Category: Removals

NOLAN @ THE HILL: IF CA WINS “SANCTUARY CASE” THEY MIGHT REGRET IT — The Wrath & Vengeance Of Trump, Sessions, & DHS Could Be Devastating To Communities & Undocumented Populations!

 

Family Pictures

http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/377605-even-without-trumps-lawsuit-california-may-have-to-abandon-sanctuary

This case is very risky for Trump. He is likely to lose in the Ninth Circuit, and it is difficult to predict how the Supreme Court would handle this federal vs. state rights issue. Immigration experts on both sides say this lawsuit takes the sanctuary-cities debate into uncharted territory.

The only certainty is that a loss would clear the way for the enactment of more sanctuary laws in California and other states.

Ironically, California’s sanctuary policies make it easier for ICE to find undocumented aliens.

Instead of being spread out across the United States, a quarter of the nation’s undocumented aliens are living in California. California’s labor force has 1.75 million undocumented aliens. Nearly 10 percent of its workers are undocumented aliens. And in 2014, more undocumented aliens lived in Los Angeles County, Calif., than in any other county in the United States.

This would make it easy for Trump to carry out a successful, large-scale enforcement campaign in California to arrest undocumented aliens and impose sanctions on the businesses that employ them, which is likely to be his next step if the lawsuit fails.

California could end up having to abandon its sanctuary policies to protect its undocumented population.

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an executive branch immigration law expert for three years; he subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.

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Go on over to The Hill at the link for Nolan’s complete article.

Putting together Nolan’s analysis with that of Professor Peter Markowitz in the preceding article, one can conclude that both sides are likely to come out losers in this contest. We’ll see.

PWS

03-10-18

 

Related posts:

  1. PETER MARKOWITZ IN THE NYT: CA Can Thank The Late Justice Scalia For Likely Win On Sanctuary Case!
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: “APOCALYPTO” REVS UP “NEW CIVIL WAR ON AMERICA” WITH RENEWED ATTACK ON LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT — 10th Amendment, Consistent Court Losses, & Common Sense Fail To Deter Scofflaw A.G. — “[T]here is irony in Sessions threatening to withhold law enforcement grants in the name of fighting crime.”
  3. 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?” 
  4. LA TIMES: TO TRUMP, SESSIONS, & HOMAN: “Don’t Wanna Do Your Dirty Work No More!”

PETER MARKOWITZ IN THE NYT: CA Can Thank The Late Justice Scalia For Likely Win On Sanctuary Case!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/opinion/trump-california-sanctuary-movement.html

The Justice Department lawsuit emphasizes that immigration is a federal matter, that we must have a uniform scheme to oversee it and that this scheme is being undermined by sanctuary laws. In most states, federal immigration authorities are able to leverage state and local criminal justice systems. The Justice Department is arguing that California’s refusal to participate requires it to adapt and employ different enforcement strategies.
It is fair to ask whether states should have the power to abstain from federal law enforcement programs that they view as immoral or adverse to their local interests. It is not, however, a new question.
In fact, the question was decisively answered by the Supreme Court in 1997 in a case called Printz v. United States. That case involved a challenge to the federal Brady Act, which required local sheriffs to conduct background checks for gun purchasers. Some sheriffs resisted because they objected to the federal regulation of firearms. The Supreme Court, in a decision written by Justice Antonin Scalia, made clear that the sheriffs, and states generally, have a right to abstain from federal law enforcement schemes with which they disagreed.
It is this principle that distinguishes California’s decision to opt out of deportation efforts from Arizona’s decision to opt in.
The Justice Department is correct that the regulation of immigration is a federal matter. That’s why the Supreme Court made clear in the Arizona case that states may not insert themselves into immigration enforcement by directing its officers to arrest people on immigration charges. California, far from inserting itself, has extracted itself from federal immigration enforcement efforts in precisely the same way that the sheriffs in Printz extracted themselves from the federal effort to regulate the purchase of firearms.
Attorney General Sessions’s attempt to spin his attack on sanctuary laws as a logical extension of the Supreme Court’s Arizona decision is a transparent attempt to sidestep the clear rule established in Printz.
As California’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, recently explained, “California is in the business of public safety, not in the business of deportations.” By exercising their constitutional right to stay out of the business of deportation, California and other sanctuary jurisdictions have been able to strengthen ties between local law enforcement and immigrant communities. Those ties, in turn, mean that immigrant witnesses and victims of crime are not fearful of coming forward to assist the local police. That is why a recent report by the Center for American Progress demonstrated that, contrary to Mr. Trump and Mr. Sessions’s heated rhetoric, sanctuary laws improve public safety by driving down overall crime rates.
This is precisely the type of legitimate justification for local abstention that the Supreme Court established as a bedrock principle of our federal system of government over two decades ago.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.
Peter L. Markowitz is a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

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Interesting point. Strange bedfellows. Read the rest of Professor Markowitz’s article at the link.

PWS

03-10-18

Related posts:

  1. AMERICA’S “MASS ATROCITY” — Professor Kate Cronin-Furman Says Don’t Kid Yourself About What The Trump Administration Is Doing In Your Name & How “Ordinary Civil Servants” Carry Out The Unthinkable & Unacceptable!
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: “APOCALYPTO” REVS UP “NEW CIVIL WAR ON AMERICA” WITH RENEWED ATTACK ON LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT — 10th Amendment, Consistent Court Losses, & Common Sense Fail To Deter Scofflaw A.G. — “[T]here is irony in Sessions threatening to withhold law enforcement grants in the name of fighting crime.”
  3. CONTINUING JUDICIAL EDUCATION FOR ARTICLE III JUDGES: “Kids In Cages” Ought To Be Displayed Outside Every Federal Courthouse & The Supremes So That “Robed Enablers” Can See The Results Of Their Abdication Of Constitutional Duties!
  4. 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?” 

2D CIR. ZAPS BIA ON RETROACTIVITY — OBEYA V. SESSIONS

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/immigration-law-blog/archive/2018/03/09/ca2-on-retroactivity-obeya-v-sessions.aspx

 

Dan Kowalski, Editor @ LexisNexis Immigration Community sends this item:

Obeya v. Sessions, Mar. 8, 2018 – “Clement Obeya, a lawful permanent resident of the United States, was convicted of petit larceny under New York law. The government sought to remove Obeya for his conviction, treating it as a “crime involving moral turpitude.” The Immigration Judge and Board of Immigration Appeals found that Obeya was removable based on his conviction, but this Court remanded due to the agency’s failure to apply BIA precedent holding that larceny involves moral turpitude only when it is committed with the intent to deprive the owner of property permanently. On remand, the BIA again found Obeya removable, holding that his offense involved moral turpitude by applying a new rule, announced in another case that same day, expanding the types of larceny that qualify as such crimes. Obeya challenges the BIA’s retroactive application of that rule to his case. We GRANT review and REVERSE the BIA’s order.”

[Hats off to Richard W. Mark!]

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Go on over to LexisNexis at the above link for the link to the 2d Circuit’s full decision.

As Gonzo & Co. move to speed up the Deportation Railway, the current quality control problems evident at the BIA, illustrated by decisions like this, will be multiplied.

PWS

08-09-18

Related posts:

  1. VIEWS YOU CAN USE: SOPHIA GENOVESE SETS FORTH A BLUEPRINT FOR LEGAL RESISTANCE TO WHITE NATIONALIST XENOPHOBIA & SESSIONS’S ASSAULT ON HUMAN RIGHTS & THE RULE OF LAW FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS!
  2. NOTE TO NEW US IMMIGRATION JUDGES: YOU WOULD DO WELL TO IGNORE SESSIONS’S FALSE NARRATIVE & ADDRESS THE REAL PROBLEMS PLAGUING OUR US IMMIGRATION COURTS – Lack of Due Process, Abusive Detention, Some Biased Colleagues, Too Few Lawyers, Inconsistent Decisions, Far Too Many Denials Of Legitimate Refugees – “But more importantly, asylum-seekers have suffered from serious human rights abuses and merit protection under our laws. Their cases are not denied because they are not bona fide. Their cases are not denied because they do not qualify as refugees under the INA. Indeed, most of these asylum-seekers were found to possess a credible fear of return upon their initial apprehension. Through a combination of lack of access to counsel, unfair and uneven adjudication by IJs, and impermissible interference by the Attorney General, credible and bona fide cases are frequently denied.”
  3. WE KNOW THAT SESSIONS, WHITAKER, & BARR HAVE TURNED THE DOJ INTO A LEGAL, MORAL, PROFESSIONAL, & ETHICAL CESSPOOL — Some Federal Judges Are Beginning To Take Notice: “To say the least, it is disappointing that [DOJ] counsel, after consulting with other counsel including ‘prosecutors and appellate attorneys’ in this District’s United States Attorney’s office, submitted a legal memorandum to the Court that failed to acknowledge contrary case law that did not support its position.”
  4. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮👎🏻ERROR SUPPLY: EOIR’s Anti-Asylum Bias, Failure To Apply Precedents, Earns Yet Another Rebuke From 3d Cir.  — Blanco v. AG

ANA COMPOY @ QUARTZ — WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING, JEFF SESSIONS WAS HARD AT WORK DISMANTLING DUE PROCESS IN THE AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM — We’re Headed For a Monumental Train Wreck In The “REAL” Article III Courts As Sessions Tries To Force “Kangaroo Court” Work Product Down Their Throats (Again) — I’m Quoted In This Article

https://qz.com/1223294/jeff-sessions-is-quietly-remaking-the-us-immigration-system/

 

It’s been a busy week for Jeff Sessions. The US attorney general is deploying his broad powers to remake the US’s immigration system instead of waiting for Congress to pass legislation.
Late Tuesday, he filed a lawsuit against the state of California, for its policies limiting cooperation between state officers and federal immigration agents. “Federal law is the supreme law of the land,” he said in a speech in Sacramento on Wednesday.
Far more quietly, on Monday, Sessions took the unusual step of digging up an old legal decision that affirmed asylum-seekers’ right to a make their case in court—and cancelled it. That little-noticed move has the potential of doing more to further Trump’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants than his attack on so-called sanctuary jurisdictions like California.

Sessions’s choice to revisit the four-year-old case on Monday was not explained in his three-paragraph announcement. A Justice Department spokesperson tells Quartz that the decision which Session overruled had “added unnecessary cases to the dockets of immigration judges, who are working hard to reduce an already large immigration court backlog.”
The mountain of pending immigration cases, which now stands at nearly 670,000, has emerged as a major bottleneck for Trump’s administration. Regardless of their legal status, many immigrants are entitled to a day in court under the law. With US immigration courts chronically understaffed, that can take years. Many applications will likely be processed more quickly—and denied—if asylum-seekers aren’t given the chance to argue their case.
The Matter of E-F-H-L

As head of the Department of Justice, Sessions oversees the country’s immigration courts, and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA,) where parties can contest immigration judge decisions. Unlike federal or state courts, the immigration court system is not part of an independent judicial branch, but embedded within a president’s administration.

Critics—including many immigration judges—say that setup makes the court system vulnerable to political interference, and there’s evidence that both Democratic and Republican administrations have done that to further their goals.
Among the attorney general’s powers is the ability to single-handedly overwrite any decisions by the BIA, as Sessions did on Monday. The decision he is zeroing in on is related to a case dubbed “Matter of E-F-H-L,” after the initials of the person who brought it to the appellate body. E-F-H-L, a Honduran immigrant, requested asylum. He appeared before an immigration court, but didn’t get a chance to testify because the judge determined E-F-H-L had no chance of getting asylum based on his application.
E-F-H-L appealed the decision to the BIA, which found that the judge had dismissed the case prematurely. An asylum applicant, it said in its decision, “is entitled to a hearing on the merits of the applications, including an opportunity to provide oral testimony and other evidence.” By striking it, Sessions is signaling that giving asylum seekers that chance is no longer required.
Paul Schmidt, a former immigration judge, says it’s important to hear out asylum applicants even if their case doesn’t look very solid on paper. Many of them—around 20% whose cases were decided in fiscal 2017—don’t have a lawyer, and are not familiar with the kind of information that should be included in the application. Others don’t even speak English. “You can’t always tell how the case is coming out just by looking at the application,” he said.
But another retired immigration judge, Andrew Arthur, welcomed the apparent change. “Given the fact that an asylum merits case can take anywhere between two hours and several days, this authority will allow those judges to streamline their dockets and complete more cases in a timely manner,” he wrote in a post for the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for reducing undocumented immigration.
Sessions’s decision also appears to target the asylum system in particular, which he’s said is being gamed by people with false claims. The precedent it sets is bound to make it more difficult for asylum seekers to make their case.
Administrative closure

Sessions’s sudden interest in E-F-H-L also appears to be related to a tool immigration judges often use referred to as “administrative closure.” That’s when a judge decides to put a case on the back burner instead of immediately deciding whether a person can stay in the US or should be deported.
There are several reasons why judges might delay a case’s decision. Sometimes rescheduling helps them organize their crowded docket; other times an immigrant may be in the middle of a visa application with US Citizen and Immigration Services, in which case it makes sense to wait until that process is completed, says Lenni Benson, a professor at New York Law School.
That appears to have been E-F-H-L’s case. In its decision, the BIA ordered the judge to give E-F-H-L a proper hearing, but by that time, he had applied for a family-based visa and didn’t want to follow through on his asylum claim. So the judge put the case in administrative closure. In his Monday decision, Sessions argued that since the immigrant is no longer applying for asylum, his case should be put back on the docket and resolved.
It seems odd that the head of the Justice Department would make time in his busy schedule to single out an obscure four-year-old case. But Benson says it fits within a broader effort to remove judges’ ability to put a case on hold.
Earlier this year, Sessions used his authority to pluck another case, this one involving a Guatemalan minor, to question the use of administrative closure. He is currently asking for input before taking any action, however. (Several groups, including the Safe Passage Project, a non-profit where Benson runs a program to train pro bono lawyers to represent immigrant youth, have filed a brief advocating for Sessions to keep the practice.)
If he doesn’t, the group of affected immigrants would be much broader than just asylum seekers. The use of administrative closure expanded during the Obama presidency. Because that administration’s focus was on criminals, the cases of many undocumented immigrants with a clean record became lower priorities. Administrative closure essentially took those immigrants off the list of deportation targets, even if their legal status remained unchanged.
The Trump administration, however, has made it clear it’s going after everyone who is in the country illegally. With efforts to change immigration law stalled in Congress, Sessions appears to be doing everything he can administratively to carry out Donald Trump’s vision.

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As Judge Arthur acknowledges, a “real” Due Process asylum merits hearing takes from two hours to two days — a big deal. So, his solution is to eliminate the hearing and thereby the respondent’s only chance to fully present her or his case.

Even if the respondent loses before the Immigration Judge, he or she is entitled to an appeal to the BIA and review in the Court of Appeals. Sometimes the BIA and more often the Circuit Courts disagree with the legal standards applied by the Immigration Judge. How does a respondent make a showing of what evidence supports his or her claim if not allowed to testify on that claim?

Haste makes waste. During the Ashcroft regime, there DOJ also attempted to short-circuit Due Process by  “streamlining” cases, primarily at the BIA level. The result, as I have noted before, was a tremendous mess in the Circuit Courts, as court after court found that the records sent to them for review were rife with legal errors, incomplete, inadequate, or all three.

The result was tons of remands that essentially tied up large portions of the Federal Court System as well as the DOJ on cases that were “Not Quite Ready For Prime Time.” However, many individuals who did not have the resources to appeal their cases all the way to the Circuit Courts were illegally removed from the US without receiving the fair hearings guaranteed by statute or the Due Process guaranteed by our Constitution.

Sessions, with the encouragement of folks like Judge Arthur, seems to be determined to repeat this grotesque abuse of American justice. However, this time there is a “New Due Process Army” out there with some of the top legal minds in the country prepared to fight to stop Sessions and his cohorts from violating the Constitution, our statutes, our values, and the rights of the most vulnerable among us.

Harm to one is harm to all!

PWS

05-08-18

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. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  3. MICHELLE BRANE @ WOMEN’S REFUGEE COMMISSION — “Why I March!”
  4. TAL @ CNN TELLS ALL ON HOW SESSIONS IS USING HIS AUTHORITY OVER THE SCREWED UP U.S. IMMIGRATION COURTS TO ATTACK DUE PROCESS & TARGET VULNERABLE ASYLUM SEEKERS — One Of My Quotes: “I think due process is under huge attack in the immigration courts. Every once in a while Sessions says something about due process, but his actions say something quite different.”

SESSIONS APPEARS TO BE MOUNTING ALL-OUT ATTACK ON DUE PROCESS AND THE RIGHTS OF VULNERABLE ASYLUM SEEKERS IN “CAPTIVE” U.S. IMMIGRATION COURTS — “Out Of The Blue” Certification Of Matter Of A-B- Could Turn Deadly For Those At Risk!

3918

Cite as 27 I&N Dec. 227 (A.G. 2018) Interim Decision #3918

Matter of A-B-, Respondent

Decided by Attorney General March 7, 2018

U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General

The Attorney General referred the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals to himself for review of issues relating to whether being a victim of private criminal activity constitutes a cognizable “particular social group” for purposes of an application for asylum and withholding of removal, ordering that the case be stayed during the pendency of his review.

BEFORE THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

Pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 1003.l(h)(l)(i) (2017), I direct the Board of Immigration Appeals (“Board”) to refer this case to me for review of its decision. The Board’s decision in this matter is automatically stayed pending my review. See Matter of Haddam, A.G. Order No. 2380-2001 (Jan. 19, 2001). To assist me in my review, I invite the parties to these proceedings and interested amici to submit briefs on points relevant to the disposition of this case, including:

Whether, and under what circumstances, being a victim of private criminal activity constitutes a cognizable “particular social group” for purposes of an application for asylum or withholding of removal.

The parties’ briefs shall not exceed 15,000 words and shall be filed on or before April 6, 2018. Interested amici may submit briefs not exceeding 9,000 words on or before April 13, 2018. The parties may submit reply briefs not exceeding 6,000 words on or before April 20, 2018. All filings shall be accompanied by proof of service and shall be submitted electronically to AGCertification@usdoj.gov, and in triplicate to:

United States Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General, Room 5114 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530

All briefs must be both submitted electronically and postmarked on or before the pertinent deadlines. Requests for extensions are disfavored.

227

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Something pretty strange is going on here! The BIA has never, to my knowledge, held that “being a victim of private criminal activity constitutes a cognizable ‘particular social group.'” Quite to the contrary, the BIA has always found that “victims of crime” are not a PSG.

Moreover, “Matter of A-B-” is not a BIA precedent. In fact, it’s impossible to tell from the cryptic certification what facts or context the amici should address.

Stay tuned. But, given Sessions’s record of hostility and outright misrepresentations concerning asylum seekers, we could be heading for a monumental, years long battle in the Article III Federal Courts as to whether the U.S. will continue to honor our Constitutional, statutory, and international obligations to protect “refugees” applying for asylum.

PWS

03-07-18

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. TAL @ CNN TELLS ALL ON HOW SESSIONS IS USING HIS AUTHORITY OVER THE SCREWED UP U.S. IMMIGRATION COURTS TO ATTACK DUE PROCESS & TARGET VULNERABLE ASYLUM SEEKERS — One Of My Quotes: “I think due process is under huge attack in the immigration courts. Every once in a while Sessions says something about due process, but his actions say something quite different.”
  3. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  4. HON. JEFFREY CHASE: Speaking Out Against The “Notable Minority” Of U.S. Immigration Judges Who Demonstrated Bias Against Women & Asylum Seekers – “Think about that: some federally appointed immigration judges cheered the fact that women who had been violently raped and beaten in their country can no longer find refuge here, and will be sent back to face more violence, and possibly death. Will there be any consequences for their actions? Were the many outstanding immigration judges who have been proud to grant such cases in the past, who were saddened and sickened by this decision, able to openly jeer or weep or curse this decision? Or would that have been viewed as dangerous?”

WNYC’S BETH FERTIG FERRETS OUT FOOLISHNESS BEHIND THE SESSIONS/DHS ATTACK ON ADMINISTRATIVE CLOSING AND PROSECUTORIAL DISCRETION – I’m Quoted and Pictured!

https://www.wnyc.org/story/trump-administration-reviewing-thousands-deportation-cases-once-put-pause

Beth reports:

“Last year, a young mother who came to the U.S. illegally from Mexico as a child thought she’d essentially won her fight against deportation.

Twenty-four year old Jenny isn’t eligible for DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. She was in the midst of immigration court proceedings when she told her attorney that she was a victim of domestic violence, which is why WNYC agreed not to use her real name.

In May, Jenny reported her boyfriend to police for allegedly beating and trying to choke her. That action suddenly changed the course of her immigration case.

Jenny was able to apply for what’s called a U visa that would allow her to stay in the U.S. It’s for immigrant victims of crime who cooperate with law enforecement.

The waiting list for a U visa is about three years. But because Jenny met the criteria, and got the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office to sign off on her documents, the immigration judge agreed to put her cause on hold. The legal term for this is administrative closure. The government would no longer seek to deport her while she waited for her special visa.

But a month later, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) asked the same judge to recalender Jenny’s case and put it back on the docket —  meaning she’d have to fight against deportation all over again.

The reason? ICE wrote that Jenny’s U visa was “speculative” and “not available within a reasonable period of time.” The agency said three years was too long to wait — even though they’re controlled by another governmental agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (both are within the Department of Homeland Security). ICE said she could wait for her U visa while in Mexico.

The agency also noted that Jenny had been convicted of petit larceny when she was 18. Though it’s not considered a crime that could lead to an immigrant’s removal, it brought her to ICE’s attention a few years ago, and her unlawful presence in the U.S. triggered the deportation proceedings.

For Jenny, the about face was extremely upsetting after suffering domestic abuse and moving into a women’s shelter. “I seek help and I’m still kind of being, you know, bullied,” she said.

Her attorney, Kendal Nystedt of the immigrant rights group Make the Road New York, said ICE seemed to mischaracterize immigration law and said its arguments “were also insulting given the humanity of my client.”

The judge apparently agreed. Late last year, in a one page memo, he denied the government’s request and let Jenny remain in the U.S. But data obtained by WNYC shows that Jenny wasn’t the only immigrant who thought they could stay, only to have the government give their case a second look.

In Fiscal Year 2017, ICE asked to recalendar almost 9400 cases that were administratively closed, or put on pause. That’s an increase of almost 74 percent from the year before President Trump took office. In response, it appears immigration judges may be applying more scrutiny to the government’s requests. They granted 85 percent of those motions to put the cases back on their dockets in 2017, compared to 96 percent in 2016.

When asked why the government is revisiting more cases, ICE spokewoman Jennifer Elzea said the agency generally reviews cases that were administratively closed “to see if the basis for prosecutorial discretion is still appropriate.”

But it’s clear this legal strategy also lets the Trump administration try to deport more immigrants. Former immigration judge Andrew Arthur said there’s a good reason. “Under the Obama Administration, administrative closure was treated as a form of amnesty,” he explained.

Arthur is a fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that supports more restrictive immigration policies. Without commenting on Jenny’s situation he said some cases that were administratively closed involved immigrants who may never qualify for whatever benefit they thought they were likely to receive. But he said the previous administration didn’t act because there were “not deemed a priority for removal.”

In other words, he Obama administration had made criminals the top priority for removal, letting too many others remain.

Retired immigration judge Paul Wickham Schmidt
Beth Fertig/WNYC

Another former immigration judge said that Obama era policy made sense, however. Paul Wickham Schmidt granted administrative closures when he worked in the Arlington, Virginia court.

“An example of a type of case that gets closed quite a bit are cases of individuals who have relatives petitioning for them. And there’s a big backlog of petitions,” Schmidt explained. “So rather than continuing the case time after time, sometimes for years, judges were saying ‘look I’m going to take this case off the docket.'”

He said this management strategy was necessary. The immigration courts have a backlog of 670,000 thousand pending cases. “You’re not even going to complete 670,000 cases probably within my lifetime. You’ve got to decide which cases really belong at the front of the line and which cases you’re not going to prioritize,” he said. “Wasting time in immigration court just doesn’t make sense.”

Despite concerns about further burdening an immigration court system that’s already bursting at the seems, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is considering a much more dramatic step than simply seeking to recalendar the 9400 cases that were reviewed last year. He’s looking into recalendaring all cases that were administratively closed – and there are estimates there could 350,000 of them.”

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Go to the link to hear the audio from WNYC!

Putting cases like “Jenny’s” back on the already overcrowded dockets is cruel, counterproductive, and wasteful of judicial time. She’s established the qualifications for a U visa, for Pete’s sake. There really isn’t any “uncertainty” — if she stays out of trouble with the law, she’ll get a U visa when her number comes up. No reason on earth for her to “occupy space” on the Immigration Court’s docket.

If she were unwise enough to get into legal trouble before then (seldom happens, in my experience), then that would be the time to 1) revoke her U visa approval, and 2) put her back on the docket. With dockets stretching out for years, why would an Immigration Judge do anything other than keep putting a case like Jenny’s at the end of the docket until her “U number” is reached?

Just because somebody is “removable” doesn’t mean that it makes any sense to put them on already overcrowded Immigration Court dockets. That’s particularly true of an individual who meets the requirements for a legal status (albeit one that because of the arcane structure of the Federal Regulations, an Immigration Judge can’t actually grant).

It’s analogous to the local prosecutor jamming a judge’s docket with jaywalking, littering, and unleashed dog cases so that there isn’t time to hear felony rape and robbery cases! No other law enforcement agency in America that I’m aware of operates without any real prosecution priorities the way Sessions and the DHS are trying to do in this Administration.

And, of course, one large class of “Administratively Closed” cases involves those who had their DACA applications approved by USCIS after Removal Proceedings had been initiated. What would  be the point of putting such cases “back on the docket” if DACA were actually terminated?

Even the DHS claims that “Dreamer” cases would not be an “enforcement priority.” (Although, during the Trump Administration such claims by DHS have often proved to be “not credible.”) Therefore, it would literally be years before they could be heard. And many of them have strong cases for other forms of immigration relief such as Cancellation of Removal. I want to believe that the fate of the Dreamers will be resolved long before then.

PWS

03-07-18

Related posts:

  1. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  2. NPR: Sessions Out To Destroy US Immigration Court System — “All the more reason why we need an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court removed from the political shenanigans and enforcement bias of Sessions and his DOJ!”
  3. 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!
  4. 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! 

NEW SCHOLARSHIP FROM PROFESSOR RUTH ELLEN WASEM, LBJ SCHOOL @ UT TAKES ON PROBLEMS OF 21ST CENTURY IMMIGRATION GOVERNANCE — “Immigration is not a program to be administered; rather, it is a phenomenon to be managed.”

Immigration Governance for the Twenty-First

Ruth Ellen Wasem The University of Texas at Austin

6 Journal on Migration and Human Security  97 (2018)

KEY QUOTE:

Even with fragmented governance and strained resources, the US immigration system has enjoyed successes. Each year, approximately one million foreign nationals legally become permanent residents in the United States. In FY 2015 and FY 2016, the Bureau of Consular Affairs issued over 10 million visas each year to foreign nationals coming to the United States as nonimmigrants (i.e., for a temporary purpose and a temporary period of time) and over half a million visas to LPRs (Bureau of Consular Affairs 2017). CBP admitted almost 77 million foreign nationals as nonimmigrant admissions to the United States in FY 2015 (Office of Immigration Statistics 2016). That year, DOL processed 711,820 employer applications for 1,580,778 positions for temporary and permanent labor certifications Immigration Governance for the Twenty-First Century 117 (Office of Foreign Labor Certification 2016). In FY 2015, there were 730,259 LPRs who became US citizens. That same year, the United States admitted 69,920 refugees, and USCIS approved 26,124 asylees. DHS apprehended 462,388 foreign nationals and deported 444,431 foreign nationals in FY 2015. Another 253,509 foreign nationals were denied entry, and 129,122 foreign nationals returned home without a formal order of removal (Office of Immigration Statistics 2016). In FY 2016, EOIR judges received 328,122 cases and completed 273,390, including those of 8,726 foreign nationals who were granted asylum (EOIR 2017). Considerable credit is due to the people carrying out immigration-related responsibilities across the federal government.

Immigration is not a program to be administered; rather, it is a phenomenon to be managed. While there are limits to how much one government can control migration, the building blocks in Figure 3 offer a reasonable set of priorities. Effective immigration governance, coupled with laws and policies that incorporate the national interests, is key to maintaining a robust sovereign nation.

Get the entire article, which I highly recommend, at this link:

Wasem,ImmigrationGovernance21st Century

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Words of wisdom, to be sure. If only our policy makers had the same degree of understanding.

Today, we operate on an illusion that a few folks sitting in Washington, D.C. can “pull all the strings” to seal borders, override market forces, ignore international conditions and agreements, change behavior in foreign countries, and dominate forces of human migration that have been at work since before all of us were born and will continue long after we’re all gone. It’s a toxic mix of arrogance and ignorance that will leave immigration and refugee policy in tatters for years to come.

I can only hope that there are those out there in the upcoming generations who will bring to the immigration phenomenon practical scholarship, reason, humanity, fairness, and better ideas on management of our laws for the benefit of our country and humanity as a whole.

PWS

03-07-18

Related posts:

  1. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  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 EDITORIAL RIPS TRUMP/SESSIONS “GONZO” IMMIGRATION AGENDA AS “ANTI-AMERICAN!”– White Nationalist Inspired Restrictionism Is Suppressing The Real Dialogue We Should Be Having!
  4. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!

PROFESSOR CORI ALONSO-YODER ANALYZES SUPREME’S JENNINGS V. RODRIGUEZ

https://www.gwlr.org/jennings-v-rodriguez-against-the-backdrop-of-executive-enforcement-and-legislative-inaction-the-court-revisits-the-issue-of-prolonged-immigration-detention

Mar. 5, 2018

Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U.S. ___ (2018) (Alito, J.).
Response by Cori Alonso-Yoder
Geo. Wash. L. Rev. On the Docket (Oct. Term 2017)
Slip Opinion | New York Times | SCOTUSblog

Jennings v. Rodriguez: Against the Backdrop of Executive Enforcement and Legislative Inaction, the Court Revisits the Issue of Prolonged Immigration Detention

Today marks President Trump’s deadline to Congress for addressing the question of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA. In the months since the Administration announced the end of the DACA program, the debate on immigration reform has expanded from the initial ultimatum to create a legislative alternative to the program, to new issues of restriction on current legal immigration, including the elimination of certain family-based categories and the repeal of the visa lottery system. After months of opportunity to address these questions, congressional efforts to reform immigration appear stalled beyond salvation, in no small part due to a clear lack of direction from the President himself. As a result, DACA seems destined to expire today due to inaction from leaders at the legislative and executive levels.

Onto this backdrop, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Jennings v. Rodriguez1 on February 27th. Writing for a five-to-three majority on issues related to immigration detention, Justice Samuel Alito reversed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision granting semiannual bond hearings to certain categories of immigrant detainees. Only Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy joined the Alito opinion in full, with Justices Gorsuch and Thomas declining to endorse the plurality’s view of a jurisdictional question in the case (for which Justice Thomas authored a concurrence). In the dissent, Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg signed onto Justice Breyer’s passionate and lengthy opinion arguing for bail provisions to be extended to these detainees.

At issue in Jennings are conditions of detention and related questions of bond eligibility for individuals falling within three statutory categories, all of whom have been detained longer than six months. Lead plaintiff, Alejandro Rodriguez, represents the class as a whole as well as the category of individuals detained under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c) (individuals who have been convicted of certain crimes or engaged in terrorist activities). The class also includes individuals detained under § 1225(b)(1)(B)(ii) (asylum seekers), and under § 1225(b)(2)(A) (applicants for admission who are not clearly entitled to be admitted, otherwise known as “arriving aliens”).

