Internal Relocation – Page 2 – immigrationcourtside.com

PODCAST “REVEALS” DUE PROCESS DISASTER IN IMMIGRATION COURTS, PARTICULARLY FOR TRANSGENDER INDIVIDUALS — Deep Seated Problems Existed — This Administration Made Them Worse!

https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/trans-national-migration/

Trans National Migration

Co-produced with

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We examine the record of one of the toughest immigration judges in the country, including the surprising way her decisions benefited transgender asylum-seekers. Then we follow one transgender woman who flees El Salvador for the United States to try to claim asylum.

Our final story takes us to Turkey, and focuses on a small but growing group of refugees seeking a new life: young Afghan women fleeing abuse, forced marriage and persecution in their homeland. Reporter Fariba Nawa tells the story of Hoor, who made the dangerous journey into Turkey alone, only to be assaulted by an Afghan man in Istanbul. Against all odds, Hoor sought justice for her abuser and ultimately prevailed.

Credits

Our first story about an immigration judge who ruled on hundreds of cases involving transgender asylum seekers was reported and produced by Patrick Michels and edited by Brett Myers.

Our second story about a transgender woman who fled El Salvador was reported by Alice Driver. It was produced by Casey Minor with help from Emily Harris and Amy Isackson and was edited by Brett Myers.

Our story about Afghan female migrants was reported and produced by Fariba Nawa and edited by Taki Telonidis.

Our production manager is Najib Aminy. Original score and sound design by Jim Briggs and Fernando Arruda, who had help from Kaitlin Benz and Katherine Rae Mondo.

Support for Reveal is provided by the Reva and David Logan Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the John S. And James L. Knight Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation and the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.

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Please click the link at the top to listen.

My takeaways:

The lack of sensitivity training and proper application of the legal standards for asylum that was allowed to go on for many years in this Immigration Courtroom is appalling;
The BIA, whose job is supposed be insuring that individuals’ Due Process rights are respected and asylum law is applied in a fair and impartial manner, failed to do its job;
The qualification of individuals for asylum based on gender classifications has been well established since Matter of Tobago-Alfonso, 20 I&N Dec. 819 (BIA 1990) was published (at the direction of then-Attorney General Janet Reno) in 1994;
LGBTQ cases were well-documented, credible, and routinely granted by the U.S Immigration Judges at the Arlington Immigration Court during my tenure there;
I don’t remember ever denying a transgender case — most were either stipulated or agreed upon by the DHS Office of Chief Counsel — yet EOIR failed to institutionalize those “best practices” that would have promoted justice, consistency, and efficiency;
Immigration Judges are bound to follow not only BIA precedents, but also the precedents by the U.S. Circuit Courts in the jurisdiction where they sit — that obviously was not happening here — a clear violation of both law and ethics;
You can see the difference when an Immigration Judge does listen, properly applies the law in the generous manner dictated by the Supreme Court in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca and the BIA in Matter of Mogharrabi, and gives the respondent “the benefit of the doubt” as set forth in the U.N. Handbook on the Refugee Convention;
The difference in people’s lives and the benefits to the U.S. when judges properly apply asylum law to protect individuals, as intended, is obvious;
Those without lawyers and those held in long-term detention are being treated unfairly and not in accordance with Due Process;
This system needs reform so that it operates independently, impartially, and under the legal standards established by law and by Article III Circuit Courts;
Immigration Judges who are biased against asylum seekers must be uniformly reversed and “outed” by a real Appellate Tribunal, not the current “go along to get along” version of the BIA;
Judges who unwilling to threat asylum applicants and other foreign nationals fairly should not be reappointed to the bench in a competitive, merit-based process;
Trump’s recent “we don’t need no stinkin’ judges for asylum cases” rhetoric is as absurd as it is ignorant, unconstitutional, and damaging to both our precious justice system and vulnerable human beings who need and are legally entitled to our protection.

Many thanks to Lawrence University Scarff Professor of Government Jason Brozek for bringing this highly relevant podcast to my attention.

I am at Lawrence University (my alma mater) in Appleton, WI for two weeks as the Scarff Family Distinguished Visiting Professor. Jason and I currently are teaching a “mini-seminar” in Kasinga/FGM/Gender-Based Asylum in the Government Department at Lawrence. This podcast is directly relevant and “breathes life” into the issues we have been discussing with the wonderfully talented and engaged students in our class.

PWS

04-07-19

IN MATTER OF A-B-, SESSIONS DISINGENUOUSLY SUGGESTED SALVADORAN POLICE COULD PROTECT ABUSED WOMEN – THE TRUTH IS STARKLY DIFFERENT: American-Trained Cops Flee El Salvador Because Gangs Are In Control – Ex-Cops Granted Asylum While Helpless DV Victims Sent Back To Face Deadly Abuse – Trump Administration Continues To Pervert Asylum Law!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/its-so-dangerous-to-police-ms-13-in-el-salvador-that-officers-are-fleeing-the-country/2019/03/03/e897dbaa-2287-11e9-b5b4-1d18dfb7b084_story.html

Kevin Sief reports in WashPost:

SAN SALVADOR — They were given one of the most dangerous tasks in policing: Take down MS-13.

They were bankrolled by the United States and trained by FBI agents. But members of the Salvadoran police have been killed by the dozens in each of the past three years, most in attacks that investigators and experts blame on MS-13, an international street gang. At least nine officers were killed in the first month of this year.

Now, a number of El Salvador’s police officers are fleeing the gang they were tasked with eliminating.

There is no list in either El Salvador or the United States of Salvadoran police officers who have fled the country. But The Washington Post has identified 15 officers in the process of being resettled as refugees by the United Nations and six officers who have either recently received asylum or have scheduled asylum hearings in U.S. immigration courts. In WhatsApp groups, police officers have begun discussing the possibility of a migrant caravan composed entirely of Salvadoran police — a caravana policial, the officers call it.

The exodus of Salvadoran police points to how the country’s security forces have failed to break the stranglehold of organized crime. It also shows that among those seeking refuge in the United States during the Trump administration are some of America’s closest security partners.

“These are among the most vulnerable people in El Salvador,” said Julio Buendía, the director of migration at Cáritas El Salvador, a nonprofit organization that works with the United States and United Nations on refugee resettlement.

The United States has been bolstering the Salvadoran police, part of a regional strategy intended to stabilize Central America’s most violent countries and reduce migration. The State Department spent at least $48 million to train police in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras from 2014 through 2017, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The department opened a law enforcement training academy in San Salvador, where 855 Salvadoran officers were trained by the FBI and other American law enforcement agencies in those four years.

“The Salvadoran government, with U.S. government support, has made significant gains in the area of security, including reductions in homicides and every other category of violent crime measured,” the State Department said in a statement issued in response to an inquiry by The Post.

Citing “privacy reasons,” the department would not comment on whether it was receiving asylum or refugee applications from Salvadoran police officers.

By some measures, the U.S.-backed security efforts appeared to be showing results. In 2018, El Salvador’s murder rate was 50.3 per 100,000 inhabitants. That was still among the highest in the world, but it was down from 60.8 per 100,000 in 2017 and 81 per 100,000 in 2016.

MS-13 was born in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, expanding as more Salvadorans arrived in the United States after fleeing the country’s civil war. The group splintered, with Barrio 18 becoming a chief rival, and both groups grew in American prisons before reaching El Salvador through mass deportations. Between 2001 and 2010, the United States deported 40,429 ex-convicts to El Salvador, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

El Salvador’s government adopted an “iron fist” response to the gangs, including more police operations. When that approach failed, it tried to broach a truce with the gangs in 2014. The pact quickly disintegrated and was followed by another surge in violence. It was then that the gangs began to explicitly broadcast their threats against police officers.

“If you kill a ‘pig,’ or a police officer, you’re more respected in these gangs. That’s the policy — using death as exchange currency,” said Héctor Silva Ávalos, a journalist and researcher who has written a book on the Salvadoran police and has served as an expert witness at several asylum hearings for former police officers in the United States.

A man with an MS-13 tattoo is detained by Salvadoran security forces during an operation in San Salvador in January. (Marvin Recinos/AFP/Getty Images)

With salaries of $300 to $400 per month, the low-level police officers who make up the majority of the force often have no choice but to live in neighborhoods vulnerable to gangs. And so, in the vast majority of the cases, police officers are killed when they are home from work or are on leave.

In August, Manuel de Jesús Mira Díaz was killed while buying construction materials. In July, Juan de Jesús Morales Alvarado was killed while walking with his 7-year-old son on the way to school. In November, Barrera Mayén was killed after taking leave to spend time at home with his family.

The police investigated a number of the killings since 2014 and found members of the major gangs responsible.

“They have more control than we do. When we go home, we’re in neighborhoods where there’s one police to 100 gang members. We’re easy victims,” said one officer in the country’s anti-gang unit, who, after being threatened by MS-13 in his home, is awaiting refugee status from the United Nations. He spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.

An MS-13 member killed a man on a New York subway platform. The gang dates back to the 1970s.

Police arrested a 26-year-old man, who they said is an MS-13 member, after he fatally shot an alleged rival gang member Feb. 3 in Queens. (Allie Caren/The Washington Post)

Complicating their response to the threats, Salvadoran police are also not legally allowed to take their weapons home with them.

“I bring it home anyway. I sleep with it on my waist,” said a female officer, who is awaiting refugee status from the United Nations and spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for her safety. “My husband and I take turns sleeping. We know they are going to come for us.”

Many units in the Salvadoran police are forbidden to wear balaclavas to conceal their identities. In anti-gang units, officers are allowed to wear such masks during operations, but they are frequently asked to testify in court, where they must show their faces and identify themselves by name while gang members look on.

In 2017, El Salvador’s attorney general, Douglas Meléndez, urged the government to do more to protect off-duty police, asking the parliament to pass a “protection law” for police and soldiers that would also provide funding to protect their families. The law was never passed.

Last month, security concerns played a central role in a presidential election won by San Salvador’s 37-year-old former mayor, Nayib Bukele. At least 285 people were killed in January, leading up to the vote, which many saw as the gangs’ attempt to leverage their influence amid the election campaign. In a security plan leaked to the Salvadoran news media, Bukele’s campaign wrote: “The expansion of these criminal groups is undeniable, as is the impact on the lives of ordinary citizens.”

In response to the targeting of police officers this year, El Salvador’s police chief introduced a policy: For their own protection, officers were not allowed to return to their homes. The police chief declined multiple interview requests.

Suspects are detained by police in a neighborhood in San Salvador dominated by MS-13. (Marvin Recinos/AFP/Getty Images)

Many officers, feeling unprotected by their own force, have said their only option is to leave the country.

Organizations that work with the United Nations to resettle Salvadoran refugees in the United States say they have found more and more police officers arriving unannounced at their offices. In addition to the 21 asylum seekers and refugees identified by The Post, several others have recently arrived in Spain and Mexico, according to news reports, applying for humanitarian visas or other forms of protection. Lawyers for police officers and many officers themselves say that far more officers are preparing to flee.

One of the cases that Buendía, the migration director of Cáritas, referred to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is an officer who survived two attacks while off duty. First, he was shot eight times by suspected gang members; then, two years later, he was shot four times. The officer pleaded for protection from his commander.

Buendía included a letter from the commander in the officer’s refugee application. “There’s nothing we can do for you,” the commander wrote. “You need to protect yourself.”

A police spokesman declined to comment on the letter.

In one case, concerning a police officer now applying for asylum in U.S. immigration courts, gang members threatened to kidnap the officer’s child at an elementary school in rural El Salvador.

“That’s not what these guys signed up for. It’s one thing to be shot at on the job. It’s another for your family to be targeted while you’re off duty,” said Emily Smith, the attorney representing the officer.

Lawyers such as Smith who are representing the officers typically try to explain to immigration judges that as former police officers, their clients would be persecuted if they were forced to return to El Salvador. But the attorneys are also aware of how narrowly U.S. asylum law can be applied, and that the courts are unlikely to grant asylum to all former officers.

“What we chose to do is focus on the specific threats facing our client,” said Patrick Courtney, who last year represented a Salvadoran officer who had been physically assaulted in his home before fleeing. “We focused on his anti-gang views, on the fact that the threats were directed at him individually.”

Courtney’s client was granted asylum late last year. They discussed where he would live in the United States, and what he would do next. The former officer had only one goal: He wanted to join the United States military.

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Former policemen have been recognized by BIA precedent as a “particular social group” for asylum for many years. Matter of Fuentes, 19 I&N Dec. 658 (BIA 1988). However, in their rush to deny asylum to Central Americans, particularly under this xenophobic Administration, some U.S. immigration Judges and BIA panels simply choose to ignore precedent or to manufacture other reasons to deny asylum.

Granting asylum to endangered former police officers clearly is appropriate; but, granting it to the women targeted because of their gender whom those police cannot protect is equally required. Nevertheless, Sessions simply “streamrolled” the asylum law in Matter of A-B-.

While some U.S. Immigration Judges have recognized that even A-B-, properly read without regard to its pernicious dicta, leaves plenty of room for protecting refugee women who have suffered or fear domestic violence, others, and a number of BIA “panels” have jumped on the “Sessions deportation express.” I wouldn’t count on new AG Bill Barr to restore justice to this system, particularly since he has retained some of Sessions’s worst and most unqualified henchmen on his staff.

That’s why we need a legitimate, independent Immigration Court system not beholden to prejudiced “enforcement only” officials in the DOJ and the Executive Branch. It’s also time for a better and wiser Congress to specifically write gender into the asylum law to guard against this and future scofflaw Administrations who seek to inflict cruelty and injustice on some of the most vulnerable and deserving among us.

PWS

03-04-19

SYSTEMIC FAILURE: 9TH Circuit’s Most Recent Reversal Of BIA Demonstrates Disturbing Lack Of Basic Judicial Competence At All Levels Of EOIR – But, Even The 9th’s Rebuke Misses The Real Point – There Can Be No Due Process In Complex Cases Of This Type Without Legal Representation! – Arrey v. Barr

Arrey v Barr — 9th — Firm Resettlement

Arrey v. Barr, 9th Cir., 02-16-19, Published

SUMMARY BY COURT STAFF:

The panel granted in part a petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision affirming an immigration judge’s denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture to a citizen of Cameroon, and remanded.

The panel rejected petitioner’s contention that she was deprived of her due process right to a full and fair hearing based on the denial of her right to retained counsel and an unbiased fact finder. The panel held that the IJ in this case provided petitioner reasonable time to locate an attorney, where the IJ provided several continuances so she could do so, warned her repeatedly that he would not grant further continuances, and attempted to call her attorney when he failed to appear on the day of her merits hearing. The panel also held that although the IJ was rude and harsh with petitioner, petitioner failed to establish that the IJ’s conduct prejudiced her, where the IJ held a complete hearing and made a thorough decision that fully examined the underlying factual matters, and any potential prejudice caused by the IJ’s questionable adverse credibility determination was cured by the Board’s subsequent decision assuming the credibility of petitioner’s testimony in full.

The panel held that the Board committed three legal errors in its application of the firm resettlement bar, which precludes asylum relief if an applicant was firmly resettled in another country prior to arriving in the United States. First, the panel held that the Board erred by failing to consider whether the conditions of petitioner’s offer of resettlement in South Africa were too restricted for her to be firmly resettled. Second, the panel held that the Board erred by applying the firm resettlement rule not as a mandatory bar to petitioner’s asylum claim, but instead as a limitation on the evidence the Board considered in support of her claim for relief from removal to Cameroon, thus causing the Board to improperly ignore evidence of the abuse petitioner suffered in Cameroon before fleeing to South Africa, as well as evidence of the nature of her relationship with her abuser. Third, the panel held that the Board erred by applying the firm resettlement bar to petitioner’s withholding of removal claim, which is not subject to the firm resettlement bar.

Turning to petitioner’s CAT claim, the panel held that substantial evidence did not support the Board’s determination that petitioner could avoid future harm through internal relocation in Cameroon.

The panel remanded petitioner’s asylum, withholding, and CAT claims for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

PANEL: Ronald M. Gould and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges, and Frederic Block,* District Judge.

* The Honorable Frederic Block, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.

OPINION BY: Judge Gould

KEY QUOTE:

Petitioner Delphine Arrey petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA” or “Board”) decision dismissing her appeal of an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We conclude that the IJ did not deny Arrey her due process rights to counsel and an unbiased factfinder. As to Arrey’s asylum and withholding of removal claims, we conclude that the Board erred as a matter of law in its analysis and application of the “firm resettlement” rule. As to Arrey’s claim for relief under CAT, we conclude that substantial evidence does not support the Board’s determination that Arrey could safely relocate in another area of Cameroon. We grant the petition in part and remand for reconsideration of Arrey’s claims consistent with our opinion.

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Even the 9th Circuit “blew” the fundamental issue here: No matter how annoying the respondent’s conduct might have been, there was no way to conduct a fair hearing in a case of this complexity without counsel present.

From this recitation of facts, it’s pretty obvious that the respondent had no idea what “firm resettlement” was or how the process for proving or disproving it worked. Going ahead with the hearing created a miscarriage of justice that simply wasted time by going all the way the 9th Circuit and then being returned for competent judicial adjudication applying the correct standards. Haste makes waste.

And the overwhelming backlog that obviously was on the judge’s mind here was not created by this respondent and her attorney; no, it primarily results from “aimless docket reshuffling,” poor administration, Congressional neglect, and “designed to fail policies” by politicos in the DOJ (under the improper and unethical political influence of the DHS) which went into “overdrive” under Sessions.

Getting to the merits, beyond apparently correctly setting forth the respondent’s name and “A number,” the Immigration Judge and the BIA got largely everything else in this case wrong! The basic errors range from a “clearly erroneous” adverse credibility ruling, to a legally incorrect standard for “firm resettlement,” to an idiotically nonsensical ruling that “threats and one attempted assault of rape” did not “rise to the level of persecution” (cases involving these facts were routinely granted by the BIA during my tenure and, to my knowledge, were uniformly granted by IJs in Arlington; indeed, I can’t even imagine an ICE Assistant Chief Counsel during my tenure in Arlington arguing the contrary), to wrong evidentiary determinations, to another completely nonsensical finding on internal relocation.

In other words, this was a “rubber stamp” by BIA “judges” of a staff attorney’s writeup with canned “any reason to deny” language. It was not a fair and impartial adjudication by an “expert” group of appellate judges.

Far from it. If a student had turned this in as an exam answer to a hypothetical case on my Georgetown Law final exam, it would have received “zero credit.” So, how is it “OK” to have a system where individuals in what are supposed to be senior judicial positions, requiring great expertise in immigration, asylum, and human rights law, perform in a manner that would have been deemed unacceptable for L2s and L3s?

It isn’t; and it’s up to the Article III Courts and Congress to get some backbone and some integrity and put an end to this travesty. Yeah, this is “only one case.” But, it involves a human life. Cameroon is a horrible country; credible Cameroonian asylum cases were routinely granted in the Arlington Immigration Court, normally without appeal by ICE.

And for every case where a respondent is lucky enough to get a “Court of Appeals intervention,” dozens of individuals, many without lawyers or the faintest knowledge of what’s happening, are “railroaded” through this fundamentally unfair and constitutionally defective system. This, rather than the bogus wall, or an influx of desperate refugee families seeking asylum, is our true “national emergency” involving immigration: The disdain by our current Administration for the rule of law, human rights, judicial quality, simple human decency, and Due Process of Law under our Constitution!

Congrats to Attorney Ron Richey, an “Arlington Immigration Court regular,” who appeared before me many times, for fighting for due process and justice in another jurisdiction. You are an inspiration to all of us in the “New Due Process Army!”

PWS

03-01-19

EXPOSED: In Matter of A-B-, Sessions & An Immigration Judge Found That The Government Of El Salvador Offered “Reasonable Protection” To Persecuted Women & That Internal Relocation Appeared “Reasonably Available” To A Severely Battered & Threatened Woman — They Lied!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/el-salvador-votes-for-president-as-the-country-seeks-a-new-way-to-deal-with-gangs/2019/02/02/1ce34c1e-2288-11e9-b5b4-1d18dfb7b084_story.html

Anna-Catherine Brigida reports on the recent El Salvadoran presidential election for the Washington Post:

. . . ..

“The ultimate actor who determines whether you have more or less homicides tomorrow or right now or in a week is not the government. It’s the gangs,” said José Miguel Cruz, an expert on Salvadoran gangs at Florida International University. “They do it for political purposes as a bargaining tool to improve their position vis-a-vis the government or vis-a-vis the society.”

. . . .

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Read Anna’s complete article at the link. This is a “must read” for members of the NDPA or anyone else handling El Salvadoran asylum cases in this “Post-Matter of A-B- Era.”

Fact is, the gangs are in many practical ways the “de facto government” in El Salvador. That makes Sessions’s suggestion that persecuted individuals can get reasonable protection from the government or avoid persecution in a tiny, totally gang-infested country absurdly disingenuous. It also calls into question the judicial integrity of those U.S. Immigration Judges who mindlessly “parrot” Sessions’s “parallel universe” dicta regarding conditions in El Salvador. Indeed, it has been reported elsewhere that gangs are actually the largest employer in El Salvador, exercising far more power over politics and the economy than the government! https://www.newsweek.com/ms-13-barrio-18-gangs-employ-more-people-el-salvador-largest-employers-1200029

Also, this article illustrates the absurdity of the position often taken by the BIA and some Immigration Judges that resistance to gangs is not a “political act.” In a country where gangs and government are inextricably intertwined, and gangs actually control more of the country than does the national government, of course resisting or publicly standing up against gangs is an expression of political opposition to those in power. And, it’s a political statement for which the consequences all too often can be deadly.

