"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.
Congrats, endless admiration, and much appreciation to all of these amazing and inspiring leaders! CAIR Coalition was a mainstay of the pro bono program during my tenure at the “Legacy” Arlington Immigration Court. Many outstanding leaders of the legal profession have been associated with CAIR. They have saved countless lives and made American society better and fairer!
As Courtside readers know, I am particularly proud of Adina Appelbaum, Program Director, Immigration Impact Lab.Here’s what I wrote about her in a past Courtside post:
I’m very proud to say that a member of the “CAIR Team,” Adina Appelbaum, program Director, Immigration Impact Lab, is my former Georgetown ILP student, former Arlington Intern, and a “charter member” of the NDPA! If my memory serves me correctly, she is also a star alum of the CALS Asylum Clinic @ Georgetown Law. No wonder Adina made the Forbes “30 Under 30” list of young Americans leaders! She and others like her in the NDPA are ready to go in and start cleaning up and improving EOIR right now! Judge Garland take note!
If only Garland had followed the advice of many of us to recruit amazingly talented expert leaders like Adina to reform and institutionalize due process at EOIR, the immigration “debate” would be completely different today!
When we entered the garden, Tomás’s face relaxed. We were at the Casa de la Misericordia de Todas las Naciones in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, where he had resided for six months with his wife, Cristina, and three children. Before we entered the garden, Cristina and Tomás told me that a criminal group had abducted their 20-year-old son, Carlos, in the small rural community where they lived in the mountains of the Mexican state of Guerrero. Carlos returned to the family, but they knew he was under threat, that the whole family was in danger. As we spoke under the shade of a large tree, children raced around and played on a swing set in front of a yellow building that housed primarily mothers with young children. About 120 people, including entire families, were staying at this shelter, which was designed for people seeking asylum. Cristina did most of the talking, but at the end Tomás asked me if I wanted to see the garden. Cristina had to return to the kitchen, which was her responsibility this week. For his part, Tomás had been the encargado of the garden, in charge of it, he told me, since they arrived.
He showed me the radishes, the calabazas, the zanahoria. He showed me what remained of the tomatoes and chiles that got blasted by the cold. He showed me the lombrices, earthworms burrowing in the composting soil topped with banana peels. As he showed me all the plants, Tomás talked about how much he loved farming, how much he loved planting seeds, how much he liked caring for these plants and watching them grow. In Guerrero he had tended his milpa (small parcel of land) of squash, beans, and corn every day. As he spoke, I tried to envision his rural mountain community; over the years I have met many campesinos, small farmers, across southern Mexico, in his state of Guerrero, in Oaxaca, in Chiapas. Having knelt in the soil of the milpas before, I understood how this small garden in Nogales was like a sanctuary, especially in the face of a scary situation, as Cristina and Tomás had told me, away from home, away from your roots, your child’s life in danger, wondering if you would get asylum. When they arrived six months earlier, they applied for asylum on the glitchy, confusing, and difficult-to-use CBP One app with the help of staff at the Casa, a service they offer to all people staying in the shelter. Tomás told me that when things got stressful, “I come here to the garden. And the stress goes away.” He made a motion with his hand. His hand then touched the soil, searching for the plants. He looked up, and his face was serene.
From where we talked in the garden, we had a sweeping view of Nogales. The Casa is perched on a hill above a working-class neighborhood called Bella Vista, where the bustle often starts in the early morning as maquila workers head to the factories. For line workers making Samsonite suitcases, General Electric lightbulbs, or Masterlocks, the wages are a pittance—giving Nogales a feel of a city in constant strain and struggle.
Also, from the Casa you can look north toward the border with Arizona. Last Thursday, President Joe Biden and Donald Trump came to the border in “dueling visits,” but in faraway Brownsville and Eagle Pass, Texas. People like Tomás and Cristina and family were in the news again, not as their full human selves but as flat numbers and statistics. The “narrative of overwhelm,” as Erika Pinheiro put to The Border Chronicle in an audio interview, was full steam ahead. Alarmist rhetoric filled the airwaves, including the omnipresent “record numbers” of people crossing in every report. In Brownsville, in a proposal that might have seemed like fiction if we went back in time to the 2020 campaign, Biden challenged Trump to “show a little spine” and help him tighten the border by supporting the enforcement-heavy border bill shot down by the Senate in early February. For Trump’s part, he referred to people crossing the border as the “Joe Biden invasion”and as a “vicious violation to our country.” At this point in a heating-up U.S. presidential campaign, the age-old depiction of migrants as either dangerous or a mass of faceless numbers arriving to the benevolent U.S. doorstep was in full effect. More enforcement, both sides were clearly stating, was the solution.
Tomás knelt down to the soil. He showed me the garlic and onions he had planted as an experiment. “Do you want to try a radish?” he asked me in Spanish. “Yes,” I said, “please.” He plucked a radish out of the soil. I wiped off the soil and took a bite. I don’t know if it was because I was hungry (I was), or if it was the force of the stories Tomás and Cristina had shared (probably that too), or just watching Tomás work the soil, tenderly touch the plants, his face soft and concentrated, the perils of asylum-seeker limbo temporarily forgotten, that I knew that this type of care would render something delicious. The radish was so succulent that I finished it too quickly, but I was too bashful to ask for another, even though I wanted one. We could still hear the voices of playing kids coming up from below; there were people from all over Mexico, from Central America, from Peru, Colombia, and from across the world like China, Iran, and Senegal. Before talking with Tomás and Cristina, I visited the tortillería, where three young men worked making tortillas. I visited a workshop where people made weavings and other art projects.
I visited a gigantic bread oven—where people from different countries baked bread in their own traditions, and I visited the kitchen and dining room where banners celebrating the Chinese New Year hung from the walls. One new year celebratory sign read in English, “Be patient, Be light, Be love, Be you!” Another read in Spanish, “La amabilidad es la llave de todas las fortunas” (Friendliness is the key to all fortune).
The shelter is run by its director, Alma Angélica Macías, but the effort was a community one, and a binational one. I was there with a small group of people from the Good Shepherd UCC church in Arizona who bring food to the Casa every Thursday. And given that the shelter allows people to stay as long as the asylum process takes, the Casa had a feel of a multinational hub where people of different nationalities had formed deep bonds, and as I stood there with Tomás, I was moved by this beautiful, alternative view of the border that rarely sees the light of day in the media.
Right as I was about to leave the garden, Tomás’s 20-year-old son came to ask him a question. Tomás introduced me to Carlos, and as I looked into his young face, I remembered the threats to his life that had led them there. As I stood waiting, they talked among themselves, and I thought again about the presidential race, the constant push for more border enforcement, the rightward drift of that debate, the talk that the U.S. government was going to clamp down even harder on asylum seekers—all while watching the father and son talk in calm, sweet tones in that lovely garden. When they were finished, there was a pause. One last moment to take in the garden and the sweeping view around us. I used the pause to thank Tomás for showing me the garden, for showing me his gift with the land. I didn’t know what to say except that I thought it was beautiful and that I felt inspired. And then—after a quick, tender, and vulnerable look to young Carlos, who was still by his side—Tomás told me, as if he didn’t want to have to say it, “I hope they give us asylum.”
*For the story, I altered the names of the family from Guerrero at the request of the shelter.
************************
Click the above link for the original article with Todd’s wonderful border photography!
As I often say, we can diminish ourselves as a nation, (as both Trump and Biden are doing with their “misleading dehumanizing rhetoric” and spineless “scapegoating”), but it won’t stop human migration. Dehumanization and victimization in the end highlight the humanity of the victims while diminishing the dehumanizers.
Notably, this family has spent months trying “to do things the right way” by scheduling an appointment through the woefully inadequate “CBP One App” and appointment system. Yet, it appears that they have not even been given the interview to which they are entitled by law, nor have they been given a date for the fair merits adjudication they deserve!
