THE GIBSON REPORT — 10-24-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Managing Attorney, NIJC — Human Rights Advocates, Immigrants, Abandoned By Biden Administration! — Garland’s “Unforced Errors” @ EOIR Haunt Dems!  — Where Do Operating “America’s Worst Courts” & “Dissing Equal Justice” Fit Into Dem’s Vision Of Democracy?🤯

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Managing Attorney
National Immigrant Justice Center
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

pastedGraphic.png

 

Weekly Briefing

 

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

 

CONTENTS (jump to section)

  • NEWS
  • LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES
  • RESOURCES
  • EVENTS

 

FEATURED EVENT

 

2022 Convening on Advancing Universal Representation on 10/27

This gathering will bring together existing universal representation projects as well as groups considering starting/supporting new programs to reflect on best practices, adapting models while seeking to end detention, and ways to expand universal representation. The deadline to register for virtual attendance is tomorrow, October 25, 2022.

 

NEWS

 

US border encounters top 2 million in fiscal year 2022

CNN: There were 227,547 migrant encounters along the US-Mexico border in September, up 12 percent from the previous month. The sharp increase in migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua contributed to the uptick.

 

Illegal Border Crossings by Venezuelans Plunge in the Face of New Policies

NYT: The number of Venezuelans entering the United States illegally dropped from about 1,200 a day to 150 in the first days after the Biden administration rolled out the new policies.

 

U.S. grants Temporary Protected Status to Ethiopians fleeing conflict

Reuters: The Ethiopian military and allies including troops from neighboring Eritrea have been battling forces from the northern region of Tigray on and off for two years. The conflict has killed thousands, displaced millions and left hundreds of thousands on the brink of famine.

 

Coast Guard returns more than 300 migrants to Cuba over weekend

The Hill: The Coast Guard stopped 185 Cubans on Friday, 94 on Saturday and 40 on Sunday. In total, the service says it has intercepted 921 Cubans since Oct. 1.

 

US Border Patrol sending migrants to offices with no notice

AP: Molina was among 13 migrants who recently arrived in the U.S. who agreed to share documents with The Associated Press that they received when they were released from U.S. custody while they seek asylum after crossing the border with Mexico. The AP found that most had no idea where they were going — nor did the people at the addresses listed on their paperwork.

 

‘Hail Mary after Hail Mary’: Biden administration struggles with border policy, fueling frustration

CNN: It has been an endless cycle since President Joe Biden took office, according to multiple administration officials and sources close to the White House. Agency officials dream up a plan but then struggle to get White House approval, even as the problem compounds and Republicans step up their criticism. See also Immigrant advocates feel abandoned as they stare at Biden’s first-term checklist.

 

Nearly 500,000 Immigrants Go Through ICE’s Alternatives to Detention System in Two Years

TRAC: According to new data obtained by TRAC through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, 480,301 people have been enrolled in ICE’s electronic monitoring program known as Alternatives to Detention (ATD) between August 2020 and June 2022. Many of these individuals, about 196,000, were previously active in ATD but have since ceased to be monitored under ATD, while 284,000 immigrants were still in ATD as of the end of June.

 

Over 63,000 DHS Cases Thrown Out of Immigration Court This Year Because No NTA Was Filed

TRAC:  As of the end of September 2022, Immigration Court judges dismissed a total of 63,586 cases because Department of Homeland Security officials, chiefly Border Patrol agents, are not filing the actual “Notice to Appear” (NTA) with the Immigration Court. Without a filed NTA, the Court has no jurisdiction to hear the case.

 

Arrests for unlicensed driving plunge in New York following unauthorized immigrant license law like Mass.’s

GBH: Police in New York arrested about 57,000 unlicensed drivers a year before state lawmakers narrowly approved the Green Light Law in 2019, making most immigrants eligible for licenses regardless of their legal status. In 2021, those arrests declined to about 30,000 and are on a similar pace for this year, according to records obtained by GBH News from the New York State Unified Court System.

 

An Overwhelmed Immigration System Is Facing A Shortage Of Attorneys Amid A Growing Backlog Of Cases

Block Club: As a major city that attracts immigrants, Chicago specifically has been struggling to support the recent influx of asylum seekers. After dealing with cuts under the Trump administration and then the COVID-19 pandemic, immigrant serving organizations’ resources were already strained before the war in Ukraine and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and subsequent Taliban takeover sent thousands of refugees and asylum seekers to Chicago. The recent arrival of migrants from Texas has only added to the strain on organizations’ resources, including legal services and representation.

 

LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES

 

CA1 on Honduras, MS-13, CAT: H.H. v. Garland

LexisNexis: He argues that the immigration judge (“IJ”) applied the incorrect legal standard in assessing whether he would more likely than not be tortured with the “consent or acquiescence” of the Honduran government, and that the BIA erred in its review of the IJ’s decision. He also argues that the BIA failed to consider whether the Honduran government would likely torture him and whether the MS-13 gang is a de facto government actor. We agree that the agency erred in these respects, and we therefore grant his petition for review, vacate the order of the BIA to the extent it denied him CAT relief as to Honduras, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

 

CA1 on El Salvador, CAT, MS-13: Chavez v. Garland

CA1: We  thus  remand  for  the  BIA  to  consider  in  the  first instance  whether  Chavez’s  proposed  social  group  satisfies  the requirements for constituting a particular social group under the INA to which he belongs.  We express no opinion as to the merits of that issue other than to emphasize that the BIA cannot reject such a group based solely on its determination that current or former gang members cannot form a particular social group.

 

Unpub. CA3 CIMT Victory: King v. Atty. Gen.

LexisNexis: The plain language of the statute, coupled with the reasoning of Mahn and Ramirez-Contreras, persuades us that the Pennsylvania felony fleeing statute does not qualify as turpitudinous. While the failing to stop for a police officer while crossing a state line is conduct that may put another in danger, it does not necessarily do so. The agency therefore erred in its conclusion that King was convicted of a CIMT.

CA9 on CAT, Guatemala: De Leon Lopez v. Garland

LexisNexis: We conclude: (1) the record in this case compels the conclusion that two of De Leon’s attackers were police officers during a July 2011 incident; (2) De Leon showed acquiescence on the part of the Guatemalan government with respect to that incident because government officials— namely, the two police officers—directly participated in the incident; and (3) the record indicates that the IJ and BIA’s conclusion that De Leon is not likely to be subjected to torture with government acquiescence if returned to Guatemala disregards several important circumstances pertinent to evaluating the likelihood of future torture. In light of these errors, we grant the petition and remand for the agency to reconsider De Leon’s application for relief.

 

Texas Drops Challenge To Biden’s Title 42 Child Migrant Policy

Law360: The state of Texas on Wednesday agreed to drop its challenge to a provision of the pandemic-era Title 42 policy which exempted unaccompanied minor migrants from being expelled from the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Ill. Professor, Students Can’t Halt Chinese Student Visa Ban

Law360: An Illinois university professor and students can’t stop the Biden administration from enforcing a Trump-era policy barring student visas to Chinese nationals who are connected to any entity in China that supports its “military-civil fusion strategy,” a federal judge has ruled, denying the plaintiffs’ bid for a temporary restraining order.

 

Soldiers Forgo $10M Citizenship Dispute Fee For $2.75M

Law360: A class of foreign-born military recruits who sought $10 million in attorney fees after winning back their expedited path to naturalization two years ago have settled for $2.75 million in the interest of conserving resources and avoiding further litigation risks.

 

Legal Organizations Sue ICE for Illegally Preventing Attorneys from Communicating with Detained Immigrants in Four States

AIC: Several legal services organizations filed a lawsuit today against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for unlawfully preventing attorneys from communicating with immigrants detained in four detention facilities in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and Arizona.

 

USCIS Implements New Process for Venezuelans

USCIS: On Oct. 12, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a new process for Venezuelans.

 

DHS Designates Ethiopia for Temporary Protected Status for 18 Months

USCIS: Only individuals who are already residing in the United States as of October 20, 2022 will be eligible for TPS.

 

USCIS Extends COVID-19-related Flexibilities

USCIS: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is extending certain COVID-19-related flexibilities through Jan. 24, 2023, to assist applicants, petitioners, and requestors.

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

 

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

 

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

 

Elizabeth Gibson (Pronouns: she/her/ella)

Managing Attorney for Capacity Building and Mentorship

National Immigrant Justice Center

A HEARTLAND ALLIANCE Program

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

www.immigrantjustice.org | Facebook | Twitter

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

From Politico:

. . . .

But immigrant advocates note that some of their demands aren’t contingent on Congress or the courts, which makes it all the more exasperating as to why the administration has failed to deliver.

Some told POLITICO they simply wanted to see the administration remedy the harm caused by the Trump administration’s family separation policies. Others want to see follow-up on early proposals to protect immigrant workers in labor disputes.

The administration further angered the community last week when it announced plans to use the Trump-era pandemic policy, Title 42, to expel Venezuelan migrants crossing the border illegally as part of its new humanitarian parole program for them. Advocates decried the expansion of Title 42, which the Justice Department is fighting in court, as a continuation of the Trump “playbook.”

. . . .

The biggest, most significant “unforced error” by the Biden Administration has been the failure to “clean house” at EOIR and to reform the Immigration Courts to be a model of great, scholarly, humane judging, and a bastion of due process, fundamental fairness, and best judicial practices. 

The Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation set forth a successful “blueprint” for a far-right takeover of not only the Immigration Courts, but the entire Article III Judiciary. The Trump Administration adopted and successfully followed it!

By stark contrast, the Dems have failed to act timely and decisively on the one all-important Federal court system that they completely control! EOIR is a system that probably has more impact on the future of America — or whether there will even be a future America — than any court short of the Supremes!

Garland’s dismissive treatment of the informed views of immigration, human rights, and racial justice experts — who have had “hands on” experience with “America’s most dysfunctional courts” (the Immigration Courts) — has undermined our legal system and hamstrung almost every other progressive social justice initiative — from voting rights to abortion! 

Garland’s failure to bring in experienced, dynamic, inspirational, respected, “Tier One” progressive practical scholar/leaders — folks like, for example, Dean Kevin Johnson, Professor Karen Musalo, Marielena Hincapie, Professor Phil Schrag, Margaret Stock, Professor Michele Pistone, and Judge Dana Leigh Marks — to clean up EOIR, kick some tail, and create “the best, fairest, most efficient courts in America” — is beyond inexcusable!

Dems are a self-inflicted mess when it comes to immigration — apparently because those “calling the shots” are more “Stephen Miller Lite” than they are Julian Castro and other Democrats who understand the essential importance of immigrants and of standing up for their rights — starting with the “retail level” of American justice. 

As one frustrated experienced practitioner recently told me: “Biden’s entire immigration policies are a train wreck. He didn’t take the action he said he would. The practice of immigration law is soul crushing.”

“Soul crushing!” Those words should be a “wake up call” to the “tone deaf” policy honchos in the Administration. It shouldn’t be this way in a Dem Administration that was elected because they promised to do better and to stand up to the lies, myths, and false narratives of the nativist right! Once in power, Dems don’t seem to be able to distinguish between their friends and their adversaries. That’s proven NOT to be a “formula for success!”

For every immigrant/racial justice advocate that the Biden Administration wears down and demoralizes, two “new recruits” for the NDPA will arise, fully energized to keep litigating, winning, and raising hell until due process, human rights, fundamental fairness, and racial justice get some long overdue ACTION. Based on results to date, that means continuing to “beat Garland’s brains out” in court! The talent and creativity is obviously “out here,” not in Garland’s “Halls of (In)Justice!” Given that the “Stephen Miller Group” is also challenging the Administration in court, Garland will eventually find himself doing nothing but litigating immigration issues and getting walloped by both sides!

Meanwhile, as the Administration daily fails on immigration, human rights, and racial justice within the Executive Branch, my mailbox and message box are overflowing with desperate requests from Dem politicos, from Joe, Kamala, Nancy, and Chuck on down, for more donations of money and time. But, once the election cycle is over, our views are ignored, and we are treated as “PNGs.” Meanwhile, those who actively undermined immigrants’ rights and diminished due process are rewarded or retained in key positions where they continue to heap damage on the most vulnerable among us and frustrate their supporters.

Doesn’t seem like a sustainable future for the Democratic Party or for American democracy! But, hey, I’m just a retired Immigration Judge. Maybe my friends in the social justice movement enjoy being treated as “chopped liver” — frozen out and ignored — once they have helped elect Dems.

Republicans boldly “run on the big lie.” Meanwhile, Dems “run from the truth” about immigrants and their all-important role in America’s future! Go figure!

A quote from a recent NY Times article struck me as aptly summarizing the failure of leaders of both political parties to take an honest, creative, and practical approach to the opportunity presented by continuing human migration:

Immigration in the United States is broken, but one side of the fence wants to study the root causes of the problem, and don’t want to see what’s happening right here,” Mr. [John] Martin [deputy director of the Opportunity Center for the Homeless in El Paso] said, squinting beneath the brim of his cowboy hat. “And the other side wants to build a wall which would become a dam and eventually burst.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/20/opinion/el-paso-migrant-buses-republicans.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Former AG Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions went to the border to preach his “gospel” of anti-immigrant hate, lies, nativist myths, and to “fire up” officials for one of the biggest unconstitutional abuses of prosecutorial authority in modern American history.  Indeed, that is when one reporter coined the term “Gonzo Apocalypto” to describe the absolute nonsense spewing from Sessions’s mouth.

Sessions orchestrated a vile “strategy” of family separation from which the victims haven’t yet, and may never, fully recover. Interestingly, he has also escaped accountability.

By contrast, Garland, to my knowledge, has never bothered to visit the border and engage first-hand with the human carnage his failed “courts” and abuse of both the Constitution and asylum law inflict on others. He interacts neither with those outside government trying to uphold the rule of law nor the enforcement officials given “mission impossible.” He absolves himself from observing the effect that his failure to carry out orderly, humane, legally compliant refugee and asylum processing — using existing law rather than extralegal “gimmicks” — has on communities on the border and in the interior.

Sessions was a vile, intellectually dishonest, and immoral leader; Garland is simply a failed and disengaged one. But, the difference might not be readily apparent to most practitioners laboring in the foul trenches of Garland’s dysfunctional “court” system.

From my observation, there are folks out here interested in, and capable of, addressing the opportunities, potential benefits, and challenges presented by the inevitability of human migration in the 21st Century. Most of them, unlike “pontificating politicos,” have, at some point, “walked the walk” with those humans caught up in the migration dilemma, on both sides of the border.

But, leaders of neither party are interested in the constructive ideas and solutions developed within the rule of law that these unusually talented and dedicated individuals can offer. As long as that is the case, the realities of human migration, false promises, racially driven bias, and wildly inconsistent application of justice in America will continue to vex both politicians and the voters who put such “non-problem-solvers” in office!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-25-22

☠️⚰️💀GARLAND’S STAR CHAMBERS — “SLOW VIOLENCE” ON PEOPLE OF COLOR!🥵— Bias, Bad Law, Bungling Bureaucracy! — “Where Due Process Goes To Die!” 🤮 — Upcoming Book Will Expose Garland’s Lawless, Cruel, Inhumane “Court” System!

 

Slow Injustice @ EOIR
Garland’s approach to immigrant justice in his courts harkens back to “the bad old days.” Yet he remains impervious — and unaccountable!
The Wasp 1882-01-06 cover Slow but sure.jpg
Slow, but Sure. Cartoon depicts Lady Justice riding a tortoise, about to hang a man.
George Frederick Keller
Public domain

Dean Kevin Johnson @ ImmigrationProf Blog previews upcoming book by Professor Maya Pagni Barack:

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/10/from-the-bookshelves-the-slow-violence-of-immigration-court-procedural-justice-on-trial-by-maya-pagn.html

Friday, October 21, 2022

From the Bookshelves: The Slow Violence of Immigration Court Procedural Justice on Trial by Maya Pagni Barak

By Immigration Prof

The Slow Violence of Immigration Court Procedural Justice on Trial by Maya Pagni Barak (forthcominng March 2023, NYU Press)

The publisher’s description of the book reads as follows:

“Each year, hundreds of thousands of migrants are moved through immigration court. With a national backlog surpassing one million cases, court hearings take years and most migrants will eventually be ordered deported. The Slow Violence of Immigration Court sheds light on the experiences of migrants from the “Northern Triangle” (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) as they navigate legal processes, deportation proceedings, immigration court, and the immigration system writ large.

Grounded in the illuminating stories of people facing deportation, the family members who support them, and the attorneys who defend them, The Slow Violence of Immigration Court invites readers to question matters of fairness and justice and the fear of living with the threat of deportation. Although the spectacle of violence created by family separation and deportation is perceived as extreme and unprecedented, these long legal proceedings are masked in the mundane and are often overlooked, ignored, and excused. In an urgent call to action, Maya Pagni Barak deftly demonstrates that deportation and family separation are not abhorrent anomalies, but are a routine, slow form of violence at the heart of the U.S. immigration system.”

KJ

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

The ongoing national disgrace called “EOIR” continues to mete out injustice and inane bureaucratic nonsense under a DEMOCRATIC Administration that pledged to return the rule of law and humanity to our broken Immigration Court system! 

That system is “headed and controlled” by a DEMOCRATIC AG, Merrick Garland. He is a former Federal Appellate Judge who certainly knows that what passes for “justice” in his broken “court” system is nothing of the sort! Also this ongoing debacle doesn’t say much good about Garland’s “lieutenants:” Deputy AG Lisa Monaco, Associate AG Vanita Gupta, Assistant AG for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke, and Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar.

They have all “looked the other way,” defended, or failed to condemn this travesty undermining our entire justice system, unfolding under their collective noses at EOIR every day! At some point in the future, all these guys will be “making the rounds” of major law firms, NGOs, universities, mainstream media, and corporations — seeking to “cash in” on their DOJ “experience.” Then, folks should remember how they ACTUALLY PERFORMED (or didn’t) when they had a chance to fix “America’s worst courts” — hotbeds of racial and ethnic injustice, purveyors of bad law, and a haven for ridiculously dysfunctional procedures!

Perhaps a suitable future for these willfully blind “public servants” would be to require them to spend the balance of their careers practicing on a pro bono basis before the “star chambers” they inflicted on others! See how they like being “scheduled,” with no or inadequate notice, to do 15 or 20 asylum cases per month; appearing before too many ill-qualified “judges” who have already decided to deny regardless of the law and facts; appealing to a captive “appellate court” dominated by individuals, working for the Executive, whose main “judicial qualification” was that they denied close to 100% of the asylum claims that came before them in Immigration Court and were known for their rude and dismissive treatment of asylum applicants and their lawyers! See, e.g., “Confronting The American Star Chamber . . .,” https://wp.me/p8eeJm-4Vm.,

Here’s Professor Barak’s bio from the U of Michigan-Dearborn website:

Maya Barak, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Studies

Maya P. Barak
Maya P. Barak, PhD
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Studies
U. of Michigan -Dearborn
PHOTO: UM-D Websitew

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

College-Wide Programs

mbarak@umich.edu

1070 Social Sciences Building | 4901 Evergreen Road | Dearborn, MI 48128

Personal Website

Teaching Areas: Arab American Studies, Criminology & Criminal Justice Studies, Master of Science in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Women’s & Gender Studies

Research Areas: Capital Punishment, Criminal Justice, Criminology, Gangs, Immigrants / Crimmigration, Legal Sociology, Procedural Justice, State-Corporate Crime

Biography and Education

I am an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. I hold a PhD in Justice, Law and Criminology from American University (2016), an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Eastern Michigan University (2011), and a BA in Social Anthropology and Peace and Social Justice from the University of Michigan (2009). My research brings together the areas of law, deviance, immigration, and power, utilizing interdisciplinary approaches that span the fields of criminology, law and society, and anthropology.

Education

Ph.D. in Justice, Law and Criminology

Teaching and Research

Courses Taught

Selected Publications

Books

Gould, Jon B. and Maya Barak. 2019. Capital Defense: Inside the Lives of America’s Death Penalty Lawyers. New York: NYU Press.

Selected Articles

Barak, Maya. 2021. “Can You Hear Me Now? Attorney Perceptions of Interpretation, Technology, and Power in Immigration Court.” Journal on Migration and Human Security (https://doi.org/10.1177/23315024211034740).

Barak, Maya. 2021. “A Hollow Hope? The Empty Promise of Rights in the U.S. Immigration System”/ “¿Una promesa vacía? La ilusión de “los derechos” en el sistema migratorio de los Estados Unidos.” Las Cadenas Que Amamos: Una panorámica sobre el retroceso de Occidente a todos los niveles.

Barak, Maya. 2021. “Family Separation as State-Corporate Crime.” Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime Vol. 2(2), 2021, pp. 109-121 (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2631309X20982299). (2021 Outstanding Article or Book Chapter Award, Division of White-Collar and Corporate Crime, American Society of Criminology)

Barak, Maya, Leon, K., and Maguire, Edward. 2020. “Conceptual and Empirical Obstacles in Defining MS-13: Law-Enforcement Perspectives.” Criminology and Public Policy (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9133.12493).

Barak, Maya. 2017. “Motherhood and Immigration Policy: How Immigration Law Shapes Central Americans’ Experience of Family.” In Forced Out and Fenced In: Immigration Tales from the Field, edited by Tanya Golash-Boza. New York: Oxford University Press.

Advocates and all Americans committed to racial justice and equal justice under law need to keep raising hell — and supporting progressive candidates — until this horrible system is replaced by a real court system, with subject matter expert judges, totally focused on delivering due process, fundamental fairness, and best judicial practices to all!

What’s happening to individuals (fellow humans, “persons” under our Constitution) and their lawyers at EOIR is NOT OK, nor is it acceptable from a DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION!

Yeah, “there’s trouble, right here in River City!” And, it begins with “E,” ends with “R,” and rhymes with “EYORE!”

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-22-22

🇺🇸🗽POLITICS/COMMUNICATION: Anand Giridharadas Has A Plan For Defeating Fascism!

https://twitter.com/intelligence2/status/1583053222495031297?s=20&t=0qtnWoCtSNnhf3i6nq3hVA

We’re not going to defeat fascism by talking about policy. Nor by issuing grave warnings. Nor by praying for the rain of indictments. Nor by despair.

We are going to defeat it by outcompeting it. Here is a proposal for how we can do that right now.

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

Watch the compelling “spot on” video at the above link. Many thanks to my friend Charles Kuck for passing this on!

The Dems once were the “party of practical problem solvers” — particularly at the local level with great organizations that effectively addressed issues on the minds of the local populace. After all, it was Dem House Speaker, the late Tip O’Neill, who famously said that “All politics is local” (although, perhaps contrary to popular notions, he did not “coin” that phrase.)

It’s not that today’s GOP solves problems. Far from it! Indeed they specialize in division, destruction (“the wrecking crew”), and making things worse. (How would you like to go to GOP Rep. MTG or Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin to get help with mistreatment of your trans kid in school? Good luck with the one!)

Yet the GOP does excel in one area. That is channeling and fanning the rage, bitterness, and anger of folks in the community who feel left out or that “the system” has betrayed them. They are also great at using that collective anger and resentment for their own political ends — usually anti-democracy actions or picking on, demonizing, and falsely blaming vulnerable groups in society for all their ills.

Anand says it’s time for Dems to get back to communicating and problem solving: “outcompeting” and “outperforming,” if you will! That’s certainly true on a larger scale. But, it’s also true at Garland’s dysfunctional EOIR. There, bureaucratic nonsense, “built to fail gimmicks,” and false “deterrence rationale” have replaced scholarship, timeliness, and practical problem solving directed at the achievable, yet inexplicably elusive, “common good.” Time for a difference approach at the critical, yet often ignored, “retail level” of democracy!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-20-22

🏴‍☠️ HOW THE “ANYTHING GOES” IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT REGIME — ENABLED BY POOR QUASI-JUDICIAL & JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT — ERODES ALL OF OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES!

Eisha Jain
Eisha Jain
Associate Professor of Law
UNC Law
PHOTO: Twitter

Eisha Jain on Lawfare: 

https://www.lawfareblog.com/beyond-deportation

Border enforcement once again dominates contemporary immigration law debates. Yet many legal practices commonly linked to border control—including policing, relocation, and exclusion—actually have little to do with immigration enforcement. Instead, immigration control provides a justification for surveillance and the erosion of civil liberties deep inside the United States. For instance, the governor of Texas issued an executive order this June, asserting the legal authority to arrest people suspected of unlawfully crossing the border or committing “other violations of federal law.” This executive order is framed as being about expanding the pipeline to deportation and, in particular, shoring up federal efforts to promote border security. Yet the reach of the order goes well beyond issues relating to deportation. It raises the central questions: Who decides who appears to be present in the United States without lawful immigration status, and on what basis?

More recently, certain lawmakers have employed the rhetoric of border control to justify busing or flying migrants to locations inside the United States. Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) tweeted at the time: “We’re sending migrants to [Vice President Kamala Harris’s] backyard to call on the Biden Administration to do its job & secure the border.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) employed similar rhetoric to justify sending approximately 50 adults and children to Martha’s Vineyard without any apparent prior notice. This relocation may have violated criminal laws. The individuals who were relocated may have been given false information to induce them to board planes. Lawmakers who frame these relocations as a means of border control make the unjustified assumption that the targeted individuals had no claims to remain in the United States. This approach not only ignores laws permitting people to seek asylum but also treats certain U.S. residents as lacking basic civil liberties inside the United States. When government officials claim the ability to lure people from one state to another on false pretenses, they also claim virtually unlimited power to intrude on individual liberty in stated service of immigration control.

. . . .

In a variety of settings, ranging from politically motivated relocations of migrant communities to jailhouse immigration screenings, lawmakers present actions that curtail civil liberties as related to deportation. But a deportation-centric perspective, which centers whether and how certain practices might lead to removal, offers too limited a lens to understand the reach and impact of enforcement practices done in stated service of immigration control. It ignores the full costs of enforcement, including unjustified surveillance and policing. Rather than protecting the polity from a foreign threat, government actions purportedly aimed at immigration control undermine core liberties that ought to be protected within the American political community. If the ultimate aim of immigration law is to create an integrated political community, then we need to consider how law could operate to promote integration and inclusion, rather than treating all enforcement actions as a means to deportation.

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

Read the complete article of the link.

This is why it’s such a disgraceful mistake for Garland and the Biden Administration to allow the racially-charged, anti-due-process travesty at EOIR to continue, largely unabated!  The misguided idea that migrants are not “real persons” under the Constitution — and to a large extent the related view that their lawyers aren’t entitled to the common professional treatment and courtesies extended in most other parts of our legal system — definitely has  “carryover” into the dehumanization of various categories of the “other” and ignoring the compelling evidence of abuse amassed by those lawyers working to keep the system honest.

For example, the Supreme’s dismissive treatment of women’s rights and humanity is definitely related to the degrading treatment of women’s claims in Immigration Court — an overt misogyny encouraged by Sessions, Miller, and their nativist acolytes!  That Democrats as a whole have failed to “pick up” on the serious attacks on equal justice and due process in Immigration Courts and their carryover effect to other parts of our legal system is a bad sign for the future of American democracy. Once a “person” is treated as “less than a full person” under the Constitution, there is no limit to who can become a “legal nonperson.”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-10-22

🇺🇸 MIGRANTS, W/ OR W/O DOCS, ARE AGAIN BAILING OUT FLA, DESPITE DeSANTIS’S RACIST STUNTS — Don’t Expect Reality To Change The White Nationalist False Narrative!

https://apple.news/AFdtHuzYiQS-N1caP0gT6UA

Ciara Nugent
Ciara Nugent
Staff Writer
Time
PHOTO: Time.com

From Time Maggie:

Migrants Are Leading Clean-up Efforts in Florida, Despite DeSantis’ Crusade Against Them

Migrant workers are flooding-in to help Florida rebuild after Hurricane Ian, even as Governor Ron DeSantis wages a crusade against them.

CIARA NUGENT

Three days after Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida on Sept. 28 as a Category 4 storm, Johnny Aburto arrived in Port Charlotte, a mostly white community of 64,000, popular with retirees, on the state’s southwestern coast. The town suffered extensive damage during the storm: roofs blown off, homes flooded, power lines downed. There is a lot of work to be done.

Aburto, 42, is here to do it. Originally from Nicaragua, he is part of a large, informal, overwhelmingly immigrant workforce that travels the U.S. cleaning up after increasingly frequent climate-related disasters. Once a hurricane hits, these crews are bussed in by contractors desperate for workers, or they drive to the area themselves and wait in Walmart or Home Depot parking lots to be picked up for a day’s work. Aburto, a skilled laborer, was in New Orleans after Katrina in 2005, Baton Rouge after Louisiana’s floods in 2016, Panama City Beach after Michael in 2018, and Lake Charles after Laura in 2020. “These kinds of events really affect people,” he says. “We do our bit to help them.”

In Port Charlotte, Aburto is now busy covering roofs with tarpaulins—a crucial first step to keep homes safe from future rain, so that power can be restored and residents can come back. He’s also cleaning out soaked debris from interiors. When that kind of work is done, he says, many of his colleagues will stay on to make more permanent repairs.

. . . .

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

Read the complete article at the link.

Sadly, America has a long disreputable history of denying the humanity and rights of those whose labor and skills built our nation and made it great. African Americans,  Chinese-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Filipino-Americans, Haitian-Americans, and many others have all felt the sting of racism, demonizing myths, dehumanization, exploitation, and grotesque ingratitude. 

I happen to be reading UVA Professor Amanda Frost’s outstanding book on “citizenship stripping.” I was struck by this quote about the exploitation of Mexican workers during the “Bracero Program” which was followed by “Operation Wetback” — the Eisenhower Administration’s totally illegal mass removal of Mexicans, including lawful immigrants and U.S. citizens!

“As one grower put it, “We used to own our slaves. Now we just rent them.” 51”

You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers by Amanda Frost

https://a.co/0BsTPuZ

Amanda Frost
Amanda Frost
Professor UVA Law
Author, “You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers “
PHOTO: UVA Law

It would be nice to think this time will be different — that we have advanced as a nation. But, I wouldn’t bank on it!

Floridians have a golden opportunity to replace DeSantis with a real Governor, Charlie Crist, who would serve all people, use government resources prudently, and govern in the public interest. Polls, however, say that such a “Florida epiphany” is unlikely. But, it’s still possible.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-08-22

🏴‍☠️🤮 HALLS OF INJUSTICE: Allegations Of Racism, Misogyny, Islamophobia, & Other Bias Have Been Swirling Around Garland’s Dysfunctional EOIR — Now, The Ohio Immigrant Alliance Is Seeking & Assembling Examples To Force Long Overdue Action!

Garland’s “vision of justice” for asylum seekers and other migrants at EOIR leaves something to be desired:

Four Horsemen
Folks with wrong-headed “take no prisoners” views on asylum law were “rewarded” with “ judgeships” at both the trial and appellate levels of EOIR under the Trump Administration. Many continue to serve and discriminate against legitimate asylum seekers under Garland. Just check out the number of “sitting IJ’s” with outrageously high “asylum denial rates” near or in excess of 90%, according to TRAC Immigration. Why haven’t these important, non-life-tenured positions been “merit re-competed” to place the “best, brightest, and most qualified” on the Immigration Bench?
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Woman Tortured
Jaundiced attitudes about women (particularly those of color) and gender-based asylum claims among EOIR judges have neither been “rooted out” nor effectively addressed by Garland. As we can see, de-humanization of women and stripping them of dignity under asylum laws carries over into other legal arenas! Targeted, endemic. societal persecution of women is often intentionally minimized and mis-characterized as “random violence,” “personal disputes,” “mere jealousy,” or “not that serious” in Immigration Court! “Fictionalized accounts” of the ability of abused women to seek protection from authorities in countries where femicide and rape are rampant   are sometimes employed to deny legitimate asylum claims in Garland’s broken courts.
Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Star Chamber Justice
Wrong , “unduly restrictive,” asylum precedents and discredited methods (“Aimless Docket Reshuffling” — on steroids under Garland — is a key example) continue to harm asylum seekers in Garland’s dysfunctional “courts.” — Public Realm

 

https://ohioimmigrant.org/2022/09/08/wanted-examples-of-racism-and-other-bias-in-us-immigration-court/

WANTED: Examples Of Racism And Other Bias In US Immigration Court

September 8, 2022tramontelaComments Off

on WANTED: Examples of racism and other bias in US immigration court

. . . .

The nation’s Immigration Courts have—thus far—flown under the public’s radar screen. Yet these are the places where life-or-death decisions are made, often for subjective and even racist reasons. That is why the Ohio Immigrant Alliance is collecting examples of racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, and other biased statements and decisions made by Immigration Judges from across the country. We are working with a research team to analyze the cases and produce a report in early 2023.  Here are a few examples.

Contact Lauren Hamlett (hamlett.15 AT buckeyemail.osu.edu) for more information or to share examples. This can be in the form of court documents and judges’ decisions or an interview with an immigrant or attorney. We will adhere to all privacy requirements requested by the immigrant and not publish anything without their consent.

The report, to be published in 2023, will shine a light on how racism shows up in Immigration Court using real-life examples. These findings will enrage anyone who believes the U.S. should work toward becoming a nation that guarantees “justice for all.”

See this testimony for more information, and contact Lauren to share your experiences.

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

I was struck by the undeniable truth — scandalously ignored by Garland, his lieutenants, and Biden Administration policy officials — contained in the January 20, 2022 statement by Lynn Tramonte, Ohio Immigrant Alliance, to the House Judiciary Committee considering the need for an independent, professionally-administered, merit-based Immigration Court. 

The U.S. Is Deporting People Who Qualify for Asylum

The current U.S. immigration system is not designed to function fairly, but to fail. There are many examples of this, but today I will focus on examples from the U.S. Immigration Court.

Lynn’s full statement is available at the “this testimony” link above. I’ve made this point over and over!

Because the current system is purposely biased against asylum seekers, particularly those of color arriving at our Southern border, the “statistics” purportedly showing that few will qualify for asylum are totally bogus! Then, they are inexcusably cited by so-called “mainstream media” who haven’t done their homework! This perpetuates the “nativist myth” of the “illegitimate asylum seeker” which is then used to dehumanize refugees and deny them their legal and human rights!

Fact is, because we don’t have a legitimate, expert asylum adjudication system, we don’t really know how many qualified refugees are being illegally turned away or denied. But, it’s a safe bet that a fair, expert, professionally administered asylum system would grant legal protection to many more — probably a majority — of those who pass credible fear! 

The problem is NOT, as Sessions and other nativists claimed, that too many individuals pass “credible fear.” It’s that a biased, anti-asylum, mal-administered, and constitutionally flawed system wrongfully denies far, far, far too many legitimate claims! And, Garland’s incredibly dysfunctional EOIR is at the heart of this problem!

Fixing EOIR is an essential first step in “re-legitimizing” our entire floundering justice system. But, Garland isn’t up to the job!

Asylum is an important form of legal immigration and an opportunity for America to put its best foot forward by properly, fairly, and timely screening and admitting those who can qualify for refuge and will be key contributors to our nation’s future. The babble of GOP nativists like DeSantis, Cruz, Abbott, and others about “illegals” is total BS! 

Asylum seekers have every right to be here and pursue fair, timely, and professional adjudication of their claims — something that’s elusive — highly unlikely to happen — under today’s “designed to fail” system! That includes the “new, designed to fail, improperly staffed and mindlessly operated asylum regulations.” See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/10/03/%f0%9f%98%b0asylum-programmed-for-failure-refugee-roulette-three-rr3-confirm-what-many-of-us-said-right-off-the-bat-about-biden-admin/

It’s an ongoing national disgrace that Garland has failed to reform his Immigration Courts, eliminate bias and invidious discrimination from his judiciary, install quality, expertise, and professionalism, and insist that the Biden Administration abandon “Miller Lite,” nativist policies and mis-interpretations of the law that are diminishing our nation and endangering our future; that he also has ridiculously chosen to “go to war” with experts, NGOs, attorneys, and others seeking to change and improve his disgraceful mess at EOIR!

What’s the purpose and function of an Attorney General who operates broken and biased “courts,” defends the indefensible, and refuses to stand up for the fair application of the law to some of the most vulnerable among us?

In the meantime, submit your “real life” examples of what really happens to vulnerable humans in “America’s worst courts” to Ohio Immigrant Alliance at the above link.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-07-22

🤮☠️ MORE THAN 100 ORGANIZATIONS (WHO, UNLIKE GARLAND, ACTUALLY PRACTICE BEFORE HIS DYSFUNCTIONAL “COURTS”) RIP GARLAND’S INSANE, DUE-PROCESS-DENYING “DEDICATED DOCKETS!”

Wheels are off at EOIR
The wheels are off and the wagon rotting away at EOIR!
PHOTO: Creative Commons
Alfred E. Neumann
Alfred E. Neumann has been “reborn” as Judge “Teflon” Merrick Garland! “Not my friends or relatives whose lives as being destroyed by my ‘Kangaroo Courts.’ Just ‘the others’ and their immigration lawyers, so who cares, why worry about professionalism, ethics, and due process in Immigration Court?”
PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons

The undersigned 106 legal service providers, court observers, and allied organizations located in the cities where the Dedicated Docket now operates. Together, we have observed hundreds of cases on the Dedicated Docket throughout the country. Our collective experience reveals a process rife with unfairness: lack of legal representation, expedited and arbitrary timelines, removal orders against pro se respondents (including young children), as well as courts marked by confusion and in some cases hostility.

Here’s the letter/report:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/groups-detail-grave-concerns-to-garland-re-dedicated-docket

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

What’s going on here!? As due process and equal justice are trashed, and lives and futures endangered, some of the best legal minds in America are forced to spend time pointing out the obvious to our “disconnected from reality” AG! What a waste! 

This inexcusable disaster was totally predictable in advance! NO expert recommended this stupid, “sure to fail” “haste makes waste” approach to asylum in a faux “court system” already reeling from bias, management incompetence, hostility to due process, worst practices, far too many poorly qualified judges (some selected by Sessions and Barr for their perceived willingness to “railroad” asylum seekers), a notoriously anti-asylum appeals board, and rock bottom morale! Yet, Garland went ahead! 

And NOBODY among his subordinates — not DAG Lisa Monaco, not AAG Vanita Gupta, not AAG/Civil Rights Kristen Clarke, not SG Elizabeth Prolager — at the DOJ had the guts to stand up and JUST SAY NO to his life-threatening nonsense. They all share the blame for this completely avoidable blot on our justice system and on their records (something progressives should remember when these irresponsible folks show up looking for jobs someday, as they inevitably will). What a disgrace! It didn’t have to be this way!

Why isn’t practice before the Immigration Courts and demonstrated commitment to human rights and due process a MINIMUM requirement for being the Attorney General or a top DOJ official in a Democratic Administration? No more “ivory tower” “tone deaf” appointments to key justice jobs from Democrats! End the deadly, wasteful nonsense! How many more innocents will be abused and systemically denied fundamental justice by EOIR before Biden and Harris pay attention to what’s happening “on their watch?”

And, folks, don’t forget the almost unfathomable “system costs” of having the knowledge, creativity, energy, and resources of these 106 organizations tied up in resisting and publicizing Garland’s stupidity and disdain by for equal justice and racial justice in America! They should be running EOIR, issuing great precedents on the BIA, solving problems in a practical, humane, legal manner as Immigration Judges, and redoing the broken and dysfunctional administrative system at EOIR.

The knowledge, personnel, creativity, and courage to establish a “model due process court system” are available “out here” — in spades. Instead, this avoidable human rights and racial injustice disaster is inflicted on our nation and some of the must vulnerable therein, by a tone-deaf Democratic Administration unwilling or unable to live up to their campaign promises! Disgusting! 🤮

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-06-22

⚖️THE GIBSON REPORT — 10-03-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Managing Attorney, NIJC — Biden’s Asylum Reform Dud! — After 4 Months, Badly Flawed Program Has Protected Only 24 Refugees, As Bias, Lack of Vision, & Anti-Asylum Culture Continue To Plague Biden Administration’s Human Rights “Non-Policies!”

 


Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Managing Attorney
National Immigrant Justice Center
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

Weekly Briefing

 

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

 

CONTENTS (jump to section)

  • ◦NEWS
  • ◦LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES
  • ◦RESOURCES
  • ◦EVENTS

 

PRACTICAL UPDATES

 

EOIR Updates FOIA Request Process

 

USCIS Extends Green Card Validity Extension to 24 Months for Green Card Renewals

 

Extension of Temporary Waiver of 60-Day Rule for Civil Surgeon Signatures on Form I-693

 

NEWS

 

Migrant deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border hit a record high, in part due to drownings

NPR: This has been the deadliest year ever for migrants trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. More than 800 migrants have died border-wide in the fiscal year that ends this week, according to internal government figures shared by a senior Border Patrol official.

 

Biden Is Hoping Small Changes Go a Long Way on Immigration

NYT: For now, the changes are tiny; only 99 people since the end of May have completed what are called asylum merits interviews with an asylum officer and been fully evaluated under the new rules. Of those, 24 have been granted asylum, while most of the rest have had their cases sent back to the immigration court system for an appeal.

 

Biden Maintains Current Cap on Refugee Entries

NYT: The decision to leave the cap at 125,000 was a contrast with the Trump administration, which severely restricted entry, but advocacy groups said migrants were still processed too slowly.

 

ICE Increases Use of Ankle Monitors and Smartphones to Monitor Immigrants

TRAC: The number of people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Alternative to Detention (ATD) program has officially crossed 300,000 people for the first time, reaching 316,700 according to data released this week. See also The App ICE Forces You To Download; 70-hour weeks, taking selfies for Ice: life as a migrant trucker in California.

 

White House hosts meeting of 19 Western Hemisphere nations to begin coordinated efforts on migrants

CNN: National security adviser Jake Sullivan and homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall, among other White House officials, met with the representatives of 19 countries at the White House to iron out the implementation of that declaration and appoint a special coordinator for each country, according to the senior administration official.

 

Texas Jail Warden Charged With Killing Migrant Was Previously Accused Of Serious Abuses

Intercept: The Warden of what was once one of the nation’s most notorious immigration detention facilities was arrested this week after allegedly killing one migrant and wounding another in the desert of rural West Texas.

 

Immigrants Provide Huge Benefits To U.S. Taxpayers

Forbes: Compelling new research finds immigrants, including those with less than a high school degree, provide enormous fiscal benefits and a significant subsidy to U.S. taxpayers.

 

Border-crossing asylum-seekers hit six-year high in Canada

Reuters: In the first eight months of 2022, Royal Canadian Mounted Police intercepted 23,358 asylum-seekers crossing into the country at unofficial entry points, 13% more than all of 2017, when an influx of border-crossers at Roxham Road, near the Quebec-New York border, made international headlines.

 

‘Real People That We Care About Are Being Exploited’

Politico: Because cannabis remains illegal at a federal level, all employers — even those licensed at the state level — lack access to E-Verify, a government service that helps businesses verify immigration status. They also cannot use visa programs like H-2A and H-2B, which facilitate legal immigration of farmworkers in other industries… The Oregon legislature in the last 12 months set aside more than $31 million for law enforcement and advocacy groups working to combat illicit cannabis cultivation and help undocumented workers in the industry.

 

Come along as we connect the dots between climate, migration and the far-right

NPR: What is the connection between climate change, the movement of people around the globe, and the rise of xenophobic politicians? That’s the overarching question we’re hoping to answer with this reporting trip.

 

LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES

 

Justices To Review If 5th Circ. Fairly Rebuffed Removal Case

Law360: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review whether the Fifth Circuit was right to reject a Guatemalan woman’s deportation case on the grounds that she hadn’t gone through a final round of administrative appeals.

 

3rd Circ. Upholds Toss Of Illegal Immigrant’s Firearm Appeal

Law360: The Third Circuit has affirmed an Eastern District of Pennsylvania federal judge’s rejection of a Dominican Republic citizen’s appeal of his conviction on firearm and immigration law offenses — albeit for different reasons than the lower court.

 

DC Judge Won’t Force Consular Interviews For Visa Winners

Law360: The State Department will not have to schedule visa interviews for 12 winners of the 2022 Diversity Visa Lottery, after a D.C. federal judge found that the selectees didn’t show a high likelihood of proving that the Biden administration unlawfully delayed their interviews.

 

Judge Faults BIA For Nixing Visa Petition Over Prior Marriage

Law360: An Ohio federal judge on Wednesday said the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals wrongly tossed a woman’s visa petition for her Ghanian husband over a previous “sham marriage,” saying whether the prior marriage was actually fake was open to dispute.

 

ACLU Says Feds Ignored FOIA For ICE Detainee Counsel Info

Law360: The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday hit the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in D.C. federal court, accusing the agency of improperly withholding access to records regarding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees’ access to counsel.

 

Feds want psychological tests for parents of separated kids

AP: The request comes in a lawsuit filed by migrants seeking compensation from the government after thousands of children were taken from parents in a policy maligned as inhumane by political and religious leaders around the world. Settlement talks with attorneys and the government broke down late last year.

 

Groups: Retaliation after migrants report detention center

AP: A companion complaint Wednesday to the office of civil rights at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security documents retaliation, including restrictions on access to legal representation and a falsified accusation of misconduct against an immigrant under the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

 

U.S. whistleblowers aiding migrant children feared retaliation, watchdog report says

Reuters: Two U.S. government employees said they experienced retaliation after they sounded alarms about the conditions at Fort Bliss, which has been used for emergency housing since March 2021, according to the report issued by the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) inspector general’s office.

 

Secretary Mayorkas Extends and Redesignates Temporary Protected Status for Burma

USCIS: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today announced an extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Burma for an additional 18 months, from Nov. 26, 2022, through May 25, 2024, due to extraordinary and temporary conditions in Burma that prevent individuals from safely returning.

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

 

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

 

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

 

Elizabeth Gibson (Pronouns: she/her/ella)

Managing Attorney for Capacity Building and Mentorship

National Immigrant Justice Center

A HEARTLAND ALLIANCE Program

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

www.immigrantjustice.org | Facebook | Twitter

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

Launch Dud
Despite disingenuous claims otherwise, the overhyped “launch” of asylum “reform” has been a “dud” — producing little for the Administration but even less for legitimate refugees and due process advocates caught up in the mind-boggling dysfunction of the failed Mayorkas/Garland asylum system.
PHOTO: NASA/Joel Kowsky
Public Realm

As border deaths continue to soar, nativist GOP Governors use humans as political pawns, and conditions in refugee sending countries deteriorate, the Biden Administration’s failed human rights/racial justice bureaucracy has no answers!

By attempting to replicate, remarkably even touting, the unrealistically high denial rates produced by the previous system — too often the result of badly flawed adjudications, poorly trained officers and judges, lack of effective representation, chronic systemic anti-asylum bias, and overly restrictive, anti-asylum precedents produced by a BIA loaded with anti-asylum zealots by the Trump Administration — Mayorkas and Garland have basically guaranteed continuing human rights abuses and defective adjudication of claims.

Truth is, even during the height of the overt anti-asylum program of the Trump Administration, approximately 70% of those whose claims were “referred” by the Asylum Office were eventually granted protection in Immigration Court. 

According to Human Rights First (“HRF”), an international human rights organization, in Fiscal Year 2021, 68% of asylum cases referred to immigration court by the AO were subsequently granted protection.[1] With nearly 70% of claims being granted in FY2021, this represents a clear and apparent waste of judicial resources.

https://www.immigrationissues.com/asylum-cases-referred-to-immigration-court-too-often/

And, this was with a legal system with overly restrictive precedents that clearly and improperly manipulated generous asylum laws AGAINST refugees, often hindered effective representation, and was “overseen” by many Immigration Judges who were hand-selected or retained by the Trump DOJ because they were “programmed to deny” asylum at outrageous rates. By granting only a pathetic 24 of 99 cases that actually were decided over four months, and “referring” the rest to Garland’s beyond dysfunctional “courts” (currently fighting an indescribably stupid all-out “war” with NGOs and pro bono attorneys), Mayorkas hasn’t come anywhere close to “leveraging” the system to locate, prioritize, timely grant many more legitimate cases, and drastically reduce the huge number of  unnecessary referrals to EOIR.

Rather than “cleaning house” at USCIS and EOIR, bringing in dynamic, qualified leaders, expert adjudicators and judges who can timely recognize the many legitimate claims, working with NGOs and pro bono groups to get all asylum seekers represented, and utilizing the expert training resources that currently exist outside Government, Mayorkas and Garland are perpetrating the same anti-asylum myths spewed out by Miller, Trump, and company! Essentially, instead of fixing the fatal flaws in the current system, the Biden Administration has chosen to institutionalize and expedite them! That’s insane!

The Biden Administration’s failure to do the butt-kicking, bold, thoughtful work necessary to establish robust, timely, efficient, refugee and asylum systems is dragging down our legal system, promoting racial injustice, perpetrating xenophobic myths, advancing “worst practices,” harming, sometimes killing, legitimate refugees fleeing repressive regimes, and denying American communities legal residents who could be using their skills to help build a stronger economy and a better future for America.

With thousands of asylum seekers from countries where persecution is well-documented being “orbited” by nativist GOP Governors, the Biden Administration was presented with a golden opportunity to work with NGOs, states, and local governments to coordinate resettlement, get them competently represented, and grant asylum in a fair and timely manner, thus demonstrating how an improved asylum system could work with proper staffing, attitudes, and legal guidance. Instead, the Administration has chosen to waste time on a “thudding dud” of a pilot that shows a stunning lack of leadership, courage, imagination, initiative, humanity, and respect for the rule of law!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-05-22

😰ASYLUM: “PROGRAMMED FOR FAILURE” — “Refugee Roulette Three” (“RR3”) Confirm What Many Of Us Said Right Off The Bat About Biden Administration’s Tragically Botched Stab At Asylum Reform!

The “Notorious RR3:”

Professor Philip G. Schrag
Professor Philip G. Schrag
Georgetown Law
Co-Director, CALS Asylum Clinic
Professor Andrew Schoenholtz
Professor from Practice; Director, Human Rights Institute; Director, Center for Applied Legal Studies
PHOTO: GeorgetownLaw
Professor Jaya Ramji-Nogales
Professor Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
I. Herman Stern Research Professor
Temple Law
PHOTO: Temple Law

 

Here’s the abstract of the latest “practical scholarship” from the RR3:  Professors Phil Schrag, Andy Schoenholtz, and Jaya Ramji-Nogles, “The New Border Asylum Adjudication System: Speed, Fairness, and the Representation Problem,” which will appear in the Howard Law Journal:

The New Border Asylum Adjudication System: Speed, Fairness, and the Representation Problem

Howard Law Journal, Vol. 66, No. 3, 2023

59 Pages Posted:

Philip G. Schrag

Georgetown University Law Center

Jaya Ramji-Nogales

Temple University – James E. Beasley School of Law

Andrew I. Schoenholtz

Georgetown University Law Center

Date Written: September 29, 2022

Abstract

In 2022, the Biden administration implemented what the New York Times has described as potentially “the most sweeping change to the asylum process in a quarter-century.” This new adjudication system creates unrealistically short deadlines for asylum seekers who arrive over the southern border, the vast majority of whom are people of color. Rather than providing a fair opportunity for those seeking safety to explain and corroborate their persecution claims, the new system imposes unreasonably speedy time frames to enable swift adjudications. Asylum seekers must obtain representation very quickly even though the government does not fund counsel and not enough lawyers offer free or low-cost representation. Moreover, the immigration statute requires that asylum seekers must corroborate their claims with extrinsic evidence if the adjudicator thinks that such evidence is available – a nearly impossible task in the time frames provided by the new rule. As a result, the new rule clashes with every state’s Rules of Professional Conduct 1.1 and 1.3, imposing duties of competence and diligence in every case that a lawyer undertakes. It will be extremely difficult for lawyers to provide competent and diligent representation under the new, excessively short deadlines. For immigration lawyers, the new rule exacerbates a challenge that they share with public defenders and other lawyers working within dysfunctional systems: how to provide even the most basic level of procedural due process for their clients, most of whom are people of color.

This article begins by describing the regular asylum process. It then summarizes the history of expedited removal, a screening system that limits access to that process for asylum seekers who arrive at the southern U.S. border without visas. It then explains and assesses the Biden administration’s first and second versions of the new asylum rule, highlighting the major flaw that will make the current version an unfairly formidable hurdle for asylum seekers subject to it. The article concludes by setting out a way for the Biden administration to create a more fair, accurate and efficient border asylum adjudication system and ensure that the U.S. can comply with domestic and international refugee law.

Keywords: Asylum, Asylum adjudication, Asylum process, Expedited removal, Immigration, Legal ethics, Due process, Administrative law

JEL Classification: K39

Suggested Citation:

Schrag, Philip G. and Ramji-Nogales, Jaya and Schoenholtz, Andrew I., The New Border Asylum Adjudication System: Speed, Fairness, and the Representation Problem (September 29, 2022). Howard Law Journal, Vol. 66, No. 3, 2023, Available at SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4233655

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

Four Horsemen
New regulations pasted on old anti-asylum, anti-lawyer, anti-due-process attitudes and relying on an ever more dysfunctional EOIR, now at war with the asylum bar, won’t cut it! 
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

You can download the complete article from SSRN at the above link. 

Expect the Biden Administration to “blow off” the suggestions for improvement at the end of the article. They seem to glory in “tuning out” the views of practical experts who know how to fix the broken asylum adjudication system. 

As I predicted when these regulations first came out, they were “programmed for failure.”

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/06/06/⚖%EF%B8%8F🗽-human-rights-first-files-public-comments-pointing-out-due-process-eroding-flaws-in-biden-administrations-new-asylum-regulations/

Due-process-denying, representation-killing, arbitrary time limits imposed from above have been tried by Administration after Administration. They have always failed and will continue to do so. So, why are they a key part of the Administration’s so-called “reforms?”

Rather than addressing the representation crisis in a rational, cooperative manner, the Biden Administration’s EOIR farce has driven a huge wedge between the clueless policy makers who operate in the “twilight zone” and the NGO, pro bono, and low bono legal community that they need to succeed on immigration, human rights, and racial justice. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/09/30/%f0%9f%86%98-sos-from-round-tables-%f0%9f%9b%a1-%e2%9a%94%ef%b8%8f-judge-sue-roy-complete-due-rocess-meltdown-eoir-newark-as-garlands-leadership-continues-to-fail-%e2%98%a0/

Compare the article’s discussion of the importance of representation and the practical and ethical problems caused by the new regulations with the reality of the “nutsos” ways EOIR is mis-treating attorneys currently trying to practice before the Immigration Courts!

Additionally, the unwarranted, yet largely self-fulfilling assumption by the Biden Administration that only 15% of asylum applications would be granted at the “Asylum Office stage” show why this program was designed to fail by the wrong officials. For the system to meaningfully address the Immigration Court asylum backlog, the grant rate would have to be multiples of that — probably at least 50%.

That’s a realistic projection, given the well-documented, atrocious human rights conditions in most “sending countries” and the current artificial limitations on grants imposed by bad precedents and flawed, biased, or incompetent adjudications. When I was at the Arlington Immigration Court from 2003-16, a significant majority of the “referrals” from the Asylum Office were granted asylum, withholding of removal, or CAT protection, often with concurrence or only token opposition by ICE. That suggests that there is a huge unrealized potential for many more timely asylum grants at the Asylum Office. But, success will never be achieved with the current “anti-asylum, afraid to correctly and fairly implement refugee law gang” in charge — committed to retaining the bad attitudes and repeating the mistakes of the past!

Hanging over the whole disaster is the “uncomfortable truth” that I’ve been shouting:

  • The Biden Administration is still operating EOIR and large portions of the immigration bureaucracy at DHS with Trump-era “holdovers” who were improperly “programmed to deny” asylum.

  • There is a dearth of positive precedents from the BIA on gender-based asylum and other types of common asylum applications at the border that are routinely and wrongfully mishandled and denied.

  • There are cosmic problems resulting from failure to provide qualified representation of asylum seekers at the border.

  • Detention continues to be misused as a “deterrent” to legal claims and “punishment” for asserting  them. 

  • Despite “touting” a much larger refugee admissions program beyond the border, the Administration has failed to deliver a robust, realistic, refugee admissions program for Latin America and the Caribbean which would take pressure off the border. 

  • Racism and White Nationalism continue to drive the Administration’s dramatically inconsistent approach to White refugees from Ukraine compared with refugees of color at the Southern Border.

Indeed, this entire “reform effort” is essentially “upside down.” It’s a “designed to fail” attempt to avoid the broken and malfunctioning Immigration Court system without dealing with the REAL problem: EOIR!

Without the necessary progressive personnel and structural reforms at Garland’s EOIR (“clean house” of unqualified, under-qualified, or misplaced administrators and judges from past Administrations), the cultural changes (“out with the anti-asylum, anti-immigrant, racially challenged, too often misogynistic, EOIR culture”) it would bring, and most of all, the substantive changes to align asylum law with due process, best practices, and the generous interpretations that were foreshadowed by the Refugee Act of 1`980 but have been intentionally suppressed by politicos of both parties, there will be neither justice nor stability in our asylum and immigration systems, nor will there be equal justice for all, including racial justice, in America! 

Even my esteemed “RR3” friends understate the debilitating effects of the ever-worsening dysfunction at EOIR and Garland’s failure of leadership on due process and human rights!

Perhaps the most telling statement in their article is this: “Asylum officers are more highly trained in asylum adjudication than immigration judges . . . .”  Why, on earth, would that be? 

Why isn’t the BIA led and comprised of internationally-respected asylum experts like Schrag, Schoenholtz, Ramji-Nogales, and others like them? Why aren’t all Immigration Judges drawn from the ranks of universally-respected “practical scholars” in asylum and human rights?  Plenty of them are out here! Why aren’t they on the bench? Why is the Biden Administration running a “D-Team Judiciary” at EOIR rather than “the world’s best administrative tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all” as EOIR was once envisioned? What’s the excuse for lousy training at EOIR when top-flight “modulated” asylum training is available from expert sources like Professor Michele Pistone’s innovative VIISTA Villanova program? What’s the excuse for the colossal EOIR failure that threatens lives and our democracy on a daily basis? Why aren’t alarm bells going off at the White House about Garland’s failed stewardship at EOIR?

Reforming the asylum system, starting with EOIR, could also potentially have big societal and economic benefits for America. Asylees gain legal status, can work, get in line for green cards, eventually become citizens, and realize their full potential as productive members of our society. Not incidentally, they also become regular taxpayers and can help bolster essential enterprises and infrastructure improvements.

For example, just yesterday the Portland (ME) Press Herald featured an article about the critical, chronic shortage of workers in Maine. https://www.pressherald.com/2022/10/02/how-can-maine-solve-its-workforce-crisis/ Why isn’t the Biden Administration working with Maine authorities, NGOs, and economic development groups to “fast track” asylum approvals for those who might be persuaded to resettle in Maine to take advantage of these economic opportunities, for everyone’s benefit? Mainers also are suffering from a shortage of affordable housing. I’ll bet that with a little “seed money,” there are enterprising, skilled groups of potential asylees who could help build and maintain affordable housing for communities in need, in Maine and elsewhere in the U.S. Why are they instead “rotting at the border” or being aimlessly “orbited” around America by nativist GOP governors trying to score political points with their White Nationalist base?

By adopting the nativists’ dehumanizing mis-characterization of asylum seekers as a “problem” to be measured in “numbers,” deterred, and held at bay, the Administration is missing a golden opportunity to achieve some much-needed “win-wins.” Why run bone-headed “built to fail, haste makes waste” asylum pilot programs in a few cities rather than trying things that might work to everyone’s advantage, as I have described above?

At a time when many in America are finally learning the truth about our disgraceful failure to offer refuge to Jews during the period leading up to the Holocaust from the Ken Burns documentary, we (our at least some Americans) appear to be committed to making the same mistakes again. We should not undervalue the lives and contributions of refugees because of systemic or structural boas against certain groups!

Claiming to “reform” the U.S. refugee and asylum system without dealing with the ongoing, worsening, disasterous dysfunction at EOIR is a fool’s errand. The way to make the system work more efficiently is to grant the large number of deserving asylum cases in a timely, practical, manner driven by due process, best practices, and best interpretations of asylum law. Unless and until those in charge act on this truth, the awful mess at EOIR will continue to be an existential threat to democracy!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-03-22

CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST — The GOP’s “Performative Cruelty” Is Bad Policy!

Catherine Rampell
Catherine Rampell
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/19/immigrants-marthas-vineyard-desantis-performative/

. . . .

Not to mention that even the Trump administration (the Trump administration!) found that refugees and asylees are a net positive for public budgets over the long run. That is, despite typically arriving penniless, these immigrants ultimately pay more in taxes than they receive in government benefits.

Michele L. Norris: What Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis don’t understand about America

Contra DeSantis’s insinuations about immigrant moochers, these are people who want to work and become economically self-sufficient. That’s presumably why DeSantis’s own henchmen promised fictitious jobs to lure the asylum seekers onto flights.

. . . .

If Republican officials actually wanted to reduce the number of people coming to the border without advance permission, there are plenty of things these politicians could do. They could push for expansion of guest-worker visas, for instance. Or more funding for the refugee admissions program. Or really any other legal, orderly pathway to come to the United States.

After all, the main reason there is such a crush at the border — and why the asylum system in general is so overwhelmed — is that right now this is one of the very few legal ways to get to America.

Yes, I said legal: The families being hoodwinked and shipped around the country like chattel on chartered buses and flights are here lawfully, based on what’s been publicly reported. They turned themselves in upon crossing the border precisely so that they can apply for asylum, as is their legal right. The federal government has screened them, and granted them humanitarian parole while they pursue their asylum cases in court.

It’s not an ideal system. Or an especially fast one. It would be much better to fix the rest of our broken legal immigration system so that those other, more orderly pathways are available. Especially the pathways that offer quicker access to work permits, given America’s current massive labor shortages.

It’s true that Democrats have also put forth relatively little effort to fix these problems. In some cases Democrats seem fearful of appearing too pro-immigrant, having apparently bought into the GOP lore that deep down Americans are xenophobes. But even what little Democrats have tried to do they generally can’t do without 60 Senate votes. Which Democrats don’t have.

Democrats need Republicans to cooperate on immigration reform, and Republicans won’t. Even when those reforms are coupled with investments in border security that Republicans claim to want. The GOP would rather keep around a dragon they can perpetually promise to slay one day — and better yet, to taunt and torture for a while, in public, first.

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

Read Catherine’s complete article at the link. Interesting that Catherine understands so much so well, while those in the Biden Administration charged with immigration and human rights policy are so clueless, timid, and inept!

In the meantime, the Dems have done little to make the current laws relating to refugees and asylum work. The much-hyped “asylum rule changes” at DHS have had little, if any, discernible positive impact. EOIR is a national disgrace — continuing the “death spiral” that accelerated during the Trump kakistocracy. The refugee system remains in shambles. The proposed 15,000 allocation of refugee admissions for FY 2023 to Latin American and the Caribbean is an insult and a “signal” to other receiving nations in the area that we are not serious about addressing the problem. There is no rational resettlement program for asylum seekers crossing the border, thus providing an unnecessary opening for the “performative cruelty” of  clowns like DeSantis and Abbott.

None of these things are “rocket science” or “budget busters.” They just require knowledgeable leadership, values, and the courage to act on them. Apparently, faced with the cruelty and desecration of values by the “MAGA GOP,” the Dems think that “all they have to do is show up, smile, and mumble platitudes” to seem like the only choice for Americans who believe in democracy. Maybe — but I wouldn’t count on it!

I think that Catherine “hit the nail on the head” with this assessment of the spineless policy officials driving refugee and asylum policies in the Biden Administration: “In some cases Democrats seem fearful of appearing too pro-immigrant, having apparently bought into the GOP lore that deep down Americans are xenophobes.” Cowardice on immigrants, immigrants’ rights, and racial justice has become an endemic problem in the Democratic Party.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS
09-22-22

 

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST: EOIR PARTICIPATED IN MASSIVE “DUE PROCESS FARCE” DURING “REMAIN IN MEXICO” (A/K/A “LET ‘EM DIE IN MEXICO”) — Garland Fails To Replace Ethically Compromised Jurists & Administrators Who Helped Carry Out This “Assault On The Rule Of Law” Nor Has He Brought Needed Reforms To DOJ & EOIR!

Four Horsemen
EOIR’s approach to asylum seekers at the Southern Border hasn’t changed much under Garland!
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Just as during the Trump administration, RMX immigration court hearings remain a due process farce, with asylum seekers overwhelmingly unable to obtain legal counsel and denied refugee protections. Only five percent of people sent to Mexico under RMX 2.0 have a lawyer. According to analysis by the Syracuse University Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, this is an even lower representation rate than the eight percent representation rate during the Trump administration’s implementation of RMX. Unsurprisingly, very few people in RMX 2.0 have been granted asylum protection. As of June 30, 2022, only 63 asylum seekers in RMX 2.0 had been granted relief—less than four percent of completed cases. This abysmal asylum grant rate is nearly identical to the 4.1 percent grant rate for completed RMX 1.0 cases. Seventy-five percent of completed RMX 2.0 cases ended with in absentia removal orders, virtually unchanged from the 72 percent in absentia removal order rate for completed RMX cases during the Trump administration. The gauntlet of grave dangers and terrible conditions inherent to RMX, rather than the merits of asylum seekers’ requests for protection, continued to determine the outcome of these cases.

Get the full report here:

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/09/new-report-by-human-rights-first-on-the-failed-remain-in-mexico-program.html

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

EOIR is where much of the racially motivated Trump/Miller plan to dehumanize migrants, strip them of legal rights, harass their attorneys, and create a “false narrative” of  “manufactured” “failures to appear” and “bogus asylum denials” played out. Many at EOIR either actively supported these outrageous violations of human rights or “went along to get along” with massive abuses and the creation of a hostile environment for due process and legally correct asylum adjudications.

Yet, Garland and his lieutenants have failed to do the necessary “housecleaning” at EOIR and to bring in legitimate expert judges and professional administrators to restore due process and fairly and correctly interpret and apply asylum law! Indeed, many of the same judges and bureaucrats who presided over this farce continue to inflict injustice on migrants and their attorneys at Garland’s EOIR! How and why do Garland and his complicit lieutenants get away with it?

It’s also why, notwithstanding the evil motives behind the “orbiting” of asylum applicants, they are better off almost anywhere than Texas, which continues to operate largely as an “asylum-free and due-process-free zone” under Garland!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-21-22

🤯 OUTRAGE BOILS OVER AT MERRICK GARLAND’S  “MILLERESQUE” WAR ON DUE PROCESS AT EOIR & HIS GROTESQUE MISMANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRATION COURTS! — Garland Might Be A Greater Threat To Our Democracy Than DeSantis and Abbott!

Jason Dzubow
Jason Dzubow
The Asylumist

The latest report on Garland’s accelerating disaster @ EOIR from Jason Dzubow, “The Asylumist:”

https://www.asylumist.com/2022/09/21/due-process-disaster-in-immigration-court/

Due Process Disaster in Immigration Court

It is not easy to convey the magnitude of the ongoing disaster at EOIR, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts. Simply stated, the agency is rescheduling and advancing hundreds–maybe thousands–of cases without notifying attorneys, checking whether we are available to attend the hearings or checking whether we have the capacity to complete the cases.

On its face, this appears to be a mere scheduling problem. But in effect, it is a vicious and unprecedented assault on immigrants, their attorneys, and due process of law.

pastedGraphic.png

“Advancing hearings with no notice and no time to prepare? Why didn’t I think of that?!”

For me at least, the problem started small. A few cases were rescheduled and advanced without anyone at the Immigration Court bothering to inquire about my availability: Your case that was scheduled for two years in the future has been advanced and is now set for two months in the future. I was angry and upset, but I did not want to let my clients down. So I set other work obligations aside. I set family time aside. I put off doctors appointments. And I completed the cases, which were approved. I hoped that these cases were anomalies and that EOIR would stop this unfair and abusive practice. But that was not to be.

Instead, EOIR has dramatically expanded its effort to reschedule cases, often without providing sufficient notice–or any notice–to get the work done for our clients. As best as we can tell, the problem is occurring in California, Colorado, Maryland, and Virginia. I myself have had about a dozen cases rescheduled and advanced (so far). These cases had been scheduled for 2023 or 2024, and suddenly, they are now set for the fall of 2022. Other attorneys have had 20, 30 or more cases advanced, including some that were double booked. One lawyer reported having seven cases scheduled for the same week and 47 cases set for one month. Another lawyer purportedly told a judge that if she had one more case scheduled within the next six months, she would commit suicide.

Here, I want to break down what is happening, so noncitizens in Immigration Court can at least have some idea about EOIR’s disruptive practices.

First, when I say that EOIR is not providing notice of the hearings, that is not entirely accurate. They are not sending us a notice or contacting us in advance. Instead, they are posting the new hearing dates on our portal. What does this mean? Each attorney has access to a portal page with a calendar. We can scroll through the calendar one month at a time. Days with hearings are highlighted, and we can click on those days to see what is scheduled. When I review my calendar, I often find new hearings that were not previously on the schedule. The only way to know whether a new hearing has been scheduled is to scroll through our portals month-by-month and compare what’s there with our existing calendar–a burdensome process that leaves plenty of room to overlook a date. Needless to say, every time I sign on to the portal, I feel a nauseous sense of dread about what I might find.

Once we discover the new date, we need to review the file, contact the client, and determine whether we can complete the case. This all takes time. If we cannot complete the case, or we do not have an attorney available on the scheduled date, we need to ask for a continuance. Of course, clients who have been waiting years for a decision usually want to keep the earlier hearing date. They do not understand why we cannot complete the work or why we are not available that day. Their perspective is perfectly reasonable, but they only have one case, where lawyers have many and we are daily being ambushed by EOIR with additional work. All this can result in conflicts between clients (who want their cases heard) and lawyers (who need time to get the work done). It also makes it difficult to serve our other clients, who must be pushed aside to accommodate the new work randomly being dumped on us.

Even if the client agrees to request a continuance, that does not solve the problem. Motions to continue can be denied. Even when they are granted, the judges tend to reset the date for only a few weeks in the future, which is often not enough time to properly complete the work. Other times, judges simply do not rule on the motion, so we are left to prepare the case, not knowing whether it will go forward or not.

Also, while we sometimes discover a new date that is a few months in the future (and so in theory, we might have time to do the work), other times, the new date is only a few weeks in the future. Since the evidence, witness list, and legal brief are due at least 15 days before the hearing, and since even a “simple” asylum case takes 20 or 30 hours to prepare, this is not nearly enough time. Worse, some cases are randomly advanced and placed on the docket after the evidence is due, and so by the time we have “notice” of the case, our evidence is already late.

Adding insult to injury, another common problem is that cases are still being cancelled at the last minute. And so we drop everything to prepare a case, only to have it postponed once all the work is done. Since this is all utterly unpredictable, it is impossible to prioritize our work or advise our clients.

Again, if this were only a few cases, attorneys could set aside other work and get the job done. But lawyers who do immigration law tend to have many cases, and we are seeing dozens and dozens of cases advanced with no notice. This is such a blatant and obvious abuse of due process that it is impossible to believe it is accidental. I might have expected this policy from the Trump Administration, which was hell-bent on restricting immigration by any means necessary. But as it turns out, President Biden’s EOIR is far worse than President Trump’s. Indeed, the current level of callousness would make even Stephen Miller blush.

The solution to these problems is so basic that it should not need to be said, but here it is anyway: EOIR should stop advancing and rescheduling cases without notice and without consideration for whether we have time to complete the work. Unless something changes, we can expect many noncitizens to be unfairly denied protection, immigration attorneys will leave the profession (or worse), and EOIR will become illegitimate. Let us hope that sanity and decency will soon return to the Immigration Courts.

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

Ever wonder why Dems struggle to govern and often lose elections they should win?  This is a pretty good example of how the Biden Administration, through cowardice, ignorance, arrogance, and failure to prioritize racial justice and immigrant justice are “shooting themselves in the foot, over and over!”

They are going into midterms where every vote counts. They need “all hands on board” in the human rights community to help bail them out of the gross failures of the White House, Garland, and Mayorkas to reestablish a fair, efficient, and properly robust system for legally admitting refugees and processing asylum claims at the borders and the interior. This, in turn, has empowered disingenuous nativists like DeSantis and Abbott to “play games with human lives.” 

But, the Biden Administration “strategy” is to do everything possible to offend and drive a wedge between them and some of their most loyal and important groups of supporters — the immigration, human rights, and racial justice communities. (Make no mistake: The ongoing disaster at Garland’s EOIR disproportionally targets individuals of color.)

Garland seems to be impervious to his self-inflicted disaster at EOIR.  I think that advocates are going to have to sue to bring his “Stephen Miller Lite” travesty of justice at EOIR to a grinding halt. Those are resources that could and should be used to help asylum seekers “orbited” around the country by DeSantis and Abbott. 

I, for one, have been saying for a long time that Garland’s unfathomably horrible performance at EOIR is a threat to our entire justice system and to the future of our nation. Sadly, every day, Garland proves me right!

The real shame: It was all so preventable with just a modicum of competence and backbone from our failing AG!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever! Merrick Garland’s deadly Clown Courts 🤡, Never!

PWS

09-21-22

🤮🏴‍☠️ “AMERICA FIRST” HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT PUTTING MANY AMERICANS & AMERICAN VALUES LAST! — It’s An Ugly, Yet Long Standing, Part Of Our History Embodied In The Anti-Democracy MAGA Movement!

Sarah Churchwell
Sarah Churchwell
American Educator & Author
PHOTO: twitter.mobile.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/09/09/america-first-american-dream-trumpism/

Sarah Churchwell writes in the WashPost:

. . . .

The phrase “America First” fell rapidly into disrepute during World War II, largely because the America First Committee (whose most prominent spokesman was Charles Lindbergh) had urged non-intervention and appeasement and been accused of anti-semitism and fascist sympathies. It was then consigned to temporary obscurity, but not everyone forgot. The slogan was periodically recalled to articulate resurgent right-wing nationalism, often explicitly white nationalism, from Gerald L.K. Smith, once known as “America’s most notorious antisemite,” who founded the America First Party in the 1940s, to Barry Goldwater, hailed by his supporters as an “America First” politician and described by the conservative National Review in 1963 as standing for “States’ Rights, strict construction, limited government, private enterprise, and America first, last and always.” It was used to describe David Duke and George Wallace, before being resuscitated by Pat Buchanan (“We are not isolationists. We simply believe in America first, last and always,” he declared in 2000) in his presidential campaigns. A certain Donald Trump flirted with making his own run under Buchanan’s Reform Party banner, then brought the phrase triumphantly back a century after Wilson popularized it.

[Competing visions of the American Dream are driving Democrats and Republicans apart]

Now the America First Policy Institute declares that its slogan is “America First, Always” and that its immigration policy will mean no longer putting “America last” — echoing the language of a March 1922 editorial from what was then the nation’s most popular weekly, the Saturday Evening Post, as it harangued its readers about the “immigration problem” caused by “our policy of putting the alien and his interests first, and America last.”

These “America First” initiatives go beyond attempts at excluding the “alien” that were already divisive, and futile, a century ago. One of the most prominent spokesmen for “America First” today is Nicholas Fuentes, a white Christian nationalist who organized the America First Political Action Conference earlier this year. Fuentes was also present at the storming of the Capitol, as were his “Groyper” followers, waving his “AF” flags. Fuentes declared: “It is the American people, and our leader, Donald Trump, against everybody else in this country and this world.” That is certainly what “America First” has meant in the past, as its leaders promise that only they can put America first, by inflaming divisions against nearly every other human being. But it is “America First” that endures, not its erstwhile leaders — and its history offers a pretty good indication of what to expect from Trumpism without Trump.

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

I highly recommend that everyone read Sarah’s full article at the link. 

Immigrants are almost always the first target of this “confederacy of cowards” — because they are most vulnerable. U.S. courts have traditionally been unwilling to effectively enforce the constitutional and legal rights of “the other.” But, as pointed out in the article, the hate and resentment continues to pour out against additional groups and individuals until “almost every other human being” becomes a target. 

We see it today in Virginia Governor Glenn “Junkman” Youngkin’s recent cowardly and unconstitutional “targeting and bullying” of transgender school kids under the ridiculously bogus rubric of “parents rights.” Just where does the “right” of neo-fascist parents to bully the children of others come from? 

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Grimm case in 2020 already has found that “Junkman’s” scofflaw attempt to force transgender kids to use the wrong bathroom likely will be held unconstitutional. But, the Constitution and laws have never been anything but “convenient props” for America Firsters!” Compare the courage of the Grimm plaintiff with the ugly cowardice of the “Junkman” and his followers. (This following “Junkman’s” outrageous trip to Maine to campaign for notorious racist GOP gubernatorial candidate Paul LePage).

But, the Fourth Circuit might be an aberration. Often, getting reactionary judges who lack the character and guts to stand up against demonization of their fellow humans helps fuel and protect the “America First” movement from accountability. That’s certainly been at the core modern GOP mis-governance, and the Dems have been painfully “slow on the uptake” in countering it. You have only to look at Merrick Garland’s astounding mis-handling of the reactionary, weaponized, and totally dysfunctional Immigration “Courts” under his control to see just how slow!

In the end, it will be up to the upcoming generation to decide what kind of America they want to live in: An America that respects and honors the dignity, worth, and human potential of all of its inhabitants and serves as a model of tolerance and inclusion for the rest of the world? Or, an America where a minority of extreme right wing authoritarians are at war with the rest of us and, indeed, with humanity itself. Your choice!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-18-22

🏴‍☠️🤯👎🏽 CRUMBLING INSTITUTIONS: OF COURSE THE OUT OF TOUCH, POLITICIZED SUPREMES’ GOP MAJORITY IS SHEDDING LEGITIMACY AS THEY IMPLEMENT AN EXTREME FAR-RIGHT POLITICAL AGENDA WITHOUT LEGAL BASIS! — C.J. Roberts’s Incredibly Lame Claim Otherwise Proves It!

John Roberts
His defense of the indefensible went over like a lead balloon with those whose lives have been upended by the radical right Justices’ political agenda!

Every time a GOP politico or media sycophant preferences remarks with “I’m not a racist,” you know that some outrageous racist statement is about to follow. What they are doing is dishonestly attempting to preemptively “shift the blame and focus” to those who call out their vile, dishonest conduct!

Over the weekend, Chief Justice John Roberts, drifted down a similar discredited path of disingenuous “preemptive denial.” In a ludicrously tone deaf statement that echoed Tricky Dick’s “I’m not a crook” speech, Roberts lamely attempted to defend the legitimacy of his Court’s stripping of fundamental human rights from women. In doing so, he basically reinforced critics’ points about the Court’s illegitimate, extralegal, right-wing, political war on individual and human rights with a good bit of misogyny thrown in!

Richard Nixon
Nixon’s “I’m not a crook speech” convinced many that he was, indeed, a crook. Roberts’s “My Court isn’t illegitimate just because it advances a far-right political agenda speech” is heading in the same direction!
PHOTO: Twitter

Never mind that the Court basically aligned itself with authoritarian theocrats promoting “forced birth” and overt subjugation of a woman’s fundamental right to decide whether or not to reproduce. Indeed, advancing that minority political agenda was the fundamental reason why Roberts and his GOP crew are on the Court in the first place! To pretend otherwise is off the wall!

There are some strong moral, societal, economic, and  medical arguments to be made about why women should or should not choose to have children. Under the First Amendment, both those who favor abortion and those who oppose it have always been free to argue their points. 

But, the idea that these choices should be removed from those directly concerned and placed in the hands of political and religious authorities is preposterous. Lacking convincing arguments to persuade all women facing that choice to their side, the far right theocracy did a preemptive strike! And, their “wholly-owned Justices” went along!

Needless to say, Roberts’s insultingly disingenuous defense of the indefensible did not fare well with informed critics. 

Former Sen. Claire McCaskill, now an MSNBC analyist, On Meet the Press:

On Sunday, McCaskill – an MSNBC political analyst – tore into Roberts for taking the country backward and recalled that the jurists who signed onto Alito’s originalist rationalization misled the public during their respective Senate confirmation hearings.

“He’s so so out of touch. I mean really, this interview shows why the numbers for the Supreme Court are so bad. For him to say something like that, he just doesn’t get it. You don’t take away a right that’s been around for 50 years and you don’t have a party go to extremes of trying to make sure rape victims have to have forced birth,” McCaskill said.

“You don’t do that and not have it splash back on the Supreme Court,” she continued. “And they all said they respected precedent when they were confirmed. I heard them. America heard them. Clearly, they didn’t, and you can feel me getting angry at John Roberts right now because he knows better when he says that stuff.”

Professor (and former prosecutor) Joyce White Vance, Professor Leah Litman, Professor Stephen I. Vladeck, Political Scientist Norman Ornstein:

https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/claire-mccaskill-john-roberts-roe/

“Roberts’s failure to understand why the court has lost credibility with so many Americans smacks of ‘Let them eat cake,’ ” Joyce White Vance, a former prosecutor and a distinguished professor of the practice of law at the University of Alabama law school, told me. “The Supreme Court has a proud history of defending our rights, not taking them away. The Roberts court will go down in history as the first one” to strip away people’s rights.

University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman said: “I would be embarrassed to say something that naive and divorced from reality if I had said it as a first-year law student. For the chief justice to say it is just an insult to the intellect of everyone who knows anything about the court, American democracy and politics.”

. . .

If Roberts and the conservative bloc were to engage in just a tiny amount of self-reflection, they would understand that their own actions have brought them to this point. Law professor Stephen I. Vladeck, of the University of Texas school of law, asked me rhetorically: “If the court’s legitimacy doesn’t come from public acceptance of the principled nature of its decision-making, where does it come from?”

While Roberts might not have written the most egregious opinions, he has joined in them, from the abortion ruling in Dobbs, to the prayer-in-schools ruling in Bremerton, to a Brnovich decision on voting rights, written by Alito, that “blatantly ignored the plain language of the law and rewrote it to fit his partisan and ideological views,” as political scientist Norman Ornstein told me. Moreover, Ornstein said, it is Roberts who has “ignored Clarence Thomas’s blatant conflicts of interest and continues to oppose applying the judicial code of ethics to the Supreme Court, even as its credibility plummets.”

He concluded: “John G. Roberts Jr. is far from the worst justice undermining the fundamental legitimacy of the court, but he is surely culpable.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/12/roberts-criticism-supreme-court-whining/

Jennifer Rubin, WashPost opinion writer:

The court has failed to regulate itself and instead has abused its power. None of the six right-wing justices acknowledge, nor do they signal they want to halt, the conduct that has lost the public’s confidence.

So it’s up to Congress and the president to shore up the court’s credibility. Allocating more seats to correct the damage done by Sen. Mitch McConnell’s court-packing, imposing term limits on all justices and enacting a mandatory code of ethics would be good places to start.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/12/roberts-criticism-supreme-court-whining/

Eric Lutz in Vanity Fair:

But it’s not just the outcome, which decimated a right Americans had held for five decades and put a variety of other privacy rights in jeopardy. It’s the way that decision — and others on guns, climate change, and religion — recently came to pass.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/09/john-roberts-defends-supreme-court-against-legitimacy-questions

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

In this case, Roberts would have done better to confine himself to “calling balls and strikes.” Sadly, he and his GOP colleagues have gotten out from behind the plate and taken the field in their “Federalist Society” uniforms. He’s going to have to learn to live with objections and catcalls from those in the stands who see what’s really going on here and are understandably upset about the Court’s overreach, substandard legal performance, lack of accountability, absence of self-awareness, and, yes, lack of legitimacy.

Better judges for a better, fairer America — from the Immigration Courts to the Supremes! 

By the way, we can’t change the Supremes overnight. But, Biden, Harris, & Garland COULD have reformed, repaired, and legitimized the Immigration Courts, including the BIA, that they control. That they have failed to do so is the biggest “unforced error” of the Biden Administration — one that will haunt Democrats and Americans for ages! 

Every day Garland’s parody of a court system, still largely bearing the unmistakable stamp of White Nationalists Sessions, Barr and Miller, continues to run roughshod over individual rights, often in life or death cases, while degrading the judicial process. Misogyny and racism are also on full display, as a disproportionate brunt of their unprofessional, wrong-headed, result-oriented “any reason to deny” decision-making falls on refugee women of color (and often on their accompanying children).

There is a very direct connection between “DHS agents in robes” in our Immigration Courts and “right-wing politicos in robes” at the Supremes. Part of the idea is to “normalize” injustice directed at “the other” — just so long as YOUR life isn’t directly affected, who cares? It’s also known as “Dred Scottification.”  It’s the “polar opposite” of Dr. Martin Luther King’s observation that “injustice anywhere is a threat to  justice everywhere.” If Dems don’t “connect the dots,” they might not be able to save our democracy!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-12-22.

⚒️👩🏾‍🌾🌾🇺🇸🗽 AN INSPIRING LABOR DAY MESSAGE FROM REV. CRAIG MOUSIN: Migrants Are The Backbone Of America & Those Who Fight For Migrant Justice Are Not Alone — A Special Podcast With Links To Music By John McCutcheon & Emma’s Revolution!

Rev. Craig Mousin
Rev. Craig Mousin
Ombudsperson
Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Grace School of Applied Diplomacy
DePaul University
PHOTO: DePaul Website

Dear Paul,

As we begin Labor Day weekend, I give thanks for the many ways your work and mission seek justice for all.

My latest podcast gives thanks to all of you who have worked to end Title 42 and to all those immigrants who have contributed to the common good.

As I end the podcast quoting Emma’s Revolution’s song, Bound for Freedom, I give thanks that we are not alone, but united in the struggle.  Thank you.

https://blogs.depaul.edu/dmm/2022/09/02/lawful-assembly-podcast-episode-29-gratitude-for-those-who-labor-and-those-who-have-labored/

Have a great Labor Day weekend and Thank You.

Peace,

Craig

 

Rev. Craig B. Mousin

DePaul University

(mail) 1 East Jackson Boulevard

Chicago, Illinois 60604

 

(office) Suite 800H

14E. Jackson Blvd.

Chicago, Illinois 60604

 

312-362-8707 (voice)

312-362-5706 (confidential fax)

 

 

You can find some of my publications at either:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=667812or

https://works.bepress.com/craig_mousin/

You can find my digital story at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9VTkjhzIcI

You can follow the podcast Lawful Assembly at:https://lawfulassembly.buzzsprout.com

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

Thanks, Craig, for your “practical activism and scholarship!”

Takeaways:

  • Grass roots activism works to defeat the forces of darkness and White Nationalism (the defeat of the barrage of White Nationalist immigration amendments was covered on Courtside here: https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/08/08/%f0%9f%87%ba%f0%9f%87%b8%f0%9f%97%bd%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8fndpa-activists-help-beat-back-gop-nativist-spoiler-amendments-to-reconciliation-bill-dems-need-to-win-midterms-to-thwart-newest-gop-immi/);
  • The John McCutcheon version of Woodie Guthrie’s song “Deportees” shows how deeply ingrained “Dred Scottification” is in our country’s often unconstitutional, impractical, and sometimes immoral approach to immigration enforcement.“De-personification” of  “the other’” — treating them as numbers, statistics, even “beds” or “apps” without names, faces or rights — and making up vile myths and lies about them, all while  exploiting their labor — is still at the heart of the anti-American White Nationalist agenda!
  • Social justice activism is an important multi-disciplinary endeavor — here we see how law, education, religion, civics, history, broadcast journalism, performance art, music, technology, political science, economics, language, culture, & communication all work together to thwart hate and lies;
  • More undergraduate institutions need to be making these links and insisting that the true history of American Immigration — with all its triumphs and warts — becomes a staple of education;
  • Many of those tone-deaf (or worse) politicos pushing the far right agenda of hate, lies, and racism reflected in the defeated amendments are elitists masquerading as “bogus populists” who got the benefit of education at some of the top law schools and universities in the nation. Whatever happened to the teaching of basic legal ethics and responsibilities to society? The Jim Crow agendas of today differ little from those of the pre-civil rights era of the 20th Century. These are NOT debates between legitimate “differing viewpoints,” but essentially questions of truth vs. lies, hate v. tolerance, integration v. exploitation; 
  • The White Nationalist Right is taking over school boards and local governance in the false name of “parents’ rights” — actually meaning the rights of far right parents to impose their minority religious doctrines and false social doctrines on others. The fight for social justice begins at the local level where where teaching of truth and legitimate debates are being drowned out by disgruntled, anti-democracy, empowered White Nationalist theocrats who claim they want liberty but actually are trying to impose autocracy and minority rule;
  • The fight for social justice never ends!

🇺🇸 Happy Labor Day, & Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-05-22