Dreamers – Page 6 – immigrationcourtside.com

SPLIT FOURTH CIRCUIT HAMMERS SCOFFLAW SESSIONS’S BOGUS RATIONALE FOR DACA TERMINATION — White Nationalist Former AG’s “Malicious Incompetence” Continues to Be “Outed” — Casa De Maryland v. DHS

Casa De Maryland v. DHS, 4th Cir., 05-17-19, published

DACA decision-May 17 2019-4thCir

PANEL: KING, DIAZ, and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges.

OPINION BY: JUDGE DIAZ

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION: Judge Richardson

KEY QUOTE FROM MAJORITY:

Plaintiffs argue that DACA’s rescission was arbitrary and capricious because the
Department of Homeland Security failed to give a reasoned explanation for the change in policy, particularly given the significant reliance interests involved. We agree.17
17 Plaintiffs also assert that (1) the district court failed to consider evidence of “bad faith” and “animus” underlying the decision to rescind DACA presented in their complaint and (2) the Department’s conclusions about DACA’s legality are substantively incorrect. Given our disposition, we decline to address these arguments.

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As we have explained, DACA was rescinded based on the Department’s view that the policy was unlawful. But neither the Attorney General’s September 4 letter nor the Department’s Rescission Memo identify any statutory provision with which the DACA policy conflicts. Cf. Encino Motorcars, 136 S. Ct. at 2127 (rejecting as insufficient agency statement regarding statutory exemption proffered in support of policy change where agency did not “analyze or explain” why statute should be interpreted as agency suggested).
The Attorney General’s letter does mention that the Fifth Circuit affirmed the injunction against the DAPA policy on “multiple legal grounds” in the Texas litigation, J.A. 379, and the Rescission Memo cites to this ruling. The Fifth Circuit’s ruling was based in part on its determination that the DAPA policy likely ran counter to the INA’s “intricate process for illegal aliens to derive a lawful immigration classification from their children’s immigration status.” Texas, 809 F.3d at 179. There is no dispute here, however, that “DACA has no analogue in the INA.” NAACP, 298 F. Supp. 3d at 239 (internal quotation marks omitted). Further, as the Fifth Circuit explained in reaching its conclusion, “DACA and DAPA are not identical.” Texas, 809 F.3d at 174.
The Attorney General’s letter also asserts that DACA suffered from the same “constitutional defects that the courts recognized as to DAPA.” J.A. 379. The courts in the Texas litigation, however, did not address constitutional claims. And while the Attorney General urged in his letter that his office had a duty to “defend the Constitution” and “faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress,” J.A. 379, he does not explain how
allowing the DACA policy to remain in effect would violate that duty.

The Attorney General’s letter and the Rescission Memo also proffer the concern— based on the Attorney General’s determination that the DAPA and DACA policies share the same legal defects—that “potentially imminent” litigation would result in a ruling in the Texas litigation enjoining DACA. Entirely absent, however, is an explanation why it was likely that the district court in the Texas litigation would have enjoined DACA.
Further, the 2014 OLC Opinion outlining the Department’s authority to implement the DAPA policy identified “from the nature of the Take Care duty” at least “four general…principles governing the permissible scope of enforcement discretion,” J.A. 137-38; 2014 WL 10788677, at *5-6, and noted that concerns “animating DACA were . . . consistent with the types of concerns that have customarily guided the exercise of immigration enforcement discretion,” J.A. 149 n.8; 2014 WL 10788677, at *13 n.8.
The point is that the Department had before it at the time it rescinded DACA a reasoned analysis from the office tasked with providing legal advice to all executive branch agencies that supported the policy’s legality. Yet the Department changed course without any explanation for why that analysis was faulty. Cf. Fox Television Stations, 556U.S. at 516 (“[A] reasoned explanation is needed for disregarding facts and circumstances that underlay . . . the prior policy.”).
Nor did the Department adequately account for the reliance interests that would be affected by its decision. Hundreds of thousands of people had structured their lives on the availability of deferred action during the over five years between the implementation of DACA and the decision to rescind. Although the government insists that Acting

Secretary Duke18 considered these interests in connection with her decision to rescind DACA, her Memo makes no mention of them.
Accordingly, we hold that the Department’s decision to rescind DACA was arbitrary and capricious and must be set aside.

KEY QUOTE FROM CONCURRENCE/DISSENT:

Just as in BLE, there is a nonsensical implication in the plaintiffs’ position: that the Executive’s discretion is more constrained when it gives a “reviewable” reason for its actions than when it gives no reason at all. If the Acting Secretary was wrong about the likely illegality of DACA,5 then this might mean that she had provided no lawful reason for the rescission. But in the context of the Executive’s enforcement discretion, this is perfectly appropriate. The Executive need not explain why it makes particular enforcement and non-enforcement decisions. The Judicial Branch cannot bootstrap review of decisions committed to the discretion of the other branches simply because the reasons provided are of a type that judges consider themselves competent to evaluate.
5 Evaluating the actual legality of DACA requires considering whether and how a court may adjudicate an alleged violation of the Take Care Clause. See Kendall v. United States ex rel. Stokes, 37 U.S. (12 Pet.) 524, 613 (1838). But it also requires addressing the distinct question of whether and how one presidential administration may determine that a previous administration’s policy was inconsistent with the constitutional obligation to take care that the nation’s immigration laws be faithfully executed. Cf. Letter from President George Washington to Sec’y Alexander Hamilton, U.S. Dep’t of the Treasury (Sept. 7, 1792) in 32 WRITINGS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON 144 (John C. Fitzpatrick ed., 1939) (writing in 1792 about enforcing unpopular tax laws, President Washington explained that it was his “duty to see the Laws executed: to permit them to be trampled upon with impunity would be repugnant to it”).

In any event, the Acting Secretary’s rescission memorandum was not a mere statement on the legality of DACA. Instead, the memorandum considered various court rulings as well as the Attorney General’s letter before concluding that the “DACA program should be terminated.” Duke Memorandum at 4 (emphasis added). She did not say that DACA must be terminated or that she lacked the legal authority to enforce DACA or a DACA-like program. And in declaring the rescission of DACA after a six- month wind-down period, the Acting Secretary invoked her statutory authority to “establish[] national immigration policies and priorities.” Id. The Acting Secretary’s legal analysis was only one aspect of her reasoning for rescinding DACA, and, of course, a prosecutor may consider beliefs about the law when setting enforcement policy, see BLE, 482 U.S. at 283.
For these reasons, I conclude that the plaintiffs’ APA claims are not reviewable and would dismiss them.

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The “good guys” win again! The forces of White Nationalist irrationality and lawless behavior are thwarted, at least for the present.

Interestingly, Judge Titus was the only Federal Judge that I’m aware of to have upheld the Government’s termination of DACA. Even the Supremes, the majority of whom Trump widely and contemptuously advertises the GOP has “brought and paid for,” weren’t eager to intervene in the Administration’s idiotic “war on DACA, human decency, and common sense” at this point.

But, let’s not forget that we’re only at this point because the Obama Administration and the Dems failed to solve the DACA issue in 2009 and 2010. Never again!

PWS

05-17-19

TRUMP WILL SUBMIT D.O.A. ELITIST PROPOSAL TO REPLACE REFUGEES & FAMILY IMMIGRANTS WITH SO-CALLED “MERIT BASED” IMMIGRANTS — Likely To Please Neither Dems Nor GOP Nativists!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-to-launch-fresh-immigration-overhaul-bid-11557956429?emailToken=e91bcce392c236a27eb93bec537f274d3Xya4bEDbDZFodGbWxJ/4u0NUXuEAvnPgbSb156wwi6WWZEFlWQFJx37NiRp5fBg1aDR4xXis2M/73eDEh0S7VsigposAuJSIWJu7s2zRoE%3D&reflink=article_email_share

Louise Radnofsky and Natalie Andrews report for the WSJ:

WASHINGTON—President Trump will make a fresh bid Thursday to remake U.S. immigration policy, propos-ing an expansion of skills-based visas offset by new restrictions on family members’ immigration—a proposal likely to ignite a dispute over issues that divide political parties and the country.

Mr. Trump is set to unveil an immigration plan devised in part by son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner that incorpo-rates several ideas that have been gaining currency in Republican circles.

Chief among them: a bill crafted by conservative Republicans that would establish a visa system prioritizing immigrants based on criteria such as education, English-language ability and high-paying job offers.

The proposal also would eliminate the diversity-visa lottery long derided by Mr. Trump as well as immigra-tion routes for family members such as siblings. Moreover, it would limit the number of refugees offered permanent residency to 50,000 a year.

. . . .

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Those with WSJ access can read the complete article at the link.

More Trump “smoke and mirrors.” No, it isn’t about “diversity” as one Trump toady falsely claims. Trump eliminates the current diversity visas.

It’s largely about the (likely false) assumption by Trump and others in the GOP that they have cleverly defined “merit” in a restrictive way that will bring in more white, English-speaking, highly-educated individuals from Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. and fewer Africans, Hispanics, Haitians, and Syrians, etc.

Contrary to nativist expectations when the basic current system was enacted in 1965, “immigrants of color” have dramatically increased their share of legal immigration over the past half-century. That has led to a diverse, talented, innovative, dynamic, successful yet “less white” America. According to nativist stereotypes, dumping on family members and refugees and increasing skill, educational, and English-language requirements will result in a “whiter” (that is “more meritorious”) immigrant population going forward.

However, like the nativists of 1965, Trump and his nativists might be surprised by the likely results of their own stereotypical assumptions. Actually, English-speaking immigrants from Africa, Haiti, the Middle East, Mexico, and Venezuela are among the highest skilled and best educated.

Of course, Trump’s elitist proposal also ignores that some of our greatest needs for immigrants pertain to important, but less glamorous, occupations for which neither education nor instant English language skills are a requirement. To keep our economy moving, we actually need more qualified roofers, construction workers, agricultural workers, child care workers, health assistants, security guards, janitors, landscapers, and convenience store operators than we do rocket scientists.

And, no, Tom Cotton and David Purdue, there aren’t enough “American workers” available to fill all these positions, even at greatly increased wages (which, incidentally, your fat cat GOP business supporters have no intention of paying anyway)! How high would the wages have to be to make guys like Cotton and Purdue give up their legislative sinecures (where they do nothing except show up for a few judicial votes on far right candidates scheduled by McConnell) and lay roofs correctly in 100-degree heat?

Rather than working against market forces to artificially restrict the labor supply, those wanting to improve wages and working conditions for American workers should favor higher minimum wages, aggressive enforcement of wage and hour and OSHA laws, and more unions. But, the GOP hates all of those real solutions.

The proposal also ignores “Dreamers,” which is sure to be a sore point with the Democrats. On the other side, it fails to sharply (and mindlessly) slash overall legal immigration levels as demanded by GOP nativists. While this proposal does not directly target children or dump on refugees from the Northern Triangle based on race and nationality, the ever slimier Trump sycophant Lindsey Graham has introduced a bill that promises to do both.

Beyond the purely humanitarian considerations, refugees make huge contributions to our economy and society. So, why would we want to screw them over? Family immigrants arrive not only with skills, but with a “leg up”on adjustment and assimilation. So, why would we want to dump on them?

For the most part, this looks more like a Trump campaign backgrounder or a diversion from his endless stream of lies, unethical behavior, and downright stupid actions that are a constant threat to our national security. What it doesn’t look like is a serious bipartisan proposal to give America the robust, expanded, more realistic, market responsive legal immigration, asylum, and refugee systems we need to secure our borders from real dangers (which doesn’t include most asylum seekers and would-be workers) and move America forward in the 21st century. Without regime change and a sea change that would break the GOP’s minority hold on Congress through the Senate, immigration is likely to remain a mess.

PWS

05-17-19

PROFESSOR FITZ BRUNDAGE @ WASHPOST: Can We Regain Our Humanitarian Values In The Age Of Trump? — “We must shine a spotlight on cruel and illegal policies that undermine our national ideals and find the wisdom and the courage to do better.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/03/can-united-states-retain-its-humanity-even-crisis

Brundage writes in WashPost:

By Fitz Brundage

Fitz Brundage is the William B. Umstead professor of history at UNC-Chapel Hill and the author of “Civilizing Torture,” which was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in History.

May 3

Does it violate human rights to hold children in fenced enclosures in grim facilities that are bone-chillingly cold for weeks on end? Is separating children from their parents a form of cruel and unusual punishment? When does a crisis justify the kind of treatment normally seen as inhumane?

The furious debate over migrant detention along the nation’s southwest border with Mexico has put these questions front and center in American politics. But they’re not new. The treatment of people on the margins of American life — criminals, immigrants, civilians in overseas war zones — has always proven a challenge to our democratic ideals.

Yet beginning in the 1920s, activists waged a half-century-long struggle to persuade the Supreme Court to stop abusive practices by authorities. After World War II, the United States also committed itself to the promotion of international human rights. These two signal developments have been seriously eroded, first by the excesses of the war on terrorism and now by the Trump administration’s targeting of the unwelcome and powerless, whether they are undocumented immigrants in the United States or asylum seekers. We have returned to a pattern of willful ignorance, one that allows us to avoid grappling with deeply immoral policies.

Threats to our safety, perceived or real, have long justified the kind of “tougher policies” that President Trump has demanded for the southern border. He may not be well versed in history, but the president is joining a long line of elected officials who found that rights and basic norms are easily jettisoned when they collide with demands for greater security. Across our history, from the Indian wars to the war on terrorism, officials were quick to call for “tougher policies” and slow to fill in the details. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered military commanders in the Philippines to adopt “the most stern measures” to punish Filipino guerrillas; in a subsequent campaign the Marines followed orders and left a trail of devastation and death across the island of Samar. But such methods were justified as a “military necessity.”

Roosevelt rationalized the brutal treatment of alleged guerrillas by citing the need to stanch the threat to security. This kind of evasive language has repeatedly prevented us from coming to terms with acts of cruelty carried out in the name of national security. We’re seeing that pattern again.

What precisely did Trump officials mean when they announced “a tougher direction” for immigration? They certainly imply more than just the proposals for new fees and regulations reducing the numbers of asylum seekers. Are the American people ready to confront the reality of harsh security measures? Or will we retreat into euphemisms such as a “hardened” border and “zero tolerance” for migrants that covers up the reality of what is actually happening on the border?

As early as 2014, immigrants-rights advocates appealed to the Department of Homeland Security to investigate more than 100 instances of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents abusing child immigrants. A quarter of the children reported physical abuse, including sexual assault, the use of stress positions and beatings. Many more suffered verbal abuse, including death threats. Since then, goaded by Trump, CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have applied even more extreme measures, including harsh confinement and prolonged separation of families.

We are deciding day by day whether to extend the basic protections of law and civilization to the people arriving on our border. For much of the nation’s history, the prohibition on cruelty and torture in American law rested on the premise that the fundamental decency of Americans, especially empathy for fellow citizens, would make such violations unthinkable.

But our capacity to empathize begins to fray at the margins, and we grow less certain about who, exactly, deserves protection. Those deemed undeserving, unwelcome or powerless — Native Americans, the enslaved, prison inmates and criminal suspects — have commonly suffered forms of violence and abuse that violated our national principles. Some people are inside the protection of the law, and some are cast out from it.

We’re seeing a replay of that ugly history unfold along our southern border. If the Trump administration codifies its get-tough rhetoric into harsher policies, we will see far more allegations of human rights abuses against the men and women charged with securing our border. And we probably will rationalize it by claiming that those responsible are just a few bad apples rather than reckoning with the ways cruelty has been embedded in the policy itself. Like the euphemistic language of security, this choice allows us to avoid uncomfortable questions about our moral values.

In fact, we’ve already seen this pattern. Accusations of cruelty and torture by ICE and CBP agents have been circulating for years, and they follow this well-worn pattern. Official denials are followed by investigations that almost always find limited violations by “a few bad apples,” not the kind of systemic abuse that would call our broader policies into question.

This pattern has long historical roots: When investigations of police brutality in Washington during the 1930s revealed widespread use of abusive interrogation methods, the police superintendent, whose predecessors had dismissed similar allegations for decades, only grudgingly conceded that a few officers may have gone too far in their resolve to protect the public.

By seeing violations of human rights as rare exceptions, unfortunate lapses that don’t challenge our fundamental sense of decency, Americans can avoid any real reckoning with the policies we’ve approved — which often violate our purported values. Very few of the officers and soldiers responsible for the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam in 1968 and none of the architects of the George W. Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation” policies have faced legal consequences. Even Jon Burge, a notorious ringleader of lawless police in Chicago during the 1970s and 1980s, was convicted of perjury for lying to police investigators rather than torturing countless suspects.

Focusing on bad apples has long allowed us to excuse morally bankrupt policies. We need to realize that human rights abuses on the southern border aren’t spurred by immoral actors in ICE or CBP, but rather because of a political leadership that can’t or won’t come up with humane immigration policies.

Congress needs to do its job and exercise scrupulous oversight of Trump’s immigration policies. But the real solution to our border crisis is to demand that all elected officials, from local sheriffs to senators, responsibly address immigration and human rights. Trump declared that he wants immigration to be a key campaign issue in 2020. His opponents should accept that challenge. We must shine a spotlight on cruel and illegal policies that undermine our national ideals and find the wisdom and the courage to do better.

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Join the New Due Process Army today and fight for human rights, the rule of law, accountability for Government scofflaws, and a return to basic human decency! Fight for a better future for ALL Americans!

PWS

05-07-19

TAL @ SF CHRON: Dems Start Talking Specifics On Immigration For 2020

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/2020-Democrats-grapple-with-immigration-message-13746205.php

2020 Democrats grapple with immigration message as border crossings surge

By Tal Kopan

WASHINGTON — Democrats credit their 2018 midterm success to focusing on pocketbook issues and avoiding engaging with President Trump on immigration They may not have that luxury in 2020.

The U.S. is on pace to receive more migrants at the southern border — many of whom are seeking asylum — in fiscal year 2019 than in any year in over a decade. At current rates, more than 750,000 migrants would either be caught trying to cross the border illegally or show up at a valid crossing without authorization to enter. The Trump administration says it is unable to handle the influx, and photos of migrants held in pens under a bridge in El Paso last month made national headlines.

But aside from condemning Trump’s immigration policies as cruel contributors to the problem, Democrats have largely avoided talking about border-security ideas. Most of the party’s presidential candidates have focused on expanding access to health care and other economic measures intended to boost the middle class, and have touched on immigration only in broad strokes.

But that could change very soon — and should, some experts say.

“Trump wants to turn the 2020 election into a debate between GOP border hawks and Democratic open borders-types,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the pro-immigrant advocacy group America’s Voice. “Democrats would be wise to turn the debate into Trump’s cruelty and incompetence versus Democrats’ practical solutions. … I think it’s a time for serious people to step up with serious ideas.”

Trump threatened to close the U.S. border with Mexico before backing away from the idea last week. But he’s made clear that just as they were in 2016, immigration issues will be at the center of his 2020 campaign. On Friday, the Trump campaign released a video consisting of comments from Democratic presidential contenders downplaying the situation at the border, with text declaring, “Democrats do not want to keep Americans safe.”

Democrats consistently attack Trump’s immigration comments and agenda, but tend to limit discussion of their own policies to promoting paths to citizenship for sympathetic populations of undocumented migrants. Some worry that if they don’t have a clear plan to address the increasing numbers of asylum seekers at the border, Trump could ride the issue to victory again.

“This is going to be the cannon fodder for the Trump campaign and for Republicans in general,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., a senior member of Congress’ Progressive Caucus and Hispanic Caucus. “I think that we need to be proactive. … The hard edge is going to want nothing but Trump’s policy, of which there is none. I think the vast middle are looking for somebody taking the lead to try to solve the issue, as opposed to continuing to use it” politically.

Two of former President Barack Obama’s top communications strategists agreed.

“We need to go on offense as soon as humanly possible,” former Obama national security spokesman Tommy Vietor said last week on the “Pod Save America” podcast. “We can’t sit back and say just, ‘No wall, no fence,’ and let him hammer us until (the) election.”

Former Obama chief speechwriter Jon Favreau added, “The point that Democrats don’t make enough is, we always say that his immigration policy is cruel, which it is, but it’s also dumb. It just doesn’t work.”

Although Grijalva has not endorsed any of the Democratic candidates for president, he praised former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro for releasing a formal immigration policy last week, making him the first candidate to do so.

Castro’s proposal includes the Democratic staples of offering a pathway to citizenship for “Dreamers” — young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors — as well as the broader undocumented population. It would rescind many Trump administration policies, including the ban on travel from several majority-Muslim countries and other nations, and pour money and diplomatic resources into the Central American nations that many of the migrants are fleeing.

Castro also proposes progressive positions like breaking up Immigration and Customs Enforcement and redistributing its functions. He also would make it no longer a crime to cross the border illegally, leaving it up to immigration courts to handle the civil offenses related to being in the country without authorization.

Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke comes from the border city of El Paso, but when he served in the House, he played no leadership role in immigration debates. O’Rourke wrote a Medium post last week on the issue and offered a set of 10 proposals that included expanding legal immigration and investing in border infrastructure and Central America.

Other candidates have also spoken up about immigration, without making it a central theme of their campaigns. The Chronicle reached out to the major declared candidates for their policies, and all the ones who responded supported a pathway to citizenship for at least some undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. But none offered many specifics about what they would do at the southern border, other than encouraging aid to Central America.

California’s Kamala Harris has engaged on the issue as a senator, questioning the Department of Homeland Security on its policies and being an outspoken advocate of Dreamers. Last week, she introduced a bill that would allow Dreamers who are temporarily protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals act to be paid for work in congressional offices. She frequently cites her own life story as the child of two immigrants. But as a candidate, Harris has said little about her border policy proposals and has made economic issues her signature.

A spokeswoman for New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said he would reform the immigration system while “enforcing our laws and securing our borders in ways consistent with our values.”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders wants a “humane and secure” system that “dismantles inhumane deportation programs,” restructures ICE and puts “the sanctity of families at the forefront,” according to his campaign.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren supports comprehensive immigration reform, reversing cuts in aid to Central America and “making sure we provide the support needed so mamas don’t have to flee with their babies for their lives,” according to an aide.

The lack of engagement by the presidential field is indicative of broader soul-searching within the party, including in the House. Progressive Caucus co-chairwoman Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said she is part of a group working on “principles” for the party. O’Rourke’s successor in his House seat, Rep. Veronica Escobar, said she spoke to the Democratic caucus during a recent closed-door meeting about the need to come up with a plan.

“The Trump administration does everything it can to fuel the flames of fear and discord and xenophobia, and we have to demonstrate an alternative to that,” Escobar said. “So I do think presidential candidates need to lean in.”

But not every Democrat thinks going on offense on immigration would be wise. Swing district Democrats largely avoided the issue in the 2018 midterms — they were “queasy” at the idea of getting near it, Grijalva said — and some Democrats hope to repeat their success by side-stepping it again, at least for now.

“We had a 35-day national conversation about border security, and it ended with Donald Trump engaging in an unconditional surrender,” said New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a member of party leadership, referring to the partial government shutdown over border wall funding. “The 116th Congress, from the perspective of House Democrats, will continue to be about lowering health care costs and enacting a real infrastructure plan, and trying to do those two things in a bipartisan fashion.”

He said Democrats’ focus in the presidential race should be distinguishing themselves in the primary. “It’s not necessarily clear to me that in that context there’s a lot of daylight on immigration,” Jeffries said. “Once somebody emerges as a Democratic nominee, then there will be an opportunity to lay out a contrasting vision with the xenophobe-in-chief Donald Trump.”

Hillary Clinton’s former campaign press secretary, Brian Fallon, who now runs the left-aligned advocacy group Demand Justice, argued that Democrats should avoid debating on Trump’s terms.

“In 2020, Donald Trump can be expected to do the same thing that he did leading up to the 2018 midterms, which is try to manufacture political controversies on his issues,” Fallon said. “Getting wrapped around the axle on the terrain that he wants to fight on is a losing strategy, and he would love the first, second, and third issue in October of 2020 to be immigration. And if we are trying to choose our preferred issue, it should be health care.”

A senior aide for Trump’s re-election campaign confirmed that Trump would again be running on a border security message.

“He’s made that a cornerstone of his campaign since Day One — that’s not going to change,” said the aide, who requested anonymity to speak more freely. “Democrats are denying the crisis at the border. They want to see who can go the furthest left as they try and not address the issue at hand. They want to abolish ICE, they want to tear down existing barriers, they want to decriminalize border crossings. At what point are we addressing what is a true crisis at the southern border?”

One risk for Democrats is letting the loudest and most progressive voices define the issue for the party, said Ali Noorani, executive director of the moderate immigration advocacy group the National Immigration Forum. Many progressives, for example, want to abolish ICE, a proposal that could be unpopular with swing voters.

“I think the challenge for the party writ large, whether it’s the presidential candidates or Congress, is the perception that Democrats are just against whatever Trump is for on immigration, and a lot of the political conversation is sucked up by the progressive element in the House,” Noorani said.

The 2020 candidates should quickly articulate their own vision on the issue, he added. “Otherwise, Trump will define the Democrats’ position for them.”

Some Republicans join Democrats in believing Trump has left room in the middle with his aggressive immigration agenda. GOP strategist Kevin Madden, a veteran of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns, said Trump’s immigration message hurt Republicans with suburban swing voters in the midterms, and that “pragmatism” would sell.

“It can’t just be reflexive opposition,” Madden said. “If you know this debate is going to take place, why would you wait until the president starts attacking you to come up with your plan and your message? You have to have an anticipatory self-defense on this so you have a greater opportunity to win the middle.”

Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent. Email: tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @talkopan

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A rational, humane, generous immigration policy that benefits the economy while rejecting the politics of bombast, hate, racism, and ignorance should be a winner in 2022 just like it was in 2018. That’s particularly true because Trump and the GOP have self destructed on health care, another winning issue for the Dems.

As I mentioned last week, I think the immigration policy agenda offered by Julian Castro is where America must go sooner or later to survive and prosper. He might not be the candidate, but his common-sense, fact-based proposal could be the “winning ticket.”

PWS

04-07-19

JULIAN CASTRO: A Democrat With A Sane & Sound Immigration Plan!

https://www.julianforthefuture.com/news-events/people-first-immigration-policy/

People First Immigration Policy

By Julián Castro on April 2, 2019

People First Immigration Policy

Immigration Policy Summary

1. Reforming our Immigration System

Establish an inclusive roadmap to citizenship for undocumented individuals and families who do not have a current pathway to legal status, but who live, work, and raise families in communities throughout the United States.

Provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and those under Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure, through the Dream and Promise Act of 2019, and defend DACA and TPS protections during the legislative process.

Revamp the visa system and strengthen family reunification through the Reuniting Families Act, reducing the number of people who are waiting to reunite with their families but are stuck in the bureaucratic backlog.

Terminate the three and ten year bars, which require undocumented individuals—who otherwise qualify for legal status—to leave the United States and their families behind for years before becoming citizens.

Rescind Trump’s discriminatory Muslim and Refugee Ban, other harmful immigration-related executive orders, racial profiling of minority communities, and expanded use of denaturalization as a frequently used course of action through the USCIS Denaturalization Task Force.

Increase refugee admissions, reversing cuts under Trump, and restoring our nation to its historic position as a moral leader providing a safe haven for those fleeing persecution, violence, disaster, and despair. Adapt these programs to account for new global challenges like climate change.

End cooperation agreements under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and other such agreements between federal immigration enforcement agencies and state and local entities that erode trust between communities and local police.

Allow all deported veterans who honorably served in the armed forces of the United States to return to the United States and end the practice of deporting such veterans.

Strengthen labor protections for skilled and unskilled guest workers and end exploitative practices which hurt residents and guest workers, provide work authorization to spouses of participating individuals, and ensured skilled and unskilled guest workers have a fair opportunity to become residents and citizens through the Agricultural Worker Program Act.

Protect victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking, ensuring these individuals are not subject to detention, deportation, or legal reprisal following their reporting these incidents.

2. Creating a Humane Border Policy

Repeal Section 1325 of Immigration and Nationality Act, which applies a criminal, rather than civil, violation to people apprehended when entering the United States. This provision has allowed for separation of children and families at our border, the large scale detention of tens of thousands of families, and has deterred migrants from turning themselves in to an immigration official within our borders. The widespread detention of these individuals and families at our border has overburdened our justice system, been ineffective at deterring migration, and has cost our government billions of dollars.

Effectively end the use of detention in conducting immigration enforcement, except in serious cases.Utilize cost-effective and more humane alternatives to detention, which draw on the successes of prior efforts like the Family Case Management Program. Ensure all individuals have access to a bond hearing and that vulnerable populations, including children, pregnant women, and members of the LGBTQ community are not placed in civil detention.

Eliminate the for-profit immigration detention and prison industry, which monetizes the detention of migrants and children.

End immigration enforcement raids at or near sensitive locations such as schools, hospitals, churches, and courthouses.

Reconstitute the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) by splitting the agency in half and re-assigning enforcement functions within the Enforcement and Removal Operations to other agencies, including the Department of Justice. There must be a thorough investigation of ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and the Department of Justice’s role in family separation policies instituted by the Trump administration.

Reprioritize Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to focus its efforts on border-related activities including drug and human trafficking, rather than law enforcement activities in the interior of the United States. Extend Department of Justice civil rights jurisdiction to CBP, and adopt best practices employed in law enforcement, including body-worn cameras and strong accountability policies.

End wasteful, ineffective and invasive border wall construction and consult with border communities about repairing environmental and other damage already done.
Properly equip our ports of entry, investing in infrastructure, staff, and technology to process claims and prevent human and drug trafficking.

End asylum “metering” and the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, ensuring all asylum seekers are able to present their claims to U.S.officials.

Create a well-resourced and independent immigration court system under Article 1 of the Constitution, outside the Department of Justice, to increase the hiring and retention of independent judges to adjudicate immigration claims faster.

Increase access to legal assistance for individuals and families presenting asylum claims, ensuring individuals understand their rights and are able to make an informed and accurate request for asylum. Guarantee counsel for all children in the immigration enforcement system.

Protect victims of domestic and gang violence, by reversing guidance by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that prohibited asylum claims on the basis of credible fear stemming from domestic or gang violence.

3. Establishing a 21st Century ‘Marshall Plan’ for Central America

Prioritize high-level diplomacy with our neighbors in Latin America, a region where challenges in governance and economic development have consequences to migration to the United States, U.S. economic growth, and regional instability.

Ensure higher standards of governance, transparency, rule-of-law, and anti-corruption practice as the heart of U.S. engagement with Central America, rejecting the idea that regional stability requires overlooking authoritarian actions.

Enlist all actors in Central America to be part of the solution by restoring U.S. credibility on corruption and transparency and encouraging private sector, civil society, and local governments to work together – rather than at cross purposes – to build sustainable, equitable societies.

Bolster economic development, superior labor rights, and environmentally sustainable jobs, allowing individuals to build a life in their communities rather than make a dangerous journey leaving their homes.

Ensure regional partners are part of the solution by working with countries in the Western Hemisphere to channel resources to address development challenges in Central America, including through a newly constituted multilateral development fund focused on sustainable and inclusive economic growth in Central America.

Target illicit networks and transnational criminal organizations through law enforcement actions and sanctions mechanisms to eliminate their ability to raise revenue from illegal activities like human and drug trafficking and public corruption.

Re-establish the Central American Minors program, which allows individuals in the United States to petition for their minor children residing in Central America to apply for resettlement in the U.S. while their applications are pending.

Increase funding for bottom-up development and violence prevention programs, including the Inter-American Foundation, to spur initiatives that prevent violence at the local level, support public health and nutrition, and partner with the private sector to create jobs.

Finally a thoughtful, empirically-based, plan that stops wasting money, harming people, and limiting America’s future: Moving us forward rather than “doubling down” on all of the worst failures and most dismal mistakes of the past.

Castro’s plan echoes many of the ideas I have been promoting on immigrationcourtside.com and reflects the “battle plan” of the “New Due Process Army.” Most important, it establishes an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court, the key to making any reforms effective and bringing back the essential emphasis on fulfilling our Constitutional requirement to “guarantee fairness and Due Process for all.”

While stopping short of recommending “universal representation,” something I would favor, Castro does:

Recognize the importance of increasing, rather than intentionally limiting access to counsel;
Promote “know your rights” presentations that help individuals understand the system, its requirements, their responsibilities, and to make informed decisions about how to proceed; and
Universal representation for children in Immigration Court (thus, finally ending one of the most grotesque “Due Process Farces” in modern U.S. legal history).

So far, Castro remains “below the radar” in the overcrowded race to be the 2020 Democratic standard-bearer. But, even if his presidential campaign fails to “catch fire” his thoughtful, humane, practical, and forward-looking immigration agenda deserves attention and emulation.

Many thanks to Nolan Rappaport for passing this along.

PWS

04-03-19

TWO LA TIMES EDITORIALS “SPOT ON” IN CALLING OUT TRUMP’S FAILED BORDER POLICIES, BOGUS EMERGENCY, & ABUSE OF IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY!

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=d85e48a2-1a59-4182-854b-dfd9a146177c

TThe numbers are sobering. The federal government reported Tuesday that immigration agents apprehended 76,000 people — most of them families or unaccompanied minors — at the U.S.-Mexico border in February, twice the level of the previous year and the highest for February in 11 years. The increase continues a trend that began in the fall, and offers direct evidence that President Trump’s strategy of maximal enforcement at the border is not reducing the flow of migrants.

And no, the answer is not “a big, beautiful wall.” Most of those apprehended weren’t trying to sneak past border agents; instead, they sought out agents once they reached the border and turned themselves in, hoping to receive permission to stay.

Furthermore, the situation isn’t a national security emergency, as he has declared in an effort to spend more on his border wall than Congress provided. It’s a complex humanitarian crisis that appears to be worsening, and it’s going to take creative analytical minds to address.

For instance, the vast majority of the families flowing north in recent months come from poor regions of Guatemala, where food insecurity and local conflicts over land rights and environmental protections are pushing more people off their farms and into even deeper poverty, according to human rights observers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Just months earlier, gang violence in urbanized areas were pushing people north to the United States; increasingly now, it’s economics.

But Trump’s rhetoric may be playing a role too. The more he threatens draconian enforcement and cutbacks in legal immigration, the more people contemplating moving north are pushed to go sooner, before it gets even harder to reach the U.S. Similarly, more migrants are arriving at more treacherous and remote stretches of the border to avoid getting stuck in Tijuana or other border cities where the U.S. government has reduced the number of asylum seekers it will allow in, claiming an inability to process the requests.

The system is overwhelmed. But the solution isn’t to build a wall, incarcerate more people, separate children from their parents or deny people their legal right to seek asylum. The solution is to improve the efficiency and capacity of the system to deal with the changed migrant demographics. A decade ago, about 1 in 100 border crossers was an unaccompanied minor or asylum seeker; now about a third are.

More judges and support staffs are necessary for the immigration court system, as the Trump administration has sought from Congress. Yet the case backlog there has continued to grow — in part because the increase in enforcement actions, in part because the Justice Department ordered the courts to reopen cases that had been closed administratively without deportations, often because the migrant was in the process of obtaining a visa. A faster and fair process would give those deserving asylum the answer they need sooner, cutting back on the years they spend in limbo, while no longer incentivizing those unqualified for asylum to try anyway.

The Migration Policy Institute, a think tank, has suggested one partial fix. Currently, migrants claiming asylum have a near-immediate initial “credible fear” hearing with an asylum officer from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, who determines whether the migrant has a significant potential to make a successful asylum claim. Most migrants pass that low threshold and are then directed to the immigration courts to make the formal case, a more involved process that can take years. Keeping those cases within the citizenship and immigration branch for an administrative hearing instead of sending them to immigration court could lead to faster decisions for the deserving at a lower cost — a single asylum agent is cheaper than a court staff — while preserving legal rights by giving those denied asylum a chance to appeal to the immigration courts. That’s a process worth contemplating.

