"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Gen. Garland continues to use “Miller Lite Mercenaries” against migrants. “The U.S. constitution states that our judicial system is a ‘separate but equal part’ to our democracy. But immigration courts have nothing to do with that.” — Tea Ivanovic, Immigrant Food Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsDan Kowalski Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)
Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:
“[T]he BIA has not addressed the question of the applicability of the color-of-law rule regarding state involvement in torture. … The parties agree that a remand is the best alternative where the BIA has made an unauthorized or inadequately supported factual finding on the likelihood of torture, thereby leaving unresolved whether the IJ failed to apply the rule-of-law theory of state involvement in torture. Accordingly, we conclude that the prudent course is to remand the case to the BIA. … We further order the BIA to remand the case to the IJ for a clear factual finding on the likelihood of torture and for the IJ’s clarification, if necessary, on the question of state involvement in light of the color-of-law rule. … PETITION GRANTED; VACATED AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO REMAND.”
Congrats to Matthew Nickson! Getting justice for a migrant in the notoriously pro-Government 5th Cir. is no mean feat! Think of how much easier your job would be if AG Garland hired some “real judges” at EOIR — experts in immigration and human rights who have represented individuals in Immigration Court and who are committed to due process and fundamental fairness above all else!
When you’re out to stick it to Hondurans (actually all Northern Triangle migrants), regardless of facts or law, to please your sleazy White Nationalist political bosses in the Trump regime, bad things are going to happen.
Let’s not forget that the Trump regime entered into a totally corrupt and bogus “Safe Third Country” agreement with Honduras, probably one of the least safe countries in the Hemisphere with no functional asylum system at all. Given this level of overt political fraud by the “bosses,” I doubt that the regime would have appreciated BIA bureaucrats correctly finding that torture with government acquiescence is likely in Honduras.
Sure, these failures were before Garland took over. But, he has made little effort to date to either acknowledge and root out the deep corruption and anti-immigrant weaponization of the Immigration Courts or to address the inadequate “go along to get along judging” that was encouraged at EOIR. In plain terms, respondents did not get, and still do not get, qualified, fair, and impartial judges at EOIR to adjudicate their claims.
You have only to look at the comedy of errors and ineptitude at EOIR in this case “outed” by one of the most pro-Government Circuits in America to see the proof! That’s unconstitutional!
Remand after remand to “get it right” also “jacks backlog.” Just getting a case back on an Immigration Judge’s docket takes time and effort in a non-automated system with no e-filing and traditionally overwhelmed and demoralized staff. Instead of fixing “customer service” @ EOIR, the Trump kakistocracy invested in ludicrous, due-process-destroying “IJ Dashboards” to keep the quotas filled and the unconstitutional “nativist deportation railroad” moving. Yet, Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke pretend that none of these constitutional and civil rights absurdities, not to mention grotesque management fraud, waste, and abuse, happened!
Don’t stand for any of Garland’s dishonest “expedited dockets” which implicitly blame those seeking justice under law and their courageous lawyers for the ungodly mess he and his lieutenants inherited but have failed to address! And, “dedicated docket for asylum seekers” is just a euphemism for more backlog-building, due-process denying “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and continuing mismanagement by Garland.
I’ll bet that qualified experts could cut the largely self-inflicted backlog by at least 50% in 90 days without stomping on anyone’s due process rights merely by administratively closing or terminating without prejudice hundreds of thousands of non-priority aged cases. Many of those could better be handled at USCIS.
It shouldn’t be this difficult to get an Administration that ran and got elected on a “reform” and “return to good government” platform to do the right thing here. But, it is! EOIR needs reform, including a new BIA and competent, expert judges who know asylum law, respect due process, and will treat migrants and their attorneys fairly, respectfully, and humanely. It’s not a “big ask!” So why is it “above Garland’s pay grade?”
For this month’s Think Table issue, we delve into the dysfunctional U.S immigration court system. The U.S. constitution states that our judicial system is a ‘separate but equal part’ to our democracy. But immigration courts have nothing to do with that. They fall under the Department of Justice, and immigration judges have a boss, the Attorney General. As we’ve seen in recent times, that can be a highly politicized position. Additionally, the lack of technology and the ever-growing backlog of cases leave many immigrants and asylum seekers waiting an average of two years just to schedule a court proceeding!
For this issue, we spoke with Judge Paul Schmidt, a former federal immigration judge. He’s pretty blunt about the ways in which the immigration court system is highly dysfunctional.
Here’ the “complete issue” which contains a reprint of an article from Sarah Pierce“Obscure but Powerful: Shaping U.S. Immigration Policy through Attorney General Referral and Review.”
Born in Belgium to parents from the former Yugoslavia and recruited to the United States by Virginia Tech’s Division 1 Varsity tennis team, Téa calls herself an immigrant squared. She still can’t figure out if Serbian, Flemish or English is her native language – she speaks all of them equally. Her professional career includes creating and implementing strategic communications for international policy and politics at a Washington D.C. think tank, and global financial matters at a financial public and media relations firm. Téa was the first Washington Correspondent for Oslobodjenje, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s oldest newspaper and leading news outlet in the Western Balkans. She graduated with a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
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Yeah,I’m pretty blunt!But, this is a totally screwed up system that threatens our democracy!
So, many of us out here in the NDPA think it’s a dire emergency, even if Judge Garland and the Biden Administration prefer to ignore the obvious and shun the immediate solutions!
Judge Garland’s failure to implement basic constitutional, personnel, and management reforms @ EOIR is undermining justice in America and tarnishing his reputation. Also, it’s potentially killing innocent folks. Sure sounds like a “national Constitutional emergency” to me!
Thanks to Tea for making this “accessible” report on a huge, largely unaddressed, democracy threatening problem. Tell Judge G to fix EOIR now!
President Joe Biden has taken some steps toward reversing his predecessor’s legacy of broad, indiscriminate immigration enforcement, including a recent announcement that it will no longer detain immigrants at two locations under scrutiny for alleged abuses.
But Republicans are adamant that increased immigration enforcement be a prerequisite to any broader immigration reform.
“There’ll be no immigration reform until you get control of the border,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Roll Call last month.
There are now nearly 40 percent more people in immigration detention compared to when Biden first took office, and his administration is continuing to turn away most migrants arriving on the border under pandemic-related restrictions put in place by his predecessor, President Donald Trump, which have led to the expulsions of more than 350,000 people this year alone.
But research shows that the threat of detention and deportation in the US doesn’t dissuade migrants from making the journey to the southern border, especially if they are victims of violence and may be seeking to escape the “devil they know” in their home countries.
“Managing migration at the border, particularly the kind of migration we’re seeing now, from a strictly deterrence, enforcement lens is just not sustainable in the long run and is not having the impact that people think it should have,” Theresa Cardinal Brown, managing director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said. “That’s why we need to rethink our paradigm for how we talk about migration and everything that we do at the border.”
. . . .
Knowledge of US immigration detention, however, did have an unintended effect on survey takers in Ryo’s experiment — it made them more likely to think outcomes and legal procedures in the American immigration system are unfair. That is worrisome, given that perceptions of fairness are significant predictors of people’s willingness to obey the law and cooperate with legal authorities, Ryo said.
“We really ought to be concerned about the extent to which generating these kinds of perceptions of unfairness can backfire in terms of more people disregarding our laws and undertaking that dangerous journey in order to get to our border and try to cross it,” she added.
. . . .
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First, let me congratulate Nicole on her spectacularly high level reporting and mastery of the English language: Clear, accessible, well-organized, informative, persuasive.Compare Nicole’s prose with the vapid, often misleading nonsense and gibberish spouted by legislators, government officials, bureaucrats, and right wing White Nationalist shills of all types. Just yesterday, Trump and his pathetic “wannabe” Greg Abbott were down at the border spouting their unadulterated, fact-free, racist blather and restrictionist nonsense (when Trump wasn’t rambling on incoherently about the “Big Lie” or himself). I encourage everyone to read Nicole’s full article at the link!
“Enforcement only doesn’t work” has been one of the key “themes” of Courtside since “Day 1.” The answer has also been clear — due process, fundamental fairness, racial equity, practical scholarship leading to durable solutions.
The converse of “enforcement only doesn’t work” is also true: A more realistic, more generous legal immigration system that advances due process and equality while taking advantage of “market factors” that attract and drive migration would also lead to more efficient and effective enforcement. Many, perhaps the majority, of those we are now wasting time and money on cruel and ultimately futile attempts to detain, deter, and remove would actually be a huge benefit to our nation if they were allowed to migrate legally on either a permanent or temporary basis.
I’ve been saying for a long time now that convincing folks that our legal system is basically bogus — falsely promising a fairness and dignified treatment we aren’t delivering — merely serves to drive migrants to enter the “extralegal” or “black market” system that helps support our economy. The real “beneficiaries” of “mindless immigration enforcement” and a dysfunctional legal system are smugglers, cartels, and exploitative employers. Also, obviously, corrupt GOP politicos benefit from having a permanent, disenfranchised, traumatized, largely non-White “black market labor pool” to prop up their economy while serving as an easy target to “whip up” their racist base.
