"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt and Dr. Alicia Triche, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
Newly released records obtained by the News4 I-Team show the severe impact new immigration policies have in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area; one former judge says it’s making the huge immigration court case backlog even worse.
Records from January through July of 2017 show immigration judges around the country were forced to postpone 24,806 cases, because those judges were not in their courtrooms to hear cases.
In the Virginia and Maryland court locations, which serve the D.C. area, more than 2,700 local cases have been pushed off, sometimes for years, because the judges were instead reassigned to hear cases at the border.
“What it isn’t serving, I think, is due process and the ends of justice,” said Judge Paul Wickham Schmidt, who retired from the immigration court in Arlington in 2016, “I think it’s a misuse of resources.”
Source: Federal Records Show New Immigration Policies Delay Local Cases, Increase Court Backlog – NBC4 Washington http://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/Federal-Records-Show-New-Immigration-Policies-Delay-Local-Cases-Increase-Court-Backlog-449104633.html#ixzz4uUmx6bGk
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Schmidt said he’s glad he left the bench, because it allows him to speak freely about what he’s seeing in the court system today.
“It’s a disaster. I think it’s moving toward implosion,” he added, directing his barbs at current immigration policies and the shift in which types of cases are now a priority.
“They’re trying to detain everybody who arrives, so they’ve assigned more judges to the southern border,” said Schmidt. “And those judges leave behind full dockets.”
DC-Area Immigration Courts Scheduling Hearings for 2021
The News4 I-Team learned in the first seven months of this year, the Department of Justice reassigned judges from around the country more than 200 times, usually for two weeks or more. Additional reassignments are ongoing and more are scheduled later this year.
In Arlington, Virginia records show at least 15 reassignments, and while the judges were gone, they had to postpone 2,580 local cases. Only Los Angeles, New York and Miami had more.
“But since most judges are backed up for years, they don’t have any vacant (slots). It’s not like they move them to next week. They move them to slots 3 to 4 years down the road,” said Schmidt. “Why would you use people in an office like Arlington that’s overwhelmed?”
Source: Federal Records Show New Immigration Policies Delay Local Cases, Increase Court Backlog – NBC4 Washington http://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/Federal-Records-Show-New-Immigration-Policies-Delay-Local-Cases-Increase-Court-Backlog-449104633.html#ixzz4uUnE6DPv
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The Arlington court is already scheduling cases for December 2021. That’s the second longest delay in the nation.
In May alone, five of the seven Arlington judges had weeks of reassignment to the border. Records show they delayed 946 cases as a result.
“When you can’t give people hearing dates that are reasonable dates, which they can count on, they know it’s actually going to take place, then as a judge I feel you lose credibility,” said Schmidt.
Immigration: Crisis in the Courts
Schmidt said to make matters worse, while judges are reassigned, they cannot work remotely on cases back at their home courts because the files are all on paper, not electronic.
He said at the border, many cases involve people who recently arrived in the United States and haven’t had time to get a lawyer, so a lot of those cases are not even ready to be heard and get delayed as well.
Published 2 hours ago | Updated 50 minutes ago
Source: Federal Records Show New Immigration Policies Delay Local Cases, Increase Court Backlog – NBC4 Washington http://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/Federal-Records-Show-New-Immigration-Policies-Delay-Local-Cases-Increase-Court-Backlog-449104633.html#ixzz4uUncKBbO
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What kind of “court system” puts “Gonzo Enforcement” first and Due Process last? A “captive” one run by incompetentent politicos!
I hope that when Sessions finally shows up for his long-awaited hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy will grill him on his biased and incompetent administration of the U.S. Immigration Courts as well as the false narratives and misrepresentations Sessions spreads about Dreamers and migrants generally.
There were other tense exchanges as well, including from the former top Democrat on the committee, Vermont Sen. Pat Leahy, who especially took issue with the Justice Department representative. At the outset of the hearing Chairman Chuck Grassley noted that DOJ had not submitted written testimony for the hearing, and acting Assistant Attorney General Chad Readler, of the civil division, said he was limited in speaking outside of what was already public because of ongoing lawsuits over the administration’s termination of DACA.
Leahy pressed Readler on Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ letter about the rescission of DACA, which suggested lax immigration enforcement was responsible for crime, violence and even terrorism.
“Can you provide this committee with any examples of Dreamers being involved in terror activity? … You don’t have to give me hundreds, just give me one!” Leahy said, raising his voice.
“I’m not aware of any examples,” Readler said.
“Neither is the attorney general when he said that,” Leahy said.
After further back-and-forth about what Sessions meant, Readler noted he would be testifying before this committee himself this month.
“He’s taken longer than any attorney general since I’ve been here, but I’ve only been here 42 years,” Leahy said.
Under questioning from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, who has co-sponsored Durbin’s bill, the DHS officials did say they supported a pathway to citizenship for DACA-eligible individuals in an eventual solution — and said they were largely the type of people the US should want.
“They’re a benefit to the country as are many immigrants coming in,” Dougherty said. “They are a valuable contribution to our society, we need to regularize their status through legislative means.”
He also said DHS did not support the notion of creating a permanent visa status that would never allow people to be naturalized — saying the White House would be of the same mind.
“I think creating second-class citizens or people who are never able to naturalize is not a good model,” Dougherty said, adding “I do” when asked if he thinks the President agrees.”
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Read the rest of Tal’s article at the link.
Pretty obvious why Gonzo would rather spend his time spreading lies and bogus, alarmist narratives about American young people and immigrant communities rather than facing Sen. Leahy under oath.
“The first day of the Supreme Court’s new term on Monday will feature a rare legal showdown: The Justice Department will face off against another federal agency. It’s unusual for the Justice Department, representing the United States government, to disagree with an executive agency, much less send its top lawyer to try to defeat that agency before the Supreme Court—but it’s only the first of several such confrontations in the Trump administration.
There are currently three major cases in which the Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a position in opposition to another executive agency. The nation’s top court will referee one of these disagreements on Monday, and the other two are likely to reach the Supreme Court next year. The situation is partially explained by politics: The department is opposing agencies whose missions—protecting the interests of workers and consumers—are less likely to align with the goals of a conservative administration. But it’s also a signal of how aggressive the Justice Department plans to be in pursing its conservative agenda through the courts.
“It’s highly unusual to have two lawyers, both representing the federal government, taking opposite positions in a court,” says Deepak Gupta, an appellate lawyer who has filed briefs in two of the cases opposing the Justice Department’s positions. “The fact that it’s happening in multiple instances across a broad range of issues is really remarkable and is a sign of how aggressively the Trump administration is flipping positions on a broad range of issues.”
The case going before the court on Monday concerns workers’ right to collective action. The other two will decide whether the creation of the agency in charge of protecting consumers violates the Constitution and whether the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects employees from being fired because of their sexual orientation. The Justice Department’s willingness to take on other agencies is even more notable because in two of the cases, the department’s top lawyers had to change the department’s position in order to oppose the agencies. Such changes are generally not made without serious deliberation and restraint because the department is expected to have a consistent position on legal issues.
“You would expect the justices to perhaps want to look a little bit more closely at precisely what the government’s position is,” says Jonathan Adler, a professor of constitutional and administrative law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, “to make sure that any change is in fact well considered and not something that’s being done cavalierly or superficially.”
On Monday, the US solicitor general, a Republican lawyer named Noel Francisco who was confirmed by the Senate earlier this month, will argue against the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), whichhis office was representing until a few months ago. Under President Barack Obama, the solicitor general prepared to represent the NLRB, the federal agency charged with protecting workers from unfair labor practices, before the Supreme Court. But in June, the solicitor general’s office switched sides. “After the change in administration, the Office reconsidered the issue and has reached the opposite conclusion,” the office announced in a brief. The NLRB would now need to represent itself, and the solicitor general would appear in court on the other side. Labor advocatessay they have to go back to the Reagan administration to find an analogous situation, in which a new administration changed its position before the Supreme Court for what appeared to be largely political reasons.
“This is not normal, even in a change of administration,” says Celine McNicholas, a labor attorney at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, and a former counsel at the NLRB. Politics always affect agencies’ agendas, she says, but for the solicitor general to change his office’s stance before the Supreme Court for what appear to be political reasons “is a significant shift.”
The stakes in the NLRB case are high. The question is whether employment contracts can prohibit employees from joining together to seek better working conditions or higher wages or to address grievances, instead forcing them into secret, individual arbitration proceedings. Since 2012, the NLRB has held that these increasingly common mandatory arbitration clauses are illegal because they violate employees’ right to join together, which is enshrined in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. The Justice Department has taken the position that in order to get a job, workers can be forced to waive any right topetitioncollectively in the future. If the department and the employers it is siding with prevail, such employment contracts are likely to proliferate further, giving every employer the ability to escape any chance of a class-action lawsuit or other type of collective agitation.
In March, the Justice Department filed a motion before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in which it agreed with PHH. A “removal restriction for the Director of the CFPB is an unwarranted limitation on the President’s executive power,” the department wrote in a court filing announcing its new position.The Justice Department has also switched positions in a case over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the agency created after the financial collapse in 2008 to protect consumers from predatory mortgages, credit cards, student loans, and other financial products. The agency, the brainchild of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), has been a target of Republicans since its inception. Now the Trump administration has seized on a chance to weaken it. The case originated when the CFBP levied a $109 million fine against PHH Corporation, a mortgage services provider that it alleged was referring customers to specific insurers in what was tantamount to a kickback scheme. PHH sued, claiming that in creatingthe CFPB’s leadership structure, Congress made the agency more independent from the president than is allowed under the Constitution. The agency’s director serves a five-year term and can only be fired by the president for cause.
Gupta, a former top official at the CFPB, sees this case as the most troubling of the three because, rather than execute the laws passed by Congress as required by the Constitution, the administration has opted to argue against an act of Congress. This is not unheard of; in 2011, the Obama administration announced that it would no longer defend a federal law that banned the recognition of same-sex marriages. But in announcing that decision, then-Attorney General Eric Holder explained that it was made in consultation with Obama and after an extensive review of the issue.
In contrast, the Trump administration’s decision to flip its position on the constitutionality of the CFPB seemed to lack serious deliberation. Three weeks before the administration announced its new position in a court filing, the department took the opposite position in a case that raised the same constitutional objection to another agency—the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)—with the same leadership structure as the CFPB. In February, the department filed a brief, signed by acting assistant attorney general Chad Readler, in which it argued that the challenge to the FHFA’s structure was an “illogical thesis” and “wholly without merit.” Three weeks later, Readler made the opposite argument about the CFPB. Acknowledging the conflict, Readler advised the court retroactively in the FHFA case that the government “does not urge reliance” on the argument it had previously advocated.”
. . . .
But under Sessions, the Justice Department has decided not only to take on other executive agencies, but also to switch positions in a number of other cases, including multiple voting rights cases. How judges will react to this fickleness—particularly in the coming Supreme Court term—could affect the Trump administration’s ability to uphold its broader agenda in the courts. “Of all the offices in the federal government,” says Adler, “we tend to expect the solicitor general’s office to be the most candid about what the law requires versus what’s a policy judgment, and to really not overplay that or overstate that.”
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Read the complete article at the link.
“This is not normal.” That pretty much sums up the Trump Administration and the entire career of “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions in a nutshell! The worst thing is that U.S. taxpayers are being ripped off for clowns like Sessions and his fellow travelers who are out to trash the rights and interests of the majority of Americans and to rip apart the rule of law and decency in Government at the same time.
It’s sorta like when guerrillas support themselves by extorting their political enemies or perceived enemies (something that the BIA in its wrong-headed rush to restrict asylum protection doesn’t recognize as “persecution,” even though it’s one of the oldest and most classic forms of political persecution). Make no mistake about it, Gonzo and his team of politicos are waging “guerrilla warfare” against career lawyers and the rule of law at the U.S. Department of Justice and in the Federal Courts. And, to date, they have largely gotten away with it.
These unquestionably are “law-free” bias-driven policy decisions by Gonzo. I’ve never seen any evidence whatsoever that Sessions actually reads or has even basic knowledge of American law. It’s just not necessary for a lifelong member of “The Wrecking Crew.” What is clear, however, is that he arrived at DOJ not with legal books, but with “cue cards” prepared for him by the Heritage Foundation, restrictionist immigration groups, and his White Nationalist buddies Miller and Bannon. His memoranda and briefs are studies in disingenuous doublespeak, complete nonsense, White Nationalist myths, and an overall intellectual shallowness that almost matches that of Trump.
It also shows why nobody should take seriously Gonzo’s disingenuous babbling about the Constitution or the “Rule of Law,” both of which he mocks nearly every day he remans in the high office for which he is so spectacularly unqualified. Liz was definitely right!
The good news, if any, is that by the time this disaster is over, the Solicitor General’s Office will have lost its last shred of credibility in the Article III Federal Courts. And, perhaps it will be a good thing for American justice when the “SG” loses his or her “privileged position” and is finally viewed as just another suspect and self-interested litigant in court. And, not a very smart or very well-qualified litigant at that.
Once lost, credibility can seldom be regained.Think about that one, Noel Francisco, before you and your subordinates become complete shills for the legally and morally bankrupt positions of Gonzo and Trump.
“An emerging list of conservative demands is threatening to derail the fledgling bipartisan effort to preserve the Obama administration program protecting from deportation 690,000 illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.
President Trump discussed the outlines of a potential deal to protect those covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program with Democratic congressional leaders at a White House dinner this month. The tentative deal would couple permanent protections for those immigrants with improved border security.
But key conservative Republicans in the House and Senate are coalescing around a broader suite of policies as a condition of backing a deal, and that has Democrats and moderate Republicans warning that the current, fragile consensus could quickly break apart.
In the Senate, James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) introduced a conservative alternative this week to the Dream Act, a bipartisan bill that has some moderate Republican support and that Democrats want to pass as part of any deal with Trump.
[Trump, top Democrats agree to work on deal to save ‘dreamers’ from deportation]
The Lankford-Tillis bill, known as the Succeed Act, sets out a more onerous path to legal status for the immigrants in question, and it includes provisions barring them from taking advantage of existing laws that allow legal immigrants to petition authorities to allow foreign relatives to come to the United States.
Critics say those laws foster “chain migration,” inflating the amount of legal immigration. Eliminating the possibility of petitioning on behalf of relatives abroad is among another set of policies that House conservatives are pursuing on a separate track.
Key White House officials, including senior adviser Stephen Miller, have worked with members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus and other Republican lawmakers to hone a list of policy demands that go beyond the border security provisions on which Democrats have signaled they are willing to negotiate.
It is unclear to what extent Trump himself will support these provisions as part of the effort to negotiate a solution for “dreamers,” as the childhood arrivals are known. But the proposals are gaining adherents among some of the president’s strongest backers in Congress.
[Trump administration announces end of immigration protection program for ‘dreamers’]
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the Freedom Caucus chairman, said in an interview this week that a working list of policies that conservatives may demand includes ending the “chain migration” laws; mandating that employers use E-Verify, an online federal system to determine people’s eligibility to work in the United States; stepping up enforcement against those overstaying legitimate visas; and limiting protections for those who seek asylum at U.S. borders.”
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Read the rest of the article at the link.
These toxic dudes never miss a chance to push their White Nationalist anti-American agenda. Frankly, we don’t need to plow more resources into already perfectly adequate border security, and there is certainly no need for more immigration agents who have so little to do now that they can squander time busting law-abiding American residents, guarding their agency bosses, staking out hospitals and courthouses, and screwing up already out of control Immigration Court dockets. Where’s the accountability for efficient and rational use of resources? But, those could be trade-offs that the Dems could make to save the Dreamers. (Honestly, given some of the other garbage the GOP has put out there, funding “The Wall” seems like the least harmful of the trade-offs in human terms. Money gets wasted, America looks foolish, but nobody gets hurt and it won’t tank our economy like the restrictionist agenda on legal immigration would).
But, the hard core xenophobic White Nationalist agenda being pushed by Miller, the “Freedom” Caucus, and other restrictionists out to limit legal immigration, deny due process, and make a mockery out of our legal and moral obligations to refugees — No Way! The Dems would have to “Just Say No.”
The “Ace in the Hole” for the Dems: There is neither the ability nor the moral willingness on the part of the majority of decent Americans to deport 800,000 American young people. They might end up “hanging in limbo” till some future date when responsible government once again gains the upper hand over the “wrecking crew.”
The Washington Post reports about today’s first NFL game in London:
“Less than three hours after President Trump called on NFL owners to suspend or fire players who protest during the national anthem, the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars — the first teams to play on Sunday — linked arms or took a knee during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the teams 9:30 a.m. EDT kickoff in London’s Wembley Stadium.
Ravens Coach John Harbaugh joined his players, linking arms, and Ravens Hall of Famer Ray Lewis took a knee. Jaguars owner Shahid Khan, who had contributed $1 million to the Trump inauguration, locked arms with his players in what is believed to be the first visible participation in relation to anthem protests by a league owner.”
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Read the full report on the link.
Our President is a racist. Decent folks should band together and stand up against him. The entire state of Alabama should be hanging its head in shame as should the GOP which enabled and continues to enable this type of destructive conduct by an unqualified President.
And our racist, homophobic Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his White Nationalist agenda are a key part of dividing our country, whipping up bogus racial paranoia, and making a mockery of our justice system. Liz was right!
Meanwhile, star NFL QBs Tom Brady (Patriots) and Aaron Rodgers (Packers) posted their own messages of “unity” with their teammates.
James Hohmann writes in then”Daily 202″ in the Washington Post:
“THE BIG IDEA: Photographers caught a giddy Jeff Sessions cracking a satisfied smile last week as he prepared to announce that 690,000 undocumented immigrants who had been brought into the United States as minors would no longer be shielded from deportation. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program “is being rescinded,” the attorney general declared in the first line of his statement. “There is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws. … Failure to enforce the laws in the past has put our nation at risk of crime, violence and even terrorism. … The effect of this unilateral executive amnesty, among other things, contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors on the southern border that yielded terrible humanitarian consequences. It also denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens.” Fact checkers called these and other claims Sessions made about the immigrants known as “dreamers” dubious or outright false. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t take questions afterward. Regardless, the speech was widely covered as a triumph for the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and a sign that he was out of President Trump’s doghouse. Not only did Sessions get the outcome he wanted; he also got to deliver the news from the Justice Department briefing room. Trump’s DACA decision last week seemed to validate Sessions’s decision to slog on through the summer even after being frozen out of the inner circle. From interviews to tweets, Trump repeatedly attacked his attorney general throughout July as “weak” and “beleaguered.” The main reason Sessions chose to put up with indignities that might cause most people to quit was because he believed he could make a difference on immigration policy. That has always been his signature issue and animated his two decades in the Senate.
— But it took less than 10 days for Trump to once again undercut Sessions. The president on Thursday signaled his embrace of granting permanent legal status to these “dreamers” as part of a deal with Democrats that he said is close to being finalized. He also acknowledged that he’s not going to make a deal to save DACA contingent on getting funding for the wall he wants to build along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Discussing the exact same group of people that Sessions painted with such a sinister brush one week earlier, Trump tweeted yesterday: “Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military? Really!” Trump tweeted yesterday. “They have been in our country for many years through no fault of their own — brought in by parents at young age.”
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Read the rest of Hohmann’s always-entertaining column at the above link.
Quite simply, Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions is a poor excuse for a human being and a disgrace to the U.S. Department of Justice. What kind of person is motivated by a desire to destroy our society by hurting fine American young people and smearing them with lies and innuendo?
But, let’s not forget who empowered his message of hate and fear by appointing him, and who “blew by” his long record of racial problems while silencing the opposition that told truth. And, a special “shout out” should go to those who voted to put this intentionally divisive Administration in office and to the unapologetically racially challenged white GOP voters of Alabama who elected this leftover of the Jim Crow era time and time again.
Jeff Sessions does not represent the values of the majority of Americans. We must get it together at the ballot box to insure that he (and those like him) never again happen to us and to our country!
“WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump gave a series of conflicting statements on Thursday about how he hopes to deal with young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, muddying the waters over whether he will support their bid to gain eventual citizenship and whether he will demand a border wall in exchange.
Trump’s comments, made both to reporters and on Twitter, came after leading Democrats in Congress said they had reached an informal deal with the president on legislation to help so-called Dreamers, or undocumented young people who entered the country as children.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Wednesday that they had reached an agreement with Trump to tie measures to grant Dreamers legal status to border security measures, but not to a wall. They said Trump had made clear he would continue to demand a wall, and that they had told him they would oppose it.
Trump denied that a deal had been made, although he initially did not dispute key details of what the Democrats had said. But later, he said Dreamers’ fates would be tied to the construction of a border wall, even if it’s not part of legislation that addresses Dreamers.
“We have to be sure the wall isn’t obstructed, because without the wall, I wouldn’t do anything. … It doesn’t have to be here but they can’t obstruct the wall if it’s in a budget or anything else,” Trump told reporters in Florida, according to a pool report.
He added that he would “only do it if we get extreme security, not only surveillance but everything that goes with surveillance,” Trump said. “If there’s not a wall, we’re doing nothing.”
The president also created more confusion by suggesting that he might not support allowing Dreamers to eventually gain citizenship. That would destroy any hope of a deal with Democrats, who want Trump to support the Dream Act, which would allow undocumented young people who came to the U.S. as children to eventually become citizens.
“We’re not looking at citizenship,” he said. “We’re not looking at amnesty. We’re looking at allowing people to stay here.”
That doesn’t necessarily preclude eventually supporting Dream Act-style measures, however. The bill would not grant citizenship immediately; it would allow Dreamers to gain legal status that would make them eligible for eventual citizenship ― so there’s potential that Trump could eventually back such measures and still claim they were not the “amnesty” he opposes.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump said in a series of tweets that any deal on Dreamers would be contingent on “massive border security,” although he didn’t specify that it had to include a wall. He added that the wall is “already under construction in the form of new renovation of old and existing fences and walls” and would proceed.”
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And, the beat goes on! I knew that sanity couldn’t last long in the “Age of Trump.”
“President Donald Trump denied on Thursday that he had made a firm agreement with Democrats on immigration, but did not dispute key details from the deal ― namely, that protection for young undocumented immigrants wouldn’t be tied to his long-promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.
In a series of tweets on Thursday, Trump said that any deal on Dreamers ― undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children ― would be contingent on “massive border security,” but did not specifically say it had to be the wall.
He later said that the wall is “already under construction in the form of new renovation of old and existing fences and walls” and would proceed.
Trump also told reporters outside the White House on Thursday that “the wall will come later.” Asked if he favors amnesty, the president replied that “the word is DACA.”
The president also seemed to throw cold water on concerns that he wanted to deport beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA program, which the administration decided earlier this month to end.
Trump’s Thursday comments followed a dinner he held the previous evening with House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.). Following the meeting, they announced that the president agreed to a border security plan that would offer protections to the 800,000 Dreamers, and that the wall was not part of the deal.
Pelosi and Schumer released a statement Thursday clarifying their announcement from the night before, confirming that no final deal had been put in place.
Yet they added, “While both sides agreed that the wall would not be any part of this agreement, the President made clear he intends to pursue it at a later time, and we made clear we would continue to oppose it.”
Many of Trump’s staunchest supporters, including Fox News Host Sean Hannity and conservative commentator Ann Coulter, quickly lashed out at reports that president seemed to be softening his stance on immigration.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later tweeted that “excluding the wall was certainly not agreed to,” but a spokesman for Schumer shot back that, while the wall wasn’t dead yet, it wasn’t part of this deal specifically.
This story has been updated to include Trump’s additional comments to reporters and a statement from Pelosi and Schumer.”
You know you’re on the right track, Mr. President, when you are being criticized by racist, national embarrassments Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Rep. Steve King (R-IA) (how come the GOP hasn’t banished this guy for his unapologetically racist and xenophobic views? — Yeah, he has a Constitutional right to spout his poisonous lies on and off the floor of Congress, and the folks in his Congressional District have a right to elect him to publicly represent their racism, lack of decency, and lack of judgment. — But, that doesn’t entitle him to membership in one of our two major political parties.)
And ignoring the rancid input of AG Jeff Sessions and his White Nationalist clone Stephen Miller on anything touching on immigration or national security would also be wise. Just see where this “Demonic Duo” is going and head the other way as fast as you can.
Along with Bannon, Sessions and Miller are at home on the wrong side of history, particularly racial and migration history. The President already got bad legal advice, based on bogus ideological reasoning, from Sessions in terminating DACA. Now he is having to put distance between himself and the markedly xenophobic anti-DACA narrative that Gonzo set forth when gleefully announcing an end to DACA and cheerfully throwing 800,000 American lives into turmoil. What a guy!
“President Donald Trump told lawmakers Wednesday that he’s open to signing legislation protecting thousands of young immigrants from deportation even if the bill does not include funding for his promised border wall. But Trump remains committed to building a barrier along the U.S.-Mexican border, even if Democrats say it’s a non-starter.
Trump had dinner with Sen. Chuck Schumer and top Democrat Nancy Pelosi Wednesday night, and they reached a deal on DACA, according to a joint statement by the democrats.
“We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides,” the statement read.
Trump, who was deeply disappointed by Republicans’ failure to pass a health care overhaul, infuriated many in his party when he reached a three-month deal with Sen. Schumer and House Democratic Leader Pelosi to raise the debt ceiling, keep the government running and speed relief to states affected by recent hurricanes.
Trump ended the program earlier this month and has given Congress six months to come up with a legislative fix before the so-called “Dreamers'” statuses begin to expire.
“We don’t want to forget DACA,” Trump told the members at the meeting. “We want to see if we can do something in a bipartisan fashion so that we can solve the DACA problem and other immigration problems.”
As part of that effort, Trump said he would not insist on tying extending DACA protections to wall funding, as long as a final bill included “some sort of border security,” said Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, who attended the meeting.
“He said, ‘We don’t have to have the wall on this bill,'” recalled Cuellar. “He said: ‘We can put that somewhere else, like appropriations or somewhere.’ But that was very significant because a lot of us don’t want to tie DACA and the wall. We’re not going to split the baby on that one. So he himself said, ‘We’re not going to put the wall tied into this.'”
Trump has made a sudden pivot to bipartisanship after months of railing against Democrats as “obstructionist.” He has urged them to join him in overhauling the nation’s tax code, among other priorities.
“More and more we’re trying to work things out together,” Trump explained Wednesday, calling the development a “positive thing” for both parties.
“If you look at some of the greatest legislation ever passed, it was done on a bipartisan manner. And so that’s what we’re going to give a shot,” he said.
The “Kumbaya” moment appeared to extend to the thorny issue of immigration, which has been vexing lawmakers for years. Funding for Trump’s promised wall had been thought to be a major point of contention between Republicans and Democrats as they attempted to forge a deal.
Democrats have been adamant in their opposition to the wall, but both Pelosi and a top White House staffer indicated Tuesday that they were open to a compromise on border security to expedite DACA legislation.
White House legislative director Marc Short said during a breakfast that, while the president remained committed to the wall, funding for it did not necessarily need to be linked directly to the “Dreamers” issue. “I don’t want us to bind ourselves into a construct that makes reaching a conclusion on DACA impossible,” he said.”
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I have to admit that I’m stunned by this swing of the pendulum. But, I’m pleased and relieved for the great Dreamers if it works. The Devil is often in the details, particularly with immigration.
On this occasion, I’ll have to agree with the President that bipartisan legislation putting the best interests of the country first is a good thing, and a smart way for the President to get credit for some legislative achievements.
We’ll have to see what happens, But, it’s nice to end the day on a more optimistic note.
PWS
09-13-17
UPDATE:
The Devil is indeed in the details! According to this more recent article from Sophie Tatum at CNN (forwarded by my friend and fellow insomniac Nolan Rappaport) the “deal” is far from done and the White House version of the meeting is not the same as the Schumer-Pelosi statement:
“White House press secretary Sarah Sanders immediately pushed back on the idea the wall would be dropped.
“While DACA and border security were both discussed, excluding the wall was certainly not agreed to,” Sanders said.
White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short confirmed that the President and Democrats agreed to work to find a legislative fix for DACA, but he called Democrats’ claim of a deal that would exclude wall funding “intentionally misleading.”
“Many Republicans have made clear in recent weeks that they favor the basic policy DACA enshrined, and merely oppose its executive implementation. Sessions, who helped persuade Trump to kill the program, is not one of those Republicans. In his remarks, he directly denounced the very idea of granting any kind of amnesty to undocumented individuals brought to the U.S. as children through no fault of their own. At the heart of his speech were two lies, straight from Breitbart, explaining why DACA must end:
The effect of this unilateral executive amnesty, among other things, contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors on the southern border that yielded terrible humanitarian consequences. It also denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens.
Let’s examine these falsehoods in turn.
First: Sessions claimed that DACA “contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors on the southern border.” This allegation, often touted by far-right xenophobes, is false. A study published in International Migration, a peer-reviewed academic journal, found that the surge in unaccompanied minors actually began in 2008. (DACA was announced in 2012.) The authors pointed to a host of factors contributing to this phenomenon, including escalating gang violence in Central America, as well as drug cartels’ willingness to target and recruit children in Mexico. But the study found that DACA was not one of these factors. Its authors concluded that “the claim that DACA is responsible for the increase in the flow of unaccompanied alien children is not supported by the data.”
Even without the study, it should be obvious that DACA played no role in this surge of unaccompanied minors because the theory itself makes no sense. Undocumented children who arrived in the United States following DACA’s implementation would not qualify for the program. Only those individuals who “have continuously resided in the United States since June 15, 2007” and “were physically present in the United States on June 15, 2012” could receive DACA status. Why would parents send their children to the U.S. to participate in a program in which they are not legally permitted to participate?
Second: Sessions alleged that DACA has “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens.” This line is obviously drawn from the false narrative that immigrants steal jobs from American citizens. There is no actual evidence that DACA recipients have taken jobs from any Americans, let alone “hundreds of thousands.” There is, however, strong evidence that killing DACA will significantly damage the economy—a fact that Sessions conveniently omitted from his speech.
Once DACA is fully rescinded, its former recipients will lose their work permits (and thus their jobs) and face possible deportation. According to the left-leaning Center for American Progress, about 30,000 people will lose their jobs each month as their DACA status expires. The loss of these workers could reduce the national GDP by $280 billion to $433 billion over the next decade. According to estimates by the libertarian Cato Institute, DACA’s demise will cost employers $2 billion and the federal government $60 billion. Trump’s decision to end DACA isn’t a job-saver; it’s a job-killer.
Toward the end of his speech, Sessions praised the RAISE Act, a Republican-backed bill that would tightly curtail immigration into the U.S. Sessions claimed the act would “produce enormous benefits for our country.” In reality, the measure marks an effort to return America to an older immigration regime that locked out racial and ethnic minorities. Sessions has praised the 1924 law that created this regime—a law whose chief author declared that his act was meant to end “indiscriminate acceptance of all races.” On Tuesday, Sessions revived this principle in slightly more polite language.
The attorney general’s utterly gratuitous defamation of young Latino immigrants tells you everything you need to know about the decision to kill DACA. Before Tuesday, the Trump administration seemed eager to frame its DACA decision as respect for constitutional separation of powers: Congress, it insisted, not the president, must set immigration policy. But after Sessions’ speech, it is difficult to view this move as anything other than an attempt to implement the white nationalism that Trump and Sessions campaigned on.”
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Read the full report at the link.
It shouldn’t be news by now that “Gonzo Apocalypto” is a lifelong racist and White Nationalist totally unfit to serve as Attorney General. That’s what Liz Warren and others said during the confirmation process when Sessions’s GOP “fellow travelers” were so eager to brush over his un-American record and his anti-American views.
Latinos, Asians, Blacks, Jews and other American minorities need to unite with those of us who don’t want a return to the “Jim Crow” American South of the earlier 20th Century (which spawned the likes of Sessions and where the white GOP population is still racially and culturally tone deaf) behind some good candidates, get out the vote, and throw the White Nationalists and their GOP enablers and apologists (guys like Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and most of the rest of the today’s GOP legislators who take responsibility for nothing while encouraging the Trump Administration’s outrageous conduct by refusing to join with Congressional Democrats to “just say no'”) out of office at the ballot box. Otherwise, there won’t be an America in the future. We’ve got to stop letting “the “30%” who either never knew or have forgotten what it means to be a real American run roughshod over our country and particularly our kids. It’s going to be a long four years. Feels like it already.
“Yet even if all 1,500 Confederate symbols across the country were removed overnight by some sudden supernatural force, the pernicious crusade to roll back voting rights would continue apace, with voters of color suffering its effects disproportionately. Pushing back hard against those who would purge voter rolls, demand forms of voter ID that many Americans don’t possess, and limit times and venues for voting — this should be a paramount cause for the Trump era.
In statehouse after statehouse where Republicans hold majorities, the playbook is well established, and the tactics are becoming increasingly aggressive.
Mr. Trump’s voter fraud commission is at the vanguard of this crusade, and the fix is in. Its vice chairman, Kris Kobach, is the nation’s most determined, litigious and resourceful champion of voter suppression. Under his tutelage, the commission is likely to recommend measures whose effect will be that new obstacles to voting would be taken up in state legislatures. Millions of voters are at risk of disenfranchisement from this effort, and the knock-on effects of such a mass act of disempowerment are dizzying.
The events in Charlottesville and the president’s apologia for the right-wing extremists there should mobilize anyone passionate about civil rights. There would be no better target for their energies than the clear and present danger to the most fundamental right in any democracy: the vote.”
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Read the complete article at the link.
Sessions and his Civil Rights Division are supposed to be out there defending the right of citizens, particularly minorities, to vote. Instead, he has thrown the weight of the Justice Department to those GOP hacks seeking to suppress the vote. Meanwhile the Civil Rights Division is thinking of perverse ways to abuse Civil Rights laws by using them to promote white privilege and white supremacy.
Sen. Liz Warren was silenced by McConnell when she told the truth about Sessions’s continuing racism. She was right.
“Washington (CNN)Tuesday marks the fifth anniversary of a program that protects young undocumented immigrants from deportation — but supporters worry this one could be its last.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, was implemented in 2012 under President Barack Obama, and President Donald Trump’s administration has continued running despite heated rhetoric against it from Trump on the campaign trail.
But DACA has arguably never been on shakier ground, and advocates for the program are desperately trying to protect it, including with a planned march Tuesday on the White House.
Nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants have benefited from DACA, which protects individuals who were brought to the US illegally as children from deportation, and offers them the ability to work, study and drive legally. Applicants must meet certain criteria, pass a background check and maintain a clean record.
But despite the fact that the administration has continued to issue permits, concerns are increasing that the program could be ended.
“DACA is under grave threat,” Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said on a conference call with reporters Monday.
Ten state attorneys general, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, have issued an ultimatum to the Trump administration — sunset DACA by September 5, or we’ll challenge it in court. The attorneys general have threatened to petition a court that’s considering a similar but separate Obama administration deferred action program, for parents, to also weigh the legality of DACA.
Experts believe that given the makeup of the court hearing the case, and its previous ruling against the parents program, the judges involved would likely strike down DACA as well.
If the court allows arguments against DACA, the Justice Department would be forced to decide whether it will defend the program. While Trump has recently spoken about how sympathetic he is to the “Dreamers” who receive DACA, saying the choice is “very, very hard to make,” he campaigned on a pledge to immediately rescind it. And the US attorney general, former Sen. Jeff Sessions, has been a chief opponent of the program.
The White House offered a cryptic statement on the program’s future, expressing only concern with illegal immigration.
“The President’s priority remains protecting the jobs, wages and security of American workers, families and communities — including the millions of Hispanic and African American workers disadvantaged by illegal immigration,” an administration official said.
On the call with reporters and a DACA recipient, Masto and California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris extolled its virtues, citing estimates that the US economy would lose hundreds of billions of dollars without the contributions of DACA recipients.
“This is not just about what is morally right, this is not only a point about what is right in terms of fighting for the ideals of our country,” Harris said. “This is also right and smart in terms of public benefits.”
Both are co-sponsors of one bipartisan proposal to make the program permanent in Congress, the Dream Act, which also has three Republican co-sponsors. It’s one of four proposed bills that would codify DACA if the administration were to rescind it or the courts were to strike it down.
The Department of Justice did not respond to a CNN request for comment.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the division of the Department of Homeland Security, said the program remains under review.
“The Department of Homeland Security’s stance remains the same — the future of the DACA program continues to be under review with the administration,” said USCIS press secretary Gillian Christensen. “The President has remarked on the need to handle DACA with compassion and with heart. As a matter of policy, we do not comment on pending litigation, but we have said before only Congress can enact a permanent solution to the DACA situation.”
But perhaps Democrats and some willing Republicans can work on a compromise legislative solution. Otherwise, the results aren’t likely to be pretty — for the Dreamers or for our country’s future.
“Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) recently introduced a revised version of the bill addressing legal immigration into the United States, the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (RAISE) Act. It is supposed to spur economic growth and raise working Americans’ wages by giving priority to the best-skilled immigrants from around the world and reducing overall immigration by half.
Nevertheless, it will not reach the president’s desk without support from influential Democratic congressmen, which will be difficult to get and won’t be free. According to Representative Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.), the RAISE Act “and the bear hug by the Bannon/Kelly/Trump White House — betrays the deep animosity towards legal immigration that has become the central, unifying tenet of the Republican Party.”
. . . .
Suggestions for a compromise.
The main price for Gutierrez’s support would be to establish a DREAM Act program that would be based on an appropriate merit-based point system.
The number of undocumented aliens who might benefit from a dream act can range from 2.5 to 3.3 million. It isn’t likely that an agreement will be reached if Gutierrez insists on a number in that range.
Concessions have to be made to achieve an acceptable compromise, and allowing termination of the Visa Waiver Program would be a reasonable choice. An alternative would be to keep the program as is but distribute the visas on a merit point system instead of using a lottery.
The refugee provision is problematic, but the president has sole authority to determine the number of admissions and the current president supports the 50,000 cap. The Democrats will try to eliminate this cap or raise it if they can’t eliminate it, but this should not be a deal breaker if the other issues are worked out satisfactorily.
The restrictions on family-based immigration, however, are another matter. They should be modified. Cotton and Purdue doomed their bill to failure with these provisions. They hurt constituents on both sides of the aisle.
Moreover, they do not make any sense. What does national interest mean if the family-unification needs of citizens and legal permanent residents don’t count?
Some advocates strongly opposes the point system because they think it fails to take into account the needs of U.S. businesses, but their concern is based on the point criterion in the current version of the RAISE Act, which has not been subjected to any hearings or markups yet. If the senators and Gutierrez cannot work out a compromise that protects the needs of U.S. businesses, there will be plenty of time to make additional changes.
This isn’t just about moving these bills through congress. According to recent Gallup polls, “Americans view Congress relatively poorly, with job approval ratings of the institution below 30% since October 2009.”
And the current Republican-controlled congress is not turning this around. Reaching an agreement with the Democrats on an immigration reform bill that includes a DREAM Act legalization program would be a good place to start.”
“The Justice Department has reversed its position in a high-profile voting case in Ohio, siding with the state in its effort to purge thousands of people from its rolls for not voting in recent elections.
The move is part of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to support restrictions on who is eligible to vote, a radical change in philosophy from the previous Justice Department, which sued a number of states over voting laws that it deemed discriminatory against minorities.
In a court filing late Monday, Justice Department attorneys took the opposite position from the Obama administration in a case that involves Ohio’s removal last year of tens of thousands of inactive voters from its voting rolls.
In their brief, government lawyers say they reconsidered the Ohio vote-purging issue after the “change in Administrations,” and they argue that the state’s actions are legal under federal law. The case is headed next to the Supreme Court.
Ohio’s procedure allows the state to purge voters who meet certain criteria for being inactive. If a voter has not cast a ballot in two years, the person is sent a notice asking them to confirm their registration. If the voter does not respond and does not cast a ballot over the next four years, the person is removed from the rolls.
The Trump administration has signaled in other ways that it intends to back added requirements for voters as part of a crackdown on alleged fraud.
President Trump in May created an advisory commission on election integrity that has been tasked with determining the extent of illegal voting. The president earlier made the baseless allegation that illegal voting cost him the popular vote against Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
The commission’s only notable act so far has been to request massive amounts of voter data from the states, a move that has provoked lawsuits accusing the panel of breaching Americans’ privacy.
The case in Ohio is not the first time the Justice Department has reversed course in a major legal battle over voting rights. In February, shortly after Jeff Sessions became attorney general, the department dropped its position in a long-running case that argued Texas intended to discriminate against minorities when it passed a strict voter-ID law.
The Texas law, passed in 2011, required that voters present certain forms of identification, such as a driver’s license or a weapons permit, but the state did not allow other forms, including IDs issued by colleges. Critics said these restrictions targeted voters, such as young people and minorities, who are more likely to vote Democratic. A number of courts found the Texas law to be unconstitutional, and a federal court in April found that the Texas legislature intentionally discriminated against black and Hispanic voters.
Voting rights advocates said the Justice Department’s action on Ohio represented a major change in direction for the U.S. government’s stance on access to the polls.
The move “signals the broader agenda of the administration to roll back voter rights in this country,” said Vanita Gupta, former head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division under President Barack Obama and now president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.”
During Sessions’s Senate Confirmation, Senator Liz Warren, Senator Corey Booker, Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and my friend and former DOJ Civil Rights Attorney Jerry Hebert, among others, tried to tell the Committee and the Senators that Sessions was the same White Nationalist/racially challenged individual he had been back when he was properly rejected for a U.S. District Judge position. They were “tuned out.”
Sessions took umbrage, and then lied under oath to the Committee when he claimed to be a staunch defender of civil rights and someone who would separate his political positions as a Republican Senator from Alabama (a state with a disgraceful history of racial bias) from his new responsibilities as Attorney General for all Americans. That would include people of color, LGBT Individuals, immigrants, both legal and undocumented, women, and even Democrats. But, he’s the “same ol’ Jeff” just like his critics said he would be. And the carnage to the American justice system that he is creating probably won’t be repaired any time soon.
Gonzo’s reported next target and scheme to waste of taxpayer money: legalized marijuana. Return to “Reefer Madness!”
“New Fairfield, Connecticut (CNN)Six-year-old Preston Colindres runs up the driveway and front steps and jumps into his father’s arms.
“Hey buddy! How are you? Oh, I love you!” Joel Colindres says as he kisses his son’s cheek. He picks up his 2-year-old daughter, Lila, hugs her and tells her he loves her.
Colindres’ children don’t know their father’s heart is breaking.
Colindres, 33, fled from Guatemala more than a decade ago. He and his American wife, Samantha, can’t quite figure out how to tell their young children that in less than a month he may no longer greet them on the steps of their New Fairfield home.
How do you explain to a 6-year-old why their father is going to be deported? The couple is unsure — especially when they can’t figure it out themselves.
“I can’t seem to summon the courage to look them in the face and say all that,” Samantha Colindres said. “How can you say it before bed, how’s he going to sleep? How do you say it in the morning before school and ruin his day? When’s the right time?”
Colindres must produce an airline ticket to Guatemala on Thursday as proof that on August 17 he intends to comply with a deportation order.
Stopping illegal immigration and kicking out “bad hombres” was a central theme of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. In the days after his inauguration, he vowed to rid the country of violent criminals who enter the country illegally.
Trump administration widens net on deportation01:53
But the Colindres family never thought Joel would be a target for deportation. They, along with family, friends, and their lawyer Larry Delgado, maintain his case is typical of a change in the face of those targeted for deportation.
“This is one of the most compelling cases that we have ever seen in terms of the positives versus the negatives,” Delgado said.
Delgado counts off the positives rapidly: Colindres is married to a US citizen; has two children who are citizens; pays his taxes; owns his own home and is a skilled worker who has been with the same company for 12 years. Most importantly, Delgado said, Colindres has no criminal record.
Delgado believed Colindres’ case would be a “slam dunk” to at least get a stay of deportation. But a growing number of undocumented immigrants have found themselves expecting one outcome and getting another, Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said.
“These individuals relied on the good word and promise of the American government. They were permitted to stay here, they reported periodically, they made no effort to hide, they violated no laws, they raised children here, US citizens, and contributed and worked hard,” Blumenthal said.
Unfairness should ‘strike the hearts of Americans’
Nury Chavarria, also a Guatemala native, sought sanctuary from deportation inside a church.
The Colindres family is not alone.
“There are hundreds and maybe thousands in Connecticut and many, many more around the country that find themselves in this trauma and tragedy,” Blumenthal said.
Similar cases include that of single mother Nury Chavarria, also a Guatemala native, who had taken sanctuary with her four children inside a New Haven, Connecticut, church last week to avoid deportation. Her eldest son, who is 21 years old, has cerebral palsy. Chavarria was granted a stay of deportation in her case on Wednesday night, according to her lawyer.
Sen. Blumenthal believes immigration laws should be enforced, but with discretion.
“We should be deporting people who are dangerous and who pose a threat to society, not people like Nury and Joel and others who have lived here, worked, paid taxes, raised families, and have people depending on them at work and in their homes,” Blumenthal said.
“That is a betrayal of American values, it’s also against our interest because our economy depends on the talents and energy of these people, and we should be providing some pathway to earned citizenship for them.”
But the Trump administration has made clear anyone here illegally can be subject to deportation.
“The fact that you are not a priority does not exempt you from potential enforcement,” a Department of Homeland Security official said. People with crimes like DUIs and status violations, or noncriminal histories but a final order of removal could be subject to deportation, the official added.
Blumenthal believes those like Colindres and Chavarria should get a chance to further present their cases to remain in America.
“The fundamental unfairness of it ought to strike the hearts of Americans,” he said.”
