Hispanics – Page 24 – immigrationcourtside.com

“MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE” IS COSTLY: In a Functioning System, DHS Would Release As Many Detainees As Possible Applying “Best Health Guidance” & EOIR Judges Would Insure Prompt, Uniform Compliance By DHS – Under Today’s Totally Dysfunctional System, It Rests With Private Attorneys & U.S. District Judges Across America To Do The Job That DHS & EOIR Won’t – Not Surprisingly, The Results Are Expensive, Time-Consuming, & Uneven!

Andrea Castillo
Immigration Reporter
LA Times

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=910bd5e6-d0d0-4291-af81-af2ba51ed37d&v=sdk

Andrea Castillo and Brittny Mejia report for the LA Times:

For weeks, as the coronavirus spread, Jose Hernandez Velasquez worried about the dangers of being detained inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center 80 miles east of Los Angeles.

The 19-year-old Guatemalan immigrant listened uneasily as other men called their families, begging them to do everything possible to get them released so as to reduce their odds of contracting the deadly illness.

Ultimately, in light of the pandemic, a federal judge ordered immigration authorities to release Hernandez, an asylum seeker with hypertension who had spent nearly 21/2 years at the facility. When a guard came to tell him the news, Hernandez was speechless. Other detainees burst into applause.

“I was really worried,” he said in a phone call after his release. “It was so difficult to be inside.”

As an increasing number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees across the country test positive for COVID-19, California lawyers are working to free as many clients as they can by invoking constitutional rights and arguing on humanitarian grounds. In the last two weeks, U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter Jr. ordered at least 10 people released from Adelanto, one of the country’s largest detention centers, holding nearly 2,000 people.

It’s unclear how many detainees have been released nationwide because of coronavirus concerns. In recent weeks, federal judges across the country have ordered the release of more than 40 detainees.

Like Hernandez, most have been released after lawyers petitioned federal courts on their behalf. Others have been released on bond or through humanitarian parole, which is free to people with a compelling emergency.

In response to the pandemic, ICE has instructed field offices to assess and consider for release those deemed to be at greater risk of exposure, reviewing cases of individuals age 60 and older, as well as those who are pregnant.

In court filings, ICE has argued that concern about detainees contracting COVID-19 is “based on mere speculation” and that releasing large numbers of them would set a precedent that would persist even after the virus subsides.

Until ICE agrees to release more detainees, “you’re going to keep seeing petitions like this,” said Jessica Bansal, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which got Hernandez and others released from Adelanto. “Because people need to get out.”

The ACLU has sued ICE facilities in multiple states over coronavirus concerns.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the above link.

Empowering a regime that functions in such a contemptuous, cruel, and incompetent manner is insane and wasteful to boot. Everyone, including the legitimate needs of DHS enforcement (not much resemblance to the current racially-driven scofflaw mess) would benefit from a professionalized, accountable, and properly focused DHS and an independent, due process with efficiency-oriented U.S. Immigration Court.

Immigration enforcement could focus on priorities that actually relate to the safety and security of our nation, the private and NGO immigration bar could expand individual case representation before the Immigration Courts thus promoting efficiency with due process, and the U.S. District Courts could return to other cases. It would be a win-win-win, notwithstanding the bogus blather of the White Nationalist restrictionists who seek to use the pandemic as a weapon to “zero out” legal immigration and force all migration into the “black market” where it can more easily be exploited and abused by them and their cronies.

Due Process Forever! Malicious Incompetence Never!

PWS

04-13-20

RISKING LIVES TO KEEP THE DEPORTATION RAILWAY RUNNING — FOR UNACCOMPANIED KIDS! — “It is inexplicable and dangerous that the Trump administration has insisted that detained unaccompanied children are still required to go to court,” said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense.” — Julia Preston Reports For The Marshall Project

Julia Preston
American Journalist
The Marshall Project

Wendy Young
President, Kids In Need of Defense (“KIND”)

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/04/10/migrant-children-still-face-speedy-deportation-hearings-in-covid19-hotspots

Julia writes:

They are children who were caught crossing the southwest border without papers and sent to migrant shelters in New York when the coronavirus was silently spreading. Now the city is a pandemic epicenter in lockdown, but the Trump administration is pressing ahead with their deportation cases, forcing the children to fight in immigration court to stay.

In two courthouses in the center of the besieged city, hearings for unaccompanied children—migrants who were apprehended without a parent—are speeding forward. The U.S. Department of Justice, which controls the immigration courts, has said it has no plan to suspend them.

This week an 8-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a teenage single mother with an infant were preparing for imminent court dates and deadlines in New York, lawyers representing them said. With children trapped indoors in shelters and foster-care homes, many young migrants who don’t have lawyers may not even be aware of ongoing court cases that could quickly end with orders for them to be deported.

Hearings for unaccompanied children are also proceeding in courts in other COVID-19 hotspots, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and Boston.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency in charge of the immigration courts, has rejected calls from judges, prosecutors and immigration lawyers to shut down courts nationwide. Although hearings for immigrants who are not detained have been suspended through May 1, cases of people in detention are going forward at the same accelerated pace as before the pandemic.

That includes many unaccompanied children. Since last year, Trump administration officials have instructed the courts to treat those children as detained if they are in shelters or foster care under the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR, a federal agency. Immigration judges are under pressure to complete detained cases within 60 days—warp speed in immigration court—with no exception for children.

Across the country, about 3,100 unaccompanied children are currently in the custody of the refugee agency. Many have run from deadly violence and abuse at home and hope to find safety with family members in the United States. The demands for them to meet fast-moving court requirements are causing alarm among lawyers, caregivers and families.

“It is inexplicable and dangerous that the Trump administration has insisted that detained unaccompanied children are still required to go to court,” said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, or KIND, which helps provide lawyers for unaccompanied children. Unlike in criminal courts, in immigration court children have no right to a lawyer paid by the government if they cannot afford one.

On April 8, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the immigration bar, and other legal groups asked a federal court for a temporary restraining order to force the Justice Department to suspend in-person hearings of detained immigrants during the pandemic.

Justice Department officials say they are holding hearings for immigrants in detention, including for children, so they can get their cases decided and perhaps be freed quickly.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Julia’s report at the link.

The idea, as DOJ claims, that this is being done to facilitate the “freeing” of kids is preposterous on its face.

First, there is nothing stopping them from arranging placements for children without the Immigration Court hearings being completed. It used to be done all the time.

Second, the DOJ has intentionally and unethically rewritten asylum laws through “precedents” aimed primarily at making it harder to qualify for asylum. This abuse of process particularly targets those fleeing persecution resulting from various types of systematic government and societal violence in Central America. The approval rates for these types of cases have fallen to minuscule levels under Trump.

Third, no child has any chance of succeeding in Immigration Court without a lawyer. Almost all lawyers who represent children in Immigration Court serve “pro bono” — or work for NGOs who can only provide minimal salaries.

Yet, the Administration is making these lawyers risk their health and safety, while artificially accelerating the process, all of which actively and aggressively discourages representation.

Added to that is the constant “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” with Immigration Courts closing, reopening, and re-closing on a moment’s notice and dockets constantly being rearranged as judges, court support staff, interpreters, and DHS lawyers fall ill.

The Administration could work with groups like KIND and other NGOs to arrange placements, and schedule hearings in a manner that promotes health and safety for everyone while maximizing due process. But, the Administration refuses to do this.

Instead, those seeking to inject sanity, common sense, best practices, and human decency into the process are forced to sue the Administration in Federal Court. This further dissipates and diverts already scarce legal resources that could have been used to actually represent children in Immigration Court and arrange safe placements for them.

Finally, as I have noted previously, the Administration has simply suspended the operation of the Constitution and the rule of law at the borders. This means that thousands, including unaccompanied children, are “orbited into the void” without any process whatsoever or any effort to ascertain their situations or best interests.

All of this gives lie to the Administration’s bogus claim that this is about looking out for the best interests of these kids. No, it’s about maximizing cruelty, destroying lives (considered an effective and acceptable “deterrent” in nativist circles), and carrying out a noxious racist White Nationalist restrictionist immigration agenda.

And, to date, Congress and the Federal Courts, both of which have the power to put an end to this disgraceful, unlawful, and unconstitutional conduct have been largely “MIA.”

Nevertheless, thanks to courageous and dedicated journalists like Julia and organizations like KIND, a public record is being made. While those responsible for implementing and enabling these abuses directed at the “most vulnerable of the vulnerable” among us are likely to escape legal accountability, they will eventually be tried and found wanting in the “court of history.”

Due Process Forever! Trump’s Child Abuse Never!

PWS

04-10-20

AMERICA’S FUTURE IN HANDS OF SUPREMES — Based On Their Feckless Performance To Date, That’s Probably Not Going To Be A Good Thing — For Dreamers Or Anyone Else Who Respects Democracy & Human Values! — “That this is not about the law; this is about our choice to destroy lives.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/panic-and-fear-already-consume-our-daily-lives-will-the-supreme-court-pass-the-coronavirus-test

Cristian Farias in Vanity Fair:

. . . .

