🏴‍☠️☠️HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST SLAMS BIDEN’S ILLEGAL, INHUMANE, INEPT BORDER POLICIES! — Even As Corrupt (Surprise) Rationale For Trump’s Racist Title 42 Policies Revealed, Biden Returns Legal Asylum Seekers To Peril In Mexico With No Due Process, CBP Abuses Continue, & Garland DOJ Mindlessly & Unethically Defends Illegal Actions At Border! — What’s Going On Here?

“Floaters” — “Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers”
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc) The Biden Administration continues to view the lives of legal asylum seekers, mostly people of color, as expendable and death, rape, torture, child abuse, and other irreparable harm as acceptable “deterrents” to refugees asserting their legal and human rights! That’s basically the Trump/Miller vision! So, what was the 2020 election about?

Dear Paul:

Human Rights First’s work to restore justice at the border took center stage this week. Our experts exposed the political origins of Title 42 and reported on the escalating danger faced by refugees expelled by the Biden administration.

We pushed the administration to more swiftly wind down “Remain in Mexico,” and called out Customs and Border Patrol’s mistreatment of migrants in their custody.

We also announced that Saturday Night Live main cast member Ego Nwodim will host our June 3rd Spring Social, and we have new opportunities to join Human Rights First’s New York City marathon team.

REPORTING ON DANGERS TO REFUGEES EXPELLED TO MEXICO

This week, Human Rights First, RAICES, and the Interfaith Welcome Coalition found that despite the epidemic of violence and kidnappings of migrants and refugees, the Biden administration is using Title 42 to expel adults and families with young children to Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas, MX.

Courtesy Reuters

Asylum-seekers in the Remain in Mexico policy living inside a

makeshift camp in the Mexican city of Matamoros.

Legal Fellow Julia Neusner highlighted Border Patrol’s shocking mistreatment of refugee and migrant families expelled to danger by the Biden administration in her newest blog post.

EXPOSING TITLE 42 AS A POLITICAL CALCULATION

Our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request today revealed that a Trump administration Centers for Disease Control (CDC) political appointee with no public health expertise “work[ed] on” the Title 42 order’s near “final version” for “days” before the former CDC director signed it.

The findings of our FOIA confirm the political origins of the Title 42 order and further underline that the Biden administration’s continued use of Title 42 to block asylum at the border has no basis in public health.

URGING A SWIFTER WIND DOWN TO “REMAIN IN MEXICO”

Human Rights First led more than 50 organizations and law school clinics yesterday in issuing a letter to the Biden administration urging them to improve their wind down of the Trump administration’s ill-named “Migrant Protection Protocols,” and swiftly bring to safety those stranded under the cruel program.

“The lives and safety of asylum seekers still stranded in Mexico are in the hands of President Biden and his administration,” said Senior Director of Refugee Protection Eleanor Acer.

Courtesy Reuters

Migrants sent back to Mexico under MPP

occupy a makeshift encampment in Matamoros, Mexico.

PUSHING TO EVACUATE OUR ALLIES FROM AFGHANISTAN

As part of our effort to bring Afghan allies in the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program to safety, President and CEO Michael Breen penned an op-ed calling on President Biden to evacuate those remaining in the program.

“Leaving allies behind would strike at the very core of who we believe ourselves to be and fly in the face of our most sacred creed. What faith would we have left in ourselves? Who would ever stand with us again?” he wrote.

Take Action

You can join our effort to save our SIVs by contacting your Members of Congress and urging them to take action to protect these allies, many of whom sacrificed so much to work with American forces.

CELEBRATING HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS AT OUR SPRING SOCIAL

We’re excited to announce that Saturday Night Live’s Ego Nwodim will be hosting our Virtual Spring Social LIVE on June 3rd at 6:30pm EST!

Also featuring special guests Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, Grace and Frankie), Leeza Gibbons, Hill Harper, and an exclusive musical performance from mxmtoon, with more to come!

Don’t miss this festive, empowering event honoring human rights defenders.

Tickets start at $100.

Register Now

MARATHONING FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Human Rights First has charity bibs for the 2021 TCS NYC Marathon!

If you want to be a part of the historic 50th marathon and support human rights, please complete our interest form by tomorrow, May 20.

EXPANDING OUR TEAM TO MEET NEW CHALLENGES

Human Rights First empowers Americans to fight for justice in our own communities and around the world. Our staff succeed at bringing real change, and many have gone on to lead at all levels of government.

Now, we’re seeking new talent to join this passionate and effective team.

news as our work for human rights continues. And please stay in touch on social media:

PLEASE MAKE HUMAN RIGHTS A PRIORITY IN YOUR LIFE

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Requiring the restoration of the legal asylum system at the border is a legal and moral imperative that Garland continues to ignore (compare “Gonzo” Sessions’s willingness to use bogus legal opinions to effectively order DHS to institute illegal, racist, xenophobic policies like “family separation” at the border and an illegal end to DACA).

If Garland had acted promptly and competently, a “New EOIR” unburdened by bogus Trump-era anti-asylum precedents, with a new progressive BIA, and with asylum expert judges assigned to border asylum cases could be working through those cases right now without denying anyone’s rights! It’s not “mission impossible” despite all the right wing blather, reinforced to a large extent by the Biden Administration’s remarkable inability to handle a very predictable border scenario in accordance with the law and best practices, compounded by their inept and uninformed “flackies” whose lack of knowledge about the realities of our immigration system, the human impact, and the very future of our justice system and our democracy at stake continue to be mind boggling!

It’s not going to happen until Garland wises up, removes the “Miller leftovers” at EOIR, and puts progressive experts in charge of repairing and reforming the Immigration Courts as well as restoring law and order at the border. Knowledge is power! And the lack of human rights, immigration, asylum, due process, gender, racial equity, and Immigration Court expertise at DOJ is killing the Biden Administration, along with the folks they are illegally and immorally returning to danger and abuse every day!

Also, a greatly upgraded PIO Team that actually understands immigration, human rights, due process, and their links to racial justice policies, the economy, and other Administration priorities and can provide compelling, factually accurate information in support of reestablishing our legal immigration system and due process should also be a “must do” for the Biden Administration! The fascist, nativist right “misinformation and distortion factory” is “loaded for bear” on these issues; it’s once again “Amateur Night at the Bijou” for the Biden immigration and legal reform efforts, particularly at the inept and apparently clueless DOJ! It should not, and must not continue, to be this way!

Is this REALLY the best recruiting method for a crack immigration/human rights PIO Team at EOIR and DOJ? Are holdovers who spewed forth “Soviet-style” propaganda and misinformation defending the indefensible Trump/Miller White Nationalist viurulently anti-due-process, misogynist immigration agenda @ EOIR & DOJ REALLY the best spokespersons for an Administration pledged to institute progressive changes in immigration?
PHOTO: Thomas Hawk
Creative Commons
Amateur Night

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-20-21

🗽DR. YAEL SCHACHER: The Biden Administration Must Restore The Rule Of Law At The Border — With Recommendations For Action! — Experts Continue To Provide Blueprints For Garland & Mayorkas To Ignore As The Biden Administration Bobbles Chances For Life-Saving, Democracy-Preserving, Racial & Gender Justice Reforms @ EOIR & DHS!

https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports/2021/5/11/addressing-the-legacy-of-expedited-removal-border-procedures-and-alternatives-for-reform

Introduction

Though he has already revoked some of the former administration’s highly restrictive policies on asylum, President Biden has thus far left in place an expulsion policy first imposed by the Trump administration under Title 42 of the U.S. Code, and based on the unreasonable assertion that public health requires such restrictive measures be essentially directed at asylum seekers. Ports of entry have remained closed to asylum seekers except to a select few exempted from Title 42 in response to a lawsuit challenging the policy. This month, the Biden administration moved to expand the humanitarian exemption process further, tasking NGOs with identifying vulnerable migrants in Mexico and getting information about them to U.S Customs and Border Protection officials (CBP) in order to speed processing at ports. In addition, since February, Mexico’s refusal to accept back expelled Honduran, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan families with young children has meant that the Border Patrol has released some families and allowed them to proceed to their destinations—often the homes of relatives—to pursue their claims for asylum there. This is currently a practice borne of the necessity of limiting congregate detention during the pandemic. But a return to the pre-existing policy and practice—a border screening process called expedited removal—will recreate long-standing problems, and the Biden administration should now consider alternatives.

Under expedited removal, border officials are tasked with asking migrants who lack valid travel documents about their fear of return to their home country and with referring them to preliminary interviews with asylum officers if they express this fear. U.S. asylum officers assess whether the migrants have “a credible fear” of persecution—that is, a significant possibility of establishing eligibility for asylum. If they fail this interview, they are removed or remain detained (without real access to counsel) for a review by an immigration judge within seven days. A negative decision by a judge is final and leads to removal. A positive credible fear decision leads the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to place the asylum seeker in full (non-expedited) proceedings designed to secure the “removal” of unauthorized migrants, and the asylum seeker must then prove to an immigration judge (who works for the Executive Office of Immigration Review in the Department of Justice) that they merit refugee status.

Expedited removal created an entirely “defensive” system—whereby asylum seekers are presumed removable. It is also an adversarial system, and, as applied, has undermined the right to seek asylum at the border and recognition that asylum is a legal pathway to protection regardless of status. For example, prior to a determination of eligibility, U.S. officials have criminally prosecuted those who have sought refuge but have been without travel documents or have entered without inspection. Many arriving asylum seekers get screened out even before credible fear assessments can be made, as they have been unfairly rejected by CBP officers who did not ask them about fear or inform them of their right to seek protection. Those who CBP refer for credible fear interviews are required to show they can meet a complex legal protection standard just after arrival and while detained; those denied at the credible fear stage have inadequate opportunity for appeal. Expedited removal has cut off access to the federal courts for border arriving asylum seekers; as a result, asylum jurisprudence is left to develop without addressing protection issues raised by a large majority of today’s asylum seekers. In practice, expedited removal has limited the ability of Central Americans in particular to obtain access to protection and fair assessments of their asylum claims, and many have been removed to life-threatening danger.

Expedited removal has been justified as a means to promote efficiency in asylum processing. Yet over the last decade, when large numbers of families have come to the border to seek refuge, expedited removal has proven extremely inefficient. President Trump expanded expedited removal—extending its application far beyond the border (anywhere within the United States to anyone present for less than two years without authorization), putting credible fear interviews in the hands of enforcement officers, and raising eligibility standards.

On February 2, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 14010 on “Creating a Comprehensive Regional Framework to Address the Causes of Migration, to Manage Migration Throughout North and Central America, and to Provide Safe and Orderly Processing of Asylum Seekers at the United States Border.” The Executive Order called for a review of the use of expedited removal within 120 days. The Order suggests that the Biden administration intends to implement expedited removal in a way that is more efficient and respectful of due process after the lifting of Title 42. For reasons described in this brief, it is highly questionable that such a system will prove to be fair or even effective and workable. Thus, this issue brief suggests alternative ways the United States can have a fair and efficient system that better fulfills its obligation to provide access to protection at the border. A different reception system at the border is an essential component of a new, comprehensive, protection-oriented approach to migration from Central America.

. . . .

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

Read Yael’s full paper at the link.

I think the Administration could and should have taken a much quicker and more aggressive approach to restoring the rule of law at the border. In the more than six months since the election, the Biden Administration could have reached out to the private/NGO sectors, as well as identifying qualified due process and human rights experts already on the USG payroll, who could have re-established legal asylum screening ART USCIS and reinstituted due process and the rule of law at EOIR while longer term reforms and more permanent personnel recruitments and selections were being made.

Why are brilliant experts like Yael and many others still writing papers and making suggestions (that the Administration insultingly ignores or fobs off) instead of leading from the inside and solving problems on a daily basis? What a waste of brainpower and opportunity for immediate improvment, not to mention the human lives and national values being “flushed down the toilet”🚽 at EOIR and DHS every day!

Why are inferior “Miller Lite Holdover” candidates, recruited under a badly flawed and much criticized process, being selected by Garland at EOIR, when a potentially far superior and more diverse group of experts from the NDPA could be attracted and hired under a legitimate recruitment process that targets the many underrepresented pools of talent for key jobs at DHS and DOJ?

It is a priority, and it’s not rocket science!🚀 But, it will remain beyond the capabilities or priorities at DOJ and DHS unless or until the Biden Administration brings in some better personnel and experts to solve the problems!

Neither Garland nor Mayorkas has put the “A-Team” in place, despite lots of recommendations that they do so and the pools of far better personnel readily available in the private sector and outside the “Miller-Restrictionist In-Team” that systematically abused and disrespected immigrants’ and human rights over the past four years!

It’s frustrating to watch yet another Dem Administration unnecessarily screw up immigration law and policy. It also costs human lives and undermines the future of our national democracy.☠️⚰️👎🏻

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-17-21

⚖️👍🏼😎LAW YOU CAN USE: Professor Geoffrey Hoffman Tells Us How To Use Niz-Chavez v. Garland To Fight DHS/EOIR’s “Fake Date NTA” Travesty!

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2021/05/another-twist-on-niz-chavez-by-geoffrey-hoffman.html

Geoffrey writes on ImmigrationProf Blog:

Geoffrey Hoffman previously has blogged about the recent Supreme Court decision in Niz-Chavez v. Garland. Here is the sequel.

Another Twist on Niz-Chavez . . . by Geoffrey Hoffman

A fascinating twist on the factual scenario in Niz-Chavez is what to do if your client had an NTA with a so-called “fake date.” The “fake date” problem is one you will remember well if you practice immigration law before EOIR, and it garnered national attention in 2019 when ICE issued these fake dates for thousands of immigrants, many of whom showed up in court only to find that there was nothing on any judge’s docket to indicate they were scheduled for a hearing that day. Reports of fake dates were prevalent in Dallas, Orlando, Miami, Seattle, and I am sure other places as well. See news articles such as this one. In addition, and as a separate matter, there was a well-known so-called “parking date” (November 29) issued on thousands of NTAs and that was also never a “real date” as everyone knew.

There is an interesting theory about why the “fake dates” were issued in the first place: that the government was trying to respond to Pereira v. Sessions itself. Despite its argument in federal court to try to restrict Pereira as much as possible, in practice ICE tacitly was affirming, so the argument goes, that in Pereira the Supreme Court had defined, as we have argued all along, what is and what is not a proper and valid NTA. In an effort to immunize itself from responsibility for defective NTAs without any time or place of hearing, ICE thought it might make sense to input “fake dates” in their NTAs, thus (at least superficially it would seem) immunizing itself from the argument that the NTAs were defective for “lack” of a real date and place. Then the “real date” – according to the argument – could be issued as a follow-up in the form of a notice of hearing by EOIR.

The question now arises whether clients with fake-date NTAs can utilize Pereira and now Niz-Chavez to defeat the “stop-time” effect for cancellation of removal, where such fake NTAs existed, even where there is a subsequent notice of hearing with a “real date” from EOIR. The short answer is “Yes” – and I will discuss in the rest of this article why this should be the case and why it should not come as a surprise for several reasons.

It is arguably a much stronger case for the application of Niz-Chavez because the issuance of a “fake date” that was never intended to be used by EOIR in any way is affirmatively wrong. It is not just mere negligence by leaving “TBA” with a blank date and place of hearing on the NTA. ICE should not be able to hide behind an NTA where the information is filled in on the NTA but the information is patently false and made up or fabricated. Just as an asylum seeker who fabricates a date or other information on their forms cannot benefit from such information in applying for relief before the court, the government should get no benefit either from their incorrect and misleading actions. The counter-argument from the government will be that the NTA was valid “on its face” since it had some “date and place” in the document and therefore (a) stopped time for cancellation purposes and (b) conferred jurisdiction because it was “facially” valid.

This counter-argument is flawed. To embrace such a rationale would exalt form over substance. It also would allow an agency to game the system. It would also defeat the very mechanism that the Supreme Court set out in Pereira and now Niz-Chavez. Respondent should be entitled to reopen their proceedings in all “fake date” cases since a valid NTA was not filed in the immigration court. The only remaining issue will be proof. The respondent and his or her attorney will have to prove there was no hearing that was actually held on that day. If no hearing existed at all, then the stop time rule should not apply and the fake NTA cannot be “cured” by a subsequently issued notice by a different agency, that is EOIR, as per Niz-Chavez.

Finally, in reopening a client’s case it would be helpful if there were a showing of some effort on the part the respondent to check. Proof may be difficult and EOIR FOIA and other investigation will be important. Ideally, the client or the their attorney or both went to court but no hearing was on the docket that day, and there was an effort to check that was documented in some way. If there never was receipt of the NTA at all, whether containing a fake date or not, and an in absentia order was issued, then the question becomes whether jurisdiction could have vested at all in such a case. As I have argued, if the NTA is defective it cannot result in the vesting of jurisdiction. A fake date and place arguably cannot confer jurisdiction, even if the NTA was filed with the court. Since there was no hearing actually scheduled the NTA should be found defective under Pereira and Niz-Chavez.

