Category: Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”)

🇺🇸🗽⚖️😎🌟🏆NDPA SUPERSTAR LAUREN WYATT WINS AWARD!

Lauren Wyatt Award
NY City Bar
Legal Services Award
Lauren Wyatt
Lauren Wyatt
Lauren Wyatt, Esquire
Managing Attorney
Catholic Charities Community Services, Archdiocese of New York
PHOTO: VERA Institute of Justice

Lauren Wyatt

Lauren Wyatt is an attorney with Catholic Charities Community Services, Archdiocese of New York, where she provides direct representation to immigrants before the Immigration Court, Board of Immigration Appeals, USCIS, and New York family courts. As the Lead Project Attorney for the Immigration Court Helpdesk (ICH), she coordinates pro se application workshops, Know-Your-Rights presentations, legal screenings, and pro bono case placements for unrepresented immigrants in removal proceedings. She also prepares and supervises the implementation of specialized ICH programming in response to emergencies (such as family separation) and changes in law and policy (such as in domestic violence- and family-based asylum claims) She recruits and trains volunteers to provide free legal information and assistance to low-income immigrants. She also supervises and mentors pro bono volunteer attorneys in representing clients before the Immigration Court.

Prior to joining Catholic Charities, Lauren was a Program Associate at the Vera Institute of Justice administering the Legal Orientation Program for detained immigrants. Before moving to New York City, Lauren was an Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Fellow at Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Washington. At Catholic Charities DC, she represented unaccompanied children in immigration and state court proceedings, as well as in affirmative applications before USCIS. She also trained and mentored pro bono attorneys to represent clients in immigration and family court cases.

Lauren is licensed to practice in New York and Maryland, as well as before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. She earned her J.D. from Howard University School of Law in 2014, and her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010. She has studied in Seville, Spain, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Havana, Cuba. She is fluent in Spanish and conversational in Italian.

SOURCE: I-ARC
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Congrats, Lauren!😎👍🏼

As we can see, eight years out of law school, Lauren has basically “done it all!” When are we going to see Lauren on the Federal Bench?
Like Vice President Kamala Harris, Lauren is a distinguished grad of Howard Law! So, why hasn’t Harris actively recruited her for a judicial or senior management position at EOIR, where due process, racial justice, practical problem solving, and a positive attitude toward human rights are in total tatters and need “big time” change and redirection?
Why are Dems blowing the opportunity to recognize, promote, and empower “the best and the brightest” that the “upcoming generation” of American lawyers has to offer?

Why is EOIR still a “due process wasteland” rather than a model, due process focused, best practices oriented, “progressive judiciary of the future?”

Somebody with some “pipelines” into the Biden Administration should be asking these questions and insisting on positive progressive actions!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS
05-27-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️CAMILLE J.  MACKLER @ JUST SECURITY “GETS IT!” — How Come Judge Garland & The Biden Administration Don’t? — “If we want to re-build a better, stronger immigration system, we need to start with immigration courts.” — Get Involved! Get Angry! Say No To Institutionalized Racism, Misogyny, & Dehumanization (“Dred Scottification”) @ EOIR! Force Judge Garland To Pay Attention! Demand Change, Now!
  2. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️JUDICIAL REVIEW — C.A. 2 — Brace Of Bad BIA Bobbles On Basics Brings “Culture Of Denial” Into Focus — Justice Will Continue To Be Illusive @ EOIR 👎🏽 Until Garland Steps Up & Replaces His Fatally Flawed BIA With Real Judges Who Are Progressive Practical Scholars In Immigration, Due Process, Human Rights, With A Firm Commitment To Bringing Racial & Gender Equity To Now-Disgraced Immigration Courts!🤮
  3. 🆘🤮IS 11TH CIR. GROWING WEARY OF GARLAND’S SCOFFLAW BIA? —Two Trips To The Circuit, & The BIA Still Violates Own Regulations, Ignores Precedent, Spouts Gibberish While OIL’s Defense Of This Nonsense & Malfeasance By EOIR Raises Serious Ethical Questions! — THAMOTAR v. U.S. ATT’Y GEN. — Garland’s Dysfunctional & Systematically Unjust Courts Undermine OUR Democracy☠️ — Demand An IMMEDIATE End To The Scofflaw Nonsense🤡 🧹 At OUR Justice Department! 🏴‍☠️
  4. 🏴‍☠️GARLAND’S FAILED BIA REAMED BY 3RD CIR. ON ANTI-ASYLUM BIAS, LACK OF BASIC COMPETENCE! — “First, the Board’s conclusion ignores overwhelming evidence that Ghanem was persecuted on account of political opinion. Second, it erroneously treated familial relationships as disqualifying and failed to give the proper weight to the substantial record evidence that a protected ground remains one central reason for Ghanem’s persecution.” — Ghanem v. AG

☠️👎🏽DEM’S CATASTROPHIC DUE PROCESS FAILURE:  AS PREDICTED, GARLAND’S “DEDICATED DOCKETS” ARE “ASYLUM FREE ZONES” TARGETING CHILDREN!🤮

“Floaters”
Garland’s vision of “justice” for refugee children appears to be little different from that of Stephen Miller and his White Nationalist predecessors at DOJ!
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)
Cindy Carcamo
Cindy Carcamo
Immigration Reporter
LA Times

Cindy Carcamo reports for the LA Times: 

BY CINDY CARCAMO STAFF WRITER

MAY 25, 2022 11:56 AM PT

After drug traffickers killed his little brother, William and his 6-year-old son, Santiago, fled Colombia last September to seek asylum in the United States.

Unbeknownst to William, who ended up in Los Angeles with a friend, he and his son immediately became part of a cohort of thousands of families in a “dedicated docket” program that the Biden administration established in 11 cities, including Los Angeles, in May 2021.

In response to a sudden rise of apprehensions last spring of families and children at the Southwest border, Biden promised the accelerated docket would resolve cases “more expeditiously and fairly.” These sorts of programs have existed in various forms under previous administrations; Biden’s program pushes immigration judges to resolve cases in 300 days, significantly shorter than the 4.5-year average of asylum cases in immigration court.

But according to a new Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA Law report, the docket’s fast-track timeline has imposed new hardships on many asylum seekers and created additional obstacles that ultimately lead to higher rates of deportation orders, sometimes based on legal technicalities.

For William — who didn’t want his last name published, fearing reprisal against his family still living in Colombia — the docket’s expeditious nature meant he had only six weeks to secure legal representation before his first court hearing, leaving him to navigate a complex and often confusing system without an attorney. Immigration officials provided him with documents heavy with legal jargon in English. He could read only in Spanish.

In addition, those on the docket are released with “alternatives to detention,” which means they are monitored, either with an ankle bracelet or via a phone application. Immigration officials shackled William with a GPS monitor on his ankle before releasing him and his son.

Ultimately, an immigration judge ordered William and his 6-year-old to be deported in “absentia” when they didn’t show up for their court hearing at U.S. Immigration Court in downtown Los Angeles. In fact, at the time the judge gave the order, William was in the building, but was three floors below the courtroom in a waiting area at the direction of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official. By the time William was told he was in the wrong place, the judge had already ordered the father and son’s removal from the U.S.

In Los Angeles, an estimated 99% of the 449 cases completed on the dedicated docket as of February of this year resulted in removal orders and about 72% of those cases were issued to people who missed their court hearing — “in absentia” — according to a report released Wednesday by the Center for Immigration Law and Policy and Immigrants’ Rights Policy Clinic at UCLA School of Law

Perhaps most striking, the report shows that almost half of those in absentia removal orders are for children, many 6 and younger.

In addition, court data analyzed in the report show that an estimated 70% of people on this particular docket don’t have legal counsel. In contrast, an estimated 33% of those on the Los Angeles court’s non-accelerated docket lack legal counsel.

The nature of the accelerated dockets made it nearly impossible for asylum-seekers to get a fair hearing, the report’s authors concluded. The high absentia rate, the report concluded, is a red flag that the dedicated docket isn’t working as it should.

. . . .

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Read the rest of Cindy’s totally disturbing article at the link!

Sadly, this news will come as no surprise to readers of “Courtside.” Having watched these types of  efforts to co-opt the Immigration Courts as a vehicle of unfair, racially motivated “deterrence” and “enforcement,” I could see that this program was going to be an unmitigated disaster at EOIR, given Garland’s failure to install progressive judicial leadership and human rights and due process expertise into the broken and biased system he inherited from Sessions and Barr.

The NDPA is going to have to “dig in” and fight Garland and Mayorkas every step of the way, at every level of the system, to save as many lives as possible from their disgraceful continuation of a “Miller Lite” White Nationalist, anti-immigrant program of abusing and dehumanizing asylum seekers — most individuals of color and many of them children or other “vulnerable individuals.” 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever! Garland’s dysfunctional, biased, leaderless, soul-less, ethically challenged EOIR, never!

PWS

05-26-22

Related posts:

  1. 🤮👎🏽WASHPOST SLAMS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FOR ABANDONING NEGOTIATIONS WITH FAMILIES WHO SUFFERED CHILD ABUSE BY SESSIONS & MILLER! — “Having condemned a policy that traumatized children and their parents, Mr. Biden now leads an administration fighting in court to deny recompense to those same families.”
  2. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!
  3. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  4. 🤮👎🏽ULTIMATE HIPOCRACY: EVEN AS AMERICA FINALLY CELEBRATES JUNETEENTH HOLIDAY, DRED SCOTT & INSTITUTIONALIZED RACIST DEHUMANIZATION REMAIN REALITIES FOR BLACKS & OTHER MIGRANTS OF COLOR AT EOIR & DHS — Imprisonment Without Trial, Bogus Bonds, Mistreatment In The New American Gulag, Jim Crow “Courts,” No Rule Of Law,  Still Realities For Those Of Color Exercising Legal Rights In Broken System!

🗽⚖️🇺🇸UYGHUR ACTIVIST SAVED BY GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC!  

GW Law Immigration Clinic Director Professor Alberto Benítez & Co-Director Paulina Vera

Please join me and Professor Vera in congratulating Immigration Clinic client, T-Y-, from China, and his student-attorneys, Gisela Camba, Esder Chong, Jordan Nelson, Tessa Pulaski, and Julia Yang. The client’s asylum application was filed on April 6, 2018, his interview at the Asylum Office was on November 8, 2021, and he was granted asylum on May 17, 2022. We received the decision today. The above-captioned is what T-Y- said upon learning about his asylum grant.

T-Y- is a Muslim Uyghur, an ethnic and religious minority in China. Due to his decades-long work as an Uyghur activist, he was persecuted by the Chinese government. T-Y- was falsely imprisoned, sentenced to a ‘re-education camp’, physically and psychologically tortured, and had his movements restricted and monitored. Despite everything he has endured, T-Y- continues his Uyghur advocacy work from within the United States and has even consulted with U.S. politicians and government agencies about the treatment of Uyghurs in China.

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

Alberto Manuel Benitez

Professor of Clinical Law

Director, Immigration Clinic

The George Washington University Law School

650 20th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20052

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Congratulations! Another job REALLY well done by Professors Benitez and Vera and their band of NDPA recruits at GW Law.

As Jason “The Asylumist” Dzubow says, lots of winnable cases out there if folks can get well-qualified representation and actually reach a merits determination before the Asylum Office or EOIR — no mean feat in such a backlogged system!

That raises the point of why wouldn’t a clearly well-prepared and grantable Uyghur case like this one be moved to the “front of the line” for expedited processing instead of sitting around for more than four years?

For years, both USCIS and EOIR have been “expediting” the wrong cases (known as “Aimless Docket Reshuffling”) in an ill-advised and failed attempt to use the legal asylum system as a “deterrent” by maximizing and prioritizing “anticipated denials.” Instead, they should be putting protection and excellence in preparation and advocacy first. It would actually free up more representation resources if advocates weren’t forced to “babysit” “ready for prime time” cases for years! 

During that time, records must be constantly updated, memories fade, and witnesses can become unavailable. Attorneys on both sides move on. Judges retire. There are all sorts of “below the radar screen” costs to creating and maintaining a huge backlog. Unfortunately, it promotes the “refugee roulette” image of what is supposed to be a fair, expert, timely system (but isn’t).

In addition, many of the “haste makes waste” attempts to cut corners by prejudging and denying certain cases, or creating “defective in absentias” end up being reopened or remanded because of sloppy, substandard work.  

What is the Government’s “vision” of how this system can be made to work in a fair and timely manner for all concerned?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-25-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🗽COURT REFORM: GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC STUDENTS WEIGH IN ON ARTICLE I — Emphasize Critical Due Process Need To Entirely Remove AG From Decision-Making Process!
  2. 🏴‍☠️👎🏽🤮 AIMLESS DOCKET RESHUFFLING (“ADR”) ON STEROIDS! — EOIR Dysfunction Shows What Happens When “Captive Court System” Kowtows To Political Handlers Rather Than Serving The Public! — Jason Dzubow, The Asylumist, Reports!
  3. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  4. ⚖️👩🏽‍⚖️ MORE NDPA CLE: Ellsberg, Harris, Schmidt, Among Headliners @ Inaugural Fourth Circuit Asylum Law Conference @ William & Mary Law on March 11!

POLITICS: KURT BARDELLA @ LA TIMES: WHAT “DEMS DON’T GET” THREATENS AMERICAN DEMOCRACY☠️: “They should do what the Republicans would do given a chance: Refuse to compromise and go on the attack. This difference, of course, is that the Democrats are going after the insurrectionist machine and defending democracy while the GOP is tearing it down.”

 

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=8323fc34-a52b-46ef-9c44-5be1f107c380

By Kurt Bardella

The question I get asked the most as someone who went from being a Republican to a Democrat is: “What’s the biggest difference between the two parties?”

The answer: Every impulse Democrats have is defensive and every impulse Republicans have is offensive.

A report in the Washington Post this week showed these dynamics at play perfectly between Democrats and Republicans on the House Jan. 6 select committee. As the Post described, Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy (Fla.) insisted that the committee focus less on former President Trump and more on the security and intelligence failures that allowed the attack on the Capitol. In response, Republican Vice Chair Liz Cheney (Wyo.) argued that the committee should keep its focus on the former president.

This is the best illustration I have come across that demonstrates how different Republicans and Democrats approach things on a tactical and, I’d say, cellular level.

When Republicans have the reins of power, they do not hesitate to go after the very top. From Barack Obama’s birth certificate to Hillary Clinton’s emails and potentially Hunter Biden’s laptop, the GOP is unapologetic about pursuing witch hunts for political gain.

Democrats, on the other hand, are always pursuing lines of legitimate oversight reluctantly. At times, it feels like they are apologizing for doing the right thing.

I think back to Trump’s first impeachment and the hesitant posture displayed by the Democrats during those proceedings. It was almost as if they were forced into it, regretted that it came to this, and moved as fast as possible to get it over with.

Democrats controlled the House majority but never forced Trump administration officials with firsthand knowledge of the events that were at the center of the impeachment inquiry to testify, such as John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney or Rick Perry, and the Republican-controlled Senate predictably torpedoed any effort to compel them to testify.

History repeated itself during Trump’s second impeachment as firsthand witnesses like Mike Pence, Mark Meadows, Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Rudolph W. Giuliani, etc., were never called to testify. Hillary Clinton, of course, was grilled by the Republican-led Benghazi committee for more than 11 hours.

It’s almost as if Democrats believe there is some prize awaiting them for showing what they would characterize as restraint. There isn’t.

. . . .

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Read the complete article at the link.

This has been obvious in the Dems’ feckless approach to Immigration, and particularly the Immigration Courts, over the years. 

Without enacting any significant legislation, the GOP instituted an overtly racist/nativist/restrictionist program. They negated existing laws, scorned the Constitution, abrogated log-standing international agreements, and aggressively and blatantly stacked the Federal Judiciary at all levels with far-right zealots. And they have gotten away with it!

Yet, even after successfully running on programs promising a restoration of the rule of law and the Constitution in immigration and human rights, Dems have been from feckless, to timid, to complicit in the GOP’s vile programs. 

The GOP did not hesitate to “stack” the Immigration Court system at all levels with questionably qualified judges who lacked perspective, expertise, and a commitment to due process. The result was a dramatic plunge in the grant rates for asylum seekers, even though conditions in the primary sending countries have continued to worsen dramatically over the years. 

No justification for what the GOP did, and no hesitation or self-doubts about doing it! Amid tons of criticism, they just plowed ahead and did it! They “played to the most extreme elements of their base” — nobody else! They weren’t scared to take extreme actions that most polls showed the majority of American’s didn’t favor!

By contrast, the Dems approach to immigration and human rights policy is a complete mess. And, worst of all, the Immigration Courts and EOIR remain largely as the Trump regime left them. Indeed, the backlog is growing at an astounding rate, as Garland flails and fails to bring on board the “best and brightest” judges and intellectual leaders to reform EOIR into the due-process oriented “model judiciary” that it was once intended to be! 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-22-22

Related posts:

  1. 🤮👎🏽WASHPOST SLAMS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FOR ABANDONING NEGOTIATIONS WITH FAMILIES WHO SUFFERED CHILD ABUSE BY SESSIONS & MILLER! — “Having condemned a policy that traumatized children and their parents, Mr. Biden now leads an administration fighting in court to deny recompense to those same families.”
  2. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!
  3. 🇺🇸⚖️🗽NY TIMES EDITORIAL MAKES THE CASE FOR ARTICLE I — “It’s hard to imagine a more glaring conflict of interest than the nation’s top law-enforcement agency running a court system in which it regularly appears as a party.” — Garland’s Abject Failure To Fix EOIR, Bring In Experts Highlighted, As Constitutional Due Process, Ethical, Human Rights, Racial Justice, Gender Equity, Diversity, & Management Farce @ EOIR Continues Under His Disgraceful Lack Of Awareness & Failure Of Courageous, Progressive Leadership!  — Progressives Can’t Remain Silent, Must “Raise Hell” 👹With Biden Administration About Garland’s Lousy Performance @ EOIR, As He Continues To Stack Immigration “Judiciary” With “Miller Lite Holdovers” 🤮 To The Exclusion of Progressive Experts Who Helped Put Biden Administration In Office!
  4. 🆘🤮IS 11TH CIR. GROWING WEARY OF GARLAND’S SCOFFLAW BIA? —Two Trips To The Circuit, & The BIA Still Violates Own Regulations, Ignores Precedent, Spouts Gibberish While OIL’s Defense Of This Nonsense & Malfeasance By EOIR Raises Serious Ethical Questions! — THAMOTAR v. U.S. ATT’Y GEN. — Garland’s Dysfunctional & Systematically Unjust Courts Undermine OUR Democracy☠️ — Demand An IMMEDIATE End To The Scofflaw Nonsense🤡 🧹 At OUR Justice Department! 🏴‍☠️

⚖️👩🏽‍⚖️NOLAN RAPPAPORT @ THE HILL: THE EOIR BACKLOG IS GETTING WORSE — GARLAND DOES NOT APPEAR TO HAVE THE ANSWER — I’m Quoted In The Article!

Nolan Rappaport
Nolan Rappaport
Contributor, The Hill

Immigration courts are overrun with cases, and it’s only getting worse  

Nolan Rappaport, opinion contributor

The immigration court has a backlog of more than 1.7 million cases. This means that the number of people waiting for a hearing is larger than the population of Phoenix, Ariz., or of Philadelphia, Pa., the fifth and sixth largest cities in the United States.

 

This isn’t a new problem, but it has gotten much worse recently. According to TRAC, a data distribution organization at Syracuse University, the growth of the backlog has been accelerating at a breakneck pace since the start of the Biden administration when it was “only” close to 1.3 million cases.

 

What is the administration doing to reduce the backlog?

 

Hiring more judges: Recent administrations have prioritized hiring more judges to lower the backlog. From fiscal 2014, to fiscal 2021, the number of judges has more than doubled, rising from 249 to 559. At the end of the first quarter in fiscal 2022, there were 578.

 

According to the Congressional Research Service, the backlog probably would continue to grow even if 100 more judges were hired. An additional 200 could reduce the backlog to just under 1.1 million, but it wouldn’t reach that level until fiscal 2031. It would take an additional 500 judges to eliminate the backlog entirely, and it wouldn’t happen until fiscal 2030.

 

Accelerated dockets: In May 2021, DHS announced a “dedicated docket” program to “more expeditiously and fairly” render decisions in the cases of certain families who are apprehended after making an illegal entry.

 

These families are placed in removal proceedings and then released into the interior of the country under the “Alternatives to Detention” program. This program currently is monitoring more than 227,508 families and single individuals.

 

The Florence Project claims that the Obama and Trump administrations attempted these “dedicated dockets” to reduce the backlog and it not only failed, but led to widespread due process violations and undermined access to legal counsel.

 

The Vera Institute of Justiceopposes the program because it “forces newly arriving, asylum-seeking families through rushed ‘rocket docket’ court proceedings without guaranteeing legal representation for all, depriving families of fairness and due process.”

 

In any case, it just speeds up the processing of new additions to the immigration court caseload.  It does nothing to reduce the size of the backlog, and it is very unfair to migrants who have been waiting for a hearing for up to five years.

 

It also may hamper efforts to reduce the backlog. Georgetown law school professor Paul Schmidt points out that when dedicated docket judges are not available for cases on the general docket, it places extra burdens on their judicial colleagues who are handling the general docket cases.

 

Read more at https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/3492751-immigration-courts-are-overrun-with-cases-and-its-only-getting-worse/

 

Published originally on The Hill.

 

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an Executive Branch Immigration Law Expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.  Follow him at https://nolanrappaport.blogspot.com

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Go over to The Hill at the above link to read the complete article.

Thanks Nolan for continuing to “shine the light” on this critical issue that might appear to be “below the radar screen” but actually threatens  the stability of our entire legal system!⚖️

As I’ve said many times, Aimless Docket Reshuffling (“ADR”), engaged in to some extent by Administrations of both parties, is NOT the answer. It’s a huge part of the problem!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-21-22

Related posts:

  1. NO EXPERTISE NECESSARY! – At The “New EOIR,” Immigration Judges No Longer Need to Demonstrate Immigration Experience – Just a Willingness To Send Migrants to Potential Death, Danger, or Misery Without Due Process or Fundamental Fairness – When Your Job Is To Impose Arbitrary “Death Sentences,” Maybe It’s Easier If You Don’t Understand What You’re Really Doing!
  2. 👍🏼⚖️🗽MAJORITY OF ASYLUM SEEKERS WIN THEIR CASES, EVEN IN A BROKEN & BIASED  SYSTEM INTENTIONALLY STACKED AGAINST THEM — But, Only, If They Can Get To A “Merits Adjudication!” — Nativist Lies, Myths, Driving USG Policies Exposed! — Why USCIS & EOIR Self-Created Backlogs Primarily Shaft Those Deserving Legal Protection Of Some Type!
  3. 🏴‍☠️👎🏻🤮“HOUSTON, WE’VE STILL GOT A PROBLEM!” — A HUGE AND GROWING ONE — Garland’s Failure To Restore “Justice @ Justice” Reverberates Throughout Our Nation!🆘
  4. 🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🆘NO JUSTICE @ JUSTICE! — OUTRAGE OF PROGRESSIVE EXPERTS CONTINUES TO GROW AS GARLAND FAILS TO VACATE SESSIONS/BARR RACIST, MISOGYNIST, ANTI-IMMIGRANT, UNETHICAL, BIASED PRECEDENTS — “Garland’s Star Chambers” Careen Further Out Of Control As AG Dithers While Lives Of Vulnerable Refugee Women Hang in Balance & Pro Bono Advocates Are Forced To Exhaust Resources Fighting Trump DOJ’s Misdeeds That Biden Has Failed To Fix, Despite Promises — “Unforced Errors,” Lack Of Competent Progressive Leadership Continue To Plague Flawed Immigration Agenda @ Justice, Offend Dem Supporters! — Expert Professors Karen Musalo & Stephen Legomsky Call For Immediate Vacating Of Repulsive Matter of A-B- Abomination Before More Lives Of Women Of Color Are Lost!

🏴‍☠️ASSEMBLY LINE INJUSTICE @ EOIR! — MOST CONSERVATIVE U.S. CIRCUIT COURT FAULTS BOGUS ASYLUM DENIAL FOR CAMEROONIAN, THAT GARLAND’S DOJ DEFENDED! — Nkenglefac v. Garland, 5th Cir., 05-18-22, published

 

Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/19/19-60647-CV0.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca5-on-due-process-credibility-nkenglefac-v-garland#

“Petitioner Giscard Nkenglefac, a native and citizen of Cameroon, applied for admission into the United States on May 9, 2018. The immigration judge (“IJ”), Agnelis Reese, denied Nkenglefac’s application for relief from removal and ordered him removed to Cameroon after determining that Nkenglefac was not credible. The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) subsequently affirmed the IJ’s determination, and Nkenglefac was removed to Cameroon. Nkenglefac now petitions for review of the BIA’s dismissal of his appeal from the IJ’s denial of application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). Nkenglefac challenges the IJ’s reliance on his U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) and asylum credible fear interviews that were not entered into the hearing record of the removal proceeding, nor, indeed, raised in that hearing at all, to make an adverse credibility finding. … Nkenglefac argues that the IJ erred as a matter of law by drawing negative credibility inferences from summaries of his CBP and credible fear interviews because neither interview was submitted into the record during his proceeding, much less adverted to. Nkenglefac also argues that he did not waive this argument because he could not have raised the issue before the IJ given that he had no notice the IJ would rely on these documents prior to issuance of her decision. …  [A]t no point during the hearing before the IJ was Nkenglefac provided with the opportunity to explain any apparent inconsistencies or dispute the accuracy of the records in question, or cross examine the individuals who prepared the interview summaries, much less object to their introduction, or offer views on weight to be given to the evidence. Inspection of the hearing record confirms that Nkenglefac was not given the opportunity to explain perceived inconsistencies in the government summaries of his prior uncounseled interviews.5 Indeed, the voluminous testimonial record, including extensive government cross-examination and IJ direct inquiry, gives no indication that Nkenglefac had previously made any inconsistent statements, yet the IJ, three months later, determined that “inconsistencies and omissions . . . undermine critical parts of Respondent’s claim” to such an extent that the court denied “Respondent’s application based on lack of credibility.” … The BIA majority—affirming the IJ’s decision—also determined that Nkenglefac’s argument regarding the absence of the CBP and credible fear interviews from the record was “waived” because “the [trial] transcript reflects that [Nkenglefac’s] former counsel never requested that these records . . . be made a part of the record.” However, we fail to understand why Nkenglefac’s counsel should have introduced these government summaries into the record to anticipate and explain later-perceived inconsistencies when they were never identified, referenced, or discussed. It is also worth noting that there is no evidence—beyond the statement of the BIA majority—that Nkenglefac’s counsel failed to preserve this issue on appeal. The issue was discussed at length in Nkenglefac’s appeal brief to the BIA and again in his brief to this court. Furthermore, this observation stands in contravention to existing BIA law that “an adverse credibility determination should not be based on inconsistencies that take an alien by surprise.” Matter of Y-I-M-, 27 I. & N. Dec. 724, 726-29 (BIA 2019) (quote at 726). Notably, the Government’s brief on appeal does not argue that Nkenglefac has waived this argument. … We GRANT the petition for review and REMAND this case to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats waaaayyyy off to Homero López, Jr., who reports that he is in touch with his client and is hopeful of bringing him back to the USA.  Audio of the oral argument is here.]

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—

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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

Once again, credibility, the problematic issue in this case, is not a profound legal concept. It’s supposedly the “bread and butter of Immigration Judging.” Yet, both the  IJs and the BIA continue to often get it wrong. Perhaps “dead wrong” in the cases of asylum seekers! Why isn’t this fundamental flaw at the all-important “retail level” of our justice system receiving the necessary attention and corrections from Garland and the Biden Administration?

As one “Courtside Commenter” said:  

I think this is the IJ who retired with a 100% asylum denial rate [actually it was 99.4%, denying 155 of 156 claims she “heard” — but didn’t listen to — over a career that lasted far too long]!And Cameroon is now a TPS country.

This decision is proof perfect of EOIR’s deportation assembly line approach.And I’ve mentioned a number of times the alarming problems with CBP arrival statements noted by the US Commission for International Religious Freedom, an internal government component, which has repeatedly flagged the fact that the resulting “statements” are not the verbatim transcripts they appear to be, and often contain questions that were never actually asked of the respondent.

How bad was this now retired Judge who has been the subject of frequent adverse publicity? See, e.g., https://www.topic.com/your-judge-is-your-destiny; https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2019/07/inside-the-courtroom-where-every-asylum-seeker-gets-rejected/.

As pointed out in the above comment, Cameroon is now a TPS country. Additionally, one of the “five top nationalities” that came before this “asylum denial machine” were asylum seekers from Eritrea. Although they found no success with her, the EOIR statistics for FY 2022 show that that every “merits decision” on Eritrean asylum was granted. There were exactly ZERO, “0” merits denials. See https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1107366/download.

Thankfully, Judge Reese has retired. But the endemic problems she symbolized, the lack of effective appellate review, and disdain for due process for asylum seekers by the BIA remain overarching problems that Garland has stubbornly failed to effectively address. 

Additionally, in another “under the radar yet highly significant problem,” Garland’s OIL within the USDOJ Civil Division continues to “defend the indefensible” coming out of the BIA. This wastes Government and private sector litigation resources, not to mention precious Article III Court time. It also turns due process and immigrant justice in the U.S. into a random game of chance.

Obviously, there is a severe lack of leadership all over the USDOJ under Garland. Moving toward the “halfway point” in the Biden Administration, there still is no appointed and confirmed Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-20-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️JUDICIAL REVIEW — C.A. 2 — Brace Of Bad BIA Bobbles On Basics Brings “Culture Of Denial” Into Focus — Justice Will Continue To Be Illusive @ EOIR 👎🏽 Until Garland Steps Up & Replaces His Fatally Flawed BIA With Real Judges Who Are Progressive Practical Scholars In Immigration, Due Process, Human Rights, With A Firm Commitment To Bringing Racial & Gender Equity To Now-Disgraced Immigration Courts!🤮
  2. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “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.”
  3. 😎WIN ONE, LOSE ONE☹️:  9TH CIR. ANNIHILATES MATTER OF ARMENDAREZ-MENDEZ (SUA SPONTE REOPENING), WHILE 11TH  CIR. WOODENLY ENDORSES 👎🏻 MATTER OF L-E-A- (NEXUS)!☠️⚰️
  4. ☠️🤮 “TEFLON MERRICK” — GROTESQUE DUE PROCESS MELTDOWN @ GARLAND’S EOIR CONTINUES UNABATED, WHILE AG AVOIDS ACCOUNTABILITY — 3RD CIR. CASTIGATES GARLAND’S BIASED & INCOMPETENT “STAR CHAMBERS” — “It is more akin to the argument of an advocate than the impartial analysis of a quasi-judicial agency.”

🤮INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE/DEFECTIVE COURTS — 3rd Cir. Exposes Massive Due Process Failure @ Garland’s EOIR! — St. Ford v. A.G.

 

https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/211729p.pdf

From Judge Roth’s opinion:

The need for effective assistance of counsel applies in immigration law just as it does in criminal law. Aliens, many of whom do not speak English and some of whom are detained before their immigration hearings, can be particularly susceptible to the consequences of ineffective lawyers.

 

Petitioner Arckange Saint Ford paid a lawyer to represent him in removal proceedings, but Saint Ford’s requests for relief from deportation were denied after the lawyer failed to present important and easily available evidence going to the heart of Saint Ford’s claims. Saint Ford retained new counsel, and his new lawyer asked the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen his case because of his former attorney’s ineffective assistance. The Board declined to do so. Because Saint Ford presents a meritorious ineffective-assistance claim, we will vacate the Board’s decision and remand.

And concurring Judge Ambro had a harsh assessment of the IJ, the BIA, and most of all A.G. Garland, who has been remarkably “tone deaf” about correcting the grotesque expertise and due process problems in his “wholly owned, astoundingly dysfunctional” Immigration “Courts:”

Arckange Saint Ford will get a second shot at canceling the Government’s order of removal—that’s what matters. The majority is remanding because of his former counsel’s deficient performance at Saint Ford’s removal hearing. I agree with that and concur in full.

But former counsel was not the only one who made significant missteps at the hearing. The Immigration Judge did as well. I therefore would have granted Saint Ford’s initial petition for review and remanded on that basis. I write separately to explain these errors in the hope that similar ones will not be made at Saint Ford’s new hearing.

. . . .

Here, though it was reasonable to request Saint Ford corroborate his testimony about the identity and motive of his harassers, the IJ did not tell him what corroboration she needed or give him a chance to present that evidence. There is no indication she engaged in the Abdulai inquiry as required before skipping straight to “hold[ing] the lack of corroboration against [Saint Ford].” Id. (alterations adopted). She went from first to third across the pitcher’s mound. Our Abdulai inquiry is there to ensure these important corners aren’t cut.

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

What’s wrong with this picture? Going on two decades after the enactment of the REAL ID Act, this IJ gets basic corroboration wrong on a life or death asylum case. Then, she compounds the error by failing to apply a two-decades old circuit precedent. The case sails through the BIA. Then, Garland’s OIL defends the indefensible. “Corner cutting” has become institutionalized, permitted, and even encouraged in today’s broken  EOIR!

Meanwhile, it’s left to Circuit Judge Ambro to do the jobs of Garland, his failed BIA, and an IJ badly in need of remedial training! This is an expert tribunal? This is justice? This is due process? Gimmie a break! 

This is squarely on Garland! He enables and defends defective, due-process-denying decisions by EOIR. His grotesque failure to appoint and empower a BIA that will end this nonsense and insist on competent legal performance from ALL Immigration Judges in these life or death cases is disgraceful!

Cases like this also “give lie” to the bogus claims that today’s EOIR is comprised of “experts” who can be trusted to remedy due process defects, model best practices, or (perhaps most absurdly) insure that the rights of all respondents, including the unrepresented, are protected. Why is a Dem Administration running a “due process denial machine?” Why is OIL defending the indefensible? Why is Garland still the AG, despite showing little interest and scant skill in creating a due process/fundamental fairness oriented tribunal at the “retail level” of our staggering justice system! 

You don’t have to be a “rocket scientist” to trace the disrespect for the Constitutional, statutory, and human rights of migrants, largely individuals of color, to hate crimes, misogyny, curtailment of voting rights, and disrespect for equal justice and racial justice throughout our nation. The stunningly poor performance of the U.S. Immigration Courts under Garland also sets an unfortunate tone for the staggering and highly politicized Federal Court system from bottom to top!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-19-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️JUDICIAL REVIEW — C.A. 2 — Brace Of Bad BIA Bobbles On Basics Brings “Culture Of Denial” Into Focus — Justice Will Continue To Be Illusive @ EOIR 👎🏽 Until Garland Steps Up & Replaces His Fatally Flawed BIA With Real Judges Who Are Progressive Practical Scholars In Immigration, Due Process, Human Rights, With A Firm Commitment To Bringing Racial & Gender Equity To Now-Disgraced Immigration Courts!🤮
  2. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🗽COURT REFORM: GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC STUDENTS WEIGH IN ON ARTICLE I — Emphasize Critical Due Process Need To Entirely Remove AG From Decision-Making Process!
  3. 🧑🏽‍⚖️⚖️🗽🇺🇸WHO’S JUDGE IS IT ANYWAY? — The Crisis Of Independence In Our Immigration Courts! — Coming April 7, 2021! — Sponsored By The HNBA! — Don’t Miss It!
  4. 🆘🤮IS 11TH CIR. GROWING WEARY OF GARLAND’S SCOFFLAW BIA? —Two Trips To The Circuit, & The BIA Still Violates Own Regulations, Ignores Precedent, Spouts Gibberish While OIL’s Defense Of This Nonsense & Malfeasance By EOIR Raises Serious Ethical Questions! — THAMOTAR v. U.S. ATT’Y GEN. — Garland’s Dysfunctional & Systematically Unjust Courts Undermine OUR Democracy☠️ — Demand An IMMEDIATE End To The Scofflaw Nonsense🤡 🧹 At OUR Justice Department! 🏴‍☠️

PORTLAND (ME) PRESS HERALD: THE OVERTLY RACIST “GREAT REPLACEMENT LIE” IS A STAPLE OF TODAY’S GOP 🏴‍☠️— The “War On Immigrants” Was Just The Beginning Of A Deadly Racist Campaign To Eliminate Democracy & Diversity!🤮

https://www.pressherald.com/2022/05/17/our-view-great-replacement-lie-runs-deep-in-republican-politics/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Daily+Headlines%3A++RSS%3AITEM%3ATITLE&utm_campaign=PPH+DH+-+TUESDAY+%28HTML%29

Our View: ‘Great replacement’ lie runs deep in Republican politics

Party leaders tolerate radical anti-immigrant ideology, even as it motivates racist massacres like last weekend’s mass shooting in Buffalo.

. . . .

After other racist massacres, we have asked Republican leaders to repudiate this false and dangerous ideology that is taking root in their party and shun anyone who traffics in it. But they never have, and we don’t expect them to do so now. The state party has attempted to appear more friendly to immigrants this year, opening a “Multicultural Center” in Portland. But the party showed no sign of separating itself from anti-immigration figures like Lockman at the recent party convention.

Apparently, the party needs the white-power extremists, just as it needs anti-immigrant, anti-transgender, anti-vaccination and QAnon elements, who may make up only a minority of the electorate but who provide the party with its energy and enthusiasm at election time.

We expect that Republican Party leaders, candidates and officeholders– who know that there is no such thing as a “great replacement” – will continue to keep their mouths shut about the extremists in their party so that they can ride their enthusiasm to control of Congress, the Blaine House and the state Legislature in November.

They are playing with fire, and we are all at risk.

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

Read the full editorial at the link!

“We are all at risk.” Certainly, that has been my message on “Courtside” since its inception in 2016!  

That’s why it was, and continues to be, such a tragedy for our democracy that Democrats, once in power, have failed to aggressively stand up for “immigrants’ rights, due process for all, and drastic, meaningful, Immigration Court reform.”

Immigrant justice = racial justice = equal justice for all. And, the path to equal justice for all begins in the now disgracefully dysfunctional (but potentially due-process-enhancing) U.S. Immigration Courts where aggressive reforms and progressive judges in positions to “make a difference” are long overdue.

Often, the view is “clearer” from up here in Maine!

View of Linekin Bay, Maine
View of Linekin Bay, Maine

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-17-22

Related posts:

  1. CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH @ DHS: ICE DEPORTS BLACKS TO DANGER & POTENTIAL DEATH, MANY WITH NO DUE PROCESS!🏴‍☠️ — Legislators Call On Biden Administration To End Racist Enforcement Policies!
  2. 🇺🇸🏴‍☠️RACE IN AMERICA: CARRIE ROSENBAUM “GETS IT,” EVEN AS MAYORKAS, GARLAND, HARRIS & THE OTHER BIDEN HYPOCRITES PRETEND NOT TO:  “Immigration reform, and a more robust application of the Equal Protection doctrine to all those inside the country, and at our borders, is necessary to move towards meaningfully dismantling systemic racism.”
  3. 🏴‍☠️NO ACCOUNTABILITY: ONE YEAR AFTER PUBLICLY INSTIGATING A FAILED COUP, TRUMP CONTINUES TO OPENLY PLOT TO OVERTHROW DEMOCRACY, AS NEO-FASCIST GOP & ITS TOADY POLITICOS LINE UP BEHIND THE “BIG LIE!” — THE GOP, & THOSE WHO SUPPORT & ENABLE IT, HAS ACTUALLY BECOME THE BIGGEST THREAT TO THE FUTURE OF OUR REPUBLIC!🤮👎🏽🏴‍☠️
  4. 🤮👎🏽WASHPOST SLAMS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FOR ABANDONING NEGOTIATIONS WITH FAMILIES WHO SUFFERED CHILD ABUSE BY SESSIONS & MILLER! — “Having condemned a policy that traumatized children and their parents, Mr. Biden now leads an administration fighting in court to deny recompense to those same families.”

😢SUPREMES SLAM DUNK ON ADJUSTMENT APPLICANTS WITH “NO JURISDICTION” RULING, OVER SPIRITED DISSENT FROM JUSTICE GORSUCH! — Patel v. Garland (5-4)

Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch
Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch; photograph by Franz Jantzen, 2017.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-979_h3ci.pdf

Held: Federal courts lack jurisdiction to review facts found as part of dis- cretionary-relief proceedings under §1255 and the other provisions enumerated in §1252(a)(2)(B)(i). Pp. 6–17.

From Justice Gorsuch’s dissent (joined by Justices Breyer, Kagan, & Sotomayor):

The majority concludes that courts are powerless to cor- rect an agency decision holding an individual ineligible for relief from removal based on a factual error, no matter how egregious the error might be. The majority’s interpretation has the further consequence of denying any chance to cor- rect agency errors in processing green-card applications outside the removal context. Even the government cannot bring itself to endorse the majority’s arresting conclusions. For good reason. Those conclusions are at war with all the evidence before us. They read language out of the statute and collapse the law’s clear two-step framework. They dis- regard the lessons of neighboring provisions and even ig- nore the statute’s very title. They make no sense of the statute’s history. Altogether, the majority’s novel expan- sion of a narrow statutory exception winds up swallowing the law’s general rule guaranteeing individuals the chance to seek judicial review to correct obvious bureaucratic mis- steps. It is a conclusion that turns an agency once account- able to the rule of law into an authority unto itself. Perhaps some would welcome a world like that. But it is hardly the world Congress ordained.

***********************
Justice Barrett wrote the majority opinion.

Interestingly, neither the Respondent nor the Solicitor General defended the 11th Circuit’s decision. So, the Court appointed Taylor A.R. Meehan as amicus to defend that decision. Her “no jurisdiction” statutory argument prevailed.

Looking at rulings like this, the makeup of the Supremes, and the bleak prospects for Article I in an ideologically divided Congress, the composition of the Immigration Courts and the BIA becomes even more significant.

As Justice Gorsuch points out, in many important cases, even the most obvious and egregious mistakes from EOIR Judges will go uncorrected by the Article IIIs. So, getting the results right in the first place and having higher quality appellate review at the BIA becomes even more “life determining.”

As judicial vacancies arise, it’s critical that NDPA members who are eligible to apply do so in large numbers! That also goes for the U.S. Magistrate Judges and the Article IIIs!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-16-22

Related posts:

  1. 🆘🤮IS 11TH CIR. GROWING WEARY OF GARLAND’S SCOFFLAW BIA? —Two Trips To The Circuit, & The BIA Still Violates Own Regulations, Ignores Precedent, Spouts Gibberish While OIL’s Defense Of This Nonsense & Malfeasance By EOIR Raises Serious Ethical Questions! — THAMOTAR v. U.S. ATT’Y GEN. — Garland’s Dysfunctional & Systematically Unjust Courts Undermine OUR Democracy☠️ — Demand An IMMEDIATE End To The Scofflaw Nonsense🤡 🧹 At OUR Justice Department! 🏴‍☠️
  2. ⚖️🗽PROFESSOR DAVID A. MARTIN EXPLAINS HOW BIDEN ADMINISTRATION COULD ADVANCE ITS IMMIGRATION AGENDA BY ABANDONING THEIR WRONG-HEADED  POSITION BEFORE THE SUPREMES! — Don’t Let Sanchez v Mayorkas Become a Lost Opportunity!
  3. ⚔️🛡⚖️🗽👨🏻‍⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️🇺🇸 ROUND TABLE AGAIN STEPS UP @ SUPREMES — Patel v. Garland: Issue = Judicial Review Of EOIR’s Non-Discretionary Decisions!
  4. ☹️HE BEAT THE GOVERNMENT TWICE IN COURT — But, After Three Years In Jail Without Being Charged With Any Crime, Omar Ameen Still Can’t Get A Bond From Garland’s Courts —  How Can A System Where The Prosecutor Makes The Rules & Picks The Judges, Mostly From The Ranks Of Former Prosecutors, Provide The “Fair & Impartial Judging” Required By Due Process?

⚖️IMMIGRATION COURTS: Article I Bill Passes Out Of House Judiciary On Party Line Vote!

 

From ImmigrationProf Blog:

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/05/bill-creating-independent-immigration-court-passes-in-house.html

ImmigrationProf Blog

Saturday, May 14, 2022

Bill creating independent immigration court passes in House

By Immigration Prof

After years of advocacy from theNational Immigration Judges Association (here and here), immigration attorneys (from ABA and AILA), and scholars, Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and Hank Johnson (D-GA), introduced the Real Courts, Rule of Law Act of 2022 (H.R. 6577) that has passed House Judiciary Committeewith a vote of 24-12. It will next move to the House floor.

An section-by-section analysis of the full text legislation is here.

MHC

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

Unfortunately, without any GOP support, this Article I Bill will be DOA in the Senate.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-16-21

 

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🗽COURT REFORM: GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC STUDENTS WEIGH IN ON ARTICLE I — Emphasize Critical Due Process Need To Entirely Remove AG From Decision-Making Process!
  2. ⚖️FINALLY, HOUSE TO EXAMINE GARLAND’S DYSFUNCTIONAL, MISMANAGED, LEADERLESS IMMIGRATION “COURTS” & NEED FOR DUE-PROCESS-FOCUSED REFORMS! — Tal Kopan Reports For SF Chron!
  3. ⚖️🤯🤮GARLAND’S OHIO JUDICIAL MELTDOWN — “High-Asylum-Denying” Immigration Judges Appointed By Barr & Sessions Remain On Garland’s Bench In Cleveland Despite Referring To Migrants As “Illegals” & “Pretty Virgins!” — EOIR Disciplinary System Remains As Opaque As Ever Under Garland!🏴‍☠️ Yulin Cheng Reports @ Columbus Dispatch!
  4. 😎👍🏼GOOD NEWS @ JUSTICE, EVEN AS LATEST REPORT SHOWS MASSISIVE FAILURE 👎🏽🤮 @ EOIR! — Poor Judging, Politicized Practices, Unhelpful Precedents, Uncontrollable Backlogs, Lousy Technology — Can Lucas Guttentag, New Senior Counselor To DAG Lisa Monaco Get Garland, Monaco, & Gupta To Make The Personnel Changes & Other Long-Overdue Progressive Reforms Necessary To Save This System From Collapse?  — “”How can you have a fair game when the referee is unfair,” Asks Asylum Expert Professor Karen Musalo!

🗽⚖️ANOTHER BITE OF JUSTICE FOR DV VICTIM: BIA Temporary Appellate Immigration Judge Gabe Gonzalez With An A-B-/A-R-R-G- Remand!

 

Roberto Blum reports from Houston, TX:

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Thanks, Roberto!

Just think how much better this system would work if Immigration Judges were getting guidance from the BIA to get these correct in the first place. 

Also raises additional questions of why: 1) cases like this aren’t precedents; and 2) so-called “Temporary” Appellate Immigration Judges like Judge Gabe Gonzalez are “outperforming” most “permanent” BIA Judges?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-16-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “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.”
  2. 🇺🇸⚖️🗽HON. JEFFREY S. CHASE: UNETHICAL, 🏴‍☠️WHITE NATIONALIST,⚰️ MISOGYNIST 🤮“WAR CRIMINAL” ☠️JEFFREY ROSEN TAKES COWARDLY🐓 PARTING SHOT AT REFUGEE🦸🏻 WOMEN! — DOJ Clean-Out, 🧹🪠🧻Fumigation, & Restaffing With Ethical Attorneys Can’t Begin Soon Enough!
  3. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️JUDICIAL REVIEW — C.A. 2 — Brace Of Bad BIA Bobbles On Basics Brings “Culture Of Denial” Into Focus — Justice Will Continue To Be Illusive @ EOIR 👎🏽 Until Garland Steps Up & Replaces His Fatally Flawed BIA With Real Judges Who Are Progressive Practical Scholars In Immigration, Due Process, Human Rights, With A Firm Commitment To Bringing Racial & Gender Equity To Now-Disgraced Immigration Courts!🤮
  4. NDPA STALWART JASON “THE ASYLUMIST” DZUBOW 🌟 QUOTED IN AP ARTICLE ABOUT REPEAL OF A-B- & L-E-A-!

⚖️🧑🏻‍⚖️BIA APPELLATE JUDGE BETH LIEBMANN ISSUES MATTER OF A-B- REMAND, PROVIDES USEFUL GUIDANCE!

 

Here’s the decision (unfortunately unpublished):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15v7-tVnh-eqBWDWgwBE-Wxqx4rNCH_f8/view?usp=drivesdk

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

There is more helpful, practical guidance in Judge Liebmann’s “two-pager” than in most BIA precedents. So, why isn’t this a precedent?

A.G. Garland overruled Session’s abominable, wrong-headed precedent nearly one year ago. Yet, there has been no further guidance from the BIA on the meaning of the “reinstated A-R-C-G-.” Nor, have the so-called “gender-based regulations” ordered by Biden and referenced by Garland ever seen the light of day. 

Meanwhile, there are many cases like this out there in the backlog. Most of them could be granted with proper guidance and supervision from a “Better BIA.” No wonder the backlog continues to grow!

My prediction that the “ascension” (she was a “mere TBM” at the time of this particular decision) of Judge Liebmann to join Judge Saenz on the BIA would be a “breath of fresh air” for practitioners appears to be gaining at least some traction. But, it’s going to take more than two well-qualified judges to pull the BIA out of its current “death spiral.”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-13-22  

Related posts:

  1. 🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🆘NO JUSTICE @ JUSTICE! — OUTRAGE OF PROGRESSIVE EXPERTS CONTINUES TO GROW AS GARLAND FAILS TO VACATE SESSIONS/BARR RACIST, MISOGYNIST, ANTI-IMMIGRANT, UNETHICAL, BIASED PRECEDENTS — “Garland’s Star Chambers” Careen Further Out Of Control As AG Dithers While Lives Of Vulnerable Refugee Women Hang in Balance & Pro Bono Advocates Are Forced To Exhaust Resources Fighting Trump DOJ’s Misdeeds That Biden Has Failed To Fix, Despite Promises — “Unforced Errors,” Lack Of Competent Progressive Leadership Continue To Plague Flawed Immigration Agenda @ Justice, Offend Dem Supporters! — Expert Professors Karen Musalo & Stephen Legomsky Call For Immediate Vacating Of Repulsive Matter of A-B- Abomination Before More Lives Of Women Of Color Are Lost!
  2. NDPA STALWART JASON “THE ASYLUMIST” DZUBOW 🌟 QUOTED IN AP ARTICLE ABOUT REPEAL OF A-B- & L-E-A-!
  3. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “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.”
  4. 🔮PROPHETS: MORE THAN SEVEN MONTHS AGO, “SIR JEFFREY”🛡 & I SAID IT WOULD TAKE MORE THAN HOLLOW PROMISES IN AN E.O. TO BRING JUSTICE  FOR VICTIMS OF GENDER VIOLENCE! — Sadly, We Were “Right On” As This Timely Lament From CGRS Shows!

THE GIBSON REPORT:  05-09-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, Managing Attorney, National Immigrant Justice Center — HEADLINERS: 2d Cir. Reverses BIA On CIMT; Texas AG Targets Legal Assistance To Migrants; EOIR “Friend of Court” Memo; Lack Of Immigrants Hurting U.S. Economy — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE:  New Legal Aid Alliance Aims to Build a Model for Universal Representation for Detained Immigrants!

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Managing Attorney
National Immigrant Justice Center
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

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Weekly Briefing

 

This briefing is designed as a quick-reference aggregation of developments in immigration law, practice, and policy that you can scan for anything you missed over the last week. The contents of the news, links, and events do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Immigrant Justice Center. If you have items that you would like considered for inclusion, please email them to egibson@heartlandalliance.org.

 

CONTENTS (jump to section)

  • PRACTICE ALERTS
  • NEWS
  • LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES
  • RESOURCES
  • EVENTS

 

PRACTICE ALERTS

New EOIR Friend of the Court Memo

EAD Automatic Extension Time Period—Temporary Increase to up to 540 Days

USCIS Changing Communication of Case Processing Data

 

NEWS

 

Mexico will take back more Cubans and Nicaraguans expelled by U.S.

WaPo: The deal is potentially significant because the Mexican government has more latitude to carry out deportation flights to Cuba and Nicaragua, nations whose frosty relations with Washington severely limit the United States’ ability to return their citizens.

 

New Legal Aid Alliance for Detained Immigrants Facing Deportation in the Chicago Immigration Court

MIDA: The Midwest Immigrant Defenders Alliance (MIDA) is a partnership between three nonprofit organizations — the National Immigrant Justice Center, The Resurrection Project, and The Immigration Project — and the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender. The groups will lay the groundwork toward ensuring anyone who is detained by ICE and facing removal proceedings before the Chicago Immigration Court has access to legal representation. The program will reach immigrants detained in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Kentucky. While ICE no longer detains people in Illinois as the result of a state law enacted earlier this year, the groups will be representing Illinois residents who are being detained in other states.

 

Texas governor says the state may contest a Supreme Court ruling on migrant education

NPR: Abbott first made his remarks about the landmark education decision on Wednesday, in the aftermath of a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Abbott said the court’s 1982 ruling had imposed an unfair burden on his state. “I think we will resurrect that case and challenge this issue again, because the expenses are extraordinary and the times are different” from when the decision came down, Abbott said in an interview with conservative radio host Joe Pagliarulo.

 

Texas AG Opens Probe Into State Bar’s Immigration Funding

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Friday that his office had launched an investigation into the charitable arm of the State Bar of Texas over allegations that the organization is providing funding to “entities that encourage, participate in and fund illegal immigration.”

 

DeSantis scrutinizes health care costs for the undocumented

Politico: The DeSantis administration on Thursday asked state hospitals to tally up the cost of providing medical care to undocumented immigrants. It’s part of an executive order Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in September, but just had his Agency for Health Care Administration start implementing.

 

For Second Straight Year, California Sees a Population Decline

NYT: California lost 117,552 residents last year, driven largely by the Covid death toll and a sharp drop in foreign immigration. This followed a slightly bigger decline in 2020, when the state lost 182,083 residents — the first time in more than a century that California got smaller.

 

The Things They Carried: Is the Border Patrol discarding asylum seekers’ documents?

Border Chron: In Arizona and Texas, border residents are noticing more and more personal belongings left behind, including confidential documents, along the U.S. side of the border wall.

 

Biden administration scrambles to deal with Russians trying to reach America

Politico: A senior administration official told POLITICO that the United States is exploring ways to increase Russians’ access to the U.S. refugee program, but the official declined to give details. At the same time, U.S. diplomats are effectively being warned to be extra careful in issuing tourist visas to Russians because they are more likely to overstay them due to the war, according to the April 26 cable obtained by POLITICO.

 

Massachusetts Senate OKs immigrant driver’s license bill

AP: The bill was approved 32-8 in the Democratic-controlled chamber. That’s enough to override a possible veto from Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who has expressed opposition to similar efforts in the past.

 

Less immigrant labor in US contributing to price hikes

AP: The U.S. has, by some estimates, 2 million fewer immigrants than it would have if the pace had stayed the same, helping power a desperate scramble for workers in many sectors, from meatpacking to homebuilding, that is also contributing to supply shortages and price increases.

 

U.S. Homelessness Haunts Migrant Families Separated by Trump, Reunited by Biden

Reuters: Of the 200 families the task force has so far reunited, including Hernandez and her daughters, around three-quarters have struggled with housing insecurity, according to previously unreported data collected by two groups that aid them, Together & Free and Seneca Family of Agencies.

 

U.S. labor agency moves to thwart intimidation of immigrant workers

Reuters: The top lawyer at the agency that enforces U.S. labor laws on Monday directed staff to assure foreign workers that they will not face immigration-related consequences for filing complaints against employers or acting as witnesses in cases.

 

LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES

 

Court orders additional briefing in dispute over “remain in Mexico” policy

Howe: In a short order, the justices asked both sides in the dispute to weigh in on technical – but potentially dispositive – issues relating to the court’s power to hear the case.

 

Matter of German Santos, 28 I&N Dec. 552 (BIA 2022)

BIA: Any  fact  that  establishes  or  increases  the  permissible  range  of  punishment  for  a criminal offense is an “element” for purposes of the categorical approach, even if the term “element” is defined differently under State law… Title 35, section 780-113(a)(30) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, which punishes possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, is divisible with respect to the identity of the controlled substance possessed.

 

BIA Remand Relating To Matter Of A-B-

LexisNexis (quoting Geoffrey Hoffman):  This is a great decision as it affirms that A-B- (III) changed the law back to A-R-C-G- and warrants a remand back to the IJ for new proceedings. Importantly the Board notes that the remand is in light of the current case law of the BIA and the Fifth Circuit. Importantly, the Fifth Circuit’s Jaco v. Garland decision was not cited or relied on as impeding remand.

 

CA1 on Somalia, CAT: Ali v. Garland

LexisNexis: The critical question is whether this record compels the conclusion that Ali could not make the requisite showing with regard to the nature of the abuse to which he will be subjected, notwithstanding the IJ’s failure to have addressed evidence bearing on it. …  [W]e conclude that the prudent course is to vacate and remand for the BIA to address the aspects of the record that have not been given their proper consideration.

 

CA2 On CIMT: Jang V. Garland

LexisNexis: The agency found Jang ineligible for cancellation because of her state conviction for attempted second-degree money laundering, see N.Y. Penal L. § 470.15(1)(b)(ii)(A), which it deemed a “crime involving moral turpitude” (“CIMT”) under the Immigration and Nationality Act, see 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2). We agree with Jang that, because her crime of conviction lacks the requisite scienter, it is not a CIMT.

 

4th Circ. Says Tardiness Isn’t A Failure To Appear

Law360: The Fourth Circuit has rebuked the Board of Immigration Appeals for rubber-stamping an asylum-seeker’s in absentia deportation order without addressing claims that a medical issue made him late to his immigration hearing, saying tardiness isn’t the same as not showing up.

 

Defective NTA Remand at CA5: Urbina-Urbina v. Garland

LexisNexis: Accordingly, we VACATE the three BIA decisions and REMAND the three cases for reconsideration in light of Rodriguez v. Garland, 15 F.4th 351 (5th Cir. 2021).

6th Circ. Affirms Cuban Man’s Meth Possession Guilty Plea

Law360: The Sixth Circuit affirmed Monday the guilty plea of a Cuban man who was arrested for possessing methamphetamine with intent to distribute and sentenced to 16 years in prison, rejecting his argument that the district court made a crucial mistake by failing to warn him that the plea made him deportable.

 

9th Circ. Says BIA Must Rethink Gay Nigerian’s Torture Claim

Law360: The Board of Immigration Appeals must reconsider its denial of a Nigerian man’s request for protection against torture after the Ninth Circuit ruled that the man had presented enough evidence to show he faced persecution for being gay.

 

Military Can Help On Immigration Enforcement, 9th Circ. Says

Law360: The Ninth Circuit said on Wednesday that the U.S. military can assist Border Patrol agents in capturing those suspected of entering the country illegally, rejecting an appeal by a Mexican national who was apprehended with the help of a Marine Corps surveillance unit.

 

Indian Citizen Sues After Losing Work Due To USCIS Delays

Law360: An Indian citizen has asked a D.C. federal court to compel the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to resolve her employment authorization renewal application, saying its unlawful delay caused her to lose her job where she was working on a multimillion-dollar project.

 

County Called ICE On Immigrant For Traffic Issue, Suit Says

Law360: A Salvadoran immigrant has brought a $5 million lawsuit against a Maryland county, saying it illegally detained and transferred him to federal immigration enforcement over a minor traffic violation, exposing him to federal surveillance and the threat of deportation.

 

Judge Won’t Ax Florida Challenge To Biden Border Policy

Law360: A federal judge refused to toss Florida’s legal attack on the Biden administration’s border detention policies, saying Wednesday the courts could “unquestionably” review the federal government’s detention policies in a harsh rebuke to the administration’s claims of discretionary immigration authority.

 

USCIS Temporary Final Rule Increasing Automatic Extension Period for EADs

AILA: USCIS temporary final rule providing that the automatic extension period applicable to expiring EADs for certain renewal applicants who have filed Form I-765 will be increased from up to 180 days to up to 540 days from the expiration date stated on their EADs. (87 FR 26614, 5/4/22)

 

HHS Supplementary Request for Comment on Forms Related to Release of Unaccompanied Children

AILA: Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) supplementary request for public comment on revised versions of several forms related to the release of unaccompanied children from the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). Comments are due 6/6/22. (87 FR 27159, 5/6/22)

 

RESOURCES

NIJC Resources

General Resources

 

EVENTS

NIJC EVENTS

 

GENERAL EVENTS

 

To sign up for additional NIJC newsletters, visit:  https://immigrantjustice.org/subscribe.

 

You now can change your email settings or search the archives using the Google Group. If you are receiving this briefing from a third party, you can visit the Google Group and request to be added.

 

Elizabeth Gibson (Pronouns: she/her/ella)

Managing Attorney for Capacity Building and Mentorship

National Immigrant Justice Center

A HEARTLAND ALLIANCE Program

224 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 600, Chicago, IL 60604
T: (312) 660-1688| F: (312) 660-1688| E: egibson@heartlandalliance.org

www.immigrantjustice.org | Facebook | Twitter

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Elizabeth writes:

Hi Judge Schmidt,

 

I just wanted to share the exciting news of the official launch of the Midwest Immigrant Defenders Alliance (MIDA)! With the end of Immigration detention in Illinois, ICE is sending Illinois residents to remote detention centers where there is little access to counsel. MIDA will ensure these immigrants are not left behind. MIDA is a partnership between three nonprofit organizations — the National Immigrant Justice Center, The Resurrection Project, and The Immigration Project — and the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender, one of the largest public defender’s offices in the country.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:
Tara Tidwell Cullen, NIJC, (312) 833-2967, ttidwellcullen@heartlandalliance.org

 

New Legal Aid Alliance Aims to Build a Model for Universal Representation for Detained Immigrants Facing Deportation in the Chicago Immigration Court

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CHICAGO (May 9, 2022) — A group of Illinois immigration legal aid organizations today announced a new collaboration to expand access to legal representation for people in deportation proceedings who are detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The Midwest Immigrant Defenders Alliance (MIDA) is a partnership between three nonprofit organizations — the National Immigrant Justice Center, The Resurrection Project, and The Immigration Project — and the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender. Through a one-year pilot project, the groups will lay the groundwork toward ensuring anyone who is detained by ICE and facing removal proceedings before the Chicago Immigration Court has access to legal representation. The program will reach immigrants detained in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Kentucky. While ICE no longer detains people in Illinois as the result of a state law enacted earlier this year, the groups will be representing Illinois residents who are being detained in other states.

“The National Immigrant Justice Center has represented detained people facing deportation for more than 30 years and we are thrilled for this opportunity to collaborate with organizations who have been longtime partners in defending justice to build a model that will ensure our community members have access to legal counsel when in the throes of the punitive immigration system,” said Ruben Loyo, associate director, Detention Project, at the National Immigrant Justice Center. “We see this as the natural next step in our state to support immigrant families, and an opportunity for Illinois to join the ranks of other states like New York and California whose universal representation programs have demonstrated how ensuring access to affordable legal counsel both upholds justice and helps keep families and communities strong and intact.”

“Too often immigrants from rural and urban communities in central and southern Illinois feel isolated and marginalized while they are facing the highest possible stakes — separation from their families and, often, possible persecution in a country they may have not seen in decades,” said Charlotte Alvarez, executive director of The Immigration Project. “MIDA is a natural expansion of our current advocacy and legal representation work and will allow us to ensure that individuals who were ripped from our downstate communities are able to obtain legal counsel to pursue every possible avenue available to them under the law in order to return to their family.”

During the pilot, one day each week, any detained and unrepresented individual who has an initial hearing before the Chicago Immigration Court and cannot afford private counsel will have the opportunity to consult with one of the collaborating organizations and receive free legal representation while they are detained — and potentially longer if they reside in Illinois. The collaborative also will provide training and mentorship programs to welcome new legal practitioners into the immigration field, an effort to increase capacity for nonprofit organizations to provide affordable immigration defense services in the Midwest. Vera Institute of Justice, a nongovernmental research group, will track the case outcomes from the pilot project to evaluate its impact on ensuring justice for people facing removal proceedings in Chicago.

“Everyone has the right to due process, including immigrants, and immigrants should also have the right to an attorney if they can’t afford one — especially those in detention that face many more barriers to a successful case outcome,” said Eréndira Rendón, vice president of immigrant justice at The Resurrection Project (TRP). “MIDA will increase capacity of community-based legal service providers like TRP to ensure detained immigrants have free, high-quality, and accessible legal services. The more organizations trained and available to support with these complex cases, the closer we are to securing universal representation for all.”

“The launch of MIDA proves that the national movement for universal representation is only getting stronger as people across the country continue to demand that no one should face deportation without a lawyer,” said Annie Chen, director of the Advancing Universal Representation initiative at the Vera Institute of Justice. “People facing deportation are our neighbors, friends, and loved ones. They deserve to fight their cases freely in their communities and with a lawyer by their side. As Illinois becomes the latest state to support a right to counsel for all, we are honored to work with MIDA to help them evaluate their program’s impact and are confident it can serve as a model for the state’s anticipated task force.”

Removal proceedings can have dire consequences for many immigrants, including permanent separation from U.S. citizen children, spouses, and parents, as well as the loss of integral community members. In some cases, deportation may result in someone being sent to a country where they face persecution or death. Yet individuals in these proceedings do not have access to government-appointed legal counsel like defendants in other parts of the U.S. legal system. A 2016 study found that detained immigrants are twice as likely to obtain relief than detained immigrants without counsel. In recent years, approximately 60 percent of detained individuals have been unrepresented in the Chicago court.

The partnership between nonprofit legal aid organizations and the Immigration Unit Pilot of the Cook County Public Defender, one of the largest public defender’s offices in the country, is in part intended to chip away at racial disparities that permeate the U.S. immigration system. Black, Indigenous, and other immigrants of color are disproportionately targeted for criminal arrest, which significantly affects an immigrant’s ability to remain in the United States. Working together, public defenders and immigration counsel have the best chance of ensuring immigrants’ rights are upheld throughout the course of their legal proceedings. Advocates also believe that universal representation models advance racial equity by mitigating biases during the initial triage of cases, when service providers usually must decide who is most deserving of services.

MIDA’s launch comes just weeks after the Illinois General Assembly passed the Right to Counsel in Immigration Proceedings Act (SB 3144), which will create a task force to provide recommendations for how the state can move toward providing legal representation for all Illinoisans facing deportation. The legislation was the latest in a series of state laws championed by Illinois communities and supported by the General Assembly and Governor J.B. Pritzker in recent years to defend immigrant Illinoisans against unjust deportation. After years of advocacy to close immigrant detention centers in Illinois, in January the Illinois Way Forward Act took effect to prevent ICE from detaining immigrants within the state. MIDA seeks to ensure Illinois residents continue to have access to counsel even as ICE increasingly detains immigrants in remote detention centers that often lack local legal resources.

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Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) ensures human rights protections for low-income immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, with the goal of promoting access to justice, family integrity, and community safety. With offices in Chicago, Indiana, Washington, D.C., and San Diego, NIJC provides direct legal services to and advocates for these populations through impact litigation, public education, and policy reform. NIJC’s immigration legal services are organized into distinct projects, including a Detention Project that for years has served detained immigrants in the Midwest. Visit immigrantjustice.org and follow @NIJC on Twitter.

The Immigration Project (TIP) has secured access to justice alongside immigrant communities in downstate Illinois for over 25 years. With offices in the Bloomington-Normal and Champaign-Urbana areas, TIP maintains an extensive network of staff, partner organizations,  and specially trained community member volunteers to provide legal and social services to immigrant families residing in the 86 counties that comprise its service area. TIP works with and for immigrant communities in mutuality and interdependence to build a more just future for all. Visit www.immigrationproject.org.

The Resurrection Project (TRP) builds relationships and challenges individuals to act on their faith, values, and ideals to create healthier communities. Since its founding in 1990, TRP has increased the availability of services and expanded opportunities for Chicago’s low- and moderate-income Latinos. TRP is a trusted provider of culturally and linguistically inclusive services and helps enable families to fully participate and become invested in their communities. TRP serves families from all over the Chicago metropolitan region, though it has a deeply rooted presence in the predominantly Latino and immigrant communities of Pilsen, Little Village, and Back of the Yards.

Through the work of the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender (CCPD) Immigration Unit Pilot, Cook County is the largest county in the nation to provide public defenders to serve the immigrant communities that do not have access to attorneys. In early 2022, Governor JB Pritzker signed Public Act 102-0410 into law and the Cook County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution in support of this initiative. This authorized the defender’s office to begin representing noncitizens in removal proceedings.

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Congrats to all the fantastic NDPA members involved in the MIDA! 

As readers of “Courtside” know and see illustrated here every week, the difference between life-saving and legally correct grants of asylum and other relief in Immigration Court and “arbitrary, capricious, railroaded” denials that are all too common at EOIR is often in the expert representation.

Despite “throwing an occasional bone” to the pro bono and “low bono” bars, it’s disturbingly clear that, like its predecessors, the Biden Administration has chosen to fashion, operate, and staff the Immigration Court system on the assumption that the majority of individuals can be rotely “moved” through the system and rejected without effectively asserting their full rights to due process and fundamental fairness. 

Effective representation does make a difference! An Administration and a Congress actually concerned about making the immigration justice system work would concentrate on moving toward universal representation rather than the plethora of money and time wasting “enforcement only/deterrence” gimmicks that have failed over the years and continue to do so every day! 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-11-22

 

Related posts:

  1. THE GIBSON REPORT— 01-02-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Garland’s Aimless Docket Reshuffling (“ADR”) Squeezes Refugees On Both Ends Of His Ludicrous Backlog, As Those Patiently Waiting Given Court Dates Nearly A Decade In The Future, While Recent Arrivals Mindlessly Rocketed To The “Front Of The Line” Struggle To Find Lawyers & Prepare Cases — Plus Other New Year News From The Dystopian World Of U.S. Immigration!
  2. THE TRUTH IS OUT, THANKS TO MICHELLE MENDEZ @ CLINIC: Practice Pointers on Matter of Castillo-Perez & “Takeaways” From FOIA Trove On In Absentias!
  3. ⚖️🗽MORE TRUTH ABOUT THE SOUTHERN BORDER FROM ONE OF AMERICA’S 🇺🇸 LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERTS: “Real Needs, Not Fictitious Crises Account For The Situation at US-Mexico Border,” By Donald Kerwin Center For Migration Studies
  4. THE GIBSON REPORT — 02-14-21💝 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Mandatory E-Filing @ EOIR Starts & Lots Of Other “Interesting Stuff!”  — CMS Study Shows How Garland Is Ignoring the “Low Hanging Fruit” On His Out of Control EOIR Backlog! ☹️

⚖️😎GARLAND REVERSES BIA: Mental Health Evidence SHOULD Be Considered In “Particularly Serious Crime” Determination! — Matter of B-Z-R-, 28 I&N Dec. 563 (A.G. 2022)

 

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1504486/download

Matter of B-Z-R-, Respondent

Decided by Attorney General May 9, 2022

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

(1) Matter of G-G-S-, 26 I&N Dec. 339 (BIA 2014), is overruled.

(2) Immigration adjudicators may consider a respondent’s mental health in determining whether an individual, “having been convicted by a final judgment of a particularly serious crime, constitutes a danger to the community of the United States.” 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(2)(A)(ii); see id § 1231(b)(3)(B)(ii).

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Notably, the problem with the BIA’s poor decision-making here goes back to the Obama Administration. Their indolent, tone-deaf approach to EOIR helped “set the table” for the later weaponization and abuses by the Trump DOJ!

As A.G. Garland, and several Circuits, point out, there was no discernible rationale for the BIA’s wrong-headed decision to exclude mental health evidence from the case-by-case determination.  

What’s the cost of poor decision making by the BIA?

  • 8 years of wrongly decided cases;
  • Unnecessary circuit splits;
  • Avoidable remands;
  • Lack of uniformity;
  • Wasteful and unnecessary litigation;
  • Wrongful deportations.

What if the BIA were composed of experts, committed to due process and best interpretations? Wouldn’t the whole system work better?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05–10-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️👎🏽🤮☠️HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS BLAST BIDEN, HARRIS, GARLAND, MAYORKAS FOR ILLEGAL RETURNS TO COLOMBIA, CONTINUATION OF MILLER’S XENOPHOBIC, DEADLY & CORRUPT TITLE 42 ABUSES OF HUMANITY!
  2. 🔮PROPHETS: MORE THAN SEVEN MONTHS AGO, “SIR JEFFREY”🛡 & I SAID IT WOULD TAKE MORE THAN HOLLOW PROMISES IN AN E.O. TO BRING JUSTICE  FOR VICTIMS OF GENDER VIOLENCE! — Sadly, We Were “Right On” As This Timely Lament From CGRS Shows!
  3. ⚖️10TH CIR. SAYS TRANSGENDER WOMEN FACE “PATTERN OR PRACTICE OF PERSECUTION” IN HONDURAS — Gonzalez Aguilar v. Garland — Latest Setback For Garland’s “Asylum Deniers’ Club” (A/K/A “BIA”)!👎🏽 “Refugee Roulette” ☠️⚰️  The “Order Of The Day” @ Garland’s Dysfunctional & Unjust DOJ!
  4. 🏴‍☠️☠️👎🏽GROUPS EXPOSE RACISM, MYTHS IN BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S ABUSE OF HAITIAN ASYLUM SEEKERS! — “Each day that the Title 42 policy remains in effect, it places Haitians directly in harm’s way.”

🙁“CAT-ASTROPHE” — GARLAND’S EOIR FLUNKS “CAT 101” — Coast-to-Coast Failures in 9th and 1st Cir Show A “Judiciary” With Life or Death ☠️ Authority Lacking In Basic Legal Skills & Competence!🤮 

Bob Egelko
Bob Egelko
Courts Reporter
SF Chronicle
PHOTO: SF Chron

Bob Egelko reports for the SF Chron:

An immigration judge ordered a gay Nigerian man deported over a minor discrepancy. The Ninth Circuit just reversed in a fiery ruling https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/An-immigration-judge-ordered-a-gay-Nigerian-man-17151459.php

When a local security brigade in Nigeria learned Peter Udo and his boyfriend were seen having sex in a hotel room, they seized and beat the couple for six hours and later told Udo he should be put to death.

Udo’s mother used her family savings to enable him to flee the country and he wound up in California, where an immigration judge rejected his plea for asylum and ordered him deported because his description of the events gave a false name for the hotel where he had been captured. That order has now been firmly rejected by a federal appeals court.

The judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals, which upheld the deportation order, failed to give any “reasoned consideration” to the evidence Udo presented, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Wednesday in a ruling requiring the board to review his claim that he would be tortured if returned to Nigeria.

That evidence included an “excommunication notice,” signed by leaders of the community’s Council of Traditional Rulers, notifying Udo and his family that anyone engaging in homosexual acts is “subjected to public execution” and that his mother and five other relatives were no longer considered citizens of the community.

“Remarkably, the (Board of Immigration Appeals) did not reference the excommunication notice at all” in its ruling that would have returned Udo to Nigeria, Judge M. Margaret McKeown said in the appeals court’s 3-0 decision, which included a copy of the notice.

Udo’s lawyer, David Casarrubias, said the ruling was a victory for asylum seekers.

“The opinion stands for the proposition that although Congress may enact laws that make it harder for asylum seekers to prevail as a result of minor discrepancies in their applications, there are other international laws like the Convention Against Torture that still have teeth,” Casarrubias said.

. . . . .

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Read the rest of Bob’s article at the link.

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And things are just as bad on the other side of the country. Here’s what the 1st Circuit had to say about the latest mis-step from Garland’s “Star Chambers” on a life or death CAT matter:

http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/21-1296P-01A.pdf

. . . . 

The government does again urge us to construe the BIA as having merely affirmed a finding that it attributed to the IJ

10 For this reason, we need not resolve whether, as Ali contends, the IJ violated 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(3) by failing to consider all relevant evidence through the way the IJ treated the evidence from Harper in her testimony and March 2020 declaration that bears on Ali’s “security forces”-related ground for CAT-based deferral of removal.

 – 30 –

regarding whether it was “more likely than not” that Ali would be subject to abuse severe enough to constitute torture rather than a finding that it attributed to the IJ regarding the limited severity of the abuse that Ali had shown that he was likely to suffer. But, as we explained in connection with Ali’s challenge to the BIA’s “other private actors”-related ruling, the IJ did not make that finding either. And, in any event, as we have noted, that is a strained reading of the BIA’s opinion, given that the opinion expressly quotes only from the portion of the relevant regulations that purports to define how severe abuse must be to constitute torture, see 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(2) (“Torture is an extreme form of cruel and inhuman treatment . . . .”), rather than a regulation concerning how “likely” it must be that the noncitizen will be subjected to abuse that is severe enough to constitute torture, see, e.g., id. §§ 1208.16(c)(2), (4).11

Finally, the government contends that we still must affirm the BIA’s ruling because, although Harper described violence, “she did not describe the injuries to the Somalis she

11 To the extent that the government means to argue here, too, that the BIA itself considered the Harper evidence in question because of the portion of the BIA’s opinion in which the BIA states, “after considering the risk of torture from all sources in the aggregate,” we cannot agree. That statement concerns only what the BIA determined that the IJ considered in making the finding about the severity of the abuse that Ali would face that the BIA attributed to the IJ. But, as we have explained, the IJ made no such finding.

    – 31 –

witnessed being beaten or kicked . . . such that the agency could reasonably conclude she provided insufficient detail to show that such abuse by Somali security forces rose to the level of torture or that Ali was at risk that it likely would rise to the level of torture.” But, the IJ did not find that Ali had failed to meet his burden to show that he would likely be tortured by security forces in Somalia on any such basis. Rather, the IJ rejected his “security forces”-related ground for requesting deferral of removal pursuant to the CAT solely because the IJ found that “Harper indicated that the main motivation” of the security forces who “mean to do the respondent harm” is “they are either too busy to protect themselves and therefore they cannot protect other people” or to “harass people based on cultural differences,” such that they would not be acting “with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity” in visiting any abuse on Ali.

. . . .

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

These are complicated cases. Indeed, the 1st Circuit spent 33 pages analyzing this particular case. 

By contrast, a supposedly (but, clearly not) “expert” BIA  appears to have taken about 5 minutes to “rubber stamp” the clearly defective denials prepared by staff attorneys in these life or death matters! How is this due process or fundamental fairness? No way!

If this were a law school exam, rather than a life or death “court” case, the BIA’s effort probably would have received a “D-“ or an “F.” Yet, Garland finds this ridiculously deficient level of performance acceptable where “only” the rule of law, constitutional due process, and human lives are at stake! 

One might expect this from a GOP AG. But, is this really what human rights advocates and progressives elected Biden to churn out?

I say “No.” This is NOT acceptable performance by the BIA! Nor is it acceptable professional performance by Garland, Monaco, Gupta, Prelogar, and the other members of the “Clueless Crew” supposedly in charge of the DOJ!

⚖️Due process for migrants is due process for all in America! 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-08-22

 

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