“SITTING DUCKS” IN “UNSAFE THIRD COUNTRIES” — How The Supremes, The 9th Circuit, The 5th Circuit, & Other Complicit Federal Appellate Courts Aid & Abet The Trump Regime’s Human Rights Violations — Would The “Privileged Robed Ones” Take Due Process & The Rule Of Law More Seriously If It Were THEIR Kids & Grandkids Being Kidnapped & Held for Ransom For The “Crime” Of Seeking Protection Under U.S. Laws?

“SITTING DUCKS” IN “UNSAFE THIRD COUNTRIES” — How The Supremes, The 9th Circuit, The 5th Circuit, & Other Complicit Federal Appellate Courts Aid & Abet The Trump Regime’s Human Rights Violations — Would The “Privileged Robed Ones” Take Due Process & The Rule Of Law More Seriously If It Were Their Kids & Grandkids Being Kidnapped & Held for Ransom For The “Crime” Of Seeking Protection Under U.S. Laws?

Robbie Whelan
Mexico City Correspondent
Wall Street Journal

\https://apple.news/A7aogQqflTgq9ZgbhJJzr1A

Robbie Whelan reports for the WSJ:

Latin America

Violence Plagues Migrants Under U.S. ‘Remain in Mexico’ Program

Migrants seeking shelter in the U.S. under Trump administration policy report rising numbers of kidnappings by criminal groups

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico—Every morning, Lorenzo Ortíz, a Baptist pastor who lives in Texas, drives a 12-seat passenger van packed with food and blankets across the border to pick up migrants who have been dropped off in Mexico and ferry them to shelters.

His mission is to keep the migrants safe from organized crime groups that prowl the streets of this violent Mexican border town. Since the Trump administration began implementing its Migrant Protection Protocols program at the start of 2019—widely known as Remain in Mexico—some 54,000 migrants, mostly from Central America, have been sent back to northern Mexico to wait while their asylum claims are processed. Mexico’s government is helping implement it.

But in cities like Nuevo Laredo, migrants are sitting ducks. Over the years, thousands have reported being threatened, extorted or kidnapped by criminal groups, who prey upon asylum seekers at bus stations and other public spaces.

“Over the last year, it’s gotten really bad,” Mr. Ortíz said.

A typical scheme involves kidnapping migrants and holding them until a relative in the U.S. wires money, typically thousands of dollars, in ransom money. Gangs have also attacked shelters and even some Mexican clergy members who help migrants.

There have been 636 reported cases of kidnapping, rape, torture and other violent crimes against migrants returned to Mexico under Remain in Mexico, according to Human Rights First, which interviews victims in border cities and advocates for migrants’ due process rights. At least 138 of these incidents involved kidnappings of children.

Many more cases of extortion and violence go unreported for fear of retribution. As more migrants are returned to dangerous areas such as Nuevo Laredo under Remain in Mexico, the situation is expected to worsen, the nonprofit Human Rights First said in a recent report.

The Mexican government has played down the violence. Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard recently acknowledged kidnapping incidents, but said that “it’s not a massive number.” Only 20 such cases have been investigated by the government, he added.

The Trump administration has credited the program with deterring migrants from attempting to cross into the U.S. Monthly apprehensions of migrants at the U.S. Southern border have plunged from more than 144,000 in May to 33,500 in November. The Remain in Mexico program was expanded in June.

On a recent visit to the border, acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said the program has been a “game-changer” for U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers because it has freed them from having to perform humanitarian duties.

But Mr. Ortíz’s daily commute back and forth over the border highlights what migrants’ advocates say is a key element of the program—it isolates migrants not only from the legal counsel they need to argue their asylum claims, but from resources like food, shelter and medical care that are abundant on the U.S. side, but near-nonexistent in Mexico.

“You have all this infrastructure to help feed and clothe and house people set up on this side, in Laredo and Del Rio and Eagle Pass, and then suddenly the administration changes the policy, and you have to send it all to Mexico, because now everyone is on the other side,” said Denise LaRock, a Catholic Sister who helps distribute donations to asylum seekers through the nonprofit Interfaith Welcome Coalition. Mexico has been unable to provide enough safe shelter and other resources to migrants.

In Matamoros, another large recipient of asylum seekers under the program across the border from Brownsville, Texas, a tent city of more than 3,000 people has sprung up. Migrants there have complained of overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and insufficient medical treatment. In November, a migrant from El Salvador was murdered in Tijuana, opposite San Diego, while waiting with his wife and two children for an asylum hearing under the Remain in Mexico program.

On a recent, briskly-cold Wednesday, Mr. Ortíz, dressed in a ski vest and a baseball cap with the logo of the U.S. Chaplain International Association, picked up six migrants, including two children aged 8 and 14, at the immigration office in Nuevo Laredo. All were from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras, and were returning from legal appointments in the U.S. Hearings take place in makeshift courts set up in tents in Laredo, just across the bridge over the Rio Grande that separates the two cities.

At the front door of the office, six young men sat idly around a motorcycle, hats pulled low over their heads, watching the scene unfold, periodically walking up to the church van and peering in. Mr. Ortíz said these men were “hawks” or lookouts for criminal gangs.

“They know who I am, I know who they are,” he said. “You have to know everyone to do this work. The cartels respect the church. I’ve driven all around Nuevo Laredo in this van, full of migrants, and they never mess with me.”

At one point two of the lookouts asked the pastor for some food. He gave them two boxes of sandwich cookies. They clapped him on the shoulder, eating the treats as they walked back to their observation post.

Mr. Ortíz, a native of central Mexico, came to the U.S. at age 15 and eventually built a small contracting business in Texas. He became an ordained Baptist minister about a decade ago and three years ago began ministering to migrants full time. This year, he converted several rooms of his home in Laredo, Texas, into a dormitory for migrants and built men’s and women’s showers in his backyard.

After picking up the migrants, Mr. Ortíz ferried the group to an unmarked safe house with a chain-locked door on a busy street in the center of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.

Inside, about 90 migrant families crowded into rows of cots set up in a handful of bedrooms and a concrete back patio. Among the Central Americans are also migrants from Peru, Congo, Haiti, Angola and Venezuela.

Reports of migrant kidnappings have increased since the Remain in Mexico program began, Mr. Ortíz said. In September, armed men stormed the safe house—one of two that the pastor brings migrants to—and detained the shelter’s staff for about an hour.

Since then, Mr. Ortíz said, the volunteer staff has stopped allowing migrants to leave the house unaccompanied, even to buy milk for young children at a nearby store.

Rosa Asencio, a schoolteacher fleeing criminal gangs in El Salvador and traveling with her two children ages 4 and 7, was returned to Nuevo Laredo under Remain in Mexico. She says she hasn’t been outside the shelter for nearly three weeks. “They can kidnap you anywhere,” she said.

María Mazariegos, an Honduran housekeeper, said she was kidnapped along with her 12-year-old daughter Alexandra from the bus station in Nuevo Laredo in September.

Gang members held her in a windowless cinder-block room that bore signs of torture for three days with one meal of tortillas and beans. She was released after her family members in the U.S. convinced her captors that they didn’t have the money to pay a ransom.

Then, two weeks later, while she was returning from a court appointment in the U.S., a shelter staff member confirmed, another group tried to kidnap her. An escort from the shelter was able to talk the kidnappers out of it.

She has court hearing under Remain in Mexico rules on Jan. 22, where a judge is expected to decide on her asylum case. If she is rejected, she plans to move to the Mexican city of Saltillo, where she has heard there are more jobs and less violence.

“Just about anywhere is better than here,” Ms. Mazariegos added.

Write to Robbie Whelan at robbie.whelan@wsj.com

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

These two quotes really tell you all you need know about this grotesquely immoral and illegal “Let ‘Em Die In Mexico Program” (sometimes totally disingenuously referred to as the “Migrant Protection Protocols”) and the sleazy U.S. Government officials responsible for it:

There have been 636 reported cases of kidnapping, rape, torture and other violent crimes against migrants returned to Mexico under Remain in Mexico, according to Human Rights First, which interviews victims in border cities and advocates for migrants’ due process rights. At least 138 of these incidents involved kidnappings of children.

. . . .

On a recent visit to the border, acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said the program has been a “game-changer” for U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers because it has freed them from having to perform humanitarian duties.

Let’s not forget that the Immigration “Court” system that has life or death power over these asylum claims has been twisted and “gamed” against legitimate asylum seekers, particularly women and children with brown skins, by the White Nationalist politicos who unconstitutionally control it. All this while the Article III appellate courts look the other way and “swallow the whistle” on protecting the legal and constitutional rights of the most vulnerable among us.

Let’s see, essentially: “It’s great program because it allows us to evade our humanitarian duties under humanitarian laws and concentrate on faux law enforcement directed against individuals who are not legitimate targets of law enforcement.” Doesn’t say much for the legal and moral authority of the Article III, life-tenured judges who think this is acceptable for our country.

Obviously, this has less to do with the law, which is clearly against what the “regime” is doing, or legitimate law enforcement, which has little to do with the vast majority of legal asylum seekers, and lots to do with vulnerable, brown-skinned individuals desperately seeking justice being “out of sight, out of mind” to the exalted, tone-deaf Article III Judges who are failing to do their Constitutional duties. “Going along to get along” appears to be the new mantra of far too many of the Article III appellate judges.

Assuming that our republic survives and that “Good Government” eventually returns to both the Executive and the Legislative Branches, an examination of the catastrophic failure of the Article III Judiciary to effectively stand up for the Constitutional, legal, and individual human rights of asylum seekers obviously needs reexamination and attention.

The glaring lack of legal expertise in asylum, immigration, and human rights laws as well as basic Constitutional Due Process, and the total lack of human empathy among far, far too many Article III appellate jurists is as stunning as it is disturbing! The past is the past; but, we can and should learn from it. At some point, if we are to survive as a nation of laws and humane values, we need a radically different and more courageous Article III Judiciary that puts humanity and human rights first, not last!

The “Let ‘Em Die In Mexico Program” will not go down in history as a “law enforcement success” as Wolf-man and the other Trump regime kakistocrats and their enablers and apologists claim; it eventually will take its place as one of the most disgraceful and cowardly abandonments of American values in our history. And, the role of the complicit Supreme Court Justices and Court of Appeals Judges who turned their backs on our asylum laws, our Constitution, and human decency will also be spotlighted!

As I was “indexing” this article, I “scrolled through” the name and thought of my old friend the late Arthur Helton, a courageous humanitarian, lawyer, teacher, role model, and occasional litigation opponent (during my days at the “Legacy INS”). Arthur, who literally gave his life for others and his steadfastly humane view of the law, was a believer in the “fundamental justice” of the American judicial system. I wonder what he would think if he were alive today to see the cowardly and complicit performance of so many Article III appellate judges, all the way up to and including the Supremes, in the face of the unlawful, unconstitutional, institutionalized evil, hate, and tyranny of our current White Nationalist regime.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-31-19

“THE GIFTS OF THE MAGA-I:” DESPAIR, DEHUMANIZATION, DEATH — “[W]e keep wondering, how many 7-year-old girls would need to die for this to be something that would get in the headlines and stay in the headlines for a day or two?”

Kristin Clarens, Esquire
Project Adelante

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/trump-tent-cities-mpp-killing-immigrant-children.html

JURISPRUDENCE

Trump’s Tent Cities Are on the Verge of Killing Immigrant Children

By DAHLIA LITHWICK

DEC 23, 20191:17 PM

The tent camp set up by asylum-seekers next to the bridge to the U.S. in Matamoros, Mexico, seen on Dec. 9.

John Moore/Getty Images

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On this week’s episode of Amicus, Slate’s podcast about the Supreme Court, Dahlia Lithwick was joined by Kristin Clarens, an attorney with Project Adelante, a group of multidisciplinary professionals, including lawyers, doctors, ministers, and psychologists, working across the country to help mobilize and concentrate support for asylum-seekers at the border. A transcript of the interview, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, follows.

Dahlia Lithwick: Can you just start by explaining what it is that you do and how as a lawyer you were able to kind of amble in and out of border facilities, detention facilities?

Kristin Clarens: People who previously would have been detained [in the U.S.] are now living in sort of makeshift refugee camps on the Mexico side of the border because of the “Remain in Mexico” policy. So now it’s incredibly easy to amble in and out, as easy as it is for the cartel members and other organized criminals who are circulating in these camps.

The Remain in Mexico policy, the Migrant Protection Protocols, is just about a year old. Can you describe what the world was like before it, what the world has been like since?

The estimates are that there are around 3,000 people [in the tent camp in Matamoros] living just in squalor and in tents, and that 80 percent of them are families with young children. A year ago, in the Rio Grande Valley, most of those people would come to the United States either after asking for permission at a port of entry or after crossing without permission and they would be apprehended, put into one of the temporary facilities that so many of us have seen on the news with the kids in cages and the very overcrowded conditions, lack of sanitation and medical care. After that, the families and young kids were sent to longer-term detention centers where many of us, many lawyers who speak Spanish, have worked across the country.

As of June or July of this year, the United States government started implementing something that they call, I think very ironically, the Migrant Protection Protocols, which is a policy guideline that says that border patrol agents are able to return asylum-seekers to Mexico for the duration of their immigration hearings. So now an asylum-seeker who comes up from Central America arrives in these incredibly sketchy and stressful border towns, asks for asylum at the port of entry, and after a quick trip to one of the cage facilities, they are sent back into the streets of Mexico.

That moment where they’re shoved back into Mexican territory from the U.S. officials is an incredibly vulnerable one. It’s kind of like bad guys lurking on the sides.

Now that you’re looking at the tent cities in Mexico, what kinds of things are you seeing, what kinds of legal aid are you able to provide if you are in Matamoros trying to help?

The legal aid that we’re able to provide at this point is becoming so much more limited because the statistics out now are that 0.1 percent of asylum-seekers who have their cases heard in the MPP courts—many of whom have valid claims, who would have succeeded with time and due process and legal support—0.1 percent are succeeding. Nothing has changed with respect to the nature of the cases—single women who have been persecuted specifically because they’re vulnerable in their home countries by gangs and by other types of organized crime. They’re incredibly vulnerable living in these—it’s just like a tent, the kind of tent that you would take to go camping in the woods in the summer. Except for single women—sometimes pregnant with young children with no other form of support, no network whatsoever—living for months at a time in freezing cold conditions in rain and in superhot conditions the next day, just incredibly exposed on every single level.

The circumstances change almost weekly with respect to the parameters and expectations, the due process provided in the MPP camp, and also, with respect to just the feasibility of [the legal support] we can offer as the numbers of people on the ground grow and the backlog increases in the MPP courts.

The camp facility where people are sort of constrained physically has somewhere between 2,600 and 3,000 people in it at any given day, and it’s growing. But the total number of people who’ve been returned to Mexico under MPP is closer to 68,000. So only a small fraction of the people who need legal services are even visible at this point.

On the ground and at least at Matamoros, people don’t have enough showers, they don’t have enough food. There’s rampant illness. I mean, you are seeing kids with tremendous medical and nutritional and other needs that are not getting that.

There’s sort of a group that’s come onto the scene over the past month that’s providing mobile health care via a clinic and also a humanitarian support to try and improve the shelters. They’re all volunteer based. It’s kind of all of us rolling up our sleeves and trying to figure out the best way to get support in there. But it’s subject essentially to the whims of the Mexican government. At any point, this could be shut down, or relocated, or people could just be forced to scatter. You just don’t know how things are going to unfold when the United States government’s policies might be enjoined, or when the Mexican government may decide that it can no longer tolerate these large refugee camps.

“How many 7-year-old girls would need to die for this to be something that would get in the headlines and stay in the headlines for a day or two?”

— Kristin Clarens

The Mexican government initially restricted humanitarian groups’ access to sort of building things like toilets and showers and did so themselves in Matamoros. But the facilities that they built were really not adequate. They have showers that are not linked to any sort of drainage systems so there’s just big puddles of disgusting water that smelled bad and it’s just really kind of dehumanizing. Prior to the existence of the showers though, people were bathing in the river, which is contaminated with human waste, and people were getting sick and these awful skin infections all over. Little kids were swimming in the same place where little kids were also vomiting and having diarrhea. It’s just kind of a recipe for humanitarian crisis, within 100 feet of an American city.

You’ve been dealing this week with a critically ill child.

It’s really difficult for people who could die at any minute of their illnesses to get medical care in Matamoros for a variety of reasons. It’s hard for them to get around. It’s a scary city and it’s not safe. And so, this past week, we heard about several more critically ill migrants waiting at the tent city, including a 7-year-old who had, I think it can best be described as, sort of a breach in her abdominal wall.

So her fecal matter was leaking out and kind of reinfecting her, kind of getting reabsorbed by parts of her body as she wasn’t able to access clean water or water at all, to drink or to bathe herself to prevent just massive infection that could really quickly turn to a life-and-death situation. So, we did the best we could. I’ve been on the bridge trying to cross with people and been kind of mistreated and treated aggressively by the Border Patrol agents, and I know how scary and hard that is. I can’t imagine having gotten that experience as a 7-year-old girl who has to wear a diaper because her stomach is no longer able to contain her intestines. Fortunately, she was able to cross after, I think, a collective eight or nine hours waiting on the bridge and advocating and negotiating with Border Patrol. She was able to get across and get to the hospital on Tuesday night.

I had to try to twist your arm to get you to come talk about her story, because nobody died so it feels like nobody is going to care?

That’s the sense that I get in trying to focus attention on this in such a stressful time in America. It seems scary. Our government is unstable and stressful right now, and at the same time, these incredible egregious human rights violations are happening at our Southern border. And it’s like, how do we cut through this noise and really stand up for the weakest people that our country is negatively impacting right now? And I don’t have those answers, but we keep wondering, how many 7-year-old girls would need to die for this to be something that would get in the headlines and stay in the headlines for a day or two?

You can listen to Amicus in the player below or via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, Justice, and the Courts

Divided Realities

Lawyers on the crisis at the border, and a cacophony of bad faith in the Capitol.

01:10:57

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Donald Trump Immigration Mexico

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

As the article points out, vulnerable refugees with valid asylum claims that might well have been granted prior to the Trump White Nationalist kakistocracy are now being railroaded without legal representation or any semblance of fairness, impartiality, or due process.

Another way of putting Kristin Clarens’s very valid concerns: “How many seven-year old girls would have to die before complicit, tone-deaf, life-tenured Supreme Court Justices and Article III Appellate Judges take off their blinders, get out of their ivory towers, stop kowtowing to Trump and the forces of White Nationalist darkness and evil, and start seeing Trump’s victims as human beings, or even as their own children or grandchildren?”

Thank goodness for courageous, talented, dedicated folks like Kristin who represent the “True Spirit of Christmas” in an age where kindness, compassion, mercy, and justice have been forgotten and are daily being trampled by the regime, its supporters, and enablers.

Merry Christmas,

PWS

12-25-19

REGIME’S NEWEST SCHEME TO SCREW ASYLUM SEEKERS: BOGUS REGS THAT WOULD ILLEGALLY & UNNECESSARILY EXTEND THE GROUNDS OF “MANDATORY DENIAL,” DECREASE ADJUDICATOR DISCRETION, & SHAFT REFUGEE FAMILIES — Regime’s Outlandish “Efficiency Rationale” Fails to Mask Their Cruelty, Racism, Fraud, Waste, & Abuse – Julia Edwards Ainsley (NBC News) & Dean Kevin R. Johnson (ImmigrationProf Blog) Report

Julia Edwards Ainsley
NBC News Correspondent

https://apple.news/AXSXjJIOxRUSM4ZOgQm9plQ

Trump admin announces rule further limiting immigrants’ eligibility for asylum

DUIs, drug paraphernalia possession and unlawful receipt of public benefits would be among seven triggers barring migrants from even applying for asylum.

by Julia Ainsley | NBC NEWS

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced a new rule Wednesday that would further limit immigrants’ eligibility for asylum if they have been convicted of certain crimes, including driving under the influence and possession of drug paraphernalia.

The rule, if finalized, would give asylum officers seven requirements with which to deem an immigrant ineligible to apply for asylum.

Other acts that would make an immigrant ineligible for asylum under the new rule include the unlawful receipt of public benefits, illegal re-entry after being issued a deportation order and being found “by an adjudicator” to have engaged in domestic violence, even if there was no conviction for such violence.

The rules could eliminate large numbers of asylum-seekers from ever having their cases heard in court. Currently, immigration courts have a backlog of over 1 million cases, according to data kept by Syracuse University.

In a statement, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security said the new rule would “increase immigration court efficiencies.”

Andrew Free, an immigration attorney based in Nashville, said the new regulation is “calculated to enable the denial of as many claims as possible.”

Free said the most common charges he sees for his immigrant clients are driving under the influence, domestic violence and driving without a license. Driving without a license is particularly common for immigrants who have had to use fake travel documents to enter the U.S. and live in states that do not give licenses to undocumented migrants.

“People who are fleeing persecutions and violence are not going to be able to get travel documents from the governments inflicting violence upon them. If you have to resort to other means of proving your identity, you won’t be eligible [for asylum,]” Free said.

The Trump administration has unveiled a number of new requirements meant to curb asylum applications this year. The most successful of those policies has been “Remain in Mexico” or MPP, that requires lawful asylum-seekers from Central America to wait in Mexico, often in dangerous conditions, until their court date in the United States. Over 60,000 asylum-seekers are currently waiting in Mexico for a decision to be made in their case, a process that can take over a year.

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

The Beat Goes On! Joint Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to Restrict Certain “Criminal Aliens'” Eligibility for Asylum

By Immigration Prof

Share

Consistent with the efforts to facilitate removal of “criminal aliens,” the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security released the announcement below today:

“The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security (collectively, “the Departments”) today issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would amend their respective regulations in order to prevent certain categories of criminal aliens from obtaining asylum in the United States. Upon finalization of the rulemaking process, the Departments will be able to devote more resources to the adjudication of asylum cases filed by non-criminal aliens.

Asylum is a discretionary immigration benefit that generally can be sought by eligible aliens who are physically present or arriving in the United States, irrespective of their status, as provided in section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. § 1158. However, in the INA, Congress barred certain categories of aliens from receiving asylum. In addition to the statutory bars, Congress delegated to the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to establish by regulation additional bars on asylum eligibility to the extent they are consistent with the asylum statute, as well as to establish “any other conditions or limitations on the consideration of an application for asylum” that are consistent with the INA. Today, the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security are proposing to exercise their regulatory authority to limit eligibility for asylum for aliens who have engaged in specified categories of criminal behavior. The proposed rule will also eliminate a regulation concerning the automatic reconsideration of discretionary denials of asylum applications in limited cases.

The proposed regulation would provide seven additional mandatory bars to eligibility for asylum. The proposed rule would add bars to eligibility for aliens who commit certain offenses in the United States.Those bars would apply to aliens who are convicted of:

(1) A felony under federal or state law;

(2) An offense under 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A) or § 1324(a)(1)(2) (Alien Smuggling or Harboring);

(3) An offense under 8 U.S.C. § 1326 (Illegal Reentry);

(4) A federal, state, tribal, or local crime involving criminal street gang activity;

(5) Certain federal, state, tribal, or local offenses concerning the operation of a motor vehicle while under the influence of an intoxicant;

(6) A federal, state, tribal, or local domestic violence offense, or who are found by an adjudicator to have engaged in acts of battery or extreme cruelty in a domestic context, even if no conviction resulted; and

(7) Certain misdemeanors under federal or state law for offenses related to false identification; the unlawful receipt of public benefits from a federal, state, tribal, or local entity; or the possession or trafficking of a controlled substance or controlled-substance paraphernalia.

The seven proposed bars would be in addition to the existing mandatory bars in the INA and its implementing regulations, such as those relating to the persecution of others, convictions for particularly serious crimes, commission of serious nonpolitical crimes, security threats, terrorist activity, and firm resettlement in another country.

Under the current statutory and regulatory framework, asylum officers and immigration judges consider the applicability of mandatory bars to asylum in every proceeding involving an alien who has submitted an application for asylum. Although the proposed regulation would expand the mandatory bars to asylum, the proposed regulation does not change the nature or scope of the role of an immigration judge or an asylum officer during proceedings for consideration of asylum applications.

The proposed rule would also remove the provisions at 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(e) and §1208.16(e) regarding reconsideration of discretionary denials of asylum. The removal of the requirement to reconsider a discretionary denial would increase immigration court efficiencies and reduce any cost from the increased adjudication time by no longer requiring a second review of the same application by the same immigration judge.” (bold added).

KJ

December 18, 2019 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

What total, unadulterated BS and gratuitous cruelty!

For example, 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(e) and §1208.16(e) are humanitarian provisions that seldom come up except in highly unusual and sympathetic cases. The idea that they represent a “drain” on IJ time is preposterous! And, if they did, it would be well worth it to help to keep deserving and vulnerable refugee families together!

I had about three such cases involving those regulations in 13 years on the bench, although I cited the existing regulation for the proposition that discretionary denials are disfavored, as they should be under international humanitarian laws. Federal Courts and the BIA have held that asylum should not be denied for “discretionary reasons” except in the case of “egregious adverse factors.” Therefore, an Immigration Judge properly doing his or her job would very seldom have occasion to enter a “discretionary denial” to someone eligible for asylum. Obviously, the regime intends to ignore these legal rulings.

One of my colleagues wrote “they are going to capture a lot of people and force IJs to hear separate asylum applications for each family member. So counterproductive.”

Cruelty, and more “aimless docket reshuffling” is what these “maliciously incompetent gimmicks” are all about.

I note that this is a “joint proposal” from EOIR and DHS Enforcement, the latter supposedly a “party” to every Immigration Court proceeding, but actually de facto in charge of the EOIR “judges.” That alone makes it unethical, a sign of bias, and a clear denial of Due Process for the so-called “court” and the “Government party” to collude against the “private party.”

When will the Article IIIs do their job and put an end to this nonsense? It’s not “rocket science.” Most first year law students could tell you that this absurd charade of a “court” is a clear violation of Due Process! So, what’s the problem with the Article IIIs? Have they forgotten both their humanity and what they learned in Con Law as well as their oaths of office they took upon investiture?

Right now, as intended by the regime with the connivance and complicity of the Article IIIs, those advocating for the legal, constitutional, and human rights of asylum seekers are being forced to divert scarce resources to respond to the “regime shenanigan of the day.” It’s also abusing and disrespecting the Article III Courts. Why are they so blind to what’s REALLY going on when the rest of us see it so clearly? These aren’t “legal disputes” or “legitimate policy initiatives.” No, they are lawless outright attacks on our Constitution, our nation, our human values, and our system of justice which Article III Judges are sworn to uphold!

Join the New Due Process Army and fight to protect our democracy from the White Nationalist Regime and the complicit life-tenured judges who enable and encourage it!

Due Process Forever; “Malicious Incompetence” & Complicit Courts Never!

PWS

12-21-19

WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE? — 9th CIRCUIT JUDGES ASSIST REGIME’S AGENTS IN COMMITTING “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” MERE YARDS FROM THE BORDER! — NDPA Leader Jodi Goodwin, Esquire, Speaks Out: “I’ve been practicing law for 25 years and the last four to five months of practicing law has broken me. I don’t want to fucking do this anymore. [Her voice breaks again] It sucks. How do you explain to people that you know they thought they were coming to a place where there’s freedom and safety and where the laws are just, but that’s not the situation? I’m very mad.”

Jodi Goodwin, Esquire
Immigration Attorney
Harlingen, TX

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/remain-in-mexico-policy-immigrant-kids_n_5deeb143e4b00563b8560c69

Angelina Chapin reports for HuffPost:

A few times a week, attorney Jodi Goodwin walks across the bridge from Brownsville, Texas, to a refugee camp in Matamoros, Mexico, to meet with asylum-seekers. Her clients are among the more than 2,500 immigrants crammed into tents while they wait for U.S. immigration hearings ― often stuck for months in dirty and dangerous conditions.

The forced return to Mexico of migrants seeking refuge in the U.S. is one of President Donald Trump’s most inhumane immigration policies, yet it hasn’t received nearly the attention that his family separation and prolonged detention practices have.

Since January, under Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” initiative ― also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) ― the U.S. government has sent at least 54,000 immigrants to wait for their court dates in Mexican border towns. Instead of staying with relatives in the U.S., families are sleeping in tents for up to eight months, in unprotected areas where infections spread within crowded quarters and cartel kidnappings are commonplace. Family separation ended a year ago. But Trump’s mistreatment of asylum-seekers continues in a different form.

Some parents are so desperate that they’ve resorted to sending their children across the bridge alone, since unaccompanied kids who arrive at the border cannot be turned away under MPP. Since October, at least 135 children have crossed back into the U.S. by themselves after being sent to wait in Mexico with their parents, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In Mexico, many of these migrants don’t have access to lawyers and are forced to plead their cases in makeshift tent courts set up along the U.S. border where overwhelmed judges conduct hearings via video teleconference. The courts have limited public access ― lawyers and translators say that they have been barred from attending hearings. Migrants’ advocates argue that the tent courts violate due process, and immigrant rights organizations have filed a federal lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the use of videoconferencing.

Goodwin, who has 42 clients, said there is a serious shortage of lawyers willing to represent immigrants staying in another country where crime is rife. She spoke with HuffPost about why the Remain in Mexico policy is even more traumatic than separating thousands of families and why it hasn’t sparked public outrage.

AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAWYERS ASSOCIATION

Jodi Goodwin (center) at the refugee camp in Matamoros, Mexico.

HuffPost: Immigrant parents forced to wait in Mexico are making the heart-wrenching choice to send their kids to the U.S. alone. What are the conditions like at the camp in Matamoros?

Jodi Goodwin: It smells like urine and feces. There’s not enough sanitation. There’s 10 port-a-potties for thousands of people. Up until recently, there was no potable water available at all. People were bathing in the Rio Grande river, getting sick and, in some cases, drowning. People were seriously dehydrated.

The camp sounds completely unfitting for any human being, let alone children.

It’s a horrific situation to put families in. It’s great to live in a tent for the weekend when you’re going to the lake. It’s not great to live in a tent for months at a time where you don’t have basic necessities.

Are kids getting sick?

The kids are sick every day. I’ve seen all kinds of respiratory illnesses and digestive illnesses. I’ve seen chronic illnesses like epilepsy. I saw a baby that appeared to have sepsis who was forced to wait on the bridge for more than three hours before being taken to a hospital.

And what about the kidnappings? Have you heard of families being taken by cartel members who then try and extort an immigrant’s U.S. relatives for money?

About half of the people I’ve spoken to in Mexico have been kidnapped. The cartel knows if they can grab an immigrant, they’re likely to be able to work out a ransom. If they don’t, then they just kill them.

Any specific examples?

I dealt with one case where a mom from El Salvador and her 4-year-old son were kidnapped within an hour of being sent back to Mexico under MPP. They were taken for eight days before her brother in the U.S. paid the kidnappers $7,000.

The lady was terrified. She was sleep-deprived, food-deprived and water-deprived. She said that the people who had kidnapped her were extremely violent and hit her kid. They were drinking alcohol and raping people at a stash house where several other people were being held.

LOREN ELLIOTT / REUTERS

Migrants, most of them asylum-seekers sent back to Mexico from the U.S. under the “Remain in Mexico” program, occupy a makeshift encampment in Matamoros, Mexico, on Oc. 28, 2019.

The last time we spoke, you were on the frontlines of family separation, visiting detention centers where mothers were hysterically crying after being ripped apart from their children. How does the trauma of MPP compare, particularly for parents who are sending their kids across the border alone?

It’s way worse. I can’t with any confidence say that they will ever see their children again.

Why not?

I knew there were legal ways to get out of family separation. We were able to talk with our clients and didn’t have to go off to another country. And for those parents who got through their interviews or their court hearings, we were able to get them back with their kids.

With MPP, the assault is not only on human rights but also on due process within the court systems, which has completely hijacked the ability to be able to fix things. The parents can’t even get into the country to try to reunify with their kids.

Nearly 3,000 children were separated from their parents under Trump’s zero-tolerance policy. Do you think a similar number of families will be ripped apart because of Remain in Mexico?

It could be more. Over 55,000 people have been sent back to Mexico. I’ve talked to so many parents who have sent their kids across. It’s a heart-wrenching decision process that they go through. How do you give up your baby?

It reminds me of Jewish parents who were captives in Nazi Germany and had to convince their kids to get on a different train or go in a different line to save their own lives.

Have you witnessed these separations firsthand?

In November I saw a little boy and his 4-year-old sister sent across the bridge with an older child, who was about 14 years old. The teenager carried the baby boy, who still had a pacifier in his mouth, and the girl was holding onto the older kid’s belt loop.

I was standing on the bridge between Matamoros and the U.S. and I turned around to look down at the bank of the Rio Grande river. Every single parent who has sent their kid to cross tells me the same thing: As soon as they say goodbye and hug their kids, they run to the bank to watch them. [Her voice breaks] I knew there was somebody probably standing on that bank hoping those kids made it across.

Do you still think about those kids?

Oh yeah. The green binky that the little baby was sucking on is knitted in my mind.

VERONICA CARDENAS / REUTERS

The Mexican National Guard patrols an encampment where asylum-seekers live as their tents are relocated from the plaza to near the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros on Dec. 7, 2019.

You’ve been working hundreds of hours a month to try and help people stranded in Matamoros. This work must take a toll on you personally.

I’ve been practicing law for 25 years and the last four to five months of practicing law has broken me.

I don’t want to fucking do this anymore. [Her voice breaks again] It sucks. How do you explain to people that you know they thought they were coming to a place where there’s freedom and safety and where the laws are just, but that’s not the situation? I’m very mad.

Family separation resulted in massive outcry from the public, which eventually pressured the government to end the zero-tolerance policy. Why is MPP not getting the same attention?

There is no public outrage because it’s not happening on our soil. It’s happening literally 10 feet from the turnstile to come to the U.S. But because it’s out of sight and out of mind, there is no outrage. What ended family separation was public outrage. It had nothing to do with lawsuits. It had everything to do with shame, shame, shame.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

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

I’m with you, Jodi! Thanks for your dedication to justice for the most vulnerable!

What’s wrong with this scenario: life-tenured Federal Judges who won’t stand up for the rule of law, Due Process, and Equal Protection in the face of an arrogantly and overtly lawless White Nationalist Regime; DOJ and other U.S. Government lawyers who defend immoral and disingenuous positions in Federal Court, often, as in the Census Case and the DACA Case using pretextual rationales and knowingly false information; dehumanization, with overwhelming racial and religious overtones, of those who deserve our protection and rely on our sense of fairness; undercutting, mistreating and humiliating the brave lawyers like Jodi who are standing up for justice in the face of tyranny; GOP legislators who are lawyers defending Trump’s mockery of the Constitution, human decency, and the rule of law and knowingly and defiantly spreading Putin’s false narratives.

Obviously, there has been a severe failure in our legal and ethical education programs and our criteria for Federal Judicial selections, particularly at the higher levels, and particularly with respect to the critical characteristic of courage. Too many “go alongs to get alongs!” I can only hope that our republic survives long enough to reform and correct these existential defects that now threaten to bring us all down.

Where’s the accountability? Where’s the outrage? Where’s our humanity?

We should also remember that many asylum seekers from Africa, who face extreme danger in Mexico, are also being targeted (“shithole countries?”) and abused as part of the Regime’s judicially-enabled, racially driven, anti-asylum, anti-rule-of-law antics at the Southern Border. https://apple.news/AyYSWSXNfSdOm63skxWaUTQ

Also, morally corrupt Trump Regime officials continued to tout “Crimes Against Humanity” as an acceptable approach to border enforcement and “reducing apprehensions!” Will machine gun turrets be next on their list? Will Article III Judges give that their “A-OK?”

We’re actually paying Article III Federal Judges who are knowingly and intentionally furthering “Crimes Against Humanity.” Totally outrageous!

Constantly Confront Complicit Courts 4 Change!

Due Process Forever; Complicit Courts Never!

PWS

12-10-19

BIA SEEKS TO REPEAL CAT BY MISINTERPRETATION; MUSALO’S FACT FINDING MISSION TO EL SALVADOR SHOWS MALICIOUS ABSURDITY OF REGIME’S BOGUS “SAFE THIRD COUNTRY” ASSAULT ON HUMAN RIGHTS; 9th & 11th CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO TANK ON THE RULE OF LAW; & OTHER LEGAL NEWS ABOUT THE WHITE NATIONALIST REGIME & THE RESISTANCE — The Gibson Report — 12-10-19 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group

Elizabeth Gibson
Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

TOP UPDATES

NY to begin issuing driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants<https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/immigrants-driver-s-licenses-new-york-1.39283599>

Newsday: The Green Light Law also allows new kinds of records to be used by immigrants to apply for licenses. These include an unexpired passport from another country, an unexpired identification number from a consulate, and a foreign driver’s license that is valid or expired for less than 24 months. If an applicant doesn’t have a Social Security number, they need to sign an affidavit that they hadn’t been issued one. Even the federal government would need a court order to obtain these records. The law requires that most of the records to eventually be destroyed, and supporters expect that would happen before court orders could be issued. The documentation is specifically identified as not being a public record under the law.

Justices Lean Toward Broader Review of Deportation Orders<https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/justices-lean-toward-immigrants-over-deportation-review>

Bloomberg: Justices from both the conservative and liberal wings of the court aggressively questioned the government’s attorney in a case examining what immigration decisions are reviewable in federal court.

More immigration judges to be assigned to cases at tent facilities<https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/12/06/politics/immigration-court-judges-remain-in-mexico/index.html>

CNN: As of mid-September, there were 19 judges from three separate immigration courts in Texas hearing cases. But the latest expansion includes the use of immigration judges assigned to a center in Fort Worth, Texas, that is closed to the public, leaving little opportunity for people to observe hearings.

Inside the So-Called “Safe Third”—and Trump’s Latest Attack on Asylum-Seekers<https://msmagazine.com/2019/12/04/inside-the-so-called-safe-third-and-the-trump-administrations-latest-attack-on-asylum-seekers/>

Ms.: [Karen Musalo (CGRS)] recently returned from a human rights fact-finding trip with colleagues to El Salvador, and our findings illustrate the absurdity of a U.S. / El Salvador safe third country agreement.

Year In Review: The Most Significant Immigration Stories Of 2019<https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2019/12/09/the-most-disturbing-immigration-stories-of-2019/#74b86cac1302>

Forbes: The year 2019 produced many significant and, in some cases, tragic stories about immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The list is not comprehensive but focuses on those stories considered most important to remember.

North Dakota county may become US’s 1st to bar new refugees<https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/north-dakota-county-uss-1st-bar-refugees-67579252>

ABC: If they vote to bar refugees, as expected, Burleigh County — home to about 95,000 people and the capital city of Bismarck — could become the first local government to do so since President Donald Trump issued an executive order making it possible.

Trump Has Built a Wall of Bureaucracy to Keep Out the Very Immigrants He Says He Wants<https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/12/trump-h1b-visa-immigration-restrictions/>

MJ: Even as President Donald Trump has complained about rules that prevent American companies “from retaining highly skilled and… totally brilliant people” from abroad, his administration has made sweeping changes to the H-1B program, denying visas to skilled immigrants, some who have been working in the United States for years. USCIS has been denying H-1B petitions at a record rate: 24 percent of first-time H-1B applications were denied through the third quarter of 2019 fiscal year, compared with 6 percent in 2015.

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

Matter of O-S-A-F-<https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1224026/download>

(1) Torturous conduct committed by a public official who is acting “in an official capacity,” that is, “under color of law” is covered by the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted and opened for signature Dec. 10, 1984, G.A. Res. 39/46, 39 U.N. GAOR Supp. No. 51, at 197, U.N. Doc. A/RES/39/708 (1984) (entered into force June 26, 1987; for the United States Apr. 18, 1988), but such conduct by an official who is not acting in an official capacity, also known as a “rogue official,” is not covered by the Convention.

(2) The key consideration in determining if a public official was acting under color of law is whether he was able to engage in torturous conduct because of his government position or if he could have done so without a connection to the government.

New Acting Court Administrator at New York – Varick Immigration Court

EOIR: Effective today, Paul Friedman is the Acting Court Administrator for the New York – Varick, Fishkill, and Ulster immigration courts. Paul is currently the Court Administrator for the Elizabeth Immigration Court in New Jersey. He will be splitting his time between the Elizabeth IC and the Varick IC each week.

Appeals court lifts some rulings blocking Trump ‘public charge’ rule for immigrants<https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/05/trump-public-charge-immigrants-legal-076855>

Politico: A divided 9th Circuit panel clears away obstacles to a key administration immigration policy, but courts in other parts of the country [including SDNY] still have it on hold.

ACLU Files Lawsuit Challenging Programs that Rush Migrants Through Asylum Screenings Without Access to Attorneys in Border Patrol Facilities<https://www.aclutx.org/en/press-releases/aclu-files-lawsuit-challenging-programs-rush-migrants-through-asylum-screenings>

ACLU: The lawsuit states that the new programs – known as Prompt Asylum Claim Review (“PACR”) and the Humanitarian Asylum Review Process (“HARP”) – require the detention of asylum seekers in dangerous CBP facilities known as “hieleras” (or “iceboxes” for their freezing temperatures) with no meaningful way to obtain or consult with an attorney before their hearings.

Acevedo v. Barr Denied<https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/17-3519/17-3519-2019-12-03.html>

Justia: The Second Circuit denied a petition for review of the BIA’s decision affirming the IJ’s determination that petitioner was removable and ineligible for cancellation of removal. The court held that petitioner’s conviction under New York Penal Law 110.00, 130.45 for attempted oral or anal sexual conduct with a person under the age of fifteen constitutes sexual abuse of a minor, and was therefore an aggravated felony under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The court explained that petitioner’s conviction under the New York statute did not encompass more conduct than the generic definition and could not realistically result in an individual’s conviction for conduct made with a less than knowing mens rea.

11th Circuit Defers to Matter of A-B-<https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/12/04/11th-circuit-tanks-defers-to-matter-of-a-b-refugee-women-of-color-sentenced-to-potential-death-without-due-process-by-judges-elizabeth-l-branch-peter-t-fay-frank-m-hull/>

Courtside: The BIA concluded, based on recent precedent from the Attorney General, Matter of A-B-, 27 I. & N. Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018), that Amezcua-Preciado’s proposed social group of “women in Mexico who are unable to leave their domestic relationships” was not a cognizable particular social group under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”).

Typo/ambiguity in the new I-912 instructions for SIJS<https://www.uscis.gov/i-192>

Page 6 of the new I-912 instructions state: “If you are applying for adjustment of status or filing related forms based on SIJ classification, you are not required to complete Part 2. of Form I-912 or to show proof of income to request a fee waiver.” Part 2 is the biographical information. It is possible this is an error and USCIS meant Part 3, regarding income. If you have any test cases that won’t age out, spread the word on how this plays out.

USCIS Extension of Comment Period on Proposed Rule with Adjustments to Fee Schedule and Other Changes<https://www.aila.org/advo-media/submit-feedback-notices-requests-for-comment/84-fr-67243-12-9-19>

USCIS extension of the comment period on the proposed rule published at 84 FR 62280 on 11/14/19, which would significantly alter the USCIS fee schedule and make other changes, including form changes. Comments are now due 12/30/19. (84 FR 67243, 12/9/19) AILA Doc. No. 19120900

EOIR to Open New Immigration Court in Los Angeles<https://www.aila.org/infonet/eoir-to-open-new-immigration-court-in-los-angeles>

EOIR will open a new immigration court in Los Angeles, on December 9, 2019. The Van Nuys Blvd. immigration court will cover Kern, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties, and parts of Los Angeles County. Notice includes court’s location, contact information, and hours of operation. AILA Doc. No. 19120234

CBP Meets with Privacy Groups to Discuss Biometric Entry-Exit Mandate<https://www.aila.org/infonet/cbp-meets-with-privacy-groups-to-discuss-biometric>

On 12/3/19, CBP met with privacy groups to discuss its implementation of the congressional biometric entry-exit mandate and the protection of traveler privacy during the biometric facial comparison process at ports of entry. CBP has implemented this technology at more than 20 U.S. ports of entry. AILA Doc. No. 19120432

DOS Final Rule Clarifying Passport Regulations Regarding Applicants with Seriously Delinquent Tax Debt<https://www.aila.org/infonet/dos-84-fr-67184-12-9-19>

DOS final rule making a clarification to the regulations on passports regarding situations in which a passport applicant is certified by the Secretary of the Treasury as having a seriously delinquent tax debt. The rule is effective 12/9/19. (84 FR 67184, 12/9/19) AILA Doc. No. 19120932

USCIS 60-Day Notice and Request for Comments on Additional Proposed Revisions to Form I-290B<https://www.aila.org/advo-media/submit-feedback-notices-requests-for-comment/uscis-84-fr-66924-12-6-19>

USCIS 60-day notice and request for comments on proposed revisions to Form I-290B, Notice of Appeal or Motion. USCIS originally published this notice at 84 FR 39359 and decided to propose additional changes in this new 60-day notice. Comments are due 2/4/20. (84 FR 66924, 12/6/19) AILA Doc. No. 19120934

ICE Opening New Detention Facility in West Texas<https://www.aila.org/infonet/ice-opening-new-detention-facility-in-west-texas>

ICE announced that it is opening the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, the week of December 9, 2019. The facility, which will be managed by Management and Training Corporation (MTC), will house about 1,000 ICE detainees as they await outcomes of their immigration proceedings or removal.

AILA Doc. No. 19120430

ICE Provides Guidance on the Phase-Out of the Interactive Scheduling System<https://www.aila.org/infonet/ice-provides-guidance-on-the-phase-out>

Obtained via FOIA, ICE provided the guidance to ICE staff regarding the phase-out of the Interactive Scheduling System and replacement by the DHS Portal to schedule Notices to Appear. The Portal replaced CASE-ISS as of August 2019. Special thanks to Aaron Hall. AILA Doc. No. 19120330

Update to Form I-192, Application for Advance Permission to Enter as a Nonimmigrant. New Edition Dated Dec. 2, 2019.<https://lnks.gd/l/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJidWxsZXRpbl9saW5rX2lkIjoxMDAsInVyaSI6ImJwMjpjbGljayIsImJ1bGxldGluX2lkIjoiMjAxOTEyMDMuMTM4MDU4MTEiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy51c2Npcy5nb3YvaS0xOTI_dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1yc3MtZmVlZCZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249Rm9ybXMlMjBVcGRhdGVzIn0.igkmXB-R6v9goSblHb89LrAWdtcG83febe5H96Erz2U/br/72220790478-l>

Update to Form I-192, Application for Advance Permission to Enter as a Nonimmigrant. New Edition Dated Dec. 2, 2019.

Update to Form I-290B, Notice of Appeal or Motion. New Edition Dated Dec. 2, 2019.<https://lnks.gd/l/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJidWxsZXRpbl9saW5rX2lkIjoxMDIsInVyaSI6ImJwMjpjbGljayIsImJ1bGxldGluX2lkIjoiMjAxOTEyMDMuMTM4MDU4MTEiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy51c2Npcy5nb3YvaS0yOTBiP3V0bV9zb3VyY2U9cnNzLWZlZWQmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPUZvcm1zJTIwVXBkYXRlcyJ9.BnD9VWQtxoxzTff9s58El_ZL4l5JOIv4hyGLDNNvDJE/br/72220790478-l>

Update to Form I-290B, Notice of Appeal or Motion. New Edition Dated Dec. 2, 2019.

Update to Form I-191, Application for Relief Under Former Section 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). New Edition Dated Dec. 2, 2019.<https://lnks.gd/l/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJidWxsZXRpbl9saW5rX2lkIjoxMDMsInVyaSI6ImJwMjpjbGljayIsImJ1bGxldGluX2lkIjoiMjAxOTEyMDMuMTM4MDU4MTEiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy51c2Npcy5nb3YvaS0xOTE_dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1yc3MtZmVlZCZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249Rm9ybXMlMjBVcGRhdGVzIn0.9detMlYAc9qo9rwvtKBwQvFvEDlzTVJbDR2Bych15f0/br/72220790478-l>

Update to Form I-191, Application for Relief Under Former Section 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). New Edition Dated Dec. 2, 2019.

RESOURCES

* Asylos<https://www.asylos.eu/>: Free country conditions database and individualized research.

* Practice Advisory: Strategies and Considerations in the Wake of Pereira v. Sessions<https://cliniclegal.org/resources/practice-advisory-strategies-and-considerations-wake-pereira-v-sessions>

* Practice Alert: Updates to the BIA Practice Manual<https://www.aila.org/infonet/practice-alert-updates-to-the-bia-practice-manual>

* USCIS Issues Policy Alert Regarding Fees for Submission of Benefits Requests<https://www.aila.org/infonet/uscis-issues-policy-alert-regarding-fees>

* GAO: Arrests, Detentions, and Removals, and Issues Related to Selected Populations<https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-36>

* New NY DMV Guidance<https://dmv.ny.gov/driver-license/driver-licenses-and-green-light-law> and license and permit guide<http://nysdmv.standard-license-and-permit-document-guide.sgizmo.com/s3/?_ga=2.197959914.472787525.1575669305-120439318.1520888742>

* DHS report on CBP detention of children and families<https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/fccp_final_report_1.pdf>

* FAQ: Federal Court’s Preliminary Injunction Restores Asylum Eligibility for Asylum Seekers Turned Back at Ports of Entry Before July 16, 2019<https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/other_litigation_documents/challenging_custom_and_border_protections_unlawful_practice_of_turning_away_asylum_seekers_faq.pdf>

* Human Rights Fiasco: The Trump Administration’s Dangerous Asylum Returns Continue<https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/sites/default/files/HumanRightsFiascoDec2019.pdf>

* Practice Pointer: CBP Transfer Notices for U Visa Petitions<https://asistahelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Practice-Pointer_-Transfer-Notices-to-CBP.pdf>

* Forced Return to Danger: Civil Society Concerns with the Agreements Signed between the United States and Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador <https://www.lawg.org/wp-content/uploads/Forced-Return-to-Danger-STC-Civil-Society-Memo-12.4.19.pdf>

* Making Way for Corruption in Guatemala and Honduras<https://www.lawg.org/wp-content/uploads/LAWGEF-Guatemala-Honduras-memo-December-2019.pdf>

EVENTS

* 12/10/19 Immigration Justice Campaign for a Free Webinar on Recent Attacks on Asylum<https://www.aila.org/about/announcements/join-ijc-for-free-webinar-recent-attacks-asylum>

* 12/10/19 USCIS Invites Stakeholders to Teleconference on SIJ Classification Updates <https://www.aila.org/infonet/uscis-invites-stakeholders-teleconference-on-sij>

* 12/10/19 Working With Transgender, Gender Non-conforming, and Non-binary Immigrants: A Guide for Legal Practitioners!<https://avp.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=fb8da3e27ad6713b5d8945fc2&id=70a5b33685&e=15233cf2a6>

* 12/12/19 Family-Based Immigration<https://mailchi.mp/e0c658697ffb/save-the-dates-new-immigration-law-fundamentals-series?e=09f6a8c81a>

* 12/12/19 Annual AILA New York Chapter Symposium<https://agora.aila.org/Conference/Detail/1637>

* 12/13/19 Walk-through of our latest Practice Advisory: Adjustment Applications of TPS Holders<https://secure.everyaction.com/Ehcp3tCeXkSu6MU8WxWOTw2?emci=458c6463-4518-ea11-828b-2818784d6d68&emdi=eb297b03-6318-ea11-828b-2818784d6d68&ceid=6058633&contactdata=fMDCB%2fqMqZ3aN7qEu%2bEEOZ%2f2u0bt1aESH09dm5dECnvlpUiBkFdYswuRXlQCtzzyIpgKxImxdeQKGFsR9FmfW5bEKkiDV4xpC%2brHKTjalyc7w16jw%2bSgJg5GHlK0kroKZ05AP0aHGbsGnYQCk2EX70whLDCxYaRq%2f0jgrAKy3hBelwcS%2fB5nvMSmoeNxg%2f83NHhP5SSrMwjY6MHa0O9UbSCevL%2frb%2fQ2w9N1BEtsFNwULTT1RpAXYa1Axo%2fAcXRktUZ3InKJH5jCw7olAZDtDVKQemN6U%2fzkwURRNhwT4S32Y5xzNEB9X0qfvoiUKvxe>

* 12/16/19 Census 101: Energizing and Mobilizing NYC Nonprofits to Get Out The Count<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1rryroN2pG2kYUew8H3e8zCTyLRsqnyrB1o9RQ1e8L6s/edit>

* 12/17/19 Adjustment of Status and Consular Processing<https://mailchi.mp/e0c658697ffb/save-the-dates-new-immigration-law-fundamentals-series?e=09f6a8c81a>

* 12/17/19 Incredibly Credible: Preparing Your Client to Testify<https://agora.aila.org/Conference/Detail/1632>

* 12/17/19 Keeping Our Communities Safe: The Impact of ICE Arrests at NYS Courts<https://www.eventbrite.com/e/keeping-our-communities-safe-the-impact-of-ice-arrests-at-nys-courts-registration-80735649501>

* 12/20/19 Census 101: Energizing and Mobilizing NYC Nonprofits to Get Out The Count<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1rryroN2pG2kYUew8H3e8zCTyLRsqnyrB1o9RQ1e8L6s/edit>

* 2/6/20 Basic Immigration Law 2020: Business, Family, Naturalization and Related Areas<https://www.pli.edu/programs/basic-immigration-law?t=live>

* 2/7/20 Asylum, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, Crime Victim, and Other Forms of Immigration Relief 2020<https://www.pli.edu/programs/asylum-juvenile-immigration-relief?t=live>

* 2/28/20 5th Annual New York Asylum and Immigration Law Conference

* 7/23/20 Defending Immigration Removal Proceedings 2020<https://www.pli.edu/programs/defending-immigration-removal?t=live>

ImmProf

Sunday, December 8, 2019

* Music Break: Watch Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Stunning Video: “Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)”<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/music-break-watch-lin-manuel-mirandas-stunning-new-video-for-immigrants-we-get-the-job-done.html>

* Ninth Circuit Stays Injunction of Trump Public Charge Rule<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/ninth-circuit-stays-injunction-of-trump-public-charge-rule.html>

* Trump is trying to make it too expensive for poor American immigrants to stay<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/trump-is-trying-to-make-it-too-expensive-for-poor-american-immigrants-to-stay.html>

Saturday, December 7, 2019

* Immigrants’ access to legal assistance further diminished by EOIR memo<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/the-justice-department-recently-issueda-policy-memo-that-would-limit-immigrants-ability-to-rely-on-friends-of-the-court-for-l.html>

* Immigration Article of the Day: Aspiring Americans Thrown Out in the Cold: The Discriminatory Use of False Testimony Allegations to Deny Naturalization by Nermeen Arastu<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/immigrtaion-article-of-the-day-aspiring-americans-thrown-out-in-the-cold-the-discriminatory-use-of-f.html>

Friday, December 6, 2019

* Your Playlist: Luba Dvorak<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/your-playlist-luba-dvorak.html>

* Workplace Immigration Inquiries Quadruple Under Trump<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/workplace-immigration-inquiries-quadruple-under-trump.html>

* Inside the Cell Where a Sick 16-Year-Old Boy Died in Border Patrol Care<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/inside-the-cell-where-a-sick-16-year-old-boy-died-in-border-patrol-care.html>

* From the Bookshelves: The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You by Dina Nayeri (2019)<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/from-the-bookshelves-the-ungrateful-refugee-what-immigrants-never-tell-you-by-dina-nayeri-2019.html>

Thursday, December 5, 2019

* Russian Finds Inventive Way to Swindle Migrants<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/russian-finds-inventive-way-to-swindle-migrants-.html>

* Immigration Article of the Day: Becoming Unconventional: Constricting the ‘Particular Social Group’ Ground for Asylum by Fatma E. Marouf<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/immigration-article-of-the-day-becoming-unconventional-constricting-the-particular-social-group-grou.html>

* University-Wide Scholarship Program for Displaced Students<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/university-wide-scholarship-program-for-displaced-students.html>

* Joseph A. Vail Asylum Law Workshop<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/joseph-a-vail-asylum-law-workshop.html>

* New Report Based on 3,000 Legal Screenings of Undocumented Immigrants<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/new-report-based-on-3000-legal-screenings-of-undocumented-immigrants.html>

* From the Bookshelves: They Came to Toil: Newspaper Representations of Mexicans and Immigrants in the Great Depression by Melita M. Garza<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/from-the-bookshelves-they-came-to-toil-newspaper-representations-of-mexicans-and-immigrants-in-the-g.html>

* Music Break: Rapper Rich Brian gets vulnerable about his Asian identity, immigration story<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/music-break-rapper-rich-brian-gets-vulnerable-about-his-asian-identity-immigration-story.html>

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

* Looking for Exam Inspiration?<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/looking-for-exam-inspiration-.html>

* GAO Report: Immigration-Related Prosecutions Increased from 2017 to 2018 in Response to U.S. Attorney General’s Direction<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/gao-report-immigration-related-prosecutions-increased-from-2017-to-2018-in-response-to-us-attorney-generals-direction.html>

* Peter Margulies: Court Issues Preliminary Injunction Against President Trump’s Ban on Uninsured Immigrants<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/peter-margulies-court-issues-preliminary-injunction-against-president-trumps-ban-on-uninsured-immigr.html>

* ICE bought state driver’s license records to track undocumented immigrants<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/ice-bought-state-drivers-license-records-to-track-undocumented-immigrants.html>

* “Building a Wall Out of Red Tape” from PRI/The World<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/pris-building-a-wall-out-of-red-tape.html>

* How McKinsey Helped the Trump Administration Detain and Deport Immigrants<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/how-mckinsey-helped-the-trump-administration-detain-and-deport-immigrants.html>

* Immigration Article of the Day: Faithful Execution: Where Administrative Law Meets the Constitution by Evan D. Bernick<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/immigration-article-of-the-day-faithful-execution-where-administrative-law-meets-the-constitution-by.html>

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

* From the Bookshelves: Perchance to DREAM: A Legal and Political History of the DREAM Act and DACA by Michael A. Olivas<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/from-the-bookshelves-perchance-to-dream-a-legal-and-political-history-of-the-dream-act-and-daca-by-m.html>

* Unprecedented: Trump Is First to Use PATRIOT Act to Detain a Man Forever<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/unprecedented-trump-is-first-to-use-patriot-act-to-detain-a-man-forever.html>

* El Sueño Americano | The American Dream: Photographs by Tom Kiefer<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/el-sue%C3%B1o-americano-the-american-dream-photographs-by-tom-kiefer.html>

* SCOTUSblog: Argument preview for Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr and Ovalles v. Barr<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/scotusblog-argument-preview-for-guerrero-lasprilla-v-barr-and-ovalles-v-barr.html>

* César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández: Abolish Immigration Prisons<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/c%C3%A9sar-cuauht%C3%A9moc-garc%C3%ADa-hern%C3%A1ndez-abolish-immigration-prisons-.html>

* History of United States Immigration Laws<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/history-of-united-states-immigration-laws.html>

Monday, December 2, 2019

* From the Bookshelves: Border Wars by Julie Hirschfield Davis and Michael D. Shear<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/from-the-bookshelves-border-wars-by-julie-hirschfield-davis-and-michael-d-shear.html>

* Is OPT in peril? Colleges sign amicus brief opposing end of OPT<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/is-opt-in-peril.html>

* A Fact Worth Remembering: Half of Undocumented Immigrants are Visa Overstays<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/12/a-fact-worth-remembering-half-of-undocumented-immigrants-are-visa-overstays.html>

* Immigration in Pop Culture: ICE Raid on “Shameless”<https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/1

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

The item about the BIA’s atrociously wrong CAT interpretation in Matter of O-F-A-S-, the results of the Musalo visit to El Salvador, the continuing “go along to get along” with Trump’s legal abuses in immigration by gutless panels of the 9th & 11th Circuits in City & County of San Francisco and AMEZCUA-PRECIADO, respectively, and the expansion of lawless “Tent Courts” by EOIR ought to outrage every American.

On the flip side, the possibility that the Supremes will finally stiff the Regime’s bogus arguments for limiting or eliminating judicial review of final orders of removal and the new ACLU suit about the Regime’s unlawful schemes to prevent attorney access for asylum seekers provide at least some hope of better days to come for the “Good Guys of the Resistance.”

Thanks, Elizabeth, for keeping the NDPA informed!

PWS

12-10-19

CHAOS AT THE BORDER: How Trump’s Judicially-Enabled Unlawful Assault On Our Legal Asylum System Has, Predictably, Created More Chaos At The Border – Complicit Courts Endangering Lives, National Security!

https://apple.news/ANGgA3Y1lT8yAzFh8EpcGeQ

Astrid Galvan reports for the Associated Press:

PHOENIX (AP) — For months, asylum seekers have been prohibited from filing their claims at U.S. border crossings under a much-criticized Trump administration policy. Now some are sprinting down vehicle lanes or renting cars to try to make it inside the U.S.

The migrants’ efforts are causing traffic delays at Arizona crossings because U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials had to barricade lanes used by cars legally entering the U.S. from Mexico, officials said.

Advocates say many have become desperate after waiting for months to legally ask for asylum, often in poor conditions and while facing threats of kidnapping, extortion and violence south of the border.

Shoppers, teachers and visitors traveling to the U.S. through Nogales, Mexico, endured up to five-hour waits Monday and over the weekend, causing concerns among local officials whose tax base relies on Mexican shoppers, especially during the holiday season.

In a statement, Customs and Border Protection said it’s committed to the safety of border crossers, adding that there’s been an increase of incursions through vehicle lanes “by asylum seekers attempting to evade established entry processes.”

“These tactics interfere with CBP officers conducting their responsibilities and exacerbates wait times for daily commuters,” the agency said in a statement. “CBP will not allow ports to be overrun, or unauthorized entry.”

The traffic jams could hurt sales at stores in Nogales, Arizona that depend on Mexican shoppers during the holiday season, said Mayor Arturo Garino.

Garino, a part-time teacher, said some students and teachers who live in Mexico but attend and work at schools across the border in the U.S. have been leaving their homes as early as 5 a.m. to arrive on time.

Garino said Mexican authorities were not doing enough to stem the problem. The Arizona Daily Star reported the Nogales, Sonora, police officers were checking cars headed north to the border on Monday afternoon.

The metal barricades are large and are meant to seal off traffic lanes.

About 3,000 migrants are living in Nogales, Mexico as they wait their turns to seek asylum, said Katie Sharar, communications director for the Kino Border Initiative, a religious-based group that provides meals to needy migrants on the Mexican side of the border.

Under a policy by the Trump administration known widely as “metering,” the asylum-seekers must wait in an unofficial line in Mexico until U.S. authorities call them up in a process that usually lasts several months.

Another policy, colloquially known as “Remain in Mexico,” requires asylum seekers to return to Mexico after they have made credible fear claims to justify their asylum requests and wait there while their immigration cases are pending.

“I think there’s just a lot of desperation and uncertainty. They don’t know what’s happening to them, they don’t know how the policy changes are gonna affect them,” Sharar said.

Sharar said she wasn’t familiar with the migrants who have run through vehicle lanes.

Customs and Border Protection did not respond to email and phone messages regarding questions about the migrants who rushed the border, what countries they come from and whether they were detained or faced criminal charges.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, said his first concern is public safety and that he is confident U.S. officials will resolve the border traffic problems.

Associated Press writer Bob Christie in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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

The Trump Regime was faced with a potentially very manageable situation. The solution was straightforward. Encourage asylum applicants to present themselves at the border for fair, prompt, and orderly processing as required by law.

Those who passed “credible fear” and who had no serious criminal record could be released in coordination with pro bono organizations whose representation would both help insure a high appearance rate and due process in the Immigration Courts. Money currently being wasted on “the Wall,” unnecessary and inhumane detention, and avoidable litigation could be “repurposed” as grants to communities and NGOs to secure their assistance in placement and orderly, lawful processing of asylum applicants. It could also be used to fund or rehire additional qualified Asylum Officers (not Border Patrol Agents) to process credible fear claims.

Meanwhile, those found to have “no credible fear” after a fundamentally fair process could be returned to their home countries or some suitable “alternative placement” in a third country in a timely, orderly, and humane manner in accordance with existing law.

Instead, the Trump Administration’s unlawful attacks on asylum laws and their war on Due Process and the pro bono community have been facilitated by complicit Federal Courts that have failed to stand up for Due Process and the rule of law.

This is likely to be just another phase of the chaos. With the U.S. asylum system essentially “repealed without legislation” individuals needing protection will be assisted by professional smugglers in avoiding the U.S. legal system by entering illegally, evading apprehension (rather than turning themselves in as had been the case), and losing themselves in the U.S.

It is also possible that the Administration’s fraudulent “Safe Third Country” agreements with Northern Triangle governments eventually will succeed in further destabilizing those countries so that they simply collapse, creating even more refugees.

White Nationalism, the “malicious incompetence” that accompanies it, and judicial complicity in the face of tyranny are nothing short of a prescription for a continuing and escalating national and international humanitarian disaster. We were forewarned.

PWS

12-05-19

THREE THANKSGIVING CHEERS FOR IMMIGRATION JUDGE JULIE NELSON (SF) & APPELLATE IMMIGRATION JUDGE ELLEN LIEBOWITZ (BIA) — Doing Justice, Granting Asylum, Saving Lives In The Age Of Trump!

My colleague Judge Jeffrey Chase of our Roundtable of Former Immigration Judges reports some good news:

Also, for those of you who subscribe to Ben Winograd’s index of unpublished BIA Decisions, today’s update includes an unpublished decision dated Nov. 6, 2019, Matter of A-C-A-A- (single BM Ellen Liebowitz), affirming the IJ’s grant of asylum in a domestic violence case based on her cognizable PSG of “Salvadoran females.” The written decision of the IJ, Julie L. Nelson in SF, is also included.

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

Thanks to those judges like Judge Nelson and Judge Liebowitz who are continuing to stand up for the rights of asylum seekers “post-A-B-.”

And, many thanks to Jeffrey & Ben for passing this good news along and for all they do for Due Process every day!

What if rather than the “A-B- atrocity” made precedent by unethical White Nationalist Jeff Sessions, we had an honest, independent Immigration Court system that encouraged fair and impartial adjudications and implemented asylum laws generously, as intended (see, e.g., INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca) by publishing precedent decisions like this recognizing the right to protection?

BIA precedents on asylum have intentionally been constructed in a negative manner, showing judges how to deny, rather than grant, protection and encouraging them to take a skewed anti-asylum view of the law. Even worse, bogus, unethical, legally incorrect “Attorney General precedents” are uniformly anti-asylum; the applicant never wins.

Some judges, like Judge Nelson and Judge Leibovitz, take their oaths of office seriously. But, too many others “go along to get along” with the unlawful and unethical “anti-asylum program” pushed by the White Nationalist Trump Regime.

Indeed, even during my tenure as an Immigration Judge, I remember being required to attend asylum “training” sessions (in years when we even had training) where litigating attorneys from the Office of Immigration Litigation basically made a presentation that should have been entitled “How to Deny Potentially Valid Asylum Claims And Have Them Stand Up On Judicial Review.”

It’s also past time for the Supremes and the Circuit Courts of Appeals to get their collective heads out of the clouds, start paying attention, begin doing their jobs and strongly rejecting “disingenuous deference” to bogus, illegal, unethical “precedents” rendered by politically biased enforcement hacks like Sessions and Barr who have unethically usurped the role of quasi-judicial adjudicator for which they are so clearly and spectacularly unqualified under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. It’s nothing short of “judicial fraud” by the Article IIIs! Constantly Confront Complicit Courts 4 Change!

With a more honest and legally correct favorable precedents on asylum, many more cases could be documented and granted at the Asylum Office and Immigration Court levels. The DHS would be discouraged from wasting court time by opposing meritorious applications. The backlog would start going down. There would be fewer appeals. Justice would be served. Worthy lives would be saved. DHS could stop harassing asylum seekers and start enforcing the laws in a fair and reasonable manner. America would lead the way in implementing humanitarian laws, and we would become a better country for it.

Help the New Due Process Army fight for a better, more just, future for America and the world.

Due Process Forever!

Happy Thanksgiving.

PWS

11-28-19

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: HOW TRUMP’S WHITE NATIONALIST REGIME SEIZED CONTROL OF THE IMMIGRATION BUREAUCRACY & IS USING IT TO RE-CREATE 1924 & PROMOTE ITS AGENDA OF RACIST HATE — Who Needs Legislation When You Have GOP Obstructionists In Congress & Feckless Federal Courts?

https://www.huffpost.com/highline/article/invisible-wall/

Rachel Morris writes in Highline:

IN THE TWO YEARS AND 308 DAYS THAT DONALD Trump has been president, he has constructed zero miles of wall along the southern border of the United States. He has, to be fair, replaced or reinforced 76 miles of existing fence and signed it with a sharpie. A private group has also built a barrier less than a mile long with some help from Steve Bannon and money raised on GoFundMe. But along the 2,000 miles from Texas to California, there is no blockade of unscalable steel slats in heat-retaining matte black, no electrified spikes, no moat and no crocodiles. The animating force of Trump’s entire presidency—the idea that radiated a warning of dangerous bigotry to his opponents and a promise of unapologetic nativism to his supporters—will never be built in the way he imagined.

And it doesn’t matter. In the two years and 308 days that Donald Trump has been president, his administration has constructed far more effective barriers to immigration. No new laws have actually been passed. This transformation has mostly come about through subtle administrative shifts—a phrase that vanishes from an internal manual, a form that gets longer, an unannounced revision to a website, a memo, a footnote in a memo. Among immigration lawyers, the cumulative effect of these procedural changes is known as the invisible wall.

In the two years after Trump took office, denials for H1Bs, the most common form of visa for skilled workers, more than doubled. In the same period, wait times for citizenship also doubled, while average processing times for all kinds of visas jumped by 46 percent, even as the quantity of applications went down. In 2018, the United States added just 200,000 immigrants to the population, a startling 70 percent less than the year before.

Before Trump was elected, there was virtually no support within either party for policies that make it harder for foreigners to come here legally. For decades, the Republican consensus has favored tough border security along with high levels of legal immigration. The party’s small restrictionist wing protested from the margins, but it was no match for a pro-immigration coalition encompassing business interests, unions and minority groups. In 2013, then-Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions introduced an amendment that would have lowered the number of people who qualified for green cards and work visas. It got a single vote in committee—his own. As a former senior official at the Department of Homeland Security observed, “If you told me these guys would be able to change the way the U.S. does immigration in two years, I would have laughed.”

. . . .

In November, Cuccinelli was promoted to DHS deputy acting secretary. Kathy Nuebel Kovarik became acting deputy at USCIS and Robert Law, the former FAIR lobbyist, ascended to the head of the policy office. The agency has promised a new flurry of major policy changes before the end of the year. And in what is perhaps the purest expression of the administration’s intentions so far, it started sending Central American asylum seekers to Guatemala with no access to an attorney, no review by an immigration court, far away from the border infrastructure of activists and reporters and lawyers or any form of help at all.

IT’S EASY ENOUGH TO BELIEVE THAT BECAUSE NONE of the Trump administration’s reforms are entrenched in law, they can be overturned as quickly as they were introduced. And yet even though, in theory, the policy memos can all be withdrawn, the “sheer number of both significant and less significant changes is overwhelming,” said Jaddou, the former USCIS chief counsel. “It will take an ambitious plan over a series of years to undo it all.” Formal regulations, like the third-country asylum rule and public charge rule, if it succeeds, will be especially hard to unravel.

The institutional implications run deeper. The backlog of delayed cases will likely take several years to get under control. The administration has promoted six judges with some of the highest asylum denial rates to the Justice Department’s immigration appeals court, including one who threatened to set a dog on a 2-year-old child for failing to be quiet in his courtroom. Those appointments are permanent.

The refugee program, too, will take years to rebuild. The plunge in admissions caused a plunge in funding to the nine resettlement agencies, which have closed more than 100 offices around the country since 2016. That’s a third of their capacity, according to a report by Refugees Council USA. “The whole infrastructure is deteriorating,” said Rodriguez, the former USCIS director. Because the application process is so lengthy, even if a new administration raises refugee admissions on day one, it would take as long as five years before increased numbers of people actually make it to the United States. Consider that in January 2017, the State Department briefly paused in-bound flights for refugees who had finally made it through the gauntlet of health, security and other checks. As of this summer, some of those refugees were still waiting to leave. While the flights were grounded, they missed the two-month window during which all of their documents were current. When one document expires, it can take months to replace, causing others to expire and trapping the refugee in what the report called “a domino effect of expiring validity periods.”

Even harder to repair is the culture shift within USCIS. New visa adjudicators will remain in their jobs long after the political appointees have gone—kings and queens of their own offices. Employees who were promoted for their skeptical inclinations will stay in those positions, setting priorities for subordinates. The multitude of changes at USCIS are the product of an administration that regards immigration as its political lifeblood. There’s no guarantee—or indication—that any of the potential Democratic nominees would apply the same obsessive zeal to overturning them.

Back in 1924, Johnson-Reed’s supporters never anticipated the Holocaust, and yet they expanded its horrors. We don’t know where our own future is headed, but we live in a time of metastasizing instability. Last year, the United Nations’ official tally of refugees passed 70 million, the highest since World War II. Mass migrations, whether because of violence or inequality or environmental calamity or some murky blend of factors that don’t conveniently fit existing laws, are the reality and challenge of our era. There aren’t any easy solutions. But already, what started as a series of small, obscure administrative changes is resulting in unthinkable cruelty. If left to continue, it will, in every sense, redefine what it means to be American.

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

Read Rachel’s entire, much longer, article at the link.

Building Due Process and fundamental fairness is a painstaking incremental process that takes years, sometimes decades, to achieve. Destroying it can happen basically overnight.

This should never have happened if the Supremes had stood up to the Administration’s unconstitutional, factually bogus, racist, religiously targeted “Travel Ban” instead of green-lighting the return of “Jim Crow 2” under a clearly pretextual and fabricated “national security” facade. Judicial complicity and task avoidance enables cruelty and the destruction of democratic institutions (including, ultimately, the independent judiciary). That’s why the “New Due Process Army” is in it for the long run!

Constantly Confront Complicit Courts 4 Change!

Due Process Forever. White Nationalism Never! Complicit Courts Never!

PWS

11-26-19

PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO @ LA TIMES: We Can Restore Legality & Humanity To U.S. Asylum Law — That’s Why The Refugee Protection Act Deserves Everyone’s Support — “The bill lays out a plan to allow women and girls fleeing gender-based violence the opportunity to obtain asylum, and bring our country back in line with its humanitarian commitments. It’s a vision that all members of Congress should be able to get behind, even at a time of bitter partisanship.”

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=55eeae6e-b617-4ffd-b041-a54c15a3ada7&v=sdk

Professor Musalo writes in the LA Times:

Every day, courageous women and girls arrive at our southern border seeking refuge from unimaginable violence. Under our laws, they have the right to apply for asylum and have their cases heard. But rather than offering protection, the Trump administration is determined to send them back to the countries they have fought so hard to escape.

On Thursday, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) introduced the Refugee Protection Act. The bill lays out a plan to allow women and girls fleeing gender-based violence the opportunity to obtain asylum, and bring our country back in line with its humanitarian commitments. It’s a vision that all members of Congress should be able to get behind, even at a time of bitter partisanship.

It’s no secret that this administration is systematically dismantling our asylum law. Women and children have borne the brunt of the suffering — from the egregious policies of family separation and “Remain in Mexico,” to the quiet publication of decisions by the attorney general that have closed door after door to those seeking safety.

The Refugee Protection Act would rectify many of these inhumane actions, and includes language to reverse recent decisions that have made it nearly impossible for women fleeing domestic violence or gang brutality to qualify as refugees.

One of those decisions — known as Matter of A-B- — was handed down by then-Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions in 2018. That decision has been used to limit the legal definition of “refugee” in an attempt to eliminate the possibility of asylum in the U.S. for victims of domestic violence, sex trafficking and other gender-based human rights violations. Since then, we have seen asylum approval rates plummet for women, children and families arriving at our southern border.

The Matter of A-B- case involves a domestic violence survivor from El Salvador who fears she will be killed if she is sent back to her country. My organization, the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, has represented A.B. in her asylum case for nearly two years.

In El Salvador, A.B., a courageous and resilient woman, endured over 15 years of beatings, rapes, death threats and psychological abuse at the hands of her husband. She secured a divorce and even moved to another part of El Salvador, desperate to escape her abuser. But no matter where she went, he tracked her down. When she requested a restraining order, the police provided her one — and told her to hand-deliver it to him. Fearing that he would make good on his threat to kill her, she fled to the United States.

In 2016, A.B. was granted asylum by the highest administrative tribunal in the immigration system, the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals. But in a highly unusual procedural move, Sessions seized upon A.B.’s case, overturned the grant of asylum, and used it to declare that the United States should no longer extend protection to domestic violence survivors.

A.B. has appealed Sessions’ action, but until a final decision is reached, she remains terrified that she will be deported. Countless other women who have made the arduous journey to the United States also face a hostile immigration system and, post-Matter of A-B-, an even harder legal battle.

Congress has an opportunity to correct this. The new bill would clarify legal requirements for asylum and provide clear guidance for cases involving gender-based violence. It would ensure that asylum seekers like A.B. get a fair opportunity to argue her claim before a judge.

The United States has a long history of giving refuge to people who’ve come to our shores. This measure would be a step toward restoring that tradition.

Karen Musalo is a law professor and the founding director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at UC Hastings College of the Law. She is also lead coauthor of “Refugee Law and Policy: An International and Comparative Approach (5th edition).”

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

Here’s a link to an ImmigrationProf Blog summary and the text of the Refugee Protection Act, a recently introduced bill:

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/11/karen-musalo-restore-asylum-for-women-fleeing-abuse-and-death-.html

PWS

11-24-19

TRUMP REGIME ORDERS OFFICERS TO IGNORE EVIDENCE, VIOLATE HUMAN RIGHTS OF ASYLUM SEEKERS — “‘We are being asked to violate human rights,’” the asylum officer told BuzzFeed News.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/asylum-officers-guatemala-deport-central-guidance

Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:

US immigration officers implementing a Trump administration plan to deport asylum-seekers from Central America to Guatemala were provided materials this week detailing the dangers faced by those in the country, including gangs, violence, and killings with “high levels of impunity.”

The “resource guide” on Guatemala was given to asylum officers as part of materials to implement a controversial policy to deport adult asylum-seekers from El Salvador and Honduras to Guatemala. The guide, which was obtained by BuzzFeed News, relies primarily on public sources: academic publications, research from Human Rights Watch and other organizations, and news reports.

A Human Rights Watch report from 2018 that was included in the guide for asylum officers, said “Violence and extortion by powerful criminal organizations remain serious problems in Guatemala. Gang-related violence is an important factor prompting people, including unaccompanied youth, to leave the country.”

The research provided to the officers confirmed some of their worst fears about sending people to the country.

“Being told to send asylum-seekers to Guatemala without even a screening on their claim while also being given research explaining, in detail, the incredible danger that exists throughout the country is extensively frustrating,” said one asylum officer, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “This agreement feels like a pretext to get rid of as many asylum claims as possible.”

Emilio Espejel / AP

Central American migrants wait at the El Chaparral border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico.

The Trump administration began this week carrying out its controversial new policy of deporting to Guatemala adults from El Salvador and Honduras who have sought asylum at the southern US border. DHS officials confirmed an initial flight to Guatemala in a Thursday press briefing.

The Trump administration says the plan is a key element in its strategy to deter migration at the border and another method to restrict asylum-seekers from entering the US. Advocates and asylum officers previously told BuzzFeed News that the unprecedented plan lacks legality and organization, and will lead immigrants to be placed in dangerous circumstances.

“Data from Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office shows that nearly 8,400 extortion complaints were filed in 2017, but less than 700 convictions made,” reads one research paper linked in the guide to asylum officers on extortion issues in the country. “Amid such high levels of impunity, fear of reprisals for not paying extortion demands is a huge concern among victims.” A link to a Guardian article titled “Guatemala in grip of ‘mafia coalition,’ says UN body in scathing corruption report,” is also included, among other stories detailing major safety issues in the country.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services officials included the guidance in an email to asylum officers across the country Wednesday morning in a notice that implementation of the policy would begin, according to a copy of the email provided to BuzzFeed News.

Under the policy, border officials in the El Paso, Texas, area will refer a small number of adult asylum-seekers from El Salvador and Honduras who have recently arrived at the border to asylum officers for interviews, according to two sources with knowledge of the process.

BuzzFeed News recently revealed that, up until late last week, Department of Homeland Security officials were still scrambling to resolve critical details about the Guatemala plan. “There is uncertainty as to who will provide orientation services for migrants as well as who will provide shelter, food, transportation, and other care,” read a DHS brief drafted for Acting Secretary Chad Wolf in the run-up to a meeting Friday with Guatemala Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart.

Guatemala is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere and has the sixth-highest rate of malnutrition in the world. Nearly half of the country suffers from chronic malnutrition, with the prevalence reaching about 70% in some indigenous areas, according to a 2018 report from USAID.

The country has struggled with violence but has seen a drop in murders in recent years, with a homicide rate of 22.4 per 100,000 people. By comparison, the US had a homicide rate of 5.3 per 100,000.

“We are being asked to violate human rights,” the asylum officer told BuzzFeed News.

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

Summary: Government officials routinely and openly violate human rights of asylum seekers and other migrants with impunity.

Sounds like something out of the Country Reports for some of the repressive states that I used to deal with in deciding asylum cases as an Immigration Judge.

Now, it describes the United States.

Even before Trump, the U.S. had a rather poor record of holding human rights violators accountable. The folks who mapped out the clearly illegal “torture program” during the Bush II Administration were never held accountable. Indeed, several of them were actually rewarded despite their involvement in immoral and illegal actions.

PWS

11-22-19

HALLOWEEN HORROR STORY: Opaque & Biased Politicized Judicial Hiring Denies Migrants The Fair & Impartial Adjudication To Which They Are Constitutionally Entitled – Given The Generous Legal Standards, A Worldwide Refugee Crisis, & Asylum Officers’ Positive Findings In Most Cases, Asylum Seekers Should Be Winning The Vast Majority Of Immigration Court Cases — Instead, They Are Being “Railroaded” By A Biased System & Complicit Article III Courts!

https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/doj-changed-hiring-promote-restrictive-immigration-judges?fbclid=IwAR2VfI3AKcttNoXlc_MX0sa-6X94bsOWF4btxb7tWDBz7Es4bvqB63oZA-0

Tanvi Misra reports for Roll Call:

DOJ changed hiring to promote restrictive immigration judges

New practice permanently placed judges on powerful appellate board, documents show

Posted Oct 29, 2019 2:51 PM

Tanvi Misra

@Tanvim

More non-Spanish speaking migrants are crossing the border DHS advances plan to get DNA samples from immigrant detainees White House plans to cut refugee admittance to all-time low

Error! Filename not specified.

James McHenry, director of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, testifies before a Senate panel in 2018. Memos from McHenry detail changes in hiring practices for six restrictive judges placed permanently on the Board of Immigration Appeals. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Department of Justice has quietly changed hiring procedures to permanently place immigration judges repeatedly accused of bias to a powerful appellate board, adding to growing worries about the politicization of the immigration court system.

Documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests describe how an already opaque hiring procedure was tweaked for the six newest hires to the 21-member Board of Immigration Appeals. All six board members, added in August, were immigration judges with some of the highest asylum denial rates. Some also had the highest number of decisions in 2017 that the same appellate body sent back to them for reconsideration. All six members were immediately appointed to the board without a yearslong probationary period.

[More non-Spanish speaking migrants are crossing the border]

“They’re high-level deniers who’ve done some pretty outrageous things [in the courtroom] that would make you believe they’re anti-immigrant,” said Jeffrey Chase, a former immigration judge and past senior legal adviser at the board. “It’s a terrifying prospect … They have power over thousands of lives.”

Among the hiring documents are four recommendation memos to the Attorney General’s office from James McHenry, director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the nation’s immigration court system.

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The memos, dated July 18, recommend immigration judges William A. Cassidy, V. Stuart Couch, Earle B. Wilson, and Keith E. Hunsucker to positions on the appellate board. McHenry’s memos note new hiring procedures had been established on March 8, to vet “multiple candidates” expressing interest in the open board positions.

A footnote in the memos states that applicants who are immigration judges would be hired through a special procedure: Instead of going through the typical two-year probationary period, they would be appointed to the board on a permanent basis, immediately. This was because a position on the appellate board “requires the same or similar skills” as that of an immigration judge, according to the memo.

Appellate board members, traditionally hired from a variety of professional backgrounds, are tasked with reviewing judicial decisions appealed by the government or plaintiff. Their decisions, made as part of a three-member panel, can set binding precedents that adjudicators and immigration judges rely on for future cases related to asylum, stays of deportation, protections for unaccompanied minors and other areas.

McHenry, appointed in 2018 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, concludes his recommendation memos by noting that the judge’s “current federal service was vetted and no negative information that would preclude his appointment” was reported. He does not mention any past or pending grievances, although public complaints have been filed against at least three of the judges.

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These documents, obtained through FOIA via Muckrock, a nonprofit, collaborative that pushes for government transparency, and shared with CQ Roll Call, reflect “the secrecy with which these rules are changing,” said Matthew Hoppock, a Kansas City-based immigration attorney. “It’s very hard to remove or discipline a judge that’s permanent than when it’s probationary, so this has long term implications.”

‘If I had known, I wouldn’t have left’: Migrant laments ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy

Volume 90%

The Department of Justice declined to answer a series of questions asked by CQ Roll Call regarding the new hiring practices, why exemptions were made in the case of these immigration judges and whether complaints against any of the judges were considered.

“Board members, like immigration judges, are selected through an open, competitive, and merit-based process involving an initial review by the Office of Personnel Management and subsequent, multiple levels of review by the Department of Justice,” a DOJ official wrote via email. “This process includes review by several career officials. The elevation of trial judges to appellate bodies is common in almost every judicial system, and EOIR is no different.”

Homestead: On the front lines of the migrant children debate

Volume 90%

Opaque hiring process

When the department posted the six board vacancies in March, the openings reflected the first time that board members would be allowed to serve from immigration courts throughout the country. Previously, the entire appellate board worked out of its suburban Virginia headquarters.

In addition, the job posts suggested that new hires would be acting in a dual capacity: They may be asked to adjudicate cases at the trial court level and then also review the court decisions appealed to the board. Previously, board members stuck to reviewing appeals cases, a process that could take more than a year.

Ultimately, all six hires were immigration judges, although past board candidates have come from government service, private sector, academia and nonprofits.

“This was stunning,” MaryBeth Keller, chief immigration judge until she stepped down this summer, said in a recent interview with The Asylumist, a blog about asylum issues. “I can’t imagine that the pool of applicants was such that only [immigration judges] would be hired, including two from the same city.”

Keller said immigration judges are “generally eminently qualified to be board members, but to bring in all six from the immigration court? I’d like to think that the pool of applicants was more diverse than that.”

Paul Wickham Schmidt, a retired immigration judge who headed the board under President Bill Clinton, said the panel always had arbitrary hiring procedures that changed with each administration and suffered from “quality control” issues. But the Trump administration has “pushed the envelope the furthest,” he said.

“This administration has weaponized the process,” he told CQ Roll Call. “They have taken a system that has some notable weaknesses in it and exploited those weaknesses for their own ends.”

The reputation and track record of the newest immigration judges has also raised eyebrows.

According to an analysis of EOIR data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, each of these newest six judges had an asylum denial rate over 80 percent, with Couch, Cassidy, and Wilson at 92, 96, and 98 percent, respectively. Nationally, the denial rate for asylum cases is around 57 percent. Previous to their work as immigration judges, all six had worked on behalf of government entities, including the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice and the military.

“It mirrors a lot of the concerns at the trial level,” said Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). She said several new hires at the trial level have been Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys.

“Every day across the country, people’s lives hang in the balance waiting for immigration judges to decide their fate,” she said. “Asylum grant rates for immigration court cases vary widely depending on the judge, suggesting that outcomes may turn on which judge is deciding the case rather than established principles and rules of law.”

Immigration experts note that denial rates depend on a variety of factors, including the number and types of cases that appear on a judge’s docket. Perhaps a better measure of an immigration judge’s decision-making may be the rate that rulings get returned by the appeals board.

For 2017, the last full year for which data is available, Couch and Wilson had the third and fourth highest number of board-remanded cases — at 50 and 47 respectively, according to federal documents obtained by Bryan Johnson, a New York-based immigration lawyer. The total number of cases on their dockets that year were 176 and 416, respectively.

Some of the behavior by the newer judges also have earned them a reputation. In 2018, AILA obtained 11 complaints against Cassidy that alleged prejudice against immigrant respondents. In a public letter the Southern Poverty Law Center sent last year to McHenry, the group complained that Cassidy bullied migrants in his court. He also asked questions that “exceeded his judicial authority,” Center lawyers wrote.

Another letter, sent in 2017 by SPLC lawyers and an Emory University law professor whose students observed Cassidy’s court proceedings, noted the judge “analogized an immigrant to ‘a person coming to your home in a Halloween mask, waving a knife dripping with blood’ and asked the attorney if he would let that person in.”

SPLC also has documented issues with Wilson, noting how he “routinely leaned back in his chair, placed his head in his hands and closed his eyes” during one hearing. “He held this position for more than 20 minutes as a woman seeking asylum described the murders of her parents and siblings.”

Couch’s behavior and his cases have made news. According to Mother Jones, he once lost his temper with a 2-year-old Guatemalan child, threatening to unleash a dog on the boy if he didn’t stop making noise. But he is perhaps better known as the judge who denied asylum to “Ms. A.B.,” a Salvadoran domestic violence survivor, even after the appellate board asked him to reconsider. Sessions, the attorney general at the time, ultimately intervened and made the final precedent-setting ruling in the case.

Couch has a pattern of denying asylum to women who have fled domestic violence, “despite clear instructions to the contrary” from the appellate board, according to Johnson, the immigration lawyer who said Couch “has been prejudging all claims that have a history of domestic violence, and quite literally copying and pasting language he used to deny other domestic violence victims asylum.”

Jeremy McKinney, a Charlotte-based immigration lawyer and second vice president at AILA, went to law school with Couch and called him “complex.” While he was reluctant to characterize the judge as “anti-immigrant,” he acknowledged “concerning” stories about the Couch’s court demeanor.

“In our conversations, he’s held the view that asylum is not the right vehicle for some individuals to immigrate to the U.S. — it’s one I disagree with,” McKinney said. “But I feel quite certain that that’s exactly why he was hired.”

Politicizing court system

Increasingly, political appointees are “micromanaging” the dockets of immigration judges, said Ashley Tabaddor, head of the union National Association of Immigration Judges. Appointees also are making moves that jeopardize their judicial independence, she said. Among them: requiring judges to meet a quota of 700 completed cases per year; referring cases even if they are still in the midst of adjudication to political leadership, including the Attorney General, for the final decision; and seeking to decertify the immigration judges’ union.

These are “symptoms of a bigger problem,” said Tabaddor. “If you have a court that’s situated in the law enforcement agency … that is the fundamental flaw that needs to be corrected.”

In March, the American Bar Association echoed calls by congressional Democrats to investigate DOJ hiring practices in a report that warned the department’s “current approach will elevate speed over substance, exacerbate the lack of diversity on the bench, and eliminate safeguards that could lead to a resurgence of politicized hiring.”

“Moreover, until the allegations of politically motivated hiring can be resolved, doubt will remain about the perceived and perhaps actual fairness of immigration proceedings,” the organization wrote. “The most direct route to resolving these reasonable and important concerns would be for DOJ to publicize its hiring criteria, and for the inspector general to conduct an investigation into recent hiring practices.”

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One of the most disgusting developments, that the media sometimes misses, is that having skewed and biased the system specifically against Central American asylum seekers, particularly women and children, the Administration uses their “cooked” and “bogus” statistics to make a totally disingenuous case that the high denial rates show the system is being abused by asylum seekers and their lawyers. That, along with the “fiction of the asylum no show” been one of “Big Mac’s” most egregious and oft repeated lies! There certainly is systemic abuse taking place here — but it is by the Trump Administration, not asylum seekers and their courageous lawyers.

This system is a national disgrace operating under the auspices of a feckless Congress and complicit Article III courts whose life-tenured judges are failing in their collective duty to put an end to this blatantly unconstitutional system: one that also violates statutory provisions intended to give migrants access to counsel, an opportunity to fully present and document their cases to an unbiased decision maker, and a fair opportunity to seek asylum regardless of status or manner of entry. Basically, judges at all levels who are complicit in this mockery of justice are “robed killers.”

Just a few years ago, asylum seekers were winning the majority of individual rulings on asylum in Immigration Court. Others were getting lesser forms of protection, so that more than 60 percent of asylum applicants who got final decisions in Immigration Court were receiving much-needed, life-saving protection. That’s exactly what one would expect given the Supreme Court’s pronouncements in 1987 about the generous standards applicable to asylum seekers in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca.

Today, conditions have not improved materially in most “refugee sending countries.” Indeed, this Administration’s bogus designation of the Northern Triangle “failed states” as “Safe Third Countries” is absurd and shows their outright contempt for the system and their steadfast belief that the Federal Judiciary will “tank” on their responsibility to hold this Executive accountable.

As a result of this reprehensible conduct, the favorable trend in asylum adjudication has been sharply reversed. Now, approximately two-thirds of asylum cases are being denied, many based on specious “adverse credibility” findings, illegal “nexus” findings that intentionally violate the doctrine of “mixed motives”enshrined in the statute, absurdly unethical and illegal rewriting of asylum precedents by Sessions and Barr, intentional denial of the statutory right to counsel, and overt coercion through misuse of DHS detention authority to improperly “punish” and “deter” legal asylum seekers.

Right under the noses of complicit Article III Judges and Congress, the Trump Administration has “weaponized” the Immigration “Courts” and made them an intentionally hostile environment for asylum seekers and their, often pro bono or low bono, lawyers. How is this acceptable in 21^st Century America?

That’s why it’s important for members of the “New Due Process Army” to remember my “5 Cs Formula” – Constantly Confront Complicit Courts 4 Change. Make these folks with “no skin the game” feel the pain and be morally accountable for those human lives they are destroying by inaction in the face of Executive illegality and tyranny from their “ivory tower perches.”

We’re in a war for the survival of our democracy and the future of humanity. There is only one “right side” in this battle. History will remember who stood tall and who went small when individual rights, particularly the rights to Due Process and fair treatment for the most vulnerable among us, were under attack by the lawless forces of White Nationalism and their enablers!

PWS

10-31-19

LET THE IMMIGRATION JUDGES SPEAK! — What Kind Of “Court System” Muzzles Judges, Shuns Educational Dialogue?

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/10/immigration-law-professors-let-immigration-judges-speak.html

Adjunct Professor Carrie L. Rosenbaum
Golden Gate Law

Professor Maureen Sweeney
U. of Maryland Law

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Immigration Law Professors: Let Immigration Judges Speak!

By Immigration Prof

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Four immigration law professors, Laila L. Hlass, Elora Mukherjee, Carrie L. Rosenbaum, and Maureen Sweeney on Slate criticize the Trump administration for barring immigration judges, Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys, and asylum officers from talking to classes about immigration law and policy.Such guest lectures were common in the recent past. However,

“things have recently changed. When we’ve asked judges, ICE attorneys, and asylum officers to visit our classes, almost all have declined. They’ve told us they can’t speak with our classes even on their days off, even in their personal capacities, without prior clearance and approval from high-level supervisors—approval that is increasingly difficult to obtain. This silencing of line officers is a marked departure from past years. It is taking place across the country, and it is no coincidence. The administration has denied these civil servants permission to speak publicly. According to former immigration judge Jeffrey Chase, immigration judges `are not even allowed to speak at conferences or law schools, because the administration does not consider them qualified to speak on behalf of the agency or its policies.’”

KJ

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Obviously, this is an “agency,” not a “court,” at war with the public it supposedly serves.

Somewhat “below the radar screen” in the Administration’s all-out White Nationalist attack on migrants is the assault on those who represent them. Studies show that represented individuals both show up for their hearings at an exceptionally high rate and succeed in their cases at a rate that is multiples of unrepresented individuals. Therefore, some type of “universal representation program” utilizing a combination of public and private sector funding, would be the “first logical step“ in solving the Due Process and operational crises in our Immigration Courts. And, it wouldn’t cost any more than the expensive, inhumane, often illegal, and frequently ineffective “enforcement only gimmicks” being employed against migrants, and often their attorneys, by this Administration.

PWS

10-28-19

ARBITRARY & CAPRICIOUS: In An Asylum System Designed To Abuse & Discourage Legitimate Asylum Seekers, U.S. Immigration Judge Robert Hough’s Persistence Saves Two Lives, At Least For Now

https://apple.news/ALbbeLJpzTOWr1LCa2mcLQg

Molly Hennessy-Fiske reports for the LA Times:

Identical twins. Identical asylum claims. Very different luck at the border

The system gives enormous power to U.S. customs officers, Border Patrol agents and asylum officers, whose whims and judgment calls decide the fate of many migrants.

The 12-year-old identical twins entered Texas from Mexico days apart in the foothills of Mt. Cristo Rey. One came with their father. The other arrived with their mother.

It was June. The family’s plan was to get caught by Border Patrol agents as quickly as possible, then claim asylum so they could stay in the U.S. legally while awaiting immigration court hearings.

The parents had hoped that crossing the border separately, each with one son, would improve the chance that they all would be allowed into the country legally.

But that’s not what U.S. immigration officials decided. They released Nostier Leiva Sabillon and his father in Texas, and sent Anthony Leiva Sabillon and his mother back to Mexico.

The difference in treatment shows how arbitrary the U.S. immigration system has become as the Trump administration tries to stem the flow of migrants from Central America.

More than 54,000 migrants have been subjected to the controversial policy known as “Remain in Mexico,” which took effect this year and requires most asylum seekers who are not from Mexico to wait there while the U.S. weighs their cases.

Homeland Security Department leaders credit the program — along with a new requirement that migrants apply for asylum first in the countries they travel through before reaching the U.S. — with dramatically reducing apprehensions at the southern border.

Migrant advocates say the new policies give enormous power to U.S. customs officers, Border Patrol agents and asylum officers, whose whims and judgment calls decide the fate of many migrants.

Things looked grim for Nostier and his 39-year-old father, Carlos Leiva Membreño, when they were picked up by the Border Patrol.

“The good news is that you are already in the United States,” an agent told them, according to Leiva. “The bad news is that you are going back to Juarez.”

The pair was detained.

But days later their luck changed. With minimal questioning, they were released with instructions to appear in immigration court in Maryland, where they planned to join relatives.

The decision remains a mystery to them. Leiva described it as a miracle.

“God had his angels protect me and my son,” he said.

They appeared in court in Baltimore, then moved in with Nostier’s great aunt in Houston and had their case transferred there this fall. They are not scheduled to appear in court until Aug. 21, 2020, giving them at least a year of freedom.

Through relatives, Leiva found a construction job in Idaho and left Nostier in Houston.

After some trouble getting vaccinated — parental consent is usually required — his aunt managed to register him for school.

He had been the chubbier twin, outgoing and older by a minute, with dreams of becoming a military commander to protect his family.

Having never been without his brother, he grew shy, quiet and brooding.

Anthony and their mother were 740 miles away in the Mexican city of Juarez.

Dilcia Sabillon Aceituno, 40, told immigration officials that the family had fled Naco, Honduras, because members of the 18th Street gang — an organization that she said had killed two of her cousins — were pressuring her to put her twins to work for them dealing drugs.

She didn’t want her sons to become criminals.

Border Patrol agents listened, but it didn’t seem to matter. Sent back to Mexico, she and Anthony moved into a migrant shelter in the dangerous Anapra neighborhood to await an Aug. 15 court appearance in El Paso.

They and four other migrants shared a room without electricity or a lock on the door. There was a school next door, but Anthony’s mother couldn’t afford to send him.

On the dirt streets, boys bullied him, and men shouted threats, beat his mother and cursed her for being Honduran.

Hiding in their room, Anthony, who wanted to be a doctor, helped his mother with daily blood tests and insulin for her diabetes. She noticed he was losing weight, growing pale and depressed.

“I tell him not to be sad, he will be with his twin soon,” she said as they sat in their room at the shelter last month.

She filled out an asylum application in English with the help of an American immigration lawyer from Minnesota who visited the shelter to provide free legal assistance. It was a lucky break: Most migrants in the Remain in Mexico program have no lawyers.

At the August court hearing, Sabillon told the judge she was afraid of returning to Mexico. Anthony said he wanted to be with his brother.

The judge sent them to be interviewed by an asylum officer by phone, a common arrangement over the last year as the government has struggled to keep up with the flood of new cases.

The officer rejected their claim, returning them to Mexico days later.

“They don’t listen,” she said.

There was nothing to do but wait a month for their next immigration hearing.

Anthony traded daily audio messages with his brother in Houston. Nostier was enjoying school, where he made friends who spoke Spanish and began learning English. An older cousin helped him with his homework.

He had also started playing soccer with other Honduran boys at his great aunt’s apartment complex.

“Don’t worry,” he told Anthony. “You will be playing with us here soon.”

His mother wasn’t so sure.

The lawyer who had helped them was moving to Washington and could no longer represent them. Sabillon would have to represent herself.

On Sept. 26, Sabillon woke her son at 3:30 a.m. so they could dress by flashlight at the shelter, gather their paperwork and board a shelter van to the bridge. She slipped a wooden rosary around her neck.

“We’re going to our destiny,” she said as she hugged fellow asylum seekers goodbye.

After she and Anthony crossed the border bridge, U.S. officials collected their belongings to place in storage, then drove the pair and 23 other asylum seekers to their 8:30 a.m. hearing.

They were among the last to appear before the judge at 12:45 p.m. When he asked for their asylum application, Sabillon said she didn’t have it: It was in a bag Border Patrol agents had taken.

“Do you want more time to fill out an application?” Judge Robert Hough asked through a court interpreter.

“No,” she said.

“You understand if you don’t submit an application, you can be removed to Honduras. Is that what you want?” the judge said.

Sabillon began to cry.

“No, I have it over there, I just need to find someone to help me,” she said in Spanish between sobs as Anthony looked on. “Please, for his twin!”

The court interpreter said he couldn’t understand her. The judge referred her to be interviewed by an asylum officer, just like she was after her last hearing, and reset her case for Dec. 12. Mother and son were led from court looking stunned. It appeared they would be returned to Mexico.

But their luck was about to change. This time, the asylum officer who interviewed Sabillon by phone was sympathetic.

She told her story, the same one she had already been over with other immigration officials. But this time the officer decided to release her and Anthony until their asylum case was decided.

They spent a week in detention before being freed on Oct. 4. They arrived in Houston by bus the next day.

The twins have been inseparable since, clambering around the yard of the apartment complex where they’re staying and making TikTok videos with their cousins.

By last week, Nostier had grown talkative, preparing his brother to attend school next week. Anthony showed off Band-Aids to his cousins where he had received the required vaccinations.

He has also gained weight — along with a taste for spicy chicken wings. His mother predicted his cheeks would fill out soon and make the twins look identical again.

Neither had learned the details of why their family fled Honduras, and Sabillon was proud of that.

“They’re still innocent,” she said as she watched them roughhouse.

Sabillon wasn’t sure how to change her next court appearance from El Paso to Houston. She wondered if she should ask the court to combine her case with that of her husband, who was due to return from Idaho this weekend.

She was determined to find a lawyer. Without one, she figured their immigration case would be left to chance. She didn’t want to get sent back to Mexico again.

“My sons’ future is here,” she said.

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The key to this outcome was Judge Hough’s asking questions and sending the case back to the Asylum Office for a second look. Unfortunately, many Immigration Judges, pushed to crank out numbers, not justice, and falsely told by their “superiors” that all asylum claims are fraudulent anyway, would merely have ordered deportation.

The problem of arbitrary and capricious decision making in “life or death” asylum cases is hardly a new one. Indeed, it was well documented and publicly exposed by my colleagues Professors Andy Schoenholtz, Phil Schrag, and Jaya Ramji-Nogales in their seminal 2007 book Refugee Roulette.

Despite some stabs at addressing the problem in subsequent years, it has remained a persistent feature of a broken system and is worse now that ever. That’s because this Administration actually views cruel, arbitrary, and capricious adjudication as both a demonstration of absolute Executive Power and a way of punishing and discouraging legal asylum seekers.

Some favorable precedents correctly applying asylum law, particularly in the area of domestic violence and family-based “particular social groups,” were moving the system slowly toward “consensus grants” on a significant number of clearly deserving Central American cases. They could eventually have been used to act favorably on perhaps one-third of the Northern Triangle Asylum cases without resorting to the Immigration Court system. These precedents could also have formed a basis for establishing a robust refugee program in the Northern Triangle itself, thus eliminating the need for the dangerous overland journey to the U.S. and reducing the influence of smugglers.

Instead of building on these modest, yet important, human rights successes, unethical Trump Administration politicos, including Sessions and Barr, illegally and maliciously removed them and replaced them with the idea, again unethically communicated to adjudicators, that denial should be the “preferred result” in every case.

The corrupt system now encourages arbitrary and capricious decision-making on asylum cases and elimination or manipulation of judicial review as as a tool for discouraging those who should get our protection from daring to use our legal system.

Perhaps worse yet, with very transparent evidence of what is going on (the Administration largely admits that they are using the asylum system as a “deterrent” to asylum seekers) the Article III Courts, starting with the Supremes, have failed in their duty to require an asylum adjudication system that meets both the Due Process and Equal Protection requirements of our Constitution.

Every life saved is a life saved. That’s why the “little things” like Judge Hough is doing matter. With lawyers and a chance to document and present their asylum cases, and to seek review before the Article III Courts, Dilcia and Anthony at least have a fighting chance to gain protection.

(Unfortunately, neither the El Paso nor Houston Immigration Courts nor the Fifth Circuit have reputations for fair and impartial treatment of asylum seekers. Indeed, some of the most grotesque and legally unjustifiable abuses of Due Process and fundamental fairness have taken place right under the noises of 5th Circuit judges. That probably explains the unusual eagerness of DHS and DOJ to locate many branches of the “New American Gulag,” and their embedded “Kangaroo Courts” including absurdly unjust “Tent Courts” within the Fifth Circuit. How else would you explain places like Jena, Louisiana and many other obscure locations within that state where counsel is often unavailable and access to clients is often illegally restricted or cut off. Indeed, complicity breeds contempt for human life and the legal system, something that smug Article III Judges refusing to do their Constitutional duties might live to regret. Without “regime change” in 2020, the reprieve for this family might be only temporary.)

But the fact that there are pockets of fairness, caring, and impartiality in a clearly unconstitutional system merely demonstrates the arbitrary and capricious way in which this system deals with life or death decisions and the complicity of both Congress and the Article IIIs in allowing this disgraceful, outrageous mockery of justice to continue!

Those who have weaponized the asylum system against the most deserving and vulnerable among us and the life-tenured judges who are unethically allowing this to happen on their watch should not escape accountability.

PWS

10-20-19

BIG MAC SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO PRESENT HIS LITANY OF LIES & TOTALLY DISINGENUOUS INVITATION TO “DIALOGUE” (ABOUT THE ENFORCEMENT PROGRAMS IMPLEMENTED BY DHS WITHOUT ANY PUBLIC “DIALOGUE” WHATSOEVER & AGAINST THE OVERWHELMING ADVICE OF PROFESSIONALS & EXPERTS, EVEN AT DHS) — Then, He Should Have Been Questioned About His Knowingly False Restrictionist Narratives & Human Rights Abuses! – Here’s What He REALLY Stands For, & It’s Got Nothing To Do with “Dialogue!” — “This president has helped create a humanitarian crisis,”. . . . People are living in squalor.”

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=d5727889-43e3-4481-bedb-dd0055e280af&v=sdk

Molly Hennessy-Fiske reports for the LA Times from the Southern Border:

. . . .

In addition to the asylum seekers returned to Mexico to await their hearings, more than 26,000 are on waiting lists to enter U.S. border crossings and claim asylum, according to Human Rights Watch. Many on the lists are from Central America, but in recent weeks, large groups have been arriving from rural areas of Mexico’s interior, fleeing drug cartel violence.

The camp at the foot of the bridge in Matamoros has grown to hold more than a thousand migrants, most camped in scores of tents. Many have children and babies, and meals and water are sporadic, provided by volunteers.

“This Remain in Mexico program is a complete disaster,” Castro said after touring the camp next to the Rio Grande, where he saw migrants bathing near half a dozen crosses honoring those who drowned this summer while trying to make the dangerous crossing. “People should not be living like this.”

As Castro left the river, migrants standing in the reeds called to him in Spanish:

“Our children are sick!” said one man.

“We’ve been here for months!” said another.

“Our next court date isn’t until January!” said a woman.

“I’m sorry,” Castro replied in Spanish. “I know you’re suffering.”

Castro, who served as Housing and Urban Development secretary and San Antonio mayor, isn’t the first candidate to join asylum seekers at the border. In late June, former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas met with migrants returned to Mexico at a shelter in Juarez. Days later, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker accompanied five pregnant women in the Remain in Mexico program across the bridge from Juarez to El Paso.

Castro called on the Trump administration to end the Remain in Mexico policy, noting that he had met several vulnerable migrants who should not have been returned, including a woman who was seven months pregnant.

“This president has helped create a humanitarian crisis,” he said. “People are living in squalor.”

By 5 p.m., all 12 asylum seekers who had crossed with Castro had been returned to Mexico.

“I feel so defeated,” said Rey, a 35-year-old Cuban who had joined the group only to find himself back in Matamoros by evening.

Dany was upset when she was returned to the camp at dusk. As migrants gathered, she told them that the U.S. official who had interviewed her by phone had been unsympathetic.

“I told him I was in danger in Matamoros. That didn’t matter to him,” she said. “There’s no asylum for anyone … the system is designed to end with us leaving.

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

Read Molly’s complete report at the link.

LGBTQ, sick, disabled, pregnant, the cruelty of the “Let ‘Em Die In Mexico” program touted by Big Mac and his flunkies knows no bounds.

One can only hope that someday, somewhere, in this world or the next, “Big Mac” and his fellow toadies carrying out the Trump/Miller unprecedented program of intentional human right abuses against the most vulnerable individuals (and actions directed against the pro bono lawyers and NGOs courageously trying to help them) will have to answer for their “crimes against humanity.”

How do you have a “dialogue” with someone like “Big Mac” whose insulting, condescending, false, and “in your face” prepared remarks, that he never got to give at Georgetown, in fact invited no such thing.

You can read Big Mac’s prepared compendium of lies that he never got to deliver here:

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2019/10/07/statement-department-homeland-security-following-acting-secretary-s-appearance

Here was my immediate reaction:

He falsely minimizes the powerful push factors, maximizes the pull factors (which his “maliciously incompetent” enforcement has contributed to), blames the legal system (the Constitution and refugee protection statutes that implement international treaties) and Congress (that is, Democrats, who have stood up for human rights), lies about failures to appear (this should be particularly galling to the many members of the Georgetown Community who have taken part in pro bono activities and know that pro bono representation actually solves that problem), ignores all reasonable solutions, and engages in mindless (and expensive) enforcement that maximizes the ability of oppressors while dehumanizing and killing some of the victims and virtually guaranteeing that there never will be a humane outcome. Seems like the “All-American solution” to me.

That being said, I wish folks had heard him out and asked him questions about his misstatements and lies during the Q&A. I actually would have liked to hear his answer when confronted by the studies that show that almost everyone who has a chance to be represented shows up for the hearings and why he is blocking, rather than facilitating, one of the key solutions — pro bono representation? Why it’s OK to negotiate Safe Third Country agreements with countries that essentially are war zones and have no functioning asylum systems? Why he claimed that detention conditions were improving and more detention was necessary when his own Inspector General said just the opposite? Why he took a contemptuous position before Judge Dolly Gee that indefinite detention of families addressed her requirements, when it clearly didn’t? Why he blamed Judges and laws for problems he has either caused or aggravated? There wouldn’t have been enough time, I suppose.

Talking about free speech, it’s not like the Trump Administration engages in any type of dialogue with the public or professional experts before unilaterally changing policies. And, it’s not like they provide any forum for opposing views. Indeed, even U.S. Legislators, Judges, State Officials, and their own Asylum Officers who speak out against the Administration’s biased and wrong-headed views are routinely attacked, threatened, slandered, mocked, and denigrated.

Yesterday, I did a Skype training session for D.C. Affordable Law. There, I actually had a “dialogue” with those attorneys courageously and selflessly trying to help asylum applicants through the unnecessarily complicated and intentionally hostile environment in Immigration Court and at the BIA that Big Mac and his propaganda machine along with scofflaws Sessions, Barr, and McHenry have created. There are many “winnable” asylum cases out there, even after the law has intentionally been misconstrued and manipulated by the Trump Administration in a racist attempt to disqualify all asylum seekers from Central America.

One thing we all agreed upon was that nobody, and I mean nobody, without competent representation and a chance to gather necessary documentation would have any chance of getting asylum under the current hostile environment. That means that when “Big Mac” and others tout “immediate decisions at the border” (sometimes by untrained Border Patrol Agents, no less, rather than professional Asylum Officers) what they REALLY are doing is insuring that few individuals have access to the necessary pro bono counsel and legal resources necessary to actually win an asylum case under today’s conditions. That’s an intentional denial of Constitutional, statutory, and human rights by Big Mac!

Then, Big Mac has the audacity and intellectual dishonesty to use bogus statistics generated by a system he and others have intentionally manipulated so as to reject or not even hear very legitimate asylum claims as “proof” that most of those claims are “without merit.” While I’m afraid it’s too late for those killed, tortured, or suffering because of Big Mac’s wrongdoing, I certainly hope that someday, someone does an assessment of all the improperly rejected, denied, and blocked asylum, withholding, CAT, SIJS, T, and U claims that should have been granted under an honest interpretation of asylum law and a fair adjudication and hearing process.

A real dialogue on solving the Southern Border would start with how we can get the necessary professional adjudicators and universal representation of asylum seekers working to make the system function fairly and efficiently. And that probably would mean at least 20% to 25% “quick grants” of strong cases that would keep them out of the Immigration Court and Courts of Appeals systems without stomping on anyone’s rights. It would also enable asylees to quickly obtain work authorization and start making progress toward eventual citizenship and full integration so that they could maximize their great potential contributions to our society.

For the money we are now wasting on cruel, inhuman, and ultimately ineffective enforcement gimmicks being promoted by “Big Mac,” we could actually get a decent universal representation program for asylum seekers up and running. Under a fair system, rejections would also be fair and as expeditious as due process allows, making for quicker and more certain returns of those who are not qualified and perhaps even sending a more understandable and acceptable “message” as to who actually qualifies under our refugee and asylum systems.

It’s highly unlikely that there will ever be any real dialogue on immigration and human rights as long as Trump and neo-Nazi Stephen Miller are “driving the train” and “Big Mac with Lies” and other like him are serving as their “conductors” on the “Death Express.” Trump and his policies have intentionally “poisoned the well” so that debate and constructive solutions are impossible. As long as we start, as Big Mac does, with a litany of lies and fabrications, and reject all truth and knowledge, there is no starting point for a debate.

PWS

10-08-19

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GEORGETOWN LAW COMMUNITY ON THE UPCOMING (OCT. 7) CAMPUS APPEARANCE OF ACTING DHS SEC. KEVIN McALEENAN: Yes, McAleenan Is Intellectually Dishonest & Morally Corrupt, But He Should Be Allowed To Speak On Campus – Education, Preparation, Confrontation, & Challenge Is The Best Way To Deal With A Public Official Who Has Violated (& Continues To Violate) His Oath Of Office!

Dear Georgetown Law Colleagues & Community Members:

I agree 100% with the assessment by my colleague that Kevin McAleenan is a corrupt, immoral, and indecent human being. He is an affront to American democracy, human rights, and simple human decency, as well as a congenital liar. Imagine a person who would proudly negotiate incredibly dishonest “Safe Third Country” agreements with three of the most corrupt and dangerous countries in the world, none of which has a functional asylum system.

I have highlighted McAleenan’s despicable activities numerous times on my blog, immigrationcourtside.com. Perhaps fortuitously, one of my latest post highlights McAleenan’s “Let ‘Em Die In Mexico” program and the complicity of the Supremes and other Federal Appellate Courts in allowing these blatant violations of Constitutional, statutory, and human rights to continue. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/10/03/complicit-supremes-9th-circuit-help-trump-big-mac-with-lies-abuse-asylum-seekers-in-mexico-let-em-die-in-mexico-is-a-disgrace-enabled-by-judg/

Folks should also note Mac’s knowing participation in promoting death of forced migrants by starvation in Guatemala, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-admin-ignored-its-own-evidence-climate-change-s-impact-n1056381, and his equally despicable program of returning those seeking legal refugee status under our laws to face violence in failed states that are basically “war zones.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/27/honduras-central-america-asylum-seekers-us-guatemala-el-salvador?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Mac also is spreader of the demonstrably false claim that asylum seekers don’t show up for their hearings (they show up nearly 100% of time, when represented), that their claims lack merit (he has never, to my knowledge, adjudicated a single asylum claim and is a leading proponent of the Trump Administration’s intentional, racially and gender biased misapplication of asylum laws to Central Americans), and that the Flores settlement protecting children from abusive detention is a “loophole.”

He promoted regulations recently found by U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee to be patently illegal that would have authorized indefinite detention in substandard conditions of families and children whose “crime” was to seek legal protection under our laws. Rather than working cooperatively with pro bono lawyers, he has made it virtually impossible for dedicated, hard-working lawyers to represent individuals returned to Mexico. He has replaced Asylum Officers with totally unqualified Border Patrol Officers to improperly increase the number of “credible fear” denials, over the objection of the professional Asylum Officers. He runs detention centers with life threatening conditions and lies about it.

He has also abandoned the responsible use of prosecutorial discretion and overloaded the Immigration Court dockets with absolute “dreck” that should never been brought in the first place. Contrary to his bogus claims, the vast number of removals of non-criminals being pursued by ICE in the Immigration Courts are not only intentionally destroying the justice system but demonstrably harm the United States with each mindless, biased, and unnecessary removal of long-time law-abiding individuals who are contributing to their communities and often leave U.S. citizen family members behind. The recent proposal of DHS to misapply the “public charge” grounds to prevent individuals from gaining lawful permanent residence or U.S. citizenship is beyond disgraceful. His subordinates have gloried in spreading racially-motivated terror in ethnic communities throughout the United States.

I could go on for pages about Mac’s cowardly immorality and illegal behavior.

But, all of that being said, he’s an Acting Cabinet Secretary and should be heard. I think the best course is to publicize his misdeeds in advance, so those attending can be fully informed about what he actually stands for and his total disdain for human rights and the rule of law. I also believe that he should be confronted with his many lies and illegal and immoral actions and challenged to justify his unjustifiable positions. He needs to know that most of us do not agree with the Trump Administration’s perverted world view and disavowal of basic statutory, Constitutional, and human rights which he has dishonestly advanced and advocated.

Again, I appreciate my esteemed colleague’s courageously speaking out about McAleenan’s disgraceful record of misusing public service to abuse and threaten the lives of the most vulnerable among us. I also appreciate how it has affected him and his family personally. As a former public servant for three-and-one-half decades, I find Mac to be a vile disgrace to honest, ethical, and decent public service.

But, I think “hearing and confronting” is a better course than “tuning him out.” Maybe this occasion will help inform and energize the Georgetown Law Community about the abuses of American values, human rights, Constitutional Due Process, and the Rule of Law being carried out by our Government in our name every day against our fellow human beings who have the misfortune to be migrants in today’s world.

I also note that MPI and CLINIC, the sponsors of these presentations, are among the nation’s leading defenders of immigrants’ rights and social justice. That is another reason why I would defer to their decision to invite McAleenan to this event as an “opportunity to confront and understand the face of evil.”

Thanks for listening.

Due Process Forever, McAleenan’s Lies Never!

Best,

Paul Wickham Schmidt

Adjunct Professor of Law
Georgetown Law

U.S. Immigration Judge (Retired)

Former Chairman, Board of Immigration Appeals

Former Deputy General Counsel & Acting General Counsel

(Legacy) U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service

Due Process Forever!

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