K[evin] J[ohnson]

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

Sure sounds to me like ‘affirmative misconduct” by the USG that should stop them from relying on the “fake dates. In the “old days,” INS actually used to settle potential “affirmative misconduct” cases, rather than litigate.

By contrast, today’s DOJ seems perfectly willing shamelessly to defend a wide range of legally and ethically questionable conduct and then “blow off” criticism from the Article III Judiciary. Recently, a frustrated U.S. District Judge referred to Bureau of Prisons officials as “idiots.”

One might have thought that would have spurred some type of apology and corrective action from the DOJ. But, that doesn’t seem to have registered with Garland. He just keeps rolling along with Barr’s “Miller Lite” appointments while dissing advice from progressives who actually helped put him in his current job. About the only thing you can count on from Dems is that when it comes to progressive immigraton reforms and EOIR, they’ll blow it!

Thanks, Geoffrey, for your timely and creative “practical scholarship.” Of course with better leadership, the Biden Administration could solve this problem without protracted litigation that often takes years and produces inconsistent results before the Supremes or Congress can resolve them. In the meantime, lives unnecessarily are ruined and the system becomes more inefficient and unfair.

Garland should appoint progressive practical scholars like Geoffrey to the BIA and senior management at EOIR, OIL, OLP, and the SG’s Office and let them “lead from above” — rather than having to fight bad interpretations and worst practices from the outside.

In this case, the DHS/EOIR “fake date policy” was both fraudulent and unethical. Remember that some folks actually showed up at Immigration Court buildings, often with families in tow, after having traveled hundreds of miles, @ 3:00 AM on Sunday mornings (or on a Federal Holiday or some other bogus date) only to find out that the “joke” was on them.

And, let’s not forget folks, that thanks to the BIA’s permissive attitude (when it comes to the Government, but not with individual rights), under the now “being phased out” “Remain in Mexico Program” (a/k/a “let “em Die In Mexico”), folks basically got NTAs with the equivalent of this: “Maria Gomez, somewhere on some Calle in Tijuana, Mexico.” But, the BIA said that this was basically “good enough for Government work.”

We should also remember that the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause guarantees the individual’s rights against the Government, not the other way around! But, you sure wouldn’t know that from reading BIA and AG precedents issued under the Trump kakistocracy.

Meanwhile, IJs and the BIA under Garland continue to “in absentia” folks for being a few minutes late for a hearing or misreading an NTA in a language they can’t understand. Anybody had a problem with their U.S. Mail lately? We have, in our “upper middle class neighborhood” in Alexandria, VA. Yet, EOIR and some Article IIIs continue to promote the “legal fiction” of a “presumption of proper (and timely) delivery” of notices sent by regular U.S. Mail.

Until, Garland has the backbone to restore ethics and the rule of law at EOIR and the rest of the DOJ, particularly by reassigning or otherwise removing those who “went along to get along” and replacing them with ethical, qualified, experts from the NDPA who will speak truth to power and hold immigration enforcement bureaucrats accountable, our justice system will continue its tailspin!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

O5-15-21

⚖️🗽MORE TRUTH ABOUT THE SOUTHERN BORDER FROM ONE OF AMERICA’S 🇺🇸 LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERTS: “Real Needs, Not Fictitious Crises Account For The Situation at US-Mexico Border,” By Donald Kerwin Center For Migration Studies

Donald M. Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies

In a new essay for the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS), CMS’s Executive Director Donald Kerwin writes:

The number of unaccompanied children and asylum-seekers crossing the US-Mexico border in search of protection has increased in recent weeks. The former president, his acolytes, and both extremist and mainstream media have characterized this situation as a “border crisis,” a self-inflicted wound by the Biden administration, and even a failure of US asylum policy. It is none of these things. Rather, it is a response to compounding pressures, most prominently the previous administration’s evisceration of US asylum and anti-trafficking policies and procedures, and the failure to address the conditions that are displacing residents of the Northern Triangle states of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras), as well as Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and other countries…

The real immigration crisis is not at the border, but in the failure to respond effectively to the conditions driving forced migration, to establish orderly and viable legal immigration policies, to legalize the increasingly long-tenured undocumented population, and to reform and invest sufficiently in the US asylum and immigration court systems.

READ MORE

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

Thanks Don for speaking out against the scandalous GOP complete “border BS,” all too often parroted by the so-called “mainstream press.” Read the rest of Don’s essay at the link.

Don has spent his entire career solving migration and human rights problems. The Biden Administration and everyone who believes in American democracy should listen to “practical experts” like Don, rather than ignorant, racially-motivated GOP politicos and White Nationalist nativists spouting the “same old, same old” myths, fear-mongering, and unhelpful “non-solutions.”

If xenophobic rhetoric, cruelty, officially-sanctioned child abuse, evading our own legal and humanitarian responsibilities, and “enforcement only” were the “solutions,” the “problem at the Southern Border” — which has existed in one form or another for over a half century, would long ago have been solved. We can’t solve humanitarian situations that create forced migration with unilateral law enforcement gimmicks and cruelty toward the humans fighting for their lives. Human migration long pre-existed the formation of nation states and establishment of national boundaries.

Administration after administration, of both parties, have squandered time and taxpayer money on unsuccessful efforts to “enforce their way” out of forced migration situations. Contrary to GOP blather, Democratic Administrations have been almost as fixated as the GOP with unsuccessfully “detaining, deterring, and enforcing” their way out of human problems that demand more thoughtful human solutions.

All Administrations at some point prematurely claim that their efforts have “succeeded.” None actually have succeeded in addressing the causes of the migration. Therefore, none of these “false solutions” proves “durable.”

Significantly, Don is one of the few commentators to fully grasp the integral connection between the Trump regime’s complete destruction of the integrity of the Immigration Courts and its lawless, yet highly ineffective, border policies.

Real solutions don’t kill, harm, and maim refugees and forced migrants, encourage criminal cartels and corrupt foreign officials to prey on them, and stack up desperate humans in dangerous conditions just across the border because US Government officials were too biased and incompetent to operate under any semblance of the rule of law.

We can abide by our own laws, international norms, our Constitution, human decency, and common sense. It isn’t rocket science.

But, it does require a combination of expertise, courage, humanity, and practical problem solving that has been conspicuously absent from our governing structure since 2017, and severely undervalued before that.

Also, it’s certainly not that the Biden Administration has suddenly re-established due process and the rule of law at the border. Far from it!

The vast majority of those arriving at the border, even those who are applying at legal ports of entry, are unceremoniously and summarily removed without any process at all, let alone due process of law. This is all based on a largely bogus Trump-initiated exercise of authority by the CDC to use COVID-19 as a pretext to suspend the rule of law and constitutional due process at the border.

Moreover, we shouldn’t forget that even with the Biden Administration’s gradual efforts to re-establish a legal process for asylum seekers, unaccompanied children are still being held in Government detention for far longer than the 72-hours permitted under law. This problem won’t be solved, as some GOP nativists incredibly suggest, by dumping kids back across the Mexican Border, returning them to danger in their home countries without regard to their individual situations, or forcing them to turn to smugglers to make their way to relative safety in the interior of the U.S.

Nor will it be solved by long-term detention in disgraceful and inhumane “Baby Jails!” Ask my Georgetown Law colleague and author Professor Phil Schrag of the CALS Asylum Clinic about that!

Interestingly, some of the biggest complainers spreading the “open borders myth” are Greg Abbott and other Texas GOP politicos who have prematurely “reopened their state” in the middle of a pandemic in blatant contravention of best medical and public health advice. So, you can summarily dismiss their “crocodile tears” and bogus “hand wringing” about public health and safety.

That’s particularly true since the GOP is just coming off a massive example of how their incompetent mis-governance of Texas caused unnecessary misery and loss of life among Texas residents as a result of a highly predictable and long-foreseen “weather emergency.” Why does the mainstream media often continue to treat these “political hacks,” who couldn’t “govern” their way out of a paper bag, as credible spokespersons on anything, let alone human rights situations of which they have no expertise whatsoever?

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! Re-Establish The Rule Of Law, Including Full, Robust Humanitarian Protections At The Border & In Our Disgracefully Dysfunctional Immigration “Courts.”

PWS

03-18-21

🏴‍☠️INSIDE A FAILED AND UNJUST SYSTEM: Reuters Report Explains How The Trump Administration Destroyed Due Process, Fundamental Fairness, & Humanity In The U.S. Immigration Courts!

Mica Rosenberg
National Immigration Reporter, Reuters

Four Horsemen — BIA Asylum Panel In Action
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-trump-court-special-r/special-report-how-trump-administration-left-indelible-mark-on-u-s-immigration-courts-idUSKBN2B0179

Reade Levinson, Kristina Cooke, & Mica Rosenberg report for Reuters:

(Reuters) – On a rainy September day in 2018, Jeff Sessions, then U.S. attorney general, addressed one of the largest classes of newly hired immigration judges in American history.

“The vast majority of asylum claims are not valid,” he said during a swearing-in ceremony in Falls Church, Virginia, according to his prepared remarks. If judges do their job, he said, “the number of illegal aliens and the number of baseless claims will fall.”

It was a clear message to the incoming class: Most of the immigrants who appear in court do not deserve to remain in the United States.

As U.S. President Joe Biden works to undo many of the restrictive immigration policies enacted by former President Donald Trump, he will confront one of his predecessor’s indelible legacies: the legion of immigration judges Trump’s administration hired.

The administration filled two-thirds of the immigration courts’ 520 lifetime positions with judges who, as a whole, have disproportionately ordered deportation, according to a Reuters analysis of more than 800,000 immigration cases decided over the past 20 years.

Judges hired under Trump ordered immigrants deported in 69% of cases, compared to 58% for judges hired as far back as the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Because hundreds of thousands of immigrants have cases before the court each year, that 11 percentage-point difference translates to tens of thousands more people ordered deported each year. Appeals are rarely successful.

Biden has promised to dramatically expand the courts by doubling the number of immigration judges and other staff. That’s a worthwhile effort, said Stephen Legomsky, a former chief counsel of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services who is now a professor emeritus at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. “But the challenge is going to be tremendous.”

Although there are no statutory limits on the number of judges who can be hired, expanding the court would be costly and could take years, immigration law experts said.

“The fact that these (Trump-era) judges are already in place inhibits him a great deal,” Legomsky said of Biden.

Stephen Miller, the key architect of Trump’s immigration agenda, told Reuters that the administration had aimed to hire more immigration judges as part of an effort to “create more integrity in the asylum process” and quickly resolve what he termed meritless claims to cut down on a massive backlog.

“Most of the people that are coming unlawfully between ports of entry on the southwest border are not eligible for any recognized form of asylum,” Miller said in an interview. “There should be a very high rejection rate.”

Under U.S. law, immigrants are eligible for asylum only if they can prove they were being persecuted in their home countries on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or their political opinions. Miller said many migrants arriving at the border are coming for economic reasons and present fraudulent asylum claims.

Sessions, who as attorney general had the final say in hiring immigration judges, told Reuters that “the problem is not with the Trump judges. The problem was with some of the other judges that seemed to not be able to manage their dockets, or, in many cases, rendered rulings that were not consistent with the law.

The Trump administration’s successors to Sessions, who was forced out in 2018, did not respond to requests for comment.

. . . .

“There has been a significant lack of basic understanding of immigration law and policy with many – not all – but many of the new hires under the Trump administration,” said Susan Roy, an attorney and former immigration judge appointed during the administration of President George W. Bush who has represented immigrants before some new judges.

Reuters spoke with eight other former immigration judges, five of whom served under Trump, who generally echoed her view. Sitting immigration judges are not permitted to speak to the media.

Even for judges with immigration backgrounds, the type of experience they have has been controversial. In 2017, a report commissioned by the Justice Department found a lack of diversity of experience among judges hired, due to an excess of former prosecutors here from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the report at the link.

Hon. Sue Roy is a distinguished member of our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges 🛡⚔️ now in private practice representing asylum seekers and other migrants in Immigration Court.

Hon. Charles Honeyman, quoted elsewhere in the article, is also a member of the Round Table who actually was removed from a case for failing to carry out what he believed to be improper instructions from his “supervisors” who were implementing Sessions’s anti-immigrant policies.

Stephen Legomsky is a former USCIS Senior Executive and esteemed retired Professor who generally is acknowledged as one of American’s leading scholar-experts on immigration and human rights.

Judge Dana Leigh Marks, quoted elsewhere in the article, is a former President of the National Association of Immigration Judges who also successfully argued the landmark Supreme Court case INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, which established the generous well-founded fear standard for asylum.

Sessions and Miller are notorious White Nationalist xenophobes who have neither represented asylum seekers nor been Immigration Judges. Their efforts to eradicate international norms and legal protections for vulnerable asylum seekers, and their particular bias against female asylum seekers, have been widely criticized and panned by human rights experts throughout the world, as well as enjoined or overruled by some U.S. Courts. They were architects of the widely condemned child separation policy and the New American Gulag (“NAG”).

EOIR is the failed DOJ agency that houses the dysfunctional Immigration Courts.

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-08-21

CNN’S CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR INTERVIEWS NDPA SUPERSTAR 🌟 ANDREA MARTINEZ ON NEED FOR BIDEN’S IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL!

Amanpour & Martinez — CCN Anchor Christiane Amanpour & Immigration Attorney Andrea Martinez
SOURCE: CNN

Watch this video clip from CCN:

https://apple.news/A5fldUh3pTnWBhjhXUz6QOg

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

Thanks for speaking out Andrea! Andrea is a former Arlington Immigration Court intern and one of the “charter members” of the NDPA. As captured on this video, she was assaulted by ICE while trying to assist her child client in reuniting with his mother! A civil suit against the agent involved is pending.

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-27-21

⚖️🗽A FAIR ASYLUM SYSTEM THAT TREATS HUMANS WITH “EMPATHY, DIGNITY, & RESPECT” – It’s What Our Constitution, Laws, & Values Require – Every Day, As A Nation, We Violate These Basic Principles – When Will It Change? – A New Human Right First (“HRF”) “Video Short,” Narrated By Clara Long, Shows The Unnecessary Human Misery We Cause That Can Never Be Undone!

Clara Long
Associate Director
US Program
Human Rights First
PHOTO: HRF website

Here’s the video:

https://youtu.be/USIKjkzTS7U

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

It’s not “rocket science.” Actually, just carrying out our current legal and moral obligations. It’s well within our capabilities, particularly with the right people in charge. Why wasn’t a plan to get this done “front and center” in Judge Garland’s testimony today?

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Human misery doesn‘t stop for “study.” Not all damage and harm is reversible! What if it were YOU and YOUR family?

PWS

02-22-21

BESS LEVIN @ VANITY FAIR: Trump’s “Defense” Was An Astounding Mixture Of Lies, False Narratives, Conspiracy Theories, Nonsense, Gibberish, & Non-Sequiturs (Citing Madonna and Johnny Depp, Among Other Irrelevancies) — Of Course, Corrupt GOP Legislators Loved It!

Quick: You’re a lawyer and your client is on trial for inciting a violent insurrection. The problem is, he’s guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. Literally, there is no question whatsoever that he did what he’s been accused of—none! Whatsoever! And everyone knows it! To wonder if he’s guilty is to look at O.J. Simpson and think, “Well, the glove doesn’t fit, so who knows?” Nevertheless, you’ve been hired to defend him—after basically everyone else in your profession refused—and defend him you will! But how? If you’re Donald Trump’s attorneys, the answer is clearly: Lie, lie, play some Madonna clips, and lie some more.

There were far, far too many lies told over the course of Bruce Castor Jr., David Schoen, and Michael van der Veen’s presentation to catalog them all. In fact, it would be easier to simply point out the rare moments in which they did tell the truth. But, just for posterity’s sake, here were some of the biggest whoppers the defense team told as it claimed that Trump wasn’t responsible for the rally that took place at the Capitol on January 6:

Trump never intended for “the joint session [of Congress] be prevented from conducting its business”: This is obviously completely false and the reason we know that is because Trump repeatedly tried to get Mike Pence to stop Congress from doing just that, reportedly telling the V.P., “You can either go down in history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a pussy.”

The rioters were mostly antifa, and one of the first people arrested was a member of the left-wing group: This, like virtually all of Trump’s lawyers’ claims are not true. The first person arrested was John E. Sullivan, who has denied being a member of antifa, and the FBI has said there is zero evidence that the supporters’ movements participated in the riot, no matter what Trump’s most shameless loyalists say. (Rep. Matt Gaetz, for instance, falsely claimed, “They were masquerading as Trump supporters and, in fact, were members of the violent terrorist group antifa.”)

A prior protest in front of the White House was just as bad: Referring to the June protest in front of the White House, van der Veen claimed “violent rioters” attacked officers and “at one point, pierced a security wall, culminating in the clearing of Lafayette Square.” (1) There was no breach; (2) five people didn’t die (3) the people who were hurt were the protesters tear-gassed so that Trump could do a photo shoot with a bible outside a church (an event that, surprisingly, did not result in him bursting into flames).

Trump hates violence and only ever preaches “law and order”: If you forget the innumerable times he’s advocated for violence, including when he claimed the violent insurrection that took place at the Capitol was justified, sure, the guy is a total peace-loving pacifist.

“The reality is Mr. Trump not in any way shape or form instructing these people to fight or use physical violence. What he was instructing them to do was to challenge their opponents in primary elections, to push for sweeping election reforms, to hold Big Tech responsible—all customary and legal ways to petition your government for redress of grievances which of course is also protected Constitutional speech.” Right, right, sure, sure. Trump totally wasn’t encouraging his supporters to air their grievances via violence, he just wanted them to push for election reforms. He just wanted them to form political action committees, you see! Run for office! Fight ideological differences at the ballot box! It’s actually extremely impressive van der Ween was able to get through this whole thing without bursting into laughter, and for that he should win some kind of award (and then lose his license to practice law).

“There was no insurrection”: There was! We all saw it! If you missed it, just google “Capitol riot” or “Capitol attack” or “Trump insurrection.”

In addition to the many lies told by Trump’s defense, his legal team also proffered a series of arguments for why he couldn’t possibly be found guilty that sound like something a bunch of stoned college kids came up with shortly before a mock trial they forgot to prepare for, which is actually an insult to stoned college kids unprepared for mock trials. Specifically, we’re talking about the series of clips the defense presented showing various Democrats using the word “fight,“ which they claim means Trump can’t also be held responsible for telling his supporters to “fight,“ because other people have said “fight” before and they weren’t found guilty of inciting insurrections. (Naturally, they left out the part about how, for instance, when Elizabeth Warren told supporters to “fight” they didn’t proceed to storm the Capitol and try to burn down democracy):

Or that, when Chuck Schumer said “fight” he was talking about fighting COVID-19. Yes, this a real thing that actually happened:

And yes, there was also this:

Of course, the bald-faced lies and complete lack of convincing arguments will clearly do little to sway the majority of Republicans, who have already decided how they’re going to vote, which we know because they‘ve already said as much and also because during the question-and-answer portion of the day, a typical question posed of the attorneys went something like, “Can you tell us how it’s possible that President Trump has not been named People’s Sexiest Man Alive yet? Is it because the media is in the can for liberals? Because we can’t think of another explanation!”

Anyway, Madonna, eh? Someone better impeach that menace, ASAP!

Just in case there was any question re: whether or not Trump loved the insurrection he personally set into motion…

CNN reports that the ex-president insisted the rioters were patriots in a call with House leader Kevin McCarthy:

In an expletive-laced phone call with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy while the Capitol was under attack, then President Donald Trump said the rioters cared more about the election results than McCarthy did. “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.

McCarthy insisted that the rioters were Trump’s supporters and begged Trump to call them off. Trump’s comment set off what Republican lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men. A furious McCarthy told the president the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked Trump, “Who the f–k do you think you are talking to?” according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call.

“I think it speaks to the former president’s mindset,” Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, an Ohio Republican who voted to impeach Trump last month, told CNN. “He was not sorry to see his unyieldingly loyal vice president or the Congress under attack by the mob he inspired. In fact, it seems he was happy about it or at the least enjoyed the scenes that were horrifying to most Americans across the country.”

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

You can read the rest of the Levin Report here:

https://mailchi.mp/ff0581d54d6b/levin-report-trumps-heart-bursting-with-sympathy-for-his-buddy-bob-kraft-2922686?e=adce5e3390

In reality, as others have observed, the “defense team” could have read old copies of the Congressional Record or all the baseball scores from the 2019 season from the podium and it wouldn’t have made any difference to corrupt GOP Sens who had already decided to acquit notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence of guilt.

The indifference and boredom with the suffering of others and the clear misdeeds of Trump exhibited by scumbags like Cruz (who actually helped prepare the inept “defense”), Hawley, Cotton, et al, was pretty telling. Obviously, they wouldn’t have cared a fig if Trump’s rioters had done in Pence, Romney, or any other of their “colleagues.”

It’s all about the next election and destroying American democracy.

My favorite part is when the Trump defense Team kept whining about the rights of 74 million who voted for the The Big Clown. It’s like their attempt to disenfranchise and diss the 81+ million of us who didn’t vote for Putin’s Puppet are irrelevant? But, that’s always been the way the “modern GOP” has “governed.”

Right now, the GOP is hard at work at the state level trying to disenfranchise as many Black and Brown voters as possible in advance of the 2022 elections.

Remember all the great “bipartisanship” and concern with the legislative process on the tax giveaway (nobody actually read it, clearly not Trump) or the unsuccessful attempt to “do in” Obamacare. Lots of great “bipartisanship” on display with the Coney Barrett confirmation and the confirmation of a steady stream of Federalist Society judges.

The current GOP is an ongoing threat to the national security and well-being of our nation.

PWS

02-13-21

🏴‍☠️TRUMP REGIME LEFT BEHIND AWFUL MESS 🤡 @ EOIR: BACKLOGS GREW EXPONENTIALLY, CASES TOOK LONGER TO COMPLETE, BUT MORE (LESS QUALIFIED) JUDGES WERE ON THE BENCH — Haste Makes Waste Gimmicks Created “Worst Of All Worlds!”

EYORE — “Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

Immigrants Facing Deportation Wait Twice as Long in FY 2021 Compared to FY 2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The latest available case-by-case Immigrant Court records show that immigration cases that were completed in the first four months of FY 2021 took nearly twice as long from beginning to end as cases completed in the first four months of FY 2020. Cases that were completed between the beginning of October 2020 and the end of January 2021 took, on average, 859 days compared to 436 days over the same period a year before. The duration was calculated as the number of days between the date the Notice to Appear was issued to the date of completion as recorded in the Immigration Court’s records.

The top ten Immigration Courts with the most case completions thus far in FY 2021 accounted for four out of every ten closures (42%). The Miami Immigration Court was the most active with 2,129 case closures. Completion times at the Miami Immigration Court have increased since November 2020, but were slightly lower than the national average at 832 average days. In November, the Miami court took on average 787 days. The Immigration Court in Los Angeles had the second highest number of case completions with 1,857 case closures, followed closely by San Francisco with 1,849. Baltimore and Dallas were in fourth and fifth place.

The longest disposition times were found in the Atlanta Immigration Court where it took on average 1,577 days to close a case. The Cleveland Immigration Court was close behind, taking an average of 1,573 days. The Arlington Immigration Court was in third place with completion times so far in FY 2021 averaging 1,535 days. Newark and Boston Immigration Courts were in fourth and fifth place. Cases completed by immigration judges in Atlanta, Cleveland, Arlington, and Newark all took, on average, longer than four years.

The full report is found at:

https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/639/

To examine a variety of Immigration Court data, including asylum data, the backlog, MPP, and more now updated through January 2021, use TRAC’s Immigration Court tools here:

https://trac.syr.edu/imm/tools/

If you want to be sure to receive a notification whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

https://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1

Follow us on Twitter at:

https://twitter.com/tracreports

or like us on Facebook:

https://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

Syracuse University

Suite 360, Newhouse II

Syracuse, NY 13244-2100

315-443-3563

trac@syr.edu

https://trac.syr.edu

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse is a nonpartisan joint research center of the Whitman School of Management (https://whitman.syr.edu) and the Newhouse School of Public Communications (https://newhouse.syr.edu) at Syracuse University. If you know someone who would like to sign up to receive occasional email announcements and press releases, they may go to https://trac.syr.edu and click on the E-mail Alerts link at the bottom of the page. If you do not wish to receive future email announcements and wish to be removed from our list, please send an email to trac@syr.edu with REMOVE as the subject.

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

Maliciously incompetent management fuels “Aimless Docket Reshuffling!”

It’s what happens when you combine White Nationalism, maliciously incompetent management, bad judging, and endless “enforcement-only” gimmicks that tried to cut corners and short-circuit justice — “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”) to the max. What has been absent from this system for years is leadership that understands immigration, views migrants as humans, and is committed to due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices.

Pretty much what AILA pointed out in today’s report (policy brief).

🎇🧨💣BLOCKBUSTER NEW REPORT MAKES COMPELLING CASE FOR IMMEDIATE END TO EOIR CLOWN SHOW! 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ — Lays Out Blueprint For Restoring Due Process, Enhancing Justice In America’s Most Dysfunctional, Unfair, and Abusive “Courts!”

The system can’t improve without better personnel — not necessarily more — just better qualified to get the job done in a fair and timely manner consistent with due process and human dignity!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-12-21

🎇🧨💣BLOCKBUSTER NEW REPORT MAKES COMPELLING CASE FOR IMMEDIATE END TO EOIR CLOWN SHOW! 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ — Lays Out Blueprint For Restoring Due Process, Enhancing Justice In America’s Most Dysfunctional, Unfair, and Abusive “Courts!”

Star Chamber Justice — “Justice”
Star Chamber
Style

New from Kate Voigt @ AILA:

https://www.aila.org/advo-media/aila-policy-briefs/policy-brief-why-president-biden-needs-to-make

Policy Brief: Why President Biden Needs to Make Immediate Changes to Rehabilitate the Immigration Courts

AILA Doc. No. 21021232 | Dated February 12, 2021 | File Size: 864 K

DOWNLOAD THE DOCUMENT

In just four years, President Trump implemented radical changes that fundamentally compromised the integrity of the immigration courts. This policy brief explains the most critical and urgent changes President Biden should make to the immigration court system to ensure fairness and impartiality.

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

Download the complete policy brief at the link.

Thanks, Kate!

Great report!

I hope you have arranged to have a copy of this delivered to Judge Garland, Vanita Gupta, and Lisa Monaco. As you know better than anyone, every day the current BIA remains empowered to grossly distort and intentionally misapply the law and dish out injustice is another day of outrageous abuse for migrants and psychological harm inflicted on their representatives.

It is also essential that the folks in MPP and others applying at our borders are represented and judged according to a properly fair and generous interpretation of our asylum laws (as you point out, no more “99% denial club” assigned to Central American cases). Along with bogus “no show” rates, artificially inflated asylum denial rates have been used as key parts of the false narrative to smear and dehumanize asylum applicants at our Southern Border.

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️👩‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

Thanks again for all you and your colleagues do, and best wishes,

PWS

02-12-21

😢DIFFERENT TONE, BUT THE SAME OLD SONG — BOTTOM LINE: BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WILL CONTINUE STEPHEN MILLER’S BOGUS BORDER CLOSING POLICY — Refugees Told That U.S. Will Continue To Violate Asylum Laws, Due Process “Until Further Notice” ☠️

Death On The Rio Grande — Supremes Sign Death Warrants For Vulnerable Refugees, Trash Refugee Act of 1980

Trump Dumping Asylum Seekers in Hondiras — Dumping Asylum Seekers in Honduras
Artist: Monte Wolverton
Reproduced under license

Remain in Mexico — A girl peers out from an encampment at the U.S.-Mexico border where she and several hundred people waited to present themselves to U.S. immigration to seek asylum. / Photo by David Maung

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/biden-turning-away-immigrants-border-policy

by Adolfo Flores and Hamed Aleaziz in BuzzFeed News:

After days of confusion about changes along the southern border, the Biden administration on Wednesday said immigrants should not try to enter the US because most will still be turned away under a Trump-era policy that has recently come under legal scrutiny.

. . . .

Confusion about who was being allowed into the US in recent days forced the administration to issue a stronger warning. Last week, reports of some families being allowed into the US after being apprehended at the border resulted in speculation that immigrants would no longer be immediately expelled and instead be allowed to fight their immigration cases from within the United States. In the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, immigration advocates have reported seeing about 100 people a day released by Customs and Border Protection. In other parts of Texas, shelters have also seen increasing numbers of immigrant families, but it is not clear why.

Attorneys and advocates who work with immigrants along the border have been bombarded with phone calls and texts about whether they should try their luck at getting into the US. Erika Pinheiro, policy and litigation director with the immigrant advocacy group Al Otro Lado, said it was “incredibly disappointing” that the Biden administration has continued to expel immigrants under the CDC order.

“We know now that the CDC order prohibiting asylum processing at the border did not arise from public health concerns but rather was part of Stephen Miller’s efforts to dismantle the US asylum system and was implemented despite opposition from CDC leadership,” Pinheiro said, referring to one of Trump’s former senior advisers. “US expulsions of asylum-seekers, including infants, constitute plain violations of domestic and international laws meant to protect vulnerable refugees. CBP absolutely has the resources to process asylum-seekers in a safe and humane way.”

The turnbacks, known as expulsions, are legally different from deportations, which would mean an immigrant had actually undergone the immigration process and found to not be legally allowed to stay in the US. Critics say the government is using the public health orders as an excuse to turn back immigrants at the border.

. . . .

“While we recognize that the Biden administration has been saddled with a lot of bad policy and structural problems, it cannot continue the Trump administration practice of turning away people in danger based on illegal policies, such as the notorious and pretextual Title 42 policy,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the ACLU.

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link.

“Go suffer and die somewhere else, out of our sight,” might not be the best message for an Administration trying to re-establish its human rights and humanitarian leadership and credentials. Ever hear of the “St. Louis Incident?” It’s always easy to find a way to “just say no” to refugees — and the consequences are seldom pretty.

Those who won’t learn from history are destined to repeat it. Refugee and forced migration situations happen in the “here and now;” they can’t be “back burnered” — no matter how much policy officials might wish otherwise. In a forced migration situation, “doing nothing” is an action that produces consequences for both the forced migrant and those who ignore their plight.

There are many daily potentially deadly and dehumanizing consequences of continuing to ignore asylum laws and Constitutional due process for asylum seekers at our Southern Border.

One predictable one: Instead of turning themselves in at the border or to the Border Patrol shortly after entry, as had been happening until Miller & co. intervened, those seeking refuge apparently have gotten the message that our legal system is and remains a sham for them. Consequently, increasingly they are simply evading the Border Patrol and disappearing into the interior with no screening whatsoever — health, legal, or background. Also, by intentionally driving people out of the legal system, the Administration is totally blowing a chance to harness and build upon one of the most powerful known facts — represented individuals with asylum hearings scheduled show up for their hearings!

⚖️🗽OUTING THE BIG NATIVIST LIE: EOIR/DHS CLAIM THAT MIGRANTS DON’T SHOW UP FOR HEARINGS REFUTED BY USG’S OWN DATA — Professor Ingrid Eagly & Steven Schafer Analyzed Millions Of Records To Show How False Narratives Drive Draconian Policies — Eagley, Shafer, Reichlin-Melnick, Schmidt Set Record Straight @ Press Conference!

According to an article in today’s Washington Post, the estimated number of so-called “get always” — actually human beings seeking refuge — hit 1,000 on Sunday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/border-arrests-increased-in-january/2021/02/10/8604f714-6bc0-11eb-9f80-3d7646ce1bc0_story.html

Sure, there are many aspects of this problem. But, it has been “out there” for nearly a year!

Sure seems to me that with the right experts in charge, including folks like Lee Gelernt and Erika Pinhero, this issue could and should have been addressed more constructively and with much more urgency by the Biden Administration by now. Why not harness the expertise and proven problem solving abilities of folks like Lee, Erika, and many other members of the New Due Process Army rather than fighting with and resisting them?

Instead, it looks like time and resources will continue to be wasted on forcing policy changes through litigation. Meanwhile, vulnerable asylum seekers and their families will continue to suffer as illustrated by this recent article from HuffPost about the human consequences for those caught up in the Government’s scofflaw border policies.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-trump-migrant-asylum-seekers_n_60219e61c5b6c56a89a39a32

NOTE TO PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SECRETARY JEN PSAKI: Sorry, Jen, but those fleeing for their lives don’t generally respond well to “don’t come right now, we don’t want you” messages, particularly from folks who have never been in that situation themselves. It’s actually pretty insulting to think that folks fleeing to the U.S. 1) aren’t smart enough to know the dangers involved; 2) don’t realize that the the U.S. Government doesn’t want them; and/or 3) have choices about their travel as Jen and her buddies might have when planning a summer vacation.

As one of my esteemed colleagues once told me: “Desperate people do desperate things.” What about people who keep repeating the same policy mistakes over and over while expecting different results and failing to grasp either the absolute urgency or the human side of forced migration issues? It’s sort of like going to the emergency room with a burst appendix and being told, “Why don’t you just sit in the waiting room until we doctors figure out what to do? Get back to you later!”

Somewhere out there, Stephen Miller must be gloating about how he totally outsmarted and outflanked the Biden Team!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Oh, when will they ever learn, when will they learn?

PWS

02-11-21

UPDATE: THE CONTINUING REAL TRAUMA CAUSED BY THE “REMAIN IN MEXICO PROGRAM” (A/K/A “LET ‘EM DIE IN MEXICO”) WHILE THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION “STUDIES” THEIR NEXT MOVE:

Emily Green writes in Vice, as reposted in ImmigrationProf Blog:

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2021/02/the-trauma-of-being-stuck-at-the-us-mexico-border.html

PWS

02-11-21

⚒PULVERIZED AGAIN: 4TH CIR. JACKHAMMERS BIA’S LATEST ANTI-ASYLUM, MISOGYNIST 🏴‍☠️ CRUSADE TARGETING REFUGEE WOMEN FROM GUATEMALA — “Excessively narrow view of nexus” — “Record conclusively establishes that the Guatemalan government was unable or unwilling to control Diaz de Gomez’s persecutors!”

Woman Tortured — “She struggled madly in the torturing Ray”
Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca4-on-guatemala-nexus-argueta-diaz-de-gomez-v-wilkinson

CA4 on Guatemala, Nexus: Argueta Diaz de Gomez v. Wilkinson

Argueta Diaz de Gomez v. Wilkinson

“Diaz de Gomez claims that she received repeated death threats from a gang in Guatemala after she and her family witnessed a mass killing by gang members and refused to acquiesce to the gang’s extortion and other demands. … [W]e reject the Board’s “excessively narrow” view of the nexus requirement, and conclude that Diaz de Gomez established that her familial ties were one central reason for her persecution. … We also hold that the record conclusively establishes that the Guatemalan government was unable or unwilling to control Diaz de Gomez’s persecutors. We therefore grant the petition for review and remand for the Board to reconsider Diaz de Gomez’s claims in light of our holdings.”

[Hats off to Pamela P. Keenan!]

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

So, let’s compare the 4th Circuit’s view with the most recent abomination and intentional misconstruction of the “unable or unwilling to control” doctrine by totally unqualified political hack Jeffrey Rosen, then impersonating the “Acting Attorney General” and issuing clearly unconstitutional “precedents” to implement the defeated regime’s racially biased, misogynistic, anti-asylum agenda.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/category/asylum/failure-of-state-protection/

Absurdly, up until the Biden Administration suspended it this week, Guatemala, of all places, was fraudulently determined by the Trump immigration kakistocracy to be a “safe third country” for asylum seekers. https://www.state.gov/suspending-and-terminating-the-asylum-cooperative-agreements-with-the-governments-el-salvador-guatemala-and-honduras/

Talk about “crimes against humanity!” ☠️🏴‍☠️ Certainly, every current civil servant who supported and advanced this bogus designation should be held accountable.

Kakistocracy Kills: Obviously, with better qualified judges, competent representation, and a fair system operated in accordance with due process and a proper interpretation of asylum laws, many of those now being arbitrarily, capriciously, and unlawfully turned back at our borders would be entitled to our legal protection. This is life or death, not a problem that can “wait till tomorrow” to be addressed! Every day that the patently inadequate “judges” currently on the BIA remain in their positions means more injustice, trauma, and even death for legitimate asylum seekers!

The BIA Clown Show 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ has got to go!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-10-21

🖕ICE CONTINUES TO GIVE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, HUMANITY THE BIG MIDDLE FINGER! — Racism Also On Display As Haitian Kids & Babies Deported To “Burning House!”

https://apple.news/ATjEjX2Z_QnKYbl01eYMHNA

Ed Pilkington reports for The Guardian:

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) deported at least 72 people to Haiti on Monday, including a two-month-old baby and 21 other children, in an apparent flagrant breach of the Biden administration’s orders only to remove suspected terrorists and potentially dangerous convicted felons.

The children were deported to Haiti on Monday on two flights chartered by Ice from Laredo, Texas to the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. The removals sent vulnerable infants back to Haiti as it is being roiled by major political unrest.

New claims of migrant abuse as Ice defies Biden to continue deportations

Read more

Ice is facing a rising chorus of denunciation as a “rogue agency” for its apparent refusal to abide by the new guidelines laid down by Biden and his homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. The incoming administration ordered a 100-day moratorium on all deportations, which was temporarily blocked by a judge in Texas.

However, the judge’s restraining order left in place the new guidelines stipulating that only the most serious immigration cases should be subject to deportation.

Last Friday, the administration appeared to gain the upper hand in its attempt to rein in Ice when deportation flights to Haiti were suspended. But on Monday the immigration agency reasserted itself again with the renewed flights to Port-au-Prince, children and infants on board.

Human rights activists are dismayed by the deportations, which bear a close resemblance to the hardline course set by Donald Trump. “It is unconscionable for us as a country to continue with the same draconian, cruel policies that were pursued by the Trump administration,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the immigration support group the Haitian Bridge Alliance.

She added: “I don’t know what’s going on between Ice and the Biden administration, but we know what needs to be done: the deportations must stop.”

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the the link.

Unfortunately, as I have pointed out, ICE is totally of control. It’s going to take more than policy memos to change that!

PWS

02-08-21

❤️⚔️BRAVE NEW WORLD: CIVIL RIGHTS ICONS TO HOLD KEY POLICY POSITIONS @ JUSTICE UNDER GARLAND: Will Vanita Gupta & Kristen Clarke Finally “Connect The Dots” Between Immigrants’ Rights & Civil Rights, Or Will DOJ Pursue Flawed “Two-Headed” Policy Of Past Dems?

Kristin Clarke
Nominee for Assistant AG, Civil Rights
Photo: NAACP, Creative Commons License

Meet the courageous, dynamic , outspoken, new human-rights-oriented leaders looking to fulfill the Constitution and make “equal justice for all” a reality @ the DOJ and for America. Sam Levine reports for The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/03/kristen-clarke-vanita-gupta-biden-justice-department?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

On her last day at the justice department in 2017, Vanita Gupta considered taking a picture as she left the agency’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. But she decided against it. Gupta, the outgoing head of the department’s civil rights division, once described as the “crown jewel” of the agency, didn’t really want to remember the moment, she told a reporter who was shadowing her for the day.

Jeff Sessions, then the incoming attorney general, was poised to unwind much of the painstaking progress Gupta, 46, and her colleagues had spent the last four years building. It was no secret that Sessions opposed the kind of court agreements the justice department used to fix unconstitutional policing policies across the country (“dangerous” and an “exercise of raw power” in Sessions’ eyes). Nor were there any illusions that Sessions would try very hard to enforce the Voting Rights Act, already on its last legs after the supreme court gutted a key provision in 2013 (Sessions described the landmark civil rights law as “intrusive”).

Many of those concerns came to pass. Trump’s justice department not only did little to enforce some of the country’s most powerful civil rights protections for minority groups, but in several cases it opposed them. It filed almost no voting rights cases and defended restrictive voting laws, tried to undermine the census, challenged affirmative action policies, sought to roll back protections for LGBTQ+ Americans, and limited the use of consent decrees to curb illegal policing practices. Gupta took a job as the head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of civil rights groups across the country, where she became one of the leading figures pushing back on the Trump administration.

Joining Gupta in that effort was Kristen Clarke, a 47-year-old former justice department lawyer who leads the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, founded in 1963 to help attorneys in private practice enforce civil rights. As her group filed voting rights and anti-discrimination lawsuits across the country over the last few years, Clarke spent hours nearly every election day briefing journalists on reports of incoming voting problems. Reports of long lines, voting machine malfunctions, translator issues – no problem was too small. The monitoring sent a message that civil rights groups would move swiftly against any whiff of voter suppression.

Now, after years of leading the fight for civil rights from outside the justice department, both women are poised to return to its top levels, where they can deploy the unmatchable resources of the federal government. Last month, Joe Biden tapped Gupta to serve as his associate attorney general, the No 3 official at the department, and Clarke to lead the civil rights division. If confirmed by the Senate, Gupta would be the first woman of color to be the associate attorney general; Clarke would be the first Black woman in her role.

“They are both independently legit civil rights champions with a long deep history,” said Justin Levitt, who worked with Gupta at the justice department and knows both women well. “They’re going to make a really spectacular, really powerful team.”

Picking two career civil rights lawyers for two of the top positions at the justice department sends an unmistakable signal that civil rights enforcement will be a top priority for the agency over the next four years. Civil rights leaders said they could not remember a prior administration in which two of the department’s highest positions were filled by civil rights attorneys, especially two such as Clarke and Gupta.

“It’s going to be really important and energizing and exciting to be able to be in conversation and discussion with people who understand the department’s role in civil rights enforcement,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), who has worked closely with both women. “But it’s also going to be exciting, and as a matter of resources, to have the department actually do civil rights enforcement.”

. . . .

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

Read the rest of these inspiring American profiles 🇺🇸🌟at the link. Don’t you think we need the “Vanita & Kristen” of immigration and human rights to lead the restoration effort at EOIR and the BIA?

Here are the “keys to success:”

Immigrants’ rights are human rights;
Human rights are civil rights;
There can be neither racial justice nor equal justice in America until migrants are not only fully recognized as “persons” under our Constitution, but actually treated as such (as opposed to the active “dehumanization” and “Dred Scottification” of migrants and persons of color by the Trump regime and the GOP majority on the Roberts’ Court);
You can’t possibly “win the game” with the same players who “batted for the White Nationalists” over the past four years.

And, speaking of “Jewel in the Crown.”👑 That’s exactly how many of us in the “Round Table of Former Immigration Judges” 🛡⚔️ once viewed EOIR. The “EOIR Vision” was: “Through teamwork and innovation be the worlds’s best tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”

So, Vanita, and I hope Kristen also, can imagine the anger and determination to fight with which our Round Table viewed the dismemberment of due process and weaponization of the Immigration Courts under Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr. From aspiring to be the “world’s best tribunals” to “Star Chambers” and a grotesque, dysfunctional national disgrace!

On the plus side: Both Gupta and Clarke are the daughters of immigrants. Both have written and advocated for immigrants’ rights as part of their civil rights leadership.

Caution. Obama Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch were “facially aggressive” on protecting voting rights and police reforms. Yet, at the same time they: helped DHS set deportation records; allowed EOIR to spiral toward dysfunction (to a large extent through failure to procure and properly manage resources and an indolent judicial hiring program that was both “closed and non-diverse in nature” and glacial in operation (2 years to fill an average judicial vacancy!)); supported “baby jails,” the “family gulag,” and toddlers representing themselves on asylum cases in Immigration Court; looked the other way as private prisons treated asylum seekers and migrants worse than convicted criminals; and “went along to get along” with the Administration’s misuse of the Immigration Courts as (a highly ineffective) deterrent to applications for asylum.

Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr might have been the “Kings of Aimless Docket Reshuffling” at EOIR that helped produce an astounding 1.3 million case plus “backlog.” But, it started in earnest under the Obama Administration.

That’s what I mean by the “two headed policy:” arguing for voting rights for minorities in one courtroom while simultaneously ignoring the human and civil rights of migrants in the next courtroom. Arguing for the right to vote in one case, while arguing (apparently with a straight face) that toddlers who can’t speak English have no right to legal representation in the next case.

Not only that, but with the Biden Administration apparently looking to rapidly fill upcoming Article III vacancies, the Obama DOJ’s mishandling of the Immigration Courts has deprived President Biden of the chance to draw from a diverse group of younger, progressive Immigration Judges whose practical scholarship, commitment to human rights and due process, courage, and proven ability to function in a “high stress” judicial setting would make them strong candidates for the now-reeling Article III Judiciary.

That’s certainly not to say that there aren’t some potential progressive candidates for the Article III Judiciary among today’s present, and particularly recently “retired,” (some essentially “forced out” at relatively young ages as a “matter of conscience”) Immigration Judges. There are! But, only a fraction of the number there would have been if the Obama Administration had taken the Immigration Courts with proper seriousness.

And, that’s leaving aside the lives that could have been saved and better jurisprudence that could have been “institutionalized” with better, merit-based, judicial selections at EOIR during the Obama Administration!

I sincerely hope that Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke can help Judge Garland get the job done at Justice. The “human rights/immigration world” will be cheering for you. Getting some of the folks from the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”) into key positions at EOIR and the rest of the DOJ will be an “early signal” of whether or not “Team Garland gets it.”

Removing McHenry at EOIR was a good start! But, it’s only a small step in what has to be done to make racial justice and immigrant justice a reality at the DOJ. The “brooms and plungers” 🧹🚽 need to come out, and the sweeping and plunging has to be quick and widespread.

On the other hand, there is “no patience for another Obama Administration” out here in the real world. Every day, EOIR and DOJ are killing folks, ruining lives, and abusing the brave and dedicated attorneys of the NDPA! If the rhetoric doesn’t produce short term results and drastic improvements, you can expect the same type of aggressive litigation from the NDPA that stopped the defeated regime from completely destroying the U.S. justice system.

⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-03-21

😢👎🏻TRUMP’S UNFINISHED WALL: A MONUMENT TO CRUELTY, STUPIDITY, & WASTEFULNESS — “Border Patrol agents drive around the area in expensive trucks, on an expensive road, next to a barrier that cost billions of dollars, all to keep the poorest people on the planet from asking us for help. In 2018, I spent time volunteering with a migrant caravan that had arrived in Tijuana and watched U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees launch tear gas over this wall at kids who couldn’t afford shoes.” — “It would be funny if it weren’t so ugly and pointless.” — James Stout @ Slate

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/trumps-border-wall-construction-has-halted-but-the-harm-remains.html

James Stout reports for Slate:

On Jan. 21, minibuses of contractors in hi-viz vests were still bumping along the dirt road they had built for themselves in the high desert village of Campo, California, an hour east of San Diego. Less than 24 hours before, the newly inaugurated President Joe Biden had signed an executive order declaring that “the national emergency declared by Proclamation 9844 … is terminated and that the authorities invoked in that proclamation will no longer be used to construct a wall at the southern border.”

The Trump administration’s border wall project arrived in Campo in early 2020. The area is rugged and rolling, studded with oak trees and sagebrush. It couldn’t be more different from the bustling beaches and boardwalks most people associate with San Diego.

Into this landscape came contractors who were working with dynamite and heavy machinery 24 hours a day, with funding from both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. The latter money came through the executive order rescinded by Biden, in which Trump had claimed an emergency that even he admitted was not necessary. In 2020, the emergency spending accounted for $676 million in San Diego and El Centro counties.

The borderlands in eastern San Diego County, like every inch of the United States, are the ancestral homelands of Indigenous people. San Diego County has the highest number of reservations in the country, and the Kumeyaay people lived on this land long before the border came. Over the past year, they have been fighting a 30-foot steel wall that tears through the fragile high desert and divides Kumeyaay living north of the wall from their relatives to the south.

From a vantage point on top of a peak in eastern San Diego County, the wall stretches out as a physical manifestation of the brutality and ugliness of Donald Trump’s vision of American greatness. Sagebrush bushes, which survive in a region that can kill you with heat in the summer and cold in the winter, are held back by a rusty barbed wire fence next to a double-wide dirt road which runs alongside the towering steel spine of the wall proper. The wall stands on a deep concrete foundation, backed by the empty brownness of the roadway. No effort has been made aesthetically or ecologically to make this wall belong here. It’s as if the land, plants, and animals have drawn back in revulsion at the intrusion. On the other side of the newly created dead zone, bushes and plants grow right up to the border.

. . . .

Border Patrol agents drive around the area in expensive trucks, on an expensive road, next to a barrier that cost billions of dollars, all to keep the poorest people on the planet from asking us for help. In 2018, I spent time volunteering with a migrant caravan that had arrived in Tijuana and watched U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees launch tear gas over this wall at kids who couldn’t afford shoes.

Passages for the wall have been blasted out of the fragile landscape of California’s desert, causing drainage problems, disrupting migration pathways for the area’s wildlife, and leaving huge piles of rubble. Further east, there are half-finished roads that lead to nowhere, designed to allow contractors to deploy huge machinery against the defenseless landscape. They’re now just even-more-obvious illustrations of the ridiculous nature of the whole project.

Even before the roads run out, there are gaps in the wall. Construction stepped up in the months before the election to allow for Trump to make ever more ridiculous claims about miles of wall built, sometimes this meant harder-to-build areas were skipped or two crews worked on a wall that didn’t quite meet in the middle. It would be funny if it weren’t so ugly and pointless.

. . . .

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

Read the complete article at the link.

The unfinished wall is also a monument to:

The failure of the Supremes to stand up for democracy and the rule of law in the face of tyranny “supported” by blatantly bogus “pretexts;” and
The failure of our national values.

With respect to the latter, there is nothing that will bring the world’s greatest and richest “superpower” to its knees more quickly than a ragtag band of desperate unarmed humans yearning to breathe free 🗽and seeking legal protection ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️under our system! How dare they assert their legal rights and their humanity!

⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-03-21

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

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UPDATE: THE CONTINUING REAL TRAUMA CAUSED BY THE “REMAIN IN MEXICO PROGRAM” (A/K/A “LET ‘EM DIE IN MEXICO”) WHILE THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION “STUDIES” THEIR NEXT MOVE:

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