"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt and Dr. Alicia Triche, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
Professor Mary Holper Associate Clinical Professor Director of the Immigration Clinic Associate Dean for Experiential Learning Boston College Law PHOTO: BC Law
Here’s the brief expertly prepared for us by NDPA All-Star Mary Holper and her team of student attorneys at Boston College Legal Services LAB Immigration Clinic:
As we argue, the BIA’s action here violated their own precedent in Matter of Morales-Morales, 28 I. & N. Dec. 714 (BIA 2023). As stated in our brief:
In Morales-Morales, the case in which the BIA first held that it could equitably toll a notice of appeal deadline, the BIA stated that the quintessential example of an extraordinary circumstance warranting equitable tolling is when “a party uses a guaranteed delivery service, and the service fails to fulfill its guarantee.” See Morales-Morales, 28 I. & N. Dec. at 717. When presented with exactly those facts, however—FedEx’s Priority Overnight service failed to deliver Ms. Diaz-Valdez’s notice of appeal on time, violating its guarantee—the BIA arbitrarily and capriciously refused to equitably toll the deadline.
One could well ask why Garland is spending Government time and resources defending the BIA’s erroneous and unjust actions. No wonder EOIR can’t help building more and more backlog — much of it through poor quality, anti-immigrant decision-making that causes unnecessary delays, confusion, gross inconsistencies, and contributes to the dreaded “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” — an endemic problem at EOIR!
Thanks again to Mary and her team for their outstanding help. Also, as pointed out in the intro to the brief, I joined in my individual capacity, NOT as a representative of the Round Table, Georgetown Law, or any other group or entity with which I am associated.
Matter of Morales-Morales, 28 I&N Dec. 714 (BIA 2023)
BIA Headnote:
(1) The Board of Immigration Appeals has authority to accept what are otherwise untimely appeals, and consider them timely, in certain situations because 8 C.F.R. § 1003.38(b) (2022) is a claim-processing rule and not a jurisdictional provision. Matter of Liadov, 23 I&N Dec. 990 (BIA 2006), overruled.
(2) The Board will accept a late-filed appeal where a party can establish that equitable tolling applies, which requires the party to show both diligence in the filing of the notice of appeal and that an extraordinary circumstance prevented timely filing.
FOR THE RESPONDENT: Mario Salgado, Esquire, San Francisco, California
Notably, but perhaps predictably for those who follow the BIA’s generally “respondent/due process unfriendly” jurisprudence, the “good news” that the BIA has belatedly decided to follow the 2d, 5th, and 9th Circuits on equitable tolling is “tempered” by the result in this case — denial of the motion to reconsider and accept the appeal!
Evidently, among its 82,000+ backlog, the BIA was unable to identify a case where correctly applying equitable tolling would actually BENEFIT the respondent, rather than just requiring a different, largely contrived, analysis to “get to no!”This continues a depressing and highly inappropriate long-standing tendency of the BIA to provide negative examples of how to apply potentially remedial rules.
Presumably, after 17 years of the BIA’s wrong-headed precedent Matter of Liadov, everyone understands that the BIA is “programmed to deny.” What’s needed is “reprogramming”to recognize and grant motions based on “equitable tolling.”
It’s also remarkable that the “highest tribunal” of a dysfunctional organization, notorious for losing files; failing to provide timely, correct notice; cancelling hearings without notice on the hearing date; switching Immigration Judges without notice in a system where the identity of the judge is too often “outcome determinative;” and “cutting” DHS and itself almost endless “breaks” and “exceptions” for their sloppy, lazy, and sometimes ethnically questionable practices sees fit to “pontificate” so self-righteously on what’s “due diligence” and “extraordinary circumstances” for the private bar. The “message” is pretty clear: Denial is the “preferred” (or default, or de facto presumed) result!
If either of the foregoing concepts were applied to EOIR and DHS with the same stringency they are to individuals and their representatives, both agencies would have been forced out of business long ago!
This system is totally screwed up! Dems must ask themselves why Garland and his senior leadership have failed to “unscrew it,” and what can be done to deal with their democracy-and-life-threatening indolence and inattention to quality jurisprudence, due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices.
“The BIA erred in imposing evidentiary requirements of ongoing injury or treatment beyond the sexual assault itself in order to show persecution. Kaur’s credible testimony about the attempted gang rape is sufficient to show persecution. Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim. We grant Kaur’s petition for review and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
[Hats off to Douglas Jalaie!]
1st Calls Out Violation Of Regs, Incredibly Stupid Denial Of Reopening For Approved U Visa Petition Beneficiary Waiting For “Number:”
“Eyore In Distress” Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”
“Petitioner Carlos Antonio Granados Benitez seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA” or “Board”) denial of his motion to reopen his removal proceedings and to remand to the immigration judge (“IJ”) for further consideration in light of the fact that he had been placed on a waiting list by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) for a U-1 nonimmigrant visa (“U visa”) pursuant to the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (“VTVPA”), Pub. L. No. 106-386, § 1513(a)(2)(A), (b), 114 Stat. 1464 (2000) (codified as amended at 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(U)). Because we find that the BIA abused its discretion, in that it failed to render a reasoned decision that accords with its own precedent and policies, and it further failed to consider the position of its sister agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), we grant the petition. In so holding we join the views of the Seventh Circuit in Guerra Rocha v. Barr, 951 F.3d 848, 852- 54 (7th Cir. 2020).”
[Hats off to Paige Austin, with whom Philip L. Torrey, Make the Road New York, and the Harvard Law School Crimmigration Clinic were on brief, for petitioner, and Brian D. Straw, Gregory E. Ostfeld, and Greenberg Traurig, LLP on brief for ASISTA Immigration Assistance, Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, National Network to End Domestic Violence, Safe Horizon, and Tahirih Justice Center, amici curiae!]
3rd “Perplexed” By BIA’s Ignorance Of “Equitable Tolling,” Own Authority:
“Hey, guys, ever hear of something called “equitable tolling?” “Nah, is it spelled D-E-N-I-E-D?” “Equitable TROLLING,” I’ve heard of that?”https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/ Creative Commons License
“Because Nkomo properly raised equitable tolling before the BIA, the BIA erred in failing to consider her request for equitable tolling on the merits. We remand for the Board to do so in the first instance.”
“The BIA’s suggestion that it does not have the authority to make decisions on equitable grounds is perplexing. The BIA has authority to equitably toll the deadline for motions to reopen the precise relief Nkomo sought.”
Demeaning rape victims! ☠️🤮👎🏻 So, what else is new @ EOIR? “Gonzo” Sessions 🦹🏿♂️ set the tone for anti-asylum, racially motivated misogyny in Matter of A-B- and “his judges” have taken it from there! (I repeat my oft-made observation: What kind of “due process” system lets a characters like Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr “own” judges? How would you like to be a woman on trial for her life before a “judge” selected, directed, and “owned” by the likes of these men with clear records of “applied contempt” for equal justice? Sessions, Whitaker, Barr, & Jeffrey Rosen are gone — but their legacy of bias and injustice lives on @ EOIR!)
One of my esteemed Round Table 🛡⚔️ colleagues summed up the latest set of outrageous miscarriages of justice from Falls Church:
All of these decisions demonstrate the degree of careful and detailed analysis that these cases require.And yet the BIA couldn’t keep staff attorneys after McHenry capped them at GS-13 (entry level), and keeps increasing the monthly quotas for BIA staff attorneys.Plus of course the Board Members themselves are now all these types who only review the decisions to make sure they end in the word “dismissed.”
If you were trying to create a recipe for disaster, you couldn’t have planned it better.
I heard the latter comment twice yesterday from immigration/human rights/due process experts on opposite sides of our country who observe and participate in the system at various levels.
To quote Justice Sotomayor’s recent dissent: “This is not justice.”
Historical Footnote:One of my first actions as BIA Chair in 1995 was to establish a “GS-15 Career Ladder” for all Attorney Advisors at the BIA. This made the BIA competitive with the rest of the DOJ.
It allowed us to attract and retain not only “top talent” coming from the “DOJ Honors Program” (how I got my first job at the BIA in 1973), but also outstanding career attorneys who wanted an opportunity to do research, writing, and “applied scholarship” that made a difference in individuals’ lives. Indeed, at various times the BIA has had on its staff former Senior Executives seeking a “change of focus” to a career that allowed them to do the things they liked best about the law.
One of them was a former SES colleague at the “Legacy INS” who found in transferring to a GS-15 BIA Attorney Advisor position a career satisfaction, fulfillment, and sense of meaningful contribution that person had been missing in INS management at that time.
Reducing the top grade for Attorney Advisors is not only professionally and personally demeaning, it also marks the entire organization as “second class” and shows just how stupid and incompetent (and, in recent history, overpaid) EOIR “management” has become! And, as pointed out in my colleague’s comments above, it has not only adversely affected careers but the human lives in the balance on the BIA’s docket.
As I understood my “mission” from then Attorney General Janet Reno in 1995, the BIA was supposed to be about “attracting the best and the brightest judges and supporting them with the best and brightest staff.” Essentially getting it to function like the “12th Circuit” was a description mentioned during my interview process for the Chair job.
Sadly, now, it has become an assembly line of expediency, injustice, shoddy legal work, mindless “corner cutting,” unprofessional behavior, and human misery.
To repeat my colleague’s comment: “If you were trying to create a recipe for disaster, you couldn’t have planned it better.”
All of these cases should have been resolved in the foreign national’s favor without ever getting to the Courts of Appeals! Bad judging, grossly incompetent administration, and lack of qualified, dynamic, judicial leadership from respected “practical scholars” costs lives, produces unacceptable and unfair inconsistencies, and clogs the Article III Courts with unnecessary litigation.
Indeed, the First Circuit’s decision in Granados basically reveals OIL’s “smorgasbord” of bogus arguments to uphold the BIA’s incorrect decision as “without merit” — actually frivolous! There are deep problems @ DOJ resulting from the ongoing corruption and disregard for ethics and professional leadership from the now-departed kakistocracy! They go far beyond the mess at EOIR!
Sure hope that Judge Garland, Vanita Gupta, and their incoming team @ DOJ have a comprehensive plan for replacing the BIA and reforming EOIR! The human beings suffering in this disgracefully inept and abusive “court system” and their courageous, long suffering attorneys are counting on you! Think of it this way: What if YOUR daughter were the rape victim demeaned, dehumanized, and denied justice by EOIR?
EMELI KWASI ATTIPOE v. BARR, 2d. Cir., 12-19-19, published
PANEL: POOLER, LOHIER, and CARNEY, Circuit Judges.
OPINION BY: Judge Rosemary Pooler
KEY QUOTE:
Here, as in Iavorski, nothing in the text of Section 545(d)(2) itself, or in its
4 legislative history, indicates that Congress intended the appeal filing deadline to
5 be jurisdictional. To the contrary, the House Conference Report states that
6 “[u]nless the Attorney General finds reasonable evidence to the contrary, the
7 regulations must state that administrative appeals be made within 30 days, except
8 that the appellate body may, upon motion, extend such period up to 90 days, if good cause
9 is shown by the movant.” H.R. Rep. No. 101‐955 at 133 (emphasis added). The
10 legislative history thus indicates that Congress was amenable to the idea of
11 extending the time to file an appeal past the deadline upon a showing of good
12 And the BIA may, sua sponte, decide to accept late filings under the self‐
13 certification process. It could not accept any late filings—exceptional
14 circumstances or not—if the filing deadline truly was jurisdictional.
15 We therefore extend Iavorksi’s interpretation of Section 545(d)(1) to its
16 sister subsection, Section 545(d)(2), and hold that the BIA must consider the
17 principles of equitable tolling when an untimely appeal is filed and the petitioner
18 raises the issue, as Attipoe did here. We remand to the BIA to consider whether 15
1 equitable tolling allows consideration of Attipoe’s late‐filed appeal. The BIA is
2 free to develop the factors it will apply in considering equitable tolling, although
3 we note that it need not start from scratch. In Holland, the Supreme Court set out
4 standards for courts to apply in determining whether equitable tolling is
5 appropriate: (1) a showing that a petitioner “has been pursuing his rights
6 diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way.” 560
7 S. at 649 (internal quotation marks omitted). And in the context of a late
8 motion to reopen, we have held that petitioners seeking equitable tolling must
9 demonstrate (1) that their constitutional rights to due process were violated by
10 the conduct of counsel; and (2) that they exercised due diligence during the
11 putative tolling period. Iavorski, 232 F.3d at 135; see also Rashid v. Mukasey, 533
12 3d 127, 132 (2d Cir. 2008) (requiring that a petitioner prove diligence during
13 “both the period of time before the ineffective assistance of counsel was or
14 should have been discovered and the period from that point until the motion to
15 reopen is filed”); Cekic v. I.N.S., 435 F.3d 167, 170 (2d Cir. 2006) (requiring that
16 petitioner “affirmatively demonstrate that he exercised reasonable due diligence
17 during the time period sought to be tolled”). After it determines what the
16
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
standards for equitable tolling under Section 1003.38 are, the BIA should determine whether Attipoe satisfies those standards.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons given above, the petition is granted, the BIA’s decision is vacated, and this matter remanded to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
An honest, competent Attorney General would make fixing the glaring legal, quality control, and Due Process problems with the BIA’s performance “job one.”
Instead, White Nationalist political hacks Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr have maliciously pushed the BIA and the Immigration Courts to rush more defective unprofessional work product out the door faster, thereby guaranteeing unconstitutional miscarriages of justice and numerous wrongful removals.
Improper, mindless, designed to fail “haste makes waste” gimmicks by the regime actually make the astounding 1.3 million case Immigration Court backlog much much worse, rather than addressing it in a rational and professional manner consistent with Due Process of law.
That’s especially true in a system where many individuals are improperly and unconstitutionally forced to appear without assistance of counsel and many others suffer from “underperformance” of counsel in a totally stressed and unfair system where the problems are overwhelmingly caused by our Government‘s “maliciously incompetent” performance, but the consequences fall almost exclusively and most heavily on the individual victims of U.S. Government malfeasance.
The idea the the BIA deserves “deference” as a fair, impartial, “expert” tribunal is beyond absurd. It’s a flat out abdication of legal duty by the Article III Courts of Appeals. When will they finally put a stop to this mockery of justice and remove the biased, unethical, and malicious DOJ prosecutor from improper and unconstitutional control over the Immigration “Courts?” How many illegal removals on their watch are too many for the complicit and privileged “life-tenured ones?”
What if it were themor their families suffering and being abused in this ongoing national disgrace that passes for a “court system?”
