"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
A fire in a dormitory at a Mexican immigration detention center near the U.S. border left more than three dozen migrants dead, a government agency said Tuesday, in one of the deadliest incidents ever at an immigration lockup in the country.
Hours after the fire broke out late Monday, rows of bodies were laid out under shimmery silver sheets outside the facility in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas. Ambulances, firefighters and vans from the morgue swarmed the scene.
Thirty-nine people died and 29 were injured and are in “delicate-serious” condition, according to the National Immigration Institute. There were 68 men from Central and South America held in the facility at the time of the fire, the agency said.
It was the deadliest incident inside a Mexican immigration facility in recent memory. Authorities are investigating the cause of the fire and the governmental National Human Rights Commission had been called in to help the migrants.
The agency said that it “energetically rejects the actions that led to this tragedy” without any further explanation of what those actions might have been.
The country’s immigration lockups have seen protests and riots from time to time.
Mostly Venezuelan migrants rioted inside an immigration center in Tijuana in October that had to be controlled by police and National Guard troops. In November, dozens of migrants rioted in Mexico’s largest detention center in the southern city of Tapachula near the border with Guatemala. No one died in either incident.
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Human rights experts, advocates, and international organizations have been predicting even more deadly tragedies like this will result if the Biden Administration’s tone-deaf and outrageous “death to asylum seekers regulations” go into effect. The Biden Administration has blown them off!
These are just the most “graphic deaths” resulting from years of ill-advised “deterrence” policies at the border and a continued deterioration of the legal refugee and asylum system. This preventable human rights disaster began under Obama, accelerated dramatically under Trump, and has continued its “death spiral” under the Biden Administration’s “active indifference” to human rights, racial justice, and the rule of law at the border. Significantly, incidents like this don’t account for the tragedies that occur when legal asylum seekers are illegally returned to torture, abuse, and death in home countries or Mexico without receiving any due process from U.S. officials.
Apparently, the Biden Administration believes that “death in Mexico will stay in Mexico” and that bodies and bleached bones along desolate areas of the U.S. borders will continue to be “below the radar screen.” In their own way, Biden policy officials are every bit as cruel, intellectually dishonest, and unaccountable as those in the Trump kakistocracy.
It doesn’t have to be this way! Why aren’t more Dems meaningfully challenging the Biden Administration’s adoption of horrible, deadly, hate-fueled “Stephen Miller border policies?”
“Death to asylum regulations” also mean death to our fellow humans seeking legal protection from the U.S. How is this acceptable “strategic policy” for ANY administration, let alone a Dem one?
President Biden’s plan to limit some migrants’ access to asylum could force federal asylum officers to break U.S. law, the union that represents asylum officers argued Monday in a formal filing opposing the proposal.
Enforcing Biden’s policy would violate asylum officers’ oath to carry out the immigration laws set out by Congress and “could make them complicit in violations of U.S. and international law,” attorneys for the American Federation of Government Employees Council 119 wrote in a comment submitted to the Department of Homeland Security.
The same union regularly protested the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict asylum at the southern U.S. border, including by joining lawsuits that sought to block his policies. Its decision to oppose Biden’s asylum proposal is one indication of the plan’s similarities to Trump-era efforts.
“At their core, the measures that the Proposed Rule seeks to implement are inconsistent with the asylum law enacted by Congress, the treaties the United States has ratified, and our country’s moral fabric and longstanding tradition of providing safe haven to the persecuted,” the union argued. “Rather, it is draconian and represents the elevation of a single policy goal — reducing the number of migrants crossing the southwest border — over human life and our country’s commitment to refugees.”
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Why is this guy still calling the policy shots in a Dem Administration? This is “nutsos!” Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com
Much appreciation to the professional Asylum Officers for helping to lead the charge against these truly cruel, lawless, wasteful, dishonest, and damaging proposals!
One reason that the Biden Administration’s approach to immigration, human rights, and racial justice has been so incredibly inept and counterproductive is that they aren’t paying attention to the views of experts already on the USG payroll (not to mention those in the private sector) before going public with “designed to fail, warmed over Stephen Miller crackpot nativist policies” that any Dem Administration should vigorously oppose as a matter of principle and sound policy!
There are numerous ways to bring “order to the border,” enforce the law (including the rights of refugees to seek and receive protection), and encourage refugees to use the legal system without violating anyone’s legal rights or diminishing their humanity. Why won’t the Biden Administration just “do the right (and smart) thing?”
The amount of time, energy, and resources being devoted to trying to get the Administration to cut the nonsense and comply with the laws already on the books is astounding! Obviously, the wrong people are “calling the shots” on human rights and racial justice efforts in the Biden Administration! Why?
Rev. Craig Mousin Ombudsperson Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Grace School of Applied Diplomacy DePaul University PHOTO: DePaul Website
Craig writes:
Dear Paul,
Good morning.
We just posted our latest podcast with templates and instructions on how to file comments. For those who find the comments too complicated, we urge them to send the White House and their Senators and Representative an email opposing the rules. Please also share this podcast with your friends and networks.
As Craig says, the Biden Administration, along with GOP nativist politicos, and pandering righty Federal Judges, ignore the fundamental right guaranteed by the Refugee Act of 1980: Every person at the border or in the U.S., regardless of status, has a right to apply for asylum!Obviously, that includes a right to a fundamentally fair adjudication by a well-qualified, impartial adjudicator.
It’s not “rocket science!” Yet, Biden, Harris, Mayorkas, Garland, & Co. can’t wrap their heads around this fundamental truth! Disgracefully, after two years of screwing around and wasting time, resources, and squandering goodwill on futile and often illegal “deterrence,” they aren’t much closer to re-establishing a fair, functional asylum system at the borders than they were on Jan 20, 2021! Where’s the basic competence and “good government” that Biden/Harris promised when running for office?
The smug nativist-pandering politicos in the Biden Administration think that asylum applicants, the laws that protect them, and the advocates, like YOU, who defend them are “political chopped liver” — unimportant and completely expendable! It’s up to YOU to prove them wrong! Nobody else is going to do it!
YOU work hard for vulnerable and deserving asylum seekers! Biden Administration policy makers are afraid to venture to the REAL border and face the human carnage they promote. Yet, this is how they see YOU and your clients — as something less than “persons” — “chopped liver!” Until YOU prove them wrong, the dismissive and demeaning treatment will continue! Creative Commons License
While YOU are out there working for due process and social justice, they are huddled in their comfy offices secretly plotting the demise of YOUR clients and making YOUR job more difficult and frustrating. They are “wasting YOUR precious time!”
And, all the while, they have their hands out begging for YOUR financial support and counting on YOU — “chopped liver” — to ring doorbells, make phone calls, organize events, man the polls, and get out the vote! How totally arrogant and insulting! If YOU are tired of being treated as “chopped liver” and having your knowledge, expertise, and fundamental values ignored, YOU must do something about it!
I’m concerned about the impact of the CBP One app on children and families seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. The March 12 front-page article “At the border, a technology wall” underscored the injustice inflicted on these families.
Children and families fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries arrive at the U.S. border needing safety and security. Unfortunately, because of the failures of the CBP One app, many are denied access to the asylum process. Our colleagues at Save the Children Mexico have documented at least 30 instances in which families have chosen to separate instead of remaining in danger together. Additionally, they have seen countless cases of fraud and extortion related to the use of this app. The U.S. government is again causing family separations, this time because of the improper rollout of this app, causing children and families to become victims to extortion and abuse.
But even if the app functioned properly, it would exclude anyone without a cellphone, internet access or the ability to navigate this complicated technical system. Owning a phone and having access to the internet should not be obstacles to seeking safety from violence.
Our elected leaders and the Homeland Security Department need to better address the various issues with the CBP One app to ensure that asylum seekers can seek safety and protection in the United States through an orderly and fair process.
Christy Gleason, Washington
The writer is executive director of the Save the Children Action Network and vice president of policy, advocacy and campaigns for Save the Children.
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Thanks for speaking out Christy! Recently, with the “Ticketmaster Disaster” we all saw that Taylor Swift and her legion of fans are one of the few forces in America who can strike bipartisan fear and spark action in the wacky and self-centered halls of Congress!
Perhaps, Christy and her colleagues can convince Swift that the plight of vulnerable families and children facing rape, robbery, extortion, exploitation, beatings, sexual slavery, death, and dismemberment, who are being shafted by CBP One’s failed technology and its abusive use as a “gatekeeper,” are at least as important as the trauma facing those denied concert tickets by Ticketmaster!Maybe Swift could exert her outsized influence to demand Congressional investigation and corrective action!
T. Swift. Loss of chance to attend her latest concert due to Ticketmaster SNAFU caused immediate bipartisan Congressional outrage and hearings! Loss of chance to plead for life because of DHS CBP One App SNAFU, not so much! Dehumanization of our fellow humans degrades our society. LOS ANGELES – Swift at 2019 iHeartRadio Music Awards on March 14, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Glenn Francis/Pacific Pro Digital Photography) Creative Commons License.
Maybe Swift also could do a “benefit concert” at the border to draw attention to the human rights abuses and dehumanization being inflicted by cowardly politicos from both parties on vulnerable asylum seekers who only want our “nation of laws” to live up to its long-standing legal obligations to provide refuge and fair, dignified treatment. The proceeds could go to asylum seekers and the amazing NGOs and volunteers who have been doing the jobs that the Biden Administration, the State of Texas, GOP restrictionists, and the Mexican Government all shirk!
One common thread: Like Ticketmaster, CBP is basically a “failed monopoly” that provides lousy services — and then lies and blames the user — because there is no competition (except criminal enterprises) and little meaningful oversight or accountability.
Felicia Rangel-Samporano and Victor Cavazos founded The Sidewalk School, then a migrant shelter in Mexico. Now they also provide tech-support for a flawed U.S. immigration app.
Since opening, the school has also expanded to the neighboring Mexican border city of Reynosa. Because life in the migrant camps is transitory, The Sidewalk School’s teachers came and went, sometimes within weeks, said Rangel-Samponaro. They decided it would be easier to hire educators from Mexican border communities instead. Residents also understand better how to navigate the complicated dynamics at play in cities like Matamoros and Reynosa, which are riven by cartel-related crime—most recently, the kidnapping of four U.S. citizens in Matamoros, two of whom were shot and killed by cartel gunmen.
The Sidewalk School teaches based on the U.S. school calendar. In February they celebrated Black History Month, for example, she said. They focus on reading, writing, drawing, and play activities. Classes are typically held from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. They currently have 10 people on staff in Matamoros and Reynosa. “We need even more staff,” Rangel-Samponaro said. “In both cities.”
Frontline Responders
As elected leaders in both Mexico and the United States fail to acknowledge the seismic shift in global displacement due to climate change, Covid-19, and other factors, migrant camps continue to appear up and down the Mexican border.
Border residents have been frontline responders, adapting to the most pressing needs in the camps, one of which is housing. Recently, The Sidewalk School joined the church group Kaleo International to build a shelter in Reynosa. The shelter houses mostly Haitian and African migrants, who are some of the most vulnerable since they are routinely targeted for kidnapping and persecution in Mexico.
But one of the biggest surprises, said Rangel-Samponaro, is that they now serve as tech support for the CBP One app, which was rolled out in January by the U.S. government for migrants to apply for asylum, as an exemption to Title 42. The app has been plagued with errors. And humanitarian groups have complained that the app, which requires that each person upload a selfie to begin the asylum process, often won’t accept photos of darker-skinned applicants.
Currently, there are thousands of Haitians in both Reynosa and Matamoros, as well as other darker-skinned asylum seekers, who are stuck because they can’t get the app to accept their photos. (The manual on the app, which Sidewalk School employees consult daily is 73 -pages long).
I visited Reynosa and The Sidewalk School in late February and spoke with several Haitian families who had tried to use the CBP One app.
I was quickly surrounded by frustrated parents who said they’d been trying for weeks to make the app work. Living in makeshift shelters made of tarps and cardboard and having little to no access to the internet, parents were waking up at 3:00 a.m. in the morning to find a place with an internet connection, then registering, and trying to take and upload their photo before 8:00 a.m., when the app began accepting daily applications.
“I have an appointment,” one father told me. “But the app won’t accept the photos of my children, so I can’t get appointments for them.”
The app often timed out, crashed, or gave error messages, they said. “It’s a disaster,” one man said, after I asked him to sum up his experience trying to use the app.
“People don’t like hearing it, much less acknowledging what is happening to Black asylum seekers,” Rangel-Samponaro said. “They are stuck inside these encampments for months compared to people of Latin descent, who are at the camps for maybe two weeks or a month.”
I spoke with at least 10 different Haitian families, and they all told me that they’d been living in the migrant camp in Reynosa for at least five months.
“We don’t have enough food,” a Haitian boy told me in Spanish, who said he was 11 years old. “And I have this rash on my face.” He pointed to his cheek. Open sewers and trash littered the area around the camps. And the families, who said they couldn’t work and were struggling to buy food, said they were growing desperate.
Felicia Rangel-Samporano visiting a migrant camp in Reynosa with mostly Haitian and Venezuelan asylum seekers. (Photo: Melissa del Bosque)
So desperate that families were considering splitting up. Rangel-Samponaro said there had been anguished meetings with parents who were considering sending their children across as unaccompanied minors. If the parents could get appointments through the app, they would reclaim their children once they arrived in the United States. At least that’s what they hoped.
Recently, The Sidewalk School brought in an immigration attorney to explain to parents how difficult it can be to find a child once they have been designated as unaccompanied in the U.S. immigration system. Children are held by CBP, then transferred to a shelter run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement somewhere in the country. “We’ve explained to them that it’s unlikely that they will cross, and their child will be there waiting for them,” she said.
And once people are accepted by the app for an appointment, they are extensively vetted through a series of law enforcement databases, and some are turned back, she said. “Just because you’ve got an appointment doesn’t mean they’re going to let you in to the United States.”
Rangel-Samponaro, like many others who provide humanitarian services in Mexico, is in frequent contact with CBP about problems with the app. In early March, she said, the agency updated the app so that it only requires one member of the family to submit a photo. But there are still not enough appointments for every member of the family, she said, so families are still splitting up and sending their children across as unaccompanied minors.
The Border Chronicle requested a response from CBP about the app. Tammy Melvin, a CBP press officer, replied in an email that the agency “continues to make improvements to the app based on stakeholder feedback.”
She said that “appointments will only be shown if enough slots for each member in the profile is available.”
And Melvin added in the email that they’ve not seen any issues linked to ethnicity. “CBP One is not conducting facial recognition that compares photos submitted in the application against any other reference system to identify someone,” She wrote. “CBP is not seeing any issues with the capture of the liveness photos due to ethnicity.”
Rangel-Samponaro and others disagree. “We’ve invited the app developers to Reynosa and Matamoros to see the problems we’re having firsthand, but they’ve declined to visit,” she said.
Meanwhile, the hardships keep growing for asylum seekers. Recently, the Biden Administration announced, beginning in May after Title 42 is lifted, that asylum seekers must apply for asylum in the first country they enter, rather than at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Rangel-Samponaro said The Sidewalk School is doing everything it can to help, as even more people will likely be stuck in limbo after the policy change in May. They’re providing educational programs, running a shelter, and now providing tech support, and helping people navigate the U.S. government’s glitch-filled app. “I struggle to categorize everything that we do now,” she said.
Just one of the many error messages encountered while using the CBP One app that Rangel-Samponaro and others try to troubleshoot for asylum seekers. [The “error messages” are all too real! The CBP denial that there is a problem is surreal!]
The first two years were rough going, she said, and she and Cavazos spent their own money to keep The Sidewalk School afloat. Now they’re receiving some grants and donations. But it’s always a struggle, she said. “We need more volunteers, more funding,” she said. “Because the need never stops.”
For volunteer opportunities and to learn more about The Sidewalk School click here.
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Read Melissa’s full article at the link.
How’s this for “contrast?” Felicia Rangel-Samporano and Victor Cavazos, private citizens, gave up comfortable lives in the U.S. and invested their own time and money in addressing the needs of children and families essentially “tashed” by lawless inhumane policies of both the Trump and Biden Administrations. Meanwhile, racist, cowardly, bullying Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) is leading a clearly unconstitutional effort to deny children in Texas U.S. the public education to which they are entitled under Supreme Court precedent. Have to ask what’s wrong with a state that puts a horrible person like Abbott, who doesn’t even govern very well in emergencies or other areas, in charge? They also enabled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), another bullying, lawless, coward who is basically the “bottom of the barrel!”
What the major networks and “mainstream”nmedia aren’t telling you:
“[E]lected leaders in both Mexico and the United States fail to acknowledge the seismic shift in global displacement due to climate change, Covid-19, and other factors;”
“Same old, same old” deterrence and officially-sanctioned cruelty, even in large, expensive, wasteful doses will NOT “solve” refugee flows;
The U.S. “system,” such as it is, systematically mistreats Black asylum seekers;
“CBP One” is defective technology that should never have been put into operation without testing and approval from the humanitarians actually working in the camps in Mexico;
So bad is CBP One that it is encouraging family separation;
The “requirement” that every family member obtain a separate appointment throughCBP One is totally insane;
Even when asylum applicants get an appointment, it’s still a “crap shoot” because the Administration functions in a lawless, opaque, and arbitrary fashion without the necessary legal and practical expertise and safeguards in place;
The very idea that Mexico is a “safe” place to send non-Mexicans rejected at the border, under the totally irrational and illegal “presumption of denial” proposed by the Administration, is beyond preposterous;
The Biden Administration has failed to heed the advice of experts who have actually worked on the border and who have constructive ideas for making the law work.
I’m not just getting the above from this article. I have recently had a chance to hear from individuals actually providing legal and humanitarian services at the border who basically said that the situation there is “beyond FUBAR” and that the Administration officials “crafting” border policies are out of touch with reality and not up to their jobs! In some cases, they are just paying no attention to the law or the advice of those who actually understand the system, both in and out of Government.
That seems exactly what we voted out of office when the Trump kakistocracy was removed. Why, then, does Biden think that ignorance, bias, cruelty, and incompetence on human rights and racial justice is now a “winner?” Why is he aligning himself and his Administration with GOP nativist zealots like Abbott, Paxton, DeSantis, Trump, and Miller, rather than with folks like Rangel-Samporano and Cavazos who actually represent the humane, practical, problem-solving values that the Dems ran on in 2020?🤯
With human lives at stake every day, one would think that our Government’s massive violations of human rights and cavalier dismissal of legal rights recognized for more than four decades, would be of great interest to the so-called “mainstream media” and that all Democrats would be demanding changes in human rights/immigration leadership (obviously, Mayorkas & Garland are the wrong folks) and a competent, legal, humane approach from the Biden Administration. But, unfortunately, you would be wrong! Dead wrong, in some cases! ☠️⚰️
“Gerardo Caballero-Vega, a Mexican citizen, entered the United States in 1993 without admission or parole by an immigration officer when he was eight years old. He was removed to Mexico in 2019. Shortly after his removal, Caballero-Vega returned to the United States and applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. Later that year, the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) granted his application for asylum, which the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“the BIA”). In 2020, the BIA vacated the IJ’s decision for clear error and ordered Caballero-Vega’s removal to Mexico. The following year, Caballero-Vega filed a petition for review in this court. We reverse the BIA’s vacation of the IJ’s decision and remand the case for further review. … Caballero-Vega became a criminal informant for the San Mateo County District Attorney in 2012. He reported to law enforcement on the drug, firearm, and human trafficking conducted by Nuestra Familia, a California prison gang, as well as the Norteño Gang, Nuestra Familia’s “foot soldiers” in the streets. R. Vol. I at 143. Following his informant work, he testified against Nuestra Familia members in criminal court. Caballero-Vega was placed in a witness protection program during and after his testimony. … On November 13, 2019, the IJ granted Caballero-Vega’s application for asylum, finding that he had established a well-founded fear of future persecution based on his membership in the group of “informants who have testified in court against gangs.” … DHS appealed the decision to the BIA. On December 15, 2020, the BIA sustained DHS’s appeal, vacated the IJ’s grant of Caballero-Vega’s asylum, and ordered Caballero-Vega’s removal to Mexico. Specifically, the BIA found that there was “clear error in the [IJ]’s finding that there’s a reasonable possibility that [Caballero-Vega’s] 2012 status as an informant and his 2013 or 2014 United States testimony against United States gang members will be a central reason for possible future harm to [him] upon removal to Mexico.” … We find insufficient the BIA’s explanation for its finding that the IJ’s decision is clearly erroneous. The fact that Caballero-Vega was not persecuted in Mexico is of little-to-no probative value here because he escaped before he could be identified by cartel members. Likewise, the fact that he was not threatened or harmed in the United States following his time as an informant is unhelpful because he was in witness protection for that entire period. Finally, the expert testimony cited by the IJ demonstrates that Mexican cartel members and United States gang members cooperate extensively, so the fact that Caballero-Vega testified against individuals based in the United States, not Mexico, is not dispositive. Thus, none of the reasons the BIA offers for vacating the IJ’s decision justifies the BIA’s finding of clear error. We remand Caballero-Vega’s case to the BIA to accept the IJ’s decision or to provide further justification for its finding that the IJ’s decision is clearly erroneous.”
Asylum was correctly granted in November 2019. 3.5 years later, the case is still kicking around because the wrong “judges” are on the BIA.
Ever wonder why EOIR has unmanageable backlogs? Even when the system works as it should and protection is granted at the initial level, the BIA and their “partners” at DHS Enforcement combine to screw it up! We need Article I!
Dems keep babbling about “Federal Court reform.” But, they can’t even achieve long-overdue progressive reforms to a court system they totally “own!”
Why won’t the Biden Administration govern in accordance with the humane, practical, legal values they ran upon, when it comes to human rights, immigration, and racial justice? Don’t kid yourself! Rather than being “expendable” or “negotiable,” THESE are the issues on which our democracy will eventually stand or fall! That’s something that the younger generation must focus on!
Sessions and Miller wasted almost no time in co-opting and weaponizing EOIR against asylum seekers, migrants, people of color, and even smearing and attacking those defending them. Evil though they were, they had passion and a plan for dehumanization, destruction, and undermining democracy!
Social justice in America needs passionate, brave, principled advocates and defenders! There are plenty of them “out here!” Indeed, My Round Table colleague Judge Ilyce Shugall and I are surrounded by them here at the VIISTA celebration and training at Villanova!
Villanova University President Rev. Peter M. Donohue, Villanova Law Dean Mark Alexander, Professor Michele Pistone, creator and founder of VIISTA Villanova and the CARES Clinic, the VIISTA and CARES alums who have come here from literally every corner of America to celebrate, teach and learn — THEY are passionate about social justice and are actively expanding and defending it. THEY are doing something about the number one immigration problem today — guaranteeing due process through effective representation — by training and turning out “accredited representatives,” highly skilled professional advocates who don’t necessarily have to be lawyers!
Professor Michele Pistone Villanova Law — Creator of VIISTA Villanova Program for training accredited representatives and building nationwide social justice networks. She is passionate about social justice. Why aren’t Biden Administration politicos?
As Father Donohue said at yesterday’s celebration, “‘Woke’ means social justice!” Amazing people have come here from the Southern Border where they work with asylum applicants on both sides of the border. Every day, they see the human trauma, racism, pain, and suffering caused by the Administration’s failure to innovate, lead, and stand up for human rights. These are the preventable human dramas and traumas that smug, ill-informed Administration “policy makers” run away from — they don’t have the courage to face and learn from those they abuse!
Values – human rights and legal rights — CAN’T EVER be “trumped” by “reelection concerns.” I might also add that the “Miller Lite” strategy followed by the Administration hasn’t found supporters or made them friends anywhere on the political spectrum! If you are going to make folks mad, why not at least be doing the right thing? Are competence, innovation, humanity, keeping campaign promises, and following the law REALLY political “losers” as Biden apparently believes? I doubt it!
The Biden Administration and many congressional Dems apparently lack passion and guts! Without the basic governing skills and integrity to undo the horrible human and systemic damage inflicted by Trump and institutionalize due process and fundamental fairness, the Dems are wandering in the social justice wilderness! No passion, no values, no expertise! Doesn’t say much for a party that promised to be a “socially just” alternative to anti-American Trumpist White Nationalism!
“Thrown Under the Bus” Asylum seekers & advocates again expendable to Dems. “Electoral politics trump values when it comes to asylum access.” Creative Commons 2.0 non-commercial license
Biden’s breaks with the left have a common thread: He’s mostly doing it on cultural issues where his party is politically vulnerable, seeking to choke off avenues for the GOP to make inroads with key swing voters. Instead, Biden is trying to keep his focus on economic issues facing the middle class where Democrats hold advantages, such as lowering drug prices and preserving Social Security.
In the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats lost voters who named immigration as their top issue by a 48-point margin and lost voters who cited crime as their top issue by a 16-point margin, exit polls showed. Voters trusted Republicans more than they trusted Democrats on immigration (by 6 points) and on crime (by 9 points).
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Read the full story at the link.
There is another school of thought out there: If Dems once in office performed better on immigration, they could win more elections. Since they don’t effectively “model” the many benefits that immigrants bring to what is, after all, a nation of immigrants, they have little except rhetoric to combat the vicious, xenophobic hate campaigns and nativist lies put up by the GOP.
By failing to effectively and creatively use existing laws, however imperfect, to solve problems and showcase the strength of “normalized” immigration, Dems surrender themselves to the GOP right which has pledged to block any constructive immigration reform.
How might things have been different if Dems had reformed the Asylum Offices and EOIR as recommended by experts; “incentivized” arriving asylum seekers to apply at ports of entry by treating them fairly, humanely, and generously; admitted many more as refugees or asylees, with work authorization and a path to green cards “right off the bat” — rather than “warehousing” them in endless backlogs; worked with NGOs and communities to establish “reception centers” rather than failed and inhumane detention; worked with local development agencies to resettle individuals through regional centers that would match skills with communities needing help, particularly rural areas and areas rebuilding from natural disaster? Think that “outsourcing” asylum seeker relocation to GOP White Nationalist Govs DeSantis and Abbott was a great “strategy?”
Dems could have actual, practical examples of why robust, orderly, immigration, including refugees of all types, is actually a great opportunity for all involved. Perhaps, if more Dem politicos believed in immigration and immigrants’ rights, and acted on those beliefs, rather than treating immigration as a “campaign throwaway issue,” they wouldn’t have to “run and hide” from it when given the chance to govern.
Many voters who view immigration as their “top issue,” are going to be far right anti-immigrant extremists. Dems can “pretzel” 🥨 as much as they want. But, it’s unlikely that they are going to win over many votes among this group!
Others, who favor humane immigration, are probably more likely to view it as one of a number of important issues or to “lump it in” with other social justice issues such as civil rights, voting rights, racial justice, or justice reform.
I doubt that Dems throwing asylum seekers, otherimmigrants, and their supporters “under the bus” is a sound or necessary strategy. Back in 2017, “regular Americans” across the country turned out at airports to welcome those immigrants targeted by Trump’s Muslim ban and to support those challenging Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.
There is recent evidence that despite the GOP’s demonization of immigrants and the Dems basic abandonment of immigrants as a group worthy of aggressive support, there still is a strong constituency among Americans who vote for orderly migration and granting refuge. https://immigrationforum.org/article/new-poll-americans-value-offering-refuge-welcome/
Unfortunately, neither party seems to see supporting immigration and immigrants rights as a “political winner.” And, for all their talent, expertise, and energy, immigration and human rights advocates have failed to “sell” themselves as an important political force to be respected and reckoned with. Contrast this with how a relatively small, non-representative group of extremists, election deniers, and conspiracy theorists plays a dominant role in GOP politics!
Unless or until that changes, immigrants and their advocates are likely to remain “political roadkill” ☠️ for both parties! Contrary to the White Nationalist blather, uncritically accepted by some Dems, that’s not going to stop migrants from coming, although it undoubtedly will confine more of them to an exploitable “extralegal community” while enriching smugglers and cartels. But, it will prevent America from reaching our full potential in the future!
From “LEADING BY EXAMPLE, HONORING COMMITMENTS,” by Human Rights First:
The recommendations below follow multiple prior sets of blueprints and recommendations previously issued for the Biden administration and outline critical steps for the administration including:
Ramp up, speed up and strengthen regional refugee resettlement, parole and other safe migration pathways in the Americas, never coupling such initiatives with the denial of access to asylum, while respecting and centering human rights — including the right to seek asylum and protection from violence — in regional discussions, and redoubling U.S. efforts to support the development of refugee hosting capacity in other countries in the Americas to also ensure access to asylum.
Uphold and comply with refugee law at U.S. borders without discrimination, including to restart and maximize (rather than restrict or “meter”) asylum at ports of entry, take all steps consistent with court rulings to end the Title 42 policy, and ensure people seeking asylum have prompt access to ports of entry — access which should not be limited to CBP One, but assured to people approaching ports of entry to seek asylum. Restoring asylum at ports of entry after years of blockage is essential not only to uphold refugee law, but also to end the counterproductive consequences of Trump policies that, by restricting and blocking access to asylum at ports of entry, have long pushed populations that previously sought asylum at ports of entry to instead attempt to cross the border.
Implement effective and humane refugee reception structures, coordination, funding mechanisms, and case support, including to enhance efforts to communicate, plan, coordinate with and resource the network of faith-based groups, shelters, legal, refugee aid and non-profit humanitarian organizations along the border and across the country that are essential to an effective reception and case support system, create a White House Task Force to improve coordination including with humanitarian organizations and destination communities, develop the new Shelter and Services grant program to remedy some of the limitations of FEMA ESFP-H funding, launch and support public-private asylum reception and orientation initiatives by such humanitarian organizations, ensure prompt provision of work authorization for asylum seekers — a top need identified by both asylum seekers themselves as well as local communities hosting refugees, and ultimately ensure a focused humanitarian and refugee reception agency rather than just “emergency” responses.
Upgrade asylum adjudication processes so that they are prompt, accurate, and fair, improve the new asylum rule process so it leads to efficiency rather than rushed and counterproductive inaccurate adjudications, work with Congress to fund sufficient asylum adjudication capacities to address asylum backlogs, as well as ensuring timely adjudication of new cases, and support and champion funding for legal representation.
Rescind — and do not resurrect — other Trump policies, including the asylum entry and transit bans (or versions of them) and other fatally flawed policies of the last administration that punish or block refugees from protection — and abandon the harmful plan to propose another transit ban.
Stand firm against the anti-immigrant rhetoric and efforts of politicians aligned with the former Trump administration to force continuation and/or codification into law of the former Trump administration’s cruel, racist, and counterproductive policies or other policies that deny refugees access to asylum —and clearly and firmly reject any such Congressional proposals.
It’s not rocket science! It’s achievable! It’s been available since before the 2020 election! It incorporates and realizes values that Biden/Harris ran on in 2020! If Biden had brought in real leaders and experts at the beginning, many of the problems could be on their way to solution right now and the “White Nationalist myths” would be refuted!
Leading by positive example on human rights and the rule of law is a powerful, effective,posture for America that has been largely ignored by the Trump & Biden Administrations. The GOP lacks positive values. But, Dems “run” on them in elections and then “run away” from them once in office!
“Eyore In Distress” Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up” — Help get this poor little guy back on his feet! He’s been down far too long!Don’t just complain about the awful mess @ EOIR! Get on the bench and do something about it! Public Domain
Contact: Communications and Legislative Affairs Division Phone: 703-305-0289 PAO.EOIR@usdoj.gov
www.justice.gov/eoir @DOJ_EOIR March 13, 2023
EOIR to Host Recruitment Outreach Sessions Join Us to Learn How to Become an Immigration Judge
SUMMARY: The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is looking for qualified candidates from all backgrounds to join our immigration judge corps. Interested parties are invited to attend an information session where senior EOIR staff will discuss the immigration judge career path, duties, qualifications, and benefits of being an immigration judge. You will learn how to apply for immigration judge positions when they become available and have the opportunity to ask questions about the immigration judge position and application process. Please join us for one of the sessions below.
March 16, 2023
March 23, 2023
March 30, 2023
Noon – 1 p.m. Pacific Time Noon – 1 p.m. Central Time Noon – 1 p.m. Eastern Time
Chelsea Naylor NDPA Stalwart Board Member, Equal Justice Foundation PHOTO: Linkedin
My friend, NDPA star Chelsea NAYLOR writes:
Today, I’m writing on behalf of an organization on which I sit on the board – WCL’s Equal Justice Foundation (EJF). Each year we raise money to provide stipends for students doing unpaid, public interest, summer internships. This year, we’ll be hosting a networking event with a silent auction so students can meet more professionals in the field/mingle with professors in a different setting, while we also raise those funds!
The event is at WCL’s campus on Thursday, March 30th, 6:30pm-8:30pm and will have food, drinks, trivia, and music!
“I was working at the Justice Department on immigration issues largely related to enforcement, figuring out how to make our laws more just, more fair, more humane. . . . But the Board of Immigration Appeals also has jurisdiction over dealing with regulations. It’s the highest administrative agency dealing with immigration issues—not only one-off cases, but we set national precedent for things like asylum, dealing with children who are detained in the United States. It’s a very powerful agency. Not a lot of people realize how much influence it has. And so that’s significant because when Trump was elected, we saw such a marked change in the direction of the work, where the focus of the policies seemed to be cruelty for the point of cruelty. And I couldn’t continue to work there and uphold my oath to protect and defend the Constitution, let alone maintain my own moral compass. And so I took a stand and I left.”
Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) Visit Creator: Ike Hayman Credit: Ike Hayman SOURCE: WikipediaMary Harris Host & Managing Editor What Next PHOTO: Slate.com
Not just a thing of the past. Unsplash [In fact, it’s Arkansas GOP Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s “vision of the future” now that she has eliminated those pesky “burdensome and obsolete” child labor laws!]BY MARY HARRISMARCH 09, 20233:40 PMCongresswoman Hillary Scholten remembers exactly where she was when she realized her new job on Capitol Hill was about to get a lot more complicated. “My heart just sank,” she said. “I couldn’t believe what I was reading.”Scholten was reading the New York Times, a big investigation into immigrant child labor. The very first anecdote in this 5,000-word opus is about a 15-year-old girl bagging cereal on the graveyard shift in the Hearthside Food Solutions plant in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Scholten is a third-generation Michigander. She’s from Grand Rapids. And it wasn’t just that companies in Scholten’s hometown were employing kids. It was that many of these kids seemed to be living without their parents. And a lot of them were falling asleep in school because they had full-time jobs. The machines they were working on? They had been known to slice off workers’ fingers.Congresswoman Hillary Scholten remembers exactly where she was when she realized her new job on Capitol Hill was about to get a lot more complicated. “My heart just sank,” she said. “I couldn’t believe what I was reading.”Scholten was reading the New York Times, a big investigation into immigrant child labor. The very first anecdote in this 5,000-word opus is about a 15-year-old girl bagging cereal on the graveyard shift in the Hearthside Food Solutions plant in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Scholten is a third-generation Michigander. She’s from Grand Rapids. And it wasn’t just that companies in Scholten’s hometown were employing kids. It was that many of these kids seemed to be living without their parents. And a lot of them were falling asleep in school because they had full-time jobs. The machines they were working on? They had been known to slice off workers’ fingers.
“Especially as an attorney who has worked on these issues her entire career, it felt like a personal attack,” Scholten said.
On Wednesday’s episode of the show, I spoke with the former immigration attorney–turned–congresswoman about the broader powers she has now that’s she in D.C. and whether she will be able to use them. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Mary Harris: Rep. Hillary Scholten says the nuances of immigration have always been important to her. Before she was an attorney, she worked as a migrant advocate. But once she got her law degree, she took that experience one step forward, joining the DOJ.
Hillary Scholten: I was working at the Justice Department on immigration issues largely related to enforcement, figuring out how to make our laws more just, more fair, more humane.
You were working on immigration appeals, right?
Yeah, exactly. But the Board of Immigration Appeals also has jurisdiction over dealing with regulations. It’s the highest administrative agency dealing with immigration issues—not only one-off cases, but we set national precedent for things like asylum, dealing with children who are detained in the United States. It’s a very powerful agency. Not a lot of people realize how much influence it has. And so that’s significant because when Trump was elected, we saw such a marked change in the direction of the work, where the focus of the policies seemed to be cruelty for the point of cruelty. And I couldn’t continue to work there and uphold my oath to protect and defend the Constitution, let alone maintain my own moral compass. And so I took a stand and I left.
Scholten soon got a new job at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. But almost as soon as she arrived, her work—and the work of many other immigration attorneys across the country—was thrown into chaos. Things got especially bad as it became clear the Department of Homeland Security was separating migrant children from their parents at the border, leaving lawyers and advocates to figure out what to do next. That’s when Hillary Scholten started seriously considering a run for Congress.
At the height of the family separation crisis, our agency was responsible for helping reunite and represent so many children. Imagine a legal services waiting room that turned into a virtual day care center overnight with kids who didn’t know where their parents were. And there were a lot of reasons I raised my hand to run, but no doubt I can pinpoint the moment when I was like, “Oh, hell no, I got to do more.” It’s the height of the summer. My dear husband came to visit me at work. It was going to be a late night, and he brought me an iced coffee. And we were chatting, and we walked through our waiting room. He’s normally a pretty stoic guy, and he fell silent. And I turned and looked at him, and his eyes had just filled with tears. And I realized that we had walked past a set of three siblings, all dressed in their Sunday best, between the ages of 5 and 7. That’s how old our children were at the time. And he just said, “Hill, you see this stuff on the news. It is an entirely different level to look these children in the eye.”
One of our youngest clients was separated from his parents at 4 months old. You’re not just walking away from a parent. You’re being taken from their arms.
Five years later, this investigation by the New York Times has Scholten thinking about different ways to help migrant children. Just this past weekend, she returned to her district to connect with constituents and think about how she can intervene, now that her community’s child labor problem is no longer a secret. She can already see the way the news has rippled outward.
One of the saddest things about the fallout of all of this is that there has continued to be some real discontent within the immigrant communities here, where shining a light on the exploitation of children has also shined a light on the fact that there have been so many other individuals working without authorization in these factories. And as companies have started to look into who’s actually working here, their labor pool has vanished. Hearthside, after the Times ran the investigation, said they were going to be doing inspections on the manufacturing floor, and 75 percent of their workforce didn’t show up the next day.
. . . .
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Read/listen to the full interview at the above links.
As Hillary says, the BIA is “a really powerful agency.” That’s exactly why the Trump Administration “packed” it with unqualified restrictionist “Appellate Judges” known for their anti-asylum bias and astronomical asylum denial rates!
That’s also why Biden, Harris, and Garland’s near-complete failure to “clean up the BIA” and the rest of the failed EOIR “judiciary” and bring in the “best legal minds in the business” to establish a model progressive expert judiciary is such a scandal and indicator of the repeated failure of Dem Administrations to take advantage of the transformational opportunities given them.
By contrast, whether we like it or not, the far right extremist GOP knows exactly how important the Immigration Courts are and accordingly acts decisively to weaponize, pack, “dumb down,” and co-opt them in their nativist battle to dehumanize and demonize migrants. This was a key “first step” in the GOP’s attack on all of the “others” in America! Transgender youth, African Americans, women, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and others being targeted by the GOP’s nationwide assault on their rights, humanity, and the truth about our history might look to the Biden Administration’s fecklessness in dealing with immigrants’ rights and human rights to understand how they are being “left out on a limb” by a Dem Administration — more interested in its re-election than in serving those who helped put them in office.
Hillary had the guts and moral courage to take a stand. Yet, Biden, Harris, Garland, Mayorkas and others in this Administration, not so much! Frankly, that’s appalling! 🤮
“It is an entirely different level to look these children in the eye.” This encapsulates the problems of immigration, human rights, child abuse, and racial injustice! Unlike Hillary, very few legislators, Federal Judges, Biden politicos, or GOP nativist Governors and AGs have ever had to get their “hands dirty” by “looking . . . in the eyes” of children and others whom they abuse, dehumanize, and bully on a regular basis!
Attribution: ROLLING BACK CHILD LABOR PROTECTIONS by Randall Enos, Easton, CT Republished under license.
Contrast Hillary’s “hands on” experience and search for bipartisan practical solutions with the predictable stupidity and abuse by GOP Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a living incarnation of the “Peter Principle,” who recently and gleefully signed into law an insane provision reducing child labor protections in Arkansas while incredibly claiming that protecting children was “burdensome and obsolete!”
The law eliminates requirements for the state to verify the age of children younger than 16 before they can take a job.
Sanders believes the provision was “burdensome and obsolete,” spokeswoman Alexa Henning said in an emailed statement.
Ark. Gov. Huckabee Sanders’s MAGA “child welfare plan” has its Anglo-Saxon roots firmly planted in the famous British workhouses that many GOP politicos admire! Public Realm
As part of their “willful blindness” to the deterioration of American democracy, the so-called “mainstream media” often likes to falsely portray GOP Governors as presenting a “saner” alternative to America’s leading liar/insurrectionist “The Donald.” But, as Sanders, DeSantis, Abbott, Youngkin, and others remind us on a regular basis, there are some REALLY BAD GOP Governors out there who are every bit as much a threat to America’s future as Trump!
The anti-woke crusade is rooted in fear and ignorance, a mnemonic placeholder for the bigoted things most people wouldn’t dare say aloud. Black Americans have been using the term “woke” since the 1940s to describe a state of awareness toward racist policies and worldviews that negatively impact the Black community. However, many White people now use the term as a derogative slur, a cowardly way of spilling the beans while denying any beans were spilled.
. . . .
Saying you are anti-woke is a way of admitting you are anti-Black without feeling the backlash many outspoken racists receive. Likewise, anti-woke crusaders are promoting anti-democratic policies by controlling what topics schools and businesses can read and discuss without getting labeled a fascist for circumventing the First Amendment of the Constitution. America was founded by White men interested in securing their rights while denying that same access to Black people, women, and racial and ethnic minority groups. We don’t have to worship the founding fathers blindly, nor should any American. It seems many conservatives are afraid of saying the quiet part out loud, of admitting that their crusade on “woke” is really an attempt to diminish the gains made by the Civil Rights Movement, of framing progress as regressive. Americans should challenge more conservatives to define “woke” on their own terms because the more descriptions they provide, the more we can see through the smoke and mirrors.
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Those with Medium access can read the complete article at the link.
Here’s one of my favorite comments on this article, from Walter Rhein: “When people say they are ‘anti-woke,’ I interrupt them and say ‘You mean ‘anti-black.’ They become enraged and act like they’re the victims (like racists always do).”
Cowardly insurrectionist racist oppressors and chronic liars bogusly claiming they are “victims,” perhaps of “the biggest witch hunt on history?” Sound familiar?
The far right’s war of hate directed against the “other” started with the White Nationalist war on immigrants. It’s called “Dred Scottification” of the other. Yet, the mainstream media downplays the real message and “normalizes” these vile attacks on our democracy. They “whitewash” the dangerous message of hate being promoted by DeSantis, Abbott, and their ilk.
Ron DeSantis Dave Grandlund PoliticalCartoons.com Republished under license Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump are “campaigning” on an agenda of racism, hate, and White Supremacist grievance not seen since the late Gov. George Wallace. Yet, mainstream media has largely “normalized” that which would have been unacceptable and unthinkable only a few years ago!
Even the Biden Administration fails to “connect the dots” between the White Nationalist restrictionist war on asylum seekers of color they have adopted from Trump and Miller and the extremist right’s attack on Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, LGBTQ, women, teachers,Jews, Muslims, health care professionals, journalists, and everyone else “White Supremacist nation” perceives as a threat to their kakistocracy. In that way, this Dem Administration becomes part of problem, not the solution.
Wendy Young President, Kids In Need of Defense (“KIND”)
In response to news reports that the Biden Administration is considering a return to the detention of families seeking safety in the United States, a policy the President vowed to abandon, Kids in Need of Defense President Wendy Young issued the following statement:
“The Biden Administration’s reported plan to reintroduce immigration detention for families seeking safety in the United States is starkly out of step with the President’s stated commitment to implement more humane and orderly immigration policies rooted in American values. It echoes the previous Administration’s deeply flawed approach to immigration, punishing families seeking safety and endangering the well-being of children. Layering failed deterrence strategies like family detention, Title 42, and the new proposed asylum ban will only result in increased family separations and higher numbers of unaccompanied and separated children needing protection.”
KIND notes that earlier this week 103 unaccompanied children were found among 343 migrants packed into an abandoned trailer in Veracruz, Mexico, a development that underscores the urgency to implement sensible and humane immigration policies that keep families together and create safe and efficient ways to seek protection in the United States. The organization’s midterm assessment of the Biden Administration’s protection of unaccompanied children urged the President to make good on his promise to protect unaccompanied children and implement policies that are a stark departure from the previous Administration.
“This Administration vowed to do better than its predecessor, but the asylum ban and the potential to return to family detention are seriously missing that mark,” concluded Young. “Relying on the failed policies of the past puts children at risk and keeps us from true reforms that have the potential to save lives.”
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Joe Biden wouldn’t be President if he had run on this guy’s “hate platform.” So why does Biden think that he can get away with a “bait and switch?” Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com
“Deterrence” directed at legal asylum seekers, particularly vulnerable families and children, is obscene! 🤬 It’s also highly ineffective.
As Wendy points out, there are lots of humane potential solutions to restoring the rule of law at the border. The Biden Administration isn’t interested in keeping their campaign promises or finding solutions. Why?
Today is International Women’s Day! I can’t think of a better representative of powerful, courageous, brilliant, and inspirational women leaders than KIND President Wendy Young — certainly one of my “personal heroes!”🦸🏻🦸🏻🏅 Thanks for all you do, Wendy, your human rights leadership, and your consistent courage to “speak truth to power!” We need more “values-driven” leaders like you!
Immigration Court can be a daunting experience even for veteran litigators. For folks like this, alone with no representation, it’s “mission impossible.” Yet Biden A.G. Merrick Garland has done little to fix the systemic “user unfriendliness” and sometimes outright hostility to pro se litigants in his totally dysfunctional “courts in name only!” (“CINOs”). PHOTO: Victoria Pickering, Creative Commons License
Clearly, gimmicks rolled out by Garland and the Biden Administration, including stunts like “dedicated dockets,” “expedited dockets,” “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” detention courts in the middle of nowhere, unregulated bond procedures, lousy precedents, wasteful litigation against practitioners, proposed regulations irrationally “presuming” denial of asylum, abuse of Title 42, assigning asylum seeker resettlement to GOP nativists like DeSantis and Abbott, and refusal to bring in qualified experts with Immigration Court experience to fix this disasterous system have made the already horrible plight of the unrepresented worse! See, e.g.,https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/674/.
With respect to DHS detainees awaiting hearing, a few are subject to so-called “mandatory detention without independent review” as a result of statutes. Others are imprisoned because ICE claims that they are so-called “arriving aliens” (a designation that even some IJs struggle with, but that has huge consequences for a respondent), “likely to abscond,” or ”security risks!”
But, a significant “unstated purpose” of immigration detention, often in substandard conditions, is to coerce detainees into giving up legal rights or waiving appeals and to punish those who stubbornly insist on asserting their rights.
When the almost inevitable “final order of removal” comes, officials in Administrations of both parties believe, without much empirical evidence, that detainees will serve as “bad will ambassadors,” carrying back woeful tales of wonton cruelty and suffering that will “deter” others from darkening the doors of “the world’s most generous nation.”
In spite of this overall “institutionalized hostility,” there is a small, brave cadre of “due process/fundamental fairness heroes” known as the Office of Legal Access Programs, or “OLAP” at EOIR!Forced into “the darkest corners of the EOIR Tower dungeon” during the reign of terror of “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions and “Billy the Bigot” Barr, they have finally been released into daylight.
The Dungeon Former A.G. Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions had a special place in the EOIR Falls Church Tower for those trying to assist pro se litigants in Immigration Court. Public Realm
But, make no mistake about it — these courageous folks at OLAP aren’t helping to “drive the train” at EOIR under Biden and Garland, as they certainly should be! No, as was the case before Trump, they are racing down the station platform to catch the train as it departs without them.
How do I know? It’s actually pretty obvious. If Garland & the Administration were actually serious about promoting representation, they would:
Require a positive report from the OLAP before opening any new Immigration Court;
Subject all existing detained “courts” (that aren’t really “courts” at all, within the common understanding of the term) to an OLAP analysis, involving input from the pro bono bar, and close any location where pro bono counsel can’t be made reasonably available to all detainees who want it;
Make part of the IJ hiring process input from the OLAP and the public into the demonstrated commitment of each “finalist” for an Immigration Judge position to working to maximize representation; and
Work with outside programs like Professor Michelle Pistone’s innovative “VIISTA Villanova Program” for training accredited representatives to “streamline and expedite” the Recognition & Accreditation process housed within OLAP.
To my knowledge, none of these obvious “first steps” to address the representation crisis at EOIR have been instituted. Tells us about all we need to know about the real importance of the OLAP in Garland’s galaxy.
Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting with Alicia de La O, her attorneys, and interns at the ABA who are helping the OLAP “staff” the “pro se hotlines” for detainees in immigration proceedings. Of course, they can’t provide “legal advice,” although they can direct pro se litigants to available “self help” materials prepared by OLAP and reliable pro bono NGOs. But, as I pointed out, just being available to speak with isolated detainees, listen sympathetically, and direct them to available resources is a “big deal” from both a human and a practical perspective.
Alicia de la O Senior Attorney/Chief Counsel, ABA Commission on Immigration PHOTO: Linkedin
Remarkably, the amazingly talented, informed, and energetic undergraduate internsworking with the ABA had a far better understanding of the corrosive effect on democracy and America’s future of the mocking of due process, fundamental fairness, racial justice, and human dignity in Immigration Courts than inept and often clueless Biden Administration so-called “immigration policy officials” have acknowledged with their words and deeds. Indeed, one of the undergraduate interns had already completed the VIISTA program. He therefore probably knows more about the Immigration Courts at the “retail level” than some of the clowns Garland has running EOIR!
The energy and commitment of these interns to take on existential challenges that our “leaders” from both parties have shunned, gave me some hope for America’s future. That is, if democracy can survive the overt attacks from the right and its tepid defense by Democrats, by no means an assured outcome.
This opportunity to meet with those working on the front lines of helping the most isolated, vulnerable, and intentionally neglected among us got me thinking about what I might say to a pro se litigant stuck in the “EOIR purgatory,” based on my experience. I note, with some pride, that during my time on the trial bench, almost every pro se individual who wanted to appeal one of my orders was able to file timely with the BIA based on the detailed instructions I gave them at the end of the hearing.
So, as promised, here’s “my list!”
PRO SE CHECKLIST
Judge (Ret.) Paul Wickham Schmidt
March 1, 2023
1) Be careful in filing out the I-589. Everything in the application, including mistakes, omissions, and failure to answer questions can be used AGAINST you at the hearing. Filing a fraudulent application can have severe consequences beyond denial of your case.
2) Do NOT assume that significant omissions or errors in the I-589 can be corrected or explained at the hearing without adverse consequences.
3) If you use a translator, ask that the application be read back to you in FULL for accuracy, before signing. Generally, there is no such thing as an “insignificant error” on an asylum application. All inaccuracies can and will be considered by the IJ in determining whether you are telling the truth.
4) Obtain any relevant documentation supporting the claim and attach to the application. All documents in a foreign language MUST be translated into English. A certificate of accuracy from the translator must also accompany the document. DO NOT expect the court interpreter to translate your documents during the hearing.
5) Understand NEXUS to a “protected ground;” merely claiming or even proving that you will suffer harm upon return is NOT sufficient to win your case; many pro se cases fail on this basis.
6) Any pro se case claiming a “Particular Social Group” will need help in formulating it. Do NOT expect the IJ or ACC to assist in defining a qualifying PSG.
7) Keep a copy of the application and all evidence submitted.
8) Sign your application.
9) Make sure that the original signed copy goes to the Immigration Court and a copy to the ACC.
10) Keep documents submitted by ICE or the Immigration Court.
11) Do NOT rely on your translator, friends, relatives, or “jailhouse lawyers” for advice on filling in the application. NEVER embellish or add incorrect information to your I-589 just because someone else tells you to or says it’s “the only way to win your case.”
12) DO NOT let friends, detention officers, the IJ or anyone else (other than a qualified lawyer working for you) talk you out of pursuing a claim if everything in it is true. You must “tune out chatter” that everybody loses these cases, and therefore you are wasting your time.
13) Do NOT tell the IJ and/or ACC that everything in your application is true and correct if it is not true!
14) If you discover errors in your application before the hearing, ask the IJ at the beginning of the hearing for an opportunity to correct them. Do NOT wait to see if the ACC brings them up.
15) If you will be testifying through an interpreter, ask the IJ for a brief chance to converse with the interpreter before the hearing to make sure you understand each other. If there is any problem, tell the IJ BEFORE the hearing begins.
16) The Immigration Court hearing is a formal, adversary hearing, NOT an “informal interview” like the Asylum Office.
17) Be courteous and polite to the Immigration Judge, the ICE Assistant Chief Counsel, and the interpreter at all times, BUT BE AWARE:
1) The IJ and the ACC are NOT your friends;
2) They do NOT represent your interests;
3) The ACC’s basic job is to urge the IJ to deny your application and enter an order of removal;
4) The IJ is NOT an independent judge. He or she works for the Attorney General a political enforcement official. Some IJs function with a reasonable degree of independence. But, others see themselves largely as assisting the ACC in in denying applications and rapidly turning out removal orders.
5) The interpreter works for the court, NOT you.
18) YOU will be the only person in the courtroom representing your interests.
19) Don’t answer a question that you don’t understand. Ask the IJ to have it repeated. If it is a complicated question, ask the IJ if it can be broken down into distinct parts.
20) If you really don’t know the answer to a question, don’t “guess!” “I don’t know, your honor” is an acceptable answer, if true.
21) If the ACC introduces evidence at the hearing — say a copy of the Asylum Officer’s notes — ask the IJ for a full translation through the interpreter before answering questions.
22) If documents you submitted support your claim, direct the IJs attention to those documents.
23) When it is time for the IJ to deliver an oral decision, make sure that you are allowed to listen through the interpreter.
24) Bring a pencil or pen and a pad of paper to the hearing. Try to take notes on the decision as it is dictated by the IJ.
25) If the decision goes against you, tell the IJ that you want to reserve an appeal and request copies of the appeal forms. You can always withdraw the appeal later, but once an appeal is waived it is difficult, often impossible, to restore it.
26) If the IJ rules in your favor, and the ACC reserves appeal, understand that the order in your favor will have no effect until the appeal is withdrawn or ruled upon by the BIA. For detained individuals, that probably means remaining in detention while the appeal is resolved, which might take months.
27) If you appeal, fill out the forms completely according to instructions and file with the BIA as soon as possible, the same or next day if you can. That is when your memory will be best, and it maximizes the chance of the BIA receiving your appeal on time. Do NOT wait until the last minute to file an appeal.
28) Be SPECIFIC and INCLUSIVE in stating why you think the IJ was wrong. Attach a separate sheet if necessary. Just saying “The Judge got it wrong” or “I disagree with the decision” won’t be enough and might result in the BIA rejecting your appeal without further review.
29) Remember to file the separate fee waiver request form with the Notice of Appeal.
30) Assume that all filing deadlines will be strictly applied and that pro se applicants will NOT be given any breaks or special treatment, despite mailing difficulties and other problems.
31) DON’T count on timely mail delivery. The Notice of Appeal, brief, or any other document is not “filed” with the BIA until they actually receive it. Merely placing it in the mail before the due date will NOT be considered a timely filing if the document arrives late. Mail early!
32) If you are not in detention, use a courier service to deliver filings to the BIA so you have solid evidence of timely filing.
33) If you check the box on the appeal form saying you will file a brief or additional statement, you MUST do so, even if short. Failing to file a brief or written statement after checking that box can be a ground for the BIA to summary dismiss your appeal without considering the merits.
34) Info about the BIA Pro Bono Project.
NOTICE: The ideas above are solely mine. They are not legal advice, and have not been endorsed or approved by any organization or any other person, living or dead, born or unborn.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, associate dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar, clinical professor of law, and director of the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Penn State Law in University Park, will be appointed to the position of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Officer (CRCL) in the Department of Homeland Security. This is a presidential appointment during which Wadhia will take a leave of absence from Penn State Law.
The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties supports the Department of Homeland Security in providing security for the nation while “preserving individual liberty, fairness, and equality under the law.” CRCL also includes civil rights practices in the Department’s activities and takes step to advance them within the Department.
“This is a full circle moment for me,” said Wadhia, reflecting on her career as an immigration attorney, policy advocate where she engaged in legislative advocacy surrounding the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and her work at Penn State where she teaches students about the role of federal agencies and the intersection of immigration and administrative law.
Victor Romero, interim dean of Penn State Law and the School of International Affairs, Maureen B. Cavanaugh Distinguished Faculty Scholar, and professor of law said, “We’re deeply proud of Shoba and all her accomplishments at Penn State Law, and we’re excited to see what she achieves in her new position as the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Officer. She’s a shining example of excellence and leadership in the legal community. We wish her the best of luck during her appointment and eagerly wait for her to share her experiences with the students at Penn State Law upon her return.”
Wadhia looks forward to bringing her experience as CRCL Officer back to the classroom and sharing her work in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and contributions more broadly to Penn State Law and beyond. Her teaching courses include Asylum and Refugee Law, Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, Immigration Law, and Law and (In)equity.
“Bringing back my experience at DHS will help me enrich the classroom experience for my students and broaden my lens on the internal work of agencies, and how institutions can respond or reform issues through an equity lens,” said Wadhia.
Her work has been published in numerous law journals, including Duke Law Journal, Emory Law Journal, Texas Law Review, Washington and Lee Law Review, Harvard Latino Law Review, Administrative Law Review, Howard Law Journal, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, and Columbia Journal of Race and Law.
Wadhia is the founder and director of the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (CIRC), which has earned a national reputation for its high-quality work product and impact in the community. CIRC was honored with the Excellence in Legal Advocacy Award in 2017 by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and named legal organization of the year in 2019 by the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center.
Prior to joining Penn State, Wadhia was deputy director for legal affairs at the National Immigration Forum in Washington, D.C., where she provided legal and policy expertise on multiple legislative efforts, including the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, comprehensive immigration reform, immigration enforcement, and immigration policy post 9-11. Wadhia has also been an associate with the immigration law firm Maggio Kattar of P.C. in Washington, D.C., where she represented individuals and families in asylum, deportation, family, and employment-based immigration. She is a 1999 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center.
LAST UPDATED MARCH 1, 2023
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Many congrats, Shoba, and thanks for taking on this important challenge! Like your PSU Law colleagues, we’re all proud of you!
As one member of our Round Table quipped upon hearing the great news about Shoba: “Love Shoba! And then for comparison, look at who EOIR has running its agency.”
All the best to you in your new position, Shoba! And, thanks again for doing this for the cause of justice in America!
