D.C. Circuit – immigrationcourtside.com

🤯☠️🤮 BAD JUDGING TRIFECTA: BIA’s Poor Performance Tries The Patience Of The Ultra-Conservative 5th Circuit!

Three LemonsBy Auguste Renoir (1918} Public Realm — Three Lemons
By Auguste Renoir (1918}
Public Realm
The BIA pulls three lemons on an epic judging fail that left a sour taste in the mouths of Fifth Circuit Judges!

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/big-reversal-and-victory-at-ca5-argueta-hernandez-ii

On July 10, 2023, a Fifth Circuit panel dismissed Mr. Argueta-Hernandez’ petition for review for lack of jurisdiction, 73 F.4th 300.

On Dec. 5, 2023 the panel (Higginbotham, Graves, and Douglas) granted rehearing, granted the petition, vacated and remanded:

“Although we owe deference to the BIA, that deference is not blind. Here, where the BIA misapplied prevailing case law, disregarded crucial evidence, and failed to adequately support its decisions, we are compelled to grant the petition for review, vacate the immigration court decisions, and remand to BIA for further proceedings.”

[Hats way off to Alison Lo, Jonathan Cooper and Chuck Roth!]

Alison Lo, Esquire

Jonathan Cooper, Esquire

Chuck Roth, Esquire

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

Congrats to this all-star NDPA litigation team. Once again, the expertise and scholarship in asylum and immigration law is on the “outside,” the NDPA, rather than at EOIR where it is so much needed!

Judge Higginbotham is a Reagan appointee. Judge Graves was appointed by Obama. Judge Douglas is a Biden appointee.

Here’s what the “coveted trifecta of bad judging” looks like:

The BIA:

1) misapplied prevailing case law,

2) disregarded crucial evidence, and

3) failed to adequately support its decisions!

My only question is: Did they manage to get the ”A#” right?

Golden nugget: The 5th Circuit recognizes that under the Supremes’ decision in Cardoza-Fonseca: “A ‘reasonable degree’ [for establishing a “well founded fear”] means a ten percent chance.” This “seminal rule” is violated by BIA panels and Immigration Judges across the nation on a daily basis. It is also widely ignored by many Circuit panels.

Unlike the BIA, Judge Higgenbotham carefully and clearly explains how threats other than physical injury can amount to persecution — another “seminal rule” that too many EOIR adjudicators routinely ignore.

In sharp contrast to the BIA’s intentional “butchering” of the “mixed motive” doctrine in Matter of M-R-M-S-, 28 I&N Dec. 757 (BIA 2023), Judge Higgenbotham correctly articulates the meaning of “at least one central reason.” See https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/12/04/☠️🤯-bia-trashes-normal-legal-rules-of-causation-jettisons-4th-cir-precedent-to-deny-family-based-psg-case-the-latest-anti-asylum-znger-from-falls-church-famil/.

He states:

By characterizing MS-13’s threats against Argueta-Hernandez and his family as
solely extortion, BIA disregards that he needed only to present “‘some
particularized connection between the feared persecution’” and the
protected ground in which his application for relief relies. . . . Such a rigorous standard would largely render nugatory the Supreme Court’s decision in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987).”).

Precisely! Ignoring Cardoza-Fonseca and their own binding precedent in Matter of Mogharrabi is what the BIA does frequently in “manipulating the nexus requirement” to deny meritorious claims to qualified refugees who face real harm! It’s all part of the toxic anti-asylum bias and “any reason to deny culture” that still permeates EOIR under Garland!

The BIA is not allowed to “presume,” as they effectively did in M-R-M-S-, the lack of qualifying motivation in “family based” psg cases and place an undue burden on the respondent to “prove” otherwise.

The panel also reams out the BIA for failure to follow basic rules and precedents requiring a separate CAT analysis.

Unlike the legal gobbldygook, obfuscation, doublespeak, and “canned” language that plagues many BIA opinions, Judge Higginbotham offers a clear, understandable, clinical explanation of asylum law and how it should be applied to what is actually a recurring situation in asylum law!

Reading this very clear opinion, I couldn’t help but feel that it was a panel of “general jurisdiction” Federal Judges from a so-called “conservative Circuit” who understood the complexity and nuances of asylum law, while the BIA Appellate Judges were the “rank amateurs.” This reflects a criticism oft made by my Round Table colleague Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase that EOIR’s asylum training is grotesquely substandard — far below that readily available in the “private/NGO/academic” sector! What possible excuse could there be for this ongoing travesty at DOJ?

Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges. His consistent, outspoken criticism of EOIR’s poor asylum training is proving all too true on a daily basis!

AG Garland continues to show a truly (and disturbingly) remarkable tolerance for poor judicial performance by his subordinates at the BIA. At the same time, he shows little, if any, concern for the deadly devastating impact of that bad judging on human lives and the way it corrodes our entire legal system!

The glaring, life-threatening legal and operational problems at EOIR are solvable. We should all be asking why, after three years in office, a Dem Administration has made such feeble efforts to bring long overdue leadership, substantive, and operational changes to “America’s worst court system?” Well into what was supposed to be a “reform” Administration, EOIR remains a steeped in the “culture of denial and bias against asylum seekers” actively furthered by the Trump Administration and NOT effectively addressed by Garland (although he concededly has made a few improvements)!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-06-23

☠️🏴‍☠️💀⚰️🤮 “SEASON’S GREETINGS” — AS POLITICOS OF BOTH PARTIES FALSELY CLAIM THAT TITLE 42 IS NECESSARY, REMEMBER THAT THEY ARE PROMOTING: 1) Continuing Violation of US & International Laws Protecting Asylum Seekers; 2) Continuing Gross Abuses Of Human Rights; & 3)“[T]he record is replete with stomach-churning evidence of death, torture, and rape.”

Four Horsemen — A HOLIDAY MESSAGE FROM US POLITICOS OF BOTH PARTIES TO LEGAL ASYLUM SEEKERS: “Suffer & Die!”
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Here are some relevant portions of Judge Sullivan’s opinion in Huisha-Huisha v. Mayorkas, D.D.C., Nov. 22, 2022, to keep in mind as the bogus claims and misleading reporting continue to mushroom ahead of the Dec. 22 (Wednesday) date for re-establishing the rule of law @ our Southern Border:

It is unreasonable for the CDC to assume that it can ignore the consequences of any actions it chooses to take in the pursuit of fulfilling its goals, particularly when those actions included the extraordinary decision to suspend the codified procedural and substantive rights of noncitizens seeking safe harbor. See Huisha-Huisha, 27 F.4th at 724-25 (describing the “procedural and substantive rights” of aliens, such as asylum seekers, “to resist expulsion”); cf. Regents, 140 S. Ct. at 1914-15 (holding that agency should have considered the effect rescission of DACA would have on the program’s recipients prior to the agency making its decision). As Defendants concede, “a Title 42 order involving persons will always have consequences for migrants,” Defs.’ Opp’n, ECF No. 147 at 42, and numerous public comments during the Title 42 policy rulemaking informed CDC that implementation of its orders would likely expel migrants to locations with a “high

29

probability” of “persecution, torture, violent assaults, or rape.” See Pls.’ Mot., ECF No. 144-1 at 27; see also id. at 27- 28 (listing groups subject to expulsion under Title 42, including “survivors of domestic violence and their children, who have endured years of abuse”; “survivors of sexual assault and rape, who are at risk of being stalked, attacked, or murdered by their persecutors in Mexico or elsewhere”; and “LGBTQ+ individuals from countries where their gender identity or sexual orientation is criminalized or for whom expulsion to Mexico or elsewhere makes them prime targets for persecution” (citing AR, ECF No. 154 at 28-29, 47, 153) (cleaned up)). It is undisputed that the impact on migrants was indeed dire. See, e.g., Huisha-Huisha, 27 F.4th at 734 (finding Plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm if expelled to places where they would be persecuted or tortured).

The CDC “has considerable flexibility in carrying out its responsibility,” Regents, 140 S. Ct. at 1914, and the Court is mindful that it “is not to substitute its judgment for that of the agency,” FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502, 513 (2009). But regardless of the CDC’s conclusion, its decision to ignore the harm that could be caused by issuing its Title 42 orders was arbitrary and capricious.

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3. The Title 42 Policy Failed to Adequately

Consider Alternatives

Plaintiffs also argue that the Title 42 policy is arbitrary and capricious because CDC failed to adequately consider alternatives and the policy did not rationally serve its stated purpose. See Pls.’ Mot., ECF No. 144-1 at 10-11.

(29-31)

However, despite the above, Defendants have not shown that the risk of migrants spreading COVID-19 is “a real problem.” District of Columbia v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric., 444 F. Supp. 3d 1, 27 (D.D.C. 2020) (citing Nat’l Fuel Gas Supply Corp. v. FERC, 468 F.3d 831, 841 (D.C. Cir. 2006)). “Professing that an agency action ameliorates a real problem but then citing no evidence demonstrating that there is in fact a problem is not reasoned decisionmaking.” Id. (cleaned up); see Huisha-Huisha, 27 F.4th at 735 (“[W]e would be sensitive to declarations in the record by CDC officials testifying to the efficacy of the § 265 Order. But there are none.”). As Plaintiffs point out, record evidence indicates that “during the first seven months of the Title 42 policy, CBP encountered on average just one migrant per day who tested positive for COVID-19.” Pls.’ Mot., ECF No. 144-1 at 22 (citing Sealed AR, ECF No. 155-1 at 23). In addition, at the time of the August 2021 Order, the rate of daily COVID-19 cases in the United States was almost double the incidence rate in Mexico and substantially higher than the incidence rate in Canada. See 86 Fed. Reg. at 42831 (noting 137.9 daily cases per 100,000 people in the United States, compared to 68.6 in Mexico and 8.0 in Canada). The lack of evidence regarding the effectiveness of the Title 42 policy is especially egregious in view of CDC’s previous conclusion that “the use of quarantine and travel restrictions, in the absence of evidence of their utility, is detrimental to efforts to combat the spread of communicable disease,” Control of Communicable Diseases, 82 Fed.

39

Reg. 6890, 6896; as well as record evidence discussing the “recidivism” created by the Title 42 policy, which actually increased the number of times migrants were encountered by CBP, see AR, ECF No. 154 at 45 (commenter describing recidivism); AR, ECF No. 155-1 at 4 (January/February 2021 statistics showing nearly 40% of family units DHS encountered in January-February 15, 2021 were migrants who had attempted to cross at least once before).

(39-40)

Particularly in view of the harms Plaintiffs face if summarily

expelled to countries they may be persecuted or tortured, the Court

42

therefore vacates the Title 42 policy. Cf. Nat. Res. Def. Council v. EPA, 489 F.3d 1250, 1262–64 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (Randolph, J., concurring) (“A remand-only disposition is, in effect, an indefinite stay of the effectiveness of the court’s decision and agencies naturally treat it as such.”).

(42-43)

Meanwhile, Plaintiffs have presented evidence demonstrating that the rate of summary expulsions pursuant to the Title 42 policy has nearly doubled since September 2021. See Pls.’ Mot., ECF No. 144-1 at 30 (“At the time of this Court’s original decision, approximately 14% of

45

families encountered at the southwest border were being summarily expelled pursuant to the Title 42 policy. . . . Now, the rate of expulsions is nearly twice as high, reaching 27%.”); see also Pls.’ Reply, ECF No. 149-1 at 31 (“[I]n the month of July 2022 alone, 9,574 members of family units encountered at the southern border were summarily expelled pursuant to the Title 42 policy.”). And “[i]n Mexico alone, recorded incidents” of “kidnapping, rapes, and other violence against noncitizens subject to Title 42” have “spiked from 3,250 cases in June 2021 to over 10,318 in June 2022.” Pls.’ Mot., ECF No. 144-1 at 30 (citing Neusner Decl., ECF No. 118-4; Human Rights First, The Nightmare Continues: Title 42 Court Order Prolongs Human Rights Abuses, Extends Disorder at U.S. Borders, at 3-4 (June 2022)). Accordingly, even if the Court accepts Defendants’ unsupported statement that the “situation for class members has improved,” the evidence demonstrates that Plaintiffs continue to face irreparable harm that is beyond remediation. See Huisha-Huisha, 27 F.4th at 733 (“[T]he record is replete with stomach-churning evidence of death, torture, and rape.”).

N

(45-46)

Because “there is an overriding public interest . . . in the general importance of an agency’s faithful adherence to its statutory mandate,” Jacksonville Port Auth. v. Adams, 556 F.2d 52, 59 (D.C. Cir. 1977); the Court concludes that an injunction in this case would serve the public interest, see A.B.-B. v. Morgan, No. 20-cv-846, 2020 WL 5107548, at *9 (D.D.C. Aug. 31, 2020) (“[T]he Government and public can have little interest in executing removal orders that are based on statutory violations . . . .”).

Moreover, Defendants do not contend that issuing a

permanent injunction would cause them harm or be inconsistent

with the public health. Indeed, “CDC recognizes that the current

public health conditions no longer require the continuation of

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the August 2021 order,” Defs.’ Opp’n, ECF No. 147 at 44; see also Pls.’ Mot., ECF No. 144-1 at 30, in view of the “less burdensome measures that are now available,” 87 Fed Reg. at 19944; id. at 19949–50. The parties also do not dispute that Plaintiffs continue to face substantial harm if they are returned to their home countries, notwithstanding the availability of USCIS screenings. See, e.g., Human Rights First, The Nightmare Continues: Title 42 Court Order Prolongs Human Rights Abuses, Extends Disorder at U.S. Borders, at 3-4 (June 2022). As the Supreme Court has explained, the public has a strong interest in “preventing aliens from being wrongfully removed, particularly to countries where they are likely to face substantial harm.” Nken, 556 U.S. at 436.

(47-48)

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

So, when you hear guys like Abbott, Ducey, DeSantis, Manchin, Cuellar, Gonzales, GOP nativist AGs, and the like use this holiday season during which we are supposed to be celebrating messages of hope, faith, mercy, and “goodwill toward men” to extol the virtues of illegal expulsions under Title 42, remember what their are REALLY saying:

“I want the US to continue violating domestic and international laws protecting refugees and asylum seekers, to continue to knowingly violate the human rights and human dignity of asylum seekers, and to place our fellow humans in danger zones where they will suffer stomach-churning episodes of death, torture, and rape. I don’t believe our nation is capable of complying with our duly-enacted laws to protect refugees and asylum seekers that have been in effect since 1981 until 2020 when they were illegally suspended by the Trump Administration using a public health pretext, as found by a Federal Judge. I urge the Biden Administration, which has already illegally expelled hundreds of thousands of migrants with no due process, to continue committing grotesque violations of the law and human rights and to increase the violations so that more men, women, and children will suffer rape, torture, an dearth as a consequence. This is my holiday season message to America and humanity: Peace on earth and goodwill toward all mankind, EXCEPT those seeking legal asylum by applying at our Southern Border. To them: rape, torture, and death without due process!

Title 42 expulsions of asylum seekers are a clear violation of Judeo-Christian ethics. To be advocating for its continuing application at any time, let alone during this season, is the height of hypocrisy; so is characterizing the largely self-inflicted mess at the Southern Border as a “humanitarian emergency” and then proposing to “solve” it by sending legal asylum seekers back to rape, torture, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, and death in Mexico and other nations in turmoil without any type of process to determine whether they have a “credible fear” of persecution, as required by law.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-19-22

⚖️🗽BREAKING: DC CIR. REBUFFS GOP ATTEMPT TO FORCE MORE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS @ S. BORDER — Brings End Of Title 42, Restoration Of Rule Of Law A Step Closer!

U.S. appeals court ruling means border expulsions on track to end Dec. 21

A federal appeals court in the District of Columbia rules on the Biden administration’s plans to stop expelling migrants from the nation’s borders.

By Maria Sacchetti and Arelis R. Hernández

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/16/border-title-42/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/16/border-title-42/

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It’s possible that the nativist AGs will try the Supremes. But, a stay at this point seems unlikely.

The next issue is that the Biden Administration has shown little enthusiasm for actually ending Title 42 (despite nominally professing a desire to do so) and no apparent confidence that they can competently restore the rule of law for asylum seekers. Maybe, advocates and the asylum seekers themselves will save the Administration from itself once again. But, that’s a tall order.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-16-22

FINALLY, LEADING DEMS IN CONGRESS DEMAND END TO BIDEN’S TITLE 42 CHARADE! — NDPA All-Star 🌟🦸🏻‍♀️ Blaine Bookey Speaks Out For Ukrainians & Other Legal Asylum Seekers Being Abused 🤮 By Biden Administration @ The Southern Border!

MarIa Sacchetti reports for WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/10/title42-border-asylum-democrats-trump/

Leading Senate Democrats demanded that the Biden administration immediately end a Trump-era policy that blocks asylum-seeking migrants from crossing land borders into the United States, after lawyers said U.S. Customs and Border Protection expelled a single mother of three who had traveled from Ukraine to Mexico seeking refuge.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) cited the “desperate” Ukrainian family at a news conference Thursday and said he was deeply disappointed that the Biden administration has dragged out the Trump-era policy, which a federal appeals court in D.C. last week called “questionable.” The Trump administration issued the order two years ago under Title 42, which is the public health code. Since then, officials have expelled more than 1.6 million migrants to countries such as Haiti and Mexico.

“The United States is supposed to welcome refugees with open arms, not put them in additional danger by denying them a chance to plead their case and leaving them at the mercy of criminals and smugglers,” Schumer said, joined by advocates for immigrants. “Now’s the time to stop the madness.”

Courts issue new directives to Biden on border expulsions

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, added that the policy “has created life-threatening conditions” for migrants. He called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which issued the order under President Donald Trump and has extended it under President Biden, to rescind it.

. . . .

Sofiia, 34, who asked to be identified only by her first name because she has family sheltering in their basements in Ukraine, said in a telephone interview that her family had enjoyed a good life there. She worked as a Hebrew teacher and lived in her father’s house. They left as bombs grew closer.

“I was seriously afraid for my life and the life of my kids,” she said in English, one of four languages that she speaks.

She said she and her children — ages 6, 12 and 14 — flung suitcases stuffed with clothes and medicines into her old Citroen and drove straight to Moldova, the closest border, and then into Romania, where they traveled to Germany and caught a flight to Mexico. She said that they tried to enter legally twice, once by car and again by foot, and that officials rejected them both times, citing the Title 42 order.

“I was surprised that they don’t even want to listen,” she said. “I was trying to tell them that I have tests and I am vaccinated but they told me, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’”

She said she does not speak Spanish and was crying on the bridge in Mexico when lawyer Blaine Bookey spotted her. Bookey, the legal director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at the University of California’s Hastings law school, was there with her students to aid Haitian migrants facing similar troubles.

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Bookey said Customs and Border Protection told her that they would consider admitting the Ukrainian family. They were planning to try again Thursday, she said, adding that shelters in Mexico are filled with other would-be refugees who are not eligible to enter.

“There’s families like this that are showing up at the border from all sorts of countries from similar levels of violence. They deserve process to apply for asylum,” Bookey said. “This case really brings it home for people how just problematic this policy is.”

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Read Maria’s full article at the link.

Rhetoric over action!

“Do as I say, not as I do!”

More cowardly performances from AG Garland and SG Prelogar who continue to “defend the indefensible,” putting politics over their constitutional duty to speak up for due process, human rights, racial justice, adherence to international conventions, and the rule of law.

The “COVID emergency” appears to be “over” everywhere in the U.S., even in areas with significant infection rates, EXCEPT for asylum seekers at the Southern Border who never were a major threat anyway.

“Saying no” to desperate Ukrainian mothers and children seeking refuge in the U.S. That’s ”law enforcement?” That’s how your tax dollars are being spent? Do these count as “border apprehensions?”

The Dem leaders are right to speak out. But, they waited far too long to do so. This travesty has been going on since Day 1 of the Biden Administration.

The only “hero” 🌟 here is Blaine Bookey and others like her who have the guts and courage to stand up for equal justice for all when politicos, judges, and public officials “tank!”

Meanwhile, although the opposition to Biden’s scofflaw policy hasn’t restored the rule of law for most asylum seekers, it might have generated at least a modest reaction. CBS News reports that the CDC has revoked the (bogus) Title 42 authority to bar the entry of unaccompanied children seeking asylum. News: https://apple.news/Anfp9S-UAQFqT5PWRc-8u2A

This appears to be a response to the attack on this group of vulnerable children by Trump-appointed righty anti-immigrant zealot U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman and his motley gang of GOP state AGs. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/03/05/%f0%9f%a4%aftitle-42-madness-even-as-dc-circuit-bars-returns-to-persecution-or-torture-trump-federal-judge-in-texas-abuses-children%f0%9f%a4%ae%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f-circuit-findings-of-ill/

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-12-22

🤮🏴‍☠️GARLAND DOJ “POLISHES” OTHERWISE LACKLUSTER LITIGATION RECORD WITH BIG WIN FOR STEPHEN MILLER & HIS NEO-NAZI ANTI-ASYLUM POLICY! — “ There was no science involved, only anti-immigrant and anti-asylum animus.”

So far, defending this guy and his cruel policies is about the only thing that Judge Garland has done well at a DOJ that continues to treat “justice” for migrants of color as a joke! Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com

“Floaters” — Unlike Miller, the “losers” under Garland’s unconscionable policies often aren’t in a position to complain — at least in this world! EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2021/10/1/2055491/-Appeals-court-allows-Biden-admin-to-keep-deporting-families-under-Stephen-Miller-Title-42-policy

Gabe Ortiz reports for The Daily Kos:

On Thursday, a federal appeals court allowed the continued use of the Title 42 policy, pushed initially through the previous administration by Stephen Miller, that’s used the novel coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to quickly deport asylum-seekers, including thousands of Haitians who have arrived at the southern border in search of help.

The Biden administration was set to be blocked from using the policy against families, following a federal judge’s order earlier this month. That lower court order was set to go into effect Thursday. But the policy was saved by the Biden administration, which had shockingly appealed the lower court’s decision. To be clear, the administration could have let the lower court decision stand. But it decided to protect this scientifically unsound order for continued use.

“It’s troubling to see the court grant the government’s motion to reinstate Title 42 just days after the district court ruled that its policy violates U.S. law,” Oxfam America global policy lead Noah Gottschalk told NBC News. The group is among the organizations that have led lawsuits against the policy. “We all saw the horrific images of the abuse faced by Haitian asylum-seekers subjected to Title 42, and we cannot allow people to face further harm because of this xenophobic policy.”

Department of Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas has claimed it is continuing Title 42 “out of a public health need.” Meanwhile, White House Press Sec. Jen Psaki has defended the policy as “a public health requirement.” That’s complete bullshit. “Vice President Mike Pence in March directed the nation’s top disease control agency to use its emergency powers to effectively seal the U.S. borders, overruling the agency’s scientists who said there was no evidence the action would slow the coronavirus,” The Associated Press (AP) reported last October.

The previous administration got its way by twisting arms. There was no science involved, only anti-immigrant and anti-asylum animus. “That was a Stephen Miller special. He was all over that,” a former Pence aide told the AP.

And, as vaccines have become readily available, the supposed rationale to keep Title 42 in place has only gotten more flimsy. If this is truly all about public health, why not rescind the policy and offer families the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine? “Let me also remind the Biden administration that over 300,000 people cross the border from Mexico every day through ports of entry,” American Immigration Council Policy Counsel Aaron Reichlin-Melnick tweeted in July. “None are given COVID tests, unlike migrants who all get tested and nearly all get vaccinated.”

. . . .

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“Miller Lite” – Garland’s Vision of “Justice @ Justice” for Communities of Color — Progressive human rights experts and migrants of color haven’t been welcome at Garland’s DOJ “Happy Hours” where Stephen Miller’s policies, his judicial appointments, and his dysfunctional “star chamber” immigration courts are celebrated, defended, and even “enhanced!”

Read more about this legal, moral, and political travesty perpetrated by the Biden Administration with Garland’s support at the link.

When it comes to things like defending ending the reprehensible “killer-program” known as “Remain in Mexico” or protecting the DACA program, Garland’s litigation team has fared poorly.

They also have drawn raised eyebrows, even if not yet any ethical complaints, from Article III Judges for their questionable representations and disingenuous defense of wrongfully issued BIA final orders of removal.

Perhaps, part the problem is that after four years of “anything goes” often misleading, sometimes downright dishonest, defense of the Trump/Miller White Nationalist xenophobic, often misogynistic, dehumanizing agenda, their hearts aren’t in it. The other glaring problem is the obvious lack of commitment to progressive humanitarian values, due process for all, and “cleaning house” at a broken and dysfunctional DOJ that has been shown by Garland.

Obviously, Garland’s DOJ lawyers are more at home and more successful when when arguing for intellectually dishonest and unconstitutional dehumanization (or “Dred Scottification”) of “the other,” primarily individuals of color who are the most vulnerable among us.

What a totally disgraceful legacy for a guy that was once just “one Moscow Mitch” away from the Supremes! On the other hand, it now appears that the GOP right wingers wouldn’t have had much to fear from a guy who won’t stand up for liberal American democratic values or even simple human decency! I doubt that he would have presented much threat to the far-right, anti-American agenda!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-02-21

☠️⚰️🤮👎🏽BREAKING: DC CIR. OK’s BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S CONTINUED RETURN OF ASYLUM APPLICANTS TO DEATH ☠️ & DANGER WITH NO PROCESS!🏴‍☠️

Andrea Castillo reports for the LA Times:

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-09-30/appellate-court-oks-biden-administration-to-keep-expelling-families-under-health-law

A federal appellate court Thursday temporarily granted the Biden administration’s request to continue the use of a public health order to quickly expel migrants with children who are stopped along the U.S. border.

A lower court had given the Biden administration until Thursday to limit use of the law, while immigrant and legal advocates proceeded with a lawsuit against it. The Trump administration had invoked the 1944 health statute, known as Title 42, to close the border to prevent people from entering the country, citing concerns about the spread of the coronavirus.

The case, brought in the District of Columbia by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, focuses on families with children, meaning the administration can continue to expel single adults under the provision.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan found earlier this month that advocates were likely to succeed with their case. In a 58-page ruling, he wrote that migrant families subjected to Title 42 “face real threats of violence and persecution” and are deprived of statutory rights to seek protection in the U.S.

. . . .

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Read Andrea’s complete article at the link!

More unfair and unjustified returns of refugees to death and despair courtesy of an Administration that doesn’t care and Federal Judges unwilling to do their jobs! The dead can’t speak. But, history will judge all those involved in this disgraceful episode!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-30-21

⚖️🗽JENNIFER DOHERTY @ LAW360 ANALYZES JUDGE ILLSTON’S MASSIVE TAKEDOWN OF EOIR’S ANTI-DUE-PROCESS REGULATIONS — I Speak Out On Why Judge Garland Needs To Pull Plug On The EOIR Clown Show 🤡 Sooner, Rather Than Later! — PLUS, BONUS COVERAGE: My “Open Letter” To Judge Garland!

https://www.law360.com/articles/1363797

Here’ what I had to say to Jennifer:

. . ..

Retired Immigration Judge Paul Wickham Schmidt, a former chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals who was also general counsel to the Immigration and Naturalization Service at the time of the EOIR’s creation, likewise praised Judge Illston’s order in an interview with Law360 Thursday.

Judge Schmidt, a vocal opponent of the Trump administration’s management of the EOIR, characterized the rule as part of a larger effort to discourage immigrants by stacking the courts against them, rather than a good-faith effort to reduce ballooning backlogs.

“When your docket is 1.3 million, it’s not the fact that someone is getting a few extra days in a continuance, it’s the fact that DHS is adding more cases,” he said.

As for whether the DOJ under President Joe Biden would continue defending the rule — as it is for one of the Trump-era asylum rules — Judge Schmidt said it was hard to say. But newly confirmed Attorney General Merrick Garland should prioritize changing the EOIR, as he stated his mission would be to restore nonpartisanship and defense of civil rights as pillars of the department, the judge said.

“If Garland wants to straighten out the Department of Justice, he’s got to straighten out EOIR. EOIR is a living refutation of everything Garland says he stands for,” Judge Schmidt told Law360.

Representatives for the DOJ did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The immigrant advocates are represented by Jingni (Jenny) Zhao, Anoop Prasad and Glenn Michael Katon of Asian Americans Advancing Justice — Asian Law Caucus, Seferina Young Berch, Stephen Chang, Naomi Ariel Igra, Michael O McGuinness, Scott T. Nonaka and Irene Inkyu Yang of Sidley Austin LLP, and Judah Ben Lakin and Amalia Margarete Wille of Lakin & Wille LLP.

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

Thankfully, Jennifer is operating “outside the paywall” on this particular article. So, all of you can get full access to her outstanding reporting on this case at the above link.

Dear Judge Garland:

Congratulations again and best wishes on your recent appointment as our Attorney General. I write to beg you, as a former DOJ colleague, Senior Executive, and administrative judge to deal immediately with a festering problem undermining the entire U.S. Justice system that is unfolding right under your nose, whether or not you have had time to focus on it.

A number of the individuals and organizations whose help you will need to fix EOIR and achieve equal justice for all in America are instead having their time and precious resources diverted to defending our justice system and the Constitution from absurdly illegal and obscenely counterproductive decisions and actions now being taken in YOUR NAME, such as the illegal EOIR regulations in this case. Indeed, these regulations and many other travesties still being pursued by EOIR at the behest of the former regime should have been on the chopping block long before you were even sworn in.

Not only are you now squandering Executive Branch and private sector resources that could better be devoted to solving problems, you are also wasting the time and trying the patience of thoughtful Federal Judges like U.S. District Judge Susan Illston. Certainly, as a former highly admired and respected Federal Judge, you know the value of judicial time in our system.

Additionally, failure to take immediate steps to end the dysfunction, disorder, and nonsense still streaming from EOIR on a daily basis is not only destroying vulnerable human lives, but also costing you goodwill with the very NGOs and talented, dedicated, often pro bono advocates whose assistance and support will be absolutely necessary for you to succeed in your stated objectives of returning integrity to the DOJ, eradicating institutionalized racism, and finally, finally achieving long overdue equal justice under law for all in America.

As I told Jennifer, EOIR is a “living contradiction” of everything you said in your confirmation hearing. It’s also a repudiation of the values that I have always seen and respected in you, even if mostly from afar.

I beseech you to “pull the plug” on today’s EOIR and put someone in there who can start getting it back on track: A “Due Process/Human Rights/Immigration Guru,” if you will. In terms to which we both can relate, you must find a judicial leader in the image of our late great colleague from the Carter DOJ, and your former colleague on the D.C. Circuit, Judge Patricia M. Wald. As we both know, she was was brilliant, energetic, yet highly practical, well-organized, and unswervingly committed to realizing social justice on both the national and eventually international stages.

Put someone who can run a real due-process-oriented court system in charge of the EOIR mess and let ‘er rip. You can cement your legacy to American Justice by achieving EOIR’s once noble, now discarded, vision that many of us who once served there established to guide our actions: “Through teamwork and innovation, be the world’s best tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”

With my very best wishes for your continued success,

Your former DOJ colleague from decades past,

Paul

⚖️🗽🛡RECOGNIZING WOMEN REFUGEES: Professor Karen Musalo @ ImmigrationProf Blog — Don’t Add A “6th Protected Ground” To The Statute; Get Some Better-Qualified Judges 🧑🏽‍⚖️ Who Will Respect & Follow Existing Law To Protect Those Already Covered, But Wrongfully Denied Refuge By Bad Judging & Restrictionist Policies!

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2021/03/guest-post-the-wrong-answer-to-the-right-question-how-to-address-the-failure-of-protection-for-gende.html

By Immigration Prof

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The Wrong Answer to the Right Question: How to Address the Failure of Protection for Gender-Based Claims?

By Professor Karen Musalo, Bank of America Professor of International Law, Director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, UC Hastings

In 1996 I was honored to litigate the first case at the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), Matter of Kasinga,[1] that opened the door to protection for women fleeing gender-based harms. To qualify for recognition as a refugee under U.S. law, an individual must establish “persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution” on account of one of five grounds – “race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.”[2] This definition in the 1980 Refugee Act essentially adopts the standard set forth in the 1951 UN Refugee Convention[3] and its 1967 U.N. Refugee Protocol,[4] which the U.S. ratified in 1968.

The woman seeking asylum in the Kasinga case fled female genital cutting and forced marriage. In a ground-breaking decision, the BIA ruled that cutting was persecution, and it was “on account of” her membership in a gender-defined social group. In so ruling, the BIA was following the guidance that UNHCR has issued over a number of years, noting that the absence of gender as a protected ground should not impede protection for women fleeing persecution, because the particular social group ground encompasses gender-defined groups.[5]

The Kasinga decision was a breakthrough for women, and a highwater mark in U.S. adjudicators following international guidance. It also raised expectations that U.S. law would continue to evolve and extend protection to women fleeing the many forms of gender-based violence to which they are subject. However, that has not been the case, and there have been retreats from protection across administrations, although undoubtedly we witnessed the most dramatic attempts to end protection in gender claims during the Trump administration, which issued extremely limiting Attorney General decisions, such as Matter of A-B- I,[6] and Matter of A-B- II –[7] as well as regulations[8] – currently enjoined[9]—that explicitly rule out gender-based claims.

The Biden administration has committed itself to reviewing the issue of protection for those fleeing gender-based violence.[10] As we consider how to remedy the issue, some argue for a legislative amendment to the refugee definition, adding gender as a sixth ground to the statute’s five protected grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion and membership in a particular social group. This is the wrong solution. It would not only repeat the errors of the past (amending the refugee definition in 1996, discussed below), but it would also fail to adequately protect survivors of gender-based violence. At the same time, it would lead to the quite foreseeable consequence of leaving many deserving asylum seekers outside the ambit of refugee protection. It is also likely to signal to other Convention State parties that unless they also add a sixth ground, they could deny protection to women and girls without running afoul of the treaty’s obligations.

In order to prescribe a remedy, one first has to diagnose the illness; in order to understand why the sixth ground solution is wrong, we need to examine what occurred after Kasinga that limited protection in subsequent claims involving women fleeing gender-based persecution. . . . .

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

Read the rest of Karen’s outstanding analysis at the link.

Here’s a question from last summer’s “Jeopardy style” final exam in Immigration Law & Policy @ Georgetown Law:

A: Judge Schmidt’s favorite case.

Q: What is Matter of Kasinga?

Happy to say that everyone got that one right! Of course, I wrote the decision in Matter of Kasinga!

Karen’s bottom line: “We should be working to bring the U.S. into compliance with UNHCR’s social group interpretation, rather than surrendering to its flawed interpretation, by adding a sixth ground.”

The key is better Federal Judges, from the Immigration Courts all the way up to the Supremes: Judges who are “practical scholars” in human rights and applied due process; judges who have represented asylum seekers, particularly women, and understand their plight.

This week, President Biden announced the creation of the White House Gender Policy Council. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/03/08/executive-order-on-establishment-of-the-white-house-gender-policy-council/

That’s a nice gesture. But, as I always say, actions are what really counts. So here are actions that Judge Garland can take immediately as Attorney General to finally fulfill the promise of Matter of Kasinga:

Vacate the atrocious, misogynist, perversion of asylum law (not to mention facts of record) by Sessions in Matter of A-B-;
Appoint some female “practical scholars in human rights” to appellate judgeships on the BIA.

That’s how to really honor Women’s History Month!

To understand the human impact of Sessions’s grotesque misconstruction of asylum law and the relevant facts in Matter of A-B-, check out this video short featuring Karen and others along with Ms. A-B-: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRQpXRWlQL0

I generally agree with Karen’s concerns about specific gender-based legislation potentially having an unintended negative effect. That is certainly the fate of past unsuccessful attempts to include gender-based asylum in the regulations.

They essentially were “hijacked” by DOJ litigators and enforcement-oriented policy officials looking for ways to facially appease women’s rights groups, while actually proposing to restrict eligibility and make it easier for OIL and the SG’s Office to defend denials of asylum. They also sought to create hyper-technical requirements that would have effectively made it impossible for any unrepresented individual to properly set forth a “cognizable particular social group.”

These, in and of themselves, are reasons for removing the Immigration Courts from the DOJ and creating an independent Article I structure. The “ultimate insult to injury” was when EOIR enthusiastically participated in Stephen Miller’s currently-enjoined attempt to completely write gender-based asylum out of the law. Absurdly, that came at a time when gender-based persecution has become endemic throughout the world!

Not surprisingly, the DOJ, a prosecutorial agency at heart, is most often interested in “litigation strategies” to make it easier for the Government to successfully defend the burgeoning immigration litigation in Federal Court, rather than guaranteeing justice for asylum seekers and other migrants. Quite ironically, what would really reduce the volume of civil immigration litigation is more practical, expert decision making from better qualified Immigration Judges at the “retail level” of the system.

Gimmicks to “game” the Federal Court system against asylum seekers and other migrants by skirting due process and fundamental fairness have actually contributed to, rather than reduced, the amount of civil immigration litigation the Circuits. It has also generated many avoidable “Circuit conflicts” that require attention on Supremes’ limited docket. The failure of the DOJ, the Immigration Courts, and the Federal Courts to recognize and protect the due process rights of asylum seekers and other migrants has directly carried over into the failure of our justice system to achieve equal justice under law for racial minorities.

“Institutionalized racism” is inextricably linked to “Dred Scottification” of migrants of color in the Immigration Courts! The Biden Administration can’t solve the former without addressing the latter!

Bad judging and skewed policies on the “retail level” create multiple problems that adversely affect the entire Federal Justice system. I guarantee that they will not be solved by more restrictionist gimmicks and and unduly narrow and tone-deaf interpretations by judges and policy officials who lack the necessary expertise in immigration and human rights laws and the real-life understanding and perspective of the human consequences of the choices that judges make on a daily basis.

But, I also think that in addition to better judges, it is important to revise the statutory language to make it more explicitly inclusive and clarify that gender-based asylum, family based asylum, and other protected groups are examples, but not limits, of those covered by “particular social group.” Also, the statute should reverse the BIA’s stilted restrictionist interpretations (all too often incorrectly given “deference” by Circuit Courts shirking their duty) of “nexus” as a vehicle to deny asylum rather than an expansive concept that can and should be used to extend life-saving protections where necessary.

Otherwise, as Trump, Sessions, Barr, and Miller demonstrated, needed protection becomes largely a matter of who is appointing the judges at any particular point in time. Protection must and should be more durable — for all refugees including, but not limited, to those seeking gender-based protection!

Better Federal Judges are the beginning, but by no means the end, of what is needed to make due process, fundamental fairness, and genuine refugee protections the hallmarks of American law. They are also required to turn institutionalized racism into equal justice for all persons in America, regardless of race, religion, gender, or other defining personal characteristics.

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Asylum Laws Must Protect, Not Reject!🧑🏽‍⚖️🛡

PWS

03-10-21

⚖️“THERE’S A BIGGER CHALLENGE FACING THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION!” — Broken Immigration Courts 👎🏻⚖️ — It’s Not Just Dumb & Inhumane Rules Imposed By The Trump Regime — It’s A Toxic “Mindset” Among Some EOIR Judges That Mirrors & Reinforces The Dehumanizing Actions Of ICE Enforcement!☠️

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

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-immigration-deportation-biden-20210304-ftq7zit5j5altchueuwm3rjxny-story.html

Stephen Franklin in the Chicago Tribune;

. . . .

The Biden administration has signaled that it would like to narrow arrests and deportations to those persons convicted of national security threats and other serious felonies. That would keep many of those, like the fast-food worker in Indianapolis, from immigrant court.

But there’s a bigger challenge facing the Biden administration.

Can it wipe away rules that have fed into a mindset that seemed to take root nationally among some court and immigration enforcement officials?

The rules were meant to erase an immigrant presence in the U.S. And they came to life far away from the nation’s borders in the daily grind of the immigration courts. For well over two years, I sat in Chicago’s immigration court watching, reporting and wondering how his could be happening.

Day by day I watched as the crowds huddled anxiously in the Chicago court’s major waiting room grew. Judges’ caseloads, as listed on the waiting room walls, eventually doubled for some to as many as 100 a day.

Why?

When Trump took office there were 542,411 deportation cases in the nation’s immigration courts. When he left, the number was 1.29 million. The backlog grew as arrests grew, as more were detained, as bonds went up, and new rules raised new hurdles for immigrants in the courts. The average wait for a case in Chicago’s court was 945 days in 2016, and that grew to 1,014 in 2021, 14% higher than the national average.

The long wait perplexed a judge one day as she scanned her computer looking to schedule a new hearing. The best she could find, she told an Iraqi woman in her 80s, was a date four years down the road. The long delay was not lost on the woman’s lawyer’s face. The woman’s husband was not in court because he was facing brain surgery.

A series of canceled hearings left a middle-age Palestinian’s life dangling in the court for seven years. The long delay left him anxious and panicked about the fate of his family back home, where they faced the threat of violence that had already taken several relatives’ lives. He won asylum but several months later, and before he could bring his family to the U.S., his teenage son was killed, a targeted victim of the violence that had haunted him and his relatives.

I took note after the Trump administration said in August 2019 it would push older cases back in 10 courts across the U.S., including Chicago, so that cases involving newly arrived immigrant families could move more rapidly through the courts. It was a clear warning that the U.S. would deal quickly with immigrants arriving at its borders.

. . . .

**********

Read the complete op-ed at the link.

The solutions are not rocket science. As many of us have suggested they include:

New leadership at EOIR firmly committed to judicial independence, due process, best practices and competent judicial Administration;
New judges at the BIA — “practical experts” in asylum and immigration laws committed to due process, fair application of the law, and humane treatment of individuals;
Slash the docket immediately to manageable levels by removing aged cases that would fit the legalization proposals in the Biden Bill or where relief could be granted by USCIS;
Get recent arrivals represented and decide their cases on a fair, reasonable, timely, predictable schedule (e.g., end “Aimless Docket Reshuffling”);
Establish and implement merit-based criteria for recruitment and retention of judges.

It won’t happen without new personnel and different attitudes. There’s plenty of talent out here to rebuild a high-quality, expert, due-process oriented immigration judiciary. Judge Garland and his team just have to move out those who have created and furthered dysfunction and replace them with better-qualified pros who can get the job done for American justice and the millions of individuals whose lives, hopes, and futures are tied up in the EOIR mess !

Article I is the ultimate solution! But, Judge Garland can start making long overdue changes the day he is sworn in as AG (probably later this week). The only question: Will he?

A Better EOIR For A Better America!🇺🇸It’s not rocket science!🚀

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-08-21

⚖️BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TAKES INNOVATIVE APPROACH TO KEEPING ICE ENFORCEMENT HONEST — “ICE Case Review Process” Lets Those Affected Seek Review!

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/ice-immigrants-new-appeals-process

Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have created a new appeals process that will allow immigrants and their advocates to challenge arrests, detentions, and deportations as the Biden administration continues to focus enforcement actions on certain populations, officials said Friday.

The new program, which establishes the ICE Case Review Process led by a senior reviewing officer based in Washington, DC, is part of President Joe Biden’s efforts to overhaul the agency and reform not only how it works but which immigrants are arrested and detained.

. . . .

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Read Hamed’s complete article at the link.

Shows that somebody in charge in the Biden Administration understands the scope of the problems they face in bringing ICE under control.

Compliance with agency policies has always been an issue at ICE, going all the way back to the days of the “Legacy INS.” Both on and off the bench, I observed that most policies applied only to the extent that local directors and agents chose to follow them.

I can remember essentially being told “We don’t follow that policy here,” or words to that effect. Or the time that an ICE Assistant Chief Counsel cheerfully told me in court: “Judge, you can enter any order you want. But, our deportation officer will decide whether this respondent actually gets released from custody.”

No wonder that ACC didn’t feel it necessary to appeal my custody decision after I had ruled against him. Of course, DOJ regulations (actually enacted by the Clinton Administration) give ICE Counsel unilateral authority (“The Clamper”) to stay compliance with IJ release and bond orders pending appeal. So, ICE always holds the “trump card” in bond proceedings.

Fortunately, represented respondents can threaten to go to U.S. District Court to force ICE compliance with an administrative order, if necessary. (The respondent in my case was represented.) But, for unrepresented individuals facing ICE intransigence, not so much.
That’s probably why a culture of disdain for immigrants’ rights and dislike of lawyers has grown up in so many ICE operations.

I also recollect that even in the Obama Administration, under pressure from ICE Enforcement, EOIR Management pushed Immigration Judges to “keep out of” the manner in which ICE complied with things like the “Morton Memo” or “PD” that should have been keeping certain cases out of court. And the BIA has traditionally stayed away from commenting on or reviewing prosecutorial policies, even when they directly affect court workloads or individual outcomes.

There were creative ways of skirting many of these bureaucratically-imposed blinders and pushing ICE, at least in court, to act in accordance with their own policies. But, it had to be done subtilely. EOIR was usually eager officially to announce its own fecklessness when it came to getting compliance from ICE.

I often marveled at the BIA’s ability to explain why it didn’t have authority to solve problems or do justice. In some instances, the Article III Courts actually had to instruct the BIA that they had authority to do things that they had claimed to be powerless to do.

In addition to the ICE policy described in Hamed’s article, there are other obvious ways in which compliance could be strengthened. Judge Garland could create a “New EOIR” dedicated to the original vision of due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices. He could also empower Immigration Judges to hold ICE accountable for following its own policies. As part of this, he could confer the long-existing but never implemented authority of EOIR judges to hold attorneys on both sides in contempt of court.

An independent Immigration Judiciary could be an important part of enforcing the rule of law and holding DHS accountable for its actions. But, that’s not possible with the current structural, personnel, and cultural defects that have corrupted EOIR and prevented it from being a progressive force for due process, equal justice under law, and best practices.

Indeed, under the departed regime, lack of accountability, irrationality, open bias, scofflaw behavior, and “worst practices” were institutionalized and celebrated from top to bottom! This was in a “system” already heavily weighted in favor of ICE Enforcement and against individual rights.

It will require “radical due process reforms @ EOIR” from Judge Garland and his team. We’ll soon see whether or not that will be forthcoming.

Folks who have been happily assisting in abusing and dehumanizing asylum seekers, other migrants, and their lawyers for the past four years are not lightly going to be able to “switch over” to insuring due process and fundamentally fair adjudications under the best interpretations and practices — which actually favor the granting of relief in a timely and efficient manner in many cases. Indeed, in some cases, those serving as “judges” at EOIR appear to lack the capacity, expertise, and will to treat those coming before them fairly, impartially, and humanely, even these requirements are at the heart of constitutionally required due process!

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-07-21

LATEST FROM “SIR JEFFREY” 🛡⚔️ — “Determining Political Opinion: Problems and Solutions — Jeffrey S. Chase | Opinions/Analysis on Immigration Law”

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2021/3/7/determining-political-opinion-problems-and-solutions

JEFFREY S. CHASE | OPINIONS/ANALYSIS ON IMMIGRATION LAW

Blog Archive Press and Interviews Calendar Contact

Determining Political Opinion: Problems and Solutions

Regarding political opinion, the refugee law scholar Atle Grahl-Madsen famously explained that refugee protection “is designed to suit the situation of common [people], not only that of philosophers…The instinctive or spontaneous reaction to usurpation or oppression is [as] equally valid” as the “educated, cultivated, reflected opinion.”1 A recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit provides an opportunity to reflect on this premise.

In Zelaya-Moreno v. Wilkinson, a young man was targeted for recruitment by MS-13. On two occasions, Zelaya directly announced to the gang’s members his reason for refusing to join: because gangs were bad for his hometown and country. Both times, the gang members responded by beating him, fracturing his arm the second time. They also threatened to kill him if he continued to refuse to join. The questions raised are whether Zelaya’s instinctive, simply-worded response expressed a political opinion, and if so, did that opinion form part of the reason for the beatings and threat?

The Immigration Judge recognized Zelaya’s statement to the gang to be a political opinion for asylum purposes. However, the IJ wasn’t persuaded from the record that Zelaya’s opinion was why the gang beat him. As expressed by the IJ, the beatings were caused by “Zelaya’s refusal to join the gang, irrespective of the reasons.” It doesn’t seem that the IJ considered whether the gang members imputed a political opinion to the act of refusal per se.

On appeal, the BIA took a far more extreme position, stating that because gangs are not political organizations and their activities are not political in nature, “expressing an opinion against their group is not expressing a political opinion.” This happens to be a position that EOIR and DHS (in defiance of much circuit case law and expert opinion to the contrary) later sought to codify in regulations that fortunately remain enjoined at present.

The Second Circuit in Zelaya-Moreno rejected the Board’s narrow view of political opinion. In fact, the court only last year, in its decision in Hernandez-Chacon v. Barr, recognized the act of resisting rape by members of the very same gang in El Salvador as the expression of a feminist, anti-patriarchy political opinion. Significantly, the victim in that case hadn’t stated any opinion to the gang members; it was only years later in front of the immigration judge that she gave her reason for resisting as “because I have every right to.”

As it has done in other decisions, the Second Circuit emphasized the need for a “complex and contextual factual inquiry” in political opinion determinations. It conducted a survey of cases in which political opinion was found, and of others in which it wasn’t. Unfortunately, the majority upheld the decision that Zelaya had not expressed a political opinion to the MS-13 members, stating that “[s]o far as the record shows, his objection to them is not rooted in any sort of disagreement with the policies they seek to impose nor any ideology they espouse.”

“So far as the record shows” is critical. I haven’t seen the record in this case, but I believe it might serve to demonstrate that while Grahl-Madsen correctly assigned equal validity to the opinions of the commoner and the intellectual, in practice, claims brought by members of the former group often require assistance from the latter in persuading adjudicators of the political nature of their words or actions.

For example, in Hernandez-Chacon, context for the petitioner’s resistance was provided by the affidavit of a lawyer and human rights expert who was able to articulate the patriarchal gender bias in Salvadoran society from which a political opinion could be gleaned from the asylum-seeker’s act of resistance alone. In another decision cited by the court, Alvarez-Lagos v. Barr, the Fourth Circuit was able to rely on the explanation of two experts on Central American gangs that the petitioner’s refusal to comply with extortion demands would be viewed by the gang as “political opposition” and “a form of political disobedience.”

In Zelaya-Moreno, the dissenting judge (in an opinion worth reading) was able to draw a political inference from the facts alone. It seemed that the two judges in the majority required more. But in finding the statements or actions of an applicant alone to be insufficient, is our present system of refugee protection genuinely designed to suit the situation of common people as well as philosophers?

In the view of the dissenting judge, yes. In that judge’s words, Zelaya “sought refuge here after standing up to MS members, refusing their demands that he join them, and informing them that he did not support them and considered them a blight on his native El Salvador. Our asylum laws protect individuals like Zelaya-Moreno who face persecution for such politically courageous stands.”

But in the view of the majority, Zelaya had expressed nothing “more than the generalized statement ‘gangs are bad.’ Thus, we cannot conclude that Zelaya holds a political opinion within the meaning of the statute, and therefore that the BIA erred in concluding that he was not eligible for asylum on this ground.” Would additional documentation providing the complex, contextual analysis the court mentioned earlier in its decision have delivered the two judges in the majority to the place already reached by their dissenting colleague?

The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees is a good reference source on such issues. In its Guidance Note on Refugee Claims Relating to Victims of Organized Crimes, UNHCR stated at para. 45 that in its view, “political opinion needs to be understood in a broad sense to encompass “any opinion on any matter in which the machinery of State, government, society, or policy may be engaged.” It continued at para. 47 that powerful gangs such as MS-13 may exercise de facto power in certain areas, and their activities and those of certain State agents may be closely intertwined. At para. 50, UNHCR stated that “rejecting a recruitment attempt may convey anti-gang sentiments as clearly as an opinion expressed in a more traditional political manner by, for instance, vocalizing criticism of gangs in public meetings or campaigns.” And at para. 51, UNHCR added that “[p]olitical opinion can also be imputed to the applicant by the gang without the applicant taking any action or making a particular statement him/herself. A refusal to give in to the demands of a gang is viewed by gangs as an act of betrayal, and gangs typically impute anti-gang sentiment to the victim whether or not s/he voices actual gang opposition.”

Had this document been included in the record, would it have been enough to persuade the majority that the BIA had erred in rejecting Zelaya’s claim that he was targeted on account of his political opinion? If so, how many pro se asylum applicants would understand the need to supplement their claims to provide this context, or know what type of document would be sufficient, or how to find it?

The Seventh Circuit had foreseen this problem 15 years ago. In a 2006 decision, Banks v. Gonzales, the court opined that Immigration Court needs its own country experts, who would operate much as vocational experts do in disability hearings before the Social Security Administration’s judges. In my opinion, an alternative approach would be for EOIR to follow the example of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, which maintains National Documentation Packages that are referenced in all cases by adjudicators of refugee claims.

During my time in government, I oversaw the creation of country condition pages on EOIR’s Virtual Law Library, which were built, and continue to be updated, by EOIR’s Law Library staff. However, EOIR did not see fit to make its contents part of the records of hearing in asylum cases. It is for this reason that UNHCR’s Eligibility Guidelines For Assessing International Protection Needs of Asylum Seekers in El Salvador, which contains much of the same language as the Guidance Note quoted above, and which expresses the specific conclusion that “persons perceived by a gang as contravening its rules or resisting its authority may be in need of international refugee protection on the grounds of their (imputed) political opinion,”2 is found on EOIR’s own website on the country page for “El Salvador,” yet wasn’t even considered in Zelaya-Moreno.

Considering the growing number of pro se applicants, the lack of legal resources available to those held in remote detention facilities, and the short time frame to prepare for hearings in certain categories of cases, I can’t see why the EOIR country pages should not be made part of the hearing record here as in Canada. It’s possible that such a policy would have led to a different result in Zelaya.

Furthermore, the BIA hears plenty of cases involving expert opinions supporting the conclusion that those resisting gangs such as MS-13 were harmed on account of their political opinion. Issuing precedent opinions recognizing the context that politicizes statements and actions such as Zelaya’s would result in much greater efficiency, consistency, and fairness in Immigration Court and Asylum Office adjudications.

Realistically, I harbor no illusions that the recent change in administration will bring about such enlightened changes to asylum adjudication anytime soon. But we must still continue to argue for such change. As the dissenting opinion in Zelaya stated in its conclusion: “[w]hile it may be too late for Zelaya-Moreno, the BIA and the Department of Justice can right this wrong for future asylum seekers. I urge them to reconsider their approach to anti-gang political opinion cases to ensure those who stand up to fearsome dangers are welcomed into this country rather than forced back to face torture and death.” As noted above, it wouldn’t take much effort on EOIR’s part to accomplish this.

Notes:

Atle Grahl-Madsen, The Status of Refugees in International Law, 228, 251 (1966) (quoted in Deborah E. Anker, The Law of Asylum in the United States (2020 Ed.) § 5:17, fn. 3.

UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines For Assessing International Protection Needs of Asylum Seekers in El Salvador at 29-30.

Copyright 2021 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.

Reprinted with permission.

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Truly wonderful, Jeffrey! One of your “best ever,” in my view! (And, they are all great, so that’s saying something.)

Imagine what could be achieved at the BIA with real judges, experts in asylum law, thoughtful, practical analysis, intellectual leadership, and inspiration to a fairer future, rather than the current Clown Show 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ inventing bogus ways to ”get to no!”

As Jeffrey demonstrates, we could choose to protect rather than to reject. There has always been a tendency to do the latter at the DOJ; but, under White Nationalist nativist Jeff Sessions and his successors it has gone “hog wild” — rejection has been falsely portrayed as a “duty” rather than an extremely poor choice and an abdication of moral and legal responsibility!

Today’s BIA is basically incapable of problem solving. Time and again their strained, stilted anti-immigrant, anti-due-process, pro-worst-practices interpretations not only spell doom for those coming before them, but also promote inefficiency and backlogs in an already overwhelmed system. They also send messages of disdain and disrespect for the rights and humanity of people of color that redounds throughout our struggling U.S. Legal System.

I’ll keep saying it: Whatever positive message Judge Garland and his team at DOJ intend to send about racial justice will be fatally undermined as long as “Dred Scottification” and disdain for the due process rights of migrants is the “order of the day” at the one Federal Court System the DOJ runs: The U.S. Immigration Court! As long as EOIR is a “bad joke” the rest of Judge Garland’s reforms will fall flat!

The right judges 🧑🏽‍⚖️ at the BIA could turn this thing around! Remains to be seen if it will happen. But, it’s not rocket science. It just requires putting the right folks in charge, in place, and giving them the support and independence to engage in “creative problem solving.”

Judge Garland should be confirmed next week. And the confirmation hearings for Lisa Monaco (DAG) and Vanita Gupta (AAG) have been scheduled.

Some additional points:

The dissenter in the Second Circuit’s decision in Zelaya-Moreno v. Wilkinson is Judge Rosemary Pooler. Judge Pooler has had a long and distinguished career. Perhaps she would like to cap it off by becoming Chair of the BIA and leading by example;
Shows the importance of experts, which is probably why the BIA has gone out of its way to demean them and encourage IJs to ignore their evidence;
Jeffrey’s analysis supports my “Better BIA for a Better America” 🇺🇸program;
As Justice Sotomayor says: “It is not justice.” That’s my view on today’s EOIR!

Due Process Forever! ⚖️🗽

PWS

03-07-21

🏴‍☠️BIA CONTINUES TO SPEW FORTH ERRORS IN LIFE OR DEATH ☠️ ASYLUM CASES, SAYS 4TH CIR. — “Three-In-One” — Improperly Disregarding Corroborating Evidence; Incorrect Legal Standard On Past Persecution; Wrong Nexus Finding! — Arita-Deras v. Wilkinson

Kangaroos — “Oh Boy! Three material mistakes in one asylum case! Do you think our superiors in the enforcement bureaucracy will give us extra credit on our ‘move ‘em out without due process quotas?’ Being a Deportation Judge sure is fun!”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
Creative Commons License

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/191978.P.pdf

Arita-Deras v. Wilkinson, 4th Cir., 03-05-21, Published

PANEL: GREGORY, Chief Judge, and AGEE and KEENAN, Circuit Judges

OPINION BY: Judge Barbara Milano Keenan

KEY QUOTE:

Maria Del Refugio Arita-Deras, a native and citizen of Honduras, petitions for review of a final order of removal entered by the Board of Immigration Appeals (the Board).1 The Board affirmed an immigration judge’s (IJ) conclusion that Arita-Deras was not eligible for asylum, withholding of removal, or protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The Board: (1) agreed with the IJ that Arita-Deras failed to support her claims with sufficient corroborating evidence; (2) found that Arita-Deras failed to prove that she suffered from past persecution because she had not been harmed physically; and (3) concluded that Arita-Deras failed to establish a nexus between the alleged persecution and a protected ground.

Upon our review, we conclude that the Board improperly discounted Arita-Deras’ corroborating evidence, applied an incorrect legal standard for determining past persecution, and erred in its nexus determination. Accordingly, we grant Arita-Deras’ petition and remand her case to the Board for further proceedings.

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

After eight years of bouncing around the system at various levels THIS “Not Quite Good Enough For Government Work” error-fest is what we get from EOIR! As I keep saying, no wonder they are running a 1.3 million case backlog, clogging the Circuit Courts with incredibly shoddy work, and in many cases sending vulnerable refugees back to death or torture under incorrect fact findings and blatantly wrong legal interpretations!

Again, nothing profound about this claim; just basic legal and analytical errors that often flow from the “think of any reason to deny” culture. EOIR just keeps repeating the same basic mistakes again and again even after being “outed” by the Circuits!

This case illustrates why the unrealistically high asylum denial numbers generated by the biased EOIR system and parroted by DHS should never be trusted. This respondent, appearing initially without a lawyer, was actually coerced by an Immigration Judge into accepting a “final order” of removal with a totally incorrect, inane, mis-statement of the law. “Haste makes waste,” shoddy, corner cutting procedures, judges deficient in asylum legal knowledge, and a stunning lack of commitment to due process and fundamental fairness are a burden to our justice system in addition to being a threat to the lives of individual asylum seekers.

Only when she got a lawyer prior to removal was this respondent able to get her case reopened for a full asylum hearing. Even then, the IJ and the BIA both totally screwed up the analysis and entered incorrect orders. Only because this respondent was fortunate enough to be assisted by one of the premier pro bono groups in America, the CAIR Coalition, was she able to get some semblance of justice on appeal to the Circuit Court!

I’m very proud to say that a member of the “CAIR Team,” Adina Appelbaum, program Director, Immigration Impact Lab, is my former Georgetown ILP student, former Arlington Intern, and a “charter member” of the NDPA! If my memory serves me correctly, she is also a star alum of the CALS Asylum Clinic @ Georgetown Law. No wonder Adina made the Forbes “30 Under 30” list of young Americans leaders! She and others like her in the NDPA are ready to go in and start cleaning up and improving EOIR right now! Judge Garland take note!

Despite CAIR’s outstanding efforts, Ms. Arita-Deras still is nowhere near getting the relief to which she should be entitled under a proper application of the law by expert judges committed to due process. Instead, after eight years, she plunges back into EOIR’s 1.3 million case “never never land” where she might once again end up with Immigration Judges at both the trial and appellate level who are not qualified to be hearing asylum cases because they don’t know the law and they are “programmed to deny” to meet their “deportation quotas” in support of ICE Enforcement.

Focus on it folks! This is America; yet individuals on trial for their lives face a prosecutor and a “judge” who are on the same side! And, they are often forced to do it without a lawyer and without even understanding the complex proceedings going on around them! How is this justice? It isn’t! So why is it allowed to continue?

Also, let’s not forget that under the recently departed regime, EOIR falsely claimed that having an attorney didn’t make a difference in success rates for respondents. That’s poppycock! Actually, as the Vera Institute recently documented the success rate for represented respondents is an astounding 10X that of unrepresented individuals. In any functional system, that differential would be more than sufficient to establish a “prima facie” denial of due process any time an asylum seeker (particularly one in detention) is forced to proceed without representation.

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️VERA INSTITUTE RECOMMENDS FEDERAL DEFENDER PROGRAM FOR IMMIGRANTS — Widespread Public Support For Representation In Immigration Court!

Yet, this miscarriage of justice occurs every day in Immigration Courts throughout America! Worse yet, EOIR and DHS have purposely “rigged” the system in various ways to impede and discourage effective representation.

To date, while flagging EOIR for numerous life-threatening errors, the Article IIIs have failed to come to grips with the obvious: The current EOIR system provides neither due process nor fundamental fairness to the individuals coming before these “courts” (that aren’t “courts” at all)!

Acting AG Wilkinson has piled up an impressive string of legal defeats in immigration matters in just a short time on the job. It’s going to be up to Judge Garland to finally make it right. It’s urgent for both our nation and the individuals whose rights are being stomped upon by a broken system on a daily basis!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Failed Courts Never!

PWS

03–05-21

THE GIBSON REPORT — 03-01-21 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — FEATURING: Under The EOIR Big Top 🎪 Robed TV Carnival Barkers Hand Out Death Sentences ☠️ With Ignorance, Indolence, Indifference, & Insult To Injury!

COVID-19 & Closures

Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify information with the government and colleagues.

EOIR Status Overview & EOIR Court Status Map/List: Hearings in non-detained cases at courts without an announced date are postponed through, and including, March 19, 2021 (The timing of postponement notices has been inconsistent and it is unclear when the next announcement will be. EOIR announced 3/19 on Wed. 2/10, 2/19 on Mon. 1/25, 2/5 on Mon. 1/11, and 1/22 on Mon. 12/28). There is no announced date for reopening NYC non-detained at this time.

USCIS Office Closings, Including Weather

TOP NEWS

Biden revokes Trump ban on many green card applicants

Reuters: U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday revoked a proclamation from his predecessor that blocked many green card applicants from entering the United States.

Biden to allow migrant families separated under Trump to reunite in the U.S.

Politico: ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero was quick to welcome Mayorkas’ announcement, but cautioned that “the devil is in the details and Secretary Mayorkas has to shed all the caveats and qualifications around his announcement and follow through with everything that’s necessary to right the wrong.” See also Lawyers have found the parents of 105 separated migrant children in past month.

Biden to Discuss Border and Other Issues With Mexican President

NYT: The two leaders, who previously talked about ways to stem migration in a call on Jan. 22, just days after Mr. Biden took office, are expected to discuss addressing the root causes of persecution and poverty that force Central American families to flee to the United States.

First migrant facility for children opens under Biden

WaPo: Government officials say the camp is needed because facilities for migrant children have had to cut capacity by nearly half because of the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border has been inching up, with January reporting the highest total — more than 5,700 apprehensions — for that month in recent years.

Federal judge deals Biden another blow on 100-day deportation ban

Politico: U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton granted a preliminary injunction that blocks the moratorium the Biden administration announced on its first day.

ICE investigators used a private utility database covering millions to pursue immigration violations

WaPo: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have tapped a private database containing hundreds of millions of phone, water, electricity and other utility records while pursuing immigration violations, according to public documents uncovered by Georgetown Law researchers and shared with The Washington Post.

The Trump Administration’s Cruelty Haunts Our Virtual Immigration Courts

InTheseTimes: According to the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) — the Justice Department agency that oversees these immigration adjudication centers — nearly 300,000 asylum cases have been heard via videoconference in the past two years.

In The Story Of U.S. Immigration, Black Immigrants Are Often Left Out

NPR: Nana Gyamfi, Executive Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, tells NPR’s Scott Simon about challenges Black immigrants to the U.S. face.

Consumer watchdog sues immigration services company, claiming it preys on detainees

NBC: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Monday filed a lawsuit against Libre by Nexus, claiming the company is preying on immigrants through a bond scam that traps participants into paying expensive fees.

The five biggest omissions in massive Biden immigration bill

Examiner: Protocols for caring for families and children, border wall infrastructure, decriminalizing illegal immigration, immigration courts, employment-based immigration, and private detention facilities were not addressed in either the House or Senate versions of the bill.

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

USCIS Launches Pilot Program to Facilitate Attorney or Representative Remote Participation in an Asylum Interview

USCIS has launched a temporary pilot program to facilitate attorney or representative participation in an asylum interview from a remote location via video or telephone. The pilot program is available only at the Arlington, Boston, Miami, Newark, and Newark/Manhattan Branch asylum offices. AILA Doc. No. 21030131

2nd Circ. Judge Dings Majority’s ‘Uncharitable’ Asylum Ruling

Law360: A fractured Second Circuit panel tossed an El Salvadoran asylum seeker’s appeal, finding that his opposition to gangs was not a political opinion and that he could avoid future beatings, a view the dissenting judge called an “uncharitable” interpretation of the case.

BIA Rules on Special Rule Cancellation of Removal

BIA ruled that an applicant for special rule cancellation of removal under INA §240A(b)(2) based on spousal abuse must demonstrate both that the abuser was their lawful spouse and was either a U.S. citizen or LPR at the time of the abuse. Matter of L-L-P-, 28 I&N Dec. 241 (BIA 2021) AILA Doc. No. 21022432

Justices ‘Baffled,’ ‘Confused’ By Asylum Cases

Law360: A pair of thorny immigration cases “baffled” and “confused” the inquisitive justices of the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday as they wrestled with when testimony of asylum applicants must be presumed to be credible.

District Court Indefinitely Stops Government from Executing a 100-Day Moratorium on Removals

A district court grants nationwide preliminary injunction to prohibit enforcement and implementation of the 100-day pause on removals as outlined in the 1/20/21 DHS memo. (State of Texas v. USA, et al., 2/23/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012634

Presidential Proclamation Revoking Immigrant Visa Ban

On 2/24/21, President Biden issued Proclamation 10149 revoking Proclamation 10014, section 1 of Proclamation 10052, and section 1 of Proclamation 10131, which suspended immigrant visas due to the 2019 novel Coronavirus outbreak. (86 FR 11847, 3/1/21) AILA Doc. No. 21022490

DOS Provides Update on the Phased Resumption of Routine Visa Services

DOS updates its announcement and FAQs on the phased resumption of visa services following the rescission of Presidential Proclamation 10014, which suspended the entry of certain immigrant visa applicants into the United States. AILA Doc. No. 20071435

DOJ Appeals Ruling Limiting Immigrant Detentions Without a Court Hearing

Documented: Judge Alison Nathan’s Nov. 30 ruling at U.S. District Court in Manhattan was the first to draw a constitutional line on how long an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee waits for an initial hearing before a judge.

ICE Can’t Keep Transferred Detainee Out Of Fla. Class Action

Law360: A Florida federal judge ruled Friday that a Mexican citizen can join a class action challenging U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement detainee conditions at three South Florida facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the agency cannot escape jurisdiction by transferring him to a facility across the country.

Council Sues Customs and Border Protection to Release Records of Militarized Raids on Humanitarian Aid Station

AIC: The Council and partners filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to compel the government to release documentation of three raids on a humanitarian aid station in the deadly desert in Southern Arizona.

HHS Withdrawal of Request for Comment on Proposed Revisions to Forms for Sponsors of Unaccompanied Children

The Department of Health and Human Services published a notice stating that it is no longer pursuing changes to the forms for sponsors of unaccompanied children on which it had requested public comment on 1/5/21 at 86 FR 308, and therefore withdraws its request for comment. (86 FR 11537, 2/25/21) AILA Doc. No. 21022531

DHS Secretary Mayorkas Announces Family Reunification Task Force Principles and Executive Director

DHS: Secretary Mayorkas announced that Michelle Brané will serve as the Task Force’s Executive Director. Most recently, she served as the senior director of the Migrant Rights and Justice program at the Women’s Refugee Commission.

RESOURCES

·         Correction: The ERO ombudsman email that was circulating last week had a typo and should be: EROOmbudsman@ice.dhs.gov.

·         AILA: Policy Brief: Walled Off: How USCIS Has Closed Its Doors on Customers and Strayed from Its Statutory Customer Service Mission

·         AILA: Current Leadership of Major Immigration Agencies

·         AILA: Practice Alert: ICE Interim Guidance on Civil Immigration Enforcement and Removal Priorities

·         AILA: Practice Pointer: Employment Verification During the COVID-19 Outbreak

·         AILA: Summary of the U.S. Citizenship Act

·         AILA: Section-by-Section Summary of the U.S. Citizenship Act

·         AILA: Podcast: Representing a Mentally Ill Client Facing Removal Proceedings

·         AILA: Resource Related to Lawsuit Granting Preliminary Relief for Diversity Visa Applicants

·         ASISTA: New Advisory: Overview of U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 & Its Impact on Immigrant Survivors

·         Black Immigrants Got Talent

·         CGRS: Children’s Asylum Manual: A Resource for Practitioners

·         CLINIC: Biden Administration Rescinds 2018 USCIS Notice to Appear Guidance

·         CLINIC: Department of State Shifts Human Rights Reports Comparison Charts

·         CMS: New Study about Immigrant Health in New York City

·         CRS: Are Temporary Protected Status Recipients Eligible to Adjust Status?

·         GAO: Actions Are Needed to Address the Cost and Readiness Implications of Continued DOD Support to U.S. Customs and Border Protection

·         ICYMI: Important Policy & ASISTA Updates

·         ILRC: What Every Noncitizen Must Know About Cannabis and Immigration

·         Immigration Mapping: From Hirabayashi to DACA

·         LGBT Adult Immigrants in the United States

·         LSNYC Practice Advisory on continuances: fourth edition of the sample motion

·         USCIS: Resources on U.S. Citizenship for Adult Adoptees

EVENTS

3/2/21 SIJS-based Adjustment of Status before EOIR

3/2/21 Creative Evidentiary Solutions for Asylum Cases

3/3/21 Thinking Beyond Resettlement: Are Complementary Pathways for Refugees the Answer?

3/4/21 TPS Updates

3/4/21 An Immigration Practitioner’s Guide to Ethics

3/5/21 Matter of A-B-: Litigation Update and Strategy Discussion

3/5/21-3/26/21 Webinar Series: Selected Issues in Inadmissibility

3/8/21 How Refugee Protections Fail Migrant Women: Personal is no Longer Political

3/8/21 NYIC: DOJ Recognition & Accreditation

3/10/21 All About DOJ Recognition and Accreditation

3/10/21 A Celebration of Women in Immigration Law

3/10/21 Deported Veterans Symposium

3/12/21 Strategies and Tactics for Successful Immigration Appeals

3/16/21 Representing Immigrants in Family Court

3/16/21 Ethical Issues in Crisis Lawyering: Representation and Advocacy Challenges

3/16/21 Pending Lawsuits: Where Are We Now? Keeping Up with BIG Litigation

3/17/21-3/18/21 Legal Remedies for Immigrant Survivors: Introductory Seminar Series – Part II: Preparing The Case

3/17/21 Incorporating Holistic Services in an Immigration Legal Services Program

3/18/21 CGRS Webinar: Asylum Policy and Litigation Update Under the Biden Administration

3/23/21 Complex Naturalization: How to Get Your Clients to Citizenship

3/23/21 Understanding the Conditional Permanent Residence Petition (Form I-751)

3/24/21 Privacy at Risk: Searches of Electronic Devices at Ports of Entry and Beyond

3/30/21 Public Charge and the Affidavit of Support

3/30/21-5/14/21 Comprehensive Overview of Immigration Law (COIL)

4/5/21 Overview of Immigration Law Training

4/5/21-4/26/21 Webinar Series: Selected Issues in U Nonimmigrant Status

4/15/21 DACA

4/20/21 Hot Topics in Naturalization Adjudications

4/21/21 Working with Domestic Violence Immigrant Survivors: The Intersection of Basic Family Law, Immigration, Benefits, and Housing Issues in California 2021

4/28/21 Community Defense: Legal Service Partnerships with Organizers

5/4/21 Public Charge: Current State of Play

5/6/21 Hot Topics in Asylum Law

5/10/21 All About DOJ Recognition and Accreditation

5/13/21 Marijuana and Immigrants

5/17/21-5/20/21 CLINIC Convening 2021

5/18/21 Ethics in Representing Family Members in U Visa, U AOS/929, and VAWA Cases

5/26/21 Hot Topics in Removal Defense

6/1/21 VAWA Adjustment of Status Fundamentals

6/9/21 Hot topics: Adjudication and Enforcement Trends

6/10/21 Public Charge and Hot Topics in Consular Processing

6/14/21 Taxes at the Border: Understanding the Tax Consequences of Immigration Status

6/15/21 U Visa Hot Topics

6/22/21 Defending Immigration Removal Proceedings 2021

6/30/21 Immigration Update – June 2021

7/22/21 Defending Immigration Removal Proceedings 2021

·         9/23/21 Representing Children in Immigration Matters 2021: Effective Advocacy and Best Practices

ImmProf

Monday, March 1, 2021

·         Join the Deported Veterans Symposium on March 10-12, 2021

·         LGBT Adult Immigrants in the United States

·         Jennifer Lee Koh Joins Pepperdine Law Faculty

·         Democrats Strategizing on Immigration Reform, Piecemeal or the Whole Enchilada?

Sunday, February 28, 2021

·         Year of the Ox’s “Viral” Song Gains Traction Amid Rise in Anti-Asian Violence

·         Brookings Institution: Biden’s Immigration Reset

Saturday, February 27, 2021

·         At the Movies: Minari (2020)

·         Immigration Article of the Day: Freedom of Movement, Migration, and Borders by Jaya Ramji-Nogales & Iris Goldner Lang

Friday, February 26, 2021

·         Vera Institute — A Federal Defender Service for Immigrants Why: We Need a Universal, Zealous, and Person-Centered Model

·         Black Immigrants Got Talent (BIG Talent)

·         At the Movies: The Marksman (2021)

·         Fortress (North) America

·         Immigration Mapping: From Hirabayashi to DACA

·         At the Movies: Alien Terminology and Change the Subject, a 2019 Documentary

·         Immigration Article of the Day: Fee Retrenchment in Immigration Habeas by Seth Katsuya Endo

Thursday, February 25, 2021

·         Big Strides In Reunifying Separated Migrant Familes; Long Ways Still To Go

·         Call For Papers: Forced Migration Review on “Public health and WASH”

·         Immigrant Leaves Maplewood Church After 3½ Years As ICE Decides Not To Deport Him

·         Sister Simone Campbell on Immigration Reform

·         #WeCanWelcome Asylum Seekers: Meet Mirna Linares de Batres

·         Throwback Thursday: My Trials by Judge Paul Grussendorf

·         Immigration Article of the Day: Tried and (Inherently) Prejudiced: Disposing of the Prejudice Requirement for Lack of Counsel in Removal Proceedings by Ayissa Maldonado

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

·         President Biden revokes Trump bans on many green card applicants, temporary foreign workers

·         Court Enjoins Biden Administration’s 100 Day Removal Pause

·         Ahilan Arulanantham joins UCLA School of Law as co-faculty director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy

·         The five biggest omissions in massive Biden immigration bill

·         Immigration Article of the Day: Capital Controls as Migrant Controls by Shayak Sarkar, California Law Review, Forthcoming

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

·         From ‘aliens’ to ‘noncitizens’ – the Biden administration is proposing to change a legal term to recognize the humanity of non-Americans

·         Congressmember Debbie Leski’s Racist Remarks

·         Teaching Immigration Law: Law School Clinics in the US and UK

·         Immigration Article of the Day: Statelessness as Rhetoric: The Case for Revisioning Statelessness in Our Statist World by Francis Tom Temprosa

Monday, February 22, 2021

·         From the Bookshelves: Migrant Conversions:  Transforming Connections between Peru and South Korea by Erica Vogel

·         Supreme Court News: Court to Review Public Charge Case, Hear Asylum Credibility Oral Arguments Tomorrow

·         USCIS restores citizenship and naturalization test

·         Immigration Lawyers Toolbox®

·         Code Compare on Lexis Nexis

·         Human Rights Watch — US: Take New Approach at Mexico Border

·         In Challenging Times, A Call for African American/Asian American Unity

·         Former Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller slams Biden immigration proposal

·         Immigration Article of the Day: The Political (Mis)representation of Immigrants in Voting by Ming Hsu Chen and Hunter Knapp

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

Check out “Top News #7.” It’s an article by Arvind Dilawar in In These Times about “EOIR’s Black Sites,” 🏴‍☠️ euphemistically known as “Immigration Adjudication Centers” where imposters masquerading as “judges” “process” cases by TV on the deportation assembly line, often without regard to the law, the facts, and the humanity of their victims and the lawyers representing them.

Here’s an excerpt:

Lisa Koop, associate director of legal services for the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), stood with her client in immigration court in September 2019. The client (name withheld for privacy) had escaped violence in Central America and fled to the United States with her young daughter. Here, they were taken into custody by immigration authorities, which landed them in this courtroom, waiting to hear whether they would be granted asylum.

They were initially scheduled with a traditional, in-person immigration judge. But that judge retired and the case was transferred to an “immigration adjudication center.” This new judge video conferenced in. Koop says the judge did not allow an opening statement, was not familiar with relevant precedent and did not ask Koop to address any particularities of the case in the closing argument. The judge ruled that, while the case was “very sad,” it did not meet the criteria for asylum, then wished Koop’s client “good luck” following deportation.

This outrageous mockery of due process, fundamental fairness, and real judicial proceedings is ongoing, in the Department of “Justice” — yes, folks, the Chief Prosecutor of the U.S. maintains his own “wholly owned” “court system” in a nation where justice supposedly is unbiased and impartial — more than five weeks into the Biden Administration.

Last week, we heard a refreshingly emotional expression of personal gratitude and recognition of the essential role of refugee protections from Judge Merrick Garland.

What we haven’t heard to date is a recognition that what will soon be “his” DOJ treats refugees (in this case vulnerable asylum seekers) with disdain and disrespect “revved up” by four years of White Nationalist abuses heaped on them by Judge Garland’s corrupt predecessors as AGs for Trump. We also have yet to hear what Judge Garland plans to do about the deadly and disreputable “EOIR Clown Show” 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ which will soon be operating under his auspices and which, whether he realizes it or not, will form the the major part of his legacy to American Justice.

Judge Garland should call up folks like Lisa Koop at NIJC, Claudia Valenzuela at American Immigration Council, and their colleagues to get a “real life dose” of what it means to be or represent an asylum seeker in today’s dysfunctional and disreputable Immigration “Courts” that actually are 21st Century Star Chambers.

Star Chamber Justice — “Justice”
Star Chamber
Style

Better yet, he should replace the current EOIR Senior Executives and BIA Appellate Immigration Judges with Koop, Valenzuela, and others like them — “practical experts” in due process, equal justice, immigration, and human rights — who would restore and advance judicial integrity and fairness to a system that has abandoned and trampled upon those fundamental values!

Grim Reaper — G. Reaper Approaches ICE Gulag With “Imbedded Captive Star Chamber” Run By EOIR, For Their “Partner” Reaper
Image: Hernan Fednan, Creative Commons License

As stated at the end of Dilawar’s article: “Asylum-seekers are wrongfully denied asylum, and justice is not served.” Duh!

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! End the EOIR Clown Show!🤡🦹🏿‍♂️🎪☠️

PWS

03-02-21

⚖️🗽CREAMED AGAIN! — 1st Circuit Finds Errors Galore In BIA’s Denial Of Withholding To Honduran Woman: Credibility; Corroboration; Following Precedent; CAT Claim! — Molina-Diaz v. Wilkinson

http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/15-2321P-01A.pdf

Molina-Diaz v. Wilkinson, 1st Cir., 02-25-02

PANEL: Howard, Chief Judge, and Kayatta, Circuit Judge.**Judge Torruella heard oral argument in this matter and participated in the semble, but he did not participate in the issuance of the panel’s opinion in this case. The remaining two panelists therefore issued the opinion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 46(d).

ATTORNEYS: Nancy J. Kelly, with whom John Willshire Carrera and Harvard Immigration & Refugee Clinic of Harvard Law School at Greater Boston Legal Services were on brief, for petitioner.

Stratton C. Strand, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, with whom Benjamin C. Mizer, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Douglas E. Ginsburg, Assistant Director, and Derek C. Julius, Senior Litigation Counsel, were on brief, for respondent.

OPINION BY: Chief Judge Howard

KEY QUOTE:

Petitioner Olga Araceli Molina- Diaz is a Honduran native and citizen who twice entered the United States without authorization. The government ordered her removed to Honduras, and an immigration judge (“IJ”) denied her subsequent application for withholding of removal (“Application”). Molina appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), which affirmed the IJ’s order and denied Molina’s motion to reopen and remand. Molina now petitions this court to review the BIA’s decision. Because we agree that the IJ and BIA made legal errors, we grant the petition, vacate the removal order, and remand for further proceedings.

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

Folks, we’re not talking about obtuse principles of international law, complex statutory interpretation, or “cutting edge” legal concepts. No, this is about credibility, corroboration, following your own precedents (even when they might produce a result favorable to the respondent), and adjudicating a CAT claim.

These are the “bread and butter” of basic asylum and withholding adjudication that is the staple of most Immigration Court dockets. Not rocket science! Yet, once they got below the “caption line,” the BIA, a supposedly “expert tribunal,” got pretty much everything else wrong. With human life at stake, no less!

This isn’t just an “outlier.” It reveals deep systemic problems in a dysfunctional system that has been programmed to cut corners and deny relief. After 21 years as an EOIR Judge at every level, I know an “autopilot denial” when I see one.

This is clearly the product of a judge and a BIA panel that approached the case with a “we deny almost all Hondurans, it’s just a question of how” attitude. Because “the bottom line got to no,” obviously nobody paid much, if any, attention to what was above it. I suspect that if the staff attorney had drafted this as a grant or a remand, the BIA panel would have given it a more thorough and searching review.

Following your own precedents isn’t a matter that requires profound knowledge or amazing analytical skills. It just requires some level of basic expertise and an open mind — things that appear to be sorely lacking throughout today’s broken EOIR.

The flawed EOIR approach to claims for asylum and withholding, particularly those involving the Northern Triangle and women, is very costly, not only to the humans involved, but also to our justice system. This respondent reentered the U.S. in 2009, and her merits hearing before the IJ took place in 2012. A careful, proper analysis could well have resulted in a grant at that time.

Instead, this “plethora of errors,” created by EOIR’s corner cutting and obsession with denying claims, bounced around the system for nearly a decade before being “outed” by the Circuit Court — obviously the only judges involved who took the time to actually analyze the case in accordance with the law, the facts, and the arguments made by counsel. So, after nearly a decade, at three different levels of review, we’re basically back to “square one” with this case.

The case will be returned to the BIA who inevitably will return it to to the IJ for a new hearing that actually complies with the law and due process. Given the total dysfunction in the EOIR system, it’s could easily be around for another decade.

Getting it right at the first level is critically important in a high volume, yet life determining, system like the Immigration Courts! That’s why it’s so absolutely essential that Judge Garland replace the current BIA and many of the current trial judges with “practical experts;” judges selected on a merit-basis because of their understanding of immigration and human rights laws, demonstrated analytical skills, and who by experience and reputation are overwhelmingly committed to due process, fundamental fairness, treating respondents and their lawyers with respect and dignity, and getting the right result the first time around. “The best and the brightest,” if you will!

As this case that began well before Trump shows, the deterioration at EOIR has been underway across Administrations over the past two decades. It greatly accelerated and became more acute under Trump. That’s particularly true because “Trump AGs” drastically expanded the Immigration Courts and the BIA (while exponentially increasing the backlog), and now have appointed the majority of judges in the system — after just four years!

Compare that with the Obama Administration’s practice of taking an mind-boggling average of two years to fill IJ vacancies! And, then filling them almost all with “government insiders and former prosecutors” rather than some of the many renowned “practical scholars,” experienced clinicians, and notable litigators in the private/academic/NGO immigration/human rights sectors. They actually left behind unfilled judicial vacancies for Sessions to “pounce on.” Says all you really need to know about the “priority” of immigrant justice in the Obama Administration. The “good enough for government work” attitude that has replaced “guaranteeing fairness and due process for all” as the “EOIR Vision” needs to go, now!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Achieving it in the Immigration Courts will be the “litmus test” of whether Judge Garland succeeds or fails in his new role as Attorney General! You can’t improve justice for all in America while running a “court system” that denies justice, often ignores the law, mocks due process, eschews best practices and common sense, and routinely disrespects the humanity of those appearing before it! All while running up a stunning 1.3 million case backlog! As Justice Sotomayor would say: “This is not justice!”

PWS

02-26-21

WHEN DOES “IS OR WAS” MEAN “WAS AT THE TIME?” — When The BIA Wants To Screw An Abused Spouse! — Matter of L-L-P-, 28 I&N Dec. 441 (BIA 2021) Is BIA’s Latest Effort To Ignore Plain Statutory Language To Achieve Anti-Immigrant Outcome!

Matter of L-L-P-, 28 I&N Dec. 441 (BIA 2021)

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1370261/download

BIA Headnote:

An applicant for special rule cancellation of removal under section 240A(b)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(2) (2018), based on spousal abuse must demonstrate both that the abuser was his or her lawful spouse and possessed either United States citizenship or lawful permanent resident status at the time of the abuse.

PANEL: GREER and GOODWIN, Appellate Immigration Judges; PEPPER, Temporary Appellate Immigration Judge

OPINION BY: GOODWIN, Appellate Immigration Judge

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

To state the obvious, if Congress intended the meaning the BIA came up with, they would have just said “was at the time of the abuse.”

Here are a few of the comments from the Courtside mailbox:

“I hope it is not naive to think that the DV community might get a new AG to certify this. Beyond the strategic evil of granting remand and slipshod reasoning, it demonstrates a shocking ignorance of domestic violence and abuse. There is no way this would survive review at the circuit level.”
“Interesting that even though the Administration has set a more “immigrant friendly” tone, the BIA continues to crank out restrictive, anti-immigrant precedents, inevitably choosing the interpretation least favorable to the respondent in all precedents! I sure wish they would be ousted!”
“It’s the same Board Members. I don’t remember the decisions becoming better under Obama, other than A-R-C-G-. And the present Board is far worse in its makeup than under Obama.”
And, perhaps my favorite, short, accurate, and to the point: “F**k!”

It’s what happens when you create a “judiciary” far removed from the human problems and real-life in-court experiences of the community whose lives they crush under their uninformed and tone-deaf “jurisprudence.”

Starting sometime in March, Judge Garland, now one of the most highly respected Federal Judges in America, will find himself in a new position — as the “named defendant” in some the worst so-called jurisprudence in modern American legal history in the now most-litigated area in Federal civil law! This is “intentionally skewed jurisprudence” embodying White Nationalism, inhumanity, and xenophobia.

Is that really the way he wants to be remembered by future generations? If not, what’s his plan for bringing due process, fundamental fairness, diversity, compassion, quality control, efficiency, and “practical scholarship” to our embarrassingly and disgracefully dysfunctional Immigration “Courts?”

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-26-21

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Here are some relevant portions of Judge Sullivan’s opinion in Huisha-Huisha v. Mayorkas, D.D.C., Nov. 22, 2022, to keep in mind as the bogus claims and misleading reporting continue to mushroom ahead of the Dec. 22 (Wednesday) date for re-establishing the rule of law @ our Southern Border:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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MarIa Sacchetti reports for WashPost:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Gabe Ortiz reports for The Daily Kos:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Andrea Castillo reports for the LA Times:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Asylum Laws Must Protect, Not Reject!🧑🏽‍⚖️🛡

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A Better EOIR For A Better America!🇺🇸It’s not rocket science!🚀

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

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Due Process Forever! ⚖️🗽

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🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! End the EOIR Clown Show!🤡🦹🏿‍♂️🎪☠️

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Molina-Diaz v. Wilkinson, 1st Cir., 02-25-02

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BIA Headnote:

Here are a few of the comments from the Courtside mailbox:

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

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