"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
The U.S. government on Wednesday ended two Trump administration policies that made it harder for immigrants fleeing violence to qualify for asylum, especially Central Americans.
Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland issued a new policy saying immigration judges should cease following the Trump-era rules that made it tough for immigrants who faced domestic or gang violence to win asylum in the United States. The move could make it easier for them to win their cases for humanitarian protection and was widely celebrated by immigrant advocates.
“The significance of this cannot be overstated,” said Kate Melloy Goettel, legal director of litigation at the American Immigration Council. “This was one of the worst anti-asylum decisions under the Trump era, and this is a really important first step in undoing that.”
Garland said he was making the changes after President Biden ordered his office and the Department of Homeland Security to draft rules addressing complex issues in immigration law about groups of people who should qualify for asylum.
Gene Hamilton, a key architect of many of then-President Trump’s immigration policies who served in the Justice Department, said in a statement that he believed the change would lead to more immigrants filing asylum claims based on crime and that it should not be a reason for the humanitarian protection.
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In the current fiscal year, people from countries such as Russia and Cameroon have seen higher asylum grant rates in the immigration courts than those from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the data show.
One of the Trump administration policies was aimed at migrants who were fleeing violence from nonstate actors, such as gangs, while the other affected those who felt they were being targeted in their countries because of their family ties, said Jason Dzubow, an immigration attorney in Washington who focuses on asylum.
Dzubow said he recently represented a Salvadoran family in which the husband was killed and gang members started coming after his children. While Dzubow argued they were in danger because of their family ties, he said the immigration judge rejected the case, citing the Trump-era decision among the reasons.
Dzubow welcomed the change but said he doesn’t expect to suddenly see large numbers of Central Americans winning their asylum cases, which remain difficult under U.S. law.
“I don’t expect it is going to open the floodgates, and all of a sudden everyone from Central America can win their cases. Those cases are very burdensome and difficult,” he said. “We need to make a decision: Do we want to protect these people?”
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Read the full article at the link.
You know for sure you’re doing the right thing when anti-asylum shill and Stephen Miller crony Gene Hamilton criticizes it!
I tend to agree with my friend Jason that under present conditions, asylum cases for women refugees from Central America are likely to continue to be a “tough slog” at EOIR. The intentionally-created anti-asylum, misogynist, anti-Latino, anti-scholarship, anti-quality, anti-due-process culture at EOIR that emerged under Sessions and Barr isn’t going to disappear overnight, particularly the way Judge Garland is approaching it. He needs to “get out the broom,🧹 sweep out the current BIA and the bad, anti-asylum judges, get rid of ineffective administration, and bring in human rights and due process professionals to get this system operating again!
Jason, for one, would be an outstanding judicial choice for building a functioning, fair, efficient Immigration Court; one that would fulfill the long-abandoned vision of “through teamwork and innovation, being the world’s best tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” Under the Trump regime, EOIR was the antithesis of that noble vision!
Cases such as that described by Jason (incorrectly decided by the Immigration Judge) utilizing A-R-C-G- and “family friendly” precedents from the Fourth Circuit were usually well-represented and well-prepared by attorneys like Jason, Clinics, and NGOs like CLINIC, CAIR Coalition, Human Rights First, and Law School Clinics. After review by ICE Counsel, many were candidates for my “short docket” in Arlington where asylum could easily be granted based on the documentation and short confirming testimony.
To their credit, even before the BIA finally issued A-R-C-G-, the Arlington Chief Counsel’s Office was not opposing well-documented asylum grants based on domestic violence under what was known as the “Martin Brief” after former DHS/INS Senior Official, renowned immigration scholar, and internationally recognized asylum expert, now emeritus Professor David A. Martin of UVA Law. I remember telling David after one such case that his brief was still “saving lives” even after his departure from DHS and return to academia.
Professor (Emeritus) David A. Martin UVA Law PHOTO: UVA Law
Rather than building on that real potential for efficiency, cooperation, quality, and due process, under Sessions those things that were working at EOIR and represented hope and potential for future progress were maliciously and idiotically dismantled. From the outside, throughout the country, I saw DV cases that once would have been “easy short docket grants” in Arlington require lengthy hearings and often be incorrectly decided in Immigration Court and the BIA. Sometimes the Circuits corrected the errors, sometimes not.
At best, what had been a growing census around recognizing asylum claims based on DV became a “crap shoot” with the result almost totally dependent on what judges were assigned, what Circuit the hearing was held in, and even the composition of the Circuit panel! And, of course, unrepresented claimants were DOA regardless of the merits of their cases. What a way to run a system where torture or death could be the result of a wrong decision!
But, it doesn’t have to be that away! Experts like Jason and others could get this system functioning fairly and efficiently in less time than it took Sessions and Barr to destroy it.
However, it can’t be done with the personnel now at DOJ and EOIR Headquarters. If Judge Garland wants this to function like a real court system (not always clear to me that he does), he needs to recruit and bring in the outside progressive experts absolutely necessary to make it happen. At long last, it’s time for “Amateur Night at the Bijou” to end its long, disgraceful, debilitating “run” @ EOIR!
Time for this long-running show at DOJ/EOIR to end! PHOTO: Thomas Hawk Creative Commons Amateur Night
UNHCR welcomes US decision to restore protections from gang and domestic violence
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, welcomes the U.S. government’s decision announced 16 June to reverse legal rulings introduced several years ago that effectively made people forced to flee life-threatening domestic and gang violence in their home countries ineligible from being able to seek safety in the United States.
“These rulings have put the lives of vulnerable people at risk,” said Matthew Reynolds, UNHCR Representative to the United States and the Caribbean, after the U.S. Justice Department announced that the legal rulings known as Matter of A-B- and Matter of L-E-A- had been vacated in their entirety.
“Today’s decisions will give survivors fleeing these types of violence a better chance of finding safety in the United States and being treated with the basic compassion and dignity that every single person deserves. UNHCR welcomes this important humanitarian step,” Reynolds said.
UNHCR, he added, also welcomes the U.S. administration’s commitment to bringing its asylum system into line with international standards and specifically to writing new rules on determining membership of a “particular social group,” one of five grounds spelled out in the 1951 Refugee Convention defining who is entitled to international protection as a refugee.
“In keeping with international standards, a simple and broad definition of ‘particular social group’ is an essential part of a fair and efficient asylum system,” Reynolds said, adding that UNHCR stands ready and willing to support the asylum review and rulemaking process in any way requested by the U.S. government.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency: 70 years protecting people forced to flee.
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The unethical and illegal “bogus precedents” issued by Sessions and Barr have cost lives! Much of the damage done to date is irreparable. So is the continuing damage resulting from the Biden Administration’s failure to reopen ports of entry to legal asylum seekers.
🆘A functioning asylum system at ports of entry, establishing a viable refugee program in or in the region of the Northern Triangle, and a wholly reformed, due process oriented EOIR with real judges who understand how to fairly and efficiently evaluate and grant asylum under the very generous standard enunciated by the BIA in Matter of Mogharrabi but never in fact uniformly applied in practice will reduce the number of individuals crossing the border between ports of entry to seek refuge. We also need the help of NGOs in providing representation to those arriving and resettlement assistance for those “screened in” for hearings.
Right now, we have no legal asylum system at our border despite very clear statutory language commanding it. That’s a BIG problem that must be addressed immediately! Clearly, the Biden Administration must cooperate with and seek help from human rights experts now outside Government including the UNHCR.
As I’ve said before many times, expert human rights leadership needs to be brought into their Biden Administration to “kick some tail,” eradicate incompetence and bias, and fix EOIR and the asylum system.
The NDPA needs to keep the pressure building for more immediate, common sense reforms to our asylum system and a legitimate EOIR of experts who function independently from DHS enforcement and politicos.
Friday marked three years since former Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared that people fleeing gender-based violence, gang brutality, and other human rights violations are undeserving of protection — in the reprehensible decision known as Matter of A-B-.
Human Rights First and over 70 organizations of the Welcome With Dignity campaignurged the Biden administration to end Trump-era cruelty and restore fairness to the asylum process.
Today, news broke that the Department of Justice had vacated Matter of A-B-, a welcome move that will help protect refugees who are persecuted by violent gangs, suffer domestic abuse, or are endangered because of their family ties.
Amid news that the Biden administration is considering issuing an interim final rule in asylum processing that may cut back vital due process protections, Human Rights First led over 40 organizations in a letter calling on the administration to adjust course and provide the requisite notice and comment period for the rule.
This week, Human Rights First also applauded the Biden administration’s plans to expand the categories of people who can petition to bring children to safety in the U.S. through the Central American Minors Program (CAM) to include asylum seekers and others.
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Unlike the Administration folks pushing this misguided policy, I’ve actually worked in and on our asylum system for nearly five decades. I’ve seen it from the inside and the outside. I’ve been to the border. I’ve adjudicated lots of asylum cases at both the trial and appellate levels. I’ve seen them at the border, the interior, and places in between. I’ve worked through every past “asylum emergency” and experienced, and sometimes had to defend or oppose, the failed policies of Administrations of both parties over the past four decades.
Reviewing asylum claims on records created by non-judicial officials doesn’t work! Because of the importance of credibility, a de novo hearing is required! The last misguided attempt to do what the Biden Administration apparently intends failed with respect to “Asylum Only” cases at the BIA more than two decades ago and resulted in transfer of the function to the Immigration Courts;
I have the greatest respect for Asylum Officers. But, perhaps because so many individuals were unrepresented at the Asylum Office and because of the defects in developing the record, the majority of Asylum Office referrals I experienced in 13 years on the Arlington Immigration Court resulted in grants of asylum after full hearings! Sometimes, after full hearing and/or full documentation, the grants were so obvious that they were agreed upon or uncontested by ICE Counsel;
Yes, many cases coming from the border could be granted by the Asylum Office without referral to Immigration Court! But, referral of non-granted cases to a radically reformed and better EOIR for a full de novo hearing is absolutely necessary for due process and fundamental fairness. Anything less is “built to fail” and will endanger lives to boot!
We need a BIA of real asylum experts to provide and enforce informed, legally correct, and practical asylum precedents for both Asylum Officers and Immigration Judges. Only experts who have experienced and resisted the current illegal and impractical “denial-based” EOIR system — an intentional perversion of the Supreme Court’s generous decision in Cardoza-Fonseca and a complete mockery of the BIA’s implementing precedent in Matter of Mogharrabi — should be on the reformed BIA. Time to break up the “denial club” in Falls Church, eradicate disgraceful “Asylum Free Zones” in poorly-functioning, anti-asylum Immigration “Courts” throughout the country, and re-establish the rule of law, due process, fundamental fairness, and human dignity at EOIR! (Fair application of asylum laws to protect rather than rejectwould also reduce the many cases unnecessarily clogging the Court of Appeals that could and should easily have been granted at a fair, functional, expert EOIR!)
Preserving a right to meaningful judicial review of denials by the independent Article III Judiciary is also absolutely essential to due process.
The Administration needs to bring in experts with asylum expertise and actual Immigration Court experience — folks like Karen Musalo of CGRS, Judge Ilyce Shugall, Michelle Mendez of CLINIC, Temple Law Associate Dean Jaya Ramji-Nogales, and retired Judge Paul Grussendorf (who additionally served as an Asylum Officer and has written a book about the shortcomings of both systems) — to solve the problem. That must include getting rid of the deadwood, the folks who don’t understand the problem, and those who see asylum policy wrongly as a “deterrent,” rather than an essential part of our legal immigration system!
Getting rid of the atrocious “precedents” in Matter of A-B- and Matter of L-E-A- is just a start! The asylum system needs help from progressive experts. The NDPA must keep up the pressure on the Administration to stop fumbling and dawdling and bring in the now-missing progressive expertise and dynamic leadership to solve the problems that threaten our democracy!
Yes, not everybody qualifies for asylum or another form of protection. But, you can “bet the farm” that in an honest, expert, properly functioning, due-process-oriented EOIR many more would qualify than under the current broken, biased, and disgraceful charade of justice still going on @ Justice! And, even those who don’t ultimately qualify deserve to be treated fairly, respectfully, and as human beings — “persons” under the Due Process Clause, because that’s exactly what they are!
The Attorney General has issued a decision in Matter of A-B-, 28 I&N Dec. 307 (A.G. 2021).
(1) Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018) (“A-B- I”), and Matter of A-B-, 28 I&N Dec. 199 (A.G. 2021) (“A-B- II”), are vacated in their entirety.
(2) Immigration judges and the Board should no longer follow A-B- I or A-B- II when adjudicating pending or future cases. Instead, pending forthcoming rulemaking, immigration judges and the Board should follow pre-A-B- I precedent, including Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 388 (BIA 2014).
The Attorney General has issued a decision in Matter of L-E-A-, 28 I&N Dec. 304 (A.G. 2021).
(1) Matter of L-E-A-, 27 I&N Dec. 581 (A.G. 2019) (“L-E-A- II”), is vacated in its entirety so as to return the immigration system to the preexisting state of affairs pending completion of the ongoing rulemaking process and the issuance of a final rule addressing the definition of “particular social group.”
(2) Immigration judges and the Board should no longer follow L-E-A- II when adjudicating pending and future cases.
EOIR plans to resume non-detained hearings on July 6, 2021 at all remaining immigration courts. Attorneys have reported seeing non-detained cases advanced or continued with less than 30 days’ notice before the individual hearing, so check your EOIR portal.
Reception window: weekdays 8:30am – 12:00pm. In-person, hard-copy service of documents will only be accepted at the window for detained cases pending at the Varick Street Immigration Court.
eService: For detained and non-detained cases pending before the Varick Street Immigration Court, you must use the “Varick Street NYC” location. For cases pending before the Immigration Courts at 26 Federal Plaza and 290 Broadway, you must use the “New York City” location. Beginning July 6, 2021, documents submitted with the wrong location designation will be rejected.
TOP NEWS
Judge Robert A. Katzmann (1954-2021) Second Circuit Court of Appeals PHOTO: US Courts.com
NYT: “Almost single-handedly he convinced the organized bar to provide free quality representation for thousands of needy immigrants,” said Jed S. Rakoff, a senior U.S. District Court Judge. “No judge ever took a broader view of the role of a judge in promoting justice in our society, or was more successful in turning those views into practical accomplishment.”
Vox: While details of the plan are short, [Biden] has asked the Justice Department to restart its access to justice work, which was on hiatus during the Trump administration, and convened a roundtable of civil legal aid organizations to advise him. But the Biden administration need not look far for potential solutions: The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, a first-of-its-kind program that provides publicly funded lawyers to every detained or incarcerated immigrant in the state, offers a helpful model.
Bloomberg: The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security plan to propose new criteria for asylum-seekers as part of Biden’s broader goal to retool the nation’s immigration system. The Department of Homeland Security will draft ways to strengthen protections for undocumented individuals brought to the U.S. illegally as children, under the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). See also Aaron Reichlin-Melnick’s Twitter thread summarizing the agenda.
Reuters: A new U.S. immigration policy announced on Monday will expand access to work permits and deportation relief to some immigrants who are crime victims while their visa cases are pending.
WaPo: Though President Biden quickly signed several executive orders to roll back some of President Donald Trump’s most draconian policies — including one that sent asylum seekers back to Mexico to await their court hearings — a number of other restrictive measures and rulings that directly affect domestic violence survivors remain in place.
NBC: Among the judges’ concerns, as described to NBC News: There aren’t enough of them, they need more support staff, and they’ve felt political pressure from their bosses at the Justice Department.
AP: VOICE will be replaced by The Victims Engagement and Services Line, which will combine longstanding existing services, such as methods for people to report abuse and mistreatment in immigration detention centers and a notification system for lawyers and others with a vested interest in immigration cases.
Reuters: An effort by U.S. President Joe Biden to reunite migrant families separated by the previous administration is moving slowly, with only seven children reunited with parents by a task force launched in February, according to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report released on Tuesday. Another 29 families are set to be reunited in the coming weeks, the report said.
NYT: There was a slight increase in the number of border crossings, encounters and apprehensions overall during the same time period, a sign that the record surge of migrants trying to get into the country this spring could be starting to stabilize.
WaPo: As of May 31, nearly 9,000 children were kept at unlicensed sites, compared with 7,200 at licensed shelters, court filings by the U.S. government said. While the unlicensed facilities were running at near capacity in May, the licensed facilities were only about half full, according to a report filed by the agency tasked with the children’s care.
WaPo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehension numbers for May released recently show the share of families — about 20 percent — being expelled under Title 42 continued to decline. Although the overall number of families reaching the Southwest border declined as well, the data shows that eight out of 10 families that Border Patrol encountered were released into the country and allowed to pursue immigration cases.
ABC: Her trip to meet with Guatemalan and Mexican leaders is part of a two-track approach to the issue, senior administration officials have said, of “stemming the flow” of migration in the near term and establishing a “strategic partnership” with Mexico and Northern Triangle countries “to enhance prosperity, combat corruption and strengthen the rule of law” in the longer term.
ImmProf: It’s one of those wonky SCOTUS plurality opinions. Justice Kagan announces the judgement of the court and gets three justices (Sotomayor, Kennedy, and Gorsuch) to sign onto her opinion, which focuses on the statutory phrase “against the person of another.” Justice Thomas concurs, agreeing in the judgment that Borden’s conviction doesn’t qualify as a violent felony, though he focuses on different statutory language: “use of physical force.”
Law360: The Fifth Circuit declined to review a Salvadoran man’s appeal for humanitarian deportation relief Wednesday, finding that immigration judges had rightfully denied his claims after he failed to show he was a member of a persecuted group.
LexisNexis: Arnoldo Antonio Vasquez, a former Salvadorian military officer, was a naturalized American citizen. Based on his role in extrajudicial killings and a subsequent cover-up occurring during armed conflict in El Salvador, the government sought to revoke his citizenship, that is, to denaturalize him.
The court held that the Honduran petitioner did not face past persecution based on her membership in a particular social group (PSG) consisting of her family; rather, the court found she was targeted because she owned land that once belonged to her father. (Padilla-Franco v. Garland, 6/2/21) AILA Doc. No. 21060736
Applying the “reason to believe” standard under INA §212(a)(2)(C), the court held that substantial evidence supported the BIA’s conclusion that there was probable cause to believe that petitioner was involved in illicit drug trafficking and was thus inadmissible. (Rojas v. Garland, 5/27/21) AILA Doc. No. 21060735
The court held that the government is not required to prove that a returning lawful permanent resident (LPR) meets an exception under INA §101(a)(13)(C) before it can parole the returning LPR into the United States for prosecution under INA §212(d)(5). (Vazquez Romero v. Garland, 5/28/21) AILA Doc. No. 21060737
Denying the petition for review, the court held that the Salvadoran petitioner was ineligible for asylum, because the gang that targeted her family had done so only as a means to the end of obtaining funds, not because of any animus against her family. (Sanchez-Castro v. Att’y Gen., 6/1/21) AILA Doc. No. 21060738
The BIA ruled that a mere continuation of an activity in the United States that is substantially similar to the activity from which an initial claim of past persecution is alleged cannot establish changed circumstances under INA §208(a)(2)(D). Matter of D-G-C-, 28 I&N Dec. 297 (BIA 2021) AILA Doc. No. 21060899
Law360: The First Circuit should stand by its decision to wipe a lower court ruling that blocked federal immigration authorities from making arrests in and around Massachusetts courthouses, despite the Biden administration’s order curbing many such arrests, the federal government argued Thursday.
Law360: A lawful permanent resident of the U.S. sued the Department of Homeland Security in Maryland federal court Wednesday, claiming an unreasonable delay in processing his wife’s spousal visa application, which he says has not been acted on since it was filed in January 2020.
USCIS issued three policy updates in the Policy Manual to clarify the expedited processing, improve RFE and NOID guidance, and increase the validity period for initial and renewal EADs for certain pending adjustment of status applications. AILA Doc. No. 21060934
USCIS updated policy guidance in its Policy Manual regarding the criteria used to determine whether a case warrants expedited treatment. AILA Doc. No. 21060936
USCIS: USCIS is updating the USCIS Policy Manual to implement a new process, referred to as Bona Fide Determination, which will give victims of crime in the United States access to employment authorization sooner, providing them with stability and better equipping them to cooperate with and assist law enforcement investigations and prosecutions.
USCIS: USCIS has made historical versions of the USCIS Policy Manual available to the public. These historical versions will reflect the pertinent policy in effect on a particular date and are being provided for research and reference purposes only. Users can find the historical versions under the “History” tab within the Policy Manual chapters. However, this tab will only reflect historical changes moving forward. For historical versions before June 11, you can visit the Internet Archive.
ICE provided interim guidance on motions to reopen in light of SCOTUS’s decision in Niz-Chavez v. Garland, stating that some noncitizens may now be eligible for cancellation of removal. Until 11/16/21, ICE attorneys will presumptively exercise prosecutorial discretion for these individuals. AILA Doc. No. 21061030
ICE provided guidance on submitting a prosecutorial discretion request to OPLA including a listing of relevant email addresses that can be used when submitting a request to OPLA field locations. AILA Doc. No. 21061430
EOIR issued a memo that provides EOIR policies regarding the effect of DHS’s updated enforcement priorities and initiatives. Memo is effective as of 6/11/21. AILA Doc. No. 21061133
EOIR: As part of EOIR’s ongoing efforts to improve operations and review existing policy memoranda, the following Policy Memorandum (PM) is rescinded: 1.PM 21-10, Fees.
I note that Judge Robert A. Katzmann spoke at several of our Immigration Judge Conferences and also attended a Georgetown Law Judicial seminar on inconsistency in asylum adjudication that I participated in as an Immigration Judge. He was instrumental in creating both the Immigrant Justice Corps and the NYC representation program for migrants.
Notably, Liz Gibson, of “The Gibson Report,” one of my former Georgetown Law students was also selected by Judge Katzmann and other experts for the super-competitive Immigrant Justice Corps! And we can see what a difference Liz is making every day!
Those of us committed to due process and fundamental fairness mourn Judge Katzmann’s passing. His enlightened, humane, and compassionate leadership will be missed.
Lots of important information for practitioners here. It illustrates that while ICE and USCIS are moving forward with some modest, long overdue due process and “best practices” reforms, EOIR under Garland continues to lag behind.
This week’s disclosures about the deep problems at the Trump DOJ, which have not been effectively addressed, show that under Garland the DOJ isn’t inclined to fix even the most obvious defects at Justice until they are exposed by outside groups and the public pressure grows. At a time when the DOJ needs bold, proactive progressive leadership, Garland’s “reactive” style of management and lack of aggressive progressive leadership continues to erode confidence in our justice system.
As illustrated by last week’s NBC Nightly News report on dysfunction, polarization, and lack of due process and fundamental fairness at EOIR, the ongoing disaster in our Immigration Courtsactually dwarfs all of the other problems at the DOJ. And, it certainly adversely affects more human lives and American communities.
Due process, human rights, and racial justice advocates and experts should not trust Garland and his team to fix EOIR before it’s too late. In the first place, he currently has nobody on his “team” with the Immigration Court experience and the progressive expertise to get the job done!
So it’s going to take more aggressive litigation, more demands to Congress for Article I, more op-eds, more front page articles and news reports, more calls and letters to the White House, and more “creative disruption” to force Garland’s hand on EOIR reform.
Additionally, rather remarkably, and contravening the Biden Administration’s pledge of honoring diversity, the DOJ has done nothing on its own to recruit or attract a diverse group of expert progressive judges. Indeed, Garland actively undermined the effort with an outrageous “17-judge giveaway” to the disgraced Billy Barr. This week’s revelations showed just how ridiculous was Garland’s inappropriate “deference” to Barr-selected, non-progressive, non-diverse judges!
Therefore, it’s absolutely critical that the rest of us keep beating the drum and encouraging the “best and brightest” progressive immigration experts to apply for judicial and executive positions at EOIR. In particular, the immigration judiciary lacks representation by talented Latina and Latino judges with experience representing asylum applicants and other migrants.
They are out there, for sure! But EOIR’s aggressively anti-Hispanic, often misogynist culture, the anti-Hispanic “jurisprudence” churned out by Sessions, Barr, and the BIA, and the demeaning and “dumbing down” of the Immigration Judge jobs to be nothing more than glorified “deportation clerks” has effectively discouraged the folks we need on the bench from applying. And, posting for short periods on “USA JOBS” is not a serious effort at recruiting from the outside or creating a more representative pool of applicants.
NAIJ is doing some of the “diversity outreach” that that should be DOJ’s job. But, they need help! Another reason why Garland’s failure to restore NAIJ as the representative of Immigration Judges is highly problematic! These things should be “no brainless” under a Dem Administration. Instead, at Garland’s DOJ, it’s like pulling teeth!
A number of minority attorneys have told me that they felt unwelcome at the “Trump EOIR” or thought that they couldn’t function independently and effectively in a culture that obviously demeaned and dehumanized people of color.
We can’t force positive, progressive change in the toxic culture at EOIR without getting “agents of change” and judicial role models from currently underrepresented communities on the inside, where they belong. Also, those who actually have represented individuals in Immigration Court have both organizational skills beyond those of many government bureaucrats and practical problem solving ability that simply isn’t promoted or recognized within the inefficient “top-down” EOIR bureaucracy.
So, members of the NDPA, get those EOIR applications in there! Garland is tone deaf to the necessity and the opportunity for a progressive judiciary at EOIR that he squanders every day with his lackadaisical non-leadership. So, as is often the case with Dem Administrations, you’re going to have to take the initiative, break down the the doors of bias and incompetence at EOIR, and create the progressive judiciary of the future with or without Garland’s support!
EOIR is going to have trouble continuing to keep the “best and brightest” progressives out of the Immigration Judiciary. Don’t wait for change to come to you — not going to happen under Garland! Be an agent of aggressive, progressive change! Take the due process/racial justice revolution to the halls of justice @ Justice!
“Come on, Judge Garland! Repeal Matter of Castro-Tum already! Gimme a break! Stop issuing weak-kneed policy memos and give me some qualified, expert, progressive leadership! It’s not rocket science!” “Eyore In Distress” Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”
Provides EOIR policies regarding the effect of Department of Homeland Security enforcement priorities and initiatives.
Office of the Director 8 C.F.R. § 1003.0(b) None.
OOD PM 21-25
Effective: June 11, 2021
All Immigration Court Personnel & Board of Immigration Appeals Personnel Jean King, Acting Director
June 11, 2021
EFFECT OF DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY ENFORCEMENT PRIORITIES
President Biden issued Executive Order 13993 on January 20, 2021, and directed relevant agencies to take appropriate action to review and “reset the policies and practices for enforcing civil immigration laws to align enforcement” with the Administration’s priorities “to protect national and border security, address the humanitarian challenges at the southern border, and ensure public health and safety.” Exec. Order No. 13993, 86 Fed. Reg. 7,051 (Jan. 20, 2021).
Accordingly, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a number of memoranda and guidance documents regarding its enforcement priorities and framework for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.1 Those memoranda establish the DHS general enforcement and removal priorities as three categories of cases of noncitizens who present risks to (1) national security, (2) border security, and (3) public safety.2
1 See, e.g., Memorandum from John D. Tasviña, Principal Legal Advisor, ICE, Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA), to All OPLA Att’ys, Interim Guidance to OPLA Att’ys Regarding Civil Immigr. Enf’t and Removal Policies and Priorities (May 27, 2021), available at https://www.ice.gov/doclib/about/offices/opla/OPLA- immigration-enforcement_interim-guidance.pdf; Memorandum from Tae D. Johnson, Acting Dir., ICE, to All ICE Emps., Interim Guidance: Civil Immigr. Enf’t and Removal Priorities (Feb. 18, 2021), available at https://www.ice.gov/doclib/news/releases/2021/021821_civil-immigration-enforcement_interim-guidance.pdf.
2 These DHS memoranda and DHS priorities do not change EOIR’s current adjudication priorities, which remain in effect. See, e.g., PM 21-23, Dedicated Docket (May 28, 2021); Exec. Office for Immigr. Rev. Mem., Case Priorities and Immigration Court Performance Measures (Jan. 2018).
1
Through individualized review of pending cases, DHS, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), attorneys will be determining which cases are enforcement priorities and which are not. Overall, these memoranda explain that DHS will exercise discretion based on individual circumstances and pursue these priorities at all stages of the enforcement process. This includes a wide range of enforcement decisions involving proceedings before EOIR, such as deciding whether to issue, reissue, serve, file, or cancel Notices to Appear; to oppose or join respondents’ motions to continue or to reopen; to request that proceedings be terminated or dismissed; to pursue an appeal before the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA); and to agree or stipulate to bond amounts or other conditions of release. Accordingly, these memoranda are likely to affect many cases currently pending on the immigration courts’ and BIA’s dockets.
II. Role of the EOIR Adjudicator
The role of the immigration court and the BIA, like all other tribunals, is to resolve disputes. Cf. 8 C.F.R. §§ 1003.1(d) (“The Board shall resolve the questions before it in a manner that is timely, impartial, and consistent with the Act and regulations.”), 1003.10(b) (“In all cases, immigration judges shall seek to resolve the questions before them in a timely and impartial manner consistent with the Act and regulations.”) (emphasis added). At the present time, there are over 1.3 million combined cases pending before the immigration courts3 and the BIA.4 In light of the DHS memoranda, it is imperative that EOIR’s adjudicators use adjudication resources to resolve questions before them in cases that remain in dispute.
A. Immigration Court
Immigration judges should be prepared to inquire, on the record, of the parties appearing before them at scheduled hearings as to whether the case remains a removal priority for ICE and whether ICE intends to exercise some form of prosecutorial discretion, for example by requesting that the case be terminated or dismissed, by stipulating to eligibility for relief, or, where permitted by case law, by agreeing to the administrative closure of the case.5 The judge should ask the respondent or his or her representative for the respondent’s position on these matters, and take that position into account, before taking any action.
In addition, immigration judges are encouraged to use all docketing tools available to them to ensure the fair and timely resolution of cases before them.
3 Exec. Office for Immigr. Rev., Adjudication Statistics: Pending Cases, New Cases, and Total Completions, Apr. 19, 2021, available at https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1242166/download.
4 Exec. Office for Immigr. Rev., Adjudication Statistics: Case Appeals Filed, Completed, and Pending, Apr. 19, 2021, available at https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1248501/download.
5 Administrative closure is currently permitted in the Third, Fourth, and Seventh Circuits. See Arcos Sanchez v. Att’y Gen. U.S.A., 997 F.3d 113 (3d Cir. 2021); Meza Morales v. Barr, 973 F.3d 656 (7th Cir. 2020); Romero v. Barr, 937 F.3d 282 (4th Cir. 2019). Administrative closure is currently permitted in the Sixth Circuit, but only to allow respondents to apply with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for provisional unlawful presence waivers. See Garcia-DeLeon v. Garland, __ F.3d __, 2021 WL 2310055 (6th Cir., June 4, 2021). Administrative closure is not currently permitted in the other circuits. See Matter of Castro-Tum, 27 I&N Dec. 271 (A.G. 2018).
2
B. Board of Immigration Appeals
Appellate immigration judges should be prepared to review and adjudicate motions from DHS regarding prosecutorial discretion. In addition, appellate immigration judges may solicit supplemental briefing from the parties regarding whether the case remains a removal priority for ICE or whether the parties intend to seek or exercise some form of prosecutorial discretion. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(9) (“[T]he Board may rule, in the exercise of its discretion . . . , on any issue, argument, or claim not raised by the parties, and the Board may solicit supplemental briefing from the parties on the issues to be considered before rendering a decision.”).
III. Conclusion
EOIR expects the parameters of the new DHS memoranda to focus DHS resources on cases that meet the DHS-determined priorities. All EOIR adjudicators are encouraged to use docketing practices that ensure respondents receive fair and timely adjudications, and act consistently with the role of the immigration courts and the BIA in resolving disputes. That includes disposing of cases as appropriate, based on the specific circumstances of the individual matter, with consideration of ICE’s determinations that 1) a case does not fit within the Secretary’s enforcement priorities, and 2) accordingly, pursuit is no longer in the best interest of the Government. If you have any questions, please contact your Assistant Chief Immigration Judge or the Chief Appellate Immigration Judge.
Nothing in this PM is intended to replace independent research, the application of case law and regulations to individual cases, or the decisional independence of immigration judges and appellate immigration judges as defined in 8 C.F.R. §§ 1003.1(d)(1)(ii), 1003.10.
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“In addition, immigration judges are encouraged to use all docketing tools available to them to ensure the fair and timely resolution of cases before them.”
Unfortunately, the primary “docketing tool” — Administrative Closing — is largely UNAVAILABLE to most Immigration Judges outside the 3rd, 4th, 7th, and (sort of) 6th Circuits. Rather than fix this on “day one” by vacating Matter of Castro-Tum — as recommended by almost all immigration experts — Garland’s inaction has resulted in continuing unnecessary confusion and inefficiency in his dysfunctional “court” system sporting an astounding, continually growing, largely unnecessary 1.3 million plus case backlog! Come on, man!!
Under OPLA’s John Trasvina, ICE is actually taking more aggressive and sensible action to restore due process, sanity, and docket control in Immigration Court than EOIR has under Garland! What sense does that make?
Gabe Gutierrez NBC News Correspondent Atlanta, GAJudge Amiena Khan, President National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ)Hon. Dana Leigh Marks U.S. Immigration Judge San Francisco Immigration Court Past President, National Association of Immigration JudgesHonorable Charles Honeyman Retired U.S. Immigration Judge Member, Round Table of Former Immigration JudgesHonorable Lisa Dornell U.S. Immigration Judge (Retired) Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
Judges Khan and Marks are already on the DOJ payroll. Garland should have brought them in to Falls Church, on at least a temporary basis, to start cleaning up the mess and instituting long overdue due process and judicial independence reforms! The NAIJ which they represent should have been reinstated to represent Immigration Judges.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a retired member of the NAIJ.
Recent retirees on the Round Table like Judges Honeyman and Dornell could have been rehired on a temporary basis under available authority to help root out and change the inane quotas, bad precedents, terrible exclusionary hiring processes, and mind-boggling “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” that continues to build backlog, deny due process, and promote reactionary White Nationalist policies in the failed and flailing Immigration “Courts.”
The continuing problems at Garland’s DOJ start with EOIR, but by no means end there! Apparently, Garland’s lackadaisical, permissive attitude toward corruption at DOJ under Trump & his cronies doesn’t get the Hill Dems’ attention unless they and their families were personally targeted by the illegality and misconduct. Otherwise, it’s just the lives of immigrants, asylum seekers, and “the others,” mostly people of color and abused women and children, so who cares?
It’s worthy of noting that it has largely fallen to the press and public interest groups to expose the corruption allowed to fester at Trump’s DOJ. Only then does Garland make tardy and half-hearted efforts to investigate or take action. Cleaning up corruption, changing bad and illegal policies, and rooting out those who carried out such abuses should have been “job one” for the incoming Attorney General. Instead, it’s an “afterthought,” at best!
And, of course, good government and ethics aren’t part of the “institutional culture” @ DOJ that Garland is so anxious to defend. Does every Administration have a “right” to have its illegal actions and corruption covered up and defended by its successor? Will it really deter “good government” if you believe that you might be held accountable by the next Administration for acts of unconstitutionality or illegality?
How come using the law as a “deterrent” is fine as applied to migrants of color, but “deterring” present and future DOJ bureaucrats and politicos from abusing the law in support of a corrupt Administration’s illegal policies isn’t?
Sure, I recognize that guys like Sessions and Barr have a perverted view of what’s unconstitutional. But, the object is to make it difficult for horrible opponents of American democracy like them to become Attorney General in the future and to insure that there will be institutional resistance to any future efforts to corrupt our justice system.
“Normalizing” the unprecedented overtly corrupt behavior of theTrump regime is a continuing problem! We need to fight it all levels of our society and government!
Dishonesty appears to be the main “bipartisan institutional value” at DOJ. No wonder it was so easy for Sessions and Barr to get their corrupt agendas carried out by career lawyers and bureaucrats!
Unless and until Congress finally lights a fire under Garland and his team, and creates an independent Article I Immigration Court, that’s unlikely to change.
Our DOJ is quite obviously broken and reeling. Why isn’t fixing it one of our highest national priorities?
Before: J. CLIFFORD WALLACE and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges, and JANE A. RESTANI,* Judge.
Opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.;
Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge Wallace
* The Honorable Jane A. Restani, Judge for the United States Court of International Trade, sitting by designation.
No. 20-70587
Agency No. A209-406-355
OPINION
2 SOTO-SOTO V. GARLAND
SUMMARY** Immigration
Granting Delfina Soto-Soto’s petition for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ reversing an immigration judge’s grant of deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture, and remanding for the Board to grant CAT relief, the panel held that the Board erred by reviewing the IJ’s decision de novo, rather than for clear error, and concluded that the record compelled the conclusion that Soto-Soto met her burden of proof to establish that it is more likely than not that she will suffer future torture if removed to Mexico.
Michoacán state police arrested and brutally tortured Soto-Soto until she confessed to the kidnapping and murder of a five-year old boy. After the Mexican trial court dismissed the charges against her as a result of due process errors during the investigation, she fled to the United States. Mexican prosecutors subsequently conducted a new investigation and filed new charges against Soto-Soto, INTERPOL put out a Red Notice for her extradition to Uruapan in Michoacán, Mexico, which is 67 miles from where Soto-Soto was tortured in Morelia, Michoacán. Relying on Soto-Soto’s past torture, her reporting of the torture to the Michoacán State Commission of Human Rights despite warnings not to do so, the reissued arrest warrant, and country condition evidence showing that indigenous women like Soto-Soto are particularly
** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
SOTO-SOTO V. GARLAND 3
vulnerable to torture, the IJ held that Soto-Soto was more likely than not to be tortured again if removed to Mexico. The Board reversed and held that the IJ’s determination was clearly erroneous because he did not acknowledge the Mexican judicial system’s appropriate steps to correct past due process errors, that Soto-Soto was not harmed while in custody for eight months after reporting the torture, and that members of Soto-Soto’s family remain in Mexico unharmed.
The panel concluded that the Board’s decision reflected that it engaged in a de novo weighing of the evidence, rather than clear error review. The panel explained that the Board may find an IJ’s factual finding to be clearly erroneous if it is illogical or implausible, or without support in inferences that may be drawn from the facts in the record, but in this case, the Board failed to explain how the IJ’s decision was illogical, implausible, or without support.
The panel’s majority also concluded that the Board’s view of the evidence was not supported by the record. First, the majority wrote that the record emphatically did not show that the Mexican court took steps to cure the due process errors caused by the state police officers torturing a confession out of Soto-Soto. Further, the majority wrote that even if the record supported the Board’s factual findings, that would not be enough to overturn the IJ’s decision under clear error review, because the IJ’s predictive finding as to the likelihood of torture is entitled to broad deference, which the Board failed to provide. Second, the majority wrote that because Soto-Soto’s human rights commission complaint was not filed until after she was released from custody, and nothing in the record suggested that the state police officers were aware of her report, Soto-Soto’s physical safety while in custody was not probative of the state police officers’
4 SOTO-SOTO V. GARLAND
intent to carry out their threat of future torture. Finally, the majority wrote that the lack of harm to Soto-Soto’s family was irrelevant because threats of such harm hinged on Soto- Soto’s return to Mexico, which had not yet occurred. The panel also observed that the Board failed to discuss the IJ’s other key factual findings, including country condition reports establishing that indigenous women are more likely to be tortured in Mexico than other groups.
Reviewed under the proper standard of review, the majority concluded that the IJ’s decision was not clearly erroneous, and that the record compelled the conclusion that Soto-Soto met her burden of proof to establish that it is more likely than not that she will suffer future torture if removed to Mexico. The majority remanded the petition to the Board with the direction to grant deferral of removal.
Concurring in part and dissenting in part, Judge Wallace agreed that the Board impermissibly applied de novo review in reversing the IJ’s grant of relief. However, Judge Wallace wrote that he believes that the IJ erred in the likelihood of future torture analysis, and he relatedly disagreed with the majority’s and IJ’s conflation of the various Mexican law enforcement actors in the state of Michoacán into a unitary actor—i.e., the Michoacán state police—in assessing the likelihood of torture. Judge Wallace also highlighted that the IJ found Soto-Soto was ineligible for asylum and withholding of removal because there are serious reasons to believe that she did, in fact, kidnap and murder the child whenhisfamilyrefusedtopaythedemandedransom. Judge Wallace believed that her likely guilt should have been considered as well because her original criminal case was not dismissed due to factual innocence but due process errors that have been corrected. Judge Wallace concluded that the majority’s direction to the Board to grant CAT relief rather
SOTO-SOTO V. GARLAND 5
than reversing and remanding the petition to the Board for further consideration goes against the court’s ordinary practice, especially because the record did not compel the conclusion that Soto-Soto satisfied her burden of proof.
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More result-oriented decision making and basic errors on the EOIR deportation railroad.🚂
CGRS Urges V.P. Harris to Reject Short-Sighted Policies that Endanger Central Americans
San Francisco, CA (June 10, 2021) – This week Vice President Kamala Harris visited Guatemala and Mexico, meeting with government and civil society leaders to discuss issues of corruption, violence, and poverty. During a Monday press conference with Guatemalan president Alejandro Giammattei, Harris offered a callous and woefully misguided message to Central Americans. “I want to be clear to folks in the region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border,” Harris said. “Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws … If you come to our border, you will be turned back.” These remarks reflect a deep misunderstanding of our laws and of the conditions forcing people to seek asylum at our border. The Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS) urges the vice president and the Biden-Harris administration to do better.
For people fleeing Central America it is no secret that the voyage north is dangerous, and that they will likely face hostility at the U.S. border. Yet thousands continue to make the treacherous journey because widespread violence, poverty, and disasters in their home countries leave them no other option. Vice President Harris and the Biden-Harris administration should understand this: People flee home because their lives, and the lives of their children, depend on it. The administration’s advice that Central Americans, Haitians, and others escaping grave dangers simply “not come” – as if they have any choice in the matter – is cruel and wildly out of touch. Moreover “enforcing our laws” should mean upholding the right to seek asylum, which is enshrined in both U.S. and international law. Turning people away without the slightest concern for the dangers they’ll face, as the Biden-Harris administration has continued to do under the illegal Title 42 policy, is a blatant violation of our laws.
“Our country has played a direct role in the dangerous conditions that plague Central America by bolstering oppressive regimes and contributing to the violence and instability driving refugee flight from the region,” CGRS Manager of Regional Initiatives Felipe Navarro Lux said today. “Instead of taking responsibility and addressing the harm we have caused, the United States time and time again has doubled down on ineffective and draconian policies that punish Central Americans and other refugees for seeking U.S. protection. We have a legal and moral obligation to do better.”
Our immigration and foreign policies should seek not to suppress migration, but to expand safe and orderly pathways to refugee protection and, in the long term, to make the region safer, so that migration is increasingly an option, rather than a necessity, for Central Americans. We can do so by:
Encouraging transparent and accountable governments that uphold the rights of their residents: The United States should stand with Central American civil society organizations (CSOs) working for change – not abusive or authoritarian governments – to combat corruption, advance the rule of law, and promote respect for human rights, particularly for vulnerable groups including youth, women, Indigenous, Black, and LGBTQ+ people.
Prioritizing humanitarian protection over deterrence. Pressuring countries in the region to increase migration enforcement and militarize their borders only forces people seeking protection to make more dangerous journeys, exposing them to increased human rights violations.
Expanding and developing new pathways for migrants and asylum seekers: We should expand protections those fleeing persecution, increase opportunities for family reunification, and address the needs of those displaced by climate change.
Designating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Guatemala, and re-designating TPS for Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua: TPS allows immigrant communities in the United States to live and work without fear of deportation, and to send remittances to family members in their home countries still recovering from the effects of back-to-back hurricanes and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Click here to read CGRS’s recommendations for expanding access to protections for refugees and migrants in Central America and Mexico, with Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc., Church World Service, Instituto para las Mujeres en la Migración, AC (IMUMI), Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), Latin America Working Group Education Fund (LAWGEF), Washington Office on Latin America, and Women’s Refugee Commission.
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CGRS urge a la vicepresidente Harris rechazar políticas miopes que ponen en peligro a los centroamericanos
San Francisco, CA (10 de junio de 2021) – Esta semana la vicepresidente Kamala Harris visitó Guatemala y México, reuniéndose con líderes de los gobiernos y la sociedad civil para discutir asuntos de corrupción, violencia, y pobreza. Durante una rueda de prensa junto con el presidente guatemalteco Alejandro Giammattei, Harris leofreció un mensaje cruel y tristemente equivocado a los centroamericanos. “Quiero ser clara con las personas en la región que están pensando en hacer el peligroso viaje a la frontera de Estados Unidos-México”, dijo Harris. “No vengan. Estados Unidos hará cumplir sus leyes… Si vienen a nuestra frontera, serán regresados”. Estas palabras relejan un profundo desconocimiento de nuestra legislación y de las condiciones que obligan a las personas a pedir asilo en nuestra frontera. El Centro de Estudios de Género y Refugiados (CGRS por sus siglas en inglés) urge a la vicepresidenta y al gobierno Biden-Harris a realizar un mejor trabajo.
Para las personas que huyen de Centroamérica no es un secreto que el viaje al norte es peligroso, y que muy seguramente serán recibidos con hostilidad en la frontera de EE. UU. Aun así, miles continúan migrando porque la violencia, pobreza, y desastres en sus países de origen no les dejan otra opción. La vicepresidente Harris y el gobierno Biden-Harris deben entender esto: Las personas huyen de sus hogares porque sus vidas, y las vidas de sus hijos, dependen de ello. El consejo que este gobierno le da a los centroamericanos, haitianos, y otros que escapan de graves peligros cuando les dice que “no vengan” – como si fuera una opción – es cruel y se aleja de la realidad. Mas aún, “hacer cumplir nuestras leyes” debería significar proteger el derecho a solicitar asilo, el cual se encuentra consagrado en la ley nacional e internacional. Retornar a personas en la frontera sin la menor preocupación por los peligros que puedan enfrentar, como el gobierno Biden-Harris continúa haciendo bajo la ilegal política del “Título 42”, es una violación descarada de nuestras leyes.
“Al apoyar gobiernos opresivos y contribuir a la violencia e inestabilidad en Centroamérica, nuestro país ha jugado un papel directo en la creación de los peligros que obligan a miles a huir”, dijo Felipe Navarro-Lux, Gerente de Iniciativas Regionales de CGRS. “En vez de asumir nuestra responsabilidad y aminorar el daño que hemos causado, una y otra vez Estados Unidos ha implementado políticas ineficientes y draconianas que castigan a los centroamericanos y otros refugiados por buscar protección en este país. Es hora de cumplir nuestras obligaciones legales y morales.”
En vez de buscar suprimir la migración, nuestras políticas exteriores y migratorias se deben enfocar en crear y ampliar opciones seguras y ordenadas de acceso a protección para refugiados y, a largo plazo, mejorar las condiciones en la región para que la migración sea cada vez más una opción, y no una necesidad, para los centroamericanos. Podemos hacer esto al:
Promover gobiernos que respeten los derechos de todos sus residentes, urgiendo transparencia y rendición de cuentas: Estados Unidos debe apoyar a las organizaciones de la sociedad civil que trabajan para efectuar cambios – y no a gobiernos corruptos y autoritarios – para combatir la corrupción, reforzar el estado de derecho, y promover el respeto por los derechos humanos, particularmente para la juventud, mujeres, personas indígenas, negras y LGBTQ+.
Priorizar la protección humanitaria sobre la disuasión migratoria. Presionar a los países de la región a aumentar sus controles migratorios y militarizar sus fronteras solo obliga a las personas que buscan protección a tomar caminos más peligrosos, exponiéndolas a mayores violaciones de derechos humanos.
Ampliar y desarrollar nuevas oportunidades para migrantes y solicitantes de asilo: Debemos ofrecer más opciones para aquellos que huyen de la persecución, aumentar las oportunidades de reunificación familiar, y atender las necesidades de aquellos desplazados por el cambio climático.
Designar Estatus de Protección Temporal (TPS, por sus siglas en inglés) para Guatemala, y re-designar TPS para Honduras, El Salvador, y Nicaragua: Con TPS, las comunidades inmigrantes en Estados Unidos pueden vivir y trabajar sin temor a ser deportadas, y enviar remesas a sus familias en sus países de origen, los cuales aún están sintiendo los devastadores efectos de huracanes y la pandemia COVID-19.
Haga click aquí para leer recomendaciones para ampliar el acceso a protección para refugiados y migrantes en Centro América y México, desarrolladas por CGRS, Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc., Church World Service, Instituto para las Mujeres en la Migración, AC (IMUMI), Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), Latin America Working Group Education Fund (LAWGEF), Washington Office on Latin America, y Women’s Refugee Commission.
Brianna Krong | Communications and Advocacy Coordinator
“Can’t anyone here play this game?” PHOTO: Rudi Reit Creative Commons
When it comes to the Biden Administration on human rights, racial justice, gender justice, due process, immigration, border strategy, and cleaning up corruption, unhappily the answer is “No!”
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase Jeffrey S. Chase Blog Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase reports:
Hi all:We filed an amicus brief in the attached case (drafted for us by Sullivan Cromwell) challenging the BIA’s precedent decision in Matter of K-S-E- before the 9th Circuit. K-S-E- held that firm resettlement can be found based on the availability of permanent residence in a third country, regardless of the asylum seeker’s unwillingness to pursue such status.
The 9th Cir. yesterday vacated the Board precedent and remanded for the Board to further consider the firm resettlement issue, inter alia.
Best, Jeff
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To quote one of my esteemed Round Table colleagues:
Excellent news! Should an ethnic Korean from China or Japan be forced to accept an offer of firm resettlement from North Korea? To quote our President, “C’mon, man!”
“C’mon, man,” indeed! For Garland’s BIA it’s just a question of “what can we do to screw asylum seekers today!”The level of absurdity, irrationality, and/or illegality is largely irrelevant.
It’s not like Sessions and Barr had any concern for the law. The BIA knew there would be no meaningful consequences as long as they carried out the White Nationalist anti-immigrant agenda of the Trump regime!
But, you could say much the same about Garland! There was more than ample evidence and documentation of anti-asylum bias and deficient decision making to replace of the BIA with “real judges” from among progressive experts on the day Garland was sworn in as AG.
Yet, three months later, nothing much has changed and the assault on asylum seekers and justice at Garland’s EOIR continues largely unabated. Indeed, Garland’s totally inappropriate, due process damaging, appointment of yet more (17) “Barr-picked judges” has further aggravated the problem to a simply astounding degree! It’s like you’re behind by three touchdowns in the fourth quarter and your so-called “head coach” awards your opponents 17 more points for no particular reason! What on earth is going on in Garland’s head?
Real judges on a “Reform BIA”from the ranks of progressive experts would have Matter of K-S-E-, Matter of A-B-, Matter of L-E-A-, Matter of Castro-Tum and a host of other Trumpist garbage “sorted” in no time and the now-dysfunctional EOIR system back on track to due process and functionality. What’s glaringly missing is any semblance of awareness, urgency, and competent progressive leadership from Garland and those surrounding him!
“We have not revamped our legal immigration categories, including business immigration, since 1990. Some of those categories are out of alignment with our needs in the United States today,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell Law School, who was not involved with the NAE study. “The pandemic has exacerbated those inconsistencies because people who are desperately needed to restart various businesses have been unable to enter the United States,” Yale-Loehr said.”
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We should be expanding legal immigration opportunities in all three categories that currently feed our “green card system:”
Family visas;
Work visas; and
Refugee and asylum admissions.
We have seen during the pandemic that “essential workers” we depend upon and whose presence enriches our society and helps us build for a better future come in all types of statuses, including so-called “undocumented.” Those coming in the family, refugee, and asylum categories contribute valuable job skills, experiences, and enrichment to our society just as much, and in some cases, even more than those whose visas are based on work skills. We need to draw on and expand all three categories.
My Georgetown Law Immigration and Refugee Policy students did their own research and pointed these things out in our class just this week. They “get it!” But, our current Government immigration policy makers, not so much!
Again, to state the obvious, the Biden Administration is “missing the boat” by not restarting our asylum system at the border, running it in an appropriately generous and fair manner with experts, and expanding and getting our refugee programs functioning again. Many of those with skills we need and can use are literally “dying to get in” while we ignore both their humanity and our collective best interests.
Progressive legislative reforms to our legal immigration system are long, long overdue. But, we already have the legal authority to run far more robust and fairer legal refugee and asylum systems that would benefit America and the world, a well as saving lives and ending the ongoing squandering of Government resources on failed, illegal, cruel, and counterproductive “enforcement schemes.”
Progressive experts with the needed skill sets to fix the migration problems are out here. Obviously, Professor Yale-Loehr is just one of many. Yet, for the most part, the Biden Administration ignores their expertise and turns a deaf ear to their solutions. Doesn’t make sense to me!
Unfortunately, we appear to appear to lack the will, imagination, courage, and most of all progressive expertise in the Executive Branch to use currently available tools and legal authorities to fix migration problems.
My students continually give me hope that the next generations will provide enlightened leadership and build a more just society and a better world for the future. But, in the meantime, my generation continues to squander opportunities for improvement. There will be a cost, of that I’m sure!
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland — “Is he open to Article I? It would be nice to think so, but still plenty of reason to be skeptical about his intent for EOIR!’ Official White House Photo Public Realm
While it’s always good to be optimistic, to date, “as independent as possible” has meant “as independent as four years of White Nationalist weaponization and meddling from Trump, Miller, Sessions, Barr, Whitaker, Hamilton, McHenry, et al, left them.” That’s NOT independent at all! Quite the OPPOSITE. In many ways there is less judicial independence and more political interference at EOIR now than there was when it was located within the “Legacy INS” before EOIR was created in 1983.
I personally will believe it to the extent that it’s reflected in actions. That means things like vacating restrictive anti-immigrant precedents, restoring asylum for gender-based violence, re-instituting and encouraging Administrative Closing, slashing the backlog by working with parties to remove the vast majority of “non-priority” cases that could be handled in alternative ways, installing e-filing, eliminating bogus “performance work plans,” repudiating “production quotas,” replacing Trump’s BIA with better-qualified judges, revising judicial recruiting and hiring practices to attract more diverse expert candidates from the private/NGO sector, considering stakeholders’ views and recommendations on important policies BEFORE announcing them, establishing a transparent complaint and tenure review process involving the private bar, re-establishing a robust asylum system at the border, upgrading judicial training and using “outside DOJ” experts to conduct it, eliminating the unnecessary “Office of POlicy” from the bloated bureaucracy, hiring experts in judicial management for administrative positions, encouraging written over oral decisions on cases likely to be appealed, expanding the number of judicial law clerks assigned to judges, eliminating agency bureaucracy and redirecting resources to improving local courts and furthering independence, re-recognizing the NAIJ and listening to their suggestions, working cooperatively with the pro bono bar to increase representation, rethinking the overuse of televideo and the presence of “courts” in detention center settings (e.g., prisons in the “New American Gulag”), selecting and retaining only judges who will treat all parties, counsel, and court personnel with respect and professionalism, actively working to overcome the “culture of denial, White Nationalism, and misogyny” that has permeated EOIR over the past four years and still exists, ending docket meddling from Falls Church and DOJ and returning control to local judges, eliminating “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” by politicos and their enablers, reducing the use of single-judge orders at the BIA, selecting expert Appellate Judges for the BIA who will issue some positive as opposed to only negative precedents, refusing to open and closing “courts” located in obscure, out of the way prison locations selected by DHS in large part because of the absence of pro bono lawyers, returning full authority to grant continuances to local judges, no longer referring to DHS (but not respondents’ counsel) as “our partners,” ending the use of derogatory termsand false claims by DOJ officials to Immigration Judges about private lawyers, stopping the intentional manipulation of statistics bv DOJ and EOIR management to further political agendas, ending the “muzzle” on Immigration Judges and encouraging them to participate in public professional activities, promoting best practices rather than institutionalizing worst practices, and again making “through teamwork and and innovation, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all” the absolute touchstone at EOIR, for starters.
To date, NONE of the things on the foregoing list has been accomplished or proposed byGarland and his team. Indeed, a number of his actions, like engaging in “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” by establishing a “Dedicated Docket” for new asylum cases without consulting the stakeholders in advance, and appointing 17 new judges selected by Barr under defective and flawed procedures that discouraged diversity and “disfavored” private sector candidates, are in direct contravention of due process and best practices and serve to discourage, rather than nurture, judicial independence.
Moreover, as I have previously said, I see no evidence that Garland has hired or reached out to any of the types of progressive experts who could actually implement these reforms necessary to achieve judicial independence and promote due process. You can’t get the job done for judicial independence and due process without a radical personnel shakeup at EOIR! The current group at both DOJ and EOIR just doesn’t cut it, as ever a casual observer could tell Garland.
So, until I see some ACTUAL progress, beyond mushy rhetoric, color me skeptical about Garland’s plans for EOIR.
“This Dude loves the ‘Miller Lite’ approach to asylum by Garland and Mayorkas, as well as Harris’s latest tone-deaf ‘victim shaming.’” Keeps him (as well as human smugglers) in business! Reaper Image: Hernan Fednan, Creative Commons License
SAN MIGUEL, El Salvador — Rejected by her family, Zashy Zuley del Cid Velásquez fled her coastal village in 2014, the first of a series of forced displacements across El Salvador. She had hoped that in the larger city of San Miguel she could live as a transgender woman without discrimination and violence, but there she was threatened by a gang.
She moved away from San Miguel, then back again in a series of forced moves until the 27-year-old was shot to death April 25, sending shock waves through the close-knit LGBTQ community in San Miguel, the largest city in eastern El Salvador.
“Zashy was desperate; her family didn’t want her … and the gangsters had threatened her,” said Venus Nolasco, director of the San Miguel LGBTQ collective Pearls of the East. “She knew they were going to kill her. She wanted to flee the country, go to the United States, but they killed her with a shot through her lung.”
One day after Del Cid’s slaying, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris identified anti-LGBTQ violence in Central America as one of the root causes of migration in the region during a virtual meeting with the president of neighboring Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei. She is visiting Guatemala and Mexico this week.
Transgender migrants were present in the Central American caravans that attempted to reach the United States border in recent years, fleeing harassment, gang extortion, violence and police indifference to crimes against them. Even in those large migrant movements, they say they faced harassment.
Things had been rough during Del Cid’s first stint in San Miguel. She had been living in a neighborhood where, as in many parts of the country, the MS-13 gang was the ultimate local authority. Gang members began to harass her, then brutally beat her, breaking her arm in 2015, Nolasco said.
“They warned her to leave, but she didn’t listen,” Nolasco said.
Del Cid moved in with Nolasco in the same neighborhood. One day, the gang grabbed Del Cid again.
“They took her, they wanted to kill her,” Nolasco said. “I begged them not to kill her, to let her go and she would leave the neighborhood.”
Del Cid moved back to her hometown, but her family rejected her again. She tried to please them, but she couldn’t, Nolasco said. Del Cid joined a church, got a girlfriend and had a baby girl, but could not maintain that life, she said.
She returned to San Miguel, where initially things seemed to go better. In 2020, Del Cid received humanitarian and housing support from COMCAVIS TRANS, a national LGBTQ rights organization, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Del Cid rented a home and opened a beauty salon there. She hired another woman to help her and was participating in an entrepreneurship program. She was preparing a business proposal to move the salon into its own space.
But Del Cid was shot in the back walking alone at night down the street. Passersby tried to help her and took her to a hospital, where she died. So far, police have made no arrests, and Nolasco believes that like other hate crimes in the country, “it will be forgotten; they’re not interested in what happens to us.”
Laura Almirall, UNHCR representative in El Salvador, said Del Cid’s killing frightened her community and saddened everyone who knew her.
“She was excited about her new plans and her new life. And unfortunately and tragically, everything came to an end,” she said.
Nolasco said that in San Miguel, some 70 miles east of the capital, the transgender community endures constant harassment from intolerant residents and gangs. They have rocks thrown at them, are beaten and are victims of extortion. If they go to police to make a report, they are insulted and demeaned. “Don’t come here to claim rights, because there are no rights for you,” police tell them, Nolasco said.
. . . .
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Read the rest of the article at the link.
Despite some legal nonsense from EOIR and sometimes from uninformed Circuit Judges who have never represented asylum seekers and know little of actual conditions in the Northern Triangle, neither El Salvador nor the other Northern Triangle governments are “willing and able” to protect most individuals suffering gender-based and other forms of persecution.Decisions claiming otherwise are, in most cases, legally wrong and disingenuous to boot.
The U.S. asylum system needs expert Asylum Officers at DHS and progressive expert Immigration Judges at EOIR. Babbling (misleadingly) about “sealed borders” won’t take the place of telling Garland and Mayorkas to stop screwing around, bring in progressive experts, and fix the U.S. asylum system before more die! V.P. Harris could have taken the first necessary step toward “fixing the Southern Border” without even leaving DC.
How are we going to promote the rule of law in other nations when we ourselves are unwilling to exhibit honesty and follow the law with respect to the most vulnerable in the world seeking legal refuge at our borders?
Vice President Kamala D. Harris Vice President of the United States — She thinks that laws are for others and that platitudes solve problems. (Official Senate Photo)
VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS THINKS RULE OF LAW DOESN’T APPLY TORICH NATION THAT ILLEGALLY TURNS DESPERATE REFUGEES AWAY, SUGGESTS GUATEMALANS SHOULD DIE IN PLACE! — “Deterrence Statement” Won’t Stop Migration, Won’t Appease Nativist-Restrictionists, But Will Cost Her Support From Human Rights Progressives Who Helped Elect Her!— There Will Be No Workable Solutions At Our Southern Border Without a Functional, Robust Legal Asylum System That Complies With Due Process!
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Courtside Exclusive
June 9, 2021
Every individual, regardless of status, has a legal right to apply for asylum at our border. This law was enacted on 1980 to carry out our legal obligations under the U.N. Convention and Protocol on the Status of Refugees, to which we have been party since 1968.
Right now, the U.S. has neither a legal asylum system operating at ports of entry nor does it have a functioning refugee program in Central America. Borders were illegally closed and legal immigration avenues were suspended by the White Nationalist Trump Administration on various pretexts involving false narratives about COVID, labor market impact, and national security, among others. At one point Trump even made the absurdist claim that America is “full!”
The Biden Administration has peddled rhetoric about re-establishing legal immigration. But, to date they have neither re-established the rule of law for asylum seekers at our Southern Border nor have they instituted an operational refugee program for Central America.
How bogus is the Biden/Harris continuation of the COVID facade for closing the border? Well, I didn’t hear much mention from Harris in Guatemala of COVID as a reason not to come or any promise to restore the legal asylum system once the “fake COVID emergency” is resolved.
So, there is no legal way for those in Guatemala and other countries to seek refuge in the U.S. Ignoring requests from experts and humanitarian NGOs, the Biden Administration has also stubbornly failed to repeal biased “precedents” from the Trump DOJ designed to make it difficult for refugees fleeing Latin America, particularly women, to qualify for legal protection despite the fact that their lives and safety will be in danger if returned.
Our scofflaw actions actually leave refugees needing protection no choice but to cross the border surreptitiously. We have suspended the rule of law for legal asylum seekers, while dishonestly claiming that they, not we, are the “law breakers.” After nearly 50 years in and sometimes out of the immigration bureaucracy, I know bureaucratic doublespeak when I hear it.
Remarkably, Vice President Harris seems to have cribbed her public statements on Guatemalan asylum from Gauleiter Stephen Miller. Even more astoundingly, Miller’s influence on the Biden Administration’s failing immigration policies, particularly at Garland’s dysfunctional EOIR, continues to far exceed that of the diverse coalition of progressive experts, human rights advocates, and civil rights leaders who helped elect Biden and Harris! Talk about disrespect and being taken for granted!
In other words, America has totally “welched” on our legal and moral obligations to refugees and asylum seekers. Yet, incredibly, Harris warns them to stay in places where their lives and safety are in immediate danger, rather than taking a calculated risk of finding safety in the United States.
Since the U.S. no longer has a rule of law for asylum seekers or refugees, this usually means trying to enter with the aid of paid smugglers who offer them something the U.S. is unwilling to provide — a realistic possibility of refuge in time to save their lives! It’s certainly “not rocket science!” But, disturbingly, it appears to be above Harris’s pay grade!
As smugglers point out, the possibility of getting to the interior of the U.S., and there finding “do it yourself” refuge in our intentionally-created and often exploited “underground population,” actually far exceeds the chance of being granted asylum, even when we had a “somewhat” functioning asylum system. That’s largely because our law has long been improperly politically “gamed” (by Administrations of both parties) against asylum seekers from Central America.
So, nobody actually knows how many would qualify for asylum under a fair and unbiased system. We’ve never had the moral courage to set up such a procedure. Instead, we have used imprisonments, family separations, racist rhetoric, criminal prosecutions, and skewed legal denials from “captive courts” tilted in favor of DHS enforcement as “deterrents” to desperate refugees from our own Hemisphere.
Our nation fears complying with our own laws! Not much of a “profile in courage” here!
The Vice President concedes that the “in place” assistance she is offering to individuals in some of the world’s most corrupt and lawless countries is unlikely to have any impact for years to come. And, that’s assuming that the Biden Administration’s aid plan is better than those that have failed in the past, which it well might be. It certainly will be better than the insane cruelty and improper “enforcement only” efforts of the Trump Administration.
She is correct that most, but not all, Guatemalans would prefer to live in Guatemala if that were possible. But, the problem she insists on “papering over” is that survival in Guatemala currently is not reasonably likely for many Guatemalans. Unless and until Congress creates a more realistic legal immigration system, there is simply no realistic opportunity for many Guatemalans other than to apply for asylum at the border.
While asylum law would not cover them all, a proper interpretation and application through a re-established and meaningfully reformed system, overseen by expert judges (currently eschewed by Garland’s dysfunctional Immigration Courts) could admit many more legally and timely than the current non-existent system or past ones intentionally skewed against asylum seekers in a futile, improper attempt to use the legal process as a “deterrent.” It would also encourage and motivate asylum seekers to apply at legal ports of entry rather than crossing surreptitiously.
Yet Harris’s “clear message” (of non-hope) to the oppressed people in the Northern Triangle is for them to “die in place,” while awaiting long-term solutions that might or might not ever happen. Meanwhile, the world’s richest nation lacks the will and determination to re-establish a legal asylum screening and adjudication system at our Southern Border.
Harris also wants the desperate masses “yearning to breath free” to know that the beacon of freedom no longer burns in America. We think it would be better if they died where they are, largely out of our sight and out of our mind.
We resent their efforts at survival, forcing us listen to their screams at our border for help that we prefer to deny (in violation of our legal obligations). We are bothered by the stench of the dead and annoyed by the news media’s incessant reporting on the Administration’s continuing failures of legality and humanity. Better (for us, not them) if they don’t come.
It’s an interesting “lesson” on racial and immigrant justice, as well as gender justice, from a Vice President who apparently prefers “inspiring” future generations to taking the tough, courageous moral and legal stands necessary to preserve and protect the current ones!
The Vice President might be correct on the rudiments of a better and more realistic long-term migration and economic plan for the Northern Triangle. But, her failure to recognize the essential first step of making the existing legal asylum asylum system work, and her unwillingness to tell Garland and Mayorkas to stop the foot-dragging and start complying with our laws and our Constitution, will doom her efforts long before they could ever have any positive impact.
The Southern Border is a big challenge. The solution has eluded all of Harris’s male predecessors, including her current boss, for the last half-century.
It requires an end to “Milleresque” platitudes and an honest recognition of the human realities of forced migration. It cries out for a strong knowledgeable leader who will re-establish the legal asylum system already in the law, insist that for the first time in our history it be operated by experts with robust humanitarian protection goals, real progressive expert judges, and full constitutional due process. It demands an end to the mindless dehumanization and demeaning of asylum seekers and recognition that those granted asylum are legal immigrants, a source of strength, and a benefit to our nation, not a phenomenon to be demonized and feared.
It requires a robust refugee program in the Northern Triangle that takes the pressure off the border asylum system until needed changes in the legal immigration system can be pushed through Congress and the longer-term improvements in infrastructure and governance in the Northern Triangle take effect.
It also requires a leader with the comprehensive knowledge and moral courage to defend robust legal refugee and asylum systems and more legal immigration from the onslaught of racially-charged, myth-based attacks from White Nationalists and nativists that are sure to follow. She would also have to deal with pushback from an entrenched immigration bureaucracy and weak leadership from Garland and others who have continued to feed the problems rather than solve them.
Unfortunately for Vice President Harris, our nation, and, most of all, the forced migrants whose lives and humanity are on the line every day, right now the job appears to be bigger than the person.
Judge Amiena Khan, President National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ)
June 7, 2021
The Honorable Merrick Garland Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice Washington, DC 20500
RE: Department of Justice Should Support the National Association of Immigration Judges and Withdraw the Petition to Decertify its Union
Dear Attorney General Garland,
We, the undersigned unions, organizations, immigration law professors and scholars, and other immigration court stakeholders call your attention to the urgent need to preserve and protect the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) and support collective bargaining by Department of Justice (DOJ) career civil servants. We are heartened by President Biden’s announcements on January 22, 2021, that both overturned his predecessor’s policies limiting employee rights to collectively bargain and also implement a wide-ranging policy to protect, empower, and rebuild the career federal workforce. President Biden’s announcements specifically encourage union organizing and collective bargaining.1
After four relentless years of union-busting, decisive leadership is needed to refortify the federal workforce. NAIJ and its 500+ bargaining unit members—immigration judges who are DOJ attorney employees—are in need of protection right now! NAIJ has been the collective bargaining representative for immigration judges since 1979. Yet, in 2019, the Trump administration filed a petition to strip immigration judges of their statutory right to be represented by a union and decertify NAIJ.
The Trump administration targeted NAIJ in retaliation for NAIJ’s criticism of both the unreasonable working conditions that DOJ managers imposed on its members and the sweeping curtailment of due process rights in immigration court.
While the decertification attempt was initially and thoroughly rejected in a decision by a career employee of the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), the decision was abruptly reversed
1 Executive Order 14003, on Protecting the Federal Workforce. 1
in a politically-motivated decision by the FLRA. That FLRA decision ignored the detailed fact-finding of the career employee and reversed long-standing FLRA precedent that 20 years earlier had found that immigration judges were not in a position to influence agency policy.
The FLRA decision is devoid of any reasoned analysis and creates an extremely dangerous precedent for professional workers throughout the federal government. Future administrations could wield this decision like a sword to preclude other professional employees such as physicians, scientists, engineers, and others from unionizing. Indeed, this ill-conceived anti-union precedent could have devastating repercussions for decades to come.
At this moment, a motion to reconsider is currently pending at the FLRA, and we call on the DOJ to withdraw its opposition to that motion, withdraw its decertification petition, and take all steps to restore collective bargaining rights for NAIJ members. President Biden has committed to restoring labor unions and fair working conditions for federal employees. We ask the DOJ to do its part in supporting that objective by taking all necessary actions to ensure that the NAIJ remains a union so that it can continue to represent its members in support of fair working conditions. Doing so will be a service to Immigration Court stakeholders and the public at large.
We seek your immediate review and leadership in this matter. Sincerely,
Amiena Khan
Amiena Khan, President
National Association of Immigration Judges
Unions: AFL-CIO
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), AFL-CIO American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), Local 511
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), Local 3525
American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees American Federation of Teachers
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO
Association of Flight Attendants-CWA
2
Communications Workers of America (CWA)
Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO
Federal Education Association
International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) International Union of Painters and Allied Trades
Labor Council for Latin American Advancement National Association of Government Employees National Education Association
National Federation of Federal Employees National Nurses United
National Treasury Employees Union
National Weather Service Employees Organization Patent Office Professional Association
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) The International Brotherhood of Teamsters UNITE HERE
United Mine Workers of America
United Power Trades Organization
Organizations:
African Services Committee
Alliance for Justice
American Immigration Lawyers Association AsylumWorks
3
Bellevue Program for Survivors of Torture Brooklyn Law School Safe Harbor Project Catholic Labor Network
Catholic Legal Services, Archdiocese of Miami Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. Center for Gender & Refugee Studies
Columbia Law School Immigrants’ Rights Clinic Disciples Immigration Legal Counsel
Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project Immigrant Defenders Law Group
The Legal Aid Society
Migrant Center for Human Rights
Minnesota Interfaith Coalition on Immigration Mississippi Center for Justice
National Immigration Law Center
National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights The Right to Immigration Institute
Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
Law Professors and Scholars with Institutional Affiliation for Identification Purposes only:
Sabi Ardalan
Clinical Professor of Law
Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program Harvard Law School*
Roxana C. Bacon
4
Adjunct Professor of Law Arizona State University* University of Arizona* University of Miami*
David Baluarte
Associate Clinical Professor of Law Washington & Lee University School of Law*
Jon Bauer
Clinical Professor of Law and Richard D. Tulisano ’69 Scholar in Human Rights University of Connecticut School of Law*
Lenni B. Benson
Distinguished Chair of Immigration and Human Rights Law New York Law School*
Matthew Boaz
Professor
Washington & Lee School of Law*
Stacy Caplow
Associate Dean of Experiential Education & Professor of Law Brooklyn Law School*
Rose Cuison-Villazor
Vice Dean and Professor of Law Rutgers Law School*
Ingrid Eagly
Professor of Law
University of California Los Angeles School of Law*
Lauren Gilbert
Professor
St. Thomas University College of Law*
Lindsay M. Harris
Associate Professor & Director, Immigration & Human Rights Clinic University of the District of Columbia, David A. Clarke School of Law*
Katie Herbert Meyer
Associate Professor of Practice and Director of the Immigration Law Clinic Washington University*
Geoffrey Hoffman
Clinical Professor and Immigration Clinic Director
5
University of Houston Law Center*
Alan Hyde
Distinguished Professor of Law and Sidney Reitman Scholar Rutgers Law School*
Erin Jacobsen
Professor and Director at Vermont Law School’s South Royalton Legal Clinic Vermont Immigrant Assistance
Vermont Law School*
Hiroko Kusuda
Clinic Professor and Director of Immigration Law Section
Loyola University New Orleans College of Law*
Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic and Center for Center for Social Justice
Vanessa Merton
Professor of Law
Immigration Justice Clinic Elizabeth Haub School of Law*
Karen Musalo
Professor and Founding Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies and the Refugee and Human Rights Clinic
U.C. Hastings College of the Law*
Lori A. Nessel
Professor
Seton Hall University School of Law*
Michael A. Olivas
Wm B. Bates Distinguished Chair (Emeritus) University of Law Center*
Maria Mercedes Pabon Professor of Law
Loyola University New Orleans*
Carrie Rosenbaum
Lecturer in Legal Studies University of California, Berkeley*
Faiza Sayed
Visiting Professor of Clinical Law and Co-Director Safe Harbor Clinic
6
Brooklyn Law School*
Gemma Solimene
Clinical Associate Professor of Law Fordham University School of Law*
Elissa Steglich
Clinical Professor and Co-director Immigration Clinic University of Texas School of Law*
Mark E. Steiner
Professor of Law
South Texas College of Law Houston*
Enid Trucios-Haynes Brandeis School of Law University of Louisville*
Irene Scharf
Professor
Immigration Law Clinic University of Massachusetts*
Doug Smith
Lecturer in Legal Studies Brandeis University*
Paul Wickham Schmidt Immigrationcourtside.com
Erica B. Schommer
Clinical Professor of Law
St. Mary’s University School of Law*
Michael J. Wishnie
William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law Yale Law School*
*Institutional affiliation for identification purposes only
7
*****************************
FULL DISCLOSURE:I am a retired member of the NAIJ.
Thanks to my friend Judge Amiena Khan and the rest of her leadership group at the NAIJ for all they do to fight for due process for individuals in Immigration Court!
To date, Garland and his team have been busy defending Billy Barr’s and Trump’s corruption from legal accountability, appointing Barr’s hand-picked “judges” to their overtly non-progressive judiciary, attempting to intimidate the press (until the White House finally had to intervene), and carrying out pre-existing Stephen Miller inspired precedents and policies. Oh yeah, and engaging in their own mindless unilateral round of “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (a/k/a yet another designed to fail “Dedicated Docket”) in Immigration Court while continuing to build on the pre-existing 1.3 million case backlog. They have also been occupied with ignoring every progressive and expert suggestion and NOT appointing progressives to leadership and judicial positions. Wow! That’s a very full plate (of unappetizing food)!
So, I’m not holding my breath for a favorable response to the latest request for the injection of some legality, common sense, and decency into EOIR. Nor am I expecting Biden and Harris to honor their commitment to Federal Employee Unions, after watching their performance to date on immigration and human rights. Additionally, given the continuing abysmal performance of EOIR and its ongoing waste and incompetence, I doubt whether they want any “internal critics” speaking truth to power.
So far, Garland is on course to be “Billy Barr, Jr.” While that might help Barr to avoid legal accountability for his corrupt administration of justice @ Justice, it’s not so good for progressives who would like to see (and once believed they would see) some “justice from Justice” particularly for racial minorities, women, children, asylum seekers, and other migrants.
They also would like to see at least minimally professional and respectful treatment of those appearing and representing individuals in Immigration Court. While Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke are all being paid comfortable “top of the line” USG salaries for ignoring long-overdue progressive reforms @ EOIR, many attorneys representing individuals in their “Star Chambers” are operating pro bono or low bono in their attempts to keep Garland’s failing and flailing system afloat.
Just more reasons why we need an independent Article I Immigration Court to deliver due process, racial, and gender justice to individuals, regardless of status.
Lowering The Barr by Randall Enos, Easton, CT Republished By License. Guess Garland forgot to flush!
