Economics – Page 22 – immigrationcourtside.com

KILLER “COURTS” ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻 — “Malicious Incompetence” Or “Criminal Negligence” @ EOIR? — Experts Chase & Dzubow Rip Into EOIR/DOJ Officials For Needlessly Endangering Lives! — Kakistocracy Turns Deadly!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2020/3/26/like-firing-randomly-into-a-crowd

Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase in Jeffrey S. Chase Blog:

Like “Firing Randomly Into a Crowd”

On March 23, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a sua sponte order in a case pending before it, ordering the Petitioner’s immediate release from detention “in light of the rapidly escalating health crisis, which public health authorities predict will especially impact immigration detention centers.” In taking such action, the court used its authority to protect those under its jurisdiction.This is what judges and courts are supposed to do.

In contrast, the leadership of EOIR, the agency which oversees our nation’s immigration courts, sees its mission quite differently. With shocking indifference to those subject to its authority, including its own employees as well as members of the public, EOIR’s present leadership seeks only to please its Department of Justice masters, much like a dog rolling over or playing dead to earn a pat on the head from its owner.

As we all began to comprehend the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic weeks ago, EOIR refused to close immigration courts out of fear of sending a message contrary to Trump’s statements that the health crisis was a “hoax.” Christopher Santoro, the coward holding the title of Acting Chief Immigration Judge, ordered court staff to remove CDC-issued advisories on ways to help stop the spread (i.e. by not shaking hands) on the grounds that the immigration judges lacked the authority to hang such notices in their own courtrooms. In defense of his stupidity, Santoro offered the age-old excuse of the weak: that he was only following orders.

As the virus spread, and people began dying, EOIR kept its courts open far longer than it should have. An ICE attorney who represented the government throughout a crowded Master Calendar hearing in Newark, NJ on March 13 is presently in a coma in intensive care with COVID-19 fighting for his life. I’ve heard that an immigration judge in one of NYC’s immigration courts is presently ill with COVID-19 and pneumonia.There have been additional reports of others at immigration detention centers testing positive.

As cities locked down and sheltered in place, EOIR finally agreed to postpone non-detained hearings, but only until April 10. Hearings in detained courts continue to go forward.And for some reason, non-detained courts that were closed and should have remained so were reopened for the filing of documents only, with such openings announced by nighttime tweets. On Wednesday night, EOIR tweeted that several courts would “open” the next morning, without explaining whether that meant hearings that had previously been announced as postponed would instead go forward the following morning.As this occurred after business hours, there was no one to call for clarification. In fact, the opening was only to file documents.EOIR’s leadership (for want of a better term) has decided that all court filings due during the court closings are now due on March 30.Many lawyers in NYC have no way to meet this deadline, as their office buildings have been locked in compliance with the state’s shutdown order.

In order to accept these filings, EOIR is forcing court clerical staff to leave the safety of their homes, disobey the state PAUSE directive and expose themselves and their family members to possible infection in order to report to work. In NYC, traveling to work for most employees requires riding trains and buses, further increasing the risk of exposure.As schools are closed, how those court staff with child care needs will manage in a time requiring social isolation is unknown.

Furthermore, not all judges hearing detained cases are granting continuances despite the crisis. EOIR has not informed judges that the present crisis exempts them from meeting their performance metrics, which requires all judges to complete 700 cases per year, and to finish 95 percent of cases on the day of their first-scheduled individual hearing. Newly hired judges, who are on probation for two years, are therefore being forced to choose between their own job security and the health and welfare of all those who appear in their courts.

In recent days, EOIR has been besieged with letters from health care professionals, law professors, and various legal and advocacy organizations containing strong arguments to do what the Ninth Circuit had done instinctively and without having to be asked. In one of these letters, attorney George Terezakis, writing on behalf of the New York-based Association of Deportation Defense Attorneys (on whose Board of Directors I sit), described how the mother of a detained respondent who traveled from her home in Long Island to the court in Lower Manhattan by commuter train and subway to file a document for her son’s hearing was later diagnosed with the coronavirus. Terezakis continued: “Just as someone firing randomly into a crowd of Immigration Judges, court staff, attorneys, interpreters and detainees’ family members will foreseeably and inevitably kill someone…keeping the courts open ensures continued, needless infection, serious illness and death…”The letter continued: “This is a real crisis requiring real leadership to take decisive action that will place the safety of those under its jurisdiction ahead of other concerns. There is no escaping the inevitable consequences of inaction.”

As for Santoro, “I was only following orders” has historically fared poorly as a defense. Someone whose name is preceded by the title “Chief Immigration Judge” is required to stand up and take appropriate action in a time of crisis, and accept the consequences of such action. And for those in EOIR’s leadership chain who refuse to do so, it is incumbent on all of us to do everything in our power to ensure that they will be held fully accountable for their inaction under the next administration.

Copyright 2020 by Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

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

Hon. Susan G. Roy
Law Office of Susan G. Roy, LLC
Princeton Junction, NJ
Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

https://www.asylumist.com/2020/03/26/incompetence-and-reckless-at-eoir-endanger-lives/

Jason Dzubow writes in The Asylumist:

The coronavirus is causing unprecedented disruptions to nearly every area of life, and the Immigration Courts are no exception. The courts were already in a post-apocalyptic era, with over one million cases in the backlog, and now the situation has been thrown into near total chaos. The fundamental problem is that EOIR–the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the office that oversees Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals–is determined to continue adjudicating cases, even if that means risking the lives of its own employees; not to mention the lives of respondents, witnesses, and lawyers (and anyone who comes into contact with them).

EOIR is closing and re-opening various courts seemingly at random, often times with an after-hours Tweet, such as one last night at 9:23 PM, declaring that the Newark and Seattle Immigration Courts will reopen today for purposes of accepting filings and litigating detained cases (non-detained cases through April 10, 2020 have been postponed). In reaction to this latest news, Susan G. Roy, an attorney and former Immigration Judge (and my friend from law school – Hi Sue!) wrote last night–

NJ has the second highest number of corona virus cases in the nation, second only to NY. The Newark Immigration Court was closed because someone tested positive for the virus. Now a DHS attorney is fighting for his life in ICU, another attorney is very ill, and an interpreter has tested positive. These are the ones we know about. The Court was set to reopen on April 12. That is a reasonable time to ensure that everyone is safe and that the risk of transmission is limited. How is it even remotely reasonable to decide to open TOMORROW? Even if it is only for filings, court staff and others will be forced to violate the Governor’s Executive Order [directing all residents to stay at home], put themselves at great risk, and risk contaminating others, while many people who work in the same building remain under mandatory quarantine. You are ruthlessly jeopardizing the lives of your own employees, not to mention the public, for no legitimate reason.

And it’s not just advocates who are upset about EOIR’s decision-making. The National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ” – the judges’ union) and ICE attorneys are also reacting with anger. In response to EOIR’s tweet reopening the courts in Seattle and Newark, NAIJ responds, “Putting our lives at risk, one Tweet at a time.” And Fanny Behar-Ostrow, an ICE prosecutor and president of AFGE Local 511, says of EOIR: “It’s like insanity has taken over the agency,“

The gravity of keeping courts open is reflected in one incident, described in a recent letter from the Association of Deportation Defense Attorneys in New York–

One of our members recently had a detained master calendar hearing scheduled for this past Friday, March 20, at the Varick St. Court. In order to prepare the bond application and for the master, the attorney and his staff met with the client‘s mother. A request for a bond hearing, together with the required relief applications, and a request for a telephonic hearing, were hand delivered to the Court at noon on Wednesday March 18th, 2020. The attorney did not receive any response to the motion for a telephonic hearing, and repeated calls to the court that day and the next went unanswered. To ensure that the Court was aware of the request, the client‘s mother retrieved from the attorney‘s office, Thursday evening, a letter to the court confirming the request for a telephonic hearing. She traveled to the court in Manhattan, from Long Island, and delivered the letter to the Clerk, and thereafter waited in the waiting area with family members of other detainees and other attorneys who were compelled to appear.

Today we received confirmation the client‘s mother has been diagnosed with COVID–19 virus, through medical testing. Can you imagine the number of people she came into contact with as the result of the decision to keep this court open? In addition to exposing the attorney and office staff, she traveled from her home on Long Island, on the Long Island Railroad, to Penn Station, from there to the subway and ultimately to the Court. Undoubtedly she came into contact with, and exposed, countless numbers of people, who in turn exposed countless others.

Anyone with a basic grasp of the fundamental principles of epidemiology – easily garnered from watching CNN or the local evening news – understands how easily this virus spreads. Given this, the decision to continue to keep the courts open can only be construed as a conscious decision on the part of EOIR to subject our Immigration Judges, court staff, interpreters, DHS attorneys, institutional defenders, members of the private bar, our clients, their families, and all whom they come into contact with, to an unreasonable risk of infection, serious illness and death.

NAIJ echoes this sentiment: “With [New York] the epicenter of the virus, DOJ is failing to protect its employees and the public we serve.”

