Well-Founded Fear – Page 38 – immigrationcourtside.com

AILA URGES CONGRESS TO CREATE INDEPENDENT ARTICLE I U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT TO REPLACE CURRENT DUE PROCESS TRAVESTY! – “In fact, instead of working to improve the system, DOJ recently announced initiatives that severely jeopardize an immigration judge’s ability to remain independent and impartial. These new policies are designed only to accelerate deportations, further eroding the integrity of the court system.”

RESOLUTION ON IMMIGRATION COURT REFORM AILA Board of Governors Winter 2018

PROPONENT: AILA Executive Committee and AILA EOIR Liaison Committee

Introduction:

Our immigration court system does not meet the standards which justice demands. Chronic and systemic problems have resulted in a severe lack of public confidence in the system’s capacity to deliver just and fair decisions in a timely manner. As a component of the Department of Justice (DOJ), EOIR has been particularly vulnerable to political pressure. Immigration judges, who are currently appointed by the Attorney General and are DOJ employees, have struggled to maintain independence in their decision making. In certain jurisdictions, the immigration court practices and adjudications have fallen far below constitutional norms. Years of disproportionately low court funding levels – as compared to other components of the immigration system such as ICE and CBP – have contributed to an ever-growing backlog of cases that is now well over 600,000.

Despite the well-documented history of structural flaws within the current immigration court system, DOJ and EOIR have failed to propose any viable plan to address these concerns. In fact, instead of working to improve the system, DOJ recently announced initiatives that severely jeopardize an immigration judge’s ability to remain independent and impartial. These new policies are designed only to accelerate deportations, further eroding the integrity of the court system.

RESOLUTION: The Board hereby reaffirms and clarifies its position on immigration court reform as follows:

In its current state, the immigration court system requires a complete structural overhaul to address several fundamental problems. AILA recommends that Congress create an independent immigration court system in the form of an Article I court, modeled after the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Such an entity would protect and advance America’s core values of fairness and equality by safeguarding the independence and impartiality of the immigration court system.

Below is an outline of the basic features that should be included in the Article I court.

Independent System: Congress should establish an immigration court system under Article I of the Constitution, with both trial and appellate divisions, to adjudicate immigration cases.

This structural overhaul advances the immigration court’s status as a neutral arbiter, ensuring the independent functioning of the immigration judiciary.

Appellate Review:

AILA recommends that the new Article I court system provide trial level immigration courts and appellate level review, with further review to the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. To prevent overburdening Article III courts, it is necessary to include an appellate court within the Article I court system.

Judicial Appointment Process:

AILA recommends the appointment of trial-level and appellate-level judges for a fixed term of no less than 10 years, with the possibility of reappointment. These judges would be appointed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the federal circuit in which the immigration court resides. The traditional Article I judicial appointment process, which relies on Presidential appointment with Senate confirmation, would be unworkable for the immigration court system and could easily create a backlog in judicial vacancies. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court system, which uses a different appointment process than other Article I courts, is a better model for the immigration court system, due to the comparable size and the volume of cases. Like the U.S. Bankruptcy Court System, which has 352 judges, the immigration court currently has over 300 judges. Traditional Article I courts have far fewer judges than that of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court System. Therefore, AILA recommends a judicial appointment system that closely resembles that of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Hiring Criteria for Judges:

Trial and appellate judges that are selected should be highly qualified, and well-trained, and should represent diverse backgrounds. In addition to ensuring racial ethnic, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, religious, and geographic diversity, AILA advocates for a recruitment and selection process that is designed to ensure that the overall corps of immigration judges is balanced between individuals with a nongovernment, private sector background, and individuals from the public sector. We believe this balance best promotes the development of the law in the nation’s interest.

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Read the complete report here:

AILA Resolution Passed 2.3.2018

The proposal that U.S. Immigration Judges be appointed by the U.S. Courts of Appeals for renewable 10 year terms is particularly salutary. The current process needs to be professionalized and de-politicized. The U.S. Courts of Appeals are the “primary professional consumers” of the work product of the U.S. Immigration Judges. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court Appointment System recommended by AILA has earned high praise for producing a fair, impartial, merit-based, apolitical judiciary.

The current ridiculous selection and appointment process within the DOJ has two stunning deficiencies.

First, it has become an “insider-only” judiciary. Over the past three Administrations nearly 90% of the newly appointed U.S. Immigration Judges have been from government backgrounds, primarily DHS/ICE prosecutors. Outside expertise, including that gained from representing individuals in Immigration Court, clinical teaching, and working for NGOs and pro bono groups has been systematically excluded from the Immigration Court judiciary, giving it a built-in “one-sided” appearance.

Remarkably, the situation at the appellate level, the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) has been even worse! No Appellate Immigration Judge/Board Member has been appointed from “outside Government” since 2000, and both of those have long since been removed or otherwise moved on.

Indeed, even sitting (as opposed to “administrative”) U.S. Immigration Judges are seldom appointed or even interviewed for BIA vacancies. There is only one current Appellate Immigration Judge who was appointed directly from the trial court, and that individual had only a modest (approximately three years) amount of trial experience. Thus, a number of sources of what would logically be the most expert and experienced appellate judicial candidates have been systematically excluded from the appointment process at the DOJ.

Second, while the results produced are highly problematic, the DOJ hiring process for U.S. Immigration Judges has been amazingly glacial! According to the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) the Immigration Judge appointment process during the last Administration took an average of two years! That’s longer than the Senate confirmation process for Article III Judges!

Much of the delay has reportedly been attributed to the slowness of the “background check process.” Come on man! Background checks are significant, but are essentially ministerial functions that can be speeded up at the will of the Attorney General.

It’s not like Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, or Jeff Sessions were willing to wait two years for background clearance for their other high-level appointees in the DOJ. No, it’s simply a matter of screwed up priorities and incompetence at the highest levels of the DOJ. And, let’s not forget that most of the appointees are already working for the DHS or the DOJ. So they currently have high-level background clearances that merely have to be “updated.”

It should be “child’s play” — a “no-brainer.” When Anthony C. “Tony” Moscato was the Director and Janet Reno was the Attorney General, background checks often were completed for Immigration Judges and BIA Members in less than 60 days. And, if Tony really needed someone on board immediately, he picked up the phone, called “downtown,” and it happened. Immediately! Competence and priorities!

Our oldest son Wick has been private bar member of the U.S. Magistrate Judge Recommendation Committee for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Their process was much more open, timely, and merit-focused than the current DOJ hiring process (whatever that might actually be) and fairly considered candidates from both inside and outside government.

Also, the slowness of the background check process unfairly prejudices “outside applicants.” Sure, it’s annoying for a “Government insider” to have to wait for clearance. But, his or her job and paycheck continue without problem during the process.

On the other hand, “outside applicants” have to make “business decisions,” — whether to take on additional employees or accept new clients; whether to commit to another year of teaching; whether to accept promotions, etc — that can be “deal breakers” as the process creeps along without much useful feedback from EOIR.

Attorney General Sessions has claimed that he has a “secret process” for expediting appointments. But, so far, except for a “brief flurry” of appointments that were reportedly “already in the pipeline” under Lynch, there hasn’t been much noticeable change in the timelines. Additionally, the process is often delayed because DOJ and EOIR have not planned adequately, and therefore have not acquired adequate space and equipment for new judges to actually start hearing cases.

Government bureaucrats love acronyms (so do I, in case you hadn’t noticed)! There is only one acronym that can adequately capture the current sorry state of administration of the U.S Immigration Courts under DOJ and EOIR administration: “FUBAR!”

And that’s without even getting to the all-out assault on Due Process for vulnerable respondents in the U.S. Immigration Courts being carried out by Jeff Sessions and his minions. According to my information, DOJ/EOIR “management” is pushing Immigration Judges to render twenty-minute “oral decisions;” complete “quotas” of 4-5 cases a day to get “satisfactory” ratings; and not include bond cases, administrative closure, Change of Venue, Credible Fear Reviews, or Motion to Reopen rulings in completions.

Since it takes an experienced Immigration Judge 3-4 hours to do a good job on a “fully contested” asylum decision with oral decision, that’s a “designed to fail” proposal that will undoubtedly lead to cutting of corners, numerous denials of Due Process, and remands from the U.s. courts of Appeals. But despite some disingenuous “rote references” to Due Process, it’s not even an afterthought in Sessions’s plan to turn Immigration Court into “Just Another Whistle Stop on The Deportation Railroad.”

As I say, “Bad ideas never die; they have a life of their own within the bureaucracy.” That’s why we need to get Immigration Courts out of the bureaucracy!

This Congress, which “can barely even tie its own shoes,” so to speak, isn’t likely to get around to creating an Article I Immigration Court. But, every day that the current mal-administered and unfair system remains within the DOJ is a Due Process and fairness disaster. That’s something that even Congress should be concerned about!

Thanks to Attorney (and former Immigraton Judge) Sue Roy of New Jersey for sending me the AILA Resolution.

PWS

02-07-18

GONZO’S WORLD: NO DEFENSE! – SESSIONS MIA AS TRUMP AND GOP ATTACK INTEGRITY OF DOJ!

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/attorney-general-department-of-justice-the-new-york-times-doj/2018/02/05/id/841477/

Brian Freeman reports for Newsmax:

“Even as President Donald Trump has led the most prolonged and public attack on the Justice Department in history, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has broken a long tradition of those in his position of protecting the institution from such interference by remaining largely silent, The New York Times reported Monday.

“What is unusual is the FBI and the Justice Department being attacked, the president leading the charge and the attorney general missing in action,” said Harvard Law Prof. Jack Goldsmith, who headed the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under President Geoerge W. Bush. “Why isn’t he sticking up for the department?”

Many prosecutors say Sessions’ tepid response is deflating morale among department employees and has increased fears prosecutors cannot depend on protection from political interference.

“Attorneys general swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, not the president,” said Matthew Axelrod, a former Justice Department official who is a partner at Linklaters. “Institutions like the DOJ rely on their leaders to be a voice that defends them. It’s critically important to this institution that its leadership have its back.”

Although the Business Insider reported Sessions did praise his second-in-command Rod Rosenstein hours before the disputed Devin Nunes memo was released Friday by saying he represents “the kind of quality and leadership we want in the department” and he had “great confidence in the men and women of this department,” many commentators said that backing was quite meager when he added, “But no department is perfect.”

One such previous example often cited of far more courageous and strong backing is when ailing attorney general John Ashcroft from his hospital bed allowed his acting replacement, James Comey, to defy the Bush administration over a surveillance program that Justice Department lawyers had called unconstitutional.

Sessions, who has been heavily and publicly criticized by Trump in the past year, declined to comment to the Times.

“Sessions’ silence is evidence that Trump’s public neutering of anyone close to this investigation is working,” said Paul Pelletier, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Virginia who was a long-time federal prosecutor. “It is deleterious to the whole criminal justice process.”

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The law enforcement community might have thought that they were getting a strong defender/advocate in the right-winger Sessions. After all, he’s out to bust those recreational legalized marijuana users and hard-working maids and janitors who have been in the U.S. without documents for decades waiting for the immigration reform that never came because he helped block it in the Senate.

But, what they actually got was a disingenuous “Gonzo Apocalypto” White Nationalist interested primarily in advancing his racially inspired agenda at the expense of the U.S. justice system and anyone who might stand in the way. Oh yeah, and a guy who is also very interested in “covering his own tail.” That’s why he didn’t hesitate to hire DC Lawyer Chuck Cooper to defend him once his continuing “memory lapses” came to light in the Russia investigation and things started “hitting the fan.”

A guy with no time for the rights of African-Americans Latinos, Immigrants, LGBTQ Americans, women, or apparently his subordinates and employees at the DOJ seems to have an excellent sense of his own rights and self-preservation. And, he isn’t so silent when it comes to an opportunity for slandering and diminishing the achievements of DACA recipients, Immigrants, sanctuary cities, asylum seekers, or people of color who are supposed to be entitled to justice and protection from his more or less “Whites only” DOJ.

PWS

02-06-18

HON. JEFFREY CHASE: Matter of W-Y-C- & H-O-B- & The Unresolved Tension In Asylum Adjudication! – Plus My Added Commentary On EOIR Training!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2018/2/4/the-proper-role-of-immigration-judges-as-asylum-adjudicators

“Feb 4 The Proper Role of Immigration Judges as Asylum Adjudicators

I would like to expand on the topic raised in my response to the BIA’s recent precedent decision in Matter of W-Y-C- & H-O-B-. In the U.S. system, what tensions exist between an immigration judge’s role as an independent judge within an adversarial system, and his or her overlapping role as an adjudicator of asylum claims?

As we all know, the 1980 Refugee Act was enacted to put the U.S. in compliance with the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees (to which the U.S. acceded through the 1967 Protocol). For that reason, numerous courts through the years have found the UNHCR Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status to provide “significant guidance in construing the Protocol” and a useful instrument “in giving content to the obligations the Protocol establishes,” as the U.S. Supreme Court stated in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca. The BIA has referenced the UNHCR Handbook in at least ten precedent decisions, as have numerous circuit courts.

Paragraphs 66 and 67 of the Handbook state the following:

66. In order to be considered a refugee, a person must show well-founded fear of persecution for one of the reasons stated above. It is immaterial whether the persecution arises from any single one of these reasons or from a combination of two or more of them. Often the applicant himself may not be aware of the reasons for the persecution feared. It is not, however, his duty to analyze his case to such an extent as to identify the reasons in detail.

67. It is for the examiner, when investigating the facts of the case, to ascertain the reason or reasons for the persecution feared and to decide whether the definition in the 1951 Convention is met with in this respect… (emphasis added.)

Not surprisingly, this approach is employed by the USCIS Asylum Office. Created in the implementation of the 1990 asylum regulations, the office’s first director, Gregg Beyer, previously worked for UNHCR for more than 12 years. The Asylum Officer Basic Training Manual (“AOBTM”) on the topic of nexus states that although the applicant bears the burden of proving nexus, the asylum officer has an affirmative duty to elicit all relevant information, and “should fully explore the motivations of any persecutor involved in the case.” The AOBTC therefore directs the asylum officer to “make reasonable inferences, keeping in mind the difficulty, in many cases, of establishing with precision a persecutor’s motives.”

The AOBTC also cites the 1988 BIA precedent decision in Matter of Fuentes.1 In that case, the Board held that “an applicant does not bear the unreasonable burden of establishing the exact motivation of a ‘persecutor’ where different reasons for actions are possible. However, an applicant does bear the burden of establishing facts on which a reasonable person would fear that the danger arises on account of” a protected ground.

In Canada, the Immigration and Refugee Board takes the view that “it is for the Refugee Division to determine the ground, if any, applicable to the claimant’s fear of persecution.” The U.S. is unusual, if not unique, among western nations in not also delegating this responsibility to immigration judges. Also, note that the IRB references the “Refugee Division;” like many countries, Canada’s equivalent of immigration courts is divided into immigration and refugee divisions, in recognition of the special obligations and knowledge that asylum determinations require. The U.S. immigration court system does not have a separate refugee determination division; asylum claims are heard by the same judges and under the same conditions as all other types of immigration cases. Furthermore, as noted above, U.S. immigration judges hear cases in an adversarial setting, in which judges assume a passive, neutral role.

The role of asylum adjudicator carries responsibilities that are at odds with the the role of neutral arbiter. Asylum adjudicators are required to share the burden of documenting the asylum claim; the UNHCR Handbook at para. 196 states that “in some cases, it may be for the examiner to use all of the means at his disposal to produce the necessary evidence in support of the application.”2 And, as discussed above, once the facts are ascertained, it is the adjudicator who should identify the reasons for the feared persecution and determine if such reasons bear a nexus to a protected ground.

During the Department of Justice’s asylum reform discussions in the early 1990s, Gregg Beyer stated that the idea of separate asylum judges was considered, but ultimately rejected. To my knowledge, EOIR has never conducted an in-depth analysis of the conflicts between the judge’s responsibilities as an asylum adjudicator and his or her role as a neutral arbiter in adversarial proceedings. I discussed the Board’s incorrect holding in Matter of W-Y-C- & H-O-B- under which genuine refugees may be ordered returned to countries where they will face persecution because the asylum applicants lacked the sophistication to properly delineate a particular social group, a complex legal exercise that many immigration attorneys (and immigration judges) are unable to do. The problem also extends to other protected grounds. Would an unrepresented asylum applicant (who might be a child) understand what an imputed political opinion is? Would most asylum applicants be able to explain that actions viewed as resisting the authority of a third-generation gang such as MS-13 might constitute a political opinion? Regulations should be enacted making it the responsibility of immigration judges to consider these questions. Additionally, immigration judges, BIA Board Members and staff attorneys should be required to undergo specialized training to enable them to identify and properly analyze these issues.

Notes:

1. 19 I&N Dec. 658 (BIA 1988).

2. See also the BIA’s precedent decision in Matter of S-M-J-, 21 I&N Dec. 722 (BIA 1997), which I have referenced in other articles.

Copyright 2017 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.

JEFF CHASE

9th SLAMS DUE PROCESS DOOR ON ENDANGERED HONDURAN TEEN — FLAWED ASYLUM HEARING WAS “GOOD ENOUGH FOR GOVERNMENT WORK” — NO RIGHT TO APPOINTED COUNSEL! — C.J.L.G. V. SESSIONS!

9th-CJLG-Consel

C.J.L.G. v. Sessions, 9th Cir., 01-29-18, published

PANEL: Consuelo M. Callahan and John B. Owens,
Circuit Judges, and David A. Faber,* District Judge.

* The Honorable David A. Faber, United States District Judge for the Southern District of West Virginia, sitting by designation.

OPINION BY: Judge Callahan

CONCURRING OPINION: Judge Owens

SUMMARY BY COURT STAFF:

“The panel denied C.J.L.G.’s petition for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals decision, holding that neither the Due Process Clause nor the Immigration & Nationality Act creates a categorical right to court-appointed counsel at government expense for alien minors, and concluding that the Board’s denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention against Torture was supported by substantial evidence.
The panel held that it is not established law that alien minors are categorically entitled to government-funded, court-appointed counsel and, applying the three-part test set forth in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976), held that C.J. had not shown a necessity for such counsel to safeguard his due process right to a full and fair hearing.
The panel incorporated its analysis of C.J.’s asylum claim into its Mathews analysis in determining that C.J. was not prejudiced by any procedural deficiencies in his proceeding. The panel concluded that the record compelled a finding that C.J. had a well-founded fear of persecution based on threats he received from the Mara gang when he resisted their recruitment efforts, but rejected C.J.’s asylum claim because he had not established that the threats had a nexus to a protected ground, or that the government was unable or unwilling to control the Maras. The panel deemed waived any argument that he was denied due process on his withholding and CAT claims, but noted that his withholding claim would also fail.
The panel also rejected C.J.’s argument that the INA’s fair hearing provision, § 1229a(b)(4)(B), implicitly requires court-appointed counsel at government expense for all alien minors.
The panel further held that the IJ was not required to inform C.J. that he might be eligible for Special Immigrant Juvenile status, concluding that the IJ’s duty to inform aliens of “apparent eligibility” for relief was not triggered because, at the time of his removal proceeding, C.J. did not have a state court order that could have made him apparently eligible for SIJ status.
Finally, the panel concluded that the agency’s denial of CAT relief was supported by substantial evidence. The panel concluded that 1) the Board did not err in concluding that C.J.’s experience of having a member of the Maras put a gun to his head did not amount to “severe pain or suffering;” 2) there was no showing that the Honduran government acquiesced in the act; and 3) the record did not compel the conclusion that the government either turned a blind eye to the Maras’ threats or that it would be unable or unwilling to control the Maras in the future.
Concurring, Judge Owens wrote that the majority’s opinion does not hold, or even discuss, whether the Due Process Clause mandates counsel for unaccompanied minors, and observed that that is a different question that could lead to a different answer.
** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.”

KEY QUOTE FROM MAJORITY:

“We are mindful that our decision means that, absent a reprieve offered by the government, C.J. will likely be returned to a country in turmoil. We sympathize with his personal plight, as C.J. appears to have displayed courage in the face of serious adversity. But while “our hearts are with [C.J.],” the law does not support his requested relief. Cf. Dugard v. United States, 835 F.3d 915, 917 (9th Cir. 2016). Neither Supreme Court nor circuit precedent compels the remedy that C.J. seeks: court-appointed counsel at government expense. And to the extent the IJ failed to provide all the trappings of a full and fair hearing, any shortcomings did not prejudice the outcome because the IJ adequately developed the record on issues that are dispositive to C.J.’s claims for relief. Attorney representation could not have altered this reality, which forecloses C.J.’s claim to an implied right to court-appointed counsel under the Due Process Clause. Moreover, the INA itself neither provides for nor implies a right to court-appointed counsel at government expense.

We further hold that the IJ was not required to advise C.J. of a separate state court process that could ultimately form the predicate for C.J.’s application for SIJ status with the IJ. The IJ is only required to advise an alien of relief for which he is “apparent[ly] eligib[le].” Because C.J.’s claimed relief—SIJ status—depends on a state court making certain findings before an IJ may grant him such relief—something that has not occurred here—C.J. is not “apparent[ly] eligib[le]” for SIJ status.
Finally, we decline to reverse the Board’s denial of C.J.’s asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT claims, because substantial evidence supports the Board’s determination that he is ineligible for any such relief.”

CONCURRING OPINION BY JUDGE OWENS:

“I concur in the majority opinion and its narrow scope. It holds that the Due Process Clause does not mandate government-funded counsel for C.J.L.G, an accompanied minor. The opinion does not hold, or even discuss, whether the Due Process Clause mandates counsel for unaccompanied minors. That is a different question that could lead to a different answer. See, e.g., Lassiter v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 452 U.S. 18, 31–32 (1981) (holding that whether the Due Process Clause requires the appointment of counsel is considered on a case-by-case basis); J.E.F.M. v. Lynch, 837 F.3d 1026, 1039–41 (9th Cir. 2016) (McKeown, J., jjoined by M. Smith, J., specially concurring) (outlining unique challenges that unrepresented unaccompanied minors in immigration proceedings confront).”

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BOTTOM LINE: This kid should join the gang in Honduras to save his life (and the lives of his family), or they should all die. We really don’t care as long as he doesn’t darken our door!
We’re willing to send this teen back to death or a life of forced gang membership after a hearing that none of us, and probably no American citizen, would consider fair or just if it were applied to us or someone we cared about. The key here is not to care about human lives.
It would be easy enough to define “those who resist gang membership” as a “particular social group” entitled to protection under our asylum and related laws. We have just intentionally chosen not to do so to avoid having to give protection to kids like this.
We also have ample authority to exercise Executive discretion to allow individuals in danger in their home countries to remain here in safety even if they don’t satisfy the technical requirements for asylum or withholding of removal. We have just chosen not to do so.
Contrary to the majority’s holding, a lawyer, particularly one who could find “expert” evidence or testimony probably could have secured protection for this young man under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). The latest State Department Country Report shows that gang torture is reported in Honduras, that the government and the justice system are inherently corrupt and incompetent, and that criminal justice system often fails to protect citizens.
While perhaps “well-meaning,” Judge Owens concurring opinion suggesting a different result for a “truly unaccompanied” minor is highly disingenuous. From the record, it appears that this kid’s mother was barely literate, (not surprisingly) didn’t understand asylum law, and couldn’t even fill out his application coherently in English. Her lack of understanding that the case depended on (counterintuitively) proving something “other than pure gang recruitment” was at work here actually appears to have undermined his case. If clearly incompetent “assistance” by a lay person like this like this is the dividing line between “due process” and “no due process,” that would be an absurd result!
The panel basically shirks its duty by conferring upon the trial judge, the U.S. Immigration Judge, the responsibility of acting as the unrepresented child’s attorney and developing the record. But, this runs directly counter to the most recent “OPPM” from the Chief Immigration Judge “reminding” Immigration Judges to “maintain neutrality” and not be too helpful to unrepresented minors as they are being railroaded out of the country.
The “Trump/Sessions Deportation Railroad” is up and running. At least this panel of Article III Judges in the 9th Circuit appear anxious to establish themselves as “Just Another Whistle Stop on the Deportation Railroad.”
The blood of this young man and others like him who come seeking protection, only to find rejection based on a twisted hyper-legalistic reading of our laws and an abdication of moral responsibility to protect those in harm’s way will be on our hands as a nation. At some point it will stain. At some point, the stain will become indelible.
As a national policy, telling kids in the Northern Triangle that they have no choice but to join gangs or die is not likely to “solve” the “gang problem” here or there in the short or long run. Essentially, we’ve already demonstrated that. But, nobody is paying attention.

PWS

01-30-18

ICEMEN GONE WILD: MINDLESS, COUNTERPRODUCTIVE, CRUEL, WASTEFUL “GONZO” IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT IS THE ORDER OF THE DAY UNDER THE TRUMP/SESSIONS REGIME! — “Have discretion and humanity been dropped from the attributes that Americans can expect of their law enforcement agencies?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/unshackled-by-the-trump-administration-deportation-agents-discount-basic-decency/2018/01/28/0785a7b2-013d-11e8-bb03-722769454f82_story.html

From the Washington Post Editorial Board:

“IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS Enforcement, the federal agency whose deportation agents have been unshackled by the Trump administration, has intensified its efforts to such a degree that cruelty now seems no impediment to its enforcement decisions, and common sense appears to play a diminishing role.

Recent months have brought news of one senseless detention and deportation after another. From all appearances, the agency seems to have embraced the idea that it is just to sunder established families and separate immigrant parents from their U.S.-born children — even in cases involving garden-variety technical violations of immigration rules.

Yes, the Obama administration also deported some longtime residents who had committed no serious offenses, but its deportation efforts were focused on criminals. By contrast, detentions of immigrants with no criminal records more than doubled in the first year of President Trump’s administration — to 13,600 in 2017 from 5,498 in 2016. Evidently seized by a vainglorious notion of its mission, ICE too often discounts basic decency as a guiding tenet.

How else to explain the detention and imminent deportation of a 27-year-old Ohio man, arrested for driving without a license, who is the only means of financial support, and one of just two trained medical caregivers, for a 6-year-old paraplegic boy (who also happens to be a U.S. citizen)? How else to explain the deportation of a construction worker in Michigan, the father of 10- and 3-year-old U.S.-born boys, who provided critical help to police in Detroit in their investigation of a shooting?

How else to explain the airport arrest and deportation of a 22-year-old female college student from Spain, visiting the United States for a vacation at the invitation of a librarian at Oregon State University, on grounds that she would give Spanish lessons to the librarian’s young son for a few weeks — work for which she lacked the right visa? How else to explain the deportation of a 39-year-old landscaper living in the Detroit suburbs, a father and husband of U.S. citizens, who had lived in the United States since age 10 and whose record was so unblemished that it didn’t even feature a traffic violation? How else to explain the Israeli undergraduate at the University of California at San Diego, a “dreamer” studying legally in the United States, who was detained upon trying to cross back into the United States minutes after his roommate made a wrong turn on the highway, unintentionally driving into Mexico?

In its boilerplate communiques, the agency defends its actions by insisting that it prioritizes bona fide threats to national security and public safety but exempts no category of “removable alien” from enforcement. Which raises a question: Have discretion and humanity been dropped from the attributes that Americans can expect of their law enforcement agencies?”

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In answer to the Post’s question: YES, thanks exactly what has been happening in America since the very beginning of the Trump regime — starting with the “Muslim Ban” and continuing with a consistent White Supremecist agenda! Many of us have been saying that all along!

We already have the “New American Gulag” — expanded “civil” immigration detention in substandard, potentially even deadly conditions, in obscure “out of sight, out of mind” locations. There, individuals, many deserving legal protection from the US under our laws, are denied fair access to counsel and railroaded out of the country in what essentially are “mock court” hearings conducted by “judges” controlled by notorious White Nationalist Jeff “Gono Apocalypto” Sessions.

Sessions and his minions encourage the judges to view individuals in removal proceedings as “production numbers, possible fraudsters, and potential terrorists,” rather than as vulnerable human beings deserving of fairness, respect, and due process.

To complement the “New American Gulag,” we now have the “New American Gestapo,” headed by Acting Chief ICEMAN Tom Homan. It’s an internal police force that operates without rules, rhyme, reason, or humanity — in other words arbitrary “Gonzo” enforcement intended to terrorize ethnic (primarily Latino) communities.

And, in case you haven’t read about it, ICE now has the capacity to electronically track the whereabouts and driving patterns of every license plate in America —- including YOURS! Of course they say that they will only use it for “legitimate” law Enforcement purposes.