In its opinion, the Court rejected the Ninth Circuit’s construction of §§ 1225(b), 1226(a), and 1226(c) as requiring a six-month periodic review to save the statutory framework from constitutional nullification. Relying on the Court’s decision in Zadvydas v. Davis2 and the canon of constitutional avoidance, the lower court reasoned that a six-month bond review must be interpreted into the relevant provisions in order for the framework to survive constitutional scrutiny under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The Court found this interpretation “implausible,” holding that the clear language of those statutory provisions is susceptible to only one interpretation that does not contemplate a periodic custody review, and that the canon of constitutional avoidance only applies where more than one plausible interpretation of the statute is available.3 The Court also distinguished its decision in Zadvydas by underscoring the ambiguity of the potential length of detention in the statute at issue in that case. By contrast, in Jennings the Court reasons that Congress left no room for similar interpretation in this case, having explicitly provided for conclusion of detention of these individuals only in certain circumstances clearly expressed in the relevant statutes.

The majority proceeds to reverse the Ninth Circuit’s construction of the detention statutes, but declines to reach the Fifth Amendment and Due Process arguments raised by the respondents. Instead, the Court remands the case to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings to consider the constitutional merits of those claims, while simultaneously suggesting that a class action may not be the appropriate vehicle for those individualized claims.

The opinion of the Court is striking because the dissenting justices feel no such compunction to reserve the constitutional questions. In fact, Justice Breyer’s opinion rests almost exclusively on Due Process and, to a lesser extent, Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, spending little time relative to the majority in interpreting the relevant statutory provisions. Instead, Justice Breyer points to numerous factors to argue why the majority’s reading of the detention statutes cannot survive constitutional scrutiny and must be reconstructed to include a bond provision. Among these factors, he notes the sheer number of individuals detained under §§ 1225 and 1226, the increasingly lengthy terms of their detention, and the high likelihood of success on the merits for many within these categories in their claims for immigration relief.

Regarding the number of detainees affected by this decision, the dissent notes that nearly 20,000 individuals, 7500 asylum seekers, and 12,220 noncitizens who have completed terms of confinement for criminal convictions, fall within two of the three categories of detainee considered by the Court. The dissenting opinion also cites the length of detentions at issue, noting that they are now considerably longer than six months, and distinguishing this from the short-term detention of immigrant detainees addressed by the Court in Demore v. Kim.4 In concluding that the respondents should have access to a more flexible opportunity to apply for bond, the dissent is also persuaded by statistics showing that nearly two-thirds of the asylum seekers and 40% of those detained following criminal confinement ultimately prevail in applications to remain in the United States.

Also present in the dissent, but not in the opinion of the Court, is limited reference to increased immigration enforcement by the Trump Administration. While the politics of enforcement are not met head on, Justice Breyer’s dissent alludes to current events by citing President Trump’s Executive Order5 directing parole of detainees only under certain limited circumstances.6

As the lower court is left to address the constitutional questions, the Breyer dissent proves instructive by reaching elements of those arguments that the Court declines to take up in its majority opinion. Among the issues previewed in the dissent that are likely to arise on remand is the Government’s assertion that many of the respondents in Jennings cannot claim the protection of the Fifth Amendment because “the law treats arriving aliens as if they had never entered the United States; hence they are not held within its territory.”7 The dissent roundly dismisses this interpretation as “of course, false,”8 but the question will become an increasingly important one for the courts to address, especially as Jennings continues its trajectory through the federal appellate courts.

Indeed, the unsettled nature of the Jennings decision foreshadows a future in which the courts are likely to wrestle with increased calls to address these issues of detention and enforcement. For example, 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(3) gives Customs and Border Protection Agents broad powers of search and seizure without a warrant to enforce immigration laws within a broad reach of an international border,9 generally held to reach within 100 miles of the U.S. interior.

In addition, the Trump Administration has signaled an intent to aggressively enforce the nation’s existing immigration laws, while also expanding the reaches of the law to further restrict legal immigration. Along with Executive Order No. 13,767, cited in the Jennings dissent, the Trump Administration also published Executive Order No. 13,768, “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States.”10 Taken together (and issued the same day within the first week of the new administration), these two Executive Orders enshrined the campaign promises of the new President to act aggressively and expansively to secure the border and enforce immigration law within the interior of the United States.

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, these efforts have proven effective, with immigration officials charting an increase of 42% in administrative arrests.11 Meanwhile, the immigration courts’ backlogs continue to grow, expanding from approximately 212,000 cases at the beginning of fiscal year 2006 with a median wait pending time of 198 days, to approximately 437,000 cases in fiscal year 2015 with a median pending time of 404 days.12 These numbers reflect a judiciary crippled by backlog and increased enforcement even before the injection of the new administration’s revamped and expanded priorities for enforcement. In the current climate of legislative inaction, it is likely the courts will continue to be the explainers and problem solvers for a system desperately in need of reform. As with questions of immigration reform, the Jennings remand means that we are likely to be revisiting these issues again not long from now.

Ana Corina “Cori” Alonso-Yoder is the Practitioner-in-Residence and Clinical Professor of Law with the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the American University Washington College of Law. Professor Alonso-Yoder’s commentary on immigration law and immigrants’ rights has been featured by ABC News, The Atlantic, Washington Monthly, and The National Law Journal & Legal Times among others.

  1. Jennings v. Rodriguez, No. 15–1204, slip op. (U.S. Feb. 27, 2018).
  2. 533 U.S. 678 (2001) (requiring a custody review hearing after six months of detention in order to avoid unconstitutional indefinite detention where an individual cannot be removed from the United States).
  3. Jennings, slip op. at 12–13.
  4. 538 U.S. 510, 530 (2003) (noting that the detention at issue in that case “lasts roughly a month and a half”).
  5. Exec. Order No. 13,767, 82 Fed. Reg. 8793 (Jan. 30, 2017).
  6. Jennings, slip op. at 25 (Breyer, J., dissenting).
  7. Id. at 7.
  8. Id.
  9. 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(3) (2012).
  10. Exec. Order No. 13,768, 82 Fed. Reg. 8799 (Jan. 30, 2017).
  11. Immigration & Customs Enf’t, ICE Impact in FY 2017 (2018), https://www.ice.gov/topics/fy2017.
  12. U.S. Gov’t Accountability Off., GAO-17-438, Actions Needed to Reduce Case Backlog and Address Long-Standing Management and Operational Challenges (2017).

Recommended Citation Cori Alonso-Yoder, Response, Jennings v. Rodriguez:Against the Backdrop of Executive Enforcement and Legislative Inaction, the Court Revisits the Issue of Prolonged Immigration Detention, Geo. Wash. L. Rev. On the Docket (Mar. 5, 2018), https://www.gwlr.org/jennings-v-rodriguez-against-the-backdrop-of-executive-enforcement-and-legislative-inaction-the-court-revisits-the-issue-of-prolonged-immigration-detention.

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

Thanks for a great article, Cori!

Here are links to previous posts on Jennings:

https://wp.me/p8eeJm-2e8

https://wp.me/p8eeJm-2cL

https://wp.me/p8eeJm-1wI

The third of these posts illustrates how Constitutionally required bond hearings change and save lives and how the majority’s short-shrifting of Constitutional Due Process could actually cost lives.

PWS

03-07-18

Related posts:

  1. PROFESSOR DANIEL PENA — Supremes Anti-Latino Decision In Jennings v. Rodriguez Threatens The Due Process Rights of All Americans — When The Thugs Come for YOU, Who Will Stand Up For YOUR Rights If YOU Stand By While Others’ Rights Are Trashed?
  2. THE NY TIMES TAKES YOU INSIDE THE “NERVE CENTER” OF THE WHITE NATIONALIST EMPIRE: TRUMP’S “GONZO” IMMIGRATION POLICIES DRIVEN BY XENOPHOBIA, RACISM, IRRATIONAL FEAR, FAKE NEWS, MISINFORMATON, AND BIAS! – Trump & Cronies Deny Our Nation’s Immigrant Past While Seeking To Destroy Our Future As A Powerful and Diverse Democracy!
  3. 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!
  4. CHILD ABUSE: COWARDLY ADMINISTRATION USES FALSE NARRATIVES & DISTORTED FACTS TO ATTACK PROTECTIONS FOR REFUGEE CHILDREN — Our National Morality & Human Decency In Free-fall Under Trump! — “It has been national law and policy that as adults we look out for children …. No longer.”

WASHPOST: ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER ACT OF WANTON CRUELTY BY NIELSEN’S DHS — “Gratuitous malice toward children is not a characteristic one generally associates with the United States, but under Ms. Nielsen’s guidance, the Department of Homeland Security seems intent on changing that.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gratuitous-cruelty-by-homeland-security-separating-a-7-year-old-from-her-mother/2018/03/04/98fae4f0-1bff-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html

Gratuitous cruelty by Homeland Security: Separating a 7-year-old from her mother

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in the White House on March 1. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
By Editorial Board March 4 at 7:11 PM
WHAT, EXACTLY, did a 7-year-old Congolese girl do to the United States to deserve the trauma that has been visited upon her — including forcible separation from her mother — by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and her immigration agents?

There is no allegation that the little girl, known in court filings only as S.S., is a terrorist, nor is there any suggestion her mother is one. Neither was involved with smuggling, nor contraband, nor lawbreaking of any other variety. Rather, S.S.’s 39-year-old mother presented herself and her daughter to U.S. officials when they crossed the border from Mexico four months ago, explaining they had fled extreme violence in Congo, and requesting asylum.

A U.S. asylum officer interviewed Ms. L, as the mother is called in a lawsuit filed on her behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union, determined that she had a credible fear of harm if she were returned to Congo and stood a decent chance of ultimately being granted asylum. Despite that preliminary finding, officials decided that the right thing to do was to wrench S.S. from her mother, whereupon the mother “could hear her daughter in the next room frantically screaming that she wanted to remain with her mother,” the lawsuit states.

The Trump administration has said that it is considering separating parents from their children as a means of deterring other families, most of them Central American, from undertaking the perilous trip necessary to reach the United States and seek asylum. Now, without any formal announcement, that cruel practice, ruled out by previous administrations, has become increasingly common, immigrant advocacy groups say. In the nine months preceding February, government agents separated children from their parents 53 times, according to data compiled by the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

Make no mistake: Ms. L and S.S. could have been placed together in a family detention center. There has been no explanation of why the determination was made to separate them; nor is there any allegation that Ms. L. is an unfit parent. The only principle at work, if it can be called that, is the idea that future asylum seekers might be deterred if they are convinced that the United States is actually a crueler and more heartless place than their native country.

Gratuitous malice toward children is not a characteristic one generally associates with the United States, but under Ms. Nielsen’s guidance, the Department of Homeland Security seems intent on changing that. A Homeland Security spokesman would not comment on this case but said that the department does not “currently” have a policy regarding separating asylum-seeking parents and children who are detained.

Separating children from their parents while they await adjudication of asylum claims is of a piece with arresting and deporting upstanding, otherwise law-abiding unauthorized immigrants who have lived and worked for decades in the United States and are the parents of U.S.-born children. That practice, too, carried out by Homeland Security deportation agents, has become far more common under the Trump administration.

Since being torn away in early November, S.S., who is being held at a facility in Chicago, has been permitted to speak with her mother, who is in a detention center in San Diego, just half a dozen times by phone. The girl, who turned 7 in December, routinely cries on the phone, according to the ACLU lawsuit. Is this the kind of protection Americans want from their Department of Homeland Security?

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It’s almost (but not quite) unfair to blame Nielsen for this garbage. After all, she was selected for the DHS position precisely because she is a gutless intellectual lightweight who will just do the foul bidding of Trump, Sessions, Kelly, and Miller no questions asked and no resistance tolerated. That’s what “government by sycophants” is all about.

In the meantime, the New Due Process Army and the rest of us who still believe in our Constitution and humane values have to redouble our resistance to the evil of the Trumpsters and their allies. In the end, it’s a fight for the heart and soul of America as nation!

PWS

03-05-18

 

Related posts:

  1. 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!
  2. FOUR TODDLERS RESCUED BY PRO BONO LAWYERS FROM DEADLY SITUATION IN CBP CUSTODY — Putrid, Unsanitary, Repressive Conditions Causing Lifetime Harm To Other Traumatized Kids — But, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost Wants You To Know That She’s Not Taking Responsibility For The Humanitarian Disaster Intentionally Engineered On Her Watch!
  3. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  4. 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?” 

LIAR-IN-CHIEF GETS FOUR (4) PINOCCHIOS FOR TOTALLY BOGUS CLAIMS ABOUT THE “VISA LOTTERY!”🤥🤥🤥🤥

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/02/26/president-trumps-consistent-misrepresentation-of-how-the-diversity-visa-lottery-works/?utm_term=.ef79ebd959db

Glenn Kessler for the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker:

“Think of the lottery. You have a country, they put names in. You think they’re giving us their good people? Not too many of you people are going to be in a lottery. So we pick out people, then they turn out to be horrendous and we don’t understand why. They’re not giving us their best people, folks. They’re not giving us — I mean, use your heads. They’re giving us — it’s a lottery. I don’t want people coming into this country with a lottery. I want people coming into this country based on merit, based on merit.”
— President Trump, in remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Feb. 23, 2018

“We need something to do with chain migration and something to do with visa lottery. I mean we actually have lottery systems where you go to countries and they do lotteries for who comes into the United States. Now, you know they are not going to have their best people in the lottery, because they’re not going to put their best people in a lottery. They don’t want to have their good people to leave. . . . We want people based on merit. Not based on the fact they are thrown into a bin and many of those people are not the people you want in the country, believe me.”
— Trump, remarks during an interview with Jeanine Pirro of Fox News, Feb. 24 

We have repeatedly covered the president’s inaccurate description of the diversity visa lottery system as part of speech roundups and in our database of Trump’s false and misleading claims. At last count, he has made at least 16 inaccurate claims about the diversity visa lottery, though we are still trying to catch up with all of his remarks in February.

We often toss obviously false claims in the database, deeming them not worthy of a fact check, only to find ourselves months later writing a full fact check because the president continues to make his claim, unabashed by the number of times he has been declared wrong. One of our colleagues, rereading the president’s speech to CPAC, noted: “His absolute refusal to understand what the visa lottery is remains amazing.”

Then we saw Trump’s interview with Pirro. Oh my. So here’s the full story, written in the hope the president will read it and perhaps learn something.

The Facts

The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, as the program is officially called, originally was designed to help the Irish.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. It was aimed at reuniting families, so applicants who had immediate family living in the United States — children, spouses, siblings, parents — were given priority. This, however, had some unforeseen consequences.  Immigrants from Latin American and Asian countries had come to the United States more recently, and they often had immediate family overseas who were prioritized under the new program. Many Europeans, by contrast, had been in the country for decades, so they had fewer close relatives remaining overseas.

The change in immigration policy hit the Irish particularly hard.

Unlike other European countries, Ireland faced political instability and an economic crisis in the second half of the 20th century. Before 1965, it had been relatively simple for the Irish to immigrate. By the 1980s, as a result, tens of thousands of Irish immigrants came to the United States as tourists or students and overstayed their visas.

In 1990, lawmakers, led by then-Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), pressed for passage of a bill that proposed making a set number of visas available each year to “diversity immigrants” from “low-admission” countries. Despite being couched as a “diversity” action, it was openly pitched as a way to aid the Irish. President George H.W. Bush signed it into law in 1990 as part of a broader immigration package.

Today, under the visa lottery system, a computer program managed by a State Department office in Williamsburg, Ky., randomly selects up to 50,000 immigrant visas a year — from nearly 15 million who applied in 2017 — from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Thus people from about 20 countries such as Brazil, Canada, China, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, the United Kingdom (except North Ireland) and Vietnam are out of luck because more than 50,000 people from these countries had been admitted during the last five years. The visas are apportioned among six geographic regions, with a maximum of 7 percent available to persons born in any single country.

So, essentially, the odds of being selected are under 1 percent — and what that gets you initially is an invitation to apply for a green card. (In 2017, the State Department notified nearly 116,000 that they could apply, but the program ends once 50,000 are accepted. Each person selected gets a number on the list, so people in the bottom half have increasingly less chance of winning a visa.)

Individuals who apply must have at least a high school diploma (or its equivalent) or two years’ work experience of a type specified by the State Department to be eligible for the program. The selected applicants undergo a background check, interview and medical tests before entering the country, and some applicants undergo an additional in-depth review if they are considered a possible security risk — after which, selected applicants can be deemed ineligible for a visa.

Now let’s look back at Trump’s recent remarks and see what he apparently fails to understand:

  • “You have a country, they put names in.” Nope, no country submits the names of people for the diversity visa lottery; people who apply are self-selected.
  • “We actually have lottery systems where you go to countries and they do lotteries for who comes into the United States.” Wrong again. The foreign countries do not run their own lottery systems. The United States randomly selects from the millions of people who apply. As noted, a State Department office located in Kentucky, with a workforce of 400 people, manages the process. The Kentucky office receives and processes lottery entries, selects winners, processes winners’ visa applications, and schedules applicant interviews at missions abroad.
  • “They’re not going to put their best people in a lottery. They don’t want to have their good people to leave.”Again, the selection of applicants is not done by other countries. Moreover, the odds of success are so low that even if another country decided who could apply, there would be a less than 1 percent chance of success in getting rid of such people.

Indeed, far from being losers, there is evidence that many of those who immigrate through the program are better educated than the minimum criteria would suggest. A study by the Migration Policy Institute, using Census Bureau data for 19 countries with high rates of diversity visas, found that among recent immigrants ages 25 and older, “50 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher (compared to 32 percent of the overall U.S. population in 2016), 16 percent reported some college education, and 12 percent had less than a high school diploma.”

Asked for an explanation of the president’s comments, a White House official did not address the substance of the question but pointed to two reports.

  • In 2004, the State Department’s deputy inspector general warned that the visa lottery “contains significant threats to national security as hostile intelligence officers, criminals, and terrorists attempt to use it to enter the United States as permanent residents.” This refers to congressional testimony by Anne W. Patterson, who recommended that applications not be accepted from countries listed by State as sponsoring terrorism; that recommendation was not acted on. In the same testimony, Patterson lauded the Kentucky office managing the program and its efforts to root out fraud.
  • Also in 2004, the House Judiciary Committee noted that “there are few restrictions on the countries from which applicants may come. . . . Second, under the program, successful applicants are chosen at random. . . . Because diversity visa winners do not necessarily have such ties, the program could offer an opportunity for individuals or groups who want to harm the United States, its institutions, and its people to place terrorists in the United States.”

The official added that “the point is that they are not admitted on the basis of skill or merit. The educational requirements are virtually nonexistent — a high school education or two years of work experience that requires two years of training. That’s not admitting someone with any regard for skill or merit or their ability to contribute.”

A 2007 report from the Government Accountability Office did point to substantial fraud risks within the program and proposed using data to mitigate these risks. However, the State Department at the time disagreed with the report’s findings, saying it already had managed those risks. The same report noted that there could be ‘‘difficulty in verifying identities,” which could have “security-based implications because State’s security checks rely heavily on name-based databases,” something a 2011 report from the House Judiciary Committee suggests could be a national security weakness.

The Fact Checker obviously takes no position on the diversity visa program. In addition to possible national-security issues, fraud continues to be a problem, such as some visa winners selling part of their visa to someone who pretends to be their spouse for the purposes of immigrating to the United States.

The Pinocchio Test

The president clearly dislikes the diversity visa program. Perhaps it has outlived its original purpose. But that’s no excuse for him to consistently misrepresent how it works.

Contrary to his repeated claims, countries do not select the applicants and do not run the lottery. Instead, nearly 15 million people from countries with low immigration to the United States apply annually for the slim chance to win an invitation to apply for a green card.

A State Department office in Kentucky manages the lottery. It’s located in a pleasant part of the state, near Daniel Boone National Forest, in the heart of Trump country. Perhaps the president should visit it one day and find out how the program really operates.

Four Pinocchios

 

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In this shameless Administration, led by a congenital liar, truth, particularly about immigration issues, has ceased to have meaning. That’s why those of us who know and believe in truth must work overtime to set the record straight and, eventually, to remove these abusers of power, elected by a minority of American voters, from public office.
PWS
03-04-18

Related posts:

  1. SPRINT TO THE BOTTOM: Trump Administration Trashes Refugees & Human Rights In A Despicable Return To “1939-Style Fascism Lite!” — America’s Rancid Conduct & Negative Leadership Presages Another Worldwide Refugee Tragedy — This Time The Blood Will Be Directly On Our Hands!
  2. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  3. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: CLYDE W. FORD @ LA TIMES: “Opinion: The immigration crisis and the racism driving it have roots in Hitler’s ‘bible’”
  4. 🤡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”

PROFESSOR DANIEL PENA — Supremes Anti-Latino Decision In Jennings v. Rodriguez Threatens The Due Process Rights of All Americans — When The Thugs Come for YOU, Who Will Stand Up For YOUR Rights If YOU Stand By While Others’ Rights Are Trashed?

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/supreme-court-s-latest-immigration-ruling-formalizes-terror-against-latinos-ncna851966

Pena writes:

“The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Jennings v. Rodriguez on Tuesday is a bizarre and dark new development in the American experiment. Not only because it’s a breakdown of the court’s ability to properly interpret the constitution (as they formally institutionalize a de facto second class of citizens), but because it’s a dereliction of the court’s duty as a part of a system of checks and balances designed to protect the constitutional rights of people in this country, regardless of country of origin, from a tyrannical government that would subvert our founding document for political or racist ends.

This ruling only formalizes what many of us in the Latinx community have known for generations: that the perpetuation of systems and laws that instill fear in immigrants (detained or not) is a form of state-sponsored terror. Now the court is complicit and part of that terror. And as pathways to legal status for immigrants come under attack by the current administration, this kind of terror is increasingly designed to incarcerate people for no other reason than for their inability to access pathways toward legal status — which is how this ruling will likely be used by this current administration.

The court ruled in Jennings v. Rodriguez that all immigrants, even those with protected legal status or asylum seekers, do not have a right to periodic bond hearing after detention, which makes it possible for them to be detained indefinitely. The defendant, Alejandro Rodriguez, who was brought to the United States from Mexico as an infant and became a permanent legal resident, was detained for three years for joy riding and possession of a controlled substance; the ACLU was fighting for his right to a hearing.

 A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent. David Maung / Bloomberg Via Getty Images

It comes a day after another Supreme Court decision not to rule on the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which in effect leaves that program safe for at least another year. But while the ruling on DACA might give the impression of an impartial system of courts, the latter development undermines that illusion by giving this discriminatory Trump administration its seal of approval in the name of the law.

All three branches are now in sync with their consensus to terrorize detained immigrants, documented and undocumented alike. And the explicit message of this ruling against Rodriguez is that, no matter your legal status, the constitution does not work for you if you’re an immigrant. You can be extracted from the American fabric for seemingly arbitrary reasons, by virtue of that now-institutionalized second class status.

What we’ve seen is the majority of this court, our last branch of un-bought government, actively buying out of the idea of America as a melting pot, as a nation of immigrants who deserve certain unalienable rights, not unlike life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents serve an employment audit notice at a 7-Eleven convenience store on January 10, 2018, in Los Angeles. Chris Carlson / AP

This should be a wake-up call to anyone who thought (maybe still thinks) that they have nothing to fear because they are documented, or that they have nothing to fear because they’re not Latinx, or that they have nothing to fear because they are another type of immigrant, or they have nothing to fear because they’ve done nothing wrong. The ruling makes it possible to target, criminalize and then indefinitely detain someone for no other offense than being systematically denied a pathway toward legal status in the first place — or even if they did.”

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Read Pena’s full article at the link.

I’ve pointed out before that it’s still not clear on what side of history this version of the Supremes stand. So far, as a group, they have shown little backbone or desire to stand up to the Trump Administrations’s all-out assaults on the Constitution, the “rule of law,” and human rights. That could be a big mistake, since the Trumpsters, to a man (not many women in the “land of misogyny”) have shown total disrespect and disdain for judges at all levels, particularly Federal Judges.

Latinos must get to the polls in larger numbers and “un-elect” at all levels a GOP that has largely gone over to a White Nationalist, anti-Latino racist agenda. Votes are power! That’s why the GOP cherishes voter suppression and gerrymandering so much.

PWS

03-04-18

 

Related posts:

  1. 🤡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”
  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. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  4. 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!

HON. JEFFREY CHASE WITH MORE ANALYSIS OF THE CASTRO-TUM AMICUS BRIEFS!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2018/3/4/14-former-ijs-and-bia-members-file-amicus-brief-with-ag

14 Former IJs and BIA Members File Amicus Brief with AG

On February 16, the law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP filed an amicus curiae (i.e. “friend of the court”) brief on behalf of 14 former immigration judges and BIA board members with Attorney General Jeff Sessions pursuant to his request in Matter of Castro-Tum.  In that decision, the Attorney General certified to himself an unpublished decision, in which he requested amicus briefs on the following:  (1) whether IJs and the BIA have the authority administratively close cases, and if so, whether the BIA’s precedent decisions “articulate the appropriate standard for administrative closure”  (2) If it is determined that IJs lack such authority, should the AG delegate it, or conversely, if the IJs have such authority, should the AG withdraw it; (3) can the purpose of administrative closure be satisfied through other docket management devices; and (4) if the AG determines that IJs and the BIA lack such authority, what should be done with the cases already closed.

As immigration judges and the BIA have exercised their authority to administratively close cases for decades, the AG suddenly raising these questions on his own would seem to signal his intent to do away with this important docket-management tool.  As background, the respondent in Castro-Tum is an unrepresented, unaccompanied minor.  When he did not appear for a scheduled removal hearing after the immigration court mailed a notice to what it was told was the minor’s address, the DHS attorney requested the immigration judge to order the child removed from the U.S.  However, the IJ had questions concerning the reliability of the mailing address that the government provided to the immigration court, and declined to enter the removal order, administratively closing the proceedings instead.  The DHS attorney appealed.  It should be noted that the appeal did not challenge an immigration judge’s right generally to administratively close cases; the DHS believed that in this particular case, the evidence of record should have required the IJ to enter an order of removal.  The BIA agreed with the DHS, and reversed the IJ’s order.  It was at that point that the AG inserted himself into the matter by certifying an already-resolved matter to himself and turning it into a challenge to the overall authority to administratively close any case.

Numerous groups filed amicus briefs in this case; they include those that represent unaccompanied children; immigrant rights groups, and academic clinicians.  The American Immigration Council (AIC) argued in its brief that AG Sessions’ history of hostility towards noncitizens renders him unfit to decide the issue raised in Castro-Tum.  Our group of former IJs and Board members brought a unique perspective to the issue, based on our many years of collective experience managing case dockets and addressing the issues that administrative closure is designed to remedy.

Immigration Judges exist by statute.  Therefore, the inherent powers delegated to them (including the power to control their own dockets, and to administratively close cases as a means of exercising such control) come from Congress, and not the Attorney General.  As our brief explains, such authority of judges to control their dockets has been recognized by the Supreme Court and lower federal courts.  Federal regulations issued by the Department of Justice grant immigration judges the power to “exercise their independent judgment and discretion,” including the ability to “take any action consistent with their authorities under the Act and regulations that is appropriate and necessary for the disposition” of the individual cases appearing before them.

Furthermore, the BIA has set out the proper standard for determining whether a case should be administratively closed or required to proceed.  In Matter of Avetisyan, the Board laid out the criteria that may properly be considered in determining whether administrative closure is appropriate.  In Matter of W-Y-U-, the Board added that the most important consideration is whether the party opposing administrative closure has provided a persuasive reason for the case to proceed and be resolved on the merits.  The immigration judge is required set forth his or her reasons for administrative closure in a decision which may be reviewed on appeal to both the BIA and the federal circuit courts.

The brief additionally points out the inadequacy of other existing tools.  In Avetisyan, the immigration judge granted multiple continuances to allow DHS to adjudicate a visa petition filed on behalf of the respondent.  However, the petition could not be adjudicated because USCIS (which adjudicates such petitions) was required to keep returning the file to the ICE prosecutor before it could get to the petition because it was needed for the next immigration court hearing (which was only scheduled to check on the status of the visa petition).  The file remained in constant orbit, never remaining with USCIS long enough to allow for adjudication of the petition, which in turn would require another continuance.  Furthermore, federal regulation specifically requires that immigration proceedings by administratively closed before USCIS will adjudicate certain waivers of inadmissibility.  As noted in the brief, DHS defended such administrative closure requirement when its necessity was questioned by a comment on the proposed regulation.

Our group of amici expresses our sincere gratitude to the outstanding attorneys at Akin Gump who provided their pro bono assistance:  partner Steven H. Schulman; Andrew Schwerin, the primary drafter; and  Martine Cicconi, Mallory Jones, and Chris Chamberlain, who drafted sections of the brief.  We also thank Prof. Deborah Anker of Harvard Law School and the staff and students of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic for its invaluable support and insights.  The amici included  in our brief were former BIA Chair and Board Member and former Immigration Judge Paul W. Schmidt; former Board Members Cecelia M. Espenoza, Lory D. Rosenberg, Gustavo D. Villageliu, and former Immigration Judges Sarah M. Burr, Bruce J. Einhorn, Noel Ferris, John F. Gossart, Jr., William P. Joyce, Edward Kandler, Carol King, Susan Roy, Polly A. Webber, and myself.

Copyright 2017 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

 

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Jeffrey S. Chase is an immigration lawyer in New York City.  Jeffrey is a former Immigration Judge, senior legal advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals, and volunteer staff attorney at Human Rights First.  He is a past recipient of AILA’s annual Pro Bono Award, and previously chaired AILA’s Asylum Reform Task Force.

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION.

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As a mentioned earlier, the leaders of this effort were Jeffrey, Judge Lory Diana Rosenberg, and Judge Carol King! an honor and a pleasure to work with all of them to restore Due Process to our Immigration Court
system.

PWS

03-04-18

Related posts:

  1. “GANG OF 14” FORMER IMMIGRATION JUDGES AND BIA APPELLATE IMMIGRATION JUDGES (INCLUDING ME) FILE AMICUS BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF ADMINISTRATIVE CLOSING! – Matter of Castro-Tum
  2. THE LATEST FROM THE HON. JEFFREY CHASE: “Amicus Brief Filed in 10th Cir. Petition for Remotely-Detained Asylum Seeker” — PLUS: A Link To The Actual Brief! — MATUMONA V. SESSIONS, 10th Cir.
  3. MANUEL MADRID @ AMERICAN PROSPECT: Sessions Relishes Chance To Turn U.S. Immigration Courts Into “Whistle Stops On His Deportation Railway!” – Administrative Closing Likely Just To Be The First Casualty – I’m Quoted!
  4. “GANG” OF RETIRED US IMMIGRATION JUDGES IMMEDIATELY CONDEMNS LATEST OUTRAGEOUS ATTACK ON ASYLUM LAW, DUE PROCESS, & HUMAN RIGHTS BY SESSIONS IN MATTER OF A-B-!

WHEN EVERYTHING & EVERYBODY IS A PRIORITY, THERE ARE NO PRIORITIES — WHAT “GONZO” IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT IS REALLY ABOUT!

At CNN, the “Amazing Tal” has it all for you:

Happy Friday!
Hope you’re battening down the hatches during this Nor’easter.
You may have already seen, but wanted to send you my latest story this morning, a deep dive into immigration arrests.
Have a great weekend and stay safe!
Tal

http://www.cnn.com/2018/03/02/politics/ice-immigration-deportations/index.html

How Trump changed the rules to arrest more non-criminal immigrants
By Tal Kopan, CNN
A businessman and father from Ohio. An Arizona mother. The Indiana husband of a Trump supporter. They were unassuming members of their community, parents of US citizens and undocumented. And they were deported by the Trump administration.
It’s left many wondering why the US government is arresting and deporting a number of individuals who have often lived in the country for decades, checked in regularly with immigration officials and posed no danger to their community. Many have family members who are American citizens, including school-aged children.
President Donald Trump famously said in a presidential debate that his focus is getting the “bad hombres” and the “bad, bad people” out first to secure the border, but one of his first actions after taking office was an executive order that effectively granted immigration agents the authority to arrest and detain any undocumented immigrant they wanted.
Where the Obama administration focused deportation efforts almost exclusively on criminals and national security threats, as well as immigrants who recently arrived illegally, the Trump administration has also targeted immigrants with what are called final orders of removal — an order from a judge that a person can be deported and has no more appeals left.
In Trump’s first year, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 109,000 criminals and 46,000 people without criminal records — a 171% increase in the number of non-criminal individuals arrested over 2016.
The Trump administration regularly says its focus is criminals and safety threats, but has also repeatedly made clear that no one in the country illegally will be exempted from enforcement.
“We target criminal aliens, but we’re not going to exempt an entire class of (non)citizens,” Department of Homeland Security spokesman Tyler Houlton told reporters Wednesday.
“All of those in violation of immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States,” ICE spokeswoman Sarah Rodriguez added in a statement.
Critics say including people with decades-old final orders of removal as priorities is more about boosting numbers by targeting easily catchable individuals than about public safety threats.
“A final order of removal is absolutely not indicative of a person’s threat to public safety,” said former Obama administration ICE chief and DHS counsel John Sandweg. “You cannot equate convicted criminals with final orders of removal.”
Sandweg said that people with final orders, especially those who are checking in regularly with ICE, are easy to locate and can be immediately deported without much legal recourse. Identifying and locating criminals and gang members takes more investigative work.
There are more than 90,000 people on so-called orders of supervision who check in regularly with ICE officials, according to the agency. And there are more than 1 million who have removal proceedings pending or who have been ordered to leave the country but have not.
As a result of the change in ICE policy, headlines about heart-wrenching cases of deportation separating children from parents or caregivers have been a regular occurrence.
The story of Amer Adi, an Ohio businessman who lived in the US nearly 40 years, and has a wife and four daughters who are all American citizens, drew national media coverage last month. Through a complicated dispute about his first marriage, Adi lost his status and was ordered deported in 2009, but ICE never opted to remove him from the country. His congressman even introduced a bill to protect Adi, saying he was a “pillar” of the community, but last fall, ICE told Adi to prepare to be deported.
At a check-in on January 15, he was taken into custody and not allowed to see his family before being put on a plane back to his home country of Jordan on January 30.
“We shouldn’t spend one penny on low-hanging fruit,” said Sarah Saldana, the most recent director of ICE before Trump’s inauguration. “What we should be spending money is on getting people who are truly a threat to public safety.”

‘ICE fugitives’
The Trump administration has subtly blurred the distinction between criminals and those with final orders of removal, which is a civil, not criminal charge.
ICE has combined “ICE fugitives” — people who have been ordered to leave the country but haven’t yet — with convicted criminals who have pending criminal charges and reinstated final orders of removal, allowing the agency to say 92% of those arrested under Trump had criminal convictions or one of the other factors — when the number with criminal records is closer to 70%.
With an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US, ICE has typically had resources to arrest and deport only roughly 150,000-250,000 individuals per year — requiring the agency to make choices about who to prioritize to proactively seek out for arrest.
ICE says its mission is carrying out the law and that it “must” deport these individuals.
“The immigration laws of the United States allow an alien to pursue relief from removal; however, once they have exhausted all due process and appeals, they remain subject to a final order of removal from an immigration judge and that order must be carried out,” said Rodriguez. “Failing to carry out final orders of removal would be inconsistent with the entire federal framework of immigration enforcement established by Congress, and undermine the integrity of the US immigration system.”
Administration officials also argue the publicizing of these cases sends a message to would-be border crossers that undocumented immigrants are never safe in the US, even when sympathetic.
“If we don’t fix these loopholes, we’re going to entice others to make that dangerous journey,” ICE Director Tom Homan told the President at a roundtable earlier last month. “So it’s just not about law enforcement, it’s about saving lives.”

Limited resources
But Saldana and other former immigration officials question the prudence of going after that population indiscriminately, saying it diverts resources from more serious security concerns.
If 20 officers are assigned to identify targets with final orders, “those are 20 officers who won’t be out focused on finding gang members or criminals,” said Bo Cooper, a career official who served as general counsel of ICE’s predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
“When there are a finite amount of resources, choices you make come at the expense of other choices,” Cooper said. “It really is a significant policy choice.”
Sandweg said the Obama administration in 2014 changed its priorities to move away from those with old removal orders in order to give itself more resources to pick up targets from jails, which can be hours away from ICE offices, when they get word that a criminal could be detained on immigration charges.
Sandweg and Cooper noted that other law enforcement agencies also prioritize — the Drug Enforcement Administration doesn’t bother with low-level marijuana possession, but focuses on cartels, Sandweg said — and it’s a part of agency culture.
“Setting enforcement priorities is not micromanagement, that’s what every law enforcement agency does,” agreed Cooper.
As for whether ICE was handcuffed during the Obama era, Saldana said that even in Trump’s executive order, there is room for discretion.
“That’s silly,” Saldana said. “Can you imagine having 11, 12 million in the system? The cost would be extraordinary, so you have to make priorities and work that way. … You can’t sweep everybody into one category. Not everyone is a contributor to society, and not everyone is a criminal.”

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Homan’s shtick about “saving lives” is as preposterous as it is insulting! The “dangers” of seeking to come to the US actually are well known by those making the journey. Whether they are educated or not, they are smart, brave, resourceful people — the kinds of folks we actually could use more of in America.

What Homan and others (including some of the jurists at all levels hearing these cases and getting the results wrong) fail to recognize is that the dangers of remaining in failed states controlled by gangs and corrupt politicos is much greater than the dangers of the journey and the chance of being returned. That being the case, folks have been coming and will continue to come, no matter how nasty and arbitrary we are and no matter how much we mock our Constitution, our own laws on asylum and protection, and the international standards to which we claim adherence.

Too many of those being returned were denied relief under arcane legal standards even when the judges hearing the cases acknowledged that they had established a likelihood of persecution or death upon return. But, they failed to show a “nexus to a protected ground” or “government acquiescence” as those terms are often intentionally restrictively defined by the BIA and some courts.

I know that I had such cases, and I can’t say as anyone ever understood why I was sending them back to possible severe harm or death. Homan and others like him don’t actually have to pronounce such judgments on other human beings face to face as do U.S. Immigration Judges. Neither do the Appellate Immigration Judges sitting in the “BIA Tower” in Falls Church, VA for that matter!

But, the DHS always has discretion as to whether to execute such an order. How on earth does sending productive members of our society and others who have committed no crimes back to be killed, extorted, raped, or forced to join gangs “save lives.” What total hypocrisy!

Indeed, the only “message” we’re actually sending to such folks is that they might as well join the gangs because their lives don’t matter to us. There will be a reckoning for such attitudes for Homan and others some day, even if its only that the judgement of history and the shame of future generations for their lack of empathy, intellectual honesty, common sense, and humanity!

We can diminish ourselves as a nation, but that won‘t stop human migration!

PWS

03-03-18

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. TAL @ CNN: TRUMP’S “GONZO” IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT POLICIES LIKELY TO FAIL AND ACTUALLY AGGRAVATE FORCES DRIVING UNDOCUMENTED MIGRATION!
  3. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  4. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”

BIA EXPOSEE: DID THE BIA SUPPRESS EVIDENCE IN MATTER OF J-C-H-F- THAT WOULD HAVE DIRECTLY UNDERMINED THEIR ANTI-IMMIGRANT RULING? — HON. JEFFREY CHASE THINKS SO, & HE HAS THE EVIDENCE TO BACK UP HIS CHARGE!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2018/3/2/matter-of-j-c-h-f-an-interesting-omission

 

Mar 2 Matter of J-C-H-F-: An Interesting Omission

In its decisions involving claims for protection under Article III of the U.N. Convention Against Torture, the BIA defines “government acquiescence” to include “willful blindness” by government officials.

In its recent decision in Matter of J-C-H-F-, the BIA addressed the criteria an immigration judge should use in assessing the reliability of a statement taken from a newly-arrived non-citizens at either an airport or the border. The BIA largely adopted the criteria set out by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in its 2004 decision in Ramsameachire v. Ashcroft.

Ramsameachire set out four reasonable factors for consideration: (1) whether the record of the interview is verbatim or merely summarizes or paraphrases the respondent’s statements; (2) whether the questions asked were designed to elicit the details of the claim, and whether the interviewer asked follow-up questions to aid the respondent in developing the claim; whether the respondent appears to have been reluctant to reveal information because of prior interrogation or other coercive experiences in his or her home country; and (4) whether the responses to the questions suggest that the respondent did not understand the questions in either English or through the interpreter’s translation.

Both the Second Circuit in Ramsameachire and the BIA in J-C-H-F- applied these criteria to the statement in question in their respective cases; both found the statement reliable, which led to an adverse credibility finding due to discrepancies between the statement and later testimony. But there is a big difference between the two cases. Ramsameachire was decided one year before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which is part of the U.S. government, published the first of its two reports (in 2005 and 2016) assessing the expedited removal system in which Bureau of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers encounter arriving asylum seekers. USCIRF conducted field research over several years before issuing each report. As I wrote in an earlier blog post summarizing these reports, USCIRF’s first recommendation to EOIR was to “retrain immigration judges that the interview record created by CBP is not a verbatim transcript of the interview and does not document the individual’s entire asylum claim in detail, and should be weighed accordingly.”

As I already noted in my prior post, USCIRF described its findings of the airport interview process as “alarming.” It found that the reports were neither verbatim nor reliable; that they sometimes contained answers to questions that were never asked, that they indicate that information was conveyed when in fact it was not. USCIRF found that although the statements indicated that they were read back, they usually were not, and that a CBP officer explained that the respondent’s initials on each page merely indicated that he or she received a copy of each page, and not that the page was read back to the respondent and approved as to accuracy.

The Second Circuit in Ramsameachire would have no way of knowing any of this, and therefore reasonably considered the statement to be a verbatim transcript which had been read back to the respondent, whose initials on each page were deemed to indicate approval of the accuracy of its contents. But the BIA in 2018 could claim no such ignorance. USCIRF had specifically discussed its reports at a plenary session of the 2016 Immigration Judge Legal Training Conference in Washington D.C., where the report’s co-author told the audience that the statements were not verbatim transcripts in spite of their appearance to the contrary. As moderator of the panel, I pointed out the importance of this report in adjudicating asylum claims. The person in charge of BIA legal training at the time was present for the panel, and in fact, had the same panelists from USCIRF reprise its presentation two months later at the BIA for its Board Members and staff attorneys. I personally informed both the chair and vice-chair of the BIA of the report and its findings, and recommended that they order a hard copy of the report. The report was even posted on EOIR’s Virtual Law Library, which at the time was a component of the BIA, under the supervision of the vice-chair (along with training and publication). I can say this with authority, because I was the Senior Legal Advisor at the BIA in charge of the library, and I reported directly to the BIA vice-chair.

In spite of all of the above, J-C-H-F- simply treats the statement as if it is a verbatim transcript, and noted that the pages of the statement were initialed by the respondent; in summary, the Board panel acted as if the two USCIRF reports did not exist. Very interestingly, sometime in 2017, the USCIRF report was removed from the EOIR Virtual Law Library. Based on my experience overseeing the library, I can’t imagine any way this could have happened unless it was at the request of the BIA vice-chair. But why would he have required the report’s removal?

If any reader has information as to when J-C-H-F- was first considered for possible precedent status by the BIA, please let me know via the contact link below.

Copyright 2018 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.

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I can largely corroborate what Jeffrey is saying. I, of course, have been gone from “The Tower” for 15 years.

But I know 1) that BIA judges and staff were present during the USCIRF sessions at the Annual Immigration Judges Conference (in fact, I believe it was “required training” on religious asylum claims), 2) as an Immigration Judge I had access to the Annual Reports of the USCIRF and used them in my adjudications; 3) I was well aware, and believe that any competent EOIR judge would also have been aware, that airport statements and statements taken by the Border Patrol were a) not verbatim, and b) often unreliable for a host of reasons as pointed out by the USCIRF.

I am certainly as conscious as anyone of the precarious positions of BIA Appellate Immigration Judges as administrative judges working for the Attorney General. I’m also very well aware of the human desire for self-preservation, job preservation, and institutional survival, all of which are put in jeopardy these days by siding with immigrants against the DHS in the “Age of Trump & Sessions,” where “the only good migrant is a deported migrant.”

But, the job of a BIA Appellate Immigration Judge, or indeed any Immigration Judge, is not about any of these things. It’s about “guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”

That means insuring that migrants’ rights, including of course, their precious right to Due Process under our Constitution, are fully protected. Further, an EOIR judge must insure that the generous standards for asylum set forth by the Supreme Court in Cardoza-Fonseca and by the BIA itself in Matter of Mogharrabi are fully realized, not just “rote cited.”

If standing up for migrants’ rights turns out to be job threatening or institutionally threatening, then so be it. Lives are at stake here, not just senior level US Government careers, as important as I realize those can be!

Unfortunately, I think today’s BIA has become more or less of a “shill” for the enforcement heavy views of Jeff Sessions, DHS, the Office of Immigration Litigation, and the Trump Administration in general.

What good is “required training” in adjudicating asylum requests based on religion if the BIA and Immigration Judges merely ignore what is presented? It isn’t like DHS or CBP had some “counterpresentation” that showed why their statements were reliable.

Indeed, I had very few DHS Assistant Chief Counsel seriously contest the potential reliability issues with statements taken at the border. And never in my 13 years on the bench did the DHS offer to bring in a Border Patrol Agent to testify as to the reliability or the process by which these statements are taken.

I can’t imagine any other court giving border statements the weight accorded by the BIA once the problems set forth in the USCIRF Report were placed in the record. And, I’m not aware that the DHS has ever set forth any rebuttal to the USCIRF report or made any serious attempt to remedy these glaring defects.

We need an independent Article I United States Immigration Court that guarantees Due Process and gives migrants a “fair shake.” Part of that must be an Appellate Division that functions like a true appellate court and holds the Government and the DHS fully accountable for complying with the law.

PWS

03-03-18

Related posts:

  1. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  2. 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! 
  3. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”
  4. 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?” 

LAUREN MARKHAM IN THE NEW REPUBLIC: Why “Trumpism” Ultimately Will Fail – Those Ignorant of Human History & Unwilling To Learn From It Will Just Keep Repeating The Same Expensive Mistakes – “One tragic lesson of the extra-continentales is that no set of governments, however callous, can solve the migration crisis by closing its doors to refugees seeking shelter. . . . The doors will not hold, and neither will the fences. You can build a wall, but it will not work. Desperate people find a way.”

https://newrepublic.com/article/146919/this-route-doesnt-exist-map

“How efforts to block refugees and asylum-seekers from Europe have only made the global migration crisis more complex and harrowing

By LAUREN MARKHAM

By 7 p.m., the sun had set and groups of young men had begun to gather inside a small, nameless restaurant on a narrow street in Tapachula, Mexico. Anywhere else in the city, a hub of transit and commerce about ten miles north of the Guatemalan border, there would be no mistaking that you were in Latin America: The open colonial plaza, with its splaying palms and marimba players, men with megaphones announcing Jesus, and women hawking woven trinkets and small bags of cut fruit suggested as much. But inside the restaurant, the atmosphere was markedly different. The patrons hailed not from Mexico or points due south but from other far-flung and unexpected corners of the globe—India, Pakistan, Eritrea, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Congo. Men, and all of the diners were men, gathered around tables, eating not Mexican or Central American fare but steaming plates of beef curry, yellow lentils, and blistered rounds of chapati. The restaurant’s proprietor, a stern, stocky Bangladeshi man in his thirties named Sadek, circulated among the diners. He stopped at one table of South Asian men and spoke to them in Hindi about how much they owed him for the items he’d collected on their tab. The waitress, patiently taking orders and maneuvering among the crowds of men, was the only Spanish speaker in the room.

Outside, dozens of other such men, travelers from around the world, mingled on the avenue. They reclined against the walls of restaurants and smoked cigarettes on the street-side balconies of cheap hotels. They’d all recently crossed into the country from Guatemala, and most had, until recently, been held in Tapachula’s migrant detention center, Siglo XXI. Just released, they had congregated in this packed migrants’ quarter as they prepared to continue their journeys out of Mexico and into the United States. They had traveled a great distance already: a transatlantic journey by airplane or ship to Brazil; by car, bus, or on foot to Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia; through Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua; on to Honduras, Guatemala, and into Mexico. Again and again, I heard their itinerary repeated in an almost metronomic cadence, each country a link in a daunting, dangerous chain. They’d crossed oceans and continents; slogged through jungles and city slums; braved detention centers and robberies; and they were now, after many months, or even longer, tantalizingly close to their final goal of the United States and refugee status.

Police in Tapachula, a Mexican city used as a waypoint for migrants known as extra-continentales, patrol past a Cameroonian traveler (in a striped shirt).

They are the extreme outliers of a global migration crisis of enormous scale. Today, more than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes—a higher number than ever recorded, as people flee war, political upheaval, extreme poverty, natural disasters, and the impacts of climate change. Since 2014, nearly 2 million migrants have crossed into Europe by sea, typically landing in Italy or Greece. They hail from dozens of countries, but most are from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Nigeria—countries struggling with war, political repression, climate change, and endemic poverty.

Their passage to supposed safety, which takes them across Libya and the Sinai, as well as the Mediterranean, has become increasingly perilous. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, nearly 150,000 people crossed the Mediterranean in 2017. More than 3,000 are believed to have drowned. Stories of detention in Libya, as well as physical and sexual abuse, are commonplace among those who manage to make it to Europe. A recent CNN report depicted a Libyan slave auction, where people were being sold for as little as $400. Even the lucky ones who wash up on Europe’s shores may end up stuck for years in transit camps and detention centers in the south of the continent, in some cases only in the end to be deported. In 2013, in an effort to curb migration and ease the burden of migrants within its borders, the European Union began ramping up deportations. In 2016, nearly 500,000 people were deported from Europe.

While the global drivers of migration have not subsided—devastation in Syria and Afghanistan, political repression in parts of sub-Saharan Africa—200,000 fewer migrants attempted to cross into Europe in 2017 than the year before. In response to the migrant crisis, European countries have sent strong messages that newcomers are no longer welcome; they’ve built fences to stop refugees from crossing their borders and elected far-right politicians with staunchly anti-immigrant messages. Meanwhile, most asylum cases are stalled in overburdened court systems, with slim prospects for any near-term resolution, which leaves many migrants stuck in the wicked limbo of a squalid, under-resourced refugee camp or austere detention facility. Today, European authorities have stiffened their resistance not only to new arrivals, but to the hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers who arrived years before and remain in an eerie liminal zone: forbidden to live or work freely in Europe and unwilling, or often unable, to go home.

Because of the high risks of crossing and the low odds of being permitted to stay, more and more would-be asylum-seekers are now forgoing Europe, choosing instead to chance the journey through the Americas that brings them to Sadek’s restaurant in Tapachula. Each year, thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia make their way to South America and then move northward, bound for the United States—and their numbers have been increasing steadily. It’s impossible to know how many migrants from outside the Americas begin the journey and do not make it to the United States, or how many make it to the country and slip through undetected. But the number of “irregular migrants”—they’re called extra-continentales in Tapachula—apprehended on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico has tripled since 2010.

They remain a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and Central Americans crossing into the United States. But it is a hastening trickle that may well become a flood. “These ‘extra-continental’ migrants will probably increase,” said Roeland De Wilde, chief of mission for the International Organization for Migrationin Costa Rica, “given the increased difficulties in entering Europe, relative ease of entry in some South American countries, and smugglers’ increased organization across continents.”

A migrant from Bangladesh, Sadek (in a red shirt) is part restaurateur, part migratory middleman. He can help a traveler with a good meal—or a good travel agent or immigration attorney.

One tragic lesson of the extra-continentales is that no set of governments, however callous, can solve the migration crisis by closing its doors to refugees seeking shelter. All Europe has done is redirect the flow of vulnerable humanity, fostering the development of a global superhighway to move people over this great distance. The doors will not hold, and neither will the fences. You can build a wall, but it will not work. Desperate people find a way.

“Cette route,” a French-speaking man from Cameroon told me, one sweltering afternoon in Tapachula on the breezeless balcony of a hotel frequented by irregular migrants, “n’existe pas sur le map.” This route doesn’t exist on the map.”

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Read Lauren’s much longer complete article at the above link.  It’s one of the most incisive treatments of the worldwide migration phenomenon that I have seen recently. I highly recommend it.
Thanks to dedicated “Courtsider” Roxanne Lea Fantl of Richmond, VA for sending this item my way!
Shortly after I arrived at the Arlington Immigration Court, one of my wonderful colleagues told me “Paul, desperate people do desperate things. Don’t take it personally, and don’t blame them. We just do our jobs, as best we can under the circumstances.” Good advice, to be sure!
We can diminish ourselves as a nation, but that won’t stop human migration!
PWS
03-02-18

Related posts:

  1. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  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. 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! 
  4. 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?”