Peter Levinson – immigrationcourtside.com

⚖️ BIA EXPANDS TO 28 APPELLATE JUDGES! — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: “Lest We Forget: The Ashcroft Purge of the BIA!”

Dan Kowalski reports:

This document is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on 04/02/2024

“On April 1, 2020, the Department of Justice (“the Department” or “DOJ”) published an interim final rule (“IFR”) with request for comments that amended its regulations relating to the organization of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“Board”) by adding two Board member positions, thereby expanding the Board to 23 members. This final rule responds to comments received and adds five additional Board member positions, thereby expanding the Board to 28 members. The final rule also clarifies that temporary Board members serve renewable terms of up to six months and that temporary Board members are appointed by the Attorney General. DATES: This rule is effective on [April 2, 2024].”

[Note: Applicants are encouraged to apply NOW on the theory that spillover from the applicant pool for the current openings here and here might be considered for the additional five slots.]

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

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

Ironically, particularly for those of us directly affected, the BIA had 23 authorized members a little over two decades ago!

Then, the infamous “Ashcroft purge” cut that number back to 12, citing bogus “efficiency grounds” to cover a scheme that ousted those BIA Judges who consistently stood up for due process, fundamental fairness, and migrants’ legal rights!

That sent the EOIR system into a tailspin which shook the Circuit Courts when almost immediately flooded with a tidal wave of deficient EOIR decisions, particularly relating to erroneous “adverse credibility rulings.”

The emasculated BIA, of course, rapidly proved too small to function in even a minimally competent manner. To “cover up” the adverse effects of Ashcroft’s political scheme, and to conceal the institutional failures of DOJ to protect individual rights of migrants, particularly those of color, Administrations of both parties resorted to the “gimmick” of quietly appointing “Temporary Board Members” from among BIA senior staff to keep the ship (sort of) afloat. Temporary Board Members were not allowed to vote at en banc conferences, had uncertain tenure, and had every incentive not to dissent or otherwise “rock the boat” if they wanted to compete for future “permanent” vacancies. (Although, arguably, the whole point of the Ashcroft purge was that all BIA judges were essentially “temporary” in the eyes of a GOP AG).

Over the decades following the purge, the DOJ gradually added permanent BIA Judge positions, without ever publicly acknowledging Ashcroft’s political scheme and its debilitating effects.

For a comprehensive history of the now long-forgotten “Ashcroft purge” at the BIA, see Peter Levinson’s scholarly masterpiece “The Facade of Quasi-Judicial Independence In Immigration Appellate Adjudications,” linked here: https://immigrationcourtside.com/2018/05/17/courtside-history-lest-we-forget-the-ashcroft-purge-at-the-bia-in-2003-destroyed-the-pretext-of-judicial-independence-at-eoir-forever-heres-how-read-peter-levinson/

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-02-24

🏴‍☠️TOTALLY LOST IN TRANSLATION!🤮 — Inadequate Interpretation Is Just One Of Many Mockeries Of Due Process In Garland’s Disgracefully Dysfunctional Immigration Courts! — “[T]he promise of justice in immigration court is little more than a façade!”

https://cmsny.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ab341dd06620fe24c64cc2f00&id=8c2b818989&e=be87a1d505

By Maya P. Barak, University of Michigan-Dearborn:

This quote sums it all up for me:

. . . .

Ultimately, perceptions of justice within immigration court merit examination not despite the fact that due process can be used to manipulate images of fairness, but because of it.

This study highlights just some of the many problems running deep within the US immigration system. Current interpretation and technology practices reveal the promise of justice in immigration court is little more than a façade—at least from immigration attorneys’ perspectives. Further exploration of due process within immigration court is needed to determine whether or not addressing existing interpretation and technology problems through the reforms proposed here would improve immigrants’ access to justice in a meaningful way. Drawing inspiration from movements to abolish the death penalty, prison, and the police, meaningful immigration court reform efforts should also reduce the need for an immigration court altogether.

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When I arrived at the Arlington Immigration Court in 2003, I found the contract interpreters to be excellent — some truly outstanding. A key part of the “Due Process Team.”

Before I retired in 2016, however, EOIR “re-competed” the interpretation contract and awarded it to a company that did not appear to have sufficient qualified interpreters already on staff to perform the functions. That company offered to employ most of the interpreters of the “deposed contractor,” but evidently at lower salaries and less favorable terms. The predictable result: Some of the best interpreters left and went to Article III Courts, State Courts, or other types of interpretation offering better wages and working conditions.

“[T]he promise of justice in immigration court is little more than a façade!” This bears repeating, over and over, until we get the radical due process reforms and long overdue personnel changes we need at EOIR.

This isn’t exactly “new news” to Garland and friends! Shortly after the “Ashcroft Purge of ’03,” Peter Levinson wrote a scholarly, yet scathing, expose’ of the “farce of justice at the BIA” entitled “The Facade Of Quasi-Judicial Independence In Immigration Appellate Adjudication.”

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2018/05/17/courtside-history-lest-we-forget-the-ashcroft-purge-at-the-bia-in-2003-destroyed-the-pretext-of-judicial-independence-at-eoir-forever-heres-how-read-peter-levinson/

“Eyore In Distress” — Some believe that Attorney General Merrick Garland could be charged with “cruelty to stuffed animals” for his callous failure to heed the desperate cries for help from poor abused, long suffering EYORE.

Nearly two decades later, now almost a year into the second “post-Ashcroft” Dem Administration, and still no effective corrective actions at EOIR! Indeed, whatever remnants of due process might have existed in 2003 have deteriorated steadily since then, despite nearly nine years of Dem Administrations and enough weighty evidence to sink a battleship. During that time, thousands of lives and American families have been ruined and several generations of immigration attorneys driven to despair (some quitting the field) by a system any first year law student could see is totally out of compliance with Constitutional due process and fundamental fairness!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-12-21

🇺🇸⚖️STRAIGHT TALK FROM HON. JEFFREY S. CHASE: “[F]or decades the BIA has enforced the offensive, outdated message to women seeking protection from such abuse that ‘this is not their world.’ The time has come to finally put an end to this sad substitute for true administrative appellate review.”

Trial by Ordeal — Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal”
17th Century Woodcut
Public Realm
Source: Ancient Origins Website
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2021/4/6/the-bias-mansplaining-of-gender-based-asylum

Blog Archive Press and Interviews Calendar Contact

The BIA’s Mansplaining of Gender-Based Asylum

“Every woman knows what I’m talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.”

Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me

On April 5, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a published decision in Rodriguez Tornes v. Garland. The opening sentences of the decision are heartbreaking:

Since the age of five, Petitioner has been told that men will beat her if she does not submit. Her mother demanded that she learn how to do housework, how to accept spousal abuse, and how “to obey everything that [her] husband would say.” She beat Petitioner with various objects almost daily, in part to prepare her for future beatings from her husband.

But along with the darkness there was also hope. The decision’s opening paragraph concludes: “Yet Petitioner came to believe that ‘there should be equality in opinions[] and in worth’ between men and women. She became a teacher.”

Remarkably, over all the years that followed, the Petitioner’s hope survived the most brutal attempts to crush her into silence and submission. As her mother had foreseen, she endured unspeakable and repeated forms of physical and psychological torture, including beatings and rape, at the hands of her husband. Yet she continued to express the belief in her rights as an equal, and was brutally punished each time she did so, in an attempt to destroy the part of her capable of forming such belief. Neither the police nor her own family offered her any possibility of protection.

When she finally succeeded in escaping to the U.S., her abuse continued, merely transferred to the hands of another domestic partner with whom she had three children in this country. In 2017, our government deported both her and her latest abuser. Facing the prospect of continued harm in her native Mexico, her still unbroken hope guided her to the U.S. once again, where she was placed into removal proceedings.

Her hope was briefly rewarded when an Immigration Judge granted the Petitioner asylum, ruling that her persecution was on account of her feminist political opinion. The Immigration Judge alternatively held that asylum was warranted on account of the Petitioner’s membership in the particular social group consisting of “Mexican females,” which formed at least one central reason for her persecution.

It isn’t clear why ICE appealed the IJ’s decision. On appeal, the BIA acknowledged the Petitioner’s honesty and the ongoing, systemic nightmare of violence she endured because of her gender and unbroken belief that she possessed rights. And yet the BIA chose to act like a rubber stamp for the administration it served, and found a way to reverse the IJ’s well-reasoned decision. According to a concurring opinion of the circuit court, the BIA managed this by suggesting that the Petitioner’s brutal suffering was motivated by her “personal relationship” with her abuser. According to the concurrence, the BIA supported this conclusion by relying on the decision of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Matter of A-B-.

Of course, asylum applications require an individualized analysis of the facts of the specific case under consideration. Matter of A-B- involved a different asylum seeker from a different country who experienced different facts than this petitioner. So in citing A-B- to reach a conclusion so at odds with the facts of this case, the BIA’s judges were signaling their choice of a specific policy objective over their duty to neutrally apply law to specific facts.

Among the facts the BIA chose to ignore was the opinion of an expert who drew “on more than three decades of research, writing, legal representation, and lawmaking” in support of her conclusion. The expert, Prof. Nancy Lemon of the Univ. of Cal. – Berkeley Law School, explained how all of the weapons at abusers’ disposal are “tied to social belief systems that ‘men are entitled to dominate and control women because the male sex is considered superior.’” Prof. Lemon went into great detail in explaining the political nature of the mistreatment. Of course, it mattered not to the Board.

In discussing this case, an esteemed colleague pointed to a decision that the same court issued more than three decades ago. In 1987, in an opinion authored by Judge John T. Noonan, Jr., a conservative Reagan appointee, the Ninth Circuit concluded that a Salvadoran woman subjected to repeated sexual abuse and other violence by a sergeant in the Salvadoran military had been persecuted on account of her political opinion where the abuser threatened to falsely label her a “subversive if she refused to submit to his abuse.”1 In the words of Judge Noonan, the fact that the persecutor gave the asylum seeker “the choice of being subjected to physical injury and rape or being killed as a subversive does not alter the significance of political opinion…” The decision reversed the conclusion of the BIA that “the evidence attests to mistreatment of an individual, not persecution,” precisely the same finding the Board used more than three decades later in denying Ms. Rodriguez Tornes of her grant of asylum.

In 1993, Justice Samuel Alito, then sitting at the Third Circuit, wrote that “we have little doubt that feminism qualifies as a political opinion within the meaning of the relevant statutes.”2 28 years later, the Ninth Circuit cited Justice Alito’s words in Rodriguez Tornes, adding that it had reached the same conclusion in its own unpublished 1996 decision.3 These were obviously not the decisions of liberal judges forwarding a political agenda. To the contrary, these judges were able to transcend political ideology by neutrally applying law to facts; this is what judges do. As a result, the law of asylum has progressed to increasingly provide asylum protection to victims of domestic abuse. Immigration Judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic administrations have followed suit, authoring well-reasoned decisions granting asylum in numerous cases of domestic abuse, including this one.

Yet over the same period of time, the BIA has stubbornly refused to budge from its 1980s position that domestic abuse is simply a personal matter not linked to a political opinion within society. In the words of Jeff Sessions in Matter of A-B-, the vile abuse was simply due to the abuser’s “preexisting personal relationship with the victim.”4

When a mother feels compelled to begin abusing her five year old daughter to prepare her to obey her husband one day, can the inevitable spousal abuse that follows really be dismissed as just a personal matter? And when the record contained Prof. Lemon’s evidence (because expert testimony is evidence) of “a correlation between patriarchal norms that support male dominance and violence against women by intimate partners,” what unsupported overconfidence did the BIA’s judges rely on in explaining that they know better?

The BIA decided this case during the Trump Administration. For those hoping that the change in administration will usher in a change in the Board’s view, it bears noting that neither the Clinton nor Obama administrations brought about a sea change in the Board’s approach to domestic violence claims. Under Clinton, the BIA issued Matter of R-A-,5 a precedent that essentially precluded the granting of asylum to domestic violence victims based on their membership in a particular social group. The decision was vacated by then-Attorney General Janet Reno, who promised more enlightened regulations on the issue that never arrived. Similar regulations were rumored to be in the works under Eric Holder, but again did not materialize. The BIA’s one grudging concession to the political climate of the Obama era, Matter of A-R-C-G-, was later vacated by Jeff Sessions. While the BIA discussed a second decision under Obama expanding on the narrow holding of A-R-C-G-, it too never came to be.

Based on that history, it seems safe to say that without drastic action by Attorney General Merrick Garland, the BIA will continue issuing the same denials for the same reasons as before. For every individual such as Ms. Rodriguez Tornes who is able to succeed on appeal, there are countless more who merely end up as stratistics, deported to face more of the horrendous abuse that drove them here in the first place. The Ninth Circuit recently had to correct the BIA’s determination that attempted gang rape did not constitute persecution,6 and last year, reversed the Board erroneous rejection of a domestic violence victim’s particular social group on the grounds that it contained a few too many words.7 The BIA continues to be composed of the exact same group of judges who issued each of those decisions.

It is the role of the BIA to reach fair decisions by applying the applicable law to the individual facts. Doing so in the domestic violence context would require the Board to finally recognize opposition to systemic male oppression as a political opinion warranting asylum. Instead, for decades the BIA has enforced the offensive, outdated message to women seeking protection from such abuse that “this is not their world.” The time has come to finally put an end to this sad substitute for true administrative appellate review.

Notes:

Lazo-Majano v. INS, 813 F.2d 1432 (9th Cir. 1987).

Fatin v. I.N.S., 12 F.3d 1233, 1242 (3rd Cir. 1993).

Moghaddam v. I.N.S., 95 F.3d 1158 (9th Cir. 1996) (unpublished).

Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 316, 339 (A.G. 2018).

22 I&N Dec. 906 (BIA 1999).

Kaur v. Wilkinson, No. 18-73001, __ F.3d __ (9th Cir., Jan. 29, 2021).

Diaz-Reynoso v. Barr, 968 F.3d 1070 (9th Cir. 2020).

Copyright 2021, Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.

Republished by permission.

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Different style, but the same message as I delivered yesterday about the BIA’s institutionalized racist misogyny and the strange tolerance that Attorney General Merrick Garland has exhibited to date for this type of grotesque judicial misconduct.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/04/06/%f0%9f%8f%b4%e2%80%8d%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8fbias-misogynistic-anti-asylum-ignore-the-experts-the-evidence-approach-%f0%9f%a4%ae-rebuked-again-9th-cir-slams-bia-big-time-in-rodriguez/

And, this is on top of the astounding, largely self-inflicted 1.3 million case backlog and total dysfunction generated by the BIA’s failures combined with the “maliciously incompetent” effort by DOJ politicos and EOIR bureaucrats to disguise a “deportation railroad” as “administrative review!” Leaving aside all the legal travesties, the mal-administration and waste of public resources alone would be more than enough to require the immediate replacement of EOIR “upper (mis)management” and the entire BIA with qualified judicial professionals and professional judicial administrators.

Jeffrey and I are hardly the first to expose the charade of “appellate review” at the BIA. Two decades ago, following the “Ashcroft Purge,” administrative scholar and former GOP House Counsel Peter Levinson published his seminal work “The Facade of Quasi-Judicial Independence In Immigration Appellate Adjudications” documenting the mockery of due process and legitimate judicial practices being foisted off on the public by DOJ politicos.

COURTSIDE HISTORY: LEST WE FORGET: THE “ASHCROFT PURGE” AT THE BIA IN 2003 DESTROYED THE PRETEXT OF JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE AT EOIR FOREVER – HERE’S HOW! — Read Peter Levinson’s 2004 Paper: “The Facade Of Quasi-Judicial Independence In Immigration Appellate Adjudications”

In the two decades since, legislators, DOJ Officials, and Article III Judges have done their utmost to ignore and paper over the glaring constitutional and administrative disasters identified by Peter. Not surprisingly, during that time the BIA and the Immigration Courts have descended into a slimy mass of disastrous bias, injustice, and judicial and administrative incompetence unequaled in American Justice since the heyday of the First Era of Jim Crow. (We are now in the “New Era of Jim Crow.”)

Of course, we need an independent Article I Immigration Court as a matter of the highest national priority. But, it’s not on schedule to happen tomorrow, even though it should! In the interim, Judge Garland could fix lots of the festering problems in this system. I gotta wonder if and when he is going to wake up and pay attention to the “assembly line injustice” being cranked out by “his” Immigration Courts?

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-07-21

COURTSIDE HISTORY: LEST WE FORGET: THE “ASHCROFT PURGE” AT THE BIA IN 2003 DESTROYED THE PRETEXT OF JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE AT EOIR FOREVER – HERE’S HOW! — Read Peter Levinson’s 2004 Paper: “The Facade Of Quasi-Judicial Independence In Immigration Appellate Adjudications”

Levinson–The Facade Of Quasi-Judicial Independence

Read Peter’s full article at the above link (sorry about the difficult formatting — this was my “file copy.”)

Abstract:

Recently the quasi-judicial appellate process for reviewing decisions of immigration judges in noncitizen removal proceedings changed dramatically when the Department of Justice proposed and later implemented a major downsizing of the Board of Immigration Appeals combined with greatly enhanced reliance on single Board members to decide cases. Because the rule restructuring the Board did not limit the Attorney General�s discretion in identifying those who would lose their Board Member positions�and potential criteria referenced by the Department of Justice in that regard were not helpful in explaining how reassigned Board Members differed from colleagues who remained-�this study undertook an examination of case related data.
The study of closely divided en banc precedent decisions of the Board during the period of service by all five subsequently reassigned Board Members showed that adjudicators inclined to favor the position of noncitizens were particularly vulnerable. In fact, four out of the five Board Members who most often supported outcomes favorable to the noncitizen faced reassignment�and the fifth reassigned Member�s stance in favor of the noncitizen in a high profile case of importance to the Attorney General could explain his reassignment. Outcomes in the closely divided cases also suggested that the Attorney General succeeded in moving the Board of Immigration Appeals in a conservative direction just by announcing his downsizing plans�and the result of implementing downsizing the following year was to remake the Board into a largely homogeneous body without significant dissent.
The paper discusses the need for independent immigration adjudicators and points to the judicial nature of the Board�s work. The Board�s experience under Attorney General Ashcroft, the paper concludes, should give new impetus to efforts to separate review of immigration judge decisions from an agency with law enforcement responsibilities. The alternatives recommended by Federal commissions�a specialized court or an independent Executive Branch adjudicatory agency�continue to provide potential solutions.

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Ashcroft certainly “poisoned the well” for judicial independence and Due Process at EOIR. And, frankly, the Obama Administration was also a huge part of the problem.

Well aware of the Ashcroft travesty at EOIR, the Obama DOJ basically covered up the truth and furthered a captive, complacent, “go along to get along” Immigration Court system, overwhelmingly composed of judges from government and prosecutorial backgrounds, because it furthered their own aims of compromising judicial independence to achieve “political goals,” when necessary. As one of my colleagues said, “while the Obama Administration was not Sessions, they certainly made Sessions possible, perhaps probable.”

If Ashcroft and the Bushies “poisoned the well,” Obama let the contamination fester, and Sessions now basically “dumps cyanide into the well” on an almost daily basis.

History is repeating itself in the ugliest possible manner at EOIR. The only question is whether armed with knowledge of the evils of the past, we can change the future to create a system of independent judges who will truly aspire to “be the worlds’ best tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and Due Process for all.”

Join the New Due Process Army! Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-17-18

HEIDI BOAS @ WILKES LEGAL: Following A Colossal 14-Year Battle, The U.S. Asylum System Saved Rodi Alvarado’s Life – Can Jeff Sessions Undo This Critically Needed, Life-Saving Protection For Thousands Of Women & Children Like Rodi With A Single Stroke Of His Pen?

Issue Spotlight:

Will America Shut Its Doors to Immigrant Survivors of Domestic Violence?

by Heidi Boas, Immigration Attorney

Wilkes Legal, LLC

April 5, 2018

Will the U.S. continue to offer asylum to

immigrant survivors of domestic violence

like Rodi Alvarado Peña?

In January 2018, Wilkes Legal won asylum for an immigrant mother and her children who escaped over a decade of extreme physical, psychological, and sexual abuse that sent our client to the hospital and left one of her children with a permanent physical impairment. Because our client’s domestic partner was a high-ranking military officer in their home country, her pleas for help from government authorities fell on deaf ears, causing her to flee the country for her safety. In recent years, the United States has offered asylum protection to domestic violence survivors like this client. A recent move by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, however, could soon limit or end the ability of domestic violence survivors to receive asylum protection in the United States.

Domestic violence has long been a contentious issue in asylum law. More than two decades ago, advocates began a 14-year legal battle to win asylum for Rodi Alvarado Peña, a Guatemalan woman who suffered a decade of brutal violence at the hands of her husband. Even though Ms. Alvarado repeatedly sought help from the Guatemalan police and courts, the Guatemalan authorities refused to intervene and protect her. When Ms. Alvarado tried to escape from her husband, he tracked her down and beat her unconscious. Ms. Alvarado ultimately fled to the United States and became the subject of a controversial, high profile immigration court case, as multiple administrations considered whether to grant asylum to women whose countries fail to protect them from domestic violence. Ms. Alvarado ultimately received asylum in 2009, but her case did not establish legal precedent that could help other asylum-seekers fleeing domestic violence.

In 2014, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) finally issued a precedential decision recognizing domestic violence as a basis for asylum. In Matter of A-R-C-G-, the BIA granted asylum to a Guatemalan woman whose husband broke her nose, repeatedly raped her, and burned her with paint thinner. The BIA recognized “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship” as a group that can qualify for asylum. This landmark case opened the doors to protection for other immigrant survivors of domestic violence whose countries fail to protect them from abuse.

While the United States has made great strides in offering protection to immigrant survivors of domestic violence, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently took a step that could potentially undo decades of forward progress. As attorney general, Sessions has the authority to refer immigration court cases to himself, overturn decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals, and set precedent. Last month, Sessions referred an immigration case to himself involving a survivor of domestic violence from El Salvador. If Sessions rules against this woman, he would begin reshaping asylum law for abuse survivors and could potentially shut the doors to countless victims seeking protection in the United States.

In the case under Sessions’ review, a Salvadoran women referred to as A.B. suffered years of domestic violence at the hands of her ex-husband in El Salvador. Even though A.B. separated from her husband and eventually divorced him, her ex-husband returned three years after their separation and raped her. A.B. also testified to receiving threats from her ex-husband’s brother, who is a police officer, and his friend, who told the woman that her ex-husband would kill her and he would help dispose of her body. Although an Immigration Judge denied A.B.’s asylum case, the Board of Immigrant Appeals disagreed with the judge’s ruling and sent the case back to the judge to reconsider his decision. The Immigration Judge again refused to grant asylum to A.B., however, despite the BIA’s precedent decision in Matter of A-R-C-G-, due to other more recent decisions in his jurisdiction.

Now that Sessions has stepped in to review A.B.’s case, he has the authority to determine whether she should be granted asylum. If Sessions denies her asylum case, his decision could have a far-reaching impact, setting precedent that would make it more difficult for other immigrant survivors of domestic violence to qualify for asylum in the future. If Session limits asylum eligibility for these survivors, he will roll back decades of progress in asylum law and close the doors to immigrant victims of abuse who have nowhere else to turn.

Wilkes Legal stands with immigrant survivors of domestic violence and urges Sessions to uphold the BIA’s current precedent, keeping America’s doors open to victims of domestic abuse whose governments fail to protect them.

Visit our website, follow us on Facebook or Twitter, or call our office at (301) 576-0491 to learn more about Wilkes Legal, LLC.

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From his actions to date, Sessions appears to be up to no good. But, by now the “A-R-C-G-/R-A- principles” are deeply ingrained in U.S. protection law as interpreted by the Article III Federal Courts.

I predict that an attempt by Sessions to undo A-R-C-G- protections will be heavy-handed, blatantly biased, and thinly reasoned as have been all of his transparently biased reversals of established legal positions to date.

It’s therefore likely to suffer a fate of emphatic rejection by the Article IIIs much like what happened when Attorney General Michael Mukasey tried to undo years of established legal precedent about proof of crimes involving moral turpitude in Matter of Silva-Trevino, 24 I&N Dec. 687 (A.G. 2008), rev’d & remanded, Matter of Silva-Trevino, 26 I&N Dec. 550 (A.G. 2015).

I’m hardly a “Charter Member of the Mike Mukasey Fan Club.” His poor stewardship over the U.S. Immigration Court system is at least partially responsible for today’s inexcusable mess in our Immigration Courts.

Nevertheless, before becoming Attorney General, Mukasey was a well-respected U.S. District Judge. He’s 10X the lawyer as Sessions! Sessions’s lack of any discernible legal skills, integrity, humanity, and judgement probably bodes well for the “Good Guys” in the long run.

But, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be unnecessary and unconscionable suffering. Sessions is a bully at heart who relies on the fact that the majority of individuals in the U.S. Immigration Court system are unrepresented and therefore unable to defend themselves against his racist/xenophobic policies.

I’m proud to be one of the “Gang of Five” Appellate Immigration Judges (“Board Members” ) who dissented from the BIA’s original outrageously incorrect decision in Matter of R-A-, 22 I&N Dec. 908 (BIA 1999), vacated, Matter of R-A-, 22 I&N Dec. 908 (A.G. 2001) that reversed a clearly correct grant of asylum to Rodi Alvarado. The other dissenters were Judges John Guendelsberger (who wrote the dissent), Lory Diana Rosenberg, Gustavo D. Villageliu, and Anthony C. Moscato.

Not coincidentally, all of us except for Judge Moscato were removed and “exiled” from the BIA during the “Ashcroft Purge of 2003” for the transgression of doing our jobs conscientiously and standing up for a correct interpretation of the asylum law. So much for the “facade of quasi-judicial independence at the BIA.” (Credit to Peter Levinson). And, that’s before the current “descent into the abyss” brought about by Sessions!

We need an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court now!

PWS

04-05-18

HON. JEFFREY S. CHASE: Alimbaev v. Att’y Gen (3rd Cir.) Shows How BIA Is Willing To Overlook Rules To Avoid Political Threat to Existence — No Wonder Due Process Is No Longer The Vision Or Goal Of The Immigraton Courts! — Read My Latest “Mini-Essay:” TIME TO END THE “CHARADE OF QUASI-JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE” AT THE BIA (With Credit to Peter Levinson)

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2017/10/5/3d-cir-rebukes-bia-for-troubling-erroneous-overreach

Here’s Jeffrey’s Blog:

“Oct 5 3d Cir. Rebukes BIA for Troubling, Erroneous Overreach

Alimbaev v. Att’y Gen. of U.S., No. 16-4313 (3d Cir. Sept. 25, 2017) opens with unusual language: “This disconcerting case, before our court for the second time, has a lengthy procedural history marked by confiict between the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and the Immigration Judge (IJ)…” The court observed that the case involved “troubling allegations that the Petitioner…relished watching terroristic videos, while apparently harboring anti-American sympathies.” But the court noted that the question before it was whether the BIA applied the correct legal standard for reviewing the IJ’s factual findings, which the court found necessary for “preserving the rule of law, safeguarding the impartiality of our adjudicatory processes, and ensuring that fairness and objectivity are not usurped by emotion, regardless of the nature of the allegations.”

There is some history behind the correct legal standard mentioned by the circuit court. Prior to 2002, the BIA could review factual findings de novo, meaning it could substitute its own judgment as to whether the respondent was truthful or not for that of the immigration judge. In 2002, then attorney general John Ashcroft enacted procedural reforms which limited the scope of the Board’s review of factual findings to “clear error.” The new review standard meant that even if the Board strongly disagreed with the immigration judge’s fact finding, it could only reverse if it was left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake had been made. The stated reason for the change was that the overwhelming majority of immigration decisions were correct. The actual motive for the change was more likely that the Board was seen as too liberal by Ashcroft; the new standard would therefore make it more difficult for the Board to reverse deportation orders based on the immigration judges’ finding that the respondent lacked credibility.

The following year, Ashcroft purged the Board of all of its more liberal members. The resulting conservative lean has not been offset by subsequent appointments, in spite of the fact that several of those appointments were made under the Obama administration. The Board regularly uses boilerplate language to affirm adverse credibility findings on the grounds that they do not meet the “clearly erroneous” standard. Furthermore, 2005 legislation provided immigration judges with a broader range of bases for credibility determinations, which again made it more difficult for the Board and the circuit courts to reverse on credibility grounds.

The provisions safeguarding an IJ’s credibility finding should apply equally to cases in which relief was granted, making it difficult for a conservative panel of the Board to reverse a grant of relief where the IJ found the respondent credible. Alimbaev was decided by an outstanding immigration judge, who rendered a fair, detailed, thoughtfully considered decision. Factoring in the REAL ID Act standards and the limited scope of review allowed, the Board should have affirmed the IJ’s decision, even if its members would have reached a different factual finding themselves. Instead, the Board panel ignored all of the above to wrongly reverse the IJ not once but three times.

The immigration judge heard the case twice, granting the respondent’s applications for relief each time. In his second decision, the IJ found the respondent’s testimony to be “candid, internally consistent, generally believable, and sufficiently detailed.” In reversing, the BIA turned to nitpicking, citing two small inconsistencies that the Third Circuit termed so “insignificant…that they would probably not, standing alone, justify an IJ making a general adverse credibility finding, much less justify the BIA in rejecting a positive credibility finding under a clear error standard.” The Court therefore concluded that the BIA substituted its own view for the permissible view of the IJ, which is exactly what the “clear error” standard of review is meant to prevent.

The Board cited two other dubious reasons for reversing. One, which the circuit court described as “also troubling,” involved a false insinuation by the Board that a computer containing evidence corroborating the claim that the respondent had viewed “terrorist activity” was found in his residence. In fact, the evidence established that the computer in question was not the respondents, but one located in a communal area of an apartment in which the respondent lived; according to the record, the respondent used the communal computer only on occasion to watch the news. In a footnote, the court noted that none of the videos found on the communal computer were training materials; several originated from the recognized news source Al Jazeera, and “that on the whole, the computer did not produce any direct or causal link suggesting that [they] espoused violence, such as email messages of a questionable nature.” The circuit court therefore remanded the record back to the BIA, with clear instructions to reconsider the discretionary factors “with due deference to the IJ’s factfinding before weighing the various positive and negative factors…”

The question remains as to why the BIA got this so wrong. One possibility is that as the case involved allegations that the respondent might have harbored terrorist sympathies, the Board members let emotion and prejudice take over (apparently three separate times, over a period of several years). If that’s the case, it demonstrates that 15 years after the Ashcroft purge, the one-sided composition of the Board’s members (with no more liberal viewpoints to provide balance) has resulted in a lack of objectivity and impartiality in its decision making. Unfortunately, the appointment of more diverse Board members seems extremely unlikely to happen under the present administration.

But I believe there is another possibility as well. 15 years later, the Board remains very cognizant of the purge and its causes. It is plausible that the Board made a determination that as a matter of self-preservation, it is preferable to be legally wrong than to be perceived as being “soft on terrorism.” If that is the case, there is no stronger argument of the need for an independent immigration court that would not be subject to the type of political pressures that would impact impartiality and fairness.

It also bears mention that unlike the Board, the immigration judge in this case faced the same pressures, yet did not let them prevent him from issuing an impartial, fair, and ultimately correct decision (in spite of having his first decision vacated and remanded by the Board). Unlike the BIA, whose members review decisions that have been drafted for them in a suburban office tower, immigration judges are on the front lines, addressing crippling case loads, being sent on short notice to remote border locations, and dealing with DHS attorneys who now, on orders from Washington, cannot exercise prosecutorial discretion, must raise unnecessary objections, reserve appeal on grants of relief, and oppose termination in deserving cases. Yet many of these judges continue to issue their decisions with impartiality and fairness. Their higher-ups in the Department of Justice should learn from their performance the true meaning of the “rule of law.”

Reprinted With Permisison

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Here’s a link to my previously-published analysis of Alimbaev: http://wp.me/p8eeJm-1tX

TIME TO END THE “CHARADE OF QUASI-JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE” AT THE BIA (With Credit to Peter Levinson)

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

The “grand experiment” of trying to have the BIA operate as an independent appellate court along the lines of a U.S. Court of Appeals ended with the advent of the Bush II Administration in 2001 and Ashcroft’s not too subtle suggestion that he wanted me out as BIA Chairman (presumably, the ”implied threat” was to transfer me to an SES “Hallwalker” position elsewhere in the DOJ if I didn’t cooperate. I cooperated and became a Board Member until he bounced me out of that job in 2003).

Since then, and particularly since the “final purge” in 2003, the BIA has operated as a “captive court” exhibiting a keen awareness of the “political climate” at the DOJ. Don’t rock the boat, avoid dissent, don’t focus too much on fairness or due process for immigrants, particularly if it might cause controversy, interfere with Administration Enforcement programs, or show up in a published precedent.

I agree with everything Jeffrey says. It’s totally demoralizing for U.S. Immigration Judges who are willing to “do the right thing” and stand up for due process and fairness for respondents when the BIA comes back with a disingenuous reversal, sometimes using canned language that doesn’t even have much to do with the actual case.

You should have seen the reaction of some of our former Judicial Law Clerks in Arlington (a bright bunch, without exception, who hadn’t been steeped in the “EOIR mystique”) when a specious reversal of an asylum, withholding, or CAT grant came back from the BIA, often “blowing away” a meticulously detailed well-analyzed written grant with shallow platitudes. One of them told me that once you figured out what panel it had gone to, you could pretty much predict the result. It had more to do with the personal philosophies of the Appellate Judges than it did with the law or due process or even the actual facts of the case. And, of course, nobody was left on the BIA to dissent.

And, as I have pointed out before, both the Bush and Obama Administrations went to great lengths to insure that no “boat rockers,” “independent thinkers” or “outside experts” were appointed to appellate judgeships at the BIA for the past 17 years. Just another obvious reason why the promise of impartiality, fairness, and due process from the U.S. Immigration Courts has been abandoned and replaced with a “mission oriented” emphasis on fulfilling Administration Enforcement objectives. In other words, insuring that a party in interest, the DHS, won’t have its credibility or policies unduly hampered by a truly independent Board and that the Office of Immigration Litigation will get the positions that it wants to defend in the Circuit Courts.

When is the last time you saw the BIA prefer the respondent’s interpretation to the DHS’s in interpreting an allegedly “ambiguous” statutory provision under the Chevron doctrine? Even in cases where the respondent invokes “heavy duty assistance” on its side, like for example the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in an asylum case, the BIA basically “blows them off” without meaningful consideration and finds the DHS position to be the “most reasonable.” For one of the most egregious examples in modern BIA history, see the insulting “short shrift” that the BIA gave to the well-articulated views of the UNHCR (who also had some Circuit Court law on its side) in Matter of M-E-V-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 207, 248-49 (BIA 2014) (“We believe that our interpretation in Matter of S-E-G- and Matter of E-A-G-, as clarified, more accurately captures the concepts underlying the United States’ obligations under the Protocol and will ensure greater consistency in the interpretation of asylum claims under the Act.”)

The whole Chevron/Brand X concept is a joke, particularly as applied to the BIA. It’s high time for the Supremes to abandon it (something in which Justice Gorsuch showed some interest when he was on the 10th Circuit). If we’re going to have a politicized interpretation, better have it be from life-tenured, Presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed Article III Judges, who notwithstanding politics actually possess decisional independence, than from an administrative judge who is an employee of the Attorney General (as the DOJ always likes to remind Immigration Judges).

It’s also a powerful argument why the current “expensive charade” of an independent Immigration Court needs to be replaced by a truly independent Article I Court. Until that happens, the Article III Courts will be faced with more and more “life or death” decisions based on the prevailing political winds and institutional preservation rather than on Due Process and the rule of law.

PWS

10-05-17

Rappaport — Trump Will Inherit A Mess In the U.S. Immigration Courts — Former GOP Hill Staffer Peter Levinson Tells Us In One Sentence Why The Current System Is “Built To Fail” — Can Anyone Fix this Mess Before It’s Too Late For Our Country And The Millions Whose Lives And Futures Depend Our Immigration Court’s Ability To Guarantee Fairness And Deliver Due Process? Read My Commentary — “We Need An Article I United States Immigration Court — NOW — Could The Impetus Come From An Unlikely Source?” — Below!

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/314238-our-immigration-court-crisis-will-be-trumps-lasting-headache

We Need An Article I United States Immigration Court — NOW — Could The Impetus Come From An Unlikely Source?

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Writing in The Hill, my friend Nolan Rappaport says:

“President-elect Donald Trump will have to deal with this situation before he can begin his promised enforcement program.
Realistically, he is going to have to consider asking Congress for a legalization program to reduce the undocumented population but it does not have to be the kind of legalization program that the Democrats have been proposing.”

That makes lots of sense to me. It will certainly help the Immigration Courts to quickly remove many “non priority” cases from the docket without compromising due process. But, it’s not a complete solution to the problems facing our Immigration Courts.

And, well-respected scholar, gentleman, and former GOP Hill Immigration Staffer Peter Levinsion succinctly tells us why just fiddling around with the administrative process within the DOJ won’t get the job done:

“”The Attorney General’s ability to review Board decisions inappropriately injects a law enforcement official into a quasi-judicial appellate process, creates an unnecessary layer of review, compromises the appearance of independent Board decision-making, and undermines the Board’s stature generally.””

Yup, folks, the U.S. Immigration Courts, including the all-important Appellate Division (the Board of Immigration Appeals, or the “BIA”), where hundreds of thousands of individuals are awaiting the fair, independent due process hearings guaranteed to them by the U.S. Constitution, are actually a wholly owned subsidiary of the chief prosecutor and law enforcement officer of the U.S. — the Attorney General.

Who wouldn’t like to own a court system where your only client — the U.S. Government — is an interested party in every single case? Who wouldn’t, indeed, unless that court system is in the sad circumstances of the current U.S. Immigration Court system — overworked, understaffed, over-prioritized, under-appreciated, laboring under outdated systems and technology abandoned by most other courts decades ago, and generally out of control. Other than that, what’s the problem?

The answer, as proposed by Nolan and Peter, and many others including the Federal Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the National Association of Immigration Judges, and many other nonpartisan judicial experts is an independent Article I (or even Article III) Immigration Court, including the Appellate Division.

“Impossible,” you say, “Congress and President Trump will never go for it. Nobody in the Washington ‘power curve’ could sell this idea.” But, I beg to disagree.

There is one person in Washington who could sell this long overdue idea to President Trump and legislators from both sides of the aisle. His name is Jeff Sessions. And, he’s about to become the next Attorney General of the United Sates.

Why would Attorney General Jeff Sessions suddenly become an advocate for due process and “good government?” Well, I can think of at least three obvious reasons.

First, being the “father” of an Article I Immigration Court would be a lasting positive contribution to our system of justice — not a bad legacy for a man who has been “on the wrong side of history” for much of his four decades of public service. Second, it would silence many of the critics who have doubted Sessions’s claims that he can overcome his “out of the mainstream” views of the past and protect and vindicate the rights of everyone in America, particularly in the sensitive areas of immigration and civil rights. Third, and perhaps most important, by creating an independent, credible, modern, due process oriented Immigration Court outside the Department of Justice, Sessions would pave the way for a more effective immigration enforcement strategy by the Administration while dramatically increasing the likelihood that removal orders will pass muster in the Article III Courts.

Sure sounds like a “win-win-win” to me. I’ve observed that the majority of the time, people act in accordance with their own best interests which frequently line up with the best interests of our country as a whole. Yes, there will always be a substantial minority of instances where people act against their best interests. Usually, that’s when they are blinded by an uncompromising philosophy or personal animus.

I can’t find much of the latter in Senator Sessions. He seems like a genuinely genial personality who makes it a point to get along with folks and treat them politely even when they disagree with his views. The former could be a problem for Sessions, however. Can he get beyond his highly restrictive outlook on immigration and adopt big-picture reforms? Only time will tell. But there is a precedent.

EOIR was actually created during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. It was two “strong enforcement types,” then INS Commissioner Al Nelson and General Counsel “Iron Mike” Inman, Jr., part of the so-called “California Mafia,” who persuaded then Attorney General William French Smith to remove the Immigration Judges from the “Legacy INS,” and combine them with the Board of Immigration Appeals to form EOIR, with then-BIA Chairman David Milhollan as the first EOIR Director. Smith selected as the first Chief Immigration Judge a well-respected (even if not universally beloved) apolitical Senior Executive, William R. Robie, who had run the Department’s Office of Attorney Personnel Management and had a well-deserved reputation in the Washington legal community for “getting the trains running on time.”

It was one of the few times in my more that three decades in Government that I witnessed Senior Political Executives actually arguing for a needed transfer of functions and personnel out of their own agency. Traditionally, agency heads battled furiously to hang on to any piece of “turf,” no matter how problematic its performance or how tangental it was to the agency’s mission. But, Nelson and Inman, who were litigators and certainly no “softies” on immigration enforcement, appreciated that for victories in Immigration Court to be meaningful and to stand up on further judicial review, the Immigration Court needed to be a level playing field that would be credible to those outside the Department of Justice.

Unfortunately, the immediate improvements in due process and court management achieved by making the Immigration Courts independent from the “Legacy INS” have long since “played out.” The system within the DOJ not only reached a point of diminishing returns, but has actually been spiraling downward over the past two Administrations. Sadly, Nelson, Inman, Milhollan, and Robie have all died in the interim. But, it would be a great way to honor their memories, in the spirit of bipartisan reform and “smart government,” if an Article I Immigration Court were high on Attorney General Sessions’s agenda.

PWS

01/17/17

Dan Kowalski reports:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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By Maya P. Barak, University of Michigan-Dearborn:

This quote sums it all up for me:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

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