No case in the Supreme Court’s current docket has higher stakes for human life in the era of COVID-19 than its upcoming ruling on the fate of so-called Dreamers—young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children through no fault of their own, and who remain shielded from deportation thanks to a program President Barack Obama instituted in 2014.

A highly unusual letter made its way to the justices late last month, after the case had already been briefed, argued, and for which a decision is already in the works. Lawyers for a group of beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known colloquially as DACA, wrote to the justices to warn about the dire consequences that a ruling in favor of Trump would have on the roughly 27,000 health care workers who happen to be DACA recipients. Among them are doctors, nurses, paramedics, and others on the front lines of combating the rapid spread of COVID-19 across the country. “Termination of DACA during this national emergency would be catastrophic,” the lawyers wrote.

The letter wasn’t just an appeal to the justices’ humanity and sense of fairness—after all, like the rest of us, they themselves have had to cancel public hearings, practice social distancing, and adjust to telework. But the filing also brought to bear a legal requirement the Trump administration had to weigh, but didn’t, when the Department of Homeland Security first announced the wind-down of DACA: the multitude of “reliance interests” that the government had created when it instituted the program—not just for recipients who have built their livelihoods around it, but the scores of local governments, businesses, and institutions that rely on so-called Dreamers for their own day-to-day functioning. “The public health crisis now confronting our nation illuminates the depth of those interests as borne by employers, civil society, state, and local governments, and communities across the country, and especially by health care providers,” the lawyers wrote in their letter, which also listed examples of health care workers who would be at risk of losing it all if the Supreme Court somehow agreed with the arguments the Trump administration has made in its years-long bid to terminate DACA.

A pair of recent analyses by the Center for Migration Studies and the Center for American Progress broadened the lens and found that the number of DACA recipients who qualify as essential workers during the pandemic could reach hundreds of thousands, as many of them also work in the health industry as food preparers, custodians, or in administrative roles, or otherwise in the fields of education, manufacturing, transportation, food retail, or the hard-hit restaurant industry. Some of these health care professionals, like others in the trenches, have begun to speak up. “I am treating people suspected of having COVID-19, and all I’m asking is to stay in this country and provide that care,” Veronica Velasquez, a 27-year-old physical therapist at a Los Angeles community hospital, told USA Today. “We’re definitely helping them stay alive.” Speaking to the New York Times in the middle of his shift, Aldo Martinez, a 26-year-old paramedic in Florida who was brought to the U.S. when he was 12, seemed to make a direct appeal to the justices. “It’s imperative that the Supreme Court take account of conditions that did not exist back in November,” he said. “It seems nonsensical to invite even more chaos into an already chaotic time.”

The pandemic was unforeseen at the time the justices considered the DACA dispute in November and could well change the calculus for how the Supreme Court ultimately rules in the case. But the issue of “reliance,” which federal agencies promulgating or rolling back policy are required to consider under administrative law, is not new to the case. The words reliance or reliance interests came up dozens of times at the oral argument in November, with some justices appearing rightly concerned that the Trump administration did not engage in the due diligence federal law demands when rescinding a policy on which people’s lives, the economy, and other third parties depend. At the hearing, Justice Stephen Breyer articulated what the law expects in these circumstances. “When an agency’s prior policy has engendered serious reliance interests,” Justice Breyer said, quoting from a decade-old opinion by the late conservative stalwart Justice Antonin Scalia, “it must be taken into account.” Justice Scalia added in his original 2009 opinion “that a reasoned explanation is needed for disregarding facts and circumstances that underlay or were engendered by the prior policy.” In other words, explain to the public why the current reality doesn’t affect your thinking for what you’re trying to do.

But when one reads the 2017 memorandum that rescinded DACA, or a later one that purported to better explain the termination, there’s no indication anywhere that the Trump administration took into account the human, economic, and social costs of leaving so many people—many of them with jobs, small businesses, American families, and ties to the community—unprotected. Later reporting by the New York Times revealed that a key actor in the deliberations to end DACA, then Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke, was herself deeply conflicted with signing her name to the anti-immigrant rationales that the White House, Stephen Miller, and then Attorney General Jeff Sessions advanced for rolling back the program—none of whom, it would seem, took into consideration the myriad harms that would flow from that decision.

Courts in California, New York, and Washington, D.C., took notice of these self-inflicted flaws and allowed DACA to remain in the books. “As a practical matter,” wrote a Brooklyn federal judge in early 2018, “it is obvious that hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients and those close to them planned their lives around the program.” United States District Judge John Bates, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote in an opinion leaving DACA in place that the Trump administration showed “no true cognizance of the serious reliance interests at issue here”—and worse, that “it does not even identify what those interests are.”

The Trump administration’s evident failure to own up to the human cost of its policy choices and to spell them out clearly has now given the Supreme Court an opportunity to fix the mess. But as Joe Biden suggested in a statement shortly after the DACA letter was filed, the justices cannot just close their eyes to a reality that was not before them when they first took up the case: a pandemic that has touched every single one of us—and that has fallen hardest on those providing needed medical care. “If the Supreme Court upholds President Trump’s termination of DACA in the midst of a national public health emergency, it will leave a gaping hole in our health care system that is liable to cost American lives,” Biden said.

At the very least, the justices could discard the bare-bones justifications offered by the Trump administration for doing away with DACA and make him and his administration show their work. In the letter filed with the Supreme Court at the end of March, the lawyers suggest a sort of middle ground: a new round of legal arguments in writing addressing “whether remand to the agency for reconsideration of its decision to terminate DACA is appropriate in light of the extraordinary public health emergency.” In an interview, Muneer Ahmad, a Yale law professor who is a signatory to the letter, suggested that New York, where his clients reside, is a kind of ground zero that would be instructive for the justices. “New York is both an epicenter for Dreamers and DACA recipients and an epicenter of the pandemic,” he told me.

Trump may not want to take full responsibility for the federal response to the coronavirus. But the DACA controversy, at its very core, is about political accountability—about how the law requires the president and his government to take ownership of their policy choices, even those that harm others. During the hearing to consider DACA’s fate, Justice Sonia Sotomayor alluded to the realpolitik dimensions of ending the program when she asked Noel Francisco, Trump’s chief Supreme Court lawyer, to articulate the administration’s rationale for trying to end the program. “Where is the political decision made clearly?” she asked. “That this is not about the law; this is about our choice to destroy lives.”

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

Read Cristian’s full article at the above link.

And, Cristian is by no means the only one joining me in “calling out” the J.R. Five for their betrayal of America in favor of an anti-democratic, far right political agenda, groveling before a President who has flouted his racism and open disdain for the law and courts who won’t do his bidding.

Linda Greenhouse in The NY Times flays the “J.R. Five’s” pathetic handling of the recent Wisconsin case that highlighted the GOP’s aggressive program of voter suppression.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/opinion/wisconsin-primary-supreme-court.html

Here’s an excerpt from Linda’s analysis of the Supreme mockery of justice in the recent Wisconsin voter case, RNC v. DNC:

In more than four decades of studying and writing about the Supreme Court, I’ve seen a lot (and yes, I’m thinking of Bush v. Gore). But I’ve rarely seen a development as disheartening as this one: a squirrelly, intellectually dishonest lecture in the form of an unsigned majority opinion, addressed to the four dissenting justices (Need I name them? Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan), about how “this court has repeatedly emphasized that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election.”

Let’s think about that. “Ordinarily not alter”?

There are quite a few things that should not ordinarily be happening these days. People shouldn’t ordinarily be afraid of catching a deadly virus when exercising their right to vote. Half the poll-worker shifts in the city of Madison are not ordinarily vacant, abandoned by a work force composed mostly of people at high risk because of their age.

Milwaukee voters are not ordinarily reduced to using only five polling places. Typically, 180 are open. (Some poll workers who did show up on Tuesday wore hazmat suits. Many voters, forced to stand in line for hours, wore masks.) And the number of requests for absentee ballots in Milwaukee doesn’t ordinarily grow by a factor of 10, leading to a huge backlog for processing and mailing.

I wonder how Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh understand the word “ordinarily.” And I wonder why the opinion was issued per curiam — “by the court.” Did none of the five have the nerve to take ownership by signing his name?

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

Read Linda’s full article at the link.

When a case pits the Republican National Committee against the Democratic National Committee do you really have to wonder who’s going to win with the “J.R. Five” in the driver’s seat at the Supremes?

I’ve been warning for some time about the institutional failure of the Article III Courts led by the disgraceful example of Roberts who is afraid to stand up to Trump when it counts. Interesting that in this and other areas, the “professional commentators” are picking up on and reinforcing things I have been saying on Courtside for a long time. And, much of the shabby performance of America’s life tenured judiciary begins with failing to stand up to Trump’s racist assault on migrants and his unconstitutional dismantling of justice in our overtly biased Immigration Courts.

Justice Sotomayor said it very clearly at oral argument in the DACA case: “That this is not about the law; this is about our choice to destroy lives.” The same can be said about much of the J.R. Five’s one-sided immigration jurisprudence in the “Age of Trump.”

Due Process Forever! Complicit Courts Never!

PWS

04-10-20

IMMIGRATIONPROF BLOG: “Trump is dissolving Congress in plain sight, and immigration’s a top example”

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2020/04/trump-is-dissolving-congress-in-plain-sight-and-immigrations-a-top-example.html

Friday, April 10, 2020

Trump is dissolving Congress in plain sight, and immigration’s a top example

By Immigration Prof

Share

David Hernandez
Associate Professor for Latino Studies
Mount Holyoke College

David Hernandez for The Fulcrum analyzes how President Trump is circumventing Congress on immigration law and policy:

“The Trump administration’s power grab during the new coronavirus pandemic is well underway.

But even before the Covid-19 outbreak, President Trump was out-maneuvering the principal obligations of Congress — funding and providing oversight of the executive branch, and setting policy through legislation — by deploying executive orders, rule changes, fee schedules and international agreements to minimize the power of the legislative branch during his presidency.”

Click the link above for a detailed analysis.

KJ

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

Yup. But, readers of “Courtside” already know this.

The LA Times Editorial Board expounded on the same theme today:

The pandemic as pretext

The Trump administration is using COVID-19 as an excuse to advance several controversial initiatives.

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=c41bb7af-9913-442e-a123-aadefb454e3e&v=sdk

PWS

04-10-20

NATION WITHOUT LAWS: With The Supremes’ “J.R. Five” Firmly In His Pocket, Trump Suspends The Constitution, The Rule Of Law, & International Treaties To “Orbit” Asylum Seekers To Who Knows Where! — Contempt For Humanity On Full Display During Time of Plague!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/trump-administration-has-expelled-10000-migrants-at-the-border-during-coronavirus-outbreak/2020/04/09/b177c534-7a7b-11ea-8cec-530b4044a458_story.html

Nick Miroff reports for the WashPost:

The Trump administration has carried out nearly 10,000 summary deportations or “expulsions” since March 21, using emergency public health measures that have given U.S. Customs and Border Protection broad authority to bypass immigration laws, CBP officials said Thursday.

The measures have allowed the agency to quickly turn away most unauthorized migrants — sending them back across the Mexican border. The moves have dramatically slashed the number of detainees held in border stations, where they fear the coronavirus could spread, the officials said. CBP currently has fewer than 100 detainees in custody, down from nearly 20,000 at this time last year during last year’s border crisis, officials said.

[[Under coronavirus immigration measures, U.S. is expelling border-crossers to Mexico in an average of 96 minutes]]

Since the implementation of the rapid expulsions, unlawful border crossings have dropped 56 percent, said acting CBP commissioner Mark Morgan. Morgan also acknowledged that the United States has all but closed its borders to asylum seekers who are fleeing persecution, including those who attempt to enter legally at U.S. ports of entry.

“Those who are undocumented or don’t have documents or authorization are turned away,” Morgan said.

Democratic lawmakers have accused the administration of defying U.S. laws and exceeding the authority of the coronavirus public health order, but Morgan defended the emergency measures as a necessary step to stop the spread of the disease.

“This is not about immigration,” Morgan said. “This is about public health. This is about putting forth aggressive mitigation and containment strategies.”

[[Sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access.]]

CBP said the number of migrants detained at the border fell to 33,937 in March, down 7 percent from February. Single adults from Mexico accounted for 70 percent to 75 percent of those taken into custody, and most of the remainder were from Central America’s Northern Triangle countries: Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

The Mexican government has agreed to accept the rapid return of migrants from those nations at the border under an agreement reached with the Trump administration last month.

The recent expulsions include children who would otherwise be protected from rapid removal by U.S. anti-trafficking laws. Since the emergency order took effect, the United States has expelled nearly 400 underage migrants, according to the most recent tally by the Reuters news agency. The minors were released into Mexico or boarded onto planes and flown back to Central America without being transferred to the care of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

. . . .

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

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

It’s going to take more than a letter from Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) and other Dems to restore the Constitution and the rule of law. Indeed, with the help of J.R. and his Trumpist GOP majority on the Supremes, I would expect that asylum laws, like voting rights, Due Process, and other individual rights will remain a “dead letter” until we get both 1) regime change; and 2) reform in the appointment of Article III Judges.

There is little, if any, data right now to support the view that asylum seekers at the Southern Border have been a significant source for the initial spread of coronavirus in the U.S.; however, their arbitrary removal to other countries might have helped the worldwide spread of the disease.

Moreover, as COVID-19 spreads into the Gulag and the Immigration Courts from the rest of America, infections in those locations could help spread the virus, given the lawyers, Government employees, and contractors exposed at those dangerous locations. Nor were Asian Americans responsible.

We do, however, have some data to show that U.S. citizens and other travelers returning from Europe were inadvertently a source of the virus’s spread in New York, and that Trump’s ineptness and failure to heed early warnings contributed to the spread.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/new-york-coronavirus-cases-europe-genomes.html?referringSource=articleShare

But, science and truth seldom have any meaning for Trump and his toadies. And, we also know that while Trump often falsely claims “victories” that are either fabricated or largely someone’s else’s, he never takes responsibility for his own many mistakes and shortcomings.

PWS

04-09-20

UNDER THE RADAR SCREEN: Historian Heather Cox Richardson On Why “J.R. Five’s” Enthusiasm For GOP’s Voter Disenfranchisement/Suppression Plan In Wisconsin Is A Very Bad Harbinger For November & The Survival Of American Democracy! — You Know You’re In Trouble When The “Umpires” Take The Field Wearing The Home Team’s Colors!

http://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxtkU1v4jAQhn8NuRX5I4Fw8KECQYNKpO4GKL1Ejj0QB2OnjtMQfv0G2MtKK81opHdmNB-P4B5O1vWsto0P2gZcriSLcIxQTAPJQonjKA5Ukx8dwIUrzbxrIajbQivBvbLm3kBQRGlQMjSNI0wRmQrAEqgQxyKGkEpCjiSEsAjuY3LeSgVGAIMfcL01EGhWel83I_o6IsvBSuC-BCfs1SlRcicba8ZNWzSei_NY2MtQUw_Oa6f0y-SFIIJGdOntGcyILqBfY0F2_SfR56SyeJOdus3idHufr7uCpuivfkuzQ7TJDk1y0aWcJ5NNtg3TKkFpdYjSvlP8M70NdUq87dR7lnRptrklqlOC7tRDX81uco77r_2ykiv9U6j1bLyC4gvvAV5rG03L4mA-6vJ3sbhuF5pcl7te7auP86rZ_spRoNh9cxSiKYpRGE3HeGy_25moJmdUjkJ0OZF_zg4cW4MxypwaTIY8t_ohDzjyIV5ao3yfg-GFBvkk5Z9oH4_3fQ3MQNdo8B7cUxzw0Wgyw5NgmCTtwNiw__3_D1PIvsA

There is complicated news nabout voter suppression tonight out of Wisconsin. It has overridden today’s news of the extraordinary outburst of Trump’s acting Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly, who flew almost 8000 miles to Guam to harangue the sailors from the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

I’ll cover the Modly story later in the week, but for tonight, Wisconsin.

There is a crucial election there tomorrow that landed tonight at the US Supreme Court. The backstory is that in 2010, thanks to REDMAP the Republican Redistricting Majority Project I wrote about on Saturday, the Wisconsin legislature was controlled by Republicans. They worked to guarantee their control, gerrymandering the state so effectively in 2011 that in the 2012 elections, Republicans lost a majority of voters, but took 60% of the seats in the legislature. (They won only 48.6% of the votes, but took 61% of the seats.)

With this power, they promptly passed a strict voter-ID law that reduced black and Latino voting, resulting in 200,000 fewer voters in 2016 than had voted in 2012. (Remember, Wisconsin is a key battleground state, and Trump won it in 2016 by fewer than 23,000 votes.)

Now, there is a move afoot to purge about 240,000 more voters from the rolls, thanks to the old system called “voter caging.” The state sent letters to registered voters, largely in districts that voted Democratic in 2016, and those who did not respond to the letters have been removed from the voter rolls on the argument that the fact they didn’t respond to the letters must mean they have moved. Initially, the purge was supposed to happen in 2021, after the election, but a conservative group sued to removed them earlier and a conservative state judge, Paul V. Malloy ordered it done. Malloy’s decision has been appealed to the Wisconsin state supreme court, which has deadlocked over the issue by a vote of 3-3.

On tomorrow’s ballot is a contest for a seat on that court. The Republicans desperately want to reelect their candidate, Justice Daniel Kelly, who recused himself from the voter purge vote pending the election. Trump has endorsed Kelly, who will uphold the purge if he is reelected. Before the pandemic, observers thought Kelly’s opponent had a good chance of unseating him because of expected high turnout among Democrats. But now, of course, all bets are off, especially since the Democratic strongholds in the state are in the cities, where the residents are hunkered down.

The election was originally scheduled for tomorrow, but the pandemic has gummed up the works. A stay-at-home order went into effect in the state on March 25, and more than a million voters have requested absentee ballots. But this huge surge means the state is running behind and hasn’t been able to deliver the ballots. Meanwhile, roughly 7000 poll workers, who are volunteers and often elderly, have said they would not come manage the election, so a large number of polls can’t open. The city of Milwaukee, whose 600,000 people normally would have 180 polling places, will have five. Milwaukee tends to vote Democratic.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, tried to get the Republican-dominated legislature to postpone the election or to mail ballots to all voters for a May 26 election deadline, but it refused. Over the weekend, the mayors of Wisconsin’s ten biggest cities urged the state’s top health official, Andrea Palm, to “step up” and use her emergency powers to replace in-person voting with mail-in voting, as Ohio did when faced with a similar problem. On Monday, Evers signed an executive order postponing the election until June 9—something even he was unsure he had the power to do, but he said he felt he had to try to keep people safe– but Republicans challenged the order and the Republican-dominated state Supreme Court blocked it.

Last Thursday, a federal judge permitted absentee ballots to be counted in the election so long as they arrived back to election officials by April 13, but Republicans immediately challenged the decision. Tonight, in a 5-4 decision, the US. Supreme Court refused to permit this extension of time for the state to receive absentee ballots, arguing (apparently without any self-awareness) that the federal judge made a mistake by changing the rules of an election so close to its date. This means that absentee ballots have to be postmarked tomorrow, even if the voter hasn’t gotten one by then.

The court insisted that the issue in the decision was quite narrow, and had nothing to do with the larger question of the right to vote. The four dissenting justices cried foul.

Writing for the four other judges in dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote that “the court’s order, I fear, will result in massive disenfranchisement.” “The majority of this Court declares that this case presents a “narrow, technical question”…. That is wrong. The question here is whether tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens can vote safely in the midst of a pandemic. Under the District Court’s order, they would be able to do so. Even if they receive their absentee ballot in the days immediately following election day, they could return it. With the majority’s stay in place, that will not be possible. Either they will have to brave the polls, endangering their own and others’ safety, or they will lose their right to vote, through no fault of their own. That is a matter of utmost importance—to the constitutional rights of Wisconsin’s citizens, the integrity of the State’s election process, and in this most extraordinary time, the health of the Nation.”

The New York Times editorial board echoed Ginsburg, warning that what is happening in Wisconsin, where Republicans are trying to use the pandemic to steal an election, could happen nationally in 2020. This is why Democrats tried to get robust election funding in the $2.2 trillion coronavirus bill to bolster mail-in ballots, and why Trump said: “The things they had in there were crazy, they had things, levels of voting that if you ever agreed to, you would never have another Republican elected in this country again.”

This crisis in Wisconsin has national implications. The reelection of Kelly will likely mean Wisconsin loses another 240,000 voters, most of them Democrats. This will increase Trump’s chances of winning the state in 2020, and Wisconsin is likely key to a victory in the Electoral College.

This is why I watch the minutia of politics so carefully. It’s hard to imagine that the election of a state judge in Wisconsin matters to our nation of fifty states and 330 million people, but it does. Oh, boy, does it.

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

Remember, if more voters turn out, Trump & the GOP lose. The “J.R. Five” will be doing everything in their power to make sure that doesn’t happen. That’s why it’s critical for Dems to get out the vote and create a “Roberts-proof” majority. Also, winning the Senate is the way to start pushing back on the J.R.Five’s plans to dismantle democracy and with it any semblance of equality in America. Voter suppression is just the beginning.

PWS

04-07-20

SUPREMES’ DISINGENUOUS ENABLING OF REGIME’S ILLEGAL & DANGEROUS WHITE NATIONALIST ANTI-IMMIGRANT AGENDA AIMED AT TERRORIZING COMMUNITIES OF COLOR WILL HELP SPREAD THE PANDEMIC — BONUS COVERAGE: My Latest Mini-Essay: “SUPREME COMPLICITY SPELLS SUPREME DANGER FOR ALL AMERICANS” ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️👎🏻

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/29/i-have-a-broken-heart-trump-policy-has-immigrants-backing-away-from-healthcare-amid-crisis?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Maanvi Singh reports for The Guardian:

As the coronavirus spread through California and the economic fallout of the pandemic began to hit Patricia’s community in the rural Coachella Valley, she said a new Trump administration policy had layered worries upon her worries.

The so-called “public charge” rule, which allows the government to deny green cards and visas to immigrants who rely on public benefits, went into effect in late February, just as the first cases of Covid-19 were being reported across the US.

“Now, we are in panic,” said Patricia, a 46-year-old mother of three and daughter of two elderly parents. The Guardian is not using Patricia’s real name to protect her and her undocumented family members.

Patricia’s father, who stopped seeking treatment for his pancreatic cancer after a lawyer advised that using some public medical benefits could affect his bid to gain legal status, is among the most at-risk for complications from contracting the coronavirus. So is her mother, who is diabetic.

“I have a broken heart,” she said. “We’ve been told that if we want papers to feel secure and calm here, there’s a tradeoff.”

‘I won’t survive’: Iranian scientist in US detention says Ice will let Covid-19 kill many

Although the US Citizenship and Immigration Services last week announced under pressure from lawmakers and advocacy groups that immigrants who undergo testing or treatment for Covid-19 would not be denied visas or green cards under the new rule, fear and confusion are stopping people from seeking medical care. In the midst of a pandemic, health and legal experts say that policies designed to exclude vulnerable immigrant communities from medical care are fueling a public health disaster.

“The community doesn’t trust the government right now.” said Luz Gallegos, who directs the Todec Legal Center in southern California. As Covid-19 spreads across the state, much of the center’s efforts recently have been dedicated to reassuring immigrants that they can and should take advantage of health programs if they can.

Patricia, who went to Todec for advice, said even though she’s been told that the public charge rule doesn’t apply to those who want to get tested for the coronavirus, she can’t help but worry. “With this president, you can never know,” she said. When immigration policies can change overnight, she said, “how can we have trust?”

Even before the public charge rules went into effect, a UCLA analysis found that more than 2 million Californians enrolled in the state’s public food and medical benefits programs could be affected by the rule, which allows immigration officials to turn away those seeking green cards and visas based on who are “likely to be a public charge”.

“We can’t stop the spread of disease while denying health coverage to people,” said Ninez Ponce, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. “It’s irresponsible public health policy.”

Although several groups of immigrants, including asylum-seekers and refugees, are exempt from the rule, the complicated, 217-page regulation has a “chilling effect”, Ponce said, driving people to withdraw from social services even if they don’t have to.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Maanvi’s report at the link.

SUPREME COMPLICITY SPELLS SUPREME DANGER FOR ALL AMERICANS

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Exclusive for Courtside

April 3, 2020

So, let’s be clear about what happened here with the so-called public charge regulations. The expert public commentary opposing this unlawful and unnecessary (i/o/w “stupid and malicious”) change in the regulations was overwhelming.

The vast bulk of the 266,077 public comments received were in opposition!https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/12/06/complicit-9th-circuit-judges-continue-to-coddle-trump-this-time-legal-immigrants-are-the-victims-of-trumps-judicially-enabled-white-nationalist-agenda-judges-jay-bybee-sandra-i/

Support for the change outside of White Nationalist nativist “fringies” was negligible and had no basis in fact.

The Administration’s rationale, sacrificing health and welfare and screwing immigrants for some small fabricated savings that failed to consider the offsetting harm to the public and individuals, was facially absurd.

A U.S. District Judge in New York immediately and properly found the regulation change to be unlawful and enjoined it. The Second Circuit upheld that injunction. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/01/08/finally-an-appeals-court-with-some-guts-2d-circuit-stands-up-to-regime-on-public-charge-injunction/

In the meantime, however, Appellate Judges in the 9th and 4th Circuits had gone “belly up” for Trump. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/12/10/complicit-court-update-4th-circuit-joins-9th-in-tanking-for-trump-on-public-charge-rule-judges-harvie-wilkinson-paul-niemeyer-go-belly-up-for-trump-while-judge-pame/

Trump Solicitor General Francisco fabricated an “emergency” reason for the Supremes to intervene in a process that was ongoing before the District Court in New York. The “J.R. Five” voted to be Francisco’s toadies and stay the injunction. The other justices voted to uphold the injunction and require the Trump regime to abide by the law and normal judicial procedures. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/02/15/linda-greenhouse-nyt-supremely-complicit-meanness-has-become-a-means-to-the-end-of-our-republic-for-j-r-his-gop-judicial-activists-on-the-supremes-what-if-they-had-to-wal/

The J.R. Five’s “toadyism for Trump” was so obvious that in a later related case Justice Sonia Sotomayor took the unusual step of filing a sharply worded dissent “outing” her colleagues for consistently “tilting” the process in favor of one party — Trump. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/02/22/complicity-watch-justice-sonia-sotomayor-calls-out-men-in-black-for-perverting-rules-to-advance-trump-miller-white-nationalist-nativist-immigration-agenda/

Then, the “real emergency” (as opposed to Francisco’s fabricated one) predicted by the health officials who had opposed the regulation change occurred. Now, immigrant families who often form the backbone of our “essential workforce” are at risk and they, in turn, will unavoidably spread the risk. Americans, citizens, residents, documented, undocumented, will unnecessarily die because the J.R. Five were derelict in their duties.

The truth is very straightforward: “The coronavirus pandemic is ‘Exhibit A for why the public charge rule is stupid’ said Almas Sayeed, at the California Immigrant Policy Center.” Apparently, “Exhibit A” was too deep for the “J.R. Five” to grasp.

The Constitution actually doesn’t enable the Executive to promulgate irrational policies that contradict both the best science and endanger the public health and welfare to achieve openly racist and xenophobic political goals. “Stupidity based on racism and ignorance” has no place in our Federal Government.

As Mark Joseph Stern so clearly said in Slate:

Put simply: When some of the most despised and powerless among us ask the Supreme Court to spare their lives, the conservative justices turn a cold shoulder. When the Trump administration demands permission to implement some cruel, nativist, and potentially unlawful immigration restrictions, the conservatives bend over backward to give it everything it wants.

COMPLICITY WATCH: Justice Sonia Sotomayor Calls Out “Men In Black” For Perverting Rules To Advance Trump/Miller White Nationalist Nativist Immigration Agenda!

“Stupid” actually means “illegal” in this and most other cases. That such an an obvious concept is over the heads of the ideologically biased “J.R. Five” should give us all great pause. The next time these folks decide to elevate the “stupid” and the “racist” over “rational, legal, and humane,” it could be YOUR life and future going down their drain.

If we continue to empower a regime that elevates poorly qualified individuals who have lost any sense of human values and common decency they might have possessed to life tenure in the highest courts of our land, there will be no end to the avoidable human disasters, unnecessary suffering, and tragedies that will ensue.

We need regime change in November! That won’t change the composition and qualifications of the Federal Judiciary overnight. But, it will be an absolutely necessary start toward a Government and a judiciary that understand and respect the Constitution, the rule of law, and the individual rights and human dignity of all persons before our laws. In other words, due process and equal justice for all.

Vote like you life depends on it. Because, it does!

Due Process Forever! Complicit Courts Never!

PWS

03-30-20

SET OUR CHILDREN FREE! — AMERICA OFFICIALLY ABUSES CHILDREN IN THE TIME OF PLAGUE — Lee Sunday Evans & Waterwell With A 90-Second Video Using The Words Of The Abused!

Dearest Flores Readers –

I hope this finds you and your loved ones as safe and comfortable as possible right now.

We created a 90-second video – its a series of excerpts about the lack of access to healthcare in immigration detention facilities as a way to highlight how dangerous it is for anyone to be in detention during COVID-19.

Can you post or share this video on social media?

It will have a great impact – it will help engage more people in the movement to get people out of detention.

All info about how to post is below.

I’ve also included a few relevant news stories in case you’re interested in more context. And, there is information about one direct action you can take if you are interested.

Feel free to be in touch if you have any questions.

(AND – if you are also working on this issue and have other ideas about how this video, or the project, can be most effective at this time, we are all ears, our digital doors are open.)

With love,

Lee

SHARE / REPOST

The video is posted to our social media channels:

Twitter

Instagram

Facebook

or DOWNLOAD the video directly:

https://vimeo.com/403007841 / password: criterion

(*choose the 4K file)

CAPTION – use ours or write your own:

These first-hand stories from June 2019 can help us understand why it’s so urgent to get people out of detention during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

COPY These Hashtags

#FreeThemAll #FreeThemAllGov #HealthNotPunishment #floresexhibits

(This is the most direct way to connect your message and your followers to the movement among advocates and policy makers.)

ACTION – if you want to take an action today, this is from RAICES Texas:

> Call the San Antonio ICE Field Office at (210) 283-4712

> “Hi, my name is _____ and I am calling to demand the release of all immigrant detainees from the Residential Centers at Karnes and Pearsall due to the imminent threat of COVID-19. If you don’t, we are all at risk.”

NEWS

Judge orders release of 10 detained immigrants from NJ jails

Judge Gee orders gov’t to “rmake continued efforts” to release migrant children

Judge declines to release families in detention in TX + NJ

Detained Immigrants File a Lawsuit

FOLLOW these incredible advocacy organizations to stay informed about the issues and amplify important actions they are instigating:

Detention Watch Network (@DetentionWatch)

Raices (@RAICESACTION @RAICESTEXAS)

Southern Border Community Coalition (@SBCCoalition)

New Sanctuary Coalition (@NewSanctuaryNYC)

ACLU – Border Rights (@ACLU_BRC)

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

Join the New Due Process Army and fight to end official child abuse and Article III judicial complicity!

What kind of society allows its government to abuse children? Whatever happened to accountability? How about ethics and common sense for Article III Judges who could end the abuse, but haven’t? How would you feel if your children were treated this way by the authorities? There is a reprehensible “double standard” at work here!

Due Process Forever! Child Abuse Never!

PWS

04-02-20

UPDATE: While folks like McHenry and the operators of the DHS Gulag provide misleading information, or perhaps outright lies, to Federal Judges, Courtside’s sources say that at least six individuals with some connection to the Immigration Courts have died from coronavirus. While I admittedly have no way of “independently verifying” this information, I’d bet that there are many more Immigration Court or Gulag-related coronavirus deaths and serious infections out there that I do not know about!

Why, I wonder, would any Federal Judge accept the word of someone like McHenry or officials in the DHS Gulag over affidavits from detainees, filings from experts, and the advice we hear from the Surgeon General, Dr, Fauci, and Dr. Birx every day? Stay home means “stay home!”

Nobody with any understanding of our immigration system could reasonably believe that running one more removal hearing or keeping non-criminals in prison is worth endangering lives and spreading disease! What in the recent public history of DHS Detention and EOIR would lead a Federal Judge to credit any information on “best practices” on public health provided by these inherently unreliable and incompetent organizations?

PWS

04-02-20

TIMING IS EVERYTHING: DURING CRISIS, BIA MAKES TIME FOR A LITTLE GRATUITOUS CRUELTY: What Could Be Better During Worldwide Pandemic & Humanitarian Disaster Than An Attempt To Narrow The Criteria For Cancellation & Deport To Guatemala A Long-Time Resident With Five U.S.C. Kids, Three With Health Issues, & An LPR Mother With Hypertension? — Matter of J-J-G, 27 I&N Dec. 808 (BIA 2020)

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1264601/download

Matter of J-J-G-, 27 I&N Dec. 808 (BIA 2020)

BIA HEADNOTE:

1) The exceptional and extremely unusual hardship for cancellation of removal is based on a cumulative consideration of all hardship factors, but to the extent that a claim is based on the health of a qualifying relative, an applicant needs to establish that the relative has a serious medical condition and, if he or she is accompanying the applicant to the country of removal, that adequate medical care for the claimed condition is not reasonably available in that country.

(2) The Immigration Judge properly determined that the respondent did not establish eligibility for cancellation of removal because he did not demonstrate that his qualifying relatives will experience hardship, including medical, economic, and emotional hardship, that rises to the level of exceptional and extremely unusual.

PANEL: MALPHRUS, Acting Chairman; CREPPY and CASSIDY, Appellate Immigration Judges

OPINION BY: Judge Garry D. Malphrus, Acting Chairman

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

Getting beyond the BIA’s disingenuously rosey description of life in Guatemala, here’s what really happens to families sent back to Guatemala in the “time of plague.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/02/deported-coronavirus-ice-family-separations?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Here’s an excerpt:

María looked for work as a waitress as soon as she arrived. She knocked on the doors of 15 restaurants and was rejected each time. “Right now, no one is hiring workers, they’re firing people,” María said. Under the lockdown, she has had to put her search on hold.

María’s options in Guatemala are limited, particularly since it is not safe for her to go back to her home town. She and her little girl fled Guatemala for the US in late 2018 after the same gang that murdered María’s entire family over a land dispute, including the little girl’s mother, killed María’s partner and shot at María. Last summer, a US immigration judge found María’s account credible but decided her case did not meet the narrow legal standard for asylum. María filed an appeal but could no longer endure being locked up away from her niece. Because she was not the girl’s biological mother, Ice refused to release her from detention to reunite the family. After nearly a year apart, María requested deportation with the hope she and the girl could return together.

“It was notably easier for Ice to concede the bona fides of the relationship between María and her niece when removal to Guatemala was the goal,” said Suzannah Maclay, María’s attorney.

‘It is beyond cruel’: Ice refuses to reunite girl with the only family she has left

María was craving freedom after so long in detention but still finds herself spending her days inside. She wants her niece to go to school and get the education she never got. She feels restless, unable to start building a better life for them both. “I can’t do anything,” she said.

She believes the gang that murdered her family still wants to kill her, and she is always fearful they will discover she is back. She doesn’t want her niece to grow up alone. She tries to give the girl a sense of security, but the truth is hard to hide. “Why did they send us here?” the girl asked her upon arriving in Guatemala. “It’s too dangerous.”

As María and her child focus on day-to-day survival, they are also trying to heal from the trauma of their separation. Sometimes the girl tells María about foster care in New York. The stories are hard to hear. The girl describes getting her hands slapped when she touched things or being scolded in restaurants. “They humiliated her,” María said.

“Mami, I missed you so much,” the girl tells her. “I don’t ever want to be apart again.” María responds with a promise: “This won’t happen again.”

Now, a real appellate court, with qualified judges acting independently, might have used this as an opportunity to direct that Immigration Court hearings in all “non-criminal” cancellation of removal cases be deferred until such time as we can understand what is actually happening in Guatemala and other countries after the worldwide pandemic is brought under control.

