“Crimes Against Humanity” – Page 11

⚖️PROFESSOR DAVID A. MARTIN: “IMPERIAL 5TH” WRONG ON LAW — I Say They Are Also Biased, Immoral, Cowardly, & Corrupt — But, It’s Time For The Biden Administration To “Read The Tea Leaves” & Work With Advocates To Pump Some Due Process, Humanity, & Best Practices Into “Let ‘Em Die In Mexico!”☠️

“Floaters” — Some GOP judges and super-sleazy state AGs have a very clear vision of the future for refugees of color. Most days, the Biden Administration can’t decide whether they share it or not.
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)

David Martin — Professor (Emeritus) David A. Martin
UVA Law
PHOTO: UVA Law

https://www.lawfareblog.com/judicial-imperialism-and-remain-mexico-ruling

David writes in Lawfare:

. . . .

The court’s opinion carries the reader along on what purports to be textual analysis and implacable logic. On closer examination, however, it is a startling exercise in judicial imperialism. The opinion seizes on fragments of statutory text, taken out of context, to construct a presumed congressional intent that would be more to the judges’ liking. It ignores contrary indicators in the wording and the historical development of the key provisions. It makes no attempt to reconcile the supposed strict mandate with the historical fact that Congress went 20 years without really noticing—much less objecting to—the absence of implementation. The court also shows an arrogant disregard for the operational realities of border enforcement, including the sensitivity of diplomatic relations with Mexico that sustain cross-border cooperation—on migration issues as well as other policy priorities.

I can bring some special perspective in analyzing the appeals court’s decision. I have been a scholar and teacher of immigration law for 40 years, and I also was fortunate to hold policy-level positions dealing with immigration in three different departments, under three different Presidents. My years in government gave me close exposure to the operational realities at a level most law professors—and judges—don’t experience. One of those stints consisted of 30 months during the mid-nineties as General Counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) the period when the key reform bills on which the Fifth Circuit relies were introduced, debated, amended, enacted and implemented.

. . . .

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

Read David’s complete article at the above link. As usual, my “practical scholar” friend gives you the real legal analysis that should have been applied by the court. Now, here’s my “less nuanced” take on this atrocious and cowardly piece of extreme White Nationalist judicial misfeasance!

Remarkably, in their 117 pages of snarky, wooden legalese, demeaning of humanity, and willfully misrepresenting reality, these life-tenured righty judges (surprise, two Trumpists, one Bush I) give no serious consideration whatsoever to the well-documented, daily, ongoing abuses of the human and legal rights of those fleeing oppression who are subjected to this heinous White Nationalist program! See, e.g., https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/shameful-record-biden-administration-s-use-trump-policies-endangers-people-seeking-asylum

Just how do asylum applicants exercise their statutory “right” to apply for asylum and other protection under U.S. and international law if they are dead, kidnapped, beaten, extorted, raped, threatened, given inadequate notice of hearing, denied their right to legal assistance, prevented from preparing and documenting their cases, and if they are fortunate enough to finally get a hearing, subjected to an anti-asylum, anti-due-process, non-asylum-expert “faux judiciary” run by a prosecutor with a majority of his “holdover judges” appointed or co-opted by his White Nationalist, asylum-hating predecessors? The Fifth Circuit doesn’t bother to explain. That’s probably because historically their failure to stand up for human rights and racial justice for those in need of protection has been part of the problem.

Also, it’s remarkable how righty judges who couldn’t find any reasons to stop the Trump regime from rewriting asylum law out of existence in unprecedented ways, without legislation, and usually without regard to the APA, suddenly take a much different position when it comes to the Biden Administration’s modest efforts to vindicate human rights and restore some semblance of the rule of law. But, that’s actually less surprising than the Biden Administration’s failure to “see the handwriting on the wall” and have a “Plan B” in operation.

Obviously, these three life-tenured right-wing human rights abusers in robes need to spend a few months “detained” in Mexico or in the “New American Gulag!” But, that’s wishful thinking. Not going to happen! These are ivory tower guys with life tenure, fat salaries, and robes who use their positions to pick on the most vulnerable in the world and deprive them of their legal and human rights based on intentional misconstructions of the law, ignorance of reality, and pandering to a rather overly political racist appeal from GOP AGs who are from “the bottom of humanity’s — and our legal profession’s — apple barrel!” Doesn’t get much worse than that!

Nevertheless, it should be clear to both advocates and the Biden Administration that “Remain in Mexico” likely is here to stay! Despite the lack of merits to the Fifth Circuit’s decision, and the Supreme’s granting of the Biden Administration’s cert petition, I wouldn’t hold my breath for relief from either the right-wing Supremes or the feckless Dems in Congress.

Given that the program is likely to be judicially imposed, the Administration and advocates can still get together to make it work in compliance with due process. It’s well within their power and not rocket science:

Appoint a new BIA with appellate judges who are practical scholars in asylum and will establish coherent, correct legal guidance on domestic violence claims, gender based asylum, gang-based claims, nexus, “failure of state protection,” credibility, corroboration, the operation of the presumption of future persecution, the DHS’s burden of rebutting the presumption, “rise to the level,” right to counsel, fair hearings, and other critical areas where the current “Trump holdover” BIA’s guidance has been lacking, inadequate, and/or defective. They can also insure consistency in asylum adjudications, something that has long escaped EOIR.
Get a corps of Immigration Judges with established records and reputations for scholarly expertise, commitment to due-process, practicality, and fairness to asylum seekers to handle these cases.
Work with pro bono and advocacy groups and the UNHCR to insure that every person applying under this program has access to competent representation and adequate opportunities to prepare and document cases. Nolan Rappaport and I have recently written about the “largely untapped potential” of a better “qualified representative” program. Professor Michele Pistone at Villanova Law has done some ground-breaking innovative work on training accredited representatives for asylum cases in Immigration Court. But, like most other long overdue reforms, it appears to have gone over Garland’s distracted head! https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/02/02/⚖%EF%B8%8F🗽there-will-be-no-supreme-intervention-to-stop-mpp-☹%EF%B8%8F-rappaport-pistone-schmidt-tell-how-the-administration-advocates-c/
Work with the Government of Mexico and the UNHCR to guarantee the health, security, safety, and welfare of those waiting in camps in Mexico.

Then, we’ll finally find out how many of those who have already passed credible fear actually qualify for a grant of asylum under a fair, competent, timely system run by experts with individuals who are well-represented! I’ll bet it’s the majority, not the measly 2% who have received grants under EOIR’s “Stephen Miller Lite” approach!

For example, during 13 years on the trial bench, I found that the majority of those referred to Immigration Court after a positive “credible fear” finding (all of the “Remain in Mexico” applicants fall in that category) qualified for asylum or some other type of protection from removal. And, like my friend and long time-colleague Professor Martin, I’ve been working on asylum issues from enforcement, advocacy, academic, and judicial standpoints, in and out of government, since before there was a Refugee Act of 1980!

So, to me, the “2% asylum grant rate” in Immigration Court for these cases,” particularly in light of some revised intentionally overly restrictive “credible fear” criteria imposed by the Trump regime, appears clearly bogus. Why hasn’t Garland looked into the systemic defects in the EOIR system, as applied to “Remain in Mexico,” that have artificially suppressed the grant rate?

Lack of lawyers, undue hinderances on gathering evidence and presenting cases, poor notice, lack of expertise, inadequate training, and anti-asylum performance by IJs and the BIA, and in some cases kidnapping, assault, rape, extortion, and other well-documented physical harm knowingly inflicted on applicants by placing them in clearly dangerous and unacceptable conditions in Mexico are just the start!

There are lots of creative ways of making our current immigration system work better! You just need the knowledge, motivation, expertise, and guts to make it happen! So, far that’s been lacking at all levels of the Biden Administration, but particularly at Garland’s “brain-dead” DOJ. Gosh, these guys make Stephen Miller look like a “creative genius,” albeit an evil and pathological one! 🤯🤮🏴‍☠️ Come on, man!

As many of us have pointed out, Garland, Mayorkas, Biden, and Harris could and should have had such a system up and operating by now! Outrageous and disgusting as the conduct of the 5th Circuit has been, it’s hardly unpredictable given past performance. Every day that the Administration continues to waste by not making the necessary changes at EOIR, a court system totally within their control, adds to the human misery and injustice!

So, bottom line: White Nationalist judges get life tenure from the GOP. Meanwhile, back at the ranch of the “Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” Biden and Garland retain Trump’s White Nationalist appointees and enablers at EOIR and eschew the chance to create a diverse, progressive, expert, practical, due-process-oriented, fundamental-fairness-insistent, racial-justice-committed judiciary to decide life-or-death cases that affect and influence the operation of our entire justice system and our democracy in ways that no other court system in America does! The Administration’s alarming “tone deafness” is blowing perhaps the “last clear chance” to create a “model judiciary!” Sounds like something only a Dem Administration could do. Go figure!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-22-22

PROFESSOR JENNIFER CHACON’S BRENNAN ESSAY — RULE OF LAW RUSE — The Gratuitous Cruelty, Dehumanization, & Demonization Is The Point! — “Courts have played an essential role in shoring up the dehumanizing narratives that enable our nation’s harsh enforcement practices.”

Professor Jennifer M. Chacon
UC Berkley Law

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/02/immigration-article-of-the-day-the-dehumanizing-work-of-immigration-law-by-jennifer-m-chac%C3%B3n.html

Professor and ImmigrationProf Blog Principal Kit Johnson reports:

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Immigration Article of the Day: The Dehumanizing Work of Immigration Law by Jennifer M. Chacón

By Immigration Prof

Share

The Dehumanizing Work of Immigration Law is an analysis piece authored by immprof Jennifer M. Chacón (Berkeley) for the Brennan Center for Justice. It was part of a series of articles examining the “punitive excess that has come to define America’s criminal legal system.”

In her article, Chacón acknowledges that “our immigration laws are exceptionally harsh in ways that frequently defy common sense.” She notes that for many migrants “the notion that there is a ‘right way’ to immigrate is just not true.” Moreover, “our country has not always honored its own legal processes when immigrants are doing things ‘the right way.’” And, for those “long-time lawful permanent residents who have contact with the criminal legal system are often denied the chance to do things ‘the right way.’”

“Again and again,” Chacón writes, “notions of the rule of law are invoked to justify the sundering of families and communities that would, in other circumstances, seem unthinkable.”

-KitJ

February 22, 2022 in Data and Research, Law Review Articles & Essays | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

Jennifer elegantly articulates a theme that echoes what “Sir Jeffrey” Chase and I often say on our respective blogs: It’s all about gratuitous cruelty and intentional dehumanization of “the other” — primarily vulnerable individuals of color!

But, it need not be that way! Undoubtedly, the current legislative framework is outdated, unrealistic, and often self-contradictory. Congress’s failure to address it with bipartisan, humane, common sense, practical reforms that would strengthen and expand our legal immigration system is disgraceful.

But, there are plenty of opportunities even under the current flawed framework for much better interpretations of law; more expansive, uniform, and reasonable exercises of discretion; creation and implementation of best practices; advancements in due process and fundamental fairness; drastic improvements in representation; improved expert judging; rational, targeted, “results-focused” enforcement; promoting accountability; and teamwork and cooperation among the judiciary, DHS, and the private/NGO/academic sectors to improve the delivery of justice and make the “rule of law” something more than the cruel parody it is today.

Historically, as Jennifer points out, courts have often aided, abetted, and sometimes even disgracefully and cowardly encouraged lawless behavior and clear violations of both constitutional and human rights. But, it doesn’t have to be that way in the future!

Folks like Trump, Miller, Sessions, Barr, Wolf, “Cooch,” Hamilton, McHenry, et al spent four years laser-focused on banishing every last ounce of humanity, fairness, truth, enlightenment, kindness, compassion, reasonableness, efficiency, rationality, equity, public service, racial justice, consistently positive use of discretion, practicality, and common sense from our immigration and refugee systems.

Biden and Harris promised dynamic change, improvement, and a return to a values-based approach to immigration. Once in office, however, they have basically “gone Miller Lite” — preferring to blame and criticize the Trump regime without having a ready plan or taking much positive action to bring about dynamic systemic improvements. In fact, as pointed out by Jennifer, Garland and Mayorkas have continued to apply, defend, and to some extent rely on the very vile policies they supposedly disavowed. Talk about disingenuous!

Drastic improvements in the current system are “out there for the taking,” with or without Congressional assistance. But, the will, skill, and guts to make the “rule of law” something other than an intentionally cruel, failed “throw away slogan” appears to be sorely missing from Biden Administration ldeadership!

Maybe, the beginning of Jennifer’s essay “says it all” about the abject failure of Garland and others to “get the job done:”

During his confirmation hearing to be attorney general, when asked about the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S.–Mexico border, Merrick Garland repudiated the policy, stating “I can’t imagine anything worse.”

Yet, now that he is confirmed, Attorney General Garland presides over an agency that represents the U.S. government in court arguing every day that parents should be separated from their children, brothers from sisters, grandchildren from grandparents.

Obviously, that’s the problem! Garland actually “can’t imagine” the human impact of government-imposed family separation! Nor can he “imagine” what it’s like to be caught up in his unfair, biased, and broken Immigration “Courts” as a party or a lawyer. The “retail level” of our justice system “passed him by” on his way to his judicial “comfort zone.”

Star Chamber Justice — “Justice”
Star Chamber
Style — “AG Garland ‘can’t imagine’ what it’s like to be caught up in the dysfunctional, abusive, and unfair ‘court system’ that he runs!”

Unless and until we finally get an Attorney General who has either experienced or has the actual imagination necessary to feel the daily horrors and indignity that our unnecessarily broken immigration justice system inflicts on real human beings, American justice and human values will continue to spiral downward! ☠️🤮

And, there will be no true racial justice in America without justice for immigrants!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-23-22

☠️👎🏽 UNMITIGATED DUE PROCESS DISASTER! 🤮 — GARLAND’S TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL “COURTS” DAMAGE HUMANITY, DEGRADE AMERICAN JUSTICE!🏴‍☠️

Alexandra Villarreal reports for The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/21/us-immigration-courts-cases-backlog-understaffing?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

. . . .

On the line are millions of futures. Undocumented immigrants who fear being split from their American children and spouses, people facing persecution and death in their countries of origin, or those being sent to countries they haven’t seen in decades are all fighting for fair play and often literally their lives in courts ill-equipped to do them justice.

“Let’s make it absolutely clear: due process is suffering,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. “There’s just no way around that.”

Chishti said he sees all the hallmarks of a strong administrative law system suffering in the nation’s immigration courts, which are housed under the Department of Justice in the executive branch of the federal government, not within the judicial branch.

“It is a system in crisis,” he said.

After Trump made hardline anti-immigration policies pivotal to his 2016 presidential campaign, he flooded courts with judges more inclined to order deportations, Reuters reported.

His administration hired so many new immigration judges so hastily that the American Bar Association warned of “under-qualified or potentially biased judges”, many of whom had no immigration experience.

And as officials such as then-attorney general Jeff Sessions made sweeping proclamations that “the vast majority of asylum claims are not valid”, judges simultaneously confronted performance metrics demanding they each race through at least 700 cases a year.

Yet in the roughly 70 US immigration courts across the country, judges are deciding complex cases with potentially lethal consequences.

People ranging from asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico to unaccompanied children crossing the border on foot, to longtime undocumented residents with families stateside end up appearing in court, often without attorneys to help them parse the country’s byzantine laws.

In a process smacking of a zip code lottery, one judge in New York may grant nearly 95% of asylum petitions while colleagues in Atlanta almost universally deny similar requests, creating a patchwork of standards.

. . . .

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

Read Alexandra’s full report at the link.

Alfred E. Neumann — Garland’s stubbornly indolent approach to racial justice and due process at “Justice” endangers the lives of millions of vulnerable humans! PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons

Not news to Courtside readers or the millions whose lives and futures are caught up in Garland’s totally dysfunctional morass! And, that doesn’t even include hundreds of thousands of migrants orbited to danger under bogus “border closure” gimmicks that Garland and his ethically-challenged DOJ continue to defend!

While Garland and his top lieutenants might be too willfully tone deaf to “get it,” many legislators are “connecting the dots” between the systemic racial injustice and indifference to human life exhibited in Garland’s failed immigration justice system and the endemic problem of racial justice in America. See, e.g., https://www.menendez.senate.gov/newsroom/press/menendez-booker-lead-100-congressional-colleagues-in-urging-president-biden-to-reverse-inhumane-immigration-policies-impacting-black-migrants

There will be no racial justice in America without immigrant justice!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-21-22

🚂🛤GARLAND’S DEPORTATION RAILROAD KEEPS ROLLIN’ — WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM TWO GOP JUDGES IN 4TH — Mejia-Velasquez v. Garland — After 6 Years, 3 Flawed Tribunals, A Woman Claiming Politically-Motivated Gang Abuse In Honduras Sent Packing Back To Danger & Corruption Without A Merits Hearing!

Train
Dennis Adams, Federal Highway Administration; levels adjustment applied by Hohum
Public domain. — Garland’s Deportation Railway retains most of his predecessors’ engineers, conductors, and crew. It’s often slow, unreliable, erratic, and subject to arbitrary unannounced schedule changes. It continues to bypass “Due Processville” and “Fundamental Fairness City.”

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/201192.P.pdf

Mejia-Velasquez v. Garland, 4th Cir., 02-16-22, published

PANEL: NIEMEYER, MOTZ, and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges.

OPINION BY: Judge Niemeyer

DISSENT: Judge Motz

KEY QUOTE FROM DISSENT:

Under the current immigration statutes, DHS has good reason to require applicants for relief from removal to submit fingerprints and other biometrics. But before DHS does so, it must first comply with specified notice obligations. Where, as here, DHS fails to do so, I would not fault the applicant. As the Supreme Court explained in Niz-Chavez, “[i]f men must turn square corners when they deal with the government, it cannot be too much to expect the government to turn square corners when it deals with them.” 141 S. Ct. at 1486.

I respectfully dissent.

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

The IJ and the BIA relied on a wrong BIA precedent. The 4th Circuit majority judges recognized its incorrectness, but took OIL’s invitation to fashion another rationale for denying this asylum applicant a hearing on the merits of her life or death claim. While the respondent was represented by counsel, the disputed “warnings” and dialogue relating to the missing biometrics were not translated into Spanish, the only language she understood.

While this case was pending, USCIS finally delivered the long and inexplicably delayed biometrics appointment letter to the respondent. But, that made no difference to a group of judges anxious to railroad her back to Honduras (one of the most dangerous and thoroughly corrupt countries in the hemisphere) without a meaningful chance to be heard.

With a dose of macabre ☠️ irony, the 4th Circuit’s tone-deaf decision came just as the US was requesting extradition of former Honduran President, and Obama and Trump Administrations’ buddy, Juan Orlando Hernández on drug trafficking charges! https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/02/violence-in-honduras-tied-to-ex-president-now-arrested.html

Of all the Federal Judges who looked at this case over the years, only Judge Motz was interested in providing the respondent a due process hearing on her life-determining claim. The rest evidently were more fixated on creating reasons for NOT hearing her case. With the same amount of judicial and litigation effort, likely less, the respondent probably could have received a due process hearing on the merits of her claim. Additionally, there would have been consequences for the BIA’s defective “good enough for government work” precedent.

Of course, like Garland, none of the exalted judges involved in this disgraceful dereliction of duty have actually represented an asylum applicant in Immigration Court and had to deal with the confusing, convoluted, backlogged, and often notoriously screwed up DHS/EOIR biometrics process. See, e.g., “USCIS Biometrics Appointment Backlog,” https://www.stilt.com/blog/2021/02/biometrics-appointment-backlog/.

I suspect that folks contesting a parking ticket get more consideration in our system than this asylum applicant got from Garland’s unfair and dysfunctional Immigration Courts and the OIL lawyers who defend these mis-handled cases. And, in the world of “refugee roulette,” where human lives are treated like lottery tickets, a different Circuit panel of judges might have joined Judge Motz in getting it right.

The problem starts with EOIR — tribunals that receive deference without earning it through expertise, quality scholarship, and prioritizing due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices. It’s aggravated and multiplied by Garland — an Attorney General indifferent to injustice and the trail of broken lives and dashed hopes left in its wake. And, it’s aided, abetted, and enabled by judges like the panel majority here, who can’t be troubled with the hard work of understanding the consequences of their dilatory approach and demanding fair, competent, and reasonable expert judging from EOIR.

As several of my colleagues have said about the broken, dysfunctional, unfair Immigration Court system, the haphazard review by some Circuit Courts, and the disturbing systemic lack of judicial courage when it comes to fairly applying the Due Process Clause of our Constitution to migrants of color: “The cruelty is the point.”

It’s also worthy of note that the failure of all the Federal Judges, save Judge Motz, to make any meaningful inquiry into the respondent’s clearly expressed fear of return to Honduras appears to violate mandatory requirements for withholding of removal under the INA and international conventions. Perhaps that’s not surprising as Federal Judges have allowed Garland, Mayorkas, and their predecessors to use the transparent pretext of “Title 42” to systemically violate the legal and human rights of refugees at our borders — every day!

It’s also worth putting into context the Biden Administration’s continuing pontification about the human rights of Ughyurs, Afghans, women, and other persecuted minorities, as well as their professed commitment to racial justice in the U.S., which has not been matched by actions. Indeed, the Biden Administration’s actual approach to human rights looks much more like “Miller Lite Time” than it does a courageous, competent, and fair reinstitution of the rule of law!

According to recent reports, many of the Ughyurs and Afghans who were fortunate enough to reach the U.S. and avoid arbitrary “turn backs” at our borders, are now mired in the endless, mindless Mayorkas/Garland bureaucracy that masquerades as an “asylum system” — subject to long waits, missing work authorizations, and sometimes arbitrary and secretive “denials” blasted by human rights advocates. In a functional system these would be the “low hanging fruit” that could rapidly be removed from limbo and given the ability to fully function in our society. But, not in the “Amateur Night at the Bijou” atmosphere fostered by Mayorkas and Garland.

The “strict enforcement” of regulatory requirements on the respondent in this case stands in remarkable contrast with the lackadaisical “good enough for government work” approach of Garland’s BIA and DOJ to the Government’s intentional non-compliance with the statutory requirements for a Notice to Appear (“NTA”). See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/02/01/%f0%9f%97%bd%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8fhon-jeffrey-chase-garland-bias-double-standard-strict-compliance-for-respondents-good-enough-for-govern/ Talk about “double standards” at Garland’s DOJ!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-16-22

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️GARLAND’S FAILURES LOOM LARGE AS EOIR’S ABUSES OF BLACK REFUGEES EMERGE! 🤮 — Biased, Thinly Qualified “Judges” Fingered In HRF Report On Wrongful Returns To Cameroon Remain On Bench Under Garland — Anti-Asylum BIA & Ineffective Leadership From Trump Era Retained By Garland In EOIR Fiasco!

Kangaroos — What fun, sending Black Cameroonian refugees back to rape, torture, and possible death! We don’t need to know much asylum law or real country conditions here at EOIR. We make it up as we go along. And, Judge Garland just lets us keep on playing “refugee roulette,” our favorite game!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
Creative Commons License

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/02/deported-cameroonian-asylum-seekers-suffer-serious-harm.html

From HRF:

. . . .

Nearly all of the deported people interviewed had fled Cameroon between 2017 and 2020 for reasons linked to the crisis in the Anglophone regions. Human Rights Watch research indicates that many had credible asylum claims, but due process concerns, fact-finding inaccuracies, and other issues contributed to unfair asylum decisions. Lack of impartiality by US immigration judges – who are part of the executive branch, not the independent judiciary – appeared to play a role. Nearly all of the deported Cameroonians interviewed – 35 of 41 – were assigned to judges with asylum denial rates 10 to 30 percentage points higher than the national average.

. . . .

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

The complete report gives a totally damning account of EOIR’s incompetence, ignorance of asylum law, poor decision making, “rigged” assignment of bad judges, and systemic bias directed against asylum seekers, primarily people of color. Although human rights conditions have continued to deteriorate in Cameroon, asylum grant rates have fluctuated dramatically depending on how the political winds at DOJ are blowing.

For example, judges denying asylum because of imaginary “improved conditions” in Cameroon falls within the realm of the absurd. No asylum expert would say that conditions have improved.

Yet, in a catastrophic ethical and legal failure, there is no BIA precedent “calling out” such grotesque errors and serving notice to the judges that it is unacceptable judicial conduct! There are hardly any recent BIA published precedents on granting asylum at all — prima facie evidence of the anti-asylum culture and institutional bias in favor of DHS Enforcement that Sessions and Barr actively cultivated and encouraged!

How bad were things at EOIR? Judges who denied the most asylum cases were actually promoted to the BIA so they could spread their jaundiced views and anti-asylum bias nationwide. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/11/01/corrupted-courts-no-stranger-to-improper-politicized-hiring-directed-against-migrants-seeking-justice-the-doj-under-barr-doubles-down-on-biased-ideological-hiring-promot/

Even more outrageously, these same members of the “asylum deniers club” remain in their influential appellate positions under Garland! As inexplicable as it is inexcusable!

The HRF report details the wide range of dishonest devices used by EOIR to cut off valid asylum claims: bogus adverse credibility determinations; unreasonable corroboration requirements; claiming “no nexus” when the causal connection is obvious; failing to put the burden on the DHS in countrywide persecution involving the government or past persecution; bogus findings that the presence of relatives in the country negates persecution; ridiculous findings that severe harm doesn’t “rise to the level of persecution,” failure to listen to favorable evidence or rebuttal; ignoring the limitations on representation and inherent coercion involved in intentionally substandard and health threatening ICE detention, to name just some. While these corrupt methods of denying protection might be “business as usual” at EOIR “denial factories,” they have been condemned by human rights experts and many appellate courts. Yet Garland continues to act as if nothing were amiss in his “star chambers.”

This bench needs to be cleared of incompetence and anti-asylum bias and replaced with experts committed to due process and fair, impartial, and ethical applications of asylum principles. There was nothing stopping Sessions and Barr from “packing” the BIA and the trial courts with unqualified selections perceived to be willing and able to carry out their White Nationalist agenda! Likewise, there is nothing stopping Garland from “unpacking:” “cleaning house,” restoring competence, scholarly excellence, and “due process first” judging to his shattered system!

“It’s not rocket science, but ‘unpacking’ the Immigration Courts appears beyond Garland’s skill set!”
“Unpacking”
Photo by John Keogh
Creative Commons License

All that’s missing are the will and the guts to get the job done! Perhaps that’s not unusual for yet another Dem Administration bumbling its way through immigration policy with no guiding principles, failing to connect the dots to racial justice, betraying promises to supporters, and leaving a trail of broken human lives and bodies of the innocent in its wake. But, it’s unacceptable! Totally!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-11-22

☠️HE SURVIVED 22 YEARS IN CAL STATE PRISONS — 2 YEARS IN DHS DETENTION “BROKE” HIM, DESPITE WINNING HIS CASE BEFORE AN IJ! — Welcome To America & Biden’s Gulag, Where Asylum Seekers Get Treated Worse Than Convicted Felons!🤮

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/I-ve-done-time-in-12-California-prisons-Yuba-16804293.php

Carlos Sauceda writes in the SF Chron:

In 2017, after serving 22 years in prison for a gang-related murder I committed as a teenager, the California parole board granted me early release due to my rehabilitation and leadership while incarcerated. I was incredibly fortunate to get what I thought would be a second chance at life, and I committed myself to using my freedom to improve the world around me.

But I had to put those plans on hold. Because I was undocumented, I was immediately transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at Yuba County Jail. The two years I spent there awaiting a decision on my immigration status were far worse than the over two decades I spent in 12 different prisons serving out my sentence.

Yuba County Jail is the last county jail under contract with the federal government to hold immigrant detainees in California. For the two years I fought my immigration case, I was psychologically, emotionally and physically abused by the Yuba County Sheriff’s Department. Some of the cells I lived in had no drinking water, others did not have working toilets and others had no lights, leaving me and other detainees in the dark all day long. My stress increased and my blood pressure became dangerously high. In 2018, after a year at the jail, I finally won my immigration case. But Department of Homeland Security attorneys appealed the judge’s decision, keeping me separated from my family, fueling my depression and suicidal thoughts. After another year of fighting the appeal, I had to make an impossible choice: Die inside Yuba County Jail or risk imminent death in my native land. After two years of inhumane treatment, I chose the latter. I signed the paperwork for self-deportation and went back to my home country.

My story is just one of thousands playing out in federally contracted county jails and privately operated ICE detention centers across the country. Despite President Biden’s campaign promise to end the use of private prisons for immigration detention, for undocumented people being held at Yuba County Jail, no relief is coming.

Yuba County Jail has a long history of violating national detention standards. From 2010 to 2021, ICE’s own detention office conducted at least eight inspections at the jail and found 171 violations. Among those violations, inspection officials determined that a sergeant, who was involved in two use-of-force incidents at the jail, participated in his own reviews. As a result of the findings, 24 members of Congress wrote a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas demanding that the department terminate ICE’s contract with Yuba County. At the state level, California legislators passed SB29, forbidding local governments to enter into new detention agreements with ICE. But as The Chronicle’s reporting pointed out, in 2018, the same year SB29 took effect, ICE and Yuba County officials “quietly extended their contract” to 2099.

Why would Yuba County officials establish an indefinite contract with ICE as the rest of the state moves to end the use of its jails by federal immigration authorities? Follow the money. The contract with ICE earns the Yuba County Sheriff’s Department a minimum of just under $24,000 a day, whether or not any detainees are being held in the jail, totaling about $8.66 million per year.

When the pandemic hit, conditions inside the jail worsened. Following an April 2020 class-action lawsuit, court orders led the jail to decrease its detainee population. Thanks to the work of human right advocates and formerly detained undocumented people like myself, and others, the jail went from having 127 detainees in May 2020 to zero in late 2021. For those of us who had fought, staged hunger strikes and protested, both inside and outside the jail, it felt like we were finally seeing the end of immigrant detainment.

But our celebrations were brief. In the two months that the jail had no detainees, the county’s contract with ICE was still in place, earning it an estimated $1.4 million. And in December, ICE transported its first detainee back into the jail. As of this week, three people are now detained there under ICE custody.

The repopulation of the jail by ICE only means we will fight even harder for liberation and the termination of the contract. Over the past year, and despite being thousands of miles away, I found ways to raise my voice. I connected with others who were detained alongside me and who were also deported and encouraged them to join the fight. My wife, along with other mothers, sisters, and family members joined us as well. We hosted Instagram live videos as a space for storytelling. For weeks, I met with congressional offices and shared my story and the story of others, which ultimately led to their support.

At a recent Yuba County Board of Supervisors meeting, newly named Chairman Randy Fletcher said that the claims made in a letter sent by the ACLU to the Yuba County sheriff and Board of Supervisors about the multiple violations and unlawful conditions at the jail were not true. “They make a lot of accusations. … It’s not true. It’s just not true,” he said. But I and the other undocumented people who were detained there know what we suffered through is true. And it needs to stop.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the story at the link.

Coercion and punishment have long been part of the plan. That’s because the Supremes have fabricated the concept that “civil” imprisonment isn’t “punishment.” Pure balderdash!

Also, how does a jail get paid $1.4 million by taxpayers for nothing? Sounds like a “fleecing of America.”

But, of course, neither Garland nor Mayorkas bother to look into these questionable practices. Rather curious in light of the recommendation of a “select task force of experts” at the end of the Obama Administration that detention contracts (which frequently make establishing accountability for abuses difficult or impossible) be ended and that DHS phase out unnecessary detention.

Lack of accountability for DHS Detention is a chronic problem. So are defective bond procedures by EOIR that several Federal Courts have found unconstitutional, but which Garland continues to defend! Arbitrary bond procedures, weak internal appellate review, and lack of helpful precedents all feed the system.

Also, EOIR’s brushing aside the intentional coercion, lack of access to counsel, absence of resources, inability to prepare and document cases all contribute to the dangerous dysfunction. New, independent, expert, progressive “real judges” at EOIR would not allow Mayorkas and Garland to keep sweeping these abuses under the carpet!

Perhaps that’s why Garland has been content to allow his “courts” to malfunction using a majority of Trump/Miller holdovers and some notorious “go along to get along” bureaucrats as “judges.” Voices of expertise and reason among the IJs, and there are some, are often “silenced,” “neutered,” or “intentionally frustrated” by a BIA stacked with apologists, sometimes flat-out advocates, for DHS Enforcement and anti-immigrant policies.

Meanwhile, journalists, advocates, and those who have experienced “The Gulag” first hand need to keep it in the headlines, continue to litigate vigorously against it, and make a record of the disgraceful gap between what America claims to stand for and what it actually does! And, they would do well to “keep turning up the heat” on Garland’s “star chambers” and on his own lack of accountability for the daily disasters that unfold under his auspices.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-27-22

TAL KOPAN @ SF CHRON: NO DUE PROCESS HERE☹️: GARLAND’S DESPICABLE “STAR CHAMBERS” CHEERED “ENGINEERED IN ABSENTIA” DEPORTATION ORDERS — Garland Fails To Provide Justice @ The Border Or In Biased “Courts,” But Inflicts Outrageous “Miller Lite” Anti-Due-Process “Gimmicks” On Vulnerable Migrants!🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽

Immigration court officials cheered results of fast-tracked deportation orders, emails reveal

WASHINGTON — Last June, the San Francisco Immigration Court quietly tested a new idea: Fast-track the cases of immigrants whose mail wasn’t reaching them. In the trial run, 80% of the immigrants scheduled were ordered deported for not showing up.

Top officials were effusive with praise over the results, emails obtained by The Chronicle show, and rushed to set up more hearings: “Very positive!” emailed one of the top supervising immigration judges overseeing the nation’s hundreds of courts.

The newly uncovered emails reveal that the fast-track docket for immigrants with returned mail, which was first reported by The San Francisco Chronicle last fall, was cheered at the highest levels of the courts and pursued with full awareness that scores of immigrants would likely be ordered deported as a result.

Advocates and attorneys for immigrants raised concerns about the practice as a sort of deportation conveyor belt last year, as many of the lawyer-less immigrants may have no idea they missed a court hearing, much less that they were ordered deported during it, because they didn’t know how to update their address with the court or thought that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would do so on their behalf. The immigration courts are run by the Justice Department, with judges hired and ultimately overseen by the attorney general.

The emails were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by a nonprofit watchdog group, American Oversight, prompted by The Chronicle’s reporting. The group shared the records with The Chronicle.

The Department of Justice declined to comment specifically on the emails, noting that removal orders for failing to appear in court are legally valid and that issuing notices with new hearing dates gives unreachable immigrants an opportunity to appear in court and avoid a deportation order.

Chronicle analysis of available data last year found that the practice significantly increased the number of immigrants who were ordered deported for not being present in court, called an “in absentia” removal order. As many as 173 people were given deportation orders because of such proceedings in August and September — a nearly ninefold increase from the 20 similar orders given the previous seven months combined.

More here:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Immigration-court-officials-cheered-results-of-16791798.php

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

For Garland’s “judiciary,” the object appears to be avoiding fair hearings rather than conducting them! Perhaps, that’s understandable (not justifiable) considering how poorly many of his courts’ decisions fare upon judicial review in the Article IIIs.

For his cowardly attacks on migrants and backlog-building mismanagement and misdirection of EOIR, Garland gets “Courtside’s” coveted “Five Puke-Five Thumbs Down Award!” 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽

While Garland is failing in his job, his concerted efforts to break apart and “alienate” key segments the Dem coalition that elected Biden is succeeding and should pay great dividends (for the GOP and Trump) in the Fall Midterms! No wonder Garland’s running the system into the ground using “Trump/Miller holdovers.”

Garland and his equally poorly performing lieutenants (Monaco, Gupta, Clarke, Prelogar) are giving us a “Master Class” in “Why Dems Can’t Govern and Blow Elections 101.”

A party that lacks the courage to act on the values it espoused to get elected doesn’t stand for anything at all!🤮👎🏽

Maybe lots of Dems pulled the lever because they wanted more of Gauleiter Stephen Miller’s White Nationalist policies. But, I haven’t heard of any!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-20-21

🗽⚖️HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST: BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S SHAMEFUL 🤮☠️ FIRST YEAR — Biden, Garland, Mayorkas Fail To Enforce Human Rights At The Border Or In The Federal Courts — Garland’s Abject Failure To Bring Progressive Humans Rights Reformers Into EOIR & Resulting Legal & Human Rights Disaster In His Courts A Critical Part Of Bad Governance!

Grim Reaper — A year ago, who would have thought that Biden and Garland share this guy’s vision of “justice” for migrants at the border and at EOIR?
Image: Hernan Fednan, Creative Commons License

Dear Paul:

In this week’s First Page, we focus on the one-year anniversary of the Biden presidency — with a particular focus on policies that impact migrants and asylum seekers.

Our recently published report makes clear that the administration’s continuing use of Trump-era restrictions has led to escalating human rights violations and needless disorder.

We believe that the United States must welcome people seeking refuge with dignity, not deliver them to danger.

REPORTING THE RECORD

On Thursday, Human Rights First released a new report finding that after a year in office, the Biden administration’s continued implementation of Trump-era restrictions is sending to danger thousands of families and individuals who seek asylum protection in the United States.

The data assembled in our report, “A Shameful Record: Biden Administration’s Use of Trump Policies Endangers People Seeking Asylum,” is a damning indictment of the U.S. government’s border policies.

Courtesy Adrees Latif/Reuters

Between January 2019 and January 2022, our research identified more than 10,000 reported kidnappings, rapes, acts of torture, and other grievous acts of violence against migrants and asylum seekers blocked in, returned to, or expelled to Mexico under the U.S. government’s “Remain in Mexico” and “Title 42” policies.

At least 8,705, or 85%, of these attacks occurred during the first year of the Biden presidency.

“President Biden’s first year in office has set a shameful new record on human rights as his administration continues to deliver asylum seekers to danger in Mexico,” said Kennji Kizuka, associate director for refugee protection research at Human Rights First and co-author of the report. “The Biden administration is well aware of the grave harm asylum seekers suffer when sent to Mexico and yet it has continued to use a policy condemned by public health experts, international authorities, civil rights leaders, and even departing members of President Biden’s administration.”

Courtesy ReuterS

Our report makes clear that kidnappings and rapes of returned migrants – including of children – are common.

Cartels and other organized criminal groups in Mexico have turned torturing asylum seekers and extorting their U.S. family members into a new and lucrative illicit enterprise. At least three asylum seekers sent to Mexico by DHS under these policies were murdered.

Equally frightening, our research shows that Mexican police, immigration officers, and other authorities are often complicit in – if not directly responsible for – these attacks.

Courtesy Getty

As the Biden administration restarts the inherently flawed “Remain in Mexico” program in the wake of court rulings, they have already sent asylum seekers from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and other countries to “wait” for their day in immigration court in danger in Mexico.

In addition to inflicting grave and systematic suffering, these policies continue to perpetuate disorder, encourage repeat entries, inflate apprehension statistics, cause family separations, and fuel cartels by putting a bullseye on the backs of people seeking U.S. asylum who are blocked in Mexico.

Despite the Biden administration’s earlier efforts to terminate “Remain in Mexico,” when it was ordered by a federal court to re-implement the program, the administration has now chosen to expand its scope.

Today the administration is defending the expulsion policy in federal court, with a hearing in a lawsuit challenging expulsions of families at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

HIRING FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Reports like A Shameful Record are just one element of our critical efforts to defend the dignity of all people.

Human Rights First seeks passionate team members who are interested in legal, communications, development, finance, and innovation work that can change lives, impact policy, and move public opinion.

Please check out our careers page and apply to join us today.

* * * * *

Watch for more news as our work for human rights continues. And please stay in touch on social media:

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

You can read the full version of “A Shameful Record” at the above link.

Not to mention that the extreme lack of expertise, humanity, and quality control in Garland’s wholly-owned Immigration Courts is corroding American justice from the “retail level” up. So unnecessary! So divisive! Such a missed opportunity for Dems to actually govern with values and in the public interest!

Wow! Think of the incredible waste: So much talent, energy, creativity, and manpower that could be working with the Administration to solve problems and make things better for everyone. Instead they are engaged in an all-out war to stop the Biden Administration’s cruel, spineless, and highly ineffective immigration and human rights blunders and, once again, be the last line of defense for American democracy against the Dems’ self-destructive policies and actions.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-2.0-21

🤮🤯🏴‍☠️👎🏽GARLAND’S DOJ GOES “FULL MILLER LITE” ON TRAUMATIZED REFUGEE FAMILIES! — Some Dem “Strategists” Like New Policy: Dis Progressives, Abandon Campaign Promises, Trash Vulnerable Migrant Families Of Color In Hopes Of Appeasing White Nationalist GOP Nativists!

Maria Sacchetti & Sean Sullivan report for WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/biden-separated-families-court-migrants/2022/01/12/5c592f74-725a-11ec-8b0a-bcfab800c430_story.html

Two months after President Biden said migrant families separated at the border under the Trump administration deserve compensation, his administration’s lawyers are arguing in federal court that they are not in fact entitled to financial damages and their cases should be dismissed.

The Justice Department outlined its position in the government’s first court filings since settlement negotiations that could have awarded the families hundreds of thousands of dollars broke down in mid-December.

Government lawyers emphasized in the court documents that they do not condone the Trump administration’s policy of separating the children of undocumented migrants from their parents. But they said the U.S. government has a good deal of leeway when it comes to managing immigration and is immune from such legal challenges.

“At issue in this case is whether adults who entered the country without authorization can challenge the federal government’s enforcement of federal immigration laws” under federal tort claims laws, the Justice Department said in a Jan. 7 brief in a lawsuit in Pennsylvania. “They cannot.”

The legal strategy reflects the Biden administration’s awkward position as it shifts from championing the migrant families politically to fighting them in court. Migrant families have filed approximately 20 lawsuits and hundreds of administrative claims seeking compensation for the emotional and sometimes physical abuse they allege they suffered during the separations.

. . . .

But while immigrant advocates and liberals are likely to be furious at the administration’s position in court, some Democrats say privately that it has a political upside. The image of the administration fighting against the large payments, they say, could blunt GOP arguments that the administration is too soft on immigration.

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link.

“Awkward” seems like a “sanitized term” for “duplicitous and immoral!”

So, I assume that the Dems who are unwilling to stand up for progressive values and the human rights of migrants will look to their GOP nativist, White Nationalist buddies for contributions and votes come election time. Contrary to DOJ’s misrepresentation to the courts, individuals regardless of status had a statutory and treaty right to seek protection in the U.S. regardless of manner of entry. The unconstitutional Sessions/Miller scofflaw conduct was intended to punish and deter individuals from asserting and vindicating their legal rights.

Additionally, so-called “illegal entries” are to a large extent fueled by illegal policies by both the Biden and Trump Administrations of not having an operating, fair, timely asylum system at legal ports of entry. This has been compounded by failure of both Administrations to establish robust, fair refugee processing systems for Latin America in the regions where the refugee situations are generated.

I have a different perspective: A party afraid to stand up for the values of its core constituency stands for nothing at all! And we already have a major “party of no values.” So, the “competition” for the “no values voters” might already be over.

Disgusting as the anti-democracy, White Nationalist GOP is, I must say that they know who their supporters are and aren’t afraid to act accordingly. Just who are the Dems representing in this disgraceful and cowardly race to the bottom being led by Garland and Mayorkas (with an assist from Vice President “Die in Place” Harris)?

The Biden Administration’s “policy” of abandoning asylum seekers and allowing the Immigration Courts to operate dysfunctionally with mostly “holdover judges” and ever-mushrooming backlogs hasn’t proved to be a “political winner” to date. So, why do the tone-deaf Dems pushing it believe it will help them in November?

Hopefully, at least some Federal Courts will see through Garland’s disingenuous smokescreen and stick the DOJ & DHS with judgements much larger than the ones they were afraid to agree to in settlement.

The Garland DOJ continues to squander time, resources, and goodwill by filling the Article IIIs with ill-advised “Stephen Miller Lite” litigation positions. And, these are the folks progressives are depending on to vindicate voting rights and hold the leaders of the insurrection accountable? Good luck with that! Garland appears to be too busy defending Stephen Miller’s policies to effectively push progressive, due-process-oriented positions in the Article IIIs or reform his wholly owned, totally dysfunctional Immigration “Courts.”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-13-22

🤮👎🏽WASHPOST SLAMS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FOR ABANDONING NEGOTIATIONS WITH FAMILIES WHO SUFFERED CHILD ABUSE BY SESSIONS & MILLER! — “Having condemned a policy that traumatized children and their parents, Mr. Biden now leads an administration fighting in court to deny recompense to those same families.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/05/president-biden-broke-his-promise-separated-migrant-families/

Opinion by the Editorial Board

January 5 at 2:18 PM ET

When the Trump administration wrenched migrant babies, toddlers and tweens from their parents as a means of frightening away prospective asylum seekers, it was guilty of emotionally torturing innocent children. Americans of every political leaning expressed revulsion toward the policy implemented in 2018, especially when it became clear that the government had kept no clear records linking parents with their children — in other words, no ready means to reunite the families.

President Biden, as a candidate and also once in office, made clear his own disgust at the so-called zero-tolerance policy, calling it “criminal.” He said, correctly, that it “violates every notion of who we are as a nation.”

Now the president, having explicitly endorsed government compensation that would address the suffering of separated migrant family members, has apparently had a change of heart — or political calculation. In mid-December, the Justice Department abruptly broke off negotiations aimed at a financial settlement with hundreds of affected families. Having condemned a policy that traumatized children and their parents, Mr. Biden now leads an administration fighting in court to deny recompense to those same families.

The government has no means of alleviating the trauma inflicted by the previous president’s egregious treatment of those families. That is particularly true as regards the children, whose torment has been described and documented by medical professionals, advocates and journalists. The babies and toddlers who didn’t recognize their own mothers when they were finally reunited; the depression; the fear of further separations, even brief ones — the human aftershocks of Donald Trump’s heartlessness will linger for years, and for lifetimes in some cases.

The administration compounds the hurt by breaking off negotiations on compensating victims. The government must be held accountable; compensation is the most potent and credible vehicle for achieving that.

Granted, there may be a political price to pay. Republicans had a field day blasting the White House after media reports this fall suggested the government might pay $450,000 to separated family members — a settlement that could amount to $1 billion if applied to the several thousand affected migrants. Mr. Biden, apparently unaware of the status of negotiations at that time, said the reports, first published in the Wall Street Journal, were “garbage.” He later backed away from that remark, saying he did not know how much money would be suitable but that some amount was certainly due.

Now, it seems, all bets are off. In the absence of a negotiated settlement, the government would enter into what would likely be years of costly litigation, in which Mr. Biden’s Justice Department would be in the awkward position of defending a policy that Mr. Biden himself — and most Americans — have condemned as evil. There is no predicting how individual judges or juries might react to documented accounts of harm done to children. No one should be surprised if some were to award enormous damages — conceivably in amounts that exceed the $450,000 contemplated in the now-stalled negotiations.

By walking away from the bargaining table, Mr. Biden has broken an explicit, repeated promise. Whatever the political calculus behind that decision, it is morally indefensible.

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

Garland fails to stand up for the rights of families of color — again. At the same time, he ties up resources on a frivolous DOJ defense of the indefensible!

“Replacement theory,” White Nationalism, and racism always have been and remain at the core of the GOP’s anti-democracy insurrection. It’s no coincidence that Trump’s plans to de-stabilize American democracy began with cowardly attacks on vulnerable migrants (enabled by a failed Supremes) and culminated in open insurrection.

The dots aren’t that hard to connect. But, Garland doesn’t seem to be able to do it!

If Garland can’t handle the “low hanging fruit” — like settling these cases and creating a progressive judiciary at EOIR who will stand up for the rights of all persons while using expertise and “practical scholarship” to replace dysfunction with efficiency, his pledge to hold the January insurrectionists and their leaders accountable rings hollow!

I’m not the only one to note and question Garland’s uninspiring performance as Attorney General at a time of existential crisis. https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Merrick-Garland-isn-t-going-to-save-16752522.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headlines&utm_campaign=sfc_opinioncentral&sid=5bfc15614843ea55da6b8709

For those who read the LA Times, there was a “spot on” letter to the editors today accurately characterizing Garland as the “Attorney General for different era.”

As I’ve noted before, this is NOT Ed Levi’s, Griffin Bell’s, or Ben Civiletti’s DOJ. It isn’t even Janet Reno’s DOJ. (I ought to know, as I worked under each of the foregoing.)

It’s an organization that has become increasingly politicized over the last two decades (as it was during Watergate), and that allowed itself to be weaponized by Trump’s White Nationalist regime. EOIR, Executive Orders, and immigration litigation were perhaps the most obvious, but by no means the only, examples.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-07-22

🏴‍☠️NO ACCOUNTABILITY: ONE YEAR AFTER PUBLICLY INSTIGATING A FAILED COUP, TRUMP CONTINUES TO OPENLY PLOT TO OVERTHROW DEMOCRACY, AS NEO-FASCIST GOP & ITS TOADY POLITICOS LINE UP BEHIND THE “BIG LIE!” — THE GOP, & THOSE WHO SUPPORT & ENABLE IT, HAS ACTUALLY BECOME THE BIGGEST THREAT TO THE FUTURE OF OUR REPUBLIC!🤮👎🏽🏴‍☠️

S.V. Date
Senior White House Correspondent
HuffPost
PHOTO: HuffPost

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-coup-attempt_n_61c2733fe4b04b42ab6602a2

SV Date on HuffPost:

WASHINGTON — What if you attempted a coup but people were unwilling to wrap their heads around what you had done?

A year after Jan. 6, 2021, that is the peculiar situation in which Donald Trump finds himself. Instead of being carted off in handcuffs for inciting an insurrection against the United States, or even just being banished from federal office for life by the Senate, the former president instead remains the leader of one of the two major political parties and is openly considering another run for the White House in 2024.

. . . .

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

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/05/capitol-attack-january-6-democracy-america-trump?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Cas Mudde on The Guardian:

The government is finally taking the threat of far-right militia groups seriously. But the larger threat are the Republican legislators who continue to recklessly undermine democracy

One year ago, he was frantically barricading the doors to the House gallery to keep out the violent mob. Today, he calls the insurrection a “bold-faced lie” and likens the event to “a normal tourist visit”. The story of Andrew Clyde, who represents part of my – heavily gerrymandered – liberal college town in the House of Representatives, is the story of the Republican party in 2021. It shows a party that had the opportunity to break with the anti-democratic course under Donald Trump, but was too weak in ideology and leadership to do so, thereby presenting a fundamental threat to US democracy in 2022 and beyond.

The risk of a coup in the next US election is greater now than it ever was under Trump | Laurence H Tribe

Clyde is illustrative of another ongoing development, the slow but steady takeover of the Republican party by new, and often relatively young, Trump supporters. In 2015, when his massive gun store on the outskirts of town was still flying the old flag of Georgia, which includes the Confederate flag, he was a lone, open supporter of then-presidential candidate Trump, with several large pro-Trump and anti-“fake news” signs adorning his gun store. Five years later, Clyde was elected to the House of Representatives as part of a wave of Trump-supporting novices, mostly replacing Republicans who had supported President Trump more strategically than ideologically.

With his 180-degree turn about the 6 January insurrection, Clyde is back in line with the majority of the Republican base, as a recent UMass poll shows. After initial shock, and broad condemnation, Republicans have embraced the people who stormed the Capitol last year, primarily referring to the event as a “protest” (80%) and to the insurrectionists as “protesters” (62%), while blaming the Democratic party (30%), the Capitol police (23%), and the inevitable antifa (20%) for what happened. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of Republicans (75%) believe the country should “move on” from 6 January, rather than learn from it. And although most don’t care either way, one-third of Republicans say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who refuses to denounce the insurrection.

Advertisement

Upgrade to Premium and enjoy the app ad-free.

Upgrade to Premium

The increased anti-democratic threat of the Republican party can also be seen in the tidal wave of voting restrictions proposed and passed in 2021. The Brennan Center for Justice counted a stunning 440 bills “with provisions that restrict voting access” introduced across all but one of the 50 US states, the highest number since the Center started tracking them 10 years ago. A total of 34 such laws were passed in 19 different states last year, and 88 bills in nine states are being carried over to the 2022 legislative term. Worryingly, Trump-backed Republicans who claim the 2020 election was stolen are running for secretary of state in various places where Trump unsuccessfully challenged the results.

. . . .

At the same time, the Republican party has become increasingly united and naked in its extremism, which denies both the anti-democratic character of the 6 January attack and the legitimacy of Biden’s presidency, and is passing an unprecedented number of voter restriction bills in preparation for the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential elections. As long as the White House mainly focuses on fighting “domestic violent extremism”, and largely ignores or minimizes the much more lethal threat to US democracy posed by non-violent extremists, the US will continue to move closer and closer to an authoritarian future.

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

You can read both articles in full at the above links.

If you are counting on AG Merrick Garland to “lead the charge” on establishing accountability, your optimism might be tempered by his own failure to “clean house” at DOJ and in particular by his failure to reform his wholly-owned Immigration Court system that was front and center in assisting and carrying out the Trump/Miller White Nationalist assault on the rule of law, primarily targeting individuals of color and the “world’s most vulnerable” seeking justice in our system.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-06-22

☠️🤮⚰️ AMERICAN TRAVESTY — IN GARLAND’S TOTALLY DYSFUNCTIONAL (NON) COURT SYSTEM, LIFE OR DEATH⚰️ IS A COMPLETE “CRAP SHOOT!” — WHY ISN’T THE PRESSURE ON BIDEN’S AG TO FIX IT BEFORE MORE LIVES ARE UNJUSTLY LOST?

https://www.kqed.org/news/11900535/a-simple-paperwork-error-can-get-asylum-seekers-deported-rosa-diaz-got-lucky-on-a-lunch-break

Tyche Hendricks reports for KQED:

A Simple Paperwork Error Can Get Asylum Seekers Deported. Rosa Díaz Got Lucky on a Lunch Break

Jan 4

Sitting in her home in Colusa County on Dec. 29, 2021, Rosa Díaz holds the papers she was given by immigration officials when she fled Honduras and asked for asylum at the U.S. border. Díaz was ordered deported ‘in absentia’ when she missed a hearing in immigration court due to a clerical error in her address. (Courtesy of Rosa Díaz)

Rosa Díaz vividly remembers the summer day in 2019 when she showed up for an appointment at the Sacramento office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“The surprise I got on July 12 was that I was going to be deported,” she said, speaking in Spanish.

An ICE officer told her that a judge had ordered her removed from the country after she missed an immigration court hearing in Los Angeles the previous November. Díaz was stunned.

She had left Honduras with her three children in 2018 after police failed to protect her from an abusive partner who beat her close to death while she was pregnant with her youngest child. Over two weeks, they walked, got rides and took buses to the U.S. border, hoping to find protection. They were sent to an ICE family detention center in Texas for three weeks.

Before she was released from detention, Díaz, 40, gave ICE agents the phone number for her adult son, who lived in Maxwell, a town in rural Colusa County in the Sacramento Valley. Her son provided officials with his address, where his mom and siblings would be living. But the address ICE sent to the immigration court got botched: ICE listed the city as Los Angeles.

“I never received a notice of that hearing. If I had, I would have been there,” Díaz said. “My intention was to do things the right way.”

‘I never received a notice of that hearing. If I had, I would have been there.’Rosa Díaz, asylum seeker from Honduras

When she was released from detention with a temporary status called “parole,” she was given a year before she had to check in with ICE. Díaz said she thought she had already been granted asylum.

“When a person first gets here, they don’t know how things work, and nobody explained it to me,” she said.

The asylum process can be baffling, and, as Díaz learned, navigating it without a lawyer can be disastrous. Unlike in criminal cases, people in federal immigration court have no right to a court-appointed lawyer if they can’t find their own.

Like Díaz, thousands of newly arrived asylum seekers never get their day in court. They can be tripped up by paperwork, and a clerical error can be enough to get them deported.

Last year a third of all immigrants in asylum cases did not have representation, according to data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, a research center at Syracuse University. And over the past two decades, just 10% of asylum seekers without legal representation won their cases, while those with lawyers were nearly four times as likely to win protection, according to TRAC’s data.

The luckiest lunch break

After passing an initial asylum screening, Díaz and her kids were released from family detention on June 20, 2018, and told to check in with ICE before her one-year parole document expired. So on June 13, 2019, Díaz voluntarily went to the ICE office in Sacramento. She was instructed to return on June 20 with all her documents, which she did. That day, ICE officials put her in a GPS ankle monitor. On July 12, they summoned her again, and that’s when she learned she had been ordered deported “in absentia” by a Los Angeles immigration judge on Nov. 27, 2018.

ICE officials told Díaz they planned to deport her that same day. But first, the office was closing for lunch.

“I went outside, sat down and burst into tears,” Díaz said. “I cried because I had gotten all the way here with my three children and I couldn’t imagine taking them back to Honduras.”

A pair of immigrant rights advocates with NorCal Resist who were leafleting outside the ICE building stopped to check on Díaz, said Katie Fleming, director of the removal defense program at the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation in Sacramento. The advocates drove her to Fleming’s office and made an urgent plea for legal help.

“We were able to talk to her and then advocate with ICE to give her a few more days to be able to try to reopen that removal proceeding because she did not know about it,” Fleming said.

The swift response by the activists and lawyers was an incredible stroke of luck for Díaz. Attorneys succeeded in reopening her case. And in March, with Fleming representing her, she won asylum for herself and her children.

But what Díaz experienced is common for asylum seekers without a lawyer. Fleming said Díaz’s case shows how even people with legitimate claims to asylum can be ordered deported without getting a chance to make their case to a judge.

“She didn’t understand, as most people don’t, what the next process entailed in terms of applying for asylum,” she continued. “She didn’t realize that going to an ICE office is different from going to court.”

Judge Phan turned to a towering stack of blue folders for those not present. Then she signed deportation orders for 23 people who failed to appear.

Immigrant rights advocates have long argued for universal access to counsel for people in removal proceedings. In a January 2021 report, the American Bar Association made a series of recommendations for how the incoming administration of President Joe Biden could make the immigration system more fair and efficient by providing government funding for lawyers, among other things.

The stakes for people who are deported can include persecution, torture and death, the report noted.

“Unrepresented individuals in removal proceedings are inherently disadvantaged in an adversarial system in which the government is always represented by an experienced attorney,” the report warned.

The Biden administration has asked Congress to budget $15 million to provide representation to families and children, and $23 million for legal orientation programs, but Congress has yet to act.

Deported in absentia

When a person fails to appear for a hearing in immigration court, they can be ordered removed from the country in absentia. That’s what happened to Díaz, and it’s been happening with alarming regularity at San Francisco’s immigration court, according to Milli Atkinson, who runs the Immigrant Legal Defense Program at the Bar Association of San Francisco.

Atkinson said judges handed out scores of deportation orders in absentia from August to November under a new system ostensibly aimed at correcting bad addresses when mail was returned as undeliverable.

“What the court started doing in August is purposely taking cases that they knew people were unlikely to get their mail and rescheduling their hearing and sending a new notice out to an address that the court knows is incorrect,” Atkinson said. “Some of the judges were just reading off their names and their case numbers and ordering them removed in bunches, without looking at the individual file, making sure the information was all correct and really making no attempt to contact the individuals.”

It’s a self-defeating system, Atkinson said, because most immigrants never get the new notice, so they miss their new court date.

She acknowledged that it’s the responsibility of individuals to notify the court within five days every time they move. But many people in removal proceedings are checking in regularly with ICE under a supervision program, she said.

“A lot of times ICE and the government attorneys have information about where these people are and what their current addresses are, and they have no legal obligation to share those with the court,” she said.

At one “returned notice” hearing in San Francisco in late October, Judge Susan Phan had 31 cases on her afternoon docket, but only six of the people were present.

One woman in the courtroom was Nichol Valencia, a fluent English speaker originally from the Philippines who’s married to a U.S. Coast Guard officer. She said she learned that her December hearing date had been rescheduled for October when she checked the court’s website, concerned that COVID-19 might interfere with court business.

“We called you in today because we were concerned you were not getting hearing notices,” Phan told Valencia. “Even though you submitted your new address to the ICE officer, you have to separately submit it to the court.”

“I did submit a blue form to the court,” responded Valencia, who again provided her new address.

After scheduling a new hearing for Valencia in February, Judge Phan turned to a towering stack of blue folders for those not present. She rescheduled two cases, telling the ICE prosecutor he needed to provide more evidence. Then Phan signed deportation orders for 23 people who failed to appear.

Atkinson said she thinks the new system was an effort to cope with the court’s massive backlog, which recently surpassed 1.5 million cases.

“This was a way to help some cases get back on track that might have otherwise lost contact with the court, but the actual result is they’re deporting people in very high numbers,” she said.

In November, Atkinson sent a letter on behalf of a group of Bay Area legal advocates to the presiding judge for the San Francisco court expressing “grave concerns” about the returned notice dockets, arguing they violate the constitutional due process rights of people who are ordered deported in absentia.

In addition, the letter said, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused housing instability for many immigrants and restricted their access to legal services, two reasons the court should be more understanding.

In December, an official for the court system replied, calling the approach a “longstanding practice” for immigration courts throughout the country.

Courts “routinely create dockets for cases with returned hearing notices for efficiency and docket management,” wrote Alexis Fooshé, the communications and legislative affairs division chief of the Executive Office for Immigration Review. “Like every case before the court, immigration judges make decisions based on the specific and unique factors of each case in accordance with applicable law.”

Atkinson said if people in immigration proceedings had the right to court-appointed counsel, attorneys would help with the simple but essential task of keeping contact information current.

“And all of your mail would go to the lawyer’s office, so that would be a huge problem solved right there,” she said.

Díaz did not have a lawyer to sort out the mess caused when ICE erroneously entered her brother’s address. She’s grateful that the two advocates stopped to help when they saw her weeping outside the Sacramento ICE office.

“If they hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here,” she said. “I’d be back in my country and God knows what would have happened to me there.”

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

Garland’s epic failure to address the festering mess in his wholly-owned Immigration Courts is an ongoing and ever-escalating national catastrophe with cosmic human consequences and implications that go to the very future of our nation as a Constitutional democracy!

It’s also a betrayal of not only Biden’s campaign promises, of almost every so-called American value, but also of basic human decency and morality.

For every “lucky individual” like Rosa, there are thousands, probably tens or even hundreds of thousands, who “fall through the gaping, largely Government-created holes” of Garland’s ridiculously broken system.

That includes tens of thousands of potential refugees improperly turned around at the border because Garland has failed to: 1) stand up for the rule of law; and 2) establish a functioning asylum system in his Immigration Courts with competent, qualified judges and professional administrators.

I simply don’t know how he gets away with it! But, he does!

And advocates, NGOS, and supposedly “progressive” Dems in Congress seem to be too discombobulated or too feckless to get his attention and demand that he change his behavior. So, the carnage continues!

The ones who play the biggest price for Garland’s failures are the “unlucky Rosas” — men, women, children, many legally entitled to protection, the most vulnerable among us, who deserve better!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-05-21

👍🏼⚖️🗽MAJORITY OF ASYLUM SEEKERS WIN THEIR CASES, EVEN IN A BROKEN & BIASED SYSTEM INTENTIONALLY STACKED AGAINST THEM — But, Only, If They Can Get To A “Merits Adjudication!” — Nativist Lies, Myths, Driving USG Policies Exposed! — Why USCIS & EOIR Self-Created Backlogs Primarily Shaft Those Deserving Legal Protection Of Some Type!

The “Gauleiter”s” policies of “transportation” of legal asylum seekers to danger zones or death has, to a totally unacceptable extent, been adopted by the Biden Administration. America’s cowardly, immoral, illegal, and unethical treatment of these vulnerable individuals will haunt our nation for generations to come! Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com

https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/672/

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

. . . .

Completed Asylum Cases and Outcomes

Asylum grant rates have often been the focus of public attention and discussion. An implicit assumption is often made that if the immigrants’ asylum applications are denied that they have been unsuccessful in their quest to legally remain in the U.S. However, this may not always be the case. In addition to asylum, there are often other avenues for relief, and other types of decisions where the Immigration Court can determine that an individual should be allowed to legally remain in the U.S. This report breaks new ground in empirically documenting just how often asylum seekers’ quests to legally remain in the U.S. have been successful.

According to case-by-case records of the Immigration Courts, Immigration Judges completed close to one million cases (967,552) on which asylum applications had been filed during the last 21 years (October 2000 – September 2021). Of these, judges granted asylum to 249,413 or one-quarter (26%) of these cases.

However, only about half of asylum seekers were ordered deported. More specifically, just 42 percent received removal orders or their equivalent,[4] and an additional 8 percent received so-called voluntary departure orders. These orders require the asylum seekers to leave the country, but unlike removal orders voluntary departure orders do not penalize individuals further by legally barring them for a period of years from reentry should their circumstances change.

The remaining one-quarter (24%) of asylum seekers were granted other forms or relief or Immigration Judges closed their cases using other grounds which allowed asylum seekers to legally remain in the country.[5] When this proportion is added to asylum grant rates, half of asylum seekers in Immigration Court cases — about twice the individuals granted asylum — have been successful in their quest to legally remain in the United States at least for a period of time. See Figure 5.

Figure 5. Outcome of U.S. Asylum Applications, October 2000 – September 2021

(Click for larger image)

Focusing on just Immigration Court asylum cases, however, does not take into consideration asylum seekers who have asylum granted by Asylum Officers from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Those cases end there with the asylum grant. Only unsuccessful cases are forwarded to the Immigration Court for review afresh, and thus included in the Immigration Court’s records. These referrals of asylum denials by USCIS Asylum Officers are classified in the Court’s records as affirmative asylum cases,[6] to distinguish them from those that start with DHS seeking a removal order from the Immigration Court and the asylum claim being raised as a defense against removal.

Thus, a more complete picture of asylum seekers to the U.S. would add in the asylum grants by USCIS on these affirmative cases. Over the period since October 2000, the total number of asylum grants totals just under 600,000 cases – more than double the asylum grants by Immigration Judges alone.[7] Asylum Officers granted asylum in just over 350,000 cases, while Immigration Judges granted asylum in an additional close to 250,000 cases. See Tables 5a and 5b.

Asylum grants thus make up almost half (46%) of the outcomes on the total number of 1.3 million cases closed in which asylum applications were filed. An additional one in five (18%) were granted some other form of relief or otherwise allowed to legally remain in the U.S. Thus, almost two-thirds (64%) of asylum seekers in the 1.3 million cases which were resolved have been successful over the past two decades.

Figure 5 above presents a side-by-side comparison of asylum case outcomes when examining Immigration Court completions alone, and how outcome percentages shift once Asylum Officers’ asylum grants are combined with decisions made by Immigration Judges.

. . . .

Outcome on Asylum Cases Number Percent**

IJ Outcome on Asylum Cases

Asylum Granted by IJ 249,413 26%

Other Relief, etc. 236,889 24%

Removal Order 403,252 42%

Voluntary Departure Order 77,998 8%

Total IJ Asylum Completions 967,552 100%

USCIS + IJ Outcome on Asylum Cases

Asylum Granted by USCIS+IJ 599,772 46%

Other Relief, etc by IJ 236,889 18%

Removal Order by IJ 403,252 31%

Voluntary Departure Order by IJ 77,998 6%

USCIS + IJ Asylum Completions 1,317,911 100%

. . . .

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

Read the complete TRAC report, containing all the graphs and charts that I could not adequately reproduce, at the link.

Applying the 50% “granted protection of some type” rate in Immigration Court to the ever expanding backlog of 667,000 asylum cases in Garland’s dysfunctional EOIR, that means that there are at least 333,000 asylum seekers who should be “out of Garland’s backlog” and legally living, working, and/or studying in the U.S., probably over 165,000 of whom should be on the way to green cards, citizenship, or already citizens in a functional system!

And, the TRAC-documented success rate has been achieved in a system that has been designed with bias to deter and discourage asylum seekers with mediocre, or even hostile, judges, a BIA that lacks asylum expertise and turns out incorrect restrictionist precedents, and administrative leadership that specializes in ineptitude, toadyism, and mindless “aimless docket reshuffling.”

Obviously, the “get to stay” rate would be much higher with better-qualified, better-trained, merit-selected judges, guided and kept in line by a BIA of America’s best and brightest appellate judges with proven expertise in asylum, immigration, human rights, due process, and racial justice, and dynamic, inspiring, well-qualified leadership. For a great example of what “could have been” with a better AG, see, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/12/18/%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%97%bd%f0%9f%87%ba%f0%9f%87%b8courts-justice-courtside-proudly-announces-the-dream-bia-its-out-there-even-if-garland/.

Better problem-solving-focused judicial leadership at EOIR could come up with innovative ways of screening and getting the many aged, grantable cases of asylum seekers and other migrants (cancellation of removal, SIJS, and “stateside processing” come to mind) out of the Immigration Court backlog and into an alternative setting where relief could granted more efficiently. For the most part, there is no useful purpose to be served by keeping cases more than three years old on the Immigration Court docket.

The Immigration Courts must work largely in “real time” with real judges who can produce consistent, fair results on a predictable timetable. Big parts of that are increasing competent representation, providing better legal guidance on recognizing and promptly granting meritorious cases (that, significantly, would also guide the USCIS Asylum Office), and standing up to efforts by DHS Enforcement to overwhelm judicial resources and use Immigration Courts to “warehouse and babysit” the results of their own mismanagement and misdirection of resources.

There’s no chance that Garland (based on inept and disinterested performance to date, and his near total lack of awareness and urgency) and the crew, largely of Sessions/Barr holdovers, currently comprising his EOIR can pull it off. That’s a monumental problem for migrants and American justice generally!

Without an AG with the guts, determination, expertise, and vision to “clean house” at EOIR and DOJ, or alternatively, a Congress that takes this mess out of the DOJ and creates a real Article I Immigration Court system, backlogs, fundamental unfairness, and incompetence at EOIR will continue to drag down the American legal system.

Worthy of note: The TRAC stats confirm the generally held belief that those asylum seekers held in detention (the “New American Gulag” or “NAG”) are very significantly less likely to be granted relief than those appearing in a non-detained setting. But, what would be helpful, perhaps a task for “practical scholars” somewhere, would be to know “why.”

Is it because the cases simply are not a strong, because of criminal backgrounds or otherwise? Or, is it because of the chronic lack of representation, intentional coercion, and generally less sympathetic judges often present in detention settings? Or, as is likely, is it some combination of all these factors?

Also worthy of note: Three major non-detained courts, with approximately 31,000 pending asylum cases, had success rates significantly below (20% or more) the national average of 50%:

Houston (19%)
Atlanta (29%)
Harlingen (24%)

On the “flip side,” I was somewhat pleasantly surprised to see that the oft-criticized El Paso Immigration Court (non-detained) had a very respectable 48% success rate — a mere 2% off the national average! Interesting!

Also worthy of watching: Although based on a tiny, non-statistically-valid sampling (2% of filed asylum cases), Houston-Greenspoint had a 53% grant rate, compared with “Houston non-detained’s” measly 19%. If this trend continues — and it well might not, given the very small sample — it would certainly be worthy knowing the reasons for this great disparity.

In addition to “giving lie” to the bogus claims, advanced mostly by GOP nativists, but also by some Dems and officials in Dem Administrations, that most asylum seekers don’t have valid claims to remain, the exact opposite appears to be true! Keeping asylum seekers from getting fair and timely dispositions of their cases hurts them at least as much, probably more, than any legitimate Government interest.

Moreover, it strongly suggests that hundreds of thousands of legitimate asylum seekers with bona fide claims for protection have been illegally and immorally returned to danger or death without any semblance of due process under a combination of a bogus Title 42 rationale and an equally bogus “Remain in Mexico” travesty. It should also prompt some meaningful evaluation of the intellectual and moral failings of Administrations or both parties, poorly-qualified Article III judges, and legislators who have encouraged, enforced, or enabled these “crimes against humanity” — and the most vulnerable in humanity to boot!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-24-21

☠️🤮 “TEFLON MERRICK” — GROTESQUE DUE PROCESS MELTDOWN @ GARLAND’S EOIR CONTINUES UNABATED, WHILE AG AVOIDS ACCOUNTABILITY — 3RD CIR. CASTIGATES GARLAND’S BIASED & INCOMPETENT “STAR CHAMBERS” — “It is more akin to the argument of an advocate than the impartial analysis of a quasi-judicial agency.”

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca3-slams-ij-bia-nsimba-v-atty-gen#

CA3 Slams IJ, BIA: Nsimba v. Atty. Gen.

Nsimba v. Atty. Gen.

“Bob Lupini Nsimba petitions for review of a December 8, 2020 decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals affirming the Immigration Judge’s denial of his application for asylum. In affirming that decision, the BIA misapplied and misinterpreted controlling precedent and imposed requirements on those seeking relief that would require petitioners to first endure torture or arrest. Accordingly, for the reasons that follow, we will grant the petition for review, vacate the ruling of the BIA and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[You MUST read the entire opinion; the panel really goes to town on the IJ and the BIA. Hats off to Valentine Brown!]

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

Not news for anyone who (unlike Garland) has even passing familiarity with the daily mockery of justice being carried out by Garland’s “wholly-owned bogus ‘court’ system.” These AREN’T aberrations or isolated incidents! They are “business as usual” in Garland’s totally dysfunctional and out of control Immigration “Courts.”

These aren’t “courts;” they are “adjuncts of DHS enforcement, masquerading as courts,” redesigned as such by Sessions and Barr with Stephen Miller’s influence and enabled to continue their disgraceful degradation of American justice by Garland!

DRC cases, if credible and documented, should be “slam dunk grants of asylum.” They could be put on the “30 minute docket.” Instead, EOIR has been allowed and encouraged to engage in this type of obscene, dilatory nonsense, with obvious racial overtones.

This case is a microcosm of how EOIR and the DOJ have built astounding due process denying backlog! The solution is NOT more Immigration Judges! It’s better Immigration Judges.

Congrats to NDPA Star Valentine Brown!

Obviously Garland has neither standards nor any shame!

Dishonest, biased, and incompetent decisions like this should long ago have resulted in the removal from the BIA and reassignment of the BIA “judge(s)” involved.

When are the Circuits going to catch on that this entire charade is a grotesque denial of due process, pull the plug, and hold Garland accountable for this unconstitutional (not to mention unethical) degradation of American justice?

BIA judges and EOIR judges AREN’T Article IIIs, and they DON’T have life tenure in their particular jobs.

When are Dems in both Houses going to start demanding accountability and competence from Garland? How long are the Article IIIs going to allow this mind-boggling misfeasance that materially affects millions of lives in America, and squanders an unconscionable amount of legal resources, to continue before finally “pulling the plug” on Garland’s “quasi-judicial farce?”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-23-21

☹️OFTEN INDIFFERENT OR OVERTLY HOSTILE TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL & HUMAN RIGHTS OF MIGRANTS & WOMEN, SUPREMES’ MAJORITY MIGHT GREEN-LIGHT “OPEN SEASON ON HUMANITY” FOR CBP AGENTS!☠️

Lydia Wheeler writes for Bloomberg Law’s Opening Argument:

https://openingargument.substack.com/p/kings-and-queens-of-border-puzzle

‘Kings and Queens’ of Border Puzzle Courts Divided on Liability

Lydia Wheeler

Welcome back to Opening Argument, a column where I dig into complicated legal fights, unpack issues dividing appeals courts, and discuss disputes ripe for Supreme Court review. On tap today: a look at when border patrol agents can be sued for violating someone’s constitutional rights.

Border patrol agents allegedly took Anas Elhady’s coat and shoes, and held him in a near-freezing cell without a blanket after he legally crossed the border back into the U.S. from Canada. Robert Boule was allegedly shoved to the ground by a border patrol agent who came onto his property without a warrant to check the immigration status of a guest at the inn Boule owns in Washington.

Can they each sue the agents for damages? The answer right now depends on which court is hearing their case.

The Supreme Court is expected to provide more clarity in a case it’s hearing later this term. Depending on how the justices rule, it could further insulate border patrol agents from liability.

If there’s no way to hold individual agents accountable for their conduct at the border, “then custom agents are kings and queens unto themselves,” said Elhady’s attorney Gadeir Abbas, a senior litigation attorney at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

A 1971 Supreme Court decision gave people the right to hold federal officials liable when their constitutional rights are violated, but courts have been trying to figure out if or when that applies to immigration officials. So far, they’re coming to different conclusions.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said Elhady, who claimed his detainment violated his Fifth Amendment right to due process, didn’t have a right to sue the agents involved. The Ninth Circuit said Boule did.

. . . .

But the Supreme Court specifically refused to consider whether Bivens should be overruled when it agreed to hear the agent’s appeal in the Boule case. The justices will instead decide if you can bring a suit under Bivens for a First Amendment retaliation claim and whether you can sue federal officers engaged in immigration-related functions for allegedly violating your Fourth Amendment rights. Oral arguments in the case haven’t yet been scheduled.

“I could imagine a Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Alito saying something like ‘Yes Bivens still is the law, but we find that in this case involving enforcement of the immigration laws, Bivens claims really don’t fit and don’t belong, and limit Bivens one step further and say immigration cases are different,” said Kevin Johnson, the dean of University of California Davis School of Law.

If the court does that, Johnson, who’s written extensively on immigration law and civil rights, said it would embolden border patrol agents to feel like they can act with a great deal of discretion that will never be questioned.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lydia Wheeler in Washington at lwheeler@bloomberglaw.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Childers at achilders@bloomberglaw.com; Jo-el J. Meyer at jmeyer@bloombergindustry.com

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

Read Lydia’s full report at the link.

Hard to argue with the analysis of Dean Kevin Johnson, the “most often cited” immigration scholar in America according to a recent survey.

Kevin R. Johnson
Dean
U.C. Davis Law, “Most Cited Immigration Practical Scholar”

The rampant abuses of legal and human rights by the CBP, systemic racial bias, and almost total lack of accountability have been well-documented by civil rights advocates. See, e.g., https://www.southernborder.org/border_lens_abuse_of_power_and_its_consequences

Here’s a telling excerpt from the foregoing report issued by the SPLC in 2020:

The number of deaths resulting from an interaction with CBP officers are indicators of the horrific culture of abuse, corruption, and disregard for human life that plagues the nation’s largest federal law enforcement agency. Unfortunately, these killings are not the only examples of abuse of power and corruption within CBP.

Numerous studies — both internal and external — have shown that CBP is plagued with a culture of impunity, corruption, and abuse. Its systemic problems also run deep. The discovery of a secret Facebook group full of racist, misogynist and xenophobic posts by Border Patrol agents brought to light more evidence of the agency’s culture of abuse. In it, agents routinely made sexist jokes, made fun of migrant deaths, and shared other hateful content. A year later, little action was taken by CBP, again pointing to the lack of transparency and accountability for the agency. Countless other reports have linked CBP to cases of officer misconduct, corruption and a general lack of accountability for criminal conduct and abusive actions.

Doesn’t sound to me like an ideal candidate for freedom from individual constitutional tort liability! Indeed, the reasons for applying Bivens to immigration agents appear quite compelling. Hard to think of a law enforcement agency more in need of “strict scrutiny.”

But, with the current Court majority, who knows? Kevin’s “highly educated guess” is as good or better than anyone else’s. After all, the Supreme’s majority had little difficulty enabling constitutional and human rights abuses carried out by the Trump regime on asylum seekers and other vulnerable migrants — in other words, “Dred Scottification” of the “other!”

Valerie Bauman
Investigative Reporter
Bloomberg
PHOTO: Twitter

Many thanks to Val Bauman over at Bloomberg for bringing this article to my attention. I’ve missed Val’s lively and incisive reporting on the “immigration beat” for her previous employer. Come on back to immigration, Val! We miss you!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-14-21

Outcome on Asylum Cases	Number	Percent**
IJ Outcome on Asylum Cases
Asylum Granted by IJ	249,413	26%
Other Relief, etc.	236,889	24%
Removal Order	403,252	42%
Voluntary Departure Order	77,998	8%
Total IJ Asylum Completions	967,552	100%
USCIS + IJ Outcome on Asylum Cases
Asylum Granted by USCIS+IJ	599,772	46%
Other Relief, etc by IJ	236,889	18%
Removal Order by IJ	403,252	31%
Voluntary Departure Order by IJ	77,998	6%
USCIS + IJ Asylum Completions	1,317,911	100%

David writes in Lawfare:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Professor and ImmigrationProf Blog Principal Kit Johnson reports:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Alexandra Villarreal reports for The Guardian:

There will be no racial justice in America without immigrant justice!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Mejia-Velasquez v. Garland, 4th Cir., 02-16-22, published

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Carlos Sauceda writes in the SF Chron:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Immigration court officials cheered results of fast-tracked deportation orders, emails reveal

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Maria Sacchetti & Sean Sullivan report for WashPost:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Tyche Hendricks reports for KQED:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Completed Asylum Cases and Outcomes

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Lydia Wheeler writes for Bloomberg Law’s Opening Argument:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts: