Courts – Page 11 – immigrationcourtside.com

⚖️🤯 BIA SEEKS AMICUS INPUT ON HOW THEY CAN HELP DHS “REMEDY” ITS OWN MISTAKES!

Former AG Jeff Sessions openly despised immigrants and their attorneys and encouraged “his judges” at EOIR to help out their “partners at DHS Enforcement.” That attitude lives on even under AG Merrick Garland!
This caricature of Jeff Sessions was adapted from a Creative Commons licensed photo from Gage Skidmore’s Flickr’s photostream.
DonkeyHotey
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1592111/download

Amicus Invitation No. 23-01-08

AMICUS INVITATION (NOTICE TO APPEAR) DUE August 31, 2023

AUGUST 1, 2023

The Board of Immigration Appeals welcomes interested members of the public to file amicus curiae briefs discussing the below issue(s):

ISSUE(S) PRESENTED:

Pursuant to Matter of Fernandes, 28 I&N Dec. 605 (BIA 2022):

1. Should an Immigration Judge allow DHS to remedy a non-compliant Notice to Appear?

2. To remedy a non-compliant Notice to Appear, is either (1) issuing an I-261, or (2) amending the Notice to Appear, permitted by the regulations, and would either comport with the single document requirement emphasized by the United States Supreme Court in Niz-Chavez v. Garland, 141 S. Ct. 1474 (2021)? If not, how can a non-compliant Notice to Appear be remedied?

Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae: Members of the public who wish to appear as amicus curiae before the Board must submit a written request labeled “REQUEST TO APPEAR AS AMICUS CURIAE” pursuant to Chapter 2.10, Appendix A (Directory), and Appendix E (Cover Pages) of the Board of Immigration Appeals Practice Manual. The Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae must explicitly identify that it is responding to Amicus Invitation No. 23-01-08. The decision to accept or deny a Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae is within the sole discretion of the Board. Please see Chapter 2.10 of the Board of Immigration Appeals Practice Manual.

Filing a Brief: Please file your amicus brief in conjunction with your Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae pursuant to Chapter 2.10 of the Board of Immigration Appeals Practice Manual. The brief accompanying the Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae must explicitly identify that it is responding to Amicus Invitation No. 23-01-08. An amicus curiae brief is helpful to the Board if it presents relevant legal arguments that the parties have not already addressed. However, an amicus brief must be limited to a legal discussion of the issue(s) presented. The decision to accept or deny an amicus brief is within the sole discretion of the Board. The Board will not consider an amicus brief that exceeds the scope of the amicus invitation.

Request for Case Information: Additional information about the case, including the parties’ contact information, may be available. Please contact the Clerk’s Office at the below address for this information prior to filing your Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae and amicus brief.

Page Limit: The Board asks that amicus curiae briefs be limited to 25 double-spaced pages.

Deadline: Please file a Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae and amicus brief with the Clerk’s Office at the address below by August 31, 2023. Your request must be received at the Clerk’s Office within the prescribed time limit. Motions to extend the time for filing a Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae and amicus brief may not be entertained. It is not sufficient simply to mail the documents on time. We strongly urge the use of an overnight courier service to ensure the timely filing of your brief.

Service: Please mail three copies of your Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae and amicus brief to the Clerk’s Office at the address below. If the Clerk’s Office accepts your brief, it will then serve a copy on the parties and provide parties time to respond.

Joint Requests: The filing of parallel and identical or similarly worded briefs from multiple amici is disfavored. Rather, collaborating amici should submit a joint Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae and amicus brief. See generally Chapter 2.10 (Amicus Curiae) and Chapter 4.6(i) (Amicus Curiae Briefs) of the Board of Immigration Appeals Practice Manual.

Notice: A Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae may only be filed by an attorney, accredited representative, or an organization represented by an attorney registered to practice before the Board pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 1292.1(d). A Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae filed by a person specified under 8 U.S.C. § 1367(a)(1) will not be considered.

Attribution: Where more than three attorneys or representatives sign an amicus brief or filing, the Board will name only the first three individuals in the published case. If you wish a different set of three names or have a preference on the order of the three names, please specify the three names in your Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae and amicus brief.

Clerk’s Office Contact and Filing Address:

To send by courier or overnight delivery service, or to deliver in person:

Amicus Clerk

Board of Immigration Appeals Clerk’s Office

5107 Leesburg Pike, Suite 2000 Falls Church, VA 22041

Business hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Fee: A fee is not required for the filing of a Request to Appear as Amicus Curiae and amicus brief.

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Seems like the obvious “remedy” would be to require that DHS issue a new compliant NTA!

Respondents don’t get to “remedy” all mistakes, even inadvertent ones! Why should the USG be allowed to weasel its way out of a situation they intentionally created in a misguided effort (aided and abetted by EOIR “management”) to cut corners and generate statistics to please their political masters?

Ever since the “Ashcroft purge,” the BIA has functioned less and less as an independent quasi adjudicative body and more and more as an apologist for, enabler, or justifier of each Administration’s immigration enforcement agenda! In other words, the BIA’s role has become largely to slap a “quasi-judicial veneer” on DHS enforcement policies and priorities so that OIL can argue Chevron deference or even “Brand X” in the Article IIIs!

Of course, using EOIR as a “deterrent” and “enforcer” over the past two decades has been a spectacular failure! It has led to “Aimless Docket Reshuffling on Steroids,” absurdly insurmountable backlogs, and frequent rebukes from the Article IIIs.

Indeed, having helped create and magnify exponentially the mess at EOIR, many of the Trump and Biden Administration’s “gimmicks” appear aimed at avoiding or sidestepping the EOIR process altogether.

It’s the height of disingenuousness! At the urging of the White House, DOJ and DHS “break” the fair hearing system at EOIR. They then use their own misconduct and mismanagement as an excuse to deny asylum seekers and others access to the fair and impartial adjudication system to which they are legally entitled!

And, while the Article IIIs, even the Supremes, have “called out” EOIR on frequent, particularized errors, they have been happy to sweep the obvious “big problem” under the rug in a monumental exercise of “judicial task avoidance!”

That problem is that as currently operated, the EOIR system is a clear violation of the Constitutional principle that individuals facing removal, an often irreparable, even deadly, loss, are entitled to a reasonable decision from a fair and impartial decision-maker. See, e.g., Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254 (1970). While justice is served in some EOIR decisions, the systemic failures push in the exact opposite direction.

Without the necessary systemic safeguards in place, life and death decisions are largely an arbitrary and capricious “crap shoot” where wildly inconsistent results on the same or similar facts too often depend on the attitude of the judge, the whimsical decisions by “management” on whether to interfere in decision-making, and the location and circumstances of the hearing.

This is NOT the way to run a legitimate court system in compliance with due process and fundamental fairness!

For now, advocates should continue to vocalize their strong opposition to “how can we help our partners at DHS Enforcement” adjudication passing for justice at EOIR!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-02-23

🤯 INCREDIBLE! — 2d Cir. Schools EOIR On Adverse Credibility — Chen v. Garland

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/58f9e14a-e986-4263-9590-1f525ff8d4f9/2/doc/19-715_opn.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca2-on-credibility-chen-v-garland

“Zhi Bo Chen petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirming a decision of an Immigration Judge (IJ) that denied his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture, and ordered him removed from the United States. The IJ’s decision was based, in part, on its finding that Chen was not credible. Because certain reasons for that credibility finding were erroneous, and because we cannot be confident that the IJ would have made the same determination absent those errors, Chen’s petition for review is GRANTED, the BIA’s decision is VACATED, and the case is REMANDED to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats off to Gary Yerman!]

Gary Yerman, Esquire
Managing Partner
The Yerman Group
NY, NY

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My favorite quote from the Circuit’s decision by Judge Raymond J. Lohier (Obama appointee): “We conclude that the IJ misidentified part of Chen’s testimony as inconsistent, improperly relied on trivial inconsistencies, and misconstrued as an omission a part of Chen’s testimony that comported with his Form I-589 asylum statement.”

But, even with all these glaring defects, the IJ’s findings were affirmed by the BIA without much, if any, critical analysis. What does this say about EOIR under AG Garland?

Credibility should be “bread and butter” for EOIR Judges and particularly the BIA. But, when the “culture” is “any reason to deny,” bad things happen!

As my Round Table colleague Hon. “Sir Jeffery” Chase commented: “You have to wonder what percentage of all BIA decisions contain significant errors.”

I think that’s a particular concern in unrepresented cases, which are much less likely to reach the Circuits. Additionally, the unduly restrictive legal standard for judicial review means that marginal BIA adverse credibility findings will often get “rubber stamp” affirmances from the Circuits.

Essentially, EOIR often denies the respondent “the benefit of the doubt” in close credibility cases and then the Courts of Appeals give the BIA “the benefit of the doubt.” So, it ends up being a “double whammy” for the respondent!

That’s why it is critical to have individuals effectively represented at the trial level! At each level thereafter, the law skews heavily in favor of the Government!

That also supports the position that “dedicated dockets” and “expedited dockets” that discourage and impede (one could argue intentionally) effective representation and full presentation of all the evidence should be held to be prima facie denials of due process!

It’s also why I argue that it’s so important that exceptionally well qualified experts with experience representing asylum seekers be appointed to these hugely important (yet widely ignored and under-appreciated) EOIR judgeships! Better judges would make the entire EOIR system fairer and more efficient, without sacrificing due process!

That’s also why appellate victories like this by Attorney Gary Yerman are so impressive and telling about the continuing dysfunction at EOIR!

Additionally, given the “loading of the system” against the respondent on credibility, the BIA has to REALLY screw up to get reversed, as they did in this case! That, in turn, raises a fundamental unresolved issue: Why is a Dem Administration running a specialized court system that all too often lacks the expertise and judgement to get “bread and butter” issues like this correct in the first instance?

It’s obvious that a BIA that goofs up cases like this is NOT providing the type of clear, expert guidance to IJs necessary to achieve due process and fundamental fairness on a continuing systemic basis! That should be of huge concern to everyone who values justice in America!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-01-23

⚖️ LAW YOU CAN USE! — 1st Cir. & Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase Combine To Provide Expert Guidance On How To Handle BIA’s Inexpert Treatment Of Experts! 👍🏼

Star Chamber Justice — Experts find the BIA’s treatment of expert witnesses to be unduly harsh!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2023/7/28/expert-guidance-from-the-first-circuit-2

JEFFREY S. CHASE | OPINIONS/ANALYSIS ON IMMIGRATION LAW

Blog Archive Press and Interviews Calendar Contact

Expert Guidance from the First Circuit

For Immigration Judges, country experts serve as the lens through which a confusing jumble of evidence becomes a clearer picture. No judge can be an expert on all countries; it is therefore by way of the country expert’s testimony that a determination can be made as to whether the asylum seeker’s predicament is a unique or a common one; a dispute is merely personal or possesses a political dimension; the home country’s government is truly likely to provide adequate protection; and why relocating within the country may or may not be reasonable.

However, Immigration Judges are provided remarkably little guidance on how to assess expert testimony. A 2020 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Castillo v. Barr,1 illustrates the problem. In that case, both the Immigration Judge and the BIA chose to discount the testimony of a qualified country expert because his testimony was not corroborated by other evidence of record. As the Ninth Circuit noted, “If an expert’s opinion could only be relied upon if it were redundant with other evidence in the record, there would be no need for experts.”2 Obviously, this simple, logical rule should have been incorporated in a BIA precedent decision by now.

When attorneys SangYeob Kim and Gilles Bissonnette of the ACLU of New Hampshire brought an appeal involving this issue with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges was most happy to file an amicus brief in the matter. We used the opportunity to inform the court “how IJs and the BIA need, and lack, a clear standard for whether to admit—and how to weigh— expert evidence.”

Although the court issued an unpublished decision (and explained why it was precluded by Supreme Court precedent from establishing the uniform standard that we had requested), I believe the opinion offers wisdom on the topic that Immigration Judges might find useful in spite of its nonbinding nature. The case name is G.P. v. Garland, No. 21-2002 (1st Cir., July 13, 2023).

Rather than review the entire decision, in the hope of increased convenience, I have instead listed the issues raised in the case that are likely to arise in removal proceedings, and then summarized how the First Circuit addressed each issue.

The recency of the expert’s knowledge:

May an Immigration Judge discount an expert’s country knowledge as “stale” due to the passage of time since the expert’s last visit to the country in question or contact with its government’s officials?

In G.P., the court found no support for such approach where: (1) the record contained no evidence of changed conditions over the period of time in question; (2) the expert testified to the lack of significant changes in country conditions over that same time period; (3) such testimony regarding the lack of significant change went unchallenged by ICE, which did not call its own expert or offer other country evidence to the contrary; and (4) the conclusion was not contradicted by the petitioner.

The basis of the expert’s knowledge

Can an expert’s testimony be discounted for lack of firsthand “knowledge, research, or connections” to the country in question?

In G.P., the court pointed to the BIA’s own precedent decision in Matter of J-G-T- in which the Board adopted the Federal Rules of Evidence standard that an expert’s testimony is reliable when it is “`based on sufficient facts or data’ that the expert `has been made aware of or personally observed’ or from sources that `experts in the particular field would reasonably rely on.'”3

In addition to finding that the IJ had overlooked sources of firsthand knowledge, the court in G.P. found further error in the IJ’s failure to either mention or explain why sources that experts in the field would rely on that were mentioned by the expert in his voir dire, which included crime rates, DEA reports, and U.S. Department of State Country Reports, were not sufficient to credit the expert’s testimony.

The expert’s lack of personal knowledge of a specific criminal organization

Can an expert’s testimony be discredited where the expert lacked personal knowledge of the specific criminal organization that the applicant fears?

In G.P., the court found that the IJ erred in discounting the expert’s testimony for this reason. The court again referenced the Board’s statement in J-G-T- quoted above, and cited another BIA precedent, Matter of Vides Casanova, in which the Board held that an expert “need not have personal knowledge of the facts underlying” their opinion.4

Applying the above BIA guidance, the court observed that the expert witness learned specifics about the organization in question from reading the respondent’s affidavit, and importantly, that the facts contained in the respondent’s testimony and later testified to in court “were never challenged by the government or questioned by the IJ, who found G.P. credible.” The court added that “An expert cannot be ‘undermined by his reliance on facts . . . that have not been disputed’” (quoting from the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Castillo, supra at 1284).

The feared persecutors are based outside of the country of expertise

Can an expert’s testimony about a crime group based in the U.S. be discredited where the witness was qualified as an expert on organized crime in the Dominican Republic?

In G.P., although the group in question was based in New England, connected to a cartel based in Sinaloa, Mexico, and “served as a conduit between the Mexican drug cartels and customers in Northern New England,” the group did not fall outside of the witness’s area of expertise (i.e. organized crime in the Dominican Republic) where the expert testified to the Sinaloa Cartel’s strong presence in the Dominican Republic, influence over government officials there, and treatment of government cooperators.” The court therefore found that the IJ’s statement that the expert lacked direct knowledge of the criminal organization “mischaracterizes the evidence as a whole” and was not supported by substantial evidence of record.

Prior statements of the expert

How should a prior statement of the expert that is offered by ICE be treated by the IJ?

In G.P., ICE introduced a quote from the expert’s 2011 book in which he wrote that he “couldn’t honestly say that torture is something deportees [to the Dominican Republic] should expect.”

However, the First Circuit found error in the IJ’s reliance on the quote, because (1) the quote was in the context of an entirely different set of facts and employed a highly narrow definition of torture; (2) the expert was only asked whether he recalled the quote and to provide its context, and not whether he agreed with it; (3) the quote addressed the general risk of torture faced by deported noncitizens, and not the specific risk faced by G.P.; and (4) the IJ failed to explain why the 2011 book deserved significant weight when it was older than other evidence the IJ found to be stale.

Conclusion

Petitioner’s counsel has moved the First Circuit to publish the decision. But regardless of the outcome, counsel may wish to bring the court’s analysis to the attention of Immigration Judges, who in turn may find it highly useful in navigating the treatment of experts in cases before them.

– –

Hats off to SangYeob Kim and Gilles Bissonnette on their outstanding litigation in the First Circuit, which led to this satisfying decision. Our Round Table is most thankful to attorneys Adam Gershenson, Alex Robledo, Angela Dunning, Marc Suskin, Robby L.R. Saldaña, and Greg Merchant of the law firm of Cooley LLP, for their expert drafting of our amicus brief in this case.

Copyright 2023 by Jeffrey S. Chase. All Rights Reserved.

Notes

980 F.3d 1278 (9th Cir. 2020).

Id. at 1284.

Matter of J-G-T-, 28 I&N Dec. 97, 102 (BIA 2020) (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 702(b), 703).

Matter of Vides Casanova, 26 I&N Dec. 494, 499 (BIA 2015). Interestingly, in VIdes Casanova, the country expert had been called by DHS to establish that the respondent was a persecutor of others. Under those circumstances, the BIA in its decision noted that an expert “is permitted to base her opinion on hearsay evidence and need not have personal knowledge of the facts underlying those opinions.”

JULY 28, 2023

Republished with permission

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The BIA spends far too much time cooking up bogus ways to deny asylum and other forms of protection. This leaves a “vacuum” on providing sound advice and needed guidance for effectively presenting and fairly analyzing the large untapped potential for more grants of protection currently “bouncing around the EOIR backlog” or alternatively being mindlessly rushed through “dedicated deterrence dockets” with neither time for advocates to properly prepare nor opportunity for thoughtful analysis by IJs! It’s a real (totally preventable) “lose-lose” for our justice system and asylum applicants!

Fortunately those from outside EOIR, including Article III Judges, subject matter experts like Judge Sir Jeffrey, and his loyal colleagues in the Round Table 🛡 have stepped in to fill the void. Wouldn’t it be better (and easier) to just aggressively recruit and hire the right expert, experienced, due-process-focused candidates for EOIR judgeships in the first place?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-30-23

⚖️🗽 TRIPLE HEADER! — Cornell Immigration Clinic Wins 3 @ BIA!

Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr reports:

Paul: Thanks to the excellent work of our law students, our Cornell asylum clinic received three BIA remands this spring.  A short summary of each case follows.  A longer summary of each case is attached, as well as redacted versions of the BIA’s decisions. If anyone wants redacted copies of our briefs, have them contact me directly.

Please mention on Immigration Courtside. Thanks, Steve

1: IES is a citizen of Mexico and a former gang member.  The immigration judge (IJ) denied withholding and CAT relief, holding that his conviction in California was a particularly serious crime and that our client did not meet the requirements for CAT relief. For the particularly serious crime argument, our brief argued that the IJ improperly analyzed IES’ offense, ignored credible evidence that the drugs were for personal use, and relied on boilerplate sentencing documents instead. As a result, the IJ failed to analyze IES’s motivation and intent at the time of the offense. We used case law where crimes like sexual contact with a minor (Afridi v. Gonzalez) and strangulation (Flores-Vega v. Barr) were remanded because the facts and circumstances of the offense had not been considered.

For our CAT argument, we focused on 6 IJ errors: 1) the IJ did not consider that his prolonged mental pain would cause future torture (we had psychological evaluation reports and decided to use them for this argument). This is an underutilized argument in CAT claims, so there isn’t much case law. We used the interpretation from an OLC opinion on prolonged mental harm to bolster this argument. 2) The IJ did not consider future torture from gangs and cartels despite an expert saying this risk was at 80%. 3) The IJ did not consider country conditions and did not admit 400 pages into evidence. 4) The IJ mischaracterized his attempts to flee cartels 8 times as “relocation.” 5) The IJ did not think there was police acquiescence even though the police, the local Attorney General, and the judicial police ignored IES’ complaints. 6) The IJ did not aggregate IES’ risk of torture. The BIA remanded.

2: LRG is a citizen of El Salvador who fled to the US in 1989.  While in the US he joined the MS-13 gang. He is in U.S. prison for a criminal conviction. The IJ denied withholding and CAT relief. Our client’s info was part of the November 2022 ICE data leak, but the IJ did not address that concern.

Our brief argued that our client is more likely than not to face torture if removed to El Salvador. We posited several theories under which our client is likely to be tortured: 1) by the Salvadoran government, especially if our client is incarcerated there; 2) by Salvadoran gangs, in or out of prison, with the acquiescence of the Salvadoran government; and/or 3) by Salvadoran anti-gang death squads, with the participation or acquiescence of the Salvadoran government. We argued that our client’s identifying characteristics, including his gang tattoos and criminal history, would subject him to targeting and torture by any of these groups. We also argued that the IJ insufficiently aggregated our client’s risk of torture in El Salvador and that the IJ erred by failing to consider the impact of the ICE data leak on our client.  Finally, we argued that the IJ afforded insufficient weight to the evidence offered by our client. The IJ admitted Dr. Patrick McNamara’s universal expert declaration only as background evidence, rather than for his expert opinions. The BIA remanded.

3: REC is a citizen of El Salvador who fled to the US in 2022.  REC was not a gang member, but his brother was, and was killed by the police.  REC’s family filed a lawsuit against the police for murdering REC’s brother, and the police retaliated against REC.  The IJ denied asylum, withholding, and CAT relief.

On asylum and withholding, we argued that the IJ erred by ignoring the Salvadoran government as a persecutor of REC and by failing to assess the proper particular social group that REC had proposed, based on his membership in his family. On CAT, we argued that the IJ effectively ignored part of REC’s claim by failing to analyze whether the MS gang would be more likely than not to torture him. We further argued that the IJ’s analysis about the Salvadoran government as a torturer of REC was flawed because the IJ herself found that Salvadoran officials “misused their power” when they beat him. We argued that the IJ also erred because she did not aggregate all potential sources of torture, including the government and the MS gang. The BIA remanded.

Stephen Yale-Loehr

Professor of Immigration Law Practice, Cornell Law School

Faculty Director, Immigration Law and Policy Program

Faculty Fellow, Migrations Initiative

Co-director, Asylum Appeals Clinic

Co-Author, Immigration Law & Procedure Treatise

Of Counsel, Miller Mayer

Phone: 607-379-9707

e-mail: SWY1@cornell.edu

Twitter: @syaleloehr

Check out my Green Card Stories book:

http://www.greencardstories.com.

See more of my books at amazon.com/author/stephenyaleloehr

You can access my papers on SSRN at: http://ssrn.com/author=109503

Cornell 1 Cornell 2 Cornell 3 Cornell 4 Cornell 5 Cornell 6

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

Get all the details in the six attachments above!

Thanks, Steve! And, congrats and “hats way off” (as my friend Dan Kowalski would say) to the clinic students involved!

Interesting to contrast the careful work of the clinic with the sloppy, result-oriented work of the IJs in these cases.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-29-23

⚖️ ATTENTION NDPA LITIGATORS & PROSPECTIVE LITIGATORS! — Join Our Round Table Colleague Judge Carol King & The National Institute For Trial Advocacy (“NITA”) For Training, Sept. 27-29 in NYC!

Honorable Carol King
U.S. Immigration Judge (Ret.)
Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

https://www.nita.org/immigration2023

Carol writes:

I know you are in touch with a lot of young lawyers in the NDPA and wanted to let you know about a wonderful trial skills training I’m involved in. I’ve been teaching for NITA in trainings focused on trial practice in Immigration Court for a few years now, along with Denise, Eliza, Jeff and others. This upcoming program in New York is for private counsel and is expensive, but totally worth it for new lawyers (and even experienced lawyers) to hone their trial skills. Judges appreciate it too! NITA also does public interest trial skills courses in cooperation with the NLGNIP which are more affordable for lawyers working for non-profits. If you know any young NDPA lawyers working for firms that can afford this program, I highly recommend it! Please pass this along to anyone you think would benefit. Here is the info:

Advocacy in Immigration Matters

.

September 27, 2023 – September 29, 2023

White & Williams LLP

New York, NY

https://www.nita.org/immigration2023

Thanks!

Carol

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White & Williams LLP Times Square Tower, #2900, New York, NY 10036

September 27, 2023 – September 29, 2023

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**Pre-Program Lecture Online scheduled for Friday, September 22, from 12:00 – 1:30 PM EST.**

WHY YOU SHOULD ATTEND

As an immigration defense lawyer, you know that practicing in immigration court is increasingly rife with changes and complexity. NITA recognizes this reality and, in response, has developed Advocacy in Immigration Matters, a specialized and timely program designed to help you rapidly upgrade your skills in representing those facing removal from the United States.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

This is the only trial skills advocacy course available that covers everything you will experience during an immigration trial. From pre-trial to trial, you will receive on-your-feet training and guidance that goes beyond a lecture-focused learning experience. During this three-day program, you will:

make and meet objections,

conduct direct, cross, and re-direct examinations,

accredit a proposed expert witness,

obtain the required opinion from an expert witness, and

offer a concise yet compelling closing argument.

All of this will be done in small groups of your peers, with feedback and at a pace that will help boost your performance.

The instructors—some of the most experienced immigration trial lawyers and judges in the country—will share constructive feedback and specific ideas on how to refine your skills. As you watch your peers perform, you will also absorb the “teachable moments” from their performance and instructor critique, which means each layer of learning is continually reinforced by what you hear, see, and most importantly, do.

After three days, you will be able to step into the courtroom with the confidence and practical skills you need to be a good advocate for your client.

In addition, to supplement this “learning-by-doing,” you will have access to NITA’s trial skills video lectures and watch the faculty demonstrate skills. Furthermore, NITA will offer a pre-program, one-and-a-half-hour session on case analysis that will be foundational to the rest of the program and will ensure that participants seek and present the information most relevant to the assigned particular social group.

In just three days, this Advocacy in Immigration Matters program—as with the other time-tested, premier programming that NITA is known for—will swiftly refine your trial practice, leaving you with greater skill and confidence that shows up where it matters the most: when you stand shoulder-to-shoulder with your client in the courtroom.

NITA’s LEARNING-BY-DOING METHOD

NITA’s learning-by-doing method allows you to take calculated risks without ever jeopardizing your client’s case or your own reputation. It is a safe space to learn and practice. This course will employ the tried-and-true learning-by-doing method by providing ALL participants the opportunity to apply their learned skills as if they are presenting in court. You get to participate and observe, learning not only from your mistakes and triumphs but those of your fellow participants as well.

Expert faculty will provide you with constructive feedback, and you will have the option of recording yourself on your phone, which allows you to see and hear yourself the way judges and juries do. But unlike in a trial where there are real stakes at risk, at NITA you will have the opportunity to correct your mistakes, eliminate any bad habits you may have developed, and refine your trial skills.

When you return to your office, you will feel empowered by having learned skills that will serve you the rest of your career.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

You should!

Although some removal defense cases may not go to trial because of prosecutorial discretion, learning and refining your trial skills will translate into better outcomes for your clients.

Honing your trial skills will improve virtually every aspect of the many things you do as a litigator from negotiating with the OPLA assistant chief counsel to convincing the immigration judge to grant your client relief.

YOUR REGISTRATION INCLUDES

One-on-one personalized feedback and coaching from NITA faculty

Case materials

One credit toward the NITA Advocate Designation.

NITA FACULTY

Learn more about each faculty member’s professional background and their NITA webcasts, podcast episodes, publications, and programs by clicking their bio link below.

WHAT ARE PEOPLE SAYING ABOUT THIS COURSE?

“I would highly recommend this course to immigration practitioners. It was especially helpful for me as someone who began practicing during COVID, but I could see that the skills would also be useful to practice for more experienced practitioners. The course was 100% worth it and I came out of it feeling more confident in my ability to do defensive work.” — NITA – NIPNLG “Advocacy in Immigration Matters” course attendee (August 2022)

“This was literally the most useful training I’ve had in the legal field, including law school, internships and many other PD opportunities I’ve tried to take advantage of. I think in the legal profession, there’s such an emphasis on being right and being prepared that we have a hard time taking risks and messing up. Even in trainings and simulations, I participated very little because I felt like there was this very high amount of minimum knowledge that I needed, didn’t have, and didn’t know how to get. I guess I figured everyone had learned this in debate or Model UN, which I never did. But somehow, the instructors created this baseline understanding that we’re there to learn, we can start from zero, and messing up is welcomed because it shows we’re taking risks. I feel much more ready to work on my cases. What’s more, in a field where burnout is so high, I feel excited to prep for trial now.” — Advocacy in Immigration Matters online course attendee (April 2022)

“In the over twenty years I had the honor to serve as an immigration judge, I frequently saw attorneys who, although bright, dedicated and familiar with their clients’ cases, had very limited understanding of evidentiary rules, proper forms of direct and cross-examination, effective storytelling, and the art of closing argument. These basic trial skills are not usually part of a law school curriculum, and once engaged in the practice of law most attorneys do not take the time to develop or hone their skills, other than by “trial and error,” which is, sadly, sometimes at the expense of their clients. The NITA program provides a unique opportunity to develop these extremely important skills. I encourage those who are seeking to represent asylum seekers in Immigration Court to consider taking advantage of this unique and valuable opportunity.” — Hon. Eliza C. Klein, United States Immigration Judge (Ret.)

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FACULTY

Carol King

Solo

Carol M King Law Office

BIO

Michelle Mendez

Director of Legal Resources and Training

National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild Inc

BIO

Tom Swett

Attorney at Law

SWETT LIMITED

BIO

Victoria Neilson

Supervising Attorney

National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild Inc

BIO

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

This is truly an All-Star Faculty of folks who have “walked the walk,” saved many lives, and changed countless futures for the better over their distinguished and varied careers!

I have worked with NITA on developing and presenting advocacy training for VIISTA Villanova. This is a collection of “total pros” dedicated to making America’s courts function at the highest possible level.

Also, as you know from reading publications like LexisNexus, ImmigrationProf Blog, The Jeffrey Chase Blog, and Courtside, LITIGATION MATTERS! Every week, we alert our readers to successful efforts that are having a real life impact and literally changing the face of American law!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-27-23

🏴‍☠️ ADMINISTRATIONS CHANGE, BUT SCOFFLAW MISTREATMENT OF ASYLUM SEEKERS DOESN’T — US District Judge Jon S. Tigar Blows Away 💨 Biden Administration’s Bogus Asylum Rules — Again! — Round Table 🛡⚔️ Weighs In On Winning Side — Again! — Order Delayed Pending Filing of Appeal, So The Carnage Continues for Now!☠️

Border Death — Dem A.G. Merrick Garland’s indifference to asylum laws, racial justice, due process, and the reality of seeking asylum at the border has become astoundingly grotesque! This is a monument for those who have died attempting to cross the US-Mexican border. Each coffin represents a year and the number of dead. It is a protest against the effects of Operation Guardian. Taken at the Tijuana-San Diego border.
Tomas Castelazo
n order to comply with the use and licensing terms of this image, the following text must must be included with the image when published in any medium, failure to do so constitutes a violation of the licensing terms and copyright infringement: © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

EBSC III MSJ order

Here’s a report from Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase of the Round Table:

Hi all: As you know, our group filed an amicus brief in East Bay Sanctuary v. Garland, challenging the new rules at the border that would make most of those unable to get an online appointment through an app ineligible to apply for asylum.

District Court Judge Jon Tigar just issued the attached order granting summary judgment to plaintiffs and denying defendants’ motion for summary judgment.

From Judge Tigar’s order:

“Congress granted the agencies authority to impose additional conditions on asylum eligibility, but only those consistent with section 1158…Two of the conditions imposed by the Rule have been previously found to be inconsistent with Section 1158…

The Court concludes that the Rule is contrary to law because it presumes ineligible for asylum noncitizens who enter between ports of entry, using a manner of entry that Congress expressly intended should not affect access to asylum. The Rule is also contrary to law because it presumes ineligible for asylum noncitizens who fail to apply for protection in a transit country, despite Congress’s clear intent that such a factor should only limit access to asylum where the transit country actually presents a safe option.”

The order is stayed for 14 days to allow the government to appeal.

Our group has once again helped make a difference in providing fairness and due process. Congrats to all.

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

Congrats to the plaintiffs and to my Round Table colleagues!

This was basically a blowout for the plaintiffs on all issues! The USG argument essentially was that complying with the law would be too difficult and/or politically unpopular. Therefore, they have chosen to violate the law and to use rather transparent pretexts (actually misrepresentations about the bogus “presumption”) to evade it.

Really, folks, how do we have a Dem AG who 1) approves such complete legal nonsense; 2) advances essentially frivolous and disingenuous arguments in an attempt to defend the indefensible; and 3) can’t make the legal system for asylum work in a fair and legal manner at EOIR or DHS?

How immoral and intellectually dishonest are Garland’s arguments. Here’s one of my favorite passages from Judge Tigar’s opinion:

While they wait for an adjudication, applicants for asylum must remain in Mexico, where migrants are generally at heightened risk of violence by both state and non-state actors.

See, e.g., PC 32446–68 (2022 State Department report noting credible reports of gender-based violence against migrants; reports of migrants being tortured by migration authorities; “numerous instances” of armed groups targeting migrants for kidnapping, extortion, and homicide; and that asylum seekers and migrants were vulnerable to forced labor); PC 22839–42 (NGO report documenting violent crimes against 13,480 migrants in Mexico, by both state and non-state actors, between January 2021 and December 2022); PC 76248–87 (table of crimes summarized in preceding report); PC 21752–58 (2022 NGO report discussing gender-based violence in northern Mexico border cities, including against LGBTQI+ and Black migrants); PC 21610–11 (2022 NGO report concerning gender-based violence against Venezuelan women and LGBTIQ+ migrants in southern Mexico).16

16 In addition to these examples, the record is replete with additional documentation of the extraordinary risk of violence many migrants face in Mexico. See, e.g., PC 22129–30 (2023 news report documenting instances of kidnapping of asylum seekers in northern Mexico); PC 23247–50 (2022 news report quoting Chihuahua state police chief stating that “organized criminal gangs are financing their operations through migrant trafficking”); PC 23082 (2023 NGO report discussing treatment of migrants and asylum seekers); PC 20937–43 (2021 NGO report documenting kidnapping and extortion of Venezuelan migrants in Mexico); PC 29740–29744 (2021 NGO report documenting instances of rape, kidnapping, and other violence experienced by migrant women in Mexico); PC 75946–48 (2022 NGO report documenting violence against migrants in Mexico); AR 4881 (2022 NGO report noting that asylum seekers from Central America have been pursued across the border and found in southern Mexico by their persecutors).

Only somebody who avoids the border, has never represented asylum seekers there, and is impervious to facts and reality could make such outlandish arguments in favor of an outrageously deficient and illegal “policy.” Sounds like something out of the “Stephen Miller Playbook!” Why is it coming from a Dem AG?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-25-23

👎🏼 EOIR’S 3-DECADE QUEST TO DENY PROTECTION TO COPTIC CHRISTIAN ENDS BADLY IN 3RD CIR. — BIA Applies “Overly Rigorous Standard” & Fails To Recognize A Prima Facie Case For Asylum In Latest Blow To DOJ’s “Asylum Wrecking Crew!” 🏴‍☠️

Four Horsemen — BIA Asylum Panel In Action — Asylum experts and advocates question the wisdom of the BIA’s “take no prisoners” approach to asylum!
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/212957np.pdf

Gebra v. A.G., 3d Cir, 07-19-23, unpublished (unfortunately)

PANEL: AMBRO, RESTREPO, FUENTES, Circuit Judges

OPINION: JUDGE RESTRO

KEY QUOTE:

i. The BIA applied an overly rigorous standard to the new evidence.

Gebra argues that the BIA applied an “overly rigorous standard” when analyzing the new evidence presented when determining whether he established a new claim. Pet’r Br. 44 (citing Tilija v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 930 F.3d 165 (3d Cir. 2019)). In Tilija, we held that unless the new evidence is inherently unbelievable, it must be taken as true. 930 F.3d at 172; see also Shardar, 503 F.3d at 313 (“Facts presented in the motion to reopen

are ‘accepted as true unless inherently unbelievable.’”) (cleaned up). If the BIA fails to accept new evidence as true, then it applies an “overly rigorous standard.” Tilija, 930 F.3d at 172. Furthermore, not accepting such evidence as true is an abuse of discretion if the petitioner would have established a prima facie case for eligibility with the rejected evidence. Id. (citing Shardar, 503 F.3d at 313).

Here, the BIA did not find that the new evidence was inherently unbelievable but nevertheless refused to accept new evidence, such as Gebra’s medical report after the 2009 attack, as “persuasive” or true because it “provide[d] little specificity or detail with respect to the alleged attack.” JA4; cf. Tilija; 930 F.3d at 172 (finding that where the BIA asked for “more details” and questioned the veracity of the evidence, it impermissibly failed to accept the evidence as true). By requesting that the medical record, on its own,

corroborate that the injuries were caused by “Islamic fanatics,” the BIA imposed an

overly rigorous standard. JA4; Tilija, 930 F.3d at 172. Similarly, the BIA’s conclusion that the report from the Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organization (“EUHRO”) pro- vides “no details” with respect to when, where, how, nor “any other details surrounding the circumstances of the alleged incident,” was an abuse of discretion. JA4; Tilija, 930

11

F.3d at 172. The BIA treated the new evidence with the same “overly vigorous standard” that it applied to the new translation of the 1993 police report that was previously dis- credited.

Having concluded that the BIA held Gebra to an excessively rigorous standard, we next determine whether Gebra established a prima facie case for asylum.

ii. Gebra’s new evidence established a prima facie case for asylum.

Gebra’s new evidence, accepted as true, establishes a prima facie case for asylum. A motion to reopen an asylum case must establish prima facie eligibility for relief. Se- voian v. Ashcroft, 290 F.3d 166, 173, 170–71 (3d Cir. 2002). This standard requires an applicant to produce objective evidence that shows a “reasonable likelihood” that they can establish eligibility for relief. Id. at 173. In this context, to “establish” means that the evidence in favor of asylum outweighs the evidence against. Guo v. Ashcroft, 386 F.3d 556, 564 (3d Cir. 2004), as amended (Dec. 3, 2004). A “reasonable likelihood” merely means showing a realistic chance that the applicant can later establish that asylum should be granted. Id. Prima facie “would lack meaning” if it required that evidence submitted at the prima facie stage conclusively establish eligibility for asylum. Id. Thus, Gebra need only provide objective evidence that shows a reasonable likelihood that he is

entitled to asylum relief. Tilija, 930 F.3d at 172. Specifically, Gebra would need to

demonstrate that he suffered past persecution, or has a well-founded fear of future perse- cution, on account of his religious beliefs. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B) (enumerating reli- gion as a protected ground).

12

Here, Gebra provided objective evidence in the form of medical records and hu- man rights reports regarding his 2009 attack. For example, a December 8, 2009, medical report from Victoria Hospital in Egypt corroborates the statement in his affirmation that, due to the attack, he was “wounded and sent into the Victoria Hospital due to multiple contusions and dermal bleeding on [his] back and different parts of [his] body.” JA167, 175; see Doe v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 956 F.3d 135, 145 (3d Cir. 2020) (holding that a single

beating, “if sufficiently egregious,” may constitute persecution, such as where petitioner was beaten by a mob, causing him to bleed and suffer injuries to his head and back). Ge- bra also included medical reports of the psychological trauma he experienced and therapy sessions he attended as a result of the attacks. Doe, 956 F.3d at 145–46 (“Persecution may be emotional or psychological, as well as physical.”) (citation omitted). Further- more, the December 30, 2009, report from EUHRO stated that they independently “veri- fied” Gebra was “attacked by some [Islamic] fanatics” who thought Gebra was behind demonstrations for the rights of Coptic Christians due to his work as a cameraman for Fa- ther Zacharia Botros, a Coptic Christian priest known for critiquing Islam. JA173.

Taken together, this evidence demonstrates a reasonable likelihood that Gebra could es- tablish he was persecuted due to his religious beliefs.

In sum, the BIA abused its discretion when it did not accept Gebra’s evidence ask true and concluded that he did not establish a new claim for asylum in his third motion to reopen.

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

Let’s apply a tiny bit of common sense here, in contravention of the BIA’s current practices. How likely is it that a guy would pursue asylum claims for 30 years, even after being denied, deported, and actually persecuted in Egypt upon return, if there weren’t some merit in the claim? At least enough to earn him a new hearing! It’s not rocket science to know that Coptic Christians often face persecution in Egypt! Was it really wise to push this clearly flawed (one could say “scofflaw”) denial all the way to the Circuit, thus wasting even more time and further undermining the BIA’s credibility? What are they thinking at Garland’s DOJ?

Think what efficiencies, not to mention due process and fundamental fairness, a BIA of well-qualified judges who were actual experts in asylum law — focused on legal protection, not specious rejection — could bring to our broken asylum system! Why not give due process and justice a chance at DOJ?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-21-23

🗽 BORDER: WashPost’s Maria Sacchetti’s Nuanced Report Is Well Worth A Read: “The perceived success of Biden’s approach depends on which side of the border the migrants are on.” — Right to apply for asylum is a “simple rule” that politicos of both parties lack the will & skill to follow!🤮

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2023/07/18/border-asylum-us-mexico-biden-legal/

Maria writes:

. . . .

Federal law says anyone fleeing persecution may request asylum once they reach U.S. soil, no matter how they got there. Successive administrations have attempted to restrict that simple rule, however, desperate to reduce record numbers of crossings that have overwhelmed the immigration system, leaving many to live for years in the United States without a decision in their cases.

. . . .

One border, two realities

The perceived success of Biden’s approach depends on which side of the border the migrants are on.

Brownsville, an American city of 200,000 on the other side of the Rio Grande from Matamoros, Mexico, is officially under a state of emergency. But that emergency has dissipated in recent months.

The streets are quiet, thanks to a 70 percent drop in illegal border crossers since the new asylum rule and other Biden policy changes took effect. City workers greet the relatively small number of newcomers released from holding facilities and escort them to a curtained-off parking garage and to the first bus out of town.

In Matamoros, however, migrants trying to navigate the new rules are squeezing into shelters, sharing hotel rooms, curling up in a large camp on the dry riverbank or under pop-up tents at a grimy former gas station.

On a pedestrian bridge one hot morning in late June, Mexican authorities shooed away those who did not have an appointment through the app — including some Mexicans, even though the rule change is not supposed to apply to them.

“Let’s go, please,” one officer said to migrants who gathered at the Matamoros edge of the bridge. “Now.”

Advocates for immigrants say it is unlawful for officials to block migrants from crossing borders in search of protection — and unfair to presume they can easily navigate U.S. asylum law and appointments via smartphone apps. The process of requesting asylum is supposed to be simple, they said, because lives are at stake.

But advocates are powerless to navigate around the new rules until the court case is resolved.

In the sweltering heat one recent day, Christina Asencio, a lawyer with Human Rights First, tried to explain to migrants in the Matamoros camps how the system is supposed to work.

. . . .

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

Read Maria’s full article, one of the more balanced treatments I have encountered, at the link.

A few thoughts:

Even this fine article misses the biggest point: Most asylum seekers want to “do things the right way.” But there has been no “right way” for years because of the unlawful and bogus use of Title 42 by both the Trump and Biden Administrations. It’s still being unlawfully restricted by the arbitrary Biden Administration regulations. Yet, remarkably, asylum seekers are willing to risk their lives waiting in Mexico for an opportunity to apply in an orderly, legal manner under a broken and biased system unfairly “rigged” against them! THAT’S the “real big takeaway” about the reduction in unauthorized border crossings. It’s one that that nobody except experts and advocates are willing to fully acknowledge! Indeed, during the Title 42 charade, an asylum seeker’s only chance of getting into the system was to cross without authorization. Otherwise, they would have been summarily returned without any chance to present their claims.
Some asylum seekers will qualify for protection, some won’t. That’s what the legal, asylum system is supposed to determine — in a fair, expert, and timely manner. That our asylum system has become dysfunctional and ludicrously backlogged lies squarely with poor performance by Congress, the Executive, and the Courts, in many cases “egged on” by right-wing nativists’ myths and distortions. Blaming the victims — asylum seekers — for massive USG failures over decades is totally disingenuous!
Statistically, it’s true that most asylum applicants from the Southern Border do not achieve asylum under our current dysfunctional system. But, the question we should be asking is why aren’t more qualifying, given the horrible conditions in “sending countries” and the generous legal standards — including a presumption of future persecution based on past persecution — that are supposed to apply, but often don’t in practice.
For years, the Executive, through its captive EOIR “courts,” has been unfairly manipulating and intentionally misapplying the law, as well as misreading and ignoring evidence, to achieve unrealistically high asylum denial rates for applicants of color, particularly those arriving at our borders from Latin American and Haiti. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/justice-betrayed-the-intentional-mistreatment-of-central-american-asylum-applicants-by-the-executive-office-for-immigration-review/; https://immigrationcourtside.com/appellate-litigation-in-todays-broken-and-biased-immigration-court-system-four-steps-to-a-winning-counterattack-by-the-relentless-new-due-process-army/. This continues to happen, as documented by the unusually large number of rebukes by Article III Courts (even some of the most conservative) of the flawed decision-making coming out of Garland’s broken EOIR. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/07/14/🌊-tsunami-of-bad-☠️-bia-decisions-hits-garlands-doj-wrong-on-nexus-4th-2-1-wrong-on-nta-4th-2-1-wrong-on-agfel-8th-wrong-on-past-political-per/.
One of the most egregious EOIR-led anti-asylum “scams” is abuse and misuse of the “nexus” requirement for asylum to send legitimate refugees back into harm’s way. See, e.g., immediately preceding reference. “Persecution” must relate to race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. But, the asylum statute does NOT require that that be the sole or even the primary motivation for the persecution. It just has to be “at least one central reason.” And, usually, persecution is carried out by the persecutor for a variety of reasons. It’s called “mixed motive analysis” and EOIR Judges, particularly at the precedent-setting BIA, routinely ignore or mis-apply it to deny grantable claims.
Harm resulting from things like “work, poverty, natural disaster, and bad governments” does not automatically qualify an individual for asylum. But, contrary to what many suggest, neither do these circumstances preclude asylum. For example, while a “natural disaster” might not make an individual a “refugee” under law, if that individual were forced to live in a known danger zone or denied life-saving assistance at least in part because of religious, ethnic, or political identity, that WOULD qualify. Was the infamous “Kristallnacht” in Nazi Germany systemic persecution of Jews for ethic and religious reasons? Or was it “mere vandalism, random violence, and hooliganism?” I would say clearly the former. But, I can imagine today’s BIA attributing it to the latter, to deny protection to a large group of individuals. I adjudicated thousands of asylum cases as both a trial and an appellate judge during 21 years at EOIR. I found that harm where a “protected ground” was “at least one central reason” was the rule, not the exception as EOIR tries so hard to make it.
Other often “trumped up” methods EOIR uses for denying valid asylum claims include bogus “adverse credibility” findings; unreasonable “corroboration” requirements; fabricated “reasonable internal relocation” opportunities; nonsensical, ahistorical “changed circumstances” conclusions; ignoring or misconstruing expert testimony; “selective reading” or mis-reading of country background reports; coercive detention in substandard conditions; and restricting or limiting access to counsel. If you think this sounds like a national disgrace on “Garland’s watch,” you’re absolutely right!
Undoubtedly, under a properly functioning system, with true expert adjudicators and judges — those whose career experiences demonstrated sound scholarship and understanding of the life-threatening circumstances of asylum seekers and the inherent limitations of both the Asylum office and EOIR — many more asylum cases from those applying at the Southern Border and elsewhere would be granted. So, Government policies based largely on “deterrence” or on the self-fulfilling prophecy that “few will qualify” should be viewed as fatally flawed. Without a better EOIR and an asylum adjudication system run by well-qualified experts, we can’t possibly formulate rational and humane border policies or indeed workable immigration policies at all. Tragically, we’re a long way from that right now!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-19-23

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

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

Danae King
Faith & Values & Immigration Reporter
Columbus Dispatch

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

DANAE KING | USA TODAY NETWORK:

. . . .

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

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

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

Lynn Tramonte has seen all those scenarios happen in Ohio.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . . .

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

Read Danae’s full article at the link!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-18-23

🏴‍☠️👎🏼🤮 JUSTICE’S UNJUST “COURTS!” — Recent Reports Highlight Horribly Failed System —Asylum Free Zones, Unqualified Prosecutor-Judges, Deadly Denials, Blatant Information Imbalance, Dehumanizing Treatment, Poor Access To Counsel, Docket Mayhem, Unrealistic Timelines, Biased Outcomes, Indifference To Human Life, Unaccountability, Among The Myriad Problems Flagged By Those Forced To Deal With Garland’s Ongoing Mockery Of Due Process! — EXTRA! — How Poor Legal Performance @ DOJ Skews The Entire Immigration Debate!

injustice — Injustice
Public Realm
Dems spend lots of time whining about the destruction of the Federal Judiciary by GOP right-wing extremists. However, after two years in charge, they have done little to bring due process, fundamental fairness, and judicial expertise to America’s worst courts — the Immigration Courts — which they totally control!

Austin Kocher, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
TRAC-Syracuse
PHOTO: Syracuse U.

Two items from Professor Austin Kocher on Substack:

Asylum Seeker Killed in Guatemala after Omaha Immigration Judge Ordered Him Deported

Omaha is now the toughest court in the country for asylum seekers, MPI hosts discussion on immigration courts in crisis, interview with an immigration judge, and more.

Asylum Seeker Killed in Guatemala after Omaha Immigration Judge Ordered Him Deported austinkocher.substack.com • 1 min read

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7086002474968313856?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_feedUpdate%3A%28V2%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7086002474968313856%29

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New Research by AILA Reveals Anatomy of an Asylum Case + Online Event

Even the best attorneys require 50-75 hours over several months to complete an asylum case. The Biden admin’s attempts to speed up asylum cases may be ignoring this reality.

…see more

New Research by AILA Reveals Anatomy of an Asylum Case

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7086001618898296832?updateEntityUrn=urn:li:fs_feedUpdate:(V2,urn:li:activity:7086001618898296832)

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And, this from Lauren Iosue, Georgetown Law L-3 on LinkedIn.

Lauren Iosue

View Lauren Iosue’s profile

• 1st

J.D. Candidate at Georgetown University Law Center

3d •

Through my internship at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, I observed master calendar hearings in the detained docket in the Florence Immigration Court. I was back in Florence, Arizona, because the court itself is located within the barbed wire of the detention center. Observing the Florence Immigration Court emphasized how dehumanizing removal proceedings can be for detained immigrants. Master calendar hearings are often immigrants’ first interaction with the Court. To start, a guard brought a group of men in jumpsuits to the courtroom and lined them up. The judge read them their rights and then called them individually to discuss their case. Twice I witnessed the wrong person being brought into court where they sat through proceedings until the guards realized and switched them out for the correct person.

The vast majority of Respondents in removal proceedings are unrepresented. There is a blatant information imbalance in immigration court when the immigrant is unrepresented. Oftentimes, pro se detained immigrants do not have access to the resources represented or released Respondents have during their proceedings. Respondents may not know their legal options unless organizations like the Florence Project can speak to them before their hearing and provide them with pro se information packets or represent them. During the hearing, the men did not even have a pen and paper to take notes. Meanwhile, the immigration judge and government attorney have access to technology and a wealth of experience to pull from to make legal arguments.

This is just one example of many – my colleagues and I also observed translation issues and pushback against some men who wished to continue fighting their case. Above all, I’ll leave with this very simple observation: the judge and guards called each man up by his court docket number before his name. If we are to support and uphold the dignity of all people, we must do so especially in systems that look to strip it from them. Providing immigrants with access to a lawyer, if they’d like one, can ensure that people have access to information that allows them to make informed decisions about their case. The Florence Project is one of the organizations working tirelessly to expand access to representation throughout Arizona, and I hope to continue this work after graduating from Georgetown University Law Center next year. #EJAFellowUpdate | Equal Justice America

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Congrats to Lauren Iosue, and thanks for becoming a member of the NDPA! 😎 The scary thing: As an L-3, Lauren appears to have more “hands on” Immigration Court experience and a far deeper appreciation of the material, sometimes fatal, flaws in the EOIR system, than Garland and his other “top brass” in the DOJ responsible for operating and overseeing this tragic mess!

Why isn’t “real life” immigration/human rights experience representing individuals in Immigration Court were an absolute requirement for appointment to AG, Deputy AG, Associate AG, Solicitor General, and Assistant AG for Civil (in charge of OIL) in any Dem Administration, at least until such time as the Immigration Courts become an Article I Court removed from the DOJ?

30-years ago, when I was at Jones Day, we were budgeting a minimum of 100 hours of professional time for a pro bono asylum case! That was before the “21st century BIA” added more unnecessary, artificial technicalities to make it more difficult for asylum seekers to win. It’s not “rocket science!” 🚀

Lucy McMillan ESQUIRE
Chief Pro Bono Counsel
Arnold & Porter
Washington, D.C.
PHOTO: A&P

All Garland would have to do is reach back into his “big law” days at Arnold & Porter (“A&P”). He should pick up his cell phone and call Lucy McMillan, the award-winning Chief Pro Bono Counsel @ A&P. Ask Lucy what needs to change to get EOIR functioning as a due-process-focused model court system! Better yet, reassign upper “management” at EOIR, and hire Lucy to clean house and restore competence, efficiency, and excellence to his currently disgracefully-dysfunctional “courts!”

As Austin’s posts and the reports he references show, Garland’s indolent, tone-deaf, mal-administration of the Immigration Courts is a national disgrace that undermines democracy and betrays core values of the Democratic Party! How does he get away with it? Thanks to Austin, AILA, Lauren, and others exposing the ongoing “EOIR charade” in a Dem Administration!

As shown by recent “Courtside” postings about the “Tsunami” 🌊 of Article III “rejections” of lousy BIA decisions, throughout America, many, many more asylum cases could be timely granted with a properly well-qualified, expert BIA setting precedents and forcing judges like those in Omaha to properly and generously apply asylum law or find other jobs! Maximum protection, NOT “maximum rejection,” is the proper and achievable (yet unrealized) objective of asylum laws!

Asylum law, according to the Supremes and even the BIA is supposed to be generously and practically applied — so much so that asylum can and ordinarily should be granted even where the chances are “significantly less” than probable. See Matter of Mogharrabi, 19 I & N Dec. 439, 446 (BIA 1987).

The problem is that the BIA and EOIR have never effectively implemented and followed the Mogharrabi standard. In recent years, particularly during the Trump debacle, they have moved further than ever away from this proper legal standard while still giving it lip service! Clearly, the IJs in Omaha and other “Asylum Free Zones” are operating outside the realm of asylum law with deadly and destructive consequences. Yet, Garland, a former Federal Judge himself, permits it! Why?

The assumption that most asylum seekers who pass credible fear should ultimately lose on the merits is false and based on intentionally overly restrictive mis-interpretations and mis-applications of asylum law! It’s a particular problem with respect to asylum seekers of color from Latin America and Haiti — a definite racial dimension that DOJ and DHS constantly “sweep under the carpet.” Because of the extraordinarily poor leadership from EOIR, DOJ, and DHS, this “fundamental falsehood of inevitable denial” infects the entire asylum debate and materially influences policies.

A dedicated long-time “hands-on” asylum expert, someone who actually met some of the “Abbott/DeSantis busses,” said that over 70% of those arriving from the border had potentially grantable asylum claims. That’s a far cry from the “nobody from the Southern border will qualify” myth that drives asylum policy by both parties and has even been, rather uncritically, “normalized” by the media.

Fixing EOIR is a prerequisite to an informed discussion of immigration and development of humane, rational, realistic immigration policies. That would be laws and policies based on reality, not myths, distortions, and sometimes downright fabrications.

Competent representation is also an essential part of fixing EOIR. There are ways to achieve it that Garland is ignoring and/or inhibiting. See, e.g., VIISTA Villanova. No excuses!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever,

PWS

07-17-23

🌊 TSUNAMI OF BAD ☠️ BIA DECISIONS HITS GARLAND’S DOJ! — WRONG On Nexus (4th, 2-1); WRONG On NTA (4th, 2-1); WRONG On Agfel (8th); WRONG On Past Political Persecution In Cameroon (5th); WRONG On Experts (1st)!

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

1. NEXUS

CA4 on Nexus, Religious Persecution: Chicas-Machado v. Garland

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/211381.P.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca4-on-nexus-religious-persecution-chicas-machado-v-garland

“In sum, the BIA erred in finding that Chicas-Machado was not a refugee under the INA due to a lack of nexus to a protected ground, religion. Chicas-Machado demonstrated past persecution on account of religion, and is therefore entitled to the presumption of a well-founded fear of future persecution. See Qiao Hua Li, 405 F.3d at 176-77. Recognizing the BIA’s error, we grant the petition for review and remand the case for further proceedings. Upon remand, the BIA must determine whether the Government can rebut the presumption of a well-founded fear of future persecution. 8 If the BIA concludes that Chicas-Machado is eligible for asylum on remand, it should reconsider her withholding of removal claim. See Sorto-Guzman, 42 F.4th at 450. We decline to reach all other issues raised on appeal as to her asylum and withholding of removal claims, and direct the BIA to reevaluate those claims following its reconsideration of Chicas-Machado’s asylum application. See Arita-Deras v. Wilkinson, 990 F.3d 350, 361 n.10 (4th Cir. 2021) (declining to reach the merits of withholding of removal appeal after finding error in the BIA’s asylum analysis).”

[Hats off to Daniel Thomann! Listen to the oral argument here.]

Daniel Thomann
ESQ

—

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/211381.P.pdf

2. NTA

CA4 on Defective NTA: Lazo-Gavidia v. Garland

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/202306.P.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca4-on-defective-nta-lazo-gavidia-v-garland

“This petition raises important questions about proper notice in removal proceedings. Federal immigration law mandates that the government provide a noncitizen with a written notice to appear that contains certain critical details about her removal hearing, including the “time and place” of the proceedings. In a pair of recent decisions, the Supreme Court has clarified that the notice to appear must be a single document containing all statutorily required information. See Niz-Chavez v. Garland, 141 S. Ct. 1474 (2021); Pereira v. Sessions, 138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018). Petitioners Azucena Aracely Lazo-Gavidia and her minor son were ordered removed in absentia. The immigration judge denied their motion to reopen the removal proceedings and the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed their appeal. Because Lazo-Gavidia and her son received defective notices to appear, we grant their petition, vacate the Board’s order dismissing their appeal, and remand for further proceedings.”

[Hats off to Glenn Fogle! Listen to the oral argument here.]

Glenn Fogle ESQ

—

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

3. AgFel

CA8 on Shoplifting: Thok v. Garland

http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/23/07/222508P.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca8-on-shoplifting-thok-v-garland

“Because an offender can be convicted under Nebraska’s shoplifting statute when he acts with an intent not encompassed by a generic theft offense, we hold that the statute sweeps more broadly than the generic federal offense. Accordingly, the BIA erred in finding that Thok was removable for having committed a theft offense—and, thus, an aggravated felony—based upon his Nebraska shoplifting convictions. … For the foregoing reasons, we grant the petition for review, vacate the BIA’s order, and remand the matter to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this decision.”

[Hats off to Jaime Arango! Listen to the oral argument here.]

—

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

4. Past Political Persecution In Cameroon

Unpub. CA5 Victory: Naah v. Garland

https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/unpub/20/20-61059.0.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/unpub-ca5-victory-naah-v-garland

“Mercy Naah, a native of Cameroon, was charged as removable from the United States. She applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. Naah demonstrated that she is unable or unwilling to return to Cameroon because of past persecution on account of her political opinion. Accordingly, we grant her petition for review as to her asylum and withholding of removal claims and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats off to Danielle Beach-Oswald!]

Danielle Beach-Oswald ESQ

Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase reports for the Round Table 🛡️⚔️:

5. Experts

Unpublished 1st Cir. Victory [Experts]

[T]o keep it brief, we were on the winning side in an unpublished 1st Cir. decision issued today in which the IJ and BIA wrongly gave little weight to an country expert’s opinion on the risk petitioner faced in a CAT case. Decision attached. The Round Table filed an amicus brief in this one. Another great win for SangYeob Kim, Gilles Bissonnette and the ACLU of New Hampshire!

More to follow. We continue to make a difference!

Best, Jeff

I have just learned that counsel is filing a motion to publish. There is good language regarding the evidentiary weight of one qualified as an expert who testifies credibly. The decision points out that an expert need not have personal knowledge of the facts underlying their opinion, as long as such opinion is based on sufficient facts or data;” that “An expert cannot be “undermined by his reliance on facts . . . that have not been disputed;” and that where an IJ makes factual findings not consistent with the expert’s opinion, it is important for the IJ to explain the reasons behind those findings.

1st on Experts

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Why do Dems routinely shoot themselves in the foot on immigration while driving a wedge between Dems in power and the immigration/social justice advocates who helped them get there?

In each of the 4th Circuit cases here, our Dem AG aligned himself with restrictionist positions advocated by dissenting Bush II and Trump appointees, while eschewing the far better-reasoned, more practical approaches advocated by expert advocates and adopted by the jurists in the majority who are committed to due process.

As the 4th Circuit majority in Chicas-Machado cogently points out, the BIA’s “excessively narrow reading” of nexus conflicts with both the statutory language and practical considerations regarding the motivation of persecutors (not to mention riding roughshod over existing, binding Circuit precedent). The BIA has a long and troubling history of ignoring “mixed motive” to deny asylum.

Yet, instead of improving under Dems, the BIA’s abuse of nexus to wrongfully disqualify qualified refugees from protection has continued to metastasize under Garland! It’s all part of the anti-immigrant, “any reason to deny” culture at EOIR, promoted by Sessions and Barr and not effectively addressed by Garland.

Happy to see another Round Table victory on use of experts. But, the 1st Circuit should have published this instructive decision. Hopefully, they now will!

As we know, the BIA’s systemic mishandling of experts is a chronic problem, particularly as the BIA intentionally overcomplicates the law, as a “deterrent,” so experts are almost a requirement for success. (Even though it is well-known that many asylum applicants have difficulty just getting competent pro bono lawyers to represent them, let alone the services of “pro bono experts.”). Every example helps expose the BIA’s professional misconduct, for which Garland and his DOJ leadership have shown an unusual and disturbing tolerance.

If you don’t bring an expert, they deny for failure to sustain your B/P! If you do bring an expert, they minimize, misconstrue, or ignore their testimony!

“Catch 22” — the applicant loses either way!

Experts are also important because it’s an area where the Article IIIs’ experience with experts in civil litigation far exceeds the BIA’s. Therefore, they are apt to recognize the BIA’s sharp divergence from the weight and respect ordinarily given to experts in civil litigation. Hence, we have had substantial success with the Circuits in challenging the BIA’s continuing, inappropriately dismissive, treatment of experts.

The BIA routinely uses sloppy, often internally inconsistent, “boilerplate” in their decisions. Yet, they somehow find time to “nitpick” expert testimony looking for every minor or insignificant “omission” or “discrepancy” to discredit the expert! What a disgrace!

Finally, on Naah v. Garland, a special “shout out” to long-time NDPA stalwart and role model Danielle Beach-Oswald on her victory in a Cameroonian political persecution case in the 5th Circuit. As the decision reflects, asylum victories on non-procedural issues are hard to come by in the 5th. Danielle was a “Legacy Arlington Immigration Court regular” during my time on the bench. This just further cements her status as “one of the best in the business!”

Congrats, Danielle, and thanks for all you do!

Think how much better this system would function with a BIA of real subject-matter experts focused on due process and fundamental fairness — rather than helping out their “partners” at DHS enforcement and protecting their careers in the process! And, what if we also had a Dem AG focused on due process for immigrants in “his” courts, rather than being asleep at the switch and complicit in some of the worst, anti immigrant, biased, backlog building “jurisprudence” rolled out by the Federal “justice” system!

What if once in office, Dems actually courageously stood up for the immigrants, advocates, and values they claim to represent during elections?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-14-23

🤯🏴‍☠️ BIA BLUNDERS BUILD BACKLOG! — 4th Cir. (2-1) & 2d Cir. Continue To Call Out BIA’s Lawless, Anti-Immigrant Behavior In Dem Administration! — PLUS, BONUS COVERAGE — Commentary From Michelle Mendez & Me!😎

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/221463.P.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca4-on-psg-political-opinion-and-cat-santos-garcia-v-garland

“Petitioner Christian Alberto Santos Garcia, a native and citizen of El Salvador, has twice travelled unlawfully into the United States — first in 2012, and again in 2016. In both instances, Garcia fled threats to his life and attacks carried out against him by the 18th Street Gang and the Salvadoran police. After seeking protection from removal before an immigration judge (the “IJ”) in 2016, Garcia was afforded relief — in the form of asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (the “CAT”) — by three separate IJ rulings. On each occasion, the Board of Immigration Appeals (the “BIA”) reversed the IJ rulings. Garcia, for his part, was removed to El Salvador in May 2022, and has awaited further developments in these proceedings from his home country. In this appeal, Garcia challenges and seeks reversal of three rulings made by the BIA — those being: (1) that the “particular social group” relied upon in connection with Garcia’s application for withholding of removal is not legally cognizable; (2) that Garcia was not persecuted in El Salvador on account of his political opinions; and (3) that Garcia failed to establish eligibility for CAT protection. As explained herein, we grant Garcia’s petition for review and reverse the BIA rulings in part, affirm them in part, and vacate them in part. We otherwise remand to the BIA for such further proceedings as may be appropriate.”

[Hats way off to pro bono publico counsel Jessica L. Wagner!]

Jessica Wagner
Associate
Gibson Dunn
D.C. Office
PHOTO: Gibson Dunn

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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https://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/05b1e9ea-e5da-493a-8b94-45bc8e3d4757/3/doc/21-6043_opn.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca2-on-iac-prejudice-hardship-continuance-paucar-v-garland

“Petitioner Juan Pablo Paucar petitions for review of a January 22, 2021 Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) decision (1) affirming an Immigration Judge’s denial of his application for cancellation of removal and (2) denying his motion to remand. The BIA rejected Paucar’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim, declined to remand for consideration of additional hardship relating to his cancellation application, and declined to remand to await adjudication of his U visa application. Paucar argues that the BIA (1) applied an incorrect standard when reviewing his ineffective assistance of counsel claim, (2) overlooked and mischaracterized his new hardship evidence, and (3) failed to follow precedent when denying his request for remand while awaiting the adjudication of his U visa application. We are persuaded by Paucar’s arguments. Accordingly, we GRANT Paucar’s petition for review, VACATE the BIA’s decision, and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats off to Prof. Lindsay Nash and Paige Austin!]

Lindsay Nash
Associate Professor of Law
Co-Director, Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic
Cardozo Law
PHOTO: Cardozo Law

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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In Santos-Garcia v. Garland, the BIA’s 6-year quest to wrongfully deny protection to Santos has been thwarted, for now. But, the matter remains far from finally resolved, even though an IJ has now properly granted Santos relief three separate times, only to be wrongly reversed by the BIA on each occasion!

Rather than insuring that individual justice is done, the BIA has acted to promote injustice, create needless delay, and demoralize IJ’s who are getting it right! In the meantime, the respondent has been removed to the country where he has a well-founded fear of persecution to await his fate. This is because the 4^thCircuit denied a stay they should routinely have granted in an exercise of truly horrendous judicial misjudgment.

Now, the court majority fecklessly pontificates about the need for timely resolution (you’ve got to be kidding) while hinting, but not requiring, that the “Gang That Can’t Shoot Straight” should return the respondent now. Don’t hold your breath!

Here are three of my favorite quotes from Judge King’s majority opinion in Santos Garcia v. Garland.

Put simply, the BIA declined to “interact seriously” with the record before it in reviewing Garcia’s claim for CAT protection, and its failure in that regard requires a remand.

Should we not expect a supposed “expert tribunal” like the BIA should be to “seriously interact” with the record in life-or-death cases? Why aren’t Dems in Congress and everywhere else “all over Garland like a cheap suit” to stop this kind of judicial misbehavior in his “wholly owned courts?”

In closing, we recognize that Garcia’s removal proceedings have languished before the IJ and the BIA — and now this Court — for more than six years, leaving him in limbo and presently in harm’s way in El Salvador. We are also mindful that Garcia was only 15 years old when he sought to protect his cousin from the 18th Street Gang’s advances, setting off more than a decade of hardship and uncertainty. With that, we emphasize the “strong public interest in bringing [this] litigation to a close . . . promptly.” See Hussain v. Gonzales, 477 F.3d 153, 158 (4th Cir. 2007). And although we do not direct the affirmative award of any relief, we acknowledge the compelling case for protection that Garcia has made. If, on remand, the BIA affirms either the IJ’s award of withholding of removal or the award of CAT relief, the DHS and the Attorney General should swiftly “facilitate [Garcia’s] return to the United States” from El Salvador. See Ramirez v. Sessions, 887 F.3d 693, 706 (4th Cir. 2018) (directing the government to facilitate previously removed petitioner’s return to the United States pursuant to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Policy Directive). Moreover, if the BIA determines that Garcia’s “presence 24 is necessary for continued administrative removal proceedings” on remand, the authorities should see to his prompt return. Id.

So, after six years bouncing around the system and three separate grants of asylum by an Immigration Judge, the 4^th Circuit essentially “begs” the BIA to get it right this time! This is after the court itself curiously denied the respondent’s application for stay notwithstanding the rather obvious risk of irreparable harm (e.g., death, torture) and the equally obvious substance of his timely filed appeal.

What a way to run a “justice system” (or, in this case, not)! Both the Executive and the Judiciary should be totally embarrassed by their gross mishandling of this case! But, I see resolve from neither Branch (nor the ever-absent Legislature) to put an end to this systemic mockery of due process, fundamental fairness, and simple common sense!

Here, discovering the BIA’s error in rejecting Garcia’s proposed social group of “young male family members of his cousin Emily” is no herculean task. Social groups based on family ties have been consistently approved by this Court as providing a sound basis for asylum or withholding of removal applications. See, e.g., Salgado-Sosa, 882 F.3d at 457; Hernandez-Avalos v. Lynch, 784 F.3d 944, 949 (4th Cir. 2015); Cedillos-Cedillos v. Barr, 962 F.3d 817, 824 (4th Cir. 2020). Indeed, our pivotal 2011 decision on the matter — Crespin-Valladares v. Holder — recognized in no uncertain terms that “the family provides a prototypical example of a particular social group.” See 632 F.3d at 125. In tossing out Garcia’s proposed social group in March 2021, however, the BIA largely disregarded our precedent, providing no citation to or discussion of Crespin-Valladares. The BIA instead relied chiefly on its own then-existing precedent, set forth in the Attorney General’s 2019 L-E-A- II decision. As described above, L-E-A- II — which was vacated by the Attorney General in June 2021 and thus “lacks legal force” — “conflicted with [this Court’s] well-established precedent” recognizing families as cognizable social groups. See Perez Vasquez v. Garland, 4 F.4th 213, 227 n.11 (4th Cir. 2021). Surprisingly, the BIA paid little mind to L-E-A- II’s vacatur in its Reconsideration Order of 2022, doubling down on its earlier “particular social group” ruling and again inexplicably declining to apply Crespin-Valladares and its progeny.7

Notably, the “rule of Crespin-Valledares” — my case where the BIA erroneously reversed me — continues to have an impact! A dozen years post-Crespin and the BIA is still getting it wrong! Why are these guys still on the appellate bench, setting negative precedents and ignoring favorable precedents? In a Dem Administration? Seriously!

Michelle N. Mendez, ESQ
Director of Legal Resources and Training
National Immigration Project, National Lawyers Guild
PHOTO: NIPNLG

My friend Michelle Mendez, Director of Legal Resources and Training over at National Immigration Project offered some commentary on the Second Circuit’s decision in Paucar v. Garland.

Congratulations and thank you for your superb work, Lindsay! This case offers so much and seems like the CA2 delivered.

Here are a couple of excerpts from the decision that stood out to me:

“In a January 14, 2020 written decision, the BIA dismissed Paucar’s appeal and denied his motion to reopen and remand. Three months later—after Paucar filed a petition to review the BIA’s decision in this Court—the BIA sua sponte reinstated Paucar’s appeal and motion, noting that it had not “consider[ed] all of the evidence submitted by [Paucar].” Id. at 124.” [Do we know why the BIA sua sponte reinstated the appeal and motion?] LINDSAY NASH RESPONDS: “The BIA only sua sponte reopened the appeal and motion because Paige Austin (co-counsel extraordinaire, copied here) filed a PFR and identified the missing evidence early on, prompting OIL to agree to a remand.”

“Finally, the BIA concluded that remand to await the adjudication of Paucar’s U visa petition was unnecessary because Paucar could request a stay of removal from USCIS.” [Does anyone know what the BIA was referencing here? Later on the decision says DHS and not USCIS so perhaps it is a typo.] LINDSAY NASH RESPONDS: “I think that the reference to USCIS that you flag was a typo and that it should have said DHS.”

“We conclude that the BIA should have applied the Sanchez Sosa factors in considering Paucar’s motion to remand as it pertains to his U visa or explained its reasoning for not doing so. [This is the first time that the CA2 answers the question of whether Sanchez Sosa applies to motions to remand or reopen filed during the pendency of an appeal where the noncitizen did not previously request such a continuance before the IJ].”

There is a great discussion on the BIA improperly applying Coelho (which they love to throw around in correctly) to the prejudice assessment and a paragraph discussing how the CA2 and other courts of appeals view unpublished BIA decisions.

Again, really great work and outcome! Thanks for sharing with all of us, Dan!

For a case distinguishing Coelho and applying a “reasonable likelihood of success” standard to a MTR, see Matter of L-O-G-, 21 I&N Dec. 436 (BIA 1996), written by me! The BIA ignores it or misapplies it in many cases. But, it’s still “good law!” Just another instance in which the BIA evades “older” precedents that could produce favorable outcomes for respondents!

In this case the IJ denied the respondent’s applications and ordered removal in May 2018, five years ago. Nobody contests that the respondent was ineffectively represented at that time.

Through new pro bono counsel, respondent Paucar filed a timely appeal with the BIA. Less than two months following the IJ’s decision, new counsel filed a copiously documented motion to the BIA to remand for a new hearing because of the ineffective representation.

Rather than promptly granting that motion for a new hearing, the BIA set in motion five years of dilatory effort on their part to avoid providing a hearing. Obviously, several new merits hearings could have been completed during the time occupied by the BIA’s anti-immigrant antics!

Along the way, according to the Second Circuit, the BIA “improperly imposed a heightened standard,” “erred by discounting the impact of counsel’s ineffectiveness,” “improperly relied] on the IJ’s tainted findings,” “overlooked and mischaracterized the record evidence,” “erred by overlooking or mischaracterizing evidence,” “overlooked and mischaracterized material evidence,” and failed, without explanation, “to follow its own precedent.” What else could they have screwed up? The file number?

This would be highly unacceptable performance by ANY tribunal, let alone one entrusted with making life or death decisions about human lives and whose decisions in some instances have been unwisely insulated from effective judicial review by Congress. Individuals appearing before EOIR deserve better! American justice deserves better! How long will AG Garland continue to get away with failing to “clean house” at America’s most dysfunctional court system and bring order, due process, fundamental fairness, legal expertise, and judicial professionalism to this long-overlooked, yet absolutely essential, foundation of our entire U.S. justice system!

Wasting time and resources looking for bogus ways to deny that which better, more expert, fairer judges could easily grant his had a huge negative impact on the EOIR backlog and is a driver of legal dysfunction throughout the immigration bureaucracy, and indeed throughout our entire legal system, all the way up to and including the Supremes!

Start by fixing “that within your control!” That’s a simple message that Dems, unfortunately, don’t seem to get when it comes to immigration, human rights, and racial justice in America!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-14-24

🇺🇸⚖️👨🏾‍⚖️ PROF. CARL TOBIAS (U. RICHMOND LAW) HAS SOME VERY NICE THINGS TO SAY ABOUT OUTGOING 4TH CIRCUIT CHIEF JUDGE ROGER GREGORY!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/09/judge-roger-gregory-tenure-4th-circuit/

Tobias writes in WashPost:

On Saturday, Roger Gregory concluded his tenure as chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. Judge Gregory has ensured the court expeditiously, inexpensively and fairly decided several thousand appeals annually.

President Bill Clinton nominated Judge Gregory in June 2000, but GOP senators ignored the nomination, so Clinton granted him a recess appointment that December. President George W. Bush nominated Judge Gregory in May 2001, and he won confirmation. Judge Gregory was the court’s initial Black jurist, becoming its first Black chief judge in July 2016.

Gregory ensured efficacious implementation of administrative tasks, notably investitures for new active, and retirements for senior, jurists on the 15-member appeals court, plus the nine districts’ many trial court, magistrate and bankruptcy judges. He facilitated professional development of 150 judges and 1,600 court staff.

Judge Gregory also discharged complex, delicate responsibilities, namely investigating and resolving ethics complaints and claims of discrimination, which involved jurists and court personnel. Other complicated, sensitive duties were maintaining the court’s effective disposition of substantial appeals and collegiality as it transitioned from the most conservative to a more progressive appellate court. A crisis arising in Judge Gregory’s tenure was the coronavirus pandemic. He expeditiously organized the 4th Circuit response, skillfully navigating public health dangers and politicization of remedies for those risks.

Judge Gregory exhibited diligence, wisdom and appreciation, showing respect for history, customs and norms, as well as the 1,750 dedicated public servants who assiduously help the court efficaciously resolve large cases. Individuals across the 4th Circuit are indebted to Judge Gregory for his exceptional administration.

Carl Tobias, Richmond

The writer is the Williams chair in law at the University of Richmond School of Law.

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

Very well-deserved tribute! Thanks for writing it!

The totally dysfunctional U.S. Immigration Courts need leadership like that provided by Judge Gregory. Perhaps, Judge Garland could call Judge Gregory and get him to take over and straighten out EOIR, America’s worst important “court” system. Sadly, to date, Garland has shown little interest in making good on the constitutional guarantee of due process for all persons in the U.S., including immigrants!

Judge Gregory, the first African-American judge on the Circuit, is succeeded by Chief Judge Albert Diaz a 2010 Obama appointee. Judge Diaz becomes the first Hispanic to serve as the Circuit’s Chief Judge!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-10-23

🤯 🤯 DOUBLE TAKEDOWN: 4th Circuit Slams BIA For 1) Mindlessly Trying To “Snuff” Allies From Afghanistan War☠️; & 2) Producing Incomprehensible Legal Gibberish 🤪 In Life Or Death Cases! — Two Recent Cases Show Deep Quality, Expertise Problems In Dem-Controlled “Courts” At The “Retail Level” Of U.S. Justice! 🤯🤬

1. Ben Winograd, Esquire, is an all-star appellate litigator who would have made a great BIA Chair/Chief Appellate Judge!

Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis reports:

CA4 on Internal Relocation: Ullah v. Garland

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/221026.P.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca4-on-internal-relocation-ullah-v-garland

“The United States’ war in Afghanistan required regional allies willing to aid the effort. One such ally was Shaker Ullah, a Pakistani businessman who sold supplies to coalition forces. This invoked the wrath of the Pakistani Taliban, which demanded exorbitant payments from Ullah under threat of death. Ullah repeatedly refused, and the Taliban attempted to carry out its threat, promising to hunt him until it succeeded. After losing his business, home, and nearly his life, Ullah fled to the United States seeking asylum. The Immigration Judge and Board of Immigration Appeals both recognized that Ullah suffered past persecution entitling him to a presumption that the Taliban would continue to target him if he returned to Pakistan. But they agreed with the government that because Ullah lived in Islamabad (the capital of Pakistan) for a few weeks without the Taliban finding him, he could live in a new area of the country without fear of reprisal. We disagree. Ullah’s brief sojourn to Islamabad—where he never left the house— doesn’t rebut the presumption that a notorious terrorist organization continues to imperil his life. Since the record would compel any reasonable adjudicator to conclude Ullah faces a well-founded threat of future persecution, we grant Ullah’s petition for review, reverse the Board’s denial of Ullah’s preserved claims, and remand with instructions that the agency grant relief.”

[Hats way off to superlitigator Ben Winograd! Listen to the oral argument here.]

—

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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

Tamara Jezic ESQUIRE Jezic & Moyse Fairfax, VA PHOTO: J&M

2. “Legacy” Arlington Immigration Court superstar Tamara Jezic runs circles around EOIR and OIL!

Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis reports:

Multiple Failures Trigger Remand to BIA: Chen v. Garland

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/211371.P.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/multiple-failures-trigger-remand-to-bia-chen-v-garland

“Petitioner Zuowei Chen is a native of China admitted to the United States on a student visa in 2009. Chen now seeks review of a Board of Immigration Appeals order denying his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. If removed to China, Chen fears, he will be persecuted and tortured by Chinese authorities, who in 2008 allegedly imprisoned and violently beat him because of his Christian beliefs and practices. We find there are aspects of the agency’s decision that require clarification before we can meaningfully review Chen’s claims. Accordingly, we vacate the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals and remand for further explanation, consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats off to Tamara Jezic! https://jezicfirm.com/attorneys/tamara-jezic/ Listen to the oral argument here.]

—

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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

Notably, and refreshingly, in Ullah, the 4th Circuit took the unusual step of directing the BIA to grant asylum, rather than just remanding for the BIA to screw it up again! In Chen, Trump appointee Circuit Judge Marvin Quattlebaum was part of the unanimous panel! Condemnation of EOIR’s deficient performance is uniting Article III jurists across ideological lines!

The GOP is “out for Garland’s scalp” for all the WRONG reasons! It’s actually Dems who should be demanding an accounting for his inexcusable, miserable, democracy-eroding (non)performance at EOIR!

Garland’s mess at EOIR isn’t “theoretical,” “academic,” or “speculative!” It’s ACTUALLY endangering lives, eroding democracy, and creating unnecessary chaos on a daily basis! His intransigence is also diverting HUGE amounts of resources that could be used to DEFEND American democracy, rather than seeking to hold a tone-deaf Dem Administration accountable!

In the meantime, Dems are fecklessly moaning and groaning about a lawless and ethics-free Supremes. Yet, a Dem Administration is operating a huge, nationwide “court” system presenting these same problems, in spades!♠️

And, the victims of EOIR’s substandard judging are overwhelmingly people of color, literally fighting for their lives in a dysfunctional system that the Biden Administration is unwilling and/or unable to fix. In these cases, the victims were fortunate enough to be represented by two of the “best in the business,” Ben Winograd and Tamara Jezic. But, too many others face this biased and unfair system unrepresented, a situation that Garland not only has failed to remedy, but has made worse in some ways. What “message, does this send, particularly to the younger cohort of “social justice” voters whom the Dems are counting on for the future?

Trial By Ordeal — Following the 2020 election, human rights advocates and experts expected and deserved dramatic, long overdue progressive improvements in justice at EOIR. Instead, Garland inexplicably has retained many of the most regressive features of injustice at EOIR, developed and reinforced during the Trump years. Frustration abounds, while justice for the most vulnerable among us suffers under a Dem Administration! Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal”
17th Century Woodcut
Public Realm
Source: Ancient Origins Website
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160

How bad is EOIR under Garland? One informed observer put it this way:

BIA staff attorneys are rewarded for the number of signed decisions per month. With the present make-up of the Board, their only incentive is to crank out denials.

Dems love to talk about “change!” The GOP actually achieves it, even though the results are overwhelmingly negative, regressive, and existentially damaging to democracy! Something’s got to give here!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-08-23

🤯🤯🤯 BACK-TO-BACK TRIPLE HEADERS FROM COURTSIDE! — 1) ⚖️👩🏽‍⚖️ SUPREMES TAP TWO GROUPS OF IMMIGRATION CASES FOR OCT ‘23 DOCKET! 2) Garland’s DOJ Continues To Take Positions “Least Favorable To Due Process For Immigrants” Before High Court, Even As 3rd Cir. Slams BIA On Notice, An Issue Unnecessarily “Headed Up” For The 3rd Time!🤯 3) Dems’ Fecklessness On Courts Takes Center Stage! ☹️👎🏼

Dean Kevin Johnson reports from ImmigrationProf Blog:

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2023/07/photo-courtesy-of-us-supreme-court-the-2022-term-ended-last-week-but-there-already-are-new-immigration-cases-on-the-supr.html

The 2022 Term ended last week but there already are new immigration cases on the Supreme Court’s docket for the 2023 Term.

Law 360 reports that the Supreme Court on the last day of the 2022 Term agreed to review 1) if Board of Immigration Appeals decisions denying cancellation of removal for exceptional hardship are subject to judicial review and 2) consolidated cases on the sufficiency of notice in removal proceedings.

Here are the cases:

Wilkinson v. Garland

Issue: Whether an agency determination that the statutory standard of “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” is a mixed question of law and fact reviewable under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D), or whether this determination is a discretionary judgment call unreviewable under Section 1252(a)(2)(B)(i) (and not subject to judicial review).

Campos-Chaves v. Garland (consolidated with Garland v. Singh).

The Court continues to deal with the ripple effects of Pereira v. Sessions (2018), which addressed the sufficiency of notice in removal proceedings.

Issue: Whether the government provides notice “required under” and “in accordance with paragraph (1) or (2) of” 8 U.S.C. § 1229(a) when it serves an initial notice document that does not include the “time and place” of proceedings followed by an additional document containing that information, such that an immigration court must enter a removal order in absentia and deny a noncitizen’s request to rescind that order.

KJ

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

Aleksandra Gontaryuk ESQ
Managing Partner
AG Law
Newark, NJ
PHOTO: AG Law

From: Aleksandra Gontaryuk
Sent: Monday, July 3, 2023 4:29 PM
To: AILA New Jersey Chapter Distribution List <newjersey@lists.aila.org>
Subject: Precedential Decision — 3rd Circuit

https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/212291p.pdf

Hot off the presses. No supplemental notice allowed to cure defective NTA unless there is a change or postponement of time and place in NTA. In this case, my client had a defective NTA, so 3rd Circuit ruled there can be no change or postponement from a defective NTA in the first place when DHS didn’t issue new NTA!! In absentia remanded.

[The case is Madrid-Mancia v. AG, available in full text at the above link.]

Aleksandra N. Gontaryuk, Esq.

AG Law Firm

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

Alfred E. Neumann — Actually, Dems need an AG who WILL WORRY about systematic denials of due process, fundamental fairness, and failure to install best-qualified progressives in the disastrously dysfunctional Immigration Courts!
PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons

The notice issue presented by Campos-Chaves and Singh has been to the Supremes, albeit in different forms, twice before recently. The BIA/DOJ position has been emphatically “stuffed” by the Supremes both times! Yet, here we are again with the same backlog-enhancing, due-process-denying nonsense, this time from a Dem AG who was supposed to act like a “real” Federal Judge, not a “stooge” for DHS Enforcement.

The long and short of it is that this third trip to the Supremes on the notice issue was avoidable. That is, if Garland had appointed immigration experts, individuals not afraid to enforce the statute even where it benefits the individual, as it often will if properly and fairly interpreted, to the BIA, long a hotbed of anti-immigrant interpretations of law. Garland continues to enable a system “packed” with anti-immigrant and anti-asylum judges promoted under Trump and largely retained by Garland. This should outrage all progressives!

Dems continue to fecklessly “wring their hands” about the sharp right turn of the Supremes and the lower Article IIIs and the predictable decimation of individual rights. It all occurred in plain sight and with plenty of advance warning from the GOP as Dems diddled away their chances to stop it.

Dems aren’t going to be able to expand the Supremes, nor are term limits likely to happen. Both would require GOP support, which will not be forthcoming now that they have achieved their long-promised “takeover!” Discussing it is a waste of breath and brain cells. It also diverts attention from the Dems ongoing failure at EOIR.

The Dems best practical chance of reforming the Federal Courts would be to start “at the critical retail level” with what they control and could change tomorrow: The U.S.Immigration Courts housed (however improperly) in the DOJ. Right now they are an embarrassing mess of bad judging, anti-immigrant bias, worst practices, grotesque mismanagement, insurmountable backlogs, and hare-brained gimmicks.

Every day, in this and other forums, we see inspiring examples of the type of extraordinary progressive, creative, courageous legal talent available “in the marketplace.” They are the ones Garland should be recruiting and putting on the EOIR bench at both appellate and trial levels.

We would get an immediate, long overdue, improvement in the quality and efficiency of justice at EOIR. Correct, scholarly precedents would have carry-over into other areas of law and even gain international traction.

And, Dems would be building a “long bench” of “tried and true” candidates for Article III positions in the process! Who knows if and when a chance like this will come again? Yet, Garland and the Dems are squandering it, damaging democracy and humanity in the process! Talk about turning a “win-win” into a “lose-lose!” It’s something that Dem politicos excel at!

Dems failure to institute progressive reforms and bring in expert progressive judges at the court they do control makes the rest of their pronouncements on Federal Court reform meaningless babbling!

Tower of Babel — Dems “babble on” about Federal Court reform as GOP scores “real life” victories over individual rights and equity. It’s a waste of time, and “task avoidance” by Dems that diverts attention from the major Federal System they own 100% and operate (very badly): The U.S. Immigration Courts @ EOIR! — “Towel of Babel” By Pieter Bruegel The Elder
Public Domain

Pay no attention to Dems disingenuous complaints about the Supremes and “Trumpy” lower court judges until they demonstrate the ability and willingness to reform EOIR!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-07-23

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr reports:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Carol writes:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Here’s a report from Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase of the Round Table:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Gebra v. A.G., 3d Cir, 07-19-23, unpublished (unfortunately)

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Maria writes:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Two items from Professor Austin Kocher on Substack:

And, this from Lauren Iosue, Georgetown Law L-3 on LinkedIn.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever,

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Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase reports for the Round Table 🛡️⚔️:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Tobias writes in WashPost:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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1. Ben Winograd, Esquire, is an all-star appellate litigator who would have made a great BIA Chair/Chief Appellate Judge!

2. “Legacy” Arlington Immigration Court superstar Tamara Jezic runs circles around EOIR and OIL!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Dean Kevin Johnson reports from ImmigrationProf Blog:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts: