🤯 PROVING MY POINT: “Justice for asylum seekers and other migrants shouldn’t be this difficult in Garland’s courts!” — Despite “Happy Ending,” 600-Day Ordeal In What Should Have Been “Day 1 Grant” To Afghan Ally Shows Deep-Seated Problems @ Garland’s DOJ/EOIR & Human/Operational Consequences Of That Failure!

Star Chamber Justice — AG Merrick Garland’s methods for treating allies and friends of America when they apply for asylum in his “courts” are highly questionable and demonstratively counterproductive. Did the DC Circuit use “trial by ordeal” during Garland’s tenure? If not, why is it OK for EOIR?

From Human Rights First (“HRF”):

https://humanrightsfirst.org/library/ice-pushes-to-deport-asylum-seeking-afghan-incarcerated-in-the-united-states/

HELPING AN AFGHAN INCARCERATED IN THE UNITED STATES EARN ASYLUM

Mohammad[1] is an Afghan citizen of the Hazara ethnic minority and Shi’a religion, who fled Afghanistan after repeated threats to his life following the Taliban’s consolidation of power in 2021. He escaped by traveling through the treacherous and only available route to the United States to seek asylum.

In Afghanistan, Mohammad was a professor with a history of advocacy for women’s rights and for victims of the Taliban and other extremist groups. Mohammad’s wife, who worked for a U.S. government-funded nonprofit organization in Afghanistan. Due to her work, she has an initially approved Special Immigrant Visa application that also gives Mohammad a path to permanent residence in the United States.

Despite this, Mohammad was criminally prosecuted for entering the United States to seek asylum. He spent 7 months in prison before he was transferred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, where he could only then begin to pursue his asylum claim. ICE repeatedly denied Mohammad’s release into the community despite his having permanent resident family in the United States ready to sponsor and receive him.

Mohammad was forced to undergo his asylum case without an attorney while detained in immigration jail. After being held for one year, an immigration judge denied Mohammad’s asylum claims despite extensive evidence that he survived multiple attacks on his life by the Taliban and ISIS-K, and that the Taliban continue to search for him. The judge also dismissed irrefutable evidence of the significant risk he would face due to his ethnic and religious minority status if forced to return to Afghanistan, and the escalating violence imposed by the Taliban.

Mohammad’s story was detailed by the Associated Press. The article provided “a rare look inside an opaque and overwhelmed immigration court system where hearings are often closed, transcripts are not available to the public and judges are under pressure to move quickly with ample discretion” and highlights Human Rights First’s efforts to find justice for Mohammad.

The United States should not deport Afghan allies—especially not those like Mohammad, who have courageously fought for human rights in Afghanistan, are members of ethnic and religious minority groups, and have family eligible for SIV status—all factors that would lead to certain risk of persecution and torture at the hands of the Taliban if forced to return.

We argued that Mohammad was subjected to unreasonably prolonged incarceration. He deserved to live freely in the United States and be reunited with his family while he sought asylum.

As Human Rights First acted on Mohammad’s case, we updated this blog with details of that effort. Please follow this link for more on Mohammad’s story.

December 22, 2023

Mohammad’s journey has been long – he traveled from Afghanistan to South America, through the Darien Gap to the border, to ICE detention, and more – but it has come to a successful conclusion.

Our attorneys were successful in stopping the Department of Homeland Security from deporting Mohammad back to Afghanistan. We filed a Motion to Reopen Mohammad’s case and then filed a new asylum application. We made multiple parole requests to get Mohammad released. We filed for Temporary Protected Status for Mohammad, arguing that it is the U.S. government’s long-standing policy to release any individual who is prima facie eligible for TPS. We contacted government officials and advocated for Mohammad’s release for his sake and for his family — two small children and his wife, whose application through the Special Immigrant Visa program has long been approved. Our request to have his TPS application expedited was denied.

With our partners at the law firm of Akin LLP, we prepared Mohammad for his December 13 Individual hearing before a new judge in Dallas Immigration Court. We gathered additional evidence, spoke with eyewitnesses, consulted with an expert, and filed all necessary filings.

Finally, on December 20, 2023, 602 days after he first arrived in the United States, Mohammad was granted asylum. The immigration judge found that Mohammad had suffered persecution due to his political opinions and ethnicity.

Mohammad was released from detention on December 22, 2023, and will soon reunite with his niece in Michigan. Human Rights First and Akin LLP will now work to reunite Mohammad with his wife and children and help him to pursue a dignified life in the relative safety of the United States.

December 12, 2023

Mohammad is scheduled for an Individual Hearing on December 13. We are very concerned about the possibility of his facing more detention even though he has an incredibly strong case with multiple claims to asylum.

Mohammad is an ethnic Hazara Shia Muslim who was an outspoken law professor and advocate on behalf of victims of Taliban terrorist attacks. His wife was employed by a U.S.-funded organization, and was granted COM approval for her Special Immigrant Visa. Mohammad’s two brothers converted to Christianity, a crime punishable by death; Mohammad fears retribution by the Taliban due to their close family relationship and because they lived in the same building unit. In recent months, the Taliban have visited their home in Afghanistan multiple times.

We continue to believe and will argue that Mohammad should have never been detained in the first place.

December 2, 2023

On December 1, USCIS denied Human Rights First’s request to expedite Mohammad’s application for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). At the time of our request, Mohammad had been in detention for over 550 days.

We argued for expedited processing of his TPS application based on urgent humanitarian reasons — he survived an ISIS-K bombing and an attempted gunpoint abduction by the Taliban — and the national interest of the United States.

We anticipated that the filing of Mohammad’s TPS application would be sufficient for DHS to release him, as he clearly meets the prima facie eligibility requirement. It is a long-standing U.S. government policy that “once granted TPS, an individual cannot be detained by DHS based on their immigration status in the United States.”

Unfortunately, our parole requests have repeatedly been denied, even after the submission of proof of TPS filing and of Mohammad’s wife’s COM approval for her Special Immigrant Visa (SIV).

September 25, 2023

Following the immigration judge’s erroneous denial of Mohammad’s asylum claim, he was connected with a pro bono attorney at Human Rights First to timely appeal that decision. Although ICE argued that Mohammad waived his right to appeal during the final immigration court hearing, experts, including former immigration judges, have reviewed the court transcript and agree with Human Rights First that Mohammad did not receive a fair hearing or knowingly waive his right to appeal. Unfortunately, the Board of Immigration Appeals summarily dismissed Mohammad’s appeal due to that purported waiver.

Human Rights First then filed a motion to reopen his removal proceedings directly with the Immigration Court. With the assistance of Akin Gump LLP, Mohammad also filed a petition for review of the BIA’s decision.[2]

On September 21, Mohammad’s motion to reopen before the immigration court was granted, despite the government’s continued opposition, winning him the opportunity to present his evidence for asylum again but this time with the assistance of an attorney and a new judge. That same day, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that the Secretary has redesignated Afghanistan for Temporary Protected Status, which will provide an additional path to temporary protection from deportation for Mohammad. Human Rights First will continue to defend Mohammad’s case until he secures protection for himself and his family.

[1] full name withheld due to security concerns for his family

[2] this petition will be voluntarily dismissed as Mohammad’s motion to reopen removal proceedings was separately granted by an immigration judge

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

I said it yesterday on “Courtside.”

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/12/26/🌲under-your-tree-a-gift-🎁-from-sir-jeffrey-chase-of-the-round-table-🛡️-asylum-in-the-time-of-m-r-m-s/.

And, “bingo,” Garland and his inept minions at EOIR and DOJ furnish a great example of a backlog-building, due-process denying, expertise-lacking, dysfunctional, illogical “court” system that is damaging humanity while undermining U.S. justice and democracy in so many ways!

The full scope of USG failure is on display in this saga:

Prosecutorial abuse;
Coercive detention;
Denial of counsel;
Bad judging at both trial and appellate levels of EOIR;
Lack of asylum expertise;
Absence of positive precedents granting asylum in recurring situations like Afghanistan;
Ignoring evidence;
Punishing allies;
Disregarding potential solutions;
Backlog-building, totally unnecessary “Aimless Docket Reshuffling;”
Squandering USG and NGO resources;
Alienating the NGO community;
Mistreating those we eventually will be welcoming and relying upon in our society;
Generating unnecessary litigation;
Promoting arbitrary and inconsistent results.

The HRF report also notes the supportive role of former Immigration Judges in obtaining justice for Mohammad.

As renowned asylum expert Eleanor Acer, Refugee Protection Director at HRF, said of this case on X:

So relieved that he was finally granted asylum, but I continue to be appalled that people seeking asylum in the US often face so many obstacles & injustices. Senators & Biden officials should focus on staffing & steps for accurate & just decisions, not more barriers & cruelty.

Yup! Our leaders “just don’t get it” when it comes to human rights, immigration, and the reality of forced migration. The costs to humanity of their failures is incalculable!

Institutionalizing “accurate and just decisions” is something that has largely eluded Garland — despite his long service as an Article III Judge and his near-elevation to the Supremes. Many of us, obviously incorrectly, believed that with his judicial background and reputation — and few other real priorities on his plate given his recusal from the Trump prosecutions — Garland would be the AG who would finally fix EOIR and push the transition to Article I status. Instead, he has allowed EOIR to drift and deteriorate on his watch, with destruction of human lives and the undermining of justice in America as consequences!

All the punitive measures Congress is discussing will make things worse! The legislators and the politicos “running” this dysfunction are completely detatched from reality! (Reportedly, Secretary Blinken and other Administration politicos are now in Mexico looking for more “ guaranteed to to fail yet cause more human misery” ways to “enforce their way” out of a humanitarian crisis that is not at core a law enforcement problem at all!)

EOIR and the BIA require senior leaders who are practical experts in asylum law, who put due process and fundamental fairness first, and who are proven problem solvers — not part of the problem as is now the case. Unless and until we get an AG and senior DOJ leaders who recognize both the problems and the (now unrealized) opportunities at EOIR, American justice and democracy will continue to suffer! And human lives will continue to hang in the balance!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-27-23

🤯 THEY JUST CAN’T GET IT RIGHT! — Biden Administration Combines Some Improvements In Refugee Processing Abroad With Cruelty & Mockery Of Asylum Law At The Border — “People seeking asylum at United States borders will be subjected to fast-track credible fear interviews while in Border Patrol custody and barred under the asylum ban, fueling wrongful deportations to persecution and torture.”

Eleanor Acer
Senior Director for Refugee Protection, Human Rights First

https://humanrightsfirst.org/library/human-rights-first-welcomes-resettlement-condemns-bars-to-asylum-seekers/

Human Rights First Welcomes Resettlement, Condemns Bars to Asylum Seekers

WASHINGTON – Human Rights First welcomes today’s announcement of the Biden administration’s plans to expand refugee resettlement and family reunification parole in the Americas while reiterating the organization’s call for the administration to abandon its planned asylum ban and the conduct of fast-track credible fear interviews in Border Patrol custody.

“The Biden administration is rightly expanding refugee resettlement from the Americas, an overdue step towards addressing a long-standing gap for people in need of international protection,” said Senior Director of Refugee Protection Eleanor Acer. “This initiative should swiftly bring refugees to safety and not be used to reduce the resettlement of refugees from other regions. The Biden administration should focus on measures like increasing refugee resettlement and regular pathways and abandon its plan to impose an asylum ban that would be a legal, moral, and political mistake.”

In today’s announcement, the Biden administration confirmed its plans to implement its proposed ban on asylum, which would violate U.S. and international refugee law and has sparked widespread opposition from faith leaders, civil rights organizations, unions, and many Members of Congress. People seeking asylum at United States borders will be subjected to fast-track credible fear interviews while in Border Patrol custody and barred under the asylum ban, fueling wrongful deportations to persecution and torture.

“The Biden administration rightly ended and should not resurrect Trump-era policies that conduct credible fear interviews in Border Patrol custody where access to legal counsel is restricted,” Acer said. “This due process disaster, along with the imposition of the planned asylum ban, will be a sham process for deporting refugees who qualify for asylum. Instead of implementing policies that punish people seeking asylum, the United States should lead in upholding refugee protections and human rights.”

Human Rights First and other groups have long urged the U.S. government to step up refugee resettlement from the Americas and offer safe pathways for migration. We recommend the Biden administration focus on transformational steps like increasing refugee resettlement and regular pathways and maximizing asylum capacity at ports of entry rather than pursuing its misguided plan to impose a new bar on asylum.

Today’s announcements are part of the Biden administration’s plans to address regional migration and initiate punitive policies as the use of the Title 42 public health order ends on May 11. Human Rights First has repeatedly documented human rights abuses inflicted by the Title 42 policy, including over 13,000 attacks against migrants and asylum seekers blocked in or expelled to Mexico under Title 42 during the Biden administration. The organization has also repeatedly detailed the harms and violations of law that would be caused by the Biden administration’s proposed ban on asylum.

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

The “official” DHS statement can be found here: https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/dhs-dos-announces-sweeping-new-actions-to-manage-regional-migration.

To me, the DHS/DOS statement (referenced by HRF) sounds like folks who expect to fail, want to “tamp down” expectations, and intend to blame the victims (asylum seekers and their advocates) and Congress for their (likely) failure.

Almost everybody agrees that reforms in our immigration system are overdue. But, there is no agreement whatsoever in Congress on what those reforms should be, as shown by the absolutely insanely “bonkers” proposal from the House GOP which seeks to make everything infinitely worse!

