“Safe Third Country” – Page 13 – immigrationcourtside.com

PROFILE IN COURAGE: DHS ASYLUM OFFICERS ASK COURT TO HALT TRUMP’S WHITE NATIONALIST, SCOFFLAW, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES — As Civil Servants Speak Out Against Anti-American Administration, Why Are Some Life Tenured Article III Judges & Immigration Judges Failing In Their Constitutional Duties & As Human Beings?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/u-s-asylum-officers-say-trumps-remain-in-mexico-policy-is-threatening-migrants-lives-ask-federal-court-to-end-it/2019/06/26/863e9e9e-9852-11e9-8d0a-5edd7e2025b1_story.html

Maria Sacchetti reports for WashPost:

U.S. asylum officers slammed President Trump’s policy of forcing migrants to remain in Mexico while they await immigration hearings in the United States, urging a federal appeals court Wednesday to block the administration from continuing the program. The officers, who are directed to implement the policy, said it is threatening migrants’ lives and is “fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation.”

The labor union representing asylum officers filed a friend-of-the-court brief that sided with the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups challenging Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols program, which has sent 12,000 asylum-seeking migrants to Mexico since January. The policy aims to deter migrants from coming to the United States and to keep them out of the country while courts weigh their claims.

[Read the U.S. asylum officers’ federal court filing]

The union argued that the policy goes against the nation’s long-standing view that asylum seekers and refugees should have a way to escape persecution in their homelands, with the United States embracing its status as a safe haven since even before it was founded — with the arrival of the Pilgrims in the 17th century. The union said in court papers that the policy is compelling sworn officers to participate in the “widespread violation” of international and federal law — “something that they did not sign up to do when they decided to become asylum and refugee officers for the United States government.”

“Asylum officers are duty bound to protect vulnerable asylum seekers from persecution,” the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1924, which represents 2,500 federal workers, including asylum officers, said in a 37-page court filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in California. “They should not be forced to honor departmental directives that are fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation and our international and domestic legal obligations.”

The legal filing is an unusual public rebuke of a sitting president by his own employees, and it plunges a highly trained officer corps that typically operates under secrecy into a public legal battle over one of Trump’s most prized immigration policies.

Under Trump, the asylum division has become a target of internal ire, often assailed for approving most initial asylum screenings and sending migrants to immigration court for a full hearing. Trump administration officials say most cases are denied. Last week, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, outraged some asylum officers by sending the staff an email they thought criticized them for approving so many initial screenings.

Trump placed Cuccinelli, an immigration hard-liner and former Virginia attorney general, in the position ostensibly as part of his move to get tough on immigration policy, and the union’s legal filing appears to be directly at odds with that approach.

The policy has been challenged in federal court, with a lower-court judge temporarily halting MPP in April, saying it probably violates federal law. A three-judge appellate panel allowed the program to resume in May while the court considers the policy.

Justice Department lawyers have said in court filings that migrants are filing thousands of sham claims because they virtually guarantee their release into the United States pending a hearing in the backlogged immigration courts. The U.S. government cannot process the migrants’ cases quickly or detain children for long periods, which means some migrants can stay in the country for months or years while waiting for their cases to play out.

[In test of a deterrent, Juarez scrambles before U.S. dumps thousands of migrants]

Three migrants wait near the border shortly after being returned to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on June 13. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

Ending the program, the government lawyers have said, “would impose immediate, substantial harm on the government’s ability to manage the crisis on our southern border.”

The Justice Department declined to comment on the filing Wednesday. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the program, did not respond to a request for comment.

The influx of Central American migrants at the southern border has overwhelmed the U.S. immigration system. It also has led to a political fight between congressional Democrats and the White House regarding crowded and unsanitary conditions in border holding facilities amid Trump’s push for heightened enforcement. More than 144,000 migrants were taken into custody in May after crossing the southern border, the largest monthly total in more than a decade, and asylum filings have soared.

Trump administration officials this week have been pleading with Congress to approve emergency funding for the humanitarian crisis at the border. The Senate on Wednesday responded, passing a $4.6 billion emergency spending measure amid debates about treatment of migrants and the risks they face as they try to enter the United States, with a graphic photo of a migrant and his young daughter having drowned in the Rio Grande as the backdrop.

In the federal court filing, the asylum officers say they are enforcing the laws as Congress intended, based on approaches and international treaties shaped after World War II and atrocities connected with the Holocaust. Federal laws hinge on the principle of “non-refoulement” — which means people should not be sent back to countries where they could be harmed or killed. To qualify for asylum, migrants must show that they face harm based on their “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”

The asylum officers say Mexico is too dangerous for Central American asylum seekers, particularly women, people who are gay, lesbian or transgender, and indigenous minority groups. They cited State Department reports showing that gang violence and activity is widespread and that crimes are rarely solved.

“Mexico is simply not safe for Central American asylum seekers,” the filing said, noting that gangs that terrorized migrants in their home countries might easily follow them into Mexico. “And despite professing a commitment to protecting the rights of people seeking asylum, the Mexican government has proven unable to provide this protection.”

Asylum officers say the U.S. asylum system is “not, as the Administration has claimed, fundamentally broken,” and that they could handle more cases quickly without sending people back to Mexico.

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MPP is “entirely unnecessary, as our immigration system has the foundation and agility necessary to deal with the flow of migrants through our Southern Border,” the officers wrote.

The officers said they fear that MPP is sending asylum seekers back to a country where they are in danger, a violation of federal and international law. The said immigration agents do not ask migrants if they fear persecution or torture in Mexico, and that they only send migrants to asylum officers for screenings if the migrants independently express fear of return.

[Why migrant families are seeking asylum at the border in record numbers]

The latter are granted an initial asylum screening, often by phone or video. But they must prove that they are “more likely than not” going to face persecution in Mexico, a higher bar than in the immigration courts, where migrants are offered safeguards such as access to lawyers, a reading of their rights, and the right to appeal.

“The MPP, however, provides none of these safeguards,” the officers said.

Officials are attempting to extend the program along the nearly 2,000-mile border and are giving Mexico time to expand its shelter capacity, a top official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection has said.

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So why do Asylum Officers have the courage and integrity to stand up to what is essentially fraud, abuse, and murder of asylum seekers by the Trump Administration when Article III Judges won’t? U.S. Immigration Judges have so spoken out against
Administration abuses through the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”), although a minority of Immigration Judges have contributed to the problem by engaging in unlawful and unconstitutional bias against asylum seekers.

Obviously, we have the wrong type of individuals holding judicial positions in the U.S., something that the next competent and honest Administration should consider before appointing more complicit “go alongs to get alongs” to any type of bench.

It started with the Supreme’s atrocious and cowardly cop out on the Travel Ban case and has continued. Courage and the willingness to stand up against Government abuses are the primary qualifications for judges.

Other than some U.S. District Court Judges, too few Article IIIs have measured up to the task, and innocent people are being harmed, abused, and killed by Trump and his enablers as a result. The Courts of Appeals who have ignored the glaring Constitutional defects and clearly substandard justice in the Immigration Court system for more than a decade are particularly complicit in this unfolding disaster.

Moreover, as I have pointed out before, the lack of understanding of asylum law and unwillingness to stand up for the legal rights of asylum seekers among some Immigration Judges and too many Article III Judges is simply appalling!

To date, the performance of the Article III Judges on the 9th Circuit on the “Remain in Mexico”/“Die in Mexico” atrocity has been so disastrously deficient and incompetent as to make the wheels come off of the entire Government. This is a “rebellion” that should never have been necessary had the irresponsible, incoherent, and clueless three-“judge” panel that let “Die in Mexico” proceed done their jobs.

Hurrah for the Asylum Corps! Boo to the cowardly and unqualified judges who continue to enable Trump’s destruction of America and of human rights! And “double boo” to the career lawyers at the DOJ defending the Administration’s dishonest and illegal policies with lies and false narratives! Whatever happened to ethical standards for Federal Employees? Why do they apply to Asylum Officers, but not to DOJ “judges” and attorneys?

PWS

06-27-19

NYT: TRUMP IS A CHILD ABUSER — Here’s How to Stop Him: Speak, Educate, Donate, Vote!

The NY Times Editorial Board writes:

From his promise of a “beautiful wall” to his false alarms about caravans of alien marauders at the gate, President Trump has exploited immigration as his marquee issue. He is right, there is a crisis: Not of undocumented immigrants or thousands seeking refuge, as the president would have it, but a crisis of American values, a crisis of America’s premier tradition as a welcoming and humane haven. A crisis Mr. Trump has created, even as Congress has fueled it.

That is not to deny that comprehensive immigration reform is urgently needed, as is funding for the overstretched facilities where undocumented immigrants, and most horribly the children of undocumented immigrants, are held.

But, by his divisive, incoherent and barbaric policies, Mr. Trump has only made agreeing on an approach to immigration in the United States far more difficult. He has done so by systematically creating a false narrative of immigrants as job-stealing criminals, by insisting that there is a crisis of illegal immigration where there is none and, most maliciously, by dreaming up schemes to torment these people in the perverse notion that this would deter others from trying to reach the United States.

The most appalling of these has been the separation of children from their parents and detaining them in conditions no child anywhere should suffer, and certainly not children in the care of the American government. At a recent hearing before a federal appeals court in San Francisco, judges were stunned by the administration’s arguments that children sleeping on concrete floors in frigid, overcrowded cells, without soap or toothbrushes, were being kept in “safe and sanitary” facilities, as required by law. “You’re really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn’t a question of safe and sanitary conditions?” asked one judge.

Mr. Trump’s latest display of cruel bluster was the announcement, and then the delay, of nationwide raids to deport undocumented families. In fact, deporting immigrants who have exhausted their legal claims is not uncommon — President Obama, remember, was often referred to by immigration groups as “deporter in chief” — and the targets of these raids are not random. But Mr. Trump sought to use the operation to strut before his base and extract concessions from Democrats, and spread panic through immigrant communities. His announcement delayed action by Congress and made the operation that much more difficult by warning those targeted for deportation. Then he tweeted that he was delaying the raids for two weeks.

The United States urgently needs an immigration policy that combines border security, justice and humanity. President Trump has promoted policies that undermine all these goals, and Congress has failed to agree on a coherent vision. You can help turn that around. Here’s how:

. . . .

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Read the complete editorial for the “game plan.”

Amen!

Of course, we should never forget that the “Original National Child Abuser” is Jeff Sessions who developed the original “Family Separation” program for which he has escaped accountability to date.

PWS

06-24-19

FOUR TODDLERS RESCUED BY PRO BONO LAWYERS FROM DEADLY SITUATION IN CBP CUSTODY — Putrid, Unsanitary, Repressive Conditions Causing Lifetime Harm To Other Traumatized Kids — But, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost Wants You To Know That She’s Not Taking Responsibility For The Humanitarian Disaster Intentionally Engineered On Her Watch!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/four-severely-ill-migrant-babies-hospitalized-after-lawyers-visited-border-patrol-facility_n_5d0d3bbce4b07ae90d9cfe4f

Angelina Chapin reports for HuffPost:

Four toddlers were so severely ill and neglected at a U.S. Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas, that lawyers forced the government to hospitalize them last week.

The children, all under age 3 with teenage mothers or guardians, were feverish, coughing, vomiting and had diarrhea, immigration attorneys told HuffPost on Friday. Some of the toddlers and infants were refusing to eat or drink. One 2-year-old’s eyes were rolled back in her head, and she was “completely unresponsive” and limp, according to Toby Gialluca, a Florida-based attorney.

She described seeing terror in the children’s eyes.

“It’s just a cold, fearful look that you should never see in a child of that age,” Gialluca said. “You look at them and you think, ‘What have you seen?’”

Another mother at the same facility had a premature baby, who was “listless” and wrapped in a dirty towel, as HuffPost previously reported.

The lawyers feared that if they had not shown up at the facility, the sick kids would have received zero medical attention and potentially died. The Trump administration has come under fire for its treatment ― and its alleged neglect ― of migrants who have been crossing the southern border in record numbers. The result is overcrowded facilities, slow medical care and in some instances, deaths.

Immigration authorities say they’re overwhelmed; activists say they’re not trying hard enough.

“It’s intentional disregard for the well-being of children,” Gialluca said. “The guards continue to dehumanize these people and treat them worse than we would treat animals.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

The Associated Press reported this week that children in border facilities don’t have adequate access to food, water, soap or showers. On Tuesday, a Justice Department attorney argued in court that the government should not have to provide detained children with soap, toothbrushes or beds.

The AP report is based on interviews a group of lawyers conducted with hundreds of children in three Texas-based Border Patrol stations last week as part of the Flores settlement ― an agreement that outlines conditions for detained children. The lawyers say children are also being held in these facilities for longer than the 72-hour limit the settlement specifies, and in some cases up to three weeks.

Lawyers are particularly concerned about the spread of illness inside Border Patrol facilities, which can sometimes turn fatal. Five children have died in Border Patrol custody since December, some of whom were initially diagnosed with a common cold or the flu. The processing center in McAllen, known as Ursula, recently quarantined three dozen migrants who were sick after a 16-year-old died of the flu at the same facility.

Children and their parents told lawyers that in some cases they didn’t have any access to medical treatment in Border Patrol facilities despite being visibly ill. Gialluca spoke with one 16-year-old mother whose toddler had the flu, but was told by a guard the child “wasn’t sick enough to see a doctor.” She said others also reported being denied medical attention despite having critically sick babies.

Medical experts say that because children have less developed immune and respiratory systems, their symptoms can escalate quickly if they aren’t properly treated.

Dr. Julie Linton, the co-chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics, previously told HuffPost that children can’t recover from illnesses in Border Patrol facilities. These centers are described as “hieleras” ― Spanish for iceboxes ― because of their freezing temperatures, and migrants describe sleeping on floors under bright lights that shine 24/7, with nothing but Mylar blankets to keep warm.

Gialluca met one 16-year-old mother whose 8-month-old baby was sick with the flu and forced to sleep outside for four days at the McAllen Border Patrol station. The mother said the guards took the clothing off the baby’s back, leaving her in a diaper, and forced them to sleep on concrete without a blanket.

A sick 2-year-old girl was shivering in a T-shirt and had shallow breathing, according to Mike Fassio, a Seattle-based immigration attorney who visited Ursula.

“I was very, very concerned,” he said, adding lawyers spoke with immigrants in a room outside of the facility. “When she left us, I knew she was going back to a place that was cold, crowded and unsanitary.” Fassio noted that guards referred to the children as “bodies.”

Some children were so exhausted they fell asleep during the interviews, said Clara Long, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch who spoke with kids at a facility in Clint, Texas. Long met a 3-year-old boy who was dirty with matted hair and was being taken care of by his 11-year-old brother. She said that more than 10 sick children were being quarantined in cells.

