Sexual Harassment – Page 3 – immigrationcourtside.com

🗽⚖️👍🏼GW CLINIC SAVES ANOTHER REFUGEE LIFE — But, It’s A Sobering Example Of The Type of Person Who Will Be Left To Die At Our Borders If Feckless, “Miller Lite” (Or, “Miller Genuine?”) Dems Are Able To Persuade Biden To Kill Asylum For Good & Join GOP’s Racist Abrogation Of Rule Of Law! — Progressives Need To “Push Back Hard” On Latest Dem Cowardice & Nonsense — Insist On Restoration Of Rule Of Law For ALL Asylum Seekers @ Border!

GW Law Immigration Clinic Director Professor Alberto Benítez & Co-Director Paulina Vera

“I really do not find enough words to let you know how grateful I am to all of you for your wise and timely guidance at all times and for the dedication and commitment that you assumed from the first moment towards our asylum case.”

Please join me in congratulating Immigration Clinic client T-G and her son F-P, from Venezuela, and their student-attorneys Karoline Núñez, Samuel Thomas, Alexandra Chen, and Jeremy Patton. The clients’ asylum application was filed April 28, 2017, their interview at the Asylum Office was on November 1, 2021, and the grant was issued March 21, 2022. T-G received the grant yesterday.

T-G is a survivor of domestic violence at the hands of her husband. He’d punch T-G, force her to have sexual relations, infected her with a STD, and he blamed her for their daughter’s neurological issues. Their daughter contracted Zika but was unable to receive the appropriate treatment because T-G was not a supporter of the Maduro government. Their daughter died at age 14.

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Alberto Manuel Benitez

Professor of Clinical Law

Director, Immigration Clinic

The George Washington University Law School

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Many congrats to the GW Immigration Clinic and all the GW All-Stars! 🤮⚖️

Let’s get behind the intentional dehumanization and the chronically misleading “numbers” being thrown around by nativists, some so-called “moderate” Dems, and the DHS. Put a “human face” on our nation’s dereliction of legal duty and abandonment of values at out Southern border.

Suffering at the Border — The Faces Of Human Suffering @ Our Border
PHOTO: The Guardian

This case is a compelling example of the types of refugees, many women and children and most people of color, who are stuck at our Southern Border as illegal suspension of asylum laws, based on racially- motivated bogus “public health” grounds grinds on. With some legal assistance and a fair and orderly system in place, many of those waiting could qualify for asylum if given a fair chance under the law.

Access to the asylum system, representation, and fair and impartial adjudication are essential to success. Right now, the Biden Administration is denying all three.

Now, more amoral and weak-kneed Dems are urging Biden to kill asylum and refugees of color along with it by “delaying” the long overdue resumption of legal asylum processing at the border for another “60 days.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/04/18/more-democrats-criticize-biden-for-plan-to-end-trump-era-border-restrictions/?sh=68b608c251d8

Make no mistake, this disingenuous action would kill asylum for good! These guys don’t even have the guts to admit that they are now carrying out Stephen Miller’s xenophobic war on immigrants and refugees of color.

Biden ran on an elimination of Title 42 and restoration of the legal asylum process. If 18 months after the election they lack a “plan,” there is no reason to believe that 60 more days would make a difference. It’s now or never!
60 days would bring us even closer to the mid-terms. If Dems are scared to follow the law now, that’s not going to improve as the midterms get even closer.
You can be sure that once the midterms are past, particularly if Dems get “blown out” as they fear, they will claim that the time “isn’t right” for any immigration “reform” (although, following the law is hardly a real “reform”) in advance of the 2024 election. If the GOP wins in ’24, the effective elimination of legal immigration — with or without legislation — will be finalized.
This has nothing to do with COVID at this point. It never really did. It was always about finding a pretext to close the border and keep it closed — at least to non-White refugees. But, since COVID constantly mutates, there will always be some sort of “COVID emergency” out there for the foreseeable future.
Asylum applicants have NOT been a significant source of COVID. They are far less of a threat to our health, safety, and security than GOP “magamorons” who eschew vaccination and basic public safety precautions. The Biden Administration should have a plan in place to insure that asylum seekers are tested and if necessary vaccinated before admission.
If we have no legal asylum system at the border, no functional refugee system abroad, and no hope for the future, the only way for individuals to seek protection will be by using smugglers to enter illegally and then hoping to “lose themselves” in a burgeoning “extralegal population” throughout out America. Once we abandon any pretext of a legal system for asylum seekers, the border will get further and further out of control. That will add to the GOP’s claims that more and more cruel, draconian, and punitive measures are necessary. But, they won’t stop desperate people from attempting entry until they either succeed or die in the process.
Contrary to the misguided blather of some Dems, there will never be a better time for Dems to support asylum seekers. They are concentrated in border areas, and eager to have their claims heard. Orderly processing and admitting as many as qualify, in a period of artificially reduced migration, would help the economy, raise tax revenues, and address supply chain issues. If not now, when?
Restoring asylum law is a legal requirement, not a “strategy,” “policy,” or “political choice.” If Dems turn their backs on the rule of law, what makes them different from the GOP?

If this divisive nonsense and backsliding on basic constitutional, racial justice, and social justice issues continues, progressive Dems are going to be faced with having to make a decision about the party’s future.

Progressive Dems make up a key part of the party’s core base and a disproportionate amount of the “boots on the ground, grass roots enthusiasm.” Republicans aren’t going to vote for Dems, no matter how xenophobic, hateful, and racist Dems are toward migrants. So-called “independents,” are neither going to fill the Dems coffers nor pound the pavement and work the phone lines to “get out the vote.”

So, arrogant “Title 42 Dems” are assuming that they can “spit on” immigrant justice, racial justice, economic justice, and social justice and that their “core support” among progressives won’t diminish because they will always be preferable to “Trump Republicans.”

All in all, it’s a “big middle finger” to progressives and their social justice agenda. That’s an agenda that Biden actually successfully ran on.

If progressives really believe in a pro immigrant, pro rule of law, racial justice agenda, then they need to stand up to the backsliders and let them know that there will be real consequences of yet another “sellout of immigrants’ rights.” We’ll see whether progressive Dems have more backbone and courage than their “Title 42/Miller Lite wing.”

This morning, a WashPost editorial correctly pointed out that Ukrainian refugees “couldn’t afford to wait” for the Biden Administration to get its act together. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/19/united-states-ukraine-refugee-effort-slow-start/

But, the Post badly missed the larger point — NO refugee can afford to wait, be they White Ukrainians, Black Haitians, Cameroonians, and Congolese, or Latinos from the Northern Triangle, Venezuela, and Nicaragua! Our obligations to asylees are not supposed to be “race-based!”

The U.S. has had a legal refugee and asylum system for more than four decades. During that time, Congress has made several amendments of the law to allow DHS to rapidly process and summarily remove those appearing at the border who, after prompt expert screening by Asylum Officers, cannot establish a “credible fear” of persecution.

Restrictionists and shamefully some so-called moderate Democrats, and sometimes CBP, seem to have conveniently “forgotten” that the law was designed to deal fairly and promptly with so-called “mass migrations” long before the advent of the bogus Title 42 charade.

For some periods during the 40 years since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980, the U.S. has run functional refugee and asylum programs. Not “perfect” or perhaps even “optimal,” but “functional.”

They have done this by employing experts, cooperating with NGOs (domestic and international), and building resettlement and support systems spearheaded by NGOs, using Government grants, and promoting teamwork and coordination with states and localities.

It has only been when Administrations of both parties have mindlessly turned away from human rights experts and followed the misguided and tone-deaf gimmicks advocated by nativists and apostles of “enforcement only deterrence” that the legal systems for refugees and asylees, and efficient, humane border enforcement, have fallen into disorder.

While refugee and asylum laws could undoubtedly be improved, contrary to the media blather and nativist grandstanding, we have the basic legal framework to deal with the current refugee and asylum situations at our borders and beyond. The question is whether the Biden Administration and Dems have the will, vision, competence, and willingness to cooperate with human rights experts to fix the mess intentionally created by Trump and return human decency, competence, and the rule of law to our borders! If not now, when?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-19-22

☹️”TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE” — Asylum Seekers Stranded In Mexico See Promise To Lift Title 42 Blockade With Mixture Of Hope, Skepticism, & Confusion! — Under Trump, & Now Biden, U.S. Human Rights Laws & Our Constitution Have Become “Game Of Whack A Mole!” — Human Lives & The Rule Of Law A “Joke” To Border Patrol Agents!

Whack-A-Mole — The Biden Administration’s vision for asylum seekers is a game of chance with the odds rigged heavily against them.
Circus Circus Reno – 2021-11-14 – Sarah Stierch 05.jpg
Creative Commons License

Emily Green reports for Vice News:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3abwb9/title-42-mexico-migrants-stuck

REYNOSA, Mexico — A 2-1/2 year old boy dragged an oversized suitcase along the sidewalk excitedly, on the edge of a cramped migrant encampment straddling the U.S.-Mexico border. Every few seconds, he looked behind him to make sure his parents were still there. But the boy wasn’t going anywhere, and the suitcase was empty, much like the yearned-for promise of being finally allowed to enter the United States. The boy, born in Brazil, and his parents, from Haiti, have spent five months living in a tent just feet from the U.S. border.

“We will stay here until we can go to the other side,” the boy’s father said.

On April 1, the Biden administration announced that on May 23, it will rescind Title 42, the pandemic-era, public-health policy that allowed for the automatic expulsion of more than a million migrants to Mexico and other countries. The policy is why the little boy and his parents hadn’t sought asylum. They’re scared that if they crossed into the U.S. and asked for protection, they’ll be deported to Haiti. They instead opted to wait in Reynosa, despite its reputation as one of Mexico’s most dangerous cities.

World News

The US Admitted a Group of Russians at the Border Under Secret Deal With Mexico

DAVID NORIEGA, DAVID MORA

03.28.22

The repeal of the Trump-era rule is expected to trigger an influx of migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border. Already, around 2,500 people are living in the public plaza here at the edge of the border, their tents packed together so tightly there’s barely room to walk. While the policy change won’t take effect for a month and a half, the response on both sides of the international line couldn’t be more different.

In the U.S., officials are busy expanding border facilities and sending more personnel to staff emergency operations. In Mexico meanwhile, most of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who’ve been waiting for months to cross legally at a port of entry have received no information from authorities and seem completely in the dark about what’s to come. There are no guidelines for who gets to enter first, nor instructions about when and where to cross, or even a line to sign up for.

Compounding the confusion, many of the migrants have no idea why they were denied entry to the U.S to request asylum in the first place. They have only the vaguest notion of Title 42, and what its repeal could mean for them. The information they have largely comes via word of mouth, which human smugglers frequently spin to sell their services.

But migrants may be headed towards disappointment as Title 42 winds down and another restrictive immigration policy is likely ramped up.

World News

The US Admitted a Group of Russians at the Border Under Secret Deal With Mexico

DAVID NORIEGA, DAVID MORA

03.28.22

Jacki, a Honduran woman who has spent six months in the encampment with her four-year-old daughter, learned of Title 42’s end through a reporter (not this one). Jacki and the other migrants interviewed for this story declined to provide their last names. “We are all excited… but… I don’t know,” Jacki said. “It’s too good to be true.”

She may be right. Department of Homeland Security officials said that in the wake of winding down Title 42, it will increase its use of the policy known as Migrant Protection Protocols, or “Remain in Mexico,” which requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are decided. It’s possible that asylum seekers stranded in some of Mexico’s most dangerous border cities by Title 42 could finally enter the U.S. and ask for protection, only to be returned to Mexico under Remain in Mexico.

The Biden administration has also expanded “Remain in Mexico” to include Haitians, who make up the fastest-growing group of migrants in Reynosa. Even with Title 42 gone, gaining legal entry into the U.S. is uncertain at best.

For migrants, U.S. immigration policy can feel like a game of whack-a-mole. From Feb. 2021 to Dec. 2021, during Biden’s first year in office, immigration agents allowed roughly 29 percent of migrants encountered at the southern border to enter the U.S. and plead their case before an immigration judge, according to the American Immigration Council, which advocates on behalf of migrants. The rest were summarily expelled under Title 42 to Mexico or another country, or sent to ICE detention.

. . . .

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

The way to start breaking backlogs and restoring confidence in the rule of law is to identify and prioritize asylum grants!

That’s precisely the opposite of the misguided border policies that Administrations of both parties have followed for the past two decades: Move unrepresented individuals to the front of the line and issue lots of bogus in absentias and hasty denials in a perverted, and highly ineffective, attempt to use our legal system as a “deterrent” and to “send don’t come messages.”

The Biden Administration should have a team of trained Refugee Officers and Asylum Officers in Mexico, now, working with pro bono advocates and NGOs to identify and “pre-process/pre-approve” asylum cases that can be granted on May 23 or shortly thereafter. That would start clearing out the camps in Mexico, reducing processing backlogs, and lessening pressure on the Immigration Courts. Incidentally, it would also provide needed potential legal workers for the U.S. economy.

It would also establish the credibility of the asylum processing program (something now in tatters) at legal ports of entry. That, in turn, would incentivize individuals to use orderly asylum processing rather than being lured by smugglers into attempting dangerous irregular entries.

A major overlooked fact in the restrictionist babble (disgustingly repeated even by some Administration officials and Dem politicos) about “illegal border crossings” is that the U.S. has had no transparent legal asylum system at ports of entry for years. Our Government’s failure, has empowered smugglers, encouraged irregular entry, and endangered asylum seekers. Amazingly, despite years of bad faith, dishonesty, and insulting “die elsewhere” racist messages, tens of thousands of individuals have waited patiently on the Mexican side of the Southern Border, in horrid and life-threatening conditions, for appointments, hearings, and adjudications that have never happened and that are often biased and unfair on those occasions when they did take place.

The Biden Administration should also be working in Mexico with NGOs to provide accurate information (NOT “stay home and die” propaganda) about the U.S. Asylum program, the legal documentation requirements, opportunities for representation and counseling, and what will happen after May 23. Given the lack of honesty, transparency, accuracy, and humanity in many “official” USG pronouncements, it’s no wonder desperate folks seek information and guidance elsewhere.

An essential part of the foregoing is to establish officially-maintained prioritized processing lists for ports of entry. As noted in Emily’s article, informal “do it yourself” lists are being maintained by unofficial and unregulated “gatekeepers.” This has been a key reason why the U.S. system lacks credibility and orderliness.

It’s not “rocket science.” 🚀 But, as usual, when it comes to immigration, human rights, and equal justice, the Biden Administration lacks dynamic expert leadership, a positive vision of immigration, and the ability to “pick off the low hanging fruit.”

As I have pointed out before, in the absence of a plan, the best hope for an orderly transition to a restored legal asylum program might well be NGOs and volunteers who could step in where the Administration is failing! https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/04/02/%f0%9f%97%bd%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f-cdc-announces-end-of-covid-bar-but-only-7-weeks-from-now-compare-what-dhs-should-have-said-with-what-they-did-say-with-51/

🗽🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-06-22

🗽⚖️ CDC ANNOUNCES END OF “COVID BAR” — BUT ONLY 7 WEEKS FROM NOW — COMPARE WHAT DHS SHOULD HAVE SAID WITH WHAT THEY DID SAY — WITH 51 DAYS TO GO & COUNTING, CAN ADVOCATES & NGOs SAVE THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FROM ITSELF?

The CDC Announcement:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cdcresponse/Final-CDC-Order-Prohibiting-Introduction-of-Persons.pdf

What DHS SHOULD have said about reinstitution of our legal asylum system at the border:

“The Department of Homeland Security works to secure and manage our borders while building, maintaining, and improving a fair and orderly immigration system. That includes a fair and timely system for granting asylum or other forms of refuge from persecution or torture to qualified applicants. Insuring legal protection for refugees is a critical part of DHS’s mission of administering and enforcing the laws.

Violence, political upheaval, war, genocide, religious intolerance, racism, food insecurity, poverty, femicide, child abuse, environmental disasters, rampant corruption, and prospects of starvation in several areas around the world are driving unprecedented levels of migration to our Southwest Border. The devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which involved the temporary suspension of our system for legal immigration, including admission of asylees and other refugees, has only exacerbated these challenges. A number of sources, including human smuggling organizations, peddle misinformation about entering the United States or coming to our borders.

With the restoration of our legal immigration system on the horizon, only two groups of foreign nationals will generally qualify for admission at our borders: first, those in possession of visas or equivalent documents usually issued by U.S. consular officers abroad; and second, those who can establish that they qualify for asylum or other forms of legal protection from return to persecution and/or torture.

Under our laws, asylum can only be granted to those reasonably fearing harm because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Other foreign nationals facing harm not amounting to “torture” in their home countries will not be eligible for admission under our laws. Those who apply or are apprehended at or near the border and cannot show a “credible fear” of harm because of one of the foregoing grounds will be summarily removed from our country.

In short, if you do not have a valid visa or a bona fide claim for asylum or other legal protection, you should not make the journey to the U.S. border. You will be apprehended and summarily returned to your home country in accordance with our laws.

DHS is implementing a comprehensive strategy to address a potential increase in the number of border encounters. That strategy includes:

Acquiring and deploying many more trained Asylum Officers to legal ports of entry to promptly decide “credible fear” cases for asylum seekers;

Delivering a more efficient, fair, and timely asylum process by allowing Asylum Officers to grant credible, well-documented claims at the border;

Working with NGOs, legal aid groups, and local governments to provide legal counseling and representation to those seeking asylum;

Working with NGOs, religious organizations, and other social services entities in the U.S. to assist in orderly resettlement of those granted asylum or whose cases cannot be timely processed at the border;

Processing and removing those who do not have valid claims; and

Working with the UNHCR, NGOs, and other countries globally to manage migration and address root causes.

With the restoration of a fair and timely asylum and protection processing system at our legal ports of entry, all asylum applicants should apply in an orderly fashion only at those ports. That will be the safest, most efficient way of applying, offer the greatest opportunities for legal representation, and increase the chances of timely, legal admission into the United States for those who are qualified.

Those who attempt to avoid legal processing at ports of entry by unauthorized entry may well find their lives endangered by unscrupulous smugglers. Additionally, those who attempt to avoid the legal process available at ports of entry might subject themselves to detention, additional grounds for removal, bars on future reentry, and criminal prosecution. With the return of full legal immigration and improved asylum processing to ports of entry, DHS will be able to devote more enforcement resources to locating and apprehending those attempting irregular entry into the U.S. DHS will also target human smuggling operations.

There is broad agreement that our immigration system is fundamentally broken. The Biden-Harris Administration continues to call on Congress to pass legislation that holistically addresses the root causes of migration, fixes the immigration system, and strengthens legal pathways.”

Compare the above with what DHS ACTUALLY said:

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/03/30/fact-sheet-dhs-preparations-potential-increase-migration

FACT SHEET: DHS Preparations for a Potential Increase in Migration

Release Date: March 30, 2022

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) works to secure and manage our borders while building a fair and orderly immigration system. The CDC has announced that, on May 23, 2022, its Title 42 public health Order will be terminated. As a result, beginning on May 23, 2022, DHS will no longer process families and single adults for expulsion pursuant to Title 42. Instead, DHS will process them for removal under Title 8. Until May 23, 2022, the CDC’s Title 42 Order remains in place, and DHS will continue to process families and single adults pursuant to the Order.

Under Title 8, those who attempt to enter the United States without authorization, and who are unable to establish a legal basis to remain in the United States (such as a valid asylum claim), are subject to additional long-term consequences beyond removal from the United States, including bars to future immigration benefits.

DHS is implementing a comprehensive strategy to address a potential increase in the number of border encounters.

The strategy includes: 1) Acquiring and deploying resources to address increased volumes; 2) Delivering a more efficient and fair immigration process; 3) Processing and removing those who do not have valid claims; and 4) Working with other countries in the Western Hemisphere to manage migration and address root causes.

Violence, food insecurity, poverty, and lack of economic opportunity in several countries in the Western Hemisphere are driving unprecedented levels of migration to our Southwest Border. The devastating economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the region has only exacerbated these challenges. Human smuggling organizations peddle misinformation that the border is open. DHS is implementing a comprehensive strategy to address a potential increase in the number of border encounters.

There is broad agreement that our immigration system is fundamentally broken. The Biden-Harris Administration continues to call on Congress to pass legislation that holistically addresses the root causes of migration, fixes the immigration system, and strengthens legal pathways.
1. Acquiring and deploying resources to address increased volumes.

Developed an integrated and scalable plan to activate and mobilize resources.
DHS initiated a Southwest Border contingency planning effort last fall. Last month, the Secretary designated a Senior Coordinating Official and established the Southwest Border Coordination Center (SBCC) to coordinate planning, operations, engagement, and interagency support.

Ready to surge personnel and resources to the Southwest Border.
DHS has moved officers, agents, and DHS Volunteer Force personnel to rapidly decompress points along the border and more efficiently process migrants.

Increasing CBP temporary holding capacity to process high volumes of individuals in a humane manner.
CBP has mobilized resources to rapidly stand up, expand, and/or reinforce Central Processing Centers in order to provide more efficient end-to-end processing for migrants encountered at the Southwest Border. Additionally, more ICE staff will be deployed to the border to facilitate processing.

Utilized appropriated resources to improve border processing
In its FY22 appropriations bill, Congress provided an additional $1.45 billion for a potential Southwest Border surge, including $1.06 billion for CBP soft-sided facilities, medical care, transportation, and personnel costs; $239.7 million for ICE for processing capacity, transportation, and personnel costs; and $150 million for FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program at the Southwest Border. Earlier this week, President Biden submitted to Congress its FY23 Budget, which would fund the hiring of 300 new Border Patrol Agents and 300 new Border Patrol Processing Coordinators.

While the 2022 appropriation exceeded the request and represents a historic funding level for DHS, the appropriation would not be sufficient to fund the potential resource requirements associated with the current increase in migrant flows. DHS will fund operational requirements by prudently executing its appropriations; reprioritizing and reallocating existing funding through reprogrammings and transfers; requesting support from other Federal agencies; and finally, by engaging with Congress on any potential need for supplemental appropriations, as necessary.

Implementing COVID mitigation measures
The health and safety of the DHS workforce, communities, and migrants themselves is a top priority. CBP provides PPE to migrants who cannot be expelled under the CDC’s Title 42 order or are awaiting processing from the moment they are taken into custody, and migrants are required to keep masks on at all times. CBP also works with appropriate agencies that facilitate testing, isolation, and quarantine of migrants.

DHS has also been providing the COVID-19 vaccines to noncitizens in ICE custody since summer 2021. Beginning March 28, 2022, DHS expanded those efforts to cover migrants in CBP custody, so as to further safeguard public health and ensure the safety of border communities, the workforce, and migrants. These efforts will be ramped up over the next two months, to cover the majority of noncitizens taken into CBP custody.

In addition, DHS is putting in place decompression plans to protect against the kind of overcrowding that facilitates the spread of COVID-19.

2. Delivering a more efficient and fair immigration process.

Issued rule to expedite asylum claims.
On March 24, 2022, DHS and the Department of Justice issued a rule to improve and expedite processing of asylum claims made by recently arriving noncitizens, which provides for the expeditious granting of relief to those who have valid claims for asylum and prompt removal of those whose claims are denied. Once implemented at scale in the coming months, the rule will transform how cases are processed at the border. In President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2023 Budget to Congress, he makes good on the promise of this rule by investing $375 million to hire the personnel needed to quickly process asylum claims.

A Dedicated Docket process for more efficient immigration hearings.
In partnership with the Department of Justice, DHS established a new, more efficient process called the Dedicated Docket to conduct speedier and fair immigration proceedings for families who arrive between ports of entry at the Southwest Border. As a result, the length of time it takes for many of these cases to reach a final disposition has decreased from years to months.

Increased efforts to dismantle transnational criminal organizations that exploit vulnerable migrants
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the U.S. Department of State, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration of the U.S. Department of Justice launched a counter-network targeting operation focused on transnational criminal organizations affiliated with the smuggling of migrants.

This Operation targets criminal networks that profit from a broad range of illicit activities, such as human smuggling, by using targeted enforcement actions against them, including by denying access to travel and freezing bank accounts.

3. Processing and removing those who do not have valid claims.

Continuing to process migrants in accordance with the laws of the United States, including expeditiously removing those who do not have valid claims to remain in the United States.
Individuals who cross the border without legal authorization will be placed into removal proceedings and, if unable to establish a legal basis to remain in the United States, expeditiously removed. Those who attempt to enter the United States without authorization, and without a valid asylum claim, are subject to additional long-term consequences beyond removal from the United States, including bars to future immigration benefits.

Bringing targeted prosecutions of smugglers, repeat offenders, and those who seek to evade law enforcement.
In close coordination with the Department of Justice, DHS will refer border-related criminal activity to DOJ for prosecution where warranted, including that of smugglers, repeat offenders, and migrants who seek to evade U.S. Customs and Border Protection. U.S. Customs and Border Protection also continues to enforce its Repeat Offender initiative to target recidivism. Any single adult apprehended along the Southwest Border a second time, after having previously been apprehended and removed under Title 8, is referred for criminal prosecution. This initiative has improved DHS’s ability to escalate consequences and conserve processing resources.

4. Working with other countries in the Western Hemisphere to manage migration and address root causes.

Working closely with source and transit countries in the region to deter migration.
The Administration is working with source and transit countries in the region to facilitate the quick return of individuals who previously resided in those countries, as well as stem migration at its source. DHS, in coordination with the Department of State, has regular discussions with partner countries in the Hemisphere on migration related matters and continues to engage with foreign governments to improve cooperation with countries that systematically refuse or delay the repatriation of their nationals.

Signed Migration Arrangement with Costa Rica to address irregular migration.
On March 15, 2022, Secretary Mayorkas traveled to Costa Rica where he joined President Alvarado in announcing a bilateral Migration Arrangement, outlining our shared commitment to both manage migrant flows as well as to promote economic growth in the region. DHS and the Department of State are currently engaged with other countries in the region to advance similar objectives.

Continuing close partnership with the Government of Mexico on migration-related issues.
The Biden-Harris Administration continues to maintain a close partnership between with the Government of Mexico to stem irregular migration, creating viable legal pathways, fostering legitimate trade and travel, and combating the shared dangers of transnational crime. In March, Secretary Mayorkas made his fourth official visit to Mexico City where he and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador committed to the promotion of lawful trade and travel and a regional approach to migration management.

Topics
BORDER SECURITY IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT

Keywords
BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) FACT SHEET SOUTHWEST BORDER SOUTHWEST BORDER COORDINATION CENTER (SBCC)

What if?

As a sometimes law professor, “What if” is a question I can’t avoid!

The DHS “Fact Sheet” reads like an unprepared agency, planning to be overwhelmed by forces allegedly beyond their control, and looking for ways to shift the anticipated political fallout by blaming others: Congress, smugglers, foreign countries, COVID-19, the Trump Administration, and, in a particularly “low blow” the victims themselves — asylum seekers and other desperate migrants.

Let’s keep in mind that legitimate “refugees” have been largely “shut out” of our legal system for the past several years. Thus, many were left with little or no choice but to seek “do it yourself” refugee within our large “extralegal immigration subsystem.” Often they resort to smugglers and put themselves at increased risk after finding our borders closed to those orderly seeking protection under our laws. We have watched it unfold, and largely ignored the unsavory consequences of our own actions.

I’m certainly not the only one to see “planned disaster” for the Biden Administration on the horizon. Check out today’s WashPost lead editorial:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/01/migrant-surge-is-coming-border-biden-is-not-ready/

However, what if, with 51 days to go, advocates and NGOs could “flip the script” on “programmed failure” and make the asylum system at our border function fairly and efficiently, in spite of itself?

What if the “anticipated narrative” of an out of control border never came to pass? What if the U.S. could actually make the rule of law a reality at the border? What if reopening legal ports of entry for asylum seekers, thereby eliminating the pressure for “do it yourself refuge,” actually helped the Border Patrol concentrate on smugglers and those without any legal claim to remain here?

That might involve getting an “army” of volunteers to the border to:

Convince asylum seekers to trust the new system and apply in an orderly fashion only at ports of entry;
Work with the DHS to insure that any processing lists are established and controlled by legitimate authorities;
Leverage the potential for more rapid asylum grants by Asylum Officers by representing applicants and assisting them in documenting and presenting their claims in formats that will facilitate more AO grants;
Represent those improperly denied by the AO before the Immigration Courts and use effective, “practical scholarship,” expert advocacy, and compelling documentation to force due process and fundamental fairness into an Immigration Court system and a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals historically biased against asylum seekers at our borders;
Counsel those prima facie unqualified for asylum and those rejected after applying on possible alternatives outside the U.S.;
Work with authorities, local communities, and NGOs to provide viable resettlement opportunities for those granted asylum and safe, secure, and non-intrusive temporary living conditions on both sides of the border for those awaiting legal processing;
Advocate to the DHS for establishment of robust, realistic, generous, credible refugee programs for Latin America, Haiti, and elsewhere to reduce pressure on the border asylum system. A “viable alternative” to appearing at the border for refugees is what’s glaringly missing from both our past and current approaches.

Can change really come from below and outside the struggling DHS and EOIR systems? Frankly, I don’t know. But, we’re going to find out in the next several months! We can’t change history, but, perhaps, we can rewrite the future!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-02-22

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

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

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

From HRF:

. . . .

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

. . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-11-22

☠️NEW KIND REPORT SHOWS CRISIS OF PERSECUTION OF WOMEN & CHILDREN IN NORTHERN TRIANGLE EXACERBATED BY PANDEMIC — More Evidence Of Legal, Factual, & Moral Bankruptcy Of Administration’s Bogus “Deterrence Policies” As Well As Grotesque Failure Of U.S. Courts At All Levels To Uniformly Require Granting Of Asylum To Qualified Refugee Women & Children!

*Cover photo by photojournalist Guillermo Martinez shows a boy in El Salvador wearing a protective mask from his home during a COVID-19 lockdown. Photo credit: Guillermo Martinez/APHOTOGRAFIA/ Getty Images

New Report: Dual Crises

Gender-Based Violence and Inequality Facing Children and Women During the COVID-19 Pandemic in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras

Gender-based violence has long been one of the main drivers of migration from Central America to the United States. Widespread violence, including sexual abuse, human trafficking, and violence in the home and family, combined with a lack of access to protection and justice forces children and women to flee in search of safety. Drawing on existing research and interviews with children’s and women’s rights experts, this report lays out how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated already pervasive forms of violence against children and women in Central America, as well as the deeply entrenched gender inequality that leaves children and women even more vulnerable to violence.

Here’s a link to the full report: http://us.engagingnetworks.app/page/email/click/10097/1093096?email=C9P0Zhj6QQc0L7Si0LDouAN%2BRR2ul1GhmZAK81VjEpg=&campid=z6owwwxd2r6ZkArzVWMSmA==

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

Successful implementation of the U.S. Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America must start by acknowledging that gender-based violence is a primary driver of migration and includes most violence against children.

Obviously, mindless, failed enforcement and deterrence-only policies that tell women and children to “suffer and die in place” rather than flee and seek asylum are absurdly out of touch with the realities of both human migration and the real situation in the Northern Triangle. This report shows that increased flight from the Northern Triangle probably has more to do with the aggravating effects of the pandemic on the already untenable situation of many women and children in the Northern Triangle than it does on any policy pronouncements, real or imagined, on the part of the Biden Administration.

An honest policy that recognizes the reality that gender-based persecution is a major driver of forced migration in the Northern Triangle would go a long way toward addressing the largely self-created situation at our Southern Border.

As many of us keep saying, to no visible avail, asylum isn’t a “policy option” for politicos and wonks to “discuss and debate.” It’s a legal and moral requirement, domestically and internationally, that we are currently defaulting upon!

Wonder why “democracy is on the ropes” throughout the world right now? Perhaps, we need look no further than our own horrible example!

A robust overseas refugee program in the region and a uniform, consistent, timely policy of granting asylum to qualified applicants applying at ports of entry at our borders would be a vast improvement.

Sure, it would undoubtedly result in the legal immigration of more refugees and asylum seekers. That’s actually what refugee and asylum laws are all about — an important and robust component of our legal immigration system.

Although our needs are not actually part of the “legal test for asylum,” the fact is, we need more legal immigrants of all types in America right now.

It should be a win-win for the refugees and for America. So why not make it happen, rather than continuing failed policy approaches that serve nobody’s interest except nativist zealots trying to inflame xenophobia for political gain?

An additional point: On February 2, 2021, to great ballyhoo, President Biden issued Executive Order 14010. A key provision of that order required that:

(ii) within 270 days of the date of this order, promulgate joint regulations, consistent with applicable law, addressing the circumstances in which a person should be considered a member of a “particular social group,” as that term is used in 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(42)(A), as derived from the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.

270 days have long passed. In fact, its been more than 300 days since that order. Yet, these regulations are nowhere in sight. Perhaps, that’s a good thing.

This doesn’t come as much of a surprise to “us old timers” who have “hands on” experience with the unsuitability of the DOJ regulation drafting process for this assignment. Indeed, this assignment is actually several decades “overdue,” having originally been handed out by the late former Attorney General Janet Reno prior to her departure from office in January 2020!

The problem remains lack of expertise. With the possible exception of Lucas Guttentag, I know of nobody at today’s DOJ who actually has the necessary experience, expertise, perspective, and historical knowledge to draft a proper regulation on the topic. Past drafts and proposals have been disastrous, actually seeking to diminish, rather than increase and regularize, protections for vulnerable women and others facing persecution on account of gender-based particular social groups.

Indeed, one proposal was even used by OIL as an avenue in attempting to “water down” the all-important, life saving “regulatory presumption of future persecution arising out of past persecution!” Talk about perversions of justice at Justice! Why? Because OIL had suffered a series of embarrassing, ego-deflating setbacks from Article III Courts calling out the frequent failure of the BIA and IJs to properly apply the basics of the presumption. Sound familiar?

At DOJ, the “normal solution to lack of expertise and competence” is to simply eliminate expertise and competence as requirements! In many ways, “good enough for government work” has replaced “who prosecutes on behalf of Lady Justice” as the DOJ’s motto!

It’s also yet another reason why the DOJ is a horribly inappropriate “home” for the U.S. Immigration Courts!

😎Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-16-21

⚖️🗽NDPA CALL TO ARMS: THE GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE ISSUES RESEARCH TO COMBAT THE DISINGENUOUS ATTACK ON WOMEN & THE RACE-DRIVEN MISOGYNY & MINIMIZATION OF GENDER-BASED PERSECUTION THAT INFECTS THE FEDERAL JUDICIARY & BUREAUCRACY FROM TOP TO BOTTOM! — “Better Than The Third Circuit!”

“Make the record” to fight the ignorant nonsense and grotesque misconstruction of the asylum law and country conditions by the Third Circuit & far, far too many Federal Judges & Bureaucrats with this authoritative report authored by Natalie Gonnella-Platts, Jenny Villatoro, and Laura Collins of the George W. Bush Institute:

https://www.bushcenter.org/publications/resources-reports/reports/gender-based-violence-and-migration-central-america.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fiveforfriday&utm_term=12102021

No Justice: Gender-based Violence and Migration in Central America

Gender-based violence affects one in three women worldwide, making it an urgent and important policy challenge. Violence against women and girls is often excluded from conversations on the nexus of Central American migration, regional development, and domestic immigration reform.

Key Excerpts:

. . . .

Though there has been increasing focus from US and international influencers on the levels of violence in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (known as the Northern Triangle) and its impact on migration, an adequate response to the gendered differences in the ways violence is perpetrated remains limited and at times nonexistent.

This needs to change, especially since gender-based violence within the Northern Triangle constitutes a daily threat to women and girls—one that has been significantly worsened by corruption, weak institutions, and a culture of impunity toward perpetrators. At individual and community levels, gender-based violence drives women and girls to be displaced internally, migrate to the United States, or a somber third path—death either by femicide or suicide. At national levels, it seriously inhibits security, opportunity, and development.

As circumstances at the southern border of the United States demonstrate, gender-based violence has a direct influence on migration flows across the region and is deeply tangled with cyclical challenges of inequity and poverty. For those who choose to seek assistance or flee their communities, high rates of revictimization and bias further obstruct access to justice and safety.

Until policies and programs respond to the serious violations of agency and human rights perpetuated against women and girls (and within systems and society at large), instability in and migration from the Northern Triangle only stand to grow.

As the United States and the international community consider a comprehensive plan on Central America and immigration reform, proposed strategies must anchor the status and safety of women and girls at the center of solutions.

. . . .

In Guatemala, teenage girls face a substantial risk of being “disappeared,” with 8 out of every 10,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 17 reported missing each year.7

. . . .

Guatemala: In Guatemala, about 8 of every 1,000 women and girls were the victim of violence in 2020. Thirty women were murdered on average each month last year, or almost one per day, the lowest rate in the last 10 years. Reported rape cases averaged 14 per day.17 One of the most extreme and recognizable forms of gender-based violence is sex slavery. According to a report by the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and UNICEF: “A combination of gangs, crime families, and drug trafficking organizations run sex trafficking rings in Guatemala that may involve some 48,500 victims.”18

Women in Indigenous and rural communities may have it even worse. For example, Indigenous women in Guatemala face multiple layers of discrimination, including a history of repression and genocide.

During the genocidal Guatemalan civil war that lasted from 1960 to 1996, state sanctioned mass rape during massacres was used to repress the Indigenous populations—with offenses committed publicly and bodies often left on display with the intent to instill terror in the Mayan communities.19 Truth commissions state that more than 100,000 Indigenous women were raped and forced into sex slavery.20

State-sanctioned and state-accepted gendered violence may have contributed to a culture that tolerates violence against women. Guatemalans were the most accepting of gender-based violence in a 2014 survey of Latin American countries by Vanderbilt University, while El Salvador came in second.21

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated the risk of violence to women and girls in the Northern Triangle, as it has in every region

of the world. Exploited by gangs and others, lock-downs have forced those most at risk for violence to shelter in proximity to their abusers. All three countries within the region have reported sizable increases in intrafamily violence since the start of the pandemic. El Salvador has also seen a notable increase in intrafamily femicide.

. . . .

Coupled with the trauma already experienced by survivors, each of these factors contributes to a lack of trust in institutions, high levels of impunity for perpetrators, and a vicious cycle of repeat violence against women and girls.

Faced with this dire reality, women and girls often have three choices: (1) report and face disbelief, (2) stay and risk additional violence, or (3) flee.

. . . .

Women and girls undertake this risky journey with no guarantee of legal protection in the United States. But they come because the horrors they face at home are so much worse.

It’s important to remember that seeking asylum

is often the only legal means that migrants who qualify have of entering the United States. Although requesting asylum is legal, the path to asylum is not

safe. An understanding of legal rights and access to services—including health, trauma, and legal support—also remain out of reach for many female migrants, furthering cycles of exploitation.

Current US refugee and asylum law does not recognize gender-based violence as its own category warranting protection. According to the American Bar Association, US protections for victims of gender-based violence are built upon 20 years of advocacy and sometimes favorable legal opinions.54 These protections are tenuous, with any presidential administration able to roll back the decisions made under its predecessor. Attorney General Merrick Garland recently reinstated prior precedent for gen- der-based violence asylum requests and announced that the Department of Justice would pursue a formal rule.55 But even this could be reversed in the future.

Until legislation enshrines gender-based violence as a condition warranting humanitarian protection, the United States will continue to turn away women and girls who merit refuge.

. . . .

The Northern Triangle, Mexico, and the United States are at a crossroads. El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras can either take advantage of a young population of prime working age by promoting pol- icies that create a safe, stable environment where women and girls can fully participate, or they can continue on a path that is leading to substantial lev- els of gender-based violence, instability, migration, and economic stagnation.

As research continuously demonstrates, when empowered, active, and engaged, women and girls are a critical catalyst for security and prosperity. Countries with higher levels of gender equity are more peaceful and stable overall.66 Gender equality can provide better outcomes for children, increased labor productivity, lower poverty rates, and reduced levels of violence.67

In seeking to secure a brighter future across the Western Hemisphere, immigration and develop- ment policies must include solutions to address gender inequity and gender-based violence. As current circumstances at the southern border of the United States demonstrate, stability and prosperity are not possible without them.

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

Debi Sanders ESQ
“Warrior Queen” of the NDPA
PHOTO: law.uva.edu

Many thanks to my good friend and “founding mother of the NDPA,” Deb Sanders for bringing this to my attention.

The Bush Institute has done some great “practical scholarship” on gender-based asylum, exposing many of the lies and misinformation upon which Government policies have been based, particularly GOP nativist policies and the overtly misogynistic attack on migrant women of color by the Trump regime.

“No justice,” “protections are tenuous” (at best), “high levels of impunity,” “dire reality,” “requesting asylum is legal, the path to asylum is not safe” come to mind when reading the Third Circuit’s abominably incorrect “analysis” in Chavez-Chilil v. A.G. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/12/10/%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%a4%ae%f0%9f%91%8e%f0%9f%8f%bd-3rd-cir-badly-bungles-guatemalan-women-psg-chavez-chilel-v-atty-gen/

And let’s not forget that Ms. Chavez-Chilil is actually one of the lucky ones! She got a chance to make her claim and was awarded life-saving protection by an Immigration Judge under the CAT, albeit protection that leaves her unnecessarily and perpetually “in limbo” — ineligible to fully join our society and maximize her own human potential for everyone’s benefit.

By contrast, thousands of women and girls (also men and boys) are insanely, illegally, and immorally “orbited” back to danger zones without any opportunity to even make a claim and without any legitimate process whatsoever, let alone due process!

Why this is important:

Compelling documentation and cogent arguments will win individual cases and save lives;
We can build case law precedent for gender-based asylum grants;
We must make a clear historical record of which jurists and bureaucrats stood up for the rule of law and the humanity of refugee women and which of them purposely have aligned themselves with the “dark side of history.” See, e.g., Chief Justice Roger Taney.

Why is the Biden Administration mindlessly and immorally attempting to “deter” legal asylum seekers from seeking to save their own lives? What’s the excuse for treating a moral and legal requirement under domestic and international law as a “bogus political strategy option” rather than the legal obligation it is? Why was the DOJ “pushing” a legally wrong, corrupt, factually wrong position before the Third Circuit? Where’s the expertise? The backbone? The moral courage? The accountability?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-13-21

🇺🇸🗽⚖️NDPA VIRTUAL OPPORTUNITY: Meet Rising Superstar 🌟 & Social Justice Advocate Denea Joseph, Current Ousley Social Justice Resident @ Beloit College — Friday, Sept. 17 @ 7:00 PM CDT — FREE Virtual Link Here!

Of interest? You can join virtually.

———- Forwarded message ———

From: Atiera Lauren Coleman <colemana@beloit.edu>

Date: Wed, Sep 8, 2021 at 3:10 PM

Subject: [EVENT] Ousley Residency: All Black Lives Matter: Black Immigrants and the Immigrants’ Rights Movement

To: <facstaff@lists.beloit.edu>

Ousley Residency Keynote Speaker

Denea Joseph

Friday, September 17, 7:00 PM – In-person & Virtual – (Add to Google Calendar)

BTYB – Student Success, Equity, and Community and the Weissberg Program in Human Rights & Social Justice

The Office of Student Success, Equity & Community Ousley Scholar In Residency honors the legacy of Grace Ousley, the first black woman to graduate from Beloit College. It is a junior scholar/activist/organizer/intellectual committed to the theory and practice of social justice. They should embody the “academic hustler” who fights for “social justice” in all aspects of their work. Support for the residency comes from the Weissberg Program in Human Rights and Social Justice and the Office of Student Success. Equity & Community.

Event Details

Date: Friday, September 17, 2021

Time: 7:00 PM -8:30 PM

How to attend

In-person – Weissberg Auditorium – Powerhouse

Virtual – Join Zoom Meeting https://beloit.zoom.us/j/81172664933

—

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

This promises to be a great program! And, the Ousley Residence Program is a fantastic contribution to educating and inspiring new generations of Americans about the many challenges still facing us in achieving social justice in our nation.

The abrogation of due process and dehumanization of people of color has, outrageously, become part of the dysfunctional U.S. Immigration Court System. The last Administration specifically encouraged and promoted this ugly, anti-democracy, phenomenon and then used it to spearhead an all-out assault on racial justice, gender equality, LGBTQ rights, religious tolerance, economic progress, voter rights, and humane progressive values throughout American society.

Unfortunately, many progressives have been slow to “connect the dots” and insist that meaningful social justice change start with fixing the racial and gender bias problems in our Immigration Courts, tribunals that are under the complete control of the Biden Administration!

For example, current Attorney General Merrick Garland rather incredibly claims to be standing up for women’s rights in Texas and defending voting rights for minorities while continuing to run misogynistic, regressive “Star Chambers” at EOIR, staffed with many judges hand-selected by Jeff Sessions and Billy Barr, and tossing vulnerable women refugees of color back across our Southern Border into harm’s way without any “process” at all, let alone “Due Process of Law.” Garland also continues to enable human rights abuses in the “New American Gulag” of DHS civil detention! We can see this process of dehumanization of the “other” before the law, called “Dred Scottification” by many of us, spreading throughout our legal system and being endorsed and “normalized” all the way up to the Supremes.

From the summary in the announcement above, it appears that Denea, based on her own inspiring life and achievements as a “Dreamer,” will help us to “connect the dots” between racial justice, immigrant justice, and equal justice for all. Immigrants’ Rights = Human Rights = Everyone’s Rights!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-09-21

☠️ 9TH CIR. PELTS BIA WITH MORE ROTTEN TOMATOES 🍅! — Attempt To Deport Refugee Woman Entitled To Asylum, Withholding & CAT Thwarted! — BIA Wrongly Conflates Registered Nurse With Taxi Driver In Insane Misogynistic Bid To Return Mexicana Refugee To Death!⚰️👎🏽

Woman Tortured — “Taxi to Falls Church, anyone?”
Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Plancarte Sauceda v. Garland, 9th Cir., 08-20-21, (Panel = Fletcher, Watford, Collins; Opinion = Fletcher)

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/08/20/19-73312.pdf

Court staff summary:

. . . .

Citing Matter of Acosta, 19 I. & N. Dec. 211 (BIA 1985), the Board concluded that “female nurses” were not a cognizable “particular social group” because being a nurse, like being a taxi driver, is not an immutable characteristic. The panel held that the Board erred by simply citing Matter of Acosta, and failing to provide any meaningful analysis about the immutability of “female nurses.” The panel explained that in contrast to Acosta, Plancarte cannot avoid compulsion by the cartel simply by changing jobs, because even if she ceased employment as a nurse, she would still be a nurse, as she has received specialized medical training and has a professional license as a nurse. Moreover, the cartel targeted Plancarte precisely because of her specialized nursing skills, and threatened her and her family with torture and death to force her to use those skills to provide medical treatment to the cartel. Thus, regardless of whether she would continue to work as a licensed nurse, Plancarte lacks “the power to change” the immutable nursing characteristics—her medical knowledge and nursing skills—that make her important to the cartel. The panel therefore granted the petition with respect to Plancarte’s asylum and withholding of removal claims, and remanded for consideration of the other required characteristics of her proposed particular social group of “female nurses.”

Turning to Plancarte’s CAT claim, the panel concluded that the Board’s decision ignored uncontradicted record evidence showing both acquiescence and direct involvement by government officials. The panel held that substantial evidence therefore compelled the conclusion that there was official involvement and acquiescence in the cartel forcing Plancarte to provide medical treatment to cartel members. The panel granted the petition with respect to CAT, and remanded for a determination whether the likelihood of

4 PLANCARTE SAUCEDA V. GARLAND

torture if Plancarte were returned to Mexico is sufficient to warrant CAT relief.

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

Welcome to the “any reason to deny culture” at Garland’s EOIR!

In addition to the gross errors noted by the panel, I also think that there is a winning argument that being a registered nurse is “fundamental to identity” and therefore not something we should require an individual to change. Put it in today’s COVID context, for Pete’s sake!

Think that being a lawyer isn’t “fundamental” to the identity of a BIA Appellate Judge, an Immigration Judge, or an Article III Judge? Only when these “judges” are thinking of ways to deny protection to others do they engage in such obvious intellectual dishonesty and absurd reasoning!

This is the type of case that should have been a “quick grant” and a precedent for other grants of protection in a functioning justice system! Instead it’s an disaster! One that just happens to have been “outed” by a conscientious Court of Appeals panel — something no person of color can count on! It should be no mystery why this maliciously incompetent system creates huge, growing, out of control backlogs while squandering public resources and destroying lives!

Immigration Court — Failure
BIA — Failure
OIL — Failure
Garland — Failure

And this gang is going to be in charge of setting precedents and protecting due process and human rights of women and other asylum seekers under the Administration’s proposed “streamlined” asylum system? Absurd! It will be a death sentence for far too many refugees!

Congrats to Vallerye Allyn Anderson for saving a life here! Her outstanding performance and understanding of human rights were far superior to that of any “judge” or other DOJ lawyer involved in this case. So, why are the wrong judges still making life or death decisions at EOIR without competent “adult supervision” from qualified judges at the BIA with expertise in asylum law and the guts to apply it correctly, humanely, and generously? See, e.g., Cardoza-Fonseca, Mogharrabi, Kasinga. Just hope that Vallerye and others like her will pursue EOIR judgeships until the disgraceful, deadly, two-decade old “progressive expert lockout from the 21st Century Immigration Judiciary” finally ends and quality, courage, and due process prevail!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever! Failure to “clean house” of Miller Lite White Nationalism, it’s acolytes, go along to get along toady enablers, and to bring common sense, long overdue, obvious, recommended, available progressive human rights reforms and better judges and leaders to EOIR — An ongoing national disgrace!🤮

PWS

08-22-21

☠️⚰️🏴‍☠️🤮OUTRAGE GROWS IN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMUNITY OVER TRUMPIST RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST JUDGE’S ASSAULT ON TRUTH, HUMANITY, & THE RULE OF LAW —“Jesus said, ‘whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Judge Kacsmaryk’s decision is contrary to man’s law and God’s law and must be overturned.”

Anna Marie Gallagher, Esquire
Executive Director
CLINIC
PHOTO: CLINIC website

Here’s a statement from CLINIC condemning this Judge’s decision to reinstate the misnamed “Migrant Protection Protocols,” better known as “Remain in Mexico,” or more accurately as “Let ‘Em Die In Mexico:”

Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.

Press Release

Aug. 14, 2021

Lynn Tramonte

Communications Consultant

ltramonte@cliniclegal.org | 202-255-0551

A Statement From the ED: CLINIC Condemns Federal Ruling to Resume Migrant Protection Protocols

SILVER SPRING, Maryland — The following is a statement from CLINIC Executive Director Anna Gallagher:

“CLINIC staff and volunteers have accompanied and provided legal counsel to thousands of men, women and children who sought safety at our doors, only to be stranded in Mexico in inhumane conditions through MPP. They desperately waited for protection and admission to one of the richest countries in the world, in increasing danger, by design of the U.S. government.

MPP is a national shame.

Jesus said, ‘whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Judge Kacsmaryk’s decision is contrary to man’s law and God’s law and must be overturned. We now call on President Biden to act on his faith and once again, end this policy that is so contrary to our values and who we aspire to be.”

CLINIC advocates for humane and just immigration policy. Its network of nonprofit immigration programs — 400 organizations in 48 states and the District of Columbia — is the largest in the nation.

Donate to CLINIC

Add CLINIC to your AmazonSmile account:

Copyright © 2021 Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., All rights reserved.

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

In case you miss the irony, think of this: At the very moment we are pleading with the international community to help extricate us from the humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan, we are illegally and arbitrarily turning away legal asylum applicants at our border, many of them women and children with claims just as compelling as those from Afghani women and girls, and returning them to dangerous areas with NO PROCESS AT ALL!

And, Judge K would like to support his GOP White Nationalist buddies in Texas and Missouri by unlawfully reimplementing “Remain in Mexico” — a much-studied, vigorously and rightfully criticized program deemed a practical, human rights, legal, and humanitarian disaster by every credible human rights organization.

CLINIC is right: “Shame!”

The above statement is, of course, not the only cogent criticism I have received at Courtside about this decision. It just happens to be the one that appeared first in my Courtside inbox, courtesy of my good friend and NDPA stalwart Anna Marie Gallagher, Executive Director of CLINIC!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-16-21

🗽OVER 100 CIVIL & HUMAN RIGHTS NGOS PROTEST BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S FAILURE TO RESTORE RULE OF LAW FOR REFUGEES @ BORDER! — Continued Use Of Title 42 To Suspend Asylum Blasted By Experts: “The administration’s recent actions highlighted above are in direct contravention of the goal to repair the broken immigration system you inherited.”

Biden Border Message — “Border Message”
By Steve Sack
Reproduced under license

Here is the letter:

Joint-Letter-to-President-Biden-on-Expulsion-Flights-to-Southern-Mexico-and-Forthcoming-Changes-to-Asylum-Processing_8132021

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

Confirms and amplifies they absurdity and wrongness of US District Judge Kacsmaryk’s recent decision to “restore” the unlawful, cruel, inhumane, and unnecessary MPP (“Let ‘Em Die In Mexico”) https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/08/14/%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f%e2%9a%b0%ef%b8%8falternate-universe-where-human-rights-human-dignity-due-process-dont-matter-trumpist-usdj-shafts-asylum-seekers-of-color-by-reinstating/;
As the human rights situations in Afghanistan, Haiti, and the Northern Triangle continue to unravel, the lack of a coherent, operational, legally sound, properly generous refugee and asylum program will continue to haunt the Administration;
In particular, the disgraceful failure to establish a strong, consistent, humane, and protection-oriented interpretation of gender-based asylum to protect women, who are disproportionately targeted for persecution, torture, and other violence, will cost lives of the most vulnerable and be a lasting stain on our nation. (I just listened to Peter Baker, NBC WH Correspondent, on Meet the Press, characterize Afghanistan under the Taliban as a “nation of spouse beaters!”)

The need to fix our our refugee and asylum systems immediately was obvious on January 20, 2021. Why, after 7 months it still is nowhere close to being accomplished is less obvious!

The turmoil in Afghanistan and Haiti and the ongoing human rights disasters in Latin America, all reasonably predictable, are going to increase the human and political problems flowing from a failure to take human rights seriously and to bring the practical human rights experts necessary to solve these issues constructively into the Government power structure! In the end, human rights are everyone’s rights! We ignore that at our peril!

Ironically, while protecting women from persecution and improving their lives was used as a justification by Administrations of both parties for our continuing military presence in Afghanistan, now, as the “end game” plays out in real time, it appears to have been largely reduced to a “talking point” (or a “news feature”) without any discernible plan for protecting or saving Afghan female refugees. Sadly politicos and officials from both parties seem more interested in using women’s lives as “cover” for two decades of ultimately futile presence there than with actually saving any lives now. Indeed, if we treat Afghan women refugees with the inhumane indifference we have continued to heap on female refugees seeking legal asylum at our Southern Border, their outlook is beyond grim.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-15-21

⚖️TAL @ SF CHRON GETS ACTION ON SEXUAL HARASSMENT @ EOIR & REST OF DOJ! — Report on Problems In Immigration Courts Finally Spurs Positive Response! — But Biden Continues To Flail Around Unnecessarily On Restoring Asylum & The Rule Of Law At Our Borders! — Where Is The Enlightened Progressive Leadership We Need?

Tal Kopan
Washington Reporter, SF Chronicle

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Justice-Department-to-overhaul-its-sexual-16352255.php

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice will examine its sexual harassment policies for potential reform, a move that comes after The Chronicle’s reporting on inappropriate behavior in the immigration courts, according to an announcement obtained by the newspaper.

The announcement went out to all department staff Thursday in an email seen by The Chronicle. In it, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco wrote it was “critical to our duty as principled defenders of the law to combat sexual harassment and misconduct in our own workplace and hold offenders accountable for their actions.”

Monaco said she is forming a committee to review all sexual harassment policies of the many sub-agencies of the Justice Department and assess where they may need to be changed, as well as evaluate current training and education. Two senior officials from her office will chair the effort and include members from across the department, and she said she wanted results of the review in six months.

. . . .

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

Thanks, and congrats, Tal! Those with access can read the rest of Tal’s report at the link.

How very timely! I just got done posting an article about the need for better Immigration Judges. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/07/30/%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%a7%91%f0%9f%8f%bd%e2%80%8d%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f-why-better-immigration-judges-matter-new-study-shows-that-who-your-judge-is-where-he-or-she-is-located-what-administ/

Not surprisingly, according to the research, the fairest Immigration Judges for asylum applicants and other migrants “profile” as female, with immigration experience, in the 9th Circuit, in a Dem Administration. Not exactly the Sessions, Barr, Garland (to date) judicial profile. That could have something to do with these festering problems at EOIR that haven’t been dealt with despite numerous warning signs and “alerts.”

Also, the Garland DOJ would do well to investigate and correct the effects of the virulent misogyny directed at female refugees of color by Sessions, Barr, and their toadies and furthered by EOIR policies, procedures, and precedents over the past four years. Endemic problems don’t happen by chance!

According to the Ryo-Peacock study I posted, the “difference” that better Immigration Judges could make is over 200,000 lives potentially saved or altered for the better. That’s not exactly “chump change,” particularly when the interests of family members, employers, communities, our larger justice system, and our overall society are considered.

It also calls into question the apparent lack of seriousness with which “Team Garland” has taken Immigration Judge appointments to date. Throwing dozens of “not the best qualified available” IJs — without any concerted recruitment or diversification efforts — into an already broken, biased, and reeling system that deals with human lives in a cavalier manner is NOT GOOD POLICY! Particularly when the chronic problems of bad judging at EOIR had been clearly and articulately identified and many viable action plans and reform programs had been set forth by private sector experts even before the 2020 election.

EOIR needs new progressive leadership, a new progressive expert BIA that will truly be the “Supreme Court” of immigration and human rights, and better qualified and more diverse Immigration Judges who finally will implement the noble and correct vision of “through teamwork and innovation, being the world’s best tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!” That would include treating all individuals coming before the courts, staff, and colleagues with dignity, respect, and fairness.

Sadly, the Biden Administration’s immigration policies, whatever they are on any particular day and place, seem to be mired in confusion, questionable competence, and a barrage of largely meaningless and confusing bureaucratic doublespeak. Meanwhile, in reality, it appears that Central Americans, Haitians, and others are being returned to danger zones without any process in place to insure fair treatment. Certainly, “Title 42” is the equivalent of no process whatsoever. While “expedited removal” might have the potential to be used fairly, there is little reason to believe that it is now being fairly and professionally administered by anyone committed to fundamental fairness over expedient enforcement.

Yes, Garland has sued racist moron Gov. Greg Abbott on his illegal Trumpist grandstanding (like Texas doesn’t have real problems to solve?). Stunts like Abbott’s were entirely predictable. However, if the Biden Administration had “hit the ground running” on asylum, the issue might well have been put to bed by now, and Abbott might have to focus instead on his normal job of mis-governing Texas, rather than focusing attention elsewhere.

The Administration could and should have had a robust refugee system up and running in the Northern Triangle that would reduce border pressure, a functioning asylum system that would encourage asylum applicants to apply at ports of entry rather than seeking irregular entry, a professional screening program in place at DHS, and a relatively “backlog free” Immigration Court, led by a progressive BIA, providing positive guidance on cases that could be granted. They would also have resettlement agreements and programs in place with NGOs and legal service groups to appropriately represent and resettle those granted asylum and those in the process to the locations where they could best reside.

Fair, expert, courageous leadership, leadership with a humane, positive, practical vision of immigration and an unswerving commitment to fairly granting asylum, is critical to success on immigration, human rights, and racial justice issues. So far, nobody in the Biden Administration appears to fit the bill! That’s probably why the Administration’s confused and ever-vacillating policies are being blasted by both progressives and reactionaries — the worst of all political worlds, as I have observed before!

There are experts out here in the private sector with the vision and leadership ability to solve these problems while putting White Nationalist restrictionists like Abbott in their place. Even though it’s late, the Biden Administration still needs to get a better team in place and let them solve the problems with knowledge, competence, and compassion, not more “knee-jerk reactions” and continuations of the cruel, inhumane, counterproductive, and often illegal policies and practices of the Trump regime.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-31-21

🤮🏴‍☠️👎🏽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

NDPA STALWART JASON “THE ASYLUMIST” DZUBOW 🌟 QUOTED IN AP ARTICLE ABOUT REPEAL OF A-B- & L-E-A-!

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=a9dc6320-82bc-4db8-bb6b-cfba11a536cb

AP reports:

The U.S. government on Wednesday ended two Trump administration policies that made it harder for immigrants fleeing violence to qualify for asylum, especially Central Americans.

Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland issued a new policy saying immigration judges should cease following the Trump-era rules that made it tough for immigrants who faced domestic or gang violence to win asylum in the United States. The move could make it easier for them to win their cases for humanitarian protection and was widely celebrated by immigrant advocates.

“The significance of this cannot be overstated,” said Kate Melloy Goettel, legal director of litigation at the American Immigration Council. “This was one of the worst anti-asylum decisions under the Trump era, and this is a really important first step in undoing that.”

Garland said he was making the changes after President Biden ordered his office and the Department of Homeland Security to draft rules addressing complex issues in immigration law about groups of people who should qualify for asylum.

Gene Hamilton, a key architect of many of then-President Trump’s immigration policies who served in the Justice Department, said in a statement that he believed the change would lead to more immigrants filing asylum claims based on crime and that it should not be a reason for the humanitarian protection.

. . . .

In the current fiscal year, people from countries such as Russia and Cameroon have seen higher asylum grant rates in the immigration courts than those from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the data show.

One of the Trump administration policies was aimed at migrants who were fleeing violence from nonstate actors, such as gangs, while the other affected those who felt they were being targeted in their countries because of their family ties, said Jason Dzubow, an immigration attorney in Washington who focuses on asylum.

Dzubow said he recently represented a Salvadoran family in which the husband was killed and gang members started coming after his children. While Dzubow argued they were in danger because of their family ties, he said the immigration judge rejected the case, citing the Trump-era decision among the reasons.

Dzubow welcomed the change but said he doesn’t expect to suddenly see large numbers of Central Americans winning their asylum cases, which remain difficult under U.S. law.

“I don’t expect it is going to open the floodgates, and all of a sudden everyone from Central America can win their cases. Those cases are very burdensome and difficult,” he said. “We need to make a decision: Do we want to protect these people?”

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

Read the full article at the link.

You know for sure you’re doing the right thing when anti-asylum shill and Stephen Miller crony Gene Hamilton criticizes it!

I tend to agree with my friend Jason that under present conditions, asylum cases for women refugees from Central America are likely to continue to be a “tough slog” at EOIR. The intentionally-created anti-asylum, misogynist, anti-Latino, anti-scholarship, anti-quality, anti-due-process culture at EOIR that emerged under Sessions and Barr isn’t going to disappear overnight, particularly the way Judge Garland is approaching it. He needs to “get out the broom,🧹 sweep out the current BIA and the bad, anti-asylum judges, get rid of ineffective administration, and bring in human rights and due process professionals to get this system operating again!

Jason, for one, would be an outstanding judicial choice for building a functioning, fair, efficient Immigration Court; one that would fulfill the long-abandoned vision of “through teamwork and innovation, being the world’s best tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” Under the Trump regime, EOIR was the antithesis of that noble vision!

Cases such as that described by Jason (incorrectly decided by the Immigration Judge) utilizing A-R-C-G- and “family friendly” precedents from the Fourth Circuit were usually well-represented and well-prepared by attorneys like Jason, Clinics, and NGOs like CLINIC, CAIR Coalition, Human Rights First, and Law School Clinics. After review by ICE Counsel, many were candidates for my “short docket” in Arlington where asylum could easily be granted based on the documentation and short confirming testimony.

To their credit, even before the BIA finally issued A-R-C-G-, the Arlington Chief Counsel’s Office was not opposing well-documented asylum grants based on domestic violence under what was known as the “Martin Brief” after former DHS/INS Senior Official, renowned immigration scholar, and internationally recognized asylum expert, now emeritus Professor David A. Martin of UVA Law. I remember telling David after one such case that his brief was still “saving lives” even after his departure from DHS and return to academia.

David Martin — Professor (Emeritus) David A. Martin
UVA Law
PHOTO: UVA Law

Rather than building on that real potential for efficiency, cooperation, quality, and due process, under Sessions those things that were working at EOIR and represented hope and potential for future progress were maliciously and idiotically dismantled. From the outside, throughout the country, I saw DV cases that once would have been “easy short docket grants” in Arlington require lengthy hearings and often be incorrectly decided in Immigration Court and the BIA. Sometimes the Circuits corrected the errors, sometimes not.

At best, what had been a growing census around recognizing asylum claims based on DV became a “crap shoot” with the result almost totally dependent on what judges were assigned, what Circuit the hearing was held in, and even the composition of the Circuit panel! And, of course, unrepresented claimants were DOA regardless of the merits of their cases. What a way to run a system where torture or death could be the result of a wrong decision!

But, it doesn’t have to be that away! Experts like Jason and others could get this system functioning fairly and efficiently in less time than it took Sessions and Barr to destroy it.

However, it can’t be done with the personnel now at DOJ and EOIR Headquarters. If Judge Garland wants this to function like a real court system (not always clear to me that he does), he needs to recruit and bring in the outside progressive experts absolutely necessary to make it happen. At long last, it’s time for “Amateur Night at the Bijou” to end its long, disgraceful, debilitating “run” @ EOIR!

Time for this long-running show at DOJ/EOIR to end! PHOTO: Thomas Hawk
Creative Commons
Amateur Night

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-18-21

👍🏼UNHCR welcomes US decision to restore protections from gang and domestic violence

UNHCR welcomes US decision to restore protections from gang and domestic violence

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, welcomes the U.S. government’s decision announced 16 June to reverse legal rulings introduced several years ago that effectively made people forced to flee life-threatening domestic and gang violence in their home countries ineligible from being able to seek safety in the United States.

“These rulings have put the lives of vulnerable people at risk,” said Matthew Reynolds, UNHCR Representative to the United States and the Caribbean, after the U.S. Justice Department announced that the legal rulings known as Matter of A-B- and Matter of L-E-A- had been vacated in their entirety.

“Today’s decisions will give survivors fleeing these types of violence a better chance of finding safety in the United States and being treated with the basic compassion and dignity that every single person deserves. UNHCR welcomes this important humanitarian step,” Reynolds said.

UNHCR, he added, also welcomes the U.S. administration’s commitment to bringing its asylum system into line with international standards and specifically to writing new rules on determining membership of a “particular social group,” one of five grounds spelled out in the 1951 Refugee Convention defining who is entitled to international protection as a refugee.

“In keeping with international standards, a simple and broad definition of ‘particular social group’ is an essential part of a fair and efficient asylum system,” Reynolds said, adding that UNHCR stands ready and willing to support the asylum review and rulemaking process in any way requested by the U.S. government.

ENDS

This Press Release is available here.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency: 70 years protecting people forced to flee.

—

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

The unethical and illegal “bogus precedents” issued by Sessions and Barr have cost lives! Much of the damage done to date is irreparable. So is the continuing damage resulting from the Biden Administration’s failure to reopen ports of entry to legal asylum seekers.

🆘A functioning asylum system at ports of entry, establishing a viable refugee program in or in the region of the Northern Triangle, and a wholly reformed, due process oriented EOIR with real judges who understand how to fairly and efficiently evaluate and grant asylum under the very generous standard enunciated by the BIA in Matter of Mogharrabi but never in fact uniformly applied in practice will reduce the number of individuals crossing the border between ports of entry to seek refuge. We also need the help of NGOs in providing representation to those arriving and resettlement assistance for those “screened in” for hearings.

Right now, we have no legal asylum system at our border despite very clear statutory language commanding it. That’s a BIG problem that must be addressed immediately! Clearly, the Biden Administration must cooperate with and seek help from human rights experts now outside Government including the UNHCR.

As I’ve said before many times, expert human rights leadership needs to be brought into their Biden Administration to “kick some tail,” eradicate incompetence and bias, and fix EOIR and the asylum system.

The NDPA needs to keep the pressure building for more immediate, common sense reforms to our asylum system and a legitimate EOIR of experts who function independently from DHS enforcement and politicos.

🇺🇸⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-17-21

🇺🇸🗽⚖️GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE REPORT: GENDER VIOLENCE ☠️⚰️DRIVES CONTINUING REFUGEE FLOW TO U.S. — Dishonesty Of Sessions’s Misogynistic Attack In Matter Of A-B- 🤮 Exposed Again! — Yet, Garland Fails To Take Action To End Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Culture @ EOIR, Even As He Also Fails To Insist On The Restoration Of The Rule Of Law @ Our Borders! — WHY?🤯

Gender Violence in Central America — Gender Violence continues to to be endemic in Latin America! Yet, shockingly, its victims, refugee women of color, can expect little protection in Garland’s Immigration Courts still applying Jeff Sessions’s inaccurate, misogynistic precedent in Matter of A-B- and continuing to be staffed by too many “judges” selected or promoted by the Trump Administration because of their perceived willingness to support anti-asylum policies targeting many women of color! Recently Garland outraged progressives by appointing 17 “Miller/Barr Holdovers” to powerful, life or death, Immigration Judge positions while eschewing better-qualified progressive experts from the private sector who could bring diversity and gender and racial justice to his dysfunctional Immigration “Courts!”
PHOTO: UNHCR website

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/06/03/abuse-of-women-and-children-at-root-of-immigration-crisis/

Abused women at border — Migrant women carry children in the rain at an intake area after turning themselves in upon crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, late Tuesday, May 11, 2021, in La Joya, Texas. The U.S. government continues to report large numbers of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border with an increase in adult crossers. But families and unaccompanied children are still arriving in dramatic numbers despite the weather changing in the Rio Grande Valley registering hotter days and nights. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)(Gregory Bull)

By Natalie Gonnella-Platts and Jenny Villatoro In the Dallas Morning News:

When U.S. Border Patrol found him in the Texas desert, 10-year-old Wilton was crying, “they abandoned me.” Exhausted and alone, his image went viral — a poignant visual of the struggle faced by thousands seeking safety.

But Wilton’s story actually began in Nicaragua when his mother, Meylin, wasn’t able to get legal protection from an abusive partner. Mother and son fled to the United States, seeking asylum, but were expelled under a public health rule and sent to Mexico, where they were kidnapped, according to an account in El Pais. Meylin’s brother in Miami could pay only half the ransom — enough for Wilton alone to be released.

Although Meylin was ultimately released and reunited with her son, the tale that led to Wilton’s arrival at the border as an unaccompanied minor isn’t unique. It illustrates the fact that gender-based violence, revictimization and lack of justice affect children, families and communities thousands of miles away. It also highlights the importance of a safe and legal pathway into the United States for survivors of gender-based violence and other asylum-seekers. For many, arriving at the U.S. border seeking asylum is the only legal pathway available.

Immigration reform in the United States is essential to assuring that we have a secure and efficient border, a system flexible enough to handle changes in migrant flows, and the capacity to treat each migrant with dignity. But more needs to be done in the migrants’ home countries, too, so that they are not forced to flee for their safety in the first place.

Any comprehensive plan on Central America and immigration reform should address gender inequity and gender-based violence.

They are not siloed issues to acknowledge only when horrific stories of femicide and human trafficking force us to pay attention. Rather, they are deeply entangled with broader challenges of corruption and poverty. Proposed solutions shouldn’t overlook the impact of gender-based violence on migrant flows, economic development, education and health.

Fourteen of the 25 most dangerous places for women are in the Western Hemisphere, including countries within Central America. Patriarchy and gang violence subject women and girls to abhorrent actions of abuse and control.

Honduras and El Salvador saw some of the highest incidences of femicide within Latin America in 2019, at rates of 6.2 and 3.3 per 100,000, respectively. In Guatemala, adolescent girls are at a high risk of being “disappeared,” with 8 out of every 10,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 17 reported missing each year.

COVID 19-related lockdowns are being exploited by gangs looking to strengthen control: El Salvador alone has seen a 70% increase in gender-based violence since the beginning of the pandemic. And lockdowns have forced vulnerable individuals to stay in close proximity to their perpetrators. Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador reported an increase in intrafamily violence, with El Salvador reporting an increase in intrafamily femicides as well.

Justice systems and access to services need to be strengthened to ensure adequate protection for all under the law. Legal protections often are inhibited by weak institutions, corruption and a culture of impunity toward perpetrators.

According to a 2017 national survey, two-thirds of Salvadoran women over the age of 15 have experienced violence, but only 6% have ever reported it. While laws against child marriage exist across the region, in some countries about 1 in 3 young women are in a union before age 18. Post-trauma support and efforts that inform Central American women of their rights and agency are critical interventions that could help women like Meylin.

Females have been disproportionately affected by the devastating impact of hurricanes Eta and Iota, but the status of women and girls is chronically overlooked in response efforts, exacerbating the risk of violence.

Women and girls must be seen and heard. Greater focus on gender and age-disaggregated data collection and in tracking the effectiveness and efficiency of legal systems is crucial. And women and their lived experiences need to be more fully represented at all leadership levels.

Finally, direct outreach to local communities should be a priority for U.S. government and private sector-led programs. This includes resource and capacity support for advocates and organizations that serve as lifelines for those affected by violence, often at great personal risk. Engagement with men and boys is equally imperative.

How can anyone be expected to thrive when her day-to-day priority is simply to survive? The United States needs to recognize that gender-based violence and gender inequity drive migration.

Immigration reform must include strategies to address the root causes of migration from Central America in effective and lasting ways to prevent situations like Wilton’s and Meylin’s. Women and girls must be front and center in these solutions.

Natalie Gonnella-Platts serves as the director of the Women’s Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute.

Jenny Villatoro is an associate for the George W. Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative.

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

“Deterrents” and illegally abusing asylum seekers DON’T WORK! It’s not that difficult a concept. Indeed, these misguided attempts at deterrence have been failing consistently under Administrations of both parties for the past four decades. One would think that an “enlightened nation” would try a different approach rather than simply repeating the costly failures of the past in various forms.

What we need are functioning refugee and asylum systems, led and staffed by progressive experts, operating from INSIDE Government, that will grant status to qualified refugee women in a fair and timely manner and set favorable precedents even while separately addressing the endemic problems in the “refugee-sending countries.” Of course, it will result in more legal immigration of refugees and asylum seekers to the U.S. That’s a good thing for both us and those individuals, not something to be feared or unlawfully and dishonestly “deterred!”

With stagnating population growth, we should welcome and facilitate legal immigration of courageous, talented, dedicated refugee women from all countries and their children through the refugee, asylum, and a much more robust legal immigration system!

Thanks to NDPA warrior-queen Debi Sanders for sending in this item. This report should be great evidence for those litigating to halt the Garland misogyny mess at EOIR and, sadly, to some extent in U.S. Courts of Appeals that have chosen to sweep both reality of what’s happening in the Northern Triangle and the patent unconstitutionality of a system governed by bogus precedents entered or promoted by AG’s affiliated with DHS Enforcement who also packed and reshaped the immigration “judiciary” in the image of nativist restrictionists! However, compelling as it is, the report only adds to the existing body of documentation of the dishonest approach by Administrations of both parties to Latin American asylum claims, particularly those of women and children.

For Pete’s sake, first and second year law students know that the EOIR travesty is unconstitutional! Why are life-tenured Article III Judges covering it up? Hopefully, history will take note of their mal-performance on the bench! These guys are life-tenured! So, what’s their excuse for not upholding the Constitution against clear Congressional and Executive abuses?

Hard for me to say this. But, former President George W. Bush is doing more for human rights, gender rights, civil rights, and immigrants rights’ than Garland or anyone else at the Biden DOJ! At least he speaks out publicly for the humanity and contributions of migrants and for their fair and generous treatment, which is more than any member of the Biden Administration has done as they continue to mistake softening the rhetoric with taking firm action to reverse White Nationalist policies and replace them with readily achievable progressive ones.

Meanwhile, despite pleas from nearly every expert, progressive, human rights, immigrants’ rights, and gender rights group in the U.S., Garland continues to allow Sessions’s wrong, toxic, and misogynistic decision in Matter of A-B – to remain in place and threaten the lives of female refugees while ignoring the misogynistic, anti-asylum, culture inculcated by Sessions and Barr at EOIR that continues to flourish and daily dish out abuse to migrants and their representatives without meaningful consequences.

Judge Merrick Garland — “ . . . while this guy continues to apply misogynistic precedents, eschew progressive experts, recycle failed ‘Aimless Docket Reshuffling’ gimmicks, and allow the Trump-era anti-asylum culture to continue to flourish at EOIR and DOJ?” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland
Official White House Photo
Public Realm

What, indeed, is someone like AAG Vanita Gupta doing with herself at Garland’s anti-progressive, and anti-due-process mess at DOJ? Why are folks like her and Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke there in the first place if they aren’t going to stand up to Garland’s tone-deaf, inept approach to gender rights, human rights, and racial justice @ EOIR? How, on earth, do you lead a “Civil Rights Division” while turning a blind eye to grotesque violations of civil and human rights going on daily in your “Boss’s” wholly owned “court” system that functions like no “real court” in America? What’s DAG Lisa Monaco doing presiding over a gender disaster at EOIR? It’s straight out of “Jim Crow!”

James “Jim” Crow
Symbol of American Racism, still right at home at Garland’s EOIR!

And, I wouldn’t say that Vice President Harris is looking very good either, as she “swallows the whistle” on notorious scofflaw human rights violations that she was well aware of from her time in the Senate! Doesn’t anyone in the Biden Administration have the backbone to speak up for human rights, human decency, and restoring the rule of law? Is it REALLY our position that following the Constitution, our statutory laws, and the international treaties to which we are party is beyond the capabilities of the U.S. Government? If so, what, may I ask, is the difference between us an any third world dictatorship where laws have no meaning?

Vice President Kamala Harris — Vice President Kamala D. Harris. “Our first African-American, AAPI, child of immigrants VEEP seems curiously deaf and indifferent to the gross abuses being heaped on migrants and women of color at EOIR and at our Souther Border! What’s her excuse for turning her back on the progressive, human rights, gender equality groups that helped put her in office. Why is she remaining silent as Garland continues to appoint Billy Barr’s hand-selected non-progressive, non-diverse Immigration Judges to a life-determining “judiciary” that the Biden Administration wholly controls? How can you create a progressive, diverse, Article III Judiciary that will promote racial equity when you’re unwilling to apply those values and selection criteria to a huge judiciary that you actually control? What message are you sending to ‘next generation progressive attorneys of color’ when you allow Garland to ignore them in favor of lesser qualified candidates? Why aren’t you out there actively recruiting more attorneys of color and other underrepresented groups for the Immigration Judiciary rather than allowing Garland to use same-old, same old bogus “USA Jobs Phantom recruitments?” Lots of unanswered questions here!
Vice President of the United States
(Official Senate Photo)

I can’t figure it out! But, I do know that Garland’s lousy stewardship at EOIR, failure to speak out for fundamental fairness, usher in progressive changes, and restore due process @ EOIR has reached “crisis proportions” affecting our entire justice system and threatening democracy!

Hopefully, progressive advocacy, human rights, and civil rights groups will keep up the pressure and demands for long, long, long overdue and readily achievable changes at EOIR: in leadership, precedents, culture, and administration of justice! (Get this: Garland just created yet another bogus “Dedicated Docket” without a functional e-filing system to make it work! That’s “Aimless Docket Reshuffling 101,” as anyone who has actually had to deal with the mess in his Immigration Courts could tell him. But, he’s apparently not interested!) Right now, it’s an unmitigated “disaster zone” continuing to spiral downward!

There is a direct link between the “Dred Scottification of the other” that Garland countenances at EOIR and the overall failure of our justice system to deal effectively with institutionalized racism! The U.S. has a long, disreputable history of treating women and persons of color as “non persons” under the Constitution. Much of it traces to our immigration laws where “the others” are routinely dehumanized, stereotyped, demonized, and abused by those who falsely claim to be furthering the “rule of law!” We will NOT achieve racial justice for all in America until we deal with the festering wounds intentionally inflicted on women, children, and people of color in our immigration system, at EOIR, and illegally continuing at our borders!

By choice, Garland now “owns” the misogynistic, anti-due-process, anti-asylum disaster @ EOIR. Make him deal with it in a constructive way!

🇺🇸🗽⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever! Garland’s continued tolerance of misogyny and the anti-due-process, anti-asylum culture at EOIR, NEVER! Stop Garland’s continuing misogynistic nonsense before more refugee women and people of color needlessly die! What’s it going to take finally to get some “real justice @ Justice?”

PWS

06-05-21

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Emily Green reports for Vice News:

🗽🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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The CDC Announcement:

What DHS SHOULD have said about reinstitution of our legal asylum system at the border:

Compare the above with what DHS ACTUALLY said:

What if?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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😎Due Process Forever!

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No Justice: Gender-based Violence and Migration in Central America

Gender-based violence affects one in three women worldwide, making it an urgent and important policy challenge. Violence against women and girls is often excluded from conversations on the nexus of Central American migration, regional development, and domestic immigration reform.

Key Excerpts:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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CLINIC is right: “Shame!”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Here is the letter:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸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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AP reports:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸⚖️Due Process Forever!

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By Natalie Gonnella-Platts and Jenny Villatoro In the Dallas Morning News:

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