"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Julia Edwards Ainsley @ NBC: DHS Set To Launch “Wait in Mexico” Program For Asylum Seekers — Expect Another Disaster!
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration plans to begin turning asylum-seekers back across the southern border on Friday to wait in Mexico under a new policy designed to crack down on immigration by Central American families, according to three Department of Homeland Security officials familiar with the matter.
Customs and Border Protection officers will begin returning asylum-seekers trying to enter at the San Ysidro port of entry in California from Tijuana, Mexico, where thousands of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are already waiting in poor conditions.
The Trump administration has blamed that court decision, known as the Flores settlement, for being a magnet that is driving record numbers of immigrant families to apply for asylum at the southern border. Last summer under the “zero tolerance” policy, DHS separated asylum-seeking parents from their children at the border, sparking international outcry.
Overall numbers of undocumented immigrants apprehended or stopped from legally entering the United States are lower than the historic highs reached in the early 2000s.
Children who travel without a guardian, immigrants who appear ill as well as other “vulnerable populations” will be exempt from the policy and allowed to wait in the U.S. for an immigration hearing.
Immigrant and civil rights organizations have threatened to sue the Trump administration over the policy, known as Migration Protection Policy, which Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced was coming in her congressional testimony in December.
The policy is a unilateral move by the U.S. and not part of an agreement with Mexico, two officials said, though Mexico has agreed to care for immigrants who are waiting to apply. The Lopez Obrador administration in Mexico has been vocal about its opposition to the policy in the past.
Beginning Friday, the asylum-seekers who come to the San Ysidro port of entry will be sent back to Tijuana with a notice to appear in court in San Diego. On their court dates, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will provide transportation from the port of entry to immigration court. Asylum-seekers will also be given a 24-hour hotline to call for the status of their asylum cases.
SHUTDOWN HAS FURLOUGHED IMMIGRATION COURT JUDGES
Due to a backlog in U.S. immigration courts of more than 800,000 cases, asylum-seekers currently have to wait months or even years to see a judge. DHS has asked the Justice Department to expedite the cases of immigrants waiting in Mexico, and two officials said they expect the asylum-seekers affected by the new policy to wait no more than a year.
The partial government shutdown over President Donald Trump’s plan for a border wall has furloughed immigration judges, however, so the backlog of cases is expected to rise.I
Conditions for Central Americans waiting in Tijuana are already poor. CBP officers on the U.S. side are practicing “metering” where they let in somewhere from 40 to 100 immigrants per day. Shelters for families and children in Tijuana are overcrowded and many are struggling to meet migrants’ basic needs.
They also face backlash from Tijuana residents who do not want their city overrun with Central Americans. Two boys were lured out of a camp and murdered late last year.
Human rights organizations have warned that turning back the small number of immigrants who are allowed to cross into the U.S. to claim asylum will only worsen the problem and force asylum-seekers to either wait in poor conditions or resort to dangerous routes to cross illegally.
Two children died in the custody of U.S. Border Protection in December after traveling with their parents through rough terrain in remote areas.
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With the Trump Administration, what they say is seldom what you get. Remember sycophant and “frequent liar” Nielsen falsely claiming that there was “no family separation policy.”
So, I would be surprised if officials on either side of the border actually are prepared to carry this out without major problems. Indeed, almost every major restrictionist immigration initiative announced by the Trump Administration has proved to be 1) wholly illegal; 2) partially illegal; and/or 3) incompetently administered, as well as dumb and in many cases intentionally cruel. An Administration of Clowns doesn’t turn into a troupe of trapeze artists overnight. The question really isn’t whether DHS will screw this up, but rather how.
First, it’s not clear what provisions have been made for attorney access. And, of course processing all cases at a few ports of entry, rather than distributing them across the U.S., could limit the pool of available, mostly pro bono, attorneys.
On the flip side, concentrating cases at a limited number of ports of entry might make it more possible for NGOs and pro bono organizations to concentrate resources and create representation programs. Still, a real asylum project carried out by a Government legitimately interested in complying with the law and Due Process would not be implemented without working with pro bono groups in advance to set up a representation and access system. Clearly, the failure to do that shows bad faith on the part of the Administration. Because individuals are entitled to representation (but not appointed counsel) in removal proceedings that, in and of itself, ought to be a reason for enjoining the program on statutory and Due Process grounds until there is a realistic plan for giving reasonable access to counsel.
The second thing that jumps out at me as unlikely is the promise that ICE will “taxi” individuals from the border to their hearings and back. One might wonder why a supposed law enforcement agency is operating a “taxi service.” Beyond that, my experience on the detained docket in Immigration Court was that ICE sometimes struggled to get detainees to court on time when they were residing in the same facility as the courtroom. It seems unlikely that ICE will be able to produce individuals from the Mexican border in a timely manner for their court hearings. And remember folks, these are the clowns who don’t even know how many children they have in their custody and where they all are!
Third, if these cases are “prioritized” by the toadies at EOIR, at the demand of DHS, it will lead to yet another round of “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and arbitrary delays in the captive and already failed Immigration Court System which the Trump Administration essentially has destroyed and ground into the dirt.
Fourth, since the Administration has already had detainees die in the U.S., and has also allowed individuals to die in Mexico while awaiting intentionally delayed interviews, I hope that advocacy groups are preparing civil suits to hold Nielsen and other officials personally liable for very predictable unconstitutional harm inflicted on individual asylum applicants.
A major recurring problem with running a White Nationalist regime is that policy is built upon false narratives, outright lies, and racist-inspired myths. So instead of working with folks with real expertise to solve problems, they waste our taxpayer money on endless gimmicks and illegal schemes. All are “built to fail” and many are proven failures. But, that’s what a Kakistocracy does.
At some point, Nielsen’s disgraceful record of dishonesty, sycophancy, and incompetence is likely to come back to haunt her. She truly is a “Child of the Kakistocracy.”
