"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 Los Angeles Times has won two Pulitzer Prizes, for art critic Christopher Knight’s watchdog coverage of plans for the new Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and reporter Molly O’Toole’s audio story about U.S. asylum officers’ discontent with President Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.
The prizes were awarded Monday in the criticism and audio reporting categories. O’Toole and The Times shared the audio prize with journalists from “This American Life” and Vice.
. . . .
The Pulitzer judges cited O’Toole and Vice freelancer Emily Green for “The Out Crowd,” broadcast on NPR’s “This American Life,” for “revelatory, intimate journalism that illuminates the personal impact of the Trump administration’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy.”
O’Toole, 33, had covered immigration and border security for a decade and decided to look closely at a new policy targeting asylum seekers, not just people who had illegally crossed the border.
She found veteran asylum officers deeply troubled by directives that in effect forced them to push many Mexican and Central American immigrants back to deadly violence in their home countries.
“The officers felt very strongly about refugee asylum and the idea of the U.S. as a safe haven,” she said. “Now they were taking part in a policy that they felt was wrong, morally and legally. But they had few choices, either continue being part of this administration or quit and lose their career.”
Audio reporting is a new Pulitzer category in 2020.
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Read Joe’s full report at the link.
Congrats and thanks to Molly, Emily, and the folks at “This American Life” for all they do!👍
They are making a permanent record of the disgusting Human Rights abuses ☠️ and lawlessness of the Trump regime for posterity, even as the Supremes and Congress gutlessly look the other way 👎!
R.I.P. American democracy. You still had so much left to give! Whom should we blame for your untimely demise?
Understandably, many believe the coldhearted killer was President Trump. He has after all solicited foreign help to aid himin takingout a political rival — twice. He continues to accept payments from otherforeignleaders and well-heeled business executives, who patronize his properties in clear hopes of influencing U.S. policy. He has refused to disclose his tax returns, necessary to determine whether the executive branch is working in his interest or the country’s. He has sought to punish perceived political enemies, minorities and other groups that dare cross him.
And so on. But is Trump truly the guilty party?
In my view, he’s the wrong, or at least an incomplete, answer to this particular whodunit.
Had the perpetrator been Individual 1 — and only Individual 1 — our dearly departed victim might still be alive, if perhaps wounded. The real answer is more of a Murder-on-the-Orient-Express-type conclusion: We all did it.
Unindicted co-conspirators in this heartless murder include Republican lawmakers. They have been led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and former House speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), who tolerated massacres of civil rights, of rule of law and of other democratic values and institutions, so long as the party got its federal judges or tax cuts.
They got lots of help from their colleagues. Even when those colleagues were on record as disapproving of the exact kinds of anti-democratic actions Trump acknowledges taking.
Fast-forward to today. Now that the hypothetical appears to have come true, they’ve mostly fallen silent. Or worse: They’ve urged the Justice Department to investigate the political rival whom Trump sought a foreign power’s help in sullying, former vice president Joe Biden.
At best, you have Romney tweeting that “If the President asked or pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate his political rival, either directly or through his personal attorney, it would be troubling in the extreme.” Except that “if” is superfluous, given that Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani acknowledged this way back in May.
Trump’s lickspittle Cabinet officials are also implicated in the Trump-coordinated assault on democracy.
On Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave multiple interviews in which he suggested that Biden is the real party responsible for interfering in U.S. elections. (Umm, what?) Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin — who has elsewhere praised Trump’s “perfect genes” — likewise dismissed as “speculation” reporting that Trump directed Ukrainian leaders to investigate Biden. Even though Trump then appeared to confirm that “speculation” (and then reversed himself again on Monday).
Even former defense secretary Jim Mattis, out with a new book on leadership, ducked a question about whether it would be wrong for a president, any president, to ask foreign leaders to investigate political opponents.
Meanwhile, the media has also dropped the ball.
