Category: Judge Peter T. Fay

🇺🇸⚖️🗽 ATTN NDPA WARRIORS! — BE ON THE “CUTTING EDGE” OF THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA AT THE “RETAIL LEVEL!” — Apply now to be part of Immigrant Defenders Law Center’s first cohort in the Spanish Immersion Project for Lawyers! Learn Spanish on the job while representing unaccompanied minors. This is an opportunity you don’t want to miss!

Lindsay Toczylowski
Lindsay Toczylowski
Executive Director, Immigrant Defenders
“ I always tell the new immigration attorneys at Immigrant Defenders Law Center to never forget just how stacked against our clients the odds are in immigration court.“

Lindsay Toczylowski

• 1st

Executive Director at Immigrant Defenders Law Center

13h • Edited • 

  

 

13 hours ago

This is an idea that Yliana Johansen-Méndez and I have been talking about for a long time and I am so excited to see it come to fruition at Immigrant Defenders Law Center. We need more Spanish speaking attorneys ready to fight for our communities, and there simply are not enough to fill the need that exists currently. So, let’s change that. 

That was the simple idea behind the ImmDef Spanish Immersion Project for Lawyers. Give people an opportunity to become the lawyers we need. Please share widely and encourage those interested to apply quickly – we anticipate this inaugural class will fill quickly! #jobposting #immigrationlaw #socialjustice #SpanishForLawyers

Here’s the link for more information about this innovative program:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7031861959402668032/?lipi=urn:li:page:d_flagship3_company;w6mFNs7tSTyeX2lkBEvAJA==

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Compare this creativity and action with the moribund bureaucracies and weak, unimaginative, timid leadership at DHS, EOIR, and DOJ. The wrong folks are running the immigration bureaucracy, and doing a really lousy job of it!

This Administration might “nominally claim” to recognize the importance of representation for asylum seekers and other immigrants and to encourage it; but, their actions tell a much different story.

The dysfunctional chaos at EOIR, culture of denial, “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” on steroids, poor personnel and staffing choices, failure to establish a constructive dialogue with NGOs and the pro bono bar, and the simply jaw-dropping, avoidable “extreme user unfriendliness of almost everything at EOIR” has been a huge “turn off” for those who might be considering taking on pro bono, or even low bono, cases. If anything, some practitioners have told me that they are cutting back on their Immigration Court work because it has become so stressful, all encompassing, and discouraging.  

EOIR should  NOT be operating in this insane manner in a Dem Administration! But, unhappy fact is that it is!

Here’s a chance to be on the front lines of the fight for democracy and social justice in America! Check out Immigrant Defenders Law Center!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-16-23

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  2. 🇺🇸😎⚖️🗽👍🏼LAW YOU CAN USE:  Michelle Mendez and CLINIC Publish A New Practice Advisory on Opening & Closing Statements in Immigration Court
  3. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”
  4. 🤮☠️ EGREGIOUS “ETHNOCENTRIC” JUDGING! — BIA IGNORES RECORD IN FABRICATED DENIAL OF GUATEMALAN  CLAIM — 3RD CIR PUZZLED BY BIA’S CONDUCT: “At times, the IJ’s decision completely conflicts with the record. Yet, for reasons that are not at all apparent, the BIA affirmed the IJ’s decision in its entirety.“

TIME FOR SOME GOOD NEWS: Waterwell’s Immigration Court Drama “The Courtroom,” Featuring Roles By Some “Judges Of The Roundtable,” Makes NY Times “Best Theater of 2019” List! — “[W]e citizens are on trial, too. What kind of a nation are we? How cruel have we permitted ourselves to be?”

 

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog

Retired Judge Jeffrey S. Chase, leader of our “Roundtable of Former Immigration Judges” reports:

Waterwell’s wonderful play The Courtroom, in which the script is an actual transcript of an immigration court hearing, and in which three of us (Betty Lamb, Terry Bain, and myself) so far have acted along with stars of Broadway, TV, and film, was named today by the New York Times to its  “Best Theater of 2019” list!

 

Waterwell plans to hold a performance a month through next September or so, so if you are coming to NYC, you can still see it (or maybe act in it!)

 

BTW, the role played by some of us was the judge performing the naturalization ceremony at the end of the play, in which the entire audience stands and takes the oath.  The best anecdote I have heard so far was after a performance at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where a non-citizen audience member asked a member of the Waterwell staff if that was a real judge performing the scene.  When told yes, it was, the audience member replied “Well, then I guess I’m a U.S. citizen now!”

 

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Here’s the link to the NY Times and the summary of “The Courtroom” by Laura Collins-Hughes:

Laura Collins-Hughes
Laura Collins-Hughes
Arts Journalist
NY Times

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/arts/best-broadway-theater-show.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

 

LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES

Political Punches

One of the most heart-gripping shows of the year could hardly be simpler: It’s not even a full production, just a staged reading of trial transcripts.

Michael Braun and Kristin Villanueva in “The Courtroom.”Credit...Maria Baranova
Michael Braun and Kristin Villanueva in “The Courtroom.”Credit…Maria Baranova

In Waterwell’s “The Courtroom,” the accused is an immigrant in danger of deportation, her unassuming American life at risk of being torn apart over a mistake she insists was innocent. The sneaky thing about this riveting re-enactment, though, is that in watching it, we citizens are on trial, too. What kind of a nation are we? How cruel have we permitted ourselves to be?

That work, recently returned for monthly site-specific performances around New York, is part of 2019’s thrillingly vital bumper crop of political theater — shows that implicate the audience with bracing artistry.

 

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Some of you have probably heard me say that being an Immigration Judge was “half scholar, half performing artist.”

Congrats to Waterwell and to “Roundtable Drama Stars” Retired Judges Jeffrey S. Chase, Betty Lamb, and Terry Bain, all formerly of the NY Immigration Court. Proud of you guys! There are so many ways in which our Roundtable contributes to the New Due Process Army’s daily battle to restore Due Process and save our democracy, beyond filing amicus briefs throughout the country (which we do almost every week, with lots of pro bono help from our talented friends at many law firms)!

Many of those contributions are through the arts. See Judge Polly Webber and her triptych “Refugee Dilemma” fiber artwork, which has received national acclaim and recognition. https://wp.me/p8eeJm-48d As I said just today in an earlier blog about the disturbingly poor and tone deaf performance by three life-tenured judges of the 11th Circuit, this really is not about different legal views any more. https://wp.me/p8eeJm-4RO

It’s a moral and ethical battle to preserve our democracy and its commitment to humanity from the forces of evil, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, authoritarianism, corruption, and White Nationalism that threaten to destroy it. It so happens that courtrooms are among the most visible battlegrounds. But, it goes far beyond that – to the very fabric of our society and our values — to our very humanity and how we view our fellow human beings.

That’s why complicit judges are so dangerous to the system. As with “Jim Crow,” there is only one “right side of history” here! We deserve better performance from America’s judges, particularly those with Article III protections!

As Laura so cogently said in her review:

[W]e citizens are on trial, too. What kind of a nation are we? How cruel have we permitted ourselves to be?

“The Courtroom” should be required viewing for every judge, law professor, judicial law clerk, law student, legislator, congressional staff member, and immigration bureaucrat in America!

Due Process Forever!

 

PWS

12-04-19

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. WHEN ARTICLE III COURTS FAIL: U.S. “Orbits” Refugee Families To Dangerous Chaos In Guatemala Under Clearly Fraudulent “Safe Third Country” Arrangements As Feckless U.S. Courts Fail To Enforce Constitutional Due Process & U.S. Asylum Laws In Face Of Trump Regime’s Contemptuous Scofflaw Conduct!
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  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

11TH CIRCUIT TANKS, DEFERS TO MATTER OF A-B- — Refugee Women Of Color Sentenced To Potential Death Without Due Process By Judges Elizabeth L. Branch, Peter T. Fay, & Frank M. Hull!

http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201814788.pdf

AMEZCUA-PRECIADO v. U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, 11th Cir., 12-03-19, published (per curium)

PANEL: BRANCH, FAY and HULL, Circuit Judges.

Maria Amezcua-Preciado, a native and citizen of Mexico, along with her two minor children, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) final order reversing the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) grant of her application for asylum and denying her withholding of removal. The BIA concluded, based on recent precedent from the Attorney General, Matter of A-B-, 27 I. & N. Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018), that Amezcua-Preciado’s proposed social group of “women in Mexico who are unable to leave their domestic relationships” was not a cognizable particular social group under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”). After review, we agree with the BIA that Amezcua-Preciado failed to establish membership in a particular social group. We thus deny Amezcua- Preciado’s petition for review.

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Wow, what an amazingly gutless and disingenuous performance! Complicit Article III courts have become one of the Trump Regime’s key White Nationalist tools for “deconstructing” U.S. immigration, refugee, and asylum laws.

These aren’t legal disagreements; they are a derelictions of ethical and moral responsibilities. Matter of A-B- was a biased, legally incorrect, factually distorted, unethical attack on asylum law by a Sessions, who was not a “fair and impartial adjudicator.” It ignored a generation of well-developed jurisprudence, legal analysis, and overwhelming factual support for recognizing gender-based domestic violence as a basis for asylum.

Matter of A-R-C-G-, overruled by A-B-, represented a broad consensus within the legal community. Indeed, much of the impetus for that decision came from DHS itself, who had been successfully and efficiently applying its principles in Asylum Offices and in Immigration Courts long before A-R-C-G- actually became a precedent. Remarkably, no actual party requested Sessions’s intervention in A-B-; he rejected ICE’s request to vacate his interference and return the case to the BIA for adjudication under A-R-C-G- criteria. Obviously, the fix was on. But, that made no difference to Branch, Fay, and Hull in their disingenuous haste to “roll over” for the White Nationalist agenda.

I hope that when future historians eventually dissect the rancid racism, misogynism, and White Nationalism of the current regime they will fully expose jurists like Branch, Fay, & Hull who used their privileged positions to “go along to get along,” enabling and furthering the regime’s illegal and unethical “war on asylum seekers, migrants of color, and women.”

DUE PROCESS FOREVER; COMPLICIT COURTS NEVER!

PWS

12-03-18

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
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  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?”