FRAUD & ABUSE: TRUMP SEEKS DEATH AND DISRUPTION FOR REFUGEES: Claims To Have Duressed Guatemala, One Of The, Poorest, Most Corrupt, Most Dangerous REFUGEE SENDING Countries Into Outrageously Illegal “Safe Third Country” Agreement! — “Big Mac With Lies” Says Guatemala Not Much Different From U.S.!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-he-has-agreement-with-guatemala-to-help-stem-flow-of-migrants-at-the-border/2019/07/26/23bf0cba-afe3-11e9-b071-94a3f4d59021_story.html

Seung Min Kim
White House Reporter
Washington Post

Kevin Sieff
Latin American Correspondent, Washington Post

Abigail Hauslohner
National Immigration Reporter, Washington Post

From the Washington Post:

By Seung Min Kim ,

Kevin Sieff and

Abigail Hauslohner

July 26 at 6:45 PM

President Trump on Friday said he has struck a deal that would designate Guatemala as a safe third country for people seeking asylum in the United States — a plan that is facing significant legal hurdles in the Central American country as the Trump administration continues to struggle with the high number of migrants arriving at the southern U.S. border.

The White House did not immediately release details of the agreement, and it is unclear how it would be implemented considering Guatemala’s constitutional court has ruled any safe third country agreement would require legislative approval and the proposal has been widely criticized there.

Trump announced the arrangement in a previously unscheduled appearance in the Oval Office with Enrique Degenhart, the Guatemalan minister of government, and acting homeland security secretary Kevin McAleenan.

“We’ve long been working with Guatemala, and now we can do it the right way,” Trump said Friday. He claimed the agreement will put “coyotes and the smugglers out of business.”

He added: “These are bad people.”

Trump said the agreement will offer safe harbor for asylum applicants deemed legitimate, and that he plans to sign agreements with other countries soon.

The announcement comes just days after Trump threatened retaliation against Guatemala as discussions stalled over designating the Central American nation as a safe third country, which means migrants traveling through the country on their journey to the United States would be directed to first seek protection there.

The Trump administration has been seeking to sign these agreements to cut down on the number of Central American migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, which officials say is overwhelming the U.S. immigration system. The administration has come under heavy criticism from Democrats and immigration advocates who argue asylum seekers and other migrants face inhumane conditions in the U.S. facilities where they are being housed.

On a call with reporters Friday, McAleenan said the agreement with Guatemala would “be up and running in August,” after the two governments had completed several steps to ratify the deal. Under the agreement, Salvadorans and Hondurans would need to seek asylum in Guatemala, McAleenan said.

“If you have, say, a Honduran family coming across through Guatemala to the U.S. border, we want them to feel safe to make an asylum claim at the earliest possible point,” he said. “If they do instead, in the hands of smugglers, make the journey all the way to the U.S. border, [they would] be removable back to Guatemala.”

Guatemala’s only public statement about the agreement did not explicitly say it would serve as a safe third country, but alluded vaguely to “a plan that will be applied to Salvadorans and Hondurans.”

The statement said the United States would allocate temporary agricultural work visas to Guatemalans, adding that country’s president, Jimmy Morales, negotiated the deal “to counter grave economic and social repercussions.”

A proposal to designate Guatemala as a safe third country is already facing significant legal and logistical challenges. For one, the deal would force thousands of Hondurans and Salvadorans to apply for asylum in Guatemala, one of the region’s poorest countries, which has in some cities struggled to defeat transnational gangs, including MS-13.

Last year, Guatemala received 259 asylum applications, a tiny number compared with the United States and even Mexico. Of those, not a single application was approved, in part because the country is still building institutions to review those cases.

“Guatemala’s asylum system isn’t prepared to increase its capacity to 50,000 in less than a year,” said one United Nations official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which currently supports Guatemala’s fledgling asylum system, was not consulted as part of the negotiations, officials said. McAleenan also likened the third party agreement to arrangements between European countries and Turkey to stem the Syrian migrant crisis in 2015. He declined to say whether the U.S. government would be providing any assistance to Guatemala to improve safety and security for Honduran and Salvadoran refugees.

When read the State Department’s description of the security situation in Guatemala, which includes notations that murder is “common,” gang activity is “widespread” and police are ineffective, McAleenan, the Homeland secretary, said one should not “label an entire country as unsafe,” and likened Guatemala to parts of the United States.

The announcement prompted immediate backlash from Democratic lawmakers and human-rights groups who warned that Guatemala did not have the capacity to accept all the migrants who would now be required to apply for asylum there, nor is such an arrangement legal.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who along with Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) toured Border Patrol facilities in El Paso on Friday, noted that Guatemala has one of the world’s highest homicide rates and that they had visited with families earlier in the day who said they had fled the country because of the danger.

“It’s just Kafkaesque to say about that country, ‘Oh, safe third country,’ ” Kaine said. “You can’t just attach a label of safe third country and make it so.”

The Trump administration has taken a variety of unilateral actions to address the challenges at the border, and it has also received an additional $4.6 billion from Congress to deal with the crisis.

In June, Customs and Border Protection apprehended 94,000 migrants at the southern border, a 29 percent drop from the 133,000 who were detained in May. Border crossings tend to drop as the temperature rises in the summer, but administration officials have pointed to the lower figures as a sign that Trump’s border plan is working.

For months, Morales dispatched members of his administration from Guatemala to Washington to negotiate a safe third country agreement with the United States. But earlier this month, shortly before Morales was scheduled to sign the agreement in the White House, Guatemala’s constitutional court ruled he did not have the authority to sign the deal without legislative approval.

The meeting with Trump was canceled. In a statement, Morales then denied he had ever attempted to negotiate such an agreement. He is in the twilight of his scandal-ridden presidency, with elections scheduled for Aug. 11.

But when Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Guatemala and tax remittances, Morales resumed negotiations. Members of the country’s business community urged him on, raising alarm about the impact of tariffs, but most Guatemalans believe the country is wildly unprepared to offer asylum to thousands of Central Americans.

A number of Guatemalan congressmen and human rights officials said they would soon challenge the legality of Friday’s agreement in the country’s courts.

Jordán Rodas, Guatemala’s human rights prosecutor, said the country’s interior minister, who signed the deal on Friday, “does not have the power to sign an agreement of this nature.”

He said he was analyzing the agreement, and if he determined it was illegal, he would demand the constitutional court suspend its implementation.

“We are two weeks from an election,” said Edgar Gutierrez, one of five Guatemalan ex-foreign ministers who had earlier filed a petition in the court to block the signing of the agreement. “The signing of this accord will destabilize the country.”

Some Guatemalan analysts said the timeline for the agreement made it even more unrealistic.

“One month to be a safe country,” said Pedro Pablo Solares, a leading Guatemalan columnist who frequently writes about migration. “It couldn’t be more absurd.”

This year, for the first time in history, more Guatemalans have been apprehended at the U.S. border than citizens of any other country. It remains one of the region’s poorest countries, where migration is seen by many as the only way into a tiny middle class. In 2017, Guatemalans received a total of $8.2 billion in remittances, 11 percent of Guatemalan GDP.

Guatemalan politicians and analysts were taken aback by the agreement, which most discovered through a White House tweet.

“One characteristic of this government is that it does whatever it wants, in spite of what the law says. This is another example,” said Sandra Morán Reyes, a congresswoman from the Convergencia party.

Sieff reported from Mexico City. Mary Beth Sheridan in Mexico City and Bob Moore in El Paso contributed to this report.

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

Wow! Talk about turning the law, logic, and human morality on its head! “Safe Third Country” agreements are supposed to be between countries with fair, due process oriented asylum systems, like the existing agreement between the U.S. and Canada. They are not a gimmick for dishonest officials like Trump and McAleenan to “outsource” legal protection responsibilities to dangerous, poor, REFUGEE SENDING countries like Guatemala that can’t possibly live up to their international obligations under the U.N Convention.

This is nothing short of high level fraud that will result in death, torture, and abuse of asylum seekers! Not to mention that the presence of lots of deported asylum seekers will further destabilize the already unstable country of Guatemala. Trump is about to create an unmitigated international disaster by grossly unlawful conduct. Will we be able to stop him before it’s to late for us and for the rest of humanity?

PWS

07-27-19

ROUNDTABLE NEWS: Judge Jeff Chase & I Quoted By Nicole Narea In Law360 On How Trump’s Latest Assault On Immigrants’ Rights Could Go Belly Up Even With Some Statutory Support!

Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog

https://www.law360.com/immigration/articles/1182014/deportation-rule-may-violate-due-process-procedural-law

Deportation Rule May Violate Due Process, Procedural Law

By Nicole Narea

Law360 (July 25, 2019, 8:31 PM EDT) — The Trump administration’s recent expansion of its power to fast-track deportations is likely to invite legal challenges if the new process is seen as a violation of administrative law and the Constitution’s due process guarantees.

Under a rule published Monday, unauthorized noncitizens across the entire U.S. — not just those apprehended within 100 air miles of a land border — who arrived in the last two years via a land border could be subject to expedited removal proceedings and deported without an immigration court hearing. The American Civil Liberties Union has vowed to challenge the rule, which went into effect Tuesday and, by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s estimates, will affect more than 20,000 immigrants a year.

Contrary to the Trump administration’s claims, however, the rule may not qualify for an exception to the Administrative Procedure Act’s public notice requirements that allows the DHS secretary to unilaterally change the scope of the agency’s expedited removal authority. It also raises due process concerns for individuals who may not be able to prove their period of residency in the U.S. and for asylum-seekers who might be erroneously subject to expedited deportation.

“Unleashed expedited removal undermines our immigration system and the rule of law,” said Shoba Wadhia, a professor at Penn State Law in University Park.

Administrative Procedure Act

To justify the rule, acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan invoked his authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to have “sole and unreviewable discretion” to alter the scope of expedited removal proceedings. The rule is therefore exempt from the Administrative Procedure Act’s requirement to give the public an opportunity to comment on it before it goes into effect, DHS said in its announcement.

But Paul Schmidt, former chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals during the Clinton administration, said there “does not appear to be any legitimate reason” for noncompliance with the APA’s notice-and-comment requirements, especially given that the rule had such a long gestation period. Trump has been considering such a rule since the first days of his administration.

Wadhia said opponents of the rule could argue that the government failed to show “good cause” that invoking notice and comment is in fact “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest” as the APA requires.

“The government’s position that there is a ‘good cause’ lacks integrity,” she said.

Most lawsuits that have succeeded in challenging Trump immigration policies have brought claims under the APA, including the recent challenge to a question about citizenship status on the 2020 census. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately found that the decision to include the question on the census did not abide by the APA’s requirement that agencies provide a reasoned explanation for their actions.

Due Process Issues

Ken Johnson, dean of University of California, Davis School of Law, said the new rule could also be subject to due process challenges in light of the Supreme Court’s 1982 case Landon v. Plasencia, in which the justices applied a balancing test of interests in deciding the constitutionality of immigration admission procedures. That decision established that the interests of a noncitizen who has lived in the country for two years are much weightier than the interest at stake for a noncitizen who has been in the country for only two weeks because they have stronger ties to their community, he said.

Since the new rule expands expedited removal to apply to individuals who have lived in the U.S. for up to two years, they may be entitled to a higher standard of due process. Trump’s expansion of expedited removal also appears to exceed the limits provided by the Immigration and Nationality Act, resulting in further due process concerns.

Jeff Chase, a former legal adviser to the BIA and immigration judge, said the original intent of expedited removal was to stem an increase of inadmissible noncitizens arriving at airports in the 1990s who were paroled into the U.S. after announcing they were seeking asylum. The new rule, however, far surpasses that purpose.

“The present rule extends the application well beyond the purpose of controlling entry to the country, and now threatens to deprive those already here of their rights to apply for relief,” he said.

He said he also anticipates that expedited removal will be mistakenly applied to those beyond the scope of the rule, impacting those with a period of residence longer than two years, whose “attempts to stay under the government’s radar will create difficulty meeting their burden of establishing their period of residence in the U.S.”

Wadhia said that genuine refugees may also be erroneously denied due process, turned away as opposed to referred to an asylum officer to determine whether they have fear of persecution in their home countries, as required by law. Even if they have a credible fear interview, they are unlikely to pass in light of reports that asylum officers have been pressured to significantly lower their credible fear approval rates, Chase said.

Even U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, unaccompanied children and others who are exempt from expedited removal by statute could be unfairly and unlawfully targeted by the DHS, Wadhia said.

“The opportunity for profiling and violations of due process by DHS is rampant,” she said.

–Editing by Breda Lund and Kelly Duncan.

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

The Government’s case for an “emergency” exemption to the APA is laughable. This bogus “immigration emergency” is actually a human rights tragedy that has been unfolding in “super slow motion” before us since before last Thanksgiving. Virtually every part of it is a predictable result of Trump’s “maliciously incompetent” racist-driven approach to migration situations. To say that it now requires an “emergency” exemption, when Trump announced the proposed policy change in an Executive Order over two years ago, and his incompetent agencies have been fiddling around with it ever since, is simply absurd.

The Constitutional problem raised by Dean Johnson and others is very real.

And, there is no question that Trump’s DHS will misuse this authority to detain and deport lawful permanent residents and even U.S. citizens. Indeed, it’s already happening even without the regulatory change. See, e.g., “Texas-Born Student Held In Immigration Custody For Weeks Released,” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-student-immigration-custody-detention_n_5d36f637e4b020cd99498588.

Yes, some Federal Judges can be tone deaf to the plight of ordinary individuals, particularly when they wrongly think that they are “above the fray.”

Perhaps we need to hope that the DHS wrongfully detains a Federal Judge, a Federal Judge’s spouse, or the child of a Federal Judge so that the message about how Trump’s misguided policies affect ALL of us gets through to the “Judicial Ivory Tower” sooner, rather than later.

PWS

07-26-19

TAL @ SF CHRON: 9TH CIR. STICKS A FORK IN CORE OF “GONZO APOCALYPTO” SESSIONS’S CHILD ABUSE PROGRAM — Many Of DOJ’s Wasteful “Criminal” Prosecutions Of Harmless Asylum Seekers Were Illegal — Conservative Icon Judge Jay Bybee Becoming A Key Judicial Voice For The Rule Of Law Against Trump & Co’s Executive Abuses!

Tal Kopan
Washington Reporter, SF Chronicle

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Ninth-Circuit-ruling-could-wipe-out-hundreds-of-14152171.php

Ninth Circuit ruling could wipe out hundreds of family separations convictions

By Tal Kopan

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court in California substantially narrowed the government’s ability to charge people for crossing the border illegally — a case that could invalidate hundreds of prosecutions that were at the core of the Trump administration’s separations of migrant families last year.

The ruling comes as the federal law in the case, which makes it a crime to cross the border without authorization, is under scrutiny in the Democratic presidential campaign, with several candidates arguing it should be done away with altogether.

Wednesday’s ruling by a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena could bolster the Democrats’ argument that the Trump administration is misusing the law to criminalize well-intentioned immigrants seeking asylum. It also adds further questions to the administration’s widely criticized prosecutions that resulted in thousands of family separations last year.

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The 2-1 decision overturning a lower court ruling concerned the provision of U.S. law that makes improper entry to the country a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail. The law has three parts: entering the U.S. at an improper time or place, eluding immigration officers or entering the U.S. using false pretenses.

In an opinion written by Judge Jay Bybee, a George W. Bush-appointee, the court decided that the second part — eluding officers — could only apply to immigrants who are at a valid border crossing but who try to enter by evading detection, not immigrants picked up on the U.S. side having crossed somewhere else. That was the case with Oracio Corrales-Vazquez, a Mexican national whom officers found hiding in bushes miles from the border, whose conviction the court overturned.

Because part one of the statute already covers immigrants who surreptitiously enter where there is no legal crossing, the court held, the second part must exist to cover some separate activity. Otherwise, the court said, it would be redundant.

Circuit has already held that part one of the illegal-entry crime — entering at an improper time or place — does not apply to people who cross the border where officials can see them, in person or over cameras, and then seek out an officer and claim asylum. Those migrants are clearly not trying to avoid detection, court rulings have held.

It has become standard practice for federal authorities in Southern California to charge border crossers only using part two to avoid the defense to part one, said Kara Hartzler, an attorney with the nonprofit San Diego Federal Defenders who brought the case. Now, federal attorneys will not have part two as a back door to charge asylum seekers with illegal entry.

The court ruling means thousands of similar convictions could be thrown out, including hundreds that were the basis for family separations the Trump administration carried out last summer in the name of prosecuting a crime.

“All of the criminal cases that led to being separated from their families, … at least in San Diego, are at least convictions where the person was actually innocent because of this ruling,” Hartzler said.

David Leopold, a former president and general counsel of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, recalled then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen telling Congress the family separations were justified because the adults taken into custody had been charged with illegal-entry crimes.

“Well, here they weren’t even prosecuting those cases correctly,” Leopold said. “It puts a question mark next to every one of those convictions, which led to separation of children and in some cases the permanent separation of child from parent.”

The Trump administration separated thousands of families in the two months the program was in effect, before the president stopped it and a federal judge in San Diego ruled the practice was unconstitutional. In hundreds of those cases, parents were deported without their children, many of whom will not be reunited as the youths pursue a right to stay in the U.S.

The Justice Department does not make prosecution data public that would identify how many separated families could be affected by Wednesday’s ruling, but there could be hundreds of such cases. Nearly 4,000 immigration-related offenses were brought in the Southern District of California in 2018, according to court data, of which the most common charge is illegal entry.

The ruling also comes as some Democrats are attacking the notion that crossing the border should be a criminal rather than civil offense. Former Housing Secretary Julián Castro has made repealing the law a central focus of his presidential campaign, pointing to the Trump administration’s use of the law as a justification for separating the families last year. Twelve Democratic candidates have embraced the idea, according to a Politico tracker.

Castro and other critics of the law say it criminalizes asylum seeking. Other parts of the law make clear that an immigrant can file an asylum claim regardless of whether they entered the country legally.

Bill Hing, professor of law and migration studies at University of San Francisco, supports Castro’s arguments to remove the criminal part of the law, saying deportation is “already a pretty severe penalty” for anyone found not to have a valid asylum claim.

“Especially now, the vast majority of people gathered at the border are coming to seek protection — why criminalize that activity?” Hing said. “The statute should require something much more criminal in intent, and when it’s just simply to cross the border to seek protection, I think there’s a good argument that we should decriminalize that activity.”

The ruling applies only to the nine states covered by the Ninth Circuit, including California and Arizona along the Mexican border. But Hing says lawyers could seek similar rulings in other border states.

“Conceptually it actually makes sense,” Hing said. “It doesn’t make sense to have two parts of a law where the same act could qualify for the violation of both.”

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

Appointed by President George W. Bush, Judge Jay Bybee has been a controversial figure. His confirmation was strongly opposed by many Human Rights and Civil Rights groups because of his role in justifying torture while serving in the Bush DOJ.

Nevertheless, in this case, and in the earlier case of East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump, blocking an illegal attempt by Trump to bar Central American asylum seekers, Judge Bybee has been a strong and courageous voice for the rule of law, reason, and Constitutional separation of powers in the face of Trump’s intentional overreach in the area of immigration. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2018/12/10/mark-joseph-stern-slate-on-why-judge-bybees-65-page-evisceration-of-trumps-lawless-asylum-order-is-so-important-the-next-time-trump-floats-a-flagrantly-lawless-idea-then/.

Indeed, many observers believe that Judge Bybee’s scholarly opinion in East Bay Sanctuary was key to Chief Justice Roberts voting with the Supremes’ so-called “liberal wing” to reject the Administration’s bogus attempt to “end run” the system in that case by going directly to the Supremes without allowing the lower court proceedings to be completed. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2018/12/21/i-was-right-barely-chief-justice-roberts-saves-asylum-rule-of-law-administrations-request-to-implement-order-truncating-asylum-law-turned-down-5-4/.

Unfortunately, this much needed decision comes too late for many families who have been irreparably damaged by “Gonzo Apolcalypto’s” vile illegal and immoral abuse of Government prosecutorial authority. It’s too bad that there does not appear to be any way of holding “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions personally liable for his abuse of office, unconscionable distortion of our justice system, and the lifetime damage he inflicted on so many innocent children and families.

The case is US v. Oracio Corrales-Vazquez, and here’s a link to the full opinion: https://www.courtlistener.com/pdf/2019/07/24/united_states_v._oracio_corrales-Vazquez.pdf

And, of course, thanks to Tal for her continued incisive reporting on the most important issues facing America!

PWS

07-26-19

DUE PROCESS & RULE OF LAW PREVAIL ANYWAY — USD JUDGE TIGAR STOPS TRUMP’S ASYLUM TRAVESTY FOR NOW! — Conflicting Decisions On Same Day!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/us/asylum-ruling-tro.html

Miriam Jordan & Zolan Kanno-Youngs report for The NY Times:

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to continue accepting asylum claims from all eligible migrants arriving in the United States, temporarily thwarting the president’s latest attempt to stanch the flow of migrants crossing the southern border.

Judge Jon S. Tigar of the United States District Court in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction against a new rule that would have effectively banned asylum claims in the United States for most Central American migrants, who have been arriving in record numbers this year. It would have also affected many migrants from Africa, Asia and other regions.

The decision came on the same day that a federal judge in Washington, hearing a separate challenge, let the new rule stand, briefly delivering the administration a win. But Judge Tigar’s order prevents the rule from being carried out until the legal issues can be debated more fully.

The rule, which has been applied on a limited basis in Texas, requires migrants to apply for and be denied asylum in the first safe country they arrive in on their way to the United States — in many of the current cases, Mexico — before applying for protections here. Because migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala make up the vast majority of asylum seekers arriving at the southern border, the policy would virtually terminate asylum there.

“This new rule is likely invalid because it is inconsistent with the existing asylum laws,” Judge Tigar wrote in his ruling on Wednesday, adding that the government’s decision to put it in place was “arbitrary and capricious.”

The government, which is expected to appeal the decision, has said that the rule intends to prevent exploitation of the asylum system by those who unlawfully immigrate to the United States. By clogging the immigration courts with meritless claims, the government argues, these applicants harm asylum seekers with legitimate cases who must wait longer to secure the protection they deserve.

Under the policy, which the administration announced on July 15, only immigrants who have officially lost their bids for asylum in another country or who have been victims of “severe” human trafficking are permitted to apply in the United States.

Hondurans and Salvadorans have to apply for asylum and be denied in Guatemala or Mexico before they become eligible to apply in the United States, and Guatemalans have to apply and be denied in Mexico.

The policy reversed longstanding asylum laws that ensure people can seek safe haven no matter how they got to the United States. On July 16, the day the new rule went into effect — initially in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas — the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the policy in court in San Francisco. The case in Washington was filed separately by two advocacy organizations, the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or Raices.

“The court recognized, as it did with the first asylum ban, that the Trump administration was attempting an unlawful end run around asylum protections enacted by Congress,” said Lee Gelernt, the A.C.L.U. lawyer who argued the case in San Francisco.

The groups challenging the rule argued that immigration laws enacted by Congress expressly state that a person is ineligible for asylum only if the applicant is “firmly resettled” in another country before arriving in the United States. The laws also require an asylum seeker to request protection elsewhere only if the United States has entered into an agreement with that country and the applicant was guaranteed a “full and fair procedure” there, they said.

Judge Tigar agreed. “The rule provides none of these protections,” he said in his ruling.

During a hearing in the case on Wednesday, a lawyer for the Justice Department, Scott Stewart, said that a large influx of migrant families had spawned a “crisis” that had become “particularly stark” and created a “strain” on the asylum system.

“Migrants understand the basics of the incentives and are informed about how changes in law and policy can affect their options,” Mr. Stewart told the judge.

Judge Tigar voiced concern about forcing asylum seekers to apply for protection in Mexico or Guatemala. “We don’t see how anyone could read this record and think those are safe countries,” he said, referring to the rule’s language that migrants must apply to the first safe country.

The judge also said that the government did not address the “adequacy of the asylum system in Guatemala,” which is not equipped to handle a surge in applications.

Charanya Krishnaswami, advocacy director for the Americas at Amnesty International, said it was inhumane and cruel to force people fleeing violence to seek safety in places that are as dangerous as the homes they fled. “Everyone seeking protection has the right to humane treatment and a fair asylum process under U.S. and international law,” she said.

In federal court in Washington, two advocacy groups made similar arguments against the new policy.

But that judge, Timothy J. Kelly, found that the groups did not sufficiently support their claim that “irreparable harm” would be done to the plaintiffs in the case if the policy were not blocked. While the rule would affect migrants seeking asylum, the judge said, “the plaintiffs before me here are not asylum seekers.”

“They are only two organizations, one of which operates in the D.C. area, far from the southern border,” he added.

In recent years, the number of migrants petitioning for asylum has skyrocketed.

Migrant families and unaccompanied children have been turning themselves in to Border Patrol agents and then requesting asylum, which typically enables them to remain in the United States for years as their cases wind through the backlogged immigration courts. Only about 20 percent of them ultimately win asylum, according to the government, and many of those whose applications are rejected remain in the country unlawfully.

The administration announced the new asylum policy despite the fact that Guatemala and Mexico had not agreed to the plan, which means those countries have made no assurances that they would grant asylum to migrants intending to go to the United States. Talks with Guatemala broke down and the country’s president, Jimmy Morales, backed out of a meeting that had been scheduled for July 15 at the White House. On Wednesday, President Trump said that his administration was considering imposing tariffs on Guatemalan exports or taxing money sent home by migrants.

The new asylum rule is just one of many efforts by the Trump administration to curb the entry of migrants.

At ports of entry, Customs and Border Protection agents have significantly slowed the processing of applicants through metering — limiting how many migrants are processed to as few as a dozen per day.

And some 16,000 migrants are waiting in Mexican border towns like Tijuana under a policy commonly referred to as “Remain in Mexico,” which forces asylum seekers to wait in Mexico until the day of their court hearing. The policy makes it more difficult for the migrants to secure a lawyer to represent them in the United States, undermining their chances of winning protections.

In November, President Trump unveiled a separate policy that banned migrants from applying for asylum if they failed to make the request at a legal checkpoint. Judge Tigar, who was also hearing that case, issued a temporary restraining order blocking that rule. The case is currently on appeal in the Ninth Circuit.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs reported from Washington, and Miriam Jordan from Los Angeles.

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It’s a much more reasonable order than that issued by Judge Kelly in DC earlier in the day which declared “open season” on asylum seekers. Judge Tigar has been on the front lines of Trump’s war on Due Process and the rule of law. Significantly, he pointed out the absurdity of the Trump Administration’s outrageous scofflaw attempt to classify Guatemala, one of the most dangerous countries in the world, without a functioning asylum system, as a bogus “safe third country.”

It’s on to the appellate courts!

PWS

07-24-19

THEIR LIVES & RIGHTS DON’T MATTER: US District Judge Timothy Kelly OK’s Trump’s Plan To Shaft Asylum Seekers Pending Further Litigation!

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/24/744860482/trump-administrations-new-asylum-rule-clears-first-legal-hurdle

Vanessa Romo reports for NPR News:

Updated at 12:40 p.m. ET

A federal judge on Wednesday let stand a new Trump administration rule requiring most asylum-seekers to ask for protection in another country before reaching the U.S.-Mexico border.

“It’s in the greater public interest to allow the administration to carry out its immigration policy,” U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly of Washington, D.C., said from the bench.

Immigrant Advocates Plan To Challenge New Trump Administration Asylum Rule July 15, 2019

Two immigrant rights groups — the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and RAICES, or Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services — had sued to try to block the new rule, arguing it would strip asylum eligibility from migrants fleeing dangerous situations.

But Kelly ruled that the administration’s interest outweighs the damages that might be experienced by the organizations helping migrants. And he expressed “strong doubts” that plaintiffs can show the government overstepped its authority by issuing the rule.

“I’m not saying it would cause no irreparable harm” to migrants seeking asylum in the U.S., Kelly, who was appointed by Trump, said before the ruling. But, he stated the immigrant rights organizations had failed to show how many clients they would be unable to reach as a result of the new rule, how many people would be turned away and how many migrants would ultimately qualify for asylum. He added that both CAIR Coalition and RAICES had failed to demonstrate that the new rule would “greatly increase” the amount of time it takes to prepare for migrants’ imminent danger interviews.

NATIONAL

Federal Court Blocks Trump Administration’s Asylum Ban

“We are disappointed in the court’s decision today, but we will continue to fight to ensure that this harmful rule does not unjustly impact children and adults who apply for asylum as well as immigration legal service providers’ ability to help asylum seekers,” Claudia Cubas, CAIR Coalition’s litigation director, said in a statement.

“This new rule is contrary to our laws and we will continue to challenge this attempt to remove asylum [eligibility] from those who are fleeing violence and persecution around the world,” Cubas added.

Another federal court in California is hearing a separate challenge to the new rule. Judge Jon Tigar of San Francisco will hold a hearing in that case Wednesday.

NATIONAL

Federal Court Blocks Trump Administration’s Asylum Ban

In November, Tigar issued a nationwide restraining order against a Trump administration policy seeking to limit asylum eligibility to only those who cross at legal points of entry.

The Trump administration has been taking steps to slow the flow of migrants, mostly from Central America, across the southern border.

On Monday, the administration announced another rule change to expand the number of undocumented immigrants who can be put into fast-track deportation proceedings. Immigrant advocates also plan to challenge that policy in court.

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Obviously, Judge Kelly neither understands what is at risk for asylum seekers nor appreciates the difficulty in representing asylum seekers under constant attack by the Trump Administration.

While Trump has had his problems in Federal Court, ultimately he counts on the complicity of Federal Judges like Judge Kelly in his scheme to destroy the asylum system and endanger the lives of asylum seekers.

PWS

07-24-19

2 1/2 YEARS AFTER ANNOUNCING IT, TRUMP FINALLY GETS HIS EXPANSION OF EXPEDITED REMOVAL!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/trump-administration-to-expand-its-power-to-deport-undocumented-immigrants/2019/07/22/76d09bc4-ac8e-11e9-bc5c-e73b603e7f38_story.html

Maria Sacchetti reports for the Washington Post:

The Trump administration on Tuesday will significantly expand its power to quickly deport undocumented immigrants who have illegally entered the United States within the past two years, using a fast-track deportation process that bypasses immigration judges.

Officials are calling the new strategy, which will take effect immediately, a “necessary response” to the influx of Central Americans and others at the southern border. It will allow immigration authorities to quickly remove immigrants from anywhere they encounter them across the United States, and they expect the approach will help alleviate the nation’s immigration-court backlog and free up space in Immigration and Customs Enforcement jails.

The stated targets of the change are people who sneaked into the United States and do not have an asylum case or immigration-court date pending. Previously, the administration’s policy for “expedited removal” had been limited to migrants caught within 100 miles of the U.S. border who had been in the country for less than two weeks. The new rule would apply to immigrants anywhere in the United States who have been in the country for less than two years — adhering to a time limit included in the 1996 federal law that authorized the expedited process.

“AI will embed intelligence in daily operations to augment our employees, reshape our business practices, and even help create new products and services.” -Michele Goetz, principal analyst, Forrester

Immigrants apprehended in Iowa, Nebraska or other inland states would have to prove to immigration officials that they have been in the United States continuously for the past two years, or they could end up in an immigration jail facing quick deportation. And it could be relatively low-level immigration officers — not officers of a court — making the decisions.

President Trump has promised to deport millions of immigrants and has threatened enforcement raids targeting those in as many as 10 major cities.

Schumer again calls for ‘comprehensive immigration reform’

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on July 9 outlined Democratic proposals for curbing the flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border. (The Washington Post)

Nearly 300,000 of the approximately 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States could be subject to expedited removal, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. The typical undocumented immigrant has lived in the United States for 15 years, according to the Pew Research Center.

Though border apprehensions have fallen in June and July as the Trump administration and Mexico have intensified their crackdown on the southern border, acting Department of Homeland Security chief Kevin McAleenan said in a draft notice Monday that “the implementation of additional measures is a necessary response to the ongoing immigration crisis.” He said the new rule would take effect immediately upon publication in the Federal Register, which is scheduled for Tuesday.

[Trump administration weighs expanding expedited deportation]

“DHS has determined that the volume of illegal entries, and the attendant risks to national security and public safety presented by these illegal entries, warrants this immediate implementation of DHS’s full statutory authority over expedited removal,” McAleenan said in the notice. “DHS expects that the full use of expedited removal statutory authority will strengthen national security, diminish the number of illegal entries, and otherwise ensure the prompt removal of aliens apprehended in the United States.”

Immigration lawyers said that the expansion is unprecedented and effectively gives U.S. agents the power to issue deportation orders without bringing immigrants before a judge or allowing them to speak with a lawyer.

“Under this unlawful plan, immigrants who have lived here for years would be deported with less due process than people get in traffic court,” Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement. “We will sue to end this policy quickly.”

Royce Bernstein Murray of the American Immigration Council also vowed to challenge the policy in court, arguing that the broadened authority allows DHS “to essentially be both prosecutor and judge.”

Guatemalan men deported from the United States board a bus after arriving at an air-force base in Guatemala City last week. (Moises Castillo/AP)

Immigrants’ advocates warned that the policy could ensnare longtime legal residents or even U.S. citizens who have been deported in error before. Vanita Gupta, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said she fears the rule will lead to increased racial profiling and turn ICE into a “show-me-your-papers militia.”

“This new directive flows directly from the racist rhetoric that the president has been using for the last week and indeed months, but this new rule is going to terrorize communities of color,” said Gupta, who was head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division under President Barack Obama. “It really reads as a send-them-all-back policy,” she added, referring to the audience’s “Send her back!” chants at a Trump rally last week in response to the president’s attacks on a Somali-born Muslim congresswoman, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

[Momentary border reprieve rests on a rickety foundation]

David Leopold, a Cleveland immigration lawyer and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said expanding the expedited-removal program shifts the decision-making to immigration officers who might not have much experience with such a policy and means that many immigrants who might have the right to remain in the country will not be given the opportunity to show it.

“That is going to apply to a huge swath of people,” he said, noting that the rule requires migrants to prove that they have been in the United States for years — a particularly difficult onus when they, by definition, lack legal-immigration documents. “My view is: How are they going to prove it? The burden is on them to prove it. If I can’t prove it, I’m done.”

ICE, which enforces immigration law and makes arrests across the United States, estimates that “a significant number” of undocumented immigrants would be eligible for expedited removal, including at least 20,500 migrants the agency apprehended last fiscal year and more than 6,400 it arrested this year, as of March 30.

McAleenan, in the federal notice, made reference to the Trump administration’s recent efforts to deter migration to the United States on many fronts, an approach that has included pushing asylum claimants back into Mexico to await court hearings, stepped up Mexican enforcement against migrants as they head north, and the threat of ICE raids on families who have final removal orders. McAleenan wrote that the new rule “will reduce incentives” for migrants to enter the United States and swiftly move away from the border to avoid the faster deportation process.

Deported migrants coming from Texas prepare to leave La Aurora Airport Repatriation Center in September in Guatemala City. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

DHS said it has anecdotal evidence that many immigrants smuggled into the United States hide in “safe houses” far from the southern border to avoid the threat of expedited removal. This year officials said 67 undocumented immigrants were found in a safe house in Roswell, N.M. — just beyond 100 miles from the Mexican border — and the year before they found three others, held for ransom, at a house in San Antonio, about 150 miles from the border.

Federal officials said they could make exceptions for people with serious medical conditions or “substantial connections” to the United States, and they said deportation is not necessarily immediate. Officials said they have safeguards in place for migrants who might be U.S. citizens or legal residents.

Asylum officers will interview immigrants who fear returning to their home countries, to determine whether they qualify for asylum or another form of protection, and they potentially could refer them to full deportation proceedings. Unaccompanied minors from non-neighboring countries are not eligible for speedy deportations under federal law.

Expedited removals stem from a 1996 law, signed by President Bill Clinton, that authorized the use of expedited deportations for undocumented immigrants apprehended anywhere in the country who could not prove they had been physically present in the country two years before their apprehension.

In practice, enforcement was far more limited, at first applying to migrants arriving at a port of entry or by sea. In 2004, President George W. Bush expanded expedited removals along the U.S.-Mexico border, allowing for the swift expulsion of immigrants caught within 100 miles of the border who had lived in the country fewer than 14 days. The Bush administration said issuing removal orders bars migrants from reentering the United States and makes it easier to pursue criminal charges against them if they try.

Expedited deportations soared from about 50,000 immigrants in 2004 to 193,000 in 2013, about 44 percent of the total number of people deported that year, according to the American Immigration Council.

Trump sought to expand expedited deportations days after he took office as one of multiple strategies to crack down on illegal immigration at a time when the immigration-court backlog hovered at about 600,000 cases. The plan never materialized, and illegal border crossings sank in the months after he assumed the presidency.

But apprehensions soared during the past year as migrant families from Central America sought refuge in the United States; they often are quickly released to await court hearings because of limits on how long the United States can detain children.

Since then, the immigration-court caseload has spiked to more than 900,000 cases, and ICE has more than 50,000 migrants in custody each day, a record.

In the notice, McAleenan said expedited removal will relieve pressure on detention centers and the courts. He said the courts had fewer than 168,000 cases at the end of fiscal 2004, when DHS expanded expedited removal along the southern border.

Migrants in expedited proceedings spend an average of just more than 11 days in immigration jails, while detainees awaiting “time-consuming” court hearings spend almost 52 days in jail, McAleenan said.

“DHS expects that the New Designation will help mitigate additional backlogs in the immigration courts and will reduce the significant costs to the government associated with full removal proceedings before an immigration judge, including the costs of a longer detention period and government representation in those proceedings,” McAleenan said in the notice.

The Trump administration says the notice is exempt from the Administrative Procedure Act’s public comment requirements, but DHS is seeking comments on the change even though it is slated to take effect immediately upon posting.

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Well, Trump has the statute on his side here. But, because he is driven by malicious incompetence and racism, that hasn’t always carried the day for him.

Problems with this rollout:

There does not appear to be any legitimate reason for waiving the Administrative Procedures Act’s requirement for advance notice and comment for the regulatory change, particularly given its absurdly long gestation period;
The statute might well be unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause as applied to those whose connection to the border is quite attenuated (likely why prior Administrations chose a much more cautious and limited implementation);
The Trump Administration is likely to engage in overreach in implementation by going after long term residents who are outside the scope of the provision.

Only time will tell whether the Trump Administration’s latest “get tough” action will work, or just add to the Administration’s already remarkable record of litigation incompetence in the Federal Courts.

PWS

07-22-19

DON KERWIN @ CMS: REFUGEES HELPED MAKE AMERICA GREAT — NOW UNPATRIOTIC TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PLANS TO COMPLETELY ABANDON WORLD’S REFUGEES AT THEIR TIME OF GREATEST NEED — Richest, Most Diverse, Most Resettlement-Able Country In The World Intends To Shirk Humanitarian Duties — Undoubtedly Some Will Die & Many Will Be Traumatized By This Cowardly Attack On On International Obligations To World’S Most Vulnerable!

https://cmsny.org/whats-less-patriotic-than-abandonment-of-the-us-refugee-protection-program/

Donald M. Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies

Don writes:

What’s less patriotic than abandonment of the US refugee protection program?

Donald Kerwin

Director

Center for Migration Studies

(Raúl Nájera/Unsplash)

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This week, the Trump administration has descended to a new level of contempt for the US refugee protection system. From its very first days in office when it evoked specious national security concerns to suspend the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for 120 days and indefinitely bar the admission of Syrian refugees, the administration has sought to discredit and diminish the US refugee resettlement, asylum, temporary protection, and other humanitarian programs.

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump regularly decried the ways in which President Barack Obama exercised Executive authority, including by offering status, work authorization and protection from deportation to undocumented residents brought to the United States as children. As president, however, he has far exceeded Obama in unilaterally exercising his immigration authorities, albeit in favor of indiscriminate enforcement and evisceration of humanitarian programs. Many of these measures – although often justified on rule of law grounds – have not survived legal challenge.

To provide just a sampling of the Trump administration’s misguided policies, it has cut refugee admissions to historically low levels at a time of unprecedented need; has sought to rescind Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 95 percent of the program’s beneficiaries; ended the Central American Minors (CAM) program which allowed El Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and Honduran children to undergo refugee screening in their own countries and join their legally present parents in the United States; cut aid to the Northern Triangle states, which have produced in recent years the lion’s share of migrants and asylum-seekers to the United States, and; denied access to the US asylum system through interception, border enforcement, and cruel deterrence strategies, such as separating children from parents and forcing asylum seekers to wait for months in dangerous Mexican border cities while their US claims are pending.

The president habitually impugns the patriotism of his critics, but has systematically attempted to dismantle quintessentially American programs, which have long reflected and projected US values. Some of the most shameful episodes in the US history – as when it turned away the Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany on the S.S. St. Louis – involve the United States’ failure to protect refugees. By contrast, its leadership in responding to the refugees generated by World War II, the Vietnam conflict, the Cuban revolution, and the Balkans war in the former Yugoslavia – earned it the respect, gratitude and good will of many states and countless persons. They made it a beacon of freedom.

How do these programs serve US interests? They save lives (a core value). They promote regional and global stability. They reduce irregular migration. They promote US foreign policy goals. They encourage developing nations to continue to offer haven and integration opportunities to the bulk of the world’s refugees. They promote cooperation with US diplomatic, military and counterterror strategies. They link communities, including diverse faith communities, that work together to welcome and resettle refugees. As President Ronald Reagan put it in 1981, they continue “America’s tradition as a land that welcomes peoples from other countries” and shares the “responsibility of welcoming and resettling those who flee oppression.”

On July 18, Politico reported that the administration has been trying to make the case for admitting no refugees in FY 2020 – not those already approved for admission, not the family members of refugees in the United States, not those who assisted the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not survivors of religious persecution, although the administration regularly touts its commitment to religious liberty. It has reportedly been weighing a farcical rationale for this extraordinary step; that is, the United States cannot both process asylum claims and resettle refugees, although it has been doing both for decades.

On July 15, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOD) issued final interim regulations – which became effective the following day – that seek to deny access to the US asylum system to virtually every asylum-seeker at the southern border. With narrow exceptions, the rule would bar asylum claims by those “who did not apply for protection from persecution or torture where it was available in at least one third country” outside his or her “country of citizenship, nationality, or last lawful habitual residence through which he or she transited en route to the United States.”

Yet the Immigration and Nationality Act allows any non-citizen physically present in the United States to apply for asylum. Removal is permitted only “pursuant to a bilateral or multilateral agreement” to a third country where “the alien’s life or freedom would not be threatened on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, and where the alien is eligible to receive asylum or equivalent temporary protection.” In short, this exception applies to “safe third country” agreements with other nations. The United States has only one such agreement – with Canada – which does not apply to asylum-seekers with family members in the other country, as the DHS and DOD regulation would. The pre-conditions for such an agreement are that an agreement actually exists, the state parties to the agreement are “safe,” and they have “full and fair” asylum policies and procedures. The DHS/DOJ rule flouts all of these statutory requirements.

Ironically, the Trump administration claims that it needs to take this step based on the numbers of people seeking protection from countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Yet great demand and need argue for a robust, well-resourced asylum system, not the shell of a program.

Some percentage of asylum-seekers from these countries will ultimately be found to be ineligible for asylum, although a very high percentage have been forced to leave their violence-torn homelands and will at least present credible claims. For its part, the Trump administration has not effectively addressed the causes driving the flight of these migrants, has not offered legal migration opportunities to those in great need, and has failed to take any of steps necessary to address a human crisis of this magnitude. These steps would certainly reduce irregular migration and the high numbers of asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border. Instead, it has resorted to deterrence, interception and border enforcement policies – a recipe for failure on humanitarian, legal, and enforcement grounds, and a boon only to human smuggling networks and for-profit prisons.

The administration is dismantling the US refugee resettlement program and the asylum system – at immense human cost, to the nation’s detriment, and with disastrous consequences for the international system of refugee protection which it once led. This isn’t patriotism. It’s an act of sabotage of a defining set of American value and a once proud program. One day – perhaps soon – it will be looked upon as a shameful episode in US history.

July 19, 2019

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Wow! Just when you might have thought Trump couldn’t be any more cowardly or unpatriotic, he sinks us even lower!

Trump’s claims that the U.S. is “full” or that we don’t have room for more refugees is pure racist restrictionist BS! According to Amnesty International, one-third of the world’s refugees, 6.7 million people, are hosted by the world’s poorest countries. https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/refugees-asylum-seekers-and-migrants/global-refugee-crisis-statistics-and-facts/

Under Trump, the U.S. has become a leading shirker of refugee resettlement responsibilities, encouraging other prosperous Western Nations to follow our cowardly and selfish example.

Lebanon (GNP approx. $52 billion) hosted 1.4 million refugees, or 156 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants; Jordan (GNP approx. $41 billion) hosted 2.5 million refugees, or 72 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants. Meanwhile, the U.S., GNP approx. $20 trillion+, has reduced its refugee resettlement commitment to less than 30,000 and now outrageously proposes to “zero it out.”

Cowardly, inhumane, irresponsible, selfish, racist leaders reflect on all of us, not just on the disturbing lack of values of the minority of Americans who installed them in office and keep them propped up.

The U.S. is now officially leading the “race to the bottom.” Will those of us who believe in a confident, generous, courageous, patriotic America, reestablishing ourselves as a human rights leader be able to get it together to “right the ship” in 2020. Or, will the Ship of State continue to sink with Trump and his unpatriotic White Nationalist racists at the helm?

PWS

WORDS FROM AMERICA’S KIDDIE GULAGS: As Dishonest Administration Pols Like McAleenan, “Cooch Cooch,” Morgan, Provost, & A Bevy Of Border Patrol Officials Lie To Congress, The Press, & The American People About What Is Happening In DHS Detention, Here’s The Truth About The Human Rights Abuses Being Committed Daily By Our Nation In Our Name, In The Words Of The Abused Kids Themselves, Read By Children In NY — Watch The Video!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/opinion/migrant-children-detention-border.html

New York children read the words of their peers held in U.S. Border Patrol facilities.

The New York Times

By The Editors

Video by Leah Varjacques and Taige Jensen

In the video Op-Ed above, children read testimonies given by young migrants detained in Customs and Border Protection facilities. They reveal harrowing stories of children living in cages, going hungry and tending to infants without their parents.

Border Patrol has been detaining thousands of children, sometimes for weeks, in conditions no child anywhere should suffer. At a June hearing before a federal appeals court, judges were stunned by the administration’s arguments that these children were kept in “safe and sanitary” facilities, as required by the Flores Settlement.

The overcrowding, long stays and inhumane, possibly illegal living conditions are a result of the Trump administration’s cruel immigration policies and mismanagement of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the border agency.

Barring exceptional circumstances, the legal limit for Border Patrol to detain children is 72 hours. The agency is then supposed to transfer children to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement for a maximum of 20 days. But the resettlement office has been keeping children far longer, creating a backlog across the entire system. As a result, Border Patrol centers have not been quickly processing unaccompanied children and migrant families, who have recently been crossing the border in record-breaking numbers.

Detained children provided the testimonies read in this video last month to lawyers who visited Border Patrol centers as part of an ongoing investigation of detention facilities.

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Go to the above link for the video showing how we intentionally abuse children who seek our protection. Do we really want to be known and remembered as a “Cowardly Nation of Child Abusers.” That’s what Trump and his “New GOP,” the party of unapologetic White Nationalist racism, is turning us into.

Just yesterday, McAleenan was lying and covering up before Congress, trying to deny the abuses taking place on his watch every day. He also had the gall to blame this entirely avoidable situation on not enough money from Congress, bad laws (which the Administration doesn’t follow anyway), and the very vulnerable individuals seeking legal protection under our laws, many of them kids.

Committee Chair Elijah Cummings (D-MD) finally had enough and rightfully blew up at him. But, that’s not going to stop the daily abuse and the stream of lies, false narratives, and cover-ups being promoted by McAleenan and his cohorts.

How does McAleenan claim that they are doing the best they can when the DHS’s own Inspector General says exactly the opposite? How does he claim that reports have been exaggerated when Inspector General reports confirming the horrible treatment were in his own hands some time ago? How do Republicans in Congress justify the racist-driven human rights abuses that they are promoting?

America’s future depends on “regime change.” The only question is whether it will come soon enough to save our country and our souls. For Trump’s racism and the abuse he, his followers, and his apologists (like the ever toxic and irresponsible Sen. Mitch McConnell and Sen. Lindsey Graham) are heaping on children, asylum seekers, and other migrants truly diminishes the humanity of all of us!

PWS

07-19-19

AS COURTS & CONGRESS DITHER, FAILING TO STOP CLEARLY ILLEGAL & INHUMAN CONDUCT, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CONTINUES TO PUNISH INNOCENT KIDS AT THE BORDER WITH ARROGANT IMPUNITY — Whatever Happened To The Institutions That Were Supposed To Protect Us From Abuses By An Authoritarian, Scofflaw Executive? — Kate Linthicum Reports For The LA Times!

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=f4f6873a-7ae7-4cc2-bbe2-9fc685d2ea1b

Kate Lithicum reports for the LA Times:

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — For the two dozen migrant children living inside a small church on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, most days go like this: breakfast at 8 a.m., dinner at 6 p.m. and hours of nothing in between.

There is no school, and except for a handful of worn Bibles, there are no books. Dangers abound in the surrounding hills, so most haven’t left the razor-wire-ringed compound in weeks or even months.

“I feel imprisoned,” said 16-year-old Alison Mendoza.

She left Nicaragua with her parents and two younger sisters in March after her father received death threats for demonstrating against President Daniel Ortega, whose government has jailed and killed thousands of dissenters.

The family has been waiting here in Juarez for nearly two months for their chance to request political asylum in the United States. A Trump administration policy allows only a handful of asylum seekers to pass through ports of entry at the U.S. border each day.

Mendoza and her sisters, Sol, 6, and Michele, 11, are among the thousands of migrant children languishing along the border as a result of changing migration trends and White House policies that seek to deter asylum seekers.

They left friends and relatives behind and endured the trials of the migrant trail only to end up stuck in camps, cheap hotels and shelters such as Buen Pastor, which is now home to children and their families from as far away as Ghana and Congo. Pawns in an adult’s dispute, their future is entirely uncertain.

Two recent Trump administration mandates are almost certain to result in even larger numbers of migrant children being stranded here.

One calls for asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are adjudicated. About 3,000 migrant children and their families have been returned to Juarez under that program since April, according to Chihuahua state officials.

A mandate announced this week calls for asylum to be denied to migrants who did not apply for protection in at least one country they passed through while trying to reach the United States.

The rules mean that there is a very strong likelihood that if the Mendozas finally do cross the border to plead their case, they will be sent right back to Juarez.

“What will we do?” said Donald Mendoza, 37, who left behind a good job at a Managua university that would have allowed him to pay for all three girls’ college educations.

The Mexican government has committed to providing schooling to migrants who are returned from the U.S., but Mendoza doesn’t want to raise his girls in notoriously dangerous Juarez, where 10 people were slain on Sunday alone.

“This is not the life I planned for my children,” he said.

Buen Pastor opened its doors about 20 years ago to migrants — back then almost always single men — who passed through Juarez before seeking to sneak across the border.

“They would come, rest for a night or two, and then cross,” said Pastor Juan Fierro Garcia.

But over the last two years, entire families began trudging up the dirt road that leads to the church.

Many had heard that U.S. authorities were releasing migrants as long as they requested asylum and were traveling with children.

“We didn’t know much about the situation, just that families were passing,” said Joseph Venegas, 26, who left Honduras last month with his wife and their two sons.

After crossing into the U.S. illegally last week, and turning themselves in to border authorities, Venegas and his family were held for two days and then released back into Juarez with an order to appear at an asylum hearing in October. A Mexican official told them how to get to Buen Pastor.

Ten-year-old Jose sobbed on the way there. “I want to go back to Honduras,” he wailed.

“We had bad luck,” his father explained. “The law is the law and we have to respect it.”

“We are doing all of this for you,” Venegas added.

Venegas said the family decided to leave because a teachers’ strike meant Jose hadn’t been able to go to school for months.

But now, as he watched Jose sit morosely in one corner of the shelter and his wife nurse their coughing 4-month-old baby on a nearby bench, he wondered whether leaving had been in the best interest of his kids.

“What kind of childhood is this?” he asked.

The experience is a little easier on the younger children, many of whom don’t understand exactly what is happening, and who run around the shelter in a tight pack. The youngsters from Africa speak only a small amount of Spanish, but they still manage to make friends.

The lack of toys means the children entertain themselves around a big table, beating it like a drum until their parents complain or turning it into a fort under which they hide and whisper.

There are several small buildings clustered around the compound — a men’s dormitory, a women’s dormitory and the church sanctuary where families camp out each night on mattresses squeezed between the pews.

The crowded conditions and a constant stream of visitors — nongovernmental organization workers, pro bono lawyers and journalists all asking the same tired questions — mean there is zero privacy. Young women groom themselves and change clothes under the cover of blankets.

A psychologist from the state comes once a week. On a recent morning, she gathered the children around a big round table and led them in breathing exercises.

She asked them to go one by one, saying their names and where they were from.

“I’m Natalia from Honduras,” one girl said.

“I’m Akasia from Congo,” said another.

A thin child from Guatemala declined to speak, burying her head in her arms.

“She is sad,” the 7-year-old boy next to her explained.

“It’s OK,” the psychologist said. “It’s okay to be sad.”

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

This kind of preventable harm inflicted by an Administration that has declared war on humanity and the rule of law is directly at the feet of three irresponsible Federal Judges of the Ninth Circuit who tanked by vacating the injunction against such gross abuses properly put in place by the U.S. District Judge in Innovation Law Labs v. McAleenan, ostensibly so that their colleagues could “deliberate” (actually “dither”) over a decision that would take responsible judges about 60 minutes to reach! How do guys like this sleep at night?

The issue in Innovation Law Labs involves the bogus “Migrant Protection Protocols,” more accurately described as “Remain in Mexico” or “Die in Mexico” that intentionally violates both Fifth Amendment Due Process and numerous provisions of the INA, including the rights to access to counsel of one’s own choosing, fair notice of hearings, adequate time to prepare and present a case, and the right to assert withholding of removal to a country where one fears persecution or torture.

Failure of privileged Article III Judges to protect the most vulnerable among us from Executive overreach and abuse, in this case clearly racially motivated, has real life adverse consequences, beyond the “judicial ivory tower,” that in many cases are irreversible.

All of us who believe in justice should be outraged by the Ninth Circuit’s dilatory performance in this case! It’s nothing short of child abuse sanctioned by the Federal Judiciary. It must stop!

PWS

07-19-19

NDPA COUNTERATTACKS: ACLU, Immigrants’ Rights Groups Challenge Trump’s Scofflaw Attempt To Repeal Asylum Statute By Regulation That Failed To Comply With Legal Requirements For Advance Notice & Comment!

hhttps://www.wsj.com/articles/civil-rights-and-immigration-groups-file-lawsuit-challenging-new-trump-limits-on-asylum-claims-11563310786

Brent Kendall reports for the WSJ:

Civil-rights and immigration groups filed a lawsuit challenging new Trump administration rules that could dramatically limit asylum claims by Central American migrants seeking entry to the U.S.

The suit, filed in a northern California federal court on Tuesday, alleges the new asylum policy is “an unlawful effort to significantly undermine, if not virtually repeal, the U.S. asylum system at the southern border.

It “cruelly closes our doors to refugees fleeing persecution,” the suit added.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of several groups that assist migrants and refugees.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Brent’s article at the above link.

Go New Due Process Army, Beat Scofflaws!

PWS

07-16-19

DHS OFFICIAL ON TRUMP’S LATEST RACIST ATTACK ON ASYLUM: “IT’S F***ED Up!”— Racists Are Running Our Country With “Malicious Incompetence” — That’s a BIG Problem For Everyone, Not Just Those Targeted By Their Outrageous White Nationalist Attacks!

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/trump-asylum-central-americans

Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:

The US will end asylum protections for Central Americans and others who cross through Mexico to reach the southern border, the Trump administration announced Monday, a sweeping, unprecedented move that will quickly be challenged in court.

The new move, which bars asylum for any individual who crosses through a third country but does not apply there for protection before reaching the US southern border, takes effect Tuesday in the form of a regulatory change.

It becomes the latest in a series of attempts by the Trump administration to actively deter asylum seekers from reaching the border. The details of the plan and efforts to implement it were first reported by BuzzFeed News in May, and experts say it would keep hundreds of thousands of people fleeing violence from entering the US.

“With one regulation the US is nearly entirely turning its back on this asylum flow,” Sarah Pierce, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told BuzzFeed News.

Multiple Department of Homeland Security officials who spoke with BuzzFeed News voiced concerns about the administration’s move.

“It’s fucked up,” one official said. “There’s a reason people apply for asylum in the US — we have a robust asylum system. Other countries on the route to the southern border don’t.”

Rodrigo Abd / AP

Another said it would be blocked in court.

“Flatly inconsistent with our treaty obligations. Flies in the face of decades of case law. Destined to be enjoined and or struck down immediately,” the official said.

Another DHS official said the move was not only mistaken, but it would backfire on the administration.

“This administration continues to pervert the 1980 Refugee Act and its later amendments by passing regulations that burden its own employees with overly cumbersome, ill-conceived new ‘standards,'” the official said. “This rule will effect all those who reach our southern land border but may have fled from anywhere in the world. It does nothing to fix our broken immigration system, which is at its breaking point because the administration’s mismanagement.”

Administration officials have been working on the plan for weeks, considering it a potential solution to the high rate of families crossing the border.

“Until Congress can act, this interim rule will help reduce a major ‘pull’ factor driving irregular migration to the United States and enable DHS and [the Department of Justice] to more quickly and efficiently process cases originating from the southern border, leading to fewer individuals transiting through Mexico on a dangerous journey,” said acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan.

Advocates said they would move to sue immediately.

Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the group would immediately sue.

“The Trump administration is trying to unilaterally reverse our country’s legal and moral commitment to protect those fleeing danger. This new rule is patently unlawful and we will sue swiftly,” he said.

The ACLU previously filed a lawsuit over the administration’s attempt to ban asylum for those who crossed the border without authorization. The policy was later blocked in federal court and has since not been implemented.

Oliver De Ros / AP

The new regulation would make anyone traveling through Mexico by land to the southern border ineligible for asylum if they did not first seek protection before reaching the US. Immigrants could attempt to receive protection through a process that would be much more difficult.

The ban would apply not just to Central Americans but other non-Mexican nationalities, including Cubans, Haitians, and Venezuelans who in recent months have applied for asylum at the southern border in higher numbers.

The new rule allows for a few exceptions, including if an immigrant was a victim of severe human trafficking or if they traveled through a third country that did not have adequate asylum protections. The person could also avoid the new ban if they can prove that they applied for protection in a third country and later were ordered a final denial. It’s unclear how many people could fit these categories.

“This latest regulation is an attempt to close down one of the few remaining avenues for people in need of protection,” said Ur Jaddou, former chief counsel for the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. “The only ray of light for those seeking safety is that Congress was clear when it enacted the asylum law and this attempt to circumvent it by regulation will likely see the same fate of other Trump administration attacks on the law and result in a federal court injunction.”

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Only the Article III Courts can stop this continuing outrage. But, will they do their job before the country descends into total chaos and the race wars that Trump and the GOP are openly promoting?

PWS

07-16-19

RACIST SCOFFLAWS TRUMP, BARR, McALEENAN MOUNT VICIOUS ATTACK ON VULNERABLE CENTRAL AMERICAN REFUGEES — SEEK TO ELIMINATE ASYLUM STATUTES, TREATIES, CONSTITUTIONAL DUE PROCESS PROTECTIONS BY REGULATION!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-issues-new-rule-to-end-asylum-protections-for-central-americans_n_5d2c7a8fe4b0bd7d1e1fee42

Colleen Long reports for AP in HuffPost:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Monday moved to end asylum protections for most Central American migrants in a major escalation of the president’s battle to tamp down the number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

According to a new rule published in the Federal Register , asylum seekers who pass through another country first will be ineligible for asylum at the U.S. southern border. The rule, expected to go into effect Tuesday, also applies to children who have crossed the border alone.

There are some exceptions: If someone has been trafficked, if the country the migrant passed through did not sign one of the major international treaties that govern how refugees are managed (though most Western countries have signed them) or if an asylum-seeker sought protection in a country but was denied, then a migrant could still apply for U.S. asylum.

But the move by President Donald Trump’s administration was meant to essentially end asylum protections as they now are on the southern border.

The policy is almost certain to face a legal challenge. U.S. law allows refugees to request asylum when they arrive at the U.S. regardless of how they did so, but there is an exception for those who have come through a country considered to be “safe.” But the Immigration and Nationality Act, which governs asylum law, is vague on how a country is determined “safe”; it says “pursuant to a bilateral or multilateral agreement.”

Right now, the U.S. has such an agreement, known as a “safe third country,” only with Canada. Under a recent agreement with Mexico, Central American countries were considering a regional compact on the issue, but nothing has been decided. Guatemalan officials were expected in Washington on Monday, but apparently a meeting between Trump and Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales was canceled amid a court challenge in Guatemala over whether the country could agree to a safe third with the U.S.

The new rule also will apply to the initial asylum screening, known as a “credible fear” interview, at which migrants must prove they have credible fears of returning to their home country. It applies to migrants who are arriving to the U.S., not those who are already in the country.

Trump administration officials say the changes are meant to close the gap between the initial asylum screening that most people pass and the final decision on asylum that most people do not win. But immigrant rights groups, religious leaders and humanitarian groups have said the Republican administration’s policies amount to a cruel and calloused effort to keep immigrants out of the country. Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are poor countries suffering from violence .

Along with the administration’s recent effort to send asylum seekers back over the border , Trump has tried to deny asylum to anyone crossing the border illegally and restrict who can claim asylum, and Attorney General William Barr recently tried to keep thousands of asylum seekers detained while their cases play out.

Nearly all of those efforts have been blocked by courts.

Meanwhile, conditions have worsened for migrants who make it over the border seeking better lives. Tens of thousands of Central American migrant families cross the border each month, many claiming asylum. The numbers have increased despite Trump’s derisive rhetoric and hard-line immigration policies. Border facilities have been dangerously cramped and crowded well beyond capacity. The Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog found fetid, filthy conditions for many children. And lawmakers who traveled there recently decried conditions .

Immigration courts are backlogged by more than 800,000 cases, meaning many people won’t have their asylum claims heard for years despite move judges being hired.

People are generally eligible for asylum in the U.S. if they feared return to their home country because they would be persecuted based on race, religion, nationality or membership in a particular social group.

During the budget year for 2009, there were 35,811 asylum claims, and 8,384 were granted. During 2018 budget year, there were 162,060 claims filed, and 13,168 were granted.

___

Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.

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

The Trump Administration launches its most brazen attack yet on the rule of law, our Constitution, and American Democracy. But, ultimately it’s likely to fail for the following reasons:

As usual, the Trump Administration fails to comply with the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”) in publishing a major policy change without advance opportunity for notice and comment;
The regulation violates the Immigration and Nationality Act’s (“INA’s”) guarantee of a right to apply for asylum except in very limited circumstances not applicable here;
A similar regulation purporting to end asylum rights for those applying between ports of entry was immediately halted by the Federal Courts;
Even under the regulation, refugees arriving in the U.S. retain the right to apply for mandatory “withholding of removal” under the INA and the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) — although the standard is higher, those showing “past persecution” are entitled to a regulatory presumption of future persecution for purposes of withholding of removal under the INA;
Smugglers eventually can develop (more dangerous and expensive) water routes to the U.S. which do not require passing through any other “signatory country” on the way;
Smugglers could eventually shift their “business model” to higher risk more expensive schemes designed to avoid the U.S. asylum system completely and deposit individuals in the interior of the U.S. where most of them will be able to “lose themselves” among the millions of other foreign nationals residing and working in the U.S. without documentation.

We are diminishing ourselves as a nation, but that won’t stop human migration.

And, remember, YOUR legal and Constitutional rights might be the next casualty of Trump and his out of control band of scofflaws.

Join the New Due Process Army and fight for the legal and Constitutional rights and the human dignity of everyone in America!

PWS

07-15-19

THE NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY IS ALIVE AND WELL IN BOOTHBAY HARBOR — Singer/Songwriter John Schindler & Friends Inspire & Uplift With Benefit Concert For Maine’s Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (“ILAP”) At Congregational Church Of Boothbay Harbor!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt, Exclusive for immigrationcourtside.com

Boothbay Harbor, ME, July 14, 2019. In the face of continuing U.S. Government cruelty, disregard of asylum laws, and dehumanization which has drawn national and international condemnation, an estimated 150 enthusiastic supporters of due process, the humanity of asylum seekers, and the true spirit and teachings of Jesus Christ heard, saw, and participated in “the real America” at the Congregational Church of Boothbay Harbor Sunday night.

Singer/songwriter/guitarist John Schindler and Friends entertained the crowd with an upbeat, beautiful, heartfelt, down home, optimistic, generous, and welcoming view of America presented through their own music and arrangements. Among Schindler’s “friends” were local artist, singer, multi-instrument musician, and composer Kat Logan and songstress, composer, and guitar player Lisa Redfern.

Logan delighted the audience her versatility by playing the guitar, piano, banjo, accordion, and singing a cappella. She and Redfern collaborated seamlessly on several numbers. Schindler closed the performance with a number of his own compositions eliciting love, family, and American values including his award-winning composition The Start of the Freedom Trail, honoring the courage, determination, and sometimes tragedies of American immigrants throughout history.

The event was sponsored by Reverend Sarah Foulger and the Mission Committee of the Congregational Church, which is also sponsoring a mission trip to the southern border in November. All proceeds from the concert will be donated to the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (“ILAP”), Maine’s largest provider of pro bono legal support and representation to asylum seekers and refugees.

In her introduction, Rev. Foulger cogently and movingly pointed out that represented asylum seekers succeed on their claims at a rate of five times those forced to proceed without lawyers. And, although asylum proceedings have been likened by prominent judges to the equivalent of “death penalty trials in traffic court,” our laws currently provide indigent asylum seekers with no right to appointed counsel. Thus, essential efforts like those of ILAP are saving the lives lives of the most vulnerable among us every day.

The deep understanding of the plight of refugees and asylum seekers in today’s intentionally toxic, racially charged, and dehumanizing atmosphere created by our Government was both impressive and inspiring. Lots of folks in this small town in Maine understand our legal and ethical obligations to refugees and asylum seekers, the overwhelming obstacles refugees must overcome, and their essential contributions to the past and future greatness of America.

It’s a unfathomable tragedy that those running our Government (into the ground) are advancing a White Nationalist restrictionist agenda that unfairly demonizes and intentionally dehumanizes those whom we should be welcoming and treating with respect and dignity under our laws.

Anyone interested in contributing to this extraordinary effort by the “Maine Branch of the New Due Process Army” may do so by mailing tax deductible contributions made out to the Congregational Church of Boothbay Harbor (designated for ILAP), P.O. Box 468, Boothbay Harbor, Maine 04538.

Due process forever, malicious incompetence never. Join the New Due Process Army today, and fight for our Constitution and the promise of social justice for everyone in America. The life you save, might turn out to be your own.

Congregational Church
Boothbay Harbor, ME

John Schindler
Musical Artist
Boothbay Harbor, ME

Kat Logan
Musical and Graphic Artist
Boothbay Harbor, ME

Lisa Redfern
Musical Artist
Boothbay Harbor, ME

Rev. Sarah Foulger
Congregational Church
Boothbay Harbor, ME

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

PWS

07-15-19

AMID STENCH OF TRUMP’S GULAG, PENCE DISINGENUOUSLY BLAMES VICTIMS, DEMOCRATS — “When Vice President Pence visited a migrant detention center here Friday, he saw nearly 400 men crammed behind caged fences with not enough room for them all to lie down on the concrete ground. There were no mats or pillows for those who found the space to rest. A stench from body odor hung stale in the air.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pence-tours-detention-facilities-at-the-border-defends-administrations-treatment-of-migrants/2019/07/12/993f54e0-a4bc-11e9-b8c8-75dae2607e60_story.html

Josh Dawsey and Colby Itkowitz report for the Washington Post:

MCALLEN, Tex. — When Vice President Pence visited a migrant detention center here Friday, he saw nearly 400 men crammed behind caged fences with not enough room for them all to lie down on the concrete ground. There were no mats or pillows for those who found the space to rest. A stench from body odor hung stale in the air.

When reporters toured the facility before Pence, the men screamed that they’d been held there 40 days, some longer. They said they were hungry and wanted to brush their teeth. It was sweltering hot, but the only water was outside the fences and they needed to ask permission from the Border Patrol agents to drink.

Pence appeared to scrunch his nose when entering the facility, stayed for a moment and left. A few minutes earlier, from a bird’s eye room called “The Bubble,” he’d seen 382 men packed into cells, peering against the windows to get a view of him. Some appeared shirtless.

The vice president toured two migrant holding facilities Friday with Republican senators in an effort to defend the administration’s handling of the migrant crisis following reports of inhumane conditions at the facilities.

The first center he visited — in Donna, Tex. — while not homey or comfortable, was only two months old, cleaner and allowed Pence to paint a rosier picture of the treatment of migrants held in federal custody. He used the facility to decry Democrats for comparing such areas to “concentration camps.”

At the second facility in McAllen, he instead described the conditions as the result of the migrant border crisis the administration has been warning about for months but demurred twice when asked if he was okay with the facility’s conditions.

“I was not surprised by what I saw,” Pence said later at a news conference. “I knew we’d see a system that was overwhelmed.”He added: “This is tough stuff.”

The vice president’s office said it specifically instructed the Border Patrol agents not to clean up or sanitize the facility beyond what is routine so the American people could see the overcrowding and scarce resources, like lack of beds, and see how serious the crisis is at the border.

“That’s the overcrowding President Trump has been talking about. That’s the overwhelming of the system that some in Congress have said was a manufactured crisis,” Pence said during a news conference after visiting the second facility. “But now I think the American people can see this crisis is real.”

Pence’s comments were at odds with recent statements from Republicans, as well as Trump, who have accused Democrats who have visited similar facilities of exaggerating the poor conditions. Trump earlier Friday called recent media reports and comments from Democrats about poor conditions “phony.”

And earlier this month, the president downplayed concerns about how migrants are being treated at the facilities. “Many of these illegals aliens are living far better now than where they came from, and in far safer conditions,” Trump wrote in a July 3 tweet.

Pence said the rough conditions are why the administration recently requested and Congress approved $4.6 billion in aid for the border, and he accused Democrats of not supporting more funding for additional beds at facilities for migrants.

He also defended the job being done by the employees at the detention centers.

“I was deeply moved to see the care that our Customs and Border Protection personnel are providing,” Pence said. “Coming here, to this station, where single adults are held, I’ve equally been inspired by the efforts of Customs and Protection doing a tough job in a difficult environment.”

Pence’s visit was the latest move by both political parties to use border trips to highlight their case for who is at fault for the border crisis caused by a surge in Central American migrants and what should be done to remedy it.

Republicans have accused Democrats of failing to get on board with legal changes to the asylum system that would make the flow of migrants easier to handle, while Democrats have charged Trump’s policies and rhetoric are callous and making a bad situation worse.

The political fight over the border is likely to only intensify as both parties prepare for the 2020 presidential race, in which immigration will be a top issue.

Border officials sought to counter some of the men’s claims at the second facility Pence visited.

Michael Banks, the patrol agent in charge of the McAllen facility, said the men there are allowed to brush their teeth once a day and are given deodorant after showering. But he conceded that many of the men had not showered for 10 or 20 days because the facility previously didn’t have showers.

There were no cots for them to sleep on because there wasn’t room, Banks said. Instead, they are each given a Mylar blanket. He said they are also given three hot meals a day, along with juice and crackers.

After he toured the first facility, Pence described a much better situation than the one that has been relayed by Democrats and in news reports.

He said Trump wanted him there with media cameras to see for themselves how people were being treated.

“Every family I spoke to said they were being well cared for, and that’s different than some of the harsh rhetoric we hear from Capitol Hill,” Pence said. “Customs and Border Protection is doing its level best to provide compassionate care in a manner the American people would expect.”

Pence first toured the cavernous facility built in May to handle overcrowding, where 800 people are living. Most were lying on kindergarten-style napping mats on the floor, covered with thin, tinfoil blankets. In another room, children, all under 8 years old, were seated in front of a television watching an animated Spanish film.

Pence asked the children if they had food and were being taken care of. They all nodded, and some said “sí.” A few children shook their heads no when asked if they had a place to “get cleaned up.”

As Pence toured the facilities, a House committee was having a contentious, partisan debate back in Washington over how migrants have been treated. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) requested to be sworn in when appearing as a witness before the panel to show she was telling the truth when she retold a story about a migrant woman who said she had to drink water from the toilet because her sink broke.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) accused her of playing to her millions of Twitter followers.

Some Democrats have described the detention centers as “concentration camps” and say the U.S. government is holding children in “cages.” Several children have died after crossing the border and being taken into federal custody.

Pence said it was heartbreaking to hear from children who had walked two or three months to come to America and cross the border illegally, but he ultimately blamed Congress for failing to pass legislation that would deal with the influx of migrants at the southern border.

Itkowitz reported from Washington.

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

Pence was “moved” and “inspired” by the Border Patrol. Agents who, after all, are doing the jobs that they are paid for, no matter how difficult the circumstances. Apparently he felt no such empathy for or inspiration from those brave and determined individuals who risked their lives hoping only to be treated fairly and humanely by the U.S. legal system.

Instead, they have been “shafted and dehumanized upon arrival” by Trump’s policies. And, is jailing families and children who turn themselves in to apply for asylum really more difficult or challenging than tracking down smugglers and criminals, which is what the Border Patrol is actually supposed to be doing when they aren’t occupied with “Trump’s folly.”

These cases could be handled at ports of entry with adjudications personnel working with NGOs with experience in refugee reception and resettlement. Instead, Trump has purposely turned the situation in to a bogus “law enforcement emergency.”

Pence’s claim that this Trump-Pence White Nationalist self-engineered humanitarian situation largely caused by the cowardice, racism, incompetence, and intentional policy failures of those running the richest country on earth can only be solved by heaping more abuse on the victims and blaming Democrats, who are finally “blowing the whistle” on what’s really happening at the U.S. southern Border, is beyond absurd.

And enough with all the bogus racist claims that these are “illegals.” They are actually human beings, individuals fleeing desperate situations in their home countries seeking legal refuge under the U.S. and international laws the only way they can — since this Administration long ago closed down our only refugee program in the Northern Triangle and arrogantly refuses to fulfill our country’s duty under U.S. and international law to promptly and humanely process those who seek asylum or other legal international protection at our border.

A more accurate and human assessment of what is really happening at the border comes from U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet as reported by Vox News:

The UN high commissioner for human rights condemned the US for the poor conditions in migrant detention centers on Monday, saying she was “appalled” and “deeply shocked” by reports from detention facilities.

In a statement released on Monday, Michelle Bachelet said that detention should be the last resort, and should be used for the shortest period of time in conditions that meet international human rights standards, she said.

“In most of these cases, the migrants and refugees have embarked on perilous journeys with their children in search of protection and dignity and away from violence and hunger,” she said. “When they finally believe they have arrived in safety, they may find themselves separated from their loved ones and locked in undignified conditions. This should never happen anywhere.”

Bachelet especially criticized the US for detaining children, which “may constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment that is prohibited by international law.” Detaining children could have serious impacts on their development, which is why it should never be practiced, she said.

“As a pediatrician, but also as a mother and a former head of state, I am deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions,” she wrote.

In her statement, Bachelet noted a July report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, which documented the poor conditions of the migrant facilities with pictures.

The New York Times’s Nick Cumming-Bruce pointed out that Bachelet, the former president of Chile, doesn’t have a reputation for being confrontational with governments, but officials said that the inspector general report prompted her to speak out. And this isn’t the first time her office has called out the US for its violation of human rights. Most recently in May, Deputy Human Rights High Commissioner Kate Gilmore criticized the Alabama abortion ban, calling the attack on women’s rights a “crisis.”

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/9/20687495/us-migrant-detention-michelle-bachelet-un-high-commissioner-human-rights

PWS

07-14-19

ECONOMIST PAUL KRUGMAN ON TRUMP’S CRUELTY: Political Strategy & A Way Of Rewarding Corrupt GOP Corporate Cronies Who Profit From Human Misery! — “Oh, and save the fake outrage. Yes, they are atrocities, and yes, the detention centers meet the historical definition of concentration camps.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/08/opinion/trump-migrants-detention-centers.html

Paul Krugman writes in The NY Times:

Is it cruelty, or is it corruption? That’s a question that comes up whenever we learn about some new, extraordinary abuse by the Trump administration — something that seems to happen just about every week. And the answer, usually, is “both.”

For example, why is the administration providing cover for Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, who almost surely ordered the murder of The Washington Post’s Jamal Khashoggi? Part of the answer, probably, is that Donald Trump basically approves of the idea of killing critical journalists. But the money the Saudi monarchy spends at Trump properties is relevant, too.

And the same goes for the atrocities the U.S. is committing against migrants from Central America. Oh, and save the fake outrage. Yes, they are atrocities, and yes, the detention centers meet the historical definition of concentration camps.

One reason for these atrocities is that the Trump administration sees cruelty both as a policy tool and as a political strategy: Vicious treatment of refugees might deter future asylum-seekers, and in any case it helps rev up the racist base. But there’s also money to be made, because a majority of detained migrants are being held in camps run by corporations with close ties to the Republican Party.

And when I say close ties, we’re talking about personal rewards as well as campaign contributions. A couple of months ago John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, joined the board of Caliburn International, which runs the infamous Homestead detention center for migrant children.

Which brings us to the issue of private prisons, and privatization in general.

Privatization of public services — having them delivered by contractors rather than government employees — took off during the 1980s. It has often been justified using the rhetoric of free markets, the supposed superiority of private enterprise to government bureaucracy.

This was always, however, a case of bait-and-switch. Free markets, in which private businesses compete for customers, can accomplish great things, and are indeed the best way to organize most of the economy. But the case for free markets isn’t a case for private business where there is no market: There’s no reason to presume that private firms will do a better job when there isn’t any competition, because the government itself is the sole customer. In fact, studies of privatization often find that it ends up costing more than having government employees do the work.

Nor is that an accident. Between campaign contributions and the revolving door, plus more outright bribery than we’d like to think, private contractors can engineer overpayment on a scale beyond the wildest dreams of public-sector unions.

And what about the quality of the work? In some cases that’s easy to monitor: If a town hires a private company to provide garbage collection, voters can tell whether the trash is, in fact, being picked up. But if you hire a private company to provide services in a situation where the public can’t see what it’s doing, crony capitalism can lead to poor performance as well as high costs.

Many people have, I think, forgotten about the disastrous Bush administration occupation of Iraq, but the incompetence and abuses of politically connected private contractors, like Erik Prince’s security company Blackwater, played a major role in the debacle. Did I mention that Betsy DeVos, Trump’s secretary of education and a key defender of for-profit education, is Prince’s sister?

And running a prison, which is literally walled off from public view, is almost a perfect example of the kind of government function that should not be privatized. After all, if a private prison operator bulks up its bottom line by underpaying personnel and failing to train them adequately, if it stints on food and medical care, who in the outside world will notice? Sure enough, privately run prisons have a far worse security record than public prisons.

Yet the number of inmates in private prisons has grown by leaps and bounds — especially in the area of immigrant detention. The Obama administration finally tried to begin a phaseout of federal use of private prisons, and a number of Democratic presidential candidates have called for an end to their use. (Prison operator stocks fell sharply last month, when Elizabeth Warren laid out a plan to eliminate the industry.)

But Trump, of course, reversed the Obama moves. And the surge in immigrant detention has been a major new source of private-prison-industry profits.

How much of a role has this played in policy? It would, I think, be going too far to claim that the private-prison industry — merchants of detention? — has been a driving force behind the viciousness of Trump’s border policy. But the fact that crony capitalists close to the administration profit from the viciousness surely greases the path.

And this fits the general pattern. As I suggested at the beginning, cruelty and corruption are intertwined in Trump administration policy. Every betrayal of American principles also seems, somehow, to produce financial benefits for Trump and his friends.

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Cruelty and corruption are staples of the Trump Administration. And those who helped empower and continue to prop up this corrupt mess can’t escape accountability for what they have done and continue to do.

PWS

07-12-19

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New York children read the words of their peers held in U.S. Border Patrol facilities.

The New York Times

By The Editors

Video by Leah Varjacques and Taige Jensen

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Go New Due Process Army, Beat Scofflaws!

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Join the New Due Process Army and fight for the legal and Constitutional rights and the human dignity of everyone in America!

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THE NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY IS ALIVE AND WELL IN BOOTHBAY HARBOR — Singer/Songwriter John Schindler & Friends Inspire & Uplift With Benefit Concert For Maine’s Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (“ILAP”) At Congregational Church Of Boothbay Harbor!

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