The immense backlogs that everyone complains about (and which actually hurt legitimate asylum seekers like Tomás and his family) are largely self-created by years of USG over-investment in ridiculously expensive and ultimately ineffective enforcement accompanied by grotesque “under-investment” in timely, professional, and humane screening and adjudication of claims.
Both Biden and Trump know or should know that “the app” and the system it engenders are hopelessly defective. Yet, rather than moving to fix it (Biden) or urging supporters to invest in fixing it (Trump), both candidates shamelessly dump on the victims of their joint misfeasance and urge “further punishment” of those victims, apparently to “CTAs” for their own legal and moral failures.
Such is the “bogus border debate” — actually not a “debate” but rather a “one-sided nationalistic lie-fest” highlighted by obscene finger-pointing and journalistic malpractice on a catastrophic scale. All this happens with human lives and the very future of our democratic republic hanging in the balance!
Eventually, the judgement history on this disingenuous “bipartisan exercise in neofascism” will fall on the shameless politicos, the complicit media, and those who fail to call them out for their lies and misdeeds. Whether that judgement will come in time to save Tomás, Cristina, Carlos, and others like them seeking only justice and humanity from our nation is a different question. Like Tomás, one can only hope!
Piper French reports for Intelligencer via Apple News:
Nilu Chadwick recognizes some of the children’s names right away. Chadwick, a lawyer for Kids in Need of Defense, has spent the past five years poring over lists of families separated under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy whose cases have yet to be resolved. Some of the children’s names stand out because she crossed paths with them back in 2018, when she represented them at their immigration hearings after they were torn from their parents’ side at the southern border. Those names always remind her of what she witnessed that year. The eerie silence of the children’s shelters. The kids so young that they couldn’t even explain who they were or where they came from. The hearing she had to pause in order to soothe a client with a nursery rhyme. Then there are the names that have simply grown familiar through repetition: the children whose cases appeared on the lists years ago and remain open.
The process of reunifying families separated under “zero tolerance” began in June 2018, two months after the policy was officially implemented. The ACLU had filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of separated families, Ms. L. v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and during the litigation, a federal judge halted Trump’s policy and ordered its victims reunified within 30 days. Some of these reunifications were relatively straightforward. The government had records of around 2,800 separated families, and most of those parents and children were still in the U.S. — maybe they’d been sent to separate ICE facilities or the parents were in detention while their children had been placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. But for about 470 families, the parents had already been deported. When the Trump administration declined to track them down, Lee Gelernt, the head lawyer for the plaintiffs, stood up in court and said the ACLU would do it. A steering committee was put together comprising a team from the New York law firm Paul, Weiss and representatives from three NGOs, including Kids in Need of Defense and the organization Justice in Motion. “Little did I know what we were taking responsibility for,” Gelernt told me.
The first hurdle the committee faced was the total disorganization with which “zero tolerance” had been implemented. “There was no intention of reuniting families, and so they didn’t design the system to be able to keep track,” Nan Schivone, Justice in Motion’s legal director, told me. The agencies involved — Customs and Border Protection, which took families into custody; ICE, which oversaw their detainment; the ORR, which was responsible for the separated children — didn’t have a comprehensive system to share data with one another, nor did they always keep records linking parents with their children. If children were released from ORR custody into the care of family or friends, the government did limited follow-up. “We give you a luggage tag for your luggage,” said Gisela Voss, a former board member of Together & Free, which supports families seeking asylum. “We separated parents from their kids and didn’t give them, like, a number.”
It took two months, until August 2018, for the administration to provide the steering committee with the phone numbers of the deported parents; a quarter of the numbers were missing. The committee began its search, making calls and performing social-media investigations. Then, in January 2019, the HHS Office of Inspector General revealed that more families had been separated than the Trump administration had previously disclosed. Nine months later, the Justice Department finally produced those names. There were 1,500 of them, and the vast majority of the parents had been deported.
. . . .
But the more that people who have dedicated their lives to this task continue to search, the more it becomes apparent that there will never be a clean resolution. There will always be another family. They know, too, that reunification solves only one problem. Families may be together again, but whether they will ever be whole is another question entirely.
*******************
Read the complete article at the link.
No accountability whatsoever for Trump, Miller, Sessions and the other “human rights criminals” responsible for this. As is all too common in immigration and human rights “fails” by our immigration bureaucracy, the private, pro bono and NGO sectors are left to pick up the pieces after having to fight to uphold the rule of law.
The real story here is the blatant failure of our Government to uphold the rule of law for those seeking legal refugee and the irreparable effects of that failure. Somehow we have allowed politicos and the media to reverse that story line!
Beatriz Lopez Deputy Director Immigration Hub PHOTO: Immigration Hub
From The Narrative Intervention on Substack:
Last week, I listened to Ezra Klein ruffle feathers with his provocative, “strategic” advice to Democrats to choose a different presidential nominee that isn’t President Biden. I found his reasoning to be redundant and just another taunt in the vein of what Jon Stewart and other pundits are saying about Biden. What did perk my ears was his short crescendo into the qualities of Vice President Kamala Harris before he lazily landed on his novel advice:
She’s enormously magnetic and compelling. Her challenge will be translating that into her public persona, which is, let’s be blunt about this. A hard thing to do when you’ve grown up in a world that has always been quick to find your faults. A world that is afraid of women being angry of black people being angry. A world where for most of your life it was demanded of you that you be cautious and careful and measured and never make a mistake. And then you get on the public stage and people say, oh, you’re too cautious and too careful and too measured. It’s a very, very, very hard bind to get out of. But maybe she can do it still. It is a party’s job to organize victory.
Klein ends this wonderful reflection with a careless – and let’s be frank – a typical white man move, “If Harris cannot convince delegates that she’s the best shot at victory, she should not and probably would not be chosen.” He later continues his monologue by mentioning a series of other Democrats with résumés that pale in comparison to the VP’s long list of career achievements and experiences.
Oh Ezra. What could’ve been. Progressive white man allyship is like puppy love – it ends when they become dogs.
It’s nothing new for us women of color to deal with men who think they know better and who often fail to recognize the merits and the knowledge that comes from years of diligently doing the work, putting triple the effort, ensuring near perfection, meeting goals, and delivering beyond the standard metrics. It’s a frustration I know all too well.
And look, I’m not saying all white men fall into the Ezra Klein category. There are a few good men – those that stick out their neck for you, who vouch for you and take a step back, who are true friends in the battle. To them, I’m grateful.
But for the most part, we have to deal with the Ezras. Today, I want to focus on three grievances so that I may elevate three women who are telling Democrats how we can win in 2024.
1. Vice President Harris. This spectacular woman who has probably the most thankless job in the country has persevered despite the sexist and racist punditry. She took on the most difficult portfolio of dealing with forced migration and investing in the region. And let me tell you, as a Nicaraguan-American, Central and South American politics is ridiculously complicated, tough and heartbreaking, and still the VP has managed to get millions upon millions of dollars in philanthropy and big business to invest in the region. She spearheaded all kinds of programs in the region to elevate women in business and young people in service. But you don’t hear any of that – or what she’s done and meant to Dreamers, youth, and the LBGTQI+ and Black communities.
While white Democratic operatives warn about losing the Black and Latino men vote, the VP has been working on actually addressing the matter. Not until this Sunday did you probably hear about the VP’s “quiet” meetings with a diverse set of electeds and experts. With her seasoned and smart campaign staff (including Sergio Gonzales) and Julie Rodriguez Chavez, she’s doing the work, strategizing and devising solutions.
This is what women of color do best – ignore the naysayers and get shit done. Every Democratic operative should be lifting the VP and her efforts up, instilling confidence in Democrats and pundits that the VP is strengthening the campaign and showing the public that our VP is the best veep we’ve had in over a century.
It’s with the VP we all rise.
