CALS Asylum Clinic – Page 2 – immigrationcourtside.com

PROFESSOR PHIL SCHRAG IN THE SEATTLE TIMES: FAMILY SEPARATION IS JUST PRELIMINARY TORTURE IN SESSIONS’S GULAG – THE NEXT STEP: DEPORTATION OF BROWN-SKINNED REFUGEE FAMILIES TO DEATH ZONES — “And so they will be deported back to the situations of rape, beating and slashing they fled.”

https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/a-fate-worse-than-separation-awaits-central-american-families/

Professor Phil Schrag writes in theSeattle Times:

Under two court orders, the government is now reuniting migrant children with their mothers. Although the California court that ordered the reunification may permit continued detention of the families until their asylum claims can be decided, something worse than separation or detention awaits those mothers who are deported: rape and death.

Many of the mothers and children who previously could have won asylum will now be sent back to Central America, where they face horrific violence at the hands of the brutal gangs from which they fled.

That risk is now very great because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently changed policy that had allowed immigration judges to grant asylum to victims of domestic violence.

In 2016, I volunteered as a lawyer at the family detention center in Dilley, Texas. Every mother I met had fled to the United States to escape brutal domestic violence, threats of rape or death from gangs. Nearly all were found by asylum officers to have “credible fear of persecution,” enabling them to claim asylum in hearings before federal immigration judges.

Immigration advocates who work on the cases of mothers in the family detention centers in Texas estimate that more than 85 percent of them are at risk of serious bodily harm or death at the hands of violent men in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

Federal statistics for family cases are unavailable, but until recently, many of the families fleeing from those countries eventually did win asylum from immigration judges. In the clinic that I codirect at Georgetown Law, and at other law-school clinics, students have won asylum for several of them. We also know from data collected by the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at the University of California Hastings that hundreds of other Central American families have obtained protection in immigration courts around the country. It had become well established that victims of domestic violence could win asylum. In some cases, asylum was also granted to families fleeing threats of violence in countries where the police are unable to prevent such violence.

But the Immigration and Nationality Act allows the Attorney General unilaterally to tell immigration judges how to interpret the law. Attorney General Sessions recently overruled the appellate case that supported asylum for domestic-violence victims.

Reversing that woman’s asylum grant, he wrote that her ex-husband “attacked her because of his pre-existing relationship with the victim” rather than because she was a member of a “group” of women who were violently attacked by husbands or gang members.

Our attorney general’s view of the law, apparently, is that domestic violence is a purely private affair, unrelated to social norms or patterns in countries in which such violence is endemic. By characterizing domestic violence as “private criminal activity,” even when the police can’t prevent or stop it, he also apparently intends to bar the victims from winning asylum.

Immigration judges don’t enjoy deporting genuine victims of violence. Perhaps some will find creative ways to grant relief to these families, rather than becoming cogs in the giant femicide machines of northern Central America. But many will feel bound to follow Sessions’ official guidance.

If the women fleeing for their lives have to prove that those who want to rape and kill them bear animus toward all women similarly situated, and not just their actual victims, they will be hard pressed to win asylum. And so they will be deported back to the situations of rape, beating and slashing they fled.

The public should not be distracted by the government’s reunification of families. The families now being released may stay together for a few months. But they remain in terrible peril because of the Trump administration’s lack of empathy and humanitarian concern for the parents and children who quite reasonably fear for their lives.

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

Phil is a good friend, and a practicing scholar who has actually been to the border. He knows that these most vulnerable individuals qualify as refugees under a correct application of legal standards and that they merit and deserve protection as human beings. He can also see how the system has been “gamed” by Sessions and how USCIS and EOIR are both complicit.

What’s being done by Sessions and his White Nationalist cabal is both illegal and immoral. Our shame as a nation will be enduring for 1) giving such a totally unqualified, corrupt, and evil individual a chance to take control of American immigration policy; and 2) not acting more quickly to stop him from implementing his racist agenda.

Meanwhile, his victims are likely to pay the price with their lives.

PWS

08-06-18

“JUST SAY NO TO 1939: HOW JUDGES CAN SAVE LIVES, UPHOLD THE CONVENTION, AND MAINTAIN INTEGRITY IN THE AGE OF OVERT GOVERNMENTAL BIAS TOWARD REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS” — My Remarks To The Americas Conference Of The International Association Of Refugee & Migration Judges, August 4, 2018

IMPLICIT BIAS IARMJ 08-03-18

JUST SAY NO TO 1939: HOW JUDGES CAN SAVE LIVES, UPHOLD THE CONVENTION, AND MAINTAIN INTEGRITY IN THE AGE OF OVERT GOVERNMENTAL BIAS TOWARD REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS

By Paul Wickham Schmidt,

U.S. Immigration Judge, Retired

Americas Conference

International Association of Refugee & Migration Judges

Georgetown Law

August 4, 2018

INTRODUCTION

Good afternoon. I am pleased to be here. Some twenty years ago, along with then Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Michael J. Creppy, I helped found this Association, in Warsaw. I believe that I’m the only “survivor” of that illustrious group of “Original Charter Signers” present today. And, whoever now has possession of that sacred Charter can attest that my signature today remains exactly as it was then, boldly scrawling over those of my colleagues and the last paragraph of the document.

As the Americas’ Chapter Vice President, welcome and thank you for coming, supporting, and contributing to our organization and this great conference. I also welcome you to the beautiful campus of Georgetown Law where I am on the adjunct faculty.

I thank Dean Treanor; my long-time friend and colleague Professor Andy Schoenholtz, and all the other wonderful members of our Georgetown family; the IARMJ; Associate Director Jennifer Higgins, Dimple Dhabalia, and the rest of their team at USCIS; and, of course, our Americas President Justice Russell Zinn and the amazing Ross Patee from the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board who have been so supportive and worked so hard to make this conference a success.

I recognize that this is the coveted “immediately after lunch slot” when folks might rather be taking a nap. But, as the American country singer Toby Keith would say “It’s me, baby, with you wake up call!” In other words, I’m going to give you a glimpse into the “parallel universe” being operted in the United States.

In the past, at this point I would give my comprehensive disclaimer. Now that I’m retired, I can skip that part. But, I do want to “hold harmless” both the Association and Georgetown for my remarks. The views I express this afternoon are mine, and mine alone. I’m going to tell you exactly what I think. No “party line,” no “bureaucratic doublespeak,” so “sugar coating.” Just the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we don’t have an implicit bias problem in the U.S. asylum adjudication system. The bad news: The bias is now, unfortunately, quite explicit.

Here’s a quote about refugees: “I guarantee you they are bad. They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people.”

Here’s another one: “We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order.”

Here’s another referencing the presence of an estimated 11 million undocumented residents of the U.S.: “Over the last 30 years, there have been many reasons for this failure. I’d like to talk about just one—the fraud and abuse in our asylum system.”

Here’s yet another: “We’ve had situations in which a person comes to the United States and says they are a victim of domestic violence, therefore they are entitled to enter the United States. Well, that’s obviously false but some judges have gone along with that.”

You might think that these anti-asylum, and in many cases anti-Latino, anti-female, anti-child, anti-asylum seeker, de-humanizing statements were made by members of some fringe, xenophobic group. But no, the first two are from our President; the second two are from our Attorney General.

These are the very officials who should be insuring that the life-saving humanitarian protection purposes of the Refugee Act of 1980 and the Convention Against Torture are fully carried out and that our country fully complies with the letter and spirit of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees which is binding on our country under the 1967 Protocol.

Let me read you a quote that I published yesterday on my blog, immigrationcourtside.com, from a young civil servant resigning their position with “EOIR,” otherwise known as our Immigration Court system, or, alternatively, as the sad little donkey from Winnie the Pooh.

I was born and raised in a country that bears an indelible and shameful scar—the birth and spreading of fascism. An ideology that, through its different permutations, almost brought the world as we know it to an end. Sadly, history has taught me that good countries do bad things—sometimes indescribably atrocious things. So, I have very little tolerance for authoritarianism, extremism, and unilateral and undemocratic usurpations of Constitutional rights. I believe that DOJ-EOIR’s plan to implement individual annual numerical performance measures—i.e., quotas—on Immigration Judges violates the Due Process clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and the DOJ’s own mission to “ensure the fair and impartial administration of justice.” This is not the job I signed up for. I strongly believe in the positive value of government, and that the legitimacy of our agency—and any other governmental institution for that matter—is given by “the People’s” belief in its integrity, fairness, and commitment to serve “the People.” But when the government, with its unparalleled might and coercive force, infringes on constitutionally enshrined rights, I only have two choices: (1) to become complicitous in what I believe is a flagrant constitutional violation, or (2) to resign and to hold the government accountable as a private citizen. I choose to resign because I cannot in good conscience continue serving my country within EOIR.

Strong words, my friends. But, words that are absolutely indicative of the travesty of justice unfolding daily in the U.S. Immigration Courts, particularly with respect to women, children, and other asylum seekers –- the most vulnerable among us. Indeed, the conspicuous absence from this conference of anyone currently serving as a judge in the U.S. Immigration Courts tells you all you really need to know about what’s happening in today’s U.S. justice system.

Today, as we meet to thoughtfully discuss how to save refugees, the reality is that U.S. Government officials are working feverishly at the White House and the U.S. Department of Justice on plans to end the U.S. refugee and asylum programs as we know them and to reduce U.S. legal immigration to about “zero.”

Sadly, the U.S. is not alone in these high-level attacks on the very foundations of our Convention and international protection. National leaders in Europe and other so-called “liberal democracies” — who appear to have erased the forces and circumstances that led to World War II and its aftermath from their collective memory banks — have made similar statements deriding the influence of immigrants and the arrival of desperate asylum seekers. In short, here and elsewhere our Convention and our entire international protection system are under attacks unprecedented during my career of more than four decades in the area of immigration and refugee protection.

As a result, judges and adjudicators throughout the world, like you, are under extreme pressure to narrow interpretations, expedite hearings, view asylum seekers in a negative manner, and produce more denials of protection.

So, how do we as adjudicators remain loyal to the principles of our Convention and retain our own integrity under such pressures? And, more to the point, what can I, as someone no longer involved in the day-to-day fray, contribute to you and this conference?

Of course, you could always do what I did — retire and fulfill a longtime dream of becoming an internet “gonzo journalist.” But, I recognize that not everyone is in a position to do that.

Moreover, if all the “good guys” who believe in our Convention, human rights, human dignity, and fair process leave the scene, who will be left to vindicate the rights of refugees and asylum seekers to protection? Certainly not the political folks who are nominally in charge of the protection system in the US and elsewhere.

So, this afternoon, I’m returning to that which brought this Association together two decades ago in Warsaw: our united commitment to the letter and spirit of the 1951 Convention; additionally, our commitment to fairness, education, international approaches, group problem solving, promoting best practices, and mutual support.

In the balance of my presentation, I’m going to tell you four things, taken from our Convention, that I hope will help you survive, prosper, and advance the aims of our Convention in an age of nationalist, anti-refugee, anti-asylum, anti-immigrant rhetoric.

BODY

Protect, Don’t Reject

First, “protect, don’t reject.” Our noble Convention was inspired by the horrors of World War II and its aftermath. Many of you will have a chance to see this first hand at the Holocaust Museum.

Our Convention is a solemn commitment not to repeat disgraceful incidents such as the vessel St. Louis, which has also been memorialized in that Museum. For those of you who don’t know, in 1939 just prior to the outbreak of World War II a ship of German Jewish refugees unsuccessfully sought refuge in Cuba, the United States, and Canada, only to be rejected for some of the same spurious and racist reasons we now hear on a regular basis used to describe, deride, and de-humanize refugees. As a result, they were forced to return to Europe on the eve of World War II, where hundreds who should and could have been saved instead perished in the Holocaust that followed.

Since the beginning of our Convention, the UNHCR has urged signatory countries to implement and carry out “a generous asylum policy!” Beyond that, paragraphs 26 and 27 of the UN Handbookreiterate “Recommendation E” of the Convention delegates. This is the hope that Convention refugee protections will be extended to those in flight who might not fully satisfy all of the technical requirements of the “refugee” definition.

Therefore, I call on each of you to be constantly looking for legitimate ways in which to extend, rather than restrict, the life-saving protections offered by our Convention.

Give The “Benefit Of The Doubt”

Second, “give the benefit of the doubt.” Throughout our Convention, there is a consistent theme of recognizing the difficult, often desperate, situation of refugees and asylum seekers and attendant difficulties in proof, recollection, and presentation of claims. Therefore, our Convention exhorts us in at least four separate paragraphs, to give the applicant “the benefit of the doubt” in assessing and adjudicating claims.

As a sitting judge, I found that this, along with the intentionally generous “well-founded fear” standard, enunciated in the “refugee” definition and reinforced in 1987 by the U.S. Supreme Court and early decisions of our Board of Immigration Appeals implementing the Supreme Court’s directive, often tipped the balance in favor of asylum seekers in “close cases.”

Don’t Blame The Victims

Third, “don’t blame the victims.” The purpose of our Convention is to protect victims of persecution, not to blame them for all societal ills, real and fabricated, that face a receiving signatory country. Too much of today’s heated rhetoric characterizes legitimate asylum seekers and their families as threats to the security, welfare, heath, and stability of some of the richest and most powerful countries in the world, based on scant to non-existent evidence and xenophobic myths.

In my experience, nobody really wants to be a refugee. Almost everyone would prefer living a peaceful, productive stable life in their country of nationality. But, for reasons beyond the refugee’s control, that is not always possible.

Yes, there are some instances of asylum fraud. But, my experience has been that our DHS does an excellent job of ferreting out, prosecuting, and taking down the major fraud operations. And, they seldom, if ever, involve the types of claims we’re now seeing at our Southern Border.

I’m also aware that receiving significant numbers of refugee claimants over a relatively short period of time can place burdens on receiving countries. But, the answer certainly is not to blame the desperate individuals fleeing for their lives and their often pro bono advocates!

The answer set forth in our Convention is for signatory countries to work together and with the UNHCR to address the issues that are causing refugee flows and to cooperate in distributing refugee populations and in achieving generous uniform interpretations of the Convention to discourage “forum shopping.” Clearly, cranking up denials, using inhumane and unnecessary detention, stirring up xenophobic fervor, and limiting or blocking proper access to the refugee and asylum adjudication system are neither appropriate nor effective solutions under our Convention.

Give Detailed, Well-Reasoned, Individualized Decisions

Fourth, and finally, “give detailed, well-reasoned, individualized decisions.” These are the types of decisions encouraged by our Convention and to promote which our Association was formed. Avoid stereotypes and generalities based on national origin; avoid personal judgments on the decision to flee or seek asylum; avoid political statements; be able to explain your decision in legally sufficient, yet plainly understandable terms to the applicant, and where necessary, to the national government.

Most of all, treat refugee and asylum applicants with impartiality and the uniform respect, sensitivity, and fairness to which each is entitled, regardless of whether or not their claim under our Convention succeeds.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I fully recognize that times are tough in the “refugee world.” Indeed, as I tell my Georgetown students, each morning when I wake up, I’m thankful for two things: first, that I woke up, never a given at my age; second, that I’m not a refugee.

But, I submit that tough times are exactly when great, independent, and courageous judging and adjudication are necessary to protect both applicants from harm and governments from doing unwise and sometimes illegal and immoral things that they will later regret.

I have offered you four fairly straightforward ways in which adhering to the spirit of our Convention can help you, as judges and adjudicators, retain integrity while complying with the law: protect, don’t reject; give the benefit of the doubt; don’t blame the victims; and give detailed, well-reasoned, individualized decisions.

Hopefully, these suggestions will also insure that all of you will still be around and employed for our next conference.

Thanks for listening, have a great rest of our conference, and do great things! May Due Process and the spirit of our noble Convention and our great organization guide you every day in your work and in your personal life! Due Process forever!

(08-06-18)

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

PWS

08-06-18

LAW YOU CAN USE: ALL-STAR PROFESSOR LINDSAY MUIR HARRIS TELLS US HOW TO STOP THE TRUMP, SESSIONS, NIELSEN PLAN FOR A “NEW AMERICAN GULAG:” “CONTEMPORARY FAMILY DETENTION AND LEGAL ADVOCACY” — 136 Harvard Latinx Law Review Vol. 21 — “This is our time to act and proudly join the brigade of “dirty immigration lawyers” to ensure protection and due process for the most vulnerable!”

FULL ARTICLE:

SSRN-id3179506

ABSTRACT:

Abstract

This essay explores the contemporary practice of detaining immigrant women and children — the vast majority of whom are fleeing violence in their home countries and seeking protection in the United States — and the response by a diverse coalition of legal advocates. In spite of heroic advocacy, both within and outside the detention centers from the courts to the media to the White House, family detention continues. By charting the evolution of family detention from the time the Obama Administration resurrected the practice in 2014 and responsive advocacy efforts, this essay maps the multiple levels at which sustained advocacy is needed to stem crises in legal representation and ultimately end family detention.

Due to a perfect storm of indigent detainees without a right to appointed counsel, remote detention centers, and under-resourced nonprofits, legal representation within immigration detention centers is scarce. While the Obama Administration largely ended the practice of family detention in 2009, the same administration started detaining immigrant families en masse just five years later. In response to the rise in numbers of child migrants seeking protection in the United States arriving both with and without their parents, and with the purported aim of deterring future flows, the Obama administration reinstituted the policy of detaining families. The Ad- ministration calls these detention centers “family residential centers,” while advocates use the term “baby jail.”

The response from the advocate community was swift and overwhelming. Lawyers and law students from all over the country traveled to the detention centers, in remote areas of New Mexico and later Texas, to meet the urgent need for representation of these asylum-seeking families. This essay calls for continued engagement by attorneys throughout the nation in filling the justice gap and providing representation to these asylum-seeking families and other detained immigrants.

The crisis in representation for detained immigrants is deepening. Given the success of intensive representation at the family detention centers discussed in this article, advocates are beginning to experiment with the same models in other locations. For example, at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, the Southern Poverty Law Center, in conjunction with four other organizations, launched the Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative in 2017. This initiative enlists and trains lawyers to provide free legal representation to immigrants detained in the Southeast who are facing deportation proceedings. The American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Immigration Council have partnered to create the Immigration Justice Campaign, where pro bono attorneys are trained and mentored when providing representation to detained immigrants in typically underserved locations. Given the expansion of the volunteer model of providing legal services to detained immigrants, opportunities will continue to arise for lawyers, law students, and others to engage in crisis lawyering and advocacy. This article provides the background to understand the government’s practice of detaining families, to the extent that it can be understood, and to emphasize a continuing need for legal services for this population.

The introduction explains the population of asylum seekers and the law and procedure governing their arrival, detention, and release into the United States. The essay then traces the evolution of the U.S. government’s most recent experiment in detaining families from the summer of 2014 to present. The next part outlines the access to counsel crisis for immigrant mothers and children in detention and highlights the difference that representation makes. The article concludes with a call to action to attorneys and non-attorney volunteers nationwide to commit and re-commit to providing services to detained immigrant families and individuals.

MY FAVORITE QUOTE:

We are in an era of incredible need for immigration legal services. That need is most acute within detention centers located outside of major metro- politan areas, including within the family detention centers.

Ultimately, neither the Trump nor the Obama administration can claim to have won or be “winning” with the policy of family detention. The vast majority of women and children still receive a positive result during their credible fear interviews, because they are indeed individuals fleeing persecu- tion under the Refugee Convention. It is a poor use of resources, then, to continue to detain this population. Instead, tax-payer dollars, government energy, and resources, should be invested in providing representation and case management for this population to ensure that they appear in court and follow all required procedures to pursue their claims for protection.125 In the current era of intense immigration enforcement, combined with the Trump Administration’s plans to increase detention bed space and Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Session’s clear attacks on asylum-seekers,126 family de- tention is, however, likely here to stay.

In light of this reality, crowdsourcing refugee rights, as Stephen Man- ning articulates, is more important than ever.127 It is heartening to see the expansion of the model of lawyering within immigration detention centers expand to centers in Georgia and Louisiana, where asylum grant rates are dismal, conditions of detention dire, with a historical extreme lack of access to counsel. Lawyers are needed to ensure that individuals can properly ac- cess their due process rights and to help the immigration court system run more smoothly.128

Lawyers, specialized in immigration or not, must arm themselves with the knowledge and tools to join this fight. Just as non-immigration lawyers quickly rose to a call to action in January at the airports,129 lawyers must again rise, and continue rising, to provide representation for families and individuals held in immigration detention. This is our time to act and proudly join the brigade of “dirty immigration lawyers” to ensure protection and due process for the most vulnerable.

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

Lindsay is “one of the best.” We were colleagues at Georgetown Law when I was an Adjunct Professor and she held the prestigious “CALS Fellowship” working with Professors Andy Schoenholtz and Phil Schrag (of “Refugee Roulette fame”). Lindsay was a guest lecturer in my Refugee Law & Policy class, and I have since returned the favor at both George Mason Law and UDC Law where she now teaches with another of my good friends and superstars, Professor Kristina Campbell. Indeed, my friend Judge Dorothy Harbeck and I are “regulars” at their class and are in the process of planning another session this fall.

Lindsay and Kristina “talk the talk and walk the walk.” They appeared before me frequently at the Arlington Immigration Court with their clinical students. The have also gone “on site” at some of the worst immigration detention facilities in the country to help refugees in need.

In a truly unbiased, merit-based, independent, Immigration Court system (of the future) they would be ideal judges at either the trial or appellate level. They possess exactly the types of amazing scholarship, expertise and “hands on” experience representing actual individual clients before our Immigration Courts that is sorely lacking in, and in my view has largely been systematically banished from, the 21st Century immigration judiciary, to the detriment of our Immigration Courts, Due Process, and the entire American justice system. That’s one reason why our Immigration Courts are functioning so poorly in basic areas like efficiency, deliberation, quality control, and fundamental fairness!

Some important “take aways” from this article:

Contrary to Administration propaganda and false narratives, most of the recent arrivals who have lawyers are found to have credible claims for protection under our laws.
Similarly, if given fair access to competent counsel and time to prepare and present their claims in a non-coercive setting to a truly unbiased decision-maker, I believe that majority would be granted asylum, withholding of removal, or protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”).
This is the truth that Trump, Sessions, & Company don’t want revealed: most of the folks we are so cavalierly mistreating are, in fact, legitimate refugees, even under current legal rulings that have been intentionally and unfairly skewed against asylum applicants from Central America for years!
Even those who don’t currently fit the arcane legal categories for protection probably have a legitimate fear of harm or death upon return. They certainly are entitled to fully present and litigate their claims before being returned to life-threatening situations.
Finally, a better country, with better, wiser, more humane leaders, would devise ways of offering these individuals fleeing the Northern Triangle at least temporary protection, either here or in another stable country in this hemisphere, while doing something constructive to address the severe, festering, chronic human rights problems in the Northern Triangle that are sending us these refugees.
The “enforcement only” approach has failed over and over in the past and will continue to do so until we get better political leadership in the future.
In the meantime, join Lindsay, Kristina, and the other “Charter Members of the New Due Process Army” in resisting the evil, immoral, and illegal policies of the Trump Administration.
Due Process Forever! Harm to the most vulnerable among us is harm to all!

PWS

06-02-18

CRUEL & UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT: DHS KAKISTOCRACY WANTS TO TARGET FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN FOR SEPARATION AND CRIMINAL PROSECUTION OF PARENTS AS PART OF WAR ON HUMANITY AT OUR SOUTHERN BORDER – Every American Will Bear The Stain Of Our Government’s Actions!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/top-homeland-security-officials-urge-criminal-prosecution-of-parents-who-cross-border-with-children/2018/04/26/a0bdcee0-4964-11e8-8b5a-3b1697adcc2a_story.html

Maria Sacchetti reports for WashPost:

The nation’s top immigration and border officials are urging Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to detain and prosecute all parents caught crossing the Mexican border illegally with their children, a stark change in policy that would result in the separation of families that until now have mostly been kept together.

If approved, the zero-tolerance measure could split up thousands of families, although officials say they would not prosecute those who turn themselves in at legal ports of entry and claim asylum. More than 20,000 of the 30,000 migrants who sought asylum during the first quarter — the period from October-December — of the current fiscal year crossed the border illegally.

In a memorandum that outlines the proposal and was obtained by The Washington Post, officials say that threatening adults with criminal charges and prison time would be the “most effective” way to reverse the steadily rising number of attempted crossings. Most parents now caught crossing the border illegally with their children are quickly released to await civil deportation hearings.

The memo sent to Nielsen on Monday — and signed by acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan, Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services L. Francis Cissna and Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan — said attempted crossings by parents with children increased to nearly 700 a day last week, the highest level since 2016. The officials predicted that the number will continue to rise if Nielsen does not act.

Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who has filed a federal lawsuit in California over earlier instances of family separations at the border, said the proposal would make “children as young as 2 and 3 years old pawns in a cruel public policy experiment.”

. . . .

Philip G. Schrag, a Georgetown law professor and asylum expert, said that expanding the forced separation of parents and children could cause severe psychological harm to families that ultimately might have legal grounds under federal asylum law to remain in the United States permanently.

“I think it’s absolutely wrenching psychologically and terrible for both the children and the parents,” he said. “What are we doing to those children psychologically that will haunt us years down the road if they become Americans?”

Federal officials say asylum applications have skyrocketed in recent years, raising concerns about fraud. Advocates for immigrants say those seeking asylum have legitimate claims under federal law and are fleeing some of the world’s most dangerous countries.

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

Read Maria’s complete article at the link.

I associate myself completely with the remarks of my good friend and Georgetown Law colleague Professor Phil Schrag. Cruelty to children is stupid, counterproductive — children are our future — and morally wrong. It will definitely haunt us as a country for generations to come. It’s largely what I said before about the misguided policies of the Obama Administration. But, as with many things, the Trump Administration takes every dumb and wrong immigration policy of the past and multiplies it.

PWS

04-27-18

MICHELLE BRANE @ WOMEN’S REFUGEE COMMISSION — “Why I March!”

“Dear Paul,

Today, my daughter Marisa and I joined thousands of women, men, and children in Washington, DC and other cities around the country to march for equality and for justice.

First and foremost on my mind while I marched with my daughter were the migrant and refugee women, children, and families for whom I advocate every day. With each step, I thought about the brave mothers who escape danger in their home countries because, like all mothers, they want a bright future for their children. Expecting to find safety at our border, these women and children are instead met by the Trump administration’s policies of ripping families apart.

I decided to march today in honor of the women and children who reach for safety but are instead betrayed.

The Women’s Refugee Commission will march forward with our important work supporting women and children seeking safety at our border. We will continue to utilize the court systems, inform the press and public, and hold the Trump administration accountable until asylum seekers have the protection and services they need to be safe, healthy, and to rebuild their lives. But there is strength in numbers.

In the spirit of the Women’s March, and the women for whom we march, please join us by donating today.

We can accomplish so much more together than we can alone.

In solidarity,

Michelle Brané
Director, Migrant Rights and Justice Program

DONATE

© 2017 Women’s Refugee Commission. All rights reserved.
The Women’s Refugee Commission is a 501(c)(3) organization.
Donations are deductible to the full extent allowable under IRS regulations.
15 West 37th Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10018 • Tel. (212) 551-3115”

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

Like me, my friend Michelle began her career as an Attorney Advisor at the BIA. She is also a distinguished alum of Georgetown Law where I am an Adjunct Professor.

The Women’s Refugee Commission does some fantastic work in behalf of vulnerable women and children who arrive at our border seeking refuge and justice, only to be detained and railroaded back to life-threatening conditions by the anti-refugee, anti-Due-Process, White Nationalist regime of Trump, Sessions, Miller, Nielsen, and their complicit minions.

Michelle was named one of the “21 Leaders for the 21st Century” by Women’s e-News.

Imagine what a great country this could be if our Government and our justice system were led by smart, courageous, principled, values-driven, humane leaders like Michelle and her colleagues, rather than by a cabal of morally bankrupt White Nationalist men and their sycophantic subordinates.

PWS

01-22-18

THE GIBSON REPORT FOR 12-18-17 – RECOGNIZING: The Absolutely Amazing ELIZABETH GIBSON Of The NY Legal Assistance Group and ALL She Does For Fairness, Justice, & Due Process! — MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF OUR MOST VULNERABLE!

THE GIBSON REPORT — 12-18-17

TOP UPDATES

Today Is International Migrants’ Day: 2017 Theme: Safe Migration in a World on the Move

A Day Without Migrants Campaign

OHCHR: #StandUp4Migrants videos

Honor the day with these guides to books, audio, and film:

o   Books: Give the Gift of Literary Empathy – Immigration Holiday Book Guide (full disclosure, I wrote this one)

o   Podcasts: Immigration and migration stories

o   Film: IOM and UNICEF Film Festival in New York today

White House to push merit-based immigration in new campaign

AP: The White House is embarking on a major campaign to turn public opinion against the nation’s largely family-based immigration system ahead of an all-out push next year to move toward a more merit-based structure.

Attorney General Sessions Delivers Remarks on the Administration’s Efforts to Combat MS-13 and Carry Out its Immigration Priorities: “The President has also proposed ending chain migration and switching to a merit-based system like they have in Canada and Australia. That means welcoming the best and the brightest and turning away not only terrorists, but gang members and criminals.”

TPS for Nicaragua and Honduras

Termination of the Designation of Nicaragua for Temporary Protected Status

Extension of the Designation of Honduras for Temporary Protected Status

EADs: Through operation of this Notice, your existing EAD issued under the TPS designation of Honduras with an expiration date of January 5, 2018, is automatically extended for 180 days, through July 4, 2018. You do not need to apply for a new EAD in order to benefit from this 180-day automatic extension. However, if you want to obtain a new EAD with an expiration date of July 5, 2018 on its face, you must file an Application for Employment Authorization (Form I-765) and pay the Form I-765 fee in addition to filing your re-registration application (Form I-821).

LexisNexis’s Role in ICE Surveillance and Librarian Ethics

LLB: As library organizations discuss ways library professionals can advocate for intellectual freedom, democracy, and equality, we should begin by grappling with how to react when our major database providers engage in massive surveillance projects with the government.

Federal Investigation Finds ‘Significant Issues’ At Immigrant Detention Centers

NPR: Immigrants detained at four large centers used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are subject to inhumane treatment, given insufficient hygiene supplies and medical care, and provided potentially unsafe food, according to a federal report.

On the ground with ICE agents enforcing Trump’s immigration crackdown

ImmProf: Since President Trump took office, immigration arrests are up 42 percent. ICE estimates, nationwide, they make 400 arrests a day. ICE has arrested 37,000 undocumented immigrants without criminal records. That’s a 145 percent increase over fiscal year 2016.

Complaint Documents 15 Cases of Family Separation at the Border

AIC: Advocates filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) and Office of the Inspector General (OIG) on behalf of numerous families – most, if not all, who fled to the United States seeking humanitarian relief – who were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.

DHS Overestimates Visa Overstays for 2016; Overstay Population Growth Near Zero During the Year

CMS: This paper compares US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates for visa overstays in fiscal year 2016 with estimates from the Center for Migration Studies (CMS).

An HIV-Positive Gay Asylum Seeker Staged a 7-Day Hunger Strike in an ICE Detention Facility

The Nation: Protesting prolonged detention, substandard medical care, and parole denial, Jesus Rodriguez Mendoza may soon stop eating again.

Bronx man allegedly poses as Hempstead attorney, steals more than $30,000 from immigrant clients

PIX: Efrain Vargas told clients in Hempstead he would obtain immigration and residency papers for them, but never delivered on his promises, officials said. He was arrested and arraigned Wednesday for allegedly scamming immigrants.

OCC-NYC Filing Window Hours on 12/20 and 12/22

OCC: Please be advised that our reception area and filing window at 26 Federal Plaza and 201 Varick Street will be closed from 12:00-1:30pm on Wednesday, December 20th. Please be further advised that our reception area and filing window will close at 3pm on Friday, December 22nd.

ACTIONS

#GiveMateoBack: Amnesty International USA is also working to hold ICE accountable for family separation. You can find steps for a social media/letter writing campaign here.

RESOURCES

USCIS Provides Training Material on the International Religious Freedom Act and Religious Persecution

USCIS Provides Training Material on TRIG

Manhattan DA – Supp Bs – raej@dany.nyc.gov: December 2017 will be my last month at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. If you have pending supplement B certification request that has yet to be submitted to my office, please email the requests to me by Friday, December 22nd. We will make every effort to review each certification request and provide a response before the New Year. After December 22nd, please send all U-visa supplement B requests to Mayerling Rivera atRIVERAM@dany.nyc.gov. As with all past requests, please be sure to provide a waiver signed by your client (include your client’s date of birth and any aliases)… The body of the email should include the case indictment or docket number, name of the defendant, and/ or the case arrest number. Please keep in mind that we cannot locate cases in our system records using an NYPD complaint number.

Give the Gift of Literary Empathy – Immigration Holiday Book Guide(full disclosure, I wrote this one)

·         Podcasts: Immigration and migration stories

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

I’m a huge “Elizabeth Gibson Fan.” I’ve known Beth since she was a star student at Georgetown Law (one of the “Best Ever” of my “Refugee Law & Policy” — “RLP” — students), a terrific Legal Intern at the Arlington Immigration Court, and a spectacular Judicial Lw Clerk/Attorney Advisor at the New York Immigration Court before she was selected for the Immigrant Justice Corps (“IJC”) assigned to the New York Legal Assistance Group (“NYLAG”).

For those who don’t know, only the “best and brightest” with an overriding concern for social justice get into the IJC. Beth would excel at ANY legal job in America — “Nonprofit, “Big Law,” judging, teaching, writing, reporting, managing.

I’m inspired that with all these avenues open to her, Beth has chosen to use her “complete package” of talents to make the justice system work for the most vulnerable among us — those who have legal rights that are largely the same as all of us, but who are “bullied” and “intentionally mistreated” by our legal system (and our current Administration, in particular) in an attempt to prevent them from using and realizing those rights.

In addition to being a weekly contributor to immigrationcourtside.com, Beth has acted as a “clearinghouse” for the vast amount of information and assistance available to the legal community involved in defending the rights of migrants. She has patiently taken many referrals of reporters and lawyers. She also has found time to write articles of her own, in addition to, of course, her main mission of helping her clients.

Beth, thanks for all you do for our country, our world, the cause of justice, and making “Due Process” under our Constitution a reality (at least for some) rather than an “empty promise!” You are truly what serving in the “New Due Process Army” is all about and why, in the end, the forces of darkness threatening our country and democracy will not prevail!

PWS

12-18-17

A DECADE AFTER THE “GEORGETOWN 3” PUBLISHED “REFUGEE ROULETTE” THE PROBLEM OF GROSS DISPARITIES IN ASYLUM ADJUDICATION PERSIST – NEW TRAC STUDY!

==========================================
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
==========================================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Greetings. Very recent data from the Immigration Courts, current through September 2017, reveals that the outcome for asylum seekers continues to depend on the identity of the immigration judge assigned to hear the case. In the San Francisco as well as the Newark Immigration Courts, for example, the odds of being granted asylum during FY 2012 – FY 2017 ranged between a high of 90 percent down to a low of only 3 percent depending upon which immigration judge the asylum seeker was assigned.

The two courts with the largest number of asylum cases, New York and Los Angeles, also had sizable judge-to-judge differences in asylum outcomes. In the New York Immigration Court judge denial rates ranged from a low of 3.0 percent up to a high of 58.5 percent. The disparity in asylum denial rates among the judges on the Los Angeles court ranged from a low of 29.4 percent denied to a high of 97.5 percent.

Immigration judge-to-judge decision disparities have long existed and are well documented. Despite widespread concern about this problem, between 2010 and 2016 judge-to-judge decision disparities actually increased. This year’s report, updated through FY 2017, shows that disparity levels had become more extreme on both the Newark and San Francisco courts. Judge-to-judge differences for the Chicago Immigration Court also increased. The Los Angeles and San Diego courts saw modest improvement.

To view results for the complete list of courts see the full report at:

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/490/

To view a particular judge’s report, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/judgereports/

In addition, many of TRAC’s free query tools – which track the court’s overall backlog, new DHS filings, court dispositions and much more – have now been updated through October 2017. For an index to the full list of TRAC’s immigration tools go to:

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

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

http://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1&list=imm

or follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook:

http://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 U.S. federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

http://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

———————————————————————————
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse is a nonpartisan joint research center of the Whitman School of Management (http://whitman.syr.edu) and the Newhouse School of Public Communications (http://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 http://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.

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

More than a decade ago, three universally respected “scholar litigators,” my good friends and Georgetown Law colleagues Professors Andy Schoenholtz, Phil Schrag, and Jaya Ramirez-Nogales (now at Temple Law) exposed this problem. While there have been some attempts to address it, and results actually appeared to be improving for a time, the problem persists.

Whatever the solution is, I’m sure of what it isn’t: running more cases through the Immigration Court System faster, hiring more Immigration Judges without giving them sufficient training, a weak Appellate Board that won’t speak up for the rights of asylum seekers, and putting “production quotas” on Immigration Judges.

“Haste makes waste” so-called “solutions” only make things worse. Promoting quality decision-making is a more nuanced and painstaking process.

I have no doubt that this system still denies asylum and other forms of legal protection in far too many cases. A more realistic and appropriately generous approach to asylum would force the DHS to grant more of these cases at the Asylum Office and would shorten hearing times for certain types of “clearly grantable” cases.

PWS

11-20-17

JOIN THE “NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY” IN CALIFORNIA — Pangea Legal Services Seeks A Removal Defense Attorney – WORK WITH A GREAT GROUP OF FOLKS!

http://www.pangealegal.org/jobs

REMOVAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY (SANTA CLARA COUNTY)

September 6, 2017

POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT: REMOVAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY

Pangea Legal Services (Pangea) is a non-profit organization based in San Francisco and Santa Clara County. Our vision is to live in a world where individuals can realize their fundamental right to move and resettle around the world with dignity and respect. We work toward this vision through legal representation of immigrants in deportation proceedings, community empowerment, and policy advocacy.

We are recruiting an attorney to join our legal team in Santa Clara County to increase our capacity to represent detained and non-detained immigrants in removal proceedings. The attorney will primarily engage in direct representation, using a litigation model that creates space for clients to become agents of change in their communities and places them at the center of their own defense and advocacy. The position is based in our South Bay office and will require occasional travel to the San Francisco office to attend court hearings, interviews, and team meetings (approx. 1x/week). If you are someone with a positive attitude, a passion for producing high-quality work, and a love for the community we serve, then please apply!

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

Provide direct legal representation to immigrants in removal proceedings

Coordinate advocacy, public campaigns, and community-led initiatives with family members of clients and grassroots partners

Work closely with partners to provide know your rights and self-defense education for the community

Help establish internal policies as our non-profit grows

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS

Immigration or removal defense experience (including law school experience)

Proficiency in Spanish (required)

Ability to take on leadership in various projects, in addition to direct legal services responsibilities

Desire to invest in and grow with our organization

J.D. degree with membership in good standing with a State Bar

SALARY AND BENEFITS

Pangea is a collaborative, nonhierarchical organization, where salaries are equal among all staff after the first six months of employment at $52,000/year

Benefits include state bar dues, professional membership fees, medical and dental, preventative health benefits for general wellness, a socially responsible retirement package, and an annual right to move stipend

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

The start date of this position is flexible (by December 2017) and applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. If you believe you might be a good fit, please submit a cover letter, resume, writing sample, copy of your law school transcript, and three references to welcome@pangealegal.org. In your cover letter, please include how the immigration struggle directly impacts you or your family, if applicable. Please indicate “South Bay Attorney Application” in the subject line of your email.