More fundamentally, the current system hasn’t worked for years, and under Trump’s enforcement strategy it has gotten worse. It’s a big ask, but Congress and the president need to work together to develop a more capable system that manages the many different aspects of immigration in the best interests of the nation while accommodating the rights of the persecuted to seek asylum.

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=1cbd9b3d-f2d0-4249-b602-37223ff3f407

The U.S. government is reportedly compiling dossiers on journalists, lawyers and activists at the border.

ASan Diego television station recently obtained some troubling documents that seem to show that the U.S. government, working with Mexican officials under a program called Operation Secure Line, has created and shared dossiers on journalists, immigrant rights lawyers and activists covering or involved with the so-called caravans of migrants moving from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Worse yet, the government then detained some of these people for questioning (one photojournalist was held for 13 hours), barred some of them from crossing the border and interfered with their legitimate efforts to do their jobs. NBC 7 also received a copy of a purported government dossier on lawyer Nicole Ramos, refugee program director for a migrant rights group, that included a description of her car, her mother’s name, and details on her work and travel history. That’s not border security, that’s an intelligence operation and, as the American Civil Liberties Union pointed out, “an outrageous violation of the First Amendment.”

The ACLU noted correctly that it is impermissible for the government to use “the pretext of the border to target activists critical of its policies, lawyers providing legal representation, or journalists simply doing their jobs.”

It’s unclear when the intelligence gathering began, or how widespread it is, but the Committee to Protect Journalists reported in October that U.S. border agents, using the broad power the law gives them to question people entering the country, seemingly singled out journalists for in-depth examinations, including searching their phones, laptops and cameras — all without warrants, because they’re generally not required at the border. These are troubling developments deserving of close scrutiny by Congress and, if warranted, the courts.

The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for controlling the flow of people across U.S. borders and has broad and court-recognized authority to search for contraband. But the government should not use that authority as a pretext to try to gain information to which it would not otherwise be entitled. And it certainly doesn’t give it a framework for harassing or maintaining secret files on journalists, lawyers and activists who are covering, representing or working with activists.

Homeland Security defended the targeting by linking the intelligence operation to the agency’s investigation of efforts this winter by some Central American migrants to cross the wall near San Ysidro, Calif. It said also that all the people entered into the database had witnessed border violence. That sounds an awful lot like a criminal investigation, not a border security operation.

The name of the report leaked to NBC 7 was “Migrant Caravan FY-2019: Suspected Organizers, Coordinators, Instigators, and Media.” The only thing suspect here is the government’s actions.

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

Unfortunately, the second editorial on the “enemies list” shows why the first one on solving the Central American forced migration issue in a sensible, legal, and humanitarian manner simply isn’t in the cards without “regime change.”

First, the Trump Administration simply lacks the competence, professionalism, and expertise to solve real problems. The absolutely stunning incompetence of Nielsen and the rest of the politicos who supposedly run immigration and national security policy these days was on full display this week. America’s “real” enemies must have been watching with glee at this public demonstration of lack of competence and concern for any of the actual national security issues facing our nation.

Career civil servants who have the knowledge, expertise, motivation, and ability to solve migration problems have been forced out, buried in make-work “hallwalker jobs” deep in the bowls of the bureaucracy, or simply silenced and ignored. The Administration has also declared war on facts, knowledge, human decency and scorns the humanitarian expertise available in the private and NGO sectors.

Second, there is zip motivation within the Trump Kakistocracy to solve to the problem. As long as neo-Nazi Stephen Miller is in charge of immigration policy, we’ll get nothing but White Nationalist, racist nonsense. Miller and the White Nationalist restrictionists (like Trump & Sessions) have no motivation to solve immigration problems in a practical, humane, legal manner.

No, the White Nationalist agenda is to use lies, intentionally false narratives, racial and ethnic stereotypes, bogus statistics, and outright attacks on our legal system to further an agenda of hate, intolerance, and division in America intended to enfranchise a largely White GOP kakistocracy while disenfranchising everyone else. It plays to a certain unhappy and ill-informed political “base” that has enabled a minority who cares not a whit about the common good to seize control of our country.

While the forces of evil, division, and Constitutional nihilism can be resisted in the courts, the press, and now the House of Representatives, the reign of “malicious incompetence” can only be ended at the ballot box. If it doesn’t happen in 2020, and there is certainly no guarantee that it will, it might well be too late for the future of our republic.

PWS

03-07-19

ABA PRESIDENT BOB CARLSON PUTS DUE PROCESS CRISIS IN IMMIGRATION @ TOP OF HIS “MUST DO” LIST — Independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court & More Legal Representation Are The Keys!

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/immigration-matters-fair-process

Immigration Matters: A fairer process is needed for those seeking entry to the United States

BY BOB CARLSON

MARCH 20

Photo of Bob Carlson by Tom Salyer

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

These words from an Emma Lazarus sonnet, engraved on a plaque on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, are not policy or law. Yet they embody the ideals and spirit of America, a land of immigrants.

Despite the countless ways that immigrants have advanced our country and have helped to fuel innovation and growth, the United States cannot welcome everyone who yearns to breathe free. Our nation needs to regulate and control immigration, have secure borders and keep people safe. But developing clear, comprehensive, practical and humane immigration law is possible—and long overdue.

Policies that separate children from their parents or deny legitimate asylum-seekers due process violate both our values and established law. The ABA has made this clear in a letter sent to the U.S. Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security. The ABA has suggested guidelines and compiled thoughtful and well-researched publications such as the recently updated “Standards for the Custody, Placement and Care; Legal Representation; and Adjudication of Unaccompanied Alien Children in the United States.”

While crafting comprehensive immigration law in a divided society can be difficult, it is imperative. One place to start is immigration courts.

An independent judiciary is a hallmark of our democracy. It encompasses the principle that all people are entitled to fair and impartial legal proceedings where important rights are at stake. Immigration courts decide issues that are life-altering.

Immigration courts, however, lack the safeguards that other parts of our justice system have. Structural and procedural issues have resulted in a backlog of more than 800,000 cases even though in recent years Congress has added resources, including a sizable increase in the number of judges and support staff.

Immigration courts currently exist within the Justice Department. Their personnel and operations are subject to direct control of the attorney general. Immigration judges can be removed without cause and can be at the mercy of whatever policy the attorney general wants followed. It can change from administration to administration. This structure creates a fatal flaw to an independent, impartial judiciary.

Restructuring the immigration adjudication system into an Article I court is the best solution to promote independence, impartiality, efficiency and accountability. Article I legislative courts are established by Congress, and judges would only be subject to removal for cause and not without judicial review. The U.S. Tax Court—where judges are nominated by the president, confirmed by the Senate and serve terms of 15 years—could act as a model. The idea has been endorsed by the National Association of Immigration Judges for more than two decades. The ABA adopted policy in 2010 calling for the creation of Article I immigration courts.

Another problem is representation. Access to counsel and legal information are critical in ensuring fairness and efficiency in the immigration system, yet only 37 percent of people in removal proceedings and just 14 percent of those detained are represented by counsel. The odds of winning an asylum case without legal representation are one in 10 while those with a lawyer win nearly 50 percent of their cases.

The ABA supports the right to appointed counsel for vulnerable populations in immigration proceedings, such as unaccompanied children, and mentally ill and indigent immigrants. Budgetary challenges make this unlikely to happen soon, so access to as much information about the process is critical.

The ABA, supported by its Commission on Immigration, will continue to advocate for fairness and full due process for immigrants and asylum-seekers in the United States and ensure an equitable, effective process for adjudicating immigration cases. This serves the interest of both the government and individuals within the system.

Our efforts to solve the problems must not undermine the fundamental principles that exemplify America and our justice system. Welcoming immigrants has been a strength of America since its founding.

As President George Washington said: “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.”

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

I testified before the ABA Commission on Immigration about the “Due Process Crisis in Immigration Court,” the need for an Article I Court, the requirement for more lawyers, and the absolute Due Process disaster engendered by the intentionally misguided policies of the Trump Administration as they related to the abusive, counterproductive, and disingenuous use of the Immigration Courts as a branch of DHS Enforcement. The massive failure of Due Process in the U.S. Immigration Courts, the “retail level” of our justice system, threatens the individuals rights of all of us!

PWS

03-03-19

COLBY KING @ WASHPOST: The “Original Dreamers” Were Disenfranchised African Americans! — “That fight must continue on behalf of today’s dreamers, the disenfranchised, the demeaned and left out, and all freedom-loving people in this nation.“

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-black-men-of-the-civil-war-were-americas-original-dreamers/2019/02/15/8c00088e-30a8-11e9-813a-0ab2f17e305b_story.html

Colby King writes in WashPost:

Today, a wall looms large in my thoughts. It isn’t the structure President Trump has in mind for our southern border. I’m thinking of the Wall of Honor at the African American Civil War Memorial, located at Vermont Avenue and U Street NW.

Listed on the wall are the names of 209,145 U.S. Colored Troops who fought during the Civil War. One of those names is that of Isaiah King, my great-grandfather.

I think of those courageous black men as America’s original “dreamers.”

Today’s dreamers are in their teens and 20s, having arrived in this country as children. King’s generation of dreamers were former slaves or descendants of slaves brought to these shores against their will.

However, the black men who fought in the Civil War had the same status as today’s dreamers: noncitizens without a discernable path to citizenship.

Like dreamers of today, those black soldiers and sailors also had families and attended churches; some were enrolled in schools. They could dream of a future, anchored in the rights and privileges that come with democracy. But they had no legal claim to an existence within America’s borders.

My great-grandfather was born in the slave-holding city of Washington in 1848, but his mother was a freed woman. She moved the family to New Bedford, Mass., when he was 4. Around the time of his 17th birthday, Isaiah King enlistedin the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry (Colored), thinking, “I would have it easier riding than walking,” he told the New Bedford Evening Standard in an interview on the eve of Memorial Day services in 1932.

Black men such as my great-grandfather signed on to fight for a Union in which the right to citizenship was reserved for white people. The Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford, in 1857, that black people were not citizens of the United States. Putting it bluntly, the high court said black people were “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

And even then, they started their service to the United States one step behind.

In his book “The Fifth Massachusetts Colored Cavalry in the Civil War,” Steven M. LaBarre cited the first disparity: It was enshrined in the Second Confiscation and Militia Act of July 17, 1862, which authorized recruitment of black men into the Union army. The law stated that a “person of African descent [of any rank] . . . shall receive ten dollars per month . . . three dollars of which monthly pay may be in clothing.” White privates at the time received $13 per month plus a $3.50 clothing allowance. It wasn’t until July 15, 1864, that Congress granted equal pay to black soldiers.

Yet, serve they did.

As evidence of the regard in which they were held, LaBarre quoted Massachusetts Gov. John Albion Andrew’s commendation of the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry when it was launched: “In this hour of hope for our common country and for themselves; at a time when they hold the destiny of their race in their own grasp; and when its certain emancipation from prejudice, as well as slavery, is in the hands of those now invited to unite in the final blow which will annihilate the rebel power, let no brave and strong man hesitate. One cannot exaggerate the call sounding in the ears of all men, in whose veins flows the blood of Africa, and whose color has been the badge of slavery. It offers the opportunity of years, crowded into an hour.”

Volunteering was a start. They still had something to prove.

According to National Archives, by the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men were serving as soldiers — 10 percent of the Union army — and 19,000 served in the Union navy. Nearly 40,000 black soldiers died over the course of the war — 30,000 of infection or disease. By war’s end, 16 black soldiers had been awarded the Medal of Honor .

King came back to the capital in May 1864 as a private with the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry to defend the city against attack by Confederate troops. His unit participated in the Siege of Petersburg. They guarded Confederate prisoners at Point Lookout, Md. And his unit was among the first Union regiments to enter Richmond, capital of the dying Confederacy, on April 3, 1865.

The Civil War ended, but not his service. Three months later, the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry was sent to Texas to defend against threats from Mexico. (Sound familiar?) He was mustered out of service on Oct. 31, 1865, at Clarksville, Tex. — still not a citizen of the United States.

