☠️🤮⚰️DUE PROCESS MOCKED: UNDUE POLITICAL INFLUENCE IN IMMIGRATION COURT LEADS TO IMPROPER DENIAL OF LIFE-SAVING PROTECTION TO KIDS! — “Political influence from the executive branch combined with local environmental pressures can affect how immigration judges rule. Most importantly, these influences can lead to some children not receiving asylum when they might otherwise be entitled to it.”

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

Unaccompanied immigrant minors wait on July 2, 2019 in Los Ebanos, Texas to be transported to a U.S. Border Patrol processing center after entering the U.S. to seek political asylum. John Moore/Getty Images

US immigration judges considering asylum for unaccompanied minors are ‘significantly influenced’ by politics

July 13, 2021 8.30am EDT

Authors

Daniel Braaten Associate professor of Political Science, Texas Lutheran University

Claire Nolasco Braaten Associate Professor, Criminology, Texas A&M-San Antonio

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The news over the past months has been saturated with stories about another “surge” of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border of the U.S.

In March 2021, the number of unaccompanied minors apprehended in the U.S. reached an all-time monthly high of 18,890. This surpassed the previous monthly high of 11,681 in May 2019.

One question not addressed in many of these stories is: How many of these children actually receive asylum and are allowed to stay in the country?

The people who make those decisions are immigration judges. Their decisions are supposed to be based on whether these children have fears of being persecuted in their home countries and whether these fears are realistic.

But our research examining the period from early October 2013 until the end of September 2017 shows that these judges were influenced by factors outside of the case. Political factors such as ideology, political party of the president who appointed them and who was president at the time they decided the case significantly influenced whether these children were allowed to stay in the country.

Aside from political factors, immigration judges are also influenced by local contexts, such as unemployment levels, the number of uninsured children and size of Latino population in the places where they work.

Unaccompanied minors and asylum

Under U.S. law, an unaccompanied minor is a child under 18 years old who does not have lawful immigration status and no parent or legal guardian in the country who can provide care or custody.

Unaccompanied minors cannot be refused entry or removed from the country without legal process because of the 1993 Supreme Court case Reno v. Flores. In 2008, new legislation allowed asylum officers to grant these children asylum at the U.S. border. If the asylum officer denies asylum to the minor, the minor may request asylum before an immigration judge.

Because immigration judges are not appointed under Article III of the Constitution, as federal judges are, they have less independence than those federal judges. According to current Justice Department rules, immigration judges are appointed by the attorney general and they act as his or her delegates.

Political pressure

In order to learn what factors affect the grant of relief to unaccompanied minors, we obtained data on their asylum applications from Oct. 2, 2013 to Sept. 29, 2017, covering over 10,000 cases from 280 different judges in 46 counties and 27 states.

Only 327 of the unaccompanied minors actually received asylum; 2,867 were deported and 455 chose to voluntarily leave.

An additional 6,645 children were allowed to stay in the country. Of those, 3,589 had their case administratively closed, which allows judges to suspend the case indefinitely without hearing and deciding on it. The remaining 3,056 had their case terminated, which means that the case against the child was dismissed.

The fate of unaccompanied minors entering the US

A review of about 10,000 asylum applications for unaccompanied minors from October 2, 2013 to September 29, 2017 found the majority of the minors were allowed to stay (in green), most because a judge either dismissed or indefinitely suspended the case against them. Only 327 were granted asylum.

Bar charts grouped to show significantly more unaccompanied minors were allowed to stay.

2,000 cases

2,867

455

3,589

3,056

327

Removed

Voluntarily Departed

Administrative Closure

Case dismissed

Received asylum

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

We ran a statistical analysis of political factors that may influence immigration judges’ decision: judicial ideology, political party of the appointing president and whether the decision was made before or during the Trump administration.

Following previous research on immigration judge’s ideology, we determined a judge’s ideology by considering their prior work experiences. Based on this research, we determined that some experiences, such as working for immigration agencies, are associated with more conservative views on immigration and asylum issues.

Conversely, work experiences in an immigration or non-immigration-related nonprofit or academia are associated with more liberal views. Our analysis showed that immigration judges with more liberal judicial ideology were more likely to rule in favor of granting asylum to these children.

Judges’ ideology can influence asylum decisions

Immigration judges who are more liberal tended to allow unaccompanied children to stay in the U.S. more often, compared to more conservative judges. Ideology was determined from each judge’s prior work and ranges from 1-11, most conservative to most liberal.

Area chart showing how children allowed to stay rose with more liberal judges.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

0

50

100%

Likelihood unaccompanied minor is allowed to stay

Data from 2013-2017

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

We also found that judges who were appointed by a Democratic attorney general were more likely to rule in favor of the minors.

Political party of attorney general who appointed the judge

Immigration judges appointed by Democrats were more likely to allow unaccompanied minors seeking asylum to stay in the U.S. than those appointed by Republicans.

Bar charts showing judges appointed by Democrats were more like to allow unaccompanied children to stay in the U.S., but GOP-appointed numbers were also above 62%.

Republican

62.9%

Democratic

69.5%

Data from 2013-2017

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

Finally, statistical analysis showed that immigration judges were less likely to grant relief during the eight months of the Trump administration compared to the last three years of the Obama administration.

President at the time the case was decided

Immigration judges were more likely to allow unaccompanied minors seeking asylum to stay in the U.S. during the Obama administration than during the Trump administration.

Trump

54%

Obama

67.7%

Data from 2013-2017

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

Why did politics and judges’ ideology play into their decisions?

We believe it’s because immigration judges are subject to political pressure from the president, indirectly, because they are appointed by the attorney general, who is also a presidential appointee and carries out the president’s policies and wishes.

Local environment

Pressure from the executive branch was not the only factor we concluded had influenced whether these children got to stay in the U.S. or were turned away. Aside from political and ideological values, judges may also have been influenced by their local contexts.

For example, we found that immigration judges in places with more Latinos were more likely to let these children stay. Conversely, immigration judges in states with lots of poor children were less likely to let these children stay than judges in states with relatively fewer poor kids.

Latino population in the county

In counties with larger Latino populations, judges were more likely to allow unaccompanied minors seeking asylum to stay in the U.S. The horizontal axis shows the percentage of the county’s population that is Latino.

20% Latino

40

60

80

0

20

40

60

80

100% likelihood unaccompanied minor is allowed to stay

Data from 2013-2017

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

Asylum decisions can be life-or-death matters. Although immigration judges consider the requirements of asylum law, they are also influenced by nonlegal factors when making decisions.

Political influence from the executive branch combined with local environmental pressures can affect how immigration judges rule. Most importantly, these influences can lead to some children not receiving asylum when they might otherwise be entitled to it.

[The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. Sign up for Politics Weekly.]

Immigration

Asylum

US Supreme Court

Borders

Donald Trump

Obama administration

Unaccompanied minors

Trump administration

Political influence

President Barack Obama

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Republished under Creative Commons license.

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

Go to this link for the original article with pictures and graphs: https://theconversation.com/us-immigration-judges-considering-asylum-for-unaccompanied-minors-are-significantly-influenced-by-politics-160071

This article confirms two things I have said over and over:

Garland’s failure, to date, to replace the BIA with better qualified progressive judges with expertise gained by representing asylum seekers; plus
His “giveaway” of 17 critical Immigration Judge positions to those selected by “Billy the Bigot” Barr under badly flawed procedures;

will unquestionably cost some children and other refugees their lives. Immigration Judge positions are life or death — we need an Attorney General who treats them that way!

Immigration Judge appointments, particularly those at the appellate (BIA level), need to be treated by Democratic Administrations with the same care, seriousness, and strategy as Article III judicial appointments, perhaps more! Few Article III Judges, including the Supremes, affect more lives and have a bigger impact on America’s future than Immigration Judges.

