Here’s yet another “big middle finger” 🖕 to progressives and experts from Garland and Mayorkas:
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Office of Public Affairs DHS and DOJ Announce Dedicated Docket Process for More Efficient Immigration Hearings WASHINGTON – Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced a new Dedicated Docket process to more expeditiously and fairly make decisions in immigration cases of families who arrive between ports of entry at the Southwest Border. This new process should significantly decrease the amount of time it takes for migrants to have their cases adjudicated while still providing fair hearings for families seeking asylum at the border. “Families arriving at the border who are placed in immigration proceedings should have their cases decided in an orderly, efficient, and fair manner,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas. “Families who have recently arrived should not languish in a multi-year backlog; today’s announcement is an important step for both justice and border security.”
“The mission of the Department of Justice’s immigration courts is to decide the cases that come before them promptly and fairly,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “This new program for certain newly arriving families will help achieve that critically important goal.”
Under this new process, certain recently arrived families may be placed on the Dedicated Docket. Families may qualify if they are apprehended between ports of entry on or after Friday, May 28, 2021, placed in removal proceedings, and enrolled in Alternatives to Detention (ATD). DHS, in partnership with the Department of Justice (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), will make available information services to help families understand the immigration system and refer families to pro bono legal service providers for possible representation.
EOIR has identified immigration courts in 10 cities with established communities of legal services providers and available judges to handle the cases. The designated cities are Denver, Detroit, El Paso, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New York City, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle.
Under the Dedicated Docket, EOIR’s immigration judges will work generally to issue a decision within 300 days of the initial master calendar hearing, subject to the unique circumstances of each case including allowing time for families to seek representation where needed. While the goal of this process is to decide cases expeditiously, fairness will not be compromised.
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U.S. Department of Homeland Security
www.dhs.gov
Here are “statements in opposition” from the National Immigrant Justice Center and Human Rights First:
Here’s the “statement of outrage and solidarity in opposition from the experts at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at Hastings Law:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEMedia Contact: Brianna Krong, (415) 581-8835, krongbrianna@uchastings.eduCGRS Concerned Biden Policies Will Undermine Fairness, Endanger Refugee FamiliesSan Francisco, CA (May 28, 2021) – The Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS) is deeply concerned by today’s announcement that the Biden administration will begin fast-tracking asylum cases for certain families seeking refuge. By establishing a “dedicated docket” for asylum-seeking families, the administration will sacrifice fairness in the name of speed, adopting a misguided approach that under both the Obama and Trumpadministrations contributed to record backlogs in the immigration system, eroded due process, and endangered lives. Instead of reviving the failed policies of past administrations, the Biden administration should swiftly end cruel and illegal Trump-era policies and fully restore safe asylum processing at the southern border.Today’s announcement arrives at a time when families seeking asylum face enormous roadblocks to safety and justice. Over four months into its first term, the Biden administration has failed to end myriad Trump-era policies that continue to place refugees at risk of grave violence, and even death. It is shameful that the administration is prioritizing fast-tracked adjudications while continuing to illegally expel asylum seekers to danger under the widelydebunked pretext of the pandemic. So long as the Title 42 policy remains in place, there can be no safe or fair process for asylum seekers.The Biden administration also has yet to address Trump policies that have gutted protections for people escaping domestic violence and gang brutality, including many of the families impacted by this new policy. Until Attorney General Garlandtakes action to reverse these policies, the asylum system will remain rigged against families fleeing violence in their homes and communities, who will be wrongly denied protection and ordered deported to the very dangers they’ve fled. Rushing adjudications will make it even more difficult for these families to find safety, further undermining any semblance of fairness in the asylum process.“CGRS and our partners have set forth a clearroadmap for the Biden administration to adjudicate asylum cases in a timely manner and mitigate backlogs, all while improving fairness and protecting due process,” CGRS Legal Director Blaine Bookey said today. “As advocates, we’ve been down this road before. We know policies that rush asylum adjudications fail to keep families and children safe. We implore the administration not to make the mistake of putting speed above justice.”’Advocates, asylum seekers, and communities are coming together to demand an asylum system that provides every person a safe and fair opportunity to seek protection, with full access to legal representation and community-based support. The Biden administration should put humanity first, reject the cruel policies of the past, and welcome people seeking asylum with dignity.Brianna Krong | Communications and Advocacy Coordinator(415) 581-8835 (Phone) | (415) 581-8824 (Fax)krongbrianna@uchastings.edu
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Here are other initial comments from asylum experts:
I don’t think there was any consultation w/ private bar. NGOs are very upset. Biden administration just held a q and a about two hours ago to answer NGO questions but there’s a lot of unknowns remaining.
Lots of NGOs are off today because of the long weekend but many are working to respond to this and the President’s budget.
See NGO press release in response to President’s budget:
For Immediate Release: May 28, 2021 Contact: press@wearehome.us
We Are Home Campaign Deeply Disappointed by Biden’s DHS Budget Request Calls on Congress to Do Better
Washington, DC —President Biden’s FY 2022 budget, released today, requests $2.7 billion from Congress for ICE detention – almost the same amount enacted by Congress last year under the Trump Administration. It includes funds for 2,500 family detention beds. Alongside recent increases in the number of people jailed by ICE, this budget request is an alarming signal that DHS and the President are not heeding the call of the immigrant justice movement to reduce and ultimately end the federal government’s harmful and unnecessary reliance on incarceration for immigration processing.
In response to the news, Bridgette Gomez, Director of the We Are Home campaign, said:
“We are deeply disappointed to see that DHS plans to continue Trump-era levels of ICE detention. Candidate Biden promised an immigration policy that reflects our highest values as a nation. As president, Biden has repeatedly emphasized his commitment to racial equity. Any plan that doesn’t dramatically shrink ICE’s incarceration system – which mostly jails Black and Brown people – betrays those commitments. We’ll be looking to Congress to do better and cut ICE’s budget significantly.”
In March, We Are Home joined the Defund Hate coalition in calling on Congress to cut funding for ICE and CBP by at least 50 percent.
In February, the campaign sent comprehensive recommendations to DHS to overhaul enforcement and begin to dismantle the detention and deportation machinery that has devastated millions of families, mostly Black and Brown, and squandered billions of taxpayer dollars. These recommendations included policies to cut detention, including 1) a comprehensive file review of all people in ICE custody, with a presumption of release, and 2) an end to the use of private prisons and state and local jails for ICE detention. The urgency to reduce the detained population is even greater during the pandemic, since people in jails and prisons face particular risk of contracting COVID. ICE has no centralized plan to provide vaccines for people in its custody.”
We Are Home is a nationwide campaign to fight for immigrant communities on three fronts: prioritizing and demanding a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in America; a moratorium and overhaul of interior enforcement; and broad affirmative relief from deportation. We Are Home is co-chaired by Community Change/Community Change Action; National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA)/Care in Action; Service Employees International Union (SEIU); United Farm Workers/UFW Foundation; and United We Dream. ###
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The NGOs are quite upset.Note that this comes days after the Fourth Circuit enforced an IJ’s duty to fully develop the record even in represented cases.And yet here is the administration speeding up the assembly line.
In my view, this will lead to more pro se I-589s being filed.And as Sessions vacated Matter of E-F-H-L-, there is now no safeguard in either case law or regs preventing IJs from summarily denying those I-589s for e.g. failing to correctly delineate a PSG.
I can’t for the life of me understand this administration’s determination topreserveTrump’s policies.
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Quick takes:
- Because the system would depend almost entirely on NGOs and pro bono groups to provide counsel, developing policies without consulting those groups or providing grants to increase representation is totally inappropriate, not to mention stupid and insulting;
- Special expedited asylum dockets have failed in the last two Administrations, so why try a “proven failure” once again?
- Assigning certain Immigration Judges to these “priority dockets” – without first removing non-priority cases from the docket, will result in more “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and increased backlogs;
- As a recent article by respected experts Professor Karen Musalo and Professor Stephen Legomsky shows, the current system has been “gamed against asylum seekers” by both EOIR and DHS; https://www.justsecurity.org/76671/asylum-and-the-three-little-words-that-can-spell-life-or-death/; without radical progressive changes, the new policy will just produce more unfairness;
Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Hastings Law
Emeritus Professor of Law. & Former USG Senior Executive
Washington U. Law
PHOTO: Washington U. Law website
- The 10 Immigration Courts selected for this project have widely varying asylum denial rates. For example, for the period 2015-20, according to TRAC, El Paso (an “Asylum Free Zone”) had a denial rate of 90% and New York a denial rate of 32%. How can a system including such extremes be “fair?”
- As recent litigation has pointed out, Garland’s Immigration Judges are making basic mistakes and failing to develop records in their rush to screw asylum seekers. Without bringing in expert judges and emphasizing fairness, scholarship, record development, and quality above bureaucratic, enforcement related goals, this proposal is going to increase the due process disaster in Garland’s broken “courts;” https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/05/26/%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%97%bd4th-circuit-blasts-garland-eoirs-indolent-haste-make-waste-denial-centric-asylum-adjudication-in-another-victory-for-round-table-due-proces/
- In just a short time, Garland’s outrageous mishandling of the Immigration Courts, and his disdain for expert progressive advice and appointments, shows exactly why Congress must remove these “courts” from the incompetent and biased administration of the DOJ and create an independent U.S. Immigration Court;
- Until that happens, progressives and advocates will have to deal with Garland’s “in your face arrogance and ignorance” the same way they dealt with Sessions and Barr — with massive resistance and unending litigation until Garland’s corrupt, incompetent, biased system grinds to a halt.
Turning potential powerful and helpful friends into motivated and committed enemies! Seems pretty stupid to me.
Stephen Miller rightfully made lots of enemies with his racist, neo-Nazi shenanigans. But, he did please and energize his nativist, White Nationalist supporters!
By contrast, Garland has rapidly turned progressive supporters into enemies. But, he won’t get one iota of appreciation or support from Miller and his White Nationalist nativist supporters in the GOP.
Creating policies that are universally opposed or panned. That takes some impressive negative leadership and political idiocy!
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
05-29-21