"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
BTYB – Student Success, Equity, and Community and the Weissberg Program in Human Rights & Social Justice
The Office of Student Success, Equity & Community Ousley Scholar In Residency honors the legacy of Grace Ousley, the first black woman to graduate from Beloit College. It is a junior scholar/activist/organizer/intellectual committed to the theory and practice of social justice. They should embody the “academic hustler” who fights for “social justice” in all aspects of their work. Support for the residency comes from the Weissberg Program in Human Rights and Social Justice and the Office of Student Success. Equity & Community.
This promises to be a great program! And, the Ousley Residence Program is a fantastic contribution to educating and inspiring new generations of Americans about the many challenges still facing us in achieving social justice in our nation.
The abrogation of due process and dehumanization of people of color has, outrageously, become part of the dysfunctional U.S. Immigration Court System. The last Administration specifically encouraged and promoted this ugly, anti-democracy, phenomenon and then used it to spearhead an all-out assault on racial justice, gender equality, LGBTQ rights, religious tolerance, economic progress, voter rights, and humane progressive values throughout American society.
Unfortunately, many progressives have been slow to “connect the dots” and insist that meaningful social justice change start with fixing the racial and gender bias problems in our Immigration Courts, tribunals that are under the complete control of the Biden Administration!
For example, current Attorney General Merrick Garland rather incredibly claims to be standing up for women’s rights in Texas and defending voting rights for minorities while continuing to run misogynistic, regressive “Star Chambers” at EOIR, staffed with many judges hand-selected by Jeff Sessions and Billy Barr, and tossing vulnerable women refugees of color back across our Southern Border into harm’s way without any “process” at all, let alone “Due Process of Law.” Garland also continues to enable human rights abuses in the “New American Gulag” of DHS civil detention! We can see this process of dehumanization of the “other” before the law, called “Dred Scottification” by many of us, spreading throughout our legal system and being endorsed and “normalized” all the way up to the Supremes.
From the summary in the announcement above, it appears that Denea, based on her own inspiring life and achievements as a “Dreamer,” will help us to “connect the dots” between racial justice, immigrant justice, and equal justice for all. Immigrants’ Rights = Human Rights = Everyone’s Rights!
“They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.”
Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice, Supreme Court, March 1857, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857)
“Congress is entitled to set the conditions for an alien’s lawful entry into this country and that, as a result, an alien at the threshold of initial entry cannot claim any greater rights under the due process clause.”
Justice Samuel Alito, Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, 591 U.S. ___ (2020)
Dred Scott (circa 1857) Public Realm — Black asylum seekers and other migrants aren’t celebrating the continuing disgraceful “Dred Scottification of the other” in Mayorkas’s “New American Gulag” and Garland’s “Miller Lite” Immigration “Courts” that aren’t “courts” at all!
Yacouba, a political activist in Ivory Coast, knew if he didn’t immediately flee his home country, he wouldn’t survive.
After being threatened, attacked and tortured by people sympathetic to those in power, Yacouba fled his country in 2018. He went to Brazil for a few years, then made a perilous trek through Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras and Mexico before finally arriving in the United States.
The journey was one of the two most challenging periods of his life. The second was being detained as a Black immigrant in the U.S.
As the nation celebrates Juneteenth — a day commemorating the emancipation of African Americans who had been enslaved in the United States — as a federal holiday for the first time, Black Americans and immigrants are fighting to dismantle institutional racism, including within the immigration system. Black immigrants are disproportionately detained, receive higher bond costs, and say they face racist treatment within detention centers.
Recognizing and celebrating the emancipation of slaves is vital, activists say ― but continuing to take down systemic racism needs to come with it.
“From an immigration perspective, Black immigrants face disproportionate levels of detention and exclusion,” Diana Konate, policy director at the advocacy group African Communities Together, said Thursday on a press call. “These can be life-threatening, as Black immigrants often get deported back to unsafe and dangerous conditions. While we celebrate the victories, we keep in mind that a lot of work remains.”
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Read the rest of Rowaida’s article at the link.
Every day that Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke drag their collective feet on ending “Dred Scottification,” racial bias, and xenophobia at EOIR diminishes their credibility on all racial and social justice issues. To date, Garland has appointed zero (O) progressive judges at EOIR, has only scratched the surface of the White Nationalist bias in decision-making in the Immigration Courts, and has failed to re-establish due process and the rule of law for Blacks and other migrants of color at the border.
Justice Alito and his colleagues in the majority disgracefully basically “dressed up” the core of Dred Scott dehumanization and bias in “21st century faux constitutional gobbledygook and intentional, disingenuous fictionalization!” Make no mistake: asylum seekers applying at our borders with their lives and humanity at stake are “persons” subject to our jurisdiction and are entitled to full Constitutional due process and statutory rights that are being denied to them every day, currently by the Biden Administration.
While Alito & Co. are wrong, DEAD WRONG in all too many cases, nothing in their dishonest and misguided “jurisprudence” prevents Garland from providing due process to individuals, regardless of status, in Immigration Court and to ending the racism and dehumanization underneath both the mess at EOIR and the cowardly abdication of duty by the Supremes’ majority in Thuraissigiam! In human rights, you either solve the problem or become part of it. And, experts, journalists, and historians are making a permanent record of the actions of the Supremes and the Biden Administration when democracy and racial justice are under stress!
You don’t have to look very far to “connect the dots” between Alito’s dismissive attitude toward the human rights of Asians and other asylum seekers of color and the increase in hate crimes directed against Asian Americans and unfair policing of African Americans. Once courts and government officials endorse “dehumanization of the other based largely on ethnicity” the “protections” and “distinctions” of citizenship tend to also vanish. If the lives of migrants of color can be declared worthless, what difference does citizenship mean for those of the same ethnic heritage that Alito deems below humanity? Obviously, the Trump kakistocracy’s attack on migrants of color was just a “place holder” for their attack on the rights of all persons of color in America!
How can Garland’s DOJ demand racial justice in state law enforcement while operating America’s most notorious “Jim Crow Court System?”
James “Jim” Crow Symbol of American Racism — He still “rules the roost” at Garland’s EOIR!
It’s time for all civil rights and civil liberties organizations to join forces in demanding an end to bias and “Dred Scottification of the other” in Garland’s disgracefully dysfunctional Immigration “Courts.” Not rocket science!🚀 Just human decency, common sense, available (yet ignored) progressive expertise, and Con Law 101!
Gender Violence continues to to be endemic in Latin America! Yet, shockingly, its victims, refugee women of color, can expect little protection in Garland’s Immigration Courts still applying Jeff Sessions’s inaccurate, misogynistic precedent in Matter of A-B- and continuing to be staffed by too many “judges” selected or promoted by the Trump Administration because of their perceived willingness to support anti-asylum policies targeting many women of color! Recently Garland outraged progressives by appointing 17 “Miller/Barr Holdovers” to powerful, life or death, Immigration Judge positions while eschewing better-qualified progressive experts from the private sector who could bring diversity and gender and racial justice to his dysfunctional Immigration “Courts!” PHOTO: UNHCR website
Migrant women carry children in the rain at an intake area after turning themselves in upon crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, late Tuesday, May 11, 2021, in La Joya, Texas. The U.S. government continues to report large numbers of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border with an increase in adult crossers. But families and unaccompanied children are still arriving in dramatic numbers despite the weather changing in the Rio Grande Valley registering hotter days and nights. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)(Gregory Bull)Natalie Gonnella-Platts Director, Women’s Initiative George W. Bush Institute PHOTO: Bush InstituteJenny Villatoro Associate, George W. Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative PHOTO: George W. Bush Institute
By Natalie Gonnella-Platts and Jenny Villatoro In the Dallas Morning News:
When U.S. Border Patrol found him in the Texas desert, 10-year-old Wilton was crying, “they abandoned me.” Exhausted and alone, his image went viral — a poignant visual of the struggle faced by thousands seeking safety.
But Wilton’s story actually began in Nicaragua when his mother, Meylin, wasn’t able to get legal protection from an abusive partner. Mother and son fled to the United States, seeking asylum, but were expelled under a public health rule and sent to Mexico, where they were kidnapped, according to an account in El Pais. Meylin’s brother in Miami could pay only half the ransom — enough for Wilton alone to be released.
Although Meylin was ultimately released and reunited with her son, the tale that led to Wilton’s arrival at the border as an unaccompanied minor isn’t unique. It illustrates the fact that gender-based violence, revictimization and lack of justice affect children, families and communities thousands of miles away. It also highlights the importance of a safe and legal pathway into the United States for survivors of gender-based violence and other asylum-seekers. For many, arriving at the U.S. border seeking asylum is the only legal pathway available.
Immigration reform in the United States is essential to assuring that we have a secure and efficient border, a system flexible enough to handle changes in migrant flows, and the capacity to treat each migrant with dignity. But more needs to be done in the migrants’ home countries, too, so that they are not forced to flee for their safety in the first place.
Any comprehensive plan on Central America and immigration reform should address gender inequity and gender-based violence.
They are not siloed issues to acknowledge only when horrific stories of femicide and human trafficking force us to pay attention. Rather, they are deeply entangled with broader challenges of corruption and poverty. Proposed solutions shouldn’t overlook the impact of gender-based violence on migrant flows, economic development, education and health.
Fourteen of the 25 most dangerous places for women are in the Western Hemisphere, including countries within Central America. Patriarchy and gang violence subject women and girls to abhorrent actions of abuse and control.
Honduras and El Salvador saw some of the highest incidences of femicide within Latin America in 2019, at rates of 6.2 and 3.3 per 100,000, respectively. In Guatemala, adolescent girls are at a high risk of being “disappeared,” with 8 out of every 10,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 17 reported missing each year.
COVID 19-related lockdowns are being exploited by gangs looking to strengthen control: El Salvador alone has seen a 70% increase in gender-based violence since the beginning of the pandemic. And lockdowns have forced vulnerable individuals to stay in close proximity to their perpetrators. Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador reported an increase in intrafamily violence, with El Salvador reporting an increase in intrafamily femicides as well.
Justice systems and access to services need to be strengthened to ensure adequate protection for all under the law. Legal protections often are inhibited by weak institutions, corruption and a culture of impunity toward perpetrators.
According to a 2017 national survey, two-thirds of Salvadoran women over the age of 15 have experienced violence, but only 6% have ever reported it. While laws against child marriage exist across the region, in some countries about 1 in 3 young women are in a union before age 18. Post-trauma support and efforts that inform Central American women of their rights and agency are critical interventions that could help women like Meylin.
Females have been disproportionately affected by the devastating impact of hurricanes Eta and Iota, but the status of women and girls is chronically overlooked in response efforts, exacerbating the risk of violence.
Women and girls must be seen and heard. Greater focus on gender and age-disaggregated data collection and in tracking the effectiveness and efficiency of legal systems is crucial. And women and their lived experiences need to be more fully represented at all leadership levels.
Finally, direct outreach to local communities should be a priority for U.S. government and private sector-led programs. This includes resource and capacity support for advocates and organizations that serve as lifelines for those affected by violence, often at great personal risk. Engagement with men and boys is equally imperative.
How can anyone be expected to thrive when her day-to-day priority is simply to survive? The United States needs to recognize that gender-based violence and gender inequity drive migration.
Immigration reform must include strategies to address the root causes of migration from Central America in effective and lasting ways to prevent situations like Wilton’s and Meylin’s. Women and girls must be front and center in these solutions.
Natalie Gonnella-Platts serves as the director of the Women’s Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute.
Jenny Villatoro is an associate for the George W. Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative.
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“Deterrents” and illegally abusing asylum seekers DON’T WORK! It’s not that difficult a concept. Indeed, these misguided attempts at deterrence have been failing consistently under Administrations of both parties for the past four decades. One would think that an “enlightened nation” would try a different approach rather than simply repeating the costly failures of the past in various forms.
What we need are functioning refugee and asylum systems, led and staffed by progressive experts, operating from INSIDE Government, that will grant status to qualified refugee women in a fair and timely manner and set favorable precedents even while separately addressing the endemic problems in the “refugee-sending countries.” Of course, it will result in more legal immigration of refugees and asylum seekers to the U.S. That’s a good thing for both us and those individuals, not something to be feared or unlawfully and dishonestly “deterred!”
With stagnating population growth, we should welcome and facilitate legal immigration of courageous, talented, dedicated refugee women from all countries and their children through the refugee, asylum, and a much more robust legal immigration system!
Debi Sanders ESQ “Warrior Queen” of the NDPA PHOTO: law.uva.edu
Thanks to NDPA warrior-queen Debi Sanders for sending in this item. This report should be great evidence for those litigating to halt the Garland misogyny mess at EOIR and, sadly, to some extent in U.S. Courts of Appeals that have chosen to sweep both reality of what’s happening in the Northern Triangle and the patent unconstitutionality of a system governed by bogus precedents entered or promoted by AG’s affiliated with DHS Enforcement who also packed and reshaped the immigration “judiciary” in the image of nativist restrictionists! However, compelling as it is, the report only adds to the existing body of documentation of the dishonest approach by Administrations of both parties to Latin American asylum claims, particularly those of women and children.
For Pete’s sake, first and second year law students know that the EOIR travesty is unconstitutional! Why are life-tenured Article III Judges covering it up? Hopefully, history will take note of their mal-performance on the bench! These guys are life-tenured! So, what’s their excuse for not upholding the Constitution against clear Congressional and Executive abuses?
Hard for me to say this. But, former President George W. Bush is doing more for human rights, gender rights, civil rights, and immigrants rights’ than Garland or anyone else at the Biden DOJ! At least he speaks out publicly for the humanity and contributions of migrants and for their fair and generous treatment, which is more than any member of the Biden Administration has done as they continue to mistake softening the rhetoric with taking firm action to reverse White Nationalist policies and replace them with readily achievable progressive ones.
030114-O-0000D-001.President George W. Bush. Photo by Eric Draper, White House. “Why is this guy willing to speak up for immigrants’ rights . . . .
Meanwhile, despite pleas from nearly every expert, progressive, human rights, immigrants’ rights, and gender rights group in the U.S., Garland continues to allow Sessions’s wrong, toxic, and misogynistic decision in Matter of A-B – to remain in place and threaten the lives of female refugees while ignoring the misogynistic, anti-asylum, culture inculcated by Sessions and Barr at EOIR that continues to flourish and daily dish out abuse to migrants and their representatives without meaningful consequences.
“ . . . while this guy continues to apply misogynistic precedents, eschew progressive experts, recycle failed ‘Aimless Docket Reshuffling’ gimmicks, and allow the Trump-era anti-asylum culture to continue to flourish at EOIR and DOJ?” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Official White House Photo Public Realm
What, indeed, is someone like AAG Vanita Gupta doing with herself at Garland’s anti-progressive, and anti-due-process mess at DOJ? Why are folks like her and Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke there in the first place if they aren’t going to stand up to Garland’s tone-deaf, inept approach to gender rights, human rights, and racial justice @ EOIR? How, on earth, do you lead a “Civil Rights Division” while turning a blind eye to grotesque violations of civil and human rights going on daily in your “Boss’s” wholly owned “court” system that functions like no “real court” in America? What’s DAG Lisa Monaco doing presiding over a gender disaster at EOIR? It’s straight out of “Jim Crow!”
James “Jim” Crow Symbol of American Racism, still right at home at Garland’s EOIR!“She struggled madly in the torturing Ray” — “Do Garland, Monaco, Gupta, & Clarke work in ‘sound-proofed offices’ where they can’t hear our tortured screams and moans? What’s wrong with those guys? We’re suffering and dying while they are fiddling and diddling!” Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
And, I wouldn’t say that Vice President Harris is looking very good either, as she “swallows the whistle” on notorious scofflaw human rights violations that she was well aware of from her time in the Senate! Doesn’t anyone in the Biden Administration have the backbone to speak up for human rights, human decency, and restoring the rule of law? Is it REALLY our position that following the Constitution, our statutory laws, and the international treaties to which we are party is beyond the capabilities of the U.S. Government? If so, what, may I ask, is the difference between us an any third world dictatorship where laws have no meaning?
Vice President Kamala D. Harris. “Our first African-American, AAPI, child of immigrants VEEP seems curiously deaf and indifferent to the gross abuses being heaped on migrants and women of color at EOIR and at our Souther Border! What’s her excuse for turning her back on the progressive, human rights, gender equality groups that helped put her in office. Why is she remaining silent as Garland continues to appoint Billy Barr’s hand-selected non-progressive, non-diverse Immigration Judges to a life-determining “judiciary” that the Biden Administration wholly controls? How can you create a progressive, diverse, Article III Judiciary that will promote racial equity when you’re unwilling to apply those values and selection criteria to a huge judiciary that you actually control? What message are you sending to ‘next generation progressive attorneys of color’ when you allow Garland to ignore them in favor of lesser qualified candidates? Why aren’t you out there actively recruiting more attorneys of color and other underrepresented groups for the Immigration Judiciary rather than allowing Garland to use same-old, same old bogus “USA Jobs Phantom recruitments?” Lots of unanswered questions here! Vice President of the United States (Official Senate Photo)
I can’t figure it out! But, I do know that Garland’s lousy stewardship at EOIR, failure to speak out for fundamental fairness, usher in progressive changes, and restore due process @ EOIR has reached “crisis proportions” affecting our entire justice system and threatening democracy!
Hopefully, progressive advocacy, human rights, and civil rights groups will keep up the pressure and demands for long, long, long overdue and readily achievable changes at EOIR: in leadership, precedents, culture, and administration of justice! (Get this: Garland just created yet another bogus “Dedicated Docket” without a functional e-filing system to make it work! That’s “Aimless Docket Reshuffling 101,” as anyone who has actually had to deal with the mess in his Immigration Courts could tell him. But, he’s apparently not interested!) Right now, it’s an unmitigated “disaster zone” continuing to spiral downward!
There is a direct link between the “Dred Scottification of the other” that Garland countenances at EOIR and the overall failure of our justice system to deal effectively with institutionalized racism! The U.S. has a long, disreputable history of treating women and persons of color as “non persons” under the Constitution. Much of it traces to our immigration laws where “the others” are routinely dehumanized, stereotyped, demonized, and abused by those who falsely claim to be furthering the “rule of law!” We will NOT achieve racial justice for all in America until we deal with the festering wounds intentionally inflicted on women, children, and people of color in our immigration system, at EOIR, and illegally continuing at our borders!
By choice, Garland now “owns” the misogynistic, anti-due-process, anti-asylum disaster @ EOIR. Make him deal with it in a constructive way!
🇺🇸🗽⚖️🧑🏽⚖️Due Process Forever! Garland’s continued tolerance of misogyny and the anti-due-process, anti-asylum culture at EOIR, NEVER! Stop Garland’s continuing misogynistic nonsense before more refugee women and people of color needlessly die! What’s it going to take finally to get some “real justice @ Justice?”
“Eyore In Distress” — Ethics have long been “on vacation” at EOIR. Sitting judges are muzzled from speaking publicly and can be disciplined for minor transgressions. But, some judges accused of serious misconduct get away scott free under an intentionally opaque process that operates without public input or oversight. Meanwhile DOJ politicos and EOIR Senior Execs operate in open violation of 5th Amendment Due Process and the most basic conflict of interest requirements. The end result is that individuals systematically are denied the “fair and impartial adjudicator” that our Constitution requires! Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”“Let’s hop on over to ICE and see what our “partner” Kent Frederick wants us to do today to help out our masters at DHS enforcement!” https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/ Creative Commons License
Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase reports to the Round Table:
From: Frederick, Kent
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2018 12:59 PM
To: Weil, Jack (EOIR)
Subject: Matter of Castro-Tum/ IJMorley
Dear Judge Weil:
Just for reference, here is the portion of the decision that 1.1Morley violated:
Matter of Castro-Tum, 27 l&N Dec. 271 (AG 2018), which explicitly directed the matter be remanded “to the Board with instructions to remand to the Immigration Judge to issue a new Notice of Hearing within 14 days of the date of this order. If the respondent again fails to appear, the Immigration Judge should proceed according to 8 U.S.C. §
1229a(b)(5).”) Matter of Castro-Tum, 27 l&N Dec_ at 294. Moreover, the Attorney General explicitly rejected the option to terminate or continue this matter on remand if Castro-Tum again failed to appear. Castro-Tum,27l&N Dec.at291 n.12 (“DHS adequately alleged that it provided sufficient notice because the Notice to Appear informed the respondent of all statutorily required information about the proceedings…. DHS also adequately alleged that the form of the notice was sufficient. DHS personally served the Notice to Appear on the respondent and mailed the Notice of Hearing to the address the respondent repeatedly provided the government.”(internal citations omitted)).
Kent J. Frederick
Chief Counsel
Office of the Chief Counsel
U.S. Deportment of Homeland Security immigration and Customs Enforcement 900 Market Street, (b)(6).(b)(7)(C) Philadelphia, PA 19107
(267) 479 —___(2_622_479-3456 (fax)
(b)(6),(b)(7XC)
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Thanks to Judge Sue Roy for forwarding this:
[Above] please find a redacted email obtained through a FOIA request by private attorney Matthew Hoppock. It is a private email between Kent Frederick, the ICE District Counsel in Philadelphia, and Jack Weil, who at the time was the Philadelphia court’s ACIJ. Although the first part of the email is redacted, in the second part, the ICE District Counsel provides Jack with the basis that led to removing Castro-Tum from the case’s proper IJ, Steve Morley.
It should be noted that this is not a motion with service on opposing counsel; this is a private email between ICE and the ACIJ about the handling of a particular case.
While the Chief Immigration Judge should be taking steps to prohibit these types of communications, it bears noting that the present Chief Immigration Judge is the former Atlanta ICE District Counsel.
Best, Jeff
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Thanks to NDPA warrior Matthew Hoppock for once again having the perseverance to use the FOIA to document and “out” misconduct @ DOJ, EOIR, and DHS! What’s the purpose of an “appeals process” if DHS can just raise its dis-satisfaction with legal issues to their “partners” in EOIR “administration” and ask them to take action? For the record, Judge Morley eventually was removed from the case and replaced with an Assistant Chief Immigration Judge who carried out Sessions’s wishes.
I think this is EXACTLY the type of misconduct that “Gonzo” Sessions intended to promote when he unethically exhorted “his judges” to “partner with DHS” to deny due process, target refugee women for abuse, torture, and death, and speed up removals. (However, because Sessions’s undeniable maliciousness was accompanied by mind-boggling and resource squandering incompetence, the overall result was to exponentially increase backlogs while institutionalizing injustice, unethically endangering the lives of migrants, and falsely smearing the professional reputations of their attorneys.)
Sessions, unethically acting as a “quasi-judicial official,” in violation of every ethical rule of judicial disqualification for overt bias, prejudgement, lack of impartiality (every case in which “Gonzo” Sessions participated is a grotesque violation of this — a man whose overt racism once led HIS OWN PARTY to find him unqualified for a Federal Judgeship!), appearance of conflict, and actual conflict of interest, unleashed a torrent of gross unethical behavior at DOJ and DHS. But, there were plenty of lawyers already “on the payroll” who were perfectly happy to engage in unethical conduct in support of the Trump kakistocracy’s White Nationalist, racist, xenophobic, misogynist agenda.
I’ll let the various comments I have received speak for themselves:
When I was an IJ . . . I complained about this practice to Chief IJ Creppy at an open forum at the IJ conference involving an ex parte complaint Frederick had lodged against . . . . Creppy just brushed it off as interagency cooperation.
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At the least, these two should be referred to their state bars for disciplinary proceedings for engaging in impermissible ex parte communication.
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WOW! This is crazy.
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Wow! Just WOW! We always knew it was happening, but this is pretty blatant evidence!
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Utterly unacceptable! It may seem ludicrous or petty, but it is far more than an objectionable practice. It optimizes a fundamental violation of due process that is routinely accepted and even expected.
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Shameful, what happened to the appeal process Mr. Fredrick!
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Is anyone really surprised?
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Disappointed, but not surprised.
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And has been happening ever since I started practicing in the mid-eighties. I agree it is totally unacceptable.
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Jack has been nothing but a profound disappointment. I’m sure you all remember his arrogant and almost insane boast that he. could teach constitutional law to a child respondent. This email is both unethical and stupid: what kind of intellect allows for this response to him to put in writing? I never expect much from an ICE official, but I am always go smacked when a judge acts like a Watergate miscreant.
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Completely shameful, but not surprising. We frequently suspected this kind of thing went on.
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The conduct of “Gonzo” Sessions, then-Director McHenry (still on the EOIR payroll, although thankfully removed from participation in the Immigration Courts), and the EOIR and DOJ officials involved in this sorry incident is reprehensible.
BUT, HERE’S THE REAL PROBLEM:AG Merrick Garland, a respected Article III Judge and one-time Supreme Court nominee, was appointed by President Biden supposedly to clean up the ungodly mess at Justice left by the Trump kakistocracy. He isn’t getting the job done! Not even close!
EOIR requires immediate due process reforms, competent administration, a complete “housecleaning,” and, most of all, progressive leadership by “practical scholars.”
Yet, after three months in office Garland has nary lifted a finger to institute even rudimentary progressive reforms to restore due process at EOIR. Things are just as bad in our disgracefully dysfunctional Immigration Courts as they were on Jan. 20, 2021, in some cases even worse!
Beyond this indolence, Garland outrageously affirmatively appointed 17 non-expert, non-diverse, non-progressive “judges” who were recruited and hand-picked by Billy Barr. Along with Gonzo Sessions, Barr is one of the most unethical, unqualified, un-indicted (yet) AGs in American history. Garland’s lack of awareness, absence of immigration expertise, disrespect for progressive “practical scholars,” and trashing of humane values is super-damaging to our nation!
Of course, nobody can be an “expert” in every legal subject. But, the job of an effective leader is to pick folks who are experts to manage and staff these areas. I don’t see that type of expertise at today’s DOJ or EOIR Headquarters (although there are some well-qualified progressive Immigration Judges on local courts who could have been immediately detailed to EOIR HQ to stabilize the out of control situation).
Garland presides over a massive, deadly, systemic failure and chaotic “Clown Show” 🤡 @ EOIR that threatens the entire U.S. Justice system. I’ve actually known excellent Immigration Judges who have been suspended, docked pay, or threatened with removal for ex parte communications far, far, far less serious than that described above.
How do we teach ethics to an upcoming generation of lawyers when AG Garland and his senior managers are unwilling to hold accountable those who participated in the Trump White Nationalist kakistocracy @ Justice?
Team Garland daily mocks justice by not instituting standards that require demonstrated subject matter expertise, unswerving commitment to due process, fundamental fairness, and a record of ethical behavior from those appointed to, and continuing to serve in, Immigration Judgeships.
Under Garland, EOIR is a life threatening, democracy destroying “disaster zone.” “Team Garland’s” inexcusable failure to appoint qualified progressive experts and to undertake the “no brainer” immediate reforms essential to get the EOIR system back on track has, sadly, become a major problem for the Biden Administration and our nation.
It’s all so unnecessary, so aggravating, so damaging to humanity and American democracy. It’s even worse because the “complicit culprits” are folks (Biden appointees) who were “supposed to know better” and had the incredible, unprecedented advantages of potentially drawing on years of exceptionally high quality research, overwhelming documentation, smart, creative, practical recommendations, and extraordinarily qualified progressive “practical scholars and advocates” ready to solve problems from “inside Government.”
But, they can’t solve the problems solely “from the outside.” It takes an unrelenting combination of progressive experts pushing from the outside and receptive progressive judges and officials on the inside to make the radical changes necessary to save our nation!
Garland’s disrespectful, indolent, and tone deaf treatment of migrants, progressives, and simple human dignity, as well as his gross misunderstanding and diminution of what continues to drive racial and social injustice in America, will certainly come back to haunt the Biden Administration!
Let me reiterate: There will be neither racial justice nor social justice in America as long as our Immigration Courts operate as White Nationalist enforcers of “Dred Scottification of the other.” Immigration/human rights are where “the rubber meets the road” for racial and social justice in America! Immigrants’ rights are human rights, are civil rights, are constitutional rights! As MLK, Jr., said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere!”
I personally don’t make much of Scott’s ability to reason. This is the same man who said in March that “woke supremacy,” whatever that is, “is as bad as white supremacy.” There is no world in which recent efforts at enlightenment can be equated to enslavement, lynching and mass incarceration. None.
It seems to me that the disingenuousness on the question of racism is largely a question of language. The question turns on another question: “What, to you, is America?” Is America the people who now inhabit the land, divorced from its systems and its history? Or, is the meaning of America inclusive of those systems and history?
When people say that America is a racist country, they don’t necessarily mean that all or even most Americans are consciously racist. However, it is important to remember that nearly half the country just voted for a full-on racist in Donald Trump, and they did so by either denying his racism, becoming apologists for it, or applauding it. What do you call a country thus composed?
Historically, however, there is no question that the country was founded by racists and white supremacists, and that much of the early wealth of this country was built on the backs of enslaved Africans, and much of the early expansion came at the expense of the massacre of the land’s Indigenous people and broken treaties with them.
Gathering the dead after the Colfax massacre, published in Harper’s Weekly, May 10, 1873
Eight of the first 10 presidents personally enslaved Africans. In 1856, the chief justice of the United States wrote in the infamous ruling on the Dred Scott case that Black people “had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
The country went on to fight a Civil War over whether some states could maintain slavery as they wished. Even some of the people arguing for, and fighting for, an end to slavery had expressed their white supremacist beliefs.
Abraham Lincoln said during his famous debates against Stephen A. Douglas in 1858 that among white people and Black ones “there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man.”
Some will concede the historical point and insist on the progress point, arguing that was then and this is now, that racism simply doesn’t exist now as it did then. I would agree. American racism has evolved and become less blunt, but it has not become less effective. The knife has simply been sharpened. Now systems do the work that once required the overt actions of masses of individual racists.
. . . .
As Mark Twain once put it: “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
Being imprecise or undecided with our language on this subject contributes to the murkiness — and to the myth that the question of whether America is racist is difficult to answer and therefore the subject of genuine debate among honest intellectuals.
Saying that America is racist is not a radical statement. If that requires a longer explanation or definition, so be it. The fact, in the end, is not altered.
***************
Read Blow’s full article at the link.
Four things that are clear to me:
The “history” that most of us in my generation learned in high school was “whitewashed;”
The monumental achievements of non-white Americans, women, and children which allowed this country to exist, prosper, and flourish have consistently been ignored or downplayed;
America still has race issues;
The GOP, in particular, has failed to come to grips with the issue of race in 21st century America (apologists Scott & Graham notwithstanding).
🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process For All Persons Under Law, Forever!
“Jim Crow” is still alive and well @ EOIR. To date, Judge Garland & his team seem to think that the rest of us won’t notice what’s happening in “his” Immigration Courts and how it undermines every aspect of his claim to be restoring faith in the DOJ and the American justice system. A progressively-oriented, independent, expert Immigration Judiciary is a prerequisite for finally achieving racial justice in 21st Century America. So far, Judge Garland has NOT enunciated any plan to “get there,” nor has he even publicly acknowledged the many disgraceful problems plaguing EOIR!
This article will contribute to immigration equal protection jurisprudential discussions by highlighting the way in which the plenary power in immigration equal protection cases creates a barrier parallel to the intent doctrine—both prohibit curtailment of government action resulting in racialized harm. The scant recognition of the double duty done by plenary power and the intent doctrine reflects the banality of what may appear as a mere redundancy at first glance. However, the insidiousness of the double-barrier all but ensures that equal protection challenges to facially race-neutral immigration laws with disparate impact will fail. Plenary power is effectively duplicative of the intent doctrine because the intent doctrine already results in great deference to lawmakers.
. . . .
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Read the full abstract at the link.
Unquestionably, immigration jurisprudence has intentionally misread the due process and equal protection clauses to achieve racist immigration policies. Getting rid of these perversions — analogous to the legal and judicial gobbledegook used by White men to make the 14th and 15th Amendments (and to a large extent, the 13th Amendment) “dead letters” for African Americans following Reconstruction — isn’t a matter of complicated legal thinking. It’s a matter of better Federal Judges and better legislators. And, the mess @EOIR — our Immigration “Courts” — is the best and most logical place to begin the long overdue task of instituting constitutional compliance and equal justice for all.
To date, Judge Garland’s failure to demonstrate a commitment to eliminating unconstitutional racism and misogyny (not to mention poor quality decision-making which also disproportionately affects individuals and communities of color) in his Immigration “Courts” threatens to destroy our legal system and “kneecap” American democracy.
We are in the perilous position we are today because past Administrations, to the extent they have even tried to address systemic racism (obviously, the Trump Administration sought the exact opposite —to deepen, protect, and promote racism and hate), have intentionally or negligently ignored the clear link between immigration law and racism in the rest of our legal system.
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)Gabe Gutierrez NBC News Correspondent Atlanta, GA
Reminds me of the essay I recently posted from my friend, Don Kerwin at CMS:
The number of unaccompanied children and asylum-seekers crossing the US-Mexico border in search of protection has increased in recent weeks. The former president, his acolytes, and both extremist and mainstream media have characterized this situation as a “border crisis,” a self-inflicted wound by the Biden administration, and even a failure of US asylum policy. It is none of these things. Rather, it is a response to compounding pressures, most prominently the previous administration’s evisceration of US asylum and anti-trafficking policies and procedures, and the failure to address the conditions that are displacing residents of the Northern Triangle states of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras), as well as Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and other countries…
The real immigration crisis is not at the border, but in the failure to respond effectively to the conditions driving forced migration, to establish orderly and viable legal immigration policies, to legalize the increasingly long-tenured undocumented population, and to reform and invest sufficiently in the US asylum and immigration court systems.
Donald M. Kerwin Executive Director Center for Migration Studies
It also echoes the words of veteran journalist Marc Cooper, posted by my friend Dan Kowalski over on LexisNexis Immigration Community:
When I was in Mexico reporting on the exodus, I would talk with dozens of migrants who were just a an hour or two away from starting their trek and, to a person, not one of them said they paid any attention to new US laws and regs as they were determined to cross no matter what. And no matter the sacrifices.
Dan Kowalski Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)
Even the WashPost editorial page writers “get” the reality of human migration in a way the nativist fear-mongers never will:
Yet despite fearmongering by Republicans, the current influx is neither a public health emergency nor a national security threat. The vast majority of those allowed to enter the country will join relatives here while their asylum claims plod along. That wait is too long — it can stretch to three years or more — and the administration insists it will shrink the backlog. It has also earmarked $4 billion in aid from the pandemic relief bill for Central America — with strings attached to prevent its misuse — to attack the conditions that make life miserable there and drive migrants to seek refuge in this country.
Dumping Asylum Seekers in Honduras Artist: Monte Wolverton Reproduced under license
Still, sadly, facts and reality seem largely irrelevant here.
Despite denials from Secretary Mayorkas, the Biden Administration appears to be believing Kevin McCarthy’s BS on some level.
Thursday, the Administration basically negotiated a “lite version” of Trump’s “Let ‘Em Die in Mexico” — essentially trading AstroZenica vaccine (which wasn’t approved for use in the U.S. anyway) for Mexico’s agreement to step up harsh enforcement measures against migrants crossing their Southern Border and to warehouse families arbitrarily rejected without due process by the U.S. under our bogus CDC directive. We already have seen how well that works out!
A girl peers out from an encampment at the U.S.-Mexico border where she and several hundred people waited to present themselves to U.S. immigration to seek asylum. / Photo by David Maung
Any way you cut it, the realities of human migration, the lives of the desperate individuals involved, the views of human rights experts and advocates, and our supposed commitment to international conventions, the rule of law, and Constitutional Due Process take a back seat when the “bogus border debate” shifts into high gear.
There is actually a very simple truth here: “Forced migration” is not “optional!” In fact, a number of forced migrants prefer “death in the attempt” to “death in place.”
Therefore, all the “deterrents,” “border militarization,” “Baby Jails,” and “stay home statements” won’t ultimately stop the inexorable flow (although they might temporarily divert, modulate, or vary it— usually just enough for the “powers that be” to declare “victory at sea” as a result of their failed policies while ignoring the human carnage and lost opportunities they leave behind).
Professor Philip G. Schrag Georgetown Law Co-Director, CALS Asylum Clinic, Author of “Baby Jails”
Sure, there is a timing factor. Weather, the “business plans” and propaganda of smugglers (Trump’s “enforcement only” policies have been a boon for them in more ways than one, not only boosting their fees, but diverting enforcement resources away from the “real” law enforcement problems at the border involving drugs and human exploitation), and Biden’s pledge to restore humanity and the rule of law to America all factor into the equation in some way.
But, they are not the the primary causes of forced migration, except to the extent that climatechange (ignored and worsened by Trump and the GOP) has aggravated the poverty and economic disorder in the Northern Triangle by destroying the livelihoods of many farmers and making their land essentially worthless.
Tone-deaf GOP politicos like McCarthy and Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) apparently think the solution is to continue to mock the rule of law, violate the Constitution, and simply declare the Southern Border closed forever, al a Stephen Miller. Let families and children “die in place” in their home countries, die on the journey at the hands of other governments, or rot forever in Mexico — “Out of sight, out of mind.” As long as it isn’t happening in our country and being covered by our news outlets, who cares about human lives? That was certainly the Trump approach!
That’s hardly a “solution,” except in neo-Nazi or Soviet-era terms. The harshest and most inhuman approaches will, as they have in the past and continue to do, fail to stop desperate humans who want to survive from doing what’s necessary to save their lives and preserve their families’ futures, even when that interferes with the GOP’s “whitewashed” version of “American greatness.”
The solution involves following Constitutional due process, re-establishing the rule of law (including a radical “reform and replace” of our dysfunctional Immigration Courts), and adhering to our international obligations, both in letter and spirit. It also requires an expanded, much more robust, legal immigration system that reflects the demands of our economy, the needs of migrants, and the realities of human migration, particularly from Latin America. Like it or not, there will be more immigration.
As I have said before: “There are many ways in which we can diminish our own humanity, but none of them will stop human migration.”
Will G. Reaper Become The Lasting Image of America’s 21st Century Human Rights & Racial Justice Failures In The Eyes Of The Rest Of Humanity & Future Generations? Image: Hernan Fednan, Creative Commons License
Contrary to the GOP blather, immigration, voluntary, forced, coerced, legal, extra-legal, white, non-white, Christian, non-Christian, is what the real America is all about, for better or worse. Overall, immigration is a positive force for America.
Here’s a great essay on the positive nature of immigration by Pedro Gerson on Slate. Pedro isthe director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the Louisiana State University Law Center, and a former immigration staff attorney at the Bronx Defenders. The latter organization has been home to a number of notable members of the NDPA.
Pedro Gerson Director, Immigration Law Clinic LSU Law Center SOURCE: Twitter
As Pedro says, human migration to America will continue notwithstanding GOP xenophobes. The only question is whether we will have the wisdom and courage to work with and take advantage of its power in constructive, creative, forward looking ways, rather than trying to “recreate Jim Crow!”
Or, will we continue, as GOP restrictionists urge, to squander resources, goodwill, and human potential on futile efforts to eradicate what is perhaps the oldest and most fundamental phenomenon of human existence?
🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! Restore the rule of law! Fix The Disgraceful, Dysfunctional Immigration Courts, Judge Garland! End White Nationalist racism!
The Republican Party’s biggest problem is that too many people of color are exercising their right to vote. The party’s solution is a massive push for voter suppression that would make old-time Jim Crow segregationists proud.
The Conservative Political Action Conference circus last week in Orlando showed how bankrupt the GOP is — at least when it comes to ideas, principles and integrity. Some might argue that the party, in buying into the lie that last year’s election was somehow stolen, is simply delusional. I disagree. I think Republican leaders know exactly what they’re doing.
The GOP may have lost the White House and the Senate, but it remains strong in most state capitols. So far this year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, Republicans in 33 states “have introduced, prefiled, or carried over 165 bills to restrict voting access.” The thrust of virtually all these measures is to make it more difficult for African Americans and other minorities to vote.
These efforts at disenfranchisement are more numerous, and more discriminatory, in several of the swing states President Biden carried narrowly: Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia. That should come as no surprise. GOP officials who had the temerity to follow the law and count the November vote honestly, such as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, have been all but excommunicated by their state Republican Party organizations.
In Georgia — where not only did Donald Trump lose to Biden by 11,779 votes, but also two incumbent GOP senators were defeated by Democratic challengers — Republicans are using their control of the statehouse to try to eliminate all early voting on Sundays. That would put an end to “Souls to the Polls,” a popular Sunday get-out-the-vote initiative in which Black churches help parishioners get to polling places and cast their ballots.
. . . .
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Read Eugene’s full op-ed at the link.
After a Presidential election that they lost by a substantial majority of votes, the GOP has decided that the solution isn’t to improve on their party’s unpopular messages of shame, blame, intolerance, ignorance, and White privilege. Nor have they chosen to abandon their corrupt and divisive leader. No, the answer, according to the GOP, is to reduce the size of the electorate to keep the will of the majority from prevailing.
There is not a whit of evidence about widespread voter fraud or any credible reason to believe that the results don’t represent the will of the majority of American voters. Nevertheless, the GOP has introduced slews of bills at the state level to make it more difficult for African Americans, Latinos, and other minorities to vote. Just like the White southern aristocracy after the Civil War, the modern GOP fears that true democratic majority rule will deprive them of their minority power and privilege.
James “Jim” Crow Symbol of American Racism
Well, you’ve heard it all before on Courtside. The Voting Rights Act is the cornerstone of modern American democracy. The forces of anti-democracy, including the GOP and their Supremes’ majority, intend to undo it in the name of White Supremacy.
The overt suppression of African-American voting rights that ended Reconstruction ushered in more than four decades of gross violations of the 13th 14th, and 15th Amendments. We should remember that the White-dominated Federal Government and the Federal Courts basically took a cowardly pass on the rights of our African American fellow citizens for generations.
Eric Lutz summed it up in his recent article on Vanity Fair:
Biden is reluctant to end that filibuster. But at a certain point, failing to do so means failing to reckon with the the severity of the threat to democracy—and the particular peril the GOP’s attacks pose to the rights of Black Americans and other minorities. “The argument that preserving the filibuster is necessary because it’s an important tool in our Democracy falls apart when it’s clearer with every passing day that we won’t have a Democracy without Congress passing voting rights legislation,” the former Obama aide David Plouffe remarked Monday. Republicans are mounting a concerted, relentless attack on democracy. To defend against it, Democrats’ response must be proportional. And that means confronting the reality that Trump leaving office didn’t extinguish his Big Lie, but made it more powerful.
It’s essential that the majority of us unite against the attempt of the corrupt GOP to restore the horrors of White Supremacy and Jim Crow. And, make no mistake — the attack on asylum seekers and migrants of color is an integral part of the White Nationalist program to kneecap American democracy. Under Trump, that effort culminated in the Capitol insurrection.
As the death of civil rights icon Vernon Jordon this week reminds us, those of us who believe in democracy must unite to fight the right and protect the right of all Americans to vote and the rights of immigrants to be treated as “persons” under the law.
Ms. McGhee is the author of “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,” from which this essay is adapted.
Over a two-decade career in the white-collar think tank world, I’ve continually wondered: Why can’t we have nice things?
By “we,” I mean America at-large. As for “nice things,” I don’t picture self-driving cars, hovercraft backpacks or laundry that does itself. Instead, I mean the basic aspects of a high-functioning society: well-funded schools, reliable infrastructure, wages that keep workers out of poverty, or a comprehensive public health system equipped to handle pandemics — things that equally developed but less wealthy nations seem to have.
In 2010, eight years into my time as an economic policy wonk at Demos, a progressive policy research group, budget deficits were on the rise. The Great Recession had decimated tax revenue, requiring more public spending to restart the economy.
But both the Tea Party and many in President Barack Obama’s inner circle were calling for a “grand bargain” to shrink the size of government by capping future public outlays and slashing Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Despite the still-fragile recovery and evidence that corporations were already paring back retirement benefits and ratcheting down real wages, the idea gained steam.
On a call with a group of all-white economist colleagues, we discussed how to advise leaders in Washington against this disastrous retrenchment. I cleared my throat and asked: “So where should we make the point that all these programs were created without concern for their cost when the goal was to build a white middle class, and they paid for themselves in economic growth? Now these guys are trying to fundamentally renege on the deal for a future middle class that would be majority people of color?”
Nobody answered. I checked to see if I was muted.
Finally, one of the economists breached the awkward silence. “Well, sure, Heather. We know that — and you know that — but let’s not lead with our chin here,” he said. “We are trying to be persuasive.”
The sad truth is that he was probably right. Soon, the Tea Party movement, harnessing the language of fiscal responsibility and the subtext of white grievance, would shut down the federal government, win across-the-board cuts to public programs and essentially halt the legislative function of the federal government for the next six years. The result: A jobless recovery followed by a slow, unequal economic expansion that hurt Americans of all backgrounds.
The anti-government stinginess of traditional conservatism, along with the fear of losing social status held by many white people, now broadly associated with Trumpism, have long been connected. Both have sapped American society’s strength for generations, causing a majority of white Americans to rally behind the draining of public resources and investments. Those very investments would provide white Americans — the largest group of the impoverished and uninsured — greater security, too: A new Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco study calculated that in 2019, the country’s output would have been $2.6 trillion greater if the gap between white men and everyone else were closed. And a 2020 report from analysts at Citigroup calculated that if America had adopted policies to close the Black-white economic gap 20 years ago, U.S. G.D.P would be an estimated $16 trillion higher.
. . . .
I’ll never forget Bridget, a white woman I met in Kansas City who had worked in fast food for over a decade. When a co-worker at Wendy’s first approached her about joining a local Fight for $15 group pushing for a livable minimum wage, she was skeptical. “I didn’t think that things in my life would ever change,” she told me. “They weren’t going to give $15 to a fast food worker. That was just insane to me.”
But Bridget attended the first organizing meeting anyway. And when a Latina woman rose and described her life — three children in a two-bedroom apartment with bad plumbing, the feeling of being “trapped in a life where she didn’t have any opportunity to do anything better” — Bridget, also a mother of three, said she was struck by how “I was really able to see myself in her.”
“I had been fed this whole line of, ‘These immigrant workers are coming over here and stealing our jobs — not paying taxes, committing crimes and causing problems,’” Bridget admitted. “You know, us against them.”
Soon after she began organizing, the cross-racial movement had won a convert. “In order for all of us to come up, it’s not a matter of me coming up and them staying down,” she said. “It’s the matter of: In order for me to come up, they have to come up too. Because honestly, as long as we’re divided, we’re conquered.”
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Read the complete article at the link.
Inability to think beyond racist myths and false narratives is holding America back from realizing our full potential.
“Dividing and conquering” is the strategy of the modern GOP. If one could get behind the racist stereotypes and white resentment, rural America probably has far more in common with hard-working undocumented immigrants, African Americans, and Latinos than with elitist GOP politicos and corporate moguls — certainly more than with the notoriously lazy, dull, corrupt grifter Trump! But, the key seems to be to promote minority rule by sowing hate and distrust, thereby preventing the common good of the majority from prevailing.
While much of the “beggar thy neighbor” fear mongering comes right out of the current GOP playbook, Dems, including many in the Obama Administration, have also been guilty, as Heather points out. Just read some the alarmist stuff being put out by former Obama economic honcho Larry Summers.
And, contrary to White Nationalist myths about “job stealing,” much of American economic growth and innovation can be traced directly to immigrants, both documented and undocumented.
John Reeves reviews Ty Seidule’s“Robert E. Lee & Me” in WashPost:
January 1872, Jubal Early, a former Confederate corps commander, delivered an address at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., to honor Robert E. Lee, who had recently died. Believing that Lee was one of the finest military leaders in history, Early declared, “Our beloved Chief stands, like some lofty column which rears its head among the highest, in grandeur, simple, pure and sublime, needing no borrowed lustre; and he is all our own.” In subsequent years, Early and several elite ex-officers would deify Lee while creating the Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War. According to that view, the war wasn’t about slavery but rather states’ rights. And the North won only because of its superior resources. An additional tenet is that Lee was the greatest soldier in the war on either side.
At the same time the Lee myth was being created, former rebels began reinforcing white supremacy all across the South. In Walton County, a rural community in Georgia, the Ku Klux Klan terrorized freedmen after the war. In 1871, Jake Daniels, an African American blacksmith from the county, was killed by 20 disguised men after refusing to repair a buggy for a White man, who still owed him money from previous jobs. The Klansmen showed up at Daniels’s door in the middle of the night. Daniels went outside but quickly recognized the danger. He tried to reenter his house but was shot in the back of the head. The men then shot him five or six more times before leaving the scene.
This type of violence was not uncommon in the South in the 19th and 20th centuries. In Georgia alone, 589 people were lynched between 1877 and 1950. As Ty Seidule writes in his powerful new book, “Robert E. Lee and Me,” “If Lee and Confederate worship created one side of the white supremacy coin, violent terror to enforce racial domination provided the other side.”
Seidule tells the story of his transformation from a believer in the Lost Cause to a critic. Growing up in Virginia and Georgia, he worshiped Lee. It was only later, as the head of the history department at the U.S. Military Academy, that he discovered the truth about Confederate myths. Seidule writes: “I grew up with a lie, a series of lies. Now, as a historian and a retired U.S. Army officer, I must do my best to tell the truth about the Civil War, and the best way to do that is to show my own dangerous history.”
Seidule has written a vital account of the destructiveness of the Lost Cause ideology throughout American history. He shows how films, textbooks and memorials promoted white supremacy by glorifying traitors and enslavers like Lee and other Confederate leaders. Perhaps the best attribute of this fine book is the author’s honesty. When talking of his personal metamorphosis, he vows to “quit hiding behind the impartial, know-it-all historian and open up about the southerner, the boy who grew up on Lee idolatry, and the man who wrapped his identity around the heroes of the Confederacy. Be honest. Be vulnerable. Above all, tell the truth.”
. . . .
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Read the rest of the review at the link.
It’s never too late for the truth.
Lots of White folks still have the audacity to be upset and offended because “their” factionalized account of U.S. history — one that even those of us who grew up in the North were fed to a large extent — is (finally and incrementally) being replaced with a more accurate accounting of the truth, unhappy as facing it sometimes can be.
“Their” myths and false narratives are more important than the many African-American lives and futures snuffed out by racism. Shows that BLM has it right — the myths and fabricated visions of the past so integral to the White self-esteem of many are more important than the lives and futures of African-Americans snuffed out by institutionalized racism, much of it perpetrated by our Government and our legal system.
A frank accounting of our past, the good, the bad, and the ugly, is a necessary step to our moving forward as a nation.
Trump RegimeTrump’s Legacy Kiddie GulagJeff Sessions’ Cage by J.D. Crowe, Alabama Media Group/AL.com Republished under licenseJeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions “Police Brutality? What Police Brutality?”Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com, Republished under licenseStephen Miller & Count Olaf Evil Twins, Notorious Child Abusers“Gauleiter Muller & Eva Braun” Yuck it Up In The Comfort Of “Public Welfare Dole” While Looking Forward to Planning Together for More “Crimes Against Humanity,” Abusing Children, Dehumanizing Persons of Color, Spreading Lies & False Narratives, & Targeting World’s Most Vulnerable Refugees 🤮☠️⚰️🦹🏿♂️ — Sure Looks Like “Welfare Fraud” to Me!
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon has called for the investigation and prosecution of current and former Trump administration officials afterthe Department of Justice Office of the Inspector Generalreleased “a disturbing report confirming that the Trump administration knew their zero tolerance policy would lead to family separations,” the Oregon Democrat said in a statement.
“We finally have more answers about how this diabolical plan came to be,” Merkley said. “It is crystal clear that Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, Chad Wolf, Kirstjen Nielsen and other senior Trump administration officials were not only fully aware that their policy would have traumatizing impacts on families, but also that their intention was to inflict that trauma as a means to deter people from coming to America in search of a better life.”
The senator added “it’s now confirmed that they committed perjury by lying to Congress about their intentions and actions in order to avoid accountability for their monstrous initiative.”
“The intentional infliction of harm on innocent children is unforgivable and has no place on our soil,” Merkley said Thursday. “The architects should be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law for any crimes connected with both the atrocities and the cover-up.”
Merkleyreturned to the border 6 more timesand advocated for families to be reunited – and for people seeking refuge “from gang violence, murder, rape, and extortion in their home countries” be allowed to make their case – something the senator alleges the Trump adminitration has not allowed in keeping with the law.
“America is at its strongest when we embrace our historic role as a beacon of hope for persecuted people from around the world,” Merkley said. “I am determined to work with the Biden administration to ensure that we turn that vision into a reality, and to hold the perpetrators of the Trump administration’s cruelty fully accountable.”
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Couldn’t have said it better myself, Senator! Right on! Remarkable how all it takes is an armed insurrection against our Capitol and our democracy generated by the Traitor Prez and supported by far, far too many cowardly, anti-American members of his “Party of Treason” to get folks “thinking like Courtside.”
Even if the criminals described by the IG escape prosecution for their crimes, the new IG Report and the additional documents that certainly will come to light once the Trump kakistocracy is removed should provide enough evidence to keep these wretched fascist creatures and their families tied up in civil litigation for the rest of their miserable and worthless lives!
To date, only Senator James Langford (R-OK) has had the decency to apologize for his role in supporting Trump’s beyond bogus, treasonous, insurrectionist claims of “election fraud” or a stolen election. Where are the apologies from the rest of the cowardly GOP traitors and toadies who supported and/or enabled Trump and his band of racist thugs over the past four years? Why is scumbag Rep. Jim Jordan walking around with a bogus “Medal of Freedom” for spreading lies and encouraging sedition, rather than sitting in a jail cell awaiting trial?
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
“Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions. Child abuser and racist plotter remains at large, after having the shameless audacity to run for the U.S. Senate again, being defeated by Magamoron “Coach TubbyTraitorville” (a blithering idiot who obviously got hit by one too many flying tackling dummy).
“Gauleiter Stepan Muller.” Hiding out on the public dole in the seat of corruption and insurrection (formerly and soon again to be known as the “White House”) with his repulsive “Eva Braun substitute” and carrying out more “crimes against humanity” to the end.
Rod Rosenstein. Hiding out, hanging his head in (belated, fake)shame and making the big bucks at King & Spaulding. Will need them after he is dismissed from his law firm, disbarred, and has to pay legal fees and damages to the families he traumatized.
Gene (No Relation to Alex) Hamilton. Still grifting on public welfare at the DOJ until next Wednesday. First cowardly “Waffern SS Member” to publicly take the “Nuremberg defense:” “I was only following Der Fuhrer’s orders.”But, he won’t be the last.
Donald J. “Big Loser/Traitor” Trump. Hiding out in White House basement and planning flightfrom DC after initiating botched coup attempt against his own Government.
Victims of Failed Regime’s “Crimes Against Humanity.” Already sentenced to a lifetime of pain, suffering, and trauma by Large Banana Republic that shirked its legal and moral duties.
Accountability for this “gang of White Nationalist thugs” is important!
Also, Judge Garland needs to look into the conduct of the DOJ lawyers who defended the regime’s transparent lies and false claims that there was “no child separation policy.” These turkeys 🦃 took no responsibility for their clients’ ongoing crimes and cover ups. Indeed, outrageously, they got away with making it the burden of the plaintiffs’ lawyers to reunite families the Government intentionally and illegally separated without any plans for reunification.
The invidious racist, unconstitutional motives of criminals like Trump, Miller, Sessions, Hamilton, and Rosenstein was no secret. Except for the degree of Rosenstein’s involvement, it was widely reported at the time. Trump was a well-established liar whose public statements and rationales should have been assumed false until proven true. (Ask yourself what would happen to a corporate lawyer who took at face value and presented to a court as “facts” or a “defense” in a civil suit false statements by a corrupt CEO with a long-standing record of fraud, racism, and dishonesty.)
Also, what was the a racist hack like Sessions (the report also reveals that he was as totally incompetent as a lawyer as he was devoid of human decency) doing running border enforcement programs that had intentionally been removed from the AG’s portfolio by Congress when DHS was created? How does that fit with “Gonzo’s” transparently unethical and unconstitutional actions as a “quasi-judicial officer” in interfering with due process at the EOIR Clown Show🤡/Star Chamber🦹🏿♂️?
This IG report is just the “tip of the iceberg” of the institutionalized racism and systemic misconduct that polluted the immigration kakistocracy at DOJ and DHS during the Trump regime. The failings of the U.S. Justice system from top to bottom, starting with the Supremes’ consistent failure to critically examine the regime’s transparent pattern of unconstitutional, racist, biased behavior culminating in an insurrection can’t be “swept under the carpet.”
Nor can their enabling of the White Nationalist immigration agenda of “Dred Scottification” pushed by unethical SG Noel Francisco! In a well-functioning democracy, the Trumpist thugs’ child abuse should have been stopped in its tracks. Thanks to the failure of legal, ethical, and moral leadership by Roberts and his righty GOP buddies, it wasn’t!
The entire beyond disgraceful and patently illegal “zero tolerance program” instituted by Gonzo was a grotesque misuse of public funds and abuse of prosecutorial discretion. Real crimes (the Trump regime has been an absolute boon to serious criminals from the Oval Office on down) went un-prosecuted and un-investigated. The conduct of U.S. Attorneys, Federal Judges, and U.S. Magistrate Judges along the border who shirked their duties and participated in the legal farce taking place in our criminal justice system also needs to be examined.
Those of us who lived through Watergate can see that this time around, under extraordinarily poor leadership generated by an anti-American GOP, the response of all three branches of our Federal Government to the overt threats to our Constitution and democracy posed by a dishonest Executive fell disturbingly below the bipartisan levels that saved our nation from Nixon.
That’s why the critical democratic standard of a “peaceful and orderly transfer of power” has fallen by the wayside and the Biden-Harris Inauguration will take place in an armed camp. Ironically, the man administering the oath to President Biden, Chief Justice John Roberts and his GOP colleagues on the Supremes bear a major responsibility for democracy’s peril and the pain and suffering of those like separated families whom they failed to protect from Executive abuses!
As I’ve said before, although it won’t happen, the resignations of Roberts and his fellow GOP Justices should be on President Biden’s desk on the morning of January 21. That would be a real start on healing, restoring democracy, and reinstituting human decency and respect for human lives and the rule of law in America.
(Let’s not forget that ethics-challenged Justices Thomas and Coney Barrett showed up at what essentially was a “MAGA campaign rally” at the White House on the eve of the election that eventually resulted in impeachable acts of insurrection and sedition by a patently dishonest and dangerous Chief Executive whose unfitness to govern was more than clear by that time. Honestly, it’s going to take more than a black robe to cover the shame of these dudes who stand for protecting and enabling tyranny and against justice for the people. If nothing else, it’s high time for a Democrat-led Congress to impose at least some minimal ethical standards on the Supremes, since they appear to have none to mention. That’s, of course, after they come to grips with the treason of GOP guys like Cruz and Hawley who should be expelled and barred from public “service” (treason?) for life.)
🇺🇸⚖️🗽👎🏻Due Process Forever! Cowardly thugs, 🥷🏻magamorons, 🦹🏿♂️ and their enablers, never!
“[W]e conclude that the BIA abused its discretion by denying E.A.’s motion to reopen. E.A.’s mother’s recent childbirth is a serious medical event, which coupled with E.A.’s minor age, her difficulty obtaining transportation, and her difficulty navigating the immigration system without assistance, constitute “exceptional circumstances” necessitating rescission of the in absentia removal order. … The BIA’s decision was also contrary to law, and therefore an abuse of discretion. … First, the BIA improperly considered E.A.’s age separately, rather than considering age alongside other factors, when determining that she had not shown that exceptional circumstances justified her failure to appear. Second, the BIA erred when it dismissed without adequate explanation E.A.’s evidence that she is eligible for SIJS. Finally, the BIA improperly stated that E.A. was required to present prima facie evidence that she was eligible for immigration relief as part of her motion to reopen. … For the foregoing reasons, we GRANT the petition for review, VACATE the removal order, and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
[Hats way off to Rachel Naggar! Here is a link to the audio of the oral argument.]
“Salim Al Amiri, an Iraqi citizen, seeks relief from removal on the grounds of asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). He premises his requests for such relief on the harm that he fears that he would be subjected to in Iraq at the hands of members of Iraq’s military or civilian insurgents operating in that country. Al Amiri contends that he has reason to fear he would be subjected to that harm on account of his work as a paid contractor for the United States Army during the war in Iraq, as in that role he educated U.S. soldiers about Iraqi customs and practices as they prepared for their deployment. We vacate and remand the ruling of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) denying his claims for asylum and withholding of removal, but we deny his petition insofar as it challenges the BIA’s ruling rejecting his CAT claim.”
Think how much better this system would function with expertjudges who treated asylum applicants fairly from the “git go,” granted protection wherever possible in accordance with the the Refugee Act of 1980 and the (more “woke”) Supremes’ precedent in Cardoza-Fonseca, provided clear, positive guidance on how valid claims could be documented and granted, and promoted and consistently applied best practices to achieve efficiency with maximum due process.
At first glance, although the issue is reopening rather than a continuance, E.A.C.A. undercuts McHenry’s nativist, insanely wasteful, and totally dishonest attempt to “raise the bar” for routine continuances for asylum applicants who need time to properly document and prepare their cases.
The “Deny – Deny Program” — deny due process, deny relief — that infects EOIR’s “Star Chambers” (impersonating “courts”) is a huge backlog builder that kills people and screws up Court of Appeals dockets in the process.
Reopening cases that should be reopened, getting to the merits, and getting the many properly grantable asylum cases represented, documented, and prioritized would be a huge step in reducing EOIR’s largely self-created and unnecessary “bogus backlog.”
Ultimately, many of the clearly grantable asylum cases being mishandled and wrongly denied at EOIR, at great waste of time and resources, not to mention unnecessary human trauma, could, with real expert judges at EOIR setting and consistently enforcing the precedents, be granted more efficiently and expeditiously at the Asylum Office and ultimately shifted to a more robust and properly run Refugee Program.
In the longer run, once EOIR is redesigned and rebuilt as a proper court with real, independent, expert judges, it might be appropriate to place the Asylum Offices under judicial supervision, given the grotesque abuses and corrupt, perhaps criminal, mismanagement of the Asylum Offices by USCIS toadies carrying out the regime’s racist, White Nationalist, unconstitutional agenda of hate and waste.
NOTE TO JUDGE GARLAND👨🏻⚖️:Please fix the EOIR mess, Your Honor, before it brings you and the entire US justice system crashing down with it! This is a national emergency, and a damaging national disgrace, NOT a “back burner” issue!
Here’s some additional E.A.C.A. analysis by my good friend and NDPA “warrior queen” 👸🏽Michelle Mendez @ CLINIC!
Michelle Mendez Defending Vulnerable Populations Director Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (“CLINIC”)
Subject: CLINIC MTR In Absentia Win at the CA6 on behalf of SIJS-Seeking UC (E. A. C. A. v. Jeffrey Rosen)
Greetings,
Sharing this win, E. A. C. A. v. Jeffrey Rosen, out of the CA6 by my amazing colleague Rachel Naggar who manages our BIA Pro Bono Project. This was an appeal of an IJ (Memphis) denial of an in absentia motion to reopen for a 13-year old unaccompanied child.
Interestingly, after oral argument, OIL filed a motion to remand the case (which Rachel opposed) and the CA6 denied that motion. Seems the CA6 really wanted to issue a decision on the merits and we are grateful for the decision. Here are some highlights from the decision:
SIJS
· “Notably, the IJ’s decision does not mention E.A.’s claims that she was eligible for SIJS.”
· FN 1: “As of the December 2020 Visa Bulletin, visas are available for special immigrants (category EB4) from El Salvador to adjust their status if their priority date is prior to February 2018. If DHS removes E.A. prior to approving her visa, she will be unable to apply for adjustment of status. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(27)(J).”
Totality of the Circumstances
· “Based on the totality of the circumstances, including E.A. mother’s recent childbirth, E.A.’s young age, E.A.’s mother’s failed attempts to obtain counsel to help change the address of E.A.’s hearing, and E.A.’s inability to travel from New York to Memphis for the hearing, we hold that E.A. established exceptional circumstances.”
· “Under the totality of the circumstances, E.A.’s young age is an important factor in determining whether exceptional circumstances exist.”
Exceptional Circumstances
· “E.A.’s mother’s recent childbirth is a serious medical condition that supports reopening. The statute defining ‘exceptional circumstances’ that justify reopening an immigration proceeding lists the ‘serious illness of the alien, or serious illness or death of the spouse, child, or parent of the alien’ as an example. 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(e)(1). Childbirth is a serious medical event that necessitates a recovery period.”
· “Instead of recognizing that childbirth is a serious medical condition, the BIA minimized the seriousness of childbirth and its impact on E.A.’s mother’s ability to bring E.A. to Memphis. […] Recovery from childbirth is exactly the type of circumstance that § 1229a(e)(1) was intended to cover.”
Prima Facie Eligibility
· “Finally, the BIA erred by stating that E.A. was required to prove prima facie eligibility for immigration relief. The BIA’s decision improperly states that E.A. is required to show at this stage prima facie eligibility for relief. The statute governing motions to reopen removal orders entered in absentia provides that the petitioner must ‘demonstrate[] that the failure to appear was because of exceptional circumstances.’ 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(5)(C). In general, we have stated that ‘[a] prima facie showing of eligibility for relief is required in motions to reopen.’ Alizoti, 477 F.3d at 451–52. In the case of a motion to rescind a removal order entered in absentia, however, the BIA has held that ‘an alien is not required to show prejudice in order to rescind an order of deportation” or removal. In re Grijalva-Barrera, 21 I. & N. Dec. 472, 473 n.2 (BIA 1996); see also In re Rivera-Claros, 21 I. & N. Dec. 599, 603 n.1 (BIA 1996). This is consistent with the statute governing motions to rescind removal orders entered in absentia, 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(5)(C), which does not list a showing of prima facie eligibility for relief from removal as a requirement to rescind in absentia removal orders. Rivera-Claros, 21 I. & N. Dec. at 603 n.1; see also Galvez-Vergara v. Gonzales, 484 F.3d 798, 803 n.6 (5th Cir. 2007) (declining ‘to affirm the IJ’s decision on the grounds that [the petitioner] has not shown that he was prejudiced by his counsel’s performance’ because ‘In re Grijalva-Barrera, 21 I. & N. Dec. at 473 n.2, provides that an alien need not demonstrate prejudice for his counsel’s erroneous advice to constitute an ‘exceptional circumstance’ justifying rescission of an in absentia removal order’); Lo v. Ashcroft, 341 F.3d 934, 939 n.6 (9th Cir. 2003) (‘follow[ing] the BIA’s usual practice of not requiring a showing of prejudice’ to rescind an in absentia order of removal). We now join our sister circuits and hold that E.A. is not required to make a prima facie showing of eligibility for relief in order to obtain rescission under 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(5) of the in absentia order of removal.”
Thanks to our entire Defending Vulnerable Populations team for supporting Rachel on the briefing, oral argument, and negotiations with OIL.
Gratefully,
Michelle N. Mendez | she/her/ella/elle
Director, Defending Vulnerable Populations Program
Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)
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In addition to the “normal” overall White Nationalist, racist agenda that EOIR “management” has carried out under the defeated regime, there was a good deal of misogyny 🤮 involved in the BIA’s gross mishandling of the “pregnancy issue,” as described by the Sixth Circuit. This misogynistic trend can be traced back directly to the unconstitutional and unethical actions of mysogynist White Nationalist AG Jeff Sessions 🤮 🦹🏿♂️🤡in the “Matter of A-B- Abomination.” ☠️⚰️🏴☠️👎🏻
Biased, anti-migrant decision-making in support of bogus enforcement gimmicks and White Nationalist anti-democracy agendas builds backlogs and kills, maims, and tortures “real” people! Migrants are people and persons, not “threats” and “bogus statistics.”
The “dehumanization” and “de-personification” of migrants, with the connivance of the tone-deaf and spineless GOP Supremes’ majority, is a serious, continuing threat to American democracy! It must stop! Justices who won’t treat migrants physically present in the U.S. or at our borders as “persons” under our Constitution — which they clearly are — do not belong on the Supremes! ⚖️🗽🇺🇸
I can also draw the lines connecting George Floyd, institutionalized racial injustice, voter suppression, riots at the Capitol, and the “Dred Scottification” of asylum seekers and other migrants by EOIR!
HINT TO JUDGE GARLAND:Michelle Mendez would be an outstanding choice to lead the “clean up and rebuild” program at EOIR and the BIA once the “Clown Show” 🤡🦹🏿♂️ is removed!🪠🧹 Put experts with practical experience like Rachel Nagger and Christopher Linas onto the bench, on the BIA, the Immigration Courts, and the Article III Judiciary to get the American Justice system functioning again!
The “judicial selection system” for the Immigration Courts and the Article III Judiciary has failed American democracy — big time — over the past four years. Fixing it must be part of your legacy!
The folks who preserved due process and our Constitution in the face of tyranny are mostly “on the outside looking in.” You need to get them “inside Government” — on the bench and in other key policy positions — and empower them to start cleaning up the ungodly mess left by four years of regime kakistocracy🤮☠️🤡⚰️👎🏻. “Same old, same old” (sadly, a tradition of Dem Administrations) won’t get the job done, now any more than it has in the past! New faces for a new start!
And, it starts with better judges @ EOIR, which is entirely under YOUR control!An EOIR that actually fulfills its noble, one-time vision of “Through teamwork and innovation being the world’s best tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all” will be a model for fixing our failing Federal Courts — all the way up to the leaderless and complicit Supremes who failed, particularly in immigration, human rights, voting rights, and racial justice, to effectively and courageously stand up to the Trump-Miller White Nationalist agenda of hate and tyranny!
We are where we are today as a nation, to a large extent, because of the Supremes’ majority’s gross mishandling of the “Muslim Ban” cases which set a sorry standard for complicity and total lack of accountability for unconstitutional actions, racism, dishonesty, cowardly official bullying, and abandonment of ethics by the Executive that has brought our nation to the precipice! Life tenure was actually supposed to protect us from judges who wouldn’t protect our individual rights. In this case, it hasn’t gotten the job done! Better judges for a better America!
🇺🇸⚖️🗽👍🏼Due Process Forever! The EOIR Clown Show🤡🦹🏿♂️ ☠️⚰️Never!
Perhaps you’ve reserved some optimism for the whole “Barrett’s a mom and a Catholic so there must be some compassion there” thing. Sorry, but no. In her confirmation hearings, she spoke about how the George Floyd video was “very, very personal” for her family, and that she and her children “wept together” over what must have been the zillionth police murder in her history as a lawyer and mother. But her mentor, the late Antonin Scalia, seemed to think it was constitutional to put innocent people to death, despite his ultra-Catholicism. There’s no reason to believe that any sort of ideological consistency will prevail simply because of a judge’s familial status or bizarre metaphysical beliefs, and those factors made no apparent difference in Brad’s case.
Here’s where this gets complicated: In saying that being part of this horrendous decision should disqualify a judge from serving on the Supreme Court, by extension, I’m saying that damn near every federal judge is similarly unqualified. Almost none of them believe that cops should be held accountable for killing mentally ill people who call for help. This sort of thinking, in which cops are extended every benefit of every doubt, feasible or unfeasible, is the norm. Barrett didn’t even write the opinion in Brad’s case. It was written by a liberal judge who, like all her colleagues (of whatever political persuasion), was willing to write the police a blank check. That’s how our courts have operated for decades, and even in a post-BLM society, few of those in robes have the intestinal fortitude to do anything different.
So I am unmoved by Justice Barrett’s faith. I am unmoved by her status as a working mother of seven. I am particularly unmoved by her fake expression of sympathy for George Floyd, whose case she had nothing to do with, when she couldn’t spare any for the people who actually appear before her. I’m unmoved because I’ve seen so little compassion for grieving parents like Matt and Gina throughout my career, from any federal judge, let alone the Federalist Society drones who have lately taken over the judiciary. The basic inability to do what’s right for families like the Kings should be disqualifying. Not just for Amy Coney Barrett, but for the whole lot of ‘em.
A version of this originally appeared in LEO Weekly.
Civil rights lawyer and law prof, writing about the Midwest, the untold horrors of the justice system, and the ongoing battle between the law and humanity.
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Read Dan’s complete article chronicling the tone-deaf mishandling of the police shooting death of a young man (his clients’ son) suffering from mental health issues.
This echoes what I’ve been saying on Courtside about the need for a “new breed of better, more progressive Federal Judges” who recognize the compelling human side of the law and why the Constitutional requirements of due process, equal protection, and fundamental fairness are there in the first place. They exist to protect individuals from tyranny and government overreach, not to be ignored, watered down, or woodenly distinguished away to protect government abusers from accountability or to further ideological agendas (primarily, but not exclusively those developed by right wingers) out of touch with the most vulnerable levels of humanity they are supposed to be serving.
Life tenure means that Coney Barrett and the rest of her unqualified colleagues will be around for a long time. But, change needs to start somewhere, now!
In my experience, internal pushback, dissent, and constant confrontation of the complicit, complacent, judicial status quo with an aggressive implementation of due process, fundamental fairness, and a commitment to human rights and the best interpretations of the law can over time play a critical role in improving the law, changing results, and perhaps most important, saving lives!⚖️🗽👩⚖️🧑🏽⚖️👨🏻⚖️🇺🇸 That, not the hollow ideological agendas of Coney Barrett and others like her, is what “good judging” is really all about!
Intentional lack of compassion, empathy, and humanity (“Dred Scottification” of the “other”) have been themes of Trump, Miller, Wolf, Sessions, Barr, Rosenstein, Nielsen, Pompeo and the other neo-fascist toadies and moral misfits who have gleefully served the regime over the past four years. But, lack of overall resolve and courage to stand up and uniformly and authoritatively “just say no” to these toxic, anti-American, anti-humanity policies and to hold the “perps” accountable for their systemic lawlessness has plagued the Federal Judiciary, with a feckless and often downright complicit Supremes’ majority “leading” the way.
The current sorry state of our democracy, where GOP demagogues, who falsely swore to uphold our Constitution, openly spread lies, knowingly false narratives, and total BS in an attempt to incite violence, undermine our duly elected incoming President, and destroy democratic institutions, including the courts, is in part a reflection of the sad failure of our life-tenured Federal Judiciary to perform its core Constitutional function. That is, to stand up for the Constitution, the rule of law, and individual law human rights in the face failures by the other two branches of Government to uphold their Constitutional responsibilities.
Compare the (finally) unified position of the judiciary on the frivolous election challenges by Trump and his cronies with the failure to stand up for the legal and human rights of asylum seekers, refugees, immigrants, and migrants from the “git go.” Even now, the Courts have failed to sanction Trump and his lawyers for their unethical behavior in bringing frivolous civil suits, with no supporting evidence, for the specific purpose of undermining a free and fair election and using the legal system to attack the legitimacy of the duly elected President-elect and his incoming Administration. “Corruptly weaponizing the law for improper purposes” is clearly inappropriate and unethical. Yet, folks like Rudy and Sydney Powell retain their law licenses and are free to continue to abuse and undermine the system with frivolous litigation.
Dan points to the “ongoing battle between the law and humanity.” That’s the problem! The law should and must be about defending and advancing humanity in the face of tyranny and injustice. We need judges who stand for human justice. For, as MLK, Jr., said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere!”
Better judges for a better America! 🇺🇸Not just a slogan; a requirement for our democracy to survive!
Thanks to our leading “Warrior Queen” Ilyce and her team of knightesses and knights who took the lead on this phase of the never ending battle for “truth, justice, and the American way.”
I trust that it will take more than another pathetic “Alternative Fact Sheet” 🤥 to save the sorry bunch @ “EOIR’s Clown Tower”🤡🦹🏿♂️ in Falls Church from accountability for their sycophancy, false narratives, and constant assaults on due process, the rule of law, truth, and human decency. 👎🏻🏴☠️☠️⚰️🤮 https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1161001/download
“Eyore In Distress” Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”“Justice” Star Chamber StyleBIA Asylum Panel In Action Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Indicative and very telling that as justice further deteriorates, backlogs mushroom, productivity drops, public outrage grows, chaos reigns, (already rock bottom) morale plummets, and vulnerable humans suffer, the “malicious incompetents” 🤡🦹🏿♂️ at EOIR spend time and public resources on this nonsense!
There will be neither racial justice nor social justice in America without “radical due process reform” that ends forever the disgraceful “Dred Scottification” of “the other” (particularly migrants of color, women, families, and, most disgustingly, children) by the EOIR Clown Courts!🤡🦹🏿♂️☠️ To paraphrase Rev. King, “Injustice to one is injustice to all.”
Due Process Forever!⚖️🗽🇺🇸👍🏼 EOIR’s Assault On Asylum Seekers, Never!👎🏻🏴☠️
Michelle Mendez Defending Vulnerable Populations Director Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (“CLINIC”)
Michelle Mendez @ CLINIC reports:
Court Grants Class Certification and Amends Preliminary Injunction in USCIS UC Asylum Jurisdiction Litigation
On December 21, 2020, the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland granted Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification in J.O.P. v. DHS, No. 19:1944, a lawsuit challenging a May 31, 2019 USCIS policy limiting USCIS asylum jurisdiction over applicants previously determined to be “unaccompanied alien children.” The court certified the following class:
“All individuals nationwide who prior to the effective date of a lawfully promulgated policy prospectively altering the policy set forth in the 2013 Kim Memorandum (1) were determined to be an Unaccompanied Alien Child (“UAC”); and (2) who filed an asylum application that was pending with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”); and (3) on the date they filed their asylum application with USCIS, were 18 years of age or older, or had a parent or legal guardian in the United States who is available to provide care and physical custody; and (4) for whom USCIS has not adjudicated the individual’s asylum application on the merits.”
Simultaneously, the court granted in part Plaintiffs’ motion to amend the nationwide preliminary injunction to prevent USCIS’s deference to EOIR jurisdictional determinations and to prevent ICE’s advocacy against USCIS initial jurisdiction. The court denied Plaintiffs’ request to amend the preliminary injunction to prevent USCIS from rejecting jurisdiction based on its expansion of the “affirmative act” exception from the 2013 Kim Memo, instead granting Plaintiffs 21 days to amend their complaint to encompass this claim. Please see CLINIC’s litigation webpage for the court’s December 21, 2020 memorandum opinion and order, as well as other case-related documents.
As amended, the preliminary injunction has the following components:
It enjoins USCIS from relying on the 2019 policy for any purpose. USCIS is barred from “rejecting jurisdiction over any asylum application filed by Plaintiffs and members of the class whose applications would have been accepted” under USCIS’s previous policy, articulated in the 2013 Kim Memo.
It enjoins USCIS from deferring to EOIR jurisdictional determinations. USCIS is barred from “deferring to EOIR determinations in assessing jurisdiction over asylum applications filed by Plaintiffs and members of the class.”
It orders USCIS to retract adverse decisions already made. USCIS must “retract any adverse decision rendered on or after June 30, 2019 that is based in whole or in part on any of the actions enjoined and restrained” as described above.
It enjoins ICE from advocating against USCIS initial jurisdiction. Where a class member’s asylum application is pending before USCIS, ICE is barred (both at the IJ and BIA levels) from seeking denials of continuances or other postponements to await adjudication of the I-589 filed with USCIS, seeking EOIR exercise of jurisdiction over an asylum claim where USCIS has initial jurisdiction under the terms of the 2013 Kim Memo, or otherwise taking the position that USCIS lacks initial jurisdiction over the class member’s asylum application.
Counsel for the Plaintiffs will continue to provide updates to practitioners as this litigation progresses. Advocates for clients: (1) who receive adverse decisions dated on or after June 30, 2019 that violate the terms of the amended preliminary injunction; or (2) in whose removal proceedings ICE advocates in violation of the amended preliminary injunction should contact Plaintiffs’ counsel Mary Tanagho Ross, mross@publiccounsel.org, and Kevin DeJong, KDeJong@goodwinlaw.com.
Thank you,
Michelle N. Mendez | she/her/ella/elle
Director, Defending Vulnerable Populations Program
Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)
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Thanks for another “great news” report, Michelle, my friend!
Finally, at long last, some Article III judges are “calling out” the highly unethical and glaringly unconstitutional “partnership” between ICE enforcement and EOIR to screw asylum seeking kids.
The EOIR White Nationalist agenda 🏴☠️ of limiting legitimate continuances and administrative closing to mindlessly, improperly, and inefficiently proceed in Immigration Court on matters that should be resolved through USCIS adjudication is not only thoroughly corrupt, but also totally counterproductive, as uncontrollably mounting EOIR backlogs and increasing Article III Court interventions have shown.
And, the completely unconstitutional and unethical call early on by corrupt former AG Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions 🤮 for “his wholly owned EOIR judges” to join their “ICE enforcement partners” in racist immigrant bashing initiatives should long ago have been a basis for the Article IIIs to declare this entire ungodly mess in the Immigration Courts to be unconstitutional under the 5th and 14th Amendments.
Thanks to you and other members of the NDPA, Michelle, for all you have done and continue to do to expose corruption, illegality, and wrongdoing in the regime’s sprawling, out of control, immigration kakistocracy! Now, we need you and other members of the NDPA like you on the Federal Bench to short circuit all the BS and get sane, legal, humane policies and “best interpretations and practices” in place “from the git go” and then enforce them on recalcitrant bureaucrats.
Racial Justice in America is, as it must be, one of the top Biden-Harris priorities! 🇺🇸 It can only be achieved if the White Nationalist mess at EOIR and ICE is cleaned up and replaced with experts committed to due process, fundamental fairness, and human rights in charge! There must be new, dynamic, and courageous leadership committed to controlling and reforming the actions of civil servants throughout government who furthered Stephen Miller’s vile racist agenda unlawfully and immorally targeting immigrants of color, their families, and their communities. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (MLK, Jr.).
Time for the NDPA ⚖️🗽🧑🏽⚖️👩⚖️ to replace the EOIR Clown Show🤡!