Bad policies, driven by ignorance, myths, bias, cowardice, and racism will continue to produce lousy results — for the migrants and for our nation. Smarter, more courageous, more intellectually honest legislators and public officials are necessary. Whether voters will be wise enough to elect them remains to be seen.
AP: The children were interviewed by immigrant advocates from March to June, and their accounts were filed late Monday with a federal court in Los Angeles that oversees a longstanding settlement governing custody conditions for children who cross the border alone.
WaPo: Many of the nearly 17,306 Venezuelans who have crossed the southern border illegally since January had been living for years in other South American countries, part of an exodus of millions since President Nicolás Maduro took power in 2013.
Reuters: DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) on Friday withdrew its opposition to the National Association of Immigration Judges’ motion for reconsideration of the November ruling, which said the judges were management employees who cannot unionize under federal law.
Reuters: At the current pace, the total border arrests for the fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, would be the highest since 2000, when nearly 1.7 million migrants were apprehended by U.S. authorities.
NYT: The Biden administration is forcing out the chief of the United States Border Patrol, Rodney S. Scott, who took over the agency during the final year of the Trump administration, a Department of Homeland Security official said on Wednesday.
Politico: The plan is to use the Special Immigrant Visa category to process the interpreters once they’re moved to a third country, likely to happen in August.
Law360: New Jersey is on track to join California and become the first East Coast state to ban U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities following a vote Thursday.
Law360: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to assess an Eleventh Circuit decision holding that courts lack authority to review “non-discretionary” determinations by the Board of Immigration Appeals related to findings of inadmissibility.
Law360: The U.S. Supreme Court undid two lower court rulings that blocked a Trump-era asylum policy Monday, deeming an injunction on the Migrant Protection Protocols moot three weeks after President Joe Biden formally ended the program.
The BIA sustained the appeal and remanded to allow the IJ to evaluate if the respondent qualifies for the “simple possession” exception to §245(h)(2)(B) under the circumstance-specific approach. Matter of Moradel, 28 I&N Dec. 310 (BIA 2021) AILA Doc. No. 21062335
Law360: The First Circuit stood by its decision to wipe a lower court ruling that had blocked federal immigration authorities from making arrests in and around Massachusetts courthouses, ruling Thursday that the Biden administration’s decision to curb many such arrests does not render the case moot.
The court found that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in dismissing petitioner’s motion to reopen as untimely, finding that her motion did not contain any evidence that Jamaican officials would likely acquiesce to her torture if she were returned to Jamaica. (Darby v. Att’y Gen., 6/17/21) AILA Doc. No. 21062533
Law360: The Fifth Circuit on Thursday refused to reinstate the asylum status of a schizophrenic Pakistani man who called his brother and threatened to kill up to 50 people in Amarillo, Texas, rejecting his counsel’s arguments that his threat wasn’t serious because he’s mentally ill.
LexisNexis: Avila de la Rosa v. Garland “Cristian Avila de la Rosa received a procedurally defective Notice to Appear for his immigration removal proceedings, and (unlike many others) he made a timely objection to that Notice. The immigration judge, however, disregarded Avila’s objection, and the Board of Immigration Appeals thereafter insisted that Avila was not entitled to relief unless he could demonstrate prejudice.
LexisNexis: Zamorano v. Garland “Victor Luis Angeles Zamorano, a native and citizen of Mexico, seeks review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing his appeal from a decision of the immigration judge (IJ) that denied his application for voluntary departure. Because the IJ failed to evaluate the factors weighing in favor of granting Zamorano voluntary departure, we grant the petition and remand.
Law360: The Ninth Circuit ordered the immigration courts on Tuesday to reconsider a Ukrainian asylum-seeker’s request for protection, finding a series of errors with a judge’s ruling that the migrant wasn’t credible.
The court held that while a self-induced change in personal circumstances does not qualify for the changed country conditions exception, that principle does not apply when changed country circumstances, while personal to petitioner, are entirely outside her control. (Kaur v. Garland, 6/21/21) AILA Doc. No. 21062831
Law360: An immigrant advocacy group wants to know more about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “obscure” network of databases and how immigration agencies store their enforcement data, but alleges that the agencies are dodging its records request in violation of the Freedom of Information Act.
DOJ issued guidance to all immigration court and BIA personnel with information regarding the adjudication of motions to reopen in Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) cases. AILA Doc. No. 21062437
DHS announced that it will expand the pool of MPP-enrolled individuals who are eligible for processing into the United States. Beginning June 23, 2021, DHS will include MPP enrollees who had their cases terminated or were ordered removed in absentia. AILA Doc. No. 21062332
In response to member inquiries, AILA updated its practice alert to inform members that the new zip code for Essex Junction is correct, however, it appears that some courier services do not yet recognize the new zip code, which goes into effect on 6/25/21. AILA Doc. No. 21061642
USCIS announced that, as of June 2021, will allow attorneys and accredited representatives to use self-service kiosks in USCIS field offices to pay the fees for filing an appeal of a DHS officer decision to the BIA or EOIR immigration court motions. AILA Doc. No. 21062231
This WashPost headline and Post Supreme Court reporter Robert Barnes’s summary say it all!
Supreme Court rules against immigrants claiming safety fears after deportation and for pipeline builders
By Robert Barnes
June 29 at 5:22 PM ET
. . . .
In the immigration case, the court was considering the rights of a relatively small subset of immigrants: those who were deported once before but reentered the United States illegally because they say they faced threats at home.
At issue was a complex federal law that authorizes the government to detain immigrants and which section of it applies to these types of cases.
One piece of the law says, “the alien may receive a bond hearing before an immigration judge” and thus the chance to be free while proceedings continue, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the majority. In the other, the immigrant is considered “removed,” and indefinite detention is warranted.
Alito and his fellow conservative justices said it was the second that applied, and the detainees do not get a bond hearing. The court’s three liberals objected.
The case involved people who an immigration officer found had credible fears of danger or persecution in their home countries. For instance, Rodriguez Zometa said he was threatened with death by the 18th Street Gang when he was removed to his home country of El Salvador.
The question of whether the government could hold the immigrants without a hearing before an immigration judge had divided courts around the country. The case was argued before President Biden took office, and lawyers for the Trump administration told the court immigrants were not entitled to a hearing.
Alito said Congress had good reason to be more restrictive with those who came back into the country after being deported. “Aliens who reentered the country illegally after removal have demonstrated a willingness to violate the terms of a removal order, and they therefore may be less likely to comply with the reinstated order” that they leave, he said.
He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
The court’s liberals, Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, saw it differently and would have affirmed the victory the plaintiffs won at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond.
“Why would Congress want to deny a bond hearing to individuals who reasonably fear persecution or torture, and who, as a result, face proceedings that may last for many months or years?” Breyer wrote. “I can find no satisfactory answer to this question.”
Nice summary, Robert! You can read the rest of Barnes’s report at the link. Indeed, Justice Breyer’s cogent question quoted in the articleremains unanswered by the wooden legal gobbledygook in the majority decision, devoid of much understanding of how the dysfunctional Immigration Courts and the DHS “New American Gulag” actually operate and dismissive of what it actually means to be a refugee seeking to exercise legal rights in today’s world.
At issue: The right of non-criminal foreign nationals who have established a “reasonable fear” of persecution or torture if deported to apply for bond pending Immigration Court hearings on the merits of their cases. Getting a bond hearing before an Immigration Judge does not in any way guarantee release; just that the decision to detain or release on bond will be based on the individual facts and circumstances. Individuals released from detention have a much better chance of obtaining counsel and gathering the documentation necessary to win their cases. They are also much less likely to be “coerced” by DHS detention into surrendering viable claims and appeal rights.
Majority’s response: These “aliens” have neither rights nor humanity that any life-tenured GOP-appointed judge is bound to respect.
Alternative: There is a readily available alternative statutory interpretation, adopted by the 4th Circuit and the dissent, that would recognize the human and legal rights of vulnerable refugees seeking legal protection and give them hearings on continuing custody in substandard conditions (in some instances, conditions in the “DHS New American Gulag” fall well below those that would be imposed on convicted felons).
You can’t win ‘em all: The Round Table was one of many organizations filing an amicus brief on behalf of the refugees and in support of the position adopted by the 4th Circuit and the dissent. While we were unsuccessful on this one, at least we are on the “right side of history.”
Creative suggestion: Detainees should incorporate, perhaps as a pipeline company, or better yet a gun rights’ group, so that they would have legal rights and be treated as “persons” (e.g., “humans”) by the Supremes’ GOP majority.
Next steps:
Advocates should prevail on the Biden Administration to change the regulations to give this limited subclass of applicants for protection a chance to seek bond before an Immigration Judge;
Advocates should keep up the pressure on the Biden Administration and Garland to appoint better judges at EOIR: progressive practical experts, who know how to grant legal protection efficiently and fairly and who will establish appropriate legal precedents to help these cases move through the EOIR system on the merits in a timely and fundamentally fair manner consistent with due process. The length of time it takes “Withholding Only” cases to move through the Immigration Courts has lots to do with: unfair, coercive detention practices by DHS; poor judging and bad precedents at EOIR; incompetent “judicial administration” and politicized “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” @ EOIR by DOJ politicos and their EOIR “retainers.”