It wasn’t until 1868 that the threat of removal from the United States was lifted by the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in this country, including former slaves.

The men with names on the African American Civil War Memorial’s Wall of Honor fought and died to end two centuries of slavery, without being able to count democracy as their own.

For their descendants, the fight for full rights, for full participation in every part of our democracy, goes on.

That fight must continue on behalf of today’s dreamers, the disenfranchised, the demeaned and left out, and all freedom-loving people in this nation.

Read more from Colbert King’s archive.

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Thanks, Colby, for putting the current plight of “Dreamers” (and I might add refugees and other migrants who are serving, contributing, and building our society despite their disenfranchisement and the government-sponsored dehumanization being inflicted upon them) in the historical context of the fight for civil rights and human dignity in America.

That’s why the “21st Century Jim Crows” like Trump, Sessions, Stephen Miller, Sen. Tom Cotton, Rep. Steve King, and others (largely associated with the GOP) are so pernicious. Like the “Jim Crows of the past,” these guys use degrading racial stereotypes, intentionally false narratives, and bogus “rule of law” arguments to generate hate and bias, sow division, and use the law to suppress and violate rights rather than advancing them.

While sycophant DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen does not appear to be an “ideological racist,” her mindless and disingenuous parroting of the Trump White Nationalist “party lies” and “enforcement” (read “de-humanization”) agenda certainly makes her a “functional racist.”

It’s quite outrageous and dangerous that individuals with these types of views have been elevated to powerful public offices in the modern era, after the death of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?

PWS

02-16-19

PAUL WALDMAN @ WASHPOST: Why True Bipartisan Immigration Reform In Our National Interest Will Require “Regime Change:” “[I]t’s highly unlikely that we’ll achieve such reform, even reform most Republicans could live with, without both houses of Congress and the White House in Democratic hands. But that will happen sooner or later. Then we’ll see if we can get closer to a solution that everyone can live with over the long run.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/31/never-mind-wall-theres-more-important-question-we-need-answer/

Waldman writes:

As immigration policy hangs over the ongoing conflict over whether the government is going to remain open, there’s something missing from this discussion, something so fundamental that it’s quite remarkable that we all seem to have forgotten to even ask about it. The president is demanding his border wall, Democrats are fighting against him, and occasionally we bring up issues like the fate of the Dreamers and those here under Temporary Protected Status.

But what nobody asks is this: What kind of immigration system do we actually want?

Not what might happen in the next negotiation or what each side would be willing to give up, but what does each side see as the ultimate goal they’re working toward? If they could look forward ten or twenty years and say “This is where we should get to,” what would that look like?

It’s a vital question, because whatever we’re doing at the moment should be guided by our long-term goals. Once we understand what those goals are, we can think more clearly about where we should go after we get this whole shutdown ridiculousness behind us. And we all ought to be able to agree that there is some future we’re trying to arrive at, a point at which we have a system that works to our satisfaction and immigration isn’t something we’re constantly at each other’s throats about.

That may not be possible, but I’ll start with what liberals would like to see. There are certainly disagreements not just on the left generally but among immigration advocates as well, but there is a basic vision one can identify.

The first thing they want, of course, is to take the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants who are in the country now and give them a path to citizenship. That’s something even some Republicans agree with, and if you put requirements like learning English and paying back taxes on it, support becomes nearly universal.

Second, liberals would like to see an expansion of the legal immigration system, which is a consistent source of frustration and a driver of illegal immigration. When it can take decades to get approved to move to the United States, of course many people are going to opt for the illegal route, even if it can be dangerous and uncertain. If the legal immigration works, people will go through it and not around it.

And if you have a well-functioning legal system, you can make illegal immigration less attractive, with things like an E-Verify process that makes it harder to find work if you’re undocumented. There may always be some kind of black market for workers, but if you’re simultaneously offering people a legal path — both toward permanent residency and with temporary work visas for people who are looking only to make some money and then return to their home countries — it will be much smaller problem.

So in the liberal vision, we might end up with about the same number of immigrants coming into the country as we have now, it’s just that the overwhelming majority would be coming legally. We’d have security at the border, but we wouldn’t need ICE breaking down doors and tearing parents from their children’s arms. We’d have a robust system to evaluate asylum claims so we wouldn’t have to be throwing people in cages. We certainly wouldn’t pretend that one day there will be no more demand in the labor market for immigrant workers.

There are many Republicans who could be okay with that future, even if it wasn’t exactly what they wanted. But the conservative vision is complicated. For years, we heard Republican politicians say, “I’m for legal immigration. I’m against illegal immigration.” They may not usually have been advocating significant increases in legal immigration, but it’s important to remember that the current venomous hostility toward immigrants was not always the standard Republican position. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were both far friendlier toward immigrants than Donald Trump is.

Conservatives might disagree with this characterization, but as I see it, their ultimate goal is a system in which coming into the country illegally is utterly impossible, but levels of legal immigration don’t change much. In other words, we still have immigration, but the flow slows to a trickle. And the Trump administration is making attempts to drastically reduce legal immigration. With the president’s enthusiastic support, domestic policy adviser Stephen Miller is driving a nationalist agenda that seeks to drastically reduce the inflow of immigrants to the country and even looks for every possible means to deport both legal and undocumented immigrants, even if they’ve been living here for years or decades.

That’s a somewhat extreme position even within the Republican Party, but it does reflect a discomfort with immigration that is common on the right. It’s the cultural problem, the fact that many people just don’t like having contact with people who don’t look like them or don’t speak the same language they do or eat the same foods they do. Trump very skillfully played to that discomfort by essentially telling voters he could wind back the clock to the time when they were young, before all this disconcerting change happened. His targets were the people who say “I don’t recognize my country anymore,” and when he said he would make America great again, “great again” meant “like things were when you were young.”

That’s a demand that can never be satisfied, even if it’s only a portion of the Republican electorate that really dreams of an America where there are almost no new immigrants and most of those who are already here just disappear. Unfortunately, that portion currently not only controls the White House but exercises a veto over any attempt at comprehensive immigration reform, because the rest of the GOP is so terrified of them.

Which is why it’s highly unlikely that we’ll achieve such reform, even reform most Republicans could live with, without both houses of Congress and the White House in Democratic hands. But that will happen sooner or later. Then we’ll see if we can get closer to a solution that everyone can live with over the long run.

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

Right on, Paul! You “nailed” it! Pretty much what I’ve been saying on “Courtside” all along!

However, the unlikelihood of achieving “comprehensive immigration reform” in the “Age of Trump” shouldn’t prevent the parties from working together in a bipartisan manner on “smaller fixes” such as that relating to child marriage suggested by Nolan Rappaport, posted earlier this week. See https://wp.me/p8eeJm-3Hu

Progress is progress, even by “small steps.”

PWS

02-01-19

INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”

http://time.com/longform/migrants/

Haley Sweetland Edwards writes in Time Magazine:

But they were willing to do whatever it took. Going back to Guatemala was simply not an option, they said. Monterroso explained that in October, their family was forced to flee after a gang threatened to murder the children if they didn’t pay an exorbitant bribe, five months’ worth of profits from their tiny juice stall. The family hid for a day and a half in their house and then sneaked away before dawn. “There is nobody that can protect us there,” Monterroso said. “We have seen in the other cases, they kill the people and kill their children.” Her voice caught. “The first thing is to have security for them,” she said of her kids, “that nothing bad happens to them.”

All told, more than 159,000 migrants filed for asylum in the U.S. in fiscal year 2018, a 274% increase over 2008. Meanwhile, the total number of apprehensions along the southern border has decreased substantially—nearly 70% since fiscal year 2000. President Donald Trump has labeled the southern border a national crisis. He refused to sign any bill funding the federal government that did not include money for construction of a wall along the frontier, triggering the longest shutdown in American history, and when Democrats refused to budge, he threatened to formally invoke emergency powers. The President says the barrier, which was the centerpiece of his election campaign, is needed to thwart a dangerous “invasion” of undocumented foreigners.

But the situation on the southern border, however the political battle in Washington plays out, will continue to frustrate this U.S. President, and likely his successors too, and not just because of continuing caravans making their way to the desert southwest. Months of reporting by TIME correspondents around the world reveal a stubborn reality: we are living today in a global society increasingly roiled by challenges that can be neither defined nor contained by physical barriers. That goes for climate change, terrorism, pandemics, nascent technologies and cyber-attacks. It also applies to one of the most significant global developments of the past quarter-century: the unprecedented explosion of global migration.

. . . .

They abandoned their homes for different reasons: tens of millions went in search of better jobs or better education or medical care, and tens of millions more had no choice. More than 5.6 million fled the war in Syria, and a million more were Rohingya, chased from their villages in Myanmar. Hundreds of thousands fled their neighborhoods in Central America and villages in sub-Saharan Africa, driven by poverty and violence. Others were displaced by catastrophic weather linked to climate change.

Taken one at a time, each is an individual, a mixture of strengths and weaknesses, hope and despair. But collectively, they represent something greater than the sum of their parts. The forces that pushed them from their homes have combined with a series of global factors that pulled them abroad: the long peace that followed the Cold War in the developed world, the accompanying expansion of international travel, liberalized policies for refugees and the relative wealth of developed countries, especially in Europe and the U.S., the No. 1 destination for migrants. The force is tidal and has not been reversed by walls, by separating children from their parents or by deploying troops. Were the world’s total population of international migrants in 2018 gathered from the places where they have sought new lives and placed under one flag, they would be its fifth largest country.

The mass movement of people has changed the world both for better and for worse. Migrants tend to be productive. Though worldwide they make up about 3% of the population, in 2015 they generated about 9% of global GDP, according to the U.N. Much of that money is wired home—$480 billion in 2017, also according to the U.N.—where the cash has immense impact. Some will pay for the passage of the next migrant, and the smartphone he or she will keep close at hand. The technology not only makes the journey more efficient and safer—smugglers identify their clients by photos on instant-messaging—but, upon arrival, allows those who left to keep in constant contact with those who remain behind, across oceans and time zones.

Yet attention of late is mostly focused on the impact on host countries. There, national leaders have grappled with a powerful irony: the ways in which they react to new migrants—tactically, politically, culturally—shape them as much as the migrants themselves do. In some countries, migrants have been welcomed by crowds at train stations. In others, images of migrants moving in miles-long caravans through Central America or spilling out of boats on Mediterranean shores were wielded to persuade native-born citizens to lock down borders, narrow social safety nets and jettison long-standing humanitarian commitments to those in need.

. . . .

The U.S., though founded by Europeans fleeing persecution, now largely reflects the will of its Chief Executive: subverting decades of asylum law and imposing a policy that separated migrant toddlers from their parents and placed children behind cyclone fencing. Trump floated the possibility of revoking birthright citizenship, characterized migrants as “stone cold criminals” and ordered 5,800 active-duty U.S. troops to reinforce the southern border. Italy refused to allow ships carrying rescued migrants to dock at its ports. Hungary passed laws to criminalize the act of helping undocumented people. Anti-immigrant leaders saw their political power grow in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Italy and Hungary, and migration continued to be a factor in the Brexit debate in the U.K.

These political reactions fail to grapple with a hard truth: in the long run, new migration is nearly always a boon to host countries. In acting as entrepreneurs and innovators, and by providing inexpensive labor, immigrants overwhelmingly repay in long-term economic contributions what they use in short-term social services, studies show. But to maximize that future good, governments must act -rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.

. . . .

But protocols and treaties can, at best, hope to respond to the human emotions and hard realities that drive migration. No wall, sheriff or headscarf law would have prevented Monterroso and Calderón, or Yaquelin and Albertina Contreras, or Sami Baladi and Mirey Darwich from leaving their homes. Migrants will continue to flee bombs, look for better-paying jobs and accept extraordinary risks as the price of providing a better life for their children.

