Children – Page 5 – immigrationcourtside.com

😇☠️👹THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY — NGOs & Citizens Make Extraordinary Efforts To Help, U.S. Vets Forced To Vainly Beg For Mercy For Afghan Comrades, & Some Of The Most Vulnerable Condemned To Suffering, Torture, Death W/O Process @ Disgraceful S. Border, As Biden Administration Flails To Find Leadership On Human Rights — “If it is actually the policy of the United States to turn away veteran-endorsed Afghan allies, then our bureaucracy isn’t just passively ‘letting them die’; it is actively killing them.“

JGOOD:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/24/afghan-evacuees-spending-first-christmas-america-seek-miracle-kindness/

. . . .

Here’s hoping in this season of fellowship that these latest “tempest-tost” — to use the words poet Emma Lazarus appropriated from Shakespeare to inscribe on the Statue of Liberty — find there is room for them in our countrymen’s hearts. So far, the signs are encouraging. Resettlement agencies, gutted in the Trump years when refugee admissions were slashed to historic lows, are overwhelmed but staffing up as fast as they can. In far-flung places around the nation, there is little political pushback as the evacuees become more numerous and visible.

One reason is that U.S. veterans, former soldiers and Marines, have their backs. Having fought side by side with and depended critically on their Afghan interpreters, fixers and guides, those veterans are going to bat for their former comrades in arms, officials say. In Republican communities such as Tulsa, as in Democratic ones like Northern Virginia, some of the arriving evacuees may be nearly penniless, but they are not without allies and advocates.

Let this Christmas, these Afghans’ first, be a moment when they tap into this country’s innate generosity, so that the American Dream is as successful for them as it has been for so many who arrived before them.

BAD:

https://thewashingtonpost.pressreader.com/search?query=Vets%20on%20Afghans&in=ALL&hideSimilar=0&type=1&state=0

Mr. President, hear this plea from Afghan war vets

The Washington Post25 Dec 2021BY JAYSON HARPSTER The writer is a U.S. Army veteran. He lives in D.C.

Please don’t let my friends die. It’s a simple plea to the U.S. government from many American veterans of the Afghanistan war. And so far, that plea is being ignored. My friends Nabi and Kohee are what our political class calls “Afghan allies.” They were Afghan intelligence officers whom I served with during my second deployment to Afghanistan. God blessed me the day I was assigned to work with such fine men. They taught me about their country, I taught them about intelligence analysis, and together we tracked Taliban threats.

Now our immigration system is leaving these men and their families to die at the hands of the Taliban. The special immigrant visa (SIV) for interpreters excludes Afghan soldiers like my friends. The Refugee Admissions Program is backlogged. And now Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) is blocking Afghans from accessing humanitarian parole, their only remaining lifeline. Director Ur M. Jaddou of CIS and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas need to fix humanitarian parole for our Afghan allies.

The Army gave me a Bronze Star for the work that I did with Nabi and Kohee. That helped get me into a good school, get a good job, a good life — the American Dream. But for my friends, the fact that they worked with the Americans is a death sentence, and I dare not use their full names given the ongoing threats to them and their families. The Taliban raided Nabi’s house the very night it conquered Kabul. If he had not already gone into hiding, he’d be dead. Kohee and his family had to flee their home when their pro-taliban neighbors threatened them with death and promised to “take care of ” their teenage daughter. “Take care of ” means forcibly marrying her off to a Taliban fighter to be raped.

If it is U.S. policy to turn away veteran-endorsed Afghan allies, then our bureaucracy isn’t just passively ‘letting them die’; it is actively killing them.

Working with fellow veterans and volunteers, I desperately tried to get Nabi, Kohee and their families into the Kabul airport so they could escape. But U.S. guards turned them away, all while some planes were taking off with unfilled seats. Nabi evaded a half-dozen Taliban checkpoints to get within six feet of his assigned pickup location, only to be attacked with tear gas by American guards and whipped by a Taliban fighter. It was only after days of failure at the airport that we made the difficult decision to help them flee to Pakistan.

In Pakistan, they live with the risk of being deported back to Afghanistan. They can barely go outside. The kids can’t go to school. And they can’t go to another country that will accept them. Every time I see a message notification on my phone, I’m afraid.

. . . .

UGLY:

. . . .

It felt to Chic as if her whole family had cohered in Florida while she was in Guatemala, leaving her on the outside. During Adelaida’s birthday parties, she was the square box on the FaceTime calls, peering through the screen, until she hung up and cried alone.

Separated at the border, reunited, then separated again: For migrant families, another trauma

David listened. More parents had arrived at the hotel; some were eavesdropping. When they shared their own stories, they would describe the moments of separation almost identically. But in each case, the familial chaos and dislocation that came next was different for each parent.

David’s son was also in South Florida, about an hour from Adelaida. But his wife and other children were still in Guatemala. To reunite with one of his children, he would have to leave the others. His son, who had slipped in and out of depression, needed him in Florida.

“So that’s my trouble,” he said. “One solution creates another problem.”

This time, it was Chic who nodded, permitting herself, briefly, to feel fortunate.

. . . .

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

Read the full version of all of these pieces at the respective links above.

So, inflicting irreparable harm on refugees and vulnerable asylum seekers became the official policy of the U.S. Government and a vile rallying cry for a morally bankrupt GOP. It would be naive to ignore that actively killing refugees and other migrants was part and parcel of the Trump regime’s hate and lie-based immigration policies. And, the Biden Administration has been too wobbly to undo Trump’s toxic legacy with integrity, dynamic leadership, and courage.

So, families suffer, Vets beg in vain, atrocious Government policies continue at the border, and NGOs and citizens struggle to fill the gap.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-26-21

☠️NEW KIND REPORT SHOWS CRISIS OF PERSECUTION OF WOMEN & CHILDREN IN NORTHERN TRIANGLE EXACERBATED BY PANDEMIC — More Evidence Of Legal, Factual, & Moral Bankruptcy Of Administration’s Bogus “Deterrence Policies” As Well As Grotesque Failure Of U.S. Courts At All Levels To Uniformly Require Granting Of Asylum To Qualified Refugee Women & Children!

*Cover photo by photojournalist Guillermo Martinez shows a boy in El Salvador wearing a protective mask from his home during a COVID-19 lockdown. Photo credit: Guillermo Martinez/APHOTOGRAFIA/ Getty Images

New Report: Dual Crises

Gender-Based Violence and Inequality Facing Children and Women During the COVID-19 Pandemic in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras

Gender-based violence has long been one of the main drivers of migration from Central America to the United States. Widespread violence, including sexual abuse, human trafficking, and violence in the home and family, combined with a lack of access to protection and justice forces children and women to flee in search of safety. Drawing on existing research and interviews with children’s and women’s rights experts, this report lays out how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated already pervasive forms of violence against children and women in Central America, as well as the deeply entrenched gender inequality that leaves children and women even more vulnerable to violence.

Here’s a link to the full report: http://us.engagingnetworks.app/page/email/click/10097/1093096?email=C9P0Zhj6QQc0L7Si0LDouAN%2BRR2ul1GhmZAK81VjEpg=&campid=z6owwwxd2r6ZkArzVWMSmA==

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

Successful implementation of the U.S. Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America must start by acknowledging that gender-based violence is a primary driver of migration and includes most violence against children.

Obviously, mindless, failed enforcement and deterrence-only policies that tell women and children to “suffer and die in place” rather than flee and seek asylum are absurdly out of touch with the realities of both human migration and the real situation in the Northern Triangle. This report shows that increased flight from the Northern Triangle probably has more to do with the aggravating effects of the pandemic on the already untenable situation of many women and children in the Northern Triangle than it does on any policy pronouncements, real or imagined, on the part of the Biden Administration.

An honest policy that recognizes the reality that gender-based persecution is a major driver of forced migration in the Northern Triangle would go a long way toward addressing the largely self-created situation at our Southern Border.

As many of us keep saying, to no visible avail, asylum isn’t a “policy option” for politicos and wonks to “discuss and debate.” It’s a legal and moral requirement, domestically and internationally, that we are currently defaulting upon!

Wonder why “democracy is on the ropes” throughout the world right now? Perhaps, we need look no further than our own horrible example!

A robust overseas refugee program in the region and a uniform, consistent, timely policy of granting asylum to qualified applicants applying at ports of entry at our borders would be a vast improvement.

Sure, it would undoubtedly result in the legal immigration of more refugees and asylum seekers. That’s actually what refugee and asylum laws are all about — an important and robust component of our legal immigration system.

Although our needs are not actually part of the “legal test for asylum,” the fact is, we need more legal immigrants of all types in America right now.

It should be a win-win for the refugees and for America. So why not make it happen, rather than continuing failed policy approaches that serve nobody’s interest except nativist zealots trying to inflame xenophobia for political gain?

An additional point: On February 2, 2021, to great ballyhoo, President Biden issued Executive Order 14010. A key provision of that order required that:

(ii) within 270 days of the date of this order, promulgate joint regulations, consistent with applicable law, addressing the circumstances in which a person should be considered a member of a “particular social group,” as that term is used in 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(42)(A), as derived from the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.

270 days have long passed. In fact, its been more than 300 days since that order. Yet, these regulations are nowhere in sight. Perhaps, that’s a good thing.

This doesn’t come as much of a surprise to “us old timers” who have “hands on” experience with the unsuitability of the DOJ regulation drafting process for this assignment. Indeed, this assignment is actually several decades “overdue,” having originally been handed out by the late former Attorney General Janet Reno prior to her departure from office in January 2020!