Long term solution:
Support and vote for progressive legislators who will revise the immigration laws to do away with the unnecessary and wasteful“New American Gulag;”
Vote progressive candidates for President and the Senate: political officials committed to putting better Federal Judges on the bench at all levels — “practical scholars” with real experience representing the most vulnerable in society and who will tirelessly enforce due process, equal protection, human rights, and fundamental fairness for all persons regardless of race, religion, or status; judges who understand and will seriously reflect on the “real life” human consequences of their decisions. Better judges for a better America!
Maria Ramos Pacheco reports for the Dallas Morning News:
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — While Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday the goal of her trip to El Paso was to understand the “root causes” of the rising influx of migrants from recent months, just across the border Honduran migrant Manuel Medina had a simple explanation for why thousands of people from other countries will continue to try to reach the United States: To stay alive while fleeing countries where their families are threatened by crime and violence.
“I did not leave my country and my wife because I wanted to. [Rising] crime forced me to leave everything; the only thing I want is for my family and me to be safe,” said Medina, 37, who left Honduras in May 2019 after receiving threats from gang members.
Amid a chorus of criticism coming mainly from Republican politicians, Harris made her first trip to the U.S. Southern border flanked by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas; Sen. Dick Durbin, D- Ill; and El Paso Rep. Verónica Escobar.
Amid a chorus of criticism coming mainly from Republican politicians, Harris made her first trip to the U.S. Southern border flanked by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro MayorkasSen.
For people like Medina, neither restrictive immigration policies nor dangerous journeys through several countries, border walls, or even statements from politicians deter them from seeking to rebuild their lives in the United States.
Medina has lived for two years in this city’s El Buen Samaritano shelter, managed by a religious organization, along with his 15-year-old son Nahúm Medina. Their asylum petition was initially rejected in 2019 and he stayed in Ciudad Juárez under the Migrants Protection Protocols, waiting for a second chance.
The MPP or “Remain in Mexico” program was created in 2019 by the Trump administration, which forced people seeking asylum to remain in Mexico. As of May, there were 71,002 active cases.
Restrictionism, racism, nativism, cruelty, and scofflaw behavior will only continue to make things worse. And, AG Merick Garland, staffing your “courts” with “Miller Lite” holdovers and Trump toadies won’t stop the downward spiral of American justice on your watch!
EOIR Withdraws Opposition to
NAIJ Motion to Reconsider,
Does Not Oppose Motion to Remand
Judges:
In a filing this morning, EOIR withdrew its opposition to our motion to reconsider before the FLRA and agreed to a remand to the Regional Director. Here’s their brief.
This is a major step forward in our fight against the previous administration’s effort to decertify NAIJ. NAIJ thanks EOIR and DOJ for taking this important step.
EOIR’s actions come after NAIJ filed with the FLRA earlier this week a Motion to Remand and for Stay. NAIJ’s motion was part of a coordinated effort by NAIJ and our parent union IFPTE to bring the importance of the decertification issue to the attention of the highest levels of this administration. It looks like we succeeded.
Although there are many reasons for optimism, this fight is not yet over. The decertificaton matter remains pending before the FLRA. As we are well aware, the FLRA is still composed of the same members who, over a vigorous dissent, reversed the decision of the FLRA Regional Director who had previously upheld our right to unionize. We are closely monitoring the situation with our litigation team to assure this favorable progress continues until our case is definitively resolved, once and for all.
Thank you for your unwaivering support of NAIJ.
We will keep everyone updated with any further developments.
The NAIJ Board
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As pointed out by the NAIJ Board, it’s not over till it’s over! But, definitely a big step in the right direction for the NAIJ, the Garland DOJ, and the Biden Administration!
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a retired member of the NAIJ!
Deep ThroatIs DOJ/EOIR “Management” staking out every one of these in the DELMARVA area to catch “DT-21?” Is that why they don’t have time to reform EOIR? — Creative CommonsThe EOIR Tower in Falls Church might appear shiny from the outside, but inside it’s still just about as opaque as the lives of those caught up in Garland’s Star Chambers!
1) The Richmond video “court” is opening soon to hear more cases in secret without public access.
2) Several IJs working from home are now hearing cases by VTC from their residences. But, there’s no provision for those hearings to be open to the public contrary to the regulations. More VTC just means more problems.
3) EOIR has hired 10 or 11 new IJs but hasn’t disclosed the names publicly. Can “Dandy Dan” Kowalski & other news-hounds smoke out the names again?
4) At least one inexcusable, major setback on long overdue progressive judicial leadership @ EOIR! Unfortunately, the AG decided not to remove Wetmore as Chairman and his probation period has passed.
So, are we stuck with a Miller/Barr/Trump toady “plant” in charge of a “court” that probably has more to do with racial and gender justice in America than any “judicial” (using the term lightly) body short of the Supremes and that “gets it wrong” — often dead wrong — in well-publicized bad opinions “outed” by the Article IIIs on a regular basis?No, doesn’t make sense!
Progressives, the NDPA, and anybody who cares about due process and equal justice in America should be raising hell with the Administration until we get the change we voted for!
“Passing probation” doesn’t guarantee anyone a particular SES position or a quasi-judicial position at EOIR. Just ask legions of past DOJ “Hallwalkers!”
Garland was sitting around the Ivory Tower while the NDPA was fighting in the trenches for human lives and the survival of Americans democracy. That’s a big reason why Garland, Biden, Harris, and the rest of the Administration have their jobs now! Don’t stand for an immigration bureaucracy and justice system controlled and populated by disciples and plants of “Gauleiter Miller,” “Billy the Bigot,” and “Gonzo Apocalypto.”
5) On the much brighter side, Courtside has confirmed from several sources that the long-extinguished flames of due process, fundamental fairness, best practices, humanity, compassion, and intellectual courage should soon be re-ignited in the opaque darkness and “rabbit warrens” of the 24th Floor of the Tower where the BIA hangs out.
Will the “wallsof bias and intentional exclusion of the best and brightest American justice has to offer from outside government” that has plagued the BIA and demeaned American Justice for the past two decades finally be cracked? Will that crack become a breach that eventually becomes a flood of scholarship, fairness, efficiency, respect, and teamwork that will transform a “Tower of Darkness” in to a “Beacon of Justice” that can be seen from coast to coast?
6) Stay tuned! And, keep demanding better, much much better, from Garland, Monaco, Gupta, Clarke, and the rest of the Biden immigration, civil rights, human bureaucracy at DOJ! They seem to think that “elections only have consequences” in immigration and human rights when the GOP wins.
Evidently, they view themselves as above the fray just treating EOIR like another piece of their dysfunctional DOJ bureaucracy. Nothing very proactive or bold! Just let the abuses be unearthed by others and dribble out a bit at a time.Then do a little damage control and “message massaging.”
That’s a prime reason why, despite representing the majority of Americans, and having access to better ideas, the Dems have had trouble governing, retaining power, and turning their agenda into action over the past half-century!It’s also a prime reason why humanity is suffering in our dysfunctional Immigration “Courts,” in a broken DHS that continues to run Gulags and has shamefully retaliated against NDPA members fighting for justice, and in the inexcusable human carnage at our borders fueled by the DOJ’s participation in corruption, intellectual dishonesty, and the illegal suspension of the rule of law!150 days in and still no functioning asylum system? Come on man!
Five years ago, after retiring, I tried to tell the Clinton folks that not appointing a progressive immigration/human rights expert to be Attorney General would be a huge mistake. Obviously, that became a “moot point” in November 2016.
Ironically, however, the Trump Administration got my message in a negative way. They turned the DOJ over to radical White Nationalist nativists determined to use the negative power of bureaucracy and immigration to batter down the foundations of Americans democracy and spread the gospel of racism, misogyny, and unbridled xenophobia. And,it worked! Big time!
I’m certainly not the only one who vainly tried to tell the Biden Administration NOT to repeat the same mistakes at Justice. Better candidates for AG, folks like the Castro brothers, Chairman Zoe Lofgren, Rep. Jamie Ruskin, and Dean Kevin Johnson were out there. Real, courageous, dedicated progressive leaders and due process mavens! Folks who would have shaken up EOIR, gotten rid of the deadwood and incompetence, cut the unnecessary backlog, instituted best practices, and reestablished a robust, functioning asylum system at the border by now! Folks with the proven backbone to stand up for justice, against all threats, internal and external! Folks who would take seriously their oaths “to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic!”
The slow and ineffectual pace of personnel and other achievable internal reforms at EOIR continues to be an insult to those who are the future of American democracy — if American democracy indeed has a future! That’s still up in the air!
We can see the effect of delay in making the necessary bold progressive immigration and human rights reforms in VP Harris’s foundering performance at the border. No rule of law, no program for fairly and efficiently adjudicating asylum, no open ports of entry, no coherent message on the realities of human migration, no order, kids in bad placements, Border Patrol agents “apprehending” folks who only want their prompt, fair asylum screening from Asylum Officers! What an (avoidable) mess!
The nativist opposition hasn’t folded their tents! Stephen Miller & co. are energized by Garland’s failure to heed the advice of and bring in the expertise of progressives at EOIR. He’s like “Voldemort” — every day Garland dawdles, Miller gets stronger.
His power grows every day that Garland dawdles and progressives find themselves still playing defense, rather than running the show under tone deaf “management” that owes its very existence to them and their support! After 8 years of “lockout” by Obama — yielding a quite predictable human rights and legal disaster — are the folks who revived democracy and kept the fires burning in Immigraton Court REALLY willing to put up with another four years of THIS? Are Dems REALLY THIS DUMB (not to mention ungrateful)? By Blanca Toth, OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Creative Commons
Keep the outrage and opposition to intransigence and failure to bring reform to EOIR coming! NDPRers, my time on the stage is winding down! It’s YOUR future and YOUR CHILDREN’S future on the line today!
Opaque procedures, regressive leadership, secret hearings, Miller cronies, bad precedents, lack of progressive jurisprudence, Article III embarrassments and travesties, mindlessly “expedited” dockets, Aimless Docket Reshuffling, idiotic due-process denying production quotas and “performance work plans,” contempt for advocates and experts, defense of the indefensible, and treating human lives and advocates as “fungible” at EOIR are NOT OK!
Keep the resistance building! Be outraged! Turn up the decibels until even Garland and the West Wing can’t ignore the uproar!
“Sadly, over the last two decades the US has been unable to get beyond this vision of ‘deterrence’ of legal asylum seekers.“ — Floaters — “How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)Vice President Kamala D. Harris Vice President of the United States. — “So far, she hasn’t gotten beyond the mistakes of the past, either. Taking a tour with CBP won’t help.” (Official Senate Photo)
Last week, Ms. Harris traveled to Guatemala to meet with President Alejandro Giammattei and expressed the Biden administration’s goal to “help Guatelmalans find hope at home.” During a press conference on June 7, she told Guatemalans thinking of making the journey north to the United States: “Do not come. Do not come.”
“O.K., that’s like saying, ‘Stay home and die,’” according to the Rev. Pat Murphy, a Scalabrini priest who runs the Casa del Migrante shelter in Tijuana, Baja California. “That message is falling on deaf ears.”
If Ms. Harris does travel to the border, Father Murphy said, she should be sure to make a visit to the Mexican side. “If she just stays on her side, she’s not going to find much,” he said.
In Tijuana, Ms. Harris would see a camp of 2,000 asylum seekers near the port of entry, Father Murphy said. “If she looked a little further, she would see the people who are victims of violence in Tijuana and Mexicali and other places,” he said. Migrants may be eager to escape bad situations in their home countries, Father Murphy said, but they often do not understand how difficult conditions at the border are “until they’re stuck in the middle of [a border city] with no place to go.”
“You can’t understand [border realities] by talking to government officials. You have to talk to the people who are working with migrants and hear about the suffering.”
At diminished capacity because of the pandemic, migrant shelters are full. The United States has started to accept some vulnerable people, like families with children with an illness or those being persecuted because of their sexual orientation, Father Murphy said. But there are also hundreds deported every day.
He believes if the vice president did decide to visit the border, it would be worth her while. “You can’t understand [border realities] by talking to government officials,” Father Murphy said. “You have to talk to the people who are working with migrants and hear about the suffering.”
. . . .
Donald M. Kerwin Executive Director Center for Migration Studies
Donald Kerwin, the executive director of the Center for Migration Studies in New York, also noted that people have a right not to migrate—to stay in their home country. He sees immigration policy as an arena for a fruitful convergence of Catholic social teaching, international law and contemporary human rights principles.
The Biden administration’s recognition of the forces that drive migration should be applauded, but it can address root causes while re-establishing humane asylum policies at the border.
“States are responsible for ensuring that people can flourish at home,” he said. “But it’s an empty right at this point in many communities in the Northern Triangle countries. They’re facing impossible conditions, caused by natural disasters, climate change, gang violence and extraordinary poverty. So people have a right to flee those impossible conditions and seek lives that are worthy of human dignity. In some cases, that means leaving their countries.”
When they do leave their home countries, people have the right to seek protection wherever they can find it, Mr. Kerwin said. “The vice president seems to have bought into the… I can’t use another word, but the nativist party line, that somehow these immigrants are the cause of the problem when, in fact, they’re the victims of multiple problems in many cases.”
The United States needs a functioning refugee resettlement system, an asylum system and robust humanitarian programs to address the conditions in Central America that are driving people to migrate, he said. “They’re not in place right now,” Mr. Kerwin said, “and until they are in place, people will reluctantly, at a terrible cost…continue to migrate.”
If Ms. Harris visits the border, Mr. Kerwin suggested she speak with migrants that have entered the United States, starting with the children. “Find out why they’ve come, what drove them to the United States and also see what their situation is currently, in often overcrowded facilities,” he said. “At that point, it would be clear as day that these folks are not a problem. These folks fled terrible problems, but they themselves are not the problem.”
Earlier this month, more than 20 bishops, Vatican representatives and leaders of Catholic organizations met for an emergency immigration meeting at Mundelein Seminary, outside of Chicago. Mr. Kerwin, who attended the meeting, said organizers displayed notes written by immigrant children, often addressed to God.
“It’s clear from reading these notes that these are lovely children, who miss their parents and worry about them and are in difficult situations that are not of their own making. And that the United States should do right by them,” he said. “And the right thing is to protect them and reunify them with family members.”
Chloe Gunther, America intern, contributed to this story.
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Read the full article at the link.
Politicians of both parties are averse to the truth. They don’t have the courage and backbone for it! But the truth is quite simple, if somewhat “inconvenient.”
Unless and until we can solve the problems driving refugees to flee the Northern Triangle, we will have to take more of them. We should welcome them through an orderly legal system, including a robust, properly staffed, and honestly administered legal refugee and asylum system.
Alternatively, we could continue our current policies of immorally and illegally killing some on the journey, “snuffing” some in the desert (where their bodies might never be found and “counted”), and enriching smugglers and cartels who will eventually get many determined survivors into the interior.
There, they will join our highly exploitable, yet politically expedient for both parties (for differing reasons), “extralegal population.” Alimited number will be “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and be arbitrarily removed by ICE, usually at costs that far exceed any demonstrable benefits. Even fewer will commit misconduct leading to their arrest and removal.
But the bulk of them will blend in somehow and do what’s necessary for themselves and their families to survive, as has been happening for decades and generations. They will also enrich and improve our nation in ways both predictable and unpredictable. Some will eventually find it possible and advantageous to return to their nations of origin, most won’t.
It would be far better for both the migrants and our nation, not to mention humanity as a whole, if we included the bulk of those forced to come here in our legal immigration system. But, whether we are enlightened enough “to do it the right way” or not, they will come as long as the alternatives are starvation, death, unspeakable abuse, and unending despair.
Migration is both our oldest and most persistent human phenomenon and an essential survival skill for humanity. It’s going to take more than inane walls, cruel and illegal imprisonment in American Gulags, unworkable laws, mindless, yet expensive, enforcement, nativist rhetoric, bad judges, and cowardly politicians sending “don’t come” messages to make them “die in place.” Our politicians might be not be bright or brave enough to face reality — but, I guarantee that the forced migrants we like to dehumanize and look down upon are much smarter, braver, more aware, and far more creative, adaptable, and capable than we think!
NPR: In a pair of decisions announced Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland is vacating several controversial legal rulings issued by his predecessors — in effect, restoring the possibility of asylum protections for women fleeing from domestic violence in other countries, and families targeted by violent gangs.
AP: A pending federal court case in Texas is challenging whether the program’s creation was legal. If the challenge is successful, it could end protections, adding urgency to those pressing Congress for a more lasting solution.
Axios: The policy known as Title 42 has resulted in tens of thousands of migrant family members, including asylum seekers, being sent away — as well as thousands of kids then separating from their families to cross into the United States alone.
Reuters: As the U.S. military completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan in the coming weeks, the Biden administration says it is adding staff to hurry up the visa process for Afghans who worked for the U.S. government and want to flee to avoid Taliban reprisals.
CityLimits: As they continue on the campaign trail, contenders of both parties who remain in the race speak openly about citizens’ concerns, such as crime, police reform, affordable housing, education, health, jobs and the Big Apple’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Latino voters, however, still feel that they have not heard concrete proposals regarding immigrants.
Intercept: Internal ICE records and emails, as well as a deposition by an ICE officer in a court case, show the agency referring to an advocacy group as a “known adversary” and closely surveilling the immigration and civil rights activists’ activities, both online and in person.
NYT: Health and consumer protection agencies have repeatedly warned that several of these treatments, as well as vitamin infusions and expensive injections of “peptide therapies” sold at alternative wellness clinics for more than $1,000, are not supported by reliable scientific evidence.
AIC: Although not every proposed rule put on the agenda will end up being finalized, the agenda signals an administration’s priorities and its goals for pursuing changes to our immigration system through executive action.
DOJ vacated Matter of A-B- and Matter of A-B-II and stated that immigration judges and the BIA should no longer follow these decisions when adjudicating pending or future cases. Matter of A-B-, 28 I&N Dec. 307 (A.G. 2021) AILA Doc. No. 21061639
DOJ vacated Matter of L-E-A- II in its entirely and immigration judges and the BIA should no longer follow Matter of L-E-A- II when adjudicating pending and future cases. Matter of L-E-A-, 28 I&N Dec. 304 (A.G. 2021)AILA Doc. No. 21061640
AAG: Please review any pending cases that may be affected by the Attorney General’s vacatur of L-E-A-II, A-B-I, and A-B-II and take appropriate steps in light of that development, including seeking remands in appropriate cases to allow the Board to reconsider asylum claims based on this change in the law.
The court certified to New York State Court of Appeals the question of whether an intent to “appropriate” property requires an intent to deprive the owner of property permanently or under circumstances where their property rights are substantially eroded. (Ferreiras Veloz v. Garland, 6/7/21) AILA Doc. No. 21061635
Law360: A split Third Circuit panel on Thursday refused to halt deportation proceedings for a Jamaican woman who pled guilty to defrauding the elderly in a lottery scam, ruling in a precedential decision that she didn’t prove she was likely to face retribution from the scam’s ringleader if sent back to her native country.
The court held that although the defendant, a former military officer, refused to shoot civilians during the Salvadorian Civil War, the fact that he “assisted” and “participated in the commission of” extrajudicial killings permitted his denaturalization. (United States v. Vasquez, 6/11/21) AILA Doc. No. 21061737
The court concluded that 8 CFR §212.7(e)(4)(iii), together with 8 CFR §§1003.10(b) and 1003.1(d)(1)(ii), gives IJs and the BIA the authority for administrative closure to permit noncitizens to apply for and receive provisional unlawful presence waivers. (Garcia-DeLeon v. Garland, 6/4/21) AILA Doc. No. 21061634
The court found that while the Memphis Immigration Court violated procedural rules in transferring the petitioner’s hearing to the Louisville Immigration Court, that violation was a procedural question relating to venue, not jurisdiction to hear the case. (Tobias-Chaves v. Garland, 6/8/21) AILA Doc. No. 21061636
The court granted the petition for review and remanded the case to the BIA in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Niz-Chavez v. Garland. (Lorenzo Lopez v. Garland, 6/8/21) AILA Doc. No. 21061643
The court held that the BIA erred by reviewing the IJ’s decision de novo rather than for clear error, and found that the record established that the petitioner had met her burden to show it was more likely than not she would be tortured if removed to Mexico. (Soto-Soto v. Garland, 6/11/21) AILA Doc. No. 21061644
Law360: A split Tenth Circuit panel on Tuesday reversed a Utah federal judge’s order finding that American Samoans are birthright U.S. citizens, holding that the issue belongs in the hands of Congress, not the courts.
Law360: In a decision that established several court precedents, the Eleventh Circuit has revived a Sri Lankan man’s bid for asylum, ruling that both an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals failed to properly reconsider his asylum application after allowing him to stay in the United States.
Law360: The D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that it lacks jurisdiction to revive asylum-seekers’ challenge to how border officers carry out a policy that requires migrants to seek protections in other countries they pass en route to the U.S.
AILA: DHS filed a motion for partial summary judgment in district court on all the plaintiffs’ claims regarding the 30-day timeline repeal rule, which was published on June 22, 2020.
Law360: The Biden administration has asked a Maryland federal judge to keep intact a Trump-era asylum work rule that gives the U.S. Department of Homeland Security more time to process work permits, saying the increased flow of asylum-seekers justifies the change.
Law360: Three Mexican nationals have asked a Colorado federal court to declare that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services unlawfully denied their green card applications by finding them inadmissible under a 10-year bar on reentering the United States up to 20 years after they left the country.
USCIS provided guidance in the Policy Manual on employment authorization and deferred action for principal petitioners for U nonimmigrant status and qualifying family members with pending, bona fide petitioners. Comments and feedback is due by July 14, 2021. AILA Doc. No. 21061433
DHS and DOS issued a joint statement on the second phase of the Central American Minors (CAM) program’s reopening. Eligibility now includes legal guardians and parents and U.S.-based parents or legal guardians with pending asylum application or pending U visa petition filed before 5/15/21. AILA Doc. No. 21061631
Thanks Elizabeth!As previously noted, I remain skeptical of Biden Administration plans to “reform” asylum law without bringing in the progressive human rights experts who can handle the job!
Most needed “reforms” — like bringing in progressive judges, replacing the BIA, bringing in progressive managers and executives, slashing the largely self-created EOIR backlog, working with NGOs to provide universal representation to asylum seekers and other vulnerable individuals, eliminating unnecessary detention, issuing positive precedents to guide IJs and Asylum Officers, bringing on more Asylum Officers and offering them better training (see, e.g., VIISTA @ Villanova), restoring Administrative Closing, implementing e-filing at EOIR, expanding the Central American Minors Program and other refugee programs in Central America, and many others are “hiding in plain sight.”
The “blueprints” are already about there — in bulk! All that’s missing is the dynamic new progressive leadership to implement them and insure compliance.
Also, as I’ve pointed out before, no Administration in history has had the benefit of so much empirical data, practical scholarship, and “ready for prime time” workable solutions for such well-documented and glaring problems. The asylum and EOIR “fixes” are both highly doable and can produce immediate positive results with more to follow!
But, not necessarily the way the Biden Administration is going about it, with far too many of those needed to turn “rhetoric into reality” still on sidelines in the private sector. In the meantime, folks who have already proved beyond a reasonable doubt that they can’t fix the system remain in key positions.
For Pete’s sake, several of my Georgetown Law students rattled off some of these solutions in class yesterday, and asked me why nobody was working on them. I told them I couldn’t figure out why the Biden Administration was so “slow on the uptake” with so many resources and experts out here in the private sector!
One of my most obvious ideas — hire my three colleagues, Georgetown Professors Phil Schrag, Andy Schoenholtz, and Temple Associate Dean Jaya Ramji-Nogales who recently wrote “instant immigration classic” The End of Asylum and earlier wrote the classic “bad government” expose Refugee Roulette — on a six month consulting contract to come in and fix EOIR and the Asylum Office.
It’s not so much regulatory reform that’s needed (although to be sure improvements can be made), but rather bringing in progressive leadership and better judges in key positions at DHS, DOJ, and EOIR to insure that due process is maximized, best practices are instituted, and recalcitrant personnel still committed to the Trump/Miller White Nationalist agenda are placed in other jobs where they can’t overtly damage our justice system.
Not “rocket science!” 🚀 But, it’s not going to be solved by a “regulatory agenda” either!
Jeff Sessions’ Cage by J.D. Crowe, Alabama Media Group/AL.com Republished under licenseBill Barr Consigliere Artist: Pat Bagley Salt Lake Tribune Reproduced under license
Judge Garland wonders whether there could be some “problems” with these guys and their corrupt agendas. Meanwhile, his DOJ continues to sink deeper into the muck every day! Hey, what’s the rush? It’s “only justice” and human lives at stake here! Garland seems to think that can’t compare with protecting important “Departmental prerogatives” to cover up past and perpetuate future injustices @ Justice! He’s wrong! Dead wrong in some cases!
Donald Trump never did much to hide his dangerous belief that the US justice department and the attorneys general who helmed it should serve as his own personal lawyers and follow his political orders, regardless of norms and the law.
Former senior DoJ officials say the former president aggressively prodded his attorneys general to go after his enemies, protect his friends and his interests, and these moves succeeded with alarming results until Trump’s last few months in office.
The martyr who may rise again: Christian right’s faith in Trump not shaken
But now with Joe Biden sitting in the Oval Office, Merrick Garland as attorney general and Democrats controlling Congress, more and more revelations are emerging about just how far Trump’s justice department went rogue. New inquiries have been set up to investigate the scale of wrongdoing.
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Trump’s disdain for legal principles and the constitution revealed itself repeatedly – especially during Bill Barr’s tenure as attorney general, during most of 2019 and 2020. During Barr’s term in office, Trump ignored the tradition of justice as a separate branch of government, and flouted the principle of the rule of law, say former top justice lawyers and congressional Democrats.
In Barr, Trump appeared to find someone almost entirely aligned with the idea of doing his bidding. Barr sought to undermine the conclusions of Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, independent congressional oversight, and Trump critics in and out of government, while taking decisions that benefited close Trump allies.
But more political abuses have emerged, with revelations that – starting under attorney general Jeff Sessions in 2018 – subpoenas were issued in a classified leak inquiry to obtain communications records of top Democrats on the House intelligence committee. Targets were Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, who were investigating Kremlin election meddling, and also several committee staffers and journalists.
Democrats in Congress, as well as Garland, have forcefully denounced these Trumpian tactics. Garland has asked the department’s inspector general to launch his own inquiry, and examine the subpoenas involving members of Congress and the media. Congressional committees are eyeing their own investigations into the department’s extraordinary behavior.
“There was one thing after another where DoJ acted inappropriately and violated the fundamental principle that law enforcement must be even-handed. The DoJ must always make clear that no person is above the law,” said Donald Ayer, deputy attorney general in the George HW Bush administration.
Ayer thinks there could be more revelations to come. “The latest disclosure of subpoenas issued almost three years ago shows we don’t yet know the full extent of the misconduct that was engaged in.”
. . . .
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Read the full article at the link. Once again, thanks to Don Ayer, a former colleague in both public and private practice, for speaking out!
Don Ayer American Lawyer Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Photo: www.ali.org
The record of anti-immigrant, White Nationalist bias at EOIR and the DOJ’s “Dred Scott” approach to justice for asylum applicants and other migrants is crystal clear! Thanks to the NDPA, courageous journalists, some “inside sources,” and the remarkable number of rebuffs from Federal Courts, the record on misfeasance and bias at EOIR, OIL, and the SG’s Office is clear.
For example, there is no “issue” that Sessions’s “child separation policy” violated the Constitution, that he and other Government officials like Rod Rosenstein and Kristen Nielsen lied about it ( ‘We Need to Take Away Children,’ No Matter How Young, Justice Dept. Officials Said
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/us/politics/family-separation-border-immigration-jeff-sessions-rod-rosenstein.html?referringSource=articleShare), and that the DOJ attorneys defending this abomination at least failed to do “due diligence” and probably misrepresented to Federal Courts.
In many illegal child separation cases, as the Biden Administration is discovering, the damage is irreparable! Yet, only the the victims have suffered! The “perps” go about their daily business without accountability!
Every day, Garland’s lackadaisical approach to restoring “justice @ Justice” and his apparent indifference to individual human rights and fair judging continue to harm vulnerable asylum seekers and other individuals and disintegrate our legal system. It’s “not OK!”
Progressives and members of the NDPA must recognize, if they haven’t already, that they can’t count on Garland! They will have to continue to use litigation, legislation, oversight, FOIA, public opinion, and political pressure to get the immediate common sense progressive reforms and overdue personnel changes that Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke are avoiding. Garland might view “justice” as too abstract a concept to require his immediate attention. Many of us don’t agree!
On June 16, Attorney General Merrick Garland finally, mercifully vacated three decisions that formed a key part of the Trump administration’s unrelenting attack on the law of asylum.1 Matter of A-B-, issued by Jeff Sessions in June 2018, took aim in particular at victims of domestic violence.2 Matter of L-E-A-, issued the following year by William Barr, sought to undermine protection for those targeted by gangs due to their familial ties.3 And on January 14, 2021, six days from the end of the Trump Administration, acting A.G. Jeffrey Rosen issued a second decision in A-B-, gratuitously criticizing the method for determining nexus in asylum claims employed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, while conveniently evading that court’s review of the original decision in the case through remand.4
Garland’s action restores the law to where it stood prior to June 11, 2018, but only for the time being. Proposed rules on the subject (which Garland referenced) are due by October 30, when they will first be subjected to a period of public comment. If final rules are eventually published, it will occur well into next year.
As we sigh in collective relief and celebrate the first steps towards correcting our asylum laws, let’s also take note of the imperfect place in which the case law stands at present.
As to domestic violence claims, the BIA’s 2014 decision in Matter of A-R-C-G- (which Matter of A-B- had vacated) has been restored as binding precedent.5 That decision was issued at a time when (as now) regulations addressing particular social groups were being contemplated by DHS and EOIR.6 While A-R-C-G- was an extremely welcome development, the Board used it to recognize a rather narrowly-defined group: “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship.” In a footnote to the decision, the Board declined to address the argument of several amici (including UNHCR) that a particular social group may be defined by gender alone. Although A-R-C-G- led to many grants of asylum, some immigration judges relied on the limited scope of the group’s definition to deny claims involving slightly broader variations, in particular, where the victim was not legally married, but nevertheless in a domestic relationship that she was unable to leave. While the BIA reversed some of those denials in unpublished decisions, it declined to speak to the issue through binding precedent.
As to Matter of L-E-A-, Garland’s recent action returns us to the BIA’s original opinion in that case.7 While the decision acknowledged that families constitute particular social groups (a point that was not in dispute, having been universally recognized for some 35 years and stipulated to by DHS), the BIA still denied asylum by invoking a legally incorrect standard for establishing nexus that it has continued to apply in all family-based asylum claims.
For these reasons, the content of the forthcoming regulations will be extremely important in determining the future of asylum in this country. While a return to the test for social group cognizability expressed in the BIA’s 1985 precedent in Matter of Acosta tops most regulation wish lists, I will focus the discussion here on a couple of more specific items necessary to correct the shortcomings of Matter of A-R-C-G- and Matter of L-E-A-.
First, the regulations need to explicitly recognize that a particular social group may be defined by gender alone. In its 2002 Gender Guidelines, UNHCR identified women “as a clear example of a social subset defined by innate and immutable characteristics, and who are frequently treated differently than men,” and whose “characteristics also identify them as a group in society, subjecting them to different treatment and standards in some countries.”8 However, over the nineteen years since those guidelines were issued, the BIA has consistently avoided considering the issue.
The peril of defining gender-based groups in the more narrow manner employed by the BIA has been addressed by two distinguished commentators, who explain that such practice results in “constant re-litigating of such claims,” sometimes creating “an obstacle course in which the postulated group undergoes constant redefinition.”9 And of course, that is exactly what has happened here, as A-R-C-G- gave way to A-B-, which led to differing interpretations among different courts until Garland’s recent reset. The above-mentioned commentators further decried the “nitpicking around the margins of the definition” resulting from the narrow approach when the true reason for the risk of persecution to the applicant “is simply her membership in the social group of ‘women.’”10 Regulations recognizing gender alone as a particular social group would thus provide clarity to judges and asylum officers, eliminate the wastefulness of drawn out litigation involving “nitpicking around the margins,” and bring our laws into line with international standards.
But as L-E-A- demonstrates, recognition of a group alone does not guarantee asylum protection. In order for a group’s recognition to be meaningful, the regs must also address an ongoing problem with the BIA’s method for determining nexus, or whether persecution is “on account of” the group membership.
The BIA is accorded deference by Article III courts when it reasonably interprets immigration laws, provided that the meaning of the language in question is ambiguous. However, the “on account of” standard included by Congress in defining the term “refugee” is quite clear; its meaning is long established, and in fact, is not particular to immigration law.
The Supreme Court referenced this standard last year in a non-immigration case, Bostock v. Clayton County. The Court explained that the test
incorporates the “‘simple’” and “traditional” standard of but-for causation…. That form of causation is established whenever a particular outcome would not have happened “but for” the purported cause….In other words, a but-for test directs us to change one thing at a time and see if the outcome changes. If it does, we have found a but-for cause.11
In a 2015 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit applied this exact test in the asylum context to conclude that persecution was on account of family, determining that the petitioner’s “relationship to her son is why she, and not another person, was threatened with death if she did not allow him to join Mara 18.”12 But for some reason, the BIA has felt entitled to reject this established standard outside of the Fourth Circuit in favor of its own excessively restrictive one.
Had the proper test for nexus been employed in L-E-A-, asylum would have been granted. Under the facts of that case, once the familial relationship is removed from the equation, the asylum-seeker’s risk ceases to exist. However, the BIA instead imposed an incorrect test for nexus requiring evidence of an “animus against the family or the respondent based on their biological ties, historical status, or other features unique to that family unit.”13
As a former circuit court judge, Garland is particularly qualified to recognize the error in the Board’s approach, as well as the need to correct its course. The problem is compounded by the particular composition of the BIA at present. For example, of the ten immigration judges who were promoted to the BIA during the Trump administration, nine denied asylum more than 90 percent of the time (with the tenth denying 85 percent of such claims). Three had an asylum denial rate in excess of 98 percent.14
This matters, as those high denial rates were achieved in part by using faulty nexus determinations to deny asylum in domestic violence claims, even before the issuance of Matter of A-B-. This was often accomplished by mischaracterizing the abuse as merely personal in nature, referencing only the persecutor’s generally violent nature or inebriated state. The analysis in those decisions did not further examine whether gender might also have been one central reason that the asylum seeker, and not someone else, was targeted.
One BIA Member appointed under Trump recently found no nexus in a domestic violence claim by concluding that the persecutor had not targeted the asylum seeker because of her membership in the group consisting of “women,” but rather because she was his woman. There is no indication in the decision that the Board Member considered why the persecutor might view another human being as belonging to him and lacking the same rights he seems to enjoy. Might it have been because of her gender?
Without a correction through published regulations, there is little reason to expect different treatment of these claims moving forward. Let’s hope that the Attorney General views his recent action as only the first steps on a longer path to a correct application of the law.
Copyright 2021, Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.
The regulations under consideration at that time were never issued.
27 I&N Dec. 40 (BIA 2017) (“L-E-A- I”).
UNHCR, Guidelines on International Protection: Gender-Related Persecution within the context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (May 2002) at para. 30.
James C. Hathaway and Michelle Foster, The Law of Refugee Status, Second Edition (Cambridge University Press, 2014) at 442.
Hathaway and Foster, supra.
Bostock v. Clayton County, 140 S.Ct. 1731, 1739 (2020).
Hernandez-Avalos v. Lynch, 784 F.3d 944, 950 (4th Cir. 2015).
Without progressive intervention, this is still headed for failure @ EOIR! A few things to keep in mind.
Former Attorney General, the late Janet Reno, ordered the same regulations on gender-based asylum to be promulgated more than two decades ago — never happened!
The proposed regulations that did finally emerge along the way (long after Reno’s departure) were horrible — basically an ignorant mishmash of various OIL litigation positions that would have actually made it easier for IJs to arbitrarily deny asylum (as if they needed any invitation) and easier for OIL to defend such bogus denials.
There is nobody currently at “Main Justice” or EOIR HQ qualified to draft these regulations! Without long overdue progressive personnel changes the project is almost “guaranteed to fail” – again!
Any regulations entrusted to the current “Miller Lite Denial Club” @ the BIA ☠️ will almost certainly be twisted out of proportion to deny asylum and punish women refugees, as well as deny due process and mock fundamental fairness. It’s going to take more than regulations to change the “culture of denial” and the “institutionalized anti-due-process corner cutting” @ the BIA and in many Immigration Courts.
Garland currently is mindlessly operating the “worst of all courts” — a so-called “specialized (not) court” where the expertise, independence, and decisional courage is almost all “on the outside” and sum total of the subject matter expertise and relevant experience of those advocating before his bogus “courts” far exceeds that of the “courts” themselves and of Garland’s own senior team! That’s why the deadly, embarrassing, sophomoric mistakes keep flowing into the Courts of Appeals on a regular basis.
No regulation can bring decisional integrity and expertise to a body that lacks both!
Any progressive who thinks Garland is going to solve the problem @ EOIR without “outside intervention” should keep this nifty “five month snapshot of EOIR under Biden” in mind:
Progressive judges appointed to BIA: 0
Progressive judges appointed to Immigration Court: 0
Progressives installed in leadership positions @ EOIR permanently or temporarily: 0
Billy Barr Selected Immigration Judges Appointed: 17
“Miller Lite” holdover individuals still holding key positions @ EOIR: many (only two removed to date)
Number of BIA precedents decided in favor of respondent: 2
Number of BIA precedents decided in favor of DHS: 9
That’s right, folks:Billy Barr and Stephen Millerhave had more influence and gotten more deference from Garland at EOIR than have the progressive experts and advocates who fought tirelessly to preserve due process and to get the Biden Administration into office. How does that a make sense?
“Miller Lite” – Garland’s Vision of “Justice @ Justice” for Communities of Color — Finally vacating two grotesquely wrong anti-female, anti-asylum precedents hasn’t ended the “Miller Lite Unhappy Hour” for migrants and their advocates at Garland’s foundering DOJ!
Progressives, advocates, and NGOs must keep raising hell until we finally get the “no-brainer,” long overdue, obvious, personnel, legal, structural, institutional, and cultural changes at EOIR that America needs! Waiting for Judge Garland to get around to it is like “Waiting for Godot!” Perhaps worse — I don’t recollect that anyone died waiting for Godot!
🇺🇸Due Process Forever! The BIA Denial Club, Never!🏴☠️
Family Pictures Nolan Rappaport Opinion Writer The Hill
Biden’s program for migrant children doesn’t go far enough
By Nolan Rappaport
Former President Barack Obama established the Central American Minors (CAM) Program in December 2014 to provide in-country refugee processing for children in the Northern Triangle Countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) as a safe, legal, and orderly alternative to them making the dangerous journey to the United States to apply for asylum.
But Obama only made the program available to Northern Triangle children who had a parent who was already physically present in the United States and had lawful status.
The Trump administration phased out the CAM program in fiscal 2018 because “the vast majority of individuals accessing the program were not eligible for refugee resettlement.”
On March 10, 2021, the Biden administration announced that it had restarted the CAM program to reunite children from the Northern Triangle countries with parents who are lawfully present in the United States. Biden also wants to save Northern Triangle children from having to make the dangerous journey to the United States in the hands of smugglers.
That’s a noble intent: The trip across the border is incredibly dangerous.
According to David Bier, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, this is a great improvement over requiring children to come to the United States in the hands of smugglers; however, it remains to be seen whether it will dissuade families from sending their children here with smugglers.
Biden’s CAM program may be more generous than the Obama administration’s CAM program, but I think Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was right when he observed that illegal crossings were not reduced when the Obama administration tried this program years ago, and there’s no reason to think it will have that effect now.
Moreover, Biden should know that his revised CAM program is not going to be an effective alternative to making the dangerous journey with smugglers. His administration has acknowledged that only 40 percent of the children from the Northern Triangle who were apprehended at the border this year had a parent in the United States.
I don’t understand why he didn’t make it available to all Northern Triangle children who have a persecution claim. He didn’t have to limit the program to children who have parents or guardians in the United States.
Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an Executive Branch Immigration Law Expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years. Follow him at https://nolanrappaport.blogspot.com
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Thanks, Nolan! Go on over to The Hill and read Nolan’s complete article.
Nolan’s proposal sure seems like good government and common sense to me. This expanded policy should be relatively non-controversial. Like Nolan, I don’t understand why the Biden Administration is “missing the obvious here.” Every step helps in better and more humanely managing Central American asylum applications. I’ll bet there are even qualified retired immigration officials from USCIS and Immigration Judges and BIA staff from DOJ who would be willing to return as “rehirees” and travel to Central America to work on a program like Nolan proposes.
Gotta “pick the low hanging fruit,” as Nolan suggests!
“The NTA sent to Villegas de Mendez does not contain the information required to trigger the stop-time rule. See id. at 1478-79, 1485; see also § 1229(a)(1)(A)-(G). Neither does the subsequent notice of hearing sent to her. Thus, she did not receive the “single compliant document” required by statute. Niz-Chavez, 141 S. Ct. at 1485. The BIA consequently abused its discretion by committing an error of law. See Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 100 (1996); Ramos-Portillo v. Barr, 919 F.3d 955, 958 (5th Cir. 2019); Milat v. Holder, 755 F.3d 354, 365 (5th Cir. 2014). Therefore, the petition for review is GRANTED and the case is REMANDED to the BIA for further consideration in light of Niz-Chavez, 141 S. Ct. 1474, and consistent with this judgment.”
One major problem with constantly going with DHS interpretations is that many are both legally wrong and practical disasters. After the initial Pereira v. Sessions debacle the BIA had a chance to solve the problem. Instead, undoubtedly spurred on by the “deny everything culture” promoted by the Trump regime’s White Nationalist agenda, the BIA chose the worst possible legal interpretation with disruptive practical implications. Any real immigration expert could have seen this coming!
When was the last time in a potential “Chevron-type” situation that the BIA or the AG adopted the migrant’s proffered interpretation rather than DHS’s? Yet even with all the (in my view highly inappropriate) advantages conferred on the Government by the Supremes’ intellectual indolence in Chevron and its absurdist companion “Brand X,” Article III Courts, including the Supremes, reject BIA/AG interpretations on a regular basis. Pereira and Niz-Chavez are just two of the most prominent recent examples.
Moreover, because neither the AGs nor the BIA are respected experts in immigration and human rights, and, shockingly, none have significant experience representing individuals in Immigration Court, the mis-interpretations that they choose are often impractical and unworkable. This, in turn leads to confusion, unnecessary remands, and unmanageable backlogs, not to mention patent injustice and deadly results for the mere humanscaught up in this ongoing disaster! This is what “Dred Scottifcation” is all about!
The case highlighted above should have been reopened in 2017. In a “real” court system, with qualified judges, professional administration, and no political interference, it could have been completed by now. Instead, it’s no closer to completion than it was four years ago!
But, lots of time and resources have been wasted in defending the BIA’s wrong attempt to deny reopening! This nonsense by the Government, NOT dilatory tactics by migrants and their attorneys trying to navigate this intentionally user-unfriendly and often illegal and illogical system, is what “builds backlog!”
Indeed, a wiser system would have turned preliminary adjudication of these cases over to USCIS so that only those that could not be granted and were not appropriate for prosecutorial discretion (“PD”) would have been sent to Immigration Court. Virtually none of the “non-LPR cancellation” cases are legitimate enforcement priorities. A similar approach was used with the NACARA program under better overall management.
Instead, as a result of poor BIA decision-making and even worse “leadership” at the Trump DOJ, this case is no closer to a final resolution than it was in 2017. And, DHS and EOIR still haven’t systemically corrected the completely fixable practical problems that generated Pereira and Niz-Chavez in the first place. Nor have Garland and Mayorkas announced systemic plans for removing the unnecessary “cancellation backlog” from Immigration Court dockets even though they would be “low priorities” for ICE under the criteria announced by OPLA’s John Trasvina!
That’s why we have unmanageable backlogs! And they will continue until Garland cleans house at EOIR, brings in a diverse group of qualified expert judges, and empowers them to act independently, stand up to the frequent nonsense pushed by DHS, and “laser focus” on due process for individuals and instituting and enforcing best practices!
One of the most obvious of those “best practices,” totally missing from Garland’s mismanaged Immigration Courts to date, would be returning “docket control” to local Immigration Courts and ending the “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” by EOIR Headquarters and DOJ politicos that has helped generate the out of control backlog.
Many cancellation of removal cases could and should be “administratively closed.” But, inexplicably, Garland has yet to revoke Sessions’s ridiculously wrong Matter of Castro-Tum, and restore to Immigration Judges their power to administratively close cases. That’s notwithstanding that Castro-Tum has been rejected in whole or in part by every Circuit Court of Appeals to consider it.
How long is Garland going to continue to “sponsor” inferior, non-independent, pro-DHS “judging” and amateurish, politicized mismanagement that is destroying our entire legal system?
This appears to be Judge Garland’s vision of “justice” for migrants and people of color @ Bailey’s Crossroads. Isn’t it time to put the past behind us and move forward with housecleaning and reforms at EOIR? Ask Judge Garland “What are you thinking, man?” Is this YOUR vision of due process and expert “judging?” — Public Realm
Thamotar v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 11th Cir., 06-17-21, Published
PANEL: WILSON, JILL PRYOR and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.
OPINION: JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judge
KEY QUOTE:
Visavakumar Thamotar, a Sri Lankan citizen of Tamil ethnicity, seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order affirming an Immigration Judge’s discretionary denial of his application for asylum and grant of withholding of removal. Mr. Thamotar argues that because removal was withheld, federal regulation 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(e)1 required reconsideration of his asylum claim, which the Immigration Judge and BIA failed to give. We agree with Mr. Thamotar that the agency failed to conduct the proper reconsideration. When an asylum applicant is denied asylum but granted withholding of removal, 8 C.F.R.
§ 1208.16(e) requires reconsideration anew of the discretionary denial of asylum, including addressing reasonable alternatives available to the petitioner for family reunification.2 And where the Immigration Judge has failed to do so, the BIA must remand for the Immigration Judge to conduct the required reconsideration.
Here, the Immigration Judge failed to reconsider Mr. Thamotar’s asylum claim under § 1208.16(e). The BIA’s failure to remand on this issue was therefore
1 Mr. Thamotar refers to both 8 C.F.R. §§ 208.16(e) and 1208.16(e) in his briefing. The two provisions are identical in substance, but § 1208.16(e) specifically applies to the BIA (and Immigration Judges) because of the enactment of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-296, tit. IV, subtits. D, E, F, 116 Stat. 2135, 2192 (Nov. 25, 2002) (as amended), and the promulgation of final rule 68 Fed. Reg. 9823, effective February 28, 2003. 68 Fed. Reg. 9823, 9824–25, 9834 (Feb. 28, 2003); see Huang v. INS, 436 F.3d 89, 90 n.1 (2d Cir. 2006) (discussing this legislative history). For consistency, we will refer only to 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(e).
2 Because we vacate the BIA’s order on this ground, we do not address Mr. Thamotar’s additional challenges to the order, which included that the BIA erred by affirming the Immigration Judge’s adverse credibility determination, which he contends was not supported by substantial evidence, and relying on his method of entry into the United States when affirming the Immigration Judge’s decision.
2
USCA11 Case: 19-12019 Date Filed: 06/17/2021 Page: 3 of 32
manifestly contrary to law and an abuse of discretion. It is clear that neither the Immigration Judge nor the BIA conducted the proper reconsideration because the record contained no information about Mr. Thamotar’s ability to reunite with his family, information that the agency must review under § 1208.16(e). Thus, the BIA should have remanded the case for further factfinding. We grant the petition, vacate the BIA’s order, and remand to the BIA with instructions to remand to the Immigration Judge for reconsideration of the discretionary denial of asylum.
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Lots of work for a bogus asylum denial by EOIR! And the utter nonsense isn’t over! Just a “remand” to give EOIR yet another chance to deny for specious reasons (as they have already done twice). Thisidiocy will continue until Judge Garland replaces the BIA with real judges who will properly, fairly, and timely apply the law and regulations!
The poor analysis of the IJ, mindlessly affirmed by the BIA, failed to come anywhere close to the “most egregious adverse factors” requirement of the BIA’s own precedent in Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357, 367 (BIA 1996):
A grant of asylum to an eligible applicant is discretionary. The final issue is whether the applicant merits a favorable exercise of discretion. The danger of persecution will outweigh all but the most egregious adverse factors. Matter of Pula, 19 I&N Dec. 467, 474 (BIA 1987).
Get this, folks! The IJ and the BIA both found that meeting the higher standard for withholding of deportation based on probability of persecution somehow was an “adverse factor” that outweighed family separation! That’s right, an “adverse factor!”
I can’t imagine how this gang of so-called “judges, got through law school and admitted to the bar! Maybe “imposters” took their exams for them! THIS is the best American justice has to offer? If not, why are they making life or death decisions and imposing potential permanent family separation on refugees?
Notwithstanding the assembly line climate and lackadaisical approach to law in Garland’s Immigration “Courts,” these are NOT TRAFFIC COURTS! They are more like “death penalty courts” or “courts of last resort” and those humans appearing before them and their representatives deserve better.
Judge Garland and his team should hypothesize that this type of inferior justice were being meted out in life or death cases to THEIR FAMILY MEMBERS AND LOVED ONES — actual human beings, NOT “just migrants” who, according to Garland’s EOIR, appear to exist in a twilight zone beneath the rest of humanity. That’s what the ongoing “Dred Scottification of the other” still being permitted andpromoted by Garland at DOJ is all about!
A fitting celebration of the first Federal Juneteenth Holiday would have been to remove the entire BIA so that they can no longer inflict “Dred Scottification” on migrants of color, their families, their friends, and their communities, among others! Symbolism is only effective if followed by action. And, so far, Garland’s actions on wiping out the “vestiges of Dred Scott at Justice” have fallen woefully short!
This raises serious, unaddressed questions of why such weakly qualified individuals are on the bench in the first place when there are many immigration experts out there who can and would do better. Much better!And it wouldn’t take them years and multiple hearings, appeals, and trips to the Circuit to grant asylum.
This isn’t a “deep” case except that it represents the “deep dodo” 💩 at EOIR, the stench of which is fouling our entire justice system and shaking the foundations of our democracy! This case is about following the Code of Federal Regulations, properly applying precedent, and fairly treating asylum seekers. It’s “Law 101” — things L-1s would have to know to get to L-2! I can’t begin to think what the paper would look like like if one of my students gave me this kind of garbage on a final exam. Fortunately, to date, nobody ever has!
Those who want a more complete run down of the ongoing “Atlanta disgrace” — a cancer on our justice system — should just go to the “Atlanta Immigration Court” tab on immigrationcourtside.com. There is more than enough compiled to have triggered an investigation, removals from office, and corrective action in a functioning Government! And my collection is just “the tip of the iceberg” on what has been written about the disgraceful, systemic denial of fairness, impartiality, and justice in Atlanta!
And, why was OIL defending this ridiculous mess in the first place? It’s a “comedy” of errors, questionable ethics, and amateurish legal work that the DOJ should be ashamed of and which Garland should end — NOW! No wonder this ridiculous national embarrassment has created an unnecessary 1.3 million case backlog that continues to grow under Garland!
Don’t let Garland or anyone else in the Administration tell you that this self-created backlog justifies a truncation of due process or more “bogus attempts to expedite” asylum cases. NO! What it requires is for Garland to bring in real judges and experts from the private/NGO sector to fix the Immigration Courts so they comply with due process and fundamental fairness!
Judge Garland, “come on man!” These deadly robed clowns and their “defenders” represent YOU — “the top legal officer in our Executive Branch!” YOU have a responsibility to the American people (NOT just the failed DOJ or the President) to “get out the big hook” and “yank” these anti-due process, anti-immigrant, anti-asylum, anti-racial-justice clowns 🤡 off YOUR bench and replace them with competence and fairness. A little (now missing) diversity wouldn’t hurt either! It’s called fulfilling the promises made by Biden and Harris during the election!
It’s not going to improve until Garland replaces the BIA with qualified judges, hires only Immigration Judges who know how to fairly adjudicate asylum cases, (with outstanding public reputations for fairness, scholarship, timeliness, teamwork, and respect), and AAG Vanita Gupta brings in better leadership at OIL to put an end to this tragic, totally unnecessary, disgracefully wasteful abuse of our Federal Judicial system and the resulting human carnage!
NDPA warriors, don’t be fooled or lured into complacency by this week’s long overdue positive developments in A-B- and L-E-A- — things that experts said should have been done by Judge Garland on “Day 1.” Keep showing your total dis-satisfaction and disgust with the glacial pace of reform at DOJ and the myriad of highly unqualified “judges” still being allowed to continue to inflict racial injustice and “worst imaginable practices” on vulnerable individuals (and their lawyers) who are entitled to due process and justice — not a continuing deadly ☠️ clown 🤡 show! Keep letting Garland, Monaco, Gupta, Clarke, Biden, Harris, Congress, the Article IIIs, and the American people know that “The EOIR Clown Show Has Got To Go!” NOW! There will be neither racial justice nor equal justice for all in America (wake up, Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke) while Garland operates his “star chamber courts” at EOIR!
Hi, Judge Garland! This is how “justice” is administered in the 11th Circuit Immigration Cours and at the Bailey’s Crossroads’ Tower. Glad you like it! I guess the screams of the innocent can’t be heard across the river! Not even sure why you would need a law school degree to be “judges” in your EOIR star chambers. It’s really just about dehumanization, degradation, and “productivity!” — Public realm
🇺🇸Due Process Forever! Garland’s “Asylum Free Zones,” Never!
“O.K., that’s like saying, ‘Stay home and die,’” according to the Rev. Pat Murphy, a Scalabrini priest who runs the Casa del Migrante shelter in Tijuana, Baja California. “That message is falling on deaf ears.”
