INSIDE THE 2018 DOJ BUDGET: Some Good News (Sort Of) For Beleagured U.S. Immigration Courts

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-fy-2018-budget-request

According to an official DOJ press release:

“+$79 million for the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), including $75 million for 75 new Immigration Judges and associated positions, boosting the Department’s capacity for prompt, efficient, and just hearings for those accused of violations of immigration law.”

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The Good News:

More U.S. Immigration Judges are certainly needed and welcome. And, it’s smart to treat them as “judicial teams,” including support staff, Judicial Law Clerks, space, and equipment!

“Prompt, efficient, and just hearings” also sounds like the right objective for the U.S. Immigration Court system!

So, what could go,wrong?

The Bad News:

75 additional U.S. Immigration Judge teams will hardly put a dent in a 600,000 case backlog which continues to grow daily. Indeed, since many of the most experienced and efficient Immigration Judges are eligible to retire, 75 new Immigration Judges will barely even cover the potential loss of literally centuries of collective judicial expertise and experience.

Moreover, with Attorney General Sessions serving as a “cheerleader and chief instigator” for DHS’s current “Gonzo Maximo Random Enforcement and Detention Program,” the Immigration Courts’ future is almost certainly going to see more “aimless docket reshuffling” (“ADR”), rather than the careful structural, administrative, and procedural reforms needed to enable the Immigration Court to fulfill its mission of “guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!”

In the long run, the due process crisis in the Immigration Courts can’t be solved without responsible leadership at the DHS with the courage and determination to limit and focus DHS enforcement in a “smart” way that recognizes that Immigration Court time will always be precious and that court dockets are not infinitely expandable! Additionally, it will require DOJ leadership to treat the Immigration Court as a truly independent judicial system, not just an adjunct to the enforcement arm of DHS.

PWS

05-24-17

Only 6% Of Trump Immigration Arrests Involve “Violent Crimes!”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/trump_administration_arrests_noncriminal_immigrants_150_percent_20170523

Truthdig reports:

“For the most part, the Trump campaign was transparent in its xenophobia, playing to the anti-immigrant sentiments of Trump’s base with promises to increase deportations of the undocumented. But on one point, Trump pretended to care about nuance: He would not, he stated on multiple occasions, target undocumented immigrants indiscriminately, but would focus on those with criminal records—the “bad hombres,” to use the president’s own ridiculous words. Predictably, this has not been the case in practice. A new report shows that amidst a staggering increase in undocumented immigrant deportations overall, arrests of law-abiding undocumented immigrants shot up the most, by a whopping 150 percent.

A report by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement boasts that between January 29 and April 22, agents arrested 41,318 undocumented immigrants. That figure, which breaks down to roughly 400 arrests per day, represents an increase of 37 percent over arrests made during the same period under President Obama, who previously held the title of Deporter-in-Chief. Seventy-five percent of those taken into custody have criminal convictions, but even that notation is potentially misleading. As Vox notes, “it’s not clear how many of those were for crimes that might be considered minor, or for crimes that are the result of being an unauthorized immigrant in the U.S. (such as driving without a license in a state that doesn’t permit unauthorized immigrants to get drivers’ licenses).” In fact, as the outlet points out, just 6 percent of those arrested had been convicted of violent crimes such as “homicide, rape, kidnapping and assault.”

The number of non-criminal undocumented immigrants arrested more than doubled, going “from approximately 4,200 in 2016 to more than 10,800 in 2017.” The ICE reports highlights this statistic as a point of pride, stating that while “convicted criminals are an immigration enforcement priority, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly has made it clear that ICE will no longer exempt any class of individuals from removal proceedings if they are found to be in the country illegally.”

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Disrupting communities across America, pushing the U.S. Immigration Courts to the brink, burning through taxpayer dollars, without accomplishing much of anything useful. That’s the Trump way!

Contrary to the GOP fantasy hype, the Obama Administration was certainly no slouch at apprehending and removing serious criminals. So, the Trump enforcement charade has increased misery, deepened divisions, and created unnecessary commotion, while, by most reliable accounts, actually making us less safe by eroding years of hard-earned trust and cooperation between migrant communities and local police in reporting and solving crimes! Talk about a “built for failure” program!

PWS

05-23-17

POLITICS: GOP Senate’s “Stealth Plan” To Strip Health Care From Millions While Enriching Fat Cats Exposed!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/opinion/health-care-bill-senate.html?emc=edit_ty_20170523&nl=opinion-today&nlid=79213886&te=1&_r=0

David Leonhardt writes in a NY Times op-ed:

“While the rest of the country has been transfixed by Trumpian chaos, members of the Senate have spent the last two weeks talking about taking health insurance from millions of Americans.

There is an alarmingly large chance that they’ll decide to do so. But if they do, they will almost certainly rely on a political sleight of hand to disguise their bill’s damage. Understanding that sleight of hand — and calling attention to it — offers the best hope for defeating the bill.

The effort to take health insurance from the middle class and poor and funnel the savings into tax cuts for the rich is a little like mold. It grows best in the dark.

That’s why Republican leaders in the House handled their bill as they did. They did not hold a single hearing, because they knew that attention would have been devastating.

Just imagine a hearing featuring the leaders of these groups, every one of which opposes the House bill: the American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, American Hospital Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, American Lung Association, March of Dimes and AARP.
The House also passed its final bill without waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to estimate how many Americans would lose insurance. The C.B.O. will release that analysis tomorrow afternoon. There is no precedent, outside of wartime, for passing a bill this important in such haste.

After the House did, many observers assumed the bill was too flawed to have much chance in the Senate. Republican senators, aware of the bill’s unpopularity, were careful to say publicly that they would start fresh. But the early signs suggest that Mitch McConnell and his Republican caucus are actually mimicking the House approach.

Think of it as the Upton strategy, and I’ll explain the name in a minute.”

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Yet, the voters keep putting these guys in office. Unless you are part of the tiny percentage of over-privileged, rich elite in America, you’re voting against not only our country’s best interests, but your own!

Amazingly, however, the Democrats have failed to come up with an effective strategy to capitalize on this. And, to date, I’m not sure I’ve heard any compelling arguments as to how and why Democrats will do better in the next election.

Yeah, Trump and his cohorts have problems galore. But, highlighting/relying on that was Hillary’s primary strategy in 2016. And, it failed! Big time! What positive plan do Democrats have for making America better for everyone (including most Trump supporters)?

PWS

05-23-17

Supremes Find GOP’s Racist Intent Drove NC Redistricting!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-rules-race-improperly-dominated-nc-redistricting-efforts/2017/05/22/c159fc70-3efa-11e7-8c25-44d09ff5a4a8_story.html

Robert Barnes reports in the Washington Post:

“The Supreme Court ruled Monday that North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature relied on racial gerrymandering when drawing the state’s congressional districts, a decision that could make it easier to challenge other state redistricting plans.

The decision continued a trend at the court, where justices have found that racial considerations improperly tainted redistricting decisions by GOP-led legislatures in Virginia, Alabama and North Carolina. Some cases involved congressional districts, others legislative districts.

The states contended that their efforts were partisan moves to protect their majorities, which the Supreme Court in the past has allowed, rather than attempts to diminish the impact of minority voters, which are forbidden.

But the justices declared that North Carolina had relied too heavily on race in its efforts to “reshuffle,” in the words of Justice Elena Kagan, voters in two congressional districts. They were unanimous in rejecting one of the districts and split 5 to 3 on the other.

“This is a watershed moment in the fight to end racial gerrymandering,” said former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr., who is part of a Democratic effort focused on redistricting. “North Carolina’s maps were among the worst racial gerrymanders in the nation. Today’s ruling sends a stark message to legislatures and governors around the country: Racial gerrymandering is illegal and will be struck down in a court of law.”

North Carolina leaders said the court had made the rules regarding redistricting even murkier. Lawmakers are required to consider race when drawing legislative lines so that minorities have a chance to elect candidates of their choice when the numbers are there. But the court has said racial considerations cannot predominate when drawing the districts.”

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Racism is an obvious problem in the Republican Party and particularly in the Trump Administration. The GOP publicly denies racist intent while regularly practicing it to maintain and “fire up” their electoral base. At some point, actions speak louder than words.

Contrary to the disingenuous statements by GOP leaders in North Carolina that the Court’s ruling is “confusing,” former US Attorney General Eric Holder has succinctly stated it: “Racial gerrymandering is illegal and will be struck down in a court of law.”

While I haven’t always agreed with him, Eric is one of the brightest guys around. But, you don’t even have to be at his intellectual level to “get the message.”

One guy who is unlikely to get the message is current US Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He has pledged to “back off” of the DOJ’s aggressive stand in protecting minority voting rights, developed under AGs Holder and Lynch, and instead to defer to racist state legislative actions designed to dilute or discourage minority voting. Not surprisingly, this happens most often in the GOP controlled areas of the South.

Liz was right!

PWS

05-23-17

Critics Blast Tex. Gov. Abbott’s Statements On Sanctuary Cities!

https://www.texasobserver.org/two-blatant-lies-governor-greg-abbotts-sanctuary-cities-op-ed/

Gus Bova writes in the Texas Observer:

“Governor Greg Abbott published an editorial in the San Antonio Express-News Friday defending Senate Bill 4 — the anti-“sanctuary cities” law that critics say will encourage racial profiling, undermine local policing efforts and tear immigrant families apart.

In the piece, titled “SB 4 will make Texas communities safer,” Abbott spreads at least two major lies: One, that only criminals need to worry about being asked for their papers under SB 4, and two, that the bill only requires jails to honor immigration detainers when a person is charged with a violent crime.

Abbott, who made “sanctuary cities” a legislative emergency this session, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The governor writes: “Regardless of your immigration status, if you have not committed a crime and you are not subject to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] detainer, you have nothing to fear about the change in Texas law.”

That isn’t true. Thanks to a hotly contested amendment, the bill specifically permits police to request proof of citizenship from someone who’s merely been detained, not arrested. Put simply, being stopped by a cop does not mean you’ve committed a crime. Abbott seems to have forgotten about “innocent until proven guilty.”

Second, Abbott writes: “SB 4 requires law enforcement agencies to honor ICE detainers issued for violent criminals.”

In fact, the law requires jails to honor all ICE detainers. Detainers are voluntary requests from ICE to local jails to keep someone locked up beyond when they would normally be released, so that federal agents may arrive and potentially deport them.”

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Thanks to Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis for forwarding this item!

PWS

05-23-17

POLITICS: TRUMP BUDGET: Help The Rich, Stone The Poor!

The NY Times reports:
“WASHINGTON — President Trump plans to unveil on Tuesday a $4.1 trillion budget for 2018 that would cut deeply into programs for the poor, from health care and food stamps to student loans and disability payments, laying out an austere vision for reordering the nation’s priorities.

The document, grandly titled “A New Foundation for American Greatness,” encapsulates much of the “America first” message that powered Mr. Trump’s campaign. It calls for an increase in military spending of 10 percent and spending more than $2.6 billion for border security — including $1.6 billion to begin work on a wall on the border with Mexico — as well as huge tax reductions and an improbable promise of 3 percent economic growth.

The wildly optimistic projections balance Mr. Trump’s budget, at least on paper, even though the proposal makes no changes to Social Security’s retirement program or Medicare, the two largest drivers of the nation’s debt.

To compensate, the package contains deep cuts in entitlement programs that would hit hardest many of the economically strained voters who propelled the president into office. Over the next decade, it calls for slashing more than $800 billion from Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor, while slicing $192 billion from nutritional assistance and $272 billion over all from welfare programs. And domestic programs outside of military and homeland security whose budgets are determined annually by Congress would also take a hit, their funding falling by $57 billion, or 10.6 percent.

The plan would cut by more than $72 billion the disability benefits upon which millions of Americans rely. It would eliminate loan programs that subsidize college education for the poor and those who take jobs in government or nonprofit organizations.

Mr. Trump’s advisers portrayed the steep reductions as necessary to balance the nation’s budget while sparing taxpayers from shouldering the burden of programs that do not work well.

“This is, I think, the first time in a long time that an administration has written a budget through the eyes of the people who are actually paying the taxes,” said Mick Mulvaney, Mr. Trump’s budget director.
Document: Read Trump’s 2018 Budget
“We’re not going to measure our success by how much money we spend, but by how many people we actually help,” Mr. Mulvaney said as he outlined the proposal at the White House on Monday before its formal presentation on Tuesday to Congress.

Among its innovations: Mr. Trump proposes saving $40 billion over a decade by barring undocumented immigrants from collecting the child and dependent care tax credit. He has also requested $19 billion over 10 years for a new program, spearheaded by his daughter and senior adviser Ivanka Trump, to provide six weeks of paid leave to new parents. The budget also includes a broad prohibition against money for entities that provide abortions, including Planned Parenthood, blocking them from receiving any federal health funding.”

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PWS

05-23-17

POLITICS — STONEWALL: Flynn Takes The 5th!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/flynn-takes-the-5th-and-declines-to-comply-with-senate-intelligence-committee-subpoena/2017/05/22/e4fa0524-3f15-11e7-8c25-44d09ff5a4a8_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_flynn-pp-210pmx%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.365d5fbc2d14

The Washington Post reports:

“Retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser under President Trump, refused to comply with a Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena as a top House Democrat disclosed portions of new documents suggesting Flynn lied about his Russia ties to federal investigators.

Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee must now meet to vote and decide whether to hold Flynn in contempt or accept his attempt to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

The committee has demanded that Flynn provide it with a list of any contacts he had with Russian officials between June 16, 2015, and Jan. 20, 2017.

In a statement late Monday, the committee chairman and vice chairman, Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), said they were “disappointed” by Flynn’s decision and would “vigorously pursue General Flynn’s testimony and his production of any and all pertinent materials pursuant to the Committee’s authorities.”

Flynn’s refusal comes as Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, cited a previously undisclosed document alleging that Flynn had “lied” to security-clearance investigators about payments he received “directly” from Russia for appearing at a December 2015 gala hosted by Russian state-owned media company RT.”

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This baby isn’t going away any time soon!

PWS

05-23-17

DHS Extends Haitian TPS For 6 Months — Some Still Seek Longer Period!

http://www.voanews.com/a/us-gives-haitian-immigrants-6-month-tps-extension/3865735.html

VOA News reports:

USA

US Gives Haitian Immigrants 6-month TPS Extension

Last Updated: May 22, 2017 6:06 PM

VOA News

FILE – Farah Larrieux, an immigration activist shown in April at home in Miramar, Fla., is among at least 50,000 Haitians who could be deported with the loss of Temporary Protected Status. She predicted they might go into the shadows.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Monday announced it has extended Haitian immigrants’ access to a program of humanitarian protection for six months.

At least 50,000 Haitian immigrants are registered for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which permits them to live and work in the United States. TPS, offered in the wake of a deadly 2010 earthquake in Haiti, was set to expire July 23. It has been extended through January 22 – though some U.S. lawmakers, Haitian authorities and immigration advocates who’d sought a longer term expressed disappointment.

“Haiti has made progress across several fronts since the devastating earthquake,” DHS Secretary John Kelly said in a statement, adding that he was “proud of the role the United States has played during this time in helping Haitian friends.”

Kelly said the extension “should allow Haitian TPS recipients living in the United States time to attain travel documents and make other necessary arrangements for their ultimate departure from the United States, and should also provide the Haitian government with the time it needs to prepare for the future repatriation of all current TPS recipients.”

Pierrot Mervilier hugs an unidentified girl whose family, covered by TPS, met with news media in Miami, May 22, 2017.

Haiti sought 1-year minimum

Haiti’s government had urged the United States to extend TPS “for at least another year,” its ambassador to the United States, Paul Altidor, told VOA earlier this month.

Altidor said the Caribbean country, while glad to welcome back “our brothers and sisters,” was not ready to absorb tens of thousands of returnees “overnight.”

Haiti “has not recovered entirely from the earthquake,” the ambassador said, noting that not all of the financial aid pledged by “many friends and countries around the world” had materialized. He also pointed out that his country had endured additional setbacks, such as a cholera epidemic and a crippling hurricane last October.

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Read the complete story at the link.

From Secretary Kelly’s statement, its appears that DHS intends to terminate Haitian TPS at the conclusion of this six month extension. That move is sure to be fraught with controversy. However, the law gives the Secretary complete, unreviewable discretion to make TPS decisions.

PWS

05-23-17

The Gibson Report For May 22, 2017

Gibson Report for Week of May 22, 2017

“Trump Effect” Slows Migration, But There Might Be More Than Meets The Eye — Increase In Surreptitious Entries, Higher Smuggling Fees, Wait & See Attitude All Play Roles!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/the-trump-effect-has-slowed-illegal-us-border-crossings-but-for-how-long/2017/05/21/dfa12a0a-39be-11e7-a59b-26e0451a96fd_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_border-crossings410am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.3cb4b3c465ee

Joshua Partlow reports in the Washington Post:

“SAN JOSE LAS FLORES, El Salvador — In a different era, Oscar Galvez Serrano might have abandoned his mother’s tin-roof shack in the jungly Central American hills by now and set out for the United States.

Despite having been deported in March, Galvez said, he would have tried to quickly return to join his 11-year-old son in Sherman, Tex., and his siblings and cousins. He would have taken another job — roofing, landscaping or washing dishes. There is something different now, however, looming over Central Americans’ decisions on migration: President Trump.

Migrants used to feel that if they reached the United States illegally, they could stay. “They’ve gotten rid of all that,” said Galvez, 36. “I still hope I can go back there. I just don’t know when.”

Trump has credited his tough stance on illegal immigrants for the sharp decline in apprehensions of migrants at the U.S.-
Mexico border, tweeting in March that “many are not even trying to come in anymore.” In the first four months of the year, U.S. authorities have detained about 98,000 would-be immigrants heading north, a 40 percent drop from the previous year.

In El Salvador, which has contributed tens of thousands of border crossers in recent years, officials and potential migrants acknowledge that fewer people are heading to the United States. But they say that the slowdown may be temporary — and that the drop-off may not be as large as it seems.”

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Read the complete article at the link.

In immigration, things seldom have simplistic explanations. So, if I were the Trump Administration, I’d wait awhile before going into the “victory dance” on halting unauthorized migration.

PWS

05-22-17

N. Rappaport On GOP’s “Extreme Enforcement” Initiatives!

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/334554-republicans-are-preparing-extreme-immigration-measures

Nolan writes in The Hill:

“Highlights from Labrador’s summary of the Davis-Oliver Act.

It provides states with congressional authorization to enact and enforce their own immigration laws to end the executive branch’s ability to unilaterally shut down immigration enforcement.
It withholds certain federal grants from jurisdictions that refuse to honor immigration detainers or prohibit their law enforcement officers from giving immigration-related information to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Jurisdictions that refuse to honor detainer requests and release criminal aliens may be sued by the victims of crimes the aliens commit after they are released.
It makes membership in a criminal gang grounds for deportation.
It requires background checks to be completed before immigration benefits can be granted.
Criminalization of undocumented aliens.

Section 314 makes crimes out of illegal entry and unlawful presence. If an offender does not have three misdemeanor convictions or a felony conviction, a first offense can result in imprisonment for up to six months. Subsequent offenses can result in imprisonment for up to two years.

If the alien has three misdemeanor convictions or a felony conviction, however, the term of imprisonment can be up to 20 years. This is not as harsh as some of the criminal provisions which are in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) already. Smuggling an alien into the country or helping one to remain here unlawfully (harboring) may “be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life” if it results in the death of any person.

Home free magnet.

President Obama created what I call the “home free magnet”, when he focused enforcement on undocumented aliens who had been convicted of serious crimes or had been caught near the border after making an illegal entry. Aliens wanting to enter the United States illegally knew that they would be safe from deportation once they had reached the interior of the country.

This attracted undocumented aliens and became a powerful incentive for them to do whatever was necessary to enter the United States. President Trump destroyed this magnet with tough campaign rhetoric and his executive order, Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States, which greatly expands Obama’s enforcement priorities.

. . . .

Perhaps the Democrats should consider supporting a modified version of the Davis-Oliver Act in return for Republican consideration of a modified legalization program and other measures that are important to the Democrats.

A similar agreement was the basis for the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), which made legalization available to millions of undocumented aliens in return for interior enforcement measures and border security.

The Republicans can deport most of the undocumented aliens in the country if they choose to do so, but it would take a long time and would be very expensive politically as well as financially.

They might be willing to consider a legalization program that is based on American needs, such as preventing citizen and lawful permanent resident families from being broken up and providing needed foreign workers for American employers.”

It could be limited to temporary lawful status while background investigations are being conducted. Greg Siskind and I suggested a way to do this in, “Pre-Registration: A Proposal to Kick-Start CIR.”

To be truly comprehensive, immigration reform has to include effective enforcement measures and time for putting together such a bill is running out.

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Read Nolan’s complete article over on The Hill at the above link.

Having served during the Obama Administration (as well as others from both parties) I disagree with Nolan’s characterization of Obama as having a “home free” policy. At least since the summer of 2014, no characterization could be further from the truth!

Beginning in the summer of 2014, the Obama Administrations, quite unwisely in my view, “prioritized” the cases of recent arrivals at the Southern Border. By taking these cases out of sequence, and totally out of proportion to any “threat” they posed, the Obama Administration’s policy of Aimless Docket Reshuffling (“ADR”) helped create an Immigration Court backlog that now approaches 600,000 cases, notwithstanding relatively “flat” receipts and actual increases in the number of sitting judges.

While eliminating the “recent arrivals priority,” the Trump Administration’s essentially “random” enforcement policy, lacking in any type of restraint or rationality, has actually made things much worse. As backlogs mushroom, the “home free” problem is actually more significant, although with a pronounced degree of randomness and irrationally. In other words, total docket chaos in Immigration Court.

While the threat of more “expedited removals,” which evade the Immigration Courts, does hang over the system, the procedures have not actually been implemented. Moreover, contrary to Nolan’s suggestion, there is no chance that the GOP will be able to remove more than a small fraction of the approximately 11 million undocumented aliens in the U.S. Yes, arbitrary enforcement does produce some “terrorism” effect by making everyone feel unsafe. Perhaps a relatively small number of undocumented residents will give up and leave (or try to enter Canada). Nevertheless, there is no practical way that 11 million individuals actually could be removed.

The GOP would do much better to sign on to immigration reforms that would give some type of legal status (not necessarily green cards) to most of those already here, while expanding legal immigration opportunities across the board. The resulting system would actually reduce pressure on the border while making interior enfircement more of a practical possibility than it has been at any time during the last for decades. But, that would take a thoughtful, practical, non-xenophobic, approach — something that has eluded the GOP in the years since the Reagan Administration.

Look for folks like Labrador & Goodlatte to work with the Adminstration to create a complete “train wreck” in the immigration enforcement system.

PWS

05-22-17

ROGUE! — Will Push To Hire More DHS Agents Weaken National Security With More “Bad Apples?” — “Haste Makes Waste” Governing Has Real Life Consequences!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/us/politics/border-patrol-immigration-trump.html?hpw&rref=politics&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

Ron Nixon reports in the NYT:
“BROWNSVILLE, Tex. — Joel Luna was just the kind of job candidate the Border Patrol covets. He grew up on both sides of the border, in Mexico and South Texas. He participated in the Reserve Officers Training Corps in high school and later served in the Army, seeing combat in Iraq.

Mr. Luna joined the agency as part of a hiring surge that began under the George W. Bush administration, patrolling a rural area about 100 miles north of Mexico. But six years later, his decorated career came to a shocking end: He was arrested and charged with helping to send illegal weapons to Mexico and ship drugs into the United States. He was convicted in January and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Now, as President Trump plans a similar hiring surge at the Border Patrol, Mr. Luna’s case is casting a large shadow. The president wants to make 5,000 new hires, under a streamlined process that critics fear could open a door to other rogue agents like Mr. Luna.

Agency officials, some members of Congress and the Border Patrol union say the current process has made it too hard to hire agents. It typically takes more than a year to vet candidates and get them on the job.

At the center of this notoriously slow and stringent process — which Customs and Border Protection, the patrol’s parent agency, put in place after a number of corruption cases — is a mandatory polygraph test. Officials are considering changing the test, and in some cases the agency would simply waive it.

“C.B.P. has a big problem in not being able to hire agents because of the polygraph test,” said Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, who has sponsored the legislation to make hiring agents easier and faster. “I’m not saying that we should get rid of the polygraph, but we want to make sure the process isn’t an overall detriment to good candidates.”

Three weeks ago, the agency began using a different lie detector test that takes less time than the current one and asks fewer questions. And legislation moving through Congress would grant the agency the authority to waive the polygraph for some former law enforcement officers and military veterans.
Top officials said the changes would allow the agency, which is losing agents faster than it can replace them, to compete for qualified candidates with other law enforcement agencies more effectively without sacrificing standards. Applicants would still undergo a background check in addition to the shorter polygraph test, officials said.

“No one wants corrupt agents inside the Border Patrol,” said Jayson Ahern, a former acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. “What C.B.P. is proposing is a sensible way to weed out corruption but speed up the hiring.”

But some current and former Department of Homeland Security officials said the proposed changes could expose the agency to corrupt individuals who could use their position to help drug cartels or human smugglers. Border Patrol agents work largely by themselves in isolated areas and are routinely targeted by criminal organizations.”

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How many times have we seen this pattern: scandal, followed by reform? Time goes by, and we forget the scandal. But, “best practices” can be burdensome. So someone proposes a “streamlined” process which recreates the conditions for scandal. And the cycle begins again.

Ironically, the risk to American security from corrupt DHS agents probably exceeds the risk from the undocumented entries that additional hastily hired agents are supposed to be preventing. The border today is probably under better control than at any other point in my lifetime. But, corrupt border agents can be co-opted by terrorists, narco traffickers, and human smugglers, all of whom “pay” much better than the USG. So, taking time to make sure the folks we’re hiring for these key jobs have the “right stuff” makes sense to me. Also, how about raising their pay to reflect their important, challenging (and dangerous) mission and to reduce turnover?

PWS

05-21-17

10th Amendment Scoring A Comeback At Both Ends Of The Political Spectrum

https://www.wsj.com/article_email/federalism-for-the-left-and-the-right-1495210904-lMyQjAxMTE3MTIyMDUyNTA0Wj/

Jeffrey Rosen writes in the WSJ:

“President Donald Trump has issued a series of controversial executive orders on immigration that are now tangled up in federal courts. Judges in Hawaii and Maryland have blocked the president’s ban on travelers from six mostly Muslim countries, and another judge in Seattle has blocked his executive order threatening to remove federal funding for “sanctuary cities” that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration agents.

If this contest between branches of government sounds familiar, it should. President Barack Obama also tried to use executive orders to push through his own very different immigration policies, and he was similarly rebuffed by the courts. They held that he lacked the unilateral authority to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.
There’s a lesson in the symmetry of these two examples, and figures from across the political and ideological spectrum are increasingly embracing it: Many of the issues that recent presidents have tried to decide at the national level through executive orders are best resolved at the state or local levels instead. In an era of fierce partisan divisions, all sides are beginning to see the virtues of our federal system in accommodating differences—and encouraging experimentation—on issues such as immigration, law enforcement and education.

Federalism has long been a cause on the right, but now it’s just as likely to be a rallying cry on the left. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary’s immigration and border-security subcommittee, recently said: “The Constitution, specifically the Tenth Amendment, protects states’ rights, and it prohibits federal actions that commandeer state and local officials. When it comes to immigration, these principles seem to be overlooked.”

The framers of the Constitution would be pleased with this emerging consensus. By creating a national government with limited powers, they intended to allow the states and local governments to pursue a range of different policies on matters within what used to be called their “police powers”—that is, their authority to regulate behavior, maintain order and promote the public good within their own territory. The founders considered this arrangement the best way to protect liberty and diversity of opinion, as well as to defend political minorities from nationalist tyranny and concentrated power.”

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Perhaps this is a return to constitutionalism. But, perhaps it’s more representative of the failure of Congress to effectively address the need for comprehensive immigration reform.

PWS

05-21-17

DANGEROUS MISSION: 2 UN Investigators Killed In DRC!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/africa/congo-zaida-catalan-michael-j-sharp-united-nations-democratic-republic-of-congo.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

The NY Times reports:

“Zaida Catalán was on to something, and it was making her jumpy.

“Exciting development,” she scribbled in her diary in late January. “I can maybe nail this bastard. Damn!”

Weeks later, Ms. Catalán, a United Nations investigator with little training and no safety equipment or even health insurance, headed into a remote area teeming with militia fighters to find the culprits behind a massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A grainy cellphone video shows what happened next: A cluster of men with rifles and red bandannas lead Ms. Catalán, a 36-year-old Swedish-Chilean, into a grove with her American colleague, Michael J. Sharp, 34. The two investigators are barefoot.

Mr. Sharp starts arguing. He and Ms. Catalán are forced onto the ground. Suddenly, shots are fired, hitting Mr. Sharp first. Ms. Catalán screams and tries to run for cover. She is shot twice.

Their bodies were discovered weeks later in a shallow grave, laid out carefully, side by side, in opposite directions. Ms. Catalán had been decapitated. Her head had been taken.

Their deaths raise tough questions about the United Nations and its work in the most dangerous places in the world. Almost two months passed before the United Nations even assembled a panel to look into what went wrong. The United Nations Security Council could go further and order a more formal investigation, but more than two months after the murders, it has taken no steps in that direction.

Instead, it has left the investigation to Congo, a nation where violence, corruption and impunity are so widespread that the United Nations has had to spend billions of dollars over the years in a failed effort to bring peace and stability. Indeed, a big focus of Ms. Catalán and her colleagues was whether the Congolese government played a role in the massacre and broader chaos she was investigating.

“The U.N. needs to take ownership,” said Akshaya Kumar, a deputy director at Human Rights Watch. She added that the Congolese authorities, who are implicated in the region’s conflict, were in no position to carry out a credible investigation.

The killings have also stirred a sharp debate over the United Nations’ responsibility to prepare and protect the people it hires to investigate wrongdoing around the world. Ms. Catalán and Mr. Sharp belonged to a panel of six experts authorized by the Security Council to investigate rapes, massacres and the exploitation of Congo’s vast natural resources.”

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Sometimes we forget or minimize the great dangers faced by those fighting for human rights throughout the world.

Probably the most vivid personal example in my career was the untimely death of noted human rights activist and attorney Arthur Helton in Iraq. During my “Legacy INS” career I opposed, and probably helped depose, Arthur in a number of vigorously litigated Federal Court cases. But, I always considered Arthur a gentleman, a scholar, a person of great principle and integrity, and a most worthy opponent. His death was indeed a shock. In 2004, the American Society of International Law established the Arthur Helton Fellowship in his memory.

Some Undocumented Migrants Flee US For Canada — A 21st Century “Underground Railroad”

https://apple.news/AcVFywEAtSw6IcI4GHsDgww

Adolfo Flores reports for BuzzFeed News:

“Martha never imagined she’d be in an upstate New York church basement hiding from the US government, far from the troubled El Salvador she had left behind years ago and very different from the life she had slowly built in Virginia.
The ascension of Donald Trump to the White House after threatening to deport high numbers of undocumented immigrants — combined with the prospect of being separated from their US-born daughters and the fact that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was on her husband’s heels — drove them into hiding to wait for an asylum interview in Canada.
“A lot of people like us are desperate, looking for where to run because they can’t be here, because of this man,” Martha, who has lived in the US for 16 years, told BuzzFeed News in a recent interview.
The family declined to use their real names out of fear of retaliation from US immigration authorities.
“When you come to this country, you come with nothing, zero, and little by little you build a life,” Martha said. “Then, suddenly you have to make a decision you never thought you’d have to make: leave and start over again.”
Her family is part of a small but growing number of immigrants who lived in the US for years and are being ferried to the Canadian border via an underground network of churches and immigration rights groups. Rev. Justo Gonzalez II of Pilgrim St. Luke’s in Buffalo, New York, said that so far they’ve helped 20 people, including six children, get to Canada to petition for asylum.
During a recent visit by BuzzFeed News, there were nine people, including Martha’s family, waiting at the church to make the same journey.
Vive, a Buffalo-based organization that helps refugees, reached out to Gonzalez and other sites when they started seeing large numbers of immigrants asking for their help getting to Canada. As a precaution, Gonzalez set up additional security cameras around the church, and everyone has to be buzzed in during non-mass hours. Volunteers patrol the building during mass to make sure no one is there to harass their guests.”

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Read the full article at the above link.

Outwardly, this appears to be a nice, self-sufficient family which is contributing to our society. Their reasons for fleeing from El Salvador and coming here also appear to be compelling, at least from their standpoint.

The article glosses over the question of why Moises’s TPS protection was rescinded in 2007. Most often, this happens when someone commits two or more misdemeanors (or one felony) in the U.S. So, at least to some extent, the family’s problems might be self-inflicted.

Still, is it a good use of our law enforcement resources to create a climate which drives folks like this out of the US?

Or would it be better to use limited resources to integrate these folks into our society in some way or another?

PWS

05-21-17

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