I don’t just mean Trump’s preferred propaganda outlet, Fox News. The rest of us have allowed the president to serve as our assignment editor. We spread his smears for him, and too often shy from coverage of any threat to democracy more technical than a tweet. At best, we ask Democrats what would, at last, count as an impeachable offense — but rarely direct such inquiries at Republicans, who, you know, actually stand in the way of a fair impeachment trial.
Democrats share some blame, too, feckless as they’ve been. They dragged their feet in demanding critical documents, including Trump’s tax returns. They failed to competently question petulant and obstructive witnesses such as former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. And they frequently seem more interested in attacking one another than holding Trump to account.
Given all this, can you really blame voters, disillusioned and disappointed as they are, for tuning out the onslaught on American democracy — and thereby contributing to its demise? Add them to the list anyway.
Yes, Trump has repeatedly, egregiously abused his power. He fired an arrow at the heart of our most cherished norms and institutions. But it took the rest of us to ensure that he hit his target.
I certainly see Catherine’s point. But, I have a few additional thoughts:
She fails to mention the key failure of the Supremes and many of the U.S. Courts of Appeals.
Starting with the whitewash of Trump’s invidiously discriminatory actions in the Travel Ban Case, and continuing with the disgraceful and cowardly 7-2 cop out in Barr v. East Side Sanctuary Covenant, the Supremes have a) showed a cowardly indifference to Constitutional rights of individuals, particularly refugees and migrants; and b) have failed to show necessary support for the U.S. District Judges who courageously have stood up against this Administration’s illegal actions;
With some exceptions, the Courts of Appeals have also failed to get the job done (particularly by not holding that the Immigration Courts as they exist in the DOJ are unconstitutional);
When all else fails, the Article III Courts are supposed to be our bulwark against tyranny – they have failed miserably to fulfill that critical constitutional duty.
It’s hard to see how those fighting tooth and nail against the Administration’s abuses, often with scant support from the courts, like the “New Due Process Army,” immigration advocates, pro bono lawyers, and anti-Trump religious organizations have been “complicit;”
Not all are equally complicit.
While the Dems have been somewhat feckless, you can’t really equate that with the evil of “Moscow Mitch”, Paul Ryan, and the GOP who have eagerly embraced Trump’s anti-American, racist agendas and continuous stream of false narratives;
Again, while “mainstream media” have undoubtedly made some mistakes, there is no equivalency with the maliciously false, racist, overtly corrupt White Nationalist agendas of Fox News, Breitbart, and other far right “news outlets” and vile right-wing racist operatives posing as “news commentators.”
WASHPOST: Catherine Rampell Takes The Measure Of Stephen Miller’s Neo-Nazi View Of American Immigration History – Exposing A Lifelong Hater’s Knowingly False, Misleading & Existentially Dangerous Narrative!
Catherine Rampell Opinion Columnist Washington Post
In a Post profile over the weekend, White House senior policy adviser and de facto immigration czar Stephen Miller explained why he cares so much about immigration policy:
“Immigration is an issue that affects all others,” Miller said, speaking in structured paragraphs. “Immigration affects our health-care system. Immigration affects our education system. Immigration affects our public safety, it affects our national security, it affects our economy and our financial system. It touches upon everything, but the goal is to create an immigration system that enhances the vibrancy, the unity, the togetherness and the strength of our society.”
Miller is right: Immigration does touch all those realms. Though perhaps not in quite the way he suggests.
For instance, immigration affects our health-care system in many ways — including by supplying it with talent.
In fact immigrants are overrepresented in the health industry. About 16.6 percent of the health industry is foreign-born, 13.7 percent of the U.S. population overall. A whopping 29.1 percent of physicians are foreign-born, according to a recent analysis of Census Bureau data published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Immigrants also are overrepresented among dentists (23.7 percent); pharmacists (20.3 percent); registered nurses (16 percent); and nursing, psychiatric and home health aides (23.1 percent).
Immigration also plays an important role in our education system. International students, who generally pay full freight, have helpedkeep public universities afloat even as state legislatures have slashed their budgets. Their tuition dollars help schools cross-subsidize in-state students. Immigrants also have populated the STEM study programs that Americans show little interest in, especially at the graduate level — where many of those same immigrant students help educate American undergrads.
Here’s the share of students in a selection of STEM graduate programs who are in the United States on temporary visas, according to the National Science Foundation’s Science & Engineering Indicators 2018 report. Note that this measure likely understates the fraction of students who are foreign-born, as it does not include those who are permanent residents or naturalized citizens.
Source: National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, special tabulations (2016), 2015 Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering. (Washington Post)
As for the relationship between immigration and public safety, the data suggest you might conclude that greater immigration leads to greater public safety.
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At least, a study of immigration and crime trends across 200 metropolitan areas over four decades found that “immigration is consistently linked to decreases in violent (e.g., murder) and property (e.g., burglary) crime throughout the time period.” Other studies have found a similar relationship between the two trends. We don’t know that the link is actually causal, of course, but we do have evidencethatundocumented immigrants commit (non-immigration-related) crimes at lower rates than do native-born Americans.
With respect to national security, Miller might do well to remember that immigrants serve in our military. As of 2018, there were 527,000 foreign-born veterans, according to a Migration Policy Institute analysis of Census Bureau data. About 1.9 million veterans are the U.S.-born children of immigrants.
Some of those noncitizen military members with in-demand skills were expecting that their service would expedite their naturalization process, under a program launched in 2008 called Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest. However, changes in recent years, under first the Obama administration and then under Trump, have effectively frozen that program.
What about our economy?
There’s a lot to be said about how immigrants contribute to the economy, including through high rates of entrepreneurship. For example, immigrants have started more than half of the United States’ start-up companies valued at $1 billion or more, according to a National Foundation for American Policy study. They start lots of smaller companies, too, at much higher rates than native-born Americans, according to data from the Kauffman Foundation.
Without immigration, the U.S. working-age population would be falling, which would weigh on economic growth. (Just look at Japan’s struggles). And as I’ve written elsewhere:
There’s reason to believe that new immigrants may depress wages for earlier waves of immigrants who have similar skill sets. However, recent studies suggest that immigration (both authorized and unauthorized) actually boosts labor force participation rates, productivity and wages and reduces unemployment rates for native-born American workers, whose skills these immigrants tend to complement.
But don’t these people drain the public coffers?
Immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, pay taxes — taxes that fund government benefits that in many cases they are not legally eligible to collect.
A report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that the net fiscal impact of first-generation immigrants, compared to otherwise similar natives, is positive at the federal level and negative at the state and local levels. That’s due mostly to the costs of educating their children. When their children grow up, though, they are “among the strongest economic and fiscal contributors in the U.S. population, contributing more in taxes than either their parents or the rest of the native-born population.” In other words, by the second generation, immigrants are net-positive for government budgets at all levels.
What about the most destitute immigrants who come here, though? Surely they’re sucking the government dry!
Nope.
An internal government report commissioned by Trump found that refugees brought in $63 billion more in tax revenue over the past decade than they cost the government. Finding those results inconvenient, the administration suppressed them, though they were ultimately leaked to the New York Times last year.
So by all means, Miller, please remind the public that immigration has consequences for the broad policy landscape. But remembering the directionality of those consequences seems pretty important, too.
Thanks, Catherine, for setting the record straight!
Catherine’s wonderful article would have fit well within the readings for the Bjorklunden Seminar that Professor Jenn Esperanza and I did earlier this month. Basically, those who oppose and demean immigrants have forgotten that we are all immigrants, we are all very similar, and without immigrants there would be no America.
No, our country isn’t “full” by any means and no, the “quality” of recent immigrants hasn’t “dropped off.” If anything, we are more dependent on the skills, hard work, and loyalty (sometimes hard to fathom, considering how they are treated) of recent immigrants, both documented and undocumented, than at any time in our history since the founding.
Unlike Miller, “Cooch Cooch,” Pence, Trump himself, and the other political hacks charged with making immigration policy these days, I actually spent years dealing face to face with migrants of all types, races, religions, backgrounds, and situations in performing my duties as a U.S. Immigration Judge. Contrary to the false narratives promoted by the “Millers of the world,” most of them wanted just three things 1) the chance to live a relatively safe and stable life; 2) an opportunity to use their skills to support themselves and others; and 3) a better future for their children.
That’s largely what I wanted out of life and accurately describes the aspirations of probably 90%+ of the people I have known as I move into my seventh decade of life.
I don’t know what entitles folks like Trump, Miller, and their followers to demean and dehumanize the contributions of other humans who are just as, or in many cases more, worthy as they are – simply because they didn’t have the same fortune of birth or circumstances.
Undoubtedly, there is somewhere out there a point at which admitting larger numbers of refugees and other types of immigrants would be counterproductive, at least for our country, if not for the migrants themselves. Even then, there might still be moral and religious arguments for helping our fellow men even when it ceases to demonstrably benefit our economy and our society.
But, the factual and moral bankruptcy of the “case for fewer immigrants” put forth by Trump, Miller, and the White Nationalists shows that whatever that “magic number’” might be, it’s multiples of the number of legal immigrants we are admitting at present. That’s why Trump, Miller, and the White Nationalists don’t want to have the real national dialogue that we should be engaging in: How do we expand our current refugee and legal immigrant admission systems to more realistically reflect the market forces that cause migration, and how do we as a country put ourselves in the best position to benefit from the ongoing phenomenon of human migration?
The longer we screw around with and are diverted by the racist myths of the Trumps and Millers, the longer it will take us to get around to the hard work of addressing immigration issues in a smart, humane, and realistic way that benefits the immigrants, our country, and humanity as a whole.
Emma Brown & Frances Stead Sellers report for WashPost:
Stormy Daniels said Saturday that her work in the porn industry has helped her prepare for the international attention she faces on the eve of a much-anticipated television interview about her alleged affair with Donald Trump and the hush money she says she received to keep it quiet.
“Being in the adult industry, I’ve developed a thick skin and maybe a little bit of a dark sense of humor,” she told The Washington Post. “But nothing could truly prepare someone for this.”
Daniels is scheduled to be the star attraction of the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes” on Sunday evening, a broadcast that caps a two-week media blitz by her attorney, Michael Avenatti. As Daniels’s image and story have become 24/7 fodder for cable news shows, Avenatti has hinted repeatedly that there are more details yet to come out — including in a tweet Friday suggesting that he has a DVD with new information.
In a brief interview Saturday evening, with Avenatti on the line, Daniels sounded upbeat, even as she acknowledged that the media circus she’s attracted has changed her day-to-day life as a wife, mother and adult-film director.
“Without a doubt it’s cutting into my horse show time,” said Daniels, who is an avid equestrian. “And time with friends.”
. . . .
Daniels told The Post on Saturday that she’s been the target of hatred on social media in recent weeks. But she said she also has been overwhelmed by an outpouring of support. When somebody recently accused her of being a liar on Twitter, she said, she received a flood of messages with hashtags like #Ibelieveyou and #teamstormy.
“I didn’t do this to get any sort of approval from anyone or recognition,” she said. “I simply wanted to tell my personal truth and defend myself.”
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Go on over to WashPost at the above link for the complete article by Emma and Frances.
So far, the Stormster has outfoxed the Trumpster at ever turn. Which always brings me back to the same question: How did a smart, multi-talented, personable, on the ball individual like Daniels/Clifford get mixed up with a creep like Trump in the first place?
Tune in to “60 Minutes” tonight and maybe you’ll find out!
A compromise is possible. It does not have to be a choice between the current chain migration system and a purely merit-based system. The two systems can be merged with the use of a point system.
Visas currently allocated to extended family members can be transitioned to a merit-based point system that provides extra points for family ties to a citizen or LPR. The merit-based aspect of the point system would eliminate the main objection to chain migration, which is that it allocates visas to extended family members who do not have skills or experience that America needs.
Trump’s framework also would terminate the Diversity Visa Program. Those visas could be transitioned to the new point system too.
This would be a small price to pay for a legalization program that would provide lawful status for 1.8 million Dreamers.
Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an executive branch immigration law expert for three years; he subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.“
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Go on over to The Hill at the link to read Nolan’s complete article.
I disagree with Nolan’s statement that extended family members don’t bring needed skills. As David J. Bier of the Cato Institute recently pointed out in the Washington Post, that argument is one of a number of “Myths” about so-called chain migration.
Bier writes:
“MYTH NO. 5
Chain immigrants lack skills to succeed.
In making his case for the president’s proposals last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, “What good does it do to bring in somebody who is illiterate in their own country, has no skills and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful?” This description distorts the picture of immigrants who settle in the United States.
Nearly half of adults in the family-sponsored and diversity visa categories had a college degree, compared with less than a third of U.S. natives. America would lose nearly a quarter-million college graduates every year without the family-sponsored and diversity programs.
Even among the 11 percent who have little formal education, there is no evidence that they aren’t successful. By virtually every measure, the least-skilled immigrants prosper in America. Immigrant men without high school degrees are almost as likely as U.S.-born men with college degrees to look for a job and keep one.
Family-sponsored immigrants are the most upwardly mobile American workers. Whether high-skilled or not, chain or not, immigrants succeed in and contribute to this country.”
I highly recommend Bier’s article
All of my many years of first-hand observation of family immigration at every level supports Bier’s analysis.
Indeed, even if I were to assume that the majority of extended family were so-called “unskilled” (meaning largely that they have skills elite restrictionists don’t respect) that would hardly mean that they aren’t greatly benefitting the US. In many ways, immigrants who perform important so-called “unskilled jobs” essential to our economy but which most Americans neither will nor can do well, are just as important to societal success as more doctors, professors, computer geeks, and baseball players. Fact is, immigrants of all types from all types of countries consistently benefit the US.
That being said, why not try something along the lines that Nolan suggests by taking the Diversity visas and establishing a “pilot program” that combines skills and family ties in a numerical matrix? Then, track the results to see how they compare with existing employment-based and family-based immigration.
“Message to Republicans: You can be pro-growth. You can be anti-immigration. But, honestly, you can’t be both.
Now, within the immigration debate, there are a lot of questions with no obvious right answers.
What’s the right balance of immigrants admitted for their skills and those allowed in because they have relatives here?
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How much effort should be devoted to tracking down the undocumented, and how much to punishing companies that hire them?
What should we do about the millions of immigrants who came here illegally a decade or more ago and have become established members of their communities?
And — what is the right number of legal immigrants every year from now on?
Big, complicated questions — which is why Congress shouldn’t try to solve them all between now and Feb. 8, its self-imposed deadline for resolving the issue of the “dreamers.” In the few days that remain, the best it could do would be to, well, resolve the issue of the dreamers — the undocumented immigrants who were brought here as young children through no fault of their own, who obey the law and who go to school or work or serve in the military.
They are American in all but legal status. Give them a path to citizenship, as President Trump has proposed. Give Trump the money for his wall (until he gets that check from Mexico). Punt on the big, complicated questions, something Congress certainly knows how to do. Everyone declares victory, and the government doesn’t shut down.
Of course, that would leave us still facing the big questions. Ideally, Congress would schedule a serious debate on them for the spring. Ideally, it would be conducted in a constructive spirit — acknowledging, for example, that reasonable people can disagree on skills vs. family.
But ideally, also, it would also be conducted with an understanding that those who favor a drastic, absolute drop in the level of immigration, as many Republicans do, would be making a choice about America’s future.
They would be turning us into Japan.
Now, to be clear, Japan is a wondrous nation, with an ancient, complex culture, welcoming people, innovative industry — a great deal to teach the world.
But Japan also is a country that admits few immigrants — and, as a result, it is an aging, shrinking nation. By 2030, more than half the country will be over age 50. By 2050 there will be more than three times as many old people (65 and over) as children (14 and under). Already, deaths substantially outnumber births. Its population of 127 million is forecast to shrink by a third over the next half-century.
Japan is a pioneer and an extreme version of where much of the First World is headed as longevity increases and fertility declines. The likely consequences are slower economic growth, reduced innovation, labor shortages and huge pressure on pensions. If you think our entitlement politics are fraught, think about this: In Japan in 2050, the old-age dependency ratio — the number of people 65 and over as a percentage of the number who are 15 to 64 — is projected to be 71.2 percent.
The comparable figure for the United States is 36.4 percent, up from 25.7 percent in 2020. Still high, but if it proves manageable, we will have immigration to thank. America still attracts dynamic, hard-working people from around the world, and they and their offspring help keep our population and our economy growing, as recent Pew Research Center and International Monetary Fund papers explain.
The wave of immigration over the past half-century also has changed the face of the nation, reducing the share of the white population from what it would have been and increasing the share of Asians and Hispanics. It’s not surprising that some people find this disorienting.
But as so often with such debates, perceptions lag reality. Nearly half (48 percent) of immigrants these days have college degrees, as a fact sheet from the Migration Policy Institute last year showed. A quarter of technology company start-ups between 2008 and 2012 included at least one foreign-born founder. As incomes and education levels rise around the world, in other words, the skills mix of U.S. immigration is already changing, without any changes in our laws.
Here’s the bottom line: I think we should remain open to immigrants because it’s part of who we are as a nation, because every generation of newcomers — even, or maybe especially, the ones who come with nothing but moxie and a tolerance for risk — has enriched and improved us.
But you don’t have to buy into any of that Statue of Liberty stuff to favor immigration, because naked self-interest leads to the very same conclusion. A vote to choke off immigration is a vote for stagnation and decline.”
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Hiatt clearly “gets it!”
But, maybe the GOP restrictionists do too. Their opposition to legal immigration is grounded in racism, White Nationalism, and xenophobia — none of which have anything to do with rationality, facts, the common good, or even “enlightened self-interest.”
Therefore, neither an appeal to “who we are as a nation” nor “naked self-interest” is likely to change their highly emotional, but essentially irrational anti-immigrant views.
“As he awaits his fate in a remote Texas jail, Mr. Gutierrez, 54, remains convinced of the peril he faces if deported to his native country. “My life depends on this [appeal],” he said by telephone in a news conference organized Monday by the National Press Club. “I’m terrified to set foot in Mexico.”
The judge who denied asylum in the case, Robert S. Hough, pointed to an absence of documentary and testimonial corroboration of Mr. Gutierrez’s claim. The woman who relayed word of the alleged death threat did not come forward; neither did Mr. Gutierrez’s former boss at the newspaper for which he worked in Chihuahua. Much of Mr. Gutierrez’s case comes down to his word.
Nonetheless, the judge’s cut-and-dried application of the law fails to take into account conditions in Mexico generally and the peril faced there by journalists in particular. It’s not surprising that Mr. Gutierrez cannot recover copies of his articles, written more than a decade ago for a regional newspaper. Nor is it unusual that witnesses are reluctant to come forward, given the fear with which many Mexicans regard the security forces.
As a U.N. report published this month concluded, citing the deaths, disappearances and attacks on dozens of journalists tallied by Mexico’s Human Rights Commission, “The data . . . presents a picture for the situation of journalists in Mexico that cannot be described as other than catastrophic.” Against that background, it seems cavalier to dismiss the threat Mr. Gutierrez faces should he be deported to Mexico. He should be granted asylum.”
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Read the complete Editorial at the link.
Unfortunately, a “cut and dried application of the law” without proper regard to the facts or reality is a disturbingly accurate snapshot of what all too often happens daily in our Immigration Courts, a “wholly owned subsidiary” of the US Department of Justice and part of the “Trump Conglomerate” (formerly known as the US Government).
Our failing US Immigration Court system and its aggravation by AG “Gonzo Apocalypto’s” oft-expressed hostility to immigrants, asylum, the rule of law (except his 1950s “Jim Crow” views on the law and how it should be a tool for injustice and advancing White Nationalism), lawyers, Latinos, Mexicans, and the press has become an almost daily topic for major editorial boards. At least someone (other than me) is watching and documenting as this mockery of American justice unfolds before us.
In particular, too many U.S. Immigration Judges are tone-deaf to Mexican asylum claims, not wanting to be accused of “opening the floodgates” ( a concept that is nowhere to be found in the actual law) and knowing that “Gonzo” wants lots of “quick removals” rather than asylum grants. Additionally, the only administrative check on the Immigration Judges’ authority is a weak Appeals Board that never “calls out” overly restrictive Immigration Judges by name and seldom publishes precedents granting asylum. Truly, a prescription for a “Due Process Disaster!”
Judge Hough seems to have forgotten that under the law:
”Corroborating evidence” can only be required if it is “reasonably available;”
Testimony may be corroborated by country condition information describing the same abuses that the applicant claims;
The standard for granting asylum is a generous “well-founded fear” or “reasonable likelihood” of future harm which can be “significantly less than probable — as little as a 10% chance can suffice;
Asylum applicants are supposed to be given the “benefit of the doubt” in recognition of the evidentiary challenges of providing proof of persecution and the difficulties of relating traumatic events in the past.
It remain to be seen whether the Board of Immigration Appeals, EOIR’s “Appellate Court,” will correct Judge Hough’s life-threatening errors and, further, issue a strong precedent on asylum for foreign journalists (traditionally one of the most vulnerable and persecuted groups) to prevent further miscarriages of Justice such as this. Such a precedent would also discourage the DHS from continuing to abuse our system by pushing for removal (and needless detention) in cases such as this where a grant of asylum at the DHS Asylum Office or at the hearing following the testimony would be the correct result.
Or, will the next major editorial describe and decry Mr. Gutierrez’s death in Mexico!
In a well-functioning justice system, this case should have been a “Short-docket, No-brainer Grant.” But, Gonzo Apocalypto seeks to use the US Immigration Courts as an extension of DHS enforcement rather than, as they were intended, as Courts guaranteeing fairness, Due Process, and equal justice for all! We need change. Lots of it!
[NOTE: For those interested, Judge Hough apparently has not decided enough asylum cases on the merits in El Paso to be listed on the statistical profile of asylum outcomes maintained by TRAC Immigration.]
“The broader dysfunction in America’s immigration system remains largely unchanged. Federal immigration courts are grappling with a backlog of some 600,000 cases, an epic logjam. The administration wants to more than double the number of the 300 or so immigration judges, but that will take time. And its recent moves to evaluate judges based on the speed with which they handle dockets that typically exceed 2,000 cases, rather than on fair adjudication, is a recipe for assembly-line injustice.
Mr. Trump’s campaign bluster on deportation was detached from reality. He said he’d quickly deport 2 million or 3 million criminal illegal immigrants, but unless he’s counting parking scofflaws and jaywalkers, he won’t find that many “bad hombres” on the loose. In fact, legal and illegal immigrants are much less likely to end up in jail than U.S. citizens, according to a study by the Cato Institute.
The president’s sound and fury on deportation signify little. He has intensified arrests, disrupting settled and productive lives, families and communities — but to what end? Only an overhaul of America’s broken immigration system offers the prospect of a more lasting fix.”
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Read the full article at the link.
The Post also points out the damage caused by Trump’s racist “bad hombres” rabble rousing and the largely bogus nature of the Administration’s claims to be removing “dangerous criminals.” No, the latter would require some professionalism and real law enforcement skills. Those characteristics are non-existent among Trump Politicos and seem to be in disturbingly short supply at DHS. To crib from Alabama GOP Senator Richard Shelby’s statement about “Ayatollah Roy:” Certainly DHS can do better than Tom Homan.
And certainly America can do better than a US Immigration Court run by White Nationalist Attorney General Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions. Gonzo’s warped concept of Constitutional Due Process is limited to insuring that he himself is represented by competent counsel as he forgets, misrepresents, misleads, mis-construes, and falsifies his way through the halls of justice.
Jeff Sessions does not represent America or American justice. The majority of American voters who did not want the Trump debacle in the first place still have the power to use the system to eventually restore decency, reasonableness, compassion, and integrity to American Government and to send the “Trump White Nationalist carpetbaggers” packing. The only question is whether or not we are up to the task!
“A Mexican journalist who sought asylum in the United States in 2008 was arrested by U.S. immigration agents this week and told he would be deported, though an appeals board temporarily halted his removal Friday — sparing his life for now, he said.
Emilio Gutierrez, 54, who in October received a press freedom award from the National Press Club in Washington, said he and his 24-year-old son, Oscar, were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Thursday while trying to enter an appeal to their asylum claim.
“We can’t go back to Mexico. They’ll kill us,” Gutierrez said, using his attorney’s cellphone to speak from an ICE detention center in Sierra Blanca, Texas.
Gutierrez said he and his son fled northern Mexico’s Chihuahua state in 2008 after he published stories exposing the abuses committed by soldiers who robbed and extorted residents in his hometown, Ascención, a notorious drug trafficking hub.
After soldiers ransacked his home, Gutierrez said he learned his name appeared on a military “kill list,” so he fled across the border into Texas with his then-teeange son.
In July, after living nine years in the United States, Gutierrez’s asylum request was denied, and an appeal was rejected in early November. His attorney, Eduardo Beckett, said Gutierrez and his son were handcuffed and jailed Thursday when they presented themselves at an ICE processing center to enter an emergency appeal.
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With drug-related violence at record levels, Mexico has become one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the press, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. More than 40 Mexican reporters have been murdered since 1992 for performing their jobs, including at least five this year. Only Iraq and Syria were more dangerous for the press in 2017, according to CPJ.
Journalists working in small towns plagued by drug cartel violence are especially vulnerable, but the dead have included staffers at some of Mexico’s leading publications.
Bill McCarren, the executive director of the National Press Club, said the organization gave Gutierrez this year’s press freedom award to draw attention to the plight of Mexico’s imperiled journalists. McCarren was alarmed to find out ICE agents were trying to send Gutierrez back to a place where his life would be in danger.
“This is a critical, existential issue for Emilio, but also a critical issue for all journalists in Mexico,” McCarren said in an interview. “It’s a concern for us that the United States, that stands for free press as a bedrock principle of our democracy, would not make a place for him here when he’s so clearly at risk.”
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But Hootsen said his organization cautions reporters against seeking asylum in the United States because the requests are likely to be denied. “The United States is obviously the place that first comes to mind for Mexican reporters who need to flee the country,” said Hootsen, “so it’s important for U.S. authorities to take their claims seriously and give them a fair hearing.”
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Read Miroff’s complete story at the link.
Jeff Sessions would have you believe that frivolous asylum cases and failure to crank denials off the Immigration Court assembly line more quickly are the biggest problems. Not true!
Those of us who have spent a lifetime working in the system and actually understand asylum law, the correct legal criteria, and the shortcomings of EOIR know that the real crisis here is that far too many meritorious claims for protection are being denied by stressed and rushed Immigration Judges who don’t correctly understand asylum and protection law, are unsympathetic to asylum seekers, are forced to deal with unrepresented or underrepresented asylum applicants, or are afraid to put their careers on the line to stand up to politicos in this and other Administrations who seek to artificially limit the number of asylum grants at the potential expense of individual’s lives and safety.