So, we’re not going to get the needed expansions and simplification of our legal immigration system, including more generous treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, in the foreseeable future. That’s not a surprise! After two plus years in office, the Biden Administration should have foreseen the obvious and come up with ways to make the current law work.

As almost any expert will tell you, our existing legal asylum system can be made to work in a fair, timely, and reasonable manner at the borders. But, that’s not going to happen with the current personal, poor leadership, bad attitudes, lousy precedents, and a badly failed Immigration Court system.

A fair, functional, properly run asylum system, in conjunction with a robust realistic overseas refugee program, will result in more individuals being admitted into the U.S. as legal immigrants through the refugee and asylum processes. That’s how they are supposed to work (but generally have not) as key components of our legal immigration system.

It’s also a fulfillment of our important international obligations that we intentionally took on after our questionable performance on Jews fleeing Europe just prior to, and even during, WWII. While we can absorb, even need, more legal immigrants, Administrations don’t want to admit and deal with the obvious. Forced refugee migrations aren’t going to disappear any time in the foreseeable future, much as politicos of both parties might want them to!

Yes, these are legacies of the Trump Administration, and, to a lesser extent, the Obama Administration. But, one of the reasons why the Biden Administration is in office is to make things work, not just to whine and wring their hands.

Sure, the Trump Administration undermined the rule of law (and, I might add, largely got away with it). But, that’s no excuse for Biden and Harris not to have listened to experts (like, for example, Eleanor Acer), replaced personnel at DHS and DOJ with “practical experts” who can get the job done, and established at least a working operational framework for a successful, orderly, refugee and asylum admission system. Over-relying on coercive and inhumane detention, denial-oriented decision-making, bogus bars to asylum, criminal prosecutions, threats, and a dysfunctional Immigration Court system are NOT that framework.

Of course the Administration’s proposals to increase refugee admissions, reprogram resources, and develop a better resettlement program for refugees and asylees in the U.S. are good ideas. But, they are basically “no brainers” that HRF and other experts urged even before “day one” of this Administration. They should be in place and operating by now! We’ll see how much due process and fairness this Administration can actually deliver, or whether their proposed solutions devolve into yet another “uber-enforcement fueled” fiasco with the most vulnerable humans as the victims!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-28-23

🤯👎🏼 EXPERTS’ CONDEMNATION OF BIDEN’S LATEST ANTI-ASYLUM BORDER GIMMICKS SWIFT, BRUTAL, TRUE!

From Eleanor Acer @ Human Rights First:

The president described the new approach as one intended to expand opportunities for migrants. But immigration advocates denounced the changes, saying that they included vast new restrictions on the right to claim asylum for people who need to escape their countries.

Eleanor Acer, the director of the refugee protection program at Human Rights First, called the new policies “a humanitarian disgrace” and said the president should not be adding restrictions on people who seek refuge in the United States.

“The Biden administration should be taking steps to restore asylum law at ports of entry,” she said, “not doubling down on cruel and counterproductive policies from the Trump playbook.”

https://lnkd.in/eJeDidzY

Biden Announces Major Crackdown on Illegal Border Crossings

nytimes.com • 2 min read

*******

From Amy Fischer @ Amnesty International USA:

“Amnesty International USA condemns the Biden Administration’s attack on the human right to seek asylum. Today, the Biden Administration fully reversed course on its stated commitment to human rights and racial justice by once again expanding the use of Title 42, announcing rulemaking on an asylum transit ban, expanding the use of expedited removal, and implementing a new system to require appointments through a mobile app for those desperately seeking safety. While we welcome the expanded humanitarian parole program to provide a pathway for Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans to apply for protection without having to make the dangerous journey to the border, that must not come at the expense of the human right to seek asylum. These new policies will undoubtedly have a disparate impact on Black, Brown, and Indigenous people seeking safety. In fact, Amnesty International previously found that the cruel treatment of Haitians under Title 42 subjected Haitian asylum seekers to arbitrary detention and discriminatory and humiliating ill-treatment that amounts to race-based torture. The United States has both a legal and moral obligation to uphold the right to seek asylum, and over the holidays, we once again saw communities mobilize to welcome asylum seekers with dignity. The Biden Administration must reverse course and stop these policies of exclusion, and instead uphold the right to seek asylum and invest in the communities that are stepping up to welcome.”

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2023/01/biden-administration-continues-to-attack-asylum.html

*******

From Mary Miller Flowers @ Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights:

“President Biden’s announcement today is a far cry from the commitments he made on day one to fight for racial justice, immigrant rights, and family protection,” Mary Miller Flowers, the senior policy analyst at the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, said in a statement.

“The right to asylum should not hinge on your manner of flight from danger or your financial means,” Flowers continued. “Seeking safety is treated as a privilege for a select few, and the Biden Administration’s cherry-picking of who can and cannot access protection proves this.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-border-policy-cubans-haitians-nicaraguans_n_63b72754e4b0ae9de1bcb181

*******

From Kate Jastrom @ Center for Gender & Refugee Studies @ Hastings Law:

“Today President Biden proudly touted his commitment to providing legal pathways for asylum seekers and improving conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border. These were empty words,” said Kate Jastram, CGRS Director of Policy & Advocacy. “By expanding its deadly Title 42 policy to Haitians, Cubans, and Nicaraguans, the Biden administration is going far beyond what any court has required it to do. This expansion will put vulnerable refugees in harm’s way and exacerbate violence and chaos in border communities.”

“People fleeing persecution have a legal right to seek asylum at our border under both U.S. and international law, no matter how they get here, no matter who they know, and no matter what documents they hold,” Jastram continued. “Many are forced to escape their homes under threat of death at a moment’s notice, with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Their rights should never be supplanted by limited and discriminatory parole programs that offer relief only to a lucky few. We are also deeply disturbed that the administration has announced plans to revive and repackage the Trump-era asylum transit ban. President Biden cannot pledge to hold the ‘torch of liberty’ aloft, then turn around and embrace the most inhumane, anti-refugee policies of his predecessor.”

https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/news/biden-doubles-down-trump-era-cruelty-border

From Maria Daniella Prieshoff @ Tahirih Justice Center:

“This is truly a stain on the record of any administration seeking to uphold the U.S. asylum law and its responsibilities under international law. We must work together to ensure that for #JusticeForImmigrants is truly equal.”

**********

From Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.):

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who along with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has pushed the Biden administration for months to end Title 42, criticized the administration’s plan, saying it goes too far in restricting migrants’ access to the border.

“The Biden Administration’s decision to expand Title 42, a disastrous and inhumane relic of the Trump Administration’s racist immigration agenda, is an affront to restoring rule of law at the border,” Menendez said in a statement. “Ultimately, this use of the parole authority is merely an attempt to replace our asylum laws, and thousands of asylum seekers waiting to present their cases will be hurt as a result.”

From Jonathan Blazer @ ACLU:

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has led the legal battle to stop the expulsions since the Trump administration, criticized Biden for continuing to rely on Title 42, saying expelling migrants will send them into dangerous border cities where some have been kidnapped or killed. “This knee-jerk expansion of Title 42 will put more lives in grave danger,” Jonathan Blazer, the ACLU’s director of border strategies, said in a statement.

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

From Margaret Cargioli @ Immigrant Defenders Law Center:

Margaret Cargioli, a lawyer with the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said the program was effectively screening out migrants who lack U.S. connections or money to buy airplane tickets. She said Title 42 was “put in place by a racist and xenophobic administration” bent on stopping immigration, not protecting public health.

“It really does go against the nature of … ‘My life is in danger. I need to get out,’” she said at a Dec. 29 news conference. “And that is what the essence of an asylum seeker is.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/05/biden-border-security-immigration/

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

Alas, no surprise to “Courtside” readers! The question is what can and will human rights supporters, progressives, and racial justice advocates DO about the consistent betrayal of humanitarian values values and the rule of law by Dems; not to mention Dems trashing their own campaign promises!

Trump’s nativist racism and Biden’s incompetence have actually moved our nation’s approach to legal refugee and asylum status BACK more than four decades! In place of the international framework put in place by Congress in the Refugee Act of 1980, we now have a hodgepodge of arbitrary, ad hoc, actions by the Biden Administration, relying to an unacceptable (and prima facie illegal) extent on the use of “emergency parole” authority as a partial substitute for legal refugee and asylee admissions!

This favors some non-refugees with “sponsors” over those who meet the accepted international definition of “refugee.” It promotes Executive and political favoritism over the needs of legal refugees. It stands on its head the normal refugee definition requiring an individual to be OUTSIDE their country of nationality to apply.

Congress did give the President extraordinary authority to admit those who otherwise meet the “refugee” definition directly from their native countries in conflict. However, rather than using this legal authority, Biden has chosen to misuse parole to EVADE it.

Even for those Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans fortunate enough to be chosen for parole, the first three groups will be left in limbo with no clear way of obtaining permanent immigration status after the expiration of their two-year “parole.” This obviously converts them into “political footballs” — particularly if the GOP were to regain the Presidency in 2024!

Paroled Cubans, on the other hand, might qualify for green cards under the “Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966” after one year. This creates yet another arbitrary inconsistency among those similarly situated, based solely on nationality.

The Refugee Act of 1980 creates a screening and adjustment process for those admitted as refugees thereunder, similar to the Cuban Adjustment Act. It also creates a similar process for those refugees granted asylum at the border or in the interior.

But, Biden’s choice NOT to use the existing legal provisions established by the Refugee Act of 1980, recreates exactly the type of disorder, arbitrariness, and uncertainty that the Refugee Act of 1980 was intended to end! And, they did in fact more or less end for nearly four decades, prior to the Trump-initiated fiascos that began in 2017 and which Biden, despite pledges to the contrary, has lacked the competence, expertise, and will to end and restore the rule of law!

If properly staffed with human rights experts and dynamic, visionary “practical scholars” as leaders, our legal refugee and asylum systems could not only be restored, but could also be dramatically improved and made fairer! That’s basically what Biden promised during the 2020 campaign.

Outrageously, once in office those promises have been trashed and, predictably, chaos and incompetence reigns. That’s a deadly combination for asylum seekers patiently waiting for our nation to honor its laws and international obligations!

It shouldn’t be like “waiting for Godot!” But, it is!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-06-22

⚖️🗽HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST ON EVERYTHING THAT’S WRONG ABOUT TITLE 42🏴‍☠️! — Also, Positions With HRF Available: Fight The Scofflaws, Nativists, Deniers, Fear-Mongers, & Enablers Who Made Title 42 & Other Degrading White Nationalist Policies Possible, & Those Who “Continue To Defend The Indefensible!”

humanrightsfirst.org

Dear Paul:

After two years of advocacy by Human Rights First and our allies, President Biden announced that his administration would end Title 42 this Monday, May 23. Instead, a suit by attorneys general mirroring the talking points of the Trump administration blocked the end of this inhumane policy.

We will continue to push for the end of the misuse of Title 42 and advocate for fair and just asylum system until we succeed and refugees are welcomed with dignity to the United States.

Taking action on Title 42

The Biden administration had announced a plan to end on May 23 the misuse of Title 42 public health regulations that have barred asylum seekers at the border for the past two years. On Friday a federal court in Louisiana forced the continuation of this egregiously inhumane policy.

Anwen Hughes, Director of Legal Strategy for Refugee Programs responded, “The court’s ruling requires the continuation of a public health policy that public health experts have concluded is not needed, and allows the continued evasion of U.S. immigration and refugee laws.”

Human Rights First joined 57 partner organizations in an amicus brief in this case detailing the human costs of using this policy at the border. Our most recent report, authored with allies Al Otro Lado and Haitian Bridge Alliance, underscored how extending Title 42 escalates dangers to asylum seekers, exacerbates disorder at the border, and magnifies discrimination in the system.

Courtesy Reuters

Migrants expelled from the U.S. are sent back to Mexico over the Paso del Norte International border bridge.

“Every day that the Title 42 order remains in place is a day when the United States is turning away people seeking refuge to places where their lives are in danger.”

Eleanor Acer appeared on Al Jazeera Friday night to discuss the continuation of Title 42.

Human Rights First President and CEO Michael Breen joined Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Mary Kay Henry, International President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and Marielena Hincapié, Executive Director of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), in a press call on Monday, the day that should have marked the end of the use of Title 42.

Speakers called for the end of this cruel policy and reiterated the need for a fair and humane asylum system that centers the dignity of all people.

“It is encouraging that the Justice Department quickly filed an appeal to the Louisiana court’s ruling, which extends the use of a policy, ostensibly based on public health, that public health experts have concluded is not needed. Now it is critical that the administration take all necessary steps to defend the CDC’s decision to end the use of Title 42,” said Breen.

A recording of the press event is available here.

Finally, two key members of our refugee protection research team, Kennji Kizuka and Associate Attorney for Refugee Protection Julia Neusner are at the border this week, reporting on the impact of Title 42 and Remain in Mexico on asylum seekers. Please follow their up-to-the-moment reports on Twitter — @JuliaNeusner and @KennjiKizuka.

Introducing new members of our team

Yesterday, Human Rights First was pleased to announce the addition of two critical new members of our program addressing extremism, Erin E. Wilson as the Senior Director for Extremism and Human Rights and Elizabeth Yates, Ph.D. as Senior Researcher on Antisemitism.

Over her 20-year career, Wilson established herself as an expert on domestic extremism, serving as a senior policy strategist and analyst in the U.S. Government’s executive and legislative branches. She has extensive experience with stakeholders in communities around the world as well as federal, state, local agencies and law enforcement partners to address extremism using a rights-centered approach.

Erin E. Wilson

Senior Director of

Extremism & Human Rights

Elizabeth Yates, Ph.D.

Senior Researcher

on Antisemitism.

Yates served at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, contributing to their work on domestic extremism and hate crimes. She co-authored numerous reports and articles on topics including extremism in the U.S. military, the growth of anti-Muslim terrorism, mass casualty hate crimes, and disengagement from right-wing extremism. Her analysis and commentary have regularly been featured on local and national news.

“Domestic extremism and antisemitism are two sides of the same coin, and Human Rights First is working to take that currency out of circulation,” said Michael Breen. “We are certain that as Human Rights First works to counter white supremacist extremism and the existential threat it poses to American democracy, the experience and tenacity Erin Wilson and Elizabeth Yates have long shown on these issues will be great resources.”

Join our Spring Social

We are thrilled to welcome Segun Oduolowu as emcee at our Spring Social!

Oduolowu joined PEOPLE (The TV Show!) as a correspondent this year after hosted the nationally syndicated television show, The List. With Bounce TV network, Segun executive produced Protect or Neglect, a documentary focused on police brutality in underserved communities.

He was co-host of See It/Skip It, a weekly Facebook Live show produced by Rotten Tomatoes and he has appeared on Access Hollywood, The Wendy Williams Show and contributed to international programs for CNN, the BBC and Deutsche Welle.

The emcee for our June 8

Spring Social, Segun Oduolowu

Please join us and Segun Oduolowu for cocktails on the roof of the Bryant Park Grill in New York City on June 8 from 5:30 to 8pm EDT to honor the work of human rights defenders & highlight our work responding to the crises in Ukraine and Afghanistan.

Get your tickets now for what promises to be a great evening!

Returning to Afghanistan

If you missed our live webinar “Tenets and Terrors: The Ideology and Violence of the Taliban in Afghanistan,” an in-depth look at the key factors, background, and worldview that motivates the Taliban, you can still participate in this important event by watching our recording or reading the transcript here.

Human Rights First is hiring

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Not surprisingly, things have gone downhill for the Biden Administration on multiple fronts since their initial failure to hit the ground running with a strong condemnation and revocation of the Title 42 travesty!

Here’s a chance for the “new generation” of theNDPA to “sign on” with HRF and fight nativist racism on all levels! There is no end in sight for the need for actions to force the Biden Administration, the U.S. Government, Federal Courts, and state and local governments to comply with the law and our (not yet completely and equally implemented) Constitutional guarantees. Fight the “good fight” to end “dehumanization of the other” which, shockingly, has become SOP for the GOP right and their enablers!

Check out the link to the HRF Careers Page above!😎👍🏼⚖️🗽

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-27-22

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️GARLAND’S FAILURES LOOM LARGE AS EOIR’S ABUSES OF BLACK REFUGEES EMERGE! 🤮 — Biased, Thinly Qualified “Judges” Fingered In HRF Report On Wrongful Returns To Cameroon Remain On Bench Under Garland — Anti-Asylum BIA & Ineffective Leadership From Trump Era Retained By Garland In EOIR Fiasco!

Kangaroos — What fun, sending Black Cameroonian refugees back to rape, torture, and possible death! We don’t need to know much asylum law or real country conditions here at EOIR. We make it up as we go along. And, Judge Garland just lets us keep on playing “refugee roulette,” our favorite game!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
Creative Commons License

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/02/deported-cameroonian-asylum-seekers-suffer-serious-harm.html

From HRF:

. . . .

Nearly all of the deported people interviewed had fled Cameroon between 2017 and 2020 for reasons linked to the crisis in the Anglophone regions. Human Rights Watch research indicates that many had credible asylum claims, but due process concerns, fact-finding inaccuracies, and other issues contributed to unfair asylum decisions. Lack of impartiality by US immigration judges – who are part of the executive branch, not the independent judiciary – appeared to play a role. Nearly all of the deported Cameroonians interviewed – 35 of 41 – were assigned to judges with asylum denial rates 10 to 30 percentage points higher than the national average.

. . . .

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

The complete report gives a totally damning account of EOIR’s incompetence, ignorance of asylum law, poor decision making, “rigged” assignment of bad judges, and systemic bias directed against asylum seekers, primarily people of color. Although human rights conditions have continued to deteriorate in Cameroon, asylum grant rates have fluctuated dramatically depending on how the political winds at DOJ are blowing.

For example, judges denying asylum because of imaginary “improved conditions” in Cameroon falls within the realm of the absurd. No asylum expert would say that conditions have improved.

Yet, in a catastrophic ethical and legal failure, there is no BIA precedent “calling out” such grotesque errors and serving notice to the judges that it is unacceptable judicial conduct! There are hardly any recent BIA published precedents on granting asylum at all — prima facie evidence of the anti-asylum culture and institutional bias in favor of DHS Enforcement that Sessions and Barr actively cultivated and encouraged!

How bad were things at EOIR? Judges who denied the most asylum cases were actually promoted to the BIA so they could spread their jaundiced views and anti-asylum bias nationwide. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/11/01/corrupted-courts-no-stranger-to-improper-politicized-hiring-directed-against-migrants-seeking-justice-the-doj-under-barr-doubles-down-on-biased-ideological-hiring-promot/

Even more outrageously, these same members of the “asylum deniers club” remain in their influential appellate positions under Garland! As inexplicable as it is inexcusable!

The HRF report details the wide range of dishonest devices used by EOIR to cut off valid asylum claims: bogus adverse credibility determinations; unreasonable corroboration requirements; claiming “no nexus” when the causal connection is obvious; failing to put the burden on the DHS in countrywide persecution involving the government or past persecution; bogus findings that the presence of relatives in the country negates persecution; ridiculous findings that severe harm doesn’t “rise to the level of persecution,” failure to listen to favorable evidence or rebuttal; ignoring the limitations on representation and inherent coercion involved in intentionally substandard and health threatening ICE detention, to name just some. While these corrupt methods of denying protection might be “business as usual” at EOIR “denial factories,” they have been condemned by human rights experts and many appellate courts. Yet Garland continues to act as if nothing were amiss in his “star chambers.”

This bench needs to be cleared of incompetence and anti-asylum bias and replaced with experts committed to due process and fair, impartial, and ethical applications of asylum principles. There was nothing stopping Sessions and Barr from “packing” the BIA and the trial courts with unqualified selections perceived to be willing and able to carry out their White Nationalist agenda! Likewise, there is nothing stopping Garland from “unpacking:” “cleaning house,” restoring competence, scholarly excellence, and “due process first” judging to his shattered system!

“It’s not rocket science, but ‘unpacking’ the Immigration Courts appears beyond Garland’s skill set!”
“Unpacking”
Photo by John Keogh
Creative Commons License

All that’s missing are the will and the guts to get the job done! Perhaps that’s not unusual for yet another Dem Administration bumbling its way through immigration policy with no guiding principles, failing to connect the dots to racial justice, betraying promises to supporters, and leaving a trail of broken human lives and bodies of the innocent in its wake. But, it’s unacceptable! Totally!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-11-22

🤮👎🏽FACT-CHECKING MAYOYKAS: 1) Haiti Is NOT Safe; 2) Asylum Seekers Are NOT A “Health Threat!”

Jacob Soboroff @ NBC News With Truth About Deplorable, Unsafe, Conditions Facing Those Deported To Haiti:

https://www.today.com/video/migrants-return-to-haiti-following-deportations-from-us-mexico-border-122368581881

Thousands of Haitian migrants removed from a makeshift camp near Texas have been sent back to Haiti. Now we’re getting our first up-close look at what they are facing upon their arrival. NBC’s Jacob Soboroff reports for TODAY from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Sept. 30, 2021

Human Rights First debunks myth that seekers present a COVID health threat:

ASYLUM DOES NOT THREATEN PUBLIC HEALTH

The last week saw more of the Biden administration’s despicable deportation of Haitians and use Title 42 to deny their right to seek asylum. The administration perpetuates the false claim that their use of Title 42 is not an immigration policy, but a public health one, despite the vehement disagreement of public health experts.

Courtesy Washington Times

Migrants, many from Haiti, wade across the Rio Grande

river to leave Del Rio, Texas to avoid possible deportation.

Human Rights First also responded to the administration’s plans to use Guantanamo Bay as a migrant detention facility.

“Sending people who are seeking protection to a place that is notorious for being treated as a rights-free zone is the last thing that the Biden administration should do,” Eleanor Acer, Senior Director of Refugee Protection at Human Rights First told NPR. “It is nothing more than a blatant attempt to evade oversight, due process, human rights protections and the refugee laws of the United States.”

Maria Sacchetti
Immigration Reporter, Washington Post

Even in rolling out otherwise more reasonable enforcement priorities for ICE, Mayorkas insisted on making the bogus claim that recent border arrivals present a “national security threat,” as reported by the WashPost’s Maria Sacchetti:

Mayorkas said in his memo Thursday that migrants who cross the border illegally, particularly those who arrived unlawfully over the past year or so, remain a “threat to border security” and a priority for removal. But the ACLU has argued in its lawsuit that migrants have a legal right to seek asylum.

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

“Courtside’s” rating of Mayorkas’s claims: 🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥

Who would have thought that more than eight months into the Biden Administration, we’d still be arguing about basics like “migrants have a legal right to seek asylum in the US?” See, INA section 208.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-01-21

🆘COME ON, MAN! — BIDEN ADMINISTRATION MUST REFORM THE IMMIGRATION COURTS TO FIX THE ASYLUM SYSTEM! — New BIA, Better Judges, Practical Precedents, Slashed Backlogs Needed, Not More “Built To Fail” Gimmicks! — Stop Screwing Around, Bring In The Human Rights/Due Process Experts, & Empower Them To Fix The EOIR Mess! — After Garland’s Important First Step, Biden Administration Threatens To “Take Points Off The Board” With Wacko Proposal That Due Process/Human Rights Experts Hate! — Stop The Nonsense & Fix EOIR Before More Innocents Die!

From Human Rights First:

PUSHING FOR A MORE JUST ASYLUM SYSTEM

Friday marked three years since former Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared that people fleeing gender-based violence, gang brutality, and other human rights violations are undeserving of protection — in the reprehensible decision known as Matter of A-B-.

Human Rights First and over 70 organizations of the Welcome With Dignity campaign urged the Biden administration to end Trump-era cruelty and restore fairness to the asylum process.

Today, news broke that the Department of Justice had vacated Matter of A-B-, a welcome move that will help protect refugees who are persecuted by violent gangs, suffer domestic abuse, or are endangered because of their family ties.

Amid news that the Biden administration is considering issuing an interim final rule in asylum processing that may cut back vital due process protections, Human Rights First led over 40 organizations in a letter calling on the administration to adjust course and provide the requisite notice and comment period for the rule.

This week, Human Rights First also applauded the Biden administration’s plans to expand the categories of people who can petition to bring children to safety in the U.S. through the Central American Minors Program (CAM) to include asylum seekers and others.

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

Unlike the Administration folks pushing this misguided policy, I’ve actually worked in and on our asylum system for nearly five decades. I’ve seen it from the inside and the outside. I’ve been to the border. I’ve adjudicated lots of asylum cases at both the trial and appellate levels. I’ve seen them at the border, the interior, and places in between. I’ve worked through every past “asylum emergency” and experienced, and sometimes had to defend or oppose, the failed policies of Administrations of both parties over the past four decades.

Reviewing asylum claims on records created by non-judicial officials doesn’t work! Because of the importance of credibility, a de novo hearing is required! The last misguided attempt to do what the Biden Administration apparently intends failed with respect to “Asylum Only” cases at the BIA more than two decades ago and resulted in transfer of the function to the Immigration Courts;
I have the greatest respect for Asylum Officers. But, perhaps because so many individuals were unrepresented at the Asylum Office and because of the defects in developing the record, the majority of Asylum Office referrals I experienced in 13 years on the Arlington Immigration Court resulted in grants of asylum after full hearings! Sometimes, after full hearing and/or full documentation, the grants were so obvious that they were agreed upon or uncontested by ICE Counsel;
Yes, many cases coming from the border could be granted by the Asylum Office without referral to Immigration Court! But, referral of non-granted cases to a radically reformed and better EOIR for a full de novo hearing is absolutely necessary for due process and fundamental fairness. Anything less is “built to fail” and will endanger lives to boot!
We need a BIA of real asylum experts to provide and enforce informed, legally correct, and practical asylum precedents for both Asylum Officers and Immigration Judges. Only experts who have experienced and resisted the current illegal and impractical “denial-based” EOIR system — an intentional perversion of the Supreme Court’s generous decision in Cardoza-Fonseca and a complete mockery of the BIA’s implementing precedent in Matter of Mogharrabi — should be on the reformed BIA. Time to break up the “denial club” in Falls Church, eradicate disgraceful “Asylum Free Zones” in poorly-functioning, anti-asylum Immigration “Courts” throughout the country, and re-establish the rule of law, due process, fundamental fairness, and human dignity at EOIR! (Fair application of asylum laws to protect rather than reject would also reduce the many cases unnecessarily clogging the Court of Appeals that could and should easily have been granted at a fair, functional, expert EOIR!)
Preserving a right to meaningful judicial review of denials by the independent Article III Judiciary is also absolutely essential to due process.

The Administration needs to bring in experts with asylum expertise and actual Immigration Court experience — folks like Karen Musalo of CGRS, Judge Ilyce Shugall, Michelle Mendez of CLINIC, Temple Law Associate Dean Jaya Ramji-Nogales, and retired Judge Paul Grussendorf (who additionally served as an Asylum Officer and has written a book about the shortcomings of both systems) — to solve the problem. That must include getting rid of the deadwood, the folks who don’t understand the problem, and those who see asylum policy wrongly as a “deterrent,” rather than an essential part of our legal immigration system!

Getting rid of the atrocious “precedents” in Matter of A-B- and Matter of L-E-A- is just a start! The asylum system needs help from progressive experts. The NDPA must keep up the pressure on the Administration to stop fumbling and dawdling and bring in the now-missing progressive expertise and dynamic leadership to solve the problems that threaten our democracy!

Yes, not everybody qualifies for asylum or another form of protection. But, you can “bet the farm” that in an honest, expert, properly functioning, due-process-oriented EOIR many more would qualify than under the current broken, biased, and disgraceful charade of justice still going on @ Justice! And, even those who don’t ultimately qualify deserve to be treated fairly, respectfully, and as human beings — “persons” under the Due Process Clause, because that’s exactly what they are!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-17-21

GARLAND/MAYORKAS UNILATERAL “IN YOUR FACE” 🤮 ASYLUM POLICIES CONTINUE TO INFLAME, OUTRAGE, PROGRESSIVE OPPOSITION! — More Haste Makes Waste “Special Asylum Dockets,” Continuation Of “Miller Lite” Racist/Misogynist Anti-Asylum Policies, Unqualified Judges, Likely To Deny Due Process, Create Aimless Docket Reshuffling, Increase Backlogs — Congress Needs To Remove Immigration Courts From Garland’s Dysfunctional DOJ — Now!

“Miller Lite” – Garland’s Vision of “Justice @ Justice” for Communities of Color

Here’s yet another “big middle finger” 🖕 to progressives and experts from Garland and Mayorkas:

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Office of Public Affairs

DHS and DOJ Announce Dedicated Docket Process for More Efficient Immigration Hearings

WASHINGTON – Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced a new Dedicated Docket process to more expeditiously and fairly make decisions in immigration cases of families who arrive between ports of entry at the Southwest Border. This new process should significantly decrease the amount of time it takes for migrants to have their cases adjudicated while still providing fair hearings for families seeking asylum at the border.

“Families arriving at the border who are placed in immigration proceedings should have their cases decided in an orderly, efficient, and fair manner,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas. “Families who have recently arrived should not languish in a multi-year backlog; today’s announcement is an important step for both justice and border security.”

“The mission of the Department of Justice’s immigration courts is to decide the cases that come before them promptly and fairly,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “This new program for certain newly arriving families will help achieve that critically important goal.”

Under this new process, certain recently arrived families may be placed on the Dedicated Docket. Families may qualify if they are apprehended between ports of entry on or after Friday, May 28, 2021, placed in removal proceedings, and enrolled in Alternatives to Detention (ATD). DHS, in partnership with the Department of Justice (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), will make available information services to help families understand the immigration system and refer families to pro bono legal service providers for possible representation.

EOIR has identified immigration courts in 10 cities with established communities of legal services providers and available judges to handle the cases. The designated cities are Denver, Detroit, El Paso, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New York City, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Under the Dedicated Docket, EOIR’s immigration judges will work generally to issue a decision within 300 days of the initial master calendar hearing, subject to the unique circumstances of each case including allowing time for families to seek representation where needed. While the goal of this process is to decide cases expeditiously, fairness will not be compromised.

# # #

U.S. Department of Homeland Security
www.dhs.gov

Here are “statements in opposition” from the National Immigrant Justice Center and Human Rights First:

https://immigrantjustice.org/press-releases/bidens-return-failed-immigration-court-rocket-docket-will-deprive-asylum-seekers

https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/press-release/human-rights-first-concerned-biden-plan-risks-new-rocket-dockets-when-it-should-end#.YLEQ7NuEm7k.twitter

Here’s the “statement of outrage and solidarity in opposition from the experts at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at Hastings Law:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact: Brianna Krong, (415) 581-8835, krongbrianna@uchastings.edu

CGRS Concerned Biden Policies Will Undermine Fairness, Endanger Refugee Families

San Francisco, CA (May 28, 2021) – The Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS) is deeply concerned by today’s announcement that the Biden administration will begin fast-tracking asylum cases for certain families seeking refuge. By establishing a “dedicated docket” for asylum-seeking families, the administration will sacrifice fairness in the name of speed, adopting a misguided approach that under both the Obama and Trumpadministrations contributed to record backlogs in the immigration system, eroded due process, and endangered lives. Instead of reviving the failed policies of past administrations, the Biden administration should swiftly end cruel and illegal Trump-era policies and fully restore safe asylum processing at the southern border.

Today’s announcement arrives at a time when families seeking asylum face enormous roadblocks to safety and justice. Over four months into its first term, the Biden administration has failed to end myriad Trump-era policies that continue to place refugees at risk of grave violence, and even death. It is shameful that the administration is prioritizing fast-tracked adjudications while continuing to illegally expel asylum seekers to danger under the widelydebunked pretext of the pandemic. So long as the Title 42 policy remains in place, there can be no safe or fair process for asylum seekers.

The Biden administration also has yet to address Trump policies that have gutted protections for people escaping domestic violence and gang brutality, including many of the families impacted by this new policy. Until Attorney General Garlandtakes action to reverse these policies, the asylum system will remain rigged against families fleeing violence in their homes and communities, who will be wrongly denied protection and ordered deported to the very dangers they’ve fled. Rushing adjudications will make it even more difficult for these families to find safety, further undermining any semblance of fairness in the asylum process.

“CGRS and our partners have set forth a clear roadmap for the Biden administration to adjudicate asylum cases in a timely manner and mitigate backlogs, all while improving fairness and protecting due process,” CGRS Legal Director Blaine Bookey said today. “As advocates, we’ve been down this road before. We know policies that rush asylum adjudications fail to keep families and children safe. We implore the administration not to make the mistake of putting speed above justice.”’

Advocates, asylum seekers, and communities are coming together to demand an asylum system that provides every person a safe and fair opportunity to seek protection, with full access to legal representation and community-based support. The Biden administration should put humanity first, reject the cruel policies of the past, and welcome people seeking asylum with dignity.

Brianna Krong | Communications and Advocacy Coordinator

Center for Gender and Refugee Studies

200 McAllister Street | San Francisco, CA 94102

(415) 581-8835 (Phone) | (415) 581-8824 (Fax)

krongbrianna@uchastings.edu
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Twitter| Facebook | Donate

Request Assistance or Report an Outcome in Your Asylum Case

Woman Tortured — “She struggled madly in the torturing Ray” — At DOJ, Garland, Lisa Monaco, Vanita Gupta, and Kristen Clarke appear to regard refugee women applying for asylum at the Southern Border as “less than human.” Human dignity is a bad joke in Garland’s “Star Chambers.”
Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Here are other initial comments from asylum experts:

I don’t think there was any consultation w/ private bar. NGOs are very upset. Biden administration just held a q and a about two hours ago to answer NGO questions but there’s a lot of unknowns remaining.

Lots of NGOs are off today because of the long weekend but many are working to respond to this and the President’s budget.

See NGO press release in response to President’s budget:

For Immediate Release: May 28, 2021

Contact: press@wearehome.us

We Are Home Campaign Deeply Disappointed by Biden’s DHS Budget Request

Calls on Congress to Do Better

Washington, DC —President Biden’s FY 2022 budget, released today, requests $2.7 billion from Congress for ICE detention – almost the same amount enacted by Congress last year under the Trump Administration. It includes funds for 2,500 family detention beds. Alongside recent increases in the number of people jailed by ICE, this budget request is an alarming signal that DHS and the President are not heeding the call of the immigrant justice movement to reduce and ultimately end the federal government’s harmful and unnecessary reliance on incarceration for immigration processing.

In response to the news, Bridgette Gomez, Director of the We Are Home campaign, said:

“We are deeply disappointed to see that DHS plans to continue Trump-era levels of ICE detention. Candidate Biden promised an immigration policy that reflects our highest values as a nation. As president, Biden has repeatedly emphasized his commitment to racial equity. Any plan that doesn’t dramatically shrink ICE’s incarceration system – which mostly jails Black and Brown people – betrays those commitments. We’ll be looking to Congress to do better and cut ICE’s budget significantly.”

In March, We Are Home joined the Defund Hate coalition in calling on Congress to cut funding for ICE and CBP by at least 50 percent.

In February, the campaign sent comprehensive recommendations to DHS to overhaul enforcement and begin to dismantle the detention and deportation machinery that has devastated millions of families, mostly Black and Brown, and squandered billions of taxpayer dollars. These recommendations included policies to cut detention, including 1) a comprehensive file review of all people in ICE custody, with a presumption of release, and 2) an end to the use of private prisons and state and local jails for ICE detention. The urgency to reduce the detained population is even greater during the pandemic, since people in jails and prisons face particular risk of contracting COVID. ICE has no centralized plan to provide vaccines for people in its custody.”

We Are Home is a nationwide campaign to fight for immigrant communities on three fronts: prioritizing and demanding a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in America; a moratorium and overhaul of interior enforcement; and broad affirmative relief from deportation. We Are Home is co-chaired by Community Change/Community Change Action; National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA)/Care in Action; Service Employees International Union (SEIU); United Farm Workers/UFW Foundation; and United We Dream.

###

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

The NGOs are quite upset.Note that this comes days after the Fourth Circuit enforced an IJ’s duty to fully develop the record even in represented cases.And yet here is the administration speeding up the assembly line.

In my view, this will lead to more pro se I-589s being filed.And as Sessions vacated Matter of E-F-H-L-, there is now no safeguard in either case law or regs preventing IJs from summarily denying those I-589s for e.g. failing to correctly delineate a PSG.

I can’t for the life of me understand this administration’s determination topreserveTrump’s policies.

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

Quick takes:

Because the system would depend almost entirely on NGOs and pro bono groups to provide counsel, developing policies without consulting those groups or providing grants to increase representation is totally inappropriate, not to mention stupid and insulting;
Special expedited asylum dockets have failed in the last two Administrations, so why try a “proven failure” once again?
Assigning certain Immigration Judges to these “priority dockets” – without first removing non-priority cases from the docket, will result in more “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and increased backlogs;
As a recent article by respected experts Professor Karen Musalo and Professor Stephen Legomsky shows, the current system has been “gamed against asylum seekers” by both EOIR and DHS; https://www.justsecurity.org/76671/asylum-and-the-three-little-words-that-can-spell-life-or-death/; without radical progressive changes, the new policy will just produce more unfairness;

Professor Karen Musalo
Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Hastings Law

Stephen Legomsky — Professor Stephen H. Legomsky
Emeritus Professor of Law. & Former USG Senior Executive
Washington U. Law
PHOTO: Washington U. Law website

The 10 Immigration Courts selected for this project have widely varying asylum denial rates. For example, for the period 2015-20, according to TRAC, El Paso (an “Asylum Free Zone”) had a denial rate of 90% and New York a denial rate of 32%. How can a system including such extremes be “fair?”
As recent litigation has pointed out, Garland’s Immigration Judges are making basic mistakes and failing to develop records in their rush to screw asylum seekers. Without bringing in expert judges and emphasizing fairness, scholarship, record development, and quality above bureaucratic, enforcement related goals, this proposal is going to increase the due process disaster in Garland’s broken “courts;” https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/05/26/%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%97%bd4th-circuit-blasts-garland-eoirs-indolent-haste-make-waste-denial-centric-asylum-adjudication-in-another-victory-for-round-table-due-proces/
In just a short time, Garland’s outrageous mishandling of the Immigration Courts, and his disdain for expert progressive advice and appointments, shows exactly why Congress must remove these “courts” from the incompetent and biased administration of the DOJ and create an independent U.S. Immigration Court;
Until that happens, progressives and advocates will have to deal with Garland’s “in your face arrogance and ignorance” the same way they dealt with Sessions and Barr — with massive resistance and unending litigation until Garland’s corrupt, incompetent, biased system grinds to a halt.

Turning potential powerful and helpful friends into motivated and committed enemies! Seems pretty stupid to me.

Stephen Miller rightfully made lots of enemies with his racist, neo-Nazi shenanigans. But, he did please and energize his nativist, White Nationalist supporters!

By contrast, Garland has rapidly turned progressive supporters into enemies. But, he won’t get one iota of appreciation or support from Miller and his White Nationalist nativist supporters in the GOP.

Creating policies that are universally opposed or panned. That takes some impressive negative leadership and political idiocy!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-29-21

BIDEN PLAN TO REFORM ASYLUM SYSTEM @ THE BORDER MAKES SENSE, BUT ONLY IF CORRECTLY IMPLEMENTED WITH THE RIGHT PERSONNEL — The Devil 👿 Is In The Details & Major Progressive Judicial Reforms @ EOIR ⚖️ Are A Prerequisite! — “Early Returns” On Actually Solving Immigration/Human Rights/Due Process Problems From “Team Biden” Not Encouraging!☹️

Frranco Ordonez — Franco Ordonez
White House Correspondent
NPR
PHOTO: Twitter

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/01/982795844/biden-administration-considers-overhaul-of-asylum-system-at-southern-border

Franco Ordonez reports for NPR:

President Biden’s top advisers promise “long-needed systemic reforms” to address a backlog of more than 1 million asylum cases in the immigration court system, which often keeps people applying for asylum waiting years to resolve their cases. That could mean some big changes to how asylum cases are processed at the southern border.

The plan the Biden administration is considering to speed up the process would take some asylum cases from the southern border out of the hands of the overloaded immigration courts under the Department of Justice and instead handle them under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, where asylum officers already process tens of thousands of cases a year, two people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to speak about administration plans told NPR exclusively.

Those familiar with the discussions say one outcome could be discouraging unauthorized migration. That’s because those who can argue for a certain fear of persecution are able to gain temporary residence and often a work permit as they wait out their cases.

. . . .

Advocates say they welcome a more efficient system, provided changes are not used as a way to expedite removals as the Trump administration did.

Eleanor Acer of Human Rights First says there are a host of reasons to allow asylum officers to conduct the first set of interviews and reduce the numbers, but she says it’s important that applicants have a chance to appeal to the court before being removed.

“The massive backlog must be dealt with,” she said. “But the answer to that problem is not to deprive asylum seekers of due process and a fair hearing, or to weaponize the asylum process to try to deter other people from seeking U.S. protection.”

The Biden administration has already ended two of the Trump administration’s programs, the Prompt Asylum Case Review and the Humanitarian Asylum Review Program, that were designed to quickly return Mexican and Central American asylum seekers suspected of having invalid claims.

POLITICS

House Passes 2 Bills Aimed At Overhauling The Immigration System

Department of Homeland Security officials declined to discuss plans to shift border cases to the asylum division.

But an administration official said last week they are now working on a number of policies and regulations to create “a better functioning asylum system.”

That includes establishing refugee processing in the region and strengthening other countries’ asylum systems.

Biden also resurrected the Central American Minors program that reunited children with parents who are in the United States legally.

The Biden administration is now seeking to “pick up the pieces” after the Trump administration, with a different set of policies that abide by U.S. law but also international obligations, Meissner said.

“We need to have access to asylum,” Meissner said, “but it needs to be done in a way that can be prompt and fair, not in a way that leads to waits of years and years and court backlogs.

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

Read the complete article at the link.

Why it could work:

Granting relief at the lowest level of the system is cost effective;
It’s easier to hire, train, and assign Asylum Officers than Immigration Judges;
Immigration Court time should be reserved for those cases where there is a real issue as to whether relief can be granted.

Why it probably won’t work:

Leadership is critical. Right now, there are only a few experts in government with the knowledge, proven leadership ability, organizational skills, and courage to lead this program.
- Two obvious names that come to mind are Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor, currently USCIS Chief Counsel, and Judge Dana Leigh Marks, one of the “founding mothers” of U.S. asylum law and pioneer of the well-founded fear standard. Both are past Presidents of the NAIJ. Neither has yet been tapped for this assignment.
- By contrast, there are a number of experts in the private/NGO sector who could lead this effort. Obvious choices would be Judge Paul Grussendorf, former Immigration Judge, Asylum Officer, UN Representative, and professor; Professor Karen Musalo, Director, Center for Refugee & Gender Studies, UC Hastings Law; Eleanor Acer, Senior Director, Refugee Protection, Human Rights First (quoted in this article); Professor Michele Pistone, Creator and Founder of the VIISTA asylum training program at Villanova Law; Professor Phil Schrag, Co-Director of the CALS Asylum Clinic at Georgetown Law and author of Baby Jails and the upcoming release The End of Asylum; Michelle Mendez, Director, Defending Vulnerable Populations at CLINIC; or Judge Ilyce Shugall of our Round Table. But, nobody of that caliber has been tapped either.
- Without creative, dynamic, expert leadership, and a different approach to personnel, the program will be yet another bureaucratic failure. In case nobody has noticed, after four years of never ending abuse, gross mismanagement, and intentional misdirection by the Trump kakistocracy, the USCIS Asylum & Refugee program is also in shambles — demoralized, disorganized, leaderless, incredibly backlogged. An obvious untapped source is retired Asylum Officers and Adjudicators who could be brought back on a limited-term basis, intensively trained by experts from a “Better EOIR,” and who often are in a position to travel frequently and on short notice.

It’s not about deterrence. Already, this article speaks of “possible deterrent effect.” WRONG! The purpose of an asylum adjudication system is to provide fair, timely, generous adjudications of asylum eligibility in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Refugee Act of 1980, the U.N. Convention and Protocol on which it is based, and the due process clause of our Constitution. We have never had such a system, which inevitably would be more orderly and efficient, but also result in many more grants.
- The main reason why we don’t currently have a functioning asylum system, and never have had the system that asylum seekers need and deserve, is that the system is at the mercy of a bogus Executive-controlled “court” system that time and time again has been compromised by politicos seeking who use it as an enforcement tool rather than an independent court of justice.
  - In 2014, the last year that I taught Refugee Law & Policy at Georgetown Law I “graded” the U.S. Asylum system at “B-.” Not as good as it should be, but not as bad as it could be.
  - Now I’d give it an “F.” Completely dysfunctional, highly arbitrary, and a tool of institutionalized racism and White Nationalism.
- The system is ineffective as a deterrent. There is no known basis to believe that quick and often arbitrary and wrongful “rejections” are an effective deterrent. That’s particularly true because rejections are seldom explained in a reasonable, understandable manner. So, to the extent that there is a “message” it’s that you got the wrong officer or the wrong judge on the wrong day or that the U.S. legal system is inherently unfair and should be avoided by hiring a smuggler to get you to the interior of the U.S. where, as a practical matter, you have a better chance of obtaining “de facto refuge.”
- The only “efficiency and leverage” that comes from the Asylum Officer system is in quickly identifying and consistently granting a substantial number of applications. That, and only that, does actually relieve the Immigration Court system of unnecessary cases. Otherwise, “non-grants” still have to go to the Immigration Courts for de novo review. I probably granted the majority of asylum cases “referred” from the Asylum Office. That leaves plenty of room to believe that a better trained and operated system with some positive guidance and effective supervision by better Immigration Judges and a truly expert BIA would achieve substantially higher grant rates and higher efficiency at the Asylum Office, thereby keeping many cases out of court and speeding the process for asylees to obtain permanent residence and eventually U.S. citizenship!

Some assumptions appear invalid. This article also repeats the unproven assumption that a fair, just, and efficient asylum system would result in rejection of the majority of cases. I doubt that.
- Prior to the Trump disaster, approximately 75-80% of asylum applicants at the Southern Border passed “credible fear.” That the majority of them never achieved asylum was due less to the lack of merit in their claims than to factors such as: 1) lack of a system to match asylum seekers with qualified counsel; 2) wrong-headed anti-asylum precedents from the BIA that were specifically directed against asylum seekers from Latin America — basically institutionalized racism in the guise of “enforcement;” 3) poor selection, training, and motivation of Immigration Judges some of whom simply did not treat asylum seekers fairly, nor were they given any incentive to do so.
- I granted asylum or other protection to many refugees from the Northern Triangle. I probably could have granted twice that number had the BIA precedents actually fairly and reasonably interpreted asylum law to specifically cover gender-based claims and claims arising from persecution by gangs basically operating “in lieu of government authorities” in most of the Northern Triangle.
- Additionally, an honest interpretation of the CAT by the BIA would have allowed life-saving protection to be extended to many others who lacked nexus but had a high probability of torture with Government acquiescence upon return. I believe that a return to the original Acosta-Kasinga line of asylum analysis and adoption of proper CAT interpretations along the lines set forth by the (exiled) dissenting judges in Matter of J-E- would result in grants of some type of protection (asylum, withholding, or CAT) in the majority of Southern Border cases coming from the Northern Triangle that passed credible fear or reasonable fear.
- Asylum, along with refugee status, is a key form of legal immigration to the U.S. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s NOT a “loophole.” It’s the law! Studies by groups of experts such as CMS have shown the huge benefits that refugees confer on the U.S. I have no reason to believe that asylum seekers as a group are any different.
- As long as we keep treating the reality of human migration and the strengths and humanity of asylum seekers as a negative rather than a positive, we will continue to fail, as we have for decades, to fully comply with either our own laws or international conventions.

A broken, dysfunctional, unfair EOIR will continue to drag American justice down. There must be de novo review of denials by EOIR and far, far more competent review and direction in the review of credible fear denials by EOIR. A better BIA could actually set binding precedents on “credible fear” and “reasonable fear.”
- Currently, EOIR is incapable of producing either consistently fair results (particularly for asylum seekers) or the inspired legal scholarship and leadership for the asylum system to be functional and held accountable. It’s going to require all new leadership, an all new BIA, elimination of all of the Trump-era precedents that impede fairness for asylum seekers, new merit-based selection criteria for Immigration Judges, professional administration from judicial experts, and an immediate slashing of the largely self-created “backlog” of 1.3 million cases by closing and removing from the docket every case more than a year old that doesn’t relate to a priority (most are folks who would be covered by Biden’s legalization program anyway; many are eligible for relief that USCIS could grant) to get EOIR in a position to provide the necessary legal guidance and system accountability for the Asylum Office. The absurdist notion that we could or would want to remove every one of the 10-11 million undocumented residents (many performing essential services that propped us up through the pandemic) is one of the “big lies” that has prevented rational reforms of our immigration system.
- In plain terms, EOIR needs an immediate “rebuild” with a new progressive, humanitarian judiciary of experts. There is no early indication that Judge Garland either understands that “mission-critical” need or has a plan for achieving it.

As we say in the business the “devil is in the details.” Right now, I can see neither the details nor the leadership in place or “in the pipeline” to solve the debilitating problems in our asylum system that actually are undermining the entire U.S. justice system.

Biden could fix it. But, I wouldn’t count on it. That means that the only real fix in the offing will be for the NDPA to force the Administration to “get it right” through aggressive, never-ending litigation as well as continuing to seek better legislators. Highly inefficient. Yet, sometimes it’s the only way to get the attention of those in power.

If nothing else, we’ll continue to make an important historic record of the cruelty and stupidity with which the current asylum system is being administered. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can always choose to follow our “better angels.” It just takes the courage and the good judgement to get the right folks in the right jobs to make it happen.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-01-21

“TORTURE” UNDER U.N. DEFINITION! ☠️— “GOVERNMENT-SANCTIONED CHILD ABUSE!” — WHAT HAVE WE BECOME AS A PEOPLE & A NATION? — AMERICA HAS PUT NOTORIOUS CHILD ABUSERS AND SHAMELESS “PERPS” OF “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” IN CHARGE — We Now Have A Chance To Throw Them Out & Start The Return To Human Decency As An Overriding National Value! 🗽

Here’s an array of reports on how America under the Trump regime has joined the ranks of dictatorships, torturers, child abusers, persecutors, and human rights criminals!

Eugene Robinson
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post
Source: WashPost Website

Eugene Robinson @ WashPost:

What kind of people are we? As a society, are we so decadent and insecure that we show “toughness” by deliberately being cruel to innocent children? Is this what our nation has come to? Or are we better than that?

This election demands we answer those questions. The choice between President Trump and Joe Biden is not just political. It is also moral. And perhaps nothing more starkly illustrates the moral dimension of that decision than the Trump administration’s policy of kidnapping children at the southern U.S. border, ripping them away from their families — and doing so for no reason other than to demonstrate Trump’s warped vision of American strength.

We learned this week that some of those separations will probably be permanent. As NBC News first reported, 545 boys and girls taken as many as three years ago — the children of would-be immigrants and asylum seekers, mostly from Central America — have not been reunited with their parents and may never see their families again.

These are not among the nearly 3,000 families separated at the border in 2018, when children were kept in cages like animals or shipped away to facilities across the country, hundreds or thousands of miles from the border. We now know, thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union and other pro bono lawyers, that an additional 1,500 children were torn away from their families beginning in 2017, when the Trump administration conducted a trial run of the separation policy.

Please think about that. The shocking scenes we saw two years ago did not result from a sudden spasm of presidential anger. They didn’t stem from a Fox News segment Trump might have seen one evening. Rather, the administration rehearsed this form of cruelty.

What the administration did not plan for was how to reunite the children taken in 2017 with their families. Many of the parents were deported, and their children were placed in shelters around the country, then ostensibly released to parents or guardians, placements that the ACLU is still trying to confirm.

[Our Democracy in Peril: A series on the damage Trump has caused — and the danger he would pose in a second term]

The ACLU and other organizations have sent investigators to towns and villages in Central America in an attempt to find the kidnapped children’s families — an effort complicated not just by time and distance, but also by the covid-19 pandemic. Parents of 545 children have not been found, the ACLU reported this week.

Disturbingly, the Department of Homeland Security suggested that some of the parents declined to get their children back so they could remain in the United States. Keep in mind that most of these families were seeking asylum from deadly violence in their home countries. The Trump administration changed immigration guidelines to make it unlikely that the families would ultimately be allowed to stay in the United States, but federal law gives them the right to apply for asylum and to have their cases heard. They did nothing wrong. They should never have been asked to choose between parenting their children and getting them to safety — not by their home countries, and not by the United States.

Trump’s racism and xenophobia have been hallmarks of his presidency from the beginning, so perhaps it should be no surprise that he would preside over such an outrage. But he didn’t do this by himself. He had plenty of help.

Former attorney general Jeff Sessions seized an opportunity to make his rabid antipathy toward Hispanic immigration into policy. White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, a former Sessions aide in the Senate, was the architect of Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. Then-White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly said in 2018 that the children taken would be “taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.” Former homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said last year that she regretted that “information flow and coordination to quickly reunite the families was clearly not in place” — but not the separations themselves.

. . . .

Read the rest of Eugene’s article here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/do-we-tolerate-the-kidnapping-of-children-this-election-is-our-chance-to-answer/2020/10/22/0f60d17c-1496-11eb-ad6f-36c93e6e94fb

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Elise Foley
Deputy Enterprise Editor
HuffPost
Photo Source: HuffPost.com

Elise Foley @ HuffPost:

President Donald Trump’s administration started and carried out a policy that took more than 4,000 children from their parents, at least 545 of whom are still split apart years later. But at Thursday’s debate, the president insisted that he did nothing wrong at all ― blaming his Democratic predecessors and even insisting the kids are doing fine.

“They are so well taken care of,” Trump said of the children taken from their parents by his administration. “They’re in facilities that were so clean.”

Trump’s first term was marked by a full-out assault on immigration, both legal and unauthorized. The most dramatic was his “zero tolerance” policy on unauthorized border-crossing, used in a 2017 pilot program and expanded more broadly in 2018, that led to criminal prosecution of parents and locking up their kids separately. Splitting up families was intentional and calculated, according to multiple reports.

Thanks to mass public outrage and a court order, Trump was forced to stop his family separation policy. Most families were reunited, but the American Civil Liberties Union, which was part of the lawsuit against the government that stopped the policy, said this week that at least 545 kids are still away from their parents.

“Their kids were ripped from their arms and separated,” Democratic nominee Joe Biden said during the debate. “And now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It’s criminal.”

. . . .

Read the rest of Elise’s article here:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-debate-family-separation_n_5f924368c5b62333b2439d2b

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Washington Post Columnist Ruth Marcus, moderates a panel discussion about chronic poverty with Education Secretary John B. King and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, during the National Association of Counties at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park, in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016. U.S. Department of Agriculture photo by Lance Cheung.

Ruth Marcus @ WashPost:

545.

That is the number of children still separated from their families by the Trump administration — separated deliberately, cruelly and recklessly. They might never be reunited with their parents again. Even if they are, the damage is unimaginable and irreparable.

545.

Even one would be too many. Each one represents a unique tragedy. Imagine being ripped from your parents, or having your child taken from you. Imagine the desperation that the parents feel, the trauma inflicted on their children.

545.

That number represents an indelible stain on President Trump and every individual in his administration who implemented this policy, flawed at the conception and typically, gruesomely incompetent in the execution. It is, perhaps in the technical sense but surely in the broader one, a crime against humanity. It is torture.

545.

That number — I will stop repeating it, yet it cannot be repeated enough — represents a moral challenge and responsibility for the next administration. If Joe Biden is elected president, he must devote the maximum resources of the federal government to fixing this disaster. The United States broke these families; it must do whatever it takes to help them heal.

Nothing like that would happen in a second Trump term, because Trump himself doesn’t care. He doesn’t grasp the horror that he oversaw. He doesn’t comprehend the policy, and he is incapable of feeling the pain it inflicted.

Those truths could not have been clearer cut than during Thursday night’s debate.

Moderator Kristen Welker of NBC News asked the president a simple question: “How will these families ever be reunited?”

First, Trump misstated the situation: “Their children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they’re brought here, and they used to use them to get into our country.”

No. These are children separated from their families, not separated from smugglers. They are children brought by their parents in desperate search of a better life, desperate enough that they would take the risk of the dangerous journey.

Then Trump pivoted to the irrelevant: “We now have as strong a border as we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles of brand new wall. You see the numbers. And we let people in, but they have to come in legally.”

Welker persisted: “But how will you reunite these kids with their families, Mr. President?”

Trump responded by pointing his finger at his predecessor: “Let me just tell you, they built cages. You know, they used to say I built the cages, and then they had a picture in a certain newspaper and it was a picture of these horrible cages and they said look at these cages, President Trump built them, and then it was determined they were built in 2014. That was him.”

This is typical Trumpian deflection, bluster undergirded by ignorance. The “cages” are ugly but irrelevant to the topic at hand: the deliberately cruel plan to deter border-crossing by separating children from parents. That was a Trump administration special, implemented with callous sloppiness and so extreme that even the Trump administration abandoned it.

Welker, for the third time: “Do you have a plan to reunite the kids with their families?”

At which point Trump made clear that he did not: “We’re trying very hard, but a lot of these kids come out without the parents, they come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs.” The children, he added later, “are so well taken care of, they’re in facilities that were so clean.”

. . . .

Read the rest of Ruth’s op-ed here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/545-children-are-still-separated-from-their-families-what-if-one-of-them-were-yours/2020/10/23/63d3be04-154f-11eb-ba42-ec6a580836ed_story.html

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Bess Levin
Politics & Finance Writer
Vanity Fair

Bess Levin @ Vanity Fair:

The third and final presidential debate gave Donald Trump and Joe Biden the opportunity to make their final pitch to the American people before the 2020 election. For the Democratic nominee, that meant driving home the point that he believes in science, that he’ll take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously, that climate change is real, and that systemic racism must be dealt with. For Trump, it meant making it clear that in addition to being a science-denying, QAnon-promoting dimwit, he’s also an actual monster who thinks separating small children from their parents, in some cases permanently, is absolutely fine.

Asked by moderated Kristen Welker about the news that parents of 545 children separated at the border—60 of whom are under the age of five—cannot be located, Trump defended the policy and gave no explanation for how the government plans to find these people and reunite their families. “Children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they’re brought here and they used to use them to get into our country,” Trump said, which is objectively false, as they are brought here by their parents, which is why it’s called the family separation policy. “We now have as strong a border as we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles of brand new wall. You see the numbers and we let people in but they have to come in legally.”

Noting that Trump hadn’t answered the question, Welker pressed: “But how will you unite these kids with their families?”

“They built cages, they used to say I built cages…that was him,” Trump said, pointing to Biden and referring to the fact that the Obama administration did build temporary enclosures but failing, naturally, to mention that his predecessor did not separate families.

“Do you have a plan to reunite the kids with their parents?” Welker asked a third time. Again, Trump responded by claiming that the children “come without the parents, they come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs.”

At this point, Joe Biden was given a chance to weigh in and used his time to describe the policy implemented by Trump as the horror show all non-sociopaths know it to be. “Parents, their kids were ripped from their arms and they were separated and now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone, nowhere to go. It’s criminal.”

Then Trump interjected with what he apparently believed was an important point that would cast his administration in a much more favorable light and perhaps might even win it some awards or sainthood by the Catholic church. “Kristen, I will say this,” he told the moderator, of the children stolen from their parents. “They’re so well taken care of. They’re in facilities that are so clean.

With regard to that claim, NBC News reporter Jacob Soboroff weighed in on that after the debate, telling Rachel Maddow: “I was one of the reporters I guess the president mentioned, they invited me to go to the epicenter of this policy…what I saw was little children sitting on concrete floors, covered by mylar blankets, supervised by security contractors in a watchtower, it makes me sick every time I recall it. And Physicians for Human Rights…called this torture…the American Academy of Pediatrics called this state-sanctioned child abuse, and the president of the United States I guess interprets that as children being well taken care of.”

Read the rest of The Levin Report here:

https://mailchi.mp/c4319dce073e/levin-report-trumps-heart-bursting-with-sympathy-for-his-buddy-bob-kraft-2882762?e=adce5e3390

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Jacob Soboroff
NBC Correspondent
Jacob Soboroff at the ABC News Democratic Debate
National Constitution Center. Philadelphia, PA.
Creative Commons License

Here’s a video from NBC New’s Jacob Soboroff, who has actually been inside “Trump’s Kiddie Gulag.” Surprise spoiler: It’s not “nice.” More like “torture” and “child abuse.”

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/soboroff-the-conditions-of-migrant-children-trump-described-as-well-taken-care-of-made-me-sick-94450757764

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

And, here’s another video from NBC News’s always incisive and articulate Julia Edwards Ainsley:

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/10/21/lawyers-cant-find-parents-of-545-migrant-children-separated-by-the-trump-administration.html

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There is neither moral nor legal justification for what the Trump regime has done to asylum seekers and other migrants over the past four years as part of their racist, White Nationalist, nativist agenda. But, we can show that we’re a better country than his horrible vision by voting him and all of his enablers out of office! Vote ‘Em out, vote ‘Em out!

PWS

10-25-20

FINDING OPPORTUNITY IN CRISIS: Trump Regime Uses Health Emergency To Up Child Abuse — Ignores Law, Orbits Kids To Harm’s Way Without Due Process As Feckless Dems Protest!

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/coronavirus-unaccompanied-minors-deported

Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:

In a major departure from previous practice mandated by federal law, the Trump administration has begun quickly deporting immigrant children apprehended alone at the southern border.

Administration officials say they are following public health orders designed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the US, but opponents say they are using the health orders to skirt federal laws that govern the processing of unaccompanied minors.

The New York Times first reported that the Trump administration would apply to unaccompanied children from Central America a March 20 order issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that bars the entry of those who cross into the country without authorization.

Previously, unaccompanied children from Central America picked up by Border Patrol agents would be sent to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), where they would be housed in shelters across the country as they began officially applying for asylum and waited to be reunited with family members in the US.

On Monday, a US Customs and Border Protection official confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the agency was now applying the CDC order to children.

“All aliens CBP encounters may be subject to the CDC’s Order Suspending Introduction Of Persons From A Country Where A Communicable Disease Exists (March 20, 2020), including minors,” read a statement from CBP. “When minors are encountered without adult family members, CBP works closely with their home countries to transfer them to the custody of government officials and reunite them with their families quickly and safely, if possible.”

The statement noted that there is discretion for the agency to exclude certain unaccompanied children from the order if, for example, they show signs of illness.

Immigrant advocates told BuzzFeed News they were alarmed at the policy shift.

“Children arriving at the border, many of whom have endured unimaginable harm at home and on their journey, are the most vulnerable group encountered by border officials. Unaccompanied children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a policy analyst at the American Immigration Council. “The answer to coronavirus cannot be to put children in harm’s way.”

Eleanor Acer, the refugee protection director at Human Rights First, said the move was proof that the Trump administration was “using” a public health crisis “to advance their long-standing goal of overturning US laws protecting vulnerable children and people seeking asylum.”

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

Like all fascists, the White Nationalist nativists of the regime are always looking for new ways to pick on the most needy and vulnerable. And, what presents a better target for cruelty and abuse than unaccompanied kids, particularly when a health emergency offers “cover?”

The Dems sputter but can’t do anything except write letters that go in the regime’s waste baskets.

PWS

O3-30-20

FOUR TODDLERS RESCUED BY PRO BONO LAWYERS FROM DEADLY SITUATION IN CBP CUSTODY — Putrid, Unsanitary, Repressive Conditions Causing Lifetime Harm To Other Traumatized Kids — But, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost Wants You To Know That She’s Not Taking Responsibility For The Humanitarian Disaster Intentionally Engineered On Her Watch!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/four-severely-ill-migrant-babies-hospitalized-after-lawyers-visited-border-patrol-facility_n_5d0d3bbce4b07ae90d9cfe4f

Angelina Chapin reports for HuffPost:

Four toddlers were so severely ill and neglected at a U.S. Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas, that lawyers forced the government to hospitalize them last week.

The children, all under age 3 with teenage mothers or guardians, were feverish, coughing, vomiting and had diarrhea, immigration attorneys told HuffPost on Friday. Some of the toddlers and infants were refusing to eat or drink. One 2-year-old’s eyes were rolled back in her head, and she was “completely unresponsive” and limp, according to Toby Gialluca, a Florida-based attorney.

She described seeing terror in the children’s eyes.

“It’s just a cold, fearful look that you should never see in a child of that age,” Gialluca said. “You look at them and you think, ‘What have you seen?’”

Another mother at the same facility had a premature baby, who was “listless” and wrapped in a dirty towel, as HuffPost previously reported.

The lawyers feared that if they had not shown up at the facility, the sick kids would have received zero medical attention and potentially died. The Trump administration has come under fire for its treatment ― and its alleged neglect ― of migrants who have been crossing the southern border in record numbers. The result is overcrowded facilities, slow medical care and in some instances, deaths.

Immigration authorities say they’re overwhelmed; activists say they’re not trying hard enough.

“It’s intentional disregard for the well-being of children,” Gialluca said. “The guards continue to dehumanize these people and treat them worse than we would treat animals.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

The Associated Press reported this week that children in border facilities don’t have adequate access to food, water, soap or showers. On Tuesday, a Justice Department attorney argued in court that the government should not have to provide detained children with soap, toothbrushes or beds.

The AP report is based on interviews a group of lawyers conducted with hundreds of children in three Texas-based Border Patrol stations last week as part of the Flores settlement ― an agreement that outlines conditions for detained children. The lawyers say children are also being held in these facilities for longer than the 72-hour limit the settlement specifies, and in some cases up to three weeks.

Lawyers are particularly concerned about the spread of illness inside Border Patrol facilities, which can sometimes turn fatal. Five children have died in Border Patrol custody since December, some of whom were initially diagnosed with a common cold or the flu. The processing center in McAllen, known as Ursula, recently quarantined three dozen migrants who were sick after a 16-year-old died of the flu at the same facility.

Children and their parents told lawyers that in some cases they didn’t have any access to medical treatment in Border Patrol facilities despite being visibly ill. Gialluca spoke with one 16-year-old mother whose toddler had the flu, but was told by a guard the child “wasn’t sick enough to see a doctor.” She said others also reported being denied medical attention despite having critically sick babies.

Medical experts say that because children have less developed immune and respiratory systems, their symptoms can escalate quickly if they aren’t properly treated.