But, for the “New American Gestapo” everything is “legitimate” — boundaries on law enforcement conduct and misconduct went out the widow when the Trumpsters crawled in. Remember, Gonzo essentially told local police forces he really didn’t care what they were doing to the civil rights of African-Americans and other minorities as long as they were enforcing the law and bringing crime rates down!

This is why ICE is well on its way to becoming the most hated, distrusted, and least respected police force in America.

Had enough of the Trump Administation’s trampling on Constitutional rights, civil rights, human rights, and just plain old human decency in America! Join the resistance!

The “New Due Process Army” (“NDPA”) is out there every day fighting for the Due Process and the legal rights of everyone in America and standing up against the excesses of the Trump Administration. Join their effort today!

PWS

01-29-18

MAKING GONZO PROUD: BIA TRASHES DUE PROCESS FOR PSG ASYLUM SEEKERS IN NEW PRECEDENT Matter of W-Y-C-& H-O-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 189 (BIA Jan. 19, 2018) — Read Hon. Jeffrey’s Chase’s Commentary Here!

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Matter of W-Y-C-& H-O-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 189 (BIA Jan. 19, 2018)

BIA HEADNOTE:

“(1) An applicant seeking asylum or withholding of removal based on membership in a particular social group must clearly indicate on the record before the Immigration Judge the exact delineation of any proposed particular social group.

(2) The Board of Immigration Appeals generally will not address a newly articulated particular social group that was not advanced before the Immigration Judge.”

PANEL: BIA Appellate Immigraton Judges MALPHRUS, MULLANE, and LIEBOWITZ

OPINION BY: Judge Garry D. Malphrus

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Jan 26 The Impact of the BIA’s Decision in Matter of W-Y-C- & H-O-B-

In Matter of W-Y-C-& H-O-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 189 (BIA Jan. 19, 2018), the Board of Immigration Appeals held that “an applicant seeking asylum…based on membership in a particular social group must clearly indicate on the record before the Immigration Judge the exact delineation of any proposed particular social group.” My question is: “why?”

Delineating a particular social group is very complicated, even for experienced immigration lawyers. When I put together the advanced asylum panel for the 2016 Immigration Judges’ legal training conference, an asylum specialist from the Department of Justice’s Office for Immigration Litigation (“OIL”) chose to lecture the immigration judges on a common error in the crafting of proposed social groups. It is worth noting that OIL (which defends immigration judge decisions when they are appealed to the U.S. circuit courts) felt that immigration judges needed such instruction. Prior to this decision, the BIA had issued 8 precedent decisions defining particular social groups since 2006. Two of those decisions (issued in 2014) were required in order to clear up confusion caused by the language of the previous four decisions on the topic.

When describing the concept of asylum to non-attorney clients, I have completely given up on trying to explain to them what a particular social group is. I’ve noticed that during asylum interviews, the DHS asylum officers have reached the same conclusion; they simply ask the asylum applicants if they were a member of “a group,” with no attempt to explain the unique properties of particular social groups. Let’s also remember that there are many unaccompanied children applying for asylum, and that some are not represented because EOIR has opposed efforts to require the agency to assign them counsel.

The impact of requiring asylum applicants to clearly delineate such a complex term of art is significant. Many of the “surge” cases filed by individuals fleeing violence in Central America are asylum claims based on membership in a particular social group. With some 660,000 cases presently overwhelming the immigration court system, the decision in W-Y-C- & H-O-B- should help speed adjudication by allowing immigration judges and the BIA to issue boilerplate denials where social groups are not clearly delineated, and further prevent time-consuming remands where better defined groups are proposed on appeal (perhaps after a pro se respondent was able to obtain counsel). But at what cost is this efficiency achieved?

Our adversarial system presents court decisions as entailing a winner and loser. However, there are no winners when someone entitled to asylum is nevertheless denied and ordered deported. This point was underscored by a recent article in The New Yorker, documenting that for many, deportation is truly a death sentence (Sarah Stillman, “When Deportation is a Death Sentence,” Jan.18,2018 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/15/when-deportation-is-a-death-sentence).

In a recent blog post concerning the treatment of children in immigration court, I referenced Matter of S-M-J-, a BIA precedent decision from 1997 (21 I&N Dec. 722). The decision contains the following words of wisdom: “Although we recognize that the burden of proof in asylum and withholding of removal cases is on the applicant, we do have certain obligations under international law to extend refuge to those who qualify for such relief.” Noting the shift from the non-adversarial nature of affirmative Asylum Office interviews (then a part of the INS, now within DHS) to the adversarial immigration court proceedings, the Board concluded that “a cooperative approach in Immigration Court is particularly appropriate.”

This approach underscores a major difference between asylum and other types of legal status. A person applying for lawful permanent status through, for example, cancellation of removal or via an immigrant visa is not an LPR until they are granted such status by an immigration judge or DHS. However, as the UNHCR Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status states at paragraph 28, “A person is a refugee within the meaning of the 1951 Convention as soon as he fulfills the criteria contained in the definition…Recognition of his refugee status does not therefore make him a refugee but declares him to be one. He does not become a refugee because of recognition, but is recognized because he is a refugee.”

Paragraph 205 of the UNHCR Handbook delineates the duties of the asylum applicant and the adjudicator. While the applicant’s duties involve truthfully providing detailed facts, supporting evidence where available, and “a coherent explanation of all of the reasons invoked” in his asylum application, the adjudicator, in addition to ensuring that the applicant presents his or her claim as fully as possible and then assessing credibility and evaluating the evidence, must also “relate these elements to the relevant criteria of the 1951 Convention, in order to arrive at the correct conclusion as to the applicant’s refugee status.”

It is this last requirement upon the adjudicator that is at odds with the Board’s decision in W-Y-C- & H-O-B-. Under the decision, an asylum applicant may already have satisfied all of the refugee requirements (which of course includes establishing a well-founded fear of suffering persecution if returned to their country of nationality), yet be denied asylum and ordered deported to suffer serious harm simply because they lacked the legal sophistication to articulate a very complicated formula for delineating a particular social group. Why wouldn’t the present Board invoke a cooperative approach as required by the nature of asylum and its international law obligations, as an earlier BIA did in Matter of S-M-J-? Why shouldn’t the immigration judge (perhaps with assistance from the DHS attorney) step in where the applicant is not able and analyze the facts presented pursuant to the relevant case law to help formulate a particular social group (as some IJs do at present)?

In summary, the Board’s recent decision will allow immigration judges to deny asylum to credible applicants who clearly meet the refugee criteria. By setting a nearly impossible standard for non-attorneys (including children) to meet, it can result in those deserving of protection being sent to countries where they may face rape, torture, or death.

Why?

Copyright 2017 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.

JEFF CHASE

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION

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OK. Let’s make this real simple. As opposed to asylum, which is discretionary, withholding of removal based on fear on account of a “particular social group” is mandatory relief under the Act. The BIA is saying that even if the Respondent were entitled to mandatory withholding of removal based on a “particular social group,” they will refuse that mandatory protection if the respondent failed to articulate each and every specific element of the “PSG” before the Immigration Judge!

And, just how would unrepresented children and other unrepresented individuals, many in detention, be able to articulate all of the complex elements of a PSG? (And that’s even before the Trump/Gonzo/White Nationalist proposal to illegally strip undocumented children of any Due Process rights and let them be deported at will by CBP!)

Clearly, in Matter of W-Y-C-& H-O-B-, the BIA has abandoned any pretense its essential mission of “guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” I’m sure that becoming “Conductors on Gonzo’s Deportation Railroad” will be career enhancing for the BIA Judges. But, in actuality, they should be ashamed!

And, what are the views of the other dozen or so BIA Appellate Judges who weren’t on this panel. Do they all agree with this travesty of justice? Is there nobody in this “Gang of 15” willing to stand up for Due Process and fairness for vulnerable asylum seekers? It raises the question of “Why have a BIA at all if it can’t and won’t protect fairness and due process for asylum seekers?”

I dissent!

PWS

01-26-18

THE ICEMEN COMETH & TAKETH AWAY: FRIENDS, NEIGHBORS, HUSBANDS, WIVES, FATHERS, MOTHERS, CHILDREN, CO-WORKERS, REBUILDERS OF AMERICA — GONZO IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT HURTS EVERYONE! — Who Will Stand Up For YOU When YOUR Time Comes?

http://www.newsweek.com/undocumented-immigrant-celebrated-helping-rebuild-after-hurricane-sandy-pleads-791708

Chantal Da Silva reports for Newsweek:

“Just a week ago, Harry Pangemanan was being honored for helping rebuild hundreds of homes along the Jersey Shore after the devastation of Superstorm Sandy. Now, the Indonesian is pleading for protection from deportation after narrowly escaping U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a raid.

ICE agents swept through Central New Jersey on Thursday morning and arrested two other Indonesians, the Deportation and Immigration Response Equipo, which tries to intervene in ICE raids, told U.S.A. Today.

After managing to avoid arrest, Pangemanan, who has two U.S.-born children, was reportedly escorted to a local church near his Highland Park home, where he was joined by three other Indonesian Christians, to claim sanctuary, the newspaper reports.

Keep Up With This Story And More By Subscribing Now

Undocumented immigrants face deportation under President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has since visited Pangemanan and other Indonesians seeking sanctuary at the Reformed Church of Highland Park to lend his support.

“Many of the houses that he worked on, in the lawn of the homes he was working on were big Donald Trump signs and yet he was still rebuilding those homes to get Jersey families back inside,” the church’s reverend, Seth Kaper-Dale told the governor.

Pangemanan’s plight is shared by many other undocumented immigrants who face deportation under the Trump administration’s crackdown.

Republicans and Democrats are expected to address immigration policy changes in Congress, with Democrats hoping to strike a deal to protect undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, known as Dreamers, from deportation before February 8.

That’s when a short-term extension on government funding is supposed to run out, after Congress voted to briefly restore the flow of funds following a three-day government shutdown with the promise that a vote would be held on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), which had protected dreamers before President Donald Trump officially ended it in September.

A deal to protect Dreamers would not, however, help undocumented immigrants like Pangemanan, an Indonesian Christian who fled religious persecution in 1993.

While violent persecution has affected only a small percentage of Christians in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, Open Doors U.S.A. says on its website that the overall situation for the minority “has deteriorated in recent years.”

Pangemanan, who is married and has had two U.S. born children with his wife, has tried to gain legal status after overstaying his visa, according to U.S.A. Today, but has been unable to acquire the necessary support for his asylum application.

The undocumented immigrant was responsible for leading a team of volunteers who rebuilt more than 200 homes in Monmouth and Ocean counties after they were destroyed by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Just last week, Pangemanan received the 2018 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award from the Highland Park Human Relations Commission for his work.

“I’m working. I’ve worked hard for my family,” the Indonesian told an Asbury Park Press reporter. “I’m not dependent on somebody else.”

In 2012, during the Obama administration, Pangemanan was also reportedly forced to enter sanctuary in the same church, along with a number of other Indonesian Christians who feared they would be deported by ICE agents.

At the time, ICE agents decided to give him a temporary reprieve from deportation, allowing him a “stay of removal”.

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A nation of ingrates takes aim at its friends and supporters. Happy to accept their help and labor — but, not willing to recognize their humanity and their contributions to our society. Hmmm. Reminds me of some of the other worst parts about American history. In the end, mistreating the most vulnerable diminishes each of us. Maybe that’s how Thomas Jefferson shrunk from six feet to about six inches.

PWS

01-26-18

THE GOP WHITE NATIONALIST “IMMIGRATION AGENDA” IS INTENTIONALLY CRUEL, RACIST, UNAMERICAN AND QUITE LIKELY ILLEGAL!

https://splinternews.com/we-just-got-a-disturbing-look-at-the-inhumanity-of-the-1822383012

Jorge Rivas reports for Splinter:

“Some 70% of Americans support a legislative solution that would allow DACA recipients who entered the U.S. illegally as children to stay in the United States—but the fight to pass that legislation has stalled so much that it led to the shutdown of the federal government. In part, that’s because some Republicans are making divisive and hardline demands about broader reforms to the immigration system in exchange for DACA protections.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen reportedly passed out a four-page memo at a meeting earlier this month that includes a bulleted list of the administration’s 46 “must haves” on immigration negotiations, according to Politico, which published the memo on Wednesday.

The site reports President Donald Trump had not seen the list of demands before the January 9 meeting and reportedly told attendees to ignore the list. But according to Politico, the memo is backed by White House chief of staff John Kelly and xenophobic White House senior adviser Stephen Miller—who has wielded major influence on the administration’s immigration policy—as well as Nielsen. It also echoes bills introduced in both the House and Senate.

The memo—titled “MUST HAVE’S: AUTHORITIES & FUNDING FOR IMMIGRATION DEAL”—includes some some well-known demands, like $18 billion to fund Trump’s wall, but it also lists dozens of lesser known “must haves.”

One is a call for immediate access to federal lands and expedited acquisitions of other properties to “eliminate certain geographical limitations” in order to find space for the border wall. This could mean long legal fights with Native American reservations along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The memo also calls for re-classifying overstaying a visa as a misdemeanor. Currently, that is handled as a civil violation in immigration court proceedings.

The memo’s “must haves” call for even more immigration agents than previously proposed, including 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, 8,000 new Border Patrol agents, 1,000 new ICE attorneys, and 370 new immigration judges. (Since the Border Patrol can’t even meet minimum staffing levels mandated by Congress, getting 8,000 extra agents seems unlikely.)

The administration also wants to make it tougher for unaccompanied children and asylum seekers to prove they have a legitimate credible fear of returning to the countries they fled. And when they can prove they’re being persecuted, the Trump administration now wants to send them to “safe third countries.”

The memo also includes all the other stuff we’ve heard about, like limiting “sanctuary cities,” ending family reunification programs (what Trump calls “chain migration”) and the elimination of the diversity visa lotteries.

To top it all off, the memo calls for making the legalization process even more expensive for immigrants who are authorized to be here legally, by imposing additional surcharges on visa, immigration, and border crossing fees.”

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Sick and tired of racist, “21st Century Know Nothings,” like Steven Miller and Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions running immigration policy, spineless “go along to get along” bureaucrats like Kirstjen Nielson in change of important Government immigration agencies, and restrictionist pols like Sen. Tom Cotton, Sen. David Perdue, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, and Rep. Raul Labrador blocking sensible, humane immigration reform.

That’s why Ballot Boxes were invented! Vote these evil, ignorant, clowns who are ruining America out of office at your earliest opportunity!

01-25-18

MANUEL MADRID @ AMERICAN PROSPECT: Sessions Relishes Chance To Turn U.S. Immigration Courts Into “Whistle Stops On His Deportation Railway!” – Administrative Closing Likely Just To Be The First Casualty – I’m Quoted!

http://theprosp.ec/2E3a315

Manuel writes:

“Jeff Sessions Is Just Getting Started on Deporting More Immigrants

MANUEL MADRID

JANUARY 23, 2018

He’s speeding up their hearings, and if that leads to expelling exemplary immigrants on whose paperwork the government is sitting—well, that’s tough.

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department

This could be Jeff Sessions’s year.

Not that he wasn’t busy in 2017, a year marked by his rescinding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), attacking sanctuary cities, reinstating debtors’ prisons, and cracking down on recreational marijuana. Indeed, over these last few months Sessions appears to have been working with the single-minded focus of a man who reportedly came within inches of losing his job in July after falling into President Trump’s bad graces for recusing himself from the Mueller probe.

But 2018 will provide him his best chance yet at Trumpian redemption.

Sessions has long railed against the United States’ “broken” asylum system and the massive backlog of immigration court cases, which has forced immigrants to suffer unprecedented wait times and has put a significant strain on court resources. But the attorney general’s appetite for reform has now grown beyond pushing for more judges and a bigger budget, both largely bipartisan solutions. The past few months have seen Sessions begin to attempt to assert his influence over the work of immigration courts (which, unlike other federal courts, are part of the Executive Branch) and on diminishing the legal protections commonly used by hundreds of thousands of immigrants—developments that have alarmed immigration judges, attorneys, and immigrant advocacy groups alike.

Earlier this month, Sessions announced that he would be reviewing a decades-old practice used by immigration judges and the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals to shelve cases without making a final ruling. Described by judges as a procedural tool for prioritizing cases and organizing their case dockets, the practice—“administrative closure”—also provides immigrants a temporary reprieve from deportation while their cases remain in removal proceedings. Critics argue that administrative closure, which became far more frequent in the later years of the Obama administration, creates a quasi-legal status for immigrants who might otherwise be deported.

There are currently around 350,000 administratively closed cases, according to according to the American Bar Association’s ABA Journal.

Should Sessions decide to eliminate administrative closures—a decision many observers describe as imminent—those cases could be thrown into flux. The move would be in line with previous statements from various figures in the Trump administration and executive orders signed by the president himself—namely, that no immigrant is safe from deportation; no population is off the table.

Beyond creating chaos for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, the premature recalendaring of cases could also lead to erroneous deportations. For instance, in the case of unaccompanied minors applying for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, a humanitarian protection granted by Citizenship and Immigration Services, an untimely return to court could be the difference between remaining or being ordered to leave the country. Even if a minor has already been approved by a state judge to apply for a green card, there is currently a two-year visa backlog for special visa applicants from Ecuador, Guatemala, and Honduras and more than a one-year backlog for those from from Mexico. Administrative closures allow these children to avoid deportation while they wait in line for a visa to become available.

But if judges can no longer close a case, they will either have to grant a string of continuances, a time-consuming act that requires all parties (the judge, defendant, and government attorney) to show up to court repeatedly, or simply issue an order of removal—even if the immigrant has a winning application sitting on a desk in Citizenship and Immigration Services. Under the Trump administration, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has been actively filing to recalendar cases of non-criminals that had been administratively closed for months, including those of children whose applications had already been approved. Now Sessions, who as a senator zealously opposed immigration reforms that would benefit undocumented immigrants, could recalendar them all.

Unshelving hundreds of thousands of cases would also further bog down an already towering backlog of approximately 650,000 immigration court cases, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse—a policy result that at first seems antithetical to Sessions’s rhetoric about cutting the backlog and raising efficiency. That is unless, as some suggest, the backlog and efficiency were never really his primary concerns to begin with.

“When [Sessions] says he wants to decrease the court backlog and hire more immigration judges, what he really means is he wants more deportation orders, whatever the cost,” says Heidi Altman, director of policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center.

Removing a judge’s ability to close a case would be the second in a one-two punch aimed at knocking down avenues of relief for cases that remain in the system for long periods of time.

Sessions’s decision to review administrative closure surprised few who had been following his rhetoric over the past few weeks. In a December memo detailing plans to slash the backlog, the attorney general said that he anticipated “clarifying certain legal matters in the near future that will remove recurring impediments to judicial economy and the timely administration of justice.” The Justice Department had already largely done away with allowing prosecutors to join in motions to administratively close a case that didn’t fall within its enforcement priorities. Removing a judge’s ability to close a case would be the second in a one-two punch aimed at knocking down avenues of relief for cases that remain in the system for long periods of time.

And it’s unlikely that Sessions will stop there. As attorney general, he is free to review legal precedents for lower immigration courts. In changing precedential rulings, he could do away with a multitude of other legal lifelines essential to immigrants and their attorneys.

. . . .

“Administrative closure makes a good starting point for Sessions, because the courts likely won’t be able stop it,” says Paul Schmidt, a former immigration judge and former head of the Board of Immigration Appeals. “Administrative closure was a tool created by the Justice Department and therefore it can be dismantled by the Justice Department.”

“After all, the bad thing about the immigration courts is that they belong to the attorney general,” Schmidt adds.

Unlike other federal judges, immigration judges are technically considered Justice Department employees. This unique status as a judicial wing of the executive branch has left them open to threats of politicization. In October, it was revealed that the White House was planning on adding metrics on the duration and quantity of cases adjudicated by immigration judges to their performance reviews, effectively creating decision quotas. A spokeswoman for the National Association of Immigration Judges described the proposal as a worrying encroachment on judicial independence. “Immigration judge morale is at an all time low,” says Dana Marks, former president of the association and a judge for more than 30 years. Other federal judges are not subject to any such performance evaluations.

It’s no coincidence that a review of administrative closure was announced just a few months after it was discovered that the Justice Department was considering imposing quotas on judges. Streamlining deportations has proven an elusive goal, even for Sessions: Deportations in 2017 were down from the previous year, according to DHS numbers. Meanwhile, arrests surged—up 42 percent from the same period in 2016. Flooding already overwhelmed immigration courts with even more cases would certainly cause chaos in the short-term, but wouldn’t necessarily lead to deportations by itself. If an end to administrative closures is paired with decision quotas on immigration judges, however, a surge in deportations seems inevitable.”

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Read Manuel’s complete article at the above link.

As I’ve noted before, Due Process clearly is “on the run” at the U.S. Immigration Courts. It will be up to the “New Due Process Army” and other advocates to take a stand against Sessions’s plans to erode Constitutional Due Process and legal protections for immigrants of all types. And don’t think that some U.S. citizens, particularly Blacks, Latinos, and Gays, aren’t also “in his sights for denial of rights.” An affront to the rights of the most vulnerable in America should be taken seriously for what it is — an attack on the rights of all of us as Americans! Stand up for Due Process before it’s too late!

PWS

01-23-18

MICHELLE BRANE @ WOMEN’S REFUGEE COMMISSION — “Why I March!”

“Dear Paul,

Today, my daughter Marisa and I joined thousands of women, men, and children in Washington, DC and other cities around the country to march for equality and for justice.

First and foremost on my mind while I marched with my daughter were the migrant and refugee women, children, and families for whom I advocate every day. With each step, I thought about the brave mothers who escape danger in their home countries because, like all mothers, they want a bright future for their children. Expecting to find safety at our border, these women and children are instead met by the Trump administration’s policies of ripping families apart.

I decided to march today in honor of the women and children who reach for safety but are instead betrayed.

The Women’s Refugee Commission will march forward with our important work supporting women and children seeking safety at our border. We will continue to utilize the court systems, inform the press and public, and hold the Trump administration accountable until asylum seekers have the protection and services they need to be safe, healthy, and to rebuild their lives. But there is strength in numbers.

In the spirit of the Women’s March, and the women for whom we march, please join us by donating today.

We can accomplish so much more together than we can alone.

In solidarity,

Michelle Brané
Director, Migrant Rights and Justice Program

DONATE

© 2017 Women’s Refugee Commission. All rights reserved.
The Women’s Refugee Commission is a 501(c)(3) organization.
Donations are deductible to the full extent allowable under IRS regulations.
15 West 37th Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10018 • Tel. (212) 551-3115”

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Like me, my friend Michelle began her career as an Attorney Advisor at the BIA. She is also a distinguished alum of Georgetown Law where I am an Adjunct Professor.

The Women’s Refugee Commission does some fantastic work in behalf of vulnerable women and children who arrive at our border seeking refuge and justice, only to be detained and railroaded back to life-threatening conditions by the anti-refugee, anti-Due-Process, White Nationalist regime of Trump, Sessions, Miller, Nielsen, and their complicit minions.

Michelle was named one of the “21 Leaders for the 21st Century” by Women’s e-News.

Imagine what a great country this could be if our Government and our justice system were led by smart, courageous, principled, values-driven, humane leaders like Michelle and her colleagues, rather than by a cabal of morally bankrupt White Nationalist men and their sycophantic subordinates.

PWS

01-22-18

JULIA PRESTON: CHAOS IN COURT! – TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S MAL-ADMINISTRATION OF IMMIGRATION COURTS RUINS LIVES, FRUSTRATES JUDGES!

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/01/19/lost-in-court

Julia writes for The Marshall Project:

“. . . .

And so in this gateway city on the Rio Grande [Laredo], inside a building rimmed with barbed wire, past security guards and locked doors, immigration judges on short details started hearing cases in a cramped courtroom that was hastily arranged in March.

But seven months later, the case of Oscar Arnulfo Ramírez, an immigrant from El Salvador, was not going quickly. He was sitting in detention, waiting for a hearing on his asylum claim. And waiting some more.

The court files, his lawyer discovered, showed that Ramírez’s case had been completed and closed two months earlier. Since the case was closed, the court clerk couldn’t schedule a new hearing to get it moving again. In fact, the clerk didn’t even have a record that he was still detained.

“It’s as if he’s non-existent,” his lawyer,, said. “He’s still in a detention center. He’s still costing the government and the American people tax dollars. But there’s no proceeding going on. He’s just sitting there doing completely nothing.”

Ramírez’s case was one of many signs of disarray in the improvised court in Laredo, which emerged during a weeklong visit in late October by a reporter from The Marshall Project and a radio producer from This American Life. Instead of the efficiency the Trump administration sought, the proceedings were often chaotic. Hearing schedules were erratic, case files went missing. Judges were exasperated by confusion and delays. Like Ramírez, detainees were lost in the system for months on end.

For a view of the border crossing in Laredo and the grinding process migrants begin there, check out Kirsten Luce’s photosfrom the gateway on the Rio Grande.

With the intense pressure on the court to finish cases, immigrants who had run from frightening threats in their home countries were deported without having a chance to tell the stories that might have persuaded a judge to let them stay.

. . . .

For Paola Tostado, the lawyer, Ramírez was not the first client to fall through the cracks in Laredo. Even though she is based in Brownsville, three hours away, Tostado was making the pre-dawn drive up the highway as many as three times a week, to appear next to her clients in court in Laredo whenever she could.

Another Salvadoran asylum-seeker she represented, whose case was similarly mislaid, had gone for four months with no hearing and no prospect of having one. Eventually he despaired. When ICE officers presented him with a document agreeing to deportation, without consulting Tostado he had signed it.

“I’ve had situations where we come to an individual client who has been detained over six months and the file is missing,” she said. “It’s not in San Antonio. It’s not in Laredo. So where is it? Is it on the highway?”

In her attempts to free Ramírez, Tostado consulted with the court clerk in San Antonio, with the ICE prosecutors and officers detaining him, but no one could say how to get the case started again.

Then, one day after reporters sat in the courtroom and spoke with Tostado about the case, ICE released him to pursue his case in another court, without explanation.

But by December Tostado had two other asylum-seekers who had been stalled in the system for more than seven months. She finally got the court to schedule hearings for them in the last days of the year.

“I think the bottom line is, there’s no organization in this Laredo court,” Tostado said. “It’s complete chaos and at the end of the day it’s not fair. Because you have clients who say, I just want to go to court. If it’s a no, it’s a no. If it’s a yes, it’s a yes.”

Unlike criminal court, in immigration court people have no right to a lawyer paid by the government. But there was no reliable channel in Laredo for immigrants confined behind walls to connect with low-cost lawyers. Most lawyers worked near the regular courts in the region, at least two hours’ drive away.

Sandra Berrios, another Salvadoran seeking asylum, learned the difference a lawyer could make. She found one only by the sheerest luck. After five months in detention, she was days away from deportation when she was cleaning a hallway in the center, doing a job she had taken to keep busy. A lawyer walked by. Berrios blurted a plea for help.

The lawyer was from a corporate law firm, Jones Day, which happened to be offering free services. Two of its lawyers, Christopher Maynard and Adria Villar, took on her case. They learned that Berrios had been a victim of vicious domestic abuse. A Salvadoran boyfriend who had brought her to the United States in 2009 had turned on her a few years later when he wanted to date other women.

Once he had punched her in the face in a Walmart parking lot, prompting bystanders to call the police. He had choked her, burned her legs with cigarettes, broken her fingers and cut her hands with knives. Berrios had scars to show the judge. She had a phone video she had made when the boyfriend was attacking her and records of calls to the Laredo police.

The lawyers also learned that the boyfriend had returned to El Salvador to avoid arrest, threatening to kill Berrios if he ever saw her there.

She had started a new relationship in Texas with an American citizen who wanted to marry her. But she’d been arrested by the Border Patrol at a highway checkpoint when the two of them were driving back to Laredo from an outing at a Gulf Coast beach.

After Berrios been detained for nine months, at a hearing in July with Maynard arguing her case, a judge canceled her deportation and let her stay. In a later interview, Berrios gave equal parts credit to God and the lawyers. “I would be in El Salvador by this time, already dead,” she said. “The judges before that just wanted to deport me.”

. . . .

We have heard frustration across the board,” said Ashley Tabaddor, a judge from Los Angeles who is the association [NAIJ] president. She and other union officials clarified that their statements did not represent the views of the Justice Department. “We’ve definitely heard from our members,” she said, “where they’ve had to reset hundreds of cases from their home docket to go to detention facilities where the docket was haphazardly scheduled, where the case might not have been ready, where the file has not reached the facility yet.”

Another association official, Lawrence Burman, a judge who normally sits in Arlington, Va., volunteered for a stint in a detention center in the rural Louisiana town of Jena, 220 miles northwest of New Orleans. Four judges were sent, Burman said, but there was only enough work for two.

“So I had a lot of free time, which was pretty useless in Jena, Louisiana,” Burman said. “All of us in that situation felt very bad that we have cases back home that need to be done. But in Jena I didn’t have any of my files.” Once he had studied the cases before him in Jena, Burman said, he was left to “read the newspaper or my email.”

The impact on Burman’s case docket back in Arlington was severe. Dozens of cases he was due to hear during the weeks he was away had to be rescheduled, including some that had been winding through the court and were ready for a final decision. But with the enormous backlog in Arlington, Burman had no openings on his calendar before November 2020.

Immigrants who had already waited years to know whether they could stay in the country now would wait three years more. Such disruptions were reported in other courts, including some of the nation’s largest in Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles.

“Many judges came back feeling that their time was not wisely used,” Judge Tabaddor, the association president, said, “and it was to the detriment of their own docket.”

Justice Department officials say they are pleased with the results of the surge. A department spokesman, Devin O’Malley, did not comment for this story but pointed to congressional testimony by James McHenry, the director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review. “Viewed holistically, the immigration judge mobilization has been a success,” he said, arguing it had a “positive net effect on nationwide caseloads.”

Justice Department officials calculated that judges on border details completed 2700 more cases than they would have if they had remained in home courts. Officials acknowledge that the nationwide caseload continued to rise during last year, reaching 657,000 cases by December. But they noted that the rate of growth had slowed, to .39 percent monthly increase at the end of the year from 3.39 percent monthly when Trump took office.

Judge Tabaddor, the association president, said the comparison was misleading: cases of immigrants in detention, like the ones the surge judges heard, always take priority and go faster than cases of people out on release, she said. Meanwhile, according to records obtained by the National Immigrant Justice Center, as many as 22,000 hearings in judges’ home courts had to be rescheduled in the first three months of the surge alone, compounding backlogs.

. . . .”

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

Read Julia’s complete article at the above link. Always enjoy getting quotes from my former Arlington colleague Judge Lawrence O. (“The Burmanator”) Burman. He tends to “tell it like it is” in the fine and time-honored Arlington tradition of my now retired Arlington colleague Judge Wayne R. Iskra. And, Judge Iskra didn’t even have the “cover” of being an officer of the NAIJ. Certainly beats the “pabulum” served up by the PIO at the “Sessionized” EOIR!

Also, kudos to one of my “former firms” Jones Day, its National Managing Partner Steve Brogan, and the Global Pro Bono Counsel Laura Tuell for opening the Laredo Office exclusively for pro bono immigration representation, As firms like jones Day take the “immigration litigation field,” and give asylum applicants the “A+ representation” they need and deserve, I predict that it’s going to become harder for the Article III U.S. Courts to ignore the legal shortcomings of the Immigration Courts under Sessions.

A brief aside. My friend Laura Tuell was a “Guest Professor” during a session of my Immigration Law & Policy class at Georgetown Law last June. On the final exam, one of my students wrote that Laura had inspired him or her to want a career embodying values like hers! Wow! Talk about making a difference on many levels!And talk about the difference in representing real values as opposed to the legal obfuscation and use of the legal system to inflict wanton cruelty represented by Sessions and his restrictionist ilk.

We also should recognize the amazing dedication and efforts of pro bono and “low bono” lawyers like Paola Tostado, mentioned in Julia’s report. “Even though she is based in Brownsville, three hours away, Tostado was making the pre-dawn drive up the highway as many as three times a week, to appear next to her clients in court in Laredo whenever she could.” What do you think that does to her law practice? As I’ve said before, folks like Paola Tostado, Christopher Maynard, Adria Villar, and Laura Tuell are the “real heroes” of Due Process in the Immigraton Court system.

Compare the real stories of desperate, bona fide asylum seekers and their hard-working dedicated lawyers being “stiffed” and mistreated in the Immigration Court with Sessions’s recent false narrative to EOIR about an asylum system rife with fraud promoted by “dirty attorneys.” Sessions’s obvious biases against migrants, both documented and undocumented, and particularly against Latino asylum seekers on the Southern Border, make him glaringly unqualified to be either our Attorney General or in charge of our U.S. Immigration Court system.

No amount of “creative book-cooking” by EOIR and the DOJ can disguise the human and due process disaster unfolding here. This is exactly what I mean when I refer to “”Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”), and it’s continuing to increase the Immigration Court backlogs (now at a stunning 660,000) notwithstanding that there are now more Immigration Judges on duty than there were at the end of the last Administration.

I’ll admit upfront to not being very good at statistics and to being skeptical about what they show us. But, let’s leave the “Wonderful World of EOIR” for a minute and go on over to TRAC for a “reality check” on how “Trumpism” is really working in the Immigration Courts. http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/apprep_backlog.php

On September 30, 2016, near the end of the Obama Administration, the Immigration Court backlog stood at a whopping 516,000! Not good!

But, now let go to Nov. 30, 2017, a period of 14 months later, 10 of these full months under the policies of the Trump Administration. The backlog has mushroomed to a stunning 659,000 cases — a gain of 153,000 in less than two years! And, let’s not forget, that’s with more Immigration Judges on board!

By contrast, during the last two full years of the Obama Administration — September 30, 2014 to September 30, 2016 — the backlog rose from 408,000 to 516,000. Nothing to write home about — 108,000 — but not nearly as bad as the “Trump era” has been to date!

Those who know me, know that I’m no “fan” of the Obama Administration’s stewardship over the U.S. Immigration Courts. Wrongful and highly politicized “prioritization” of recently arrived children, women, and families from the Northern Triangle resulted in “primo ADR” that sent the system into a tailspin that has only gotten worse. And, the glacial two-year cycle for the hiring of new Immigration Judges was totally inexcusable.

But, the incompetence and disdain for true Due Process by the Trump Administration under Sessions is at a whole new level. It’s clearly “Amateur Night at the Bijou” in what is perhaps the nation’s largest Federal Court system. And, disturbingly, nobody except a few of us “Immigration Court Groupies” seems to care.

So, it looks like we’re going to have to stand by and watch while Sessions “implodes” or “explodes” the system. Then, folks might take notice. Because the collapse of the U.S. Immigration Courts is going to take a big chunk of the Article III Federal Judiciary with it.

Why? Because approximately 80% of the administrative review petitions in the U.S. Courts of Appeals are generated by the BIA. That’s over 10% of the total caseload. And, in Circuits like the 9th Circuit, it’s a much higher percentage.

The U.S. Immigration Judges will continue to be treated like “assembly line workers” and due process will be further short-shrifted in the “pedal faster” atmosphere intentionally created by Sessions and McHenry. The BIA, in turn, will be pressured to further “rubber stamp” the results as long as they are removal orders. The U.S. Courts of Appeals, and in some cases the U.S. District Courts, are going to be left to clean up the mess created by Sessions & co.

We need an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court with competent, unbiased judicial administration focused on insuring individuals’ Due Process now! We’re ignoring the obvious at our country’s peril!

PWS

01-20-18

ANOTHER DUE PROCESS ASYLUM VICTORY FOR THE GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC AT THE ARLINGTON IMMIGRATION COURT!

Professor Benitez reports:

“Friends,

Please join me in congratulating Immigration Clinic student-attorney Solangel González, who this afternoon won a grant of asylum for her clients, N-R and her two minor children, from El Salvador. The ICE trial attorney waived appeal so the decision is final. The immigration judge (IJ), Quynh Vu Bain, commenced today’s proceeding in the above manner.

N-R was threatened by the MS gang in her country because of her familial relationship with her uncle, who was murdered by the gang. After her uncle’s body was discovered, N-R called the police. While discussing the murder with a police officer a gang member walked by and saw the discussion. During the discussion, however, the police officer told N-R that it was best if she dropped the matter because, if they found out she filed a complaint, the gang could kill her kids. N-R later was told by a gang associate that she and her kids would be killed if she pursued the complaint. Out of caution, N-R moved with her children to another part of El Salvador, but the gang continued to look for her. Finally, N-R and her children fled to the USA. N-R testified that the gang members continue to look for her.

Congratulations also to Alyssa Currier, Karoline Núñez, Chen Liang, and Jonathan Bialosky, who previously worked on this case.

NOTE: While waiting in the lobby for her case to be called, Solangel escorted a respondent, who didn’t know where to go and who didn’t know who her lawyer was, to her assigned court room, thus avoiding a potential in absentia removal order.

**************************************************
Alberto Manuel Benitez
Professor of Clinical Law
Director, Immigration Clinic
The George Washington University Law School
650 20th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20052
(202) 994-7463
(202) 994-4946 fax
abenitez@law.gwu.edu
THE WORLD IS YOURS…”

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

Congrats to all involved! It also illustrates one of the points that I repeatedly make. With good representation, adequate time to prepare, a good judge who knows asylum law and takes individuals’ rights seriously, and a conscientious Assistant Chief Counsel representing the DHS, many of the Central American asylum claims are very “winnable” under the law. That’s why detaining individuals in poor conditions in locations where competent pro bono counsel is not readily available and cases are being “raced through” to minimize detention expenses and maximize removal statistics is so unfair and such an obvious violation of due process.

Also, this is the Judge Quynh Vu Bain that I remember as a former colleague at the Arlington Immigration Court: fair, scholarly, hard-working, kind, and Due Process oriented. My Georgetown Law student observers remarked on how welcoming she was and how she went out of-her way to make sure that everyone in the courtroom understood what was happening and why.

Despite Sessions’s disdain for individual rights of migrants (particularly vulnerable asylum seekers) and Due Process, and his fanatic emphasis on using the U.S. Immigration Courts as mere tools of DHS enforcement, there are many U.S. immigration Judges out there working conscientiously every day to provide fairness and Due Process to vulnerable migrants while laboring under some of the highest stress levels and worst working conditions faced by any judges in America!

America needs an independent Article I United States Immigration Court dedicated to guaranteeing “fairness and due process for all” now!

DUE PROCESS FOREVER!

PWS

01-19-18

THE BO-GLO: FEDERAL JUDGE IN BOSTON STRONGLY REBUKES TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S “GONZO” ENFORCEMENT — COMPARES CHRISTIANS BEING FORCED OUT “to Jews fleeing the Third Reich in a boat!”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/01/17/judge-compares-christians-facing-deportation-trump-administration-jews-fleeing-nazis/klnay5JG42au9fadumgIcL/story.html?s_campaign=8315

Michael Levinson reports for the Boston Globe:

“A federal judge on Wednesday likened a group of Indonesian Christians facing possible deportation by the Trump administration to Jewish refugees trying to escape the Nazis.

Judge Patti B. Saris compared the plight of the Indonesians, who are in the country illegally, to Jews fleeing the Third Reich in a boat — an apparent reference to the infamous case of the St. Louis, an ocean liner that left Germany with 937 passengers, most of them Jews, and was turned away by the US government in 1939. Hundreds of the Jews were later killed during the Holocaust.

The Indonesians argue they will be tortured or killed because of their religion if forced to return to their Muslim-majority homeland. The Trump administration insists they have not proven they would be harmed if they returned to Indonesia.

“We’re not going to be that country,” Saris said Wednesday at a hearing in US District Court in Boston. “We don’t want to put them on the ship unless someone” can review their contention that deportation back to Indonesia is “a really bad situation for them.”

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

Read the complete story at the link. Thanks to my good friend Kevin Roche from Boothbay Harbor (summer) and Boston (winter) for sending this my way.

More wasteful litigation, more abuse of authority, more cruel, unnecessary, and unproductive “Gonzo” enforcement from the Trump Administration! They seem determined to repeat all of the worst mistakes of American history. But, then again, the Trumpsters pride themselves on ignorance of history, disregard of facts, and anti-intellectualism. So, why should we be surprised that they act more like “third-world thugs” than representatives of an enlightened Western Democracy?

All of this supports my observation that DHS doesn’t have enough real law enforcement functions to keep its current workforce busy. They clearly don’t need any additional agents. Just different leadership and smarter, more humane and sensible policies.

PWS

01-18-18

MORE DEADLY MISTAKES: 6TH CIR. FINDS BIA’S ERROR-RIDDLED DECISION WRONGLY SENT WOMAN BACK TO FACE CARTEL THREATS IN MEXICO – TRUJILLO DIAZ V. SESSIONS!

18a0012p-06-6thGangs

Trujillo Diaz v. Sessions, 6th Cir., 01-17-18, published

PANEL: MERRITT, MOORE, and BUSH, Circuit Judges.

OPINION BY: Judge Bush.

SUMMARY (FROM OPINION):

“In this immigration case, Maribel Trujillo Diaz petitions for review of an order denying her motion to reopen removal proceedings. The United States Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) ruled that Trujillo Diaz failed to establish a prima facie case of eligibility for asylum or withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA” or “Act”) because she failed to show that she would be singled out individually for persecution based on her family membership. The BIA reiterated this finding in ruling that Trujillo Diaz failed to establish a prima facie case of eligibility for protection under the Convention Against Torture. Because the BIA failed to credit the facts stated in Trujillo Diaz’s declarations, and this error undermined its conclusion as to the sufficiency of Trujillo Diaz’s prima facie evidence, we hold that the BIA abused its discretion. We further hold that the BIA abused its discretion in summarily rejecting Trujillo Diaz’s argument that she could not safely relocate internally in Mexico for purposes of showing a prima facie case of eligibility for relief under the Convention Against Torture. Thus, we vacate the order of the BIA and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

KEY QUOTATION:

“The BIA’s abuse of discretion in failing to credit Trujillo Diaz’s father’s affidavit undermined its conclusion that Trujillo Diaz had not made a prima facie showing of eligibility for asylum and withholding of removal under the INA. This conclusion also affected the BIA’s analysis of whether Trujillo Diaz made a prima facie showing of eligibility for protection under the Convention Against Torture. Further, the BIA abused its discretion in summarily rejecting Trujillo Diaz’s argument that she could not safely relocate internally in Mexico for purposes of showing prima facie eligibility under the Convention Against Torture. Accordingly, we GRANT the petition and REMAND to the BIA for reconsideration consistent with this opinion.”

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

Following the denial of her original claim for asylum, Trujillo Diaz was allowed by the Obama Administration as an exercise of prosecutorial discretion to remain in the United States with work authorization and faithfully checked in with the DHS. However, the Trump Administration arbitrarily targeted her for removal. Although many in the community, including the Catholic Church, protested, the Administration nevertheless removed Trujillo Diaz to Mexico while this motion was pending.

Our tax dollars are being squandered for this type of useless, immoral, and in this case ultimately wrongful removal. At no time has Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions shown any concern whatsoever for the significant number of mistaken asylum denials and improper deportations taking place as a result of poor quality decision-making taking place in the over-stressed and overwhelmed U.S. Immigration Courts operating under his administration. Nor has he shown any appreciation for the obvious fact that rather than more speed in deporting individuals, this court system is badly in need of better representation for asylum seekers, more careful decision-making that complies with the law, and measures to insure Due Process as required by the U.S. Constitution.

Sessions’s anti-due-process administration of the U.S. Immigration Courts is a national disgrace! We need an independent United States Immigration Court dedicated to insuring Due Process and protecting vulnerable individuals from wrongful removals like this! Now!

PWS

01-18-18

GONZO’S WORLD: HIS HIGHLY DISINGENUOUS “TRIBUTE” TO DR. KING WHILE ACTIVELY UNDERMINING MLK’S VISION OF RACIAL EQUALITY IN AMERICA OUTRAGES CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCATES! — Hollow Words From An Empty Man!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sessions-in-remarks-criticized-as-beyond-ironic-praises-martin-luther-king-jr/2018/01/16/cb3a8bd8-fae3-11e7-a46b-a3614530bd87_story.html

Sari Horwitz reports for the Washington Post:

“All he had were his words and the power of truth,” Sessions said. “ . . . His message, his life and his death changed hearts and minds. Those changed souls then changed the laws of this land.”

But civil rights leaders criticized Sessions’s remarks, made at a time, they said, when the Justice Department is rolling back efforts to promote civil and voting rights.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions called Tuesday for Justice Department employees to “remember, celebrate and act” in commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

“It is beyond ironic for Jeff Sessions to celebrate the architecture of civil rights protections inspired by Dr. King and other leaders as he works to tear down these very protections,” said Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division under President Barack Obama and now president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

“Make no mistake,” Gupta said. “If Dr. King were alive today, he would be protesting outside of Jeff Sessions’s office.”

[While eyes are on Russia, Sessions dramatically reshapes Justice Department]

Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said that in the past year, the Justice Department under Sessions has taken action to “obstruct and reverse civil rights enforcement.”

She and others point to a new policy that calls for federal prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges even if that might mean minority defendants face stiff, mandatory-minimum penalties. Sessions has defended President Trump’s travel ban and threatened to take away funding from cities with policies he considers too lenient toward undocumented immigrants. The department’s new guidance and stances on voting rights and LGBT issues also might disenfranchise minorities and poor people, civil rights advocates say.

Justice officials say that Sessions’s actions reflect an aggressive, by-the-book interpretation of federal law and that his policies are geared toward fighting violent crime and drug trafficking.”

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

Read the complete article at the above link.

Absurd and insulting! Actions speak louder than words, Gonzo! Every day that you spend in office mocks our Constitution, the rule of law, human decency, and the legacy of MLK and others who fought for racial and social equality and social justice under the law.

I have no doubt that if Dr. King were alive today, he and his followers would be on your and Trump’s “hit list.” Indeed, peacefully but forcefully standing up to and shaming tone-deaf, White Nationalist, racially challenged politicos like you, who lived in the past and inhibited America’s future with their racism, was one of the defining marks of MLK’s life!

How do things like increasing civil immigration detention, building the “New American Gulag,” stripping unaccompanied children of their rights to an Immigration Court hearing, mindlessly attacking so-called “sanctuary cities,” mocking hard-working pro bono immigration attorneys and their efforts, reducing the number of refugees, excluding Muslims, building a wall, stripping protections from Dreamers, reducing legal immigration, favoring White immigrants, and spreading false narratives about Latino migrants and crime “honor” the legacy of Dr. King?

Indeed, the “Sanctuary Cities Movement” appears to have a direct historical connection to King’s non-violent civil disobedience aimed at the enforcement of “Jim Crow” laws. Much as today, those on the “wrong side of history” wrapped themselves in hypocritical bogus “rule of law” arguments as they mocked and violated the civil rights of African Americans.

At some point, America needs and deserves a real Attorney General, one who recognizes and fights for the rights of everyone in America, including minorities, the poor, the most vulnerable, and the so-called undocumented population, who, contrary to your actions and rhetoric, are entitled to full Due Process of law under our Constitution. Imagine how a real Attorney General, one like say Vanita Gupta, might act. Now that would truly honor Dr. King’s memory.

PWS

01-17-18

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