History – Page 199 – immigrationcourtside.com

FIRST SHE WAS SCREWED BY THE U.S. ASYLUM SYSTEM, THEN SHE WAS TORTURED AND RAPED IN EL SALVADOR! — This Is What Trump & GOP Politicos Encourage & Now Seek To Actively Promote With Their Proposals To Shaft Asylum Seekers Even More — It’s Against The Law — Is This YOUR America? — What If It Were YOU Or One Of YOUR Family Members?

https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnstanton/a-young-woman-was-tortured-and-raped-after-being-turned

John Stanton reports for BuzzFeed News:

CHAPARRAL, New Mexico — The freckled 22-year-old never wanted to come to the United States. Her mother had made a good life in their village in El Salvador, and though they were poor, they were happy.

“There were just a few houses in the town, really. It was very peaceful. Very quiet,” the young woman, who asked not to be identified for her protection, recalled, speaking through an interpreter.

But in 2014, the US-based gang Mara 18 came to town with demands for protection payments and dark threats against anyone who stood up to them. Within months, Mara 18 had taken control of the town, and the young woman found herself t

“I promise you, I would have never come here. I miss [my family] a lot. But here I am. I couldn’t stay,” she said, rubbing away the tears running down her face.

So she fled north, seeking asylum in the US. But once she arrived, instead of a safe haven she found a skeptical immigration system that rejected her request and deported her back to El Salvador, in part because she couldn’t prove she faced persecution back home — something that would only change after she’d been tortured and raped.

Within months, she had been brutally beaten and raped by the gang leader, who declared her his property. The attack meant she could finally return to the US and prove her asylum case.

“We can’t give them legal protection until they’re raped.”
Almost 10 months after returning, she is free, but only after struggling against immigration laws that weren’t written with victims like her — a target of an international criminal gang — in mind, and that make it nearly impossible for someone who has been deported to ever gain asylum. It took three tries to gain asylum, three times paying smugglers to take her on the dangerous journey across the border; finally in August, a judge blocked her deportation under an international treaty typically used to give criminal snitches sanctuary for their cooperation. But even that didn’t end things: The Trump administration made her wait in jail nearly a month before agreeing to not appeal her case.

Nancy Oretskin, the Salvadoran woman’s attorney and the director of the Southwest Asylum & Migration Institute, says changes to asylum law are needed to eliminate a perverse incentive for persecuted people to wait until they are tortured or raped before coming to the United States. “We can’t give them legal protection until they’re raped,” Oretskin said. “And even then, we deport many of them after they’ve been raped, and they’re killed. How does that happen in a civilized society?”

Change is unlikely under the current administration. A few months after President Trump was sworn in, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued new guidance to Department of Justice attorneys that emphasized the need to use prosecutions to “further reduce illegality” and that instructed them to pursue more criminal charges against undocumented immigrants.

he object of the gang leader’s unwanted attention.

“I promise you, I would have never come here. I miss [my family] a lot. But here I am. I couldn’t stay,” she said, rubbing away the tears running down her face.

Within months, she had been brutally beaten and raped by the gang leader, who declared her his property. The attack meant she could finally return to the US and prove her asylum case.

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

Read the complete, compelling but disturbing, report at the above link.

This illustrates the ugly results of immigration policies pushed by Trump, Sessions, Miller, and tone deaf GOP Legislators like Rep. Bob Goodlatte. They are part of the outrageous Trump Immigration ”Deform” Program drafted by Miller. And this unholy and inhumane group seeks to make things even worse for scared asylum applicants like this. They should be held morally accountable for their behavior, even if they can’t be held legally responsible for the gross abuses of human rights they promote. They seek to turn the U.S. legal system into a major human rights violator. And, it’s not that some of these practices didn’t originate during the Obama Administration. Trump and his White Nationalist cronies have just tripled down on pre-existing abuses.

In fact, many of the women being imprisoned in the American Gulag then turned away are either entitled to asylum or would be if the DOJ-controlled BIA had not intentionally distorted asylum law to deny them protection. In any event, almost all of them should be offered protection under the mandatory Convention Against Torture. TPS or some other form of prosecutorial discretion would also be potential solutions.

But, sending young women back to be tortured and raped, the Trump Administration’s “solution,” is not acceptable.

PWS

101-10-17

AMERICA THE UGLY: THESE WOMEN SURVIVED DOMESTIC ABUSE, FLED TO THE US SEEKING REFUGE, WERE IMPRISONED IN THE “AMERICAN GULAG,” RAILROADED THROUGH SESSIONS’S KANGAROO COURTS WITHOUT DUE PROCESS, AND NOW FACE RETURN TO MORE ABUSE AND POSSIBLY DEATH – IS THIS THE AMERICA YOU WANT TO LIVE IN? IS THIS THE “LEGACY” YOU WANT TO LEAVE TO FUTURE GENERATIONS?

The well-respected Women’s Refugee Commission just issued Prison For Survivors, a stunning indictment of the Trump Administration’s plans for a New American Gulag and “Gonzo” Immigration Enforcement intended to punish asylum seekers for asserting their statutory and Constitutional rights to protection.

Full report:

https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/rights/resources/document/download/1528

Fact sheet:

Prison-for-Survivors-Oct2017-Fact-Sheet

“Prison for Survivors
By Katharina Obser, Senior Program Officer at the Women’s Refugee Commission
Earlier this year, a woman named Clara arrived at the United States border seeking protection from gender-based harm she faced in West Africa. She had endured an arduous journey trying to reach the U.S. border, where officials registered her claim for asylum. Rather than release her to pursue her case, however, officials sent Clara into the vast network of immigration detention facilities across the U.S. Since arriving in this country, she has been treated like a criminal, shackled and transferred multiple times between different detention facilities, awaiting a final decision on her request for protection that will determine her fate.
Alarmed at the increase in the detention of women seeking asylum, the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) set out to tell the story of what was happening to women like Clara who came to the U.S. seeking protection under our asylum laws. When we began our research, in 2016, the Obama administration had been prioritizing the detention of border crossers — regardless of any humanitarian consideration. Asylum seekers who crossed the border ended up in detention, often with no hope for release unless they could pay increasingly high bonds, find an attorney to represent them, or both. The Trump administration has only made the situation worse for those seeking asylum, adding as enforcement targets countless other immigrants already living in the U.S. A whole disturbing new chapter is beginning in immigration detention, one that exacerbates the inhumanity and ineffectiveness of our current immigration system.
My colleagues and I spoke with approximately 150 women in detention, nearly all of whom were seeking asylum in the U.S. In the seven detention centers we visited, we heard about women who had clearly been traumatized by their experience of coming to the U.S. expecting protection but, instead, found themselves in jail, deprived of their rights and sometimes separated from their children. I heard story after story of vastly deficient conditions and inadequate medical treatment made even more difficult by a fundamental inability to navigate an immigration case because it is all but impossible to do so from detention without an attorney. Imagine being locked up after fleeing for your life and then not being able to communicate your needs because no interpreter is available. Women reported being shackled while in transit, for hours on end without a break. For example, imagine what it was like for Clara, who like other women reported being shackled while in transit when outside the facility, in her case when coming back from a painful medical procedure
Many of the women we spoke with felt — as anyone would — humiliated at having virtually no privacy when using the toilet in front of others in their dorms, being forced to wear used underwear that was often visibly stained, or having insufficient access to sanitary napkins. “I don’t have money to buy pads,” Iliana told us at the Mesa Verde Detention Center in Bakersfield, CA. “I would rather use that money to call my kids.”
The experiences these women shared with my colleagues and me took place against a backdrop of an immigration detention system that continues to be fueled by political motivations and profit-driven decisions and that has seen a dramatic rise in the proportion of women in ICE detention. In 2009, approximately nine percent of those in ICE detention were adult women. In April 2016 that proportion had grown to 14.6 percent (including in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s family detention centers). At the same time, the number of women and girls going through an initial asylum screening — likely from detention — nearly quadrupled between 2013 and 2016. The detention system as a whole grew from 34,000 detention beds in early 2016 to over 40,000 detention beds by the end of that year. Now, the Trump Administration is proposing to expand the system to more than 50,000 beds while simultaneously rolling back key detention standards.
As the 150 women who spoke to my colleagues and me make clear, the U.S. immigration detention system is in dire need of fundamental reform. A vital part of that reform needs to include an assurance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that immigration detention facility standards are universally strong and that facilities are actually held to account when those standards are not meaningfully implemented.
Yet, the system continues to fail. Just this week, several civil and human rights organizations, including WRC, filed an administrative complaint with DHS on behalf of women who are or were detained by ICE, women who received grossly inadequate medical care and treatment, exacerbating the trauma that many already experience in detention.
Unfortunately, eliminating the indignities of the current system will not fully address the despair that asylum-seeking women experience when facing the unbelievable cards stacked against them because of their detention. “It’s pointless,” said Clara. “It’s just punishment. The U.S. should just say it’s not accepting refugees.”
The Trump administration and Congress face a choice. Continue to feed more money into a broken immigration detention system that criminalizes and demoralizes vulnerable women immigrants and refugees, or direct ICE to make more humane and smarter choices about immigration enforcement that include release or community support for those seeking asylum in the U.S. Only one choice proves to Clara and so many others like her that, ultimately, the U.S. still does respect the right to seek asylum.”

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Sorry, Katharina, but the Trump Administration has no intention of being deterred by the law, Constitution, or human decency from turning the U.S. into a third world country. And so far, most Article III Courts have simply looked the other way rather than taking on these clearly unconstitutional practices (which, I might add were also carried out by the Obama Administration which also had little regard for the lives or rights of women and children seeking protection). After all, it’s not the Article III Judges’ daughters and granddaughters who are being intentionally abused by the U.S. immigration authorities with a green light from a complicit Congress.

