protection.
Let’s remember that we are talking about scared refugees seeking to exercise their rights under U.S. law, the Geneva Convention on Refugees, and the Convention Against Torture, to apply for protection at the border or in the U.S., and to have those claims fairly and impartially determined.
Rep. Cuellar is someone who has taken the time to understand the problems of children and families in the U.S. Immigration Court system. I know he visited the Arlington Immigration Court on one or more occasions to observe “priority” juvenile hearings. Partially as a result, he became one of the leaders of the successful bipartisan effort to provide additional funding and judicial positions for the Immigration Court. Remarkably, the bulk of those additional positions remained unfilled or “in the pipeline” at the conclusion of the Obama Administration.
Thanks to Nolan Rappaport for sending this in.
PWS
03/04/04
IMMIGRATION IMPACT: Katie Shepard Explains How New USCIS Lesson Plans Are Likely To Harm Asylum Seekers!
http://immigrationimpact.com/2017/02/28/changes-may-keep-asylum-seekers-getting-day-court/
“Effective February 27, 2017, new changes to the asylum screening process could lead to an increased number of deportations of asylum-seekers who fear persecution upon return to their home country.
On February 13, 2017, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) revised its Asylum Division Officer Training Course (ADOTC) lesson plans on how to assess an asylum seeker’s credible and reasonable fear of persecution or torture. The lesson plans were revised to be consistent with the January 25, 2017 Executive Order on border security and immigration enforcement and provide guidelines to the asylum officers when conducting credible fear interviews (for those at the border or port of entry who were never previously deported) and reasonable fear interviews (for those who were previously order deported but who later seek asylum).
The changes to the lesson plans are significant and may cause the denial rate to skyrocket, in which case thousands of asylum seekers would be wrongfully denied a meaningful day in court . Not only does the new guidance provide asylum officers with greater discretion to deny an applicant for reasons which may be out of the applicant’s control, but the applicant will essentially be forced to undergo a full asylum hearing with none of the safeguards in place to ensure a meaningful opportunity to present a claim for relief.”
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Read Katie’s complete analysis at the link. You should also look at Dree Collopy’s short video on the changes which I previously posted.
If this carries over into Immigration Court where unsuccessful applicants can seek “expedited review,” it would mean that “credible fear reviews” could become more time consuming.
I was usually able to complete them in a few minutes using the Asylum Officer’s notes and asking a few questions. I found that the overwhelming number of those denied had “credible fear,” and probably at least half of those cases eventually resulted in relief. However, over the last year of my career I was primarily on the non-detained docket, so I only did “credible fears” when I was on detail to a detention center or the system was backed up.
As an Immigration Judge, I did not use the USCIS lesson plans. But, I did rely on the Asylum Officer’s notes for a basic understanding of the claim. I then usually asked a few questions to verify that the notes accurately reflected the claim and that nothing relevant had been omitted.
PWS
03/03/17
BBC: Will EU Require American Visitors To Get Visas Again?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39143806
According to the BBC:
“US citizens should be refused visa-free access to the EU in response to American visa rules affecting citizens from five EU countries, the European Parliament has said.
Citizens of Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania are currently denied visa-free access to the US.
The European Parliament passed a non-binding resolution on Thursday.
However, member states would have to approve the move, a process that could take years.
Nevertheless, the resolution, passed by a show of hands, said the new visa rules should come into effect quickly and should remain in place until the US visa requirements were shelved.”
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Seems like it would be short-sighted and counterproductive for the US and the EU to get into a “visa war.” Thanks to Nolan Rappaport for submitting this item.
PWS
03/02/17
Emory Law/SPLC Observation Study Rips Due Process Violations At Atlanta Immigration Court — Why Is The BIA “Asleep At The Switch” In Enforcing Due Process? What Happened To The EOIR’s “Due Process Vision?”
https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/2017-atl_complaint_letter_final.pdf
“We write to provide you with findings of observations of the Atlanta Immigration Court conducted by Emory Law students, in conjunction with the Southern Poverty Law Center, during the fall semester of 2016. Six Emory Law students observed the Court in September and October 2016 seeking to identify any apparent factors leading to the Court’s reputation as one where rule of law principles are not widely respected.1 Atlanta Immigration Judges (IJs) “have been accused of bullying children, victims of domestic abuse and asylum seekers;” while “[immigration] attorneys complain that judges impose such stringent requirements on their clients that they are
1 See Elise Foley, Here’s Why Atlanta Is One of The Worst Places To Be An Undocumented Immigrant, HUFFINGTON POST, May 25, 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/deportation-raids-immigration- courts_us_574378d9e4b0613b512b0f37; Chico Harlan, In an Immigration Court That Almost Always Says No, A Lawyer’s Spirit is Broken, WASHINGTON POST, Oct. 11, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/in-an-immigration-court-that-nearly-always-says-no-a-lawyers- spirit-is-broken/2016/10/11/05f43a8e-8eee-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html?utm_term=.430a15e12a55; Ted Hesson, Why It’s Almost Impossible to Get Asylum in Atlanta, VICE MAGAZINE, Jun. 8, 2016, http://www.vice.com/read/why-its-almost-impossible-to-get-asylum-in-atlanta. See also Southern Poverty Law Center, Immigrant Detainees in Georgia More Likely to Be Deported Than Detainees Elsewhere; Georgia Detainees Less Likely to Be Released on Bond (2016), https://www.splcenter.org/news/2016/08/23/immigrant- detainees-georgia-more-likely-be-deported-detainees-elsewhere.
