"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals PAUL WICKHAM SCHMIDT and DR. ALICIA TRICHE, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
Category: AMERICA’S REAL IMMIGRATION CRISIS: THE ATTACK ON DUE PROCESS IN THE UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION COURTS
Professor Hilary T. Fraser Cornell Law PHOTO: Cornell Law
Cornell Law School Afghanistan Assistance Clinic: Spring 2023 Report
May 15, 2023
By Hilary Fraser, Adjunct Professor
In our third semester offering the Afghan Assistance Clinic to Cornell law students, we saw a change in the type of cases and clients and a change in the kind of students. In our initial semester a year ago, our clinic students had backgrounds in immigration and human rights law. Our clients were all Fulbright recipients recently arrived in the United States, and the cases were rich with evidence of the likelihood of future persecution due to the client’s activism and training with western donor nations in building of democratic institutions.
At the start of this semester, there was some dismay that our clients’ cases seemed not as strong. Most clients were younger, some just freshmen in the United States. “I don’t think she has a case,” one student initially remarked about his client. Our students were also new to client representation, and more tentative about interviewing the clients and gathering facts.
To overcome these challenges, we decided to drill down on the fact that our clients had lived through a year or so of Taliban rule. Hadn’t they actually experienced persecution in the year or more that passed before they were able to escape? Weren’t their escape stories a symbol of their fears? The Taliban’s announcements that floggings and amputations were legitimate punishments; that women could not work, attend high school, leave home without a chaperone or visit parks and gyms; that universities were shuttered, the internet policed, passport offices closed and ‘vice’ and religion fastidiously monitored did not pose just future possibilities of harm, but rather defined the lives our clients had lived.
We also decided to drill down on our interpersonal skills and bring our own humanity into the client-student relationship. We needed to break through our clients’ reticence formed during a dangerous year of living in hiding from the Taliban regime. Nearly all of our clients told us how closely they guarded their plans to apply to school in the United States. Our clients also feared talking with us. Their families did not want to write support letters. We also had clients who came to the United States just before Kabul fell, but still hadn’t filed for asylum. We needed to work with the problem of depression.
Our students overcame these barriers in several ways.
One way our students engaged these reticent clients was through a shared immigration experience. Seven of our 12 class members were immigrants themselves, which helped form a bond of trust and a shared understanding of the vocabulary and process of immigration. Some took our clinic to understand better their parents’ experiences as immigrants to the United States. Some were interested in understanding better their own asylum or other residency applications.
Clever solutions also helped us elicit the clients’ stories. Related clients and clients who were friends and classmates from Afghanistan were represented by students who collaborated (with consent) on evidence and stories. This small-group approach made our process more efficient and our clients more comfortable. Also, we drew upon the experience of two classmates participating in the clinic for the third time, one as a Pro Bono Scholar and one as an indefatigable research assistant who won a public interest award from Cornell this semester. These senior students lent their experience to the class.
Last but not least, we made the Cornell connection. Twelve of our 15 clients this semester are scholars or students at Cornell. Working in person, even working with a shared sense of the environment and terrain of campus, forged relationships of trust. Plus, it just felt good to be helping a “neighbor.”
Our client narratives and legal claims eventually emerged. Political opinion was imputed from parents and from students’ choices of academic fields and universities. Race and religion were the most frequently claimed protected grounds, with Hazara ethnicity and atheism the most common fact patterns. “Westernized” individuals as a particular social group defined the elite group of young students talented enough to make it out of Afghanistan in a year when borders were mostly closed.
As a group, this semester’s clients could be seen as the younger “siblings” of the first groups of our clients. Growing up in a hopeful time of relative ease and opportunity in Afghanistan during occupation, they were free to foster their spirituality, self-expression, and learning. Please meet some of them here below. The client who we originally thought didn’t have a claim turned out to be one of our strongest cases, together with:
· A client who wrote and self-published on Amazon an English-language book on Love and God. A true romantic and humanist with a respect for literature.
· A client who obtained a U.S. visa just in time for her to escape a forced marriage and land in a top mathematics Ph.D. program in the United States.
· A client who grew up hearing the harrowing stories of parents who had suffered beatings and death threats under the Taliban and escaped to Iran, where treatment of Afghans is only slightly less horrific.
· A client who paints human representational art, fearlessly showing female bodies and intimate settings. Their work of 70+ canvases hides in residential attics in Afghanistan.
· A client whose transition to atheism is clearly recalled in a series of private conversations with peers and mentors, two of whom were murdered in honor killings pursuant to a fatwa.
· A client who was part of seminal schools for women and who received a leadership scholarship to attend school in the United States from an American fashion celebrity.
In short, our clinic honored these stories by acknowledging the teller’s experience. We realize that save for our small group of students, no one else other than the USCIS asylum adjudicator will hear these moving tales. Someday, we’d like to transform the stories into spoken-word theater!
This class was dedicated to learning immigration and helping their clients. Almost all this semester’s students will graduate to positions with large law firms. Their commitment to our clinic’s work signals that immigration has become a necessary skill set for both corporate and public interest lawyers.
Overall, we filed 15 asylum cases this semester, representing the collective work of 8 first-time students, 2 second-time students, a Pro Bono scholar, a research assistant, and an adjunct professor. By summer 2023, 30+ Afghan asylum applications filed by our clinic will remain pending, a terrific accomplishment in just 15 months of work.
Other landmarks reached this semester include:
o Our first semester clients received work permits or renewals.
o Two of our second semester clients had asylum interviews.
o All our second semester clients qualified for online work permit applications for the first time.
o We did a presentation for Weill Cornell medical students.
o We heard two presentations from Afghan political analysts.
o An Afghan student group was formed on campus through the work of our clients.
o We helped almost all the Afghans at Cornell who needed us.
o We kept abreast of dynamic changes in asylum practice – both at the border and expansion of parole programs.
o We mentored the law school’s 1L immigration clinic, which filed four other Afghan affirmative asylum applications.
This really hits home for me. I’m fresh off teaching with outstanding colleagues — subject matter experts and experienced civil and criminal litigators working together seamlessly —at the Sharma Crawford Clinic Litigation Trial College in Kansas City, KS. As usual, a large part of the “hands on” experience was coaching students on how to best elicit information from clients — across cultural and language barriers — and then to present their stories in a fashion that will be gripping and compelling to Asylum Officers, Immigration Judges, DHS Assistant Chief Counsel, and would make a great and “reader friendly” record for appellate judges and their clerks, should that step be necessary.
Consequently, I really appreciate the skill set that Hilary is helping her students develop! And, as we emphasized at our Trial College, this isn’t just an Immigration Court skill. No, it’s a “life skill” that folks will use over and over in their professional careers and personal lives!
The skills necessary to practice law these days start at the “retail level” of our justice system — the Immigration Courts. As I tell myGeorgetown Law students, “If you can win one of these cases, everything else in law and life will be a piece of cake!”
Thanks to my long-time friend and Hilary’s colleague, Professor Stephen Yale Loehr, for alerting me to this important achievement.
Eliza C. Klein, a retired immigration judge, said the asylum case backlog “creates a second class of citizens.”Credit…Taylor Glascock for The New York Times
Eliza C. Klein, who left her position as an immigration judge in Chicago in April, said the latest increase in illegal border crossings will strain the understaffed work force as they prioritize migrants who crossed recently.
That will leave some older cases to languish even longer, she said.
“This is a great tragedy because it creates a second class of citizens,” Ms. Klein, who started working as an immigration judge in the Clinton administration, said of those immigrants who have been waiting years for an answer to their case. The oldest case Ms. Klein ever adjudicated had been pending in the court for 35 years, she said.
“It’s a disgrace,” Ms. Klein said. “My perspective, my thought, is that we’re not committed in this country to having a just system.”
While crowds of migrants continued to seek refuge in the United States after the lifting of Title 42, U.S. officials said the border remained relatively orderly. About 10,000 people crossed the border on Thursday, a historically large number, but that dropped significantly to about 6,200 on Friday.
Tens of thousands of migrants continued to wait in makeshift camps on both sides of the border for a chance to request sanctuary in the United States. The administration remained concerned about overcrowding; Border Patrol held more than 24,000 migrants in custody on Friday, well over the agency’s maximum capacity of roughly 20,000 in its detention facilities.
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Mimi Tsankov, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said that to truly address the backlog, the Biden administration would need to do more than simply hire more judges. She said that the government should increase funding for better technology and bigger legal teams, and that Congress should reform the nation’s immigration laws.
“The immigration courts are failing,” said Samuel B. Cole, the judge association’s executive vice president. “There needs to be broad systemic change.”
. . . . .
Judge Charles Honeyman, who spent 24 years as an immigration judge and retired in 2020, said he came away from his job believing the United States would need to do a better job of deterring fraud while protecting those who would be harmed in their home country.
When handling an asylum case, Mr. Honeyman said he would assess the person’s application and examine the state of their home country by reading reports from the State Department and nonprofits. Many of the applicants lacked attorneys; he believes some cases that he denied might have turned out differently if the migrants had had legal representation.
In trying to root out fraud, he would compare a person’s testimony with the answers they had given to an asylum officer or Border Patrol agent.
. . . .
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Read the full article at the link.
EOIR ABUSES ASYLUM SEEKERS — The Problem Goes Deeper Than The Number Of Judges: Quality & Culture Matter!
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
U.S. Immigration Judge (Retired)
Courtside Exclusive
May 16, 2023
While the NYT article notes that the majority of asylum cases are eventually denied on the merits, this data is often presented in a misleading way by the Government, and unfortunately, sometimes the media. According to TRAC Immigration, during the period Oct 2000 to April 2023, approximately 43% of asylum seekers who received a merits decision were granted asylum or some other type of relief. Approximately 57% were denied. https://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/asylum/
Even in an overall hostile system, where individuals are often required to proceed without lawyers, and grant/denial rates among Immigration Judges vary by astounding levels (so great as to present prima facie due process issues), asylum seekers succeed on the merits of their claims at a very respectable rate. In a properly staffed and administered system where the focus was on due process and fundamental fairness for individuals, that number would almost certainly be substantially higher.
Moreover, the data suggests that toward the end of the Obama Administration and during the entire Trump Administration, the asylum system was improperly manipulated to increase denials.
I think there are three reasons for the precipitous decline in asylum grant rates, largely unrelated to the merits of the claims. First, Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr overruled some of the leading administrative precedents supporting grants of asylum. In the process, they made it crystal clear that they considered Immigration Judges to be their subordinate employees within the political branch of Government and that denial, deportation, and assistance to their “partners” at DHS Enforcement (actually DHS is a party before EOIR, not a “partner”) were the preferred results at EOIR.
Second, in greatly expanding the number of Immigration Judges, Sessions and Barr appointed almost exclusively from the ranks of prosecutors and government attorneys, even elevating an inordinate number of individuals with no immigration and human rights experience whatsoever. Not only were well-qualified individuals with experience representing individuals in Immigration Court largely passed over and discouraged from applying, but some of the best Immigration Judges quit or retired prematurely as a matter of conscience because of the nakedly anti-immigrant pro enforcement “culture” promoted at EOIR.
Additionally, the nationwide appellate court and precedent setter, the BIA, was expanded and “packed” with some Immigration Judges who denied virtually all of the asylum cases coming before them and had reputations of hostility to the private bar and asylum seekers. Remarkably, Attorney General Garland has done little to address this debilitating situation at the BIA.
Third, since the latter years of the Obama Administration, when a vastly overhyped “border surge” took place, political officials of both parties have improperly “weaponized” EOIR as a “deterrent” to asylum seekers, focusing on expeditious denials of asylum rather than the due process and expert tribunal functions the agency was supposed to serve. The result has been a “culture of denial and deportation” with particular emphasis on finding ways to “say no” to women and individuals of color seeking asylum.
The NYT Article also mentions that asylum merits decisions require a higher standard of proof than “credible fear determinations.” That’s true. But the suggestion that the standards are much higher is misleading. In fact, the standards governing merits grants of asylum before the Asylum Office and EOIR are supposed to be extremely generous.
In the seminal case, INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, the Court said that “well-founded fear” is a generous standard, one that could be satisfied by a 10% chance of persecution. In implementing this holding, the BIA found in Matter of Mogharrabi that asylum could be granted even where the chances of persecution were substantially less than probable.
There is as also a regulation, 8 C.F.R. 208.13, issued under the Bush I Administration, that creates a rebuttable presumption of future persecution based on past persecution.
The problem is that none of these generous and remedial provisions relating to asylum has ever been properly, consistently, and uniformly applied within EOIR. As someone who during my time on the bench took these standards to heart, I found that a substantial majority of merits asylum cases coming before me could and should be granted under a proper application of asylum law.
Consequently, I am skeptical of judges who deny virtually all asylum claims. Likewise, I question the claims by political officials of both parties who pretend, without actual knowledge, that almost all asylum applicants at the border are “mere economic migrants” who deserve to be quickly and summarily removed.
Actually, under some circumstances, severe economic hardships can amount to persecution. Moreover, under the legally required “mixed motive” analysis for asylum, an economic aspect does not automatically obviate other qualifying grounds.
So, at its root, “credible fear” is actually an even more generous application of what is already supposed to be (but often isn’t in reality) a very generous standard for asylum. The alleged “disconnect” between the number of individuals found to have credible fear and the number actually granted asylum on the merits appears to be more a function of defective and overly restrictive decision-making at EOIR than it is of unjustified generosity of Asylum Officers screening for credible fear. It’s also important to remember that at the credible fear stage, individuals haven’t had time to marshal the substantial corroborating evidence eventually required (some would say unrealistically and unreasonably) in formal merits asylum hearings before EOIR.
Finally, just aimlessly increasing the number of Immigration Judges, without solving the systemic legal, logistical, management, quality control, training, and “cultural” problems infecting EOIR creates its own set of new problems.
Recently, a veteran practitioner before EOIR wrote the following:
In about eleven years, our local DMV went from twelve (12) judges in Baltimore and Arlington in 2012 to a hundred (100) judges in 2023 (8 BAL, 18 HYA, 30 WAS, 9 FCIAC, 14 RIAC, 21 STE). That’s an increase of 733.33%. This seismic expansion has resulted in many attorneys being overscheduled for individual hearings, which has an adverse effect on our clients, our ethical obligations, due process, and mental health.
Well-prepared attorneys, many serving pro bono or “low bono,” are absolutely essential to due process and fundamental fairness in Immigration Court, particularly in cases involving asylum and other forms of protection. For EOIR to schedule cases in a manner that does not take into consideration the legitimate needs and capacities of those practicing before their courts is nothing short of malpractice on the part of DOJ leadership.
There is a silver lining here. The EOIR judicial hiring program gives NDPA stars a chance to get on the bench at the retail level level, bring much needed balance and perspective, and to develop the credentials for future Article III judicial appointments. Since change isn’t coming “from the top,” we need to make it happen at the “grass roots level!” Keep those applications coming!
For my colleague Judge “Sir Jeffrey” Chase, Judge Maria Baldini-Potermin is the name that jumps out:
Maria T. Baldini-Potermin, Immigration Judge, Chicago Immigration Court
Maria T. Baldini-Potermin was appointed as an immigration judge to begin hearing cases in May 2023. Judge Baldini-Potermin earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1990 from the University of Dayton and a Juris Doctor in 1997 from the University of Minnesota Law School. From 2008 to 2023, she was the owner and managing attorney at Maria Baldini- Potermin and Associates PC in Chicago. During this time, from 2009 to 2023, she served as the author of “Immigration Trial Handbook,” a book she co-authored from 2008 to 2009. Also, from 2009 to 2021, she served as the update editor for “Immigration Law and Crimes” . From 2009 to 2021, she also served as a member of the board of directors of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, where she served as board chair and interim executive director in 2019. From 2007 to 2008, she was an associate immigration attorney at Gostynska Frakt Ltd., and from 2001 to 2007, at Scott D. Pollock and Associates PC in Chicago. From 1999 to 2001, she served as a National Association of Public Interest Law (NAPIL) Equal Justice Fellow with the Midwest Immigrant Rights Center (now National Immigrant Justice Center) in Chicago. From 1997 to 1999, she served as a NAPIL Equal Justice Fellow with the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (Oficina Legal) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. From 1996 to 1997, she served as an immigration law clerk at Guyton Law Office in Saint Paul, Minnesota. From 1994 to 1997, she trained law students at the Asylum Law Project in Minneapolis. From 1992 to 1994, she served as an accredited representative, and from 1991 to 1992, as a paralegal, with the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR) in Harlingen, Texas. From 1990 to 1991, she served as a paralegal with the Brownsville Catholic Charities Canada Asylum Project in Brownsville, Texas. Judge Baldini-Potermin is a member of the Illinois State Bar and the Minnesota State Bar. She is admitted to practice before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits, and the Supreme Court of the United States.
For me, it’s Judge Angela Munro whom I worked with on training for the Annual Conference during my time at EOIR:
Angela Munro, Immigration Judge, Boston Immigration Court
Angela Munro was appointed as an immigration judge to begin hearing cases in May 2023. Judge Munro earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2000 from Brown University, a Master of Arts in 2004 from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a Juris Doctor in 2008 from Northeastern University School of Law. From 2010 to 2023, she served as an attorney advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals, EOIR. From 2008 to 2010, she served as a judicial law clerk at the Boston Immigration Court entering on duty through the Attorney General’s Honors Program. Judge Munro is a member of the Massachusetts Bar and the New York State Bar.
Another bio that caught my eye is Judge Hannah B. Kubica who once practiced at Joyce & Associates in Boston with my long-time friend and Round Table colleague Judge Bill Joyce.
Hannah B. Kubica, Immigration Judge, Boston Immigration Court
Hannah B. Kubica was appointed as an immigration judge to begin hearing cases in May 2023. Judge Kubica earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2005 from Vanderbilt University and a Juris Doctor in 2008 from the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. From 2016 to 2023, she was in private practice as an associate, and later as a senior associate, at McHaffey & Nice LLC in Boston where she represented noncitizens before EOIR and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security. During her time in private practice, she provided pro bono services at Rian Immigrant Center, formerly the Irish International Immigrant Center. From 2016 to 2011, she was in private practice as an associate at Joyce & Associates PC in Boston. From 2011 to 2008, Judge Kubica was in private practice at GNP Law Firm in the greater Boston area, and at Weir & Partners LLC in Philadelphia. Judge Kubica is a member of the Massachusetts Bar and the Pennsylvania Bar.
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Congrats and good luck to all of the new Judges. Remember: The job is about due process, fundamental fairness, practical scholarship, and best practices, NOT “pleasing your handlers” or making DHS Enforcement happy!
We’re “making progress” in getting more NDPA practical scholars on the ImmigrationBench! But, we need even more to fundamentally change the culture at EOIR and to make due process the overriding mission, as it was supposed to be! So, NDPA’ers, keep those judicial applications coming!
BIA Asylum Panel In Action. Garland’s largely “holdover” BIA continues to align itself with Trump’s extreme right, nativist judges, as the progressives and advocates who actually supported Dems in the last two elections are left to stew, along with their dehumanized asylum seeking clients. Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:
“Under the correct analysis, the record here compels a conclusion that Honduran rural landownership in this case is a common fundamental characteristic because Turcios-Flores should not be required to change this aspect of her identity to avoid persecution given the demonstrated importance of landownership to her. Therefore, we remand to the Board for further explanation of whether this group meets the social distinction and particularity requirements as well as the remaining asylum considerations.”
To reach their wrongconclusion that “rural landowners” are not a “particular social group,” the BIA ignored its own precedent. See, e.g., Matter of Acosta, 19 I&N Dec. 211, 233 (BIA 1985), modified on other grounds.
Class warfare and persecution of property owners was at the heart of most Marxist-Leninist Communist dictatorships.
Remarkably, under Garland, the BIA continues to parrot the same biased, restrictionist nonsense spouted by the Trumpist dissenter in this case, Judge Chad A. Readler. He was roundly criticized as unqualified by Democrats and advocates at the time of his nomination. This opposition had lots to do with his biased, anti-immigrant views flowing from his then “boss,” nativist/racist former AG Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions!
For example, it’s worth reviewing the comments of the Alliance for Justice on Reacher’s nomination:
On June 7, 2018, President Trump announced his intention to nominate a Justice Department official, Chad Readler, to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. This announcement was particularly striking for one notable reason: on that very day, Readler had become a leader in the Trump Administration’s fight to destroy the Affordable Care Act and the protections it offers to millions of Americans. Readler, as acting head of the Civil Division, filed a brief to strike down the ACA, including its protections for people with preexisting conditions. If Readler and the Trump Justice Department are successful, the ACA’s protections for tens of millions of people, including cancer patients, people with diabetes, pregnant women, and many other Americans, would be removed.
As the acting head of the Department of Justice Civil Division under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Readler defended the Trump Administration’s most odious policies, including separating immigrant children from their parents at the border, while claiming that “[e]verything that the Attorney General does that I’ve been involved with he’s . . . being very respectful of precedent and the text of the statute and proper role of agencies.”
His track record is equally atrocious in other respects. He has tried to undermine public education in Ohio; supported the efforts of Betsy DeVos to protect fraudulent for-profit schools; fought to make it harder for persons of color to vote; advanced the Trump Administration’s anti-LGBTQ and anti-reproductive rights agenda; fought to allow tobacco companies to advertise to children, including outside day care centers; sought to undermine the independence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; and advocated for executing minors.
Chad Readler’s record of diehard advocacy for right-wing causes suggests he will be anything but an independent, fair-minded jurist. Alliance for Justice strongly opposes Readler’s confirmation.
It’s remarkable and infuriating that once in office, Democrats in the Biden Administration have aligned themselves with the toxic views of extreme, nativist right wing judges whose xenophobic, atrocious views they campaigned against! They have done this in a huge “life or death” Federal Court system that they completely control and have authority to reform without legislation!
Francesco Isgro, Esquire President & CEO of Casa Italiana Sociocultural Center, Inc. Editor-in-Chief, Voce Italiana PHOTO: LinkedinFrancesco Isgro
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Thanks for speaking out so forcefully and articulately for some of the most vulnerable among us, Francesco, my long-time friend and former DOJ colleague! Your own continuing distinguished career in both the public and now private/NGO sectors is a testament to the irreplaceable contributions of generations of immigrants to our great nation!
I’m proud to say that Francesco started as a legal intern in the “Legacy INS” Office of General Counsel during my tenure as Deputy General Counsel. He was then selected to become a INS Trial Attorney (now known as ICE Assistant Chief Counsel) under the Attorney General’s Honors Program. He eventually went on to a stellar career as a Senior Litigator, editor, and “hands on” educator at the Office of Immigration Litigation (“OIL”) in the DOJ’s Civil Division.
I specifically remember two of Francesco’s innovative contributions while in the INS OGC: collecting, indexing, and publishing the legal opinions of the General Counsel (and Deputy General Counsel); and creating a Law Bulletin that our office could use to inform the scores of field attorneys nationwide under our supervision and direction. This later led to vastly improved attorney training programs developed by OGC Counsel Craig Raynsford, assisted by Fran Mooney (who later went on to become the Public Information Officer for EOIR while I was BIA Chair).
I remember being a guest lecturer in Francesco’s immigration class while he was teaching at Georgetown Law. He also went on to found and become Editor-in-Chief of OIL’s Immigration Litigation Bulletin, a highly-respected internal source of information and guidance for USG attorneys involved in immigration.
My experiences on the bench during 13 years at the (now “legacy’) Arlington Immigration Court mirrored Francesco’s observations. Those whom we were able to help regularize their status under the law were overwhelmingly hard-working individuals making important contributions got our nation and our economy. Many had been doing it for years, sometimes even decades, and had USC children and even grandchildren who were “living proof” of the contributions of families who are given a chance to succeed.
Often, the “next generations” were present in court. I both congratulated them and asked them never to forget and appreciate the risks and hardships their parents had undertaken so that they could fulfill their complete promise in a free society! “Building America, one case at a time,” as I used to quip to the attorneys involved on both sides.
Francesco’s “Christian social justice message,” and his references to Pope Francis and the history of U.S. immigration also harken to a message I heard recently from Villanova University President Rev. Peter Donohue and Professor Michele Pistone during a recent educational event at Villanova Law. In his remarks, Rev. Donahue traced the founding of Villanova University to the response of Augustinian Friars to the burning of St. Augustine’s Church in downtown Philly during the Nativist Riots of 1844!
Professor Pistone credited Christian social justice teaching and the inspiration of Pope Francis for contributing to her success at the Villanova Immigration Clinic as well as the founding of the VIISTA Villanova Program to provide more well-qualified non-attorney accredited representatives to serve those in immigration proceedings. The VIISTA graduates whom I met and worked with on litigation skills over the two day seminar/celebration were totally impressive and dedicated.
Thanks again Francesco, for writing this inspiring piece setting forth fundamental truth about American immigration! That some in America shamefully and stubbornly refuse to recognize this truth doesn’t make it any less true, nor does it lessen the necessity to act upon it in moving our nation and our world forward toward a better future.
May 8, 2023—The Atlantic’s staff writer Caitlin Dickerson has won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Journalism for the September 2022 cover story, “‘We Need to Take Away Children,’” an exhaustive investigation that exposed the secret history of the Trump administration’s policy to intentionally separate migrant children from their parents; the incompetence that led the government to lose track of many children; and the intention among former officials to separate families again if Trump is reelected. Her reporting, one of the longest articles in The Atlantic’s history, laid out in painstaking detail one of the darkest chapters in recent U.S. history, exposing not only how the policy came into being and who was responsible for it, but also how all of its worst outcomes were anticipated and ignored. The investigation was edited by national editor Scott Stossel.
. . . .
In awarding Dickerson journalism’s top honor, the Pulitzer Board cited: “A deeply reported and compelling accounting of the Trump administration policy that forcefully separated migrant children from their parents resulting in abuses that have persisted under the current administration.”
The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote to staff: “This is a wonderful moment for everyone, but particularly for Caitlin, Liz, and Xochitl. There is much to say about their talents, and the talents of their editors. This is also a very proud moment for all of you who worked on these stories. Caitlin’s piece, one of the longest and most complicated stories The Atlantic has published across its 166-year history, required the unflagging work of a good portion of our comparatively small staff—from the copy-editing and fact-checking teams to our artists and designers and lawyers. Our ambitions outmatch our size, but I’m proud to say that our team rises to every challenge.”
Dickerson’s investigation exposed that U.S. officials misled Congress, the public, and the press, and minimized the policy’s implications to obscure what they were doing; that separating migrant children from their parents was not a side effect of the policy, but its intent; that almost no logistical planning took place before the policy was initiated; that instead of working to reunify families after parents were prosecuted, officials worked to keep families apart longer; and that the architects of the legislation will likely seek to reinstate it, should they get the opportunity. Over 18 months, Dickerson conducted more than 150 interviews––including the first extensive on-the-record interviews on this subject with Kirstjen Nielsen, John Kelly, and others intimately involved in the policy and its consequences at every level of government––and reviewed thousands of pages of internal government documents, some of which were turned over only after a multiyear lawsuit.
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Read the complete article at the link.
Many congrats and thanks Caitlin! Unfortunately, the message still doesn’t seem to have gotten through to politicos and policy-makers of both parties who continue to promote, tout, and sometimes employ illegal, immoral, and ineffective measures directed at migrant children and families!
