"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt and Dr. Alicia Triche, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
My long-time friend and former EOIR colleague, Peg Taylor, now Adjunct Professor of Law at Maryland Francis Carey School of Law writes:
As you may (or may not) know, ILS runs a fellowship for young diverse lawyers who have an interest in international law. The benefits this fellowship offers include: generous entree to ILS substantive programs and conferences — including an allowance for registration, travel, and lodging; waiver of Section dues; liberal publishing opportunities; and speciality-specific mentorships/sponsorships with experienced attorneys.
ILS is currently accepting applications for the Fellows Program. See attached information/application. It would be great, if you would share this information either on immigrationcourtside or with potentially interested young lawyers or both. Applications are due to Angela Benson, ILS Director of Membership, Meetings, and Marketing – angela.benson@americanbar.orgon or before Monday, June 26, 2023.
Thanks so much. Best. Peggy
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2023-2024 ABA International Law Section Diversity Fellowship
About the Fellows Program
The ABA International Law Section (ILS or Section) proudly sponsors a generous Diversity Fellows Program (“Program”). The Program robustly supports the ABA’s policy of active involvement and participation of diverse lawyers in the ABA, the Section, the profession, and the justice system. See ABA Goal III (to promote full and equal participation). The Program is for young barred lawyers (under 36 years old with five years or less of legal experience) who have an interest in international law and come from diverse backgrounds – including diverse races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and abilities/disabilities.
The application period for the term running from September 2023 to August 2024 is now open. Among the opportunities available to the 3-5 selected Fellows will be:
· abundant entrée to ILS substantive programs and conferences – including an allowance for registration, travel, and lodging;
· waiver of Section dues;
· specialty-specific mentorships/sponsorships with experienced attorneys;
· membership in a close circle of Fellows and alumni of the Fellows program;
· appointments to Section leadership positions; and
· liberal publishing opportunities.
Fellows will be assigned to substantive ILS Committees. The Committee Chairs will engage Fellows in all aspects of committee membership, including projects involving policy formulation and program development. The ILS’ Diversity Officer and Membership Officer and their respective Deputies will also work with Fellows, monitoring their progress and providing periodic reports to ILS’ Administration Committee.
Fellowship Eligibility
Successful applicants will demonstrate that they work in the international legal arena and/or that they have a deep interest in international law. They will further show that they are 36 years old or younger and at least one year out of law school. Applicants will also document that they have been admitted to a bar and that their admission took place less than 6 years prior to the date of their Program application. In furtherance of its goal to make the Fellowships available to a diverse group of young lawyers, application reviewers will take information regarding applicants’ race, ethnicity, disabilities (if any), and gender/sexual identities into account. See ABA Goal III.
If an applicant is not a member of the ABA or the Section at the time of application, such applicant will be required to become a dues-paying member of the ABA upon a grant of the Program application. The Section will, however, cover Section dues.
Fellows’ Responsibilities
During their Fellowship, Fellows will be required to produce specific deliverables, as directed by the ILS Diversity Officer. At a minimum, Fellows will: engage in active Committee participation, as the Section requires of all Section Leaders; regularly communicate with their Committee Chair, the Diversity Officer, the Membership Officer, and their Section mentor and complete progress reports.[1] Fellows will be required to sign a Fellowship Agreement with ILS. Should a Fellow fail to comply with the terms of the Fellowship, the Section will automatically stop all support – including but not limited to financial support.
Application Requirements
Applicants for the Section Diversity Fellows Program must submit:
· a cover letter explaining why the Section should consider their application;
· a fully executed application, addressing all the application questions;
· two letters of recommendation; and
· documentation of the requisite bar membership.
Complete applications must be submitted to Angela Benson, ILS Director of Membership, Meetings, and Marketing at angela.benson@americanbar.org. on or before Monday, June 26, 2023.
2023-2024 ABA International Law Section Diversity Fellowship Application
Applicant Information:
Name:
Firm/Company:
Address:
City: State: Zip:
Country:
Email:
Area of Practice:
Are you an ABA member? Are you a member of any Sections?
Yes ____ No ____
Are you a member of the Section of International Law?
Yes ___ No ___
Describe your interest in being a Diversity Fellow of the Section of International Law and how you plan to accomplish your goals and be of service to the Section (Max 500 words).
Describe your Section of International Law activities including leadership roles, programs that you have organized, Section meetings attended. If you are not a Section member, then describe which committees you hope to join, how that will support the advancement of your career in international law, and how you are planning to achieve that goal through this Fellowship within the Section. (Max 500 words) http://www.americanbar.org/groups/international_law/committees.html
Describe your leadership and participation roles in other bar associations including state, local, minority or foreign bars and your involvement in international law related activities/practice/etc. (Max 500 words).
7. Please describe what diversity and inclusion and international law initiatives and programs you have been involved in and how, through this Fellowship program, you are planning to reach out to other lawyers of diverse backgrounds and have them involved in the Section of International Law. (Max 500 words).
Here’s an array of reports on how America under the Trump regime has joined the ranks of dictatorships, torturers, child abusers, persecutors, and human rights criminals!
Eugene Robinson Opinion Columnist Washington Post Source: WashPost Website
Eugene Robinson @ WashPost:
What kind of people are we? As a society, are we so decadent and insecure that we show “toughness” by deliberately being cruel to innocent children? Is this what our nation has come to? Or are we better than that?
This election demands we answer those questions. The choice between President Trump and Joe Biden is not just political. It is also moral. And perhaps nothing more starkly illustrates the moral dimension of that decision than the Trump administration’s policy of kidnapping children at the southern U.S. border, ripping them away from their families — and doing so for no reason other than to demonstrate Trump’s warped vision of American strength.
We learned this week that some of those separations will probably be permanent. As NBC News first reported, 545 boys and girls taken as many as three years ago — the children of would-be immigrants and asylum seekers, mostly from Central America — have not been reunited with their parents and may never see their families again.
These are not among the nearly 3,000 families separated at the border in 2018, when children were kept in cages like animals or shipped away to facilities across the country, hundreds or thousands of miles from the border. We now know, thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union and other pro bono lawyers, that an additional 1,500 children were torn away from their families beginning in 2017, when the Trump administration conducted a trial run of the separation policy.
Please think about that. The shocking scenes we saw two years ago did not result from a sudden spasm of presidential anger. They didn’t stem from a Fox News segment Trump might have seen one evening. Rather, the administration rehearsed this form of cruelty.
What the administration did not plan for was how to reunite the children taken in 2017 with their families. Many of the parents were deported, and their children were placed in shelters around the country, then ostensibly released to parents or guardians, placements that the ACLU is still trying to confirm.
[Our Democracy in Peril: A series on the damage Trump has caused — and the danger he would pose in a second term]
The ACLU and other organizations have sent investigators to towns and villages in Central America in an attempt to find the kidnapped children’s families — an effort complicated not just by time and distance, but also by the covid-19 pandemic. Parents of 545 children have not been found, the ACLU reported this week.
Disturbingly, the Department of Homeland Security suggested that some of the parents declined to get their children back so they could remain in the United States. Keep in mind that most of these families were seeking asylum from deadly violence in their home countries. The Trump administration changed immigration guidelines to make it unlikely that the families would ultimately be allowed to stay in the United States, but federal law gives them the right to apply for asylum and to have their cases heard. They did nothing wrong. They should never have been asked to choose between parenting their children and getting them to safety — not by their home countries, and not by the United States.
Trump’s racism and xenophobia have been hallmarks of his presidency from the beginning, so perhaps it should be no surprise that he would preside over such an outrage. But he didn’t do this by himself. He had plenty of help.
Former attorney general Jeff Sessions seized an opportunity to make his rabid antipathy toward Hispanic immigration into policy. White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, a former Sessions aide in the Senate, was the architect of Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. Then-White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly said in 2018 that the children taken would be “taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.” Former homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said last year that she regretted that “information flow and coordination to quickly reunite the families was clearly not in place” — but not the separations themselves.
President Donald Trump’s administration started and carried out a policy that took more than 4,000 children from their parents, at least 545 of whom are still split apart years later. But at Thursday’s debate, the president insisted that he did nothing wrong at all ― blaming his Democratic predecessors and even insisting the kids are doing fine.
“They are so well taken care of,” Trump said of the children taken from their parents by his administration. “They’re in facilities that were so clean.”
Trump’s first term was marked by a full-out assault on immigration, both legal and unauthorized. The most dramatic was his “zero tolerance” policy on unauthorized border-crossing, used in a 2017 pilot program and expanded more broadly in 2018, that led to criminal prosecution of parents and locking up their kids separately. Splitting up families was intentional and calculated, according to multiple reports.
Thanks to mass public outrage and a court order, Trump was forced to stop his family separation policy. Most families were reunited, but the American Civil Liberties Union, which was part of the lawsuit against the government that stopped the policy, said this week that at least 545 kids are still away from their parents.
“Their kids were ripped from their arms and separated,” Democratic nominee Joe Biden said during the debate. “And now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It’s criminal.”
Washington Post Columnist Ruth Marcus, moderates a panel discussion about chronic poverty with Education Secretary John B. King and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, during the National Association of Counties at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park, in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016. U.S. Department of Agriculture photo by Lance Cheung.
Ruth Marcus @ WashPost:
545.
That is the number of children still separated from their families by the Trump administration — separated deliberately, cruelly and recklessly. They might never be reunited with their parents again. Even if they are, the damage is unimaginable and irreparable.
545.
Even one would be too many. Each one represents a unique tragedy. Imagine being ripped from your parents, or having your child taken from you. Imagine the desperation that the parents feel, the trauma inflicted on their children.
545.
That number represents an indelible stain on President Trump and every individual in his administration who implemented this policy, flawed at the conception and typically, gruesomely incompetent in the execution. It is, perhaps in the technical sense but surely in the broader one, a crime against humanity. It is torture.
545.
That number — I will stop repeating it, yet it cannot be repeated enough — represents a moral challenge and responsibility for the next administration. If Joe Biden is elected president, he must devote the maximum resources of the federal government to fixing this disaster. The United States broke these families; it must do whatever it takes to help them heal.
Nothing like that would happen in a second Trump term, because Trump himself doesn’t care. He doesn’t grasp the horror that he oversaw. He doesn’t comprehend the policy, and he is incapable of feeling the pain it inflicted.
Those truths could not have been clearer cut than during Thursday night’s debate.
Moderator Kristen Welker of NBC News asked the president a simple question: “How will these families ever be reunited?”
First, Trump misstated the situation: “Their children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they’re brought here, and they used to use them to get into our country.”
No. These are children separated from their families, not separated from smugglers. They are children brought by their parents in desperate search of a better life, desperate enough that they would take the risk of the dangerous journey.
Then Trump pivoted to the irrelevant: “We now have as strong a border as we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles of brand new wall. You see the numbers. And we let people in, but they have to come in legally.”
Welker persisted: “But how will you reunite these kids with their families, Mr. President?”
Trump responded by pointing his finger at his predecessor: “Let me just tell you, they built cages. You know, they used to say I built the cages, and then they had a picture in a certain newspaper and it was a picture of these horrible cages and they said look at these cages, President Trump built them, and then it was determined they were built in 2014. That was him.”
This is typical Trumpian deflection, bluster undergirded by ignorance. The “cages” are ugly but irrelevant to the topic at hand: the deliberately cruel plan to deter border-crossing by separating children from parents. That was a Trump administration special, implemented with callous sloppiness and so extreme that even the Trump administration abandoned it.
Welker, for the third time: “Do you have a plan to reunite the kids with their families?”
At which point Trump made clear that he did not: “We’re trying very hard, but a lot of these kids come out without the parents, they come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs.” The children, he added later, “are so well taken care of, they’re in facilities that were so clean.”
The third and final presidential debate gave Donald Trump and Joe Biden the opportunity to make their final pitch to the American people before the 2020 election. For the Democratic nominee, that meant driving home the point that he believes in science, that he’ll take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously, that climate change is real, and that systemic racism must be dealt with. For Trump, it meant making it clear that in addition to being a science-denying, QAnon-promoting dimwit, he’s also an actual monster who thinks separating small children from their parents, in some cases permanently, is absolutely fine.
Asked by moderated Kristen Welker about the news that parents of 545 children separated at the border—60 of whom are under the age of five—cannot be located, Trump defended the policy and gave no explanation for how the government plans to find these people and reunite their families. “Children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they’re brought here and they used to use them to get into our country,” Trump said, which is objectively false, as they are brought here by their parents, which is why it’s called the family separation policy. “We now have as strong a border as we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles of brand new wall. You see the numbers and we let people in but they have to come in legally.”
Noting that Trump hadn’t answered the question, Welker pressed: “But how will you unite these kids with their families?”
“They built cages, they used to say I built cages…that was him,” Trump said, pointing to Biden and referring to the fact that the Obama administration did build temporary enclosures but failing, naturally, to mention that his predecessor did not separate families.
“Do you have a plan to reunite the kids with their parents?” Welker asked a third time. Again, Trump responded by claiming that the children “come without the parents, they come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs.”
At this point, Joe Biden was given a chance to weigh in and used his time to describe the policy implemented by Trump as the horror show all non-sociopaths know it to be. “Parents, their kids were ripped from their arms and they were separated and now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone, nowhere to go. It’s criminal.”
Then Trump interjected with what he apparently believed was an important point that would cast his administration in a much more favorable light and perhaps might even win it some awards or sainthood by the Catholic church. “Kristen, I will say this,” he told the moderator, of the children stolen from their parents. “They’re so well taken care of. They’re in facilities that are so clean.
With regard to that claim, NBC News reporter Jacob Soboroff weighed in on that after the debate, telling Rachel Maddow: “I was one of the reporters I guess the president mentioned, they invited me to go to the epicenter of this policy…what I saw was little children sitting on concrete floors, covered by mylar blankets, supervised by security contractors in a watchtower, it makes me sick every time I recall it. And Physicians for Human Rights…called this torture…the American Academy of Pediatrics called this state-sanctioned child abuse, and the president of the United States I guess interprets that as children being well taken care of.”
Jacob Soboroff NBC Correspondent Jacob Soboroff at the ABC News Democratic Debate National Constitution Center. Philadelphia, PA. Creative Commons License
Here’s a video from NBC New’sJacob Soboroff, who has actually been inside “Trump’s Kiddie Gulag.” Surprise spoiler: It’s not “nice.” More like “torture” and “child abuse.”
There is neither moral nor legal justification for what the Trump regime has done to asylum seekers and other migrants over the past four years as part of their racist, White Nationalist, nativist agenda. But, we can show that we’re a better country than his horrible vision by voting him and all of his enablers out of office! Vote ‘Em out, vote ‘Em out!
Go on over to ImmigrationProf Blog at the above link for all of the links necessary to get the abstract as well as the full article. Among the many current and former Immigration Judges quoted or cited in the article are Jeffrey Chase, Ashley Tabaddor, Dana Marks, Lory Rosenberg, Robert Vinikoor, and me. (I’m sure I’m missing some of our other colleagues; it’s a very long article, but well worth the read.)
In an article full of memorable passages, here is one of my favorites:
Full enforcement of the law requires full enforcement of provisions that grant protection as well as provisions that restrict border entry. This is the part of “enforcement” that the Department of Justice is not equipped to fully understand. The agency’s fundamental commitment to controlling unauthorized immigration does not allow it a neutral, open position on asylum questions. The foundational separation and balance of powers concerns at the heart of Chevron require courts to recognize that inherent conflict of interest as a reason Congress is unlikely to have delegated unchecked power on refugee protection to the prosecuting agency. In our constitutional structure, the courts stand as an essential check on the executive power to deport and must provide robust review to fully enforce the congressional mandate to protect refugees. If the courts abdicate this vital function, they will be abdicating their distinctive role in ensuring the full enforcement of all of our immigration law—including those provisions that seek to ensure compliance with our international obligations to protect individuals facing the danger of persecution.
This is a point that my friend and colleague Judge Lory Rosenberg made often during our tenure together on the BIA. All too often, her pleas fell on deaf ears.
The now abandoned pre-2001 “vision statement” of EOIR was “to be the world’s best administrative tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” Nothing in there about “partnering” with DHS to remove more individuals, fulfilling quotas, “sending messages to stay home,” securing the border, jacking up volume, deterring migration, or advancing other politically motivated enforcement goals. Indeed, the proper role of EOIR is to insure fair and impartial adjudication and Due Process for individuals even in the face of constant pressures to “just go along to get along” with a particular Administration’s desires to favor the expedient over the just.
Under all Administrations, the duty to insure Due Process, fairness, full protections, and the granting to benefits to migrants under the law is somewhat shortchanged at EOIR in relation to the pressure to promote Executive enforcement objectives. But, the situation under the xenophobic, disingenuous, self-proclaimed “Immigration Enforcement Czar” Jeff Sessions is a true national disgrace and a blot on our entire legal system. If Congress won’t do its job by removing the Immigration Courts from the DOJ forthwith, the Article III courts must step in, as Maureen suggests.
The University of Maryland Support, Advocacy, Freedom, and Empowerment (SAFE) Center for Human Trafficking Survivors is seeking a candidate to apply for a SAFE Center-hosted Equal Justice Works Fellowship. Third-year law students, recent law school graduates, and experienced attorneys with a demonstrated commitment to public interest law are eligible to apply. About the University of Maryland SAFE Center (Host Organization) The University of Maryland SAFE Center is a direct services, research, and advocacy center on human trafficking. Through in-house service provision and collaboration with partners, the Center provides comprehensive social, legal, mental health, medical, and economic empowerment services to sex and labor trafficking survivors regardless of nationality, age, or gender. The SAFE Center is located in College Park, Maryland. Learn more on our website: www.umdsafecenter.org. About the Equal Justice Works (EJW) Fellowship Program The Equal Justice Works Fellowship program funds public interest attorneys for two years at a host organization in an effort to close the justice gap on pressing social issues. The host organization provides training, support, supervision, and health insurance and other standard employee benefits. The Application Process Candidates who are interested in applying for an EJW Fellowship to work at the SAFE Center must apply to the SAFE Center by August 9, 2017. The SAFE Center will choose a candidate with whom to apply for an EJW fellowship. The candidate and the SAFE Center will work together to develop the project listed below, and will collaborate on the EJW application. The candidate will submit that application to EJW by September 27, 2017. If the application is successful, the EJW Fellow will begin work on the project at the SAFE Center in September 2018. For more information on the EJW application process, please see http://www.equaljusticeworks.org/post-grad/equal-justice-works-fellowships/apply. Proposed Project Outreach and Legal Services for Forced Labor Victims: This project focuses on survivors of labor trafficking in Maryland and the metropolitan Washington DC area. Labor trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery that involves forcing, coercing, or defrauding a person into involuntary servitude in restaurants, factories, farms, hotels, beauty salons, private homes as domestic workers, family-run businesses, and other industries. Victims are typically forced to work extremely long hours under inhumane conditions, with few or no days off, for little or no money. They are controlled by threats, violence, fake debts, isolation, and other methods. Labor trafficking is occurring in Maryland and the metropolitan DC area but it is largely under-identified, underreported and under-prosecuted. This project will involve direct legal immigration services, outreach, and advocacy on labor trafficking. The EJW Fellow will represent labor trafficking victims in applying for T visas and other forms of immigration relief. The EJW Fellow will create Know Your Rights materials and conduct presentations for relevant community organizations and agencies in the metropolitan DC area in order to increase identification of labor trafficking victims. The EJW Fellow will also identify legislative and policy gaps on labor trafficking in the DC metropolitan area and assist in proposing solutions. Candidate Qualifications: Demonstrated commitment to public interest law. Demonstrated interest in human trafficking, immigration, civil rights, labor rights, women’s rights, or other social issues. Excellent research, writing, and oral communication skills. Highly self-motivated, well organized, detail-oriented, and flexible. Ability to work well with culturally diverse populations. Have a strong work ethic and a positive attitude. Agree to sit for the Bar Exam the summer after graduating law school. Foreign language ability preferred but not required. To apply, please send a resume, cover letter, 5-10 page writing sample, and a copy of your academic transcript (unofficial) to safecenter@umd.edu by Wednesday, August 9, 2017.
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GO FOR IT!
Thanks to Professor Alberto Benitez of GW Law for sending this my way.
