"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt and Dr. Alicia Triche, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
Earlier this month, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”)–the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts–issued a Myths vs. Facts sheet, to explain that migrants are bad people and that most of them lose their asylum cases anyway.
I am always suspicious of “myths vs. facts” pronouncements, and to me, this one from EOIR seems particularly propaganda-esque (apparently the Washington Post Fact Checker thinks so too, as they gave the document two Pinocchios, meaning “significant omissions and/or exaggerations”). In terms of why EOIR created this document, one commentator has theorized that the current agency leadership is tired of answering the same questions and justifying its actions, and so they created a consolidated document that could be used whenever questions from the public or Congress come up.
EOIR has released a new “Myths vs. Facts” brochure.
This is a plausible enough explanation, but I wanted to know more. Lucky, I have a super-secret source inside EOIR itself. I met up with my source in a deserted parking garage, where he/she/it/they (I am not at liberty to say which) handed me a sealed envelope containing an additional sheet of myths and facts. These myths and facts didn’t make it into EOIR’s final draft. But now, for the first time, in an Asylumist exclusive, you can read the myths and facts that EOIR did not want you to see. Here we go:
Myth: Aliens who appear by video teleconferencing (“VTC”) equipment get just as much due process as anyone else. Maybe more. Fact: The video camera makes aliens who appear by VTC look 20% darker than their actual skin tone (the skill level of EOIR’s make-up crew leaves something to be desired). Since dark people are viewed as less credible and more dangerous, this increases the odds of a deportation order. Another benefit of VTC is that Immigration Judges (“IJ”) can turn down the volume every time an applicant starts to cry or says something the IJ doesn’t want to hear. This also makes it easier to deny relief. Fun fact: Newer model VTC machines come with a laugh track, which makes listening to boring sob stories a lot more pleasurable.
Myth: Immigration Judges don’t mind production quotas. In fact, most IJs keep wall charts, where they post a little gold star every time they complete a case. At the end of the month, the IJ with the most stars gets an ice cream. Fact: While some IJs relish being treated as pieceworkers in a nineteenth century garment factory, others do not. Frankly, they shouldn’t complain. EOIR recently commissioned a study, which found that a trained monkey could stamp “denied” on an asylum application just as well as a judge, and monkeys work 30% faster. Even for human judges, EOIR has determined that it really shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes to glance at an asylum case and write up a deportation order. At that rate, an IJ can deny six cases an hour, 48 cases per day, and 12,480 cases per year. Given these numbers, even IJs who insist on some modicum of due process should easily complete 700 cases per year (as required by the new production quota). And they better. Otherwise, it’s good bye homo sapien, hello pan troglodyte.
Myth: Aliens who participate in Legal Orientation Programs (“LOP”) spend an average of 30 additional days in detention, have longer case lengths, and add over $100 million in detention costs to DHS. Fact: Knowing your rights is dangerous. It might cause you to exercise them. And people who exercise their rights are harder to deport. EOIR is working on a new LOP, which will teach aliens how to properly respond to a Notice to Appear (“Guilty, your honor!”), how to seek asylum (“I feel totally safe in my country!”), how to seek relief (“I don’t need any relief – please send me home post haste!”), and how to appeal (“Your Honor, I waive my appeal!”). EOIR estimates that aliens who follow this new ROP will help reduce detention time and save DHS millions. The new ROP will help Immigration Judges as well. It’s a lot easier to adjudicate an asylum case where the alien indicates that she is not afraid to return home. And faster adjudications means IJs can more easily meet their production quotas – so it’s a win-win!
Myth: EOIR Director James McHenry got his job based on merit. He has significant prior management experience, and he is well-qualified to lead an agency with almost 3,000 employees and a half-billion dollar budget. Fact: James McHenry’s main supervisory experience prior to becoming EOIR Director comes from an 11th-grade gig stage-managing “The Tempest,” by William Shakespeare. In a prescient review, his school paper called the show “a triumph of the Will.” More recently, Mr. McHenry served as an attorney for DHS/ICE in Atlanta, and for a few months, as an Administrative Law Judge for the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer. In those positions, he gained valuable management experience by supervising a shared secretary and a couple of interns. When asked for a comment about her boss’s management skills, Mr. McHenry’s former intern smiled politely, and slowly backed out of the room.
Myth: In the EOIR Myths vs. Facts, the myths are myths and the facts are facts. That’s because the Trump Administration is always honest and credible when it comes to immigration. Fact: [Sounds of screeching metal and explosions]. Uh oh, I think we just broke the myths and facts machine…
So perhaps all is not as it seems. Sometimes, myths and facts get mixed up, especially in the Trump Administration, which has redacted human rights reports to show that countries are safe, buried other reports that don’t say what they like, and claimed that asylum lawyers are making up cases to get their clients across the border. It’s all in the grand tradition of the merchants of doubt, men and women who know better, but who obfuscate the truth–about tobacco, global warming, vaccines, whatever–to achieve a political goal (or make a buck). Why shouldn’t EOIR join in the fun? But to return to our friend William Shakespeare, I have little doubt that, eventually, the truth will out. The question is, how much damage will we do to migrants and to ourselves in the meantime?
**************************************
Jason is absolutely correct. Truth eventually will win out.
But, some have already died or been irreparably harmed, and other migrants will be needlessly sacrificed on the alter of nativist White Nationalism before this corrupt Administration eventually is removed.
We have already diminished ourselves as a nation. Will we ever recover? Will those responsible at EOIR, DOJ, DHS, Congress, the Article III Courts, and elsewhere ever be held fully accountable for their lies and corrupt roles in trashing human rights and our Constitution?
PANEL: O’SCANNLAIN, W. FLETCHER, and WATFORD, Circuit Judges.
OPINION: Per Curiam with Concurring Opinions by Judges Watford & Fletcher
**********************************
Lots of impenetrable legal gobbledegook. Pretty hard to see how Judges Fletcher and Watford concurred in a decision (which appears to have been “ghosted” by Judge O’Scannlain) they really didn’t agree with. But, hey, it’s only human lives at stake here.
Bottom line:Trump wins, asylum seekers with a credible fear of persecution lose. Big Time!
But, in the end, it’s likely to be America and human values that lose here.
Fitz Brundage is the William B. Umstead professor of history at UNC-Chapel Hill and the author of “Civilizing Torture,” which was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in History.
May 3
Does it violate human rights to hold children in fenced enclosures in grim facilities that are bone-chillingly cold for weeks on end? Is separating children from their parents a form of cruel and unusual punishment? When does a crisis justify the kind of treatment normally seen as inhumane?
The furious debate over migrant detention along the nation’s southwest border with Mexico has put these questions front and center in American politics. But they’re not new. The treatment of people on the margins of American life — criminals, immigrants, civilians in overseas war zones — has always proven a challenge to our democratic ideals.
Yet beginning in the 1920s, activists waged a half-century-long struggle to persuade the Supreme Court to stop abusive practices by authorities. After World War II, the United States also committed itself to the promotion of international human rights. These two signal developments have been seriously eroded, first by the excesses of the war on terrorism and now by the Trump administration’s targeting of the unwelcome and powerless, whether they are undocumented immigrants in the United States or asylum seekers. We have returned to a pattern of willful ignorance, one that allows us to avoid grappling with deeply immoral policies.
Threats to our safety, perceived or real, have long justified the kind of “tougher policies” that President Trump has demanded for the southern border. He may not be well versed in history, but the president is joining a long line of elected officials who found that rights and basic norms are easily jettisoned when they collide with demands for greater security. Across our history, from the Indian wars to the war on terrorism, officials were quick to call for “tougher policies” and slow to fill in the details. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered military commanders in the Philippines to adopt “the most stern measures” to punish Filipino guerrillas; in a subsequent campaign the Marines followed orders and left a trail of devastation and death across the island of Samar. But such methods were justified as a “military necessity.”
Roosevelt rationalized the brutal treatment of alleged guerrillas by citing the need to stanch the threat to security. This kind of evasive language has repeatedly prevented us from coming to terms with acts of cruelty carried out in the name of national security. We’re seeing that pattern again.
What precisely did Trump officials mean when they announced “a tougher direction” for immigration? They certainly imply more than just the proposals for new fees and regulations reducing the numbers of asylum seekers. Are the American people ready to confront the reality of harsh security measures? Or will we retreat into euphemisms such as a “hardened” border and “zero tolerance” for migrants that covers up the reality of what is actually happening on the border?
We are deciding day by day whether to extend the basic protections of law and civilization to the people arriving on our border. For much of the nation’s history, the prohibition on cruelty and torture in American law rested on the premise that the fundamental decency of Americans, especially empathy for fellow citizens, would make such violations unthinkable.
But our capacity to empathize begins to fray at the margins, and we grow less certain about who, exactly, deserves protection. Those deemed undeserving, unwelcome or powerless — Native Americans, the enslaved, prison inmates and criminal suspects — have commonly suffered forms of violence and abuse that violated our national principles. Some people are inside the protection of the law, and some are cast out from it.
We’re seeing a replay of that ugly history unfold along our southern border. If the Trump administration codifies its get-tough rhetoric into harsher policies, we will see far more allegations of human rights abuses against the men and women charged with securing our border. And we probably will rationalize it by claiming that those responsible are just a few bad apples rather than reckoning with the ways cruelty has been embedded in the policy itself. Like the euphemistic language of security, this choice allows us to avoid uncomfortable questions about our moral values.
In fact, we’ve already seen this pattern. Accusations of cruelty and torture by ICE and CBP agents have been circulating for years, and they follow this well-worn pattern. Official denials are followed by investigations that almost always find limited violations by “a few bad apples,” not the kind of systemic abuse that would call our broader policies into question.
This pattern has long historical roots: When investigations of police brutality in Washington during the 1930s revealed widespread use of abusive interrogation methods, the police superintendent, whose predecessors had dismissed similar allegations for decades, only grudgingly conceded that a few officers may have gone too far in their resolve to protect the public.
By seeing violations of human rights as rare exceptions, unfortunate lapses that don’t challenge our fundamental sense of decency, Americans can avoid any real reckoning with the policies we’ve approved — which often violate our purported values. Very few of the officers and soldiers responsible for the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam in 1968 and none of the architects of the George W. Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation” policies have faced legal consequences. Even Jon Burge, a notorious ringleader of lawless police in Chicago during the 1970s and 1980s, was convicted of perjury for lying to police investigators rather than torturing countless suspects.
Focusing on bad apples has long allowed us to excuse morally bankrupt policies. We need to realize that human rights abuses on the southern border aren’t spurred by immoral actors in ICE or CBP, but rather because of a political leadership that can’t or won’t come up with humane immigration policies.
Congress needs to do its job and exercise scrupulous oversight of Trump’s immigration policies. But the real solution to our border crisis is to demand that all elected officials, from local sheriffs to senators, responsibly address immigration and human rights. Trump declared that he wants immigration to be a key campaign issue in 2020. His opponents should accept that challenge. We must shine a spotlight on cruel and illegal policies that undermine our national ideals and find the wisdom and the courage to do better.
****************************************
Join the New Due Process Army today and fight for human rights, the rule of law, accountability for Government scofflaws, and a return to basic human decency! Fight for a better future for ALL Americans!
Lisa Speckhard Pasque writes in the Madison Capital Times:
Erin Barbato is the director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.MICHELLE STOCKER
In October 2018, law professor Erin Barbato and her students represented a Cuban man in a political asylum case.
He was “beaten, detained (and) threatened with disappearance by the Cuban authorities twice,” said Barbato, director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. He fled when his wife was eight months pregnant because he was accused of a crime he didn’t commit and knew he didn’t have any other options. He traveled to South America and walked all the way to the border.
He was granted asylum.
Barbato and her students want to help with even more cases like this, but due to shifting asylum policies at the border, they haven’t been able to, Barbato said. She’s also seen firsthand how these changes have limited access to justice and due process for asylum seekers.
“These policies are really affecting the work I do, and the way we teach and the way that we can serve,” she said.
Arriving undocumented immigrants used to present themselves at the southern border and tell a customs and border patrol officer they’d like to apply for asylum, Barbato said. They needed to then pass a “credible fear” interview, giving the reasons they believed they would qualify for asylum.
Those who passed the interview could be released on bond or transported to detention centers throughout the U.S., like Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, to await their court hearing.
That’s where Barbato and her students found them. They regularly represented clients from Dodge seeking asylum like the Cuban man. It’s a great chance for students to learn and participate in a humanitarian effort, Barbato said.
After the Cuban man was granted asylum, the judge said he would allow IJC to defend asylum cases in Chicago via telephonic appearance, which would let IJC take more cases.
“I think it’s easier for (the judge) when the individual seeking asylum is represented and the government’s represented,” Barbato said. “And so we left there and we’re like, ‘Wow, maybe we can do more.’”
So when they went back to Dodge a few weeks after that successful case, they prepared to take two asylum cases. But there weren’t any asylum seekers at Dodge, which was “really curious,” Barbato said.
And there haven’t been any since, Barbato said. That’s because many asylum seekers aren’t being allowed into the U.S. after passing a credible fear interview. Instead, even after passing the interview, they have to wait in Mexico for their court hearing, she said.
Barbato witnessed this in action this March when she went to Tijuana to serve with a binational legal services organization called Al Otro Lado. While there, she saw several other immigration trends she considers troubling.
Asylum seekers in Tijuana go through a process called “metering,” which began several years ago. Even if a migrant makes it to customs and border patrol, they are directed back to Mexico, where they are then put on a list in a notebook reportedly managed by another asylum seeker, and given a number. They wait in Tijuana for 30 to 40 days for their number to come up before they can present themselves to CBP, Barbato said. A Mexican immigration organization called Grupos Beta is thought to be responsible for managing the number of migrants who can present themselves for asylum on any day.
And the migrants don’t necessarily have anywhere to stay in Tijuana while they wait to present themselves for asylum, Barbato said.
“Many of the shelters are full, and they’re not very safe because most of these people are fleeing gang violence,” Barbato said.
Once a person’s number comes up a month later, the migrant gets in line once again, where humanitarian volunteers hand out sweaters and socks because the person is headed into a holding facility (called “hielera” or “ice box,” for its frigid temperatures) for seven to 10 days as they await their credible fear interview.
“There’s effectively no way for unaccompanied minors to present themselves lawfully for asylum,” Barbarto said.
Barbato met with a 16-year-old girl who fled after her father sold her to a 25-year-old gang leader, and she was beaten, raped and falsely imprisoned for two years.
Now in Tijuana, the girl’s options were all bad: to wait at the one children’s shelter in Tijuana, where she “felt really alone and unsafe,” try to enter illegally where she would be subject to trafficking or the elements, or present herself to Grupos Beta and risk deportation, in which case she would “be most likely murdered because she fled the gang and disobeyed her husband.”
Barbato encouraged those who are concerned to go volunteer themselves in Tijuana, and “speak out on behalf of these children that are stranded in Tijuana.”
“The bottom line is, we can’t save everybody. Not everyone is going to qualify for asylum, that’s just not it. But at least how our laws stand right now, everyone has the right to at least seek those protections,” Barbato said. “And if our government wants to change those laws, they have to go through Congress to do so, they can’t just change these laws through policies.”
*****************************************
Thanks, Erin, for all that you and your “band of Due Process heroes” do for the New Due Process Army and the never-ending battle to bring Due Process, fundamental fairness, and equal justice for all to the U.S. Immigration Courts. You make me proud to be a U.W. Law alum! And thanks so much for giving us a slice of what’s “really” happening at the border as opposed to the Administration’s fictionalized version:
\“There’s effectively no way for unaccompanied minors to present themselves lawfully for asylum,” Barbarto said.
Barbato met with a 16-year-old girl who fled after her father sold her to a 25-year-old gang leader, and she was beaten, raped and falsely imprisoned for two years.
Now in Tijuana, the girl’s options were all bad: to wait at the one children’s shelter in Tijuana, where she “felt really alone and unsafe,” try to enter illegally where she would be subject to trafficking or the elements, or present herself to Grupos Beta and risk deportation, in which case she would “be most likely murdered because she fled the gang and disobeyed her husband.
Yes, this is what our country is doing to our fellow human beings who seek nothing more than to apply for legal protection supposedly guaranteed by international treaties, our statutes, and our Constitution. Is the Trump Administration’s dishonesty, cruelty, and scofflaw behavior really the way we want to be remembered by future generations? Actions have consequences, and failing to stand up for the legal, Constitutional, and human rights of “the most vulnerable among us” will have adversely affect the future of our nation and of humanity. At the same time, Erin and her courageous students are setting examples that will uplift and inspire future generations.
Like most law school clinics and pro bono organizations, Erin and her clinic operate on a “shoestring budget.” Compare that with the waste, fraud, and abuse of the Administration’s squandering of huge sums money on walls, prisons, and defense of patently illegal programs to strip migrants of their few remaining rights. Think what we could do as a nation if we devoted just a modest amount of additional resources to making the laws and the immigration adjudication system work, rather than funding “built to fail” schemes and gimmicks to evade and violate the laws?
So much for the disingenuously named “Migrant Protection Protocols” (a/k/a/ “Stay in Mexico”). As I had predicted, they are actually “Migrant Rejection Protocols,” which was the intent all along.
Michael D. Shear, Miriam Jordan, and Manny Fernandez report for the NY Times:
. . . .
American diplomats say the best way to confront that kind of lawlessness is with the hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid that has been flowing to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras for several years, designed to bolster the rule of law and improve the economy.
Image
At the Good Neighbor Settlement House in Brownsville, migrants rest, exhausted, after a meal.CreditIlana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times
Last week, Mr. Trump abruptly abandoned those efforts, ordering the State Department to scrap about $500 million in aid to the three countries. Mr. Trump’s decision has been criticized by members of both parties, who call it shortsighted.
Likewise, critics say that Mr. Trump’s repeated denigration of Mexico over the years — including his insistence on building a border wall — risks undermining Mexico’s willingness to help to keep Central American migrants from traveling to the United States.
“This is the first Mexican administration that has even been oriented toward doing that,” Ms. Meissner, the Clinton administration immigration commissioner, said.
But blaming other countries and painting those coming across the border from Mexico as a national security threat has never failed to animate Mr. Trump’s core supporters — the ones who helped deliver him the White House in 2016.
“It’s an invasion,” Mr. Trump declared in February, after Congress denied him money to build a wall. “We have an invasion of drugs and criminals coming into our country.”
In fact, the migrants are mostly victims of the broken immigration system. They are not, by and large, killers, rapists or gang members. Most do not carry drugs. They have learned how to make asylum claims, just as the law allows them to do. And nearly all of them are scared — of being shipped off to Mexico, separated from their children, sent to prison. Scared, especially, of going home.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Caitlin Dickerson contributed reporting.
*************************************
This is just the conclusion of the much longer article that you can read at the above link.
Unless and until the U.S. recognizes the situation for what it is — Forced Migration —- there can be no effective solutions.
Tone-deaf (and worse) legislators and policy makers (mostly in the GOP) refuse to recognize the fundamental truth — Forced Migrants are Forced Migrants — they ultimately won’t be deterred by harsh laws, malicious prosecutions, biased judges, unfair “expeditious returns,” inhumane imprisonments, racist rhetoric, or any of the other often tried always failed enforcement policies that this Administration and its supporters so love.
The other fundamental truth that Trump ignores is that refugees, asylees, and other forced migrants overall have a positive impact on receiving countries. They are a human force that should be regulated but not generally avoided. Indeed, that’s a “win-win” formula for success that should replace our current Administration’s insistence on intentionally turning migration situations from opportunities for success into otherwise avoidable “lose-lose” situations.
What will work is dealing with the root causes of forced migration; providing feasible alternatives to coming to the U.S.; fairly and timely adjudicating applications for protection; assimilation; and in some cases truly voluntary, interest-based decisions to return to a country of origin after conditions improve (not expulsion or forced returns).
Targeting human smugglers, drug smugglers, persecutors, and other types of criminals through sophisticated, intelligence-biased undercover-type operations could also be effective.
International cooperation and involvement of the UNHCR and other humanitarian NGOs is also essential.
Better government produces better results; that’s not “rocket science.”
Vox: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen submitted her resignation to President Donald Trump Sunday night, in an unexpected move that appears related to the president’s ongoing rage over the number of Central American families and asylum seekers coming into the United States. Kevin McAleenan, the head of Customs and Border Protection, will serve as acting DHS secretary. It’s not yet clear whether Trump will formally nominate a successor to Nielsen in the near future.
CNN: President Donald Trump is pulling the nomination of Ron Vitiello to lead US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying he wants to go in a “tougher direction” — a move that came at the urging of White House senior adviser Stephen Miller.
WaTimes: Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said the pilot program will begin in two weeks, with agents deputized to begin hearing “credible fear” claims lodged by migrants who say they need protection in the U.S.
NYT: It may take federal officials two years to identify what could be thousands of immigrant children who were separated from their families at the southern United States border, the government said in court documents filed on Friday.
NPR: Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 280 employees at a technology repair company in Collin County, Texas, on charges of working in the United States illegally. It’s the largest work site raid in the country in more than a decade, according to a Homeland Security Investigations official.
NYT: About 633 Central American asylum seekers have been turned away since January, unable to prove sufficient fear of being tortured and persecuted in Mexico.
ABA: Immigration courts have always been susceptible to politics; presidents have, for example, rearranged dockets to suit their political needs. But the NAIJ and others are concerned that the Trump administration has moved from reprioritizing cases to deliberately trying to affect case outcomes.
CNN: Judges at an immigration court in El Paso, Texas, are undermining due process, making inappropriate comments and fostering a “culture of hostility” toward immigrants, according to a new complaint.
WaPo: As President Trump threatened to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border in recent days, his Department of Homeland Security nearly doubled the number of temporary guest worker visas available this summer.
AIC: USCIS is denying some immigrants U.S. citizenship over their work in the legal marijuana industry, exposing a conflict between state and federal laws.
WashEx: The American Civil Liberties Union has issued a travel advisory for “immigrants and people of color to use extreme caution” in Florida because of a pending immigration bill the state legislature is considering that would ban so-called sanctuary cities.
US News: Republican Gov. Bill Lee said Tuesday he’s working to ensure his proposed $125 million school voucher program will be provided only to “legal residents” of Tennessee — a plan that some critics say could be illegal.
TheCity: Fresh off passage of a state budget that included the DREAM Act to fund higher education for undocumented immigrants, some Democrats in the Legislature are looking for a bigger win: New York state-issued driver’s licenses.
On 3/28/19, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen sent a letter to Congress to request legislative changes to the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) and the Flores settlement agreement to address “root causes of the emergency” along the U.S./Mexico border. AILA Doc. No. 19040801
ABC: The budget motel operator illegally shared the personal information of about 80,000 customers for more than two years, resulting in a “targeted” ICE investigation into guests with Latino-sounding names, the Washington state attorney general’s office announced Thursday.
Law360: New York federal court has ruled two local immigration attorneys can’t shake a suit alleging they misled clients about services they could provide and filed asylum petitions without their clients’ knowledge, which then allegedly plunged the noncitizens into removal proceedings.
NPR: U.S. District Judge George Hazel of Maryland in a 119-page opinion released Friday. Hazel concluded that the decision by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the census, to add the question violated administrative law. See also Commission divided on funding needs for census outreach.
The court held that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in finding that the information that the petitioner had provided to immigration officials—the names of his town and county in El Salvador—did not satisfy the notice requirement of INA §242b(a)(1)(F)(i). (Ramos-Portillo v. Barr, 4/1/19)
The court found the BIA did not abuse its discretion when, in applying the Matter of M-R-A- factors and looking to the totality of the circumstances, it determined that petitioner had failed to overcome the weaker presumption of effective service. (Navarrete-Lopez v. Barr, 4/1/19)
The court denied the petition for review, holding that substantial evidence supported the BIA’s determination that the petitioner had failed to show that he would suffer persecution in Somalia because he belonged to the Ashraf minority clan. (Qorane v. Barr, 3/26/19)
The court remanded for BIA to explain why it found it made no difference that petitioner had included a U visa filing receipt in his remand request, when Matter of Sanchez-Sosasuggests that a completed application should pause the removal process. (Caballero-Martinez v. Barr, 4/3/19)
The court granted in part the petition for review, holding that petitioner’s conviction for third-degree robbery in Oregon was not categorically a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT) that would render the petitioner ineligible for cancellation of removal. (Aguirre Barbosa v. Barr, 3/28/19)
The court issued an order denying the rehearing en banc of Sanchez v. Barr, in which the court held that the petitioner may be entitled to termination of removal proceedings after he made a prima facie showing of an egregious violation of 8 CFR §287.8(b)(2). (Sanchez v. Barr, 4/1/19)
The Justice Department announced that it has reached a settlement agreement with the Housing Authority of Victoria, Texas, after finding that it discriminated against a LPR when it rejected his valid employment documents and fired him. AILA member Paul Parsons represented the employee.
DHS Secretary Nielsen ordered CBP increase its temporary reassignment of personnel and resources to address the influx of migrants at the southern border. She also directed CBP to expand the Migrant Protection Protocols and return hundreds of additional migrants per day to Mexico. AILA Doc. No. 19040174
EOIR issued PM 19-11, No Dark Courtrooms, to ensure that all available courtrooms are used for hearing cases every day during normal court operating hours, including maximizing the use of video teleconferencing and immigration adjudication centers. The memo is effective 5/1/19. AILA Doc. No. 19040130
A complaint filed with DOJ’s EOIR, OIG, and OPR by the American Immigration Council and AILA highlights systemic due process violations that are undermining justice for detained immigrants called before judges at the El Paso Service Processing Center immigration court. AILA Doc. No. 19040260
Elizabeth’s items #1 and #3 (in addition to being totally outrageous and illegal) could spell either a short career for Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan or some time in Federal Prison.
Trump has no authority to get rid of the Asylum System and Immigration Judges, nor will Congress do so. Moreover, any attempt by Congress to eliminate asylum or a fair hearing process for individuals who entered the U.S. regardless of status would be likely to violate both the Due Process Clause of the Constitution and our international treaty obligations. To the extent that Trump tries to do this through “back door” methods (as other reports have indicated), they clearly will be both illegal and unconstitutional. Any officer carrying them out will be “at risk.”
The “Program,” described in Item #3 of substituting Border Patrol Officers for trained Asylum Officers is clearly illegal. Under the 8 U.S.C. 1325(b)(1)(E), an Asylum Officer must have extensive training in “country conditions, asylum law, and interview techniques comparable to that given full-time adjudicators of asylum applications.” Border Patrol Officers would not normally meet those criteria;
Indeed, this provision is a reflection of Congress’s specific intent that someone other than a law enforcement official make asylum and credible fear determinations;
The statute further requires supervision by an Officer who “has had substantial experience adjudicating asylum applications;” any supervisor who signed off on this bogus program would be acting illegally;
The Government is already under an injunction in Grace v. Whitaker from Judge Sullivan preventing an illegal attempt by former Attorney General Sessions and Kristjen Nielsen to rig the credible fear process against asylum applicants;
The bogus “pilot program” intended to result in illegal rejections of those claiming credible fear by agents patently unqualified to make such determinations under the statute would violate that injunction;
Judge Sullivan has a reputation for not taking much guff from anyone, including the Government;
Implementation of this illegal program should result in the Border Patrol Agents who carry it out as well as McAleenan and hopefully scofflaw Stephen Miller being held in contempt by Judge Sullivan and doing some jail time.
President Donald Trump’s dramatic purge of Homeland Security leaders is about more than personnel: It helps clear the way for him to take controversial new steps to curb illegal immigration, including an updated version of his furiously criticized family separation policy.
Leading the new charge is Trump’s top White House immigration aide Stephen Miller, who wants tent cities to house migrants on the border and is pressing to extend the amount of time U.S. immigration officials can detain migrant children beyond the current 20-day limit imposed by a federal judge. Miller wants to force migrant parents arrested at the border to choose between splitting apart from their children or remaining together indefinitely in detention while awaiting court proceedings, according to five people familiar with the plans.
Those hard-line policies could get new traction after a major staffing shakeup at the Homeland Security Department over the past several days. Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned Sunday and Secret Service Director Randolph Alles was ousted Monday. Those moves came after the White House on Friday unexpectedly withdrew its nominee for director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Ronald Vitiello. Other officials could be on the chopping block in coming days, according to three other people familiar with the White House’s considerations.
The dramatic proposals and leadership purge are politically risky — family separation has sparked more political anger than almost any other issue in Trump’s presidency — and come as Trump has alarmed his fellow Republicans with abrupt threats to kill Obamacare and to shut down the border. But Trump is determined to make immigration central to his reelection push, betting that he can once again energize his core conservative voters on a promise to secure America’s borders.
Trump and Miller have become increasingly frustrated as the number of Central American migrants massing at the southwest border surges to levels not seen in a decade. Now Miller — who’s even started calling mid-level federal officials to demand they do more to stem the influx — will have a new opportunity to pursue his tougher approach amid the leadership vacuum at DHS.
Trump said Sunday that Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan would become acting DHS secretary. Other top DHS positions currently filled by acting officials will be the deputy secretary, ICE director, inspector general and administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Three of those jobs lack a nominee from the White House.
Miller did not respond to a request for comment.
A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a plan to send certain non-Mexican asylum seekers back to Mexico while they await a resolution to their case. The order will not be effective until Friday evening, which allows the administration a chance for a quick appeal.
Still, Miller has a set of new policies he wants to try, according to the five people familiar with the plans, including a “binary choice” between separation or joint detention for families, an idea that first surfaced in the run-up to the midterm elections. Miller also wants to fast-track the regulation that would allow migrant children to be detained for longer than the 20-day limit. He’s eager to finalize the so-called public charge rule, which could block immigrants from obtaining a green card if they’ve received public benefits in the past or are deemed likely to do so in the future.
In addition, Miller has pressed for the federal government to set up tent cities along the border, so that cases can be swiftly resolved — and migrants with non-meritorious claims can be deported.
He’s also pushing for the purge at DHS to continue.
“If you lose Claire, and John, and Francis, I don’t know where that leaves us. But it’s not in a good place,” this person said.
At least some of the personnel moves are getting pushback from immigration restrictionist groups, who like Cissna’s approach.
Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a grassroots organization that seeks lower levels of immigration, said he’s confounded by reports that Cissna may be removed from his post at USCIS.
“He’s great. He’s worked in this issue for years, he’s extremely knowledgeable,” Beck said. “He’s exactly the type of person who needs to be in DHS in leadership.”
But Miller has pressed Cissna, unsuccessfully, to launch more experimentally and legally questionable policies, according to three people familiar with the situation.
Cissna’s defenders contend that he tried to adhere to the law while Miller pressed to overstep legal boundaries.
“If they push out the uber-competent guy that the left hates because he’s getting things done within the law and the right loves because he’s actually being faithful to the president’s campaign promises, they’re even bigger idiots than we already know,” one former DHS official said.
Eliana Johnson, Gabby Orr, Josh Gerstein and Daniel Lippman contributed to this report.
The fight against the White Nationalist Kakistocracy has just begun. Their supply of vile, racist plots, illegal schemes, cruelty, and hate is almost endless.
But, in the end, justice and the NDPA will prevail!
A federal judge on Monday blocked an experimental Trump administration policy that requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases make their way through the immigration court system, a major blow to President Trump as border crossings have surged to their highest point in more than a decade.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco enjoined the Migrant Protection Protocols policy days after outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen pledged to expand the program. The policy began in January.
Trump has justified blocking asylum seekers from entering the United States by claiming that many asylum seekers are trying to carry out a scam — that they are coached to file false asylum claims knowing that they will be released into the country because of a lack of detention bed space. The administration had hoped to keep more asylum seekers in Mexico — and off U.S. soil — while they await court hearings on their claims.
Migrants who reach U.S. soil — including areas that are outside U.S. border barriers but inside U.S. territory — have the legal right to seek asylum. They generally are either held in detention facilities to await rulings in their cases or are released into the United States.
The policy had been one idea to stem the flow of migrants into the country, but Seeborg said his order ending the policy will take effect at 5 p.m. on April 12. Within two days, he said, the 11 migrants named in the lawsuit must be allowed to enter the United States, and the administration may not implement or expand the program.
The American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit, hailed the ruling as a “very important decision” on an “unpredecented” attempt to block asylum seekers from setting foot on U.S. soil.
“What it will mean is that nobody else can be sent to Mexico,” said Judy Rabinovitz, an ACLU lawyer. “They can’t enforce this policy.”
Ex-ICE head: Trump had ‘single dumbest idea I’ve ever heard’
New Day
Former Acting Director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement John Sandweg says President Trump’s suggestion to eliminate immigration judges is “the single dumbest idea I’ve ever heard” in terms of dealing with border crossings.
Go to the link and watch the short video interview with John.
I totally agree that the answer here is to provide both the Asylum Officers and Immigration Judges necessary to make the system work. However, to really address the problem, we also need to work on the causes of forced migration and embrace wholeheartedly the international mechanisms available through the UNHCR and the U.N. Convention to work on refugee issues cooperatively with other signatory counties.
Nevertheless, I do take issue with John’s implicit assumption that the current 20-25% grant rate for Northern Triangle countries represents reality. This Administration in particular, but also previous Administrations, worked hard to unfairly skew the asylum system against asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle.
This includes:
Limiting opportunities for representation by counsel (counsel increases success rates by at least 4X);
Using detention in a coercive and punitive way to discourage claims and punish those who pursue them;
Skewing the law to make gender-based and gang-based claims, which could fairly easily be fitted into the conventional asylum framework, unnecessarily complicated and hard to establish;
Hiring mostly former prosecutors as Immigration Judges and then sending them a “deny and remove” message through the Attorney General, who unethically and in violation of any common sense concept of Due Process controls the Immigration Courts;
Failing to provide proper training and guidance to Immigration Judges through precedent decisions on how asylum claims can and should be granted;
Tolerating Immigration Judges who have shown bias toward asylum seekers and almost never grant asylum;
Intentionally making asylum law overly legalistic and focused on finding reasons to deny and remove, rather than protect.
One need look no further than two of my recent posts about judges who never grant asylum to see how sick, biased, and unfair the Immigration Court system has become to asylum seekers.
And make no mistake — the racist scofflaws who have assumed control of immigration policy under Trump intend to eradicate asylum, the rule of law, and our Constitution. Don’t think that just because you might happen to be a U.S. citizen or even a Trump supporter you will be immune from the destruction of the foundations of our republic and your individual rights. Some day, your turn will also come. Who will defend and speak up for those who have watched the rights and the lives of the vulnerable among us be trampled?
For much of my tenure at the Arlington Immigration Court the asylum grant rate hovered around 70% with few DHS appeals. As someone who worked on the Refugee Act of 1980 and has been involved in the administration and application of U.S. asylum laws for decades, from all sides, that high grant rate was completely warranted. Those finding reasons to deny at rates approaching 100% are not fairly, impartially, and correctly applying asylum law in accordance with Due Process and the actual legal standards. For too long we have tolerated gross abuses of asylum seekers — it has been taken to a new level under this Administration.
It’s illegal, it’s unconstitutional, it’s unethical, and it must stop!
McALLEN, Texas — Federal immigration officials dropped the first group of several dozen asylum seekers — all Central American parents with children — at the downtown bus station early in the day.
They dropped more throughout the day, all of them Spanish speakers in need of food, medicine and guidance from volunteers.
Jose Manuel Velasquez, 24, cradled his squirming 3-year-old-daughter, Sofia, as volunteer Susan Law advised him how to reach Oklahoma City, where he hoped to join his cousin. He was one of thousands of asylum seekers trying to leave the border region this week to reach friends, family and immigration court hearings in other parts of the country.
Ahead of President Trump’s Friday visit to California,volunteers along the border helped hundreds of asylum seekers who had been released from U.S. custody. Cities are pitching in, but helping the migrants has mainly fallen to volunteers whose resources were already at a breaking point from responding to a slew of new immigration policies.
On Thursday in McAllen, the U.S. released 700 migrants to crowded nonprofit shelters and dropped others at the bus station. Some arrived at the station with confirmation numbers to claim tickets paid for by relatives. Many arrived confused.
Law, a volunteer with the group Angry Tias and Abuelas of the Rio Grande Valley, said the constant arrivals this week made volunteers’ work “more overwhelming.”
The 73-year-old, a retired human resources director for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, sat with one parent after another Thursday. She explained each step of their bus trip, highlighting connections on a stack of maps.
She reviewed their paperwork, reminded them to keep their addresses updated and attend immigration court, and shared lists of free legal services at their destinations.
Many eastbound buses arriving in McAllen on Thursday were already packed with those released in El Paso and San Antonio. The wait time for migrants released to shelters to make it onto a bus has stretched to two days, according to Eli Fernandez, a volunteer at a nonprofit shelter.
Migrant advocates have suggested that recent mass releases at the border were intended to create chaos and give Trump something to point to when he argues that there is a national emergency.
Border Patrol officials have said their resources were strained by people crossing into the U.S. and asking for asylum. The officials have asked for millions more in funding to run temporary holding areas in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.
A Federal Emergency Management Agency team arrived in the valley this week, meant to support Border Patrol operations and nongovernmental groups, a FEMA spokeswoman said. But many volunteers said they hadn’t been contacted by the agency.
Trump policies blocking asylum seekers led volunteers to found Angry Tias and Abuelas about a year ago, after U.S. officials blocked asylum seekers at a border bridge south of McAllen. They brought food and supplies to the bridge and kept helping migrant families once Border Patrol started separating them. As immigrant parents were released, the volunteers shifted to the bus station to assist Catholic Charities, which runs a nearby shelter.
Most volunteers in Angry Tias and Abuelas are local, some are winter Texans, and others out-of-state visitors.
Luis Guerrero, a retired firefighter, remembers a 4-year-old Salvadoran girl explaining why she and her parents had to flee to the U.S.: Armed men had broken into their house and demanded money. “If you stay here,” Guerrero told the couple, “make sure your daughter gets therapy.”
Many of the migrants are from poor, rural areas and need the most basic help, volunteers said.
A young Honduran mother paid attention Thursday as Law traced the route she would follow to join her sister, a legal resident who migrated years ago and settled in Memphis, Tenn. Olga Lara had brought her 3-year-old, Alva, but left her 13-year-old daughter, Lilia, in Honduras with Lara’s mother.
Lara, 29, said she hoped to learn to read, as her sister had, in the U.S. She doesn’t know how to spell her name. She has never attended school, she said, because her family couldn’t afford it.
Law ensured the woman was traveling with another migrant who could read, write and look out for her. Law also warned Lara and other female migrants about the risk of trafficking, advising them to stay in main bus terminals and avoid anyone who might try to persuade them to leave.
Lara tucked her ticket into her bra and her paperwork into a bag next to Alva’s Elmo doll. She was wearing a donated puffy jacket and sneakers that were stripped of shoelaces while she was in Border Patrol detention. Law ran to grab her some of the laces she keeps stashed at the bus station. Lara threaded them through her shoes and thanked the volunteer.
On Thursday, good Samaritans from local churches dropped by with books, toys and hot breakfast tacos for the migrants. But there were not enough tacos to go around. A van from the nearby shelter was delayed when it ran out of gas. A few families boarded buses without eating.
Volunteer Roland Garcia, a former U.S. Marine, loaned his cellphone to a single Salvadoran mother of three, a domestic violence victim, so she could contact family in Houston and book her bus ticket.
“If we could just get more volunteers to help these people,” he said. “To them, everything is new. Some of them don’t even know how to work the Coke machine.”
Garcia, 60, who used to be a truck driver, started volunteering after he ducked into the bus station a few months ago to wait during a delivery and saw the crowds. He had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and felt the need to do something meaningful. He’s already recruited other volunteers.
His friend Rafael Mendoza said volunteers counter misinformation some asylum-seeking families receive from staff in Border Patrol facilities: “You’re wasting your time, you’re going to lose your case, you’re not welcome here.”
“Our own agents are telling them that,” said Mendoza, 59. “It’s very discouraging.”
The Catholic Charities shelter was packed Thursday, even after opening a second site when the Border Patrol started releasing large groups of families two weeks ago. The shelter’s halls were full of parents with small children who had not bathed in days while being held in chilly Border Patrol cells, where they said they caught colds.
Honduran Eulogio Erazo Varela said his 3-year-old daughter developed a fever while they were held for almost a week, first in a Border Patrol cell — what migrants call a hielera, or icebox — then behind a chain-link fence in a converted warehouse.
He was relieved to meet volunteers at the bus station Thursday. He said they treated him kindly as he prepared to catch a bus to Memphis — unlike Border Patrol agents, he said, who didn’t provide much treatment or help.
Many of the volunteers, including Law, had caught the migrants’ colds. But they were determined to keep helping. Law has driven a few migrants whose families could afford tickets to the airport, and hoped to recruit more volunteer escorts to help them navigate air travel in coming weeks.
Law recalled a migrant mother she met Wednesday, confused by her bus itinerary until the volunteer walked her through it in Spanish. Afterward, the woman said she would have been lost without Law’s help.
Ironically, government by the worst among us (“kakistocracy”) is bringing out the best in many others. Along with the efforts of the “New Due Process Army,” it’s certainly reason to hope for a better future for America and for mankind!
TRUMP’S MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE IS THE REAL “SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS” — AND, A GENUINE HUMAN TRAGEDY — The Legal Tools To Address The Crisis In The Northern Triangle Causing A Refugee Flow Exist; This Administration Stubbornly Refuses To Use Them!
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
United States Immigration Judges (Retired)
In short, families are coming to ports of entry and crossing the border to turn themselves in to be screened for credible fear and apply for asylum under our existing laws. That’s not a “border crisis;” it’s a humanitarian tragedy. It won’t be solved by more law enforcement or harsher measures; we’re actually quite fortunate that folks still believe in the system enough to voluntarily subject themselves to it.
Most don’t present any particular “danger” to the U.S. They are just trying to apply for legal protection under our laws. That’s something that has been denied them abroad because we don’t have a refugee program for the Northern Triangle. This Administration actually eliminated the already inadequate one we had under Obama.
Certainly, we have enough intelligence to know that these flows were coming. They aren’t secret. There was plenty of time to plan.
What could and should have been done is to increase the number of Asylum Officers and POE Inspectors by hiring retired Asylum Officers, Inspectors, adjudicators, and temps from the NGO sector who worked in the refugee field, but no longer have anything to do overseas since this Administration has basically dismantled the overseas refugee program.
A more competent DOJ could also have developed a corps of retired Immigration Judges (and perhaps other types of retired judges who could do bond setting and other functions common to many judicial systems) who already “know the ropes” and could have volunteered to go to the border and other places with overloads.
Also, working closely with and coordinating with the NGOs and the pro bono bar would have helped the credible fear process to go faster, be fairer, the Immigration Courts to function more fairly and efficiently, and would have screened out some of the “non viable” cases.
For some, staying in Mexico is probably a better and safer option, but folks don’t understand. Pro bono counsel can, and do, explain that.
By treating it as a humanitarian tragedy, which it is, rather than a “fake law enforcement crisis,” the Administration could have united the private sector, border states, communities, and Congress in supporting the effort; instead they sowed division, opposition, and unnecessary litigation. I’m actually sure that most of the teams of brilliant “Big Law” lawyers helping “Our Gang of Retired Judges” and other to file amicus briefs pro bono would just as soon be working on helping individuals through the system.
A timely, orderly, and fair system for screening, adjudicating, and recognizing refugee rights under our existing laws would have allowed the Administration to channel arrivals to various ports of entry.
I think that the result of such a system would have been that most families would have passed credible fear and the majority of those would have been granted asylum, withholding, or CAT.
Certainly, others think the result would have been mostly rejections (But, I note even in the “Trump Era” merits approval rates for Northern Triangle countries are in the 18-23% range — by no means an insignificant success rate). But, assuming “the rejectionists” are right, then they have the “timely rejection deterrent” that they so desire without stomping on anyone’s rights. (Although my experience over decades has been that rejections, detention, prosecutions, and harsh rhetoric are ineffective as deterrents).
No matter who is right about the ultimate results of fair asylum adjudication, under my system the Border Patrol could go back to their job of tracking down smugglers, drug traffickers, criminals, and the few suspected terrorists who seek to cross the border. While this might not satisfy anyone’s political agenda, it would be an effective and efficient use of law enforcement resources and sound administration of migrant protection and immigration laws. That’s certainly not what’s happening now.
When a problem is misdiagnosed, it is no surprise that it gets worse. The current “crisis at the border” is real, but one that results from flawed policy analysis and inappropriate policy responses.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials overseeing Customs and Border Protection (CBP) project that they will have over 100,000 migrants in their custody for the month of March, the highest monthly total since 2008. CBP reported that over 1,000 migrants reached El Paso on one day alone last week. As many border security experts have noted, these numbers are not unprecedented. Border apprehensions of all irregular migrants (including asylum seekers) remain lower than the peak of 1.6 million in fiscal year 2000.
The policy crisis we face is not one of the volume of migrants but the demographic mix of the migrants and the factors that are propelling their flight to the United States. Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy and former senior official in the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) during the George W. Bush administration, makes a compelling case that the current apprehension statistics are not comparable to those of the past: “In the past, nearly everyone entering the United States unlawfully attempted to evade authorities, whereas today’s border crossers are mostly turning themselves in to Border Patrol agents and seeking asylum.”
Making matters worse, DHS uses dated policy tools that were crafted in response to young men attempting to enter the United States to work. The threat of detention was considered a deterrent for economic migrants. At that time, they most often were from Mexico and thus could just be turned around at the border because they came from a contiguous country.
Today, the migrants are families with children from the northern triangle countries. Rather than being pulled by the dream of better jobs, these families are being pushed by the breakdown of civil society in their home countries. As the Pew Research Center reports, El Salvador had the world’s highest murder rate (82.8 homicides per 10,000 people) in 2016, followed by Honduras (at a rate of 56.5). Guatemala was 10th (at 27.3). Many of them have compelling stories that likely meet the “credible fear” threshold in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
It is abundantly clear that policies aimed at deterring single men are inappropriate and that CBP is unequipped to deal with families seeking asylum. Journalist Dara Lind maintains that these policy inadequacies have contributed to death of multiple children in DHS custody. Former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson recently stated that the Trump administration strategy at the border is not working because it does not address the underlying factors.
It is becoming clear that the harsh, capricious policies of the Trump administration are exacerbating the influx of asylum seekers from Central America. The Migration Policy Institute’s Doris Meissner, who served as the commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service during the Clinton administration, understands these underlying migration patterns and policies. She recently responded to a question posed by NPR’s Steve Inskeep: “If you can explain, how would the administration’s actions to try to stop this flow actually make the flow worse?”
Meissner replied: “Because people are uncertain about what’s going to happen. They see the policies changing every several months. They hear from the smugglers that help them, and from the communities in the United States that they know about, that the circumstances are continually hardening. And so with the push factors that exist in Central America — lots of violence, lots of gang activity — they’re trying to get here as soon as they can.”
Fortunately, the United States has an array of policy options that would more effectively respond to the surge of families seeking asylum from Central America than the erratic and ill-conceived policies of the Trump administration.
Aid to Central America to stimulate economic growth, improve security and foster governance is a critical policy response to address the factors propelling migrants. Congress appropriated $627 million for these purposes, but reportedly the distribution of the funds is stalled because President Trump wants to cut the aid countries because they failed to stop the flight of their people. This is another misguided policy reaction — if these countries would crack down on people trying to leave, it would escalate people’s panic to flee.
As is often said, the most important step is to beef up the asylum corps in DHS’s Citizenship and Immigration Services and to fully staff the immigration judges in the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. This action would enable expeditious processing of asylum claims in a fair and judicious manner — key to reversing the bottleneck of asylum seekers at the border.
Current law enables asylum seekers arriving without immigration documents to have a credible fear hearing and be released from detention pending their court dates. Those who establish that they have well-founded fear of returning home would be permitted to stay in the United States and those who do not would be deported. If DHS implemented our asylum laws to the fullest effect, it would increase the likelihood that migrants understood our laws.
Absolutely, Ruth! Basically what others and I who have spent years working in and studying this system have been saying all along.
The current law provides the necessary tools for addressing the only real border crisis: the humanitarian tragedy. But, this Administration has neither the competence nor the interest to address that problem in a constructive, effective, and humane manner. It wouldn’t fit their bogus White Nationalist false narratives and agenda.
That’s why we need “regime change” in 2020. Until then, we’ll have to rely on private groups, some states, and the New Due Process Army to keep the country functioning until we get better, wiser, and more competent leaders.
President Trump reiterated a threat to close the U.S.-Mexico border after a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, saying he stands ready to take drastic action if the country doesn’t do more to curb illegal immigration. He also railed against the U.S. immigration system and said he wants to “get rid” of immigration judges who hear migrants’ cases.
“Security is more important to me than trade,” Mr. Trump said when asked about the severe economic impact of closing the border. “We’ll have a strong border or we’ll have a closed border.”
The president spoke after meeting in the Oval Office with Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Last week, Mr. Trump tweeted threats to close the border if Mexico doesn’t do more to cooperate with the U.S. and slow the flow of migrants. But the commander-in-chief appeared to shift that timeline Tuesday, saying Mexico is assisting the U.S. more than it was even a few days ago. The president said he’s still “totally prepared” to close the border if necessary.
Along with a list of frustrations over immigration, however, Mr. Trump included immigration judges. U.S. immigration court backlogs are at all-time highs, with not enough judges to adjudicate the cases. That problem was exacerbated by the government shutdown earlier this year.
“We need to get rid of chain migration, we need to get rid of catch and release and visa lottery, and we have to do something about asylum. And to be honest with you, have to get rid of judges,” Mr. Trump said in his laundry list of frustrations with the U.S. immigration system.
Mr. Trump also walked back his insistence that the Republican Party will imminently introduce a new health care plan. Overnight, the president tweeted he would wait to hold a vote on his yet-to-be-envisioned health care plan until after the 2020 election. On Tuesday, the president said he will bring forth a plan “at the appropriate time.”
“We don’t have the House,” Mr. Trump said about the delay, which came after he said the Republican Party will become the “party of health care.”
Republicans failed to repeal and replace Obamacare in the two years they held the House and Senate.
Stoltenberg’s visit came as Mr. Trump tries to decrease the U.S. footprint abroad with his “America First” foreign policy. Mr. Trump has urged other NATO nations to increase their defense spending to agreed-upon levels, a stance many see as positive, but on Tuesday the president said defense spending will need to go higher than 2 percent. Currently NATO members agree to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense, but Mr. Trump, in a meeting alongside the secretary general, said that figure “may have to go up.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s close relationships with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin while criticizing U.S. allies has made some ally NATO nations distance themselves from the U.S. Last year, for instance, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany can’t rely “on the superpower of the U.S.” any longer to bring order to the world.
Before he became president, Mr. Trump declared NATO “obsolete.” He later revised that statement, saying he no longer believes that to be the case.
When NATO was founded in 1949, there were 12 ally nations. Now there are 29. Last month, Mr. Trump suggested perhaps Brazil could be a part of NATO, though Brazil is largely in the southern hemisphere.
Trump simply doesn’t care about the Constitution or Due Process of law (except where he, his family, and their corrupt cronies are involved). Migrants seeking to apply for legal protections under our laws aren’t a security problem; Trump is! And, the idea that closing the border wouldn’t cause both an economic catastrophe and threaten our security just shows what an absurdist presidency Trump has foisted on the majority of Americans who did not want him in office in the first place.
Trump has better options to stop dangerous flood of asylum-seeking migrants
By Nolan Rappaport
President Donald Trump has not been able to stop a surge in illegal border crossings, which, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan, is at the breaking point. In February, more than 76,000 migrants were detained, the highest number in 12 years. Most of them were asylum-seeking migrants from Central America.
The State Department told CNN on Saturday that the United States is cutting off aid to those countries.
Apparently, Trump thinks he can gain some control over the situation by pressuring the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (known as the Northern Triangle) into assisting him with his efforts to secure the border.
I think he is mistaken. The amount of the aid he cut off is much smaller than the amount of money migrants from the Northern Triangle are sending home from jobs in America.
In 2017, migrants from the Northern Triangle who work in the United States sent billions of dollars home to their families. These remittancestotaled more than $5 billion for El Salvador, $4 billion for Honduras, and $8.68 billion for Guatemala. This was 20.1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product in El Salvador, 17.4 percent in Honduras, and 11.5 percent in Guatemala.
What is the aid supposed to do?
In 2016, the United States gave $131.2 million in aid to Guatemala, $98.3 million to Honduras, and $67.9 million to El Salvador, and Congress has appropriated about $2.1 billion for the program since then.
I encourage you to go on over to The Hill at the above link to read Nolan’s complete article.
I generally agree with Nolan’s observations, except for the idea of lengthening the time for family detention. Family detention is inhumane, unnecessary, expensive, and ineffective.
Why not just operate the asylum system in a fair and efficient manner? Fairly and efficiently administer the “credible fear” system in the Asylum Office as established by law. Give those who pass fair access to legal counsel and process their cases fairly and efficiently through the Immigration Courts. Remove the lower priority cases from the Immigration Court docket to allow priority processing of new asylum cases without long waits or increasing the backlogs. Give folks fair, impartial, and unbiased adjudications of their claims and let the chips fall where they may.
Most of us who are familiar with the asylum system believe that under a fair, impartial, “depoliticized” system that focused on due process and asylum expertise, many, probably a majority, of the arriving cases would be granted asylum or protection under the Convention Against Torture. While the Administration claims otherwise, we can never know because they keep insisting on “gaming” the system against asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle and using gimmicks to prevent individuals from getting the fair determinations to which they are entitled under law.
Trump’s White Nationalism is driving us towards a self-created international economic disaster. Why, when fair administration of our existing asylum system at the border is within our power and capability? Trump just lacks the will, integrity, and competence to make it happen.
Ted Hesson, Immigration, Pro — Staff mugshots photographed Feb. 20, 2018. (M. Scott Mahaskey/Politico)
Ted Hesson reports for Politico:
The border crisis that President Donald Trump used to justify declaring a national emergency was never real, but a different crisis at the border is now starting to escalate as immigration officials hold hundreds of parents and children in makeshift facilities, including a parking lot.
During a press conference in El Paso, Texas, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan argued Wednesday that a surge of incoming Central American migrants has pushed the U.S. immigration system to a “breaking point” and that all available resources should be devoted to manage it.
But Democrats and advocates contend that the Trump administration’s response is exacerbating the problems.
Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), a freshman lawmaker who represents El Paso, fumed Thursday over the border situation — which she also described as a crisis — during an interview after leaving the House floor.
“They knew that the numbers would increase,” she said. “Why were they not planning?”
Here’s what’s really happening now at the border:
The president’s frequent claims that unprecedented numbers of undocumented migrants are streaming into the country remain untrue. (Twice as many came during the 1990s and early 2000s.) And President Trump’s caricature of border-crossers as violent criminals is still belied by study after study showing that immigrants in general, and undocumented immigrants in particular, commit fewer crimes than the native-born.
“We have a capacity crisis, if you want to think of it that way,” Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) told POLITICO. “We don’t have capacity to deal with the populations that they’re getting at the border right now.”
Border Patrol anticipates that it will apprehend more than 55,000 family members in March, by far the highest monthly total since such record-keeping began in fiscal year 2012. The warmer spring and summer months ahead will likely bring even higher numbers.
The adult men from Mexico who a decade ago constituted most border migrants were able to be returned more swiftly, often simply by walking them across the border. While they were detained, the men required comparatively little in the way of social or medical services.
Furthermore, a 2008 federal law and related bilateral agreement allowed the U.S. to repatriate Mexican unaccompanied minors rapidly. The law, called the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, does not similarly authorize quick deportation for children from Central America.
By contrast, the greater volume of children among the new Central American migrants imposes on immigration agencies a need for more psychologists, nutritionists, educators and a host of others. Border officials contend that with the rise in families and children, more migrants have health issues than in the past.
“We are doing everything we can to simply avoid a tragedy,” McAleenan said at the border Wednesday. “But with these numbers, with the types of illnesses we’re seeing at the border, I fear that it’s just a matter of time.”
Federal court orders in recent years have limited to 20 days the time children can be kept in detention, which means border agents often must release families into the interior. Such releases speed up processing, but demoralize agents and may encourage more migration, McAleenan argued.
The current migratory flow is also different because of the greater proportion of asylum applications at the border in recent years. Central American families arriving at the border frequently seek such refuge, which puts them into an immigration process that can take years to resolve.
The Trump administration argues that the asylum claims largely lack merit, but immigration court statistics don’t back that up. Roughly 25 percent of defensive asylum applications were approved by an immigration judge in fiscal year 2017, with 41 percent denied and 34 percent resolved in another manner, such as a withdrawn application.
Still, immigration hard-liners contend that lax asylum laws have been a magnet for Central Americans.
Mark Krikorian, director of the restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies, compared the current influx at the border to Europe’s migratory surge in 2015.
“We are seeing an Angela Merkel-style disaster on the border caused by loopholes in our laws that the Democrats refuse to even consider changing,” he said.
Democrats and advocates argue that the Trump administration’s response has exacerbated problems at the border.
Administration officials have known for months — arguably years — that more migrant families could trek to the United States, yet they appear to have been caught flat-footed.
During McAleenan’s press conference in El Paso Wednesday, reporters observed hundreds of parents and children held in a parking lot converted into a makeshift detention center.
“That’s their solution? That’s not a solution,” Escobar said. “In my community when these families are released, the community … scrambles and works hard to create hospitality centers, to feed these people, to help get them to their final destination. If we can do it with a fraction of the resources and power of the federal government, surely DHS can find a better solution.”
Escobar said DHS hasn’t taken adequate steps to deal with a long-term trend of more family and child arrivals. Border Patrol often uses small concrete cells that were better suited to the earlier populations of single men, many of whom would be sent back to Mexico in a day’s time, she said.
“They’ve been acting and responding in the same way over the last five years despite the change in the migration pattern,” she said.
The spending package approved by Congress in February included $192 million to construct a large processing center for migrant families in El Paso. The facility will house multiple agencies that deal with families in one building, but will take six months to a year to become functional, according to Escobar.
In the meantime, the Texas Democrat argues that if Trump truly deems immigration a national emergency, he should work harder to house and care for incoming migrants, perhaps with Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers or Red Cross assistance.
Under a January 2017 Trump executive order, federal immigration officials remain tasked with arresting and detaining as many migrants as possible, without a system of prioritization. Advocates contend the enforcement push has sapped resources that could be used to address the care and custody of newly arrived migrant families.
“They just detain any grandpa or mom that they find in the interior and they don’t prioritize who they should be putting in detention,” said Kerri Talbot, a director with the Washington, D.C.-based Immigration Hub. “They don’t need any more money, they need a new strategy.”
Under its “zero tolerance” strategy, the Trump administration sought to prosecute all suspect border crossers for illegal entry. Children couldn’t travel with their parents to criminal detention facilities, so they were reclassified as “unaccompanied” and transferred to the custody of the Health and Human Services Department. Thousands of families were split apart from April until June, only to see Trump reverse the policy and a federal judge order families reunited.
The administration also has sought to keep asylum-seeking migrants in Mexico for longer periods of time.
Using a practice known as “metering,” border officials have forced families to wait in Mexico, only accepting a certain number of asylum applicants at ports of entry each day.
A September report by the DHS inspector general’s office found evidence that forcing migrants to wait at ports actually encouraged more people to cross illegally. The report cited a Border Patrol supervisor and accounts of several migrants who said they attempted to enter illegally after being turned away at a port.
“They’re afraid of waiting in Mexico until they can get in at the port,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “They’re balancing that against their desire to do it legally. And I definitely think its emboldening the smugglers to go to those who are waiting.”
McAleenan acknowledged during a December Senate committee hearing that metering could lead to an increase in the number of people attempting to cross the border illegally, saying it’s “certainly a concern.”
Still, the Trump administration has moved forward with a separate policy to keep asylum seekers in Mexico for extended periods of time.
The administration’s “remain in Mexico” policy — announced in late December and now implemented in several areas along the border — forces certain non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in Mexico during the duration of an asylum case.
At the same time, the administration has moved slowly to disperse funding to address root causes of migration in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
POLITICO reported this week that hundreds of millions in aid dollars remain stalled at the White House budget office as aides wonder how seriously to take Trump’s threats to cut the funding.
“Mexico is doing NOTHING to help stop the flow of illegal immigrants to our Country. They are all talk and no action,“ Trump tweeted Thursday. “Likewise, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have taken our money for years, and do Nothing. The Dems don’t care, such BAD laws. May close the Southern Border!“
*******************************************
Trump’s unwise threat to “close” the Southern Border could turn a humanitarian situation into a self-created international crisis. And, Trump continues to be the “best friend” of smugglers, cartels, and gangs.
There is a clear and present threat to our national security. It’s not desperate refugees (mostly women, children, and families) seeking to exercise their legal rights; unfortunately, it’s our President.
