Health – Page 6 – immigrationcourtside.com

ALERT: Judge Sullivan “Reluctantly” Grants DHS Temporary Stay Until Dec. 22, 2022 To Reinstate Rule Of Law For Asylum Seekers!

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/judge-permanently-enjoins-cdc-border-blockade-title-42-as-of-dec-22-2022

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Let’s look at this in perspective. Biden ran in 2020 on a platform of ending Title 42 and restoring asylum processing at the border. Almost two years later, after illegally returning hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers without any process at all, his Administration still lacks a coherent, transparent plan to implement asylum law at the border. This wasn’t “rocket science” as there had been an operating asylum system at the border for approximately four decades, since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980, until Trump illegally ended it.

After more than a year of dawdling, the Administration eventually, reluctantly, set a May 23, 2022 date to “lift” the illegal Title 42 “blockade,” giving GOP nativists more than ample time to block it.

In the meantime, they squandered time, money, and goodwill thinking of ways to actually extend the illegal removals. Their “defense” of lifting Title 42 was, predictably, half-hearted and inept. Not surprisingly, they were enjoined by nativist right wing judges. Reportedly, many Administration officials breathed a “sigh of relief” that the GOP nativists and their “wholly owned judges” had “bailed them out” from having to actually restore the asylum system and make good on their campaign promises.

Now, another six months have gone by. Garland and Mayorkas still are “not ready for prime time.” Sounds like they thought their “regime of illegal returns” would last forever!

Casts doubt on the good faith of their claim that they wanted to end Title 42 in the first place. Almost all Administrations, once in office, get enamored of the idea that “because it’s only immigrants” they don’t have to treat them as humans. What’s another month of law violations after two years and hundreds of thousands of human rights abuses?

I have little confidence that there will be a functional, due process compliant, asylum system on Dec. 22 at the border. I’m not aware that DHS and EOIR even have the properly trained qualified personnel to correctly and efficiently apply asylum law. There is no known plan for working with the pro bono bar to insure representation and prioritize the many potentially grantable cases.

There is certainly a mind-boggling “leadership void” at both DHS and DOJ on refugee, asylum, and human rights issues. The ill-advised “gimmicks” and “corner-cutting” that Garland and Mayorkas have substituted for competence and expertise in “recently arrived” asylum cases have resulted in elevated denials, hindered representation, and alienated the pro bono bar and human rights NGOs. The latter have far more expertise in asylum law and better ideas on how to efficiently and fairly process refugees and asylees than anyone at either DHS or EOIR. Yet, the experts have intentionally been “frozen out” of the decision-making process.

Additionally, and stunningly, Garland has gone out of his way to alienate and demoralize the already stressed and overextended immigration bar with a insane dose of “Aimless Docket Reshuffling.” Setting “D-Day” for reinstating the law, three days before the Christmas holiday, also seems highly problematic. What could possibly go wrong with a system run by politicos who have spent two years avoiding providing fair hearings to asylum seekers?

In the vacuum created by the Biden Administration’s incompetence and lack of leadership, racist GOP governors have taken control of “asylum resettlement” and conducted it in ways calculated to cause the most disruption, cruelty, and suffering for the political pawns (actually humans) that Biden has abandoned.

This does not sound like a “dressed for success” plan to restore a fair and efficient asylum system. But, after two years of adapting and using clearly illegal methods instead of competently handling human rights issues, the Biden group has gotten very used to “programmed failure” and shifting the blame to Trump (out of office since Jan. 20, 2021), the hapless victims, and their lawyers.

I hope I’m wrong. But, I strongly suspect that it’s going to take more than Judge Sullivan’s order to end the disingenuous “Miller Lite” approach to immigration within the Biden Administration and usher in an era of expertise, competence, integrity, and courage in addressing human rights.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-18-22

☠️🤯🤮🚫 AFTER WINNING YEARS-LONG BATTLE TO STOP ILLEGAL REFUGEE REMOVALS BY TRUMP & BIDEN, WEARY HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES FACE DAUNTING NEW CHALLENGE: Garland’s Dysfunctional Due-Process-Denying “Courts” — Key Empirical Info Lacking, But We Do Know One Important Thing: Garland’s Latest Docket “Gimmick” — Time Limits — Sharply Reduces Chances Of Success, From Probable Grant (52%) To Likely Denial! — Quality Control & Grotesque Inconsistencies Remain Unaddressed In Dem AG’s “Race To Deny” Legal Protection!🤮

Judge Roy Bean — “Judge” Roy Bean (1825-1903)
American Saloon Keeper & “Jurist”
Public Realm
His reputation for “rough justice” in the West would be right at home in the “Asylum Free Zones” of Garland’s EOIR. Bean “was once trying a Mexican on a charge of horse stealing and his charge was the shortest on record: Gentlemen of the Jury, there’s a greaser in the box and a hoss missing. You know your duty, and they did.”

Here’s the latest analysis of Garland’s ongoing abuse of his office from Austin Kocher, PhD, at TRAC:

https://trac.syr.edu/reports/702/

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If someone NOT Merrick “What Me Worry” Garland (the “Alfred E. Neumann of Biden’s immigration bureaucracy”) took a look at the data, one major thing would jump out! There are likely more than 400,000 refugees entitled to asylum sitting in Garland’s 770,000 case asylum backlog (52% x 770,000). (The asylum backlog at EOIR is a “subset” of Garland’s largely self-inflicted, ever mushrooming, nearly 2 million case EOIR backlog — more judges have produced more backlog, so that’s likely NOT the answer here).

And, this is in a system currently governed by skewed anti-asylum BIA “precedents” and a chronic “anti-asylum culture” actively encouraged and fed by the Trump Administration. In a properly staffed and functioning court system with qualified, due-process oriented, judges and an expert BIA that enforced some decisional consistency and properly and generously interpreted asylum law, a “grant rate” of 75% or more would be a plausible expectation.

Given the obvious (and I would argue intentional) lack of reliable data on how a legitimate asylum system, one consisting at all levels of judges with well-recognized expertise in asylum law and human rights, and overseen by competent, due-process-oriented judicial administrators, might function, the 75% figure is just an “educated guesstimate.” But, it matches my own personal experience over 13 years on the bench in the (now defunct) Arlington Immigration Court.

It’s also in line with my recent conversations with the head of one of the largest NGOs in the DMV area involved in meeting busses and counseling those “orbited” from the Southern border by the racist/nativist GOP Govs that Biden, curiously, has chosen to run our domestic refugee resettlement program. This is a person who, unlike Garland, his lieutenants, and most of the other politicos and nativist blowhards participating in the “border travesty,” actually spent years of a career representing individuals in Immigration Court. They estimated that “at least 70%” of the “arriving bus riders” had very viable asylum claims.

This is a far cry from the nativist, restrictionist myths promoted by both the Trump and Biden Administrations — obviously to cover up their gross human rights violations in knowingly and illegally returning hundreds of thousands of legal refugees to danger zones! Many human rights experts would consider such gross misconduct to be “crimes against humanity.” Consequently, it doesn’t take much imagination to see why self-interested scofflaw officials like Garland, Mayorkas, and White House advisors seek to manipulate the system to keep the asylum grant rates artificially low while eschewing proper, realistically robust use of the overseas refugee program to take the pressure off the border — by acting legally rather than illegally!

Almost all the EOIR asylum backlog consists of “regular docket” (I use this term lightly with EOIR where “normalcy” is unknown) cases. Those are refugees who have had time to get lawyers, adequately prepare, document their cases, but are stuck in Garland’s chronically dysfunctional system. Consequently, they are “denied by delay” legal immigration status, a chance to get green cards, and to eventually qualify for citizenship. The American economy is denied an important source of legal workers who should be part of our permanent workforce and well on their way to full participation in our political system and society!

An expert looking at this system would see a “golden opportunity” to move most of the backlogged “easily grantable” asylum cases out of the system with stipulated grants or short hearings (the kind you actually might be able to do 3-4 a day without stepping on anyone’s due-process rights or driving the private bar nuts). These cases would also avoid the BIA’s appellate backlog, as well as eliminating unnecessary workload in the U.S. Circuit Courts (which already have their own inconsistency, rubber stamp, and bias issues in the human rights/racial justice area that seem to be getting worse, not better).

Knocking 400,000+ cases off the backlog wouldn’t completely solve Garland’s 2 million case backlog problem — only a complete “house cleaning” at EOIR, replacing many of the current bureaucrats with competent leaders and expert Immigration Judges well-versed in asylum law, will do that. But, cutting EOIR’s backlog by 20% (and the asylum backlog by over 50%) without stomping on anyone’s rights, while bolstering much-needed legal immigration, and harnessing the strengths of the private/pro bono bar, is nothing to “sneeze at!” That’s particularly true in comparison with Garland’s two years of mindless “designed to fail” gimmicks and astounding mismanagement, which have produced exactly the opposite results!

How bad has Garland’s leadership been at on human rights, due process, and racial justice at DOJ. A number of seasoned asylum practitioners have told me that today’s EOIR, also suffering from a tidal wave of Garland’s “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” — is actually significantly worse than it was under Trump! That’s right, Garland’s tone-deaf incompetence has exceeded the disorder and systemic unfairness caused by overt xenophobia, anti-asylum bias, misogyny, “dumbing down,” and enforcement-biased “weaponization” of the Sessions/Barr years.

As for Dr. Kocher’s cogent observation that input from the Immigration Judges who actually decide these cases is a “missing ingredient,” good luck with that, my friend! Perhaps understandably in light of his unseemly failures at EOIR, Garland has taken EOIR’s traditional opaqueness and “muzzling” of Immigration Judges to new heights — even barring their participation in CLE events aimed at improving the level of practice before his courts.

Apparently, “studied incompetence” in a Democratic Administration can be even worse than the “malicious incompetence” of the Trump Kakistocracy — at least where immigrants rights/human rights/racial justice/ women’s rights are concerned at EOIR. That’s an astounding observation! One that I actually never thought I’d hear from practitioners!

The only way for human rights and racial justice experts and advocates to “communicate” with Garland in his “ivory tower” is to ‘“sue his tail” in court! Judge Sullivan’s recent opinion finding Title 42 illegal incorporates the very facts and law used by human rights experts and advocates in years of fruitless pleading and begging Garland to “cease and desist” his support for unlawful conduct and “just follow the law.” The latter seems like a modest “no-brainer” request to a guy once nominated by an Dem President for the Supremes.

Waiting for Merrick Garland to fix the mess at EOIR to provide even a bare minimum of due process and rational administration is like waiting for the guy pictured below. Frustrated and “Garland-weary” as they might be, human rights advocates should take it to heart and act accordingly!

Waiting for Godot — Waiting for Merrick Garland and his “clueless crew” at DOJ to fix the dysfunctional Immigration Courts will be an exercise in futility. He only pays attention when ordered by a Federal Judge, which, somewhat ironically, he used to be. But, he’s proven “beyond a reasonable doubt” that he is unqualified to run one of the most important and life-determining Federal Judiciaries — one where due process has been buried beneath an avalanche of expediency, incompetency, intellectual dishonesty, and dumb gimmicks. When will “enough be enough?”
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-17-22

⚖️🗽👍🏼👨🏾‍⚖️ BREAKING: US DISTRICT JUDGE EMMET G. SULLIVAN VACATES USG’S TITLE 42 ABUSE, ORDERS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TO ENFORCE ASYLUM LAW! — Refuses Stay — Rips Knowingly Illegal & Life Threatening Actions By Corrupt Officials Of Both Administrations! — Fraudulent Public Health “Pretext” Finally Exposed!

Hon. Emmet G. Sullivan
US District Judge
DC

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/15/border-ruling-title-42/

By Maria Sacchetti and Spencer S. Hsu

November 15, 2022 at 4:46 p.m. ET

A federal judge on Tuesday struck down a Donald Trump-era policy used by U.S. border officials to quickly expel migrants because of the covid pandemic, saying the ban had little proven benefit to public health even as it shunted migrants to dangerous places.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in the District of Columbia vacated the order known as Title 42, effectively restoring asylum seekers’ access to the borders for the first time since the Trump administration issued it during the earliest days of the pandemic.

The decision — which takes effect immediately — knocks down one of the last remaining barriers to asylum from the Trump administration, advocates for immigrants said. It also poses an immediate logistical challenge for the Biden administration after two consecutive years of record apprehensions on the U.S.-Mexico border, with the possibility that the numbers could grow.

Biden officials have long worried about a mass rush to the border creating an emergency similar to the one that occurred in Del Rio, Texas, in Sept. 2021, when thousands of migrants crossed illegally and overwhelmed U.S. agents, creating a squalid camp on the banks of the Rio Grande that embarrassed the Biden administration.

Sullivan’s ruling also comes days after top border official Chris Magnus resigned under pressure after clashing with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security had no immediate response to the ruling.

The American Civil Liberties Union, one of the organizations that brought the lawsuit on behalf of migrants, said Sullivan’s decision to vacate the Title 42 policy means the policy ends for all migrants, including families and adults traveling without children.

“Title 42 unfortunately had a long shelf life but has finally been ended, and that will mean enormous relief to desperate asylum seekers,” said ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt.

Sullivan also made clear that that he would not stay his order pending appeal, leaving it to a higher court to do so if the Biden administration sought more time to address the ruling.

. . . .

Key Quote:

Sullivan wrote that the federal officials knew the order “would likely expel migrants to locations with a ‘high probability’ of ‘persecution, torture, violent assaults, or rape’ ” — and did so anyway.

“It is unreasonable for the CDC to assume that it can ignore the consequences of any actions it chooses to take in the pursuit of fulfilling its goals,” Sullivan wrote. “It is undisputed that the impact on migrants was indeed dire.”

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The horrific consequences for lawful asylum seekers subjected to this unlawful policy have indeed been “dire:” rape, assault, kidnapping, beating, torture, extortion, starvation, illness, sickness, death, family separation, despair, to name a few.

By contrast, there have been NO consequences for Stephen Miller and the other Trump Administration officials who fabricated and directed this ruse on the justice system and attack on humanity and the rule of law! Nor have there been any consequences for lower level officials who “went along to get along” with what they knew or should have known to be deadly abuses of our laws.

Additionally, Biden officials who continued to violate the law and even concocted ways of expanding its illegal and immoral use have escaped accountability and continue in their jobs. DOJ lawyers who failed to do “due diligence” and defended a policy based on pretext, misrepresentations of fact, racism, and xenophobia have also continued to operate in the “ethical twilight zone” that normally would have serious professional consequences!

Of course the whole history of the Title 42 charade ☠️🤮has been one of one step forward and three steps back. The corrupt decision-making extends to unqualified right-wing zealots with lifetime sinecures on the Federal Article III bench and to equally corrupt GOP state AG’s for their dishonest scheme to force continued illegal Title 42 expulsions.

So, despite these “crimes against humanity,” don’t expect that “heads will roll!” Given the current sorry state of our Federal Courts and the DOJ, it’s not certain that Judge Sullivan’s order will actually have effect or that asylum seekers will ever get the fundamentally fair and humane treatment to which they are entitled.

But, I am certain that this will eventually go down in history as one of the most disgraceful intentional abrogations of law, with the most drastic consequences for humanity and our nation’s reputation, in 21st Century legal history!

It’s also worthy of note that rather than getting the asylum system properly staffed and trained, bringing in Immigration Judges with the required expertise, installing a BIA of expert judges capable of issuing correct, realistic, generous, practical asylum precedents, working cooperatively with the private bar to facilitate representation, and developing an orderly process for resettlement (away from the border) of asylum applicants who pass credible fear, Garland, Mayorkas, and a White House officials have dithered away two years of time without getting the necessary robust, fair, expert, efficient, timely asylum adjudication system up and running!

The advice and pleas of experts and advocates have been “tuned out” or ignored by those in charge! Now, as all of us predicted, the “chickens have come home to roost” for the Administration’s indifferent, incompetent, and lackadaisical approach to the biggest racial justice and human rights crisis facing our nation.

Thanks Judge Sullivan! Thanks ACLU! Apologies to the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers wronged by the cowardly failure of America to uphold our laws, Constitution, and international obligations — that “subset” of victims who are still alive despite our Government’s grotesque misconduct!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-15-22

☠️🪦🏴‍☠️ AMERICA’S BORDER “POLICY:” PASS MORE BODY BAGS, PLEASE! — Cynical GOP Lies, Bumbling Dems, Bad Righty Judges, Deadlocked Congress, Public Indifference To Human Suffering & Reality Prove A Deadly Concoction For Legal Asylum Seekers!

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2022/nov/06/us-mexico-border-body-bags-pile-up?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Alexandra Villarreal reports for The Guardian:

. . . .

Along the 2,000-mile (3,219km) boundary between the US and Mexico, the 2022 fiscal year proved the deadliest on record for people trying to make unauthorized crossings of this heavily patrolled international line.

In just 12 months, more than 800 migrants lost their lives in search of a better one as they disappeared beneath the tumultuous waters of the Rio Grande, succumbed to blistering summer heat, crashed in a smuggler’s vehicle, tumbled from a border barrier, or otherwise had their travels violently cut short.

In Eagle Pass’s regional enforcement sector alone, border patrol agents discovered more than 200 dead migrants between October 2021 and the end of July, compared to an already heartbreaking 34 bodies during the entire 2020 fiscal year.

Ahead of this week’s crucial midterm elections, Republicans have manipulated these harrowing statistics as yet another opportunity to make much ado about what various rightwing players call Joe Biden’s “open border policies”, accusing his administration of incompetence that is causing “body bags [to] keep piling up”.

It’s close to sealed by a hostile combination of pandemic-era public health measures cynically retooled as federal immigration control and mass policing by state troops who arrest, jail and criminalize migrants.

Cruelly, these hardline deterrence mechanisms advanced by both Democrats and Republicans have probably only made the US’s south-west border bloodier.

Current US policy is predicated on a false assumption that if only the consequences for crossing the south-west border are severe enough, people will stop trying.

For decades, presidential administrations with disparate political views have unified under the paradigm of prevention through deterrence, erecting physical and legal obstacles to discourage people from crossing.

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Deterrence as a strategy has informed some of the US’s most controversial immigration policies, from separating families, to detaining children, to stranding asylum seekers in dangerous Mexican border towns.

But desperate people still find ways to make it on to US soil: last fiscal year, Customs and Border Protection documented nearly 2.38m enforcement encounters at the southern border, a record high causing headaches for Biden as conservatives accuse the president of being “lax” on border crime.

The truth is more complex, and not at all lax. More than a million of last fiscal year’s border enforcement encounters were processed under Title 42, now invoked as a federal immigration enforcement tool but originally disguised as a public health measure amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The policy allowed the Trump and now the Biden administrations to expel huge numbers of people from the US without even letting them ask for asylum, seemingly in violation of domestic and international law.

Far from ending unauthorized migration, the invocation of Title 42 has in fact dramatically inflated the number of encounters at the US-Mexico border, as people who are expelled feel compelled to cross again – and again, and again. Sometimes, relentless migrants have been so determined to complete their journeys that they have risked life and limb dozens of times, fueling a political and humanitarian disaster.

Yet even though these expulsions have proved ill-advised both optically and ethically, Biden has now expanded the use of Title 42 by adding Venezuelans to the list of nationalities targeted for return to Mexico, an apparent betrayal of his campaign promises to uphold the legal right to seek asylum and a paradox as his administration ostensibly fights to sunset the practice in court.

. . . .

And both parties continue to police people seeking security and opportunity over violence, persecution and poverty as if they’re national security threats.

In the shadow of it all, the corpses amass.

Back in Eagle Pass, locals like Rosalinda Medrano who have lived for decades along a porous border understand that migrants have and will always come or, increasingly, die trying.

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“Even though there’s one fence, and another fence, and so many troopers, and the national guard, and you name it – Border Patrol, here and there and everywhere – it’s not gonna stop these families,” she said, adding simply: “They want a better life.”

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Read the complete article at the link, in which Alexandra points to the numerous achievable solutions that both parties eschew — for political reasons — some cynical, dishonest, and racist (GOP) — others cowardly (Dems). None of what Alexandra reports will come as news to faithful readers of Courtside, or, indeed, to anyone who has taken the time to actually study and reflect on America’s decades of expensive, inhumane, “deterrence policies.”

Fact is, existing law, if correctly applied and administered, offers some obvious ways to start solving the problem:

Robust realistic “overseas” refugee programs in the Western Hemisphere — 150,000 would be a modest start — rather than the piddling, restricted numbers now slowly doled out by the Biden Administration.
Reopen legal ports of entry to legal asylum seekers, as required by law, to incentivize and reward them for not seeking to cross between ports of entry.
Staff the Asylum Office and the Immigration Courts with real experts in asylum law (there are plenty of well-qualified lawyers now in the private sector) who are committed to due process and can rapidly recognize and grant the many meritorious cases. Then, individuals are admitted in legal status, on their way to green cards, rather than aimlessly wandering the US with government-issued packets of misinformation (or no information at all) waiting for hearings that will come either too soon or too late, but never in a reasonable manner and often with incorrect preordained results designed to abuse the legal system as an “enforcement deterrent.” (NOTE: To act as an incentive/reward for appearing at ports of entry, the asylum system must be credible, transparent, and timely — something that no Administration has achieved to date, but which is possible with more vision, leadership, and better personnel making decisions.)
Work with, bolster, support, and learn from the many NGOs in the U.S. to insure that asylum seekers are informed of their obligations, represented on their applications, and resettled, mostly away from the borders to areas that need them, in an orderly fashion.
Additional huge benefit: Despite the lies and myths spread by nativists, increasing legal immigration (including refugees and asylees) is one of the few potentially effective ways that the “political branches” of Government have to address inflation without causing recession. See, e.g., https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-covid-immigration-makes-inflation-worse-recession-outlook-jobs-supply-2022-10.

“Even though there’s one fence, and another fence, and so many troopers, and the national guard, and you name it – Border Patrol, here and there and everywhere – it’s not gonna stop these families,” she said, adding simply: “They want a better life.”

We can, and must, do better than “more body bags” as a matter of national policy! Migrants aren’t going to stop coming. That, we can’t change in the long run — no matter how many lies, myths, and distortions nativists throw out there, and no matter how fast spineless Dem politicos run from or attempt to hide the truth. But, we can deal with reality in a more humane, practical, realistic manner that will serve our nation’s, and humanity’s, interests into the future.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-10-22

🗽PRANTL & YALE-LOEHR @ NY DAILY NEWS: Private Refugee Sponsorship — An Idea Whose Time Has Come! — But, The Biden Administration Has Turned Its Back On The Legal & Human Rights Refugees!🏴‍☠️

Dr. Janine Prantl
Immigration Postdoctoral Associate
Cornell Law
PHOTO: Cornell Law

Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr
Cornell Law

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-let-private-citizens-sponsor-refugees-20221015-dtepnanthfegnpf6anjirwt3by-story.html

Let private citizens sponsor refugees

By Janine Prantl and Stephen Yale-Loehr

New York Daily News

Oct 15, 2022

Every fall, the U.S. president sets a refugee ceiling — the maximum number of refugees that may be resettled annually to the United States. For the new fiscal year that started Oct. 1, President Biden plans to resettle up to 125,000 refugees. Because of dramatic cuts to the refugee program during the prior administration, that goal will be hard to meet. A year ago, Biden set the same target, but more than 100,000 refugee slots went unused.

Historically, only the U.S. government, working with international refugee agencies and nonprofits, has determined which refugees will be admitted to the United States. That’s a mistake. To meet its goal of admitting 125,000 refugees this fiscal year, the United States should also promptly allow private sponsorships of refugees.

In February 2021, Biden issued an executive order to rebuild our refugee program, including through private refugee sponsorships. Subsequently, the State Department announced plans to start a pilot program, but the launch has been delayed. Over a year after the first announcement, and close to the end of 2022, the State Department has not decided on the funding of prospective partners or issued guidelines on the pilot. The clock is ticking.

Several countries, including Canada, Australia, Argentina, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Spain, already allow private sponsorships of refugees. Under private sponsorships, individuals and community groups collaborate to provide financial, emotional, and practical support for refugees. Some countries also empower sponsors to nominate specific refugees to enter and stay in their country.

Canada’s experience shows that private sponsorships can work. A 2020 study confirmed that privately-sponsored refugees are more likely than government-sponsored refugees to be working within the first year after entering Canada, with an employment rate at 90% for men and 71% for women. Findings from Canada also suggest that privately-sponsored refugees are more likely to stay at their initial destinations and private sponsorships could contribute to geographic dispersal of resettled refugees.

Americans are already engaged in private sponsorships for Afghans and Ukrainians through the Sponsor Circles initiative. This initiative supports Americans who decide to become sponsors by assisting them in the application process, offering temporary housing credits through Airbnb.org, as well as ongoing expert guidance and other sponsor tools and resources. More than 123,000 Americans have applied to financially sponsor Ukrainians, and over 87,000 Ukrainians have been granted permission to travel to the United States. The number of arrivals will likely exceed 100,000 by the end of 2022.

While technically most Ukrainians and Afghans have not entered the United States as refugees, lessons learned from the Sponsor Circles initiative could help establish a formal private refugee sponsorship model. Because most Ukrainians enter the United States under parole power, they can be authorized for travel in as little as two weeks. However, prospective sponsors have recently reported longer processing times.

To transform private sponsorships from an emergency one-time program to a formalized program where beneficiaries enter as refugees, with access to long-term residence and citizenship, the backlog issue becomes even more concerning. Current tests of 30-day streamlined visa processing for Afghans in Doha could be expanded and serve as a role model for both parolees and refugees. Moreover, to mobilize private refugee sponsors and enable them to prepare, the U.S. government needs to move forward quickly and specify a program design for private refugee sponsors, including financial requirements, sponsorship time commitments, and concrete sponsor responsibilities.

Once a private refugee sponsorship program gets launched, sponsors will have to accomplish challenging tasks. They will have to deal with language barriers, find affordable housing and help new refugees apply for public benefits. For such a process to work, it is important to set up communication streams between private refugee sponsors and existing refugee resettlement agencies.

Public-private partnerships work in other areas. For example, they have become an increasingly popular way to upgrade infrastructure and address the challenges of climate change. By incorporating a private refugee sponsorship model, the U.S. government can supplement its own efforts to admit 125,000 refugees this fiscal year.

More importantly, private refugee sponsorships would allow Americans to participate directly in welcoming refugees and facilitating their successful integration. Experience in the United Kingdom shows that private sponsorship can be a powerful tool in expanding communities’ understanding and capacity for welcoming newcomers. It can reduce fears about others more generally, change working practices to make them more inclusive for diverse populations, and bring new perspectives into relatively homogeneous communities. Involving U.S. citizens in the immigration process could thus be a way to dampen the current heated debate about immigration and allow Americans to see the mutual benefits of immigration.

Janine Prantl is an immigration postdoctoral associate in the Cornell Law School Immigration Law and Policy Research Program. Stephen Yale-Loehr is professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School.

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

Lots of creative ideas out here on how to improve our broken refugee and asylum systems! But, from those in charge of migration policy in the Biden Administration, not so much!😢

No, they are stuck in reverse. A small-time “overseas” refugee program for Venezuelans (24k “slots” for a refugee crisis that has generated more than 6 million refugees)🤯; a heavy dose of cruel and discredited “Stephen Miller Lite” Title 42 for those who exercise their legal right to apply for asylum at or near the border 🤮; more “due process free” illegal returns to abusive conditions in Mexico☠️.

Perhaps inadvertently, a recent NBC Nightly News report on the border mentioned a widely ignored fact. It pictured and described desperate Venezuelans patiently waiting in line to turn themselves in to CPB to exercise their legal rights to apply for asylum and other protections in the U.S. That’s right — “turn themselves in!”

This is NOT real law enforcement, nor does it present a security crisis! Nor are the oft repeated “record numbers” of border “apprehensions” legitimate!

Since individuals are often returned to Mexico with neither proper processing nor due process, many of these “apprehensions” are inflated — representing repeated “apprehensions” of the same individual merely seeking to apply for asylum — a legal right denied to them by both the Trump and Biden Administrations!

One might also ask whether an individual turning him or herself in and requesting legal asylum is “apprehended” at all? That’s why CBP has started using the more ambiguous term “encounter” to disguise what’s really happening at the border.

Under the Biden Administration’s latest discriminatory and brain dead application of Title 42, those Venezuelans who voluntarily turn themselves in at ports of entry or near the border will be illegally returned to Mexico to rot — as a “reward” for attempting to follow the law. Does this make sense? Of course not. And the consequences of this horrible “policy” are dire for both the refugees and our nation. In many ways, the Biden Administration inexplicably has gone even beyond the cruel stunts of DeSantis and Abbott in making “political footballs” 🏈out of vulnerable Venezuelan refugees! It’s an ongoing national disgrace, masquerading as “policy!”

The only avenue for legal refugee for these Venezuelans fleeing a repressive left-wing dictatorship is to hire a smuggler to get them past the border where they can lose themselves in the interior of the U.S. That is, under the Biden policy, “do it yourself, black market refuge” substitutes for a variable legal system and adds to the unscreened and often unknown underground population of undocumented migrants. in the U.S.

A robust, realistic refugee program for Venezuela, operating both in Mexico and in or near Venezuela, might well reduce the incentives for extralegal migration. It could also take some pressure off of other “receiving” countries in the Hemisphere. But, the “token” — unduly limited — program proposed by the Biden Administration will do nothing of the sort!

Extralegal entries and underground populations are not good. Robust, realistic, timely, refugee and asylum programs — properly focused on using existing laws for protection, not rejection — would reduce the incentive for extralegal migration while reaping the many potential benefits and strengths that refugees and asylees “bring to the table.”

Such a beneficial program is achievable — under current law. But, not without a radical shakeup in both the leadership and substance of the Biden Administration’s so-called human rights bureaucracy!

Casey Stengel

“Can’t anybody here play this game,” wonders Casey Stengel about the cruel, clueless crew in charge of human rights and immigration (non)policy in the Biden-Harris Administration.
PHOTO: Rudi Reit
Creative Commons

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-17-22

☠️🤮 BIDEN BETRAYS ASYLUM SEEKERS! — Scofflaw, “Miller Lite” Policy Will Use Bogus “Legal Rationale” To Return Venezuelan Refugees To Squalid, Dangerous Conditions In Mexico – Minuscule “Apply in Advance” Program Another Inept “Built To Fail” Gimmick!

The Biden Administration thinks carrying out his policies is A-OK. Many of those who,helped put them in office disagree. Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/us/politics/biden-venezuela-migrants-humanitarian-parole.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

By Eileen Sullivan and Zolan Kanno-Youngs @ NYT:

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will expand its use of a public health rule to start expelling to Mexico thousands of Venezuelans who illegally cross the U.S. border and announced a new humanitarian parole program to provide a narrow legal pathway to the United States for up to 24,000 Venezuelans.

The administration hopes that Venezuelans will apply for the parole plan remotely and fly to the United States rather than making the dangerous trek to the southwest border.

But the reliance on a Trump-era pandemic rule to deny entry to many others crystallized the Biden administration’s balancing act in both helping refugees and tightening border restrictions in the face of Republican attacks on President Biden’s immigration policy and record numbers of illegal border crossings. And there is no guarantee that just 27 days before the midterm elections, it will have the desired effect.

Until now, the majority of Venezuelans who crossed into the United States have not been expelled under the public health authority, known as Title 42. Instead, they were screened and released into the country temporarily to face removal proceedings in immigration court, where they have the option to apply for asylum.

. . . .

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

In addition to being cruel and illegal, the new policy won’t please anyone on the immigration issue. Biden is selling his erstwhile supporters “down the river,” while neither mollifying critics on the right nor winning over independents.

Expect refugees to suffer and die. I also predict that extralegal entries aiming for “do it yourself” refuge in the interior will increase. And, our immigration and asylum systems will remain a dysfunctional mess.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-13-22

THE GIBSON REPORT — 08-08-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Managing Attorney, NIJC — Among Headliners: “The [Trump Administration’s child separation] policy’s worst outcomes were all anticipated, and repeated internal and external warnings were ignored,” Reports Caitlin Dickerson in The Atlantic!

Weekly Briefing

This briefing is designed as a quick-reference aggregation of developments in immigration law, practice, and policy that you can scan for anything you missed over the last week. The contents of the news, links, and events do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Immigrant Justice Center. If you have items that you would like considered for inclusion, please email them to egibson@heartlandalliance.org.

CONTENTS (jump to section)

◦NEWS

◦LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES

◦RESOURCES

◦EVENTS

PRACTICE UPDATES

Chief Immigration Judge Email: Taking Cases Off Calendar: Cases may be selected to be taken off the court’s calendar for the following reason(s)…

EOIR Schedule: EOIR immigration judges are scheduled for a mandatory training session on Aug. 22, 2022, from 1pm to 5pm EST. The Chicago Immigration Court will re-set all non-detained cases scheduled for that afternoon; detained cases will go forward. It is unclear at this time if/how this affects other courts.

NEWS

Thune breaks through Democratic bloc on ‘vote-a-rama’ amendments

Roll Call: Senate Democrats stuck together and mostly voted against amendments to their tax, climate and health care package, while using a procedural maneuver to allow their vulnerable incumbents to vote for some that could score political points without actually making any changes to the bill [including on immigration].

The secret history of the U.S. government’s family-separation policy

The Atlantic: Over the past year and a half, [the Atlantic] has conducted more than 150 interviews and reviewed thousands of pages of internal government documents, some of which were turned over only after a multiyear lawsuit… The policy’s worst outcomes were all anticipated, and repeated internal and external warnings were ignored.

Talk of ‘invasion’ moves from the fringe to the mainstream of GOP immigration message

NPR: In Republican primary races this year, few issues have come up more in TV ads than immigration. And one word in particular stands out: invasion.

New York City works to make space for rapidly rising number of asylum-seekers

NPR: On Monday, New York Mayor Eric Adams announced a round of emergency contracts with local agencies and organizations to allow the city to respond to an increasing number of asylum-seekers entering the city’s homeless shelter system. See also Pentagon denies DC request for National Guard migrant help.

Border Patrol Agents Are Trashing Sikh Asylum-Seekers’ Turbans

Intercept: “The turban is sacred.” At least 64 Sikh men have had their headwear confiscated and discarded by Yuma’s Border Patrol.

Immigrant Rights Advocates Push Cook County To Find Out If ICE Is Using Data Brokers To Skirt Sanctuary City Ordinances

Block Club: Cook County Commissioner Alma Anaya and several immigrant rights organizations held a public hearing last week in which the county’s Legislation and Intergovernmental Relations Committee heard testimony from experts about how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses data from companies like LexisNexis.

The Officer of the Future: Facial Recognition and the Border-Industrial Complex

Border Chron: Facial recognition has become the primary biometric technology for CBP. Everyone who enters the country has their picture taken, though supposedly people can opt out (that often isn’t obvious, thanks to a lack of signage; I cross the border constantly and have never seen anything about opting out). The surveillance technology has also been deployed at 32 airports for people exiting the country. CBP partners with airports and airlines to add another layer to this private-public nexus.

Fact Check: Immigrants are not getting Social Security numbers at the U.S. border

AP: Lara Logan, a former Fox Nation host, recently claimed that U.S. Border Patrol agents are distributing Social Security numbers to immigrants at the border. A video of her comments has circulated widely across social media platforms… No such thing is happening, Rhonda Lawson, a spokesperson for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told the AP in an email.

NYC Attorney Carlos Moreno Imprisoned For Immigration Fraud

NYCaribNews: Between September 2017 – when Moreno was suspended from the bar – and late September 2018, Moreno took on new clients, practiced law, and gave legal advice to scores of undocumented immigrants. In some instances, even predating his suspension, Moreno defrauded clients by falsely claiming that undocumented immigrants who have resided in the United States for over a decade could secure legal status, a fraud known as the “10-Year Green Card Scam.”

DHS Watchdog Reports Understaffing At Afghan ‘Safe Havens’

Law360: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog reported worker shortages at the military sites that provided a temporary refuge to Afghan evacuees, saying the understaffing left officials concerned they couldn’t properly meet Afghan nationals’ needs.

LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES

Supreme Court certifies ruling ending Trump border policy

AP: The two-word docket entry read “judgment issued” to record that justices voted 5-4 in a ruling issued June 30 that the administration could scrap the “Remain in Mexico” policy, overruling a lower court that forced the policy to be reinstated in December.

Matter of Fernandes, 28 I&N Dec. 605 (BIA 2022)

BIA: A respondent who has made a timely objection to a noncompliant notice to appear is not generally required to show he or she was prejudiced by missing time or place information. An Immigration Judge may allow the Department Homeland Security to remedy a noncompliant notice to appear without ordering the termination of removal proceedings [Note: Except in CA7, pursuant to Arreola-Ochoa].

3rd Circ. Upholds Deportation Of Surgeon In $3M Tax Scheme

Law360: A Swedish plastic surgeon who served prison time for a $3 million tax evasion scheme should not be allowed back into the U.S., the Third Circuit ruled Thursday.

4th Circ. Says Death Threat Is Persecution In Asylum Case

Law360: The Fourth Circuit gave a Salvadoran woman and her son a second chance at their asylum application, holding that an immigration judge didn’t give enough weight to her claim of death threats on the basis of religion.

CA9 On Cancellation, Pre-Trial Detention: Troncoso-Oviedo V. Garland

LexisNexis: Pretrial detention not credited toward a sentence is not “confinement, as a result of conviction” under § 1101(f)(7).

9th Circ. Won’t Stop Man’s Removal Based On 1997 Conviction

Law360: The Ninth Circuit rejected a Mexico native’s bid to reopen his removal proceedings on grounds that his 1997 conviction was modified, saying none of the circumstances allowing the challenge of a removal applied to him.

Immigration Enforcement Can’t Block Grants, 9th Circ. Rules

Law360: The Ninth Circuit ruled that federal funds for criminal justice programs can’t be withheld from states and counties that don’t enforce immigration laws, upholding lower court decisions that found the denial an overreach of the U.S. Department of Justice’s authority.

11th Circ. OKs Deportation Of Chilean Convicted Of ‘Whatever’

Law360: The Eleventh Circuit affirmed Tuesday a deportation order against a Chilean green card holder who pled guilty to violating a Florida law criminalizing child neglect, while acknowledging that the trial court’s record of the conviction was “hopelessly opaque” and included the state judge specifying the criminal offense was for “whatever.”

Travel Ban Waiver Lawsuit Victory: Emami V. Mayorkas

LexisNexis: Drawing all inferences and viewing all evidence in the light most favorable to the government, the Court finds that plaintiffs have met their burden of showing that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact, and that the waiver implementation guidance was arbitrary and capricious in violation of the APA.

NY Judge Declines Relief For DACA Hopefuls In ‘Limbo’

Law360: A New York federal judge refused to modify an order resuming acceptance of new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals applications, saying clarification sought following a Texas judge’s barring new approvals was actually a request for additional relief.

Russian Denied Resident Status Over Cannabis-Related Work

Law360: A California federal judge has affirmed a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services decision to deny a Russian national permanent resident status, ruling that by installing and maintaining a security camera system for a cannabis grower, the person had participated in the trafficking of a Schedule I drug.

Pa. Judge Says USCIS Must Redo Spousal Petition After Delay

Law360: A Pennsylvania judge ordered U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to reconsider a man’s petition for his Turkish wife’s green card, saying the agency’s unreasonable delay in denying the petition unfairly hampered the couple’s ability to address the agency’s concerns.

Biden Ordered To Revisit Visa Apps Nixed In Trump Travel Ban

Law360: A California federal judge ordered the Biden administration to revisit the tens of thousands of visa applications that were denied under Trump-era travel restrictions, finding that targeted foreigners were still bruised from the travel ban, long after its revocation.

USCIS Issuing Updated I-797C for Certain Operation Allies Welcome Parolees

USCIS: Certain EADs with a validity period of less than 2 years are now being automatically extended to align with the parole period shown on the beneficiary’s Form I-94, Arrival/Departure Record.

USCIS Issues Policy Guidance on Uncharacterized Military Discharges Eligible for Naturalization

AILA: USCIS issued policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual to address the eligibility of military service members with uncharacterized military discharges for purposes for naturalization under section 328 or section 329 of the INA. Comments are due by 9/2/22.

EOIR Announces 19 New Immigration Judges

EOIR: [EOIR] announced the appointment of 19 immigration judges to courts in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

EOIR Warns of Scammers Spoofing Agency Phone Number

EOIR: The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) today announced it has recently been notified of phone calls that spoof the Arlington Immigration Court as part of a misinformation campaign. The callers will often “spoof,” or fake, the immigration court’s main line, 703-305-1300, so the calls appear to be coming from EOIR on the recipient’s caller ID.