The appropriate path forward is painfully obvious. EOIR should immediately close all courts for all cases. Staff should work remotely when possible to re-set dates and adjudicate bond decisions (so non-criminal aliens who do not pose a danger to the community can be released from detention). That is the best way to protect everyone involved with the Immigration Court system and the public at large.

Finally, I think it is important to name names. The Director of EOIR is James McHenry. I have never been a fan. Mr. McHenry was profoundly unqualified for his job, having gone from supervising maybe half a dozen people in a prior position to overseeing thousands at EOIR. However, he was politically aligned with the goals of the Trump Administration and he got the job. I have previously described the functioning of the agency during Mr. McHenry’s tenure as maliciousness tempered by incompetence. But these days, it is more like maliciousness exacerbated by incompetence. And in the current crisis, incompetence can be deadly. It’s time for Mr. McHenry and EOIR to do the right thing: Close the courts now.

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

Thanks, Jeffrey, Jason, and Sue, my friends, for “telling it like it is!” Now is not the time for “go along to get along” bureaucratic responses.
Unfortunately, attorneys and court staff might now start paying with their lives for EOIR’s inexcusable two-decade failure to implement a functional e-filing system.
As one of my Round Table colleagues said, “Since when is a late night tweet ‘official notice?’” Don’t remember anything about “notice by tweet” in 8 CFR!
As I noted previously, J.R. and his tone-deaf, complicit Supremes effectively repealed the “Bivens doctrine,” holding Federal officials responsible for “Constitutional torts” committed outside the scope of their official duties. They thereby essentially gave rogue Federal officials a “license to kill,” at least where the victim was merely an unarmed Mexican teenager. It appears that Barr, McHenry, and others in the “chain of command” are trying out their new “licenses.” They had better hope that J.R. & Co’s “willful blindness” and unwillingness to stand up for lives and Constitutional rights extend even when American citizen lawyers and court clerks are among the casualties.
Not surprisingly, EOIR’s contempt for due process and the lives of asylum seekers, families, children, and other migrants has expanded to include the lives of their own employees and members of the public forced to deal with this godawful, unconstitutional mess.
When the reckoning comes, we should not forget the negligent complicity of Congress as well as the Article III Courts for allowing the life-threatening, dysfunctional, unconstitutional mess that EOIR has become continue to operate and to threaten the health, safety, and welfare of all Americans.

PWS

03-27-20

SENATE COMES TOGETHER, PASSES $2 TRILLION RELIEF BILL — FED CHAIR JEROME POWELL SEES STRONG ECONOMIC REBOUND ONCE CORONAVIRUS UNDER CONTROL — Basically, First Things First, Says Powell — Get The Virus Under Control & We’ve “Got Your Economic Back” When The Economy Restarts!

https://apple.news/ADKmnNtYdTSqV4_DcsV3xbg

Lucy Bayly reports for NBC News:

“There can be a good rebound on the other side of this,” said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

The coronavirus pandemic is putting unprecedented strain on the U.S. economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Thursday in an exclusive interview with Savannah Guthrie on the “TODAY” show, noting, “There can be a good rebound on the other side of this.”

“We may well be in a recession,” Powell said, in a rare live interview. “But I would point to the difference between this and a normal recession. There is not anything fundamentally wrong with our economy. Quite the contrary. We are starting from a very strong position.”

“This is a unique situation,” Powell said, when asked if the economy could withstand a monthlong shutdown. “I think people need to understand this is not a typical downturn. People are being asked to close their business, to stay home from work, and to not engage in certain economic activity, and so they are pulling back. At a certain point, we will get the virus under control and confidence will return.”

The Federal Reserve has launched a series of emergency moves since the viral outbreak started to erode the U.S. economy. The central bank slashed interest rates twice this month, down to nearly zero, and has pumped trillions of dollars into the financial system to shore up the economy, backstop credit, and stabilize the dollar.

The Fed said such extreme action was warranted because “the coronavirus outbreak has harmed communities and disrupted economic activity in many countries, including the United States.”

By making borrowing as cheap as possible, the central bank hopes to give companies and individuals ready access to nearly interest-free cash to invest and spend.

Download the NBC News app for full coverage and alerts about the coronavirus outbreak

“We’re trying to make a bridge from a very strong economy to another place of economic strength,” Powell said Thursday, by stepping in and replacing lending to small- and medium-sized businesses and other “places where credit is not being offered.”

Powell’s comments come the morning after the Senate overwhelmingly passed a massive $2 trillion rescue package, the government’s own response to the harsh economic blow from the coronavirus pandemic.

The Senate approved the 880-page bill in a unanimous 96-0 vote. The measure would provide billions of dollars in credit for struggling industries, a significant boost to unemployment insurance and direct cash payments to Americans.

With regard to President Donald Trump’s hope to reopen the economy by Easter, Powell said, “We are not experts in pandemics over here. We don’t get to make that decision. We would tend to listen to the experts. Dr. [Anthony] Fauci said something like, ‘The virus is going to set the timetable,’ and that sounds right to me.”

“The sooner we get the virus under control, people will very willingly open back up their businesses and get back to work,” Powell said.

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

If we can just “tune out” Trump and his negative leadership, follow the lead of our health professionals, Governors, and Mayors, and all pull together, putting human lives first, we can get through to better days. Until then, unfortunately, things are likely to get worse as America runs short of basic medical supplies, personnel, and hospital space.

Economies can and will be rebuilt. The dead can’t be brought back to life. Every life we re able to save now is valuable and will pay a dividend, whether economic, emotional, or spiritual, on the other side of the crisis. Already, we’re seeing both young and old come together to help, as medical students and retired health professionals volunteer to step into the breach.

I found Jerome Powell’s interview with Savannah Guthrie of NBC’s Today Show one of the best and most reassuring, from an economic standpoint, interview with a Federal official recently. You can watch it in its entirety at the above link.

Stay well, and Due Process Forever!

PWS

O3-26-20

VOTE ‘EM OUT: Selfish GOP Politicos Spent Years Dismantling The Already-Inadequate U.S. Safety Net & Distributing The Spoils To Their Fat Cat Buddies Through Unnecessary Tax Cuts (a/k/a “Welfare For The Rich”) & Misdirection Of Money To Wasteful Spending — Now They Need It To Save Their Sorry Political Butts — But, Don’t Expect A Long Term Change Of Heart From A Party Of Selfish Elites & Their Wannabe Enablers!

“Vote ‘Em Out”

By Willie Nelson

If you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out
That’s what Election Day is all about
The biggest gun we’ve got
Is called “the ballot box”
So if you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out

Vote ’em out (vote ’em out)
Vote ’em out (vote ’em out)
And when they’re gone we’ll sing and dance and shout
Bring some new ones in
And we’ll start that show again
And if you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out

If it’s a bunch of clowns you voted in
Election Day is comin’ ’round again
If you don’t like it now
If it’s more than you’ll allow
If you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out

Listen to Willie here:

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/willienelson/voteemout.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/25/trillion-dollar-stimulus-checks/

Tracy Jan reports for the WashPost:

Conservatives gutted the social safety net. Now, in a crisis, they’re embracing it.

By Tracy Jan

March 25 at 10:00 AM ET

Throughout his term, President Trump has chipped away at the social safety net, proposing budgets that gutted housing assistance, food stamps and health insurance for the poorest Americans. When Congress rejected those cuts, the Trump administration enacted rules to make it harder to access federal benefits, such as requiring recipients to work.

Now, with businesses shuttered, workers laid off, and scores more worrying about buying groceries, being evicted and getting sick, the swelling need for federal assistance has forced even conservative lawmakers to embrace government protections in a series of sweeping stimulus bills.

Under the $2 trillion stimulus deal reached in the Senate early Wednesday, Republicans are proposing sending direct cash payments of $1,200 to individual Americans, an idea that, on the surface, echoes former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s universal basic income platform. They want to bolster the unemployment insurance system after many GOP-led states spent years enacting restrictive criteria and reducing benefits.

“Anybody who is a moderate-wage worker who just experienced an economic lockdown in their state is in distress. Most people don’t have savings,” said Robert Rector, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that guides much of the Trump administration’s policymaking.

[Facing eviction as millions shelter in place]

Rector, an architect of the 1996 federal welfare overhaul that instituted work requirements under President Bill Clinton, generally opposes safety net measures that do not promote work and marriage. But he would like to see more-generous benefits for individuals and cities in crisis in response to the coronavirus — for a finite period of time.

“Quite frankly, I’m willing to spend more money right now,” he said. “It’s a very different thing in an emergency.”

[[Sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access.]]

The $100-billion-plus Families First coronavirus response package Trump signed last week dramatically expands paid sick leave and family medical leave for tens of millions of workers, provisions aimed at blunting the economic impact of the pandemic.

The United States lags behind other developed countries when it comes to providing universal health care as well as paid leave for sick workers and those who have to care for family members.

“Here we had this ‘strong economy’ and all of a sudden the bubble has burst, and policymakers are scrambling to put into place basic protections other societies have,” said Rebecca Vallas, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

[As layoffs skyrocket, the holes in America’s safety net are becoming apparent]

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

Read Tracy’s full article at the link.

We recently went through a period of sustained economic growth and high employment that started under Obama and continued under Trump, until now. A wise nation might have used increased tax revenues to shore up the safety net, repair infrastructure, reduce spending on futile wars and defense overruns, invest for the future, and/or reduce deficit. Instead, the GOP frittered away the opportunity by mindless Government shutdowns and unnecessary tax cuts that lined the pockets of the already well-off while doing little to help the long term situation of the average American family. Indeed companies were encouraged to cut benefits to workers to pay out more to shareholders and to their executives, without much regard to the competence or value to the company of the latter.

Now, the embarrassing inadequacies and gaps of our safety net are being exposed every day. Even the GOP has turned, albeit somewhat reluctantly, to throwing several trillion into the breach, as long as it all doesn’t all go to those who need it most. Natural disasters have become the “new normal.” But, under Trump and his kakistocracy, America has consistently been underprepared to meet them.

That the hardest hit Americans get a substantial chunk of this emergency funding is a tribute to Pelosi, Schumer, and the Dems. Left to their own devices, Trump, Mitch, and the GOP would have basically mailed a modest check (or checks) to most Americans (other than the poorest) and funneled the rest into the pockets of their businesses buddies and state cronies with little oversight or accountability. Can you imagine the Grifter-in-Chief and his toadies being allowed to divvy up the loot, in secret, no less?

This emergency is unusual in nature. But, emergencies come and emergencies go. Presidents come and they (thankfully) go. What doesn’t go away is the need for a strong well-developed safety net that covers basic health care, unemployment, income assistance, and retirement benefits for all Americans, not just the wealthy. History has shown that’s not likely to happen as long as the GOP grifters remain in power.

We have a chance to save America and put ourselves on a better course for the future. Vote Trump and his GOP out in November. Your future and that of future generations will depend on it.

PWS

03-25-20

WITH A BLITHERING IDIOT CALLING THE SHOTS AND THE RIGHT-WING’S VILEST OF THE DUMB EGGING HIM ON, AMERICA CAREENS TOWARD A HEALTH CATASTROPHE WITH NO COHERENT PLAN! — Tuning Trump Out & Could Be Our Only Hope!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-claims-more-death-with-economy-shutdown-than-coronavirus_n_5e7950cfc5b63c3b6495df4c

Sanjana Karanth reports for HuffPost:

President Donald Trump’s insistence on downplaying the coronavirus risks reached dangerous levels Monday as he scoffed at medical advice and threatened to open up the economy despite skyrocketing case numbers.

At the White House’s daily coronavirus briefing, the president focused on wanting to reopen businesses very soon despite global guidance to essentially shut down societies and encourage people to stay home.

“It’s bad, and obviously the numbers are going to increase with time, and they’re going to start to decrease, and we’re going to be opening our country up for business because our country was meant to be open,” Trump said, despite the rising COVID-19 death toll.

The U.S. saw confirmed cases rise to more than 41,000 on Monday, with nearly 600 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins medical school’s coronavirus resource center. World Health Organization Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday that the pandemic is actually accelerating ― stressing that it took 67 days from the first reported case to reach the first 100,000 cases, 11 days for the second 100,000 cases and just four days for the third 100,000 cases.

. . . .

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

Yeah, that corrupt GOP vote to acquit could turn out to seal the fate of millions of Americans. With no plan, no brains, and no coherent strategy, you just have to hope you and those you love won’t be among Trump’s victims.

The markets should love chaos and death. But the problem is in Italy other places, they can’t even have funerals. So even “death stocks” might not be a good investment.

Wow! Talk about “malicious incompetence.” Trump is certainly leading the charge!

PWS

03-23-20

KAKISTOCRACY WARNING: Trump Bored With Following Dr.’s Orders, Looking For Ways To Countermand Them — Sure, Thousands Of Americans Might Needlessly Die, But It Would Be Great For The Economy — No Amount Of Incompetent Bungling, Self-Promotion, Or Sociopathic Behavior Will Shake His GOP Support!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/23/trump-cares-more-about-stock-market-than-humans/

Jennifer Rubin in WashPost:

Until Monday morning, President Trump’s most horrifying utterance with regard to the coronavirus was his sarcastic reaction to news that Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), whose wife has multiple sclerosis and therefore is in the high-risk category for infection, was self-isolating due to potential exposure to the coronavirus. “Gee, that’s too bad,” Trump snarked about his political rival. As bad as that was — mocking the possible life-threatening illness of others — he managed to top that with a truly horrifying tweet:

The cure — social distancing — has been imposed to save thousands of lives. But in Trump’s mind, the resulting economic slowdown and bear market from those measures are worse than a potentially catastrophic death toll. That’s the only reasonable interpretation of his outburst, which coincides with reporting from the New York Times that, “at the White House, in recent days, there has been a growing sentiment that medical experts were allowed to set policy that has hurt the economy, and there has been a push to find ways to let people start returning to work.”

For Trump and many in his party, what matters most is money. (“Some Republican lawmakers have also pleaded with the White House to find ways to restart the economy, as financial markets continue to slide and job losses for April could be in the millions.”) To them, letting medical experts set policy to combat a pandemic is a serious error. “Worse” than the deaths of thousands of Americans, in the minds of the narcissistic president, is the chance that his reelection could be impaired by bad economic numbers. Does it dawn on him that thousands of dead Americans might reflect poorly on him as well?

[More coverage of the coronavirus pandemic]

Trump’s latest spasm of indifference to other humans comes at a time when one of those experts, Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams, warns that the situation is about to get much worse. In a CBS interview, Adams said: “I didn’t expect to be starting off my week with such a dire message for America, but the numbers are going to get worse this week.” He reiterated, “Things are going to get worse before they get better. And we really need everyone to understand this is serious, to lean into what they can do to flatten the curve.”

Here we see the gap between Trump’s pecuniary and political interests (which he thinks depend entirely on the stock market) and the experts trying to get us to do things that would prevent greater loss of life. Trump’s behavior — denying the crisis, painting it as a threat from foreigners (when community spread is already well underway), constantly lying about progress being made, attacking political rivals and congratulating himself on his response (and forcing recitals of praise from advisers) — tells us that even a pandemic, in his mind, is all about him.

Trump may think he can sugarcoat coronavirus, but media critic Erik Wemple says it is time for the government to speak with one clear voice about public health. (Erik Wemple/The Washington Post)

With thousands of families facing a health crisis and millions suffering economic tragedy, Trump whines that he has not received sufficient credit for his actions (which mayors, governors and scientists say were grossly negligent and insufficient). All the while, he remains poised to thrust his hand into the cookie jar of government bailout money.

The experts must be heeded. The governors and mayors must be supported. Trump must be ignored or must delegate all significant decision-making to someone competent and conscientious of the human suffering unfolding before us. Otherwise, we are in grave trouble.

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

With Trump, the goalposts are continually moving; what we might once have thought of as the “rock bottom” in the “race to the bottom” suddenly becomes just another milepost.

We are already in “grave trouble,” Jennifer! With a dim-witted narcissist sociopath in charge, a party of elitist grifters running the Senate, an irresponsible minority of the electorate mindlessly committed to Trump’s insanity, and a system that facilitates minority rule, the majority of us who are interested in saving lives (including those of the foregoing group) and preserving our democratic republic are, indeed, in dire straits.

The “quote of the day” has to go to Trump’s “economic advisor” Steven Moore: “But you can’t have a policy that says we’re going to save every human life at any cost, no matter how many trillions of dollars you’re talking about.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-signals-growing-weariness-with-social-distancing-and-other-steps-advocated-by-health-officials/2020/03/23/0920ea0a-6cfc-11ea-a3ec-70d7479d83f0_story.html

Let’s flip Steven’s warped thinking around: Instead of giving a $500 billion bailout to America’s fat cat corporations, why not give a mere $1 billion directly to each of America’s 335 million people. They could decide how best to spend it to “pump up” the economy: their own health care, investing in corporations, buying bonds, endowing universities, building houses, starting small businesses, going to the racetrack, taking cruises, philanthropy, or just spending it all wildly on rampant consumerism. Much cheaper than the bailout. Hell, Trump supporters could even choose to spend a night at every Trump property in the world!

And, better yet, neither Moore, “Munchkin,” Kudlow, Kushner, nor any of the other grifter/kakistocrats surrounding Trump could tell “average Americans” how to spend their money. After all, forgotten to Trump and his GOP, it actually is the people’s money with which they are lining their pockets and the those of their fat cat corporate buddies while tuning out our health care concerns. Heck, what’s a human life compared with a dollar?

PWS

03-23-20

DAHLIA LITHWICK REVIEWS NEW BOOK “AMERICAN NERO” ON THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RULE OF LAW AND AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS UNDER THE TRUMP REGIME! — Echoes Of Germany In 1939 — “[J]udges, prosecutors and democratically elected officials formed the very backbone of Nazi Germany.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/defending-the-rule-of-law-in-the-trump-era/2020/03/19/7dfac5d0-618a-11ea-845d-e35b0234b136_story.html

Dahlia writes in the WashPost:

There are, to vastly overgeneralize, two basic types of books written by critics of the Trump presidency: One class of books tells us things we never knew, such as how tyrannies arise or how Deutsche Bank operates outside meaningful scrutiny or control. The other tells us what we already know and seem to have forgotten. “American Nero,” by Richard W. Painter and Peter Golenbock, is very much in that latter category and serves to remind us, in icy, granular detail, of what has happened to constitutional democracy in three short years, and all that we have absorbed, integrated and somehow moved beyond. In some sense, then, it stands less as a unified argument than as a scrapbook of things that no longer horrify us.

The fact that it went to press just before the Senate impeachment trial, and thus cannot account for the near-collapse of an independent Justice Department, the capitulation of Senate Republicans who believed that President Trump had inappropriately sought Ukrainian election interference but who felt somehow helpless to hold him to account, and recent lawsuits against opinion journalists in major newspapers, actually only highlights the fact that even when one believes the situation cannot get worse, it always gets worse, and often in the span of mere weeks.

Painter, who served as White House chief ethics counsel under George W. Bush, and Golenbock, the author of several New York Times bestsellers, seek to chronicle the erosion of the rule of law in the Trump era, and in some ways, the most chilling parts of the book are not the descriptions of Trump’s lawlessness, whether in the form of attacking the press, benefiting financially from his presidency, obstructing the Mueller probe or fawning over despots. Much of this will be familiar to anyone who has tried to keep up with the events of recent years. But set against the context of historical precedent, the case becomes crisper. In their descriptions of the Salem witch trials, the internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War, the Palmer Raids and the pointless waste of the McCarthy era, the authors remind us that each of those actions was taken under color of law, effectuated by presidents, congressmen and lawyers.

Indeed they are quick to remind us, in a terrifying chapter on the rise of the Third Reich, that judges, prosecutors and democratically elected officials formed the very backbone of Nazi Germany. And that the transformation of Germany from democratic republic to bloody dictatorship took place in less than three months. In urging Americans to stand up for the rule of law — and its bulwarks of religious tolerance, guarantees of due process, truth, a free press and freedom from corruption — Painter and Golenbock archly make the more complicated case that law itself is often deployed to break the rule of law. As was the case in Nazi Germany, the breakdown can be progressive and can come in the guise of statutes, codes and court cases; these trappings do not make descent into autocracy lawful, they merely make it invisible.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Dahlia’s review at the link.

Not to quibble too much, but Dahlia, like many liberals who aren’t immersed in the ongoing immigration disgrace under this regime, doesn’t really “get” the essence of Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, ascribing to him some minimum sense of ethics. No, despite his pretenses of great religiosity, Sessions, one of the most dangerous and committed White Nationalists of our time, has no discernible morality or ethics.

What he does have, however, is a driving racist commitment, combined with a mean streak of pure misogyny, to strip brown-skinned migrants, particularly vulnerable abused female refugees, of every vestige of their Constitutional and legal rights and to demean and dehumanize them: “Dred Scottify” if you will.

His “mistake,” was to put carrying out his White Nationalist program in front of the personal interests of the Trump Family. That’s how he found himself out of a job and on Trump’s “enemies list.”

Perhaps “Gonzo,” never the brightest bulb in the pack, actually thought that going “above and beyond” in carrying out Trump’s assault on migrants and their humanity would “compensate” for his lack of demonstrated public personal loyalty to the corrupt interests of the Trump Family. If he did, he was wrong.

Sessions saw himself as the attorney for White Nationalist Nation, first and foremost. And, to give him credit, he did as much damage to our Constitutional institutions and the rule of law in his relatively short tenure as anyone, including Barr, although Barr now perhaps has an opportunity to overtake his predecessor.

Additionally, Sessions probably realized that backing off on his promise under oath to Congress to follow the attorneys’ ethical code and disqualify himself from the Clinton investigation and his public commitment to follow DOJ Ethics advice and recuse himself from the Trump/Russia investigation could 1) lead to his eventual disbarment, and 2) might even subject him to criminal prosecution.

At a minimum, within the Department of Justice itself, acting against the ethics advice of DOJ Ethics’ Counsel deprives the actor of any “safe haven defense” based on following such advice. Consequently, self-preservation, rather than sensitivity to some moral code, was probably also a driving factor for Gonzo.

It’s also not like Gonzo didn’t unethically help Trump behind the scenes on both the Clinton and Mueller investigations. He clearly did, but got away with it. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/04/who-can-stop-jeff-sessions-from-breaking-his-recusal-pledge-probably-no-one/.

In line with observations in American Nero, accountability has all but disappeared from our crumbling Government institutions where Trump and his toadies are concerned. That’s why it’s probably going to be up to the “court of history,” especially where the role of Article III Judges like Roberts and his crew are concerned, to establish at least some moral and historical accountability for the unraveling of democracy and human values in the face tyranny.

“American Nero.” Yeah, that’s a really “spot on” description of Trump and the dangerous and immoral toadies surrounding him in the Kakistocracy.

In reality, judges were among those inside Germany who might have effectively challenged Hitler’s authority, the legitimacy of the Nazi regime, and the hundreds of laws that restricted political freedoms, civil rights, and guarantees of property and security. And yet, the overwhelming majority did not. Instead, over the 12 years of Nazi rule, during which time judges heard countless cases, most not only upheld the law but interpreted it in broad and far-reaching ways that facilitated, rather than hindered, the Nazis ability to carry out their agenda.

— United States Holocaust Museum, Law, Justice, and the Holocaust, at 8 (July 2018)

How soon we forget!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-22-20

STUPIDITY ISN’T JUST FOR THE YOUNG: IT’S ENDEMIC IN THE GOP: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) 🤡🤡🤡🤡 Is Just The Latest To Demonstrate Why Throwing The GOP Out Of Office At All Levels Must Be Our Highest National Priority!

https://apple.news/AVg2viCFHQWG9XWU6P3SXfg

Caroline Kelly reports for CNN:

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson cast doubt on the severity of federally issued guidance aimed at staunching the spread of the novel coronavirus, urging people to consider the economic drawbacks of the recommendations as health officials plead with the American public to heed them.

“I’m not denying what a nasty disease COVID-19 can be, and how it’s obviously devastating to somewhere between 1 and 3.4 percent of the population,” Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Tuesday. “But that means 97 to 99 percent will get through this and develop immunities and will be able to move beyond this.”

“But we don’t shut down our economy because tens of thousands of people die on the highways. It’s a risk we accept so we can move about,” Johnson continued, in apparent reference to recent guidance issued at the federal and state levels for people to avoid large groups and stay away from bars, restaurants and other businesses to help blunt the spread of coronavirus. “We don’t shut down our economies because tens of thousands of people die from the common flu.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged Americans to practice social distancing, and the White House on Monday issued guidelines that all Americans avoid gathering in groups of more than 10, avoid non-essential travel and that urged older people to stay at home.

The recommendations — which come as the coronavirus continues to take hold in the US with at least 8,525 cases and 145 deaths as of Wednesday night — has caused some states and cities to implement drastic regulations on businesses. But the death toll from the virus, the nation’s top infectious disease expert has warned, depends on how seriously Americans commit to the actions necessary to curb the outbreak.

Johnson said that he was not discrediting those restrictions, but said they were disproportionate to the virus’ actual threat.

“I really don’t want to say that” efforts to contain the virus have gone too far, Johnson said. “It may be exactly what we need to do. But again, what I do want to do is put this all in perspective as we move forward here.”

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Caroline’s article at the above link.

Hey Ron, 1% of the U.S. population would only be 3.3 million. 3.4% would be around 11.2 million. But, who cares about little stats like that?

And, Ronnie, my man, here’s what experts say could happen in the U.S. if others do as you suggest and put short-term economic considerations over public health:

Between 160 million and 214 million people in the United States could be infected over the course of the epidemic, according to a projection that encompasses the range of the four scenarios. That could last months or even over a year, with infections concentrated in shorter periods, staggered across time in different communities, experts said. As many as 200,000 to 1.7 million people could die.

And, the calculations based on the C.D.C.’s scenarios suggested, 2.4 million to 21 million people in the United States could require hospitalization, potentially crushing the nation’s medical system, which has only about 925,000 staffed hospital beds. Fewer than a tenth of those are for people who are critically ill.

The assumptions fueling those scenarios are mitigated by the fact that cities, states, businesses and individuals are beginning to take steps to slow transmission, even if some are acting less aggressively than others. The C.D.C.-led effort is developing more sophisticated models showing how interventions might decrease the worst-case numbers, though their projections have not been made public.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/us/coronavirus-deaths-estimate.html?referringSource=articleShare

200,000 to 2.1 million dead! While those might be “little numbers“ to you, Ronnie, I’m guessing they will seem rather serious to the families of those who needlessly die! Could cause quite a stench if all of those bodies were piled up at your door! Perhaps taking an “economic hit” that is more or less inevitable in the time of worldwide pandemic anyway is better than running the risk of killing hundreds of thousands to millions, something that appears to have gone over Ronnie’s head.

Scary as the image might be, Johnson actually would be more at home with the young idiots partying down on Clearwater Beach. The thought of him as a legislator is positively terrifying.

Unfortunately, Wisconsin voters won’t be able to oust this fool they have inflicted on America until 2022. But, the rest of us could be saving our country and our lives if we get rid of Mitch and the GOP wrecking crew in November! That would consign Ron and others like him to the “back benches” where they could do less damage to our nation until the time comes when they can be voted out of office.

“Four Clowns” for you, Ronnie!🤡🤡🤡🤡

Vote ‘Em Out!

PWS

03-19-20

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

UPDATE FROM THE GUARDIAN: FAUCI RIPS JOHNSON FOR DANGEROUS STUPIDITY:

Dr Anthony Fauci criticized senator Ron Johnson for downplaying the threat of coronavirus and questioning the drastic government response to it.

“I’m not denying what a nasty disease COVID-19 can be, and how it’s obviously devastating to somewhere between 1 and 3.4 percent of the population,” Johnson saidearlier this week.

“But that means 97 to 99 percent will get through this and develop immunities and will be able to move beyond this. But we don’t shut down our economy because tens of thousands of people die on the highways.

Fauci said it was a “false equivalency to compare traffic accidents” to coronavirus and emphasized a drastic response was necessary when a new and dangerously contagious virus was uncovered.

Last Updated: 13:05 Friday, 20 March 2020

29m ago

HERE’S WHAT’S NEW IN IMMIGRATION: PRISCILLA ALVAREZ @ CNN GIVES US A NICE CONCISE LIST OF 12 MAJOR CHANGES BROUGHT ABOUT BY CORONAVIRUS!

https://apple.news/ACTEYnrSLRfWcWwTWOOBfyQ

Priscilla writes:

As the United States responds to the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration has made sweeping changes to the country’s immigration apparatus, altering daily operations and disrupting the lives of thousands.

In a little over a week, there have been a dozen changes, ranging from postponing immigration hearings to pausing deportation flights to certain countries and suspending refugee admissions. The tweaks to the system are being made incrementally, though rapidly, as the pandemic spreads across the country.

Against the backdrop of the coronavirus outbreak, the Trump administration is also trying to move forward with some of its most restrictionist policies that have struggled to be put into practice, including blocking entry to asylum seekers.

President Donald Trump confirmed he’s planning to bar entry to migrants during a White House briefing Wednesday. “The answer’s yes,” Trump said when asked if he was planning to take that step, which he said would come “very soon,” adding, “Probably today.”

Below is a list of the changes to the immigration system over recent days:

. . . .

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

Read the complete article with Priscilla’s list at the link.

What if our “immigration bureaucracy” provided information in such a clear and timely manner as Priscilla? Thanks, Priscilla for your constant excellent reporting and for all you do for our society. Truly, one of many “heroes” out there!

PWS

03-19-20

TRUMP’S MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE THREATENS OUR NATION’S HEALTH & WELFARE! — “Leading a cult is not the same as leading a country. Presidential leadership is born of character — morality, honesty, courage, stability — traits foreign to Trump, traits to which he is actively hostile.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/opinion/coronavirus-trump-leadership.html

Charles Blow in the NYT:

This is what it looks like when a crisis of leadership makes its way into our health and our homes, when lack of prudence induces panic, when the president himself cannot be trusted.

The coronavirus pandemic changes the view of Donald Trump’s incompetence, because this time it is intimate. This time what’s at stake isn’t abstract in the mind of the average American, like constitutional law or international relations. It is not far away, like families at the border or Nazis in Charlottesville. It is not about carnal and craven acts that take place between two people or are committed by one against another, like assaulting women or paying them off.

No, this is about all of us and all the things closest to us: our health and safety, our children and parents, our ability to move freely and sleep soundly, our ability to go to work and send our children to school. This is about our ability to participate in America’s two great religious non-religions: politics and sports.

This crisis is transcendent, which makes Trump’s disastrous approach to dealing with it all the more transparent.

The Trump administration finally appears to be taking this crisis seriously, after months of Trump himself trivializing and politicizing it. The virus was never a hoax or a media creation or a flash in the pan that would affect few and miraculously vanish.

But Trump, the supposed leader of the country, wasted precious time — weeks and weeks — telling the American public just that, while not taking the drastic measures that the government is now, belatedly, taking.

That puts lives in danger, and surely, in the end, will have cost lives.

America needs a leader; it has a lout.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Charles’s column at the link.

Those of us working in the field of immigration, trying to save the lives of the most vulnerable among us, have seen Trump’s cruelty, stupidity, racism, and malicious incompetence up close.

Now, the rest of the nation is getting a dose of what it really means to have elevated a Kakistocracy to leadership.

Due Process Forever; The Trump Kakistocracy, Never!

PWS

03-16-20

BEWARE AMERICA: TRUMP IS USING HIS STUPID & BUNGLED CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE AS THE “REICHSTAG FIRE” THAT WILL BURN UP OUR CONSTITUTION!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-coronavirus-borders_n_5e6a530ec5b6dda30fc4be6e

Jessica Schulberg reports for HuffPost:

During his first address to the nation on the global coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump characterized COVID-19 as a “foreign virus” while touting his decision to institute travel restrictions with China and announcing plans to close the U.S. to visitors from most of Europe.

Meanwhile, he has been raked by critics — and the markets — for failing to thoroughly explain how the government plans to address the lack of tests and spiking number of cases across the U.S. His administration has for weeks downplayed the threat of the virus, even as experts warned it is on track to spread exponentially.

Trump clearly sees the novel coronavirus as just another foreign invader to keep out — a viewpoint reflected both in his policy proposals and the way he and his administration talk about the virus. This approach is in line with his overarching political strategy of exploiting Americans’ fears to justify racist, nativist policies.

“This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history,” Trump said Wednesday about his administration’s response while blaming the European Union for failing to take steps to prevent contagion. Several European countries have fewer cases of coronavirus per capita than the U.S.

It’s not just Trump. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar repeatedly referred to the disease as the “China coronavirus” during a briefing last month. Anti-immigration zealot Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) — who is in self-quarantineafter being exposed to coronavirus at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland — has gone out of his way to describe the virus as the “Wuhan virus,” a reference to the location of the first outbreak.

When Gosar’s critics argued that the congressman shouldn’t spread racist stereotypes, Rich Lowry, the editor of the right-wing National Review, wrote an entire column insisting the illness be called the “Wuhan virus.” “China deserves to be connected to the virus that it loosed on the world,” he argued.

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

For those who don’t know the history, the “Reichstag Fire” in 1933 was a pivotal step in the Nazi’s rise to power in Germany. At the time, Hitler blamed Communists. The actual cause of the fire has since been debated by historians: some say the Nazis started it themselves, while others say that it was an accident, or the act of a single arsonist.

Regardless of cause, all agree on the result. Hitler used it as a pretext to eradicate the constitution, punish the opposition, and place draconian authoritarian measures in place using the fiction of “national security.” This eventually led to the Holocaust and a World War that killed approximately 75 million.

Fact is that the coronavirus isn’t “foreign.” Viruses don’t possess or recognize nationality. Nor was it spread in the U.S. primarily by “foreigners.” Most cases initially reached the U.S. through U.S. citizens who took cruises or traveled abroad after the start of the virus abroad had been publicized.

Mexico, a frequent target of the Trump regime’s racism, has reported fewer than ten confirmed cases of coronavirus, as opposed to over 1,000 in the U.S. The Northern Triangle of Central America also appears to have avoided major outbreaks to date. On the other hand, the illegal and inhumane anti-asylum policies of the regime, as enabled by the Supremes and complicit Article III Courts, appear to present a realistic danger of spreading the virus to all of those countries which are ill-equipped to handle it.

The market as well as all medical experts recognized and reacted negatively to the idiocy of Trump’s Oval Office speech. The U.S. preparation, public education, and actual response to coronavirus has been one of the poorest and most inept in the world to date. To the extent that the U.S. has mitigated the disease, it has been largely the result of decisive actions by State Governors and local officials of both parties, although primarily Democrats, along with universities and sports leagues.

Expect Trump and his White Nationalists to use the danger to our public health that he didn’t cause, yet unnecessarily aggravated, as an excuse for more irrational, cruel, xenophobic, racist attacks on migrants. And, you can expect the “Chief of Complicity,” John Roberts, and his accomplices to continue to help promote Trump’s attack on human decency, truth, and our democratic institutions. John Roberts has never seen a transparently false “emergency” from Trump that he didn’t love or racism or religious bigotry so obvious that he would actually call it what it is.

Incompetent governance by a corrupt, selfish kakistocracy that promotes myths and conspiracy theories over truth, scientific knowledge, and the common good does not cause epidemics. But, it does unnecessarily aggravate them, hinder effective control, and gravely endanger the public health. It simple terms, it kills! Yet another reason why “regime change” in November might be America’s last chance for survival.

The coronavirus has surfaced perhaps the only competent high level official in the entire Trump Administration — Dr. Anthony Fauci. In case you haven’t noticed, there is no resemblance whatsoever between the scientific truth spoken by Dr. Fauci, who paints a honest but grim picture of the Administration’s half-assed efforts to date, and the unadulterated BS and party line spouted by Trump and the second most unqualified individual in the U.S. to handle a pandemic Mike “Super Sycophant” Pence. Talk about a “Confederacy of Dunces!” I’m just surprised that Trump hasn’t fired Fauci yet, given the well-known Trumpian aversion to all things true.

I’ve watched the smirking nitwit Rich Lowry of the National Review (too) many times on the “talking heads” where he is a favorite because he is one of the few Trump apologists who can put two consecutive sentences together in the English Language. Most of what he says is BS, but at least it’s comprehensible and reasonably articulate BS. And, despite the endless smirk, he isn’t as overtly rude and aggressively crude as most Trumpists. Jessica’s article confirmed my already low opinion of Rich. As Rome burns, by all means, let’s pontificate on what we should call the fire.

Still don’t believe we have “malicious incompetents” in charge? Check out the latest from the L.A. Times on how the regime is stiffing states, screwing the poor, and spreading disease and potential death by blocking states from using Medicaid to respond to the coronavirus. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-13/trump-administration-blocks-states-use-medicaid-respond-coronavirus-crisis

It’s never good to be governed by the malicious, stupid, and cruel in a time of crisis. Kakistocracy has consequences!

PWS

02-13-20

WILL CLUELESS CLOWN COURTS ENDANGER PUBLIC HEALTH & SAFETY? 🤡🤡 — The Inevitable Spread of Coronavirus Is “Old News” & Poorly Designed & Mismanaged Immigration Courts Appear To Be a “High Risk” Potential Breeding Ground — Predictably, Dysfunctional EOIR Has No Contingency Plans In Place! — 100-Case “Master Calendars” in Mini-Courtrooms Bringing Old & Young, Infirm & Able, From Far & Near Together Under Threat Of In Absentia Deportation — What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

NDPA stalwart Laura Lynch, Senior Policy Counsel @ AILA reports:

Flagging this new CNN article along with two letters from the NAIJ.

Letter from NAIJ to Acting Chief Immigration Judge Chris Santoro on the lack of guidance issued to EOIR staff, March 9, 2020

Letter from NAIJ to IJs to provide guidance on the immigration courts and COVID-19, March 9, 2020

CNN: Immigration judges want to know how to handle coronavirus, March 9, 2020

Immigration judges want to know how to handle coronavirus

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

Updated 5:04 PM ET, Mon March 9, 2020

(CNN)The union representing immigration judges urged the Trump administration in a letter Monday to “immediately” implement steps to protect judges and their staff and provide guidance on how to proceed amid the coronavirus outbreak, which also has the potential to exacerbate the overwhelming backlog of pending cases.

The letter calls for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, an agency within the Justice Department that oversees the nation’s immigration courts, to inform employees about the plan “as it relates to a potential pandemic,” noting that some immigration court functions “may not lend themselves to telework.”

“As you know, our work requires us to be in close contact with the public on a daily basis, often in very large numbers and groups,” wrote Judge Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

She continued: “Beyond our own employees, the respondents who come before us may also be at high risk for developing serious illness. Because we order their appearance and they face the prospect of removal if they don’t appear, sick respondents and respondents vulnerable to serious illness will keep coming to court unless we take action.”

As concerns over the coronavirus ramp up, some government agencies, businesses and organizations have taken steps to try and prevent the spread of the disease by preparing for employees to telework, limiting travel and canceling gatherings.

In Monday’s letter, the union asked the Trump administration to consider measures such as waiving the appearance of some respondents, allowing for telephonic appearances and limiting in-court paper filings. The union is also recommending in an email to the workforce that judges keep bottles of hand sanitizer in the courtroom, use disinfecting wipes to clean surfaces and limit court attendance.

Any change in daily operations is critical in immigration court, which faces a pile-up of pending cases. Immigrants fighting deportation generally have a chance to make their case in court, where they can ask a judge to allow them to stay in the US by arguing they qualify for asylum or another legal option.

Last year’s US government shutdown, which resulted in some cases being postponed, exacerbated the long-standing issue and added to the backlog. There are more than 1 million pending cases before the immigration courts, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse or TRAC, which tracks immigration court data — resulting in cases being scheduled out years in advance.

TRAC estimated last year that between 80,000 and 94,000 immigration court hearings may have been canceled as a result of last year’s government shutdown. The only cases that moved forward during that time were those of immigrants in detention.

The concerns held among immigration lawyers Monday are reminiscent of the government shutdown.

Immigration attorneys are worried about the effect on the backlog of cases if judges, attorneys, and other stakeholders are out because of the illness.

“If this thing gets out of control, it’s always a problem when cases are canceled, given the backlog,” Lawrence K. Le Roy, an immigration lawyer based in Newark, said in reference to coronavirus.

John Leschak, an immigration attorney, had a hearing scheduled Monday at the Newark immigration court for a client seeking asylum in the United States. The judge was not in court and the hearing was postponed. It’s unclear whether the reason behind the judge’s absence was related to coronavirus.

“It’s unfortunate because it’s a case that’s been pending for a long time,” Leschak said. “We’re between a rock and a hard place.”

The coronavirus is also already impacting the operations of some federal courts across the US.

For example, a district court in Washington state and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from nine western states including Washington, altered some of the procedures as the virus continues to spread. Washington has seen at least 80 cases.

Unlike other courts, however, immigration courts fall under the executive branch, not the judicial branch.

Ariane de Vogue and Kevin Bohn contributed to this story.

Laura A. Lynch, Esq.

Senior Policy Counsel

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

Thanks Laura, my friend, for keeping us up to date. And, as always, thanks to Priscilla for her great reporting on the never-ending mess and continuing outages at EOIR.

When it comes to public service and professional court administration from “Headquarters,” “today’s EOIR is the pits.” And, that’s not a knock on Chief Judge Chris Santoro who is generally known as a “straight shooter” and a “problem solver.” I think that I’ve acknowledged before that he was always kind and supportive to me and helped me through some very difficult times in my career at Arlington. I’ll always be appreciative for that.

“Reading between the lines,” he was ordered by one of his “superior bozos” in EOIR’s ludicrous “chain of command” to issue the inane order and then to rescind it when everything “hit the fan.” Typical EOIR “march ‘em up the hill, then march ‘em down again nonsense,” that actually has an adverse effect on both internal morale and the public.

On the other hand, perhaps it’s time for those who know how screwed up and “maliciously mismanaged” this system is to “come out and join the resistance,” as others in our Round Table have done, some at considerable personal sacrifice (not me, of course — I was fortunate enough to be able and ready to retire from EOIR even before the current regime took over.) I have no doubt that someone with Chief Judge Santoro’s ample and diverse skill set could find employment in the private sector.

But, this “circus-like” incident raises deeper issues.

In what kind of “court system” are “judges” not allowed to post public notices issued by the CDC without saying “Captain May I?” The DOJ falsely claims that its “judges” are “policy officials.” Whoever heard of a “policy official” who couldn’t hang up a Government public health poster? This whole thing is an unbelievable farce! Why does it take a directive from “Headquarters” to rectify what should be a no brainer in any functioning court system?

And, what kind of “court system” (outside the military) reports to “headquarters.” You think that the U.S. District Courts in Washington called up John Roberts to see if it was OK to cancel trials because of a public health threat? I doubt it.

Why wasn’t NAIJ President Judge Ashley Tabaddor involved in the Coronavirus planning. She speaks for those “on the line” in contact with the public. Certainly, few issues could have a greater effect on “working conditions” than steps to prevent the spread of infectious disease. Why is the NAIJ forced to waste time complaining and going to such lengths when competent management would have involved them in advance planning months ago?

Imagine how much better this system would operate if it were run by real judges who hired professional court administrators to work for the public good, instead of maliciously incompetent clowns carrying out Stephen Miller’s fascist agenda?

As you know, I blame the Article IIIs and Congress for letting this deadly mockery of our Constitution and American Justice continue to operate — essentially to dehumanize, abuse, and sometimes kill. I trust the younger members of the NDPA, folks like Laura and her colleagues, and the next generations to see that the life-tenured judges and legislators who looked the other way and knowingly acted as enablers as human dignity, our Constitution, and the rule of law were trampled upon by a White Nationalist regime are held fully accountable in the “court of history.”

The “J.R. Five’s” toxically improper action in Wolf v. Cook County, skirting the rules to enable the regime’s illegal, racially motivated rewriting of the “public charge” rules to go into effect has been exposed for the outrageous politically biased action it is. It allows the regime to intentionally spread panic in ethnic communities, particularly targeting Hispanics, citizens, immigrants, and the undocumented, and to intimidate those who should be seeking health care advice from doing so. Nice public health policy. As if Coronavirus and other diseases know the difference between “documented” and “undocumented” humans. It’s likely that Roberts and his tone deaf cronies will have even more “blood on their hands” before this is over.

As I said on Courtside recently, in the future, we also need more courageous, scholarly, humane, and ethical Article III Judges — folks who will read the Constitution and stand up for individual rights and for human dignity — folks who understand as MLK once said that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The current group of Article IIIs is a national disgrace (as a whole, although there are many notable exceptions, mostly among the U.S. District Court Judges who all too often get reversed by the CAs and the Supremes as their “reward” for “standing tall” for the rest of us and standing up for the fair application of the rule of law).

In the meantime, NAIJ President Judge Ashley Tabaddor is a national hero for standing up for the due process rights of all and having the courage to “speak truth to power” in these perilous times. Obviously, the unethical “decertification action” started by DOJ and EOIR is part of the effort to punish and silence her. Hang in there Ashley! We in the NDPA and the Round Table support and appreciate you and your tireless efforts!

Due Process Forever! Clown Courts 🤡& Complicit Article III Courts Never!

PWS

03-11-20

WANT A GOVERNMENT THAT IS FAIR, FACT BASED, ENERGETIC, COMPASSIONATE, RESPECTFUL, AND COMMITTED TO THE COMMON GOOD? — WANT A REPRESENTATIVE WHO WILL SOLVE LOCAL PROBLEMS IN A “BIG-PICTURE” CONTEXT? WANT A LEGISLATOR WHO WILL DISCUSS IMMIGRATION FROM PRACTICAL, HUMAN, COMMUNITY-BASED EXPERIENCE, NOT BIAS & FEARFUL FALSE NARRATIVES? — Hillary Scholten, Michigan 3rd District, Democrat, is YOUR Candidate! — Meet Hillary & “Get On Her Bandwagon” For Good Government That Will Work For YOU & for ALL-AMERICAN VALUES Every Day, on March 6, 2020, @ Noon in D.C.!

Brilliant
Courageous
Creative
Compassionate
Committed
Caring
Concerned
Genuine
Reputation for integrity
Family-friendly
Dedicated parent
Michigan born and raised
Michigan values, All-American vision
A leader and role model for the “New Due Process Army”

That’s my friend HILLARY SCHOLTEN — our candidate for a return to the basic values that made our country great! Join me, meet Hillary in person, and find out more about one of American politics’ most refreshing, down-to-earth, and exciting “new faces” and her positive vision for all Americans. “Michigan’s Values are America’s Values!” Hillary is America’s future! Help put her to work for us and for all Americans now!

— “Hillary was held in such high regard universally at the BIA. In addition to all of her other attributes, she is highly inclusive and a consensus builder, which is so important in the present climate.”

***Honorable Jeffrey S. Chase, Retired U.S. Immigration Judge, Former BIA Senior Advisor, Author of “Jeffrey S. Chase Blog,” & a Leader of the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

Here are links to the invitation:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dcluncheon

DC Luncheon Invitation (1)

Please join us
For a luncheon in support of
Hillary Scholten
Candidate for Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District With guest speaker
Judge Paul Schmidt Friday, March 6th
12:00-2:00 PM
The Dupont Room at the offices of Arent Fox
1717 K Street NW Washington, DC 20006
Contribution Levels:
Maximum: $2,800 | Host: $500 | Champion: $250 | Supporter: $100 | Guest: $50
RSVP online at: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dcluncheon Or to Liz Gallagher at liz@hillaryscholten.com
Paid for by Hillary Scholten for Congress.

Luncheon in Support of Hillary Scholten for
Congress
th
March 6 , 2020 12:00-2:00 PM
Requested Contribution Levels:
Maximum: $,2800 | Host: $500 | Champion: $250 | Supporter: $100 | Guest: $50
You may give online at: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dcluncheon
Yes, I/ we would like to attend the event and contribute $________ No, I/ we are unable to attend, but would like t0 contribute $________
Please make contributions payable and mail checks to:
Scholten for Congress
PO Box 6233 Grand Rapids, MI 49516
First & Last Name(s): _______________________________________________________ Address: __________________________________________________________________ City: ______________________________________ State: __________ Zip: ___________
Phone: _______________________Email: ______________________________________ Employer: __________________________ Occupation: __________________________
Please indicate your payment preference:
My check, made payable to Scholten For Congress, is enclosed. Charge my contribution (address above must match billing address). Credit Card #: _________________________ Exp. Date: _________________
Please sign here to indicate you have read and agree with the following contribution guidelines: ___________________________________________________________________
1. This contribution is made from my own funds, and funds are not being provided to me by another person or entity for the purpose of making this contribution.
2. I am making this contribution with my own personal credit card and not with a corporate or business credit card or card issued to another person.
3. I am not a federal contractor.
4. I am at least eighteen years old.
5. I am a U.S. citizen or lawfully admitted permanent resident (i.e., green card holder).
Contributions are not tax deductible. Federal law requires us to use best efforts to collect and report the name, mailing address, occupation and employer of individuals whose contributions exceed $200 in an election cycle. Contributions are limited to personal funds of $2,800 for the 2020 Primary election and $2,800 for the 2020 General election. Contributions from qualified Federal PACs are limited to $5,000 per PAC for each election. Corporate checks, funds from government contractors, foreign nationals, and labor organizations, and contributions made in the
name of another, cannot be accepted.
Paid for by Scholten for Congress.

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

Hope to see you on March 6!

PWS

02-16-20

U.S. CENSUS BUREAU CONFIRMS WHAT MANY OF US ALREADY KNOW: Trump Regime’s White Nationalist, Anti-Immigrant Policies Are As Stupid & Counterproductive As They Are Vile!

Marissa J. Lang
Local Reporter
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/us-population-will-decline-faster-without-steady-immigration-census-report-says/2020/02/13/1ccff6d6-4ea7-11ea-b721-9f4cdc90bc1c_story.html

Marissa J. Lang

Feb. 13, 2020 at 8:15 p.m. EST

Limiting immigration over the next four decades would do little to stop the racial diversification of the United States — but it could push the country into a population decline, according to a new report by the U.S. Census Bureau.

For the first time in a decade, the federal agency gamed out how varying degrees of immigration could impact the U.S. population in terms of growth, age and racial diversity and its labor force.

Its conclusions, experts said, underscore the important role immigrants play in keeping the U.S. population trending upward.

“We desperately need immigration to keep our country growing and prosperous,” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution who analyzed the Census numbers this week. “The reason we have a good growth rate in comparison to other developed countries in the world is because we’ve had robust immigration for the last 30 to 40 years.”

Virginia poised to help undocumented immigrants get driver’s licenses

The Census compared population estimates based on immigration levels from 2011 to 2015 and ran several “what if” scenarios to see how changing the flow of immigrants could impact the population as a whole.

Analysts compared the status quo with a “high immigration” scenario in which immigration would increase by about 50 percent; a “low immigration” scenario in which immigration would decline by about 50 percent; and a “zero immigration” scenario that demonstrates what would happen if immigration ground to a complete stop.

Immigration fluctuations between now and 2060 could make the difference of as many as 127 million people in the U.S. population, the Census found.

If immigration declines by 50 percent, the United States would still add about 53 million people over the next four decades, the report says.

But if immigration is stopped altogether, the population would stall out in 2035, after which it would slide into a decline. By 2060, under a zero-immigration scenario, the Census found the population could reach a low of 320 million people with a large and rapidly aging senior population.

The population of American seniors — aged 65 and older — is expected to surpass the population of children under the age of 18 in every scenario, though higher immigration patterns would delay the inevitable: In the zero-immigration plot, seniors outpace children by the year 2029; in the high-immigration pattern, seniors don’t overtake children until 2045.

Immigration has, of course, been shaped by the policies and rhetoric of President Trump, whose rise to power in 2016 and subsequent immigration policies are not accounted for in the Census report.

Last month, the president added six countries to his administration’s travel ban list, which already prohibited nearly all citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and North Korea from immigrating to the United States.

The new ban, which takes effect on Feb. 22, would bar immigrants from Nigeria — Africa’s most populous country — as well as Eritrea, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan. It would also prevent people from Tanzania and Sudan from applying for the visa lottery, which issues up to 50,000 visas annually to countries with historically low migration to the United States.

Nigerian official expressed confidence country will be dropped from U.S. travel-ban list

Most of the people affected by the policy hail from predominantly black and Muslim nations, a fact that has prompted Democrats and other critics to call the ban an exercise in racism and xenophobia.

But according to census data, eliminating all forms of immigration altogether would not prevent the United States from becoming increasingly nonwhite.

“The fastest-growing racial group in this country is people who identify as multiracial,” Frey said.

Without any new immigrants coming to the United States, the non-Hispanic white population would still fall by about 17 percent over the next four decades, the Census reports. That means that by 2060, white people would make up just barely more than half of the country — 51 percent, with that number expected to decline further in the future.

In all other scenarios, the United States is projected to become majority-minority well before then: by 2041, if immigration increases; by 2045, if immigration remains constant; and by 2049, if immigration is cut in half.

Among young people below age 30, the change is more rapid, and is expected to tip the scales in this decade.

“You could stop immigration tomorrow, and this country would still become more racially diverse,” Frey said.

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

It would make more sense if we had a thoughtful, honest Government that worked to achieve the full potential of inevitable immigration rather than fighting a costly, rancorous, counterproductive, and ultimately fruitless “war” against that which made America great in the first place.

The latest regime “scam on America:” sending “elite Border Patrol Tactical Squads” (who obviously lack any real, meaningful law enforcement assignment) to “sanctuary cities” to round up more undocumented individuals to aimlessly throw into a failing and mismanaged “court” system that’s already backed up for years. There has to be a more intelligent and efficient way to prioritize and conduct immigration enforcement.

“We can diminish ourselves as a nation (and are in the process of doing that on many fronts), but it won’t stop human migration.”

Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-15-20

JAMELLE BOUIE @ NYT: SUPREMES’ TRAVEL BAN “TANK” ENCOURAGED & ENABLED TRUMP’S RACIST AGENDA — THE BOGUS EXTENSION OF THE TRAVEL BAN TO NIGERIA PROVES IT — “Which is to say that it does not matter that Nigeria isn’t much of a national security threat or that Nigerians are among the most successful immigrants to the United States, surpassing native-born Americans in income and educational attainment. What matters is that they’re black and African and, for Trump, at the bottom of a racial hierarchy.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/opinion/trump-travel-ban-nigeria.html

Bouie writes:

It’s happening a little bit out of public consciousness — swamped by impeachment, the coronavirus and the Democratic presidential race — but on Friday President Trump announced further restrictions on immigration and foreign entry to the United States. Citing security concerns, the administration has slammed the door on immigrants from the African nations of Sudan, Tanzania and Eritrea, as well as Myanmar in Southeast Asia and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. These countries, which have large Muslim populations, join seven others on the president’s ever-developing travel ban.

There’s one other country on the expanded list — Nigeria. Home to more than 200 million of Africa’s 1.2 billion people, Nigeria has the largest economy on the continent and has worked with the American military on joint operations. But given an “elevated risk and threat environment in the country,” administration officials say there’s a chance Nigeria could become a vector for terrorists who want to enter the United States. Nigeria’s government has long struggled with the Islamist group Boko Haram, which is responsible for multiple kidnappings and dozens of attacks that amount to mass slaughter.

But there’s little to no evidence that this group is a threat to Americans, nor is there any history of Nigerian terrorism on American soil. From 1975 to 2015, according to an analysis from the libertarian Cato Institute, just one Nigerian national was implicated in a terrorist attack against the United States. And, it should be said, the administration has not banned all entry from Nigeria — only applications for permanent residence. Tourists can still visit America, an odd loophole if the White House is actually worried about terrorism.

But I don’t think President Trump is actually worried about Nigerian terrorism.

JAMELLE BOUIE’S NEWSLETTERDiscover overlooked writing from around the internet, and get exclusive thoughts, photos and reading recommendations from Jamelle. Sign up here.

In 2017, The New York Times reported on a meeting between Trump and several members of his cabinet in which he raged against foreign visitors to the United States. Citing a memo from Stephen Miller, the president’s chief immigration hard-liner, Trump complained about the pending arrival of thousands of people from Muslim and predominantly African nations. They “all have AIDS,” Trump reportedly said, about immigrants from Haiti. As for Nigerians? Once they saw America, they would never “go back to their huts.”

All of this was separate from the president’s remarks on what he famously called “shithole countries” — those came the next year, when he found a fresh way to articulate his racist vision of immigration policy, where white Europeans are welcome and nonwhites are not.

Which is to say that it does not matter that Nigeria isn’t much of a national security threat or that Nigerians are among the most successful immigrants to the United States, surpassing native-born Americans in income and educational attainment. What matters is that they’re black and African and, for Trump, at the bottom of a racial hierarchy.

I’ve written before about the 1924 Immigration Act, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act, which codified a decade’s worth of nativist hysteria into law. It followed the Immigration Act of 1917, which imposed literacy tests on new immigrations and barred immigration from the Asia-Pacific region, and the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, which established the first per-country percentage limits on the number of immigrants to the United States. The 1924 act was the harshest. It was also the most far-reaching. Meant to reduce immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, it also defined the American nation in explicitly racial terms.

The quota system established by Johnson-Reed, the historian Mae Ngai writes, “subtracted from the total United States population all blacks and mulattoes, eliding the difference between the ‘descendants of slave immigrants’ and the descendants of free Negroes and voluntary immigrants from Africa. It also discounted all Chinese, Japanese and South Asians as persons ‘ineligible to citizenship,’ including descendants of such people with American citizenship by native birth.”

In doing so, Ngai continues, the 1924 Immigration Act “excised all nonwhite, non-European peoples” from its “legal representation of the American nation,” setting the stage for the “racialization of immigrant groups around notions of whiteness, permanent foreignness and illegality.”

Trump is almost certainly ignorant of the Johnson-Reed Act (Stephen Miller, on the other hand, is not). But he’s channeling the impulse of that law — the attempt to cast the United States as a white nation, off-limits to those who don’t fit his preferred racial type. And with the Supreme Court’s blessing (granted to the revised version of the original travel ban), he’s doing just that: using his immigration policy to resurrect and reconstitute the exclusions of the early 20th century.

Although immigration policy deals with the external boundaries of the United States, the elevation of whiteness has internal consequences as well. Not because the president intends to distribute benefits and favors on the basis of race — although there are elements of that in his administration’s behavior — but because it sends a larger signal about who matters in this society. Every time Trump and other members of his administration make the decision to stratify and racialize, they are also making a statement about who receives a voice and who deserves respect.

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

America needs Supremes with the expertise, legal understanding, and moral courage to stand up for the legal, Constitutional, and human rights of all persons against the Trump/Miller/GOP White Nationalist agenda.

By enabling the rebirth of Jim Crow, the “GOP Justices” are destroying America to enable a vile anti-social agenda of a neo-fascist regime!

Human lives matter more than corporate profits!

Due Process Forever; White Nationalism Never!

PWS

O2-06-20

COMING ATTRACTIONS: ST MARY’S LAW REVIEW ON RACE & SOCIAL JUSTICE, & USTA INSTITUTE ON TEXAN CULTURES PRESENT THE 2020 IMMIGRATION SYMPOSIUM ON FEB. 28, 2020 IN SAN ANTONIO — Featuring Khizr Khan, Keynote Speaker; Ira J. Kurzbazn, Esquire, Guest Speaker; & A Host of Experts, Including Me!

My speech is entitled: “Due Process Doesn’t Live Here Any More: Weaponized Immigration Courts Are America’s Star Chambers”

Here is the complete program and registration information:

Symposium_Poster

Hope to see you in San Antonio.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-03-20

Related posts:

Stay well, and Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

“Vote ‘Em Out”

By Willie Nelson

If you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out That’s what Election Day is all about The biggest gun we’ve got Is called “the ballot box” So if you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out

Vote ’em out (vote ’em out) Vote ’em out (vote ’em out) And when they’re gone we’ll sing and dance and shout Bring some new ones in And we’ll start that show again And if you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out

If it’s a bunch of clowns you voted in Election Day is comin’ ’round again If you don’t like it now If it’s more than you’ll allow If you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

“Four Clowns” for you, Ronnie!🤡🤡🤡🤡

Vote ‘Em Out!

UPDATE FROM THE GUARDIAN: FAUCI RIPS JOHNSON FOR DANGEROUS STUPIDITY:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Due Process Forever; The Trump Kakistocracy, Never!

Related posts:

Related posts:

Due Process Forever! Clown Courts 🤡& Complicit Article III Courts Never!

Related posts:

Brilliant

Courageous

Creative

Compassionate

Committed

Caring

Concerned

Genuine

Reputation for integrity

Family-friendly

Dedicated parent

Michigan born and raised

Michigan values, All-American vision

A leader and role model for the “New Due Process Army”

Related posts:

Related posts:

Due Process Forever; White Nationalism Never!

Related posts:

My speech is entitled: “Due Process Doesn’t Live Here Any More: Weaponized Immigration Courts Are America’s Star Chambers”

Related posts:

If you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out
That’s what Election Day is all about
The biggest gun we’ve got
Is called “the ballot box”
So if you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out

Vote ’em out (vote ’em out)
Vote ’em out (vote ’em out)
And when they’re gone we’ll sing and dance and shout
Bring some new ones in
And we’ll start that show again
And if you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out

If it’s a bunch of clowns you voted in
Election Day is comin’ ’round again
If you don’t like it now
If it’s more than you’ll allow
If you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out