🏴‍☠️ THIS WEEK IN “GARLANDING” — “What Me Worry” AG Attains “Verb Status,” Pisses Off WH, & More Tales Of Woe From The Land Where Justice Goes To Die!”

Alfred E. Neumann
Merrick Garland doesn’t worry about injustice in his courts! But, YOU should PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons

THIS WEEK IN “GARLANDING” — True Tales From The “Twilight Zone” Of American Justice!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

February17, 2024

garland ( gar’ land) v.t. [garlanded, garlanding] [dv. USAG Merrick Garland via Prof. Laurence Tribe] m. inflict injustice by one in charge, often through inattention, inaction, or dithering. (Ex 1. I pray the judge won’t garland my case. Ex 2. My client was garlanded and deported to death. Ex 3. They will be garlanding asylum applicants at the U.S. border.)

I would love to take full credit for the above verb. But, that honor must go to the inspiring writing of Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe, one of AG Merrick Garland’s former mentors. See https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2024/02/gross-abuse-merrick-garlands-former-constitutional-law-professor-is-now-blasting-him/.

By all accounts, President Biden and his White House were outraged this week when they were garlanded by the “Hur report.” Ironically, three years of complaining by some of Biden’s core supporters who helped elect him in 2020 about being systematically “garlanded” at EOIR brought not so much as a raised eyebrow from the WH. Indeed, they might now be viewed as just a preview of Biden’s “Miller Lite” dissing of his supporters and human lives at the border with his inanely enthusiastic support of an attempted human rights “fire sale” by Senate Dems! Obviously, it’s quite a different story when things come full circle and the “chickens finally come home to roost.”

But, enough of that. When we left our DOJ antihero last week he was fresh off paying out $1.2 million of your taxpayer dollars to settle a sexual harassment claim by one of his ex-EOIR employees! See https://immigrationcourtside.com/2024/02/09/%F0%9D%90%97%F0%9D%90%97%F0%9D%90%97%F0%9D%90%97%F0%9D%90%97-sex-the-courthouse-%F0%9F%A4%AF-a-tragicomic-%F0%9F%8E%AD-series-starring-judge-merrick-garland-dag-lisa-mo/.

You might think that’s hard to top! But, you would be wrong! Let’s get started on this week’s trip around “the land where due process and fundamental fairness fear to tread!” 

  1. No Due Process In The Omaha Immigration Court

The ACLU released it’s report condemning Garland’s Omaha Immigration Court for a plethora of due process abuses. See https://www.aclunebraska.org/en/press-releases/new-report-finds-omaha-immigration-judges-routinely-compromise-peoples-rights.

Among the “lowlights:”

  • The project focused on pretrial hearings that can encompass pleadings, scheduling and other technical matters. The average observed hearing ran under four minutes, a rapid-fire pace to cover all of a hearing’s required steps.

  • Judges advised people of their rights in only 18% of the observed hearings. Most often, this involved reading rights to everyone in a group instead of individually.

  • Immigration courts are required to provide interpretation in the preferred language of the individual appearing at a hearing at no cost to the individual. The court frequently failed to provide Central American Indigenous language interpretation. This impacted roughly four out of five individuals who preferred to speak in a Central American Indigenous language.

  • In about one in five observed hearings, the individual was not represented by an attorney.

Of course, one might wonder why it is the responsibility of the ACLU to ferret out things that Garland should have discovered and corrected himself. But, no matter. Those poor souls whose lives and future are in the hands of the Omaha Immigration Court can expect to be garlanded.

2) Shenanigans in Chicago

Dan Kowalski reports:

IJs hide the ball; find the secret list or lose your case

Friends,

Immigration court practitioners in many cities now face a new hurdle: find, and adhere to, a secret list of IJ procedural preferences (requirements, actually)…posted, in one case, in the “pro bono room” of one court.  NOT online anywhere.  Oh, and it changes frequently, and without warning.  See the attached sample from Chicago.

Practitioners have complained to EOIR, so let’s see what happens.

 

I have a funny feeling that PWS may have a thing or two to say about all this.

DPF!

2024.02.05 – EOIR Chicago IJ Hearing Preference Sheet

Indeed I do, my friend, indeed I do. This one hits “close to home.”

Back in 2006 my friend and Round Table colleague Judge John Gossart of Baltimore headed a group of IJs who took on the monumental task of writing the first Immigration Court Practice Manual (“ICPM”). Based on Judge Gossart’s own “local court rules and best judicial practices” developed over decades, the ICPM built on the success of the award- winning BIA Practice Manual, created and issued during my tenure as BIA Chair. 

One of the key features of the ICPM is that  It superseded and erased all then-existing “local rules.”

Those few of us IJs who did public education events — under the watchful eye of our HQ “handlers” — were encouraged to tout and promote the ICPM as the “definitive guide” to successful practice before the courts, which, of course I dutifully did as reflected in my speeches from those days. I believe we even had “Q&A” sessions with the local immigration bar to promote and explain the ICPM.

Now, after years of gross mismanagement under Trump and Biden, things have come full circle. The oft-conflicting, idiosyncratic, and frequently inaccessible or counterintuitive “local rules” that the ICPM was created to eliminate evidently have returned with a vengeance.

Meanwhile, the very substantial amount of time, resources, credibility, and effort that went into creating, distributing, and implementing the ICPM has been a colossal waste of taxpayer resources because the last two Administrations have failed in their duty to competently and professionally administer EOIR!

And let’s not leave out Congress! If ever there were a need for a new, independent, professional, expert Article I Court System it’s EOIR. Yet, although Dems have introduced bills, the GOP has expressed no interest in Article I, nor has it been a priority for Congressional leadership and the Administration. It wasn’t even “on the radar screen” during the failed Senate “debate” on the immigration system.

Both Chicago Immigration Court practitioners and those IJs, current and past, who devoted their professional time and energy to the ICPM have been garlanded.

3) ADR On Steroids In Virginia

A long-time DMV immigration lawyer told the “Courtside I-Team” this week:

I routinely have MCHs listed as “in person” that are actually by Webex (I had one today). I also have an Individual on Thursday listed as Webex, but I received an email at 4:00 PM today stating that this was an error, and it was actually in person. I replied that I could not attend in person, as I have too many other cases and family issues to rearrange my schedule at the last minute. We’ll see what happens, but all this is typical of an agency that could care less about applicants, practitioners or due process of law. Take care.

For decades, practitioners and experts had been begging DOJ and EOIR to enter the 21st century with automation. Dishearteningly, now that automation has belatedly arrived at EOIR, it’s being used to severely diminish customer service rather than improve it!

It seems that every whim, irrationality, inefficiency, and inconvenience that developed at EOIR over years has now been “automated” to maximize the trauma and stress inflicted on those appearing before these broken courts. As this example points out, that has led to “Aimless Docket Reshuffling (“ADR”) on steroids!”

And here’s why automated ADR is such a powerful tool! Some practitioners have told me that it allows EOIR to unilaterally schedule them to be in three or four different courts at the same time, with almost no notice. Then, it’s up to the lawyer to file individual  “motions to reschedule” to clean up EOIR’s mess. 

Sometimes they are granted, sometimes denied without any rationale. All of this leads to more work and case shuffling but, importantly, without ever getting to the merits of any case! 

Meanwhile, the backlog grows exponentially and the stress levels on the private bar and the staff ratchet up.

There might be surer ways to destroy a court system, but none come immediately to mind. This is garlanding at its best!

4) Another “F” In “Immigration Law 101” From The 3rd Circuit

This from Dan Kowalski at LexisNexis:

CA3 CAT Remand (Somalia) – Herrow v. Atty. Gen.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2024-02-12/pdf/2024-02829.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca3-cat-remand-somalia—herrow-v-atty-gen

“[W]e conclude that the BIA, in deciding his CAT claim, failed to consider evidence favorable to Herrow. For that reason, we will remand his petition as it applies to that claim. … Herrow claims that the BIA and IJ erred in denying his CAT claim and in finding that (1) he is unlikely to face torture and (2) the Somali government would not acquiesce in such torture. Because the BIA and IJ ignored evidence favorable to Herrow, we will grant his petition in part and remand for a more comprehensive review of the evidence. … To establish a likelihood of future torture, the record must demonstrate an aggregate risk of torture to the noncitizen that exceeds fifty percent. In making this determination, the IJ must address what is likely to happen to the petitioner if removed, and whether “what is likely to happen amount[s] to the legal definition of torture.” In answering these questions here, the BIA and IJ found that Herrow did not demonstrate a likelihood of torture. We conclude, however, that this determination could not have been made if all the evidence presented by Herrow had been properly considered.”

[Hats off to Christopher M. Casazza and Caitlin J. Costello!  Audio of the oral argument is here.]

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

Being wrongfully denied CAT is no small matter, particularly if the USG is threatening to send you to Somalia. Lets get a glimpse of what happens in Somalia, courtesy of the latest report from our State Department:

Government security forces, including NISA and the Puntland Intelligence Agency (PIA), detained boys and adult men in the same facility and threatened, beat, and forced them to confess to crimes, according to Human Rights Watch.  There were reports of rape and sexual abuse by government agents, primarily members of the security forces.  The Human Rights Center, a local nongovernmental organization (NGO), reported two Somaliland police officers, area commissioner Hassan Ismail and Mustafe Yusuf Dheere, raped Nimo Jama Hassan on June 4 in Caynabo (see sections 1.g. and 6).

Al-Shabaab imposed harsh treatment and punishment on persons in areas under its control (see section 1.g.).

Torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment at the hands of clan militias, some of which were government-affiliated, remained frequent.  A strong and widespread culture of impunity continued, due mainly to clan protection of perpetrators and weak government capacity to hold the guilty to account.

You might think that would lead Garland and his subordinates to take extra care to get these cases right. But, you would be wrong. Dead wrong in many cases. “Good enough for government work” is the touchstone of garlanding. 

By all accounts, Garland was a stellar student during his Harvard Law days. But, not so much some of his EOIR judges at the trial and appellate levels, particularly some of the “Sessions/Barr holdovers” who appear to have been appointed to the bench primarily because they were viewed as likely to deny protection without regard to law or facts. (I’ll concede that Barr and Sessions were wrong about some of their appointments who turned out, perhaps against  the odds, to be fair judges.)

Far too many EOIR judges receive “Fs” from the Courts of Appeals on the basics of immigration and asylum law, even though most mistakes never get to the Article III Courts or manage to otherwise wend their way through the system, thereby endangering lives.

Mr. Herrow was garlanded, but survived (at least for now) thanks to the work of his lawyers and the Third Circuit. 

Well, folks, that’s this week’s wrap from Gar-Land, “the land that justice forgot!” But, stay tuned to Courtside for future updates on garlanding and its victims! 

What’s on the horizon: In March, a final report expected from AILA Ohio on systemic racism at EOIR! Should be a great read!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-17-24

😎🇺🇸👍🏼🗽⚖️NDPA VICTORY:  LOCAL ATTORNEYS GET USDC TO RETURN, RELEASE CLIENT FROM ICE’s “GEORGIA GULAG!”

Elsy M. Ramos Valasquez
Elsy M. Ramos Velasquez
Associate
Clark Hill PLC
D.C.
Patrick Taurel
Patrick Taurel
Senior Attorney
Clark Hill PLC
D.C.

Elsy M. Ramos Velazquez reports:

Mr. Siahaan is an Indonesia Christian who has resided in the United States for over thirty years. Mr. Siahaan is married and a father of two U.S. citizen children. Mr. Siahaan was ordered removed over a decade ago. In 2012, he was placed on and Order of Supervision. In February 2020, he was arrested by ICE. In March 2020,  In April 2020, he was released and again placed on an Order of Supervision. On September 10, 2020, Mr. Siahaan was arrested by ICE agents at his home which is located on the property of Glenmont United Methodist Church in Maryland.

 

On October 2, 2020, Judge Paul W. Grimm granted our Motion for a Preliminary Injunction. The Court found habeas jurisdiction to stay the removal of Mr. Siahaan until he can obtain Article III review of his motion to reopen to seek asylum based on changed country conditions. Judge Grimm ordered that Mr. Siahaan be returned to Maryland. On October 15, 2020, Mr. Siahaan was released from ICE custody.

 

Link to opinion: https://www2.mdd.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Opinions/Siahaan10052020opinion.pdf

 

I have included a photo for Patrick Taurel, my colleague and co-counsel, who also represented Mr. Siahaan before the district court. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best regards,

 

Elsy M. Ramos Velasquez

Associate
CLARK HILL PLC

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

Way to go Elsy & Patrick! Thanks for all you do and for saving lives in this time of national darkness and irrational, race-driven policies!

Just think of the time, money, resources, and lives that could be saved with rational policies, serving the national interest, rather than policies driven by a White Nationalist, nativist agenda.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-23-20

U.S. JUDGE 👨‍⚖️ 🇺🇸⚖️ THWARTS ICE 🏴‍☠️ EFFORT TO REMOVE INDONESIAN ASYLUM APPLICANT – “Siahaan’s attorneys, Elsy Ramos Velasquez and Patrick Taurel, had argued the arrest was made under false pretenses, without a warrant and in violation of ICE’s policy that typically prohibits agents from making arrests on church property.”

Meagan Flynn
Meagan Flynn
Morning Mix Reporter
WashPost
Photo From Twitter

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/siahaan-immigration-deportation/2020/10/03/ec7f2380-04c2-11eb-897d-3a6201d6643f_story.html

 

By

Meagan Flynn

Oct. 3, 2020 at 3:50 p.m. EDT

A federal judge in Maryland has granted an undocumented Indonesian immigrant temporary reprieve from deportation, ruling Friday evening that immigration authorities cannot remove him from the country until he has a chance to pursue religious asylum.

Binsar Siahaan, a 52-year-old father to two U.S. citizens, attracted considerable support from faith-based activists nationwide after he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last month at his home on the grounds of Glenmont United Methodist Church in Silver Spring, Md. He and his wife, also an undocumented Indonesian immigrant, work there as church caretakers.

ICE arrested an undocumented immigrant on church grounds. They lied to coax him out, family and attorney say.

Siahaan’s attorneys, Elsy Ramos Velasquez and Patrick Taurel, had argued the arrest was made under false pretenses, without a warrant and in violation of ICE’s policy that typically prohibits agents from making arrests on church property. They also argued that Siahaan, who is Christian, should not be deported to majority-Muslim Indonesia until he has a chance to fully pursue religious asylum.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm agreed, granting Siahaan a preliminary injunction that blocks ICE from removing him from the country until the Board of Immigration Appeals, or a higher federal court, makes a ruling on his pending appeal. Siahaan is being held at a detention center in Georgia, where he was transferred from Baltimore to await deportation. Grimm also ordered ICE to bring him back to Baltimore, where he will remain in custody closer to his family.

“When the ruling came down, we were really relieved,” said the Rev. Kara Scroggins, pastor at Glenmont United Methodist. “We’re glad that he’s closer to home at the detention facility in Baltimore, but we’re going to keep fighting until he’s home with his family.”

ICE could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday but previously said Siahaan was arrested “after he received full due process in the nation’s immigration courts.”

 

. . . .

 

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

Read the full article at the link.

 

Hats off to the litigation team and to U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm! By ordering ICE to return Siahaan to Maryland, rather than detaining him in Georgia, generally known as one of the worst places in the “New American Gulag,” Judge Grimm took the kind of effective action necessary to stop the abusive actions of ICE and to guarantee real due process!

 

In a functioning system with an independent U.S. Immigration Court comprised of Judges with expertise in asylum and human rights laws and a commitment to due process and the rule of law, Immigration Judges could take the actions necessary to protect fundamental rights and hold ICE accountable without constant resort to the U.S. District Courts. A “captive” Immigration Court, where Immigration Judges are subservient to Billy the Bigot Barr and pressured to act as “ICE enforcement in robes” ill-serves the national interest! It’s also highly inefficient and wasteful of public resources!

 

Thanks to my good friend Deb Sanders for bringing this incident to my attention!

 

Due Process Forever!

 

 

PWS

10-05-20

🏴‍☠️🤮👎🏻RACISM IN AMERICA: With Racially Tone-Deaf Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson & His Righty Buddy Judge Paul Niemeyer Leading the Way, Split 4th Circuit Panel, Says “Yes” To Trump/Miller White Nationalist Attack On Public Benefits For Immigrants of Color! 

Kevin R. Johnson
Kevin R. Johnson
Dean
U.C. Davis Law

Dean Kevin Johnson @ ImmigrationProf Blog reports:

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2020/08/fourth-circuit-vacates-injunction-against-public-charge-immigration-rule.html

Thursday, August 6, 2020

Fourth Circuit Vacates Injunction Against Public Charge Immigration Rule

By Immigration Prof

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Courthouse News Service reports that the Fourth Circuit yesterday ruled 2-1 (opinion by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, with Judge Robert B. King dissenting)  in favor of a Trump administration policy that makes it more difficult for noncitizens to become lawful permanent residents if they have received public benefits.

The ruling does not, however, change an injunction issued last week by a federal judge in New York barring enforcement of the so-called public charge rule.

The Second Circuit affirmed the injunction but limited its scope to New York, Connecticut and Vermont. The appeals court found the government’s justification for the rule is “unmoored from the nuanced views of Congress.”

KJ

 

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Judge Wilkinson’s racially insensitive judging recently was publicly “called out” by Fourth Circuit Chief Judge Roger Gregory in a remarkably honest and incisive opinion. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/07/16/%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8fcalling-out-white-nationalist-judging-in-a-remarkable-opinion-4th-cir-chief-judge-roger-gregory-blasts-colleagues-retrograde-views-on-race-judging-policing-communiti/

Perhaps, dissenting Judge Robert B. King best sums up his colleagues’ willingness to distort the law and pervert rationality in support of the regime’s racist-driven, White Nationalist Immigration agenda:

In the face of the extensive history accompanying the term “public charge,” to conclude that the DHS Rule’s definition of “public charge” is reasonable makes a mockery of the term “public charge,” “does violence to the English language and the statutory context,” and disrespects the choice — made consistently by Congress over the last century and a quarter — to retain the term in our immigration laws. See Cook Cty., 962 F.3d at 229. For those reasons, the Rule’s “public charge” definition ventures far beyond any ambiguity inherent in the meaning of the term “public charge,” as used in the Public Charge Statute, and thus fails at Chevron’s second step. In light of the foregoing, the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the Rule is unlawful, and the majority is wrong to conclude otherwise.

Equal justice for all, due process, reasonableness, and non-racist judging aren’t “rocket science.” That’s why Wilkinson had to cloak his anti-immigrant bias with 71 pages of irrational nonsense and legal gobbledygook. 

Just another example of the U.S. District Judge “getting it right” only to be undermined by bad judging from higher Federal Courts. Unwillingness of the Federal Judiciary to take a unified strand for equal justice and against institutionalized racism and the White Nationalist agenda of the Trump regime is literally ripping our nation apart as well as showing the fatal weakness of the Federal Judiciary as a protector of our democracy and our individual rights.

Folks like Wilkinson and Niemeyer are what they are. But, we have the power to elect a President and a Senate who will appoint judges who actually believe in Constitutional due process and equal justice for all, regardless of color or status. Judges who will “tell it like it is,” “just say no” to “Dred Scottification” of “the other,” and courageously stand up for an unbiased interpretation the law and for simple human decency, rather than pretzeling themselves to defend an indefensible Executive agenda of unbridled White Nationalism and racism.

This November vote like your life and the future of our nation depend on it. Because they do.

PWS

08-06-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮CONTEMPT FOR COURTS = CONTEMPT FOR AMERICA! — As Trump Disses Court Orders On DACA It’s Clear That Saying “Nobody Is Above The Law” Has Little To Do With Reality — Barr, Wolf, Miller, & Trump Remain Free To Abuse, While Their Victims Suffer & Their Lawyers Find That Even Winning Means Losing When A Supposedly Independent Judiciary Won’t Stand Up To A Lawless Executive & His Henchpeople!

 

Mark Joseph Stern
Mark Joseph Stern
Reporter, Slate

https://apple.news/AJNODllmJS-meicPYuRkl-Q

Mark Joseph Stern Reports in Slate:

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it will continue to defy a federal court order compelling the full restoration of DACA, the Obama-era program that allows 700,000 immigrants to live and work in the United States legally. By doing so, the administration has chosen to flout a decision by the Supreme Court, effectively rejecting the judiciary’s authority to say what the law is.

Donald Trump first attempted to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in September 2017, a move that would’ve stripped its beneficiaries of work permits and subjected them to deportation. But his administration continually cut corners, failing to explain the basis for its decision and refusing to consider the impact of DACA repeal on immigrants, their communities, and their employers (including the U.S. Army). This June, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration’s actions were “arbitrary and capricious” under federal law and therefore “set aside” DACA repeal.

To implement that decision, U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm compelled the administration to restore DACA to its pre-repeal condition on July 17. Grimm’s order required the Department of Homeland Security to let DACA beneficiaries renew their status for two years, accept new applicants, and restore “advance parole,” which permits travel outside the country. But DHS did not do that. Instead, the agency maintained that it would reject new DACA applicants. It  also declined to accept DACA renewals or reinstate advance parole.

At a hearing Friday, Grimm tore into Justice Department attorneys for flouting his order. The government’s actions, he explained, created “a feeling and a belief that the agency is disregarding binding decisions” from the Supreme Court. DOJ attorneys insisted that DACA applications were merely “on hold,” or “placed into a bucket,” while the administration decided how to proceed. But, as Grimm retorted, “it is a distinction without a difference to say that this application has not been denied, it has been received and it has been put in a bucket.” The judge once again directed DHS to comply with the law by accepting new applicants and processing renewals.

Incredibly, the agency has decided to disobey this order, as well. On Tuesday, acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf declared that it would not accept new applications and would only grant one-year extensions to current beneficiaries “on a case by case basis.” This tactic will make it easier for Trump to deport DACA beneficiaries if he wins reelection, since their status will expire sooner. The agency will also deny advance parole “absent exceptional circumstances.” This new policy is nothing less than brazen defiance of a federal court ruling. Grimm, and the Supreme Court itself, ordered DACA’s full resuscitation, which requires the acceptance of new applicants and the conferral of two-year renewals. There is simply no legal basis for DHS’s zombie version of the program.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

Equal justice for all and the easing of racial tensions in America will not happen until we get an Executive, Legislators, and Judges with the courage and integrity to make it happen. We’re a long way from that now. 

The timid approach of the Legislative and Judicial Branches to Trump’s and his cronies’ almost daily abuses of our legal system have sent the message that the law is largely meaningless in the age of Trump, except if you are a person of color, asylum seeker, immigrant, or, perish the thought, all three, in which case the law only applies to you when the effects are adverse to your interests but not to protect you. On the other hand, if you are a Trump official or a DOJ lawyer, compliance with the law is at most a suggestion and ignoring it has few meaningful consequences.

The Trump regime has exposed the deep flaws and weaknesses in our democratic institutions. We need better public officials in all three branches of the Government. Better judges will take awhile because of life tenure. But, a better Executive, Legislature, and public servants can be achieved with a “big push” in November to expel the malicious incompetents at all levels. And, that will set the stage for eventually achieving a better Federal Judiciary that will stand up to tyranny and lawlessness and show that “nobody is above the law” is more than just a feckless catchphrase. 

Due Process Forever! A Feckless Legislature & Federal Judiciary, Never!

PWS

07-29-20

🤮👎🏻CONTEMPT FOR COURT: Trump Regime Continues To Drag Feet On DACA Compliance As U.S. Judge Finally Mulls Contempt For Scofflaw Officials — Human Lives “Held In A Bucket” ☠️🤮

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/trump-administration-has-put-daca-applications-on-hold-despite-supreme-court-ruling-restoring-program/2020/07/24/59f20f48-cdcf-11ea-b0e3-d55bda07d66a_story.html

Emily Davies
Local Reporter
Washington Post

By Emily Davies

July 24 at 7:33 PM ET

Trump administration officials said during a federal court hearing Friday that they have not “granted nor rejected” any applications for a program designed to protect young undocumented immigrants from deportation, but rather have put them “on hold” as the government discusses the future of the program.

The virtual hearing in the U.S. District Court in Maryland was the first time the administration addressed reports that the Department of Homeland Security was not accepting applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — despite a recent Supreme Court ruling and a federal judge’s order requiring the government to resume accepting applications.

“Although the applications will be received by the department, they will be neither granted nor rejected, and instead will be held, placed into a bucket pending a policy consideration that takes place and that now I can tell you is still ongoing at the department,” said Stephen Pezzi, a lawyer with the Justice Department.

Pezzi also said that “some or all” of the applications from DACA beneficiaries looking to leave the country and return lawfully had been wrongly rejected when they should have been held.

“Going forward, in just the last few hours, it has been straightened out at least prospectively such that any request for DACA-based advance parole will also be held in the pending bucket,” Pezzi said.

[[Supreme Court blocks Trump’s bid to end DACA, a win for undocumented ‘dreamers’]]

U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm, who ordered last week that the government comply with court directives to restore the DACA program, ruled Friday that the Trump administration must clarify the program’s status to the public within 30 days. He instructed Pezzi to confirm by next Friday whether the government could commit to updating its U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website and sending receipts to DACA applicants who are confused about whether their applications have been processed.

Grimm also instructed the plaintiffs and defendants to propose a schedule for a briefing on whether the government should be held in contempt.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Emily’s article at the link.

Emily, a former Post intern, is a relatively new addition to the reporting staff, but already showing “superstar potential.” She has shared in a Pulitzer Prize as part of a Team for Breaking News Reporting. Let’s hope that she keeps reporting on immigration issues as part of her local news beat!

Time to start taking names and throwing the criminals on the DHS payroll in jail! Their overall performance on DACA —  a highly beneficial program favored by the vast majority of Americans that is actually helping us get through the pandemic — would have been a “no brainer” for a competent Administration. Instead, the “malicious incompetents” at DHS are showing why under their rancid leadership USCIS has become morally as well as fiscally bankrupt.

“Humanity in a bucket” is a very accurate description of the Trump regime’s racist, xenophobic, intentionally cruel, and, perhaps most of all, dehumanizing immigration polices. They diminish the humanity of every American every day they remain in office.

Due Process Forever! Kakistocracy, Never!

PWS

07-25-20