CHILD ABUSE: COWARDLY ADMINISTRATION USES FALSE NARRATIVES & DISTORTED FACTS TO ATTACK PROTECTIONS FOR REFUGEE CHILDREN — Our National Morality & Human Decency In Free-fall Under Trump! — “It has been national law and policy that as adults we look out for children …. No longer.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/us/immigration-minors-children.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Eli Hager of The Marshall Project in the NY Times:

On April 4, the White House posted a fact sheet on its website warning that legal “loopholes” were allowing tens of thousands of immigrant children who entered the country on their own to remain in the United States.

The next day, another post went up: “Loopholes in Child Trafficking Laws Put Victims — and American Citizens — At Risk.”

And the same week, the Administration for Children and Families, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services not normally known for its politics, announced that it “joins the President in calling for Congress to close dangerous loopholes.”

Over the past month, the Trump administration has taken aim at a set of child protection laws created to protect young people who cross into the United States without a parent or guardian, perhaps aided by smugglers. The administration now sees some of these same youths as a threat, and is portraying the laws as “loopholes” that are preventing the quick deportation of teenagers involved in gangs.

The campaign is aimed at Capitol Hill, but the Trump administration is not waiting for legislation: In a series of at least a dozen moves across multiple federal agencies, it has begun to curtail legal protections for unaccompanied children who cross the border. Many of these safeguards were created by a 2008 law that provided protections for children who might otherwise be forced into labor or prostitution.

The young people affected by the administration’s measures have been fleeing deadly gang violence in Central America since 2014, when civil strife erupted in the region. They are a less politically shielded group of young people than the so-called “Dreamers,” most of whom came to this country as toddlers with their parents.

The new directives appear aimed at detaining more of these youths after their arrival and speeding deportation back to their home countries — where they may face violent reprisals from gangs or other forms of abuse.

“It has been national law and policy that as adults we look out for children,” said Eve Stotland, director of legal services for The Door, a youth advocacy organization in New York. “No longer.”

Endangered Central American Children

Among the many new directives, the State Department in November gave just 24 hours’ notice to endangered children in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador before canceling a program through which they could apply for asylum in the United States before getting to the border. About 2,700 of them who had already been approved and were awaiting travel arrangements were forced to stay behind in the troubled region.

The Department of Homeland Security, meanwhile, has sharply cut back on granting a special legal status for immigrant juveniles who have been abused, neglected or abandoned; the program dropped from a 78 percent approval rate in 2016 to 54 percent last year, according to statistics compiled by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In New York, Texas and elsewhere, the agency in recent months has also begun revoking this protection for children who had already won it, according to legal aid organizations in the states.

The Justice Department has also issued legal clarification for courts and prosecutors about revoking “unaccompanied child” status, which allows minors to have their cases heard in a non-adversarial setting rather than in immigration court with a prosecutor contesting them. (The White House has said that it intends to remove this protection altogether, but has not yet done so.)

And the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which provides social services to vulnerable immigrant youth, is now placing all children with any gang-related history in secure detention instead of foster care, whether or not they have ever been arrested or charged with a crime, according to an August memo to the President’s Domestic Policy Council.

“It’s law enforcement mission creep, and our office is ill-prepared for it,” said Robert Carey, who was director of the refugee agency under President Barack Obama.

A Focus on Gangs

The Trump administration has said that its actions are necessary to stem the tide of violent crime. It has focused on teenagers belonging to or associated with the Salvadoran-American street gang MS-13, which has been linked by the police since 2016 to at least 25 homicides on Long Island — a testing ground for many of the president’s new policies.

About 99 of the more than 475 people arrested in the New York City area during ICE raids for gang members had come to the U.S. as unaccompanied children, a representative for the agency said.

To fortify the “loophole” narrative, official announcements of these ICE actions often point out that a number of those arrested were in the process of applying for various forms of child protection.

Yet 30 of 35 teenagers rounded up during these ICE raids last year and who later filed a class-action lawsuit have subsequently been released because the gang allegations against them were thin, according to the ACLU. And the Sacramento Bee reported that a juvenile detention center in California recently cut back its contract with the federal government and complained that too many immigrant teens were being sent there with no evidence of gang affiliation.

The refugee agency acknowledged in its August memo to the White House that only 1.6 percent of all children in its care have any gang history.

“The arguments they’re making are just really challenging to basic logic,” said Elissa Steglich, a law professor at the University of Texas who teaches a clinic for immigrant families.

“The arguments they’re making are just really challenging to basic logic,” said Elissa Steglich, a law professor at the University of Texas who teaches a clinic for immigrant families.

. . . .

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Read the complete article at the link.

Yes, folks, it’s way past time to use the correct term for the Trump Administration’s outrageous, and in many cases illegal, policies directed against primarily Hispanic migrant children: “Child Abuse!”

I met many of these kids and families coming through my court over the years. While there were a tiny number of “bad actors” (which the DHS did a good job of discovering) the vast, vast majority were nothing like what Trump, Sessions and others are describing. They actually much better represented “true American values,” courage, and the “American work ethic” than do Trump and his valueless cronies.

That’s right folks! OUR U.S. Government is using racist-inspired lies to conduct a war against Hispanic children and to illegally return many of them to deadly and life threatening situations! Bad things happen to nations that let bullies and cowards bully, demean, and harm children!

The Trump Administration’s abuse of migrant children and their legal and Constitutional rights could be taken right out of a State Department Country Report on human rights abuses in a Third World Dictatorship. Is this they way YOU want to be remembered by history?

No, Constitutional and statutory protections for children are NOT “loopholes.” What kind of human beings speak such trash? The Trump Administration’s response to the “rule of law” when, as is often the case, it doesn’t fit their White Nationalist agenda is always to tell lies, rail against it, and look for ways around it.

Stand up against the lawless behavior and immoral actions of Trump, Sessions, and the rest of their “hate crew!” Join the “New Due Process Army” and fight against the Trump Administration’s erosion of our national values, morality, and the true “rule of law” (which is there to protect migrants and the rest of us from abuse at the hands of our Government).

Harm to the most vulnerable among us is harm to all!

PWS

05-01-18

POST EDITORIAL SLAMS INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD ABUSE BY TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION KAKISTOCRACY! — Human Rights Abuses “Business As Usual” Under Anti-Values Administration!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-trump-administration-traumatizes-children-in-the-name-of-scaring-migrants-away/2018/04/29/fe779b50-4a5a-11e8-827e-190efaf1f1ee_story.html?utm_term=.f866c5f999d8

The WashPost Editorial Board writes:

By Editorial Board April 29 at 7:46 PM

INFANTS, TODDLERS, tweens, teens — Trump administration officials are less interested in the age of an unauthorized child migrant than they are in removing the child from his or her parents as a means of deterring illegal border-crossers. That plan, first floated by White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly last year when he was homeland security secretary, was widely regarded as so callous and such a radical departure from historical practice that it was unthinkable for any U.S. government.

If only.

In fact, not only has the idea of systematically separating undocumented children and parents gained currency among top officials determined to turn the tide on illegal entry, it’s already happening with increasing frequency. The Department of Homeland Security insists it has not adopted the practice as a matter of official policy — despite White House pressure to do so — but administration officials acknowledge that hundreds of children, including scores younger than 4, have been taken from their parents in the past few months.

By now it’s clear that there are few red lines President Trump is unwilling to cross in his crusade to rid the United States of undocumented immigrants. For Mr. Trump, having washed his hands of the “dreamers” — young migrants, most in their 20s, raised and educated in the United States after being brought here as children — it’s hardly a moral leap to inflict lasting psychological damage on younger children by taking them from their parents if it will further his goal of combating illegal immigration.

As reported by The Post’s Maria Sacchetti, top immigration and border officials have recommended that all parents who enter the country illegally with their children be detained and prosecuted, meaning the automatic separation of minors, who cannot legally be held in jails or detention centers designed for adults. Until recently, that was extremely uncommon; most parents who crossed the border with children would be released pending an immigration court hearing, or, in some cases, detained together in a facility designed for families. Prosecuting parents for illegal entry, a misdemeanor under federal law, has been exceedingly rare — specifically because of the harm it would cause blameless children.

In addition, many of the parents who would be prosecuted are eligible under U.S. law to seek and be granted asylum. That’s hardly a stretch for migrants from El Salvador and Honduras, beset by drug cartels, gang violence, domestic abuse and some of the world’s highest homicide rates. In the last three months of 2017, more than two-thirds of the 30,000 asylum seekers crossed into the country illegally — and it is far-fetched to exempt from prosecution only those who announce themselves as asylum seekers at legal ports of entry, as Homeland Security officials propose. Are desperate, impoverished people fleeing violence to be penalized because they enter the United States in the wrong place?