The problem remains lack of expertise. With the possible exception of Lucas Guttentag, I know of nobody at today’s DOJ who actually has the necessary experience, expertise, perspective, and historical knowledge to draft a proper regulation on the topic. Past drafts and proposals have been disastrous, actually seeking to diminish, rather than increase and regularize, protections for vulnerable women and others facing persecution on account of gender-based particular social groups.

Indeed, one proposal was even used by OIL as an avenue in attempting to “water down” the all-important, life saving “regulatory presumption of future persecution arising out of past persecution!” Talk about perversions of justice at Justice! Why? Because OIL had suffered a series of embarrassing, ego-deflating setbacks from Article III Courts calling out the frequent failure of the BIA and IJs to properly apply the basics of the presumption. Sound familiar?

At DOJ, the “normal solution to lack of expertise and competence” is to simply eliminate expertise and competence as requirements! In many ways, “good enough for government work” has replaced “who prosecutes on behalf of Lady Justice” as the DOJ’s motto!

It’s also yet another reason why the DOJ is a horribly inappropriate “home” for the U.S. Immigration Courts!

😎Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-16-21

🤮SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE: TRAC SAYS UNDER GARLAND EOIR JUVENILE DATA REMAINS BADLY FLAWED, UNUSABLE! — “EOIR has continued to ignore its growing data management problems.” — Duh!

Garland doesn’t worry about the mess at his EOIR. He leaves the worrying to EOIR’s long-suffering, frustrated, and angry “customers!” PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

Immigration Court’s Data on Minors Facing Deportation is Too Faulty to Be Trusted

After careful analysis and consideration, TRAC is forced to suspend its publication of data on juveniles facing deportation in Immigration Court due to serious, unresolved deficiencies in the EOIR’s data. TRAC’s analyses indicate that the data used by the Immigration Court for tracking and reporting on juveniles who are facing deportation appear to be seriously flawed to the point that we question whether the agency has the ability to meaningfully and reliably report on juveniles in its caseload.

We wrote to EOIR’s Acting Director Jean King on September 22, 2021 to share TRAC’s findings, request feedback from the agency, and offer to share additional details to support the agency’s efforts to identify and resolve the issues. TRAC did not receive any response to that letter. We wrote to the EOIR again on October 15, 2021, this time to Director David Neal who had subsequently been appointed as EOIR’s permanent director by Attorney General Merrick Garland. We reiterated our initial concerns, but TRAC did not receive a response to that letter either.

TRAC is now regretfully withdrawing its own Juvenile App since EOIR’s data are too flawed to be used. Because these significant data problems arose only at the time EOIR implemented a series of changes in the latter part of 2017 impacting how unaccompanied juveniles were tracked, the results compiled before these changes occurred will be retained online for use in historical research.

The Immigration Court’s failure to respond to or address TRAC’s findings of significant data quality issues regarding minors is particularly concerning given the highly sensitive nature of children facing deportation. This data quality problem on tracking juvenile cases adds to EOIR’s earlier refusal to address data quality issues regarding asylum cases that continue to disappear from the agency’s master database which it relies on to manage its workload. Furthermore, TRAC recently uncovered additional data problems leading EOIR to falsely report its asylum backlog had allegedly declined this past year when in fact the backlog had markedly grown.

Taken individually, each specific issue is significant and noteworthy in its own right. But taken together, these now multiple unresolved data quality issues are compounding upon each other. TRAC has repeatedly offered to work with the EOIR to aid the agency as it seeks an understanding of the problem and a meaningful solution—yet thus far EOIR has continued to ignore its growing data management problems.

The public should be increasingly troubled by the indifference that the Immigration Courts have shown to these issues and should push for improved transparency and accountability.

For further information about the problems in the Court’s juvenile data go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/669/

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
601 E. Genesee Street
Syracuse, NY 13202-3117
315-443-3563
trac@syr.edu
https://trac.syr.edu

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

Bogus data “supporting” false claims! Institutionalized sloppiness! Serious legal mistakes! Wildly inconsistent application of basic legal principles and standards! Chronic mismanagement! Backlogs on steroids! Lack of public responsiveness! Wrong personnel in the wrong jobs!

That’s “Garland’s EOIR!” To put it charitably, it’s a godawful mess and a festering cancer on our entire legal system!

EOIR is like something out of a Charles Dickens novel! But, it’s a harsh reality for the immigrants, families, and advocates subjected to this publicly financed hotbed of incompetence, indifference, and ineptness!

Obviously, running EOIR in even a minimally competent level is beyond Garland’s skill set and below his interest level! Stunningly, our Attorney General is unbothered by having legal “work product” that would embarrass any self-respecting L-1 churned out in his name by his “delegees.” Feeding false and misleading information to the public? Just “another day at the office” @ Garland’s EOIR!

Where’s the Congressional oversight? Where’s Article I?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-04-21

⚖️🗽🇺🇸👍🏼👩🏻‍⚖️ JUSTICE FOR KIDS IN COURT — ROUND TABLE ⚔️🛡 “WARRIOR QUEEN” 👸🏻 HON. SARAH BURR SPEAKS OUT FOR “FAIR DAY IN COURT FOR KIDS ACT OF 2021!” — “We cannot in good conscience allow any unaccompanied children to appear in immigration court alone.”

Hon. Sarah Burt — Hon. Sarah Burr
Retired U.S. Immigration Judge
Knightess of The Round Table
Photo Source: Immigrant Justice Corps website

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/578076-why-are-children-representing-themselves-in-immigration-court

From The Hill:

As a retired immigration judge, I have watched with concern reports of the surge of unaccompanied immigrant children crossing the border into the United States. There are many reasons for concern—their housing, their health, their safety. To me, there is an additional, very real, and often overlooked question looming on the horizon: What will happen when these children, even toddlers and babies, appear alone in immigration court?

Yes, alone. While a person in immigration proceedings is entitled to be represented by a lawyer if they can afford it, there is no constitutional or even statutory right to appointed counsel in immigration proceedings. That means those who cannot afford a lawyer must appear in court alone, including children.

While I am pleased to see the Biden administration plans to provide government-funded legal representation for certain immigrant children in eight U.S. cities, this new initiative is still a far cry from the universal representation needed to support children in removal proceedings.

Imagine, if you can, a child — 2 years old, 10 years old or 17 years old — appearing before an immigration judge alone. How does a child, already intimidated and confused by the courtroom setting, understand the nature of the court proceedings and the charges against them? How can a child understand the complexities of immigration law, their burden of proof, and possible defenses against deportation? The short answer is they cannot.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the op-ed at the above link.

The “Fair Day For Kids in Court Act of 2021” is endorsed by the “Round Table” ⚔️🛡 among many other groups in the NDPA!

Here’s a summary (courtesy of Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” S. Chase):

Senator Mazie Hirono (of [Round Table “Fighting Knightess” Judge] Dayna Beamer’s home state of Hawaii) plans to introduce the attached bill on Thursday, that would provide counsel for unaccompanied children in Immigration Court by:

Clarifying the authority of the federal government to provide or appoint counsel to noncitizens in immigration proceedings;
Requiring the appointment or provision of legal counsel to all unaccompanied children in proceedings unless they obtained counsel independently;
Mandating access to counsel for all noncitizens in CBP and ICE facilities;
Requiring that, if the government fails to provide counsel to an unaccompanied child and orders that child removed, the filing of a motion to reopen proceedings will stay removal; and
Requiring government reporting on the provision of counsel to unaccompanied children.

Here’s the text of the bill, which will be introduced by Sen. Hirono later this week:

Fair Day Text FINAL

Thanks Sarah and Jeffrey! So pleased to be part of the “support group” for this long-overdue and badly needed legislation that would do what to date Congress, the Federal Courts, and DOJ have failed to do: Enforce the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment in Immigration Court!

And, of course, we should never forget the ongoing, daily work performed by NDPA Superhero 🦸🏻‍♂️ Wendy Young and Kids in Need of Defense (“KIND”) in ending the disgraceful blot on American justice of unrepresented kids in Immigration Court:

Dear Paul,

I met Maria* in immigration court. The judge sat in his robes behind the bench when he called her deportation case.

A trial attorney from the Department of Homeland Security sat at the front, prepared to argue for Maria’s removal from the U.S.. Maria was by herself without a lawyer by her side.

She was five years old.

She approached the bench, wearing her nicest clothes, clutching a doll. She sat behind the respondent’s desk, barely able to see over the microphone. The judge asked her a number of questions about why she was in the US and about her life here, none of which she could answer. Her eyes grew bigger and bigger as she sat silently, until he finally dismissed her and told her to come back at a later date. As she left the court, he asked her what the name of her doll was. In Spanish, she replied, “Baby Baby Doll.” That was the only question she could answer.

That moment haunts me. I continually wonder about the insanity of asking a five year old to stand alone and defend herself against deportation in a federal courtroom. It should never happen. Which is exactly why KIND has mobilized and trained a powerful group of pro bono attorneys to represent and work with children just like Maria who deserve legal representation in a U.S. immigration court.

This October, KIND is honoring the pro bono attorneys who have helped more than 27,000 children referred to KIND receive legal representation that often means the difference between relief and deportation and, by extension, a child’s safety or danger.

Will you make a tax-deductible donation now to support the children we work with in and out of the courtroom?

Here’s the direct impact your gift today can have for children like Maria:

$75 will support a child’s success and provide a backpack and basic school supplies for a child beginning school in the U.S.

$100 will give nourishment, and provide groceries and essentials to help keep children fed and healthy while they await the outcome of their legal case.