The last two GOP Administrations “got” the negative power for destruction and dehumanization inherent in a “captive” court system that actively pursues misguided nativist policies and receives only sporadic supervision and attention from the Article IIIs. By contrast, the Obama Administration failed to “mine EOIR’s potential” for progressive due process advancements and building a corps of dynamic, courageous progressive judges.

So far, while perhaps exceeding the passively inept approach of the Obama Administration, the Biden Administration has also failed to achieve the radical, yet logical and obvious, reforms and decisive personnel actions necessary to undo the damage caused by the White Nationalist xenophobia of the Trump kakistocracy.

The Immigration Courts have the potential to become “model progressive courts” that could lead the way to better practices and more constitutionally and legally sound jurisprudence throughout the Federal Judiciary. Whether the Biden Administration grasps and acts boldly on that potential, or squanders it as past Democratic Administrations have done, remains to be seen.

But, that question is far from “academic.” The survival of our democratic republic is likely to depend to a great extent on whether the Biden Administration can bring in the progressive experts who finally will “get EOIR right!”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-16-21

😎👍YES! IN A HUGE WIN FOR DUE PROCESS, EFFICIENCY, JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE, & SANE GOVERNMENT, AG GARLAND OVERRULES SESSIONS’S IDIOTIC MATTER OF CASTRO-TUM PRECEDENT & RESTORES IJs’ AUTHORITY TO ADMINISTRATIVELY CLOSE CASES — Matter of Cruz-Valdez, 28 I&N Dec. 326 (A.G. 2021)

Judge Merrick Garland — Atorney General Merrick B. Garland
Official White House Photo
Public Realm

The Attorney General has issued a decision in Matter of Cruz-Valdez, 28 I&N Dec. 326 (A.G. 2021).

(1) Matter of Castro‑Tum, 27 I&N Dec. 271 (A.G. 2018), is overruled in its entirety.

(2) While rulemaking proceeds and except when a court of appeals has held otherwise, immigration judges and the Board should apply the standard for administrative closure set out in Matter of Avetisyan, 25 I&N Dec. 688 (BIA 2012), and Matter of W‑Y‑U‑, 27 I&N Dec. 17 (BIA 2017).

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

Sessions’s Castro-Tum abomination had to be one of the stupidest and most maliciously incompetent aspects of his White Nationalist, anti-asylum, anti-due-process agenda! Not surprisingly, that decision and the illegal attempt to convert it into a regulation have mostly been losers in the Article III Courts.

Hats 🎩 off to Judge Garland for doing the right thing (even if it did take longer than some of us thought it should)! This also ties in perfectly with the recent common sense restoration of enforcement priorities and prosecutorial discretion at ICE by OPLA head John Trasvina! https://immigrationcourtside.com/category/department-of-homeland-security/immigration-customs-enforcement-ice/office-of-principal-legal-adviser-opla/john-d-trasvina/

After four years of virtually unrelenting illegality, mismanagement, and outright idiocy at DHS and DOJ, that has caused “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and generated ever-mushrooming court backlogs, finally some much-needed and long overdue teamwork and reasonability in restoring to Immigration Judges and the parties the necessary tools for rational, cooperative docket management. Presumably, the hundreds of thousands of cases “waiting in the wings” to be “re-docketed” pursuant to “Sessions’s folly” can now remain administratively closed or be “re-closed” and removed from the EOIR docket!

Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

Along those same lines, “Sir Jeffrey” Chase reports some more good news:

More Good News!

Ms. A-B- (i.e. the respondent in Matter of A-B-) was granted asylum yesterday.The BIA granted pursuant to a joint motion from DHS and respondent’s counsel to grant asylum.

It took far too long, but justice prevailed.

Best, Jeff

That’s the type of cooperative action among the parties and EOIR that, if repeated on a larger scale, could restore functionality and some semblance of justice to our broken Immigration Courts!

Also, many congrats to my friend Karen Musalo and her team at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at Hastings Law for their outstanding, persistent, and ultimately successful defense of Ms. A-B- against Sessions’s misogynistic “war on asylum seekers of color.”

It’s a telling commentary that finally getting the law back to where it was in 2016, “pre-Sessions,” now seems like a major victory! Just think of what might have been accomplished if all the effort expended on combatting the Trump immigration kakistocracy’s illegality, nonsense, and wasteful gimmicks had instead been devoted to advancing and promoting due process and fundamental fairness for all persons in America!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-15-21

⚖️5TH CIRCUIT BELATEDLY “OUTS” IJ AGNELIS REESE (NOW RETIRED) FOR 99.5% ASYLUM DENIAL RECORD — “We find it likely that a ‘reasonable man, were he to know all the circumstances, would harbor doubts about the judge’s impartiality.’” Inexplicably Garland & Co. Let Other “Asylum Deniers Club” Members Continue to Wreak Havoc On Asylum Seekers, Their Lawyers, & The Entire U.S. Justice System!🤮

“Miller Lite” – Garland’s Vision of “Justice @ Justice” for Communities of Color — As asylum seekers and their fearless advocates suffer and the Immigration “Courts” disintegrate, there appears to be no end to “Garland’s Miller-Lite Happy Hour” @ DOJ!

Dan Kowalski Reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/rare-ca5-stay-grant-singh-v-garland#

Rare CA5 Stay Grant: Singh v. Garland

Singh v. Garland

“Daljinder Singh applied for asylum and protection under the Convention Against Torture, claiming that he feared persecution in India based on his membership in the Akali Dal Amritsar (“Mann Party”), a Sikh-dominated political party. The presiding immigration judge (“IJ”) denied his application, finding Singh not credible. The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) dismissed Singh’s appeal. Singh filed a petition for review and moved for a stay of removal. We granted Singh an emergency stay of removal pending further order. We now grant Singh a stay pending review of his petition. … Singh raises two principal arguments in his petition for review. First, he contends that the IJ’s near total denial rate for asylum applications reflected a bias and violated Singh’s due process rights. Second, he challenges the BIA’s conclusion that the IJ adhered to the procedural safeguards the BIA adopted in Matter of R-K-K-, applicable when an IJ relies on inter-proceeding similarities for an adverse credibility determination. We conclude that Singh has made the requisite showing that he is likely to succeed on the merits of both claims. … The IJ here [Agnelis Reese] denied relief to asylum seekers in 203 of the 204 cases she presided over from 2014 to 2019, a denial rate of 99.5%. … … Given the accounts of multiple witnesses to the attacks on Singh, medical records, images of the attacks on his father, and witness testimony regarding the BJP’s continued pursuit of Singh, Singh has made the requisite showing that the totality of the evidence does not support the IJ’s credibility determination. The appearance of bias painted by the denial of 203 of 204 asylum applications and the IJ’s adverse-credibility determination, informed by her noncompliance with the procedural safeguards of Matter of R-K-K-, are here interlaced. We do not suggest that a high percentage of denials is sufficient to avoid an IJ’s otherwise valid credibility determinations. Indeed, patterns in applicants’ presentations are likely and may necessarily result in a higher denial rate if the shared basis for relief is inadequate. But here, the incredibly high denial rate, when coupled with the IJ’s noncompliance with Matter of R-K-K-, presents a substantial likelihood that Singh will be entitled to relief upon full consideration by a merits panel. … Accordingly, we GRANT Singh’s motion for a stay pending review of his petition.”

[Hats way off to Peter Rogers!]

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

So, if the 5th Circuit and a “reasonable man” could figure out this isn’t “justice,” by any stretch of the imagination, why on earth 1) can’t Garland do likewise, and 2) does he continue to have his lawyers defend this disgraceful nonsense and waste of taxpayer money? Reese has previously been “featured” in Courtside for her “Kafkaesque” approach to “justice” for asylum seekers. Several years ago, I spoke at a Louisiana State Bar CLE event where attorney after attorney shared their “horror stories” about Reese. Yet, she managed to last for more than two decades over four different Administrations, two Democratic and two Republican.

Thankfully for American justice, Judge Reese retired in 2020, after more than two decades of abusing asylum seekers and disgracing the Immigration Courts! But, she was by no means the only unqualified Immigration Judge who helped create disgraceful and illegal “Asylum Free Zones” in Immigration Courtrooms throughout America.

A number of members of the “Asylum Denial Club” remain on the bench @ EOIR. Outrageously, some of them were even “rewarded” with appointments to the BIA by the previous Administration!

Rather than swiftly moving to replace the BiA and then commencing a thorough, long overdue “housecleaning” of unqualified judges and managers at EOIR, Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke have dawdled as asylum seekers continue to be abused, mistreated, denied due process, and justice mocked at EOIR. A civil rights/racial injustice/due process crisis of gargantuan proportions is going on right under their noses, and they have done very little to acknowledge or address it!

Not to mention that under Garland’s lackadaisical leadership the Immigration Courts continue to build unnecessary backlog at “Trumpian” rates. It’s not like experts haven’t brought the grotesque injustices and defects of EOIR to the attention of the Biden Administration and Garland!

One might ask just what Garland and his top lieutenants are doing to earn their pay? The answer is “not much” to date from a progressive standpoint!

Experts and advocates should be “raising hell” with the Biden Administration about the deficient due process and racial justice leadership at the DOJ! American justice deserves better! Much better!

And, the other Circuit Courts (particularly the 11th Circuit) that have looked the other way at the biased decision-making and other unconstitutional travesties of justice going on in Immigration Court on a regular basis don’t look so good either!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-14-21

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮CRUELTY, UNCONSTITUTIONALITY, COVER-UPS, UNACCOUNTABILITY MARKED TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION KAKISTOCRACY — Victims Suffer, “Perps” Walk Free!

Sessions in a cage — Jeff Sessions’ Cage by J.D. Crowe, Alabama Media Group/AL.com
Republished under license

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/09/trump-separated-families-yuma-2017/

Kevin Sieff reports @ WashPost:

. . . .

Some of the parents separated under the Yuma program still remain apart from their children four years later. Others are missing — lawyers and advocates have been unable to locate them since they were deported alone. The children separated in Yuma in 2017 were as young as 10 months old, according to government data.

The new information shows the difficulty of accounting for aspects of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, an ever-changing series of measures aimed at stopping migrants from crossing the border. Even the impact of family separation — perhaps the most scrutinized U.S. immigration policy of the last half-century — is not fully understood.

[They were one of the first families separated at the border. Two and a half years later, they’re still apart.]

Though the formal period in which the Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” policy was implemented spanned only April to June 2018, it’s now clear that separations began roughly a year before that along some stretches of the border. More than 5,600 families were separated between mid-2017 and mid-2018, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The Biden administration is investigating whether more previously unregistered separations might have occurred earlier in Trump’s term.

. . . .

The ACLU, which was given access to government data through a court order, has catalogued cases that hint at the policy’s global impact.

In August of 2017, for example, a father from Tajikistan was separated from his 4-year-old daughter. In October of 2017, a mother from Romania was separated from her 6-year-old son. In April of 2018, three siblings from Nigeria — 12, 14 and 16 years old — were separated from their dad. In December 2017, a two year old boy from Brazil was separated from his father.

“We know from the documents provided in the litigation that families separated by the Trump administration came not just from Central America but all over the world,” said Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney on the ACLU’s family separation litigation. “Which will make the process of putting this all back together that much more difficult.”

Maria Sachetti and Nick Miroff contributed to this report.

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

Disturbingly, the harm is irreparable in many cases, the Biden Administration has continued the illegal suspension of asylum laws at the border while also failing to effectively address the continuing unconstitutional mess in Garland’s dysfunctional Immigration “Courts” that aren’t courts at all!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-12-21

⚖️MATTER OF A-B- REMAND: Many More To Follow! — But, Without Progressive Reforms By Garland, Due Process, Fundamental Fairness, & Best Practices Will Remain Elusive!

Dan Kowalski reports on LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/unpub-ca6-on-honduras-social-group#

Daniel M. Kowalski

7 Jul 2021

social group

Honduras

matter of a-b-

asylum

Unpub. CA6 on Honduras, Social Group: u

Corea Escoto v. Garland (unpub.)

“Given the BIA’s repeated reliance on A-B-, briefing on the effect of A-B-’s overruling is necessary. We remand to the BIA to reconsider Corea’s asylum claim in the first instance, this time under pre-A-B- caselaw.”

[Hats off to Sally M. Joyner!]

$pastedGraphic_1.png$

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

Garland has failed to :

Get rid of the “Miller Lite Denial Club @ EOIR;”
Bring in progressive immigration experts at the BIA and the Immigration Courts;
Generate long-overdue positive precedents on granting asylum to those persecuted by domestic violence and other forms of gender-based persecution.

Consequently, these remands (of many cases that should have been granted years ago) are likely to be yet another “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” disaster. The BIA was “all over the place” on A-R-C-G- domestic violence cases even prior to Session’s racist, misogynistic, intellectually dishonest atrocity in A-B-. Without a better qualified, courageous, expert BIA committed to due process and positive precedents on how to efficiently recognize and grant “gender-based” asylum cases, the backlog-building, due-process-denying, equal-justice-eroding deadly farce known as “refugee roulette” @ EOIR will continue!🤮☠️

Tell Garland you’ve had (more than) enough. Fix EOIR with real progressive judges and competent judicial (not bureaucratic) administrators! 🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-08-21

🤮🏴‍☠️👎🏽RACE-BASED CHILD ABUSE & SEXUAL ABUSE OF KIDS MUST STOP — Demand An End To Scofflaw Behavior By Our Government!

Crimes Against Humanity — Thomas Cizauskas Crimes against humanity
Creative Commons License — The Biden Administration promised to stop these crimes committed by our Government, but hasn’t.

https://www.newsweek.com/we-fled-honduras-fearing-our-lives-immigration-officers-abused-my-child-opinion-1605760p

Daniel Paz writes in Newsweek:

“Welcome to hell.”

Those were the words I heard from an immigration officer not long after I entered the United States near El Paso, Texas in May 2018. I thought I had just reached safety with Angie, my 7-year-old daughter. I was wrong.

Once we arrived at the border, immigration officers processed me and my daughter at a detention facility, and led us to a crowded cell packed with 50 to 60 other families. It smelled terrible—like urine—and everything was gray. We were so cold. They didn’t even offer us one of the cellophane blankets you see on TV. I had to take my shirt off to wrap it around Angie and keep her warm. I was shivering.

The journey to this point had been excruciatingly painful. Fearing for our lives, we had to make the decision to flee. I had a good life in Honduras. I was a businessman and I owned my own home. I knew it would be hard to leave everything I worked so hard to build behind. Starting a new life in a new country with a different culture wouldn’t be easy. But desperate circumstances called for desperate measures. Hope of reaching a safe place for my family kept me going.

At the detention center, many fathers began hearing rumors that immigration officials were going to take our children away from us. Take them where? Take my daughter? To another cell? A new facility? On the inside I was panicking, but I knew I needed to show strength for my daughter. I needed to be brave and prepare her if the rumors were true. You will contact your grandparents in Ohio, I told Angie.

In the cell, we practiced memorizing their phone numbers, repeating them over and over. To be extra safe, I then wrote the numbers with a ball-point pen on my daughter’s arm, her belly, her foot and on the inside of her jeans hoping she’d have the chance to make a phone call before immigration officials washed off the ink.

Then my nightmare happened. They came to take our children. I witnessed pain, agonizing cries and a deep sense of helplessness. Some of the immigration officers joked as they handcuffed the parents. Others expressed a cruelty I never would have expected. Rather than trying to ease our pain, they were somehow enjoying their power. As if they believed their actions were the right thing to do. I don’t know how anyone believes separating a child from a parent is right.

. . . .

While being transferred to a detention facility for children, an immigration officer sexually abused her. When she fought back, the officer threatened her, saying if she told anyone she would never see her parents again. Then Angie witnessed the same officer sexually abuse two girls who were even younger than her. Angie stayed quiet about the experience even months after we were reunited.

We were reunited after several weeks, though the separation felt eternal. The Angie the U.S. government returned to me is not the same girl they took out of my arms in that detention center. She cannot forget what happened to her. And she wants me to share what happened to her because she is worried the officer who abused her is still an immigration official. We do not know the officer’s name—let alone whether the officer is still working in government.

“What if that officer is still hurting other kids?” Angie asked me.

As a father I want to tell Angie not to worry. That is why I am asking President Joe Biden to act. Reuniting families and making sure they have immigration status in the U.S. is critical—but it is not enough. The government can make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of asylum seekers who are being turned away at the border right now. All asylum seekers should be allowed to seek protection and refuge in the U.S. without fear.

The government must also investigate every allegation of sexual abuse and mistreatment by immigration officers. Those officers must immediately be identified and removed from their positions so they cannot hurt anyone else. President Biden, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice together have the ability to ensure that families like mine can begin to heal.

It is hell to leave your home and risk everything so your child can be safe. It shouldn’t be hell once you have reached what you thought would be a safe haven.

After entering the United States to seek safety, Daniel Paz and his daughter were separated for several weeks. Paz and his family were reunited in 2018 and have since won asylum. He is a committed advocate for other families who have faced similar trauma.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

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

Who would have thought that nearly six months into the Biden Administration our Government would still be abusing asylum seekers and ignoring the Constitution, mocking the rule of law, and degrading humanity?

So, how is it that Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke intend to combat racism and unequal justice in America when they have failed to re-establish the rule of law for asylum seekers at the border and continue to run an unjust and grossly mismanaged “court system” @ EOIR filled with too many “Miller Lite” judges?

Tell the Biden Administration and Judge Garland that we need progressive reforms, now! EOIR would be a great starting place!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-06-21

🇺🇸🗽A JULY 4 SMORGASBORD OF PATRIOTIC MUSINGS ON THE STATE OF OUR 245-YEAR-OLD DEMOCRACY!

🗽Emigrating to the U.S.? Here are Some Helpful Hints

By Diane Harrison

Moving to the United States is an exciting transition. Sometimes people who are new to the U.S. may not understand some of the culture and perspectives of its citizens. For immigrants preparing to make the big move, there are some things to keep in mind that will help ease the transition. Immigrationcourtside.com shares a few in the guide below.

The U.S. is a Melting Pot

The U.S. values independence and freedom to live with a variety of liberties.This translates into a unique melting-pot culture of diversity.

1. Americans originate from all over the world; 44.8 million immigrants lived in the U.S. as of 2018.

2. The U.S. values religious freedoms and human rights above all else. A lot of families are interfaith, meaning one spouse may be of the Jewish faith while their partner is Buddhist or Christian. There are interfaith communities that support the spiritual needs of many religions under one roof as a way to unite people.

Our Politics Vary

One of the most interesting aspects of U.S. politics is the diversity of our parties, and all voters coming together to elect constituents through a fair electoral process.

3. There are three political parties in the U.S.; Republicans, Democrats and Independents. Each of these parties value democracy but have differing beliefs about how it is best accomplished.

4. Our political system relies on the democractic process of voting for elected officials. Qualified immigrants can apply for voting ability.

Getting and Sending Support

The U.S. offers programs to assist immigrants in need of assistance in everyday life. If an immigrant does not need assistance but wishes to send funds to loved ones back home, there are reliable ways to facilitate that need.

5. There are companies that offer funds transfers at reasonable rates. If there were family in India for example, immigrants could relax knowing that their funds were being sent safely.

6. U.S. citizens are charitable and enjoy sharing their blessings with others. During holiday seasons such as Hanukkah and the Christian holiday of Christmas, Americans are particularly generous, providing gifts, food, and assistance to people in need, including immigrant populations from around the world.

Immigrants Have Rights and Benefits

Those who have immigrated to the U.S. have rights and systems in place to support their needs, and these have been developed as a way to reduce poverty among immigrant populations.

7. Immigrants who are working on assimilation in the U.S. may find that our resources and benefits are helpful. You are not on your own, so reach out for support.

8. For legal representation, immigrants can reach out and access free or reduced-cost attorneys.

9. Immigrants own and operate 1 in 5 U.S. businesses. You can do it, too.

10. Register your business as an LLC with the state to help protect yourself from liability.

11. People who have made the move to the U.S. may wish to become residents and can follow these logical steps toward citizenship.

Moving to the United States is exciting and thrilling, but it can also be scary and overwhelming. However, knowing what to expect can help alleviate some of that stress.

******************************
5 ways to engage with immigrants this week! — From Immigrant Food:

https://mailchi.mp/4f1861b1de43/5-ways-to-engage-with-immigrants-this-week-10077018?e=16814f5ced

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

Immigration Doesn’t Just Mean Coming To America. These 4 Books Are Good Reminders.

Author Ocean Vuong recommends four books on the immigrant experience — but he wants to de-center America in these stories: “Immigration is a species-wide legacy,” he says, and always has been.

Read in NPR: https://apple.news/AHF0mzKuBSD2sndcvfNlLXw

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The Founding Debtors and their slaves

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=ec5606cc-8bcf-4912-9774-cc57daf2c71e&v=sdk

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Los Angeles Times: My family’s reparations dilemma

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=9f5502fd-5db8-41ad-80cd-63981fc4361a&v=sdk

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

This week’s GOP clown is Paul Gosar — and the ringmaster isn’t doing anything to stop him

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/02/paul-gosar-kevin-mccarthy-clown-show/

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

The Fourth is for Complainers:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/03/fourth-is-complainers/

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Inclusion is patriotism of the highest order

The Founders entrusted us with the tools to fix what they were unwilling to repair.

Opinion by Darren Walker

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/02/inclusion-is-patriotism-highest-order/

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

On July 4, recognize the Black and Indigenous soldiers who helped win the Revolutionary War

George Washington’s army might not have been able to beat the British without Black and Indigenous men. It’s time to set the record straight, for all Americans.

Opinion by Bonnie Watson Coleman

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini

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

St. Louis Newspaper Bashes GOP, Josh Hawley For ‘Contempt’ Of Democracy:

“Plenty of words come to mind to describe … actions by one of America’s two major political parties,” the editorial reads. “‘Patriotic’ is nowhere among them.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/josh-hawley-capitol-insurrection-democracy-contempt-st-louis_n_60e13699e4b0e01b6b1eeef7

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

The panic over critical race theory is an attempt to whitewash U.S. history – The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/critical-race-theory-history/2021/07/02/e90bc94a-da75-11eb-9bbb-37c30dcf9363_story.html

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

Critical race theory’s opponents are sure it’s bad. Whatever it is.

The movement’s critics demonize it, then dismiss it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/critical-race-theory-law-systemic-racism/2021/07/02/6abe7590-d9f5-11eb-8fb8-aea56b785b00_story.html

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

Maybe it’s time to admit that the Statue of Liberty has never quite measured up:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/statue-of-liberty-replica/2021/06/30/ed288c96-d77f-11eb-bb9e-70fda8c37057_story.html

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

Today’s GOP: Only the Incompetent Need Apply:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/opinion/republicans-incompetence.html

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

WHEN BAD PUBLIC OFFICIALS ARE NEGATIVE ROLE MODELS: A Run-In With Donald Rumsfeld When I Was In College Changed The Course Of My Life

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-rumsfeld-princeton-encounter_n_60de4430e4b0e01b6b1c6b89

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

What does it mean to be American? Ask an immigrant

We are at an inflection point. After the departure of Trump, his xenophobia and racism continue to shape how we understand both immigration and what it means to be American. How do we challenge this worldview?

One way is to recognize that because xenophobia is an inextricable part of systemic racism in the U.S., it must be fought alongside racism. We need to examine and protest the unequal treatment of immigrants as part of this structure. We must counter the narratives that identify immigration as a threat with facts: COVID-19 is not the “Chinese virus.” Immigrants are essential workers, constituting 17% of the civilian labor force. About two-thirds of Americans say that immigrants strengthen the country.

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=69fd3116-862c-4d16-914c-2c974205a5d5

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

Special thanks to Diane Harrison for her always thoughtful, informative, and accessible “Health Care PSA” contribution to the “July 4, 2021 Edition of Courtside.”

The quote about unequal justice in the last item by Erika Lee underscores the dis-service that AG Garland is doing by failing to eradicate the “Dred Scottification” of migrants, primarily those of color, in our Immigration Courts.

His unwillingness to date to make the obvious personnel moves necessary to replace inadequate and weak judges and administrators with a diverse group of progressive experts who would bring due process, fundamental fairness, and racial and gender equality to our broken, biased, and dysfunctional Immigration Courts will continue to make American democracy fall well short of our stated ideals! The failure of the Biden Administration to “connect the dots” between racism and institutionalized xenophobia, particularly at EOIR, is highly disappointing, to say the least!

🇺🇸🗽Due Process Forever! Happy July 4!🎆🎇

PWS

07-04-21

HISTORY/POLITICS — STRUCTURAL RACISM IS DEEPLY INGRAINED IN OUR IMMIGRATION SYSTEM — “DRED SCOTTIFICATION” IS STILL ALIVE & WELL IN TODAY’S DYSFUNCTIONAL IMMIGRANT “JUSTICE” SYSTEM!

This video short by Julissa Arce, Activist, Writer, and Producer says it all:

https://blog.unidosus.org/2021/07/01/the-structural-racism-of-our-immigration-system/

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

In my Georgetown Law Immigration Law & Policy class, we recently talked about the racist roots of naturalization policy set forth in the Naturalization Act of 1790 with my friend and colleague Professor Cori Alonso Yoder. Obviously, the racism of our “Founding Fathers” went well beyond the institution of slavery.

Professor Cori Alonso Yoder
PHOTO: Google Scholar

Naturalization was a “whites only” proposition that transcended status as free or enslaved. White foreign nationals who had resided here for two years could be citizens. Free African Americans, Native Americans, and other free people of color could not become U.S. Citizens even if they had been born here and lived here for their entire lives. Yup, you don’t have to think too deeply to recognize the overt racism there!

Not to mention that America was literally built on the backs of enslaved African Americans whose free labor also supported a number of the white Founding Fathers, their white families, their often lavish lifestyles, and their sometimes endemic fiscal irresponsibilities. See, e.g., T. Jefferson, drafter of the Declaration of Independence whose estate had to sell off slaves to pay his debts.

No wonder White Supremacists, including many ignorant and dishonest pols, don’t want the truth of our nation’s history taught. The truth isn’t always pretty. And, it often has little to do with the various White Nationalist myths and skewed narratives foisted upon us.

Since those bogus myths exclude or distort the roles of the majority of today’s Americans, the “truth deniers” are going to have a tough time shoving their “whitewashed” version of American history down our throats in the long run! (That’s true, even though the “forces of ignorance, racism, bias, and thought suppression” on the right have been quite active lately and, shamefully, have succeeded in writing some of their racist nonsense into state and local laws). An honest reckoning with our past, including our past mistakes, is necessary for us to move forward into a better future.

One has only to look at Justice Alito’s mythologized version of America set forth in his recent majority opinion suppressing the voting rights of African Americans and other minorities, and to read Justice Kagan’s cogent rebuttal of his legal sophism, to see that “Dred Scott” is still alive at the Supremes! Sad, but true and something we all have to deal with. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/voting-rights-arizona-court/

It’s not the first time our legal system has refused to carry out the clear mandate of the 15th Amendment against attacks by states trying to suppress the political power of their African-American citizens. One would like to think it will be the last. But, that’s unlikely given the current composition of the Supremes, Congress, and many state legislatures.

There might be no immediate solution for the Supremes, Congress, and state legislatures. The political process simply takes time, and the forces of regression have found and exploited all of the “anti-democratic seams” in our institutions that give them political power beyond their numbers.

However, there is one potentially powerful court system out there that progressives could reform and reconstitute NOW into a judiciary committed to due process, fundamental fairness, best practices, and equal justice for all persons in the United States regardless or race, creed, or status. So far, the Biden Administration and AG Garland have been both tone deaf and remarkably inept at transforming the Immigration Courts into the better judiciary needed for our future! Progressives need to “raise hell” until the Biden Administration fixes the one now-dysfunctional Federal Court system that they actually control!

The future will belong to those unafraid to face the sometimes unattractive realities of our collective past, to respect and honor those who fought through the mistreatment and injustice inflicted upon them, and learn from our history rather than denying or rewriting it! It will also belong to those wise, courageous, and bold enough to take advantage of opportunities for improving American justice that are staring them in the face. So far, Dems have shown themselves not up to the job in the Immigration Courts. Until they are, racial justice and sustained progress in America are likely to remain illusions.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-02-21

☠️👎🏽BIA GOOFS UP ANOTHER CAT CASE IN 5TH CIR! — 4 Years, 3 BIA Decisions, 2 Circuit Remands, & Back To “Square 1” — What’s Missing? — Only Competence & Justice!

Four Horsemen — Gen. Garland continues to use “Miller Lite Mercenaries” against migrants. “The U.S. constitution states that our judicial system is a ‘separate but equal part’ to our democracy. But immigration courts have nothing to do with that.” — Tea Ivanovic, Immigrant Food
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/unpub-ca5-on-honduras-cat-state-involvement-guity-casildo-v-garland#

Daniel M. Kowalski

1 Jul 2021

torture

cat

Honduras

Unpub. CA5 on Honduras, CAT, State Involvement: Guity Casildo v. Garland

Guity Casildo v. Garland (unpub.)

“[T]he BIA has not addressed the question of the applicability of the color-of-law rule regarding state involvement in torture. … The parties agree that a remand is the best alternative where the BIA has made an unauthorized or inadequately supported factual finding on the likelihood of torture, thereby leaving unresolved whether the IJ failed to apply the rule-of-law theory of state involvement in torture. Accordingly, we conclude that the prudent course is to remand the case to the BIA. … We further order the BIA to remand the case to the IJ for a clear factual finding on the likelihood of torture and for the IJ’s clarification, if necessary, on the question of state involvement in light of the color-of-law rule. … PETITION GRANTED; VACATED AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO REMAND.”

[Hats off to Matthew Nickson!]

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

Congrats to Matthew Nickson! Getting justice for a migrant in the notoriously pro-Government 5th Cir. is no mean feat! Think of how much easier your job would be if AG Garland hired some “real judges” at EOIR — experts in immigration and human rights who have represented individuals in Immigration Court and who are committed to due process and fundamental fairness above all else!

When you’re out to stick it to Hondurans (actually all Northern Triangle migrants), regardless of facts or law, to please your sleazy White Nationalist political bosses in the Trump regime, bad things are going to happen.

Let’s not forget that the Trump regime entered into a totally corrupt and bogus “Safe Third Country” agreement with Honduras, probably one of the least safe countries in the Hemisphere with no functional asylum system at all. Given this level of overt political fraud by the “bosses,” I doubt that the regime would have appreciated BIA bureaucrats correctly finding that torture with government acquiescence is likely in Honduras.

Sure, these failures were before Garland took over. But, he has made little effort to date to either acknowledge and root out the deep corruption and anti-immigrant weaponization of the Immigration Courts or to address the inadequate “go along to get along judging” that was encouraged at EOIR. In plain terms, respondents did not get, and still do not get, qualified, fair, and impartial judges at EOIR to adjudicate their claims.

You have only to look at the comedy of errors and ineptitude at EOIR in this case “outed” by one of the most pro-Government Circuits in America to see the proof! That’s unconstitutional!

Remand after remand to “get it right” also “jacks backlog.” Just getting a case back on an Immigration Judge’s docket takes time and effort in a non-automated system with no e-filing and traditionally overwhelmed and demoralized staff. Instead of fixing “customer service” @ EOIR, the Trump kakistocracy invested in ludicrous, due-process-destroying “IJ Dashboards” to keep the quotas filled and the unconstitutional “nativist deportation railroad” moving. Yet, Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke pretend that none of these constitutional and civil rights absurdities, not to mention grotesque management fraud, waste, and abuse, happened!

Don’t stand for any of Garland’s dishonest “expedited dockets” which implicitly blame those seeking justice under law and their courageous lawyers for the ungodly mess he and his lieutenants inherited but have failed to address! And, “dedicated docket for asylum seekers” is just a euphemism for more backlog-building, due-process denying “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and continuing mismanagement by Garland.

I’ll bet that qualified experts could cut the largely self-inflicted backlog by at least 50% in 90 days without stomping on anyone’s due process rights merely by administratively closing or terminating without prejudice hundreds of thousands of non-priority aged cases. Many of those could better be handled at USCIS.

It shouldn’t be this difficult to get an Administration that ran and got elected on a “reform” and “return to good government” platform to do the right thing here. But, it is! EOIR needs reform, including a new BIA and competent, expert judges who know asylum law, respect due process, and will treat migrants and their attorneys fairly, respectfully, and humanely. It’s not a “big ask!” So why is it “above Garland’s pay grade?”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-02-21

⚖️🗽🇺🇸TEA IVANOVIC @ IMMIGRANT FOOD INTERVIEWS ME ON DYSFUNCTIONAL IMMIGRATION COURTS: “They are not the courts that you think of when you think of our judicial system. . . . He’s pretty blunt about the ways in which the immigration court system is highly dysfunctional,” Says Tea In Her Intro!

Editor’s Note – July

Dear Reader,

For this month’s Think Table issue, we delve into the dysfunctional U.S immigration court system. The U.S. constitution states that our judicial system is a ‘separate but equal part’ to our democracy. But immigration courts have nothing to do with that. They fall under the Department of Justice, and immigration judges have a boss, the Attorney General. As we’ve seen in recent times, that can be a highly politicized position. Additionally, the lack of technology and the ever-growing backlog of cases leave many immigrants and asylum seekers waiting an average of two years just to schedule a court proceeding!

For this issue, we spoke with Judge Paul Schmidt, a former federal immigration judge. He’s pretty blunt about the ways in which the immigration court system is highly dysfunctional.

We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we do.

Téa

Here’s a link to the “video short:”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDDV83vSuHY

Here’ the “complete issue” which contains a reprint of an article from Sarah Pierce“Obscure but Powerful: Shaping U.S. Immigration Policy through Attorney General Referral and Review.”

https://immigrantfood.com/the-think-table/

And here’s the terrifically talented Tea:

Tea Ivonovic — Tea Ivanovic
Chief Operating Officer
ImmigrantFood.com
PHOTO: Immigrant Food

Born in Belgium to parents from the former Yugoslavia and recruited to the United States by Virginia Tech’s Division 1 Varsity tennis team, Téa calls herself an immigrant squared. She still can’t figure out if Serbian, Flemish or English is her native language – she speaks all of them equally. Her professional career includes creating and implementing strategic communications for international policy and politics at a Washington D.C. think tank, and global financial matters at a financial public and media relations firm. Téa was the first Washington Correspondent for Oslobodjenje, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s oldest newspaper and leading news outlet in the Western Balkans. She graduated with a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

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

Yeah, I’m pretty blunt! But, this is a totally screwed up system that threatens our democracy!

So, many of us out here in the NDPA think it’s a dire emergency, even if Judge Garland and the Biden Administration prefer to ignore the obvious and shun the immediate solutions!

Judge Garland’s failure to implement basic constitutional, personnel, and management reforms @ EOIR is undermining justice in America and tarnishing his reputation. Also, it’s potentially killing innocent folks. Sure sounds like a “national Constitutional emergency” to me!

Thanks to Tea for making this “accessible” report on a huge, largely unaddressed, democracy threatening problem. Tell Judge G to fix EOIR now!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-01-21

GARLAND’S BIA, OIL “TAKE IT ON THE NOSE” AGAIN: 2d Cir. “Slam Dunks” Matter of J.M. Acosta, 27 I&N Dec. 420 (BIA 2018) (finality of conviction): “The BIA’s burden-shifting scheme and its accompanying evidentiary requirement amounts to an unreasonable and arbitrary interpretation of the IIRIRA.”

Casey Stengel — “Hey Judge Garland! Why not put some REAL judges who can ‘play this game’ into your lineup? What’s with the ‘minor league roster’ left over from the guys who couldn’t shoot straight?”
PHOTO: Rudi Reit
Creative Commons

Here’s the full decision in Brathwaite v. Garland:

https://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/1284dac9-6e02-4262-ae63-657649702452/1/doc/20-27_opn.pdf#xml=https://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/1284dac9-6e02-4262-ae63-657649702452/1/hilite/

Court summary:

Petitioner Aldwin Junior Brathwaite petitions for review of an order of removability, entered by the Honorable Joy A. Merriman, U.S. Immigration Judge (“IJ”), on June 11, 2019, and approved by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) on December 11, 2019. Because the BIA’s decision is premised on an unreasonable construction of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”), we GRANT the petition for review and REMAND the matter to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

PANEL: CALABRESI, RAGGI, AND CHIN, Circuit Judges.

OPINON BY: Judge Calabresi

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Man, even with all the ridiculous “built in tilt” favoring Executive interpretations in Chevron, the BIA still blew it! Normally, in their attempt not to burden their comfortable lives with difficult questions of law, the Article III’s will find that any minimally rational interpretation of an ambiguous provision is “good enough for Government work” under Chevron. But, the BIA couldn’t even clear that “low hurdle!” Simply amazing!

Particularly so when you think that one of the (bogus) justifications often given for “Chevron task avoidance” by the Article IIIs is the “superior expertise” of the Executive adjudicators, clearly a mirage in the case of the BIA and EOIR! At least over the past four years, the primary “expertise” for being selected for an EOIR judgeship has been past government experience, preferably in prosecution, a willingness to check the “deny box,” and ability to crank out the required minimum number of final orders of removal without thinking too much, rocking the boat, or, heaven forbid, actually vindicating the rights of migrants over the wishes of “The Partners” at DHS Enforcement! What a total sham that Garland is now presiding over!

Two years of litigation to “get back to ground zero!” And, you wonder why Garland’s Immigration Courts continue to careen out of control and generate backlog faster than they do positive legal guidance and best practices?

At core, courts are about problem solving, and judges are supposed to be “expert practical problem solvers.” Try to unearth those essential qualities in the disgracefully flawed “judicial” hiring practices at EOIR since 2000!

I note that no “outside expert” has been appointed to the BIA since before the 2000 election. Those few who were there in 2000 were rapidly “purged” by Ashcroft, sending the strong message that “expertise and independent voting” will be “career limiting and threatening” at the BIA.

That was followed by thoroughly rotten “jurisprudence” from the BIA that actually provoked widespread outrage among the Article IIIs at the time. The outcry became so loud, that finally even the Bush II Administration had to “tone down” the anti-immigrant rhetoric and abusive treatement of migrants and their attorneys in Immigration Court that Ashcroft’s “purge” engendered and encouraged. Of course, in doing so, DOJ officials disingenuously blamed the Immigration Judges rather than the “perps” in their own ranks who had declared “open season” on migrants’ rights and human dignity.

Not surprisingly, bad, biased hiring practices, which have intentionally excluded and grossly undervalued the most promising expert problem solvers from outside government bureaucracy, have produced a dysfunctional morass at EOIR. The lack of that basic recognition, even from a recently retired Federal Appellate Judge who should know better, is destroying the foundations of our justice system! Enough already! We need, American Justice needs, progressive reforms at EOIR! NOW, not sometime off in the indefinite future!

Yup, there might be problems with an appellate board that almost always tries to skew things against individual applicants. Rushing to crank out those final orders of removal and pushing already overwhelmed IJ’s to “just pedal faster” might not be a very good “strategy.” And, the lack of professional training, competent judicial administration, expert guidance from the BIA, and unwillingness to implement best practices further deteriorates the Immigration Courts every single day.

While fundamental improvements in personnel and administration at EOIR are well within Garland’s reach, he seems relatively uninterested in taking the bold, courageous actions necessary to restore due process. So, litigating his ludicrously broken, unfair, and dysfunctional system to a standstill, while supporting legislation to get an independent court, appear to be progressive advocates’ only viable options at this point.

This issue is likely to end up in the Supremes. In the meantime, however, there should be lots of backlog-building remands in the Second Circuit. And, who knows whether the BIA will get it right this time around. Even after court remands, their record isn’t particularly encouraging.

The BIA probably will have to wait for OIL, their political handlers at DOJ, and DHS enforcement to “signal” what the “preferred result for litigating purposes” is before venturing forth on another precedent. Does this sound like “fair and impartial adjudication” under Matthews v. Eldridge? No way! So why is EOIR continuing to operate as a “Constitution free zone” under Garland?

It’s past time for Garland to pull the plug and give progressive experts a chance to rescue his dysfunctional court system and save many of the individuals caught up in this never-ending due process nightmare! When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?

Much to the shock, consternation, frustration, puzzlement, and horror of progressive advocates who helped him replace Billy Barr as AG, it’s been three continuous months of “Amateur Night @ EOIR” under Judge Garland! Predictably, many Article IIIs haven‘t been enthralled with this performance! How many cases will be remanded from the Article IIIs and how much more backlog will be unnecessarily generated before Garland wakes up and pays attention?
PHOTO: Thomas Hawk
Creative Commons
Amateur Night

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-25-21

THE EVER-AMAZING NICOLE NAREA @ VOX “GETS IT” — Too Bad The Folks Running Immigration Policy Don’t! — “Knowledge about US deportation and detention policy didn’t have any significant effect on their intentions to migrate. . . . it made them more likely to think outcomes and legal procedures in the American immigration system are unfair.”

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22451177/biden-border-immigration-enforcement-detention-deportation

Nicole writes @ Vox News:

President Joe Biden has taken some steps toward reversing his predecessor’s legacy of broad, indiscriminate immigration enforcement, including a recent announcement that it will no longer detain immigrants at two locations under scrutiny for alleged abuses.

But Republicans are adamant that increased immigration enforcement be a prerequisite to any broader immigration reform.

“There’ll be no immigration reform until you get control of the border,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Roll Call last month.

There are now nearly 40 percent more people in immigration detention compared to when Biden first took office, and his administration is continuing to turn away most migrants arriving on the border under pandemic-related restrictions put in place by his predecessor, President Donald Trump, which have led to the expulsions of more than 350,000 people this year alone.

But research shows that the threat of detention and deportation in the US doesn’t dissuade migrants from making the journey to the southern border, especially if they are victims of violence and may be seeking to escape the “devil they know” in their home countries.

“Managing migration at the border, particularly the kind of migration we’re seeing now, from a strictly deterrence, enforcement lens is just not sustainable in the long run and is not having the impact that people think it should have,” Theresa Cardinal Brown, managing director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said. “That’s why we need to rethink our paradigm for how we talk about migration and everything that we do at the border.”

. . . .

Knowledge of US immigration detention, however, did have an unintended effect on survey takers in Ryo’s experiment — it made them more likely to think outcomes and legal procedures in the American immigration system are unfair. That is worrisome, given that perceptions of fairness are significant predictors of people’s willingness to obey the law and cooperate with legal authorities, Ryo said.

“We really ought to be concerned about the extent to which generating these kinds of perceptions of unfairness can backfire in terms of more people disregarding our laws and undertaking that dangerous journey in order to get to our border and try to cross it,” she added.

. . . .

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

First, let me congratulate Nicole on her spectacularly high level reporting and mastery of the English language: Clear, accessible, well-organized, informative, persuasive. Compare Nicole’s prose with the vapid, often misleading nonsense and gibberish spouted by legislators, government officials, bureaucrats, and right wing White Nationalist shills of all types. Just yesterday, Trump and his pathetic “wannabe” Greg Abbott were down at the border spouting their unadulterated, fact-free, racist blather and restrictionist nonsense (when Trump wasn’t rambling on incoherently about the “Big Lie” or himself). I encourage everyone to read Nicole’s full article at the link!

“Enforcement only doesn’t work” has been one of the key “themes” of Courtside since “Day 1.” The answer has also been clear — due process, fundamental fairness, racial equity, practical scholarship leading to durable solutions.

The converse of “enforcement only doesn’t work” is also true: A more realistic, more generous legal immigration system that advances due process and equality while taking advantage of “market factors” that attract and drive migration would also lead to more efficient and effective enforcement. Many, perhaps the majority, of those we are now wasting time and money on cruel and ultimately futile attempts to detain, deter, and remove would actually be a huge benefit to our nation if they were allowed to migrate legally on either a permanent or temporary basis.

I’ve been saying for a long time now that convincing folks that our legal system is basically bogus — falsely promising a fairness and dignified treatment we aren’t delivering — merely serves to drive migrants to enter the “extralegal” or “black market” system that helps support our economy. The real “beneficiaries” of “mindless immigration enforcement” and a dysfunctional legal system are smugglers, cartels, and exploitative employers. Also, obviously, corrupt GOP politicos benefit from having a permanent, disenfranchised, traumatized, largely non-White “black market labor pool” to prop up their economy while serving as an easy target to “whip up” their racist base.

Bad policies, driven by ignorance, myths, bias, cowardice, and racism will continue to produce lousy results — for the migrants and for our nation. Smarter, more courageous, more intellectually honest legislators and public officials are necessary. Whether voters will be wise enough to elect them remains to be seen.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-01-21

🏴‍☠️SUPREMES’ GOP MAJ. SLAMS GULAG DOOR SHUT ON REFUGEES IN “WITHHOLDING ONLY PROCEEDINGS” 👎🏽 — “NO BOND HEARINGS FOR YOU, ALIENS!” — Johnson v. Guzmán Chavez (6-3) — Oh, To Be A “Pipeline Builder” Endowed With Legal & Human Rights That Even Elite GOP Supremes Will Recognize!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-deported-immigrants-penneast-pipeline/2021/06/29/3e83164e-d8dc-11eb-8fb8-aea56b785b00_story.html

This WashPost headline and Post Supreme Court reporter Robert Barnes’s summary say it all!

Supreme Court rules against immigrants claiming safety fears after deportation and for pipeline builders

By Robert Barnes

June 29 at 5:22 PM ET

. . . .

In the immigration case, the court was considering the rights of a relatively small subset of immigrants: those who were deported once before but reentered the United States illegally because they say they faced threats at home.

At issue was a complex federal law that authorizes the government to detain immigrants and which section of it applies to these types of cases.

One piece of the law says, “the alien may receive a bond hearing before an immigration judge” and thus the chance to be free while proceedings continue, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the majority. In the other, the immigrant is considered “removed,” and indefinite detention is warranted.

Alito and his fellow conservative justices said it was the second that applied, and the detainees do not get a bond hearing. The court’s three liberals objected.

The case involved people who an immigration officer found had credible fears of danger or persecution in their home countries. For instance, Rodriguez Zometa said he was threatened with death by the 18th Street Gang when he was removed to his home country of El Salvador.

The question of whether the government could hold the immigrants without a hearing before an immigration judge had divided courts around the country. The case was argued before President Biden took office, and lawyers for the Trump administration told the court immigrants were not entitled to a hearing.

Alito said Congress had good reason to be more restrictive with those who came back into the country after being deported. “Aliens who reentered the country illegally after removal have demonstrated a willingness to violate the terms of a removal order, and they therefore may be less likely to comply with the reinstated order” that they leave, he said.

He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

The court’s liberals, Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, saw it differently and would have affirmed the victory the plaintiffs won at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond.

“Why would Congress want to deny a bond hearing to individuals who reasonably fear persecution or torture, and who, as a result, face proceedings that may last for many months or years?” Breyer wrote. “I can find no satisfactory answer to this question.”

The case is Johnson v. Guzman Chavez.

. . . .

Here’s the “full text” of the decision:

19-897_c07d

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

Nice summary, Robert! You can read the rest of Barnes’s report at the link. Indeed, Justice Breyer’s cogent question quoted in the article remains unanswered by the wooden legal gobbledygook in the majority decision, devoid of much understanding of how the dysfunctional Immigration Courts and the DHS “New American Gulag” actually operate and dismissive of what it actually means to be a refugee seeking to exercise legal rights in today’s world.

At issue: The right of non-criminal foreign nationals who have established a “reasonable fear” of persecution or torture if deported to apply for bond pending Immigration Court hearings on the merits of their cases. Getting a bond hearing before an Immigration Judge does not in any way guarantee release; just that the decision to detain or release on bond will be based on the individual facts and circumstances. Individuals released from detention have a much better chance of obtaining counsel and gathering the documentation necessary to win their cases. They are also much less likely to be “coerced” by DHS detention into surrendering viable claims and appeal rights.

Majority’s response: These “aliens” have neither rights nor humanity that any life-tenured GOP-appointed judge is bound to respect.

Alternative: There is a readily available alternative statutory interpretation, adopted by the 4th Circuit and the dissent, that would recognize the human and legal rights of vulnerable refugees seeking legal protection and give them hearings on continuing custody in substandard conditions (in some instances, conditions in the “DHS New American Gulag” fall well below those that would be imposed on convicted felons).

You can’t win ‘em all: The Round Table was one of many organizations filing an amicus brief on behalf of the refugees and in support of the position adopted by the 4th Circuit and the dissent. While we were unsuccessful on this one, at least we are on the “right side of history.”

Creative suggestion: Detainees should incorporate, perhaps as a pipeline company, or better yet a gun rights’ group, so that they would have legal rights and be treated as “persons” (e.g., “humans”) by the Supremes’ GOP majority.

Next steps:

Advocates should prevail on the Biden Administration to change the regulations to give this limited subclass of applicants for protection a chance to seek bond before an Immigration Judge;
Advocates should keep up the pressure on the Biden Administration and Garland to appoint better judges at EOIR: progressive practical experts, who know how to grant legal protection efficiently and fairly and who will establish appropriate legal precedents to help these cases move through the EOIR system on the merits in a timely and fundamentally fair manner consistent with due process. The length of time it takes “Withholding Only” cases to move through the Immigration Courts has lots to do with: unfair, coercive detention practices by DHS; poor judging and bad precedents at EOIR; incompetent “judicial administration” and politicized “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” @ EOIR by DOJ politicos and their EOIR “retainers.”

Long term solution:

Support and vote for progressive legislators who will revise the immigration laws to do away with the unnecessary and wasteful “New American Gulag;”
Vote progressive candidates for President and the Senate: political officials committed to putting better Federal Judges on the bench at all levels — “practical scholars” with real experience representing the most vulnerable in society and who will tirelessly enforce due process, equal protection, human rights, and fundamental fairness for all persons regardless of race, religion, or status; judges who understand and will seriously reflect on the “real life” human consequences of their decisions. Better judges for a better America!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-30-21

HISTORY: YOUNGER THEN THAN NOW! — “Sir Jeffrey” Chase & Me @ The International Association of Refugee Law Judges’ Seminar in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 1997

“Sir Jeffrey and Me — “Sir Jeffrey & Me
Nijmegen, The Netherlands 1997
PHOTO: Susan Chase

Well, we’re not as young as we were. But, we’re still working together to raise awareness and advance the principles of the U.N.Convention & Protocol on the Status of Refugees and to restore due process and fundamental fairness to the dysfunctional Immigration Courts through all of our amazing colleagues on the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-27-21

“DUH” OF THE DAY: GOP WHITE NATIONALIST RACISM & STUPIDITY, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION BUMBLING LEAD TO ONGOING BORDER CHAOS: “For people like Medina, neither restrictive immigration policies nor dangerous journeys through several countries, border walls, or even statements from politicians deter them from seeking to rebuild their lives in the United States.”

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/immigration/2021/06/25/threat-of-death-in-their-homelands-continues-to-push-migrants-toward-us-mexico-border/

Maria Ramos Pacheco reports for the Dallas Morning News:

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — While Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday the goal of her trip to El Paso was to understand the “root causes” of the rising influx of migrants from recent months, just across the border Honduran migrant Manuel Medina had a simple explanation for why thousands of people from other countries will continue to try to reach the United States: To stay alive while fleeing countries where their families are threatened by crime and violence.

“I did not leave my country and my wife because I wanted to. [Rising] crime forced me to leave everything; the only thing I want is for my family and me to be safe,” said Medina, 37, who left Honduras in May 2019 after receiving threats from gang members.

Amid a chorus of criticism coming mainly from Republican politicians, Harris made her first trip to the U.S. Southern border flanked by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas; Sen. Dick Durbin, D- Ill; and El Paso Rep. Verónica Escobar.

Amid a chorus of criticism coming mainly from Republican politicians, Harris made her first trip to the U.S. Southern border flanked by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro MayorkasSen.

For people like Medina, neither restrictive immigration policies nor dangerous journeys through several countries, border walls, or even statements from politicians deter them from seeking to rebuild their lives in the United States.

Medina has lived for two years in this city’s El Buen Samaritano shelter, managed by a religious organization, along with his 15-year-old son Nahúm Medina. Their asylum petition was initially rejected in 2019 and he stayed in Ciudad Juárez under the Migrants Protection Protocols, waiting for a second chance.

The MPP or “Remain in Mexico” program was created in 2019 by the Trump administration, which forced people seeking asylum to remain in Mexico. As of May, there were 71,002 active cases.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Maria’s article at the link.

Desperate people do desperate things! Duh!

You’ve heard it before on Courtside:

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/06/24/%e2%9a%a0%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%9a%b8v-p-harris-is-going-to-the-border-she-should-talk-with-the-real-victims-of-her-governments-illegal-wrong-headed-immoral-and-ineffective-border-deterrence-p/

Indeed, since the day of inception in Dec. 2016, Courtside has been very consistent in speaking truth to bigots and misguided inept policy makers:

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2016/12/31/family-detention-raids-expediting-cases-fails-to-deter-scared-central-americans/

Restrictionism, racism, nativism, cruelty, and scofflaw behavior will only continue to make things worse. And, AG Merick Garland, staffing your “courts” with “Miller Lite” holdovers and Trump toadies won’t stop the downward spiral of American justice on your watch!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-27-21

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Dan Kowalski Reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Kevin Sieff reports @ WashPost:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Dan Kowalski reports on LexisNexis Immigration Community:

Tell Garland you’ve had (more than) enough. Fix EOIR with real progressive judges and competent judicial (not bureaucratic) administrators! 🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Daniel Paz writes in Newsweek:

Tell the Biden Administration and Judge Garland that we need progressive reforms, now! EOIR would be a great starting place!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🗽Emigrating to the U.S.? Here are Some Helpful Hints

By Diane Harrison

🇺🇸🗽Due Process Forever! Happy July 4!🎆🎇

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This video short by Julissa Arce, Activist, Writer, and Producer says it all:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Here’s a link to the “video short:”

Here’ the “complete issue” which contains a reprint of an article from Sarah Pierce“Obscure but Powerful: Shaping U.S. Immigration Policy through Attorney General Referral and Review.”

And here’s the terrifically talented Tea:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Here’s the full decision in Brathwaite v. Garland:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Nicole writes @ Vox News:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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This WashPost headline and Post Supreme Court reporter Robert Barnes’s summary say it all!

Supreme Court rules against immigrants claiming safety fears after deportation and for pipeline builders

Here’s the “full text” of the decision:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Maria Ramos Pacheco reports for the Dallas Morning News:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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