The United States has a legitimate interest in deterring illegal border-crossing. It is within its rights to detain and deport individuals and families who fail to make a persuasive case for asylum. But to splinter families and traumatize children in the name of frightening away migrants, many of whom may have a legitimate asylum claim, is not just heartless. It is beyond the pale for a civilized country.

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Pretty ugly! Eventually our country, particularly future generations, will pay a high price for abandoning civilized values and human decency. The world is watching and the historical record is being made of the Trump Administration’s cowardly response to humanitarian tragedies and the folks who are enabling him and his White Nationalist cronies.

Get on the “right side of history!” Join the New ‘Due Process Army!”

PWS

04-30-18

CALL OUT THE CAVALRY, WE NEED REINFORCEMENTS! – “CARAVAN” OF A FEW HUNDRED MEEK REFUGEE WOMEN & CHILDREN REACH S. BORDER, THREATEN TO EXERCISE LEGAL RIGHTS TO APPLY FOR ASYLUM, AS TRUMP, SESSIONS, NIELSEN, HOMAN, & CO. COWER IN FEAR WITHIN “FORTRESS AMERICA” — Trump Administration Views Individual Constitutional Rights As “Dangerous Loopholes” & “Threats To National Security” That Must Be Eliminated – “Grandfathering” Sought For Current & Former Trump Officials, Friends, Family Who Might Need To Assert Fifth Amendment Right Against Self-Incrimination!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/at-the-us-border-a-diminished-migrant-caravan-readies-for-an-unwelcoming-reception/2018/04/27/7946a154-4a52-11e8-827e-190efaf1f1ee_story.html?utm_term=.cd296045d4c6

Nick Miroff reports for the Washington Post:

TIJUANA, Mexico — The American president, a former real estate mogul, does not want Byron Garcia in the United States. But the Honduran teenager was too busy building his own hotel empire this week to worry much about that.

Vermont Avenue and Connecticut Avenue were his. Now he was looking to move up-market.

The mini-Monopoly board on the dusty floor of the migrant shelter was small, but it fit well in the small space beside the tents. His older sister, Carolina, rolled a 2 and landed on Oriental Avenue.

“That’ll be $500,” said Garcia, 15, gleefully extending his hand. “I love this game!”

Garcia is coming to America on Sunday. Or maybe not. His mother, Orfa Marin, 33, isn’t sure it will be a good day to walk up to the border crossing and tell a U.S. officer that her family needs asylum. She knows President Trump wants to stop them.

Marin and her three children are among the 300 or so remaining members of the migrant caravan who have arrived here at the end of a month-long geographic and political odyssey, a trip that has piqued Trump’s Twitter anger and opened new cracks in U.S.-Mexico relations.

Central American migrant children play Monopoly at the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter on April 26, 2018 in Tijuana, Mexico. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

The organizers of the caravan say they are planning to hold a rally Sunday at Friendship Park, the international park where a 15-foot border fence splits the beach. From there, activists and attorneys plan to lead a group of the migrants to the U.S. port of entry at San Ysidro, Calif., where they will approach U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and formally request asylum.

. . . .

Trump has ordered U.S. soldiers to deploy and Homeland Security officials to block the migrants. But the diminished version of the caravan that has arrived here, mostly women and children, has only underscored its meekness.

Migrant families arrive on a bus at the Ejercito de Salvacion shelter on April 26, 2018 in Tijuana, Mexico after driving from Mexicali, Mexico. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

The families are drained after weeks of travel, coughing children and pinto beans. They have crowded here into shelters in the city’s squalid north end, where the sidewalks are smeared with dog droppings and skimpily dressed women hand out drink promotions among the strip clubs and brothels. The tall American border fence is two blocks away.

Children play on the sidewalks outside the shelters, the boredom broken whenever a car with donations arrives to drop off clothes and toys.

Central Americans migrants in Mexico have long been treated as a kind of renewable natural resource, ripe for exploitation by thieves, predators and politicians. The geopolitical importance attached to this particular group was a sign to many here that the U.S. president had recognized an opportunity, too.

“We’re not terrorists or bad people,” Marin said.

Regardless of its size, Trump officials have measured this caravan in symbolic terms, as an egregious example of the “loophole” they want to shut and an immigration system whose generosity is being abused, they say, by hundreds of thousands of Central Americas trying to dupe it.

. . . .

“These people have no option but to seek refuge in another country, and they have every right to seek asylum, they have decided to face the consequences and to be strong in demanding what is their right,” said Leonard Olsen, 26, a law student and one of several caravan organizers from the United States. He wore a tattered Philadelphia Eagles cap and arrived in Tijuana on Thursday with a busload of women and children.

. . . .

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

I can understand why guys like Trump, Sessions, Nielsen, and Homan would be scared by mothers with talented kids who show the kind of courage, honesty, humanity, and respect for law that they themselves so conspicuously lack.

Without 5th Amendment protections, who would join the Trump Administration?

PWS

04-28-18

WITH HELP FROM GIBSON DUNN, “GANG OF 16” RETIRED US IMMIGRATION JUDGES FILES AMICUS BRIEF OPPOSING AG’S INTERFERENCE IN MATTER OF A-B-

HERE’S THE BRIEF:

AB-Brief Amici Curiae of Sixteen Former Immigration Judges and Members of t…

HERE’S THE “STATEMENT OF INTEREST:”

Amici Curiae are sixteen former immigration judges and members of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“Board”). Out of respect for the law to which they have dedicated their careers, Amici feel compelled to file this brief in support of Respondent. Amici are deeply concerned about the procedural violations in this case—in particular the Attorney General’s certification of a question that was not properly considered by the Immigration Judge and was not considered at all by the Board. This complete disregard for established procedure is alarming. It plainly violates binding federal regulations governing the narrow circumstances under which Attorney General certification is permitted and it raises serious due process concerns.

Ultimately, it is within Congress’s authority—not the Attorney General’s—to define the boundaries of asylum. And Congress has already determined that a person can qualify for asylum based on persecution that independently might constitute private criminal activity.

Amici urge the Office of the Attorney General not to take any further action on a question that is not properly before it, and therefore urge that the referral order be vacated.

HERE’S THE TOC:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1 STATEMENT OF INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE………………………………………………………….. 1 BACKGROUND ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 6 ARGUMENT …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8

This case is not properly before the Attorney General ……………………………………. 8

Federal regulations require that the Immigration Judge issue a
decision on asylum before certifying a case to the Board. ……………………. 9

The Attorney General may only review a Board decision, but there
was none………………………………………………………………………………………. 12

Bypassing the Board nullifies critical procedural safeguards…………………………. 13

The Board, a neutral and independent body, with deep knowledge
of its own precedent, should consider the effect of new case law on
that precedent in the first instance. ………………………………………………….. 13

Bypassing the Board raises serious due process concerns…………………… 14

The Attorney General cannot override Congress’s judgment under the
guise of a procedural mechanism……………………………………………………………….. 16

“Persecution” can be carried out or threatened by private actors that the government cannot or will not control………………………………………………………… 19

CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 21

HERE’S THE “GANG OF 16”

 The Honorable Steven Abrams served as an Immigration Judge at the New York, VarickStreet, and Queens Wackenhut Immigration Courts in New York City. Prior to his appointment to the bench, he worked as a Special U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, and before that as District Counsel, Special Counsel for criminal litigation, and general attorney for the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”).

 The Honorable Sarah M. Burr served as an Immigration Judge in New York starting in 1994 and was appointed as Assistant Chief Immigration Judge in charge of the New York, Fishkill, Ulster, Bedford Hills, and Varick Street immigration courts in 2006. She served in this capacity until January 2011, when she returned to the bench full time until her retirement in 2012. Prior to her appointment, she worked as a staff attorney for the Criminal Defense Division of the Legal Aid Society in its trial and appeals bureaus and also as the supervising attorney in its immigration unit.

 The Honorable Jeffrey S. Chase served as an Immigration Judge in New York City from 1995 to 2007 and was an attorney advisor and senior legal advisor at the Board from 2007 to 2017. He now works in private practice as an independent consultant on immigration law, and is of counsel to the law firm of DiRaimondo & Masi in New York City. He received the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s (“AILA”) annual pro bono award in 1994 and chaired AILA’s Asylum Reform Task Force.

 The Honorable George T. Chew served as an Immigration Judge in New York from 1995 to 2017. Previously, he served as a trial attorney at the former INS.

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 The Honorable Bruce J. Einhorn served as an Immigration Judge in Los Angeles from 1990 to 2007. He now serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Pepperdine University School of Law, and is a Visiting Professor of International, Immigration, and Refugee Law at the University of Oxford.

 The Honorable Cecelia M. Espenoza served as a Member of the Board from 2000 to 2003 and in the Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”) Office of the General Counsel from 2003 to 2017 where she served as Senior Associate General Counsel, Privacy Officer, Records Officer, and Senior FOIA Counsel. She now works in private practice as an independent consultant on immigration law. Prior to her EOIR appointments, she was a law professor at St. Mary’s University (1997–2000) and the University of Denver College of Law (1990–97), where she taught Immigration Law and Crimes and supervised students in the Immigration and Criminal Law Clinics. She has published several articles on immigration law. She received the Outstanding Service Award from the Colorado Chapter of AILA in 1997.

 The Honorable Noel Ferris served as an Immigration Judge in New York from 1994 to 2013 and as an attorney advisor to the Board from 2013 until her retirement in 2016. Previously, she served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1985 to 1990 and as Chief of the Immigration Unit from 1987 to 1990.

 The Honorable John F. Gossart, Jr. served as an Immigration Judge from 1982 until his retirement in 2013. He is the former president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. At the time of his retirement, he was the third most senior immigration judge in the United States. From 1975 to 1982, he served in various positions with the former INS, including as a general attorney, naturalization attorney, trial attorney, and deputy assistant

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commissioner for naturalization. He is also the co-author of the National Immigration Court Practice Manual, which is used by all practitioners throughout the United States in immigration-court proceedings. From 1997 to 2016, Judge Gossart was an adjunct professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law teaching immigration law, and more recently was an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland School of Law, also teaching immigration law. He is also a past board member of the Immigration Law Section of the Federal Bar Association.

 The Honorable Carol King served as an Immigration Judge from 1995 to 2017 in San Francisco and was a temporary member of the Board for six months between 2010 and 2011. She previously worked in private practice for ten years, focusing on immigration law. She also taught immigration law for five years at Golden Gate University School of Law and is currently on the faculty of the Stanford University Law School Trial Advocacy Program. Judge King currently works as an advisor on removal proceedings.

 The Honorable Margaret McManus was appointed as an Immigration Judge in 1991 and retired from the bench this January after twenty-seven years. Before her time on the bench, she worked in several roles, including as a consultant to various nonprofit organizations on immigration matters (including Catholic Charities and Volunteers of Legal Services) and as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society, Immigration Unit, in New York.

 The Honorable Lory D. Rosenberg served on the Board from 1995 to 2002. She then served as Director of the Defending Immigrants Partnership of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association from 2002 until 2004. Prior to her appointment, she worked with the American Immigration Law Foundation from 1991 to 1995. She was also an adjunct Immigration Professor at American University Washington College of Law from 1997 to

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2004. She is the founder of IDEAS Consulting and Coaching, LLC, a consulting service for immigration lawyers, and is the author of Immigration Law and Crimes. She currently works as Senior Advisor for the Immigrant Defenders Law Group.

 The Honorable Susan Roy started her legal career as a Staff Attorney at the Board, a position she received through the Attorney General Honors Program. She served as an Assistant Chief Counsel, National Security Attorney, and Senior Attorney for the DHS Office of Chief Counsel in Newark, NJ, and then became an Immigration Judge, also in Newark. She has been in private practice for nearly five years, and two years ago, opened her own immigration law firm. She is the New Jersey AILA Chapter Liaison to EOIR and is the Vice Chair of the Immigration Law Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association.

 The Honorable Paul W. Schmidt served as an Immigration Judge from 2003 to 2016 in Arlington, VA. He previously served as Chairman of the Board from 1995 to 2001, and as a Board Member from 2001 to 2003. He authored the landmark decision Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1995), extending asylum protection to victims of female genital mutilation. He served as Deputy General Counsel of the former INS from 1978 to 1987, serving as Acting General Counsel from 1979 to 1981 and 1986 to 1987. He was the managing partner of the Washington, DC office of Fragomen, DelRey & Bernsen from 1993 to 1995, and practiced business immigration law with the Washington, DC office of Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue from 1987 to 1992, where he was a partner from 1990 to 1992. He was a founding member of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges (IARLJ), which he presently serves as Americas Vice President. He also consults, speaks, writes, and lectures at various forums throughout the country on immigration law topics.

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 The Honorable William Van Wyke served as an Immigration Judge from 1995 until 2015 in New York City and York, PA.

 The Honorable Gustavo D. Villageliu served as a Member of the Board from July 1995 to April 2003. He then served as Senior Associate General Counsel for the EOIR until he retired in 2011. Before becoming a Board Member, Villageliu was an Immigration Judge in Miami, with both detained and non-detained dockets, as well as the Florida Northern Region Institutional Criminal Alien Hearing Docket from 1990 to 1995. Mr. Villageliu joined the Board as a staff attorney in January 1978, specializing in war criminal, investor, and criminal alien cases.

 The Honorable Polly A. Webber served as an Immigration Judge from 1995 to 2016 in San Francisco, with details to the Tacoma, Port Isabel (TX), Boise, Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Orlando immigration courts. Previously, she practiced immigration law from 1980 to 1995 in her own firm in San Jose, California. She served as National President of AILA from 1989 to 1990 and was a national AILA officer from 1985 to 1991. She also taught Immigration and Nationality Law for five years at Santa Clara University School of Law. She has spoken at seminars and has published extensively in the immigration law field.

HERE ARE THE ATTORNEYS AT GIBSON DUNN WHO MADE THIS HAPPEN:

Amer S. Ahmed

Ronald Kirk

Megan B. Kiernan

Lalitha D. Madduri

Chelsea G. Glover

Counsel for Amici Curiae

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

Thanks to all for making this happen. Great teamwork in the name of Due Process!

Special thanks to our colleague Judge Lory Diana Rosenberg who served as our “Group Leader” in working with Gibson Dunn and to Judge Jeffrey Chase for assembling the group and putting the “finishing touches” on the filing.

PWS

04-27-18

CRUEL & UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT: DHS KAKISTOCRACY WANTS TO TARGET FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN FOR SEPARATION AND CRIMINAL PROSECUTION OF PARENTS AS PART OF WAR ON HUMANITY AT OUR SOUTHERN BORDER – Every American Will Bear The Stain Of Our Government’s Actions!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/top-homeland-security-officials-urge-criminal-prosecution-of-parents-who-cross-border-with-children/2018/04/26/a0bdcee0-4964-11e8-8b5a-3b1697adcc2a_story.html

Maria Sacchetti reports for WashPost:

The nation’s top immigration and border officials are urging Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to detain and prosecute all parents caught crossing the Mexican border illegally with their children, a stark change in policy that would result in the separation of families that until now have mostly been kept together.

If approved, the zero-tolerance measure could split up thousands of families, although officials say they would not prosecute those who turn themselves in at legal ports of entry and claim asylum. More than 20,000 of the 30,000 migrants who sought asylum during the first quarter — the period from October-December — of the current fiscal year crossed the border illegally.

In a memorandum that outlines the proposal and was obtained by The Washington Post, officials say that threatening adults with criminal charges and prison time would be the “most effective” way to reverse the steadily rising number of attempted crossings. Most parents now caught crossing the border illegally with their children are quickly released to await civil deportation hearings.

The memo sent to Nielsen on Monday — and signed by acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan, Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services L. Francis Cissna and Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan — said attempted crossings by parents with children increased to nearly 700 a day last week, the highest level since 2016. The officials predicted that the number will continue to rise if Nielsen does not act.

Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who has filed a federal lawsuit in California over earlier instances of family separations at the border, said the proposal would make “children as young as 2 and 3 years old pawns in a cruel public policy experiment.”

. . . .

Philip G. Schrag, a Georgetown law professor and asylum expert, said that expanding the forced separation of parents and children could cause severe psychological harm to families that ultimately might have legal grounds under federal asylum law to remain in the United States permanently.

“I think it’s absolutely wrenching psychologically and terrible for both the children and the parents,” he said. “What are we doing to those children psychologically that will haunt us years down the road if they become Americans?”

Federal officials say asylum applications have skyrocketed in recent years, raising concerns about fraud. Advocates for immigrants say those seeking asylum have legitimate claims under federal law and are fleeing some of the world’s most dangerous countries.

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

Read Maria’s complete article at the link.

I associate myself completely with the remarks of my good friend and Georgetown Law colleague Professor Phil Schrag. Cruelty to children is stupid, counterproductive — children are our future — and morally wrong. It will definitely haunt us as a country for generations to come. It’s largely what I said before about the misguided policies of the Obama Administration. But, as with many things, the Trump Administration takes every dumb and wrong immigration policy of the past and multiplies it.

PWS

04-27-18

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY: Bogus Focus On Harmless Migrants Exercising Legal Rights To Apply For Asylum While Defunding State & Local Response Programs & Ignoring Real Security Threats!

Lawmakers question Trump’s Homeland Security chief over focus on immigrant caravan, border wall

By: Tal Kopan, CNN

The secretary of homeland security faced sharp questioning about agency priorities from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing Thursday, with many expressing deep concerns about whether the Trump administration is properly promoting Americans’ safety.

Democrats in particular questioned Kirstjen Nielsen about the administration’s prioritization of immigration enforcement and the building of a border wall while also seeking to cut funding for state and local governments to prepare for and respond to security threats.

“Tell us how cutting this kind of funding helps America be safer,” demanded Rep. Bill Keating, D-Massachusetts.

The top Democrat on the committee, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, had sharp words for Nielsen in his opening remarks, accusing the department of intentionally attacking non-dangerous immigrants as a distraction.

“Based on your press releases this week, you would think the most important homeland security problem facing the nation is a handful of Central Americans moving through Mexico,” Thompson said, referring to a caravan of mostly women and children asylum seekers that takes place every year to call attention to the plight of Central Americans. “That does not make it so. … Better to distract the American people from the very real issues facing the department and perhaps from the President’s own problems too.”

In one particularly sharp exchange, Florida Democratic Rep. Val Demings, a former chief of police in Orlando, pressed Nielsen on whether she prioritized the wall and immigration over helping local communities.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/04/26/politics/caravan-border-wall-kirstjen-nielsen-hearing/index.html

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/04/26/politics/caravan-border-wall-kirstjen-nielsen-hearing/index.html

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

As I’ve said before, Nielsen is an intellectual lightweight, sycophant, and White Nationalist enabler. She proves it almost every time she opens her mouth in public. Her disingenuousness and toadyism make her a threat to our security every day she is in office.

Fortunately, there appear to still be enough professional civil servants in the ranks of DHS somewhere to have averted a national security disaster to date. But, if we survive this Administration, and it’s toxic focus on immigration to the exclusion of real law enforcement and national security problems, it certainly will be in spite of, not because of, folks like Nielsen.

PWS

04-27-18

PRO PUBLICA: HOW OUR GOVERNMENT HAS CYNICALLY TURNED WHAT SHOULD BE A GENEROUSLY ADMINISTERED, LIFE-SAVING, PROTECTION-GRANTING ASYLUM SYSTEM INTO A “GAME OF CHANCE” WITH POTENTIALLY FATAL CONSEQUENCES FOR THE HAPLESS & VULNERABLE “PLAYERS!” –Play The “Interactive Version” Of “The Game” Here – See If You Would Survive or Perish Playing “Refugee Roulette!”

https://projects.propublica.org/asylum/#how-asylum-works

Years-long wait lists, bewildering legal arguments, an extended stay in detention — you can experience it all in the Waiting Game, a newsgame that simulates the experience of trying to seek asylum in the United States. The game was created by ProPublica, Playmatics and WNYC. Based on the true stories of real asylum-seekers, this interactive portal allows users to follow in the footsteps of five people fleeing persecution and trying to take refuge in America.

The process can be exhausting and feel arbitrary – and as you’ll find in the game, it involves a lot of waiting. Once asylum-seekers reach America, they must condense complex and often traumatic stories into short, digestible narratives they will tell again and again. Their lives often depend on their ability to convince a judge that they are in danger. Judicial decisions are so inconsistent across the country, success in complicated cases can come down to geography and luck — in New York City only 17 percent of asylum cases are denied in immigration court; in Atlanta, 94 percent are. Increasingly, many asylum-seekers are held in detention for months or even years while going through the system. The immigration detention system costs more than $2 billion per year to maintain.

The Trump administration has tried to reframe the asylum system as a national security threat and a magnet for illegal immigration. Attorney General Jeff Sessions characterizes the American asylum process as “subject to rampant abuse” and “overloaded with fake claims.” He has aimed recent reforms at expediting asylum adjudications to speed up deportations and at making it more difficult for certain groups to qualify for protection, such as Central Americans who claim to fear gender-based violence or gang persecution.

The narrative that the system is overrun with fraud has long been pushed by groups that favor limiting immigration overall. They point to some 37 percent of asylum-seekers who annually miss their immigration hearings as evidence that people without legitimate fears of persecution game the system. They argue that allowing asylum-seekers to obtain work permits while they wait for a decision on their cases — which sometimes takes years — incentivizes baseless claims.

But another picture emerged when ProPublica spoke with more than 20 experts and stakeholders who study and work in the asylum system, including lawyers, immigration judges, historians, policy experts, an asylum officer, a former border patrol agent and a former ICE prosecutor.

When asked about changes to the system they’d like to see, many suggested providing asylum-seekers with better access to lawyers to support due process, expanding the definition of a refugee to cover modern-day conflicts,providing more resources to help the system process claims in a timely manner, and improving judicial independence by moving immigration courts out of the Department of Justice.

Most acknowledged some level of asylum-claim abuse exists. “In any system, of course, there are going to be some bad actors and some weaknesses people seek to exploit,” said Doris Meissner, the former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1993 to 2000.

But they also argued for the importance of protecting and improving a national program that has provided refuge to hundreds of thousands of people. “If you are going to make a mistake in the immigration area, make this mistake,” said Bill Hing, director of the University of San Francisco’s Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic. “Protect people that may not need protecting, but don’t make the mistake of not protecting people who need it.”

Victor Manjarrez, a former border patrol agent from the 1980s until 2011, said he had seen human smuggling networks exploit the border over the years, but also many people who genuinely needed help.

“We have a system that’s not perfect, but is designed to take refugees. That is the beauty of it,” he said. “It has a lot of issues, but we have something in place that is designed to be compassionate. And that’s why we have such a big political debate about this.”

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Read the narrative and play the interactive “Waiting Game” at the above link!

Getting refuge often depends on getting the right:

Border Patrol Agent an Asylum Officer to even get into the system;
Lawyer;
Local Immigration Court;
Immigration Judge;
DHS Assistant Chief Counsel;
BIA Panel;
U.S. Court of Appeals jurisdiction;
U.S. Court of Appeals Panel;
Luck.

If something goes wrong anywhere along this line, your case could “go South,” even if it’s very meritorious.

I also agree with Professor Hing that given the UNHCR guidance that asylum applicants ought to be given “the benefit of the doubt,” the generous standard for asylum established by the Supremes in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca and implemented by the BIA in Matter of Mogharrabi, and the often irreversible nature of wrongful removals to persecution, the system should be designed to “error on the side of the applicant.”

Indeed, one of the things that DHS in my experience does well is detecting and prosecuting systemic asylum fraud. While a few individuals probably do get away with tricking the system, most “professional fraudsters” and their clients eventually are caught and brought to justice, most often in criminal court. Most of these are discovered not by “tough laws” or what happens in Immigration Court, but by more normal criminal investigative techniques: undercover agents, tips from informants, and “disgruntled employees or clients” who “blow the whistle” in return for more lenient treatment for themselves.

Hope YOU get protected, not rejected!

PWS

04-23-18

MORE GOOD NEWS FROM PROFESSOR ALBERTO BENITEZ @ GW LAW: Two More Northern Triangle Lives Saved By Asylum Grants in Arlington – Giving Lie To the Trump Administration/Restrictionist Claim That Northern Triangle Refugees Are “Economic Migrants” — No, The Vast Majority Are “Legitimate Refugees” Being Screwed Over By Our Government’s Skewed, Dishonest, Immoral, & Often Illegal Policies

Friends,

Please join me in congratulating GW Immigration Clinic alum Shira Zeman, ’12, who won an asylum grant for a Central American Mom and her 5 year-old son earlier this week. Please see the attached picture, which I use with permission. Gang members threatened to kill Mom if she did not allow them to use her son in gang activities. These same gang members murdered one of Mom’s neighbors, a police officer, after he refused to allow a family member to join the gang. Mom testified for over an hour, after which the ICE trial attorney told the Immigration Judge she did not oppose asylum. Shira said: “He’s 5 now, but he had just turned 3 when they tried to ‘recruit’ him so he could be used as a drug mule.”

Intense. This installation is a must-see. Being in the ‘hielera,’ and in the ‘desert’ witnessing nighttime arrests by the Border Patrol, was beyond belief. Visitors were in tears and one fell to her knees. I read this Washington Post article prior to my visit but I was unprepared for the experience.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/alejandro-g-inarritus-virtual-reality-voyage-is-dcs-most-intriguing-experience-right-now/2018/04/11/d2714380-3c04-11e8-974f-aacd97698cef_story.html?utm_term=.8f8162e02386

**************************************************
Alberto Manuel Benitez
Professor of Clinical Law
Director, Immigration Clinic
The George Washington University Law School
650 20th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20052
(202) 994-7463
(202) 994-4946 fax
abenitez@law.gwu.edu
THE WORLD IS YOURS…
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Congratulations to Shira Zeman, Esq., of Zeman & Petterson PLLC, Falls Church, VA. I’m awed by the legal accomplishments and lives saved by Shira and her law partner Rachel Petterson! Hard to believe that she’s only six years out of law school!

We hear it all the time from Trump, Sessions, Nielsen, CIS, FAIR, GOP White Nationalist right wingers, right-wing media, and perhaps most disturbingly sometimes officials at EOIR and Immigration Judges. These aren’t “real refugees,” just folks coming here to work.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Make no mistake about it, these are “real refugees” intentionally being given the shaft by our biased and unfair Government and in far too many cases being denied the life-saving protection to which they are entitled under both U.S. and international law!

In my experience, few individuals, particularly women and children, undertake the long, dangerous, and uncertain journey from the Northern Triangle to our Southern Border unless they are forced migrants. Indeed, I found that many of the individuals coming from the Northern Triangle were doing fine economically and would have vastly preferred to stay in their homes, rather than being relegated to sometimes menial “entry-level” jobs even when they are able to be released in the U.S. Successful students sometimes lose credit in U.S. school systems and must “start over again” in lower grades or special programs.

Indeed, perhaps ironically, their success helped make them very visible, distinct, and attractive targets for both persecution by the gangs and sometimes also for extortion and mistreatment by corrupt police and government officials in the Northern Triangle. Others were perceived by the gangs to be actual or potential political leaders in the “anti-gang movement.” Moreover, as gangs increasingly become involved in the political process in the Northern Triangle, opposition to gangs takes on heavy political implications.

No, this case is not an “aberration or an exception.” There are lots of similar or identical “moms and kids” out there from the Northern Triangle fighting every day for their very lives in a system already rigged against them and which Jeff Sessions has pledged to make even more unfair and more “user unfriendly.”

The things that allowed this “mom and child’ to succeed are:

Representation by a great lawyer like Shira;
Freedom from detention;
Adequate time to prepare and document the case;
A fair, knowledgeable Immigration Judge not biased against or dismissive of Northern Triangle asylum seekers;
An experienced DHS Assistant Chief Counsel committed to a fair application of asylum law and unafraid to recognize when further litigation or appeal would be counterproductive for both the individual and the court system.

An Attorney General truly interested in upholding the rule of law and our Constitution would be working to replicate what happened in this case elsewhere and to look for ways in which refugees like this could be recognized without having to go to a final merits hearing before an Immigration Judge. He or she would also be encouraging others in the Administration to focus on addressing the problems in the Northern Triangle causing this humanitarian migration, instead of focusing solely on fruitless attempts to discourage and deter the vulnerable migrants themselves.

But, that would an Attorney General “OTJS” — “Other Than Jeff Sessions.”

PWS

04-23-18

MULTI-TALENTED TAL @ CNN TAKES US TO THE S. BORDER IN PICTURES & WORDS!

http://www.cnn.com/2018/04/19/politics/secretary-nielsen-dhs-border-fence-wall-immigration/index.html

Snapshots from the US-Mexico border

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Updated 6:55 PM ET, Thu April 19, 2018

Here are Tal’s pictures. For whatever technical reason, you’ll have to go to the original article at the link to get the captions that go with them!

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Wow! As those of you who read “Courtside” on a regular basis know, I’m a HUGE FAN of Tal’s timely, incisive, concise, and highly accessible reporting. I feature it on a regular basis. I’ve also seen her do a great job on TV and video. But, until now, I didn’t know about her skills as a photojournalist. Tal can do it all!

Also, as my colleague Judge and Super-Blogger Jeffrey Chase pointed out in one of his recent comments on this blog, pictures play an essential role in understanding the immigration saga in America.

Been there, done that in my career. Takes me back to the long past days of riding three wheelers, helicopters, Patrol Cars, looking through infrared night scopes, and even accompanying foot patrol during my days in the “Legacy INS General Counsel’s Office.” (Most often on the border south of San Diego.) We actually took the Trial Attorneys and some of the Assistant U.S. Attorneys prosecuting our cases with us to show them what it was really like at the “ground level.”

Actually doesn’t look all that much different decades later. What is painfully clear is that walls, fences, helicopters, detectors, unrealistically harsh and restrictive laws, and more detention centers (the “New American Gulag”) will never, ever “seal” our borders as some immigration hard-liners insist is possible.

At best, we can control, channel, and regulate the flow of migrants, but not halt it entirely. Human migration was taking place long before the U.S. became a nation, and I daresay that it will continue as long as there are humans left on earth. To think that walls, troops, concentration camps, harsh laws, and prisons are going to halt it completely is a mixture of arrogance and ignorance.

So, rather than pouring more money down the drain on the same “strategies” that have been failing for decades, a “smart” border control policy would involve:

More realistic and generous interpretations of our refugee and asylum laws that should include most of those fleeing for their lives from the Northern Triangle;
A much larger and more “market based” legal immigration system for permanent and temporary migrants that would meet the legitimate needs of U.S. employers and our economy while making it attractive for most prospective workers and employers to use the legal visa system rather than the “black market” of undocumented entry;
A larger and more robust refugee processing program for Northern Triangle refugees so most would be screened and documented outside the U.S.;
Cooperation with the UNHCR and other stable countries in the Western Hemisphere to distribute the flow of long-term and temporary refugees in an equitable manner that will help both the refugees and the receiving countries;
Working with and investing in Mexico and Northern Triangle countries to address and correct the conditions that create migration flows to the Southern Border.
Providing lawyers for asylum applicants who present themselves at the Southern Border so that their claims for protection (which actually go beyond asylum and include protection under the Convention Against Torture) can be fairly, correctly, and efficiently determined in an orderly manner in accordance with Due Process.

No, it’s unlikely to happen in my lifetime. But, I hope that future generations, including the members of the “New Due Process Army,” will find themselves in a position to abandon past mistakes, and develop the smart, wise, generous, humane, realistic, and effective immigration and refugee policies that we need to keep our “nation of immigrants” viable and vitalized for centuries to come. Until then, we’re probably going to have to watch folks repeat variations of the same painful mistakes over and over.

PWS

04-19-18

TAL @ CNN: DHS IG TO INVESTIGATE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES

http://www.cnn.com/2018/04/16/politics/dhs-separating-families-ig-investigation/index.html

Watchdog to investigate DHS family separations in immigration custody

By Tal Kopan, CNN

The Department of Homeland Security watchdog will investigate whether the Trump administration is separating families in immigration custody, according to a letter the department’s inspector general sent to the office of Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois.

The inspector general will look into whether the agency is separating the children of asylum seekers from their parents, the letter says.

The review comes after Durbin led a coalition of Democrats in requesting the IG look into the matter after reports that DHS was separating children from their parents in immigration custody. While there have been specific reported incidents, it has been unclear if it is a widespread practice.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testified last week before Congress that the department only separates adults from children in custody “in the interest of the child” — for instance, if there’s a suspicion of possible human trafficking or if they are unable to confirm the child is actually traveling with his or her parents or legal guardians.

She did, however, admit that in the case of a Congolese woman who was separated from her young daughter for months, which has spurred a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, that the process of verifying they were in fact family “took too long.”

After the lawsuit was filed, that mother and her daughter were reunited and a DNA test did confirm their relationship.

The letter from acting Homeland Security Inspector General John V. Kelly, which was provided to CNN, said his office has determined it will “conduct a review of this matter” and requested a follow-up meeting to discuss it further.

The issue of family units has been a source of difficulty for the department for years. A court ruling has held that children cannot be detained in what are essentially immigration jails for longer than three weeks, and the Obama administration thus issued guidance that family units would be released from custody together.

The Trump administration has decried this court ruling as a “loophole” that allows immigrants who have cleared the initial screening to pursue asylum protections in the US to live in the country for potentially years as their case works its way through the court system.

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Not for the first time, Nielsen appears to be living in a parallel universe from everyone else. That’s why it’s a good idea to have the IG get to the bottom of what’s really happening.

PWS

04-17-18

WASHPOST: SEN DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA) HITS A “HOME RUN” WITH OP-ED — NO, RIGHTS OF CHILD ASYLUM SEEKERS ARE NOT “LOOPHOLES” IN OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS! — What’s Happened To Our Common Sense & Humanity?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/protecting-defenseless-children-is-not-an-immigration-loophole/2018/04/13/11bf9012-3e64-11e8-a7d1-e4efec6389f0_story.html?utm_term=.8c9ed9210908

Sen. Feinstein writes:

Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, represents California in the U.S. Senate.

I remember watching the nightly television news in the 1990s and seeing a 15-year-old Chinese girl trembling before a U.S. immigration judge. Despite having committed no crime, she was shackled and sobbing. She couldn’t speak English, and it was clear she had no understanding of what the judge was saying or what would happen to her.

Her parents had sent her to the United States in the cargo hold of a container ship because she had been born in violation of China’s rigid family-planning laws — and was therefore denied citizenship, access to health care and education.

By the time the girl appeared before the immigration judge, she had already been detained for eight months. Even more shocking: After she was granted political asylum, she was detained for four more months before she was released.

This situation would not be allowed to occur today because Congress has enacted laws to provide basic humanitarian protections to unaccompanied immigrant children.

The Trump administration recently reignited its attacks on these protections, with the president going so far as to call laws that protect helpless children “loopholes.”

The administration says these laws prevent immigrant children from being removed from the country, when in fact the goal is to ensure that these children are detained for as little time as possible and only in an appropriate setting, they receive adequate food and water, and that they are given the opportunity to apply for asylum.

Under these laws, each child has a right to make their case before a trained asylum officer. If the hearing demonstrates the need for protection by admission to the United States, we’re obligated to provide it. And in cases where a child does not qualify for asylum or other forms of relief, they’re returned safely to their home country.

I know the intent of these laws because I authored two of them. They are not loopholes.

It’s important to understand why Congress acted to thus ensure basic human dignity for children.

The story of the Chinese girl I saw on television was not unique — mistreatment of child immigrants was widespread. Another young girl who fled China was detained in a facility that also held minors who had been convicted of murder and rape. Despite never having violated criminal law or been accused of a crime, she was routinely handcuffed and strip-searched.

A young boy who fled Colombia after being targeted for recruitment by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas was held in the same detention facility for six months.

Children as young as 4 were held in secure prisons, isolated and forced to wear prison uniforms and shackles. Some were even placed in solitary confinement, even though they weren’t accused of any crime.

These stories, which were detailed by Human Rights Watch, illustrate decades of government mistreatment of children, and they were the genesis of laws Congress passed to guarantee minimum requirements for treating children humanely.

A key first step toward reform came in 1997, after years of litigation over treatment of unaccompanied minors, with a settlement called the Flores agreement. Among its provisions were requirements that the government release detained children to an adult as soon as possible, hold children who can’t be released in appropriate facilities and ensure that all facilities meet humane standard

Three years later, I introduced the Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act and was able to get portions of the bill included in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008.

The two laws, combined with the Flores agreement, are intended to ensure children don’t fall through the cracks of a system that processes thousands of them each year.

They require that children under 18 be placed in the least restrictive setting that is in their best interests. Rather than holding children in detention facilities that also hold adults or criminal juvenile offenders, preference is given to releasing them to family members or appropriate sponsors, such as a family friend.

Such placements ensure that children aren’t held in indefinite detention pending resolution of their cases, which can sometimes take years. They also mean that taxpayers aren’t paying for that detention.

These aren’t loopholes, they are basic principles of common human decency. And to demonize and politicize these children is appalling.

Contrary to the picture painted by this administration, current policies don’t guarantee a child will be able to remain in the United States. Nor do these policies mean dangerous individuals are being released onto our streets.

The Trump administration’s efforts to repeal protections for children are based on an ignorance of history. The only effect of repeal would be more children held in unsafe conditions at exorbitant costs to the taxpayer.

I will oppose any efforts to change these laws, and I call upon my colleagues in Congress to join me in resisting efforts to roll back protections for immigrant children.

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Of all the depraved xenophobic, White Nationalist, racist ravings of Trump, Sessions, Homan, Neilsen, Kelly, Miller, Goodlatte, Cotton, and other GOP restrictionists, the war on defenseless children has to be the most totally despicable! Most of these kids are fleeing genuine dangers in their home countries. The real problem is that the US has intentionally, for political reasons, twisted refugee law so as to not recognize their legitimate status as refugees and asylees.

As someone said at an Asylum Conference I recently attended, the BIA must be the only 15 so-called “asylum experts” in the world who don’t recognize that those fleeing gang recruitment in the Northern Triangle fit squarely within the “particular social group” classification for asylum protection.

Even if they weren’t a direct fit, these children qualify for relief under the Convention Against Torture or should be given another type of humanitarian relief such as TPS or Deferred Enforced Departure. Screening them for background and rapidly admitting them into the U.S. in some status would prevent them from becoming part of the current politically created Immigration Court “backlog,” actually caused primarily by gross mismanagement, intentionally skewed anti-asylum legal interpretations, and political manipulation by this and past Administrations.

Of course the US could absorb them all, and prosper by doing so! Indeed, we’ve absorbed approximately 11 million individuals outside the system who have largely been a boon to our economy and our society. The real problem here is the White Nationalists who deny the reality of human migration and the inevitability of changing demographics, not the migrants themselves.

PWS

04-14-18

BEYOND TRUMP’S LIES & RACISM, THERE’S REAL HUMAN TRAGEDY IN HIS MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN REFUGEES — America’s Election Of Known Unethical Leader Will Haunt Us For Generations To Come!

https://flipboard.com/@flipboard/-most-people-in-the-caravan-are-from-hon/f-808a52c6f5%2Fbuzzfeed.com

Karla Zabludovsky reports for BuzzFeed News:

MEXICO CITY — Two out of three people making their way through Mexico as part of a “caravan” that drew President Donald J. Trump’s ire this week have fled Honduras — part of a recent trend that has seen growing numbers of people escape the country’s exorbitant homicide rates, crippling corruption, increasing political persecution, and a floundering economy.

That is a sharp, recent rise — the number of Hondurans apprehended by US Customs and Border Control increased by 66% from Dec. 2017 to March, according to the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group. In February, Mexican authorities detained and deported 4,128 Hondurans, up from 2,780 the previous month. It was the highest number since November 2016.

This exodus comes at a time of extraordinary tensions even for Honduras, a country still reeling from the effects of a coup d’état in 2009. A highly contested presidential election in November drew thousands of demonstrators to the streets, where at least 22 protesters and bystanders were killed, most of them by security forces.

“Honduras is a pressure cooker in every single aspect,” said Bertha Oliva, director of the Committee for Families of the Disappeared and Detainees in Honduras. “We are seeing an unprecedented violation of human rights.”

Repression by the state has continued even months after the election, analysts say. According to Annie Bird, director of the Guatemala Human Rights Commission, government forces have been intimidating protest leaders — people have reported receiving threatening phone calls and being followed by unmarked cars.

Some in the caravan brought their politics with them, shouting slogans against Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who narrowly won a second term last year and is often referred to by his initials, JOH. He has received support from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama, and Trump, but Hernández’s popularity at home is suffering: Many in the caravan yelled “Out with JOH!” as they set off.

The large number of Hondurans caught Trump’s attention.

“The big Caravan of People from Honduras, now coming across Mexico and heading to our “Weak Laws” Border, had better be stopped before it gets there,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday. In subsequent tweets, Trump renewed calls for his border wall and tougher immigration laws, warning about a “massive inflow of drugs and people” across the border.

Victoria Razo / AFP / Getty Images

A man holds a Honduran national flag as Central Americans -taking part in a caravan called “Migrant Viacrucis”- rest in Matias Romero, Oaxaca state, Mexico on April 2, 2018.

Conditions in Honduras were dire even before the election, with 43.6 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, 55% of the workforce underemployed, extortions to small businesses reportedly on the rise, and endemic corruption.

The Central American nation has one of the highest homicide rates in the world and was called the most dangerous country for environmental activists last year. The government’s efforts to clean up the police force were dealt a severe blow earlier this year, after the Associated Press revealed that the head of the national police had helped a cartel leader deliver nearly a ton of cocaine in 2013. And corruption is widespread: the former first lady was arrested in connection to a graft case in February.

Even the anti-corruption mission backed by the Organization of American States, known for its Spanish initials as Maccih, is languishing without a director after Juan Jiménez Mayor resigned in February, citing a lack of support by the head of the OAS.

In the meantime, Hernández has quietly cemented his power, taking control of most of the country’s institutions, including the Supreme Court, which in 2015 struck down a law forbidding presidents from seeking a second term. His administration continues to receive a portion of the $644 million appropriated by the US Congress to assist Central American governments.

Orlando Sierra / AFP / Getty Images

Left, thousands of supporters of the presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla, hold a demonstration in Tegucigalpa on Dec. 3, 2017. Right, riot police officers and army soldiers, use tear gas and a water cannon to disperse supporters of opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla during protests in Tegucigalpa, on Dec. 18, 2017.

Hondurans went to the polls on November 26 in a tense and highly polarized environment. Already distrustful, many voters were incensed after the Honduran electoral commission mysteriously stopped releasing results for 36 hours just as the opposition candidate, Salvador Nasralla, took a 5 point lead over Hernández. When it resumed, Hernández quickly overtook Nasralla.

Violent protests ensued, with people defying a 10-day curfew declared by the government, which deployed the military and police to the streets. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras, at least 23 people were killed and at least 60 were injured during the following weeks.

Two days after the election, the State Department certified that the Honduran government had been combating corruption and supporting human rights, a requirement for the US to continue sending it millions of dollars worth of aid.

But a report by the United Nations’ office said that the use of live bullets by security forces “raise serious concerns about the use of excessive lethal force and may amount to extra-judicial killings.”

“The level of desperation has risen since the election,” said Dana Frank, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “All signs indicate that the situation is only going to worsen politically, economically, on the human rights front.”

It is unclear whether the post-electoral crisis will push more Hondurans than usual to emigrate this spring, when migrants usually undertake the trek. But despite a clampdown on immigration, Honduran migrants’ are increasingly looking to settle in Mexico, rather than continue on to the US. Last year, 4,272 Hondurans requested asylum in Mexico, up from 1,560 in 2015.

In July, about 86,000 Hondurans living in the US could be forced to leave if their Temporary Protected Status is not renewed. (In January, the Trump administration announced it was ending the program for 200,000 Salvadorans in the country.)

Honduras would struggle to absorb the return of thousands of people and the economy would suffer from the decrease in remittances likely to follow — possibly pushing another wave of Honduras toward the US.

“I call it a self-inflicted wound,” said Eric Olson, deputy director of the Latin America program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

“You could create further instability, which leads to further migration.” ■

We can diminish ourselves as a nation, but that won’t stop human migration.

PWS

04-06-18

HON. BRUCE J. EINHORN IN WASHPOST: SESSIONS’S BLATANT ATTEMPT TO INTIMIDATE U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES TO DEPORT INDIVIDUALS IN VIOLATION OF DUE PROCESS SHOWS A SYSTEM THAT HAS HIT ROCK BOTTOM! — Are There Any “Adults” Out There In Congress Or The Article III Courts With The Guts To Stand Up & Put An End To This Perversion Of American Justice? — “Due process requires judges free of political influence. Assembly-line justice is no justice at all.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jeff-sessions-wants-to-bribe-judges-to-do-his-bidding/2018/04/05/fd4bdc48-390a-11e8-acd5-35eac230e514_story.html?utm_term=.770822e8f813

My former colleague Judge Bruce J. Einhorn writes in the Washington Post:

Bruce J. Einhorn, an adjunct professor of immigration, asylum and refugee law at Pepperdine University, served as a U.S. immigration judge from 1990 to 2007.

It’s a principle that has been a hallmark of our legal culture: The president shouldn’t be able to tell judges what to do.

No longer. The Trump administration is intent on imposing a quota system on federal immigration judges, tying their evaluations to the number of cases they decide in a year. This is an affront to judicial independence and the due process of law.

I served as a U.S. immigration judge in Los Angeles for 17 years, presiding over cases brought against foreign-born noncitizens who Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers believed were in this country illegally and should thus be removed. My responsibility included hearing both ICE’s claims and the claims from respondents for relief from removal, which sometimes included asylum from persecution and torture.

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As a judge, I swore to follow the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees that “no person” (not “no citizen”) is deprived of due process of law. Accordingly, I was obliged to conduct hearings that guaranteed respondents a full and reasonable opportunity on all issues raised against them.

My decisions and the manner in which I conducted hearings were subject to review before the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals and U.S. courts of appeals. At no time was my judicial behavior subject to evaluation based on how quickly I completed hearings and decided cases. Although my colleagues on the bench and I valued efficiency, the most critical considerations were fairness, thoroughness and adherence to the Fifth Amendment. If our nativist president and his lapdog of an attorney general, Jeff Sessions, have their way, those most critical considerations will become a relic of justice.

Under the Trump-Sessions plan, each immigration judge, regardless of the nature and scope of proceedings assigned to him or her, will be required to complete 700 cases in a year to qualify for a “satisfactory” performance rating. It follows that only judges who complete more, perhaps many more, than 700 cases per year will qualify for a higher performance rating and, with it, a possible raise in pay.

Essentially, the administration’s plan is to bribe judges to hear and complete more cases regardless of their substance and complexity, with the corollary that judges who defy the quota imposed on them will be regarded as substandard and subject to penalties. The plan should be seen for what it is: an attempt to undermine judicial independence and compel immigration judges to look over their shoulders to make sure that the administration is smiling at them.

This is a genuine threat to the independence of the immigration bench. While Article III of the Constitution guarantees the complete independence of the federal district courts and courts of appeal, immigration judges are part of the executive branch. Notwithstanding the right of immigration judges to hear and decide cases as they believe they should under immigration law, they are unprotected from financial extortion and not-so-veiled political intimidation under the U.S. Administrative Procedure Actor any regulations.

Moreover, federal laws do not guarantee respondents in removal hearings a right to counsel, and a majority of those in such hearings are compelled to represent themselves before immigration judges, regardless of the complexity of their cases. Those who lack representation in removal hearings typically cannot afford it, and the funds to help legal aid organizations fill in for private attorneys are nowhere to be found.

Hearings in which respondents proceed pro se, or unrepresented, are often the most challenging and time-consuming for immigration judges, who must take care to assure that the procedural rights of those facing possible removal are protected and to guarantee that inarticulate relief claims are fully considered.

The Trump administration’s intention is clear: to intimidate supposedly independent judges to expedite cases, even if it undermines fairness — as will certainly be the case for pro se respondents. Every immigration judge knows that in general, it takes longer to consider and rule in favor of relief for a respondent than it does to agree with ICE and order deportation. The administration wants to use quotas to make immigration judges more an arm of ICE than independent adjudicators.

In my many years on the immigration bench, I learned that repressive nations had one thing in common: a lack of an independent judiciary. Due process requires judges free of political influence. Assembly-line justice is no justice at all.

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

Thanks, Bruce for speaking out so forcefully, articulately, and truthfully!

Jeff Sessions is a grotesque affront to the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, American values, and human decency. Every day that he remains in office is a threat to our democracy. There could be no better evidence of why we need an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court!

Due Process Forever! Jeff Sessions Never! Join the New Due Process Army Now! The fight must go on until Sessions and his toxic “21st Century Jim Crows” are defeated, and the U.S. Immigration Courts finally are forced to deliver on the betrayed promise of “guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” Harm to the most vulnerable among us is harm to all!

PWS

04-05-18

HEIDI BOAS @ WILKES LEGAL: Following A Colossal 14-Year Battle, The U.S. Asylum System Saved Rodi Alvarado’s Life – Can Jeff Sessions Undo This Critically Needed, Life-Saving Protection For Thousands Of Women & Children Like Rodi With A Single Stroke Of His Pen?

Issue Spotlight:

Will America Shut Its Doors to Immigrant Survivors of Domestic Violence?

by Heidi Boas, Immigration Attorney

Wilkes Legal, LLC

April 5, 2018

Will the U.S. continue to offer asylum to

immigrant survivors of domestic violence

like Rodi Alvarado Peña?

In January 2018, Wilkes Legal won asylum for an immigrant mother and her children who escaped over a decade of extreme physical, psychological, and sexual abuse that sent our client to the hospital and left one of her children with a permanent physical impairment. Because our client’s domestic partner was a high-ranking military officer in their home country, her pleas for help from government authorities fell on deaf ears, causing her to flee the country for her safety. In recent years, the United States has offered asylum protection to domestic violence survivors like this client. A recent move by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, however, could soon limit or end the ability of domestic violence survivors to receive asylum protection in the United States.

Domestic violence has long been a contentious issue in asylum law. More than two decades ago, advocates began a 14-year legal battle to win asylum for Rodi Alvarado Peña, a Guatemalan woman who suffered a decade of brutal violence at the hands of her husband. Even though Ms. Alvarado repeatedly sought help from the Guatemalan police and courts, the Guatemalan authorities refused to intervene and protect her. When Ms. Alvarado tried to escape from her husband, he tracked her down and beat her unconscious. Ms. Alvarado ultimately fled to the United States and became the subject of a controversial, high profile immigration court case, as multiple administrations considered whether to grant asylum to women whose countries fail to protect them from domestic violence. Ms. Alvarado ultimately received asylum in 2009, but her case did not establish legal precedent that could help other asylum-seekers fleeing domestic violence.

In 2014, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) finally issued a precedential decision recognizing domestic violence as a basis for asylum. In Matter of A-R-C-G-, the BIA granted asylum to a Guatemalan woman whose husband broke her nose, repeatedly raped her, and burned her with paint thinner. The BIA recognized “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship” as a group that can qualify for asylum. This landmark case opened the doors to protection for other immigrant survivors of domestic violence whose countries fail to protect them from abuse.

While the United States has made great strides in offering protection to immigrant survivors of domestic violence, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently took a step that could potentially undo decades of forward progress. As attorney general, Sessions has the authority to refer immigration court cases to himself, overturn decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals, and set precedent. Last month, Sessions referred an immigration case to himself involving a survivor of domestic violence from El Salvador. If Sessions rules against this woman, he would begin reshaping asylum law for abuse survivors and could potentially shut the doors to countless victims seeking protection in the United States.

In the case under Sessions’ review, a Salvadoran women referred to as A.B. suffered years of domestic violence at the hands of her ex-husband in El Salvador. Even though A.B. separated from her husband and eventually divorced him, her ex-husband returned three years after their separation and raped her. A.B. also testified to receiving threats from her ex-husband’s brother, who is a police officer, and his friend, who told the woman that her ex-husband would kill her and he would help dispose of her body. Although an Immigration Judge denied A.B.’s asylum case, the Board of Immigrant Appeals disagreed with the judge’s ruling and sent the case back to the judge to reconsider his decision. The Immigration Judge again refused to grant asylum to A.B., however, despite the BIA’s precedent decision in Matter of A-R-C-G-, due to other more recent decisions in his jurisdiction.

Now that Sessions has stepped in to review A.B.’s case, he has the authority to determine whether she should be granted asylum. If Sessions denies her asylum case, his decision could have a far-reaching impact, setting precedent that would make it more difficult for other immigrant survivors of domestic violence to qualify for asylum in the future. If Session limits asylum eligibility for these survivors, he will roll back decades of progress in asylum law and close the doors to immigrant victims of abuse who have nowhere else to turn.

Wilkes Legal stands with immigrant survivors of domestic violence and urges Sessions to uphold the BIA’s current precedent, keeping America’s doors open to victims of domestic abuse whose governments fail to protect them.

Visit our website, follow us on Facebook or Twitter, or call our office at (301) 576-0491 to learn more about Wilkes Legal, LLC.

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

From his actions to date, Sessions appears to be up to no good. But, by now the “A-R-C-G-/R-A- principles” are deeply ingrained in U.S. protection law as interpreted by the Article III Federal Courts.

I predict that an attempt by Sessions to undo A-R-C-G- protections will be heavy-handed, blatantly biased, and thinly reasoned as have been all of his transparently biased reversals of established legal positions to date.

It’s therefore likely to suffer a fate of emphatic rejection by the Article IIIs much like what happened when Attorney General Michael Mukasey tried to undo years of established legal precedent about proof of crimes involving moral turpitude in Matter of Silva-Trevino, 24 I&N Dec. 687 (A.G. 2008), rev’d & remanded, Matter of Silva-Trevino, 26 I&N Dec. 550 (A.G. 2015).

I’m hardly a “Charter Member of the Mike Mukasey Fan Club.” His poor stewardship over the U.S. Immigration Court system is at least partially responsible for today’s inexcusable mess in our Immigration Courts.

Nevertheless, before becoming Attorney General, Mukasey was a well-respected U.S. District Judge. He’s 10X the lawyer as Sessions! Sessions’s lack of any discernible legal skills, integrity, humanity, and judgement probably bodes well for the “Good Guys” in the long run.

But, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be unnecessary and unconscionable suffering. Sessions is a bully at heart who relies on the fact that the majority of individuals in the U.S. Immigration Court system are unrepresented and therefore unable to defend themselves against his racist/xenophobic policies.

I’m proud to be one of the “Gang of Five” Appellate Immigration Judges (“Board Members” ) who dissented from the BIA’s original outrageously incorrect decision in Matter of R-A-, 22 I&N Dec. 908 (BIA 1999), vacated, Matter of R-A-, 22 I&N Dec. 908 (A.G. 2001) that reversed a clearly correct grant of asylum to Rodi Alvarado. The other dissenters were Judges John Guendelsberger (who wrote the dissent), Lory Diana Rosenberg, Gustavo D. Villageliu, and Anthony C. Moscato.

Not coincidentally, all of us except for Judge Moscato were removed and “exiled” from the BIA during the “Ashcroft Purge of 2003” for the transgression of doing our jobs conscientiously and standing up for a correct interpretation of the asylum law. So much for the “facade of quasi-judicial independence at the BIA.” (Credit to Peter Levinson). And, that’s before the current “descent into the abyss” brought about by Sessions!

We need an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court now!

PWS

04-05-18

OUR FEAR-MONGERING LEADERS WANT YOU TO BE SCARED OF REFUGEES ARRIVING AT OUR SOUTHERN BORDER – DON’T BE! – Here’s What The Overhyped “Caravan” Actually Looks Like! — “Who wants to leave their country, the comfort of their home, their families?” she asked. “It’s a very difficult thing.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/world/americas/mexico-trump-caravan.html

Kirk Semple reports for the NY Times:

Inside an Immigrant Caravan: Women and Children, Fleeing Violence

By KIRK SEMPLE APRIL 4, 2018

Photo

Central American migrants, members of a group making its way through Mexico, waited in line on Wednesday to review their visa status at a temporary camp in Matías Romero.
CreditBrett Gundlock for The New York Times

MATÍAS ROMERO, Mexico — With a sarcastic half-smile, Nikolle Contreras, 27, surveyed her fellow members of the Central American caravan, which President Trump has called dangerous and has used as a justification to send troops to the border.

More than 1,000 people, mostly women and children, waited patiently on Wednesday in the shade of trees and makeshift shelters in a rundown sports complex in this Mexican town, about 600 miles south of the border. They were tired, having slept and eaten poorly for more than a week. All were facing an uncertain future.

“Imagine that!” said Ms. Contreras, a Honduran factory worker hoping to apply for asylum in the United States. “So many problems he has to solve and he gets involved with this caravan!”

The migrants, most of them Hondurans, left the southern Mexican border city of Tapachula on March 25 and for days traveled north en masse — by foot, hitchhiking and on the tops of trains — as they fled violence and poverty in their homelands and sought a better life elsewhere.

This sort of collective migration has become something of an annual event around Easter week, and a way for advocates to draw more attention to the plight of migrants.

But this particular caravan caught the attention of Mr. Trump, apparently after he heard about it on Fox News. In a Twitter tirade that began Sunday, he conjured up hordes of dangerous migrants surging toward the border. He demanded that Mexican officials halt the group, suggesting that otherwise he would make them pay dearly in trade negotiations or aid cuts.

Mr. Trump even boasted that his threat had forced Mexico’s government to halt and disperse the caravan participants. But there was no evidence of that on Wednesday.

. . . .

Irineo Mujica, Mexico director of People Without Borders, an advocacy group that is coordinating the caravan, called Mr. Trump’s Twitter attacks and promise of a militarized border “campaign craziness.”

“There are 300 kids and 400 women,” he said. “Babies with bibs and milk bottles, not armaments. How much of a threat can they be?”

. . . .

The group, organizers and advocates said, represented a regional humanitarian problem, not a security crisis for the United States, as Mr. Trump has suggested.

“What he’s attacking is a supremely vulnerable population,” said Gina Garibo, projects coordinator in Mexico for People Without Borders.

In response to Mr. Trump’s tweets and his plans to militarize the border, the Mexican Senate unanimously passed a nonbinding statement on Wednesday urging President Enrique Peña Nieto to suspend cooperation with the United States on immigration and security matters — “as long as President Donald Trump does not conduct himself with the civility and respect that the Mexican people deserve.”

Caravan organizers also said their intent was never to storm the border, especially not with a caravan of this size. While the original plan included the possibility of escorting the caravan to the northern border of Mexico, organizers had expected the group to mostly dissolve by the time it had reached Mexico City.

. . . .

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

Read the complete article along with more pictures of ordinary folks forced to make an extraordinary journey at the link.

There has never been any doubt that folks like Trump, Sessions, Miller, Nielsen have nothing but contempt for the truth, laws, and human life. But, they also think that the American people are pretty stupid to fall for the “fantasyland claptrap” that they throw out to drum up support for their racist restrictionist ambitions.

Although you’ll never hear it from the disingenuous Trumpsters, individuals arriving at our borders have a legal right to apply for asylum guaranteed by both U.S. and international law. Most of the “law-breaking” involves the actions of the Trump DHS. By refusing to properly process asylum applicants at legal ports of entry, the Administration actually encourages illegal entry and the use of smugglers.

The only real “crisis” at the Southern border is a humanitarian one that this and past Administrations have had key roles in creating through failed immigration and foreign policies. Without better, smarter government, we’re bound to deep repeating the same mistakes.

Don’t fall for it!

PWS

04-05-18

Endangered Central American Children

A Focus on Gangs

Yes, folks, it’s way past time to use the correct term for the Trump Administration’s outrageous, and in many cases illegal, policies directed against primarily Hispanic migrant children: “Child Abuse!”

Harm to the most vulnerable among us is harm to all!

PWS

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We need an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court now!

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