$250 will give a child a voice by helping pay for an interpreter so an indigenous child can tell their story in court.

$500 will allow us to make a life-saving connection and train attorney’s across the country to evaluate and work with refugee children in need of representation and critical social services.

$1500 will help us connect kids to mental health resources, including psychological evaluation and other mental health services for a child seeking asylum in the U.S..

$5000 will provide hope and safety to a vulnerable child by ensuring we have the resources we need to offer comprehensive legal representation and social service needs for however long it takes to win their case.

Paul, these are just a few ways we’ll put your gift to work, but know that your donation in ANY amount is critical to the number of children we can reach, and represent, through the amazing efforts of our pro bono attorney network.

These kids are scared, they are traumatized. They are intimidated. And without the services provided by organizations like KIND, they are all alone.

But that’s why we’re here – and that’s why I hope you’ll consider making a gift today to support this life-changing work. Your donation today will have a direct impact on the lives of refugee children who deserve to have someone in their court.

Thank you so much for your generosity today, and always.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-26-21

🏴‍☠️MAYORKAS DOUBLES DOWN ON USE OF TRUMP’S BOGUS TITLE 42 RATIONALE TO DEPORT HAITIANS — ABSURDLY & DISINGENUOUSLY CLAIMS HAITI IS “SAFE” FOR RETURNS!

Amanda Holpuch reports for The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/26/haiti-deportations-covid-biden-homeland-secretary-mayorkas?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, on Sunday defended the Biden administration’s decision to send thousands of Haitians to a home country they fled because of natural disasters and political turmoil.

White House criticizes border agents who rounded up migrants on horseback

Mayorkas told NBC’s Meet the Press the removals were justified because of the coronavirus pandemic, a point disputed by advocates and public health experts.

“The Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention, or CDC] has a Title 42 authority that we exercise to protect the migrants themselves, to protect the local communities, our personnel and the American public,” Mayorkas said.

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“The pandemic is not behind us. Title 42 is a public health policy, not an immigration policy.”

Since Donald Trump’s administration implemented Title 42 in March 2020, advocates and dozens of public health experts have called for its end.

Under Title 42, people who attempt to cross the border are returned to Mexico or deported to their home countries without an opportunity to test asylum claims.

In January, Joe Biden stopped the rule from applying to children. Despite that, at least 22 babies and children were deported to Haiti in February.

More than 30 public health experts wrote to Mayorkas and the head of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, earlier this month, saying Title 42 was “scientifically baseless and politically motivated”.

This coalition has repeatedly said the policy violates the right to seek asylum and ignores how basic public health measures can reduce the spread of Covid-19.

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“Title 42 runs counter to the government’s own commitment to address Covid-19 globally,” the coalition said. “The absence of effective Covid-19 mitigation services at the border and the expulsion of people to situations in which they may be exposed to Covid-19 and unable to practice prevention are contrary to the US government commitment to address Covid-19 globally.”

On Sunday, Mayorkas told CNN about 4,000 Haitians who arrived in the past two weeks have been expelled, 13,000 others had been allowed to enter the US to pursue their immigration cases in court and 8,000 had voluntarily chosen to return to Mexico.

NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd questioned Mayorkas about why thousands were being sent to Haiti even though they had traveled to the US from South America.

“These are Haitian nationals,” Mayorkas said. “Some of them don’t have documents from the countries from which they just left. So they are subject to removal.”

. . . .

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

Of course, Haiti clearly is not a safe place to return migrants:

‘They treated us like animals’: Haitians angry and in despair at being deported from US

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/26/they-treated-us-like-animals-haitians-angry-and-in-despair-at-being-deported-from-us?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘They treated us like animals’: Haitians angry and in despair at being deported from US

Haitian deportees arriving from Texas say they were ‘rounded up like cattle and shackled like criminals’

Joe Parkin Daniels in Port-au-Prince

Published:

05:00 Sunday, 26 September 2021

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About this content

When Evens Delva waded across the Rio Grande with his wife and two daughters, he had dreams of starting a new life in Florida. But less than a week later, he and his family stepped on to the tarmac in Port-au-Prince, the sweltering and chaotic capital of Haiti, with nothing except traumatic memories and a feeling of bubbling anger.

Delva, along with nearly 2,000 other Haitians, was deported from southern Texas this week to Haiti, despite having lived in Chile for the past six years and having few remaining connections to his home country. His younger daughter, who is four, does not hold Haitian citizenship, having been born in Chile, and speaks more Spanish than Haitian Creole.

“I don’t know what we’ll do, we don’t have anywhere to stay or anyone to call,” the 40-year-old said, moments after getting off the plane in the blistering midday Caribbean heat. “All I know is that this is the last place I want to be.”

Evens Delva and his wife at Port-au-Prince airport in Haiti on Friday after being deported from Texas. Photograph: Joe Parkin Daniels/The Guardian

It is not hard to understand why. Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, is mired in overlapping crises. Gasoline shortages and blackouts are a daily reality, while warring gangs routinely kidnap for ransom and wage battle on the streets.

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The grim situation only worsened when the president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in his home on 7 July, triggering a political power struggle and further instability and street violence. On 14 August, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck the country’s poor southern peninsula, killing more than 2,200 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

US envoy to Haiti resigns over ‘inhumane’ decision to deport migrants

The Biden administration’s decision to deport thousands of Haitians under such circumstances drew opprobrium around the world, and prompted the US envoy to Haiti to resign in protest. Haiti is “a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs in control of daily life”, he wrote in his resignation letter. “Surging migration to our borders will only grow as we add to Haiti’s unacceptable misery.”

Last week, the world was shocked by images of police officers on horseback charging at desperate Haitian migrants near a camp of 12,000, set up under the Del Río-Ciudad Acuña International Bridge. Delva was on his way to buy food and water for his family when the cavalry charge sent him and dozens of his compatriots running in a frenzy.

“We were rounded up like cattle and shackled like criminals,” he said, having spent the six-hour flight from San Antonio with his hands and legs tied.

“They treated us like animals,” added Maria, his wife.. “We’ll never forget how that felt.”

. . . .

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

David Shipler does a great job of exposing the hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty of Mayorkas and other Biden Administration immigration officials.

America’s Callous Border

By David K. Shipler

Several years ago, a gray-haired passport control official at Heathrow Airport in London, noting “writer” under “occupation” on my landing card, asked me what I wrote. I was finishing a book on civil liberties, I told him, with a chapter on immigration. That caught his interest. He leaned forward, glanced around, lowered his voice and said, “I loathe borders.”

Funny line of work you’re in, I said. We shared a chuckle, he stamped my passport, and I crossed the border that he loathed.

We have nation states, and so we have borders. Dictatorships need them to keep people in, lest their countries be drained of the talented and the aspiring. Democracies need them to keep people out—often those with talent and aspiration who are fleeing to safety and opportunity. So far, the United States is lucky enough to be the latter. So far.

When desperate fathers and mothers are drawn with admiring naïveté to the beacon of America, when they carry their children through months of torment by mountain jungles and predatory gangs, when their courage and towering fortitude set them apart from the masses, shouldn’t they be embraced when they reach the final border of a nation of fellow immigrants that touts its compassion and humanity?

Cut through the crazy tangle of immigration laws, regulations, and inconsistent enforcement to the essential ethic, and the answer is an obvious yes. But the obvious is not obvious in the White House or in the Department of Homeland Security or in the ranks of the beleaguered Border Patrol, whose horsemen scramble, as if herding cattle, to intercept frantic Haitians wading from the Rio Grande onto the banks of freedom and promise.

Instead, a new torment is found: Haitians with enough grit to leave their country a decade or so ago and build lives on the margins in Brazil, Chile, and elsewhere are taken from their first steps onto U.S. soil and summarily—summarily, without due process—deported. And where to? To Haiti, a failed state where many have long since lost family or work or even places of shelter. To Haiti, which has collapsed into such violence and disarray that the State Department warns Americans on its website: “Do not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and COVID-19.”

What is wrong with the air in the White House? Is there not enough oxygen? What accounts for the impaired thinking that seems to transcend administrations, from Republican to Democratic. Where is the regard for human dignity? Why is it so often absent in the calculations that create policy?

Donald Trump wore callousness on his sleeve and was proud of it. His base hooted its applause at his vilification of Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers. By contrast, Joe Biden wears a badge of empathy. His mantra is compassion. “Horrible” and “outrageous” were the words he found to describe the photographed attacks on Haitians from horseback. He halted the use of horses and vowed that agents responsible “will pay.” He also said, “It’s simply not who we are.”

But it is who we are. The images have been compared to old photos of white overseers on horseback commanding enslaved Blacks in the fields. The Border Patrol in cowboy hats have been compared to Texas Rangers “who were celebrated for their excellent ‘tracking skills’ that were put to use to hunt and capture enslaved people,” said historian Monica Martinez of the University of Texas.

These are compelling analogies with painful resonance. They are also flawed as parallels, for the Black migrants at the border are not slaves. They are clamoring to be here, crossing illegally, seeing the border as a threshold. They were not brought here in chains against their will. Some are being removed in chains against their will.

Nevertheless, in a sense they are enslaved by their blackness. If white Canadians tried this up north, does anybody truly believe that they would be treated as the Black Haitians are? Animating America’s conscience should not require reaching back to the sin of slavery. The present ought to be enough.

Our borders always put our split personality on display: We are cruel and welcoming, hateful and helpful, defined by doors closed at times to entire ethnic groups and then opened to invigorate the nation with willing hands and vital contributions.

In fact, if the country is not sufficiently moved by simple morality, then it might consider self-interest. The U.S. population growth rate has been falling steadily since 2008, dropping to a mere 0.58 percent from 2020 to 2021. Many regions lack skilled workers, as homeowners and small business owners and even hospitals can testify from trying to hire carpenters, plumbers, electricians, welders, mechanics, and nurses. We should have winced when one Haitian deportee was quoted as describing himself as a welder and carpenter.

Using abuse to manipulate determined people did not work under Trump—a lesson that Biden and his advisers might have learned. Trump’s administration separated children from their parents at the border, his aides reasoning that families heading north would get the message and—what?–abandon their fortitude and survival instincts, turn around, and head back to life-threatening misery?

So, too Biden officials are reportedly figuring that tossing Haitian expatriates into Haiti’s maelstrom will dissuade others from coming. In other words, don’t be humane, and folks will give up. But they won’t give up. They will still roll the dice, because there’s always a chance, especially since some are being allowed to stay, at least for a while, pending proper examination of their asylum claims as the law requires. When your ship has sunk, you don’t stop clinging to a piece of flotsam just because some shipmates have slipped off into the sea.

What the Biden White House needs is somebody in an influential position who has made this journey, who has shepherded family and children through jungles and ganglands to reach this supposedly promised land. That official might bring to the Oval Office a glimmer of understanding and respect for the force of personality and perseverance that drive a person toward our callous border.

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

Something about the DHS Secretary job seem to require checking honesty, common sense, historical perspective, and humanity at the door, not to mention the true “rule of law.”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-26-21

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️LOSING FAITH IN THEIR OWN COMMITMENTS & COMPETENCE: Restoring The Rule Of Law At The Border Should Result In A Fairer, More Humane, More Realistic Asylum System, Encouraging Applicants To Apply Through Legal Channels, While Resulting In More Legal Immigration, Which America Needs, & Allowing CBP To Focus On Real Law Enforcement — Unfortunately, The Biden Administration Doubts Its Own Campaign Promises, As Well As Its Competence To Govern — Administration Apparently Hopes Righty Courts Will Continue To “Force” Them To Carry Out “Miller Lite” Cruelty & Futility While Absolving Them Of Moral & Political Responsibility For The Ongoing Human Carnage!

“Floaters” — “Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” — According to the NYT, Biden immigration policy officials always shared this vision of “ultimate border deterrence” with Gauleiter Stephen Miller. Now, they are secretly relieved that Trump’s righty judges have “forced” them to continue running a lawless border and killing asylum seekers without legal process.
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/world/americas/mexico-migrants-asylum-border.html

Natalie Kitroeff
Foreign Correspondent
NY Times
PHOTO: NY Times

By Natalie Kitroeff

Sept. 6, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET

MATAMOROS, Mexico — When the Supreme Court effectively revived a cornerstone of Trump-era migration policy late last month, it looked like a major defeat for President Biden.

After all, Mr. Biden had condemned the policy — which requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico — as “inhumane” and suspended it on his first day in office, part of an aggressive push to dismantle former President Donald J. Trump’s harshest migration policies.

But among some Biden officials, the Supreme Court’s order was quietly greeted with something other than dismay, current and former officials said: It brought some measure of relief.

Before that ruling, Mr. Biden’s steps to begin loosening the reins on migration had been quickly followed by a surge of people heading north, overwhelming the southwest border of the United States. Apprehensions of migrants hit a two-decade high in July, a trend officials fear will continue into the fall.

Concern had already been building inside the Biden administration that the speed of its immigration changes may have encouraged migrants to stream toward the United States, current and former officials said.

In fact, some Biden officials were already talking about reviving Mr. Trump’s policy in a limited way to deter migration, said the officials, who have worked on immigration policy but were not authorized to speak publicly about the administration’s internal debates on the issue. Then the Supreme Court order came, providing the Biden administration with the political cover to adopt the policy in some form without provoking as much ire from Democrats who reviled Mr. Trump’s border policies.

Now, the officials say, they have an opportunity to take a step back, come up with a more humane version of Mr. Trump’s policy and, they hope, reduce the enormous number of people arriving at the border.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Natalie’s article at the link.

Who would have thought that neo-Nazi Stephen Miller would be the real winner of the 2020 election?

When he ”wins,” America and humanity “lose.” But, apparently that’s “A-OK” with some Biden Administration officials who lack the expertise, ability, courage, and political will to establish the rule of law for asylum seekers at our Southern Border! Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com.

Five decades of experience, including plenty of wall and fence building, civil detention, expedited dockets, restrictive interpretations, criminal prosecutions, family detentions, toddlers without lawyers, money to corrupt foreign governments, “don’t come, we don’t want you and care nothing about your lives messages,” in English and Spanish, says the Biden version of the “Miller Lite” approach will fail and ultimately expand the extralegal population of the U.S.

Of course, it also will kill more desperate humans in the desert, in Mexico, in squalid “camps,” and back in their home countries. Just so long as it’s “out of sight, out of mind.” The great thing about desert deaths is that often the bodies are never found or identified. Therefore, nothing can be proved, and it’s like these people “never happened.” It’s a real bureaucratic triumph! Foreign deaths are almost as good, as they seldom get much “play” in U.S. media and always can be blamed on something other than failed U.S. policies or foreign interventions.

I’d already observed that the DOJ’s “defense” of undoing Trump immigration policies seemed as half-hearted as it was ineffective. Perhaps their lackadaisical approach came right from the top!

And, the “policy geniuses” in the Biden Administration who think “Miller-Lite Time” will be a political “happy hour” (at humanity’s expense) should remember that the right will still successfully label them as “open borders” just as they did when Obama established himself as “deporter-in-chief!”

Meanwhile, their former progressive supporters will see through the false humane rhetoric. Does it really matter if we call individuals “foreign nationals” rather than “illegals” while we’re illegally exterminating them?

I’m afraid we know the answer to “Casey’s question:” NO!

Casey Stengel — ”Sorry, Casey! Not only can’t anyone in the Biden Administration ‘play this game,’ they don’t even have the guts to suit up! They view a ‘forfeit’ to “Team Miller” as good as a ‘W.’ Remember, it’s not THEIR family, friends, or relatives dying at our border. It’s just ‘the other guys,’ so who cares? When it comes to U.S. immigration policy, foreign nationals all too often find that their lives and human dignity are just another form of expendable political capital.”
PHOTO: Rudi Rest
Creative Commons

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-06-21

☠️⚰️TRUMP/BIDEN ILLEGAL BORDER CLOSURES, DISMANTLING OF ASYLUM SYSTEM ARE KILLERS!🤮 — Asylum Seekers Have A Right To Apply For Protection, & We Have A Legal & Moral Obligation To Protect Those Qualified Under An Honest Application Of Asylum Laws — Molly Hennessy Fiske Reports In LA Times On “Death By Scofflaw Policy” — Open The Ports Of Entry & Treat Asylum Seekers Fairly & Generously!

Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Houston Bureau Chief
LA Times

https://apple.news/AG5wZ–G0T-2-rX8YfJpNog

Losing Rosario: A mother sent her daughter across the border. Before they could reunite, one died

Texas’ Brooks County and the Rio Grande Valley to the south have been popular smuggling routes for decades. Six months into 2021, deaths in the county had already reached 55, up from a total of 34 last year.

FALFURRIAS, TEXAS — Black feathers fell from circling vultures and snagged in the matted yellow grass. The ranch manager eyed the terrain and followed the stench. He found the woman’s body, like so many others in the south Texas brush: splayed in the weeds, arms dark with decay, raised above her head as if in surrender.

The rancher knew what to do. He had come upon 15 such migrants over the years. He called Brooks County sheriff’s dispatchers. They issued a Code 500, a dead body call, summoning a deputy, two Border Patrol agents, a justice of the peace and a funeral director.

They met the rancher shortly before noon at the gate of Los Palos Ranch, about 75 miles north of the border. Together they waded through knee-high, thorny weeds, mindful that the June heat rouses rattlesnakes from their burrows. The men gazed down to where she lay — face gone, skull picked clean by scavengers, hair and lower jaw dragged a few feet from a body not yet skeletal.

They guessed the woman had died of exhaustion or dehydration.

“They wait over there and move at night,” said the rancher, pointing to a nearby stand of mesquite, where he and his wife sometimes spy the passing shadows of those heading north.

The deputy wrapped the body in a white sheet. He then lifted it into a gray bag and helped the funeral director load it into the back of his Ford Explorer for transport to the sheriff’s morgue. It would be fingerprinted and tested for the coronavirus. The men found no trace of a name. It would be days before fingerprints told investigators that the woman was Rosario Yanira Girón de Orellana, a 41-year-old single mother who had traveled more than 1,500 miles from El Salvador.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Molly’s report at the link.

Rather than recognizing the realities of the refugee situation in the Northern Triangle, Administrations of both parties have engaged in “killer policies.” But, not surprisingly to those who understand the situation, it hasn’t stopped individuals fleeing for their lives from failed states (for which we bear substantial responsibility).

Even death hasn’t proved to be a significant deterrent. So, why not just admit many of these folks legally, using available protection mechanisms administered by qualified Asylum Officers and better Immigration Judges? Why not encourage asylum seekers to apply at ports of entry by treating them fairly, respectfully, and humanely? Asylum is a legal and moral obligation, not an “option” or a “deterrent,”

We can diminish ourselves as a nation (and have done so), but it won’t stop human migration!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-18-21

⚖️😎👍🏼DUE PROCESS PROGRESS! — House EOIR Appropriations Bill Contains $50 Million For Representation Of Kids & Families Seeking Asylum!

Kids in court — “This is due process?”
PHOTO: The Daily Beast

From: Jennifer Quigley <QuigleyJ@humanrightsfirst.org>

Subject: Fw: [EXT]-Good news on funding for legal representation!

Date: July 16, 2021 at 9:40:20 AM EDT

To: Asylum Working Group <asylum-working-group@googlegroups.com>

ICYMI

From: Greg Chen <GChen@aila.org>

Sent: Friday, July 16, 2021 9:30 AM

To: amigos@theimmigrationhub.org <amigos@theimmigrationhub.org>

Subject: [EXT]-Good news on funding for legal representation!

Email originates externally.

Greetings colleagues,

Yesterday House Appropriations Committee passed the CJS appropriations bill for FY 2022 for the Justice Department and other agencies. Importantly, the bill includes a historic $50 million for DOJ to pilot legal representation programs for people in removal proceedings. This is a big step for federal funding for legal counsel. Hooray!

Kudos to all the organizations in the working group on legal representation and access to counsel who have been fighting for this.Of course, we don’t have the money yet and will need to protect this language in the House and get comparable language, hopefully even more funding in the Senate. We have collectively been pushing for $200M.

The bill and draft report language are below.Collected resources on legal representation are available here: Ensuring Legal Representation for People Facing Removal. i

Committee-passed bill text on legal representation:

“(29) $50,000,000 for a grant pilot program to provide legal representation to immigrant children and families seeking asylum and other forms of legal protection in the United States;

Committee-passed report language on legal representation:

“Legal Representation Pilot for Immigrant Children and Families.—The Committee provides $50,000,000 for the Department to establish a competitive grant program to qualified non-profit organizations for a pilot program to increase representation for immigrant children and families in civil proceedings. The amount is $35,000,000 above the request and $50,000,000 above the fiscal year 2021 level. The Committee recognizes the compelling need to ensure due process for children and families who seek asylum and who must navigate a complex legal system for processing of asylum claims. The Committee supports coordination with grantees and organizations who offer other types of legal assistance or services to immigrants seeking asylum or other forms of legal protection. As with any new pilot program, the Committee expects the Department to assess this program with metrics that will be scaled appropriately to evaluate how this initial investment could be further enhanced to represent a larger portion of un-represented individuals and the impact that it may have on improving attendance rates and decreasing court costs. Within 90 days of enactment of this Act, the OJP shall brief the Committee on its implementation plan for this pilot.

Gregory Z. Chen, Esq.

Senior Director of Government Relations

Direct: 202-507-7615 I Cell: 202.716-5818 I Email: gchen@aila.org

American Immigration Lawyers Association

Main: 202.507.7600 I Fax: 202.783.7853 I www.aila.org

1331 G Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005

—

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “amigos” group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to amigos+unsubscribe@theimmigrationhub.org.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/theimmigrationhub.org/d/msgid/amigos/BLAPR17MB4146DD8C7890895D5A71BC94CC119%40BLAPR17MB4146.namprd17.prod.outlook.com.

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You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Asylum Working Group” group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to asylum-working-group+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/asylum-working-group/MN2PR14MB4190DF799A8555389730297FA8119%40MN2PR14MB4190.namprd14.prod.outlook.com.

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

Congrats to all involved! Let’s keep up the momentum until we get universal representation!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-16-21

☠️🤮⚰️DUE PROCESS MOCKED: UNDUE POLITICAL INFLUENCE IN IMMIGRATION COURT LEADS TO IMPROPER DENIAL OF LIFE-SAVING PROTECTION TO KIDS! — “Political influence from the executive branch combined with local environmental pressures can affect how immigration judges rule. Most importantly, these influences can lead to some children not receiving asylum when they might otherwise be entitled to it.”

EYORE — “Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”

Unaccompanied immigrant minors wait on July 2, 2019 in Los Ebanos, Texas to be transported to a U.S. Border Patrol processing center after entering the U.S. to seek political asylum. John Moore/Getty Images

US immigration judges considering asylum for unaccompanied minors are ‘significantly influenced’ by politics

July 13, 2021 8.30am EDT

Authors

Daniel Braaten Associate professor of Political Science, Texas Lutheran University

Claire Nolasco Braaten Associate Professor, Criminology, Texas A&M-San Antonio

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The news over the past months has been saturated with stories about another “surge” of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border of the U.S.

In March 2021, the number of unaccompanied minors apprehended in the U.S. reached an all-time monthly high of 18,890. This surpassed the previous monthly high of 11,681 in May 2019.

One question not addressed in many of these stories is: How many of these children actually receive asylum and are allowed to stay in the country?

The people who make those decisions are immigration judges. Their decisions are supposed to be based on whether these children have fears of being persecuted in their home countries and whether these fears are realistic.

But our research examining the period from early October 2013 until the end of September 2017 shows that these judges were influenced by factors outside of the case. Political factors such as ideology, political party of the president who appointed them and who was president at the time they decided the case significantly influenced whether these children were allowed to stay in the country.

Aside from political factors, immigration judges are also influenced by local contexts, such as unemployment levels, the number of uninsured children and size of Latino population in the places where they work.

Unaccompanied minors and asylum

Under U.S. law, an unaccompanied minor is a child under 18 years old who does not have lawful immigration status and no parent or legal guardian in the country who can provide care or custody.

Unaccompanied minors cannot be refused entry or removed from the country without legal process because of the 1993 Supreme Court case Reno v. Flores. In 2008, new legislation allowed asylum officers to grant these children asylum at the U.S. border. If the asylum officer denies asylum to the minor, the minor may request asylum before an immigration judge.

Because immigration judges are not appointed under Article III of the Constitution, as federal judges are, they have less independence than those federal judges. According to current Justice Department rules, immigration judges are appointed by the attorney general and they act as his or her delegates.

Political pressure

In order to learn what factors affect the grant of relief to unaccompanied minors, we obtained data on their asylum applications from Oct. 2, 2013 to Sept. 29, 2017, covering over 10,000 cases from 280 different judges in 46 counties and 27 states.

Only 327 of the unaccompanied minors actually received asylum; 2,867 were deported and 455 chose to voluntarily leave.

An additional 6,645 children were allowed to stay in the country. Of those, 3,589 had their case administratively closed, which allows judges to suspend the case indefinitely without hearing and deciding on it. The remaining 3,056 had their case terminated, which means that the case against the child was dismissed.

The fate of unaccompanied minors entering the US

A review of about 10,000 asylum applications for unaccompanied minors from October 2, 2013 to September 29, 2017 found the majority of the minors were allowed to stay (in green), most because a judge either dismissed or indefinitely suspended the case against them. Only 327 were granted asylum.

Bar charts grouped to show significantly more unaccompanied minors were allowed to stay.

2,000 cases

2,867

455

3,589

3,056

327

Removed

Voluntarily Departed

Administrative Closure

Case dismissed

Received asylum

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

We ran a statistical analysis of political factors that may influence immigration judges’ decision: judicial ideology, political party of the appointing president and whether the decision was made before or during the Trump administration.

Following previous research on immigration judge’s ideology, we determined a judge’s ideology by considering their prior work experiences. Based on this research, we determined that some experiences, such as working for immigration agencies, are associated with more conservative views on immigration and asylum issues.

Conversely, work experiences in an immigration or non-immigration-related nonprofit or academia are associated with more liberal views. Our analysis showed that immigration judges with more liberal judicial ideology were more likely to rule in favor of granting asylum to these children.

Judges’ ideology can influence asylum decisions

Immigration judges who are more liberal tended to allow unaccompanied children to stay in the U.S. more often, compared to more conservative judges. Ideology was determined from each judge’s prior work and ranges from 1-11, most conservative to most liberal.

Area chart showing how children allowed to stay rose with more liberal judges.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

0

50

100%

Likelihood unaccompanied minor is allowed to stay

Data from 2013-2017

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

We also found that judges who were appointed by a Democratic attorney general were more likely to rule in favor of the minors.

Political party of attorney general who appointed the judge

Immigration judges appointed by Democrats were more likely to allow unaccompanied minors seeking asylum to stay in the U.S. than those appointed by Republicans.

Bar charts showing judges appointed by Democrats were more like to allow unaccompanied children to stay in the U.S., but GOP-appointed numbers were also above 62%.

Republican

62.9%

Democratic

69.5%

Data from 2013-2017

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

Finally, statistical analysis showed that immigration judges were less likely to grant relief during the eight months of the Trump administration compared to the last three years of the Obama administration.

President at the time the case was decided

Immigration judges were more likely to allow unaccompanied minors seeking asylum to stay in the U.S. during the Obama administration than during the Trump administration.

Trump

54%

Obama

67.7%

Data from 2013-2017

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

Why did politics and judges’ ideology play into their decisions?

We believe it’s because immigration judges are subject to political pressure from the president, indirectly, because they are appointed by the attorney general, who is also a presidential appointee and carries out the president’s policies and wishes.

Local environment

Pressure from the executive branch was not the only factor we concluded had influenced whether these children got to stay in the U.S. or were turned away. Aside from political and ideological values, judges may also have been influenced by their local contexts.

For example, we found that immigration judges in places with more Latinos were more likely to let these children stay. Conversely, immigration judges in states with lots of poor children were less likely to let these children stay than judges in states with relatively fewer poor kids.

Latino population in the county

In counties with larger Latino populations, judges were more likely to allow unaccompanied minors seeking asylum to stay in the U.S. The horizontal axis shows the percentage of the county’s population that is Latino.

20% Latino

40

60

80

0

20

40

60

80

100% likelihood unaccompanied minor is allowed to stay

Data from 2013-2017

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

Asylum decisions can be life-or-death matters. Although immigration judges consider the requirements of asylum law, they are also influenced by nonlegal factors when making decisions.

Political influence from the executive branch combined with local environmental pressures can affect how immigration judges rule. Most importantly, these influences can lead to some children not receiving asylum when they might otherwise be entitled to it.

[The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. Sign up for Politics Weekly.]

Immigration

Asylum

US Supreme Court

Borders

Donald Trump

Obama administration

Unaccompanied minors

Trump administration

Political influence

President Barack Obama

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Republished under Creative Commons license.

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

Go to this link for the original article with pictures and graphs: https://theconversation.com/us-immigration-judges-considering-asylum-for-unaccompanied-minors-are-significantly-influenced-by-politics-160071

This article confirms two things I have said over and over:

Garland’s failure, to date, to replace the BIA with better qualified progressive judges with expertise gained by representing asylum seekers; plus
His “giveaway” of 17 critical Immigration Judge positions to those selected by “Billy the Bigot” Barr under badly flawed procedures;

will unquestionably cost some children and other refugees their lives. Immigration Judge positions are life or death — we need an Attorney General who treats them that way!

Immigration Judge appointments, particularly those at the appellate (BIA level), need to be treated by Democratic Administrations with the same care, seriousness, and strategy as Article III judicial appointments, perhaps more! Few Article III Judges, including the Supremes, affect more lives and have a bigger impact on America’s future than Immigration Judges.

The last two GOP Administrations “got” the negative power for destruction and dehumanization inherent in a “captive” court system that actively pursues misguided nativist policies and receives only sporadic supervision and attention from the Article IIIs. By contrast, the Obama Administration failed to “mine EOIR’s potential” for progressive due process advancements and building a corps of dynamic, courageous progressive judges.

So far, while perhaps exceeding the passively inept approach of the Obama Administration, the Biden Administration has also failed to achieve the radical, yet logical and obvious, reforms and decisive personnel actions necessary to undo the damage caused by the White Nationalist xenophobia of the Trump kakistocracy.

The Immigration Courts have the potential to become “model progressive courts” that could lead the way to better practices and more constitutionally and legally sound jurisprudence throughout the Federal Judiciary. Whether the Biden Administration grasps and acts boldly on that potential, or squanders it as past Democratic Administrations have done, remains to be seen.

But, that question is far from “academic.” The survival of our democratic republic is likely to depend to a great extent on whether the Biden Administration can bring in the progressive experts who finally will “get EOIR right!”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-16-21

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮CRUELTY, UNCONSTITUTIONALITY, COVER-UPS, UNACCOUNTABILITY MARKED TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION KAKISTOCRACY — Victims Suffer, “Perps” Walk Free!

Sessions in a cage — Jeff Sessions’ Cage by J.D. Crowe, Alabama Media Group/AL.com
Republished under license

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/09/trump-separated-families-yuma-2017/

Kevin Sieff reports @ WashPost:

. . . .

Some of the parents separated under the Yuma program still remain apart from their children four years later. Others are missing — lawyers and advocates have been unable to locate them since they were deported alone. The children separated in Yuma in 2017 were as young as 10 months old, according to government data.

The new information shows the difficulty of accounting for aspects of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, an ever-changing series of measures aimed at stopping migrants from crossing the border. Even the impact of family separation — perhaps the most scrutinized U.S. immigration policy of the last half-century — is not fully understood.

[They were one of the first families separated at the border. Two and a half years later, they’re still apart.]

Though the formal period in which the Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” policy was implemented spanned only April to June 2018, it’s now clear that separations began roughly a year before that along some stretches of the border. More than 5,600 families were separated between mid-2017 and mid-2018, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The Biden administration is investigating whether more previously unregistered separations might have occurred earlier in Trump’s term.

. . . .

The ACLU, which was given access to government data through a court order, has catalogued cases that hint at the policy’s global impact.

In August of 2017, for example, a father from Tajikistan was separated from his 4-year-old daughter. In October of 2017, a mother from Romania was separated from her 6-year-old son. In April of 2018, three siblings from Nigeria — 12, 14 and 16 years old — were separated from their dad. In December 2017, a two year old boy from Brazil was separated from his father.

“We know from the documents provided in the litigation that families separated by the Trump administration came not just from Central America but all over the world,” said Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney on the ACLU’s family separation litigation. “Which will make the process of putting this all back together that much more difficult.”

Maria Sachetti and Nick Miroff contributed to this report.

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

Disturbingly, the harm is irreparable in many cases, the Biden Administration has continued the illegal suspension of asylum laws at the border while also failing to effectively address the continuing unconstitutional mess in Garland’s dysfunctional Immigration “Courts” that aren’t courts at all!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-12-21

🤮🏴‍☠️👎🏽RACE-BASED CHILD ABUSE & SEXUAL ABUSE OF KIDS MUST STOP — Demand An End To Scofflaw Behavior By Our Government!

Crimes Against Humanity — Thomas Cizauskas Crimes against humanity
Creative Commons License — The Biden Administration promised to stop these crimes committed by our Government, but hasn’t.

https://www.newsweek.com/we-fled-honduras-fearing-our-lives-immigration-officers-abused-my-child-opinion-1605760p

Daniel Paz writes in Newsweek:

“Welcome to hell.”

Those were the words I heard from an immigration officer not long after I entered the United States near El Paso, Texas in May 2018. I thought I had just reached safety with Angie, my 7-year-old daughter. I was wrong.

Once we arrived at the border, immigration officers processed me and my daughter at a detention facility, and led us to a crowded cell packed with 50 to 60 other families. It smelled terrible—like urine—and everything was gray. We were so cold. They didn’t even offer us one of the cellophane blankets you see on TV. I had to take my shirt off to wrap it around Angie and keep her warm. I was shivering.

The journey to this point had been excruciatingly painful. Fearing for our lives, we had to make the decision to flee. I had a good life in Honduras. I was a businessman and I owned my own home. I knew it would be hard to leave everything I worked so hard to build behind. Starting a new life in a new country with a different culture wouldn’t be easy. But desperate circumstances called for desperate measures. Hope of reaching a safe place for my family kept me going.

At the detention center, many fathers began hearing rumors that immigration officials were going to take our children away from us. Take them where? Take my daughter? To another cell? A new facility? On the inside I was panicking, but I knew I needed to show strength for my daughter. I needed to be brave and prepare her if the rumors were true. You will contact your grandparents in Ohio, I told Angie.

In the cell, we practiced memorizing their phone numbers, repeating them over and over. To be extra safe, I then wrote the numbers with a ball-point pen on my daughter’s arm, her belly, her foot and on the inside of her jeans hoping she’d have the chance to make a phone call before immigration officials washed off the ink.

Then my nightmare happened. They came to take our children. I witnessed pain, agonizing cries and a deep sense of helplessness. Some of the immigration officers joked as they handcuffed the parents. Others expressed a cruelty I never would have expected. Rather than trying to ease our pain, they were somehow enjoying their power. As if they believed their actions were the right thing to do. I don’t know how anyone believes separating a child from a parent is right.

. . . .

While being transferred to a detention facility for children, an immigration officer sexually abused her. When she fought back, the officer threatened her, saying if she told anyone she would never see her parents again. Then Angie witnessed the same officer sexually abuse two girls who were even younger than her. Angie stayed quiet about the experience even months after we were reunited.

We were reunited after several weeks, though the separation felt eternal. The Angie the U.S. government returned to me is not the same girl they took out of my arms in that detention center. She cannot forget what happened to her. And she wants me to share what happened to her because she is worried the officer who abused her is still an immigration official. We do not know the officer’s name—let alone whether the officer is still working in government.

“What if that officer is still hurting other kids?” Angie asked me.

As a father I want to tell Angie not to worry. That is why I am asking President Joe Biden to act. Reuniting families and making sure they have immigration status in the U.S. is critical—but it is not enough. The government can make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of asylum seekers who are being turned away at the border right now. All asylum seekers should be allowed to seek protection and refuge in the U.S. without fear.

The government must also investigate every allegation of sexual abuse and mistreatment by immigration officers. Those officers must immediately be identified and removed from their positions so they cannot hurt anyone else. President Biden, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice together have the ability to ensure that families like mine can begin to heal.

It is hell to leave your home and risk everything so your child can be safe. It shouldn’t be hell once you have reached what you thought would be a safe haven.

After entering the United States to seek safety, Daniel Paz and his daughter were separated for several weeks. Paz and his family were reunited in 2018 and have since won asylum. He is a committed advocate for other families who have faced similar trauma.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

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

Who would have thought that nearly six months into the Biden Administration our Government would still be abusing asylum seekers and ignoring the Constitution, mocking the rule of law, and degrading humanity?

So, how is it that Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke intend to combat racism and unequal justice in America when they have failed to re-establish the rule of law for asylum seekers at the border and continue to run an unjust and grossly mismanaged “court system” @ EOIR filled with too many “Miller Lite” judges?

Tell the Biden Administration and Judge Garland that we need progressive reforms, now! EOIR would be a great starting place!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-06-21

⚠️🚸V.P. HARRIS IS GOING TO THE BORDER: SHE SHOULD TALK WITH THE REAL VICTIMS OF HER GOVERNMENT’S, ILLEGAL, WRONG-HEADED, IMMORAL, AND INEFFECTIVE BORDER DETERRENCE POLICIES — Avoid The CBP “Dog & Pony Show,” & The GOP’s Cowardly “Gunboat Cruz” — Cross Over The Border, View The Human Rights Catastrophe We Have Created, Understand People Have A Right To Seek Legal Refuge, & Fix The Legal Asylum System At Ports Of Entry & Immigration Courts With Humane, Practical Experts! — “The vice president seems to have bought into the… I can’t use another word, but the nativist party line, that somehow these immigrants are the cause of the problem when, in fact, they’re the victims of multiple problems in many cases.” — Stop Blaming, Shaming, & Dehumanizing The Victims & Start Fixing Our Asylum System & Solving The Problems That Force Them To Migrate!

https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2021/06/17/vice-president-kamala-harris-us-mexico-border-immigration-unaccompanied

J.D. Long-Garcia writes in America Magazine:

Last week, Ms. Harris traveled to Guatemala to meet with President Alejandro Giammattei and expressed the Biden administration’s goal to “help Guatelmalans find hope at home.” During a press conference on June 7, she told Guatemalans thinking of making the journey north to the United States: “Do not come. Do not come.”

“O.K., that’s like saying, ‘Stay home and die,’” according to the Rev. Pat Murphy, a Scalabrini priest who runs the Casa del Migrante shelter in Tijuana, Baja California. “That message is falling on deaf ears.”

If Ms. Harris does travel to the border, Father Murphy said, she should be sure to make a visit to the Mexican side. “If she just stays on her side, she’s not going to find much,” he said.

In Tijuana, Ms. Harris would see a camp of 2,000 asylum seekers near the port of entry, Father Murphy said. “If she looked a little further, she would see the people who are victims of violence in Tijuana and Mexicali and other places,” he said. Migrants may be eager to escape bad situations in their home countries, Father Murphy said, but they often do not understand how difficult conditions at the border are “until they’re stuck in the middle of [a border city] with no place to go.”

“You can’t understand [border realities] by talking to government officials. You have to talk to the people who are working with migrants and hear about the suffering.”

At diminished capacity because of the pandemic, migrant shelters are full. The United States has started to accept some vulnerable people, like families with children with an illness or those being persecuted because of their sexual orientation, Father Murphy said. But there are also hundreds deported every day.

He believes if the vice president did decide to visit the border, it would be worth her while. “You can’t understand [border realities] by talking to government officials,” Father Murphy said. “You have to talk to the people who are working with migrants and hear about the suffering.”

. . . .

Donald M. Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies

Donald Kerwin, the executive director of the Center for Migration Studies in New York, also noted that people have a right not to migrate—to stay in their home country. He sees immigration policy as an arena for a fruitful convergence of Catholic social teaching, international law and contemporary human rights principles.

The Biden administration’s recognition of the forces that drive migration should be applauded, but it can address root causes while re-establishing humane asylum policies at the border.

“States are responsible for ensuring that people can flourish at home,” he said. “But it’s an empty right at this point in many communities in the Northern Triangle countries. They’re facing impossible conditions, caused by natural disasters, climate change, gang violence and extraordinary poverty. So people have a right to flee those impossible conditions and seek lives that are worthy of human dignity. In some cases, that means leaving their countries.”

When they do leave their home countries, people have the right to seek protection wherever they can find it, Mr. Kerwin said. “The vice president seems to have bought into the… I can’t use another word, but the nativist party line, that somehow these immigrants are the cause of the problem when, in fact, they’re the victims of multiple problems in many cases.”

The United States needs a functioning refugee resettlement system, an asylum system and robust humanitarian programs to address the conditions in Central America that are driving people to migrate, he said. “They’re not in place right now,” Mr. Kerwin said, “and until they are in place, people will reluctantly, at a terrible cost…continue to migrate.”

If Ms. Harris visits the border, Mr. Kerwin suggested she speak with migrants that have entered the United States, starting with the children. “Find out why they’ve come, what drove them to the United States and also see what their situation is currently, in often overcrowded facilities,” he said. “At that point, it would be clear as day that these folks are not a problem. These folks fled terrible problems, but they themselves are not the problem.”

Earlier this month, more than 20 bishops, Vatican representatives and leaders of Catholic organizations met for an emergency immigration meeting at Mundelein Seminary, outside of Chicago. Mr. Kerwin, who attended the meeting, said organizers displayed notes written by immigrant children, often addressed to God.

“It’s clear from reading these notes that these are lovely children, who miss their parents and worry about them and are in difficult situations that are not of their own making. And that the United States should do right by them,” he said. “And the right thing is to protect them and reunify them with family members.”

Chloe Gunther, America intern, contributed to this story.

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

Read the full article at the link.

Politicians of both parties are averse to the truth. They don’t have the courage and backbone for it! But the truth is quite simple, if somewhat “inconvenient.”

Unless and until we can solve the problems driving refugees to flee the Northern Triangle, we will have to take more of them. We should welcome them through an orderly legal system, including a robust, properly staffed, and honestly administered legal refugee and asylum system.

Alternatively, we could continue our current policies of immorally and illegally killing some on the journey, “snuffing” some in the desert (where their bodies might never be found and “counted”), and enriching smugglers and cartels who will eventually get many determined survivors into the interior.

There, they will join our highly exploitable, yet politically expedient for both parties (for differing reasons), “extralegal population.” A limited number will be “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and be arbitrarily removed by ICE, usually at costs that far exceed any demonstrable benefits. Even fewer will commit misconduct leading to their arrest and removal.

But the bulk of them will blend in somehow and do what’s necessary for themselves and their families to survive, as has been happening for decades and generations. They will also enrich and improve our nation in ways both predictable and unpredictable. Some will eventually find it possible and advantageous to return to their nations of origin, most won’t.

It would be far better for both the migrants and our nation, not to mention humanity as a whole, if we included the bulk of those forced to come here in our legal immigration system. But, whether we are enlightened enough “to do it the right way” or not, they will come as long as the alternatives are starvation, death, unspeakable abuse, and unending despair.

Migration is both our oldest and most persistent human phenomenon and an essential survival skill for humanity. It’s going to take more than inane walls, cruel and illegal imprisonment in American Gulags, unworkable laws, mindless, yet expensive, enforcement, nativist rhetoric, bad judges, and cowardly politicians sending “don’t come” messages to make them “die in place.” Our politicians might be not be bright or brave enough to face reality — but, I guarantee that the forced migrants we like to dehumanize and look down upon are much smarter, braver, more aware, and far more creative, adaptable, and capable than we think!

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-24-21

🆘🏴‍☠️ “ROGUE DEPARTMENT” 🤮— PROGRESSIVE IMMIGRATION/HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS WERE THE FIRST TO ALERT AMERICA TO THE UNBRIDLED CORRUPTION AT TRUMP’S DOJ AND THE ASTOUNDING ETHICAL FAILURES & MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE AMONG ITS EMPLOYEES! — Garland Might Think That “Going Slow” While DOJ Dishes Out Injustice Is “A-OK“ — Many Of Us Don’t!

Billy Barr Consigliere — Bill Barr Consigliere
Artist: Pat Bagley
Salt Lake Tribune
Reproduced under license

Judge Garland wonders whether there could be some “problems” with these guys and their corrupt agendas. Meanwhile, his DOJ continues to sink deeper into the muck every day! Hey, what’s the rush? It’s “only justice” and human lives at stake here! Garland seems to think that can’t compare with protecting important “Departmental prerogatives” to cover up past and perpetuate future injustices @ Justice! He’s wrong! Dead wrong in some cases!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/21/trump-doj-bill-bar-attorney-general-justice-department?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Peter Stone reports for The Guardian:

Donald Trump never did much to hide his dangerous belief that the US justice department and the attorneys general who helmed it should serve as his own personal lawyers and follow his political orders, regardless of norms and the law.

Former senior DoJ officials say the former president aggressively prodded his attorneys general to go after his enemies, protect his friends and his interests, and these moves succeeded with alarming results until Trump’s last few months in office.

The martyr who may rise again: Christian right’s faith in Trump not shaken

But now with Joe Biden sitting in the Oval Office, Merrick Garland as attorney general and Democrats controlling Congress, more and more revelations are emerging about just how far Trump’s justice department went rogue. New inquiries have been set up to investigate the scale of wrongdoing.

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Trump’s disdain for legal principles and the constitution revealed itself repeatedly – especially during Bill Barr’s tenure as attorney general, during most of 2019 and 2020. During Barr’s term in office, Trump ignored the tradition of justice as a separate branch of government, and flouted the principle of the rule of law, say former top justice lawyers and congressional Democrats.

In Barr, Trump appeared to find someone almost entirely aligned with the idea of doing his bidding. Barr sought to undermine the conclusions of Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, independent congressional oversight, and Trump critics in and out of government, while taking decisions that benefited close Trump allies.

But more political abuses have emerged, with revelations that – starting under attorney general Jeff Sessions in 2018 – subpoenas were issued in a classified leak inquiry to obtain communications records of top Democrats on the House intelligence committee. Targets were Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, who were investigating Kremlin election meddling, and also several committee staffers and journalists.

Democrats in Congress, as well as Garland, have forcefully denounced these Trumpian tactics. Garland has asked the department’s inspector general to launch his own inquiry, and examine the subpoenas involving members of Congress and the media. Congressional committees are eyeing their own investigations into the department’s extraordinary behavior.

“There was one thing after another where DoJ acted inappropriately and violated the fundamental principle that law enforcement must be even-handed. The DoJ must always make clear that no person is above the law,” said Donald Ayer, deputy attorney general in the George HW Bush administration.

Ayer thinks there could be more revelations to come. “The latest disclosure of subpoenas issued almost three years ago shows we don’t yet know the full extent of the misconduct that was engaged in.”

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link. Once again, thanks to Don Ayer, a former colleague in both public and private practice, for speaking out!

Don Ayer
American Lawyer
Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General
Photo: www.ali.org

The record of anti-immigrant, White Nationalist bias at EOIR and the DOJ’s “Dred Scott” approach to justice for asylum applicants and other migrants is crystal clear! Thanks to the NDPA, courageous journalists, some “inside sources,” and the remarkable number of rebuffs from Federal Courts, the record on misfeasance and bias at EOIR, OIL, and the SG’s Office is clear.

For example, there is no “issue” that Sessions’s “child separation policy” violated the Constitution, that he and other Government officials like Rod Rosenstein and Kristen Nielsen lied about it ( ‘We Need to Take Away Children,’ No Matter How Young, Justice Dept. Officials Said
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/us/politics/family-separation-border-immigration-jeff-sessions-rod-rosenstein.html?referringSource=articleShare), and that the DOJ attorneys defending this abomination at least failed to do “due diligence” and probably misrepresented to Federal Courts.

In many illegal child separation cases, as the Biden Administration is discovering, the damage is irreparable! Yet, only the the victims have suffered! The “perps” go about their daily business without accountability!

Every day, Garland’s lackadaisical approach to restoring “justice @ Justice” and his apparent indifference to individual human rights and fair judging continue to harm vulnerable asylum seekers and other individuals and disintegrate our legal system. It’s “not OK!”

Progressives and members of the NDPA must recognize, if they haven’t already, that they can’t count on Garland! They will have to continue to use litigation, legislation, oversight, FOIA, public opinion, and political pressure to get the immediate common sense progressive reforms and overdue personnel changes that Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke are avoiding. Garland might view “justice” as too abstract a concept to require his immediate attention. Many of us don’t agree!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-22-21

💡NOLAN RAPPAPORT @ THE HILL SAYS BIDEN DIDN’T GO FAR ENOUGH WITH HIS CENTRAL AMERICAN MINORS’ (“CAM”) PROGRAM — He’s Right!

Biden’s program for migrant children doesn’t go far enough

By Nolan Rappaport

Former President Barack Obama established the Central American Minors (CAM) Program in December 2014 to provide in-country refugee processing for children in the Northern Triangle Countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) as a safe, legal, and orderly alternative to them making the dangerous journey to the United States to apply for asylum.

But Obama only made the program available to Northern Triangle children who had a parent who was already physically present in the United States and had lawful status.

The Trump administration phased out the CAM program in fiscal 2018 because “the vast majority of individuals accessing the program were not eligible for refugee resettlement.”

On March 10, 2021, the Biden administration announced that it had restarted the CAM program to reunite children from the Northern Triangle countries with parents who are lawfully present in the United States. Biden also wants to save Northern Triangle children from having to make the dangerous journey to the United States in the hands of smugglers.

That’s a noble intent: The trip across the border is incredibly dangerous.

On June 15, 2021, Biden announced an expansion of the CAM program which specified that parents and legal guardians lawfully present in the United States may apply on behalf of the children — this now includes parents or legal guardians in the following legal status categories: Permanent Resident Status; Temporary Protected Status; Parole; Deferred Action; Deferred Enforced Departure; and Withholding of Removal.

According to David Bier, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, this is a great improvement over requiring children to come to the United States in the hands of smugglers; however, it remains to be seen whether it will dissuade families from sending their children here with smugglers.

Biden’s CAM program may be more generous than the Obama administration’s CAM program, but I think Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was right when he observed that illegal crossings were not reduced when the Obama administration tried this program years ago, and there’s no reason to think it will have that effect now.

Moreover, Biden should know that his revised CAM program is not going to be an effective alternative to making the dangerous journey with smugglers. His administration has acknowledged that only 40 percent of the children from the Northern Triangle who were apprehended at the border this year had a parent in the United States.

I don’t understand why he didn’t make it available to all Northern Triangle children who have a persecution claim. He didn’t have to limit the program to children who have parents or guardians in the United States.

Read more at https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/559334-bidens-program-for-northern-triangle-children-doesnt-go-far-enough

Published originally on The Hill.

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an Executive Branch Immigration Law Expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years. Follow him at https://nolanrappaport.blogspot.com

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

Thanks, Nolan! Go on over to The Hill and read Nolan’s complete article.

Nolan’s proposal sure seems like good government and common sense to me. This expanded policy should be relatively non-controversial. Like Nolan, I don’t understand why the Biden Administration is “missing the obvious here.” Every step helps in better and more humanely managing Central American asylum applications. I’ll bet there are even qualified retired immigration officials from USCIS and Immigration Judges and BIA staff from DOJ who would be willing to return as “rehirees” and travel to Central America to work on a program like Nolan proposes.

Gotta “pick the low hanging fruit,” as Nolan suggests!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-21-21

NOT ROCKET SCIENCE, 🚀 BUT BIDEN ADMINISTRATION LACKS EXPERT PROGRESSIVE LEADERSHIP WHO “GETS IT” — Will VP Harris Be Able To Break Out Of The “Death Spiral” ☠️ Of “Proven, Guaranteed To Fail” Racist Immigration Deterrence? — “It’s Groundhog Day at the border, and Biden is mindlessly laying the foundation for more problems in a few years. We’ve watched it all play out before. Immigration deterrence doesn’t work.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/03/immigration-mexico-guatemala-kamala-harris-biden-border-reform/

Opinion by James Fredrick in WashPost

June 3 at 3:44 PM ET

James Fredrick is a multimedia journalist based in Mexico City and covers migration, crime, politics and sports.

. . . .

Obama tried deterring migrants with his characteristic lawyerly tact. Trump did it with his cruel, petty impulsiveness. Biden is doing it with his folksy toughness. The styles are different, but the results of immigration deterrence will always be the same.

We’re trapped in this cycle because the U.S. government refuses to listen to migrants. Having met hundreds of migrants during my years reporting in Mexico and Central America, it’s obvious why deterrence doesn’t work: What’s at home is worse than anything the United States could threaten. Most migrants don’t want to leave home. But they do because violent death or crippling destitution is all that’s left.

Failing to actually come up with a solution, we of the “greatest country on Earth” become tremendously feeble and defensive at the arrival of a few thousand immigrant children. But there is another way.

We must treat immigration as a civil and humanitarian issue, not a criminal one. Criminalizing people fleeing violence, persecution, climate change or economic hardship exacerbates these problems. So decriminalize border crossings and rebuild border facilities as welcome centers, not jails. Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection agents at the border should be social workers, not cops.

If Trump’s family separation atrocity showed us anything, it’s that millions of Americans want to help immigrants in need. The United States should cooperate more with these groups. There are already large networks around the country that can provide housing, food, legal services, education and medical services to immigrants. Why rely on expensive armed border agents instead of willing, motivated humanitarian groups?

Immigration laws should also address the challenges of the 21st century. In addition to decriminalizing border crossings, our immigration laws rely on outdated quotas and corrupt, abusive worker programs. Asylum law is a relic of the Cold War and doesn’t reflect the world today.

Finally, Washington should stop making the problems worse with bad foreign policy. Despite numerous abuses, scandals and criminal allegations involving Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, the Biden administration refuses to denounce him, though many think he is responsible for the conditions Hondurans are fleeing. In fact, Biden administration officials are working with Hernández to try to prevent Hondurans from fleeing. He’s just one example in a long history of U.S. meddling to prop up corrupt, abusive, U.S.-friendly regimes. No amount of U.S. dollars in aid can make up for bad foreign policy.

President Biden can’t stop the crisis today. After all, he helped create it. But he can make sure this is the last “border crisis” we face.

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

Read the complete op-ed at the link.

Ah, “mindlessly” — one of my favorite terms, usually applied these days to Garland and his inept team at DOJ! Actually, Frederick isn’t the only one to figure this out!

The problem remains, as I have stated over and over, the toxic failure of the Biden Administration to bring progressive experts in immigration, human rights, civil rights, and “applied due process” into Government and empower them to solve the problems! It’s bizarrely compounded by the disgraceful unwillingness of those few in the Biden Administration, like Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke, who actually know better, to speak up for racial justice, social justice, human rights, and human dignity at the DOJ!

Unless VP Harris wakes up, convinces her boss, and brings in the progressive experts, she’s headed for the abyss, taking thousands of vulnerable refugees and, perhaps, American democracy down with her!

Refusal to listen: to migrants, their representatives, experts, our “better angels,” and common sense! The same problems, over and over, Administration after Administration, decade after decade! The same “built to fail” policies repeated!

The truth is in front of the Biden Administration! But, like Garland, Mayorkas, and others leading the way over the cliff, Biden and Harris can’t see it! They appear to have “tuned out” those desperately trying to keep them from plunging over the precipice! So tragic, so unnecessary, so threatening to American democracy and the future of humanity!

🇺🇸🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-05-21

JGOOD:

BAD:

UGLY:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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😎Due Process Forever!

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From The Hill:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Amanda Holpuch reports for The Guardian:

Of course, Haiti clearly is not a safe place to return migrants:

David Shipler does a great job of exposing the hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty of Mayorkas and other Biden Administration immigration officials.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Kevin Sieff reports @ WashPost:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Daniel Paz writes in Newsweek:

Tell the Biden Administration and Judge Garland that we need progressive reforms, now! EOIR would be a great starting place!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

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Peter Stone reports for The Guardian:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Biden’s program for migrant children doesn’t go far enough

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Opinion by James Fredrick in WashPost

🇺🇸🗽Due Process Forever!

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