Matter of A-B- has yet to be tested in a Court of Appeals. But, it spectacularly “flunked” its initial judicial test before Judge Sullivan in Grace v. Whitaker. https://wp.me/p8eeJm-3rd Judge Sullivan clearly saw through many of Sessions’s biased conclusions that contradict not only the history and purpose of he Refugee Act, but also well established case law. Although A-B- was an Immigration Court case, and many of Sullivan’s conclusions would apply in Immigration Court proceedings, EOIR saw fit to construe Grace narrowly as applying solely in “Credible Fear Reviews.” https://wp.me/p8eeJm-3BE

It’s important for advocates to press all challenges to Matter of A-B- in the Circuit Courts of Appeals. If appellate judges agree with Judge Sullivan, all of the erroneous “summary denials” of asylum based on A-B- will come back to Immigration Court for rehearings, thus further adding to the Administration-created mess in America’s most dysfunctional and fundamentally unjust court system, where Due Process for asylum seekers has become a bad joke rather than the watchword.

PWS

02-04-19

JUDGE SULLIVAN STUFFS TRUMP’S REQUEST TO KEEP ON VIOLATING ASYLUM LAW PENDING APPEAL — Stay Denied In Grace v. Whitaker!

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/25/politics/sullivan-asylum-ruling/index.html

Dan Berman reports for CNN:

Washington (CNN)Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan on Friday rejected a Justice Department request to stay his earlier ruling blocking the Trump administration’s policy that makes it difficult for victims fleeing domestic and gang violence to qualify for asylum in the United States.

Last month, Sullivan agreed with a group of women and children who said the policy imposed a heightened standard in reviewing their claims, concluding that the administration must stop deporting migrants currently in the US “without first providing credible fear determinations consistent with the immigration laws.”

Friday, he wrote: “The government now requests a stay, pending appeal of the Court’s Order, to enable the unlawful policies to continue to apply in all expedited removal cases, except the plaintiffs. … Defendants’ motion for stay is DENIED.”

The attorney general has full authority over the immigration courts — a separate court system which operates under the Justice Department.

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We have an Administration without shame, human decency, or, obviously, the will and skill to govern. And, a DOJ where lawyers act not as legal guardians of the people’s rights, but continue to defend the indefensible, ill serves the American people.

PWS

01-25-19

THE HUMAN AGONY OF ASYLUM: SPEND 4 MIN. WITH MS. A-B- & HUMAN/WOMEN’S RIGHTS EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO — Beaten, Raped, & Threatened With Death By Her Husband, Hounded Throughout Her Country, Abandoned By El Salvadoran Authorities, She Sought Refuge In The U.S., Winning Her Case At The BIA — Then She Was Targeted For A Vicious Unprovoked Attack By Notorious Scofflaw Immigration Judge Stuart Couch & White Nationalist Xenophobe Jeff Sessions — She’s Still Fighting For Her Life!

https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/news/cgrs-and-hrw-release-video-call-government-restore-protections-domestic-violence-survivors

Professor Karen Musalo

CGRS and HRW Release Video, Call on Government to Restore Protections for Domestic Violence Survivors

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

The United States government should uphold refugee protections for survivors of domestic violence, the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS) and Human Rights Watch said today.

In December 2018, a federal judge delivered a sharp rebuke to the Trump Administration’s most significant attempt to undermine asylum protections for domestic violence survivors. A June decision by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a case involving a woman whose initials were A.B. attempted to place a sweeping ban on domestic violence claims. Following a lawsuit filed by CGRS and the American Civil Liberties Union over the summer, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Administration could not impose such a ban and that people who make domestic violence claims must have a fair opportunity to apply for asylum.

But despite Sullivan’s favorable ruling, Ms. A.B.’s case remains in limbo. Until Sessions’ decision is overturned, she and thousands of women like her will continue to face an uphill battle in the courts.

Today CGRS and HRW released a video in which Ms. A.B. shares her story of abuse in El Salvador, the impossibility of finding protection in her home country, and her quest to find safety in the U.S.

“Ms. A.B. suffered brutal physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, and every time she sought protection from the Salvadoran authorities, the police would not protect her,” said Karen Musalo, one of the woman’s attorneys and director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies. “In denying her asylum, the former attorney general not only overturned clearly established case law recognizing the right to asylum for survivors of domestic violence, but also repudiated the well-accepted principle that women’s rights are human rights.”

The incoming attorney general should rescind Sessions’ decision, the groups said. If not, Congress should enact legislation that protects the right to asylum for domestic violence survivors and others whose claims have been undermined by the ruling in Ms. A.B.’s case.

Sessions’ administrative decision denying Ms. A.B. asylum overruled the Board of Immigration Appeals’ ruling in a seminal 2014 case, Matter of A-R-C-G-, which recognized that domestic violence survivors may qualify for asylum. Under U.S. and international law, to be eligible for asylum, a person must show a well-founded fear of persecution on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Domestic violence survivors who are unable to secure protection in their home countries have been able to obtain asylum on the ground of membership in a particular social group, among others.

In his December ruling, Judge Sullivan struck down many of the new policies to carry out Sessions’ decision, writing that there is “no legal basis for an effective categorical ban on domestic violence and gang-related claims.”

Under international law, governments have a clear obligation to prevent domestic violence, as well as to protect, support, and ensure access to justice and services for victims. But around the world, in Central America and elsewhere, women struggle to have governments ensure, or in some cases recognize, their right to protection. In some countries, criminal law does not adequately address domestic violence. More often, domestic violence is outlawed but rates of domestic violence, including violence that ends in homicide, remains high as authorities fail to ensure justice.

“This is absolutely the case in El Salvador, where the government’s utter failure to protect Ms. A.B. forced her to flee for her life,” said Andrés López, her co-counsel.

The Trump Administration’s move to severely limit asylum eligibility for domestic violence survivors is consistent with other regressive actions it has taken in recognizing violence against women as a human rights issue. The State Department’s annual human rights country reports since 2017 have excluded detailed analysis of violence against women, as well as reporting on women’s and girls’ reproductive health care.

“The Trump Administration’s fallacious view that domestic violence is a matter between private actors fails to recognize the systemic abuse of women’s rights in countries where authorities cannot or do not protect women threatened with domestic violence,” said Grace Meng, senior US researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The serious and persistent problem of domestic violence cannot be eliminated unless the U.S. and other countries recognize domestic violence, and the related acts or omissions of the government, as violations of women’s basic human rights.”

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Please check out the great 4 minute video at the link in the press release!

As noted in the press release, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan recently found that much of Session’s twisted and biased ruling in A-B-‘s case violated the Refugee Act, international norms, and directly contradicted Congressional intent.

This is but an example of the egregious attacks on the rule of law and the rights of asylum seekers being carried out by the scofflaw Trump Administration and its minions on a daily basis.

Join the New Due Process Army today and fight to restore the rule of law, human decency, Due Process, and a “guarantee of fairness and Due Process for all” to our broken, captive, and often lawless U.S. Immigration Courts!

PWS

01-25-19

CHASE, SCHMIDT, & THE REST OF “OUR GANG” READY TO “STEP UP” TO TEACH ASYLUM LAW FOR FURLOUGHED U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES! – Read The Latest From Hon. Jeffrey Chase On How Asylum Law Can Be Properly Interpreted To Save Lives (What It’s Supposed To Do) & “Move” Dockets Without Curtailing Anyone’s Rights!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2019/1/20/ijs-grant-gender-based-asylum-claims

Jan 20 IJs Grant Gender-Based Asylum Claims

As my friend Paul Schmidt announced on his excellent blog immigrationcourtside.com, immigration judges in San Francisco and Arlington, VA recently issued written decisions granting asylum to victims of domestic violence. Notably, the decisions concluded that “Mexican females” and “women in Honduras” constituted cognizable particular social groups under applicable case law, including the former Attorney General’s decision in Matter of A-B-.

Asylum advocates have sought for many years to have the Board of Immigration Appeals recognize a particular social group defined by gender alone. However, the BIA has declined to consider the issue.1 The need for such guidance from the Board has increased significantly since the issuance of Matter of A-B- last June. Even under the holdings of that decision, gender continues to meet all of the criteria for a cognizable particular social group, as gender is an immutable characteristic fundamental to one’s identity, is sufficiently particular to provide a clear benchmark for inclusion, is socially distinct in all societies, and is not defined by the harm which gives rise to the applicant’s fear of persecution.

In the seven months since Matter of A-B- was issued, the BIA has yet to respond with a precedent decision affirming the continued viability of domestic violence-based asylum claims. Nor has the BIA affirmed that gender alone may constitute a cognizable particular social group for the above reasons, in spite of the fact that its members have had years to consider the issue, and could rely on so many outstanding legal sources on the topic. The BIA showed an ability to respond quickly in issuing a precedent decision in only two months time following the Supreme Court’s decision in Pereira v. Sessions. So the present silence should be interpreted as a specific choice by the BIA to remain silent, likely motivated by its fear of upsetting its higher-ups in the present administration.

In the absence of guidance from the BIA, and while waiting for appeals to work their way through the circuit courts (I am aware of appeals relating to this issue currently pending in the First and Fourth Circuits), the two recent immigration judge decisions are encouraging. In the San Francisco case, Judge Miriam Hayward (who has since retired from the bench) found “Mexican females” to constitute a cognizable particular social group. In Arlington, Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Deepali Nadkarni made the same finding for the group consisting of “women in Honduras.” Redacted copies of their written decisions may be read here: http://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/SF-IJ-Hayward-DV-PSG-grant.pdf; http://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nadkarni-Grant-Women-in-Honduras-PSG.pdf

In addition to their particular social group analysis, both decisions conclude that at least one central reason for the persecution suffered was the asylum applicant’s membership in the gender-defined group. For example, in the San Francisco case, Judge Hayward found such nexus was established by a combination of specific statements made by the male persecutor (i.e. “a woman’s only job was to shut up and obey her husband,” and “I’m the man and you’re going to do what I say”); a report of an expert on domestic violence citing gender as a motivating factor for domestic violence; and a statement in a multi-agency report that violence against women in Mexico “is perpetrated, in most cases, to conserve and reproduce the submission and subordination of them derived from relationships of power.”

In her decision, Judge Nadkarni held that the size of the group defined by gender does not prevent it from being defined with particularity, and noted that the BIA “has routinely recognized large groups as defined with particularity.” It also bears mentioning that the ICE prosecutor in Judge Nadkarni’s case “conceded that the Honduran police was unable or unwilling to protect the respondent…” Without such concession in her case, Judge Hayward found that country reports and Mexican law itself were sufficient to establish that the government was unable or unwilling to protect the respondent even under the heightened standard expressed by the former AG in Matter of A-B-.

As I stated in an earlier article, immigration judges have received no guidance or training from EOIR in analyzing domestic violence claims in the aftermath of Matter of A-B-. As a result, some immigration judges remain uncertain as to whether the law allows them to grant such claims at present. It is hoped that these decisions will serve as a useful template for judges. It seems particularly instructive that one such decision was issued by Judge Nadkarni, a management-level judge who supervises all immigration judges sitting in the Arlington, Batavia, Buffalo, and Charlotte Immigration Courts, as well as the Headquarters court which hears cases remotely by televideo. Judge Nadkarni is the direct boss of V. Stuart Couch, the Charlotte-based immigration judge whose refusal to grant asylum as directed by the BIA in Matter of A-B- led to the former Attorney General’s certifying that case to himself.

Congratulations to attorneys Kelly Engel Wells of Delores Street Community Services and Mark Stevens of Murray Osorio PLLC for successfully representing the asylum applicants.

In light of these decisions, and in the absence of guidance from EOIR, our group of former immigration judges and BIA members would be happy to provide sitting judges with outside training and resources on this topic. Interested judges may contact me, and perhaps we can set up group training sessions for furloughed judged during the present shutdown.

Notes:

See, e.g. Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 388, 395, n. 16, acknowledging the argument of amici “that gender alone should be enough to constitute a particular social group in this matter,” but declining to reach the issue.

Copyright 2019 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.

JEFF CHASE

Jeffrey S. Chase is an immigration lawyer in New York City. Jeffrey is a former Immigration Judge, senior legal advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals, and volunteer staff attorney at Human Rights First. He is a past recipient of AILA’s annual Pro Bono Award, and previously chaired AILA’s Asylum Reform Task Force.

EOIR would do much better if it were to lose the venomous “(junior) partner of DHS Enforcement, no sympathy, compassion, or kindness for the most vulnerable among us, and scofflaw” persona that it acquired under White Nationalist AG Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions and act more like a real court of law (or at least a fair and impartial quasi-judicial tribunal) again.

While there is zero chance of it happening, soon to be AG Bill Barr (who grotesquely has painted himself as a great admirer of his biased and incompetent predecessor) would do himself and our country a great and lasting service if he hired a retired Federal Judge with a strong record in (positive) humanitarian law, individual due process, and court administration (e.g., a “reincarnation” of the late Judge Patricia Wald) to run and rebuild EOIR with a Due Process, independent adjudication, and judicial efficiency focus, and kept the politicos out of the process, no matter how much they might complain or not like fair results on the “deportation railway.” But, not going to happen till we get “regime change.”

Viewing “law enforcement” as a solemn responsibility to insure that individuals’ rights are protected, individuals are treated fairly regardless of status, creed, gender, or race, and that life-saving protection is generously granted whenever legally possible is as much a part of the Attorney General’s Constitutional responsibility as booting folks out of the country. It’s sad, disturbing, and very damaging to our country, that so few Attorneys General have taken this responsibility seriously, particularly in recent years.

PWS

01-21-18

DUE PROCESS AT WORK: GENDER-BASED CLAIMS ARE WINNING: FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA, SOME U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES STAND UP FOR THE RULE OF LAW AND THE RIGHTS (& LIVES) OF REFUGEE WOMEN EVEN IN THE FACE OF A SCOFFLAW, XENOPHOBIC DOJ!

Here are two redacted “post-Matter of A-B-” decisions from U.S.Immigration Judges correctly interpreting the law to grant relief to refugee women from Central America who have been victims of gender-based persecution in the form of domestic violence.

Assistant Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Deepali Nadkarni of the Arlington Immigration Court granted this case based on a PSG of “women in Honduras.”

Nadkarni Grant – Women in Honduras PSG

And U.S. Immigration Judge Miriam Hayward of the San Francisco Immigration Court granted this case based on a PSG of “women in Mexico:”

SF IJ Hayward DV PSG grant

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Compare the outstanding organization, methodical scholarly analysis, proper use of country conditions, and logical conclusions of these decisions written by fair and impartial judges with the pages of legal gobbledygook and anti-asylum screed set forth by xenophobic politico Jeff Sessions in Matter of A-B-, 17 I&N Dec. 316 (BIA 2018).

In a properly functioning system, decisions like these would be the published precedents, not the misleading, inaccurate, and confusing decision of the Attorney General which has already been firmly rejected by U.S District Judge Sullivan in Grace v. Whitaker. Decisions like these two, if used as models, could actually help speed along the grant process in both the Asylum Office and the Immigration Courts, thus expediting justice without sacrificing Due Process.

As it is, these decisions should be helpful to counsel presenting cases of abused women in Immigration Court.

Assistant Chief Judge Nadkarni and Judge Hayward show what the U.S. Immigration Court system could be if the improper political meddling and enforcement bias were removed and the Immigration Court were allowed to operate independently. Unfortunately, there are some Immigration Judges out there who are intent not on judicial excellence, but on using Matter of A-B- to railroad refugees through the system into the “deportation mill” without Due Process. That’s why we need a diverse and independent appellate body that can reinforce “best practices” while keeping those judges who aren’t fairly and correctly applying asylum law in line and, perhaps, encouraging them to find other careers.

Congratulations to both Assistant Chief Judge Nadkarni and Judge Hayward for having the courage to stand tall for the rule of law, Due Process, and fundamental fairness for the most vulnerable in our society — the actual (if now largely discarded) mission of the U.S. Immigration Courts. I should know, since I helped draft that now-forgotten “vision statement.”

Also, many congrats to counsel Mark Stevens (who appeared before me many times in Arlington) and Kelly Engel Wells for their outstanding work and to the unnamed but still critically important ICE Assistant Chief Counsel who appear to have done an outstanding job of presenting these cases.

NOTE: Judge Miriam Hayward recently retired and has joined “Our Gang” now numbering at least 32 retired U.S. Immigration Judges and Appellate Immigration Judges.

PWS

01-17-19

PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO: Persecution Of Women In El Salvador On The Basis Of Gender Is Real & Endemic – The Administration’s Attempts To Skew The Law Against Women Refugees Is Totally Dishonest, Immoral, & Illegal!

https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/sites/default/files/Musalo_El%20Salvador_A%20Peace%20Worse%20Than%20War_30%20Yale%20J.L.%20&%20Fem.%203_20018.pdf

Here’s part of the conclusion of Karen’s article “EL SALVADOR–A PEACE WORSE THAN WAR: VIOLENCE, GENDER AND A FAILED LEGAL RESPONSE” published at 30 Yale Journal of Law & Feminism 3 (2018):

Historical and contemporary factors have given rise to the extremely high levels of violence that persist in El Salvador today. Many of the Salvadorans interviewed for this article referred to a “culture of violence” going back to the brutal Spanish Conquest and continuing into more recent history, including the 1932 Matanza and the atrocities of the country’s 12-year civil war. Gender violence exists within this broader context. However, as almost every Salvadoran source noted, violence against women is even more deeply rooted than other expressions of societal violence as the result of patriarchal norms that tolerate and affirm the most extreme forms of domination and abuse of women.

. . . .

Levels of violence, including the killings of women, have continued to rise, while impunity has remained a constant. Criticism of the persistent impunity for gender violence resulted in El Salvador’s most recent legal development: the enactment of Decree 286, which created specialized courts. However, the exclusion of the most commonly committed gender crimes–intrafamilial violence and sexual violence–from the specialized courts’ jurisdiction, and the courts’ hybrid structure, which requires that cases still be initiated in the peace courts, do not inspire optimism for positive outcomes.

Notwithstanding these considerable obstacles, the Salvadorans interviewed for this article, who have long struggled for access to justice and gender equality, maintain the hope and the belief that change is possible. In the course of multiple interviews over a six-year period (2010 to 2016), Salvadoran sources have expressed deep frustration and disappointment but have not articulated resignation or defeat.

. . . .

The Salvadorans who I interviewed for this article have provided information, insights, and perspectives that are simply not available in written reports or studies. Although they come from a range of backgrounds–governmental and non-governmental; legal professionals as well as grassroots activists–they all acknowledge the complex causes of societal violence. As discussed throughout this article, they also have specific critiques and prescriptions for what must be done in order to see any real progress. Discussions of the country’s crisis, as well as of the international community’s response, must start by listening to the voices of the Salvadorans who, despite the seemingly intractable situation of violence and impunity in which they live, have refused to abandon the struggle for justice and equality. They are inspiring in their courage and resilience. By quoting extensively from these sources, this article has sought to amplify their voices.

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Read Karen’s complete article at the above link.

Compare real scholarship and honest reflection of the experiences of women in El Salvador affected by this seemingly unending wave of persecution with the intentionally bogus picture painted by Jeff Sessions in Matter of A-B-. Hopefully, advocates will be able to use the research and expertise of Karen and others like her to enlighten fair-minded Asylum Officers and Immigration Judges, support their efforts to grant women the protection they merit as contemplated by the Refugee Act and the Convention Against Torture, and force the Article III Courts and eventually Congress to consign Sessions’s intentionally perverted reasoning to the dustbin of “Jim Crow Misogynist History” where it belongs.

Many thanks to my good friend and colleague in “Our Gang,” Judge Jeffrey Chase, for passing this link to Karen’s important scholarship along.

Due Process For All Forever!

PWS

12-31-18

WINNING ASYLUM & SAVING LIVES IN THE “ERA OF A-B-“ – Seven Steps To Success

WINNING ASYLUM

WINNING ASYLUM & SAVING LIVES IN THE “ERA OF A-B-“ – Seven Steps To Success*

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

NEW YORK CITY BAR

DECEMBER 4, 2018

Good evening, and thanks so much for inviting me. In the “old days,” I would have started with my comprehensive disclaimer. But, now that I’m retired, I’m just going to hold the Bar Association, my fellow panelists, and anyone else of any importance whatsoever “harmless” for my remarks tonight. They are solely my views, for which I take full responsibility. No sugar-coating, no bureaucratic doublespeak, no “party line,” no BS – just the unvarnished truth, as I see it!

“We’ve had situations in which a person comes to the United States and says they are a victim of domestic violence; therefore, they are entitled to enter the United States. Well, that’s obviously false but some judges have gone along with that.” “Good lawyers, using all of their talents and skill, work every day—like water seeping through an earthen dam—to get around the plain words of the INA to advance their clients’ interests. Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the act. That is our most serious duty.”

Those, my friends, are obviously not my words. They are the words of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Incredibly, this totally biased, xenophobic, misinformed, and glaringly unqualified individual was in charge of our U.S. Immigration Court system which helps explains why it is such a total mess today. And Acting Attorney General Whitaker’s certification of two cases yesterday promises a continuation of improper political interference with the Immigration Courts in derogation of Due Process.

One of Sessions’s most cowardly and reprehensible actions was his atrocious distortion of asylum law, the reality of life in the Northern Triangle, and Due Process for migrants in Matter of A-B-. There, he overruled the BIA’s important precedent in Matter of A-R-C-G-, a decision actually endorsed by the DHSat the time, and which gave much need protection to women fleeing persecution in the form of domestic violence. Take it from me, Matter of A-R-C-G-was one of the few parts of our dysfunctional Immigration Court system that actually worked and provided a way of consistently granting much needed protection to some of the most vulnerable and most deserving refugees in the world.

Sessions is gone. But, his ugly legacy of bias and unfairness remains. Fortunately, because he was a lousy lawyer on top of everything else, he failed to actually accomplish what he thought he was doing: wiping out protection for refugee women, largely from Central America. That’s why it’s critically important for you, as members of the “New Due Process Army” to fight every inch of the way, for as long as it takes, to restore justice and to force our U.S Immigration Courts to live up to their unfulfilled, and now mocked, promise of “guaranteeing fairness and Due Process for all!”

I’m going to give you seven very basic tips for overcoming Matter of A-B-. I’m sure that my colleagues, who are much more involved in the day to day litigation going on in the courts than I am, can give you lots of additional information about addressing specific issues.

First, recognize that Matter of A-B- really doesn’t change the fundamental meaning of asylum.It just rejected the way in which the BIA reached its precedent in A-R-C-G-— by stipulation without specific fact-findings based on the administrative record. Most of it is mere dicta. On a case by case basis, domestic violence can still be a proper basis for granting asylum in many cases. Indeed, such cases still are being granted by those Immigration Judges committed to following the rule of law and upholding their oaths of office, rather than accepting Sessions’s invitation to “take a dive.”

Just make sure you properly and succinctly state your basis, establish nexus, and paper the record with the overwhelming amount of reliable country condition information and expert opinion that directly contradicts the bogus picture painted by Sessions.

Second, resist with all your might those lawless judges in some Immigration Courts who are using, or threatening to use, Sessions’s dictum in Matter of A-B- to deny fair hearings or truncate the hearing process for those claiming asylum through domestic violence.If anything, following the overruling of A-R-C-G-,leaving no definitive precedent on the subject, full, fair case-by-case hearings are more important than ever. Under Due Process, asylum applicants are entitled to a full and fair opportunity to present their claims in Immigration Court. Don’t let wayward, biased, or misinformed Immigration Judges deny your clients’ constitutional and statutory rights.

Third, keep it simple. Even before A-B-, I always said that any proposed “particular social group” (“PSG”) longer than 25 words or containing “circular” elements is D.O.A. I think that it’s time to get down to the basics; the real PSG here is gender! “Women in X country” is clearly a cognizable PSG. It’s undoubtedly immutable or fundamental to identity; particularized, and socially distinct. So, it meets the BIA’s three-part test.

And, “gender” clearly is one of the biggest drivers of persecution in the world. There is no doubt that it is “at least one central reason” for the persecution of women and LGBT individuals throughout the world.

Fourth, think political. There is plenty of recent information available on the internet showing the close relationship between gangs and the governments of the Northern Triangle. In some cases, gangs are the “de facto government” in significant areas of the country. In others, gangs and local authorities cooperate in extorting money and inflicting torture and other serious harm on honest individuals who resist them and threaten to expose their activities. In many cases, claiming political or religious persecution will be a stronger alternative ground than PSG.

Fifth, develop your record. The idea that domestic violence and gang-based violence is just “common crime” advanced by Sessions in A-B-is simply preposterous with regard to the Northern Triangle. Establish records that no reasonable factfinder can refute or overlook! Use expert testimony or expert affidavits to show the real country conditions and to discredit the watered down and sometimes downright false scenarios set forth in Department of State Country Reports, particularly under this Administration where integrity, expertise, and independence have been thrown out the window.

Sixth, raise the bias issue. As set forth in a number of the Amicus Briefs filed in Matter of A-B-, Sessions clearly was a biased decision maker. Not only had he publicly dismissed the claims of female refugees suffering from domestic violence, but his outlandish comments spreading false narratives about immigrants, dissing asylum seekers and their “dirty lawyers,” and supporting DHS enforcement clearly aligned with him with one party to litigation before the Immigration Courts. By the rules governing judicial conduct there was more than an “appearance of bias” here – there was actual bias. We should keep making the record on the gross violation of Due Process caused by giving a biased enforcement official like Sessions a quasi-judicial role.

Seventh, and finally, appeal to the “real” Article III Courts. What’s happening in Immigration Court today is a parody of justice and a mockery of legitimate court proceedings. It’s important to “open the eyes” of the Article III Judges to this travesty which is threatening the lives of legitimate refugees and other migrants.

Either the Article III’s do their jobs, step in, and put an end to this travesty, or they become complicitin it. There’s only one “right side of the law and history” in this fight. Those who are complicit must know that their actions are being placed in the historical record – for all time and for their descendants to know – just like the historical reckoning that finally is happening for so- called “Confederate heroes” and those public officials who supported racism and “Jim Crow.”

Now is the time to take a stand for fundamental fairness and decency! Join the New Due Process Army and fight to vindicate the rights of asylum seekers under our laws against the forces of darkness and xenophobic bias! Due process forever!

*This is not a “verbatim transcript” of what I said. Rather it is a compendium and extension of the “talking notes” that I used as a member of the panel.

GENDER-BASED PERSECUTION IN THE FORM OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE KILLED 87,000 WOMEN LAST YEAR, & UNDOUBTEDLY MAIMED, DISABLED, TORTURED, & DISFIGURED MANY MORE – Jeff Sessions Misrepresented Facts & Manipulated Law To Deny Protection To Victims & Potential Vctims In Matter of A-B- — Dead Women Can’t “Get In (The Non-Existent) Line,” Gonzo! – It’s A “Pandemic” Aided, Abetted, & Encouraged By Corrupt Officials Like Sessions

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/domestic-violence-most-common-killer-of-women-united-nations_us_5bfbf61ee4b0eb6d931142ac

Alanna Vagianos reports for HuffPost:

The most dangerous place for women is in their own homes, a new report from the United Nations concludes.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released the “Global Study on Homicide: Gender-related Killing of Women and Girls” on Sunday to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The report analyzed the violence perpetrated against women worldwide in 2017, looking at intimate partner violence and family-related killings such as dowry- and honor-related murders.

Last year, 87,000 women were murdered around the world, and more than half (50,000 or 58 percent) were killed by partners or family members. Over a third (30,000) of those intentionally killed last year were murdered by a current or former intimate partner. This means that, globally, six women are killed every hour by someone they know.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres described violence against women as a “global pandemic” in a Sunday statement marking the international day of recognition.

“It is a moral affront to all women and girls, a mark of shame on all our societies and a major obstacle to inclusive, equitable and sustainable development,” he said. “At its core, violence against women and girls is the manifestation of a profound lack of respect ― a failure by men to recognize the inherent equality and dignity of women. It is an issue of fundamental human rights.”

The U.N. report also highlighted that women are much more likely to die from domestic violence than men are. According to the study, 82 percent of intimate partner homicide victims are women and 18 percent are men.

“While the vast majority of homicide victims are men, women continue to pay the highest price as a result of gender inequality, discrimination and negative stereotypes. They are also the most likely to be killed by intimate partners and family,” UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov said.

The study suggested that violence against women has increased in the last five years, drawing on data from 2012 in which 48,000 (47 percent) of female homicides were perpetrated by intimate partners or family members.

Geographically, Asia had the most female homicides (20,000) perpetrated by intimate partners or family members in 2017, followed by Africa (19,000), North and South America (8,000), Europe (3,000) and Oceania (300). The U.N. does point out that because the intimate partner and family-related homicide rate is 3.1 per 10,000 female population, Africa is actually the continent where women are at the greatest risk of being murdered by a partner or family member.

Head over to the U.N. study to read more.

HuffPost’s “Her Stories” newsletter brings you even more reporting from around the world on the important issues affecting women. Sign up for it here.

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Sessions is already America’s most notorious unpunished child abuser! Now, he can add “aiding and abetting domestic violence” and “voluntary manslaughter” to the many human rights and civil rights violations and transgressions of the teachings of Jesus Christ for which he will someday have to answer to his Maker (even if he has the undeserved good fortune to escape “earthly accountability” for his actions).

Meanwhile, advocates should be using the factual information in this report and other expert opinions on the “pandemic” to overcome the fabricated factual and legal basis for Matter of A-B- and the bogus arguments manufactured by restrictionists..

The real “particular social group” staring everyone in the face is “women in X country.” It’s largely immutable and certainly “fundamental to identity,” particularized, and socially distinct. It clearly has a strong nexus to the grotesque forms of harm inflicted on women throughout our world. And, there is an ever-growing body of expert information publicly available to establish that, totally contrary to Sessions’s bad-faith distortion of the record in A-B-, many countries of the world are unwilling, unable, or both unwilling and unable to offer a reasonable level of protection to women facing gender-based persecution in the form of DV.

Sessions has unwittingly set the wheels of positive change in motion! It’s time to force judges at all levels, legislators, and government officials to recognize the reality of gender-based persecution in today’s world and that it is one of the major forms of persecution clearly covered by the U.N. Convention.

Forget about the bogus “floodgates” argument. The U.N. Convention came directly out of World War II and was intended to insure that the Holocaust and the “Red Terror” did not happen again. The definition would clearly have covered most of the pre-War European Jewish population and tens of millions (perhaps hundreds of millions) of individuals stuck behind the Iron Curtin. If the numbers are large, then it’s up to the signatory countries to come together, pool resources, and think of constructive ways of addressing the problems that generate refugee flows, not just inventing creative ways of avoiding their legal and moral responsibilities.

Don’t repeat 1939! Due Process Forever! Join the “New Due Process Army” and fight for human rights, human values, and human decency against the selfish forces of darkness and dishonesty who have gained control of too many countries in the Western World (including, sadly, our own)!

PWS

11-27-18

GONZO’S WORLD: RECENT ARTICLES SHOW HOW SESSIONS’S SHOCKINGLY INAPPROPRIATE REMARKS TO NEW IMMIGRATION JUDGES VIOLATED EOIR CODE OF JUDICIAL ETHICS, SHOWED DISRESPECT FOR THE LAW, AND VIOLATED THE FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF GOOD IMMIGRATION JUDGING BY DIRECTING JUDGES NOT TO BE SYMPATHETIC TO REFUGEES! – TURNING REFUGEE LAW AND HISTORY ON ITS HEAD!

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/sessions-new-immigration-judges-sympathy

Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday warned incoming immigration judges that lawyers representing immigrants are trying to get around the law like “water seeping through an earthen dam” and that their responsibility is to not let them and instead deliver a “secure” border and a “lawful system” that “actually works.”

He also cautioned the judges against allowing sympathy for the people appearing before them, which might cause them to make decisions contrary to what the law requires.

“When we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation. Your job is to apply the law — even in tough cases,” he said.

The comments immediately drew criticism from the union that represents the judges and from former judges.

“The reality is that it is a political statement which does not articulate a legal concept that judges are required to be aware of and follow,” said Dana Marks, a spokesperson for the National Association of Immigration Judges and an immigration judge in San Francisco. “It did appear to be a one-sided argument made by a prosecutor.”

Jeffrey Chase, a former immigration judge and now an immigration attorney, said the comments overlooked the fact that asylum laws were designed to be flexible.

“We possess brains and hearts, not just one or the other,” he said. It is sympathy, Chase said, that often spurs legal theories that advance the law in asylum law, civil rights, and criminal law.

“Sessions is characterizing decisions he personally disagrees with as being based on sympathy alone,” he said, “when in fact, those decisions were driven by sympathy but based on solid legal reasoning.”

Unlike other US courts, immigration judges are employees of the Justice Department whose evaluations are based on guidelines Sessions lays out. In that role, Sessions already has instituted case quotas, restricted the types of cases for which asylum can be granted, and limited when judges can indefinitely suspend certain cases. Advocates believe the Trump administration has made these decisions in order to speed up deportations. His comments on sympathy to immigrants appeared intended to bolster a decision he made recently to limit when asylum can be granted out of fear of domestic or gang violence.

Sessions also told the judges that they should focus on maximum production and urged them to get “imaginative and inventive” with their high caseload. The courts currently have a backlog of hundreds of thousands of deportation cases.

Ashley Tabaddor, an immigration judge in Los Angeles and the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, which represents the nation’s 350 immigration judges, said Sessions’ speech was notable for its lack of any mention of fairness or due process. “We cannot possibly be put in this bind of being accountable to someone who is so clearly committed to the prosecutorial role,” said Tabaddor.

The union has long called for its separation from the Department of Justice in order to be truly independent of political decision-making.

“Good lawyers, using all of their talents and skill, work every day — like water seeping through an earthen dam — to get around the plain words of the [Immigration and Nationality Act] to advance their clients’ interests. Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the act. That is our most serious duty,” Sessions said in a speech to 44 newly hired judges who were being trained in Falls Church, Virginia.

He ended his speech by telling the incoming judges that the American people had spoken in laws and “in our elections.”

“They want a safe, secure border and a lawful system of immigration that actually works. Let’s deliver it for them,” Sessions said.

From the beginning of October through the end of June, immigration judges had granted around 22% of asylum cases and denied around 41% of cases. The rest of the cases were closed. The rate is similar to previous fiscal years. Sessions’ decision to limit the types of cases in which asylum should be granted was made in mid-June.

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6152755/The-U-S-increase-number-immigration-judges-50-percent-BALLOONING-backlog.html

Valerie Bauman reports for The Daily Mail:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday that he plans to increase the number of immigration judges in the U.S. by 50 percent by the end of Fiscal Year 2018 – part of the administration’s effort to take on a case backlog that has ballooned under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy.

The number of immigration cases on hold in the U.S. has risen 38 percent since Trump took office, with 746,049 pending immigration cases as of July 31, up from 542,411 at the end of January 2017, according to an analysis of government data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Sessions asserted his authority on Monday during remarks welcoming 44 newly hired immigration judges – the largest class in U.S. history – noting that they must operate under his supervision and perform the duties that he prescribes.

As you take on this critically important role, I hope that you will be imaginative and inventive in order to manage a high-volume caseload,’ he said. ‘I do not apologize for expecting you to perform, at a high level, efficiently and effectively.’

The attorney general said the system for seeking asylum in the U.S. has been ‘abused for years’ and while the judges must respect immigrants’ rights, they should also ‘reject unjustified and sometimes blatantly fake claims.’

Sessions also had harsh words for the attorneys who represent immigrants, describing them as ‘water seeping through an earthen dam,’ who attempt to ‘get around’ immigration laws.

The message follows a series of policy changes that have put increasing pressure on immigration judges to close cases quickly while taking away their authority to prioritize cases based on their own judgment.

‘We’re clearly moving toward a point where there isn’t going to be judicial independence in the immigration courts anymore,’ former immigration Judge Jeffrey S. Chase told DailyMail.com.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivers remarks to the incoming class of immigration judges in Falls Church, Virginia

For example, the Justice Department earlier this year announced a quota system requiring judges to clear at least 700 cases annually in order to be rated as ‘satisfactory’ on their performance evaluations.

Quotas ‘would threaten the integrity and independence of the court and potentially increase the court’s backlog,’ according to the National Association of Immigration Judges, the union representing the judges.

Sessions also issued a decision earlier this year that takes away the authority of immigration judges to administratively close cases, a process that allowed a judge to indefinitely close low-priority cases to make room on the docket for more serious offenses – such as those involving violent criminals and gang members.

From Oct. 1, 2011 through Sept. 30, 2017, 215,285 cases were administratively closed, according to Sessions. Now experts say those cases will be added back to the dockets, further compounding the backlog.

In addition, Sessions issued a legal opinion earlier this year designed to make it impossible for victims of domestic violence and gangs to seek asylum in the U.S. – which some critics say will limit judicial independence.

Legal experts said Monday that Session’s speech was designed to assert his authority over the judges and impress upon them the importance of issuing rulings consistent with his own philosophy.

‘That was an enforcement speech,’ former immigration Judge Paul Wickham Schmidt told DailyMail.com. ‘The whole implication that somehow (people seeking asylum) are bending the law and that there are attorneys trying to go through loopholes is the opposite of the truth … The losers in these asylum cases aren’t simply migrants trying to game the system. They are people facing real dangers when they go home.’

Sessions did not shy away from calling on the new judges to rise to the challenges before them.

‘Let me say this clearly: it is perfectly legitimate, moral, and decent for a nation to have a legal system of immigration and to enforce the system it adopts,’ Sessions said in his prepared remarks. ‘No great and prosperous nation can have both a generous welfare system and open borders. Such a policy is both radical and dangerous.’

Sessions has said that he has introduced a ‘streamlined’ approach for hiring judges – a historically lengthy process – to bring the average hiring time down to 266 days, compared from 742 days in 2017, according to Department of Justice data.

Immigration judges are appointed by the U.S. attorney general. The new additions bring the total number of immigration judges in the U.S. to 397.

OK. Now let’s get beyond Sessions’s White Nationalist screed and get some truth about:

The ethical standards for Immigration Judges;
The real intent of the Refugee Act of 19809; and
What being a fair and impartial immigration judge is really about.

Sessions’s Statement Favoring A Party To Immigration Court Proceedings And Showing Disrespect For The Opposing Party & Their Representatives Violates The EOIR Ethical Code By Showing An “Appearance of Bias.”

Let’s remember that under the strange rules governing EOIR and the Immigration Courts within the USDOJ, Attorney General Jeff Sessions can and has taken on the role as a judicial adjudicator in an individual cases, changing results and setting precedent for the BIA and the Immigration Judges.

So, what does the EOIR Code of Judicial Ethics say about judicial conduct?

V. Impartiality (5 C.F.R. § 2635.101(b)(8))

An Immigration Judge shall act impartially and shall not give preferential treatment to any organization or individual when adjudicating the merits of aparticular case. An Immigration Judge should encourage and facilitate pro bono representation. An Immigration Judge may grant procedural priorities to lawyers providing pro bono legal services in accordance with Operating Procedures and Policies Memorandum (OPPM) 08-01.

VI. Appearance of Impropriety (5 C.F.R. § 2635.101(b)(14))

An Immigration Judge shall endeavor to avoid any actions that, in thejudgment of a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts, wouldcreate the appearance that he or she is violating the law or applicable ethical standards.

. . . .

IX. Acting with judicial Temperament and Professionalism

An Immigration Judge should be patient, dignified, and courteous, and should act in a professional manner towards all litigants, witnesses, lawyers and others with whom the Immigration Judge deals in his or her official capacity, and should not, in the performance of official duties, by words or conduct, manifest improper bias or prejudice.

Note: An Immigration Judge should be alert to avoid behavior, including inappropriate demeanor, which may be perceived as biased. The test forappearance of impropriety is whether the conduct would create in the mind of a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts the belief that the Immigration Judge’s ability to carry out his or her responsibilities with integrity, impartiality, and competence is impaired.

Note: An Immigration Judge who manifests bias or prejudice in a proceeding impairs the fairness of the proceeding and brings the immigration process into disrepute. Examples of manifestations of bias or prejudice include but are not limited to epithets; slurs; demeaning nicknames; negative stereotyping; attempted humor based upon stereotypes; threatening, intimidating, or hostile acts; suggestions of connections between race, ethnicity, or nationality and crime; and irrelevant reference to personal characteristics. Moreover, an Immigration Judge must avoid conduct that may reasonably be perceived as prejudiced or biased. Immigration Judges are not precluded from making legitimate reference to any of the above listed factors, or similar factors, when they are relevant to an issue in a proceeding.

Note: An Immigration Judge has the authority to regulate the course ofthe hearing. See 8 C.F.R. §§ 1240.1(c), 1240.9. Nothing herein prohibits theJudge from doing so. It is recognized that at times an Immigration Judgemust be firm and decisive to maintain courtroom control.

Wow. Sure sounds to me like Sessions is in clear violation of each of these!

Let’s get down to “brass tacks” here. Imagine that you are a represented asylum applicant from the Northern Triangle with an upcoming hearing. The morning of your hearing, you read the statement that Jeff Sessions made to the new Immigration Judges.

That afternoon, when you appear at the hearing you find that none other than Jeff Sessions is yo\ur U.S. Immigration Judge. So, do you think that you and your attorney are going to get a “fair and impartial” hearing, including a possible favorable exercise of discretion” on your asylum application, as our Constitution and laws require? Of course not!

But remember, all asylum applicants are appearing before “judges” who are actually employees of Jeff Sessions. Each judge knows that he or she owes career longevity to pleasing Sessions and his minions. Each judge also knows that at any time Sessions can arbitrarily reach down into the system, without explanation or notice, and “certify” any case or decision to himself.

Clearly, after having publicly taken a pro-DHS, pro-enforcement, anti-asylum applicant, anti-private attorney position, Sessions should not ethically have any role whatsoever in the outcome of cases in the Immigration Court System. But, clearly, he does have such a role. A big one!

If any sitting Immigration Judge conducted himself or herself the way Sessions just did, they would be suspended immediately. How does Sessions get away with disregarding judicial ethics in his own system?

The Refugee Act of 1980 Implements Our International Treaty Obligations Under the UN Convention & Protocol Relating To The Status Of Refugees and Is Actually About “Protecting” Those In Danger, Not Finding Ways Of “Rejecting” Their Claims.

Let’s hear from a former legislator who played a key role in developing and enacting the Refugee Act or 1980, former Representative Elizabeth Holtzman (D-NY) who at that time was the Chair of the House Immigration Subcommittee. This is from the letter that Holtzman recently wrote to Secretary Nielsen resigning from the DHS Detention Advisory Committee because of its perversion of the law, particularly the illegal family separation policy engineered by Sessions.

What is so astonishing to me is how much this country has changed since 1980, when I was privileged as chair of the House Immigration Subcommittee to co-author with Senator Ted Kennedy the Refugee Act of 1980. The Act — which was adopted without serious controversy — created a framework for the regular admission of refugees to the U.S. The immediate stimulus for the bill was the huge exodus of boat people leaving Vietnam. Though the memory of the Holocaust played a role, too, particularly the knowledge that the U.S. could have rescued so many people from the hands of the Nazis but did not. The Refugee Act marked our commitment as a nation to welcoming persons fleeing persecution anywhere.

In those days, the U.S. accepted large numbers of refugees — about 750,000 arrived from Vietnam; 600,000 entered from Cuba; and hundreds of thousands of Jews and their relatives came from the Soviet Union. The thought that the U.S. is frightened today by the presence of an additional 2,000 or so children and parents from Central America is laughable and appalling.

In those days, the U.S. also showed world leadership on refugee resettlement. For example, America understood that it bore a special responsibility for the refugees fleeing Vietnam because of its long involvement in the Vietnam War. Obviously, we could not absorb all the refugees, but our government worked hard to get resettlement solutions for all. First, it persuaded the countries neighboring Vietnam to which people fled in small boats not to push those refugees back out to sea, where they would confront pirates, drowning and other terrible dangers. (I know because I participated in speaking to those countries.) Then, the U.S. organized a world conference in Geneva, where countries agreed to accept specific numbers of refugees. The U.S. was able to induce other countries to act because it took the largest share. Our country’s leadership turned the boat people crisis into one of the most successful refugee resettlement programs ever.

Now, in response to the influx of (mostly) women and their children fleeing horrific violence in Central America, the U.S. government can think only of building a wall and unlawfully separating children from their parents — something I call child kidnapping, plain and simple — as a deterrent to keep others from coming to the US. How far we have we fallen.

And how easy it would be to do the right thing. The U.S. needs to start with recognizing that it once again has a special responsibility for a dire situation, this time in the Northern Triangle. We overthrew the democratically elected government in Guatemala, which was replaced by one right-wing government after another, including one that committed genocide against the indigenous population. In Honduras and El Salvador, we similarly propped up right-wing governments that did nothing for their people, leaving them without effective governance in place. The fact that gangs have been able to terrorize the population with impunity is a result.

More must be done as well. We should reinstate the Central American Minors Refugee/Parole Program, established under President Obama and cancelled by the Trump Administration, whereby people could apply in their home countries for admission as refugees to the U.S. without facing the perils of the overland trip. Second, we should try to get Canada and other countries in South America to accept refugees from the Northern Triangle countries, reducing the burden on us. To do this, we would have to agree to take a substantial number of refugees from the Northern Triangle countries as well. And then we should work to improve the governance in these countries, perhaps by involving the United Nations and nearby countries, such as Costa Rica.

Unfortunately, the chance of any such enlightened response toward refugees from the Northern Triangle seems remote. These countries probably fall into Trump’s stated “shithole” category. Plainly, the hostile attitude toward the refugees persists. For example, 463 parents may have been deported without their children. Apparently DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen feels no responsibility for reuniting those with their parents, instead making the flimsy excuse that the parents wanted to leave them behind. While possibly true in a small number of instances, given the fact that many of the parents do not speak English, or even Spanish, but their indigenous language, it is more likely that a significant number of the parents had no idea of what was happening or how to get their children back. They may even have been coerced into leaving. In any case, Nielsen has a very poor record of truth-telling. On June 17, she insisted that “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.”

And the racist, contemptuous attitude of the Administration keeps showing. Just recently, before a conservative audience, Attorney General Jeff Sessions made a joke — a joke! — about separating children from their parents. (He also briefly joined in a chant of “Lock her up!”)

Most Americans, fortunately, have found the separation policy abhorrent. Those of us who do, need to press the Administration to find a more humane and more comprehensive solution, like our country has done in the past. But if the Administration continues the enforced separation policy, I hope that the courts will enforce their decisions, which have required reunification, by holding the Secretary and others in contempt if necessary. Congress should be called on to act by holding hearings and adopting censure resolutions. None of us can sit idly by when our government stoops to such racist, malign behavior.

Yes, with responsible leadership, it would be relatively easy to do the right thing here. But, it’s not going to happen with the “wrong people” like Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Jeff Sessions, and Kristjen Nielsen in charge.

The real intent of the Refugee Act of 1980 was to give America the tools to take a leadership role in protecting individuals, particularly those flowing from situations we helped cause like the mess in the Northern Triangle. I’m sure that most of those involved in the bipartisan effort would be shocked by the overtly racist, restrictionist views being pawned off by Sessions as “following the law.” “I call BS” on Session’s perversion of protection laws.

Undoubtedly, cases like Matter of A-R-C-G-, incorrectly overruled by Sessions, actually substantially understated the case for protecting domestic violence victims. There is little doubt in my mind that under a proper interpretation “women in El Salvador” (or Guatemala or Honduras, or many other countries) satisfy the stated criteria for a “particular social group.”

Being a “woman in El Salvador” clearly is :

Immutable or fundamental to identity;
Particularized; and
Socially distinct.

Moreover, there is no legitimate doubt that the status of being a “woman in El Salvador” is often “at least one central reason” for the persecution. Nor is there any doubt that the Governments in the Northern Triangle are unwilling and unable to offer a reasonable level of protection to women abused because of class membership, Sessions’s largely fictional account of country conditions notwithstanding.

At some point, whether or not in my lifetime, some integrity will be re-injected into the legal definition by recognizing the obvious. It might come from Congress, a more qualified Executive, or the Courts. But, it will eventually come. The lack of recognition for women refugees, who perhaps make up a majority of the world’s refugees, is a symptom of the “old white guys” like Sessions who have controlled the system. But, that’s also likely to change in the future.

My esteemed colleague, retired U.S. Immigraton Judge Jeffrey S. Chase said it best:

“Sessions is characterizing decisions he personally disagrees with as being based on sympathy alone,” he said, “when in fact, those decisions were driven by sympathy but based on solid legal reasoning.”

The Proper Role Of a Good Immigration Judge Involves Sympathetic Understanding Of The Plight Of Refugees, What They Have Suffered, & The Systemic Burdens They Face in Presenting Claims.

Let’s see what some real judges who have had a role in the actually fairly adjudicating asylum claims have to say about the qualities of judging.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes from the late Seventh Circuit Judge Terence T. Evans in Guchshenkov v. Ashcroft, 366 F.3d 554 (7th Cir. 2004) (Evans, J., concurring) that sums up the essence of being a good Immigration Judge:

Because 100 percent of asylum petitioners want to stay in this country, but less than 100 percent are entitled to asylum, an immigration judge must be alert to the fact that some petitioners will embellish their claims to increase their chances of success. On the other hand, an immigration judge must be sensitive to the suffering and fears of petitioners who are genuinely entitled to asylum in this country. A healthy balance of sympathy and skepticism is a job requirement for a good immigration judge. Attaining that balance is what makes the job of an immigration judge, in my view, excruciatingly difficult.

Or, check out this heartfelt statement from my former colleague Judge Thomas Snow, one of “Arlington’s Finest,” (who also, not incidentally, had served as the Acting Chief Immigration Judge and Acting Director of EOIR, as well as being a long-time Senior Executive in the USDOJ) in USA Today:

Immigration judges make these decisions alone. Many are made following distraught or shame-filled testimony covering almost unimaginable acts of inhumanity. And we make them several times a day, day after day, year after year.

We take every decision we make very seriously. We do our best to be fair to every person who comes before us. We judge each case on its own merits, no matter how many times we’ve seen similar fact patterns before.

We are not policymakers. We are not legislators. We are judges. Although we are employees of the U.S. Department of Justice who act under the delegated authority of the attorney general, no one tells us how to decide a case. I have been an immigration judge for more than 11 years, and nobody has ever tried to influence a single one of my thousands of decisions

And finally, because we are judges, we do our best to follow the law and apply it impartially to the people who appear before us. I know I do so, even when it breaks my heart.

Here’s a “pithier” one from my friend and colleague Judge Dana Leigh Marks, former President of the National Association of Immigration Judges (who also was the “winning attorney” representing the plaintiff in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987)) — I was on the “losing” INS side that day):

[I]mmigration judges often feel asylum hearings are “like holding death penalty cases in traffic court.”

Finally, here’s my take on being an Immigration Judge after 45 years in the field, including stints at the BIA, the “Legacy INS,” private practice, and academics:

From my perspective, as an Immigration Judge I was half scholar, half performing artist. An Immigration Judge is alwayson public display, particularly in this “age of the Internet.” His or her words, actions, attitudes, and even body language, send powerful messages, positive or negative, about our court system and our national values. Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of those who fail at the job do so because they do not recognize and master the “performing artist” aspect, rather than from a lack of pertinent legal knowledge.

Compare Sessions’s one-sided, biased outlook with the statements of those of us who have “walked the walk and talked the talk” — who have had to listen to the horrible stories, judge credibility, look at whether protection can legally be extended, and, on some occasions, look folks in the eye and tell them we have no choice but to send them back into situations where they clearly face death or danger.

Sympathetic understanding of refugees and the protection purposes of refugee, asylum, and CAT laws are absolutely essential to fair adjudication of asylum and other claims for relief under the Immigration Laws. And, clearly, under the UNHCR guidance, if one is going to err, it must be on the side of protection rather than rejection.

That’s why Jeff Sessions, a cruel, biased, and ignorant individual, lacking human understanding, sympathy, a sense of fundamental fairness, a commitment to Due Process, and genuine knowledge of the history and purposes of asylum laws has no business whatsoever being involved in immigration adjudication, let alone “heading” what is supposed to be a fair and impartial court system dedicated to “guaranteeing fairness and Due Process for all.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren tried to tell her colleagues and the rest of America the truth about Jeff Sessions and the horrible mistake they were making in putting such a famously unqualified man in charge of our Department of Justice. But, they wouldn’t listen. Now, refugees, families, and children, among his many victims, are paying the price.

Sessions closes with a final lie: that the American people spoke in the election in favor his White Nationalist policies. Whether Sessions acknowledges it or not, Donald Trump is a minority President. Millions more voted for Hillary Clinton and other candidates than they did for Trump.

Almost every legitimate poll shows that most Americans favor a more moderate immigration policy, one that admits refugees, promotes an orderly but generous legal immigration system, takes care of Dreamers, and controls the borders in a humane fashion as opposed to the extreme xenophobic restrictionist measures pimped by Sessions, Trump, Steven Miller, and the GOP far right. In particular, the separation of children, Sessions’s unlawful “brainchild,” has been immensely (and rightfully) unpopular.

Jeff Sessions has never spoken for the majority of Americans on immigration or almost anything else. Don’t let him get away with his noxious plans to destroy our justice system! Whether you are an Immigration Judge, a Government employee, or a private citizen, we all have an obligation to stand up to his disingenuous bullying and intentionally false, xenophobic, racially-motivated, unethical, scofflaw narrative.

PWS

09-11-18

LA TIMES: SESSIONS PERSECUTES BROWN SKINNED FEMALE REFUGEES — THERE IS NOTHING “EASY” ABOUT BEING AN ABUSED WOMAN OR AN ASYLUM APPLICANT!

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=7d04de4c-1e76-4711-9b90-dac191234d79

Jazmine Ulloa reports for the LA Times:

WASHINGTON — Xiomara started dating him when she was 17. He was different then, not yet the man who pushed drugs and ran with a gang. Not the man who she says berated and raped her, who roused her out of bed some mornings only to beat her.

Not the man who choked her with an electrical cord, or put a gun to her head while she screamed, then begged, “Please, please don’t kill me — I love you.”

Fleeing El Salvador with their daughter, then 4, the 23-year-old mother pleaded for help at a port of entry in El Paso on a chilly day in December 2016.

After nearly two years, her petition for asylum remains caught in a backlog of more than 310,000 other claims. But while she has waited for a ruling, her chance of success has plunged.

Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions in June issued a decision meant to block most victims of domestic abuse and gang violence from winning asylum, saying that “private criminal acts” generally are not grounds to seek refuge in the U.S. Already, that ruling has narrowed the path for legal refuge for tens of thousands of people attempting to flee strife and poverty in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

“You can tell there is something happening,” said longtime immigration attorney Carlos A. Garcia, who in mid-July spoke to more than 70 women in one cell block at a family detention center in Texas. Most had received denials of their claims that they have what the law deems a “credible fear of persecution.”

“More than I’ve ever seen before,” he said.

In North Carolina, where federal immigration agents sparked criticism last month when they arrested two domestic-violence survivors at a courthouse, some immigration judges are refusing to hear any asylum claims based on allegations of domestic abuse. Other immigration judges are asking for more detailed evidence of abuse at the outset of a case, a problem for victims who often leave their homes with few written records.

Under the Refugee Act of 1980, judges can grant asylum, which allows a person to stay in the U.S. legally, only to people escaping persecution based on religion, race, nationality, political opinion or membership in “a particular social group.”

As drug war violence escalated over the last two decades in Mexico and Central America, fueled by a U.S. demand for drugs and waged by gangs partly grown on American streets, human rights lawyers pushed to have victims of domestic violence or gang crime considered part of such a social group when their governments don’t protect them.

After years of argument, they won a major victory in 2014 when the highest U.S. immigration court, the Board of Immigration Appeals, ruled in favor of a woman from Guatemala who fled a husband who had beaten and raped her with impunity.

Sessions, in June, used his legal authority over the immigration system to reverse that decision, deciding a case brought by a woman identified in court as A.B.

“Asylum was never meant to alleviate all problems — even all serious problems — that people face every day all over the world,” he said, ruling that in most cases asylum should be limited to those who can show they were directly persecuted by the government, not victims of “private violence.”

Immigration advocates reacted with outrage.

Karen Musalo, a co-counsel for A.B. and a professor at the UC Hastings College of Law, called the decision “a return to the dark ages of refugee law,” a move inconsistent with a steadily evolving principle “that women’s rights are human rights.”

Neither the government, nor the police, could help Xiomara in her rural town, where gangs were deeply embedded.

“Are you kidding?” she said, asking to be identified by only her first name out of concern about possible retaliation. “I would go to the police department and wouldn’t come back alive — if I came back at all.”

Within a year of when they started dating, she said, her boyfriend began drinking and doing drugs, making friends with the wrong crowd. He grew meaner, more violent.

One day he put a gun to her head, her asylum claim says. On another evening, on the roof of his home after another fight, she had been weeping in the dark, when she felt a cord tighten around her neck.

“He would have killed me if his family hadn’t appeared,” she said.

Other women offer similar stories.

Candelaria, 49, who also asked that her last name not be used, said she left an abusive husband of 20 years in Honduras after his drinking became more severe. And always the criminal bands of men roamed.

“My children sent me a photo of me in those days, and I look so old, so sad,” said Candelaria, whose asylum case has been pending for four years.

For more than two decades, United Nations officials and human rights lawyers have argued that women victimized by domestic violence in societies where police refuse to help are being persecuted because of their gender and should be treated as refugees entitled to asylum.

But Sessions and other administration officials have a different view, and they have made a broad effort to curb the path to asylum. The number of people entering the U.S. by claiming asylum has risen sharply in recent years, and administration officials have portrayed the process as a “loophole” in the nation’s immigration laws.

In October, Sessions labeled asylum an “easy ticket to illegal entry into the United States” and called on immigration judges to elevate “the threshold standard of proof in credible fear interviews.” In March, he restricted who could be entitled to full hearings. From May to June, federal officials limited asylum seekers from gaining access through ports of entry, with people waiting for weeks at some of the busiest crossings in Southern California.

The government does not keep precise data on how many domestic-violence survivors claim asylum, but figures released last month give a glimpse of the effect that Sessions’ decision has begun to have at one of the earliest stages of the asylum process.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday filed a lawsuit on behalf of 12 parents and children it says were wrongly found not to have a credible fear of return. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan on Thursday stopped the deportation of a mother and her daughter in the case, threatening to hold Sessions in contempt.

For domestic-abuse survivors waiting for hearings, the uncertainty has been excruciating.

Candelaria wants to go home, but her older children back in Honduras tell her to have hope.

“ ‘You’ve endured enough,’ they tell me,” she said.

Xiomara, now 25, won’t have her asylum hearing for another year.

For months, she scraped by on meager wages, baby-sitting and waiting on tables. She was relieved to find a job at a factory that pays $10 an hour.

The American dream is “one big lie,” she now says.

But at least here, she said, she and her daughter are alive.

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

People like Xiomara are wonderful folks, genuine refugees, deserving of protection, who will contribute to our country. As my friend and legal scholar Professor Karen Musalo cogently said, Sessions is leading “a return to the dark ages of refugee law,” a move inconsistent with a steadily evolving principle “that women’s rights are human rights.” But, the “New Due Process Army” (Karen is one of the “Commanding Generals”) isn’t going to let him get away with this outrageous attack on human rights, women’s rights, and human decency.

Due Process Forever, Jeff Sessions Never!

PWS

08-13-18

1ST CIR. EXPOSES BIA’S FLAWED ANALYSIS, HOSTILITY TO ASYLUM SEEKERS — BIA COMMITTED “MULTIPLE ERRORS” IN REVERSING ASYLUM GRANT – ROSALES JUSTO V. SESSIONS – Sessions’s Bias, Push to Truncate Already Flawed EOIR Process & Deny Asylum En Masse Could Lead To Absolute Disaster In Circuit Courts & Breakdown Of Entire System!

1stCirUnable17-1457P-01A

Rosales Justo v. Sessions, 1st Cir., 07-16-18, published

PANEL: Torruella, Lipez, and Kayatt Circuit Judges

OPINION BY: Judge Lipez

KEY QUOTE:

In sum, the BIA’s justifications for its holding that it was clearly erroneous for the IJ to find that the Mexican government is unable to protect Rosales reflect multiple errors. The BIA failed to consider evidence of the Mexican government’s inability to protect Rosales and his nuclear family, as distinct from evidence of the willingness of the police to investigate the murder of Rosales’s son. That error in conflating unwillingness

– 28 –

and inability was compounded when the BIA discounted country condition reports which, when combined with Rosales’s testimony about the particular circumstances of his case, were sufficient to support the IJ’s finding that the police in Guerrero would be unable to protect Rosales from persecution by organized crime.

The BIA committed further error by concluding that the IJ’s finding that Rosales did not report threats by organized crime to the police refuted the IJ’s ultimate finding of inability. The BIA both ignored our precedent stating that a failure to report a crime does not undermine an assertion of inability if a report would have been futile, and failed to consider evidence in the record that would support a finding of futility, thereby misapplying the clear error standard. Moreover, in another misapplication of the clear error standard, the BIA incorrectly concluded that the IJ’s inability finding was clearly erroneous because the Mexican government’s failure to protect Rosales was indistinguishable from the struggles of any government to combat crime, when the record before the IJ supported a finding that it was distinguishable.

Because of these errors, we grant Rosales’s petition and remand to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. See I.N.S. v. Ventura, 537 U.S. 12, 16-17 (2002) (per curiam) (holding that remand to the BIA is generally the appropriate remedy when the BIA commits a legal error).

So ordered.

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

Nice to see a Circuit Court, particularly a fairly conservative one like the First Circuit, take strong stand against the nonsense and mockery of Due Process and justice going on at EOIR under Sessions;
Expect more of these in the future as the “Just Find A Way To Deny & Deport” initiative by the xenophobic, scofflaw AG goes into high gear at EOIR;
Quite contrary to everything Sessions has been saying, which completely ignores the lessons of the Supreme Court’s decision in INS v. Cardoza Fonseca, asylum law is supposed to be interpreted and applied generously in favor of those seeking life saving protection;
This case illustrates the importance of dissent at the BIA, as the First Circuit basically adopted the correct interpretation of the law and facts set forth by a dissenting (female) BIA Appellate Immigration Judge;
This also shows the importance of full three-judge review by the BIA on asylum cases, rather than single judge panels or summary denials;
The number of fundamental errors committed by the BIA panel majority in reversing this asylum grant and the persistence of the DOJ in advancing untenable legal positions before the Court of Appeals is simply appalling, even if consistent with Session’s own lack of scholarship and total disrespect for fundamental fairness to respondents in Immigration Court;
This case also highlights a chronic problem in EOIR asylum adjudication: conflating “willingness to protect” with “ability to protect.” Too many Immigration Judges and BIA Appellate Judges seize on ineffective efforts by local police, cosmetic improvements by governments, and failure to seek (largely useless and perhaps actually harmful) police assistance to find that there has been “no failure of state protection;”
That’s exactly what Sessions himself did in his fundamentally flawed opinion in Matter of A-B-. He encouraged judges to conflate ineffective efforts to protect with actual ability to protect. And, his comparison of how domestic violence is policed and prosecuted in the United States with El Salvador’s pathetic efforts in behalf of domestic violence victims was simply preposterous;
This decision also addresses another chronic problem at EOIR: judges “cherry picking” the record and particularly Department of State Country Reports for the information supporting a denial, even though the record taken as a whole lends support to the respondent’s claim;
Once again, how would any unrepresented applicant make the kind of potentially winning asylum case presented by this respondent with the assistance of counsel? When are Courts of Appeals finally going to state the obvious: proceeding to adjudicate an asylum claim by an unrepresented respondent is a per se denial of Due Process!
This case should be taken as a message that Immigration Judges and BIA panels following the misguided Sessions’ dicta on “unwilling or unable to protect,” rather than applying the correct standards set forth by most Circuits are going to be getting lots of “do overs” from the Circuit Courts;
How could anybody justify “speeding up” a system with this many fundamental (and life-threatening) flaws to begin with? Under Sessions, EOIR is on track to becomes veritable “reversible error factory” — as well as a “Death Railroad!”

PWS

07-20-18

MORE ON USCIS “DEATH SQUADS” FROM TAL@ CNN!

Trump administration to turn away far more asylum seekers at the border under new guidance

By Tal Kopan, CNN

The Trump administration is implementing a new asylum policy at the border that will result in potentially thousands of asylum seekers being turned away before they can plead their case in court.

The guidance, reviewed by CNN, also applies to refugee applicants — immigrants seeking similar protections in the US who are still abroad.

Under new guidance given Wednesday to the officers who interview asylum seekers at the US’ borders and evaluate refugee applications, claims based on fear of gang and domestic violence will be immediately rejected. In addition, the guidance tells officers they should consider whether an immigrant crossed the border illegally and weigh that against their claim, potentially rejecting even legitimate fears of persecution if the immigrant crossed illegally.

The move is likely to draw swift condemnation from immigration advocates and legal challenges. Advocates say international law is clear that asylum claims are valid even when a migrant enters a country illegally. They also argue that rejecting these traumatized immigrants puts their lives at risk immediately upon their return home.

The changes being implemented by the Department of Homeland Security come on the heels of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision last month that gang and domestic violence victims no longer qualify for asylum. Asylum protects migrants already in the US who fear persecution in their home country.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/07/11/politics/border-immigrants-asylum-restrictions/index.html

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Ah, the transition to the “Banana Republic of America!”

PWS

07-12-18

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Join the New Due Process Army today and fight to restore the rule of law, human decency, Due Process, and a “guarantee of fairness and Due Process for all” to our broken, captive, and often lawless U.S. Immigration Courts!

PWS

01-25-19

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