Cancellation of Removal – Page 4 – immigrationcourtside.com

COURTS: As BIA Continues To Squeeze The Life Out Of Pereira, 9th Circuit Finally Pushes Back — Why The “Lost Art” Of BIA En Banc Review & Dissent Is So Essential To Due Process & Fundamental Fairness!

Here are the head notes from two new BIA decisions distinguishing Pereira:

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1164976/download

Matter of Lourdes Suyapa PENA-MEJIA, Respondent

27 I&N Dec. 546 (BIA 2019)

Decided May 22, 2019
U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review Board of Immigration Appeals

Neither rescission of an in absentia order of removal nor termination of the proceedings is required where an alien did not appear at a scheduled hearing after being served with a notice to appear that did not specify the time and place of the initial removal hearing, so long as a subsequent notice of hearing specifying that information was properly sent to the alien. Pereira v. Sessions, 138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018), distinguished.
FOR RESPONDENT: Daniel A. Meyer, Esquire, Jackson Heights, New York
FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Jonathan Graham, Assistant Chief Counsel
BEFORE: Board Panel: GUENDELSBERGER, GRANT, and KENDALL CLARK, Board Members
GRANT, Board Member, with the opinion

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1164981/download

Matter of Renata MIRANDA-CORDIERO, Respondent

27 I&B Dec. 551 (BIA 2019)
Decided May 22, 2019
U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review Board of Immigration Appeals

Pursuant to section 240(b)(5)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(5)(B) (2012), neither rescission of an in absentia order of removal nor termination of the proceedings is required where an alien who was served with a notice to appear that did not specify the time and place of the initial removal hearing failed to provide an address where a notice of hearing could be sent. Pereira v. Sessions, 138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018), distinguished.
FOR RESPONDENT: Renee LaRosee, Esquire, Elizabeth, New Jersey
BEFORE: Board Panel: GUENDELSBERGER, GRANT, and KENDALL CLARK, Board Members
GRANT, Board Member, with the opinion

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But here’s some better news from a split 9th Circuit:

Isaias Lorenzo Lopez v. William P. Barr, 9th Cir., 05-22-19, published

15-72406

Before: Dorothy W. Nelson and Consuelo M. Callahan,
Circuit Judges, and Edward R. Korman,* District Judge. Opinion by Judge Korman;
Dissent by Judge Callahan
* The Honorable Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.

SUMMARY BY COURT STAFF:

SUMMARY** Immigration
Granting Isaias Lorenzo Lopez’s petition for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals, the panel held that a Notice to Appear that is defective under Pereira v. Sessions, 138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018), cannot be cured by a subsequent Notice of Hearing and therefore does not terminate the residence period required for cancellation of removal.
Lorenzo sought cancellation of removal, a form of relief from removal that requires that an applicant must, among other requirements, reside in the United States continuously for seven years after having been admitted in any status. However, under the “stop-time” rule, as relevant here, the service of a Notice to Appear under 8 U.S.C. § 1229(a) terminates an alien’s residence. In Lorenzo’s case, an immigration judge and the BIA found him ineligible for cancellation because his March 2008 Notice to Appear terminated his residence period before he had accrued the requisite seven years.
In Pereira v. Sessions, 138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018), the Supreme Court held that a Notice to Appear, as defined in 8 U.S.C. § 1229(a), must contain the time and place at which removal proceedings will be held to trigger the stop-time rule. The panel concluded that Lorenzo’s Notice to Appear
** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

LORENZO LOPEZ V. BARR 3
did not terminate his residence because it lacked time-and- place information.
However, because Lorenzo also received a subsequent Notice of Hearing that advised him of the time and place of his proceedings, the Attorney General argued that the Notice of Hearing cured the defective Notice to Appear and triggered the stop-time rule. The Attorney General relied on Popa v. Holder, 571 F.3d 890 (9th Cir. 2009), which held that a Notice to Appear that fails to include the date and time of an alien’s deportation hearing, but that states that a date and time will be set later, is not defective so long as a notice of the hearing is later sent to the alien.
The panel held that a Notice to Appear that is defective under Pereira cannot be cured by a subsequent Notice of Hearing, explaining that the plain language of the statute foreclosed the Attorney General’s argument and that Pereira had effectively overruled Popa.
The panel noted that the BIA reached a conclusion contrary to the panel’s holding in Matter of Mendoza- Hernandez, 27 I. & N. Dec. 520 (BIA 2019) (en banc), where, over a vigorous dissent, a closely divided BIA held that a Notice of Hearing that contains time-and-place information perfects a deficient Notice to Appear and triggers the stop-time rule. However, the panel declined to defer to that conclusion because: (1) the BIA acknowledged that Pereira could be read to reach a different result, and the courts owe no deference to agency interpretations of Supreme Court opinions; (2) the BIA ignored the plain text of the statute; and (3) the BIA relied on cases that cannot be reconciled with Pereira.
Thus, the panel concluded that, because Lorenzo never received a valid Notice to Appear, his residency continued

4 LORENZO LOPEZ V. BARR
beyond 2008 and, accordingly, he has resided in the United States for over seven years and is eligible for cancellation of removal.
Dissenting, Judge Callahan wrote that she does not read Pereira as holding that the notice of the time and place must be provided in a single document. Rather, Judge Callahan reads Pereira as allowing the Department of Homeland Security to cure a deficient notice to appear by subsequently providing a noncitizen with actual notice of the time and place of the removal proceedings, with the result that the stop-time rule is triggered upon the noncitizen’s receipt of the supplemental notice.

**********************************
Significantly, the Ninth Circuit majority recognized the “vigorous” dissent of Judge John Guendelsberger in Matter of Mendoza-Hernandez, 27 I&N Dec. 520 (BIA 2019), which was joined by Vice Chair Adkins-Blanch and Appellate Immigration Judges Cole, Grant, Creppy, & Kendall Clark. The Ninth Circuit essentially adopted the dissenters’ opinion, quoting at length:

The reasoning of the Supreme Court in Pereira . . . leaves little room for doubt that the Court’s decision requires us to follow the plain language of the Act that the DHS must serve a [8 U.S.C. § 1229(a)(1)] “notice to appear” that includes the date, time, and place of hearing in order to trigger the “stop-time” rule. The Court in Pereira repeatedly emphasized the “plain text” of the “stop- time” rule and left no room for agency gap- filling as to whether an Immigration Court can “complete” or “cure” a putative “notice to appear” by subsequent issuance of a “notice of hearing” that would trigger the “stop-time” rule on the date of that event. Quite simply, . . . a “notice of hearing” is not a “notice to appear” and, therefore, it does not satisfy the requirement that the DHS serve a [Section 1229(a)(1)] “notice to appear” that specifies the date and time of hearing, in order to trigger the “stop-time” rule.

16 LORENZO LOPEZ V. BARR
27 I. & N. Dec. at 540–41 (dissenting opinion) (footnote omitted).

Prior to the “Ashcroft Purge, “ completed in 2003, en banc opinions in precedents and “vigorous dissents” were much more frequent at the BIA. I know, because I frequently was among the dissenters, particularly in the latter days of my BIA career.

Well done dissenters! Bravo!

Given the more or less “built in pro-Government bias” of an administrative “court” captive within the DOJ, the dissents often contained important alternative viewpoints that sometimes were more in accordance with the law as later interpreted by the “real” Article III Courts upon judicial review. The en banc process also forced every BIA Appellate Immigration Judge to take a public position on important issues.

In that way, it promoted both transparency and accountability, as well as “putting into play” alternative interpretations and results that the majority otherwise would “blow by.” Accordingly, it also promoted more rigorous analysis by the majority.

Ashcroft basically removed the “gang of dissenters” from the BIA while “dumbing it down” by mandating mostly “single member panels,” discouraging en bancs, and supressing dissents. Since that time, the quality of the BIA decisions has suffered, and the positions of most individual BIA judges on most precedent issues has become a “mystery.” Not surprisingly, the BIA jurisprudence post-Ashcroft has become very one-sided in favor of the DHS.

The “vigorous en banc dissent” in Matter of Mendoza-Hernandez was striking to observers as the first one in recent memory. And, clearly it made a difference. The lack of meaningful dissent at the BIA is one of many things that have degraded due process, judicial independence, and decisional quality at EOIR since the “Ashcroft Purge.” Worse yet, Barr’s ludicrous “proposed regulations” would further “dumb down” the BIA process.

The importance of dissents and transparency in a legitimate judicial system can’t be overstated. That’s why we need an independent, Article I U.S. Immigration Court that does not answer to the Attorney General.

PWS

05-28-19

THE HILL: Nolan Says That Border Security Is Now In Speaker Pelosi’s Hands

Pelosi has won — and she’s now the only one able to secure the border

By Nolan Rappaport

© Greg Nash

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) claims that “Democrats are committed to border security,” but the Democrats have opposed President Donald Trump’s efforts to do that.

Pelosi supported the joint resolution to terminate Trump’s declaration of a National Emergency at the Southern border. The resolution was passed in both chambers and sent to Trump on March 14. He vetoed it the next day.

Congress appears unlikely to override the veto, so the fate of the declaration probably will be decided by the same Ninth Circuit Courts that flouted precedent to block Trump’s travel ban, which almost certainly will result in another lower court defeat for Trump. The Supreme Court, however, may reverse the lower courts, as it did in the travel ban case. But that could take quite some time.

The Catch-22 at the heart of the matter

During the Bill Clinton administration the government entered into a settlement agreement that makes it difficult to remove aliens who bring their children with them when they make an illegal border crossing.

This became apparent last May, when Trump announced a zero-tolerance border security enforcement policy. Illegal entries are a crime: The first offense is a misdemeanor and subsequent offenses are felonies. Trump tried to use a no exceptions threat of a criminal prosecution as a deterrent. “If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you,” he said — no exceptions for aliens who bring their children with them.

The problem was prosecution of an alien who has his child with him requires the government either to detain the child with him while he is being prosecuted or separate him from his child.

Read more at https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/434524-pelosi-has-won-and-shes-now-the-only-one-able-to-secure-the-border

Published originally on The Hill.

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Go on over to The Hill at the above link to read Nolan’s complete article.

Seems like the Government’s best bet would be to work cooperatively with NGOs and pro bono groups to link families who pass credible fear or who have court challenges pending to pro bono attorneys and to charitable organizations who can aid in temporary resettlement. In those situations, represented families almost always show up for their court hearings and keep the courts, DHS, and the lawyers properly informed of their whereabouts.

If the Government deems it a “priority” to move these cases to the “front of the court line” then they can remove some of the cases that are more than three years old and do not involve individuals with crimes from the already overcrowded Immigration Court dockets. The hundreds of thousands of pending and moribund “Non-Lawful Permanent Resident Cancellation of Removal Cases” would be fairly easily identifiable and logical candidates.