The question now is whether the world can come to define the enormous population of international migrants as an opportunity. No matter when that happens, Eman Albadawi, a teacher from Syria who arrived in Anröchte, Germany, in 2015, will continue to make a habit of reading German-language children’s books to her three Syrian-born kids at night. Their German is better than hers, and they make fun of her pronunciation, but she doesn’t mind. She is proud of them. At a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric is on the rise, she tells them, “We must be brave, but we must also be successful and strong.” —With reporting by Aryn Baker/Anröchte, Germany; Melissa Chan, Julia Lull, Gina Martinez, Thea Traff/New York; Ioan Grillo/Tijuana; Abby Vesoulis/Murfreesboro, Tenn.; and Vivienne Walt/Paris •

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I strongly encourage everyone to read Haley’s outstanding article at the link. It is one of the best and most easily understandable explanations of a complex phenomenon that I have seen recently. As I always say, “lots of moving parts.” But Haley and her colleagues have distilled the fundamental truths concealed by this complexity. Congrats and appreciation to Haley and everyone who worked on this masterpiece!

Haley debunks and eviscerates the restrictionist, racist “fear and loathing” baloney that Trump and his White Nationalist gang peddle. The simple truth always has been and continues to be that America needs more immigration.

The only real question is whether we are going to be smart and funnel it into expanded legal and humanitarian channels or dumb like Trump and push the inevitable migration into an extra-legal system. The latter best serves neither our country nor the humans pushed into an underground existence where they can be exploited and are artificially prevented from achieving their full potential for themselves and for us. Right now, we have a mix skewed toward forcing far, far too many good folks to use the extra-legal system.

We’ll only be able to improve the situation by pushing the mix toward the legal and the humanitarian, rather than the extra-legal. That’s why it’s virtually impossible to have a rational immigration debate with folks like Trump who start with the racist-inspired fiction that migrants are a “threat” who can be deterred, punished, and diminished.

Contrary to Trump and the White Nationalists, the real immigration problems facing America are 1) how can we best integrate the millions of law-abiding and productive undocumented individuals already residing here into our society, and 2) how can we most fairly and efficiently insure that in the future individuals like them can be properly screened and come to our country through expanded humanitarian and legal channels. Until we resolve these, American will continue to founder with immigration and fail to maximize its many benefits. That’s bad for us, for migrants, and for the future of our nation.

As a reminder, in the context of Congressional negotiations on border security, I recently put together a list of “practical fixes” to the immigration system which would address border security, humanitarian relief, and improved compliance with Constitutional Due process without major legislative changes — mostly “tweaks” and other common sense amendments that would make outsized improvements and certainly would be an improvement on squandering $5.7 billion and getting nothing but a largely symbolic “instant white elephant” border wall in return. So, here it is again in all its hypothetical glory: “THE SMARTS ACT OF 2019:

https://wp.me/p8eeJm-3E3

SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019

Federal Employees

Restart the Government

Retroactive pay raise

Enhanced Border Security

Fund half of “Trump’s Wall”

Triple the number of USCIS Asylum Officers

Double the number of U.S. Immigration Judges and Court Staff

Additional Port of Entry (“POE”) Inspectors

Improvements in POE infrastructure, technology, and technology between POEs

Additional Intelligence, Anti-Smuggling, and Undercover Agents for DHS

Anything else that both parties agree upon

Humanitarian Assistance

Road to citizenship for a Dreamers & TPSers

Prohibit family separation

Funding for alternatives to detention

Grants to NGOs for assisting arriving asylum applicants with temporary housing and resettlement issues

Require re-establishment of U.S. Refugee Program in the Northern Triangle

Asylum Process

Require Asylum Offices to consider in the first instance all asylum applications including those generated by the “credible fear” process as well as all so-called “defensive applications”

Immigration Court Improvements

Grants and requirements that DHS & EOIR work with NGOs and the private bar with a goal of achieving 100% representation of asylum applicants

Money to expand and encourage the training and certification of more non-attorneys as “accredited representatives” to represent asylum seekers pro bono before the Asylum Offices and the Immigration Courts on behalf of approved NGOs

Vacate Matter of A-B-and reinstate Matter of A-R-C-G-as the rule for domestic violence asylum applications

Vacate Matter of Castro-Tum and reinstate Matter of Avetisyan to allow Immigration Judges to control dockets by administratively closing certain “low priority” cases

Eliminate Attorney General’s authority to interfere in Immigration Court proceedings through “certification”

Re-establish weighing of interests of both parties consistent with Due Process as the standard for Immigration Court continuances

Bar AG & EOIR Director from promulgating substantive or procedural rules for Immigration Courts — grant authority to BIA to promulgate procedural rules for Immigration Courts

Authorize Immigration Courts to consider all Constitutional issues in proceedings

Authorize DHS to appeal rulings of the BIA to Circuit Courts of Appeal

Require EOIR to implement the statutory contempt authority of Immigration Judges, applicable equally to all parties before the courts, within 180 days

Bar “performance quotas” and “performance work plans” for Immigration Judges and BIA Members

Authorize the Immigration Court to set bonds in all cases coming within their jurisdiction

Fund and require EOIR to implement a nationwide electronic filing system within one year

Eliminate the annual 4,000 numerical cap on grants of “cancellation of removal” based on “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship”

Require the Asylum Office to adjudicate cancellation of removal applications with renewal in Immigration Court for those denied

Require EOIR to establish a credible, transparent judicial discipline and continued tenure system within one year that must include: opportunity for participation by the complainant (whether Government or private) and the Immigration Judge; representation permitted for both parties; peer input; public input; DHS input; referral to an impartial decision maker for final decision; a transparent and consistent system of sanctions incorporating principles of rehabilitation and progressive discipline; appeal rights to the MSPB

International Cooperation

Fund and require efforts to work with the UNHCR, Mexico, and other countries in the Hemisphere to improve asylum systems and encourage asylum seekers to exercise options besides the U.S.

Fund efforts to improve conditions and the rule of law in the Northern Triangle

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

No, it wouldn’t solve all problems overnight. But, everything beyond “Trump’s Wall” would make a substantial improvement over our current situation that would benefit enforcement, border security, human rights, Due Process, humanitarian assistance, and America. Not a bad “deal” in my view!

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

PWS

01-27-19

PLAYING CATCH-UP: Here Are Two “Courtside Regulars” From Earlier This Week: 1) The Gibson Report 01-21-19; and 2) Nolan On Trump & The Wall From The Hill!

TOP UPDATES

Trump offers 3-year extension of protection for ‘dreamers’ in exchange for $5.7 billion for wall; Democrats call it a ‘non-starter’

WaPo: In addition to its immigration provisions, the package — which McConnell could move to advance as early as Tuesday, although a Thursday vote appears more likely — would reopen all parts of the government that are closed. It also would provide emergency funding for U.S. areas hit by hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters.

Cancelled Immigration Court Hearings Grow as Shutdown Continues

TRAC: Since the beginning of the federal government shutdown, most Immigration Court hearings have been cancelled. As of January 11, the estimated number of cancellations reached 42,726. Each week the shutdown continues, cancelled hearings will likely grow by another 20,000. As many as 100,000 individuals awaiting their day in court may be impacted if the shutdown continues through the end of January. See also: These states’ immigration courts are most impacted by the government shutdown.

Security, immigration controls fray as impasse over Trump’s wall stretches into its fourth week

USAToday: Of the 60,000 employees at Customs and Border Patrol, nine of 10 must report to work, checking passports and manning pieces of the border wall that have already been built. But they’re not being paid.

By the numbers: how 2 years of Trump’s policies have affected immigrants

Vox: Refugee admissions have plummeted, while rejections of asylum applications have increased. Arrests of immigrants without criminal records have returned to the levels of the first term of the Obama administration, while Trump works to make hundreds of thousands more immigrants vulnerable to deportation, by stripping them of protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program or Temporary Protected Status. And the travel ban quietly churns on.

US Undocumented Population Continued to Fall from 2016 to 2017, and Visa Overstays Significantly Exceeded Illegal Crossings for the Seventh Consecutive Year

CMS: The US undocumented population from Mexico fell by almost 400,000 in 2017. In 2017, for the first time, the population from Mexico constituted less than one half of the total undocumented population.

Pence links Trump’s push for a border wall to Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy

WaPo: Speaking Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” the vice president quoted from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as he defended Trump’s latest pitch to secure funding for a barrier along the United States’ southern border.

A Latino Marine veteran was detained for deportation. Then ICE realized he was a citizen.

WaPo: Richard Kessler, an immigration lawyer in Grand Rapids, Mich., said he was surprised when a woman he had worked with called to tell him that her son, a 27-year-old Marine veteran with mental-health issues, was being held in an immigration facility, apparently awaiting a possible deportation.

How Kirsten Gillibrand went from pushing for more deportations to wanting to abolish ICE

CNN: With Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand entering the 2020 presidential race on Tuesday, her dramatic shift on the issue of immigration over the past decade will likely be one of the central questions about her candidacy as she seeks to take on President Donald Trump.

NYS’ leading immigration group kicking off $1 million effort for drivers’ licenses for undocumented immigrants

DailyNews: In what could be its biggest campaign, the New York Immigration Coalition, the state’s largest immigration advocacy group, plans to spend at least $1 million on TV, radio and targeted social and digital media ads as well as billboards.

Deported from the U.S., now answering your calls

CBS: When U.S. consumers are calling about a hotel reservation or an airline flight, there’s a good chance a deportee in El Salvador is on the other end of the line.

Trump admin weighed targeting migrant families, speeding up deportation of children

NBC: Trump administration officials weighed speeding up the deportation of migrant children by denying them their legal right to asylum hearings after separating them from their parents, according to comments on a late 2017 draft of what became the administration’s family separation policy obtained by NBC News. The draft also shows officials wanted to specifically target parents in migrant families for increased prosecutions, contradicting the administration’s previous statements.

Trump administration took thousands more migrant children from parents

WaPo: The report issued by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services says no one systematically kept count of separated children until a lawsuit last spring triggered by the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, under which the government tried to criminally prosecute all parents who crossed the border illegally, taking their children from them in the process. See also As One ‘Tent City’ for Immigrant Children Closes in Texas, Another Opens in Florida.

IOM: 200 refugees have drowned in the Mediterranean so far this year

Al Jazeera: Last year, around 2,297 migrants died or went missing in the Mediterranean while 116,959 people reached Europe by sea. According to the IOM, sea arrivals to Europe in the first 16 days of 2019 totalled 4,216, compared with 2,365 in the same period of 2018.

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

Judge Orders Trump Administration To Remove 2020 Census Citizenship Question

NPR: U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ordered the administration to stop its plans to include the controversial question on forms for the upcoming national head count “without curing the legal defects” the judge identified in his 277-page opinion released on Tuesday.

Revised Interview Waiver Guidance for Form I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence

USCIS: Generally, conditional permanent residents who file a Form I-751 must appear for an interview. However, USCIS officers may consider waiving an interview.

EOIR Releases Memo Establishing Interim Policy and Procedures for Compliance with Court Order in Grace v. Whitaker

EOIR released guidance on Grace v. Whitaker, stating that for all credible fear review hearings conducted on or after 12/19/18, IJs may not rely on several aspects of Matter of A-B- as a basis for affirming a negative credible fear determination. Guidance obtained from CGRS and ACLU.

USCIS Issues Policy Memo on Secure Identity Documents

USCIS issued policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual to address the policies and procedures related to secure documents, including how USCIS delivers and tracks these documents and how requestors should request a replacement or reissuance. Comments are due by 1/30/19. Policy is effective 1/16/19.

AILA Doc. No. 19011635

N-400 NOIDs

CBP Liaison Minutes: If a permanent resident, who has a pending application for naturalization in which a Notice of Intent to Deny was issued challenging whether the individual had been eligible for adjustment of status at the time that application was filed, travels abroad and presents his green card upon his return, will he be admitted as a permanent resident? Are such cases flagged in some way? If there has only been a NOID and no action has been taken on the N-400, the individual will be admitted as an LPR. If the N-400 was denied and the individual was issued an NTA under Section 237 (but has not been served), CBP will re-issue the NTA under Section 212. If an NTA was issued and served under Section 237, the individual will be admitted as an LPR in proceedings.

ACTIONS

Comment on the Inter-American Principles on the human rights of migrants, refugees and other persons in the context of mixed migration movements: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is now seeking comments on the text of the draft Inter-American Principles. The Questionnaire is available in English and Spanish and may be submitted until February 18, 2019. Organizations and individuals are encouraged to submit comments expressing their support and any other feedback. (Full disclosure: I sit on the steering committee of the IMBR Initiative, which has been partnering with the IACHR to develop the Principles.)

2019 National Day of Action: On Thursday, April 11, 2019, AILA members and their clients are invited to meet with their legislators on Capitol Hill to discuss immigration policy changes and the impact it has on their state and district.

Call for Examples: ICE Detainee Locator

Urgent Call for Volunteers: Help 200 Asylum Seekers Recently Detained in South Carolina

RESOURCES

Upwardly Global’s mission is to eliminate employment barriers for skilled immigrants and refugees, and integrate this population into the professional U.S. workforce.

Resources Related to DOD’s Tightening of Rules and Discharges of Immigrants from the Military

A Reference to Help You Handle the Impacts of Criminal Activity on Your Clients

Matter of A-B-: Case Updates, Current Trends, and Suggested Strategies

Featured Issue: Protect Dreamers

We Are Witnesses: Becoming An American

Upcoming Congressional Hearings on Immigration

Climate Change: Activities of Selected Agencies to Address Potential Impact on Global Migration

EVENTS

1/22-23/19 New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) Member Congress

1/25/19Deported to Death: How Drug Violence is Reshaping Migration in Mexico

2/5/19Developments in Waivers: The I-601A, Removal Proceedings, and Beyond

2/7/19 Basic Immigration Law 2019: Business, Family, Naturalization and Related Areas

2/8/19 Asylum, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, Crime Victim, and Other Immigration Relief 2019

2/9/19 Court Watch NYC 101 Volunteer Training

3/8/19 Asylum & Immigration Conference with the Federal Bar Association at NY Law School

3/12/19 AILA Spring Federal Court Litigation Conference

3/13/19 Sanctuary Law: Can Religious Liberty Protect Immigrants?

3/28/19 Land of Song: Voicing Immigration; Carnegie Hall’s Migrations

3/29/19 Keeping Up with the Nguyens: When Poor Immigrants Return to the Homeland

ImmProf

Monday, January 21, 2019

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Sunday, January 20, 2019

The Path From El Salvador to the Oregon Judiciary

‘I’m A Survivor Of Violence’: Portraits Of Women Waiting In Mexico For U.S. Asylum

Report: Toward Empowerment and Sustainability: Reforming America’s Syrian Refugee Policy

President Trump Offers Proposal to End U.S. Government Shutdown

Saturday, January 19, 2019

170 missing migrants from two major Mediterranean shipwrecks

Turkish Government Seeks to Extradite NBA Player

Survey: Nearly 60% Have Little or No Confidence in President Trump on Immigration Policy

Friday, January 18, 2019

Where Anti-Trafficking Laws Are Reducing Migration

US can’t count or track all separated immigrant children, but it’s thousands more than reported

How Central American migrants helped revive the US labor movement

Thursday, January 17, 2019

A Trip to the Finnish Version of USCIS (so. much. nicer.)

Immigration Article of the Day: National Security, Immigration and the Muslim Bans by Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia

GAO Report: Climate Change: Activities of Selected Agencies to Address Potential Impact on Global Migration

How Trump’s immigration policies have been (largely) stopped in the courts. A conversation with law professor Peter Margulies.

Guatemala in crisis

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Immigration Article of the Day: Foot Voting and the Future of Liberty by Ilya Somin

US Undocumented Population Continued to Fall from 2016 to 2017, and Visa Overstays Significantly Exceeded Illegal Crossings for the Seventh Consecutive Year

Entering Finland – An Experience in Immigration Entry Contrasts

Border apprehensions increased in 2018 – especially for migrant families

Border apprehensions increased in 2018 – especially for migrant families

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Human Rights First Report on Immigration Detention in California

Law professor headed to New Mexico Senate

Report: Toward Empowerment and Sustainability – Reforming America’s Syrian Refugee Policy

Federal Judge Blocks Trump Administration’s Census Citizenship Question

Monday, January 14, 2019

Film Series From the Marshall Project, “We are Witnesses,” Seeks to Reshape Narrative on Immigration

From the Bookshelves: : The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America by Greg Grandin

A Wall Cannot Fix Problems at Border; Smart Solutions for Managing Asylum Cases Can

Cancelled Immigration Court Hearings Grow as Shutdown Continues

AILA NEWS UPDATE

http://www.aila.org/advo-media/news/clips

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Family Pictures

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/426192-trump-offers-to-limit-his-border-wall-to-strategic-locations

Nolan writes:

Trump offers to limit his border wall to strategic locations

BY NOLAN RAPPAPORT, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 01/20/19 07:00 AM EST 945

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) should give serious consideration to the settlement proposal that President Donald Trump made in his televised address from the White House.

Her objection all along has been to building a wall across the entire length of the Mexican border, and Trump no longer intends to erect “a concrete structure from sea to sea.”

He has acknowledged that much of the border is already protected by natural barriers, such as mountains and water. He wants the $5.7 billion he has requested for a strategic deployment of steel barriers at high priority locations.

The border already has many miles of barriers, including 115 miles that are being built or are under contract. He just plans to add another 230 miles this year at locations where they are most urgently needed.

These barriers would not make illegal crossings impossible, but they would make illegal crossings more difficult and make it easier for the Border Patrol to apprehend crossers.

His request includes $800 million for humanitarian assistance; $805 million for drug detection technology; 2,750 more border agents and law enforcement officers; and 75 more immigration judges.

In what he describes as an effort to build trust and goodwill, the legislation he is offering to implement his proposal also would extend the status of 700,000 DACA participants for three years.

This is just a temporary measure, but the outcome of the litigation over the DACA program is uncertain, and the participants will be extremely vulnerable if the program is terminated. DACA participation is sufficient in itself to establish deportability, and they can’t apply for asylum. There is a one-year time limit on filing asylum applications and they all have been here for more than a year.

The legislation also would extend the status of 300,000 current Temporary Protected Status recipients for three years.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has promised Trump that his bill will be brought to the floor of the Senate this week.

Trump also mentions the immigration court backlog crisis in his address. He says that it is not possible to provide an asylum hearing for every illegal crosser who sets one foot on American soil.

The asylum provisions state that aliens who are physically present in the United States may apply for asylum irrespective of their immigration status, unless one of the stated exceptions applies.

In my opinion, the sheer number of illegal crossers is the real border crisis. It has overwhelmed our immigration courts, making it virtually impossible to enforce immigration laws..

. . . .

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

Read Nolan’s complete article over on The Hill at the link.

At the time Nolan released this, he didn’t have the complete Trump proposal. I initially thought like Nolan that there might be the seeds for agreement in there.

But, Trump misrepresented what he was offering. In reality, it was yet another bogus 1000 page anti-asylum travesty drafted by White Nationalist in Residence Stephen Miller. Clearly intended to be a non-starter. Actually, it’s much like the dishonest tactics Trump used during the “Dreamer Debacle” that he engineered for no particular reason I can think of. And, that was when the GOP actually was in control.

Also, Nolan didn’t have the benefit of the Supreme Court action leaving DACA in effect for the indefinite future.

I’ve posted lots recently on what real border security and humanitarian assistance might look like. And, the Dems appear to be at work on something along those lines; a robust $5.7 billion but more constructive border security package that provides more resources for the Asylum Office, EOIR, technology, and inspections, but doesn’t undermine fundamental asylum law, negate Wilberforce protections for unaccompanied minors, or trash our international protection obligations.

Ultimately, once the Government reopens, that approach, plus permanent status for the Dreamers, with some wall or other physical barriers for Trump still seems to be the most likely way of ”getting to yes.” Then again, there might be no way of getting to yes with Trump.

PWS

01-24-19

SPLIT DECISION: Supremes Deliver “Gut Punch” To Transgender Americans, But Give Another Round To Dreamers

SPLIT DECISION: Supremes Deliver “Gut Punch” To Transgender Americans, But Give Another Round To Dreamers

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

On Tuesday, a divided Supreme Court allowed a portion of Trump’s homophobic ban on certain transgender troops to go into effect. At the same time, they properly squelched the arrogantly disingenuous attempt by Trump and his “go along to get along” Solicitor General Noel Francisco to “expedite” review of lower court rulings that found that Trump, former Attorney General Sessions, and DHS acted lawlessly and without any apparent legal rationale in terminating the “DACA” program. In simple terms, decisions that required the Administration to follow the law.

Prior Solicitors General have sometimes balked at representing liars and presenting disingenuous arguments in behalf of their Government “clients.” (Actually, somewhat of a bureaucratic misnomer, because the “institutional client” is really the “People of the U.S.” who pay Government salaries, regardless of whether they are citizens or can vote.) Not this one, who seems to savor the opportunity to carry Trump’s more than ample “dirty water” and reduce the credibility of his one-respected office to around zero. As I predicted, nobody serves Trump without being tarnished.

For the LGBTQ community, it’s a horrible signal that a narrow majority of the Supremes are unwilling to move into the 21^stcentury and recognize their Constitutional rights to equal protection under the 14^thAmendment as well as their rights as human beings. It’s also shockingly disrespectful to those who have stepped forward to risk their lives in the name of our country, something Trump took great pains to avoid. It’s doubly disappointing that Chief Justice John Roberts joined his far-right colleagues on this one, at least in part (he rejected the bogus argument for immediate review put forth by Francesco and instead sent the case back to the lower courts for further development).

Unlike some of his colleagues on the right, Roberts has some sense of institutional history, the horror and existential dangers to democracy of Trump as Chief Executive, and the future. Come on, “Chiefie,” we can all get smarter as we get older! Don’t blow your chance to “get on the right side of history.” Leave the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” behind in their dust and join your four more enlightened colleagues in moving America forward and showing some leadership and courage on the Supremes. As this month has shown, you might be the only person able to save America.

Paraphrasing what many pundits have said, “The Supremes can basically do anything they want, whenever they want to, for any reason they can come up with, because they are Supreme.” With that caveat in mind, the Court’s well-deserved slap down of Trump on DACA basically leaves the full protections in effect for Dreamers until the end of the Trump Administration. At that point, we’ll either get a new President, or there won’t be any country left for the “Dreamers,” the Supremes, or the rest of us to “dream about” or live in. The so-called “American Dream” will be at a tragic end. We’ll all be living in a continuing nightmare of cruelty, incompetence, and randomness.

I think the Supremes would be wise not to take up the DACA issue ever. It needs to be resolved by the lower courts, who have for the most part done a fine job, and the Congress, which hasn’t. But, assuming the Supremes do take the issue, they probably wouldn’t schedule argument before the October Term 2020. That makes it highly unlikely that they would reach and issue any final decision before the November 2020 elections. There would certainly be no reason for them to “rush to judgement” on this one.

Thus, Trump’s hollow offer of meager “Dreamer relief,” no path to green cards or citizenship and less than they have now under the court decisions, is even less of a legitimate “bargaining chip” than it was before. And, “poisoning the well” with Stephen Miller’s White Nationalist anti-asylum, child-abuse agenda shows how intellectually dishonest Trump and the GOP are and that the rancid “thousand pages of vile gibberish” that they launched as a “fake offer to reopen our Government” is a pure political stunt and an insult to 800,000 unpaid Government workers.

Moreover, all of this nonsense must be viewed in context of reality. That’s something that seldom intrudes on the daily intentionally created chaos and national dysfunction of this Administration. The Dreamers aren’t going anywhere! Almost all of them have legitimate applications for immigration relief that they can file in Immigration Court, including cancellation of removal, asylum, withholding of removal, or relief under the CAT.

Trump, Sessions, and now Whitaker have totally destroyed the U.S. Immigration Court system. I’m not sure it will be able to reopen even when the Trump shutdown finally ends. With a politically-created backlog of well over one million cases, growing by tens of thousands with every day of the mindless Trump shutdown, virtually no “Dreamer” (other than a minute percentage who might be convicted of crimes and probably would have had their DACA status revoked or denied on that basis) would be scheduled for removal proceedings within the next four years, let alone by 2020. Indeed, if Congress doesn’t step in and provide Dreamer relief and an Article I independent Immigration Court to replace the current dysfunctional mess in the DOJ, some of these cases may well still be pending a decade from now!

This context also reaffirms the total disingenuous absurdity of SG Francisco’s argument that this is an “emergency” requiring “early intervention” by the Supremes. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only “emergency” is the one intentionally caused by his “client” Trump — by illegally and unnecessarily trying to shut down the DACA program and aggravated by his Administration’s wanton destruction of our U.S. Immigration Courts, and by the “Trump shutdown.”

The Supremes must take a “hard line” against being “sucked in” to the many bogus “emergencies” that Trump creates to detract attention from his and his party’s inability to govern in even a minimally fair and effective manner. Perhaps, it’s also time for Francisco to reread the rule of ethics for lawyers and have a “heart to heart” with his “client” about abusing the Federal Courts with semi-frivolous litigation and presenting lies as “facts.” It’s never too late to learn!

PWS

01-23-19

🤡CLOWN-OCRACY: Trump & GOP Shut Down Our Government — With America Failing, Gov. Workers In Soup Lines, & The Possibility Of Starting A Worldwide Recession, They Have No “Exit Strategy!”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-to-weigh-trumps-proposal-to-end-shutdown-with-passage-unlikely-11548095329

Rebecca Ballhaus and Kristina Peterson report for the WSJ:

WASHINGTON—The Senate this week is expected to vote on a border-security proposal put forward by President Trump that is unlikely to garner enough support to cross procedural hurdles, leaving no clear path forward as the partial government shutdown stretches into its fifth week.

The White House and Republican congressional leaders don’t appear to have crafted any contingency strategy if the president’s proposal fails a Senate vote.

“No idea,” one White House official said, asked about backup plans to end the shutdown. The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Trump, in a Saturday address from the White House, called for $5.7 billion to pay for steel barriers on the U.S. border with Mexico, as well as funding for other border-security enhancements, in exchange for three years’ protection from deportation for some undocumented immigrants.

Trump Offers DACA Protections in Exchange for Wall Funding

In an address to the nation, President Trump laid out a proposal in which he offered a three-year protection to some undocumented immigrants in exchange for $5.7 billion in wall funding. Photo: Associated Press

Democrats rejected the proposal, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling it a “nonstarter” and saying that it lacked a permanent solution for young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Those people are now protected by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA.

“Nothing has changed with the latest Republican offer; President Trump and Senate Republicans are still saying: ‘support my plan or the government stays shut.’ That isn’t a compromise or a negotiation—it’s simply more hostage-taking,” Justin Goodman, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), said Monday in a statement.

. . . .

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

Read the complete article in the WSJ at the above link.

Every day must be a “Field Day” for KGB Officer turned Russian President Vladimir Putin. After all, nobody is shutting down his government, and his puppet Trump and his GOP “fellow travelers” are leading the assault on the U.S. Government, once his greatest enemy now reduced to the status of a third world “clown republic.” (For those of you who haven’t done asylum cases, rampant executive corruption, favoritism, and attacks by autocrats on their own governments and own citizens for various nefarious reasons are fairly common in the banana republics and third world dictatorships from which refugees flee.)

Who would have thought that one of the richest countries in the world would force its government workers to stand in food lines and seek dog walking jobs to survive? And the best thing for Vladi: a clueless minority of 4 in 10 “Americans” still support his scheme to turn the U.S. into a Russian “client state” (the 21st Century version of the “Soviet Satellite.”) Somewhere out there in the after world, Stalin, Khrushchev, and other departed Soviet leaders must be scratching their collective heads and asking “What did we do wrong? Was it really that simple? Where was Trump when we needed him?”

Don’t be fooled by any of the BS about this being a “joint failure” with the Dems. Trump said he’d shut down our country for his stupid “Wall.” With the help of McConnell and an enabling GOP he’s destroying America — just like he said he would. And, just as Putin wishes him to do!

For wittingly or unwittingly doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin and aiding America’s enemies by destroying American Government and diminishing America domestically and internationally, Trump, McConnell, and their band of GOP enablers get today’s Courtside “Five Clown Award.”

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

PWS

01-22-19

TRUMP’S “OFFER” MIGHT WELL BE A STUNT – BUT, IT’S ALSO AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE DEMS TO STEP UP, SAVE LIVES, AND GOVERN RESPONSIBLY – They Should Make A Counterproposal – Here’s The “SMARTS Act Of 2019!”

There are opposing “schools of thought” on Trump’s latest immigration statement. For example, the LA Times says it another “Trump stunt to shift blame” that the Dems should resist. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-trump-shutdown-daca-20190119-story.html

Makes sense.

On the other hand, the Washington Post says that notwithstanding Trump’s annoying tactics, it’s an opportunity to reopen the Government and save the Dreamers that the Dems should pursue. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/make-a-deal-to-help-the-real-people-behind-the-rhetoric/2019/01/19/f5b18866-1c17-11e9-88fe-f9f77a3bcb6c_story.html?utm_term=.5b08d589dfa9

Also makes sense.

I understand the Dems reluctance to enable Trump’s “hostage taking” strategy. But, I doubt they can solve that with Trump and the GOP controlling two of the three political arms of Government.

Indeed, a better idea would be for Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader McConnell to get together “when the smoke clears” and see what they can do jointly to take back and fix the bipartisan Congressional budget process and protect it from overreach by Executives of both parties. For two of the major legislative “gurus” of our age in the twilight of their careers, that would be a great “bipartisan legacy.”

But, for the time being, folks are suffering, and lives are in danger: Government employees, those that depend on Government, asylum applicants, Dreamers, TPSers, those in Immigration Court, and the families of all of the foregoing. So, I think the Dems should make a “robust” counterproposal that gives Trump at least part of his “Wall,” but also includes other important reforms and improvements that will diminish the impact of border migration issues in the future. Most important, almost everything in this proposal would save or improve some human lives and benefit America in the short and long run.

So, here’s my outline of the “SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019”

SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019

Federal Employees
- Restart the Government
- Retroactive pay raise

Enhanced Border Security
- Fund half of “Trump’s Wall”
- Triple the number of USCIS Asylum Officers
- Double the number of U.S. Immigration Judges and Court Staff
- Additional Port of Entry (“POE”) Inspectors
- Improvements in POE infrastructure, technology, and technology between POEs
- Additional Intelligence, Anti-Smuggling, and Undercover Agents for DHS
- Anything else in the Senate Bill that both parties agree upon

Humanitarian Assistance
- Road to citizenship for a Dreamers & TPSers
- Prohibit family separation
- Funding for alternatives to detention
- Grants to NGOs for assisting arriving asylum applicants with temporary housing and resettlement issues
- Require re-establishment of U.S. Refugee Program in the Northern Triangle

Asylum Process
- Require Asylum Offices to consider in the first instance all asylum applications including those generated by the “credible fear” process as well as all so-called “defensive applications”

Immigration Court Improvements
- Grants and requirements that DHS & EOIR work with NGOs and the private bar with a goal of achieving 100% representation of asylum applicants
- Money to expand and encourage the training and certification of more non-attorneys as “accredited representatives” to represent asylum seekers pro bono before the Asylum Offices and the Immigration Courts on behalf of approved NGOs
- Vacate Matter of A-B-and reinstate Matter of A-R-C-G-as the rule for domestic violence asylum applications
- Vacate Matter of Castro-Tumand reinstate Matter of Avetisyan to allow Immigration Judges to control dockets by administratively closing certain “low priority” cases
- Eliminate Attorney General’s authority to interfere in Immigration Court proceedings through “certification”
- Re-establish weighing of interests of both parties consistent with Due Process as the standard for Immigration Court continuances
- Bar AG & EOIR Director from promulgating substantive or procedural rules for Immigration Courts — grant authority to BIA to promulgate procedural rules for Immigration Courts
- Authorize Immigration Courts to consider all Constitutional issues in proceedings
- Authorize DHS to appeal rulings of the BIA to Circuit Courts of Appeal
- Require EOIR to implement the statutory contempt authority of Immigration Judges, applicable equally to all parties before the courts, within 180 days
- Bar “performance quotas” and “performance work plans” for Immigration Judges and BIA Members
- Authorize the Immigration Court to set bonds in all cases coming within their jurisdiction
- Fund and require EOIR to implement a nationwide electronic filing system within one year
- Eliminate the annual 4,000 numerical cap on grants of “cancellation of removal” based on “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship”
- Require the Asylum Office to adjudicate cancellation of removal applications with renewal in Immigration Court for those denied
- Require EOIR to establish a credible, transparent judicial discipline and continued tenure system within one year that must include: opportunity for participation by the complainant (whether Government or private) and the Immigration Judge; representation permitted for both parties; peer input; public input; DHS input; referral to an impartial decision maker for final decision; a transparent and consistent system of sanctions incorporating principles of rehabilitation and progressive discipline; appeal rights to the MSPB

International Cooperation
- Fund and require efforts to work with the UNHCR, Mexico, and other countries in the Hemisphere to improve asylum systems and encourage asylum seekers to exercise options besides the U.S.
- Fund efforts to improve conditions and the rule of law in the Northern Triangle

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

No, it wouldn’t solve all problems overnight. But, everything beyond “Trump’s Wall” would make a substantial improvement over our current situation that would benefit enforcement, border security, human rights, Due Process, humanitarian assistance, and America. Not a bad “deal” in my view!

PWS

01-20-19

COLBERT I. KING @ WASHPOST: NATION IN REGRESSION: Trump & His White Nationalist Flunkies Are An Insult To All That Rev. Martin Luther King & His Supporters, Of All Races & Religions Stood For! — From the promise of guaranteed rights to a return to the insecurity of injustice. A pluralistic America is being cynically drawn along racial lines by a president who is as far from the civility of his predecessors Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton and Obama as the charter of the Confederacy was from the Constitution.” — But, The New Due Process Army Continues MLK’s Legacy!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/martin-luther-king-jr-would-be-outraged/2019/01/18/e4a7b4c6-1a75-11e9-8813-cb9dec761e73_story.html

Colby King writes:

. . . .

The greatest contrast between the time King led the struggle for America’s legal and social transformation and now is a White House occupied by Donald Trump.

The federal government, once a powerful legal and moral force to make real the promise of democracy, is in the hands of adversaries who seek to restore a hierarchy in which the interests of the bigoted, the xenophobic, the sexist and the defender of white male privilege always come out on top.

There is a long list of ways in which backtracking on civil and human rights has occurred since the election of a president who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. It ranges from discriminatory travel bans against Muslims to turning a federal blind eye to intentionally racially discriminatory state voter-suppression schemes, to opposing protections for transgender people, to inhumanely separating children from families seeking to enter the country.

Sadly, that’s not all that stands out.

Once the federal locus of the nation’s quest for racial reconciliation, today’s White House is a source of racial divisiveness and a beacon to the prejudice-warped fringes of American society. It’s no surprise that the FBI found hate crimes in America rose 17 percent in 2017, the third consecutive year that such crimes increased. In King’s day, racially loaded, hateful rhetoric could be heard across the length and breadth of the Deep South. Now, mean, disgusting and inflammatory words come out of the mouth of the president of the United States.

How far have we traveled?

From the promise of guaranteed rights to a return to the insecurity of injustice. A pluralistic America is being cynically drawn along racial lines by a president who is as far from the civility of his predecessors Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton and Obama as the charter of the Confederacy was from the Constitution.

King, and the movement he led, would be outraged. The rest of us should be, too.

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

Read the full op-ed at the above link.

Very powerful! King speaks truth, reason, and humanity — in the spirit of Dr. King. Contrast that with the vile slurs, bogus race-baiting narratives, and non-policies spewing from the mouth of our racist (and incompetent) Liar/Grifter-in-Chief!

Two of my favorite MLK quotes (from the Letter from the Birmingham Jail — with acknowledgment to the Legal Aid and Justice Center from their poster hanging in my “office”)):

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Thanks to those many courageous and dedicated individuals tirelessly serving America in the New Due Process Army by resisting Trump’s illegal and anti-American policies! You, indeed, are the 21st Century continuation of Dr. King’s legacy to our country and the world! Dr. King would be proud of you! Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-21-19

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