PWS

10-10-17

WHAT’S TRUMP REALLY UP TO ON DACA? — NOBODY SEEMS TO KNOW — CNN’S TAL KOPAN REPORTS!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/09/politics/congress-daca-reaction-white-house-trump/index.html

Tal reports:

“Washington (CNN)The Trump administration dropped a potential bomb into negotiations on the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy on Sunday night — but key players on the Hill still aren’t sure yet whether the fuse is actually lit.

Reaction to the administration’s priorities list of tough border security and immigration enforcement measures ranged from dismissal as “noise,” to skepticism about the President’s commitment level, to declarations of it being a “nonstarter” by Democrats.
Ultimately, most agree, President Donald Trump himself will have to say what his red lines are.
The White House late Sunday released a wish list of items for any potential deal to preserve DACA — the Obama administration policy that protects young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation. Those measures include provisions to make it harder for unaccompanied minors to enter the country illegally, money for the President’s border wall and cuts to legal immigration.
But the administration is already sending mixed messages about how intensely it is getting behind the list of priorities, which were developed in part by Stephen Miller, a White House policy adviser and longtime immigration hardliner.
An administration source told CNN that it was too early to tell whether the priorities are a firm line in the sand, saying there remains a “White House divided” on the issue — but emphasizing Trump “still wants to cut a deal.”
On a call with reporters on Sunday night, a senior administration official declined to say whether the list should be read as a veto threat.
“We’re not discussing what’s a veto threat right now, or we’re not looking to negotiate with ourselves,” the official said, adding the priorities are “all important.”
On Capitol Hill, most players are taking a wait-and-see approach.
White House lays out DACA deal asks
White House lays out DACA deal asks
House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office was noncommittal. “The House immigration working group will review these principles and continue to consult with our conference and the administration to find a solution,” spokesman Doug Andres said.
Other sources pointed to the timing of the release — the Sunday night before a federal holiday — as a possible indication the White House is not as serious about the list.
“Like they’re trying to bury it,” one congressional aide said. Administration sources, for their part, said the list had been in the works for some time and was simply ready to be released.
A Republican consultant familiar with the discussions on the Hill about DACA downplayed the release altogether as “noise” — saying not much matters until the date draws nearer to December 8, when government funding runs out and any potential shutdown talk could get serious if progress hasn’t been made.
“I just don’t take this as that serious a proposal,” the consultant said. “One given what’s in there, that it’s everything under the sun. And two, when they released it.”
At the same time, one senior Democratic aide called it “most disheartening” that in the letter Trump sent to congressional Democratic leadership, he said the list “must” be passed.
Miller’s involvement has been a source of frustration for some negotiators on both sides of the aisle who have perceived him as trying to scuttle talks.
Top WH aide's DACA demands threaten to scuttle legislative fix
Top WH aide’s DACA demands threaten to scuttle legislative fix
“This isn’t an opening bid that anyone’s going to respond to,” said Jeremy Robbins, executive director of New American Economy, a nonpartisan group, business-linked group backed by former Mayor Mike Bloomberg that advocates for moderate immigration policies. “There’s just this laundry list of deal breakers, each one of which is a poison pill in its own right. … But that doesn’t change the fact that the President, if he wants to protect Dreamers and get some border security, he can do that today.”
Hill work continues
Sources familiar with negotiations in Congress say they have been progressing slowly.
According to multiple sources familiar, the working group organized by Ryan, which includes key Republicans on different sides of the ideological spectrum, has met at least four times. The bare bones of a deal have yet to take shape, the sources said.
Further details remain on close hold. Members and their staffs have agreed to maintain silence on the substance of the discussions to avoid negotiations leaking to the press.
On the Senate side, sources familiar say conversations are happening, mostly among staff, but the process is less formal than on the House side.
One-quarter of DACA renewals not in on deadline day
Democrats maintain substantial leverage in the negotiations. Not only would any immigration deal require Democratic votes to pass — both to clear the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate and to make up for Republican holdouts who would never support a DACA fix — but Democrats are already signaling they could withhold support for must-pass bills like government funding if progress isn’t made.
“That is definitely on the table, and we are working to make sure that it’s not just a Hispanic Caucus effort, but it’s the entire Democratic caucus,” said Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairwoman Michelle Lujan Grisham in a CHC call with reporters on Monday. “If we can’t get movement on a productive strategy that gives us a vote — and we’re open to considering reasonable, effective border security issues — then yes, … we’re going to use every leverage point at our disposal.”
A deal is still attainable, added Vice Chairman Joaquin Castro, but only if the White House is “reasonable.”
“This was a long laundry list of hardline immigration policies including things that we’ve specifically said our members cannot support, including a wall,” Castro said. “So we’re looking for a serious proposal from the President. This is not serious. … I would suggest the President look at this list more himself, get more personally involved, rather than assign it to a 30-year-old hardline zealot,” he added, referring to Miller.”

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Any idea promoted by Miller has to be bad for America!

PWS

10-10-17

MORE GRATUITOUS CRUELTY AND BOGUS “LAW ENFORCEMENT” FROM DHS – DIMINISHING AMERICA AND MAKING ALL OF US SMALLER EVERY DAY – THAT’S THE TRUMP-SESSIONS-HOMAN WAY!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/she-cant-bear-to-leave-her-kids-but-she-doesnt-want-to-be-a-criminal/2017/10/09/44c40ea2-acfb-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?utm_term=.63f3cbd1471b&wpisrc=nl_buzz&wpmm=1

Petula Dvorak reports for the Washington Post:

“Every night that the girls get home from soccer practice, do homework and eat dinner may be the last time they get to do this with their mom.

They all know this.

So every moment this week is being savored and remembered. They take extra walks together. Catia Paz’s husband cooks all of her favorite dinners. And she always agrees to read one more story to her daughters, 6 and 8, at bedtime.

The worst part? None of this has to happen.

Paz, 32, is facing a separation of at least 10 years from her husband and children because of political whim. And if you’ve recently supported the crackdown on immigration, please read on to see what that looks like in this small living room in Northern Virginia.

Paz has until Friday to self-deport.

Not because she committed a crime.

She’s a high school graduate (3.1 GPA) and an active church member. She’s worked at the same Nordstrom for the past 11 years. She’s on the snack rotation of her daughter’s soccer team. She could be any suburban mom.

But because she was 17 when she escaped her war-torn home town in El Salvador — not the cutoff age of 16 — even a miracle deal on the “dreamers,” those covered by the controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, wouldn’t help her.

The rest of her sprawling extended family — all 65 of them — have legal status.

“I know they want the bad hombres out,” Paz said, sitting in the living room of the tiny home in Woodbridge, Va., she and her husband bought last year. “I want them out, too. But I’m not one of them.”

[Undocumented mother pins hopes on high court, then rushes back to work]

She knows the arguments, hears the hatred. People saying they support immigration but only legal immigration.

“For their families, when they came, there weren’t all these papers. It wasn’t so hard,” she said. “It is all different now.”

Paz crossed the border illegally 15 years ago to escape the violence in El Salvador and join her parents, who were already in the United States. The immigration system learned about her presence in the country when her father applied for permanent residence under an act welcoming refugees from Central American violence. Instead, the parents got temporary protective status. Her sister got DACA protection because she was 16 when she came, but Catia got nothing; she’d arrived too late to qualify.

In 2011, an immigration judge ordered her removed from the country. She fought to remain, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement granted her multiple stays from 2012 to 2015, an agency spokeswoman said.

She was enrolled in ICE’s alternatives-to-detention program, but in September, when she checked in, she was given an ankle monitor and a deadline — self-deport by Oct. 13.

If she leaves, she can’t return for 10 years. So that means if her daughters, Genesis and Alison, stayed they would be 18 and 16 before they could see their mother again in the country of their birth.

Paz could just stay and hope something will work out, that the tide of popular opinion will turn, that a last-minute appeal by her lawyer will come through, that lawmakers, who are nearly all descendants of immigrants, will belatedly recognize what they are doing to families such as hers.

“But then, I’d always be scared,” she said. “They could grab me and deport me anytime. I don’t want my kids to see that. And if I stayed, I would be a criminal.”

“I’m not a criminal,” she said. “I want to keep a clean record.”

One of Paz’s friends in a similar situation decided to stay. She simply couldn’t leave her small children, so she stayed past her self-deportation date, hoping to go undetected.

“But a police officer pulled her over one day. She was taking her kids to school,” Paz said. “He said her back light wasn’t working.”

The woman was sent to a detention facility in another state, then immediately deported. She didn’t get to say goodbye to her kids.

“She finally had the kids sent to her,” Paz said. “But that’s not good, either. They are American citizens who now can’t even go to a good school.”

So that’s her dilemma. Does she hunker down and try to eke out as many days with her kids as possible, knowing she can be arrested and deported any minute?

Does she take them with her to a war-torn town, costing them the education and opportunities they’d have in their own country, in exchange for a childhood with their mother?

Or should she just keep her clean record, kiss her husband and kids goodbye and get on a plane Friday?

This is what she and her husband, German, talk about every night, after the girls are in bed.

He works construction, and he can get off early and pick them up every day after school, he offers. He already does the cooking, so that part won’t be hard. But, but. It’s all so hard.

Does any of this sound like our country to you?

I left their home the other day sad, but mostly furious. How can we tear apart good families like this one?

Catia Paz is not alone. There are 4 million parents like her who would have had a temporary, three-year reprieve with President Barack Obama’s 2014 Deferred Action for Parents of Americans executive order.

“Felons, not families,” Obama said, explaining who would be deported and protected under his order. “Criminals, not children. Gang members, not a mom who’s working hard to provide for her kids.”

But no. It was challenged at the Supreme Court, and, in June, the Trump administration rescinded the executive order.

Now Paz must decide: Be a mother or a criminal? And we must decide: Who are we?”

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Cowardly cruelty masquerading as “macho law enforcement” at DHS. This isn’t law enforcement. Every decent American should be ashamed both of our current broken immigration system and what DHS has become under Trump & Sessions. Every day of the Trump Administration diminishes America. By the time he and his cronies are done, our national conscience will be so small “you could drown it in a teacup.”

PWS

10-09-17

RIP: A TRIBUTE TO ALL-AMERICAN ROCKER “PROFESSOR TOM” PETTY, THE SONG “REFUGEE,” AND THREE SIMPLE TRUTHS ABOUT REFUGEES.

In addition to all of the other terrible and disturbing news last week, I was saddened by the death of one of my all time favorite rockers, Tom Petty, the lead singer of “Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.” I’ve felt a “special connection” ever since he was one of the “featured members” of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland Ohio during one of my details to the then newly established Cleveland, Immigration Court in 2006. (Another “featured member” happened to be a guy who went to high school in our current hometown of Alexandria, VA, the late great Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors. In addition to visiting the R&R HOF and catching up with some of my old buddies from “Jones Day Days,” I got to see LeBron James play in person with the Cavs — before he left and returned – and got the coveted LeBron James Bubblehead, which I still have. Even better than being detailed to Los Fresnos SPC or Pearsall, Texas!) From listening to recollections on “Tom Petty Radio” on Sirius XM, it appears that in addition to being a great performer and musical artist, Tom was just one heck of a nice guy who brought joy and did good things for everyone around him.

As those who took my “Refugee Law & Policy” Course at Georgetown Law will probably remember, “Professor Tom” always “visited” our first class to share a few words of wisdom with us from the lyrics of his great hit “Refugee.” From a “musicology” standpoint, “Refugee” appears to be about a tortured love relationship. (Always have to try to work a little music into my teaching to impress my son-in-law Professor Daniel Barolsky who teaches Musicology at Beloit College!)

Nevertheless, “Professor Tom” with a little help from the Heartbreakers, leaves us with three simple, yet profound truths about refugees that sadly, the shallow and cowardly men who now govern our country either never knew or have forgotten.

Here is a link to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performing “Refugee:”

And, here are the lyrics. Can you figure out the “three-point message?”

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – Refugee Lyrics

We got somethin’ we both know it

We don’t talk too much about it

Yeah it ain’t no real big secret all the same

Somehow we get around it

Listen it don’t really matter to me baby

You believe what you want to believe

You see you don’t have to live like a refugee

Somewhere, somehow somebody

Must have kicked you around some

Tell me why you want to lay there

And revel in your abandon

Listen it don’t make no difference to me baby

Everybody’s had to fight to be free

You see you don’t have to live like a refugee

Now baby you don’t have to live like a refugee

Baby we ain’t the first

I’m sure a lot of other lover’s been burned

Right now this seems real to you

But it’s one of those things

You gotta feel to be true

Somewhere, somehow somebody

Must have kicked you around some

Who knows, maybe you were kidnapped

Tied up, taken away and held for ransom

It don’t really matter to me

Everybody’s had to fight to be free

You see you don’t have to live like a refugee

I said you don’t have to live like a refugee

Songwriters: MICHAEL W. CAMPBELL, TOM PETTY

Refugee lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Lyrics term of use

First, nobody really wants to “live like a refugee.” That’s true whether they are in prison or hiding out in their home countries, surviving on “handouts” or “by their wits” in neighboring countries, or existing in misery and potential exploitation in often squalid refugee camps. Even those fortunate enough to be relocated to a relatively safe country like ours would undoubtedly prefer never to have become a refugee in the first place!

Second, refugees usually have been “kicked around some.” It starts with persecution, often gruesome torture, from their home countries. But the escape and survival in a foreign country often involves victimization, exploitation, and dehumanizing treatment. Then, to top it off, cowardly jerks like Trump, Pence, Sessions, Miller and Bannon, speaking from their safe and privileged positions, disparage refugees, dehumanize them, disregard their needs, and disingenuously minimize their achievements and the ways they make our country better.

Third, if like me, you are one of the fortunate ones who is not a refugee, it’s probably because either you or someone before you “fought to be free.” Guys like Trump & Miller never fought for freedom, but they are the privileged beneficiaries of those who did. Rather than showing their gratitude with a little humility and humanity, they urge Americans to turn our backs on the world’s most needy.

I have great admiration and respect for refugees, and I am impressed and inspired by the life stories of many who came through my courtroom searching for justice.

But, I never for a moment wanted to switch places with any refugee. As I often say, I wake up each morning thankful for two things: first, that I woke up: and second, that I’m not a refugee, particularly in today’s world.

So, I’ll continue to think about “Professor Tom,” the Heartbreakers, and his important messages every time I hear “Refugee” or any of the other great tunes Tom leaves behind.

Rest in peace, Tom Petty. Thanks for the music and the pleasure that you have brought to millions, and for a “life well lived!”

PWS

10-09-17

NEW FROM THE HILL: N. RAPPAPORT SAYS “NO” TO MOST OF CAL SB 54, BUT WOULD LIKE TO FIND A COMPROMISE LEGISLATIVE SOLUTON TO HELP DREAMERS AND OTHER UNDOCUMENTED RESIDENTS!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/59dad902e4b08ce873a8cf53

In encourage you to go over to The Hill at the above link and read Nolan’s complete article. As always, whether you agree with Nolan or not, his articles are always thought-provoking and timely. Nolan is definitely a “player” in the immigration dialogue! (And, frankly, by going over to The Hill, Nolan gets a few more “hits” which give him a few more “hard-earned nickels” in his pockets. Gotta help out my fellow retirees!)

I can agree with Nolan’s bottom line:

“It would be better to help undocumented aliens by working on comprehensive immigration reform legislation that meets essential political needs of both parties.”

The challenge will be figuring out what those points might be. So far, the GOP “Wish List” is basically an “incendiary White Nationalist screed” drafted by notorious racist xenophobe Stephen Miller (probably with backing from Sessions and certainly incorporating parts of Steve Bannon’s alt-right White Nationalist world view) that contains virtually nothing that any Democrat, or indeed any decent person, could agree with. Indeed, the very involvement of Miller in the legislative process is a “gut punch” to Democrats and whatever “moderate GOP” legislators remain.

What are some “smart enforcement” moves that Democrats could agree with: more funding for DHS/ICE technology; improvements in hiring and training for DHS enforcement personnel; U.S. Immigration Court reforms; more attorneys and support (including paralegal support) for the ICE Legal Program; more funding for “Know Your Rights” presentations in Detention Centers.

But more agents for “gonzo enforcement,” more money for immigration prisons (a/k/a the “American Gulag”), and, most disgustingly, picking on and targeting scared, vulnerable kids seeking protection from harm in Central America by stripping them of their already meager due process protections: NO WAY!

Although “The Wall” is a money wasting folly with lots of negative racial and foreign policy implications, it probably comes down to a “victory” that Democrats could give to Trump and the GOP without actually hurting any human beings, violating any overriding principles of human rights law, or diminishing Constitutional Due process. It also inflicts less long-term damage on America than a racially-oriented “point system” or a totally disastrous and wrong-headed decrease in legal immigration when the country needs the total opposite, a significant increase in legal immigration opportunities, including those for so-called “unskilled labor.”

While this GOP Congress will never agree to such an increase — and therefore workable “Immigration Reform” will continue to elude them — the Democrats need to “hold the line” at current levels until such time as Americans can use the ballot box to achieve a Congress more cognizant of the actual long-term needs of the majority of Americans.

PWS

10-09-17

HOW THE TRUMP-SESSIONS-MILLER-HOMAN FALSE NARRATIVE ON “SANCTUARY CITIES” & THE BOGUS “ALIEN CRIME WAVE” UNDERMINES LEGITIMATE LAW ENFORCEMENT AND ENDANGERS AMERICA! — “They’re afraid of us. And the reason they’re afraid of us is because they think we’re going to deport them. They don’t know that we don’t deport them; we don’t ask for their immigration status,” he said. “They just gotta go based on what they see on social media and what they hear from other people.”

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/latimes/default.aspx?pubid=50435180-e58e-48b5-8e0c-236bf740270e

James Queally reports for the LA Times:

“The woman on the other end of the line said her husband had been beating her for years, even while she was pregnant.

She was in danger and wanted help, but was in the country illegally — and was convinced she would be deported if she called authorities. Fearful her husband would gain custody of her children, she wanted nothing to do with the legal system.

It is a story that Jocelyn Maya, program supervisor at the domestic violence shelter Su Casa in Long Beach, has heard often this year.

In the first six months of 2017, reports of domestic violence have declined among Latino residents in some of California’s largest cities, a retreat that crisis professionals say is driven by a fear that interacting with police or entering a courthouse could make immigrants easy targets for deportation.

President Trump’s aggressive stance on illegal immigration, executive orders greatly expanding the number of people who can be targeted for deportation and news reports of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents making arrests at courthouses have contributed to the downturn, according to civil liberties and immigrant rights advocates.

In Los Angeles, Latinos reported 3.5% fewer instances of spousal abuse in the first six months of the year compared with 2016, while reporting among non-Latino victims was virtually unchanged, records show. That pattern extends beyond Los Angeles to cities such as San Francisco and San Diego, which recorded even steeper declines of 18% and 13%, respectively.

Domestic violence is traditionally an under-reported crime. Some police officials and advocates now say immigrants without legal status also may become targets for other crimes because of their reluctance to contact law enforcement.

The Long Beach abuse victim, fearing she had no other recourse, sent her oldest children back to Mexico to live with relatives.

“We’re supposed to be that assurance that they don’t have. That safety net,” Maya said. “But it’s getting harder for us to have a positive word for them and say: ‘It’s going to be OK. You can go into a courtroom. You can call the police.’ ”

Los Angeles County sheriff’s Deputy Marino Gonzalez said he addresses such apprehension frequently as he patrols the streets of East L.A. — even though his department doesn’t question people about their immigration status.

“They’re afraid of us. And the reason they’re afraid of us is because they think we’re going to deport them. They don’t know that we don’t deport them; we don’t ask for their immigration status,” he said. “They just gotta go based on what they see on social media and what they hear from other people.”

On a warm afternoon, Gonzalez pulled his cruiser to a stop near a row of apartments in Cudahy, ahead of a community meeting in a predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood. There was a lone woman waiting for Gonzalez and a few other deputies, offering lemonade to passersby.

The mood in the city was tense. The night before, a pro-Trump demonstrator protesting the city’s sanctuary status had been arrested on suspicion of brandishing a gun. Gonzalez and city officials went door-to-door, flashing smiles and speaking Spanish to residents, urging them to attend the meeting.

Gonzalez spoke calmly to the assembly of several dozen people sipping from Styrofoam cups.

“We’re not here to ask you where you’re from,” he said in Spanish, drawing thankful nods.

Gonzalez, who came to the U.S. from Mexico as a child, said he knows why people are scared, but hopes face-to-face conversations will persuade more victims to come forward.

“The community here, they don’t know, and they won’t know, unless we reach out,” he said.

ICE officials also said they do not target crime victims for deportation and, in fact, often extend visas to those who report violent crime and sexual abuse.

Officials in the agency’s Los Angeles office declined to be interviewed. ICE issued a statement dismissing links between immigration enforcement and a decline in crime reporting among immigrants as “speculative and irresponsible.”

The drop in reporting could result from an overall decrease in domestic violence crimes, the agency said. But police statistics reviewed by The Times suggest that statement is inaccurate. The decline in domestic violence reports among Latinos in several cities is far steeper than overall declines in reporting of those crimes.

In Los Angeles and San Diego, reporting of domestic violence crimes remained unchanged among non-Latinos. The decline among Latinos in San Diego was more than double the overall citywide decrease, records show. In San Francisco, the reporting decline among Latinos was nearly triple the citywide decrease.

The pattern extends outside California.

In April, Houston police Chief Art Acevedo said the number of Latino victims reporting sexual assault had dropped 42% in his city. In Denver, at least nine women abandoned pursuit of restraining orders against their abusers after immigration enforcement agents were filmed making an arrest in a city courthouse earlier this year, according to City Atty. Kristi Bronson.

Claude Arnold, who oversaw ICE operations in Southern California from 2010 to 2015, said misconceptions about the agency may be driving the downswing. Crime victims are far more likely to receive a visa application than a removal order by reporting an attack, he said.

“ICE still has a policy that we don’t pursue removal proceedings against victims or witnesses of crime, and I haven’t seen any documented instances where that actually happened,” he said. “To a great degree, we facilitate those people having legal status in the U.S.”

Nationwide, the number of arrests made by ICE agents for violations of immigration law surged by 37% in the first half of 2017. In Southern California, those arrests increased by 4.5%.

Arnold said some immigrants’ rights activists have helped facilitate a climate of fear by spreading inaccurate information about ICE sweeps that either didn’t happen, or were in line with the Obama administration’s policies.

But professionals who deal with domestic violence victims say the perception of hardcore enforcement tactics under Trump has led to widespread panic.

Adam Dodge, legal director at an Orange County domestic violence shelter called Laura’s House, said that before February, nearly half of the center’s client base were immigrants in the country illegally. That month, ICE agents in Texas entered a courthouse to arrest a woman without legal status who was seeking a restraining order against an abuser.

“We went from half our clients being undocumented, to zero undocumented clients,” he said.

A video recording earlier this year of a father being arrested by ICE agents moments after dropping his daughter off at a Lincoln Heights school had a similar effect on abuse victims in neighboring Boyle Heights, said Rebeca Melendez, director of wellness programs for the East L.A. Women’s Center.

“They instilled the ultimate fear into our community,” she said. “They know they can trust us, but they are not trusting very many people past us.”

Even when victims come forward, defense attorneys sometimes use the specter of ICE as a weapon against them, to the frustration of prosecutors.

In the Bay Area, a Daly City man was facing battery charges earlier this year after flashing a knife and striking the mother of his girlfriend, according to court records. The man’s defense attorney raised the fact that the victim was in the country illegally during pretrial hearings, although a judge eventually ruled that evidence was irrelevant and inadmissible at trial, records show.

The case ended in a hung jury. But when prosecutors sought a retrial, the victim said she would not cooperate, in part, because her immigration status was raised during the trial, said Max Szabo, a spokesman for the San Francisco district attorney’s office.

San Francisco Dist. Atty. George Gascon said the case was one of several where his prosecutors felt defense attorneys sought to leverage heightened fears of deportation against victims. He believes that tactic, combined with ICE’s expanded priorities and presence in courthouses, is driving down domestic violence reporting among immigrants in the city’s sprawling Latino and Asian communities.

Gascon described the situation as a “replay” of the fear he saw in the immigrant community while he was the police chief in Mesa, Ariz., during notorious Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s crusade against people without legal status, which led to accusations of racial profiling.

Stephanie Penrod, managing attorney for the Family Violence Law Center in Oakland, also said the number of immigrants without legal status willing to seek aid from law enforcement has dwindled.

Abusers frequently will threaten to call immigration enforcement agents on their victims, a threat Penrod believes has more teeth now given ICE’s increased presence in courthouses.

“The biggest difference for us now is those threats are legitimate,” she said. “Previously we used to advise them we couldn’t prevent an abuser from calling ICE, but that it was unlikely ICE would do anything.”

If the problem persists, Gascon fears the consequences could be deadly.

“The level of violence increases,” he said. “It could, in some cases, lead to severe injury or homicide.”

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

ICE, of course, denies this is happening. But, as shown by this article, the denials simply are refuted by the facts (as shown in the above charts) and by the officers and social services agencies who actually deal with the community. We simply can’t trust any statement on immigration emanating from the Trump Administration. They lack credibility. Something that is going to be a long term problem for ICE once immigration enforcement is finally “normalized.” Once lost, trust is unlikely to be regained any time soon. “Gonzo” enforcement does long-term irreparable damage. That’s why so many communities are resisting the Trump Administration program.

PWS

10-09-17

AFTER HELPING INSTALL AN ANTI-AMERICAN REGIME IN WASHINGTON, SEN. “BOBBY THE CORK” FINALLY STARTS TO FACE UP TO WHAT HE AND THE GOP HAVE DONE TO DESTROY AMERICA: “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/08/opinions/corker-and-white-house-day-care-center-opinion-dantonio/index.html

Michael D’Antonio reports for CNN:

“(CNN)In the end, Donald Trump finally pushed Sen. Bob Corker to the point of exasperation, frustration and exhaustion felt by vast numbers of Americans who despair of the President’s behavior. “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center,” tweeted Corker, referring to his fellow Republican as if he needs constant minding. “Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”

Corker was provoked by early Sunday morning statements from Trump. who said, via Twitter, “Senator Bob Corker ‘begged’ me to endorse him for re-election in Tennessee, I said ‘NO’ and he dropped out (said he could not win without my endorsement).” Trump also said Corker asked to become secretary of state but, “I said ‘NO THANKS.'” He also said Corker “didn’t have the guts” to seek re-election in 2018.

Corker: Trump setting US ‘on the path to World War III’

The capital letters suggest the tweets came straight from the President. He loves capital letters. But the timing and content are more important indicators of authenticity. Trump’s social media outbursts are more vivid on weekends, when he’s likely home alone.

And true Trump tweets resonate with a tone — “guts” and “begged me” are classics — that makes it seem like he doesn’t quite understand where he is, or what is required of him. (Never mind that Corker’s chief of staff, Todd Womack, challenged Trump’s account of the facts: “The President called Sen. Corker on Monday afternoon and asked him to reconsider his decision not to seek re-election and reaffirmed that he would have endorsed him, as he has said many times.”)

The fact that Trump could conduct stream-of-consciousness carping from the confines of the same White House that had been occupied by the likes of Lincoln, FDR and Ronald Reagan suggests that he may not be aware of his surroundings. As he tweets about TV shows, we can see that his mind is too often fixed on matters beneath a president. And when he does focus on something important, like national security, he indulges in silliness about the “Rocket Man” (Kim Jong Un) or praises himself: “Wow, Senator Luther Strange picked up a lot of additional support since my endorsement.”

Despite the President’s “Wow,” Alabama’s Sen. Strange wound up losing a GOP primary to Roy Moore. A religious extremist who was twice forced to step down from the Alabama Supreme Court, Moore had called homosexuality “evil,” insisted Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison should not be permitted to serve in Congress and suggested the attacks of 9/11 could have been God’s punishment for American sinfulness.

Did Trump win the NFL fight?

The prospect of serving with Moore may have helped Corker reach his decision to retire as of 2018, but his concern about Trump predates the Alabama primary. In August, Corker was obviously appalled by Trump’s response to a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, when he said among the torch-bearing neo-Nazis there were some “very fine” people.

Corker considered these words and concluded, “The President has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.”

Just days ago, Corker stood up for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who had reportedly called Trump a “moron” and was trying to demonstrate his loyalty to the President. “I see what’s happening here,” said Corker. “I deal with people throughout the administration and (Tillerson), from my perspective, is in an incredibly frustrating place, where, as I watch, OK, and I can watch very closely on many occasions, I mean you know, he ends up being, not being supported in the way I would hope a secretary of state would be supported. That’s just from my vantage point.” He suggested that Tillerson, along with Defense Secretary James Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, were keeping the United States from tumbling into “chaos.”

Frustration with Trump can be heard across the nation as leaders who hoped the President would set aside his rage and self-centeredness in the service of the country are met, instead, by the same old Donald Trump. No more thoughtful than he was as a TV game show host and no more reliable than when he was a salesman practicing “truthful hyperbole,” Trump makes much of the world cringe as he fails to achieve his agenda at home and undercuts his own secretary of state abroad.

With Trump in a cycle of saying and doing destructive and disruptive things unbecoming the leader of the free world, Corker seems to be suffering from the sort of burnout experienced by those who care for senior relatives.

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Here his evocation of “adult care” is more meaningful than the senator may even know. Adult day care is as much a service for the friends and family of those with dementia and other disabling conditions as it is for those who attend programs. The respite they receive when experts take over for a few hours makes it possible to continue with the burden of caregiving.

In the case of President Trump, the parallel with adults in care includes, also, the sad reality that someone who is supposed to be strong and capable is, instead, in need of supervision. It’s hard to begrudge Corker his decision to escape dealing with a president in this condition by not running for re-election. But as a member of the Republican Party, he’s one of the few who have the standing to get through to the man, and thus it seems like he’s taking the easy way out while leaving more of the work to the rest of us. We’re burned out, too.

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

Duh, Bobby, many of us knew that Donald Trump was the most spectacularly unqualified candidate ever to seek the Presidency long before he announced his intention to do so! It’s not like his racism, bias, incompetence, divisiveness, monumental dishonesty, pandering to hate and bigotry, fiscal irresponsibility, bullying, misogany, boorish behavior, science denial, anti-intellectualism, neo-facism, White Nationalism, anti-semitism, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, intolerance, toadying up to Putin, lack of respect for human rights, wanton cruelty, jaw-dropping lack of judgement, untrustworthiness, cowardice, immorality, etc. were secrets. They’ve been out there for everyone (who was smart or intellectually honest enough) to see all along. But, you were happy to “go along to get along” until now. You’ve suddenly had an epiphany. “Hey, this guy that I supported and helped elect is totally incompetent and a threat to the heath and safety of the entire world (not just the “free world”).”

Forgive me if I’m not overwhelmed, Bobby! And, the majority of us who voted to save America and the world from the horrible catastrophe of Trump are still waiting for you and your “fellow travelers” to apologize to us. That would be an honest start on actually “Making America Great Again,” Bobby! Yup, Bobby, we’re burned out too! Long before you were!

PWS

10-09-17

TERRIFIED PENCE FLEES NFL STADIUM FOLLOWING PEACEFUL EXERCISE OF CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS! — “Trump Told Me To Do It,” Says Vapid Veep!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mike-pence-nfl-walks-out_us_59da5fb4e4b0f6eed35114bd?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

Igor Bobic reports for HuffPost:

Vice President Mike Pence walked out of Sunday’s NFL game between the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers as several 49ers players knelt in protest during a rendition of the national anthem.

“While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, I don’t think it’s too much to ask NFL players to respect our Flag and our National Anthem,” Pence wrote on Twitter minutes after leaving the game in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Following the example of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, NFL players around the country have knelt during renditions of the national anthem in order to protest against police brutality and racial injustice directed towards black Americans.

More than a hundred NFL players from several football teams kneeled or held arms in solidarity earlier this month after President Donald Trump called NFL players who kneel during the anthem “sons of bitches.” He later insisted his criticism of the NFL had “nothing” to do with race.

Trump said on Sunday that he asked Pence to leave the stadium in Indianapolis if any players knelt during the national anthem, an extremely likely event given the number of players on the 49ers team who kneel during the anthem before every game.

The president’s revelation suggested the White House orchestrated the walk out on purpose, raising questions about the cost of Pence’s brief trip to Indianapolis. The vice president flew there from Las Vegas, where he visited the victims and families of last week’s horrific shooting. He is now flying back West for a stop in California.

“Wait. This was orchestrated to make a point? That’s not an inexpensive thing to do,” tweeted Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) on Sunday.

Many people have commented that Pence’s action came off as publicity stunt, including San Francisco 49ers’ Eric Reid, who was one of the first players to kneel alongside Kaepernick in 2016. Reid told reporters that the three-year-old photo of Pence at a Colts game in 2014 was the last he had heard of the vice president attending a game.

“So this looks like a PR stunt to me,” Reid told a pool of reporters on Sunday. “He knew our team has had the most players protest. He knew that we were probably going to do it again. This is what systemic oppression looks like. A man with power comes to the game, tweets a couple of things out and leaves the game with an attempt to thwart our efforts. Based on the information I have, that’s the assumption I’ve made.”

This is what systemic oppression looks like. A man with power comes to the game, tweets a couple of things out and leaves the game with an attempt to thwart our efforts.Eric Reid, San Franciscos 49ers

Prior to walking out of the game, Pence met with former Colts quarterback Peyton Manning. The retired football star, who also played for the University of Tennessee and has donated to prominent GOP figures, has been floated as a potential candidate to replace Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). Corker is retiring next year, but Manning has said he has no plans to run for the seat.”

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

Obviously, Trump orchestrated this event to show America that if they ditch him they would be trading a bully for an idiot.

NOTE: Although Pence undoubtedly was carrying out a “staged” role assigned to him by Trump, and the quote is certainly sufficiently obsequious to have come from Pence, the actual quote in the headline section is “fake news.” However, the rest of the story about Pence’s idiotic behavior is, unfortunately, true — just another day in Trumpland.

NOW, ON TO MORE SIGNIFICANT NEWS:

After spotting the home-standing Dallas Cowboys a 21-6 lead (including missing two missed extra points) the Pack rallied for an exciting 35-31 victory over the ‘Pokes. The incomparable Aaron Rodgers (“AR”) led the last second comeback with a key third down scramble setting up the winning TD pass to Devonte Adams with 11 seconds remaining. Adams came back to catch two TD passes in an inspiring performance following a scary near-decapitation on a cheap shot by Bears’ LB Danny Trevathan during the Pack’s victory on Thursday, September 28.

PWS

10-08-17

CNN’S TAL KOPAN: WHITE HOUSE RESTRICTIONIST AGENDA THREATENS DREAMER DEAL!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/08/politics/white-house-daca-deal-principles/index.htm

Tal reports:

“Washington (CNN)The White House on Sunday night is expected to release an aggressive list of priorities for any deal to protect young undocumented immigrants in limbo — a list that could make a deal almost impossible to reach if it is strictly followed.

According to documents obtained by CNN, the Trump administration is expected to ask lawmakers to include tough border security and immigration enforcement measures in any deal to replace the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program the administration is ending. Those measures would include provisions to make it harder for unaccompanied minors to enter the country illegally, money for the President’s border wall and cuts to legal immigration.

Trump announced he would end the Obama-era DACA program, which protects young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children, at the beginning of last month, but gave Congress a six-month window in which to act to make the program permanent. Trump has repeatedly said he wanted border security measures as part of a deal, but Sunday night was the first time lawmakers were able to see the full list of the White House asks.

The list represents Republican priorities for immigration and border security, such as tightening the standard for asylum protections, beefing up staffing, cracking down on sanctuary cities, expanding the ways would-be immigrants can be rejected and cutting back significantly on the number of ways that immigrants can obtain green cards in the US by restricting family categories and transforming the employment-based system.

While Democrats have signaled an openness to some deal on DACA and border security, many of the proposals alone would be deal-breakers. Democrats are almost certainly needed to pass a bill to clear the filibuster threshold of 60 votes in the Senate and to make up for Republicans in both chambers who may decline to vote for any path to citizenship or legalization for DACA recipients.

close dialog

What will be key, one Democratic congressional staffer said, is how hard the White House pushes for the wish list.

“Depends on whether they’re serious or just positioning,” the staffer said. “If it’s the latter, and they leave themselves a lot of room to move, then maybe we can still negotiate something. The problem is that they could lock themselves in politically and then not be able to bend.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were quick to pan the list, saying it shows Trump “can’t be serious” about reaching a deal if they start with a list that is “anathema” to immigrants and Democrats.

“We told the President at our meeting that we were open to reasonable border security measures alongside the DREAM Act, but this list goes so far beyond what is reasonable,” the Democratic leaders said in a statement, referring to discussions over dinner at the White House last month. “This proposal fails to represent any attempt at compromise. The list includes the wall, which was explicitly ruled out of the negotiations. If the President was serious about protecting the Dreamers, his staff has not made a good faith effort to do so.”

While Trump has Republican supporters on Capitol Hill who have endorsed a similar wish list of measures, even among his own party, lawmakers have pleaded with the White House not to seek a comprehensive immigration reform package before dealing with DACA — for which permits begin expiring March 6.

At a hearing in the Senate last week with representatives from the Department of Homeland Security, both Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin and Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who have proposed different DACA measures, implored the officials not to seek a complete immigration deal before any action. Durbin said it was “too much” to “put the burden” on a DACA bill to answer all of the issues on the table.

“It’s too much to ask … and I hope you’ll take that message back,” Durbin said.

Responding to the general principles articulated at the hearing, Tillis said: “It reads like a laundry list for comprehensive immigration reform, and if Congress has proven an extraordinary ability to do anything, it’s to fail at comprehensive immigration reform.”

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

As I’ve said before, this “proposal” — obviously the work of White Nationalist racists like Stephen Miller and Jeff Sessions influenced by Steve Bannon — is DOA. And, it’s certainly not an outline for “Comprehensive Immigration Reform.” No, it’s actually “Regressive Racist Anti-Americanism.” Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that that America has used immigration laws to advance a despicable racist agenda. But, in the 21st Century all decent Americans have to take a strong stand against “neo-racists” of the GOP and the “neo-fascists” of the Alt Right. And, a guys like Miller, Gonzo, and Bannon fit both of those categories. They, along with Trump and “Looney White Guys With Guns,” pose the biggest threats to America’s safety and security.

PWS

10-08-17

LEGACY OF HATE – TRUMP’S APPOINTMENT OF HOMOPHOBIC JUDGES LIKELY TO TORMENT LGBTQ AMERICANS FOR DECADES TO COME! — Elections Have Consequences!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-judicial-nominee-abortion-rights_us_59d67a63e4b046f5ad96e117?feh

Jennifer Bendery reports for Huff Post:

WASHINGTON ― Thursday was a good day for Amy Coney Barrett. A Senate committee voted to advance her nomination to be a federal judge.

It wasn’t a pretty vote. Every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee opposed her nomination. They scrutinized her past writings on abortion, which include her questioning the precedent of Roe v. Wade and condemning the birth control benefit under the Affordable Care Act as “a grave infringement on religious liberty.” One Democrat, Al Franken (Minn.), called her out for taking a speaking fee from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit that’s defended forced sterilization for transgender people and has been dubbed a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

But Republicans don’t need Democrats’ votes, and now Barrett, a 45-year-old law professor at the University of Notre Dame, is all but certain to be confirmed to a lifetime post on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit — a court one level below the Supreme Court.

Barrett is the model judicial candidate for this White House: young, conservative, and opposed to abortion and LGBTQ rights. For all the stories about President Donald Trump using his executive power to roll back civil rights protections — in the past day, his administration axed the ACA birth control benefit and ended workplace protections for transgender people — it is here, on the courts, where his team is working most aggressively to reshape the country.

“Trump’s speed in nominating judges has been perhaps the most successful aspect of his presidency,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who specializes in judicial nominations. “Trump has easily surpassed Obama, Bush and Clinton at this point in the first year of their presidencies in terms of the sheer number nominated.”

He has. Ten months in, Trump has nominated 17 circuit court judges and 39 district court judges. That’s far more than former President Barack Obama’s seven circuit court nominees and four district court nominees by this point in his first year of office. Former President George W. Bush had nominated 11 circuit judges and 31 district judges by this point.

He’s also got more court seats to fill. He inherited a whopping 108 court vacancies when he became president ― double the number of vacancies Obama inherited when he took office. That’s largely due to Republicans’ years-long strategy of denying votes to Obama’s court picks to keep those seats empty for a future GOP president to fill. It worked.

If Trump’s current judicial nominees are a preview of the kinds of judges he plans to nominate in the coming years, prepare for a significantly more socially conservative group of people shaping the nation’s laws.

Consider John Bush. The Senate confirmed him in July, on a party-line vote, to a lifetime post on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Bush, 52, has compared abortion to slavery and referred to them as “the two greatest tragedies in our country.” He has also said he strongly disagrees with same-sex marriage, mocked climate change and proclaimed “the witch is dead” when he thought the Affordable Care Act might not be enacted.

The Senate also confirmed Kevin Newsom, 44, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in August. He wrote a 2000 law review article equating the rationale of Roe v. Wade to Dred Scott v. Sandford, the 1857 decision upholding slavery. He also argued in a 2005 article for the Federalist Society, a right-wing legal organization, that Title IX does not protect people who face retaliation for reporting gender discrimination. The Supreme Court later rejected that position.

Ralph Erickson, 58, was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in September. As a district judge in 2016, he was one of two judges in the country who ordered the federal government not to enforce health care nondiscrimination protections for transgender people.

Here’s U.S. circuit court judge John Bush testifying in his Senate confirmation hearing in June. He thinks abortion is like slavery, and they are “the two greatest tragedies in our country.”

These are just judges that have been confirmed. Nominees in the queue include Leonard Grasz, Trump’s pick for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. Grasz, 56, proposed amending the Omaha City Charter in 2013 to let employers discriminate against LGBTQ people. He has also compared the “personhood” of fetuses to the civil rights of Native Americans and African-Americans, according to an exhaustive report issued by the Alliance for Justice, a left-leaning advocacy group that focuses on the federal judiciary.

Trump’s effort to shift the federal bench to the right isn’t just aimed at district and circuit courts. He nominated Damien Schiff, a 37-year-old attorney, to a 15-year gig on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Schiff has criticized efforts to prevent bullying of LGBTQ students, referring to messages of equality as “teaching ‘gayness’ in schools.” He also argued that states should be allowed to criminalize “consensual sodomy.”

Part of the reason the White House has been able to nominate so many judges, so quickly, is because it’s been focused on filling court vacancies in states represented by two Republican senators. It’s easier for Trump’s team to work with Republicans in picking nominees, and then in moving them forward in committee, where it takes both home-state senators turning in a “blue slip” to get the hearing process going.

Trump has been less successful in confirming nominees, though. That’s partly because in the mad rush to fill courts seats, the White House isn’t reviewing nominees’ records as thoroughly as, say, the Obama administration did. That means more controversial nominees and more scrutiny. Democrats aren’t exactly eager to cooperate, either, given the way Republicans treated Obama’s judicial nominees (remember Merrick Garland?).

But as Trump plows through judicial nominations that will be a part of his legacy for decades, the only thing Democrats can do while they’re in the minority, for the most part, is make noise.

If they want real change, says Tobias, “Democrats need to win elections.”

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

Homophobe Jeff Sessions’s time as Attorney General won’t extend beyond the Trump Administration, if that long. However, the damage he has done to the U.S. legal system, our Constitution, the Department of Justice, and LGBTQ Americans won’t be easily repaired, if ever.

But, life tenured Federal Judges are an even bigger problem. These “robed bigots” will be inflicting cruel, discriminatory, and degrading treatment on the U.S. LGBTQ Community from their benches for decades to come.

In the end, Professor Tobias is entirely correct:“Democrats need to win elections.” Otherwise, our LGBT family, colleagues, friends, and neighbors are going to continue to be targets for homophobic Federal Judges and GOP politicos for many decades.

PWS

10-08-17

7TH CIR. “SCHOOLS” BIA IN BIA’S OWN AUTHORITY TO GRANT WAIVER — ARTICLE III THWARTS BIA’S ATTEMPT TO “GET TO NO!” — Matter of KHAN, 26 I&N Dec. 797 (BIA 2016) BLOWN AWAY — BAEZ-SANCHEZ V. SESSIONS! — There’s Is Now A “Circuit Split” With The 3rd Cir., Which “Went Along To Get Along” With The BIA!

rssExec.pl

Baez-Sanchez v. Sessions, 7th Cir., 10-06-17 (published)

PANEL: Before BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

OPINION BY: Judge EASTERBROOK

KEY QUOTE:

“LDG addressed the question whether the Attorney Gen‐ eral has the authority to waive the inadmissibility of an alien seeking a U visa. We assumed that, in removal proceedings, IJs may exercise all of the Attorney General’s discretionary powers over immigration. The panel did not justify that as‐ sumption, because the parties had not doubted its correct‐ ness. But after LDG the Board concluded that the assumption is mistaken. In re Khan, 26 I&N Dec. 797 (2016), holds that IJs have only such powers as have been delegated and that the power to waive an alien’s inadmissibility during proceedings seeking U visas is not among them. The Third Circuit has agreed with that conclusion. Sunday v. Attorney General, 832 F.3d 211 (3d Cir. 2016). We must decide in this case whether to follow Sunday and Khan.
Delegation from the Attorney General to immigration judges is a matter of regulation, and arguably pertinent reg‐ ulations are scattered through Title 8 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The BIA in Khan observed, correctly, that the panel in LDG had not mentioned 8 C.F.R. §§235.2(d), 1235.2(d), which omit any delegation to IJs of the power to waive an alien’s admissibility. And that’s true, for those regu‐ lations concern the powers of District Directors rather than the powers of IJs. The principal regulation that does cover IJs’ authority is 8 C.F.R. §1003.10, which provides in part:
(a) Appointment. The immigration judges are attorneys whom the Attorney General appoints as administrative judges within the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge to conduct specified classes of proceedings, including hearings under section 240 of the [Immigration and Nationality] Act. Immigration judges shall act as the Attorney General’s delegates in the cases that come be‐ fore them.
(b) Powers and duties. In conducting hearings under section 240 of the Act and such other proceedings the Attorney General may assign to them, immigration judges shall exercise the powers and duties delegated to them by the Act and by the Attorney General through regulation. In deciding the individual cases be‐ fore them, and subject to the applicable governing standards, immigration judges shall exercise their independent judgment and discretion and may take any action consistent with their au‐ thorities under the Act and regulations that is appropriate and necessary for the disposition of such cases. Immigration judges shall administer oaths, receive evidence, and interrogate, exam‐ ine, and cross‐examine aliens and any witnesses. Subject to §§ 1003.35 and 1287.4 of this chapter, they may issue administra‐ tive subpoenas for the attendance of witnesses and the presenta‐ tion of evidence. In all cases, immigration judges shall seek to re‐ solve the questions before them in a timely and impartial man‐ ner consistent with the Act and regulations.

The Attorney General’s brief in this court observes that §1003.10(b) does not delegate to IJs any power to waive an alien’s inadmissibility. Sure enough, it doesn’t. But §1003.10(a) does. It says that “[i]mmigration judges shall act as the Attorney General’s delegates in the cases that come before them.” This sounds like a declaration that IJs may ex‐ ercise all of the Attorney General’s powers “in the cases that come before them”, unless some other regulation limits that general delegation. The BIA in Khan did not identify any provision that subtracts from the delegation in §1003.10(a). Nor did the Third Circuit in Sunday. Indeed, neither the BIA nor the Third Circuit cited §1003.10(a). We therefore adhere to the view of LDG that IJs may exercise the Attorney Gen‐ eral’s powers over immigration.”

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

In the end, of course, the respondent didn’t win much. The 7th Circuit remanded the case to the BIA to “exercise Chevron authority” on the question of whether the Attorney General himself has been stripped of authority to grant these waivers by the legislation that established the DHS as a separate entity.

But, we already know the answer to that question. The BIA has no desire to exercise jurisdiction over this waiver. Indeed, to do so, could turn out to be “career threatening” if you work for notorious xenophobe Jeff Sessions.

Moreover, even before the advent of Sessions, the BIA abandoned any pretense of impartiality in exercising Chevron jurisdiction. The BIA usually looks for the interpretation least favorable to the respondent, that of the DHS, and adopts that as it “preferred interpretation.” To do otherwise could hamper any Administration’s efforts to achieve enforcement objectives, thereby endangering the BIA as an institution. Moreover, agreeing with the private litigant in a published decision could undermine the efforts of the DOJ’s Office of Immigration Litigation to facilitate successful defense of petitions for review removal orders in the Article III Courts.

If this sounds like a strange scenario for a supposedly fair, impartial, and unbiased “court” to adopt, that’s because it is! The BIA is there primarily to slap a “patina of due process” on removal orders without really interfering with the DHS’s “removal railroad.” And that’s useful because of Chevron and the ability of OIL and the DOJ to disingenuously claim that respondents receive “full due process” from the Immigration Courts and the BIA and that Article III Courts, therefore, ought not to worry themselves about the results. And, in a surprising number of cases, the Article IIIs oblige. They don’t want to be stuck having to redo tens of thousands of mass produced BIA appeals.

So, what’s not to like about this system? The Attorney General gets his wholly owned courts to churn out removal orders that look fair (but really aren’t in many cases). The BIA Appellate Judges get to keep their high paying jobs in the Falls Church Tower without having to personally “face up” to the poor folks they are railroading out of the country to places where their lives and futures are in danger. OIL gets to buttress its narrow readings of immigration statutes against immigrants with so-called “court decisions” from the BIA that really aren’t really decisions by independent decision makers. The DHS gets lots of removal orders to keep the “Enforcer In Chief” happy, plus they gain leverage to use against any U.S. Immigration Judge who keeps ruling in favor of respondents. “We’ll just take you to the BIA and get it reversed.” The Article IIIs get to largely avoid moral or legal responsibility for this facade of fairness and due process. Out of sight (which folks are when they get removed), out of mind. We’re just “deferring” to the BIA. Don’t blame us! And, don’t forget Congress! They get to pretend like none of this is happening and claim they are “solving” the problem just by throwing a few more positions and a little more money at EOIR. No need for meaningful oversight into the charade of due process in the U.S. Immigration Courts. And, there are a few guys over on the GOP side of the Hill who hate immigrants and despise due process as much as Sessions does. They undoubtedly see this as a model for the entire U.S. justice system, or better yet, have lots of ideas on how to avoid the Immigration Courts entirely and make the “removal railway” run even faster.

The only folks who aren’t served are the poor folks looking to the U.S. Immigration Courts as courts of last resort to save their lives, preserve their futures, or at least listen sympathetically to their case for remaining. Some of these poor fools actually believe all they stuff about Americans being fair and humane. Those guys were really discombobulated when I had to tell them that while I had absolutely no doubt that some very ”bad things” were going to happen to them upon return, that just doesn’t matter to the U.S. legal system. While I sometimes had the unenviable task of “telling it like it is,” the BIA, the DOJ, and the Federal Courts really couldn’t care less if migrants end up getting killed, raped, or maimed upon return or if their families in the U.S. have to go on welfare. There’s just no place for them in our system.

The other folks who might not come out so well are the rest of America — the non-xenophobes. Most Americans aren’t actually xenophobes in the Trump-Sessions-MIller-Bannon-GOP Restrictionist tradition. While those of us who know what’s happening might be powerless to stop it, we can document it for future generations. We’re making a record.

In the age of information, none of this is going away or going to be swept under an “eternal carpet.” Someday there will be a “day or recokening” for our descendants, just like the one for those of us whose current privilege was built on enslaved African American labor and its many benefits as well as by a century of “Jim Crow” laws which siphoned off African American Citizens’ Constitutional rights and human dignity and conferred them instead on undeserving white folks in both the South and the North.

We have certainly demonstrated that we can be “tone deaf” to both the motivations and the actual effects of our current broken immigration policies. Indeed, there can be no better evidence of that than the election of Trump and empowerment of his xenophobe racist cronies like Sessions and Miller.

But, in the end, we won’t escape the judgement of history, nor will they. The ugliness of our current immigration policies and practices, and the “false debate” about them (there, in fact is no legitimate case for the “restrictionist agenda” — just a racial and cultural one), might be buried in a barrage of alt-right media and “Sessions bogus law and fact free pronouncements.” But, someday, those are going to look just as “legit’ as Conferederate broadsides or the racially hateful rhetoric of Jefferson Davis do today outside the membership of various hate groups and the alt-right.

PWS

10-07-17

BIA SAYS “NO” TO BATTERED SPOUSE WAIVER FOR THOSE ABUSED BY FOREIGN SPOUSE! — Matter of PANGAN-SIS, 27 I&N Dec. 130 (BIA 2017)

3904

Matter of PANGAN-SIS, 27 I&N Dec. 130 (BIA 2017)

BIA HEADNOTE:

An alien seeking to qualify for the exception to inadmissibility in section 212(a)(6)(A)(ii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(ii) (2012), must satisfy all three subclauses of that section, including the requirement that the alien be “a VAWA self-petitioner.”

PANEL: Appellate Immigration Judges Malphrus, Mullane & Creppy

OPINION BY: Judge Mullane

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

Let’s break this down into simple human terms. A Guatemalan woman suffered an extended period of domestic abuse in Guatemala at the hands of her husband. That caused her to flee to the United States and enter without inspection. The woman told the truth to authorities.

Rather than granting her temporary refuge, the U.S. Government sought to remove the woman. The woman was fortunate enough to get a good lawyer who made sophisticated arguments in favor of her remaining. She also was fortunate to have a U.S. Immigration Judge who listened to those arguments and granted her a humanitarian waiver. This waiver allowed her to remain in the United States, but did not give her any permanent status nor did it put her in line for a green card.

The Government (“DHS”) did not want the woman to remain, even in a more or less “limbo status.” So, they appealed to the BIA.

The BIA agreed with the woman that the waiver statute was ambiguious and therefore the Immigration Judge had plausibly interpreted it in her favor. But, the BIA found that a “better interpretation” would impose additional requirements that woman and those similarly situated could never meet. The BIA noted that Congress was only concerned about domestic violence in the United States that was being used as “leverage” against a foreign national by his or her US citizen or green card holding spouse.

Inferentially, the BIA found that Congress could not possibly have intended to help other victims of domestic violence that occurred outside the United States. That would potentially allow every abused spouse in the world to seek a discretionary waiver that would save them from abuse by granting them limited refuge in the United States.

The BIA sent the case back to the Immigration Judge so that the DHS can continue its efforts to remove her to Guatemala where she will be further abused by her Guatemalan spouse. Her lawyer can help her apply for asylum and withholding of removal based on a prior BIA decision Matter of A-R-C-G- that benefitted victims of domestic violence.

However the DHS is likely to oppose that relief. Otherwise, the DHS would have already offered to settle the case based on A-R-C-G-. That’s what used to happen routinely in my court in Arlington prior to the Trump Administration. The woman is credible and appears to fit squarely within A-R-C-G-.

But, if the Immigration Judge grants relief under A-R-C-G- or the Convention, Against Torture (“CAT”), the DHS probably will appeal again to the BIA. As part of the Administration’s enforcement program, the DHS wants the BIA to help them “send a message” that victims of domestic violence might as well continue to suffer abuse or preferably die (thus solving the problem from a U.S. Immigration Enforcement standpoint) at the hands of their abusers rather than seeking refuge in the United States. Bad things that happen to good people in other countries are just not our problem. America First!

The BIA Appellate Judges work for Jeff Sessions. They understand even better than Immigration Judges in the field that “not getting with the Administration’s Enforcement program” of sending consistently negative messages to asylum seekers could result in their being reassigned to other jobs by Jeff Sessions. Some of those jobs have no real duties (“Hallwalkers”).

Jeff Sessions hates all migrants and particularly Hispanic migrants fleeing from Central America. He hates them almost as much as he hates LGBTQ Americans.

Jeff tells everyone who will listen that all Hispanic migrants and most Hispanic citizens who live among them are criminals, drug dealers, and gang members. Even those who aren’t actually criminals are going to take great jobs that Americans would like to have such as picking lettuce, milking cows, shucking oysters, making beds, washing dishes, climbing up trees, cleaning bathrooms, sweeping floors, removing dangerous and moldy storm damage, taking off and putting on roofs in 120 degree heat, pounding drywall, taking care of other folks’ children, mowing laws, and changing adult diapers for senior cizens who can’t do it themselves.

While the United States might sometimes claim to be a bastion of freedom and humanitarian ideals, that is usually only when lecturing other countries on their failings or touting the superiority of our system over every other system in the world. Nobody should seriously expect the United States to act on those humanitarian ideals, particularly when it comes to helping women and children from the Northern Triangle of Central America.

PWS

10-07-17

GONZO’S WORLD: SESSIONS’S LATEST MEMO ENCOURAGES DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY AND WOMEN BASED ON A BOGUS RELIGIOUS RATIONALE!

5https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/06/jeff-sessions-issues-directive-undercutting-lgbtq-protections?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The Guardian reports:

The attorney general, Jeff Sessions, on Friday issued a sweeping directive that undercuts federal protections for LGBT people, telling agencies to do as much as possible to accommodate those who claim their religious freedoms are violated.

Trump substantially weakens Obamacare contraception mandate
Read more
In response, one LGBT rights advocate called the directive a “license to discriminate” and “an attack on the values of freedom and fairness that make this nation great”.

Also on Friday, the Trump administration issued a new rule that substantially undermines women’s access to birth control under the Affordable Care Act.

The Sessions directive, an attempt to deliver on Donald Trump’s pledge to evangelical supporters that he will protect religious liberties, effectively lifts a burden from religious objectors to prove their beliefs about marriage or other topics are sincerely held.

A claim of a violation of religious freedom will now be enough to override many anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people, women and others.

The guidelines are so sweeping that experts on religious liberty called them a legal powder keg that could prompt wide-ranging lawsuits against the government.

“This is putting the world on notice: you better take these claims seriously,” Robin Fretwell Wilson, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told the Associated Press. “This is a signal to the rest of these agencies to rethink the protections they have put in place on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Rebecca Isaacs, executive director of the Equality Federation, said in a statement: “This license to discriminate is an attack on the values of freedom and fairness that make this nation great. It opens the door for discrimination in the workplace and public services, flying in the face of the majority of Americans of whom over 70% believe laws should protect LGBTQ people from discrimination.

“The Trump administration’s ongoing attempts to undermine LGBTQ Americans’ ability to provide for themselves and their families without fear of discrimination highlights the urgent need for national nondiscrimination protections, which are supported by the vast majority of Americans.”

Trump announced plans for the directive last May in a Rose Garden ceremony, surrounded by religious leaders. Since then, religious conservatives have awaited the justice department guidance, hoping for greatly strengthened protections for their beliefs amidst a rapid national acceptance of LGBT rights.

Religious liberty experts said they would have to see how the guidance would be applied by individual agencies, both in crafting regulations and deciding how to enforce them. But experts said the directive clearly tilted the balance very far in favor of people of faith who do not want to recognize same-sex marriage.

“Except in the narrowest circumstances, no one should be forced to choose between living out his or her faith and complying with the law,” Sessions wrote. “To the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law, religious observance and practice should be reasonably accommodated in all government activity.”

The document lays the groundwork for legal positions the Trump administration intends to take in religious freedom cases, envisioning sweeping protections for faith-based beliefs and practices in private workplaces and government jobs and even in prisons.

In issuing the memo, Sessions, a deeply devout Methodist from Alabama, is injecting the department into a thicket of highly charged legal questions that have repeatedly reached the US supreme court, most notably in the 2014 Hobby Lobby case that said corporations with religious objections could opt out of a health law requirement to cover contraceptives for women.

The memo makes clear the justice department’s support of that opinion in noting that the primary religious freedom law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, protects the rights not only of people to worship as they choose but also of corporations, companies and private firms.

The document also says the government improperly infringes on individuals’ religious liberty by banning an aspect of their practice or by forcing them to take an action that contradicts their faith. As an example, justice department lawyers say government efforts to require employers to provide contraceptives to their workers “substantially burdens their religious practice”.

The document also calls into question the Johnson amendment, which bars churches and tax-exempt groups from endorsing political candidates. Trump in May signed an executive order aimed at weakening the enforcement of that law, which he has said penalizes people for protected religious belief.

The justice department, in the document, says the Internal Revenue Service may not enforce the Johnson amendment “against a religious non-profit organization under circumstances in which it would not enforce the amendment against a secular non-profit organization”.

The department’s civil rights division will now be involved in reviewing all agency actions to make sure they don’t conflict with federal law regarding religious liberty.“

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

Gonzo is trying to ram his own homophobic brand of Christian theology down the throats of the vast majority of Americans who don’t want to live in a Theocracy. Can you believe this this Dude has the audacity to lecture folks on the First Amendment? He is a walking perversion of true religious freedom! Religious freedom is the freedom of Americans in the LGBTQ community not to be harmed or denigrated by Sessions’s perverted minority interpretation of Christianity.

While Gonzo might claim to be a “devout Methodist,” he certainly practices a brand of Methodism and Christianity that I don’t recognize and I doubt that Jesus would either. Our Methodist Church “welcomes all people as they are” — even Sessions would be accepted if not his rhetoric of hate, discrimination, and intolerence. Jesus Christ was about love, self-sacrifice, inclusion, and forgiveness concepts that Jeff Sessions sadly has never understood and apparently never will. I feel pity for him as a human being, but that doesn’t entitle him to use his position to preach hate and intolerence.

Liz was right.

PWS

LA TIMES: SUPREMES MUST DELIVER ON PROMISE OF DUE PROCESS FOR IMMIGRANTS! — “[T]oo often immigrants haven’t received fair treatment from the courts.“ — Is Justice Gorsuch About To Make Good On His Oath To Uphold The Constitution By Standing Up For Due Process For Migrants?

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-scotus-immigrants-20171005-story.html

“This week the Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases that pose the question of whether noncitizens should be afforded at least some of the due process of law that Americans take for granted. The answer in both cases should be a resounding yes.

On Monday, the justices considered whether a Filipino legal immigrant convicted of two home burglaries in California could be deported even if the wording of the federal law used to determine whether he could be removed from the U.S. was so unconstitutionally vague that it could not be enforced in a criminal court. On Tuesday, lawyers for a group of noncitizens detained by immigration authorities asked the court to rule that detainees are entitled to a bond hearing after six months of confinement.

Although the circumstances and legal issues in the two cases differ, the common denominator is the importance of affording due process to noncitizens.

James Garcia Dimaya, who was admitted to the U.S. as a lawful permanent resident at the age of 13, pleaded no contest in 2007 and 2009 to two charges of residential burglary. Concluding that one of the convictions was an “aggravated felony,” the Board of Immigration Appeals agreed with the Homeland Security Department that Dimaya should be deported.

The United States is often called “a nation of immigrants.” But too often immigrants haven’t received fair treatment from the courts.
But the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision. It said the definition of “aggravated felony” in immigration law incorporated a definition of “crime of violence” that was similar to language in a different law the Supreme Court had concluded in 2015 was too vague to be constitutional.

At Monday’s oral argument, Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler said the law at issue in Dimaya’s case didn’t suffer from the same vagueness problem. But even if it did, Kneedler told the court, “immigration is distinctive” and deportation “is not punishment for [a] past offense.” In other words, even if the law was too vague to be used for the purposes of criminal punishment, it could still be used for the purposes of deportation.

This brought a devastating rejoinder from Justice Neil Gorsuch. “I can easily imagine a misdemeanant who may be convicted of a crime for which the sentence is six months in jail or a $100 fine, and he wouldn’t trade places in the world for someone who is deported,” Gorsuch said. He questioned the soundness of the “line that we’ve drawn in the past” between criminal punishment and civil penalties such as deportation.

We agree. If the court decides that the wording of the law that triggered Dimaya’s removal order was unconstitutionally vague, he should be entitled to relief. A law that is too vague to justify a criminal sentence shouldn’t be a good enough reason to expel someone from the country.

In the case argued Tuesday, a class-action lawsuit, noncitizens detained by immigration authorities asked the court to rule that they should receive bond hearings if their detention lasts for six months. The lead plaintiff is Alejandro Rodriguez, who grew up in Los Angeles as a lawful permanent resident. After Rodriguez was sentenced to five years’ probation on a misdemeanor drug possession conviction, he was detained and targeted for deportation to Mexico, the country he had left as a baby two decades earlier. He remained locked up as his legal battle dragged on for years.

The 9th Circuit ruled not only that detainees were entitled to bond hearings but also that they should be released unless the government could demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that they were dangerous or a flight risk. But on Tuesday Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart told the court that detainees “have no such right.” He later said that insofar as foreigners arriving in the U.S. are concerned, the Supreme Court has made it clear that “whatever process Congress chooses to give is due process.”

Yet in recent years the court has recognized not only that noncitizens have constitutional rights but that deportation can be a catastrophic experience. In June, the court overturned the guilty plea of an immigrant from South Korea because his lawyer wrongly told him he wouldn’t be deported as a consequence of a plea bargain.

The United States is often called “a nation of immigrants.” But too often immigrants haven’t received fair treatment from the courts. The cases argued this week offer the Supreme Court an opportunity to rectify that injustice.”

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

”Mouthing” due process for migrants is easy; the BIA does it all the time — so does EOIR. But, actually providing due process for migrants is something totally different. Most courts, and particulately the BIA, routinely sign off on unfair procedures and interpretations that would never be considered “Due Process” in any other context.

I’m “cautiously heartened” by Justice Gorsuch’s apparent realization of the potentially catastrophic real human consequences of removal (often blithely ignored or downplayed by the BIA, Sessions, restrictionists, and Federal Courts) and recognition that the “civil-criminal” distinction is totally bogus — designed to sweep Constitutional violations under the rug — and needs to be eliminated.

As an Immigration Judge, when I was assigned to the “Detained Docket” in Arlington, I had case after case of green card holders who had minor crimes for which they paid fines or got suspended sentences — in other words, hadn’t spent a day in jail — “mandatorily detained” for months, sometimes years, pending resolution of their “civil” immigration cases. In plain language, they were sentenced to indefinite imprisonment but without the protections that a criminal defendant would receive! They, their families, and their employers were incredulous that this could be happening in the United States of America. I simply could not explain it in a way that made sense.

Talk is one thing, action quote another. But, if Justice Gorsuch folllows through on his apparent inclination to make Due Process protections for migrants “a reality” rather than a “false promise,” Constitutional protections will be enhanced for every American! We are no better than how we treat the least among us.

Ultimately, full delivery on the promise of Constitutional Due Process for everyone in America, including migrants, will require the creation of an independent Article I U.S. Immigraton Court. The current “captive system” — unwilling and unable to stand up for true Due Process for migrants — is a facade behind which routine denials of Constitutional Due Process take place. As Americans, we should demand better for the most vulnerable among us.

PWS

10-06-17

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