🤮👎🏻EOIR’S CONTEMPT FOR CIRCUITS, UNPROFESSIONAL ABUSE OF EXPERTS, PRO-DHS BIAS EARNS STRONG REBUKE FROM 9TH! — End The Star Chambers!☠️ — No More “Governmental Malpractice” From The New Administration!

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”
Kangaroos
BIA Members Unwind After Harassing Another Expert, Overruling Circuit Court, & Aiding Their “Partners” At ICE In Demeaning Justice
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
Creative Commons License

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2020/11/18/19-72745.pdf

Castillo v.Barr, 9rh Cir., 11-18-20, published

Summary by court staff:

Granting Juan Mauricio Castillo’s petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ denial of his application for protective status pursuant to the Convention Against Torture, and remanding, the panel held that the Board erred in giving reduced weight to the testimony of Dr. Thomas Boerman, a specialist in gang activity in Central America and governmental responses to gangs.

Castillo is a former gang member with tattoos who fears torture by gangs and/or Salvadoran officials because of his former gang memberships, his criminal conviction, and his later cooperation with law enforcement against La Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13. In a prior petition, the same panel concluded that the immigration judge and the Board improperly discounted Dr. Boerman’s testimony.

The panel addressed two initial matters. First, the panel stated that the Board’s rejection on remand of the panel’s prior interpretation of the immigration judge’s decision was ill-advised, explaining that its prior disposition was not an advisory opinion, but a conclusive decision not subject to disapproval or revision by another branch of the federal government. Second, the panel rejected the Board’s reliance on Vatyan v. Mukasey, 508 F.3d 1179 (9th Cir. 2007), to support its conclusion that Dr. Boerman’s testimony should be given reduced weight, because Vatyan addressed an IJ’s

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

   

CASTILLO V. BARR 3

discretion to weigh the “credibility and probative force” of an authenticated document, whereas the issue in this case involved the testimony of an expert that the agency had ostensibly concluded was fully credible.

Even assuming the agency could accord reduced weight to Dr. Boerman’s testimony and declaration, the panel disagreed with the Board’s new justifications. First, the panel rejected the Board’s reliance on alleged inconsistencies regarding Dr. Boerman’s familiarity with Castillo’s prison gang, where Dr. Boerman explicitly wrote in his declaration that his comments on Castillo’s prison gang were based on facts provided by Castillo, and the Board did not cite any reason to doubt Castillo’s testimony regarding rival gangs.

Second, the panel disagreed with the Board’s conclusion that Dr. Boerman’s testimony did not warrant full weight because he did not submit a copy of a video referenced in his testimony, where the video was neither the sole nor primary basis for his opinion, and the Board failed to explain why the absence of one video diminished the weight of Dr. Boerman’s expert opinion, when his opinion had an independent factual basis.

Finally, the panel concluded that the Board’s decision to give Dr. Boerman’s opinion reduced weight, because it was not corroborated by other evidence in the record, was erroneous. The panel observed that the country report did provide support for Castillo’s claim, and it noted that Dr. Boerman’s expert testimony was itself evidence that could support Castillo’s claim.

The panel remanded to the Board, directing it to give full weight to Dr. Boerman’s testimony regarding the risk of

 

4 CASTILLO V. BARR

torture Castillo faces if removed to El Salvador. The panel explained that if the Board determines once again that Castillo is not entitled to relief, it must provide a reasoned explanation for why Dr. Boerman’s testimony is not dispositive on the issue of probability of torture. The panel further explained that once it gives full weight to Dr. Boerman’s testimony, the remaining issue for the Board is to determine whether Castillo has established the government acquiescence element of his CAT claim.

***********

Essentially, EOIR has been unethically misusing their authority to harass Dr. Boerman and respondents’ advocates by systematically teaming up with ICE to devalue and defeat their efforts. Remarkably, this is even though Dr. Boerman and the advocacy community are “busting their tails” trying to help the system function properly and achieve justice! How screwed up, perverted, and cowardly is that?

Obviously justice and a functioning system have been antithetical to this regime and their toadies at DOJ and EOIR. With the degradation of the DOS Country Reports by political hacks, expert testimony has become essential in most asylum cases. Disgraceful performances by EOIR, as in this case, undermine the system and add to the backlog.

This case should have been completed in a single hearing. The BIA’s open contempt for the Circuits and failure to send strong signals to IJs (and the dilatory litigators at ICE) about issues that clearly should be resolved in the respondent’s favor is a mockery of justice!

Put the experts from the NDPA in charge of EOIR! Replace the BIA with real judges from the NDPA — asylum, human rights, and due process experts who will courageously stand up for the rule of law and hold both Immigration Judges and ICE accountable for scofflaw performances (and resist improper political interference from the DOJ — regardless of Administration). 

Judges who will re-establish judicial independence and stop flooding the Circuit Courts (and even the U.S. District Courts) with cases and issues that should be resolved in favor of respondents at the trial level, consistently and efficiently. That’s how to stop DHS’s and DOJ’s frivolous, unethical, anti-immigrant “litigation positions” in immigration matters that are bogging down our justice system at all levels.

That’s also how to cut, rather than astronomically increase, backlogs (along with drastic pruning of all the “deadwood” mindlessly and improperly piled onto the EOIR docket by Sessions, Barr, and an out of control ICE acting as an arm of “White Nationalist nation”). The backlogs can be reduced and eventually eliminated without stomping on anyone’s rights or adversely affecting “real” law enforcement — as opposed to the bogus (and fiscally irresponsible) version we have seen from DHS over the past four years.

Stop “churning” cases! Stop the “denial factory! Create a model, best judicial practices, due-process oriented court system of which we all can be proud! Grant asylum expeditiously and consistently to those who qualify for protection under Cardoza-Fonseca, Mogharrabi, Kasinga, and A-R-C-G- (after vacating the A-B- travesty and reissuing it as a precedent for clear grants in all similar cases)! Encourage the Asylum Offices to do likewise! Make “equal justice for all” part of the new Administration’s legacy! 

Think of what a great “teaching tool” that will be for future generations! I always treated my “courtroom as a classroom,” teaching law, history, practical problem solving, best interpretations, and best practices. I can’t think of a more powerful “real life” teaching and doing tool for improving the future of American justice — from the “retail level” of the Immigration Courts to the failing Supremes.

Due Process Forever! A weaponized and dysfunctional EOIR, never! 

It’s time for a sea change at EOIR. End the kakistocracy and the “malicious incompetence!” Time for action by the Biden Administration — not just hollow promises and more endless studies and discussions of what we already know and have known for years!

It’s not rocket science! The practical scholars and steadfast defenders of due process and democracy in the NDPA who can fix EOIR are out here and prepared to take over and hit the ground running for due process and fundamental fairness at EOIR! (Amazingly, those were once the goals and vision for EOIR, now trampled, degraded, mocked, and forgotten!)  Leaving them on the sidelines again would be “governmental malpractice!” And we’ve already had more than enough of that!

PWS

11-19-20

ROUND TABLE 🛡⚔️ SPEAKS OUT ON ACQUIESCENCE IN 9TH CIR, WITH HELP FROM PROFESSOR KARI HONG🦸‍♀️🌟

Professor Kari Hong
Professor Kari Hong
Boston College Law
Photo: BC Law Website

Here’s the brief:

Ramos Mendoza Amicus Roundtable 17 71841

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

Thanks, Kari!

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-02-20

“TORTURE” UNDER U.N. DEFINITION! ☠️— “GOVERNMENT-SANCTIONED CHILD ABUSE!” — WHAT HAVE WE BECOME AS A PEOPLE & A NATION? — AMERICA HAS PUT NOTORIOUS CHILD ABUSERS AND SHAMELESS “PERPS” OF “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” IN CHARGE — We Now Have A Chance To Throw Them Out & Start The Return To Human Decency As An Overriding National Value! 🗽

 

Here’s an array of reports on how America under the Trump regime has joined the ranks of dictatorships, torturers, child abusers, persecutors, and human rights criminals!

Eugene Robinson
Eugene Robinson
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post
Source: WashPost Website

Eugene Robinson @ WashPost:

What kind of people are we? As a society, are we so decadent and insecure that we show “toughness” by deliberately being cruel to innocent children? Is this what our nation has come to? Or are we better than that?

This election demands we answer those questions. The choice between President Trump and Joe Biden is not just political. It is also moral. And perhaps nothing more starkly illustrates the moral dimension of that decision than the Trump administration’s policy of kidnapping children at the southern U.S. border, ripping them away from their families — and doing so for no reason other than to demonstrate Trump’s warped vision of American strength.

We learned this week that some of those separations will probably be permanent. As NBC News first reported, 545 boys and girls taken as many as three years ago — the children of would-be immigrants and asylum seekers, mostly from Central America — have not been reunited with their parents and may never see their families again.

These are not among the nearly 3,000 families separated at the border in 2018, when children were kept in cages like animals or shipped away to facilities across the country, hundreds or thousands of miles from the border. We now know, thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union and other pro bono lawyers, that an additional 1,500 children were torn away from their families beginning in 2017, when the Trump administration conducted a trial run of the separation policy.

Please think about that. The shocking scenes we saw two years ago did not result from a sudden spasm of presidential anger. They didn’t stem from a Fox News segment Trump might have seen one evening. Rather, the administration rehearsed this form of cruelty.

What the administration did not plan for was how to reunite the children taken in 2017 with their families. Many of the parents were deported, and their children were placed in shelters around the country, then ostensibly released to parents or guardians, placements that the ACLU is still trying to confirm.

[Our Democracy in Peril: A series on the damage Trump has caused — and the danger he would pose in a second term]

The ACLU and other organizations have sent investigators to towns and villages in Central America in an attempt to find the kidnapped children’s families — an effort complicated not just by time and distance, but also by the covid-19 pandemic. Parents of 545 children have not been found, the ACLU reported this week.

Disturbingly, the Department of Homeland Security suggested that some of the parents declined to get their children back so they could remain in the United States. Keep in mind that most of these families were seeking asylum from deadly violence in their home countries. The Trump administration changed immigration guidelines to make it unlikely that the families would ultimately be allowed to stay in the United States, but federal law gives them the right to apply for asylum and to have their cases heard. They did nothing wrong. They should never have been asked to choose between parenting their children and getting them to safety — not by their home countries, and not by the United States.

Trump’s racism and xenophobia have been hallmarks of his presidency from the beginning, so perhaps it should be no surprise that he would preside over such an outrage. But he didn’t do this by himself. He had plenty of help.

Former attorney general Jeff Sessions seized an opportunity to make his rabid antipathy toward Hispanic immigration into policy. White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, a former Sessions aide in the Senate, was the architect of Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. Then-White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly said in 2018 that the children taken would be “taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.” Former homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said last year that she regretted that “information flow and coordination to quickly reunite the families was clearly not in place” — but not the separations themselves.

. . . .

Read the rest of Eugene’s article here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/do-we-tolerate-the-kidnapping-of-children-this-election-is-our-chance-to-answer/2020/10/22/0f60d17c-1496-11eb-ad6f-36c93e6e94fb

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

Elise Foley
Elise Foley
Deputy Enterprise Editor
HuffPost
Photo Source: HuffPost.com

Elise Foley @ HuffPost:

President Donald Trump’s administration started and carried out a policy that took more than 4,000 children from their parents, at least 545 of whom are still split apart years later. But at Thursday’s debate, the president insisted that he did nothing wrong at all ― blaming his Democratic predecessors and even insisting the kids are doing fine.

“They are so well taken care of,” Trump said of the children taken from their parents by his administration. “They’re in facilities that were so clean.”

Trump’s first term was marked by a full-out assault on immigration, both legal and unauthorized. The most dramatic was his “zero tolerance” policy on unauthorized border-crossing, used in a 2017 pilot program and expanded more broadly in 2018, that led to criminal prosecution of parents and locking up their kids separately. Splitting up families was intentional and calculated, according to multiple reports.

Thanks to mass public outrage and a court order, Trump was forced to stop his family separation policy. Most families were reunited, but the American Civil Liberties Union, which was part of the lawsuit against the government that stopped the policy, said this week that at least 545 kids are still away from their parents.

“Their kids were ripped from their arms and separated,” Democratic nominee Joe Biden said during the debate. “And now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It’s criminal.”

. . . .

Read the rest of Elise’s article here:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-debate-family-separation_n_5f924368c5b62333b2439d2b

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

Ruth Marcus
Washington Post Columnist Ruth Marcus, moderates a panel discussion about chronic poverty with Education Secretary John B. King and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, during the National Association of Counties at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park, in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016. U.S. Department of Agriculture photo by Lance Cheung.

Ruth Marcus @ WashPost:

545.

That is the number of children still separated from their families by the Trump administration — separated deliberately, cruelly and recklessly. They might never be reunited with their parents again. Even if they are, the damage is unimaginable and irreparable.

545.

Even one would be too many. Each one represents a unique tragedy. Imagine being ripped from your parents, or having your child taken from you. Imagine the desperation that the parents feel, the trauma inflicted on their children.

545.

That number represents an indelible stain on President Trump and every individual in his administration who implemented this policy, flawed at the conception and typically, gruesomely incompetent in the execution. It is, perhaps in the technical sense but surely in the broader one, a crime against humanity. It is torture.

545.

That number — I will stop repeating it, yet it cannot be repeated enough — represents a moral challenge and responsibility for the next administration. If Joe Biden is elected president, he must devote the maximum resources of the federal government to fixing this disaster. The United States broke these families; it must do whatever it takes to help them heal.

Nothing like that would happen in a second Trump term, because Trump himself doesn’t care. He doesn’t grasp the horror that he oversaw. He doesn’t comprehend the policy, and he is incapable of feeling the pain it inflicted.

Those truths could not have been clearer cut than during Thursday night’s debate.

Moderator Kristen Welker of NBC News asked the president a simple question: “How will these families ever be reunited?”

First, Trump misstated the situation: “Their children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they’re brought here, and they used to use them to get into our country.”

No. These are children separated from their families, not separated from smugglers. They are children brought by their parents in desperate search of a better life, desperate enough that they would take the risk of the dangerous journey.

Then Trump pivoted to the irrelevant: “We now have as strong a border as we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles of brand new wall. You see the numbers. And we let people in, but they have to come in legally.”

Welker persisted: “But how will you reunite these kids with their families, Mr. President?”

Trump responded by pointing his finger at his predecessor: “Let me just tell you, they built cages. You know, they used to say I built the cages, and then they had a picture in a certain newspaper and it was a picture of these horrible cages and they said look at these cages, President Trump built them, and then it was determined they were built in 2014. That was him.”

This is typical Trumpian deflection, bluster undergirded by ignorance. The “cages” are ugly but irrelevant to the topic at hand: the deliberately cruel plan to deter border-crossing by separating children from parents. That was a Trump administration special, implemented with callous sloppiness and so extreme that even the Trump administration abandoned it.

Welker, for the third time: “Do you have a plan to reunite the kids with their families?”

At which point Trump made clear that he did not: “We’re trying very hard, but a lot of these kids come out without the parents, they come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs.” The children, he added later, “are so well taken care of, they’re in facilities that were so clean.”

. . . .

Read the rest of Ruth’s op-ed here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/545-children-are-still-separated-from-their-families-what-if-one-of-them-were-yours/2020/10/23/63d3be04-154f-11eb-ba42-ec6a580836ed_story.html

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

Bess Levin
Bess Levin
Politics & Finance Writer
Vanity Fair


Bess Levin
@ Vanity Fair:

The third and final presidential debate gave Donald Trump and Joe Biden the opportunity to make their final pitch to the American people before the 2020 election. For the Democratic nominee, that meant driving home the point that he believes in science, that he’ll take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously, that climate change is real, and that systemic racism must be dealt with. For Trump, it meant making it clear that in addition to being a science-denying, QAnon-promoting dimwit, he’s also an actual monster who thinks separating small children from their parents, in some cases permanently, is absolutely fine.

Asked by moderated Kristen Welker about the news that parents of 545 children separated at the border—60 of whom are under the age of five—cannot be located, Trump defended the policy and gave no explanation for how the government plans to find these people and reunite their families. “Children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they’re brought here and they used to use them to get into our country,” Trump said, which is objectively false, as they are brought here by their parents, which is why it’s called the family separation policy. “We now have as strong a border as we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles of brand new wall. You see the numbers and we let people in but they have to come in legally.”

pastedGraphic.png

Noting that Trump hadn’t answered the question, Welker pressed: “But how will you unite these kids with their families?”

“They built cages, they used to say I built cages…that was him,” Trump said, pointing to Biden and referring to the fact that the Obama administration did build temporary enclosures but failing, naturally, to mention that his predecessor did not separate families.

“Do you have a plan to reunite the kids with their parents?” Welker asked a third time. Again, Trump responded by claiming that the children “come without the parents, they come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs.”

At this point, Joe Biden was given a chance to weigh in and used his time to describe the policy implemented by Trump as the horror show all non-sociopaths know it to be. “Parents, their kids were ripped from their arms and they were separated and now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone, nowhere to go. It’s criminal.”

Then Trump interjected with what he apparently believed was an important point that would cast his administration in a much more favorable light and perhaps might even win it some awards or sainthood by the Catholic church. “Kristen, I will say this,” he told the moderator, of the children stolen from their parents. “They’re so well taken care of. They’re in facilities that are so clean.

pastedGraphic_1.png

With regard to that claim, NBC News reporter Jacob Soboroff weighed in on that after the debate, telling Rachel Maddow: “I was one of the reporters I guess the president mentioned, they invited me to go to the epicenter of this policy…what I saw was little children sitting on concrete floors, covered by mylar blankets, supervised by security contractors in a watchtower, it makes me sick every time I recall it. And Physicians for Human Rights…called this torture…the American Academy of Pediatrics called this state-sanctioned child abuse, and the president of the United States I guess interprets that as children being well taken care of.”

pastedGraphic_2.png

Read the rest of The Levin Report here:

https://mailchi.mp/c4319dce073e/levin-report-trumps-heart-bursting-with-sympathy-for-his-buddy-bob-kraft-2882762?e=adce5e3390

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

Jacob Soboroff
Jacob Soboroff
NBC Correspondent
Jacob Soboroff at the ABC News Democratic Debate
National Constitution Center. Philadelphia, PA.
Creative Commons License

Here’s a video from NBC New’s  Jacob Soboroff, who has actually been inside “Trump’s Kiddie Gulag.” Surprise spoiler: It’s not “nice.” More like “torture” and “child abuse.”

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/soboroff-the-conditions-of-migrant-children-trump-described-as-well-taken-care-of-made-me-sick-94450757764

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

Julia Edwards Ainsley

And, here’s another video from NBC News’s always incisive and articulate Julia Edwards Ainsley:

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/10/21/lawyers-cant-find-parents-of-545-migrant-children-separated-by-the-trump-administration.html

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

There is neither moral nor legal justification for what the Trump regime has done to asylum seekers and other migrants over the past four years as part of their racist, White Nationalist, nativist agenda. But, we can show that we’re a better country than his horrible vision by voting him and all of his enablers out of office! Vote ‘Em out, vote ‘Em out!

PWS

10-25-20

SUPREMES TO REVIEW TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S ILLEGAL RACIST/WHITE NATIONALIST POLICIES THAT THEY ALREADY HAVE ENABLED!  

 

Adam Liptak
Adam Liptak
Journalist
NY Times
Slowking4, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
Creative Commons License

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/us/supreme-court-trump-wall-asylum.html

By Adam Liptak

  • Oct. 19, 2020
    Updated 12:02 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review two major Trump administration immigration initiatives: a program that has forced at least 60,000 asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their requests are heard and the diversion of $2.5 billion in Pentagon money to build a barrier on the southwestern border.

Lower courts blocked both measures.  But the Supreme Court, in earlier orders, allowed them to remain in effect while appeals moved forward.  

The arguments in the two cases will not be heard until after the November election. Should President Trump’s Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., win, his administration could take steps to make the cases moot.

In the case on asylum seekers, an appeals court in February blocked the program, known as Remain in Mexico, saying it was at odds with both federal law and international treaties and was causing “extreme and irreversible harm.”

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

The losers in these cases have already been determined: the innocent human lives destroyed, the rule of law, the Constitution, human decency, and the Supremes’ reputation. If the Supremes’ majority hadn’t already “pre-judged” these cases in the regime’s favor, then their unwarranted and ethically questionable “early intervention” in the process to allow the abuses of humanity, Congressional authority, and the public fisc to continue would be even more unconscionable.

Indeed, both of these cases are examples of a democracy in danger, a judicial system in decay, and a  Supremes who have established themselves as part of the problem, not the solution.

Better Federal Judges for a Better America! It starts at the polls!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-19-20

SCOFFLAWS 🏴‍☠️ STUFFED AGAIN: Split 9th Agrees That Trump’s “Stunt Wall” Illegal — Sierra Club v. Trump!

Dan Kowalski
Dan Kowalski
Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca9-on-use-of-military-for-border-wall

pastedGraphic.png

Daniel M. Kowalski

12 Oct 2020

CA9 on Use of Military $ for Border Wall

Sierra Club v. Trump

“This appeal presents the question of whether the emergency military construction authority provided by 10 U.S.C. § 2808 (“Section 2808”) authorized eleven border wall construction projects on the southern border of the United States. We conclude that it did not. We also consider whether the district court properly granted the Organizational Plaintiffs a permanent injunction and whether the district court improperly denied the State Plaintiffs’ request for a separate permanent injunction. We affirm the decision of the district court on both counts. … We hold that the States and Sierra Club both have Article III standing and a cause of action to challenge the Federal Defendants’ border wall construction projects, that Section 2808 did not authorize the challenged construction, and that the district court did not abuse its discretion in either granting a permanent injunction to Sierra Club or in denying a separate permanent injunction to the States.”

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

PANEL:  THOMAS, Chief Judge, and WARDLAW and COLLINS, Circuit Judges

Opinion by Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas; Dissent by Judge Collins

The only real question here is whether the Supremes will bail out the regime’s scofflaws once again.

PWS

10-13-20

SPLIT 9TH CIR. PANEL TO TPS HOLDERS: Black & Brown Lives Don’t Matter! — Dissenting Judge Morgan Christen Stands Up For Equal Justice, Against Trump’s Racism, White Nationalism, & Nativism Endorsed By Panel Colleagues!

Shithole Countries
Trump’s Words Need No Deciphering
Phil Roeder from Des Moines, IA, USA
Creative Commons License

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-14/9thcircuit-immigrants-temporary-protected-status

Maura Dolan reports for the LA Times:

. . . .

“To the extent the TPS statute places constraints on the Secretary’s discretion, it does so in favor of limiting unwarranted designations or extensions of TPS,” wrote Callahan, an appointee of President George W. Bush. She was joined by Judge Ryan D. Nelson, an appointee of President Trump.

Judge Morgan Christen, an appointee of President Obama, dissented.

She said the Trump administration had changed policy and practice without public review. She described the administration’s action as “an abrupt and unexplained change.”

She noted that the lawsuit challenging the deportation notices said they were motivated by racial and ethnic bias.

Trump reportedly called Haiti and El Salvador “shithole countries” and characterized immigrants from Mexico and Central America as criminals and snakes.

“We cannot sweep aside the words that were actually used, and it would be worse for us to deny their meaning,” wrote Christen. “Some of the statements expressly referred to people, not to places. The President’s statements require no deciphering.”

A statement by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, which represented the immigrants and their children, said the ruling would not immediately end temporary protected status.

Such holders from these countries will be permitted to maintain their status until at least February, and those from El Salvador until at least November.

The challengers said they would appeal the ruling to a larger panel of the 9th Circuit.

 . . . .

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

Read Maura’s complete article at the link.

“The President’s statements require no deciphering.” Yup! The Federal Courts obviously know exactly what they are doing and what’s at stake when they blow by due process and equal protection to advance the Trump/Miller/Bar agenda of overt bigotry and racism, often supported by patently contrived or false narratives. 

In the end, this will be decided by the election. Still, the disingenuous, racism-denying performances of Judges Callahan and Nelson show why the already failing U.S Judicial system will remain a problem no matter who wins the election. The only issue is whether it will just be a problem or, if Trump were re-elected, become an out of control cancer that will hasten the demise of our democratic republic.

The case is Ramos v. Wolf.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-14-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻9th BLASTS BILLY THE BIGOT’S BIA’S BLATANTLY BIASED ANTI-ASYLUM ASSAULT — AGAIN — 2 More Losses For Billy’s Illegal “Any Reason To Deny” Program!

 

Dan Kowalski
Dan Kowalski
Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)

Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immgration Community:

Immigration Law

pastedGraphic.pngQ

Daniel M. Kowalski

25 Aug 2020

CA9 on Credibility: Iman v. Barr

Iman v. Barr

“In light of the totality of the circumstances and in the context of the administrative record presented to us, the evidence in this case compels the conclusion that Iman’s testimony was credible. Exercising jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1), we therefore grant the petition and remand to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats of to Doug Jalaie!]

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

CA9 on Asylum, Motions to Reopen: Aliyev v. Barr

Aliyev v. Barr

“We hold that the BIA abused its discretion by determining that a noncitizen who seeks to reopen an earlier application for relief and attaches that application to the motion has failed to attach the “appropriate application for relief” as required by § 1003.2(c)(1). … We therefore grant the petition and remand.”

[Hats off to Corrine Nikolenko and Michael W. Schoenleber!]

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

None of this is “rocket science.” It’s immigration basics. While these 9th Cir. panels “flag” the steady stream of elementary errors, they continue to beg the real question: Why do they allow it to continue?

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-25-20

‍‍‍🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮KAKISTOCRACY WATCH: BIA Continues To Get Pummeled For Absurdist Anti-Asylum “Jurisprudence” – Are The Article IIIs Finally Catching On? – If So, Why Does The BIA Still Exist? – Jeffrey S. Chase Analyzes Latest BIA Debacle From the 9th Cir. — Akosung v. Barr

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2020/8/16/9th-cir-to-bia-hiding-in-fear-is-not-reasonable-relocation

JEFFREY S. CHASE | OPINIONS/ANALYSIS ON IMMIGRATION LAW
9th Cir. to BIA: Hiding in Fear is Not Reasonable Relocation
In, Akosung v. Barr a young woman from Cameroon had been sentenced against her will to marry the village chieftain, or Fon, in order to settle a family debt. Not wishing to suffer this fate, she first hid locally. After her family’s assets and funds were seized, their crops were destroyed, and they were barred from attending social activities as punishment, she fled town.
Akosung remained a fugitive in Cameroon for over a year. A relative who harbored her in another city for most of that time asked her to leave out of fear of repercussions. After relocating again, she barely evaded capture. The police declined to get involved. Akosung eventually managed to cross into Nigeria, and from there, made her way to the U.S.
After an Immigration Judge denied asylum, the BIA dismissed Akosung’s appeal on two grounds. First, the Board determined that she had not shown harm on account of her membership in a particular social group consisting of “women resistant to forced marriage proposals.” More surprisingly, the Board concluded that, in spite of the above tale of near capture and narrow escape, Akosung could somehow safely relocate to another part of Cameroon.
Asylum will be denied to one who could reasonably relocate within their country. Where a dispute is so localized that it can be ended with a move to the next street, neighborhood, or town, the law sees no reason for international intervention.
However, federal regulations that are binding on immigration judges, asylum officers, and the BIA, recognize the complexity of determining whether such relocation, if possible, would be considered reasonable. Per the regulation:
(3) Reasonableness of internal relocation. For purposes of determinations under paragraphs (b)(1)(i), (b)(1)(ii), and (b)(2) of this section, adjudicators should consider, but are not limited to considering, whether the applicant would face other serious harm in the place of suggested relocation; any ongoing civil strife within the country; administrative, economic, or judicial infrastructure; geographical limitations; and social and cultural constraints, such as age, gender, health, and social and familial ties. Those factors may, or may not, be relevant, depending on all the circumstances of the case, and are not necessarily determinative of whether it would be reasonable for the applicant to relocate.
That’s quite a lot to consider. And in saying that the listed factors may or may not be relevant or determinative, the judge or asylum officer is being told to dive in deep in analyzing what factors exist, and how much they should matter.
Furthermore, the regulations state that where the persecutor is the government, or where the applicant has already suffered persecution, there is a legal presumption that such internal relocation is not reasonable. It’s not clear from the decision whether the issue was considered, but as the facts state that the applicant’s town was ruled by a council, that it was said council that ordered her marriage to the Fon, and that the police ceded jurisdiction over the matter to the council, a strong argument seems to exist that the persecutor in this case is the government.
Not surprisingly, such a detailed, in depth, thoughtful analysis that cedes so much authority to the immigration judge runs contrary to EOIR Director James McHenry’s goal of assembly line, rubber stamp adjudication. Of course, his agency’s recently proposed regulations aimed at destroying asylum directly attack this rule, and seek to replace it with a much simpler one in which the judges would draw a negative inference from the fact that the asylum seeker had managed to reach the U.S. It’s not clear why reaching the U.S. to seek asylum would demonstrate the reasonableness of remaining in the country in which one is being targeted. Perhaps McHenry seeks to imbue an entirely new meaning to the lyric from Frank Sinatra’s ode to my hometown: “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere?”
In Akosung, the Board treated the regulation as if McHenry’s changes were already in effect. It simply saw that it could easily rubber-stamp the IJ’s denial by checking the “internal relocation” box, and certainly did not bother to undertake the analysis that the actual binding regulation requires.
Fortunately, the Ninth Circuit called foul. Noting that the regulation requires a conclusion that, after considering all of the listed factors, it would be reasonable to expect the applicant to relocate, the court noted that “it hardly seems ‘reasonable to expect’ one facing persecution or torture to become a fugitive and live in hiding.”
The court added some additional statements of the obvious: first, that “‘relocate’ most naturally refers to resettlement or a change of residence, not the unstable situation of one who must always be ready to flee.” And also: “living in hiding does little to establish that a person is able to “avoid future persecution.” To the contrary, it establishes the opposite; hence, the hiding.
The Ninth Circuit also found error in the Board’s social distinction determination. The Board upheld the immigration judge’s questioning of “how anyone in society” would be able to recognize someone “as an individual who has declined a marriage proposal from a fon.”
The court first noted that the statement seemed to erroneously apply the “optical visibility” approach to social distinction (i.e. that the group member should be recognizable on sight to members of society), an approach the Board disavowed in Matter of M-E-V-G-. But the court added that even if the Board here meant that society in Cameroon would not recognize the group as distinct, Akosung’s experience, and that of another woman who she described as being successfully hunted down after also attempting to evade marriage to the Fon, demonstrate otherwise.
The court then quoted Matter of M-E-V-G- as requiring the group to be viewed as distinct “within the society in question,” adding that “the Board should have taken that into account.”
The court did not discuss further how “the society in question” should be defined. And the court’s citation was to page 237 of M-E-V-G-. But as I have noted when lecturing on the topic, the Board on page 243 of the same decision clarified that “persecution limited to a remote region of a country may invite an inquiry into a more limited subset of the country’s society, such as in Matter of Kasinga…where we considered a particular social group within a tribe.”
Later, on page 246 of M-E-V-G-, the Board stated that in Matter of Kasinga, “people in the Tchamba-Kunsuntu tribe” would view members of the particular social group in that case to be “a discrete and distinct group that was set apart in a meaningful and significant way from the rest of society.” The Board then stated its conclusion that the social group in Kasinga “was perceived as socially distinct within the society in question.”
Attorneys should cite to Akosung (along with M-E-V-G-) in arguing that the “society in question” to be considered for social distinction purposes is the society their clients inhabit.
Copyright 2020, Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved. Reprinted With Permission.

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Wow! Talk about absurdly unfair and totally biased!

For a “real judge” who is committed to due process and understands asylum law, this should have been a 30-minute hearing resulting in a grant of asylum! Instead two levels of EOIR “judges” got this grotesquely wrong in an attempt to deny asylum and return a refugee to harm or death when she clearly is entitled to protection. Because, that’s what their political “handlers” at DOJ and its wholly owned subsidiary EOIR want from their weaponized parody of a “court system.”

These aren’t “legal errors” or “legitimate differences of opinion.” No, they are evidence of “malicious incompetence” – deep intellectual dishonesty and corruption on the part of a fraudulent “tribunals” that under this regime have ceased to serve any legitimate function.

And, that also doesn’t say much good about Article III Courts who see these clear errors time and again, recognize them, yet fail to take the strong, systemic corrective action necessary to stop the BIA’s gross abuses of our legal system and humanity and to hold Billy the Bigot and his subordinate toadies accountable for their misfeasance! That’s a denial of due process by the Article IIIs; it means that only those with the wherewithal to get good representation and pursue appeals beyond EOIR can get anything resembling “justice.” I call that dereliction of duty by the Article IIIs!

Think about this! If folks don’t immediately leave after suffering persecution, then corrupt EOIR adjudicators will sometimes find them not to be in “real danger” or use it as specious “evidence” that the claim isn’t “credible.” But, if they do leave, then that nonsensically shows they could somehow “relocate.”

So in typical EOIR Kangaroo Court fashion, the refugee loses no matter what the facts! I guess that reinforces the “don’t come because we won’t protect you no matter” message that the “New EOIR” is there to deliver! The real issue, however, is why EOIR is still in existence and threatening both our legal system and those seeking justice in America?

Systemic racial injustice in America is no mystery! It’s fueled by Article III Courts that fail to intervene to stop the Trump regime’s racist assault on migrants of all types! Trump, Stephen Miller, “Wolfman” (actually illegally serving at DHS) make no secret of their racist agenda. But, life-tenured Article III Justices and Judges literally keep letting them get away with murder!

Due Process Forever! EOIR’s corrupt “Kangaroo Courts,” never!

PWS

08-17-20

WHITE NATIONALISTS BEWARE: 9th Cir. Fires Warning Shot Across Bow Of Racist Judges, Prosecutors, & Police — No Qualified Immunity For You, Neo-Nazis! — Reynaga Hernandez v. Skinner

Dan Kowalski
Dan Kowalski
Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)

 

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca9-on-fourth-amendment-reynaga-hernandez-v-skinner

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

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Daniel M. Kowalski

11 Aug 2020

CA9 on Fourth Amendment: Reynaga Hernandez v. Skinner

Reynaga Hernandez v. Skinner

“In late 2017, a witness in a courtroom in Billings, Montana, testified that one of the other witnesses, Miguel Reynaga Hernandez (“Reynaga”), was “not a legal citizen.” On the basis of this statement, the Justice of the Peace presiding over the hearing spoke with the local Sheriff’s Office and asked that Reynaga be “picked up.” Deputy Sheriff Derrek Skinner responded to the call. Outside the courtroom, Skinner asked Reynaga for identification and questioned him regarding his immigration status in the United States. Reynaga produced an expired Mexican consular identification card but was unable to provide detailed information regarding his immigration status because he does not speak English fluently. Skinner then placed Reynaga in handcuffs, searched his person, and escorted him to a patrol car outside the courthouse. With Reynaga waiting in the back of the patrol car, Skinner ran a warrants check and, after Reynaga’s record came back clean, asked Immigration and Custom Enforcement (“ICE”) if the agency had any interest in Reynaga. Reynaga was ultimately taken to an ICE facility and remained in custody for three months. Upon his release, Reynaga sued Skinner and Pedro Hernandez, the presiding Justice of the Peace (“Hernandez”), under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating his Fourth Amendment rights. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court denied each defendant qualified immunity and held that Reynaga’s Fourth Amendment rights had been violated. Skinner and Hernandez interlocutorily appeal the court’s denial of qualified immunity. We affirm.”

From NWIRP: “This decision is important as it makes clear that state and local law enforcement officers may be held liable under the civil rights statute if they unlawfully detain community members in order to turn them over to immigration enforcement,” said Matt Adams, legal director for NWIRP. “Police officers—and even local judicial officials—may be held accountable when, instead of serving the community, they take it upon themselves to stop people based on their suspected immigration status, the language they speak, or their ethnicity or the color of their skin.”  “The harm that [Judge Hernandez and Deputy Skinner] did to me is hard to explain,” said Mr. Reynaga in reacting to the court of appeals decision. “It’s something that lives in me and in my family now. It’s hard to describe what this harm represents to a person. But I’m very grateful for the work NWIRP has done for me. I’m very happy and proud that now immigrants here in Montana and in other states can know that we also have rights.”  Following the court of appeals decision, Mr. Reynaga’s case will return to the district court for further proceedings on the damages he is entitled to in light of the violation of his constitutional rights.”

[Hats way off to Matt Adams (argued), Leila Kang, Aaron Korthuis, and Anne Recinos, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Seattle, Washington, and Shahid Haque, Border Crossing Law Firm P.C., Helena, Montana; for Plaintiff-Appellee!]

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Who knows what the Supremes might do on on this? So far they have been reluctant to enforce the Constitution against racism in law enforcement. Remember, they recently gave the Border Patrol a license to unconstitutionally shoot and kill a Mexican kid across the border in Mexico. And, the Supremes majority has happily found ways to impose possible death sentences on legal asylum seekers of color without any meaningful process at all. 

The “JR Five” aren’t particularly creative thinkers —except when it comes to thinking of ways to dehumanize (“Dred Scottify”) persons of color under our Constitution. Then they often are happy to fabricate any rationale to deny due process and equal protection under our laws.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-12-20

JEFFREY S. CHASE: 9TH Circuit “Schools” BIA In Asylum Law – But, Will It Really Make Any Difference To “Death Board” In A Regime That Gives The Article IIIs, Congress, & The Law The Big Middle Finger Every Day With No Meaningful Consequences?  — Programmed To Deny Asylum At Any Cost, EOIR Under Billy The Bigot Is Largely Undeterred By Judicial Lectures Without Teeth!

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2020/8/10/9th-cir-sets-bia-straight-on-circularity

 

9th Cir. Sets BIA Straight on ‘Circularity’

On August 7, the U.S Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dealt a blow to the Trump Administration’s attacks on domestic violence-based asylum claims.  In Diaz-Reynoso v. Barr, the petitioner applied for withholding of removal to Guatemala because she had been persecuted by her domestic partner on account of her membership in the particular social group consisting of “indiginous women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship.”1  An immigration judge found her credible, but denied her applications for relief.

While her appeal was pending before the BIA, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued his decision in Matter of A-B-.  The BIA subsequently relied on that decision to reject the Petitioner’s particular social group.

Regarding this sequence of events, it’s important to realize that in 2014, the BIA issued a precedent decision holding that a particular social group consisting of “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship” could serve as a basis for asylum.  As a result, domestic violence-based asylum claims relied on this BIA-approved formulation as a model over the next four years.

When Sessions vacated the Board’s decision, many asylum claims relying on the prior precedent were already in the pipeline.  The BIA could have applied Matter of A-B- only prospectively to cases filed after Sessions’ decision.2  Or if it decided to apply the decision retroactively, it could have remanded the cases that had relied on the law at the time of filing to now allow them to modify their record in response to the superseding decision.

However, the Board did neither of these things.  Instead, it denied the pending cases with no individualized analysis, simply dismissing the claim as being too similar to the case that the Attorney General had just disagreed with.

In Diaz-Reynoso, the Ninth Circuit refuted the above approach by affirming the following points that have been raised repeatedly since the issuance of the AG’s decision, but that the BIA has continued to ignore.

First, the court held that Matter of A-B- does not categorically bar the granting of domestic violence-based asylum claims.  In the words of the court: “Far from endorsing a categorical bar, the Attorney General emphasized that the BIA must conduct the ‘rigorous analysis’ set forth in the BIA’s precedents.’”

Second, the court affirmed the commonly-held view that much of the AG’s decision in Matter of A-B- is nonbinding dicta.  In the words of the Ninth Circuit, the AG offered “some general impressions about asylum and withholding claims based on domestic violence and other private criminal activity.”  But the court noted that “despite the general and descriptive observations set forth in the opinion, the Attorney General’s prescriptive instruction is clear: the BIA must conduct the proper particular social group analysis on a case-by-case basis.”

Third, the court held that the particular social group that Sessions rejected in Matter of A-B- was not impermissibly circular.

As the concept of circularity can be confusing, I will offer some explanation.  In order to merit asylum, persecution must be on account of a statutory ground: race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.  Hypothetically, someone with a fear clearly unrelated to one of the necessary grounds could put forth an argument as follows: “I fear persecution.” “Why?” “Because I’m a member of a particular social group.” “What group?” “People who fear persecution.” “But why do they fear persecution?” “Because of their social group.”  “What group?” “People who fear persecution.”  And this could  go on and on, continuing in the same circle.

In a 2006 precedent decision, Matter of C-A-, the BIA cited to UNHCR guidelines on particular social groups as prohibiting this exact scenario, in which a group is defined exclusively by the harm.  The Board repeated the same rule a year later in another precedent, Matter of A-M-E- & J-G-U-, again using the word “exclusively” (although this time without the emphasis).3  However, the BIA in 2014 added language that a particular social group must exist independently of the persecution, without explaining whether this term differed in meaning from the “exclusively defined” prohibition, and if so, to what degree.

In Matter of A-B-, the AG first jumped to the conclusion that the reason an asylum-seeker is  “unable to leave the relationship” is due to persecution.4  And following that assumption, he rejected the particular social group as being impermissibly circular.

As stated above, the particular social group in Diaz-Reynoso was “indiginous women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship.”  The group was thus defined by the group members’ (1) indiginous status; (2) Guatemalan nationality; (3) gender; and (4) inability to leave their relationship.  So the group was clearly not exclusively defined by the persecution.

And yet, as the Ninth Circuit noted, “with almost no analysis, the BIA rejected Diaz-Reynoso’s proposed particular social group because it ‘suffer[ed] from the same circularity problem articulated by the Attorney General in Matter of A-B-.’”

The Ninth Circuit continued: “In the Government’s and dissent’s view, in order to exist independently from the petitioner’s feared harm, a proposed group may not refer to that harm at all. We disagree. The idea that the inclusion of persecution is a sort of poison pill that dooms any group does not withstand scrutiny.”

The court further clarified that a group exists independent of persecution when it “shares an immutable characteristic other than the persecution it suffers.”  As noted above, the particular social group here included three such immutable characteristics: indiginous status, nationality, and gender.  These serve as what the court termed “narrowing characteristics” independent of any harm.

The court further questioned the logic behind the agency’s restrictive view of circularity: “The purpose of asylum and withholding is to provide relief to people who have been persecuted in foreign lands because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion…The Government and dissent do not explain why a person seeking relief on the basis of membership in a particular social group should be required to omit any mention of threatened persecution.”

One additional point worth mentioning is that the Ninth Circuit looked to UNHCR materials for guidance, noting that the BIA has found UNHCR’s views to be “a useful interpretive aid.”

The Ninth Circuit’s decision should certainly be applauded by asylum advocates.  The court joined the First and Sixth Circuits in rejecting the reliance on Matter of A-B- as a basis for swiftly dismissing domestic violence claims.

But this litigation could have been avoided through the BIA properly doing its job.  The petitioner in this case endured four years of abuse at the hands of her tormentor.  She was forced by him to work without pay in the coffee fields as well as to have sex with him.  She was further subjected to weekly beatings, suffering bruises that sometimes lasted for 10 days.

The petitioner actually escaped to the U.S., where she was detained for a month and then deported back to Guatemala.  There, she was forced to return to her abuser when he threatened to otherwise kill her and her daughter and harm her mother.  Upon return, she was subjected to even worse abuse for another year.

And yet an appellate immigration judge with the BIA saw in this case an opportunity for a quick denial with no analysis, on the grounds that the particular social group that had been valid for four years now contained a few more words than the AG approved of.  This sadly demonstrates the present philosophy of the BIA, where the goal of achieving quick dismissals has usurped the need for reasoned analysis and due process.

The petitioner was represented by students and supervising counsel with the Hastings Appellate Project, an advocacy clinic of the University of California – Hastings College of Law.  Amicus briefs were filed by the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, Harvard Law School’s Immigration and Refugee Clinical Programs, and UNHCR.  Special mention is due to Blaine Bookey at CGRS, who so ably argued the case remotely.

The Round Table expresses its gratitude to attorneys Richard W. Mark, Amer S. Ahmed. Grace E. Hart, and Cassarah M. Chu of the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP for their invaluable assistance.

Notes:

  1. The Petitioner was ineligible to apply for asylum because she was subject to reinstatement of a prior order of removal.
  2. I believe a strong argument can be made that Matter of A-B- more closely  resembled a policy announcement (which should be applied prospectively only) than a judicial interpretation of the law that would apply retroactively.
  3. There is actually an exception to this rule, that we need not go into here.
  4. In De Pena Paniagua v. Barr, the First Circuit in April explained that there may be other reasons one could be unable to leave their domestic relationship that are unrelated to persecution.

Copyright 2020 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

 

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While the Supremes and other Federal Courts continue to live in their “alternate universe,” most of the rest of us have noticed that the Trump regime is completely unapologetic and undeterred by their frequent defeats in Federal Court. There are no consequences, and therefore no deterrents, for their lies, misrepresentations, unprofessionalism, racist bias, and contempt for the American justice system. Nobody loses a law license, nobody goes to jail, nobody is required to operate under meaningful court supervision. Appalling misconduct and contemptuous behavior is normalized. “Just commit the same abuse again with a slightly different rationale” has become the watchword. The Supremes have shown they will accept any fraudulent rationale from Trump and his toadies as long as it gives them “some cover” for systemic abuses of people of color.

I’d say that Billy Bigot actually treats the Article IIIs almost like he treats the Immigration Courts – as his toady subordinates. And, he pretty much gets away with it! Contempt for Congress and the Courts is the heart of the “Unitary Executive” pushed by Billy and his neo-fascist cronies. And, until the Article IIIs find the collective backbone to “just say no,” the “Unitary Executive” is going to continue to run roughshod over them while our democracy.

Due Process Forever! Complicit Courts Never!

PWS

08-11-20

 

 

🛡⚔️⚖️🗽😎GOOD NEWS, AS ROUND TABLE BESTS BIA AGAIN: 9th Cir. Zaps BIA’s Denial Of Guatemalan Woman’s Asylum & CAT Cases Involving Matter of A-B-! — Diaz-Reynoso v. Barr

Sontos, 9th 18-72833_Documents

Diaz-Reynoso v. Barr, 9th Cir., 08-07-20, published

 

SYNOPSIS BY COURT STAFF:

 

Immigration

Granting Sontos Diaz-Reynoso’s petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision affirming the denial of her application for withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture, and remanding, the panel held that the Board misapplied Matter of A-B-, 27 I. & N. Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018), as well as Board and circuit precedent, in concluding that Diaz-Reynoso’s proposed social group comprised of “indigenous women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship” was not cognizable, and that she failed to establish that the government of Guatemala would acquiesce in any possible torture.

The panel rejected Diaz-Reynoso’s contention that Matter of A-B- was arbitrary and capricious and therefore not entitled to Chevron deference. The panel concluded that, despite the general and descriptive observations set forth in the opinion, Matter of A-B- did not announce a new categorical exception to withholding of removal for victims of domestic violence or other private criminal activity, but rather it reaffirmed the Board’s existing framework for analyzing the cognizability of particular social groups, requiring that such determinations be individualized and conducted on a case-by-case basis.

The panel observed that the Board rejected Diaz- Reynoso’s proposed social group, with almost no analysis,

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

 

Case: 18-72833, 08/07/2020, ID: 11780830, DktEntry: 100-1, Page 3 of 76

DIAZ-REYNOSO V. BARR 3

because it “suffered from the same circularity problem articulated by the Attorney General in Matter of A-B-.” The panel explained that in doing so, the Board appeared to misapprehend the scope of Matter of A-B- as forbidding any mention of feared harm within the delineation of a proposed social group. The panel concluded that this was error, explaining that Matter of A-B- did not announce a new rule concerning circularity, but instead merely reiterated the well- established principle that a particular social group must exist independently of the harm asserted. The panel recognized that a proposed social group may be deemed impermissibly circular if, after conducting the proper case-by-case analysis, the Board determines that the group is defined exclusively by the fact that its members have been subjected to harm. The panel explained, however, that a proposed social group is not impermissibly circular merely because the proposed group mentions harm.

The panel concluded that the Board also erred in assuming that domestic violence was the only reason Diaz- Reynoso was unable to leave her relationship, and in failing to conduct the rigorous case-by-case analysis required by Matter of A-B-. The panel therefore remanded Diaz- Reynoso’s withholding of removal claim for the Board to undertake the required analysis applying the correct framework.

Because the Board failed to discuss evidence that Diaz- Reynoso reported her husband’s abuse to authority figures in her village community, and the government conceded remand was warranted, the panel also remanded Diaz-Reynoso’s CAT claim for further consideration.

4 DIAZ-REYNOSO V. BARR

Concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, Judge Bress agreed with remand of the CAT claim in light of the government’s concession, but disagreed with the majority’s conclusion that the Board misread Matter of A-B- in rejecting Diaz-Reynoso’s proposed social group. In Judge Bress’s view, Matter of A-B- held that a proposed group that incorporates harm within its definition is not a group that exists independently of the harm asserted in an application for asylum or statutory withholding of removal. Judge Bress wrote that substantial evidence supported the Board’s assessment that Diaz-Reynoso’s social group was defined exclusively by the harm suffered, and that the Board correctly applied Matter of A-B-, and the circularity rule, in rejecting Diaz-Reynoso’s proposed social group.

COUNSEL:

Gary A. Watt, Stephen Tollafield, and Tiffany J. Gates, Supervising Counsel; Shandyn H. Pierce and Hilda Kajbaf, Certified Law Students; Hastings Appellate Project, San Francisco, California; for Petitioner.

Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General; John S. Hogan and Linda S. Wernery, Assistant Directors; Susan Bennett Green, Senior Litigation Counsel; Ashley Martin, Trial Attorney; Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; for Respondent.

Blaine Bookey, Karen Musalo, Neela Chakravartula, and Anne Peterson, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, U.S. Hastings College of Law, San Francisco, California, for Amicus Curiae Center for Gender & Refugee Studies.

Richard W. Mark, Amer S. Ahmed, Grace E. Hart, and Cassarah M. Chu, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, New York New York, for Amici Curiae Thirty-Nine Former Immigration Judges and Members of the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Sabrineh Ardalan, Nancy Kelly, John Willshire Carrera, Deborah Anker, and Zachary A. Albun, Attorneys; Rosa Baum, Caya Simonsen, and Ana Sewell, Supervised Law Students; Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, Cambridge, Massachusetts; for Amicus Curiae Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program.

Ana C. Reyes and Alexander J. Kasner, Williams & Connolly LLP, Washington, D.C.; Alice Farmer, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Washington, D.C.; for Amicus Curiae United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

PANEL: Ronald M. Gould, Morgan Christen, and Daniel A. Bress, Circuit Judges.

OPINION BY: Judge Cristen

CONCURRING/DISSENTING OPINION: Judge Bress

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Just another example of how under this regime, EOIR’s perverted efforts to deny and deport, especially targeting female asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle for mistreatment and potential deportation to death, waste time and effort that could, in a wiser more just Administration, be used to reduce dockets and waiting times by ensuring that well-documented, deserving cases like this one are rapidly granted. EOIR’s biased performance also reeks of both anti-Latino racism and misogyny. Here we are, two decades into the 21st Century with our immigration “justice” system still being driven by invidious factors.

The Supremes’ majority may feign ignorance and or indifference to Trump’s and Miller’s overtly racist immigration agenda. But, those of us working in the field of immigration had it figured out long ago. It’s not rocket science! The Trumpsters make little or no real attempt to hide their scofflaw intent and invidious motives. It has, disgustingly, taken a concerted and disingenuous effort by the Supremes’ majority to sweep these unconstitutional attacks on humanity under the carpet.

That’s why we need “regime change” in both the Executive and the Senate which will lead to the appointment of better judges for a better America. Justices and judges who will ditch the institutionalized racism and misogyny and who will make equal justice for all under our Constitution a reality rather than the cruel hoax and “throwaway line” that it is today under GOP mis-governance.

Many thanks to our good friends and pro bono counsel at Gibson Dunn for the help in drafting our Amicus Brief!

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

 

Due Process Forever!

 

PWS

 

08-07-20

 

 

 

 

THREE STRIKES & YOU’RE OUT — Faced With BIA’s Third Wrong Deportation Order In Same Case, 9TH Cir. Finally Ends EOIR’s Decade-Long Effort To Misconstrue Law To Deport —  Valenzuela Gallardo v. Barr (Valenzuela Gallardo III), Vacating Matter of Valenzuela Gallardo, 27 I&N Dec. 449 (BIA 2018)

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2020/08/06/18-72593.pdf

Valenzuela Gallardo v. Barr, 9th Cir., 08-06-20, published

SYNOPSIS BY COURT STAFF:

Immigration

The panel granted Agustin Valenzuela Gallardo’s petition for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals and vacated his order of removal, holding that 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(43)(S), which describes an aggravated felony “offense relating to obstruction of justice,” requires a nexus to an ongoing or pending proceeding or investigation and that, therefore, the BIA’s contrary construction of the statute was inconsistent with the statute’s unambiguous meaning.

In a prior published opinion, the BIA found Valenzuela Gallardo removable on the ground that his conviction for being an accessory to a felony, in violation of California Penal Code § 32, was an obstruction of justice aggravated felony under 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(43)(S). Switching directions from its precedent, the BIA concluded that the existence of an ongoing proceeding was not an essential element of an offense relating to obstruction of justice. However, a prior panel of this court vacated the BIA’s redefinition because it raised serious questions about whether the statute is unconstitutionally vague. On remand, the BIA issued a published decision concluding that obstruction of justice offenses included not only offenses that interfered with ongoing or pending investigations or proceedings, but also those that interfered with investigations or proceedings that were reasonably

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

VALENZUELA GALLARDO V. BARR 3

foreseeable by the defendant. Valenzuela Gallardo again petitioned for review.

The panel began at Chevron Step Zero, where the court determines whether the Chevron framework applies at all. The panel noted amici’s argument that the BIA’s interpretation of the term “aggravated felony,” which includes offenses related to obstruction of justice, is ineligible for Chevron deference because the term has dual application in both civil proceedings, including removal proceedings, and criminal proceedings, including increased maximum prison terms for illegal reentry. The panel explained that deferring to the BIA’s construction of statutes with criminal applications raises serious constitutional concerns because only Congress has the power to write new federal criminal laws. However, the panel concluded that it was bound by the law of the case doctrine because the panel that decided Valenzuela Gallardo’s prior petition for review had applied the Chevron framework, and no exceptions to the doctrine applied.

At Chevron Step One, the panel concluded that 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(S) is unambiguous in requiring a nexus to an ongoing or pending proceeding or investigation. The panel rejected the Government’s assertion that the court had already held that the statute is ambiguous in this regard. Next, the panel explained that the ordinary meaning of the term “obstruction of justice” when the statute was enacted in 1996 required a nexus to an extant investigation or proceeding. Looking to the term’s relevant statutory context – which the panel concluded to be Chapter 73 of Title 18, entitled “Obstruction of Justice” – the panel further explained that almost all of the substantive provisions in Chapter 73 that existed in 1996 required a nexus to an ongoing or pending proceeding or investigation.

4 VALENZUELA GALLARDO V. BARR

Because the panel concluded that § 1101(a)(43)(S) was unambiguous, it did not proceed to Chevron Step Two. The panel also noted that it would reach the same conclusion even if it were not to apply the Chevron framework.

Finally, the panel concluded that the statute under which Valenzuela Gallardo was convicted, California Penal Code § 32, is not a categorical match with obstruction of justice under § 1101(a)(43)(S) because the text of § 32 and its practical application demonstrate that it encompasses interference with proceedings or investigations that are not pending or ongoing. Accordingly, the panel vacated Valenzuela Gallardo’s removal order.

COUNSEL:

Frank Sprouls (argued) and John E. Ricci, Law Office of Ricci & Sprouls, San Francisco, California, for Petitioner.

Rebecca Hoffberg Phillips (argued), Trial Attorney; John S. Hogan, Assistant Director; Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General; Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; for Respondent.

Amalia Wille and Judah Lakin, Van Der Hout Brigagliano & Nightingale LLP, San Francisco, California, for Amici Curiae American Immigration Lawyers Association, U.C. Davis School of Law Immigration Law Clinic, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice—Asian Law Caucus.

PANEL: Eugene E. Siler,* Kim McLane Wardlaw, and Milan D. Smith, Jr., Circuit Judges.

  • The Honorable Eugene E. Siler, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation.

OPINION BY:  Judge Wardlaw

KEY QUOTE:

Nonetheless, both a de novo interpretation of the obstruction of justice provision utilizing traditional tools of statutory interpretation and a Chevron Step One analysis of the precise question before us—whether the BIA’s new “reasonably foreseeable” definition is at odds with the plain meaning of the statute, which was not before the prior panel—lead us to the same conclusion: the statute is unambiguous in requiring an ongoing or pending criminal proceeding, and the Board’s most recent interpretation is at odds with that unambiguous meaning.

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So, let’s put this in perspective. Today’s EOIR has been “weaponized” by the Trump regime as a deportation assembly line. Immigration Judges and the BIA are pushed to cut corners and avoid careful legal analysis in a rush to deport. 

Beyond that, the regime has, with the connivance of the Supremes, found ways to deport asylum seekers and others without any meaningful hearing whatsoever. Notwithstanding all these gimmicks, moronic “production quotas,” coercive detention, biased anti-immigrant “precedents,” and the appointment of mostly prosecutors to function as “judges,” the EOIR backlog continues to mushroom out of control because of the regime’s gross mismanagement.

Yet, in the middle of all this mess, the BIA finds time to spend a decade, including three trips to the Court of Appeals, trying to manipulate the law and disregard and misinterpret prior precedent in a misguided effort to wrongfully deport this particular individual. What if we had judges who just got it correct in the first place? No wonder this system is totally out of control.

Do we need a maliciously incompetent and misdirected system like this? Of course not!

With the same amount of resources, a group of independent, qualified expert judges committed to the rule of law and due process could drastically improve the functioning of the Immigration Courts by rendering fair decisions, granting more relief where possible, and working with all “stakeholders” to  prioritize cases, find alternate dispositions for “non-priority cases,” and to move the cases that actually need to be tried through the system in a fair, reasonable, professional, and predictable manner. Such a system would produce more consistency and would avoid much of the wasteful litigation and constant intervention of the Courts of Appeals to correct mistakes that is now a staple of this system. It would be a “win” for everyone involved, including the DHS’s legitimate enforcement functions.

Of course, the particular problem with this case began when the “Post-Ashcroft-Purge” BIA started fabricating ways to deviate from one of the old “Schmidt Board” precedents, Matter of Espinoza-Gonzalez, 22 I. & N. Dec. 889, 892–94 (BIA 1999) (en banc). That case had actually found in favor of the (unrepresented) respondent, an unheard of result in today’s “bend and distort the law to deport” climate fostered by “Billy the Bigot” Barr and his predecessor “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions! You basically can trace EOIR’s continuous downward “death spiral” from “The Purge.”

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-07-20

🛡⚔️⚖️🗽 ROUND TABLE ASSISTS FIGHT AGAINST “AMERICA’S STAR CHAMBERS” — Here’s Our Amicus Brief In Las Americas v. Trump! — With Thanks To Our Pro Bono Friends STOLL STOLL BERNE LOKTING & SHLACHTER P.C. in Portland, OR!

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

Excerpt:

The immigration court system lacks independence. An agency within the Department of Justice, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) houses the immigration court system, which consists of trial-level immigration courts and a single appellate tribunal known as the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). Immigration judges, including appellate immigration judges, are viewed by EOIR “management” not as judges, but as Department of Justice attorneys who serve at the pleasure and direction of the Nation’s prosecutor-in-chief, the Attorney General.

As former immigration judges, we offer the Court our experience and urge that corrective action is necessary to ensure that immigration judges are permitted to function as impartial adjudicators, as required under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The INA and its implementing regulations set forth procedures for the “timely, impartial, and consistent” resolution of immigration proceedings. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1103, 1230; 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(1) (charging the Board with appellate review authority to “resolve the questions before it in a manner that is timely, impartial, and consistent with the [INA] and regulations”) (emphasis added); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.10(b) (similarly requiring “immigration judges . . . to resolve the questions before them in a timely and impartial manner”) (emphasis added).

Although housed inside an enforcement agency and led by the Nation’s chief prosecutor, immigration judges must act neutrally to protect and adjudicate the important rights at stake in immigration cases and check executive overreach in the enforcement of federal immigration law. Applying a detached and learned interpretation of those laws, judges must correct overzealous bureaucrats and policy makers when they overstep the bounds of reasonable interpretation and the requirements of due process.

Here’s the full brief:

Las Americas Amicus (full case)

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As I often say, it’s an honor to be a part of this group with so many of my wonderful colleagues. It’s also an honor to be able to assist so many wonderful “divisions and brigades” of the New Due Process Army, like the SPLC and Immigration Law Lab.

Here’s another thought I often express: What if all of this talent, creativity, teamwork, expertise, and energy were devoted to fixing our broken Immigration Court System rather than constantly fighting to end gross abuses that should not be happening? There is a “systemic cost” to “maliciously incompetent” administration and the White Nationalist agenda promoted by the Trump kakistocracy!

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-04-20

BIA SHOOTS UNREPRESENTED RESPONDENT ON “DIVISIBILITY” ANALYSIS — MATTER OF P-B-B-, 28 I&N Dec. 43 (BIA 2020) — Like Shooting Fish 🐟 In A Barrel 🛢!

MATTER OF P-B-B-, 28 I&N Dec. 43 (BIA 2020)

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1296956/download

BIA HEADNOTE:

Section 13-3407 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, which criminalizes possession of a dangerous drug, is divisible with regard to the specific “dangerous drug” involved in a violation of that statute.

PANEL: Board Panel: GREER and O’CONNOR, Appellate Immigration Judges; SWANWICK, Temporary Appellate Immigration Judge.

OPINION: O’CONNOR, Appellate Immigration Judge

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You think this isn’t “Theater of The Absurd?” Let’s check out Fns 5 & 6 from the opinion:

5 We recognize that the Ninth Circuit, in whose jurisdiction this case arises, utilized a modified categorical inquiry in Alvarado, 759 F.3d at 1130–33, to discern whether an alien’s conviction under section 13-3407 involved a federally controlled substance and was therefore a predicate for removal under section 237(a)(2)(B)(i) of the Act. However, the Ninth Circuit did not expressly analyze the divisibility of section 13-3407 in that decision, nor did the court have the benefit of the Supreme Court’s articulation of divisibility in Mathis. Moreover, the circuit recently certified a similar issue to the Arizona Supreme Court. See Romero-Millan v. Barr, 958 F.3d 844, 849 (9th Cir. 2020) (asking the court to resolve whether Arizona statutes proscribing possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a narcotic drug under sections 13-3415 and 13-3408 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, respectively, are divisible with respect to the identity of the drug involved in each offense). For these reasons, we do not consider Alvarado to be persuasive authority regarding the divisibility of section 13-3407, which, in light of Romero-Millan, we view as an unsettled issue in the Ninth Circuit.

6 We acknowledge that State v. Prescott, No. 1 CA-CR 15-0188, 2016 WL 611656, at *2 (Ariz. Ct. App. Feb. 16, 2016), and State v. Castorina, No. 1 CA-CR 08-0816, 2010 WL 2450117, at *4 (Ariz. Ct. App. June 17, 2010), suggest that the identity of the “dangerous drug” involved in a violation of section 13-3407 is not an element of the statute. However, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona recently reviewed both cases, found that their reasoning was flawed, and concluded that Arizona case law fails to provide a “clear answer[] as to the divisibility” of section 13-3407. United States v. Sanchez-Murillo, No. CR-19-00795-PHX-SPL, 2019 WL 3858606, at *2–3 (D. Ariz. Aug. 16, 2019) (alteration in original) (citation omitted). Accordingly, we are not persuaded that Prescott or Castorina “definitively answer[s] whether the dangerous drug requirement of [section] 13-3407[] is divisible.” Gonzalez-Dominguez v. Sessions, 743 F. App’x 808, 811 (9th Cir. 2018).

So, how do you think that the unrepresented, almost certainly detained, respondent did on these issues, assuming that he even can read the BIA’s decision or have someone accurately read It to him?

The whole Immigration Court System has become a judicially and Congressionally-enabled “Due Process Farce” befitting a third word failed state that our country now resembles under the Trump kakistocracy. 

NO, those who say our democratic institutions are “holding up” under Trump are living in a parallel universe! 

PWS

07-24-20

😎🗽⚖️GOOD NEWS: 9th Cir. Deals Another Blow To Stephen Miller’s Illegal White Nationalist War On Asylum! Now, Will The Supremes’ Majority Stand For Equal Justice Under Law, Or Will They Again Side With A Racist Regime & Its “Crimes Against Humanity?”🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️👎

Dan Kowalski
Dan Kowalski
Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)

 

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca9-upholds-injunction-against-asylum-rule

 

 

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

 

Immigration Law

 

Daniel M. Kowalski

6 Jul 2020

CA9 Upholds Injunction Against Asylum Rule

East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Barr

“On July 16, 2019, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security published a joint interim final Rule without notice and comment, entitled “Asylum Eligibility and Procedural Modifications” (the “Rule”). With limited exceptions, the Rule categorically denies asylum to aliens arriving at our border with Mexico unless they have first applied for, and have been denied, asylum in Mexico or another country through which they have traveled. We describe the Rule in detail below. Plaintiffs are nonprofit organizations that represent asylum seekers. They brought suit in district court seeking an injunction against enforcement of the Rule, contending that the Rule is invalid on three grounds: first, the Rule is not “consistent with” Section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1158; second, the Rule is arbitrary and capricious; third, the Rule was adopted without notice and comment. The district court found that plaintiffs had a likelihood of success on all three grounds and entered a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Rule, with effect in the four states on our border with Mexico. We hold that plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the first and second grounds. We do not reach the third ground. We affirm.”

 

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This isn’t rocket science. Neither the legal nor moral issues are particularly difficult in this case. Indeed, the Supremes should unanimously have tossed Solicitor General Noel Francisco out on his tail the last time he unethically requested their intervention. Instead, they rewarded him, thus enabling and encouraging further “crimes against humanity.”

Unfortunately, this Supremes’ majority has had a hard time seeing people of color, and particularly those seeking asylum and other legal protections under our laws, as human. Even though the lower Federal Courts have essentially made things easy by showing exactly why these racist-inspired policies are illegal, a Supremes majority has chosen to advance Stephen Miller’s White Nationalist agenda, sometimes hiding behind a smokescreen of nonsensical legal gobbledygook, while other times choosing to act without bothering to provide any rationale at all.

One thing is for certain. Someday, after the fall of Trump, and the banishment of Miller, the Justices who advanced their unconstitutional, illegal, racist immigration agenda will try to “save their legacies” by putting some distance between themselves and the neo-Nazi ramifications of their votes. It’s critically important for those of us who see exactly what’s happening to insure that the names of justices and judges who sided with Stephen Miller are inextricably linked for the rest of time with his disgraceful racist legacy of “crimes against humanity.”

There is only one side of history here! And, it’s certainly not with Stephen Miller and his enablers, be they judges, legislators, public officials, or voters.

Read today’s op-ed by Sister Norma Pimentel, of the Missionaries of Jesus, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville, Tex whose courage and dedication to human rights and the rule of law puts complicit judges to shame. Sister Pimentel lives and observes every day the grotesque, unforgivable “crimes against humanity” and disparagement of the human dignity of asylum seekers effected by Miller’s judicially-enabled campaign of hate, dehumanization, and abuse of power. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/covid-19-has-come-to-our-migrant-camp-it-makes-ending-the-mpp-policy-even-more-urgent/2020/07/03/455cacf8-bd41-11ea-8cf5-9c1b8d7f84c6_story.html

She writes, in part:

Meanwhile, the pandemic has made it more difficult to care for those who are arriving at the border each day. Since that lone covid-19 case was identified, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute has not allowed the camps to accept any new arrivals. So refugees are being turned away and have no place to go. Some are being placed in hotels or churches, and volunteers are desperately looking for other options.

Within the camp, we have had to limit the volunteers’ activities — there are 10 to 20 volunteers allowed to enter and help provide the people with food, water and basic health care. We have set up areas for washing hands, and try to provide hope and reassurance amid the uncertainty. All this makes it even harder to keep the camps safe from the cartels and gangsters who continue to prey on these largely defenseless asylum seekers.

That young woman who tested positive for the coronavirus has been transferred to a covid-19 center operated by Doctors Without Borders. We pray for her recovery, and we pray for all the families’ safety, for their protection and for a resolution to their untenable situation.

While I know many people in many places are dealing with so much, I urge you not to look away from the border in this moment. Do not ignore the suffering occurring here. It is time that we put an end to it, and to end the MPP policy. Until that happens, we will continue to help those who are defenseless, whose only real “crime” is trying to seek protection for themselves and their families.

Sister Norma Pimentel
Sister Norma Pimentel

In addition to highlighting inhumanity, Sister Pimentel shows the gross intellectual fraud and immorality in the Trump Regime’s bogus claim that asylum seekers present a significant threat of spreading COVID-19. If anything, it’s the exact opposite which is most often the case with the Trump regime’s endless racist false narratives and fake “horror stories” about immigration.

It also exposes yet again both the intellectual dishonesty and immorality of those who present “pretextual justifications” for illegal acts being perpetrated by our Government against the most vulnerable and the spineless performance of judges who claim to accept at face value that which any reasonable person knows to be a pretext for racism and inhumanity.

The intent behind these bogus regulation changes and programs like the “Migrant Protection Protocols” (or, more properly, “Let ‘Em Die in Mexico”) is very clear: dehumanize “the other” – in this case primarily brown skinned asylum seekers. But, in the process of letting this happen and tolerating legislators and judges without the decency to stand up for the rights of our fellow humans, WE are the ones who actually are dehumanized. We’re not allowed to look away from the horrors being perpetrated by the Trump regime in our name!

 

Due Process Forever!

 

 

PWS

 

07-06-20