Category: Arlington Immigration Court

👎🏽IN RACE TO DENY, BIA BLOWS BY OWN REGS IN LATEST 4TH CIR. REJECTION! — Garcia-Hernandez v. Garland (Changed Country Conditions) — Congrats To Ben & Alex!😎🗽⚖️

Kangaroos
“Every day is ‘Kangaroo Field Day’ @ Garland’s DOJ!” When it comes to immigrant justice, “good enough for government work” is the mantra!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
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https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca4-on-changed-country-conditions-garcia-hernandez-v-garland

Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immigration Community:

CA4 on Changed Country Conditions: Garcia Hernandez v. Garland

Garcia Hernandez v. Garland

“The BIA “affirm[ed] the Immigration Judge’s decision to deny reopening because the respondent has not sufficiently demonstrated that his brother’s murder represents a material change in country conditions that would affect his eligibility for asylum.” A.R. 4. As we noted above, while (b)(4) requires “changed country conditions,” (b)(3)does not. Thus, the BIA’s reference to a “material change in country conditions” and the analysis that followed shows that the BIA applied § 1003.23(b)(4). See A.R. 4. In applying the standard of § 1003.23(b)(4) to a timely filed motion, the BIA acted contrary to law. … The question for the BIA to consider in evaluating Garcia Hernandez’s motion to reopen was whether Garcia Hernandez offered, in the proper from and with the appropriate contents, evidence that was material and not previously available at the initial hearing. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.23(b)(3). Because the BIA did not analyze that question, and instead evaluated the issue under § 1003.23(b)(4), the BIA abused its discretion. … The BIA held that Zambrano did not apply because the changed circumstances there took place before the petitioner filed a time-barred petition even though here, the purported changed circumstances took place after the time-barred petition was filed and adjudicated. But nothing in Zambrano suggests its holding or reasoning was limited in the way the BIA suggests. Thus, Zambrano’s framework in examining changed circumstances should have been applied to Garcia Hernandez’s asylum application. … [W]e grant Garcia Hernandez’s petition for review. We vacate and remand with instructions to the BIA to consider Garcia Hernandez’s motion to reopen under the appropriate standard. The BIA should also address Garcia Hernandez’s asylum application under the framework of Zambrano and conduct any further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats off to Benjamin J. Osorio and Alexandra Ribe!]

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Many congrats to Ben and Alex, who were both “regulars” at the Arlington Immigration Court! Alex is also a former Arlington Intern and a “charter member” of the NDPA!😎 

The 4th Circuit decision was written by Judge Marvin Quattlebaum, a Trump appointee, for a unanimous panel that  included Judge Motz and Judge Thacker. While Judge Q doesn’t always “get it right,” his cogent analysis of the BIA’s lawless behavior in this case is “spot on.”

How does a supposedly “expert” tribunal like the BIA blow the “easy stuff” — like following their own regulations? Clearly it has something to do with an unduly permissive “haste makes waste/rush to deny” anti-immigrant culture at EOIR that Garland has not effectively addressed!

Another obvious problem: Why were Garland’s lawyers at OIL defending this obviously wrong decision?  You don’t have to be an “immigration guru” to read the regulations! 

Sadly, it’s not the first time under Garland that OIL has chosen to waste judicial resources and undermine our justice system by “defending the indefensible.” It’s what happens when leaders promote an “anything goes/no accountability/good enough for government work” atmosphere!

There are deep substantive, structural, personnel, attitude, and “cultural” problems at EOIR and DOJ. That, over his first year in office, Garland has chosen to ignore these glaring malfunctions of justice @ Justice is an ongoing national disgrace!🤮 

It doesn’t have to be this way! But, unfortunately, it is! And, even more disturbingly, no meaningful improvements appear to be on the horizon! That’s a deadly ☠️⚰️ outlook for American justice and for those poor souls caught up in Garland’s unfair, broken, dysfunctional “court” system that bears little resemblance to any commonly understood notion of what a fair, impartial, subject matter expert court should be in America!🤯

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-04-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️JUDICIAL REVIEW — C.A. 2 — Brace Of Bad BIA Bobbles On Basics Brings “Culture Of Denial” Into Focus — Justice Will Continue To Be Illusive @ EOIR 👎🏽 Until Garland Steps Up & Replaces His Fatally Flawed BIA With Real Judges Who Are Progressive Practical Scholars In Immigration, Due Process, Human Rights, With A Firm Commitment To Bringing Racial & Gender Equity To Now-Disgraced Immigration Courts!🤮
  2. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”
  3. 😎WIN ONE, LOSE ONE☹️:  9TH CIR. ANNIHILATES MATTER OF ARMENDAREZ-MENDEZ (SUA SPONTE REOPENING), WHILE 11TH  CIR. WOODENLY ENDORSES 👎🏻 MATTER OF L-E-A- (NEXUS)!☠️⚰️
  4. 🏴‍☠️BIA CONTINUES TO SPEW FORTH ERRORS IN LIFE OR DEATH ☠️ ASYLUM CASES, SAYS 4TH CIR. — “Three-In-One” — Improperly Disregarding Corroborating Evidence; Incorrect Legal Standard On Past Persecution; Wrong Nexus Finding! — Arita-Deras v. Wilkinson

🗽⚖️NDPA NEWS: GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC CONTINUES TO IMPRESS!

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

 

Professor Alberto Benitez at the GW Immigration Clinic reports:

Friends,

Our friend, colleague, and alum Paulina Vera shared this story. Congratulations Daniel! 

“A current Immigration Judge shared that he spoke to his colleague, another Immigration Judge (“IJ”), about a recent virtual hearing handled by student-attorney, Daniel Fishelman ’22. IJ complimented the Clinic’s preparation and Daniel’s performance, stating that even though it was for a short matter, she was impressed by the Clinic. This was the Clinic’s first appearance before IJ. Please join us in congratulating Daniel on completing his first hearing and getting positive feedback from Immigration Judges!”

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

Alberto Manuel Benitez

Professor of Clinical Law

Director, Immigration Clinic

The George Washington University Law School

THE WORLD IS YOURS

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Many congrats to student-attorney, Daniel Fishelman ’22 on his first engagement as a member of the NDPA!👍🏼😎

Also, congrats to my friends and “due process role models” Alberto and Paulina! So proud that part of Paulina’s “immigration justice journey” went through the Arlington Immigration Court, where she served as an intern.

Alberto and Paulina tell me that after their “standard rigorous prep session” with Daniel, he definitely was “QRFPT” — “Quite Ready For Prime Time!” 😎 That’s as opposed to “NQRFPT” (“Not Quite Ready For Prime Time”) ☹️ — something to be avoided in Immigration Court or any other type of litigation!☠️

This case illustrates what I found on the bench: that “short cases” are almost always the result of superior scholarship, meticulous preparation, and informed dialogue by counsel for both parties before getting to court.

That’s why one grossly underutilized tool for reducing backlogs is investing in and encouraging more and better trained representation for individuals appearing in Immigration Court. 

As statistics have shown time after time, universal  representation is also the key to achieving high appearance rates.

Additionally, constructing court dockets and scheduling cases locally with input from both counsel is a way of reversing the backlog building “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”) produced by attempting to manage dockets from “on high.” ADR usually results from EOIR unilaterally attempting to satisfy DHS enforcement aims or to accommodate “disconnected political agendas and ill-advised gimmicks” generated by DOJ and White House politicos — invariably clueless about the realities of Immigration Court practice!

The three things always left behind by ADR: due process, fundamental fairness, and practical efficiency! 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-24-22

Related posts:

  1. NDPA NEWS: Even In Times Of Systemic Dysfunction, Fairness, Scholarship, Timeliness, Respect, & Teamwork Among Conscientious Immigration Judges, Fair-Minded ICE Assistant Chief Counsel, & Caring, Well-Prepared Advocates From the NDPA Continue to Save Lives of the Most Vulnerable Among Us! — “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be alive, but my children will always thank you,” Says Critically Ill Respondent to Arlington Immigration Judge Cynthia S. Torg, Who Had Just Granted Her Asylum! 
  2. 😎🗽⚖️ OF COURSE, GREAT LAWYERING MAKES A DIFFERENCE IN IMMIGRATION COURT! — Only Nativists & Former Director McHenry Would Bogusly Claim Otherwise! — Another “Real Life Success Story” From Professors Benitez & Vera @ The GW Law Immigration Clinic! — Garland’s DOJ “Goes Molasses In November” On Improving Access To Counsel & Elevating The “Pro Bono Experience!”
  3. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🗽COURT REFORM: GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC STUDENTS WEIGH IN ON ARTICLE I — Emphasize Critical Due Process Need To Entirely Remove AG From Decision-Making Process!
  4. THE TRUTH IS OUT, THANKS TO MICHELLE MENDEZ @ CLINIC: Practice Pointers on Matter of Castillo-Perez & “Takeaways” From FOIA Trove On In Absentias!

😎👍🏼⚖️ARLINGTON PRACTITIONER ARNEDO S. VELERA BEATS EOIR, OIL — 11th Cir. “Outs” Another Sloppy Analysis By Garland’s BIA In CIMT Case! — Hernandez Zarate v. Garland

 

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca11-cimt-remand-hernandez-zarate-v-garland

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis:

CA11 CIMT Remand: Hernandez Zarate v. Garland

Hernandez Zarate v. Garland

“The question presented in this appeal—one which has led to a circuit split—is whether a conviction for falsely representing a social security number, see 42 U.S.C. § 408(a)(7)(B), is a CIMT. … The BIA explained that § 408(a)(7)(B) requires intent to deceive, and as a result Mr. Zarate’s conviction was for a CIMT. Noting that the circuits were divided on the issue, it quoted our decision in Walker v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 783 F.3d 1226, 1229 (11th Cir. 2015), for the proposition that, “[g]enerally, a crime involving dishonesty or false statement is considered to be one involving moral turpitude.” The BIA did not, however, address whether a violation of § 407(a)(7)(B) is inherently base, vile, or depraved. And that, as we will later explain, is a significant omission. … Our holding today does not foreclose the possibility that a conviction for a violation of § 408(a)(7)(B) may be a CIMT. But if the BIA is going to hold that it is, it will need to do what it has so far failed to do in Mr. Zarate’s case—it will have to apply its two-pronged moral turpitude standard in toto and decide whether the statute, under the categorical approach, involves conduct that is “reprehensible,” i.e., conduct that is “inherently base, vile, or depraved, and contrary to the accepted rules of morality and the duties owed between persons or to society in general.” Silva-Trevino, 26 I. & N. Dec. at 833–34 (internal quotation marks omitted). See also Simon-Kerr, Moral Turpitude, 2012 Utah L. Rev. at 1007–08 (criticizing courts for “ignor[ing] community moral sentiments when applying the [moral turpitude] standard”). We remand to the BIA for that purpose.”

[Hats way off to Arnedo Silvano Valera!]

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

My colleague Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase of the Round Table 🛡⚔️ offers the following cogent “instant analysis:”

Besides from what this says about the BIA being too lazy and hellbent on affirming removal orders for even the 11th Circuit’s liking, this is really interesting in its addressing the issue of applying “community moral sentiments”.What community are we talking about, and at what period of time?

There’s also a concurring opinion that does a very deep dive into the process for determining whether a statute is divisible.Could you even imagine the BIA engaging in the necessary analysis?

“Deep analysis” isn’t exactly in the “BIA playbook” under Garland. No, Garland’s “good enough for government work culture” at the DOJ tolerates the “whatever it takes to get to ‘no’” standard that was instilled by Sessions and Barr and, remarkably, still permeates much of the BIA’s work that is being rejected by the Article IIIs.

I note that the “deep dive” concurring opinion referenced by “Sir Jeffrey” was written by Senior Circuit Judge Gerald B. Tjoflat, a 92-year-old Gerald Ford appointee whose intellectual engagement and analytical work product puts the Garland BIA to shame! 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-19-22

Related posts:

  1. 🏴‍☠️👎🏽🤮 AIMLESS DOCKET RESHUFFLING (“ADR”) ON STEROIDS! — EOIR Dysfunction Shows What Happens When “Captive Court System” Kowtows To Political Handlers Rather Than Serving The Public! — Jason Dzubow, The Asylumist, Reports!
  2. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”
  3. 🌬🤯MORE BLOWBACK FOR GARLAND’S “COURTS” — Problems Emerge On Credibility (1st Cir., 10th Cir.), Agfel (9th Cir.)
  4. CIMT: PRACTICAL SCHOLAR “SIR JEFFREY” CHASE ⚔️🛡 EXPLAINS HOW A “SUPREME CONSTITUTIONAL TANK” FROM 71 YEARS AGO CONTINUES TO SCREW 🔩 IMMIGRANTS!

🤯ADMINISTRATIONS CHANGE  — EOIR “CULTURE” NOT SO MUCH! — “We’d Rather Fight Than Fix,” Remains Motto Of Garland’s Failed “Courts!”🤮

Tal Kopan
Tal Kopan
Washington Reporter, SF Chronicle

Tal Kopan @ SF Chron reports on latest public miscue:

A California lawyer tweeted what she saw in immigration court. The DOJ demanded she delete it

By Tal Kopan

WASHINGTON — On Feb. 1, attorney Monika Langarica was in a San Diego courtroom watching as the Biden administration resumed hearing cases on a controversial immigration policy that requires migrants to wait in Mexico while they plead their case to enter the U.S. That evening, she wrote a series of tweets describing what she saw.

The next day, she received an email from the Justice Department that shocked her: The administration asked her to delete the tweets. They claimed she violated a policy against making a record of immigration court proceedings and threatened potential criminal penalties if she committed “further violations.”

The Justice Department retracted its request and apologized to Langarica after The Chronicle inquired about the threat, saying further review confirmed she was not tweeting from the courtroom and thus did not violate any policies.

Still, the surprising episode raised several issues, including First Amendment concerns, issues of transparency in the often secretive immigration courts as well as criticisms of the policy at the heart of the dispute.

“It (was) shocking, because we are in our right to observe these proceedings, we are in our right to share with the public what is happening in these court rooms,” Langarica said in an interview before the apology had been issued. Langarica is an attorney with the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy and formerly with the San Diego American Civil Liberties Union.

More here: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/A-California-lawyer-tweeted-what-she-saw-in-16841515.php

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Why would an agency with failure, problems, and valid criticism “coming out it ears” 👂 be wasting official time monitoring the Twitter accounts of court observers?

Assuming that were some legitimate reason, why wouldn’t the first reaction to Ms. Langarcia’s tweets be “Hey, let’s sit down with you and your friends and figure out how to fix this?”

Instead of having more “flackies” in their bloated bureaucracy to suppress the public trappings of failure and to “massage the message,” why not put the resources into getting better bodies out there to FIX THE MYRIAD OF PROBLEMS crippling the agency and making it a parody of justice? It’s going to take more than a band of public apologists in the PIO to outsmart brilliant, informed investigative reporters like Tal! 

It’s little wonder that EOIR doesn’t want light shed on what’s really happening in their “Star Chambers!” 

Star Chamber Justice
“Scream as loud as you want. Nobody’s going to hear you!”

Reminds me of one of my favorite “EOIR War Stories.” My Arlington colleague Judge Wayne “Tell It Like It Is” Iskra once truthfully said in open court said what most experts and his colleagues privately had been saying for ages: “This system is broken!” Unknown to Judge Iskra, however, a reporter was sitting in the audience and the comment received publicity, the thing that EOIR fears most!

Coming from a former two-time Chief Judge of the U.S. Army Criminal Courts, hardly known as a “bleeding heart liberal,” one would anticipate that Iskra’s blunt assessment might have spurred some immediate corrective action and internal reforms. But, the only action it created at EOIR was basically to tell Iskra to “sit down and shut up.” 

As always, EOIR was more concerned about “protecting itself” from a judge speaking truth than dealing with the consequences of that truth. As a result, the system is even more broken now than it was when Iskra had the audacity to “speak truth to power!”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-08-22

Related posts:

  1. DEADLY ☠️ EOIR CLOWN SHOW 🤡 PLAYS ON UNDER BIDEN — ACIJ’S “Exit Interview” By SF Chron’s Tal Kopan Reveals Total Dysfunction, Systemic Abuse Of Human Rights, Waste Of Taxpayer Funds By Stunningly Incompetent DOJ — Other Than A Few Cosmetic Changes, Garland Enables Trump’s Abuses & Uses Barr’s Discredited, Politically & Racially Suspect “Judicial” Hiring Practices, Fails To Establish Due Process, Best Practices, Professionalism, Expertise, Respect For Human Dignity As Overriding Values! — Garland Presides Over “A ‘soul-crushing bureaucracy’ . . . shockingly unlike the regular American legal system.”🤮 Why Is He Ignoring Pressing Need For Progressive Reforms, Due Process Dedicated Judges?
  2. ⚖️FINALLY, HOUSE TO EXAMINE GARLAND’S DYSFUNCTIONAL, MISMANAGED, LEADERLESS IMMIGRATION “COURTS” & NEED FOR DUE-PROCESS-FOCUSED REFORMS! — Tal Kopan Reports For SF Chron!
  3. 🤮🆘CHAOS IN COURT!  — Unqualified, Controversial Barr Immigration Judge Quits In SF, Leveling Charges Of Systemic Incompetency @ EOIR HQ — “[I]t is hard to understand how any court system can function like this!” — Actually, It Can’t & Hasn’t Functioned As Anything But A Sick Joke For Years! 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️⚰️ — Garland Slow On The Uptake, As Outrage, Anger At His Inept Stewardship, Lack Of Due Process Leadership, Indifference To Institutionalized Racism Grows In Legal Community! — Tal Kopan Reports @ SF Chron
  4. ⚖️🤯🤮GARLAND’S OHIO JUDICIAL MELTDOWN — “High-Asylum-Denying” Immigration Judges Appointed By Barr & Sessions Remain On Garland’s Bench In Cleveland Despite Referring To Migrants As “Illegals” & “Pretty Virgins!” — EOIR Disciplinary System Remains As Opaque As Ever Under Garland!🏴‍☠️ Yulin Cheng Reports @ Columbus Dispatch!

🗽🙂🇺🇸👍🏼DOING IT RIGHT! — S. Portland, Maine Schools Welcome Refugees, Find Inspiration, Energy, Joy, Appreciation Rewarding As They Meet Challenges — “[T]he hardest thing they’ve ever experienced is behind them. So there’s this energy around these new students. They’re just so delighted to be here. They’re never absent. They’re excited every second of every day.”

Rachel Ohm
Rachel Ohm
Education Reporter
Portland (ME) Press Herald
PHOTO: Portland Press Herald

https://www.pressherald.com/2022/01/30/new-arrivals-in-south-portland-schools-bring-challenges-and-joy/

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION Posted 4:00 AM

New arrivals in South Portland schools bring challenges and joy

With asylum seekers arriving in Portland housed in South Portland hotels, South Portland schools gear up for more English language learners and celebrate the excitement they bring.

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BY RACHEL OHMSTAFF WRITER

Divine Nsimba Lukombo 12, left, an 8th grader from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 7th grader Odett Mavezo Junizi 12, also from the Congo, work together in a science class at South Portland’s Memorial Middle School.

When classes started this year at Memorial Middle School in South Portland, there was just one humanities class for students beginning to learn English. Now there are three.

The school has rearranged the schedules of English language teachers, added an additional part-time English language teacher and upped the hours of a second teacher.

It has limited new enrollments because it has no more space and is relying on the middle school on the other side of the city to absorb any additional students who come into the district.

“We’re just supporting way more kids in those English language learning classes,” said Principal Rebecca Stern.

RELATED

Portland officials ask for help as number of asylum seekers continues to grow

The changes are necessary because the school district is seeing an influx of English language learner students driven by the arrival of asylum seekers from African countries. It’s hard to know exactly how many of the students are asylum seekers, but officials in South Portland say the increases they’re seeing stem from the placement of many asylum-seeking families in emergency shelter in local hotels.

Since the start of the school year, the South Portland School Department has served 305 homeless students. That’s up from 180 last school year and just 34 in 2019-20. The school system has 522 English language learner students, compared to 328 last year. And overall enrollment now is at 3,021 students, up from 2,887 in October.

English Language Learner teacher Kara Kralik works with students at Memorial Middle School in South Portland last week. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

South Portland is one of five communities where the city of Portland is placing asylum seekers in hotels because of a shortage of shelter space and housing.

Portland officials reported earlier this month that new arrivals had driven the highest ever nightly averages of people in need of shelter. In the first three weeks of January, 39 families needing shelter arrived in Portland – about one-third the number the city saw in all of 2020.

School officials in Portland and some surrounding communities like Old Orchard Beach and Brunswick, which are currently housing asylum seekers or have in the past, said they aren’t seeing increases in new students. Freeport, which is housing some new arrivals from Portland, has seen a small one.

“I would argue that right now we are the most impacted school district in the state when it comes to new families, many of whom do not speak English and are housing vulnerable,” said South Portland Superintendent Tim Matheney.

Schools across the district – from elementary to high school – have mobilized to welcome the newcomers. Most come from Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo and have spent months or even years traveling to the United States to escape violence or instability in their home countries. And many have missed long periods of school as a result.

Portland officials ask for help as number of asylum seekers continues to grow

Teaching the students English, enrolling them in classes and making sure basic needs such as housing, food and warm clothing are being met present challenges. Schools need to hire more staff – English language teachers, social workers.

But the new students are making their schools far more diverse and filling them with excitement during a challenging year.

“In America right now, as we go through the pandemic and how education looks post-pandemic, people are really sad,” said South Portland High School Principal Michele LaForge. “The anxiety of our students and our staff is really high. This has been a really hard time and it continues to be hard.

“Our new Mainers, in a lot of ways, the hardest thing they’ve ever experienced is behind them. So there’s this energy around these new students. They’re just so delighted to be here. They’re never absent. They’re excited every second of every day.”

FILLING IN THE LEARNING GAPS

At Memorial Middle School on a recent morning, English language learner teacher Elizabeth Dawson worked with a dozen students in a math class for newcomers. Just the week before, Dawson had been assigned a new sixth-grade student who hadn’t been in school for five years. She said it’s not unusual for students to have large gaps in their education, and it’s her job to catch them up.

“In all of our classes we have this philosophy of addressing language skills and gaps, but we also know these students are 14,” Dawson said. “They’re cognitively and developmentally middle school students, so we also need to make sure our content is challenging them on a seventh-grade level.”

Tanya Nsumu, 12, left, originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo works with Maria Bikuma, 14, from Angola during math class last week at Memorial Middle School in South Portland where there is an influx of asylum-seeking students. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

Maria Bikuma and Tanya Nsumu, two students in Dawson’s class, sat in the back munching on breakfast as their teacher led them in a word problem that everyone read aloud together. Bikuma, who is from Angola and arrived in Maine over the summer, said she is enjoying making new friends and being in school.

“I like America because it’s a good country,” said the eighth-grader. “I can study here and the teachers are good.”

Because she speaks English well, Bikuma often acts as a translator between teachers and her fellow students who are new to the country and whose first language is most often Portuguese or French. She said the teachers are patient and more involved in helping students than in Angola, where students were more self-directed.

“People understand quickly because the teachers explain very good,” Bikuma said.

Nsumu also arrived over the summer, from the Democratic Republic of Congo. She left her home country when she was just 6 years old and spent time in South America, Mexico and Texas. When she arrived in Maine, she spoke no English, though that has quickly changed.

“Here is different because I have a new teacher that teaches good,” said the seventh-grader. “I have an iPad. I have a new life.”

. . . .

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

When I was a judge, I was often inspired by the amazing young people who came before me. Some of them had literally walked to the US, on perilous journeys, encountering unimaginable, sometimes unspeakable,  hardships and trauma.

Their courage, life skills, and problem solving abilities were truly remarkable. Once here, many were helping their families while going to school and assisting their lawyers with their cases. Some were also involved in sports, music, or other extracurricular activities. (When I heard applause from my colleague Judge John Milo Bryant’s courtroom, I knew that was for another student-athlete or academic achievement.)

I often could see both English language proficiency and school grades improve from one court appearance to another. I invariably asked students about their progress in school. Many brought report cards to the next hearing to show me how they were doing.

I always told kids that no matter how their cases eventually came out, their education was theirs for life. So, I challenged them to take full advantage. And, most appeared to do so!

I saw some of them literally grow up and come of age in court and go on to contribute to our country and our communities while continuing to take outsized responsibilities for families. Many came from homes where the parents were both working two jobs to help forge better lives for their children.

Many of these cases eventually had happy endings. When they did, I always encouraged the younger generation to pay it back by helping their parents and insuring that they had the time, encouragement, and support to meet the requirements for naturalization so that they could become full participants in their communities and our nation.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-30-22

Related posts:

  1. THE NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY IS ALIVE AND WELL IN BOOTHBAY HARBOR — Singer/Songwriter John Schindler & Friends Inspire & Uplift With Benefit Concert For Maine’s Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (“ILAP”) At Congregational Church Of Boothbay Harbor!
  2. NDPA NEWS: Even In Times Of Systemic Dysfunction, Fairness, Scholarship, Timeliness, Respect, & Teamwork Among Conscientious Immigration Judges, Fair-Minded ICE Assistant Chief Counsel, & Caring, Well-Prepared Advocates From the NDPA Continue to Save Lives of the Most Vulnerable Among Us! — “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be alive, but my children will always thank you,” Says Critically Ill Respondent to Arlington Immigration Judge Cynthia S. Torg, Who Had Just Granted Her Asylum! 
  3. THE VOICE OF REASON: ANGELINA JOLIE @ TIME ON WHY THE U.S. SHOULD NOT BE ABANDONING OUR TRADITIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LEADERSHIP ROLE! — “It is troubling to see our country backing away from these, while expecting other countries, who are hosting millions of refugees and asylum seekers, to adhere to a stricter code. If we go down this path, we risk a race to the bottom and far greater chaos. An international rules-based system brings order. Breaking international standards only encourages more rule-breaking.” — Advocates Independent Article I Immigration Court For Fair & Impartial Adjudication Of Asylum Claims!
  4. GROUND-BREAKING PROFESSSOR GABRIELA LEON-PEREZ BRINGS THE FULL IMMIGRATION STORY TO UNDERGRADUATES @ VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY (“VCU”) IN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA – Educating America For a Better Future For Everyone By Understanding The Critical Importance Of Immigrants & Social Justice!

😎🗽⚖️ OF COURSE, GREAT LAWYERING MAKES A DIFFERENCE IN IMMIGRATION COURT! — Only Nativists & Former Director McHenry Would Bogusly Claim Otherwise! — Another “Real Life Success Story” From Professors Benitez & Vera @ The GW Law Immigration Clinic! — Garland’s DOJ “Goes Molasses In November” On Improving Access To Counsel & Elevating The “Pro Bono Experience!”

 

Please thank them all on my behalf. I’m extremely grateful for what each of them did on my case.” This is what our client, E-K- said upon receiving well wishes from several of his former student-attorneys after he was sworn in as a U.S. citizen yesterday. Please see the attached photo of E-K- with Prof. Vera after his oath ceremony. E-K- authorized our use of his picture. 

E-K- became a Clinic client in 2009 after an unsuccessful interview at the Arlington Asylum Office. In February 2010, E-K-, a native of Cameroon, had his first Individual Calendar Hearing based on his political opinion and imputed political opinion following his involvement in a sit-in and his presence during a protest. DHS appealed the initial grant of asylum and on remand the Board of Immigration Appeals instructed the Immigration Judge to pay attention to credibility. However, the Immigration Clinic and E-K- prevailed again in 2013 and the asylum grant was finalized! The Clinic then assisted E-K- with his green card application, naturalization application, and naturalization interview. Next up: his wife’s green card application!

Please join me in congratulating Alexa Glock, Anca Grigore, Rebekah Niblock, Victoria Braga, Alex North, Jonathan Bialosky, and Paulina Vera, who all worked on the case.

pastedGraphic.png

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

Alberto Manuel Benitez

Professor of Clinical Law

Director, Immigration Clinic

The George Washington University Law School

650 20th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20052

(202) 994-7463

(202) 994-4946 fax             

abenitez@law.gwu.edu

THE WORLD IS YOURS…

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

Real life success stories from real life humans represented by well-trained law students in a “Surreal Immigration Court System!”

Brings to mind the disgraceful incident when former Trump-Era EOIR Director James McHenry created a bogus “Fact Sheet” with a ludicrous narrative in a dishonest attempt to show that lawyers and knowing individual rights in Immigration Court were irrelevant to success.

McHenry’s lies, myths, and intentional distortions were universally panned by immigration experts as reported by Courtside at the time.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/05/16/the-asylumist-weighs-in-on-eoirs-fact-sheet-sometimes-myths-and-facts-get-mixed-up-especially-in-the-trump-administration-which-has-redacted-human-rights-report/

https://www.naij-usa.org/images/uploads/newsroom/

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/05/16/truth-matters-setting-the-record-straight-aila-blasts-eoirs-false-unethical-anti-asylum-screed-together-the-documents-deceptive-information-and-polarizing-r/

Under Judge Garland, the DOJ claims to recognize and promote representation in Immigration Court. But, leaving aside the mushy rhetoric, their actions say otherwise:

    • “Dedicated Dockets” and sloppy mail-out notices established without consultation with the private bar;
    • Proposed asylum regulations almost universally opposed by the private bar;
    • Failure to slash the overwhelming, due process inhibiting, 1.5 million case backlog;  
    • Continued “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” fueled by changing and misplaced administrative “priorities”that totally ignore the needs of the pro bono bar; 
    • Continuing support for “imbedded Immigration Courts and TV Courts” established in or near DHS Detention Centers located in obscure places where attorneys are not easily obtainable;
    • Overly restrictive and widely inconsistent bond determinations in Immigration Court that inhibit effective representation;
    • Ridiculous backlog of Recognition and Accreditation applications that impedes new opportunities for well-qualified pro bono representatives in Immigration Court (See, e.g., VIISTA Program, Villanova Law); 
    • Failure to “swap out” a legally substandardly performing BIA and some Immigration Judges for “real, well-qualified Judges with immigration and due process expertise;” 
    • Long-delayed e-filing, making pro bono representation more difficult  and less efficient; 
    • Overall lack of dynamic court management and appropriate professional dialogue with the private bar;
    • Substandard EOIR “judicial training” that puts undue burden on private attorneys, particularly those operating  pro bono;
    • Lack of positive precedents, particularly on asylum, that would help parties and judges move many “grantable” asylum cases through Immigration Courts fairly, efficiently, and consistently with due process and “best practices;”
    • Continuing lawless use of Title 42 @ Southern Border causing diversion of legal resources that could otherwise be channeled into representation!

In other words, the DOJ under Garland has failed to deliver on the promise of restoring the rule of law and promoting representation in Immigration Court. Seems like nothing short of Article I will “get the job done!”

It’s painfully obvious that the politicos running the dysfunctional Immigration Courts @ DOJ have never actually had to practice before them, particularly pro bono! So, they just go on repeating many of the uninformed mistakes of their predecessors!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-19-21

 

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🗽COURT REFORM: GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC STUDENTS WEIGH IN ON ARTICLE I — Emphasize Critical Due Process Need To Entirely Remove AG From Decision-Making Process!
  2. THE GIBSON REPORT— 01-02-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Garland’s Aimless Docket Reshuffling (“ADR”) Squeezes Refugees On Both Ends Of His Ludicrous Backlog, As Those Patiently Waiting Given Court Dates Nearly A Decade In The Future, While Recent Arrivals Mindlessly Rocketed To The “Front Of The Line” Struggle To Find Lawyers & Prepare Cases — Plus Other New Year News From The Dystopian World Of U.S. Immigration!
  3. THE TRUTH IS OUT, THANKS TO MICHELLE MENDEZ @ CLINIC: Practice Pointers on Matter of Castillo-Perez & “Takeaways” From FOIA Trove On In Absentias!
  4. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”

🏴‍☠️TOTALLY LOST IN TRANSLATION!🤮 — Inadequate Interpretation Is Just One Of Many Mockeries Of Due Process In Garland’s Disgracefully Dysfunctional Immigration Courts! — “[T]he promise of justice in immigration court is little more than a façade!”

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

https://cmsny.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ab341dd06620fe24c64cc2f00&id=8c2b818989&e=be87a1d505

By Maya P. Barak, University of Michigan-Dearborn:

This quote sums it all up for me:

. . . .

Ultimately, perceptions of justice within immigration court merit examination not despite the fact that due process can be used to manipulate images of fairness, but because of it.

This study highlights just some of the many problems running deep within the US immigration system. Current interpretation and technology practices reveal the promise of justice in immigration court is little more than a façade—at least from immigration attorneys’ perspectives. Further exploration of due process within immigration court is needed to determine whether or not addressing existing interpretation and technology problems through the reforms proposed here would improve immigrants’ access to justice in a meaningful way. Drawing inspiration from movements to abolish the death penalty, prison, and the police, meaningful immigration court reform efforts should also reduce the need for an immigration court altogether.

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

When I arrived at the Arlington Immigration Court in 2003, I found the contract interpreters to be excellent — some truly outstanding. A key part of the “Due Process Team.” 

Before I retired in 2016, however, EOIR “re-competed” the interpretation contract and awarded it to a company that did not appear to have sufficient qualified interpreters already on staff to perform the functions. That company offered to employ most of the interpreters of the “deposed contractor,” but evidently at lower salaries and less favorable terms. The predictable result: Some of the best interpreters left and went to Article III Courts, State Courts, or other types of interpretation offering better wages and working conditions.  

“[T]he promise of justice in immigration court is little more than a façade!” This bears repeating, over and over, until we get the radical due process reforms and long overdue personnel changes we need at EOIR.

This isn’t exactly “new news” to Garland and friends! Shortly after the “Ashcroft Purge of ’03,” Peter Levinson wrote a scholarly, yet scathing, expose’ of the “farce of justice at the BIA” entitled “The Facade Of Quasi-Judicial Independence In Immigration Appellate Adjudication.” 

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2018/05/17/courtside-history-lest-we-forget-the-ashcroft-purge-at-the-bia-in-2003-destroyed-the-pretext-of-judicial-independence-at-eoir-forever-heres-how-read-peter-levinson/

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress” — Some believe that Attorney General Merrick Garland could be charged with “cruelty to stuffed animals” for his callous failure to heed the desperate cries for help from poor abused, long suffering EYORE.

Nearly two decades later, now almost a year into the second “post-Ashcroft” Dem Administration, and still no effective corrective actions at EOIR! Indeed, whatever remnants of due process might have existed in 2003 have deteriorated steadily since then, despite nearly nine years of Dem Administrations and enough weighty evidence to sink a battleship. During that time, thousands of lives and American families have been ruined and several generations of immigration attorneys driven to despair (some quitting the field) by a system any first year law student could see is totally out of compliance with Constitutional due process and fundamental fairness!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-12-21

Related posts:

  1. THE GIBSON REPORT — 02-14-21💝 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Mandatory E-Filing @ EOIR Starts & Lots Of Other “Interesting Stuff!”  — CMS Study Shows How Garland Is Ignoring the “Low Hanging Fruit” On His Out of Control EOIR Backlog! ☹️
  2. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  3. ⚖️🗽MORE TRUTH ABOUT THE SOUTHERN BORDER FROM ONE OF AMERICA’S 🇺🇸 LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERTS: “Real Needs, Not Fictitious Crises Account For The Situation at US-Mexico Border,” By Donald Kerwin Center For Migration Studies
  4. 👎🏽🏴‍☠️🤮PAIR OF NEW 3RD CIR. DECISIONS SHOWS GARLAND’S EOIR IN “DUE PROCESS FREE-FALL” & CONTINUING INEPTNESS @ OIL — “The government’s position requires some suspension of disbelief.” (That’s “judgespeak” for “freaking off the wall!”) — Why Is Garland Allowing America’s Most Dysfunctional Judiciary To Abuse Due Process With Impunity?

⚖️👩🏻‍⚖️👩🏽‍⚖️👨🏾‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️ GARLAND FINALLY SHOWS SOME PROGRESS ON QUALITY IMMIGRATION JUDGE HIRING — 2/3 of 24 Appointments Have Prior Immigration Practice & Almost Half (11) Have Recent Experience Representing Individuals In Immigration Court, A Substantial Improvement In A Flailing System!

 

After an extremely disappointing start, Attorney General Merrick Garland is finally bringing some much needed balance and immigration expertise to his broken, dysfunctional, hopelessly backlogged, and overall reeling Immigration Courts. He appears to be at least partially heeding the advice of experts and tapping into the deep pool of private sector, NGO, and clinical program talent to improve the balance, professionalism, fairness, and efficiency of the U.S. Immigration Courts.  

After years of a toxic combination of neglect, mismanagement, outright “weaponization,” and poor to haphazard judicial selections biased against well-qualified immigration and Immigration Court experts from the private/NGO/academic sectors, the latest round of judicial hiring by Garland shows a more appropriate and diverse balance of private sector experts, government employees with relevant immigration experience, and those with other types of judicial experience.

Here’s the complete list of 24 new Immigration Judges from EOIR:

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1444911/download

For me, personally, two names particular “jumped out.” First, “NDPA All-Star”🌟 Judge Rebecca J. Walters, until recently the Managing Attorney at nonprofit AYUDA’s Virginia Office, will be Assistant Chief Immigration Judge at the Arlington Immigration Court! (Full disclosure: I am on the AYUDA Advisory Board.) Her “specialty” at AYUDA was litigation on behalf of SIJS applicants before both immigration agencies and the Virginia State Courts. 

Judge Rebecca Walters
Hon. Rebecca J. Walters
Assistant Chief Immigration Judge
Arlington, VA
PHOTO: AYUDA

Rebecca and her colleagues appeared before me at the Arlington Immigration Court. Among many other things, she was legal intern at our court while a student at the Washington College of Law at American University. We’ve all come a long way since the days when Rebecca and her fellow interns and JLCs used to “run the stairs” with Judge John Milo Bryant and me when our court was at Ballston, VA!

The second notable appointment is Judge Louis Gordon, until recently of Los Angeles, now at the San Francisco Immigraton Court. He is the son of the late beloved Immigration Judge Nate Gordon. As I mentioned in an obit for his father in Courtside, Louis, then a highly regarded private attorney, argued before the BIA when we visited Los Angeles during my tenure as BIA Chair. 

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/01/17/in-memorium-judge-nate-gordon-one-of-the-good-guys-tribute-by-carl-shusterman-esquire/

Congrats to Judge Walters, Judge Gordon, and the other recent selections.

Don’t get me wrong! It’s going to take more  — much, much more — than a few better judicial appointments to right the rapidly sinking ship at Garland’s EOIR. But, at least it appears to be progress. And, every voice of expertise, fairness, due process, and humanity in a system seriously lacking in all the foregoing qualities helps save lives and generate some energy for systemic improvements, in both “culture” and actual judicial performance, that have long been missing at EOIR.  

Yes, although the honchos at the top of EOIR’s “Management Pyramid” would have you believe otherwise, practical, positive change can often come from below in any organization, even one as totally and completely screwed up as EOIR!

Pyramid
Amazingly, the guys at the bottom of this structure sometimes know more about fixing problems than those sitting at the top!
Kheops-Pyramid
Wikipedia Commons License

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-28-21

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️CAMILLE J.  MACKLER @ JUST SECURITY “GETS IT!” — How Come Judge Garland & The Biden Administration Don’t? — “If we want to re-build a better, stronger immigration system, we need to start with immigration courts.” — Get Involved! Get Angry! Say No To Institutionalized Racism, Misogyny, & Dehumanization (“Dred Scottification”) @ EOIR! Force Judge Garland To Pay Attention! Demand Change, Now!
  2. COURTSIDE EXCLUSIVE! — A FIRST, DISTURBING LOOK INSIDE “JUDGE GARLAND’S FAILED EOIR” –  SOURCES CLAIM JUDGE’S APPROACH TO DUE PROCESS @ EOIR TIMID, INEFFECTIVE 🤮☠️ — HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE 🍇 – Judge Apparently Dissing Calls By Experts, Advocates For Bold, Common Sense Actions To Restore Due Process, & Promote Judicial Independence @ EOIR — Appears Ready To Allow Miller‘s White Nationalist “Plants,” Go Along To Get Along Judges, To Continue Mocking Due Process @ Dysfunctional Courts – Will Ex-Federal Judge Become Latest In Line Of Failed Dem AGs To Allow Institutionalized Racism, Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Attitudes, Mistreatment Of Migrants, & Administrative Chaos To Flourish In America’s Worst “Courts?”
  3. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👍🏼BREAKING — THE NDPA STRIKES BACK WITH VIGOR: 70 Human Rights, Civil Rights, Due Process, Good Government, Immigration, Equal Justice, Racial Justice, Progressive, Gender Justice Organizations Rip Garland, Monaco In Letter Protesting Their Abject Failure To Address Due Process, Racial Justice, Rule Of Law Disaster At EOIR — New, Competent, Diverse, Progressive Leadership & Judges Needed To Counteract 4 Years Of White Nationalism, Biased Hiring, “Malicious Incompetence!” — No More “Miller Lite Unhappy Hour” @ DOJ!
  4. 🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🆘NO JUSTICE @ JUSTICE! — OUTRAGE OF PROGRESSIVE EXPERTS CONTINUES TO GROW AS GARLAND FAILS TO VACATE SESSIONS/BARR RACIST, MISOGYNIST, ANTI-IMMIGRANT, UNETHICAL, BIASED PRECEDENTS — “Garland’s Star Chambers” Careen Further Out Of Control As AG Dithers While Lives Of Vulnerable Refugee Women Hang in Balance & Pro Bono Advocates Are Forced To Exhaust Resources Fighting Trump DOJ’s Misdeeds That Biden Has Failed To Fix, Despite Promises — “Unforced Errors,” Lack Of Competent Progressive Leadership Continue To Plague Flawed Immigration Agenda @ Justice, Offend Dem Supporters! — Expert Professors Karen Musalo & Stephen Legomsky Call For Immediate Vacating Of Repulsive Matter of A-B- Abomination Before More Lives Of Women Of Color Are Lost!

🤡(NO) SURPRISE! — “Backlog Meisters” @ Garland’s EOIR Bobbling His Latest “Gimmick” — Dedicated Dockets — IJ in Boston Now Has More Than 6,800 Cases On Docket (nearly 10 yr. supply @ 700 annually) — 129 Case “Master” On The Docket, Per Latest TRAC Report!

EOIR Adrift
Adrift on a sea of endless incompetence, Garland’s “Dedicated Dockets” won’t save EOIR!
U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Sara Francis
Public Realm
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

Immigration Court Struggling to Manage Its Expanding Dedicated Docket of Asylum-Seeking Families

During the month of August, the Biden administration stepped up the assignment of asylum-seeking families arriving at the border to the Immigration Court’s new “Dedicated Docket” program. As of August 31, 2021, Immigration Court records indicate that a total of 16,713 individuals comprising approximately 6,000 families are now assigned to this program.

But alongside the growing number of asylum-seekers assigned to the new Dedicated Docket, new questions emerge about whether these cases will be completed fairly and within the promised timeline, whether Immigration Judges will be able to manage large Dedicated Docket caseloads, and whether the Court is reliably tracking these cases as promised.

While EOIR has set up Dedicated Docket hearing locations in eleven cities, cases assigned thus far have been unusually concentrated in just a few cities. As of the end of August half of the 16,713 cases were assigned to New York City and Boston.