After all, the situation is rapidly evolving. Or, I should say devolving! What’s the purpose of holding “trials” on conditions in foreign nations that are likely to change materially on a weekly or even daily basis?

Just look at the difference between the impact of the coronavirus in the United States one month ago and what is happening today. A month ago, folks were strolling the beaches of Florida and our President was basically minimizing the potential impact. Now there are over 10 million Americans out of work, three-fourths of the country under “stay at home” orders (except for Immigration Court), with nearly 200,000 reported cases, and “best case” predictions of several hundred thousand deaths!

So, why would any rational person think, like the BIA does, that things will be “hunky dory” for those deported to Guatemala, particularly if they choose to take their U.S.C. children? Why would a poor corrupt country with a limited economy and few resources fare better than the world’s richest nation in weathering this crisis? When hospitals are breaking down all over the U.S., why would health care be readily available to recent returnees in Guatemala? With 10 million out of work here, why would jobs to support a family of five be readily available in Guatemala? The BIA’s decision in this case is as “counterfactual” as it is needlessly cruel!

Looking at it from a factual, legal, public health, or humanitarian viewpoint, the BIA’s timing and decision in this case were totally irresponsible.

We need an independent U.S. Immigration Court with better, more responsible, and more humane judges.

Due Process Forever! Captive Courts Never!

PWS

04-02-20

THE DAILY BEAST: “Trump Administration Has Turned Immigration Court Into ‘Public Health Hazard’” — As Federal Judges Dither & Wobble, Trump Regime Endangers Public Health! ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️

Sam Brodey & Scott Bixby report in The Daily Beast:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-administration-has-turned-immigration-court-into-public-health-hazard

In a country ground to a standstill by the coronavirus pandemic, there is one place normalcy reigns: immigration courts.

Overburdened judges oversee packed proceedings; attorneys shuttle clients and paperwork from room to room, often with interpreters in tow; aspiring legal citizens, or at least residents, follow closely, sitting through hearings famously described as death-penalty cases held in a traffic court.

The courts, along with visa applications, detention hearings and other immigration related bureaucracy, are seemingly the lone part of the federal government still expected to function as if a global pandemic hasn’t upended nearly every facet of American life. But those tasked with keeping the machine running say that they have received little guidance about how to keep the system running in the era of social isolation, and even less protection despite fears that immigration proceedings put some of the most vulnerable people in the country in the impossible position of choosing between their health or their home.

The Trump administration has refused to allow immigration courts and visa hearings to comply with the same social isolation standards followed by nearly every other civil aspect of government, and has not allowed for previously scheduled hearings to be postponed. The administration has also issued little in the way of guidance for judges, immigration attorneys or immigrants, whose hearings—which often take years to schedule—directly conflict with stay-at-home orders across the county.

“The immigration court’s refusal to adopt policies that protect the health of respondents, lawyers, judges and immigration court staff during the current pandemic forces immigrant families and their lawyers to make an impossible decision: endanger public health or risk being deported,” said Nadia Dahab, senior litigation attorney at Innovation Law Lab, one of half a dozen immigrants-rights groups that on Friday filed an emergency order challenging the operation of immigration courts despite the crisis.

“We are in the middle of a global pandemic, but the immigration court system is continuing to operate as if it’s business as usual,” said Melissa Crow, senior supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project. “The government has turned the court system into a public health hazard.”

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

With very few exceptions, deportations are hardly “essential” during a worldwide pandemic. Indeed, given that even asymptomatic individuals can and have spread the disease, deportation will certainly spread the risk to other countries that likely won’t be able to control it.

There is currently no cure, no vaccine, and no known way of controlling the coronavirus other than staying home. While this well-known information might have gone over the heads of EOIR and Article III Judges, you really wouldn’t need a law degree of even be very smart to figure out that Immigration Courts and the DHS Gulag need to be shut down. Now! No Article III Judge would actually want to trust his or her life to operating under the messed up “guidelines” issued by EOIR! So why is it OK for others?

Statistics show that the longer we wait to keep everyone home, the more individuals who will die! Why is that such a hard concept for EOIR officials and Article III Judges to grasp?

This is a time for “radical prudence” not “criminal recklessness.” The Government should have to demonstrate “clear and convincing” reasons and “best health practices” to go forward with any individual removal case during the pandemic.

Because so many Federal Judges have little understanding of what it means to appear in the Immigration “Courts” (which are not “courts” in any sense of the word) and because they use exceptionally poor judgement in believing regime bureaucrats who have no credibility on issues of public health or anything else, over experts in the field, individuals will unnecessarily suffer and die.

At some point in the future, there will have to be an accounting for the whole mess that has been allowed to unfold as a result of Trump’s biased and irrational immigration policies. Examination of the unconscionably poor response by the Article III Judiciary must be part of that process. They are a key part of unnecessarily “endangering public health” as described in this article.

The Article III Judges we have now are what we have — they have life tenure. But, going forward we can do better — much better. And, our lives and the future of humanity will depend on it.

Due Process Forever! Better Judges For A Better Future! Constantly Confront Complicit Courts 4 Change!

PWS

04-02-20

WASHPOST: TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DACA RECIPIENTS SERVE ON THE FRONT LINES OF OUR PANDEMIC RESPONSE — Trump & His Supremes Add Insult To Injury! — America’s New “Dred Scottifyers”

From the WashPost Editorial Board:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/thousands-of-health-care-workers-are-at-risk-of-being-deported-trump-could-save-them/2020/03/30/834b533a-72ae-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html

BEFORE DAWN on Saturday morning, Aldo Martinez, a paramedic in Fort Myers, Fla., responded with his ambulance crew to a man who, having just been diagnosed with covid-19, was having a panic attack. The man didn’t know that Mr. Martinez, 26 years old, is an undocumented immigrant; nor that he is a “dreamer”; nor that his temporary work permit under an Obama-era program has been targeted by President Trump.

The covid-19 patient was not aware that Mr. Martinez’s ability to remain in the United States, as he has since his parents brought him here from Mexico at age 12, now hangs in the balance as the Supreme Court weighs the future of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program known as DACA. What the man did know was that Mr. Martinez, calm and competent, spent 45 minutes helping to soothe him, explaining the risks and symptoms and how to manage them.

[[Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic]]

Some 27,000 dreamers are health-care workers; some, like Mr. Martinez, are on the front lines, grappling with a deadly pandemic. They are doctors, nurses, intensive care unit staff and EMTs trained to respond quickly to accidents, traumas and an array of other urgent medical needs.

Until now, because of DACA, they have been shielded from deportation and allowed to work legally. Their time may be running out.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the fall on the Trump administration’s attempt to rescind the program; it is expected to rule in the coming months. If, as appears likely, the court’s conservative majority sides with the administration, Mr. Martinez and thousands of other health-care workers would lose their work permits and jobs, and face the threat of deportation. So would another 700,000 DACA recipients — food prep workers, teachers and tutors, government employees, and students, including those enrolled in medical programs.

That would be catastrophic, and not just for the dreamers themselves, young people in their 20s and 30s who have grown up here. It would also be catastrophic for the United States.

Mr. Trump could halt the threat to dreamers with the stroke of a pen, by issuing an executive order. He has referred to DACA recipients as “some absolutely incredible kids” and promised that they “shouldn’t be very worried” owing to his “big heart.” But, so far, he has taken every possible step to chase them out, and his administration has made clear that if it prevails in the Supreme Court, dreamers will be subject to deportation.

That would give Mr. Martinez about four months. His current DACA status expires Aug. 5, and it would probably not be renewable if the administration prevails.

[[The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us.]]

“I don’t want people thanking me because I expose myself to covid — I’m not here for the glamour of it,” Mr. Martinez told us. “The principle is when people are having an emergency, they don’t have safety or security — you’re there to provide that for them in a time of need.”

Now it’s a time of need for Mr. Martinez himself, and hundreds of thousands of other dreamers like him. The country needs them as never before. Will Mr. Trump step up to provide them with safety and security?

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

Let’s be clear about responsibility for this unconscionable self-inflicted looming disaster. There was an exceptionally well-justified nationwide injunction in effect against the Trump regime’s lawless attempt to terminate DACA, no “Circuit split,” and absolutely no emergency reason for the Supremes to take the DACA case. None, unless they were going to summarily affirm the lower court injunction. Yet, they went out of their way to intervene in an apparent effort by the “J.R. Five” to advance the regime’s gratuitously cruel and wasteful White Nationalist, racially motivated immigration and anti-human rights agenda.

At oral argument, although acknowledging the sympathetic circumstances, the GOP Justices showed little genuine concern for the human and legal consequences facing the “Dreamers” if the “J.R. Five,” as most expect them to do, “pull the plug” on these kids. Things like the consequences of loss of work authorization or permission to study and having to live your life in constant fear of arrest and removal seemed to go over the heads of the intentionally tone-deaf and condescending GOP majority.

At oral argument, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it very clearly: “This is not about the law,” she said. “This is about our choice to destroy lives.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/supreme-court-dreamers.html?referringSource=articleShare. Her GOP colleagues, not for the first or last time, appeared anxious to tune out “the truth she spoke” and instead to please the regime’s overlords by unleashing the cruelty and wanton destruction of humanity.

Ever since their horrible “cop out” in the so-called “Travel Ban cases,” J.R. and his GOP buddies have been enabling a toxically unconstitutional invidiously motivated attack on the due process rights and human dignity of some of America’s most vulnerable “persons.” Often, they bend the normal rules applicable to everyone else “on demand” from “Trump uber-toady” Solicitor General Noel Francisco. They have played a disgraceful and cowardly role in the regime’s, largely successful to date, efforts to “Dred Scottify” and dehumanize the most vulnerable among us.

As Mark Joseph Stern very cogently said in Slate:

Put simply: When some of the most despised and powerless among us ask the Supreme Court to spare their lives, the conservative justices turn a cold shoulder. When the Trump administration demands permission to implement some cruel, nativist, and potentially unlawful immigration restrictions, the conservatives bend over backward to give it everything it wants. There is nothing “fair and balanced” about the court’s double standard that favors the government over everyone else. And, as Sotomayor implies, this flagrant bias creates the disturbing impression that the Trump administration has a majority of the court in its pocket.

Life tenure makes these guys effectively unaccountable for their immoral and illegal actions. But, history will not forget where they stood in the face of bigotry, racism, cruelty, and tyranny.

A great democracy deserves and needs better from its life-tenured judiciary. Much better! The necessary shift from kakistocracy to democracy will require “regime change” in both the Executive and the Senate. November must be the starting place if we wish to survive as a democratic republic!

Due Process Forever! Complicit Courts Never!

PWS

03-31-20

FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS RELEASE OF 10 DETAINEES IN NEW JERSEY BECAUSE OF CORONAVIRUS DANGERS

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/03/27/822348039/federal-judge-orders-10-ice-detainees-released-from-n-j-jails-over-covid-19-conc

Scott Neumann reports for NPR:

A federal judge has ordered the release of 10 people held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New Jersey county jails where COVID-19 has been confirmed, citing chronic medical conditions of the detainees that make them particularly vulnerable to the disease.

Those ordered freed range in age from 31 to 56 years of age and have medical conditions including diabetes, heart disease and obesity, and some with past histories that include pneumonia and smoking. Five were being held at Bergen County Jail, three at Hudson County Jail and the other two at Essex County Jail.

U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in the Southern District of New York granted a temporary restraining order against the inmates’ continued detention while awaiting removal proceedings, writing: “Each of the jails where a Petitioner is being housed has reported confirmed cases of COVID-19. This includes two detainees and one correctional officer in the Hudson County Jail, one detainee at the Bergen County Jail, and a ‘superior officer’ at the Essex County Jail.”

. . . .

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

Congrats to Brooklyn Defender Services! The complete article including a copy of the complete decision in available at the link.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-30-20

THE TRUTH IS OUT, THANKS TO MICHELLE MENDEZ @ CLINIC: Practice Pointers on Matter of Castillo-Perez & “Takeaways” From FOIA Trove On In Absentias!

She was a Leader of the NDPA before there was an NDPA! Now Michelle Mendez and her CLINIC Team are giving you “the skinny” on how to combat EOIR’s “Raging War on Due Process!”

Friends,

Wanted to share with you two new CLINIC resources:

Practice Pointer: Matter of Castillo-Perez, 27 I&N Dec. 664 (A.G. 2019)

FOIA Disclosures on In Absentia Removal Numbers Based on Legal Representation

An immigration judge may issue an in absentia removal order if the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, establishes by clear, unequivocal and convincing evidence that the respondent had written notice of the hearing and is removable as charged on the Notice to Appear. There are many reasons why a respondent may fail to appear at a removal hearing, including lack of notice of the hearing, sickness, a breakdown in transportation, limited or no English knowledge, or because the respondent is a child without the help of a responsible adult who can assist them in getting to the hearing. As documented in the report Denied a Day in Court: The Government’s Use of in absentia Removal Orders Against Families Seeking Asylum, CLINIC learned about these reasons firsthand while representing 46 families released from detention and successfully challenging their in absentia removal orders. Perhaps the main factor for failing to appear at scheduled hearings in immigration court is the presence or absence of legal counsel to orient the respondent through the layers of government bureaucracy and the complex immigration system.

On November 18, 2019, CLINIC submitted a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, seeking data on the number of in absentia removal orders issued based on legal representation status. CLINIC requested three sets of in absentia order data: the total number of in absentia removal orders issued since 2008, the number of in absentia orders issued to Unaccompanied Children, or UACs, since 2008, and the number of in absentia orders issued to families classified by EOIR as “Family Unit,” FAMU, cases since November 16, 2018. On March 13, 2020, EOIR responded with a three-tab Excel spreadsheet of raw in absentia removal order data. CLINIC has calculated the in absentia removal order raw data into percentages.

Here are some key takeaways from the data:

Although, according to EOIR statistics, the current overall representation rate is 65 percent for all pending cases, those who are unable to secure representation are at extraordinary risk of receiving in absentia removal orders. 92.6 percent of those with in absentia orders issued in fiscal year, or FY, 2020 were unrepresented.

Although, according to EOIR statistics, the current overall representation rate is 68 percent for all UAC pending cases, UACs who are unable to secure representation are also at extreme risk of receiving in absentia removal orders. 88 percent of those with in absentia orders issued in fiscal year FY2020 were unrepresented.

Since 2008, the percentage of unrepresented respondents with in absentia removal orders has been at least double that of in absentia orders of removal issued to represented respondents.

Since 2008, at least 70.8 percent of UACs who were issued in absentia orders of removal were unrepresented and, so far this fiscal year, the unrepresented rate for UACs who received in absentia orders of removal has been the highest ever, at 88 percent.

The number of in absentia removal orders issued by EOIR to unrepresented respondents in FY2020 surpassed the total number of in absentia orders issued to unrepresented respondents in FY2019 in just the first five and a half months of FY2020.

EOIR has issued more in absentia removal orders in the three and a half combined fiscal years covering the Trump presidency, than it did during the eight combined fiscal years covering the Obama presidency.

Total in absentia removal orders from FY2008 through FY2016 were 246,893. Total in absentia removal orders from FY2017 through FY2020 (through March 13, 2020), were 267,696

EOIR has issued more in absentia removal orders to UACs in the three and a half combined fiscal years covering the Trump presidency, than it did during the eight combined fiscal years covering the Obama presidency.

Total in absentia orders of removal issued to UACs from FY2008 through FY2016 were 20,123. Total in absentia removal orders issued to UACs from FY2017 through FY2020 (through March 13, 2020), were 26,228.

During the date range covered by the data (FY2008 through FY2020 Q2), immigration judges issued the fewest number of in absentia removal orders in FY2012, the year that DHS announced DACA. During FY2012, DHS officially launched the prosecutorial discretion program in November 2011 and reviewed many pending removal proceedings to identify low-priority cases meriting favorable exercises of prosecutorial discretion.

Most immigration courts saw a decrease in in absentia orders of removal for unrepresented noncitizens in FY2012 compared to FY2011.

Unrepresented UACs suffered a huge jump of in absentia removal orders from FY2014 (1,701) to FY2015 (5,836). This hike in in absentias for UACs occurred concurrently with the increase in UACs fleeing El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and arriving in neighboring countries and at the U.S.-Mexico border.

89.6 percent of all family units who received an in absentia removal orders from November 16, 2018 to September 30, 2019, were unrepresented.

Of all the immigration courts, the Houston Immigration Court issued the most in absentia removal orders in unrepresented FAMU cases during this period: 4,108 (which translates into 93.8 percent of the total in absentia removal orders issued by this court).

Of all the immigration courts, the Miami Immigration Court issued the second most in absentia removal orders in unrepresented FAMU cases during this period: 3,347 (which translates into 89.5 percent of the total in absentia removal orders issued by this court).

94.2 percent of all family units who received in absentia removal orders from October 1, 2019 to March 13, 2020, were unrepresented.

Of all the immigration courts, the Houston Immigration Court issued the most in absentia removal orders in FAMU cases from October 1, 2019 to March 13, 2020: 4,931 (which translates into 95.62 percent of the total in absentia removal orders issued by this court).

Of all the immigration courts, the Atlanta Immigration Court issued the second most in absentia removal orders in FAMU cases from October 1, 2019 to March 13, 2020: 4,662 (which translates into 98.27 percent of the total in absentia removal orders issued by this court).

Oddly, several immigration courts that oversee only detained dockets, including the Elizabeth Detention Center, recorded in absentia removal orders during the FOIA time period.

In FY2020, immigration judges have issued more in absentia removal orders than any prior year since 2008, and we are only five and a half months into the federal fiscal year.

Of all the immigration courts, the Harlingen Immigration Court has recorded the most unrepresented in absentia removal orders overall in FY2020 so far: 8,357.

Of all the immigration courts, the New York City Federal Plaza Immigration Court has recorded the most represented in absentia removal orders overall in FY2020: 753.

Of all the immigration courts, the Miami Immigration Court has recorded the most unrepresented in absentia removal orders for UACs in FY2020: 430.

Of all the immigration courts, the New York City Federal Plaza Immigration Court has recorded the most represented in absentia removal orders for UACs in FY2020: 73.

Thanks for helping us share these!

Michelle N. Mendez (she/her/ella/elle)

Director, Defending Vulnerable Populations Program

Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)

Embracing the Gospel value of welcoming the stranger, CLINIC promotes the dignity and protects the rights of immigrants in partnership with a dedicated network of Catholic and community legal immigration programs.

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

Now, it’s hardly “news” that there is a strong positive correlation between legal representation and appearance in Immigration Court. That information came to light way back in the Obama Administration and has consistently been reinforced by data that contradicts the lies about failures to appear put out on a regular basis by regime officials.

Given the clear correlation, the best way to make a fair due process system function would be if the Government worked hand in hand with NGOs, charitable organizations, local bar associations, and others involved in providing pro bono representation to insure that at least all asylum applicants and children are represented before the Immigration Courts. Due Process and fundamental fairness would be served and the in absentia rate would crater. In other words, due process with efficiency, an achievable “win-win!”

Instead, the Trump regime, through both EOIR and DHS, has made a concerted attack on the right to counsel in a transparent attempt to increase the number of in absentia orders and “speed up the deportation railroad” that EOIR now runs as its “one and only mission.”

How does something masquerading as a “court” system conduct a “deportation railway?” It takes lots of complicity and supposedly responsible public officials and citizens intentionally “looking the other way” and studiously ignoring the obvious!

I hope that advocates will be able to use the data provided by CLINIC to expose to the Article III Courts and Congress the rampant fraud, waste, abuse, and just plain “malicious incompetence” of EOIR and DHS (is there really a difference these days? Not apparent to most of us who follow the “Star Chambers” with regularity.).

Remember, moral cowardice and intellectual dishonesty often begin with picking on the most vulnerable and defenseless among us. And what follows is likely to be unspeakably bad, based on history!

Thanks, Michelle, my friend, for all you and CLINIC do.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-29-20

TWILIGHT ZONE: ABSURDITY, CRUELTY, INJUSTICE ARE THE ORDERS OF THE DAY IN “AMERICA’S STAR CHAMBERS” (A/K/A IMMIGRATION “COURTS’) — Podcaster Sam Graber Takes You Inside The Mind Numbing Reality Of A “Third-World Court System” Operating Right Under Our Noses!

Listen to Sam on “American Refugee” here:

LISTEN on the Web – https://odaction.com/americanrefugee-ep03/
LISTEN on Apple devices (Apple Podcasts) – https://pcr.apple.com/id1494027429
LISTEN on Android devices (Spotify) – https://spoti.fi/30r4Efi

In the days leading up to the coronavirus shutdown I journeyed into a shadow part of our justice system, a courtroom rarely seen by the public.

Detained immigration court is a place where lawyers aren’t provided for the defense, where judges and prosecutors are on the same team, where guilty is presumed and the all-too-often verdict a different kind of death.

Who are these immigration judges? What exactly is detained court? And how is it able to get away with operating outside of what we might call normal law?

Get ready because you’re about to go there, to see the injustice that isn’t being shut down.

This is American Refugee.

Written, Engineered & Produced: Sam Graber
Music: Rare Medium, Punk Funk Metropolis, New Sound Underground
Recorded: Minneapolis, MN
Original Release: March 2020

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

Disturbing and infuriating as Sam’s podcast is, I urge everyone to listen, even if you think you know what “really happens” in this godforsaken and deadly “darkest corner of the American ‘justice’ system.” Is this really the way we want to be remembered by generations that follow? As a country with so little collective courage and integrity that we allowed our fellow human beings to be treated this way? Think about it!

Even in this grimmest of worlds, their are true heroes. First and foremost, of course, are the dedicated attorneys of the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”), many working pro bono or “low bono” to vindicate essential legal, constitutional, and human rights in a system designed to grind them into dust and “dehumanize and demonize the other.”

Sound familiar? It should to anyone who studied Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. By and large, it wasn’t the “Brown Shirts” and the party faithful who enabled his rule. It was judges, lawyers, ministers, priests, businessmen, doctors, corporate moguls, and the average German who “facilitated” his annihilation of millions.

And, it started gradually, with laws stripping Jews of citizenship, property, and all legal rights and judges who enthusiastically enforced them, even against their own former judicial colleagues. Once people aren’t “humans” any more (Hitler liked the term “subhumans”) or “persons” before the law, there is no limit to what can be done, particularly when complicit judges join in the “fun and games.”

Among the other heroes are two “Courtside regulars:” Round Table Member Judge (Ret.) Ilyce Shugall and NAIJ President Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor.

Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Director, Immigrant Legal Defense Program, Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Assn. of San Francisco.

Hon. A. Ashlley Tabaddor — Hon. A. Ashley Tabaddor
President, National
Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”)

At a time when too many with knowledge of the travesty of what’s going on in our “Star Chambers” have chosen to look the other way or “go along to get along,” Ilyce and Ashley have consistently “spoken truth to power” in the face of a regime that often abuses its authority by punishing truth, honesty, and decency. Indeed, Billy Barr’s highly unethical move to “decertify” the NAIJ is a blatant attempt to punish and silence Ashley for revealing the truth.

One minor correction. Sam says that the Immigration Judges and the prosecutors both work for the DOJ. Actually, the prosecutors work for DHS. But, it’s largely a “distinction without difference” because the agenda at both DOJ and DHS is set by Trump, Miller, and the rest of the White Nationalist nativist cabal.

Indeed, former AG Sessions told Immigration Judges they were “partners” with the DHS prosecutors in enforcing immigration laws. So, the observation that in many Immigration Courtrooms migrants, including the unrepresented and children, face “two prosecutors” — the “judge” and the DHS Assistant Chief Counsel is accurate. The podcast relates how in some courts the “judge speaks for the prosecution,” the Assistant Chief Counsel is a “potted plant,” and nobody speaks for justice or the rights of the migrants. What’s missing: The impartial “neutral decisionmaker” required by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

Thanks Ashley and Ilyce for all you do! You are true superstars!

As my friend, Professor Ayo Gansallo says on her e-mail profile:

Vote like your rights depend upon it!

“A country is not only what it does…it is also what it tolerates.”

Kurt Tucholsky

Due Process Forever! Star Chambers Never!

PWS

03-29-20

A LITTLE LIGHT IN A TIME OF DARKNESS, AS JUDGE DOLLY GEE ORDERS REGIME TO RELEASE DETAINED KIDS — Four In “America’s Kiddie Gulag” Have Already Tested Positive For COVID-19!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/us/coronavirus-migrant-children-detention-flores.html?referringSource=articleShare

Miriam Jordan reports for The NY Times:

By Miriam Jordan

March 29, 2020
Updated 4:02 a.m. ET

LOS ANGELES — Concerned that thousands of migrant children in federal detention facilities could be in danger of contracting the coronavirus, a federal judge in Los Angeles late on Saturday ordered the government to “make continuous efforts” to release them from custody.

The order from Judge Dolly M. Gee of the United States District Court came after plaintiffs in a long-running case over the detention of migrant children cited reports that four children being held at a federally licensed shelter in New York had tested positive for the virus.

“The threat of irreparable injury to their health and safety is palpable,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers said in their petition, which called for migrant children across the country to be released to outside sponsors within seven days, unless they represent a flight risk.

There are currently about 3,600 children in shelters around the United States operated under license by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, and about 3,300 more at three detention facilities for migrant children held in custody with their parents, operated by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Advocates for immigrants have tried for decades to limit the government’s ability to detain children apprehended after crossing the border, arguing that it is psychologically harmful, violates their rights and undermines their long-term health.

Now, some say, the coronavirus represents an even more immediate threat.

In addition to the four children who tested positive in New York, at least one child is in quarantine and awaiting results of a test for the virus at a detention facility operated by ICE, according to documents filed with the court.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Miriam’s report at the above link.

Wow! Dateline 4:02 AM! Miriam is always on the job to make sure we get the latest news! Thanks to her and many other dedicated journalists for shedding some light on the way our regime treats the most vulnerable among us in the time of need!

Pretty shabby that judges under prodding from dedicated members of the New Due Process Army have to order the kakistocracy to “do the right thing.”

Some states and localities are actually doing the right (and smart) things on their own initiative. But, that wouldn’t be DHS or EOIR under the Trump regime.

PWS

03-29-20

Due Process Forever! Malicious Incompetence Never!

Related posts:

Due Process Forever! Trump’s Child Abuse Never!

Related posts:

Due Process Forever! Complicit Courts Never!

Related posts:

The pandemic as pretext

The Trump administration is using COVID-19 as an excuse to advance several controversial initiatives.

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Vote like you life depends on it. Because, it does!

Due Process Forever! Complicit Courts Never!

PWS

Related posts:

Related posts:

Due Process Forever! Captive Courts Never!

Related posts:

Due Process Forever! Better Judges For A Better Future! Constantly Confront Complicit Courts 4 Change!

Related posts:

Due Process Forever! Complicit Courts Never!

Related posts:

Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Due Process Forever! Star Chambers Never!

Related posts:

Related posts: