"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Ethics Prohibited Beyond This Point! “The naked self-interest was so rampant that Trump’s West Wing could be considered a nudist colony where decency was shed instead of clothing.” CREATIVE COMMONS.
Documents seized from Donald Trump’s Florida home (credit: Department of Justice)
Sometimes we write a lot of words on Steady. Today will be an exception. Because for all that there is to say, for all that needs to be said, for all that an accounting for history requires we say, the general sentiments are quite simple:
They knew. They all knew.
It was clear to anyone who had an ounce of appreciation for what the job of the presidency entails, to anyone who respected the constitutional order of our government, to anyone who worried about the health and safety of this nation, to anyone with a moral compass, to anyone who prizes the common sense of purpose that great leaders can summon, that Donald J. Trump had no business anywhere near the presidency.
Now, as he melts down in the face of a serious criminal investigation, as we see pictures of how he stored classified material and his utter disregard for our nation’s most sensitive secrets, as we are left to wonder what he was up to and what damage was done, we should recognize that we would not be where we are today without his enablers, apologists, and hangers-on.
They heralded his outrageousness in a chorus of sycophancy.
They feted his vileness.
They viciously attacked those who pointed out the obvious, that Trump was mentally, emotionally, intellectually, morally, and constitutionally unfit for his office.
And who are they? They are the Republican politicians, the so-called serious ones who expressed their concerns in private even as they used Trump to achieve their desired tax cuts and judges. They are the members of his administration — senior and junior — who jockeyed to maximize their career benefit at the expense of doing the necessary work for the American people. They are the lawyers who twisted themselves into pretzels to try to legalize his inherent lawlessness. They are the media personalities who saw Trump as a printing press for their accrual of wealth and power. They are the capitalists who put corporate earnings ahead of the well-being of the nation.
While Trump’s voters were primed with a toxic stew of hatred, bigotry, and divisiveness, the small cabal playing the inside game didn’t bother with the MAGA hats. They were too busy trading access for favors. The naked self-interest was so rampant that Trump’s West Wing could be considered a nudist colony where decency was shed instead of clothing.
But make no mistake…
In their cowardice, they knew.
In their cynicism, they knew.
In their contempt, they knew.
In their rationalizations, they knew.
In their acquittals of his conduct, even for impeachment, they knew.
They knew when they could have stopped him — before he became president, and once he was president.
But they didn’t stop him. And with their inaction, they encouraged him.
As the Trump bubble begins to pop, all these people who knew what he was all along will likely scurry like cockroaches when the lights go on. They will make all sorts of excuses for their complicity. They will gaslight, lie, and try to rewrite history. You can already see it in many of their so-called tell-all books. Except what they are telling is only the story they want people to hear. It is not the truth.
The truth is that they don’t dare say what we all know. They knew.
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Throughout history, despots and would-be despots have surrounded themselves with motley crews of sycophants, toadies, and retainers. Trump has excelled at it!
Trump has brought impunity to the highest office in the land, wielding a wrecking ball to the most precious windowpane of all – American democracy.
The message? A president can obstruct special counsels’ investigations of his wrongdoing, push foreign officials to dig up dirt on political rivals, fire inspectors general who find corruption, order the entire executive branch to refuse congressional subpoenas, flood the Internet with fake information about his opponents, refuse to release his tax returns, accuse the press of being “fake media” and “enemies of the people”, and make money off his presidency.
And he can get away with it. Almost half of the electorate will even vote for his reelection.
A president can also lie about the results of an election without a shred of evidence – and yet, according to polls, be believed by the vast majority of those who voted for him.
Trump’s recent pardons have broken double-pane windows.
Not only has he shattered the norm for presidential pardons – usually granted because of a petitioner’s good conduct after conviction and service of sentence – but he’s pardoned people who themselves shattered windows. By pardoning them, he has rendered them unaccountable for their acts.
They include aides convicted of lying to the FBI and threatening potential witnesses in order to protect him; his son-in-law’s father, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion, witness tampering, illegal campaign contributions, and lying to the Federal Election Commission; Blackwater security guards convicted of murdering Iraqi civilians, including women and children; Border Patrol agents convicted of assaulting or shooting unarmed suspects; and Republican lawmakers and their aides found guilty of fraud, obstruction of justice and campaign finance violations.
It’s not simply the size of the broken window that undermines standards, according to Wilson and Kelling. It’s the willingness of society to look the other way. If no one is held accountable, norms collapse.
Trump may face a barrage of lawsuits when he leaves office, possibly including criminal charges. But it’s unlikely he’ll go to jail. Presidential immunity or a self-pardon will protect him. Prosecutorial discretion would almost certainly argue against indictment, in any event. No former president has ever been convicted of a crime. The mere possibility of a criminal trial for Trump would ignite a partisan brawl across the nation.
Congress may try to limit the power of future presidents – strengthening congressional oversight, fortifying the independence of inspectors general, demanding more financial disclosure, increasing penalties on presidential aides who break laws, restricting the pardon process, and so on.
But Congress – a co-equal branch of government under the Constitution – cannot rein in rogue presidents. And the courts don’t want to weigh in on political questions.
The appalling reality is that Trump may get away with it. And in getting away with it he will have changed and degraded the norms governing American presidents. The giant windows he’s broken are invitations to a future president to break even more.
Nothing will correct this unless or until an overwhelming majority of Americans recognize and condemn what has occurred.
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Read Reich’s full article at the link.
As I have mentioned, the lack of accountability could be a problem for the Biden-Harris Administration. And, 74 million voters who pulled the lever for an overtly corrupt, anti-American, racist, clown is an even bigger obstacle to the future of our nation.
On the other hand, although he was a “minority President” from the git go, Trump had nothing but contempt for the majority of us who didn’t favor his maliciously incompetent and divisive policies; he completely disregarded both truth and the common good.
Biden and Harris start with something that Trump never had — the support of a clear majority of 7 million plus voters. So, if they govern wisely, humanely, and in the public interest they could succeed in saving our nation from the 74 million who joined Trump’s war against American democracy. And despite their short-signtedness and intransigence, the 74 million and their families in Trumpland will get the benefits of better government in the public interest. Sometimes, you have to save folks in spite of themselves.
If the policies of decency, honesty, courage, and governing in the public interest work, it could create a longer-term governing majority. If not, it will still be worth a shot at saving our democracy. Another Administration of Trump and his minority minions would be the end of our democracy anyway —the majority of us have little to lose by giving it our best shot with the Biden Harris Team!
The bipartisan compromise was considered a done deal and won sweeping approval in the House and Senate after the White House assured GOP leaders that Trump supported it.
If he refuses to sign the deal, which is attached to a $1.4-trillion government funding bill, it will force a federal government shutdown, in addition to delaying aid checks and halting unemployment benefits and eviction protections in the most dire stretch of the pandemic.
“Made many calls and had meetings at Trump International in Palm Beach, Florida. Why would politicians not want to give people $2000, rather than only $600?” he tweeted after leaving the golf course Friday afternoon. “It wasn’t their fault, it was China. Give our people the money!”
Trump’s attack on the bill has been seen, at least in part, as punishment for what he considers insufficient backing by congressional Republicans for his push to overturn the Nov. 3 election results with unfounded claims of fraud.
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Read the full article at the link.
Of course it’s not about China; it’s about the worst President in history and his totally worthless party of sycophants, bigots, and anti-American “situational skinflints.”
Plenty of public funding for tax breaks, unneeded walls, environmental destruction, and abusive “law enforcement.” Not so much for American workers, small businesses, essential workers, teachers, civil servants, and others struggling to survive during the crisis unnecessarily deepened by the “malicious incompetence” of the “Evil Clown Prez”🤡🦹🏿♂️ and his anti-democracy party.
BTW, is Lindsay “Scumbag” Graham 🤮going for the title of “third worst human on the public dole” — right behind the “ECP”🤡🦹🏿♂️ & the Grauleiter☠️?
26 days and counting to the end of the kakistocracy🏴☠️!
BY DEVLIN BARRETT AND MATT ZAPOTOSKY report for WashPost:
Attorney General William P. Barr delivered a scathing critique of his own Justice Department Wednesday night, insisting on his absolute authority to overrule career staff, whom he said too often injected themselves into politics and went “headhunting” for high profile targets.
Speaking at an event hosted by Hillsdale College, a school with deep ties to conservative politics, Barr directly addressed the criticism that has been building for months inside the department toward his heavy hand in politically sensitive cases, particularly those involving associates of President Trump.
“What exactly am I interfering with?” he asked. “Under the law, all prosecutorial power is invested in the attorney general.”
Barr’s comments were remarkable, in that the head of the Justice Department catalogued all of the ways in which he thought his agency had gone astray over the years, and in its current formulation harms the body politic. Barr has drawn considerable criticism for intervening in criminal cases in ways that help benefit the president’s friends.
Barr said it was he, not career officials, who have the ultimate authority to decide how cases should be handled, and derided less-experienced, less-senior bureaucrats who current and former prosecutors have long insisted should be left to handle their cases free from interference from political appointees.
Barr said that argument, in essence, means “the will of the most junior member of the organization” would make decisions, but he insisted he would not “blindly” defer to “whatever those subordinates want to do.”
“Letting the most junior members set the agenda might be a good philosophy for a Montessori preschool, but it is no way to run a federal agency,” Barr said.
The attorney general, the nation’s top law enforcement official, spent much of the speech eviscerating the idea of the Justice Department as a place where nonpolitical career prosecutors should be left to decide how sensitive cases are resolved.
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Read the rest of the article at the link.
I’m sure this does wonders for morale at the DOJ! But, demoralizing all the career lawyers and pushing them out the door appears to be part of the program. After all, the regime initially tried to “buy out” the holdover members of the BIA. Morale at the Immigration “Courts” is already at an all-time low!
Career civil servants at the DOJ and elsewhere actually work for the people of the U.S., not personally for Billy, other political appointees, or the President. Government employees take an oath to uphold the Constitution, not of loyalty to the President, the AG, or any other political official.
Billy clearly has been running the Immigration “Courts” as a politically weaponized part of the regime’s White Nationalist, authoritarian, race-driven immigration enforcement agenda. Funny how long it has taken the overall legal community to see that Barr basically considers the entire legal system, including the Article III Courts, as just as subservient as the Immigration “Courts.” And, to date, the Supremes have done little to discourage that view.
He is carrying out a personal agenda of replacing representative democracy with an authoritarian state where everybody and everything is subservient to an all-powerful totally unconstitutional “Unitary Executive” (actually a bogus right-wing “invented concept” with no actual legitimate basis in American political history, as cogently “debunked” by Ayer in his podcast). That certainly makes him one of the two most dangerous men in America!
Billy did say one thing I agree with. Politicos, particularly hacks like Billy and Trump, can be held accountable at the ballot box. Indeed, given the feckless performance of the GOP Senate and the overall failure of the Federal Courts to stand up to tyranny, that appears to be the very last hope for our democracy.
Had enough of the Liar in Chief, Billy the Bigot, Moscow Mitch, & Co? Vote the GOP out of every public office at every level this Fall, while there is still a chance to save our democracy!
This Fall, vote like your life and the continued existence of American democracy depend on it! Because they do!
Bill Barr Consigliere Artist: Pat Bagley Salt Lake Tribune Reproduced under license
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Says it all about Billy the Bigot. His “downward sprint to the finish” has rocketed him past “John the Con” Mitchell and Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions as the most corrupt AG in modern American history.
That’s, of course, not to minimize or trivialize the crimes committed by either of the other contenders. I suspect we’ll still be unpacking the full extent of Gonzo’s “crimes against humanity” decades from now, as the uglier and uglier truth about this “21st Century Jim Crow” dribbles out a bit at a time
Gee, even the “Afternoon Neighborhood Dog Walking Club” — comprised of neither lawyers nor hard core liberals, can’t understand why Barr, this walking, talking ethics cesspool is 1) still in office; 2) not in jail; and 3) still licensed to practice the law. Here’s hoping that all three of these unfathomable mysteries are resolved favorably to the public interest in the near future! In the meantime, Billy serves as a stark reminder of what’s wrong with legal ethics and our justice system at present.
With all the hard-working, talented, pro bono lawyers out there working overtime to save lives and our democracy, it’s simply a national disgrace and a travesty that unqualified, corrupt, unethical creeps like Billy and Gonzo have been “rewarded” with the an office that is supposed to function as “The People’s Lawyer.”
The Don’s felons and fellow conspirators against America get free passes; meanwhile, Americans of color can’t catch a break from a system loaded against them. Go figure!
It is entirely fitting that Donald Trump — the least law-abiding president in our history — was renominated at a convention that was itself a seeming cavalcade of crime. Every night featured apparent violations of the 1939 Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities “in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties by an individual employed or holding office in the Government of the United States.”
The White House certainly qualifies as such a facility. Yet Trump used it as a convention prop, even going so far as to televise a naturalization ceremony for immigrants — some of whom did not realize they would be shown at the Republican convention — as part of the nightly show. Trump not only flouted the law but also reveled in doing so. During his acceptance speech, he boasted, “We’re here — they’re not,” and the New York Times reported that Trump “relished the fact that no one could do anything to stop him.”
While the president is exempt from the civil provisions of the Hatch Act, he could be subject, once he leaves office, to criminal penalties if he should “intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce … any employee of the Federal Government … to engage in … any political activity.” That is a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.
This is, of course, barely scratching the surface of an administration that should more accurately be described as an ongoing criminal conspiracy. While many of Trump’s awful acts — e.g., confining children in cages or unleashing riot police on peaceful protesters — are merely violations of democratic norms, there is also plentiful evidence of lawbreaking on his part.
The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York has identified Trump as “Individual-1” in a conspiracy with his attorney Michael Cohen to violate campaign finance laws by secretly paying off two women with whom Trump allegedly had affairs. Cohen went to prison; Trump, who as president claims immunity from prosecution, wasn’t indicted.
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III uncovered a great deal more potential illegality. He found 10 instances when Trump might have obstructed justice, and in at least four of those cases he found evidence that Trump’s conduct met all three elements of the obstruction-of-justice statute. Each violation carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The recent report from the Senate Intelligence Committee suggests that Trump also lied to Mueller when, in written testimony, he claimed not to remember speaking to Roger Stone about WikiLeaks. If he committed perjury, that would subject him to up to five years’ imprisonment.
. . . .
Trump could try to short-circuit justice by seeking to pardon himself before he leaves office — or even by resigning a few hours early and having Vice President Pence sworn in to issue a pardon (as President Gerald Ford did for Richard Nixon). In that case, the special counsel would be limited to investigating Trump’s accomplices (unless they are also pardoned) and helping state prosecutors. But the special counsel should still issue a comprehensive report on Trump’s lawbreaking. We must expose and root out this ethical rot before it eats away at the foundations of our democracy.
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Read the rest of Boot’s article at the link. Actually, Max understates the case. Trump long ago ate the ethical underpinnings of American democracy for lunch, with the “JR Five” providing “table service.”
Under “normal” circumstances, the scenario outlined by Boot in his final paragraph would be beyond preposterous! But, in the failed state of American democracy under Trump, it’s perfectly plausible. Whose going to stop him from the “final abuse and mockery of our republic?” Feckless Congress? The Supremely and Serenely Complicit ones? No way. Trump will exploit the moral cowardice and spinelessness of the other failed two branches of Government until the end!
It started about the time that Roberts and his colleagues threw Muslims, refugees, and migrants under the bus in their ridiculously wrong and intellectually dishonest “Travel Ban Fiasco.” The “Dred Scottification” of migrants and people of color and open corruption, aided and abetted by Roberts and his gang, have continued largely unabated since then.
Max’s use of the term “rot” brings to mind the refugees from many nations, most people of color, rotting in Mexico, futilely waiting for “asylum hearings” that might never come and where denial without due process has been predetermined. This is what “American Justice” has become under Trump, Billy the Bigot, Wolfman the Illegal, and Roberts the Complicit!
