Human Rights – Page 221 – immigrationcourtside.com

NOT YOUR FATHER’S FOURTH CIRCUIT: Technology, Innovation, & A More Diverse Judiciary Change Tribunal Sitting In The Former Capital Of The Confederacy!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/after-a-ruling-on-trumps-travel-ban-all-eyes-are-on-the-4th-circuit/2017/06/02/b7a555f2-4545-11e7-bcde-624ad94170ab_story.html?utm_term=.825d55d2e2d7

Carl Tobias reports for the Washington Post.

“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is a court in transition. The Richmond-based appeals court was long considered the most ideologically conservative of the 12 regional circuits, the intermediate appellate tribunals across the country that are the courts of last resort for 99 percent of appeals. When a case heard in Maryland and Virginia federal district courts is appealed, it goes to the 4th Circuit. This is the court that has resolved appeals involving Maryland gun laws and Virginia transgender students’ rights, for example.

And change has come to the 4th Circuit.

This was recently on display when the entire court — all judges in active service who did not have conflicts of interest — substantially affirmed a Maryland district court’s nationwide injunction that blocked enforcement of President Trump’s revised travel ban. Notably, a majority of the judges proclaimed that the Constitution “protects Plaintiffs’ right to challenge the Executive Order that in text speaks in vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination.”

For decades, the 4th Circuit was a conservative stronghold. Seated in the former capital of the Confederacy, the court hears appeals in the Lewis F. Powell Jr. Courthouse, a building that served as the official headquarters for Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The circuit retains Southern manners. For instance, judges descend from the bench after oral arguments to shake the hands of counsel.

President George W. Bush tried to continue the court’s conservative legacy when numerous vacancies materialized in his administration. However, the White House insisted on pressing for confirmation of nominees whom many Democratic senators considered outside the mainstream, even after Democrats had captured a Senate majority in November 2006. Political machinations left four vacancies at the Bush administration’s close, enabling President Barack Obama to appoint numerous judges. The court now has nine members whom Democratic presidents appointed, five whom Republican presidents confirmed and Chief Judge Roger Gregory, whom President Bill Clinton recess-appointed and Bush confirmed.

Two recent developments in the travel ban appeal demonstrate change in the court. First, all of the active judges without conflicts heard the appeal, called an initial en banc proceeding, which is so extraordinary that the last one was decades ago. One judge, not the parties, suggested this procedure, and the court requested the litigants’ views on an en banc process, while a circuit majority favored it apparently because of the appeal’s exceptional public importance.

Another sign of change was the court’s April 27 announcement that the argument would be livestreamed. Allowing “cameras in the courtroom” has proved extremely controversial at the Supreme Court, which has never permitted live broadcast of arguments. Indeed, since-retired Justice David Souter famously declared “over my dead body.” A few lower federal courts allow broadcasts. The 9th Circuit began livestreaming all oral arguments in 2015.”

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

Read the complete article at the above link.

As a U.S. Immigration Judge sitting in the Fourth Circuit, I credited the Fourth Circuit’s carefully-crafted asylum jurisprudence and overriding concern for due process and fairness for asylum seekers as reasons why asylum grant rates were relatively high in the Arlington and Baltimore Immigration Courts (of course, along with my judicial colleagues’ careful attention the what the Fourth Circuit was saying; new Fourth Circuit rulings were a frequent topic of our lunch conversations.)

Apparently, however, the word didn’t reach as far south as the Charlotte Immigration Court, where advocates regularly complain of the rights of asylum seekers being “steamrolled.” To date, the BIA has failed to step in and fix the Charlotte situation. And, I wouldn’t expect it to happen with Jeff Sessions in charge of the U.S. Immigration Courts.

PWS

06-04-17

INTRODUCING NEW COMMENTATOR — Hon. Jeffrey Chase — “Matter Of L-E-A: The BIA’s Missed Chance” — Original For immigrationcourtside!

Hi immigrationcourtside.com readers:

I am delighted to provide an original article by my good friend and colleague the Honorable Jeffrey Chase, who recently joined us in the ranks of the “retired but still engaged.” Judge Chase is a former U.S. Immigration Judge in New York, a former Senior Attorney Adviser at the BIA, and a former sole immigration practitioner in New York. He’s also a gentleman, a scholar, and an immigration historian. In a subsequent post I’ll be providing some links to parts of the “Chase Immigration History Library” which has previously been published by our friend and former colleague Judge Lawrence O. Burman in the FBA’s The Green Card.

Welcome to retirement and to immigrationcourtside, Judge Chase! We live in interesting times. Enjoy the ride.

Now, for your reading pleasure, here’s the complete original version of Judge Chase’s article about a recent BIA precedent. Enjoy it!

Matter of L-E-A-

Matter of L-E-A-: The BIA’s Missed Opportunity

Jeffrey S. Chase

On May 24, the Board of Immigration Appeals published its long-anticipated precedent addressing family as a particular social group, Matter of L-E-A-, 27 I&N Dec. 40 (BIA 2017). Thirteen amicus briefs were received by the Board addressing the issue of whether a “double nexus” is required in claims based on the particular social group of family. The good news is that the Board did not create a “double nexus” requirement for family-based PSG claims. In other words, the decision does not require an asylum applicant to prove both their inclusion in the social group of X’s family, and then also establish that X’s own fear is on account of a separate protected ground.

Nevertheless, the resulting decision was highly unsatisfying. The Board was provided a golden opportunity to adopt the interpretation of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which has held persecution to be “on account of” one’s membership in the particular social group consisting of family where the applicant would not have been targeted if not for their familial relationship. Such approach clearly satisfies the statutory requirement that the membership in the particular social group be “at least one central reason for persecuting the applicant.” If the asylum seeker would not have been targeted if not for the familial relationship, how could such relationship not be at least one central reason for the harm? L-E-A- rejected this interpretation, and instead adopted a much more restrictive “means to an end” test. Under L-E-A-, even though the respondent would not be targeted but for her familial relationship to her murdered husband, she would not be found to have established a nexus because the gangsters she fears do not wish to harm her because of an independent animus against her husband’s family. Rather, targeting her would be a means to the end of self-preservation by attempting to silencing her to avoid their own criminal prosecution.

Under the fact patterns we commonly see from Mexico and the “northern triangle” countries of Central America, claims based on family as a particular social group will continue to be denied, as such fears will inevitably be deemed to be a means to some criminal motive of gangs and cartels (i.e. to obtain money through extortion or as ransom; to increase their ranks; to avoid arrest) as opposed to a desire to punish the family itself. Applying the same logic to political opinion, a popular political opponent of a brutal dictator could be denied asylum, as the dictator’s real motive in seeking to imprison or kill the political opponent could be viewed as self-preservation (i.e. avoiding losing power in a free and fair election, and then being imprisoned and tried for human rights violations), as opposed to a true desire to overcome the applicant’s actual opinions on philosophical grounds.

Sadly, the approach of L-E-A- is consistent with that employed in a line of claims based on political opinion 20 years ago (see Matter of C-A-L-, 21 I&N Dec. 754 (BIA 1997); Matter of T-M-B-, 21 I&N Dec. 775 (BIA 1997); Matter of V-T-S-, 21 I&N Dec. 792 (BIA 1997)) in which attempted guerrilla recruitment, kidnaping, and criminal extortion carried out by armed political groups were not recognized as persecution where the perpetrator’s motive was to further a goal of his/her political organization as opposed to punishing the asylum applicant because of his/her own political opinion.