Pangea is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. We believe diversity makes us stronger and we welcome applicants diverse in race, religion, gender, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other areas.

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

I have helped Pangea with some legal issues and strategies. Wonderful team of folks, including some “Charter Members” of the New Due Process Army: Etan Newman, Director of Appellate Advocacy; Celine Dinhjanelle, Director of South Bay Programs (and wife of all-star former Arlington Immigration Court Attorney Advisor Anthony Dinh); Bianca Z. Santos, a Georgetown Law/ CALS Asylum Clinic alum who appeared before me in the Arlington Immigration Court; and their colleagues.

PWS

11-16-17

BETH FERTIG AT NPR: “ADR” Moves Into High Gear, Devastating U.S. Immigration Courts, As Half Of NY Immigration Court “Goes Dark” — U.S. Immigration Judges Become Adjuncts Of DHS Border Enforcement Program — Dockets At Interior Courts “Orbited Into Never-Never Land!”

ADR = “Aimless Docket Reshuffling”

http://www.wnyc.org/story/even-more-immigration-judges-are-reassigned-trumps-crackdown-border/

Beth reports for WNYC/NPR:

“In its crackdown on illegal immigration, the Trump administration is moving an increasing number of immigration judges closer to the border with Mexico. The practice is so widespread that half of New York City’s 30 immigration judges have been temporarily reassigned for two-to-four weeks at a time between early April and July.

The judges have been sent to hear deportation cases in Louisiana, California, New Mexico and Texas, along with Elizabeth, New Jersey, where there’s a detention center. In June, WNYC reported that at least eight of New York City’s immigration judges have been temporarily moved to Texas and Louisiana since March. New information obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request revealed the number to be much higher.

All this reshuffling causes cases to get delayed for months. And New York City’s immigration court already has a backlog of more than 80,000 cases. People wait an average of more than two years go to court to fight against deportation. Some might welcome a prolonged wait. But immigration lawyer Edain Butterfield said her clients get anxious because they’re ready to make their case, when they suddenly learn their judge has had to postpone.

“They don’t know if their judge is going to stay on their case,” she said. “They sometimes have to get new documents, ask for another day off from work, ask their family to take another day off from work.”

David Wilkins, an attorney with Central American Legal Assistance in Brooklyn, said he’s representing a woman seeking asylum whose hearing was recently postponed almost a year — until the summer of 2018. He said she left her children in her home country back in 2012 because of domestic abuse. “It’s extremely difficult for her,” he said. “She’s been separated from her family for so long to sort of live with the constant uncertainty of not knowing what’s going to happen with her immigration proceeding.”

Judges from New York City aren’t the only ones being moved. According to the latest data obtained by WNYC, 128 of the nation’s approximately 325 immigration judges have been shuffled to other locations between early April and the middle of July. Many of those judges come from Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. These assignments, known as details, last for two or four weeks. Some judges have been shifted around multiple times.

The data does not include all judges assigned to hear cases in other locations by video teleconference. A couple of judges in New York City were seeing cases by video at a Texas detention center in May and June.

The reassignments are expected to continue until early 2018, but the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which runs the immigration courts, would not reveal the schedule beyond July.

In April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that all adults crossing the Mexican border would be sent to detention. To support the mission, he said, the Department of Justice had “already surged 25 immigration judges to detention centers along the border.”

Dana Leigh Marks, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said her union remains very concerned about the situation.

“The temporary assignment of judges to border courts creates increasing backlogs in the dockets they leave behind in their home courts and may not be conducive to the overall reduction of our burgeoning caseload.”

Nationally, the backlog has surged to more than 600,000 cases and observers believe that number is growing partly because of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

Moving judges south might sound counterintuitive because illegal border crossings have actually dropped since President Trump took office. But Bryan Johnson, an immigration lawyer on Long Island, has a theory about why more judges are needed down south.

“The people that are deported will be deported in less time,” he explained. “And that is the message they want to send people in the home countries from where the migrants come from.”

There is no guaranteed right to counsel in immigration court, and experts said there are few low-cost immigration attorneys near the border — making it even easier to swiftly deport someone because they are not likely to have representation.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review did not respond to a request for comment. However, the agency has said it is hiring more judges.”

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

Get the accompanying audio/video report at the link.

David Wilkins from the Central American Legal Defense Center in Brooklyn, quoted in Beth’s article, is one of my former Georgetown Law Refugee Law & Policy students, a former CALS Asylum Clinic participant, and a former Legal Intern at the Arlington Immigration Court. David was also an Immigrant Justice Crops fellow. He is a “charter member” of the “New Due Process Army.” Congratulations David, we’re all proud of what you are doing!

Attorney Bryan Johnson simply restates the obvious. Under A.G. Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, the U.S. Immigration Courts are once again being used as an arm of DHS Enforcement rather than a protector and dispenser of constitutional due process. Nobody in their right mind seriously thinks that Sessions is “surging” Immigration Judges to the border to grant more bonds, reverse more “credible fear” and “reasonable fear” denials, or grant more asylum, withholding of removal, or relief under the CAT.

No, the “surge” program is clearly all about detention, coercion, denial, deportation and sending a “don’t come, we don’t want you” message to folks living in fear and danger in countries of the Northern Triangle of Central America. In other words, you might as well cooperate with, support, and/or join the gangs and narco-traffickers — the U.S. has absolutely no intention of saving your life! Nice message!

Don’t be too surprised when multinational gangs and narco-traffickers eventually seize political power in Central America (they have already infiltrated or compromised many government functions). And, we will have sent away the very folks who might have helped us stem the tide. At the same time, we are destroying the last vestiges of due process in the U.S. Immigration Courts, leaving hundreds of thousands of cases and lives “up in the air” and our justice system without a fair and effective mechanism for deciding and reviewing immigration cases. At some point, somebody is going to have to fix this mess. But, you can be sure it won’t be the Trump (“We Don’t Take Responsibility For Nothin'”) Administration.

PWS

07-24-17

HOYA LAW REDUX — IMMIGRATION LAW & POLICY — Summer 2017 — Read “Welcome To the Breakfast Club: Introduction To Immigration Law & Policy, Georgetown Law Summer 2017 Edition”

I walked into Room 5020 at Hotung Hall. Windows, daylight! Wow! I felt almost like I had achieved tenure! After a two-year hiatus, I was back as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown. This time, I was off of the “night shift” and out of the windowless subterranian classroom in McDonough Hall. I think McDonough was where, as a newly hired Attorney Adviser at the Board of Immigration Appeals, I took “Immigration Law & Procedure” in 1974 from the late Charles Gordon, then General Counsel of the INS and Adjunct Professor. Perhaps in the same classroom.

The students filed in. The energy and brain waves (certainly not mine) zinged around the room. A number of PhDs, a Chemist, a Patent Examiner, a licensed Social Worker, someone with a “big law” job already lined up — some working on second, or even third careers, others just getting started. Bright, curious, engaged. They had already accomplished impressive things, but wanted to achieve more. No “traditional immigration junkies,” but all had some personal connection with immigration and a desire to learn more.

And, they were highly motivated. Everyone did the first assignment and reported on what they had learned. As a teacher, doesn’t get much better.

I wasn’t sure I could make this happen. Although retired from the court, I’m actually more or less “booked” for various family, professional, and educational events through next October! So, when Georgetown contacted me, I initially was hesitant. But, with the help of Tiffany Joly, Director of LLM Academic Services and the incomparable Sarah Kinney, Assistant Director of LLM Academic Services, we were able to “compress” the summer semester into an intensive five weeks. I have always been impressed with the helpfulness and skill of the Georgetown Law administrators. Everyone knows exactly what they are doing, and they always patiently explain the process to, and meet the needs of, Adjunct Professors. It makes Georgetown a great place to teach. I’m also glad that my good friend, Professor Andy Schoenholtz, a Director of the CALS Asylum Clinic at Georgetown, brought me into the “Georgetown family” in 2012 and helped me return this summer.

Here’s the text of my “introductory lecture.” Although some of you have read earlier versions, there is some “new stuff” in here.

Welcome To The Breakfast Club-GeorgetownILP2017

PWS

05-31-17

Temple Law Professor & Immigration Superstar Jaya Ramji-Nogales Is March 2017 ABA Journal Headliner!

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/female_first_chairs

Wow! I opened my March 2017 ABA Journal and told my wife, Cathy, “Hey, I know her. It’s Jaya!” Spectacular picture of a brilliant lawyer, teacher, clinician, advocate, humanitarian, role mode, and just all-around great human being!

For those of you who don’t know her, Jaya was a CALS Asylum Clinic Faculty Fellow working with Professors Andy Schoenholtz and Phil Schrag at Georgetown. Together, they wrote the “instant classic” Refugee Roulette, the seminal work on inconsistencies in U.S. asylum adjudication. And, according to the latest report about the Atlanta Immigration Court, that problem continues to fester.

http://wp.me/p8eeJm-qB

Jaya and her CALS Clinic students also appeared before me at the Arlington Immigration Court (prior to my appointment as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown which required me to recuse myself from all CALS cases).

The ABA article involving Jaya is “Female First Chairs” by Stephanie Francis Ward. Here’s a quote from Jaya:

“Drawing such attention to the issue also may be helping improve those results. In November, Liebenberg was one of two women appointed as lead counsel in a multidistrict litigation antitrust matter involving the antibiotic doxycycline. Presiding over the case, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania also appointed a woman as the defense’s lead counsel.

“We thought [multidistrict representation] was an important piece of the puzzle. These are high-profile cases. They bring in a lot of money and there’s very few women who get the appointments,” says Jaya Ramji-Nogales, a law professor at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law who is overseeing the MDL survey.

“Basically, these surveys document a phenomena that everyone knows is happening,” she says. “There are social norms that dictate how a woman can ask for things which don’t constrain men.”

There’s a hope that releasing more surveys as part of the ABF/ABA effort will keep attention on the issue of bias against women leading trials.”

Reads the full article at the top link. Congratulations Jaya! You are continuing to make a difference and are an inspiration to all of us!

PWS

03/04/17

Category: CALS Asylum Clinic

PROFESSOR PHIL SCHRAG IN THE SEATTLE TIMES: FAMILY SEPARATION IS JUST PRELIMINARY TORTURE IN SESSIONS’S GULAG – THE NEXT STEP: DEPORTATION OF BROWN-SKINNED REFUGEE FAMILIES TO DEATH ZONES — “And so they will be deported back to the situations of rape, beating and slashing they fled.”

“JUST SAY NO TO 1939: HOW JUDGES CAN SAVE LIVES, UPHOLD THE CONVENTION, AND MAINTAIN INTEGRITY IN THE AGE OF OVERT GOVERNMENTAL BIAS TOWARD REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS” — My Remarks To The Americas Conference Of The International Association Of Refugee & Migration Judges, August 4, 2018

CRUEL & UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT: DHS KAKISTOCRACY WANTS TO TARGET FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN FOR SEPARATION AND CRIMINAL PROSECUTION OF PARENTS AS PART OF WAR ON HUMANITY AT OUR SOUTHERN BORDER – Every American Will Bear The Stain Of Our Government’s Actions!

THE GIBSON REPORT FOR 12-18-17 – RECOGNIZING: The Absolutely Amazing ELIZABETH GIBSON Of The NY Legal Assistance Group and ALL She Does For Fairness, Justice, & Due Process! — MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF OUR MOST VULNERABLE!

A DECADE AFTER THE “GEORGETOWN 3” PUBLISHED “REFUGEE ROULETTE” THE PROBLEM OF GROSS DISPARITIES IN ASYLUM ADJUDICATION PERSIST – NEW TRAC STUDY!

JOIN THE “NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY” IN CALIFORNIA — Pangea Legal Services Seeks A Removal Defense Attorney – WORK WITH A GREAT GROUP OF FOLKS!

REMOVAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY (SANTA CLARA COUNTY)

POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT: REMOVAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY

BETH FERTIG AT NPR: “ADR” Moves Into High Gear, Devastating U.S. Immigration Courts, As Half Of NY Immigration Court “Goes Dark” — U.S. Immigration Judges Become Adjuncts Of DHS Border Enforcement Program — Dockets At Interior Courts “Orbited Into Never-Never Land!”

ADR = “Aimless Docket Reshuffling”

HOYA LAW REDUX — IMMIGRATION LAW & POLICY — Summer 2017 — Read “Welcome To the Breakfast Club: Introduction To Immigration Law & Policy, Georgetown Law Summer 2017 Edition”

Temple Law Professor & Immigration Superstar Jaya Ramji-Nogales Is March 2017 ABA Journal Headliner!

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT: REMOVAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY

Related posts:

ADR = “Aimless Docket Reshuffling”

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts: