🇺🇸🗽IMMIGRATION HISTORY: CATHERINE E. SOICHET @ CNN: Looking Back At The Bracero Program: “Legalized Slavery!”

CATHERINE E. SHOICHET
Catherine E. Shoichet
Senior Writer
CNN
PHOTO: CNN

Catherine writes:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/21/travel/braceros-landmark-texas-rio-vista-cec?cid=ios_app

(CNN) — Some of Sebastian Corral’s memories have faded. But the 91-year-old remembers his 1953 arrival in the US as if it were yesterday.

How workers like him were forced to strip naked and sprayed with insecticide.

How their hands were inspected to make sure they were qualified for the hard labor that awaited them.

How unwelcome he and so many others felt even though they’d been invited across the border by the US government.

“You felt humiliated. You felt like you were nothing, even though you’d come to work and lift yourself up,” Corral told CNN in a recent interview via Zoom from his home in Vado, New Mexico.

Memories of those first moments in America came rushing back for Corral this month during a dramatically different visit to the place where he took his first steps in the country more than 70 years ago.

This time, officials were unveiling plaques designating the former Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center in Socorro, Texas, as a National Historic Landmark. And Corral was a guest of honor.

. . . .

Today, he describes the long journey that began at Rio Vista with pride:

“I came as a bracero. After being a bracero, then I was illegal for some years. After being illegal, then I was a permanent resident. Now I am a citizen.”

In some ways, Rio Vista wasn’t like Corral remembered when he returned this month. The buildings were more worn-down — some “pure ruins,” Corral says. But what Corral noticed most wasn’t the buildings; it was how differently he felt being there.

“I was not the same person as before,” he says.

So much had changed since those first days when he was a young man waiting for a rancher to arrive at Rio Vista with work.

He’d harvested cotton, and driven tractors, and picked beets and cucumbers as a bracero. He’d lived in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Texas during his years in the program. Once, an El Paso restaurant had refused to serve him because he was Mexican. He’d been an undocumented immigrant for decades. He’d washed dishes and prepped food in a Los Angeles restaurant. He’d worked at dairy farms in California. He’d become a legal resident after President Reagan signed a law granting him and millions of others amnesty. He’d finally brought his wife and children to the US after years of separation. He’d saved enough money to buy land for all of them to build homes nearby. He’d had 14 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.

And just two years ago, he’d finally become a US citizen after decades of knowing he was American, nearly 70 years after his first arrival in the United States.

All of this went through Corral’s mind as he revisited Rio Vista on May 11. And in the mix of emotions that hit him, he felt anger at some points, but also, contentment.

Some of the buildings around him were in ruins as they awaited renovation. But Corral was standing in the Rio Vista courtyard with generations of his family beside him.

And he saw something else: the life that he built.

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

Read the complete story at the link.

The thing that stands out time after time: The strength, character, and triumph of individual immigrants over laws and actions often intended to exploit, dehumanize, and/or discourage them!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-29-24

🤐 “McNULTY UKASE” DRAWS HARSH CRITICISM FROM OSC, HILL, CONTINUES TO ROIL GARLAND’S DOJ! 🤯

"Gagged"
“Gagged”
Garland’s DOJ has taken extreme steps to stop Immigration Judges from publicly criticizing his dysfunctional Immigration Courts!
PHOTO: Public Domain via Creative Commons

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/12/gag-orders-federal-workers-whistleblowers-nda/

Joe Davidson, “Federal Insider,” from p. 2 of today’s WashPost (print edition):

. . . .

In a February email to New York-based immigration Judge Mimi Tsankov, the union president, and Judge Samuel Cole, the union’s executive vice president in Chicago, Sheila McNulty, the chief immigration judge in the department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), said they are prohibited from making public statements “without supervisory approval and any Speaking Engagement Team review your supervisor believes necessary.”

That warning came after Tsankov in October told a Senate Judiciary immigration subcommittee hearing that “Democrat and Republican administrations share the failure of the DOJ’s immigration court management,” saying “immigration courts have faced structural deficiencies, crushing caseloads, and unacceptable backlogs for many years.” Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), NAIJ’s parent union, cited Tsankov’s congressional testimony as an example of giving “judges a voice” that’s now silenced.

McNulty referred to a controversial and hotly contested Trump administration action that led to the decertification of the immigration judges’ union, when she wrote “any bargaining agreement … that may have existed previously is not valid at present.”

On Nov. 2, 2020, the day before Trump, who waged war on federal unions, lost his reelection bid, the Federal Labor Relations Authority ruled that immigration judges are management employees precluded from union representation. That means, according to McNulty, they cannot speak out as union leaders because she considers their association to be a “group” and not a recognized labor organization. IFPTE has asked the Biden administration to reverse the immigration review office’s “inappropriate and misguided application of the agency speaking engagement policy.”

This must be an embarrassment to proudly pro-union President Biden, who reversed other anti-federal labor organization policies put in place under Trump.

McNulty’s action drew heated reaction from three Republicans who often vote against union interests. “The Committee takes seriously the Department’s effort to silence immigration judges,” wrote Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), chairmen of the House Judiciary Committee and its immigration subcommittee, respectively. In a letter to the attorney general, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said any effort “to silence immigration judges … is absolutely unacceptable.”

Grassley also noted that McNulty’s order “failed to include the anti-gag provision as required by law.”

That’s a key point in the Office of Special Counsel’s notice.

. . . .

[IFPTE President Matt] Biggs called the Justice Department office’s policy “an outrageous act of censure and an attack on freedom of the press and transparency.”

“Intentionally or not,” he added, the directive “resulted in a not-so-subtle message to rank-and-file immigration judges to think carefully before talking to congressional lawmakers as whistleblowers or otherwise.”

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

Hon. Mimi Tsankov
Hon. Mimi Tsankov
President, NAIJ — She “blew the whistle” on the continuing “bipartisan due process mess at EOIR” during recent Congressional testimony. Her “DOJ handlers” were not amused!

Read Joe’s complete column at the above link.

Both Parties, Congress, the Executive, and the Article III Courts share blame for the current untenable mess at EOIR, where Due Process, fundamental fairness, quality control, expertise, and practical efficiency are mere afterthoughts, at best! Although there is no sign that it will happen in the near future, the answer is clear and has been for decades: Congress must put aside partisan differences, stop “jockeying for advantage,” and create an independent Article I Immigration Court with a merit-based selection system for judges and professional court administration. Then, let the system work and the chips fall where they may!

You can’t “run” a court system like a “Vatican-style” bureaucratic agency! How many times does that have to be proved for Congress to finally act? Yes, it’s a “big deal!’ Probably the biggest, most widely ignored, most achievable, most important (millions of lives and futures are literally at stake here) piece of solving the “immigration puzzle!” 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-13-24

❤️MICHELLE N. MENDEZ: A HEARTFELT TRIBUTE TO THE KEY BRIDGE WORKERS!

Michelle N. Mendez
Michelle N. Mendez, ESQ
Director of Legal Resources and Training
National Immigration Project, National Lawyers Guild
PHOTO: NIPNLG

Michelle posted on LinkedIn:

The human beings who remain missing from the Francis Scott Key Bridge tragedy in Baltimore are all immigrants in their 30s and 40s from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, who had settled in local neighborhoods. They were fixing potholes at 1:30AM when a cargo ship struck and destroyed the bridge. Next time someone–including a presidential candidate who has caught over 100 criminal charges by this point–dehumanizes immigrants, remember these men and the children and spouses they leave behind. Remember the sacrifices that immigrant workers make day in and day out to ensure that our country runs.

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

Beautifully said, my friend!

Also, much gratitude 🙏 for the first responders whose quick thinking and actions to stop all bridge traffic before the fatal crash undoubtedly saved many lives and much more heartbreak. 

For those who want to contribute to the families of the lost workers, here’s a link to the Baltimore’s Civic Fund recently posted by Kelly White:

https://www.baltimorecivicfund.org/key-bridge-response-fund

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-31-24

⚖️⚔️🛡️ ROUND TABLE CHAMPIONS NAIJ, RIPS EOIR “GAG ORDER!” — PLUS, BONUS COVERAGE: “NAIJ Is An Essential Force For Judicial Independence!” — A “Mini-Essay” By Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase!

Round Table Logo

Round Table, Gag, Chase Essay

The Round Table of Former Immigration Judges Statement on EOIR’s Prior Restraint on NAIJ Speech

As former Immigration Judges and BIA Board Members we strongly protest the unconstitutional prior restraint imposed by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) which effectively silences the officers of the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) and prohibits them from providing information or engaging in advocacy involving the complex workings of our nation’s Immigration Court system. We call for immediate reversal of this misguided policy.

In late February 2024 EOIR advised NAIJ officers that they could not speak publicly without obtaining advance permission through the agency’s “”SET” (Speaking Engagement Team) process, a requirement which was never imposed before. This is a cumbersome, multistep process which requires Immigration Judges to seek permission from their supervisors, the SET unit, and sometimes even EOIR’s Ethics team and the Office of Policy. It provides no time frames for decisions nor any opportunity for review of adverse determinations. It is a process which is wildly incompatible with the practical realities involved in responding to media or congressional inquiries which often involve extremely short deadlines, sometimes mere hours or days. Mandating union officers use this process is a thinly disguised gag order.

This step is a dramatic departure from a precedent of more than 50 years, since NAIJ was established in 1973 and was never previously mandated to seek prior approval for appearances or speech. It ignores the uncontroverted fact that NAIJ officials scrupulously provide disclaimers indicating that they are not speaking on behalf of EOIR [or its parent, the Department of Justice (DOJ)] or articulating any position except that held by NAIJ members. It unfairly penalizes NAIJ officers who risk personal discipline for insubordination should they fail to comply but are then hampered in the duties owed to their union members when they remain silent.

NAIJ has played a pivotal role fostering the independence and increased professionalism of the Immigration Courts. It brought home to Congress the crucial function that IJs serve in the deportation and removal process, not as prosecutors but rather as neutral arbiters. This resulted in a change in job title from Special Inquiry Officer to Immigration Judge in 1996, with a concomitant enhanced special pay rate intended to broaden and improve the candidate pool for new judges. NAIJ was a crucial player in efforts to protect the independence of the Immigration

Courts in 2002 by leading the successful effort to keep the court independent from the newly created Department of Homeland Security despite strong opposition to that end by the administration and DOJ. At that time, NAIJ argued presciently that the establishment of an Article I Court was the only enduring way to safeguard the sanctity of these courts which hear “death penalty cases in a traffic court setting.” While NAIJ did not succeed in achieving that lofty goal then, legislation to do just that is currently pending in Congress, largely due to NAIJ’s tireless advocacy and coalition building. NAIJ’s voice in the media often stands alone explaining the practical implications of the complex workings of our immigration removal laws since DOJ eschews comments despite the American standard in jurisprudence which emphasizes transparency in its tribunals. NAIJ is the only spokesperson for IJs in the field, who have the first-hand view of court operations. Without NAIJ speech, no views from these benches in the trenches will be heard.

Perhaps worst of all, this policy deprives the American public of the views of an important, informed group which can shed light on the realities of the implementation of immigration laws and policy at a time when public scrutiny is at an all-time high and accurate factual information scarce. Under this new policy, NAIJ officers cannot even speak at educational or professional seminars or other public events without DOJ approval and instruction as to precisely what they can or cannot say.

Government employees do not surrender their First Amendment rights when they take office. To the contrary, their duty to educate the public is heightened and their voice enhanced by their informed opinions and expertise.

We urge EOIR to restore NAIJ’s important voice and revoke this new policy. ###

The Round Table of Former Immigration Judges is composed of 56 former Immigration Judges and Appellate Immigration Judges of the Board of Immigration Appeals. We were appointed and served under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Members of our group have served in training and management roles at EOIR. Several of our members were officers and leaders in NAIJ and were instrumental in guiding NAIJ to accomplish the achievements described above. Combined we have decades of experience and unique expertise in the immigration court system and the field of immigration law.

For media inquiries, please contact Hon. Dana Leigh Marks (ret.) at danamarks@pobox.com or (415) 577-9831

3/25/24

Hon. Diana Leigh Marks
Hon. Dana Leigh Marks
U.S. Immigration Judge (Retired)
San Francisco Immigration Court
Past President, National Association of Immigration Judges, Member Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

 

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

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

MINI-ESSAY: NAIJ IS AN ESSENTIAL FORCE FOR JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE

By Judge (Ret.) Jeffrey S. Chase

March 25, 2024

In Matter of A-R-C-G-, the BIA at footnote 16 recognized that AILA, UNHCR, and CGRS in their amicus briefs had all argued that gender alone should be sufficient to constitute a valid PSG in the matter. However, the Board chickened out, stating that because they were recognizing the narrower group stipulated to by DHS, “we need not reach this issue.”

I think the real proof of the validity of gender per se as a PSG is found in what happened after Sessions issued Matter of A-B-. With A-R-C-G- vacated, IJs all around the country began issuing detailed written decisions recognizing gender plus nationality, and explaining why such group met all of the legal requirements. This was done by IJs with very different grant rates, across different circuits, and included at least one ACIJ. And remember, this was done under an AG that clearly didn’t want IJs to reach that conclusion.

Which allows me to segue into our next issue: a major reason that IJs felt empowered to issue those decisions that were clearly not to the AG’s liking was due to the decades of effort by the NAIJ on behalf of judicial independence. Our public statement, prepared by our esteemed colleague Judge Dana Marks with input from others in our group, criticizing EOIR’s recent gag order on NAIJ officers, who for the first time will now be required to request agency permission to speak publicly, is a powerful reminder of the essential role played by NAIJ in protecting judicial independence, promoting due process and fundamental fairness, and, ultimately, saving lives of those seeking justice from our nation.

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

Thanks to Dana, “Sir Jeffrey,” and all our other wonderful Round Table colleagues for speaking out so forcefully in favor of due process for all and judicial independence!

NOTE: I am a proud retired member of the NAIJ.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-26-24

😘 NEW “DREAM TEAM” FOR EOIR REFORM? — Judge (Ret.) Dana Leigh Marks & Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)  Blast 💣Garland’s “Muzzling” Of NAIJ, Demand Change! 🤯

Star Chamber Justice
“Justice” —  While totally unjustifiable, it’s perhaps understandable why A.G. Merrick Garland wants to suppress criticism from IJs of his courts’ failure to provide due process and uphold the rights of asylum seekers at the border and elsewhere! It’s a major driver of disorder at the border!

Two items from the indomitable Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis:

  1. “LEXISNEXIS EXCLUSIVE: How Low Will They Go? – An Outraged Retired IJ Speaks (Because She Can)”

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/exclusive-hon-dana-leigh-marks-on-eoir-gag-order

Judge Marks says:

. . . .

This broad edict applies even when a judge seeks to speak at an event in their personal capacity and agrees to provide a clear disclaimer that the views expressed do not
reflect an official position of EOIR or DOJ. It means a judge cannot explain the basics of immigration law to a church group interested in sponsoring refugees or even a middle
school civics class. The application of this process to NAIJ officers ignores the well known fact that many reporters operate on deadlines of mere hours and do not provide their questions in advance. It is also hard to understand how EOIR dismisses the clear disclaimer, scrupulously provided, that NAIJ comments do not represent the Department’s views.

Perhaps most puzzling about this turn of events is how this step can be taken during the Biden administration, one which says it seeks to empower federal workers and their
unions. It is simply breathtaking in the worst of ways that the DOJ through EOIR is taking this step in clear violation of the First Amendment. The United States Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that federal employees don’t check their First Amendment rights at the door when they accept employment. To the contrary, the Court has
recognized the unique “special value” to the public of speech by public employees on matters related to their employment. In stark contrast to EOIR’s position, the Code of
Conduct for U.S. Judges affirmatively encourages federal judges to speak, write, lecture, teach and participate in other activities concerning the law, the legal system and
the administration of justice. And whatever happened to whistleblower protections? Are they suspended when they reveal information which can be viewed as critical of an agency?

In defense of its action, EOIR cites the tepid, generic excuse that it is merely promoting the efficiency of the service it is charged with performing. It asserts that using personal
capacity speech (as opposed to official speech by its designated spokespersons), even with a disclaimer, can have real adverse effects on the agency’s mission. It claims that
the SET process was established to promote public confidence in IJ impartiality, despite clear Supreme Court guidance that judicial partiality is narrowly defined as a lack of bias
for or against a party in the proceeding. If that is not clear enough, that standard was set forth in a decision which protected the rights of judicial candidates to announce their
views on disputed legal or political issues, a bridge NAIJ officers never cross because NAIJ is a nonpolitical professional organization whose members’ personal viewpoints
span the spectrum.

EOIR’s gag order against NAIJ officers is an outrageous and dangerous policy that should not go unnoticed and unremedied. Those of us who can speak must speak out
and take action to prevent this policy change from being continued.”

The Honorable Dana Leigh Marks (retired) served as an Immigration Judge in San Francisco from January 1987 until December 2021. During her tenure she was an active member of NAIJ from the start, serving seven two-year terms as President and two two-year terms as Vice President. Since ending her term as president in 2017 she has served as President Emerita of NAIJ. The opinions expressed here are her personal ones and are not intended to set forth the formal position of NAIJ on the matters discussed. To hear their views, you will have to contact its officers. Uh oh. I guess you can’t…….

Hon. Diana Leigh Marks
Hon. Dana Leigh Marks
Retired U.S. Immigration Judge
Past President, National Association of Immigration Judges, Member of The Round Table of  Former IJs.

2. ACROSS THE BOARD OUTRAGE: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) Sends Garland Scathing Letter: “Completely Unacceptable!”

https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/grassley_to_doj_-_eoir_disclosures_to_congress.pdf

I write to you regarding concerning allegations that the Biden Justice Department is unlawfully attempting to prohibit its employees from making legally protected disclosures to Congress. It’s been reported that the Justice Department Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) Chief Immigration Judge Sheila McNulty issued an order on February 15, 2024, prohibiting immigration judges from speaking publicly without prior agency approval.1 The news report claims that the issuance of this order comes as some immigration judges have spoken out publicly on significant case backlogs at the immigration court, testified before Congress, participated in panel discussions, and made themselves available to the media.2 It’s been reported that the order prohibits immigration judges from speaking with Congress without prior agency approval, and it’s speculated that Chief Immigration Judge McNulty issued this directive in response to the testimony Immigration Judge Mimi Tsankov gave before Congress last fall.3 In that October 18, 2023, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Tsankov said that the Justice Department lacked leadership and was ineffective in its management of the immigration courts.4 It’s critically important that immigration judges communicate with Congress particularly when the Biden administration’s leadership and policy failures have created an unprecedented immigration crisis at our Southern Border. If the allegations that the Justice Department has sought to silence immigration judges from communicating with and testifying before Congress are true and accurate, the Biden Justice Department’s conduct is absolutely unacceptable.

. . . .

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)Official Photo
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Official Photo

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

Read the full statements of Judge Marks and Sen.Grassley at the links above.

Thanks for speaking out, Dana, my friend and Round Table colleague! As Dana points out, the Speaking Engagement Team (“SET”) process acts to deter IJs from public speaking at educational and other events. It’s an example of how within DOJ, EOIR “management” gets sidetracked with creating unnecessary bureaucratic “gatekeepers” and “handlers” rather than focusing on due process, fundamental fairness, best practices, and quality control! Those are the things that are broken at EOIR.

The idea that the SET is “necessary” to promote “public confidence in IJ impartiality,” is preposterous in light of the growing body of documentation of racism, anti-immigrant bias, and defective decision-making within Garland’s dysfunctional courts. For sure, EOIR has an extreme “public confidence and institutional bias problem!” But, it’s got nothing to do with the NAIJ speaking to Congress or in any other public forum. Ask the good folks over at the Ohio Immigrant Alliance who just issued a scathing report on racism and other grotesque institutional abuses going on at EOIR on Garland’s watch! See https://immigrationcourtside.com/2024/03/06/%f0%9f%a4%90-busted-eoir-squelches-ijs-union-administration-moves-to-silence-outspoken-uncensored-critic-of-dysfunctional-court-system-news-comes-on-heels-of/.

Also, well-known immigration commentator Nolan Rappaport provided the following helpful resource on Federal employee rights to communicate with Congress:

https://www.justsecurity.org/66433/know-your-rights-conversations-with-congress/

More “Unforced Errors” By Garland

Here’s what Garland should be doing to promote “order at the border:”

  • Prioritize fairness and efficiency in asylum and immigration court adjudications.

  • Respect and maintain the fundamental right of migrants to seek asylum at the border, regardless of manner of entry or transit.

https://wp.me/p8eeJm-9PM

Instead, Garland, once again, has unnecessarily and incompetently, stepped into a “hornet’s nest!” And, the Biden Administration, inexplicably and indolently, has allowed him to do so.  Sen.Grassley is “spot on” in this letter. And, that’s something I don’t often say. 

Now, if the Senator will just call up his colleague Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and get behind the Article I legislation effort, the problem can be solved in a bipartisan manner that will give a huge boost to the quality of justice in America! The evidence that EOIR is not “viable” within DOJ or any other Executive Agency is overwhelming. This is just a graphic illustration of why we need the Article I change that Judge Mimi Tsankov, (Ret) Judge Dana Marks, and many other experts and legislators have been supporting before Congress and in other public forums! See, e.g.https://youtu.be/MEJ093pDGI4%C2%A0.

In the interim, the Administration should immediately appoint an “Immigration Czar” and expert task force along the lines recommended by Heidi Altman of NIJC to supersede Garland’s and Mayorkas’s incompetent and damaging “management” of existing migration programs and policies and lay the groundwork for a smooth transition to Art 1. https://wp.me/p8eeJm-9PM.

DISCLOSURE: I am a proud retired member of the NAIJ.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever

PWS

03-14-24

😎⚖️🗽

🤯 CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: BIDEN IS FAR, FAR, FAR BETTER THAN TRUMP ON THE ECONOMY BY ANY OBJECTIVE MEASURE — TRUMP’S “PLATFORM” — INCLUDING ATTACKING MIGRANTS — WOULD BOOST INFLATION & IMPEDE ECONOMIC GROWTH! — “Wait until you see what [deporting the workforce] does to produce prices.”

Catherine Rampell
Catherine Rampell
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post
PHOTO: Linkedin

Catherine writes:

. . . .

Perhaps most distressing for Democrats, when survey respondents are asked to rate Biden against the likely GOP presidential nominee, Biden fares poorly.

They remember the economy under Trump as being much better than the economy is today, CBS polling found. The last year of Trump’s presidency, when unemployment reached its highest level since the Great Depression, apparently doesn’t count, or has been forgotten.

Voters are also more than twice as likely to say that Trump’s policies helped them personally as they are about Biden’s work, the New York Times-Siena poll found.

And when asked whether a second term from either candidate would lead prices to go up or down, voters are more than twice as likely to believe Trump would push prices down as they are for Biden, per the CBS poll.

This is astounding. Leaving aside the faulty premise of that question — the overall price level almost never goes down; it merely rises more slowly — Trump’s policy agenda would likely worsen inflation. Why? Consider his main economic proposals:

• An additional 10 percent tax on all global imports, plus 60 percent on Chinese goods. As I’ve cited before, four separate studies found that the costs of Trump’s prior tariffs were borne mostly or entirely by Americans via higher prices.

• A reduction in the labor supply by slashing levels of both illegal and legal immigration. For instance, Trump would not only deport much of the agricultural workforce that’s undocumented; he also plans to dismantle the visa program that allows seasonal agricultural workers to come here legally. Wait until you see what that does to produce prices.

• Expansions of the federal deficit through more unfunded cuts to corporate and capital gains taxes (both of which disproportionately affect higher earners). Federal spending would likely rise, too, based on Trump’s (pre-pandemic) record.

• Kneecapping the Federal Reserve, the politically independent agency tasked with maintaining price stability.

Whatever you think of Biden’s record on inflation — and I have some grumbles, mostly related to Biden’s refusal to reverse his predecessor’s policies — each of Trump’s proposed measures would make inflation worse on the margin.

Don’t take my word for it. Analysts at Evercore ISI, an investment banking firm, recently analyzed the first three items above and forecast that another Trump term (relative to another Biden term) would likely require higher interest rates to counteract inflationary pressures. Likewise, Goldman Sachs Economic Research recently wrote a note to clients warning that the potential politicization of the Fed under another Trump administration would raise inflation risks.

Trump has claimed that economic and financial improvements thus far (including record-high stock markets under Biden) are because of his influence, or at least anticipation of his return. This is ludicrous, yet a large portion of the public seems receptive to this message — amnesiac about how he ended his presidency and blissfully unaware of what he’d do if granted another term.

This should be a wake-up call for journalists, who must do a better job of explaining the policy choices Americans face. It’s also a warning for voters, who must think through those choices more critically.

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

Read Catherine’s full column at the link.

It appears that many of those polled don’t WANT to understand the realities of the economy. They prefer to regurgitate fictional “sound bites” fed to them by MAGA and the media!☹️ 

That Biden is head and shoulders above Trump on the economy should be little surprise despite “popular myths” and “false narratives” of GOP economic success. Historically, “By virtually every objective measure, Democrats do better. It’s not even close. So why doesn’t America know it?” https://newrepublic.com/article/166274/economy-record-republicans-vs-democrats.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-07-24

👦🏽⚒️ 🤯 THE U.S. HAS A BIG CHILD LABOR PROBLEM: Stephanie Canizales & Jen Podkul Have Solutions! — Hint: Deportations, Detentions, Separtions, Weakening Child Labor Laws, Border Militarization AREN’T Helping! — “Children’s futures are under threat in the U.S., and stalled immigration policy is a culprit.”☠️

 

Stephanie L. CanizalesAssistant Professor of Sociology U of Cal. - Merced PHOTO: UCM
Stephanie L. Canizales
Assistant Professor of Sociology
U of Cal. – Merced
PHOTO: UCM

Stephanie writes in the LA Times:

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-10-26/immigration-policy-child-migrants-labor

. . . .

The stories of child migrant laborers are harrowing. They take on late-night, early-morning or 12-hour shifts that keep them out of school. They work on farms, at garment and food manufacturing factories as well as meat and processing plants, in construction and sawmills — often dangerous jobs with few protections.

Despite media portrayals of this system as a new economy, historian Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez has documented that the success of industries such as agriculture, manufacturing and construction in the Southwest relied on child labor as far back as the early 20th century. My dad arrived in Los Angeles from El Salvador as a 17-year-old in the 1970s. He immediately became a garment worker in denim factories across downtown Los Angeles and later installed carpet for a man who refused to pay him.

Los Angeles remains a center for this problem. My research studies the lives of undocumented young adults who arrived in the U.S. as unaccompanied minors from 2003 through 2013 and now live in L.A. I’ve spoken to children who have worked in garment factories that sew clothes for companies including Forever 21, J. Crew and Old Navy. Others worked in hotels such as the Ritz Carlton downtown or cleaned the homes of the rich and famous as live-in domestic workers.

Given my research focus, I often get asked what the government is doing about this child labor epidemic and what regular people can do about it. My response: It depends how far you want to go.

Perhaps counterintuitively to many Americans, part of the equation is paying attention to these youth before they cross our border by granting them what anthropologist Lauren Heidbrink and other scholars identify as “el derecho a no migrar” — the right not to migrate. 

Young people need alternatives to migration to make a living. That shouldn’t mean aiding foreign governments in deporting migrants, as the Biden administration recently pledged to aid Panama’s government. It should mean investing in community-based programming to integrate children into their home society, such as Colectivo Vida Digna in Guatemala, which aims to reduce youth migration by supporting Indigenous teens and their families in reclaiming Indigenous cultural practices and strengthening communities so they can build futures without leaving their home country.

Even with those programs, some children will migrate to the U.S. and need shielding from exploitation. That may sound uncontroversial in theory, but the current policy landscape shows little willingness to widen the social safety net in practice, even for children and youth.

Take, for example, that last month a federal judge ruled illegal, but declined to end, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program implemented by executive order in 2012 that offers work authorization and a stay on deportation for undocumented youth brought to the U.S. as children. Courts have debated the policy for more than a decade, and with the Supreme Court expected to review the policy a third time, even these longtime U.S. residents — once touted by President Obama as “talented, driven, patriotic young people” — are left in limbo.

Then there’s the immigration program meant to provide vulnerable immigrant children a path to lawful residence and citizenship: the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status designation created in 1990. A recent report found that it has produced “avoidable delays, inconsistent denial rates, and a growing backlog” of petitioners, putting unaccompanied youth’s lives “on hold” and leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

All the while, states across the U.S. are actively moving to weaken child labor laws for all children, immigrants or not.

Children’s futures are under threat in the U.S., and stalled immigration policy is a culprit. Protecting children and child workers requires moving forward on immigration. Failing to do so may haunt us for generations to come.

Stephanie L. Canizales is an assistant professor of sociology at UC Merced.

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

Jennifer Podkul
Jennifer Podkul
Vice President of Policy & Advocacy
Kids In Need of Defense (“KIND”)
PHOTO: Momsrising.com

Jen writes in WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/26/legal-protection-children-exploitation/

October 26, 2023 at 1:58 p.m. ET

The figures in the Oct. 20 news article “Child labor violations soar in FY 2023” were staggering and all too familiar in my work with unaccompanied children, who are particularly vulnerable to exploitative labor conditions. Overnight shifts operating heavy machinery at slaughterhouses are not jobs or roles for any child.

To prevent this exploitation of unaccompanied children, we need to ensure existing laws are enforced, including child labor standards put forth by the Labor Department. Additionally, the Department of Health and Human Services should work toward ensuring every unaccompanied child is provided legal counsel as set out in the Fair Day in Court for Kids Act, recently introduced by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii).

As we’ve seen from experience, a lawyer can be one of the few trusted adults in the life of a child who is experiencing exploitation. Attorneys help unaccompanied children understand their rights against abuse and access a fair chance to make their case for U.S. protection, which can lead to the ability to apply for legal and safe employment. Most unaccompanied children do not have this elemental protection.

Jennifer Podkul, Washington

The writer is vice president of policy and advocacy for Kids in Need of Defense.

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

Read Stephanie’s full op-ed at the above link. Many thanks to both of these experts for speaking out on this tragic, solvable, yet widely ignored by the pols and the media, issue!

For what it’s worth, one enforcement measure that Nolan Rappaport and I have agreed upon and pushed in our respective commentary has been better enforcement of labor laws. See, e.g.,  https://immigrationcourtside.com/2018/06/06/nolans-latest-in-the-hill-undocumented-immigrants-shouldnt-replace-legal-ones/. Seems like it should be a “no-brainer first step” that doesn’t require major legislative changes. 

Another outspoken supporter of the right of all children not to be exploited is my friend Rep.Hillary Scholten (D-MI)! See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/02/28/⚖️-tackling-the-problem-in-fiery-🔥-floor-speech-rep-hillary-scholten-d-mi-demands-action-against-migrant-child-labor-these-are-my-kids-re/.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-27-23

 

⚖️👩🏻‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️ NAIJ’s HON. MIMI TSANKOV & HON. SAMUEL COLE HEADLINE SESSION ON BACKLOG & CRISIS IN U.S. IMMIGRATION COURTS @ NATIONAL PRESS CLUB — Wed. Oct. 18  @ 10:00 AM EDT!

Honorable Mimi Tsankov
Honorable Mimi Tsankov
U.S. Immigration Judge
President, National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”)
Hon. Samuel B. Cole
Hon. Samuel B. Cole
Executive Vice President
NAIJ
PHOTO: NAIJ

Federal immigration judges Mimi Tsankov and Samuel B. Cole to address immigration courts backlog at Headliners Newsmaker, Oct. 18

October 16, 2023, 5:13 pm

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Judges Mimi Tsankov, a federal immigration judge in New York City, and Samuel B. Cole, a federal immigration judge in Chicago, will speak Wednesday, Oct. 18 at 10 a.m. at a National Press Club Headliners news conference about the pressures of the migrant crisis on the federal immigration court system.

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NATIONAL PRESS CLUB LOGO. (PRNewsFoto/NATIONAL PRESS CLUB) (PRNewsfoto/National Press Club) (PRNewsfoto/National Press Club)

An unprecedented surge in migration has created a backlog of 2.6 million cases in the nation’s immigration courts resulting in long waits for hearings. Among other topics, the judges will address the recent assignment of judges to areas along the border. They will provide an update on the judges’ union efforts to restore rights lost during the previous administration.

Federal immigration judges are generally barred from speaking out on issues that affect their courts. Tsankov and Cole will speak in their capacity as president and executive vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), an affiliate of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE).

The National Press Club is located on the 13th Floor of the National Press Building at 529 14th St., NW, Washington, D.C.

PRESS CONTACT: Cecily Scott Martin for the National Press Club; cscottmartin@press.org; (202) 662-7525

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Cision

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/federal-immigration-judges-mimi-tsankov-and-samuel-b-cole-to-address-immigration-courts-backlog-at-headliners-newsmaker-oct-18-301958051.html

SOURCE National Press Club

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

The dysfunctional U.S. Immigration Courts are the where “the rubber hits the road” for American justice — the “retail level” of our court system. Deterioration of individual rights in the U.S. legal system for immigrants, people of color, women, non-Christian religious minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community can all be traced to antecedents in the “too often due process and common sense free zone” of EOIR courts held “captive” within our DOJ. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/10/08/%f0%9f%a4%af-jason-the-asylumist-dzubow-explores-the-incredible-exploding-asylum-backlog-predictably-eoirs-aimless-docket-reshuffling/

Yet, the mainstream media, Democrats, Civil Rights organizations, and commentators often pay scant attention to the outrageous dehumanizing chaos in our Immigration Courts. One contributing factor is that the DOJ has “muzzled” Immigration Judges from speaking out publicly about what’s happening in their courts, a questionable 1st Amendment suppression that a Federal District Judge recently “shrugged off.” See, e.g., https://knightcolumbia.org/cases/naij-v-neal.

This is a rare opportunity for the public to get insights on this critically important yet “below the radar screen court system” from two sitting judges. They apparently have “sidestepped” the DOJ’s censorship by appearing “solely in their capacity as officers of the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”).” (Full disclosure: I am a retired NAIJ member.)

The NAIJ strives to provide professional training, encouragement of best practices, more independence, better working conditions, and more cooperation with parties appearing before the Immigration Courts. These positive efforts, among the few happening at EOIR, earned the NAIJ a “decertification” of their status as a union representing Immigration Judges during the Trump Administration.

Ironically, although the Biden Administration touts itself as the most “union-friendly Administration in history,” three years in, the NAIJ has yet to regain full recognition as a union.

🇺🇸  Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-17-23

 

📊 THE ECONOMY & SOCIETY W/ CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: Immigrants & Women “Punch Above Their Weight” — “[L]et’s celebrate the underdogs helping supercharge our economy to date.”

Catherine Rampell
Catherine Rampell
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/02/jobs-boom-immigrants-

. . . .

To be clear, immigrants remain a small share of the labor market. They account for less than one-fifth of employment overall. But they are more than punching above their weight in this recovery, particularly as (disproportionately older) native-born Americans retire. Increased immigration may be helping resolve some other economic challenges, too. It’s unclear how many forecasters have been incorporating these improvements in the functioning of the immigration system into their models.

Another group unexpectedly punching above its weight: women.

. . . .

To be sure, there are reasons to fear that all those pessimistic forecasts we’ve heard for months — about more layoffs, and possible recession — haven’t been wrong, exactly. They may just have been early. Those dour predictions are partly a product of the sharp interest rate hikes and tightening financial conditions we’ve seen recently. These factors historically have been followed by recessions. We may not have yet seen their full effects this time around, and there are signs of financial stress emerging.

In the meantime, though, let’s celebrate the underdogs helping supercharge our economy to date.

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

Read Catherine’s full article at the link.

As I’ve said before, immigrants of all types are a great story. Unfortunately, many in the GOP are determined to deny, distort, and dehumanize immigration for perceived political gain. 

At the same time, the Biden Administration and too many Democrats seem unwilling or reluctant to embrace and tout the truth about migration. They appear to be hoping that migration will just disappear as a political and societal issue (which it hasn’t, and won’t).

That leaves immigrants and their advocates to just keep plugging away and working hard to improve a society that too often either ignores or fails to appreciate their disproportionately substantial achievements and huge potential for creating a better future for all. 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-04-23

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮  “THE END OF ASYLUM” — IGNORING THE ADVICE OF ASYLUM EXPERTS AND PROGRESSIVE DEMS, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SEEKS TO FINISH THE TRUMP/MILLER WHITE NATIONALIST PROGRAM TO KILL ASYLUM AT THE BORDER, WHERE IT IS MOST NECESSARY & GUARANTEED BY STATUTE — Like Trump & Miller, Biden Plans To Strangle ⚰️ Asylum By Evading & Bypassing Statute W/O Legislation — Experts Planning “War Of Resistance” To Administration They Helped Elect, But Now Turns Its Back On Humanity!

Trump Dumping Asylum Seekers in Hondras
Legal asylum seekers from Central America might have thought that cruelty, illegality, and stupidity went out with the Trump Administration. They were wrong! Now Biden proposes to lawlessly “presume denial” of asylum — with no legal basis — and dump legal asylum seekers of color from his “disfavored nations” back into Mexico, whose asylum system is dysfunctional and where abusive treatment of asylum seekers has been well documented and recognized by a Federal Court! Women suffering from gender-based persecution are particular targets of this Administration’s campaign against humanity!
Artist: Monte Wolverton
Reproduced under license

Many groups issued immediate statements of outrage and protest at this cruel, lawless, and intellectually dishonest betrayal! I set forth two of them here:

From the American Immigration Council:

  • PRESS RELEASE

Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security Release Details of Dangerous New Asylum Transit Ban

February 21, 2023

Last modified:

February 21, 2023

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2023—Today, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S.  Department of Homeland Security released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that will implement a new asylum transit ban—one of the most restrictive border control measures to date under any president. The policy will penalize asylum seekers who cross the border irregularly or fail to apply for protection in other nations they transit through on their way to the United States.

As described in the NPRM, the proposed asylum transit ban rule would all but bar asylum for any non-Mexican who crosses the U.S.-Mexico border between ports of entry, unless they had previously applied for—and been denied—asylum in another country before arrival.

Specifically:

  • The rule would apply to all non-Mexican migrants (except unaccompanied minors) who had not been pre-approved under one of the Biden administration’s parole programs, which are currently open only to certain nationals of 5 countries; pre-register at a port of entry via CBP One or a similar scheduling system (or arrive at a port of entry and demonstrate they could not access the system); or get rejected for asylum in a transit country.
  • During an asylum seeker’s initial screening interview with an asylum officer, the officer will determine whether the new rule applies to them. If so, they will fail their credible fear screening unless they can demonstrate they were subject to an exception such as a medical emergency, severe human trafficking, or imminent danger—which would “rebut the presumption” of ineligibility.
  • Migrants subject to the rule, who do not meet the exceptions above, would be held to a higher standard of screening than is typically used for asylum (“reasonable fear”). If a migrant meets that standard, they will be allowed to apply for asylum before an immigration judge—although the text of the proposed regulation is unclear on whether they would actually be eligible to be granted asylum.
  • Migrants who do not meet the credible or reasonable fear standard can request review of the fear screening process in front of an immigration judge.

Once the regulation is formally published in the Federal Register, the public will have 30 days to comment on the proposal. The administration is legally required to consider and respond to all comments submitted during this period before publishing the final rule, which itself must precede implementing the policy. Given the Biden administration’s expectation that the new rule will be in place for the expiration of the national COVID-19 emergency on May 11, and the potential end of the Title 42 border expulsion policy at that time, the timeline raises substantial concerns that the administration will not fulfill its obligation to seriously consider all comments submitted by the public before the rule is finalized.

Furthermore, the sunset date for the new rule, two years after it becomes effective, is after the end of the current presidential term—making it impossible to guarantee it will not be extended indefinitely.

In 2020, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel blocked the Trump administration’s asylum transit ban from being applied to thousands of asylum seekers who were unlawfully prevented from accessing the U.S. asylum process. The ban was later vacated by the D.C. District Court.

The American Immigration Council was a part of the Al Otro Lado v. Wolf class action lawsuit on behalf of individual asylum seekers and the legal services organization Al Otro Lado (AOL), which challenged the legality of the previous asylum transit ban as applied to asylum seekers who had been turned back at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Jeremy Robbins
Jeremy Robbins
Executive Director
American Immigration Council
PHOTO: AIC websitel

The following statement is from Jeremy Robbins, Executive Director, The American Immigration Council:

“President Biden committed to restoring access to asylum while on the campaign trail, but today’s proposal is a clear embrace of Trump-style crackdowns on asylum seekers, many of whom are fleeing from globally recognized oppressive regimes. For over four decades, U.S. law has allowed any person in the United States to apply for asylum no matter how they got here. The new proposed rule would all but destroy that promise, by largely reinstating prior asylum bans that were found to be illegal.

“Not only is the new asylum transit ban illegal and immoral, if put into place as proposed, it would create unnecessary barriers to protection that will put the lives of asylum seekers at risk. While the rule purports to be temporary, the precedent it sets—for this president or future presidents—could easily become permanent.

“For generations, the United States has offered a promise that any person fleeing persecution and harm in their home countries could seek asylum, regardless of how they enter the United States. Today’s actions break from his prior promises and threaten a return to some of the most harmful asylum policies of his predecessor—possibly forever.”

###

For more information, contact:

Brianna Dimas 202-507-7557 bdimas@immcouncil.org

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

From the Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Services:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 21, 2022
Contact: Tim Young | tyoung@lirs.org

Washington, D.C. – In preparation for the end of Title 42 asylum restrictions, the Biden administration announced a new proposed rule severely limiting asylum eligibility for those who did not first seek protection in a country they transited through to reach the United States, or who entered without notifying a border agent. The proposed rule will be subject to a 30-day period of public comment before it can take effect.

The new rule mirrors a transit asylum ban first implemented under the Trump administration, which was ultimately struck down by federal judges in multiple courts.  The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides that people seeking protection may apply for asylum regardless of manner of entry, and does not require them to have first applied for protection in another country.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah
CEO
Lutheran Immigrantion & Refugee Service

In response to the proposed asylum eligibility rule, Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, President and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, said:

“This rule reaches into the dustbin of history to resurrect one of the most harmful and illegal anti-asylum policies of the Trump administration. This transit ban defies decades of humanitarian protections enshrined in U.S. law and international agreements, and flagrantly violates President Biden’s own campaign promises to restore asylum. Requiring persecuted people to first seek protection in countries with no functioning asylum systems themselves is a ludicrous and life-threatening proposal.

While the Biden administration has launched a smartphone app for asylum appointments and expanded a temporary parole option for an extremely limited subset of four nationalities, these measures are no substitute for the legal right to seek asylum, regardless of manner of entry. It is generally the most vulnerable asylum seekers who are least likely to be able to navigate a complex app plagued by technical issues, language barriers, and overwhelming demand. Many families face immediate danger and cannot afford to wait for months on end in their country of persecution. To penalize them for making the lifesaving decision to seek safety at our border flies in the face of core American values.

We urge the Biden administration to reverse course before this misguided rule denies protection to those most in need of it. Officials must recognize that decades of deterrence-based policies have had little to no impact in suppressing migration. Instead, they should focus on managing migration humanely through expanded parole programs, efficient refugee processing in the hemisphere, and an equitably accessible asylum system.”

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

Lest anyone believe the absolute BS coming from the Biden Administration that they “had no choice” and that this “wasn’t the choice they wanted,” here’s an article setting forth the many southern border solutions that the Administration ignored or was too incompetent to carry out in their dishonest, immoral pursuit of the anti-asylum “vision” of Stephen Miller and other White Nationalists.

💡💡”There’s many things Biden could do. We published a resource called “Forty-Two Border Solutions That Are Not Title 42.” We could have done 142,” says immigration expert Danilo Zak in The Border Chronicle! The Biden Administration has ignored, failed, or is prepared to shrug off most of them!🤯

Danilo Zak
Danilo Zak
Associate Director of Policy and Advocacy Church World Service
PHOTO: The Border Chronicle

Zak was interviewed by Melissa Del Bosque of The Border Chronicle:

There are many changes that the Biden administration and Congress could make to alleviate suffering at the southern border. Immigration policy expert Danilo Zak recently published a report that offers several solutions, from rebuilding the refugee resettlement program to expanding nonimmigrant work visas to more countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Zak, formerly of the National Immigration Forum, is Associate Director of Policy and Advocacy for the nonprofit Church World Service. He spoke with The Border Chronicle about the increase of forcibly displaced people in the Western Hemisphere and the current situation at the border. “For many, there is no line to get into—no ‘right way’ to come to the U.S.,” Zak says.

Melissa Del Bosque
Melissa Del Bosque
Border Reporter
PHOTO: Melissadelbosque.com

Read the full interview here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/theborderchronicle/p/how-to-alleviate-suffering-at-the?r=330z7&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

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

Notably, better, more robust, use of Refugee Programs established by the Refugee Act of 1980 is among Zak’s “top three.” This is something that I have been “touting” since Biden was elected, but where the Administration has failed to meet the challenge.

And, contrary to what the Administration and others might say, there is nothing unachievable about using refugee programs to deal with emergency humanitarian situations. Also, with respect to cases taking forever to process, no need for that nonsense. It’s a matter of poor bureaucratic execution rather than a defect in the legal authority.

The Refugee Act of 1980 (“RA 80”) is basically a modified version of the “emergency parole, resettle with NGOs, and petition Congress to adjust status” that was used on an ad hoc basis to resettle Indochinese refugees and others on an emergency basis prior to the RA 80. Except, that the criteria, resettlement mechanisms, and adjustment process were all “built in” to the statute. Consequently, although Congress was to be consulted in advance, that process was designed to run smoothly, efficiently, and on an emergency basis if necessary.

While “Congress bashing” is now a favorite pastime of the Executive, Judiciary, and media, in 1980 Congress actually provided a mechanism to regularize the processing of  type of refugee flows now facing the U.S. The statutory flexibility and the legal tools to deal with these situations are in RA 80.

A subsequent Congress even added the “expedited removal” and “credible fear” process so that initial asylum screening could be conducted by expert Asylum Officers at or near the border and those “screened out” would be subject to expedited removal without full hearings in Immigration Court. Clearly, there was never a need for the Title 42 nonsense for any competent Administration.

Basically, if an Administration can run a large-scale parole program, which the Biden Administration did for Afghanistan and is doing now for Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti, it can run a legal refugee program beyond our borders, even in a “country in crisis” if necessary. 

The idea that a statutory scheme specifically designed to have the flexibility deal with future mass refugee situations couldn’t be used to deal with the current humanitarian situation in the Western Hemisphere is pure poppycock!

Also unadulterated BS: The Biden Administration’s proposal to make the “end of asylum” at the southern border “temporary,” for two years! In 2025, the Biden Administration might not even be in office. If there is a GOP Administration, you can be sure that the demise of asylum at the border will become permanent, with or without legislation.

Also, what would be an Administration’s rationale for resuming asylum processing at the southern border in two years. Surely, there will be some other “bogus border crisis” cooked up to extend the bars. And, if there is no such crisis, the claim will be that the bars are “working as intended” so what’s the rationale for terminating them.

The argument that complying with the law by fairly processing asylum seekers regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or manner of arrival, as the law requires, might actually encourage people to apply for protection will always be there — hanging over cowardly politicos afraid of the consequences of granting protection. Fact is, the current Administration has so little belief in our legal system and their own ability to operate within in, and so little concern for the human lives involved, that they are scared to death of failure. That’s not likely to change in two years — or ever!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-22-23

😎🌮🍱🍝🍜 ANOTHER “FOOD DRIVEN” IMMIGRANT SUCCESS STORY!

La Cocina, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group, is helping low-income women and immigrants start their own food businesses. The 130 chef-owners receive support, including access to an industrial kitchen, to craft a recipe for a better life.

Oct. 20, 2022

Jay Gray reports for NBC Nightly News in this video:

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/san-francisco-nonprofit-helping-chefs-in-need-to-build-their-own-businesses-151187013820

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

I loved the shot of 1950’s-style “boring American food!” As a “child of the 50’s,” so true! Also, reaffirms the “food-based approach” to promoting social justice!

Heck, I remember from my days at the BIA that the best way to get folks to show up for a meeting or event and be in a good mood to participate was to “put out the food.” I used to bring bagels to BIA en banc conferences. It often helped “lighten the mood,” even if it didn’t garner me enough votes to win very many of my “en banc legal battles!”

Some things that stand out:

  • Teamwork, skill, and cooperation;
  • The power of immigrant women;
  • Diversity and variety improving American food;
  • Investment in “human capital;”
  • Self-sufficiency;
  • Jobs and education for others;
  • Teaching and training for success.

I think there are “messages” here about the benefits of immigrants and how many of those arriving at our borders could be successfully integrated into, energize, and expand opportunities in communities in need throughout America.

For example, almost everyone agrees that there is a shortage of affordable, livable, attractive housing that is adversely affecting communities around the U.S. Why not invest in the hard work, creativity, skills, and initiative of arriving migrants to help address these problems and make life better for everyone? Expand the economy, expand the tax base, raise wages, solve problems, revitalize “hurting” communities! Decent jobs with a future and homes in the community might also help address the opioid and other substance abuse problems in many areas.

Rather than squandering money and resources on “sure to ultimately fail” “deterrence” strategies and counterproductive restrictions, detentions, and deportations, why not think about ways to 1) recognize the realities of human migration; and 2) harness and direct the undeniable power of that migration for everyone’s benefit?

Leaders of both parties seem “willfully blind” to the realities and benefits of migration in the 21st century. Could public-private partnerships be part of the answer? There must be some more “humane pragmatists” out here who are interested in actually solving problems, building on diversity, and doing things for the common good.

One promising initiative, brought to my attention by my long-time friend and former colleague Lori Scialabba, Specialist Executive at Deloitte Consulting, LLP, is Deloitte US’s recently announced “$1.5 Billion Social Impact Investment to Foster a More Equitable Society.” Read about it here: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/deloitte-us-announces-1-5-billion-social-impact-investment-to-foster-a-more-equitable-society-301633710.html.

Lori L. Scialabba
Lori L. Scialabba
Specialist Executive
Deloitte Consulting LLP
PHOTO: Deloitte

(Historical Footnote: I helped recruit Lori for the Honors Program when I was the Deputy General Counsel of the “Legacy INS.” Later, we were both BIA Members. Lori was one of my Vice Chairs — along with Mary Maguire Dunne — and eventually succeeded me as Chair before going on to a distinguished career as a Senior Executive at USCIS and then Deloitte.)

And, of course, we can and should build upon the extraordinary success of “our own” DMV immigrant entrepreneur Tea Ivanovic and her team over at Immigrant Food. Tea exemplifies the “power of food” and its fundamental connection to immigration, diversity, economic vitality, and social justice! I highlighted Tea’s success in a recent “Courtside” profile: https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/09/10/🇺🇸🗽👍🏼-immigrant-nation-teas-truth-wisdom-americans-views-on-immigrants-and-immigration-are-overwhelmingly-positive/.

Tea Ivanovic
Tea Ivanovic
Director of Communications & Outreach
Immigrant Food
PHOTO: Immigrant Food

Congrats to the folks at La Cocina and to NBC News for featuring this great, thought-provoking, story!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-21-22

⚖️🗽🦸🏻‍♀️🎖 A TRUE AMERICAN HERO GETS HER DUE: FRANCES PERKINS WAS THE “MOTHER OF AMERICA’S SAFETY NET!” — By Professor Heather Cox Richardson — “She recognized that the ideas of community values and pooling resources to keep the economic playing field level and take care of everyone are at least as deeply seated in our political philosophy as the idea of every man for himself.”

Heather Cox Richardson
Heather Cox Richardson
Historian
Professor, Boston College
Frances Perkins
Frances Perkins (1880-1965)
U.S. Secretary of Labor (1933-45)
PHOTO: Public realm

Letters from an American

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August 13, 2022

Heather Cox Richardson

11 hr ago

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Since it seems clear we will be deciding whether we want to preserve the Social Security Act by our choice of leaders in the next few elections, I thought it not unreasonable to reprint this piece from last year about why people in the 1930s thought the measure was imperative. There is more news about the classified material at Mar-a-Lago, but nothing that can’t wait another day so I can catch this anniversary.

By the time most of you will read this, it will be August 14, and on this day in 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. While FDR’s New Deal had put in place new measures to regulate business and banking and had provided temporary work relief to combat the Depression, this law permanently changed the nature of the American government.

The Social Security Act is known for its payments to older Americans, but it did far more than that. It established unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services. It was a sweeping reworking of the relationship between the government and its citizens, using the power of taxation to pool funds to provide a basic social safety net.

The driving force behind the law was FDR’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. She was the first woman to hold a position in the U.S. Cabinet and still holds the record for having the longest tenure in that job: she lasted from 1933 to 1945.

She brought to the position a vision of government very different from that of the Republicans who had run it in the 1920s. While men like President Herbert Hoover had harped on the idea of a “rugged individualism” in which men worked their way up, providing for their families on their own, Perkins recognized that people in communities had always supported each other. The vision of a hardworking man supporting his wife and children was more myth than reality: her own husband suffered from bipolar disorder, making her the family’s primary support.

As a child, Perkins spent summers with her grandmother, with whom she was very close, in the small town of Newcastle, Maine, where the old-fashioned, close-knit community supported those in need. In college, at Mount Holyoke, she majored in chemistry and physics, but after a professor required students to tour a factory to observe working conditions, Perkins became committed to improving the lives of those trapped in industrial jobs. After college, Perkins became a social worker and, in 1910, earned a masters degree in economics and sociology from Columbia University. She became the head of the New York office of the National Consumers League, urging consumers to use their buying power to demand better conditions and wages for the workers who made the products they were buying.

The next year, in 1911, she witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in which 146 workers, mostly women and girls, died. They were trapped in the building when the fire broke out because the factory owner had ordered the doors to the stairwells and exits locked to make sure no one slipped outside for a break. Unable to escape the smoke and fire in the factory, the workers—some of them on fire—leaped from the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the building, dying on the pavement.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire turned Perkins away from voluntary organizations to improve workers’ lives and toward using the government to adjust the harsh conditions of industrialization. She began to work with the Democratic politicians at Tammany Hall, who presided over communities in the city that mirrored rural towns and who exercised a form of social welfare for their voters, making sure they had jobs, food, and shelter and that wives and children had a support network if a husband and father died. In that system, the voices of women like Perkins were valuable, for their work in the immigrant wards of the city meant that they were the ones who knew what working families needed to survive.

The overwhelming unemployment, hunger, and suffering caused by the Great Depression made Perkins realize that state governments alone could not adjust the conditions of the modern world to create a safe, supportive community for ordinary people. She came to believe, as she said: “The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.”

Through her Tammany connections, Perkins met FDR, and when he asked her to be his Secretary of Labor, she told him that she wanted the federal government to provide unemployment insurance, health insurance, and old-age insurance. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’”

Creating federal unemployment insurance became her primary concern. Congressmen had little interest in passing such legislation. They said they worried that unemployment insurance and federal aid to dependent families would undermine a man’s willingness to work. But Perkins recognized that those displaced by the Depression had added new pressure to the idea of old-age insurance.

In Long Beach, California, Dr. Francis Townsend had looked out of his window one day to see elderly women rooting through garbage cans for food. Appalled, he came up with a plan to help the elderly and stimulate the economy at the same time. Townsend proposed that the government provide every retired person over 60 years old with $200 a month, on the condition that they spend it within 30 days, a condition designed to stimulate the economy.

Townsend’s plan was wildly popular. More than that, though, it sparked people across the country to start coming up with their own plans for protecting the elderly and the nation’s social fabric, and together, they began to change the public conversation about social welfare policies.

They spurred Congress to action. Perkins recalled that Townsend “startled the Congress of the United States because the aged have votes. The wandering boys didn’t have any votes; the evicted women and their children had very few votes. If the unemployed didn’t stay long enough in any one place, they didn’t have a vote. But the aged people lived in one place and they had votes, so every Congressman had heard from the Townsend Plan people.”

FDR put together a committee to come up with a plan to create a basic social safety net, but committee members could not make up their minds how to move forward. Perkins continued to hammer on the idea they must come up with a final plan, and finally locked the members of the committee in a room. As she recalled: “Well, we locked the door and we had a lot of talk. I laid out a couple of bottles of something or other to cheer their lagging spirits. Anyhow, we stayed in session until about 2 a.m. We then voted finally, having taken our solemn oath that this was the end; we were never going to review it again.”

By the time the bill came to a vote in Congress, it was hugely popular. The vote was 371 to 33 in the House and 77 to 6 in the Senate.

When asked to describe the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins mused that its roots came from the very beginnings of the nation. When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America in 1835, she noted, he thought Americans were uniquely “so generous, so kind, so charitably disposed.” “Well, I don’t know anything about the times in which De Tocqueville visited America,” she said, but “I do know that at the time I came into the field of social work, these feelings were real.”

With the Social Security Act, Perkins helped to write into our laws a longstanding political impulse in America that stood in dramatic contrast to the 1920s philosophy of rugged individualism. She recognized that the ideas of community values and pooling resources to keep the economic playing field level and take care of everyone are at least as deeply seated in our political philosophy as the idea of every man for himself.

When she recalled the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins recalled: “Of course, the Act had to be amended, and has been amended, and amended, and amended, and amended, until it has now grown into a large and important project, for which, by the way, I think the people of the United States are deeply thankful. One thing I know: Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no politician, no political party, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States.”

Notes:

https://www.ssa.gov/history/35actinx.html

https://www.ssa.gov/history/perkins5.html

https://francesperkinscenter.org/life-new/

Share

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Perkins was an original “good government person,” unfortunately, an increasingly rare breed. She recognized that a strong, reliable government safety net promotes personal independence and achieving full individual potential.

Perkins Homestead
Frances Perkins Homestead
Damariscotta, ME
PHOTO: Francis Perkins Center

Perkins had strong Maine ties to her ancestral homestead in Newcastle, ME. It’s near our summer home in Boothbay Harbor, ME. A few years ago, Cathy and I had a chance to tour the homestead, now owned and maintained by the Frances Perkins Center in Damariscotta, ME.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-14-22

😎🗽⚖️👩‍⚖️ FLASH: JUDICIAL MAVEN HON. DANA LEIGH MARKS RETIRES, JOINS ROUND TABLE! 🛡⚔️ — “Founding Mother” Of U.S. Asylum Law Successfully Argued INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca @ Supremes, Led Immigration Judges’ Association, Spearheaded “Article I”  Movement For Judicial Independence, Saved Thousands of Lives Over Career On Bench Spanning More Than Three Decades!

Hon. Diana Leigh Marks
Hon. Dana Leigh Marks
U.S. Immigration Judge (Ret.) One of the most influential, outspoken, and dynamic Federal Judges of the past half-century enters the next phase of her illustrious career, as a caregiver for her granddaughter and a “fighting knightess” of the Round Table, with typical optimism. “Decades of dealing with DOJ and EOIR management has given me the best possible toolbox to meet any challenges on the road ahead,” says “NanaDana.” 

😎🇺🇸🗽⚖️👩‍⚖️ FLASH: JUDICIAL MAVEN HON. DANA LEIGH MARKS RETIRES, JOINS ROUND TABLE! 🛡⚔️ — “Founding Mother” Of U.S. Asylum Law Successfully Argued INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca @ Supremes, Led Immigration Judges’ Association, Spearheaded “Article I”  Movement For Judicial Independence, Saved Thousands of Lives Over Career On Bench Spanning More Than Three Decades!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

Jan. 9, 2022

Judge Dana Leigh Marks, one of America’s leading “applied scholars” and human rights jurists, joined the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges. Marks retired from the San Francisco Immigration Court on December 31, 2021, following an extraordinary nearly 35-year career on the bench. Round Table spokesperson Judge Jeffrey S. Chase announced Marks’s move in an e-mail yesterday to the group’s more than 50 members.

In addition to her “number one retirement priority” — helping care for her granddaughter — Marks told Courtside that she “looks forward to continuing the fight for Article I and due process for all in America, now without the disclaimers that DOJ requires.” It’s a mission and a sentiment shared by the group.

Long time colleague and fellow past president of the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”), Judge John Gossart enthusiastically welcomed and recognized Marks’s fearless advocacy “for due process, fundamental fairness, the right to be heard, and an Article 1 Court.” 

Other Round Table judges greeted their newest member with an avalanche of praise, appreciation, admiration, and love for Marks’s intellectual prowess, courage under pressure, and embodiment of the one-time vision of making the U.S. Immigration Courts “the world’s best tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” Over the last several decades, many experts say that noble vision was cashiered by Department of Justice (“DOJ”) politicos in favor of the “go along to get along” and “good enough for government work” aura that infects today’s broken and dysfunctional Immigration Court system. Those courts, now running an astounding, largely self-created backlog in excess of 1.5 million cases, are inappropriately located within the byzantine, politicized bureaucracy of a DOJ still reeling from four years of grotesque mismanagement and misdirection by the Trump group.

Marks graduated from Cal Berkeley in 1974 and received her J.D. from Hastings Law in 1977. She worked for almost ten years as an immigration lawyer in private practice, and was an active leader in AILA’s Northern California chapter during that time. In 1986, as a partner with Simmons & Ungar, then San Francisco’s premier immigration law specialty firm, Marks successfully argued the landmark case, INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 US 421 (1987). 

There, the Supreme Court rejected the Government’s argument that asylum seekers must establish that their future persecution is “more likely than not” to happen. Instead, the Court adopted the much more generous international standard of a “well founded fear” of persecution. The Court thereby recognized that asylum could be granted where the fear was objectively reasonable, even if it were significantly less than “probable.”

Some also consider this to be the “high water mark” of the Court’s positive use of international law concepts in a human rights case involving immigration. Despite considerable internal resistance to fairly applying the more generous legal standard, Cardoza has undoubtedly saved the lives of tens of thousands of refugees and their families over the past three and one-half decades. 

Shortly after submitting the brief (co-authored with Bill Ong Hing, Kip Steinberg and Susan Lydon), but prior to her Cardoza argument, Marks was selected for a judgeship by then Chief Immigration Judge, the late William R. Robie. Then Attorney General Ed Meese adopted Robie’s recommendation, and Marks was sworn in as a U.S. Immigration Judge for San Francisco in January, 1987, two months after the oral argument and two months prior to the decision being issued by the Court. 

During her distinguished career on the immigration bench, Marks has been an outspoken fighter for professional treatment of her fellow Immigration Judges, for true judicial independence in the Immigration Courts, and for fair, humane, professional treatment of those coming before the courts. She served on a number of occasions as the President and Executive Vice President of the NAIJ, sometimes “swapping” leadership positions with her close friend Judge Denise Slavin, also President Emerita of NAIJ and now a “fearless fighting knightess” of the Round Table. 

Marks and Slavin helped battle two DOJ attempts to “decertify” the NAIJ and thus silence the powerful voices that often exposed severe problems in the administration of the Immigration Courts. Indeed, Marks’s determination to speak “truth to power,” her outsized personality, and her willingness to “level” with the media often put her at odds with “handlers” in the court’s bloated bureaucracy and their DOJ overlords. 

The latter often sought to divert the Immigration Courts from their due process mission to focus instead on “deterrence” of asylum seekers and fulfilling each Administration’s goals for immigration enforcement. Among other things, this led to a backlog-building phenomenon known as “Aimless Docket Reshuffling.”

In her writings, speeches, and interviews, Marks decried these glaring conflicts of interest and abuses of normal judicial ethics, not to mention common sense and human decency. She tirelessly advocates that the United States adhere more closely to international standards governing refugees and asylees, which was the clearly expressed legislative intent when the Refugee Act of 1980 was enacted.

Summing up her new life after Immigration Court, Marks said “I will enjoy my new day job of caring for my granddaughter, but will continue my hobby of telling truth about EOIR [the bureaucratic acronym for Immigration Courts] through NAIJ and the Roundtable. I am proud to be in such good company!” The feeling is mutual! Due process forever!

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

⚖️🗽GREAT NEWS FOR DUE PROCESS: NAIJ WINS RE-CERTIFICATION FROM DOJ! — “The immigration courts work best when judges are treated justly,” says NAIJ Prez Judge Mimi Tsankov! — A “Stunner” That Should Have Been A “No Brainer” For The Biden Administration!

Honorable Mimi Tsankov
Honorable Mimi Tsankov
U.S. Immigration Judge
President, National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”)
Judge Amiena Khan is the executive vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ)
Judge Amiena Khan, Past President, National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ)
Hon. A. Ashlley Tabaddor
Hon. A. Ashley Tabaddor
Past President, National
Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”)

From NAIJ President Judge Mimi Tsankov:

‘Finally, Some Justice for Immigration Judges Two-Year Union Busting Battle Ends as DOJ Reverses Course and Agrees to Recognize NAIJ’

Dear Friends of NAIJ,

We’re thrilled to announce that NAIJ has reached a settlement with EOIR:  https://www.naij-usa.org/images/uploads/newsroom/NAIJ_Press_Release_on_ULP_Settlement.pdf.  Thank you for standing by us over the past few years, especially, as we’ve stood up against the decertification effort.  The unfair labor practice matters are now settled.  What’s left for another day — resolution of the pending motion to reconsider awaiting a decision at the FLRA board.

Today, we celebrate this achievement, thank all those that have stood by us, and look forward to working with the Agency to improve working conditions at the Immigration Courts.

Sincerely,

Hon. Mimi Tsankov

President

National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ)

26 Federal Plaza

Room 1237

New York, NY 10278

(720) 837-8737 (Cell)

mimi.tsankov@gmail.com

 

DISCLAIMER:  The author is the President of the National Association of Immigration Judges.  The views expressed here do not necessarily represent the official position of the United States Department of Justice, the Attorney General, or the Executive Office for Immigration Review.   The views represent the author’s personal opinions, which were formed after extensive consultation with the membership of NAIJ.

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Alexandra Villarreal
Alexandra Villarreal
Immigration Reporter
The Guardian
Joanna Walters
Joanna Walters
Journalist
The Guardian
PHOTO: Twitter

Also, great coverage by Alexandra Villarreal and Joanna  Walters from The Guardian:

Victory for US immigration judges as Biden administration recognizes union

Settlement comes after judges accused president of ‘doubling down’ on Trump’s position

Published: 18:01 Tuesday, 07 December 2021

In a stunning victory, US immigration judges have settled a tense dispute with Joe Biden’s administration over their effort to restore union rights taken away from them under Donald Trump.

Biden’s Department of Justice agreed on Tuesday to recognize the union as the exclusive representative for the nation’s immigration judges and follow the terms of their collective bargaining agreement, at least for the time being.

Days before reaching the settlement, the head of the federal immigration judges’ union had accused the Biden administration of “doubling down” on its predecessor’s efforts to freeze out their association even as they struggle with a backlog of almost 1.5m court cases and staff shortages, which exacerbate due process concerns in their courts.

Mimi Tsankov, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), had declared herself “mystified” that Biden’s Department of Justice would not negotiate with her members despite the US president vocally and frequently touting his support for workers’ representation.

“This administration has really doubled down on maintaining the [Trump] position that we are not a valid union,” Tsankov said before the settlement.

Tsankov was appointed as an immigration judge in 2006 and is based in New York, where she also teaches at Fordham University School of Law. She spoke to the Guardian only in her union role.

After what she described as “decades” of relatively smooth relations between the NAIJ and the Department of Justice, Donald Trump capped four years of rightwing immigration policy by successfully petitioning to strip hundreds of immigration judges of their right to unionize.

The hostile move was decided by the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), an independent administrative federal agency that controls labor relations between the federal government and its employees, on 2 November 2020, the day before the presidential election.

Despite a Democratic victory and Joe Biden taking the White House pledging to undo damage done by Trump, the union remained shut out and silenced for more than a year, without a date set to hear its case attempting to restore its official status.

“I cannot understand it … Working together, as the president has stated, working with federal employees, working with unions, achieves better results,” said Tsankov.

. . . .

Read the full report here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/07/us-immigration-judges-union-biden-administration

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Congrats to Judge Tsankov and former NAIJ Presidents Judge Amiena Khan, Judge Ashley Tabaddor, and all of the others who courageously and steadfastly fought against this scurrilous retaliation by Billy Barr directed against those with the guts and integrity to “speak truth to power” about the due process disaster in our Immigration Courts!

Yes, it’s a great victory for the NAIJ and “good government.” But, I’m with Judge Tsankov here: Why on earth did it take so much time and wasted effort for the Garland DOJ to finally “do the right thing?”

This should have been “day one stuff” for Garland — a true “no brainer.” The real “stunner” here is that it took so long!

The NAIJ was and remains “the only game in town” when it comes to expert professional judicial training @ EOIR! The rest of EOIR’s professionalism and training program could be characterized as a shambles — that is, if it actually existed, which it effectively doesn’t.

Compare EOIR “management’s” pathetic attempts at training with what the “real pros” at NAIJ and the VIISTA Program at Villanova (training for non-attorney reps) under Professor Michele Pistone have developed over the past year. There is no comparison — NAIJ and VIISTA win, hands down!

Yet, rather than harnessing this available energy, talent, expertise, and creativity, “Team Garland” has dawdled away the time, making few material inroads into the toxic culture and broken pieces of our Immigration Courts. Ask almost any practitioner how much their life and the lives of their clients in Immigration Court have “improved” under Garland! You’ll get an “earful” — as I do on occasion.

A new group of progressive practical expert leaders at EOIR should have made NAIJ, representatives of the private bar and NGOs, and representatives of ICE OPLA part of  an “expert advisory team” working cooperatively to reform EOIR, institute merit-based hiring practices, and reduce the backlog without more wasteful gimmicks and in full compliance with due process.

Instead, most of the first year of Garland’s DOJ tenure has been wasted fighting battles that never should have been fought, irrationally alienating would-be allies who could have provided creative solutions to endemic problems, and engaging in yet more “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” even while continuing to build unnecessary backlog. The actual state of due process at EOIR has remained deplorable, morale at record lows, and the frustration and anger of attorneys subjected to Garland’s ongoing mess growing.

Even the “lowest of low-hanging fruit” — speedy approvals of applications for recognition and accreditation of non-attorney representatives involving graduates of VIISTA and other top NGO programs have been inexplicably allowed to languish. A process that should easily be completed in 30-60 days in most cases delayed for months, perhaps years, under unrealistically low staffing and “low priority” assigned by habitually negligent and unresponsive to public needs “EOIR Management.” This, at  a time when there is a dire crisis in representation that VIISTA and other “top drawer NGOs” are fighting and innovating to solve.

(Remember, of course, that former EOIR Director James McHenry improperly “took over” the R&A program, which has become less, rather than more, functional and timely as a result. That’s a good measure of how inane EOIR “management” became under Trump. But, although McHenry is gone, it’s not that there has been drastic improvement under Garland. The lack at EOIR HQ of those who truly understand the Immigration Court process and could solve problems and “make the trains run on time,” without stomping on anyone’s rights, is simply mind-boggling!)

But, however bad EOIR is and remains, the “real buck stops with Garland” who has miserably failed to address in a timely, professional, systemic, rational manner the ongoing mess in his “EOIR Star Chambers!”

Star Chamber Justice
Belated re-recognition of NAIJ, while welcome, won’t solve this problem at Garland’s EOIR! — “Justice” Star Chamber Style, Public Realm — or this:
Four Horsemen
BIA Asylum Panel In Action
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The public deserves better — much better!

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a proud retired member of the NAIJ.

👍🏼🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-08-21

🇺🇸👍🏼😇HISTORY: LABOR DAY TRIBUTE: FRANCES PERKINS, GODMOTHER OF AMERICA’S SAFETY NET! 🥇❤️ — By Professor Heather Cox Richardson

Heather Cox Richardson
Heather Cox Richardson
Historian
Professor, Boston College
Frances Perkins
Frances Perkins (1880-1965)
U.S. Secretary of Labor (1933-45)
PHOTO: Public realm

pastedGraphic.pngFrom “Letters From An American:”

pastedGraphic.png

September 5, 2021

By Heather Cox Richardson

On March 25, 1911, Frances Perkins was visiting with a friend who lived near Washington Square in New York City when they heard fire engines and people screaming. They rushed out to the street to see what the trouble was. A fire had broken out in a garment factory on the upper floors of a building on Washington Square, and the blaze ripped through the lint in the air. The only way out was down the elevator, which had been abandoned at the base of its shaft, or through an exit to the roof. But the factory owner had locked the roof exit that day because, he later testified, he was worried some of his workers might steal some of the blouses they were making.

“The people had just begun to jump when we got there,” Perkins later recalled. “They had been holding until that time, standing in the windowsills, being crowded by others behind them, the fire pressing closer and closer, the smoke closer and closer. Finally the men were trying to get out this thing that the firemen carry with them, a net to catch people if they do jump, the[y] were trying to get that out and they couldn’t wait any longer. They began to jump. The… weight of the bodies was so great, at the speed at which they were traveling that they broke through the net. Every one of them was killed, everybody who jumped was killed. It was a horrifying spectacle.”

By the time the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was out, 147 young people were dead, either from their fall from the factory windows or from smoke inhalation.

Perkins had few illusions about industrial America: she had worked in a settlement house in an impoverished immigrant neighborhood in Chicago and was the head of the New York office of the National Consumers League, urging consumers to use their buying power to demand better conditions and wages for workers. But even she was shocked by the scene she witnessed on March 25.

By the next day, New Yorkers were gathering to talk about what had happened on their watch. “I can’t begin to tell you how disturbed the people were everywhere,” Perkins said. “It was as though we had all done something wrong. It shouldn’t have been. We were sorry…. We didn’t want it that way. We hadn’t intended to have 147 girls and boys killed in a factory. It was a terrible thing for the people of the City of New York and the State of New York to face.”

The Democratic majority leader in the New York legislature, Al Smith—who would a few years later go on to four terms as New York governor and become the Democratic presidential nominee in 1928—went to visit the families of the dead to express his sympathy and his grief. “It was a human, decent, natural thing to do,” Perkins said, “and it was a sight he never forgot. It burned it into his mind. He also got to the morgue, I remember, at just the time when the survivors were being allowed to sort out the dead and see who was theirs and who could be recognized. He went along with a number of others to the morgue to support and help, you know, the old father or the sorrowing sister, do her terrible picking out.”

“This was the kind of shock that we all had,” Perkins remembered.

The next Sunday, concerned New Yorkers met at the Metropolitan Opera House with the conviction that “something must be done. We’ve got to turn this into some kind of victory, some kind of constructive action….” One man contributed $25,000 to fund citizens’ action to “make sure that this kind of thing can never happen again.”

The gathering appointed a committee, which asked the legislature to create a bipartisan commission to figure out how to improve fire safety in factories. For four years, Frances Perkins was their chief investigator.

She later explained that although their mission was to stop factory fires, “we went on and kept expanding the function of the commission ’till it came to be the report on sanitary conditions and to provide for their removal and to report all kinds of unsafe conditions and then to report all kinds of human conditions that were unfavorable to the employees, including long hours, including low wages, including the labor of children, including the overwork of women, including homework put out by the factories to be taken home by the women. It included almost everything you could think of that had been in agitation for years. We were authorized to investigate and report and recommend action on all these subjects.”

And they did. Al Smith was the speaker of the house when they published their report, and soon would become governor. Much of what the commission recommended became law.

Perkins later mused that perhaps the new legislation to protect workers had in some way paid the debt society owed to the young people, dead at the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. “The extent to which this legislation in New York marked a change in American political attitudes and policies toward social responsibility can scarcely be overrated,” she said. “It was, I am convinced, a turning point.”

But she was not done. In 1919, over the fervent objections of men, Governor Smith appointed Perkins to the New York State Industrial Commission to help weed out the corruption that was weakening the new laws. She continued to be one of his closest advisers on labor issues. In 1929, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt replaced Smith as New York governor, he appointed Perkins to oversee the state’s labor department as the Depression worsened. When President Herbert Hoover claimed that unemployment was ending, Perkins made national news when she repeatedly called him out with figures proving the opposite and said his “misleading statements” were “cruel and irresponsible.” She began to work with leaders from other states to figure out how to protect workers and promote employment by working together.

In 1933, after the people had rejected Hoover’s plan to let the Depression burn itself out, President-elect Roosevelt asked Perkins to serve as Secretary of Labor in his administration. She accepted only on the condition that he back her goals: unemployment insurance; health insurance; old-age insurance, a 40-hour work week; a minimum wage; and abolition of child labor. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’”

She promised to find out.

Once in office, Perkins was a driving force behind the administration’s massive investment in public works projects to get people back to work. She urged the government to spend $3.3 billion on schools, roads, housing, and post offices. Those projects employed more than a million people in 1934.

In 1935, FDR signed the Social Security Act, providing ordinary Americans with unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services.

In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a minimum wage and maximum hours. It banned child labor.

Frances Perkins, and all those who worked with her, transformed the horror of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire into the heart of our nation’s basic social safety net.

“There is always a large horizon…. There is much to be done,” Perkins said. “It is up to you to contribute some small part to a program of human betterment for all time.”

Happy Labor Day, everyone.

—-

Notes:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1933-02-19/ed-1/seq-23/

https://francesperkinscenter.org/life-new/

https://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/primary/lectures/

https://www.ssa.gov/history/perkins5.html

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Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
Aftermath of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (1911)
ILGWU Archives
Public Realm

Get more from HCR at the above link!

Perkins is one of the most important and under-recognized heroes of modern American history. Perkins believed that Government was there to promote the public good.

But, it wasn’t just a hollow slogan like those spouted by many of today’s politicos. She actually “walked the walk,” using her powerful intellect, energy, talent, advocacy skills, persistence, and influence with FDR to make America a much better place.

Just think of it: “unemployment insurance; health insurance; old-age insurance, a 40-hour work week; a minimum wage; and abolition of child labor.” An amazing list of accomplishments for which she has received far, far too little credit from historians. Today, most Americans probably think of Perkins, if at all, as the “first female Cabinet Secretary.” But she was more than that. Much more!

Perkins also used her position as Labor Secretary (prior to WW II the cabinet officer with responsibility for immigration) creatively in an attempt to save Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Although she won a major legal battle on the positive use of “charge bonds” to assist refugees, the actual effects of her humanitarian efforts appear to have been unfortunately limited. 

In the xenophobic, anti-Semitic, isolationist America of the 1930s, she also became a target of the far right for her strong commitment to human rights. In 1939, Congressional xenophobes initiated an unsuccessful impeachment attempt.

In 1940, FDR transferred responsibility for immigration from the Labor Department to the Department of Justice. That spelled not only the end of Perkins’s efforts to help Jewish refugees, but also was a death sentence for many who might have been saved. 

The DOJ threw up a powerful combination of restrictive requirements and bureaucracy to guarantee the death of more European Jews in the Holocaust. Indeed, the DOJ went one better by putting Japanese-American U.S. citizens in concentration camps based on “national security” claims that have since been shown to be both bogus and racially motivated. Sound familiar?

You can read all about this disgraceful chapter in American history and Perkins’s largely fruitless attempts to “swim against the tide” here, in this article by Rebecca Brenner Graham in Contingent Magazine: https://contingentmagazine.org/2019/08/23/no-refuge/.

Rebecca Brenner Grahjam
Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham
Teacher, Author, Historian
PHOTO: Rebeccabrennergraham.com

I really enjoyed Rebecca’s very lively, accessible historical writing that brings to life one of the ugliest episodes in modern American history, now largely swept under the carpet by today’s nativist revisionists. It’s also covered in the a Holocaust museum, an exhibit that contains much of  the same bogus “America is full” xenophobic rhetoric spouted by too many of today’s GOP nativists. 

This really horrible response by Western democracies to lives in peril was what gave rise to the Geneva Refugee Convention, the basis for the Refugee Act of 1980 and our current refugee and asylum system! How quickly we forget! The Trump Administration, with help from the Supremes, basically abrogated the legal system for refugees and asylees, without legislation. Despite promises to restore the rule of law, the Biden Administration has basically allowed most of Trump’s illegal and immoral policies to continue damaging humanity and diminishing us as a nation.

What would Frances Perkins have done? Certainly more than Garland and Mayorkas! At any rate, I enjoyed Rebecca’s historical writing and look forward to more!

A few years ago, Cathy and I had the pleasure of touring the Perkins Family Homestead, near Damariscotta, Maine, now owned by the Frances Perkins Center, with our dear, now departed Boothbay Harbor neighbor Sue Bazinet. It certainly opened my eyes to what true progressive values, lived and acted upon, were and still are!

Perkins Homestead
Frances Perkins Homestead
Damariscotta, ME
PHOTO: Francis Perkins Center

We could use more leaders like Perkins today! Many thanks to the always-fabulous HCR for highlighting this great American!

🇺🇸Happy Labor Day, ⚒ and Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-06-21