Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act – Page 2

TRUMP’S KIDDIE GULAG HITS NEW MILESTONE IN “RACE TO THE BOTTOM” — U.S. Now Leads The World In Rate Of Child Imprisonment – We Spend Billions Abusing Kids, Eschew Leadership In Solving Humanitarian Problems!

https://apple.news/Ai5Np-WWSR6KvhWeSfkMlGw

By Stephanie Nebehay | GENEVA

U.S. has world’s highest rate of children in detention: U.N. study

The United States has the world’s highest rate of children in detention, including more than 100,000 in immigration-related custody that violates international law, the author of a United Nations study said on Monday.

Worldwide more than 7 million people under age 18 are held in jails and police custody, including 330,000 in immigration detention centres, independent expert Manfred Nowak said.

Children should only be detained as a measure of last resort and for the shortest time possible, according to the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty.

“The United States is one of the countries with the highest numbers – we still have more than 100,000 children in migration-related detention in the (U.S.),” Nowak told a news briefing.

“Of course separating children, as was done by the Trump administration, from their parents and even small children at the Mexican-U.S. border is absolutely prohibited by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I would call it inhuman treatment for both the parents and the children.”

There was no immediate reaction from U.S. authorities. Novak said U.S. officials had not replied to his questionnaire sent to all countries.

He said the United States had ratified major international treaties such as those guaranteeing civil and political rights and banning torture, but was the only country not to have ratified the pact on the rights of children.

“The way they were separating infants from families only in order to deter irregular migration from Central America to the United States to me constitutes inhuman treatment, and that is absolutely prohibited by the two treaties,” said Nowak, a professor of international law at the University of Vienna.

The United States detains an average of 60 out of every 100,000 children in its justice system or immigration-related custody, Nowak said, the world’s highest rate, followed by countries such as Bolivia, Botswana and Sri Lanka.

Mexico, where many Central American migrants have been turned back at the U.S. border, also has high numbers, with 18,000 children in immigration-related detention and 7,000 in prisons, he said.

The U.S. rate compared with an average of five per 100,000 in Western Europe and 14-15 in Canada, he said.

At least 29,000 children, mainly linked to Islamic State fighters, are held in northern Syria and in Iraq – with French citizens among the biggest group of foreigners, Nowak added.

Even if some of these children had been child soldiers, he said, they should be mainly treated as victims, not perpetrators, so that they could be rehabilitated and reintegrated in society.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Why is Trump not being held accountable for leading the “race to the bottom” while littering the track with illegalities and trampling on our Constitution?

This is how we will be remembered by future generations!

Contrary to the rants of dangerous subversive Billy Barr, “The Resistance” may be the only thing that can save American and our national values.

And, let’s “lose” all the GOP/Fox News BS about “reversing election results.” Not only is impeachment an authorized Constitutional process, but, in fact, removal of Trump would result in his replacement by his hand-picked GOP stalwart successor VP Mike Pence. Hardly a “reversal” of results.

As I’ve said before, in some ways Pence could be worse than Trump, because he’s much more competent and knowledgeable on how Government actually works. Where Trump often trips over his own two feet (or, perhaps, “tweet”), Pence might be able to get things done even where they aren’t in the national interest. Nevertheless, that shouldn’t stop anyone from voting to remove Trump, because it’s the right thing to do. Unlikely to happen, though, given the blind commitment of the GOP to Trumpism and its ugly messages of cruelty, intellectual dishonesty, and dehumanization.

PWS

11-19-19

“CONSTITUTIONAL CASTRATION”– CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: HOW THE FECKLESS GOP CONGRESS IS SCREWING THE MOST VULNERABLE AMONG US BY LETTING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TRASH THE IMMIGRATION LAWS AND END-RUN THE CONSTITUTION WITHOUT CONGRESSIONAL PARTICIPATION! – “The Trump administration keeps scolding desperate immigrants to shape up and “follow the law.” When will cowardly members of Congress insist that the president do the same?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-has-bulldozed-over-congress-on-immigration-will-lawmakers-ever-act/2019/11/14/67401466-0722-11ea-8292-c46ee8cb3dce_story.html

Catherine writes @ WashPost:

By

Catherine Rampell

Columnist

November 14, 2019 at 7:09 p.m. EST

Republican lawmakers seem to be having self-esteem issues.

The legislature, after all, is an equal branch of government with constitutionally granted powers. Lately, nearly all of those powers have been siphoned off by the president and his team of unelected bureaucrats. Yet, again and again, GOP lawmakers meekly submit to this constitutional castration.

To wit: Congress’s power of the purse? Gone. Regardless of how much money Congress appropriates for, say, a border wall or military aid to Ukraine, President Trump has made clear that he’ll ignore the number and pencil in his own.

Congress’s power to regulate commerce with foreign nations? Hijacked by a president who cites bogus “national security” rationales to impose tariffs whenever he likes.

Congress’s duty to “advise and consent” on major appointments? Cabinet and other senior government posts that require Senate confirmation have been atypically littered with “acting” officials instead. In fact, while immigration is ostensibly the president’s signature issue, Trump hasn’t had a single Senate-confirmed director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement since he took office. And though Democratic lawmakers may complain, nothing will change as long as Republicans control the Senate.

Which brings me to the most significant power Trump has stripped from Congress: its lawmaking authority. This is best illustrated by the administration’s actions basically rewriting immigration law wholesale, with nary a peep from GOP legislators.

Sure, on some immigration matters, Congress has relinquished its responsibilities, effectively giving Trump the ability to contort immigration policy as he sees fit.

Consider the “dreamers,” the young immigrants brought here as children who know no other country than the United States. They have long been in a legal limbo. Congress could resolve that limbo swiftly and easily by granting the dreamers permanent legal status and a pathway to citizenship. This would have the support of majorities of voters from both parties, and the Democratic-controlled House has already passed such legislation.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in the GOP-controlled Senate wrung their hands and watched helplessly from the sidelines as Trump announced his decision to kill the Obama-era program that protects the dreamers from deportation. Based on a hearing this week, the Supreme Court appears poised to uphold the president’s decision. Yet, despite claiming to care about the issue, Republicans remain unwilling to act.

Similarly, Congress long ago gave the president authority to set the annual cap on refugee admissions. Not surprisingly, if disappointingly, the Trump administration has used that authority to ratchet the ceiling down to a record low of 18,000. For context, during President Barack Obama’s last year of office, the ceiling was 110,000.

But there are other areas of immigration law on which Congress has acted, definitively and clearly, with legislative language that leaves little room for maneuvering by the executive. The Trump administration has flouted these laws anyway.

Take asylum law.

“Refugees” and “asylum seekers” both refer to immigrants fleeing violence or persecution, but, technically, “refugees” apply for sanctuary while still abroad, and asylum seekers apply while in the country of their destination. Unlike with refugeeadmissions, there are no legal caps on the number of people who may qualify for and receive asylum. The law does not allow the executive branch to set them, either.

But the Trump administration has effectively set its own limits.

Last year, for instance, the Trump administration tried to ban people from applying for asylum if they crossed between ports of entry — as most asylum seekers are now forced to do, because the administration has severely throttled (or “metered”) the number of people who may apply through a given port of entry per day.

This “asylum ban” was blocked by the courts — because Congress has explicitly said asylum seekers can apply whether or not they entered the United States “at a designated port of arrival.”

“The law is crystal, crystal clear on this,” says Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council.

With virtually no pushback from Republicans in Congress, Trump administration then implemented a sort of asylum ban 2.0. This one disqualifies asylum seekers who passed through another country on their way to the United States without first applying for asylum there. A separate legal challenge — one among many — is now working its way through the courts.

A host of other changes designed to serve as a backdoor limit on asylee admissions have also been announced in recent weeks. Last week, the administration announced a new processing fee for asylum seekers, which would effectively disqualify families fleeing with nothing but the clothes on their backs. This week, it proposed a rule denying many asylum seekers authorization to work while their cases are being adjudicated, which can take years. This will force more immigrants into the shadows, contrary to Congress’s intentions.

The Trump administration keeps scolding desperate immigrants to shape up and “follow the law.” When will cowardly members of Congress insist that the president do the same?

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

Catherine and some other reporters “get it” as to what Trump is doing to the law, our democratic institutions, and our Constitution. How come Federal Appellate Judges, Supreme Court Justices, and GOP legislators stick their collective heads in their sand and pretend not to understand the true long-term ramifications of what they are letting Trump do? Why aren’t they protecting our Constitutional and civil rights, not to mention human rights?

It’s all part of “Dred Scottification” – the degradation and dehumanization of individuals while stripping them of their rights combined with a constant barrage of outright lies and false narratives. And, contrary to the apparent belief of many “Trump Toadies” throughout our system and the electorate, once Trump turns on them, which he eventually will, the rights they counted on for protection will be long gone. The total lack of empathy, the ability to understand and appreciate the pain and suffering of others, is perhaps the worst aspect of the Trump kakistocracy.

