Panel Discussion: Freedom from Fear: Young Women and Asylum
Alberto Manuel Benitez, Paulina Vera, and Gisela Camba
GW law professors Alberto Benitez and Paulina Vera will interview GW alumna Gisela Camba, JD ’18, and her client K-A-, who was granted asylum to the United States. Their discussion will review the arduous journey to freedom, and importantly, the reason asylum was granted. A collaboration with GW’s Law School. Free; no registration required.
Category: Central America
“CBS HOUR” IS A BIG HIT AT FBA/NY LAW SCHOOL ASYLUM CONFERENCE — Chase, Bookey, Schmidt Entertain, Educate Sell-Out Crowd!
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Blaine Bookey, Co-Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Hastings Law
Me
“Eric the Cameraman”
NEW YORK, NY, Friday, March 8, 2019. The “CBS Team,”* Jeffrey S. Chase, Blaine Bookey, and Paul Wickham Schmidt wowed the sellout crowd at the FBA Asylum Conference at NY Law School Friday. Speaking in the coveted “final slot” of the afternoon, the “CBS Gang” gave an enthusiastic audience lots of reasons and ways to go out and oppose former Attorney General Sessions’s perversion of American asylum law in Matter of A-B-.
In that case, Sessions reversed nearly two decades of progress and consensus in asylum law to “stick it” to Ms. A-B-, a survivor of extreme domestic violence persecution in El Salvador who fled to the U.S., escaping torture and death threats.
Schmidt, a former Immigration Judge in Arlington, Virginia and past Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals, led off with a rousing speech blasting Sessions for bias, intellectual dishonesty, and bad lawyering. He agreed with U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in the recent case Grace v. Whitaker that much of what Sessions said was non-binding dicta.
Schmidt also formulated seven ways for advocates to challenge the decision. He brought the crowd to its feet with his closing exhortation to what he called the New Due Process Army: “Due Process forever, xenophobia never!”
Bookey, Co-Director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at Hastings Law and a long time refugee advocate, appeared “larger than life” from California through the “miracle of televideo.” She showed a moving video of Ms. A-B- relating the horrible rape, beatings, death threats and abandonment by her government that forced her to leave El Salvador and her fear that she would be killed upon return.
Bookey also pointed out that this isn’t a mere “difference of opinion” among lawyers. Rather, Matter of A-B- is a concerted and evil attempt to undo an existing national and international legal consensus that women facing domestic violence can and must be protected under refugee law. The reversion sought by Sessions and his restrictionist supporters would basically return women to the “dark ages” and result in torture, death, maiming and rape of countless females by persecutors throughout the world. Bookey also offered the Center for Refugee and Gender Studies at Hastings as a “clearinghouse” for litigation and litigation strategies attacking A-B-.
Batting “clean up,” retired Immigration Judge and noted asylum historian Chase led the audience in a tribute for Bookey’s “in the trenches” heroism in staunchly defending the rights of refugee women throughout our nation and the world. He then proceeded to eviscerate Sessions’s decision by going through Ms. A-B-‘s actual evidence in detail.
He pointed out how Sessions ignored facts of record supporting a grant of asylum to Ms. A-B- on the merits regardless of the favorable BIA precedent that Sessions went to great lengths to overrule. He also mentioned the ongoing efforts of “Our Gang” of retired U.S. Immigration Judges, assisted pro bono by some of America’s best lawyers, to educate the Article III Courts as to the realities of asylum adjudication and the systemic destruction wrought by Sessions’s unprovoked attack on women’s asylum rights.
The Conference concluded with a request by FBA immigration Section Chair Elizabeth “Betty” Stevens for everyone to contract their Senators and Representatives about the need for an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court as proposed by the FBA, ABA, National Association of Immigration Judges, AILA, and others.
Netflix filmed the proceedings for a future documentary about American immigration. Additionally, star immigration reporter Nicole Neara of Law 360 was in the audience. Immediately following the closing, Conference organizer and NY Law School Professor Claire “Human Dynamo” Thomas left for the Southern Border with a group of students committed to putting into effect what they had learned about strategies for ensuring due process and re-establishing justice in the U.S. asylum system.
*The “CBS Hour,” “CBS Team,” and “CBS Gang” have no relationship to the CBS Network, CBS Broadcasting, CBS Sports, CBS News, or any other legitimate organization.
Here’s the video featuring Ms. A-B-:
And, here’s the text of my speech:
FEDERAL BAR ASSOCIATION ASYLUM CONFERENCE
NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL
March 8, 2019
Good afternoon, and thanks so much for inviting me. In the “old days,” I would have started with my comprehensive disclaimer. But, now that I’m retired, I’m just going to hold the FBA, New York Law School, my fellow panelists, and anyone else of any importance whatsoever “harmless” for my remarks today. They are solely my views, for which I take full responsibility. No sugar-coating, no bureaucratic doublespeak, no “party line,” no BS – just the unvarnished truth, as I see it!
“We’ve had situations in which a person comes to the United States and says they are a victim of domestic violence; therefore they are entitled to enter the United States. Well, that’s obviously false but some judges have gone along with that.”
“Good lawyers, using all of their talents and skill, work every day—like water seeping through an earthen dam—to get around the plain words of the INA to advance their clients’ interests. Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the act. That is our most serious duty.”
“When we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation. Your job is to apply the law — even in tough cases,”
Those, my friends, are obviously not my words. Whose words are they? They are the words of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions who ran the U.S. Immigration Courts for nearly two years.
Incredibly, this totally biased, xenophobic, misinformed, and glaringly unqualified individual, who had actually been rejected for a Federal Judgeship by his own party because of alleged racial bias, was in charge of our U.S. Immigration Court system. That helps explains why it is such a total disgraceful mess today from both a Due Process and administrative standpoint.
The Immigration Courts have a “known backlog” of over 1.1 million cases, with tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of additional cases likely squirreled away and still unaccounted for following the unnecessary “shutdown,” no signs of abating, and absolutely no, I repeat no, credible planfor reducing or controlling the backlog consistent with Due Process and our asylum laws. The DOJ’s process for increasing the backlog, known as “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” – and their outrageous attempts to “shift the blame” to respondents and their attorneys – are, as my esteemed former colleague retired Judge M. Christopher Grant used to say, “on steroids.” And, as my friend and fellow panelist, Judge Jeffrey Chase pointed out this week to BuzzFeed News, the current “strategy shift” to slowing down judicial and court staff hiring and abandoning once again the “e-filing program” that EOIR has failed to roll out after two decades of failed efforts is a guarantee that: “More people will wait longer!”
Acting Attorney General Whitaker’s questionable certification of two important cases during his brief tenure promises a continuation of political interference with the Immigration Courts in derogation of Due Process.
Don’t expect any improvement under current Attorney General Bill Barr. He’s known as an “enforcement solves all problems” immigration hard liner who co-authored an article praising Sessions for his attacks on Civil Rights, immigrants, and other vulnerable communities.
One of Sessions’s most cowardly and reprehensible actions was his atrocious distortion of asylum law, the reality of life in the Northern Triangle, and Due Process for migrants in Matter of A-B-. There, he overruled the BIA’s important precedent in Matter of A-R-C-G-, a decision actually endorsed by the DHSat the time, and which gave much need protection to women fleeing persecution in the form of domestic violence.
Take it from me, Matter of A-R-C-G-was one of the few parts of our dysfunctional Immigration Court system that actually workedand provided a way of moving cases efficiently through the court system in accordance with Due Process while consistently granting much needed protection to some of the most vulnerable and most deserving refugees in the world!
Sessions is gone. But, his ugly legacy of bias and unfairness remains. Fortunately, because he was a lousy lawyer on top of everything else, he failed to actually accomplish what he thought he was doing: wiping out protection for refugee women, largely from Central America. That’s why it’s critically important for you, as members of the “New Due Process Army” to fight every inch of the way, for as long as it takes, to restore justice and to force our U.S Immigration Courts to live up to their unfulfilled, and now mocked, promise of “guaranteeing fairness and Due Process for all!”
The only real,Article IIIFederal Judge who has ruled on Matter of A-B-to date largely supports my criticisms of Sessions’s effort to distort asylum law against refugee women. It’s a decision written by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington, D.C. called Grace v. Whitaker. You will want to read that decision. There is also an outstanding analysis by my fellow panelist Judge Jeffrey S. Chase on his blog.
Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, EOIR has purported to limit Grace’s rejection of Matter of A-B-to so called “Credible Fear Reviews.” In other words, they have improperly, and perhaps unethically, instructed Immigration Judges and the BIA not to apply Gracein individual asylum hearings.
But, that shouldn’t stop you from shoving Grace back down their throats! There is an outstandingonline practice advisory on how to argue Gracein Immigration Court by my fellow panelist Blaine’s amazing colleague, my good friend Professor Karen Musalo. I also reposted it in my blog, immigratoncourtside.com.
I’m going to give you sevenvery basic tips for overcoming Matter of A-B-. I’m sure that Blaine and her colleagues, who are much more involved in the day to day litigation going on in the courts than I am, can give you lots of additional information about addressing specific issues.
First, recognize that Matter of A-B- really doesn’t change the fundamental meaning of asylum.It just rejected the way in which the BIA reached its precedent in A-R-C-G-— by stipulation without specific fact-findings based on the administrative record. Most of it is mere dicta.
On a case by case basis, domestic violence can still be a proper basis for granting asylum in many cases. Indeed, such cases still are being granted by those Immigration Judges committed to following the rule of law and upholding their oaths of office, rather than accepting Sessions’s invitation to “take a dive.”
Just make sure you properly and succinctly state your basis, establish nexus, and paper the record with the overwhelming amount of reliable country condition information and expert opinion that directly contradicts the bogus picture painted by Sessions.
Second, resist with all your might those lawless judges in some Immigration Courts who are using, or threatening to use, Sessions’s dictum in Matter of A-B- to deny fair hearings or truncate the hearing process for those claiming asylum through domestic violence.If anything, following the overruling of A-R-C-G-,leaving no definitive precedent on the subject, full, fair case-by-case hearings are more important than ever. Under Due Process, asylum applicants are entitled to a full and fair opportunity to present their claims in Immigration Court. Don’t let wayward, biased, or misinformed Immigration Judges deny your clients’ constitutional and statutory rights.
Third, keep it simple. Even before A-B-, I always said that any proposed “particular social group” (“PSG”) longer than 25 words or containing “circular” elements is D.O.A. I think that it’s time to get down to the basics; the real PSG here is gender! “Women in X country” is clearly a cognizable PSG. It’s undoubtedly immutable or fundamental to identity; particularized, and socially distinct. So, it meets the BIA’s three-part test.
And, “gender” clearly is one of the biggest drivers of persecution in the world. There is no doubt that it is “at least one central reason” for the persecution of women and LGBT individuals throughout the world.
As Judge Chase and I recently reported on our respective blogs, a number of these “women as a PSG” cases have succeeded in the “Post-A-B-Era.” The detailed unpublished analyses by Immigration Judges are available online and, although of course not precedents, should give you helpful ideas on how to construct arguments and rebut ICE attempts to invoke A-B- to bar meritorious asylum claims by abused women.
Fourth, think political. There is plenty of recent information available on the internet showing the close relationship between gangs and the governments of the Northern Triangle. In some cases, gangs are the “de facto government” in significant areas of the country. In others, gangs and local authorities cooperate in extorting money and inflicting torture and other serious harm on honest individuals who resist them and threaten to expose their activities. Indeed, a very recent front-page article in the Washington Postpointed out that gangs are so completely in charge in El Salvador that U.S-trained policemen are forced to flee and seek asylum in the United States. Additionally, gangs are the largest employer in El Salvador.
In many cases, claiming political or religious persecution should be a stronger alternative ground than PSG. As one of my friends recently pointed out, because of the incorrect precedents by the BIA, Immigration Judges almost always reject gang cases as actual or imputed political opinion. That’s plain wrong.
We need to start making the record and fighting back, using the large amount of available evidence and expert testimony on how gangs have infiltrated and influence every aspect of life in the Northern Triangle including, of course, politics and government. It’s time for the “EOIR charade” of “let’s not grant gang-based asylum cases” to end, once and for all.
Fifth, develop your record. The idea that domestic violence and gang-based violence is just “common crime” advanced by Sessions in A-B-is simply preposterous with regard to the Northern Triangle. Establish records that no reasonable factfinder can refute or overlook! Use expert testimony or expert affidavits to show the real country conditions and to discredit the watered down and sometimes downright false scenarios set forth in Department of State Country Reports, particularly under this Administration where integrity, expertise, and independence have been thrown out the window.
Sixth, raise the bias issue. As set forth in a number of the Amicus Briefs filed in Matter of A-B-, Sessions clearly was a biased decision maker. Not only had he publicly dismissed the claims of female refugees suffering from domestic violence, but his outlandish comments spreading false narratives about immigrants, dissing asylum seekers and their “dirty lawyers,” and supporting DHS enforcement clearly aligned with him with one party to litigation before the Immigration Courts. By the rules governing judicial conduct there was more than an “appearance of bias” here – there was actual bias. We should keep making the record on the gross violation of Due Process caused by giving a biased enforcement official like Sessions a quasi-judicial role.
Seventh, and finally, appeal to the “real” Article III Courts.I can’t over-emphasize this point. What’s happening in Immigration Court today is a parody of justice and a mockery of legitimate court proceedings. It’s important to “open the eyes” of the Article III Judges to this travesty which is threatening the lives of legitimate refugees and other migrants.
Either the Article III’s do their jobs, step in, and put an end to this “theater of the absurd,” or they become complicitin it. There’s only one “right side of the law and history” in this fight. Those who are complicit must know that their actions are being placed in the historical record – for all time and for their descendants to know – just like the historical reckoning that finally is happening for so- called “Confederate Heroes” and those public officials who supported racism and “Jim Crow.”
Now is the time to take a stand for fundamental fairness, the true rule of law, and simple human decency! Join the New Due Process Army and fight to vindicate the rights of asylum seekers under our laws against the forces of darkness and xenophobic bias! Due process forever! Xenophobia never!
(03-11-19)
PWS
03-12-19
“DUE PROCESS FOREVER, XENOPHOBIA NEVER!” — Here’s An Inspirational Creation By The Courageous Students Of Professor Claire Thomas Of NY Law School, Stalwart Members Of The New Due Process Army!
This is derived from the closing lines of my speech to the 2019 FBA New York Asylum and Immigration Law Conference at NY Law School last Friday, March 8!
“Practicing what they preach,” Professor Claire Thomas of NY Law School and her courageous, smart, and dedicated students are now at the Southern Border saving lives and making a historical record of the cruel, ineffective, illegal, and bias-driven policies of the Trump Administration.
Thanks again to Professor Thomas, who was also one of the primary organizers of the “sold-out” Conference, and her inspiring students for all they are doing to preserve America and our system of justice against the attacks on the rule of law, our Constitution, and simple human decency by the scofflaw and incompetent Trump Administration.
Here’s the amazing Professor Thomas:
Due Process Forever, Xenophobia Never!
PWS
03-11-19
THE ART OF SOCIAL JUSTICE — HON. POLLY WEBBER’S TRIPTYCH “REFUGEE DILEMMA” HITS THE ROAD!
- a) “Fleeing From Persecution;” b) “Caught in the Covfefe;” c) “Safe Haven;”
- The stories behold each rug by the artist, Hon. Polly Webber;
- Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase & Hon. Polly Webber admiring “Caught in the Covfefe” during a break at the 2019 FBA New York Asylum & Immigration Law Conference at NY Law School on March 8, 2019;
- Closeup of “Caught in the Covfefe.”
Art powerfully expresses the overwhelming need to fight for social justice and human dignity in the age of Trump’s unabashed cruelty, racism, and White Nationalism.
It’s even more powerful when the artist is Retired U.S. Immigration Judge Polly Webber (a proud member of “Our Gang” of retired judges) who has spent her life promoting Due Process, fundamental fairness, justice, and the rule of law in American immigration. She has served as an immigration attorney, former President of AILA, U.S. Immigration Judge, and now amazing textile artist bringing her full and rich life and deeply held humane values to the forefront of her art.
Thanks, Polly, for using your many talents to inspire a new generation of the “New Due Process Army!”
I’m only sorry that my photos don’t do justice to Polly’s art. Hopefully, the “real deal” will come to a venue near you in the future!
PWS
03-10-19
“SHAFTING KIDS” — Reuters’ FOIA “Dig” Exposes How USCIS Wastes Time & Resources Developing New Ways Of Using Bureaucracy To Undermine Public Service & Deny Protection To The Most Vulnerable!
Mica Rosenberg reports for Reuters:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Growing up in eastern Honduras, Jose said his father would get drunk and beat him with a horse whip and the flat side of a machete. He said he watched his father, a coffee farmer whose crops succumbed to plague, hit his mother on the head with a pistol, sending her to the hospital for three days.
At 17, Jose said, he hired a coyote to ferry him to the United States, seeking to escape his home life and violent feuding among his relatives, as well as seek better opportunities for himself and his siblings. He was picked up by border agents, then released pending deportation proceedings.
After struggling to get a good lawyer, Jose applied at 19 for special protection under a program for young immigrants subjected to childhood mistreatment including abuse, neglect or abandonment.
But like a growing number of applicants, his petition hit a series of hurdles, then was denied. Now he is appealing.
“It’s like being stuck not going forward or backwards,” said Jose, now 22 and living in New York. He spoke on condition his last name not be used because he is working without a permit and does not want to jeopardize his appeal. “You can’t advance in life,” he said.
As President Donald Trump vociferously pushes for a physical barrier across the country’s southern border, young people claiming to be eligible for protection under the Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) program increasingly face a less publicized barrier: heightened demands for paperwork.
Data obtained by Reuters under the Freedom of Information Act shows that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has recently ramped up demands for additional documents through “Requests for Evidence” and “Notices of Intent to Deny,” which can tie up cases for months.
. . . .
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Read the rest of Mica’s articles, with graphs, at the above link.
Importantly, the restrictionst group CIS’s claim (in the part of the article NOT set forth above) that SIJ status was intended solely for trafficking victims is untrue. I actually worked on the enactment of the original SIJ provision in IMMACT 90 when I was in private practice. It was intended to be used by various states and localities, the largest number of which were in California, who had significant numbers of foreign-born “wards of the court” (some of them foster children) who otherwise would have been denied work and study opportunities upon becoming adults.
The later amendments to SIJ status were not intended to limit the scope in any way to “trafficked individuals.” The emphasis was on those who had suffered domestic abuse. Here is a link to an excellent report on that legislative history from American University. http://niwaplibrary.wcl.american.edu/wp-content/uploads/Appendix-B-SIJS-Legislative-History.pdf
Indeed, there is scant evidence that SIJ was ever intended to be limited to trafficked juveniles as restrictionists claim, although such juveniles often fit within the remedial scope of SIJ status. First, that’s clearly not what the statute says. Second, Congress has other specific provisions for the protection of trafficking victims and victims of crime under the “T” and “U” nonimmigrant statuses which may also lead to permanent status.
Just another example of how the USCIS and the Trump Administration have improperly incorporated many parts of the false narrative promoted by immigration restrictionists into Government policies and procedures.
PWS
03-09-19
TWO LA TIMES EDITORIALS “SPOT ON” IN CALLING OUT TRUMP’S FAILED BORDER POLICIES, BOGUS EMERGENCY, & ABUSE OF IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY!
http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=d85e48a2-1a59-4182-854b-dfd9a146177c
TThe numbers are sobering. The federal government reported Tuesday that immigration agents apprehended 76,000 people — most of them families or unaccompanied minors — at the U.S.-Mexico border in February, twice the level of the previous year and the highest for February in 11 years. The increase continues a trend that began in the fall, and offers direct evidence that President Trump’s strategy of maximal enforcement at the border is not reducing the flow of migrants.
And no, the answer is not “a big, beautiful wall.” Most of those apprehended weren’t trying to sneak past border agents; instead, they sought out agents once they reached the border and turned themselves in, hoping to receive permission to stay.
Furthermore, the situation isn’t a national security emergency, as he has declared in an effort to spend more on his border wall than Congress provided. It’s a complex humanitarian crisis that appears to be worsening, and it’s going to take creative analytical minds to address.
For instance, the vast majority of the families flowing north in recent months come from poor regions of Guatemala, where food insecurity and local conflicts over land rights and environmental protections are pushing more people off their farms and into even deeper poverty, according to human rights observers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Just months earlier, gang violence in urbanized areas were pushing people north to the United States; increasingly now, it’s economics.
But Trump’s rhetoric may be playing a role too. The more he threatens draconian enforcement and cutbacks in legal immigration, the more people contemplating moving north are pushed to go sooner, before it gets even harder to reach the U.S. Similarly, more migrants are arriving at more treacherous and remote stretches of the border to avoid getting stuck in Tijuana or other border cities where the U.S. government has reduced the number of asylum seekers it will allow in, claiming an inability to process the requests.
The system is overwhelmed. But the solution isn’t to build a wall, incarcerate more people, separate children from their parents or deny people their legal right to seek asylum. The solution is to improve the efficiency and capacity of the system to deal with the changed migrant demographics. A decade ago, about 1 in 100 border crossers was an unaccompanied minor or asylum seeker; now about a third are.
More judges and support staffs are necessary for the immigration court system, as the Trump administration has sought from Congress. Yet the case backlog there has continued to grow — in part because the increase in enforcement actions, in part because the Justice Department ordered the courts to reopen cases that had been closed administratively without deportations, often because the migrant was in the process of obtaining a visa. A faster and fair process would give those deserving asylum the answer they need sooner, cutting back on the years they spend in limbo, while no longer incentivizing those unqualified for asylum to try anyway.
The Migration Policy Institute, a think tank, has suggested one partial fix. Currently, migrants claiming asylum have a near-immediate initial “credible fear” hearing with an asylum officer from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, who determines whether the migrant has a significant potential to make a successful asylum claim. Most migrants pass that low threshold and are then directed to the immigration courts to make the formal case, a more involved process that can take years. Keeping those cases within the citizenship and immigration branch for an administrative hearing instead of sending them to immigration court could lead to faster decisions for the deserving at a lower cost — a single asylum agent is cheaper than a court staff — while preserving legal rights by giving those denied asylum a chance to appeal to the immigration courts. That’s a process worth contemplating.
More fundamentally, the current system hasn’t worked for years, and under Trump’s enforcement strategy it has gotten worse. It’s a big ask, but Congress and the president need to work together to develop a more capable system that manages the many different aspects of immigration in the best interests of the nation while accommodating the rights of the persecuted to seek asylum.
http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=1cbd9b3d-f2d0-4249-b602-37223ff3f407
The U.S. government is reportedly compiling dossiers on journalists, lawyers and activists at the border.
ASan Diego television station recently obtained some troubling documents that seem to show that the U.S. government, working with Mexican officials under a program called Operation Secure Line, has created and shared dossiers on journalists, immigrant rights lawyers and activists covering or involved with the so-called caravans of migrants moving from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Worse yet, the government then detained some of these people for questioning (one photojournalist was held for 13 hours), barred some of them from crossing the border and interfered with their legitimate efforts to do their jobs. NBC 7 also received a copy of a purported government dossier on lawyer Nicole Ramos, refugee program director for a migrant rights group, that included a description of her car, her mother’s name, and details on her work and travel history. That’s not border security, that’s an intelligence operation and, as the American Civil Liberties Union pointed out, “an outrageous violation of the First Amendment.”
The ACLU noted correctly that it is impermissible for the government to use “the pretext of the border to target activists critical of its policies, lawyers providing legal representation, or journalists simply doing their jobs.”
It’s unclear when the intelligence gathering began, or how widespread it is, but the Committee to Protect Journalists reported in October that U.S. border agents, using the broad power the law gives them to question people entering the country, seemingly singled out journalists for in-depth examinations, including searching their phones, laptops and cameras — all without warrants, because they’re generally not required at the border. These are troubling developments deserving of close scrutiny by Congress and, if warranted, the courts.
The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for controlling the flow of people across U.S. borders and has broad and court-recognized authority to search for contraband. But the government should not use that authority as a pretext to try to gain information to which it would not otherwise be entitled. And it certainly doesn’t give it a framework for harassing or maintaining secret files on journalists, lawyers and activists who are covering, representing or working with activists.
Homeland Security defended the targeting by linking the intelligence operation to the agency’s investigation of efforts this winter by some Central American migrants to cross the wall near San Ysidro, Calif. It said also that all the people entered into the database had witnessed border violence. That sounds an awful lot like a criminal investigation, not a border security operation.
The name of the report leaked to NBC 7 was “Migrant Caravan FY-2019: Suspected Organizers, Coordinators, Instigators, and Media.” The only thing suspect here is the government’s actions.
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Unfortunately, the second editorial on the “enemies list” shows why the first one on solving the Central American forced migration issue in a sensible, legal, and humanitarian manner simply isn’t in the cards without “regime change.”
First, the Trump Administration simply lacks the competence, professionalism, and expertise to solve real problems. The absolutely stunning incompetence of Nielsen and the rest of the politicos who supposedly run immigration and national security policy these days was on full display this week. America’s “real” enemies must have been watching with glee at this public demonstration of lack of competence and concern for any of the actual national security issues facing our nation.
Career civil servants who have the knowledge, expertise, motivation, and ability to solve migration problems have been forced out, buried in make-work “hallwalker jobs” deep in the bowls of the bureaucracy, or simply silenced and ignored. The Administration has also declared war on facts, knowledge, human decency and scorns the humanitarian expertise available in the private and NGO sectors.
Second, there is zip motivation within the Trump Kakistocracy to solve to the problem. As long as neo-Nazi Stephen Miller is in charge of immigration policy, we’ll get nothing but White Nationalist, racist nonsense. Miller and the White Nationalist restrictionists (like Trump & Sessions) have no motivation to solve immigration problems in a practical, humane, legal manner.
No, the White Nationalist agenda is to use lies, intentionally false narratives, racial and ethnic stereotypes, bogus statistics, and outright attacks on our legal system to further an agenda of hate, intolerance, and division in America intended to enfranchise a largely White GOP kakistocracy while disenfranchising everyone else. It plays to a certain unhappy and ill-informed political “base” that has enabled a minority who cares not a whit about the common good to seize control of our country.
While the forces of evil, division, and Constitutional nihilism can be resisted in the courts, the press, and now the House of Representatives, the reign of “malicious incompetence” can only be ended at the ballot box. If it doesn’t happen in 2020, and there is certainly no guarantee that it will, it might well be too late for the future of our republic.
PWS
03-07-19
HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST: ADMINISTRATION’S LATEST IMMORAL GIMMICK — A “REGIONAL REPRESSION COMPACT” — FURTHERS PERSECUTION WITHOUT ADDRESSING ROOT CAUSES OF REFUGEE FLOW FROM NORTHERN TRIANGLE!
February 21, 2019
Homeland Security Regional Compact Plan Won’t Address Root Causes of Refugee Crisis
New York City—In response to today’s announcement that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is discussing the development of a regional compact plan with Central American countries in the northern triangle, Human Rights First’s Eleanor Acer issued the following statement:
The so-called compact announced today sounds like a short-sighted and heavy-handed attempt to stop people in desperate need of safety from finding it in the United States, rather than an actual commitment to address underlying human rights violations in the region. It is yet another move from an administration that has spent the past two years dismantling the systems put in place to protect the world’s most vulnerable people.
This announcement does not reflect any commitment to address the actual root causes pushing people to seek protection—political repression, gender-based persecution, brutal murders, and other human rights violations.
The Trump Administration is enlisting the very countries that people are fleeing to prevent the escape of individuals plagued by this persecution and violence. The United States should certainly work with countries in the region to counter and prosecute smugglers and traffickers who prey on migrants and asylum seekers. This plan, however, aims to stop asylum seekers who do not employ smugglers but travel with other people for safety through dangerous territories.
Human Rights First urges the Trump Administration to implement regional strategies that strengthen the rule of law and human rights conditions in Central America, strengthen refugee protection in Mexico and other countries, and stop its efforts to block refugees from asylum in the United States.
For more information or to speak with Acer contact Corinne Duffy at DuffyC@humanrightsfirst.org or 202-370-3319
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It’s “Kakistocracy in Action” — malicious incompetence institutionalized. Certainly, Nielsen has to be the worst excuse ever for a DHS Secretary. Indeed, those who actually might threaten our security must be “licking their chops” at her continuous display of idiotic Trump sycophancy and White Nationalist lies and obsessions with bedraggled families seeking refuge while smugglers, drug traffickers, cartels, and gangs reap profits from her failed policies and take delight in her inability and unwillingness to address the real security problems.
While real human rights crises are unfolding, and real human lives are in danger, the Trump Administration dawdles away time and resources on endless “designed to fail” White Nationalist gimmicks that appear intended to enable and encourage persecution rather than addressing the problems that cause forced migration.
The Obama Administration did a genuinely lousy job of addressing the refugee and human rights issues in the Northern Triangle. But, Trump, Nielsen, and McAleenan are making to Obama group look like humanitarian geniuses by comparison.
As the great Casey Stengel once said while attempting to manage the 1962 NY Mets: “Can’t anybody here play this game?” Sadly, in the case of the Trump Administration, the answer is a resounding “No.”
Bad things happen to countries that allow themselves to be run by malicious incompetents (that is, a Kakistocracy).
As I have said before, “We Are diminishing ourselves as a nation, but that won’t stop human migration.”
Join the New Due Process Army and help restore humanity, Due Process, competence, and good government to America before it’s too late!
PWS
03-07-19
GW CLINIC REPORT: Justice Finally Triumphs — 7-Year Battle On Behalf Of Abused Refugee Woman Succeeds!
Paulina Vera, Esq.; Professor Alberto Benitez; Rachel Petterson
Friends,Please join me in congratulating S-P-G-G, from El Salvador, whose asylum application was granted by IJ David Crosland on February 26. We received the decision today. When told of the grant, S-P-G-G screamed. She can start the process of bringing her minor son to the USA. Please also join me in congratulating Rachael Petterson, Julia Navarro, Solangel González, Chen Liang, Xinyuan Li, Abril Costanza Lara, Allison Mateo, and Paulina Vera, who worked on this case.The IJ found that S-P-G-G warranted humanitarian asylum because she established compelling reasons arising from the severity of her persecution. Among other things, she had been raped by her sister’s ex-boyfriend, which resulted in her becoming pregnant, and giving the child up for adoption. S-P-G-G testified that she experiences recurring nightmares, suicidal feelings, a sense of hopelessness, and fear as a result of her persecution.FYI. The client’s initial hearing was on December 18, 2012, IJ Crosland denied asylum, she appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which remanded to the IJ, he denied asylum again, she appealed to the BIA, which denied asylum, she appealed to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which remanded to the IJ, and he finally granted asylum on February 26.
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Alberto Manuel Benitez
Professor of Clinical Law
Director, Immigration Clinic
The George Washington University Law School
- The absolute BS of those like Sessions and other restrictionists who say asylum cases can be raced through the system on an assembly line;
- The further BS of claiming that asylum applicants and their lawyers are “gaming” the system when many delays, like this, are caused by poor anti-asylum decision-making within EOIR combined with the DOJ’s incompetent administration of the Immigration Courts;
- The importance of full appellate rights, including review by a U.S. Court of Appeals that is actually an independent, fair, and impartial court, not a Government agency masquering as a court;
- The absurdity of claiming that unrepresented asylum seekers can receive anything approaching Due Process in the EOIR system, particularly when they are held in inherently coercive “civil immigration detention.”
What if we had a fair, expert Immigration Court system that made every effort to do right by asylum seekers in the first instance by interpreting and applying the law in the generous and humanitarian manner to protect those in need as originally intended in the Refugee Act of 1980 and described by the Supremes in Cardoza-Fonseca?
What if we had a Government that cared about Due Process and worked to promote it rather than attempting to whack it out of shape to screw the most vulnerable among us at every opportunity?
What if the emphasis in the Immigration Courts was on fairness, scholarship, respect, and teamwork with all concerned (not just “partnership” with the prosecutor and politicized Administration goals) rather than on “haste makes waste” methods and gimmicks.
Hey, we could have a working court system where justice was served and more things got done right in the first place, instead of the disgraceful mess that EOIR has become under DOJ’s highly politicized mismanagement!
PWS
03-07-19
REP. DON BEYER (D-VA) IN THE HILL: There Are Strategies To Constructively Address Human Rights Problems In The Northern Triangle — A Wall Isn’t One Of Them
Rep. Breyer writes:
Last week I traveled with colleagues to Central America’s Northern Triangle — Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador — where we spent five days meeting with heads of state, law enforcement, business leaders, U.S. ambassadors and diplomatic staff, USAID officials, and working people.
The trip, organized by Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, was highly informative, particularly given the ongoing debate over immigration policy, temporary protected status (TPS), trade, and other related issues.
I think my fellow travelers – Sens. Carper and Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Reps. Lisa Blunt Rochester (Del.), Lou Correa (Calif.), and Donald Norcross (N.J.) – would agree that what we saw and heard was both depressing and encouraging.
It is clear that the top mission of our U.S. presence in these countries is changing the conditions which drive irregular migration attempts to the United States. We are attacking the corruption, especially within the governments, which undermines citizen confidence that their countries will progress. We are training police forces to deal with both gang violence and narcotics trafficking, with significant reductions in the murder rates in all three countries. And we are investing in the conditions necessary for economic growth, especially the training of young people for jobs that pay much more than the minimum wage.
Our top concern was the decline in presidential support for U.S. initiatives to support economic growth and improved security in the region, and the naive idea that a wall on a border more than a thousand miles north will be any disincentive for jobless people living in fear of violence. The notion that a wall would magically solve the complex problems which cause people to flee to the United States was not borne out by what we saw.
Instead, we saw again and again that when we help create conditions of the most modest prosperity, when we reduce the fear of imminent violence, and when folks believe things will get better, it greatly reduces people’s desire to emigrate to the United States.
The most effective way for us to deal with unwanted immigration is to address the root causes in the developing economies of the Northern Triangle. We have already made a significant difference, but there is so much more we can and must do.
We should begin by shifting the useless waste of taxpayer funds in a silly border wall into greater investment into the Alliance for Prosperity, into our law enforcement efforts, and into diplomacy which will ensure ever less corrupt and more responsive governments.
My colleagues and I will be sharing these lessons with our colleagues this week, as Congress takes up a measure to reject the president’s fake national emergency, and beyond it as we look for humane, practical solutions to improve our immigration system and our relationships with these nations.
Beyer represents Virginia’s 8th District.
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There are many other things that we could do, both internationally and domestically, to address the current humanitarian situation in the Northern Triangle. The money that the Trump Administration is happy to waste on a wall, unnecessary and inhumane detention, and the unneeded stationing of troops on the border could actually support much more reasonable and effective approaches that would comply with the law, rather stretching and often breaking it.
We need a better government by better people. Join the New Due Process Army and help end the Trump Kakistocracy.
NOTE: Don Beyer is our Representative.
PWS
03-06-19
REFUGEES ARRIVE IN INCREASING NUMBERS AS TRUMP’S UNILATERAL “ENFORCEMENT ONLY” POLICIES FAIL: “Deterrents” Don’t Work, But DHS Officials Request More Authority To Abuse Refugees — With An Administration That Refuses To Recognize The Reality Of The Situation In The “Failed States” Of The Northern Triangle & To Work Cooperatively With Refugee NGOs, The International Human Rights Community, & Lawyers, No Solution On Horizon!
Nick Miroff reports for WashPost:
In a dusty lot along the U.S.-Mexico border fence, a single Border Patrol agent was stuck with few options and falling temperatures.
A group of 64 parents and children had waded through a shallow bend in the Rio Grande to turn themselves in to the agent on the U.S. side. He radioed for a van driver, but there were none available. By 2 a.m., the temperature was 44 degrees.
The agent handed out plastic space blankets. The group would have to wait.
Groups like this arrived again and again in February, one of the coldest and busiest months along the southern border in years. U.S. authorities detained more than 70,000 migrants last month, according to preliminary figures, up from 58,000 in January. The majority were Central American parents with children who arrived, again, in unprecedented numbers.
During a month when the border debate was dominated by the fight over President Trump’s push for a wall, unauthorized migration in fiscal 2019 is on pace to reach its highest level in a decade. Department of Homeland Security officials say they expect the influx to swell in March and April, months that historically see large increases in illegal crossings as U.S. seasonal labor demand rises.
Migrant families wait for a Border Patrol van to take them to a holding facility in El Paso on Feb. 22. It was cold and windy that night, so a border agent distributed plastic blankets to the group.
The number of migrants taken into custody last year jumped 39 percent from February to March, and a similar increase this month would push levels to 100,000 detentions or more.
It was a surge in the border numbers in March 2018 that infuriatedPresident Trump and launched his administration’s attempt to deter families by separating children from their parents. Trump stopped the separations six weeks later to quell public outrage. But the controversy the policy generated — and its widely publicized reversal — is now viewed by U.S. agents as the moment that opened the floodgates of family migration even wider, worsening the problem it was meant to fix.
While arrests along the border fell in recent years to their lowest levels in half a century, they are now returning to levels not seen since the George W. Bush administration, driven by the record surge in the arrival of Central American families.
For U.S. border agents, the strain has grown more acute, as they struggle to care for children using an enforcement infrastructure made in an era when the vast majority of migrants were Mexican adults who could be quickly booked and deported. The Central American families — called “give-ups” because they surrender instead of trying to sneak in — have left frustrated U.S. agents viewing their own role as little more than the facilitators for the last stage of the migrants’ journey. They are rescuing families with small children from river currents, irrigation canals, medical emergencies and freezing winter temperatures.
“We’re so cold,” said Marlen Moya, who had left Guatemala with her sons six weeks earlier and crossed the Rio Grande with the group of 64.
Moya’s son Gael, 6, was sick with a fever and moaning, his face streaked with tears. “In Juarez, we were shoved and yelled at,” she said, looking back across the river to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. “We slept on the street.”
Asked why she didn’t cross during the day, when temperatures were mild, Moya said she worried that Mexican police would stop them. “We’ve already come this far,” she said.
Marlen Moya, who had left Guatemala with her sons six weeks earlier, holds Gael, 6, as they wait along with Anderson, 8. Moya said she fled Guatemala City after being threatened and robbed at gunpoint at her beauty salon.
Much of the attention last fall was focused on caravan groups, mostly from Honduras, as they reached Tijuana, Mexico, not far from San Diego. Then concern shifted to Arizona and New Mexico, where groups of rural Guatemalan families began showing up at remote border outposts. Two Guatemalan children died in December after being taken into U.S. custody, as Homeland Security officials declared a humanitarian and national security crisis.
The border deal Trump and Democrats reached last month includes $415 million to improve detention conditions for migrant families, including funds to potentially open a new processing center in El Paso. But in the meantime, families continue to arrive in groups large and small, in faraway rural areas and right in downtown El Paso.
“The numbers are staggering, and we’re incredibly worried that we will see another huge increase in March,” said a Homeland Security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the unpublished figures.
The lone U.S. agent with the group was the only one available along that span. Drug smugglers have been using the groups as a diversion, so the agent couldn’t leave the riverbank.
No vans or buses arrived to pick up the families. Other agents were busy at the nearby processing center because so many groups had arrived in El Paso that night, and still others were at the hospital, where they were helping parents and children receive treatment for severe flu symptoms.
Homeland Security officials have been urging lawmakers to grant them broader powers to detain and quickly deport families in a search for deterrent measures. Their attempts to crack down using executive actions have been blocked repeatedly in federal court.
The migrants travel by van to a holding facility in El Paso.
The Trump administration has begun sending some asylum-seeking Central Americans back to Mexico to wait while their claims are processed, but so far that experiment has been limited to California’s San Ysidro port of entry.
About 150 migrants were sent back across the border in February, according to Mexican authorities, but that is a small fraction of the more than 2,000 unauthorized migrants coming into U.S. custody on an average day.
Homeland Security officials said Friday that the pilot program, which they call Migrant Protection Protocols, will expand to El Paso and potentially other locations in coming weeks, predicting that the number of Central Americans sent back would grow “exponentially.” Some of the cities where they will wait are among the most dangerous in Mexico.
Mexican officials are cooperating by providing general assistance and job placement for those sent back to wait, but privately they have warned the Americans that their capacity to take parents with children is extremely limited, especially families that need welfare assistance and enrollment in already-crowded public schools.
Migrants at the border hold tight to the blankets and move about the area to stay warm while they wait for the van.
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IN MATTER OF A-B-, SESSIONS DISINGENUOUSLY SUGGESTED SALVADORAN POLICE COULD PROTECT ABUSED WOMEN – THE TRUTH IS STARKLY DIFFERENT: American-Trained Cops Flee El Salvador Because Gangs Are In Control – Ex-Cops Granted Asylum While Helpless DV Victims Sent Back To Face Deadly Abuse – Trump Administration Continues To Pervert Asylum Law!
Kevin Sief reports in WashPost:
SAN SALVADOR — They were given one of the most dangerous tasks in policing: Take down MS-13.
They were bankrolled by the United States and trained by FBI agents. But members of the Salvadoran police have been killed by the dozens in each of the past three years, most in attacks that investigators and experts blame on MS-13, an international street gang. At least nine officers were killed in the first month of this year.
Now, a number of El Salvador’s police officers are fleeing the gang they were tasked with eliminating.
There is no list in either El Salvador or the United States of Salvadoran police officers who have fled the country. But The Washington Post has identified 15 officers in the process of being resettled as refugees by the United Nations and six officers who have either recently received asylum or have scheduled asylum hearings in U.S. immigration courts. In WhatsApp groups, police officers have begun discussing the possibility of a migrant caravan composed entirely of Salvadoran police — a caravana policial, the officers call it.
The exodus of Salvadoran police points to how the country’s security forces have failed to break the stranglehold of organized crime. It also shows that among those seeking refuge in the United States during the Trump administration are some of America’s closest security partners.
“These are among the most vulnerable people in El Salvador,” said Julio Buendía, the director of migration at Cáritas El Salvador, a nonprofit organization that works with the United States and United Nations on refugee resettlement.
The United States has been bolstering the Salvadoran police, part of a regional strategy intended to stabilize Central America’s most violent countries and reduce migration. The State Department spent at least $48 million to train police in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras from 2014 through 2017, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The department opened a law enforcement training academy in San Salvador, where 855 Salvadoran officers were trained by the FBI and other American law enforcement agencies in those four years.
“The Salvadoran government, with U.S. government support, has made significant gains in the area of security, including reductions in homicides and every other category of violent crime measured,” the State Department said in a statement issued in response to an inquiry by The Post.
Citing “privacy reasons,” the department would not comment on whether it was receiving asylum or refugee applications from Salvadoran police officers.
By some measures, the U.S.-backed security efforts appeared to be showing results. In 2018, El Salvador’s murder rate was 50.3 per 100,000 inhabitants. That was still among the highest in the world, but it was down from 60.8 per 100,000 in 2017 and 81 per 100,000 in 2016.
MS-13 was born in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, expanding as more Salvadorans arrived in the United States after fleeing the country’s civil war. The group splintered, with Barrio 18 becoming a chief rival, and both groups grew in American prisons before reaching El Salvador through mass deportations. Between 2001 and 2010, the United States deported 40,429 ex-convicts to El Salvador, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
El Salvador’s government adopted an “iron fist” response to the gangs, including more police operations. When that approach failed, it tried to broach a truce with the gangs in 2014. The pact quickly disintegrated and was followed by another surge in violence. It was then that the gangs began to explicitly broadcast their threats against police officers.
“If you kill a ‘pig,’ or a police officer, you’re more respected in these gangs. That’s the policy — using death as exchange currency,” said Héctor Silva Ávalos, a journalist and researcher who has written a book on the Salvadoran police and has served as an expert witness at several asylum hearings for former police officers in the United States.
A man with an MS-13 tattoo is detained by Salvadoran security forces during an operation in San Salvador in January. (Marvin Recinos/AFP/Getty Images)With salaries of $300 to $400 per month, the low-level police officers who make up the majority of the force often have no choice but to live in neighborhoods vulnerable to gangs. And so, in the vast majority of the cases, police officers are killed when they are home from work or are on leave.
In August, Manuel de Jesús Mira Díaz was killed while buying construction materials. In July, Juan de Jesús Morales Alvarado was killed while walking with his 7-year-old son on the way to school. In November, Barrera Mayén was killed after taking leave to spend time at home with his family.
The police investigated a number of the killings since 2014 and found members of the major gangs responsible.
“They have more control than we do. When we go home, we’re in neighborhoods where there’s one police to 100 gang members. We’re easy victims,” said one officer in the country’s anti-gang unit, who, after being threatened by MS-13 in his home, is awaiting refugee status from the United Nations. He spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.
Police arrested a 26-year-old man, who they said is an MS-13 member, after he fatally shot an alleged rival gang member Feb. 3 in Queens.
Complicating their response to the threats, Salvadoran police are also not legally allowed to take their weapons home with them.
“I bring it home anyway. I sleep with it on my waist,” said a female officer, who is awaiting refugee status from the United Nations and spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for her safety. “My husband and I take turns sleeping. We know they are going to come for us.”
Many units in the Salvadoran police are forbidden to wear balaclavas to conceal their identities. In anti-gang units, officers are allowed to wear such masks during operations, but they are frequently asked to testify in court, where they must show their faces and identify themselves by name while gang members look on.
In 2017, El Salvador’s attorney general, Douglas Meléndez, urged the government to do more to protect off-duty police, asking the parliament to pass a “protection law” for police and soldiers that would also provide funding to protect their families. The law was never passed.
Last month, security concerns played a central role in a presidential election won by San Salvador’s 37-year-old former mayor, Nayib Bukele. At least 285 people were killed in January, leading up to the vote, which many saw as the gangs’ attempt to leverage their influence amid the election campaign. In a security plan leaked to the Salvadoran news media, Bukele’s campaign wrote: “The expansion of these criminal groups is undeniable, as is the impact on the lives of ordinary citizens.”
In response to the targeting of police officers this year, El Salvador’s police chief introduced a policy: For their own protection, officers were not allowed to return to their homes. The police chief declined multiple interview requests.
Suspects are detained by police in a neighborhood in San Salvador dominated by MS-13. (Marvin Recinos/AFP/Getty Images)Many officers, feeling unprotected by their own force, have said their only option is to leave the country.
Organizations that work with the United Nations to resettle Salvadoran refugees in the United States say they have found more and more police officers arriving unannounced at their offices. In addition to the 21 asylum seekers and refugees identified by The Post, several others have recently arrived in Spain and Mexico, according to news reports, applying for humanitarian visas or other forms of protection. Lawyers for police officers and many officers themselves say that far more officers are preparing to flee.
One of the cases that Buendía, the migration director of Cáritas, referred to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is an officer who survived two attacks while off duty. First, he was shot eight times by suspected gang members; then, two years later, he was shot four times. The officer pleaded for protection from his commander.
Buendía included a letter from the commander in the officer’s refugee application. “There’s nothing we can do for you,” the commander wrote. “You need to protect yourself.”
A police spokesman declined to comment on the letter.
In one case, concerning a police officer now applying for asylum in U.S. immigration courts, gang members threatened to kidnap the officer’s child at an elementary school in rural El Salvador.
“That’s not what these guys signed up for. It’s one thing to be shot at on the job. It’s another for your family to be targeted while you’re off duty,” said Emily Smith, the attorney representing the officer.
Lawyers such as Smith who are representing the officers typically try to explain to immigration judges that as former police officers, their clients would be persecuted if they were forced to return to El Salvador. But the attorneys are also aware of how narrowly U.S. asylum law can be applied, and that the courts are unlikely to grant asylum to all former officers.
“What we chose to do is focus on the specific threats facing our client,” said Patrick Courtney, who last year represented a Salvadoran officer who had been physically assaulted in his home before fleeing. “We focused on his anti-gang views, on the fact that the threats were directed at him individually.”
Courtney’s client was granted asylum late last year. They discussed where he would live in the United States, and what he would do next. The former officer had only one goal: He wanted to join the United States military.
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Former policemen have been recognized by BIA precedent as a “particular social group” for asylum for many years. Matter of Fuentes, 19 I&N Dec. 658 (BIA 1988). However, in their rush to deny asylum to Central Americans, particularly under this xenophobic Administration, some U.S. immigration Judges and BIA panels simply choose to ignore precedent or to manufacture other reasons to deny asylum.
Granting asylum to endangered former police officers clearly is appropriate; but, granting it to the women targeted because of their gender whom those police cannot protect is equally required. Nevertheless, Sessions simply “streamrolled” the asylum law in Matter of A-B-.
While some U.S. Immigration Judges have recognized that even A-B-, properly read without regard to its pernicious dicta, leaves plenty of room for protecting refugee women who have suffered or fear domestic violence, others, and a number of BIA “panels” have jumped on the “Sessions deportation express.” I wouldn’t count on new AG Bill Barr to restore justice to this system, particularly since he has retained some of Sessions’s worst and most unqualified henchmen on his staff.
That’s why we need a legitimate, independent Immigration Court system not beholden to prejudiced “enforcement only” officials in the DOJ and the Executive Branch. It’s also time for a better and wiser Congress to specifically write gender into the asylum law to guard against this and future scofflaw Administrations who seek to inflict cruelty and injustice on some of the most vulnerable and deserving among us.
PWS
03-04-19
GREAT NEWS ON THE SIJ FRONT: Legal Aid & Justice Center Reports Major Legislative Change To Help Endangered Juveniles in Virginia — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: Dan Kowalski Reports On New SIJ Legislative Victory in Colorado! — It’s The “New Due Process Army” In Action Across The Country!
THREE OF THE “DUE PROCESS WARRIORS” FROM THE LEGAL AID & JUSTICE CENTER OF VIRGINIA: Amy Woodard, Tanishka Cruz, & Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg
For Immediate Release
Contact: Amy Woolard, (434) 529-1846, amy@justice4all.org
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, (703) 720-5605, simon@justice4all.org
NEW VIRGINIA LAWS HELP IMMIGRANT CHILDREN SEEK PROTECTION FROM ABUSE, NEGLECT, AND ABANDONMENT
RICHMOND: On Friday, February 22, the Virginia General Assembly passed SB 1758 and HB 2679, identical bills that will aid immigrant children fleeing abuse, neglect, and abandonment in their home countries in seeking protection from deportation in Virginia.
Across the country, many immigrant children and DREAMers facing deportation proceedings seek a form of immigration relief called “Special Immigrant Juvenile Status” (SIJS). SIJS is unique in that it requires a state court to issue a certain type of order before the child may even attempt to seek SIJS relief from the federal government. In a 2017 case called Canales v. Torres-Orellana, brought by the Legal Aid Justice Center, the Virginia Court of Appeals sharply restricted state judges’ ability to issue these orders, leaving hundreds of Virginia immigrant children without protection. Virginia became one of the most difficult states in the nation to obtain SIJS.
During this year’s General Assembly session, Legal Aid Justice Center worked closely with legislators and the Governor’s office to pass these bills, which would overturn the Canales case and restore Virginia immigrant children’s ability to apply for SIJS. The bills also address the needs of other children before the juvenile courts, easing the way for any Virginia child to seek a state court’s assistance in proving eligibility for other benefits such as adoption assistance, TANF assistance, and timely public school enrollment.
SB 1758 was introduced by Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Mount Vernon). HB 2679 was introduced by Del. Marcus Simon (D-Falls Church). The bills initially took different approaches to fixing this issue, and each passed their respective chambers with an overwhelming bipartisan majority of votes. The bills were then placed into committees of conference in an attempt to gain consensus, and identical bills emerged that combined the approach of both; they garnered unanimous support in the House, and only two dissenting votes in the Senate. The bills now go to Governor Northam’s desk for his signature; once signed, they will take effect on July 1 of this year. The conference report with bill text is available at: http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?191+ful+SB1758S1+pdf
“Immigrant children in Virginia can breathe a little more easily now,” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Legal Director of Legal Aid Justice Center’s Immigrant Advocacy Program. “Our agency has represented over 150 children fleeing truly horrific situations of abuse or neglect in their home countries. Fairness dictates that they be afforded the same rights as immigrant children in any other state. Now these new DREAMers will be able to seek protection and apply to remain in the United States with green cards.”
“This excellent result could not have come about without the leadership and hard work of Senator Surovell and Delegate Simon, and the support of Governor Northam’s administration,” said Amy Woolard, Legal Aid Justice Center Attorney and Policy Coordinator. “Virginia’s Juvenile and Domestic Relations courts should exist to protect the best interests of all children in the Commonwealth, and these bills will now make clear that is true for immigrant children seeking safety through SIJS, as well.”
“The United States has a long history of protecting abused, neglected, and abandoned children, and the Commonwealth will continue to play its part,” said Sen. Surovell. “These bills will clarify and restore Virginia courts’ authority to make factual findings necessary to protect children fleeing abuse, neglect, and abandonment from abroad, and I appreciate the broad bipartisan support of legislators who saw this as consistent with Virginia’s longstanding values.”
“I’m so pleased we were able to pass this important legislation to give our courts the authority they need to be able help some of the most vulnerable and powerless people in our Commonwealth,” said Del. Simon. “It is so important that we not let victims of abuse, neglect, and often abandonment fall through the cracks because of a technical deficiency in our code. Those are the common sense problems we are elected to come down here and fix.”
A downloadable PDF of this statement may be accessed here.
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Legal Aid Justice Center is a statewide Virginia nonprofit organization whose mission is to strengthen the voices of low-income communities and root out the inequities that keep people in poverty. We provide legal support to immigrant communities facing legal crises and use advocacy and impact litigation to fight back against ICE enforcement and detention abuses. More information is available at http://www.justice4all.org/.
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And, here’s the latest from the fabulous Dan Kowalski, “Chief Immigration Guru” at LexisNexis Immigration Community:
Thanks to the efforts of the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (“RMIAN”).
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Compare this with the Trump Administration’s cruel and shortsighted efforts to mindlessly restrict the scope of these important SIJ protections for some of our most vulnerable youth. Here’s my recent blog featuring WNYC’s Beth Fertig reporting on the Federal Judge’s adverse reaction to the DOJ’s disingenuous arguments “in defense of the indefensible” in his court. Talk about abuse of our court system by our Government! https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/02/27/beth-fertig-wnyc-federal-judge-tires-of-administrations-absurdist-legal-positions-in-court/
SIJ cases also have the huge benefit of being processed outside the clogged U.S. Immigration Court asylum system, thus keeping many cases out of the largely artificially created “backlog” that is handicapping Due Process in Immigration Court.
There are many ways of using and building on current laws to make the immigration and justice systems work better. It’s a national disgrace that the Trump Administration isn’t interested in Due Process, fairness, or making our immigration system function in a more rational manner.
The good news: Eventually, the small minds, incompetence, and “radical White Nationalism” of this Administration and its enablers will be replaced by smarter, wiser, more capable folks like those in the LAJC, the RMIAN, and other members of the New Due Process Army. These are the folks who someday will lead us out of today’s darkness into a brighter and more enlightened future for all Americans!
PWS
03-02-19-
TRUMP’S DUMB & UNLAWFUL POLICIES INCREASE ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSINGS & UNNECESSARILY ENDANGER REFUGEES — The DHS Lies By Calling Them “Illegitimate Asylum Seekers” & Dishonestly Implying That Their Claims Aren’t Legitimate — In Fact, Asylum Seekers Have A Right To Apply At The Border That Trump Is Unlawfully Denying — They Also Have A Legal Right To Apply Regardless Of How They Enter!
![](https://i0.wp.com/immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/E7E7C037-56F7-4591-846E-CB864CBE5DAB.jpeg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1)
Julia Edwards Ainsley reports for NBC News:
WASHINGTON — Undocumented immigrants are increasingly choosing to cross the U.S. border illegally rather than waiting in line to claim asylum at legal ports of entry, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data obtained by NBC News.
Immigration lawyers and rights advocates say asylum seekers are opting for illegal crossing because they are growing frustrated with waiting lines caused by Trump administration policies. Advocates say immigrants who might otherwise have presented themselves at legal ports are now going between entry points where, if caught, they can remain in the country while awaiting an asylum hearing.
In recent months, CBP has restricted the number of immigrants who can be processed for asylum at ports of entry and has begun turning back asylum seekers, who must now wait in Mexico while their cases are decided.
CBP data shows that at the same time, the proportion of immigrants caught crossing illegally rather than through legal ports of entry has been rising.
It climbed from 73 percent of border crossings between October 2017 and January to 2018 to 83 percent for the same period ending this January 31. The percentage reporting to legal ports of entry, meanwhile, dropped from 27 percent to 17 percent, even as the overall number of border crossings rose sharply, according to the data.
INSIDE THE ADMINISTRATION’S “KIDDIE GULAG:” Thousands Of Allegations Of Sexual Abuse Surface!
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/26/politics/hhs-documents-minors-sexual-abuse/index.html
Sophie Tatum reports for CNN:
Washington (CNN)The Department of Health and Human Services received more than 4,500 complaints of sexual abuse against unaccompanied minors from 2014-2018, according to internal agency documents released Tuesday by Florida Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch.
In addition,1,303 complaints were reported to the Justice Department during that same time frame, according to the documents.Deutch addressed the documents during a high-profile House hearing Tuesday on the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in thousands of immigrant children being separated from their parents.He said that the documents “demonstrate over the past three years, there have been 154 staff on unaccompanied minor, let me repeat that, staff on unaccompanied minor allegations of sexual assault.”“This works out on average to one sexual assault by HHS staff on unaccompanied minor per week,” he added.Axios first reported the documents.“I am deeply concerned with documents that have been turned over by HHS that record a high number of sexual assaults on unaccompanied children in the custody of the Office of Refugee and Resettlement,” Deutch said. “Together, these documents detail an environment of systemic sexual assaults by staff on unaccompanied children.”HHS spokesperson Caitlin Oakley addressed the reports in a statement, saying minors’ safety is a “top concern,” and noted that there are “rigorous standards” in place for employees, which include mandatory background checks.“These are vulnerable children in difficult circumstances, and ORR fully understands its responsibility to ensure that each child is treated with the utmost care. When any allegations of abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect are made, they are taken seriously and ORR acts swiftly to investigate and respond,” Oakley said.At the hearing Tuesday, HHS’ US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps commander, Jonathan White, defended his agency against accusations of sexual abuse when asked by Rep. Tom McClintock, a California Republican, to respond to allegations that they were all “but serial child molesters” during a “drive-by slander a few minutes ago.”“We share concern that I think everyone in this room feels. Anytime a child is abused in the care of ORR is one too many,” White said.He added that “the vast majority of allegations prove to be unfounded when they are investigated by state law enforcement and federal law enforcement and the state licensure authorities to whom we refer them.”“It is important to note that I am not aware of a single instance anywhere of an allegation against the ORR federal staff for abuse of a child,” White said.Some of the incidents that were reported to the Justice Department included allegations against staff members who were accused of having relationships with minors, unwanted sexual touching and showing the minors pornographic videos, according to Axios. Axios also reported that of the thousands of complaints, there were 178 accusations against the adult staff.
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The Administration’s responses sound like a cover up to me. And they were “coaxed out” by GOP Reps who appear eager not to have the abuses engendered by the Administration’s toxic immigration enforcement policies fully vetted. Seems doubtful, based on my decades of Government experience, that “where there are 4,500 reports of smoke, there are no fires.”
Additionally, lawyers from the DOJ were still in court this week advancing specious and disingenuous arguments for avoiding responsibility for unconstitutional child separation that their clients had intentionally caused.
In fairness, these problems also existed under the Obama Administration. But, faced with extensive evidence of a broken system, the Trump Administration “doubled down” on problematic practices.
Eventually, there will be accountability for the detention disaster. And, when it happens both the responsible officials and the GOP legislators who are trying so hard to cover up the truth should face a reckoning.
PWS
02-27-19
BETH FERTIG @ WNYC: Federal Judge Tires Of Administration’s Absurdist Legal Positions In Court
http://gothamist.com/2019/02/26/immigration_class_action_sij.php
Beth reports:
A federal judge in Manhattan heard arguments Monday on a class action case that could determine whether undocumented immigrants in New York between the ages of 18 and 21 can stay in the country legally if they’ve been abused or abandoned by a parent.
Attorneys representing five young adults in New York claimed that it was “arbitrary and capricious” for the Trump administration to deny Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) status to those over 18 last year, because Congress authorized the program in 1990 for immigrants up to the age of 21.
The plaintiffs are anonymous, but include a young woman who was abandoned by her parents in the Dominican Republic and who’s lived in the Bronx with her grandmother since she was a baby, and a 20 year-old in Brooklyn who was rejected even though his younger sister was accepted and they had the exact same circumstances. Monday’s hearing drew so many local attorneys who represent young immigrants that the courthouse needed an overflow room to accommodate all of them.
The case was brought by the Legal Aid Society and other public defenders. Robert Malionek, a partner at Latham & Watkins who also worked on the suit, told the court the government was rejecting many of the same young immigrant applicants the program was intended to serve, and that they are now unable to get jobs or apply for financial aid to college because they don’t have legal status.
To apply for SIJ status, a young person must be appointed a special guardian by a juvenile court because they were abused, neglected or abandoned by one or both parents. They have to be under 21 and unmarried, and the juvenile court also has to find it’s not in their best interest to return to their home country.
Much of Monday’s arguments focused on the definition of a juvenile court. Tomoko Onozawa, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, argued for the government that children go to Family Court in New York when they need a guardian, which is different from a juvenile court because it can’t make determinations on family reunification.
But attorneys for the plaintiffs, and the state Attorney General’s office, argued that was a distinction without a difference, because Family Court has the same functions. The government’s claims also frustrated U.S District Judge John Koeltl. He asked if the definition of a juvenile court means it must have the jurisdiction to place a child back in the custody of an unfit parent. That elicited a long pause.
“That shouldn’t be a hard question,” the judge stated.
After Onozawa repeated that a juvenile court must be able to reunite a child with a parent even if they have previously been found unfit, the judge replied, “What sense does that make?”
The government lawyer then replied that child welfare law contemplates reunification with a parent if circumstances change.
Onozawa also denied any change in policy under the Trump administration for young immigrants, and said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services was simply applying an existing definition to new applications for SIJ, now that one office in Missouri is handling all of them.
But Koeltl didn’t appear to buy that argument, either. “You say it was always the policy,” he said. “But if that’s true, up until 2018 all of the immigration judges deciding SIJ applications in New York were wrong.”
After the hearing, Malionek said he thought the government’s logic was faulty in suddenly deciding 18 to 21-year-olds could no longer apply for SIJ in New York. “I think their argument comes down to a complete misinterpretation of the federal law,” he stated.
A similar federal lawsuit has been filed in California, another state that allows young immigrants to apply for the special status until they turn 21.
The New York judge also heard arguments on a related case, involving one young Guatemalan man who was denied SIJ because the federal government disagreed with a family court’s decision that he was eligible. The government argued that the court didn’t have all of the relevant evidence about the immigrant’s possible gang affiliations.
Elizabeta Markuci, director of the immigration project at Volunteers of Legal Service, was among the many local lawyers attending Monday’s hearing. She said she felt validated by the judge’s apparent exasperation with the government’s arguments.
“To have a judge sort of call that out in a formal way and put them to task felt very reaffirming about the work that we’re doing with the young people that we are trying to support.”
Beth Fertig is a senior reporter covering courts and legal affairs at WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter at @bethfertig.
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Once again the Trump Administration has taken a part of the system that was working well, Special Immigrant Juvenile (“SIJ”) Status, and mindlessly and cruelly screwed it up. SIJ status allows the U.S. to save lives of deserving young people who might not fit our asylum system. It also helped the Immigration Court backlog because the majority of the work on these cases can be done outside the Immigration Court, in state courts and the USCIS.
It’s a win-win-win. Except that the Administration’s racist White Nationalist agenda doesn’t allow them to govern competently in the public interest.
PWS
02-27-19