Dr. Julie Linton, the co-chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics, previously told HuffPost that children can’t recover from illnesses in Border Patrol facilities. These centers are described as “hieleras” ― Spanish for iceboxes ― because of their freezing temperatures, and migrants describe sleeping on floors under bright lights that shine 24/7, with nothing but Mylar blankets to keep warm.

Gialluca met one 16-year-old mother whose 8-month-old baby was sick with the flu and forced to sleep outside for four days at the McAllen Border Patrol station. The mother said the guards took the clothing off the baby’s back, leaving her in a diaper, and forced them to sleep on concrete without a blanket.

A sick 2-year-old girl was shivering in a T-shirt and had shallow breathing, according to Mike Fassio, a Seattle-based immigration attorney who visited Ursula.

“I was very, very concerned,” he said, adding lawyers spoke with immigrants in a room outside of the facility. “When she left us, I knew she was going back to a place that was cold, crowded and unsanitary.” Fassio noted that guards referred to the children as “bodies.”

Some children were so exhausted they fell asleep during the interviews, said Clara Long, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch who spoke with kids at a facility in Clint, Texas. Long met a 3-year-old boy who was dirty with matted hair and was being taken care of by his 11-year-old brother. She said that more than 10 sick children were being quarantined in cells.

While the group of roughly eight lawyers and interpreters at Ursula were supposed to be interviewing children about conditions in the facilities, they also ended up asking guards and government officials to bring kids to the hospital because they were so worried about their state. Gialluca added that she and her colleagues interviewed only a small portion of migrants in the facility, which is the largest processing center in the U.S. and can hold up to 1,000 people. She believes the number of migrants in need of hospitalization is likely much higher.

Government officials have blamed horrific conditions at detention facilities on the fact that Congress has not yet passed an emergency funding package that would include almost $3 billion to help care for unaccompanied migrant children. But Gialluca says border officials shouldn’t need more resources to treat immigrants like human beings.

“Money isn’t keeping guards from allowing people to access toilets,” she said. “Money isn’t causing guards to take clothing and medicine away from children.”

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

Here’s Another report from Nicole Goodkind at Newsweek on the “malicious incompetence” and intentional misallocation of resources by Trump and his DHS sycophants that is willfully endangering kids’ lives as part of a cheap White Nationalist political stunt:

8-YEAR-OLD MIGRANTS BEING FORCED TO CARE FOR TODDLERS IN DETENTION CAMPS

A team of lawyers conducted 60 interviews with migrant children being held in an El Paso, Texas, detention camp and found conditions to be dismal.

Fifteen of those in the holding center had the flu and 10 more are quarantined with illness, according to the lawyers, who first gave the data to the Associated Press. Three infants are being detained alongside their teenage mothers, and many children are under the age of 12.

“A Border Patrol agent came in our room with a 2-year-old boy and asked us, ‘Who wants to take care of this little boy?’ Another girl said she would take care of him, but she lost interest after a few hours and so I started taking care of him yesterday,” one teenaged girl told the lawyers in an interview. The boy was not wearing a diaper and his shirt was covered in mucus, she said.

Law professor Warren Binford, who aided in the interviews, said she witnessed an 8-year-old girl caring for a 4-year-old child who was very dirty, the girl was unable to get the boy to take a shower. She also described the children she interviewed as sleep-deprived, often falling asleep while speaking with her.

“In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention, I have never heard of this level of inhumanity,” said Holly Cooper, co-director of the University of California, Davis’ Immigration Law Clinic, to the AP.

The lawyers were inspecting the facility as part of the Flores agreement, which resulted from a landmark 1985 case that established that facilities where minor migrants are held must be kept “safe and sanitary.”

A representative of the Trump administration, the Justice Department’s Sarah Fabian, argued Tuesday that safe and sanitary conditions don’t necessarily have to include toothbrushes, soap or towels for children.

Nicole Goodkind is a political reporter at Newsweek. You can reach her on Twitter @NicoleGoodkind or by email, N.Goodkind@newsweek.com.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PLANS MAJOR ICE RAIDS FOR SUNDAY

U.S. immigration authorities plan to raid Miami, Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles and other cities. They intend to arrest up to 2,000 families, three U.S. officials with knowledge of the plans told The Washington Post. The orders reportedly come directly from President Donald Trump.

On Monday, the president tweeted: “Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in.”

Officials told The Washington Post that the Department of Homeland Security agency plans to hold families in hotel rooms until they are deported. Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan is allegedly targeting families that have completely dropped out of the court process, but has warned that the operation could lead to further cases of families being separated.

Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore confirmed the raids on Friday, saying that about 140 families in southern California will be targeted in pre-dawn raids early next week. The chief also made clear that the raids are done on a federal level and that the police department will not be involved.

On Thursday, Carla Provost, chief of the United States Border Patrol argued that the Department of Homeland Security was not receiving enough money to properly care for migrants on the southern border, and that was leading to terrible conditions in detention centers. On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee agreed to $4.6 billion in emergency funds for what the Trump administration has referred to as a “border crisis.”

Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro questioned how the agency could afford mass raids while asking for more money Friday. “The Trump Administration says it needs more money (supplemental bill) for the situation at the border yet they may be starting massive immigration raids next week. So how do you have the money for that if you’re running out of money ICE?” he tweeted.

“These potential raids are a disgusting political ploy to stoke fear and rile up Trump’s base for 2020,” wrote Sandra Cordero, Director of Families Belong Together, an immigration advocacy group, in a statement. “Past raids have left children alone and afraid in empty homes, praying they won’t be left to care for younger siblings by themselves, with no idea if they’ll see their parents again. This is yet another flagrant disregard for the welfare of children on behalf of a cruel administration bent on fomenting fear and creating chaos.”

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

Come on, Carla, cut the BS and butt covering. The “mix” of arrivals at the Southern Border began to shift to refugee families from the Northern Triangle back in the summer of 2014. So, CBP and DHS have had five years to prepare for this “change” which is actually “old news.”

More “old news” is the increased flow of asylum seekers with kids which began back before Thanksgiving. Plenty of time for CBP and DHS to bring back retired asylum officers and adjudicators and reassign other adjudicative personnel to the border to insure prompt, orderly, safe, and efficient processing of asylum applicants at ports of entry, thus eliminating the incentive (or necessity) for folks to turn themselves in after crossing the border between ports.

Also, plenty of time to work with NGOs, pro bono groups, states, and communities to insure representation and proper placement of family groups in various locations throughout the country without panic or “dumping.”

Another bogus claim spread by Trump, Provost, and the rest of the sycophants: that the prevalence of kids among new asylum arrivals is somehow totally a response to the Flores settlement (which actually has been in effect for decades).

Undoubtedly, with the Trump Administration’s active assistance, unscrupulous smugglers and coyotes are encouraging some folks to bring children as the only way to have a shot at fair processing under the tilted U.S. asylum system promoted by Trump. Indeed, as I have observed before, the Trump Administrations has consistently been a “best friend” to gangs, smugglers, traffickers, cartels, and druggies seeking to “jack up” profits by further exploiting the human misery caused by the Trump Administration’s “maliciously incompetent “ approach to immigration, effective law enforcement, and humanity generally. https://apple.news/AFQw_eqcHSZCYxUznmP0wpQ

Undoubtedly, some of these unscrupulous individuals are telling families to travel with kids. But, the truth is that according to the UNHCR, over one-half of today’s refugees are children. https://www.unhcr.org/children-49c3646c1e8.html.

So, the prevalence of children among new arrivals should properly been seen as part of a sad worldwide trend that Trump and his cronies disgustingly have done everything possible to encourage, exploit, and aggravate. It most certainly is not primarily caused by the Flores settlement or by giving soap, toothbrushes, blankets, or medical care to children being abused in the “DHS Gulag” administered in part by disingenuous folks like Provost.

Any honest observer of what’s going on knows that the majority of the asylum applications that passed credible fear probably could have been granted (or given protection under the Convention Against Torture — “CAT”) by the Asylum Office without even going to Immigration Court under the proper generous interpretation of our asylum laws, an honest interpretation of CAT that reflects the true conditions in the Northern Triangle, and a very “doable” change in procedures.

Only dishonest fools in the Trump Administration (and a few from the Obama Administration) would maintain that gender isn’t a social group subject to widespread persecution in the Northern Triangle, deny that gangs have assumed the role of quasi-governmental entities thus making most of the harm they inflict on resisters “political persecution,” and make the beyond ludicrous claim that the corrupt failed states of the Northern Triangle have either the ability or much real interest in protecting those subject to persecution.

And, Carla, why aren’t you out there today registering a public protest of the waste of time and funds in ICE going after families with ridiculously inappropriate “raids” when every resource could and should be focused instead on providing humanitarian assistance to asylum seekers arriving at the Southern Border?

This racist-inspired “Sunday Morning Reign of Terror” directed at U.S. ethnic communities is specifically designed to return helpless families to the very dangerous countries from which they originally fled! Thus, Trump and his phony DHS are intentionally feeding “fresh meat” to gangs and cartels and insuring that the cycle of northward migration, no matter how dangerous, will continue until everyone who needs to leave its either gone or dead (the latter apparently the “solution” favored by Provost, Trump, Morgan, McAleenan, Miller, and others).

Provost, McAleenan, Morgan, and their co-conspirators are all participants in a cynical scheme to intentionally “crash” the asylum system, rather than competently administering it. They are intentionally endangering the lives of children and other vulnerable asylum seekers, many entitled to legal protections, to promote, along with GOP restrictionists, totally bogus, dishonest, and completely unnecessary and unwarranted restrictions of the precious, life-saving right of refugees to seek asylum in the U.S.

It’s an unbelievably dishonest and cowardly scheme, and a complete breach of both oaths of office and public trust. It might be that those who long ago abandoned American values will lap up this insult to human values and human dignity.

But, there are plenty of us out here who know and understand exactly what you are doing. We will not only resist it, but will be historical witnesses to your cruel, inhuman, and unlawful schemes and gimmicks to “abuse and kill the innocent.” And, we’ll be keeping count.

PWS

06-22-19

DON’S KILLER DEAL: Salvadoran Teenage Girl First Casualty Of Trump’s “Make ‘Em Die In Mexico” Deal — As Investigation Continues, One Thing Is Clear: This Is Just The First Of Many Deaths & Human Tragedies That Will Result From Trump’s “Malicious Incompetence” & Unwillingness To Comply With Asylum Laws!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/world/americas/mexico-migrant-death.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

By Kirk Semple and Paulina Villegas

June 21, 2019

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican authorities are investigating the death of a teenage migrant from El Salvador who was shot and killed after the truck she was in ran a government checkpoint.

Witnesses have told investigators in the state of Veracruz, where the shooting happened last Friday, that a truck carrying the 19-year-old woman and other migrants bound for the United States border passed through a government checkpoint and that people wearing police uniforms gave chase in a police car and shot at the truck, said Jorge Winckler Ortiz, the attorney general of Veracruz.

Two other migrants in the truck were wounded in the shooting, officials said.

The incident occurred amid a Mexican government deployment of security forces to assert greater control of migration toward the United States, part of a dealthat President Andrés Manuel López Obrador struck with President Trump earlier this month to fend off a threat of tariffs.

The possibility that the Mexican police may have killed the teenager has reaffirmed the fears of migrants’ advocates and human rights experts, who worry that the security forces, being rushed into migration control, are ill-prepared for the task.

“To give a green light to any police force to detain or chase migrants opens up many more dangers and increases the risks migrants face, like grave human rights violations, horrible accidents or crimes like this,” said Ruben Figueroa, an activist with the migrant rights’ group Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano, in an interview Friday.

Mexico’s security secretary, Alfonso Durazo, has also confirmed that his ministry was investigating the shooting.

In a news conference this week, Mr. Winckler said that according to testimony from witnesses, 17 migrants from El Salvador were traveling in a four-door pickup truck through the state of Veracruz when they encountered the checkpoint.

The driver slowed down as he passed through the checkpoint, but hearing sirens, he sped away. A high-speed chase ensued, lasting 20 minutes, Mr. Winckler said, according to the preliminary investigation based on interviews with witnesses.

After shots were fired from the police vehicle, the truck pulled to a stop and three men “dressed as police” stepped out of the police vehicle, Mr. Winckler recounted.

His language allowed for the possibility that the assailants were not legitimate police officers. In Mexico, criminals have been known to disguise themselves in the uniforms of the nation’s security forces to conduct crimes, though corruption also permeates Mexico’s police forces, and some police personnel have developed close ties with organized crime.

As the three men beat up the driver of the truck, the other migrants ran away, Mr. Winckler said. The men in police uniforms hauled the driver away, leaving behind the dead migrant and her two wounded companions, one of whom had been shot in a hand and the other in his leg, Mr. Winckler said, citing witness testimony.

One of the wounded migrants told The Washington Post that the occupants of the patrol car had first shot at the migrants’ vehicle from behind, before pulling ahead and shooting through the windshield. The wounded migrant, who was recovering in a hospital in Veracruz, said he saw all three men wielding weapons.

The deployment of security forces by the Mexican government, after the deal announced on June 7 with the Trump administration, was supposed to be concentrated in Mexico’s southern states. Officials initially promised to send 6,000 members of the newly formed National Guard to the southern border region to help migration officials intercept undocumented migrants entering from Guatemala.

But the mobilization has been halting at best. In recent days, officials said that only a portion of those 6,000 would be members of the National Guard, with the rest drawn from other security forces, and that only about 40 percent of them would be sent to the southern region.

Still, the deal has already resulted in more government checkpoints along major roadways leading from the border with Guatemala into the interior of the country, and more aggressive patrols.

Human rights experts, migrants’ advocates and security analysts have warned about possible hazards, such as human rights violations, that could be caused by the quick deployment of the security forces, which may not have received proper training in migration enforcement.

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

Trump likely figures that the dead bodies he is responsible for will stay in Mexico (or Guatemala) and thus below the radar screen. So, it’s important for reporters to keep focusing on the body count so that he can be held accountable for the deaths and tragedies he is causing with his incompetent, racist, anti-refugee policies.

HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST: Trump/Pence Scheme To Declare Guatemala A “Safe Third Country” Is “Ludicrous” – An Affront To Human Rights & Honest Government!

https://reut.rs/2Kk259M

Sophia Menchu reports for Reuters:

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – A U.S. plan to make asylum seekers from Honduras and El Salvador seek refuge in Guatemala instead of the United States would endanger, not protect, refugees, a prominent rights group said on Friday as U.S. negotiators met Guatemalan officials.

U.S. rights group Human Rights First said it was “simply ludicrous” for the United States to assert that Guatemala was capable of protecting refugees, when its own citizens are fleeing violence.

“The Trump administration is doubling down on its efforts to block, bar and punish refugees for attempting to seek asylum in the United States,” said Eleanor Acer, senior director for refugee protection at Human Rights First.

“These policies put the lives of refugees in great danger.”

Guatemala, like its neighbors Honduras and El Salvador, suffers high levels of violence, driven largely by transnational street gangs including MS-13, which operate across borders in all three countries. Many asylum seekers cite gang threats as the reason they come to the United States for refuge.

Tens of thousands of people have left Guatemala to seek U.S. asylum this year. Nearly 150,000 undocumented Guatemalan families have reached the U.S. border since October, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, many of them citing fear of violence in their home country for seeking asylum.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said this week the two nations had a deal under which Guatemala would take asylum seekers from neighbors. “They ought to be willing to apply for asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive,” he said.

Details of the plan have not been made public, and Guatemala has not publicly confirmed talks that the U.S. State Department said were taking place in Guatemala on Friday.

The talks were about a range of initiatives aimed at reducing illegal immigration, including “improved asylum processing,” a State Department spokeswoman said on Friday in response to a Reuters question about the Guatemala asylum plan.

The emerging plans flow from a U.S.-Mexican deal struck to avert tariffs threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump to push Mexico to do more to stem immigration through its territory.

That deal included sending 6,000 members of Mexico’s National Guard to the border and expanding a separate asylum program under which U.S. asylum seekers are sent back to Mexico to await U.S. court hearings.

If those measures fail, Mexico has agreed to consider becoming a “safe third country” where all asylum seekers passing through the country would have to apply for refuge, instead of the United States

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said other countries should share the load, including Guatemala.

Guatemala, one of the poorest countries in the Americas, has little experience receiving large numbers of asylum seekers and a large wave of refugees would strain limited resources. Just 262 people applied for refugee status in Guatemala between January and November 2018, according to data from the U.N. rights agency UNHCR.

By comparison, nearly 155,000 families from El Salvador and Honduras have been apprehended at the U.S. border since October, with many of them requesting asylum.

Guatemala holds presidential elections on Sunday, after a campaign that has highlighted the lack of rule of law in the country, including the influence of drug traffickers on politics in the country.

Trade and immigration between Mexico and the United States – tmsnrt.rs/2Khd82D

Editing by Bill Berkrot

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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

As pointed out in the article, Guatemala is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for its own citizens. It doesn’t even have a functioning asylum system. So, how could it provide access to a “full and fair” asylum adjudications to non-citizens as required by our law. The answer is simple – it can’t, by any stretch of the imagination. After all, living long enough to apply, even if there were a functional asylum adjudication system, would be a prerequisite to a legitimate “Safe Third Country” process.

Seems like clear abuses of authority like this by Trump and Pence that should be enough to remove both of them from office forthwith in a functioning democracy. But, that’s not going to happen before 2021, if then.

In the meantime, Dems should make a note that when responsible Government returns at some point in the future, the law should be amended to require at least Senate ratification of any future “Safe Third Country Agreement” to prevent future Executive abuses like this. Indeed, the failure of this Congress to revoke Trump’s authority to enter into these clearly bogus and ill-intended “Safe Third Country” agreements is an indelible stain upon its reputation.

“Safe Third Country” was intended to be about refugee burden sharing among countries with substantially comparable due process systems for adjudicating claims under the Refugee Convention. It was never intended to allow the U.S. to “outsource” asylum adjudication to dangerous, major human rights violators with dysfunctional asylum adjudication systems. What Trump and Pence are proposing is little more than outright murder and human rights abuses inflicted on asylum seekers in violation of both international and U.S. laws.

PWS

06-17-19

ANALYSIS: Trump Lays Another Egg On Immigration — Everybody Loses, But It Could Have Been Much, Much Worse

By Paul Wickham Schmidt for immigrationcourtside.com

Alexandria, VA, June 9, 2019. After a week of petulance, threats, and self-created drama, Trump produced a resounding trade and immigration dud. Faced with advisors telling him that he was endangering the economy, the only thing propping up his sagging popularity, a potential rebellion among GOP legislators, and an unexpectedly tough and resolute Mexico, Trump backed off of his insane and blatantly illegal plan to ignore U.S. asylum obligations and thereby rocket the U.S. to the upper echelons of international scofflaws and human rights violators.

The latter scheme, known as “safe third country,” would have mis-designated Mexico and, incredibly, Guatemala, two clearly “unsafe” countries to do the U.S.’s job by processing tens of thousands of asylum applications from those fleeing the Northern Triangle. Neither of the two countries has a viable, fair, and effective asylum adjudication system and both have major safety and human rights issues.

Instead, Trump accepted a vague compact by which Mexico and the U.S. basically agreed to do what they had already been doing without taking any decisive or effective action to address the actual humanitarian crisis in the Northern Triangle that Trump and his flunkies have consistently mischaracterized as a “law enforcement emergency.” Indeed, the New York Times reported that most of Mexico’s “unprecedented steps” had already been worked out in secret with deposed DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen months ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/us/politics/trump-mexico-deal-tariffs.html. Those interested can read the summary of the agreement prepared by Trump’s own State Department here. https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-us-mexico-tariffs-declaration-20190607-story.html.

To be sure, desperate and vulnerable asylum seekers, particularly women and children, will continue to abused, raped, beaten, extorted, obscenely tortured, and killed with impunity and little if any recourse as a result of this week’s actions. But, at least for now, the U.S. and Mexico are maintaining much of the basic framework of domestic and international protection laws.

Contrary to the lies and false narratives spread by Trump and his DHS cronies, U.S. law is not filled with “loopholes.” Rather, it is a fairly straightforward implementation of the international protection regime and treaties that have been in effect since World War II to prevent another holocaust from occurring on our watch.

If anything, since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980, the U.S. has watered down its asylum commitment somewhat by adding a legally tenuous “credible fear” process to “pre-screen” arriving asylum applicants in mass migration situations. However, to date, the DHS under Trump has been too incompetent, misdirected, and frankly downright stupid to utilize this streamlined screening process fairly and efficiently.

By treating a somewhat predictable humanitarian refugee flow as a bogus “law enforcement problem” and mindlessly shoving cases into a “captive” court system that they already had abused, mismanaged, and destroyed, the Administration lost effective control. In panic, they have tried to blame the refugees, Democrats, Mexico, Obama, judges, the media, and even the truly hapless failed states of the Northern Triangle for their largely self-created human and operational disaster.

The first of the “unprecedented steps,” involves Mexico sending approximately 6,000 National Guard troops to the Guatemalan border to control illegal crossings. Never mind that the Mexican National Guard is a recent creation that exists largely on paper. Also, forget that Mexico has a questionable record of controlling corruption and systematic human rights abuses among its existing police and military forces.

The U.S., a much larger, better organized, and more prosperous country than Mexico, has resorted to militarizing the border, mass incarceration, family concentration camps, kids in cages, malicious criminal prosecutions, family separations, walls, fences, overt political interference in the asylum adjudication system, and violating international protection norms. These “gonzo” enforcement efforts not only failed to stem the tide, but have actually aided smugglers and traffickers and increased the flow of migrants.

Will newly minted, untrained Mexican troops succeed where the might of the U.S. has failed miserably? Don’t count on it.

Also, the last time I checked, it appeared that most of the Mexican coast and some parts of the U.S. are reasonably accessible by boat from the Northern Triangle. So, assuming that the Mexicans could “shut down” their land border with Guatemala, why wouldn’t smugglers “take to the sea?” How’s that Mexican Navy?

The second “unprecedented step,” is a continuation and expansion of the existing “Remain in Mexico Program.” This toxic gimmick punishes those who have been legally determined to have a “credible fear” of persecution by making them remain in some of the most dangerous locations in the world where they are intentionally and illegally impeded in many ways from pursuing their U.S. asylum claims from Mexico. To date, this program has only been implemented in a few locations, like San Diego where it has been an unmitigated failure according to a report from Kate Morrissey of the San Diego Union-Tribune. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/06/06/cruel-yet-really-stupid-trumps-remain-in-mexico-policy-denies-due-process-while-creating-court-chaos-enfeebled-judges-fume-as-aimless-docket-reshufflin/.

The results of this ill-advised effort by Trump to circumvent U.S. asylum laws reads like a “legal toxicology report:” “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” mass confusion, lack of information, insufficient and deficient hearing notices, massive violations of the statutory right to be represented by counsel, no opportunity to fairly prepare, document, and present asylum claims, interference with the attorney-client relationship by DHS, and few actual case completions to name just a few of the many abuses. And, how will an already dysfunctional EOIR deal with yet another round of “new priorities” and more “Aimless Docket Reshuffling?”

A Federal District Judge actually enjoined this circus before it could get rolling. But, a “tone-deaf panel” of the Ninth Circuit allowed Trump’s assault on the rule of law to go forward, at least for now.

Nevertheless, the case remains pending with the Ninth Circuit. As EOIR’s rushed and sloppy work product starts to accumulate on their docket and the bodies and horror stories start to pile up in Mexico, more responsible Circuit Judges might actually force the Administration to comply with the law and the Constitution, not to mention simple human decency.

Mexico has pledged to “accept and protect” those sentenced to remain there. But, the Mexican border locations to which individuals are forced to return are dangerous for a reason. Presumably, if Mexican can’t maintain safety and order for its own citizens, it won’t do any better for vulnerable asylum seekers.

Finally, in third “unprecedented step,” Mexico and the U.S. agreed to promote the “Comprehensive Development Plan launched by the government of Mexico in concert with the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras” to create “prosperity, good governance and security in Central America.” This part of the agreement makes the most sense. But “promoting” in this case appears limited to using development funds that were “already in the pipeline” in both countries. In other words, nothing really new here.

This was a golden opportunity for the U.S. to show real leadership by dramatically increasing its investment in bringing stability and prosperity to Mexico and Central America. Additionally, we could have created incentives (rather than threats) and benchmarks for Mexico to improve its asylum adjudication system and human rights performance. Partnering with non-governmental-organizations and legal assistance groups on both sides of the border also would bring much needed expertise in resolving asylum issues to the table.

But, that would have taken a President with vision, empathy, compassion, courage, competency, intelligence, and creative problem solving ability. Trump is the exact antithesis of all of these qualities.

Consequently, sooner or later we can expect Trump’s “latest egg” to fail, like all of his other gimmicks and maliciously incompetent schemes on immigration. Our “child president” will undoubtedly then embark on a new barrage of lies, false narratives, idiotic tweets, idle threats, blame shifting, insults, racist dog whistles, and general nonsense aimed at diverting attention from his own failures as a leader and more critically, as a human being.

Innocent people will be harmed and die, America and Mexico will be embarrassed and diminished, and the world will be a worse place. But, until America figures out how to use its democratic institutions to remove the kakistocracy, the disaster will continue. That it could have been worse, is only small consolation.

Why not strive to be the “best that we can be,” rather than just “not as bad as we might have been?”

From Human Rights First (“HRF”):

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

From Amy Fischer @ Amnesty International USA:

From Mary Miller Flowers @ Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights:

From Kate Jastrom @ Center for Gender & Refugee Studies @ Hastings Law:

From Maria Daniella Prieshoff @ Tahirih Justice Center:

From Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.):

From Jonathan Blazer @ ACLU:

From Margaret Cargioli @ Immigrant Defenders Law Center:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Check out the link to the HRF Careers Page above!😎👍🏼⚖️🗽

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Jacob Soboroff @ NBC News With Truth About Deplorable, Unsafe, Conditions Facing Those Deported To Haiti:

Human Rights First debunks myth that seekers present a COVID health threat:

Even in rolling out otherwise more reasonable enforcement priorities for ICE, Mayorkas insisted on making the bogus claim that recent border arrivals present a “national security threat,” as reported by the WashPost’s Maria Sacchetti:

“Courtside’s” rating of Mayorkas’s claims: 🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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From Human Rights First:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Here’s yet another “big middle finger” 🖕 to progressives and experts from Garland and Mayorkas:

Here are “statements in opposition” from the National Immigrant Justice Center and Human Rights First:

Here’s the “statement of outrage and solidarity in opposition from the experts at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at Hastings Law:

Here are other initial comments from asylum experts:

Quick takes:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Why it could work:

Why it probably won’t work:

Due Process Forever!

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Related posts:

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ANALYSIS: Trump Lays Another Egg On Immigration — Everybody Loses, But It Could Have Been Much, Much Worse

Related posts: