🤮 ALLEGATIONS OF RACISM IN OHIO LATEST SLAM AGAINST MERRICK GARLAND’S FAILED “COURTS!” — “(People) need to know how these courts are just a mockery and that they’re really harming people,” says one Ohio advocate! — Lack of due process, poor performance, systemic racial injustice make Garland’s “courts” a “millstone around the neck” for American Justice and Dems!☠️

 

Lady Injustice
“Lady Injustice” has found a home at Garland’s dysfunctional EOIR! Black Mauritanians and other asylum seekers of color find that the scales of justice are systemically weighted against them when on trial for their lives in AG Garland’s “courts!” 
Public Realm
Danae King
Danae King
Faith & Values & Immigration Reporter
Columbus Dispatch

https://apple.news/AgFzMWECESo-_Tr_S7-sMDg

DANAE KING | USA TODAY NETWORK:

. . . .

In 2020, asylum seekers from Sub-Saharan Africa were deemed not credible in 8.5% of interviews, over 37% more often than, on average, for all nationalities that year, according to an August 2022 U.S. Shadow Report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, submitted by several advocacy organizations.

“This data further confirms concerns raised about implicit racial and other bias in credibility determinations in US asylum adjudications,” the report states.

The report notes that Black asylum seekers face different treatment in the immigration system than others, including longer than average detention times, trouble finding accurate and adequate interpreters, different treatment in court, lack of access to counsel, purposefully rushed proceedings, biased judges, wrongful denial of asylum and more.

Lynn Tramonte has seen all those scenarios happen in Ohio.

“In immigration court, it’s almost like you’re guilty until proven innocent and they would rather err on the side of deporting a refugee who was tortured than granting asylum to someone who might be lying,” said Tramonte, director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, a group of Ohio immigrants and citizens who work to protect the dignity and rights of all through activism.

Nemecek has also seen judges and government attorneys “team up on (immigrants) and ask all kinds of questions and find them not credible.”

From 2002 to 2022, 713 Mauritanians went before immigration judges in Cleveland, and 443 were denied asylum. Another 28 had another form of relief, such as withholding of removal, and 242 were granted asylum, according to TRAC.

The United States Department of State considers Mauritania so dangerous that it recommends U.S. citizens don’t travel there due to crime and terrorism.

Tramonte wishes judges would do more research on the nations where asylum seekers are coming from.

“They have zero knowledge of documents from other countries or even what it’s like to be tortured,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) disputed those claims.

. . . .

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

Read  Danae’s full article at the link!

“Courtside” and others have been raising these issues for a long time! Yet, Garland has neither spoken out nor taken action to “clean up” courts that every expert would say are “broken” and need major changes, including better-qualified judges who have true expertise in asylum and human rights! 

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke is totally “MIA” on this serious issue and on the racially-driven travesties in DOJ’s “wholly-owned” court system, in immigration detention centers, and at the Southern Border! Associate AG Vanita Gupta, once a civil rights icon, has “vaporized” on perhaps the biggest, potentially solvable, civil rights/racial justice issue facing America! What’s happening here?

I spent years doing Mauritanian asylum cases on the EOIR Ohio Docket (and, to a lesser extent, in the “Legacy” Arlington Immigration Court). Most were clear grants of asylum! Few were appealed by ICE! Almost none were reversed by the BIA! I doubt that conditions have improved materially since then. 

Unfortunately, mistreatment of Black Mauritanian asylum seekers by EOIR is nothing new. It has a long and disreputable history going back decades.

In the late 1990’s, my now Round Table colleague Judge Lory Diana Rosenberg and I frequently dissented from wrong-headed denials of Mauritanian asylum claims by our BIA colleagues. See, e.g., Matter of M-D-, 23 I&N Dec. 1180, 1185, 1189 (Schmidt, Chairman, Rosenberg, Board Member dissenting), rev’d sub nom, Diallo v. INS, 232 F.3d 279 (2d Cir. 2000). There, the Circuit, in a decision written by Chief Judge Walker, agreed with many of the points raised by Judge Rosenberg and me in our respective dissents: “[T]he BIA failed to: (1) rule explicitly on the credibility of Diallo’s testimony; (2) explain why it was reasonable in this case to expect additional corroboration; or (3) assess the sufficiency of Diallo’s explanations for the absence of corroborating evidence.”

Judge Rosenberg and I were later “rewarded” by AG John Ashcroft by being “purged” from the BIA, along with a minority of other colleagues who had the temerity to stand up for the legal and human rights of migrants! Folks at EOIR “got the message” that standing up for immigrants’ rights and due process could be “career threatening!”

 That, in turn, unleashed a crescendo of sloppy, anti-migrant, dehumanizing decisions emanating from EOIR. Things got so bad so fast that subsequent Bush II AGs Gonzalez and Mukasey were finally forced, under extreme pressure from the Article IIIs, to intervene and put a stop to the most glaring abuses.

But, in fact, the EOIR system never recovered from that debacle. From then on, the BIA has been largely a “captain may I rubber stamp” (credit “Sir Jeffrey” Chase) for DHS Enforcement and each Administration’s political agenda. It’s been a continuous downward spiral, with subsequent AGs either actively encouraging abuses of asylum seekers and other migrants or being “willfully indifferent” to the ongoing legal and human rights disasters on their watches. 

It’s interesting how when the “powers that be” ignore abuses, they don’t go away. They just fester and get worse. Garland’s “what me worry” stewardship over EOIR is a classic example.

As for EOIR’s claim that they are providing IJs with “robust” asylum training, in the words of my friend, Kansas City attorney (and former Arlington intern) Andrea Martinez, “I call BS!” The proof is in the results!

My friend and Round Table colleague Judge “Sir Jeffrey” Chase puts it more elegantly:

In stating that the program is “robust” (i.e. fine as is), who among EOIR’s upper-level leadership is enough of an expert in the topic to make that determination? There are actually recent IJ hires with a great deal of expertise in asylum and CAT, but to my knowledge, they are not the ones creating or presenting the trainings.

EOIR’s asylum and CAT training remains insufficient, and the evidence of this can be found in the deluge of Circuit Court reversals, or even from simply reviewing hearing transcripts. Just compare the USCIS Asylum Officer training program with EOIR’s IJ training materials. A particular problem is the failure to properly train new IJs in the case law of the specific circuit in which they sit. Immigration Judges are largely left to their own devices to learn the law properly.

As the article states, these issues concerning Ohio have been raised before! See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/10/07/🏴☠%EF%B8%8F🤮-halls-of-injustice-allegations-of-racism-misogyny-islamophobia-other-bias-have-been-swirling-around-garlands-dysfunctional-eoir/ Yet, there is no response from Garland. If the DOJ has done an investigation, the results should be made public. If not, the public deserves to know why prima facia credible allegations of systemic racism in his Immigration Courts have been ignored or deemed not credible.

Another example of superior asylum training available “on the market” is that developed by Professor Michele Pistone (a true asylum expert who has taught and inspired generations of attorneys now serving in and out of government) at VIISTA Villanova. I am sure that EOIR could have arranged with Professor Pistone to create a “world class” asylum training program for both new and experienced IJs. Indeed, she would have been a logical choice for Garland to have recruited for a senior position at EOIR.

The talent to fix EOIR exists on the open market. However, EOIR can’t be fixed with the senior management team Garland has put, or in some cases left, in place.

In the meantime, the stunningly poor quality, blatant racial insensitivity, and inept judicial administration Garland tolerates at EOIR will continue to be a millstone around the neck of American Justice and the Democratic Party. To what depths Garland will drag both remains to be seen.

Millstone
Garland’s dysfunctional and systemically biased Immigration “Courts” are a millstone around the neck for American Justice and Dems!
Creative Commons license

Finally, where are progressive human and civil rights stalwarts like Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ) on this issue? Why haven’t they demanded some accountability from Garland? And, whatever happened to our first African-American Veep Kamala Harris? Does she still exist? What’s more important than racial justice in “life or death courts” wholly controlled by her Dem Administration?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-18-23

3RD CIRCUIT’S JULY 4 MESSAGE TO ABUSED LATINAS: YOUR LIVES DON’T MATTER! – S.E.R.L v. Att’y Gen., JULY 3, 2018 — PLUS MY ESSAY: How “Go Along To Get Along” Judging Costs Innocent Lives!

172031p — SERL

 

S.E.R.L. v. Att’y Gen., No. 17-2031, 3rd Cir., July 3, 2018

HOLDING: Latinas fleeing persecution in the Northern Triangle can expect no protection under U.S. asylum laws in the Third Circuit.

PANEL:  Circuit Judges Kent Jordan, Cheryl Ann Krause; Senior Circuit Judge Ira Morton Greenburg

OPINION BY: Judge Kent Jordan

KEY QUOTES:

S.E.R.L., a native of Honduras, seeks review of the denial of her application for asylum and statutory withholding of removal based on membership in a proposed particular social group that she characterizes as “immediate family members of Honduran women unable to leave a domestic relationship[.]”2 (Opening Br. at 21.) She fears persecution by two men, Jose Angel and Juan Orellana. Jose Angel abducted, raped, and continues to stalk one of S.E.R.L.’s daughters, K.Y.R.L. That daughter has already been granted asylum in the United States. Juan Orellana is S.E.R.L.’s stepfather and has repeatedly abused S.E.R.L.’s mother. S.E.R.L. fears that if she is removed to Honduras, both men will persecute her, Jose Angel because of her relationship to her daughter, and Juan Orellana because of her relationship to her mother. S.E.R.L. and two of her children fled here from Honduras in 2014. Within a month of their unlawful arrival, the Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings pursuant to INA § 212(a)(6)(A)(i). S.E.R.L. conceded removability, and timely applied for asylum and statutory withholding of removal.4 In support of her claims for relief, she alleged past persecution and a fear of future persecution based on the relationships just noted.

. . . .

S.E.R.L. contends that the BIA’s change innomenclature from “social visibility” to “social distinction” is the only change the BIA has made to its test for assessing a“particular social group,” and, she says, that is a “distinction without a difference.” (Reply Br. at 5.) According to S.E.R.L., our decision in Valdiviezo-Galdamez forecloses application of the “particularity” and “social distinction”requirements. She also argues that the BIA plainly acknowledges that it has not changed course, nor has itprovided a “principled” explanation for why it continues to impose criteria we rejected in Valdiviezo-Galdamez. (Opening Br. at 31.)

In addition, those who have filed amicus briefs in this case point out that the BIA’s decisions in M-E-V-G- andW-G-R- could be read as inconsistent with certain other BIA decisions and contrary to the canon of ejusdem generis. Amici note, for example, that in W-G-R-, the BIA concludedthat “‘former members of the Mara 18 gang in El Salvadorwho have renounced their gang membership’ does not constitute a particular social group” in part because “the group could include persons of any age, sex, or background.”26 I. & N. Dec. at 221. Yet, even though the groups varied significantly across age, sex, and background, the BIA has also held that “Filipinos of Chinese [a]ncestry” constituted a “particular social group,” In re V-T-S-, 21 I. & N. Dec. 792, 798 (BIA 1997), and that “former member[s] of the national police” in El Salvador, Fuentes, 19 I. & N. Dec. at 662, likewise could be cognizable.15 And although the BIA expressly justified its new requirements as “[c]onsistent with the interpretive canon ‘ejusdem generis,’” M-E-V-G-, 26 I. & N. Dec. at 234, amici highlight that some of the enumerated grounds for persecution, including “political opinion,” and “religion,” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A), may themselves be thought of as amorphous, diffuse, or subjective and therefore as insufficient bases for PSGs under M-E-V-G-’s requirements.

Those critiques raise legitimate concerns. The BIA has chosen to maintain a three-part test for determining the existence of a particular social group, and it has discussed how the revised particularity and social distinction requirements are not a departure from but a ratification of requirements articulated in its prior decisions. M-E-V-G-, 26 I. & N. Dec. at 234. And the arguable inconsistencies in its precedent highlight the risk that those requirements could be applied arbitrarily and interpreted to impose an unreasonably high evidentiary burden, especially for pro se petitioners, at the threshold. At the same time, however, we recognize thatM-E-V-G- is a relatively recent decision and clarity and consistency can be expected to emerge with the accretion of case law. That process is aided by M-E-V-G- itself, which addressed the specific concerns we raised in Valdiviezo- Galdamez, and explained why the particularity and social distinction requirements are different from one another and necessary. We now consider each of those requirements, beginning with social distinction, to explain why, notwithstanding our concerns, we conclude that the requirements are reasonable and warrant Chevron deference.

. . . .

Although S.E.R.L. also relies heavily on Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I. & N. Dec. 388 (BIA 2014), where the BIAhad held that “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship” constituted a particular socialgroup, the Attorney General recently issued a decision overruling A-R-C-G-. See Matter of A-B-, 27 I. & N. Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018).

. . . .

At the same time, we are mindful of the role that courts can and must play to ensure that agencies comply withtheir “obligation to render consistent opinions,” Chisholm v. Def. Logistics Agency, 656 F.2d 42, 47 (3d Cir. 1981), including, as relevant here, review of BIA decisions for inconsistent application of M-E-V-G’s requirements to similarly situated petitioners, routine rejection of proposed PSGs without reasoned explanation, and the imposition of insurmountable evidentiary burdens that would render illusory the opportunity to establish a PSG. However, just as we will carefully examine cases on petition for review to guard against such dangers, we anticipate that the BIA will scrutinize the IJ decisions that come before it with those considerations in mind and with an eye towards providing clear guidance and a coherent body of law in this area.

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

3RDCIRCUIT’S JULY 4 MESSAGE TO ABUSED LATINAS:  YOUR LIVES DON’T MATTER! – S.E.R.L v. Att’y Gen., JULY 3, 2018 – How “Go Along To Get Along” Judging Costs Innocent Lives!

 

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

U.S. Immigration Judge (Ret.)

 

Judge Kent Jordan, Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, and Senior Judge Ira Morton Greenburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit got together in Philly, ”our nation’s birthplace,” on July 3, 2018 to deliver an early July 4 message for courageous Latinas fleeing the Northern Triangle: Your lives don’t matter; we’re OK with femicide, rape, torture, and abuse of you and your children as long as it’s out of sight, out of mind in some foreigncountry where we don’t have to listen to your screams or come across your mutilated bodies!

 

These judges’ names and faces are worth remembering, since they went to such great lengths to avoid taking or acknowledging any legal or moral responsibility for their own actions. Obviously, they don’t want anyone to put names and faces with consequences.

 

While you wouldn’t recognize it from their 43 pages of intentionally legalistic, opaque, de-humanized, gobbledygook, there is actually a simple straightforward human tragedy behind their obfuscation and task shirking. Since they won’t tell it, I will.

 

“Ms. S.E.R.L”. (I’ll call her “Susana”) is a native and citizen of Honduras. Honduras is a patriarchal “failed state” with a corrupt and incompetent government that does little or nothing to control gang violence and violence against women, even encouraging it or participating in the abuses in many cases. By 2015, femicides in Honduras had far surpassed “epidemic levels.” For example, in 2013, one Honduran woman was murdered every fourteen hours!

 

Jose Angel abducted, raped, and continued to stalk Susana’s daughter “Karla.” Susana’s stepfather, Juan Orellana repeatedly abused Susana’s mother without any interference from the government. Juan also threatened Susana personally. Having witnessed what these men did to her closest relatives, her daughter and her mother, Susana reasonably believed that she would be next. Karla was granted asylum in the U.S. Susana fled to the United States with two other daughters and applied for asylum.

 

Since Karla was granted asylum in the U.S., Susana expected the same humane treatment, particularly since our Supreme Court once said that asylum laws should be generously applied to those with as little as a 10% chance of being persecuted. After all, Honduran women are a distinct, well-recognized class subject to essentially uncontrolled specifically gender-based violence in a patriarchal society. Additionally, the family members closest to Susana had already suffered severe harm in Honduras at the hands of two specific men. And, her daughter Karla was being allowed to stay.

 

The Immigration Judge supposedly believed Susana. However, he came up with some creative ways, pioneered by the BIA, to deny her protection. First, he found that she had no reason to fear harm because she hadn’t actually been harmed or killed by either Jose or Juan, despite the threats to her from Juan who obviously was capable of inflicting severe harm.  Second, he found she didn’t fit within any “particular social group,” whatever that might mean on a particular day. The went on to make the amazing finding that being a Honduran woman would have nothing to do with the harm anyway.

 

Perhaps, the judge believed that Honduran men suffered the same high rate of femicide as did women. Or, maybe he believed that guys like Jose and Juan and Honduran society in general wouldn’t recognize that Susana was a Honduran woman closely related to two previously abused Honduran women. The judge observed that refugee laws weren’t meant to protect women like Susana from “generalized violence,” even though Susana’s claim wasn’t based on generalized violence but rather specific violence directed at her.

 

The judge basically told Susana to buck up and accept her fate. The judge appeared to have no idea what actually happens to women like Susana in Honduras. Susana appealed to the BIA which had very recently found that a virtually identical situation qualified a woman for asylum. But, the other woman wasn’t Susana, and the BIA found some reasons why it was OK to send Susana back to where she might reasonably expect be killed, raped, or abused by Jose and/or Juan.

 

Susana appealed to a “real court”, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Unlike the Immigration Judge and the BIA, judges on the Third Circuit don’t work for Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Jeff hates foreign nationals, women, and particularly brown-skinned foreign women fleeing from persecution in Central America. He thinks that they are all coming here for economic reasons and should just go stand in a line to immigrate. But, Jeff knows that the line doesn’t really exist, and that they will likely be killed or disabled shortly after return anyway. What Jeff really wants is an America where only nasty old White guys like him hold all the power and non-White folks stay away.

 

Judge Kent Jordan, Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, and Senior Judge Ira Morton Greenburg decided Susana’s case. They recognized that the BIA had rewritten asylum law so that fewer individuals would be protected and more rejected. They also recognized that Jeff Sessions had further rewritten the laws so that women like Susana would have no chance of protection. They also knew that there were lots of good arguments against what the BIA and Jeff were doing and in favor of protecting Susana.

 

But the judges found another Supreme Court case saying that they really didn’t have to decide legal questions if Jeff Sessions and his subordinates had done it for them. They thought that it made sense to rewrite protection law so that very few people, particularly women of color, would be protected. According to their thinking, the asylum law is intended to reject, not protect. They also thought that because these were relatively new interpretations, Jeff and the BIA should have a chance to kill or harm as many Latinas as possible before they as judges might think about whether it was a good idea. Of course, by then, it would be too late for Susana and others like her. And, these judges don’t really have any intent or will to hold Sessions accountable anyway.

 

So, Judge Jordan, Judge Krause, and Judge Greenburg told Susana that she should be separated from her daughter Karla and go back to Honduras with her other daughters to die, be raped, be beaten, or whatever. They knew that she would receive no help from the Government. But, they just didn’t care. Because Susana and her daughters were not their daughters or granddaughters and they wouldn’t have to hear her screams or look at their dead bodies. But, history has recorded what they did. Let the slaughter of innocents commence.

 

Better, more courageous judges might have said the obvious: that “women in Honduras” are a particularized, distinct, immutable/fundamental protected group; that Susana is a member of that group; and that any reasonable person in her position would have an objectively reasonable fear of persecution if returned to Honduras.

 

They also could have castigated the BIA and Jeff Sessions for intentionally manipulating asylum law so as not to grant protection to some of the most vulnerable and needy refugees among us. But, this “Gang of Three’ who decided Susana’s case would have been happy pushing the St. Louisand its cargo of Jewish refugees from Germany back out to sea again. Any of the judges who looked at Susan’s case could have had spoken out for saving her life and the lives of her daughters. None did!

 

After abdicating their judicial functions to hold the Executive accountable, this “Gang of Three” dishonestly expresses concerns about consistency and not creating “insurmountable evidentiary burdens.” Get serious!

Everyone knows Jeff Sessions is ordering Immigration Judges to crank out more removal orders with little or no Due Process. He has publicly stated his disdain for asylum seekers and women asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle. He has made it clear that he intends to “deconstruct:” the entire U.S. protection system until the only “consistency” will be that nobody gets asylum. And with cases like his decision in Matter of A-B-and spineless “go along to get along” precedents like this from the Article III courts, Sessions is implementing his real plan – insuring that nobody who comes to the border and seeks asylum passes “credible fear” and even gets to an Immigration Judge hearing.

 

Judges like these can shirk their responsibilities and hide behind mountains of hollow words and legal platitudes. But, they won’t escape the judgement of history for their lack of courage, backbone, integrity, and their unwillingness to stand up for human rights and human decency in the face of tyranny.

 

Happy July 4, 2018 from Judge Kent Jordan, Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, and Senior Judge Ira Morton Greenburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit! They can celebrate. But, for Susana, her family, and other vulnerable refugee like her, there will be no celebration. Indeed, they might not even live to see another July 4! That should make us all ashamed as a nation!

 

PWS

07-05-18