CLOWN COURT REPORT 🤡🤡: AILA Seeks Information On Politically-Biased, Anti-Asylum Hiring @ BIA!

https://www.aila.org/advo-media/press-releases/2020/lawsuit-seeks-to-uncover-problematic-board

Lawsuit Seeks to Uncover Problematic Board of Immigration Appeals’ Hiring Procedures

AILA Doc. No. 20031937 | Dated March 19, 2020

CONTACTS:

Maria Frausto

202-507-7526

mfrausto@immcouncil.org
George Tzamaras

202-507-7649

gtzamaras@aila.org

For Immediate Release

Thursday, March 19, 2020

WASHINGTON, DC — The American Immigration Council (Council) and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) filed a lawsuit Tuesday in federal court to compel the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Information Policy (OIP) to release records about the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s (EOIR) hiring procedures for appellate immigration judges and Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) Members. The lawsuit seeks to understand current hiring procedures for the BIA—the highest administrative body for interpreting and applying immigration laws—after reports came to light of anti-immigrant bias in the hiring process.

The DOJ—which oversees immigration courts, houses the BIA, and employs immigration judges—has failed to disclose critical information about the hiring policy of appellate immigration judges and BIA Members, who make precedential decisions in the immigration adjudicatory system.

Advocates and policymakers have become concerned that DOJ’s hiring practices for appellate immigration judges and Board Members are improperly influenced by the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies. Biased hiring practices for these judges are a concern for the public because these judges can set legal precedent that has the potential to negatively impact thousands of immigrants seeking protection and/or a path to lawful status in the United States.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenges DOJ’s failure to disclose information in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted in October 2019.

“The fairness of the immigration court system depends on the impartiality of judges who are responsible for deciding thousands of cases each year. If appellate judges are not neutral decision-makers, the integrity of our immigration system is compromised,” said Claudia Valenzuela, FOIA senior attorney at the American Immigration Council. “The lack of transparency in this hiring process only serves to undermine public confidence in this system.”

“It’s imperative that the public, policymakers, and stakeholders be provided with the opportunity to review the thus far opaque hiring process at the BIA. Allegations of politicized hiring give rise to the notion that BIA decisions serve the political purposes of the attorney general, rather than adhere to prior case law,” said Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

A copy of the complaint is here.

The American Immigration Council works to strengthen America by shaping how America thinks about and acts towards immigrants and immigration and by working toward a more fair and just immigration system that opens its doors to those in need of protection and unleashes the energy and skills that immigrants bring. The Council brings together problem solvers and employs four coordinated approaches to advance change—litigation, research, legislative and administrative advocacy, and communications. Follow the latest Council news and information on ImmigrationImpact.com and Twitter @immcouncil.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association is the national association of immigration lawyers established to promote justice, advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy, advance the quality of immigration and nationality law and practice, and enhance the professional development of its members. Follow AILA on Twitter@AILANational.

Cite as AILA Doc. No. 20031937.

Laura A. Lynch, Esq.

Senior Policy Counsel

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The whole idea that a White Nationalist prosecutor and political toady like Billy Barr gets to hire the “judges” for a so-called “appellate tribunal” is as absurd and illogical as it is clearly unconstitutional. The perversion of our humanity and our legal institutions that has allowed this to operate in plain view as if it were “normal” should be a subject for reflection and study. That the Supremes and Congress both took a “dive” on this is beyond question. How they got away with it and continue to do so without any accountability is another story. Hopefully, at some point it will be told in full.

In particular, the anti-asylum bias of the regime has been aggravated by a large dose of anti-Latino racism and misogyny that both Congress and the Article III Courts have enabled and, in the case of the Supremes actively encouraged by rewarding the clearly disingenuous and misleading arguments of Solicitor General Noel Francisco on fabricated “emergencies” and bogus rationales for transparently invidious and irrational actions.

DUE PROCESS FOREVER! CLOWN COURTS 🤡🤡 AND THEIR COMPLICIT ENABLERS, NEVER!

PWS

03-20-20

WHERE JUSTICE IS BLIND, DEAF, & REALLY, REALLY DUMB — AMERICA’S COURTS FLUNK CORONAVIRUS TEST — ROBERTS’S FECKLESS LEADERSHIP — AILA CALLS FOR CLOSING ALL IMMIGRATION COURTS!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/courts-coronavirus-spread.html

Mark Joseph Stern reports for Slate:

For weeks, public health officials have warned that the coronavirus will spread rapidly in the United States but the infection rate could slow with social distancing and severe restrictions on mass gathering. The nation’s judiciary did not listen. Civil, criminal, and immigration courts continued to operate normally, with very few exceptions, until late last week. Even on Monday, after both the president and most governors had declared a state of emergency, a huge number of America’s courts continued to operate, forcing judges, attorneys, litigants, defendants, immigrants, and court staff into close quarters with potentially infected individuals. Conversations with more than two dozen lawyers and court staff (who requested anonymity to avoid professional blowback) across the country reveal a system that is disastrously unprepared for a pandemic—and facilitating the coronavirus’s spread.

Because the American judiciary is so decentralized, there is no single contingency plan that governs all courts in case of an emergency. Most state and federal courts are making up their own rules as they go. All 94 federal district courts and 13 federal appellate courts are scrambling independently to devise a strategy for COVID-19. In many states, individual trial and appeals courts are also struggling to meet their legal obligations without contributing to the spread of the virus. Immigration courts are under the control of the discombobulated and ineffectual Trump administration. So are agencies, like the Social Security Administration, that hold administrative hearings to adjudicate individuals’ access to public assistance. Meanwhile, thousands of jails, prisons, and immigrant detention facilities remain unwilling or unable to meaningfully address COVID-19, putting both detained people and staff at risk of infection. The legal system is actively jeopardizing millions of people’s health and lives.

The legal system is actively jeopardizing millions of people’s health and lives.

State judiciaries’ sluggish response to the crisis was on display Monday in courtrooms around the country. Slate spoke with defense attorneys in Florida, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Washington state, and the District of Columbia who witnessed large groups of defendants congregating in courthouses after police arrested them for low-level offenses. Many people had been jailed for at least one night for crimes like driving without a permit and possession of drug paraphernalia. In northern New Jersey, according to an attorney who was present, a prosecutor argued on Monday that defendants are, in fact, safer from the virus behind bars. But a defense attorney in the region told Slate that her clients in jail have no access to soap or toilet paper.

. . . .

As of Monday, federal district courts around the country were still in operation, though many had suspended jury trials. Chief Justice John Roberts, the head of the federal judiciary, has not issued public guidance to these courts, leaving them to fend for themselves. The chief judge of each federal district court must decide when, and if, to shutter completely. Similarly, the chief judge of each federal appeals court must determine how, and if, to hold oral arguments, and how to keep deciding cases in spite of the interruption. The Supreme Court has canceled March’s oral arguments.

Many immigration courts, which are controlled by the Executive Office for Immigration Review at the U.S. Department of Justice, were still operating on Monday too. EOIR cancelled all master calendar hearings on Sunday—these are short hearings, scheduled months or years in advance, that typically begin the deportation process. But courts are still holding other kinds of hearings, except in Seattle, whose immigration court has shut down entirely. According to a DOJ official at the Los Angeles Immigration Court, the agency has failed to provide employees with any meaningful guidance. This official told Slate that last week, a court administrator told staff that COVID-19 is “like the flu” and “not a big deal.” All last week, she said, “people were coming into courtrooms sick.” EOIR was just beginning to develop a telework plan on Monday and was withholding all information about future operations from staff.

An employee at the New York City Immigration Court spoke of similar disarray. This individual told Slate that her supervisor ignored repeated pleas to mitigate the risk of infection to staff. Immigrants with symptoms of COVID-19 have repeatedly appeared in court. When judges canceled hearings for the day to limit exposure to these individuals, this supervisor reportedly expressed anger that they had not simply moved to a different courtroom.

On Sunday, the union representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement prosecutors joined immigration judges and lawyers to call on the Department of Justice to shutter immigration courts entirely. This unprecedented alliance of frequent foes condemned the DOJ’s response as “insufficient” and “not premised on transparent scientific information.” (The agency has yet to answer this letter.)

There are currently more than 50,000 individuals in immigrant detention. There are already coronavirus outbreaks cropping up at these detention facilities. But the government has put forth no comprehensive plan to test and treat patients. The same is true for inmates in state and federal facilities. A defense attorney in King County, Washington—a COVID-19 hot spot—told Slate on Monday that “there is no plan to protect people in jail from coronavirus. People are still held on nonviolent charges, and people are still cycling through on all sorts of minor charges.” As long as police continue to arrest individuals for low-level offenses, these people will be put in jail and then sent to a courthouse. Even if prosecutors decline charges, these individuals may have already been exposed to the virus and could spread it.

. . . .

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Read the complete article at the link.

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Here’s the latest from Laura Lynch over at AILA:

The Honorable William P. Barr Attorney General

U.S. Department of Justice

James McHenry

Director

Executive Office for Immigration Review

Matthew T. Albence

Deputy Director and Senior Official

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Submitted via email

March 16, 2020

Dear Attorney General Barr, Director McHenry, and Deputy Director Albence,

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) is writing to follow up on our March 12, 2020 letter requesting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) immediately implement procedures for the prevention and management of COVID-19 and our March 15, 2020 statement calling for the emergency closure of the nation’s immigration courts, sent in conjunction with the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 511 (the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Professionals Union).

We appreciate the important measures already taken by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), including the suspension of non-detained master calendar hearings. However, the evolving nature of this crisis demands more aggressive action. Since our initial letter to ICE, President Donald Trump proclaimed that the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States constitutes a national emergency, beginning March 1, 2020. States and localities across the country have suspended school, put in place restrictions on the size of gatherings, closed restaurants and bars, and shut down tourist activities.

DOJ and DHS must acknowledge the severity of this pandemic, and take the following steps to protect DOJ employees, DHS employees, respondents, representatives, interpreters, experts, and other immigration court stakeholders, as well as the general public:

• Immediately Close Immigration Courts: DOJ should immediately close immigration courts for a minimum of two to four weeks so that public health officials have an opportunity to test and gain valuable information about who can transmit the COVID-19 virus and to reassess how to ensure a safe environment for immigration court hearings.

AILA Doc. No. 20031666. (Posted 3/16/20)

• Hold Telephonic Bond Hearings and Stipulate to Bond in Writing: DOJ should proceed with fully telephonic bond hearings so that detained individuals who are eligible can be released from custody as soon as possible and allow supporting documents to be faxed and emailed to the appropriate clerk. When possible, ICE OPLA should stipulate to bond in written motions so it is not necessary to hold hearings.

• Cancel ICE Check-Ins: ICE should cancel and/or reschedule all OSUP and/or ISAP appointments that are scheduled for at least the next 60-90 days and extend the same for several months as conditions warrant.

• Immediately Release Anyone With Vulnerabilities from Custody: ICE should immediately release vulnerable populations from ICE custody, including people 60 and over, pregnant people, and people with chronic illnesses, compromised immune systems, or disabilities, and people whose housing placements restrict their access to medical care and limit the staff’s ability to observe them.

• Decrease the Number of People in Detention to Limit Exposure: ICE should liberally use its discretion to release individuals from custody and decrease the overall ICE population, including through the increased use of parole authority, stipulating to bond in written motions, and use of alternatives to detention (with no check-in requirements for thirty days or more).

• Take Proper Care to Prevent Transmission in Custody: ICE should immediately test detainees who exhibit any symptoms and/or present risk factors, as delayed confirmation of cases will necessarily be too late to prevent transmission. ICE should also provide proper hygienic supplies at all ICE detention and check-in facilities, allowing easy access to all detained persons, the population under ICE supervision, and ICE staff. ICE should halt transfers from facility-to-facility and to out-of-state locations in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus throughout individual states and the U.S.

• Allow Stays of Removal and Other Emergency Motions to Be Submitted Via Mail: ICE should allow requests for stays of removal, and other emergency motions, to be submitted by mail instead of requiring an in-person filing with the applicant present.

• Issue a Blanket Extraordinary Circumstances Exception for One-Year Filing Deadlines: DOJ should issue a blanket extraordinary circumstances exception for asylum one-year filing deadlines that fall from March 1, 2020 (the beginning of the National Emergency) through the reopening of immigration courts.

2

AILA Doc. No. 20031666. (Posted 3/16/20)

• Provide Flexibility on All Deadlines: ICE and DOJ should liberally agree to and/or grant requests to extend filing deadlines based on imposition of remote work, loss of staff, necessity for child, elder, and family care based on school and institutional closures.

• Commit to Flexibly and Favorably Addressing COVID—19-Caused “Age Outs” on a Case-By-Case Basis. In the context of cancellation of removal for nonpermanent residents under INA § 240A(b), the Board of Immigration Appeals has acknowledged its ability to review the particular facts in a case in addressing a respondent’s argument that the age of qualifying relative should be “frozen” prior to the final administrative decision. Matter of Isidro, 25 I&N Dec. 829, 832 (BIA 2012) (rejecting respondent’s contention that age should be locked where there was no “undue or unfair delay” in the course of proceedings); see also Martinez-Perez v. Barr, No. 18-9573 (10th Cir. 2020) (BIA has jurisdiction and authority to interpret cancellation statute in a way that fixes the age of respondent’s daughter in light of undue or unfair delay).

• Stipulate to Relief When Appropriate, Especially in Detained Cases: ICE should stipulate to relief in cases where individual hearings are already scheduled, but must be re-calendared based on COVID-19 disruptions, and where the record in itself demonstrates that the respondent has meaningfully met her burden of proof based on a well-developed record of proceedings and evidentiary submissions that compel a grant of relief from removal.

• Parole Respondents in the Remain in Mexico Program: DHS should parole all respondents in the Remain in Mexico program (also known as MPP) into the U.S. on the date of their scheduled immigration court hearing date and provide them with a new hearing date in a non-detained court. At a minimum, EOIR must work with CBP to issue a new EOIR hearing notice and CBP must provide the respondent with both the new EOIR hearing notice and an MPP tear sheet. If the respondent does not have an MPP tear sheet containing a future U.S. immigration court date, the respondent would be out of status in Mexico and Mexico’s migration institute (INM) will likely refuse to renew the individuals’ temporary status in Mexico.

We respectfully request a response as soon as possible given the emergent circumstances. Please feel free to contact Kate Voigt (kvoigt@aila.org) with questions.

Sincerely,

THE AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAWYERS ASSOCIATION

CC: Barbara M. Gonzalez, Assistant Director, ICE Office of Partnership and Engagement; Richard A. Rocha, ICE Spokesperson; Lauren Alder Reid, Assistance Director, EOIR Office of Policy.

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AILA Doc. No. 20031666. (Posted 3/16/20)

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So, the spread of the coronavirus worldwide was months in the making. Why didn’t Roberts convene a meeting of the Judicial Conference, the Administrative Office, and the ABA to come up with an emergency plan?

Why didn’t EOIR, which has time for endless counterproductive “management” (actually “mismanagement”) nonsense (how about “judicial dashboards” for a mindless waste of time and money?), get together with the NAIJ, ICE, and AILA months ago to develop an emergency response plan for the Immigration Courts? No, the “powers that be” at EOIR were too busy trying to “decertify” the NAIJ with frivolous and unethical litigation.

The recent joint action by the NAIJ, AILA, the ICE union is a prime example of the way in which an Independent Article I Immigration Court, free of DOJ political mismanagement and improper influence, will foster cooperation, implement best practices, further efficiency, and make due process and fundamental fairness realities, not overnight, but certainly over time. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/03/15/as-eoir-dithers-immigration-professionals-take-cooperative-action-immigration-judges-prosecutors-and-attorneys-call-for-the-nationwide-closure-of-all-immigration-courts/Due process with humanity and efficiency! The “post-regime future” of an independent Immigration Court holds great promise and unlimited potential for good government and public service if we can only “get there!”

Once this emergency is over, America also needs a top to bottom re-examination of the leadership and administration of our diverse judicial systems. As a whole, they are obviously “not quote ready for prime time” (“NQRFPT”) when it comes to protecting the public or using technology for the common good.

Obviously, at many levels, Federal, State, and Local, we have some of the wrong people serving as judges. First and foremost, the law is about humanity and protecting and saving lives to the greatest extent possible. That’s a fundamental human message that Roberts and many other right wing judicial zealots, out of touch with the needs of the public and wedded to stilted semi-absurdist and contrived interpretations of the law, simply don’t get. America needs better judges, with some empathy, humanity, and common sense! Again, it won’t happen overnight, but we have to start somewhere to get anywhere in the future!

PWS

03-16-20

THE UGLY GOP RACIST MYTH OF THE “ANCHOR BABY” – They Are As “American” As Any Of Us, Perhaps More So Because Of The Nativist-Inspired Bias They Have Had to Overcome — “That practice of targeting people who really are members of your society historically and legally and marking them as different allows you to do incredibly awful things to them.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/16/anchor-babies-the-ludicrous-immigration-myth-that-treats-people-as-pawns?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Alexandra Villarreal reports for The Guardian:

The idea that people give birth to stay in the US has no basis in reality – but expect to hear it more often as Trump seeks re-election

Alexandra Villarreal

Mon 16 Mar 2020 00.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 16 Mar 2020 09.20 EDT

Daira García wakes up at 5.50am. She takes out her dog, then tries to eat some breakfast before boarding the bus that gets her to school by 7.26 in the morning.

After class, she heads back home, where her parents, Silvia and Jorge, watch Noticiero and sip mate (she sometimes tries the drink as well but admits she’s never quite gotten used to it). They eat something, talk. When Daira goes off to finish her homework, she forgoes the desk in her room to curl up in her parents’ bed.

“It’s more comfy,” she quips.

Daira, 17, has a fairly standard routine for an American teenager: school, homework, family time. But unlike most kids, the schedule she’s come to rely on each day could easily be disrupted at any point.

Silvia and Jorge traveled from Argentina to the United States as 2001 became 2002, and with a new year came their new life in an unknown country. Daira’s big brother was just an infant then; now a college student, he doesn’t even really remember the place where he was born. And yet he’s only shielded from deportation because of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), an Obama-era program the Trump administration has been trying to end for years. Silvia and Jorge, meanwhile, have no protection and could be picked up by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) at any time.

Daira begins to cry just thinking about it.

“We’ve never had a plan for it if it happened,” Silvia says in Spanish. “Maybe we don’t give much thought to that because we think it’s healthier.”

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Daira García, an aspiring artist, depicts family separation. She is a US citizen, but both her parents are undocumented. Illustration: Daira García/The Guardian

An estimated 4.1 million US-citizen children lived with at least one undocumented parent in recent years, according to the Migration Policy Institute. They’re kids who anti-immigrant groups disparage as “anchor babies”, a derogatory term that insinuates these children are little more than pawns used by their immigrant parents to get a foothold in the US and eventually become citizens themselves.

It’s a narrative trope that completely misrepresents the harsh realities of America’s current immigration laws, as well as just the natural progression of life, experts suggest.

“People have this notion that you have a child in the United States, now you’re a citizen. It’s what people think because it’s the easy way to explain it. So it’s an easy way to make up a myth,” said David Leopold, an immigration attorney and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

It’s true that children born on US soil have been granted citizenship through the 14th amendment to the US constitution, and that a landmark supreme court decision set the precedent for that right to be extended to almost all children of foreigners. But Americans can’t just immediately safeguard their family members from deportation. In fact, a US citizen must be 21 years oldbefore they can sponsor their parents for a green card. They also must be able to financially support their parents.

Now the Trump administration’s new public charge rule targeting low-income immigrants is adding yet another burden.

Parents who were not inspected and admitted into the US face even more obstacles to changing their immigration status: with limited exceptions, they have to go abroad as part of the legalization process and then often aren’t allowed back into the US for 10 years.

Even if parents do get a green card, they have a five-year holding period before they can finally apply for naturalization.

In the end, the so-called “anchor baby” pathway to citizenship is at least a 26-year endeavor, even for those who entered the US legally.

“It’s ludicrous to think that that’s some sort of a tactic that people use to come here, get citizenship, ’cause it just isn’t true,” said Leopold. “It’s a myth, and it’s a specious talking point.”

A talking point that’s popular among anti-immigrant groups, pundits and the Republican party.

. . . .

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Read the rest of Alexandra’s article at the link.

This is what “Dred Scottification” preached by Trump, Miller, Sessions, “Cooch Cooch,” and their White Nationalist allies, and encouraged and enabled by the willfully “tone-deaf” Roberts Court, is all about. Ultimately, their aim is to consciously dump on our fellow citizens and human beings because of the color of their skin or their ethnic origin, or perhaps in some cases, their religion. Utterly disgusting!

The “Beauty of the 14^th Amendment” is that it eventually automatically solves the issues that politicians of both parties, but primarily the GOP, have been avoiding for decades. Over time, a generation of so-called “undocumented” residents passes into history; the new generation are full U.S. citizens who will achieve their full potential in America and exercise the political power necessary to put the toxic views, actions, and rhetoric of the “nativist right” behind us as we move forward as a nation. Thus, we avoid creating generations of “perpetually disenfranchised” members of our society.

No, the 14^th Amendment doesn’t take the place of a long overdue, sane legalization program and some reality and market-based reforms of our legal immigration system. But, it does provide a “fail safe” against the callous misrule of Trump, the GOP, and the enabling actions of the Roberts Court.

Due Process Forever! Nativist Myths, Never!

PWS

03-16-20

AS EOIR DITHERS, IMMIGRATION PROFESSIONALS TAKE COOPERATIVE ACTION: “Immigration Judges, Prosecutors and Attorneys Call for the Nationwide Closure of All Immigration Courts” — UPDATE: EOIR HALTS NON-DETAINED MASTERS TILL APRIL 10!

EYORE — “Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”

United Fron Position on Health and Safety During a Pandemic_

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT

EMPLOYEES LOCAL 511

Immigration Judges, Prosecutors and Attorneys Call for the Nationwide Closure of All Immigration Courts

Position on Health and Safety of the Immigration Courts During the COVID-19 Pandemic

March 15, 2020

The National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 511 (the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Professionals Union), and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) (collectively, “the Organizations”) call for the emergency closure of the nation’s Immigration Courts in adherence with current public health protocols regarding the COVID-19 virus and recognizing the urgency of this public health crisis.

Our nation is currently in the throes of a historic global pandemic. The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) current response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its spread is insufficient and not premised on transparent scientific information. The DOJ is failing to meet its obligations to ensure a safe and healthy environment within our Immigration Courts. No doubt, closing the courts is a difficult decision that will impose significant hardship for those in the Migrant Protection Protocols and detained Respondents. But these are extraordinary times. Respondents who are in detained settings are in a particularly vulnerable situation that warrants specialized considerations. For example, steps should be taken to conduct bond redetermination hearings telephonically during this period. We support the use of telework which has been advocated by the Administration, and we are ready and able to work to ensure

priority matters, including detained bond matters where appropriate, are addressed using technological tools wherever possible.

Coordinated through the leadership of the NAIJ, the Organizations urge immediate action to close our courts in light of the broad scope of the health and safety challenges facing our nation and the Immigration Court system. NAIJ proactively called for the DOJ to take the steps necessary to protect the Immigration Judges, the Immigration Court staff, and the public we serve. As of Sunday, March 15th, the DOJ has failed to institute adequate measures to protect our court’s personnel and the public during this public health crisis.

On Friday, March 13th, the DOJ announced that it will close the Seattle Immigration Court and limit the size of some large master docket hearings at ten Immigration Courts in six cities within the United States for four weeks. The Organizations are firmly convinced that this action is woefully insufficient. We applaud the DOJ’s decision to close down the Seattle Court as it recognizes the need to place the health and safety of the community first. However, the DOJ has provided no scientific or reasoned basis to explain why one locale deserves this type of protection, while the Immigration Courts in the rest of the country are being provided with either partial health and safety solutions, or worse, no health and safety precautions at all. The President has now declared a “National Emergency.” Thirty-nine states have declared “State Emergencies.” Some cities have declared “City Emergencies.”

The Immigration Courts need immediate, sensible, rational, scientifically-based health and safety solutions that protect the Immigration Judges, their staff, the contract interpreters, the private bar, the respondents and their witnesses, the security staff, and so many of the other people who make each hearing possible. On Saturday, March 14, NAIJ consulted Dr. Ashish Jha, K.T. Li Professor of Global Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, an internationally recognized expert and a leading authority on public health and COVID-19. We asked Dr. Jha to consider our Immigration Court structure and the nature of our hearings at more than 68 locations in cities throughout the United States in light of the current state of infection in our country due to the global pandemic. It is his expert opinion, from an epidemiological perspective, that the Immigration Court should not be holding any hearings at this point. He explained that it is impossible to determine which individuals who attend hearings are ill with COVID-19 virus, and stressed that people can infect others even though they are asymptomatic. He also explained that at this point, because of the lack of testing for COVID-19, we do not know which cities are “hot spots.” In other words, no one can say which cities have more cases of COVID-19 than other cities. Instead, confirmed COVID-19 cases reflects only the availability of testing and not the spread of disease.

In the face of inadequate national testing, Dr. Jha said it is irresponsible to do anything other than close our courts until sufficient testing has been conducted. He estimates that in two to four weeks sufficient testing will have been completed so that epidemiological experts will be able to provide specific, data-based directions for organizations like our courts. He provided his unequivocal opinion that to continue to hold any hearings at any Immigration Court at this time presents a high public health risk.

Given Dr. Jha’s uncontroverted expertise and studied opinion, we urge the Department of Justice to close the Immigration Courts to ensure the safety of all people involved in the process. Closing the Immigration Courts for the recommended limited period — two to four weeks — will give the public health officials an opportunity to test and gain valuable information about who can transmit the COVID-19 virus and to reassess how best to ensure a safe environment for Immigration Court hearings. Failing to take this action now will exacerbate a once in a century public health crisis.

Now is the time to close the nation’s 68 Immigration Courts for two to four weeks, to protect the health and safety of the Immigration Judges, the Immigration Court staff, and the public that we serve.

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Horrible situation!

But not surprising to me that the “Old Team” of dedicated professionals from all sides that used to operate at the Arlington Immigration Court prior to this regime has come together again to put America first, promote the public good, and “do the right thing” in the absence of national leadership from the regime.

Imagine what immigration professionals working together could accomplish if an independent Immigration Court were created to operate cooperatively to serve the common interest — that of making the system work and promoting the common good! Thanks to everyone involved for this extraordinary effort demonstrating fairness, scholarship, timeliness, teamwork, and respect for each other and for humanity!

Also, shows to the “toxic stupidity” of the Trump/Barr attack on Federal employee unions — the only folks in the immigration bureaucracy actually committed to making the system work for everyone.

Due Process Forever! Degradation Of The Public Interest Never!

PWS

03-15-20

UPDATE: 11:15 PM EDT.:

Courtside has been informed by an “inherently reliable source” that EOIR has halted all non-detained Master Calendar Hearings until April 10!

PWS

03-15-20

WILL CLUELESS CLOWN COURTS ENDANGER PUBLIC HEALTH & SAFETY? 🤡🤡 — The Inevitable Spread of Coronavirus Is “Old News” & Poorly Designed & Mismanaged Immigration Courts Appear To Be a “High Risk” Potential Breeding Ground — Predictably, Dysfunctional EOIR Has No Contingency Plans In Place! — 100-Case “Master Calendars” in Mini-Courtrooms Bringing Old & Young, Infirm & Able, From Far & Near Together Under Threat Of In Absentia Deportation — What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

NDPA stalwart Laura Lynch, Senior Policy Counsel @ AILA reports:

Flagging this new CNN article along with two letters from the NAIJ.

Letter from NAIJ to Acting Chief Immigration Judge Chris Santoro on the lack of guidance issued to EOIR staff, March 9, 2020

Letter from NAIJ to IJs to provide guidance on the immigration courts and COVID-19, March 9, 2020

CNN: Immigration judges want to know how to handle coronavirus, March 9, 2020

Immigration judges want to know how to handle coronavirus

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

Updated 5:04 PM ET, Mon March 9, 2020

(CNN)The union representing immigration judges urged the Trump administration in a letter Monday to “immediately” implement steps to protect judges and their staff and provide guidance on how to proceed amid the coronavirus outbreak, which also has the potential to exacerbate the overwhelming backlog of pending cases.

The letter calls for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, an agency within the Justice Department that oversees the nation’s immigration courts, to inform employees about the plan “as it relates to a potential pandemic,” noting that some immigration court functions “may not lend themselves to telework.”

“As you know, our work requires us to be in close contact with the public on a daily basis, often in very large numbers and groups,” wrote Judge Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

She continued: “Beyond our own employees, the respondents who come before us may also be at high risk for developing serious illness. Because we order their appearance and they face the prospect of removal if they don’t appear, sick respondents and respondents vulnerable to serious illness will keep coming to court unless we take action.”

As concerns over the coronavirus ramp up, some government agencies, businesses and organizations have taken steps to try and prevent the spread of the disease by preparing for employees to telework, limiting travel and canceling gatherings.

In Monday’s letter, the union asked the Trump administration to consider measures such as waiving the appearance of some respondents, allowing for telephonic appearances and limiting in-court paper filings. The union is also recommending in an email to the workforce that judges keep bottles of hand sanitizer in the courtroom, use disinfecting wipes to clean surfaces and limit court attendance.

Any change in daily operations is critical in immigration court, which faces a pile-up of pending cases. Immigrants fighting deportation generally have a chance to make their case in court, where they can ask a judge to allow them to stay in the US by arguing they qualify for asylum or another legal option.

Last year’s US government shutdown, which resulted in some cases being postponed, exacerbated the long-standing issue and added to the backlog. There are more than 1 million pending cases before the immigration courts, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse or TRAC, which tracks immigration court data — resulting in cases being scheduled out years in advance.

TRAC estimated last year that between 80,000 and 94,000 immigration court hearings may have been canceled as a result of last year’s government shutdown. The only cases that moved forward during that time were those of immigrants in detention.

The concerns held among immigration lawyers Monday are reminiscent of the government shutdown.

Immigration attorneys are worried about the effect on the backlog of cases if judges, attorneys, and other stakeholders are out because of the illness.

“If this thing gets out of control, it’s always a problem when cases are canceled, given the backlog,” Lawrence K. Le Roy, an immigration lawyer based in Newark, said in reference to coronavirus.

John Leschak, an immigration attorney, had a hearing scheduled Monday at the Newark immigration court for a client seeking asylum in the United States. The judge was not in court and the hearing was postponed. It’s unclear whether the reason behind the judge’s absence was related to coronavirus.

“It’s unfortunate because it’s a case that’s been pending for a long time,” Leschak said. “We’re between a rock and a hard place.”

The coronavirus is also already impacting the operations of some federal courts across the US.

For example, a district court in Washington state and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from nine western states including Washington, altered some of the procedures as the virus continues to spread. Washington has seen at least 80 cases.

Unlike other courts, however, immigration courts fall under the executive branch, not the judicial branch.

Ariane de Vogue and Kevin Bohn contributed to this story.

Laura A. Lynch, Esq.

Senior Policy Counsel

********************************

Thanks Laura, my friend, for keeping us up to date. And, as always, thanks to Priscilla for her great reporting on the never-ending mess and continuing outages at EOIR.

When it comes to public service and professional court administration from “Headquarters,” “today’s EOIR is the pits.” And, that’s not a knock on Chief Judge Chris Santoro who is generally known as a “straight shooter” and a “problem solver.” I think that I’ve acknowledged before that he was always kind and supportive to me and helped me through some very difficult times in my career at Arlington. I’ll always be appreciative for that.

“Reading between the lines,” he was ordered by one of his “superior bozos” in EOIR’s ludicrous “chain of command” to issue the inane order and then to rescind it when everything “hit the fan.” Typical EOIR “march ‘em up the hill, then march ‘em down again nonsense,” that actually has an adverse effect on both internal morale and the public.

On the other hand, perhaps it’s time for those who know how screwed up and “maliciously mismanaged” this system is to “come out and join the resistance,” as others in our Round Table have done, some at considerable personal sacrifice (not me, of course — I was fortunate enough to be able and ready to retire from EOIR even before the current regime took over.) I have no doubt that someone with Chief Judge Santoro’s ample and diverse skill set could find employment in the private sector.

But, this “circus-like” incident raises deeper issues.

In what kind of “court system” are “judges” not allowed to post public notices issued by the CDC without saying “Captain May I?” The DOJ falsely claims that its “judges” are “policy officials.” Whoever heard of a “policy official” who couldn’t hang up a Government public health poster? This whole thing is an unbelievable farce! Why does it take a directive from “Headquarters” to rectify what should be a no brainer in any functioning court system?

And, what kind of “court system” (outside the military) reports to “headquarters.” You think that the U.S. District Courts in Washington called up John Roberts to see if it was OK to cancel trials because of a public health threat? I doubt it.

Why wasn’t NAIJ President Judge Ashley Tabaddor involved in the Coronavirus planning. She speaks for those “on the line” in contact with the public. Certainly, few issues could have a greater effect on “working conditions” than steps to prevent the spread of infectious disease. Why is the NAIJ forced to waste time complaining and going to such lengths when competent management would have involved them in advance planning months ago?

Imagine how much better this system would operate if it were run by real judges who hired professional court administrators to work for the public good, instead of maliciously incompetent clowns carrying out Stephen Miller’s fascist agenda?

As you know, I blame the Article IIIs and Congress for letting this deadly mockery of our Constitution and American Justice continue to operate — essentially to dehumanize, abuse, and sometimes kill. I trust the younger members of the NDPA, folks like Laura and her colleagues, and the next generations to see that the life-tenured judges and legislators who looked the other way and knowingly acted as enablers as human dignity, our Constitution, and the rule of law were trampled upon by a White Nationalist regime are held fully accountable in the “court of history.”

The “J.R. Five’s” toxically improper action in Wolf v. Cook County, skirting the rules to enable the regime’s illegal, racially motivated rewriting of the “public charge” rules to go into effect has been exposed for the outrageous politically biased action it is. It allows the regime to intentionally spread panic in ethnic communities, particularly targeting Hispanics, citizens, immigrants, and the undocumented, and to intimidate those who should be seeking health care advice from doing so. Nice public health policy. As if Coronavirus and other diseases know the difference between “documented” and “undocumented” humans. It’s likely that Roberts and his tone deaf cronies will have even more “blood on their hands” before this is over.

As I said on Courtside recently, in the future, we also need more courageous, scholarly, humane, and ethical Article III Judges — folks who will read the Constitution and stand up for individual rights and for human dignity — folks who understand as MLK once said that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The current group of Article IIIs is a national disgrace (as a whole, although there are many notable exceptions, mostly among the U.S. District Court Judges who all too often get reversed by the CAs and the Supremes as their “reward” for “standing tall” for the rest of us and standing up for the fair application of the rule of law).

In the meantime, NAIJ President Judge Ashley Tabaddor is a national hero for standing up for the due process rights of all and having the courage to “speak truth to power” in these perilous times. Obviously, the unethical “decertification action” started by DOJ and EOIR is part of the effort to punish and silence her. Hang in there Ashley! We in the NDPA and the Round Table support and appreciate you and your tireless efforts!

Due Process Forever! Clown Courts 🤡& Complicit Article III Courts Never!

PWS

03-11-20

HERE’S A SEPARATE LETTER ON THE URGENT NEED FOR AN ARTICLE I U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT THAT I SENT TO MY SENATORS AND CONGRESSMAN TODAY!

Sent to Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Representative Don Beyer (D-VA) and a few others today:

Dear

RE: Independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court

As an American, human being, taxpayer, and retired career civil servant, I am outraged at the totally unconstitutional and maliciously incompetent destruction of due process and the rule of law, not to mention simple human decency, in our U.S. Immigration Courts by the Department of Justice and the Trump Administration. They have created unprecedented dysfunction and grotesque unfairness.

The current mess, with already record low and plummeting morale and an out of control, largely self-created backlog of more than 1.3 million cases, serves neither the human beings condemned to its daily injustices and intentional degradations of humanity nor the legitimate needs of DHS enforcement. The latter should not be confused with the many outright lies and intentionally false narratives about the need for massive, counterproductive, fiscally wasteful, and intentionally cruel immigration enforcement spread by this Administration. I call on you to join your colleagues in supporting bipartisan legislation to create an independent, Article I U.S. Immigration Court as one of our highest and most pressing national priorities.

I have been involved in the field of immigration, law enforcement, refugees, and human rights for 47 years. More than 35 of those years were spent at the U.S. Department of Justice, where I worked under both Republican and Democratic Administrations. Indeed, as a career Senior Executive under the Reagan Administration, I helped create the Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”) to house the Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”).

Our aim then was to increase judicial independence, due process, fundamental fairness, and professionalism. The Department that I loyally served bears no resemblance whatsoever to the unbelievable ethical and legal morass that now exists under Bill Barr, one of the three most totally unmqualified individuals to hold that post during my lifetime (the others being convicted felon John Mitchell and notorious White Nationalist enforcement zealot Jeff Sessions, who was primarily responsible for the Administration’s cruel and unconstitutional “child separation” program).

Prior to my retirement on June 30, 2019, I spent 13 years as an Immigration Judge at the U.S. Immigration Court in Arlington, Virginia. Before that, I was a Board Member and Appellate Immigration Judge at the BIA, for eight years, the first six as BIA Chair. I also spent more than a decade at the “Legacy Immigration & Naturalization Service,” (“INS”) where as Deputy General Counsel, and Acting General Counsel during portions of the Carter and Reagan Administrations, I was responsible for the overall operation of the nationwide legal program, including all representation before the Immigration Courts and the BIA. I have also practiced immigration law as a partner at the D.C. Office of Jones Day and as managing partner of the D.C. Office of Fragomen.

I currently teach Immigration Law & Policy as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law, as well as making numerous speeches and other public appearances, and publishing my own blog, immigrationcourtside.com. I am a proud member of the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, a voluntary organization, with more than 40 former judges as members, committed to filing amicus briefs, public statements, and taking part in educational efforts intended to increase public and judicial understanding of the Immigration Courts and to promote an essential restoration of due process and fundamental fairness as its focus.

I know of few, if any, other participants in the current “immigration dialogue,” who have personally been involved in more cases either helping deserving individuals achieve legal status under our laws or, conversely, ordering the removal of individuals found not to qualify to remain here under our laws. In other words, I know what I’m talking about, much of it from face to face encounters with individuals on all sides of the issue in Immigration Court, as well as years of experience in shaping national immigration policy and legislation in both the public and private sectors.

I have had to personally deliver to individuals and their families the “bad news” that I was required by the law to return them to countries where I had little doubt that they would suffer torture, rape, dehumanization, or even death. It’s a sobering experience not shared by most of those clueless demagogues now bragging about how “success” should be measured by our ability to inflict more unnecessary cruelty and inhumanity on some of the most vulnerable individuals in the world and how “court efficiency” means nothing other than assembly line removals with neither due process nor fundamental fairness.

What’s happening now in our Immigration Courts is a travesty and a national catastrophe. It is wrong, from a Constitutional, legal, and moral standpoint. It eventually will join Jim Crow as one of the most heinous abuses of legal authority and human rights in modern American legal history. Surely, we all want to be on “the right side of history” on this fundamental issue.

Today, many NGOs involved in justice, immigration, and human rights launched a “twitter storm” to raise awareness of the tragic abuses of the legal system going on at the Administration’s instigation daily in our failed and unconscionably “weaponized” Immigration Courts. Innocent lives are literally being lost and families and futures ruined while we stand by and watch. America’s future as a great nation and “beacon of hope” for the rest of the world is literally being dissolved and washed down the drain.

Please take time to read the detailed letter that our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges signed, along with the American Immigration Lawyers Association and 53 other distinguished non-governmental organizations, demanding an end to the abusive Immigration Courts under DOJ control and the establishment of a constitutionally required independent Immigration Court that will insure due process and fundamental fairness as required by our Constitution.

That letter may be found at this link: https://www.aila.org/advo-media/aila-correspondence/2020/advocates-call-on-congress-establish-independent

Also, if you have not already done so, I urge you to read the letter signed by me and more than 2,500 other former DOJ officials deploring the corruption and unethical behavior that Bill Barr has “normalized” at the DOJ and demanding his resignation.

That letter may be found at this link: https://medium.com/@dojalumni/doj-alumni-statement-on-the-events-surrounding-the-sentencing-of-roger-stone-c2cb75ae4937

American justice is facing an existential crisis resulting from this Administration’s weaponization and maliciously incompetent management of what is perhaps our biggest, and certainly most important in terms of human lives and American’s future in the world, court systems: The Immigration Courts. When these courts finally implode under the Trump Administration’s continued abuses, they will take with them a large portion of our American justice system and that which makes America different from the rest of the world.

I should know – I dealt with the human wreckage caused by the failure of courts and justice systems in other countries nearly every working day for more than four decades. This Administration has turned our once-proud Immigration Courts into a “parody of justice” usually found in third-world dictatorships or authoritarian states where due process is but a mirage.

Therefore, I respectfully ask for your support in creating an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court. Due Process Forever!

With my thanks and very best wishes,

Paul Wickham Schmidt

U.S. Immigration Judge (Retired)

***************************

PWS

02-19-20

54 NGOs DECLARE EOIR A DUE PROCESS DISASTER AREA, URGE CONGRESS TO CREATE INDEPENDENT ARTICLE I COURT — Round Table of Former Immigration Judges Among Groups Seeking Change — Join AILA’S “Twitterstorm” Today (Wednesday)

Hi Local Asylum Liaisons-

Today AILA, the American Immigration Council, and 52 additional organizations sent a letter to members of Congress, urging them to establish an independent immigration court! This letter was sent in advance of tomorrow’s twitterstorm that aims to bring attention to the dysfunction in the immigration court system and call for reform.

Asks:

Please amplify this letter on social media.

Twitter: You can retweet AILANational’s tweet or use some of the sample tweets below.

·          Click to tweet: Case-completion quotas force immigration judges to rush through cases, often at the expense of due process. This assembly-line justice is unacceptable. Read the letter @AILANational & others sent to Congress calling for independent courts. http://ow.ly/mV3730qiMW5

·          Click to tweet: The Trump administration’s certification decisions have undermined due process and weakened protections for asylum seekers. Read more in this letter @AILANational and over 50 orgs sent to Congress. #JudicialIndependence http://ow.ly/mV3730qiMW5

·          Click to tweet: Due process and #JudicialIndependence should never be sacrificed in the name of political expediency. Read the letter @AILANational sent with over 50 other orgs calling for the establishment of an independent immigration court. http://ow.ly/mV3730qiMW5

Sample LinkedIn/Facebook Post: Please share AILA’s Facebook post or use sample post below.

Due process and judicial independence should never be sacrificed in the name of political expediency. Read the letter AILA National sent with 50 other organizations calling for the establishment of an independent immigration court. http://ow.ly/mV3730qiMW5

Please join us tomorrow, Wednesday (2/19) from 3pm – 4pm ET to participate in a Twitterstorm hosted by AILA, NIJC, and Human Rights First.

You can share tweets from our social media toolkit or craft your own using the hashtag #JudicialIndependence. Looking forward to seeing you on Twitter!

Thank you! -Laura

Also ICYMI –last week a group of Senators accused the Department of Justice of politicizing the immigration courts in a letter to Attorney General Barr. Read more here.

Laura A. Lynch, Esq.

Senior Policy Counsel

Direct: 202.507.7627 I Email: llynch@aila.org

American Immigration Lawyers Association

Main: 202.507.7600 I Fax: 202.783.7853 I www.aila.org

1331 G Street NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005

Here’s the link to our letter:

NGOLTREOIR20021838

DUE PROCESS FOREVER!

*******************

PWS

02-19-20

THE NEED FOR AN INDEPENDENT ARTICLE I U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT: A New “Video Short” From AILA Productions!

THE NEED FOR AN INDEPENDENT ARTICLE I U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT: A New “Video Short” From AILA Productions!

Starring (in order of appearance):

Hon. A. Ashlley Tabaddor — Hon. A. Ashley Tabaddor
President, National
Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”)

Jeremy McKinney, Esquire
Greensboro, NC
AILA 2nd Vice President

Watch it here:

https://youtu.be/8fkt-g4XG_A

*******************************

Never has the need been greater!

Due Process Forever; Captive Courts Never!

PWS

02-01-20

HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE SCHEDULES HEARING FOR TOMORROW (01-29-20) ON DUE PROCESS DISASTER IN U.S. IMMIGRATION COURTS!

https://judiciary.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=2757

Hearings

Courts in Crisis: The State of Judicial Independence and Due Process in U.S. Immigration Courts

Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship

Date: Wednesday, January 29, 2020 – 09:30am

Location: 2141 RHOB

Tags: Immigration and Citizenship

Courts in Crisis: The State of Judicial Independence and Due Process in U.S. Immigration Courts

Witnesses

X The HonorableAndrew R.Arthur

Y Resident Fellow in Law and Policy, Center for Immigration Studies

X Mr.JeremyMcKinney

Y Second Vice President, American Immigration Lawyers Association

X Ms.JudyPerry Martinez

Y President, American Bar Association

X The HonorableA. AshleyTabbador

Y President, National Association of Immigration Judges

**********************

You can watch live tomorrow by clicking the above link.

The Subcommittee should get an earful from the last three witnesses on the absolute national disgrace and mockery of Constitutional Due Process taking place daily in these weaponized and “captive” courts.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-28-20

ADOLFO FLORES @ BUZZFEED: More On The EOIR “Tent Court” Farce!

See below Buzzfeed’s latest story about tent court access.

Immigration “Tent Courts” Aren’t Allowing Full Public Access, Attorneys Say

Observers and reporters can’t watch what some consider to be the most important part of an immigration proceeding.

Adolfo FloresBuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on January 13, 2020, at 4:23 p.m. ET

The Trump administration recently agreed to open its “tent courts,” makeshift tribunals where immigrants made to wait in Mexico attend hearings, but lawyers and legal observers say the set up still fails to give the public full access.

Attorneys and advocates said the government is still keeping the public out of what some consider to be the most important part of immigration court proceedings by using judges located inside a Fort Worth, Texas, facility that is closed to the public. The hearings are where immigrants get the opportunity to present arguments and evidence as to why they should be allowed to stay in the US.

Judges at the Fort Worth Immigration Adjudication Center, which the public has no access to, are overseeing the individual merits hearings via video that’s beamed into “tent courts” in Brownsville, Texas. At the same time, the public has also been barred from attending the hearings in person at the “tent court,” effectively closing off public access.

“It’s highly problematic,” said Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “Using these adjudication centers and judges is clearly intentional. The agency is trying to operate these cases in secret.”

The facilities in Falls Church, Virginia, and Fort Worth were created by the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which oversees the nation’s immigration courts, as a way to reduce its growing case backlog.

Denying public access is especially concerning because most immigrants in “Remain in Mexico,” formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), are not represented by an attorney, Lynch said. An analysis of 56,004 MPP hearings found that only 4% of immigrants are represented by a lawyer, the rest are having to make their case on their own.

“Many immigrants are walking into these tent courts unrepresented,” Lynch said. “And there’s no way to observe them.”

EOIR refused to confirm whether judges at the adjudication center were listening to merits hearings in Brownsville. But attorneys with clients at the Brownsville “tent court” confirmed to BuzzFeed News that they’ve had cases before judges at the Fort Worth adjudication center and have been rescheduled to judges there in the future.

“All immigration judges hear all case types. Due to pending litigation, we have no further comment,” said Kathryn Mattingly, a spokesperson for EOIR.

The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In September, DHS opened two temporary court facilities along the Texas border, one in Brownsville and another in Laredo for immigrants in the “Remain in Mexico” program. Judges in brick and mortar courts throughout the US, officials said, would hear their cases and make rulings via video.

When the “tent courts” started their first hearings, they were immediately criticized for its lack of transparency because reporters, legal observers, and the public couldn’t attend hearings from inside.

Instead, DHS and EOIR said the public could attend the hearings by going to the courtroom where the immigration judges, who would be video conferenced into the “tent courts,” were physically at. But that’s not possible when immigration judges hear merits hearings from adjudication centers closed to the public.

In general, immigration courts are open to the public, although according to the Justice Department, immigrants can request that merits hearings be closed.

At the Brownsville “tent courts,” however, merits hearings are closed automatically by design, said Andrew Udelsman, a fellow in the Texas Civil Rights Project’s racial and economic justice program.

“The case right now appears to be a blanket rule that the public has no access to MPP merits proceedings and that is illegal,” Udelsman told BuzzFeed News. “There is a First Amendment right of public access to court proceedings. That right is being violated by this blanket denial of access to merit proceedings.”

Demonstators, all part of a grassroots group called Witness at the Border supported by ACLU Texas and Children’s Defense Fund Texas, gather to protest outside the Brownsville “tent courts.”

Last week, Reynaldo Leaños Jr., a reporter with Texas Public Radio, tried to attend a merits hearing at the Brownsville “tent court” after a Cuban asylum-seeker invited him to attend. Yet private security contracted by the government told Leaños no one was allowed into the hearings.

Asked by BuzzFeed News why that was the case, a security guard with Ahtna at the facility, who declined to give his name, said it was because the shipping containers the merits hearings are held in were too small to accommodate additional members of the public.

Norma Sepulveda, an immigration attorney who had a hearing last week in Brownsville with a judge located in Fort Worth, said it was “ridiculous” that the merits hearings were being held inside small shipping containers that only fit seven people.

“I don’t know why they put us in these tiny rooms to hold the hearings other than to say there’s no space for anyone else to be present,” Sepulveda told BuzzFeed News. “These hearings are being scheduled with these judges intentionally to be able to conduct them without any oversight.”

Sepulveda said her client’s son, a resident of the US, was initially listed as a witness in the case and was allowed into the room. However, when Sepulveda said she was no longer going to call him to testify he was removed from the room by private security.

“It’s clear to me that the policy is no spectators, if you will, and no family support for individual hearings,” Sepulveda said.

Private security at the “tent courts” in Brownsville also enforcing different rules from one day to the next, that legal observers and attorneys said don’t make sense.

On the first day the public was allowed into the Brownsville facilities, private security agents said reporters weren’t allowed to attend hearings with a pen and notepad. Yet, on the second day they did allow journalists to take notes, but not observers like Udelsman of the Texas Civil Rights Project.

Private security officials are also only allowing the public to view master calendar hearings, the first time people see a judge, which tend to be short preliminary hearings. Requests to attend different master calendar hearings, other than the one room made available, were denied.

“They’re preventing anybody from being able to explain in the most accurate manner possible, what’s happening,” Udelsman said. “You’re prohibiting the public from knowing what’s happening in the courtroom and making life as difficult as possible for the few people who are able to report on what’s happening.”

Laura A. Lynch, Esq.

Senior Policy Counsel

Direct: 202.507.7627 I Email: llynch@aila.org

American Immigration Lawyers Association

Main: 202.507.7600 I Fax: 202.783.7853 I www.aila.org

1331 G Street NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005

**********************************************

Thanks for passing this along and for all you do, Laura!

“Secret proceedings” and lack of transparency are key steps toward any neo-fascist state!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-14-20

AILA POLICY BRIEFING: EOIR Still Playing “Hide The Ball” On Tent Court Access!

20011061-AILA Policy Briefing

Policy Brief: Public Access to Tent Courts Now Allowed, but Meaningful Access Still Absent January 10, 2020

Contact: Laura Lynch (Llynch@aila.org) or Leidy Perez-Davis (LPerez-Davis@aila.org)

In September 2019, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) opened massive temporary tent facilities in Laredo and Brownsville, Texas, that function as virtual immigration courtrooms for vulnerable asylum seekers subject to Remain in Mexico. During the hearings, asylum seekers are held in tents at the ports of entry while judges appear remotely via video teleconference (VTC).

Unlike in other immigration courts, the government barred attorney observers, press, and the public from accessing these facilities, in violation of U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) regulations requiring immigration hearings to generally be open to the public. Access to the tent courts is critical to ensuring due process, and AILA, along with several other organizations and numerous members of Congress, repeatedly voiced concerns about the lack of transparency. In response, and after months of public demand for access, the Wall Street Journal reported on December 29, 2019, that DHS directed component agencies to open the tent courts to the public.1

The DHS acknowledgement that transparency is both necessary and required is a vital first step toward upholding due process in tent courts. However, thus far, DHS and DOJ have operationalized this directive in a way that fails to allow meaningful access to the tent court facilities and imposed new hurdles to transparency by assigning immigration judges from the Ft. Worth Immigration Adjudication Center.

Tent Court Access Prior to December 29, 2019, Public Access Announcement

When DHS initially opened the tent courts in September 2019, it allowed only asylum seekers and their attorneys of record into the facilities. At one time, even support staff for attorneys of record such as interpreters and paralegals were restricted from entering the tents, though they were later allowed to accompany the attorneys. Attorney observers, press, and members of the public were categorically barred from the tent facilities while hearings were taking place. Representatives from AILA and other court observers were permitted to observe Master Calendar Hearings and Individual Merits Hearings only at the brick-and-mortar courtrooms where the judges appearing by VTC were located. However, remote observation is not an adequate substitute for access to the tent courts because observers are not able to assess how the proceedings are operating from the vantage point of the individual respondent, who is the most gravely impacted by these proceedings.

1 “In an effort to ensure consistency, clarity, and transparency, the acting secretary directed [component agencies] to formalize guidance for public access to these facilities, consistent with immigration courts across the country.” – DHS spokeswoman, Heather Swift. See Michelle Hackman, Wall Street Journal, U.S. Opens Immigration ‘Tent Courts’ to Public, Dec. 29, 2019.

1

Laredo and Brownsville Tent Court Setup from September 2019 through December 2019

Laredo Tent Court Brownsville Tent Court

Laredo tent court proceedings, including both Master Calendar Hearings and Individual Merits Hearings, were conducted via VTC by immigration judges located at the brick-and-mortar San Antonio immigration court, which is nearly 200 miles away. Brownsville tent court proceedings, including both Master Calendar Hearings and Individual Merits Hearings, were conducted by immigration judges located at the Harlingen and Port Isabel immigration courts, as well as the El Paso SPC, which is nearly 800 miles away from the Brownsville tent court.

● Respondents appeared in person at the Laredo tent court.

● Immigration judges from the San Antonio Immigration Court appeared via VTC.

● Attorneys of record appeared either (1) at the Laredo tent court or (2) via VTC from the San Antonio brick-and-mortar courtrooms.

● ICE trial attorneys located at the San Antonio Immigration Court appeared via VTC.

● Interpreters interpreted remotely from the San Antonio Immigration Court.

● Witnesses appeared either (1) at the Laredo tent court or (2) via VTC from the San Antonio brick-and-mortar courtrooms.

● Court observers were only permitted to observe Master Calendar Hearings and Individual Merits Hearings at the brick-and-mortar courts

● Respondents appeared in person at the Brownsville tent court.

● Immigration judges from Harlingen, Port Isabel, or El Paso SCP appeared via VTC.

● Attorneys of record appeared either (1) at the Brownsville tent court or (2) via VTC from the immigration judge location.

● ICE trial attorneys appeared via VTC from the immigration judge location.

● Interpreters interpreted remotely from the immigration judge location.

● Witnesses appeared either (1) at the Brownsville tent court or (2) via VTC from the immigration judge location.

● Court observers were only permitted to observe Master Calendar Hearings and Individual Merits Hearings at the brick-and-mortar courts.

Tent Court Access After December 29, 2019, Public Access Announcement

Master Calendar Hearings

Reports indicate that members of the press and public have been permitted to observe Master Calendar Hearings at the Brownsville and Laredo tent court facilities, in addition to the brick-and-mortar courts where the judges sit. However, this access has not been consistent with access allowed at other immigration courts across the country. For example, Master Calendar Hearings are generally open to the public, but in the tent courts, DHS personnel dictate particular Master Calendar Hearings the public is permitted to observe. Reporters and court observers have encountered other logistical hurdles, such as DHS prohibiting pens and notepads in the tents, which impede their ability to accurately observe and document the hearings.

Access to Individual Merits Hearings2

DOJ and DHS recently imposed significant new barriers that block the public’s ability to observe Individual Merits Hearings taking place at the Laredo and Brownsville tent courts. DOJ recently began assigning individual merits hearings to the Ft. Worth Immigration Adjudication Center (IAC) judges. The Ft. Worth IAC opened in October 2018 and is a remote-only facility that is closed to the public.3 Immigration judges

2 In order to observe asylum hearings, court observers need to obtain permission from the Respondent. See EOIR Immigration Court Practice Manual, Chapter 4.9, Public Access.
3 For more background information about IACs, please see the following materials: AILA’s Policy Brief: FOIA Reveals EOIR’s Failed Plan for Fixing the Immigration Court Backlog, Feb. 21, 2019 (pgs. 4-5); The American Bar

2

AILA Doc. No. 20011061. (Posted 1/10/20)

stationed at these centers adjudicate cases from around the country via VTC. The public has not been permitted to observe hearings at the IAC. Previously, court observers have been able to watch IAC proceedings by video in courtrooms where the respondent and ICE attorney are located.

However, reports indicate that DHS has blocked access to Individual Merits Hearings at the tent courts. If that continues, it would mean that there is no location for court observers or the media to watch the Individual Merits Hearings of respondents in tent courts assigned to IAC judges. For example, an AILA member reported earlier this week that DHS prevented her client’s adult son who is a lawful permanent resident from attending his mother’s Individual Merits Hearing at the Brownsville tent court that was assigned to a judge located at the Ft. Worth IAC. The son was initially permitted to enter the hearing in the tent court because he was listed as a witness in the case. Once the hearing started, the AILA member informed the immigration judge that she did not intend to call the son as a witness and would instead rely on his declaration. Despite empty chairs in the hearing room, security made the son sit in the waiting area for the duration of the hearing because the policy does not permit observers to attend Individual Merits Hearings.

At best, utilizing Ft. Worth IAC immigration judges to adjudicate Individual Merits Hearings at tent courts introduces additional operational complexities. At worst, it will block all public access. See below for more information on how using IAC judges to adjudicate hearings at the tent courts is functioning. AILA is still gathering additional information.

Merits Hearings at Brownsville Tent Court Adjudicated by IAC Judges

● Respondents appear in person at the Brownsville tent court.

● Immigration judges from the Ft. Worth IAC appear via VTC.

● Attorneys of record appear at the Brownsville tent court.

● ICE trial attorneys from an unknown location appear via VTC.

● Interpreters interpret in person at the Brownsville tent court.

● Witnesses appear in person at the Brownsville tent court.

● AILA is still gathering more information on whether DHS and DOJ are

taking steps to facilitate court observers’ access to these hearings.

What Don’t We Know?

DHS and DOJ’s lack of transparency continues to create chaos for court observers at these two tent courts. Below are a few of the many key outstanding questions regarding access to the tent court facilities.

DHS indicated that it has developed formal guidance on public access to tent court facilities but has not yet shared this guidance publicly. Will DHS share this guidance with the public?

What steps are DHS and DOJ taking to ensure meaningful public access to observe both Master Calendar Hearings and Individual Merits Hearings conducted at the tent court facilities, consistent with access allowed at other immigration courts across the country?

In situations where immigration judges from an IAC are assigned to adjudicate Individual Merits Hearings at the tent courts, how will DOJ facilitate public access? Does DOJ have plans to open the IACs to the public in the future?

Association’s 2019 Update Report, Reforming the Immigration System (pgs. 81-82); and The American Immigration Council Blog, The Judicial Black Sites the Government Created to Speed Up Deportations, Jan. 7, 2019.

3

AILA Doc. No. 20011061. (Posted 1/10/20)

***************************************

Shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with EOIR’s “Trump Era” user unfriendly policies, misinformation, xenophobia, and anti-Due-Process agenda.

I appreciate “NDPA superstars” Laura and Leidy keeping “on” this story. But, with Congress and the Article III courts taking a “pass” on their Constitutional functions (but, still collecting their paychecks), those “true patriots” like Laura and Leidy defending our Constitution and trying to preserve our democratic institutions face constant unnecessary “uphill battles” because of the dereliction duty by those charged with protecting the public good.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-11-20

FARCE UNDER THE “BIG TOP” – “Clown Courts” Deliver Potential Death Sentences With Nary A Trace Of Due Process As Article III Judges Beclown Themselves By Looking The Other Way!

Michelle Hackman and Alicia A. Caldwell report for the Wall Street Journal:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/immigration-tent-courts-at-border-raise-due-process-concerns-11576332002

Immigration Tent Courts at Border Raise Due-Process Concerns

By

Michelle Hackman and

Alicia A. Caldwell | Photographs by Verónica G. Cárdenas for The Wall Street Journal

Dec. 14, 2019 9:00 am ET

BROWNSVILLE, Texas—Each morning well before sunrise, dozens of immigrants line up on the international bridge here to enter a recently erected tent facility at the U.S. border.

Inside a large wedding-style tent, the government has converted shipping containers into temporary courtrooms, where flat screens show the judge and a translator, who are in front of a camera in chambers miles away.

The tents, which appeared at ports of entry here and up the Rio Grande in Laredo in late summer, are the latest manifestation of the Trump administration’s evolving response to a surge of migrants seeking asylum at the southern border.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Do you think the differences between the tent courts and other immigration courts deny some applicants due process? Join the conversation below.

Migrants are ushered to these courts dozens at a time, allowing them access to the U.S. legal system without admitting them onto U.S. soil. They are already part of yet another Trump administration experiment, the Migrant Protection Protocols, which requires migrants to live in Mexico for the duration of their court cases.

The administration says the tent courts are designed to help the immigration system move more quickly through cases, providing asylum faster for qualified applicants and turning away the rest—many of whom, the administration says, have submitted fraudulent claims.

In the past, nearly all families and children arriving at the border were allowed into the U.S. to await hearings. But now, tens of thousands of asylum seekers must wait months in Mexican border cities that have some of the highest crime rates in the Western Hemisphere.

Asylum seekers waited in line to attend their immigration hearings on the Gateway International Bridge in Matamoros.

On a recent Friday, Judge Eric Dillow connected with the Brownsville tent via videoconference from his courtroom in Harlingen, Texas, about 30 miles away. The migrants, seated at a folding table, were shown on a large screen.

Judge Dillow planned to hold hearings for 28 migrants that morning, but only 17 appeared at the bridge the requisite four hours before their 8:30 a.m. hearing. Only two brought a lawyer. The rest were read their rights as a group, and when asked if they had questions, none raised their hands.

James McHenry, head of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency that oversees immigration courts, said temporary courts adhere to the same procedures and offer the same rights to people as other immigration courts. “In all cases, a well-trained and professional immigration judge considers the facts and evidence, applies the relevant law, and makes an appropriate decision consistent with due process,” he said.

But immigrant-rights advocates and the union representing immigration judges—who are Justice Department employees—say the unique conditions of the tent courts deny migrants due process by depriving them of meaningful access to lawyers or interaction with judges, making the setup essentially a rubber stamp for deportation.

“It’s a system that’s designed in its entire structure to turn people away,” said Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel with the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The judges union has expressed concern over numerous issues: Judges can’t interact with applicants face-to-face, which the union says is important to assess credibility. Immigration court officials aren’t in the tents, which are operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Judges can’t hand migrants documents directly to ensure they contain no errors. Unlike most U.S. courts, the tents are closed to the public and press.

A Cuban asylum seeker waited in Matamoros to present his documents to the agent who will be escorting him to his immigration hearing.

“The space of the court is supposed to be controlled by the court,” said Judge Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. “But the tents, we don’t have any control over.”

Most migrants who cross the border near Brownsville are sent to Matamoros, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande, where they live in shelters or tents near the bridge.

They are returned with little more than a sheet of paper stating their first court date and a list of lawyers to contact. But those contacts aren’t very useful because they have either U.S.-based or toll-free phone numbers that don’t function in Mexico.

Of the 47,313 people whose cases were filed between January and September, only 2.3% have legal representation and only 11 have been granted asylum or other legal status, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which tracks immigration court data.

Pro-bono lawyers who work with these migrants are fearful to travel far beyond the U.S. border into Mexico. Inside the tents, lawyers are typically permitted 15 minutes to meet clients before hearings. In most other U.S. courts, lawyers are free to visit clients, and detention facilities provide more opportunities for meetings.

On two recent days in the tents, migrants appearing alone spent about five minutes each before a judge, while migrants with lawyers took between 20 and 30 minutes each.

“The system is dependent on individuals not finding representation because they can be deported much easier and faster,” said Jeff O’Brien, a California-based immigration lawyer representing several Brownsville clients pro bono. “If everyone had a lawyer, it would essentially come to a halt.”

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent checked documents presented by asylum seekers.

Documentation errors are a common hurdle. Applicants’ addresses are often listed on forms as simply “domicilio conocido,” which roughly translates as general delivery, or sometimes a Matamoros shelter that many migrants avoid because they are scared to travel farther into the city.

Tent camp residents also had notices for hearings when courts aren’t open: one at 1 a.m. and another on a Saturday.

It isn’t known how the government notifies these migrants about changes in their cases without valid addresses. Migrants who aren’t at the bridge for hearings are assumed to have abandoned their cases. Government lawyers ask judges to deport absentees—ending asylum requests and barring them from the U.S. for a decade.

Asked about how address discrepancies are handled, a Justice Department spokesman said judges follow the Immigration Court Practice Manual. The manual requires migrants in the U.S. to notify the court of address changes, and in cases where they are detained, it requires the government to notify the court where. Neither scenario applies to migrants in Mexico.

Without lawyers, applicants routinely make paperwork errors—such as submitting documents in Spanish, or documents translated into English without a form certifying the translator is English-proficient—that advocates say they have seen judges use to order them deported.

At a recent hearing in Brownsville, a Honduran woman and her baby daughter appeared before Judge Sean D. Clancy in Harlingen. A CBP officer in Brownsville had faxed the woman’s asylum application to Harlingen, where a clerk handed it to the judge.

A Central American asylum-seeking mother hugged her child on a November morning in Matamoros.

“Are you afraid of returning to Honduras?” Judge Clancy asked the woman. A translator beside him repeated the question in Spanish. “Very much,” came the translated reply.

Judge Clancy looked at her application and noted a different response. “One question here says, ‘Do you fear harm if you return to your home country?’ And you checked ‘no.’”

The woman appeared confused. Judge Clancy told her to return to court with a properly completed application on April 15, when a date for her full asylum hearing would be set.

Write to Michelle Hackman at Michelle.Hackman@wsj.com and Alicia A. Caldwell at Alicia.Caldwell@wsj.com

*****************************************************

What a total disgrace and mockery of justice! What do Circuit Court of Appeals judges do for a living if they don’t have the legal skills and courage to stand up for our Constitution and our asylum laws against US Government fraud and abuses like this?

Nobody without a lawyer has any chance in this system! With a representation rate of an astoundingly low 2.3% due to the Trump regime’s intentional obstacles, roadblocks, and refusal to promote and facilitate pro bono representation, this system is nothing less than an unconstitutional and illegal “killing floor” (a reasonable chance to be represented by pro bono counsel is actually a statutory requirement). You don’t have to be much of an Article III Judge to recognize the the systemic fraud and abuse going on here. But, a judge would have to have the courage to stand up to the Trump regime and put a stop to this disgraceful nonsense! Sadly, courage seems to be something in very short supply at the appellate levels of the Federal Judiciary these days.

Thanks Michelle and Alicia for exposing this ongoing parody of justice!

PWS

12-17-19

WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE? — 9th CIRCUIT JUDGES ASSIST REGIME’S AGENTS IN COMMITTING “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” MERE YARDS FROM THE BORDER! — NDPA Leader Jodi Goodwin, Esquire, Speaks Out: “I’ve been practicing law for 25 years and the last four to five months of practicing law has broken me. I don’t want to fucking do this anymore. [Her voice breaks again] It sucks. How do you explain to people that you know they thought they were coming to a place where there’s freedom and safety and where the laws are just, but that’s not the situation? I’m very mad.”

Jodi Goodwin, Esquire
Immigration Attorney
Harlingen, TX

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/remain-in-mexico-policy-immigrant-kids_n_5deeb143e4b00563b8560c69

Angelina Chapin reports for HuffPost:

A few times a week, attorney Jodi Goodwin walks across the bridge from Brownsville, Texas, to a refugee camp in Matamoros, Mexico, to meet with asylum-seekers. Her clients are among the more than 2,500 immigrants crammed into tents while they wait for U.S. immigration hearings ― often stuck for months in dirty and dangerous conditions.

The forced return to Mexico of migrants seeking refuge in the U.S. is one of President Donald Trump’s most inhumane immigration policies, yet it hasn’t received nearly the attention that his family separation and prolonged detention practices have.

Since January, under Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” initiative ― also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) ― the U.S. government has sent at least 54,000 immigrants to wait for their court dates in Mexican border towns. Instead of staying with relatives in the U.S., families are sleeping in tents for up to eight months, in unprotected areas where infections spread within crowded quarters and cartel kidnappings are commonplace. Family separation ended a year ago. But Trump’s mistreatment of asylum-seekers continues in a different form.

Some parents are so desperate that they’ve resorted to sending their children across the bridge alone, since unaccompanied kids who arrive at the border cannot be turned away under MPP. Since October, at least 135 children have crossed back into the U.S. by themselves after being sent to wait in Mexico with their parents, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In Mexico, many of these migrants don’t have access to lawyers and are forced to plead their cases in makeshift tent courts set up along the U.S. border where overwhelmed judges conduct hearings via video teleconference. The courts have limited public access ― lawyers and translators say that they have been barred from attending hearings. Migrants’ advocates argue that the tent courts violate due process, and immigrant rights organizations have filed a federal lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the use of videoconferencing.

Goodwin, who has 42 clients, said there is a serious shortage of lawyers willing to represent immigrants staying in another country where crime is rife. She spoke with HuffPost about why the Remain in Mexico policy is even more traumatic than separating thousands of families and why it hasn’t sparked public outrage.

AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAWYERS ASSOCIATION

Jodi Goodwin (center) at the refugee camp in Matamoros, Mexico.

HuffPost: Immigrant parents forced to wait in Mexico are making the heart-wrenching choice to send their kids to the U.S. alone. What are the conditions like at the camp in Matamoros?

Jodi Goodwin: It smells like urine and feces. There’s not enough sanitation. There’s 10 port-a-potties for thousands of people. Up until recently, there was no potable water available at all. People were bathing in the Rio Grande river, getting sick and, in some cases, drowning. People were seriously dehydrated.

The camp sounds completely unfitting for any human being, let alone children.

It’s a horrific situation to put families in. It’s great to live in a tent for the weekend when you’re going to the lake. It’s not great to live in a tent for months at a time where you don’t have basic necessities.

Are kids getting sick?

The kids are sick every day. I’ve seen all kinds of respiratory illnesses and digestive illnesses. I’ve seen chronic illnesses like epilepsy. I saw a baby that appeared to have sepsis who was forced to wait on the bridge for more than three hours before being taken to a hospital.

And what about the kidnappings? Have you heard of families being taken by cartel members who then try and extort an immigrant’s U.S. relatives for money?

About half of the people I’ve spoken to in Mexico have been kidnapped. The cartel knows if they can grab an immigrant, they’re likely to be able to work out a ransom. If they don’t, then they just kill them.

Any specific examples?

I dealt with one case where a mom from El Salvador and her 4-year-old son were kidnapped within an hour of being sent back to Mexico under MPP. They were taken for eight days before her brother in the U.S. paid the kidnappers $7,000.

The lady was terrified. She was sleep-deprived, food-deprived and water-deprived. She said that the people who had kidnapped her were extremely violent and hit her kid. They were drinking alcohol and raping people at a stash house where several other people were being held.

LOREN ELLIOTT / REUTERS

Migrants, most of them asylum-seekers sent back to Mexico from the U.S. under the “Remain in Mexico” program, occupy a makeshift encampment in Matamoros, Mexico, on Oc. 28, 2019.

The last time we spoke, you were on the frontlines of family separation, visiting detention centers where mothers were hysterically crying after being ripped apart from their children. How does the trauma of MPP compare, particularly for parents who are sending their kids across the border alone?

It’s way worse. I can’t with any confidence say that they will ever see their children again.

Why not?

I knew there were legal ways to get out of family separation. We were able to talk with our clients and didn’t have to go off to another country. And for those parents who got through their interviews or their court hearings, we were able to get them back with their kids.

With MPP, the assault is not only on human rights but also on due process within the court systems, which has completely hijacked the ability to be able to fix things. The parents can’t even get into the country to try to reunify with their kids.

Nearly 3,000 children were separated from their parents under Trump’s zero-tolerance policy. Do you think a similar number of families will be ripped apart because of Remain in Mexico?

It could be more. Over 55,000 people have been sent back to Mexico. I’ve talked to so many parents who have sent their kids across. It’s a heart-wrenching decision process that they go through. How do you give up your baby?

It reminds me of Jewish parents who were captives in Nazi Germany and had to convince their kids to get on a different train or go in a different line to save their own lives.

Have you witnessed these separations firsthand?

In November I saw a little boy and his 4-year-old sister sent across the bridge with an older child, who was about 14 years old. The teenager carried the baby boy, who still had a pacifier in his mouth, and the girl was holding onto the older kid’s belt loop.

I was standing on the bridge between Matamoros and the U.S. and I turned around to look down at the bank of the Rio Grande river. Every single parent who has sent their kid to cross tells me the same thing: As soon as they say goodbye and hug their kids, they run to the bank to watch them. [Her voice breaks] I knew there was somebody probably standing on that bank hoping those kids made it across.

Do you still think about those kids?

Oh yeah. The green binky that the little baby was sucking on is knitted in my mind.

VERONICA CARDENAS / REUTERS

The Mexican National Guard patrols an encampment where asylum-seekers live as their tents are relocated from the plaza to near the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros on Dec. 7, 2019.

You’ve been working hundreds of hours a month to try and help people stranded in Matamoros. This work must take a toll on you personally.

I’ve been practicing law for 25 years and the last four to five months of practicing law has broken me.

I don’t want to fucking do this anymore. [Her voice breaks again] It sucks. How do you explain to people that you know they thought they were coming to a place where there’s freedom and safety and where the laws are just, but that’s not the situation? I’m very mad.

Family separation resulted in massive outcry from the public, which eventually pressured the government to end the zero-tolerance policy. Why is MPP not getting the same attention?

There is no public outrage because it’s not happening on our soil. It’s happening literally 10 feet from the turnstile to come to the U.S. But because it’s out of sight and out of mind, there is no outrage. What ended family separation was public outrage. It had nothing to do with lawsuits. It had everything to do with shame, shame, shame.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

***********************************

I’m with you, Jodi! Thanks for your dedication to justice for the most vulnerable!

What’s wrong with this scenario: life-tenured Federal Judges who won’t stand up for the rule of law, Due Process, and Equal Protection in the face of an arrogantly and overtly lawless White Nationalist Regime; DOJ and other U.S. Government lawyers who defend immoral and disingenuous positions in Federal Court, often, as in the Census Case and the DACA Case using pretextual rationales and knowingly false information; dehumanization, with overwhelming racial and religious overtones, of those who deserve our protection and rely on our sense of fairness; undercutting, mistreating and humiliating the brave lawyers like Jodi who are standing up for justice in the face of tyranny; GOP legislators who are lawyers defending Trump’s mockery of the Constitution, human decency, and the rule of law and knowingly and defiantly spreading Putin’s false narratives.

Obviously, there has been a severe failure in our legal and ethical education programs and our criteria for Federal Judicial selections, particularly at the higher levels, and particularly with respect to the critical characteristic of courage. Too many “go alongs to get alongs!” I can only hope that our republic survives long enough to reform and correct these existential defects that now threaten to bring us all down.

Where’s the accountability? Where’s the outrage? Where’s our humanity?

We should also remember that many asylum seekers from Africa, who face extreme danger in Mexico, are also being targeted (“shithole countries?”) and abused as part of the Regime’s judicially-enabled, racially driven, anti-asylum, anti-rule-of-law antics at the Southern Border. https://apple.news/AyYSWSXNfSdOm63skxWaUTQ

Also, morally corrupt Trump Regime officials continued to tout “Crimes Against Humanity” as an acceptable approach to border enforcement and “reducing apprehensions!” Will machine gun turrets be next on their list? Will Article III Judges give that their “A-OK?”

We’re actually paying Article III Federal Judges who are knowingly and intentionally furthering “Crimes Against Humanity.” Totally outrageous!

Constantly Confront Complicit Courts 4 Change!

Due Process Forever; Complicit Courts Never!

PWS

12-10-19

AS ARTICLE III JUDGES SHIRK DUTIES, EMBOLDENED EOIR RAMPS UP ASSEMBLY LINE JUSTICE IN TENT CITIES WHILE PLOTTING TO BAR PUBLIC FROM VIEWING THEIR LATEST ASSAULTS ON DUE PROCESS!

Priscilla Alvarez reports for CNN:

More immigration judges to be assigned to cases at tent facilities

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

Updated 7:13 AM EST, Fri December 06, 2019

(CNN)More immigration judges will begin conducting hearings over video conferencing at tent courts along the US-Mexico border, raising concerns among lawyers about transparency in the immigration process.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration erected facilities in Laredo and Brownsville, Texas, to serve as makeshift courts for migrants seeking asylum in the United States who have been returned to Mexico until their court date. The judges in these cases are not at the tent facility but preside by teleconference from other immigration courts several miles away.

As of mid-September, there were 19 judges from three separate immigration courts in Texas hearing cases. But the latest expansion includes the use of immigration judges assigned to a center in Fort Worth, Texas, that is closed to the public, leaving little opportunity for people to observe hearings.

“I’m just very concerned that there will be no public access to these hearings. And hearings will be operating in secret, without any transparency and notice to the public,” said Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

US court proceedings are generally open to the public.

Adjudication centers serve as a hub for immigration judges who beam into courtrooms remotely to hear cases. There are two — one in Fort Worth and another in Falls Church, Virginia. Neither is open to the public.

Immigration judges assigned to the Fort Worth Immigration Adjudication Center are expected to begin hearing cases of migrants who fall under the administration’s “Migrant Protection Protocols” program via video teleconference in January 2020, according to the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the nation’s immigration courts.

“Public access to hearings is governed by regulation, and EOIR’s process and policies surrounding the openness of hearings have not changed,” said EOIR spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly.

Lynch said some attorneys representing migrants who have been waiting in Mexico for their court date began receiving notices of judges from the Fort Worth center assigned to their cases in late November. The immigration judges’ union has also taken issue with the use of the center.

“MPP is rife with issues but by assigning the adjudication centers to the tent courts takes us to a new low where public access to the court are now eliminated,” said Judge Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. “This is not the way we as judges or courts should function.”

The process has already presented lawyers with a host of logistical challenges and some anticipate those will worsen as immigration judges assigned to adjudication centers begin hearing cases.

Currently, advocates and legal observers have been able to monitor proceedings from three immigration courts in Texas: Harlingen, San Antonio and Port Isabel.

US Customs and Border Protection said in a statement to CNN that access to the Laredo and Brownsville hearing facilities, which are located on the agency’s property, “will be assessed on a case-by-case basis when operationally feasible and in accordance with procedures for access to any CBP secure facility.”

Around 60,000 migrants have been subject to the administration’s policy that requires some migrants to wait in Mexico for the duration of their immigration proceedings. Given that they’re residing in Mexico, immigration lawyers based in the US have limited access to them, particularly in dangerous regions. Only a small share of migrants in the program have secured representation, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks court data and released a report on access to attorneys this summer.

Some in the legal community argue that access to the tent facilities, not just the immigration courts where the judges are located, is important for that reason — to give lawyers the opportunity to connect with migrants who may need legal representation and explain the process. It’s equally important, lawyers argue, that people be allowed to observe the proceedings.

“Without the public being able to see what’s been going on in these hearings, the public has no assurance that people are being given proper due process and proper shot at fighting their asylum case,” said Erin Thorn Vela, a staff attorney in the racial and economic justice program at the Texas Civil Rights Project.

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Wow! Secret Courts sentencing folks to torture or death without lawyers, adequate notice, time to prepare, or any consistent application of reasonable rules. Sounds like the “Star Chamber.” Is that why we fought the American Revolution? To create our own version of the worst abuses of the Crown? Apparently.

As American justice and the rule of law go down the tubes, the Supremes and the Circuits have become “disinterested observers,” at best.

Thanks to Laura Lynch at AILA for forwarding this latest example of judicial irresponsibility.

Constantly Confront Complicit Courts 4 Change!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-06-19

“LET ‘EM DIE IN MEXICO” UPDATE: SAN DIEGO IMMIGRATION JUDGES STAND UP AGAINST TRUMP REGIME’S LAWLESS BEHAVIOR — Elsewhere Along The Border, Most Judges Appear To “Go Along To Get Along” With White Nationalist Agenda!

https://apple.news/A8ArjPBJHQmSHq_XVgoRjKw

Alicia A. Caldwell reports for the WSJ:

U.S.

Judges Quietly Disrupt Trump Immigration Policy in San Diego

Immigration court terminates more than a third of ‘Remain in Mexico’ cases

SAN DIEGO—Immigration judges in this city are presenting a challenge to the Trump administration’s policy of sending asylum-seeking migrants back to Mexico, terminating such cases at a significantly higher rate than in any other court, according to federal data.

Between January and the end of September, immigration judges in San Diego terminated 33% of more than 12,600 Migrant Protection Protocols cases, also known as Remain in Mexico, according to data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Judges in El Paso, Texas, the busiest court hearing MPP cases, terminated fewer than 1% of their more than 14,000 cases.

The nine San Diego judges have repeatedly ruled that asylum seekers waiting in Mexico weren’t properly notified of their court dates or that other due process rights were violated.

The high rate of dismissals is undermining the Trump administration’s goal of quickly ordering the deportation of more illegal border crossers who request asylum, including those who don’t show up from Mexico for their court hearings.

The effect is more symbolic than practical. Such a decision doesn’t mean a migrant is allowed to stay in the U.S., even if they show up for their court hearing. Instead, it saves them from being banned from coming to the country for 10 years and makes it tougher for the government to charge them with a felony if they cross the border illegally in the future. Those whose case is dismissed when they aren’t in court might not even know about the decision unless they call a government hotline.

Spokespeople for Customs and Border Protection, which carries out MPP at the border, and the Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to requests for comment.

However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose lawyers represent the government in immigration Court, have filed an appeal with a Justice Department panel. The appeal questions whether judges who terminate cases for migrants who don’t show up in court made a mistake.

A spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the immigration court’s parent agency, said immigration judges don’t comment on their rulings.

Denise Gilman, an immigration lawyer and director of the immigration clinic at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, said the high number of dismissals in San Diego sends a message that judges there believe many government’s cases don’t meet minimum legal standards.

That stands in contrast to immigration judges elsewhere, experts and advocates said.

“Everywhere but in San Diego, [judges] are going with the flow,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a lawyer and policy analyst with the American Immigration Council, which opposes the Trump administration’s border policies.

Immigration judges are unlike most other judges in that they are civil servants, neither appointed nor elected. In civil courts, some jurisdictions are known as more plaintiff- or defendant-friendly. Some federal appeals courts skew left or right, but most don’t rule so frequently on a single policy as immigration judges on MPP.

The Trump administration has sent more than 55,000 asylum-seeking migrants to Mexico to await court hearings under MPP. Migrants were first turned back in January, and through the end of September, just over 5,000 have been ordered deported. Eleven were granted some sort of relief, including asylum, according to TRAC.

Over two recent days in San Diego, multiple judges made clear that they had concerns about Remain in Mexico program as they dismissed cases.

Judge Scott Simpson terminated cases for a family of three from Honduras after ruling that the government violated their due process rights by not properly filling out their notice to appear. As a result, he said, the migrants didn’t know the grounds on which they could fight their case.

“I found that the charging document was defective on a technicality,” Judge Simpson explained to Belma Marible Coto Ceballos and her two children. “It just means that your court case is over.”

MORE ON IMMIGRATION

• Bipartisan House Deal Opens Path to Citizenship for Illegal Immigrant Farmworkers

• Immigrant-Visa Applicants Required to Show They Can Afford Health Care

• U.S. Immigration Courts’ Backlog Exceeds One Million Cases

• New Trump Administration Rule Will Look at Immigrants’ Credit Histories

Ms. Coto quietly nodded as she listened to an interpreter before her attorney, Carlos Martinez, objected to the government’s plan to send the family back to Mexico while it appeals the termination. She and her children are afraid to return, Mr. Martinez explained, after Ms. Coto was assaulted in Tijuana.

Judge Simpson said he didn’t have the authority to keep the family in the U.S., but sought assurances that authorities would interview Ms. Coto about her fears of being sent back to Mexico.

During a separate hearing that same day, 10 MPP cases were closed by Judge Christine A. Bither, who also raised questions about the migrants’ addresses listed on government documents. She denied a government request to issue deportation orders in their absence.

Judge Simpson, meanwhile, repeatedly questioned how the government would update migrants in Mexico about their cases. Migrants routinely move between shelters or cities and don’t have a fixed address where they can receive mail.

He noted that migrants’ addresses are routinely listed on government documents as “domicilio conocido,” or general delivery in Spanish. In one case, he noted that “domicilio conocido” was misspelled for a migrant family that arrived late to the port of entry and missed the bus to immigration court. The government agreed to dismiss that case.

Write to Alicia A. Caldwell at Alicia.Caldwell@wsj.com

************************************

As noted in the article, the issues raised by the San Diego rulings are now before the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”). Even if the BIA Appellate Immigration Judges “do the right thing” and reject the DHS appeal, I’m relatively sure that Billy Barr will change the result so that the DHS “wins” (and justice “loses”) no matter what the law says.

Larger question: a system where the biased prosecutor gets to hire and supervise the “judges” and then change the result if the individual nevertheless wins is obviously unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment. So whatever happened to the Article III Courts whose job it is to uphold the Constitution and enforce the Bill of Rights against Executive overreach (which is exactly why the Bill of Rights was included in our Constitution)? Why are those gifted with life-tenure so feckless in the face of clear Executive tyranny?

Some Immigration Judges who lack life tenure and the other protections given to Article III judges are willing to stand up; those who are empowered so they can stand up instead stand by and watch injustice unfold every day in this fundamentally unfair system that is an insult to Constitutional Due Process, a mockery of justice, and a disgrace to their oaths of office!

Constantly Confront Complicit Courts 4 Change!

PWS

Laredo Tent Court	Brownsville Tent Court
Laredo tent court proceedings, including both Master Calendar Hearings and Individual Merits Hearings, were conducted via VTC by immigration judges located at the brick-and-mortar San Antonio immigration court, which is nearly 200 miles away.	Brownsville tent court proceedings, including both Master Calendar Hearings and Individual Merits Hearings, were conducted by immigration judges located at the Harlingen and Port Isabel immigration courts, as well as the El Paso SPC, which is nearly 800 miles away from the Brownsville tent court.
● Respondents appeared in person at the Laredo tent court. ● Immigration judges from the San Antonio Immigration Court appeared via VTC. ● Attorneys of record appeared either (1) at the Laredo tent court or (2) via VTC from the San Antonio brick-and-mortar courtrooms. ● ICE trial attorneys located at the San Antonio Immigration Court appeared via VTC. ● Interpreters interpreted remotely from the San Antonio Immigration Court. ● Witnesses appeared either (1) at the Laredo tent court or (2) via VTC from the San Antonio brick-and-mortar courtrooms. ● Court observers were only permitted to observe Master Calendar Hearings and Individual Merits Hearings at the brick-and-mortar courts	● Respondents appeared in person at the Brownsville tent court. ● Immigration judges from Harlingen, Port Isabel, or El Paso SCP appeared via VTC. ● Attorneys of record appeared either (1) at the Brownsville tent court or (2) via VTC from the immigration judge location. ● ICE trial attorneys appeared via VTC from the immigration judge location. ● Interpreters interpreted remotely from the immigration judge location. ● Witnesses appeared either (1) at the Brownsville tent court or (2) via VTC from the immigration judge location. ● Court observers were only permitted to observe Master Calendar Hearings and Individual Merits Hearings at the brick-and-mortar courts.

DUE PROCESS FOREVER! CLOWN COURTS 🤡🤡 AND THEIR COMPLICIT ENABLERS, NEVER!

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UPDATE: 11:15 PM EDT.:

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PWS

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