While the group of roughly eight lawyers and interpreters at Ursula were supposed to be interviewing children about conditions in the facilities, they also ended up asking guards and government officials to bring kids to the hospital because they were so worried about their state. Gialluca added that she and her colleagues interviewed only a small portion of migrants in the facility, which is the largest processing center in the U.S. and can hold up to 1,000 people. She believes the number of migrants in need of hospitalization is likely much higher.

Government officials have blamed horrific conditions at detention facilities on the fact that Congress has not yet passed an emergency funding package that would include almost $3 billion to help care for unaccompanied migrant children. But Gialluca says border officials shouldn’t need more resources to treat immigrants like human beings.

“Money isn’t keeping guards from allowing people to access toilets,” she said. “Money isn’t causing guards to take clothing and medicine away from children.”

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

Here’s Another report from Nicole Goodkind at Newsweek on the “malicious incompetence” and intentional misallocation of resources by Trump and his DHS sycophants that is willfully endangering kids’ lives as part of a cheap White Nationalist political stunt:

8-YEAR-OLD MIGRANTS BEING FORCED TO CARE FOR TODDLERS IN DETENTION CAMPS

A team of lawyers conducted 60 interviews with migrant children being held in an El Paso, Texas, detention camp and found conditions to be dismal.

Fifteen of those in the holding center had the flu and 10 more are quarantined with illness, according to the lawyers, who first gave the data to the Associated Press. Three infants are being detained alongside their teenage mothers, and many children are under the age of 12.

“A Border Patrol agent came in our room with a 2-year-old boy and asked us, ‘Who wants to take care of this little boy?’ Another girl said she would take care of him, but she lost interest after a few hours and so I started taking care of him yesterday,” one teenaged girl told the lawyers in an interview. The boy was not wearing a diaper and his shirt was covered in mucus, she said.

Law professor Warren Binford, who aided in the interviews, said she witnessed an 8-year-old girl caring for a 4-year-old child who was very dirty, the girl was unable to get the boy to take a shower. She also described the children she interviewed as sleep-deprived, often falling asleep while speaking with her.

“In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention, I have never heard of this level of inhumanity,” said Holly Cooper, co-director of the University of California, Davis’ Immigration Law Clinic, to the AP.

The lawyers were inspecting the facility as part of the Flores agreement, which resulted from a landmark 1985 case that established that facilities where minor migrants are held must be kept “safe and sanitary.”

A representative of the Trump administration, the Justice Department’s Sarah Fabian, argued Tuesday that safe and sanitary conditions don’t necessarily have to include toothbrushes, soap or towels for children.

Nicole Goodkind is a political reporter at Newsweek. You can reach her on Twitter @NicoleGoodkind or by email, N.Goodkind@newsweek.com.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PLANS MAJOR ICE RAIDS FOR SUNDAY

U.S. immigration authorities plan to raid Miami, Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles and other cities. They intend to arrest up to 2,000 families, three U.S. officials with knowledge of the plans told The Washington Post. The orders reportedly come directly from President Donald Trump.

On Monday, the president tweeted: “Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in.”

Officials told The Washington Post that the Department of Homeland Security agency plans to hold families in hotel rooms until they are deported. Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan is allegedly targeting families that have completely dropped out of the court process, but has warned that the operation could lead to further cases of families being separated.

Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore confirmed the raids on Friday, saying that about 140 families in southern California will be targeted in pre-dawn raids early next week. The chief also made clear that the raids are done on a federal level and that the police department will not be involved.

On Thursday, Carla Provost, chief of the United States Border Patrol argued that the Department of Homeland Security was not receiving enough money to properly care for migrants on the southern border, and that was leading to terrible conditions in detention centers. On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee agreed to $4.6 billion in emergency funds for what the Trump administration has referred to as a “border crisis.”

Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro questioned how the agency could afford mass raids while asking for more money Friday. “The Trump Administration says it needs more money (supplemental bill) for the situation at the border yet they may be starting massive immigration raids next week. So how do you have the money for that if you’re running out of money ICE?” he tweeted.

“These potential raids are a disgusting political ploy to stoke fear and rile up Trump’s base for 2020,” wrote Sandra Cordero, Director of Families Belong Together, an immigration advocacy group, in a statement. “Past raids have left children alone and afraid in empty homes, praying they won’t be left to care for younger siblings by themselves, with no idea if they’ll see their parents again. This is yet another flagrant disregard for the welfare of children on behalf of a cruel administration bent on fomenting fear and creating chaos.”

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Come on, Carla, cut the BS and butt covering. The “mix” of arrivals at the Southern Border began to shift to refugee families from the Northern Triangle back in the summer of 2014. So, CBP and DHS have had five years to prepare for this “change” which is actually “old news.”

More “old news” is the increased flow of asylum seekers with kids which began back before Thanksgiving. Plenty of time for CBP and DHS to bring back retired asylum officers and adjudicators and reassign other adjudicative personnel to the border to insure prompt, orderly, safe, and efficient processing of asylum applicants at ports of entry, thus eliminating the incentive (or necessity) for folks to turn themselves in after crossing the border between ports.

Also, plenty of time to work with NGOs, pro bono groups, states, and communities to insure representation and proper placement of family groups in various locations throughout the country without panic or “dumping.”

Another bogus claim spread by Trump, Provost, and the rest of the sycophants: that the prevalence of kids among new asylum arrivals is somehow totally a response to the Flores settlement (which actually has been in effect for decades).

Undoubtedly, with the Trump Administration’s active assistance, unscrupulous smugglers and coyotes are encouraging some folks to bring children as the only way to have a shot at fair processing under the tilted U.S. asylum system promoted by Trump. Indeed, as I have observed before, the Trump Administrations has consistently been a “best friend” to gangs, smugglers, traffickers, cartels, and druggies seeking to “jack up” profits by further exploiting the human misery caused by the Trump Administration’s “maliciously incompetent “ approach to immigration, effective law enforcement, and humanity generally. https://apple.news/AFQw_eqcHSZCYxUznmP0wpQ

Undoubtedly, some of these unscrupulous individuals are telling families to travel with kids. But, the truth is that according to the UNHCR, over one-half of today’s refugees are children. https://www.unhcr.org/children-49c3646c1e8.html.

So, the prevalence of children among new arrivals should properly been seen as part of a sad worldwide trend that Trump and his cronies disgustingly have done everything possible to encourage, exploit, and aggravate. It most certainly is not primarily caused by the Flores settlement or by giving soap, toothbrushes, blankets, or medical care to children being abused in the “DHS Gulag” administered in part by disingenuous folks like Provost.

Any honest observer of what’s going on knows that the majority of the asylum applications that passed credible fear probably could have been granted (or given protection under the Convention Against Torture — “CAT”) by the Asylum Office without even going to Immigration Court under the proper generous interpretation of our asylum laws, an honest interpretation of CAT that reflects the true conditions in the Northern Triangle, and a very “doable” change in procedures.

Only dishonest fools in the Trump Administration (and a few from the Obama Administration) would maintain that gender isn’t a social group subject to widespread persecution in the Northern Triangle, deny that gangs have assumed the role of quasi-governmental entities thus making most of the harm they inflict on resisters “political persecution,” and make the beyond ludicrous claim that the corrupt failed states of the Northern Triangle have either the ability or much real interest in protecting those subject to persecution.

And, Carla, why aren’t you out there today registering a public protest of the waste of time and funds in ICE going after families with ridiculously inappropriate “raids” when every resource could and should be focused instead on providing humanitarian assistance to asylum seekers arriving at the Southern Border?

This racist-inspired “Sunday Morning Reign of Terror” directed at U.S. ethnic communities is specifically designed to return helpless families to the very dangerous countries from which they originally fled! Thus, Trump and his phony DHS are intentionally feeding “fresh meat” to gangs and cartels and insuring that the cycle of northward migration, no matter how dangerous, will continue until everyone who needs to leave its either gone or dead (the latter apparently the “solution” favored by Provost, Trump, Morgan, McAleenan, Miller, and others).

Provost, McAleenan, Morgan, and their co-conspirators are all participants in a cynical scheme to intentionally “crash” the asylum system, rather than competently administering it. They are intentionally endangering the lives of children and other vulnerable asylum seekers, many entitled to legal protections, to promote, along with GOP restrictionists, totally bogus, dishonest, and completely unnecessary and unwarranted restrictions of the precious, life-saving right of refugees to seek asylum in the U.S.

It’s an unbelievably dishonest and cowardly scheme, and a complete breach of both oaths of office and public trust. It might be that those who long ago abandoned American values will lap up this insult to human values and human dignity.

But, there are plenty of us out here who know and understand exactly what you are doing. We will not only resist it, but will be historical witnesses to your cruel, inhuman, and unlawful schemes and gimmicks to “abuse and kill the innocent.” And, we’ll be keeping count.

PWS

06-22-19

DON’S KILLER DEAL: Salvadoran Teenage Girl First Casualty Of Trump’s “Make ‘Em Die In Mexico” Deal — As Investigation Continues, One Thing Is Clear: This Is Just The First Of Many Deaths & Human Tragedies That Will Result From Trump’s “Malicious Incompetence” & Unwillingness To Comply With Asylum Laws!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/world/americas/mexico-migrant-death.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

By Kirk Semple and Paulina Villegas

June 21, 2019

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican authorities are investigating the death of a teenage migrant from El Salvador who was shot and killed after the truck she was in ran a government checkpoint.

Witnesses have told investigators in the state of Veracruz, where the shooting happened last Friday, that a truck carrying the 19-year-old woman and other migrants bound for the United States border passed through a government checkpoint and that people wearing police uniforms gave chase in a police car and shot at the truck, said Jorge Winckler Ortiz, the attorney general of Veracruz.

Two other migrants in the truck were wounded in the shooting, officials said.

The incident occurred amid a Mexican government deployment of security forces to assert greater control of migration toward the United States, part of a dealthat President Andrés Manuel López Obrador struck with President Trump earlier this month to fend off a threat of tariffs.

The possibility that the Mexican police may have killed the teenager has reaffirmed the fears of migrants’ advocates and human rights experts, who worry that the security forces, being rushed into migration control, are ill-prepared for the task.

“To give a green light to any police force to detain or chase migrants opens up many more dangers and increases the risks migrants face, like grave human rights violations, horrible accidents or crimes like this,” said Ruben Figueroa, an activist with the migrant rights’ group Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano, in an interview Friday.

Mexico’s security secretary, Alfonso Durazo, has also confirmed that his ministry was investigating the shooting.

In a news conference this week, Mr. Winckler said that according to testimony from witnesses, 17 migrants from El Salvador were traveling in a four-door pickup truck through the state of Veracruz when they encountered the checkpoint.

The driver slowed down as he passed through the checkpoint, but hearing sirens, he sped away. A high-speed chase ensued, lasting 20 minutes, Mr. Winckler said, according to the preliminary investigation based on interviews with witnesses.

After shots were fired from the police vehicle, the truck pulled to a stop and three men “dressed as police” stepped out of the police vehicle, Mr. Winckler recounted.

His language allowed for the possibility that the assailants were not legitimate police officers. In Mexico, criminals have been known to disguise themselves in the uniforms of the nation’s security forces to conduct crimes, though corruption also permeates Mexico’s police forces, and some police personnel have developed close ties with organized crime.

As the three men beat up the driver of the truck, the other migrants ran away, Mr. Winckler said. The men in police uniforms hauled the driver away, leaving behind the dead migrant and her two wounded companions, one of whom had been shot in a hand and the other in his leg, Mr. Winckler said, citing witness testimony.

One of the wounded migrants told The Washington Post that the occupants of the patrol car had first shot at the migrants’ vehicle from behind, before pulling ahead and shooting through the windshield. The wounded migrant, who was recovering in a hospital in Veracruz, said he saw all three men wielding weapons.

The deployment of security forces by the Mexican government, after the deal announced on June 7 with the Trump administration, was supposed to be concentrated in Mexico’s southern states. Officials initially promised to send 6,000 members of the newly formed National Guard to the southern border region to help migration officials intercept undocumented migrants entering from Guatemala.

But the mobilization has been halting at best. In recent days, officials said that only a portion of those 6,000 would be members of the National Guard, with the rest drawn from other security forces, and that only about 40 percent of them would be sent to the southern region.

Still, the deal has already resulted in more government checkpoints along major roadways leading from the border with Guatemala into the interior of the country, and more aggressive patrols.

Human rights experts, migrants’ advocates and security analysts have warned about possible hazards, such as human rights violations, that could be caused by the quick deployment of the security forces, which may not have received proper training in migration enforcement.

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Trump likely figures that the dead bodies he is responsible for will stay in Mexico (or Guatemala) and thus below the radar screen. So, it’s important for reporters to keep focusing on the body count so that he can be held accountable for the deaths and tragedies he is causing with his incompetent, racist, anti-refugee policies.

“ABSURD, FARCE” — Chase, Musalo, Other Asylum Experts Lambaste Trump’s Scheme To Designate One Of World’s Most Dangerous Counties, Without A Functioning Asylum System, As “Safe” For Asylum Seekers!

https://www.law360.com/articles/1170313/guatemala-is-not-as-safe-for-asylum-seekers-as-trump-says

Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog

Professor Karen Musalo
Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Hastings Law

Nicole Narea reports for Law360:

. . . .

Trump tweeted Monday night that Guatemala is “getting ready to sign” a socalled safe third country agreement with the U.S., and he lauded Mexico for “using their strong immigration laws” to stop migrants well before they reach the southern U.S. border. Mexico said Friday it would also weigh a safe third country agreement with the U.S. if its efforts to ramp up immigration enforcement as part of a trade deal do not succeed within 45 days.

The announcements came as the Trump administration moved to reduce its obligations to asylum seekers by expanding its “Remain in Mexico” policy, officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, by which migrants are sent back to Mexico while they await hearings in U.S. immigration court.

As for Guatemala, experts have protested that Mexico’s southern neighbor cannot offer asylum seekers the kind of security intended by a safe third country agreement.

But the Trump administration is not proposing such an agreement with Guatemala because it believes the country to be safe, said Jeffrey Chase, a former immigration judge and ex senior legal adviser to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Rather, the White House believes the accord will stop asylum seekers from countries farther south from entering the U.S., Chase said.

Migrants from El Salvador and Honduras have to travel through Guatemala en route to the U.S., and if Guatemala were subject to such an agreement, the Trump administration would have an “excuse to turn away those fleeing violence in those countries,” he said.

Karen Musalo, the founding director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at University of California, Hastings College of the Law, said that to call Guatemala safe is absurd.

“I don’t think that anyone familiar with the human rights situation in Guatemala — with its extremely high levels of homicides, femicides, gender violence, gang and organized crime violence, corruptions, etc. — could say with a straight face that asylum seekers would be safe there,” she said.

. . . .

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Those with access to Law360 can read Nicole’s complete article at the above link.

It isn’t just that Trump (supported by some equally dishonest and nasty GOP legislators and flunkies like Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Ken “Cooch Cooch” Cuccinelli, and Kevin McAleenan) is blatantly lying about asylum seekers and Guatemala being “safe.” What he essentially proposes is the U.S.-sanctioned murder of innocent asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle.

Why is this outrage against the law and humanity “below the radar screen?” Seems like it’s actually the most clear “impeachable offense” that Trump has committed to date. And, it’s right out in plain view for all to see, with irrefutable proof that Guatemala is NOT a safe country for anyone, let alone asylum seekers. That’s exactly why folks are fleeing Guatemala for their lives every day.

PWS

06-21-19

JUSTICE BY OMAR THE TENTMAKER: Already A Circus, Trump & Barr Plan To Turn What’s Left Of America’s Immigration Courts Into A Traveling Tent Show!

https://apple.news/AAfRRMBVoRdSDB3MNFh7__w

Priscilla Alvarez & Geneva Sands reort for CNN:

Trump admin considers temporary courts along the southern border

5:44 PM EDT June 17, 2019
Washington

The Trump administration is considering building temporary courts along the southern border as part of an effort to expand its policy of returning some asylum seekers to Mexico for the duration of their immigration proceedings, according to two administration officials.

The US recently struck an agreement with Mexico that included expanding the policy, which, the administration argues, serves as a deterrent since it keeps migrants waiting in Mexico, instead of within the US.

Site assessments have been completed for almost all the ports of entry to determine where such temporary immigration courts, described by sources as “soft-sided,” would be needed, according to an administration official.

The facilities could be used to conduct hearings via video teleconference, which has previously been used by immigration courts elsewhere in the country, the official said.

The deal to expand the “Remain in Mexico” program across the border earlier this month came amid threats to impose tariffs on Mexico if it didn’t bolster enforcement.

Mexico, the joint declaration said, would authorize the entrance of asylum seekers, and offer jobs, health care and education to those individuals. In return, the US must expedite the asylum adjudication process. Consideration to erect immigration courts, which are overseen by the Justice Department, appears to be a step in that direction.

Migrants who are sent to Mexico to await their court hearings return to the US through a port of entry along the southern border to then be transported to their hearing. The temporary courts would allow migrants to have their hearings near or at the port, rather than being bussed miles away, said the official.

It also would likely help alleviate the caseload at San Diego and El Paso immigration courts, which have been taking these cases.

The Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review referred questions about the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols program to the Department of Homeland Security. A DHS official confirmed that the temporary structures are being considered, adding that the crisis has strained the immigration courts along the border. The administration has repeatedly requested additional immigration judges to chip away at a massive backlog that’s led to cases being scheduled years down the road.

The “Remain in Mexico” policy began in January and immediately received pushback back from immigrant advocates and lawyers who argue that it puts migrants who are predominantly from Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador and seeking asylum in the US in harm’s way.

As of May, the US had returned around 6,000 people to Mexico to await their court hearings. The number of migrants falling under the policy appears to be doubling over time, but it is unclear how many additional people have been added to the program since the agreement with Mexico was struck.

One of the locations actively working toward implementing the program is the Rio Grande Valley region in Texas, the busiest sector for arrests of people illegally crossing the border, a senior Border Patrol official told CNN.

Before the program can get underway in the region, officials need to first have the infrastructure in place, including logistics for court hearings. The US also needs to engage with Mexico and ensure its government is willing to receive migrants across the border, said the official.

Like other administration immigration policies, returning migrants to Mexico has also been challenged in court.

In May, a federal appeals court allowed the Trump administration to continue returning some asylum seekers to Mexico for the time being. A panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, while split on some issues, listed a number of factors that went into the decision, including risk of injury in Mexico and negotiations between the US and Mexico.

© 2019 Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company. All Rights Reserved.

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Not surprisingly, no mention of guaranteeing attorney access, effective notice, or reasonable access to legal resources for those retuned to Mexico. Trump is emboldened by a dysfunctional Congress under Mitch McConnell and complicit Article III Courts like the 9th Circuit, unwilling to put an end to this grotesque perversion of our statutory laws, our Constitution, and human rights. It’s also a recipe for more “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and bigger backlogs in Immigration Courts. But undoubtedly, Trump will blame others for the problems he has created.

PWS

06-18-19

HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST: Trump/Pence Scheme To Declare Guatemala A “Safe Third Country” Is “Ludicrous” – An Affront To Human Rights & Honest Government!

https://reut.rs/2Kk259M

Eleanor Acer
Senior Director for Refugee Protection, Human Rights First

Sophia Menchu reports for Reuters:

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – A U.S. plan to make asylum seekers from Honduras and El Salvador seek refuge in Guatemala instead of the United States would endanger, not protect, refugees, a prominent rights group said on Friday as U.S. negotiators met Guatemalan officials.

U.S. rights group Human Rights First said it was “simply ludicrous” for the United States to assert that Guatemala was capable of protecting refugees, when its own citizens are fleeing violence.

“The Trump administration is doubling down on its efforts to block, bar and punish refugees for attempting to seek asylum in the United States,” said Eleanor Acer, senior director for refugee protection at Human Rights First.

“These policies put the lives of refugees in great danger.”

Guatemala, like its neighbors Honduras and El Salvador, suffers high levels of violence, driven largely by transnational street gangs including MS-13, which operate across borders in all three countries. Many asylum seekers cite gang threats as the reason they come to the United States for refuge.

Tens of thousands of people have left Guatemala to seek U.S. asylum this year. Nearly 150,000 undocumented Guatemalan families have reached the U.S. border since October, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, many of them citing fear of violence in their home country for seeking asylum.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said this week the two nations had a deal under which Guatemala would take asylum seekers from neighbors. “They ought to be willing to apply for asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive,” he said.

Details of the plan have not been made public, and Guatemala has not publicly confirmed talks that the U.S. State Department said were taking place in Guatemala on Friday.

The talks were about a range of initiatives aimed at reducing illegal immigration, including “improved asylum processing,” a State Department spokeswoman said on Friday in response to a Reuters question about the Guatemala asylum plan.

The emerging plans flow from a U.S.-Mexican deal struck to avert tariffs threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump to push Mexico to do more to stem immigration through its territory.

That deal included sending 6,000 members of Mexico’s National Guard to the border and expanding a separate asylum program under which U.S. asylum seekers are sent back to Mexico to await U.S. court hearings.

If those measures fail, Mexico has agreed to consider becoming a “safe third country” where all asylum seekers passing through the country would have to apply for refuge, instead of the United States

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said other countries should share the load, including Guatemala.

Guatemala, one of the poorest countries in the Americas, has little experience receiving large numbers of asylum seekers and a large wave of refugees would strain limited resources. Just 262 people applied for refugee status in Guatemala between January and November 2018, according to data from the U.N. rights agency UNHCR.

By comparison, nearly 155,000 families from El Salvador and Honduras have been apprehended at the U.S. border since October, with many of them requesting asylum.

Guatemala holds presidential elections on Sunday, after a campaign that has highlighted the lack of rule of law in the country, including the influence of drug traffickers on politics in the country.

Trade and immigration between Mexico and the United States – tmsnrt.rs/2Khd82D

Editing by Bill Berkrot

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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As pointed out in the article, Guatemala is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for its own citizens. It doesn’t even have a functioning asylum system. So, how could it provide access to a “full and fair” asylum adjudications to non-citizens as required by our law. The answer is simple – it can’t, by any stretch of the imagination. After all, living long enough to apply, even if there were a functional asylum adjudication system, would be a prerequisite to a legitimate “Safe Third Country” process.

Seems like clear abuses of authority like this by Trump and Pence that should be enough to remove both of them from office forthwith in a functioning democracy. But, that’s not going to happen before 2021, if then.

In the meantime, Dems should make a note that when responsible Government returns at some point in the future, the law should be amended to require at least Senate ratification of any future “Safe Third Country Agreement” to prevent future Executive abuses like this. Indeed, the failure of this Congress to revoke Trump’s authority to enter into these clearly bogus and ill-intended “Safe Third Country” agreements is an indelible stain upon its reputation.

“Safe Third Country” was intended to be about refugee burden sharing among countries with substantially comparable due process systems for adjudicating claims under the Refugee Convention. It was never intended to allow the U.S. to “outsource” asylum adjudication to dangerous, major human rights violators with dysfunctional asylum adjudication systems. What Trump and Pence are proposing is little more than outright murder and human rights abuses inflicted on asylum seekers in violation of both international and U.S. laws.

PWS

06-17-19

DUE PROCESS: 9th Cir. Might Be Afraid Of Trump, But U.S. Immigration Judge Scott Simpson Isn’t!

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/story/2019-06-14/judge-orders-dhs-to-keep-man-in-u-s-for-immigration-hearings-instead-of-returning-to-mexico

Kate Morrissey reports for the San Diego Union-Tribune and LA Times:

Judge orders U.S. to hold asylum seeker

Doubtful about his mental state, jurist prevents migrant from being sent to Mexico.

By Kate Morrissey

SAN DIEGO — An immigration judge has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to keep a Honduran asylum seeker in the United States while he waits for his court proceedings, instead of returning him to Mexico again under a Trump administration program.

Judge Scott Simpson said that after evaluating the man’s mental competence in a special hearing on Friday, he found that the man would need safeguards in his case to ensure due process. He ordered one put in place immediately: to remove the man from a program known officially as Migrant Protection Protocols and more widely as “Remain in Mexico.”

“I find that he lacks a rational and factual understanding of the nature of the proceedings,” Simpson said in issuing his order.

This is the first time that a judge has made such a ruling since the program was implemented in January, according to advocates who have been monitoring immigration court proceedings.

The program requires certain asylum seekers from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to wait in Mexico while their cases progress in immigration court. The man has been waiting in Tijuana as part of the program for several months.

A Customs and Border Protection guide for officials implementing the program says that migrants with known physical or mental health issues should not be included.

“It’s a big deal that a judge recognized that there was a predatory nature to having put this person in the ‘Migrant Persecution Protocols,’ ” said Ian Philabaum of Innovation Law Lab, calling the program a name used by some immigrant rights advocates. “He wasn’t going to have a chance, and now he gets a chance.”

At the man’s first hearing in March, Simpson quickly became concerned that the man might have a mental competency issue that would make him ineligible for the program or require other protections. He ordered DHS to evaluate the man’s mental state.

Simpson asked government attorneys at each hearing after that whether the man’s mental state had been evaluated and whether the government believed he should continue to be included in the program.

Each time, the government attorney responded that the man should continue in MPP.

Still skeptical, Simpson told Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney Dan Hua to be prepared to give details Friday about DHS’s evaluation of the man before he was returned to Mexico. When the judge came into court Friday morning, Hua was not able to answer that question.

“The government’s inability to provide that information is simply not excusable,” Simpson said. He gave Hua 30 minutes to find out answers.

Hua said immigration officials at the port of entry had evaluated the man each time he’d come to court, meaning that as of Friday, he’d been evaluated four times.

The attorney could not produce evidence showing what the evaluation observed or what standard it used when the judge pressed for more details.

Philabaum said that fact was significant.

“That assessment of the mental competency was performed on four different occasions, and on four different occasions, according to the U.S. government attorney, their assessment was he was perfectly competent to proceed with his immigration case representing himself,” Philabaum said. But in the man’s “first hearing, it took the immigration judge approximately two minutes to realize there was an issue of competency here.

“Whatever type of standard that CBP has instituted to assess the competency of an individual to be eligible, according to the immigration judge today, it has failed.”

DHS officials, CBP officials and Department of Justice officials did respond to a request for comment.

Simpson decided to do his own evaluation of the man’s mental state under an immigration court precedent known as the Matter of MAM.

He listed the rights that the man has, such as the right to present evidence and the right to question witnesses. He asked if the man understood his rights.

“Um, yes. I need more,” said the man through a Spanish interpreter. “I need more because here I only have some letters, some birth certificates. They’re not translated into English yet.”

“Sir, I’m the immigration judge in your case. It’s my job to decide whether you can stay in the United States,” Simpson said. “In your own words, tell me who am I and what’s my job.”

“I cannot understand you,” the man responded.

In the end, the man was only able to appropriately respond to simple questions such as the date and what city he was in. He told the judge he had not had much schooling and couldn’t read or write.

ICE later confirmed the man is pending transfer to the agency’s custody. He could be taken to an immigration detention facility or released “on parole” into the U.S. to a sponsor while he waits for his next hearing.

Simpson said that depending which option the government chooses, other safeguards may be necessary, including providing an attorney for him if he’s detained.

Morrissey writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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

Every day the human carnage mounts as the 9th Circuit continues to “sponsor” Trump’s illegal, deadly, and unconstitutional “Remain in Mexico Program.” Interesting how a few non-life-tenured Immigration Judges in San Diego and one courageous U.S. District Judge in the Southern District of California seem to be the only Federal officials interested in either the rule of law or the Due Process Clause of our Constitution. Go figure!

Congrats to Judge Scott Simpson for standing up for the rule of law and the rights of the most vulnerable in the face of massive dereliction of duty by those higher up the line.

Sadly, unlike the 9th Circuit, Judge Simpson lacks authority to enjoin further violations of the law and human rights by the Trump Administration. How many more human beings will suffer, be wronged, and perhaps die as a result of the 9th Circuit’s complicity in scofflaw behavior having little or nothing to do with protecting our borders or any other legitimate policy end and everything to do with punishing and dehumanizing those who seek justice under our laws.?

PWS

06-17-19

DERELICTION OF DUTY: 4th Cir. Exposes BIA’s Incompetence & Anti-Asylum Bias, Yet Fails To Confront Own Complicity — SINDY MARILU ALVAREZ LAGOS; K.D.A.A., v. WILLIAM P. BARR

http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/172291.P.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0V6wyNPGePFSgscsU5Qw-PQxasjIHuwnGXYQr4RraWbpMse6GOc4bAJqY

DIAZ, 4th Cir., 06-14-19, published

PANEL: GREGORY, Chief Judge, and DIAZ and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.

OPINION BY: PAMELA HARRIS, Circuit Judge

KEY QUOTE:

Sindy Marilu Alvarez Lagos testified credibly that she and her then-seven-year-old daughter, natives and citizens of Honduras, were threatened with gang rape, genital mutilation, and death if they did not comply with the extortionate demands of a Barrio 18 gang member. Unable to meet those demands and fearing for their lives, Alvarez Lagos and her daughter fled to the United States, where they sought asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture.

Now, almost five years later, an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals have issued a total of three separate decisions denying Alvarez Lagos’s claims. The government defends none of those decisions, including the most recent, which came after we agreed, at the government’s request, to remand the case for reconsideration. Instead, the government admits that errors remain, but argues that we should leave them unaddressed and simply remand once again so that the agency may have a fourth opportunity to analyze Alvarez Lagos’s claims correctly.

We decline that request. A remand is required here on certain questions that have yet to be answered, or answered fully, by the agency. But we take this opportunity to review the agency’s disposition of other elements of Alvarez Lagos’s claims. For the reasons given below, we reverse the agency’s determination with respect to the “nexus” requirement for asylum and withholding of removal. And so that they will not recur on remand, we identify additional errors in the agency’s analysis of the “protected ground” requirement for the same forms of relief, and in the agency’s treatment of Alvarez Lagos’s claim under the Convention Against Torture.

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It’s partially on the Article IIIs. Great decision in many ways. But, this type of injustice occurs daily in our unconstitutional U.S. Immigration Courts. How many Central American asylum applicants get this type of representation—Steve Shulman of Akin Gump for a pro bono lawyer, Tom Boerman as an expert? Not very many.

How many can be this persistent, particularly if detained or sent to Mexico to wait? Almost none! I think that if these respondents were in “Return to Mexico” they would have long ago been forced to give up and accept “Death Upon Return.”

This case should have been a “no brainer grant” five years ago. Could have been done at an Asylum Office (under a more rational system) or by DHS stipulation. THIS abuse of the legal system and gross waste of public resources by DHS and DOJ is the reason why we have unmanageable Immigration Court backlogs, not because asylum applicants and their representatives assert their legal rights.

The Office of Immigration Litigation (“OIL”) didn’t even bother to defend any of the EOIR actions here! So, after five years why is it “Due Process” for the Fourth Circuit to give the BIA yet another opportunity to come up with bogus reasons to deny asylum.

An Article III Court fulfilling its oath to uphold the laws and Constitution could have ordered this case to be granted and either exercised contempt authority against those at DOJ responsible for this mess or ordered an independent investigation into the judicial incompetence and bias evident here. At the least, the court should have removed any judge having had a role in this abomination from any future proceedings involving these respondents.

Cases such good as this also illustrate the continuing dereliction of duty by Article III Courts who continue to “go along top get along” with the absurdly unconstitutional position that unrepresented asylum applicants can receive “Due Process” in today’s overtly unfair and biased Immigration Courts. The Due Process clause applies to all persons in the U.S., and the right to a fair asylum hearing exceeds the rights at stake in 98% of the civil litigation and most of the criminal litigation in the Federal Courts. If the Article III Courts actually viewed asylum applicants as “persons,” that is “fellow human beings,” rather than dehumanized “aliens,” this farce would have ended decades ago! Folks represented by Steve Schulman and Akin Gump can’t get a “fair shake” from EOIR; what chance does any unrepresented applicant have?

You reap what you sow, and what goes around comes around! If Article III Courts want to be taken seriously and respected, they must step up to the plate and stop the systematic bias against asylum applicants (particularly women and children from Central America) and the abuses like this occurring every day in our unconstitutional U.S. Immigration Courts!

History is watching and making a record, even if those wronged by the Article IIIs all too often don’t survive or aren’t in a position to confront them with their dereliction of legal duties and the obligations human beings owe to each other.

PWS

06-17-19

9TH CIRCUIT JUDGES COMPLICIT IN HUMAN RIGHTS & LEGAL VIOLATIONS INFLICTED ON TERRIFIED TEEN ASYLUM APPLICANTS: Reuters Study Exposes How Disingenuous Article III Judges Are Letting Trump Administration “Get Away With Potential Murder” Under Clearly Illegal, Unconstitutional, & Incompetently Administered “Remain In Mexico” Abomination!

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-returns-exclusive/exclusive-asylum-seekers-returned-to-mexico-rarely-win-bids-to-wait-in-u-s-idUSKCN1TD13Z

(Reuters) – Over two hours on June 1, a Honduran teenager named Tania pleaded with a U.S. official not to be returned to Mexico.

Immigration authorities had allowed her mother and younger sisters into the United States two months earlier to pursue claims for asylum in U.S. immigration court. But they sent Tania back to Tijuana on her own, with no money and no place to stay.

The 18-year-old said she told the U.S. official she had seen people on the streets of Tijuana linked to the Honduran gang that had terrorized her family. She explained that she did not feel safe there.

After the interview, meant to assess her fear of return to Mexico, she hoped to be reunited with her family in California, she said. Instead, she was sent back to Mexico under a Trump administration policy called the “Migrant Protection Protocols”(MPP), which has forced more than 11,000 asylum seekers to wait on the Mexican side of the border for their U.S. court cases to be completed. That process can take months.

Tania’s is not an unusual case. Once asylum seekers are ordered to wait in Mexico, their chances of getting that decision reversed on safety grounds – allowing them to wait out their proceedings in the United States – are exceedingly small, a Reuters analysis of U.S. immigration court data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) shows.

. . . .

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Read the full description of the Trump Administration’s judicially enabled all out assault on the legal, Constitutional, and human rights of vulnerable asylum seekers at the above link.

A complicit panel of 9th Circuit Judges vacated a proper lower court injunction that was preventing this type of intentional child abuse by the Trump Administration. Here’s that panel’s “head in the sand” opinion in Innovation Law Labs. https://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Innovation-Law-Lab-19-15716.pdf.

It’s worth noting that almost every “ameliorating exception” described in the first paragraph of the panel’s opinion is demonstrably untrue — children and those clearly in danger are being returned and the “discretionary parole” is largely a fraud that seldom is granted — according to the Government’s own data (which likely is also falsified or manipulated to some extent to mask or distort abuses). In other words, a “three-reporter panel” of Reuters is more interested and capable of getting to truth than a panel of life-tenured judges.

Oh, that it could be these judges’ kids or grandkids separated from family and sent to live on the mean streets of Tijuana while pursuing their legal rights under US law. Really, how do these child abusers and human rights scofflaws hiding in judicial robes sleep at night?

Guess the can’t hear the screams and moans of those whose rights they are failing to protect and whose human dignity they reject. I’ve heard eyewitness accounts and seen video evidence from the pro bono lawyers courageously (and sometimes at the risk of their own health and safety) trying to protect the lives and rights of asylum seekers at the Southern Border from these abuses of human rights that are enabled by “Remain in Mexico” (a/k/a the disingenuously named “Migrant Protection Protocols”). The truth is no secret for those who actually seek it rather than to ignore it.

Complicit Article III Judges and Government lawyers are keys to Trump’s “dehumanization” program. History must hold them accountable for their abuses of humanity.

PWS

06-13-19

AMERICA’S SHAME: Congress Dithers, Life-Tenured Article III Circuit Judges & Supreme Court Justices Shirk Their Duty, While Trump’s “False Courts” Violate Constitutional, Statutory, Treaty, & Human Rights On A Daily Basis With Impunity! — History Will Remember Those Who Are Complicit In & Who Are Morally Responsible For Unlawful Killings & Other Unspeakable Acts Committed Against Those Most Vulnerable Who Are Merely Seeking Fairness Under Our Broken & Fraudulent Justice System!

NEW REPORT EXAMINES WEAPONIZATION OF IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM

Advocates Launch Immigration Court Watch App to Ensure Greater Accountability, Transparency.

No, American institutions aren’t “standing up” to Trump. From the Supremes legally wrong , immoral, and unconstitutional decision in Jennings, to their licensing of blatant racial and religious bias in Travel Ban 3.0, to the Ninth Circuit’s complicity in the mocking of legal, statutory, and Constitutional rights under the fraudulent and illegal “Remain in Mexico,” which they now “own” lock stock, and barrel, to the Eleventh Circuit’s refusal to stop the “law, asylum, justice, and human dignity free zone” in the Atlanta Immigration Courts, Article III Judges are ignoring their oaths of office and turning blind eyes to immigration outrages that are transparent on the records they review and have been building in plain sight for years.

Those in positions of power who fail to fulfill their Constitutional duty to prevent abuse of the most vulnerable among us deserve to be condemned by public opinion and by history. And that goes for Article III Judges, as well as legislators, politicos, and bureaucrats.

PWS

06-12-19

PWS

06-12-19

ANALYSIS: Trump Lays Another Egg On Immigration — Everybody Loses, But It Could Have Been Much, Much Worse

By Paul Wickham Schmidt for immigrationcourtside.com

Alexandria, VA, June 9, 2019. After a week of petulance, threats, and self-created drama, Trump produced a resounding trade and immigration dud. Faced with advisors telling him that he was endangering the economy, the only thing propping up his sagging popularity, a potential rebellion among GOP legislators, and an unexpectedly tough and resolute Mexico, Trump backed off of his insane and blatantly illegal plan to ignore U.S. asylum obligations and thereby rocket the U.S. to the upper echelons of international scofflaws and human rights violators.

The latter scheme, known as “safe third country,” would have mis-designated Mexico and, incredibly, Guatemala, two clearly “unsafe” countries to do the U.S.’s job by processing tens of thousands of asylum applications from those fleeing the Northern Triangle. Neither of the two countries has a viable, fair, and effective asylum adjudication system and both have major safety and human rights issues.

Instead, Trump accepted a vague compact by which Mexico and the U.S. basically agreed to do what they had already been doing without taking any decisive or effective action to address the actual humanitarian crisis in the Northern Triangle that Trump and his flunkies have consistently mischaracterized as a “law enforcement emergency.” Indeed, the New York Times reported that most of Mexico’s “unprecedented steps” had already been worked out in secret with deposed DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen months ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/us/politics/trump-mexico-deal-tariffs.html. Those interested can read the summary of the agreement prepared by Trump’s own State Department here. https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-us-mexico-tariffs-declaration-20190607-story.html.

To be sure, desperate and vulnerable asylum seekers, particularly women and children, will continue to abused, raped, beaten, extorted, obscenely tortured, and killed with impunity and little if any recourse as a result of this week’s actions. But, at least for now, the U.S. and Mexico are maintaining much of the basic framework of domestic and international protection laws.

Contrary to the lies and false narratives spread by Trump and his DHS cronies, U.S. law is not filled with “loopholes.” Rather, it is a fairly straightforward implementation of the international protection regime and treaties that have been in effect since World War II to prevent another holocaust from occurring on our watch.

If anything, since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980, the U.S. has watered down its asylum commitment somewhat by adding a legally tenuous “credible fear” process to “pre-screen” arriving asylum applicants in mass migration situations. However, to date, the DHS under Trump has been too incompetent, misdirected, and frankly downright stupid to utilize this streamlined screening process fairly and efficiently.

By treating a somewhat predictable humanitarian refugee flow as a bogus “law enforcement problem” and mindlessly shoving cases into a “captive” court system that they already had abused, mismanaged, and destroyed, the Administration lost effective control. In panic, they have tried to blame the refugees, Democrats, Mexico, Obama, judges, the media, and even the truly hapless failed states of the Northern Triangle for their largely self-created human and operational disaster.

The first of the “unprecedented steps,” involves Mexico sending approximately 6,000 National Guard troops to the Guatemalan border to control illegal crossings. Never mind that the Mexican National Guard is a recent creation that exists largely on paper. Also, forget that Mexico has a questionable record of controlling corruption and systematic human rights abuses among its existing police and military forces.

The U.S., a much larger, better organized, and more prosperous country than Mexico, has resorted to militarizing the border, mass incarceration, family concentration camps, kids in cages, malicious criminal prosecutions, family separations, walls, fences, overt political interference in the asylum adjudication system, and violating international protection norms. These “gonzo” enforcement efforts not only failed to stem the tide, but have actually aided smugglers and traffickers and increased the flow of migrants.

Will newly minted, untrained Mexican troops succeed where the might of the U.S. has failed miserably? Don’t count on it.

Also, the last time I checked, it appeared that most of the Mexican coast and some parts of the U.S. are reasonably accessible by boat from the Northern Triangle. So, assuming that the Mexicans could “shut down” their land border with Guatemala, why wouldn’t smugglers “take to the sea?” How’s that Mexican Navy?

The second “unprecedented step,” is a continuation and expansion of the existing “Remain in Mexico Program.” This toxic gimmick punishes those who have been legally determined to have a “credible fear” of persecution by making them remain in some of the most dangerous locations in the world where they are intentionally and illegally impeded in many ways from pursuing their U.S. asylum claims from Mexico. To date, this program has only been implemented in a few locations, like San Diego where it has been an unmitigated failure according to a report from Kate Morrissey of the San Diego Union-Tribune. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/06/06/cruel-yet-really-stupid-trumps-remain-in-mexico-policy-denies-due-process-while-creating-court-chaos-enfeebled-judges-fume-as-aimless-docket-reshufflin/.

The results of this ill-advised effort by Trump to circumvent U.S. asylum laws reads like a “legal toxicology report:” “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” mass confusion, lack of information, insufficient and deficient hearing notices, massive violations of the statutory right to be represented by counsel, no opportunity to fairly prepare, document, and present asylum claims, interference with the attorney-client relationship by DHS, and few actual case completions to name just a few of the many abuses. And, how will an already dysfunctional EOIR deal with yet another round of “new priorities” and more “Aimless Docket Reshuffling?”

A Federal District Judge actually enjoined this circus before it could get rolling. But, a “tone-deaf panel” of the Ninth Circuit allowed Trump’s assault on the rule of law to go forward, at least for now.

Nevertheless, the case remains pending with the Ninth Circuit. As EOIR’s rushed and sloppy work product starts to accumulate on their docket and the bodies and horror stories start to pile up in Mexico, more responsible Circuit Judges might actually force the Administration to comply with the law and the Constitution, not to mention simple human decency.

Mexico has pledged to “accept and protect” those sentenced to remain there. But, the Mexican border locations to which individuals are forced to return are dangerous for a reason. Presumably, if Mexican can’t maintain safety and order for its own citizens, it won’t do any better for vulnerable asylum seekers.

Finally, in third “unprecedented step,” Mexico and the U.S. agreed to promote the “Comprehensive Development Plan launched by the government of Mexico in concert with the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras” to create “prosperity, good governance and security in Central America.” This part of the agreement makes the most sense. But “promoting” in this case appears limited to using development funds that were “already in the pipeline” in both countries. In other words, nothing really new here.

This was a golden opportunity for the U.S. to show real leadership by dramatically increasing its investment in bringing stability and prosperity to Mexico and Central America. Additionally, we could have created incentives (rather than threats) and benchmarks for Mexico to improve its asylum adjudication system and human rights performance. Partnering with non-governmental-organizations and legal assistance groups on both sides of the border also would bring much needed expertise in resolving asylum issues to the table.

But, that would have taken a President with vision, empathy, compassion, courage, competency, intelligence, and creative problem solving ability. Trump is the exact antithesis of all of these qualities.

Consequently, sooner or later we can expect Trump’s “latest egg” to fail, like all of his other gimmicks and maliciously incompetent schemes on immigration. Our “child president” will undoubtedly then embark on a new barrage of lies, false narratives, idiotic tweets, idle threats, blame shifting, insults, racist dog whistles, and general nonsense aimed at diverting attention from his own failures as a leader and more critically, as a human being.

Innocent people will be harmed and die, America and Mexico will be embarrassed and diminished, and the world will be a worse place. But, until America figures out how to use its democratic institutions to remove the kakistocracy, the disaster will continue. That it could have been worse, is only small consolation.

Why not strive to be the “best that we can be,” rather than just “not as bad as we might have been?”

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