Thanks, Catherine, for your courageous and insightful writing!

PWS

11-15-19

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GEORGETOWN LAW COMMUNITY ON THE UPCOMING (OCT. 7) CAMPUS APPEARANCE OF ACTING DHS SEC. KEVIN McALEENAN: Yes, McAleenan Is Intellectually Dishonest & Morally Corrupt, But He Should Be Allowed To Speak On Campus – Education, Preparation, Confrontation, & Challenge Is The Best Way To Deal With A Public Official Who Has Violated (& Continues To Violate) His Oath Of Office!

Dear Georgetown Law Colleagues & Community Members:

I agree 100% with the assessment by my colleague that Kevin McAleenan is a corrupt, immoral, and indecent human being. He is an affront to American democracy, human rights, and simple human decency, as well as a congenital liar. Imagine a person who would proudly negotiate incredibly dishonest “Safe Third Country” agreements with three of the most corrupt and dangerous countries in the world, none of which has a functional asylum system.

I have highlighted McAleenan’s despicable activities numerous times on my blog, immigrationcourtside.com. Perhaps fortuitously, one of my latest post highlights McAleenan’s “Let ‘Em Die In Mexico” program and the complicity of the Supremes and other Federal Appellate Courts in allowing these blatant violations of Constitutional, statutory, and human rights to continue. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/10/03/complicit-supremes-9th-circuit-help-trump-big-mac-with-lies-abuse-asylum-seekers-in-mexico-let-em-die-in-mexico-is-a-disgrace-enabled-by-judg/

Folks should also note Mac’s knowing participation in promoting death of forced migrants by starvation in Guatemala, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-admin-ignored-its-own-evidence-climate-change-s-impact-n1056381, and his equally despicable program of returning those seeking legal refugee status under our laws to face violence in failed states that are basically “war zones.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/27/honduras-central-america-asylum-seekers-us-guatemala-el-salvador?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Mac also is spreader of the demonstrably false claim that asylum seekers don’t show up for their hearings (they show up nearly 100% of time, when represented), that their claims lack merit (he has never, to my knowledge, adjudicated a single asylum claim and is a leading proponent of the Trump Administration’s intentional, racially and gender biased misapplication of asylum laws to Central Americans), and that the Flores settlement protecting children from abusive detention is a “loophole.”

He promoted regulations recently found by U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee to be patently illegal that would have authorized indefinite detention in substandard conditions of families and children whose “crime” was to seek legal protection under our laws. Rather than working cooperatively with pro bono lawyers, he has made it virtually impossible for dedicated, hard-working lawyers to represent individuals returned to Mexico. He has replaced Asylum Officers with totally unqualified Border Patrol Officers to improperly increase the number of “credible fear” denials, over the objection of the professional Asylum Officers. He runs detention centers with life threatening conditions and lies about it.

He has also abandoned the responsible use of prosecutorial discretion and overloaded the Immigration Court dockets with absolute “dreck” that should never been brought in the first place. Contrary to his bogus claims, the vast number of removals of non-criminals being pursued by ICE in the Immigration Courts are not only intentionally destroying the justice system but demonstrably harm the United States with each mindless, biased, and unnecessary removal of long-time law-abiding individuals who are contributing to their communities and often leave U.S. citizen family members behind. The recent proposal of DHS to misapply the “public charge” grounds to prevent individuals from gaining lawful permanent residence or U.S. citizenship is beyond disgraceful. His subordinates have gloried in spreading racially-motivated terror in ethnic communities throughout the United States.

I could go on for pages about Mac’s cowardly immorality and illegal behavior.

But, all of that being said, he’s an Acting Cabinet Secretary and should be heard. I think the best course is to publicize his misdeeds in advance, so those attending can be fully informed about what he actually stands for and his total disdain for human rights and the rule of law. I also believe that he should be confronted with his many lies and illegal and immoral actions and challenged to justify his unjustifiable positions. He needs to know that most of us do not agree with the Trump Administration’s perverted world view and disavowal of basic statutory, Constitutional, and human rights which he has dishonestly advanced and advocated.

Again, I appreciate my esteemed colleague’s courageously speaking out about McAleenan’s disgraceful record of misusing public service to abuse and threaten the lives of the most vulnerable among us. I also appreciate how it has affected him and his family personally. As a former public servant for three-and-one-half decades, I find Mac to be a vile disgrace to honest, ethical, and decent public service.

But, I think “hearing and confronting” is a better course than “tuning him out.” Maybe this occasion will help inform and energize the Georgetown Law Community about the abuses of American values, human rights, Constitutional Due Process, and the Rule of Law being carried out by our Government in our name every day against our fellow human beings who have the misfortune to be migrants in today’s world.

I also note that MPI and CLINIC, the sponsors of these presentations, are among the nation’s leading defenders of immigrants’ rights and social justice. That is another reason why I would defer to their decision to invite McAleenan to this event as an “opportunity to confront and understand the face of evil.”

Thanks for listening.

Due Process Forever, McAleenan’s Lies Never!

Best,

Paul Wickham Schmidt

Adjunct Professor of Law
Georgetown Law

U.S. Immigration Judge (Retired)

Former Chairman, Board of Immigration Appeals

Former Deputy General Counsel & Acting General Counsel

(Legacy) U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service

INSIDE TRUMP’S “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” (“NAG”): Where So-Called “Civil Immigration Detainees” Asserting Their Legal Rights Are Punished In Ways That Would Be “Cruel & Unusual” If Applied To Convicted Criminals!

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=6efdc532-da2a-4e07-8ea4-f1876c153c07&v=sdk

Tom K. Wong writes in the LA Times:

The Trump administration has attempted to close the door on asylum seekers who are looking for refuge in the United States. But even as it blocks entry — and sends tens of thousands of asylum seekers to Mexico to wait out their immigration proceedings — thousands of families with children are also being held in federal immigration detention facilities.

Because the administration has prohibited advocacy groups, journalists, immigration attorneys and even congressional staff from entering detention facilities to document conditions and interview detainees, the public has had only anecdotal glimpses into how detainees were treated. Now we have systematic evidence to support accounts of the harsh conditions that asylum seekers experience in immigration detention. In many ways, it is worse than we thought.

From October 2018 through June 2019, the San Diego Rapid Response Network (SDRRN) assisted approximately 7,300 asylum-seeking families at their shelters. These families, who were processed and then admitted into the U.S., totaled more than 17,000 people, including 7,900 children 5 years old or younger. My team and I at the U.S. Immigration Policy Center (USIPC) at UC San Diego independently analyzed intake data collected by the SDRRN for all of these families.

In a report released last week, we found that approximately 35% of the asylum-seeking heads of households we studied reported problems related to conditions in immigration detention, treatment in immigration detention, or medical issues. This finding is alarming since it’s very likely an underestimate, because the SDRRN was focused on providing needed services to the asylum-seeking families, not administering questionnaires. Moreover, abuses or problems in detention may be underreported by asylum seekers who are afraid that raising complaints may negatively affect their asylum case.

Of those who reported issues related to conditions in detention, approximately 6 out of 10 reported food and water problems, including not having enough to eat, being fed frozen food, being fed spoiled food, not being given formula for infants, not being given water, and having to drink dirty or foul-tasting water. Approximately half reported having to sleep on the floor, having to sleep with the lights on, overcrowded conditions, confinement, and the temperature being too cold in “la hielera,” the detention facilities known as the “iceboxes.” Approximately 1 out of every 3 reported not having access to clean or sanitary toilets, being able to shower or being able to brush their teeth.

About 1 out of 10 of the asylum-seeking heads of households — or more than 700 of them — reported verbal abuse, physical abuse or some form of mistreatment in immigration detention. Examples of verbal abuse include being told “we don’t want your kind here” and “you’re an ape,” among others. Examples of physical abuse include being thrown against the wall when attempting to get a drink of water.

The data also showed the great diversity of those who arrive at the southern border to seek refuge. The majority of the asylum-seeking families came from the “Northern Triangle” of Central America — Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. However, many also came from other continents, 28 in all, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia, Kazakhstan, India, China and Vietnam, to name a few. Any changes to U.S. asylum policies meant to deter Central Americans from entering at the southern border will affect asylum seekers from all over the world who are also looking to the U.S. for safety.

We also found that just over 1 out of 5 of these families do not speak Spanish as their primary language. The languages spoken range from indigenous Central American languages — including K’iche’, Q’eqchi’ and Mam — to Creole, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Hindi, Vietnamese and Romanian, among others. This linguistic diversity presents another set of challenges.

When asylum seekers are released from detention, they are given detailed instructions on a form called the “Notice to Appear,” including instructions about their immigration court dates, times and locations. On the notice, immigration officials indicate the language that the asylum seeker was given these instructions in. For those whose primary language is not Spanish, nearly 9 out of every 10 were nevertheless given instructions in Spanish. If these families are not provided instructions about their immigration proceedings in a language they can understand, they will not be able to navigate an extremely complex legal process, which may infringe on their basic rights to due process.

From substandard conditions in immigration detention to verbal and physical abuse to serious due process concerns, the data show that the Trump administration is not abiding by its obligations under U.S. and international asylum and refugee law to treat humanely those who are seeking protection from persecution.

With the administration now determined to hold asylum-seeking families for potentially as long as it takes for their immigration proceedings to play out (which could be years), conditions may get worse. Cruelty, after all, may very well be the point.

Tom K. Wong is associate professor of political science and director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at UC San Diego.

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

What kind of country allows its leaders to impose these types of abuses on vulnerable individuals whose “crime” is seeking protection under our laws and the international conventions that they implement?

Why are “Big Mac” and other Trump sycophants at DHS allowed to lie with impunity about what is really happening in DHS detention, the real inhuman consequences of “Remain in Mexico” (a/k/a “Let ‘Em Die in Mexico”), and abuse “Safe Third Country” agreements by dishonestly pretending that Guatemala, one of the world’s most notoriously dangerous and corrupt “failed states,” meets the statutory requirements?

A key point in Professor Wong’s article is that many, probably the majority, of those released from detention receive inadequate explanations of their obligations to report current addresses and appear for both Immigration Court Hearings and separate ICE detention “check-ins.” Combined with this Administration’s obstinate refusal to work closely and cooperatively with legal services groups to maximize representation, it leads to many unnecessary, yet largely intentional on the part of DHS & EOIR, so-called “no shows.” These, in turn, get bogus “in absentia orders” from Immigration Judges operating under excruciating and inappropriate pressure to “produce numbers, not justice.” This, in turn, feeds the demonstrably false DHS narrative, oft repeated by “Big Mac With Lies” & others, that a large number of asylum seekers will “abscond” if released in the U.S.

It’s all part of a White Nationalist restrictionist immigration agenda that when finally exposed in detail after Trump and his cronies leave office will paint America as foolish, corrupt, and cowardly. Is this the “legacy” we truly want to leave to future generations?

Join the “New Due Process Army” and fight to restore the rule of law and Constitutional order and to end the corruption and daily human rights abuses of the Trump Administration!

PWS

09-0-19

TRUMP’S DHS STOOGES LIED! — Gov’s Own Photos & Reports Show Filthy, Disgusting, Inhumane Detention Conditions — Lawyers, Reporters, Dems Vindicated — DHS Officials Who Denied Mistreatment Lied — Why Haven’t They Been Fired?

https://apple.news/A72_kcc-XTqCtxbEfuTrUzQ

Julia Ainsley — Julia Edwards Ainsley
Investigative Reporter, NBC News

AnnieRose Ramos — Annie Rose Ramos
Producer, NBC News

WASHINGTON — Government investigators have identified poor conditions in another sector of the southern border, publishing graphic photos showing extreme overcrowding in Rio Grande Valley migrant facilities and finding that children there did not have access to showers and had to sleep on concrete floors.

Investigators for the Department of Homeland Security who visited border stations in the El Paso, Texas, sector in May found similar conditions: Migrants being held in temporary facilities for weeks rather than days, single adults living in standing room-only cells with no space to lie down, and concerns about serious health risks.

The investigators for the DHS Office of the Inspector General toured five Border Patrol facilities and two ports of entry in the Rio Grande Valley sector during the week of June 10 and published their report as a “management alert” to the department on Tuesday.

Read the full report here.

The Rio Grande valley of Texas has the highest volume of immigrants along the United States-Mexico border. At the time of the visits by investigators, Border Patrol was holding 8,000 detainees in custody, with 3,400 being held longer than the 72-hour limit.

One senior manager at a facility called the situation a “ticking time bomb,” according to the report. When immigrants detained in the facilities saw investigators walking through, they banged on the cell windows and pressed notes against the plexiglass to show the length of time they had spent in custody. One said “Help 40 Day Here.”

On Monday, NBC News published findings by the inspector general that detailed poor conditions for migrants in border stations in El Paso as far back as May 7. Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan said at a press conference Friday that reports of poor conditions for children in border stations were “unsubstantiated.” McAleenan said children were given showers as soon as they could be made available.

“Most single adults had not had a shower in CBP custody despite several being held for as long as a month,” according to the latest report on conditions in the Rio Grande Valley.

The report also detailed what it called “security incidents” in which immigrants have tried to escape and once refused to return to their cells after being removed during maintenance. To address the problem, Border Patrol called in its special operations force to “demonstrate it was prepared to use force if necessary,” the report said.

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Go to the link to see the DHS IG’s own photos documenting the abusive conditions and to get a link to the redacted report showing how McAleenan, Provost, Trump and others are coving up an intentionally created human rights disaster inflicted upon the most vulnerable.

We’re beyond “malicious incompetence” and basically into covering up possible criminal misconduct. Why haven’t McAleenan, Provost, and the other human rights abusers been fired? I guess it’s because this is the Trump Administration where neither the law nor morality matter!

And, this doesn’t even factor in the racism, misogyny, cruelty, and and white supremacy infecting the Border Patrol as exposed in a recent report by Pro Publica https://www.propublica.org/article/secret-border-patrol-facebook-group-agents-joke-about-migrant-deaths-post-sexist-memes

To state the obvious, if Pro Publica can find this “hidden in plain sight” trash, it’s been right there under the noses of McAleenan, Provost, Morgan, and other DHS malicious incompetents all along. They just chose to look the other way.

PWS

07-02-19

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Trump, DHS Promise, “Reign Of Terror” Directed At Families In Ethnic Communities — “Orphaning” U.S. Citizen Children And/Or Feeding Them & Other Vulnerable Kids To MS-13 & Other Gangs As “Fresh Meat” America’s New Objectives! — But, The Law & Reality Could Be Problems For Trump & His Sycophants @ ICE!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/trump-vows-mass-immigration-arrests-removals-of-millions-of-illegal-aliens-starting-next-week/2019/06/17/4e366f5e-916d-11e9-aadb-74e6b2b46f6a_story.html

Nick Miroff & Maria Sacchetti report in WashPost:

President Trump said in a tweet Monday night that U.S. immigration agents are planning to make mass arrests starting “next week,” an apparent reference to a plan in preparation for months that aims to round up thousands of migrant parents and children in a blitz operation across major U.S. cities.

“Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States,” Trump wrote, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “They will be removed as fast as they come in.”

Large-scale ICE enforcement operations are typically kept secret to avoid tipping off targets. In 2018, Trump and other senior officials threatened the mayor of Oakland, Calif., with criminal prosecution for alerting city residents that immigration raids were in the works.

Trump and his senior immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, have been prodding Homeland Security officials to arrest and remove thousands of family members whose deportation orders were expedited by the Justice Department this year as part of a plan known as the “rocket docket.”

In April, acting ICE director Ronald Vitiello and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen were ousted after they hesitated to go forward with the plan, expressing concerns about its preparation, effectiveness and the risk of public outrage from images of migrant children being taken into custody or separated from their families.

Vitiello was replaced at ICE by former FBI and Border Patrol official Mark Morgan, who had impressed the president with statements on cable television in favor of harsh immigration enforcement measures.In his first two weeks on the job at ICE, Morgan has said publicly that he plans to beef up interior enforcement and go after families with deportation orders, insisting that the rulings must be carried out to uphold the integrity of the country’s legal system.

“Our next challenge is going to be interior enforcement,” Morgan told reporters June 4 in Washington. “We will be going after individuals who have gone through due process and who have received final orders of deportation.

“That will include families,” he said, adding that ICE agents will treat the parents and children they arrest “with compassion and humanity.”

[New ICE chief says agency plans to target more families for deportation]

U.S. officials with knowledge of the preparations have said in recent days that the operation was not imminent, and ICE officials said late Monday night that they were not aware that the president planned to divulge their enforcement plans on Twitter.

Executing a large-scale operation of the type under discussion requires hundreds — and perhaps thousands — of U.S. agents and supporting law enforcement personnel, as well as weeks of intelligence gathering and planning to verify addresses and locations of individuals targeted for arrest.

The president’s claim that ICE would be deporting “millions” also was at odds with the reality of the agency’s staffing and budgetary challenges. ICE arrests in the U.S. interior have been declining in recent months because so many agents are busy managing the record surge of migrant families across the southern border with Mexico.

The family arrest plan has been considered even more sensitive than a typical operation because children are involved, and Homeland Security officials retain significant concerns that families will be inadvertently separated by the operation, especially because parents in some households have deportation orders but their children — some of whom are U.S. citizens — might not. Should adults be arrested without their children because they are at school, day care, summer camp or a friend’s house, it is possible parents could be deported while their children are left behind.

[Before Trump’s purge at DHS, top officials challenged plan for mass family arrests]

Supporters of the plan, including Miller, Morgan and ICE Deputy Director Matthew Albence, have argued forcefully that a dramatic and highly publicized operation of this type will send a message to families that are in defiance of deportation orders and could act as a deterrent.

In this file photo from 2015, a man is detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Los Angeles. New raids could target a large number of immigrants in major cities. (John Moore/Getty Images)

According to Homeland Security officials, nearly all unauthorized migrants who came to the United States in 2017 in family groups remain present in the country. Some of those families are awaiting adjudication of asylum claims, but administration officials say a growing number are skipping out on court hearings while hoping to live and work in the United States as long as possible.

Publicizing a future law enforcement operation is unheard of at ICE. Trump administration officials blasted Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf last year for warning immigrants about an impending raid, saying she endangered agents’ safety.

“The Oakland mayor’s decision to publicize her suspicions about ICE operations further increased that risk for my officers and alerted criminal aliens — making clear that this reckless decision was based on her political agenda with the very federal laws that ICE is sworn to uphold,” then-ICE Deputy Director Thomas D. Homan said at the time.

Homan later retired, but last week Trump said Homan would return to public service as his “border czar.” On Fox News, Homan later called that announcement “kind of premature” and said he had not decided whether to accept the job.

Schaaf responded late Monday to the president’s tweet teasing the looming ICE roundups.

“If you continue to threaten, target and terrorize families in my community . . . and if we receive credible information . . . you already know what our values are in Oakland — and we will unapologetically stand up for those values,” she wrote.

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The pain, terror, racism, and disregard for human rights is real. But, the ability to summarily remove the “millions” of our fellow humans Trump claims as his objective might be limited by both reality (lack of resources) and the law.

Many of those with so-called “final orders” were tried “in absentia.” Many of those never received legal notice of their hearings. (All reputable studies show that asylum applicants who actually understand the system, have fair access to pro bono lawyers, and receive legally sufficient hearing notices appear at rates close to 100% of the time, even if they lose their cases).

If that is the case, and they can get lawyers, they can file a “motion to reopen” for lack of legal notice and receive a statutory stay of removal while both the Immigration Judge, and if denied, the Board of Immigration Appeals rule on the motion. And, the Immigration Courts are totally screwed up and backlogged due to Trump’s and the DOJ’s “malicious incompetence.” So, good luck with that.

Large numbers of deportees would also further destabilize the already “failed states” of the Northern Triangle thus insuring a continuing outward flow. Indeed, some of those deported might well “head north” again — only this time they won’t be dumb enough to entrust themselves to the U.S. legal system.

They will just disappear into the interior where their chances of being found again are probably less than their chances of being harmed in the Northern Triangle. No amount of authoritarian militarization of our internal police force is going to locate and remove 10-11 million people, most of them residing quietly and productively in our communities throughout America.

But, Trump has never been about results. (Nor has DHS for that matter). He’s all about White Nationalist hatred, racism, and appealing to a “base” that long ago abandoned the rest of America (the majority of us) and human values.

And let’s not forget the responsibility of Congress and the Article III Courts who for years have mostly overlooked the glaring Constitutional defects and clear incompetence and bias evident in the Immigration Court system as administered by the Department of Justice. It has taken the Article IIIs’ complicity in a legally defective system to produce these so-called “final orders” in the first place.

Every dead kid, broken family, and new forced gang recruit should be on their collective consciences. And, the primary result of the “New Reign of Terror” will undoubtedly be fear of cooperating with local police in solving crimes, thus making ethnic Americans “perfect victims” who have been abandoned by those who are failing in their legal duties to insure “equal justice for all.”

2020 might be our last chance to save our country and humanity. Don’t blow it! Who knows, the life you save might be your own!

PWS

06-18-19

CONTINUING JUDICIAL EDUCATION FOR ARTICLE III JUDGES: “Kids In Cages” Ought To Be Displayed Outside Every Federal Courthouse & The Supremes So That “Robed Enablers” Can See The Results Of Their Abdication Of Constitutional Duties!

https://apple.news/Au_bQMKN3QxmsBKokkqyP3w

Sarah Ruiz’s-Grossman reports for HuffPost:

U.S. NEWS

06/12/2019 05:25 PM EDT

Cages With ‘Kids’ Pop Up Around NYC To Protest Immigrant Detention

The art installations were meant to bring awareness to the horrific conditions children and other migrants face at the southern U.S. border.

Some people in New York City were confronted with an alarming image as they walked down the street on Wednesday morning: a chain-link cage on the sidewalk containing a child-size mannequin wrapped in a foil blanket, with audio playing of migrant children crying.

More than 20 cages were placed around Manhattan and Brooklyn ― from Union Square to the Barclays Center sports arena ― as part of a campaign called #NoKidsInCages by immigration nonprofit RAICES and ad agency Badger & Winters.

It was meant to draw Americans’ attention to the children and other migrants being held in alarming conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Speakers in the cages played the viral recording released by ProPublica last summer of kids wailing for their “mamá” and “papá” after having been separated from them at the border as a result of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy.

“We want to bring this back to the consciousness of the American people,” RAICES CEO Jonathan Ryan told HuffPost. “One of the many unfortunate consequences of the repeated traumatic stories coming from the border is that, as horrified and angry as people have been, we also become desensitized. It’s important for people … to be confronted with the reality that this is about children, human beings, whose lives are forever affected.”

“This is being done in our name by people who we elected,” he added. “And if we don’t do something to stop this, this will become who we are.”

About two dozen cages were dropped around the city from about 4 a.m. to 5 a.m., Ryan said. By midafternoon most of them had been taken down by police or city employees, with three remaining around 2 p.m., per Ryan. The New York Police Department confirmed to HuffPost that more than half a dozen cages had been removed around Manhattan, but did not respond to questions as to why.

The online campaign associated with the installations recalls the family separations under President Donald Trump’s hard-line zero-tolerance policy, which led to the separation of thousands of children from their parents last year. The policy sparked protests nationwide and was reversed by executive order in late June. But a January report from the Department of Health and Human Services found the administration may have separated thousands more kids from their families than was previously known, and it did not know how many or whether they were reunited.

RAICES also wants people to become aware of other issues migrants face, Ryan said.

He noted undocumented immigrant families are still separated “routinely” at the border, including when migrant kids are split from other guardians like uncles and aunts or older siblings. Separations occur inside the country too, he said, when a child’s undocumented mom or dad is arrested by immigration agents, for instance in a workplace raid.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended over 109,000 people at the border in April ― more than double the number of migrants detained during that month last year. A majority of the migrants apprehended were either families traveling together or unaccompanied kids.

A Department of Homeland Security watchdog, reporting on Border Patrol facilities in El Paso, Texas, found last month that detained migrants were kept in dirty and extremely crowded conditions, forcing some people to stand on toilets to get some breathing room.

Last week, Trump said he reached an agreement with Mexico that includes “rapidly” returning to Mexico anyone who crosses the border seeking asylum in the U.S. Advocates are concerned about the dangerous conditions in cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, where more migrants will now be forced to wait as their claims are processed.

“When the American people hear stories of this problem being fixed by the ‘remain in Mexico’ policy, it hasn’t been fixed, it’s just further from their view,” Ryan said. “The suffering will only increase.”

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

Ah, life in the ivory tower of the Article III Federal Judiciary, where you seldom are confronted with the human faces or ugly reality of your abuses and failures to protect the human rights of others.

The “Remain in Mexico” Program is an ongoing affront to our Constitution, the rule of law, and simple human decency for which the judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals who are enabling this ongoing humanitarian outrage and giving it “legal cover” should be held fully morally and historically accountable!

PWS

06-13-19

9TH CIRCUIT JUDGES COMPLICIT IN HUMAN RIGHTS & LEGAL VIOLATIONS INFLICTED ON TERRIFIED TEEN ASYLUM APPLICANTS: Reuters Study Exposes How Disingenuous Article III Judges Are Letting Trump Administration “Get Away With Potential Murder” Under Clearly Illegal, Unconstitutional, & Incompetently Administered “Remain In Mexico” Abomination!

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-returns-exclusive/exclusive-asylum-seekers-returned-to-mexico-rarely-win-bids-to-wait-in-u-s-idUSKCN1TD13Z

(Reuters) – Over two hours on June 1, a Honduran teenager named Tania pleaded with a U.S. official not to be returned to Mexico.

Immigration authorities had allowed her mother and younger sisters into the United States two months earlier to pursue claims for asylum in U.S. immigration court. But they sent Tania back to Tijuana on her own, with no money and no place to stay.

The 18-year-old said she told the U.S. official she had seen people on the streets of Tijuana linked to the Honduran gang that had terrorized her family. She explained that she did not feel safe there.

After the interview, meant to assess her fear of return to Mexico, she hoped to be reunited with her family in California, she said. Instead, she was sent back to Mexico under a Trump administration policy called the “Migrant Protection Protocols”(MPP), which has forced more than 11,000 asylum seekers to wait on the Mexican side of the border for their U.S. court cases to be completed. That process can take months.

Tania’s is not an unusual case. Once asylum seekers are ordered to wait in Mexico, their chances of getting that decision reversed on safety grounds – allowing them to wait out their proceedings in the United States – are exceedingly small, a Reuters analysis of U.S. immigration court data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) shows.

. . . .

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

Read the full description of the Trump Administration’s judicially enabled all out assault on the legal, Constitutional, and human rights of vulnerable asylum seekers at the above link.

A complicit panel of 9th Circuit Judges vacated a proper lower court injunction that was preventing this type of intentional child abuse by the Trump Administration. Here’s that panel’s “head in the sand” opinion in Innovation Law Labs. https://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Innovation-Law-Lab-19-15716.pdf.

It’s worth noting that almost every “ameliorating exception” described in the first paragraph of the panel’s opinion is demonstrably untrue — children and those clearly in danger are being returned and the “discretionary parole” is largely a fraud that seldom is granted — according to the Government’s own data (which likely is also falsified or manipulated to some extent to mask or distort abuses). In other words, a “three-reporter panel” of Reuters is more interested and capable of getting to truth than a panel of life-tenured judges.

Oh, that it could be these judges’ kids or grandkids separated from family and sent to live on the mean streets of Tijuana while pursuing their legal rights under US law. Really, how do these child abusers and human rights scofflaws hiding in judicial robes sleep at night?

Guess the can’t hear the screams and moans of those whose rights they are failing to protect and whose human dignity they reject. I’ve heard eyewitness accounts and seen video evidence from the pro bono lawyers courageously (and sometimes at the risk of their own health and safety) trying to protect the lives and rights of asylum seekers at the Southern Border from these abuses of human rights that are enabled by “Remain in Mexico” (a/k/a the disingenuously named “Migrant Protection Protocols”). The truth is no secret for those who actually seek it rather than to ignore it.

Complicit Article III Judges and Government lawyers are keys to Trump’s “dehumanization” program. History must hold them accountable for their abuses of humanity.

PWS

06-13-19

AMERICA’S SHAME: Congress Dithers, Life-Tenured Article III Circuit Judges & Supreme Court Justices Shirk Their Duty, While Trump’s “False Courts” Violate Constitutional, Statutory, Treaty, & Human Rights On A Daily Basis With Impunity! — History Will Remember Those Who Are Complicit In & Who Are Morally Responsible For Unlawful Killings & Other Unspeakable Acts Committed Against Those Most Vulnerable Who Are Merely Seeking Fairness Under Our Broken & Fraudulent Justice System!

NEW REPORT EXAMINES WEAPONIZATION OF IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM

Advocates Launch Immigration Court Watch App to Ensure Greater Accountability, Transparency.

No, American institutions aren’t “standing up” to Trump. From the Supremes legally wrong , immoral, and unconstitutional decision in Jennings, to their licensing of blatant racial and religious bias in Travel Ban 3.0, to the Ninth Circuit’s complicity in the mocking of legal, statutory, and Constitutional rights under the fraudulent and illegal “Remain in Mexico,” which they now “own” lock stock, and barrel, to the Eleventh Circuit’s refusal to stop the “law, asylum, justice, and human dignity free zone” in the Atlanta Immigration Courts, Article III Judges are ignoring their oaths of office and turning blind eyes to immigration outrages that are transparent on the records they review and have been building in plain sight for years.

Those in positions of power who fail to fulfill their Constitutional duty to prevent abuse of the most vulnerable among us deserve to be condemned by public opinion and by history. And that goes for Article III Judges, as well as legislators, politicos, and bureaucrats.

PWS

06-12-19

PWS

06-12-19

NATIONAL FRAUD: IMMIGRATION COURTS ARE NOT “COURTS” — New Scholarship Shows How Immigration “Courts” Are Actually Hierarchical Bureaucracies Masquerading As Courts, Incorporating The WORST Features Of Both!

Bureaucrats in Robes final

BUREAUCRATS IN ROBES: IMMIGRATION “JUDGES” AND THE TRAPPINGS OF “COURTS”

AMIT JAIN*ABSTRACT

As U.S. immigration policy and its human impact gain popular salience, some have questioned whether immigration courts—often the first-line adjudicators of deportation—are “courts” at all in the American adversarial legal tradition. This Article aims to answer this question through a focus on the role of the immigration judge (IJ). Informed by in-depth interviews with twelve former IJs and three former supervisory officials, I argue that immigration courts present with superficial hallmarks of adversarial courts, but increasingly exhibit core features of a tightly hierarchical bureaucracy. Although not all features of an immigration bureaucracy are inherently unde- sirable, masking a bureaucracy with judicial trappings results in a deceptive facade of process that likely limits scrutiny from federal courts and calms public discontent with harsh immigration laws. In light of this phenomenon, enhancing IJ independence through the creation of an Article I immigration court would solve some problems with immigration adjudication but risk papering over others. Instead, achieving a fair system will require both procedural and substantive reforms.

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

Read Amit’s full article at the above link.

Yes, I recognize that Amit undercuts my arguments for an immediate halt of this system and change to Article I without waiting for other reforms to “humanize” immigration law and put them more in line with the actual national perception of immigrants (which, as Amit points out, is nowhere near as racist and inhuman as Trump’s White Nationalist restrictionist abomination now being peddled by Trump, Pence, many in the GOP, at DHS, and most disturbingly, at DOJ. For example, most Americans would favor taking care of “Dreamers” now, without all the restrictionist “poison pills” attached). I agree that other practical and humanizing reforms are necessary; but without immediate Immigration Court intervention and reform every other immigration reform becomes meaningless and innocent people will continue to die, be tortured, and be abused “on our watch.”

Immigration Court reform can’t wait! Every day, the statute, our Constitution, international treaties, our national values, and human dignity are being mocked and destroyed by what is happening in our Immigraton Courts under the “Minister of Injustice” Bill Barr and his lawless and spineless sycophants in EOIR Management.

It’s past time for the Article III Courts to stop screwing around, do their Constitutional duty, and put a screeching halt to this abomination and blot on our national conscience. Stop these “Fake Courts” in their tracks!

No more “removal orders” until Congress creates an independent Immigration Court system that passes legal and Constitutional muster and complies with our treaty obligations. And, until that happens, the DOJ should be forbidden from any further meddling in the Immigration Courts. If the Immigration Court System is to continue to operate on an interim basis, it should be under an “Order of Supervision” from Article III Circuit Judges just as was done with Constitutionally deficient and defiant school systems in the South following Brown.

Either that or the Article III Courts should appoint an active or retired Article III Judge as a “Special Master” with authority to insure fair, impartial, and legal operation until Congress corrects these flaws.

Allowing human beings to be “degraded and railroaded” back to life threatening situations, often after having been abused, humiliated, threatened and mistreated by so-called “judges” and their White Nationalist overlords is no laughing matter! It’s a national disgrace, the elimination of which should be our highest national priority!

PWS

06-12-19

WELCOME TO FRANZ KAFKA’S AMERICA: Where Individuals Are Imprisoned Indefinitely In Substandard Conditions Without Trial For The “Crime” Of Asking For Protection Under Our Legal Process — The Objective: Coerce Them To Stop Asking For The Benefits Our Law Offers & Demoralize Them To The Point Where They Would Rather Be Killed Or Tortured Than To Proceed With Their Legal Cases!

https://apple.news/ADUUhY0-QSR6JBMSznV322A

Professor Stacy Burstin writes in USA Today:

I toured an immigration detention center. The prison-like atmosphere was mind-numbing.

Immigration detention is supposed to be a temporary stop — not an endless jail sentence with the goal of causing migrants to self-deport.

4:00 am EDT May. 16, 2019

Immigration detention is supposed to be a temporary stop, not a prison. But what else can one call a place with razor wire covered fences, holding cells, head counts, locked dormitories, solitary confinement, limited recreation, inadequate mental health services and no-contact visits?

While visiting the New Mexico border area as volunteers with Catholic Charities Immigration Legal Services of Southern New Mexico in March, a group of undergraduates, three law students, a campus minister and I toured the Otero County Processing Center. Management & Training Corp. (MTC) runs the facility for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement service.

A smiling ICE officer greeted us at the start of our visit, explaining that ICE likes giving tours of Otero to dispel criticisms circulating about immigration detention.

Inside an immigration detention center

Our first stop was the count room dominated by a large board covered with more than 900 colored tags on hooks — mostly blue and orange — representing the detainee population and designating the level of security and privileges afforded based on jumpsuit color. “Blues” have no known criminal history and simply entered the United States without papers. “Oranges” are divided into two groups — individuals who have a history of very minor crimes such as public intoxication, and those arrested for or convicted of other nonviolent crimes. “Reds” have arrests, convictions or other history involving violent activity.

Read more commentary:

My Sharpie marker might be the only thing keeping migrant mothers and children together

An illegal immigrant killed my daughter. Trump’s right — we must complete the border wall.

Stories from the border: The women asylum seekers I met need protection, not barriers

In the intake area, we found newly arrived men lingering in a large holding cell behind a locked, metal door waiting to be processed. A security officer explained the intake procedure, but it was hard for me to focus on his words because I couldn’t take my eyes off the mountain of duffel bags and backpacks full of their belongings piled next to a shower room. I later learned that same image haunted my students.

We passed through the medical unit where individuals receive basic medical care. Those with more serious conditions, we were told, are sent outside of the facility. Our guides told us that a psychiatrist visits once a month to oversee medication, and one full-time counselor is available for the 900 or more detainees. There is a small room where detainees deemed suicidal are watched.

Our guides also brought us into one of the dorms — locked housing where 50 men sleep on thin mattresses in rows of bunk beds. I was overcome with a sense of time standing still; boredom pervaded the room. Despite MTC’s commitment to “provide an atmosphere that is comfortable, safe, and conducive to making time pass quickly for those who find themselves in our care,” individuals are limited to two hours of recreation a day.

One of the students asked whether English classes are offered. Our guide replied that they are working on it, that such programs have not been instituted because those at Otero only stay for six to eight weeks. But we met detainees who reported being there for six to eight months or more.

The blues and oranges able to secure a job in the facility (only four of the 50 men in the dorm we visited were working at the time) earn at least $1 a day, the ICE-stipulated minimum wage. I couldn’t help but wonder whether the detainees we saw raking the grounds, mopping hallways, doing laundry or preparing food allowed MTC to meet its labor needs without actually paying for them.

A glimpse through a narrow window revealed the Secured Housing Unit — the solitary confinement block — a row of small cells where individuals causing problems are sent. Men who are vulnerable to bullying or abuse (including transgender women) can also request a move here for protection, though they would have to be pretty desperate to do so.

Immigrants need asylum, not imprisonment

Facilities like Otero are not supposed to be prisons. Most ICE detainees have not been convicted of any crime. For many others, they are detained even though a U.S. court had dismissed charges, authorized release while awaiting trial, or convicted and imposed a minimal sentence already served.

None of these men belong in jail.

Yet the realization that we were in a jail only intensified at our last stop — the visiting area. We found a large glass window running the length of a long table, seats placed on either side. Detainees are kept separate from loved ones and communicate by phone.

Immigration detention is supposed to be a temporary stop for individuals seeking a determination of whether they have a legal basis for staying in the United States. Yet many at Otero are eligible to apply for asylum and other forms of humanitarian protection.

Why are U.S. taxpayers paying a private company to provide housing, food and 24/7 security for individuals, the majority of whom pose no security threat and have a right under U.S. law to seek protection?

Why are these men consigned to live in a mind-numbing, prison-like atmosphere that leads many — in Otero and similar facilities around the country — to become so desperate to get out that they abandon valid claims and self-deport?

Unfortunately, my students and I came to the troubling conclusion that this desperation is not just the inevitable result of immigration confinement, but may actually be the goal in the first place.

Stacy Brustin, professor of law, is director of the Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Clinic at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C.

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

4:00 am EDT May. 16, 2019

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

In the final “Kafkaesque” twist, perhaps Trump’s “maliciously incompetent” immigration policies will simply convince individuals needing refuge that our legal system is as worthless and dishonest as the ones they are leaving behind.

For the right price and degree of risk (and refugees are by nature risk takers) smugglers will be able to eventually get persistent individuals to the interior. There, as I have pointed out, their chances of avoiding forced removal will be much better than their odds of getting asylum in an unfairly biased, increasingly lawless system that uses illegal coercive methods and is stacked against their claims, no matter how valid or compelling.

Right now these folks are NOT a security risk, no matter what lies Trump and the restrictionists spread. A smart, humane, competent, and law-abiding Administration would simply encourage them to arrive at ports of entry, promptly screen them, apply the asylum laws in the generous way that they were intended, integrate those granted (probably the majority, under a fair, generous application of the law, in accordance with Cardoza-Fonseca) into our society, and return those who do not qualify after full due process in a humane and dignified manner.

Why would folks cross the border between ports of entry to turn themselves in to the Border Patrol if they could present themselves at a border port and be treated promptly, humanely, and fairly? That’s what would actually give us a secure border as well as many grateful, productive new residents who will help the U.S. It would also promptly separate out those who clearly can’t qualify for protection before they establish ties to the U.S.

With a smarter, common-sense approach to the Immigration Courts, universal access to counsel, and better, more professional, judges who were actually well-trained in recognizing and granting meritorious asylum cases (and not expected to function as a “Border Patrol junior auxiliary”), asylum cases could be completed in compliance with full Due Process in months, rather than years. The Border Patrol could go back to real law enforcement, which they are largely ignoring right now in a rush to do Trump’s bidding.

Instead, Trump seems determined to create a situation where many will die, smugglers will get richer, but more individuals will get to the interior where they will live, unscreened and perhaps exploited, but alive, as part of a growing “underground” or “immigration black market.” The Border Patrol won’t even be able to count them or “arrest” (arguably an inappropriate term for
“turn ins”) them as they do now to support their bogus claims of a “law enforcement emergency.” This self-created “emergency” — actually a humanitarian tragedy —has little to do with legitimate law enforcement. How maliciously incompetent can one Administration get?

And, no, “Trump’s Big Beautiful Wall” won’t stop professional smugglers! They are already laughing at his ineptness and anxiously waiting to see how his next nativist-driven dumb policy will improve their business and fill their coffers. The dumbest smuggler is probably smarter than Trump, and much less dangerous to America.

PWS

05-17-19

WASHINGTON POST/ABC POLL: TRUMP’S “CRUEL, MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE” APPROACH TO ASYLUM HIGHLY UNPOPULAR & INEFFECTIVE: Dems Can Build Support By Strengthening Current Asylum System & Making It Work! — The “Real Face” Of “Border Security” Has Little Or Nothing To Do With Trump’s White Nationalist Rants & Barrage Of Lies!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/30/trumps-asylum-changes-are-even-less-desired-than-his-border-wall/

Aaron’s Blake reports for the Washington Post:

President Trump has made immigration crackdown a central focus of his presidency, and a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows a growing number of Republicans and Democrats agree that the worsening situation on the border is a “crisis.”

But Trump is offering a solution that relatively few Americans like. In fact, his newly announced decision to make it harder to seek asylum is even less popular than his border wall national emergency, according to the same poll.

The Post-ABC poll shows that 30 percent of Americans favor making it more difficult for those seeking asylum in the United States to obtain it. About as many — 27 percent — favor making it easier, while 34 percent want to leave the process as-is.

Even among Republicans, just 46 percent favor making it more difficult. Among the few groups where a majority support the idea are conservative Republicans (51 percent) and those who approve of Trump (53 percent). Even in the latter group, though, 29 percent say leave the system as-is, and 11 percent want to make it easier to seek asylum.

Late Monday, the White House announced that it was proposing a new fee for asylum seekers. It is also seeking to prevent those who cross the border illegally from obtaining work permits, and it set the ambitious goal of requiring asylum cases to be decided within 180 days.

The fee would put the United States out of step with most of the world, as the vast majority of countries do not require asylum seekers to pay any fee. Given the dire circumstances many asylum seekers come from, including economically, critics worry the fee would prove a barrier to those with legitimate claims.

There has been a huge uptick in the number of asylum seekers in recent months. More than 103,000 immigrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border last month, and 60 percent of them were Central American families who have requested asylum. The system has become overburdened, and even critics of Trump’s immigration approach acknowledge the situation must be addressed.

[The surge in migrants seeking asylum, explained]

But saying there’s a problem and saying this is the solution are two different things. Trump has repeatedly argued that asylum seekers are exploiting weak U.S. immigration and asylum laws and that many of them are criminals and gang members who are told to claim asylum even though they don’t need it. He has called the concept of asylum “a big con job.” Yet, even as the situation at the border is exacerbated by a growing number of asylum seekers, Americans are still clearly uncomfortable with increasing the burdens on them.

The proposed changes will likely take some time to implement, if they ever are. Attorney General William P. Barr has 90 days to come up with a plan, and the move will undoubtedly be challenged in court.

Because the poll was conducted before Trump’s announcement, it didn’t test the specific details of his proposal. A fresh debate about the specific proposals could feasibly change the levels of public support. But Trump has been pushing the idea that asylum seekers are exploiting the system for months, and it doesn’t seem to have led to a chorus of support within his base for tightening the rules.

The level of support is even less than the backing for his national emergency to build a border wall. The Post-ABC poll shows just 34 percent of Americans favor that, while 64 percent oppose it. But at least on that proposal, Trump’s base is strongly onboard. Seventy percent of Republicans back the border wall national emergency.

Trump’s overall approval on immigration stands at 39 percent, with 57 percent disapproving, according to The Post-ABC poll.

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

Bottom line: On asylum, the public essentially is split in thirds among 1) more generous; 2) less generous; and 3) current system. That means that neither radical retractions nor radical expansions of the current system are likely to be achievable at present. That opens the door for the Dems to put together a powerful coalition to strengthen and fairly and efficiently administer the current asylum system.

It’s not rocket science — more like basic governing competence. Here are the elements:

Establish an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court;
Invest in representation of asylum seekers;
Add more Asylum Officers, Immigration Judges, and Port of Entry Inspectors;
Provide comprehensive basic and continuing training for all asylum adjudicators from experts in asylum law;
Use prosecutorial discretion (“PD”) to reduce Immigration Court backlogs to allow Immigration Judges to concentrate on timely hearings for recently arrived asylum cases;
Reduce immigration detention;
Hire more anti-smuggling, undercover, and anti-fraud agents for DHS;
Invest in improving conditions in “sending” countries in Central America.

It would 1) cost less than the money Trump is now squandering on “designed to fail” enforcement and detention efforts; 2) create a political constituency for funding and future improvements; 3) protect human rights; and 4) give the U.S the substantial benefits of integrating asylees and their talents into our society and economy through the legal system. Those found ineligible could also be removed in a humane and timely manner after receiving due process.

Not surprisingly, we just learned today that Trump’s “Malicious Incompetence Program” at the border has run out of money and is requesting another $4.5 billion from Congress. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/white-house-asks-congress-for-45-billion-in-emergency-spending-for-border/2019/05/01/725e2864-6c23-11e9-8f44-e8d8bb1df986_story.html

Now is the time for House Dems to hang tough on demanding some real border security for the money — in plain terms, require the money to be spent in exactly the ways described above, not on more of Stephen Miller’s White Nationalist, anti-asylum schemes and gimmicks.

Additionally, there should be specific prohibitions on: 1) wall and barrier building beyond what Congress has already authorized; 2) any additional spending for detention of non-criminal asylum applicants beyond the time needed to give them credible fear interviews; 3) family detention; 4) “tent cities;’ 5) “Remain in Mexico,” 6) “metering” of asylum applicants at Ports of Entry; 6) charging fees for asylum applications; 7) denial of work authorization for non-frivolous asylum applicants; 8) denial of reasonable bond to asylum applicants unless individually determined to be “threats to the community;” and 9) use of the military except to assist in providing humanitarian aid. There should also be a specific mechanism for accounting and constant Congressional oversight on how the Administration spends the extra funding.

PWS

05-01-19

INSIDE THE “NEW AMERICAN GULAG:” Conditions Are Cruel, Inhuman, Degrading, & Life-Threatening — Why Are We Funding The Perpetrators, Rather Holding Them Accountable & Demanding An End To Human Rights Abuses In America?

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-saadi-immigration-health-care-detention-facilities-2019025-story.html

Altaf Saadi, M.D., writes in the LA Times:

This week, a 45-year-old immigrant in the U.S. illegally died in Border Patrol custody. His death follows the December deaths of 7-year-old Jakelin Caal and 8-year-old Felipe Alonzo-Gomez in United States immigration custody, both of which prompted demands for improving healthcare for immigrants in detention.

As a physician who has evaluated dozens of individuals in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention for legal groups and human rights organizations, I know that high-profile deaths are only one small piece of the story of severely substandard healthcare in America’s immigration detention system.

For example, in one detention center I met and reviewed the medical records of a man who had been thriving and holding steady employment for years while on schizophrenia medications. Then he was picked up and detained by ICE. In detention, he told me, ICE personnel abruptly stopped his medications. After a nearly two-week delay, an alternative medication was prescribed, but it was not as effective. His mental health deteriorated, and he experienced worsening auditory hallucinations and suicidal thoughts. He attempted suicide four times.

Media reports of high-profile deaths capture only a sliver of the human rights violations occurring in detention.

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Another individual I met with and whose medical records I reviewed had longstanding hypothyroidism, but ICE failed to provide her with thyroid medication in detention. When she was first hospitalized for worsening mental health, her thyroid hormone level was 60 times higher than normal. Despite the hospital medical team’s explicit instructions, ICE still failed to provide her thyroid medication when she returned to detention. It was not until a second hospitalization, again with a critically abnormal thyroid hormone level, that she finally received her medication.

I also met with a man who had developed a stomach ulcer and vomited blood after ICE medical personnel gave him ibuprofen repeatedly for back pain — even though he had reported symptoms of severe heartburn. Any physician applying the proper standard of care would know to minimize prescribing ibuprofen to an individual with severe heartburn.

The kinds of problems I saw are in keeping with the type repeatedly documented by immigrant advocates, filed in litigation and contained in the government’s own reports. According to Freedom for Immigrants, a national advocacy group seeking to end immigration detention, the top complaint they hear from detained immigrants is medical neglect.

In addition, multiple Department of Homeland Security inspector general reports have concluded that detention facilities repeatedly fail to comply with federal standards, including those requiring adequate healthcare. In 2017, a report noted delays in the provision of healthcare and a lack of adequate documentation. And the problems extend beyond healthcare. A report in January 2019 cited more than 14,000 deficiencies found during inspections of 106 immigrant detention facilities nationwide between October 2015 and June 30, 2018.

Substandard conditions can significantly harm an individual’s health. Many of the individuals I met with said they experienced sleep deprivation from lights being kept on 24 hours a day. Some said they had to wear dirty prison uniforms that caused urinary and vaginal infections. Others complained of being served rotten or inadequate food, a violation of standards that has been repeatedly documented in inspection reports.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute »

Some detainees also reported verbal and physical abuse by guards, which can significantly worsen the mental health of immigrant detainees. For example, during one of his acute mental health crises, the schizophrenic man I interviewed recalled banging his body against a wall as he wrestled with voices telling him to kill himself. He said a guard referred to his distress as a “tantrum” and told him to “get over it.”

Other detainees told me that staff used frequent racial epithets and also referred to them as “crazies,” or “Loony Tunes,” or “trash.” As one detainee put it: “They see us not like human but as animals here.”

Media reports of high-profile deaths capture only a sliver of the human rights violations occurring in detention. None of the patients I interviewed died from the dangerous neglect they experienced, and so their experiences didn’t garner headlines. But their experiences were dangerous — and not uncommon. We need to hold the U.S. government accountable not just for the deaths that occur of immigrants in their custody, but also for the neglect and abuse that can lead to or exacerbate serious health problems.

Altaf Saadi is a neurologist, clinical instructor of medicine, and fellow at the National Clinician Scholars Program at UCLA. She has performed numerous evaluations for the Physicians for Human Rights Asylum Network.

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I continue to think that the bipartisan Goverment funding bill was not the right place to deal with the “New American Gulag.” But, Democrats should “keep hammering” on this important “below the radar screen” issue. Making an oversight record of the many abuses, false narratives, cover-ups, and lies underlying the Gulag should be a high priority.

What meaningful civil immigration detention reform could look like:

A “hard cap” probably in the area of 10,000 to 15,000 detention slots;
An end to private detention;
Enactment of strict standards governing the conditions of civil immigration detention;
A specific requirement for proper health and psychiatric care for those detained;
A bar on detention being used for “deterrence” or “punishment;”
Change in the law to permit all individuals in civil immigration detention to seek release on bond in U.S. Immigration Court (obviously, the Immigration Judges would retain the discretion to deny bond on the merits where warranted by the facts) with review by an Article III Court;
Periodic bond hearings every six months for those in “long-term detention;”
A requirement that access to counsel be a primary consideration in establishing immigration detention sites, and that pro bono groups and NGOs be consulted and given an opportunity to comment before any new immigration detention centers are established;
An end to the regulatory practice of allowing ICE Counsel to unilaterally block the order of a U.S. Immigration Judge pending appeal of a decision to release on bond (the Immigration Judge and the BIA would retain discretion to grant stays pending appeal, where appropriate, on application by ICE);
A statutory presumption in favor of ankle monitoring and other “alternatives to detention,” with physical detention being a disfavored, “last resort:”
Accountability for how detention dollars are spent and consequences for those in DHS and DOJ, including political officials, who violate or evade the law, including intentional falsification or misrepresentation of statistics, or who fail to implement the mandated reforms in a timely and reasonable manner.

Remember folks, these aren’t “beds,” or other “pieces of furniture;” these are fellow human beings, most of whose “offenses” consist largely of seeking to exercise their legal rights to fair treatment and Due Process under our laws and our Constitution!

PWS

02-25-19

MARIA SACCHETTI @ WASHPOST: CRUEL & UNUSUAL: DHS’s “New American Gulag” Is An Unconstitutional, Unaccountable, & Sometimes Deadly “(Bogus) Civil” Prison System For Migrants! — ICE Denials NOT Credible — 14,000 Violations In 2 1/2 Years Is NOT “Accountability!”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/homeland-security-ig-questions-ices-oversight-of-detention-facilities/2019/02/01/baf8b828-263c-11e9-ad53-824486280311_story.html

Maria writes:

Public and private contractors running immigration jails violated federal detention standards thousands of times in recent years — including failing to report allegations of sexual assaults and staff misconduct to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — but were fined only twice, according to a report issued Friday.

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general called on ICE to improve oversight of facilities that detain roughly half the 45,000 immigrant detainees held every day across the United States, and to do a better job holding federal contractors accountable for their health and safety.

ICE defended its oversight in a letter to the Inspector General that was included in the report, and said generally it can terminate contracts or relocate immigrants if it believes facilities are unsafe.

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ICE documented 14,003 violations from Oct. 1, 2015 through June 30 at 106 facilities nationwide, the report said. The fines assessed by the agency amountedto $3.9 million, or 0.13 percent of the more than $3 billion ICE paid to the contractors during that period.

One facility was fined after “a pattern of repeat deficiencies over a 3-year period, primarily related to health care and mental health standards,” the report said. Another fine followed a Labor Department order against the facility for failing to pay proper wages.

In other cases, the inspector general found, immigration officials granted waivers allowing some contractors to bypass detention standards or avoid punishment for violations. From September 2016 through July, 65 waivers were approved — most for indefinite time periods.

One waiver authorized a facility to use CS gas, or tear gas, even though it is 10 times as toxic as pepper spray.

Another allowed a facility to house detainees who hadserious criminal records alongwith others who had minor records or only immigration violations, a practice that is normally prohibited “to protect detainees who may be at risk of victimization or assault.”

The inspector general said immigration officials lacked formal policies to oversee waivers and that some officials “without clear authority” were granting them.

“Key officials admitted there are no policies, procedures, guidance documents, or instructions to explain how to review waiver requests,” the report said.

The inspector general issued a series of recommendations urging ICE to shore up its oversight of detention facilities and ensure paperwork is included in contracts that will make clear when the agency should impose penalties on contractors that fail to follow federal rules.

In a letter to the inspector general that was included in the report, ICE agreed to make improvements but countered that it has taken strong steps in the past to safeguard immigrant health and safety, even shutting down some facilities because of violations.

“ICE has a strong record of holding detention facilities accountable when deficiencies are identified,” spokesman Matthew Bourke said in a statement.

He said the waiver process in the inspector general’s report is a “rarely used mechanism.”

The report comes as the White House and Congress are preparing for a heated battle over detention funding, building a wall on the southern border and other aspects of President Trump’s immigration crackdown. This week, Democratic lawmakers unveiled a proposal to “significantly” reduce ICE detention beds, require more detention facility inspections, and limit ICE’s leeway to detain more immigrants than Congress allows.

As of Jan. 26, the agency wasdetaining an average of 45,670 immigrants a day this fiscal year, which is about 5,000 more than Congress has authorized in the budget.

The 106 facilities in the report housed an average of 25,000 immigrants a day as of fiscal year 2017. They are under ICE’s direct oversight. About 100 other facilities are run by the U.S. Marshals Service and are not included in the report.

ICE contractors are required to comply with detention standards that outline their responsibilities, the services they must provide to immigrants and what each facility must do to provide a “safe and secure detention environment for staff and detainees,” the report said.

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

No doubt in my mind that DHS is lying and covering up malfeasance, perhaps criminal activity.

Time for 1) some House oversight, 2) accountability for those at DHS and their contractors responsible for these abuses, and 3) Congressional action to phase out and strictly limit DHS’s grossly overused and under supervised detention function.

PWS

02-01-19

ELIZABETH BRUENIG @ WASHPOST: Advice For Dems in 2020: Don’t Count Out The Possibility Of Standing Up For Values As Part Of A Winning Strategy!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/my-advice-to-progressives-dont-back-down/2018/12/14/b6e0bacc-ffbf-11e8-862a-b6a6f3ce8199_story.html?utm_term=.5aa9cb81d603

Elizabeth writes:

A reductive, but not incorrect view of the Democratic debacle in the 2016 elections holds that when President Trump took office, centrists lost the present and leftists lost the future. In 2020, Democrats will have a new opportunity to either reach backward for the Obama era, or to lay the foundation for a bolder, progressive future. Deciding which goal to pursue will likely become the chief party fault line as the 2020 primaries approach. My advice to progressives: Don’t back down.

For the party’s center-leaning establishment, a return to the Obama era makes sense. Centrists were happy then — thrilled to witness the passage of health-care reform that did something but not too much (so long, public option !), comfortable with what one might gently label a muscular foreign policy , pleased with the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, though it came at the expense of homeowners in foreclosure while coddling Wall Street . All in all, things seemed stable and sustainable. Only tweaks and patches lay ahead.

But then, history — presumed dead by those who believed, with socialism extinguished, the future held nothing but increasing gains for liberal democracy — happened again. The 2016 election witnessed a swell of populist disenchantment with the status quo and concluded with the election of Trump. With Trump came a queasy uncertainty that still characterizes politics to this day,leaving old norms dissolved and common sense unequal to its task.

So much of centrist-Democrat fantasizing about 2020 already seems aimed at repeating a golden past. Consider the groundswell of interest in Beto O’Rourke, the Texas congressman who narrowly lost his recent Senate race against Sen. Ted Cruz. For Democrats excited about O’Rourke, his primary draw is his similarity to Barack Obama — both in form and content. O’Rourke has held conversations with the former president about a possible run, to build on a belief that O’Rourke, as my colleague Matt Viser described it, is “capable of the same kind of inspirational campaign that caught fire in the 2008 presidential election.”

O’Rourke’s politics also fall into the same ambiguously centrist zone as Obama’s. “Like Mr. Obama as he entered the 2008 campaign, Mr. O’Rourke can be difficult to place on an ideological spectrum, allowing supporters to project their own politics onto a messaging palette of national unity and common ground,” a recent New York Times report observed . Meanwhile, other candidates straight from Obama’s orbit — such as former vice president Joe Biden and former housing secretary Julián Castro — are also eyeing the nomination, with appeals to unity and centrist perspectives.

When not absorbed in hopes of re-creating the Obama era, Democrats mainly seem intent on beating Trump, with little comment or insight, at least so far, on what they will do with power once they have it. (After I questioned in my last column whether O’Rourke has demonstrated serious commitment to progressive values, some readers responded by arguing they’re glad he hasn’t — that Democrats need to run an Obama-style centrist to win back conservatives who might otherwise favor Trump. “A too-progressive Democratic nominee in 2020,” one reader wrote, “would be a gift to President Trump.”) Likewise, at a recent event in New York, former FBI director James B. Comey implored Democrats to put aside their political projects in favor of an all-consuming focus on simply beating Trump . “I understand the Democrats have important debates now over who their candidate should be,” Comey said, “but they have to win. They have to win.”

Presidential elections provide an opportunity for parties to identify and rally around their principles — and even to radically reshape them. If all the Democrats can manage is to hark back to the past and focus on winning for its own sake, they’re missing an opportunity to lay out a blueprint for the future. I don’t think that putting forth progressive priorities is incompatible with beating Trump; in fact, I think that having a clear and persuasive vision of what a better America can look like is likely to be more attractive to voters than promising them something vaguely like the past. One of the political lessons of recent years is that history is never over. The future is waiting, if we want to build it.

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

Certainly the Obama Administration was “golden” by comparison with the current corrupt, White Nationalist regime that has made overt racism and hate front and center. However, despite some good things like DACA, stateside processing, and a late stab at wider use of prosecutorial discretion (“PD”), Obama was fairly disappointing from an immigration standpoint.

Under Obama, there was lots of ambiguity and misdirected enforcement, substantial overuse of detention (particularly substandard private detention), and the forerunner of the Trump Administration’s failed “border deterrence” strategy. Obama folks didn’t seek and glory in the cruelty and dehumanization the way that this Administration does. But, in human terms, the results often were similar for the individuals concerned: split families, indefinite detention, kids in jails, a failing U.S. Immigration Court system, and only a smattering of real “immigration pros” in key positions where they too often were not ” driving the train” or being taken seriously.

Can an immigration system based on the reality that immigration is good and necessary for our country, a professionally run independent U.S. Immigration Court dedicated to Due Process with efficiency, a more robust acceptance of refugees, a secure border, cooperation with the international community in solving problems, and treating those who can’t be accepted fairly, humanely, and respectfully be part of winning political strategy?

PWS

12-17-18

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