Category: Education

PSA FROM COURTSIDE: Migrants Are Essential To Our Country — So Is Their Good Health — Here Are Some Timely Tips Compiled By “Guest Contributor” Diane Harrison!

Good Health
Good Health

Help for Migrants in the Time of COVID-19

By Diane Harrison*

There’s no question that everyone is struggling to navigate a world marred by a serious pandemic that’s brought about serious repercussions, especially economic and financial. However, it can be argued that immigrants are having it so much worse at this time as the government, in an effort to protect its own, has chosen to overlook their plight. As a result, countless migrant workers are now on unsure footing. So, let’s dig deeper to understand the problem and see what solutions may be at hand.

Anticipating the Challenges

It’s undeniable that migrant workers are among the hardest hit by COVID-19 — not in terms of infections, per se, but by the fallout. While the government is quick to come to the aid of its citizens affected by the pandemic, the same can’t be said for immigrants, leaving countless migrant workers to fend for themselves.

  • The fact that immigrants are essential to the economy is undeniable. 
  • Many are even working on the frontlines of this pandemic, making them truly vital to the country’s COVID-19 response.
  • Unfortunately, they are all but neglected right now in the pandemic, lacking assistance in almost all avenues from healthcare to economic.

Getting the Help You Need

Despite the direness of the situation, there’s still hope on the horizon. Migrant workers will likely have their work cut out for them as they seek much-needed help in their adoptive countries. But the fact is, help and support are available out there.

  • Despite the general lack of healthcare for migrants, there are some healthcare resources that can prove to be useful.
  • Some states and local governments have also stepped up to provide resources for immigrants, running the gamut from legal to financial to healthcare.
  • There are also those devoted to protecting migrant farmworkers and, by extension, the country’s food supply.

Tapping the Right Services

Of course, it definitely pays to take matters into one’s own hands. In fact, it will serve migrant workers well to look into the many services that can be leveraged. 

  • Knowing one’s rights as an immigrant is more important now than ever.
  • In fact, it can be wise to hire freelancers to help navigate through the red tape, so consider engaging an immigration lawyer or even just a translator.
  • Of course, find a nanny who can be trusted to care for your kids as you work on improving your situation.

Indeed, it’s a difficult time that’s been made even more so with the multitude of uncertainties that migrant workers face on a daily basis. But really, there’s no reason to make this situation more overwhelming than it already is. Again, help can be had, and regardless if it comes from you, the government or other kind-hearted souls no longer matter. It just needs to be accepted.

Photo via Pexels.com

  • I’m Diane Harrison, a former librarian of 15 years turned non-profit marketing guru. Although I’m no longer a librarian and have switched career gears completely, I’ve combined my passion for helping others as well as my writing and researching skills to gather helpful health information.

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

Thanks for informing us Diane!

PWS

05-28-20

Related posts:

  1. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?
  2. JIM CROW WINS, AMERICA LOSES, AGAIN — WHITE NATIONALIST CLOWN-IN-CHIEF 🤡 HALTS IMMIGRATION TO DIVERT ATTENTION FROM MASSIVE FAILURE OF GOVERNANCE, AS FECKLESS DEMS PROTEST! — Announced By Tweet At Time When Borders Closed Anyway — A “pathetic attempt to shift blame from his Visible Incompetence to an Invisible Enemy,” Says Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) 😰👎🏻
  3. NICOLE NAREA @ VOX: Sen. Booker Introduces Bill to Aid Migrant Health Care
  4. 🇺🇸🗽POLITICS: RISING SUPERSTAR,🌟FORMER BIA ATTORNEY HILLARY SCHOLTEN IN HIGH-PROFILE RACE TO “FLIP” MICH 3RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT TO DEMS — Listen To My Friend Hillary Share Her Vision For A Better America On “Morning Joe!”

LAW YOU CAN USE: THE DEVIL👹 IS IN THE DETAILS: JEFFREY S. CHASE — OPINIONS/ANALYSIS ON IMMIGRATION LAW: “Just One More Thing…”

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Retired Immigration Judges

HTTPS://WWW.JEFFREYSCHASE.COM/BLOG/2020/5/27/JUST-ONE-MORE-THING

 

JEFFREY S. CHASE | OPINIONS/ANALYSIS ON IMMIGRATION LAW

Blog

 

Archive

 

Press and Interviews

Calendar

 

Contact

“Just One More Thing…”

When reviewing asylum applications of late, I find myself thinking of the popular 1970s TV show “Columbo.”  After interviewing a suspect, it’s title character, a disheveled homicide detective, would famously stop on his way out to ask “just one more thing.” What he asked next was always critical to proving the case.

Asylum claims are increasingly reliant on nuance.  For example, in Hernandez-Chacon v. Barr, the Petitioner’s statement that she had resisted an attempted rape by one of the gang members “because [she had] every right to” was a significant reason for the Second Circuit’s conclusion that her subsequent persecution was on account of an imputed political opinion.

Similarly, in Lopez-Ordonez v. Barr, the Fourth Circuit’s finding of imputed political opinion relied largely on the Petitioner, while a soldier in the Guatemalan army, uttering a warning that he would “call the human rights right now” if a fellow soldier carried out his intent of harming a baby.

And in Orellana v. Barr, the Fourth Circuit found support for the Petitioner’s assertion that the Salvadoran government was unable or unwilling to provide protection from her domestic partner in her testimony that she would call the police when her partner would become abusive and lock herself in a room with her children while the partner paced outside with a machete, but that the police would not show up for hours, and sometimes not show up at all.

In the above examples, the critical statements came out during testimony in court.  But under pressure to meet unrealistic case completion goals, immigration judges are increasingly suggesting that respondents forego testimony and rely on their written applications, or waive direct examination and reserve the right to redirect.  In some instances, judges have imposed time limits on testimony.  There has been even greater pressure to forego the testimony of other witnesses and instead rely on their written submissions alone.

This pressure to make asylum adjudication more administratively efficient conflicts with the process through which such claims develop.  While the written evidence explains the claim, an unanticipated response to a probing question may provide a eureka moment that alters the legal analysis.  In my first year on the bench in 1995, a response from a female asylum seeker uttered with a certain degree of conviction caused me to make a connection to a 1993 decision of the Third Circuit in Fatin v. INS.  That decision, authored by then-circuit judge Samuel Alito, recognized a particular social group consisting of both gender and a refusal to conform to the government’s gender-specific laws.  After weeks of subsequent research and analysis, the case before me ended in a grant of asylum, a result that never would have occurred without the extensive testimony that elicited that one critical utterance.

While EOIR management’s present focus is on efficiency, it bears noting that claims for asylum and related reliefs have life-or-death consequences.  For example, a February report of Human Rights Watch documented 138 Salvadorans who were murdered after being deported from the U.S., and 70 other deportees who were subjected to beatings, sexual assault, or extortion. And those are just the statistics for one country.

It is therefore extremely important to find a way to anticipate the details that might turn a case from a denial to a grant, and to include those details in the written asylum application.  And this can be best achieved through the Columbo method of asking “just one more thing.”

Examples:

Domestic violence claims

Typically, applications describe the brutal mistreatment suffered by the asylum-seeker.  But in Matter of A-B-, the Attorney General claimed a lack of evidence that the persecutor “was aware of, and hostile to” a particular social group.  The A.G. rather attributed the motive for the attack to the persecutor’s “preexisting personal relationship with the victim.”

In such cases, ask “just one more thing” to establish that the abusive partner was at least partially motivated to harm the asylum seeker because of her gender (which should in turn be argued to constitute her particular social group).  For example, the respondent in A-B- described how her ex-husband believed “a woman’s place was in the home, like a servant.”  This statement established (1) that the persecutor was aware of a particular social group, consisting of women, and (2) his own hostility towards such group, through his relegating its members to a subservient role in society.

Additional “Columbo” questions would inquire whether the persecutor’s verbal abuse included gender-specific derogatory terms; how he generally spoke of or treated other women in his life; and whether he would have inflicted the same forms of abuse on e.g. his brother, a close male friend, or a male roommate.  The answers may well establish that the asylum seeker’s inclusion in a social group defined by her gender was at least “one central reason” for her being targeted for abuse.

“Just one more thing” should also be asked to flesh out imputed political opinion as a possible motive, as in the above-cited Hernandez-Chacon case.

Family-based claims

These claims often arise in the gang context, when gang members unable to target a particular individual target family members of that individual instead.  Although courts for decades have held family to be the quintessential example of a particular social group for asylum purposes, two recent administrative decisions have complicated these claims.  First, the BIA in Matter of L-E-A- dismissed the threat to the family member as being motivated by financial considerations and not by an actual animus towards the family.  The Attorney General then weighed in, questioning whether a family enjoys the required distinction in the eyes of society to constitute a particular social group.

Regarding nexus, the “Columbo” questions should focus on circumstantial evidence of intent.  Keep in mind the BIA’s decision in Matter of S-P–.  One of the factors set out in that decision for determining when purported criminal prosecution might actually be political persecution is where the abuse is “out of proportion to nonpolitical ends.”  For example, if someone accused of jaywalking is sentenced to ten years in prison and subjected to torture and interrogation sessions, it’s safe to assume that it isn’t really about the jaywalking.

With this in mind, the “just one more thing” issue in such cases is to elicit details about the purported motive vs. the seriousness of the threatened harm.  Where the issue is extortion, and the Board might therefore view the motive as economic, ask exactly how much money was involved.  Under the S-P- test, a threat to rape and kill someone because their family member neglected to pay $20 in renta probably isn’t about the money.  The same might be found even where a larger sum is involved where the threats are directed at, e.g., a teenage child who lacks any realistic ability to pay.  Or where the family has managed to avoid paying for years, is there a point where a dispute that began purely over money starts to take on some animus towards the family as well?

Regarding social distinction, “just one more thing” should be asked to establish how the asylum-seeker’s family was viewed in the society in which they lived, as well as the general distinctions that all families enjoy in such society.  Was it known throughout the community that MS-13 is targeting the client’s family?  If so, might that knowledge have caused the family to achieve social distinction?  It is also worth asking whether the institution of family is addressed in the country’s constitution, or how kinship is treated regarding the country’s inheritance and guardianship laws.

Unwilling/unable issues:

As in Orellana v. Barr above, ask “just one more thing” about how many times your client turned to the police, and how many times they actually responded.  Also, how long did it take them to respond, and what did the response consist of?  How did the authorities treat the abuser?  Did they take the position that the issue was a “personal matter” not proper for police intervention?

If the client did not bother to call the police because they viewed it as futile, ask “just one more thing” about what caused them to form such a view.  Do they know of relatives, friends, or neighbors whose experiences with the authorities support such a view?  Can they cite examples in which there were repercussions for those who called on the authorities for protection?  Have the authorities asked for bribes, or made statements exhibiting bias or corruption?  Or have they gone as far as to admit that they are unable to provide effective protection?

Copyright 2020 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

Reprinted by permission.

(Disclaimer: The foregoing is meant as “food for thought,” and is not to be interpreted or relied upon as legal advice, or to create an attorney-client relationship.  And as the law changes, by the time you read this, the information contained therein might not be up to date.)

MAY 27, 2020

 

 

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

Thanks, Jeffrey, my friend!

 

I’ve always said about asylum litigation in Immigration Court: The Devil 👹 is in the details. And, if you don’t find that Devil, the Assistant Chief Counsel will.  And, YOU will burn🔥!

 

PWS

 

05-27-20

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  3. THE TRUTH IS OUT, THANKS TO MICHELLE MENDEZ @ CLINIC: Practice Pointers on Matter of Castillo-Perez & “Takeaways” From FOIA Trove On In Absentias!
  4. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!

HON. JEFFREY S. CHASE: Some Uplifting News For Mothers’ Day Involving the Generosity Of The NDPA, Many From The “Arlington Brigade!”😎👍

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Retired Immigration Judges
Eileen Blessinger, Esquire
Eileen Blessinger, Esquire
Blessinger Legal PLLC
Falls Church, VA

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2020/5/8/small-acts-of-thanks-2

 

JEFFREY S. CHASE | OPINIONS/ANALYSIS ON IMMIGRATION LAW

Blog

 

Archive

 

Press and Interviews

Calendar

 

Contact

Small Acts of ThanksI would like to share a nice story (for once).  It illustrates how a postscript can sometimes prove far more meaningful than the main story.

A friend and colleague in the DC area, Eileen Blessinger of Blessinger Legal, planned a series of training lectures via Zoom during the pandemic.  When I initially agreed to present one of the sessions on asylum law, I was told it would be for an audience of eighteen people.

Somehow, the number of attendees increased significantly.  Because meetings of more than 100 people require an upgrade on Zoom, Eileen asked participants for a small donation.  I believe the training went well, and that seemed to be the end of the story.

Later that night, Eileen informed me that because the number of attendees was well over 100, there was a surplus of donations beyond what was needed to cover the Zoom upgrade.  After a brief exchange, we agreed that the surplus should go to pandemic first responders.

Realizing the virtue of what was initially an unintended consequence, the next speaker, Louisiana-based attorney Glenda Regnart, also agreed to open her session to a wider audience, who were invited to make a small donation to treat first responders.  Subsequent speakers Kelly White, Himedes Chicas, Anam Rahman, Julie Soininen, Danielle Beach-Oswald, Heain Lee, and Jennifer Jaimes agreed to follow suit.  Over $1300 was raised.

Eileen took over from there, inviting suggestions for recipients from her staff.  So far, she has provided meals to nurses at Mass General Hospital in Boston; to employees at supermarkets in Louisiana and Virginia, and to preparers of meals for those in need in Alexandria, VA.  Plans are also in the works to provide a meal for DC-area sanitation workers.

Those of us able to quarantine comfortably and work from home owe an unimaginable debt to those putting themselves at risk to keep our cities and towns running, keeping us all fed and safe.  And as most of us read of infection and death rates as impersonal statistics, the nurses and other medical workers who are battling the disease on the frontlines on a daily basis, putting their own health at risk in the process, are far beyond our ability to properly thank.

It was a donation to another group that touched me in an unexpected way because of its connection to an earlier unspeakable tragedy.  Eileen forwarded me the accompanying photo of FDNY firefighters enjoying the meal provided for them from the training surplus.  Looking at the photo, I was suddenly transported back to the fall of 2001.  My wife and I, who both worked in lower Manhattan, were physically very close to events on 9/11.  What we saw still triggers traumatic memories.  Among the horrible and tragic statistics is the heartbreaking fact that 343 firefighters died that day.  More than 200 more have died as the result of illnesses they subsequently contracted in the rescue effort.

I walked past the firehouse on Duane Street every day on my way to and from work when I was an immigration judge.  I remember the feeling of grief when passing by in the months following 9/11, and of stopping there one day in October to make a donation, and of words completely failing me as I tried to express my sadness and gratitude.

In the present pandemic, 15 firefighters in the unit pictured here (Engine 286/Ladder 135) had contracted COVID-19 as of last week.  As early as April 7, 500 of New York’s Bravest had contracted coronavirus.  Many more continue to be exposed as first responders to emergency calls from those stricken with the disease.  And the firefighter who took the photo, Jerry Ross, was also a 9/11 responder.

So once again, we are reminded of the great debt we owe to so many.  Thanks again to Eileen and all of the other speakers, and of course to all who contributed.  Hopefully, these small acts of thanks will bring a little joy to these most essential and selfless heroes.

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

Go to Jeffrey’s blog at the above link for the accompanying photo of Engine 286/Ladder 135 enjoying their meal!

Thanks Jeffrey & Eileen!

So proud that in addition to Eileen, of course, so many of the wonderful pro bono attorneys highlighted in this article were “regulars” before us during my time at the Arlington Immigration Court: Kelly White, Anam Rahman, Julie Soininen, Danielle Beach-Oswald, and Jennifer Jaimes.  Also, Jennifer is a former Legal Intern at the Arlington Immigration Court who was part of our daily “run the stairs challenge” (at the former Ballston location) with then Court Administrator Judges Bryant and Snow, and me. Ah, those were the days!

Jennifer Jaimes, Esquire
Jennifer Jaimes Esquire
Jaimes Legal, LLC
Baltimore, MD

Happy Mothers’ Day and Due Process Forever!😎👍🥇

PWS

05-10-20

 

Related posts:

  1. WASHPOST: TRUMP’S ANTI-IMMIGRANT WHITE NATIONALIST HYSTERIA & UNJUSTIFIED ATTACKS ON OTHERS DIMINISHES OUR COUNTRY AND MAKES US LESS SAFE!
  2. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  3. JIM CROW WINS, AMERICA LOSES, AGAIN — WHITE NATIONALIST CLOWN-IN-CHIEF 🤡 HALTS IMMIGRATION TO DIVERT ATTENTION FROM MASSIVE FAILURE OF GOVERNANCE, AS FECKLESS DEMS PROTEST! — Announced By Tweet At Time When Borders Closed Anyway — A “pathetic attempt to shift blame from his Visible Incompetence to an Invisible Enemy,” Says Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) 😰👎🏻
  4. INSANITY ALWAYS ON THE DOCKET @ EOIR: Court Cleaners In Hazmat Suits Add To The “Clown Court” 🤡 Atmosphere — But, Those Forced To Risk Their Lives ☠️ To Keep The Deportation Railroad 🚂 Rolling Aren’t Laughing 😰!

THE GIBSON REPORT — 05-04-20 — Compiled by Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group! — Get The Latest On Regime’s Shenanigans 👺🤮☠️ 👹 & White Nationalist Assaults on The Rule of Law!

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”
 

COVID-19

Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify the latest information on the relevant government websites and with colleagues on listservs as best you can.

 

New

 

Closures

 

Guidance:

 

 

TOP NEWS

 

Human Rights at Risk: The Immigration Courts Are in Need of an Overhaul

ABA (by IJ Tsankov): These controversial new policies have become so pervasive and so threatening to judicial independence that they have raised alarms. What began in 2018 as a few dramatic instances involving the abrupt removal and reassignment of cases from an immigration judge’s docket previewed the agency’s more recent alarming actions where the shuffling of scores of cases and entire dockets sometimes multiple times within a single day has become the norm.

 

Desert or sea: Virus traps migrants in mid-route danger zone

AP: Migrants have been dropped by the truckload in the Sahara or bused to Mexico’s border with Guatemala and beyond. Others are drifting in the Mediterranean after European and Libyan authorities declared their ports unsafe. And around 100 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are believed to have died in the Bay of Bengal, as country after country pushed them back out to sea.

 

US prosecutors allege ‘El Tigre’ trafficked cocaine on behalf of Honduran president

Guardian: Prosecutors also allege that Bonilla was entrusted with “special assignments, including murder” by President Hernández – who is identified as a co-conspirator – and his brother, Tony.

 

El Salvador’s President Takes On The Country’s Gangs Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

NPR: El Salvador’s president authorized the country’s police and military to use lethal force against gang members, who over the weekend were allegedly responsible for the murders of dozens of people. Along with the emergency orders, President Nayib Bukele put all incarcerated gang members on a 24-hour shutdown.

 

Fearing an undercount, advocates say census outreach is getting crushed by coronavirus

NBC: [A]s the pandemic puts the census count on hold for months while states wait to come out of lockdown, advocates warn that their outreach efforts are coming up short — increasing the odds that the communities that need federal help the most won’t get their fair share in the coming decade.

 

Trump renews threats to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities amid pandemic

CNN: The threat to withhold aid, while new in the context of coronavirus, has been acted upon by the Trump administration before. As was the case with those efforts in different circumstances, any renewed push to use funds as leverage is likely to be challenged in court. See also Seventh Circuit Rejects Trump’s Effort to Defund Sanctuary Cities, Affirms Nationwide Injunction.

 

Los New Yorkers: Essential and Underprotected in the Pandemic’s Epicenter

ProPublica: More than 400 Mexican migrants are known to have died of COVID-19 in the New York area, but for health reasons, Mexico will only accept their bodies if they are cremated. In place of seeing the body one last time, Lopez’s brother was sent photos by the funeral home, which will hold the cremains while the family figures out how to get them to Mexico.

 

Maya villages in Guatemala spurn U.S. deportees as infections spike

Reuters: Guatemala’s indigenous Maya towns are spurning returned migrants, threatening some with burning their homes or lynching as fear spreads about more than 100 deportees from the United States who tested positive for the new coronavirus.

 

Why Is the Immigration System Picking Up Legal Immigrants?

National Interest: According to a recent USCIS data release in response to a FOIA, E‐​Verify was run 17,909 times against TPS migrants by employers in the 4th quarter of fiscal year 2019. Of those 17,909 E‐​Verify queries run against TPS migrants, E‐​Verify approved 16,299 of them to work and issued 1,610 with a TNC [tentative non‐​confirmation]. In other words, about 9 percent of the E‐​Verify cases run against those on TPS in the 4th quarter of 2019 were mistakenly labeled at TNCs.

 

Trump’s Green Card Ban May Free Up More Employment Visas

Law360: [I]n reality, the order primarily limits categories of family-based immigration and as a result may actually end up making more visas available to would-be immigrants coming to the U.S. for job offers in the future if unused family visas roll over.

 

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

 

Executive Office for Immigration Review Swears in Three New Board Members

Philip Montante: 96.3% asylum denial rate.

Kevin Riley: 88.1% asylum denial rate.

Aaron Petty: Former OIL Counsel.

 

Legal Services NYC Sues NYC Immigration Courts for Refusing to Postpone Filing Deadlines Amid COVID-19, Putting Countless Lives at Risk

LSNYC: Lawsuit accuses DOJ’s Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) of endangering the lives of immigrants, advocates, and the public by continuing to make them meet filing deadlines, in violation of city and state public health orders and litigants’ due process rights. Over 17,500 people have died from COVID-19 in New York State, and nearly 300,000 are infected.

 

Plaintiffs Will Continue Fight to Halt Dangerous and Unconstitutional Practices by EOIR and ICE

The decision denying the emergency TRO in NIPNLG, et al., v. EOIR, et al., is deeply disappointing; the lawsuit against EOIR and ICE was brought to protect the health of attorneys, immigrants, and the public from the impact of dangerous and unconstitutional policies. AILA Doc. No. 20042800

 

DHS Notice Containing Text of Asylum Cooperative Agreement with Honduras

DHS notice containing the text of the Asylum Cooperative Agreement between the United States and Honduras, which was signed on 9/25/19. (85 FR 25462, 5/1/20) AILA Doc. No. 20050138

 

DHS Final Rule Delaying Date for Card-Based Enforcement of REAL ID Regulations

DHS final rule delaying the date for card-based enforcement of the REAL ID Act regulations from 10/1/20 to 10/1/21. (85 FR 23205, 4/27/20) AILA Doc. No. 20042700

 

EOIR Final Rule Extending Bar for Asylum in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

EOIR final rule amending the regulations to conform to changes made by Public Law 115-218, which extended the bar for asylum in the CNMI by 15 years, providing that the current bar will continue to apply for asylum applications submitted prior to 1/1/30. (85 FR 23902, 4/30/20) AILA Doc. No. 20050130

 

CBP Issues Statement on Border Search of Electronic Devices

CBP issued a statement on border searches of electronic devices, noting that in FY2019, it conducted 40,913 electronic device searches, representing .01 percent of arriving international travelers. CBP also provided a month-to-month comparison of electronic device searches from FY2017 to FY2019. AILA Doc. No. 20042730

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

   

Note: Check with organizers regarding cancellations/changes

 

ImmProf

 

Monday, May 4, 2020

Sunday, May 3, 2020

Saturday, May 2, 2020

Friday, May 1, 2020

Thursday, April 30, 2020

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Monday, April 27, 2020

 

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

Thanks Elizabeth, providing “easy access” to information  and resources that the regime doesn’t want folks to know or have.

Trump’s “war on coronavirus” clearly is bogus. But, his “war on our Constitution, the rule of law, and due process” is all too real. In this war, information is power. And, certainly, thanks to folks like Elizabeth, the NDPA’s information is better and our lawyers are smarter and better prepared than Trump’s. 

Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-04-20

Related posts:

  1. A VERY TRUMPY CHRISTMAS:  PERVERTING ASYLUM REGS; USING VULNERABLE KIDS AS BAIT; ORBITING REFUGEES TO DEADLY ASYLUM-FREE ZONES; SCREWING WITH LEGAL IMMIGRANTS; DEATH CAMPS; STAR CHAMBERS; MORE PROSECUTORS AS JUDGES; & OTHER “GIFTS” FROM THE REGIME & ITS ARTICLE III JUDICIAL ENABLERS — Get The “Holiday Horror Update” On All Of America’s Human Rights Abuses & Gratuitous Cruelty From The Gibson Report 12-23-19 
  2. KEEP UP TO DATE WITH ALL OF THE REGIME’S LATEST ANTI-IMMIGRANT SCHEMES, GIMMICKS, & SHENANIGANS – THE GIBSON REPORT – 01-06-20 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group
  3. THE GIBSON REPORT — 03-02-20 — Compiled by Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group
  4. THE GIBSON REPORT — 07-06-20 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group

🏴‍☠️NEW JIM CROW: Miller Uses Pandemic To Revive Racist Myths & Stereotypes About Dangers Of Immigrants! — A White Nationalist’s Dream Comes True!

James “Jim” Crow
James “Jim” Crow
Symbol of American Racism
Stephen Miller Cartoon
Stephen Miller & Count Olaf
Evil Twins, Notorious Child Abusers
Caitlin Dickerson
Caitlin Dickerson
National Immigration Reporter
NY Times
Michael D. Shear
Michael D. Shear
White House Reporter
NY Times

Caitlin Dickerson and Michael D. Shear report for The NY Times:

From the early days of the Trump administration, Stephen Miller, the president’s chief adviser on immigration, has repeatedly tried to use an obscure law designed to protect the nation from diseases overseas as a way to tighten the borders.
The question was, which disease?
Mr. Miller pushed for invoking the president’s broad public health powers in 2019, when an outbreak of mumps spread through immigration detention facilities in six states. He tried again that year when Border Patrol stations were hit with the flu.
When vast caravans of migrants surged toward the border in 2018, Mr. Miller looked for evidence that they carried illnesses. He asked for updates on American communities that received migrants to see if new disease was spreading there.
In 2018, dozens of migrants became seriously ill in federal custody, and two under the age of 10 died within three weeks of each other. While many viewed the incidents as resulting from negligence on the part of the border authorities, Mr. Miller instead argued that they supported his argument that President Trump should use his public health powers to justify sealing the borders.
On some occasions, Mr. Miller and the president, who also embraced these ideas, were talked down by cabinet secretaries and lawyers who argued that the public health situation at the time did not provide sufficient legal basis for such a proclamation.
That changed with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic.
Within days of the confirmation of the first case in the United States, the White House shut American land borders to nonessential travel, closing the door to almost all migrants, including children and teenagers who arrived at the border with no parent or other adult guardian. Other international travel restrictions were introduced, as well as a pause on green card processing at American consular offices, which Mr. Miller told conservative allies in a recent private phone call was only the first step in a broader plan to restrict legal immigration.
But what has been billed by the White House as an urgent response to the coronavirus pandemic was in large part repurposed from old draft executive orders and policy discussions that have taken place repeatedly since Mr. Trump took office and have now gained new legitimacy, three former officials who were involved in the earlier deliberations said.
One official said the ideas about invoking public health and other emergency powers had been on a “wish list” of about 50 ideas to curtail immigration that Mr. Miller crafted within the first six months of the administration.
Latest Updates: Coronavirus Outbreak in the U.S.
President Trump stepped up criticism of China, part of an international backlash over the outbreak.
J. Crew becomes first major retailer to declare bankruptcy; Disney’s empire faces vast challenges.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments by conference call, and the public will be able to listen.
See more updates
Updated 48m ago
More live coverage: Global Markets New York
He had come up with the proposals, the official said, by poring through not just existing immigration laws, but the entire federal code to look for provisions that would allow the president to halt the flow of migrants into the United States.
Administration officials have repeatedly said the latest measures are needed to prevent new cases of infection from entering the country.
“This is a public health order that we’re operating under right now,” Mark Morgan, the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, told reporters earlier this month. “This is not about immigration. What’s transpiring right now is purely about infectious disease and public health.”
The White House declined to comment on the matter, but a senior administration official confirmed details of the past discussions.
The architect of the president’s assault on immigration and one of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers inside the White House, Mr. Miller has relentlessly pushed for tough restrictions on legal and illegal immigration, including policies that sought to separate families crossing the southwest border, force migrants seeking asylum to wait in squalid camps in Mexico and deny green cards to poor immigrants.
Mr. Miller argues that reducing immigration will protect jobs for American workers and keep communities safe from criminals. But critics accuse him of targeting nonwhite immigrants, pointing in part to leaked emails from his time before entering the White House in which he cited white nationalist websites and magazines and promoted theories popular with white nationalist groups.

. . . .

**********************
Read the full article at the link.

As America suffers, immigrants, both legal and “undocumented,” are on the front lines of those “essential workers” risking their lives to keep us healthy, safe, fed, and clothed.

Meanwhile, neo-Nazi Miller remains “on the dole” — publicly funded for putting out a steady stream of discredited and xenophobic actions designed to exploit, dehumanize, and demean many of the most courageous and necessary among us.

Can it get any more vile and disgusting?

Nearly 55 years after the end of WWII, Trump & Miller are reviving many aspects of the racist ideology and actions that we supposedly fought to end forever. Raises the question of who really won the war.

Always the opportunists, Trump and Miller now see the crisis that their “malicious incompetence” helped to aggravate as a chance to target both “Optional Practical Training” (“OPT”) for foreign students and Chinese students, one of the largest groups of those studying in the U.S. You can read about it in this article by Stuart Anderson in Forbes.https://apple.news/ADkCNTe_gTje__BlQ8c-8pg

Stuart Anderson
Stuart Anderson
Executive Director
National Foundation for American Policy

OPT unquestionably benefits our country as well as the students, many of whom remain and become important parts of our society. The targeting of Chinese students certainly fits with the far right’s Anti-Asian movement that has helped spike a notable increase in hate crimes directed against Asian Americans during the pandemic. Could the revival of the Chinese Exclusion Act be far beyond on the Trump/Miller Jim Crow agenda?

This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

PWS

05-04-20

Related posts:

  1. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎KAKISTOCRACY KORNER: SPOTLIGHT ON AMERICA’S MOST DANGEROUS HATE GROUP: THE RNC!
  2. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻KAKISTOCRACY HAS CONSEQUENCES: CLIMATE MIGRATION IS ONE OF THEM! — Trump’s Stupidity & Cruelty On Immigration Climate Science, & Disease Control Promises Horrible Global Human Disaster For Future Generations — Empowering & Enabling A Moron Is Always A Very Bad Idea!  — No Idiotic Wall Or “Drill Baby Drill” Insanity Is Going To Prevent This Human Catastrophe We Are Inflicting On Those Who Follow!
  3. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?
  4. 👹🎃HALLOWEEN HORROR 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻REICHSREPORT: GRUPPENFUHRER MILLER REVEALS “REICHSPLAN” FOR EXTERMINATION OF IMMIGRATION, ASYLUM, REFUGE BY EXECUTIVE DECREE!  — “The Final Solution??”  — Parents, Protect Your Kids, Families, & Your Country From This Grotesque Un-American Monster!

PAUL KRUGMAN: WE MUST CALL OUT TRUMP’S EVIL MOTIVES: “When you’re confronting bad-faith arguments, the public should be informed not just these arguments are wrong, but they they are in fact being made in bad faith. . . . Trump has assembled an Administration of the worst and the dimmest.” — I/O/W “A Kakistocracy”

Charles Kaiser
Charles Kaiser
American Author, Journalist, Academic Administrator
Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman
American Economist, Columnist, & Nobel Prize Winner

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/03/arguing-with-zombies-review-paul-krugman-trump-republicans?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Charles Kaiser writes about Krugman in The Guardian:

The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has four essential rules for successful punditry:

  • Stay with the easy stuff
  • Write in English
  • Be honest about dishonesty
  • Don’t be afraid to talk about motives

Active Measures review: how Trump gave Russia its richest target yet

Those maxims have consistently made Krugman the most intelligent and the most useful New York Times pundit, at least since Frank Rich wrote his final must-read column 11 years ago. A new collection of Krugman’s pieces, therefore, is a timely reminder that actual knowledge and ordinary common sense are two of the rarest qualities in mainstream journalism today.

Krugman’s enemies are the “zombie ideas” of his book’s title, especially the belief that budget deficits are always bad and the notion that tax cuts for the rich can ever benefit anyone other than the plutocrats who never stop pleading for them.

The same tired arguments in favor of coddling the rich have been rolled out over and over again, by Republican presidents from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, even though there has never been a shred of serious evidence to support them.

These relentless efforts over five decades culminated in the Trump tax cut, memorably described by the political consultant Rick Wilson as a masterwork of “gigantic government giveaways, unfunded spending, massive debt and deficits, and a catalogue of crony capitalist freebies”.

Wilson also identified the billionaires’ effect on the nation’s capital. Washington, he wrote, has become “the drug-resistant syphilis of political climates, largely impervious to treatment and highly contagious”.

Krugman’s columns act like a steady stream of antibiotics, aimed at restoring the importance of the economic sciences that have been so successfully displaced by brain-dead Republican ideology.

Very few political columns are worth reading 12 months after they are written – the New York Times grandee James Reston accurately titled one of his collections Sketches in the Sand. But Krugman’s book proves that he, a Nobel-prize winning economist, shares two rare qualities with George Orwell, the novelist who also wrote much of the best journalism of the 20th century: deep intelligence and genuine prescience.

The modern GOP doesn’t want to hear from serious economists, whatever their politics. It prefers charlatans and cranks

 

Krugman is at his Orwellian best here: “When you’re confronting bad-faith arguments, the public should be informed not just these arguments are wrong, but they they are in fact being made in bad faith.”

It’s “important to point out that the people who predicted runaway inflation from the Fed’s bond buying were wrong. But it’s also important to point out that none of them have been willing to admit that they were wrong.”

Krugman also writes that “even asking the right questions like ‘what is happening to income inequality’” will spur quite a few conservatives to “denounce you as un-American”. And it’s worse for climate scientists, who face persecution for speaking the truth about our continued dependence on fossil fuels, or social scientists studying the causes of gun violence: “From 1996 to 2017 the Centers for Disease Control were literally forbidden to fund research into firearm injuries and deaths.”

The history of the last half-century is mostly about how the unbridled greed of the top 1% has perverted American democracy so successfully, it has become almost impossible to implement rational policies that benefit a majority of Americans.

To Krugman, an “interlocking network of media organizations and think tanks that serves the interests of rightwing billionaires” has “effectively taken over the GOP” and “movement ‘conservatism’ is what keeps zombie ideas, like belief in the magic of tax cuts, alive.

“It’s not just that Trump has assembled an administration of the worst and the dimmest. The truth is that the modern GOP doesn’t want to hear from serious economists, whatever their politics. It prefers charlatans and cranks, who are its kind of people.”

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

Hopefully, Joe Biden has Krugman and others like him on “speed dial.” He’s going to need lots of help and ideas from “the best and the brightest” to undo the damage inflicted by the Trump kakistocracy and Moscow Mitch.

And, the “best and the brightest” should also be the plan for rebuilding an independent Immigration Judiciary and the Article III Judiciary. The severe damage inflicted by Trump, Mitch, and the White Nationalists can’t be undone overnight, but “gotta start building for a better future somewhere.”

This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

PWS

05-03-20

Related posts:

  1. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?
  2. THE WORLD CHANNELS “COURTSIDE” — A Shocked & Dismayed World Now Sees America Under The Trump Clown 🤡🤡 Kakistocracy For What It Is: A Rich, Arrogant, Willfully Ignorant, Dishonest, Dangerous “Failing State” To Be Pitied — Not To Be Trusted, Followed, Or Admired — “But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.”
  3. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️🆘NY TIMES WITH THE TRUTH: A VOTE FOR TRUMP IS A VOTE AGAINST AMERICA! — The Worst President In History, Not To Mention That Beyond Being Totally Incompetent & Unqualified, A Truly Horrible Human Being With NO Redeeming Values!
  4. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?

ERIN CORCORAN @ THE HILL: RACISM, BIGOTRY, & XENOPHOBIA ARE ALWAYS BAD POLICIES — The Pandemic Is No Exception — “Immigrants are part of the solution to the challenges we face today and should be welcomed rather than banned.”

Erin Corcoran
Erin Corcoran
Executive Director
Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies
University of Notre Dame in Indiana

https://apple.news/AKgOx97sDRfSvo9oc3h61cA

The use of executive branch power to wage a war on immigrants is one of the defining legacies of President Trump. He went on the offensive under the disguise of the coronavirus pandemic to advance his policy priority to significantly restrict legal immigration to the United States. This politically motivated maneuver violates federal and international law, and this is also morally reprehensible and disastrous for the domestic economy at home.

. . . .

It is not just health care that needs immigrants. A recent study found that the majority of economic growth between 2011 and 2016 is due to greater labor supply due to immigration. Immigrants also assist the country with innovation. They are twice as likely to start a business, to receive a Nobel Prize or Academy Award, or to receive a patent than native born workers.

Denying protection to individuals fleeing persecution based on potential public health grounds sends dangerous signals to oppressors and rogue nations that they are free to act with impunity because powerful nations are unwilling to protect their victims. Refugees searching for protection are built in the collective responsibility of the international community, even in any period of public crisis. Efforts by the president to renounce these duties are morally wrong and politically dangerous for the world.

Waging a war on immigrants will not protect us from the coronavirus. It instead puts individuals fleeing harm in further danger and weakens the economy of the United States. Immigrants are part of the solution to the challenges we face today and should be welcomed rather than banned.

.

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

Read the rest of Erin’s article at the link.

The Clown Prince’s 🤡 “maliciously incompetent” ☠️ response to the coronavirus pandemic 🤮 continues to be one of the most stunning failures of Presidential leadership in U.S. history — one that will continue to put American lives at risk well into the future. 

Unhappily, cowardly bashing of immigrants and constantly sending out racist “dog whistles” helped this charlatan get elected and remains one of the few things he’s good at (grifting, lying, and avoiding responsibility are others).

This November, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does!

PWS

04-26-20

Related posts:

  1. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?
  2. 👹🎃HALLOWEEN HORROR 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻REICHSREPORT: GRUPPENFUHRER MILLER REVEALS “REICHSPLAN” FOR EXTERMINATION OF IMMIGRATION, ASYLUM, REFUGE BY EXECUTIVE DECREE!  — “The Final Solution??”  — Parents, Protect Your Kids, Families, & Your Country From This Grotesque Un-American Monster!
  3. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻KAKISTOCRACY HAS CONSEQUENCES: CLIMATE MIGRATION IS ONE OF THEM! — Trump’s Stupidity & Cruelty On Immigration Climate Science, & Disease Control Promises Horrible Global Human Disaster For Future Generations — Empowering & Enabling A Moron Is Always A Very Bad Idea!  — No Idiotic Wall Or “Drill Baby Drill” Insanity Is Going To Prevent This Human Catastrophe We Are Inflicting On Those Who Follow!
  4. 🤮NO PEACE ON EARTH GOODWILL TOWARD MEN (WOMEN, OR ESPECIALLY CHILDREN) FROM REGIME OF “BAD SANTAS” 🦹🏿‍♂️🎅🏻— Illegally Separated Families Continue To Suffer Irreparable Trauma, 😰 Volunteer Groups 😇🗽⚖️ Left To Pick Up Pieces — A Reminder That Defeated Regime Has Mocked, Disparaged, & Trashed Christ’s Values & Assaulted Humanity Over Four Christmases!🏴‍☠️🤮☠️⚰️👎🏻

JIM CROW WINS, AMERICA LOSES, AGAIN — WHITE NATIONALIST CLOWN-IN-CHIEF 🤡 HALTS IMMIGRATION TO DIVERT ATTENTION FROM MASSIVE FAILURE OF GOVERNANCE, AS FECKLESS DEMS PROTEST! — Announced By Tweet At Time When Borders Closed Anyway — A “pathetic attempt to shift blame from his Visible Incompetence to an Invisible Enemy,” Says Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) 😰👎🏻

By Paul Wickham Schmidt 

Courtside Exclusive

April 21, 2020. Migrants didn’t bring coronavirus to the U.S. Inevitable as its arrival was, U.S. travelers returning from abroad hastened the infection. The Trump regime ignored advanced warnings, wasted time, failed to prepare, and intentionally misled the public into believing that the problem was minor and under control. As we know, it was neither. No wonder the “Chief Clown” needs to shift attention to “the usual suspects.” 

Rather than being a threat, courageous, talented, hard-working migrants of all types have been at the forefront of our battle against coronavirus. They put their own lives at risk to provide health care, medical research, food, sanitation, delivery, stocking, transportation, cleaning, technology, and other essential services. Their reward from Trump, Miller, and the other regime racists: to be scapegoated and further dehumanized by those whose “malicious incompetence” actually threatens the health and safety of all Americans.

Nobody knows what the U.S. economy will look like post-COVID-19. But, we can be sure that migrants will play a key role in our future. And, of course, permanent legal immigrants are carefully screened and required to undergo health examination before being admitted. 

Meanwhile, Democrats complain, but show show no sign of actually using their leverage to halt the regime’s invidious assault on migrants. They weren’t even to get all taxpaying immigrant families included in the initial stimulus payments nor have they been able to require immigration authorities to comply with best health practices for detained migrants. Nor does it look like the needs of migrants will be addressed by the latest proposed legislation, although exact details are still pending. So, their bluster is just that —bluster.

Undoubtedly, the brave lawyers of the New Due Process Army will mount legal challenges to this latest assault on the rule of law. While some challenges might succeed in the lower Federal Courts, to date the “J.R. Five” on the Supremes have shown no inclination to look critically at any of the regime’s many misuses and abuses of so-called “emergency” and “national security” rationales, even when they are transparently bogus “pretexts” for xenophobia, religious bigotry, and racism. 

Perhaps it’s largely a moot point right now. Market forces affect immigration. With worldwide travel restrictions, borders closed, and 22 million out of work in the U.S., the allure of migration to the U.S. should be sharply reduced.

The Trump regime’s open hostility to immigrants plus our chaotic response to COVID-19, perhaps the world’s worst overall at this point, might make the U.S. a less attractive place for future immigration, particularly for legal migrants who have other choices. Demand for migration is normally a sign of economic and social health. As America fades into disorder under the kakistocracy, so might our ability to attract migrants, particularly those we claim to prize.

According to James Hohmann at the Washington Post, senior officials at the DHS were surprised by Trump’s late night tweet announcing the impending action. As Hohmann noted, that’s an indication of the deep thought, analysis, and preparation that went into this action. Trump has normalized incompetence and dumb decisions made based on a racist political agenda to the point where they barley cause a ripple in our distorted national discussion anymore. I’d say it was like being “goverened” by a five-year-old, but that would be a supreme insult to most five-year-olds I know.

While the “Chief Clown” can’t move fast enough to reopen the economy, even in the face of solid evidence that the it’s premature in most areas, don’t expect the bogus “immigration emergency” to end as long as this regime is in power. Crisis becomes yet another opportunity for the “worst of the worst among us” — the kakistocracy — to act on their biases and prejudices and get away with it.

Here’s a report from Rebecca Shabad @ NBC News:

Rebecca Shabad
Rebecca Shabad
Congressional Reporter
NBC News

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/xenophobe-chief-democrats-blast-trump-s-plan-suspend-immigration-u-n1188551

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats slammed President Donald Trump after he announced that he plans to suspend immigration to the United States, arguing that such a move does nothing to protect Americans from the coronavirus and deflects attention away from his handling of the outbreak.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., tweeted that Trump is the “xenophobe. In. chief.”

“This action is not only an attempt to divert attention away from Trump’s failure to stop the spread of the coronavirus and save lives, but an authoritarian-like move to take advantage of a crisis and advance his anti-immigrant agenda. We must come together to reject his division,” tweeted Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Shortly after 10 p.m. ET on Monday, Trump announced in a tweet, “In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!”

There were no additional details. A senior administration official said Trump could sign the executive order as early as this week.

The tweet came as the death toll in the U.S. from COVID-19 topped 42,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins’ Coronavirus Resource Center.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Democrats’ 2016 vice presidential nominee, called it a “pathetic attempt to shift blame from his Visible Incompetence to an Invisible Enemy.”

. . . .

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

Read Rebecca’s full article at the link.

Due Process Forever. The White Nationalist Kakistocracy Never!

PWS

04-21-20

Related posts:

  1. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?
  2. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  3. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻KAKISTOCRACY HAS CONSEQUENCES: CLIMATE MIGRATION IS ONE OF THEM! — Trump’s Stupidity & Cruelty On Immigration Climate Science, & Disease Control Promises Horrible Global Human Disaster For Future Generations — Empowering & Enabling A Moron Is Always A Very Bad Idea!  — No Idiotic Wall Or “Drill Baby Drill” Insanity Is Going To Prevent This Human Catastrophe We Are Inflicting On Those Who Follow!
  4. THE UGLY SIDE OF HISTORY: AMERICA CONTINUES TO TREAT ITS ESSENTIAL MIGRANT WORKERS AS “SUB-HUMAN” — “We cannot help what the virus does; all we can control is our reaction to it, and what we do next. This pandemic has shone a light on the ugliness of our “here.” Until the US treats all its immigrants as human beings, with full equal rights, we will still be far from ‘there,’” writes Maeve Higgins in the New York Review of Books.

THANK UW LAW: Unemployment Insurance Was The Brainchild of Two Amazing UW Law Students Who Were Also In Love — It All Began In L-1 Torts! — PLUS: The “Wisconsin Idea” Continues Today Through The Work of Professor Erin Barbato!

Michael S.Rosenwald
Michael S. Rosenwald
Enterprise Reporter
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/04/18/unemployment-checks-great-depression-coronavirus/h

Michael S. Rosenwald writes in the WashPost:


A line to apply for unemployment benefits in San Francisco in 1938. (Library of Congress)

A line to apply for unemployment benefits in San Francisco in 1938. (Library of Congress)

They first laid eyes on each other in torts class.

It was 1923, a period of prosperity before the Great Depression.

He was the son of Walter Rauschenbusch, a prominent theologian and key figure in the Social Gospel movement. She was the daughter of Louis Brandeis, the progressive Supreme Court justice and the most famous Jew in America. Each inherited their parents’ zeal for social justice.

At the University of Wisconsin Law School, these two idealists — Elizabeth Brandeis and Paul Raushenbush — noticed each other immediately. She was brainy and shy, her hair long and dark. He was handsome and outgoing. On hikes and canoe outings, they fell in love romantically and intellectually — a partnership instrumental in passing the nation’s first unemployment compensation law.

The story of how they did it is largely forgotten, but the 22 million people who have applied for unemployment during the coronavirus pandemic — and, of course, the millions before them — have this unlikely couple to thank. The law they conceived of and helped pass in Wisconsin laid the foundation for unemployment insurance throughout the country.

“Their story is absolutely staggering to think about right now,” said their grandson Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, a Baptist minister and senior adviser for public affairs and innovation at Interfaith Youth Core, a nonprofit organization. “It was their life’s work to make laws like this available to everyone.”

Raushenbush, who lives in New York, has spent the last few years writing a history of his family, including interviewing his father, Walter, who is 92 and lives in McLean, Va. Raushenbush was working on the unemployment insurance section as the coronavirus pandemic arrived in America.

Elizabeth Brandeis Raushenbush and Paul Raushenbush. (Courtesy of Paul Brandeis Raushenbush)
Elizabeth Brandeis Raushenbush and Paul Raushenbush. (Courtesy of Paul Brandeis Raushenbush)

As part of his research, Raushenbush has been reading a privately published book his grandparents wrote based on interviews they gave to a Columbia University oral history project. The book is the story of the legislation — where the idea came from, the characters involved, how the law was ultimately passed.

“It really reads like a novel,” Raushenbush said.

The main characters, of course, are his grandparents.

And Wisconsin.

His grandmother moved there to attend law school. She had lost her job as a researcher for the D.C. Minimum Wage Board following the Supreme Court’s ruling that the minimum wage for women was unconstitutional. Justice Brandeis, who as a lawyer and jurist was renowned for his progressive stance on social issues, did not cast a vote because of his daughter’s job.

E.B., as she was known to family and friends, wanted a career at the intersection of economics, labor and the law. She hoped to attend an elite East Coast law school, but those programs, including Harvard, where her father studied, didn’t accept women. With her father’s approval, she chose the University of Wisconsin, where the “Wisconsin Idea” — fusing academic research to solving social problems — was flourishing.

“I have no doubt that the Wisconsin Law School is good enough for your purposes,” E.B.’s father wrote to her, “and should think it probable that you would find economics instruction, and doubtless, other considerations more sympathetic there than at Yale.”

Her future husband chose Wisconsin for the same reason. There, the couple studied under professor John R. Commons, an influential social economist who crafted Wisconsin’s workers’ compensation law. Commons tried and failed several times to pass legislation protecting unemployed workers, whose numbers were soaring, especially after the stock market crash in 1929.

Paul Raushenbush signing the paperwork for the first unemployment compensation check in 1936. (Courtesy of Paul Brandeis Raushenbush)
Paul Raushenbush signing the paperwork for the first unemployment compensation check in 1936. (Courtesy of Paul Brandeis Raushenbush)

Commons took a particular interest in his graduate students, inviting them for regular dinners on Friday nights to discuss societal problems.

“I suppose the characteristic thing about Commons was that he was trying to use his brains and enlist the brains of his students in attempting solutions of economic problems,” Raushenbush said during the Columbia University oral history interviews. “This was no ivory tower guy. Sure, he did research and wrote books, but perhaps the main interest that attracted his students was that they were being invited to participate in an attempt to deal with difficult problems on an intelligent basis.”

By 1930, E.B. and her husband both were teaching economics at the University of Wisconsin. They had become friends with Philip La Follette, the local district attorney, whose parents were friends with Justice Brandeis. One day in June, La Follette invited the couple, along with another Wisconsin economist, Harold Groves, to his house in Madison.

La Follette told them he planned to run for governor, that he planned to win, and that he wanted to pass legislation instituting unemployment compensation. He asked the trio to come up with a plan.

And did they ever.

They spent the weekend hiking along the Wisconsin River batting around ideas. Their key idea — one that survives today — was that the benefits should be funded entirely by employers, thus giving them the incentive to maintain steady levels of employment or bear the cost of not doing so. The economists also decided that Groves, who grew up on a Wisconsin farm, should run for the State Assembly and introduce the legislation.

Everything clicked.


In 1932, Wisconsin Gov. Philip La Follette signs the nation’s first unemployment measure into law. Elizabeth Brandeis Raushenbush and Paul Raushenbush are second and third from the left. (Courtesy of Paul Brandeis Raushenbush)
In 1932, Wisconsin Gov. Philip La Follette signs the nation’s first unemployment measure into law. Elizabeth Brandeis Raushenbush and Paul Raushenbush are second and third from the left. (Courtesy of Paul Brandeis Raushenbush)
The first unemployment check issued in Wisconsin. (Wisconsin Historical Society)
The first unemployment check issued in Wisconsin. (Wisconsin Historical Society)

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article in the WashPost at the link.

Scholarship, teamwork, creativity, hard work, and a healthy dose of romance produces results that are still “making a difference” today. Nice story! Beyond that, it’s an inspiring story for today’s world.

What if we had more folks like the Raushenbusches in government today? Folks looking for ways in which government could work to make the lives or ordinary working people better. Compare that with the “Trump Kakistocracy,” a bunch of self-centered incompetents mostly out to disable government, screw working folks, line their own pockets, glorify and suck up to their “Supreme Leader-Clown,” and shift blame for their mess, all while attempting to advance a destructive far-right political agenda that cares not for the public good! Then we had folks like Phil La Follette; now we have Stephen Miller!

Professor Walter Brandeis Raushenbusch, the son of Elizabeth & Paul, was on the faculty of U.W. Law when I was there from 1970-73. However, I never had him for a class. We did study the “LaFollette Era” and its contributions to President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” in several of my classes.

I believe that U.W. Law gave me a strong grounding in teamwork with my colleagues (now retired Wisconsin State Judge Thomas S. Lister was one), how to apply scholarship to achieve practical results, and solving complex problems.

Speaking with Judge Lister earlier this year during a “pre-lockdown” visit with his wife Sally to D.C., I could see how our time together at U.W. Law had a continuing profound influence on both of our careers, particularly the “judicial phases.” In our different ways, we were always striving to establish “best practices,” promote “good government,” and make the “system work better” for the public it served. Just like some of the “progressive ideas” that were interwoven with our legal education in Madison. “Teaching from the bench” was how I always thought of it. Sometimes we succeeded, other times not so much; but we were always “in there pitching,” even up to today. See, e.g., the “Lister-Schmidt Proposal” for an Auxiliary Judiciary for the U.S. Immigration Courts here: https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/08/19/an-open-letter-proposal-from-two-uw-law-73-retired-judges-weve-spent-90-collective-years-working-to-improve-the-quality-delivery-of-justice-in-america/.   We haven’t given up on this one!

Thomas Lister
Hon. Thomas Lister
Retired Jackson County (WI) Circuit Judge

And, the “Wisconsin Idea” is still alive and thriving at U.W. Law, thanks to dedicated professors like my good friend and fellow warrior for the “New Due Process Army,” Professor Erin Barbato, Director of the U.W. Immigrant Justice Clinic. Erin uses creative scholarship, teaches practical, usable, courtroom and counseling skills, promotes teamwork, and saves “real lives” in her work with asylum seekers and other migrants. She is also a role model who is inspiring a new generation of American lawyers committed to advancing social justice and guaranteeing Due Process and fundamental fairness for all. Indeed, Erin was a guest lecturer at my Georgetown Law class and inspired my students with her courage, energy, and real life examples of “applying law to save lives!” It really made the “textbook come alive” for my students! Thanks for all you do, Erin!

Professor Erin Barbato
Professor Erin Barbato
Director, Immigrant Justice Clinic
UW Law

On Wisconsin!

On Wisconsin!
On Wisconsin!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-19-20

Related posts:

  1. NDPA SUPERSTAR ⭐️ PROFESSOR ERIN BARBATO 🦸‍♀️ ORGANIZES EVENT, SPEAKS OUT IN MADISON CAP TIMES ON ICE ABUSES IN THE “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” (“NAG”) — “We must rebuild the system from the ground up and work toward a future in which immigrants are treated with respect and dignity. Our shared humanity demands it.”
  2. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  3. WASHINGTON POST: GONZO’S IMMIGRATION COURT “REFORMS” WILL CREATE “KANGAROO COURTS!” —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.”
  4. MARIA SACCHETTI IN WASHPOST: INSIDE THE “NAG” (NEW AMERICAN GULAG) — CRUEL, INHUMAN, DEGRADING TREATMENT APPEARS TO BE WIDESPREAD IN SO-CALLED “CIVIL” IMMIGRATION DETENTION! — Where’s The Outrage? — Where’s The Congressional Oversight? — Why Aren’t Guys Like “Gonzo” & Homan Who Knowingly Promote Violations Of Legal & Human Rights As (Unlawful) “Immigration Deterrence” Under Investigation For Their Roles In Violating Human, Constitutional Rights!

NDPA RESOURCES: Bill Frelick at Human Rights Watch With Tons of Helpful Links For Refugee/Human Rights Advocates!

Bill Frelick
Bill Frelick
Director
Refugee and Migrant Rights Division
Human Rights Watch
Friends of the Refugee and Migrant Rights Division
April 2020 Newsletter

 

Dear Friends,

 

First, I hope all of you are in good health and will stay that way. Around the world, all eyes are on the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The pandemic is challenging families, communities, health care systems, and governments. There is no doubting the severity of the public health crisis we are facing, not only for each of you, but in many ways, especially, for the refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants we serve.

 

You can find Human Rights Watch’s work on the coronavirus here.

 

Going forward, I will be doing advocacy work relating to COVID-19 and migrants, and am looking at doing a global project focused on alternatives to immigration detention. Nadia Hardman, see below for intro, is collaborating with our Lebanon researcher on a project on Coronavirus-related discriminatory restrictions on Syrian refugees in Lebanon. She will also be working with our Asia Division on COVID19-related discriminatory restrictions on IDPs in Rakhine state, Myanmar, and on Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. As the #stayhome hashtag circulates on twitter, we will demonstrate how difficult it is for refugee and migrants living in crowded and confined spaces with limited access to basic hygiene and sanitation, to conform to social distancing and other public health recommendations. In this time of crisis, no one should be left behind.

 

We have two major updates to share with you outside of our COVID-19 response. As you can see up top, we have a new name: The Refugee and Migrant Rights Division. In fact, although we previously were only called Refugee Rights, we have worked on migrant rights all along. I’m happy to report that Human Rights Watch has taken a decision to make the rights of migrants a cross-divisional priority for the organization and so our colleagues throughout the organization will be devoting additional resources to this work, which is critically important, now more than ever.

 

I also want to introduce you to our new Refugee and Migrant Rights researcher, Nadia Hardman. Nadia comes to us from the International Rescue Committee, where she was a senior protection officer for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Before that, she worked with internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Iraq, based in Mosul, with the Norwegian Refugee Council. Nadia has worked with refugee and IDP populations in Myanmar, Thailand, and Palestine and was a Program Lawyer for the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute working on rule of law issues in Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Egypt, and Tajikistan. She is a qualified UK lawyer with a Masters in Human Rights from University College London. She speaks fluent French and Italian and will be based in our Beirut office.

 

Nadia recently returned from Turkey where she and Gerry Simpson were researching pushbacks from the Greek border. She and Gerry wrote Greece: Violence Against Asylum Seekers at Border: Detained, Assaulted, Stripped, Summarily Deported and produced this compelling video while there. In introducing the report, Nadia said, “The European Union is hiding behind a shield of Greek security force abuse instead of helping Greece protect asylum seekers and relocate them safely throughout the EU. The EU should protect people in need rather than support forces who beat, rob, strip, and dump asylum seekers and migrants back across the river.”

 

Simultaneously with Gerry and Nadia’s work in Turkey, I was on the island of Lesbos in Greece documenting vigilante violence against refugees and migrants and the humanitarian NGOs who serve them. While there, I wrote Gunshots, summary trials, deportations: the reality for refugees in the EU-Turkey stand-off for Euro News and this accompanying video(with apologies for my thumb in the lens). Just before the full threat of Coronavirus seized everyone’s attention, I spent time in the severely overcrowded and unsanitary Moria camp where I recorded this video on the mob violence that was causing humanitarian organizations to suspend their operations and deepening anxiety and lack of adequate services in the camp. As bad as things were for the 20,000 or so people living in the Moria camp, built to accommodate fewer than 3,000, things appeared even worse for new arrivals who were not allowed to lodge asylum claims and who the Greek government was threatening to send directly back to Turkey or their home countries. I did this video about the first arrivals who were being kept on a naval vessel docked at the Mytilene harbor. The PBS Newshour did a piece on Moria camp/Lesbos, which includes my take on the situation there.I went on TRT and discussed the EU announcement that they were prepared to pay migrants in Greece US$2,225 if they volunteered to go back to their home countries.

 

 

Of course, our work on the rest of the world continues. I particularly wanted to draw your attention to the landmark report from our US Program colleagues, Alison Parker and Elizabeth Kennedy, Deported to Danger: United States Deportation Policies Expose Salvadorans to Death and Abuse, a report that identified 138 cases of Salvadorans who had been killed since 2013 after being deported from the United States.

 

We have been actively engaged in fighting the various Trump administration initiatives to eviscerate the right to seek asylum in the United States and to bring refugee resettlement to a virtual standstill. We are currently working on the asylum cooperative agreements that the United States has concluded with El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala after much arm twisting, as well as the Remain in Mexico program that has stranded thousands of asylum seekers just across the US southern border. See the links below for publications relating to this work.

 

For those with a taste for longer range thinking about what is needed to fix the US asylum system, please check out my What’s Wrong with Temporary Protected Status and How to Fix It: Exploring a Complementary Protection Regime in the Journal of Migration and Human Security and, Central American Women Fleeing Domestic Violence Deserve Refugee Status in The Hill, in which I argue that gender should be recognized comparably as a protected ground for asylum as race, nationality or religion. And for those looking for ideas on how to reform the international refugee regime, please check It is Time to Change the Definition of Refugee: Climate Change is an Existential Threat to Humanity Should Be Included in Legislation on Asylum Seeking, which I did for Al-Jazeera.

 

Below my signature is a selection of some more of our work during the past several months to defend the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants around the world.

 

We realize that many of the people on this mailing list are themselves engaged in non-profit humanitarian and human rights work relating to refugees and displaced people, and are not in a position to help us financially. However, if you think this work is worthwhile and you are able to contribute to enable us to continue to conduct research and effective advocacy on these and other important issues, we ask our friends to consider contributing to support Human Rights Watch’s Refugee and Migrant Rights Division. You can do so simply by clicking the Donate button at the end of my signature.

 

Follow @Nadia_Hardman and @BillFrelick on Twitter for updates on human rights issues concerning migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.

 

With best regards,

 

Bill Frelick

Director

Refugee and Migrant Rights Division

Human Rights Watch

1275 K Street, NW

Suite 1100

Washington, DC 20005

 

Tel: 202-612-4344

Mobile: 240-593-1747

Skype: bill.frelick

Fax: 202-612-4333

Follow on Twitter: BillFrelick

Web: www.hrw.org

 

Global

December 24, 2019 Refugees All Over the World Pressured to Go Back Home in 2019

 

Europe/Central Asia

March 17, 2020 Greece: Violence Against Asylum Seekers at Border

March 16, 2020 Greek Vessel Takes Syrians, Afghans to Closed Camp

March 12, 2020 US: COVID-19 Threatens People Behind Bars

March 10, 2020 Greece/EU: Allow New Arrivals to Claim Asylum

March 6, 2020 Interview: What’s Happening to Refugees in Greece

March 6, 2020 Gunshots, Summary Trials, Deportations

March 4, 2020 Greece/EU: Urgently Relocate Lone Children

March 4, 2020 Greece/EU: Respect Rights, Ease Suffering at Borders

February 18, 2020 EU Turns Its Back on Migrants in Distress

February 12, 2020 Italy: Halt Abusive Migration Cooperation with Libya

January 31, 2020 Italy: Revoke Abusive Anti-Asylum Decrees

January 20, 2020 Britain Cannot Turn Its Back on Lone Children Now

January 9, 2020 Kazakhstan: Improper Prosecution of Asylum Seekers from China

December 18, 2019 Greece: Unaccompanied Children at Risk

December 17, 2019 Rohingya Children Need an Advocate in Brussels

December 4, 2019 France Drops Plan to Give Boats to Libya

December 4, 2019 Greece: Camp Conditions Endanger Women, Girls

November 8, 2019 EU: Address Croatia Border Pushbacks

October 29, 2019 Greece: Asylum Overhaul Threatens Rights

October 24, 2019 Turkey: Syrians Being Deported to Danger

October 19, 2019 Bosnia Should Immediately Close Inhumane Migrant Camp

October 3, 2019 EU Governments Face Crucial Decision on Shared Sea Rescue Responsibility

September 5, 2019 Italy’s New Government Should Undo Its Worst Migration Policies

September 5, 2019 Subject to Whim: The Treatment of Unaccompanied Migrant Children in the French Hautes-Alpes

 

Asia/Pacific

February 13, 2020 Christians Abducted, Attacked in Bangladesh Refugee Camp

January 29, 2020 A Step Forward for 10,000 Rohingya Refugee Children

January 28, 2020 It Is Time to Change the Definition of Refugee

January 14, 2020 Australia: National Security Laws Chill Free Speech

January 14, 2020 Myanmar: Seeking International Justice for Rohingya

December 16, 2019 “I’m Happy, But I Am Also Broken for Those Left Behind”: Life After Manus and Nauru

December 3, 2019 “Are We Not Human?”: Denial of Education for Rohingya Refugee Children in Bangladesh

December 2, 2019 Bangladesh: Rohingya Children Denied Education

November 26, 2019 Bangladesh Turning Refugee Camps into Open-Air Prisons

November 13, 2019 Papua New Guinea: Detainees Denied Lawyers, Family Access

November 12, 2019 South Korea Deports Two From North to Likely Abuse

September 30, 2019 Bangladesh: Halt Plans to Fence-In Rohingya Refugees

September 13, 2019 Bangladesh: Internet Blackout on Rohingya Refugees

September 7, 2019 Bangladesh: Clampdown on Rohingya Refugees

September 2, 2019 “Where His Blood Fell”: A Rohingya Widow’s Call for Justice

August 22, 2019 Myanmar: Crimes Against Rohingya Go Unpunished

August 20, 2019 Myanmar/Bangladesh: Halt Rohingya Returns

 

Middle East/Africa

March 5, 2020 Interview: Libya’s Chaos Explained

December 20, 2019 Winter Looms For Lebanon’s Syrian Refugees

December 12, 2019 Tanzania: Burundians Pressured into Leaving

November 27, 2019 Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Refugees’ Movements Restricted

November 7, 2019 “Repatriation” of Syrians in Turkey Needs EU Action

October 29, 2019 Tanzania: Asylum Seekers Coerced into Going Home

September 19, 2019 Tanzania: Protect Burundians Facing Abuse

September 11, 2019 Justice, Delayed in Libya

August 15, 2019 Ethiopians Abused on Gulf Migration Route

 

Americas

March 3, 2020 Children Sent to Mexico Under Trump Face Abuses, Trauma

February 12, 2020 US: ‘Remain in Mexico’ Program Harming Children

February 10, 2020 The US Deported Them, Ignoring Their Pleas. Then They Were Killed.

February 7, 2020 US Congress Investigates Policy Harming Asylum Seekers

February 5, 2020 Deported to Danger: United States Deportation Policies Expose Salvadorans to Death and Abuse

February 5, 2020 US: Deported Salvadorans Abused, Killed

January 29, 2020 Q&A: Trump Administration’s “Remain in Mexico” Program

January 29, 2020 US: Returns to Mexico Threaten Rights, Security

January 14, 2020 US: Punitive Policies Undercut Rights

December 9, 2019 Utah Governor to Trump: ‘Allow Us to Accept More Refugees’

December 6, 2019 Brazil Grants Asylum to 21,000 Venezuelans in a Single Day

November 25, 2019 US Should Cease Returning Asylum Seekers to Mexico

November 18, 2019 America Should Not Lag Behind on Protecting Children

November 16, 2019 US to Refugees: Poor Asylum Seekers Need Not Apply

October 18, 2019 Cuban Man Dies in US Immigration Custody

October 14, 2019 US Columbus Day Holiday Celebrates a Shameful Past

September 27, 2019 US Refugee Action Has Worldwide Impact

September 25, 2019 US Move Puts More Asylum Seekers at Risk

September 3, 2019 US: Suit Over Indefinite Detention of Children

August 31, 2019 The Long Journey to the US Border

August 21, 2019 US: New Rules Allow Indefinite Detention of Children

 

 

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

Thanks to my good friend and tireless human rights warrior Debi Sanders for sending this my way.

Check out Bill’s latest op-ed over at The Hill here:

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/491789-essential-travel-in-a-time-of-pandemic#.XpSOvUVLrMI.twitter

 

PWS

 

04-16-20

Related posts:

  1. NOLAN’S LATEST IN THE HILL: “Undocumented immigrants shouldn’t replace legal ones”
  2. JUSTICE PREVAILS AGAIN IN IMMIGRATION COURTS EVEN IN THE “POST-A-B-“ ERA — Outstanding Analysis By Judge Eileen Trujillo Of The U.S. Immigration Court In Denver, CO, Recognizes “Women In Mexico” As PSG, Finds Nexus, Grants Asylum, Distinguishes A-B-
  3. JULIAN CASTRO: A Democrat With A Sane & Sound Immigration Plan!
  4. 🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🆘NO JUSTICE @ JUSTICE! — OUTRAGE OF PROGRESSIVE EXPERTS CONTINUES TO GROW AS GARLAND FAILS TO VACATE SESSIONS/BARR RACIST, MISOGYNIST, ANTI-IMMIGRANT, UNETHICAL, BIASED PRECEDENTS — “Garland’s Star Chambers” Careen Further Out Of Control As AG Dithers While Lives Of Vulnerable Refugee Women Hang in Balance & Pro Bono Advocates Are Forced To Exhaust Resources Fighting Trump DOJ’s Misdeeds That Biden Has Failed To Fix, Despite Promises — “Unforced Errors,” Lack Of Competent Progressive Leadership Continue To Plague Flawed Immigration Agenda @ Justice, Offend Dem Supporters! — Expert Professors Karen Musalo & Stephen Legomsky Call For Immediate Vacating Of Repulsive Matter of A-B- Abomination Before More Lives Of Women Of Color Are Lost!

NDPA RESOURCES: “Law You Can Use” From All-Star Practitioners Jason Dzubow and David Cleveland – How To Use The COVID-19 “Lull” To Improve Your Client’s Chances of Winning Asylum! ⚖️⚖︎  😎

Jason Dzubow
Jason Dzubow
The Asylumist

https://www.asylumist.com/2020/04/16/what-you-can-do-while-courts-are-closed-get-a-copy-of-your-file/

 

From The Asylumist:

 

Have an asylum case in Immigration Court and wondering what to do while the courts are closed? My friend David L. Cleveland has a suggestion: Get a copy of your file from the Asylum Office. David is a lawyer in Washington, DC. He has secured asylum or withholding for people from 48 countries. He can be reached at 1949.david@gmail.com.

In most cases, when an asylum applicant has their case denied at the Asylum Office, the case is referred to Immigration Court. There, Immigration Judges sometimes deny asylum because the applicant is deemed incredible. The applicant has told the Asylum Officer one thing, but then tells the Judge something different. There are many examples of Judges being annoyed by inconsistent asylum applicants–

  • In a New York case, the applicant was inconsistent concerning the location of children and where she was raped. Kalala v. Barr,2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 8320 (2nd Cir. 2020).
  • in a California case, the applicant was inconsistent concerning the name of a police station. In this case, the Asylum Officer’s notes were shown to applicant for the first time during the Individual Hearing. Sun v. Barr, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 5397 (9th Cir. 2020).
  • In an Ohio case, the applicant testified to being beaten inside a church. When she asked about how many members of the church were present at the time, she first said 15. Later, she testified that six church members were present. Onoori v. Barr,2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 21310 (6th Cir. 2019).
David Cleveland ESQUIRE
David Cleveland ESQUIRE

Now that he has a copy of his client’s file, David Cleveland is finally able to relax.

 

More generally, Immigration Judges are very interested in what Asylum Officers do and write. In a case decided in 2019, the phrase “Asylum Officer” is used 32 times. Qiu v. Barr,944 F.3d 837 (9th Cir. 2019). In a 2018 case, the phrase “Asylum Officer” is mentioned 57 times, and “notes” (referring to the Officer’s notes from the asylum interview) was mentioned several times. Dai v. Sessions,884 F.3d 858 (9th Cir. 2018). In another case, from 2014, an Asylum Officer named “Kuriakose” is mentioned 15 times. Li v. Holder,745 F.3d 336 (8th Cir. 2014).

In these cases, asylum applicant’s were deemed not credible because their Court testimony was inconsistent with their testimony at the Asylum Office. Most likely, the applicants did not have a record of what they told the Asylum Officer, and of course, since years pass between an asylum interview and an Individual Hearing, it is difficult to remember what transpired at the Asylum Office.

How can I prevent surprise in Immigration Court?

When an Asylum Officer interviews an applicant, the Officer takes detailed notes. Often, these run to 10 pages or more. Later, in consultation with his supervisor, the Officer writes an “Assessment to Refer” or an “Assessment to Grant.” This document is usually three or four pages long. If the case is referred to Court, these notes do not go to the Immigration Judge. However, they are sent to the DHS attorney (the prosecutor), who can review them and look for inconsistencies. At the Individual Hearing, the DHS attorney can use the notes to impeach an applicant’s credibility (“At the asylum interview, you testified that there were 15 people present in the church when you were beaten, but now you say there were only six. Were you lying then, or are you lying now?”).

Asylum Officers sometimes make mistakes or include unexpected information in their notes. They find some sources of information important and ignore other sources. In short, there is a subjective element to these notes that can sometimes work against the applicant and cause surprises in Immigration Court. And, as any attorney will tell you, surprises in Court are usually bad news.

To avoid a surprise in Court, and to find out what the officer wrote, the advocate should make a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request for the notes and the Assessment. Asylum Officer notes are easily available via FOIA. To obtain this information, type your request on a single piece of paper: “Give me the notes and assessment of the asylum officer.” State your name, date of birth, place of birth, address, Alien number, and sign under penalty of perjury. You do not need a lawyer; you do not need Form G-639, although you are allowed to use that form. Send your request via email to: uscis.foia@uscis.dhs.gov

In January 2020, I received the entire Asylum Officer assessment for an asylum applicant from Congo. The client and I are now more relaxed and confident about the case. We will not be surprised in Immigration Court. You can read this assessment at the FOIA page of the Louise Trauma Center.  A model FOIA request can also be found at the same page.

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

Take it from me, as someone who has presided over hundreds of asylum hearings, this is great advice from two of the best to set foot in my courtroom!

As I always said in my my “mini lectures” on “Presenting an Asylum Case in Immigraton Court:”  “Beware and Be Prepared!” Preparation, preparation, preparation! It’s what wins cases (and appreciation from “the bench”).

 

Thanks, guys!😎👍

 

PWS

 

04-16-20

 

Related posts:

  1. 🗽PROFESSOR GEOFFREY A. HOFFMAN @  U HOUSTON LAW REPORTS: Round Tablers ⚔️🛡Chase, Schmidt Among Headliners @ Recent Judge Joseph A. Vail Asylum Workshop!
  2. JUSTICE PREVAILS AGAIN IN IMMIGRATION COURTS EVEN IN THE “POST-A-B-“ ERA — Outstanding Analysis By Judge Eileen Trujillo Of The U.S. Immigration Court In Denver, CO, Recognizes “Women In Mexico” As PSG, Finds Nexus, Grants Asylum, Distinguishes A-B-
  3. THE ASYLUMIST WEIGHS IN ON EOIR’S “FACT SHEET:” “Sometimes, myths and facts get mixed up, especially in the Trump Administration, which has redacted human rights reports to show that countries are safe, buried other reports that don’t say what they like, and claimed that asylum lawyers are making up cases to get their clients across the border. It’s all in the grand tradition of the merchants of doubt, men and women who know better, but who obfuscate the truth–about tobacco, global warming, vaccines, whatever–to achieve a political goal (or make a buck). Why shouldn’t EOIR join in the fun?”
  4. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

CALLING ALL FORMER IMMIGRATION JUDGES: Here’s A Great Opportunity To Use Your Expertise To Help Our Justice System By Participating In This Important Study On The Use of Medical & Psychiatric Evaluations in Court! 😎👍🏼😇👨🏻‍⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️

From the Mount Sinai Human Rights Program:

Dear Prospective Participant,

We hope this email finds you well. We are writing on behalf of the Mount Sinai Human Rights Program, an organization in New York that provides medical and psychiatric evaluations to asylum seekers to invite you to participate in an interview-based research study we are conducting. You may qualify to participate in this study because you are a former immigration judge with experience reviewing forensic medical evaluations for asylum seekers.

The purpose of this study is to understand how legal professionals appraise forensic mental health evaluations of asylum seekers. If you participate in this study, we will send you two medical-legal mental health affidavits that are fully redacted of any identifying information and guiding questions. We will ask you to read the affidavits and then participate in a recorded interview by telephone or video-call about the affidavits and your attitudes towards mental health evaluations. We will keep your responses de-identified and your identity anonymous in any publications resulting from this research. This interview is anticipated to last at least 60 minutes.

Further information about this study is included in our Research Information Sheet. If you are interested in participating, we will send you a copy of the sheet. This study has been approved by the Mount Sinai Institutional Review Board as an exempt study #18-00919.

Please let us know if you are interested in participating and we will set up a time to interview you. We are hoping to conduct interviews throughout the month of April. Feel free to be in touch with any questions.

Sincerely,

Aliza Green, aliza.green@icahn.mssm.edu

Gus Ruchman, gus.ruchman@icahn.mssm.edu

Mount Sinai Human Rights Program

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

Please respond directly to Aliza or Gus @ Mount Sinai Human Rights Program. As noted, the results are “without attribution” so you will not be publicly identified.

I participated and found it enjoyable, worthwhile, and educational. As outlined above, the time commitment is moderate — less than a “full merits asylum hearing!”

PWS 😎👍🏼

04-17-20

Related posts:

  1. NDPA SUPERSTAR ⭐️ PROFESSOR ERIN BARBATO 🦸‍♀️ ORGANIZES EVENT, SPEAKS OUT IN MADISON CAP TIMES ON ICE ABUSES IN THE “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” (“NAG”) — “We must rebuild the system from the ground up and work toward a future in which immigrants are treated with respect and dignity. Our shared humanity demands it.”
  2. 👩🏾‍🎓HERE’S YOUR CHANCE TO BECOME AN ADJUNCT PROFESSOR WITH THE ACCLAIMED VIISTA PROGRAM!!!  Immigration Education Guru Professor Michele Pistone Is Recruiting — She Wants YOU!
  3. ⚖️🗽WATCH, LISTEN TO PROFESSOR GEOFFREY HOFFMAN OF U. OF HOUSTON LAW DELIVER THE 2021 SKELTON LECTURE: “What Should Immigration Law Become?”
  4. ⚖️🌟🗽NDPA SUPERSTARS, PRACTICAL EXPERT PROFESSORS LINDSAY M. HARRIS AND SARAH R. SHERMAN-STOKES SCORE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S CONTINUED RELIANCE ON BOGUS 🏴‍☠️ TRUMP-ERA, WHITE NATIONALIST COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS TO RETURN REFUGEES TO DANGER & DEATH @ SOUTHERN BORDER!☠️🤮⚰️

The Gibson Report — 04-13-20 — Compiled by Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”
 

COVID-19

Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify the latest policies on the relevant government websites and with colleagues on listservs as best you can.

 

New

  • BIA Email Filings: The BIA is now accepting email filings for limited purposes. This guidance is separate from the previously posted general IJ email filing guidance.
  • OCAHO Email Filings: Until further notice, complainants can file new complaints by emailing the complaint and all required attachments
  • IJ Email Filings: The new email filing system seems to sometimes send a confirmation email but sometimes it does not. IJs also have sometimes not had access to confirmed email filings at hearings.
  • EOIR Standing Orders Relocated from the main Practice Manual PDF to separate Appendix R PDF.
  • Bond: The New York Field Office is not processing bonds until further notice. The Newark office may serve as an alternative.
  • Parole Requests: Are being accepted by mail at 26Fed and Varick in New York. See also attached ICE Guidance on Discretionary Release.
  • ICE-Appointments: NY Field Office OSUP appointments are canceled through April 30.
  • A running list of positive coronavirus cases at county jails in North Jersey
  • ACIJ Changes: Effective Monday, April 13, Immigration Judge David Cheng will begin serving as the Assistant Chief Immigration Judge overseeing the Newark and Elizabeth immigration courts, replacing ACIJ Carrie C. Johnson-Papillo, who will now serve exclusively as the ACIJ at the New York – Federal Plaza Immigration Court. ACIJ Cheng will be based out of the Newark Immigration Court.
  • ESTA/Visa Waiver Extensions related to COVID-19 for JFK/EWR
  • Coronavirus Tax Relief and Economic Impact Payments(includes several different helpful flyers)
  • ONA COVID-19 Flyer Now Available in Multiple Languages

 

Closures

 

Guidance:

 

 

US-Mexico border: Thousands of migrants expelled under coronavirus powers

BBC: The US has expelled more than 6,300 undocumented migrants on its Mexico border using emergency powers to curb coronavirus spread, officials say.

 

DHS Expands Efforts to Collect DNA Samples from Immigrants

NIP: In early 2020, the Trump Administration began implementing a multi-pronged effort to collect DNA samples from immigrants to be used by federal and state law enforcement authorities to investigate crimes. Beginning April 8, 2020, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is authorized to collect DNA from all detained immigrants.

 

N.J. has more immigrant detainees with the coronavirus than any other state

NJ.com: Almost one-third of all federal detainees infected with the coronavirus are being held in New Jersey, according to the latest figures from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

 

City’s Undocumented Latinos, Many on the Front Lines, Feel Abandoned Amid Pandemic

CityLimits: Without help from the government, community-based organizations are trying to fill that gap. Mixteca Organization is providing prepaid $250 debit cards to 100 families in distress in the immigrant community of Sunset Park.

 

ICE Arrests Teenager at Shelter Despite Pandemic, Places Him in Solitary Confinement

DocumentedNY: Jorge, who asked to be referred to only by his first name for fear of reprisal, was arrested by ICE on his 18th birthday from a shelter in Westchester, New York on March 18. He was then transferred to the Orange County Correctional Facility, according to attorneys at the Brooklyn Defender Services. See also “We are trapped”: Immigrant women detained during pandemic speak out.

 

Chinese workers in the US are losing their visas with their jobs. But flying home to China is too expensive

CNN: There are no official statistics on how many Chinese nationals in the US have lost jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but CNN has seen two groups on WeChat, a “must-have” messaging platform for the Chinese diaspora, in which hundreds of people claiming to be in this situation share stories and exchange information.

 

White House Seeks To Lower Farmworker Pay To Help Agriculture Industry

NPR: New White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is working with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to see how to reduce wage rates for foreign guest workers on American farms, in order to help U.S. farmers struggling during the coronavirus, according to U.S. officials and sources familiar with the plans. See also Shortage of Farmworkers Threatens Americans’ Food Supply During the Coronavirus.

 

Quarantine in Solitary Confinement and Attorneys Wear Swimming Goggles to Court, as Batavia Grapples With the Coronavirus Pandemic

DocumentedNY: According to detainees at Batavia, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has blocked all visits to doctors unless they have a coronavirus related emergency; meaning many who have long-term chronic conditions have to go without care.

 

Migrant Children Still Face Speedy Deportation Hearings in COVID-19 Hotspots

Marshall Project: In two courthouses in the center of the besieged city, hearings for unaccompanied children—migrants who were apprehended without a parent—are speeding forward. The U.S. Department of Justice, which controls the immigration courts, has said it has no plan to suspend them.

 

The Hidden Impact of Removal Proceedings on Rural Communities

TRAC: Although the Immigration Courts with the largest backlogs of cases are located in large cities, the latest Immigration Court records show that when adjusted for population, many rural counties have higher rates of residents in removal proceedings than urban counties.

 

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

 

SDNY TRO grant for Essex detainees with more serious criminal justice contact (see attached)

NYIFUP: On Friday night, Judge Torres granted a TRO for two people BDS represents detained at Essex (the third person was released post-filing) in a decision with some great language against severing a group petition and about the continuing danger at Essex. Torres cited to the declarations filed for two of the “Basank 10,” Mr. Picasso and Mr. Pena, who wanted to share their experiences to help others. This win is very gratifying also because these two clients have more serious criminal justice contact than in other recent habeas cases, but Judge Torres agreed that they should still be released and the real issue is what conditions are appropriate.

Also, Judge Arleo of the DNJ issued a TRO for the immediate release of 5 individuals held in Hudson and Bergen County Jails.

 

Emergency TRO Filed in District Court Due to EOIR and ICE’s Handling of Immigration Cases During COVID-19 Pandemic

AILA, the Immigration Justice Campaign, the NIPNLG, and several detained individuals filed an emergency TRO challenging EOIR’s operation of in-person immigration court hearings and ICE’s conditions of confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic. (NIPNLG et al., v. EOIR et al., 4/8/20) AILA Doc. No. 20040830

 

AILA and Others Sue to Challenge Lack of Access to Counsel in Immigration Detention

A district court judge issued a TRO, given the COVID-19 pandemic, granting relief to individuals detained in Adelanto ICE Processing Center through 4/25/20, and asked the government why he should not convert this order into a preliminary injunction. (Torres, et al. v. DHS, et al., 4/11/20) AILA Doc. No. 18121703

 

Matter of K-S-E-, 27 I&N Dec. 818 (BIA 2020)

For purposes of determining whether an alien is subject to the firm resettlement bar to asylum, a viable and available offer to apply for permanent residence in a country of refuge is not negated by the alien’s unwillingness or reluctance to satisfy the terms for acceptance.

 

Challengers to Trump’s Uninsured Immigrant Ban Win Cert.

Law360 reports that a federal judge granted class certification in the lawsuit filed by AILA and partners challenging the president’s healthcare proclamation. AILA Director of Litigation Jesse Bless called it an “important step towards making sure the proclamation never becomes effective.” AILA Doc. No. 20040961

 

First circuit rules against challenge to naturalization oath

ImmProf: The court found the inclusion of “so help me God” as a means of completing the naturalization oath does not violate the First or Fifth Amendments or RFRA.

 

A Stunning Fifth Circuit Asylum Decision: An Analysis of Inestroza-Antonelli v. Barr

ImmProf: In the very first paragraph, the essence of the decision is announced: “Without addressing the coup, the BIA found that any change in gender based violence was incremental or incidental and not material. Because this conclusion is not supported by the record, we grant the petition and remand.”… The most notable thing about the panel’s 2-1 decision besides its well thought-out reasoning is the lack of any discussion involving Matter of A-B-, 27 I & N Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018), anywhere in either the majority’s or dissent’s decisions.

 

President Memorandum on Visa Sanctions

The President issued a memo directing the Secretary of State to impose visa sanctions pursuant to INA section 243(d) on any foreign country that denies or delays the acceptance of its citizens after being asked to accept them, and if such denial or delay impedes DHS operations regarding COVID-19. AILA Doc. No. 20041300

 

ICE Issues Guidance on COVID-19

ICE issued guidance on its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. ICE confirmed that as of 4/10/20, 50 detainees, 15 detention facility personnel, and 66 ICE employees, have tested positive for COVID-19. AILA Doc. No. 20031658

 

USCIS 30-Day Extension of Comment Period on Proposed Revisions to Form I-864 and Related Forms

USCIS 30-day extension of a comment period originally announced at 84 FR 55167 on proposed revisions to Form I-864, Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the INA, as well as Forms I-864EZ and Form I-864A. Comments are now due 5/11/20. (85 FR 20292, 4/10/20) AILA Doc. No. 20041030

 

ICE Releases Memo on COVID-19 Action Plan for ICE-Dedicated Facilities

ICE issued a memo on its COVID-19 action plan for ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC)-staffed and non-IHSC-staffed, ICE-dedicated facilities. The memo was released by ICE as an exhibit in Fraihat v. ICE. AILA Doc. No. 20040901

 

USCIS Reminder of New Version of Form I-9

USCIS notice that a new version of Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification) with a version date of ‘‘(Rev. 10/21/2019)’’ is available for use beginning today, 1/31/20. Employers may continue using the prior version of the form until 4/30/20. (85 FR 5683, 1/31/20) AILA Doc. No. 20013130

 

USCIS Issues Policy Guidance on Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness

USCIS issued policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual regarding eligibility requirements, filing, and adjudication of adjustment of status applications based on the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness (LRIF) law. The guidance is effective immediately. Comments are due May 7, 2020. AILA Doc. No. 20040730

 

ACTIONS

 

 

RESOURCES

 

    • Africa
      • Nigeria: Criminalization on the Basis of Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity (AFR2020-05) – ENG
      • Angola : Homosexualité (AFR2020-04) – FR
    • Asia
      • Mongolia: Treatment of mixed ethnicity persons (AFG2020-01) – ENG
    • CIS
      • Ukraine: Drafting into the Ukrainian Army (CIS2019-12) – ENG
    • Global
  • El Salvador: Domestic violence (GLO2019-43) – ENG
  • Venezuela: Treatment of Family Members of Pro-Democracy Groups and Users of Social Media Spreading Anti-Government Posts (GLO2020-03)- ENG
  • Honduras: Harm to PAC (Anti-Corruption) Party Members (GLO2019-43) – ENG
    • MENA

 

EVENTS

   

Note: Check with organizers regarding cancellations/changes

 

ImmProf

 

Monday, April 13, 2020

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Saturday, April 11, 2020

Friday, April 10, 2020

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Monday, April 6, 2020

 

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

Thanks Elizabeth. As you have noted, policies are changing almost by the hour, so always prudent to check to make sure you have the latest!

PWS

04-13-20

Related posts:

  1. THE GIBSON REPORT — 06-22-20 – Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group – WORLD REFUGEE DAY WAS JUNE 20 – AMERICA’S TRUMP REGIME CELEBRATED BY ADVANCING A DISINGENUOUS RACIST ATTACK ON WORK AUTHORIZATION FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS – Just A Few Days After 8 Justices of Supremes Claimed Cluelessness About Trump’s Racist Immigration Agenda! (See, Item #2 Under “Top News”)
  2. THE GIBSON REPORT — 09-15-20 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group
  3. THE GIBSON REPORT ⚖️🗽🇺🇸— 10-26-20 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — DHS & EOIR Accelerate Trashing Of Due Process, Human Rights In Desperate Push To Re-Elect Trump! — New Report Debunks, Discredits Trump DHS’s Mythical Claim That “Sanctuary Cities” Promote Crime!
  4. 🇺🇸THE GIBSON REPORT — 11-02-20 — Prepared By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Trump/Miller Bogus Public Charge Rule Enjoined Again; CBP Turns Back More Than 13,000 Unaccompanied Kids Using COVID-19 As Cover For Child Abuse; John Oliver With The Incredibly Ugly 🤮 Truth About The Trump-Miller Racist Assault On Asylum & Humanity ☠️⚰️— Other News From America Teetering On The Brink After 4-Years Of Trump Regime Misrule, Cruelty, Corruption, & Undermining Of Democracy!🏴‍☠️

WASHPOST:  TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DACA RECIPIENTS SERVE ON THE FRONT LINES OF OUR PANDEMIC RESPONSE — Trump & His Supremes Add Insult To Injury! — America’s New “Dred Scottifyers”

From the WashPost Editorial Board:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/thousands-of-health-care-workers-are-at-risk-of-being-deported-trump-could-save-them/2020/03/30/834b533a-72ae-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html

BEFORE DAWN on Saturday morning, Aldo Martinez, a paramedic in Fort Myers, Fla., responded with his ambulance crew to a man who, having just been diagnosed with covid-19, was having a panic attack. The man didn’t know that Mr. Martinez, 26 years old, is an undocumented immigrant; nor that he is a “dreamer”; nor that his temporary work permit under an Obama-era program has been targeted by President Trump.

The covid-19 patient was not aware that Mr. Martinez’s ability to remain in the United States, as he has since his parents brought him here from Mexico at age 12, now hangs in the balance as the Supreme Court weighs the future of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program known as DACA. What the man did know was that Mr. Martinez, calm and competent, spent 45 minutes helping to soothe him, explaining the risks and symptoms and how to manage them.

[[Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic]]

Some 27,000 dreamers are health-care workers; some, like Mr. Martinez, are on the front lines, grappling with a deadly pandemic. They are doctors, nurses, intensive care unit staff and EMTs trained to respond quickly to accidents, traumas and an array of other urgent medical needs.

Until now, because of DACA, they have been shielded from deportation and allowed to work legally. Their time may be running out.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the fall on the Trump administration’s attempt to rescind the program; it is expected to rule in the coming months. If, as appears likely, the court’s conservative majority sides with the administration, Mr. Martinez and thousands of other health-care workers would lose their work permits and jobs, and face the threat of deportation. So would another 700,000 DACA recipients — food prep workers, teachers and tutors, government employees, and students, including those enrolled in medical programs.

That would be catastrophic, and not just for the dreamers themselves, young people in their 20s and 30s who have grown up here. It would also be catastrophic for the United States.

Mr. Trump could halt the threat to dreamers with the stroke of a pen, by issuing an executive order. He has referred to DACA recipients as “some absolutely incredible kids” and promised that they “shouldn’t be very worried” owing to his “big heart.” But, so far, he has taken every possible step to chase them out, and his administration has made clear that if it prevails in the Supreme Court, dreamers will be subject to deportation.

That would give Mr. Martinez about four months. His current DACA status expires Aug. 5, and it would probably not be renewable if the administration prevails.

[[The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us.]]

“I don’t want people thanking me because I expose myself to covid — I’m not here for the glamour of it,” Mr. Martinez told us. “The principle is when people are having an emergency, they don’t have safety or security — you’re there to provide that for them in a time of need.”

Now it’s a time of need for Mr. Martinez himself, and hundreds of thousands of other dreamers like him. The country needs them as never before. Will Mr. Trump step up to provide them with safety and security?

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

Let’s be clear about responsibility for this unconscionable self-inflicted looming disaster. There was an exceptionally well-justified nationwide injunction in effect against the Trump regime’s lawless attempt to terminate DACA, no “Circuit split,” and absolutely no emergency reason for the Supremes to take the DACA case. None, unless they were going to summarily affirm the lower court injunction. Yet, they went out of their way to intervene in an apparent effort by the “J.R. Five” to advance the regime’s gratuitously cruel and wasteful White Nationalist, racially motivated immigration and anti-human rights agenda. 

At oral argument, although acknowledging the sympathetic circumstances, the GOP Justices showed little genuine concern for the human and legal consequences facing the “Dreamers” if the “J.R. Five,” as most expect them to do, “pull the plug” on these kids. Things like the consequences of loss of work authorization or permission to study and having to live your life in constant fear of arrest and removal seemed to go over the heads of the intentionally tone-deaf and condescending GOP majority. 

At oral argument, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it very clearly: “This is not about the law,” she said. “This is about our choice to destroy lives.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/supreme-court-dreamers.html?referringSource=articleShare. Her GOP colleagues, not for the first or last time, appeared anxious to tune out “the truth she spoke” and instead to please the regime’s overlords by unleashing the cruelty and wanton destruction of humanity. 

Ever since their horrible “cop out” in the so-called “Travel Ban cases,” J.R. and his GOP buddies have been enabling a toxically unconstitutional invidiously motivated attack on the due process rights and human dignity of some of America’s most vulnerable “persons.” Often, they bend the normal rules applicable to everyone else “on demand” from “Trump uber-toady” Solicitor General Noel Francisco. They have played a disgraceful and cowardly role in the regime’s, largely successful to date, efforts to “Dred Scottify” and dehumanize the most vulnerable among us. 

As Mark Joseph Stern very cogently said in Slate:

Put simply: When some of the most despised and powerless among us ask the Supreme Court to spare their lives, the conservative justices turn a cold shoulder. When the Trump administration demands permission to implement some cruel, nativist, and potentially unlawful immigration restrictions, the conservatives bend over backward to give it everything it wants. There is nothing “fair and balanced” about the court’s double standard that favors the government over everyone else. And, as Sotomayor implies, this flagrant bias creates the disturbing impression that the Trump administration has a majority of the court in its pocket. 

Life tenure makes these guys effectively unaccountable for their immoral and illegal actions. But, history will not forget where they stood in the face of bigotry, racism, cruelty, and tyranny.

A great democracy deserves and needs better from its life-tenured judiciary. Much better! The necessary shift from kakistocracy to democracy will require “regime change” in both the Executive and the Senate. November must be the starting place if we wish to survive as a democratic republic!

Due Process Forever! Complicit Courts Never!

PWS

03-31-20

Related posts:

  1. CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST:  “Dreamers” Are In The Front Lines Of Essential Workers — Why Is The Regime Persecuting Them? 
  2. 🤡CLOWN CAPITOL:  J.R. PRESIDES OVER GOP CLOWN SHOW HE HELPED CREATE — Empowering The Koch Bros, Suppressing Minority Votes, Enabling GOP Gerrymandering, Ignoring Invidious Racial & Religious Motives, Turning A Blind Eye To Lies & Pretexts, It All Contributed To The Arrogant Display Of GOP Dishonesty & Impunity Now On Public Display In The Senate! — Plus Bonus Friday Mini-Essay: “Profiles in Fecklessness”
  3. THE UGLY SIDE OF HISTORY: AMERICA CONTINUES TO TREAT ITS ESSENTIAL MIGRANT WORKERS AS “SUB-HUMAN” — “We cannot help what the virus does; all we can control is our reaction to it, and what we do next. This pandemic has shone a light on the ugliness of our “here.” Until the US treats all its immigrants as human beings, with full equal rights, we will still be far from ‘there,’” writes Maeve Higgins in the New York Review of Books.
  4. 👹🎃HALLOWEEN HORROR 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻REICHSREPORT: GRUPPENFUHRER MILLER REVEALS “REICHSPLAN” FOR EXTERMINATION OF IMMIGRATION, ASYLUM, REFUGE BY EXECUTIVE DECREE!  — “The Final Solution??”  — Parents, Protect Your Kids, Families, & Your Country From This Grotesque Un-American Monster!

THE TRUTH IS OUT, THANKS TO MICHELLE MENDEZ @ CLINIC: Practice Pointers on Matter of Castillo-Perez & “Takeaways” From FOIA Trove On In Absentias!

Michelle Mendez
Michelle Mendez
Defending Vulnerable Populations Director
Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (“CLINIC”)

She was a Leader of the NDPA before there was an NDPA! Now Michelle Mendez and her CLINIC Team are giving you “the skinny” on how to combat EOIR’s “Raging War on Due Process!”

Friends,

 

Wanted to share with you two new CLINIC resources:

 

Practice Pointer: Matter of Castillo-Perez, 27 I&N Dec. 664 (A.G. 2019)

 

FOIA Disclosures on In Absentia Removal Numbers Based on Legal Representation

 

An immigration judge may issue an in absentia removal order if the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, establishes by clear, unequivocal and convincing evidence that the respondent had written notice of the hearing and is removable as charged on the Notice to Appear. There are many reasons why a respondent may fail to appear at a removal hearing, including lack of notice of the hearing, sickness, a breakdown in transportation, limited or no English knowledge, or because the respondent is a child without the help of a responsible adult who can assist them in getting to the hearing. As documented in the report Denied a Day in Court: The Government’s Use of in absentia Removal Orders Against Families Seeking Asylum, CLINIC learned about these reasons firsthand while representing 46 families released from detention and successfully challenging their in absentia removal orders. Perhaps the main factor for failing to appear at scheduled hearings in immigration court is the presence or absence of legal counsel to orient the respondent through the layers of government bureaucracy and the complex immigration system.

 

On November 18, 2019, CLINIC submitted a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, seeking data on the number of in absentia removal orders issued based on legal representation status. CLINIC requested three sets of in absentia order data: the total number of in absentia removal orders issued since 2008, the number of in absentia orders issued to Unaccompanied Children, or UACs, since 2008, and the number of in absentia orders issued to families classified by EOIR as “Family Unit,” FAMU, cases since November 16, 2018. On March 13, 2020, EOIR responded with a three-tab Excel spreadsheet of raw in absentia removal order data. CLINIC has calculated the in absentia removal order raw data into percentages.

 

Here are some key takeaways from the data:

  • Although, according to EOIR statistics, the current overall representation rate is 65 percent for all pending cases, those who are unable to secure representation are at extraordinary risk of receiving in absentia removal orders. 92.6 percent of those with in absentia orders issued in fiscal year, or FY, 2020 were unrepresented.
  • Although, according to EOIR statistics, the current overall representation rate is 68 percent for all UAC pending cases, UACs who are unable to secure representation are also at extreme risk of receiving in absentia removal orders. 88 percent of those with in absentia orders issued in fiscal year FY2020 were unrepresented.
  • Since 2008, the percentage of unrepresented respondents with in absentia removal orders has been at least double that of in absentia orders of removal issued to represented respondents.
  • Since 2008, at least 70.8 percent of UACs who were issued in absentia orders of removal were unrepresented and, so far this fiscal year, the unrepresented rate for UACs who received in absentia orders of removal has been the highest ever, at 88 percent.
  • The number of in absentia removal orders issued by EOIR to unrepresented respondents in FY2020 surpassed the total number of in absentia orders issued to unrepresented respondents in FY2019 in just the first five and a half months of FY2020.
  • EOIR has issued more in absentia removal orders in the three and a half combined fiscal years covering the Trump presidency, than it did during the eight combined fiscal years covering the Obama presidency.
    • Total in absentia removal orders from FY2008 through FY2016 were 246,893. Total in absentia removal orders from FY2017 through FY2020 (through March 13, 2020), were 267,696
  • EOIR has issued more in absentia removal orders to UACs in the three and a half combined fiscal years covering the Trump presidency, than it did during the eight combined fiscal years covering the Obama presidency.
    • Total in absentia orders of removal issued to UACs from FY2008 through FY2016 were 20,123. Total in absentia removal orders issued to UACs from FY2017 through FY2020 (through March 13, 2020), were 26,228.
  • During the date range covered by the data (FY2008 through FY2020 Q2), immigration judges issued the fewest number of in absentia removal orders in FY2012, the year that DHS announced DACA. During FY2012, DHS officially launched the prosecutorial discretion program in November 2011 and reviewed many pending removal proceedings to identify low-priority cases meriting favorable exercises of prosecutorial discretion.
    • Most immigration courts saw a decrease in in absentia orders of removal for unrepresented noncitizens in FY2012 compared to FY2011.
  • Unrepresented UACs suffered a huge jump of in absentia removal orders from FY2014 (1,701) to FY2015 (5,836). This hike in in absentias for UACs occurred concurrently with the increase in UACs fleeing El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and arriving in neighboring countries and at the U.S.-Mexico border.
  • 89.6 percent of all family units who received an in absentia removal orders from November 16, 2018 to September 30, 2019, were unrepresented.
    • Of all the immigration courts, the Houston Immigration Court issued the most in absentia removal orders in unrepresented FAMU cases during this period: 4,108 (which translates into 93.8 percent of the total in absentia removal orders issued by this court).
    • Of all the immigration courts, the Miami Immigration Court issued the second most in absentia removal orders in unrepresented FAMU cases during this period: 3,347 (which translates into 89.5 percent of the total in absentia removal orders issued by this court).
  • 94.2 percent of all family units who received in absentia removal orders from October 1, 2019 to March 13, 2020, were unrepresented.
    • Of all the immigration courts, the Houston Immigration Court issued the most in absentia removal orders in FAMU cases from October 1, 2019 to March 13, 2020: 4,931 (which translates into 95.62 percent of the total in absentia removal orders issued by this court).
    • Of all the immigration courts, the Atlanta Immigration Court issued the second most in absentia removal orders in FAMU cases from October 1, 2019 to March 13, 2020: 4,662 (which translates into 98.27 percent of the total in absentia removal orders issued by this court).
  • Oddly, several immigration courts that oversee only detained dockets, including the Elizabeth Detention Center, recorded in absentia removal orders during the FOIA time period.
  • In FY2020, immigration judges have issued more in absentia removal orders than any prior year since 2008, and we are only five and a half months into the federal fiscal year.
    • Of all the immigration courts, the Harlingen Immigration Court has recorded the most unrepresented in absentia removal orders overall in FY2020 so far: 8,357.
    • Of all the immigration courts, the New York City Federal Plaza Immigration Court has recorded the most represented in absentia removal orders overall in FY2020: 753.
    • Of all the immigration courts, the Miami Immigration Court has recorded the most unrepresented in absentia removal orders for UACs in FY2020: 430.
    • Of all the immigration courts, the New York City Federal Plaza Immigration Court has recorded the most represented in absentia removal orders for UACs in FY2020: 73.

 

Thanks for helping us share these!

 

Michelle N. Mendez (she/her/ella/elle)

Director, Defending Vulnerable Populations Program

Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)

Embracing the Gospel value of welcoming the stranger, CLINIC promotes the dignity and protects the rights of immigrants in partnership with a dedicated network of Catholic and community legal immigration programs.

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

Now, it’s hardly “news” that there is a strong positive correlation between legal representation and appearance in Immigration Court. That information came to light way back in the Obama Administration and has consistently been reinforced by data that contradicts the lies about failures to appear put out on a regular basis by regime officials. 

Given the clear correlation, the best way to make a fair due process system function would be if the Government worked hand in hand with NGOs, charitable organizations, local bar associations, and others involved in providing pro bono representation to insure that at least all asylum applicants and children are represented before the Immigration Courts. Due Process and fundamental fairness would be served and the in absentia rate would crater. In other words, due process with efficiency, an achievable “win-win!”

Instead, the Trump regime, through both EOIR and DHS, has made a concerted attack on the right to counsel in a transparent attempt to increase the number of in absentia orders and “speed up the deportation railroad” that EOIR now runs as its “one and only mission.”

How does something masquerading as a “court” system conduct a “deportation railway?” It takes lots of complicity and supposedly responsible public officials and citizens intentionally “looking the other way” and studiously ignoring the obvious!

I hope that advocates will be able to use the data provided by CLINIC to expose to the Article III Courts and Congress the rampant fraud, waste, abuse, and just plain “malicious incompetence” of EOIR and DHS (is there really a difference these days? Not apparent to most of us who follow the “Star Chambers” with regularity.). 

Remember, moral cowardice and intellectual dishonesty often begin with picking on the most vulnerable and defenseless among us. And what follows is likely to be unspeakably bad, based on history!

Thanks, Michelle, my friend, for all you and CLINIC do.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-29-20

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  4. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!