"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
GOP political hacks and their enabling bad righty Federal Judges have combined to wreak havoc on humanity and trample the Constitution, rule of law, common sense, and simple human decency at our Southern border! Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsProfessor Stephen Yale-Loehr Cornell Law
In 2015, a Ghanaian man who goes by the initials M.A. and his gay friend were brutally assaulted by a vigilante group in Accra, Ghana. In Ghana, homosexuality is illegal and carries a prison sentence of up to three years. M.A. was beaten with sticks before escaping through a window. His friend was killed. Fearing the group would find and kill him, he fled to Ecuador and made his way to the U.S. border, where he requested asylum. After being detained for nine months, he was released on bond and lived with a childhood friend in New York while he waited for his case to make it through the legal system.
M.A. clearly faced persecution, but an immigration judge denied his claim. I took M.A.’s appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2016 as part of the Cornell Law School’s asylum appeals clinic. It took M.A. four years to win asylum in America, but at least he was given the chance to apply in the first place.
Since March 2020, approximately 900,000 people — including over 215,000 parents and children — have been denied the ability to request asylum at all. They’re casualties of Title 42, a pandemic-related policy that paused nearly all asylum proceedings at the border. Some people argue the policy is preventing an influx of migrants. In fact, numbers are up despite the policy, and our refusal to process most of them has led to chaotic and dangerous conditions.
The United States has successfully managed ebbs and flows of asylum seekers for decades. There’s a system in place to manage an influx — and regardless of how hard immigration lawyers like me fight for them to stay, many will lose their case and be deported. Even so, we must let people try. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s also guaranteed under international and domestic law. We signed a 1967 protocol to the U.N. Refugee Convention to protect the rights of refugees, and we have adopted it and codified it into U.S. asylum law. Right now, we’re violating those obligations. The longer we do, the weaker American rule of law looks to our global partners.
We must immediately reinstate due process for asylum seekers. And once this happens, we must work to make the system more equitable and faster.
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Read Steve’s complete op-ed in The Hill at the link.
I agree that “we must work to make the system more equitable and faster.” But, the answer can’t be just to hire more Immigration Judges in Garland’s dysfunctional, broken, and anti-asylum-biased “court” system. That would just speed the “deportation assembly line” and lead to even more injustice and grotesque inconsistencies.
According to TRAC, Immigration Judge “asylum denial rates” currently “range” from 5% to 100%. That’s a ridiculous, indefensible variation and a total perversion of the generous standard for granting asylum set forth by the Supremes in Cardoza-Fonseca and adopted by the BIA in Matter of Mogharrabi, but seldom enforced or followed, particularly these days.Why this very obvious, totally solvable problem is still festering going on two years into a Democratic Administration that pledged to solve it is beyond me!
Enough of this nonsense, biased, “amateur night at the Bijou” mal-administration of the Immigration Courts at EOIR by Garland’s DOJ! No wonder folks are still complaining about “Refugee Roulette” more than a decade after it was written by my Georgetown Law colleagues Professors Phil Schrag, Andy Schoenholtz, and Jaya Ramji-Nogales (now an Associate Dean at Temple Law). Why not put one of THEM, or for that matter, Professor Yale-Loehr, in charge of kicking tail and cleaning out the deadwood at EOIR?
This approach to life or death asylum adjudication at EOIR, particularly the BIA, is a killer! PHOTO: Thomas Hawk Creative Commons Amateur Night
At a minimum Garland must:
Remove the holdover “Asylum Deniers Club” from the BIA and replace them with a real judge as Chair and new Appellate Immigration Judges who are widely recognized as “practical experts” with careers that have demonstrated superior scholarship in immigraton and human rights, an unswerving commitment to due process for individuals, and a passion for racial justice in our legal system;
Have the “New BIA” issue useful precedential guidance on how to document and grant valid asylum cases at both the Asylum Office and the Immigration Court, implement best practices, and identify and remove from future asylum adjudication those unqualified Immigration Judges who basically “make up” reasons to deny and can’t or won’t treat applicants fairly; and
Immediately replace with qualified expert judges those Immigration Judges on the “Southern Border docket” who can’t fairly adjudicate asylum cases.
Steve is totally correct about the need for Title 42 to go! But, Garland’s EOIR, particularly the BIA, is just as broken, counterproductive, and out of control as Title 42! In many ways, the illegal abrogation of the rule of law at the Southern Border has somewhat ”hidden” the larger problem that a dysfunctional and incapable EOIR poses for those who do manage to get a hearing!
Without a legitimate, totally reformed and significantly “re-populated” EOIR operating at the “retail level” of our justice system, there will be no rule of law and equal justice under law in America — for anyone!
Tell Garland you have had enough! The deadly and disorderly “EOIR Clown Show” has got to go! Now!
“EOIR Clown Show Must Go” T-Shirt Custom Design Concept
Through our reporting, we exclusively learned that U.S. Customs and Border Protection quietly changed last year how they count deaths on the border to only include deaths in custody, during arrests or when agents were nearby and there were 151 such “CBP-related” deaths in the 2021 fiscal year.
We are still reporting on this and other issues of course, so please keep in touch with tips and story ideas!
Thanks, Mica. “Tune in” to the full “multimedia report” referenced by Mica at the above link to Reuters.
No amount of statistical hocus-pocus or nativist BS can hide the stain of these deadly, yet ultimately ineffective, border enforcement policies. It’s important that the names and actions of the politicos, bureaucrats, and bad judges who promote and encourage deadly violations of human rights, and their media apologists, be preserved and documented for history!
As we can see, there are, and will continue to be, concerted efforts to “cover up,” deny, and misrepresent the deadly effects of bad border policies! “Dehumanization of the other,” actively promoted by Trumpists and other White Nationalist GOP pols and their hand picked Federal Judges is a crucial first step!
Americans should be able to sponsor refugees who can stay permanently
The U.S. does too little for too few, but Canada has a program worth adopting and improving
Perspective by l
July 18, 2022 at 5:00 a.m. EDT
The war in Ukraine has created one of the biggest refugee crises since World War II, with about 7 million people fleeing the country. While some have since returned, and some have settled elsewhere in Europe, there are still many in need of a permanent haven. Unfortunately, the American refugee system is proving to be of comparatively little help.
Even before President Donald Trump, the refugee resettlement process was slow and cumbersome, but Trump made things much worse by slashing the annual refugee quotas to a low of 18,000 for fiscal 2020 and 15,000 for fiscal 2021, before Biden increased it, which in turn led many resettlement organizations to shut down or scale back. President Biden raised the 2021 cap to 62,500 in May of that year — and set a cap of 125,000 for 2022 — but has not been able to restore the resettlement infrastructure that Trump undercut. As a result, the higher quotas remain largely unfilled, with a record-low 11,411 refugees admitted in 2021, even though many more would love to come. Even in the current fiscal year, the administration expects to fall far short of its target, Axios reports.
The Biden administration has tried to ease the logjam — at least for Ukrainian victims of Russian aggression — by creating the Uniting for Ukraine program, under which private citizens can sponsor Ukrainian refugees. Ukrainians wishing to enter must first get a U.S.-citizen sponsor, who has to prove that they can financially support the new arrival for two years; they must also pass certain health and security checks. The Ukrainians can seek permission to work but may stay for only two years. U.S. sponsors have filed applications on behalf of some 60,000 Ukrainians under this policy. The administration has pledged to help at least 100,000 Ukrainians relocate overall.
The program is a decent start, but it could be improved by adapting a similar, better-run Canadian program.
Since 1979 — inspired by the massive numbers of people displaced by the Vietnam War and its aftermath — Canada’s Private Sponsorship of Refugees program has allowed ordinary people and community groups to support refugees financially and otherwise for 12 months (or until the refugee is self-sufficient, whichever comes first). Sponsors can include private citizens working together (a “Group of Five”) or a group that holds a sponsorship agreement with the Canadian government, such as a religious institution or cultural organization. In an important contrast with the U.S. program, the refugees can stay permanently after the sponsorship period, and the program is not limited to people from specific nations. The combination of monetary assistance with more personal support, such as helping refugees find language classes or sign their children up for schools, gives the refugees a chance to hit the ground running. The recipients of private aid must be a refugee as defined by the United Nations (or according to a few other criteria). In 2022, Canada’s target number for privately sponsored refugees is 31,255, while the goal for government-sponsored refugees is 19,790. Relative to Canada’s population size — just over a tenth that of the United States — these figures are several times higher per capita than Biden’s unmet quota of 125,000.
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Read the full article at the link.
Creative “out of the box” thinking, innovation, practical solutions, expertise, bold moves, and moral courage have been largely lacking in the Biden Administration’s approach to refugees and asylees.
While the authors seem largely focused on the plight of Ukrainian refugees, there is no reason why their proposal couldn’t be used for many refugees of color from Haiti, Latin America, and elsewhere at the Southern border.
Additionally, there are no known legal avenues for racist GOP AGs and GOP scofflaw Federal Judges to successfully challenge refugee admissions. Doesn’t mean they won’t try. But, the DOJ should be able to fend off the effort.
Undoubtedly, out of control righty judges have helped GOP states with ugly White Nationalist xenophobic agendas to improperly seize control of immigration policy from Congress and the Executive. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-biden-republican-states-lawsuits/. Their target — individuals of color and women — is clear.
The result — an ungodly mess that empowers cartels and smugglers while putting “life or death” decisions in the hands of lower level bureaucrats who can act arbitrarily and without effective guidance — is totally unacceptable and a mockery of the rule of law. The Administration must use every tool at its disposal to resist this dangerous right-wing judicial overreach that undermines democracy.
Matter of Jarndyce: “The suit does not sleep; we wake it up, we air it, we walk it about. We remand. We reverse. We re-remand. We re-reverse. We reschedule. We order briefs. Thats something. But, we never, ever come close to completing the case at hand. That’s what ‘Aimless Docket Reshuffling’ is all about. THAT’S how we build a 2 million case backlog!” Inspired by “Bleak House” by Charles Dickens (1895). PHOTO: Public Realm
As told to “Courtside” by a leading American lawyer!
CHAPTER ONE: Eighteen Years
18 years ago today, July 21, 2004, ICE put my USC (native-born) client into (non-detained) removal proceedings. We are now at the BIA for the 4th time. At the IJ level, I won the first two rounds, lost the third, and won the last round…the IJ ordered termination with prejudice…again. ICE appealed, again. Really getting tired of this nonsense.
There is a structural flaw in the INA if the BIA can evade judicial review by remanding the case back down to the IJ, over and over again, forever. And as for timing on the last round, the BIA briefing closed in April 2021, well over a year ago.
No need to reply, just venting….
CHAPTER TWO: Count Your Blessings
It could have been worse. Much worse!
If the brief got lost in Eyore’s disorderly system or was a day late, the BIA might have “summarily dismissed” the appeal! Even now, they might well decide the case without reading the record or considering the briefs!
“Eyore In Distress” Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”
But, rest assured, whatever nightmare happens, there will be no accountability from Judge Garland. If the BIA blows it, issues a “final” order, and the Circuit reverses, it will go back to the BIA again. If they getaround to it, they will send it back to the IJ.
This could go on until the client dies, the attorney retires, the file gets lost, EOIR collapses, or all four of the foregoing.
CHAPTER THREE: Count Your Blessings, The Eyore View
He might look like 19th Century writer Charles Dickens. But, 21st Century AG/Judge Merrick Garland knows how to delay, obfuscate, and “churn” cases without achieving results with the best of them. The key is poorly functioning “judges,” incompetent administrators, and lack of guts to end the nonsense and insist on due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices! Public Realm
This U.S. citizen client is quite lucky. He has been allowed to hang around for 18 years in limbo! So, what’s the problem?
You want “priority treatment?” Get detained! Or, claim that you are an unrepresented Haitian asylum applicant at the Southern border. Then you will see what “expedited handling” is all about!
CHAPTER FOUR: It’s Not Unusual
Witness the 18-year saga of poor Mr. Negusie, previously “low lighted” on “Courtside.” “A microcosm of all that’s wrong with our Immigration Court System — 17 years, 4 Administrations, 5 different tribunals (including the Supremes), 0 Final Resolution!” https://wp.me/p8eeJm-76y
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The INA has its problems. But, I’m skeptical that’s the real issue here.
Poorly functioning judges, a substandard appellate body, weak and/or incompetent judicial administrators, an anti-immigrant “culture,” antiquated “user unfriendly” procedures, political interference, lack of true judicial independence, grotesque inconsistencies, lack of accountability, no discernible values, no commitment to due process, lack of creative problem solving, and unwillingness to stand up to far-right White Nationalists and tell them to “buzz off” is what’s dragging EOIR (“Eyore”) down, inhibiting racial justice, and threatening our democracy. Seriously, this is “big time systemic failure” with existential consequences!
That’s largely within Garland’s power to fix! But, beyond removing a few of the “worst of the worst,” appointing a modest number of “bright lights” to the judiciary, and reversing some of the worst anti-immigrant, legally inane, and practically disastrous “precedents” ever (basically “Day One Stuff”), he hasn’t’ gotten the job done!
Undoubtedly, there are many talented folks — experts in immigration, human rights, due process, and racial justice — who could have correctly and finally resolved this case more than a decade ago. The problem is that they are “out here” and far lesser qualified judges and inept administrators are “calling the shots” at EOIR.
End the nonsense, bring in the talent, and fix the system! Sure, nativists and far right xenophobes are “invested” in a failed justice system — for various reasons, none of them valid. They will go ballistic if it starts functioning and treating individuals fairly and justly.
Great! The more they bluster and spread their White Nationalist BS and outright lies, the better Garland is doing. Up until recently, the far right crowd has been largely indifferent to what’s going on at EOIR. That’s because the Biden Administration has done little at EOIR that would make the “Stephen Miller crowd” unhappy. Their recent absurdist, disingenuous reactions are proof that Garland is finally making a few, long overdue, reforms and personnel changes that “hit home” and advance judicial competence, due process, fundamental fairness, and better practices.
The key is to fix EOIR, and tell the anti-due-process crowd to “go pound sand!” That’s exactly what neo-Nazi activist Stephen Miller and his motley crew would do if the situation were reversed!
There is, of course, a potential happy ending here. Replace the BIA with real judges! Hire real judicial professionals to administer the Immigration Courts. Take Eyore out of the DOJ and turn him into an independent Article I Court.
The alternatives are grim — for our nation and for future generations! Wake up folks, before it’s too late!
CAUTION: You are about to enter AG Merrick Garland’s “Twilight Zone” — where “judges” operating in a parallel universe make surreal decisions without regard to facts, law, or common sense applicable in this world! The Twilight Zone Billy Mumy 1961.jpg :PHOTO: Public Realm
Another timely report from Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis:
“Perez-Vasquez is correct that the BIA erred by failing to address key evidence. See Cabrera v. Sessions, 890 F.3d 153, 162 (5th Cir. 2018). Specifically, the BIA did not consider several factors he raised in his motion to reopen as to whether exceptional circumstances prevented his appearance at his removal hearing, including evidence of: (1) Perez’s multiple attempts to contact both the Portland and El Paso immigration courts; (2) the fact that he filed two change of address forms because the El Paso immigration court sent the notice of hearing to the wrong address after he filed his first one; (3) the fact that his hearing was set in El Paso—where his son was detained—as opposed to Portland despite informing officials that he was going to reside in Oregon; (4) his financial constraints in travelling to El Paso with three-days notice. See Matter of S-L-H- & L-B-L-, 28 I. & N. Dec. 318, 321 & n.4 (BIA 2021); see also Magdaleno de Morales v. INS, 116 F.3d 145, 148 (5th Cir. 1997) (considering whether alien attempted to contact the immigration court prior to hearing). Additionally, the BIA failed to address evidence of Perez’s regular check-ins with immigration officials and his diligence in filing a motion to reopen, which tend to show an incentive to appear. See Matter of S-L-H- & L-B-L-, 28 I. & N. Dec. at 321. … Perez-Vasquez’s petition for review is GRANTED in part, DISMISSED in part, and DENIED in part. His case is REMANDED to the BIA for the limited purpose of considering—in light of the totality of the circumstances of his individual case—whether exceptional circumstances prevented his appearance at his removal hearing.”
[Hats off to NIPNLG Director of Legal Resources and Training Michelle N. Méndez!]
Michelle N. Mendez, ESQ Director of Legal Resources and Training National Immigration Project, National Lawyers Guild PHOTO: NIPNLG
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The facts of this case are somewhere out there in the “twilight zone.” Would any other tribunal in America waste two decisions denying an individual a fair hearing in this situation?
But, sadly, it’s what we have come to expect from a failing organization that is more interested in denying the right to be heard than in conducting hearings! Of course, EOIR is building record backlogs with “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” lousy leadership, bad, often anti-immigrant, jurisprudence, and infinite tolerance for substandard performance within its ranks! Enough!
Congratulation Michelle, my friend, to you and your all-star team over at NIPNLG. Perhaps the worst mistake that Garland has made as AG was not immediately “cleaning house” at EOIR and appointing folks like Michelle and others from the NDPA to fix the system: At long last, bring practical scholarship, creative thinking, “experience in the trenches,” and an unswerving commitment to due process into a dysfunctional organization and “take names and kick tail” of those judges and others who are still “with” the mindless, immoral, counterproductive, and wrong-headed “any reason to deny/courts as a soft deterrent” approach of the former Administration.
The EOIR system needs real, dynamic intellectual leaders and widely-respected, innovative, courageous “practical scholars” like Michelle! A few such folks exist in today’s EOIR. But, they are essentially buried in the “forest of intellectual and moral deadwood” that Garland has not yet cleared out!
We are well into the Biden/Harris Administration; but, bad and poorly qualified judges and weak or inept administrators from the Trump and Obama Administrations (or even Bush II) are still wreaking havoc on American justice and threatening our democracy.
By contrast, if not invited to fix the broken EOIR system “from the inside” Michelle and the other members of the NDPA are going to force change from the outside! You can count on it! They will keep at it until this dysfunctional, unfair, and mal-administered system either reforms or collapses under the weight of its own incompetence, cruelty, inefficiency, and just plain stupidity!
Consistently getting these cases right (an MTR, for Pete’s sake) isn’t “rocket science.” A competent IJ would have taken about 5 minutes or less to mark this “granted” and change venue to Portland. A competent appellate tribunal would have reversed and rocketed it back to the IJ with instructions to “cut the BS.”
But, it continues to be elusive for Garland’s “gang that can’t shoot straight!” This system “coddles” poorly performing judges at both levels!
Meanwhile, they “throw the book” at desperate individuals trying their best to navigate EOIR’s broken, irrational, and intentionally “user unfriendly” parody of a “court system.” It is truly the “Twilight Zone of American Justice!”
Think of it: Four years, three tribunals, at least five Federal Judges, and a bevy of lawyers and clerks have spent time on this case. And, EOIR is no nearer to getting to the merits than the day the NTA was issued! This system needs “practical problem solvers” like Michelle, NOT “stuck in the mud” bureaucrats masquerading as judges, professional judicial leaders, and role models.
Tell Garland it’s time for a better, smarter approach to justice at EOIR! The real talent is out here! What’s he waiting for?
U.S. watchdog says pressure from patent officials affected agency rulings
Blake Brittain July 21, 20224:11 PM EDTLast Updated a day ago
(Reuters) – U.S. Patent and Trademark Office administrators improperly influenced decisions by the office’s patent-eligibility tribunal for years, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a preliminary report released Thursday.
The report said two-thirds of judges on the PTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board felt pressure from higher-ups at the office to change aspects of their decisions, and that three-quarters of them believed the oversight affected their independence.
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While the report said management “rarely” influenced decisions on whether to cancel a patent, it said it did affect judges’ rulings on questions like whether to review a patent.
A PTO spokesperson said the report “reflects GAO’s preliminary observations on past practices,” and that current director Kathi Vidal has “prioritized providing clear guidance to the PTAB regarding the director review process” since taking office in April.
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The U.S. Supreme Court decided last year that the PTO director should be able to review board decisions.
The PTAB allows parties to challenge the validity of patents based on preexisting inventions in “inter partes review” proceedings.
A committee of volunteer judges began peer reviewing decisions in such cases for style and policy consistency and flagging them for potential management review in 2013, the report said. PTAB management began informally pre-reviewing board decisions on important issues and offering suggestions in 2017, and management review became official PTO policy in 2019.
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Some PTAB judges said their decisions had been affected by fears of negative career consequences for going against the suggestions. One judge said in the report that the review policy’s “very existence creates a preemptive chilling effect,” and that management’s wishes were “at least a factor in all panel deliberations” and “sometimes the dominant factor.”
The report said the internal review policies were not made public until May.
Republican Congressman Darrell Issa of California said during a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee hearing Thursday that the report of officials influencing PTAB decisions “behind closed doors” was “disturbing.”
Andrei Iancu was appointed PTO director by former President Donald Trump and took charge of the office in 2018. Iancu, now a partner at Irell & Manella, had no comment on the report.
Issa, the subcommittee’s ranking member, and its chairman, Democratic Congressman Hank Johnson of Georgia, called on the GAO last year to investigate the PTO director’s potential influence on PTAB cases.
(NOTE: This story has been updated with comment from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.)
Blake Brittain reports on intellectual property law, including patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. Reach him at blake.brittain@thomsonreuters.com
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While it might once have seemed like a great idea, after more than a half-century the so-called “Administrative Judiciary” has proved to be a failure. It often delivers watered-down, sloppy, political, expedient, or “agency friendly” decisions with the “window dressing” of due process and real judicial proceedings.
Moreover, contrary to the original purpose, in most cases it is neither truly “expert” not “efficient.” Indeed, the Immigration Courts have built “one of the largest backlogs known to man!” That just leads to more misguided “gimmicks” and pressure to “speed up the quasi-judicial assembly line!” Individual lives and rights are the “big losers.”
To make matters worse, under the “Chevron doctrine” and its “off the wall” progeny “Brand X,” the Article IIIs “cop out” by giving “undue deference” to this deficient product.
It’s time for all Federal Judicial tribunals to be organized under Article III or Article I of the Constitution and for the legal profession and law schools to take a long, critical look at the poor job we now are doing of educating and preparing judges. We need to train and motivate the “best, brightest, and fairest” to think critically, humanely, and practically. Then, encourage them to become judges — out of a sense of public service, furthering the common good, promoting equal justice for all, and a commitment to vindicating individual rights, not some “ideological litmus test” as has a become the recent practice.
As one more reminder of what we’ve lost, the text of the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling is unlikely to console us. Even so, I recommend downloading the pdf. In the wake of its overturning, this beautifully written document – which reads like a long form essay – is not only interesting in itself but now seems like another sign of how much has changed over the last half century, in this case for the worse.
Drafted by Justice Harry Blackmun, the ruling includes a clear and persuasive summary of the history of abortion law. “At the time of the adoption of our Constitution, and throughout the major portion of the 19th century, a woman enjoyed a substantially broader right to terminate a pregnancy that she does in most States today.” It tracks the centuries-old debate over when life begins, and dismisses the argument that a fetus is a person guaranteed the protections afforded US citizens. Throughout, it strikes us as the careful explication and clarification of a law, of legal precedent, unlike Justice Alito’s ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, which seems more like an expression of religious conviction masquerading as an unbiased interpretation of the constitution.
The Roe ruling is not about states’ rights. It’s about power and control | Derecka Purnell
What’s most striking about Roe v Wade – and its difference from the ruling that overturned it – is its eloquence. Blackmun’s lucid, frequently graceful language reflects a commitment to decency and compassion. The judges are clear about the dangers of carrying an unwanted child or a high-risk pregnancy to term. They strive to see the issue from the perspective of those confronting a serious life crisis, and to imagine the devastating outcomes that pregnant women and their families may face.
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“Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by childcare. There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it.”
The passage I admire most is the one in which Blackmun, at once profound and lyrical, describes the atmosphere surrounding the issue of abortion, the way our opinions are formed, and the pressures that the law must acknowledge and keep in balance.
“We forthwith acknowledge our awareness of the sensitive and emotional nature of the abortion controversy, of the vigorous opposing views, even among physicians, and of the deep and seemingly absolute convictions that the subject inspires. One’s philosophy, one’s experiences, one’s exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one’s religious training, one’s attitudes toward life and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all likely to influence and to color one’s thinking and conclusions about abortion. In addition, population growth, poverty, and racial overtones tend to complicate and not to simplify the problem.”
And there it is: a superbly rendered catalogue of the factors that come to mind when we consider the factors that will now determine whom Dobbs will hurt most: poverty, race, and life on the raw edges of human existence – an edge, one might say, on which every decision about abortion is made.
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Read the rest of Francine’s article at the link.
Let’s face it. The concern for human life of out of touch righty ideologues like Alito ends at birth. After that, the “others” are expendable — particularly if they are women or folks of color!
All their claimed concern about “personhood” ends at delivery — when it can no longer be used to threaten vulnerable pregnant women or medical professionals. After that, the GOP program for kids (whether wanted or not) consists of things like:
Valuing their lives below the “right” of every Tom, Dick, and Harriett in America to own and use military-style assault weapons (something that certainly wasn’t the “original intent” of the drafters of the 2d Amendment);
Cutting education budgets, “dumbing down” public school curriculums, and harassing teachers, school administrators, and school board members;
Imposing work requirements on public assistance without regard to the needs and availability of suitable child care;
Deporting their parents to far away countries without concern for the welfare of children (US citizen and others);
Declaring “war” on vulnerable kids who aren’t heterosexuals;
Opposing provisions that would expand the availability of health insurance to kids;
Spreading misinformation about life-saving vaccines for children;
Falsely denying climate change that threatens the world we will leave to our kids and future generations;
Spreading fear and terror in ethnic communities containing “mixed families” to discourage them from taking advantage of available community services;
Threatening the educational rights of non-citizen children currently guaranteed by Plyler v. Doe (but perhaps not for long, if the Clarence Thomases of the world have their way);
Treating kids in Immigration Court as less than “persons” entitled to full due process (for example, forcing toddlers to “represent themselves” in life or death asylum cases);
Separating families;
Detaining families and children in grossly substandard conditions;
Making it more difficult for people of color to vote and thus exercise their legal and political rights;
Being more concerned about BLM protests than in the loss of young black lives that generated them.
I could go on an on.
One essential starting place and training ground for a “new generation” of Federal Judges who will be committed to humane values, empathy, accurate historical understanding, due process, and equal justice for all is the “retail level” of our justice system — the U.S. Immigration Courts, currently controlled solely by AG Merrick Garland. That’s why Garland’s disturbing failure to instill progressive values and install scholarly progressive judges — the best, brightest, and most courageous — in his now-dysfunctional EOIR system should be of grave concern to advocates of individual choices and anyone who cares about equal justice for all and the future of our nation!
The GOP-dominated Federal Judiciary has become a tool of authoritarians and religious zealots who seek to wipe out established individual rights, reduce humanity, and insert themselves and their out of touch views into every aspect of human existence — ultimately threatening the very future of humanity!
The Dems, by contrast, are the party of individual rights and human freedom. Too bad they haven’t done a better job of selling, and sometimes of following and boldly acting upon, their own stated values!
Elizabeth Gibson Managing Attorney National Immigrant Justice Center Publisher of “The Gibson Report”
See More from Elizabeth Gibson
Weekly Briefing
This briefing is designed as a quick-reference aggregation of developments in immigration law, practice, and policy that you can scan for anything you missed over the last week. The contents of the news, links, and events do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Immigrant Justice Center. If you have items that you would like considered for inclusion, please email them to egibson@heartlandalliance.org.
USCIS: Where community levels are high, all federal employees and contractors—as well as visitors two years old or older—must wear a mask inside USCIS offices and physically distance regardless of vaccination status. Chicago is no longer listed as High. NYC is now listed as High. Check CDC Level for Your Region.
DHS Announces Extension of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuela
DHS: The 18-month extension of TPS for Venezuela will be effective from September 10, 2022, through March 10, 2024. Only beneficiaries under Venezuela’s existing designation, and who were already residing in the United States as of March 8, 2021, are eligible to re-register for TPS under this extension.
WaPo: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered state National Guard soldiers and law enforcement officers Thursday to apprehend and return migrants suspected of crossing illegally back to the U.S.-Mexico border, testing how far his state can go in trying to enforce immigration law — a federal responsibility.
LATimes: The new effort, called the Trusted Adult Relative Program, is being tested at a Border Patrol station in Texas, according to three sources who were not authorized to speak publicly. A Department of Homeland Security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said a few dozen children have been reunified with family members since the program began in May. Agency officials said the program utilizes existing procedures to unify families in an efficient way.
Documented: ICE is moving New Jersey immigrants like Hercules Aleman – who face charges in criminal or family court – to out-of-state immigration detention facilities. But the agency is usually not notifying the group of immigration legal providers funded by the state to represent these detained immigrants.
CNN: The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to stay a court order blocking the Department of Homeland Security from implementing immigration enforcement priorities — potentially setting up Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s first vote since joining the court.
Politico: The nine-month investigation, which culminated in a 511-page report by the department, found no evidence that agents used horse reins to strike people during an “unprecedented surge in migration” of about 15,000 Haitians near the international bridge. However, agents acted in unprofessional and dangerous ways, including an instance in which an agent “maneuvered his horse unsafely near a child,” investigators wrote.
TRAC: According to the latest data released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency held 23,156 immigrants in detention on July 5, 2022. Of these, 17,116 were arrested by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) while 6,040 were arrested by ICE agents. Detention numbers have increased slightly from about 20,000 in early 2022 to now hovering around 24,000, but have not otherwise seen significant growth that would lead to the large numbers of immigrants that were detained prior to the pandemic when the detained population topped out at more than 60,000.
TRAC: The number of criminal referrals sent by the Border Patrol and other Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers have recently begun to rise. Detailed case-by-case government records obtained by TRAC after successful litigation show that during April 2022, CBP referred 2,015 individuals for criminal prosecution to federal prosecutors. This is the first time referrals topped the 2,000 mark since the pandemic began slightly more than two years ago. Levels in April 2022 were up 31 percent from one year earlier when in April 2021 there were a total of 1,537 criminal referrals from CBP.
NYT: Extensive details of their years together were also left behind in grainy snapshots, police reports, immigration forms, nonprofit records, court transcripts and old emails. See also The Story of 2 Homeless Men and the Meaning of Friendship.
Law360: The Fifth Circuit refused to reinstate the Biden administration’s attempt to narrow the number of immigrants prioritized for removal, splitting sharply from the Sixth Circuit to find that the effort likely violated federal immigration law.
LexisNexis: [T]he agency failed to consider and explain the impact of evidence that the Salvadoran government’s efforts in the “war on the gangs” had not been successful, such that gang members operate with impunity and security forces commit extrajudicial killings of suspected gang members, both of which pose threats to Giron.
LexisNexis: Consistent with our own precedent and that of every other circuit to consider this issue, we hold that the failure of an NTA to include time and date information does not deprive the immigration court of subject matter jurisdiction, and thus Bastide-Hernandez’s removal was not “void ab initio,” as the district court determined.
Law360: The Ninth Circuit on Friday declined to review a Mexican man’s bid to vacate a deportation order, saying he should have applied for a green card before a law preventing inadmissible individuals from becoming lawful permanent residents took effect.
LexisNexis: The BIA affirmed based upon the IJ’s adverse credibility determination. We grant Barseghyan’s petition for review because three out of four inconsistencies relied upon by the BIA are not supported by the record.
LexisNexis: [W]e find that the respondent’s conviction for injury to a child in violation of Texas Penal Code § 22.04(a)(3), does not require “physical force” as defined in 18 U.S.C. § l6(a), and interpreted in Johnson and Stokeling. Thus, the respondent has not been convicted of a crime of violence aggravated felony and is not barred from establishing her eligibility for cancellation of removal.
Law360: Private contractors will no longer be used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to make immigration arrests at California jails and prisons, as part of a settlement ICE reached with a detainee represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Law360: A 15-year U.S. Department of Homeland Security veteran and an agent who retired from the agency gave secret information to Chinese spies engaged in a harassment and repression campaign against U.S.-based critics of the Chinese government, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday.
AILA: The CIS Ombudsman’s Office provides a reminder that USCIS updated the special instructions on its Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative page to help filers ensure that USCIS sends their form to the correct location after it is approved.
You now can change your email settings or search the archives using the Google Group. If you are receiving this briefing from a third party, you can visit the Google Group and request to be added.
Elizabeth Gibson (Pronouns: she/her/ella)
Managing Attorney for Capacity Building and Mentorship
National Immigrant Justice Center
A HEARTLAND ALLIANCE Program
224 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 600, Chicago, IL 60604
T: (312) 660-1688| F: (312) 660-1688| E: egibson@heartlandalliance.org
Federal Courts at all levels continue to lose credibility because of their adherence to a biased far-right agenda that is bad for American democracy.
Let’s see, the BIA manufactures inconsistencies to reach a bogus “adverse credibility” ruling in an asylum case(9th Cir.). They also ignore clear evidence of the complicity/total ineptitude of the Salvadoran Government in a CAT case (2d Cir.).
Folks, these aren’t contract cases, property disputes, commercial squabbles, or minor misdemeanors. They are life or death matters — persecution and/or torture can result in extreme pain, suffering, permanent damage, and death.Serious matters require serious judging by qualified exert judges!
Meanwhile, a righty panel of poorly qualified 5th Circuitjudges drives over established law on Executive prosecutorial discretion to uphold Trump toady Judge Drew Tipton’s clearly wrong-headed attempt to wrest control of ICE enforcement away from the Biden Administration. This gross judicial malpractice is nothing short of a national disgrace that impugns the integrity of the entire Article III Judiciary.
There are still far too many examples of how Garland is contributing to the problem by failing to root out the deadwood (and worse) at EOIR. He should be bringing in new judicial talent committed to due process, scholarship, and best practices.
A “Better EOIR” would not only begin fixing many of the legal and practical problems plaguing our immigration, human rights, and racial justice systems in America, but also could “model” a better American judiciary for the future. It would be a training ground for future, better qualified, Article III judicial appointments: Folks who actually understand and respect delivering justice at the “retail level” and are committed to serving humanity, not kowtowing to party bosses or wooden, perverse, retrograde ideologies.
It is possible for good judges to solve problems rather than creating them or making them infinitely worse. But, you sure wouldn’t say that is happening with today’s out of touch, ivory tower, and poorly performing Federal Judiciary. A better EOIR could keep cases out of the Circuits, thereby eliminating the opportunity for right-wing ideologues to screw up immigration and human rights laws in their White nationalist restrictionist crusade!
This is a judiciary now dominated by far too many right wing judges who got their jobs by demonstrating a commitment to far righty ideology and furthering the GOP’s political agenda rather than by distinguished legal careers that exemplified courage and improving humanity by insuring fair and reasonable applications and interpretations of the law.
Dan Rather American Journalist PHOTO: Creative Courtside
FROM “STEADY” FOR July 1, 2022:
A HARD RIGHT TURN
By Dan Rather and Elliott Kirschner
As the United States Supreme Court wrapped up its spring term today, its marbled halls risked representing the setup to an ironic joke — albeit one not funny but rather cruel, dangerous, and foreboding.
The building is supposed to symbolize stability, fairness, and temperance. Instead, it has become headquarters for a majority group of highly partisan, reactionary players who make clear that they are uninhibited by history, precedent, or the will of the majority of the American people.
Their black robes are meant to convey modesty, humility, and wisdom. Yet this collection of politicians demonstrates the direct opposite.
This Supreme Court term will be remembered as the moment a cynical and anti-democratic movement, decades in the making, reached its zenith, empowered by bad faith and opportunism. Now the cabal lords its power over a broken political system from a perch of increased influence and lack of accountability.
This is power politics by unelected actors, appointed largely by men who lost the popular vote for president. Its path was paved by Mitch McConnell’s Machiavellian exploitation of the deaths of two justices. He was a master of shamelessness with a single purpose — to accomplish via judicial appointment what he could never have achieved through democratic means.
The damage he and his hard-right radicals have wrought touches all aspects of society, from abortion rights to commonsense gun control to the environment to what I believe is an overlooked evisceration of the separation of church and state. What we have are the ruins of what many took for granted as our constitutional rights. And nothing suggests these justices are anywhere near sated.
We have now firmly left behind the realm of the theoretical. This is real, and it will get only more so. For years there were those who warned that Roe wasn’t safe, and neither was anything else, that these justices were licking their chops to devour a modern America and spit out a distorted version of the past. Too many of these prophets were dismissed as hysterical, their fears histrionic and overblown. Surely, they were lectured, precedent matters. Certainly there would have to be some legal basis to rewrite America’s social contract and decades of settled rights.
Wrong.
All of you who spoke up, who tried to get others to pay attention, you deserve an apology.
There can be no hiding from it now. All of this is out in the open. The justices aren’t even trying to obscure what they are doing and where they intend to go. But in their transparent power plays, there are still faint glimmers of hope.
I hear from people who in the past had rarely talked about the court. Now, they are suddenly enraged. Many are focused on how, just today, the justices accepted a case for next year that could allow state legislatures to take a torch to fair elections. How many people in the past got so riled up about an upcoming court docket?
The Supreme Court relies on its reputation, and these days, its reputation for humility, fairness, and wisdom is in tatters. Its rulings increasingly seem to be far outside where most Americans are. Wait until they tackle contraception and the privacy of one’s bedroom.
To all who feel bereft of hope, I offer the lessons of social movements of the past. Perseverance is power. Organizing inspires optimism. Resilience breeds results.
In order to solve a problem, you first have to see it, name it, contend with its truth. That is the stage many are in now. But many others have already been there for a long time. This is a movement that already has leadership. Now it has momentum born from a desire to ensure that America goes forward, toward progress, and true to the Constitution and the will of its people.
Wendy Young President, Kids In Need of Defense (“KIND”)
Dear Paul –
The entire team at Kids In Need of Defense is devastated by the news that at least 46 people were found dead in an abandoned tractor-trailer in Texas and more than a dozen others in the truck, including children, were taken to local hospitals for treatment. While we wait for more details to emerge, we wanted to share the following statement from our President, Wendy Young.
“As rising violence, natural disasters, and other threats force migrants to make impossible choices in their quest to find safety, our nation’s response cannot be to place families and children in further harm by indefinitely closing our borders to people seeking protection and ignoring the dangers they face in their home countries. This most recent tragedy and the disturbing rise in migrant deaths globally underscore the need to create safer pathways to protection for refugees. The Biden Administration should see this heartbreaking tragedy for what it is, a clarion call to abandon deeply flawed and dangerous immigration policies. It must reinstate humane and orderly processing, including reopening official ports of entry, hiring child welfare experts to care for and screen children, and provide fair adjudication of protection claims. It is time for the United States to regain its footing as a leader in the protection of migrant families and children.”
– The KIND Team
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The key part of Wendy’s statement: “including reopening official ports of entry, hiring child welfare experts to care for and screen children, and provide fair adjudication of protection claims.”
Denial rates for recent arrivals who manage to get hearings (see, e.g., Garland’s bogus “dedicated dockets,” — actually “dedicated to denial” and nothing else), many of them children and unrepresented, hover around 100%. They are “guided” by a “largely holdover,” anti-asylum BIA that lacks true asylum expertise and issues no positive precedents instructing judges on how to consistently and legally grant asylum. Consequently, there is no “fair adjudication” of asylum claims. That feeds the toxic nativist myth that nobody at the Southern Border is a “legitimate” asylum seeker.
Unless and until Garland tosses the unqualified jurists at EOIR and replaces them with experts committed to due process, fundamental fairness, and correct, generous, practical precedents and proper applications of asylum law, the system will remain in failure. It’s a monumental mistake by the Biden Administration not to fix that which they absolutely control — starting with the Immigration Courts at EOIR.
Refugees will continue to die at the hands of smugglers who were given control of our immigration system by the Trump Administration and remain empowered by Garland’s & Mayorkas’spoor performance combined with biased, White Nationalist, Federal Judges appointed by Trump at all levels of our failing justice system!
Today’s WashPost editorial described how far-right nativists have basically turned our immigration system over to smugglers:
The absence of any workable legal system that would admit migrants systematically, in numbers that would meet the U.S. labor market’s demand, is the original sin of the chaos at the border. That is Congress’s bipartisan failure, a symptom of systemic paralysis for many years. More recently, a public health rule has had the effect of incentivizing unauthorized migrants to make multiple attempts to cross the border. The rule, imposed by the Trump administration, retained for more than a year by the Biden administration, and now frozen in place by Republican judges, allows border authorities to swiftly expel migrants, but with no asylum hearings or criminal consequences for repeated attempts to cross the border. That has been a boon to migrant smuggling networks.
I take issue with the term “bipartisan failure” in the legislative context. It’s true that the Dems inexplicably squandered a golden chance to fix many immigration problems when they had 60 votes in the Senate in Obama’s first two years. But, before and after that time, the failure to achieve realistic, humane, robust legal immigration reform legislation has been on the nativist right of the GOP that now dominates the party. Pretending otherwise is useless and dishonest.
All of these proposals would have made long-overdue, common sense reforms to eliminate hopeless backlogs, benefit our economy, strengthen our legal system, and facilitate better allocation of Government resources. Yet, there has been scant GOP interest in improving the system. The GOP appears to believe that promoting a dysfunctional immigration system, denying human rights, and guaranteeing a large “extralegal population” available as scapegoats and exploitable labor best serves their parochial political interests.
And, speaking of useless and dishonest, here’s Leon Krausze, WashPost Global Opinions Contributor, on how the disingenuous performance of Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has helped fuel both resurgent Mexican migration and unnecessary deaths at or near the border. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/29/san-antonio-migrant-deaths-trailer-mexico-amlo/.
The “good guys” — those committed to due process, fundamental fairness, individual rights, equal justice, scholarship, and human dignity — need to fight back at every level of our political and judicial systems — while they still exist! Because if the GOP has its way, that won’t be for long!🏴☠️
Elizabeth Gibson Managing Attorney National Immigrant Justice Center Publisher of “The Gibson Report”
Weekly Briefing
This briefing is designed as a quick-reference aggregation of developments in immigration law, practice, and policy that you can scan for anything you missed over the last week. The contents of the news, links, and events do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Immigrant Justice Center. If you have items that you would like considered for inclusion, please email them to egibson@heartlandalliance.org.
The 6/10/22 order in Texas v. United States vacating the memo went into effect 6/24/22 and has not been stayed at this time. Regardless of the memo, it is important to continue arguing that prosecutorial discretion is a longstanding executive power and DHS retains the ability to join motions, stipulate to relief, etc. See Practice Alert: Judge Tipton Issues Decision Vacating Mayorkas Enforcement Priorities Memo.
USCIS: Where community levels are high, all federal employees and contractors—as well as visitors two years old or older—must wear a mask inside USCIS offices and physically distance regardless of vaccination status. Check CDC Level for Your Field Office.
Bustle: At a base level, the abortion restrictions detained women face are similar to the ones that low-income women face across the country because of the Hyde Amendment. For more than 40 years, the Hyde Amendment has prevented women on Medicaid from using federally funded insurance to pay for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s life. The same type of language exists in appropriations bills and healthcare regulations for all facets of the federal government, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
AP: The Border Patrol paroled more than 207,000 migrants who crossed from Mexico from August through May, including 51,132 in May, a 28% increase from April, according to court records. In the previous seven months, it paroled only 11 migrants.
Guardian: At least 71,000 Ukrainians have entered the US since March, with Joe Biden’s pledge to welcome 100,000 people fleeing the Russian invasion on track to be met over the summer.
Bloomberg: The amendment, which faces a long path to the finish line in the appropriations process, would allow DHS to recapture family and employment-based visas that went unused due to bureaucratic snags, processing delays, and other disruptions since 1992.
AIC: Data analyzed by the Cato Institute shows that since Fiscal Year 2008, USCIS denied about 8% of employer-sponsored immigrants while the average denial rate by consular officers was 63%.
Law360: The Biden administration announced plans to issue a final Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals rule by August and continue its efforts to undo multiple Trump-era regulations. Here are the main immigration highlights from the administration’s regulatory agenda for spring 2022.
WaPo: Critics of the measure say it perpetuates a false scarcity problem at a time when Virginia has a budget surplus, and it demands that lawmakers sacrifice one needy group of students for another.
Forbes: In a new book describing her years during the Trump administration, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos revealed a plan by Stephen Miller to identify children at school for deportation under the pretext of checking for gang members.
Law360: The Biden administration has agreed to impose new living and sanitary standards on temporary emergency facilities housing hundreds of migrant children to resolve advocates’ claims that it was holding minors in unsafe and unsanitary conditions.
The Advocate: Immigration judges in Louisiana have denied asylum claims at a higher rate than almost any other courts in the nation over the past five years, according to federal data. However, a new federal rule might downsize their role in asylum proceedings.
CNN: The justices are considering whether the Biden administration can terminate a Trump-era border policy known as “Remain in Mexico.” Lower courts have so far blocked Biden from ending the policy.
SCOTUS: The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit for further consideration in light of Matter of B-Z-R-, 28 I&N Dec. 563 (A.G. 2022).
BIA: A respondent who raises an objection to missing time or place information in a notice to appear for the first time in a motion to reopen has forfeited that objection.
Law360: A Dominican man got a new chance to fight his deportation on Tuesday when the Third Circuit ruled that his felony conviction under Pennsylvania’s fleeing and eluding law didn’t necessarily amount to a crime of moral turpitude.
LexisNexis: For years, Petitioner Javier Garza-Flores did not believe he had a valid claim to U.S. citizenship. But now he thinks that he does. And he has presented documentary evidence sufficient to demonstrate, at a minimum, a genuine issue of material fact concerning his claim of U.S. citizenship. That is enough to warrant a factual proceeding before a federal district court to determine his citizenship.
CA7: The Board’s main quibble was with the relevance of that evidence to an Ethiopian citizen, which it assumed Menghistab to be. But that assumption was not warranted on the record that was before the Board. Denying the motion to reopen without a full hearing addressing Menghistab’s citizenship and its materiality to his risk of torture was therefore an abuse of discretion.
Law360: The Ninth Circuit on Friday granted a Salvadoran’s request to have the Board of Immigration Appeals review claims that he would be tortured if sent back to the Central American country, saying the board originally failed to consider all possible risk sources.
Law360: U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP have settled a Freedom of Information Act suit the firm filed over reports the agency decided Canadian cannabis workers weren’t eligible to enter the U.S., which led to an overturned internal document contradicting officials.
Law360: A Boston federal jury has found a construction company and its owner liable for retaliating against an employee by reporting him to immigration authorities after his on-the-job injury triggered a workplace investigation, awarding $650,000 in damages.
USCIS: A noncitizen who again seeks admission more than 3 or 10 years after the relevant departure or removal, is not inadmissible under INA 212(a)(9)(B) even if the noncitizen returned to the United States, with or without authorization, during the statutory 3-year or 10-year period
CBS: While the suspension of ICE’s arrest prioritization scheme is unlikely to place the country’s estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants in immediate danger of being arrested, the absence of national standards could lead to inconsistent enforcement actions across the U.S., including arrests of immigrants whom agents were previously instructed not to detain, legal experts said.
You now can change your email settings or search the archives using the Google Group. If you are receiving this briefing from a third party, you can visit the Google Group and request to be added.
Elizabeth Gibson (Pronouns: she/her/ella)
Managing Attorney for Capacity Building and Mentorship
National Immigrant Justice Center
A HEARTLAND ALLIANCE Program
224 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 600, Chicago, IL 60604
T: (312) 660-1688| F: (312) 660-1688| E: egibson@heartlandalliance.org
Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com
According to a new book from former Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos:
“Over the din of patrons slurping lattes and crunching salads, Miller’s men described a plan to put U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into schools under the pretext of identifying MS-13 gang members. The plan was, when agents checked students’ citizenship status for the alleged purpose of identifying gang ties, they could identify undocumented students and deport them. Not only was the prospect of this chilling, but it was also patently illegal. Nate and Ebony turned them down cold. But that didn’t stop Stephen Miller from subsequently calling me to get my thoughts on the idea.
For years, the BIA has had standard practice of giving short shrift to potentially valid claims for protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). Without meaningful analysis they simply cite John Ashcroft’s infamous “no CAT precedent” in Matter of J-F-F-,23 I&N Dec. 912 (A.G. 2006), requiring that “each link in the chain of torture be proved to be probable.”
Since there is almost always some allegedly “weak link in the chain” that’s an “easy handle” for denial.Also, The IJ and the BIA can “lengthen the chain” or ignore the evidence as necessary to “get to no.” In the process, compelling evidence of likelihood of torture from qualified expert witnesses is either ignored or minimized — again, without much analysis. That’s how the “denial factory” in Falls Church can keep churning out CAT rejections even to countries where torture is rampant and either furthered or willfully ignored by the repressive governments.
At least in the 9th Circuit, the BIA will now have to go “back to the drawing board” for denying CAT and returningindividuals to countries where torture with government participation or acquiescence is likely. The 9th Circuit case rejecting the BIA’s “formula for denial” is Velasquez-Samayoa v. Garland. Here’s a link in addition to the one provided by Elizabeth.https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca9-on-cat-velasquez-samayoa-v-garland
Louisiana has long been one of a number of EOIR “courts” — these are actually “prison courts” — where “asylum cases go to die.” The deadly combination of bad Immigration Judges, lack of skilled immigration attorneys able to take these cases pro bono, coercive use of detention in out of the way places in substandard conditions, a “denial oriented” BIA stacked by the Trump DOJ and not “unstacked by Garland,” and an indolent, often virulently anti-asylum 5th Circuit add up to potential death sentences for individuals who could gain protection under a system where due process and fundamental fairness were respected and followed.
As the report in The Advocate referenced by Elizabeth shows, Garland has failed to reform and improve this blot on American justice. And, there is little chance that assigning the cases to USCIS Asylum Office in the first instance under new regulations in this intentionally toxic environment is going to promote justice or efficiency.
One might view the wide discrepancy between “positive credible fear findings” and asylum grants in Immigration Court as a sign of a sick and dying EOIR, not lack of merit for the claims. With less detention, more representation, better Immigration Judges, and a new BIA of true asylum experts willing to grant protection rather than “engineer rejection,” I’ll bet that many, perhaps a majority, of the outcomes would be more favorable to applicants.
As noted by Mitch Gonzalez of the SPLC in the article, “dehumanization,” “de-personification,” and “Dred Scottification,” along with cruelty are the objects of what’s going on at EOIR in Louisiana. The “fit” with the Trump/Miller White Nationalist anti-immigrant program is obvious. What’s less obvious is why Garland and the Biden Administration haven’t intervened to make the necessary changes to restore EOIR in Louisiana and elsewhere to at least some semblance of a fair and impartial “court system.”
Nobody should be surprised that the Supreme Court’s conservative justices on Friday jettisoned nearly 50 years of precedent upon precedent in overturning Roe v. Wade. Heck, they didn’t even honor their own precedent articulated 24 hours earlier.
In their opinion Thursday morning forcing New York and other densely populated states to allow more handguns in public, the conservative majority, led by Justice Clarence Thomas, argued that medieval law imposing arms restrictions — specifically, the 1328 Statute of Northampton — “has little bearing on the Second Amendment” because it was “enacted … more than 450 years before the ratification of the Constitution.”
Yet in their ruling Friday morning in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, setting women’s rights back half a century (and cracking the door to banning same-sex marriage and contraception), the conservative justices, led by Samuel Alito (who was also in the guns majority) and joined by Thomas, argued precisely the opposite. They justified abortion bans by citing, among others, “Henry de Bracton’s 13th-century treatise.” That was written circa 1250 and referred to monsters, duels, burning at the stake — and to women as property, “inferior” to men.
The right-wing majority’s selective application of history reveals the larger fraud in this pair of landmark rulings: Their reasoning is not legal but political, not principled but partisan.
Still, there is a commonality to the rulings. Both decisions foment maximum chaos and were delivered with flagrant disregard for the instability and disorder they will cause.
The high court was meant to be the guarantor of law and order. But the conservative justices, intoxicated by their supermajority, have abandoned their solemn duty to promote stability in the law and are actively spreading real-world disruption.
Worse, this invitation to disorder comes as the nation is trying to restore the rule of law after a coup attempt led by a president who appointed three of the five justices in the abortion majority. The spouse of a fourth — Ginni Thomas, Clarence’s wife — aggressively pushed state legislators and the White House to overthrow the election. Yet Thomas, the senior associate justice, has refused to recuse himself from related cases.
After decades of crocodile tears over imagined “judicial activism,” the conservative supermajority has shed all judicial modesty and embraced radicalism. The liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen G. Breyer, wrote in their Dobbs dissent that the majority’s brazen rejection of stare decisis, respect for precedent, “breaches a core rule-of-law principle, designed to promote constancy in the law.”
Even Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who joined the gun ruling, scolded fellow conservatives for blithely overturning the Roe v. Wade super-precedent. “Surely we should adhere closely to principles of judicial restraint here, where the broader path the court chooses entails repudiating a constitutional right we have not only previously recognized, but also expressly reaffirmed,” Roberts wrote. The majority’s “dramatic and consequential ruling is unnecessary,” he said, “a serious jolt to the legal system” that could have been avoided with a narrower decision that would have been “markedly less unsettling.”
Alito, in his (characteristically) sneering opinion in the abortion case, dismissed Roberts as unprincipled and public opinion as an “extraneous” concern. He likewise dismissed the pain the ruling would cause, writing that “this Court is ill-equipped to assess ‘generalized assertions about the national psyche.’ ” He washed his hands of answering the “empirical question” of “the effect of the abortion right … on the lives of women.”
. . . .
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Read the rest of Milbank’s op-ed at the link.
It would be tempting to breathe a “sigh of relief” that while off on their taxpayer-underwritten summer frolic, the “Gang of 6” can’t do any more damage to our Constitution, our nation, our institutions, or humanity. But, unfortunately, that’s not completely true. If and when their party calls on them, they can always go into “emergency session.”
So let’s hope that there will be no further “emergencies” this summer other than the disorder and divisions already caused by their disingenuous political decrees masquerading as (very thinly to tragicomically inept and inconsistent) “jurisprudence.”
Still, those who enjoy their humanity and their rights (other than gun rights)shouldn’t get too complacent. Vacation will end; the Supremes will be back at it in October — looking for more ways to turn back the clock and “Dred Scottify the other,” even though the majority of Americans actually are “some kind of other.” With a little help from their GOP friends, they will disenfranchise and dehumanize one group at a time until rights and political power look largely like they did in 1789 — when free White men of property ruled.
As for CJ Roberts, after years of trying to put a “genial spin” on the mockery of a fair, impartial, and qualified judiciary incubating at his Supremes, he has totally lost control of the far-right extremists appointed by his party and, in some cases, pushed through the process in a highly irregular manner. Hard to have much sympathy there.
Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Grace School of Applied Diplomacy
Craig Mousin has been the University Ombudsperson at DePaul since 2001. He received a BS from Johns Hopkins University, a JD from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and an M Div from Chicago Theological Seminary. He joined the College of Law faculty in 1990, and served as the Executive Director of the Center for Church/State Studies until 2001, Acting Director until 2003, and co-director from 2004–2007. Mousin co-founded and continues to participate in the Center’s Interfaith Family Mediation Program. He has taught in DePaul’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, the Religious Studies Department, the Grace School of Applied Diplomacy, and the Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies program. He has also taught as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Illinois College of Law and Chicago Theological Seminary .
Prior to DePaul, he began practicing labor law at Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson in 1978. In 1984, Mousin founded and directed the Midwest Immigrant Rights Center, a provider of legal assistance to refugees which has since become the National Immigrant Justice Center. He also directed legal services for Travelers & Immigrants Aid between 1986 and 1990. The United Church of Christ ordained him in 1989. At that time, Wellington Avenue U.C.C. called him as an Associate Pastor. He was a founding co-pastor of the DePaul Ecumenica l Gathering (1996-2001). Mousin serves as a Life Trustee of the Chicago Theological Seminary. In addition, he is a member of the Leadership Council of the National Immigrant Justice Center, a member of the Leadership Council of the Marjorie Kovler Center for Survivors of Torture, a former President and member of the Board of the Eco-Justice Collaborative, and a former President and Board member of the Immigration Project of downstate Illinois. Mousin is a current member of the ABA Dispute Resolution Section Ombuds Committee.
Craig writes:
Comment: Paul,
You might be interested in a short interview I did with Chicago FOX news on World Refugee Day. I tied the celebration in with the honoring of Juneteenth. See:
Also, I do not know if you subscribe to my podcast, Lawful Assembly, but my last post tied together censorship of books in public schools with anti-immigrant sentiments. You can listen at:
Today’s WashPost Outlook Section contained a highly relevant article by author Dave Eggers about how far-right zealots — many with no real stake in our public schools — have taken over at local levels and apply extreme censorship — even to books and concepts that have been successfully and routinely taught for years. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/06/24/dave-eggers-book-bans-south-dakota/
In this case, it’s driving experienced teachers who believe in truth, freedom, and individual rights to flee in droves. So, what we’re really seeing is a shocking “dumbing down” of American education, libraries, and public discourse driven by far right fear-mongers seeking to impose their lack of values and intolerance on others.
We have seen this week how far-right activist extremists, from the Supremes to local politicians and school boards, have elevated guns that kill while gutting the individual rights to free speech, equal protection,and fundamental fairness guaranteed by the 1st, 5th, and 14th Amendments.
Justice Clarence Thomas is certainly a horrible jurist. But, in this instance he might be the only honest GOP appointee on the Supremes.
When Thomas says that immigrants’ human rights, gay rights, right to conception, marriage rights and most other meaningful individual rights guaranteed by the Constitution are on the chopping block, progressives had better believe him. Remember how “leaving things to the states” worked out for African Americans and other minorities attempting to exercise their fundamental rights, even after the Civil War and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. And, remember all those paeons to precedent and “not to worry” about Roe statements under oath from GOP Supremes’ candidates before they actually took their seats on the Court and started scheming to undo abortion rights for political, not legal, reasons!
“Social Justice Warriors” like Craig have been fighting the good fight for decades. But, at this point, it’s going to depend on the NDPA and other young progressive groups to take on the extremist right at the ballot box and to take back their individual rights — really all of our individual rights.
Otherwise, they will find themselves as a disempowered counterculture, hiding out and trying to keep ahead of Ray Bradbury’s firemen in Fahrenheit 451!
Anti-Asylum Judges In Action! Factual distortions, ignoring evidence, and misapplications of the law are some of the “weapons” wielded by some EOIR judges to stop asylum seekers from getting the life-saving legal protections they deserve! Article III Courts can compound the problem by mis-using “deference” to avoid critical examination of the frequent abuses of humanity and the rule of law inflicted by this parody of a court system. Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
ONE TINY STEP FOR MANKIND: But It’s Going To Take Much More Than Finally Replacing A Few Stunningly Unqualified Judges To Save EOIR!
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Courtside Exclusive
June 25, 2022
Over the last few weeks the long overdue and essential process of weeding out poorly qualified Immigration Judges — still on “probation” at EOIR — finally got off to a very modest start.
Imagine yourself as a refugee fighting for your life in an asylum system that’s already stacked against you and where the “judges” work for the Attorney General, part of the Executive Branch’s political and law enforcement apparatus.
How would you like your life to be in the hands of (now) former Immigration Judge Matthew O’Brien. He was appointed in 2020 by former AG Bill Barr — a staunch defender of the Trump/Miller White Nationalist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant agenda.
Nativism A “Qualification?”
What made O’Brien supposedly “qualified” to be a “fair and impartial” administrative judge?
Thankfully, O’Brien will pass into history. But, the damage inflicted by the “official policy of child abuse” will adversely affect generations.
Or, perhaps it was O’Brien’s intimate connection with a leading nativist group. Immediately prior to his appointment, he was the “Research” Director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (“FAIR”) — a group renowned for sloppy to non-existent “research” and presenting racially-motivated myths and fear mongering as “facts.”
As noted by Nowrasteh, that’s not the only example of FAIR providing “bogus research papers” designed to “rev up hate” and demean the contributions of immigrants both documented and undocumented.
The Anti-Defamation League (“ADL”), one of America’s most venerable anti-hate, anti-misinformation groups, founded more than a century ago “To stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all,” had this to say about O’Brien’s former employer:
While the majority of the extreme anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. emanates from fringe groups like white supremacists and other nativists, there are a number of well-established anti-immigrant groups such as Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), NumbersUSA and The Remembrance Project which have secured a foothold in mainstream politics, and their members play a major role in promoting divisive, dangerous rhetoric and views that demonize immigrants. A number of these groups have attempted to position themselves as legitimate advocates against “illegal immigration” while using stereotypes, conspiracy theories and outright bigotry to disparage immigrants and hold them responsible for a number of societal ills. A decade ago, most of this bigotry was directed primarily at Latino immigrants, but today, Muslim and Haitian immigrants, among others, are also targeted.
. . . .
There is a distinct anti-immigrant movement in this country, whose roots can be traced back to the 1970s. Groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) hope to influence general audiences with somewhat sanitized versions of their anti-immigrant views. In their worldview, non-citizens do not enjoy any status or privilege, and any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants or refugees is portrayed as a threat to current citizens. Like some other problematic movements, the anti-immigrant movement also has a more extreme wing, which includes border vigilante groups, as well as groups and individuals that seek to demonize immigrants by using racist, sometimes threatening language.
So, perhaps, you say, once actually “on the bench,” Judge O’Brien was able to overcome his biases and knowledge gaps and function as a fair and impartial judicial officer. Nope! Not in the cards!
According to TRAC, O’Brien denied almost every asylum case he heard (96.4% denials). That was, astoundingly, nearly 40% above the average of his colleagues in Arlington and nearly 30% higher than the nationwide asylum denial rate of approximately 67%.
But, to put this in perspective, we have to recognize that this denial rate had already been intentionally and artificially increased by a expanded,”packed,” politicized, “weaponized,” and intentionally “dumbed down” EOIR during the Sessions/Barr era at DOJ. For example, approximately 10 years ago, more than 50% of asylum, cases were being granted annually nationwide, and approximately 75% of the asylum cases in Arlington were granted. See, e.g., https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/judge2014/00001WAS/index.html. And, even then, most asylum experts would have said that the nationwide grant rate was too low.
Gaming The System For Denial
It’s not that conditions in “refugee/asylum sending” countries have gotten better over the past decade! Far from it! The refugee situation today is as bad as it has ever been since WWII and getting worse every day.
So, why would legal refugee admissions be plunging to record lows (despite a rather disingenuous “increase in the refugee ceiling” by the Biden Administration) and asylum denials up dramatically over the past decade?
It has little or nothing to do with asylum law or the realities of the worldwide refugee flow, particularly from Latin American and Caribbean countries. No, it has to do with an intentional move, started under Bush II, tolerated or somewhat encouraged in the Obama Administration, but greatly accelerated during the Trump-era, to “kneecap” the legal refugee and asylum processing programs. Indeed, the “near zeroing-out” of refugee and asylum admissions and the illegal replacement of Asylum Officers by totally unqualified CBP Agents by the Trump Administration are two of the most egregious examples.
Ironically, the EOIR backlog tripled. Under the “maliciously incompetent management” of the Trump group at DOJ, more judges actually meant more backlog! How is that giving taxpayers “value” for their money?
Some of the new judges, like O’Brien and some of the Immigration Judges “elevated” to the BIA, were appointed specifically because of their established records of anti-asylum bias, rude treatment of attorneys, and dehumanizing treatment of asylum seekers and other migrants.
“Ignorance And Contempt”
It’s not like O’Brien was just your “garden variety” “conservative jurist.”(I’ve actually worked with many of the latter over the years). No, he was notorious for his lack of scholarship, rudeness, and bias!
Here are a few of the comments he received on “RateYourJudge.com:”
“Rarely grants cases. No knowledge of the law, only there to deny cases. He needs to be removed.”
“Biased judge, hates immigrants and even kids of immigrants.”
“Incompetent.”
“One of the most condescending and self-righteous judges I have had the displeasure to hear. His word choice and tone left absolutely no doubt that he considered the Respondent to be beneath his notice, even to the point of referring to her as “the female Respondent” and to her domestic partner as a “paramour”. I have heard other judges’ oral opinions on very similar sets of facts, and they were accomplished in a fifth of the time with no loss of dignity to anyone.”
“This guy’s ignorance about immigration law and contempt for the people who appear before him is staggering. The way he threatens lawyers is reprehensible. EOIR is a disgrace.”
“Horrible human being with no business being on the bench. Shame on EOIR for allowing him to continue adjudicating cases.”
“Late, abusive, made up his mind before the case even started, frequently interrupted testimony, yelled at immigrants and their lawyer, and refused to listen to anything we said. Ignorant of the law and facts of the case. He should go back to directing hate groups.”
Among the stream of negative comments there were three “positive” comments about O’Brien;
Most of the comments both positive and negative were “anonymous” or apparent user “pseudonyms;”
“RateMyImmigrationJudge” is neither comprehensive nor transparent.
Flunking the “Gold Standard”
So, was O’Brien really as horrible as most experts say? Let’s do another type of “reality check.”
Among the other IJs at the Arlington Immigration Court, two stand out as widely respected expert jurists who have served for decades across Administrations of both parties. Judge John Milo Bryant was first appointed as an Immigration Judge in 1987 under the Reagan Administration. Judge Lawrence Owen Burman was appointed in 1998 under the Clinton Administration. With 66 years of judicial service between them, they would be considered more or less the “gold standard” for well-qualified, subject matter expert, fair and impartial Immigration Judges.
Significantly, according to the last TRAC report, O’Brien’s asylum grant rate of 3,6% wasapproximately 1/15th of Judge Bryant’s and approximately 1/22 of Judge Burman’s. https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/judgereports/. Case closed! O’Brien should never have been on a bench where asylum seekers lives were at stake and expertise and fairness are supposed to be job requirements!
“Worse Than O’Brien”
What about now former Arlington Immigration Judge David White who was removed at the same time as O’Brien? Apparently, during his relatively short tenure (appointed by Barr in 2020), White was unable to deny enough asylum to qualify for TRAC’s system (100 decisions minimum).
Yet, he made an indelible impression on those “sentenced” to appear before him. Here are comments from RateMyImmigrtionJudge.com:
“This judge is absolutely terrible. Unfair and biased. He is only here to deny asylum cases regardless of what the person has been through. Completely misstates the facts, doesn’t know the law so goes after credibility (using those misstated facts) as an excuse to say there’s no past persecution. Absolute disgrace.”
“Worst judge ever. The clerks at the Immigration Court told the private bar attorneys that they have NEVER seen this judge approve an asylum case. Not one. They have running bets and jokes about him, but he never grants. He writes the denial during the trial instead of listening to the person testify. He is insulting and rude and not at all compassionate about trauma.”
“This is the worst immigration judge in Arlington, hands down. He’s even worse than O’Brien, and O’Brien is an former hate-group director.”
“Terrible immigration judge. Had his mind made up well before our hearing. Came in with a prewritten denial that misstated the law. Was rude and dismissive about my client’s trauma.”
Wow! Worse than O’Brien. That’s quite an achievement.
GOP Court Packing
Fact is, the overt politicization, “weaponization,” and “dumbing down” of the Immigration Courts goes back nearly two decades to AG John Ashcroft and the Bush II Administration. Ashcroft reduced the size of the BIA as a gimmick to “purge” the supposedly “liberal” judges — those, including me, who voted to uphold the legal rights of migrants against government overreach. In other words, our “transgression” was to stand up for due process and the individual rights of immigrants — actually “our job” as properly defined.
And, the downward spiral has continued. The DOJ Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) actually confirmed some of the Bush II improper Immigration Judge hires. But, they avoided dealing with the “BIA purge” that got the ball rolling downhill at EOIR! The GOP has been much more skillful than Dems in reshaping the Immigration Courts to their liking.
During the Trump Administration, putting clearly unqualified IJs who were some of rudest highest denying in America on the BIA was certainly “packing” and “stacking” EOIR against legitimate asylum seekers. Again, however, the OIG failed to “seal the deal” regarding this outrageous conduct that has undermined our entire justice system, fed uncontrollable backlog, and cost human lives that should and could have been saved.
Trump’s “court packing scheme” was no “small potatoes” matter, even if some in the Biden Administration are willfully blind to the continuing human rights and due process disaster at EOIR.
Removing two of the most glaringly unqualified Barr appointees in Arlington is a very modest step by AG Garland in the right direction. But, it’s going to take more, much more, decisive action to clean out the unqualified and the deadwood, bring in true expertise and judicial quality, and restore even a modicum of legitimacy and integrity at EOIR.
Reactionaries’ Predictably Absurdist Reaction
Meanwhile, even this long overdue, well justified, and all too minimal change at EOIR produced totally absurdist reactions from O’Brien and fellow nativists (including some still “hiding out in plain sight” at DOJ) which were picked up by the Washington Times (of course). Don’t believe a word of it!
The removal of guys like O’Brien and White — who never had any business being placed in “quasi-judicial” positions where they exercised life or death authority over refugees of color whose humanity and legal rights they refused to recognize, is just a beginning. The ethical, competence, and judicial attitude rot at EOIR goes much deeper.
Garland has been dilatory in “cleaning house” at EOIR. Vulnerable individuals who were wrongly rejected rather than properly protected have needlessly suffered, and probably even died, as a result. Poor Immigration Judging and lack of effective, correct, courageous, positive asylum guidance by the BIA has helped fuel a human rights disaster and rule of law collapse at the border!
Perhaps, at long last, Garland has slowly started fixing the unconscionable and unnecessary dysfunction andintentionally ingrained institutional bias at EOIR. But, I’ll believe it when I see it!
Keep Up The Pressure
In the meantime, it’s critical that NDPA members: 1) keep applying for EOIR judgeships; and 2) ratchet up the pressure and demand the removal of all unqualified Immigration Judges and Appellate Immigration Judges who are undermining sound scholarship, due process, fundamental fairness, and human dignity at EOIR!
Human rights matter! Individual rights matter! Immigrants’ rights matter! Good judges matter!
Today, we are surrounded by too many bad judges, at all levels of our justice system, who reject the first three in favor of warped far-right ideologies, dangerous myths, and disregard for human dignity. The existential battle to get good judges into our system has begun. And, Immigration Courts are the primary theater of action!
Located on bluffs above the mighty and historic Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, on the ancestral homelands of the Menominee and Ho-Chunk people, Lawrence University was founded in 1847 as the second coeducational college in America and the first in Wisconsin! Today, approximately 1,500 Lawrentians attend one of America’s leading liberal arts colleges!
INVOCATION
Reunion convocation Lawrence University Saturday, June18 –11AM
Rev. Scott W. Alexander – Class of 1971
Dear Spirit of life and love – that holy-yet- fragile presence which animates and informs this troubled world of ours, and constantly tries to lure us toward goodness, compassion and truth — be with us this hour as we remember and recommit to the highest principles and purposes of this institution.
The Motto of Lawrence University – this treasured institution that helped shape our lives and give meaning to our work in this world – is”VERITASESTLUX[Veritas-est-lucks]”-
Latin (of course) for “Truth Is light.1
Simple, right?…The light of Truth will show us the way to our best human selves, and a rational, just and humane world.
Maybe…but in these complicated times, truth itself (and all the intellectual. scientific and moral standards that underpin it) are dangerously up for grabs.
Sadly, our culture is now on the tragic cusp of becoming a rudderless “POST-TRUTH SOCIETY”…where everything Lawrence University stands for– truth, reason, critical thinking, discernment and progress — are no longer self-evident, or the dominant modes of thinking and discourse. This time we live in is polluted by rampant disinformation, gaslighting, conspiracy theories, sinister deceptions, and outright lies. In such a dangerous environment, this University becomes “counter-culture” when it insists on clear and rigorous intellectual and moral standards…and a reliance of facts and data — rather than revisionist history or one’s “personal” truths.
Let us then, on this day and all days to follow, defend and honor the values and commitments upon which this University stands. And let us refuse to abrogate what we learn here – that truth matters…that all people have inherent worth and dignity…and that together (with wisdom and goodwill) we can build a social order of decency, inclusion, justice and hope.
Amen
*************************
Rev. Alexander also received the George B. Walter ’36 Service to Society Award. Afterward, he was kind enough to share the “delivery copy” of his Invocation with me for publication here.
Here’s his bio from the Lawrence University Alumni Office:
Scott Alexander ’71
Scott Alexander ’71
Alexander, of Vero Beach, Florida, has been an ordained minister with Unitarian Universalist congregations and has served in numerous UU leadership roles over the past four-plus decades. He travels widely, speaking, preaching, and offering in-depth workshops on a variety of UU and faith-related subjects. He has authored or edited five books as part of his UU ministry, covering topics ranging from affirming LGBTQ inclusion to AIDS resources to everyday spiritual practices.
A student-athlete while at Lawrence, Alexander continues to enjoy endurance events. The former marathoner has now completed four coast-to-coast charity bike rides that have raised more than $150,000.
Along the lines of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, “Rev. Scott” shows that you can say a lot without speaking a lot! That’s one of the many, many benefits of a liberal arts education and a reason for promoting diversity and expansion of availability within the liberal arts educational “model.”
Folks at the reunion had excelled and given back to society in a mind-bogglingly wide range of fields — from farming to art, business, medicine, biophysics, law, religion, entertainment, healing, craft brewing, real estate, library science, journalism, philosophy, aviation, military service, religion, pet services, language learning, writing, working with vets, law enforcement, music, hospitality, civil service, child care, elder care, social work, philanthropy, deaf services, performing arts, administration, economics, international understanding, finance, environmental protection, and almost everything in between.
One of my classmates had been through 22 different jobs in 50 years since we graduated and contributed, learned, and grew in every one of them! Talk about flexibility and being prepared to find meaning in anything life throws your way! Another earned my “vote for God” through her consistently positive view of life, intellectual creativity, and ability to combine them in a never-ending quest for spiritual healing of those, like vets and abused populations, suffering from severe trauma!
I had lunch with two stars of the “new generation” who — 15 years out — were inspiring a diverse groups of younger Americans — including Native Americans — as teachers in secondary and higher education. One was a former student of my son-in-law (now a Professor at Beloit College), showing how interconnected we all are!
In the words of Rev. Scott, we all worked to promote a “societyof decency, inclusion, justice and hope.” I wish I could say the job is done. But, obviously it isn’t. Despite our efforts, there has been disheartening backsliding and regression in the fight for truth over lies, justice over bias, and humanity over hate!
We “50+ Reunionists” are fighters and “applied idealists.” We will never stop battling for our values!
But, we are also imperfect humans and realists. We must accept our human mortality and rely on the upcoming generation (“the NDPA”) to complete the job we inevitably will leave as a “work in progress.” Ultimately, whether truth, light, and human dignity; or lies, vile myths, hate, and intentional dehumanization, triumph will be up to them and their vision of the world in which they will live and leave to future generations!
The forces of darkness and illiberality alluded to by Rev. Scott are present, energized, and determined to thwart justice and human progress. Triumphing over them and “lighting the world with truth” will take constant, concerted, inspired, and never-ending energy and effort!
I am a proud LU ’70 graduate. My wife Cathy (Piehl) Schmidt is LU ’69. Our daughter Anna Patchin Schmidt is LU ’06.
🇺🇸🗽⚖️ Due Process Forever!
PWS
06-22-22
But, wait, there’s more!
Lawrence University Class of 1970: Five generations out and still going strong! — From one turbulent time in America to another!
Rev. John Fease (LU ‘70), one of Appleton’s most passionate advocates for social justice, talking with retired librarian Walter Stitt (LU ‘70), John Kaufman (LU ‘67), and LU Athletic Hall of Famer, former coach, and well-known pottery artist Rich Agnes (LU ‘67). I dubbed Rev. Fease “Appleton’s Mr. Condom” for his leadership and tireless work on behalf of Planned Parenthood!LU Alums gather for the “Parade of the Classes.”Class of ‘70 buddies for life (l-r) Dr. Sue Mahle, Mary Freeman Borgh, Martha Esch Schott, Class Secretary Extraordinaire Phyllis Russ Pengelly, and Emeritus LU Trustee Jeff “Ralph” Riester share some good times, past and present.Generations confabbing at Brat Picnics are a Lawrence tradition (mine, of course, was totally “plant based”). Carolyn Grieco (LU ‘08) is bringing truth and light to new generations as a Spanish teacher in Antioch, Illinois! You can actually see “the light of Lawrence” shining above us through the campus tree canopy! Lawrence currently is leading the way among institutions of higher learning in sustainable energy and renewable resources!
