"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.
Daniel M. Kowalski
15 Apr 2022
immigration
chavez
inflation
Linda Chavez
Linda Chavez: More Immigration, Less Inflation
Linda Chavez, Apr. 14, 2022
“… [A]dmitting asylees and giving them work authorizations, as well as allowing in more Ukrainian and Afghan refugees, could alleviate some of the country’s labor shortage. The Department of Labor reported last month that there were 11.3 million job openings in February, a number that has remained at historic highs for months. We should be opening our doors wider so that those seeking refuge in the United States can come here and help fill those jobs. …”
“Linda Chavez is a senior fellow at the National Immigration Forum. Chavez is the author of “Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation“, which the Denver Post described as a book that “should explode the stereotypes about Hispanics that have clouded the minds of patronizing liberals and xenophobic conservatives alike”, as well as her memoir “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal”. In 2000, Chavez was honored by the Library of Congress as a “Living Legend” for her contributions to America’s cultural and historical legacy.
Chavez has held a number of appointed positions, among them Chairman, National Commission on Migrant Education (1988-1992); White House Director of Public Liaison (1985); Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1983-1985); and she was a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (1984-1986). Chavez was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Maryland in 1986. In 1992, she was elected by the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission to serve a four-year term as U.S. Expert to the U.N. Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
Chavez was also editor of the prize-winning quarterly journal American Educator (1977-1983), published by the American Federation of Teachers, where she also served as assistant to AFT president Al Shanker (1982-1983) and assistant director of legislation (1975-1977).
Chavez serves on the Board of Directors of ABM Industries, Inc. a Fortune 500 company, as well as on boards of several non-profit organizations.
Chavez was born in Albuquerque, NM, on June 17, 1947, received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of Colorado in 1970 and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from George Mason University in 2012. She currently resides in Silver Spring, MD.”
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Come on, Biden Administration (and so-called “moderate Dems”), get with the program! Repeating “sanitized versions of Stephen Miller talking points” isn’t going to get you a single vote from Trump’s GOP, which is most of the party now. They have the xenophobic vote locked up.
But, in addition to energizing your real supporters and activists in the Dem base, making border policy work by smoothing the admission of qualified asylum seekers and refugees from all countries (not just “White guys”) might have some “crossover appeal” to at least a few conservatives who value economic vibrancy, are willing to acknowledge they their ancestors were once immigrants, and are somewhat turned off by the overt racism, chronic resentment, and insurrectionist, anti-American nonsense that has become part of the GOP “party line.”
And, showing that Government can actually solve problems without breaking the bank and improve the economy in the process might give some boost to standing among independents and centrists who thought that they were getting competence and leadership in return for voting out Trump’s incompetent Clown Show.
Or maybe Abbott, like many other Republican politicians, simply thinks his voters are stupid.
He might presume that angry voters will see backlogged traffic, empty store shelves and struggling businesses and blame President Biden, even though this latest contribution to supply-chain woes comes courtesy of Abbott’s own policies. If that sounds far-fetched, recall that Abbott and other Republicans have tried to blame Biden for mounting covid infections and deaths, even as these same politicians have deliberately sown distrust in vaccines and undermined or outright barred efforts to increase vaccination and other covid-prevention measures.
If Abbott’s border policy is motivated by the last of these possible explanations — if he’s assuming Texans are too dense to figure out causality here — let’s hope voters will be motivated to prove him wrong.
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Read Catherine’s full article at the link.
As Catherine points out, Texas voters have a golden opportunity to show their “clown prince” 🤡the door this fall. But, I wouldn’t count on it.
Meanwhile Abbott claims to have negotiated “security agreements” with several Mexican Governors thereby “allowing” him to “relax” his unneeded blockade. Exactly what this grandstanding means is opaque. Trucks entering the U.S. are ready checked for drugs and migrants by CBP at the border. Somehow, I doubt that Mexican authorities are going to do a better job than CBP.
Of course, the best way to deal with Abbott’s stunts is for the Biden Administration and NGOs to work together to encourage asylum seekers to present themselves in an orderly manner at legal ports of entry once the “Title 42 Blockade” is lifted. Indeed, as I’ve perviously suggested, there should be a system in place NOW to “prescreen” asylum applications in Mexico and to parole as many as possible of those whose claims pass credible fear and who can be resettled away from the border areas in advance of May 23. That would avoid long lines and confusion.
New regulations that would allow Asylum Officers to outright grant well-documented asylum cases go into effect on May 28. Surely, somebody out there in the “world of rational thinkers and doers” should be able to “leverage” this opportunity to cut through the BS and finalize grants of deserving cases without more bureaucratic red tape. Plan to show that that the new system can work. Start building the necessary credibility and confidence in orderly legal processing among asylum seekers now, rather than hoping that they all die or go away before May 23. They won’t.
That’s just an “expanded version” of what’s already happening for Ukrainian asylum seekers at the border. But, unfortunately, I haven’t seen much hard evidence that either the Administration or the NGOs are planning for “achievable success” rather than “finger pointing failure” on May 23. The real victims here are, as usual, the migrants whose humanity and rights are routinely ignored in the politicization of the border.
Let’s look at what has happened with another Abbott stunt mentioned by Catherine:“Bussing” asylum seekers from the border to downtown DC and dropping them near the headquarters of Fox News, NBC News and C-SPAN. Obviously, Abbott anticipated a “Fox photo op” of bewildered folks wandering the streets, causing traffic jams, and sparking anti-immigrant protests and overreaction by local Dem officials.
But, thanks to local NGOs, the opposite has happened. Volunteers have met the arriving busses, helping those bound for other areas to make the right transportation connections and directing those bound for the DMV area to the appropriate local organizations who can assist them in orderly resettlement.
Most of the migrants who volunteered for the busses expressed gratitude for the free transport. Few appeared to know that they were intended to be part of “Nativist Political Theater.” Both CBP and local NGOs at the Texas border worked to facilitate those seeking transportation to use the busses.
Evidently inadvertently, in this case Abbott’s publicity stunt appears to have “morphed” into a good example of how cooperation among Federal and state authorities, NGOs in different areas, and migrants themselves can work to facilitate orderly processing of migrants once they are in the U.S.
Who knows if this initial success will be temporary or long term. If the latter, it will be interesting to see if Abbott will continue to fund efforts to make the immigration system work rather than to showcase itsanticipated failures. But, in any event, this should be a practical example for the Biden Administration of how public-private partnerships, teamwork, and cooperation can work even across party and ideological lines.
Unfortunately, to date, the Biden Administration’s wobbly approach to immigration and human rights has failed to capitalize on almost every opportunity to show the benefits of an orderly, legally compliant, and humane immigration policy.
Will they finally get this one right? Or, as Catherine has suggested before, will this just be another in a too long line of Biden’s missed opportunities to show that the rule of law and legal immigration work for America?
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
04-15-22
UPDATE:
RAMPELL “DUNKS” ON ABBOTT AS TEX GOV FORCED TO RESCIND IDIOTIC STUNT ORDER!
The American Trucking Assn. called the inspections “wholly flawed, redundant and adding considerable weight on an already strained supply chain.”
This stunt, not surprisingly, turned up neither a single smuggled individual nor any drugs. They did turn up some safety violations, actually the only thing Texas officials were legally empowered to inspect for. But, safety problems have been around forever, and Abbott hasn’t given them a second thought as he misallocates state resources on a grotesque scale. See, the bogus “Operation Lone Star.”
The best way to deter human smugglers is to reopen ports of entry to asylum seekers and grant the many worthy applications out there, thereby ending years of manipulating asylum law to deny protection to legally qualified refugees.
While there of course will always be pressure on the border, the many individuals who seek only a fair chance to present their legal claims for asylum through our legal system will no longer be forced to use smugglers to gain “black market” refuge just because the Government has shirked their legal responsibilities!
That ought to make the border safer and CBP’s job at least somewhat easier.
It all depends on whether the border asylum system is credible. So far, no Administration has succeeded in pulling that off.
All have employed various degrees of bias and inhumane detention to “hold down” the number of asylum grants at the border. A legitimate legal asylum system at the border is possible, particularly if accompanied by a robust refugee program beyond the border. But, possible doesn’t mean probable!
Opinion: Democrats are missing the bigger immigration issue
By Catherine Rampell
Democrats are terrified that a coming border surge might tank their midterm chances.
But they have largely ignored a much more serious immigration-related political risk. The problem in the months ahead isn’t that the United States will allow in too many immigrants; it’s that we’ll admit too few, particularly the kinds of workers who can fill critical labor-market shortages.
The Biden administration recently announced it would soon end Title 42, a Trump-era border-control policy. Citing the public health emergency when it invoked the policy in March 2020, the Trump team used the pandemic as a pretext to expel all arriving migrants without first allowing them to apply for asylum, as they have a legal right to do. Public healthexpertsandimmigrationadvocates — and many elected Democrats — have long condemned the policy, which has been used to carry out more than 1.7 million migrant expulsions.
President Biden’s own appointees have called the policy illegal and inhumane, with multiple high-level officials blasting it when they resigned. But Biden delayed reversing Title 42, fearing bad optics and attacks from Fox News. (Which arguably was going to attack him as an “open borders” president regardless.)
As expected, right-wingers are now catastrophizing about the looming “Armageddon” that will follow Title 42′s unwinding.
As a result, some worried Democrats are demanding that Biden keep this (likely illegal) policy in place. They have been so fixated on bad-faith right-wing attacks that they have missed the bigger, and much more serious, immigration-related liability: the millions of immigrants whose absence from the U.S. workforce is putting upward pressure on inflation.
Which Democrats are being blamed for, and which voters appear to care much more about.
The United States is experiencing inflationary levels not seen in four decades. Americans are unhappy, and they are more than five times as likely to cite “inflation,” “cost of living” or the economy in general than immigration as the nation’s biggest problem. These economic concerns are, however, rooted at least partly in immigration policy.
Worker shortages are pervasive, with vacancies hovering around record highs. The resulting disruptions to supply chains and normal business operations have raised costs for companies and consumers. Some of these “missing” workers retired; some dropped out of the labor force because of care issues or illness. But a huge chunk were foreign-born workers who either never arrived in the United States in recent years or who were already here but have been forced out of their jobs because of government incompetence.
There are about 1.8 million fewer working-age immigrants in the United States today than would be the case if pre-2020 immigration trends had continued unchanged, economic researchers Giovanni Peri and Reem Zaiour estimate. Unsurprisingly, they also find that industries that had a higher percentage of foreign workers in 2019 — such as hospitality and food services — tend to have higher rates of unfilled jobs now.
These immigrants, legal and otherwise, are “missing” because of a combination of Trump policies, covid-19 (which the Trump administration cited to justify imposing even more immigration restrictions) and Biden’s foot-dragging.
Although Biden pledged more humane and efficient immigration policies when he ran for president, he has been slow to reverse many of President Donald Trump’s onerous paperwork requirements and other policies designed to reduce legal immigration. Biden’s sluggishness owes partly to the magnitude of the challenge of rebuilding the U.S. immigration infrastructure — and partly to that deep Democratic fear of how Fox News et al. might portray any efforts to help immigrants.
As a result, last year, the United States experienced the lowest levels of new international migration in decades, census data shows.
. . . .
A border surge is infinitely more telegenic and attack-ad-friendly than backlogged paperwork. But the missing immigrant workforce is what more directly affects voters’ pocketbooks — and, by extension, Democrats’ political fortunes.
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Read Catherine’s complete article at the link!
There is no need for a self-created “border surge” on May 23! We have a potentially quite efficient asylum screening and adjudication process in our existing law. If it were properly staffed and run, with competent legal and judicialoversight, asylum seekers would use it — even if “success” is far from guaranteed.
Experience has shown that asylum seekers in the U.S. who are represented, and therefore understand the system and their obligations, faithfully appear for hearings nearly 100% of the time, even when they appear likely to lose. Just because we as a nation have lost faith in our ability to operate under the the rule of law doesn’t mean that asylum seekers have! Obviously folks who have “hung around” in Mexico, in life-threatening conditions, for months or years, believing in a false promise of future fair and humane treatment by the U.S. aren’t as easily persuaded that our legal system is a sham as are our own politicos, bureaucrats, and pundits.
Sure, folks without asylum claims and those who don’t trust the system will continue to attempt unauthorized entry — particularly if the legal system lacks credibility, thus allowing smugglers to convince migrants to evade it.
But, with a robust asylum system functioning at ports of entry, CBP won’t be diverted by squandering resources “apprehending” (a serious misnomer) individuals who want nothing more than a fair and timely chance to present their asylum claims. CBP can concentrate their resources on those who truly intend to evade the legal system.
Even without the bogus Title 42, the law provides more than adequate tools for dealing with unauthorized entry. Those without documents are subject to “summary removal” by CBP Agents. Those subject to summary removal who claim asylum can be promptly screened for “credible fear” by trained USCIS Asylum Officers. Those who “flunk” credible fear are summarily removed under the existing order. Those who “pass” can be funneled into the legal asylum system and processed accordingly.
If you are a believer in “deterrence theory” for migrants who don’t have credible asylum claims, then the “expedited summary removal process” provides just that. No need to illegally invoke Title 42!
If the Obama, Trump, and now Biden Administrations had spent time and resources training Asylum Officers and reforming the Immigration Courts, instead of screwing around with futile (sometimes illegal) “enforcement only” gimmicks, idiotic walls, inhumane, expensive detention, inane messaging, and deterrence, there wouldn’t be largely manufactured “border emergencies.” Just a variety of fairly predictable “humanitarian situations” and opportunities to show how the rule of law works in a functioning democracy.
For example, the much feared and ballyhooed “caravan” that had Trump scared out of his (already limited) wits moved in “slow motion” to the border. A competent Administration could have processed them fairly, humanely, and timely upon arrival or shortly thereafter. Indeed, a competent Administration probably would have worked with the Mexican authorities and the UNHCR to have processed members ofthose “caravans” for refugee status, in an orderly manner, at a point in Mexico well-removed from our border!
If, after truly fair, humane, and timely processing at ports of entry few qualified (I deem this unlikely under a truly fair and competent system, but perhaps possible, who really knows, since we have been “chicken” to fairly adjudicate asylum claims from Latin American and the Caribbean for many years), then there’s your “legal deterrent” (for those who believe in deterrents) to those who might seek to come in the future.
“Caravans” don’t cross the border irregularly unless legal ports or entry are closed or de facto unvailable to them. Even then, most asylum seekers in caravans would prefer to wait for legal processing if it were available in a predictable, orderly, humane, fair, and timely manner. The Trump kakistocracy’s decision NOT to follow asylum laws and procedures at ports of entry actually caused unnecessary chaos, created danger, and provoked and encouraged unauthorized entries. The Biden Administration has, unfathomably, followed in Trump’s footsteps!
The “missing piece” for decades, across Administrations of both parties, has been a robust, realistic, well-staffed “outside the US” refugee processing system for Latin America and the Caribbean. If we REALLY don’t want folks “trying their luck” on asylum at the border, then give them honest and prompt answers to their refugee claims in or nearer to the countries in conflict they are fleeing.
The current law is by no means perfect. But, it’s a whole lot better than the politicos and bureaucrats who, for most of the past four decades, have failed to take straightforward, achievable steps to “make it work.” Refugee admissions overseas, and asylum admissions in the U.S. and at our borders, are a key element of our legal immigration system. It’s time to stop pretending otherwise!
And, as Catherine cogently points out, rapidly approving work authorizations and all types of applications for legal immigration under existing law also should have been “low hanging fruit” for the Biden Administration. A group of summer college students could have been trained in short order to wipe out the backlog of Employment Authorization Documents (“EADs”) during the summer of 2021.
Even now, with just a little initiative, creativity, and energy, USCIS could hire and train summer employees to handle many routine and repetitive “adjudications.” All “adjudications” are NOT equal! EAD backlogs, intentionally created by the Trump kakistocracy, are totally unnecessary and inexcusable under Biden.
How many retired Asylum Officers, USCIS Adjudicators with asylum experience, retired Immigration Judges, retired BIA staff attorneys, and retired Congressional immigration staffers has USCIS “rehired” during the past year to prepare for the reopening of the border?If they haven’t, why not? It’s not too late to get more qualified individuals on board temporarily and give them to tools they need to fairly and timely process credible fear cases.
How many agreements has USCIS entered with NGOs to prescreen, organize into orderly lists, and, where necessary, represent individuals now waiting at or near the Southern Border. If not, why not get some of those agreements into effect on an “expedited” basis by next Monday?
In Government, everything seems to be a candidate for bogus “expedited treatment” EXCEPT common sense, readily available measures that actually solve problems! Why is that? What’s an Administration that got elected by claiming “Government can work” going to do to prove that before May 23! Stop “making excuses for failure” and start solving problems!
It’s not rocket science! Dems must stop “hand wringing” about what they didn’t do in the last year and start making the system work under current conditions. That’s what “good government” is supposed to do!
Poland, a country of fewer than 40 million about the size of a large U.S. state, was able to handle 4-5 million Ukrainian refugees in a matter of weeks. Meanwhile the US is “paralyzed” by the idea that 60,000 might apply with more than a month of lead time to prepare, and an established, if now suspended, legal framework to use. Not to mention that Biden had more than a year’s “advance notice” that the asylum system would need rebuilding and rejuvenation at the Souther border. Gimmie a break! The Biden Administration was put in office largely to “make Government work” — not to mindlessly repeat GOP White Nationalist “woe is me” talking points!
On a smaller scale, religious organizations and voluntary agencies mobilized and organized almost overnight to assist the U.S. Government in processing Ukrainian refugees at the border. Why couldn’t those efforts be expanded and replicated for the largely non-White refugee hopefuls currently waiting? Why create an “emergency” that needn’t be? Why not put more time, effort, and creativity into ACHIEVING success, rather than thinking of excuses for anticipated failure or shifting blame to the “victims?”
Honestly, as the late, great political pundit
Casey Stengel would have said,“can’t anyone here play this game?”
“Time and time again, the Biden Administration’s inept and unprincipled approach to immigration and human rights leaves this guy scratching his head.” PHOTO: Rudi Reit Creative Commons
Also, Catherine Rampell understands the complex issues of immigration better than any “top level” official in the Biden Administration that I’m aware of. If they aren’t going to hire her, they should at least heed her advice. It’s free, accessible, clearly and succinctly written, and almost always “spot on!”
Waves of migration through Mexico and Central America, and people who go missing, will increase in 2022 due to high levels of violence in the region, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.
Battle-scarred ghost town bears mute witness to Mexico’s drug wars
“In many countries, violence is wreaking more and more havoc, and that’s why there are more and more migrants,” ICRC representative Jordi Raich told Reuters in an interview Wednesday. “And it’s not a situation that is going to improve or slow down, not even in the years to come.“
Immigration authorities in Mexico detained 307,679 migrants in 2021, a 68% increase compared with 182,940 detentions in 2019, according to government data.
Shelters in Mexico were completely overwhelmed last year, filled with frustrated migrants unable to continue their journey to the United States, Raich said.
Many migrants get “stuck” along Mexico’s southern or northern borders, Raich said, where they face “enormous economic constraints” and are able to find only basic services.
The administration of Joe Biden has faced record numbers of migrants arriving at the southern border and has implored Mexico and Central American countries to do more to stem the wave.
Disappearances in the region have not slowed either, the Red Cross said in a report released Thursday. Mexico recently surpassed 100,000 people reported missing in the country.
In El Salvador, 488 missing person cases remain unsolved, and in Guatemala, the number of missing women rose to six a day, the Red Cross report said.
Raich said it will be difficult to respond to the root causes of migration immediately. A joint effort among countries like El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras is necessary, he added.
“Migration is not going to stop,” Raich said. “If you try to prevent it or strictly regulate it, people start to pile up at the borders, which is happening in Mexico and other countries.”
Meanwhile, the Biden administration on Thursday rolled out a sweeping new regulation that aims to speed up asylum processing and deportations at the US-Mexico border, amid a record number of migrants seeking to enter the US.
The announcement of the new rule came as US officials are debating whether to end a separate Covid-era policy that has blocked most asylum claims at the border. The asylum overhaul could provide a faster way to process border crossers if the Covid order is ended.
. . . .
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Read the full article at the link.
Cruelty, walls, detention, family separation, border militarization, expedited hearings — they aren’t going to stop human migration.We will be able to increase border deaths, expand the scope of “black market migration,” increase our “underground population,” and enrich human smugglers. Good policy?
Meanwhile, it’s obvious that the “disingenuous internal debate” on Title 42 has nothing whatsoever to do with public health and everything to do with whether continued illegal and immoral suspension of asylum protections at the border will prove politically advantageous to the Biden Administration. It won’t! It might, however, cost Dems support among progressives.
There is, of course, no known medical evidence that “single males” present a greater COVID threat than families! Indeed, there is no known medical evidence to suggest that any potential asylum applicant is a threat to the health and safety of the US.
The whole thing is a deadly farce! Why aren’t Hill Dems calling for oversight of Garland’s sitting by and watching while the law and ethics are pulverized around him? Or worse yet, what about his Department’s defense of abrogation of our laws? Believe it or not, we actually have asylum and protection laws on the books, duly enacted by Congress, although you’d never know it from Garland’s feckless performance!
Meanwhile, WashPost and other so-called “mainstream media” continue to hype stories about increased border pressure. So, continuing to violate asylum law is a viable alternative “strategy?” Give me a break! How is violating the law going to stop folks from fleeing deadly conditions in their home countries? It won’t, as the ICRC points out above!
What it will do, as also pointed out above, is kill more asylum seekers, subject them to rape, torture and other harm, enrich smugglers, and increase the extralegal population in the U.S.!
Blaine Bookey Legal Director Center for Gender & Refugee Studies @ Hastings Law Photo: CGRS website
It also will increase those waiting in vain at the Southern Border for the reopening of a legal asylum system that has abandoned them! In the words of one expert:
“The conditions are squalid,” said Blaine Bookey, the legal director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at University of California, Hastings College of the Law, who led a team interviewing dozens of families waiting in Tijuana for the federal government to lift Title 42. “There is real lack of access to sanitation, medical care, adequate food, all of the real basic fundamental necessities.”
. . . .
“There have been some exceptions made for Ukrainians, which we’re happy to see, but the policy should be ended for everyone,” Bookey said. “There was never a public health justification, and there certainly isn’t now.” (WashPost, supra).
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) babbles nativist nonsense:
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said at a committee hearing last week that the influx has “completely derailed” efforts to discuss improving legal immigration to the United States, which he said states such as Texas need to staff hospitals and fill jobs. Border states such as Texas and Arizona are bracing for higher numbers of unauthorized immigrants in coming weeks, he said.
“Rather than deter would-be migrants with weak asylum claims from taking the dangerous journey to the southwest border, the administration has rolled out the welcome mat and created new incentives to illegally immigrate to the United States,” he said at the March 15 hearing before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, citizenship and border safety.
To my knowledge, neither Cornyn nor any of his other GOP nativist buddies have ever adjudicated an asylum application. Nor have they represented asylum seekers before the Asylum Office or in our broken Immigration Courts. So, how would that have any idea whether certain asylum claims are “weak” or not? They wouldn‘t!
Moreover, we haven’t had a functioning asylum system at our Southern Border for years. So, how would anyone know how many of the claims are “weak?” They wouldn’t?
Remarkably, apparently unknown to Cornyn and his scofflaw buddies, we actually have laws to deal with his concerns. When the legal system is “open for business” — which it isn’t now — those claiming asylum at the border are subject to “summary exclusion” by DHS officers. Their claims are then expeditiously reviewed by Asylum Officers for a “credible fear” of asylum. Those who don’t establish credible fear, subject only to cursory review by an Immigration Judge, can be immediately removed by DHS.
Historically, when the system was at least nominally functional, those “passing” credible fear have been turned over to the now dysfunctional Immigration Courts. Under Trump, these “parodies of courts” were “weaponized” into “asylum killing grounds.”
Sessions and Barr packed their non-independent “captive courts” with “judges” perceived to be “enforcement oriented” and “anti-asylum” — willing to skew the law and facts as necessary to deny and deport. This mess is “led” by an appellate body, the BIA, which contains some of the most notorious members of the “Asylum Deniers’ Club” — folks who got their appellate jobs under Barr specifically because as Immigraton Judges they denied almost every asylum case that came before them! In other words, even when there was some semblance of a legal asylum system, it was redesigned under Trump to be systemically unfair to asylum seekers, particularly women and applicants of color. For sure, racism and misogyny played into this unseemly scenario.
Remarkably, Garland has chosen to maintain this dysfunctional, biased, and broken system largely in the form it existed and with almost all of the same unqualified or questionably qualified “judges” he inherited from Session and Barr!
Our broken asylum system can’t and won’t be fixed without dealing head-on with the overarching problem — systemic anti-asylum bias, poor quality decision-making, grotesque inconsistencies, and beyond incompetent administration of our Immigraton Courts by the DOJ!
Remarkably, Garland’s proposed solution is yet another “designed to fail” gimmick — expedite cases in his broken and biased, anti-asylum system! So the solution to a defective court system, infected with anti-asylum bias and poorly qualified judges turning out defective decisions is to make it “go faster!” The new regulations also fail to deal with the huge due process issue of lack of competent representation in the asylum system, particularly the Immigration Courts. Come on man!
We don’t need over 500 pages of new regulations and sophomoric, alternate universe “time limits” for an agency that can’t even find its files! What we need is for Garland to do the job he was hired to do more than a year ago! That’s “clean house” at the Immigration Courts, bring in competent, fair judges who have experience in Immigration Court and are legitimate, well-recognized asylum experts — starting with a new BIA (save for their one qualified Appellate Immigration Judge Andrea Saenz, a Garland appointee).
Get expert judges, intellectual leaders, and competent judicial administrators into the broken Immigration Court system to provide coherent, practical asylum legal guidance and work with advocates, the Asylum Office, and DHS to get a functional and fair legal asylum system in place and operating smoothly and efficiently at the border. It should already be in place by now. That it isn’t, is entirely “on Garland!”
Then, with experts who actually are committed to fairly and impartially applying asylum law in place, we’ll see, for the first time, how many of the asylum claims are valid and how many aren’t! And, while we’re at it, we might find that many of the “legal” immigrants Texas and the rest of America needs are right there at our borders — just waiting for our legal system to do justice and admit them. Asylum seekers are seeking legal immigration! It the USG that’s acting “illegally” here!
Sens. Susan Collins and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., introduced legislation Thursday to shorten the waiting period before asylum seekers are allowed to receive work authorizations.
The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Angus King, would reduce the waiting period for work authorization eligibility to 30 days after an application for asylum is filed. It comes shortly after Rep. Chellie Pingree introduced a similar proposal in the House.
“The law currently prohibits asylum seekers from working for extended periods of time, which prevents them from supporting themselves and their families as they want to do. It also inadvertently places the burden of care on states and municipalities,” Collins, a Republican, said in a news release.
The bill comes as Maine is seeing an influx of asylum seekers to Portland, many of whom are being housed in hotels paid for with state and federal funds because of a lack of shelter space and available housing. For the week ending Feb. 5, Portland was housing 189 families, a total of 639 people, in hotels.
“Our bipartisan legislation would permit these individuals to work and contribute to the local economy while their asylum claims are being adjudicated,” Collins said. “This commonsense bill would help cities like Portland and their partners in the nonprofit community that are currently caring for a large number of asylum seekers.”
. . . .
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Read the rest of Rachel’s report at the link. Notably, Senator Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) was also one of the sponsors.
As Senator King says:“Maine has always welcomed asylum seekers, who have made our communities stronger and richer – but current federal laws are blocking these people from pursuing a job to help them support their families and contribute to their local economies!”
Fixing it should have been “Day 1 Low Hanging Fruit” for the Biden Administration. After all, these are simple mostly “no-brainer adjudications” — such that they can barely be called “adjudications” at all. Basically, they require computerized records checks that most high school students probably could be trained to do efficiently in a few days. For example, the “adjudication” of an extension of work authorization is estimated to take about 12 minutes.
I’m old enough to remember the days “before the dreaded EAD” at the “Legacy INS.” Upon filing certain applications with the District Office, the officer simply stamped “Employment Authorized” on the individual’s paper I-94 card or in the passport and returned it to theapplicant on the spot. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked and was reasonably prompt, practical, functional, and inexpensive to administer.
Now, there are 31 pages of instructions for filing an Application for Employment Authorization on Form I-765. Many categories require a rather bloated $410 filling fee and others require an $85 “biometrics fee,” thus making “EAD” issuance and renewal a “profit center” for supposedly largely self-supporting USCIS adjudications.
The only things missing from this “new improved process:” common sense, competence, efficiency, and, most of all, public service, despite Director Jaddou’s recent rewrite of the USCIS mission statement. I wish she’d spend less time thinking and talking about “public service” and more effort fixing the fairly obvious problems interfering with the actual daily delivery of public service by USCIS.
We, the undersigned organizations committed to the rights of asylum seekers and refugees, write to express our serious concerns over reports that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has begun a new practice of using Title 42 to expel Venezuelan migrants to Colombia. We understand that the first two Venezuelan individuals to be expelled under this policy were flown to Colombia on January 27, 2022 and that additional Title 42 expulsion flights to the country are expected to take place on “a regular basis” for Venezuelans who “previously resided” in Colombia. This practice represents a concerning and unacceptable escalation to your administration’s misguided approach to border and migration policy that flouts domestic and international refugee and human rights law. We urge you to cease these and other Title 42 expulsions immediately, to prioritize protection and access to asylum in your regional and domestic migration policies, and to engage asylum and human rights experts as you pursue new policies.
One year into your administration, you have continued the misuse of a xenophobic Trump-era policy that weaponized an obscure provision of Title 42 of the U.S. code to summarily block and expel individuals, often repeatedly, from the U.S. southern border, without providing them the opportunity to seek asylum or the ability to access any protection screening required by law. These new flights to Colombia come amidst troubling reports that your administration placed on hold plans to restart asylum processing at U.S. ports of entry and that high-level officials have resisted ending Trump-era asylum restrictions, including Title 42 expulsions.
Title 42 expulsions have nothing to do with protecting public health and are not necessary to protect the public from the spread of COVID-19. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health experts, the UN Refugee Agency, and other humanitarian advocates have demonstrated that it is possible to protect public health and ensure access to asylum simultaneously. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) objected to the use of Title 42 for mass expulsions of migrants and confirmed such expulsions lacked a valid public health basis. Your Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci has himself stated that immigrants are “absolutely not” driving a COVID-19 outbreak and that expelling migrants is not a solution to an outbreak.
Over the past twelve months, your administration expelled people—often expelling the same person repeatedly—from the U.S. southern border more than one million times. In just the first seven months of your administration, U.S. border officials carried out 704,000 expulsions, a significant increase from the Trump administration’s 400,000 expulsions conducted over ten months. In addition to the new expulsion flights to Colombia, DHS also carries out land expulsions to Mexico and expulsion flights to send individuals and families back to their countries of origin, including Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, and Brazil. Even though your administration has acknowledged that “Haiti is grappling with a deteriorating political crisis, violence, and a staggering increase in human rights abuses…” – the U.S. has since September 2021, inexplicably chartered nearly 150 flights of almost 16,000 Haitians, including families with infants, back to a country that is unquestionably unsafe without offering them any opportunity to seek protection before expulsion. These expulsions under Title 42 violate the law and risk sending people back to dangerous conditions – sometimes the very ones that caused them to seek safety in the first place.
As you are aware, Venezuela is currently facing a severe economic, political, and humanitarian crisis. Millions of Venezuelans have left the country due to political persecution, a collapse of basic services, food insecurity, and rampant violence. Over 1.7 million Venezuelans are being hosted in Colombia and many have been granted temporary status there and only a small percentage of Venezuelans have sought asylum in the United States; however, Colombia is not safe for all Venezuelan migrants and refugees. Venezuelans, and all other individuals fleeing persecution have the right to seek asylum under U.S. law and to have their claims for protection assessed on a case-by-case basis. Your administration is blatantly violating the law by expelling these people to other countries in the region, such as Colombia, and we are deeply troubled by the informal and opaque arrangements with third countries that facilitate these expulsions. Your administration terminated several such agreements with Central American countries when you came into office, making these new flights especially concerning.
During its first year in office, your administration committed to a comprehensive regional approach to migration, aiming to strengthen asylum systems and refugee resettlement programs in the region and promote “safe, orderly, and humane migration.” Despite this pledge, your administration’s actions suggest that the United States seeks out negotiations with countries throughout Latin America that externalize its borders further south, shifts responsibility to countries already hosting millions of refugees, and impedes people’s ability to seek protection in the United States. Earlier this month, under pressure from your administration, the Mexican government implemented new requirements that Venezuelans obtain a visa to travel to Mexico. According to reports, your administration has also requested that Mexico sign a safe third country agreement, which could effectively block most individuals (except Mexicans) from seeking asylum in the United States.
We urge your administration to abandon efforts to prevent people from seeking asylum through externalized migration controls in the region and to undermine the right of people to seek protection in the United States. As you pursue other regional efforts, it is imperative that your administration operate with increased transparency and engage with asylum and human rights experts about potential efforts such as anticipated regional compacts on migration with other countries in the Americas. While regional protections must be strengthened, these efforts must not and need not come at the expense of existing protection mechanisms and access to asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, including at ports of entry.
Your administration has the responsibility to uphold U.S. refugee law and treaty obligations. We call on your administration to cease further expulsions of Venezuelan migrants to Colombia, and to immediately end its use of all expulsions under Title 42. Our organizations continue to welcome the opportunity to engage on and inform how to promote a protection centered approach to “safe, orderly, and humane migration,” including restoring access to asylum at the border, including at ports of entry.
immigrants’ rights = human rights = civil rights = racial justice = economic stability = common good
By failing miserably on the first, the Administration has found itself flailing and failing on the rest.
Nowhere is this more apparent than at DOJ! Garland has squandered the precious first year in office by NOT cleaning house at EOIR and bringing in practical experts in immigration/human rights/due process to remake and reform the system so that it can deal fairly, timely, and justly with asylum applicants applying at the border and and elsewhere in the U.S., as they are legally entitled to do.
Instead of expertly culling the vast majority of backlogged pending cases which are neither priorities nor viable removal cases at this point, Garland has built the unnecessary, largely self-created backlog at a record pace to more than 1.6 million with no end in sight! Add that to his disgraceful failure to stand up against illegal and immoral policies and clear violations of human rights at the border by his own Administration and you get today’s catastrophic situation.
“Standing tall” for the rule of law (and human decency) is supposed to be the Attorney General’s job. Why are these NGOs being forced to do it for him?
How bad have things gotten at Garland’s DOJ? This has already been a tough week that saw his DOJ attorneys “blow” a plea bargain in a major civil rights case, be excoriated by the 4th Circuit in a published case for a miserably botched performance in what should have been a routine “reasonable fear” case, and have Chairwoman Lofgren introduce her Article 1 bill with a broadside against DOJ’s horrible stewardship over EOIR.
As if to punctuate Chairwoman Lofgren’s critique, Garland topped it off with this gem: a beatdown in a pro se Salvadoran asylum case, which OIL basically failed to “pull” although the BIA decision conflicted with Garland’s own more recent precedent, from a Fourth Circuit panel that included two recent Trump appointees not heretofore known for vigorously defending asylum seekers’ rights!https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/pro-se-ca4-psg-remand-luna-deportillo-v-garland
Folks, this is NOT “good government.” Not by a long shot!
There is no more important task — NONE — facing DOJ than pumping some due process and quality back into immigration law and making the long overdue management, personnel, procedural, and legal quality reforms at EOIR.
Yes, that apparently would require Garland to take on some folks at the White House who obviously consider human rights to be a “political strategy,” integrity and courage optional, and live in mortal fear of Stephen Miller and far-right nativists. It would mean taking decisive actions to treat asylum seekers and other migrants (including many individuals of color) as “persons” under our Constitution. It would end the intentional “Dred Scottification of the other.” It would send some Sessions/Barr “plants and holdovers” packing from their current jobs!
Unquestionably, these moves would incite predictable, tiresome, apoplectic reactions by Miller and the GOP White Nationalist cabal on the Hill. They would put Garland “in the spotlight” and interrupt the serenity of his inner sanctum on the 5th floor of the DOJ where he apparently likes to contemplate the world and “things other than due process for immigrants.”
But, taking on folks like that is what good lawyers are supposed to do. As a public lawyer, it’s not just about being somebody’s “mouthpiece” — it’s standing up for the rule of law!
I among many others have said from the outset that Garland won’t be able to sweep the total meltdown at EOIR and in immigration legal positions under the table, much as he obviously would like them to go away! Yes, he inherited an awful mess from his Trump predecessors. But, almost a full year in, that doesn’t absolve him of responsibility for failing to initiate the common sense steps to fix it and to bring in experts who actually know what they are doing and have the guts and backbone to follow through — even when the going gets tough, as it undoubtedly will. The problems at DOJ go far beyond EOIR; but,EOIR must be the starting place for fixing them. There is no more time to lose!
It’s time for Garland to start worrying about running “America’s most unfair and dysfunctional courts,” defending grotesque human rights violations and scofflaw policies by his own Administration, and a DOJ that takes untenable and embarrassingly bad legal positions before the Federal Courts. Much as he’d like to pretend that “immigration doesn’t matter,” or expressed a different way “human lives don’t matter if they are only migrants,” he’s starting to get pressure from Congress, the Article IIIs, and NGOs to fix EOIR and “shape up” the DOJ’s lousy, sometimes unprofessional and ethically questionable, approach to immigration, human rights, and racial justice issues. Justice for immigrants is the starting point for achieving racial justice in America. PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons
Garland’s failure to institute widely recommended common sense legal reforms — government for the common good — at EOIR undermines our democracy while endangering “real” human lives every day! That’s a toxic legacy that he won’t be able to avoid!
The UW Law School launched a new center to support Wisconsin’s DREAMers, an all-encompassing term describing individuals who have lived in the United States without official lawful status since coming to the country as a minor. The Center for DREAMers was awarded a grant through the Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment, a competitive grant program that fosters public engagement and the advancement of the Wisconsin Idea.
Clinical Professor and Director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the Law School Erin Barbato, together with Erika Rosales of the School of Education, will lead the Center for DREAMers.
Erika Rosales School of Education University of Wisconsin, Madison PHOTO: UW Law
The center will serve the approximately 11,000 DREAMers in Wisconsin, working with organizations to coordinate the provision of legal representation, mental and social services, and career and educational counseling to ease the burden of some of the uncertainty experienced by undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.
Barbato, who teaches second- and third-year law students to represent individuals in removal proceedings and with humanitarian-based immigration relief, says the center will become an important resource for the community.
“The Center for DREAMers will bring together comprehensive resources for students that have DACA in Wisconsin,” says Barbato. “Currently, no organization in Wisconsin exists that has the capacity to serve the unique educational and legal needs of DACA recipients. We hope the center will serve this population in a manner that will allow them to fulfill their potential in a state and country they call home. We are honored to have the opportunity to serve this population so they no longer have to live in fear and one day they will have equity in educational opportunities as well as citizenship.”
As a part of its community-focused approach, the center provides outreach events and support on different campus and community locations, including the South Madison Partnership. A particular focus includes outreach to DACA communities throughout the state of Wisconsin, including bi-monthly information events.
The center’s mission also aligns with the Law School’s law-in-action tradition.
“The University of Wisconsin Law School is renowned for its law-in-action approach to legal education, and the Center for DREAMers aligns with that practical approach to learning and the pursuit of equal justice,” says Dean Dan Tokaji. “We’re grateful for the Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment’s support for the center and are thrilled by the opportunities this will provide for our students and the community.”
Located in the Law School’s Economic Justice Institute, the center opened in October and began providing office hours and counseling services. Clinical law students in the Immigrant Justice Clinic play an instrumental role in the center’s work, says Barbato. Under her guidance, the students provide direct representation to people with DACA in renewals and may provide representation to people with DACA who are eligible for pathways to citizenship through family, employment, or for humanitarian-based reasons.
Congratulations, Erin, my friend, on your continuing extraordinary leadership, creativity, and overwhelming commitment to achieving social justice in America. You are indeed an inspiring role model for America’s new generation of lawyers! So proud of what you and your colleagues are doing at my alma mater! Go Badgers!
“Aires Daniel Benros Da Graca petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (the “Board”) affirming his order of removal and denying his requests for cancellation of removal and voluntary departure. Because we find that a conviction under Rhode Island General Laws (“RIGL”) § 31-9-1 is not categorically a theft offense, we grant the petition for review, vacate the decision below, and remand for further proceedings.”
“Appellant Imad Jaffal, born in Jordan, seeks a declaration that he is entitled to derivative U.S. citizenship under former 8 U.S.C. § 1432(a). That statute provides that “a child born outside the United States automatically acquires United States citizenship if, while the child is under the age of eighteen, the parent with legal custody of the child is naturalized while that child’s parents are legally separated.” Jaffal’s father was naturalized when Jaffal was seventeen years old, and Jaffal presented evidence to the District Court that he was in the sole legal custody of his father when his father was naturalized and his parents were separated. The District Court, however, declined to accept Jaffal’s evidence of his parents’ divorce. Because we conclude that was error, we will reverse the order of the District Court and remand the matter with instructions to issue a judgment declaring Jaffal to be a national of the United States.”
Here’s my favorite quote from Judge Torresen’s decision inDa Garcia v. Garland:
Despite this apparent disconnect between RIGL § 31-9-1 and the Board’s definition of theft offense, the Board in Da Graca’s case determined that to prove the statute’s overbreadth, the Petitioner was required to identify actual cases in which Rhode Island had enforced the statute against de minimis deprivations of ownership interests. Da Graca contests the Board’s imposition of an actual case requirement and argues that he “need not necessarily proffer specific examples of Rhode Island prosecutions in order to establish a ‘realistic probability’ that the state would apply its statute to conduct that falls outside the generic definition of a crime.” We agree with Da Graca.
Essentially, Garland’s BIA “makes it up as it goes along” to reach a denial, then Prelogar’s DOJ attorneys defend the illegal result. Sounds like a really bad system, lacking accountability, expertise, common sense, and, sometimes, professional responsibility.
Lest you think that the legal nonsense being produced by Garland’s BIA and the USCIS is “below Prelogar’s radar screen” in her exulted position, that’s NOT true! Every adverse decision suffered by the USG must be reported to the SG’s Office with an analysis and recommendations from the agency’s attorneys, the litigators who handled the case, the appellate section of litigating division (here the Civil Division), and the SG’s staff. No appeal, petition for rehearing en banc, or petition for cert. can be filed without the express authorization of the SG’s Office.
So, Prelogar is well aware of the bad positions, unfairness, and poor work product DOJ attorneys are defending (sometimes with a lack of candor or misleading the courts) and their abuses of the time of the Article IIIs.
Even with the “real” (Article III) Federal Courts moving markedly to the right (following four years of Trump-McConnell appointments and eight years of lackadaisical performance by the Obama Administration), and rules that strongly favor the Government on judicial review, DOJ’s haphazard performance under Garland and Prelogar continues to earn a stream of avoidable “kickbacks” from the Article IIIs. The DOJ system is broken in many places — EOIR is just the most obvious, most pressing, and most easily addressed area of failure.
At the same time they acknowledge but downplay the existential crippling effects of Garland’s failure to bring progressive reforms to EOIR, his defense of disgraceful, immoral, and inhumane “Miller Lite” positions in Federal Court, his intentional indifference to human suffering and the complete breakdown of the rule of law at our borders, and his disdain for removing the Trump enablers, deadwood, and poor lawyers from DOJ — at all levels.
I have a radically different perspective on the future of meaningful progressive immigration reforms, based on my nearly 50 years of involvement with the system on both sides and at all levels — more than most folks.
There will be no meaningful, sustainable immigration reforms without a radically reformed, remade, Immigration Court system with a judiciary of due-process-oriented progressive experts who have the courage to “speak truth to power,” stand up for the legal, constitutional, and human right of the most vulnerable, and put integrity, humanity, and the best interests of our nation above career advancement, survival, or “ingratiation with the powers that be.” That’s NOT Garland’s DOJ — which remains largely the out of control, often ethically challenged morass that he inherited from his predecessors.
Let’s not forget that through intentional misuse of precedents, weaponization of EOIR, and White Nationalist litigation strategies, Jeff Sessions was able to largely disable the entire asylum system, including USCIS Asylum Offices, and shift USCIS Adjudications from service to “enforcement only,” in preparation for the “final eradication” of asylum and crippling of our entire legal immigration system by his crony and former subordinate, Stephen Miller. And, the folks who helped him do that and “went along to go along” with abuses are still largely on board and in key positions in Garland’s DOJ — actually operating with his apparent “stamp of approval.” Outrageous!
From a due process, human rights, progressive, good government, equal justice, racial equality standpoint, as well as from any aspect of moral leadership on fundamental values, Garland’s performance at DOJ has been unacceptable. Has Garland visited any of the camps in Mexico or gone to the “New American Gulag” to witness first-hand the human carnage for which he is responsible? Heck no! That’s a job for progressive experts whose input and advice he then shuns, ignores, and “tunes out!”
For progressive advocates to downplay the Biden Administration’s gross failures or “over-cheer” incremental progress that means little without fundamental reforms at EOIR and the DOJ only deepens the fecklessness of their own positions and furthers the disrespect and under-appreciation of their efforts, potential power, and value that has become an endemic feature of the Democratic Party.
The Biden Administration might talk a good game, particularly around election time; but, in reality, they are governing largely in fear of and like nativist Republicans — but getting no “political return” whatsoever for betraying their supposed values and their base (see, Catherine Rampell). Advocates reward and tolerate such disgraceful and intellectually dishonest conduct at their own peril!
Meanwhile, Suzanne Clark, President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, certainly no “progressive shill,” speaks truth about the need for and our ability to accept more immigrants:
Allowing more immigrants into the US would help mitigate both soaring inflation and the current labor shortage, the CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce said.
“We need more workers,” Suzanne Clark told reporters Tuesday, per CNN. “We should welcome people who want to come here, go to school, and stay.”
“That is a place the government could be particularly helpful and we do believe it would be anti-inflationary,” she said, per CNN.
Those immigrants are right in front of us: rotting in camps at the border, being returned to danger or death with no process — both as a result of Garland’s failure to re-establish our legal asylum system at the border — or languishing in Garland’s mushrooming 1.6 million Immigration Court backlog!It doesn’t take a “rocket scientist” to see that instead of wasting time, money, and resources on mindless “enforcement” intended to deter and discourage those who might help us by helping themselves, we should have set up fair and timely processing systems, staffed by experts, that would identify the many individuals at the border and already in the U.S. who can qualify to remain under fair and properly generous interpretations of asylum law, withholding, CAT, U & T visas, “stateside processing waivers,” cancellation of removal” (for those already here), TPS, and other possibilities.
This is just as much”law enforcement” and “maintaining the integrity of our system” as are the efforts to increase deportations, terrorize communities, or close borders to “deter” migrants (primarily those of color) that has been practiced to some degree by every Administration. It also makes sense, economically, practically, and ethically.
It starts with an Attorney General and DOJ with the courage and vision to end the “deterrence only” misconstruction of our laws and stand up for the legal and human rights of migrants, regardless of race, color, creed, or manner of entry. That’s not what Garland has been doing to date! Too bad, because there will be no resolution of immigration issues — nor will there be racial justice in America — without an AG who will stand up for the real rule of law rather than the parody of the law and justice purveyed by Miller and his White Nationalists and still being parroted and too often defended by Garland and his minions.
Elizabeth Keyes Associate Professor Director, Immigrant Rights Clinic U of Baltimore Law Photo: U of Baltimore Law Website
Friends,
I have the best job in the legal profession. Maybe this could be your best job in the legal profession.
I’m excited to share a hiring announcement for the director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at University of Baltimore, which has been my own beloved position for the last decade. (I’m staying at UBalt, but shifting to purely doctrinal teaching for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with how much I love our clinical program and community at UBalt). We are looking for a dynamic junior or pre-tenure lateral person for this position.
As you probably know, UBalt is an exceptionally good place to be a clinician. We are on a unitary tenure-track, with case coverage over the breaks. Our clinicians lead the law school in all kinds of ways, from committee-leadership to scholarship and beyond. We also have a beautifully collegial clinical faculty, with weekly brown-bag lunches focused on everything from pedagogy to workshopping our own scholarship. In the next four weeks alone, we have one lunch devoted to the pedagogy of Bell Hooks, another on clinics and emergency response, and another workshopping two articles by our teaching fellows. We have a lot of independence within our clinics, but we also share the same deep roots in non-directive, client-centered pedagogy.
Please share the announcement widely with your networks.
Warmly,
Liz
Elizabeth Keyes
Associate Professor, Director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic
University of Baltimore School of Law
***************
Great opportunity for an up and coming NDPA “practical scholar!”
Somewhat reminiscent of how the Chinese workers who were key to building the transcontinental railroad were “rewarded” with the Chinese Exclusion Act and more than a century of anti-Asian bias and hate that continues today.
☹️Unfortunately, America has a long unhappy history of mistreating, exploiting, and demonizing immigrants whose hard work, courage, and perserverance against the odds built our nation into what it is today! Old habits of bias, ingratitude, false racial supremacy, and vilification of “the other” — or at least the “perceived other,” since in truth we’re all important parts of the real America— are hard to break. But, it would be a real boost for our nation and humanity if we could overcome the darker part of our past and move forward as one.
Thanks for sending this important piece my way, Julia!
President Joseph R.Biden 46th President of The United States (Official portrait of Vice President Joe Biden in his West Wing Office at the White House, Jan. 10, 2013. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)..This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.)
😎👍🏼🗽🇺🇸BIDEN, DEMS GET THE JOB DONE FOR AMERICA ON INFRASTRUCTURE, WITH SOME BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FROM GOP!
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Courtside Exclusive
Nov. 7, 2021
After a long series of very public squabbles and false starts, President Biden this week delivered on one of his key campaign promises with a $1 trillion investment in America’s infrastructure. With a rebounding economy, it’s hard to think of any higher priority than rebuilding and modernizing America’s often crumbling roads and bridges, among other things. Directly or indirectly, that effort also should create lots of good jobs across the country.
Whether they are prepared to admit it or not, every American will benefit from this historic investment in our country. It remains to be seen however, whether the Dems will be able to reap any political capital from spearheading this achievement (with some bipartisan help). In the past, “messaging” about their substantial, positive achievements for all Americans has not been a Dem strongpoint.
NOTICE
U.S. Department of Justice
Executive Office for Immigration Review
Office of Policy
5107 Leesburg Pike
Falls Church, Virginia 22041
Contact: Communications and Legislative Affairs Division Phone: 703-305-0289 PAO.EOIR@usdoj.gov
www.justice.gov/eoir @DOJ_EOIR Oct. 14, 2021
EOIR Announces New Appellate Immigration Judge
Agency Seeks Qualified Individuals for Immigration Judge Positions
FALLS CHURCH, VA – The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) today announced the appointment of Andrea Saenz as a Member of EOIR’s Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). Attorney General Merrick B. Garland’s appointment of Appellate Immigration Judge Saenz brings the BIA to its regulatory maximum of 23 Members.
The BIA is the highest administrative body for interpreting and applying immigration laws,
having nationwide jurisdiction to hear appeals of decisions by adjudicators, including
Immigration Judges. EOIR has more than 2,300 employees in its 69 immigration courts
nationwide, at the BIA and at EOIR headquarters in Falls Church, Virginia. As provided in the
President’s Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2022, EOIR anticipates increasing its immigration
judge corps from 535 today to 734 by the end of the next fiscal year.
EOIR recognizes the many benefits of a diverse and inclusive workforce, and is looking for
qualified candidates from all backgrounds to join our corps of Immigration Judges. For
information about qualifications and application requirements to become an Immigration Judge,
please review EOIR’s current Immigration Judge Job Opportunity Announcement, which closes at 11:59 p.m. on October 15.
Biographical information follows:
Andrea Saenz, Appellate Immigration Judge
Andrea Saenz was appointed as an Appellate Immigration Judge in October 2021. Judge Saenz earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2002 from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Juris Doctor in 2008 from Harvard Law School. From 2016 to 2021, she was Attorney-in-Charge of the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, Brooklyn Defender Services, in Brooklyn, NY. From 2013 to 2016, she was a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the Immigration Justice Clinic, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (New York). From 2012 to 2013, she was a Staff Attorney at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. From 2010 to 2012, she served as a Judicial Law Clerk at the New York – Varick Immigration Court, entering on duty through the Attorney General’s Honors Program. From 2008 to 2010, she was an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation Project, in Boston. Judge Saenz is a member of the New York State Bar.
Communications and Legislative Affairs Division
EOIR Announces New Appellate Immigration Judge Page 2
— EOIR —
The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is an agency within the Department of Justice. EOIR’s mission is to adjudicate immigration cases by fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly interpreting and administering the Nation’s immigration laws. Under delegated authority from the Attorney General, EOIR conducts immigration court proceedings, appellate reviews, and administrative hearings. EOIR is committed to ensuring fairness in all cases it adjudicates.
Communications and Legislative Affairs Division
*******************
“Courtside” readers had this story three weeks ago:
Congratulations again, Judge Saenz! Capable as she is, Judge Saenz is just one among 23 BIA Appellate Immigration Judges. All of her colleagues are “government insiders,” and none has any recent experience representing individuals in Immigration Court!
Decades of skewed hiring at EOIR overwhelmingly favored those with government/prosecutorial backgrounds by a ratio of more than 9 to 1 (even worse at the BIA, where Judge Saenz is the first “private sector” appointee since the waning days of the Clinton Administration and the “Schmidt Board” in 2000).
This is in a system where studies such as the highly acclaimed Refugee Roulette have consistently shown that judges’ backgrounds and personal philosophies have more to do with the outcome of “life or death cases” than the actual merits of the claims. Claims that might be routinely and properly granted by one judge are summarily rejected by others, sometimes in another courtroom in the same court building!
The BIA as currently comprised has shown neither an interest in nor the ability to consistently protect due process, equal justice, individual rights, and enforce consistency among Immigration Courts. Indeed, there is a ridiculous and quite intentional dearth of positive asylum precedents from the BIA and the various AGs who have inserted themselves onto the process!
Remarkably, as shown by recent FOIA disclosures, “rubber stampism” in a race to make quotas, please political “handlers,” and hold onto jobs and careers is still “alive and well” at today’s EOIR, including the BIA:
EOIR recognizes the many benefits of a diverse and inclusive workforce, and is looking for
qualified candidates from all backgrounds to join our corps of Immigration Judges. For
information about qualifications and application requirements to become an Immigration Judge,
please review EOIR’s current Immigration Judge Job Opportunity Announcement, which closes at 11:59 p.m. on October 15.
That this belated announcement on October 14 cites a deadline at noon the next day (now expired) is probably a good indicator of the (lack of) sincerity of EOIR’s claims that it actively seeks “diversification,” particularly from the private/NGO/academic sector.
Fortunately, I’m aware that a number of exceptionally well-qualified NDPA members have “thrown their hats in the/ring.” There will be future announcements and opportunities.
So NDPA members need to “put DOJ/EOIR to the test” by flooding their “designed for insiders” system and pathetically inadequate recruitment mechanisms (e.g., where’s the “outreach” to HBCUs, to Hispanic, Black, and Asian American Bar Associations, and to human rights NGOs?) with a tidal wave of superior applicants who can change this broken system into a real due-process-oriented judiciary, even in the absence of dynamic progressive leadership at with a plan!
Inside the Gulag, Public Realm Conditions are ugly in the New American Gulag. Legal Aid Justice Center (Virginia) is offering an opportunity in Richmond, VA to free humans from the DHS Gulag and Garland’s embedded Gulag Courts!
BILINGUAL IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY Legal Aid Justice Center Richmond, VA
The Legal Aid Justice Center is a nationally recognized nonprofit organization that partners with communities and clients to achieve justice by dismantling the systems that create and perpetuate poverty. Justice means racial justice, economic justice, and social justice. From its offices in Charlottesville, Richmond, Petersburg, and Falls Church, LAJC is a fierce advocate for low-income clients and communities in Virginia.
Founded in 1967, LAJC provides services under four key program areas: Civil Rights & Racial Justice, Economic Justice, Youth Justice, and Immigrant Advocacy. LAJC boldly tackles issues of systemic injustice and aims to raise public and policymaker awareness of some of the most pressing challenges facing low-income Virginia residents. For more information, visit www.justice4all.org.
Legal Aid Justice Center seeks a Bilingual (Spanish-English) Immigration Attorney for our Richmond office, serving Richmond and the surrounding communities. The attorney will represent individual clients, with a focus on creative forms of removal defense. The attorney will partner with a community organizer to meet the needs of the immigrant community, and advocate for pro-immigrant policies at the local and state level, with a special focus on disentangling local and state government and law enforcement from federal immigration enforcement. The attorney will create and supervise a robust pro bono project, and advocate for stakeholders (including local governments) to support immigration legal services. The attorney will provide regular know-your-rights and immigration update clinics, in Spanish and English, to community members and to service providers.
• Strong commitment to social, economic, and racial justice
• Strong commitment to immigrants’ rights
• Experience working directly with immigrant community members
• Prior experience handling immigration cases, whether professionally or through a law
school clinic
• A sufficient level of Spanish fluency to interview and counsel clients in Spanish without
the assistance of an interpreter
• An ability to multi-task and balance a variety of responsibilities
Just in the past year, we permanently
repealed Virginia’s driver’s license suspension for court debt scheme, secured an injunction slashing the number of immigrants detained by ICE at the largest detention center in the Mid- Atlantic and passed a law giving Virginia oversight authority, won the nation’s first COVID- specific, statewide, and enforceable workplace safety standards, passed legislation enabling communities to set up civilian oversight for law enforcement, and decriminalized school-based disorderly conduct, which was a leading contributor to the school-to-prison pipeline,
especially for Black girls.
About the Position
Required Qualifications
123 E. Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23219 • (804) 643-1086 237 North Sycamore Street, Petersburg, VA 23803 • (804) 862-2205
6066 Leesburg Pike, Suite 520, Falls Church, VA 22041 • (703) 778-3450 1000 Preston Avenue, Suite A, Charlottesville, VA 22903 • (434) 977-0553
Preferred Qualifications
Location Salary Benefits
• Membership in the Virginia bar, confirmed eligibility to waive in, or willingness to sit for the February 2022 Virginia bar (LAJC provides bar study leave and application fees)
This role will be based in our Richmond office. Occasional travel between offices will be required.
Salary range is $55,000 to $70,000 based on years of relevant experience and LAJC’s formal salary scale.
Our mission is compelling, and our team members are passionate about their work, and so we recognize the need to provide generous benefits and encourage rest and a healthy work environment. For example, we provide:
• Generous paid time off every year, including 3 to 6 weeks of vacation, 12 days of health leave, 6 weeks parental leave, and 14 holidays (not including bonus holidays/rest days allocated as needed)
• 100% employer paid health, dental, and vision insurance, plus excellent family insurance with annual max of $2,400 premium contribution to LAJC-sponsored health plan
• 403(b) retirement plan with 4% employer contribution (no required match)
• Strong commitment to professional development
• Full mileage reimbursement at IRS rates
• Law school loan repayment assistance and full reimbursement for VA bar and CLE
expenses
• Relocation package
Email a cover letter, resume, a legal writing sample, and three references to Simon Sandoval- Moshenberg at hiring@justice4all.org. If you’re able, please submit your application as a single PDF titled “[date submitted in yyyy.mm.dd format][last name][first name][position sought].” Please include “Richmond Bilingual Immigration Attorney” in the email subject.
an environment that enables staff and clients to feel empowered, valued, respected, and safe. In reviewing applications, we look for evidence
that applicants have experience and/or thoughtfulness in working with traditionally marginalized populations.
Application Instructions
The Legal Aid Justice Center is an equal opportunity employer, committed to inclusive hiring and
dedicated to diversity in our work and staff. We strongly encourage candidates of all identities,
experiences, and communities to apply. The Legal Aid Justice Center is committed to strengthening the
voices of our low-income clients, working in collaboration with community partners, and rooting out
the inequities that keep people in poverty. We strive to take on the issues that have broad impact on
our client communities and to be responsive to client input. Recognizing the particular impact of
racism on our clients and staff, we devote special attention to dismantling racial injustice. All
applicants must be dedicated to working in and sustaining clients to feel empowered, valued, respected, and safe. In reviewing applications, we look for evidence
that applicants have experience and/or thoughtfulness in working with traditionally marginalized populations.
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The Richmond Adjudication Center for DHS detainees was established by the Trump regime and has been continued by AG Garland over the unanimous and vigorous objections of advocacy groups. The Government uses “civil” immigration detention and “captive courts” embedded in these “civil prisons” to coerce individuals into abandoning claims, restrict access to counsel, and inhibit the proper preparation and documentation of cases. The latter is particularly egregious, given the intentionally hypertechnical and unnecessarily complicated administrative requirements developed by the BIA in an overt effort to restrict asylum access.
One on the “unwritten assumptions” is that detention will make it easier for DHS and DOJ to railroad unrepresented migrants, thereby increasing “productivity” and “weaponizing” the Immigration Courts as a deterrent to individuals’ asserting their legal rights. It also helps create bogus and distorted statistics about the merits of Immigration Court cases.
A great way of combatting this outrageous and abusive Government “strategy” is by vigorously representing individuals in detention. This not only saves lives, but it also thwarts the Government’s coercive and abusive strategy.
Additionally, representation exposes the grossly substandard conditions that prevail in most DHS detention facilities and the fiction that mass detention, without fair and impartial individualized determinations, serves a legitimate governmental purpose.
Positions like this will be in the forefront of re-establishing the rule of law and achieving racial justice for all in the U.S.
🇺🇸Due Process Forever! More “New American Gulag,” never!
Trumpy nativists, posing as fiscal conservatives, want you to question whether the United States can afford to take in Afghan allies and refugees.
The better question is whether we can afford not to.
The Republican Party has cleaved in recent weeks over the issue of Afghan refugees, specifically those who served as military interpreters or otherwise aided U.S. efforts. On the one hand, Republican governors and lawmakers around the country have volunteered to resettle Afghan evacuees in their states. Likewise, a recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that bringing these allies to the United States is phenomenally popular, garnering support from 76 percent of Republican respondents. Influential conservative constituencies are invested in this issue, too, including veterans’ groups and faith leaders.
On the other hand, the Trump strain within the GOP has been fighting such magnanimous impulses with misinformation.
Xenophobic politicians and media personalities have been conspiracy-theorizing about the dangers of resettling Afghan allies here — even though we had previously entrusted these same Afghans with the lives of U.S. troops and granted them security clearances. And even though they go through additional extensive screening before being brought to our shores.
No matter; if you listen to Tucker Carlson and his ilk, you’ll hear that these Afghans are apparently part of a secret plot to replace White Americans, and that untamed Afghan hordes are going to rape your wife and daughter.
Often these demagogues try to disguise their racist objections to refugee resettlement (and immigration more broadly) as economic concerns. Their claim: that however heartbreaking the footage from the Kabul airport, compassion for Afghan refugees is a luxury Americans simply cannot afford.
Refugees are somehow responsible for existing housing shortages, proclaims Carlson. (This is demonstrably false; the reason we have too little affordable housing is primarily because people like Carlson oppose building more and denser housing.) More refugees would sponge up precious taxpayer dollars, according to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). And in general, refugees — like all immigrants — are a massive drain on the U.S. economy, alleges Stephen Miller.
This is nonsense.
. . . .
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Read Catherine’s complete op-ed at the link!
Thanks, Catherine, for once again standing up to and speaking truth against disgraceful, neo-Nazi, nativist racists like Stephen Miller, Tucker Carlson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene!
By contrast, one might well ask what “value added” folks like Stephen Miller and his buddies, (Miller has largely sponged off of taxpayer funds while looking for ways to inflict misery on others and destroy America) bring to the table. None, that I can see!
Moreover, even beyond the undoubted value of robust refugee admissions, there is good reason to believe that large-scale migration presents our best opportunity for salvation and prosperity, rather than the “bogus threat” posited by Miller & Co.
As Deepak Bhargava and Ruth Milkman recently, and quite cogently, wrote in American Prospect:
. . . .
A “Statue of Liberty Plan” for the 21st century could make the United States the world’s most welcoming country for immigrants. Right now, the foreign-born share of the U.S. population lags behind that of Canada, Australia, and Switzerland. In order to surpass them, the United States would have to admit millions more people each year for a decade or longer. We currently admit immigrants to promote family integration, meet economic needs, respond to humanitarian crises, and increase the diversity of our population from historically underrepresented countries. Under this plan, we could dramatically expand admissions in all four categories and add a fifth category to recognize the claims of climate migrants. As a civic project of national renewal, with millions of people playing a role in welcoming new immigrants, such a policy could reweave frayed social bonds and create a healthier, outward-looking, multiracial national identity.
The politics of immigration, however, lag far behind the moral and economic logic of the case for a pro-immigration policy. The immigrant threat narrative has become so pervasive that many liberals have embraced it, if only because they hope to fend off threats from right-wing nationalists. President Obama not only deprioritized immigration reform in his first term but deported record numbers of immigrants, hoping that such a display of “toughness” might win support for legalization of the undocumented immigrants already here. Hillary Clinton advocated liberal immigration policies in her 2016 presidential campaign but later tacked toward restrictionism. Liberals and leftists across the global North, from Austria to France to the U.K., have offered similar concessions to nativism. But mimicking right-wing appeals is a losing gamble that only serves to legitimize the anti-immigrant agenda and its standard-bearers.
There are promising signs of potential for shifting the debate, however, if progressives lean in. Polling shows that Americans increasingly reject the immigrant threat narrative, largely due to Trump’s shameless cruelty. Last year, for the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1965, more Americans supported increased levels of immigration than supported reduced levels. A telling barometer of how the sands are shifting is that President Biden’s proposed immigration bill is far to the left of what Obama proposed.
The work of shifting gears toward a more welcoming policy can begin right now by fully welcoming immigrants who already reside in our country. A crucial starting point would be to include a path to citizenship for essential workers, Dreamers, farmworkers, and Temporary Protected Status holders in the American Jobs Plan Congress is considering. This is not only a humane approach, but it also will stimulate economic growth and thus help finance other parts of the plan. A separate campaign by the Biden administration (not requiring congressional action) to simplify the naturalization process for nine million eligible green-card holders would help make the nation’s electorate more reflective of its population.
Getting the politics of immigration right isn’t just important for immigrants. Nativism, built upon the sturdy foundation of racism, remains among the most potent tools in the arsenal of right-wing authoritarians. Any program for economic equity or democracy will be fragile in the absence of a coherent immigration agenda. The antidote to authoritarianism is not to duck, cower, or imitate the nativists, but rather to make the case for opening the door to millions more immigrants.
If slavery and genocide were the country’s original sins, its occasional and often accidental genius has been to renew itself through periodic waves of immigration. Once we expose the immigration threat narrative as the Big Lie that it is, it becomes plain that immigration is not a problem to be solved but an opportunity and necessity to be embraced.
This, of course, also casts doubt on the wisdom of our current, wasteful and ultimately ineffective, policy of illegally rejecting legal asylum applicants at our Southern Border, rather than attempting in good faith to fit as many as qualify under our current system, as properly and honestly administered (something that hasn’t happened in the past). Additionally wise leaders would be looking for ways to expand our legal immigration system to admit, temporarily or permanently, those whose presence would be mutually beneficial, even if they aren’t “refugees” within existing legal definitions. In this respect, the proposal to modernize our laws to admit climate migrants is compelling.
Remember, as stated above:
Getting the politics of immigration right isn’t just important for immigrants. Nativism, built upon the sturdy foundation of racism, remains among the most potent tools in the arsenal of right-wing authoritarians. Any program for economic equity or democracy will be fragile in the absence of a coherent immigration agenda. The antidote to authoritarianism is not to duck, cower, or imitate the nativists, but rather to make the case for opening the door to millions more immigrants.
NDPA members, keep listening to Catherine and the other voices of progressive wisdom, humanity, practicality, and tolerance. The key to the future is insuring that the “Stephen Millers of the world” never again get a chance to implement their vile, racist propaganda in the guise of “government policy.”
Happily, many Northern Virginians have listened to our “better angels.” Humanitarian aid and resettlement opportunities for Afghan refugees are pouring in, as shown by this report from our good friend Julie Carey @ NBC 4 news:
Julie Carey NOVA Bureau Chief, NBC4 Washington PHOTO: Twitter
The local couple interviewed by Julie emphasized the impressive “human dignity” of the Afghan refugees! (I also observed this during many years of hearing asylum cases in person at the Arlington Immigration Court.) Compare that with the lack thereof (not to mention absence of empathy and kindness) shown by the nativist naysayers!
The folks saving this Maine industry and making America proud are mostly asylees from Africa. Something to remember and reflect upon the next time you hear GOP “magamorons” and White Nationalist racist nativists claim that legal asylum seekers are a “problem,” rather than a key part of the solution! Indeed, the “problem” appears to be with the GOP White Nationalist restrictionists and nativists!
I’ve personally seen how immigrants of all kinds from all places have rejuvenated Maine with their hard work, culture, adaptability, and energy. Whether it’s the checkout person at the local grocery store, the folks who run the best carry-out in town with the brilliant daughter, or the helpful associate at L.L. Bean, immigrants are a key part of what makes Maine a great place to visit or live.