Nearly a decade earlier, an extreme application of this “logic” resulted in the most absurd Board result of to date. In Matter of Maldonado-Cruz, 19 I&N Dec. 509 (BIA 1988), the Board actually held that a deserter from an illegal guerrilla army’s fear of being executed by a death squad lacked a nexus to a protected ground, because the employment of death squads by said illegal guerrilla army was “part of a military policy of that group, inherent in the nature of the organization, and a tool of discipline,” (to quote from the headnotes). After three decades of following the course of such clearly result-oriented decision making, the Board missed an opportunity to right its course.

The author formerly served as an immigration judge, and as a staff attorney at the Board of Immigration Appeals.

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

I agree with Judge Chase that this is a missed opportunity that will come back to haunt all of us. A correct decision would have allowed many of the Central American asylum seekers clogging the court system at all levels to be granted needed protection, either at the USCIS or in court. Here is a link to my prior blog and “alternative analysis” of L-E-A-.

http://wp.me/p8eeJm-Sh

Instead, I predict that some of these cases could still be “kicking around the system” somewhere a decade from now, unless some drastic changes are made. And the type of positive, due process, fairness, and protection oriented changes needed are not going to happen under the Trump Administration. So, the battles will be fought out in the higher courts.

Although the BIA did it’s best to obfuscate, it’s prior precedent in Matter of J-B-N- & S-M-, 24 I&N Dec. 208 (BIA 2007) basically established a “common sense/but for” test for one central reason. In a mixed motive case, if the persecution would have occurred notwithstanding the protected ground, then it is tangental, incidental, and not “at least one central reason.” On the other hand, if “but for” the protected ground the perseuction would not have occurred, that ground is at least “one central reason” of the persecution.

In L-E-A- the respondent would not have suffered threats and attempts to kidnap him “but for” his membership in the family. Hence family clearly is “at least one central reason” for the persecution. That’s basically the test the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals would apply.

It’s a fairly straightforward case. The respondent in L-E-A- satisfies the refugee definition. In fact, the serious threats delivered by a gang which clearly has the ability and the means to carry them out amounts to past persecution. Hence, the respondent is entitled to the rebuttable presumption of future persecution.

Instead of properly applying its own precedents and reaching the correct result, the BIA launches into paragraphs of legal gobbledygook designed to mask what’s really going on here: manipulating the law and the facts to deny protection to Central American refugees whenever possible.

I know, this respondent is from Mexico; but, the BIA’s intended target obviously is Northern Triangle gang-based asylum claims. This precedent gives the Immigration Judges and Asylum Officers lots of “hooks” to deny claims by women and children fleeing family-targeted gang violence.

And, it insures that nobody without a really good lawyer and the ability to litigate up to Courts of Appeals if necessary even has a chance. The BIA is certainly well aware that the Trump Administration is pulling out all the stops to effectively deny counsel to arriving asylum seekers by a combination of using expedited removal, increasing negative credible fear determinations, and detaining everyone in out of the way locations where conditions are discouraging and pro bono counsel are not readily available.

Yeah, I don’t suppose any of this is going to bother Trump Administration officials any more than it did the BIA’s DOJ bosses during the Bush and Obama Administrations. Some negative case precedents on repetitive Central American claims proved mighty handy in border enforcement efforts and “don’t come, you’ve got no chance” publicity campaigns. The only problem is the it twists protection law out of shape.

Finally, let the record reflect that I lodged a dissent in Matter of C-A-L-, 21 I&N Dec. 754 (BIA 1997); Matter of T-M-B-, 21 I&N Dec. 775 (BIA 1997); and Matter of V-T-S-, 21 I&N Dec. 792 (BIA 1997), wrongly decided BIA precedent cases cited by Judge Chase. Indeed, Matter of T-M-B- eventually was reversed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Borja v. INS, 175 F.3d 332 (9th cir. 1999), something which many BIA Appellate Judges only grudgingly acknowledged in later cases.

So, it will be left for the Courts of Appeals to straighten out nexus in the family context. Or not.

Again, welcome Judge Chase. Look forward to hearing more from you.

PWS

06-03-17

TRUMP IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT POLICIES: BOON FOR DOMESTIC ABUSERS, BUST FOR VICTIMS! — Many Victims Now Fear Reporting Abuse Or Seeking Help!

http://www.self.com/story/immigration-policies-domestic-violence-survivors

Haley Goldberg reports in Self:

Over the past several months, counselors at Laura’s House domestic violence agency in Orange County, California, have seen fewer and fewer undocumented immigrants coming in to report abuse. The agency’s legal director, Adam Dodge, does not see this as a good sign. He says undocumented domestic violence victims are facing a heightened fear that if they speak out against an abuser or take legal action, they could get deported—so they’re keeping quiet.

The trend started in February, when Dodge says the agency saw a dramatic change among the roughly 80 people who come in over the course of a typical month. “We went from 40 to 45 percent of our clients being undocumented—helping them get restraining orders for themselves and their children—to nearly zero,” he tells SELF.

Dodge says Laura’s House—which provides vital services like emergency shelter, counseling, and legal aid to survivors of domestic violence—first noticed a decrease in undocumented immigrant clients after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained an undocumented domestic violence survivor on Feb. 9, in El Paso, Texas, when she was in court filing a protective order against her alleged abuser. “That just spread like wildfire through the undocumented community across the United States and created this chilling effect where no one’s going in to seek restraining orders,” Dodge says. “People are just so scared of having their name in any system. We can’t tell them with any certainty that they won’t get picked up by ICE if they come to court.”

In the first few months following the El Paso incident, he says only one openly undocumented survivor came to their agency. Her situation was grave. “She thought she was going to die if she stayed in the relationship,” Dodge says. “She said she was willing to risk deportation to get a restraining order.” Now, the agency has seen a slight increase to one or two undocumented clients each week—but it’s still well below the norm. “The situation is still very dire,” he says.

El Paso was an early and powerful example of how ramped up ICE activity, spurred by President Trump’s aggressive and expansive new rules on immigration, can have a devastating impact on immigrants living in the U.S. without documentation. In February, the President issued new immigration policies, calling for the deportation of illegal immigrants even if they haven’t been formally convicted of a crime and an increase in ICE resources. In March, a video surfaced showing ICE officers poised to make an arrest at a Denver courthouse, a place where victims of domestic violence also appear when their cases go to court. NPR reported that after the video came out, four women dropped domestic violence cases in Denver, fearing they’d be spotted at the courthouse and deported.

When incidents like these happen, experts say the news—and fear of deportation—spreads, affecting how many survivors come forward. At the end of March, reports of sexual assault in Los Angeles had dropped 25 percent among the Latino population and reports of domestic violence had fallen 10 percent among the community compared to the previous year. Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said similar decreases in reports weren’t seen in any other ethnic groups, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Ruth Glenn, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, tells SELF the perception of how survivors are treated matters—and it can affect how undocumented immigrants proceed if they find themselves in an abusive situation. “If you have a case and you’re thinking about going forward, and then this environment that we’re in right now does not seem supportive, then you’re not going to follow through,” Glenn says. “It’s very disturbing.”

Critics of the administration’s treatment of undocumented survivors sounded an alarm in May, when it was discovered that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s new Victim Information and Notification Exchange—an online database created to track when criminals are released from or into ICE custody—publicly listed the names and detainment location of victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking who’ve applied to stay legally in the U.S. on special protective visas. DHS is prohibited from releasing identifying information about immigrants seeking these protections because of the dangers it poses to them. The Tahirih Justice Center, a nonprofit that serves immigrant women and girls, first contacted the DHS about the issue on May 12. As of the May 25, the organization said the names of abuse victims were still searchable in the database. In response to the uproar, an ICE spokesman told BuzzFeed News they were working to “correct” and “prevent” any non-releasable information disclosed on the site.”

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

Read the complete story at the link.

While the Trump Administration has turned the VOICE Program for victims of crime committed by undocumented aliens into a big showpiece, they have basically declared an “open season” on undocumented victims of crime. Years of hard work by local police and social agencies to get the undocumented community its to report crimes, help in solving them, and seek appropriate victim assistance are going down the drain. And, I suspect that once lost, that trust will be difficult, if not impossible to regain.

At the same time, by discouraging individuals from reporting crime, I suppose the Administration can achieve fake “reduction in crime” stats resulting from its enforcement efforts.

PWS

06-03-17

DHS DEATHWATCH: Another Detainee Dies In Custody! — Fatalities Likely To Increase As Trump Ramps Up Arrests & Detentions!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/adolfoflores/another-immigrant-has-died-in-ice-custody-and-critics-worry?utm_term=.nsKXk5aRM#.mjem7V6rn

Adolfo Flores reports in BuzzFeed News:

“The death of an undocumented immigrant while in the custody of federal authorities is the latest in a series of deaths that advocates worry will continue to grow as more people living illegally in the US are detained under the Trump administration.

Vicente Caceres-Maradiaga, 46, died Wednesday night from acute coronary syndrome as he was being transferred to a hospital from a private detention center in Adelanto, California. He is the ninth person to die in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this fiscal year, which started Oct. 1. That compares to 10 deaths for all of fiscal year 2016.

The Daily Beast was the first to report on the trend.

Christina Fialho, executive director of Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC), said the deaths were disturbing.

“They also point to systemic failures that are likely to grow even starker as the Trump administration carries out its crackdown on immigration,” Fialho told BuzzFeed News. “I have no doubt that the increase in immigration detention deaths is directly connected to both the increase in the number of people detained and the effective elimination of federal standards on humane treatment.”

Operating under executive orders and memos from the Trump administration that call for an increase in arrests of people living illegally in the US, data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University found that there has already been a sharp increase in the number of detainees who are waiting for their court cases to be heard.

The rise in both the number of arrests and detainees is a change from the Obama administration, which allowed many undocumented immigrants out of detention while their legal cases played out — a practice maligned by critics as “catch-and-release.” During Obama’s tenure, 27% of people with immigration cases were kept in custody, compared to 61% under Trump, according to TRAC.”

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

Read the entire article at the link.

I suppose that this Administration just looks at detainee deaths as a “cost of doing business.” Or, perhaps “collateral damage” as they say in the military. As noted in prior posts, private detention facilities had been determined by the DOJ’s Inspector General to have substandard conditions. Under then Attorney General Lynch, the DOJ was in the process of phasing private detention out of the prison system. While the DHS had not taken the same action with respect to civil immigration detention, then Secretary Johnson had received a report from an Advisory Committee noting the problems with private detention and recommending that it be phased out. The Trump Administration, with Attorney General Jeff Sessions leading the way, has reversed the course and intends to maximize the use of private detention while it builds it promised “American gulag” for both civil detainees and criminals. At no time that I am aware of have Trump, Sessions, or Kelly expressed any concern about detention standards or the health and safety of detainees.

PWS

06-03-17

HISTORY: Forgetting The Past — Italian-Americans Who Support Trump Have Forgotten How The Racist Slurs & Criminal Stereotypes Purveyed By Trump & His Nationalist Buddies Were Once Directed At Them!

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/opinion/illegal-immigration-italian-americans.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20170602&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=9&nlid=79213886&ref=headline&te=1&referer=

Helene Stapinski writes in this NYT op-ed

“From 1906 to 1915, the year Vita died, Basilicata lost nearly 40 percent of its population to emigration. The Italian landowners — the same ones who raped and starved my relatives and maybe yours — were devastated by American emigration, left with too few hands to work their land.

The Italian government, initially happy to see its poorest and most troublesome people leave the country, realized that the best and strongest were now leaving as well, looking for a better life and higher wages. Before a United States congressional commission, a politician from Calabria testified that emigration from the South had gone too far, adding that he was sorry Columbus had ever discovered America.

The United States government used the theories of Cesare Lombroso, a 19th-century Northern Italian doctor, to stop more of his suffering, starving countrymen and women from immigrating.

Lombroso, a traitor to his own people, was convinced that there was such a thing as a “natural born criminal.” He measured the heads and body parts of thousands of fellow Italians — particularly Southerners — and came up with a description that matched the description of most of the immigrants coming over at the time: short, dark, hairy, big noses and ears.

He compared them to lower primates and said they were more likely to commit violent crimes when they arrived in the United States than immigrants from Germany, Norway, Austria, Sweden, England and every other European country.

Lombroso — and a growing sea of American nativists — branded the Southern Italians savages and rapists, blaming them for the crime that was on the rise in the United States.

The United States Immigration Commission concluded in the infamous 1911 Dillingham report: “Certain kinds of criminality are inherent in the Italian race. In the popular mind, crimes of personal violence, robbery, blackmail and extortion are peculiar to the people of Italy.”

The Immigration Act of 1924 barred most Italians from coming into the country — causing immigration from Italy to fall 90 percent. Even though the vast majority of those coming to America were good, honest working people and not criminals.

Italian-Americans who today support the president’s efforts to keep Muslims and Mexicans out of the country need to look into their own histories — and deep into their hearts. After all, they’re just a couple of generations removed from that same racism, hatred and abuse. Had our ancestors tried to come days, weeks or months after the 1924 ban, we may not have even been born.”

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

Read the entire op-ed at the link.

Notwithstanding Trump and his White Nationalist gang (whose anti-American, anti-world efforts were on display this week), we are a nation of immigrants.

PWS

06-02-17

The “Gibson Report” For May 30, 2017

Gibson Report, May 30

PWS

05-30-17

N. Rappaport Reviews Travel Ban Litigation For HuffPost!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5929ff8ce4b08861ed0cca0e

Man, Nolan sure gets around in terms of different publications! And, he is both timely and highly relevant! Here, Nolan writes in HyuffPost:

“In April 2016, I wrote an article entitled, “If he is elected to the presidency, Donald Trump will have statutory authority to suspend the entry of all Muslim aliens.”

The article included a successful prediction of Trump’s temporary travel ban. But I failed to foresee that it would be rejected on the basis of his campaign statements, or that using campaign statements that way would put our country on the brink of a constitutional crisis.

. . . .

The campaign statements that Judge Gregory uses to justify his decision can be used again and again to attack anything Trump does that has a negative impact on a country with a large Muslim population.

If the Supreme Court does not reverse Judge Gregory’s decision, other courts will follow suit and President Trump ultimately will be faced with the constitutional crisis of not being able to meet his national security responsibilities as the Chief of the Executive Branch with respect to terrorism coming from Muslim countries unless he defies the orders of the Judicial Branch.”

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

Read Nolan’s complete article on HuffPost at the above link!

I appreciate Nolan’s helpful summary of what has happened to date on the “Travel Ban” litigation. Nevertheless, I disagree with his conclusion that the President will not be able to “meet his national security responsibilities as Chief Executive.”

I have little doubt that if there were a legitimate “national security” crisis, the Federal Courts would give the Executive considerable discretion to operate. President Trump’s problem is that there is no obvious national security crisis at present. Therefore, his attack on nationals of predominantly Muslim countries seems to be out of bounds, and motivated by religious animus and a desire to fulfill campaign promises, rather than by any legitimate national security considerations.

FPWS

05-29-17

Split 1st Cir. Bops BIA For Failing To Consider Reg Requiring That Resettlement Be “Reasonable” — Garcia-Cruz v. Sessions

http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/15-2272P-01A.pdf

“8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(3), however, lists a number of factors that an adjudicator should consider. “[W]hile the IJ and BIA do not necessarily have to address each of [8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(3)’s] reasonableness factors explicitly . . . the agency must explain why the factors that cut against the asylum applicant outweigh the factors in his favor.” Khattak v. Holder, 704 F.3d 197, 207 (1st Cir. 2013); see also Saldarriaga v. Gonzales, 241 F. App’x 432, 434 (9th Cir. 2007) (remanding asylum petition for further review because “the IJ did not consider whether [the petitioner’s] relocation would be reasonable”). In Khattak, the BIA determined that the petitioner could relocate to another part of Pakistan where he owned a home and had briefly lived twenty years earlier. 704 F.3d at 206-07. We remanded to the BIA, however, because (1) “neither the IJ nor the BIA addressed evidence in the record indicating that” the petitioner would not be safe in that area and (2) “neither the IJ nor the BIA made any mention of [the reasonableness] factors.” Id. at 207.

          Relevant factors here include:

 “ongoing civil strife within the country “(the IJ found that “electoral violence” is common “in every electoral cycle”);
 “economic…infrastructure “(IJ found that relocation “would be economically difficult”);
 “socialandculturalconstraints”(García-Cruz speaks Quiché, a minority language that has no official status and is spoken mainly in Guatemala’s central highlands); and
 “familial ties”(all of García-Cruz’s extended family live in Chixocol).

-Yet the IJ and the BIA discussed only the fact that García-Cruz’s wife and children were in Salamá. They did not address evidence in the record that appears to undercut the conclusion that García- Cruz could reasonably relocate within Guatemala — for example, García-Cruz’s testimony that he could not live with his wife in Salamá and does not “have a home . . . [or] a job” there. Thus, neither the BIA nor the IJ “presented a reasoned analysis of the evidence as a whole.” Id. at 208 (quoting Jabri v. Holder, 675 F.3d 20, 24 (1st Cir. 2012)).

García-Cruz asserts that “every single factor” supports a conclusion that he cannot reasonably relocate, but he does little to develop this argument. He then asserts that the BIA’s “unfounded conclusion . . . itself requires reversal.” That is not accurate. To reverse the BIA’s order, rather than simply remand it, the evidence must compel us to conclude that it would beunreasonableforGarcía-CruztorelocatewithinGuatemala. Id. at 207 (citing INS v. Elías-Zacarías, 502 U.S. 478, 481 n.1 (1992)). There is significant evidence in the record supporting a conclusion that relocation would be unreasonable. But García- Cruz has understandably focused on the BIA’s failure to properly analyze the reasonableness factors, rather than whether the evidence compels a finding that internal relocation would be unreasonable, and neither the IJ nor the BIA weighed the reasonableness factors. Given the limited analysis on this issue, we think it best to remand to the BIA to consider it fully. We therefore grant the petition for review, vacate the BIA’s order, and remand for further proceedings.”

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

PRACTICE POINTER:

8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(3) requires that internal relocation not just be “possible,” but also must be “reasonable” under all of the circumstances. Sometimes Immigration Judges at both the trial and appellate level ignore this requirement and the relevant regulation. Attorneys challenging “internal relocation” should be sure to cite the regulation and refer specifically to the non-exclusive list of the type of factors that should be considered.

Additionally, as pointed out by the 1st Circuit majority, the BIA and the IJ could have found that the respondent suffered past persecution, thus shifting the burden to the DHS to provide that there was no reasonably available internal relocation alternative. In cases of this type, where a finding granting protection could have been made, but the BIA chose not to, it appears that the BIA has both failed to follow the generous dictates of their own precedent in Mogharrabi, but also has abandoned the vision of “guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” “Close cases” should go to the respondent under Cardoza-Fonseca and Mogharrabi. But, for the last decade plus, the BIA has been unwilling to follow the law and its own precedents mandating generous treatment of asylum seekers.

PWS

05-29-=17

NYT Sunday Maggie: The “Deportation Resistance” In Trump’s America — Re-energized Or Outgunned? — The “country woke up in Arizona!”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/magazine/is-it-possible-to-resist-deportation-in-trumps-america.html?em_pos=medium&emc=edit_ma_20170525&nl=magazine&nl_art=1&nlid=79213886&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0

Marcela Valdes writes:

“On Monday, Feb. 6, two days before Guadalupe García Aguilar made headlines as the first person deported under President Donald Trump’s new executive orders on immigration, she and her family drove to the modest stucco offices of Puente, an organization that represents undocumented immigrants. It was a postcard day: warm and dry, hovering around 70 degrees, the kind of winter afternoon that had long ago turned Phoenix into a magnet for American retirees and the younger, mostly Latin American immigrants who mulch their gardens and build their homes.
García Aguilar and her family — her husband and two children — squeezed together with four Puente staff members into the cramped little office that the group uses for private consultations. Carlos Garcia, Puente’s executive director, had bought a fresh pack of cigarettes right before the talk; he needed nicotine to carry him through the discomfort of telling García Aguilar that she would almost certainly be deported on Wednesday. Until that moment, she and her family had not wanted to believe that the executive orders Trump signed on Jan. 25 had made her expulsion a priority. She had been living in the United States for 22 years, since she was 14 years old; she was the mother of two American citizens; she had missed being eligible for DACA by just a few months. Suddenly, none of that counted anymore.
García Aguilar’s troubles with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began in 2008, after police raided Golfland Sunsplash, the amusement park in Mesa, Ariz., where she worked. She spent three months in jail and three months in detention. (ICE booked her under the last name “García de Rayos.”) In 2013, an immigration court ordered her removal. Yet under pressure from Puente, which ultimately filed a class-action lawsuit contending that Maricopa County’s work-site raids were unconstitutional, ICE allowed García Aguilar (and dozens of others) to remain in Arizona under what is known as an order of supervision. ICE could stay her removal because the Obama administration’s guidelines for the agency specified terrorists and violent criminals as priorities for deportation. But Trump’s January orders effectively vacated those guidelines; one order specifically instructed that “aliens ordered removed from the United States are promptly removed.” García Aguilar, who had a felony for using a fabricated Social Security number, was unlikely to be spared.
Orders of supervision are similar to parole; undocumented immigrants who have them must appear before ICE officers periodically for “check-ins.” García Aguilar’s next check-in was scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 8. She had three options, Garcia explained. She could appear as usual and hope for the best. She could try to hide. Or she could put up a fight, either from a place of sanctuary or by appearing for her check-in amid media coverage that Puente would organize on her behalf. Whatever she decided, he said, she would be wise to spend Tuesday preparing for separation from her children.
The family was devastated. García Aguilar left the meeting red-faced with tears.
The next day a dozen activists gathered at Puente to strategize for García Aguilar’s case. After reviewing the logistics for the usual public maneuvers — Facebook post, news release, online petition, sidewalk rally, Twitter hashtag, phone campaign — they debated the pros and cons of using civil disobedience. In the final years of the Obama administration, activists in Arizona had come to rely on “C.D.,” as they called it, to make their dissatisfaction known. Puente members had blocked roads and chained themselves in front of the entrance to Phoenix’s Fourth Avenue Jail. Yet Francisca Porchas, one of Puente’s organizers, worried about setting an unrealistic precedent with its membership. “For Lupita we go cray-cray and then everyone expects that,” she said. What would they do if Puente members wanted them to risk arrest every time one of them had a check-in?
Ernesto Lopez argued that they needed to take advantage of this rare opportunity. A week earlier, thousands of people had swarmed airports around the country to protest the executive order barring citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations. “There’s been a lot of conversation about the ban, but for everything else it’s dead,” Lopez said. “Nobody is talking about people getting deported. In a couple of months, it won’t be possible to get that media attention.”
Garcia wasn’t sure a rally for García Aguilar would work. “We’re literally in survival mode,” Garcia told me that week. It was too early to tell how ICE would behave under Trump, but they were braced for the worst. Nobody had a long-term plan yet. Even as he and his staff moved to organize the news conference, his mind kept running through the possibilities: Would it help García Aguilar stay with her family? Would it snowball into an airport-style protest? Would it cause ICE to double down on her deportation? He decided it was worth trying.
Shortly before noon on Wednesday, García Aguilar and her lawyer, Ray Ybarra Maldonado, entered ICE’s field office as supporters chanted “No está sola!” (You are not alone!) behind her. Telemundo, Univision and ABC shot footage. Supporters posted their own videos on Twitter and Facebook. ICE security warily eyed the scene. An hour later, Ybarra Maldonado exited ICE alone. García Aguilar had been taken into custody. All around the tree-shaded patio adjacent to ICE’s building, Puente members teared up, imagining the same dark future for themselves. Ybarra Maldonado filed a stay of deportation, and Porchas told everyone to come back later for a candlelight vigil.
That night a handful of protesters tried to block several vans as they sped from the building’s side exit. More protesters came running from an ICE decoy bus that had initially distracted those attending the vigil out front. Manuel Saldaña, an Army veteran who did two tours in Afghanistan, planted himself on the ground next to one van’s front tire, wrapping his arms and legs around the wheel. The driver looked incredulous; if he moved the van forward now, he would break one of Saldaña’s legs. Peering through the van windows with cellphone flashlights, protesters found García Aguilar sitting in handcuffs. The crowd doubled in size. “Those shifty [expletive],” Ybarra Maldonado said as he stared at the van. ICE, he said, had never notified him that her stay of deportation had been denied.
Four hours later, García Aguilar was gone. After the Phoenix Police arrested seven people and dispersed the crowd, ICE took her to Nogales, Mexico. By then images of García Aguilar and the protest were already all over television and social media. She and her children became celebrities within the immigrant rights movement. Carlos Garcia, who was with her in Nogales, told me that Mexican officials stalked her hotel, hoping to snag a photo. “Everyone wanted to be the one to help her,” he said. “Everyone wanted a piece.” Later that month, her children — Jacqueline, 14, and Angel, 16 — sat in the audience of Trump’s first address to Congress, guests of two Democratic representatives from Arizona, Raúl Grijalva and Ruben Gallego.
During the Obama years, most immigrant rights organizations focused on big, idealistic legislation: the Dream Act and comprehensive immigration reform, neither of which ever made it through Congress. But Puente kept its focus on front-line battles against police-ICE collaboration. For Garcia, who was undocumented until a stepfather adopted him at 16, the most important thing is simply to contest all deportations, without exception. He estimates that Puente has had a hand in stopping about 300 deportations in Arizona since 2012.
Ever since Arizona passed Senate Bill 1070, one of the toughest anti-undocumented bills ever signed into law, the state has been known for pioneering the kind of draconian tactics that the Trump administration is now turning into federal policy. But if Arizona has been a testing ground for the nativist agenda, it has also been an incubator for resistance to it. Among the state’s many immigrant rights groups, Puente stands out as the most seasoned and most confrontational. In the weeks and months following Election Day 2016 — as progressive groups suddenly found themselves on defense, struggling to figure out how to handle America’s new political landscape — Garcia was inundated with calls for advice. He flew around the country for training sessions with field organizers, strategy meetings with lawyers and policy experts and an off-the-record round table with Senators Dick Durbin and Bernie Sanders in Washington. A soft-spoken man with a stoic demeanor and a long, black ponytail, Garcia was also stunned by Trump’s victory. But organizers in Phoenix had one clear advantage. “All the scary things that folks are talking about,” he told me, “we’ve seen before.” On Nov. 9, he likes to say, the country woke up in Arizona.”

. . . .

On May 3, the day Arreola was to have been deported, Arreola and Andiola gathered with friends, family and supporters for a prayer breakfast at the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Phoenix, which had offered to house Arreola if she chose sanctuary. Pastor James Pennington had been active in the fight for gay rights. The patio of First Congregational was decorated with several flags, including a rainbow flag, an Arizona state flag and an American flag. Inside the church, members of Puente and former members of ADAC formed a circle with several non-Hispanics who had only recently allied themselves with the undocumented. Standing together they recited Psalm 30 in Spanish:

Te ensalzaré, oh Señor, porque me has elevado, y no has permitido que mis enemigos se rían de mi.

I’ll praise you, Lord, because you’ve lifted me up. You haven’t let my enemies laugh at me.

Yet their enemies remained hard at work. A week later, Marco Tulio Coss Ponce, who had been living in Arizona under an order of supervision since 2013, appeared at ICE’s field office in Phoenix with his lawyer, Ravindar Arora, for a check-in. ICE officers, Arora said, knew that Coss Ponce was about to file an application for asylum — several of his relatives had been recently killed or threatened by the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico — and they had assured Arora several times that Coss Ponce would not be removed. They said he simply needed to wear an ankle monitor to make sure he didn’t disappear. The fitting was delayed several times until finally Arora had to leave to argue a case in court. After he departed, ICE officers handcuffed Coss Ponce and put him in a van, alone. Three hours later, he was in Nogales.”

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

Read the entire, very lengthy but worthwhile, article at the link.

Wow, can’t help but think “what if” all the energy, emotion, and activity on both sides of the immigration issue were re-directed at working together to “make America greater,” rather than engaging in a dangerous, counterproductive “grown up” game of hide and seek aimed at intimidating and removing productive members of American society who aren’t causing anyone any particular harm!

I’ve got some bad news for “the enforcers.” The U.S. families of most of the deportees aren’t going anywhere. And, there will be a steep price to pay in future generations for intentionally alienating some of America’s “best and brightest,” and our hope for the future as a nation.

Actions have consequences. Hate and disrespect aren’t quickly forgotten. Witness that even today, more than a century after the event, we’re still struggling as a nation with the misguided and hateful cause that created the short-lived “Confederate States of America,” killed hundreds of thousands of Americans of all races, and ruined millions of lives.

Something to think about on Memorial Day.

PWS

05-29-17

Colbert King Op-Ed In WashPost: Terror Threat On The Right!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-has-a-homegrown-terrorist-problem–and-its-coming-from-the-right/2017/05/26/10d88bba-4197-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html

King writes:

“As the Anti-Defamation League noted in a new report, “A Dark & Constant Rage: 25 Years of Right-Wing Terrorism in the United States,” the United States has experienced a long string of terrorist incidents, with many connected not to Islamist terrorists but to right-wing extremists.

The findings were startling.

The ADL analyzed 150 terrorist acts in the United States that were committed, attempted or plotted by right-wing extremists. “More than 800 people were killed or injured in these attacks,” the ADL said, noting that the attacks “surged during the mid-to-late 1990s and again starting in 2009” — the beginning of Barack Obama’s presidency.

The also looked at other acts of violence and determined that “from 2007 to 2016, a range of domestic extremists of all kinds were responsible for the deaths of at least 372 people across the country. Seventy-four percent of these murders came at the hands of right-wing extremists such as white supremacists, sovereign citizens and militia adherents.”

And, reported the ADL, the hate and terror mongers choose their marks carefully: Jews, Muslims and — the most common racial target — African Americans.

According to The Post, a study by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino showed an overall increase of 13 percent in hate crimes reported, with 1,812 incidents reported in 2016 — the year of our nasty, hate-filled presidential race.
So how about pivoting from Saudi Arabia to turn White House attention to our own homegrown terrorist problem? After all, right-wing extremism may be the predicate that led a hate-filled white student to pick up a knife in the middle of spring commencement celebrations and stab an innocent and promising young man of color to death.

Surely that is worth a presidential thought or two.

Manchester has prompted elevation of Britain’s threat level to its highest.

In light of Richard Collins’s murder, the discovery of a noose in a fraternity house this month, as well as white supremacist fliers posted on campus earlier this year, where is the University of Maryland’s threat level? How about America’s?

After all, haters seem emboldened as never before.”

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

Read King’s entire op-ed at the link.

Food for thought, particularly in our gun-fueled society.

PWS

05-29-17

Without Fanfare, DOS Boosts Refugee Ceiling!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/us/politics/united-states-refugees-trump.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-0&action=click&contentCollection=Politics®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article

The NYT reports:
“WASHINGTON — Despite repeated efforts by President Trump to curtail refugee resettlements, the State Department this week quietly lifted the department’s restriction on the number of refugees allowed to enter the United States.

The result could be a near doubling of refugees entering the country, from about 830 people a week in the first three weeks of this month to well over 1,500 people per week by next month, according to refugee advocates. Tens of thousands of refugees are waiting to come to the United States.

The State Department’s decision was conveyed in an email on Thursday to the private agencies in countries around the world that help refugees manage the nearly two-year application process needed to enter the United States.

In her email, Jennifer L. Smith, a department official, wrote that the refugee groups could begin bringing people to the United States “unconstrained by the weekly quotas that were in place.”

Although it came the same day as an appeals court ruling that rejected government efforts to limit travel to the United States from six predominantly Muslim nations, the move by the State Department had nothing to do with the court ruling.

The department’s quotas on refugee resettlement were largely the result of budget constraints imposed by Congress in a temporary spending measure passed last fall. But when Congress passed a spending bill this month that funded the government for the rest of the fiscal year, the law did not include any restrictions on refugee admissions.

A State Department spokeswoman, speaking on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, said the department had consulted the Department of Justice about its refugee quotas and had decided to adjust them.”

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

Strange, but good news is good news!

PWS

05-26-17

HISTORY: Paul Fanlund In Madison Cap Times: How We Got From Nixon To Trump!

http://host.madison.com/ct/opinion/column/paul_fanlund/paul-fanlund-so-why-can-t-america-just-be-good/article_e8734a95-ed8b-5544-a32f-f5ee791264a3.html#tncms-source=behavioral

Fanlund writes in an op-ed:

“When Roger Ailes died, essays about him ranged from adoring to vilifying. As creator of Fox News, he was perhaps the nation’s most influential political messenger — or propagandist — of the past 50 years.

One aspect of any honest obituary, of course, was his misogyny. Ailes was finally forced out at Fox in 2016 after years of sexual harassing women employees. His 17-year-old son threatened his father’s accusers at the funeral, warning mourners that he wanted “all the people who betrayed my father to know that I’m coming after them, and hell is coming with me.”

But what I found most interesting in immersing myself in analyses of Ailes’ life was how little his craft had to do with liberal versus conservative ideology.

Rather, Ailes was perhaps the master of the dark art of inventing and relentlessly reinforcing hateful caricatures of political opponents — in his case, people of color, bureaucrats, university professors and, of course, the media.

His brilliant execution of that art culminated in Donald Trump.

Ailes, as is widely known, learned from Richard Nixon, for whom he worked as a young television consultant. Nixon launched his political career much earlier by championing “forgotten Americans,” lunch-pail-toting working men whose fortunes, in Nixon’s telling, were stymied by taxes and regulations imposed upon them by far-away elites.

The rest, as they say, is history. Nixon appealed to his “silent majority” to stand against anti-war and civil rights protesters. Democrats opened the floodgates to Republican demagoguery by advancing civil rights. The GOP today has broadened its pool of villains to include Latino and Muslim immigrants.

The 1980s brought jolly Ronald Reagan with his fantastical stories about welfare queens, followed by George H.W. Bush’s law and order and patriotism themes, and so on.

“Individual issues would come and go — acid, amnesty and abortion in 1972, and immigration, political correctness and transgender bathrooms in 2016 — but the attacks on liberals as elite, out of touch and protective of the ‘wrong people’ came from the same playbook,” wrote David Greenberg, a Rutgers professor of history and journalism, in a New York Times op-ed on Ailes.

OK, but why does it always work?

Why are so many — especially older, white, middle-class people — so susceptible to this toxic narrative when it is clear that the trickle-down GOP policies that follow do them so little good?

Maybe, I theorize, it has something to do with how we were all taught.

I’ve talked with many friends about the flag-waving jingoism of our pre-college education, in which our nation was portrayed as perfect, our leaders without fault.

My formal education began when Dwight Eisenhower was president, an era of unfettered national pride. We were a paragon of liberty and justice and never fought in unjust wars. It was as if someone decided that American children could not process the slightest balance or shade of gray.

In this frame, Andrew Jackson was, as Trump likes to say, a glorious “swashbuckler” like himself, not a president who drove Native Americans from their homes, killing thousands in the process. Nor were we ever taught that Jackson, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other forefathers owned slaves.

It seems the goal was always to convey “American exceptionalism,” or, more bluntly, reinforce a cultish sense of American superiority.”

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

Fanlund’s entire op-ed, at the above link, is well worth a read!

Lots of folks don’t like it when we put US history in perspective. For example, during the “glory days” of my childhood in the 1950’s millions of African Americans throughout the nation, and particularly in the South, were deprived of the basic rights of US citizenship. This was notwithstanding the clear dictates of the 14th Amendment, which had been added nearly a century earlier.

The US and many state governments merely decided not to enforce the law of the land. So much for all of the “rule of law” and “nation of laws” malarkey purveyed by right wingers today.

Indeed, many southern states enacted discriminatory laws that were directly contrary to the 14th Amendment. And, amazingly, for the majority of the 19th and 20th Centuries, courts of law at all levels were complicit in enforcing these unconstitutional laws and ignoring the14th Amendment!

PWS

05-26-17

THE HUMAN TOLL OF IMMIGRATION DETENTION: Mother Attempts Suicide After 6 Months In Texas “Family Detention Centers!”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mother-family-detention-suicide-attempt_us_59271267e4b062f96a34da5c?45b

Roque Planas reports in HuffPost:

“AUSTIN, Texas ― A woman locked at a family immigrant detention center tried to take her own life this month in what legal advocates described as a desperate effort to free her two kids.

Samira Hakimi, an Afghan national, has spent the last six months detained with her two young children despite a federal ruling that dictates they should have been released within three weeks. The case reinforces the longstanding concerns of immigrant rights groups that say asylum-seeking families should not be forced into prolonged detention.

“They told us you will only be a couple of days in there,” Hakimi told HuffPost. “I never thought that I would be detained here for such a long time. That I’m detained here because I’m from Afghanistan and that’s all. But I’m human.”

In Afghanistan, the Hakimi family had established a high school and multi-branch private university that used Western curricula, taught in both English and Dari and offered more than half its scholarships to women, according to lawyers representing Hakimi and her husband.

Since 2013, the Taliban repeatedly threatened the family for its work. To avoid the danger of commuting, the family moved onto the university campus and contracted private security guards that year.

It wasn’t enough for them to feel safe. “We could not go outside,” Hakimi said. “My children could not go to school. We thought they might be kidnapped. This was always in our minds…. They have their lives to live. They should live happy and free from every small thing, going to school and enjoying their lives.”

Last year, they fled Afghanistan with Hakimi’s brother-in-law and his pregnant wife, who were facing similar threats.

In December, the two families crossed into the United States from Mexico through a legal port of entry, where they all asked for asylum. The men were separated and sent to all-male immigrant detention centers, where they remain. Hakimi and her kids, as well as her sister-in-law and her newborn baby, were sent to the South Texas Family Detention Center in the town of Dilley and later transferred to the Karnes County Residential Center outside San Antonio.

Hakimi passed her “credible fear” interview ― the first step toward applying for asylum. It’s common practice for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to free people who pass these interviews so they can pursue their cases in immigration court, but ICE declined to release her and her children. The agency did not respond to a request for comment explaining why it refuses to release them. Hakimi’s sister-in-law is also still at Karnes with her 10-month-old baby.
DREW ANTHONY SMITH VIA GETTY IMAGES
The Karnes County Residential Center houses mothers who enter the United States with their children. Most of them seek asylum or other forms of humanitarian exemption from deportation.
Hakimi told HuffPost she had suffered from bouts of clinical depression before being detained. Advocates with RAICES, a nonprofit that provides legal services to detained families, say she had attempted suicide in the past and told medical workers at Karnes that her condition had worsened as her case appeared to stall. Neither medicine nor therapy would alleviate the problem, she argued. Her depression stemmed from remaining locked up in the detention center with her children.

As the months dragged on, she lost hope. “Here, no one talks to us,” Hakimi said. “They don’t give us the reason why I’m detained in here. I never thought that I would be detained here for such a long time.”

Her son came to her one day asking her why other families were allowed to leave but not them. “That was really triggering her,” Amy Fisher, RAICES’s policy director, told HuffPost. “She was crying and really depressed. And she went into this thought process, when she was really low, thinking, ‘Well, if I’m no longer here, maybe my children can be free.’” Kids cannot be held without their parents or guardians in family detention.

After she made an effort to take her own life, she woke up in the medical unit of the detention center and was taken to a nearby hospital, where two members of the detention center staff sat with her continuously.

“I told them, ‘I’m just crying for my children, please,’” she said in a recording with one of her legal providers. “I’m not sick. But they gave me medicine. And they told me take this every four hours, but I didn’t take it anymore.”

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

Read the full story at the link.

Don’t think that a few (or even many) attempted suicides or preventable deaths in immigration detention are going to change the Administration’s plans to establish an “American Gulag.” After all, what better “deterrent” than death to put a dent in migration.

No, the only thing that might get in the way is if Democrats start winning elections and wielding some political power in Washington. (Not that Democrats have been particularly enlightened when it comes to immigration detention, either. After all, Dilley, Karnes, Berks County, and other “family residential prisons” were Obama initiatives. But, that’s another story.)

But, as I just pointed out in an earlier blog, Dems appear lost in the political wilderness with no path out.

PWS

05-26-16

Noah Feldman In Bloomberg View: 4th Circuit’s Stunning Rebuke Of Trump — Court Basically Calls Prez A Liar!

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-25/court-essentially-says-trump-lied-about-travel-ban

Feldman writes:

“In a remarkable 10-to-3 decision, a federal appeals court on Thursday affirmed the freeze on the second iteration of President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration from six majority Muslim countries. The court said that national security “is not the true reason” for the order, despite Trump’s insistence to the contrary. It’s extraordinary for a federal court to tell the president directly that he’s lying; I certainly can’t think of any other examples in my lifetime.

The decision and the breakdown of the judges voting against the ban — which includes Republican appointees — presages defeat for the executive order in the U.S. Supreme Court, should the Trump administration decide to seek review there. Faced with this degree of repudiation from the federal judiciary, Trump would be well advised not to go to the Supreme Court at all.

The decision for the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals was written by Chief Judge Roger Gregory, who has the distinction of having been appointed to the court first by Bill Clinton, in a recess appointment that would have expired, and then by George W. Bush — a reminder of bipartisanship in the judicial nomination process that seems almost inconceivable today.

Gregory’s opinion had three basic parts, of which the middle one was the most important.

First, Gregory found that the plaintiffs in the case had standing to challenge the executive order as a violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause. He pointed out that under the “endorsement test” first offered by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the establishment clause is violated when the government sends a message to some people that they are insiders, favored members of the political community, or a message to others that they are outsiders, disfavored as citizens.

In O’Connor’s analysis, feelings count. As the 4th Circuit put it in the passage quoted by Gregory, “feelings of marginalization and exclusion are cognizable forms of injury” under the endorsement test. Thus, Muslim plaintiffs who alleged that they experienced a sense of exclusion and harm have the constitutional right to bring a lawsuit. 1

Although the 4th Circuit dissenters objected plausibly that this reliance on emotional experience would allow anyone “who develops negative feelings” to bring an establishment clause case, their objection isn’t really to Gregory’s reasoning, but to the endorsement test itself. And that’s part of constitutional doctrine.

That led Gregory to the heart of his opinion — and the condemnation of Trump as a liar. The strongest legal argument available to the Trump administration was based on a 1972 Supreme Court case called Kleindienst v. Mandel.

In the Mandel case, immigration authorities denied a visa to a Belgian Marxist who had been invited to give lectures in the U.S. The professors who invited him argued that his exclusion violated the freedom of speech.

The Supreme Court denied the claim, stating that when the executive branch excludes a noncitizen from the country “on the basis of a facially legitimate and bona fide reason,” the courts would not “look behind the exercise of that discretion.” That holding looked pretty good for the Trump executive order, which on its face asserts a national security interest in denying visas to people from the six majority Muslim countries.

Here’s where the opinion got personal. Gregory acknowledged that the executive order was “facially legitimate.” But, he said, “bona fide” literally means “in good faith.”

And here, he reasoned, the plaintiffs had provided “ample evidence that national security is not the true reason” for the order. That evidence, the court said, came mostly from Trump himself, in the form of his “numerous campaign statements expressing animus towards the Islamic faith.”

This was really the punchline of the opinion: Trump’s own statements show that he lied when he said the purpose of the executive order was national security. Once that conclusion was on the table, Gregory easily went on to show that such animus violated the establishment clause by sending a message to Muslims that they are outsiders in the political community.

One other George W. Bush nominee, Judge Allyson Duncan, joined the opinion. The three dissents came from Judge Paul Niemeyer, appointed by George H.W. Bush, and two court’s two other George W. Bush nominees. Thus, the breakdown was mostly partisan.

As a result, it’s plausible that Trump might get a few votes for the executive order at the Supreme Court. But he isn’t going to win. Justice Anthony Kennedy will be moved by the argument that the executive order was adopted in bad faith. And even conservative Justice Samuel Alito is likely to be unsympathetic, given his strong record as a defender of religious liberty.
Trump’s lawyers should be telling him right now that it would be a mistake for him to seek Supreme Court review. Not only is he likely to lose, he is likely to lose in a way that undermines his legitimacy and credibility. But it’s doubtful whether he will listen. If Trump had been listening to his lawyers, he wouldn’t be in the situation he’s in now, where the judiciary is telling him to his face that he has bad faith.”

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

I’m not even sure the Supremes will take this case.

First, it’s in an odd procedural posture of a preliminary injunction. No trial has ever been held.

Second, the “urgency” — which was fake anyway — clearly doesn’t exist.

Third, there is no Circuit split that needs to be resolved.

On the other hand, it is an interesting constitutional/separation of powers issue, and the Court is now back to “full strength.”

Trump and Sessions would be well advised at this point to heed the advice of the “Supreme Court pros” in the Solicitor General’s Office. But, based on performance to date, that’s unlikely to happen.

PWS

05-25-17

AMERICA’S WORST PUBLIC SERVANT: Read Patrick S. Tomlinson’s NYT Op-Ed: “I’m From Milwaukee And I Oughtta Know, Sheriff David Clarke Has Gotta Go” (Screw Up DHS Like He Did Milwaukee County)!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/opinion/take-it-from-milwaukee-beware-of-sheriff-david-clarke.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20170524&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=8&nlid=79213886&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0

Tomlinson writes:

“MILWAUKEE — When David A. Clarke Jr., the sheriff of Milwaukee County, announced last week that he’d been appointed to a senior position at the Homeland Security Department, Milwaukee residents like me felt two things: relief that we might finally rid ourselves of his disastrous leadership, and deep concern about what his reported new role will mean for the rest of the country.

Sheriff Clarke (whose appointment the Trump administration has not confirmed) has attracted national attention on several occasions over the past year. In July, he drew scrutiny when, writing for The Hill, he suggested there was a “civil war” between law enforcement officers and members of the Black Lives Matter movement. Last week, CNN reported that he had plagiarized portions of his 2013 master’s thesis from several sources, including the American Civil Liberties Union and President George W. Bush’s book, “Decision Points.” (Sheriff Clarke has denied this accusation, and called the CNN journalist who wrote the report a “sleaze bag.”) And with his image accompanying articles that have circulated online, Sheriff Clarke’s penchant for festooning his uniform with an abundance of pins and ribbons has drawn the ire of veterans and inspired comparisons to the over-adorned uniforms beloved by military dictators.

Locals have been aghast at his conduct for years, and our criticism goes far deeper than his outrageous statements, his bizarre fashion choices and even his academic dishonesty. Residents of this county have witnessed a series of embarrassing incidents and, much worse, human tragedy on Sheriff Clarke’s watch.

Many have seen the 2015 tweet in which he went as far as to say that the Black Lives Matter movement would “join forces with ISIS.” Less well known is the fact that a police union, on behalf of two deputies, successfully sued him in 2007 for religious proselytizing. A district court in Milwaukee found his actions unconstitutional, which a federal appeals panel upheld in 2009. Apparently, Sheriff Clarke thought it was appropriate to force his deputy sheriffs to listen to a Christian-themed presentation, without regard for the separation of church and state.

There’s more. Sheriff Clarke has exhibited petty vindictiveness in response to those who give him even the mildest rebuke. He’s been accused of harassment by Dan Black, a Riverwest resident who said he was detained and questioned by deputies after an interaction with the sheriff on an airplane in January. Mr. Black’s offense? Shaking his head as he walked by Sheriff Clarke, in his first-class seat, wearing Dallas Cowboys gear on the day the team faced Wisconsin’s Green Bay Packers in the playoffs.

Newsletter Sign UpContinue reading the main story
Sign Up for the Opinion Today Newsletter
Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, the Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world.

More familiar to the national audience and more disturbing, especially to residents of Milwaukee, one of the most racially segregated cities in the country, is the story of Terrill Thomas, a 38-year-old inmate with bipolar disorder who died in 2016 while awaiting trial in solitary confinement in a jail Sheriff Clarke oversees. Mr. Thomas had gone seven days without water.

But what most Americans outside the Milwaukee metro area may not know is that Mr. Thomas’s death hasn’t been the only suspicious death during Sheriff Clarke’s tenure. Several people have died at a county jail since Sheriff Clarke took office in 2002, including a newborn baby who perished after her mother, Melissa Hall, gave birth on her cell floor. According to a federal lawsuit, Ms. Hall was shackled as she gave birth.

Perhaps the most bizarrely unhinged moment in Sheriff Clarke’s sordid career in Milwaukee came in March when he used a Facebook post to personally attack the city’s mayor, Tom Barrett. After Mr. Barrett criticized Sheriff Clarke for neglecting his duties in favor of Fox News appearances and book promotions, Sheriff Clarke became unhinged. Using the official page of the sheriff’s office, he mocked Mr. Barrett, saying, “The last time Tom Barrett showed up at a crime scene he got his ass kicked by a drunk, tire-iron-wielding man who beat him within inches of his life.” He was referring to a 2009 incident during which Mr. Barrett stepped between a deranged, tire-iron-wielding man threatening a grandmother and a 1-year-old child. Barrett was beaten and hospitalized after the assault, but the woman and child were saved from harm and the man taken into custody.

The timing couldn’t be better for him to step down from his post here. Milwaukee residents are fed up with our homegrown sideshow act. His job approval ratings have tanked in recent months. Were he to run in next year’s sheriff election, he would face an almost insurmountable primary fight for the Democratic spot.

The day we can finally rid ourselves of his malignant, sociopathic leadership can’t come soon enough. “Yippee, giddy up, and leave was my response,” said State Senator Lena Taylor of Sheriff Clarke’s possible appointment. But it’s little comfort because Sheriff Clarke’s power will only expand with his new role, which he has said will begin next month. As Representative Gwen Moore said of the sheriff in Mic, “I can think of few men more uniquely unqualified to liaise with local law enforcement at this juncture.”

The rest of the country should not have to suffer what Milwaukee residents have. David Clarke is not fit for public office. He is incompetent, dishonest, petty, vindictive and cruel. Take it from someone who has had a front-row seat to his antics: Do whatever you can to keep him out of public service, and public life, permanently.

Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) is a novelist, stand-up comic, and political commentator living in Milwaukee, Wis.”

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

“Incompetent, dishonest, petty, vindictive, and cruel.” Hmmm, sounds like a perfect fit for the Trump Administration! On the other hand, he was elected to the position three times by the voters of Milwaukee County. So, someone out there must like his style.

PWS

05-24-17

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts: