"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
The myths — or, rather, convenient lies — that some politicians keep circulating about the U.S.-Mexico border have resulted in another disappointing congressional session for immigration reform.
Instead of crafting much-needed solutions to address the fate of young immigrant “Dreamers,” the backlog of cases in immigration courts or any of the myriad problems caused by outdated immigration laws, policymakers spent most of their time wrangling over Title 42, a public health order invoked during the COVID-19 pandemic to manage border crossings.
Disinformation prevents policymakers from having honest discussions and enacting sensible solutions. The complex U.S.-Mexico border region is a confluence of cultural, social and economic communities whose problems need sophisticated solutions not easily summarized by sound bites. Yet many people continue to peddle misconceptions about the border and engage in partisan theater such as dispatching migrants to Vice President Kamala Harris’ home or creating a wasteful wall of shipping containers, as the Arizona governor has done.
The debate on immigration and border control is likely to intensify in early 2023, when the GOP takes control of the House. Though there’s little expectation of significant legislation in a divided Congress, the constant arrival of migrants at the border is sure to keep the topic in the news. Because it’s important to look beyond sound bites, we’re fact-checking the misconceptions about the U.S.-Mexico border you are likely to hear in the coming months.
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Read the complete editorial at the link.
The lies and myths are largely pushed by GOP nativist politicos, and some right wing activist Federal Judges, although disgracefully some Dems have adopted, enabled, or gone along with certain aspects of them.
NGOs, communities, and advocates are about the only ones acting with urgency on the truth of this solvable humanitarian crisis. In doing so, they too often face roadblocks or lack of competence, honesty, and urgency from government officials at all levels.
GOP Supremes believe in a different version of the “Christmas Story.” One that bypasses the humane, hopeful message! Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, and Jackson dissented, with Justice Jackson joining Justice Gorsuch in a written dissent. In it, Gorsuch explains why he would deny the states’ request for a stay of the district court order and request for an expedited briefing:
“Reasonable minds can disagree about the merits of the D. C. Circuit’s intervention ruling. But that case-specific decision is not of special importance in its own right and would not normally warrant expedited review. The D. C. Circuit’s intervention ruling takes on whatever salience it has only because of its presence in a larger underlying dispute about the Title 42 orders. And on that score, it is unclear what we might accomplish. Even if at the end of it all we find that the States are permitted to intervene, and even if the States manage on remand to demonstrate that the Title 42 orders were lawfully adopted, the emergency on which those orders were premised has long since lapsed. In April 2022, the federal government terminated the Title 42 orders after determining that emergency immigration restrictions were no longer necessary or appropriate to address COVID–19. 87 Fed. Reg. 19944. The States may question whether the government followed the right administrative steps before issuing this decision (an issue on which I express no view). But they do not seriously dispute that the public-health justification undergirding the Title 42 orders has lapsed. And it is hardly obvious why we should rush in to review a ruling on a motion to intervene in a case concerning emergency decrees that have outlived their shelf life.”
For more on the devastating impact of Title 42 and other Trump-era changes on asylum seekers, see Lindsay Muir Harris, Asylum Under Attack, 67 Loyola Law Review 1 (2021).
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Migrant families have been used in political stunts this year. The governors for Texas and Arizona have sent them on buses to the District to make a statement, and in doing so, have treated people as the problem instead of the country’s immigration system, which doesn’t provide clear paths to citizenship for many. An estimated 11,000 migrants have been bused to the District, and while many have since left the region, hundreds alone remain in local hotels and shelters. Many of those are children.
A donated item dropped off at those hotels in recent days was one that a mom had been hoping to give her daughter — a toy kitchen.
Woods cried as she talked about the impact of that and the many other gifts that were received. The strangers who came together to help the families recognized the system is broken, not people, she said.
“They wanted to support people who have escaped trauma, climate crisis, gang violence and the most inhumane things possible to arrive here,” she said. It didn’t matter that they didn’t speak the same language or share the same experiences as those families, she said. “Everyone wanted to make sure they felt welcomed and had a good Christmas, and that’s the true spirit of Christmas.”
Here’s more on GOP political stunts with vulnerable humans as pawns from today’s WashPost:
Three buses full of migrants arrived at Vice President Harris’s residence in Washington from Texas on Christmas Eve amid bitingly cold weather, a mutual aid group said, the latest in an influx of newcomers sent to the Northeast by Southern states.
About 110 to 130 men, women and children got off the buses outside the Naval Observatory on Saturday night in 18-degree weather after a two-day journey from South Texas, according to the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network. On the coldest Christmas Eve day on record in the District, some migrants were bundled up in blankets as they were greeted by volunteers who had received word that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) had sent the caravan.
Volunteers scrambled to meet the asylum seekers after the buses, which were scheduled to arrive in New York on Christmas Day, were rerouted due to the winter weather. In a hastily arranged welcoming, a church on Capitol Hill agreed to temporarily shelter the group while one of the mutual aid groups, SAMU First Response, arranged 150 breakfasts, lunches and dinners by the restaurant chain Sardis.
“D.C. continues to be welcoming,” the network’s core organizer, Amy Fischer, told The Washington Post. “Whether it’s Christmas Eve, whether it’s freezing cold outside or warm outside, we are always ready to welcome people with open arms and make sure they have a warm reception in this community.”
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In D.C., the buses had been arriving all week — three from Arizona, another three from Texas — so Tatiana Laborde knew it was going to be an “intense” time. But on Friday, Laborde — who is the managing director of SAMU First Response, one of the agencies along with the mayor’s office and the mutual aid network helping with the migrants — found out about the three rerouted buses. They were scheduled to arrive Sunday morning, Christmas Day.
But then there was another surprise — the buses, from Del Rio, Tex., got in early, parking near the vice president’s Naval Observatory residence on Christmas Eve.
That destination appears to have more political significance than logistical purpose: While other buses have stopped at Union Station, the Naval Observatory is not near any other transportation hubs. The vice president was in D.C. this weekend.
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While Biden Administration spokesperson Abdullah Hasan claimed that they were “willing to work with anyone,” the reality is quite different. The Biden Administration campaigned on the need to end the abusive, deadly Title 42 charade and restore order and the rule of law at the border. Yet, after two years they have accomplished little of substance in addressing this very predictable and urgent humanitarian situation.
The asylum system at both USCIS and EOIR remains a backlogged mess. Regulatory changes, some enacted over the strong objections of human rights legal experts, have failed to meaningfully improve the system.
The administrative legal precedents governing asylum are still unhelpful, often unrealistically restrictive, and frequently impede efficient granting of relief. Improvements for gender-based asylum seekers — directed in one of Biden’s first Executive Orders — are well over a year “overdue” and appear to have fallen off the “radar screen.”
The refugee system outside the U.S., which could have reduced asylum pressure, remains largely as broken and underutilized as the day Trumpleft office. Leadership and personnel changes at DHS and DOJ that should have been made early on were ignored by the Biden Administration.
Significantly, the Administration has neither taken a leadership role nor developed a coherent plan for the orderly, systematic, and rational resettlement of most asylum seekers away from border communities. This has left vulnerable individuals who are legally entitled to apply for asylum at the mercy of grandstanding GOP nativist governors.
It has also overtaxed and overwhelmed border communities and NGOs in “receiving localities” throughout the U.S. There has been no coordination of essential Immigration Court and Asylum Office notices and scheduling with the actual destinations of asylum seekers and with those available to support and represent them. In other words, the Administration has presided over an inexcusable, and unnecessary, mess!
Regardless of its merits, so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” clearly isn’t on the horizon. That means that it’s up to the elected officials — the Biden Administration — to make the current law work — without resorting to illegal and counterproductive gimmicks like Title 42 and “expedited dockets.” That means cutting the whining and finger pointing and getting to work governing and solving immigration problems!
That takes courage, boldness, expertise, human values, creativity, urgency, and competence — seven areas where the Biden Administration has been sorely lacking when it comes to immigration, human rights, and racial justice!
So far, the 2020s have proven to be a time of great change, and the past year has been no exception. In 2022, we endured a third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, saw girls and young women fight for gender equality in Iran, watched as Russia escalated its invasion in Ukraine, protested after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and continued to fight for racial equality and social justice of all kinds.
Amid the hardship, however, has been immense hope — driven particularly by young people. Gen-Z turned out in droves to vote in the midterm elections, hampering the “red wave” predicted by the GOP; young LGBTQ people have fought back against homophobic rules in their cities and states; and groups like the ever-powerful Gen-Z for Change have made waves across activist spaces.
To honor their work and the lasting change young people have made this year, Teen Vogue presents our annual 21 Under 21, a list of changemakers, influencers, activists, and artists who have made a substantial impact in both their communities and the world.
But as we celebrate these young people, we also understand that we shouldn’t have to — young people are too often upheld as the ones who will save the world, but it’s a job that shouldn’t necessarily rest on their shoulders. In our recent cover marking 10 years since the tragedy at Sandy Hook, March for Our Lives co-founder Delaney Tarr wrote about the gun violence crisis in America: “[The youth activist industrial] complex puts the focus on…the individual vs. the system, the youth vs. everyone who should bear responsibility for this crisis. And at what cost?”
So, as you read about and celebrate these extraordinary young people who are, no doubt, doing their part to save the world, ask yourself how you can help. We’re in this together, after all.
Here are Teen Vogue’s 21 Under 21 2022:
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Read all about these talented, courageous, inspiring young people at the above link.
Hannah Cartwright Executive Director & Immigration Attorney Mariposa Legal Foundation Indianapolis, IN PHOTO: Mariposa Legal Foundation
Many thanks to the amazing Hannah Cartwright (“Hannah from Indiana”) for sharing this! Hannah is an “outstanding alum” of the Arlington Immigration Court Internship Program and a former EOIR Judicial Law Clerk, selected under the AG’s Honors Program! She’s a “charter member” of the NDPA, and has degrees from Catholic University in both law and social work.
Hannah currently is Executive Director & Immigration Attorney at the Mariposa Legal Foundation in Indianapolis, IN, a program of COMMON Foundation. Look forward to seeing you on the Immigration Bench in the future, Hannah! Your “practical scholarship,” proven leadership, and real life experience assisting individuals caught up in the morass of today’s immigration bureaucracy are exactly what EOIR needs right now to fulfill the one-time vision of “through teamwork and innovation, being the world’s best administrative tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!” ⚖️🗽
“Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell showed last week that he’s thinking about how recent lower immigration has factored into the ongoing U.S. labor shortage, but he said it’s not appropriate for the Fed to call for increased legal immigration to help alleviate the shortage. Could his remarks, careful as they were, somehow move the needle on immigration policy? His comments came as one new bipartisan proposal for immigration reform flopped in Congress, and some analysts say they aren’t optimistic about progress on immigration next year in a divided Washington. Still, others see Powell’s remarks having a small effect. … Powell’s answer could be seen as part of a slow process that eventually results in long-awaited fixes to the U.S. immigration system, according to Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law at Cornell Law School. “To me, it’s like water dripping on a rock,” Yale-Loehr told MarketWatch in an interview. “A single drop of water, whether it’s from Fed Chairman Powell or somebody else, won’t make a difference by itself. But if enough drips of water from other people and other studies consistently show that immigration can help our labor shortages and improve our economy, then I hope that will move the needle so that Congress will seriously take up immigration reform in 2023.” … The Cornell professor also suggested that grassroots efforts eventually might end up spurring U.S. lawmakers to do more. “A lot of change happens from the ground up, rather than the top down — if you think about civil-rights legislation in the 60s, the Environmental Protection Act of 1970, the antiwar efforts,” he said. “It was because people really protested the existing framework that they forced Congress to make changes in those areas. And so too, I think that if more Americans stood up and said, ‘We need immigration reform,’ I think that that would help persuade Congress to actually put pen to paper and make some significant changes.””
What better place to start forcing some long overdue changes than by getting more NDPA “practical scholar/experts” onto the EOIR bench where lives are on the line every minute of every working day? There are lots of ways to do justice at the “retail level” despite, or perhaps because of, the indifference of those in charge!
Folks, approximately a decade ago, the asylum grant rate at EOIR exceeded 50%! When grants of withholding (many the result of the 1-year-bar on asylum) and CAT were added in, almost 2/3 of asylum applicants who got a merits determination received some form of legal protection!
The vast majority of these cases were not appealed to the BIA. Slowly, but steadily, the EOIR system “at the retail level” was committing to expertise, sound scholarship, due process, fundamental fairness, faithful application of the generous legal principles established in Cardoza, Mogharrabi, and the regulatory presumption of future future persecution based on past persecution.
For years, those precedents and that regulation were resisted by many EOIR judges who continued, in practice, to apply the higher “more likely than not” standard rejected in Cardoza. But, following a series of savagely critical reversals of EOIR asylum denials by the Courts of Appeals the ground started to shift toward a more generous, proper, and correct interpretation of asylum law. Notably, those Court of Appeals “roastings” came after AG John Ashcroft “purged” the BIA in 2003 of appellate judges who spoke out for a better legal interpretation of asylum laws — one that faithfully followed Cardoza, Mogharrabi, and international standards!
As I used to tell my Georgetown Law students, a quarter century after the Supremes’ landmark decision in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, establishing the generous “well-founded fear” standard for asylum (reasonable likelihood = 10% chance) and the BIA’s implementation of that standard in Matter of Mogharrabi (asylum can be granted even where it is significantly unlikely that persecution will occur) the more generous standard was actually achieving “traction” at EOIR!
The law hasn’t changed very much since 2012. But, the progress toward a “Cardoza/Mogharrabi compliant” interpretation and application of asylum law halted and regressed substantially during the last part of the Obama Administration and during the Trump era.
What did change, for the worse, was the attitude of politicos, who have seen the Immigration Courts as captive “tools” to deter asylum seekers and “send negative messages” rather than insuring that they function as due-process-oriented, independent, subject matter expert, courts of law. The qualifications of those selected as Immigration Judges were “watered down” to favor high-volume government prosecutorial experience over demonstrated expertise in immigration and asylum laws and “hands on” experience representing individuals before EOIR.
Not surprisingly, asylum grant rates dropped precipitously during the Trump years. Although they have rebounded some under Biden, they still remain below the 2012 levels. It’s certainly not that conditions have substantially “improved” in major “sending countries.” If anything, conditions are worse in most of those countries than in the years preceding 2012.
So, if the law hasn’t changed substantially and conditions haven’t improved, what has caused regression in asylum grant rates at EOIR? It comes down to poor judging, accompanied by inadequate training, too much emphasis on “churning the numbers over quality and correctness,” and a BIA that really doesn’t believe much in asylum law and lacks the expertise and commitment to consistently set and apply favorable precedents and end disgraceful inconsistencies and “asylum free zones” that continue to exist.
Some of the most disgraceful, intentional asylum misinterpretations by Sessions and Barr now have been reversed by Garland. Unfortunately, he failed to follow-up to insure that the correct standards are actually applied, particularly to recurring circumstances. It’s one of many reasons that the Biden Administration struggles to re-establish a fair and efficient legal asylum system at the Southern Border — notwithstanding having two years to address the problems!
But, it doesn’t have to be this way! Recently, a number of notable “practical scholar experts” have been appointed to the Immigration Judiciary. When such well-qualified jurists reach a “critical mass” in the expanding EOIR, systemic changes and improvements in practices and results will happen.
The “dialogue” among Immigration Judges from government backgrounds and those from the private/NGO sector will improve. Lives will be saved. Life-threatening inconsistencies and wasteful litigation to correct basic mistakes at all levels of EOIR will diminish. The EOIR system will resume movement toward the former noble, but now long abandoned, vision of “through teamwork and innovation, being the world’s best administrative tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!”
So, warriors ⚔️🛡of the NDPA, make those applications for EOIR judgeships! Storm the tower from below! Make a difference in the lives of others and help save our democracy! If not YOU, then who?👩🏻⚖️👨🏽⚖️⚖️🗽🇺🇸
CROTONE, Italy — On a continent that has spent years trying to cut off undocumented immigration — using fences, surveillance, financial incentives and sometimes even brute force — the close-the-door strategy is faltering
Migration across the Mediterranean has crested to the highest level in five years. New nationalities, most notably from Egypt, have joined the stream of people seeking escape to Europe. And hard-line border policies are merely driving smugglers to adapt: Soon after Greek authorities instituted a practice of harsh pushbacks, boats departing Turkey began charting a longer route — bypassing Greece and heading instead to Italy’s Calabrian coast, an area that used to see almost no arrivals.
“Here comes another,” a law enforcement official at the port of Crotone said one recent morning, watching a vessel with 80 people come into view, just four hours after the arrival of a boat with 81 others.
The European Union’s desire to obstruct migration on multiple fronts was reflected in a collection of deals cobbled together in the aftermath of a 2015 mass-scale wave from Africa and the Middle East. And, for a while, the strategy appeared to be working: Mediterranean crossings dipped dramatically. The issue lost political primacy, depriving nationalist parties of kindling.
But an increase in arrivals this year is showing the limits of a Fortress Europe strategy — and reviving the highly contentious issue of how to handle and divvy up those who make it to the E.U. and its borderless travel zone.
“Europe’s expectations were based on a wrong assumption — that mobility across the Mediterranean could be stopped or limited, so it would no longer be politically relevant,” said Roberto Cortinovis, a migration specialist at the Center for European Policy Studies. “And that is impossible.”
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Some of the same things are happening here. Nativist/restrictionists, largely, but not exclusively, from the GOP, keep pushing failed “deterrence only” enforcement policies. And, the USG keeps “investing” in them despite decades of proven failure and deadly human results.
Ironically, today should have been the end of the illegal and abominable Title 42 charade. But, as with past fictional “deadlines” for termination, it didn’t happen.
Just to put Lee’s outrageous abuse of the law and human rights in perspective, remember that U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan recently concluded, on a voluminous record, that the use of Title 42 to deny migrants’ legal rights at the border was: 1) an illegal pretext from the beginning, and 2) causes “stomach churning” dire, irreparable harm, including rape, torture, and death, to legal asylum seekers. Essentially, nativist politicos like Lee are trying to force the Biden Administration to commit even more egregious human rights violations — on top of the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, they have already committed by enforcing Title 42 over the past two years.
While Lee’s scurrilous and totally misguided amendment is likely to fail, another almost equally bad one, sponsored by Sen. Sinema (I-AZ) to extend Title 42 indefinitely (till a “better plan” is in effect, which will never happen, particularly if the GOP has anything to say about it), is also up for a vote. “Lost in the shuffle” is the simple fact that we have existing laws that could and should be used to timely grant refugee to those legally qualified while expeditiously and summarily removing those with no credible claim. That the Biden Administration has failed to develop a viable plan for re-implementing existing law (which had been in effect for decades before being illegally abrogated by Trump) over the past two years should not be confused with impossibility!
Far from it, as many experts have pointed out, illegally “closing” ports of entry to asylum seekers has made unauthorized entry the “sole and exclusive” way for asylum seekers to exercise their rights! Yet, nativist politicos, the media, and even the Biden Administration ignore or mister present this truth.
As the International Organization on Migration has said, ““Migration is inevitable, necessary and desirable.” https://www.iom.int/news/migration-inevitable-necessary-and-desirable-opening-exhibition-iom-hague. It can be controlled and channeled with wise, realistic, and humane decisions. But, it won’t be stopped by walls, prisons, deportations, racist nationalistic rhetoric, militarization of borders, or cruel and inhumane laws and restrictionist policies.
Or, as I have said before, “We can diminish ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration.” Sure, the U.S. needs comprehensive, robust immigration reform that recognizes the inevitably and mutual benefits of human migration. But, particularly with a GOP House, it’s not on the horizon.
In the meantime, it is incumbent on the Biden Administration to make existing laws and policies work to timely, efficiently, and humanely screen refugees and asylum seekers at our borders. Those who qualify should be admitted in a reasonable period of time rather than aimlessly sent to wander the U.S. waiting for interviews from USCIS or hearings from EOIR that might never happen because of mismanagement and lack of vision in the current system. Those who don’t have credible claims should be subject to the summary removal procedures of the current law.
That the Biden Administration has, to date, lacked the competence, vision, and expertise to make the existing laws work in an acceptable manner is a shame. Ultimately, it’s one they won’t be able to “run away from” no matter how hard they try!
In addition to these five, two other recently appointed Immigration Judges had private practice experience in immigration before becoming Government attorneys.
Round Table maven (and VERY proud new grandfather 😎) “Sir Jeffrey” S. Chase gave a special “shout out” to Judge Gioia M. Maiellano, now of the NY Federal Plaza Immigration Court.
Gioia M. Maiellano, Immigration Judge, New York – Federal Plaza Immigration Court
Gioia M. Maiellano was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in December 2022. Judge Maiellano earned a Bachelor of Science in 1994 from Fordham University and a Juris Doctor in 1998 from Brooklyn Law School. From 2021 to 2022, she was a solo practitioner handling immigration cases. From 2017 to 2021, she served as an Administrative Law Judge with the Department of Finance, City of New York. From 2015 to 2016, she served as an asylum officer with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In 2015, prior to joining USCIS, she served as pro bono counsel for the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project. From 2013 to 2015, she worked in private practice with the Law Office of Carmen DiAmore-Siah in Honolulu representing individuals before the immigration courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and USCIS. From 2003 to 2013, she served as an assistant chief counsel, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, DHS, in New York. In 2002, she worked with the Law Office of Amir Alishahi in New York. From 2000 to 2001, she served as a staff attorney with the European Roma Rights Center, in Budapest, Hungary. Prior to that, she served as a law clerk with the Office of the Prosecutor at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, The Netherlands. Judge Maiellano is a member of the New York State Bar.
As experts like my friends Judge Chase, Professor Debbie Anker, and LexisNexis Guru Dan Kowalski say, EOIR is an organization where positive change is more likely to “come from below than from above.” Unfortunately, that makes it a painfully slow process for those still suffering in the substandard conditions that Garland permits in his Immigration Courts.
Nevertheless, as more and more judges join the bench with recent experience actually working their way through this dysfunctional system to obtain justice for their clients, the resistance to mis-applying BIA and Circuit precedents favoring individuals will grow. Additionally, the legal standards will be correctly applied at the “first level,” unrealistic requirements on individuals and their lawyers will diminish, due process, fundamental fairness, and efficiency will advance, and the disgraceful anti-immigrant, anti-asylum, deny, deport, and deter “culture” at EOIR — actively promoted under Sessions and Barr — will diminish over time.
Moreover, when Article I eventually comes, a more diverse and better-qualified group of IJs likely will be initially “grandfathered.” That’s another reason why Garland’s “slow moving train” in improving the quality of EOIR Judges at all levels has been so totally frustrating.
Should have and could have happened over the past two years with better leadership and vision from Garland and his subordinates. But, given the dismal state of immigration institutions and policies over the past six years, I’ll treat anything that isn’t “bad news” as “good news!”
The Department of Homeland Security inadvertently tipped off the Cuban government this month that some of the immigrants the agency sought to deport to the island nation had asked the U.S. for protection from persecution or torture, officials said Monday.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are now scrambling to foreclose the possibility that the Cuban government could retaliate against individuals it knows sought protection here. The agency has paused its effort to deport the immigrants in question and is considering releasing them from U.S. custody.
The accidental disclosure to the Cuban government is an example of any asylum seeker’s “nightmare scenario,” said Robyn Barnard, associate director of refugee advocacy at Human Rights First.
Many immigrants who seek safety in the U.S. fear that gangs, governments, or individuals back home will find out that they did so and retaliate against them or their families. To mitigate that risk, a federal regulation generally forbids the release of personal information of people seeking asylum and other protections without sign-off by top Homeland Security officials.
“The words egregious and illegal don’t go far enough,” Barnard said. “And this is not any foreign government, but a government we have irrefutable evidence routinely detains and tortures those they suspect of being in opposition to them.”
An even larger breach of confidentiality last month led directly to the surprising disclosure to the Cuban government. Less than three weeks ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials accidentally posted the names, birth dates, nationalities and detention locations of more than 6,000 immigrants who claimed to be fleeing torture and persecution to the agency’s website.
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Anwen Hughes, director of legal strategy at Human Rights First, has years of experience comforting asylum seekers who are worried that their home countries will find out about their applications.
“They come in nervous, shaking and afraid their relatives could get arrested,” Hughes said.
Hughes has long told her clients that they should feel secure that their information would be protected.
But the most recent disclosures have given her pause.
“I don’t want to say things that won’t be true,” she said. “It is important that these assurances be meaningful.”
ICE’s November disclosure of the 6,252 names had already triggered a massive effort by the agency toinvestigate the causes of the error andreduce the risk of retaliation against immigrants whose information was exposed.
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Read Hamed’s complete articleat the link.
Robyn Barnard Associate Director of Refugee Advocacy Human Rights First PHOTO: Linkedin
Thanks for speaking out so forcefully, Robyn! There is Fourth Circuit case law holding that breaches of confidentiality can give rise to entirely new asylum claims that require evaluation by adjudicators.
As cogently pointed out by Anwen, problems like this also diminish confidence in the system. That, in turn, undermines efforts by advocates to assure asylum applicants that they should use the legal system, rather than being afraid of it. This is also something that the Government should be doing, but isn’t!
For example, right now at the southern border, thousands of asylum applicants are waiting patiently in Mexico, many in dangerous and substandard conditions, for Title 42 to end so they can appear at legal ports of entry and present their claims in an orderly and legal manner. This right for “any individual, regardless of status” to apply for asylum, is guaranteed by law. Every stay or delay in the lifting of Title 42 undermines the credibility of the entire system.
As cogently found by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, asylum applicants have been illegally denied this “life or death right” to apply for asylum in an orderly manner at the border since 2020, first by the Trump Administration and now by the Biden Administration. Tellingly, the GOP nativist politicos (and, sadly, some Dems) promoting continuing abuse of Title 42 have abandoned the original Trump claim that it was a “public health measure.” They now openly present it as a “border management tool” something that it clearly was never intended to be!
Contrary to the nativist blather, the unlawful suspension of the legal asylum system at ports of entry has actually driven irregular entries, rather than discouraging them! Additionally, nativists and many member of the media fail to acknowledge that, even without Title 42, the existing law grants DHS extraordinarily authority to “summarily remove” asylum seekers if they can’t establish a “credible fear“ of asylum in an interview by a trained and well-qualified Asylum Officer.
This process was designed to take place within a relatively short period of time, at or near the border, after the individual has indicated a fear of return upon initial encounter with an Immigration Inspector at a port of entry or to a Border Patrol Agent. Those who “fail” the credible fear process can be summarily removed by DHS without formal removal proceedings before an Immigration Judge (although there is a right to request a brief review by an Immigraton Judge of the Asylum Officer’s negative decision).
Additionally, under recently enacted regulations, Asylum Officers can now grant asylum to those who pass credible fear if they find that the generous “well-found fear” standard has been met. This also has the potential of avoiding full Immigration Court hearings. Unfortunately, however, DHS to date has failed to “leverage” this ability to rapidly grant asylum, even though the potential volume of asylum seekers has been evident for many months, if not years!
It’s also notable, in contravention of many nativist politico claims, that individuals crossing the border to seek asylum often voluntarily turn themselves in to the Border Patrol so that they can get the legal screening that the Government has been improperly denying them under Title 42.
Life threatening mistakes, two years without a plan to restore the rule of law for asylum seekers, inaccurate data, bad legal rulings, many poorly qualified judges, inadequate training, failure to use and leverage refugee programs, screwed up priorities, regressive thinking, lack of expertise, no commitment to protection, unending backlogs, absence of inspiring dynamic leadership: The Biden Administration’s inept and morally vapid approach to human rights is a life-threatening mess!
The temporary stay doesn’t address the merits. It just allows the full Court to consider the the State GOP AG’s frivolous challenge to reinstitution of the rule of law at the Southern border which was set to take effect on Wednesday, Dec. 22.
Frivolous as the challenge might be, it’s unclear how the current GOP-dominated Supremes will react to this latest right-wing abuse of our legal system and war on human rights and the rule of law!
A HOLIDAY MESSAGE FROM US POLITICOS OF BOTH PARTIES TO LEGAL ASYLUM SEEKERS: “Suffer & Die!” Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Here are some relevant portions of Judge Sullivan’s opinion in Huisha-Huisha v. Mayorkas, D.D.C., Nov. 22, 2022, to keep in mind as the bogus claims and misleading reporting continue to mushroom ahead of the Dec. 22 (Wednesday) date for re-establishing the rule of law @ our Southern Border:
It is unreasonable for the CDC to assume that it can ignore the consequences of any actions it chooses to take in the pursuit of fulfilling its goals, particularly when those actions included the extraordinary decision to suspend the codified procedural and substantive rights of noncitizens seeking safe harbor. See Huisha-Huisha, 27 F.4th at 724-25 (describing the “procedural and substantive rights” of aliens, such as asylum seekers, “to resist expulsion”); cf. Regents, 140 S. Ct. at 1914-15 (holding that agency should have considered the effect rescission of DACA would have on the program’s recipients prior to the agency making its decision). As Defendants concede, “a Title 42 order involving persons will always have consequences for migrants,” Defs.’ Opp’n, ECF No. 147 at 42, and numerous public comments during the Title 42 policy rulemaking informed CDC that implementation of its orders would likely expel migrants to locations with a “high
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probability” of “persecution, torture, violent assaults, or rape.” See Pls.’ Mot., ECF No. 144-1 at 27; see also id. at 27- 28 (listing groups subject to expulsion under Title 42, including “survivors of domestic violence and their children, who have endured years of abuse”; “survivors of sexual assault and rape, who are at risk of being stalked, attacked, or murdered by their persecutors in Mexico or elsewhere”; and “LGBTQ+ individuals from countries where their gender identity or sexual orientation is criminalized or for whom expulsion to Mexico or elsewhere makes them prime targets for persecution” (citing AR, ECF No. 154 at 28-29, 47, 153) (cleaned up)). It is undisputed that the impact on migrants was indeed dire. See, e.g., Huisha-Huisha, 27 F.4th at 734 (finding Plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm if expelled to places where they would be persecuted or tortured).
The CDC “has considerable flexibility in carrying out its responsibility,” Regents, 140 S. Ct. at 1914, and the Court is mindful that it “is not to substitute its judgment for that of the agency,” FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502, 513 (2009). But regardless of the CDC’s conclusion, its decision to ignore the harm that could be caused by issuing its Title 42 orders was arbitrary and capricious.
30
3. The Title 42 Policy Failed to Adequately
Consider Alternatives
Plaintiffs also argue that the Title 42 policy is arbitrary and capricious because CDC failed to adequately consider alternatives and the policy did not rationally serve its stated purpose. See Pls.’ Mot., ECF No. 144-1 at 10-11.
(29-31)
However, despite the above, Defendants have not shown that the risk of migrants spreading COVID-19 is “a real problem.” District of Columbia v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric., 444 F. Supp. 3d 1, 27 (D.D.C. 2020) (citing Nat’l Fuel Gas Supply Corp. v. FERC, 468 F.3d 831, 841 (D.C. Cir. 2006)). “Professing that an agency action ameliorates a real problem but then citing no evidence demonstrating that there is in fact a problem is not reasoned decisionmaking.” Id. (cleaned up); see Huisha-Huisha, 27 F.4th at 735 (“[W]e would be sensitive to declarations in the record by CDC officials testifying to the efficacy of the § 265 Order. But there are none.”). As Plaintiffs point out, record evidence indicates that “during the first seven months of the Title 42 policy, CBP encountered on average just one migrant per day who tested positive for COVID-19.” Pls.’ Mot., ECF No. 144-1 at 22 (citing Sealed AR, ECF No. 155-1 at 23). In addition, at the time of the August 2021 Order, the rate of daily COVID-19 cases in the United States was almost double the incidence rate in Mexico and substantially higher than the incidence rate in Canada. See 86 Fed. Reg. at 42831 (noting 137.9 daily cases per 100,000 people in the United States, compared to 68.6 in Mexico and 8.0 in Canada). The lack of evidence regarding the effectiveness of the Title 42 policy is especially egregious in view of CDC’s previous conclusion that “the use of quarantine and travel restrictions, in the absence of evidence of their utility, is detrimental to efforts to combat the spread of communicable disease,” Control of Communicable Diseases, 82 Fed.
39
Reg. 6890, 6896; as well as record evidence discussing the “recidivism” created by the Title 42 policy, which actually increased the number of times migrants were encountered by CBP, see AR, ECF No. 154 at 45 (commenter describing recidivism); AR, ECF No. 155-1 at 4 (January/February 2021 statistics showing nearly 40% of family units DHS encountered in January-February 15, 2021 were migrants who had attempted to cross at least once before).
(39-40)
Particularly in view of the harms Plaintiffs face if summarily
expelled to countries they may be persecuted or tortured, the Court
42
therefore vacates the Title 42 policy. Cf. Nat. Res. Def. Council v. EPA, 489 F.3d 1250, 1262–64 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (Randolph, J., concurring) (“A remand-only disposition is, in effect, an indefinite stay of the effectiveness of the court’s decision and agencies naturally treat it as such.”).
(42-43)
Meanwhile, Plaintiffs have presented evidence demonstrating that the rate of summary expulsions pursuant to the Title 42 policy has nearly doubled since September 2021. See Pls.’ Mot., ECF No. 144-1 at 30 (“At the time of this Court’s original decision, approximately 14% of
45
families encountered at the southwest border were being summarily expelled pursuant to the Title 42 policy. . . . Now, the rate of expulsions is nearly twice as high, reaching 27%.”); see also Pls.’ Reply, ECF No. 149-1 at 31 (“[I]n the month of July 2022 alone, 9,574 members of family units encountered at the southern border were summarily expelled pursuant to the Title 42 policy.”). And “[i]n Mexico alone, recorded incidents” of “kidnapping, rapes, and other violence against noncitizens subject to Title 42” have “spiked from 3,250 cases in June 2021 to over 10,318 in June 2022.” Pls.’ Mot., ECF No. 144-1 at 30 (citing Neusner Decl., ECF No. 118-4; Human Rights First, The Nightmare Continues: Title 42 Court Order Prolongs Human Rights Abuses, Extends Disorder at U.S. Borders, at 3-4 (June 2022)). Accordingly, even if the Court accepts Defendants’ unsupported statement that the “situation for class members has improved,” the evidence demonstrates that Plaintiffs continue to face irreparable harm that is beyond remediation. See Huisha-Huisha, 27 F.4th at 733 (“[T]he record is replete with stomach-churning evidence of death, torture, and rape.”).
N
(45-46)
Because “there is an overriding public interest . . . in the general importance of an agency’s faithful adherence to its statutory mandate,” Jacksonville Port Auth. v. Adams, 556 F.2d 52, 59 (D.C. Cir. 1977); the Court concludes that an injunction in this case would serve the public interest, see A.B.-B. v. Morgan, No. 20-cv-846, 2020 WL 5107548, at *9 (D.D.C. Aug. 31, 2020) (“[T]he Government and public can have little interest in executing removal orders that are based on statutory violations . . . .”).
Moreover, Defendants do not contend that issuing a
permanent injunction would cause them harm or be inconsistent
with the public health. Indeed, “CDC recognizes that the current
public health conditions no longer require the continuation of
47
the August 2021 order,” Defs.’ Opp’n, ECF No. 147 at 44; see also Pls.’ Mot., ECF No. 144-1 at 30, in view of the “less burdensome measures that are now available,” 87 Fed Reg. at 19944; id. at 19949–50. The parties also do not dispute that Plaintiffs continue to face substantial harm if they are returned to their home countries, notwithstanding the availability of USCIS screenings. See, e.g., Human Rights First, The Nightmare Continues: Title 42 Court Order Prolongs Human Rights Abuses, Extends Disorder at U.S. Borders, at 3-4 (June 2022). As the Supreme Court has explained, the public has a strong interest in “preventing aliens from being wrongfully removed, particularly to countries where they are likely to face substantial harm.” Nken, 556 U.S. at 436.
(47-48)
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So, when you hear guys like Abbott, Ducey, DeSantis, Manchin, Cuellar, Gonzales, GOP nativist AGs, and the like use this holiday season during which we are supposed to be celebrating messages of hope, faith, mercy, and “goodwill toward men” to extol the virtues of illegal expulsions under Title 42, remember what their are REALLY saying:
“I want the US to continue violating domestic and international laws protecting refugees and asylum seekers, to continue to knowingly violate the human rights and human dignity of asylum seekers, and to place our fellow humans in danger zones where they will suffer stomach-churning episodes of death, torture, and rape. I don’t believe our nation is capable of complying with our duly-enacted laws to protect refugees and asylum seekers that have been in effect since 1981 until 2020 when they were illegally suspended by the Trump Administration using a public health pretext, as found by a Federal Judge. I urge the Biden Administration, which has already illegally expelled hundreds of thousands of migrants with no due process, to continue committing grotesque violations of the law and human rights and to increase the violations so that more men, women, and children will suffer rape, torture, an dearth as a consequence. This is my holiday season message to America and humanity: Peace on earth and goodwill toward all mankind, EXCEPT those seeking legal asylum by applying at our Southern Border. To them: rape, torture, and death without due process!
Title 42 expulsions of asylum seekers are a clear violation of Judeo-Christian ethics. To be advocating for its continuing application at any time, let alone during this season, is the height of hypocrisy; so is characterizing the largely self-inflicted mess at the Southern Border as a “humanitarian emergency” and then proposing to “solve” it by sending legal asylum seekers back to rape, torture, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, and death in Mexico and other nations in turmoil without any type of process to determine whether they have a “credible fear” of persecution, as required by law.
Click this link to listen to immigration law professor Craig Mousin’s podcast Lawful Assembly. He makes the case for not pitting demands for border security against immigration reform and justice for asylum seekers.
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Mousin explores how the claim for a fully secure border has stalled immigration reform for over three decades. He calls for comprehensive immigration reform to address many of the issues the failed policies of detention and deportation have been unable to resolve.
KJ
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Thanks Craig for speaking truth when so many are spreading false information and advocating trading human rights that aren’t ours to give away for “benefits” that should be conferred on their own merits with no “strings attached.”
Unhappily, even the normally reliable and sensible Greg Sargent @ WashPost is spouting some of this absolute nonsense! He speaks of indefinitely extending massive violations of legal and human rights (“Title 42”), prisons for asylum seekers (“processing centers”), and expedited dockets (“deportation railroads without due process”) as if they are “OK trade-offs” for so-called “immigration reform.”
Notably, there is nothing now stopping the Administration from processing more refugees outside the U.S., providing grants to innovative organizations like “VIISTA Villanova” for training more qualified pro bono asylum representatives without having to rely exclusively on law schools, replacing poorly qualified Asylum Officers and Immigration Judges with asylum and human rights experts, appointing a new expert BIA qualified to establish affirmative precedents to guide Asylum Officers, IJs, and lawyers on both sides in how to recognize, document, and grant asylum in accordance with the generous intent of the law and the U.N. Convention on which it is based, providing grants to NGOs for systemic resettlement of asylees and applicants away from the border, targeting and prosecutinghuman smugglers, and expeditiously removing those arriving at or near the border who can’t establish a “credible fear” of persecution.
That the Administration has failed to bring in the necessary visionary, dynamic, competent leadership to accomplish any of the foregoing, and thata Dem-controlled Congress has failed in its oversight responsibilities and to push the Administration to fulfill its legal obligations to asylum seekers is a question of competence and will, NOT the fault of asylum seekers and their advocates. Nor is it a basis to reduce the already unfairly and illegally compromised rights of asylum seekers
Craig basically echoes some of the themes I set forth this week in my “Dissenting Opinion!”
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It’s possible that the nativist AGs will try the Supremes. But, a stay at this point seems unlikely.
The next issue is that the Biden Administration has shown little enthusiasm for actually ending Title 42 (despite nominally professing a desire to do so) and no apparent confidence that they can competently restore the rule of law for asylum seekers. Maybe, advocates and the asylum seekers themselves will save the Administration from itself once again. But, that’s a tall order.
Michigan Stadium, America’s largest, holds 107,601. It would take approximately 20 Michigan Stadiums to hold all the 2,000,000 + folks waiting for hearings in Garland’s dysfunctional and backlogged Immigration Courts! And, that doesn’t include their families, communities, employers, co-workers and others affected by their fates! If Garland were the managing partner of a law firm or the CEO of a business, he would be “long gone.” Why aren’t competence and accountability “minimum requirements” for America’s chief lawyer? Michigan Stadium Photo by Andrew Horne, Creative Commons License
Even at this accelerated completion rate, on an annualized basis, I calculate thatEOIR will still be building backlog at a rate of nearly 300,000 annually, based on 800,000 new receipts from DHS.
At approximately 700 completions/year/judge (EOIR’s figure), EOIR would need approximately 400 additional, fully trained, fully productive IJs on the bench just to “break even” and stop creating more backlog.
Nearly 800,000 asylum cases are sitting in the backlog, many ready to try and pending for years. With a better BIA and better trained IJs who actually applied Cardoza-Fonseca, Mogharrabi, and the regulatory presumptions of well-founded fear properly (instead of being “programmed to deny”) the vast majority of these old asylum cases could be prioritized and granted in short hearings.
Even with today’s broken, biased, and unconstitutionally inconsistent Immigration Courts, migrants prevail against deportation in approximately 60% of cases! This suggests that the majority of the Immigration Court’s cases could be prioritized and resolved in the migrant’s favor without lengthy hearings IF the system had a better BIA, better IJs, better training, better practices, and a better working relationship with the private bar and DHS.
Far too few bonds are being granted, and insufficient attention is being paid to inconsistencies in the bond process.
Only an infinitesimally small percentage, .56%, of new cases filed by ICE involve allegations of criminal conduct. This suggests continuing problems with the way ICE allocates enforcement resources and chooses to use Immigration Court time.
Earlier this year, I had predicted that Garland would top the 2 million backlog mark by the end of August 2022.https://wp.me/p8eeJm-7dT
I was off by 3 months, as it actually took him until the end of November 2022 to achieve this negative landmark.
Nevertheless, some things are clear: This system is “beyond FUBAR!” It needs professional leadership, a new appellate board, better judges, better training, better utilization of the private bar, smarter, more creative and innovative practices, and authority to “rein in” in out of control ICE Enforcement. All the same things experts said were needed back at the time of Biden’s election! Ignoring expert advice has resulted in just the continuing, mushrooming disaster at EOIR and in our legal system that experts predicted!
Over two years, Garland has shown that he is not the person for the job. Nor have his political subordinates shown any aptitude for addressing the festering management, legal, and quality control problems @ EOIR!
Experts and advocates should be pushing the Administration and Dems in Congress for a change in leadership at the DOJ! Every day of failure means more backlog, more injustice, more frustration, more lives endangered, and a growing threat to American democracy — from those sworn to protect and uphold it, but aren’t getting the job done!
”Casey is still shaking his head. With so much executive talent and legal expertise available ‘in the market’ how could the Biden Administration’s immigration bureaucracy and their political overlords perform with such disasterous incompetence?” PHOTO: Rudi Reit Creative Commons
Fresh off a recent disaster where they illegally released the names of thousands of vulnerable asylum seekers in the U.S., the DHS announced another major data screw-up. This time it concerned so-called “alternatives to detention.”
ICE has informed TRAC that Alternatives to Detention (ATD) data previously released by the agency on several occasions between August 2022 and December 2022, as well as data previously released for FY 2022, was inaccurate. TRAC therefore urges caution in interpreting the latest numbers ICE has just posted.
The data ICE has been posting for months showed that use of GPS ankle monitors had been increasing which TRAC previously reported. ICE now reports this is incorrect, that ankle monitor usage is in fact way down, not up. Adding to the confusion, ICE frequently posts data, replaces it, and replaces it again without any indication that changes have taken place, or which set are the “correct” numbers.
ICE data reporting problems extend beyond the GPS ankle monitor usage. ICE’s new data for FY 2022 significantly revised the previously numbers for every single one of the ATD reported technologies—not only GPS, but also SmartLINK, and VoiceID, as well. Not only did the use of GPS monitors drop, but the public now learned that one-in-nine (11%) were not being monitored with the use of any technology at all! Also materially revised were the costs for technology during FY 2022 and average lengths in the program, as well as what was happening in a substantial number of local AOR offices across the country.
So, instead of ankle-monitor use increasing, as previously reported, it substantially decreased: The polar opposite. Yet, by the time this “correction” surfaces, media reports and sometimes even actions based on the bogus data have already taken place. Often, the “belated truth” becomes “back-page news,” if news at all.
Let’s be clear. These aren’t minor “rounding errors” or “adjustments or corrections” that don’t materially affect the picture painted by the original “data dump.” They are major screw-ups that basically “change the answer from A to B or from Yes to No.”
This the just the latest stunning indication of management failure within the Biden immigration bureaucracy. It goes along with “task avoidance” on very achievable fixes at the border, endless backlogs, completely dysfunctional Immigration Courts, abandonment of the rule of law, and lack of any overall values-based legal strategy when it comes to immigration, human rights, and racial justice.
You can read the complete TRAC report on the latest DHS bungling here:TRAC DHS Data Wrong. Just “warning” folks not to trust DHS data isn’t enough. In a data-riven world, the public deserves and requires competent management and accurate data from our immigration agencies!
Amanda Frost Professor UVA Law Author, “You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers “ PHOTO: UVA Law
Justice Clarence Thomas has openly flouted the federal law that requires all federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, to recuse themselves from cases in which they cannot be impartial: He has participated in a case in which his wife, Ginni, undeniably has an interest. For a long time, it has felt like there is nothing to be done about this—conventional wisdom says that short of impeachment, Supreme Court justices are immune from penalties for their misconduct. But that is wrong.
Thomas’ eight colleagues have the tools to protect the court’s integrity: They can publicly censure him, bar him from being the decisive vote in cases in which he should have recused, and take away his power to author majority opinions. Whether they will take action is a different story, which may explain why the court’s reputation is at a historic low.
But Thomas, who has long played fast and loose with recusal laws, has finally gone too far. The issue came to a head last month, when the Supreme Court refused to block the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol from obtaining Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward’s phone records. In January 2021, Ward had orchestrated an alternative slate of electors (which included herself) in an effort to subvert the election of Joe Biden as president. Thomas participated in the court’s decision, casting a dissenting vote, even though his wife was intimately involved in these events.
Chances are you heard nothing about this. That’s because the decision was part of the court’s “shadow docket”—orders issued without hearing or written decision—and so it garnered little public attention.
But it should have, because Thomas’ participation in the case was a flagrant violation of the federal law requiring recusal from cases in which it is “known by the judge” that his spouse “ha[s] an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome.” His vote also transgressed that statute’s broader provision requiring disqualification in “any proceeding in which [a judge’s] impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”
Ginni Thomas’ connection to the case is not in question. She has actively tried to overturn Biden’s election in Arizona and other states. In December 2020, Ginni Thomas sent letters to 29 Arizona lawmakers urging them to “fight back against fraud” and select a “clean slate of Electors” after Biden won the election. She also sent numerous text messages to President Trump’s chief of staff demanding he overturn the election, and attended the rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, though she left before the attack on the Capitol. This past September, the Jan. 6 committee subpoenaed and interviewed Ginni Thomas, and she repeated then her unfounded belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Without question, Ginni Thomas has an “interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome” of the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoena of Ward’s phone records. Also, without question, Justice Thomas knew it when he cast his dissenting vote to bar disclosure.
The eight other justices know it, too. Yet so far, they have done nothing about a fellow justice’s blatant violation of a federal law designed to protect the integrity of the court on which they serve. Understandably, the justices are reluctant to police their colleagues. But Justice Thomas’ extraordinary conduct calls for an extraordinary response.
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Read Amanda’s full article at the link.
Failure of one of America’s (supposedly) “top judges” to comply with basic ethical and legal rules undermines democracy! That’s doubly true when the litigation at issue involves an ex-President who has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t believe the rules apply to him. That’s the same ex-Pres who recently treasonously claimed that the Constitution should be set aside because he lost the 2020 election by more than 7 million votes and can’t accept that truth!