That will allow the Immigration Courts to concentrate on fair and timely adjudications of the more recent asylum claims without contributing to the overwhelming backlog. Some fair precedents by the Article III Courts (under this DOJ, the is no chance of fair asylum precedents being issued administratively) as to what claims do and do not properly qualify for asylum and relief under the CAT would eventually help provide meaningful guidance to Asylum Officers, Immigration Judges, BIA Appellate Judges, and the private bar, and well as DHS Attorneys. This in turn, would help minimize the court time spent on cases that either were “slam dunk grants” or had “no chance” even under the most favorable view of the facts for the applicant. Both the DHS and the private bar would thus be motivated to spend time on the cases that really needed to be litigated in Immigration Court.

Additionally, greater predictability in the U.S. asylum system might also assist human rights groups working with individuals in the Northern Triangle and in Mexico to make better, more informed, and more realistic decisions as to whether to pursue humanitarian resettlement opportunities in Mexico and other countries in the hemisphere that might offer such.

If Congress were going to act, the most helpful changes would be 1) establishing an independent Article I immigration Court to replace the dysfunctional mess that has been created over the past several Administrations but severely and unnecessarily aggravated by this Administration; 2) amend the Act’s definition of “asylum” to make it clear that “gender” is a subset of “particular social group” persecution; 3) authorizing some type of “universal representation program” for asylum applicants in Immigration Court; and 4) requiring the Administration to reinstitute a meaningful “outside the U.S.” refugee processing program for Latin America in conjunction with the UNHCR;

No, it wouldn’t solve all problems overnight. Nothing will. But, it would certainly put an end to some of the Administration’s wasteful and bad faith “gimmicks” and unnecessary litigation that now clog our justice system. That’s at least the beginning of a better future and a better use of resources.

PWS

03-18-19

CALL US CRAZY, BUT . . . . THERE ARE SOLUTIONS TO THE IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOG PROBLEM THAT WILL ENHANCE FAIRNESS & DUE PROCESS WITHOUT BREAKING THE BANK — It Just Requires Some Imagination, Initiative, & An Unswerving Commitment To Putting Due Process & Fairness First — The “Lister-Schmidt Proposal”

CALL US CRAZY, BUT . . . . THERE ARE SOLUTIONS TO THE IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOG PROBLEM THAT WILL ENHANCE FAIRNESS & DUE PROCESS WITHOUT BREAKING THE BANK — It Just Requires Some Imagination, Initiative, & An Unswerving Commitment To Putting Due Process & Fairness First — The “Lister-Schmidt Proposal”

The other day I got a call from my good friend and UW Law classmate, retired Wisconsin State Judge Tom Lister. The conversation went something like this:

TOM: Schmidt, I’ve been reading about the backlog in your blog — 1.1 million cases! No way it’s going to be solved just by hiring more judges. But, hey, I’m out here living well in retirement, and I’d be happy to help out. And there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of other retired judges throughout the U.S who probably would be willing to pitch in too.

ME: Yeah, sounds nice Tom, but I doubt there is any money in the EOIR budget for hiring retired judges. They once claimed they would bring back some of my retired colleagues, but the program doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere.

TOM: I don’t need a salary. I’m willing to volunteer! Just pay my incidentals.

ME: Well, then there’s this thing called the Anti-Deficiency Act that prevents agencies like DOJ from accepting free services. It would take some kind of statutory waiver . . . .

By that time, I felt that I was retreating into just the type of bureaucratic “yes-buts” or “passive yeses” that I used to hate during my days as a bureaucrat right up until the present.

But, what if Congress created an independent Immigration Court free of the “bureaucratic no-nos” that plague the DOJ bureaucracy? And what if the system were run by actual sitting judges committed to using “teamwork and innovation” to solve problems, institute “best practices,” and aspire to become “the world’s best tribunals” guaranteeing fairness and Due Process for all?”

Maybe we’d have things like this:

SENIOR JUDICIAL DUE PROCESS BRIGADE

Retired judges of all types would be trained and available to assist the Immigration Courts in dealing with “surges,” retirement waves, changes in the law, and other “emergencies” on a volunteer basis.

DIVISION A: RETIRED IMMIGRATION JUDGES

They could be trained to handle all types of immigration cases on a volunteer “as needed” basis. This would be very similar to the Senior Judge Corps used by other Federal Courts.

DIVISION B: RETIRED JUDGES FROM OUTSIDE THE IMMIGRATION BENCH

They could be trained to handle certain types of Immigration Court adjudications that are primarily fact-findings that would require some basic knowledge of immigration law but not the degree of specialized expertise that might be expected of a permanent Immigration Judge. Like “Division A” they would be volunteers, requiring expense reimbursement only.

Obvious candidates for “Division B Judges:”

Cancellation of Removal all types where basic eligibility is uncontested and the only issues are hardship and discretion;
Bonds where there are no statutory eligibility issues;
Adjustments of Status;
“Voluntary Departure Only” cases;
Master Calendars;
Withdrawals and other stipulated cases;
Status Conferences;
In Absentia dockets.

ASYLUM OFFICER MAGISTRATE BRIGADE

Put the Asylum Officers under the Immigration Courts where they can be used for a wide range of adjudications much like U.S. Magistrate Judges. This would include, but not be limited to, asylum, withholding, and CAT cases. Another obvious candidate would be certain Non-Lawful-Permanent Resident Cancellation of Removal cases.

Since the existing USCIS program would be folded in, the expenses of this conversion would be minimal and the possibilities for improving justice, due process, and efficiency limitless!

This is by no means the full extent of what could be done to improve the delivery of justice and fairness in the U.S. Immigration Courts. But, to let the “creative juices and efficiencies flow,” it will require Congress to move the Immigration Courts out of the DOJ and create an independent court where judges are free to work as a team and with “stakeholders” to solve problems, rather than creating new ones or aggravating existing ones.

PWS

02-14-19

🤡U.S. CLOWN COURT: Where Justice & Logic Are A Bad Joke, & Those We Should Be Welcoming Are Instead Shown The Door!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/my-immigrant-client-won-a-judges-compassion-ice-still-dumped-him-on-the-border/2019/01/24/7802a800-1e9c-11e9-8b59-0a28f2191131_story.html

Attorney Marty Rosenbluth writes in the Washington Post Sunday Outlook Section:

Attorney ’s client made a passionate case to the judge about our unjust system

This month, I went to court with José. He came to the United States without papers from Mexico when he was 15, in 1999. Now he has a wife, three kids and a job in construction in Raleigh, N.C. It all came apart when police pulled him over and arrested him for driving without a license. He soon landed in the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga. He fought his deportation case alone for several months before his family finally called my law firm.

We first told him we couldn’t take his case because he had no chance of winning, so ethically we couldn’t take his money. Most people in deportation proceedings have few if any options to stay in the United States through the immigration courts. I urged him to take voluntary departure, which enables people to leave the country without getting a deportation order on their records, so it is easier to come back legally in the future. But he told me he was certain that, if he could just tell the court his story, the judge would see that letting him stay was right and just and fair. I told him that our immigration system had many rules and laws, but little or no justice.

In truth, I think José knew he had no chance, and he knew he’d have to leave. But he didn’t want to leave quietly. We agreed that I would accompany him — I wouldn’t say “help,” because he could have realized his plan without me, and I didn’t charge a penny — but he would address the judge directly. One of the most important things I do as an attorney is to just be present. Since the immigration laws are so defective, and the judges often play by their own rules (routine bond requests are usually denied, and this Georgia court has one of the lowest approval rates for asylum cases in the country), and the detention/deportation centers are designed to break people’s spirits, often there is not much else that can be done. Based on what transpired, I’m glad I went.

[Civil servants said separating families was illegal. The administration ignored us.]

José’s whole family came to support him — his wife and his kids and a friend. When we sat down at the bench, I told the judge that José would be speaking for himself. In immigration courts, migrants usually just answer questions, so the judge asked me if I was requesting to withdraw. I said I wasn’t: I was staying at the table, but José was going to do all the talking. And the judge, to his credit, heard him out.

The judge explained the law and what José would have to prove in order to win. Before hiring us, José had submitted an application, on his own, for “cancellation of removal.” There are four elements: He had to prove that he had been living here for more than 10 years, that he was a person of good moral character and that he hadn’t broken any laws that would bar him under the statutes from applying. José could show all of these things. But the fourth criterion is the hardest. José would have to prove that if he were deported, it would cause an “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to a spouse, parent or child who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. Usually it means you have a child with cancer, or a spouse with a disability that makes them unable to work or support a family — something on that scale. If you can convince the court merely that your family would be made homeless or that your children would subsist on food stamps, that is not considered sufficient. That is just the usual hardship that deportees’ families experience.

Without missing a beat, José said to the judge, “I have the first three, your honor, but I do not have the fourth.” Turning around to look at his family, with obvious pride, he told the judge: “This is my family. These are my children. Everything I do, I do for them. But thankfully they are all healthy, which for the moment seems for some reason to be bad.” Truly, logic has no place in immigration court.

[I crossed the border seeking safety. Instead, they took my daughter away.]

The judge said that, based on this testimony, he would have to deny his application for cancellation of removal. Still, the judge offered José voluntary departure and explained, as I had, that it would make it easier for him to return.

I had met with José’s wife, Maria, too, and explained “VD,” which is a safer option than exiting the nation through the usual deportation machinery. People who are deported to Mexico from Stewart and many other detention centers are just dumped on the border, where gangs await them. (People deported to other countries are flown.) They are often robbed, kidnapped, raped or killed. Those who take VD, on the other hand, don’t get to leave jail, but they fly back on a regular commercial flight.

The problem with voluntary departure, though, is the cost: You have to buy your own fare, and it is very expensive, currently around $1,250. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will accept only a “Y” class ticket, or a full-cost coach fare, which can often cost more than first class. José thanked the judge and declined. “The tickets cost a lot of money, and my family will need the money after I leave.”

[My family immigrated here legally. I used to think that made us special.]

Maria interjected, crying. “Take the voluntary,” she said. “Take the voluntary!” My client began crying, too, followed by his kids.

I decided to take a chance. I asked the judge if José could talk to his wife over the barrier. Any direct communication and especially physical contact is strictly forbidden in this courtroom. To my surprise, he agreed. So Maria came forward, and she and José started hugging and kissing and crying. The bailiff moved to intervene, but I just shook my head and mouthed the word “Please.”

The couple talked for a few minutes, and then José sat back down and offered that he would take voluntary departure. But he’d gotten to hug his 6-, 8- and 12-year-old children across the barrier. Imagine that. Humanity in what passes for a court. This is not usually how immigration cases go. The judge gave José 30 days to buy his ticket before he would lose the “privilege” of taking VD.

In the end, José sat there smiling. And proud. He was still smiling as his family left the courtroom. And smiling when he gave me a hug. He’d known all along he wouldn’t win, but he wanted to be able to call out the injustice. And the judge, who has low rates of approval for just about anything, heard him out. (Only 31 of 347 judges denied asylum claims at a higher rate, according to the Transitional Records Access Clearinghouse.) It wasn’t a victory, exactly. José wouldn’t be staying with his family. But speaking a truth, to a hostile power, is still a kind of achievement.

[Trump’s attack on asylum is based entirely on false claims]

But it was a discordant one for such a ruthless corner of the law. And eventually the logic of our immigration system superseded his brave act.

This past week, according to a friend of his who called me to share the news, ICE came to his cell early one morning and said it would fly him to Mexico City; he wouldn’t even have to pay for his ticket. Then, that afternoon, officials came and handcuffed him, brought him to a room to wait with other detainees for several hours and deposited him on a bus. Not to the airport, as they had promised. They drove him to the border and dumped him out in Matamoros. I am looking into his legal options, because apparently no act of courage goes unpunished.

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Thanks Marty, for giving us insight into the “parody of justice” that goes on daily in our Immigration Courts at the direction of a Department of “Justice” that long ago lost both its way and purpose and must be wrested from control of a major dysfunctional court system that it is so ethically and functionally unable to administer in anything approaching a fair and efficient manner.

I give the Immigration Judge credit for taking time to listen and allowing Jose to speak in court. In the toxic age of Trump, Sessions, Whitaker, and likely also Barr, Immigration Judges are pressured to prejudge cases and cut corners by denying claims without listening to the evidence to keep up with artificial “deportation quotas” imposed by Sessions and to keep up “productivity” which has replaced “guaranteeing fairness and Due Process” as the mantra of today’s “Clown Courts.”

On the other hand, there are alternatives available. The BIA precedents on what constitutes “exceptional and extremely hardship” are intentionally vague and subject to interpretation. How do I know? They were issued while I was serving as BIA Chair (one over my dissent).

They were supposed to be part of a group of cases, sometimes knows as the “basket of pain,” defining the term in a number of different contexts. But, after Ashcroft’s “Saturday Night Massacre” at the BIA “took out” those judges, including me, who sometimes ruled in favor of respondent’s positions, the project was abandoned. My remaining colleagues were afraid that ruling on anything so controversial, and particularly granting anything to a respondent, could be “career threatening,” probably with good reason. So, Immigration Judges were left to their own devices. Many of the BIA panels on the other hand, took a pretty hard line, all, of course, in unpublished decisions.

Coming to the Arlington Immigration Court from the BIA, I actually underwent some “culture shock.” In an early cancellation case, I was thinking that the respondents, although great folks who were doing good things for America and their citizen family, probably wouldn’t “make the cut” under the standards that my last BIA panel had been applying. But, when the Assistant Chief Counsel got up to make a closing, after I had given respondents’ counsel a rather “hard time,” I was surprised to hear an impassioned, well-reasoned, and well-supported plea joining counsel’s request for a finding of “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” and granting the case. “It’s Recinas, not Andazola,” as we came to say in Arlington, after the names of the BIA precedents that appeared to reach conflicting conclusions.

Some Immigration Judges would have found that deprivation of the support of the “primary breadwinner” is “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” and granted Jose cancellation of removal. And, some ICE Assistant Chief Counsel would have waived appeal. Just shows what a “crapshoot” justice has become in the Immigration Courts.

BS (“Before Sessions”) at the Arlington Immigration Court, the Assistant Chief Counsel would probably have offered “prosecutorial discretion” or “PD” to Jose. And, I would have encouraged Marty to take that offer and “live to fight another day.” I would have given Jose and his family my “bad things will happen if you screw up again in any way speech,'” “administratively closed” the case, and taken it off my docket. The court and both counsel would have saved time and Jose and his family could have gone on living their lives and contributing to America pending good behavior and an eventual legalization program by Congress.

Not a perfect solution to be sure. But, a fundamentally just one that allowed me, ICE, and the private bar to move on and deal with other higher priority cases that really needed my judicial attention.

Trump, Sessions, Nielsen and their White Nationalist Gang have stripped the Immigration Courts of whatever little sense of justice and judicial control remained. They intentionally have turned a struggling system into a totally dysfunctional and fundamentally unjust and unconstitutional one.

We can only hope that at some point the Article III Courts will have seen enough and will put this totally bankrupt system into “receivership;” or that some future Congress and a more competent and honest Administration will create an independent Immigration Court focused, as it should be, on fairness and Due Process. Until then, justice and logic will continue to be a bad joke in the “U.S. Clown Courts.” 🤡

PWS

01-28-19

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM COURTSIDE! — I Take A Look Forward @ 2019’s Big Immigration Stories

2019 Immigration Stories

Dreamer Litigation
Asylum Procedures Litigation
Continuing Collapse of Immigration Courts
- - - More bogus, anti-immigrant, anti-Due Process certification decisions from AG
    - Pereira mess in scheduling
    - Cancellation mess; hundreds of thousands eligible for relief; no plans for adjudication
    - Dockets will continue to be screwed up by failure of responsible enforcement policies by DHS, failure of prosecutorial discretion exercised by virtually all other law enforcement authorities, and mindless, inappropriate “re-docketing” of previously Administratively Closed cases for no particular reason except White Nationalist inspired meanness
    - Massive returns of asylum and other improperly decided cases to Immigration Courts by Article IIIs
- More deaths, illness, abuses resulting from Trump’s cruel, ill-conceived detention and border policies
- Mexico and Article IIIs will,”push back” against Administration’s ill-conceived plans to “dump” legitimate asylum seekers over Mexican border
- Public Charge Controversy
- TPS Termination & Litigation
  - One of Trump’s dumbest, most unnecessary, & disruptive moves will wreak havoc on the economy and the legal system
- Lots of fraud, waste, and abuse at DOJ and DHS will be exposed by House Committees
- Will new AG prove to be “Button Down Version of Jeff Sessions?”

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

😎👍🏼🍻🍾🏈❄️☃️🥳

PWS

01-01-19

JULIA PRESTON @ THE MARSHALL PROJECT: Unfinished Business – Sessions Leaves Behind An Unprecedented Man-Made Human Rights Disaster & A Demoralized, Rapidly Failing U.S. Immigration Court — “I’ve never seen an attorney general who was so active in the immigration sphere and in a negative direction,” said Daniel Kowalski!”

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/11/07/the-immigration-crisis-jeff-sessions-leaves-behind

Julia writes:

ANALYSIS

The Immigration Crisis Jeff Sessions Leaves Behind

Assessing the ousted attorney general’s legacy on President Trump’s favorite issue.

By JULIA PRESTON

Graphic by YOLANDA MARTINEZ

“I don’t have an attorney general,” President Donald Trump said in an interview recently, venting his frustration with Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller.

But anyone who was following Sessions’ actions on immigration had no doubt that he was working hard. Before he was forced to resign on Wednesday, Sessions was exceptionally aggressive as attorney general, using his authority to steer the immigration courts, restrict access for migrants to the asylum system and deploy the federal courts for immigration enforcement purposes.

Under American law, the attorney general has broad powers over the immigration courts, which reside in the Justice Department not in the independent federal judiciary. Sessions, who made immigration a signature issue during his two decades as a Republican senator from Alabama, exercised those powers to rule from on high over the immigration system.

While Trump complained about Sessions, on immigration he was an unerringly loyal soldier, vigorously executing the president’s restrictionist policies.

Sessions made it his mission to reverse what he regarded as a failure to enforce order in the system by President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress, despite plunging numbers of illegal border crossings and record deportations under the previous administration.

“No great and prosperous nation can have both a generous welfare system and open borders,” Sessions told a gathering of newly-appointed immigration judges in September. “Such a policy is both radical and dangerous. It must be rejected out of hand.”

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A primary goal he declared was to speed the work of the immigration courts in order to reduce huge case backlogs. But according to a report this week by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, the backlogs increased during his tenure by 49 percent, reaching an all-time record of more than 768,000 cases. That tally doesn’t include more than 330,000 suspended cases, which justice officials restored to the active caseload.

“I’ve never seen an attorney general who was so active in the immigration sphere and in a negative direction,” said Daniel Kowalski, the editor of Bender’s Immigration Bulletin, a widely-used reference for lawyers. Kowalski said he’s been practicing immigration law for 33 years.

Here are some of Sessions’ measures that shaped the crisis the next attorney general will inherit:

He imposed case quotas on immigration judges, which went into effect Oct. 1, demanding they complete at least 700 cases a year. With compliance becoming part of a judge’s performance evaluation, the immigration judges’ association has said the quotas impinge on due process.

He made frequent use of the attorney general’s authority to decide cases if he doesn’t like opinions coming from the immigration courts. Sessions used that authority to constrain judges’ decision-making. He made it more difficult for them to grant continuances to give lawyers time to prepare, and he limited judges’ options to close cases where they concluded deportation was not warranted, as a way to lighten overloaded court dockets.

Sessions discouraged immigration judges from allowing prosecutors to exercise their discretion to set aside deportations for immigrants with families or other positive reasons to remain in the United States.

He issued decisions that made it far more difficult for migrants, like those coming in recent years from Central America, to win asylum cases based on fears of criminal gang violence, sexual abuse or other persecution by “private actors,” rather than governments.

In a policy known as zero tolerance, in April Sessions ordered federal prosecutors along the southwest border to bring charges in federal court against migrants caught crossing the border, for the crime of illegal entry. The policy resulted in parents being separated from their children, in episodes last summer that drew outrage until Trump ordered the separations to stop. But the prosecutions continue for illegal crossers who aren’t parents with children, swelling federal dockets and making it harder for prosecutors to pursue other border crimes, like narcotics and human trafficking, weapons offenses and money-laundering. In September, according to TRAC, 88 percent of the prosecutions in the Southern District of Texas were for an illegal entry misdemeanor; 65 percent of the cases in the Southern District of California were for the same minor crime.

Zero tolerance at the border

Under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, federal prosecutors in five border districts significantly ramped up the number of misdemeanor cases they filed against migrants crossing illegally this year, particularly in south Texas.

Sessions took the position that a program initiated by Obama, which gave protection from deportation to undocumented immigrants who came here as children, was an overreach of executive authority. He declined to defend the program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and praised Trump’s decision last year to cancel it. After federal courts allowed the program to continue, the Justice Department fought to bypass the appeals courts and get a hearing before the Supreme Court for its efforts to terminate the program.

Even though his relations with Trump soured early in his tenure, Sessions maintained a line of communication to the White House through Stephen Miller, a senior adviser. Miller was a senior staff member for Sessions in the Senate, and the two share similar views and goals for clamping down on immigration.

Lawyers and advocates say Sessions’ actions have politicized immigration court proceedings. “He stripped the judges of the authority to ensure due process and demonstrated how susceptible the courts are to the whim of politics,” said Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center, based in Chicago.

Advocates for immigration reform said a new attorney general should restore the flexibility of immigration judges to manage their own dockets to find efficient ways to reduce their caseloads. But they said Sessions’ tenure provided new arguments for Congress to move the immigration courts out of the Justice Department to the federal judiciary.

Gregory Chen, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said, “The aggressive nature of his actions infringing on the independence of the courts has made the need for a new court system even more urgent.”

ORIGINALLY FILED Wednesday, November 7, 2018 at 9:35 p.m. ET

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

Go to Julia’s article at the above link to get the accompanying graphics and pictures.

The Immigration Court backlog reported by TRAC now is over 1.1 MILLION cases, with no end in sight. More disturbingly, there is no coherent plan for addressing these cases in anything approaching a rational manner, nor is there a plan for restoring some semblance of due process and functionality to the Immigration Courts. Like most Trump/Sessions initiatives, it’s “we’ll create the problem, make it much worse, then hinder the efforts of others to fix it.”

Three “no-brainers ” that Sessions wouldn’t do:

Working with the private bar, NGOs, states, and localities to make legal representation available to everyone in Immigration Court who wants it;
Letting U.S. Immigration Judges control their own dockets and make independent decisions, free from political interference; and
Removing hundreds of thousands of older cases of individuals eligible to apply for “Cancellation of Removal For Non-Lawful Permanent Residents” from the Immigration Courts’ active dockets and having them adjudicated by USCIS in the first instance.

Of course an independent Article I Immigration Court is an absolute necessity. But, that will take legislation. In the meantime, the foregoing three administrative steps would pave the way for an orderly transition to Article I status while promoting Due Process, fairness, and efficiency in the system.

But, I wouldn’t count on anyone in the “Current Kakistocracy” doing the right thing or actually implementing “good government.” If the Article IIIs don’t put an end to this travesty, it will continue to get worse and pull them down into the muck until we get “regime change.”

Ironically, Trump isn’t the only one who “hasn’t had an Attorney General over the past two years.” The majority of Americans haven’t had one either; while he might be on the verge of getting “his” Attorney General, the rest of us can only look forward to more pain and misery!

PWS

11-12-18

BLOCKBUSTER: ANOTHER SUPREME STOMP! — DOJ /DHS SCOFFLAWS LOSE AGAIN BY 8-1 MARGIN IN PEREIRA V. SESSIONS – Invalidates Hundreds Of Thousands Of “Haste Makes Waste” Notices To Appear – Real Costs To American Justice Of A “Captive” BIA That Functions Like DHS Toady Rather Than Independent Court Becoming Painfully Apparent – Risks In Having Biggest Federal “Court” System Run By Biased & Incompetent Attorney General Now Coming Into Focus!

Pereira v. Sessions, No. 17-459, June 21, 2018

Pereira17-459_1o13

MAJORITY OPINION: Justice Sotomayor for herself and seven others.

CONCURRING OPINION: Justice Kennedy

DISSENTING OPINION: Justice Alito

KEY QUOTE FROM MAJORITY:

Unable to find sure footing in the statutory text, the Government and the dissent pivot away from the plain language and raise a number of practical concerns. These practical considerations are meritless and do not justify departing from the statute’s clear text. See Burrage v.United States, 571 U. S. 204, 218 (2014).

The Government, for its part, argues that the “adminis- trative realities of removal proceedings” render it difficult to guarantee each noncitizen a specific time, date, and place for his removal proceedings. See Brief for Respond- ent 48. That contention rests on the misguided premise that the time-and-place information specified in the notice to appear must be etched in stone. That is incorrect. As noted above, §1229(a)(2) expressly vests the Government with power to change the time or place of a noncitizen’s removal proceedings so long as it provides “written notice . . . specifying . . . the new time or place of the proceedings” and the consequences of failing to appear. See §1229(a)(2); Tr. of Oral Arg. 16–19. Nothing in our decision today inhibits the Government’s ability to exercise that statu- tory authority after it has served a notice to appear specify- ing the time and place of the removal proceedings.

The dissent raises a similar practical concern, which is similarly misplaced. The dissent worries that requiring

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 19

Opinion of the Court

the Government to specify the time and place of removal proceedings, while allowing the Government to change that information, might encourage DHS to provide “arbi- trary dates and times that are likely to confuse and con- found all who receive them.” Post, at 8. The dissent’s argument wrongly assumes that the Government is ut- terly incapable of specifying an accurate date and time on a notice to appear and will instead engage in “arbitrary” behavior. See ibid. The Court does not embrace those unsupported assumptions. As the Government concedes, “a scheduling system previously enabled DHS and the immigration court to coordinate in setting hearing dates in some cases.” Brief for Respondent 50, n. 15; Brief for National Immigrant Justice Center as Amicus Curiae 30– 31. Given today’s advanced software capabilities, it is hard to imagine why DHS and immigration courts could not again work together to schedule hearings before send- ing notices to appear.

Finally, the dissent’s related contention that including a changeable date would “mislead” and “prejudice” nonciti- zens is unfounded. Post, at 8. As already explained, if the Government changes the date of the removal proceedings, it must provide written notice to the noncitizen, §1229(a)(2). This notice requirement mitigates any poten- tial confusion that may arise from altering the hearing date. In reality, it is the dissent’s interpretation of the statute that would “confuse and confound” noncitizens,post, at 8, by authorizing the Government to serve notices that lack any information about the time and place of the removal proceedings.

E

In a last ditch effort to salvage its atextual interpreta- tion, the Government invokes the alleged purpose and legislative history of the stop-time rule. Brief for Re- spondent 37–40. Even for those who consider statutory

20 PEREIRA v. SESSIONS Opinion of the Court

purpose and legislative history, however, neither supports the Government’s atextual position that Congress intended the stop-time rule to apply when a noncitizen has been deprived notice of the time and place of his removal pro- ceedings. By the Government’s own account, Congress enacted the stop-time rule to prevent noncitizens from exploiting administrative delays to “buy time” during which they accumulate periods of continuous presence.Id., at 37–38 (citing H. R. Rep. No. 104–469, pt. 1, p. 122 (1996)). Requiring the Government to furnish time-and- place information in a notice to appear, however, is en- tirely consistent with that objective because, once a proper notice to appear is served, the stop-time rule is triggered, and a noncitizen would be unable to manipulate or delay removal proceedings to “buy time.” At the end of the day, given the clarity of the plain language, we “apply the statute as it is written.” Burrage, 571 U. S., at 218.

IV

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

KEY QUOTE FROM JUSTICE KENNEDY’S CONCURRING OPINION:

In according Chevron deference to the BIA’s interpreta- tion, some Courts of Appeals engaged in cursory analysis of the questions whether, applying the ordinary tools of statutory construction, Congress’ intent could be dis- cerned, 467 U. S., at 843, n. 9, and whether the BIA’s interpretation was reasonable, id., at 845. In Urbina v.Holder, for example, the court stated, without any further elaboration, that “we agree with the BIA that the relevant statutory provision is ambiguous.” 745 F. 3d, at 740. It then deemed reasonable the BIA’s interpretation of the statute, “for the reasons the BIA gave in that case.” Ibid. This analysis suggests an abdication of the Judiciary’s proper role in interpreting federal statutes.

The type of reflexive deference exhibited in some of these cases is troubling. And when deference is applied to other questions of statutory interpretation, such as an agency’s interpretation of the statutory provisions that concern the scope of its own authority, it is more troubling still. See Arlington v. FCC, 569 U. S. 290, 327 (2013) (ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting) (“We do not leave it to the agency to decide when it is in charge”). Given the con- cerns raised by some Members of this Court, see, e.g., id.,at 312–328; Michigan v. EPA, 576 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (THOMAS, J., concurring); Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, 834

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 3

KENNEDY, J., concurring

F. 3d 1142, 1149–1158 (CA10 2016) (Gorsuch, J., concur- ring), it seems necessary and appropriate to reconsider, in an appropriate case, the premises that underlie Chevronand how courts have implemented that decision. The proper rules for interpreting statutes and determining agency jurisdiction and substantive agency powers should accord with constitutional separation-of-powers principles and the function and province of the Judiciary. See, e.g.,Arlington, supra, at 312–316 (ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting).

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

I filed an Amicus Brief, with the assistance of Eric Citron, Goldstein & Russell, of in behalf of Mr. Pereira.

PEREIRAVSESSIIONS,SCT,AMICUS17-459 tsac Former BIA Chairman & Immigration Judge Schmidt

Why is this so big:

In invalidates hundreds of thousands of defective Notices to Appear, thus potentially requiring massive “restarts” in an already out of control system.
Even with a more or less hand-picked Supreme Court, immigration reactionaries continue to lose case after case. So, it isn’t “liberal judges.” It’s inane, biased policies and lousy lawyering at the DOJ and DHS which goes back through the Obama and Bush II Administrations. It’s just reached its lowest conceivable level under Sessions. But, I’ll admit that every time I think Sessions can’t sink any lower on the legal and moral scale, he surprises me.
It makes tens of thousands of additional individuals who have now been here for 10 or more years eligible to apply for “Non-LPR Cancellation of Removal” because the “stop time rule” was not properly invoked by the service of the defective NTA in their cases. This could pour tens of thousands of Motions to Reopen and/or Reconsider into an already overwhelmed system.
Virtually every individual from El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras whose TPS is going to be (bone-headedly) terminated by the Trumpsters will now be able to demand full hearings on Cancellation of Removal in U.S. Immigration Court. Thus, they aren’t going anywhere any time soon.
It illustrates the problems of giving improper “Chevron Deference” to a BIA that no longer functions as an expert tribunal and does not exercise independent judgement. Ever since the “Ashcroft Purge” the BIA has been an “inbred body” specifically structured and staffed to be a “shill” for DHS and the Administration’s enforcement policies. And, under Sessions, the BIA has been completely co-opted by his unethical and highly improper interference in what little was left of its independent decision-making function. “Justice” in today’s Immigration Courts is a total sham!
Chevron, as I have stated many times to my law school class, is a cowardly exercise of “judicial task avoidance” by the Supremes. Congress should eliminate it if the Supremes don’t. Article III Judges should be required to do their Constitutional duties, earn their pay, and decide legal issues de novo, even when that might be controversial, unpopular, or require more critical, analytical thinking than they care to do.
The Pereira debacle is entirely the fault of a totally screwed up and incompetent Executive Immigration function stretching back for nearly two decades. Fixing this problem properly should have been a “no brainer.” The “technology” (which probably could have been developed by a middle schooler sitting in her basement) was there more than a decade ago. But “haste makes waste” corner cutting combined with the assurance that the emasculated and enfeebled BIA would intentionally misread the plain meaning of the statute to screw the respondent and help the DHS produced a totally avoidable administrative nightmare.
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” With White Nationalist xenophobe Sessions demanding that Immigration Judges deny, deny, deny, without hearings if necessary, to achieve their quota of removals without the inconvenience of Due Process and impartiality, cases are going to come rocketing back from the Courts of Appeals by the truckload. The whole system is going to collapse. And don’t anyone let the corrupt and biased Sessions get away with fobbing the blame off on others, as he and the rest of the Trump Regime are wont to do.
Sessions, Trump, Miller, Nielsen, Kelly, Homan and the rest of the scofflaw, White Nationalist, anti-Constitutional crowd might think that the Constitution doesn’t mean what it says. But, foreign nationals in the United States are entitled to fairness and due process. No matter how many corners the Trumpsters cut and how much bias they institutionalize into the already compromised Immigration Courts, they aren’t going to be able to eliminate Due Process.
We need a legitimate, independent, impartial, unbiased, Sessions-free, Due Process focused U.S. Immigration Court. Until that happens, the entire immigration justice system will continue to spiral downward under the immorality and toxic incompetence of Sessions and his cronies.

PWS

06-22-18

Well done dissenters! Bravo!

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

😎👍🏼🍻🍾🏈❄️☃️🥳

PWS

01-01-19

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