Crime – Page 79 – immigrationcourtside.com

CAL LAWMAKERS APPROVE BILL TO PROTECT MIGRANT RESIDENTS! Gov. Brown Expected To Sign Into Law!

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-sanctuary-state-bill-20170916-story.html

Jazmine Ulloa reports for the LA Times:

“California lawmakers on Saturday passed a “sanctuary state” bill to protect immigrants without legal residency in the U.S., part of a broader push by Democrats to counter expanded deportation orders under the Trump administration.

The legislation by Sen. Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), the most far-reaching of its kind in the country, would limit state and local law enforcement communication with federal immigration authorities, and prevent officers from questioning and holding people on immigration violations.

After passionate debate in both houses of the Legislature, staunch opposition from Republican sheriffs and threats from Trump administration officials against sanctuary cities, Senate Bill 54 was approved Saturday with a 27-11 vote along party lines. But the bill sent to Gov. Jerry Brown drastically scaled back the version first introduced, the result of tough negotiations between Brown and De León in the final weeks of the legislative session.

On the Senate floor minutes before 2 a.m. on Saturday, De León said the changes were reasonable, and reflected a powerful compromise between law enforcement officials and advocates.

“These amendments do not mean to erode the core mission of this measure, which is to protect hardworking families that have contributed greatly to our culture and the economy,” he said. “This is a measure that reflects the values of who we are as a great state.”

It’s a wrap for the California Legislature for 2017. Here’s what lawmakers accomplished
Officially dubbed the “California Values Act,” the legislation initially would have prohibited state and local law enforcement agencies from using any resources to hold, question or share information about people with federal immigration agents, unless they had violent or serious criminal convictions.

After talks with Brown, amendments to the bill made this week would allow federal immigration authorities to keep working with state corrections officials and to continue entering county jails to question immigrants. The legislation would also permit police and sheriffs to share information and transfer people to immigration authorities if they have been convicted of one or more crimes from a list of 800 outlined in a previous law, the California Trust Act.

Some immigrant rights advocates who were previously disappointed with the list of offenses under the Trust Act, were dismayed to see the same exceptions applied in the so-called sanctuary state bill. The list includes many violent and serious crimes, as well as some nonviolent charges and “wobblers,” offenses that can be charged as a felony or misdemeanor, which advocates said has the potential to ensnare people who do not pose a danger to the public.

But immigrant rights groups did not withdraw their support for Senate Bill 54 and also won some concessions. Under the additions to the bill, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation would have to develop new standards to protect people held on immigration violations, and to allow immigrant inmates to receive credits toward their sentences serviced if they undergo rehabilitation and educational programs while incarcerated.”

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Read the full article at the link.

While termed a “Sanctuary State” law, I think that is a misnomer. I’d call it more of a “Smart Immigration Enforcement” law.

The bill provides for a wide scope of cooperation, access, and information sharing aimed at getting dangerous migrants off the streets. At the same time, the bill does limit ICE’s notorious “bait and switch” tactic.

That’s when ICE puts out lots of hyperbole about “removing criminals” and “making communities safer,” while actually using state authorities to assist them in “sacking up” lots of so-called “collaterals” — generally law abiding productive members of the community who are among the millions residing in the United States without status. It’s the latter rather random use of Federal Immigration Enforcement authority that actually hurts communities, sows unnecessary fear, wastes resources, and makes communities less safe for everyone, regardless of status.

It appears that Gov. Brown took a proactive role in achieving this balance, since Republicans evidently were more anxious to pontificate than negotiate. Also, if, Trump and Sessions were truly interested in making America safer, it seems like negotiating deals with the locals that addressed the common need to remove criminals without creating unnecessary barriers between the police and otherwise law abiding members of the community without status would have made more sense than threats and public shaming. It’s also significant that although they had reservations about the compromise version, leaders of the immigrant community strongly supported the revised bill.

I’m sure that this new law will quickly end up in court.

PWS

09-16-17

BREAKING: CHICAGO WINS “ROUND 1” IN SANCTUARY BATTLE — FEDERAL JUDGE RULES AGAINST “GONZO’S” ASSAULT ON COOPERATIVE LAW ENFORCEMENT IN MIGRANT COMMUNITIES — IRREPARABLE LOSS OF TRUST CITED — NATIONWIDE INJUNCTION ISSUED!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-sanctuary-cities-lawsuit-met-20170915-story.html

Jason Meisner and John Byrne report for the Chicago Tribune:

“In a ruling with national impact, a federal judge in Chicago on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s rules requiring so-called sanctuary cities to cooperate with immigration agents in order to get a public safety grant.

ND IL, U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber wrote in his 41-page ruling that Chicago has shown a “likelihood of success” in its arguments that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessionsexceeded his authority in imposing new standards governing Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants across the country.

He also said Mayor Rahm Emanuel‘s administration has shown the city could suffer “irreparable harm” in its relationship with the immigrant community if it were to comply with the U.S. Department of Justice‘s new standards.

“Once such trust is lost, it cannot be repaired through an award of money damages, making it the type of harm that is especially hard to rectify” if he were to wait until the lawsuit is settled, Leinenweber wrote.

The preliminary injunction granted by Leinenweber applies to districts nationwide.

Emanuel and City Corporation Counsel Edward Siskel were scheduled to speak Friday about the ruling at a news conference at City Hall.

Representatives of the Justice Department did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

The ruling comes a little over a month after the Emanuel administration filed suit against the Justice Department over its new requirements for sanctuary cities such as Chicago, that want federal funding, to give notice when immigrants in the country illegally are about to be released from custody and allow immigration agents access to local jails.”

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Read the full story at the link.

I’m sure that the DOJ will appeal and seek a stay from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Although what happens probably depends on the composition of the 7th Circuit panel, the Seventh Circuit has often been critical of the DOJ and EOIR’s delivery of justice in the U.S. Immigration Courts. So, they clearly aren’t afraid of the DOJ or getting involved in immigration issues.

PWS

09-15-17

VOX NEWS: ALT-RIGHT MEDIA’S NEXT TARGET: SUPERMAN — After All, He’s An “Alien Immigrant” Who Has Stood Up For The Rights Of All Americans (Regardless Of Race, Color, Creed, Gender, Or Documentation) Since The 1950s!

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/15/16307794/superman-undocumented-workers-white-supremacist-action-comics

Superman saved undocumented workers from a racist — and conservative media is mad about it
They argue that the Man of Steel has become a tool of propaganda.
Updated by Alex Abad-Santosalex@vox.com Sep 15, 2017, 9:20am EDT
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The latest issue of Action Comics No. 987 contains a scalding scene: A white supremacist, fed up with a company that just laid him off, decides to load up his machine gun and kill the undocumented workers he believes took his job. Luckily, in the nick of time, Superman arrives to shield the would-be victims from a storm of bullets:

Action Comics No. 987. DC Comics
Superman then subdues the shooter, telling him that he needs to take more personal responsibility and to rethink his homicidal tendencies. He also tells the police officers who respond to the incident to see to it that the shooter’s intended victims are safe:

DC Comics
Given the violent events that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month, including a domestic terror attack that killed Heather Heyer, as well as the recent national conversation over the Trump administration’s stance on DACA, it’s easy to see how the plot of Action Comics No. 987 could feel like a knee-jerk reaction and parallel to reality. But in reality, comic book issues and arcs — including this one, which was written by Dan Jurgens and illustrated by artists Viktor Bogdanovic, inkers Jonathan Glapion and Jay Leisten, and colorist Mike Spicer — are planned well in advance.

Still, the action of preventing a mass murder, which seems in line with Superman’s moral compass, hasn’t come without controversy. Fox News has a column calling the Man of Steel a “propaganda tool for the defenders of illegal aliens,” and the right-wing website Breitbart derided him as “Social Justice Supes.”

Their argument is that comic book writers and artists have inserted a pro–illegal immigrant agenda into their comics, and that it’s part of a larger trend of politicizing comic books.

But there are a couple of things to note about the issue.

The first is that the “undocumented workers” designation in Action Comics No. 987 comes from the homicidal white supremacist — an unreliable narrator. It could be interpreted that he’s shooting at the workers at his company who aren’t white because he’s stereotyping and projecting his bigotry onto them.

Another facet of this issue is that in the universe of the comic, similar violent outbursts and anger are happening worldwide. Vaccines are being stolen, animals are being poached, workplaces are being shot up, prison riots are taking place — and Superman is struggling to figure out why it’s all erupting at once. The thwarted workplace shooting is part of a bigger arc that involves the idea that the “common good” has been dissolved, and there’s a villain responsible for it (the issue has a giant reveal at the end).

Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of any conversation bemoaning Superman’s lifesaving actions is the failure to realize that Superman himself is a literal alien immigrant who grew up in America. Superman’s creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, are the children of Jewish immigrants.

And Superman has always stood up for the justice of all Americans, as he did in this 1950s poster:

“If you hear anybody talk against a schoolmate or anyone else because of his religion, race or national origin — don’t wait: tell him that kind of talk is un-American,” Superman says in the scene on the poster.

This week’s issue of Action Comics, despite the outcry against it, seems to be following that credo.

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Read the full story with illustrations at the link.

With his plans for ridding America of the “Dreamer Threat” on hold, the House resisting his unconstitutional use of forfeiture authority, many localities pushing back on his anti-migrant agenda, and even Orrin Hatch saying “hands off the people’s weed,” it seems like a perfect time for Gonzo Apocalypto to turn his attention to an effort to rid America once and for all of the “Superhero Threat.” But, it’s likely to take more than a private prison operated by one of Gonzo’s GOP cronies to hold Caped One. I also suspect that SM’s “poll numbers” are multiples of Trump & Gonzo combined.

“You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, you don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger,” and you don’t mess around with our Dreamer Kids!

PWS

09-15-17

NY TIMES: Trump Actually Fired Jeff Sessions Over Mueller Appointment — Pence & Others Talked Unglued Prez Out Of Accepting Resignation! — Trump’s Intent To Obstruct Russia Investigation Clear If Report Accurate!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/us/politics/jeff-sessions-trump.html?smid=tw-share

Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman report:

“WASHINGTON — Shortly after learning in May that a special counsel had been appointed to investigate links between his campaign associates and Russia, President Trump berated Attorney General Jeff Sessions in an Oval Office meeting and said he should resign, according to current and former administration officials and others briefed on the matter.

The president blamed the appointment of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, on Mr. Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from the Justice Department’s Russia investigation — a move Mr. Trump believes was the moment his administration effectively lost control over the inquiry. Accusing Mr. Sessions of “disloyalty,” Mr. Trump unleashed a string of insults on his attorney general.

Ashen and emotional, Mr. Sessions told the president he would quit and sent a resignation letter to the White House, according to four people who were told details of the meeting. Mr. Sessions would later tell associates that the demeaning way the president addressed him was the most humiliating experience in decades of public life.

The Oval Office meeting, details of which have not previously been reported, shows the intensity of Mr. Trump’s emotions as the Russia investigation gained steam and how he appeared to immediately see Mr. Mueller’s appointment as a looming problem for his administration. It also illustrates the depth of antipathy Mr. Trump has had for Mr. Sessions — one of his earliest campaign supporters — and how the president interprets “disloyalty” within his circle of advisers.

Mr. Trump ended up rejecting Mr. Sessions’s May resignation letter after senior members of his administration argued that dismissing the attorney general would only create more problems for a president who had already fired an F.B.I. director and a national security adviser. Mr. Trump once again, in July, told aides he wanted to remove Mr. Sessions, but for a second time didn’t take action.

. . . .

The president relented, and eventually returned the resignation letter to Mr. Sessions — with a handwritten response on it.

For Mr. Sessions, the aggressiveness with which Mr. Trump has sought his removal was a blow. The son of a general store owner in a small town in Alabama, Mr. Sessions had long wanted to be the nation’s top federal law enforcement official or to serve in another top law enforcement or judicial post. He earned a reputation in the Senate as someone tough on immigration, and was the first senator to back Mr. Trump in the presidential campaign.

But their relationship began to deteriorate little more than a month after Mr. Trump was sworn in as president, after Mr. Sessions’s announcement that he was recusing himself from the Russia inquiry caught Mr. Trump by surprise.

The president spent months stewing about the recusal. In a July 19 interview with The Times, Mr. Trump said he never would have appointed Mr. Sessions to be attorney general if he knew he was going to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Mr. Trump called the decision “very unfair to the president.”

Days after the Times interview, Mr. Trump told aides he wanted to replace Mr. Sessions. Some of the president’s aides, not sure if Mr. Trump really wanted the attorney general gone or was just working through his anger, were able to delay the firing until the president’s anger passed.

But Mr. Trump continued his public attacks in the days that followed, including taking to Twitter to call him “weak” — a word that is among the harshest criticisms in Mr. Trump’s arsenal.

Administration officials and some of Mr. Trump’s outside advisers have puzzled at Mr. Sessions’s decision to stay on. But people close to Mr. Sessions said that he did not leave because he had a chance to have an impact on what he sees as a defining issue of his career: curtailing legal and illegal immigration.

In recent weeks, he has spearheaded the effort to undo what he believed to be the Obama administration’s dangerously lenient immigration policies, including the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals program.

Mr. Sessions had no illusions about converting Mr. Trump to his side of the argument — Mr. Trump remains deeply ambivalent — and he had no illusions about repairing a damaged relationship he had once regarded as a friendship. But he told people he felt he had successfully pushed the president toward ending the Obama immigration policy, and thought it had given him increased leverage in the West Wing.

The president agreed to terminate the program, and on Sept. 5 Mr. Sessions stood alone at a lectern — a moment that seemed to be a significant victory for the attorney general.

But his satisfaction was fleeting. Mr. Trump quickly undercut Mr. Sessions in a tweet by saying he would reconsider whether or not to end the program, leading the attorney general to tell allies that he was frustrated that the president had muddled months of work leading to the announcement of the new policy.

On Wednesday evening, Democrats announced they had reached a deal with the president to quickly extend protections for young undocumented immigrants.

On Thursday morning, taking a vastly different position from the one Mr. Sessions had announced, the president tweeted about the need for protections for people brought here “through no fault of their own.”

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I’m not in favor of publicly humiliating any human being, even Jeff Sessions. But, my sympathy is tempered by Sessions’s willingness to lie and humiliate migrants, Hispanics, African Americans, and members of the LGBTQ community, among others, in pursuit of his obscene White Nationalist agenda. In other words, to pick on the most vulnerable members of our society, rather than using the laws to protect them and advance the cause of justice, including social justice (a concept that Sessions has never grasped).

Trump’s reasons for firing Sessions were unethical and wrong. But, Sessions is already the worst and least qualified Attorney General in modern history. When he finally departs the Department of Justice, of his own volition or otherwise, it will be a relief to all Americans who believe in the Constitution and a diverse, humane, inclusive society. The only question is whether the damage that Sessions is doing at Justice and to the Department’s credibility can ever be repaired after the debacle of his tenure finally ends.

PWS

09-14-17

5TH CIR BONKS BIA: Misdemeanor Evading Arrest Under Texas Penal Code § 38.04 (2011) Is NOT A CIMT! — Laryea v. Sessions

-5thCIMT

Laryea v. Sessions, 5th Cir., 09-12-17 (unpublished — sadly)

PANEL:

DAVIS, GRAVES, and COSTA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM

KEY QUOTE:

“Here, examining the record of conviction, Laryea was convicted of a Class A misdemeanor, which does not involve flight using a vehicle. We hold that fleeing from a police officer, without more, does not rise to the level of moral turpitude because it is not “inherently base, vile, or depraved, and contrary to the accepted rules of morality and the duties owed between persons or to society in general.”21 Therefore, we find that the conduct involved in Laryea’s offense, “intentionally flee[ing] from a person he knows is a peace officer

attempting lawfully to arrest or detain him,” is not a CIMT.”

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The standard for crimes involving moral turpitude seems to me to be completely subjective and highly arbitrary. Hard to see how it passes constitutional muster, but it has, over many years. Interestingly, it appears that this Respondent was able to file his own petition for review. I wonder if he had “informal help.”

PWS

09-14-17

LA TIMES: After 9-11, As Usual, America Turned To It’s Hard-Working Undocumented Population To Do The “Dirty (& Dangerous) Work” — The Trump Administration Belatedly Wants To Reward Them With: DEPORTATION!

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-911-immigrants-20170911-story.html

Barbara Demick reports:

“Within days of the terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center, word spread in the immigrant neighborhoods of New York that workers were desperately needed to aid in the cleanup. The job would pay cash, about $10 an hour — no questions asked about Society Security cards or immigration status.

Then 32, Carlos Cardona had watched with horror from a construction site across the river in Brooklyn. Although his construction job paid a little better, he felt he ought to pitch in to help the country where he’d lived since his teens, having moved illegally from Colombia. He was married to a U.S. citizen and raising a 2-year-old daughter.

“The money wasn’t very good. But I felt I had to be there to do what I could,’’ Cardona said. “It was an emergency. We had to serve.”

Today he suffers from respiratory and digestive disorders, known as “World Trade Center syndrome,” that have left him unable to climb a flight of stairs and dependent for his medical care on clinics set up for 9/11 responders.

He also faces a predicament shared by up to 2,000 immigrants who helped to clean up after Sept. 11, 2001: the threat of deportation.

After more than three decades in the United States, Cardona was detained Feb. 28 after showing up for one of his regularly scheduled check-ins with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in New York. Days earlier, the Trump administration had issued a memorandum prioritizing the removal of immigrants in the U.S. illegally with criminal records.

“They told me there is a new president and the law has changed,’’ Cardona said. He had plead guilty to a nonviolent drug offense in 1990 and served 28 days in jail — which later hurt his ability to legalize his status despite being married to a U.S. citizen.

He was transferred to an immigrant detention center in Kearny, N.J., and then to a facility in Louisiana. His deportation was averted in June only through the intervention of his congressman, Joseph Crowley, and the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, who issued Cardona a hasty pardon for the drug offense.”

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Read the complete article, which also describes legislative efforts to save these deserving Americans from the Trump-Sessions gonzo enforcement insanity.

Lets take a look behind The Administration’s misleading removal numbers. We already know that most of the removals are “collaterals” without any serious criminal records.

But someone like Cardona is no-doubt misleadingly chalked up as a “drug felon deportation.” Yet, his nonviolent drug conviction was nearly three decades ago for which he served a grand total of 28 days (probably less time than he recently spent in ICE detention before politicos intervened in his behalf).

Since then, he apparently has lived a productive law abiding life, and is the husband of a US citizen and the father of a US citizen daughter. He had been faithfully and voluntarily showing up for his immigration check-ins until the Trump-Sessions-Kelly redefinition of “criminal priorities” snared him. (This is what passes for “law enforcement” in the Trump Administration.) And, he is disabled as a result of the dangerous work he undertook for our country after 9-11. He doesn’t fit any sane definition of a “criminal alien” or an “enforcement priority.”

Under the Obama Administration’s more reasonable and realistic “enforcement priorities” he would have been given prosecutorial discretion (“PD”). Yet, but for some unusual high level intervention, he would have been summarily removed by this Administration (and, by no means it it clear hat he won’t eventually be removed).

So, the next time you hear Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions or anyone else in this Administration pontificate about the importance of immigration enforcement, you can be pretty sure that the real story is something quite different from the White Nationalist restrictionist narrative they are trying to pass off on the public. Sessions and Trump are proven, and brazen, liars. And their “gonzo” immigration enforcement program is hurting, not protecting, America.

PWS

09-12-17

NEW BIA PRECEDENT: CAL. ROBBERY IS CATEGORICAL AGFEL — Matter of Delgado, 27 I&N Dec. 100 (BIA 2017)

3901

BIA HEADNOTE:

“Robbery under section 211 of the California Penal Code, which includes the element of asportation of property, is categorically an aggravated felony theft offense under section 101(a)(43)(G) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(G) (2012), regardless of whether a violator merely aided or abetted in the asportation of property stolen by a principal.”

PANEL: BIA Appellate Immigration Judges Pauley, Guendelsberger, Malphrus

OPINION BY: Judge Pauley

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PWS

09-12-17

THE GIBSON REPORT — 09-11-17

The Gibson Report, 09-11-17

TOP UPDATES

DACA
· Memorandum on Rescission Of Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
· Overview of proposed legislation to replace DACA
· Litigation: AGs, Make the Road, University of California
· ILRC DACA Info Sheets
· DACA renewal loan fund
· Wellness: NYC WELL is a free and confidential resource that is available regardless of immigration status, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and in 200 languages – regardless of your immigration status. Dial 1-888-NYC-WELL, text WELL to 65173 or chat with a counselor online at nyc.gov/NYCWELL.
· Removal: DHS is already moving to recalendar DACA cases. Argue that this is premature and a waste of judicial resources.
· See Resources below for more.

DA Election for Kings County
Primaries tomorrow (Tuesday) include selecting a new DA. Medium has a breakdown of the candidates’ stances on immigration and broken windows policies.

Operation Mega
After word leaked that ICE was planning to target 6,000 to 10,000 immigrants in raids Sept. 17-22, ICE announced it was rescheduling the raids due to hurricanes. However, this does not mean there won’t necessarily be any raids. ICE Statement Regarding Questions on Enforcement Planning.

Bill bars transfer of PRM from State to DHS
FP: “In a stark repudiation of the Trump administration, lawmakers on Thursday passed a spending bill that overturned the president’s steep proposed cuts to foreign aid and diplomacy. Folded into the bill are management amendments that straitjacket some of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s efforts to redesign the State Department.”

US Justice Department Set to Appeal Ninth Circuit Travel Ban Ruling to Supreme Court
VOA: “According to a Justice Department official, the agency plans to ask the high court to weigh in on an appeals court ruling that says grandparents and cousins are close enough relatives to constitute an exemption from the Trump administration’s travel order. The court also said that refugees accepted by a resettlement agency should be allowed to travel to the United States.”

OIL filed a petition for panel rehearing in Harbin v. Sessions
IDP: I’m sad to report that OIL filed a petition for panel rehearing in Harbin v. Sessions. IDP and Legal Aid are working with Mr. Harbin’s lawyers on plans moving forward. Hopefully the panel will stick to its guns and deny the government’s request. And quickly.

CALLS TO ACTION

Call Congress to Pass the Dream Act (S. 1615/H.R. 3440)
Call your Congress members and urge them to pass the Dream Act, a bipartisan bill that would provide Dreamers a chance to adjust their immigration status, if they meet certain requirements. If Congress fails to act, 800,000 Dreamers who were protected by DACA will be at risk of being deported.
AILA Doc. No. 17090533

DACA Fee Donations Outside NYC
New York has several resources for assisting DACA recipients with renewal fees. Consider donating to organizations outside New York where the need may be greater. RAICES DACA fund.

Detention of UACs
NYLCU: Reaching out to the listserv to see if anyone has heard of any UACs that have been re-detained & placed in either secure facilities or at the non-secure Dobb’s Ferry facility in Westchester. NYCLU has heard reports that kids are being held with no good reason and we are doing some work around this issue. We’re hoping to speak to some kids or their parents, preferably at Dobb’s Ferry! Feel free to forward if you know folks who do a lot of UAC work or to other listservs! Please send any sensitive info to my work email, pgarciasalazar@nyclu.org.

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I see the DOJ just won’t quit on some of its positions that have been rejected by the Article IIIs on review. Hopefully, the Sessions’ DOJ will wear out its welcome and further tank its credibility with the Article IIIs.

PWS

09-11-17

THE ECONOMY: What America REALLY Needs: More Legal Workers, No More “Gonzo” Immigration Enforcement — More Immigrant Workers Needed To Save Our Economy — And They Don’t Have To Be Rocket Scientists & PhDs: Construction & Service Industries That Support US Economy Need “Entry Level” Workers!

http://host.madison.com/wsj/business/wisconsin-businesses-grapple-with-a-growing-worker-shortage/article_3ef1000e-c18b-5f72-bbcd-720ee2456111.html#utm_source=host.madison.com&utm_campaign=%2Femail%2F&utm_medium=email&utm_content=26CD42536544E247751EC74095D9CEDC67E77EDB

The Wisconsin State Journal (Madison) reports:

A Madison restaurant has raised pay for entry-level chefs in recent years more than 50 percent to $14 an hour, but still closes on Sunday evenings — not because of a lack of customers, but because workers are scarce.

Those and countless other stories across Wisconsin are symptoms of a growing worker shortage that is expected to worsen over the next decade, according to Wisconsin State Journal interviews with dozens of employers, economists, advocacy group experts and state political and economic development officials.

“We are right at the brink of the crisis,” said Ann Franz, director of the Northeast Wisconsin Manufacturing Alliance in Green Bay. “There just aren’t enough human beings in Wisconsin with baby boomers retiring. Just driving down the road there are constantly signs hiring. I’ve seen them on billboards: ‘Come to our car dealership and buy our car. Come so we can give you a job.'”

Employers from a broad range of industries are reporting difficulty finding workers — and not only for skilled professionals such as nurses, welders and computer programmers, who require a strong education and training system, but also for workers with a high school diploma and some additional training at restaurants, farms, construction sites, factories, senior care facilities, retailers and other businesses.

“I would call it Wisconsin’s mega-issue,” said Kurt Bauer, president of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s largest business group, which recently found 77 percent of members surveyed had difficulty finding workers, up from 53 percent two years ago. “All other issues, they may be important, but they are subordinate to workforce.”

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Read the rest of the article at the link.

In this context, terminating DACA, thereby depriving existing productive American workers of work authorization, is not only cruel, but also crazy. And supporting the RAISE Act — specifically designed by White Nationalist restrictionists to lower legal immigration while limiting the remaining opportunities largely to White, English speaking individuals with college degrees — is simply insane.

Legal immigration is good for America in many ways (beyond the economy) and we need more, not less, of it. Indeed, had we developed a more rational and realistic legal immigration system, most of the Dreamers and their families would have been admitted in an orderly fashion under the legal system years ago.

Guys like Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions who worked as an effective legislative minority to block sensible immigration reform through parliamentary maneuvers, are now falsely claiming that deportations, “gonzo” arbitrary enforcement, and a reign of terror are the only solutions to a fake crisis that they largely created.

But, in fact, there is no crisis. Most of the 11 million migrants here without documentation are working hard, in jobs we need, part of American families, English speaking or learning English, and fitting well into American communities. Indeed, they are far less disruptive to society than are ICE’s arbitrary and fear spresding enforcement policies. That’s certainly the case here in Alexandria and Northern Virginia. And even more of them would pay taxes if we simply made it easy for them by granting legal status.

The relatively small minority of undocumented migrants who are engaging in anti-social behavior can be identified and removed with some reasonable readjustment of existing resources. For example, more money allocated to the U.S. Immigration Courts, training, technology, community-based policing, and focused “smart”enforcement instead of wasteful and inhumane detention, unfocused arbitrary enforcement, unneeded walls, and filling prisons with minor immigration violators. ICE prosecutors should be authorized and encouraged to use their discretion to prioritize their Immigration Court dockets with a focus on due process and bettering society while recognizing that judicial time will always be both precious and limited.

The current scare tactics and dire, but false, scenarios being pushed by the Trump Administration will neither aid our economy nor serve America’s real needs. They would make us both less safe and less great as a nation.

PWS

09-10-17

SURPRISE! – GONZO LIES: “2017 is on pace for the second-lowest crime rate since 1990 — and near-record low murders” — Sessions Fabricates “Crime Wave” To Support White Nationalist Anti-Hispanic, Anti-Black Political Narrative! –“It’s irresponsible to incite public panic based on falsehoods, and it makes our police officers’ jobs harder.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/09/06/2017-is-on-pace-to-have-the-second-lowest-crime-rate-since-1990-and-near-record-low-murders/?utm_term=.d5c197d6052e

Philip Bump reports in the Washington Post:

“At his swearing-in as the nation’s top law enforcement official in February, Attorney General Jeff Sessions picked up a thread that had run throughout Donald Trump’s campaign for president: America is experiencing an alarming crime wave.

“We have a crime problem,” Sessions said. “I wish the rise that we are seeing in crime in America today were some sort of aberration or a blip. My best judgment, having been involved in criminal law enforcement for many years, is that this is a dangerous, permanent trend that places the health and safety of the American people at risk.”

Preliminary analysis of crime data from the nation’s 30 largest cities released by the Brennan Center for Justice on Wednesday suggests that it isn’t. According to the center’s overview of crime and murder data, 2017 is on pace to have the second-lowest violent crime rate of any year since 1990.

From the report:

The overall crime rate is projected to drop by 1.8 percent to the second-lowest point since 1990.
The violent crime rate is projected to fall by 0.6 percent, also to the second-lowest point in over 25 years. (The lowest rate was in 2014.) “This result,” the report’s authors write, “is driven primarily by stabilization in Chicago and declines in Washington, D.C., two large cities that experienced increases in violence in recent years.”
The murder rate is projected to be down 2.5 percent, on-par with the rate in 2009.

Explore the center’s data for each of the country’s largest cities.

While there was indeed a national uptick in violent crime and murder during 2015 and 2016, one of the underrecognized drivers of those shifts was the sharp increase in killings in two cities, Chicago and Baltimore, which combined made up more than half of the increase in murders in large cities from 2014 to 2017. This year, the number of murders in Chicago alone is expected to drop 2.4 percent. But it’s declines in New York, Houston and Detroit that are driving the overall decrease.

Inimai Chettiar, director of the justice program at the center, told The Post that the analysis suggested two things.

“First, the long-term trend toward safer cities isn’t going anywhere,” Chettiar said over email. “The evidence conclusively shows there is currently no national crime wave. Second, short-term fluctuations in crime are often driven by local factors.”

There are several cities that reinforce that point. The murder rate in Charlotte, doubled over the first half of 2017, for example, even as it fell sharply in other places.

Chettiar addressed Sessions’s concerns directly.

“Our data leads us to believe that the upticks in 2015 and 2016 were likely short-term fluctuations,” she wrote, noting that “not enough research has been done to identify the exact catalyst.”

The center, which is a part of the New York University School of Law, shared its report with Ronal Serpas, a former New Orleans police superintendent who now co-chairs an organization focused on reducing incarceration rates.

“In contrast to what we have been hearing from the president and attorney general, this new data from police departments shows that all measures of crime and murder are in decline this year,” Serpas said in a statement provided to The Post. “It’s irresponsible to incite public panic based on falsehoods, and it makes our police officers’ jobs harder.” Both Serpas and Chettiar noted that in places where violent crime had increased the Trump administration’s focus was best placed on that crime — as opposed to immigration violations, for example.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions stands waiting during a meeting with the Fraternal Order of Police in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in March. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

As the Trump campaign and then the Trump presidency cited localized increases as examples of the crime threat that Trump pledged to solve, independent observers frequently noted that, despite the uptick in crime in recent years, overall levels were still near recent lows following the sharp drop of the last 20 years. The Brennan Center’s analysis suggests that this trend will continue, leading the administration to a no-doubt vexing problem:

Is it too soon to claim credit?

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

I’ve noted many times before that Session’s disingenuous, xenophobic, White Nationalist focus on immigration enforcement actually makes the country less safe from crime. This report confirms that.

Moreover, with his “morbid fixation” on spreading a false narrative on immigration, Sessions has abandoned the real law enforcement functions of the DOJ, particularly in the areas of civil rights, voting rights, police brutality, prison reform, protection of the LGBTQ community, right-wing hate groups, domestic violence, and effectively combatting gangs, drug cartels, and human traffickers. As I’ve noted before, the latter three groups have been energized and empowered by Sessions’s focus on janitors, maids, gardeners, Dreamers and other “collaterals” — even dissing legal immigrants ands implicitly U.S. citizens of ethnic and immigrant heritage — rather than working on nuanced solutions to real law enforcement problems. By sowing unnecessary fear, mistrust, and terror among law-abiding productive members of migrant communities, he has basically “green-lighted” them as targets for crime, domestic violence, sexual exploitation, and gang recruitment. Ironically, this is a scenario I heard many times from individuals seeking refuge from third world countries: “I can’t go to the police because they won’t help and might even abuse or arrest me with impunity.”

Sessions is destroying the hard work of of community policing in ethnic communities in many cities throughout the U.S. One reason that many jurisdictions abandoned the “Safe Communities” program pushed by the Obama Administration is because they found it was a misnomer: busting undocumented workers and minor offenders actually did not make communities “safer.” Rather than learning from history, Sessions is doubling down on past failures. “Irresponsible” might be too kind a word to describe the Trump-Sessions White Nationalist legal agenda.

PWS

09-09-17

GONZO’S LATEST TARGET: LGBTQ Americans — DO”J” Gratuitously Files “Embarrassing” Brief With Supremes SUPPORTING Homophobia: “politicized bigotry dressed up in inane legalese!”

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/09/doj_s_cynical_embarrassing_brief_in_the_supreme_court_s_anti_gay_baker_case.html

Mark Joseph Stern reports in Slate:

“On Thursday afternoon, the Department of Justice filed an amicus brief in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Civil Rights Commission, a constitutional challenge to LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws. The DOJ urged the Supreme Court to rule that laws barring businesses from refusing to serve gay couples may violate the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee. Its brief is an exercise in cynical dishonesty, one that’s difficult to read as anything less than politicized bigotry dressed up in inane legalese.

. . . .

Even worse, the brief does not explain why homophobia deserves special respect under the law. The Supreme Court has said that homosexuality is immutable, like race. Why, then, should animus toward same-sex couples be treated differently from animus toward interracial couples? And what about religious bigotry? Can a devout baker refuse to sell a cake to an interfaith couple, and can an atheist one say a Christian can’t buy cupcakes for a christening? Can a sexist baker refuse to serve a female customer? What if his misogyny is derived from religion? And why stop at a cake? Shouldn’t the preparation of other foods qualify as expressive conduct, too? Doesn’t every good or service involve some measure of expressive conduct or association that the First Amendment could theoretically protect?

In its brief, the DOJ implicitly raises all of these questions without answering them because it can’t answer them—not honestly, at least. The reality is that the courts cannot, with any logical coherence or consistency, deny civil rights protections to some groups but not others. Either nondiscrimination law are constitutional or they aren’t. The First Amendment does not grant greater rights to homophobic bakers than racist or sexist ones. Plenty of bigoted business owners wish they could assert a constitutional privilege not to associate with specific groups. If the courts open the door to one, they’ll open the door to all. Shopkeepers do not have a special right to turn away gays from their stores.

The brief strives to avoid this problem because it is, at bottom, a political document. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently gave a speech to ADF thanking the organization for its “important work” defending “religious liberty.” Through Sessions, President Trump is discharging his obligation to appease the bigots in his base. The DOJ’s efforts, however, may prove counterproductive. This brief will delight the court’s reactionaries who favor religious supremacy and disdain gay rights. But it can only estrange Kennedy—who notably, has allowed an LGBTQ nondiscrimination policy to trump a First Amendment claim in the past. Kennedy is always eager to protect the “equal dignity” of same-sex couples; the DOJ now seeks to undermine it. The Trump administration might score political points with this brief, but it won’t win enough votes at the court.

One more thing
The Trump administration poses a unique threat to the rule of law. That’s why Slate has stepped up our legal coverage—watchdogging Jeff Sessions’ Justice Department, the Supreme Court, the crackdown on voting rights, and more.”

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

Under Sessions, the Department of Justice has become purveyor of racism, bigotry, hate, voter suppression, xenophobia, White Nationalism, homophobia, and some incredibly bad and intellectually dishonest lawyering. Gonzo is a disgrace to his position and an insult to American justice. Liz was right. And let’s not forget how she was treated by the GOP when she tried to speak truth about Sessions in the Senate!

PWS

09-08-17

PETULA DVORAK IN WASHPOST: DISHONEST LEADERS SOW “FALSE FEARS” WHILE IGNORING REAL THREATS!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/what-happens-when-a-presidency-runs-on-fakefears-real-fears-are-ignored/2017/09/07/83ead004-93d1-11e7-8754-d478688d23b4_story.html

Dvorak writes:

Fake fear is our new leader.

Washington’s new ruling class is not governing with compassion, common sense, measured research, knowledge of history or the future. Theirs is a doctrine of fake fears. And these same people also have a problem with things we should actually be afraid of.

Let me explain.

Fake Fear: The “bad hombres” President Donald Trump talked about during the campaign last year begot this week’s DACA repeal thing. Trump wants us to be afraid of these immigrants, and he’s ready to trash the lives of more than 800,000 Americans looking for a path to legal residency by killing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The truth is that these immigrants, brought here as children by their parents, “have lower incarceration rates than native-born Americans of the same age and education level,” according to a report issued last week by the nonpartisan CATO Institute.

Real Fear: Hurricanes. You know them — from Katrina to Harvey to Irma — millions of people and billions of dollars tell you hurricanes devastate lives, cities and industries.

But Trump refuses to fear them. Earlier this year, he proposed a budget that slashed about $667 million for the disaster preparedness programs run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That budget also proposed $6 billion in cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which helps rebuild homes and hospitals.

The fake fear administration also killed a post-Katrina rule requiring building projects eligible for federal funding to take such measures as elevating structures in flood zones away from the reach of rising water before they get government cash. And they did this just in time for hurricane season.

But hey, the $108 billion in damage and the 1,800 lives lost in Hurricane Katrina must not mean much when it your moral compass is fake fear.

Fake fear: The apparent crime wave that Attorney General Jeff Sessions keeps warning Americans about.

“We have a crime problem,” Sessions said in February. “I wish the rise that we are seeing in crime in America today were some sort of aberration or a blip. My best judgment, having been involved in criminal law enforcement for many years, is that this is a dangerous, permanent trend that places the health and safety of the American people at risk.”

But the facts say otherwise.

This year is on pace to have the second-lowest violent crime rate of any year since 1990, according to a report by the Brennan Center for Justice this week that analyzed statistics from the nation’s 30 largest cities.

Real fear: Though we’ve seen more and more horrifying videos of civilians being shot by police officers, we still have little comprehensive data that shows how often this happens and how agencies can prevent these tragedies.

“What we really need to know is how many times police shoot people, not just how many of those people die,” David A. Klinger, a criminal justice professor at the University of Missouri in St. Louis who studies police use of force, told The Washington Post earlier this summer.

The Post began compiling this information in 2015, relying on local news, social media and our own reporting.

This is a real fear for real people. This is true whether you’re a black man, such as beloved cafeteria worker Philando Castile, who was doing nothing wrong when he was killed in Minnesota last year by a nervous police officer. And it’s true if you’re a white woman, like nurse Alex Wubbels, who was seen in a viral video last week being roughed up and arrested by a Utah detective for simply doing her job. The fake fear people seem to have little interest in addressing this problem.

The FBI’s weak, self-reporting system that has been the only way to track this was called “embarrassing and ridiculous” by fired FBI director James B. Comey.

Fake fear: Muslims in America. Trump’s attempts at a travel ban, fulfilling his campaign promise of a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” have reinforced a growing and misplaced Islamophobia throughout our country. We’ve seen the fake-fear sentiment in workplaces, in small-town councils trying to mess with mosques that have been peaceful and unnoticed for years, and I even saw it one of my sons’ sports teams this summer.

The truth is, from 2008 to 2016, right-wing extremists carried out twice as many terrorist attacks on U.S. soil than Islamist extremists, according to a recent report from The Nation Institute’s Investigative Fund and The Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal.

Real Fear: White supremacists in America. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a joint intelligence bulletin that said white supremacists “were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016 … more than any other domestic extremist movement.”

They issued this statement just a couple months before the protests in Charlottesville, where an avowed Nazi sympathizer was arrested after a car drove into a crowd, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. There is no mistaking that was real.

We deserve real care and real concern from our leaders when it comes to real fears. There’s no shortage of them.

Let’s start by calling out #FakeFears when we see them. Washington is full of those these days, too.

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

Dvorak succinctly captures what White Nationalist governance and propaganda is all about: fear, loathing, lies. Too cowardly to address real problems because that might offend the “White Nationalist base” that put and keeps them in power.

PWS

09-08-17

3RD CIR REAFFIRMS THAT 18 USC 16(B) “CRIME OF VIOLENCE” AS INCORPORATED INTO THE INA IS UNCONSTITUTIONALLY VAGUE: Mateo v. Attorney General — Supremes Remain MIA

151160p

Before: McKEE, JORDAN, and VANASKIE, Circuit Judges.

OPINION BY: JUDGE VANASKIE

KEY QUOTE:

“The petitioner in Baptiste, like Mateo, faced removal on the basis of his purported status as an alien convicted of a crime of violence under § 16(b). As stated previously, § 16(b) defines a crime of violence as “any other offense that is a felony and that, by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.” In order to determine whether the crime of conviction is a crime of violence under § 16(b), courts utilize the same categorical approach that was applied to the ACCA’s residual clause. Baptiste, 841 F.3d at 617. The petitioner in Baptiste argued that the Supreme Court’s holding in Johnson striking down the residual clause should apply to negate § 16(b). After comparing the features of the § 16(b) analysis to those found to contribute to the unconstitutionality of the residual clause in Johnson, we agreed that the same defects were present in § 16(b), rendering the provision unconstitutional. Regarding the first feature, we recognized that the same “ordinary case inquiry” is used when applying the categorical approach in both contexts. Id. Like the residual clause, § 16(b) “offers no reliable way to choose between . . . competing accounts of what” that “judge- imagined abstraction” of the crime involves. Johnson, 135 S.Ct. at 2558. Thus, we concluded in Baptiste that “the ordinary case inquiry is as indeterminate in the § 16(b) context as it was in the residual clause context.” 841 F.3d at 617. Turning to the second feature—the risk inquiry—we observed that despite slight linguistic differences between the provisions, the same indeterminacy inherent in the residual clause was present in § 16(b). Id. “[B]ecause the two inquiries under the residual clause that the Supreme Court found to be indeterminate—the ordinary case inquiry and the serious potential risk inquiry—are materially the same as the inquiries under § 16(b),” we concluded that “§ 16(b) is unconstitutionally vague.” Id. at 621. This conclusion applies equally to Mateo’s petition. Our treatment of § 16(b) is in step with the Sixth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits, which have all similarly deemed the provision to be void for vagueness in immigration cases. See Shuti, 828 F.3d at 451; Dimaya, 803 F.3d at 1120; Golicov v. Lynch, 837 F.3d 1065, 1072 (10th Cir. 2016). The Seventh Circuit has also taken this position in the criminal context. See United States v. Vivas-Ceja, 808 F.3d 719, 723 (7th Cir. 2015). In fact, the only circuit that has broken stride is the Fifth Circuit.7 See United States v. Gonzalez-Longoria, 831 F.3d 670, 677 (5th Cir. 2016) (en banc). In the meantime, we await the Supreme Court’s decision in the appeal of Dimaya.”

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

The Dimaya case before the Supremes (again) should be a good test of whether newest Justice Gorsuch will adhere to his strict constructionist principles where they will produce a favorable result for a migrant under the immigration laws.

The Johnson case, relied on by the Third Circuit, was written by none other than the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a leading strict constructionist and conservative judicial icon, who nevertheless found that his path sometimes assisted migrants in avoiding removal. So, on paper, this should be a “no brainer” for Justice Gorsuch, who has also been critical of some of the BIA’s “Chevron overreach” and non-responsiveness to Article III Courts.

PWS

09-07-17

IN THE LAWLESS REGIME OF TRUMP & SESSIONS, “RULE OF LAW” REFERS MOSTLY TO LAWS AIMED AT MINORITIES — REGIME PARDONS CONTEMPTOUS, RACIST SCOFFLAW “SHERIFF JOE,” MOCKS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTIONS, DISREGARDS ETHICS RULES, UNDERMINES HEALTHCARE LAWS, INSULTS FEDERAL JUDGES, TRIES TO INFLUENCE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS OF BUDDIES, IGNORES POLICE MISCONDUCT, & DITCHES PROTECTIONS FOR INNOCENT DEFENDANTS, WHILE THREATENING TO STRIP LAW ABIDING DREAMERS OF LEGAL PROTECTIONS!

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/09/the_law_is_just_a_smokescreen_for_trump_ending_daca.html

Jamelle Bouie writes in Slate:

“When President Trump pardoned former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio—then under contempt of court for bucking a federal injunction—he defended the action as necessary for the preservation of law and order. Lawmakers and advocacy groups expressed outrage, and for good reason. Arpaio hadn’t been a force for either law or order. Throughout his career, he repeatedly and flagrantly violated the constitutional rights of the men and women in his jails, to say nothing of his racial profiling, measures that consumed resources at the expense of actual crime in his community. Celebrated for his cruelty, Arpaio embodied a homegrown authoritarianism defined by its racism. And in shielding the Arizona sheriff from the legal consequences of his actions, Trump undermined actual rule of law, subjecting it to his whims and prejudices.

It was ironic, then, to see the president cite the rule of law in criticizing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era executive decree that shielded unauthorized immigrants who had come as children from deportation provided they paid a fee, met certain requirements, and registered with the government. Announced in 2012, almost two years after a successful Republican filibuster of legislation that would have the same effect, the consensus among legal scholars is that the action was legal. But President Trump disagrees. “As President, my highest duty to defend the American people and the Constitution of the United States of America,” he said in an official statement. “At the same time, I do not favor punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognize that we are [a] nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws.”

His attorney general, Jeff Sessions, echoed Trump’s concerns in announcing the end of DACA. “No greater good can be done for the overall health and well-being of our republic, than preserving and strengthening the impartial rule of law,” said Sessions. “To have a lawful system of immigration that serves the national interest, we cannot admit everyone who would like to come here.”

But both odes to the rule of law are difficult to square with the rationale for the Arpaio pardon, even if the pardon was clearly permissible under the president’s broad powers. The former sheriff didn’t just break the law: He violated the constitutional rights of American citizens and disobeyed a court order to cease that conduct. A president seriously concerned with rule of law would not claim Arpaio as an ally (as Trump did) much less pardon him of his offenses.

The natural explanation for this inconsistency is that “rule of law” is a smokescreen meant to obscure the actual reason for ending DACA. That reason is Trump’s own nativism—a driving force of his campaign for president, reflected in the cultural and racial anxiety of his voters—and the anti-immigrant ideologies of key advisers like Sessions and Stephen Miller (who was mentored by Sessions in the Senate). Both men hold deeply nativist worldviews and highly restrictionist agendas for immigration, with the goal of limiting and removing as many immigrants as possible, and creating an inhospitable environment for those who remain.

“Law and order” is just a smokescreen for exclusion.
The official statements from Sessions and the White House illustrate those views. The attorney general, for example, stated that DACA—which he called an “open-ended circumvention of immigration laws”—denied jobs to “hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens,” a claim with no basis in fact but in the myth that immigrants take jobs from Americans. Later, Sessions declares that the failure to enforce immigration laws puts “our nation at risk of crime, violence and even terrorism.” This may be true in the general sense, but it has no relevance to the actual policy in question, which deals with those undocumented immigrants who came to the United States through no act of their own, and who seek to live and work in peace. The statement simply serves to associate immigrants with crime and disorder.

The White House statement is even more reliant on anti-immigrant myths. Trump says that DACA contributed to a “massive surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America” that included “young people who would become members of violent gangs throughout our country, such as MS-13.” This, my colleague Mark Joseph Stern finds, is simply false, an allegation “touted by far-right xenophobes.” Later, the president—like Sessions—connects DACA to a “decades-long failure” to enforce immigration law that has led to “the illicit entry of dangerous drugs and criminal cartels” in addition to other ills. Again, there’s little to support this claim other than familiar anti-immigrant tropes.”

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

Read the entire article at the link.

Any time you hear a xenophobic modern day “Jim Crow” like Sessions mention the “rule of law” (which I guess doesn’t apply to sworn testimony before Congress), it’s time to reach for the barf bag (because, according to the law of Sessions, laughing is unlawful). It’s usually followed by some false anti-some-minority narrative read off cue cards written by nativists, Breitbart news, or Stephen Miller (as if there were a distinction).

PWS

09-07-17

BIA SHOWS AGAIN HOW YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE CONVICTED TO BE “CONVICTED” UNDER THE INA: Matter of Mohamed, 27 I&N Dec. 92 (BIA 2017)

3900

BIA HEADNOTE:

“Entry into a pretrial intervention agreement under Texas law qualifies as a “conviction” for immigration purposes under section 101(a)(48)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(48)(A) (2012), where (1) a respondent admits sufficient facts to warrant a finding of guilt at the time of his entry into the agreement, and (2) a judge authorizes an agreement ordering the respondent to participate in a pretrial intervention program, under which he is required to complete community supervision and community service, pay fees and restitution, and comply with a no-contact order.”

PANEL: BIA APPELLATE IMMIGRATION JUDGES GRANT, PAULEY, MANN

OPINION BY: JUDGE GRANT

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

Under the INA state criminal proceedings cannot be “relitigated” in U.S. Immigration Court. States go to great lengths to relieve certain first or minor offenders of the legal consequences of a conviction. But, at that point, the INA ditches out state determinations and imposes its own broad definition of “conviction.” Rule: Whatever is necessary to screw the migrant!

PWS

09-07-17

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