THE GIBSON REPORT — 12-31-18 — Compiled By The Always Amazing Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group

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• THE GIBSON REPORT — 12-31-18 — Compiled By The Always Amazing Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group
• TOP UPDATES
• El Paso Is on Edge After a Child’s Death and the Release of Hundreds of Migrants
• NYT: The death this week of a second Guatemalan child in United States custody and the unusual release of hundreds of asylum seekers in downtown El Paso have put officials in this border city on edge. See also Trump administration to release hundreds of immigrant families from detention.
• House Dems’ plan to end shutdown is likely DOA
• Politico: House Democrats will propose a two-part plan to reopen the federal government once they take power on Thursday, according to multiple Democratic aides. The proposal, however, won’t provide President Donald Trump with his much sought-after border money boost. Their plan would fund the Department of Homeland Security until Feb. 8, and all other closed agencies — such as Transportation, Commerce and Agriculture — for the rest of the fiscal year through Sept. 30. See also Graham floats trading DACA, TPS protections for $5 billion in wall funding to end shutdown.
• Cuomo to press anti-Trump message with Ellis Island inauguration
• Newsday: On New Year’s Day, Cuomo, a Democrat, will deliver his inaugural address from Ellis Island, once the nation’s busiest immigration station.
• Trump threatens to shut down the border ‘entirely.’ Here’s why he can’t do that.
• WaPo: When President Trump tweeted Friday morning that he would shut down the U.S. border with Mexico if Democrats didn’t agree to fund his border wall, the obvious questions were: What would that look like? And can a president just unilaterally close off entry to the country? The very quick, and not particularly helpful, answers are: It’s unclear. And not really.
• FBI, New Jersey investigators gathered evidence of undocumented immigrants who say they worked at Trump golf course, lawyer says
• WaPo: The materials collected by law enforcement agencies, first reported by the New York Daily News, indicate that investigators may be launching a probe into the hiring practices of the president’s golf club. A spokeswoman for New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said the office’s policy is “to neither confirm nor deny investigations.” The FBI declined to comment.
• Whitaker’s role in 2006 immigration raid foreshadowed aggressive stance as acting attorney general
• WaPo: “We’re still trying to recover from it,” Police Chief Michael Tupper said of the raid. “I think that there’s just a lot of fear that it could happen again. It was a very traumatic experience for our community. Not just for the families and people that were directly impacted, but for our school system, for our local economy, for our community as a whole. It was, in many ways, a devastating experience.”
• Border Patrol Union Endorses Extremist Video Featuring White Nationalists
• Intercept: The National Border Patrol Council, the union representing Border Patrol agents across the country, is featured in a new video that includes white nationalists and anti-Muslim extremists. The video, titled “Killing Free Speech,” was endorsed by the union and recently shown by agents at a private screening in San Diego.
• John Kelly’s exit interview lifts the curtain
• Vox: His tenure under Trump began with heading the Department of Homeland Security, where he became the face of the administration’s immigration policies, even as he personally disagreed with Trump’s aggressive stance on the issue. Kelly emphasizes now that he has great “compassion” for immigrant children. “Illegal immigrants, overwhelmingly, are not bad people,” he told the Times, adding that many are exploited by gangs and traffickers.
• LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS
• Acting Attorney General Whitaker Announces DOJ Rescission of 69 Guidance Documents
• Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker announced the rescission of 69 guidance documents that are “unnecessary, undated, inconsistent with existing law, or otherwise improper.” Note, no additional information was provided about these individual documents. AILA Doc. No. 18122621
• Shutdown halts civil court cases — including those against Trump
• NBC: Judge William F. Kuntz II on Wednesday denied without comment a request by U.S. government lawyers to delay work on a lawsuit against Trump and other defendants. The government had said in court papers that Justice Department attorneys are prohibited from working, “even on a voluntary basis, except in very limited circumstances.” The request was made in a lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of an arbitrary and capricious action and racism for taking away the temporary protected status of 50,000 Haitians after a devastating earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people.
• EOIR Releases Memo on Acceptance of Notices to Appear and Use of the Interactive Scheduling System
• EOIR released a memo to establish standards for receipt of Notices to Appear as filed by DHS. Memo is effective as of 12/21/18. Memo notes that EOIR will reject any NTA in which the time or date of the scheduled hearing is facially incorrect. AILA Doc. No. 18122405
• USCIS Discontinues Service Center E-Mail Boxes for Case-Specific Questions
• USCIS announced that it is discontinuing the use of its Service Center e-mail boxes for case-specific questions on 1/21/19. AILA Doc. No. 18122407
• Acting Attorney General Matthew G. Whitaker Issues Statement Regarding the Administration’s Agreement with Mexico
• Acting Attorney General Matthew G. Whitaker issued a statement in support of the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy. AILA Doc. No. 18122404
• EOIR Releases Immigration Court Operating Status During Lapse in Appropriations
• EOIR released information on immigration court operating status during a lapse in appropriations, stating that the detained docket cases will proceed as scheduled. Non-detained docket cases will be reset. AILA Doc. No. 18122614
• EOIR Releases CASE Court Administrator Course Lesson Plan
• Obtained via FOIA by Hoppock Law Firm, the purpose of this course is to train users of the Automated Nationwide System for Immigration Review (ANSIR) and Board of Appeals Processing (BIAP) to comprehend and properly use the new Case Access System for EOIR (CASE). Special thanks to Matthew Hoppock. AILA Doc. No. 18122672
• RESOURCES
• Featured Issue: Denaturalization Efforts by USCIS
• EVENTS
• 1/9/19 Infopass Services Modernization Briefing (attached)
• 1/9/19 For Pro Bono: Preparing for the Hidden Policy Changes Threatening Immigrant Communities (attached)
• 1/12/19 2019 Crimes & Immigration In New York City
• 1/15/19 The June 2018 RFE and NOID Guidance: How to Avoid Case Denials in 2019
• 2/7/19 Basic Immigration Law 2019: Business, Family, Naturalization and Related Areas
• 2/8/19 Asylum, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, Crime Victim, and Other Immigration Relief 2019
• 3/8/19 Asylum & Immigration Conference with the Federal Bar Association at NY Law School
• 3/12/19 AILA Spring Federal Court Litigation Conference
• ImmProf
• Sunday, December 30, 2018
• Australia Strips Another Terrorist of Their Citizenship
• The Heroic Life of Georges Loinger
• Saturday, December 29, 2018
• Build a Deck, Not a Wall
• Friday, December 28, 2018
• The Onion Tackles Stephen Miller
• Washington & Lee Law Review Immigration Issue: Pham, Benson, Kanstroom, Chen, Hernandez, Cade, Wadhia, Margulies & Aziz!
• President Trump: Response to Tragic Killing — “Build the Wall!”
• Top 10 Immigration Stories of 2018
• Thursday, December 27, 2018
• The Stupidest Government Shutdown
• Your Playlist: American Dreamers: Voices of Hope, Music of Freedom
• MD County Halts 287(g) Program
• Wednesday, December 26, 2018
• Record Number of Immigrant Children in Detention
• 8-year-old Guatemalan boy dies in US custody on Christmas Eve
• Tuesday, December 25, 2018
• Border Tragedies–A Tempest Tossed Essay by Alex Aleinikoff on Trump border policies
• Merry Christmas
• Monday, December 24, 2018
• The Amazing Life of Zura Karuhimbi
• Sunday, December 23, 2018
• The Legend Continues: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Voted From Hospital To Block Trump Asylum Restrictions
• Immigration Article of the Day: Administrative Chaos: Responding to Child Refugees – U.S. Immigration Process in Crisis by Lenni Benson
• AILA NEWS UPDATE
• http://www.aila.org/advo-media/news/clips

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Looking forward, Elizabeth, to even more reports of Due Process victories for the NDPA and further defeats for this Administration’s scofflaw White Nationalist agenda in 2019. Thanks for all you do to keep us up to date and informed!

PWS

01-01-19