With the rapid influx of cases at a number of these Dedicated Docket hearing locations, half of the currently scheduled initial master hearings are not being held until after mid-November 2021, and fully one in ten are not currently scheduled until mid-February 2022. In addition, these hearings are largely to be held via video. Only eleven percent of all scheduled hearings are set as in-person hearings.

It also continues to be a relatively small number of judges who are assigned to hear these cases. Six judges now account for nearly two-thirds (63%) of the assigned Dedicated Docket cases. Each of these six judges has already been assigned over a thousand cases just during the first three months of this initiative. Judge Mario J. Sturla in Boston has thus far been assigned the most Dedicated Docket cases for any judge—3,178 cases.

Some basic arrangements are still not in place to ensure that cases assigned to the Dedicated Docket are clearly identified in the Court’s database system which is relied on to manage the Court’s workload. As of the end of August, fully 38 percent of cases assigned to the special hearing locations set up to exclusively handle Dedicated Dockets were not flagged as “DD” cases.

To read the full report, go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/660/

To examine a variety of Immigration Court data, including asylum data, the backlog, MPP, and more now updated through August 2021, use TRAC’s Immigration Court tools here:

https://trac.syr.edu/imm/tools/

If you want to be sure to receive a notification whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

https://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1

Follow us on Twitter at:

https://twitter.com/tracreports

or like us on Facebook:

https://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors 

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse 

Syracuse University Peck Hall

601 E. Genesee Street 

Syracuse, NY 13202-3117 

315-443-3563 

trac@syr.edu 

https://trac.syr.edu 

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse is a nonpartisan joint research center of the Whitman School of Management (https://whitman.syr.edu) and the Newhouse School of Public Communications (https://newhouse.syr.edu) at Syracuse University. If you know someone who would like to sign up to receive occasional email announcements and press releases, they may go to https://trac.syr.edu and click on the E-mail Alerts link at the bottom of the page. If you do not wish to receive future email announcements and wish to be removed from our list, please send an email to trac@syr.edu with REMOVE as the subject.

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

I’m not aware of any “courtroom” at EOIR that actually could hold 129 respondents, their family members, and attorneys (if any). It’s a high volume court with a “mini-court” infrastructure. Our Masters were shut down several times by the Arlington Fire Department for unsafe conditions and blocking handicapped access.

Also, building new “gimmick dockets” without e-filing is totally insane!

I once did a 100-case TV Master in Cincinnati. I had no files! ICE sent their files to Cleveland while sending the Assistant Chief Counsel to appear in person in Cincinnati. They probably crossed “in transit.” EOIR provided a Spanish interpreter. However most of the non-English speakers on the docket were from Mauritania and spoke French or Wolof. It was a complete circus.

Afterwards, I told the then Chief Immigration Judge that it was “friggin’ Clown Court!” He was not amused. Nor was I! 

Probably not a “career enhancing” move, but I was “working my way down the ladder” by that time.

Creating more unnecessary “gimmick dockets” at EOIR — just like hiring more new IJs, is NOT going to solve the extreme structural, organizational, personnel, and competence issues infecting the Immigration Courts. Actually, if anyone had bothered to check, “dedicated dockets” were tried during the Obama Administration. They inevitably failed — adding to the “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” while undermining due process, efficiency, and best practices!

It’s not “rocket science.” 🚀 Anybody who actually practices (as best they can, under these near-impossible circumstances) in Immigration Court these days could tell Garland exactly what the problems are.

Nobody in their right mind would suggest that the “answer” is a “Dedicated Docket” or infusing a large number of additional judges into this mess, although the solution definitely involves replacing some existing judges, starting with the BIA, and includes bringing in real progressive, expert judicial leadership. So, why is Garland rolling out more gimmicks and proposed personnel increases without addressing the REAL problems at EOIR?

Fix the system! Bring in expert progressive judges who know the law and are committed to best practices! Stop the politicized interference! Figure out what the real system requirements are! THEN go out and do additional merit-based hiring, if more judges are really part of the answer! (Hint: The vast majority of the 2+-year-old non-detained, non-priority cases should be administratively closed or referred to USCIS, or both. They are bogging down the system without promoting justice.)

Alas, poor EOIR seems to be adrift on a sea of endless incompetence, mismanagement, and neglect with no safe port in sight.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-14-21

Related posts:

  1. TRASVINA RESTORES “PD” @ ICE; 6TH CIR. REJECTS CASTRO-TUM! BUT GARLAND’S FAILURES @ EOIR CONTINUE TO HAMPER BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, CAUSE CONFUSION, INCREASE BACKLOGS!  — “In performing their duties, including through implementation of this memorandum, OPLA attorneys should remain mindful that ‘[i]mmigration enforcement obligations do not consist only of initiating and conducting prompt proceedings that lead to removals at any cost. Rather, as has been said, the government wins when justice is done.’” 
  2. 👍🏼⚖️🗽MAJORITY OF ASYLUM SEEKERS WIN THEIR CASES, EVEN IN A BROKEN & BIASED  SYSTEM INTENTIONALLY STACKED AGAINST THEM — But, Only, If They Can Get To A “Merits Adjudication!” — Nativist Lies, Myths, Driving USG Policies Exposed! — Why USCIS & EOIR Self-Created Backlogs Primarily Shaft Those Deserving Legal Protection Of Some Type!
  3. THE GIBSON REPORT— 01-02-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Garland’s Aimless Docket Reshuffling (“ADR”) Squeezes Refugees On Both Ends Of His Ludicrous Backlog, As Those Patiently Waiting Given Court Dates Nearly A Decade In The Future, While Recent Arrivals Mindlessly Rocketed To The “Front Of The Line” Struggle To Find Lawyers & Prepare Cases — Plus Other New Year News From The Dystopian World Of U.S. Immigration!
  4. 🏴‍☠️👎🏻🤮“HOUSTON, WE’VE STILL GOT A PROBLEM!” — A HUGE AND GROWING ONE — Garland’s Failure To Restore “Justice @ Justice” Reverberates Throughout Our Nation!🆘

⚠️MORE PROBLEMS LIKELY LOOM FOR GARLAND’S TOTALLY DYSFUNCTIONAL 🤡 EOIR AS EN BANC 9TH REJECTS “GOOD ENOUGH FOR GOVERNMENT WORK STANDARD” FOR CREDIBILITY REVIEW  — “Any Reason To Deny Gimmicks” Fail Again As Court Requires EOIR To Comply With REAL ID!  — Alam v. Garland

Dan Kowalski
Dan Kowalski
Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)

Here’s “quick coverage” from Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca9-en-banc-on-credibility-alam-v-garland

CA9, En Banc, on Credibility: Alam v. Garland

“We voted to rehear this case en banc to reconsider our “single factor rule,” which we have applied in considering petitions for review from decisions by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”). The single factor rule, as we have applied it, requires us to sustain an adverse credibility finding if “one of the [agency’s] identified grounds is supported by substantial evidence.” Wang v. INS, 352 F.3d 1250, 1259 (9th Cir. 2003). On rehearing en banc, we hold that the single factor rule conflicts with the REAL ID Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-13, 119 Stat. 231 (2005), and we overrule our prior precedent establishing and applying it. We remand this case to the three-judge panel to re-examine the petition for review in light of our clarification of the standard for reviewing the BIA’s adverse credibility determinations. … Given the REAL ID Act’s explicit statutory language, we join our sister circuits and hold that, in assessing an adverse credibility finding under the Act, we must look to the “totality of the circumstances[] and all relevant factors.” § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii). There is no bright-line rule under which some number of inconsistencies requires sustaining or rejecting an adverse credibility determination—our review will always require assessing the totality of the circumstances. To the extent that our precedents employed the single factor rule or are otherwise inconsistent with this standard, we overrule those cases. We remand this case to the three-judge panel for reconsideration in light of the newly articulated standard for reviewing adverse credibility determinations.”

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

Even with Article III Courts, including the 9th Circuit, generally “drifting right,” “good enough for Government work” has been rejected! That ought to help Garland boost the EOIR backlog! 

The EOIR/DOJ policy right now appears to be “give any reason to deny,” hope that OIL can make at least one of them stick, and count on righty Circuit Judges to “swallow the whistle.” While that has certainly happened in the 5th Circuit, and to some extent in the 11th Circuit, there still appear to be enough Article IIIs out there critically reviewing EOIR’s too often patently substandard work product to make Garland’s indolent “look the other way” approach to the EOIR mess highly problematic.

Analyzing all the factors also might be inconsistent with mindless, due-process-denying three or four per day “merits quotas,” invented and imposed by Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions (someone with zero (0) Immigration Court experience and a well-justified lifetime reputation as a racist xenophobe — how does Matthews v. Eldridge allow a guy like that to pick and “run” judges — the Article IIIs might choose to look the other way, but most L-1 students know this is wrong and unconstitutional).

Just aimlessly listing common testimonial problems and hoping OIL will find one or more of them actually in the record is much faster (if you don’t count the impact of Circuit remands!) That it’s inconsistent with the statute, the Constitution, and, actually, BIA precedent seems to be beside the point these days. Of course, EOIR’s “assembly line jurists” also get “dinged” for remands. 

Is there is anybody left at EOIR HQ today who could properly teach “totality of the circumstances” under REAL ID? 

My observation from Arlington was that the number of adverse credibility findings and asylum denials went down substantially once the Fourth Circuit, and even occasionally the BIA, began enforcing “totality of the circumstances and all relevant factors” under REAL ID. As lawyers “got the picture” and began providing better independent corroborating evidence and documentation, the ability to “nit-pick” testimony, find the respondent “not credible,”  and make it stand up on review diminished, as its well should have! 

Of course, in my mind, REAL ID and the Fourth Circuit were just “re-enforcing and adopting” observations that members of our deposed “Gang of Four or Five” had made in numerous dissents from our BIA colleagues “undue deference” to poorly reasoned and thinly supported adverse credibility determinations, particularly in asylum cases. 

More careful analysis of the record as a whole, often with the help of JLCs, became the rule at Arlington. And, after a few initial setbacks in the Fourth Circuit, ICE in Arlington generally stopped pushing for unjustified adverse credibility rulings and adopted approaches that actually complied with Fourth Circuit law. 

The antiquated “contemporaneous oral decision format,” put on steroids by Sessions and Barr, is particularly ill-suited to the type of careful analysis required by the current statute, not to mention due process. And, having far too many newer Immigration Judges who have no immigration background and who have never had to represent an individual in Immigration Court is also a formula for failure, particularly when combined with inadequate training and idiotic “quotas.” 

I’m not sure that the famous Rube Goldberg could have created a more convoluted,  inefficient, and irrational process than exists at today’s EOIR. It simply can’t be fixed without leadership and assistance from outside experts who understand the problems (because they and their clients have “lived them”) and who aren’t wedded to all the mistakes and failed “silver bullet solutions” of the past!

Rube Goldberg
The EOIR process is so “user friendly” that any unrepresented two-year-old can easily navigate it!
Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) — 1930
Public Realm

By contrast with the EOIR mess, it’s amazing what changes an expert appellate body that actually takes its job and due process seriously can effect. Imagine if we had an expert BIA that made due process and treating individuals fairly “job one,” rather than operating as a “whistle stop on the deportation railroad.”

The ongoing EOIR clown show 🤡 just keeps getting exposed. But, nobody in charge seems to care! That’s a shame, 🤮 because “human lives, ⚰️ and perhaps the survival of our democracy, 🇺🇸 hang in the balance here!”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-09-21

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️JUDICIAL REVIEW — C.A. 2 — Brace Of Bad BIA Bobbles On Basics Brings “Culture Of Denial” Into Focus — Justice Will Continue To Be Illusive @ EOIR 👎🏽 Until Garland Steps Up & Replaces His Fatally Flawed BIA With Real Judges Who Are Progressive Practical Scholars In Immigration, Due Process, Human Rights, With A Firm Commitment To Bringing Racial & Gender Equity To Now-Disgraced Immigration Courts!🤮
  2. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”
  3. ⚰️☠️👎🏻🤮ALL-MALE GOP PANEL OF 8TH CIR. GOES “FULL SALEM” ON SALVADORAN WOMAN — “If You Survive Your Ordeal, Woman, You Can’t Possibly Be a Refugee! Come Back And See Us After You’re Dead & Maybe We’ll Believe You,” Is The Wacko Message Delivered By Brain-Dead, Life-Tenured Male Jurists — American “Justice” Takes Yet Another Bizarre, Kafkaesque Turn As Judge Garland Silently Sits & Thinks Great Thoughts Without Taking Any Actions To End The Daily Abuses Against Humanity In His Name By Unqualified “Prosecutor-Owned & Operated Judges” & Ethically Challenged DOJ Attorneys Promoting Nonsense Before Federal Circuit Courts!
  4. ⚖️🤯🤮GARLAND’S OHIO JUDICIAL MELTDOWN — “High-Asylum-Denying” Immigration Judges Appointed By Barr & Sessions Remain On Garland’s Bench In Cleveland Despite Referring To Migrants As “Illegals” & “Pretty Virgins!” — EOIR Disciplinary System Remains As Opaque As Ever Under Garland!🏴‍☠️ Yulin Cheng Reports @ Columbus Dispatch!

@WASHPOST: CATHERINE RAMPELL SAYS IT WELL! — “Contrary to Trumpers’ claims, keeping our word to Afghan allies in trouble is wholly consistent with a philosophy that puts ‘America First.’ Indeed, it’s central to the entire operation.”  — Getting Beyond Bogus Racist Nativism To A Robust, Honest, Expanded Legal Immigration System That Treats Refugees & Asylees Fairly, Humanely, & Generously — As Assets, Not “Threats” — Is Putting America First!

Catherine Rampell
Catherine Rampell
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/26/putting-america-first-would-require-keeping-our-word-afghan-allies/

Opinion by Catherine Rampell

August 26 at 5:56 PM ET

Trumpy nativists, posing as fiscal conservatives, want you to question whether the United States can afford to take in Afghan allies and refugees.

The better question is whether we can afford not to.

The Republican Party has cleaved in recent weeks over the issue of Afghan refugees, specifically those who served as military interpreters or otherwise aided U.S. efforts. On the one hand, Republican governors and lawmakers around the country have volunteered to resettle Afghan evacuees in their states. Likewise, a recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that bringing these allies to the United States is phenomenally popular, garnering support from 76 percent of Republican respondents. Influential conservative constituencies are invested in this issue, too, including veterans’ groups and faith leaders.

On the other hand, the Trump strain within the GOP has been fighting such magnanimous impulses with misinformation.

Xenophobic politicians and media personalities have been conspiracy-theorizing about the dangers of resettling Afghan allies here — even though we had previously entrusted these same Afghans with the lives of U.S. troops and granted them security clearances. And even though they go through additional extensive screening before being brought to our shores.

No matter; if you listen to Tucker Carlson and his ilk, you’ll hear that these Afghans are apparently part of a secret plot to replace White Americans, and that untamed Afghan hordes are going to rape your wife and daughter.

Often these demagogues try to disguise their racist objections to refugee resettlement (and immigration more broadly) as economic concerns. Their claim: that however heartbreaking the footage from the Kabul airport, compassion for Afghan refugees is a luxury Americans simply cannot afford.

Refugees are somehow responsible for existing housing shortages, proclaims Carlson. (This is demonstrably false; the reason we have too little affordable housing is primarily because people like Carlson oppose building more and denser housing.) More refugees would sponge up precious taxpayer dollars, according to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). And in general, refugees — like all immigrants — are a massive drain on the U.S. economy, alleges Stephen Miller.

This is nonsense.

. . . .

***********************
Read Catherine’s complete op-ed at the link!

Thanks, Catherine, for once again standing up to and speaking truth against disgraceful, neo-Nazi, nativist racists like Stephen Miller, Tucker Carlson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene!

As Catherine has observed on this and other occasions, in addition to all of the legal and moral reasons for welcoming them, refugees are good for the U.S. economy. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2018/09/04/forget-trumps-white-nationalist-lies-three-ways-immigrants-have-2-cms-refugees-are-good-for-ame/

By contrast, one might well ask what “value added” folks like Stephen Miller and his buddies, (Miller has largely sponged off of taxpayer funds while looking for ways to inflict misery on others and destroy America) bring to the table. None, that I can see!

Moreover, even beyond the undoubted value of robust refugee admissions, there is good reason to believe that large-scale migration presents our best opportunity for salvation and prosperity, rather than the “bogus threat” posited by Miller & Co.

As Deepak Bhargava and Ruth Milkman recently, and quite cogently, wrote in American Prospect:

. . . .

A “Statue of Liberty Plan” for the 21st century could make the United States the world’s most welcoming country for immigrants. Right now, the foreign-born share of the U.S. population lags behind that of Canada, Australia, and Switzerland. In order to surpass them, the United States would have to admit millions more people each year for a decade or longer. We currently admit immigrants to promote family integration, meet economic needs, respond to humanitarian crises, and increase the diversity of our population from historically underrepresented countries. Under this plan, we could dramatically expand admissions in all four categories and add a fifth category to recognize the claims of climate migrants. As a civic project of national renewal, with millions of people playing a role in welcoming new immigrants, such a policy could reweave frayed social bonds and create a healthier, outward-looking, multiracial national identity.

The politics of immigration, however, lag far behind the moral and economic logic of the case for a pro-immigration policy. The immigrant threat narrative has become so pervasive that many liberals have embraced it, if only because they hope to fend off threats from right-wing nationalists. President Obama not only deprioritized immigration reform in his first term but deported record numbers of immigrants, hoping that such a display of “toughness” might win support for legalization of the undocumented immigrants already here. Hillary Clinton advocated liberal immigration policies in her 2016 presidential campaign but later tacked toward restrictionism. Liberals and leftists across the global North, from Austria to France to the U.K., have offered similar concessions to nativism. But mimicking right-wing appeals is a losing gamble that only serves to legitimize the anti-immigrant agenda and its standard-bearers.

There are promising signs of potential for shifting the debate, however, if progressives lean in. Polling shows that Americans increasingly reject the immigrant threat narrative, largely due to Trump’s shameless cruelty. Last year, for the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1965, more Americans supported increased levels of immigration than supported reduced levels. A telling barometer of how the sands are shifting is that President Biden’s proposed immigration bill is far to the left of what Obama proposed.

The work of shifting gears toward a more welcoming policy can begin right now by fully welcoming immigrants who already reside in our country. A crucial starting point would be to include a path to citizenship for essential workers, Dreamers, farmworkers, and Temporary Protected Status holders in the American Jobs Plan Congress is considering. This is not only a humane approach, but it also will stimulate economic growth and thus help finance other parts of the plan. A separate campaign by the Biden administration (not requiring congressional action) to simplify the naturalization process for nine million eligible green-card holders would help make the nation’s electorate more reflective of its population.

Getting the politics of immigration right isn’t just important for immigrants. Nativism, built upon the sturdy foundation of racism, remains among the most potent tools in the arsenal of right-wing authoritarians. Any program for economic equity or democracy will be fragile in the absence of a coherent immigration agenda. The antidote to authoritarianism is not to duck, cower, or imitate the nativists, but rather to make the case for opening the door to millions more immigrants.

If slavery and genocide were the country’s original sins, its occasional and often accidental genius has been to renew itself through periodic waves of immigration. Once we expose the immigration threat narrative as the Big Lie that it is, it becomes plain that immigration is not a problem to be solved but an opportunity and necessity to be embraced.

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/why-mass-immigration-is-the-key-to-american-renewal

This, of course, also casts doubt on the wisdom of our current, wasteful and ultimately ineffective, policy of illegally rejecting legal asylum applicants at our Southern Border, rather than attempting in good faith to fit as many as qualify under our current system, as properly and honestly administered (something that hasn’t happened in the past). Additionally wise leaders would be looking for ways to expand our legal immigration system to admit, temporarily or permanently, those whose presence would be mutually beneficial, even if they aren’t “refugees” within existing legal definitions. In this respect, the proposal to modernize our laws to admit climate migrants is compelling.

Remember, as stated above:

Getting the politics of immigration right isn’t just important for immigrants. Nativism, built upon the sturdy foundation of racism, remains among the most potent tools in the arsenal of right-wing authoritarians. Any program for economic equity or democracy will be fragile in the absence of a coherent immigration agenda. The antidote to authoritarianism is not to duck, cower, or imitate the nativists, but rather to make the case for opening the door to millions more immigrants.

NDPA members, keep listening to Catherine and the other voices of progressive wisdom, humanity, practicality, and tolerance. The key to the future is insuring that the “Stephen Millers of the world” never again get a chance to implement their vile, racist propaganda in the guise of “government policy.”

Happily, many Northern Virginians have listened to our “better angels.” Humanitarian aid and resettlement opportunities for Afghan refugees are pouring in, as shown by this report from our good friend Julie Carey @ NBC 4 news:

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/northern-virginia-residents-offer-donations-shelter-to-afghan-refugees/2785567/

Julie Carey
Julie Carey
NOVA Bureau Chief, NBC4 Washington
PHOTO: Twitter

The local couple interviewed by Julie emphasized the impressive “human dignity” of the Afghan refugees! (I also observed this during many years of hearing asylum cases in person at the Arlington Immigration Court.) Compare that with the lack thereof (not to mention absence of empathy and kindness) shown by the nativist naysayers!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-27-21

Related posts:

  1. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  2. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻KAKISTOCRACY HAS CONSEQUENCES: CLIMATE MIGRATION IS ONE OF THEM! — Trump’s Stupidity & Cruelty On Immigration Climate Science, & Disease Control Promises Horrible Global Human Disaster For Future Generations — Empowering & Enabling A Moron Is Always A Very Bad Idea!  — No Idiotic Wall Or “Drill Baby Drill” Insanity Is Going To Prevent This Human Catastrophe We Are Inflicting On Those Who Follow!
  3. 👹🎃HALLOWEEN HORROR 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻REICHSREPORT: GRUPPENFUHRER MILLER REVEALS “REICHSPLAN” FOR EXTERMINATION OF IMMIGRATION, ASYLUM, REFUGE BY EXECUTIVE DECREE!  — “The Final Solution??”  — Parents, Protect Your Kids, Families, & Your Country From This Grotesque Un-American Monster!
  4. ⚖️🗽MORE TRUTH ABOUT THE SOUTHERN BORDER FROM ONE OF AMERICA’S 🇺🇸 LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERTS: “Real Needs, Not Fictitious Crises Account For The Situation at US-Mexico Border,” By Donald Kerwin Center For Migration Studies

🤮☠️ GARLAND’S EOIR STAR CHAMBERS CONTINUE TO GRIND OUT ANTI-ASYLUM TRAVESTIES! — Read What Passes For “Justice” In Garland’s Deadly Parody Of A Court System!

Stephen Miller Monster
Garland’s “right hand man” on EOIR matters is eerily familiar, in a Himmleresque way! Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com
Kangaroos
“Miller’s Mob” is still alive and well at Garland’s EOIR. Legal asylum seekers — not so well, not so alive!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
Creative Commons License
Four Horsemen
BIA Asylum Panel In Action — At Garland’s BIA, a “Miller-trained and inspired” Asylum Panel can, and does, kill dozens of unarmed asylum seekers in a single day to “make quota.”  Despite being thoroughly discredited for judicial use, Garland has inexplicably continued due-process-denying, corner-cutting, quality-killing “production quotas” for his assembly line worker/judges in Immigration Courts!
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/08/25/19-72890.pdf

CA9 on Credibility: Munyuh v. Garland

Munyuh v. Garland

“Ms. Munyuh’s case concerns us. From our reading of the record, the IJ seemed determined to pick every nit she could find. Besides erring procedurally, the IJ discounted probative evidence on flimsy grounds and displayed a dubious understanding of how rape survivors ought to act. Although we give great deference to the IJ as factfinder, substantial-evidence review does not require us to credit the credibility finding of an IJ who cherry-picks from—or misconstrues—the record to reach it. The IJ must consider the “totality of the circumstances, and all relevant factors.” 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii) (emphasis added). At the very least, the two legal errors we have identified warrant remand. The IJ erred by failing to give specific, cogent reasons for rejecting Ms. Munyuh’s reasonable, plausible explanations for the discrepancies tied to her declaration that the police truck broke down after only four or five kilometers. And she further erred by discounting the supporting documentation without giving Ms. Munyuh adequate notice and opportunity to provide corroborative evidence. We therefore vacate the removal order and remand the case to the Board for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. PETITION GRANTED; VACATED and REMANDED.”

[Hats off to Ronald D. Richey!]

 ****************

Congrats to Attorney Ronald D. Richey, who appeared before me many times at the Arlington Immigration Court. 

Ronald D. Richey
Ronald D. Richey, Esquire
Rockville, MD

Here’s a quote from the opinion by Senior Circuit Judge Danny Boggs, a Reagan appointee “on loan” from the 6th Cir., that shows the appallingly unprofessional performance of the Immigration Judge and the BIA in this “life or death” case:

On this point, the IJ made findings with which no reasonable factfinder could agree. She found Ms. Munyuh’s testimony that “the truck had traveled over two hours” to conflict with her earlier estimate that it had traveled “over an hour.” And she found Ms. Munyuh’s redirect testimony that “the truck [had] traveled approximately four to five hours before breaking down” to be “clearly in conflict with each of [Ms. Munyuh]’s prior estimations.”

But these time estimates are all consistent with each other. Indeed, assuming the truck really had traveled for four to five hours, Ms. Munyuh had no other choice but to give those answers. The IJ asked her if the truck had traveled more or less than an hour, to which Ms. Munyuh said more than an hour. Then the IJ asked whether the truck had traveled at least two hours, to which Ms. Munyuh answered in the affirmative.

No reasonable factfinder could find those two statements to conflict with Ms. Munyuh’s later testimony that the truck traveled for four to five hours. The IJ’s contrary finding is therefore unsupported by substantial evidence.

Wow! Is this what constituted “acceptable performance” when Judge Garland was on the D.C. Circuit? And, don’t forget, OIL actually defended this garbage product in May 2021, well after Garland took office and after experts had advised him to “clean house.”

The bad judges at EOIR whose lack of competence and/or bias unfairly condemn asylum seekers to persecution, torture and death, or all three, do NOT have life tenure and should NOT be on the Immigration Bench. Period! It’s not rocket science!

“No reasonable fact finder.” Isn’t that a problem in life or death cases? So-called “judges” who time after time stretch and misinterpret facts, ignore due process, and misapply basic asylum law to unfairly sentence asylum seekers to death! Why isn’t this grounds for removal from the bench? Or at least removing them from all asylum cases!

While Judge Boggs and his colleagues are rightfully “concerned” with EOIR’s performance in this case, Garland doesn’t appear to share those concerns. This is “business as usual” at Garland’s EOIR, just as it was when Stephen Miller was calling the shots! Obviously, Garland isn’t taking the human lives at stake here with even a modicum of seriousness. That’s totally unacceptable! Maybe Judge Boggs needs to pick up pen ✒️ and paper 📜 and express his outrage in writing to his former Circuit Court colleague, attaching an annotated copy of the garbage being turned out by his EOIR Star Chambers!

Star Chamber Justice
Just look the other way, it’s the Garland way!                                                                     “Justice”
Star Chamber
Style

Also, don’t think that cases like this are an “aberration.” No, they aren’t! The only “aberration” is that this is one of a tiny sliver of injustices that was actually caught and corrected by the Article IIIs. How many unrepresented or under-represented individuals do you think that this judge and this BIA panel “railroad” in a week?

🏴‍☠️⚰️THEATER OF THE ABSURD: Incredibly, Garland & Mayorkas are now proposing to put this “Miller-Lite” EOIR infested with many incompetent, poorly trained, asylum-denying “judges,” with no credible leadership, totally lacking in professionalism and quality control, “in charge” of establishing precedents, insuring, and enforcing due process in their proposed “streamlined” asylum system! In other words, the solution for those who have repeatedly demonstrated an outrageous inability to conduct fair hearings and whose ignorance of asylum law and best practices is often stunning is to put them in charge of doing “paper reviews” of applications denied by Asylum Officers!

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/08/18/%F0%9F%97%BDcourtsides-instant-analysis-bidens-proposed-asylum-regs-advocates-beware-%E2%9A%A0%EF%B8%8F%E2%98%B9%EF%B8%8F-despite-a-potentially-workable-framework-adminis/

Good luck with that! Could there be a more insane proposal under current conditions? Making Stephen Miller the new “Asylum Czar” at EOIR? Perhaps, don’t be surprised!

Of course, in the nutsos world of Garland and Mayorkas, their fatally flawed proposal arguably would be a better than the current illegal and immoral use of Miller’s bogus Title 42 scheme to return legal asylum seekers to torture or death WITHOUT ANY PROCESS WHATSOEVER. 

It’s simple. A complete “housecleaning” at EOIR, starting with the BIA, new progressive leadership and professional expert training at EOIR and the Asylum Office, new progressive asylum precedents and guidance, and an operating program for universal representation of asylum seekers are ABSOLUTE PREREQUISITES for fair and efficient regulatory reform of the asylum system! In the meantime, allow Asylum Officers to grant asylum to those who pass credible fear, but continue to give full Immigration Court hearings to any who can’t be granted. Get rid of Title 42 and start processing legal asylum seekers in an orderly fashion through ports of entry!

More than seven months into the Administration, Garland and Mayorkas could, and should, have had these needed progressive personnel, leadership, and structural changes in place, producing due process, and most important, actually saving lives! Instead, they have wasted time and squandered goodwill by continuing to run Stephen Miller’s White Nationalist system with Miller’s personnel in place! Simply incredible!

And, the bumbling, highly predictable weakness of the team of DOJ lawyers trying to defend the Administration’s few humanitarian immigration initiatives has become patently obvious. How can you expect lawyers who have spent the last four years misrepresenting asylum seekers as less than human and a threat to society suddenly start setting the record straight and effectively advocating for their human and legal rights? Obviously, they can’t! While EOIR is clearly the most glaringly dysfunctional part of DOJ, it’s obviously not the only problem and the only place Team Garland needed to (but didn’t) “clean house.”

I “get” that this isn’t Judge Bell’s, Ben Civiletti’s, or Janet Reno’s DOJ any more! But, remarkably, and tragically for the poor souls and their lawyers involved, Garland doesn’t!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-26-21

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”
  2. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️JUDICIAL REVIEW — C.A. 2 — Brace Of Bad BIA Bobbles On Basics Brings “Culture Of Denial” Into Focus — Justice Will Continue To Be Illusive @ EOIR 👎🏽 Until Garland Steps Up & Replaces His Fatally Flawed BIA With Real Judges Who Are Progressive Practical Scholars In Immigration, Due Process, Human Rights, With A Firm Commitment To Bringing Racial & Gender Equity To Now-Disgraced Immigration Courts!🤮
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. 🏴‍☠️BIA’S MISOGYNISTIC, ANTI-ASYLUM, IGNORE THE EXPERTS & THE EVIDENCE APPROACH 🤮 REBUKED AGAIN — 9th Cir. Slams BIA Big Time In Rodriguez Tornes v. Garland! — “Concurring, Judge Paez wrote that in addition to ignoring evidence that Rodriguez was targeted on account of her feminist political opinion, the Board also ignored extensive record evidence from a leading authority on domestic violence that directly rejected the Board’s premise that domestic violence is presumed to be motivated by nothing more than the private dynamics of a ‘personal relationship.’”

🇺🇸🗽⚖️NDPA ALERT: ELIMINATE THE CANCELLATION OF REMOVAL CAP! — Join Neela Nes’s Petition To Lift the Cap & Donate To Immigration Reform — Watch Neela’s Inspirational Video About “American Families In Limbo!” — End Injustice To Our Immigrant Communities!

Here’s the link to 1) sign Neela’s petition; 2) watch her very impressive video; and 3) donate (only if you choose, of course, not required to do 1 & 2):

https://www.change.org/p/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-remove-the-green-card-annual-cap

Neela is the daughter of my friend, Northern Virginia Immigration Lawyer Yousef Nesari, whose firm appears in the Arlington Immigration Court on a regular basis.

I’ve helped lawyers with some cancellation cases since retirement. The unnecessary delays, inconsistent decisions, and human toll caused by failure to do better is simply appalling. An obvious example is the Government’s dilatory actions and litigation that took the “stop time” rule unsuccessfully to the Supremes twice, rather than just dong things fairly, correctly, and according the law in the first instance. Talk about “low hanging fruit” among the ways the Biden Administration and Congress could “declutter the Immigraton Courts” while making America a better place by allowing more immigrants to reach their full potential!

🇺🇸🗽Good luck, Neera, and Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-21-21

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🗽COURT REFORM: GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC STUDENTS WEIGH IN ON ARTICLE I — Emphasize Critical Due Process Need To Entirely Remove AG From Decision-Making Process!
  2. 🇺🇸🗽👍🏼😎MAKING AMERICA BETTER, FINALLY: “Mr. Biden has laid out an immigration program that would genuinely put America first.” (WashPost) — No Wonder GOP Anti-American White Nationalists Like Tom Cotton Are Apoplectic & Spouting Their Racist, White Elitist Nonsense!
  3. ⚖️🤯🤮GARLAND’S OHIO JUDICIAL MELTDOWN — “High-Asylum-Denying” Immigration Judges Appointed By Barr & Sessions Remain On Garland’s Bench In Cleveland Despite Referring To Migrants As “Illegals” & “Pretty Virgins!” — EOIR Disciplinary System Remains As Opaque As Ever Under Garland!🏴‍☠️ Yulin Cheng Reports @ Columbus Dispatch!
  4. ⚖️ “WINNNG SHOULDN’T BE LOSING” — Cancellation & Life After Winning (“CLAW”) Project Kicks Off With “Keynote Remarks!” — End The Inhumane & Irrational “4,000 Cap” On Cancellation!

⚖️🗽👍🏼HON JOHN MILO BRYANT OF ARLINGTON IMMIGRATION COURT STANDS TALL FOR DUE PROCESS!😎 — Grants Motion To Terminate Based On Niz-Chavez!

Dan Kowalski
Dan Kowalski
Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)

Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/niz-chavez-prompts-ij-to-terminate-proceedings-defective-nta

 Niz-Chavez Prompts IJ to Terminate Proceedings: Defective NTA

Attorney Ted Murphy has some good news.  He filed this motion, and the IJ terminated proceedings!

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Congrats to Ted, and thanks for passing this along! (I never tire of having an excuse for using this picture from the “Courtside Archives!”)

Arlington Judges

”Well, he never was one to “‘go along to get along!’” Hon. Thomas “Frosty the Snowman” Snow, flanked by Hon. John Milo “JB” Bryant (in the funny looking dark, non-conforming suit) and by Judge Rodger B. “Marine” Harris and me departing for my last “Thursday Judges’ Lunch” on the day of my retirement, June 30, 2016.

🇺🇸🗽⚖️😎Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-10-21

Related posts:

  1. 🏴‍☠️👎🏽🤮 AIMLESS DOCKET RESHUFFLING (“ADR”) ON STEROIDS! — EOIR Dysfunction Shows What Happens When “Captive Court System” Kowtows To Political Handlers Rather Than Serving The Public! — Jason Dzubow, The Asylumist, Reports!
  2. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”
  3. ⚰️☠️👎🏻🤮ALL-MALE GOP PANEL OF 8TH CIR. GOES “FULL SALEM” ON SALVADORAN WOMAN — “If You Survive Your Ordeal, Woman, You Can’t Possibly Be a Refugee! Come Back And See Us After You’re Dead & Maybe We’ll Believe You,” Is The Wacko Message Delivered By Brain-Dead, Life-Tenured Male Jurists — American “Justice” Takes Yet Another Bizarre, Kafkaesque Turn As Judge Garland Silently Sits & Thinks Great Thoughts Without Taking Any Actions To End The Daily Abuses Against Humanity In His Name By Unqualified “Prosecutor-Owned & Operated Judges” & Ethically Challenged DOJ Attorneys Promoting Nonsense Before Federal Circuit Courts!
  4. WE KNOW THAT SESSIONS, WHITAKER, & BARR HAVE TURNED THE DOJ INTO A LEGAL, MORAL, PROFESSIONAL, & ETHICAL CESSPOOL — Some Federal Judges Are Beginning To Take Notice: “To say the least, it is disappointing that [DOJ] counsel, after consulting with other counsel including ‘prosecutors and appellate attorneys’ in this District’s United States Attorney’s office, submitted a legal memorandum to the Court that failed to acknowledge contrary case law that did not support its position.”

⚖️🗽I SPEAK OUT ON BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S STUPID POSITION BEFORE THE SUPREMES IN SANCHEZ V. MAYORKAS! — John Fritze reports for USA Today

John Fritze
John Fritze
Supreme Court Reporter
USA Today
PHOTO: Muckrack.com

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/16/supreme-court-debate-tps-immigration-case-biden-confronts-border/7110295002/

WASHINGTON – Jose Sanchez and Sonia Gonzalez have lived in the United States legally for two decades under a program that lets immigrants from nations enduring natural disasters and armed conflict temporarily avoid returning to their native countries.

But when the New Jersey couple applied for green cards – which would let them remain permanently – they were denied because they initially entered the country illegally.

The Salvadorans sued in 2015 and the Supreme Court will hear their appeal Monday in a case that has drawn little attention in Washington even as it has raised significant questions about the Biden administration’s approach to immigration – not to mention the status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants living in a state of limbo.

. . . .

“Look, this is a no brainer,” said Paul Wickham Schmidt, a Georgetown University law professor and former immigration judge. “Why waste time on it? The administration has indicated they’d like to regularize many [TPS beneficiaries] and…instead they’re defending a gimmick cooked up by Stephen Miller,” Trump’s onetime policy adviser.

. . . .

“Integrate them into our society rather than leaving them in permanent limbo – in theory, that’s what the Biden administration says it wants to do,” said Schmidt, the former immigration judge. “Only here’s their first chance to make it happen and they don’t connect the dots.”

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Read John’s complete article at the above link.

Yeah, I know this brain-dead position originated in the Obama Administration. I’d never accuse the Obama Administration of overall having a wise, informed, or consistent approach to immigration. But, the “precedents” at issue here were issued under Trump. See Matter of H-G-G-, 27 I. & N. Dec. 617 (AAO 2019); Matter of Padilla Rodriguez, 28 I. & N. Dec. 164 (BIA 2020).

Any time you see folks like Ira Mehlman @ FAIR or Christopher Hajec @ Immigration Reform Law Institute endorsing a position you can bet that there is a link to the cruel, White Nationalist policies of Stephen Miller and his cronies in the Trump Administration. If you had any doubt that the position being taken by the Garland DOJ was stupid policy, Mehlman’s and Hajec’s endorsements, and the organizations they represent, should resolve them.

Ignoring your potential friends and supporters; embracing the “racist right.” Interesting way to get started on what was promised to be a “smarter, kinder, more humane” approach to immigration policy. Can anyone really tell me what Judge Garland is doing over @ DOJ? The once highly regarded jurist who testified before Congress and was only a Mitch McConnell away from a seat on the Supremes seems to have all but disappeared into a bureaucratic fog of incompetence, bad lawyering, and missed opportunities @ the DOJ!

Look, after four years of senselessly, wastefully, and disgracefully trying to dump on long-time, contributing members of our society in TPS, like Jose & Sonia, the Trump Administration (thankfully for America) never removed any of them. The idea that the Biden Administration will do so is absurd. 

So these folks are here for the duration. With Congress in deadlock, the most practical, legal, readily available way of getting tens of thousands of hard-working residents like Jose and Sonia fully integrated into our society and on their way to citizenship is simply by following the clear statutory language as other Circuit Courts have done. These are individuals who actually have met all the criteria of our legal immigration system! Most now have families with U.S. citizens. Why on earth would we want to keep those we should welcome in limbo? It’s cruel, counterproductive, and stupid!

For a much more scholarly and nuanced approach to DOJ’s wrong-headed handling of this case, check out this article in Just Security by my friend, renowned immigration expert, former senior executive in the Clinton and Obama Administrations (we actually met while working on the Refugee Act of 1980 in the Carter Administration — back when we were young), emeritus Professor David A. Martin:

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/03/14/%E2%9A%96%EF%B8%8F%F0%9F%97%BDprofessor-david-a-martin-explains-how-biden-administration-could-advance-its-immigration-agenda-by-abandoning-their-wrong-headed-position-before-the-supremes/

I also note with pleasure that counsel of record for Jose and Sonia is Jamie W. Aparisi, who appeared before many times at the Arlington Immigration Court.

All this being said, the Supremes still might preserve this couple’s future and save the Garland DOJ from themselves. In past cases, faced with clear statutory language, the Supremes have required the Government to do something radically sensible:  follow the law! See, e.g., Pereira v. Sessions, 138 S.Ct. 2105 (2018) (notice to appear).

So, who knows? Justice (not to be confused with the Department of “Justice”) as well as common sense and human decency could again prevail!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-16-21

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🗽PROFESSOR DAVID A. MARTIN EXPLAINS HOW BIDEN ADMINISTRATION COULD ADVANCE ITS IMMIGRATION AGENDA BY ABANDONING THEIR WRONG-HEADED  POSITION BEFORE THE SUPREMES! — Don’t Let Sanchez v Mayorkas Become a Lost Opportunity!
  2. 🤮BIDEN/GARLAND APPEAR HEADED FOR “VICTORY” @ SUPREMES OVER LONG-TIME RESIDENTS SEEKING GREEN CARDS — Progressives, Immigration Advocates, Dems Rebuffed As Biden Administration Goes “Full Stephen Miller” On Couple With Two Decades’ Residence,  USC Child! — Only Justice Sotomayor Speaks Up For “Better” Interpretation Of Statute, Immigrants Rights, Common Sense In The Law!
  3. 🏴‍☠️THE PROBLEM @ THE BORDER ISN’T THAT BIDEN HAS  SOFTENED TRUMP’S RACIST, WHITE NATIONALIST, SCOFFLAW RHETORIC! — IT’S THAT BIDEN, GARLAND, & MAYORKAS HAVE FAILED TO RESTORE A ROBUST ASYLUM SYSTEM AT LEGAL PORTS OF ENTRY, STAFFED WITH EXPERT ASYLUM OFFICERS & QUALIFIED IMMIGRATION JUDGES WHO WILL GRANT ASYLUM TO THOSE QUALIFIED, END IDIOTIC TRUMP-ERA MISINTERPRETATIONS & MIS-APPLICATIONS OF ASYLUM LAW, AND ARE DEDICATED TO DUE PROCESS FOR ALL! — Administration’s  Misguided “Trump Lite” Approach Continues To Create Human Misery,☠️⚰️ Trash The Law, 🤮 Without Addressing The Real Problems Generated By Years Of “Malicious Incompetence” 🤡🆘 In U.S. Asylum & Refugee Policies!  — Jack Herrera Reports From The Border For Politico!
  4. 🆘🤮IS 11TH CIR. GROWING WEARY OF GARLAND’S SCOFFLAW BIA? —Two Trips To The Circuit, & The BIA Still Violates Own Regulations, Ignores Precedent, Spouts Gibberish While OIL’s Defense Of This Nonsense & Malfeasance By EOIR Raises Serious Ethical Questions! — THAMOTAR v. U.S. ATT’Y GEN. — Garland’s Dysfunctional & Systematically Unjust Courts Undermine OUR Democracy☠️ — Demand An IMMEDIATE End To The Scofflaw Nonsense🤡 🧹 At OUR Justice Department! 🏴‍☠️