Courts – Page 169 – immigrationcourtside.com

GOIN’ DOWN AGAIN! — DC Cir. Rejects Trump Administration’s Position — Orders USG To Permit Undocumented Teen’s Abortion!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/appeals-court-in-washington-allows-detained-immigrant-teen-to-seek-abortion/2017/10/24/51811cd8-b8c8-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html

Maria Sacchetti and Ann E. Marimow report for the Washington Post:

“An undocumented immigrant teen asking to end her pregnancy is entitled to seek an abortion without delay, according to a ruling Tuesday from a federal appeals court in Washington.

The order from the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit — without oral argument — reverses a decision last week from a three-judge panel of the same court that would have postponed the abortion for the 17-year-old who is being held in federal custody in Texas. The Trump administration had denied the teen’s request, citing the government’s new policy of refusing to “facilitate” abortions for unaccompanied minors.

The timeline was at issue because the teenager is more than 15 weeks pregnant and Texas law bans most abortions after 20 weeks.

The 6-3 ruling sent the case back to a lower court judge who within hours of the decision had ordered the government to “promptly and without delay” transport the teen to a Texas abortion provider.

“Today’s decision rights a grave constitutional wrong by the government,” D.C. Circuit Judge Patricia A. Millett wrote.

In the dissent were the court’s three active judges nominated to the bench by Republican presidents. Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh said the majority has “badly erred” and created a new right for undocumented immigrant minors in custody to “immediate abortion on demand.”

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Read the complete story at the link.

Not to worry, Judge K. Your Anti-Constitution, Anti- Abortion “creds” remain intact. So you should still have a shot at the next Trump Supreme appointment.

Will the Trumpsters now seek “Supreme Intervention?”

PWS

10-24-17

GONZO’S WORLD: “LOOKIN’ FOR LAW IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES” — U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones Certainly Couldn’t Find Any Traces Of Law In Gonzo’s So-Called “Legal Memo” Submitted In City of Seattle v. Trump!

Judge Richard A. Jones of the WD WA wrote on Oc. 19, 2017 in deciding a motion in City of Seattle v. Trump:

“In the brief, twopage memo, Defendant Sessions does not offer any legal interpretations or determinations that indicate the scope or constitutionality of the Executive Order. He merely sets forth boundaries—arrived at in response to pending litigation—by which he intends to enforce the Executive Order. The AG Memo fails to meet traditional notions of what one would expect to constitute a legal analysis.”

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Those with Westlaw Access can find Judge Jones’s complete opinion at 2017 WL 4700144. The case pertains to Sessions’s so far futile attempts to strip Federal Law Enforcement funding from “Sanctuary Cities.” Yup, that’s right, the best way to deal with jurisdictions whose views on law enforcement you disagree with is by taking away funding for law enforcement! That will make America safer for sure!

I’d state it slightly differently, “Jeff Sessions fails to meet traditional notions of what one would expect to constitute competent performance by a U.S. Attorney General.”

I’ve noted several times that Gonzo’s so-called “legal” positions are apparently based largely on policy determinations which were cribbed from or written for him by various restrictionist, homophobic, and voter suppression groups.

PWS

10-24-17

LA TIMES; “DETAINED AND DEFENSELESS” – How Our Government Specifically Designed An American Gulag (Complete With “Kangaroo Courts”) To Deny Migrants Their Statutory & Due Process Rights To Counsel, & Then Simply Lies About What They Are Doing!

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/latimes/default.aspx?pubid=50435180-e58e-48b5-8e0c-236bf740270e

Kyle Kim writes:

“Judy London merges onto the freeway, heading northeast toward a high desert already baking under a recently risen sun. From West Los Angeles, she faces a two-hour, 100-mile drive to the Adelanto Detention Facility to meet a client who is being deported. The commute time can double if rush-hour traffic is particularly bad.

London arrives at the facility and walks up a concrete path flanked by gravel to the detention facility’s entrance. Once inside, rows of chairs and lockers greet her, as does a guard. She checks in but can’t meet her client yet — the facility is undergoing its daily head count, and she has to wait until it’s finished.

It can take another hour from this moment. London still has to be cleared through security and have a guard escort her client to her.

Finally, she has to wait for an interview room. Adelanto Detention Facility has an average daily population of 1,785, but only a handful of rooms designated for lawyer-client meetings. And once a room is available, she’ll have to take all her notes by hand. The facility prohibits the use of phones, laptops and other electronic devices.

London, like many immigration attorneys, spends a lot of time just trying to meet face-to-face with her clients. It’s a good day when she actually meets them. On bad days, she can spend hours traveling, only to be turned away.

The facility in recent months has refused entrance to attorneys for a variety of reasons, including a chickenpox outbreak and hunger strikes.

“Generally, it is far easier for me, as an attorney, to walk into a high-security local or federal prison unannounced to visit a client than it is to get into a detention facility to see someone. And that is odd,” said London, directing attorney for Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.

::

Most immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while their deportation cases are being considered don’t have an attorney.

Immigration detention is considered civil detention and, as a result, detainees do not have a right to counsel as they would in criminal cases.

Immigration attorneys say geography is a significant hurdle.

Many ICE facilities in the U.S. are located in smaller cities, hours from cities where most legal aid organizations operate. So even if the government makes legal aid resources available, they can be miles away.

About 30% of detained immigrants are held in facilities more than 100 miles from the nearest government-listed legal aid resource, according to a Times analysis of 70 ICE detention centers.

Of these, the median distance between the facilities and the nearest government-listed legal aid was 56 miles.

The farthest is Etowah County Detention Center in Gadsden, Ala. Alabama doesn’t have an immigration court, so immigrants detained there are referred to the Loyola Law Clinic — 408 miles away in New Orleans.

Immigrants facing deportation are provided with a list of available pro bono legal aid and services. The list is administered by the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which calls it an “essential tool.”

Providers on the pro bono list — mostly nonprofits — aren’t required to offer free services to every detainee, according to the Justice Department, and only a lucky few get help from pro bono lawyers.

UCLA law professor Ingrid Eagly analyzed 1.2 million deportation cases between 2007 and 2012 and found that just 2% of immigration detainees had free legal representation. Most immigrant attorneys came from solo practitioners or small firms.

The location of detention facilities in remote locations can pose a logistical challenge to the court system as well as the attorneys. Court procedure can vary by jurisdiction. Some have judges at the facility. Some conduct business by teleconference. Some use a combination of the two.

. . . . .

ICE officials did not answer specific questions about why detained immigrants are significantly less likely to obtain counsel or allegations that systemic hurdles limit access to legal representation.

The agency has previously said that it is “very supportive and very accommodating” to detainees who wish to have a lawyer. ICE spokeswoman Jennifer D. Elzea said the department maintained that position.

“ICE is committed to allowing detainees access to visits, telephones, legal counsel and law library resources. Additionally, all facilities have notifications posted throughout providing information about pro bono legal services,” Elzea said in a statement.

No attorney or legal aid group interviewed for this report agreed with ICE’s position.

“The government is locking people up in remote jails and prisons hundreds of miles from attorneys, and arguing that having phones there that sometimes work is sufficient access to counsel,” National Immigrant Justice Center Executive Director Mary Meg McCarthy said in response to ICE’s statement.

“The government spends billions of dollars to sustain — and expand — a system that obstructs lawyers’ ability to defend their clients’ due process rights. We’ve been told by ICE that the agency does not consider availability or proximity of counsel as any part of its assessment of the suitability of a new detention center, and we have no reason to believe that it cares at all whether people in detention have lawyers,” she said.

Immigrant rights proponents see little chance of reform under President Trump.

The administration’s executive orders on immigration have reversed enforcement priorities. Arrests increased by 37.6% during Trump’s first 100 days in office compared with the same period in 2016, according to ICE data.

The fight for reform will take place in more liberal cities and states, and through the efforts of legal aid groups.

The Southern Poverty Law Center recently started the Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative. The goal is to provide counsel to every detained immigrant in the Southeast — a region with a high number of deportation cases.

But the program, said Dan Werner, who directs the initiative, was a stopgap measure built out of necessity.

“The real solution is systemic reform of immigration policy,” he said.

In March, New York became the first state to dedicate funding to providing pro bono legal services to every detained immigrant.

And in June, California lawmakers put $45 million in the state budget to expand legal services for immigrants.

Attorneys and advocates view such measures as incremental.

“In most cases, there won’t be accountability in the government,” London said, “so there’s no incentive for them to address it.”

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Read the complete article at the link.

Next time you hear Jeff “Gonzo Apocalyto” Sessions deliver one of his self-righteous, fact-free attacks on asylum seekers and their advocates, remember that the REAL FRAUDSTER HERE IS “GONZO” HIMSELF and his knowingly false narrative about asylum seekers that he uses to “cover up” the intentional abuses of legal and human rights being carried out by ICE and EOIR under his direction. Accountability, addressing the real need for reforms in the immigration enforcement and Immigration Court systems to insure Constitutional Due Process? Not going to happen on “Gonzo’s Watch.”

PWS

10-23-17

CHICAGO TRIBUNE: Asylum Experts Michelle Mendez & Swapna Reddy Challenge Gonzo’s Bogus Apocalyptic Smear Of U.S. Asylum Applicants!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-asylum-sessions-immigration-1024-20171023-story.html

Michelle and Swapna write:

“What would you do if your brother was murdered, and your child had received death threats? How would you respond if you had been repeatedly raped, and your government did nothing to protect you?

These are the situations our clients have faced. They have traveled hundreds of miles to the United States to save their families’ lives. And they have done so legally, seeking asylum through our nation’s immigration courts.

Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions called these families liars. He bemoaned the role of “dirty immigration lawyers” and described the U.S. asylum system as an “easy ticket” to entry.

Nothing could be further from the truth. When these families arrive in the United States they are held in private prisons. Young children and their mothers live in cells with strangers. Fathers and children over 18 are detained on their own. Few receive adequate medical care, and any legal help they obtain is largely provided by overworked nonprofit agency staff.

Despite these conditions, the families persevere. Children celebrate their first birthdays and take their first steps in detention. Spouses write love letters from their respective cells.

And for families who secure their release from detention — after establishing a “credible fear” of return — they want nothing more than to comply with our laws to avoid family separation once more.

Sessions claimed the federal government found a credible fear in 88 percent of cases, and said that any system with such a high passage rate means the system is “inherently flawed.”

But this reasoning is false. Each year, more than 90 percent of medical students pass their board exams. They do not pass because they cheat, or because the exams are inherently flawed. They pass because they are self-selected, having excelled despite years of challenges and setbacks.

The same is true of asylum seekers. Few would be willing to endure family separation and the incarceration of their child unless the stakes were life and death. Those who make it through the credible fear process are self-selected, with genuine fear of return.

Unfortunately, a credible fear interview is just the first stage in seeking asylum. And the government does little to explain to asylum seekers what they must do next.

. . . .

Asylum seekers have every incentive to comply with our laws. If they cannot win their asylum cases, they must live in the shadows, with no pathway to citizenship and little guarantee of avoiding deportation back to the danger they fled. They simply cannot navigate our dense, complex, and at times contradictory, immigration system on their own.

Michelle Mendez is Training and Legal Support Senior Attorney and Defending Vulnerable Populations Project Manager of Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc. Swapna Reddy is Director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project at the Urban Justice Center, an Echoing Green Fellow and an Equal Justice Works Emerson Fellow.”

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Read the complete article at the link.

Folks like Michelle and Swapna are the “real American heroes” of our justice system, working tirelessly and for modest compensation to preserve the rights of vulnerable asylum seekers. We need more of them and less of Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions and his malicious and ignorant attacks on asylum seekers and their already-limited due process and statutory rights.

PWS

10-22-17

THOMAS B. EDSALL IN THE NYT: DEMOCRACY SOWING THE SEEDS FOR ITS OWN (AND OUR) DESTRUCTION!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/opinion/democracy-populism-trump.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_up_20171023&nl=upshot&nl_art=5&nlid=79213886&ref=headline&te=1

Edsall writes:

“Will President Trump’s assault on the norms underpinning constitutional democracy permanently alter American political life?

On a daily basis, Trump tests the willingness of the public to accept a president who lies as a matter of routine. So far, Trump has persuaded a large swath of America to swallow what he feeds them.

. . . .

As Sasha Polakow-Suransky, the author of “Go Back to Where You Came From: The Backlash Against Immigration and the Fate of Western Democracy,” warns in The New York Review of Books:

Liberal democracies are better equipped than authoritarian states to grapple with the inevitable conflicts that arise in diverse societies, including the threat of terrorist violence. But they also contain the seeds of their own destruction: if they fail to deal with these challenges and allow xenophobic populists to hijack the public debate, then the votes of frustrated and disaffected citizens will increasingly go to the anti-immigrant right, societies will become less open, nativist parties will grow more powerful, and racist rhetoric that promotes a narrow and exclusionary sense of national identity will be legitimized.

The threat to democracy posed by the current outbreak of populist nationalism has become a matter of concern for both scholars and ordinary citizens. The central topic at a conference at Yale earlier this month was “How Do Democracies Fall Apart,” and the subject will be taken up again in November at a Stanford conference called “Global Populisms: A Threat to Democracy?”

I contacted several of the participants at the Yale gathering and was struck by their anxiety over the future prospects of democratic governance.

One of the most insightful was Adam Przeworski, a political scientist at N.Y.U., who has written, but not yet published, his own analysis of current events under the title “What’s Happening.”

First and foremost, Przeworski stresses,

there is nothing “undemocratic” about the electoral victory of Donald Trump or the rise of anti-establishment parties in Europe.

These parties and candidates, he points out:

Do not advocate replacing elections by some other way of selecting rulers. They are ugly — most people view racism and xenophobia as ugly — but these parties do campaign under the slogan of returning to ‘the people’ the power usurped by elites, which they see as strengthening democracy. In the words of a Trump advertisement, “Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American people.”

In support of Przeworski’s argument, it is clear that the success of the Trump campaign in winning the Republican nomination was the result of a classic democratic insurgency: the Republican electorate’s rejection of its party’s establishment.

The danger in the United States, in Przeworski’s view, is the possibility that the Trump administration will use the power of the presidency to undermine the procedures and institutions essential to the operation of democracy:

That the incumbent administration would intimidate hostile media and create a propaganda machine of its own, that it would politicize the security agencies, that it would harass political opponents, that it would use state power to reward sympathetic private firms, that it would selectively enforce laws, that it would provoke foreign conflicts to monger fear, that it would rig elections.

Przeworski believes that

such a scenario would not be unprecedented. The United States has a long history of waves of political repression: the “Red Scare” of 1917-20, the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II, the McCarthy period, the Nixon presidency.

Along similar lines, Anna Grzymala-Busse, a political scientist at Stanford, replied by email to my inquiry:

My big worry is not simply that formal institutions have been eroded, but that the informal norms that underpin them are even more important and even more fragile. Norms of transparency, conflict of interest, civil discourse, respect for the opposition and freedom of the press, and equal treatment of citizens are all consistently undermined, and without these the formal institutions become brittle.

Trump, in Grzymala-Busse’s assessment, “articulates a classic populist message that we see in Europe: the elite establishment is a collusive cartel uninterested in the problems of ‘the people,’” and, she continued, he has begun to follow the path of European populist leaders:

Much of Trump’s language and actions are also familiar: there is a standard authoritarian populist template, developed in Hungary and faithfully followed in Poland and in Turkey: first, go after the courts, then the media, then the civil society, churches, universities.

The attacks on the courts, media and universities

are not simply the ravings of a lunatic, but an established strategy for undermining democratic oversight and discrediting the opposition.

. . . .

Paul Waldman, writing in The Washington Post on Oct, 17, summed up Trump’s approach to veracity and to reality itself:

Trump takes his own particular combination of ignorance, bluster and malice, and sets it off like a nuclear bomb of misinformation. The fallout spreads throughout the country, and no volume of corrections and fact checks can stop it. It wasn’t even part of a thought-out strategy, just a loathsome impulse that found its way out of the president’s mouth to spread far and wide.

Trump’s recklessness is disturbing enough on its own. But what makes it especially threatening is that much of the public — well beyond the 40 percent of the electorate that has shown itself to be unshakable in its devotion to the president — seems to be slowly accommodating itself to its daily dose of the Trump reality show, accepting the rhetorical violence that Trump inflicts on basic standards of truth as the new normal.”

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Read Edsall’s full, much longer, article at the link.

An immigration policy based on xenophobia, racism, and White Nationalism, rather than on any rational, generally accepted socio-economic analysis, is at the heart of the Trump–Bannon-Sessions-Miller attack on America’s democratic institutions. As I said earlier today, “The Trump Administration, and its ‘fellow travelers’ among GOP politicos and voters, is the biggest threat to our national security and the future of American Democracy.”

PWS

10-22-17

WashPost LEAD EDITORIAL BLASTS SESSIONS’S ATTACK ON INDEPENDENCE OF U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES — Time For Congressional Action To Preserve Due Process!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sessionss-plan-for-immigration-courts-would-undermine-their-integrity/2017/10/22/ce000df6-b2aa-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?utm_term=.2ee43b5a7979

“By Editorial Board October 22 at 6:39 PM

ATTORNEY GENERAL Jeff Sessions decried the state of the immigration courts in remarks Oct. 12 before the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, lamenting “rampant abuse and fraud” in asylum applications. As part of Mr. Sessions’s push for an overhaul of the immigration system, the department also plans to begin evaluating immigration judges on the basis of how many cases they resolve. This proposal would do little to fix the United States’ backlogged immigration courts and much to undermine their integrity.

The Trump administration hinted at the plan in a wish list of immigration policies, alongside commitments to constructing President Trump’s promised border wall and withholding federal grants from so-called sanctuary cities. According to reporting by The Post, government documents show that the Justice Department “intends to implement numeric performance standards to evaluate Judge performance.” Such a metric would probably involve assessing judges based on how many cases they complete or how quickly they decide them — a plan that the National Association of Immigration Judges has called a “death knell for judicial independence.”

Unlike other federal judges, immigration judges are technically Justice Department employees. Currently, the collective bargaining agreement between Justice and the judges’ association forbids evaluating judges based on quotas. But the association says the Executive Office of Immigration Review is working now to remove that language from the contract.”

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Read the complete editorial at the link.

Note the “progression” by the DOJ: From “performance evaluations would interfere with judicial independence,” to “performance evaluations won’t involve production quotas,” to “judges are just ‘oyster shuckers in robes!'”

Performance evaluations by the DOJ are just as inappropriate and unnecessary for U.S. Immigration Judges now as they were back in 1983 when EOIR was established. The only difference is the plan by Sessions and his politico cronies to co-opt the U.S. Immigration Courts and use them as an enforcement tool in his xenophobic crusade against immigrants, asylum seekers, due process, and the American justice system.

I actually was part of the NAIJ “negotiating team” that negotiated the current procedures and standards for judicial performance evaluations. We were assured over and over by “EOIR Management” that “case quotas” were not part of the plan and that “management recognized” the need for decisional independence in the Immigration Judge corps.

PWS

10-23-17

MIMI SWARTZ IN THE NY TIMES: Anti-Latino Racism Drives Texas To Pull Up The Welcome Mat For Some Of Its Most Productive Residents!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/texas-immigration-policy.html

Swartz writes:

“A decline in emergency room visits and calls to the police isn’t good news; people are just afraid to ask for help. A domestic abuser will threaten to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement if his spouse threatens to call the cops. A social worker at Las Americas, a public high school for immigrants in Houston, told me despair has set in. Instead of helping families cope with living in the nation’s fourth-largest city, she helps them plan for “when you are deported how can you stay alive the longest.” The students tell her: “Nobody wants me. I have no home.”

They are not wrong; the point of the federal and state legislation is to make Texas so uncomfortable for the undocumented that they move on. I suppose this makes sense if, say, you are constantly faced with competition from the far right, which every Republican, including Gov. Greg Abbott, is. Or if you have seen the growing Latino majority in Texas and know that it isn’t securely nestled in the Republican fold.

But it doesn’t make sense if you are looking at a state whose work force was shrinking even before the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. The people who came to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina aren’t feeling the love here. Why should they?

“There are 47 other states that would love to see Texans fall on their butts,” Stan Marek, who has been in construction for years here, told me. Unless we have fair and sane immigration reform, like the “ID and Tax” plan many business leaders here support because it offers fair wages and work-visa status, our immigrants will vote with their feet, and businesses will follow.

That’s the price for trading a welcome mat for an ankle bracelet.

Mimi Swartz, an executive editor at Texas Monthly, is a contributing opinion writer.”

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Get the full story at the link.

A microcosm of the bias-driven stupidity of the whole Trump-GOP Restrictionist “gonzo” immigration enforcement program. What would really be fitting is if the loss of immigrant population and the businesses that depend on them eventually cost Texas some of those extra Congressional seats that they swiped from the Northeast as a result of undocumented residents and then proceeded to gerrymander to “lock out” Latinos from getting their “fair share of the pie.” Not to mention that the anti-Latino bias in the Texas GOP is in derogation of Supreme Court precedent, which holds that even those state residents without legal status or otherwise ineligible to vote, are entitled to have their interests represented by their legislators (hence the rationale for allowing extra representatives for undocumented population). “Fat chance” in Texas! The Texas GOP routinely ignores the interests its Latino U.S. citizens as well as its Latino non-citizen residents.

PWS

10-22-17

TRAC DATA: IMMIGRATION COURTS DISCRIMINATE AGAINST DETAINED INDIVIDUALS AND MEXICAN NATIONALS IN PROCEDING WITHOUT COUNSEL!

http://immigrationimpact.com/2017/10/20/mexican-detained-disadvantaged-immigration-court/

Katie Shepherd reports for Immigration Impact:

“Immigrants facing deportation fare far better if they have a competent attorney representing them. For example, studies show that for asylum seekers, representation generally doubles the likelihood of being granted asylum.

For many, the ability to secure competent representation in immigration court is truly a matter of life and death. Yet fewer than 30 percent of detained individuals and only two thirds of non-detained individuals are represented in their removal case.

Meanwhile, the government is represented by an attorney in every single case.

While immigrants have a right to counsel in deportation proceedings if they can afford one, they do not have a right to counsel at the government’s expense.

New data released this week by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) confirms that a noncitizen’s ability to obtain a lawyer—and the opportunity to meaningfully defend him or herself against deportation—is determined primarily by nationality and whether or not he or she is detained.

The data analysis reflects what detained immigrants, their family members, and the very small number of attorneys who do detained work already know too well—detained immigrants who attempt to retain an attorney face substantial obstacles.

There are myriad reasons that detained immigrants cannot obtain representation.

Because they are detained, they are unable to travel to meet with an attorney in person and must rely on telephones in the facility to call potential attorneys. Phone calls can be prohibitively expensive and phones are often not easily accessible.

Attorney visitation rules vary by facility—many of which are located in rural areas, hours from the attorney’s office. Further, many detained immigrants are simply unable to afford a competent attorney.

. . .

The TRAC data also shows that Mexican immigrants are disproportionately disadvantaged in immigration court. They have the highest detention rate (78 percent), yet the lowest representation rate of all nationalities—only 33 percent according to the report.

More than anything, the recent TRAC numbers emphasize the dire need for increased access to counsel for all immigrants facing deportation, particularly those who are detained.”

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Read the complete article at the link.

The policies being followed by Sessions and the DHS — which encourage more detention in out of the way locations — are specifically designed to diminish representation, increase removals, and deny due process to the most vulnerable among us.

PWS

10-22-17

DRAMA CONTINUES FOR PREGNANT TEEN AS APPEALS COURT LOOKS TO “BROKER DEAL” WITHOUT DECIDING ANYTHING!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/10/20/d_c_circuit_s_dubious_compromise_won_t_guarantee_undocumented_minor_s_abortion.html

Mark Joseph Stern reports for Slate:

“On Friday afternoon, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted an undocumented minor in federal custody conditional access to abortion—within the next few weeks. The decision marks a compromise by two conservative judges keen to preserve their anti-abortion bona fides without transgressing Supreme Court precedent, which clearly protects the minor’s right to terminate her pregnancy. This ruling will force the minor at the heart of this case, who is referred to as Jane Doe, to continue her unwanted pregnancy for at least 11 more days.

. . . .

Thus, it is quite possible that Kavanaugh’s handiwork will fail, and the government will be back in court in a few weeks arguing against Doe’s abortion rights. By that point, Doe will be approaching the point at which she cannot legally terminate her pregnancy in Texas. The government’s intervention has already prevented her from getting a first-trimester abortion, a simpler procedure than a second-trimester abortion. Now HHS has been handed a strategy to keep her pregnant for weeks longer. Kavanaugh may think he has played the conciliator in this case. But in reality, he’s given the government another chance to run down the clock on Doe’s abortion rights.”

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Read Stern’s complete article at the above link.

Looks to me like Judge Kavanaugh’s political instincts and desire to keep alive a possible nod for the Supremes trumps his responsibility to the Constitution, to litigants, and to the public to make tough decisions (which, after all, is what he actually gets paid for). Little wonder that trial judges (not as many places to “run and hide” at the “retail level”) often look at their “ivory tower” appellate colleagues with a jaundiced eye!

PWS

10-21-17

BIA DEFINES “RAPE” – MATTER OF KEELEY, 27 I&N DEC 146 (BIA 2017)

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Matter of Keeeley, 27 I&N Dec. 146 (BIA 2017)

BIA HEADNOTE:

(1) The term “rape” in section 101(a)(43)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(A) (2012), encompasses an act of vaginal, anal, or oral intercourse, or digital or mechanical penetration, no matter how slight. Perez-Gonzalez v. Holder, 667 F.3d 622 (5th Cir. 2012), not followed.

(2) The term “rape” also requires that the underlying sexual act be committed without consent, which may be shown by a statutory requirement that the victim’s ability to appraise the nature of the conduct was substantially impaired and the offender had a culpable mental state as to such impairment.

PANEL: Appellate Immigration Judges PAULEY, MALPHRUS, and MULLANE

DECISION BY: Judge Pauley

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Perhaps not surprisingly, the BIA chose not to follow the decision of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Perez-Gonzalez v. Holder, 667 F.3d 622 (5th Cir. 2012) which offered a rape definition slightly more favorable to respondents. The Fifth Circuit generally is known as an very conservative, pro-Government body, hardly the Ninth Circuit or even the Seventh Circuit. But, then, what do Article III Judges know about criminal law and statutory construction?

PWS

10-21-17

U.S. IMMIGRATON JUDGES: QUOTAS WILL SPELL THE END OF DUE PROCESS IN IMMIGRATION COURT!

HERE ARE TWO POSITION PAPERS PREPARED BY THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF IMMIGRATION JUDGES (“NAIJ”) THE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ORGANIZATION THAT REPRESENTS ALL U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES (FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a Retired Member of the NAIJ)

NAIJ HAS GRAVE CONCERNS REGARDING IMPLEMENTATION OF QUOTAS ON IMMIGRATION JUDGE PERFORMANCE REVIEWS, October 18, 2017

“The imposition of quotas or deadlines on judges can impede justice and due process. For example, a respondent must be given a “reasonable opportunity” to examine and present evidence. Section 240(b) (4) (B) of the Act. Given that most respondents do not speak English as their primary language and much evidence has to be obtained from other countries, imposing a time frame for completion of cases interferes with a judge’s ability to assure that a respondent’s rights are respected.

Not only will individuals who appear in removal proceedings potentially suffer adverse consequences, but also the public’s interest in a fair, impartial and transparent tribunal will be jeopardized by implementation of such standards.

THE SOLUTION

While it cannot be denied that additional resources are desperately needed immediately, resources alone cannot solve the persistent problems facing our Immigration Courts. The problems highlighted by the response to the recent “surge” underscores the need to remove the Immigration Court from the political sphere of a law enforcement agency and assure its judicial independence. Structural reform can no longer be put on the back burner. Since the 1981 Select Commission on Immigration, the idea of creating an Article I court, similar to the U.S. Tax Court, has been advanced.xvi In the intervening years, a strong consensus has formed supporting this structural change.xvii For years experts debated the wisdom of far-reaching restructuring of the Immigration Court system. Now “[m]ost immigration judges and attorneys agree the long term solution to the problem is to restructure the immigration court

system….” xviii

The time has come to undertake structural reform of the Immigration Courts. It is apparent that until far-reaching changes are made, the problems which have plagued our tribunals for decades will persist. For years NAIJ has advocated establishment of an Article I court. We cannot expect a different outcome unless we change our approach to the persistent problems facing our court system. Acting now will be cost effective and will improve the speed, efficiency and fairness of the process we afford to the public we serve. Our tribunals are often the only face of the United States justice system that these foreign born individuals experience, and it must properly reflect the principles upon which our country was founded. Action is needed now on this urgent priority for the Immigration Courts. It is time to stop the cycle of overlooking this important component of the immigration enforcement system – it will be a positive step for enforcement, due process and humanitarian treatment of all respondents in our proceedings.

6

NAIJ CONCERNS RE QUOTAS

AILA Doc. No 17102062.  (Posted 10/20/17)

We realize that immediate action is needed, and that a structural overhaul and creation of an Article I Court, while the best and only durable solution, may not be feasible right now. However, Congress can act easily and swiftly resolve this problem through a simple amendment to the civil service statute on performance reviews. . Recognizing that performance evaluations are antithetical to judicial independence, Congress exempted Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) from performance appraisals and ratings by including them in the list of occupations exempt from performance reviews in 5 U.S.C. § 4301(2)(D). This provision lists ALJs as one of eight categories (A through H) of employees who are excluded from the requirement of performance appraisals and ratings.xix To provide that same exemption to Immigration Judges, all that would be needed is an amendment to 5 U.S.C. § 4301(2) which would add a new paragraph (I) listing Immigration Judges in that list of exempt employees.

We urge you to take this important step to protect judicial independence at the Immigration Courts by enacting legislation as described above.

Thank you.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, CONTACT

THE HONORABLE A. ASHLEY TABADDOR, PRESIDENT NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF IMMIGRATION JUDGES C/o Immigration Court
606 S. Olive Street, 15th Floor

Los Angeles, CA 90014 (310)709-3580 ashleytabaddor@gmail.com www.naij-usa.org

Read the complete memo at this link:

NAIJ2

Threat to Due Process and Judicial Independence Caused by Performance Quotas on Immigration Judges

“15) If EOIR is successful in tying case completion quotas to judge performance evaluations, it could be the death knell for judicial independence in the Immigration Courts. Judges can face potential termination for good faith legal decisions of which their supervisors do not approve.

16) In addition, Circuit Courts will be severely adversely impacted and we will simply be repeating history which has proven to be disastrous. One need only remember the lasting impact of Attorney General Ashcroft’s “streamlining” initiative at the Board of Immigration Appeals.

17) The United States Government Accountability Office issued its report entitled “IMMIGRATION COURTS-Actions Needed to Reduce Case Backlog and Address Long-Standing Management and Operational Challenges Report to Congressional Requesters” in June 2017, GAO-17-438, (GAO Report). This GAO Report contains a section entitled, “Comprehensive Performance Assessment Could Help EOIR Identify Effective Management Approaches to Address the Case Backlog;” however, nowhere is the suggestion made that numerical or time based criteria be added to performance evaluations for immigration judges. AILA Doc. No 17102061. (Posted 10/20/17)

18) There is no reason for the agency to have production and quantity based measures tied to judge performance reviews. The current court backlog cannot be attributed to a lack of Immigration Judge productivity. In fact, the GAO report shows that Immigration Judge related continuances have decreased (down 2 percent) in the last ten years. GAO Report at 124. The same report shows that continuances due to “operational factors” and details of Immigration Judges were up 149% and 112%, respectively. GAO Report at 131, 133. These continuances, where Judges were forced to reset cases that were near completion in order to address cases that were priorities of various administrations, have a much greater impact on case completion rates. 19) The imposition of quotas or deadlines on judges can impede justice and due process. For example, a respondent must be given a “reasonable opportunity” to examine and present evidence. Section 240(b) (4) (B) of the Act. Given that most respondents do not speak English as their primary language and much evidence has to be obtained from other countries, imposing a time frame for completion of cases interferes with a judge’s ability to assure that a respondent’s rights are respected.”

Read this entire memorandum at the following link:

NAIJ1

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

Folks, Due Process is “on the run” at the U.S. Immigration Courts. If Congress doesn’t take at least some corrective action to protect quasi-judicial independence, our U.S. Immigration Courts will no longer be able to provide fair and impartial adjudication in accordance with Constitutional requirements. Today, the statutory and Constitutional rights of immigrants are under attack. Tomorrow it could be YOUR Constitutional rights. Who is going to speak up for YOUR RIGHTS if YOU are indifferent to the rights of others?

PWS

10-21-17

READ ABOUT EL SALVADOR, ONE OF THE PLACES WHERE “GONZO & HIS GANG” WOULD LIKE TO SEND REFUGEES WITHOUT GIVING THEM DUE PROCESS AND A FAIR CHANCE TO PLEAD FOR THEIR LIVES!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/world/2016/10/28/el-salvadors-conflict-with-gangs-is-beginning-to-look-like-a-war/?tid=a_classic-iphone&utm_term=.66bd90942a8d

Fred Ramos reports for the Washington Post:

‘We see the police as terrorists’

In the next few weeks, four young men 16 to 24 years old were fatally shot by police during two incidents. Police on both occasions reported an “enfrentamiento,” or confrontation, in which gangsters fired on them. Relatives of the dead said that the officers killed the young men unprovoked.

As with much of the violence here, getting to the truth is difficult. Investigations are often cursory. Some residents said they are too afraid of the police to provide testimony. What is clear is many residents’ deep resentment of the security forces.

“We see the police as terrorists,” said an aunt of one of the four victims, 16-year-old Bryan Rodrigo Santos Arevalo.

The aunt, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing a fear of authorities, said that a witness who escaped told her that police had executed the teenager. The right side of Santos Arevalo’s face was blown off, morgue photos show.

If police were using lethal force, so were the gangs. On July 3, 2015, four local police officers were returning from a call when “they attacked us from both sides,” recalled a police supervisor who was present, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Gang members positioned on earthen mounds overlooking the road sprayed gunfire at the officers’ truck, he said. The police sped off, firing frantically, but the driver was hit in his left side. The supervisor was shot in the right knee.

“It’s a miracle that I am alive to tell this story,” the supervisor said.

Three days later, local police along with members of a San Salvador-based SWAT team shot and killed two members of the Tiny Malditos outside a farmhouse in Santa Teresa. The police reported taking gunfire on arrival. Morena Leiva de Silva, the mother of one of the dead, said a farmworker who was present told her that the officers shot the two gang members as they fled.

“They ran from the police because they were terrified,” she said. “They panicked.”

A truce ends

President Salvador Sánchez Cerén was a Marxist guerrilla in the 1980s. Now he is the one defending the state.

“Although some say we are at war, there is no other road,” Sánchez Cerén said in March.

The government of Sánchez Cerén’s predecessor, Mauricio Funes, had engineered a truce between major gangs, transferring their leaders into more lax prisons where they could coordinate with their followers. The homicide rate fell, although critics argued that the respite allowed the gangs to grow stronger.

On taking office in June 2014, Sánchez Cerén brought a swift end to the truce. His government transferred the leaders back to maximum-security lockups, banned visits and cut off cellphone access. He called up military reservists to join the fight against the gangs. The director of the national police announced that officers should feel free to use their weapons to protect themselves. New legislation made it harder to investigate police when they alleged self-defense.

Homicides shot up. Last year, police were responsible for an estimated 1,000 of the country’s 6,600 killings, a steep increase, experts say.

The gangs began targeting police, soldiers, prosecutors and their families in a way unseen. Gang members killed more than 60 police officers last year, nearly doubling the total the year before. Police have confiscated an increasing number of military-style assault rifles from gang members. The attorney general’s office recently accused one of the biggest gangs, Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, of planning to assemble a 500-man unit of trained gang members to attack security forces. Last fall, a car rigged with explosives detonated outside the Finance Ministry.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights warned in June that allegations of assassinations by El Salvador’s security forces are “intolerable and are likely to fuel even greater violence.”

The national human rights prosecutor’s office, an independent agency, has compiled a registry of nearly 100 cases of alleged assassinations by security forces or shadowy “extermination groups,” which often include off-duty police, since mid-2013. But the agency acknowledges that there may be many more.

Walter Gerardo Alegria, a deputy head of the office, said it wasn’t clear whether such killings were ordered by authorities. “However, from the quantity of cases that we have, one can assume that this is a systematic practice,” he said.

The director of the national police, Howard Cotto, said he couldn’t rule out that some officers may have taken part in summary executions, but he denied that such behavior was permitted.

“We are not willing to tolerate that under the guise of solving security problems we cover up for people who commit crimes or summary executions,” he said.

The campaign against gangs has been popular among many Salvadorans. But it may come at a terrible cost to this young democracy, said Hector Silva Avalos, who has written a book on the Salvadoran police.

“If between death squads, citizen squads, rough police officers, they kill enough gang members to actually diminish the territorial control of the gangs — then who’s going to be in charge?” he asked. “Police commanders with no respect for human rights?”

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

This is only a small part of a lengthy article which is available at the above link.

This, not Gonzo’s bogus “Blame DACA Narrative” or his fabricated fraud narrative, is why women and children are fleeing from the Northern Triangle and are likely to continue to do so regardless of how much “deterrence” Gonzo & Gang throw at them. And, these folks have potentially legitimate claims that should be fully and impartially heard in Immigration Court with the assistance of counsel and full appeal rights. Even those who do not fit the “technical requirements” for legal protection under U.S. law might well have strong humanitarian claims for temporary refuge under Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) (which the last tow Administration ministrations have stubbornly refused to acknowledge) or prosecutorial discretion. We are hardly a “disinterested party” in the rampant violence that is now gripping Central America.

PWS

10-20-17

GOING GONZO IN TEXAS: Sessions “Doubles Down” On Slurs, False Narrative, & Innuendo Against Immigrants!

DOJ PRESS RELEASE:

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions Delivers Remarks About Carrying Out the President’s Immigration Priorities

Austin, TX

Friday, October 20, 2017

Remarks as prepared for delivery

Thank you for that kind introduction Richard. You’ve been a crime fighter here in this office for over three decades. Thank you for your dedicated service.

I would also like to thank and recognize our selfless and dedicated law enforcement here who put their lives on the line every and who run toward danger for the benefit of us all.

On behalf of President Trump, it is an honor to be here with you all – with the selfless and courageous men and women of law enforcement. President Trump and this Department of Justice understand your mission. The President has directed us to support that mission and support you. And we are committed to doing that.

Donald Trump ran for office as a law-and-order candidate and now he is governing as a law-and-order President. Under his strong leadership, we are finally getting serious about crime and the rule of law. And we are finally getting serious about illegal immigration.

We have the most generous immigration laws in the world. And for decades we have always pulled back from effective enforcement.

But earlier this month, the President released his principles for fixing our immigration system. Let me just say: they are a breath of fresh air. For decades, the American people have been begging and pleading with our elected officials for an immigration system that is lawful and that serves our national interest. Now we have a President who leads.

The principles he laid out deal with every aspect of our immigration problems—everything from border security to interior enforcement to closing loopholes in our asylum program. It’s the kind of bold agenda that the American people have been waiting for. It is reasonable and it will work. And this is a critical point: this is not hopeless; it can be done!

First of all, the President is determined to finally build a wall at our Southern border. This will make it harder for illegal aliens to break into this country. For many, they will decide not to come illegally. But more importantly, the wall will send a message to the world that we enforce our laws. It sends a message: finally we mean it.

And to better do that, President Trump has proposed hiring more than 10,000 new ICE officers, 1,000 new ICE attorneys, 300 new prosecutors, and nearly 400 new immigration judges. He has proposed switching to a more merit-based system of immigration like they have in Canada. That means welcoming the best and the brightest but turning away gang members, fraudsters, drunk drivers, and child abusers. This merit-based system would better serve our national interest because it would benefit the American people. That’s what this agenda is all about. We can’t accept everybody—only people who will flourish.

And that’s why the President supports mandating the use of the E-verify system, which is an internet based system that allows employers to verify that those they hire are authorized to work in the United States.

Under the President’s plan, it would be illegal to discriminate against American workers in favor of foreign workers.

We need this agenda. And Texans know that better than just about anybody.

I’m sure everyone in this room remembers Houston police officer Kevin Will. An illegal alien who had been deported twice drove drunk and hit Officer Will at about 90 miles per hour. Officer Will’s last words were telling someone to get out of the way of the car. He died protecting innocent people. And when he died, his wife was pregnant with their first child.

The open-borders lobby talks a lot about kids—those who are here unlawfully. But open-borders policies aren’t even in their interest either. After the previous administration announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals—or DACA—policy in 2012, the number of unaccompanied children coming here nearly doubled in one year. The next year, it doubled again.

I doubt that was a coincidence. DACA encouraged potentially tens of thousands of vulnerable children to make the dangerous journey North. That had terrible humanitarian consequences—and Texans know that firsthand.

Earlier this month, Border Patrol arrested two young men who had benefitted from DACA, for allegedly attempting to smuggle illegal aliens into Laredo.

Just a few days later, another beneficiary of DACA was charged with the murder of an 18-year old girl. In total, 2,000 DACA recipients have had their status withdrawn.

The President wants to stop the incentives for vulnerable children to come here illegally. He began to do that last month when he ended the DACA policy.

The President has also laid out a plan to close loopholes that are being exploited in our asylum program.

Under the previous Administration, the federal government began releasing illegal aliens who claimed to be too afraid to return home. Unsurprisingly, the number of these claims skyrocketed nearly 20-fold in eight years from 5,000 in 2009 to 94,000 now. And after their release, many of these people simply disappeared.

It’s too easy to defraud our system right now—and President Trump is going to fix that. The President’s plan to close the loopholes will stop the incentive for false asylum claims.

President Trump is also confronting the state and local jurisdictions that have undertaken to undo our immigration laws through so-called “sanctuary policies.”

Such policies undermine the moral authority of law and undermine the safety of the jurisdictions that adopt them. Police are forced to release criminal aliens back into the community—no matter what their crimes. Think about that: Police may be forced to release pedophiles, rapists, murderers, drug dealers, and arsonists back into the communities where they had no right to be in the first place. They should—according to law and common sense—be processed and deported.

These policies hinder the work of federal law enforcement; they’re contrary to the rule of law, and they have serious consequences for the law-abiding Texans.

Earlier this month, an illegal alien in Kansas pled guilty to reckless driving that killed a law enforcement officer conducting a traffic stop. He tested for a blood alcohol content twice the legal limit. The officer who was killed—Deputy Brandon Collins—had two young daughters.

The illegal alien who killed Deputy Collins had already been arrested twice for driving-related offenses—including a previous drunk driving conviction. Clearly, he had been in police custody, but no one turned him over to ICE.

The politicians behind “sanctuary” policies say that forcing police officers to release criminal aliens back onto the streets will somehow increase community trust.

But that does not make sense to me. Would releasing someone who had been arrested numerous times into your community give you more confidence in law enforcement?

Would learning that a local district attorney actually charges illegal aliens with less serious crimes than Americans to evade federal deportation make you believe they are trying to make your neighborhood safer? Would forcing federal officers to track down criminal aliens on your street instead of safely in the jails make you believe we value your community?

We all know law enforcement is not the problem. You risk your lives each day in service of the law and the people you protect. Cooperation, mutual respect is critical. Disrespecting our law enforcement officers in their lawful duties in unacceptable.

The problem is the policies that tie your hands.

Yet, rather than reconsider their policies, sanctuary jurisdictions feign outrage when they lose federal funds as a direct result of actions designed to nullify plain federal law. Some have even decided to go to court so that they can keep receiving taxpayer-funded grants while continuing to impede federal immigration enforcement. We intent to fight this resolutely.

We cannot continue giving federal grants to cities that actively undermine the safety of federal law officers and intentionally frustrate efforts to reduce crime in their own cities.

These jurisdictions that knowingly, willfully, and purposefully release criminal aliens back into their communities are sacrificing the lives and safety of American citizens in the pursuit of an extreme open borders policy. It’s extreme and open borders because if a jurisdiction won’t deport someone who enters illegally and then commits another crime then who will they deport.

This isn’t just a bad policy. It’s a direct challenge to the laws of the United States. It places the lives of our fine law enforcement officers at risk and I cannot and will not accept this increased risk because certain politicians want to make a statement.

Our duty is to protect public safety and protect taxpayer dollars and I plan to fulfill those duties.

The vast majority of Americans oppose “sanctuary” policies. According to one poll, 80 percent of Americans believe that cities should turn over criminal aliens to immigration officials.

The American people are not asking too much, and neither is the Department of Justice. Federal law enforcement wants to work with our partners at the state and local level. We want to keep our citizens safe.

Fortunately, in President Trump, we have strong leadership that is making a difference.

Since he took office, border crossings have plummeted by nearly a quarter—even as our economy has been booming. This past fiscal year, Border Patrol conducted half of the number of arrests as the previous one, and one-fifth of the number of arrests they made a decade ago.

Now, someone might say, that decline is because they’re just not catching people. But that’s just not true.

Border Patrol’s tactics and their technology have been refined and are only getting better. The Department of Homeland Security believes that they are catching a greater share of illegal aliens than ever—more than four out of five.

So the data show clearly: President Trump’s leadership is making a difference. Would-be lawbreakers know that we are restoring the rule of law and enforcing our immigration laws again.

And under President Trump’s immigration principles, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security will stop rewarding sanctuary cities with taxpayer dollars.

If these cities want to receive law enforcement grants, then they should stop impeding federal law enforcement.

In Texas, you have taken a leadership role on this issue.

I want to commend the state legislature for passing Senate Bill Four with strong majorities in both chambers, and thank Governor Abbott for signing it into law.

I am well aware that this law has its critics. And I am more than familiar with their line of criticism. But the facts of the case are clearly on Texas’ side.

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice filed an amicus brief in this case. We believe that the outcome is important not just to the state of Texas, but to the national interest. The integrity of our immigration laws is not a local issue—it is a national issue.

I am confident that Texas will prevail in court. But I would urge every so-called “sanctuary” jurisdiction to reconsider their policies. So-called “sanctuary” policies risk the safety of good law enforcement officers and the safety of the neighborhoods that need their protection the most. There are lives and livelihoods at stake.

If we work together, we can make our country safer for all our residents—native born and lawful immigrant alike. Working together requires ending “sanctuary” policies.

The Department of Justice is determined to reduce crime. We will not concede a single block or street corner in the United States to lawlessness. Nor will we tolerate the loss of innocent life because a handful of jurisdictions believe they are above the law.

And so to all the law enforcement here—federal, state, and local—thank you for all that you do. President Trump is grateful; I am grateful, and the entire Department of Justice is grateful for your service. We have your back and you have our thanks.

Thank you, and God bless you.”

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

Sessions is proposing to make the U.S. Immigration Court the largest, and certainly most “out of control” Federal Judiciary. And he also wants 10,000 more agents for the Internal Security Police (a/k/a/ DHS) that also runs the American Gulag. Sure sounds like a prescription for turning America into something like “Putinia.” That’s the White Nationalist blueprint and why they are so cozy with repressive, non-democratic rulers like Putin.

I’m exhausted for the week. Going to let someone else come up with all the numbers and studies showing how bogus Sessions’s “Alien Crime Wave” and attempt to falsely link DACA to an increase in kids fleeing gang violence to save their lives.

REALITY CHECK: At some point this grandiose plan for endless personnel and resources devoted largely to keeping needed workers and legitimate refugees out of the U.S. will have to be approved by Congress. And, it promises to be a “Budget Buster.”

PWS

10-20-17

“RACIST JOE’S” CONVICTION STANDS, AT LEAST FOR NOW — U.S. Judge says Trump Can Wipe Out The Consequences But Can’t Erase The Dirty Deeds!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/joe-arpaio-criminal-conviction-not-erased_us_59e9d4b3e4b0df10767c4e07?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

Willa Frej reports for HuffPost:

“A judge rebuffed former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s request to expunge his criminal conviction for unlawfully detaining individuals based on suspicions of their legal status after President Donald Trump pardoned him in August.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton ruled Thursday that the pardon wasn’t a reason to erase Arpaio’s guilty verdict.

“The power to pardon is an executive prerogative of mercy, not of judicial record-keeping,” she wrote. “The Court found Defendant guilty of criminal contempt. The President issued the pardon. Defendant accepted. The pardon undoubtedly spared defendant from any punishment that might otherwise have been imposed. It did not, however, revise the historical facts of this case.”

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

Read the rest of the story at the above link.

You can lie to your heart’s content, but you can’t rewrite history, as Joe and the rest of his racist/White Nationalist cronies in the Trump Administration are finding out.

PWS

10-20-17

“NINA T” DISHES ON THE SUPREMES — GORSUCH OFF TO TOUGH START – BATTLE WITH KAGAN LOOMING!

http://amp.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/10/why_rumors_of_a_gorsuch_kagan_supreme_court_clash_are_such_a_bombshell.html

Mark Joseph Stern reports for Slate:

“Following his nomination to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch was packaged by his wealthy benefactors as the judicial equivalent of a carrot cake: mild and wholesome with the occasional hint of spice. Now that the justice has been safely installed on the court for life, he has revealed himself to be more akin to melted sorbet: sickly sweet and insubstantial with a tangy finish that induces slight nausea. Gorsuch’s abrupt pivot to arrogance has been on full display in his bumptious opinions and questions from the bench. But it also appears to be infecting his interactions with justices behind the scenes. Whispers emerging from the court indicate Gorsuch is more likely to alienate than influence even his conservative colleagues.

The latest sign of trouble comes from NPR’s Nina Totenberg, who dropped in on the indispensable Supreme Court podcast First Mondays to dish some gossip about the newest justice.”

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

Read Nina’s “scoop” over on Slate at the above link.

Ah, the “Eddie Haskell act” is over, and the real fun begins.

PWS

10o-20-17

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