COURTSIDE EXCLUSIVE! — A FIRST, DISTURBING LOOK INSIDE “JUDGE GARLAND’S FAILED EOIR” –  SOURCES CLAIM JUDGE’S APPROACH TO DUE PROCESS @ EOIR TIMID, INEFFECTIVE 🤮☠️ — HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE 🍇 – Judge Apparently Dissing Calls By Experts, Advocates For Bold, Common Sense Actions To Restore Due Process, & Promote Judicial Independence @ EOIR — Appears Ready To Allow Miller‘s White Nationalist “Plants,” Go Along To Get Along Judges, To Continue Mocking Due Process @ Dysfunctional Courts – Will Ex-Federal Judge Become Latest In Line Of Failed Dem AGs To Allow Institutionalized Racism, Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Attitudes, Mistreatment Of Migrants, & Administrative Chaos To Flourish In America’s Worst “Courts?”

EYORE
“Oh no! Is Judge Garland really going to leave me in this position for the next four years?”

 

COURTSIDE EXCLUSIVE! — A FIRST, DISTURBING LOOK INSIDE “JUDGE GARLAND’S FAILED EOIR” –  SOURCES CLAIM JUDGE’S APPROACH TO DUE PROCESS @ EOIR TIMID, INEFFECTIVE 🤮☠️ — HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE 🍇 – Judge Apparently Dissing Calls By Experts, Advocates For Bold, Common Sense Actions To Restore Due Process, & Promote Judicial Independence @ EOIR — Appears Ready To Allow Miller‘s White Nationalist “Plants,” Go Along To Get Along Judges, To Continue Mocking Due Process @ Dysfunctional Courts – Will Ex-Federal Judge Become Latest In Line Of Failed Dem AGs To Allow Institutionalized Racism, Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Attitudes, Mistreatment Of Migrants, & Administrative Chaos To Flourish In America’s Worst “Courts?”

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive 
April 9, 2021

Although the information is unverified, and the sources anonymous, Courtside has pieced together an emerging disturbing picture of Judge Garland’s “master plan” to make only cosmetic changes and allow the continued mistreatment of asylum seekers and unprofessional performance of many so-called “judges” in his Immigration Courts, generally known as America’s worst and most dysfunctional tribunals where life threatening institutionalized White Nationalism, sloppy work product, and lack of human rights expertise have become the order of the day.

As we know, DOJ quickly reassigned the former EOIR Director, James McHenry, notorious for “leading” the courts into total failure in pursuit of a White Nationalist political agenda. Apparently, the head of Administration and the “IT honcho” were also forced out at “The Tower.” Presumably, this has to do with EOIR’s remarkable two-decade failure to implement anything approaching a functional nationwide e-filing system. 

That’s the “good news.” But, reportedly Judge Garland has little intention of removing the BIA Chairman or the Deputy Director. Sources say that unqualified (never served as a judge) Chief Immigration Judge Tracy Short, who was sent over from DHS Enforcement by the Trump folks, could be on thin ice. But, some in the know point out that he has the least authority to influence anything because he doesn’t actually adjudicate cases and must get approval from “on high” for any further policy changes. 

The Deputy Director, Carl C. Risch, whom I’ve reported on before, was a Trump political appointee who “burrowed in” right at the end. According to sources Risch, a “bureaucratic refugee” from the State Department (the only kind of “refugee” recognized by the Trump regime) was mostly interested in finding a “soft landing on the public dole,” and not many people have paid attention to him. 

The BIA Chair, David Wetmore, was a confidante of neo-Nazi White Nationalist Stephen Miller at the White House before he became an advisor to the Deputy A.G. and then the Chair. Reportedly, his appointment was driven by Miller and other senior Trump people. 

Potentially, in a competent system, the BIA Chair (Chief Appellate Judge) would be one of the most powerful and influential Federal Judges in America, short of the Supremes. Wetmore has supposedly politicized everything. Some say that with his “probationary period” expiring next month, he’s just trying to “hang on.” 

DOJ leadership, therefore, could and certainly should remove him in his probationary period with no repercussions. However, Dem incompetence at EOIR and elsewhere in DOJ is legendary when it comes to making such bold personnel moves that, by contrast, are the “bread and butter” of the process by which GOP Administrations seize control of the bureaucracy for their political aims. Dem Administrations all to often appear more than happy to leave GOP “plants, burrowers, and holdovers” in key positions while leaving  human rights experts and their own supporters “out in the cold.”

There are also rumors that DOJ has prepared a “100-page plan” for EOIR. That, in of itself, is both interesting and disturbing in light of the glaring absence of any known immigration/human rights expert with intimate knowledge of the dysfunction at the Immigration Courts and how to fix it at DOJ Headquarters downtown. As I’ve mentioned before, the few “DOJ insiders” qualified to lead such a project are some field Immigration Judges, most associated with the NAIJ.

Reportedly, “the plan” has some “good stuff” including free counsel for unaccompanied children. But it doesn’t call for what’s really needed — independent courts! 

Nor is it apparent that the Garland team intends to treat the Immigration Courts as “real courts” and to appoint the qualified, diverse, expert judiciary necessary to end institutionalized racism and “Dred Scottification” in the American justice system. 

This is likely to leave many of those talented and dedicated lawyers who led the defense against the degradation and dehumanization of women and people of color in the Immigration Courts over the past four years fuming! I’ve said it before, it’s a strange way for a supposedly progressive Administration to treat those who should be their staunchest allies with the potential to solve problems others can’t!

Judge Garland appears determined to repeat the deadly mistakes of past Dem Administrations by leaving the best, most powerful, and most achievable opportunity for reforming the Federal Judiciary on the table yet again. He will also neuter and discredit his plans for equal justice and racial justice before even getting them out of the box. 

Some report that advocacy groups might temper their calls for judicial independence and a better qualified judiciary at EOIR to avoid criticizing the new Administration. Sadly, that would also be a huge mistake, repeating past catastrophic failures!

I’ve seldom heard or witnessed a bigger “crock” than “revolution by evolution.” Revolution comes from kicking tail, taking names, and bold aggressive due process enhancing actions. For Pete’s sake, Miller and Sessions understood the power of decisive action! Are they really that much smarter and more motivated than the Dems? Sadly, it appears so!

Last time, I watched from the “inside” as the Obama Administration left the immigration advocacy/human rights community “standing at the station” while the train pulled out, with mostly the wrong engineers at the controls. It was painful. It might be even more painful watching it happen again, despite all the warnings from those of us in the NDPA!

If an independent EOIR is ever going to happen it must be now! By the end of this year, it likely will be too late. The cost in human lives, frustration, and squandered potential for a better America and a better world will be incalculable.

Unhappily, those of us who had hoped to litigate and criticize less and help more appear destined for another four years of fighting an intransigent and tone-deaf Administration from the outside.  

My three recommendations:

1) Those working on Article I better “get cracking,” because Judge Garland doesn’t appear to be interested in meaningful fixes at EOIR.

2) The human rights community had better reload and redeploy the “litigation artillery.” Because it looks to me like the only way of getting the Garland DOJ to address the festering problems undermining justice in America will be by beating them in court, over and over, until their “star chambers” finally collapse in total chaos. 

3) Keep documenting the “lack of justice at Justice” — make sure that Judge Garland and his team “own” their failure to take seriously immigrant justice in the Immigration Courts and their disrespect for human rights experts who should be running and staffing our Immigration Courts!

Sure, it’s all anonymous and unverifiable. But, it sounds eerily similar to the arrogant incompetence with which the Obama Administration failed to institute achievable reforms in the Immigration Court system. So, I give it credence.

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

Grim Reaper
“Oh, goody! I hear Judge Garland is going to keep me at EOIR! I can’t wait to tell my buddy Gauleiter Miller that the slaughter of innocents will continue!”
Image: Hernan Fednan, Creative Commons License

 

 

PWS

04-10-21