Category: AMERICA’S REAL IMMIGRATION CRISIS: THE ATTACK ON DUE PROCESS IN THE UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION COURTS

DOJ SEEKING BIA JUDGES TO WANDER THE ARIZONA DESERT IN SEARCH OF FINAL ORDERS OF DEPORTATION?

The latest DOJ Job Announcement for Appellate Immigration Judges (“BIA Members”) contains some “head scratchers:”

https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/511705900#

  • 6 vacancies;
  • In 4 locations;
  • All in Arizona.

NOTE: The Chairman, Vice Chair,  and the other 13 Board Members/Appellate Immigration Judges are located in Falls Church, VA, along with all of the BIA’s existing staff.

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At one time, this might have been one of the “premier” jobs in the DOJ. But, with “One-Judge Panels,” Performance Quotas, Sessions setting all the important precedents, and a constant stream of reversals and criticisms from the Article III’s for “haste makes waste” decision-making, successful candidates had better bring their “DEPORT” rubber stamps with them.

PWS

09-30-18

 

 

Related posts:

  1. DUE PROCESS DENIED! — NIJC REPORT FINDS THAT DHS DETENTION IN OBSCURE LOCATIONS DEPRIVES MIGRANTS OF MEANINGFUL ACCESS TO COUNSEL! — This Is What Happens When We Enable The “American Gulag!”
  2. DAG ROSENSTEIN INADVERTENTLY MAKES COMPELLING ARGUMENT FOR INDEPENDENT ARTICLE I U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT IN SPEECH TO NEW JUDGES — Places Emphasis On Executive, Fealty To Attorney General, Not Independence. Impartiality, & Insuring Due Process! — REAL “Courts” Don’t Answer to Prosecutors!
  3. What The DAG SHOULD Have Said To New U.S. Immigration Judges (But, Of Course Didn’t) . . .
  4. HON. JEFFREY S. CHASE: The History Of A Flawed Judiciary; The Intentional Tilting Of Asylum Law Against Asylum Seekers; The Farce Of Justice In The Immigration Courts; The Need For An Independent Article I Court!

HON. JEFFREY CHASE & OTHERS: No Matter What The FBI Reports, Judge BKavs Has Already Shown That He Is An Angry, Belligerent, Political Partisan Unfit To Serve On High Court!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2018/9/28/kavanaugh-and-judicial-impartiality

Kavanaugh and Judicial Impartiality

The standard to keep in mind regarding the confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice is found in 28 U.S.C. section 455(a): “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

Let’s set aside for now the fact that as drafted, the statute seems to apply only to men (did Congress really not envision women judges?).  Comments have been made recently about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh being “innocent until proven guilty.”  That’s actually the standard for a defendant in a criminal trial.  Because we as a society recognize how terrible it would be to send an innocent person to jail, possibly for many years, our legal system has established a standard that is willing to allow many who are guilty of crimes to go free, because we find that result preferable to ruining the life of an innocent person through wrongful conviction.  Therefore, where the evidence establishes, for example, an 85 percent likelihood that the defendant committed the crime, a finding of not guilty is warranted, as the remaining 15% constitutes “reasonable doubt.”  Of course, wrongful convictions still happen in practice, but nevertheless, the theory behind a presumption of innocence and a standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” in criminal proceedings remains a noble one.

Not being allowed to serve as a Supreme Court justice is a far, far cry from being convicted of a crime and sent to prison.  Realize that there are only nine people in the whole country who are Supreme Court justices.  Many who have never been appointed to the Supreme Court have nevertheless gone on to lead happy, productive lives; some have amassed significant wealth, others have even held positions of trust and respect in society.

In choosing a Supreme Court justice, the ideal candidate is not someone who hasn’t been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of some horrible act.  Rather, it’s someone whose impartiality is beyond questioning.  This is because in a democracy, faith in our judicial institutions is paramount.  Society will abide by judicial outcomes that they disagree with if they believe that the “wrong” result was made by impartial jurists who were genuinely trying to get it right.  Abiding by unpopular judicial decisions is the key to democracy.  It is what prevents angry mobs from taking justice into their own hands.  In the words of Balzac, “to distrust the judiciary marks the beginning of the end of society.”

A primary reason Republicans are so anxious to “plow through” (as Mitch McConnell, using the rapiest terminology imaginable, unfortunately phrased it) the nomination of Kavanaugh is because of how he might rule on abortion rights, an issue of great importance to the party’s base.  Nearly all of the Republican Senators seem to believe that as long as Kavanaugh has not been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of attempted rape, then he is fully qualified to serve as the deciding vote in taking away a right that has been constitutionally guaranteed to women for the past 45 years.

However, the three Republican Senators who at the last second requested an FBI investigation into the charges against Kavanaugh may have realized that their colleagues were not applying the correct standard.  Abortion rights involve a woman’s right to control her own body.  Yesterday, the country heard very detailed and articulate testimony from a highly credible and courageous witness.  What she described involved her being deprived of the right to control her own body, by a male who physically pinned her down, covered her mouth when she tried to scream for help, and tried to forcibly remove her clothing against her will.  Her violator then added insult to injury by laughing at her in a way that still haunts her to this day.  The credible witness stated that she was 100 percent certain that the male who violated her rights in this despicable way was Kavanaugh.

The evidence goes directly to the question of the candidate’s view of a woman’s right to control her own body.  The question that Senators should be considering is how much public trust there will be in the impartiality of a decision that involves such right in light of the past actions of the justice casting the potential deciding vote.

Senators who will nevertheless vote for Kavanaugh will say that in spite of the testimony, they cannot be sure of his guilt.  Or they may state that they are strongly convinced of his innocence.  Regardless, many people might reasonably question Kavanaugh’s impartiality based on the evidence they have heard.  (And remember, there have been two other women leveling similar accusations as well).  Even those who believe him innocent should at this point realize that in light of public perception, the appearance of impropriety should disqualify Kavanaugh from consideration.

Should those Senators deciding the issue ignore the above, we will all likely live with the consequences for decades to come.  Although it would not undo the damage, let us hope the public will respond quickly and decisively in voting the offenders out of office in November.

Copyright 2018 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.

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Others agree with Jeffrey:

Here’s what the NY Times Editorial board had to say:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/opinion/why-brett-kavanaugh-wasnt-believable.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Why Brett Kavanaugh Wasn’t Believable

And why Christine Blasey Ford was.

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

Pool photo by Saul Loeb

What a study in contrasts: Where Christine Blasey Ford was calm and dignified, Brett Kavanaugh was volatile and belligerent; where she was eager to respond fully to every questioner, and kept worrying whether she was being “helpful” enough, he was openly contemptuous of several senators; most important, where she was credible and unshakable at every point in her testimony, he was at some points evasive, and some of his answers strained credulity.

Indeed, Dr. Blasey’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday was devastating.

With the eyes of the nation on her, Dr. Blasey recounted an appalling trauma. When she was 15 years old, she said, she was sexually assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh, then a 17-year-old student at a nearby high school and now President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court.

Her description of the attack, which she said occurred in a suburban Maryland home on a summer night in 1982, was gut-wrenchingly specific. She said Judge Kavanaugh and his friend, Mark Judge, both of whom she described as very drunk, locked her in a second-floor room of a private home. She said Kavanaugh jumped on top of her, groped her, tried to remove her clothes and put his hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. She said she feared he might accidentally kill her.

“The uproarious laughter between the two and their having fun at my expense,” she said, was her strongest memory.

Judge Kavanaugh, when it was his turn, was not laughing. He was yelling. He spent more than half an hour raging against Senate Democrats and the “Left” for “totally and permanently” destroying his name, his career, his family, his life. He called his confirmation process a “national disgrace.”

“You may defeat me in the final vote, but you will never get me to quit,” Judge Kavanaugh said, sounding like someone who suddenly doubted his confirmation to the Supreme Court — an outcome that seemed preordained only a couple of weeks ago.

Pool photo by Erin Schaff

Judge Kavanaugh’s defiant fury might be understandable coming from someone who believes himself innocent of the grotesque charges he’s facing. Yet it was also evidence of an unsettling temperament in a man trying to persuade the nation of his judicial demeanor.

We share the sorrow of every sensible American who feels stricken at the partisan spectacle playing out in Washington. Judge Kavanaugh was doubtless — and lamentably — correct in predicting that after this confirmation fight, however it ends, the bitterness is only likely to grow. As he put it in his testimony, “What goes around, comes around,” in the partisan vortex that has been intensifying in Washington for decades now. His open contempt for the Democrats on the committee also raised further questions about his own fair-mindedness, and it served as a reminder of his decades as a Republican warrior who would take no prisoners.

Judge Kavanaugh’s biggest problem was not his demeanor but his credibility, which has been called in question on multiple issues for more than a decade, and has been an issue again throughout his Supreme Court confirmation process.

On Thursday, he gave misleading answers to questions about seemingly small matters — sharpening doubts about his honesty about far more significant ones. He gave coy answers when pressed about what was clearly a sexual innuendo in his high-school yearbook. He insisted over and over that others Dr. Blasey named as attending the gathering had “said it didn’t happen,” when in fact at least two of them have said only that they don’t recall it — and one of them told a reporter that she believes Dr. Blasey.

Judge Kavanaugh clumsily dodged a number of times when senators asked him about his drinking habits. When Senator Amy Klobuchar gently pressed him about whether he’d ever blacked out from drinking, he at first wouldn’t reply directly. “I don’t know, have you?” he replied — a condescending and dismissive response to the legitimate exercise of a senator’s duty of advise and consent. (Later, after a break in the hearing, he apologized.)

Judge Kavanaugh gave categorical denials a number of times, including, at other points, that he’d ever blacked out from too much drinking. Given numerous reports now of his heavy drinking in college, such a blanket denial is hard to believe.

In contrast, Dr. Blasey bolstered her credibility not only by describing in harrowing detail what she did remember, but by being honest about what she didn’t — like the exact date of the gathering, or the address of the house where it occurred. As she pointed out, the precise details of a trauma get burned into the brain and stay there long after less relevant details fade away.

She was also honest about her ambivalence in coming forward. “I am terrified,” she told the senators in her opening remarks. And then there’s the fact that she gains nothing by coming forward. She is in hiding now with her family in the face of death threats.

Perhaps the most maddening part of Thursday’s hearing was the cowardice of the committee’s 11 Republicans, all of them men, and none of them, apparently, capable of asking Dr. Blasey a single question. They farmed that task out to a sex-crimes prosecutor named Rachel Mitchell, who tried unsuccessfully in five-minute increments to poke holes in Dr. Blasey’s story.

Eventually, as Judge Kavanaugh testified, the Republican senators ventured out from behind their shield. Doubtless seeking to ape President’s Trump style and win his approval, they began competing with each other to make the most ferocious denunciation of their Democratic colleagues and the most heartfelt declaration of sympathy for Judge Kavanaugh, in a show of empathy far keener than they managed to muster for Dr. Blasey.

Pressed over and over by Democratic senators, Judge Kavanaugh never could come up with a clear answer for why he wouldn’t also want a fair, neutral F.B.I. investigation into the allegations against him — the kind of investigation the agency routinely performs, and that Dr. Blasey has called for. At one point, though, he acknowledged that it was common sense to put some questions to other potential witnesses besides him.

When Senator Patrick Leahy asked whether the judge was the inspiration for a hard-drinking character named Bart O’Kavanaugh in a memoir about teenage alcoholism by Mr. Judge, Judge Kavanaugh replied, “You’d have to ask him.”

Asking Mr. Judge would be a great idea. Unfortunately he’s hiding out in a Delaware beach town and Senate Republicans are refusing to subpoena him.

Why? Mr. Judge is the key witness in Dr. Blasey’s allegation. He has said he has no recollection of the party or of any assault. But he hasn’t faced live questioning to test his own memory and credibility. And Dr. Blasey is far from alone in describing Judge Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge as heavy drinkers; several of Judge Kavanaugh’s college classmates have said the same.

None of these people have been called to testify before the Senate. President Trump has refused to call on the F.B.I. to look into the multiple allegations that have been leveled against the judge in the past two weeks. Instead the Republican majority on the committee has scheduled a vote for Friday morning.

There is no reason the committee needs to hold this vote before the F.B.I. can do a proper investigation, and Mr. Judge and possibly other witnesses can be called to testify under oath. The Senate, and the American people, need to know the truth, or as close an approximation as possible, before deciding whether Judge Kavanaugh should get a lifetime seat on the nation’s highest court. If the committee will not make a more serious effort, the only choice for senators seeking to protect the credibility of the Supreme Court will be to vote no.

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Emily Bazelon of the NY Times Sunday Magazine wasn’t convinced by BKavs either:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/opinion/kavanaugh-blasey-ford-investigation.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

The Senate’s Failure to Seek the Truth

It is impossible to justify the lack of a neutral investigation into the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh.

By Emily Bazelon

Ms. Bazelon is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine.

Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Twice as a reporter, I’ve interviewed women who have accused men of sexual assault and the men they accused. In both cases, the women looked me in the eye and told me about how they’d been raped, and then the men looked me in the eye and told me they’d never raped anyone. All four people spoke with force and emotion. In the moment, I wanted to believe each one. It’s uncomfortable to imagine that someone who seems wholly sincere is not. It’s confusing — it seems unfeeling — to turn away from someone who makes a vehement claim of truth.

If you watched Thursday’s hearing, in particular Christine Blasey Ford’s opening statement and Brett Kavanaugh’s, maybe you know what I mean. So then what? As a reporter, I looked for corroborating evidence as a means of assessing each person’s veracity. What else could I find out, and how did their accounts stack up against that? This is how investigators do their work. They find out as much as they can about the surrounding circumstances. Then it’s up to judges to weigh the facts and decide which account is most credible.

Judge Kavanaugh didn’t sound as if he was thinking like a judge. His partisan attack on Democrats wasn’t judicial, in any sense of the word. His approach to evidence wasn’t either.

The difficulty for holding Judge Kavanaugh accountable for what Dr. Blasey says was her assault is the lack of a certain kind of corroboration for her account. The other people she has named who were at the small gathering where she says the assault took place don’t remember such a gathering. Two of them are Judge Kavanaugh’s high school friends. One of them is Dr. Blasey’s friend.

But there’s no reason any of them would have remembered such a gathering. She says it was a spur-of-the-moment get-together, after swimming and before a party to come. And it took place 36 years ago. The gathering she describes is also consistent with one of Judge Kavanaugh’s calendar entries about drinking with his friends.

We also have more than Dr. Blasey’s word. Years ago, she talked about this assault, and named Judge Kavanaugh, with her husband and her therapist, and at a later time, she told a few close friends. They back her up on this. One memorable detail from her testimony has the ring of truth, in its specificity: Her assault came up in couples therapy with her husband because the traumatic memory triggered anxiety and claustrophobia, and that made her insist on adding a second front door to her house, to his understandable confusion. This is not the kind of fact a person makes up.

Dr. Blasey was firm about closing a door that would allow us to reconcile her accusation and Judge Kavanaugh’s denial. She is not mixed up about the identity of her assailant, she said. She is “100 percent certain” it was Judge Kavanaugh. The comfortable path for the judge’s supporters — believe she was assaulted, disbelieve he committed the assault — is gone. Her certainty was a pillar of the testimony she put the full weight of herself behind — her professional identity, her character, the careful consideration and precision about facts that was evident as she spoke.

Judge Kavanaugh refused to open another door that would allow the public, and the Senate, to reconcile these accounts of accusation and denial. He ruled out the possibility that he could not remember assaulting Dr. Blasey because he blacked out or was otherwise incapacitated by drinking. He was just as adamant about categorically denying the other sexual misconduct he has been accused of by two other women.

Judge Kavanaugh also didn’t much back off his denials of being a hard drinker or an aggressive drunk. This is his big weakness, stacked against other facts that have been gathered. Several classmates from his college days at Yale paint an entirely different picture of him as a drinker than the innocent one he offered of being a person who “likes beer.” So do his own yearbook entries and speeches. If you’re a judge who believes in strictly reading a text for its plain meaning, as Judge Kavanaugh says he is, his dismissals and wispy explanations aren’t persuasive.

If you’re thinking like a judge aiming to discover the truth, it’s also hard (impossible?) to justify the lack of a neutral investigation and the absence of other witnesses, beginning with Mark Judge, the friend of Judge Kavanaugh’s, whom Dr. Blasey says saw and participated in the assault, but not ending with him.

The task of a judge or a Supreme Court justice is to seek the truth. The most important qualities for the job are probity and veracity. Nobody was on trial at the Senate Judiciary Committee. But only one person — Judge Kavanaugh — was asking to be elevated to the highest court in the land.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion).

Emily Bazelon is a staff writer at the magazine and the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School. She is also a best-selling author and a co-host of the Slate Political Gabfest, a popular podcast.

@emilybazelon • Facebook

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Meanwhile, over at Slate, Will Saletan wasn’t buying BKavs performance either:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/kavanaugh-lied-senate-judiciary-committee.html

POLITICS

Kavanaugh Lied to the Judiciary Committee—Repeatedly

Thursday’s hearing didn’t prove whether Kavanaugh assaulted Ford. But we do know the Supreme Court nominee wasn’t honest in his testimony.

By WILLIAM SALETAN

Brett Kavanaugh frowns during his testimony.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
Jim Bourg/AFP/Getty Images

On Thursday, after listening to testimony from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, several Republican senators said they would vote to confirm the nominee because it’s impossible to determine which witness—Ford or Kavanaugh—is telling the truth. Actually, it’s easy. We don’t know for certain whether Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Ford. But we do know that Kavanaugh lied repeatedly in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Here are some of his lies.

1. “It’s been investigated.” The White House has ignored multiple requests from Democratic senators to authorize FBI interviews with the alleged witnesses in the case. In particular, there has been no FBI or Judiciary Committee interview with Mark Judge, Kavanaugh’s accused accomplice in the alleged assault. In fact, Judge has fled to a hideout in Delaware to avoid being called to testify.

During the hearing, several Democratic senators pleaded with Kavanaugh to call for FBI interviews so that the truth could be resolved. Kavanaugh refused. When Sen. Chris Coons pointed out that the FBI had needed only a few days to complete interviews in the Clarence Thomas–Anita Hill case, Kavanaugh said even that was too much, because the Judiciary Committee had already examined his case. “It’s been investigated,” he told Coons.

No honest judge would say that. None of the alleged witnesses, other than Ford and Kavanaugh, has been interviewed. Instead, the alleged witnesses have issued short statementsof nonrecollection and have asked not to testify. The committee’s Republican majority, eager to brush the case aside, has accepted these statements and has refused to ask further questions. In his testimony, Kavanaugh falsely claimed that FBI interviews would add nothing. Agents would “just go and do what you’re doing,” he told the senators.

Kavanaugh claimed that a vague statement of nonrecollection from Judge’s lawyer was sufficient “testimony.” He dismissed calls for Judge to appear before the committee, arguing that his own testimony was adequate. But Kavanaugh also mocked the committee’s Democrats, who lack the power of subpoena, by telling them to go talk to Judge. When Sen. Patrick Leahy asked whether Bart O’Kavanaugh, a drunken character in Judge’s book, was meant to represent Brett Kavanaugh, the nominee passed the buck to his testimony-evading friend: “You’d have to ask him.”

2. “All four witnesses say it didn’t happen.” Each time senators pleaded for an FBI review or a more thorough investigation by the committee, Kavanaugh replied that it wasn’t necessary, since all the people Ford claimed had been at the gathering where the alleged assault occurred had rejected her story. Eight times, Kavanaugh claimed that the witnesses “said it didn’t happen.” Three times, he said the witnesses “refuted” Ford’s story. Four times, Kavanaugh claimed that “Dr. Ford’s longtime friend,” Leland Keyser, had affirmed that the gathering never occurred.

That’s a lie. Keyser has stated that she doesn’t recall the gathering—she was never told about the attack, and she was supposedly downstairs while it allegedly occurred upstairs—but that she believes Ford’s story. That isn’t corroboration, but it isn’t refutation or denial, either. During the hearing, Sen. Cory Booker pointed this out to Kavanaugh, reminding him that in an interview with the Washington Post, Keyser “said she believes Dr. Ford.” Kavanaugh ignored Booker’s correction. Ninety seconds later, the nominee defiantly repeated: “The witnesses who were there say it didn’t happen.”

3. “I know exactly what happened that night.”Kavanaugh made several false or widely contradicted statements about his use of alcohol. This is significant because Judge has admitted to drunken blackouts, which raises the possibility that Judge and Kavanaugh don’t remember what they did to Ford. During the hearing, Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked about Kavanaugh’s participation in a night of drunken revelry at Yale Law School. Kavanaugh assured Blumenthal, “I know exactly what happened the whole night.” Later, Booker asked Kavanaugh whether he had “never had gaps in memories, never had any losses whatsoever, never had foggy recollection about what happened” while drinking. Kavanaugh affirmed that he had never experienced such symptoms: “That’s what I said.”

These statements contradict reports from several people who knew Kavanaugh. Liz Swisher, a friend from Yale, says she saw Kavanaugh drink a lot, stumble, and slur his words. “It’s not credible for him to say that he has had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess,” she told the Washington Post. And in a speech four years ago, Kavanaugh described himself and a former classmate “piecing things together” to figure out that they’d “had more than a few beers” before an alcohol-soaked banquet at Yale Law School.

4. “I’m in Colorado.” As evidence that the charges against him were ludicrous, Kavanaugh told the committee that he had been falsely accused of committing an assault more than 1,500 miles away. He claimed that according to his accusers, “I’m in Colorado, you know, I’m sighted all over the place.” But a transcript of Kavanaugh’s Sept. 25 interview with Judiciary Committee staffers shows no claim of an offense in Colorado. The transcript says that according to a woman from Colorado, “at least four witnesses” saw Kavanaugh shove a woman “up against the wall very aggressively and sexually” in 1998. But Kavanaugh was specifically told during the interview that the scene of the alleged incident was in D.C., where he was living at the time.

Kavanaugh also told other whoppers. He claimed that his beer consumption in high school was legal because the drinking age in Maryland was 18. In reality, by the time he was 18, the drinking age was 21. He claimed that his high school yearbook reference to the “Beach Week Ralph Club” referred in part to his difficulty in holding down “spicy food.” He claimed that the entry’s jokes about two sporting events he and his high school buddies had watched—“Who won that game, anyway?”—had nothing to do with booze. And he defended his refusal to take a polygraph test on the grounds that such tests aren’t admissible in federal courts—neglecting to mention that he had endorsed their use in hiring and law enforcement.

Maybe Kavanaugh is an honest man in other contexts. Maybe he’s a good husband, a loving dad, and an inspiring coach. And maybe there’s no way to be certain that he assaulted Ford. But one thing is certain: He lied repeatedly to the Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Some of his lies, about the testimony of witnesses and the integrity of investigations, go to the heart of our system of justice. Any senator who votes to put this man on the Supreme Court is saying that such lies don’t matter.

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Also at Slate, Yascha Mounk predicts lasting damage to our Republic if BKavs is confirmed:
 
THE GOOD FIGHT

The Kavanaugh Stakes Just Got Higher

To confirm him now would be dangerous to the survival of our democratic institutions.

By YASCHA MOUNK

The Supreme Court and Brett Kavanaugh getting sworn in to testify.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Drew Angerer/Getty Images and Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images.

At this moment of feverishly intense partisanship, it takes a great deal of courage to tiptoe away from your own tribe. Sen. Jeff Flake has not yet announced that he is willing to part for good; in the end, he may yet betray his professed principles and cast his vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. And yet, we should not underestimate how much strength it took for him to demand an investigation into Christine Blasey Ford’s serious allegations of sexual assault and delay the judge’s confirmation by at least a week. For now, he has proved to be one of the few people in the Senate—and perhaps one of the few in the whole country—who have insisted on taking Ford’s allegations seriously even though he actually shares most of Kavanaugh’s judicial views.

For the sake of our country, all of us should now hope that the FBI manages to uncover conclusive evidence that either supports or dispels Ford’s accusations. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely. So the big risk we now face is that the same hell we have lived through for the past 48 hours will be repeated in even more farcical form next week. And that is why it’s very important to use this time to reflect seriously on how judicious people—and perhaps especially senators like Flake who profess to be conscientious conservatives—should vote if they have not made up their mind about the allegations.

It is painfully obvious that most Republican senators will vote to confirm Kavanaugh if the allegations against him are anything short of iron-clad; indeed, one shocking poll suggests that a majority of Republicans voters, and nearly half of evangelicals, would support his confirmation even if they did believe that he is guilty. It is also obvious that most Democrats will vote against his confirmation even in the unlikely case that the FBI should somehow manage to disprove Ford’s allegations; indeed, Kavanaugh’s extreme views on executive power provide a strong reason for any defender of liberal democracy to oppose his nomination. And yet, I think that one very important consideration has largely been overlooked.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Kavanaugh is an innocent man. If that’s the case, the raw anger he displayed during Thursday’s confirmation hearing is certainly understandable. While we might wish for a public figure to keep his poise even when his reputation is being impugned, it is perfectly human to lose your countenance under such circumstances.

But even under that charitable interpretation, Kavanaugh’s performance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee makes him eminently unfit to sit on the highest court of the land.

A justice on the Supreme Court has to rule on a whole host of issues that are of huge partisan significance: If he is confirmed, he will have to settle substantive questions of public policy—from abortion rights to the health care mandate—on which Democrats and Republicans have hugely differing preferences. Just as importantly, he will also help to set the parameters that are supposed to ensure that Democrats and Republicans can appeal for the votes of their fellow citizens on fair terms.

But how can somebody who has accused Democrats of a “calculated and orchestrated political hit” be seen as impartial when he rules on a gerrymandering case that could deliver a huge advantage to Republicans? How can somebody who describes serious allegations of sexual assault as “revenge on behalf of the Clintons” be expected to give both sides a fair hearing if the outcome of a presidential election should once again be litigated in front of the Supreme Court? And how can somebody who denounces the “frenzy on the left” to derail his nomination be trusted to ensure that the left’s most vocal enemy, Donald Trump, does not overstep the bounds of his constitutional authority?

Because of Mitch McConnell’s refusal to hold hearings on the confirmation of Merrick Garland during the last year of Barack Obama’s presidency, the current composition of the Supreme Court is already tainted. Now, the confirmation of as nakedly partisan a jurist as Kavanaugh would go a long way toward destroying whatever remains of the Supreme Court’s legitimacy. And this would not only tank the trust Americans have in the last branch of government that has, according to polls, consistently been more popular than secondhand car salesmen; it also significantly raises the likelihood that Democrats will engage in yet another round of tit for tat.

Precisely because partisans need to be able to trust that courts can enforce the rules for fair political competition between them and their adversaries, attempts by a political party to change the ideological makeup of the judiciary are extremely dangerous to the survival of democratic institutions. That’s why (direct or indirect) court-packing schemes have been key elements of the authoritarian takeovers in Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela. And it’s also why the current governments in Poland and Hungary are playing constitutional hardball to ensure that judges they appoint command a majority on the most important courts in their respective countries.

There can therefore be little doubt that any attempt by Democrats to pack the Supreme Court, for example, by expanding its size, would be another step in a tit-for-tat spiral at whose end autocracy awaits. And yet, recent events will make it very hard for those voices within the Democratic Party that recognize this danger to prevail. If one side is so willing to abuse precedent and decency to, as Kavanaugh might put it, screw the libs, it becomes very difficult for the other side not to reciprocate in kind.

This is why Kavanaugh’s confirmation would not just be a disaster in itself; it would also be a strong reason to become even more pessimistic about the future of American politics. The GOP and Trump are now more fully aligned than ever. Our country’s partisan divide is deeper than it has been in living memory. The mutual hatred and incomprehension is more acute than it has been in decades. If Kavanaugh is confirmed, it’s very, very difficult to envisage what path could possibly lead us out of this nightmare.

Jeff Flake has acted with much more courage and decency than most liberals care to admit. But the responsibility that now rests on his—and Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s and Sen. Susan Collins’—shoulders is even greater than he might realize.

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Dahlia Lithwick @ Slate is also no BKavs fan:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/christine-blasey-ford-hearing-fear-a-justice-brett-kavanaugh.html

That being said, I thought that his emotional partisan attack on Democratic Senators, his overt rudeness to Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and his unsupported “conspiracy theory” re the Clintons showed that he is exactly what his critics have been saying all along: an injudicious and disingenuous partisan.

No matter what really happened with Ford, he is “damaged goods” who can’t credibly serve on the Supremes. A decent person would withdraw at this point for the good of the country.

Certainly, Trump can find a reactionary GOP female judge with no personal baggage to carry the flag. He was actually pretty stupid to nominate BKavs in the first place rather than a female vetted by the Heritage Foundation whom the Dems couldn’t have touched.

I assume that Senator L. Graham is auditioning for Gonzo’s job after the midterms. He seems to forgotten what he and his GOP buddies did to Judge Merrick Garland — a very decent person and good jurist who never even got a chance to be heard at all. The GOP just decided that “advice and consent” meant “stonewall if you don’t like the President.” And as a moderate and polite “center left” jurist, Judge Garland certainly would have been a more appropriate pick for the Supremes than BKavs! But, power is power, and the GOP has it right now — the Dems don’t.

Nothing is likely to stop Judge’s Kavanaugh’s elevation at this point. But, as Jeffrey suggests, getting to the ballot box could make BKavs the last such appointment for some time.

Best,

PWS
09-30-18

 

Related posts:

  1. 👩‍⚖️⚖️ONE MEAN☠️🤮⚰️ MOTHER: Soon-To-Be Justice Barrett’s Immigration Jurisprudence Shows Cruelty, Legal Ignorance, Lack Of Empathy For The Vulnerable Humans Whose Lives Are At Stake In An Unconstitutional System Rigged Against Them!
  2. HALLOWEEN HORROR STORY: Opaque & Biased Politicized Judicial Hiring Denies Migrants The Fair & Impartial Adjudication To Which They Are Constitutionally Entitled – Given The Generous Legal Standards, A Worldwide Refugee Crisis, & Asylum Officers’ Positive Findings In Most Cases, Asylum Seekers Should Be Winning The Vast Majority Of Immigration Court Cases — Instead, They Are Being “Railroaded” By A Biased System & Complicit Article III Courts!
  3. WILLIAM SALETAN @ SLATE: “Trump Is a Remorseless Advocate of Crimes Against Humanity” – “But Trump’s election and his persistent approval from more than 40 percent of Americans are a reminder that nothing in our national character protects us from becoming a rapacious, authoritarian country. What protects us are institutions that stop us from doing our worst.” 
  4. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!

NPR: “THIS AMERICAN LIFE” – HEAR ABOUT HOW THE WHITE NATIONALIST RESTRICTIONISTS IN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ARE GOING ABOUT SYSTEMATICALLY AND DISINGENUOUSLY PERVERTING US IMMIGRATION LAWS – Useless, Counterproductive, & Expensive Prosecutions Of Asylum Seekers – When The Facts Don’t Support Your Decisions, Just Delete Or Misrepresent Them!

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/656/let-me-count-the-ways

 

Yes, youʼve heard about the family separations. Youʼve heard about the travel ban. But there are dozens of ways the Trump administration is cracking down on immigration across many agencies, sometimes in ways so small and technical it doesnʼt make headlines. This week, the quiet bureaucratic war that’s even targeting legal immigrants.

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Long, but highly documented, compelling, and well worth the listen if you really want to know about the ugly, depraved policies of Trump, Sessions, Miller, Nielsen, Cissna, Gene Hamilton, and the rest of the White Nationalist Racist Brigade.

Regime Change, Regime Change, Regime Change; Vote, Vote, Vote!

PWS

09-29-18

 

Related posts:

  1. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  4. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”

GONZO’S WORLD: HE FIDDLES AS ROME BURNS! — Threats To Judges, Xenophobia, Racism, Cutting Corners, Dissing Respondents & Their Lawyers, Bogus Numbers, Aimlessly Adding Bodies Fail To Stem Tide Of Backlogged Cases In An Obviously Broken System — When Will Congress &/Or The Article IIIs Do Their Jobs By Restoring Due Process, Impartiality, & Competent, Apolitical Court Management To This Sorry Caricature Of A Court System?

Here’s the latest from TRAC:

==========================================
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
==========================================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Greetings. In August 2018, Immigration Courts remained overwhelmed with record numbers of cases awaiting decision. As of August 31, 2018, the number had reached 764,561. In July, the number of cases awaiting decision was 746,049 cases. This is a significant increase – up 41 percent – compared to the 542,411 cases pending at the end of January 2017, when President Trump took office.

California, Texas, and New York have the largest backlogs in the nation at 142,260, 112,733, and 103,054 pending caseloads respectively. While California is the state with the most pending cases, New York City’s immigration court topped the list of immigration courts with highest number at 99,919 pending cases at the end of August.

To view further details see TRAC’s immigration court backlog tool:

http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/

In addition to these most recent overall figures, TRAC continues to offer free monthly reports on selected government agencies such as the FBI, ATF, DHS and the IRS. TRAC’s reports also monitor program categories such as official corruption, drugs, weapons, white collar crime and terrorism. For the latest information on prosecutions and convictions through July 2018, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/bulletins/

Even more detailed criminal enforcement information for the period from FY 1986 through August 2018 is available to TRACFed subscribers via the Express and Going Deeper tools. Go to http://tracfed.syr.edu for more information. Customized reports for a specific agency, district, program, lead charge or judge are available via the TRAC Data Interpreter, either as part of a TRACFed subscription or on a per-report basis. Go to http://trac.syr.edu/interpreter to start.

If you want to be sure to receive notifications whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

http://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1&list=imm

or follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook:

http://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
Suite 360, Newhouse II   
Syracuse, NY 13244-2100
315-443-3563

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

At approximately 20,000 more backlogged cases per month, the “Gonzo-ized” version of the US Immigration Courts are on track to jack the backlog up to 1 million by the end of FY 2019! Talk about self-inflicted, totally unnecessary chaos!

Hiring more new Immigration Judges won’t solve the problem because 1) if they do the job right, they will be slow and deliberative, 2) if they are slow, they will be fired, 3) but if they do it “Gonzo’s way” and give Due Process a pass, many of their cases will be sent back by the Courts of Appeals, adding to the mess.

Gonzo’s recent “My Way or the Highway” speech to new IJs where he unethically urged them to violate their oaths of office by ignoring relevant humanitarian factors in asylum cases (which actually are supposed to be humanitarian adjudications) and just crank out more removal orders to carry out the Administration’s White Nationalist agenda is a prime example of why more judicial bodies can’t solve the problem without a complete overhaul of the system to refocus it on Due Process — and only Due Process.

Someday, the Immigration Courts will become independent of the DOJ. That should include a professionally-administered, transparent, merit-based, judicial selection and retention system with provision for meaningful public input. (Such systems now are used for selection and retention of US Bankruptcy Judges and US Magistrate Judges.) When that happens, those Immigration Judges who “went along to get along” with Gonzo’s xenophobic, anti-immigrant, ignore Due Process system might be challenged to explain why they are best qualified to be retained in a new system that requires fair, impartial, and scholarly judges.

This court system can be fixed, but not by the likes of Gonzo Apocalypto; also, not without giving the Immigration Judges back authority over their dockets and leverage to rein in a totally undisciplined, irresponsible, unprofessional, and out of control ICE. (Responsible, professional, practical, humane leadership at DHS and ICE is also a key ingredient for a well-functioning and efficient court system.)

PWS

09-27-18

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  3. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

LA TO GET MORE US IMMIGRATION JUDGES: But, Head Of Judges’ Association Says Throwing Bodies At Broken, Politicized, Demoralized Court System Won’t Solve The Due Process Crisis!

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=8c9f4727-d315-41f8-bab7-12cef47a2f5d

Andrea Castillo reports for the LA Times:

Amid huge backlog, L.A. will get more immigration judges

Head of national jurist group says they’re ‘being used … as a political tool.’

By Andrea Castillo

Los Angeles has the nation’s second-largest immigration court backlog, with 29 judges handling 72,000 pending cases.

That’s including four judges who started within the last few months. An additional 10 were expected to be sworn in this week, according to Judge Ashley Tabaddor, who leads the National Assn. of Immigration Judges.

But she says that won’t fix the problem.

“We’re just transparently being used as an extension of the executive branch’s law-enforcement policies, and as a political tool,” she said.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions welcomed 44 new judges earlier this month, addressing them at a kickoff for their training with the Executive Office for Immigration Review. He said the administration’s goal is to double the number of judges active when President Trump took office.

“As you take on this critically important role, I hope that you will be imaginative and inventive in order to manage a high-volume caseload,” Sessions told them. “I do not apologize for expecting you to perform, at a high level, efficiently and effectively.”

There are 351 judges in about 60 courts around the country — up from 273 judges in 2016. These judges manage a backlog of nearly 750,000 cases,a figure that has grown from a low of less than 125,000 in 1999. Last year, Sessions introduced a “streamlined hiring plan” that cut the hiring timefor immigration judge candidates by more than half.

The EOIR has the funding for 484 judges by the end of the year, spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly said.

Tabaddor said the impending quotas and production deadlines, which take effect next month, have caused severe anxiety among judges. Justice Department directives that were announced in April outlined a quota system tied to performance evaluations under which judges will be expected to complete 700 cases a year to receive a “satisfactory” rating.

Hiring more judges won’t be enough to alleviate the pressure they’re all under, Tabaddor said.

“It’s pitting the judges’ livelihood against their oath of office, which is to be impartial decision-makers,” she said, calling it an “assembly-line formula.”

Tabaddor said there also isn’t enough space for new judges, so some might not start right away. She described the downtown L.A. offices as cramped, with law clerks sharing offices or cubicles. And she said additional support staff members have yet to be hired.

andrea.castillo@latimes.com

Twitter: @andreamcastillo

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

Yup! As long as the Immigration Courts are under DOJ, and particularly under the rule of “Gonzo Apocalypto,” it will be an exercise in “throwing good money after bad.”  As I’ve said before (perhaps in the LA Times?), what Sessions is doing is like “taking an assembly line that is producing defective cars and making it run faster so that it will produce even more defective cars.” More or less the definition of insanity, or at least “fraud, waste, and abuse” of Government resources. But, accountability went out the window as soon as Trump took over and the GOP controlled both the Executive and Congress.

For a glimpse of what Immigration Court will look like under the new “Gonzo Quotas,” check out this great video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnbNcQlzV-4

We need regime change!

PWS

09-26-18

 

Related posts:

  1. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: HE FIDDLES AS ROME BURNS! — Threats To Judges, Xenophobia, Racism, Cutting Corners, Dissing Respondents & Their Lawyers, Bogus Numbers, Aimlessly Adding Bodies Fail To Stem Tide Of Backlogged Cases In An Obviously Broken System — When Will Congress &/Or The Article IIIs Do Their Jobs By Restoring Due Process, Impartiality, & Competent, Apolitical Court Management To This Sorry Caricature Of A Court System?
  3. THE ROUNDTABLE IN ACTION: HON. ILYCE SHUGALL DELIVERS POWERFUL STATEMENT IN THE LA TIMES ON WHY SHE COULD NO LONGER SERVE AS A JUDGE IN OUR OBSCENELY DISTORTED AND UNFAIR U.S. IMMIGRATON COURT SYSTEM – “But nothing prepared me for the unprecedented, unfair and unworkable policies the Trump administration imposed on the courts and the immigration process.”
  4. THE TRUTH IS OUT, THANKS TO MICHELLE MENDEZ @ CLINIC: Practice Pointers on Matter of Castillo-Perez & “Takeaways” From FOIA Trove On In Absentias!

HERE’S WHAT A RACIST, WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION POLICY LOOKS LIKE, AS TRUMP ATTACKS LEGAL IMMIGRATION! — “[C]ultivating xenophobia, as President Trump has done from the beginning of his campaign, and then trading on that fear to drum up votes, does not create much of a foundation for rational dialogue.”

As usual, CNN’s Tal Kopan and her colleague Tami Luhby give us one of the best summaries of what’s happening:

\

How Trump’s new definition of ‘public charge’ will affect immigrants

By Tami Luhby and Tal Kopan, CNN

The Trump administration is seeking to give itself broad latitude to reject immigrants from the US if they have too little income and education, which could effectively impose a merit-based immigration system without an act of Congress.

The change is put forth in a proposed regulation, which would dramatically reshape how the government defines an immigrant likely to be dependent on the government.

President Donald Trump has long touted what he calls a merit-based system of immigration, backing a legislative proposal that would have heavily favored English-speaking, highly educated and high-earning immigrants over lower-skilled and lower-income applicants.

Quietly announced Saturday night, the proposed regulation could give the administration the authority to reshape the population of US immigrants in that direction without legislation.

The rule would mean many green card and visa applicants could be turned down if they have low incomes or little education because they’d be deemed more likely to need government assistance — such as Medicaid or food stamps — in the future.

The proposal applies to those looking to come to the US and those already here looking to extend their stay. And even if immigrants decide not to use public benefits they may be eligible for, the government could, under the proposed rule, still decide they are likely to do so “at any time in the future” and thus reject them from the US.

The administration says the proposed revamp of the so-called public charge rule is designed to ensure immigrants can support themselves financially.

“This proposed rule will implement a law passed by Congress intended to promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Saturday.

But immigration advocates say it goes far beyond what Congress intended and will discriminate against those from poorer countries, keep families apart and prompt legal residents to forgo needed public aid, which could also impact their US citizen children.

They also say it will penalize even hard-working immigrants who only need a small bit of temporary assistance from the government.

“(The proposed rule) would radically reshape our legal immigration system, putting the wealthy at the front of the line, ahead of hardworking families who have waited years to reunite,” a coalition of more than 1,100 community advocacy groups wrote in a statement this week. “No longer would the US be a beacon for the world’s dreamers and strivers. Instead, America’s doors would be open only to the highest bidder.”

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/25/politics/immigration-public-benefits/index.html

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Meanwhile, editorials in the NY Times and the LA Times blasted the Administration’s latest anti-immigrant actions:

The NY Times says:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/opinion/editorials/immigrants-welfare-benefits-trump-administration.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20180925&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=2&nlid=79213886emc%3Dedit_ty_20180925&ref=headline&te=1

An Unhealthy Plan to Drive Out Immigrants

Denying green cards or visas to those on Medicaid or food stamps will only cost the United States more later.

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

The Department of Homeland Security, headed by Kirstjen Nielsen, has proposed a new rule that would deny green cards or visas to immigrants here legally who have used public assistance.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

The Trump administration has taken another step in its program to use fear and cruelty to drive out legal, as well as illegal, immigrants.

On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a rule that would enable it to deny green cards and visas to immigrants here legally who have used public health and nutrition assistance, including Medicaid and food stamps.

The United States already denies green cards and visas to applicants likely to become “public charges.” But that designation has generally referred only to a narrow set of people who need cash assistance or long-term institutionalization.

The new rules would also offer some exemptions — participation in the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program and the Children’s Health Insurance Program would be excluded, for example, as would refugees and asylum seekers and minors with Special Immigrant Juvenile status, meaning they had been abused or neglected.

But it’s not clear that those exemptions would provide sufficient protection. The Kaiser Family Foundation has indicated that fear of being denied residency would most likely cause immigrants to withdraw from both the targeted and the exempted programs. As Politico has reported, even when the current proposal was just a rumor, immigrants began withdrawing from these programs in droves. What’s more, not everyone who should be able to seek asylum or obtain special juvenile status is able to do so.

The Department of Human Services estimates that as many as 382,000 people would be affected by the new rule each year. There is no estimate yet on how many of them would be deemed to be public charges, but that number is likely to be far higher than under the current rules.

Which, of course, is the point. In an announcement on Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that she expected the rule to “promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers.”

That rationale is both callous and foolish: Scaring vulnerable populations off public assistance is likely to cost much more in the long run, in part because neglecting preventive health care and basic medical problems makes patients only more expensive to treat down the road. What’s more, Kaiser estimates that more than eight million children who are citizens but have at least one noncitizen parent will be caught in the cross hairs.

The Trump administration, however, is betting that a very public effort to crack down on immigrants, whether they’re here legally or not, will motivate its political base in time for the midterm elections. It’s just one more part of a package that has so far included an effort to detain indefinitely minors who have crossed the border and another to cap the number of refugees at its lowest level ever. It’s the border wall, without the wall.

There’s a real debate to be had over the criteria to decide who can stay in this country and who must go. What is the right way to manage family migration? Or evaluate asylum claims? Or weigh American labor needs against the skills of prospective visa holders? But cultivating xenophobia, as President Trump has done from the beginning of his campaign, and then trading on that fear to drum up votes, does not create much of a foundation for rational dialogue.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion).

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

Here’s what the LA Times had to say:

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=b270b5ea-1b78-4f77-86a2-3aa238bcde0b

The ‘public charge’ pretext
In an effort to make it more difficult for legal immigrants to live and work in the United States, the Trump administration proposed new rules over the weekend giving officials the right to withhold green cards from applicants who take advantage of a wide range of government programs to which they are legally entitled, including food and housing aid.
And for prospective immigrants who apply for visas from overseas, government officials would have broad power to reject people whom they believe might someday in the future tap government programs for financial support. That change, experts say, will reduce the overall flow of immigration and skew it toward people seeking to emigrate from more advanced countries.
These are unnecessarily strict and hard-hearted rules aimed at solving a problem that social scientists say doesn’t exist.
The government has for decades rejected visa requests and green card applications from people who are likely to become “public charges,” defined since 1999 as “ primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.” That has usually been interpreted, reasonably, to mean people who rely on cash support or people who would require institutional care. Furthermore, the Clinton-era welfare reforms already put major aid programs out of reach for most legal immigrants until they’ve been here for five years; undocumented immigrants are barred from nearly all public support.
Now, however, the administration wants to consider a legal immigrant a “public charge” if he or she receives government benefits exceeding $1,821 (15% of the federal poverty guidelines) over 12 months. The net effect, advocates for immigrants argue, will be a self-purging of people living and working here legally from the rolls of Medicaid, food subsidies and housing support, among other programs.
The government estimates that the new regulations would negatively affect 382,000 people, but advocates say that is likely an undercount. And the rules would keep people from coming to the country who economists say are vital for the nation’s economic growth . President Trump’s xenophobic view of the world stands in sharp contradiction not only to American values, but to its history. We are a country of immigrants or their descendants, and as a maturing society we will rely more and more on immigration for growth. Research shows that even those who start out in low-wage jobs, and thus are likely to get some financial help from the government, often learn skills that move them into higher income brackets and help the overall economy .
These proposed regulations would force immigrants in low-paying jobs to reject help to which they are legally entitled — and which could speed them along the path to financial security — or to jeopardize their ability to remain here. That’s a cruel Solomon’s choice.

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

The “Trump GOP” has clearly abandoned the pretense that they are only against illegal immigration. By attacking refugees and other legal immigrants they are making it clear that immigrants no longer are welcome in our “Nation of Immigrants.” Sounds pretty stupid, not to mention unrealistic. But, that’s the essence of “Trumpism.”

PWS

09-25-18

Related posts:

  1. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  2. TRUMP, MILLER, & “COOCH COOCH” ARE AS INTELLECTUALLY DULL AS THEY ARE RACIST — “USEFUL IDIOTS” PROVE NO MATCH FOR SMART WOMEN: CNN’S ERIN BURNETT, HUFFPOST’S SARAH RUIZ-GROSSMAN, HISTORIAN ANNIE POLLAND, & VANITY FAIR’S BESS LEVIN — No Wonder The Administration’s  Malicious Incompetents Surround Themselves With (Mostly Old White Male) Folks Who Might Be Even Dumber (But Not More Vile) Than They Are!
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”

INSIDE EOIR: How Sessions’s White Nationalist Anti-Due-Process Agenda Inspires Idiocy @ EOIR!

https://www.hoppocklawfirm.com/post-pereira-the-doj-chooses-harsh-ij-performance-metrics-over-compliance-with-supreme-court-mandate/

Post-Pereira, the DOJ Chooses Harsh IJ Performance Metrics Over Compliance With Supreme Court Mandate

by | Sep 20, 2018 | Immigration, Immigration Practice | 1 comment

Post-Pereira, the DOJ Chooses Harsh IJ Performance Metrics Over Compliance With Supreme Court Mandate

It now appears the Department of Justice has chosen not to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision in Pereira v. Sessions solely because doing so would conflict with the agency’s self-imposed deportation quotas it is placing on Immigration Judges, which go into effect October 1, 2018. The story unfolds in a series of e-mail messages obtained through FOIA and involve the interplay of two federal agencies tasked with separate responsibilities in the process of deciding whether to deport a person charged with being removable.

Much Ado About Scheduling Hearings

The basic issue raised by Pereirais that the immigration statute requires an immigration court charging document to list the date and time of the hearing. The Supreme Court said in Pereirathat a Notice to Appear (commonly known by its acronym: “NTA”) that doesn’t contain the date and time “is not a notice to appear” at all, which means arguably the proceedings were invalid and unlawful from the beginning.

Imagine having to go to traffic court even though the police officer wrote your ticket on a napkin, didn’t sign it, and it didn’t tell you when and where your court would be (or what you were being charged with). You or your attorney would march into court arguing this isn’t really a ticket, so why on earth am I even here? You would easily get the proceedings thrown out, because they were started improperly.

The difference here is that unlike traffic court, immigration court can result in lifetime expulsion from the United States, for individuals who may have a good reason to fear being harmed or killed if deported. And not showing up to court means an automatic order of removal.

Solving this problem would be simple. As the Supreme Court observed in Pereira: 

As the Government concedes, ‘a scheduling system previously enabled DHS and the immigration court to coordinate in setting hearing dates in some cases.’ Given today’s advanced software capabilities, it is hard to imagine why DHS and immigration courts could not again work together to schedule hearings before sending notices to appear.

If the system already exists, why weren’t they already using it?

The problem results from the decision by Congress in 2003 to separate of INS into two separate agencies: (1) the immigration courts (under the umbrella of the Department of Justice; and (2) the Department of Homeland Security, which is the prosecutor in immigration court cases.

The system for scheduling hearings (called “Interactive Scheduling System” or “ISS”) is owned by the Department of Justice, so it has sole decision-making power on whether the DHS, a separate agency, can access it and schedule hearings on its own. The DOJ ended that access at some point and has never restored it. Without access to that system, DHS has decided to fudge the date and time – issue NTAs with a line for the date and time but simply write “to be determined” on the line. And they have done that on most charging documents filed for the last 20 or so years.

This disconnect has resulted in a number of problems, the most serious of which is that immigrants don’t know when their hearing date is, so they miss the date and get ordered removed in in absentia (as happened to the immigrant in Pereira).

The Pereira decision left the DOJ with a pretty clear command from the Supreme Court: turn your system back on so DHS can schedule hearings. Most who practice in this area thought the Department of Justice would comply. Unfortunately, they haven’t.

Despite Pereira, EOIR Vacillates on Whether to Turn on ISS

Through a series of FOIA requests it has started to become clear what the agency decided to do after Pereira: nothing.

The Pereira decision was issued on June 21, 2018. Early on June 22, 2018 Rene Cervantes, the court administrator for the San Diego Immigration Court, e-mailed Rico Bartolomei Jr, the Assistant Chief Immigration Judge for that area, asking if the court should keep accepting the filing of NTAs by DHS without the date and time, despite what the Supreme court had just quite plainly said.

Bartolome responded that there had been no guidance from the DOJ, so for now they would keep accepting deficient NTAs for filing. By mid-afternoon on the 22nd, the discussion turned to whether the Department of Justice would “turn on ISS ASAP,” meaning enabling the DHS to access its scheduling system so it could file compliant notices to appear.

The answer was received that evening from Print Maggard, Deputy Chief Immigration Judge, that the decision of Director James McHenry was that “at this time we are not turning on ISS.”

By June 25, 2018 it looked like the DOJ had decided to turn the ISS system back on. In an e-mail Christopher Santoro, Principal Deputy Chief Immigration Judge, wrote that the only problem was timing, writing:

“[W]e were also told that, consistent with the benchmarks that went out with the new court performance measures, we need to get detained NTAs their first MC within 10 days of filing and non-detained NTAs their first MC within 90 days of filing. We also cannot be “full” – in other words, if DHS wants to file an NTA, there must be a slot for them to schedule it in within 10/90 days.”

Santoro was referring to the new Immigration Judge quotas going into effect on October 1, 2018. Since President Trump took office, the immigration court backlog has skyrocketed while case processing has slowed.

In response, the Attorney General has ordered draconian benchmarks which will require, among other things, that every judge in the country enter at least 700 orders per year. These measures are designed turn immigration courts into deportation machines – multiple Attorney General opinions have stripped judges of decision-making power while the agency orders more and more decisions to be made.

Relevant here, the new IJ quotas require detained hearings to be scheduled within 10 days of the prosecutor, DHS, filing the NTA with the court.

A June 25, 2018 e-mail from Mark Pasierb, chief clerk to the Immigration Court, explained that the ISS schedule system only has a certain number of slots for hearings with each judge each day. Thus, if the next ten days are “full,” allowing the DHS to access the ISS system will require it to pick a day that is beyond the DOJ’s self-imposed deportation quotas.

On June 27, 2018, Chief Immigration Judge Mary-Beth Keller sent out a timetable for when ISS would be turned on. She wrote that  “effective immediately, NTAs filed at the window that do not specify the time and place of the hearing should be rejected.” She added that by July 2, 2018, the DOJ would turn the ISS system back on for non-detained cases and by July 16, 2018 for detained cases. However, that advice did not last long.

By July 11, 2018, the EOIR had decided officially to continue accepting non-compliant NTAs. Santoro e-mailed all court staff writing:

The Department has concluded that, even after Pereira, EOIR should accept Notices to Appear that do not contain the time and place of the hearing. Accordingly, effective immediately, courts should begin accepting TBD NTAs.

The DOJ Chooses Self-Imposed Deportation Quotas Over Complying With the Supreme Court.

What the June 25 Christopher Santoro e-mail reveals is that while the DOJ definitely has the power to turn on its scheduling system to comply with the Pereira decision, it does not want to, because it does not want that process (essentially ordered by the Supreme Court) to affect its new mega-deportation benchmarks that start on October 1, 2018.

The results are already being felt in Immigration Courts around the country. Without being able to access ISS, the prosecutors whose job it is to file these charging documents are just writing made-up dates or “dummy dates” on the charging documents. It’s hard to envision how the agency can get away with that; attorneys who file documents they know to be false (including having a pretend hearing date) are subject to discipline by their state bar.

More urgently, the people who receive these documents are showing up in court, sometimes within days, scheduling to travel across the country at times to attend a court hearing that was never even scheduled and is not going to take place.

Until the EOIR chooses to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision in Pereira (likely after parties are forced to litigate these issues in federal court) it is not clear there is any solution to this problem on the horizon.

  • Solving this problem isn’t “rocket science,” but it does exceed the collective abilities of the perpetuators of “Clown Court” (as the great Yogi Berra said, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”);
  • Sessions’s scofflaw, “haste makes waste,” attitude is now the “order of the day” at EOIR, which once purported to be a court system, not an ICE deportation office;
  • The DOJ & EOIR lack the competence to fairly and effectively administer a court system;
  • EOIR needs to go and be replaced with an independent court system outside the Executive’s control.

I will be fascinated to see how the DOJ attorneys defend this one before the Article IIIs with a “straight face” (or not).

Another day, another abuse of our justice system by Jeff Sessions and the “go alongs to get alongs” who are unwilling to stand up to him.

Many thanks to Matthew for shedding some much-needed light on the shady practices within EOIR & DOJ.

It would all be funny if people’s lives weren’t at stake.

PWS

09-21-18

Related posts:

  1. HALLOWEEN HORROR STORY: Opaque & Biased Politicized Judicial Hiring Denies Migrants The Fair & Impartial Adjudication To Which They Are Constitutionally Entitled – Given The Generous Legal Standards, A Worldwide Refugee Crisis, & Asylum Officers’ Positive Findings In Most Cases, Asylum Seekers Should Be Winning The Vast Majority Of Immigration Court Cases — Instead, They Are Being “Railroaded” By A Biased System & Complicit Article III Courts!
  2. TRUTH MATTERS: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: AILA Blasts EOIR’s False & Unethical Anti-Asylum Screed! — “Together, the document’s deceptive information and polarizing rhetoric further undermines the court system’s ability to be a neutral arbiter of justice and comes at a time when there is a severe lack of public confidence in its capacity to deliver fair and timely decisions. EOIR’s skewed portrayal only demonstrates the urgent need for Congress to create an independent court, separate from DOJ.”
  3. IMMIGRATION COURTS: After Two Years Of Trump Administration Anti-Immigrant Shenanigans At EOIR, The Backlog Has Mushroomed To 975,298, Morale Has Hit Rock Bottom, & Due Process Is Mocked Every Day — There Is A Solution, But Will Our Republic Survive Enough To Reach It?
  4. 😎👍🏼🥂SHEEEEEEE’S BACK! TAL KOPAN @ SF CHRON RETURNS TO THE “IMMIGRATION BEAT” WITH A POWERFUL IN-DEPTH LOOK AT HOW AMERICA’S MOST DYSFUNCTIONAL “COURT SYSTEM” PREDICTABLY SCREWED UP THE COVID-19 RESPONSE WHILE DEEPENING HUMAN MISERY INFLICTED ON THE “BACKLOGGED” — “’There isn’t a day that goes by that there isn’t mass chaos behind this veil of business as usual,’ said Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.”

GOOD NEWS: En Banc 9th Cir. Will Rehear C.J.L.G. v. Sessions On Children’s Right To Counsel in Removal – Oral Argument Set For Dec. 10, 2018 — “Our Gang’s” Amicus Brief Appears To Have Helped!

Lee Brand, Partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in Palo Alto, CA and his amazing group of brief write gave us the good news this afternoon and sent along these orders granting the rehearing en banc and setting OA:

CJLGOrder 2 CJLGOrder

Many thanks to Lee and his dedicated group of superstar members of the “New Due Process Army” without whom this effort would not have been possible.

Here’s a copy of the Amicus Brief from “Our Gang of Retired Judges:”

2018.03.15 CJLG Amicus Brief of IJs

This is one of many important Federal Court and BIA cases in which “Our Gang” under the leadership of Judge Jeffrey Chase and Judge Lory Rosenberg have filed amicus briefs informing the courts of the realities of Immigration Court practice and the current sad state of Due Process in the courts. We’re working on some additional “assignments.” We’ll keep fighting for fairness, Due Process, and judicial independence as long as we’re “alive and kicking.”

Here’s a brief report form Jeffrey:

I am sending this to our now much larger full group.  One of the early amicus briefs in which 11 members of our gang participated was filed in support of a motion for rehearing en banc before the 9th Cir. in CJLG v. Sessions.  In that case, an IJ went forward with the asylum hearing of a 15 year old respondent who was unable to retain counsel, telling his mother that she would represent him.  Not surprisingly, asylum was denied based on the respondent’s inability to state a cognizable social group and to establish the government was unable/unwilling to control.  The ACLU filed a petition for review in the 9th Cir. arguing that minors should be assigned counsel in removal proceedings, which was dismissed by a 3 judge panel.

Today, the 9th Cir. granted the motion for rehearing en banc; oral arguments are set for Dec. 10.
So far, of the cases in which our gang submitted amicus briefs, there have been successful outcomes in Negusie (before the BIA), and in Matumona v. Sessions in the 10th Cir., in which OIL stipulated to remand for the BIA to consider the arguments raised on appeal (which concerned the impact of remote detention centers on the respondent’s ability to retain counsel).

It’s an honor to be a member of “Our Gang” and to have the opportunity to work with the many outstanding pro bono counsel and firms throughout the country who are part of the “New Due Process Army.”  The efforts of these wonderful lawyers represent the real commitment to the “rule of law” in immigration and stand in sharp contrast with the jaundiced views and insults to the legal profession publicly proclaimed by Jeff Sessions.

If you are a retired Immigration Judge or BIA Appellate Immigration Judge and would like to join our collegial group effort, please contact Jeffrey, Lory, or me. It’s a rewarding experience and a great opportunity to use your expertise to “make a difference.” It’s also a great chance to keep in touch with your judicial colleagues. It’s not all work (that’s where our wonderful pro bono lawyers come in) — we also have some fun, good times, and fond recollections in the process. (Judge Gus “Hang 10” Villageliu has promised free (non-web) surfing lessons to all new members once hurricane season is past!)

Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-20-18

Related posts:

  1. RETIRED US IMMIGRATION JUDGES FILE AMICUS BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF MINOR RESPONDENT’S RIGHT TO COUNSEL IN 9TH CIRCUIT EN BANC REQUEST – C.J.L.G. v. Sessions, 9th Cir., Filed March 15, 2018 – Read It Here!
  2. ROUND TABLE NEWS:  Getting The Due Process Message Across — 9th Cir. Orders Regime To Respond To Round Table’s Amicus Briefs in Matter of A-B- Challenges!
  3. HON. JEFFREY CHASE RETURNS WITH MORE ANALYSIS OF RETIRED JUDGES’ AMICUS BRIEF IN C.J.L.G. V. SESSIONS
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

SESSIONS PLANS TO EXPAND “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” BY ELIMINATING BONDS FOR THOSE WITH A CREDIBLE FEAR OF PERSECUTION – AG Now Intends To Overrule Matter of X-K-, 23 I&N Dec. 731 (BIA 2005) – Matter of M-G-G-, 27 I&N Dec. 27 I&N Dec. 469 (A.G. 2018)

MGG-Bond3938

Here it is in all of its in-glory:

Cite as 27 I&N Dec. 469 (A.G. 2018) Interim Decision #3938

Matter of M-G-G-, Respondent

Decided by Attorney General September 18, 2018

U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General

The Attorney General referred the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals to himself for review of issues relating to the authority to hold bond hearings for certain aliens screened for expedited removal proceedings, ordering that the case be stayed during the pendency of his review.

BEFORE THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

Pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(h)(1)(i) (2018), I direct the Board of Immigration Appeals (“Board”) to refer this case to me for review of its decision. The Board’s decision in this matter is automatically stayed pending my review. See Matter of Haddam, A.G. Order No. 2380-2001 (Jan. 19, 2001). To assist me in my review, I invite the parties to these proceedings and interested amici to submit briefs on points relevant to the disposition of this case, including:

Whether Matter of X-K-, 23 I&N Dec. 731 (BIA 2005), which held that immigration judges may hold bond hearings for certain aliens screened from expedited removal proceedings under section 235(b)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1), into removal proceedings under section 240, 8 U.S.C. § 1229a, should be overruled in light of Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S. Ct. 830 (2018).

The parties’ briefs shall not exceed 15,000 words and shall be filed on or before October 9, 2018. Interested amici may submit briefs not exceeding 9,000 words on or before October 16, 2018. The parties may submit reply briefs not exceeding 6,000 words on or before October 16, 2018. All filings shall be accompanied by proof of service and shall be submitted electronically to AGCertification@usdoj.gov, and in triplicate to:

United States Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General, Room 5114 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530

All briefs must be both submitted electronically and postmarked on or before the pertinent deadlines. Requests for extensions are disfavored.

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

More reductions in the authority of U.S. Immigraton Judges on tap. They are rapidly being reduced to the status of “Robed Deportation Officers.” If Sessions were around long enough, I’m sure he eventually would have them disrobed and dressed in DHS Uniforms to represent their true function.

This is sure to “tee up” some big-time Fifth Amendment Constitutional litigation in the Article IIIs regarding the Government’s authority to detain indefinitely without bond. And, those who have passed credible fear and their children probably present the “best conceivable” plaintiffs for those challenging the indefinite detention authority. Moreover, since bond cases initially are reviewed in U.S. District Courts, rather than in Courts of Appeals, Sessions will be setting up the possibility of lots of different U.S. District Judges getting into the act, as well as the possibility for other nationwide injunctions.

The Administration will also face a strong Fifth Amendment challenge to its proposed “kiddie detention” regulations. Moreover, Jennings v. Rodriguez is actually on remand for the Ninth Circuit to consider the plaintiffs Constitutional challenge to indefinite detention without bond hearings.

So, in addition to artificially “jacking up the Immigration Court backlogs” Sessions has found a way to keep the Federal Courts occupied with avoidable Constitutional litigation on many fronts. At some point, that should impair the Federal Courts ability to hear anything except immigration disputes and start “jacking up” their backlogs of other types of cases.

Given the total fiasco of his “zero tolerance policy,” more mindless detention of asylum seekers and their families doesn’t seem to be a national priority to anybody except the Trump/Sessions White Nationalist Cabal.

As I’ve observed before, knowing that his time in office is likely to end after the November midterms, Sessions is working furiously to inflict as much permanent damage on the U.S. justice system and to harm as many migrants, particularly refugees and asylum seekers, as possible before Trump throws him out.

Whether intentionally or not, Sessions is focusing attention on three things that a future more responsible Congress must address:

  • Getting the Immigration Courts out of the Executive Branch so that never again can they be co-opted by a White Nationalist extremist like Sessions;
  • Severely curtailing both the authority and the funding for civil immigration detention by the Executive;
  • Amending the asylum law to serve its original generous protection purposes by codifying the “benefit of the doubt” standard and specifically stating that “gender” shall be considered a “particular social group” under the refugee and asylum laws. 

Until then, expect lots of unnecessary pain and suffering to be gratuitously inflicted on the most vulnerable among us.

Obama and the Democrats had the chance to make these changes, as well as to protect Dreamers, back in 2009. They blew it! Now refugees and immigrants are paying the price.

PWS

09-19-18

 

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM COURTSIDE! — I Take A Look Forward @ 2019’s Big Immigration Stories
  2. REPORT # 2 FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “APPELLATE LITIGATION IN TODAY’S BROKEN AND BIASED IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM: FOUR STEPS TO A WINNING COUNTERATTACK BY THE RELENTLESS ‘NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY’”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

FRAUD, WASTE, & ABUSE CONTINUE AS ICE ISSUES NOTICES WITH “FAKE” EOIR COURT DATES — Are The Incompetents @ ICE & EOIR Creating A “Pereira II Debacle” With Yet Another “Haste Makes Waste” Approach?

https://thinkprogress.org/ice-undocumented-immigrants-dummy-court-dates-6fed9d1ef4e7/

Rebekah Entralgo reports for Think Progress:

ICE is giving undocumented immigrants ‘dummy’ court dates

Immigrants are being told to arrive at the courthouse on dates that don’t even exist.

REBEKAH ENTRALGO 
Some undocumented immigrants living in the United States have received documents, ordering them to arrive at the courthouse for hearings at midnight, on weekends, or on dates that don't exist such as September 31, the Dallas Morning News reported this week. (Photo credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
SOME UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS LIVING IN THE UNITED STATES HAVE RECEIVED DOCUMENTS, ORDERING THEM TO ARRIVE AT THE COURTHOUSE FOR HEARINGS AT MIDNIGHT, ON WEEKENDS, OR ON DATES THAT DON’T EXIST SUCH AS SEPTEMBER 31, THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS REPORTED THIS WEEK. (PHOTO CREDIT: ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES)

Some undocumented immigrants living in the United States have received fake documents, ordering them to arrive at the courthouse at midnight, on weekends, or on dates that don’t exist, such as September 31, according to a report by The Dallas Morning News.

According to the outlet, roughly two dozen immigrants arrived at a Texas courthouse last week for their hearings only to be turned away by court staffers who told them their names were not on the docket and that they had been given “fake dates.”

The immigrants had been taken into custody during a raid conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last month. Some 159 undocumented immigrants, many of them without a criminal record, were detained at the Load Trail trailer factory in Sumner, Texas “about 100 miles northeast of Dallas.”

According to the Morning News, the raid was described by ICE officials as “one of the largest such operations at a single workplace in a decade.”

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents arrested alleged immigration violators at Fresh Mark, Salem, June 19, 2018. Image courtesy ICE ICE / U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

55 undocumented immigrants remain in ICE custody after one of the largest raids in a decade

The immigrants were later given their “fake” court dates by ICE officials, who apparently never coordinated with immigration courts to clear the dates, resulting in what advocates have described as “chaos.”

“The immigration court system is confusing enough on a normal day,” Ashley Huebner, associate director of legal services at the National Immigrant Justice Center, told the Morning News. “But to have an individual who probably does not speak English…and receives a document in which DHS has purposely listed a fake date and time is a real different level of confusion and absurdity.”

“Fake dates,” sometimes called “dummy dates,” are not a phenomenon unique to Texas. According to the Morning News, reports of fake court dates have sprung up in Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami.

Neither the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, nor the Justice Department have offered a clear explanation for why undocumented immigrants are being handed fake court dates.

ICE spokesman Tim Oberle shifted the blame to a court agency known as the Executive Office for Immigration Review saying it “is responsible for setting and resetting appearance dates upon receipt of a notice to appear filed by” ICE.

The court debacle comes as the national immigration backlog continues to grow at an astonishing rate. Reports suggest that, even without any new arrests, it could take up to four years to eliminate the backlog in its entirety.

Additionally, ICE has requested $1 billion dollars from the federal government to keep with the Trump administration’s demands of detaining an average of 43,000 undocumented immigrants a day. Health and Human Services officials have also requested hundreds of additional beds at a juvenile detention camp in Tornillo, Texas, to partly accommodate the surge in detained minors over the past year.

As ThinkProgress previously reported, the current number of children detained in immigration facilities stands at nearly 13,000.

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

Come on, Man! Figuring out how to serve Notices to Appear with correct court dates is hardly “rocket science,” as pointed out by the Supremes in Pereira. To be fair, the “original Periera problem” began during previous Administrations. But, under Jeff Sessions, the DHS and DOJ have shown an uncanny ability to mindlessly and incompetently “double down” on every illegal and/or unwise immigration policy or program that has failed in the past.

Since Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump, and Kirstjen Nielsen don’t believe in tempering justice with mercy, perhaps it’s just as well that their cruelty and stupidity is often tempered with incompetence.

PWS

09-18-18

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!
  3. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮👎🏻IN NYT OP-ED, FORMER TRUMP DOJ ATTORNEY ERICA NEWLAND ADMITS COMPLICITY! — Having Undermined Democratic Institutions, Sold False Narratives To (Too Often Willing) Federal Judges, & Participated In Racist-Inspired “Dred Scottification” (“Dehumanization”) Of the Other Is Actually a BIG Deal! — So Is The Destruction Of Due Process & Fundamental Fairness In The Immigration Courts (Now, “Clown Courts”🤡, or “America’s Star Chambers”☠️) 
  4. TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION POLICY: “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE!” — Also, ICE Intentionally Falsifies Court Hearing Dates — Where Is The Accountability?

SUPREME’S “SLEEPER CASE” PEREIRA V. SESSIONS ROILING THE WATERS IN IMMIGRATION COURTS – DHS’S & EOIR’S Questionable Approach In Thumbing Their Noses At Court’s Analysis Might Result In Hundreds Of Thousands Of Additional Unnecessary “Redos” In The Future!

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/17/648832694/supreme-court-ruling-means-thousands-of-deportation-cases-may-be-tossed-out

Joel Rose reports for NPR:

The Trump administration’s push to deport more immigrants in the country illegally has hit a legal speed bump.

For years, immigration authorities have been skipping one simple step in the process: When they served notices to appear in court, they routinely left the court date blank. Now, because of that omission and a recent Supreme Court decision, tens of thousands of deportation cases could be delayed, or tossed out altogether.

“I’m not sure if the Supreme Court knew what they were doing,” said Marshall Whitehead, an immigration lawyer in Phoenix. “But the end result of this is a major impact.”

The Supreme Court’s decision in the case known as Pereira v. Sessions didn’t get much attention when it was announced in June, partly because it seemed so technical. The court ruled 8 to 1 that immigration authorities did not follow the law when they filled out the paperwork in that case. They served an immigrant with a notice to appear in court but didn’t say when and where the hearing would be held.

Judge Halts Family Deportations For Now

NATIONAL

Judge Halts Family Deportations For Now

“Basically the Supreme Court decision said look, you’re not following the statute,” Whitehead said. “So this notice to appear was ruled as being invalid.”

That seemingly minor technicality has big implications.

Consider the case of Whitehead’s client, Jose Silva Reyes, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. He was living in Arizona, under law enforcement’s radar, for years — until 2010, when he ran a red light and got into a car accident.

Since then, Silva Reyes has been fighting in immigration court to stay in the country with his wife, a green card holder, and two kids who are citizens. He was due in court for his final deportation hearing last month, when the case against him was suddenly thrown out.

“When they told me that my case was terminated, I felt good,” Silva Reyes said, speaking through an interpreter.

Like many undocumented immigrants caught up in President Trump’s recent crackdown, Silva Reyes has been in the U.S. for more than 10 years. If you’ve lived in the U.S. for a decade without getting into trouble, and without ever getting a notice to appear in immigration court, you could be eligible to stay. Now, thanks to the Supreme Court, these immigrants can argue they never got a valid notice to appear in that 10-year time frame.

But the Supreme Court ruling could have an even wider impact.

Immigration lawyers are arguing that if any immigrant received a defective notice to appear, the whole deportation case is invalid. Silva Reyes’ lawyer, Marshall Whitehead, says he has already gotten dozens of cases tossed out using this line of reasoning.

“I’m only one attorney, and I’ve got 200 cases I’m looking at,” Whitehead said. “So you can see the massive numbers that we’re talking about across the United States.”

But the federal government is fighting back. Government lawyers are appealing, arguing that immigration authorities did eventually notify immigrants about the time and place of their hearings, just not right away. And, in August, they won an important case before the Board of Immigration Appeals, which oversees the nation’s immigration judges, that could limit the impact of the Pereira ruling.

Still, all of this is straining an already overburdened court system.

“The Supreme Court throws a monkey wrench into what was already a not very smoothly functioning system, and things just get worse,” says former immigration judge Andrew Arthur, who is now a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors lower levels of immigration.

The backlog in immigration courts has reached a record of nearly 750,000 cases, according to TRAC, an immigration research project at Syracuse University. And it’s still climbing — thanks in part to this technicality.

The Department of Justice declined to comment on the Supreme Court ruling and its impact. Attorney General Jeff Sessions hasn’t addressed it publicly. But he has criticized immigration lawyers for scouring the nation’s immigration laws, looking for loopholes.

“Good lawyers, using all of their talents and skill, work every day — like water seeping through an earthen dam — to get around the plain words of the [Immigration and Nationality Act] to advance their clients’ interests,” Sessions said earlier this month.

In this case, though, the Supreme Court found that it’s immigration authorities who have been ignoring the “plain language” of the law. Does immigration lawyer Marshall Whitehead feel bad about winning on a technicality?

“Well, technicalities is how we win and lose cases,” Whitehead said. “I’ve lost a lot of cases on technicalities.”

If it allows his clients to stay in the U.S. with their families, Whitehead says, you can call it whatever you want.

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

The “smart approach” would have been for DHS Counsel not to oppose termination, but to be prepared to exercise their right to immediately reserve the respondent with a proper NTA showing the actual time, date and place for a hearing. Not much to lose, since in most cases the respondent would stipulate to the use of any testimony or evidence taken in the prior hearing.

But, by contesting the terminations, and because the BIA wrongfully “blew off” the Supreme’s “plain language” reasoning in Matter of Bermudez-Cota, 27 I&N Dec. 441 (BIA 2018) (both Judge Jeffrey Chase and I have blogged about this recently), the DHS and EOIR have intentionally created an appealable issue in every case where the motion to terminate is denied and the respondent eventually loses.

If some or all Circuits disagree with the BIA’s interpretation (as is likely) and the Supremes stick with their prior “plain language” determination, DHS and EOIR could face the prospect of having to re-calendar hundreds of thousands of already completed cases. And for what? Nothing that I can see except the arrogance of not wanting to concede the inevitable.

And, let’s not forget that, as noted by the Supremes, the entire “Pereira mess” was self-created anyway. DHS & EOIR actually had the technology — called “interactive scheduling” — to issue valid Notices to Appear. Instead, in yet another “haste makes waste” move they cut corners rather than solving the problem.

Think we don’t need some “new competent management” over at DHS/ICE and EOIR? Guess again!

PWS

09-18-18

Related posts:

  1. 11TH CIR: BIA GETS IT WRONG IN DENYING JOURNALIST’S MTR — CONCURRING OPINION HINTS THAT MAJORITY OF “SESSIONS LEGACY BACKLOG” MIGHT HAVE BEEN ILLEGALLY INSTITUTED!
  2. EFFECTS OF TRUMP SHUTDOWN, “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE” CONTINUE TO ROIL U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM, SCREW MIGRANTS WHO FAITHFULLY SHOW UP FOR “FAKE” HEARINGS! – Trump Shut Down USG Over A Bogus “National Immigration Emergency” While Deeming Immigration Courts “Nonessential!” – Would ICE Agents Dare File “Charging Documents” Containing False Information With “Real” U.S. Courts?
  3. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

SCOFFLAW SESSIONS SLAMMED AGAIN BY FEDERAL JUDGE! — WHITE NATIONALIST OBSESSION WITH PUNISHING “SANCTUARY CITIES” UNLAWFUL AS WELL AS STUPID — “For a federal officer charged with upholding the law, Jeff Sessions seems to need an awful lot of reminding of what the law says. It’s time he took the lessons he’s getting from federal courts to heart.”

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-sessions-sanctuary-20180917-story.html

Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist Michael Hiltzik reports for the LA Times:

Another judge slaps down Jeff Sessions for trying to punish ‘sanctuary’ cities like L.A.

By
SEP 17, 2018 | 2:55 PM
Another judge slaps down Jeff Sessions for trying to punish 'sanctuary' cities like L.A.
Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions just can’t win in his attempts to punish local communities for “sanctuary” laws. (Aaron P. Bernstein / Getty Images)

Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions must be getting tired of so much winning in his campaign to punish cities and states with the temerity to challenge his attempted crackdown on immigration.

In the latest episode, U.S. Judge Manuel L. Real of Los Angeles enjoined him from withholding more than $1 million in federal law enforcement assistance funding from L.A. because the city declared itself a “sanctuary” community. Real ruled that Sessions was way out of line in attempting to add conditions to a federal grant program designed to be based strictly on a community’s population and crime rates.

Real’s injunction tracks a nationwide injunction issued in April by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. In that case, brought by the city of Chicago, the appellate panel ruled 2-1 that Sessions’ actions “evince … a disturbing disregard for the separation of powers” principle enshrined in the Constitution.

The Attorney General repeatedly characterizes the issue as whether localities can be allowed to thwart federal law enforcement. That is a red herring.

7TH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS
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“The power of the purse does not belong to the Executive Branch,” the majority reminded Sessions. “It rests in the Legislative Branch,” which in this case didn’t delegate to Sessions the authority to impose conditions on the law enforcement grants.

Several federal courts have slapped down Sessions’ efforts to bludgeon local communities into doing the federal government’s dirty work of immigration enforcement, so it’s proper to take a quick look at Sessions’ viewpoint.

Sessions started throwing conniptions about sanctuary communities in March 2017, a couple of months after President Trump issued an executive order calling for federal funds to be withheld from communities that he said were out to thwart immigration agents. “Sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States willfully violate Federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States,” Trump asserted.

  • COLUMN
Here’s what Atty. Gen. Sessions got wrong about the law in his attack on sanctuary cities
MAR 28, 2017 | 3:00 PM

Trump’s order recognized that the law might constrain how the Department of Justice might act, so Sessions attempted to gin up a legal rationale. He asserted that jurisdictions across the nation were actively violating federal immigration laws, pumping undocumented immigrants back onto the streets even after their convictions for serious crimes. Sessions has cited two provisions of federal law, “Section 1373” and immigration detainers.

The first, enacted in 1996 under Bill Clinton, prohibits anyone from interfering with the exchange of information with federal authorities about the immigration status of any person. The law says merely that once local officials have that information, they can’t be stopped from trading it to the feds. Nothing in the law, however, requires local officials to collect information about the immigration status of anyone they have in custody in the first place.

“Detainers” are requests by immigration officials that local police hold immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and suspected or accused of a serious crime for 48 hours, or until the immigration authorities can decide if they want to take further action themselves. The Congressional Research Service found in 2015 that local policies vary widely about when to honor detainers, with many honoring those for people held for serious felonies but not for suspects in minor misdemeanor cases. Some require commitments from the federal government to cover the cost of detention or even the locality’s legal liability. Demanding compliance with all detainers, some experts say, raises the possibility of federal commandeering of local resources for federal purposes, which happens to be unconstitutional.

Since Sessions began griping about sanctuary laws — many of which were enacted decades before Trump became president — federal judges have recognized consistently that localities have a legitimate interest in creating a trustful relationship between the police and the communities they serve. In communities with large populations of immigrants, that relationship can be easily destroyed if the cops become viewed as immigration agents. Residents will be reluctant to report crimes, much less help police find wrongdoers or testify against them. The result is more dangerous, not safer, communities.

  • COLUMN
A punitive Trump proposal stokes panic among immigrants — even before it’s official
AUG 24, 2018 | 9:40 AM

In July, for example, Federal Judge John Mendez of Sacramento rejected the administration’s attempt to block three sanctuary laws enacted by the state Legislature in 2017. Mendez found that for the most part the laws fell squarely within the state’s authority to manage its own law enforcement resources and keep them from being “commandeered” by the federal government for its own purposes.

Nothing in the sanctuary laws “actively obstructs” federal officials, Mendez found; they only required state officials not to participate in federal immigration enforcement, except on their own terms. “Standing aside,” he wrote, “does not equate to standing in the way.”

Sessions hasn’t had any more success in trying to block federal funds for sanctuary cities. That’s the subject of the appeals court and Los Angeles cases. Both pertain to the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, a federal program enacted in 2005 and named after a New York police officer slain while guarding an immigrant who had agreed to testify against drug dealers.

Congress established a strict formula for the Byrne funds, requiring that 50% be disbursed each year to states in amounts proportionate to their population and crime levels, with the remaining 50% tied to states’ proportions of violent crime. The city and county of Los Angeles, which were to receive a combined $1.9 million in the current fiscal year, planned to use the money for anti-gang programs, among other things.

  • COLUMN
In sanctuary ruling, a federal judge schools Atty. Gen. Sessions on the law
JUL 06, 2018 | 11:05 AM

Before making the disbursements, however, the DOJ said that applicants would have to certify their compliance with Section 1373 and agree to other forms of cooperation with immigration officials.

The appeals court in Chicago thought little of the DOJ’s arguments. “The Attorney General repeatedly characterizes the issue as whether localities can be allowed to thwart federal law enforcement,” the majority observed. “That is a red herring.” They ridiculed Sessions for being “incredulous that localities receiving federal funds can complain about conditions attached to the distribution of those funds.” But that was just too bad, they concluded: He simply doesn’t have the authority to attach any conditions to the program, other than those dictated by the formula.

Judge Real came to the same conclusion. Sessions’ policy faced Los Angeles with “an impossible choice: Either it must certify compliance with unconstitutional and unlawful directives that impinge on the City’s sovereignty, damage community trust, and harm public safety, or it will lose congressionally authorized Byrne JAG funding.” Real wasn’t inclined to force the city to make that choice.

For a federal officer charged with upholding the law, Jeff Sessions seems to need an awful lot of reminding of what the law says. It’s time he took the lessons he’s getting from federal courts to heart.

Michael Hiltzik
CONTACT
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik writes a daily blog appearing on latimes.com. His business column appears in print every Sunday, and occasionally on other days. As a member of the Los Angeles Times staff, he has been a financial and technology writer and a foreign correspondent. He is the author of six books, including “Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age” and “The New Deal: A Modern History.” Hiltzik and colleague Chuck Philips shared the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for articles exposing corruption in the entertainment industry.

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Once upon a time, many years ago, I worked at a U.S. Department of Justice that functioned like “America’s law firm.” Every adverse decision was carefully studied by the agency, the litigator, and the Solicitor General’s Office. When the reviewing  court appeared to have “the better view of the law,” or when the agency position was repeatedly rejected and there was no “Circuit split,” the rules, regulations, BIA interpretations, and even the statute sometimes were changed to adopt the Federal Courts’ “better-reasoned view of the law.”

Indeed, while serving in the Legacy INS General Counsel’s Office under then General Counsel Sam Bernsen, I remember drafting successfully enacted legislation (known as the “INS Efficiency Act”) that actually adopted into law some Federal Court decisions that had reversed INS and also tried to fashion some “legislative compromises” that we thought would pass muster in the Article IIIs. Amazingly, it was enacted into law with only minor modifications to my original draft.

Yup, it wasn’t always popular with the “operating divisions” of the INS. But, it was the job of “us lawyers” to “sell them” on why compliance with legal standards was important. And, indeed, I remember getting the essential support of “upper level management” — at that time the Commissioner, General Leonard Chapman, Jr., and his Deputy Jim Greene, certainly supporters of strong immigration enforcement, for the legislative changes our Office drafted.

In other words, we were trying to make Government work effectively within legal boundaries rather than continuing to bother the Federal Courts with untenable or legally weak positions. Folks committed to “Good Government.” Imagine that!

Nowadays, under Jeff Sessions, the DOJ has abandoned any semblance of good lawyering or legal excellence and has, with a few exceptions (possibly Bob Mueller’s operation and the FBI under Director Chris Wray), been turned into a “White Nationalist propaganda factory.” Today’s hollow semblance of a DOJ consistently presents “jaw dropping” legal positions that are both bad policy and supported by weak to nonexistent legal arguments that sometimes fail to pass the “straight fact test.”

That’s because Jeff Sessions doesn’t operate as a lawyer. No, he’s a “Minister of Propaganda” who spreads racially-driven bogus views, false narratives, and misleading statistics, then feigns shock and outrage when the “real” Federal Courts consistently “stuff” him and apply the actual law and Constitution. When your legal  positions are not drawn from the law, the Constitution, input from career lawyers, and consultation with experts in the field, but rather taken from “cue cards” prepared by widely discredited White Nationalist restrictionist groups, the results are bound to be ugly.

The only surprising thing is that such a stunningly biased and unqualified individuals as Jeff Sessions has been given the opportunity to destroy the integrity of the U.S. Department of Justice and to make it a subservient tool of his attack on American values and our entire justice system. Sen. Liz Warren tried to tell ’em. But they wouldn’t listen. Now, Jeff Sessions is dragging all of America down in the muck with him.

PWS

09-18-18

Related posts:

  1. AMERICA’S “MASS ATROCITY” — Professor Kate Cronin-Furman Says Don’t Kid Yourself About What The Trump Administration Is Doing In Your Name & How “Ordinary Civil Servants” Carry Out The Unthinkable & Unacceptable!
  2. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

GONZO’S WORLD: A WALL UNTO HIMSELF – SESSIONS’S RACIST-INSPIRED WHITE NATIONALIST RE-WRITING OF ASYLUM LAW IS AN ABOMINATION THAT ENDANGERS THE VERY INDIVIDUALS THE LAW WAS DESIGNED TO PROTECT – The GOP Congress Has Shown No Interest In Restoring Order — Will The Article IIIs Step In To Stop Him Before It’s Too Late For Our Country! — “The Trump administration has systematically dismantled the right to seek asylum and turned the process at our southern border into a dystopian gauntlet that few can survive.”

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/406734-trump-doesnt-need-a-wall-he-has-jeff-sessions

Professor Lauren Gilbert writes in The Hill:

The Trump administration has systematically dismantled the right to seek asylum and turned the process at our southern border into a dystopian gauntlet that few can survive.

This became crystal-clear on Monday when Attorney General Jeff Sessions addressed a new class of 44 immigration judges. He stated that their job was to “keep our federal laws functioning effectively, fairly and efficiently” and that they were critical to the Department of Justice “carr[ying] out its responsibilities under the INA.” Sessions described the actions of immigration lawyers as “water seeping through an earthen dam to get around the plain words of the INA.”

This is ironic, because Sessions’s “zero tolerance” policy and his rewriting of asylum law are at odds with protections afforded asylum seekers under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

I have witnessed personally this administration’s disregard for the rights and human dignity of asylum seekers. Earlier this summer, I took a team of law students and trauma specialists to the Karnes family detention center in Texas, where we worked alongside RAICES, the immigration nonprofit on the front lines in representing asylum seekers in family detention. We arrived on July 28, two days after the court deadline for reunification of separated families, and got a call from RAICES stating that they urgently needed us the next day to meet with dozens of fathers and sons who had just been reunited. Just before we arrived, the women and children previously detained at Karnes were bussed to the Dilley Detention Center in Texas to make room for fathers and sons.

ICE planned to “comply” with the court order, reunify families, and then swiftly deport them.  The judge had issued a stay of removal, but RAICES feared that he was about to lift it. So we spent that first Sunday meeting with over 200 fathers and sons, ages 5-17, to sort out where they were in the process and to advise them of their rights.

Over the next days, we took their statements, and a picture of what they had suffered emerged. Many described their separation — usually within hours, often without a chance to say goodbye. Parents who had crossed without authorization were prosecuted for illegal entry. Most pled guilty on advice of their public defenders. After completing brief sentences, parents were transferred to detention centers where ICE gave them a “choice”: accept deportation and we’ll let you see your kid, or fight your case and you will remain separated.

Many of the fathers we saw had agreed to deportation. Others asked for asylum and had credible fear interviews. Parents described, in heart-wrenching detail, these interviews, many by phone without either asylum officer or interpreter physically present. They spoke of being unable to think straight, not understanding the officer’s questions, their hearts and heads pounding, losing their train of thought when the interpreter interrupted to make them slow down, not being able to tell their stories because their hearts were breaking. Under such circumstances, most were denied.

Jeff Sessions has moved quickly to impose his anti-immigrant agenda, well-aware that his time may be limited. The INA grants the attorney general broad powers. Although used sparingly in the past, regulations permit him to overturn a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) by certifying it to himself.

This year alone Sessions has overturned four such decisions.  In June, in Matter of A-B-, he vacated a 2014 precedent decision recognizing that domestic violence may be a basis for asylum and signaled that most gang-based asylum claims would similarly fail. This Monday, he claimed that his decision “restores the way the law initially was enforced for decades” and that it was the immigration judges’ duty to carry it out. In fact, he is turning the clock back over 20 years, disregarding important advances in asylum protection.

Yet despite Jeff Sessions’s claims that he is restoring “the original intent and purpose of the INA,” many of these policies are at odds with its plain language. INA § 208(a)(1) states that “Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival . . . ), … may apply for asylum.” This means that asylum seekers have a right to request asylum at the border or in the United States, regardless of how or where they enter.

Sessions claims that the American people believe “that persons who want to come here should file their claims and wait their turn.” Asylum seekers, however, can only apply for asylum at the border or within the United States. There is no asylum visa. They cannot “wait their turn” and apply in their home countries. The U.N. Refugee Convention prohibits contracting states from imposing “penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees” who present themselves without delay to the authorities. It is the Justice Department’s “zero tolerance” policy that violates the plain language of the INA.

The 1980 Refugee Act codified our international obligations and created procedures for seeking asylum. In 1996, amendments to the INA created expedited removal for migrants without proper documents, but provided an escape valve for asylum-seekers, who got a credible fear interview before an asylum officer and, if they failed their CFIs, a brief review before an immigration judge. Congress intended this to be a low threshold to screen out baseless claims. Those who pass are placed into regular proceedings.

The Trump administration, however, is rewriting U.S. asylum law and revamping the credible fear process to prevent most Central Americans from escaping expedited removal. Sessions claims that credible fear reviews have “skyrocketed’ and that many asylum seekers are taking advantage of the process by “saying a few simple words – claiming a fear of return.” These screenings, however, are part of U.S. law. Faithfully executing the laws means following all U.S. law, not just those provisions that further the administration’s restrictionist agenda.

Lauren Gilbert, Esq., is professor of law at St. Thomas University School of Law, where she teaches immigration law, family law and constitutional law. 

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Depressingly accurate account of how Jeff Sessions is being allowed to destroy the American Justice system. Yes, “Faithfully executing the laws means following all U.S. law, not just those provisions that further the administration’s restrictionist agenda.” So is insuring that U.S. Immigration Courts are fair and impartial and perform their sole function of “guaranteeing fairness and Due Process for all.” That means regardless of whether the results please the President, his “base,” or anyone else in the Administration. That’s what Due Process is all about.

But, the system can’t be saved until Sessions and the DOJ are removed from control and Congress creates an independent U.S. Immigration Court. Until then, the “dystopian gauntlet” created by Sessions will continue to threaten to bring down our entire U.S. Justice system and betray our national values.

We need regime change!

PWS

09-17-18

 

Related posts:

  1. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: RECENT ARTICLES SHOW HOW SESSIONS’S SHOCKINGLY INAPPROPRIATE REMARKS TO NEW IMMIGRATION JUDGES VIOLATED EOIR CODE OF JUDICIAL ETHICS, SHOWED DISRESPECT FOR THE LAW, AND VIOLATED THE FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF GOOD IMMIGRATION JUDGING BY DIRECTING JUDGES NOT TO BE SYMPATHETIC TO REFUGEES! – TURNING REFUGEE LAW AND HISTORY ON ITS HEAD!
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”

THE HILL: RUTH ELLEN WASEM ON HOW THE WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA IS PREVENTING US FROM HAVING REALISTIC DISCUSISONS ABOUT FUTURE IMMIGRATION!

http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/406876-our-policies-on-immigration-should-be-forward-thinking

Ruth writes:

. . . .

In addition to inflating the number of immigrants, the political rhetoric coming from the right issues ominous warnings about immigrants from Mexico in particular. The nativist right fabricates a narrative that Mexican migration is a problem to be solved. While Mexico continues to be the largest single source country for immigrants, its relative share of the flow is diminishing.

In fiscal year 2000, immigrants from Mexico made up 20 percent of all people who became legal permanent residents (LPRs) of the United States. That percentage had fallen to 14.7 percent in fiscal year 2016. What characterizes Mexican immigration to the United States is that 68 percent in FY 2016 were the immediate relatives (spouses, minor children and parents) of U.S. citizens, the top priority of U.S. immigration laws since the 1920s.

A closer look at the recently released census data shows other trends that are positive for our nation. For example, foreign-born residents who are naturalized citizens have a median household income of $72,140 that compares favorably to native-born citizens’ median household income of $72,165. This income parity results in no small way from the growing number of Asian immigrants working in professional and managerial occupations and who are employed by educational and health sectors of the economy.

Although first-generation foreign-born families have higher poverty rates (15.7 percent) than the national overall rate (10.4 percent), second-generation families have lower poverty rates (9.3 percent) than the national rate.

This pattern of immigrant success, based on the talent and diligence of immigrants themselves, also has roots in the Immigration Amendments Act of 1990, which sought to increase avenues for “the best and the brightest” immigrants. By more than doubling the number of visas for persons of extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researcher, or certain multinational executives and managers, and of persons with advanced degrees, immigrants with these traits have come to the United States in substantial numbers since its enactment.

The 1990 law also rewrote the H-1B visa for temporary professional specialty workers, which has been the leading pathway for immigrants to the United States and has been critical in the global competition for talent. The increased use of H-1B visas, as well as other nonimmigrant visas, has fostered much of the growth in immigrants with executive and professional occupations over the past two decades. My research offers fuller analyses of how policies directed at  global competition, employment-based immigration and temporary professional workers have constricted, as well as fostered, the flow of immigration to the United States.

If there is anything made clear by these recent demographic trends it is that our policies on immigration should be forward-thinking, rather than backward-focused. Building a wall along the border with Mexico, a nation with a declining fertility rate and purportedly a positive employment outlook, is a Maginot Line for the 21st century.  As I noted earlier, most Mexican immigrants are the immediate family of U.S. citizens.

Rather, we should be using these data to help us frame a debate about what the future of America will look like. We should be discussing policies such as: what are optimal levels of immigration? How should we balance this optimal level among family, employment and humanitarian flows?  What role does temporary migration play in shaping future flows? These are not easy policy questions, so we need to get busy discussing our way forward.

Ruth Ellen Wasem is a clinical professor of policy at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, the University of Texas in Austin. For more than 25 years, she was a domestic policy specialist at the U.S. Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service. She has testified before Congress about asylum policy, legal immigration trends, human rights and the push-pull forces on unauthorized migration.

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Read Ruth’s complete article over on The Hill at the link.

We should be discussing:

  • How best to integrate the millions of law-abiding undocumented residents currently in and contributing to the United States into our society;
  • How to increase legal immigration so that in the future these beneficial workers, family members, and refugees who are also beneficial to the United States can come thorough the legal system rather than being forced into the “extra-legal” system as has happened in the past.
  • Notably, doing the foregoing two things would not only reduce US Immigration Court dockets to manageable levels, but also would allow DHS enforcement to concentrate on the real “bad guys” rather than treating maids and gardeners like bank robbers.

Instead, we’re tied up fighting against the absurd White Nationalist restrictionist agenda that seeks to limit legal immigration to “white guys” and to wipe out our national commitment to refugees and asylees while artificially “jacking up” Immigration Court backlogs and misdirecting DHS immigration enforcement. Talk about the “worst of all worlds!”

PWS

09-17-18

 

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. “Warren Buffett on Immigration Reform: Buffett feels that immigrants (including undocumented ones) have been and continue to be a key part of our prosperity — not a part of the problem.“
  3. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  4. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”

ABA PRESIDENT BOB CARLSON MAKES STRONG STATEMENT RECOGNIZING ESSENTIAL ROLE OF ATTORNEYS IN IMMIGRATOIN PROCESS, REBUTTING SESSIONS’S FALSE ATTACKS, AND ENDORSING AN ARTICLE I COURT!

Statement of ABA President Bob Carlson
Re: Immigration lawyers and judges

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11, 2018 — The American Bar Association applauds the work of lawyers who help assure fairness and due process in our nation’s immigration courts. During a visit last month to the border in Texas, I was very impressed by their hard work in difficult circumstances. Our Constitution guarantees certain rights to all people in the United States, including men, women and children who come here to escape lawlessness and violence in their home countries.

The ABA strongly supports the independence of immigration judges and immigration courts. These courts should not be subordinate to any executive branch agency, including the Justice Department. Instead, we support the creation of truly independent immigration courts and judges under Article I of the U.S. Constitution. Such an arrangement would remove any perception that politics can play a role in dispensing justice with matters of immigration.

Our American democracy rests upon the rule of law – and the rule of law rests upon the work of impartial, independent judges, as well as knowledgeable, hard-working lawyers, including immigration attorneys who pursue justice, both for the government and for immigrants who seek asylum.

With more than 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is one of the largest voluntary professional membership organizations in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.

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Thanks to my good friend and colleague Judge Joan Churchill for alerting me to this item. Joan has been doing some great work in behalf of the Article I Immigration Court through the Immigration Committee of the ABA’s National Conference of the Administrative Law Judiciary. I just joined that Committee at her urging, and encourage all of my colleagues — retired and active — to do the same. Let Joan or me know if you would like information on how to join.

PWS

09-17-17

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  3. THE ROUNDTABLE IN ACTION: HON. ILYCE SHUGALL DELIVERS POWERFUL STATEMENT IN THE LA TIMES ON WHY SHE COULD NO LONGER SERVE AS A JUDGE IN OUR OBSCENELY DISTORTED AND UNFAIR U.S. IMMIGRATON COURT SYSTEM – “But nothing prepared me for the unprecedented, unfair and unworkable policies the Trump administration imposed on the courts and the immigration process.”
  4. HERE’S A SEPARATE LETTER ON THE URGENT NEED FOR AN ARTICLE I U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT THAT I SENT TO MY SENATORS AND CONGRESSMAN TODAY!