1
impossible for an immigrant to meet.”2 Atlanta’s Immigration Court records one of the highest denial rate of asylum applications–98 percent–in the United States.3
The observations identified several areas of key concern that indicate that some of the Immigration Judges do not respect rule of law principles and maintain practices that undermine the fair administration of justice.”
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Read the complete letter to EOIR Director Juan Osuna at the link. Gotta ask: How does the performance of the Atlanta Immigration Court fulfill the “EOIR Vision” of: “Through teamwork and innovation, be the world’s best administrative tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all?” Where has the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) in been on these alleged abuses? Why doesn’t the BIA live up to the EOIR Vision? If it’s this bad now, how bad will it get under the Trump Administration?
PWS
03/02/17
AILA TV: In Less Than 5 Minutes, Superstar Attorney Dree Collopy Tells You Everything You Need To Know About The Revised USCIS Guidance On Credible/Reasonable Fear — Must Watch TV!
Here’s the You-Tube link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgVJkysse2Y
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Great job by Dree!
Bottom Line: Under pressure from the Trump Administration, USCIS is tilting the system against (largely unrepresented) asylum applicants from the Northern Triangle. The only questions are 1) whether the Immigration Courts will follow suit, and 2) if so, whether the Article III Courts will blow or swallow (as they have done so far in the credible/reasonable fear context) the whistle on due process for the most vulnerable.
A good introduction to reality for anyone who believes that conscientious career civil servants will be able to persevere in the face of the Trump Administration’s all-out assault on due process and fundamental fairness.
P
POLITICO: “Street-Corner Rules” — Sessions’s Fate Entirely In The Hands Of His GOP Colleagues & Trump — Dems Irrelevant (What’s New?)
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/sessions-recuses-himself-trump-russia-214857
Jeff Greenfield writes in Politico:
“Want to understand the key to the way the Jeff Sessions story is playing out today? Then leave the stately halls of the Capitol, and come with me to the playgrounds and streets of New York, where I first learned one of the most reliable of political rules.
We had no Little League, no organized games of any kind, and certainly no umpire to preside over stickball contests, or pickup games in Riverside Park. So pretty much every other play resulted in an argument (it was, coincidentally or not, a Jewish neighborhood). And the arguments always ended the same way: when a member of one team conceded.
“Yeah, he was out.”
“See?—your own man says so.”
When a political figure gets in trouble, that street-corner rule is the most significant metric of how to measure the depth of the trouble. President Richard M. Nixon could have survived the Watergate scandal had Republican senators backed him; there were 42, well over the one-third-plus-one needed to keep him in office. But when Barry Goldwater, Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott and other GOP leaders went to the White House on August 6 to tell him his support had melted away, Nixon understood he was finished.
By contrast, President Bill Clinton retained almost total support from his part in Congress—just five House Democrats voted for impeachment—and his survival was assured. As New York Times reporter Peter Baker details in his book on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, “The Breach,” had Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle and House leader Dick Gephardt gone to the White House with a call to resign, the outcome might well have been very different.
So far, congressional Republicans have protected President Donald Trump from a host of otherwise troubling issues. No tax returns? No problem. Blatant family conflicts of interest? Nothing to see here. Cabinet members with “incomplete” disclosures? Only Labor nominee Andrew Puzder’s nomination was derailed, and that took everything from hiring an undocumented housekeeper to allegations of spousal abuse. (“Fake news,” in Puzder’s telling.)
The story of Attorney General Jeff Sessions is another matter. Rep. Darrell Issa—who as chair of the House Oversight Committee launched approximately 24,598 investigations of Obama administration malfeasance—called for Sessions to recuse himself from looking into charges of Russian meddling in American campaigns. The committee’s current chair, Jason Chaffetz, did the same. So did Rep. Raúl Labrador, one of the leaders of the House Freedom Caucus, the most militant of conservative voices.”
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PWS
03/02/17
Hon. Lory D. Rosenberg Replies To Nolan Rappaport’s VOICE Article On “Appeal Matters”
Here’s Lory’s blog reprinted in full with her permission:
Lory D. Rosenberg on Appeal Matters
Why President Trump’s VOICE is Misplaced and Serves No One Draft Blog Entry Edit Blog Entry
0 Comments
by Lrosenberg, 03-02-2017 at 09:14 PM (0 Views)
The VOICE office announced by President Trump in his SOTU speech on Tuesday night is the most disturbing, offensive, and misplaced priority he could have chosen to address the pressing need for immigration reform.
Moreover, it astonishes me how anyone with an understanding of the reality of the overwhelmingly positive immigrant contributions to our workforce, our communities, and our society as a whole could applaud such folly. It is mind-boggling that a person who purports to understand immigration law can honestly praise its introduction. Cf. N. Rappaport, Opinion Contributor, The Hill, “On immigrant crime, Trump’s right. Americans deserve more data” (3/1/17).
Establishment of such a new office panders to unsubstantiated, and in fact, soundly refuted, fears of an immigrant crime wave, and fosters public hysteria that is utterly unfounded. Are there serious crimes committed by immigrants? Yes, although very few are violent offenses. They generally involve violations of state, not federal, law, and they are duly prosecuted and punished in our courts, without regard to the perpetrator’s immigration status. Any claimed value to the victim in connecting ICE to removable aliens for “information” is pure fantasy.
Moreover, proportionately, the immigrant crime rate is minimal compare to the crimes committed by the native population in the United States. See Ewing, W and Rumbaut, R., SPECIAL REPORT The Criminalization of Immigration in the United States, http://www.americanimmigration council.org/research/criminalization-immigration-united-states. A federal program for victims of crime committed by an immigrant as opposed to a United States citizen, erroneously propagates the destructive misconception that immigrants are mostly criminals. Cf. Spenkuch, Jörg L., Understanding the Impact of Immigration on Crime, 16 American Law and Economics Review 1,177-219 (2014), https://doi.org/10.1093/aler/aht017.
As leading scholar on immigrants and crime, Professor Ruben G. Rumbaut has stated,
“It [the VOICE office] will serve further to drive up fear and to sigmatize entire immigrant populations as criminals, using rare anecdotes to publicize misleading claims, even though every research study over many decades shows exactly the opposite: immigrants, including the undocumented, have the lowest crime (both violent and property crimes) and the lowest incarceration rates in the US.”
What is more, the policy changes anticipated since President Trump’s inauguration may dismantle much needed agency resources that support implementation of critical humanitarian and domestic violence efforts, such as VAWA and other critical programs that have been part of DHS’s portfolio. Those are the most important victim support resources that are needed. Information collection and communication can be achieved easily and made available to victims, policymakers, and scholars alike through accurate agency reporting.
There are more than adequate local police programs, as well as private and faith-based programs, available to victims of all crime in their communities. That is where victims will find the information and restitution they may seek. One would think an administration that seeks to reduce the the federal bureaucracy and rely upon the states to address all but those problems that demand federal intervention would shrink from imposing a duplicative and unnecessary venture that is likely to offer little more than one night of celebrity in a television audience.
Trump’s self-indulgent VOICE office paints a target on the backs of honorable, hard-working immigrants – and others who look like immigrants – in our population. He may derive satisfaction from the publicity of such a pointless gesture, but the office’s establishment does nothing to reform a deeply broken system that victimizes immigrants and citizens alike each day that nothing is done to reform it.
c.2017 Lory D. Rosenberg
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PWS
03/02/17
BREAKING: Sessions Recuses Himself From Russian Investigation!
From the WashPost:
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday he will recuse himself from any investigations related to the 2016 presidential campaign, which would include any Russian interference in the electoral process.
Speaking at a hastily-called press conference at the Justice Department, Sessions said he had met with department ethics officials soon after being sworn in last month to evaluate the rules and cases in which he might have a conflict.
“They said that since I had involvement with the campaign, I should not be involved in any campaign investigation,” Sessions said. He added that he concurred with their assessment, and would thus recuse himself from any existing or future investigation involving Trump’s campaign.
The announcement comes a day after The Washington Post revealed that Sessions twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and did not disclose that fact to Congress during his confirmation hearing.”
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The good news for Sessions is that most experts think that he will not face criminal prosecution for any arguable “inaccuracies” in his sworn testimony to Congress during his confirmation hearings.
But, folks are missing what Sessions really lied about under oath: that he could leave his partisan positions as an “outlier Senator” from a state known for its historic bigotry and poor race relations behind and represent all of the people of the United States as Attorney General. In the short time since he became Attorney General, Sessions has proved that he was at least being disingenuous if not outright lying. He has: 1) withdrawn Federal protections for transgender students, 2) changed the Government’s position in a key voting rights case thus giving the green light to states that seek to disenfranchise African American and other minority voters, and 3) announced that local police will have a free hand to enforce laws even if they have been shown to have a tendency to do so in ways that violate the basic civil rights of minority suspects.
And, Sessions was apparently behind the xenophobic, poorly conceived and executed, and fear-mongering Executive Orders on immigration. In other words, Sessions has squarely aligned himself with the white-power-oriented, nationalistic, xenophobic forces in the White House represented by Steve Bannon and Sessions’s former aide Stephen Miller.
Another article in the WashPost points out Session’s hypocrisy on the issues of “perjury, access, and recusal” when the situation involved the Clintons. What goes around comes around. Here’s a link to the complete article:
And here’s an article by Ari Berman in The Nation pointing out the real truth about our Attorney General: “Jeff Sessions Is a Disgrace to the Justice Department
He didn’t just lie about Russia—he’s put the Trump administration on the wrong side of every major issue.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/jeff-sessions-is-a-disgrace-to-the-justice-department/
PWS
03/02/17