Actually, separating families, misrepresenting the policy to Federal Courts, and long-term “civil” detention of families in life-threatening conditions as a “deterrent” to exercising important, fundamental legal and human rights might well be criminal violations in a functioning justice system. Sadly, America basically lacks the latter these days because of the Supremes’ coddling of the “crimes against humanity” committed by Trump, Miller, Barr, Wolf, Cooch, and their co-conspirators.
As those of us with experience adjudicating asylum cases know, lack of accountability before the courts and failure of the judiciary to exercise independent judgment to control a corrupt and tyrannical executive are hallmarks of failed states and banana republics.
Let’s see! America’s founders created an independent judiciary to insure the right of the “King” to use the Government as his personal servants to violate the Bill of Rights, exploit the nation for his own gain, and create “alternate Kings’ Courts” where the “judges” are his employees, he makes the rules, the results are largely preordained by the King’s personal biases and the interests of his royal cronies, and the penalty can be “death without due process.” Not likely!
But, that’s what happens when judges’ fealty to ideology, party, or personality often exceeds their loyalty to the Constitution and to the human rights and human dignity of their fellow men, women, and children. It happens when we create an elitist, right-leaning judiciary, out of step with and non-representative of the majority of Americans, where actual knowledge and experience defending the human rights of individuals against Government overreach, courage to speak truth to power, and demonstrated unswerving commitment to equal justice under law is far, far undervalued, even intentionally ignored. Where practical problem-solving skills and human empathy, perhaps the two most important qualities for fair and honest judging, are all too often disrespected and even demeaned.
Better Federal Judges for a better, fairer, functional America! One where the humanity of all persons is honored and respected, rather than being mocked by those in positions of power and privilege. One where the highest Court finally stands up for and enforces the hard-fought Constitutional right to vote, regardless of skin color or ethnicity, rather than aiding and abetting the blatant schemes of the GOP to suppress voting and deny deserved political power to Americans of color. One where an honest Court enforces to the maximum degree the Voting Rights Act rather than intentionally and disingenuously gutting it at the demand of some in the White power structure.
These travesties have unfolded right in front of us. Yet, even so called “liberal-progressive” commentators largely shrug them off as somehow “normal” or “just the way the system functions.” That’s BS! It’s “judicial malpractice.” It’s a major reason why two centuries after our founding we have not yet achieved racial justice and why our nation is coming apart at the seams under grotesque misgovernance and judicial complicity.
The current Federal Judiciary has facilitated the takeover of our Government by an ongoing criminal conspiracy, as described by Boot. We need change! Sooner rather than later! And, it can’t and won’t happen with the current cast of characters in the Executive, the Senate majority, and the Article III Judiciary.
This past weekend, the Republican National Committee caved to white supremacist and other hate groups by adopting a resolution titled Refuting the Legitimacy of the Southern Poverty Law Center to Identify Hate Groups.
The focus of the resolution is that “the SPLC is a radical organization” that harms conservative organizations and voices through our hate group designations.
This attack on our work is an attempt to excuse the Trump administration’s pattern and practice of working with individuals and organizations that malign entire groups of people — immigrants, Muslims and the LGBTQ community — while promoting policies that undermine their very existence. It comes from the same vein as Trump’s claim that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
Simply put, it’s an audacious attempt by Trump and the GOP to paper over the bigotry and racism that has been allowed to infect their policies.
This resolution comes at a moment when Trump will argue at the Republican National Convention that he will combat hate and bigotry, despite welcoming the support of QAnon. It also comes days after the indictment of Stephen Bannon, reminding us that Bannon was once the White House chief strategist and senior counselor and CEO of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. And it comes just after our special investigation shined a light on One America News Network’s Jack Posobiec, a reporter at Trump’s favorite network who is aligned with white supremacy and has used his platform to further hate speech and propaganda.
Trump should sever these ties to hate groups and extremists instead of doubling down through this RNC resolution.
The Trump administration has filled its ranks and consulted with alumni and allies from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-immigrant hate group that has ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists. They include Julie Kirchner, Kris Kobach, Jeff Sessions and, most notably, Stephen Miller.
The Trump administration has worked with hate groups like the Family Research Council (FRC) to roll back LGBTQ rights. FRC was designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group for decades of demonizing LGBTQ people and spreading harmful pseudoscience about them. Over the years, the organization has published books, reports and brochures that have linked being LGBTQ to pedophilia, claimed that LGBTQ people are dangerous to children and claimed that LGBTQ people are promiscuous and violent.
Anti-Muslim groups have also been welcomed into the administration, including the Center for Security Policy (CSP). Fred Fleitz, a longtime staffer, was appointed the executive secretary and chief of staff of the National Security Council. For decades, CSP has peddled absurd accusations that shadowy Muslim Brotherhood operatives have infiltrated all levels of government.
These extremists are seeking a license to continue spreading their bigotry and will do anything to undermine those — like the SPLC, which tracks and monitors hate groups — who expose their extremist views and oppose their attacks on communities. With this resolution, Trump and members of the GOP have shown the extent to which they will carry their water.
This past weekend, the RNC also released a resolution titled Resolution to Conserve History and Combat Prejudice – Christopher Columbus. It’s a remarkably transparent statement that hate and bigotry stem from Black Lives Matter protesters. The RNC and Trump did not denounce organizations that promote antisemitism, Islamophobia, neo-Nazis, anti-LGBTQ sentiment or racism. It only criticized the SPLC for challenging those groups.
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Pretty much says it all about today’s GOP and the Trump Administration.
· No platform
· No values
· No truth
· No humanity
· No decency
· No America
· No inclusion
· The party of “Dred Scottification,” Jim Crow, and White Supremacy
Sure “Sounds Like Hate” to me!
This November, vote like your life and the future of our world depend on it! Because they do!
President Trump granting clemency to his crony Roger Stone, who served as the go-between for the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks, on practically the eve of Stone’s incarceration for multiple crimes attendant to his coverup on behalf of the president, is grotesquely corrupt but unsurprising. Stone virtually confessed to a quid pro quo, telling Howard Fineman, “He [Trump] knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t.” Silence for clemency. A separate system of justice for the president’s henchmen. This is the very definition of corruption.
“By this action, President Trump abused the powers of his office in an apparent effort to reward Roger Stone for his refusal to cooperate with investigators examining the President’s own conduct,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a written statement released Friday. “No other president has exercised the clemency power for such a patently personal and self-serving purpose.”
Stone’s clemency should remind all Americans of the necessity of removing Trump at the ballot box and seeking a full accounting of Attorney General William P. Barr’s role in running interference for the president (e.g., spinning the Mueller report, turning a blind eye toward criminality in the Ukraine scandal, intervening to block Stone’s and Michael Flynn’s punishments). It should remind voters that if not for the spinelessness of every Republican senator save Utah’s Mitt Romney, Trump would not have survived impeachment to seek vengeance on witnesses (e.g., Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman), corruptly protect his friends and incompetently manage a pandemic, leading to the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands. With the pardon of Stone, we can affirm that Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins’s assertion that he learned his lesson from impeachment was delusional.
In 2019, The Post’s editorial board argued the president tried to manipulate the justice system, wrongdoing that Congress must not let go. (The Washington Post)
However, we will need far more than an electoral shellacking of Republicans to address the damage Trump has done to the Justice Department and the rule of law. Ten simple measures would begin to repair our justice system:
1. A thorough redo of the special counsel/independent counsel law is necessary. The counsel’s final report should be issued to Congress and/or the courts, depriving a potentially corrupt attorney general or president the opportunity to pre-edit or spin it. Additional legislation should clarify that a special counsel is empowered to make specific findings of illegality. The DOJ guidelines preventing prosecution of the president while still in office should be revisited.
2. Congress must reassert the power of the purse. The executive branch must report all holds/impounds on congressionally appropriated funds. “Emergency” powers should be reexamined, tightened and clarified to prevent the sort of unilateral misappropriation of funds we saw regarding the wall.
3. Severe criminal penalties should be exacted for revealing the identity of whistleblowers or threatening and/or punishing federal employees for providing truthful testimony.
4. A new, speedy enforcement mechanism is required for contempt of Congress citations, allowing lawmakers to get a swift and definitive resolution of its conflicts with the executive branch.
5. We need a barrier between the White House and Justice Department to prevent political interference in specific cases, targets of investigation and prosecutorial recommendations. Any such communications must be logged and made available to the inspector general and/or Congress.
. . . .
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Get the rest of the article with five more good ideas at the above link.
An essential that should have been #1 on the list: An independent Article I Immigration Court with an open, merit-based judicial selection process involving public input!
This November, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does!
“Petitioner Richard Marvin Thompson (“Thompson”) appeals the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) denial of his motion to reopen sua sponte his immigration proceedings, alleging that the BIA committed a clear legal error. Thompson asks this Court to exercise jurisdiction to review whether the BIA clearly erred when it determined that he was not entitled to relief from deportation under section 237(a)(2)(A)(vi) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2) (A)(vi) (the “Pardon Waiver Clause”), because a pardon issued by the Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles is “not effective for purposes of establishing entitlement to” a waiver of deportation. Because we find that this Court has jurisdiction to review this colorable legal question and because, here, the BIA departed from its settled course of adjudication, we vacate the decision of the BIA and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
[Hats off to Gregory Romanovsky, William M. Tong, Attorney General of Connecticut, Jane Rosenberg, Assistant Attorney General, Clare Kindall, Solicitor General, amicus curiae for the State of Connecticut, Trina Realmuto, Kristin Macleod-Ball and Emma Winger!]
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So, let’s take a little closer look. Thompson immigrated legally to the U.S. in 1997, at age 14. Nearly two decades ago, Thompson was convicted of second degree assault in Connecticut and given a suspended sentence and 3-years probation. In other words, no jail time.
He successfully completed probation, got a GED, and worked as a commercial operator for 10 years. Essentially, Thompson successfully rehabilitated and became a productive member of society.
In 2012, the Obama Administration DHS, in its wisdom, instituted removal proceedings against Thompson based on his 2001 Connecticut assault conviction. After being found removable and losing on appeal, Thompson received a full and complete pardon from the Connecticut State Board of Pardons, the highest pardoning authority in the state. Although established by the legislature, the Board of Pardons’ action was deliberative and based on an assessment of the factors in Thompson’s individual case. It was not an “automatic expungement” pursuant to legislation.
Since the time for filing a motion to reopen had expired, Thompson asked the BIA to reopen his case “sua sponte” — on its own motion — to recognize that the pardon had eradicated the legal basis for removal.
Following its previous rulings, as well as sound policy and common sense, the BIA should promptly have granted Thompson’s motion and terminated proceedings in a two or three sentence order. Instead, the BIA, now operating under the “Trump removal regime in 2018,” denied the motion based on specious reasons that deviated without rational explanation from their prior treatment of substantially identical motions.
The BIA’s action touched off approximately 20 months of furious litigation involving a small army of lawyers on both sides, including the Connecticut Attorney General and the Connecticut Solicitor General, as well as the American Immigration Council, filing briefs in support of Thompson.
Following this 34-page opus by the First Circuit, Thompson’s case is by no means over. It’s been “orbited” back to the “Weird World of EOIR” where Thompson might, or might not, receive justice at some undetermined point in the future. To make matters even worse, Thompson remains detained at the Etowah County Detention Center in Gadsden, Alabama. Alabama is one of the current “hot spots” for COVID-19.
Is it any wonder that a “weaponized,” overtly anti-immigrant “court system” that looks for “reasons to deny” meritorious cases, rather than promoting prompt and efficient due process in deserving cases is running a backlog of approximately 1.4 million “on and off calendar” cases?
The longer the reviewing Circuit Courts keep up the fiction of treating EOIR as a legitimate adjudicative organization rather than the biased, “non-expert,” unconstitutional extension of DHS Enforcement that it has become, the bigger the mess will get and the more injustice that will be done to individuals like Thompson.
Meanwhile, legions of lawyers and judges at all levels, who could and should be devoting their talents to operating a constitutional immigration justice system that provides “due process and fundamental fairness with efficiency and humanity for all concerned” will instead continue to flail as a result of this “designed and operated to fail” system run by a kakistocracy to produce injustice and to squander judicial time and legal resources on a massive scale. When will it ever end?