RESOURCES

AILA: USCIS Lockbox Updates (Updated 8/3/22)

AILA: Find Resources for Assisting Afghan Clients (Updated 8/2/22)

CLINIC: All About Parole Practice Advisory

CLINIC: Age-Out Rules for Afghan SIV Derivative Children

USCIS: Afghan Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) Parolee Asylum-Related Frequently Asked Questions

EVENTS

8/10/22 Preparing Criminal Waivers of Inadmissibility

8/10/22-8/11/22 2022 AILA Paralegals Virtual Conference

8/12/22 TPS Beneficiaries and Authorized Travel Following the Rescission of Matter of Z-R-Z-C-

8/16/22 Comprehensive Overview of Immigration Law (COIL)

8/16/22 The Child Status Protection Act: Strategies for Keeping the Family Intact

8/17/22 ASISTA Inadmissibility Webinar Series: Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude (CIMT): Impact on Immigrant Survivors

8/23/22 Preparing Solid Affidavits of Support: “Show Me the Money!”

8/23/22 Comprehensive Overview of Immigration Law (COIL)

8/24/22 Seeking Prosecutorial Discretion Post Texas v. United States

8/30/22 Naturalization During the Pandemic: “It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times”

8/31/22 What to Do When You Get a Decision from the Ninth Circuit

8/31/22 Building Your Pro Bono Program

9/1/22 For Immigration Practitioners: Understanding Referrals & Resources for Low-Income Clients

9/8/22-9/29/22 Webinar Series: Dealing With Denials

9/8/22 Post-Conviction Relief: “If I Could Turn Back Time!”

9/8/22 Trial Advocacy Skills – Working with Expert Witnesses in Asylum, Withholding of Removal, and Convention Against Torture Claims

9/13/22 PLI: Representing Children in Immigration Matters 2022: Effective Advocacy and Best Practices

9/14/22 Representing U Visa Clients with Complex Issue

9/14/22 Partial to Full Accreditation Initiative 2022

9/15/22 Advanced Mandamus Trends

9/20/22 Nonprofit and For-Profit Entity Intersection 2022: Achieving Charitable Goals Through Innovative and Nontraditional Mechanisms

9/21/22 Breaking Down the Record in a Ninth Circuit Petition for Review

9/22/22 Maximizing Second Chances: Filing Appeals, Motions, and Practicing before the BIA

9/29/22 Consular Processing Roundup for Families and Survivors

10/07/22-10/28/22 Understanding and Preparing Waivers

10/29/22 4th Annual NIJC 5k for Immigrant Justice

To sign up for additional NIJC newsletters, visit: https://immigrantjustice.org/subscribe.

You now can change your email settings or search the archives using the Google Group. If you are receiving this briefing from a third party, you can visit the Google Group and request to be added.

Elizabeth Gibson (Pronouns: she/her/ella)

Managing Attorney for Capacity Building and Mentorship

National Immigrant Justice Center

A HEARTLAND ALLIANCE Program

224 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 600, Chicago, IL 60604
T: (312) 660-1688| F: (312) 660-1688| E: egibson@heartlandalliance.org

www.immigrantjustice.org | Facebook | Twitter

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

Interestingly, none of the “perps” of child abuse by the Trump Administration has been held accountable. By contrast, many of their victims have suffered irreparable harm.

Trump officials provided “explicitly false formation” to intentionally mislead the public about the abusive, racist intent behind their program of intentional misconduct. So, why isn’t this a problem?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-10-22

☠️⚰️🏴‍☠️ TITLE 42 CAUSES DEATH @ THE BORDER: Rachel Monroe @ The New Yorker Sums Up The Jim Crow Cruelty, Stupidity, & Futility Of Title 42 In One Paragraph! — Title 42 “has increased business for smuggling cartels and spurred people to cross in more dangerous places.”

https://apple.news/AX5E8qIWlQYOauANHEV2g3w

. . . .

Between 2015 and 2020, about fifty bodies were recovered each year in Brooks County, according to an S.T.H.R.C. report. Then came Title 42, a policy enacted by the Trump Administration at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that closed ports of entry and blocked most avenues for asylum claims, ostensibly for public-health reasons. The policy, which is still in place in a modified form, has increased business for smuggling cartels and spurred people to cross in more dangerous places. “Before Title 42, the calls we got used to be, like, eighty-per-cent apprehended, twenty-per-cent missing,” Canales said. “Now it’s flipped—it’s more like twenty-per-cent apprehended, eighty-per-cent missing.” So far this year, there have been nearly seventy recoveries of remains in Brooks County, putting 2022 on track to be the deadliest year on record.

. . . .

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

Read Rachel’s entire report, directly from the border, at the link.

So, before the Trump Administration’s bogus, racist “invocation” of Title 42, 80% of migrants came to the border or were easily apprehended close thereto — most probably because they turned themselves in to seek asylum through the legal system. And, lets not forget, this was with an already badly broken, fundamentally unfair, asylum legal adjudication system intentionally biased and “loaded” against legitimate refugees seeking protection!

Smart, honest public policy would have improved asylum adjudication at USCIS and at EOIR to quickly recognize and grant, with the assistance of NGOs and legal assistance groups, the many cases of legitimate refugees so that they could take their rightful, legal places in our society.

Additionally, by taking refugees seeking legal determinations “out of the equation,” enforcement against those seeking to evade legal processing — certainly a much, much smaller “universe” than is “out there now” — would have been enhanced. Business would have declined for smugglers, as those seeking protection would have been motivated to use a humane, fair, functioning legal system rather than being forced into “do it yourself” refuge!

You don’t have a genius to figure this out — just not be motivated solely by racism like Stephen Miller and his Trump regime cronies! Better qualified — non-Jim Crow righty — Federal Judges would also produce more humane, honest, and rational results.

Additionally, by running a legitimate asylum system, and complementing it with an honest, robust, legal refugee system for Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, we would finally have sound data on how many of those seeking to enter at the Southern Border are entitled to immigrate as legal refugees and how many are non-refugees. That’s something on which we now have no reliable information — just myths and anecdotes, many provided by racist restrictionists and nativists with neither expertise in asylum law nor any real interest in the rule of law at the border.

As a result of Title 42, and the unqualified “Jim Crow” Federal Judges, GOP nativist AGs, and their apologists (including some in the media who repeat or republish, without critical examination, GOP racist lies about the border), we now have a deadlier than ever border; the legal immigration system at the border has been functionally abolished and replaced with an underground, extralegal system; the U.S. Government has ceded control of border migration policy to cartels and smugglers; and the job of the Border Patrol — forced to spend time apprehending legal refugees who seek only the protection to which they are legally entitled — has become impossible.

That’s what happens when we let GOP nativist pols, overt racists, and bad, right wing Federal Judges take over the immigration policies that were actually enacted by Congress — a key part of which are legitimate refugee and asylum systems and a fair, functioning, expert Immigration Court. Right now, we have NONE of the foregoing. And, innocent migrants at the border are too often paying the price — with their lives!

Border Death — This is a monument for those who have died attempting to cross the US-Mexican border. Each coffin represents a year and the number of dead. It is a protest against the effects of Operation Guardian. Taken at the Tijuana-San Diego border.
Tomas Castelazo
To comply with the use and licensing terms of this image, the following text must must be included with the image when published in any medium, failure to do so constitutes a violation of the licensing terms and copyright infringement: © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

“Enforcing the law” does NOT mean unfairly, unwisely, and illegally abrogating the legal asylum system and fair adjudications in Immigration Court at the border. It means fixing the legal asylum system including USCIS Asylum Offices. Perhaps most of all, it means reforming and replacing where necessary the broken, dysfunctional, leaderless, and non-expert Immigration Courts and a BIA that continues to misinterpret asylum and protection laws on a daily basis. We need a BIA of real judges with the expertise and guts to establish fair, humane, correct, positive precedents and to rein in or remove from asylum cases those Immigration Judges who are “programmed to reject, not protect!”

I, along with many others, watched the Brittney Griner travesty unfold. I saw the irony. President Biden was rightfully blasting the outrageous “kangaroo court” show trial that passes for justice in Russia. But, at the same time, he, Harris, and Garland are basically running a farcical “Russian style” dysfunctional immigrant “justice” system at EOIR and calling it a “court!”

Kangaroos — Perhaps, in addition to blasting the Griner farce, President Biden, VP Harris, and AG Garland need to take a closer look at the “Russian-style” justice being inflicted on migrants in their wholly-owned Immigration “Courts” — which particularly target women, children, and migrants of color seeking justice under US laws. Indeed, many are still being arbitrarily returned without ANY process at all! Others get “off the wall” denials of their valid claims. Its this REALLY any way for a self-proclaimed “nation of laws” to operate?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
Creative Commons License

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever

PWS

08-05-22

🗽TELL CONGRESS TITLE 42 HAS GOT TO GO! — “A Sham Policy With Deadly Consequences” — Listen To Rev. Craig Mousin’s Podcast On “Lawful Assembly” ⚖️

Craig writes:

We just posted our latest podcast urging folks to email or call Congress to stop Title 42, “Do Not Let Summer Daze Turn Pretense Into Law: End Title 42.”

https://blogs.depaul.edu/dmm/2022/07/29/lawful-assembly-podcast-episode-28/

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

Title 42 is a total, disgraceful fraud that violates U.S. and international law, abuses (and sometimes kills) vulnerable refugees seeking to exercise legal rights, and turns immigration policy over to cartels and human smugglers

Shockingly, instead of standing up for due process, human rights, and the rule of law, horrible right-wing Federal Judges have gone along with this farce at the urging of GOP White Nationalist state AGs.

Better judges for a better America!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-30-22

☠️🤮⚰️🏴‍☠️ MERCHANTS OF CHAOS & CORRUPTION: GOP HACKS, BAD RIGHTY JUDGES FORCE ILLEGAL CONTINUATION OF BOGUS TITLE 42 ABOMINATION! — Ending Title 42 Will Restore Order To The Border, Says Expert, Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr Of Cornell Law @ The Hill! — But, Wait, There’s Much More Needed, Say I!

Four Horsemen — GOP political hacks and their enabling bad righty Federal Judges have combined to wreak havoc on humanity and trample the Constitution, rule of law, common sense, and simple human decency at our Southern border!
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/3575601-ending-title-42-wont-cause-immigration-mayhem-it-will-restore-order/

In 2015, a Ghanaian man who goes by the initials M.A. and his gay friend were brutally assaulted by a vigilante group in Accra, Ghana. In Ghana, homosexuality is illegal and carries a prison sentence of up to three years. M.A. was beaten with sticks before escaping through a window. His friend was killed. Fearing the group would find and kill him, he fled to Ecuador and made his way to the U.S. border, where he requested asylum. After being detained for nine months, he was released on bond and lived with a childhood friend in New York while he waited for his case to make it through the legal system.

M.A. clearly faced persecution, but an immigration judge denied his claim. I took M.A.’s appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2016 as part of the Cornell Law School’s asylum appeals clinic. It took M.A. four years to win asylum in America, but at least he was given the chance to apply in the first place.

Since March 2020, approximately 900,000 people — including over 215,000 parents and children — have been denied the ability to request asylum at all. They’re casualties of Title 42, a pandemic-related policy that paused nearly all asylum proceedings at the border. Some people argue the policy is preventing an influx of migrants. In fact, numbers are up despite the policy, and our refusal to process most of them has led to chaotic and dangerous conditions.

The United States has successfully managed ebbs and flows of asylum seekers for decades. There’s a system in place to manage an influx — and regardless of how hard immigration lawyers like me fight for them to stay, many will lose their case and be deported. Even so, we must let people try. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s also guaranteed under international and domestic law. We signed a 1967 protocol to the U.N. Refugee Convention to protect the rights of refugees, and we have adopted it and codified it into U.S. asylum law. Right now, we’re violating those obligations. The longer we do, the weaker American rule of law looks to our global partners.

We must immediately reinstate due process for asylum seekers. And once this happens, we must work to make the system more equitable and faster.

. . . .

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

Read Steve’s complete op-ed in The Hill at the link.

I agree that “we must work to make the system more equitable and faster.” But, the answer can’t be just to hire more Immigration Judges in Garland’s dysfunctional, broken, and anti-asylum-biased “court” system. That would just speed the “deportation assembly line” and lead to even more injustice and grotesque inconsistencies.

According to TRAC, Immigration Judge “asylum denial rates” currently “range” from 5% to 100%. That’s a ridiculous, indefensible variation and a total perversion of the generous standard for granting asylum set forth by the Supremes in Cardoza-Fonseca and adopted by the BIA in Matter of Mogharrabi, but seldom enforced or followed, particularly these days. Why this very obvious, totally solvable problem is still festering going on two years into a Democratic Administration that pledged to solve it is beyond me!

Enough of this nonsense, biased, “amateur night at the Bijou” mal-administration of the Immigration Courts at EOIR by Garland’s DOJ! No wonder folks are still complaining about “Refugee Roulette” more than a decade after it was written by my Georgetown Law colleagues Professors Phil Schrag, Andy Schoenholtz, and Jaya Ramji-Nogales (now an Associate Dean at Temple Law). Why not put one of THEM, or for that matter, Professor Yale-Loehr, in charge of kicking tail and cleaning out the deadwood at EOIR?

At a minimum Garland must:

Remove the holdover “Asylum Deniers Club” from the BIA and replace them with a real judge as Chair and new Appellate Immigration Judges who are widely recognized as “practical experts” with careers that have demonstrated superior scholarship in immigraton and human rights, an unswerving commitment to due process for individuals, and a passion for racial justice in our legal system;
Have the “New BIA” issue useful precedential guidance on how to document and grant valid asylum cases at both the Asylum Office and the Immigration Court, implement best practices, and identify and remove from future asylum adjudication those unqualified Immigration Judges who basically “make up” reasons to deny and can’t or won’t treat applicants fairly; and
Immediately replace with qualified expert judges those Immigration Judges on the “Southern Border docket” who can’t fairly adjudicate asylum cases.

Steve is totally correct about the need for Title 42 to go! But, Garland’s EOIR, particularly the BIA, is just as broken, counterproductive, and out of control as Title 42! In many ways, the illegal abrogation of the rule of law at the Southern Border has somewhat ”hidden” the larger problem that a dysfunctional and incapable EOIR poses for those who do manage to get a hearing!

Without a legitimate, totally reformed and significantly “re-populated” EOIR operating at the “retail level” of our justice system, there will be no rule of law and equal justice under law in America — for anyone!

Tell Garland you have had enough! The deadly and disorderly “EOIR Clown Show” has got to go! Now!

EOIR Clown Show Must Go T-Shirt — “EOIR Clown Show Must Go” T-Shirt Custom Design Concept

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-28-22

FROM ROE TO DOBBS, A HALF-CENTURY DECLINE IN THE US JUDICIARY! — From Blackmun’s “Profound Lyricism” To Alito’s Snarky Far-Right Pseudo-Religious Dogma Masquerading As “Law!” — Francine Prose in The Guardian

Francine Prose
American Writer
PHOTO: Luigi Novi (2009)
Creative Commons License

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/01/roe-v-wade-1973-ruling-supreme-court?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

As one more reminder of what we’ve lost, the text of the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling is unlikely to console us. Even so, I recommend downloading the pdf. In the wake of its overturning, this beautifully written document – which reads like a long form essay – is not only interesting in itself but now seems like another sign of how much has changed over the last half century, in this case for the worse.

Drafted by Justice Harry Blackmun, the ruling includes a clear and persuasive summary of the history of abortion law. “At the time of the adoption of our Constitution, and throughout the major portion of the 19th century, a woman enjoyed a substantially broader right to terminate a pregnancy that she does in most States today.” It tracks the centuries-old debate over when life begins, and dismisses the argument that a fetus is a person guaranteed the protections afforded US citizens. Throughout, it strikes us as the careful explication and clarification of a law, of legal precedent, unlike Justice Alito’s ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, which seems more like an expression of religious conviction masquerading as an unbiased interpretation of the constitution.

The Roe ruling is not about states’ rights. It’s about power and control | Derecka Purnell

What’s most striking about Roe v Wade – and its difference from the ruling that overturned it – is its eloquence. Blackmun’s lucid, frequently graceful language reflects a commitment to decency and compassion. The judges are clear about the dangers of carrying an unwanted child or a high-risk pregnancy to term. They strive to see the issue from the perspective of those confronting a serious life crisis, and to imagine the devastating outcomes that pregnant women and their families may face.

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“Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by childcare. There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it.”

The passage I admire most is the one in which Blackmun, at once profound and lyrical, describes the atmosphere surrounding the issue of abortion, the way our opinions are formed, and the pressures that the law must acknowledge and keep in balance.

“We forthwith acknowledge our awareness of the sensitive and emotional nature of the abortion controversy, of the vigorous opposing views, even among physicians, and of the deep and seemingly absolute convictions that the subject inspires. One’s philosophy, one’s experiences, one’s exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one’s religious training, one’s attitudes toward life and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all likely to influence and to color one’s thinking and conclusions about abortion. In addition, population growth, poverty, and racial overtones tend to complicate and not to simplify the problem.”

And there it is: a superbly rendered catalogue of the factors that come to mind when we consider the factors that will now determine whom Dobbs will hurt most: poverty, race, and life on the raw edges of human existence – an edge, one might say, on which every decision about abortion is made.

. . . .

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

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

Let’s face it. The concern for human life of out of touch righty ideologues like Alito ends at birth. After that, the “others” are expendable — particularly if they are women or folks of color!

All their claimed concern about “personhood” ends at delivery — when it can no longer be used to threaten vulnerable pregnant women or medical professionals. After that, the GOP program for kids (whether wanted or not) consists of things like:

Valuing their lives below the “right” of every Tom, Dick, and Harriett in America to own and use military-style assault weapons (something that certainly wasn’t the “original intent” of the drafters of the 2d Amendment);
Cutting education budgets, “dumbing down” public school curriculums, and harassing teachers, school administrators, and school board members;
Imposing work requirements on public assistance without regard to the needs and availability of suitable child care;
Deporting their parents to far away countries without concern for the welfare of children (US citizen and others);
Declaring “war” on vulnerable kids who aren’t heterosexuals;
Opposing provisions that would expand the availability of health insurance to kids;
Spreading misinformation about life-saving vaccines for children;
Falsely denying climate change that threatens the world we will leave to our kids and future generations;
Spreading fear and terror in ethnic communities containing “mixed families” to discourage them from taking advantage of available community services;
Threatening the educational rights of non-citizen children currently guaranteed by Plyler v. Doe (but perhaps not for long, if the Clarence Thomases of the world have their way);
Treating kids in Immigration Court as less than “persons” entitled to full due process (for example, forcing toddlers to “represent themselves” in life or death asylum cases);
Separating families;
Detaining families and children in grossly substandard conditions;
Making it more difficult for people of color to vote and thus exercise their legal and political rights;
Being more concerned about BLM protests than in the loss of young black lives that generated them.

I could go on an on.

One essential starting place and training ground for a “new generation” of Federal Judges who will be committed to humane values, empathy, accurate historical understanding, due process, and equal justice for all is the “retail level” of our justice system — the U.S. Immigration Courts, currently controlled solely by AG Merrick Garland. That’s why Garland’s disturbing failure to instill progressive values and install scholarly progressive judges — the best, brightest, and most courageous — in his now-dysfunctional EOIR system should be of grave concern to advocates of individual choices and anyone who cares about equal justice for all and the future of our nation!

The GOP-dominated Federal Judiciary has become a tool of authoritarians and religious zealots who seek to wipe out established individual rights, reduce humanity, and insert themselves and their out of touch views into every aspect of human existence — ultimately threatening the very future of humanity!

The Dems, by contrast, are the party of individual rights and human freedom. Too bad they haven’t done a better job of selling, and sometimes of following and boldly acting upon, their own stated values!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-15-22

☠️⚰️ THEIR VOICES DROWNED OUT BY THE NOISE OF WAR, COVID, SUPPLY CHAIN PROBLEMS, & INFLATION, MILLIONS FACE STARVATION!

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=20ee182f-524e-4e7d-8158-51345f6fd59e

Tracy Wilkinson reports in the LA Times:

By Tracy Wilkinson

WASHINGTON — The scenes witnessed by journalists and humanitarian workers in recent months have been striking: In Sudan, swollen-bellied babies are looking for anything to eat. In Yemen, where warring parties have blocked humanitarian aid, hollow-eyed children and their mothers languish on the brink of death from starvation. In Ukraine, the elderly are collecting rancid rain runoff for drinking water.

Malnourishment and hunger were big problems even before Russia invaded Ukraine in February and cut off Europe’s breadbasket from its markets, sparking a flurry of dire warnings about the world’s food supplies. Dozens of countries across the globe are already suffering from devastating food shortages, so much so that the number of people facing starvation more than doubled in just the last two years, to 345 million, according to United Nations figures.

The causes are myriad: drought and flooding, and the interruption of supply chains triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in China. An estimated 20 wars or conflicts — the latest in Ukraine — have also seriously disrupted access to food and water.

“The current food security challenge that we’re facing [is] due to these three Cs: climate, COVID and conflict,” said Ramin Toloui, assistant secretary of State for economic affairs, one of several Biden administration officials tasked to food-security issues.

The bleak situation drew the attention of powerful diplomats Friday when U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and the foreign ministers of six other of the world’s largest economies met in Germany to map out plans for easing global food shortages. Few observers expect real solutions to emerge but hope the summit will highlight the crisis and boost funding for anti-hunger efforts.

The Biden administration has committed about $8.5 billion to emergency food assistance and related programs, focusing initially on the Horn of Africa, Yemen, Lebanon and Haiti, Blinken said.

“We hear all these numbers; we’ve all cited numbers of this growing food insecurity,” Blinken said in Berlin. “But what we know is this: We know that those numbers are people, real people, real lives, real livelihoods, mothers, fathers, children. … As human beings, all of us have to be seized with this.”

The U.N.’s World Food Program calculates that eight of the 10 largest food crises worldwide are being primarily driven by conflict — in Yemen, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Such wars force people from their homes into long desperate treks for safety. They devastate farms and wreak havoc on food distribution systems.

In Latin America, food scarcity is also driving tens of thousands of people to abandon parched or hurricane-leveled farms and migrate to the United States.

These were the disasters already in motion when Russia invaded Ukraine. Now, the U.N. says the Russian blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports could lead 40 million more people to go hungry.

. . . .

Caitlin Welsh, a veteran expert in global food security who heads that program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said hunger and famine have consequences for both health and politics.

Hungry people can be angry people, and the rising price of food or fuel have led to coups throughout history. The health effects of going hungry can be far-reaching and insidious, Welsh said.

“The sudden elevation in prices [of foodstuffs like bread] can make people shift from more nutritious food to items of lower nutrition,” she said. And for pregnant women and young children, that can cause lifelong disabilities, Welsh said.

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

Read Tracy’s complete article at the link.

War is bad, particularly when those who needlessly start them for their own amusement, ego, and nationalistic jingoism escape accountability. See, e.g., V. Putin.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-27-22

🌎THE AMERICAS: THE L.A. DECLARATION ON MIGRATION & PROTECTION — Blueprint For Action Or More Empty Rhetoric?

Here’s what the document says:

https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2022/06/10/los-angeles-declaration-migration-and-protection

Lot of promises, no specifics, as you can see!

Here’s the “White House Fact Sheet” which lists specifics from apparent “side agreements” by the various signatories:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/10/fact-sheet-the-los-angeles-declaration-on-migration-and-protection-u-s-government-and-foreign-partner-deliverables/

Here’s “critical commentary” from one observer:

Tyler Mattiace, an Americas division researcher with Human Rights Watch who closely followed the declaration’s drafting process, said that this type of multilateral approach is long overdue to assist “the millions of people all across the continent who have fled their homes either because of violence or persecution or human rights abuses.”

“They often face serious abuses that are many times the result of the fact that government either tries to prevent them from seeking protection or make[s] it difficult for them to obtain legal status or implement enforcement strategies to lead to them taking dangerous migration routes where they suffer abuses,” he said.

He said the declaration is a departure from what’s happening on the ground at the U.S.-Mexico border, where immigration enforcement officials keep expelling asylum seekers under Title 42, a COVID-19-related health measure implemented under former President Trump and maintained by Biden. The measure is tied up in the courts.

“The declaration is a major step forward, but it could be meaningless unless Biden immediately does everything possible to restore access to asylum at the U.S. border and ends other abuses, other anti-immigration policies,” Mattiace continued. “The U.S. also has to stop focusing immigration policy on efforts to outsource immigration enforcement to other governments in the region.”

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=dae611a5-6dfe-4e35-a4df-3329cdc3866b

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

I like to be optimistic. Nevertheless, color me skeptical on this.

The ultimate success of this type of initiative will depend on courageous, enlightened, bold, dynamic leadership from the U.S. That’s not currently in the cards.

Right now, the U.S. is in violation of various international migration agreements, domestic law, and the Due Process Clause of our Constitution. Our legal asylum, refugee, Immigration Court, and adjudication of legal status systems are a dysfunctional mess. Proposals for necessary, practical reforms have been ignored by the Administration, blocked by Trump Federal Judges, or not gotten off the ground. That’s NOT a “leadership posture” that is going to inspire and persuade other nations.

For example, the much ballyhooed “Asylum Regulation Reforms” are moving forward in a flawed “Beta test mode,” with no leadership, no practical precedents, incompetent judicial review, and a few dumb “in your face” features (like proposing to relocate asylum applicants to cities in Texas, where the EOIR asylum denial rates approach 100%, a move apparently specifically intended to spur xenophobic reactions from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott).

Here’s one of the “key commitments” from the U.S. taken from the above White House “Fact Sheet”:

The United States will commit to resettle 20,000 refugees from the Americas during Fiscal Years 2023 to 2024. This represents a three-fold increase from this year and reflects the Biden Administration’s strong commitment to welcoming refugees. The protection needs are significant in the Western Hemisphere. More than 5 million Venezuelans have been displaced in the Americas, and hundreds of thousands more people from other countries across Latin America and the Caribbean are also displaced [across borders]. As the United States scales up its resettlement operations in the Americas, we call on other governments to do the same.

20,000 over two years? (Or is it 20,000 per year over two years — doesn’t really matter?) Are you kidding me? That wouldn’t begin to address the current situation on the Southern Border. Indeed, it wouldn’t even cover all the individuals already determined to have a “credible fear” of persecution who have been waiting, some for years, for processing under the cruel, illegal, and ineptly administered “Remain in Mexico” program.

As Tyler Mattaice from HRW observes, the problem involves millions of individuals. Yet, we’re talking about accepting a few thousand more as a solution? Not going to cut it!

I’d also be mildly surprised if the U.S. even fulfills this exceptionally modest commitment. Over the past few years, the U.S. hasn’t even filled it’s “historically meager quotas.” And, the once proud U.S. Refugee Program, which relied heavily on NGOs for success, has been shredded — intentionally left in tatters by the Trump regime. If the Biden Administration has been able to rebuild it to the necessary size and operational strength, they have kept it a secret from most of us!

A realistic “low ball” starting number for Western Hemisphere refugees would be more like 100,000 in each of the next two years! Even this well might not be enough.

Moreover, a competent Administration could actually have processed and admitted thousands of qualified refugees waiting in Mexico over the past 18 months, thereby at least beginning to reduce pressure on the border and the asylum adjudication system.

Whether folks want to admit it or not, we are going to experience substantially more immigration from the Americas. It could be mostly legal or mostly extralegal — that’s our choice.

But, no totally bogus Title 42 extension, wall, prison, family separation, cruelty, punitive law, prosecution, militarization of the border, racist rhetoric, “don’t come” message in three languages, or Federalist Society Federal Judge is going to halt the natural flow of human migration. Nor can migration be largely “outsourced” to smaller countries in the Hemisphere.

International cooperation is great! That’s what the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention and subsequent 1967 Protocol are all about. But, logically, we can expect other countries to “proportionalize” their responses to what they see the U.S. doing.

Moreover, we have to consider that, for example, Colombia, a much smaller and poorer country than the U.S., with its own set of problems, has already taken in 1.7 million Venezuelan refugees. That dwarfs our so-called “crisis” at the Mexican border. https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2021/10/31/supporting-colombian-host-communities-and-venezuelan-migrants-during-the-covid-19-pandemic

Realistically, is Colombia going to want to help us resettle Venezuelan refugees waiting at our Southern Border? Don’t count on it!

If you “add up” all of the numbers and commitments from all the countries contained in the “Fact Sheet,” it wouldn’t even come close to solving the current flow at our Southern Border, let alone make a dent in the Hemisphere-wide movement of individuals.

Dealing with the “root causes” of migration is also a great idea, if hardly a new one. Problem is, many of the “sending countries,” Northern Triangle, Haiti, Venezuela, are functionally failed states. Unless someone has a “silver bullet solution” addressing this sad fact — and nobody has one to date — this isn’t going to happen in the short run. It’s a decades if not generations long project. Worthy, to be sure. But not a way of effectively addressing today’s realities and migration pressures.

So, I see the same “aura of unreality” and unwillingness to face the facts hanging over the LA Declaration that has crippled our immigration and human rights policies over the past several decades. And, as refugee situations have continued to get worse, so has the “dream world” inhabited by those countries fortunate to be prosperous and stable enough to be “refugee destinations” become more pronounced and increasingly untethered to reality and humanity.

Sorry, but that’s not a “formula for success!”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-12-22

👩🏽‍🏫📚 📖SOCIETY FOR THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF SOCIAL ISSUES (“SPSSI”) PROUDLY PRESENTS A FREE WEBINAR: “A Review Of Immigration Policy Reform From Applied & Empirical Perspectives,” Friday, June 3, 2022 @ 4:30 EDT, Featuring: Chelsea Queen (UTEP, Moderator), Professor Josiah Heyman Ph.D. (UTEP), Aldo Barrita M.A. (Ph.D. Program, UNLV), & Me! — Don’t Miss It! — Also Available On YouTube TV After The Presentation!

Here’s the link for FREE registration for this webinar:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iup8pofbTRiMc7qWdr0faQ

SPSSI

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

Hope to see you there! Our ever-amazing Moderator/Organizer/Inspiration Chelsea Queen, 4th Year Doctoral Student @ UTEP & Applied Work Member-at-Large of the SPSSI Graduate Student Committee, promises to 1) keep us “on track;” and 2) involve the audience in the dialogue.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-01-22

🔫WELL, ACTUALLY, TOTALLY CONTRARY TO THE GOP BS, GUN CONTROL LAWS DO SAVE LIVES! — “The states with America’s lowest rates of gun-related deaths all have strict gun laws; in states that allow easy availability of guns, more people die from them.”

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=e8e45d47-c3b3-4b69-862f-6cc848e9bb43

David Lauter in the LA Times:

WASHINGTON — Time was — not that long ago — that after a mass shooting, gun rights advocates would nod to the possibility of compromise before waiting for memories to fade and opposing any new legislation to regulate firearms.

This time, they skipped the preliminaries and jumped directly to opposition.

“The most effective tool for keeping kids safe is armed law enforcement on the campus,” Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said to MSNBC a few hours after a shooter killed at least 21 people in Uvalde, Texas. “Inevitably, when there’s a murder of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it. You see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. That doesn’t work.”

The speed of that negative reaction provides the latest example of how, on one issue after another, the gap between blue America and red America has widened so much that even the idea of national agreement appears far-fetched. Many political figures no longer bother pretending to look for it.

Broad agreement

on some measures

And yet, significant agreement does exist.

Poll after poll has shown for years that large majorities of the public agree on at least some limited steps to further regulate firearms.

A survey last year by the Pew Research Center, for example, showed that, by 87% to 12%, Americans supported “preventing people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns.” By 81% to 18% they backed “making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks.” And by a smaller but still healthy 64% to 36% they favored “banning high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.”

The gunman in Uvalde appears to have carried seven 30-round magazines, authorities in Texas have said.

So why, in the face of such large majorities, does Congress repeatedly do nothing?

One powerful factor is the belief among many Americans that nothing lawmakers do will help the problem.

Asked in that same Pew survey whether mass shootings would decline if guns were harder to obtain, about half of Americans said they would go down, but 42% said it would make no difference. Other surveys have found much the same feeling among a large swath of Americans.

The argument about futility is one that opponents of change quickly turn to after a catastrophe. It’s a powerful rhetorical weapon against action.

“It wouldn’t prevent these shootings,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on CNN on Wednesday when asked about banning the sort of semiautomatic weapons used by the killer in Uvalde and by a gunman who killed 10 at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket 10 days earlier. “The truth of the matter is these people are going to commit these horrifying crimes — whether they have to use another weapon to do it, they’re going to figure out a way to do it.”

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made a similar claim at his news conference on Wednesday: “People who think that, ‘well, maybe we can just implement tougher gun laws, it’s gonna solve it’ — Chicago and L.A. and New York disprove that thesis.”

The facts powerfully suggest that’s not true.

Go back 15 years: In 2005, California had almost the same rate of deaths from guns as Florida or Texas. California had 9.5 firearms deaths per 100,000 people that year, Florida had 10 and Texas 11, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Since then, California repeatedly has tightened its gun laws, while Florida and Texas have moved in the opposite direction.

California’s rate of gun deaths has declined by 10% since 2005, even as the national rate has climbed in recent years. And Texas and Florida? Their rates of gun deaths have climbed 28% and 37% respectively. California now has one of the 10 lowest rates of gun deaths in the nation. Texas and Florida are headed in the wrong direction.

Obviously, factors beyond a state’s laws can affect the rate of firearms deaths. The national health statistics take into account differences in the age distribution of state populations, but they don’t control for every factor that might affect gun deaths.

Equally clearly, no law stops all shootings.

California’s strict laws didn’t stop the shooting at a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods this month, and there’s no question that Chicago suffers from a large number of gun-related homicides despite strict gun control laws in Illinois. A large percentage of the guns used in those crimes come across the border from neighboring states with loose gun laws, research has shown.

The overall pattern is clear, and it reinforces the lesson from other countries, including Canada, Britain and Australia, which have tightened gun laws after horrific mass shootings: The states with America’s lowest rates of gun-related deaths all have strict gun laws; in states that allow easy availability of guns, more people die from them.

Fear of futility isn’t the only barrier to passage of national gun legislation.

Gun law opponents harden positions

Hard-core opponents of gun regulation have become more entrenched in their positions over the last decade.

Mostly conservative and Republican and especially prevalent in rural parts of the U.S., staunch opponents of any new legislation restricting firearms generally don’t see gun violence as a major problem but do see the weapons as a major part of their identity. In the Pew survey last year, just 18% of Republicans rated gun violence as one of the top problems facing the country, compared with 73% of Democrats. Other surveys have found much the same.

Strong opponents of gun control turn out in large numbers in Republican primaries, and they make any vote in favor of new restrictions politically toxic for Republican officeholders. In American politics today, where most congressional districts are gerrymandered to be safe for one party and only a few states swing back and forth politically, primaries matter far more to most lawmakers than do general elections.

Even in general elections, gun issues aren’t the top priority for most voters. Background checks and similar measures have wide support, but not necessarily urgent support.

. . . .

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

Read David’s complete article at the link.

Unfortunately, the much ballyhooed polls on this issue turn out to be highly misleading. The polls showing widespread support for gun control suggest that there should be a heavy political price to pay for GOP gun zealots who mock the need for rational measures to protect kids, worshippers, shoppers, and others from mass firearms’ assaults.

However, the exact opposite is true. As Chuck Todd recently pointed out on NBC News, even in the “post-Sandy-Hook” era, no incumbent politician has lost his or her position for opposing reasonable firearms controls. The converse is not true.

Todd also pointed out that we now have more guns than people in the U.S., a situation that didn’t exist a decade ago. The irrational response to more gun deaths, lead by the NRA and GOP politicos, has been more guns — NOT common sense, concern for the common good, or courageous bipartisan problem solving.

That perhaps explains how sleazy immoral characters like Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. Ted Cruz, VA Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and a host of other corrupt “guns are the answer to all problems” GOP politicos remain in office as innocent kids and others die and the problem gets worse.

As the article suggests, lack of urgency and priority also might be a reason why the polls are so completely misleading on this issue. For the “guns trump human lives crowd,” adhering to positions promoting irresponsible “absolutist” firearms agendas are a “litmus test.” Apparently, for too many of those in the “majority,” saving some kids and other human lives is in the “nice to have, but not essential” category.

So, despite their immoral and irrational stand on guns, the GOP controls a majority of state and local Governments. Nationally, thanks to the electoral college, gerrymandering, and local control of national voting, the GOP appears poised to sweep back into power on the national level and impose their anti-individual-liberty, anti-democracy, anti-humanity, pro-guns and big corporations agenda on all until the last shadow of American liberal democracy is wiped out.

It’s clear from the “in your face” reactions of Cruz and other GOP pols that they expect no fallout from their latest, deadly policy failures. Indeed, I think they fully anticipate a political boost from their ridiculous and widely-panned suggestions and their ever more outrageous fact-free “shoot ‘em up — ignore the real problem” proposals. Kid deaths and grieving parents who can be fobbed off or ignored have become a “gold mine” for valueless GOP politicos to exploit and demean.

Sadly, they probably are correct. Despite the perhaps “over coverage” by the media obsessed with public demonstrations, the GOP has little to fear politically from outraged parents of dead kids, students walking out of classes, newspaper editorials, or demonstrators outside the NRA Convention.

Unless and until gun control proponents can find a way to make arrogant GOP pols on all levels “pay a price” for their immoral actions and horrible positions, the latest “surge in public sentiment” will be just as meaningless as the polls they engender. That means reaching out to the rural Americans who drive the GOP’s pro-gun agenda and changing at least some minds with facts. That’s something that Dems as a whole have failed to do over decades, as the GOP developed a stranglehold over rural America.

While GOP politicos like Abbott and Cruz (who, let’s remember, fled with his family to a resort in Mexico while ordinary Texans suffered through Abbott’s mismanagement of the power grid) babble nonsense, parents who have lost children understand exactly who is to blame for preventable mass murders:

“There’s no reason for just an average citizen to have these types of weapons,” she said. Adding, “What for? What do you need them for? Is it worth my kid? These kids?”

https://apple.news/ABvfx3I_pRjubQAjtOz4c-A

Of course, as the article acknowledges, gun control won’t solve all problems or prevent all mass shootings. But, contrary to widely promoted GOP myths, such laws would be a major step in the right direction that demonstrably would preserve some human lives.

The GOP gun lobby’s outrageous “expand the universe of gun ownership and military-style firepower” agenda clearly results in more unnecessary deaths. Even more significantly, there is no case for the proposition that reasonable firearms restrictions and limitations on military assault-type weapons place any unreasonable burden on sportsmen, target shooters, or other types of legitimate gun owners.

No private citizen in America needs an assault weapon for self defense or sporting purposes! Pro-gun commercials suggesting that assault weapons are necessary for self-defense at home or to “protect America” are the pure BS! But, they apparently are much more effective than angry demonstrations, school walkouts, or tearful testimonials from those deprived of their loved ones and colleagues by preventable mass gun violence.

Tougher laws might, however, stop at least a few kids or angry folks from getting their hands on military-grade weapons of mass destruction and murder.

Significantly, it now appears that about the only folks who “did the right thing at the right time” during the Uvalde mass murder were the unarmed kids who, risking their lives, called, sometimes repeatedly, those authorized to use deadly force and assault-style weapons for public protection. But, it was largely to no avail, as the so-called “good guys with guns” stood around as kids died — they were afraid they might get shot by an 18-year-old kid armed like a combat soldier. Their teachers, not the “good guys with guns” were the ones willing to sacrifice their lives in an attempt to save others.

Also, while Texas seems to revel in “anti-Federalism,” it’s worth noting that the slaughter only stopped when Federal Border Patrol Officers ignored local police leaders and confronted the shooter.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-29-22

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Here’s the latest analysis of Garland’s ongoing abuse of his office from Austin Kocher, PhD, at TRAC:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Key Quote:

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Alexandra Villarreal reports for The Guardian:

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Craig writes:

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At a minimum Garland must:

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Tracy Wilkinson reports in the LA Times:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Here’s what the document says:

Here’s the “White House Fact Sheet” which lists specifics from apparent “side agreements” by the various signatories:

Here’s “critical commentary” from one observer:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Here’s the link for FREE registration for this webinar:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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David Lauter in the LA Times:

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