NDPA STALWART JASON “THE ASYLUMIST” DZUBOW 🌟 QUOTED IN AP ARTICLE ABOUT REPEAL OF A-B- & L-E-A-!

Jason Dzubow
Jason Dzubow
The Asylumist

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=a9dc6320-82bc-4db8-bb6b-cfba11a536cb

AP reports:

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.

. . . .

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.

David Martin
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! 

Amateur Night
Time for this long-running show at DOJ/EOIR to end!   PHOTO: Thomas Hawk
Creative Commons
Amateur Night

 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-18-21

👍🏼UNHCR welcomes US decision to restore protections from gang and domestic violence

 

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.

ENDS 

This Press Release is available here.

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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.

🇺🇸⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-17-21

🆘COME ON, MAN! — BIDEN ADMINISTRATION MUST REFORM THE IMMIGRATION COURTS TO FIX THE ASYLUM SYSTEM! — New BIA, Better Judges, Practical Precedents, Slashed Backlogs Needed, Not More “Built To Fail” Gimmicks! — Stop Screwing Around, Bring In The Human Rights/Due Process Experts, & Empower Them To Fix The EOIR Mess! — After Garland’s Important First Step, Biden Administration Threatens To “Take Points Off The Board” With Wacko Proposal That Due Process/Human Rights Experts Hate! — Stop The Nonsense & Fix EOIR Before More Innocents Die!

L

From Human Rights First: 

PUSHING FOR A MORE JUST ASYLUM SYSTEM

 

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 campaign urged 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 reject would 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!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-17-21

BREAKING: YES!!!!! — JUDGE GARLAND FINALLY TAKES CHARGE! — VACATES MATTER OF A-B- & MATTER OF L-E-A- — Sessions’s, Barr’s Intellectual Dishonesty Exposed!

Attorney General Decisions

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.

___________________________________________

Executive Office for Immigration Review

Office of Policy

Communications and Legislative Affairs Division

PAO.EOIR@usdoj.gov

703-305-0289

 

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PWS

06-16-21

11TH CIRCUIT TANKS, DEFERS TO MATTER OF A-B- — Refugee Women Of Color Sentenced To Potential Death Without Due Process By Judges Elizabeth L. Branch, Peter T. Fay, & Frank M. Hull!

http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201814788.pdf

AMEZCUA-PRECIADO v. U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, 11th Cir., 12-03-19, published (per curium)

PANEL: BRANCH, FAY and HULL, Circuit Judges.

Maria Amezcua-Preciado, a native and citizen of Mexico, along with her two minor children, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) final order reversing the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) grant of her application for asylum and denying her withholding of removal. The BIA concluded, based on recent precedent from the Attorney General, Matter of A-B-, 27 I. & N. Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018), that Amezcua-Preciado’s proposed social group of “women in Mexico who are unable to leave their domestic relationships” was not a cognizable particular social group under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”). After review, we agree with the BIA that Amezcua-Preciado failed to establish membership in a particular social group. We thus deny Amezcua- Preciado’s petition for review.

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Wow, what an amazingly gutless and disingenuous performance! Complicit Article III courts have become one of the Trump Regime’s key White Nationalist tools for “deconstructing” U.S. immigration, refugee, and asylum laws.

These aren’t legal disagreements; they are a derelictions of ethical and moral responsibilities. Matter of A-B- was a biased, legally incorrect, factually distorted, unethical attack on asylum law by a Sessions, who was not a “fair and impartial adjudicator.” It ignored a generation of well-developed jurisprudence, legal analysis, and overwhelming factual support for recognizing gender-based domestic violence as a basis for asylum.

Matter of A-R-C-G-, overruled by A-B-, represented a broad consensus within the legal community. Indeed, much of the impetus for that decision came from DHS itself, who had been successfully and efficiently applying its principles in Asylum Offices and in Immigration Courts long before A-R-C-G- actually became a precedent. Remarkably, no actual party requested Sessions’s intervention in A-B-; he rejected ICE’s request to vacate his interference and return the case to the BIA for adjudication under A-R-C-G- criteria. Obviously, the fix was on. But, that made no difference to Branch, Fay, and Hull in their disingenuous haste to “roll over” for the White Nationalist agenda.

I hope that when future historians eventually dissect the rancid racism, misogynism, and White Nationalism of the current regime they will fully expose jurists like Branch, Fay, & Hull who used their privileged positions to “go along to get along,” enabling and furthering the regime’s illegal and unethical “war on asylum seekers, migrants of color, and women.”

DUE PROCESS FOREVER; COMPLICIT COURTS NEVER!

PWS

12-03-18

SPECIAL COURTSIDE “PRESS RELEASE” — “Court Chaos”

COURT CHAOS

“It’s chaos on top of disaster. By the end of next week, Trump will have added at least 100,000 cases to the already existing backlog of 800,000 + cases, plus another 300,000 that former A.G. Sessions diabolically and unnecessarily promised to artificially force back into the system. That’s 4-5 years of work for the Courts even with no new filings! People with good cases are denied justice while others postpone their day of reckoning indefinitely.

Many of these cases will never be decided unless Congress reforms this broken system by removing political control from the DOJ. I call this “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”) — cases being moved around by incompetent politicos at the DOJ without ever being completed. And under Sessions, the DOJ excelled at ADR, unnecessarily and artificially “jacking” the backlog by an incredible 50%+ in less than two years of politically biased and incompetent maladministration of the system. And, that’s even with more judges on the bench! Trump and his cronies have effectively destroyed one of America’s largest and most important court systems.

It must be reformed into a court independent of Executive overreach and incompetence. A new court must be established run by apolitical expert judges with the assistance of professional court administrators accountable to those judges, not Administration politicos. It’s not rocket science, just common sense, fundamental fairness, and above all, Constitutional Due Process.”

PWS

01-25-19

MATTER OF A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 247 (AG 2018) (“A-B- II”) – Session’s Latest Abuse of Certification Process Illustrates Judge Chase’s Point On Why This Unethical & Unfair Procedure Must End!

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1047666/download

Cite as 27 I&N Dec. 247 (A.G. 2018) Interim Decision #3922

Matter of A-B-, Respondent

Decided by Attorney General March 30, 2018

U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General

The Attorney General denied the request of the Department of Homeland Security that the Attorney General suspend the briefing schedules and clarify the question presented, and he granted, in part, both parties’ request for an extension of the deadline for submitting briefs in this case.

BEFORE THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

On March 7, 2018, pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(h)(1)(i) (2017), I directed the Board of Immigration Appeals (“Board”) to refer its decision in this case to me for review. To assist in my review, I invited the parties to submit briefs not exceeding 15,000 words in length and interested amici to submit briefs not exceeding 9,000 words in length. I directed that the parties file briefs on or before April 6, 2018, that amici file briefs on or before April 13, 2018, and that the parties file any reply briefs on or before April 20, 2018.

On March 14, 2018, the respondent filed a request for an extension of the deadline for submitting briefs from April 6, 2018, to May 18, 2018. On March 16, 2018, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) submitted a motion containing three requests: (1) that I suspend the briefing schedules to permit the Board to rule on the Immigration Judge’s August 18, 2017, certification order; (2) that I clarify the question presented in this case; and (3) that I extend the deadline for submitting opening briefs to May 18, 2018. The respondent subsequently filed a response requesting that I grant the same relief.

This Order addresses all pending requests from the parties.
I. DHS’s Request To Suspend the Briefing Schedules

DHS’s request to suspend the briefing schedules until the Board acts on the Immigration Judge’s certification request is denied. DHS suggests that this case “does not appear to be in the best posture for the Attorney General’s review,” because the Board has not yet acted on the Immigration Judge’s attempt, on remand from the Board, to certify the case back to the Board. See DHS’s Mot. on Cert. to the Att’y Gen. at 2 (citing United States ex rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 347 U.S. 260 (1954)).

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The certification from the Immigration Judge pending before the Board does not require the suspension of briefing because the case is not properly pending before the Board. The Immigration Judge did not act within his authority, as delineated by the controlling regulations, when he purported to certify the matter. The Immigration Judge noted in his order that an “Immigration Judge may certify to the [Board] any case arising from a decision rendered in removal proceedings.” Order of Certification at 4, (Aug. 18, 2017) (emphasis added) (citing 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(b)(3), (c)). The regulations also provide that an “Immigration Judge or Service officer may certify a case only after an initial decision has been made and before an appeal has been taken.” 8 C.F.R. § 1003.7 (2017).

Here, the Immigration Judge did not issue any “decision” on remand that he could certify to the Board. The Board’s December 2016 decision sustained the respondent’s appeal of the Immigration Judge’s initial decision and remanded the case to the Immigration Judge “for the purpose of allowing [DHS] the opportunity to complete or update identity, law enforcement, or security investigations or examinations, and further proceedings, if necessary, and for the entry of an order as provided by 8 C.F.R. § 1003.47(h).” Matter of A-B- at 4 (BIA Dec. 8, 2016). Under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.47(h) (2017), the Immigration Judge on remand was directed to “enter an order granting or denying the immigration relief sought” after considering the “results of the identity, law enforcement, or security investigations.” “If new information is presented, the immigration judge may hold a further hearing if necessary to consider any legal or factual issues . . . .” Id.

In this matter, DHS informed the Immigration Judge that the respondent’s background checks were clear. See Order of Certification at 1. Given the scope of the Board’s remand and the requirements of the regulations, the Immigration Judge was obliged to issue a decision granting or denying the relief sought. If the Immigration Judge thought intervening changes in the law directed a different outcome, he may have had the authority to hold a hearing, consider those legal issues, and make a decision on those issues. Cf. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.47(h). Instead, the Immigration Judge sought to “certify” the Board’s decision back to the Board, essentially requesting that the Board reconsider its legal and factual findings. That procedural maneuver does not fall within the scope of the Immigration Judge’s authority upon remand. Nor does it fall within the regulations’ requirements that cases may be certified when they arise from “[d]ecisions of Immigration Judges in removal proceedings,” id. § 1003.1(b)(3); see also id. § 1003.1(c), and that an Immigration Judge “may certify a case only after an initial decision has been made and before an appeal has been taken,” id. § 1003.7. Because the Immigration Judge failed to issue a decision on remand, the Immigration Judge’s attempt to certify the case back to the Board was procedurally

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defective and therefore does not affect my consideration of the December 16, 2016, Board decision.

Furthermore, the present case is distinguishable from Accardi, because, here, the Board rendered a decision on the merits, consistent with the applicable regulations. It is that December 8, 2016, decision that I directed the Board to refer to me for my review. See Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 227, 227 (A.G. 2018) (directing the Board “to refer this case to me for review of its decision” (emphasis added)). The Board issued that decision “exercis[ing] its own judgment” and free from any perception of interference from the Attorney General. Accardi, 347 U.S. at 266. My certification of that decision for review complies with all applicable regulations. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(h)(1)(i) (“The Board shall refer to the Attorney General for review of its decision all cases that . . . [t]he Attorney General directs Board to refer to him.” (emphasis added)). It is therefore unnecessary to suspend the briefing schedule pending a new decision of the Board.

II. DHS’s Request To Clarify the Question Presented

I deny DHS’s request to clarify the question presented. In my March 7, 2018, order, I requested briefing on “[w]hether, and under what circumstances, being a victim of private criminal activity constitutes a cognizable ‘particular social group’ for purposes of an application for asylum or withholding of removal.” Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. at 227. Although “there is no entitlement to briefing when a matter is certified for Attorney General review,” Matter of Silva-Trevino, A.G. Order No. 3034-2009 (Jan. 15, 2009), I nevertheless invited the parties and interested amici “to submit briefs on points relevant to the disposition of this case” to assist my review. Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. at 227. As the Immigration Judge observed in his effort to certify the case, several Federal Article III courts have recently questioned whether victims of private violence may qualify for asylum under section 208(b)(1)(B)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i) (2012), based on their claim that they were persecuted because of their membership in a particular social group. If being a victim of private criminal activity qualifies a petitioner as a member of a cognizable “particular social group,” under the statute, the briefs should identify such situations. If such situations do not exist, the briefs should explain why not.

DHS requests clarification on the ground that “this question has already been answered, at least in part, by the Board and its prior precedent.” Board precedent, however, does not bind my ultimate decision in this matter. See section 103(a)(1) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1) (2012) (providing that “determination and ruling by the Attorney General with respect to all

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questions of law shall be controlling”). The parties and interested amici may brief any relevant issues in this case—including the interplay between any relevant Board precedent and the question presented—but I encourage them to answer the legal question presented.

III. The Parties’ Requests for an Extension of the Deadline for Submitting Briefs

I grant, in part, both parties’ request for an extension of the deadline for submitting briefs in this case. The parties’ briefs shall be filed on or before April 20, 2018. Briefs from interested amici shall be filed on or before April 27, 2018. Reply briefs from the parties shall be filed on or before May 4, 2018. No further requests for extensions of the deadlines from the parties or interested amici shall be granted.

In support of respondent’s request for an extension, she asserted that “an extension of the briefing deadline is warranted because [r]espondent intends to submit additional evidence with her brief in support of her claim,” including the possibility that she might obtain new evidence from El Salvador. Resp’t Request for Extension of Briefing Deadline at 4 (Mar. 14, 2018). Although I retain “full decision-making authority under the immigration statutes,” Matter of A-H-, 23 I&N Dec. 774, 779 n.4 (A.G. 2005), I requested briefing on a purely legal question to assist my review of this case, and I encourage the parties to focus their briefing on that question. Further factual development may be appropriate in the event the case is remanded, but the opportunity to gather additional factual evidence is not a basis for my decision to extend the briefing deadline.

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Back in law school, we were taught that court jurisdiction existed to decide “cases or controversies.” Not so in the US Immigration Court in the “Age of Sessions.”

The latest outrageous “certified” decision by Attorney General Jeff “Gonzo Apocalyoto” Sessions shows that he has abused his power by intervening in a case where neither party sought his intervention and where both parties essentially consider the law to be settled by prior BIA precedents. Indeed, the DHS is basically asking Sessions not to intervene in a case that it lost before the BIA and instead let the BIA deal with the issue. Remarkably, though, Sessions treats DHS with the same arrogant and biased dismissiveness that he treats migrants and private lawyers.

Even the DHS (to its credit) appears to be appalled by Sessions’s unwarranted and unneeded interference in the quasi-judicial process before the US Immigration Courts. Apparently, the DHS understands (as Gonzo apparently does not or will not) that the destruction of the credibility and integrity of the Immigration Courts will also hurt their enforcement efforts by making US Courts of Appeals more skeptical of the validity of final orders of removal entered by the BIA! Indeed, it was similar concerns by enforcement officials in the “Legacy INS” during the Reagan Administration that led to the removal of the Immigration Judges from the INS and creation of EOIR as a separate, non-enforcement, agency within the DOJ in the first place.

Although Sessions in his latest decision in Matter of A-B– basically concedes that the Immigration Judge should have followed the BIA’s instructions and granted the respondent’s asylum application, he nevertheless is misusing the case as a “vehicle” for a reexamination of fundamental, well-established principles of asylum law that neither party requested. Talk about abuse of authority!

Sessions has been on the wrong side of legal history on an astounding range of legal issues throughout his sorry career. Yet, having been rebuffed on most of his extremist views by his colleagues of both parties in the Senate and by the courts, he is now using his “captive court system” — the U.S. Immigration Courts — to interfere with the fair administration of justice and to impose his self-styled, White Nationalist inspired rules that no party has requested. Seldom has there been such a clear abuse of the American legal system. Yet, to date he is getting away with it!

This is precisely the type of improper use of the arcane “certification authority” that my colleague Judge Jeffrey Chase discussed in his article reprinted in the previous post. When and where will this mockery of justice end?

PWS

03-30-18