"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.
As of December 31, 2023, only the first quarter of FY 2024, the Biden Administration had already initiated 696,400 cases at EOIR. That’s more than the highest FULL FY (12 mo.) of the Trump Administration, 2019, in which 694,771 cases were started.
Moreover, in FY 2023, Biden filed an astounding 1,485,769 cases, more than twice the number that Trump did in FY 2019. Biden’s numbers in FY 2023 topped Trump’s other three years (278,218; 356,034; 216,589) BY MULTIPLES. In fact, Biden instituted approximately as many Immigration Court cases in FY 2023 as Trump did in his entire FOUR YEARS and is on a path to greatly exceed his 2023 total in FY 2024!
So the Trump/GOP blather about Biden not enforcing immigration laws is complete BS!
Biden’s muscular immigration enforcement efforts give lie to the GOP’s “open borders” claims, a point seldom made by the “mainstream media.” But, such over the top enforcement is NOT necessarily good news for America.
Even with more Immigration Judges under Biden — going on 700 — the annual decision-making capacity at EOIR is somewhere between 350,000 to 550,000. So, the Immigration Courts will not come close to keeping up with the flow of incoming cases, let alone reducing the backlog that has now mushroomed to more than 3,000,000.
There is no apparent plan for controlling the EOIR backlog and improving the much-criticized quality of decisions, which disproportionately harms legal asylum seekers of color while often adding to the backlog when rejected on review. That makes the Administration’s institution of new cases on a level guaranteed to create additional backlog appear irresponsible.
Moreover, it hasn’t helped that Attorney General Garland ignored pleas from most experts to make EOIR reform one of his highest, ideally his highest, national priority. Nor has Congress paid much attention to the glaring, chronic dysfunction at EOIR, despite pending legislation to create an Article I Immigration Court!
Biden is following in the footsteps of his Dem predecessors Obama and Clinton. In their initial election campaigns they “played to their base” by criticizing harsh GOP enforcement policies and extolling the benefits of immigration. Once in office, however, they became convinced that their credibility, and perhaps manhood, depended on out-enforcing and “out-crueling” their GOP predecessors.
Of course, this naive approach never produces the apparently desired result: That the GOP will acknowledge that Dems are serious about enforcement and strike the long needed “grand bargain” on immigration reform.
Predictably, that always backfires. The GOP just keeps repeating their “open borders” big lies, and the mainstream media provide little, if any, critical analysis or pushback. As long as kids aren’t being proudly exhibited in cages, the “mainstreams” quickly lose interest in the suffering, dehumanization, and death piling up on both sides of the border and in the “New American Gulag” as a result of the disastrously (and predictably) failed “enforcement-only” approach.
What Biden’s effort to “out-Trump Trump” REALLY shows is that more enforcement and attempting to use anti-immigrant legal decisions and a hopelessly backlogged adjudication system that keeps legal asylum seekers waiting indefinitely with a significant chance of wrongful denial if and when they are reached as a “deterrent,” doesn’t work, and in fact never has worked!
What’s needed is actually painfully obvious: A balanced approach that combines a properly generous asylum adjudication system, more avenues for legal immigration (both permanent and temporary), and an independent, functioning, expert, due-process oriented Immigration Court with reasonable, targeted, humane enforcement. That’s a message that both parties and the mainstream media are ignoring, to our national detriment. Too many Americans seem to have forgotten that in the process of dehumanizing and demonizing “the other” we degrade ourselves.
Or, put another way, we can diminish ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration!
President Biden is asking Congress for $13.6 billion to fund border enforcement operations, a significant portion of which will go to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain more immigrants. This strategy is reminiscent of President Trump’s administration, which also poured resources into ICE detention in 2018 and 2019, but that effort produced very little change in the number of ICE removals—the stated goal for both Trump and Biden.
. . . .
In fact, President Biden is proposing to increase ICE detention by only 9,000 beds, from the current 37,000 to 46,000. The federal government should detain and deport individuals who pose national security and public safety threats to the United States, but it should not spend taxpayer dollars on useless anti‐ immigrant theater. Moreover, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has found that ICE detention sites routinely mistreat their detainees in ways that are “barbaric,” and there is no reason to expose anyone unnecessarily to this type of treatment.
A more effective approach to address the border issue is to facilitate legal immigration: let people come legally. This approach has been demonstrated to work, would reduce government expenditures, and make the immigration process more orderly.
****************
Read David’s full article, with charts and data, at the above link.
As David points out, the“New American Gulag” is bad for our nation and humanity. Unhappily, though, it’s good for the corporations who run private prisons. They also provide jobs in out of the way places where migrants are stashed. And, they contribute money and lobby politicos of both parties. That’s why human rights lose out almost every time in the immigration debate.
Immigration enforcement is an “industry” where failure = success! The more detention, apprehension, and deportation fail, the greater demand there is by politicos for more of it!
You can bet that when the coming waves of “enhanced” repression and human rights violations predictably fail, there will be demands for even harsher and more expensive enforcement, imprisonment, and deportations to deadly places!
It’s a dangerous, degrading, wasteful cycle that America just can’t seem to break. There are too many interests that see the human and fiscal misery of the “Gulag” as a profit center or a political advantage and therefore are disinterested in what works or the common good.
Even some Dems find that joining the white nationalist bullies in degrading and dehumanizing migrants of color is a “better political strategy” than standing up for the human rights of those who can’t vote! Bully – The Noun Project icon from the Noun Project Date 18 December 2017 This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
As my friend Dan Kowalski often says, “the cruelty is the point.” Dehumanization, degradation, and gratuitous abuse of migrants of color is both highly profitable and politically advantageous for those on the right. So much so, that often even Democrats and some so-called “liberals” are afraid to oppose it and find their best “strategy” is to align with or enable the playground bullies! After all, they figure, it’s “only migrants from s—-hole countries whose lives and humanity are at stake.” Nothing to be gained from defending vulnerable persons!
49ers upended the upstart Packers’ Super Bowl dreams! Cheesehead in Stadium Chris F Creative Commons Attribution 2.0
🏈😢 ENDGAME: 49ERS LATE TD DRIVE HALTS PACK’S PLAYOFF RUN — 24-21
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Special to Courtside Sports
Jan 21, 1024
With the rain pouring down in San Francisco, QB Brock Purdy & RB Christian McCaffrey ended the Green Bay Packers’ unlikely Super Bowl run in what was to date the most thrilling game of the NFL Playoffs. There were five lead changes, four in the second half. But, the only one that counted was McCaffrey’s six yard TD run with 1:07 remaining that proved the difference.
For much of the game, it seemed that, riding a great performance by RB Aaron Jones (18-107-0), the #7-seed Packers would follow last Sunday’s upset of #2 Dallas by shocking the #1-seed 49ers on the latter’s home field. Jones turned in his fifth straight clutch 100-yard-pluseffort, all in “must-win games.” In doing so, he broke the 49ers’ streak of 51 games without allowing a 100-yard rusher.
But, alas, a trip to the NFC Championship game was not to be for Jones’s team. Here’s my analysis of why the Packers came up short and what the future might hold.
Red Zone inefficiency.
After going 4-4 against Dallas, the Packer offense actually had little trouble reaching the red zone against the formidable SF defense. They made five trips to scoring territory and only punted once.
However, once “in the zone,” it was a different story. Green Bay only scored two TDs, settling for two field goals and a turnover on downs in the other three possessions, all in the first half. The turnover came on what looked to be a bad spot by the referees following a Jordan Love sneak on fourth and one. However, there was not “conclusive video evidence” for Coach Matt LaFleur to throw the challenge flag.
Leaving a potential 15 points on the field proved fatal in a 3-point game against an outstanding opponent.
2. Jordan Love’s streak of near perfection ended with two key interceptions.
In the nine games heading into this divisional matchup, Love threw incredible 21 TD passes and only one pick. With the heavily-favored 49ers having a talent edge over the Pack, Love needed another near-perfect performance to give his team a chance for the upset. Unfortunately, he couldn’t deliver. Love threw beautifully for two TDs and a two-point conversion, but was undone by his mistakes down the stretch.
Late in the third quarter, the Packers led 21-14 with a chance to go up two scores on the home team. Facing a third and eleven near midfield, Love threw high and was picked by linebacker Dre Greenlaw who returned it to the Pack 48. Greenlaw turned out to be a more of a game-changing force than his more hyped line backing mate Fred Warner.
The Green Bay defense actually rose to the occasion, forcing a 52-yard field goal attempt by Jake Moody who had an earlier kick blocked.This time, Moody was good. Instead of being down two scores, SF now trailed by less than a TD — a difference that ultimately was “outcome determinative.”
Nevertheless, following the 49ers go ahead TD, Love had the ball at the Packer 25 with 1:07 left, three timeouts, and a chance to drive the Packers to a tying field goal or a winning TD. But, on first and ten at the Pack 36, Love made a disastrous decision to force a cross body, cross field throw that was easily picked by Greenlaw again, effectively ending the Packers’ season. After 157.2 last week, Love’s 72.4 QB rating last night was disappointing, to say the least.
3.Unreliable kicking.
As I mentioned in last week’s wrap up, Packer fans worried about the inconsistency of rookie kicker Anders Carlson, who led the league in missed kicks, including six missed extra points. Those worries came to fruition under the lights at Levi’s Stadium. For most of the season, Green Bay was able to “work around” Carlson’s blips. Not last night.
After the 49ers closed the gap to four, the Packers drove the ball to the SF 23 with a chance to stretch their cushion back to 7. But, Carlson’s kick from the 31 was wide left with 6:21 to go. Purdy and his team took over at the 31 and drove for the winning TD.
4. Defense didn’t make the “big stop.”
Overall, the defense did a good job of controlling Purdy and the star-studded SF offense. But, with the game on the line on the final 49er drive, they failed to get that “big stop” that could have put them in the NFC Championship game.
The “back-breaker” was allowing Purdy (157 career rushing yards), whom nobody would confuse with Lamar Jackson, to “beat them with his legs” by rushing nine yards to the Packer six to set up McCaffrey’s winning TD on the next play.
Unlike last week, when the defense picked off Dak Prescott twice (one for a TD), Purdy had no interceptions. But, it wasn’t for lack of trying. Purdy hit several Packer defenders on their hands, including what likely would have been a pick six for Darnell Savage repeating his big play from last week.
In a three-point loss, missed opportunities loomed large.
5. Wasting another stellar performance from Aaron Jones.
Jones actually made it look almost easy against SF’s “shutdown” run defense. Had the Packers held on to win, he would have been my MVP!
With the Packers backed up on their own 10 midway through the third quarter, Jones ripped of a 53-yard-run to the 49er 37. At that point, with Green Bay up by four, it had all the ear marks of being a game-winning drive. But, the drive stalled at the 23, and Carlson’s missed FG ended what proved to be the Pack’s last venture into enemy territory.
Wait till next year
There is no shame in losing to the high-powered, well-coached, heavily-favored 49ers in the playoffs. Just ask future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers who failed to prevail in four tries. By any account, with the youngest team in the league, Love and the Pack far exceeded expectations this year, particularly following a 3-6 start.
There are reasons to be optimistic that with a year of experience under their belts, Love and his young receiving corps will be able to return to the playoffs next season. “Lost in the shuffle” was the consistently outstanding play of the Green Bay offensive line down the stretch. Although Love was pressured on some occasions, he was not sacked by a really good defense. There were some good sized holes opened for Jones And, as mentioned several times by the network announcers, the receivers showed that they could do more than catch by laying down some critical blocks to help spring Jones and other team-mates.
Additionally, getting a team that had the look of a potential “bottom-dweller” at mid-season into the playoffs might have been Matt LaFleur’s most impressive coaching feat yet in a relatively short, highly successful head coaching career, all with Green Bay.
There are also some factors that might give fans pause. Will Love be able to put last night’s hiccup behind him and move on? Will the young receivers continue to develop?
I appreciate LaFleur’s commitment to his rookie kicker Carlson. But, if the Pack seek to become a “perennial contender” with Love in today’s NFL, they need consistency from their kicker. Strong legs like Carlson are important, but accuracy is paramount. I don’t have a problem with giving Carlson another shot. But, the results must improve.
The Packers’ stretch run showed the great value of Aaron Jones. When he is healthy, I still think he is the most dangerous running back in the league. Having Jones in the backfield certainly enabled Love to elevate his performance.
But, Jones missed a number of mid-season games with injuries, a problem throughout his career. Without Jones, the running game struggled. And, the Packers have not to date found a reliable backup. Despite some promise, A.J. Dillion has not proved to be effective as a number one back and ended the season out with injuries.
Then, there is the schedule. Having seen what Love and the receiving corps can do during the playoff run, the rest of the league will be prepared. This year, the Packers played a relatively “soft” schedule, facing only six eventual playoff teams against which they were a respectable 3-3. Next year’sopponents, however, include seven teams that made the playoffs and several others who were in contention till the end.
Within the North Division, the Lions will again be the favorites. But, the Bears have the number one draft pick and figure to be more competitive. Also, the Vikings will be better if they are able to bring back Kirk Cousins, whose injury gave them an unpleasant look at the alternatives. Say what you like about his lack of playoff success, “Captain Kirk” is one of the most prolific regular season passers in the league who is 7-4 lifetime against the Pack. No defensive coordinator relishes the sight of having the Vikes #8 trot into the huddle.
All in all, it was an unexpectedly interesting, sometimes exhilarating, season for the green and gold. Whether, as those of us in Packer Nation hope, it proves to be a harbinger of greater things to come, or just another of those “oh so close, but no cigar” moments remains to be seen. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, congratulations to the 49ers and Coach Kyle Shanahan. SF and GB have now played a record 10 playoff games with the 49ers holding a 6-4 edge after winning the last five. Good luck to them as they continue their Super Bowl quest.
That’s something for human rights activists and progressives to remember when some of these same spineless folks pelt your inbox with requests for your hard-earned dollars and your vote to help them save democracy — a democracy that they and their GOP nativist buddies don’t really believe in or defend!
Another example of truth losing out: Despite irrefutable evidence to the contrary, a substantial majority of GOP voters believe Trump’s “stolen election” lies. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/70-percent-republicans-falsely-believe-stolen-election-trump/. And, whether or not they actually believe Trump’s falsehoods, almost no GOP office-holders, at any level, have the guts to challenge his absurdist claims.
YOU can be on the team with these and other NDPA superheroes:
Paula Fitzgerald Executive Director AYUDALaura Trask Director of Development & Communications AYUDA
📣 Job alert! 📣 Ayuda is seeking an immigrant champion to become our next Director of Legal Programs and lead the continued expansion of our immigration legal services.
If you share our mission of creating a world in which immigrants thrive, take a look at the full job posting and apply now: https://lnkd.in/e_yypNsk
Ayuda is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing direct legal, social and language access services, education, and outreach to low-income immigrants in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Since 1973, Ayuda has provided critical services on a wide range of issues, in the process acquiring nationally recognized expertise in several fields including immigration law, language access, domestic violence and human trafficking. Ayuda has office locations in Washington, DC, Silver Spring, MD and Fairfax, VA.
WHY DO YOU WANT THIS JOB?
Because, just like everyone at Ayuda, you believe:
• In seeing communities where all immigrants succeed and thrive in the United States.
• In the overall success of our organization and all our programs.
• That families should be healthy and safe from harm.
• That all people should have access to professional, honest, and ethical services, regardless of ability to pay or status in this country.
• That diversity and equality make this country better.
WHAT WILL THIS JOB ENTAIL?
• Ensure the delivery of client-centered, high-quality legal services across Ayuda’s offices in DC, Maryland, and Virginia.
• Provide supervision to Legal Managers, and other positions as needed.
• Provide strategic direction for the legal program within Ayuda and lead the team towards meeting goals and objectives.
• Maintain and develop consistent practices and policies across legal programs.
• Oversee financial management of grants for the legal program, including client trust accounts for the low-bono fee-based services.
• Manage legal program budget, including overseeing the overall annual budget as well as providing support and oversight to Managing Attorneys on individual legal grant budgets (preparation, revisions, etc).
• Provide oversight to managers and support to Grants and Finance staff for grant management, including grant reporting and grant applications.
• Manage Ayuda’s delivery of low-bono fee-based immigration legal services.
• Collaborate with Ayuda’s Social Services and Language Access programs to ensure the provision of holistic services.
• Represent Ayuda in meetings with prospective grantors and donors to support Ayuda’ s fundraising efforts.
• Stay informed about legal changes and help to communicate legal changes and their significance to staff.
• Support Communications & Development team by drafting external legal updates and supporting participation in media interviews by legal team.
• Represent Ayuda and its clients at local and regional stakeholder, coalition, and advocacy meetings.
• Participate in Ayuda’s efforts to bring about systemic change on behalf of our clients.
• Represent the legal program as a member of Ayuda’s Senior Management Team, supporting organizational management and strategic planning and implementation.
HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU CAN DO THIS JOB?
Eligibility: Must be legally able to work in the United States and maintain proper work authorization throughout employment. Must be able to meet the physical requirements of the position presented in a general office environment.
Education/Experience:
• J.D. or L.L.M. degree from an accredited law school and licensed and in good standing to practice law in any U.S. state or territory.
• 3+ years of experience providing legal services to low-income immigrants (immigration, domestic violence/family law and/or consumer law experience preferred but not required).
• 3+ years of supervisory experience.
• Program management and leadership experience required.
• Experience working with low-income immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, child abuse/neglect or other forms of trauma.
Preferred Knowledge & Skills:
• Excellent written and verbal communications skills, flexibility, and good humor.
• Excellent judgment, calm demeanor even under pressure, strong work ethic, resourceful, and able to maintain confidentiality.
• Decisive, with ability to exercise independent judgment.
• Proven ability to develop and maintain and positive team environment and support staff morale and resilience.
• Ability to mentor, train and provide career path guidance to staff.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment and to initiate and follow through on work independently.
• Excellent time management skills and ability to work in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to adapt to changing priorities.
• Program evaluation and project management skills.
• Knowledge of a second language a plus, with Spanish language skills preferred (examples of other languages commonly spoken by Ayuda’s clients include Amharic, Arabic, Tagalog, French, and Portuguese).
SALARY AND BENEFITS:
The anticipated salary for this position is $125,000 – $140,000, depending on experience.
We are proud of the benefits we can offer that include:
• Platinum-level medical insurance plan 100% employer-paid.
• Pre-tax 401(k) with Employer match on first 3% of salary.
• Vacation Days: 21 days per year until year 3, 27 per year in years 3-7 and 33 days per year after 7 years employment. Employees begin with 3 days of vacation leave.
• New employees begin with 5 days of Health & Wellness (sick) leave and accrue an additional 5 hours per pay period plus emergency medical leave up to 12 weeks per year.
• 12 weeks paid parental leave/family leave.
• 24 days paid holidays and staff wellness days, including Winter Break the last week of the year.
• Job-related professional development fees (including annual state bar dues and professional memberships).
• Flexible work schedules.
This position is exempt for overtime purposes.
Employees with federal student loan debt may be eligible to apply for Public Service Loan Forgiveness through the Department of Education. For more information, go to https://myfedloan.org/borrowers/special-programs/pslf.
TO APPLY:
Please apply with resume and cover letter. Writing samples may be requested.
Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until the position is filled. If you have questions about this position, please reach out to us at HR@ayuda.com.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYMENT STATEMENT:
Ayuda is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against based on disability.
We believe that a diversity of experiences, opinions, and backgrounds is integral to achieving our mission and vision. We celebrate diversity and seek to leverage the passion, energy, and ideas of a culturally diverse team.
This is a spectacular chance to work with really dedicated professionals performing a meaningful mission to help migrants adapt, prosper, and obtain legal status in our DMV area while enriching and assisting our communities. It’s about working together to build a better America for everyone!
As I have mentioned before, I am a proud member of AYUDA’s Advisory Council. At our meeting held at AYUDA this week, I was surrounded by talented, dedicated folks, who, unlike the often biased and ill-informed politicos out to destroy our legal immigration framework, are committed to solving problems in a humane, creative, legal manner recognizing the humanity and talents of our migrant communities.
Among other things, I heard:
Busses continue to arrive in our area without warning and coordination from either the “sending states” or the Feds;
The overwhelming number of those arriving are forced migrants with strong asylum claims;
Many of the current arrivals are from Venezuela and Nicaragua, countries with repressive leftist dictatorships with established records of persecution and human rights abuses recognized and condemned by Administrations of both parties;
Many arrivals, because of language problems and haphazard Government processing, do not understand how the asylum system operates;
Through information sessions, AYUDA and other NGOs are filling an information gap left by poor Government performance;
Despite the monumental efforts of terrific pro bono lawyers from across the DMV area (more needed) there is neither rhyme nor reason to the handling of these cases at EOIR and the Asylum Office;
Some cases are expedited, some are placed on slow dockets;
There are no BIA precedents or useful guidance on the many recurring situations that should result in grants;
Different results on similar material facts are a continuing problem;
Delays and “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” by EOIR hinders pro bono representation.
These are the problems that Congress and the Administration could and should be solving! Instead, outrageously, they are focused on spreading dehumanizing myths and devising even more wasteful “enforcement only” gimmicks that are bound to fail and leave more devastation, trauma, and wasted opportunities in the wake! Human lives and human rights are neither “bargaining chips” nor “political props” in an election year!
Americans are being bombarded by false messages of hate, fear, resentment, and dehumanization directed at out immigrant communities. That’s a HUGE problem for our nation of immigrants’ future! Fight back by joining AYUDA and becoming part of the solution!
AYUDA and other NGOs offer a chance to be part of the solution, save lives, and stand against the disgraceful failure of our Government to honor our legal commitments to asylum seekers and other migrants. Be a champion of migrants who make our “nation of immigrants” really great!
🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!
PWS
01-19-24
⚠️ DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this promotional recruiting message are mine and do not represent the position of AYUDA or any other entity!
States can’t use the federal courts to try to force the federal government to arrest and deport more people who are in the country illegally, the Supreme Court ruled Friday.
The 8-1 decision could cut down on a flood of lawsuits recent administrations have faced from state attorneys general and governors who disagree with Washington on immigration and crime policy.
The high court’s ruling found that Texas and Louisiana lacked standing to pursue litigation challenging immigration enforcement priorities established by President Joe Biden’s administration soon after he took office.
It’s the second decision in eight days in which the Supreme Court has rejected lawsuits from Texas on standing grounds. Last week, the court ruled that the state did not have standing to challenge a federal law that gives preferences to Native American families in the adoptions of Native children.
Six states are challenging the debt-relief plan, but it’s not clear if the states have suffered the sort of concrete harm that is typically necessary to challenge a policy in court. (In a separate case, two student-loan borrowers who oppose the plan are also suing. Their legal standing is also contested.)
In the immigration case, critics of the states’ approach said their claim of likely financial injury from unwarranted release of undocumented migrants was murky. But the court’s majority opinion written, by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, took a different tack and said the case was flawed because of a general principle against suits trying to force the executive branch to enforce the law against someone else.
“This Court has consistently recognized that federal courts are generally not the proper forum for resolving claims that the Executive Branch should make more arrests or bring more prosecutions,” Kavanaugh wrote, in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberals. “If the Court green-lighted this suit, we could anticipate complaints in future years about alleged Executive Branch under-enforcement of any similarly worded laws — whether they be drug laws, gun laws, obstruction of justice laws, or the like. We decline to start the Federal Judiciary down that uncharted path.”
I suppose whether you “like” or “hate” this decision depends on who is in power and what you think about them. As my friend and immigration commentator Nolan Rappaport told me, immigrants’ rights advocates might cheer this decision today, but will not be happy if Trump is elected and they can no longer team up with Democrat State AGs to challenge alleged abuses of prosecutorial authority by Trump’s Administration.
Recognizing Nolan’s point that the “sword cuts both ways,” I think this is the correct result. Perhaps, that’s because it’s a derivation of a long line of cases on prosecutorial discretion that we often successfully invoked during my time in the “Legacy INS” OGC. Also, it seems correct from a “separation of powers” standpoint.
One of the cases that the Court relied upon is Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U. S. 614 (1973). Interestingly, that case, then relatively recently decided, was one of the many I cited in the July 15, 1976 opinion that I drafted for then General Counsel Sam Bernsen approving the INS’s use of prosecutorial discretion.See https://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Bernsen-Memo-service-exercise-pd.pdf.
The “Bernsen opinion” (FN 8) cited the various Lennon cases and made reference to Leon’s article in Interpreter Releases (1976) on the topic.
After five decades of working in the immigration field in different positions and different levels, I think it’s always interesting how things from my “early career” still have relevance today!
Indeed, although you wouldn’t know it from the mainstream media and the “alternate universe debate” now going on in Congress, the GOP claims of “open borders” and lack of immigration enforcement are total BS. In fact, the Biden Administration has far “out-deported” and “out-enforced” the Trump Administration. See, e.g., https://amsterdamnews.com/news/2024/01/03/deportation-numbers-under-biden-surpass-trumps-record/.
As experts and those who actually work with migrants at the border know, “enforcement only” doesn’t work at the border or anywhere else, although it does fuel political movements and powerful corporate interests. See, e.g., .https://open.substack.com/pub/theborderchronicle/p/prepare-yourselves-for-the-2024-border?r=1se78m&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post. But, truth, rationality, humanity, expertise, and the rule of law are largely absent from today’s one-sided immigration discussions. That doesn’t bode well for the future of our nation or the world.
Rekha Sharma-Crawford ESQUIRE Partner and Co-Founder Sharma-Crawford Law Kansas City, KS
Rekha Sharma-Crawford writes:
Registration is now open for the 7th Annual Immigration Court Trial Advocacy College.
One-of-a-kind training designed to give attendees a one-of-a-kind experience. The picture below is of the late Judge John O’Malley teaching students at the trial college. He loved the college and taught each year-even while battling cancer. Having served years on the Bench in State Court, he joined the Kansas City Immigration Court in 2009. He became a believer in the power of trial advocacy training for immigration removal defense attorneys. He understood the need for this kind of training to transform immigration attorneys into trial lawyers who were fearless and zealous storytellers for their clients. Judge O’Malley will be missed this year, but I know he will be watching as the next set of students graduate and join the elite group of alums. Alums who are no longer afraid to stand up for justice, demand due process and help their client’s stories come to life in the courtroom. Join us this April.
Really looking forward to reuniting with my Round Table 🛡️⚔️ buddies Judge Lory Rosenberg and Judge Sue Roy and all of the other wonderful faculty who along with motivated students make this such a terrific experience!
MIAMI (AP) — Eight months after crossing the Rio Grande into the United States, a couple in their 20s sat in an immigration court in Miami with their three young children. Through an interpreter, they asked a judge to give them more time to find an attorney to file for asylum and not be deported back to Honduras, where gangs threatened them.
Judge Christina Martyak agreed to a three-month extension, referred Aarón Rodriguéz and Cindy Baneza to free legal aid provided by the Catholic Archdiocese of Miami in the same courthouse — and their case remains one of the unprecedented 3 million currently pending in immigration courts around the United States.
Fueled by record-breaking increases in migrants who seek asylum after being apprehended for crossing the border illegally, the court backlog has grown by more than 1 million over the last fiscal year and it’s now triple what it was in 2019, according to government data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Judges, attorneys and migrant advocates worry that’s rendering an already strained system unworkable, as it often takes several years to grant asylum-seekers a new stable life and to deport those with no right to remain in the country.
. . . .
Experts like retired judge Paul Schmidt, who also served as government immigration counsel while the last major reform was enacted nearly forty years ago, say the broken system can only be fixed with major policy changes. An example would be allowing most asylum cases to be solved administratively or through streamlined processes instead of litigated in courts.
“The situation has gotten progressively worse since the Obama administration, when it really started getting out of hand,” said Schmidt, who in 2016, his last year on the bench, was scheduling cases seven years out.
. . . .
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At the above link, read Giovanna’s excellent full article, based on interviews with those who actually are involved in trying to make this dysfunctional system function. Thanks, Giovanna, for shedding some light on the real, potentially solvable, “human rights crisis” enveloping and threatening the entire U.S. legal system. Contrary to “popular blather,” fulfilling our legal obligations to refugees is not primarily a “law enforcement” issue and won’t be solved by more border militarization and violations of individual rights of asylum seekers and other migrants!
There are lots of ways to start fixing this system!Gosh knows, most of them have been covered here on Courtside, sometimes several times, and they are all publicly available on the internet with just a few clicks. See, e.g.,
The “debate” on the Hill defines “legislative malpractice!” The voices of legal integrity, experience, and practicality aren’t being heard! Also, lots of great ideas from experts on fixing EOIR are stuffed in the “Biden Transition Team” files squirreled away in some basement cubbyhole at Garland’s DOJ.
But most politicos aren’t interested in listening to the experts, nor do they seem motivated to understand the real human problems at the border, in the broken Immigration Courts, and how many of the things they are considering will make the situation worse while empowering smugglers and cartels! Those are real human corpses piling up along the border, carried out of immigration prisons, being abused in Mexico, and floating in the river — mostly due to the brain-dead “enforcement only” policies now being given an overdose of steroids by congressional negotiators.
So, things just keep deteriorating. Many in the backlog who deserve a chance at a permanent place in our society, and the ability to contribute to their full abilities and potential, remain in limbo! That’s bad for them and for us as a society!
We all have heard the story about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. the night before he was killed. How he’d seen the promised land and might not be with us when we got to the mountaintop. It’s important that we remember King incorporated the good Samaritan story into his speech.
He was in Memphis to aid sanitation workers, who were marching for a livable wage and safe working conditions. He went despite threats to his life and the fact that other civil rights leaders were present to march along with 1,300 Black workers on strike. He went because if not him, who? Here’s where he incorporated a Bible story we’ve heard before.
“And so the first question that the Levite asked was, ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But then the good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’
“That’s the question before you tonight. Not, ‘If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?’ The question is not, ‘If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?’ ‘If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?’ That’s the question.”
King ended his speech by emphasizing the work we all need to do together to make this nation great, working toward justice not just for ourselves but for all those along the road we come across who require it.
“Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.”
This is what I want to remember and honor this Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Jill McKibben, Reston
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Compare this message of self-sacrificing kindness toward fellow humans with the GOP “race to the bottom” taking place today during the totally overhyped and over-covered Iowa caucuses! (One more breathless account of the “enthusiasm gap” among Haley voters — not to mention her double-digit deficit in the endless “up to the minute” polls — could make a person want to puke.🤮)
There, dominant front-runner Trump promises not a better, fairer, more humane America for all, but rather a selfish, grievance-filled, program of hate, revenge, retribution, dehumanization, and exclusion on his “enemies!” And, his floundering GOP “rivals” promise the same nasty, deeply anti-American, agenda, but without the “distraction” of Trump’s “personality.” Hardly a winning message! If Iowa GOP voters want a true bottom-dweller, and it appears they overwhelmingly do, why not go with the “original” rather than “semi-sanitized imitations?”
Thank goodness for NFL playoff games today which should allow the rest of us to avoid the networks insipid “Iowa coverage!”
Jordan Love was nearly perfect in leading the upstart #7 Packers to huge victory over the #2 Cowboys in Dallas. Next week, they play #1 49ers in San Francisco. Green Bay will be big underdogs again! PHOTO: Packer website
🏈 SPORTS: BEHIND LOVE ❤️, JONES, DOUBS, 2 PICKS, & LAFLEUR’S COACHING, “UNDERDOG” PACK MAUL COWBOYS, 48-32, HEAD TO ROUND 2 IN SF!
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Special to Courtside Sports
Jan. 14, 2024
It’s late, so just some of the highlights:
QB Jordan Love 16-21-272-3-0-157.2 (158.3 is the highest possible) — one of the top five performances in playoff history;
RB Aaron Jones 21-11-3 — tied Packer one-game playoff rushing TD record, fourth straight game 100+ rushing yards;
WR Romeo Doubs 6-151-1;
Safety Darnell Savage, pick 6 (64 yards);
CB Jaire Alexander, pick;
Offensive line, 0 sacks;
Youngest team ever to win a playoff game;
First #7 seed to win a playoff game (since playoffs expanded in 2020);
Tied highest Packer point total in playoff game;
Most points surrendered by Dallas in playoff game;
Ended 16 game Dallas home winning streak;
Packers four straight wins.
The game was not as close as the score and stats indicate. The Packers won the coin toss, drove 75 yards for a touchdown (Jones, 3 yard run), jumped to a 27-0 lead, and never looked back. Aftera 3-yard TD pass from Love to Romeo Doubs, the Pack led 48-16 with 10:41 left in the fourth quarter. The rest of the game was “garbage time” with the Cowboys racking up bogus statistics, some against Packer reserves.
One somewhat unfortunate consequence was that after the Cowboys scored two basically meaningless TDs with 2 point conversions, Coach Matt LaFleur was forced to send Love and the first unit back for a series. When Tucker Kraft dropped Love’s third down pass, his QB rating fell from perfect 158.3 to 157.2. That and a missed extra point by Anders Carlson were about the only things that went wrong for the Pack at AT&T Stadium.
Next week, Green Bay travels to San Francisco to face the top-seeded 49ers. Once again, they will be heavy underdogs. After what happened in Dallas today, the Niners are unlikely to take the upstarts from Green Bay lightly. So, it will take another extraordinary effort from Love and his young colleagues to reach the NFC Championship game!
Paulina Vera President, Hispanic Bar Association of DC PHOTO: Linkedin
As I have mentioned before, I’m proud that Paulina is an alum of the Legacy Arlington Immigration Court Internship Program and a “charter member” of the NDPA!
For those of you who don’t know her, here’s Paulina’s “official bio” from the GW Law website:
Paulina Vera supervises GW Law Immigration Clinic students and provides legal representation to asylum-seekers and respondents facing deportation in Immigration Court. She is a Professorial Lecturer In Law and has taught Immigration Law I.
Ms. Vera previously served as the only Immigration Staff Attorney at the Maryland-based non-profit, CASA.
She is a double GW alumna. In 2015, Ms. Vera graduated from the George Washington University Law School. During law school, she was a student-attorney at the Immigration Clinic. In 2012, she graduated from GW with a Bachelor in Arts in International Affairs, concentrating on Latin American Studies and International Politics and a minor in Spanish Language and Literature.
Ms. Vera is involved in a number of professional organizations. She is the President-Elect of the Hispanic Bar Association of DC (HBA-DC), a scholar for the American Bar Association (ABA) YLD Leadership Academy, and a member of the inaugural Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) National Task Force on Hispanic Law Professors and Deans. She also serves as the Public Relations Director for the GW Latino Law Alumni Association (LLAA).
Ms. Vera has been recognized locally and nationally; she is the recipient of the GW Latinx Excellence Awards, Alma Award (2019), DC Courts Community Agency CORO Award (2019), Hispanic Bar Association of DC (HBA-DC) Rising Star Award (2019), and the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) Top Lawyers Under 40 Award (2021).
Her passion project is managing an online community called Hermanas In The Law, where she features Latinas thinking about law school, Latina law students, and Latina lawyers. Ms. Vera is originally from Tucson, AZ and is the proud daughter of two immigrants.”
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You can also learn more about Paulina and her many accomplishments by clicking on her name in the “Courtside” sidebar!
Paulina is just the brilliant, honest, values-driven, charismatic leader that America needs for a better future!
Green Bay Packer QB Bart Starr (15) sneaks in the winning touchdown as Packers beat Cowboys 21-17 in the “Ice Bowl” on Dec. 31, 1967. The coldest NFL Playoff game — by far!
Photo: PackersNews.com
COURTSIDE WEATHER🥶/SPORTS🏈/HISTORY📗: -3 F FOR CHIEFS V. DOLPHINS PLAYOFF IN KC TONIGHT — That’s Not Even Close To The Coldest Playoff Game Ever, The 1967 “Ice Bowl!”
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Special to Courtside Sports
Jan. 13, 2023
Alexandria, VA. When the Kansas City Chiefs take the Arrowhead Stadium field for their home playoff game against the Miami Dolphins in a few hours, it’s already being advertised as one of the coldest NFL playoff games in history. (Thanks to ethically-challenged fat-cat execs at NBC Universal, you’ll only be able to see the TV game if you subscribe to their streaming service, Peacock. But, media greed is another story.)For Fox Sports’srundown of the coldest playoff games in history, seehttps://apple.news/AeZJd_34gSMyMhei2REuS1g.
Weather forecasts say the actual temperature could be as low as -3 F with a windchill of -13. But, that would be “Balmy Days” compared with the December 31, 1967, 1:00 PM CST kickoff of the NFL playoff game between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys (coached by the great Tom Landry) at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. The actual temperature at kickoff was listed at -13 F. Although “wind chill” hadn’t yet become a craze, it has been calculated at -48 F.
According to participants, the temperature and wind chill actually fell during the game. “Minus-15 and minus-55 chill factor — the only time I’ve ever been exposed to that, and I don’t care that if it’s the last time,” according to Packer wide receiver Carroll Dale (3 catches, 43 yards.)
Behind Hall of Fame QB Bart Starr and legendary Head Coach Vince Lombardi the Packers were actually able to move the ball through the air in the first half, taking a 14-0 lead and going into the frigid halftime up 14-10.
But, it was a different story in the second half, with the Cowboy defense holding the Packers scoreless on 10 straight possessions, while taking a 17-14 lead. When the Pack took over on their own 32 yard line late in the 4th quarter, with 4:50 to go, a long cold winter in Green Bay was definitely on the dimming horizon.
Starr led the team to a first down and goal at the one with time running down. After two failedDonny Anderson runs, the Packers called their final timeout with :16 to go. That led to one of the most famous plays in NFL history — one that in the end defined Lombardi, Starr, guard Jerry Kramer, and the Packers.
I was watching the game at home in Wauwatosa, WI with my family on our 13” GE color tv. As my brother, Jim, likes to remind me, it was about this moment that, as the youngest driver, he was “designated” to take our grandmother home and, therefore, missed what came next.
Most of us were expecting a pass. Even if incomplete, it would stop the clock for a “chip shot” field goal on fourth down to likely send the game into sudden death overtime.
But, Starr fooled everyone by calling his own number. Going over a slight opening created by Jerry Kramer’s iconic block on 6’6” 260 pound Cowboy defensive tackle Jethro Pugh, Starr knifed into the end zone for what proved to be the deciding score. The extra point by Don Chandler was good, and the Packers led 21-17 with 13 seconds left.
That’s where most accounts of the game end. But, as Jim reminded me, “Many of us recall the Starr QB sneak as the final play but actually there were 13 seconds left and the Packers had to kick off and defend a couple of plays.”
Despite the treacherous weather, almost all of the then approximately 51,000 seats at Lambeau were filled with hardy fans, and few left before the final whistle blew. (The inoperability of metal whistles during the Ice Bowl actually resulted in the NFL’s decision to permanently switch to plastic whistles.)
Ironically, Bart Starr was known for his passing, leadership, and “on field smarts,” but definitely NOT for his running. The one-yard winning TD that day at Lambeau was his only rush of the day (he also got sacked eight times for losses of 76 yards by Dallas’s “Doomsday Defense,” and lost a fumble resulting in the Cowboys’ first touchdown).
The Ice Bowl cemented the legend of Lombardi, Starr, and the 1960’s Packers. But, it also gave rise to some myths.
Myth #1: The Packers’ Invincibility in Frozen Games. Not surprisingly, as described in the Fox Sports article linked above, the Packers have participated in three of the seven coldest NFL Playoff games. But, the Ice Bowl remains their only victory. They lost to the Giants 23-20 in 2007 in Brett Farve’s last game as a Packer. They also lost to the San Francisco 23-20 in 2013 during the Aaron Rodgers era.
Although they have had other chances at Lambeau playoff games since 2000, they never have never been able to duplicate their winning trip to the 2011 Super Bowl where they bested Pittsburgh. Interestingly, and perhaps fortuitously for Packers fans, this year’s Jordan Love led playoff team resembles the 2010 squad.
They have the worst seed (now #7), thereby eliminating any possibility of another game at Lambeau. Like the 2010 team, they are heavy underdogs who had to win out over the last few games of the season to even make the playoffs.
Myth #3: The Packers have “owned” the Cowboys in the Playoffs. Significantly, the Pack won the first two playoff meetings, in 1966 and 1967, on their way to their first two Super Bowl Championships. And, they have won the last two memorable playoff games with the Cowboys, played in 2015 (26-21) and 2017 (34-31).
But, in between, the Cowboys won four straight (1983, 1994, 1995, 1996). Indeed, when the Packers won their lone Super Bowl under Farve, 1997, they did not face Dallas in the playoffs.
So, actually, the Packers and the Cowboys are 4-4 in playoff games with Dallas strongly favored in tomorrow afternoon’s late matchup on Fox.
Which leads me to my final point. In an era of “enlightenment,” when player health and fan safety are supposed to be paramount, why not postpone tonight’s KC-Miami matchup to more suitable weather when the players can perform somewhere near their best and the fans can actually enjoy the game rather than just having to survive it?
After all, the competition is about football, NOT attempting to set coldness records or “out ice the Ice Bowl.” In an unusual burst of rationality, tomorrow’s untenable showdown between Pittsburgh and Buffalo at the latter’s snow-bound home has been postponed at the request of NY Gov. Kathy Hochul, due to public safety concerns.
If tonight’s Chiefs v. Dolphins contest is marred on or off the field by a preventable weather-related injury or fan problems, authorities in Kansas City and the NFL might wish that they had acted with more common sense and prudence. I’m sure that those of us Packer fans who remember watching the Ice Bowl in the comfort of home enjoyed the game more than the players or, for that matter, the 51,000 freezing fans!
In the 18 months since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Republican officials have had ample opportunity to prove they’re not merely antiabortion but also pro-child. They keep failing.
GOP politicians across the country have found new and creative ways to deny resources to struggling parents and children. Take, for instance, the summer lunch program.
Under a new federal program, children who are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches can also receive food assistance during the summer. The policy, created as part of the bipartisan budget deal in 2022, gives eligible families $40 per month per child, or $120 total over the summer. It often works essentially as a top-up for food stamps, since these families must buy more groceries when their children lose access to nutritious school meals when classes go out of session. (It’s similar to a temporary program offered during the pandemic, though it’s much less generous.)
The federal government pays the entire cost of the benefits associated with this new food program and half the administrative costs. The program isn’t automatic, though; states had to opt in by Jan. 1.
Republican governors across 15 states chose not to, as my Post colleague Annie Gowen reported. Up to 10 million kids will be denied access to this grocery aid as a result.
Why have these governors rejected food assistance, even amid soaring grocery prices and pledges to help families strained by inflation?
Some states, such as Texas and Vermont, cited operational or budgetary difficulties with getting a new system running in time for this summer. These obstacles could presumably be surmounted in future years. In other states, GOP politicians expressed outright disdain for the program.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, for instance, said of the new program, “I don’t believe in welfare.” A spokeswoman for Florida’s Department of Children and Families cited vague unspecified fears about “federal strings attached.”
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds suggested there was no point in giving this grocery assistance to food-insecure children “when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.”
Reynolds is apparently unaware that obesity is linked to a lack of reliable access to nutritious food and that children in food-insecure homes face a higher risk of developmental problems. This suggests withholding this nutritional assistance hurts not only the state’s children today but also its workforce tomorrow.
This is hardly the only time GOP politicians have worked to swipe food from the mouths of hungry children — and their moms.
. . . .
Indeed, if a version of a child tax credit expansion ultimately materializes — and it might in the next few days — that will happen only because Democratic lawmakers explicitly held those corporate tax breaks hostage in exchange for aid to poor kids.
Republicans keep assuring the American public that they really, truly care about helping women forced into bearing children even when they’re not financially or emotionally ready to do so. They claim they want to protect youngsters and invest in their financial future.
Time for the GOP to put its money where its mouth is.
I am featured in the attached “20 Stories for 20 Years” video for Waterwell’s 20th anniversary with Kristin Villanueva, the star of the play and film versions of “The Courtroom.”
Waterwell is the theater company co-founded by the actor Arian Moayed that has been a great advocate on behalf of immigrants.
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Congrats, my friend and Round Table colleague, to you and to Waterwell!👏
Come to think of it, “Sir Jeffrey” is a pretty good moniker for an actor, as well as a leading warrior of the Round Table!🛡️⚔️
And, certainly, Immigration Court is a continuing human drama. Some would say “Repertory Theater of the Absurd!”🎭🤯
The outcry of those claiming the United States has an “open border” reminds me of the “everything must go” or “for a limited time only” advertisements. People come only to discover it’s a bait and switch. Let me be clear: Migrants are not risking their lives solely because they believe false claims that the border is open. The overwhelming majority are fleeing desperate situations in their home countries; however, the drumbeat of “open borders ending soon” lends an urgency to their plight. Apprehensions of migrants entering illegally in December 2023 are projected to be a record high of 302,000.
The irony is that many conservative members of Congress try to blame the Biden administration for the surge in migrants, even though the U.S. Supreme Court has long interpreted the Constitution as giving Congress plenary power over immigration. Since the 19th century, this authority of Congress to control our national borders and determine whether a foreign national may enter or remain has been preeminent.
The executive branch is able to work only along the margins of immigration law through regulations and executive orders. When the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations tried to push these tools, the federal courts typically stopped them. Recent research by the Bipartisan Policy Center analyzing the border policies of the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations alongside apprehension data did not find clear-cut evidence that any particular executive branch action was more effective than another.
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As others and I have stated, the migration pressures at the U.S. southern border are not due to lack of enforcement of U.S. law; instead, these pressures result in part from laws written to address migration flows that differed sharply from the numbers of people we are dealing with today. Current law is based on the assumption that most migrants apprehended along the southern border are solo adults who can be turned back easily because they are motivated by economic reasons. Yet migrants today include many more families and children, people fleeing violence, people displaced by climate change, people leaving failed states, and people who are being persecuted — people who are afforded protections under U.S. law.
Regrettably, the House-passed border security legislation, as well as several of the other alternatives Congress is discussing, naively offers to tighten up the enforcement and narrow the categories of people who might be eligible to enter. Do they really think that raising the bar will deter people who are running for their lives? Such reforms portend an increase in the urgency of desperate people and ensuing chaos.
Immigration has always been a phenomenon that drives America’s success story, that undergirds our greatness. Time is overdue for us to reform our immigration laws — to create new pathways and update the old ones — to better reflect the national interest and our values. It will not be easy, as few critical issues are, but it is imperative that Congress gets to work.
Ruth E. Wasem is senior fellow at College of Public Affairs and Education, Cleveland State University. She has more than 30 years of experience in U.S. domestic policy, including immigration, employment, and social welfare policies.
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Read Ruth’s full article at the link! Also, congrats, Ruth, on your new appointment as Senior Fellow at the College of Public Affairs and Education, Cleveland State University!
As Ruth points out, the reason why all reputable studies show little if any relationship of forced migration to changing precedents and policies in “receiving nations,” is in the nature of forced migration. Forced migration is forced by combinations of conditions at or near the “sending” countries that operate largely without regard to unilateral actions in the U.S. or any other major receiving nation or group of nations.
At best, such futile unilateral actions have marginal, transitory effects, usually by forcing strategy adjustments and pricing changes within the world of human smuggling. But, like most markets, the human trafficking market eventually adjusts and the next, largely self-inflicted, “border crisis” ensues.
And thus, the cycle continues, with receiving nations investing more and more and doubling down on “proven to fail” cruelty and deterrence. Rather than acting rationally and responsibly — by listening to experts and those with experience managing refugee migrations — politicos falsely claim that the reason for their failed policies were that they weren’t draconian or expensive enough. But, throwing more money and personnel exclusively at enforcement and deterrence never works in a practical sense.
What it does do, however, is give certain moneyed groups a huge interest in uncontrolled border militarization. It also causes cynical politicos, largely but not exclusively on the right, to invest in sure to fail policies that will be a rallying point for White Nationalists without actual disrupting the supply of exploitable, disenfranchised, largely disposable “cheap labor” popular with many U.S. businesses and political contributors.
Ruth’s article states important truths about the border and migration echoed by expert after expert that are consistently, shamefully, and improperly being ignored by legislators and other politicos. For example, another leading “practical scholar,” Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr of Cornell Law recently “warned that detaining and quickly expelling migrants before asylum screenings would not solve the influx problem for cities like New York, which is grappling with a surge of migrants.” Read more: https://loom.ly/CLCoxqA.
Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr Cornell Law
So cowardly and misguided is the GOP’s approach that they waste public funds on a disingenuous “show trip” to the Texas border, but lack the guts and human decency to meet with and listen to the folks actually affected by their toxic policies and proposals.
Melissa Del Bosque Border Reporter PHOTO: Melissadelbosque.com
As reported by Melissa del Bosque in The Border Chronicle (in her overall discouraging and depressing forecast of the deadly political shenanigans that will be rolled out by GOP nativists during the 2024 campaign):
MAGA extremists in the House of Representatives, holding emergency funding hostage for Ukraine, cut out early from Congress for Christmas vacation, but they were willing to shorten their holiday break to make an appearance in Eagle Pass, Texas, on January 3, setting the tone for the coming months leading up to the general election. House Republicans will begin holding hearings on border security in February and are planning to impeach DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
In Eagle Pass, House Speaker Mike Johnson, along with 60 other Republicans, held a press conference in front of coils of razor wire placed along the Rio Grande by Texas governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star. During the visit, Republicans declined to meet with local community leaders who had erected a public memorial in Eagle Pass for more than 700 people who had died trying to cross the border in 2023.
Expert organizations, like the Center for Migration Studies (“CMS”) with decades of experience studying what works and what doesn’t at the border have offered straightforward plans for “Managing the Border Without Sacrificing Human Rights,” only to have them arrogantly and insultingly ignored by Congress and the Biden Administration. See https://cmsny.org/statement-manage-border-without-sacrificing-human-rights/.
Michael Posner, Professor & Director, Center for Business and Human Rights at NYU Stern School of Business PHOTO: Linkedin
Long-time refugee expert/scholar Professor Michael Posner, writing in Forbes, also offers a far more nuanced and realistic approach to the b order that both parties are ignoring:
Rather than enacting the draconian measures Republicans are now proposing that will, in effect, deny everyone their right to seek asylum, the goal should be to strengthen the system so that the cases of genuine refugees are heard quickly, while those who don’t qualify are placed in deportation proceedings. The way forward is not to curtail everyone’s right to seek asylum, but to make the system both fairer and more efficient.
The idea that the constitutional right to due process and fundamental fairness and the right of refuge guaranteed by international agreements that we signed and long-standing domestic implementing laws are “negotiable” is simply outrageous and fundamentally un-American!
Meanwhile, Dems cower and run away from the border issue, apparently irrationally believing that ignoring it and ceding ground to the GOP will “make it go away” in 2024. News Flash: It won’t!
Sadly, while experts and advocates who actually understand the border and migration fruitlessly rally, demonstrate, write op-ed’s, and file research-backed reports in favor of protecting asylum rights, Senate Dems by most accounts are busy negotiating them away in response to GOP demands. See, e.g.,https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/10/senate-border-ukraine-negotiations/.
Ignoring the advice of experts and acting out of fear, myths, and bias seems to be the “order of the day” for both parties!🤯That’s a national problem that won’t be solved by ever more extreme and wasteful doses of cruelty, repression, and bogus “deterrence,” no matter how politically and financially profitable continued failure might be to some within our nation’s power structure.