2. Julie Chávez Rodriguez. I have long admired Julie from afar and up close. She embodies the characteristics of the few Latinas in Washington politics – smart, hard-working, strategic, persistent and authentic. She’s not defined by her grandfather’s legacy; she’s defined her own present and future with a committed love to our country and civil service. And yet, you get the sense through beltway rumors, leaks and hot takes that a class of establishment operatives and government officials from yesteryears are either gunning for her failure or humoring the token Latina. Unacceptable.
This mountain-mover has a long history of hustling and delivering on promises. From leading campaigns to working in two administrations, Julie has ensured Democrats invest in the Latino vote and immigrant communities when no one was willing, while strategizing and organizing to advance progressive measures empowering American working families. As Biden’s campaign manager, she has raised more funds than Trump and any candidate in any race.
Despite the comms person in me wanting her to lean into the spotlight, Julie doesn’t seek the James Carville limelight or approach this job as a lucrative ticket to cable punditry or podcasting. She’s doing the job because she believes in civic duty and good governance, she knows what it takes, and she has a strategy to win.
In Julie I trust, and so should you.
3. This last spot is a bit uncomfortable, but – screw it – I’m going to talk about me. Yes, me! For the past seven years, I’ve been telling Democrats that they can’t ignore immigration as a political galvanizer. I’ve led polling, focus groups, message and ad testing, and advertising campaigns in battleground states, and I’m not talking about one and done – nope, I’ve run all of the aforementioned countless times.
And because of my research and what I’ve learned from other partner organizations’ findings, I developed a messaging formula: acknowledge the system is broken, socialize a balanced approach to fixing it (i.e. don’t go Trump-lite; stress humane and orderly border security + pathway to citizenship), relate to voters with shared American values and center the economic contributions of immigrants, and counterattack Republicans, highlighting their extreme rhetoric and record.
Sound familiar? Does it sound like something Senator Chris Murphy may have recently written about or Tom Suozzi may have employed in his campaign? Yup. I guess, I should be glad that white men have validated my strategy to win.
But like I often tell my team – deep breaths and keep your eyes on the prize. Here’s the thing, the most important aspect of my messaging formula is saturation. Going on offense means repeating and delivering the message wherever a persuadable may roam. They need to see Trump and Republicans as foils to Biden and Democrats, and that means employing immigration to make the contrast that Democrats have advanced and pushed for popular solutions that don’t separate families and instead restore order and create opportunities for hard-working immigrants to stay and work in the country they proudly call home.
See? It’s not hard to implement the formula or write such an ad. If most Democratic campaigns targeted immigration ads to persuadable voters with as much gusto as they do on economy-focused ads, I’d bet money they’d see a shift in the polls. I know, I’ve done it before (even written numerous memos on how it can work).
To win in 2024, President Biden and Democrats have to start listening to women of color.
And on this critical issue of immigration, I’m telling you that neither the VP, Julie or I would ever ignore the power of the American dream. So yes, do what Congress failed to do: take action to manage migration at the border with grit and radical empathy AND widen the path to citizenship through administrative action so that Dreamers and other immigrants can continue to thrive without the fear of deportation or Trump. Then, deliver the message to Americans – on repeat.
In case you’re still here… check out how I explain the messaging strategy to win on immigration:
I highly encourage you to hit the “share button” above and listen to Beatriz’s inspiring and “spot on” 3-minute video in which she succinctly and cogently sets forth her “4-S messaging strategy” on immigration in 2024: Sequence, Sooth, Saturate, and Sway! Needless to say, Beatriz packs more useful information and values-inspired messaging into 3 minutes that most politicos do in a 30-minute “speech.” That’s one of many problems in today’s often-dehumanizing and intentionally off-point political “debate.”
Dems must pay attention to what Beatriz is saying! You can’t “run away” from immigration in a nation of immigrants, nor should you!
You also can’t just point fingers at Trump and the GOP. You need realistic, humane, practical solutions (the delusional Miller Lite “close the border tomorrow” is not one of them). Folks will embrace immigration and asylum seekers, but they also want to see “order at the border” and in the resettlement process. To date, sadly, the Biden Administration has failed to lay out concrete, realistic plans for doing that — other than bombastic promises to to “out-Trump Trump” with a “Miller Lite” agenda of unrealistic promises and soft-pedaled cruelty!
You can subscribe to Beatriz’s The Narrative Intervention on Substack.
Also, Beatriz is the Chief Political and Communications Officer of TheImmigration Hub.
If you are inspired by her message and commitment, they are looking for a Manager of Federal Advocacy to join their stellar Leg/Policy Team.Sounds like a great NDPA opportunity with a great team that “walks the walk” when it comes to due process and equal justice for all persons in America!
Here’s the application information:
The Immigration Hub is seeking a stellar candidate to join our Leg/Policy team as the Manager of Federal Advocacy. We’re a smart and strategic organization that loves to empower young leaders who see themselves working in the halls of Congress or driving change in our movement. If you or someone you know is interested, please apply via https://lnkd.in/ezcaFrdZ.
The Immigration Hub Team
Become part of the solution, rather than just hand-wringing about the problem and blaming and threatening the victims! It’s NOT asylum seekers who have failed over decades to invest in and establish a robust, expert, timely, due-process-compliant, fundamentally fair process for adjudicating asylum claims and resettling asylees in an orderly and helpful manner!
Strategies for Immigrants Leaving a Lasting Legacy That Endures Through Generations
By Diane Harrison
Courtside Exclusive
February 14, 2024
In life’s journey, the aspiration to leave a mark that resonates through generations is a common thread that binds humanity. Immigrants, in particular, face unique challenges and opportunities in crafting legacies.
The essence of your journey, enriched by diverse cultures and experiences, offers unparalleled potential to influence the world positively. Embracing this potential requires intentional actions and decisions that reflect your deepest values and aspirations. Below, immigrationcourtside.com shares more:
Manifesting Core Principles
You hold the power to mold your legacy through the daily embodiment of your core values. Let kindness, integrity, and generosity be the guiding principles of your actions. When lived out loud, these virtues serve as beacons that inspire those around you. Consistently demonstrating these qualities becomes the foundation upon which your legacy is built, ensuring that your influence endures through time.
Safeguarding Your Story
In today’s digital age, safeguarding your history and accomplishments is crucial. Take the time to digitize important documents to protect them from physical degradation and ensure they remain accessible for generations. Converting these files into PDFs helps maintain their integrity across various platforms and means you can share them quickly and securely.
Use a straightforward drag-and-drop tool to crop and resize pages (this deserves a look). Take this essential step to preserve the narratives and achievements that define your legacy.
Cultivating Meaningful Connections
The strength and depth of your relationships reflect the essence of your legacy. Foster meaningful connections with family, friends, and community members. These bonds are the fabric of your legacy, weaving together a network of support and love that mirrors your values. Through these relationships, you create a living legacy of warmth and support that resonates well beyond your immediate circle.
Passing on Wisdom and Expertise
Your knowledge and skills are invaluable gifts that can significantly impact others. Sharing your expertise not only helps others grow but also cements your legacy as someone who contributes to the advancement of others. Whether mentoring the younger generation or volunteering your time for those in need, these acts of generosity amplify your legacy, making a lasting difference in the world.
Leading with Ethical Integrity in Business
In business, nurturing a lasting legacy involves a steadfast commitment to ethical standards. Constructing an enterprise that mirrors your core values fosters a more equitable marketplace and sets a precedent for others to emulate.
Delve into the advantages of establishing an LLC, including limited liability, tax benefits, streamlined paperwork, and heightened flexibility. Guiding the formation process and evading exorbitant legal fees through self-filing or utilizing a formation service demonstrates a dedication to prudence and resourceful decision-making.
Advocating for What Matters
Your support for causes close to your heart extends the reach of your legacy far beyond your personal sphere. Whether through financial donations, advocacy, or hands-on involvement, your engagement in these causes leaves an indelible mark. This commitment to making a difference embodies the essence of a legacy that transcends time and geography, cementing your role as a catalyst for change.
Launching Enduring Ventures
Embark on endeavors that mirror your passions and beliefs, be it through a business venture, community project, or artistic expression. These initiatives are monuments to your dedication and vision, reflecting your unique contributions to the world. Such endeavors enrich your legacy and inspire others to pursue their passions with similar fervor and commitment.
Ensuring a Lasting Foundation
Ensuring your financial and legal affairs are in order is fundamental to legacy building. Proper management of wills, trusts, and other legal documents guarantees that your assets support your loved ones and the causes you cherish, even in your absence. This foresight and planning ensure that your legacy’s impact is felt long after you departed, offering future generations support and opportunities.
Your choices and values are pivotal in building a lasting legacy. As an immigrant, your diverse experiences present a unique opportunity to shape a legacy that transcends cultures and time. By embodying your values, preserving your heritage, and making meaningful contributions, you can leave a lasting impact that inspires others for generations to come.
There is so much misinformation, misdirection, ignorance, and hate out there these days. Since we are indisputably “a nation of immigrants,” it’s really a bizarre form of “self loathing” promoted by the GOP and embraced by a disturbing number of our fellow citizens.
That’s why my day always gets brighter when one of these thoughtful, helpful, encouraging, informative, and well-written PSAs from my friend Diane Harrison appears in my “Courtside inbox!” As always, thanks Diane for reminding us who we are and what we can achieve if we work together to welcome, value, cherish, assimilate, and maximize the opportunities and values of human migration — the most ancient and inevitable phenomenon in human history!
Laura Trask
Director of Development & Communications media@ayuda.com
Washington, D.C. (February 5, 2024) – Yesterday, Senate negotiators released language for the supplemental funding bill that would dramatically alter the U.S. asylum system in exchange for foreign aid and humanitarian assistance.
Ayuda joins immigrant communities and advocacy organizations across the country in strongly condemning this proposal that would lead to more families separated, children detained, and asylum seekers sent back to face persecution and even death.
Amongst many of the draconian changes proposed, this legislation would create a new authority, with narrow exceptions, that would allow officials to summarily expel asylum seekers. It would also restrict screening standards for asylum seekers and expedite asylum claims to the extent that many will not be able to access counsel or adequately represent themselves.
Ayuda and our partner organizations believe there are far more effective solutions to immigration policy failures. We call on the Senate to reject this framework, disentangle humanitarian assistance from changes that would eviscerate U.S. asylum law, and recommit themselves to building compassionate and humane immigration system.
###
About Ayuda:
Ayuda provides direct legal, social, and language access services to low-income immigrants in Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Since 1973, Ayuda has served more than 150,000 immigrants throughout the region. Ayuda is the only nonprofit service provider in the area that provides a wide range of immigration and family law assistance, social services, and language access support for all immigrants – including women, men, and children – from anywhere in the world.
************************
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a proud member of the AYUDA Advisory Council.
I’m pleased to be part of an organization that stands up for human rights and the right to seek asylum and opposes scofflaw proposals to “punish” legal asylum seekers for the USG’s decades-long failure to establish a fair, accessible, timely asylum screening and adjudication system as required by law.
Many thanks to Paula Fitzgerald, Laura Trask, Alicja Johnson, and the rest of the “Due Process Team” at AYUDA for issuing this statement!
Camille J. Mackler Executive Director Immigrant ARC PHOTO: JustSecurity
Camille writes on LinkedIn:
I’m beyond excited to be able to finally share that I was selected to be part of this year’s 92nd Street Y Women inPower fellowship!
I’m looking forward to a year of learning, connecting, mentorship (something that so many women of my generation feel they missed out on) and growing within this incredible network of current and past fellows.
🌟 Exciting Announcement: Introducing our 2024 Women inPower Fellows! 🌟
Thrilled to share the news that we are welcoming a new cohort of dynamic and accomplished individuals to our Women inPower Fellowship program this week.
These extraordinary women embody resilience, leadership, and a commitment to driving positive change in their respective fields. Join us in extending a warm welcome to our 2024 Fellows! 🎉
Congrats, Camille! You show what true courage, inspiration, and leadership is all about at a time when our nation needs you and other NDPA leaders to fight for human rights, the rule of law, and humane values!
People close to Mr. Biden said he had always supported enforcing the law. Some of his top aides, such as Susan E. Rice, who served as his domestic policy adviser until last summer, and Jake Sullivan, his national security adviser, embodied that tough-minded approach.
“Migrants and asylum seekers absolutely should not believe those in the region peddling the idea that the border will suddenly be fully open to process everyone on Day 1,” Ms. Rice had said early on in Mr. Biden’s presidency.
Contrary to these border myths, which the NYT article does not really adequately take on, “the law” requires that individuals be given a chance to apply for asylum regardless of “status” and “entry point.” Congress provided a “quick screening” process called “credible fear” to deal with “mass migration” situations.
Assuming for the sake of argument that “the law” also requires that individuals be “detained” while credible fear screening and adjudication of claims by those who pass takes place, four elements are necessary for the legal system to work in a fair and timely manner.
Humane, NGO-operated reception centers, with on-site representation available, in locations preferably removed from the immediate border for screening to take place;
A huge corps of true expert Asylum Officers to do credible fear screening and outright grant clearly valid cases wherever possible;
A large corps of true expert Immigration Judges and BIA Appellate Judges to guide Asylum Officers, review their work, and, where the case can’t be granted at first instance, conduct timely full adjudication of claims for those who pass credible fear, prioritizing those claims most likely to succeed;
A functional resettlement program for those granted asylum and those whose cases require more in-depth process.
These four steps are the core of what real law enforcement at the border is all about! Prioritize them, accomplish them, and the other pieces will fall in place.
Contrary to Susan Rice, Jake Sullivan, and what the NYT article suggests, a plan to accomplish this 1) isn’t rocket science; 2) does not require legislation; and 3) needed to be “ready to go” with dynamic, courageous, due-process-focused leadership on Day 1 of the Administration or very shortly thereafter.
As always in Government, it’s a question of priorities, courage, and leadership. Despite the “overabundance” of proven, creative legal and administrative talent then in the private sector, most of whom were available to assist Biden, the Administration was not “ready to roll” with this program on Day 1 (as Steven Miller was with his vile “kill asylum and asylum seekers” agenda).
Sadly, even today, the Administration has not come close to putting in place any of these four critical requirements for success. It was highly predictable to any informed expert that forced migrants would continue to arrive at the border in large numbers and that GOP White Nationalists would “leverage” the Administration’s failure to achieve order at the border.
There is something else that’s completely predicable: That, if passed (a big if), the “nativist-driven compromise” now being “debated” by Congress and the Administration will NOT solve the humanitarian issue of forced migration BUT WILL create more death, trauma, and failure at the border and beyond.
Until America elects humanitarian-focused, problem-solving leaders with the vision to regularize fair asylum processing and the courage and skills to implement it, our border will continue to be a godawful mess: Just as GOP White Nationalists want! And, the great opportunity presented by talented asylum seekers who want only to save their and their families’ lives while helping us succeed will be squandered.
YOU can be on the team with these and other NDPA superheroes:
Paula Fitzgerald Executive Director AYUDALaura Trask Director of Development & Communications AYUDA
📣 Job alert! 📣 Ayuda is seeking an immigrant champion to become our next Director of Legal Programs and lead the continued expansion of our immigration legal services.
If you share our mission of creating a world in which immigrants thrive, take a look at the full job posting and apply now: https://lnkd.in/e_yypNsk
Ayuda is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing direct legal, social and language access services, education, and outreach to low-income immigrants in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Since 1973, Ayuda has provided critical services on a wide range of issues, in the process acquiring nationally recognized expertise in several fields including immigration law, language access, domestic violence and human trafficking. Ayuda has office locations in Washington, DC, Silver Spring, MD and Fairfax, VA.
WHY DO YOU WANT THIS JOB?
Because, just like everyone at Ayuda, you believe:
• In seeing communities where all immigrants succeed and thrive in the United States.
• In the overall success of our organization and all our programs.
• That families should be healthy and safe from harm.
• That all people should have access to professional, honest, and ethical services, regardless of ability to pay or status in this country.
• That diversity and equality make this country better.
WHAT WILL THIS JOB ENTAIL?
• Ensure the delivery of client-centered, high-quality legal services across Ayuda’s offices in DC, Maryland, and Virginia.
• Provide supervision to Legal Managers, and other positions as needed.
• Provide strategic direction for the legal program within Ayuda and lead the team towards meeting goals and objectives.
• Maintain and develop consistent practices and policies across legal programs.
• Oversee financial management of grants for the legal program, including client trust accounts for the low-bono fee-based services.
• Manage legal program budget, including overseeing the overall annual budget as well as providing support and oversight to Managing Attorneys on individual legal grant budgets (preparation, revisions, etc).
• Provide oversight to managers and support to Grants and Finance staff for grant management, including grant reporting and grant applications.
• Manage Ayuda’s delivery of low-bono fee-based immigration legal services.
• Collaborate with Ayuda’s Social Services and Language Access programs to ensure the provision of holistic services.
• Represent Ayuda in meetings with prospective grantors and donors to support Ayuda’ s fundraising efforts.
• Stay informed about legal changes and help to communicate legal changes and their significance to staff.
• Support Communications & Development team by drafting external legal updates and supporting participation in media interviews by legal team.
• Represent Ayuda and its clients at local and regional stakeholder, coalition, and advocacy meetings.
• Participate in Ayuda’s efforts to bring about systemic change on behalf of our clients.
• Represent the legal program as a member of Ayuda’s Senior Management Team, supporting organizational management and strategic planning and implementation.
HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU CAN DO THIS JOB?
Eligibility: Must be legally able to work in the United States and maintain proper work authorization throughout employment. Must be able to meet the physical requirements of the position presented in a general office environment.
Education/Experience:
• J.D. or L.L.M. degree from an accredited law school and licensed and in good standing to practice law in any U.S. state or territory.
• 3+ years of experience providing legal services to low-income immigrants (immigration, domestic violence/family law and/or consumer law experience preferred but not required).
• 3+ years of supervisory experience.
• Program management and leadership experience required.
• Experience working with low-income immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, child abuse/neglect or other forms of trauma.
Preferred Knowledge & Skills:
• Excellent written and verbal communications skills, flexibility, and good humor.
• Excellent judgment, calm demeanor even under pressure, strong work ethic, resourceful, and able to maintain confidentiality.
• Decisive, with ability to exercise independent judgment.
• Proven ability to develop and maintain and positive team environment and support staff morale and resilience.
• Ability to mentor, train and provide career path guidance to staff.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment and to initiate and follow through on work independently.
• Excellent time management skills and ability to work in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to adapt to changing priorities.
• Program evaluation and project management skills.
• Knowledge of a second language a plus, with Spanish language skills preferred (examples of other languages commonly spoken by Ayuda’s clients include Amharic, Arabic, Tagalog, French, and Portuguese).
SALARY AND BENEFITS:
The anticipated salary for this position is $125,000 – $140,000, depending on experience.
We are proud of the benefits we can offer that include:
• Platinum-level medical insurance plan 100% employer-paid.
• Pre-tax 401(k) with Employer match on first 3% of salary.
• Vacation Days: 21 days per year until year 3, 27 per year in years 3-7 and 33 days per year after 7 years employment. Employees begin with 3 days of vacation leave.
• New employees begin with 5 days of Health & Wellness (sick) leave and accrue an additional 5 hours per pay period plus emergency medical leave up to 12 weeks per year.
• 12 weeks paid parental leave/family leave.
• 24 days paid holidays and staff wellness days, including Winter Break the last week of the year.
• Job-related professional development fees (including annual state bar dues and professional memberships).
• Flexible work schedules.
This position is exempt for overtime purposes.
Employees with federal student loan debt may be eligible to apply for Public Service Loan Forgiveness through the Department of Education. For more information, go to https://myfedloan.org/borrowers/special-programs/pslf.
TO APPLY:
Please apply with resume and cover letter. Writing samples may be requested.
Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until the position is filled. If you have questions about this position, please reach out to us at HR@ayuda.com.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYMENT STATEMENT:
Ayuda is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against based on disability.
We believe that a diversity of experiences, opinions, and backgrounds is integral to achieving our mission and vision. We celebrate diversity and seek to leverage the passion, energy, and ideas of a culturally diverse team.
This is a spectacular chance to work with really dedicated professionals performing a meaningful mission to help migrants adapt, prosper, and obtain legal status in our DMV area while enriching and assisting our communities. It’s about working together to build a better America for everyone!
As I have mentioned before, I am a proud member of AYUDA’s Advisory Council. At our meeting held at AYUDA this week, I was surrounded by talented, dedicated folks, who, unlike the often biased and ill-informed politicos out to destroy our legal immigration framework, are committed to solving problems in a humane, creative, legal manner recognizing the humanity and talents of our migrant communities.
Among other things, I heard:
Busses continue to arrive in our area without warning and coordination from either the “sending states” or the Feds;
The overwhelming number of those arriving are forced migrants with strong asylum claims;
Many of the current arrivals are from Venezuela and Nicaragua, countries with repressive leftist dictatorships with established records of persecution and human rights abuses recognized and condemned by Administrations of both parties;
Many arrivals, because of language problems and haphazard Government processing, do not understand how the asylum system operates;
Through information sessions, AYUDA and other NGOs are filling an information gap left by poor Government performance;
Despite the monumental efforts of terrific pro bono lawyers from across the DMV area (more needed) there is neither rhyme nor reason to the handling of these cases at EOIR and the Asylum Office;
Some cases are expedited, some are placed on slow dockets;
There are no BIA precedents or useful guidance on the many recurring situations that should result in grants;
Different results on similar material facts are a continuing problem;
Delays and “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” by EOIR hinders pro bono representation.
These are the problems that Congress and the Administration could and should be solving! Instead, outrageously, they are focused on spreading dehumanizing myths and devising even more wasteful “enforcement only” gimmicks that are bound to fail and leave more devastation, trauma, and wasted opportunities in the wake! Human lives and human rights are neither “bargaining chips” nor “political props” in an election year!
Americans are being bombarded by false messages of hate, fear, resentment, and dehumanization directed at out immigrant communities. That’s a HUGE problem for our nation of immigrants’ future! Fight back by joining AYUDA and becoming part of the solution!
AYUDA and other NGOs offer a chance to be part of the solution, save lives, and stand against the disgraceful failure of our Government to honor our legal commitments to asylum seekers and other migrants. Be a champion of migrants who make our “nation of immigrants” really great!
🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!
PWS
01-19-24
⚠️ DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this promotional recruiting message are mine and do not represent the position of AYUDA or any other entity!
Rekha Sharma-Crawford ESQUIRE Partner and Co-Founder Sharma-Crawford Law Kansas City, KS
Rekha Sharma-Crawford writes:
Registration is now open for the 7th Annual Immigration Court Trial Advocacy College.
One-of-a-kind training designed to give attendees a one-of-a-kind experience. The picture below is of the late Judge John O’Malley teaching students at the trial college. He loved the college and taught each year-even while battling cancer. Having served years on the Bench in State Court, he joined the Kansas City Immigration Court in 2009. He became a believer in the power of trial advocacy training for immigration removal defense attorneys. He understood the need for this kind of training to transform immigration attorneys into trial lawyers who were fearless and zealous storytellers for their clients. Judge O’Malley will be missed this year, but I know he will be watching as the next set of students graduate and join the elite group of alums. Alums who are no longer afraid to stand up for justice, demand due process and help their client’s stories come to life in the courtroom. Join us this April.
Really looking forward to reuniting with my Round Table 🛡️⚔️ buddies Judge Lory Rosenberg and Judge Sue Roy and all of the other wonderful faculty who along with motivated students make this such a terrific experience!
MIAMI (AP) — Eight months after crossing the Rio Grande into the United States, a couple in their 20s sat in an immigration court in Miami with their three young children. Through an interpreter, they asked a judge to give them more time to find an attorney to file for asylum and not be deported back to Honduras, where gangs threatened them.
Judge Christina Martyak agreed to a three-month extension, referred Aarón Rodriguéz and Cindy Baneza to free legal aid provided by the Catholic Archdiocese of Miami in the same courthouse — and their case remains one of the unprecedented 3 million currently pending in immigration courts around the United States.
Fueled by record-breaking increases in migrants who seek asylum after being apprehended for crossing the border illegally, the court backlog has grown by more than 1 million over the last fiscal year and it’s now triple what it was in 2019, according to government data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Judges, attorneys and migrant advocates worry that’s rendering an already strained system unworkable, as it often takes several years to grant asylum-seekers a new stable life and to deport those with no right to remain in the country.
. . . .
Experts like retired judge Paul Schmidt, who also served as government immigration counsel while the last major reform was enacted nearly forty years ago, say the broken system can only be fixed with major policy changes. An example would be allowing most asylum cases to be solved administratively or through streamlined processes instead of litigated in courts.
“The situation has gotten progressively worse since the Obama administration, when it really started getting out of hand,” said Schmidt, who in 2016, his last year on the bench, was scheduling cases seven years out.
. . . .
******************
At the above link, read Giovanna’s excellent full article, based on interviews with those who actually are involved in trying to make this dysfunctional system function. Thanks, Giovanna, for shedding some light on the real, potentially solvable, “human rights crisis” enveloping and threatening the entire U.S. legal system. Contrary to “popular blather,” fulfilling our legal obligations to refugees is not primarily a “law enforcement” issue and won’t be solved by more border militarization and violations of individual rights of asylum seekers and other migrants!
There are lots of ways to start fixing this system!Gosh knows, most of them have been covered here on Courtside, sometimes several times, and they are all publicly available on the internet with just a few clicks. See, e.g.,
The “debate” on the Hill defines “legislative malpractice!” The voices of legal integrity, experience, and practicality aren’t being heard! Also, lots of great ideas from experts on fixing EOIR are stuffed in the “Biden Transition Team” files squirreled away in some basement cubbyhole at Garland’s DOJ.
But most politicos aren’t interested in listening to the experts, nor do they seem motivated to understand the real human problems at the border, in the broken Immigration Courts, and how many of the things they are considering will make the situation worse while empowering smugglers and cartels! Those are real human corpses piling up along the border, carried out of immigration prisons, being abused in Mexico, and floating in the river — mostly due to the brain-dead “enforcement only” policies now being given an overdose of steroids by congressional negotiators.
So, things just keep deteriorating. Many in the backlog who deserve a chance at a permanent place in our society, and the ability to contribute to their full abilities and potential, remain in limbo! That’s bad for them and for us as a society!
Paulina Vera President, Hispanic Bar Association of DC PHOTO: Linkedin
As I have mentioned before, I’m proud that Paulina is an alum of the Legacy Arlington Immigration Court Internship Program and a “charter member” of the NDPA!
For those of you who don’t know her, here’s Paulina’s “official bio” from the GW Law website:
Paulina Vera supervises GW Law Immigration Clinic students and provides legal representation to asylum-seekers and respondents facing deportation in Immigration Court. She is a Professorial Lecturer In Law and has taught Immigration Law I.
Ms. Vera previously served as the only Immigration Staff Attorney at the Maryland-based non-profit, CASA.
She is a double GW alumna. In 2015, Ms. Vera graduated from the George Washington University Law School. During law school, she was a student-attorney at the Immigration Clinic. In 2012, she graduated from GW with a Bachelor in Arts in International Affairs, concentrating on Latin American Studies and International Politics and a minor in Spanish Language and Literature.
Ms. Vera is involved in a number of professional organizations. She is the President-Elect of the Hispanic Bar Association of DC (HBA-DC), a scholar for the American Bar Association (ABA) YLD Leadership Academy, and a member of the inaugural Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) National Task Force on Hispanic Law Professors and Deans. She also serves as the Public Relations Director for the GW Latino Law Alumni Association (LLAA).
Ms. Vera has been recognized locally and nationally; she is the recipient of the GW Latinx Excellence Awards, Alma Award (2019), DC Courts Community Agency CORO Award (2019), Hispanic Bar Association of DC (HBA-DC) Rising Star Award (2019), and the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) Top Lawyers Under 40 Award (2021).
Her passion project is managing an online community called Hermanas In The Law, where she features Latinas thinking about law school, Latina law students, and Latina lawyers. Ms. Vera is originally from Tucson, AZ and is the proud daughter of two immigrants.”
*******************
You can also learn more about Paulina and her many accomplishments by clicking on her name in the “Courtside” sidebar!
Paulina is just the brilliant, honest, values-driven, charismatic leader that America needs for a better future!
Hon. Thomas Lister Retired Jackson County (WI) Circuit JudgeHon. Paul Wickham Schmidt U.S. Immigration Judge (Ret.) Adjunct Professor, Georgetown Law Blogger, immigrationcourtside.com
We graduated from UW Law School in 1973. As retired judges we have been searching for ways in which individuals like us and our many retired judicial colleagues can use our unique legal skill sets to aid in addressing the humanitarian crisis at our borders. In that spirit, we propose to Congress, the Administration, and other decision-makers involved, the creation of “Judges Without Borders.” First, here is a brief summary of our respective backgrounds.
Paul Wickham Schmidt served as a U.S. Immigration Judge, U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) in Arlington, Virginia (2003-16), after being an Appellate Judge of the Board of Immigration, Appeals (1995-2003), where he was Board Chair for six years. He authored the landmark decision: Matter of Kasinga, extending asylum protection to victims of female genital mutilation. He previously served as Acting General Counsel and Deputy General Counsel (1979-87) of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, and was instrumental in developing the rules and procedures to implement the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, as well as establishing the modern Immigration Court system in the DOJ. His experience also includes being a partner in two major law firms, Jones Day and Fragomen.
Paul is retired, and now is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has authored numerous articles on immigration law and speaks, lectures, and writes in forums throughout the nation on contemporary immigration issues, due process, and U.S. Immigration Court reform. He publishes the blog immigrationcourtside.com and is a member of the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges and BIA Appellate Judges.
I am a former district attorney, county corporation counsel, trial lawyer, and circuit court judge. While serving as a judge, I formed a collaborative justice coordinating council, and received one of only two national multi-year grants designed to create family treatment courts, addressing not only the needs of drug and alcohol dependent individuals, but their families as well through a holistic approach and diversion programming. I worked closely with the Ho-Chunk Nation to help create its Healing to Wellness Courts. Upon retiring, I led a successful litigation effort to stop the proliferation of frac-sand mining in Wisconsin’s Driftless region, utilizing anticipatory private-nuisance doctrine.
For the last several years, we have sought to find ways to help those who legally seek to gain asylum in the United States. Initially we proposed an initiative whereby retired State, and Federal judges would volunteer to attend a multi-week program to become trained in the laws and procedures governing eligibility screening; then potentially, aiding the overwhelmed corps of Immigration Judges by pre-filtering hundreds of thousands of potentially meritorious asylum claims, while at the same time advising those who likely will not qualify, that they probably will, potentially after many months of detention, be deported to their native country, or a safer alternative destination. We contemplated that retired judges could also be available to take some of the routine procedural and adjudicative burdens off of Immigration Judges so that they could concentrate on adjudications such as asylum, requiring their specialized training and experience.
Most of those seeking asylum at our border have experienced some type of trauma in their home countries. However, because the international refugee definition that the U.S. has adopted covers only harm resulting from race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group, and the evidentiary burdens can be daunting, some of those who have been harmed or reasonably fear harm will not be able to meet the legal criteria for asylum in the U.S. In such cases, individuals will have risked their, and perhaps their family’s lives, and their limited resources on a dangerous journey to the U.S. border, that can only end in rejection, perhaps detention, prosecution, separation from family, and ultimately expulsion to their home countries or to potentially dangerous conditions in Mexico.
To better and more constructively address this untenable and inhumane situation, we now propose “Judges Without Borders.” This group would consist of trained volunteers with prior judicial experience who are willing to dedicate some time to the task of going into venues south of our border, as well as resettlement centers in the U.S., to meet, consider and screen those claiming a right to asylum, to assess their likelihood of success, and to address and advise them accordingly, humanely, and realistically, regarding what most probably lies ahead for them. We also see an opportunity to be of service to overwhelmed NGOs and legal services providers in the United States in screening potential asylum cases and advising those unlikely to succeed on what, if any, other options they might have in individual circumstances.
Ideally, our review panels would consist of three judges: one Democrat, one Republican and one Independent for a balanced, realistic, and comprehensive approach. Interviews would be held in venues that are outside the applicant’s native country, to protect potential asylum seekers from retribution. The information gathered would be confidential, so that it could not be used against the potential applicants.
We believe that by using the skills of retired jurists with high level practical experience in assessing legal claims, Judges Without Borders, could go a long way to relieving the swamped immigration system, providing accurate helpful information about the realities of the U.S. asylum and immigration systems so that individuals can make informed life decisions, reducing the flow of immigrants dangerously entering or attempting to enter the U.S. with false hopes, and correcting misinformation about the U.S. system provided by human smugglers and other illegal operatives who exploit the predicament of desperate individuals. Volunteer judges, who generally are on pensions or some other type of pre-existing retirement income, would serve without pay, receiving only travel food, and lodging expenses.
If our elected leaders really want to solve the humanitarian crisis at the border, we believe that they ultimately must consider other practical and potentially expansive reforms to deal more realistically and humanely with the realities of 21st century migration, and to constructively reform our currently dysfunctional asylum adjudication system and our legal immigration systems which were developed to deal with past realities in worldwide migration that might no longer apply. However, in the interim, we believe that everything possible, including some new, creative, budget-friendly approaches, must be used to alleviate the humanitarian crisis and unnecessary suffering (even death) at our borders.
We recognize that practical solutions will not be easy as there are many corporate interests profiting from private immigration detention, wall-building, river barriers, and all sorts of so-called “border, security technology,” much of which is expensive, yet ultimately ineffective in dealing with the root causes of human migration. The money saved would be better spent on honoring our nation’s solemn pledge to support our allies, with whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, while also honoring our legal and humanitarian commitments to refugees. We must remain a nation that demonstrates humanitarian leadership and can be trusted by the world, to keep our promises, particularly to some of the world’s most vulnerable humans.
Thank you for considering our proposal. We stand ready to help in any way possible.
Respectfully submitted,
Hon. (Ret.) Thomas E. Lister, J.D.
Hon. Paul Wickham Schmidt
U.S. Immigration Judge (Retired)
*********************
Five decades after our graduation from U.W. Law, we’re still thinking “outside the box” of ways to improve our legal system. Retired American judges represent a societal investment in high-level decision-making and problem-solving! Why not keep using those talents in creative ways after regular service on the bench ends?
Unlike ramping up permanent, or even temporary, government hiring, volunteer retired judges, from all systems, are a flexible, low-cost, high-return potential resource that can be quickly deployed and adjusted, redeployed, or “un-deployed” as emergencies arise and are resolved!
BIA Asylum Panel In Action — After three years of ignoring experts on how to fix asylum and the border, the Biden Administration appears ready to join GOP nativists in throwing vulnerable legal asylum seekers and their supporters “under the bus.” Cartels and criminal smugglers undoubtedly are looking forward to “filling the gap” left by the demise of the legal asylum system! They will be “the only game in town’” for those seeking life-saving refuge! There is no record of increased cruelty and suspension of the rule of law “solving” migration flows, although an increase in exploitation and death of migrants seems inevitable. Perhaps, that’s just “collateral damage” to U.S. politicos. Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:
[T]he Board found that Sebastian-Sebastian failed to demonstrate a nexus between her particular social groups and the harm she faced. In its denial of CAT protection, the Board found that Sebastian-Sebastian failed to demonstrate that she is more likely than not to be tortured if removed to Guatemala. On appeal, Sebastian-Sebastian argues that the Board’s conclusions were not supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole. Because the Board’s failure to make necessary findings as to the asylum and withholding of removal claims is erroneous, but its conclusion as to Sebastian-Sebastian’s CAT claim is supported by substantial evidence, we GRANT Sebastian-Sebastian’s petition for review in part, DENY in part, VACATE the Board’s denial of her application for asylum and withholding of removal, and REMAND to the Board for reconsideration consistent with our opinion.”
[Hats off to Jaime B. Naini and Ashley Robinson! N.B., the motion for stay of removal was denied. I have a call in to the attorneys to find out if she was removed…]
Rather than looking for ways to restrict or eliminate asylum, Congress and the Administration should be concerned about quality-control and expertise reforms in asylum adjudication, including a long-overdue independent Article I Immigration Court! Once again, the BIA violates Circuit precedent to deny asylum.
The answer to systemically unfair, (intentionally) unduly restrictive interpretations, and often illegal treatment of asylum seekers by the USG should not be to further punish asylum seekers! It should be fixing the asylum adjudication system to comply with due process, fundamental fairness, best practices, and professionalism!
Casey Carter Swegman Director of Public Policy at the Tahirih Justice Center PHOTO: Tahirih Justice Center
Here’s a statement from the Tahirih Justice Center about the disgraceful “negotiations” now taking place in Congress:
The Tahirih Justice Center is outraged by the news that the administration appears willing to play politics with human lives. These attacks on immigrants and people seeking asylum represent not simply a broken promise, but a betrayal and we urge the President and Congress to reverse course.
“I am gravely concerned that, if passed, these policies will further trap and endanger immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. Selling out asylum seekers and immigrant communities under the guise of ‘border security’ in order to pass a supplemental funding package is absolutely unacceptable,” said Casey Carter Swegman, Director of Public Policy at the Tahirih Justice Center. “And we know the impact of these cruel, deterrence-based policies will land disproportionately on already marginalized immigrants of color. I urge the White House and Congress not to sell out immigrants and asylum seekers for a funding deal.”
Every day, people fleeing persecution – including survivors of gender-based violence – arrive at our border having escaped unspeakable violence. Raising the fear standard, enacting a travel ban, putting a cap on asylum seekers, and expanding expedited removal nationwide (to name just a few proposals that have been floated in recent days) will do nothing to solve the challenges at the southern border and serve only to create more confusion, narrow pathways to humanitarian relief, increase the risk of revictimization and suffering, and punish immigrants seeking safety and a life of dignity.
These kinds of proposals double down on the climate of fear that many immigrants in this country already face on a day-to-day basis and will disproportionately impact Black, Brown and Indigenous immigrant communities.Immigrants should not be met with hostile and unmanageable policies that violate their humanity as well as their legal rights. We can and must do better.
These are “negotiations” in which those whose legal rights and humanity are being “compromised” (that is, tossed away) have no voice at the table as politicos ponder what will best suit their own interests.
Camille J. Mackler Executive Director Immigrant ARC PHOTO: JustSecurity
Camille writes on Linkedin:
I truly believe that when we look back on the evolution of migration trends and responses, 2022 will be remembered as the year we entered a new era of policy making. What began as a political stunt by the Texas Governor has turned into a full-on, ad-hoc secondary resettlement system, fueled by the seeming inability of the Federal Government to take meaningful responsibility to support a cohesive response.
We’ve been seeing this since the first buses began arriving in New York City, when City staff and local non-profits would walk people directly to ticket counters in the bus terminal and help them continue onward travel. This has of course expanded into a full-on operation here, but we’ve also seen similar efforts – all carried out with very little coordination between local governments – in other cities including Washington, DC, Denver, and Chicago.
But its not just within the US – countries in Central America are also getting into the business of transporting migrants “anywhere but here.” Nicaragua, ostensibly to spite the US and to force better policy solutions for the region, is allowing and likely even encouraging charter flights from Cuba and Haiti to help individuals from those countries travel North (making money off tourist visa applications and other concessions along the way). Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras, and Mexico are busing individuals and families North to speed their passage through those countries.
The Los Angeles Declaration, which came out of the 2022 Summit of the Americas, promised to create a regional framework and approach to migration in the Americas, but national governments are moving so slowly that cities are getting ahead of them out of pure necessity. Existing networks (such as Cities For Action, e.g.) turned out to be insufficient to help create the necessary connectivity, so instead we are seeing ad hoc attempts with varying levels of engagement by local non-profits.
And regardless of the level of cooperation from local government, civil society is looking for ways to get involved and minimize the harm caused by this perverse game of “hot potato”. A webinar Immigrant ARC and the National Partnership for New Americans is organizing next week on best practices for rapid responses to new arrivals had over 250 sign-ups within three days of announcing registration was open.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is.. What are we going to do? I can’t remember a time that more clearly highlighted how immigration – at its core – is a local issue. But this is our new normal. Migration is natural and, if global trends are any indication, is not abating any time soon. So our challenge is – how do we treat this as an opportunity, not a challenge? And how do we get our elected officials – from local government all the way to the White House – to remember that we are dealing with human lives, full of promise and courage, and not political pawns to be played with at the whims of those currently in power.
*****************************
Follow Camille on LinkedIn.
The “problems” are short term, very visible, and over-hyped by nativist politicos and the media — mainstream as well as far right. Folks wading the river, sleeping in the streets, camping in tents, crowded schools, overwhelmed social services, angry and frustrated local officials are all very much in the public eye and easy to sensationalize for the media.
By contrast, the overwhelming benefits of migration — including refugees and other forced migrants — are more abstract and in the future. Expansion of the the workforce, supply chain improvements, innovations, opportunities created by enriching culture, economic expansion, and robust increases in tax revenues don’t happen overnight. In today’s “instant gratification/instant news” culture, people tend not to pay much attention or give credence to things that aren’t happening in “real time.”
So, the solution is to make the tangible benefits of immigration to everyone in society happen more rapidly and more obviously. “Real life concrete examples” of benefits connect with individuals more than projections and statistics about the future. The challenge would be to:
Get asylum applicants to places where food, shelter, education, legal assistance, and job placement are available;
Concentrate on welcoming locations;
Do it in an orderly fashion so that the benefits of migration are rationally distributed and no particular community feels overwhelmed;
Assist individuals to get them through the legal asylum more rapidly so that those who are successful achieve full legal status, work authorization, and can progress toward green cards and citizenship. Those who aren’t eligible won’t “wander the U.S. forever.”
Neither Congress nor the Administration appear to be interested in making this happen. Indeed, the nativist GOP “border proposals” now being debated would make things demonstrably worse in every way! Yet, too many Senate Dems lack the guts to “just say no” to what are basically “enhanced human rights abuses!”
Therefore, it would be up to NGOs working with receptive state and local governments and taking advantage of things like “public-private partnerships.”
NGOs could set up a “national clearinghouse” and a network of local organizations in welcoming communities where migrants could be placed. In that way, they would be “emulating” that which the Federal Government should, but isn’t, doing, as well as obviating the problems caused by GOP governors who are weaponizing migration to support their nativist “invasion” myths.
It could also provide concrete examples of success in enhancing the quality of life and economic opportunities in communities that welcome migrants. Conversely, it could also take some of the pressure off communities who believe (whether correctly or not) that they are overwhelmed or overburdened.
As to Camille’s question:
And how do we get our elected officials – from local government all the way to the White House – to remember that we are dealing with human lives, full of promise and courage, and not political pawns to be played with at the whims of those currently in power.
Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening without a different set of elected officials. The facts are out here. Politicos primarily on the right, but also too many Dems, have gone out of their way to ignore the truth about asylum seekers because they believe it suits their short-term political interests. That’s a tough nut to crack without a new political movement and some new faces of power.
Even now, too much of the “border debate” is vociferous, but one-sided and ill informed. As one successful NGO at the border recently said:
If you really want to know what’s happening on the Mexican side of the border, follow the humanitarian groups like the Sidewalk School, who are working there,” [Felicia] Rangel-Samporano says. “We are there every day, seven days a week.”
Felicia Rangel-Samparano Director The Sidewalk School PHOTO: The Sidewalk School
Fat chance for a visit to the Sidewalk School or any other humanitarian organization at the border from those in power, or, for that matter, for the “mainstream media” to show much interest in injecting truth and expertise into their border reporting. Organizations like TheSidewalk School appear to have the keys to successful border and asylum policies. But, they will need help from their friends — lots of it!
Don’t expect it from Dems on the Hill. As cogently pointed out by Greg Sargent in today’s WashPost, they are tuning out experts like Camille and Felicia Rangel-Samparano — folks with real solutions that would improve border security while actually furthering human rights — in favor of “negotiating” (for war funding abroad) with those driven by the neo-fascist anti-human-rights agenda of Miller and Trump. As stated by Greg:
Sen. Thom Tillis wants you to know that he’s very “reasonable.” That’s the word the North Carolina Republican used with reporters this week while describing immigration reforms that the GOP is demanding from Senate Democrats in exchange for supporting the billions in Ukraine aid that President Biden wants. But the demands from Tillis and his fellow Republican leading the talks, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, are not reasonable at all — they’re following Donald Trump’s playbook. Under the guise of seeking more “border security,” they’re insisting on provisions that would reduce legal immigration in numerous ways that could even undermine the goal of securing the border. According to Democratic sources familiar with the negotiations, Republican demands began to shift soon after the New York Times reported that in a second Trump term, he would launch mass removals of millions of undocumented immigrants, gut asylum seeking almost entirely, and dramatically expand migrant detention in “giant camps.” As one Senate Democratic source told me, Republicans started acting as though Trump and his immigration policy adviser Stephen Miller were “looking over their shoulders.”
How vile is this “debate” about “sacrificing” other (vulnerable) humans’ lives and rights — things that neither party has a right to use as “bargaining chips?” The GOP, a far-right party that basically has never seen a bomb it didn’t want to drop or a weapon it didn’t want used on some “enemy,” is threatening to withhold weapons for a war against Russian aggression abroad unless Dems agree to kill more folks seeking refuge (ironically, many fleeing from the far-left government of Venezuela) at our border!
In “normal” times, Dems would stand firm for humanitarian assistance, better border processing, and reasonable resettlement assistance (to end the Abbott/DeSantis travesty). But there’s nothing “normal” or remotely “reasonable” about the farce going on in Congress!
It’s remarkable how little attention the “mainstream media” focuses on those working hard and solving problems, on a daily basis, at the border, like the folks running the Sidewalk School! Compare publicity for the “good guys” who are actually solving problems and saving lives with the amount of time and attention given to GOP nativist politicos spreading anti-immigrant myths and demanding yet more cruelty and expensive, deadly, proven to fail, deterrence!🤯