Most important — no accountability for the perpetrators! Indeed, if the GOP gets power again they plan to repeat their crimes! And the Dems aren’t that much better — happily touting policies that can have the same effect, whether intended or not.
Matter of Morales-Morales, 28 I&N Dec. 714 (BIA 2023)
BIA Headnote:
(1) The Board of Immigration Appeals has authority to accept what are otherwise untimely appeals, and consider them timely, in certain situations because 8 C.F.R. § 1003.38(b) (2022) is a claim-processing rule and not a jurisdictional provision. Matter of Liadov, 23 I&N Dec. 990 (BIA 2006), overruled.
(2) The Board will accept a late-filed appeal where a party can establish that equitable tolling applies, which requires the party to show both diligence in the filing of the notice of appeal and that an extraordinary circumstance prevented timely filing.
FOR THE RESPONDENT: Mario Salgado, Esquire, San Francisco, California
Notably, but perhaps predictably for those who follow the BIA’s generally “respondent/due process unfriendly” jurisprudence, the “good news” that the BIA has belatedly decided to follow the 2d, 5th, and 9th Circuits on equitable tolling is “tempered” by the result in this case — denial of the motion to reconsider and accept the appeal!
Evidently, among its 82,000+ backlog, the BIA was unable to identify a case where correctly applying equitable tolling would actually BENEFIT the respondent, rather than just requiring a different, largely contrived, analysis to “get to no!”This continues a depressing and highly inappropriate long-standing tendency of the BIA to provide negative examples of how to apply potentially remedial rules.
Presumably, after 17 years of the BIA’s wrong-headed precedent Matter of Liadov, everyone understands that the BIA is “programmed to deny.” What’s needed is “reprogramming”to recognize and grant motions based on “equitable tolling.”
It’s also remarkable that the “highest tribunal” of a dysfunctional organization, notorious for losing files; failing to provide timely, correct notice; cancelling hearings without notice on the hearing date; switching Immigration Judges without notice in a system where the identity of the judge is too often “outcome determinative;” and “cutting” DHS and itself almost endless “breaks” and “exceptions” for their sloppy, lazy, and sometimes ethnically questionable practices sees fit to “pontificate” so self-righteously on what’s “due diligence” and “extraordinary circumstances” for the private bar. The “message” is pretty clear: Denial is the “preferred” (or default, or de facto presumed) result!
If either of the foregoing concepts were applied to EOIR and DHS with the same stringency they are to individuals and their representatives, both agencies would have been forced out of business long ago!
This system is totally screwed up! Dems must ask themselves why Garland and his senior leadership have failed to “unscrew it,” and what can be done to deal with their democracy-and-life-threatening indolence and inattention to quality jurisprudence, due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices.
Cinder F. Rella Direct Sharma-Crawford Trial College Johnson County Community College May 5, 2023Trial College Faculty Celebrates Another Day of Teaching Extraordinary Lawyers To Be Strong, Smart, Fearless! May 5, 2023Trial College Grads Produce Happy Endings and Grateful Clients!After just three days of intensive study and engagement at the Sharma Crawford Trial College, immigration litigators actually look and feel different!
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Such an honor and pleasure to be a part of this distinguished and dedicated group.
To quote my faculty colleague Sarah Owings, “The world and the work are less lonely knowing you are all out there!” I think everyone else feels the same way, Sarah, my friend!
Sarah Owings, Esquire Partner Owings MacNorlin Atlanta, GA PHOTO: Firm
1. Plaintiff CLAUDIA ESCOTO, while working as a Staff Assistant to Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Scott Laurent was subjected to egregious and continual sexual harassment, including Judge Laurent describing in graphic detail other judges and employees he wanted to have sex with, or had sex with, in what positions he wished to have sex and in what manner. Judge Scott Laurent discussed in lurid detail the physical attributes of attorneys who came before him to represent litigants and the government and further discussed attraction to and/or sexual relations with other judges. Judge Laurent regularly subjected Plaintiff to rambling diatribes regarding the breasts, attractiveness and whether he deemed the female attorneys and judges “fuckable.” Judge Laurent also regularly discussed female colleagues and employees in a degrading and sexual manner, discussing in graphic detail who he wanted to have sex with, the physical attributes of female employees and judges. Judge Laurent engaged in this conduct even when in judge’s robes when on the bench. Judge Laurent subjected Plaintiff to graphic description of sexual relations he was having with his wife and other women, including during what was supposed to be work hours.
2. Judge Laurent touched Plaintiff without her consent in a sexual manner, repeatedly placing his hand on Plaintiff’s upper leg when she traveled in a car with him, and ensuring his right arm touched her breasts. This was unwelcome and deeply disturbing to Plaintiff.
3. Judge Laurent further demeaned Plaintiff’s sexual orientation, claiming he could turn her straight (referring to his supposed sexual prowess if Plaintiff had sexual relations with him), referred to Plaintiff’s wife’s breasts and attractiveness and demanded that Plaintiff come “sit on Daddy’s lap,” referring to himself as “Daddy.” He would also proclaim “I can turn you straight, Baby!”
4. Judge Laurent’s conduct caused Plaintiff severe emotional impacts, including causing fainting spells, among other severe reactions. Plaintiff requested a medical leave, during which time
Judge Laurent continued to contact Plaintiff to pressure her to work. He denied Plaintiff’s extension of leave, improperly placing her on AWOL status, even though Plaintiff had leave time. Plaintiff requested a reasonable accommodation of reassignment to a different supervisor where she would not be subjected to this egregious sexual harassment. This request was denied by Defendant. Defendant then acted on Judge Laurent’s recommendation to fire Plaintiff shortly after receiving Plaintiff’s complaints of sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation, having taken no actions to address Plaintiff’s complaints, other than to fire her.
5. Judge Laurent’s actions show no respect for the sacred office he holds, demean the entire justice system, and turn what should be a model employment environment into a cesspool, where Plaintiff was made to endure an onslaught of sexual comments and sexual advances, ultimately being fired when she had the bravery to come forward. Plaintiff CLAUDIA ESCOTO, as well as the justice system itself, deserved so much better. Defendant must be held to account.
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These are only unproven allegations in a court complaint at this point! But, if any of this is true, it would confirm that there are some deep “cultural” issues at EOIR that leadership has not dealt with.
“Expedited/dedicated dockets” and other “haste make waste” nonsense that misses the mark at EOIR aren’t going to solve systemic issues affecting due process and fundamental fairness for the millions whose lives and futures are pending in our broken and dysfunctional Immigration Courts!
“Fear & Loathing” Inept, disingenuous performances on asylum by the White House, DHS, & DOJ have left the Biden Administration grasping at straws and spreading vile nativist myths about asylum seekers at the border. PHOTO: Creative Commons
Deterrence and increased enforcement have proven to be failed approaches that do not change the multiple factors that force so many people to flee their countries and only result in pushing people into more dangerous routes that allow criminal organizations to thrive, resulting in the smuggling, trafficking, extortion, and kidnapping of migrants and others.
After more than two years of bumbling around, in the process squandering their access to the ideas and problem-solving skills of an un-precedented “brain trust” of immigration experts, the Biden Administration appears to be in “full panic mode” as the inevitable lifting of the Title 42 charade slowly approaches. Notably, a Federal Court ordered the Administration to make good on its (already delayed) promise to end Title 42 back in November 2022. But, the Supremes unethically blocked that order — granting a stay that NO ACTUAL PARTY to the litigation requested, in a simply mind-boggling exercise of politicized, unconstitutional interference with the Executive.
Instead of using the time to 1) work with NGOs, 2) hire and train more expert asylum officers, 3) replace the BIA and anti-asylum Immigration Judges with qualified human rights/due process experts, and 4) drastically ramp up the refugee admission system outside the U.S. (not substituting an inadequate and “jury rigged” numerically limited “parole” program for legal refugee and asylum admissions), the Administration frittered away the opportunity with obstructionist/restrictionist nonsense. Now, they are “running scared” from desperate refugees merely seeking to exercise their legal rights that have been illegally and immorally denied to them for years — by successive Administrations.
Pooja Asnani reports from Sanctuary For Families NY:
Hi all,
I wanted to share a recent asylum grant won by my colleagues, Deirdre Stradone, Amalia Chiapperino, and Kelly Becker-Smith, before IJ McKee at the NYC immigration court.
Client is Honduran Garifuna woman who survived DV and gang violence, and, importantly for the grant of asylum, forced sterilization. Below is a quick summary of the case, and I’m highlighting this asylum grant because our team, specifically Deirdre, has been seeing more and more cases of forced sterilization among Central American women.
Respondent is a forty-five-year-old Honduran Garifuna woman who has been the victim of forced sterilization, severe verbal, physical, and sexual violence, robbery and death threats by gang members, and intentional deprivation of law enforcement assistance and medical attention due to her race and gender. Overwhelming evidence affirms the horrific practice of forced sterilization against Garifuna women, as well as the high levels of domestic and gang violence in Honduras that take place with impunity. The evidence shows that government authorities largely fail to respond to complaints of abuse, or when they do respond, fail to do so effectively.
Deirdre has been collaborating with the Mt. Sinai Human Rights program to study the forced sterilization of Central American women, a topic she had encountered over and over again in her asylum cases, with the researchers agreeing that this particular violation of human rights is likely more common than is being research and reported. Deirdre has found several reports and studies conducted regarding indigenous, mainly Garifuna, women living with HIV who have been victims of this practice. As you all probably know, and stemming from the response to China’s one-child policy, forced sterilization is defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) as “per se persecution on account of political opinion.”
I wanted to share this because we’re realizing that that it may be a more wide-spread practice than we initially thought, and often times, clients don’t even realized they have been sterilized when they come to us. We have been asking specific questions about this in our intakes, and often have been sending our clients to get a medical evaluation to determine whether they have been sterilized. Unfortunately, we have had a several clients discover in the course of our representation that they had been sterilized without their consent, and we believe that many other women may have experienced this without realizing.
While we have worked on several cases with similar facts, but interestingly, this is the first asylum case we have had were the IJ (McKee) granted specifically based on the forced sterilization claim (political opinion), and not on the ARCG DV claim.
Our team at Sanctuary is working to put together a training to help issue-spot, discuss common fact patterns, and how to prepare and brief these cases; stay tuned for more details.
CC’ing the team who worked on this case, including Deirdre, if folks have questions.
Thanks,
Pooja
Deirdre Stradone Attorney Sanctuary for Families NYKelly Becker-Smith Attorney Sanctuary for Families NYAmalia Chiapperino Sanctuary for Families NY
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Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immigration Community:
Christina Brown writes: “I wanted to share the attached decision in case it is helpful to others. IJ Burgie granted the asylum claim of an indigenous Guatemalan applicant finding past persecution based on severe economic deprivation (DHS failed to rebut). She also granted based on a pattern and practice of severe economic persecution of indigenous Guatemalans.”
Many congrats and much appreciation to all involved!
Even as the Biden Administration and GOP nativists push their “big myth” that most seeking asylum at the Southern Border are “mere economic migrants” not “true refugees,” these results from those fortunate enough to have expert lawyers, fair Immigration Judges, and reasonable time to prepare, document, and present continue to show the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the racially-biased restrictionist claims. Indeed, to get to the “any reason to deny” nonsense, which also is often mis-employed by the BIA, one has to intentionally ignore or misconstrue both the real country conditions in the Northern Triangle and the inclusive “at least one central reason” mixed motive language of the INA.
These are NOT “one offs!”No, they are actually recurring situations! A properly functioning, fair, expert BIA, committed to a correct and generous interpretation of asylum laws, would have incorporated these and other recurring “grant” situations into a series of binding precedents. These, in turn, would allow lawyers, Asylum Officers, IJs, and ACCs to recognize and prioritize these cases for “fast track grants.”
That, in turn, would enable many asylum applicants to be timely admitted in legal asylum status, work authorized, and on the way to green cards and naturalization. Significantly, it would also avoid the largely self-created, self-aggravated, ever-growing EOIR backlogs that seem to “drive” the “haste makes waste,” sloppy, “any reason to deny” decision-making that still exists throughout our broken and biased asylum system.
The REAL problem here its that meritorious cases like or similar to these that require expert recognition, proper preparation and documentation, and officials committed to “protection not rejection,” are likely to be summarily rejected and wrongfully pushed back across the border by the “Biden/Miller Lite” procedures and toxic official attitudes toward asylum now being promoted by both the Administration and the GOP.
It’s disturbingly clear that the needed positive changes in the immigration legal system are NOT “coming from the top” in the Biden Administration. Consequently, in addition to recruiting, training, and mentoring ever more members of the NDPA (including non-attorney accredited representatives), to hold the system accountable, it is ESSENTIAL that we get more NDPA “practical experts” on the Immigration Bench to spread and force due process, fundamental fairness, and best interpretations/practices on a resistant system from the “retail level” — the “grass roots” if you will.
That requires that NDPA experts with the qualifications apply for Immigration Judge vacancies en masse! You can’t be selected if you don’t apply! And, without better Federal Judges at all levels not only will injustice continue to prevail for immigrants, but our entire democracy will be imperiled! Better judges for a better America!
Yes, as I have acknowledged in prior posts, EOIR can be a tough place to work. But, human lives and the future of our democracy depend on our changing the system, from “the bottom up” if that’s the only way. This system is too important, with too much at stake, to be left to the whims and false agendas of tone-deaf politicos and inept, “go along to get along” bureaucrats!
Injustice Public Realm Dems spend lots of time whining about the destruction of the Federal Judiciary by GOP right-wing extremists. However, after two years in charge, they have done little to bring due process, fundamental fairness, and judicial expertise to America’s worst courts — the Immigration Courts — which they totally control!
The 5th Circuit didn’t mince any words in its latest (inexplicably) unpublished, 24-page takedown of EOIR’s ridiculous “judicial” failure with lives at stake!
Based on all of the evidence as a whole, and in light of the applicable caselaw, Reyes-Hoyes has made a compelling case of persecution. Nevertheless, we find a remand is necessary because the BIA did not make a determination as to Reyes-Hoyes’s credibility. The BIA did not mention credibility in its decision or express any doubts about the truth of Reyes- Hoyes’s testimony. The IJ did express some doubts about Reyes-Hoyes’s credibility, although he did not explicitly find her uncredible and ultimately stated he was not denying relief “based on a lack of sufficiency of proof.” However, the BIA did not adopt the IJ’s decision and thus did not incorporate any of the doubts the IJ had. “Generally speaking, a court of appeals should remand a case to an agency for decision of a matter that statutes place primarily in agency hands.” I.N.S. v. Orlando Ventura, 537 U.S. 12, 16 (2002). If Reyes-Hoyes is credible, she has shown persecution, but the credibility determination must be made by the factfinder, not by this court on appeal. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii); Avelar-Olivia v. Barr, 954 F.3d 757, 767 (5th Cir. 2020). Accordingly, the decision of the BIA is vacated in part, and we remand to the BIA for a determination on credibility.
. . . .
In sum, we conclude that, if Reyes-Hoyes is credible, the record compels the conclusion that Reyes-Hoyes suffered harm rising to the level of past persecution, but we remand for the BIA to consider her credibility in the first instance. We also conclude that the record compels the conclusion that safe internal relocation to parts of Guatemala—Mesata and Raul—was not possible. Additionally, we hold that the BIA procedurally erred in the remainder of its analysis concerning whether internal location was reasonable and whether Reyes-Hoyes had shown state action by not meaningfully considering the relevant substantial evidence.
. . . .
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Here is my immediate reaction when Dan Kowalski at LexisNexis sent me the decison:
Wow! This is an EOIR/OIL error fest — replete with misrepresentations and mischaracterizations! Totally sloppy work! Why won’t they publish this? It’s a perfect example of how Garland has failed to get the job done!
And, here’s the reaction from my friend and Round Table Colleague “Sir Jeffrey Eagle Eyes” Chase:
24 pages; very detailed analysis of recurring asylum issues. Should certainly have been published.
BTW, please note footnote 9, an example of the ongoing problem with the government’s online regs continuing to list the enjoined “death to asylum” regs that the previous administration tried to push through. The Fifth Circuit continues to believe that the internal relocation reg was amended effective January 19, 2021. Have cases been decided based on this erroneous belief?
Lest you doubt the “complete FUBARness” of EOIR, check these out:
Worst of all the small and mid-sized agencies ranked;
While the “curve” for “subagencies” has gone up since 2007, EOIR’s score has cratered, plunging dramatically during the Trump years;
EOIR ranked at or near the bottom on key metrics, including, significantly, “leadership style” (some of the “credit” for this abysmal score should go to DOJ, which has failed to provide dynamic, due-process-oriented leadership over the last six years);
GAO study just cited EOIR for a number of management deficiencies including “blowing off” “our [GAO’s] 2017 recommendation to develop a strategic workforce plan to address current and future staffing needs, EOIR hasn’t done so—even though it had a significant and growing backlog of 1.8 million pending cases at the start of FY 2023, more than triple the number that it had in FY 2017.”
The NAIJ continues to raise technology and health and safety defects with EOIR “management;”
Notably, during this period of abject failure, EOIR has found time and resources to waste (and potential “goodwill” to squander) on unneeded nonsense like “IJ Dashboards,” “production quotas,” “expedited dockets,” more layers of bloated headquarters bureaucracy, and, perhaps the biggest boondoggle of all, a totally absurd and duplicative “Office of Policy” for an agency that has demonstrated a disturbing inability to carry out its “core function:” Providing Due Process for all through fair, timely, expert, correct adjudications!
“Eyore In Distress” Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up” — As Dems founder in their commitment to restore justice, could new Immigration Judges from the NDPA — unswervingly committed to due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices — get this poor little fella back on his feet and improve the culture and atmosphere at the “retail level” of EOIR, even in the face of indifference and incompetence from those in charge? Lives and futures — perhaps the future of our democracy — are at stake!
What we really need is a “lean, not mean, due process machine” @ EOIR. Why can’t the Dems deliver? That’s the age-old question among human rights experts!
Every day, thousands of people flee their homes in search of a better life for their families. Global Ministries and the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) provide support for refugees and migrants around the world, seeking to fulfill the biblical mandate to “love thy neighbor” and “welcome the stranger.”
Tiny mustard seeds, as Jesus described in his parable, have a potential to grow into something big or pervasive that spreads throughout a field. Our hope is that by learning more about migrants in local communities and addressing their needs through these grants, the “seed” of welcoming strangers might be planted in new ways in congregations around the country.
WHAT IS THE MUSTARD SEED MIGRATION PROGRAM?
The Mustard Seed Migration Grant program is designed to encourage local United Methodist churches to engage in ministry to migrants in their midst. UMCOR will award grants of $2,000 USD to up to 100 United Methodist local churches to engage in new, one-time community-based service projects and ministries focused on migrants and refugees.
The goal of this program is to nurture a deeper understanding and care for the most vulnerable in our communities. We also encourage participating congregations to think about what they might do on a long-term basis, how they might get involved in advocacy to address systemic injustices present in immigration policy or consider how they might more completely live into a new understanding of church as the kingdom of God, actively engaged in caring for the most vulnerable in the community.
2023 APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN
Completed applications will be evaluated on an ongoing basis. Though the final deadline is October 1, 2023, we encourage churches to submit their applications as soon as possible, since awards will be given on a first-come first-served basis. Applicants will be notified within four weeks of the application submission date.
Applications must be signed by the church’s senior pastor and lay leader. Submit a completed, signed application via email to mustardseed@umcor.org.
DOWNLOAD THE 2023 MUSTARD SEED GRANT APPLICATION
Only local United Methodist churches are eligible for this grant. Churches that have not participated previously in this program will be given priority. View detailed program criteria, project examples and applications instructions here:
Project examples
Some examples of Mustard Seed Migration Grant projects might include, but are not limited to, the following.
Providing food or nonfood items for basic needs
Supporting school enrollment through parent outreach or purchase of school supplies
Equipping children with musical or sports equipment to facilitate extracurricular involvement
Offering English, financial literacy or civics classes for adult learners or tutoring for students
Supplying families with cash vouchers for emergency rent, utilities or transportation assistance
Facilitating access to internet through provision of cell phones, laptops or internet access
Distributing bicycles for transportation assistance
Assisting a newly arrived refugee family in setting up their new apartment
Program criteria
Application instructions
Final submission deadline:
Completed applications will be evaluated on an ongoing basis, within four weeks of submission. Though the final deadline is October 1, 2023, we encourage churches to submit their applications as soon as possible, since awards will be given on a first-come first-served basis.
Maximum grant amount: $2,000 USD
For more information or to submit a completed application, please contact: mustardseed@umcor.org.
See the list of 2022 Mustard Seed Migration Grant recipients here.
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Many thanks to Debi Sanders for alerting me to this! UMCOR has done some really great humanitarian/social justice work!
Excited to announce that I will be part of the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) National Task Force on Hispanic Law Faculty and Deans! I am honored to be included in a group of Latine law professor giants, whom I have long admired. I look forward to continuing working on a personal passion of mine, which is diversifying the legal profession and legal academia. ¡Adelante!
The Hispanic National Bar Association Launches New Task Force on
Law Faculty and Deans
Washington, DC – The Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) announces the launch of the first-of-its-kind National Task Force on Hispanic Law Faculty and Deans, aimed at addressing the alarming lack of Hispanic/Latino representation among U.S. law school professors and administrators (including deans), as well as the shortage of professional development resources specifically for Hispanic/Latino professors, deans, and other administrators already in the legal academy.
According to the most recent ABA Profile of the Legal Profession, only 5.8% of lawyers in the U.S. are Hispanic/Latino, even though we constitute over 19% of the general population. The shortage of Hispanic/Latino lawyers across the nation mirrors the paucity of Hispanics in legal academia. Only 9 of the almost 200 deans of ABA-accredited law schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia are Hispanic/Latino. Estimates have the percentage of full-time Hispanic/Latino law professors at only 5%.
Hispanic/Latino law professors and law school deans are leaders of the profession and play seminal roles in educating future generations of lawyers and law-related professionals. Legal educators are visible role models and mentors to young people aspiring to careers in law. In addition, Hispanic/Latino legal academics – like other legal academics – frequently are tapped for senior government appointments, judgeships, and other key roles in our democracy. The urgency of this initiative is heightened further by the U.S. Supreme Court’s looming affirmative action decision, which threatens to make the shortage of Hispanic/Latino law students, lawyers, and legal academics even worse.
HNBA President Mariana Bravo has appointed as Co-Chairs of the Task Force Raquel M. Matas and Anthony E. Varona. Raquel Matas is the former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Miami School of Law and has served as HNBA’s National Law School Liaison. Anthony E. Varona is Dean and Professor at Seattle University School of Law, the first law school dean of Hispanic/Latino heritage of any law school in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Varona was the first Hispanic/Latino dean at University of Miami School of Law, where he was appointed dean emeritus after the conclusion of his deanship.
President Bravo said, “An increase in the number of Hispanic/Latino law professors and law school deans will translate into an increase in law school enrollment by Hispanic and Latino/a students inspired by educators who hail from their same communities, share their backgrounds and struggles, and in many cases, share a bilingual heritage. The work of this Task Force is long overdue, and I am delighted that former Associate Dean Matas and Dean Varona, with many decades of distinguished nationally recognized service in legal education between them, will lead us in this important work.”
The Task Force will oversee the development of annual summer nationwide online workshops for prospective and existing Hispanic/Latino law faculty and law school deanship aspirants, through programs such as the Michael Olivas Summer Writing Institute and the GO LILA summer workshops, collaboration with other established workshops, and by organizing new initiatives to increase Hispanic and Latino/a diversity in the legal academy. The Task Force will plan in-person “how to become a law professor” workshops at the annual HNBA conferences, assist with matching law faculty and law dean aspirants with suitable mentors, support the professional development of and networking opportunities for currently appointed Hispanic/Latino law faculty, promote better data tracking by national accreditation and membership associations, and otherwise promote more Hispanic and Latino/a representation in the legal professoriate and decanal ranks.
In addition to Matas and Varona, the HNBA Task Force on Law Faculty and Deans will include as members nationally renowned legal education leaders, known for their dedication to diversifying the legal profession and the academy, including:
Dolores S. Atencio, Esq., Visiting Scholar, U. of Denver Latinx Center|Sturm College of Law
Steven Bender, Prof. & Assoc. Dean for Planning & Strategic Initiatives, Seattle U. School of Law
Kevin R. Johnson, Dean and Mabie-Apallas Prof. of Public Interest Law & Professor of Chicana/o Studies, UC Davis School of Law
José Roberto (Beto) Juárez, Jr., Dean & Prof., Nova Southeastern U. Broad College of Law
Jenny Martinez, Lang Prof. of Law and Dean, Stanford Law School
Margaret Montoya, Prof. Emerita of Law (and Medicine), U. of New Mexico
Jennifer Rosato Perea, Dean & Prof. of Law, DePaul U. College of Law
Hon. Jenny Rivera, Associate Judge, New York Court of Appeals
Ediberto Román, Prof. of Law, Florida International U. College of Law
Krista Contino Saumby, Esq., Assoc. Director of Career Dev., Elon University School of Law
Paulina Vera, Professorial Lecturer in Law, George Washington U. Law School
This Task Force shall operate as a Presidential Special Committee.
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The Hispanic National Bar Association is an incorporated, not-for-profit, national membership association that represents the interests of over 78,000+ Hispanic attorneys, judges, law professors, legal assistants, law students, and legal professionals in the United States and its territories. Since 1972, the HNBA has acted as a force for positive change within the legal profession by creating opportunities for Hispanic lawyers and by helping generations of lawyers to succeed.
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Congrats to Paulina, Dean Kevin Johnson, and all the other outstanding scholar/leaders named to this group. Another place where more diversity is long overdue is the Federal Bench. In particular, despite the disparate impact of Immigration Court decisions on Hispanic-American communities, they are underrepresented on the bench at EOIR.
As the awesome talent represented by this Task Force shows, it isn’t for lack of exceptionally well-qualified judicial candidates available in the private sector. It’s a recruiting and cultural problem at DOJ, along with severe credibility problems stemming from perceptions of overall hostility at EOIR to asylum seekers, other migrants, and their lawyers, often directed at Hispanics and other individuals of color. The “culture” at EOIR really can only be changed by getting on the “inside” — that means getting on the bench or into the EOIR supervisory structure.
On a positive note, one of my fellow panelists on that occasion, Hon. Claudia Cubas, is now an Immigration Judge at the Hyattsville (MD) Immigration Court!
I look forward to Paulina and other NDPA superstars 🌟 like her joining Judge Cubas on the bench in the near future. Positive change requires working “at all levels” to pump due process, fundamental fairness, and decisional excellence into a broken justice system.
Under AG Garland, at least some semblance of a “merit-based” selection system, one that honors immigration representation and human rights experience, has taken hold at EOIR. Therefore, Immigration Judge positions are the ideal “entry level” for those seeking careers in the Federal Judiciary.
Also, the “hands on” experience with making difficult decisions at the critical “retail level” of American justice will be an asset in any career path. Every correct decision at EOIR is potentially life-changing and life-saving! There aren’t many other areas where you can say that! These decisions are far, far too important to individuals and to our nation’s future to be left to the “amateur night at the Bijou” aura that unfortunately (tragically) has permeated EOIR in recent years!
Very proud to say that Paulina is a “distinguished alum” of the “Legacy” Arlington Immigration Court Internship Program and a “charter member” of the NDPA! 😎⚖️🗽
