🤪 DISTORTED JUSTICE: From Inanely Denying Persecution To Ignoring Evidence, Garland’s Biased Courts Warp The Immigration Narrative By Improperly Rejecting Many Valid Claims!🤮

Dan Kowalski
Dan Kowalski
Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)

Two More Classic Examples of AG’s “Judicial Malpractice” With Lives At Stake From Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis:

1. CA9 on Persecution: Singh v. Garland

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2024/03/22/22-211.pdfl

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca9-on-persecution-singh-v-garland

“Singh experienced multiple physical attacks and death threats over an eight-month period, from November of 2014 to June of 2015. No reasonable factfinder would conclude that Singh did not experience serious harm rising to the level of persecution. … For all these reasons we find that the record compels a finding that Singh suffered harm rising to the level of persecution. … [T]he BIA did not independently analyze relocation and determine that the government met its burden. Rather, the BIA expressly adopted the IJ’s reasons for finding that internal relocation was safe and reasonable. In doing so, the BIA adopted the IJ’s flawed relocation analysis, which did not afford Singh the presumption of past persecution or shift the burden to the government to prove that Singh can safely and reasonably relocate within India. … In sum, because the BIA erred in its relocation analysis, we grant Singh’s petition to review his claim for asylum and remand to the BIA for consideration in light of Singh v. Whitaker, 914 F.3d 654. … For the reasons set forth above, we GRANT Singh’s petition in part and REMAND to the BIA to consider (1) whether Singh is eligible for asylum because he suffered past persecution on account of statutorily protected grounds by the government or individuals whom the government was unable or unwilling to control; (2) if so, whether the DHS rebutted the presumption of a well-founded fear of future persecution; and (3) whether Singh is entitled to withholding of removal.”

[Hats off to Inna Lipkin!]

Inna Lipkin, Esquire
Inna Lipkin, Esquire
PHOTO: Law Office of Inna Lipkin

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

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2. BIA Ignores Evidence, CA2 Remands

https://ww3.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/b4acba28-c76c-439c-bf1f-032d1674929f/15/doc/22-6420_so.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/bia-ignores-evidence-ca2-remands

Mendez Galvez v. Garland (unpub.)

“The agency entirely overlooked evidence material to the hardship determination in this case: evidence regarding Mendez’s serious back injury and its implications for his ability to support his qualifying relatives through work in El Salvador. … The BIA’s decision is VACATED and the case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this order.”

[Hats off to H. Raymond Fasano!]

H. Raymond Fasano, Esquire
H. Raymond Fasano, Esquire
PHOTO: Sup[er Lawyers Profile
Daniel M. KowalskiEditor-in-ChiefBender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

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What if a brain surgeon or a heart surgeon were routinely engaging in “surgical malpractice?” Wouldn’t it be a cause for grave concern?🤯

Almost every week, sometimes multiple times, the BIA mishandles the basics in potential “life or death” cases. Yet, Garland somehow shrugs it off! This not only adds to the “dehumanization” of migrants (their lives don’t count), but also badly skews the statistical profile that undergirds much of the misguided immigration (non) dialogue. 

If the anti-immigrant, anti-asylum, huge “over-denial” problem at EOIR were addressed with better qualified judges and adjudicators, it would become apparent that many more, probably a majority, of those caught up in the dysfunction at EOIR and the Asylum Office are qualified to remain in the U.S. in some status. And, proper positive precedents would guide practitioners, ICE Counsel, Immigration Judges, and Asylum Officers to correct results without protracted litigation that eventually burdens the Courts of Appeals, causes avoidable remands, fuels “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” and contributes mightily to the mushrooming EOIR backlog!

As a result, these cases could be prepared, prioritized, granted, and individuals could get on with their lives and maximize their human potential to help our nation — just as generations before them have done including the ancestors of almost all Americans! How soon some of us forget!

 The real, largely self-created, “immigration crisis,” is NOT insufficient “deterrence, detention, and cruelty” at the border! It’s the grotesque failure of all three branches of Government to insist on a fair, timely, well-staffed, professionally-managed, due-process-compliant adjudication, review, and resettlement system for asylum seekers and other immigrants. It’s also the ongoing attempt to “cover up” and minimize our Government’s mistreatment of asylum seekers, particularly those asserting their legal right to apply at our borders and in the interior regardless of status!

The racially-driven “targeting” of asylum seekers at the border is a ruse designed to deflect attention from the realities of human migration, what drives it, and the failure of governments across the board to come to grips with them and to fulfill their legal responsibilities to treat all persons fairly, humanely, and in accordance with correct interpretations and applications of the law!

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

Here’s additional commentary on Singh from my Round Table ⚖️⚔️ colleague “Sir Jeffrey” Chase:

The IJ was really determined to deny on this one. And I guess Vandyke had filled his quota of once in a lifetime for finding fault with the government, and thus had no choice but to dissent.

How would YOU like to face a system “determined to deny” with your life on the line? How would Garland like it?

Actually, under the generous “well-founded fear” standard applicable to asylum (Cardoza-Fonseca/Mogharrabi) and the authoritative guidance in the U.N. Handbook on adjudication, applicants like Singh who testify credibly are supposed to be given “the benefit of the doubt.” Garland has, quite improperly, like his immediate predecessors, allowed this key humanitarian legal principle to be mocked at EOIR! Instead, as cogently pointed out by “Sir Jeffrey,” here the IJ and the BIA actually went the “extra mile” to think of “any reason to deny” — even totally specious ones!

Also, half-baked, legally deficient “reasonably available internal relocation analysis” is a long-standing, chronic problem at EOIR, despite a regulation setting forth analytical factors that should be evaluated. Few, if any, such legitimate opportunities are “reasonably available” in most countries sending asylum applicants!

Moreover, once past persecution is established, the DHS has the burden of showing that there is a reasonably available internal relocation alternative, something that they almost never can prove by a preponderance of the evidence! Indeed, in my experience, the DHS almost never put in such evidence beyond rote citations to generalized language in DOS Country Reports! 

The “judicial competency/bias” problems plaguing EOIR are large and well documented. Yet, Garland pretends like they don’t exist!

Alfred E. Neumann
Has Alfred E. Neumann been “reborn” as Judge Merrick Garland? “Not my friends or relatives whose lives as being destroyed by my ‘Kangaroo Courts.’ Just ‘the others’ and their immigration lawyers, so who cares, why worry about professionalism, ethics, and due process in Immigration Court?”
PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-28-24

⚖️ BREAKING: 5TH CIR. LEAVES STAY OF SB 4 IN PLACE!

J. David GoodmanHouston Bureau Chief NY Times PHOTO: NYT website
J. David Goodman
Houston Bureau Chief
NY Times
PHOTO: NYT website

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/us/texas-migrant-law-appeals-court.html?unlocked_article_code=1.f00.EVy6.W8k2Dmf2Odr-&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&ugrp=u

J. David Goodman reports for NYT:

A federal appeals court late Tuesday ruled against Texas in its bitter clash with the federal government, deciding that a law allowing the state to arrest and deport migrants could not be implemented while the courts wrestled with the question of whether it is legal.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which has a reputation for conservative rulings, sided in its 2-to-1 decision with lawyers for the Biden administration who have argued that the law violates the U.S. Constitution and decades of legal precedent.

The panel’s majority opinion left in place an injunction imposed last month by a lower court in Austin, which found that the federal government was likely to succeed in its arguments against the law.

. . . .

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Read the complete report at the link.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-27-24

🤪 GARLAND’S BIA DRUBBED AGAIN ON PSG — This Time It’s 1st Cir! — Ferreira v. Garland!

Trial By Ordeal
Under Garland, the BIA’s approach to gender-based asylum has too often remained tethered to the past.  Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal”
17th Century Woodcut
Public Realm
Source: Ancient Origins Website
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160

Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” S. Chase reports to the Round Table⚔️🛡️:

[Ferreira] [2024.3.21] Opinion

Victory in the 1st Circuit

Hi all: Another win to report, in a First Circuit case in which we filed a joint amicus brief with immigration law professors (and some in our group actually fit within both categories!).

However, the court declined to address our argument regarding the correct nexus standard for withholding claims (as opposed to asylum claims). The reason is that the court found that the BIA misstated one of the petitioner’s particular social groups, such that (according to the circuit court):

In sum, the BIA rejected a PSG of its own devising and not the social group Ferreira advanced. Its characterization substantively altered the meaning of Ferreira’s proffered PSG and amounts to legal error.

The court directed:

On remand, the BIA should carefully consider Ferreira’s gender-based PSG in light of our decisions in De Pena-Paniagua and Espinoza-Ochoa.

Both of those cited decisions were quite favorable to the petitioners.

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

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Fear mongering and myth making by politicos of both parties, with the connivance of the media, deflect attention from the real problem: a dysfunctional U.S. asylum adjudication system that hugely and disingenuously over-rejects and under-protects, in addition to being too slow and unconstitutionally inconsistent. Thus, both parties intentionally skew the statistics against asylum seekers and feed racially-driven nativist “talking points” about the border!

The BIA/OIL claim that the gender-based psg is not recognizable is utterly preposterous! It took me fewer than 5 minutes of internet research to find this very recent Trinidad government report recognizing that gender-based violence is an endemic and well-documented problem that disproportionately affects women and girls in Trinidad. While the report sets forth an “aspirational multi-year plan” to address the problem (“willing to protect”), there is no indication that the plan is reasonably effective at present (“but unable to do so at present”).

https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/2024/20240304_spotlight_national_strategic_action_plan_for_trinidad_and_tobago_0.pdf

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

Here is some other “choice commentary” from Round Table members:

“A win is a win–again ‘calling’ the BIA on doing the wrong thing!”

“Great job, Team!!  Let’s keep up this winning streak.”

“Wow – great! As Paul would say, another bad Garland/BIA Fiasco. Making up a psg and then denying relief because of it. Funny if it were not so tragic!“

“Yes, especially when they are telling IJs they can’t even determine what PSG fits the facts of the case unless the Respondent gets it just right!  Yet they can make up whatever they want and then say it doesn’t fit the facts or isn’t cognizable!”

“When we were at the International Judges conference that [Paul] organized at Georgetown, all of the international judges said that gender was a recognized psg in their countries—even the countries where women are discriminated against and/or persecuted!”

“Like most of you, I am at a loss to understand how gender, alone, does not meet every requirement of PSG. The BIA position on this is inexplicable, and IMO, at minimum, borders on frivolous.“

Roger that! Intentionally ignoring the obvious and failing in the duty to consistently recognize and prioritize many easy grants of asylum and other protection is the “elephant in the room” for the U.S. justice system! 

No wonder spineless politicos, judges, and the media want to shift attention away from their shared responsibility for a glaringly unjust and inept asylum system to blame the hapless victims of their collective failure — whose lives and futures are on the line!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-22-24

⚖️ BIA: OUTSDE, INSIDE: Garland Reportedly Will Tap “Practical Scholar” Professor Homero López, Jr., & Temp. Appellate Immigration Judge Joan B. Geller To Prior Vacancies, With One Judgeship Still “In Competition!”

⚖️ BIA: OUTSDE, INSIDE: Garland Reportedly Will Tap “Practical Scholar” Professor Homero López, Jr., & Temp. Appellate Immigration Judge Joan B. Geller To Prior Vacancies, With One Judgeship Still “In Competition!”

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Special to Courtside

March 19, 2024

Although there has been no official announcement from DOJ/EOIR, I have learned that Professor (and legal services provider) Homero López and Temporary Appellate Judge (and long-time BIA attorney) Joan Geller will be appointed to two of the three existing vacancies at the BIA. The BIA is the highest administrative tribunal in immigration law and exercises nationwide jurisdiction over the Immigration Courts with authority to issue binding precedents.

Professor López‘s appointment was announced by Loyola University Law (New Orleans) where he has been an Adjunct Professor of Law:

Adjunct Professor Promoted to Board of Immigration Appeals

Adjunct Law Professor Homero Lopez has been appointed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, the top administrative appellate agency to review immigration court decisions in the United States!  Judge Lopez will start considering appeals on April 1st!

https://law.loyno.edu/news/mar-12-2024_adjunct-law-professor-homero-lopez-has-been-appointed-board-immigration-appeals

 

BIA Judge-designate Homero López
BIA Judge-designate Homero López, Jr.
PHOTO: ILSA website

In addition to his adjunct professorship at Loyola, Judge-designate López most recently has been the Co-Founder & Legal Director of Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy (“ISLA”) in New Orleans, “a legal services organization that defends the rights of our immigrant communities and advocates for just and humane immigration policy.”

Here’s his bio from the ISLA website:

Homero is ISLA’s Legal Director.  As the son of a migrant worker, Homero grew up moving around the country and living among immigrant communities his entire life.  Before co-founding ISLA, Homero was the managing attorney at Catholic Charities-Archdiocese of New Orleans where he oversaw a legal team of 30 attorneys, accredited representatives, and legal assistants focusing on representing Unaccompanied Children and immigrant victims of crime.  Before that, Homero was a staff, and later, supervising attorney at Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Baton Rouge where he conducted the Legal Orientation Program for detained immigrants at the LaSalle Detention Facility and primarily focused on detained cases.  Homero is a graduate of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and Tulane University Law School in New Orleans, Louisiana.

López recently was featured by Dan Kowalski in LexisNexis for his successful litigation of a major due process/credibility victory in the Fifth Circuit, Nkenglefac v. Garland, 34 F.4th 422, 430 (2022), and for prevailing in the fee award litigation in the same case. See:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca5-on-due-process-credibility-nkenglefac-v-garland

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca5-awards-eaja-fees-nkenglefac-v-garland

Judge-designate Geller has spent the bulk of her legal career as on the BIA staff and has also served as a Temporary Appellate Immigration Judge/Board Member. Here’s her “official bio” from the EOIR website:

Joan B. Geller was appointed as a temporary board member in January 2018. Ms. Geller, who has prior experience as a temporary board member, has over 14 years of experience as an attorney advisor at the Board. Prior to joining the Board, Ms. Geller served for seven years with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, first as a staff attorney and later as a deputy staff counsel. Ms. Geller received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her J.D.from Georgetown University Law Center. She is a member of the District of Columbia and Maryland Bars.

Significantly, from my standpoint, she graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Georgetown Law, two institutions with which I have long-time associations.  While Geller’s BIA service began after my tenure there, sources tell me she was “held in high regard by the staff attorneys.” That’s important, given that the bulk of the opinion-drafting work at the BIA is done by the staff and the endemic quality control issues now plaguing this appellate body.

Hopefully, López and Geller will bring some much-needed due process focus, quality control, and practical progressive scholarship, leadership, and energy to a floundering, yet critically important, tribunal badly in need of the foregoing. 

Indeed, López’s stellar work in Nkenglefac went right to the heart of the chronic due process and quality control problems of the BIA, particularly in life or death asylum cases, under Sessions, Barr, and now Garland: failure to follow precedent favorable to the respondent, “phantom finding of waiver,” lack of critical analysis, misrepresentation of the record, misuse of non-record materials, improper allocation of the burdens, and ignoring or minimizing voluminous testimony!  In other words, a classic example of prejudgement and “any reason to deny” (even if not in the record) decision-making! 

So totally miserable was EOIR’s and OIL’s performance in Nkenglefac that in a rare move the Fifth Circuit in subsequent litigation found them to be “not substantially justified at each stage of this litigation” and awarded costs and attorneys fees to the respondent! Having seen first-hand just how absurdly skewed and unfair the EOIR system has become in “life on the line” cases, López should be well-positioned to “just say no” to this type of appellate nonsense and inject a long-missing dose of reality, humanity, and real scholarship into this “ivory (actually glass) tower tribunal!”

Those of us who care about justice in America have ripped Garland’s BIA for sloppiness, anti-asylum culture, anti-immigrant attitudes, and failure to establish clear, practical, positive precedents facilitating the timely granting of asylum to the many qualified refugees now stuck in the largely USG-created morass at our Southern Border.  See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2024/03/18/⚖️-winograd-whomps-🥊-garlands-eoir-again-this-time-on-particularly-serious-crime-psc-annor-v-garland-fo/. For example, the failure to issue a precedent requiring presumptive grants of asylum to Afghan women, instead making them laboriously work their way through the system with potentially incorrect results, is an egregious, but not certainly not the only, example of the BIA’s abject failure to “get the job done for American justice.”

Even as I write this, my friend Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis has just forwarded yet another glaring example of “judicial malpractice” on asylum by the BIA — this latest rebuke coming from the Sixth Circuit (Vasquez-Rivera v. Garland). See https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca6-on-nexus-social-group-vasquez-rivera-v-garland.

I also trust that López and Geller will be “throwbacks” to a time when senior leaders EOIR actually believed in the noble (now abandoned) “vision” of EOIR that I once had a role in crafting:  “Through teamwork and innovation, be the world’s best administrative tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”

Rather than making that vision a reality, disgracefully, under the last four Administrations, the EOIR motto appears to have devolved into “any reason to deny, good enough for government work, numbers over quality, institutional survival over individual justice, go along to get along, and don’t rock the boat!”

Finally, the appointment of Judge-designate López illustrates my constantly-made point that NDPA warriors can and must compete for EOIR judgeships, particularly at the BIA level, when they are advertised! This system needs practical, positive, due-process-focused, protection-oriented change, and it needs it now!  Things are only going to improve if the pressure comes from both better-qualified judges on the “inside” and unrelenting litigation and media coverage from the “outside!”

So, get those applications in before April 12, 2024 to join Judge-designates López and Geller on the BIA bench! See https://immigrationcourtside.com/2024/03/15/⚖%EF%B8%8F🗽👩🏾⚖%EF%B8%8F-calling-ndpa-all-stars🌟-wanted-bia-appellate-judge-dedicated-to-due-process-asylum-expertise/

And, of course, good luck to both these new Appellate Immigration Judges! May you never, ever forget that due process is the one and only mission of EOIR!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-19-24

⚖️🗽👩🏾‍⚖️ CALLING NDPA ALL-STARS!🌟 — WANTED: BIA APPELLATE JUDGE DEDICATED TO DUE PROCESS, ASYLUM EXPERTISE, & PROMOTING BEST PRACTICES!  — Apply By April 12, 2024! — Better Judges For A Better America!

Refugees Welcome
What if the BIA cared about protection of asylum seekers rather than defaulting to rejection?
IMAGE: Public Realm

https://www.usajobs.gov/job/781350500

Summary

The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) at the Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking a highly-qualified individual to join our team of expert professionals who serve as Appellate Immigration Judges.

This is an Excepted Service position, subject to a probationary period. The initial appointment is for a period not to exceed 24 months. Conversion to a permanent position is contingent upon appointment by the Attorney General.

Learn more about this agency

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This job is open to

Clarification from the agency

U.S. Citizens, Nationals or those who owe allegiance to the U.S.

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Duties

This position is in the Board of Immigration Appeals, within the Executive Office for Immigration Review. The incumbent reports to a Deputy Chief Appellate Immigration Judge, who in turn reports to the Chief Appellate Immigration Judge.

Appellate Immigration Judges must apply immigration laws impartially, humanely, and equitably and ensure that all parties are treated with respect and dignity. They also must resolve cases expeditiously, in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations, and consistent with the Department’s priorities and policies.

Appellate Immigration Judges are commissioned to serve in formal, quasi-judicial proceedings to review the determinations of immigration judges in removal and related proceedings, and of certain officers of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in visa petition proceedings and other matters. All Appellate Immigration Judges review the record on appeal, including briefs, exhibits, and transcripts, and hear oral argument when appropriate. An Appellate Immigration Judge may concur or dissent based on their view of any given case. The majority of the Appellate Immigration Judges’ duties fall into the general categories of removal proceedings, discretionary relief, claims of persecution, stays of removal, visa petitions, administrative fines, and bond and detention.

The majority of an Appellate Immigration Judge’s duties will be dedicated to the appellate work, but an Appellate Immigration Judge must also be qualified, and may be called upon, to conduct trial level proceedings in the role of an immigration judge.

Appellate Immigration Judges make decisions that are final, subject to appeal to the Federal courts. In connection with these proceedings, Appellate Immigration Judges exercise certain discretionary powers as provided by law and are required to exercise independent judgment in reaching final decisions.

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Requirements

Conditions of Employment

You must be a U.S. Citizen or National.

Employment is contingent upon the completion and satisfactory adjudication of a background investigation.

Selective Service Registration is required, as applicable.

Moving and Relocation Expense are not authorized.

You must have relevant experience (see “Qualifications” below.)

Qualifications must be met by the closing date of the announcement.

If selected, you must file a financial disclosure statement in accordance with the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

You must receive your Federal salary by Direct Deposit (to a financial institution of their choosing).

Qualifications

In order to qualify for the Appellate Immigration Judge position, applicants must meet all of the following minimum qualifications:

  • Education: Applicants must possess a LL.B., J.D., or LL.M. degree. (Provide the month and year in which you obtained your degree and the name of the College or University from which it was conferred/awarded.)

AND

  • Licensure: Applicants must be an active member of the bar, duly licensed and authorized to practice law as an attorney under the laws of any state, territory of the U.S., or the District of Columbia. (Provide the month and year in which you obtained your first license and the State from which it was issued.)

AND

  • Experience: Applicants must have seven (7) years of post-bar admission experience as a licensed attorney preparing for, participating in, and/or appealing formal hearings or trials involving litigation and/or administrative law at the Federal, State or local level. Qualifying litigation experience involves cases in which a complaint was filed with a court, or a charging document (e.g., indictment or information) was issued by a court, a grand jury, or appropriate military authority. Qualifying administrative law experience involves cases in which a formal procedure was initiated by a governmental administrative body.

NOTE: Qualifying experience is calculated from the date of your first admission to the bar.

In addition, successful applicants will have a strong combination of experience demonstrating that they will perform at the level of competence, impartiality, and professionalism expected of an Appellate Immigration Judge. For more information about relevant experience and knowledge, please see the “How You Will Be Evaluated” section.

Additional information

This is an Excepted Service position, subject to a probationary period. The initial appointment is for a period not to exceed 24 months. Conversion to a permanent position is contingent upon appointment by the Attorney General.

Additional positions may be filled from this announcement within 90 days of certificate issuance.

Alternative work schedule options are available.

There is no formal rating system for applying veterans’ preference to Appellate Immigration Judge appointments in the excepted service; however, the Department of Justice considers veterans’ preference eligibility as a positive factor in Appellate Immigration Judge hiring. Applicants eligible for veterans’ preference must claim their status when completing their application in the online application process and attach supporting documentation. (See “Required Documents” section.)

Conditions of Employment: Only U.S. Citizens or Nationals are eligible for employment with the Executive Office for Immigration Review. Dual citizens of the U.S. and another country will be considered on a case-by-case basis. All DOJ applicants, both U.S. Citizens and non-citizens, whose job location is with the United States, must meet the residency requirement. For a total of three (not necessarily consecutive years) of the five years immediately prior to applying for a position, the applicant must have: 1) resided in the United States; 2) worked for the United States overseas in a Federal or military capacity; or 3) been a dependent of a Federal or military employee serving oversees.

As the Federal agency whose mission is to ensure the fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans, the Department of Justice is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment. To build and retain a workforce that reflects the diverse experiences and perspectives of the American people, we welcome applicants from the many communities, identities, races, ethnicities, backgrounds, abilities, religions, and cultures of the United States who share our commitment to public service.

Additional Information: The COVID-19 vaccination requirement for Federal employees pursuant to Executive Order 14043 does not currently apply. Some jobs, however, may be subject to agency- or job-specific vaccination requirements, so please review the job announcement for details. To ensure compliance with an applicable preliminary nationwide injunction, which may be supplemented, modified or vacated, depending on the course of ongoing litigation, the Federal government will take no action to implement or enforce the COVID-19 vaccination requirement pursuant to Executive Order 14043 on Requiring Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccination for Federal Employees. Therefore, to the extent a Federal job announcement includes the requirement that applicants must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 pursuant to Executive Order 14043, that requirement does not currently apply.

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  • Benefits

How You Will Be Evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

Applicants meeting the minimum qualifications stated above will be further evaluated to determine those who are best qualified. This determination will be based, in part, on the following Quality Ranking Factors (QRFs), which need to be addressed as part of the application package.

  1. Ability to demonstrate the appropriate temperament to serve as a judge. Appellate Immigration Judges need to possess traits such as compassion, decisiveness, open-mindedness, courtesy, patience, freedom from bias, and commitment to equal justice under the law. Additionally, individuals in this role are expected to exercise discretion, and articulate how that discretion is being exercised, in complex, sensitive, high-pressure and/or emotional situations. A strong candidate demonstrates excellent analytical, decision-making, and writing abilities.
  2. Litigation or adjudication experience, preferably in a high volume judicial or administrative context. Appellate Immigration Judges often must balance a variety of skills that can include managing a high volume of cases, drafting decisions, and reviewing an administrative record at the appellate level. It is vital that a candidate is able to manage a high-volume docket under tight deadlines without compromising quality.
  3. Experience conducting administrative hearings or adjudicating administrative cases. Appellate Immigration Judges are expected to decide difficult or complex issues, particularly those that impact people’s lives. Prior adjudication experience in other tribunals – Federal, state, local, military or other court systems – is ideal, however, adjudications experience may be drawn from non-courtroom settings. For candidates who have limited adjudications experience, significant litigation experience before EOIR or extensive litigation experience in settings comparable to an immigration court setting may be considered.
  4. Experience handling complex legal issues. Immigration law often involves handling complex legal issues. This role requires being able to work through complicated fact patterns and issues, novel areas of the law, as well as learning, adapting to, and incorporating changes in the law.
  5. Knowledge of immigration laws and procedures. In this role, depth and/or volume of immigration law experience is important. Candidates should have meaningful experience applying complex immigration law, which can include representing non-citizens or the Federal government in matters involving complex or diverse immigration laws, adjudicating immigration matters, legislative or administrative advocacy on immigration policy issues, academic or clinical experience, and other similar work that involves routine analysis and application of immigration law.

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Required Documents

To apply for this position, you must provide a complete Application Package by 11:59 PM (ET) on 04/12/2024, the closing date of this announcement, which includes:

  1. Your Resume documenting seven (7) years experience since being admitted to the bar.
  2. A complete online Assessment Questionnaire.
  3. Document(s)addressing the Quality Ranking Factors (QRFs) listed above.
  4. A Writing Sample demonstrating your ability to author legal documents (10 pages, maximum; an excerpt of a longer document is acceptable).
  5. Current or former Federal employees must provide copies of their most recent and their latest SF-50, Notification of Personnel Action.
  6. Other Supporting Documents, if applicable:
    • Veterans’ Preference Documentation: Although the veterans’ preference point system does not apply to this position, we accept preference claims and adjudicate such claims per the documentation provided. Note: If claiming 5-point veterans’ preference, include a DD-214 or statement of service. If claiming 10-point veterans’ preference, include an SF-15 and documentation required by that form, VA or military letter dated 1991 or later, and DD-214.
    • Any other supporting documentation required for verification as described in the announcement.

Tips for your resume:

  • Ensure that your resume contains your full name, address, phone number, email address, and employment information.
  • Each position listed on your resume must include: From/To dates of employment (MM/YYYY-MM/YYYY or MM/YYYY to Present); agency/employer name; position title; Federal grade level(s) held, if applicable; hours, if less than full time; and duties performed.
  • In addition, any experience on less than a full time basis must specify the percentage and length of time spent in performance of such duties.

Tips for addressing QRFs:

  • Applicants should use narrative form to address each of the five (5) QRFs. They must be written in a separate document indicating the by-number of the specific QRF being addressed.
  • Successful applicants will address all of the QRFs. If you do not have the specific experience addressed in a QRF, we encourage you to write about a similar skill, ability, knowledge, or experience.
  • Applicants should be thorough in addressing each QRF. This includes:
    • Approximate number of cases or matters handled in a given period of time.
    • Applicant’s specific role (e.g., adjudicator, first chair, co-counsel, responsible for the written brief only, etc.).
    • Length of time involved in a given role (e.g., lead counsel in 20 immigration proceedings in 10 years).
    • Specific examples of the types of cases (asylum application, pleas, settlement, bench trial, jury trial, etc.).
    • The number of court and/or administrative appearances made in those cases.
    • The case dispositions (ruling on the merits, plea or similar resolution, settlement, trial, jury trial, etc.).

Failure to submit the documents listed above with your application package will result in your application package being removed from consideration.

If you are relying on your education to meet qualification requirements:

Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

Failure to provide all of the required information as stated in this vacancy announcement may result in an ineligible rating or may affect the overall rating.

Help Help

How to Apply

You must submit a complete application package by 11:59 PM (EST) on 04/12/2024, the closing date of the announcement.

  • To begin, click Apply Online to create a USAJOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USAJOBS resume and/or other supporting documents and complete the occupational questionnaire.
  • Click the Submit My Answers button to submit your application package.
  • It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date.
  • To verify your application is complete, log into your USAJOBS account, select the Application Status link and then select the more information link for this position. The Details page will display the status of your application, the documentation received and processed, and any correspondence the agency has sent related to this application. Your uploaded documents may take several hours to clear the virus scan process.
  • To return to an incomplete application, log into your USAJOBS account and click Update Application in the vacancy announcement. You must re-select your resume and/or other documents from your USAJOBS account or your application will be incomplete.

If you are unable to apply online or need to fax a document you do not have in electronic form, view the following link for information regarding an Alternate Application.

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Agency contact information

Shenita Gibbons Shenita Gibbons

Email

Shenita.Gibbons@usdoj.gov

Address

Board of Immigration Appeals

5107 Leesburg Pike

Falls Church, VA 22041

US

Learn more about this agency

Next steps

We will evaluate the qualifications and eligibility of all applicants, and then assess those who meet the minimum qualifications. All candidates who meet all the minimum requirements will be referred to the hiring official for further consideration. We will notify you of the final outcome after all of these steps have been completed.

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The Federal hiring process is set up to be fair and transparent. Please read the following guidance.

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Overview

  • Accepting applications
  • Open & closing dates
    Opening and closing dates 03/13/2024 to 04/12/2024
  • Salary
    $156,924 – $204,000 per year
  • Pay scale & grade
    IJ 00
  • Location
    1 vacancy in the following location:

    • Falls Church, VAFalls Church, VA
  • Remote job
    No
  • Telework eligible
    Yes—as determined by the agency policy.
  • Travel Required
    50% or less – You may be expected to travel for this position.
  • Relocation expenses reimbursed
    No
  • Appointment type
    Permanent –
  • Work schedule
    Full-time –
  • Service
    Excepted
  • Promotion potential
    00
  • Job family (Series)
    0905 Attorney
  • Supervisory status
    No
  • Security clearance
    Not Required
  • Drug test
    Yes
  • Position sensitivity and risk
    High Risk (HR)
  • Trust determination process
    Credentialing
  • Announcement number
    DE-12329429-24-SG
  • Control number
    781350500

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Learn more about

Executive Office for Immigration Review

If you are interested in a rewarding and challenging career, this is the position for you!

The Executive Office for Immigration Review seeks highly-qualified individuals to join our team of expert professionals in becoming a part of our challenging and rewarding Agency. The primary mission of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is to adjudicate immigration cases by fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly interpreting and administering the Nation’s immigration laws. Under delegated authority from the Attorney General, EOIR conducts immigration court proceedings, appellate reviews, and administrative hearings. EOIR consists of three adjudicatory components: The Office of the Chief Immigration Judge, which is responsible for managing the Immigration Courts where Immigration Judges adjudicate individual cases; the Board of Immigration Appeals, which primarily conducts appellate reviews of these Immigration Judge decisions; and the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer, which adjudicates immigration-related employment cases.

Agency contact information

Shenita Gibbons Shenita Gibbons

Email

Shenita.Gibbons@usdoj.gov

Address

Board of Immigration Appeals

5107 Leesburg Pike

Falls Church, VA 22041

US

Visit our careers page

Learn more about what it’s like to work at Executive Office for Immigration Review, what the agency does, and about the types of careers this agency offers.

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/

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

Yes, EOIR is a mess! But, it’s not going to get any better without better judges, particularly at the BIA which sets precedents and should (even if it now doesn’t) maintain nationwide consistency among Immigration Judges and articulate and implement “best judicial practices.”

Quite disappointingly and outrageously, the Biden Administration and A.G. Garland have failed to “clean house” and bring long overdue due process and judicial reforms to EOIR. So, the NDPA will have to go about it “the old-fashioned way:” one judicial vacancy at a time!

What if we had a BIA that:

  • Believed due process and fundamental fairness are “job one;”
  • Insured correctness and quality over “generating numbers;”
  • Institutionalized protection, not rote rejection, of asylum seekers;
  • Built on past precedents for properly generous treatment of asylum seekers like INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, Matter of Mogharrabi, and Matter of Kasinga, rather than ignoring, or looking for artificial ways to limit them;
  • Issued precedents insuring early identification and consistent granting of many current and repetitive asylum applications;
  • Looked for ways to simplify, rather than overcomplicate and obfuscate, legal guidance;
  • Had “zero tolerance” for anti-immigrant, anti-asylum, racial, gender, and other biases among Immigration Judges (e.g., no more “asylum free zones”);
  • Refused to allow the Immigraton Court system to be misused and abused as a “deterrent” or “an adjunct of DHS Enforcement;”
  • Developed and enforced “best judicial practices;”
  • Prioritized facilitating pro bono representation as a key element of due process;
  • Aspired to make the “former vision of EOIR” — “through teamwork and innovation be the world’s best administrative tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all” — a reality, rather than a cruel hoax!

Of course, one judge can’t do it all! But, there are plenty of great judges in the current EOIR system, at both levels, who need reenforcement and reaffirmation! Rebuilding the EOIR system so that it is a real, due-process-oriented, subject-matter-expert court that insures justice — rather than institutionalizing injustice — has to start somewhere! Fixing EOIR would also help save the entire faltering Federal Judicial system.

If the NDPA doesn’t do it, who will? Certainly not Biden, Harris, Garland or their minions— or at to least not without being pushed from within and dragged kicking and screaming from without.

Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot (a/k/a Merrick Garland) to fix EOIR isn’t going to cut it!
Naseer’s Motley Group in The Rose Bowl
Merlaysamuel
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
Waiting for Godot in Doon School.jpg Copy
[[File:Waiting for Godot in Doon School.jpg|Waiting_for_Godot_in_Doon_School]]
Copy
December 8, 2011
So, don’t “wait for Godot” to fix this broken system! Clue: He’s not coming! Get those applications in now!

Better judges for a better America! Sooner, rather than later!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-15-24

🤯 INCREDIBLE! — Even Righty Judge Lawrence Van Dyke @ CA 9 Has Had His Fill Of Garland’s Badly Bumbling BIA Brethren! — Kalulu v. Garland — You Can Add Anti-Gay Stereotypes To The List Of Documented Charges Against Garland’s Deadly Clown Show! 🤡🤮☠️

Clown Parade
The “Clown Show” continues in full regalia at Garland’s EOIR.  But, nobody’s laughing about the potentially deadly consequences! PHOTO: Public Domain

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

CA9 (2-1) on Credibility, Evidence: Kalulu v. Garland

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2024/03/11/21-895.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca9-2-1-on-credibility-evidence-kalulu-v-garland

“This court grants a petition for review of an agency denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT relief only under the most extraordinary circumstances. See Gutierrez-Alm, 62 F.4th at 1194; Sharma v. Garland, 9 F.4th 1052, 1060 (9th Cir. 2021). This is one of those rare instances. For the reasons discussed above, the agency’su adverse credibility determination is amply supported by substantial evidence. But the IJ failed to properly consider and evaluate the evidentiary weight of multiple documents Kalulu offered into the record independent of her testimony, and the BIA made clear factual errors when it reviewed those documents. Because the agency’s decision therefore “cannot be sustained upon its reasoning,” this case must be remanded for the IJ or BIA to reconsider its decision. De Leon, 51 F.4th at 1008 (internal quotation marks omitted). On remand, the agency must reexamine the three declarations and medical document discussed in section III(b) to consider whether they, when properly read alongside other nontestimonial evidence in the record, independently prove Kalulu’s claims for asylum or withholding of removal. This court takes no position on whether those documents provide such proof or whether Kalulu merits any of the relief for which she applied.”

Dissent: “The majority ignores our precedent and instead concludes that the agency would have reached the same adverse credibility determination in the absence of these unsupported findings. That approach contravenes the REAL ID Act, binding circuit precedent, and fundamental principles of administrative law. I respectfully dissent.”

[Hats off to Amalia Wille and Judah Lakin!]

Amalia Wille ESQUIRE
Amalia Wille ESQUIRE
Judah Lakin ESQUIRE
Judah Lakin ESQUIRE

 

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

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

Many congrats to Amalia, Judah, and their NDPA team!

As my friend Dan often says about EOIR, “you can’t make this stuff up!”🤯

Well, the panel judges all agree that the BIA is wrong! It’s just a question of HOW wrong. 

Note Van Dyke is a Trump appointee, and one of the most far-right judges on the bench. Murphy is a Bush II appointee. Sanchez (concur/dissent) is a Biden appointee.

The BIA has to have worked overtime to do such a miserable job that even Van Dyke couldn’t paper it over, although he took a stab at it!

The majority decision is basically a restatement of the 4th Circuit’s pre-REAL ID precedent Camara v. Ashcroft, 378 F.3d 361 (4th Cir. 2004). That case materially affected practices, changed results, and saved lives during my tenure at the “Legacy”Arlington Immigration Court!

So, it’s not that requiring that testimony be evaluated along with independent, non-testimonial evidence is something “new” or “rocket science!”🚀 Heck, it’s even incorporated in the REAL ID Act. This is “Immigration 101!” Yet, the  BIA came up woefully short while Garland ignores fundamental flaws in his judicial system. 

It’s well worth looking at a bit more of Judge Gabriel Sanchez’s vigorous separate opinion:

Petitioner Milly Kalulu, a native of Zambia, alleges she

was persecuted because she is a lesbian in a country that

criminalizes same-sex relationships. When her relationship

with a woman was discovered by her girlfriend’s brothers,

she was beaten, whipped, injected with an unknown

substance, stabbed in the chest, doused with gasoline, and

threatened with death over several violent encounters.

Kalulu submitted documentary evidence corroborating her

claims, including a copy of her medical report, a declaration

from her aunt in California, and declarations from several

Zambians who witnessed the attacks on her. The agency,

however, dismissed this evidence based on unsupportable or

trivial grounds.

I agree with the majority that the agency failed to

consider whether Kalulu’s supporting evidence

independently proves her claims for asylum, withholding of

removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture

(CAT). “Where potentially dispositive testimony and

documentary evidence is submitted, the BIA must give

reasoned consideration to that evidence.” Cole v. Holder,

659 F.3d 762, 772 (9th Cir. 2011); see also Antonio v.

Garland, 58 F.4th 1067, 1077 (9th Cir. 2023) (“[W]here

there is any indication that the agency did not consider all of

the evidence before it the decision cannot stand.” (cleaned

up)). Remand is required where, as here, the agency did not

give reasoned consideration to highly probative evidence

that may independently support Kalulu’s claims of past

persecution.

But the agency’s failure to consider the documentary

evidence was emblematic of other significant errors

underlying its adverse credibility determination. The most

egregious example? Disbelieving Kalulu’s claim that she is

a lesbian because she had not visited gay clubs or

participated openly in “LGBT activities” during her first five

months in the United States. As the majority recognizes,

two-thirds of the factors cited by the agency for its adverse

credibility determination were based on dubious

stereotyping, mischaracterizations of the testimony, or

purported inconsistencies not found in the record.

These charges of anti-gay bias and invidious stereotyping basically echo the serious findings of institutional racism and other “baked-in bias” at Garland’s dysfunctional EOIR contained in the recent blockbuster Ohio Immigrant Alliance exposé of outrageous shenanigans @ EOIR under Garland! https://immigrationcourtside.com/2024/03/06/%F0%9F%A4%90-busted-eoir-squelches-ijs-union-administration-moves-to-silence-outspoken-uncensored-critic-of-dysfunctional-court-system-news-comes-on-heels-of/.

Even the White House, which has turned a willfully blind eye to Garland’s poor stewardship over the Immigration Courts, now feels the sting of Garland’s timid “leadership” and lackadaisical approach to “justice at Justice.” And, they don’t like it! Not one bit! See, e.g.,https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/11/hur-biden-garland-classified-white-house-congress/.

On the basis of his robust SOTU performance, I have every confidence that President Biden can more than adequately defend himself from the “Hur report.” Sadly, the same can’t necessarily be said for all the asylum seekers and other immigrants harmed by Garland’s indifference to systemic injustice in his “courts!”

This is the real “immigration crisis” that threatens our legal system and our democracy! 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-12-24

😎🤮 CONTRAST: AS CONGRESS, FEDS FAIL, SOME STATES STEP UP AND LEAD THE WAY ON ASSISTING MIGRANTS 🗽😎, WHILE GOP STATES DOUBLE DOWN ON CRUELTY, STUPIDITY, GROSS SQUANDERING OF PUBLIC FUNDS! 🏴‍☠️🤮 — Reports From Emerson Collective & Border News Show Contrast

Wall Hits Sea
The border between Tijuana and California. Studies indicate an increase in the number of drowned migrants at this point on the border. David Ludwig’s photo is licensed as Attribution-ShareAlike.
Certainly, Biden & the Dems can promote a better version of “border security” than this deadly and ultimately failed “hangover of Trumpism!”
  1. Some States Step Up With Innovation & Humanity, While GOP-Led States Fall Down On Migrant Reception, Assistance, Resettlement — From Emerson Collective

https://substack.com/redirect/75874ce8-e696-4b78-9496-2d47a6f109e6?j=eyJ1IjoiMXNlNzhtIn0.8hVV2FxILD3e6tMtjfLdJqJhstwOJgxvhGPCBO-pvCg

STATE LEVEL DIVERGENCE IN RESPONSE TO THE MIGRATION SURGE

While legislative reform continues to be blocked at the federal level, states across the country have adopted diametrically opposed responses to the surge of migrants that have reached the U.S.-Mexico border in search of safety and economic opportunity.

On one side of the split screen, we see real innovation happening with 20 states now having dedicated, high-level staff focused on immigrant integration and building a more welcoming, inclusive America. That includes programs designed to better incorporate immigrants and refugees into state workforce systems, expand the capacity of legal and direct service providers, and ensure access to other support systems that welcome new arrivals with dignity and care.

On the other side of the screen, we see Governor Abbott (TX) continuing to sow constitutional chaos. Building on his claim that Texas has a “right to self-defense” that supersedes the Constitution – a claim endorsed by 25 Republican governors – he announced his intention to “build an 80-acre base to house up to 1,800 Texas National Guard members near Eagle Pass.” This base could “expand to incorporate up to 2,300 personnel” and “cements a large law enforcement infrastructure in the region,” The state is also targeting a Catholic migrant shelter with “human smuggling”, elevating the state’s challenge to federal supremacy over immigration and border enforcement.

We are undoubtedly facing a unique set of pressures at our southern border and in states and cities throughout the country as a result of historic levels of migration throughout the hemisphere. Our current inability to effectively respond to these pressures is the result of decades of Congressional failure to forge compromise on the contours of a flexible system that can effectively manage migration. As states take steps to fill the breach, we are seeing very different visions of what the future may hold.

2) U.S. Judge In Texas Tosses GOP States’ Frivolous Challenge To Successful Parole Program — From The Border News

https://open.substack.com/pub/bordercenter/p/drownings-spike-along-san-diego-coastline?r=1se78m&utm_medium=ios

🌍 Humanitarian Asylum Program Survives States’ Challenge, Federal Judge Upholds Entry for Migrants from Four Countries

The Associated Press’s Eric Gay.- A federal judge in Texas dismissed a lawsuit from Republican-led states challenging a Biden administration program that allows a certain number of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds. U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton ruled that the states failed to demonstrate financial harm caused by the humanitarian parole program, which admits up to 30,000 asylum seekers each month from the specified countries. The program aims to offer lawful pathways while reducing unauthorized border crossings. The White House hailed the ruling, emphasizing the program’s role in addressing labor shortages and enhancing border management. Despite the legal challenge, over 357,000 individuals have benefited from the program, with Haitians being the largest group. The decision underscores the administration’s use of parole authority for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit, marking an important victory for immigration advocates and the migrants they serve.

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

Notes:

How unhinged was Texas’s parole challenge?  U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton is a Trump appointee, certainly not known for being sympathetic to migrants or the Biden Administration. Previously, he probably was best known for his attempt to block the so-called “Mayorkas Memo” on prosecutorial discretion, which decision later was overturned by the Supremes. See, e.g.https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/08/19/%f0%9f%8f%b4%e2%80%8d%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%a4%aetexas-style-racism-trumpy-usd-judge-tipton-in-bid-to-take-over-ice-reinstate-gonzo-white-nationalist-enforcement-directed-at-comm/.

Biden must step up on reception and resettlement. This should be a huge “win-win” for the Administration and the nation. With some states, localities, and NGOs already doing the “heavy lifting,” what’s needed is White House leadership and resources! That’s exactly what Heidi Altman of NIJC and other experts recommend with a White House Task Force.  See, e.g.,https://immigrationcourtside.com/2024/03/10/%F0%9F%A4%AE-the-presidential-candidates-are-feeding-us-fear-driven-bs-%F0%9F%92%A9-on-the-border-w-o-meaningful-pushback-from-the-complicit-media-get-some-constructive-practical-humane/. 

But, without new expert, dynamic “kick ass” leadership, empowered to supersede those currently bobbling this program at the national level, it will remain a sore point, a horrendous missed opportunity for the Administration, and a “de-energizer” for his core progressive supporters. 

Come on, Joe, lead and build on the good work already done by your friends, rather than undermining it by spreading the fears and parroting “lite” versions of the xenophobic approaches of your opponents! Instead of challenging Trump to join you in “closing the border to asylum seekers,” invite everyone to join you in developing and implementing humane, achievable, solutions for fairer and more efficient asylum processing at the border and elsewhere!

Biden must “lose the Miller Lite BS on the border” and tout his successes, like the parole program. Joe, Joe, Joe! Think it through! Trump is going to “win” the “race to the bottom on the border” because he’s a natural “bottom dweller.” So, you need to pivot and emphasize and expand upon the positive things you have done to solve migration problems, like these parole programs! 

Additionally, as recently pointed out by David J. Bier of the Cato Institute, your legally and morally correct decision to eliminate the scofflaw Title 42 “bogus border closing” has resulted in an unprecedented drop in the “number of known successful evasions of Border Patrol (“gotaways”) [which] have fallen to just 800 per day in fiscal year 2024.” See  https://substack.com/redirect/a275d25f-333e-4e38-9951-2b452d9b1ea3?j=eyJ1IjoiMXNlNzhtIn0.8hVV2FxILD3e6tMtjfLdJqJhstwOJgxvhGPCBO-pvCg.

Logically, re-opening ports of entry for asylum claims (despite the huge widespread problems with “CBP One”) and incentivizing those who can’t wait at the ports to turn themselves in to CBP in an orderly manner for asylum screening after crossing elsewhere (despite both physical impediments and artificial legal obstacles to doing so) works to reduce the number of those seeking to avoid screening! This is directly contrary to the nativist blather surrounding Title 42!  

As Bier says, “This should force the many members of Congress and the administration who opposed ending Title 42 to rethink their position.” While there is zero chance that the GOP will do this, because their position is based on spreading fear and xenophobia for perceived political gain, you and your advisors should reverse your disastrous public stance on how to best promote real, durable, achievable border security.

As Heidi and others have cogently suggested, future success will come from investing in better asylum screening, processing, adjudication, and resettlement, NOT from bombastic threats to “close the border” and effectively eliminate the fundamental right to seek asylum! 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-11-24

 

🤮 THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES ARE FEEDING US FEAR-DRIVEN BS 💩 ON THE BORDER (W/O Meaningful Pushback From the Complicit Media) — Get Some Constructive, Practical, Humane Alternatives From Rev. Craig Mousin and NIJC Policy Director Heidi Altman On The “Lawful Assembly” Podcast! 💡🗽😎⚖️

Rev. Craig Mousin
Rev. Craig Mousin
PHOTO: DePaul Website
Heidi Altman
Heidi Altman
Director of Policy
National Immigrant Justice Center
PHOTO: fcnl.org

Craig on Linkedin:

Instead of listening to our two primary presidential contenders vie over which one is tougher on immigration, let’s consider reframing the debate for a meaningful immigration reform that benefits our nation instead of depriving it of resources wasted on ineffective enforcement policies:

Let’s Reshape Immigration Policy

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Today we talk about 10 points to reshape and improve immigration policy in the USA. We used the National Immigrant Justice Center’s 10 points as a backdrop for our discussion:

Let’s Reshape Immigration Policy

Lawful Assembly

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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lets-reshape-immigration-policy/id1724492762?i=1000648467773

  • Show Notes 

Today we talk about 10 points to reshape and improve immigration policy in the USA. We used the National Immigrant Justice Center’s 10 points as a backdrop for our discussion:

https://immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/humane-solutions-work-10-ways-biden-administration-should-reshape-immigration-policy

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-02-29/immigration-crisis-border-migrants-united-states-mexico-election-biden-trump

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

Listen to the podcast and get a copy of NIJC’s “ 10 points” at the above links.

Thanks, Craig, for highlighting the work of my friend and former Georgetown Law colleague Heidi Altman, Director of Policy at NIJC. Heidi is the embodiment of what real leadership, innovation, humane, creative thought on immigration and the border looks like. She stands in dramatic contrast to the pathetic fear mongering (Trump) and fear of standing up for values (Biden) “leadership” coming from our candidates and reflected in the failure of politicos of both parties to embrace humane, cooperative, beneficial solutions for those seeking asylum at the border.

Heidi is a particularly great representative and leadership role model for Women’s History Month.  

I had additional thoughts on this podcast:

  • Better judges, not just more judges. To be effective and efficient, EOIR judges at both levels must be recognized experts in asylum, human rights, and due process who are not afraid to set positive precedents, grant protection to those who qualify under a properly generous interpretation of the law, simplify evidentiary requirements and state them in clear, practical terms, establish and enforce best practices, and steadfastly oppose the political abuse of the Immigration Courts as “deterrents” or as extensions of DHS enforcement. The failure of Garland to clean house at EOIR, particularly the BIA, and of Mayorkas to do likewise at the Asylum Office has been a national disaster driving much of the “disorder at the border.”
  • Incorporate “Judges Without Borders” into the solutions. See  https://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-admin/about.php. It’s a great concept waiting to happen!
  • Invest in VIISTA Villanova and other innovative programs to expand pro bono and low bono representation. See https://www1.villanova.edu/university/professional-studies/academics/professional-education/viista.html. Reach beyond lawyers and NGOs to train students, retirees, social justice advocates, and “ordinary citizens” who want to help by becoming “Accredited Representatives” for “Recognized Organizations” and represent asylum seekers before the AO and EOIR. The programs is top-notch, online, and “scalable.” The Biden Administration’s failure to tap into it and “leverage” it is another dramatic failure of leadership.
  • Better leadership needed in the Biden Administration. As we have seen over the last three years, all the great ideas (and there is a plethora of them) in the world are meaningless without the dynamic, courageous, effective leadership to make it happen! Garland, Mayorkas, the White House Domestic Policy Office, and the Biden Campaign are dramatic negative examples of folks who lack  the hands-on expertise, courage, creativity, and skills to lead on effective administrative immigration reform. I endorse Heidi’s proposal to create a White House Task Force. But, without expert, dynamic, empowered leadership, that Task Force will be ineffective. (Take it from me, over 35-years in the USG, I was on lots of “task forces” and other “action/study groups” whose voluminous reports and well-meaning proposals went directly into a dusty file cabinet or paper shredder.) Think Julian Castro, Dean Kevin Johnson, Judge Dana Marks, Professor Karen Musalo, Beatriz Lopez, Professor Michele Pistone, Anna Gallagher, Camille Mackler, Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr, Heidi Altman, Alex Aleinikoff, Mary Meg McCarthy, Paula Fitzgerald, et al — any of these folks, or a combination, or other “battle tested experts” like them would be head and shoulders over the inept gang advising on and “implementing” (and I use this term loosely) immigration policy for the Administration and the campaign. Leadership counts! And, time’s a wasting to start fixing this asylum system before the election!
  • Acquiescence gets Dems the same place as activist racism. I “get” that the nativist border agenda now being shoved down our throats by both campaigns is driven by GOP fear-mongering and Dem acquiescence. That’s classic Jim Crow! I doubt that every White person south of the Mason-Dixon Line during my youth was overtly racist. Yet, a whole bunch of them were happy to acquiesce in segregation (and worse) because it served their political, social, or business purposes. For example, ”I’ve personally got nothing against Blacks, but if I hired one at my store all my business would go elsewhere.” In calling for “bipartisan” joining with the Trump-generated racist proposal to “close the  border,” Biden and many of his supporters are basically endorsing a lawless, cruel, anti-humanitarian program that couldn’t succeed if enacted. Does that he might be doing it as an act of “political strategy,” “shifting the blame,” or “one-upmanship,” rather than “genuine” racism, xenophobia, and hate, like Trump and MAGA nation, somehow make it more palatable? Not to me!
  • Stop the candidate’s negative campaigning. If Joe can’t think of anything better to say about human rights and the border than to point fingers at the GOP and try and match Trump’s cruelty, lawlessness, and stupidity on the issue, better he say nothing at all. 
  • Don’t get suckered by “whataboutism.” Undoubtedly, there are those in our community genuinely concerned that helping asylum seekers resettle and succeed will deflect resources and attention from existing problems like homelessness and poverty. Nevertheless, few, if any, of my friends and acquaintances who have actually spent their lives, or substantial portions thereof, helping the less fortunate in our communities express this fear. They believe that that if we treat all of our fellow humans as humans, we can expand opportunities and economic activities across the board so that there will be enough for everyone. It’s a  derivation of something we say every Sunday at the community church we attend: “All are welcome at Christ’s table.” Also, asylum seekers and other migrants disproportionately give back to communities, particularly low income communities, rural communities, or others in need. By contrast, many of those raising these fears are the same GOP folks who steadfastly want to cut meals for kids, slash after-school programs, defund proven-to-work programs that reduce poverty, and restrict or limit other existing aid programs. It’s not like these folks would “repurpose” any of the very limited funds spent on assisting migrants to helping the homeless or the less fortunate. No, they would almost certainly spend it on more deadly, yet ineffective walls, “civil” prisons, unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthy, and/or more counterproductive, wasteful, costly border militarization. Don’t get suckered by their “crocodile tears” for the poor and needy!

Contrary to the BS 💩 that is peddled every day by the presidential candidates, spineless politicos of both parties, and the mainstream media, the border is solvable with common sense, humane, innovative legal reforms. More cruel, wasteful, and essentially mindless enforcement and restriction is NOT the answer, nor will it ever be!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-10-24

🤐 BUSTED! — EOIR SQUELCHES IJS’ UNION — Administration Moves To Silence Outspoken, Uncensored Critic Of Dysfunctional Court System! — NEWS COMES ON HEELS OF BLOCKBUSTER REPORT ON SYSTEMIC RACISM, BIAS, AND HORRIBLY FLAWED JUSTICE AT EOIR!🤯

Censorship
“AG Garland & EOIR Executives holding a strategy session.”
“CENSORSHIP” “PUBLIC SENTIMENT” “NATIONAL CENSOR” “LOCAL CENSOR” “STATE CENSOR” art by Holmet – Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-May 1916) (IA motionpicturemag111moti) (page 151 crop).jpg
Public Domain

Elliot Spagat reports for AP:

https://apnews.com/article/immigration-courts-judges-union-backlog-751f55a0ae60af5c04d6c0ca420d36ae

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A 53-year-old union of immigration judges has been ordered to get supervisor approval to speak publicly to anyone outside the Justice Department, potentially quieting a frequent critic of heavily backlogged immigration courts in an election year.

The National Association of Immigration Judges has spoken regularly at public forums, in interviews with reporters and with congressional staff, often to criticize how courts are run. It has advocated for more independence and free legal representation. The National Press Club invited its leaders to a news conference about “the pressures of the migrant crisis on the federal immigration court system.”

The Feb. 15 order requires Justice Department approval “to participate in writing engagements (e.g., articles; blogs) and speaking engagements (e.g., speeches; panel discussions; interviews).” Sheila McNulty, the chief immigration judge, referred to a 2020 decision by the Federal Labor Relations Authority to strip the union of collective bargaining power and said its earlier rights were “not valid at present.”

The order prohibits speaking to Congress, news media and professional forums without approval, said Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, an umbrella organization that includes the judges’ union. He said the order contradicted President Joe Biden’s “union-friendly” position and vowed to fight it.

“It’s outrageous, it’s un-American,” said Biggs. “Why are they trying to silence these judges?”

. . . .

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

Read the complete article at the above link.

Ukase
Ukase
Public Domain

Courtesy of my friend Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis, here’s the text of what is being called the “McNulty Ukase:”

From: Chief Immigration Judge, OCIJ (EOIR)
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2024 11:53 AM
To: Tsankov, Mimi (EOIR) ; Cole, Samuel B. (EOIR)
Cc: Weiss, Daniel H (EOIR) ; Luis, Lisa (EOIR) ; Young, Elizabeth L. (EOIR) ; Anderson, Jill (EOIR) <

Subject: Public Engagements and Speaking Requests

 

Dear Judges Cole and Tsankov:

 

From recent awareness of your public engagements, I understand you are of the impression that your positions in the group known as the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) permit you to participate in writing engagements (e.g., articles; blogs) and speaking engagements (e.g., speeches; panel discussions; interviews) without supervisory approval and any Speaking Engagement Team review your supervisor believes necessary. The agency understands this is a point of contention for you, but any bargaining agreement related to that point that may have existed previously is not valid at present. Please consider this email formal notice that you are subject to the same policies as every EOIR employee. To ensure consistency of application of agency policies—and prevent confusion among our staff—please review the SET policy and work with your supervisor to ensure your compliance with it, effective immediately.

 

Thank you,

 

Sheila McNulty

Chief Immigration Judge

Executive Office for Immigration Review • Department of Justice

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

It’s perhaps no surprise. EOIR is a badly failing agency with an incredible ever-growing backlog of over 3 million cases, no plan for reducing it, antiquated procedures, a disturbing number of questionably-qualified judges (many holdovers from the Trump era), grotesque decisional inconsistencies, poor leadership, a tragic record of ignoring experts’ recommendations for improvements, and that produces a steady stream of sloppy, poorly-reasoned, or clearly erroneous decisions on the “nuts and bolts” of asylum and immigration law that are regularly “roasted” by Circuit Judges across the political spectrum. 

In this context, their desire to strangle criticism from those actually trying to provide justice and due process, against the odds — the sitting Immigration Judges who see the management and systemic problems on a daily basis — is perhaps understandable, if not defensible.

At least where immigration is involved, the Biden Administration’s rhetoric and promises on being “labor friendly” and supportive of Federal workers is unfortunately reminiscent of its pledge to treat asylum seekers and immigrants fairly and humanely and to distance themselves from the racially-driven xenophobic policies of the Trump Administration.

While the NAIJ may be “gagged,” the fight about working conditions and the unrelenting dysfunction at EOIR is far from over!

Sources close to the NAIJ’s parent union, the IFPTE, tell me that the “campaign to call out this atrocity” is “just getting started.”

In statement issued yesterday, IFPTE President Matt Biggs expressed outrage and raised the possibility that the Administration could face tough Congressional questioning on the gag order, which also applies to communications with legislators and legislative staff:

“Just because a highly partisan decision by the FLRA’s board, that is likely to be reversed, limited NAIJ’s ability to collectively bargain, doesn’t mean that NAIJ and its national union IFPTE can’t meet and confer with the DOJ, provide legal services to our members, have officers serve on professional committees, speak to the media, offer training and other services a union provides,” says Biggs. “In fact, for the past four years, NAIJ, with assistance from IFPTE, has provided all of that. We give judges a voice. Judge Tsankov regularly speaks to reporters and recently testified before Congress.  This is an attempt to limit what the press and public know by placing a gag over the mouths of the judges on the front lines. The only thing that has changed in the past four years is an overreach by a federal bureaucrat.”

NAIJ has repeatedly sounded the alarm on the size of the backlog, the need for translators, raised courtroom security concerns and other issues related to immigration adjudication. It has been a strong advocate for judicial independence and questioned why the immigration courts are attached to the Department of Justice, rather than being placed in an independent agency. The National Press Club recently invited both Tsankov and Cole to speak at a news conference on “the pressures of the migrant crisis on the federal immigration court system.”

“We believe that this order and un-American, anti-union act of censorship by McNulty will lead to Congressional hearings,” said Biggs. “Until this matter is resolved, the judges’ national union, IFPTE, will act as the voice for the immigration judges. McNulty may try, but the nation’s immigration judges won’t be silenced.”

As noted by Biggs, over the years, NAIJ leadership has frequently been asked to testify before Congress and meet with staff as an independent counterpoint to the “party line, everything is under control” nonsense that has become a staple of DOJ politicos and EOIR bureaucrats in administrations of both parties in dealing with the Hill as the backlog continued to explode in plain view!

Although the Biden Administration has curiously shown little hesitation in throwing asylum seekers, human rights, and advocates who were a key support group in 2020 “under the bus” in an ill-advised attempt to “out-Trump-Trump” on stupidity and inhumanity at the border, the IFPTE could be a different animal. Representing more than 80,000 government professionals, the union endorsed  Biden/Harris in 2020.

With a hotly-contested, close election underway, Biden can ill-afford to alienate more key support groups, particularly among organized labor.  Why the “geniuses” in the White House and the Biden/Harris Campaign think that going to war with your base is a great, “winning” strategy, is beyond me! Even Donald Trump recognizes the benefit of energizing behind him a loyal and committed (although horribly misguided) “base!”

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

Tellingly, and illustrating this issue’s cosmic importance, the Ohio Immigrant Alliance just released its blockbuster report documenting systemic racism at EOIR entitled “The System Works As Designed: Immigration Law, Courts, & Consequences” —

https://illusionofjustice.org/read/lawcourtsandconsequences

Here’s the Executive Summary:

Executive Summary

This report is based on the experiences of immigrants, lawyers, and immigration court observers, as well as external research. “The System Works as Designed” reveals how U.S. immigration laws, and the courts themselves, were planted on a foundation of white supremacy, power imbalance, and coercive control. For those reasons, they fail to protect human dignity and lives on a daily basis.

While the operations of the immigration courts have frequently been ignored, their outcomes could not be more consequential to immigrants and their loved ones. This report lifts the curtain.

Racism in Immigration Law and Policies

It is clear from the congressional record, and laws themselves, that the Chinese Exclusion Act, Undesirable Aliens Act, Immigration and Nationality Acts of 1924 and 1952, and other laws played on racial and ethnic stereotypes to limit mobility and long-term settlement of non-white immigrants.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 attempted to address some imbalances, but the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act basically broke the already contradictory set of laws, making them a landmine for immigrants attempting to seek safety or build new lives here. The REAL ID Act and other post-9/11 laws and policies tightened the vise.

Policy choices made by presidents from every modern administration have attempted to coerce, repress, and reject migration, a basic human survival act, instead of building safe paths people can use.

Death Penalty Consequences, Traffic Court Rules

The U.S. immigration courts were designed to offer the illusion of justice, while failing the people they purport to protect. Dysfunctional elements include:

A quasi-judicial structure that answers to the U.S. Attorney General in the Executive Branch and is not an independent judiciary; is blatantly influenced by ideology; and promotes quantity over quality decision making.

Power imbalances, such as the fact that the government is represented by attorneys 100% of the time, while immigrants often argue their cases without a legal guide. Detained immigrants are forced to “attend” their hearings via grainy video feed, while judges and counsel are together in courtrooms miles away. Yet immigration judges frequently deny requests for expert witnesses to appear remotely, citing challenges with communication and credibility. The deck is stacked.

4

Also, by detaining someone in jail for the duration of their civil immigration case, the government makes it harder for them to get a lawyer to help. The government is also using the psychological, financial, and physical toll of detention to try to break someone’s spirits and get them to give up.

Subjective “credibility determinations,” rife for bias and abuse. A case can be denied based on a judge’s feeling about the immigrant’s testimony, not facts. This is the barn door through which all manner of ignorance, bias, and ideology storm in.

Legal landmines make it harder for people who qualify for asylum to receive it, such as the one-year filing deadline; illogical definition of material support to terrorism; and the Biden asylum ban.

Differing standards of accuracy. Immigrants may be furnished interpreters who speak the wrong dialect. Judges and DHS attorneys may make inaccurate statements about an individual’s evidence or the political conditions of their country. The hearing transcripts can be riddled with gaps instead of key facts. Yet life-altering decisions are made based on this record, and an immigrant has little to no opportunity to object, correct, or explain.

Consider the experience of M.D. a Black Mauritanian man seeking asylum in the U.S. after the late 1980s/early 1990s genocide. An immigration judge questioned his credibility because M.D. did not provide “evidence” that he is Black and Fulani, a persecuted group in Mauritania. M.D. addressed the court, speaking in Fulani, and said, “I am the evidence. I speak Fulani and I am Black.”

The English transcript of M.D.’s hearing is riddled with “(unintelligible)” in place of the names of relatives and locations where important events, such as the murder of his father, took place. There was an interpreter in the room who could have spelled the words out to make the record more accurate and credible. Instead, the record shows big holes in place of material facts, while M.D. was accused of not providing “proof” that he is Black, deemed not credible, denied asylum.

In another case, a Black man seeking asylum was found “not credible” because his interpreter first used the word “canoe” when describing his method of escape, and later said “little boat.” But in his language and, one can argue, in common English, they are the same thing.

Situations like these, memorialized in the case record, are carried into the appeals process where rehearings typically do not take place, compounding the injustices of these mistakes.

Many of the report’s observations echo some aspects my own writings and public speeches over the years since I retired from the bench in June 2016. For example, here’s my speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW“ from from an FBA Conference in Austin, Texas in May 2019: 

https://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/FBA-Austin-Central-America-—-Intro.docx

While I was speaking during the Trump Administration, sadly, many of my observations remain equally true today, as the Biden Administration and AG Garland have quite inexcusably failed to rise to the occasion by instituting long-overdue due process and quality control reforms at EOIR. Yet, I am struck by how even then, as today, I found reasons to continue to be proud of the accomplishments of the “New Due Process Army” (“NDPA”) and to urge others to continue to  believe that the “light of due process will eventually be relit” at EOIR and that history will deal harshly with the xenophobic urges and anti-asylum attitudes that too often drive policy in administrations of both parties:

Today, the Immigration Courts have become an openly hostile environment for asylum seekers and their representatives. Sadly, the Article III Courts aren’t much better, having largely “swallowed the whistle” on a system that every day blatantly mocks due process, the rule of law, and fair and unbiased treatment of asylum seekers. Many Article IIIs continue to “defer” to decisions produced not by “expert tribunals,” but by a fraudulent court system that has replaced due process with expediency and enforcement.

But, all is not lost. Even in this toxic environment, there are pockets of judges at both the administrative and Article III level who still care about their oaths of office and are continuing to grant asylum to battered women and other refugees from the Northern Triangle. Indeed, I have been told that more than 60 gender-based cases from Northern Triangle countries have been  granted by Immigration Judges across the country even after Sessions’s blatant attempt to snuff out protection for battered women in Matter of A-B-. Along with dependent family members, that means hundreds of human lives of refugees saved, even in the current age.

Also significantly, by continuing to insist that asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle be treated fairly in accordance with due process and the applicable laws, we are making a record of the current legal and constitutional travesty for future generations. We are building a case for an independent Article I Immigration Court, for resisting nativist calls for further legislative restrictions on the rights of asylum seekers, and for eventually holding the modern day “Jim Crows” who have abused the rule of law and human values, at all levels of our system, accountable, before the “court of history” if nothing else!

Eventually, we will return to the evolving protection of asylum seekers in the pre-2014 era and eradicate the damage to our fundamental values and the rule of law being done by this Administration’s nativist, White Nationalist policies. That’s what the “New Due Process Army” is all about.

That brings me back to two of my “key takeaways” from the Ohio Immigrant Alliance Report.

First: “Withholding is a true limbo status, though better than being sent back to certain death.” Skillfully and aggressively using the system to save lives, in any way possible, is job one. A life saved is always a victory!

Second, as the report concludes:

Solutions exist, but they require policymakers and legislators to listen to the people with direct, personal experience. Ramata, cited earlier in this report, suggests quicker approval of cases found credible at the outset. Aliou wants judges to put more stock in migrants’ testimony, understanding that persecuting governments are not credible sources about their own abuse. Jennifer, one of the immigration lawyers we interviewed, suggested that Black immigrant organizations and the American Immigration Lawyers Association be involved in crafting a new direction, citing their extensive expertise with how the system works—and fails people.

Bill, another immigration lawyer interviewed for this report, suggests taking a page from the refugee resettlement program when it comes to verifying facts about a case. “Social workers and private investigators [could] interview people and research documents and try to … verify whether [they’re] telling the truth or not,” he said. Bill suggests employment counselors, ESL teachers, and others with specialized expertise could also assist in the processing of cases.

Most importantly, the asylum and immigration system must be reoriented toward prioritizing safety and resettlement, rather than deportation as the default outcome. The forthcoming report, “Behind Closed Doors: Black Migrants and the Hidden Injustices of US Immigration Courts,” will explore these and other solutions.

As I have observed many times, despite the “national BS” on asylum and immigration being traded by Trump and Biden, and the legislative gridlock, there are still plenty of readily available, non-legislative solutions out there that would dramatically improve due process, justice, and the life-saving capacity of the EOIR system. While no single one of them is a “silver bullet” that would solve all problems overnight, each is an important step in the right direction. Taken together, they would substantially improve the quality and quality of justice overall in our U.S. legal system and, perhaps, in the process, save our republic from demise. 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-06-24

This article has been revised to include an excerpt from the IFPTE press release.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a proud retired member of the NAIJ.

🏴‍☠️🤮 TRUMP’S & MILLER’S “ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY” IRREPARABLY DAMAGED VULNERABLE FAMILIES & THE AMERICAN PSYCHE — We Can’t Allow Them To Do It Again!

 

Piper S. French
Piper S. French
Editor & Writer
PHOTO: Linkedin

https://apple.news/AMAcNuZxJRTmYkzleEZLNXw

Piper French reports for Intelligencer via Apple News:

Nilu Chadwick recognizes some of the children’s names right away. Chadwick, a lawyer for Kids in Need of Defense, has spent the past five years poring over lists of families separated under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy whose cases have yet to be resolved. Some of the children’s names stand out because she crossed paths with them back in 2018, when she represented them at their immigration hearings after they were torn from their parents’ side at the southern border. Those names always remind her of what she witnessed that year. The eerie silence of the children’s shelters. The kids so young that they couldn’t even explain who they were or where they came from. The hearing she had to pause in order to soothe a client with a nursery rhyme. Then there are the names that have simply grown familiar through repetition: the children whose cases appeared on the lists years ago and remain open.

The process of reunifying families separated under “zero tolerance” began in June 2018, two months after the policy was officially implemented. The ACLU had filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of separated families, Ms. L. v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and during the litigation, a federal judge halted Trump’s policy and ordered its victims reunified within 30 days. Some of these reunifications were relatively straightforward. The government had records of around 2,800 separated families, and most of those parents and children were still in the U.S. — maybe they’d been sent to separate ICE facilities or the parents were in detention while their children had been placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. But for about 470 families, the parents had already been deported. When the Trump administration declined to track them down, Lee Gelernt, the head lawyer for the plaintiffs, stood up in court and said the ACLU would do it. A steering committee was put together comprising a team from the New York law firm Paul, Weiss and representatives from three NGOs, including Kids in Need of Defense and the organization Justice in Motion. “Little did I know what we were taking responsibility for,” Gelernt told me.

The first hurdle the committee faced was the total disorganization with which “zero tolerance” had been implemented. “There was no intention of reuniting families, and so they didn’t design the system to be able to keep track,” Nan Schivone, Justice in Motion’s legal director, told me. The agencies involved — Customs and Border Protection, which took families into custody; ICE, which oversaw their detainment; the ORR, which was responsible for the separated children — didn’t have a comprehensive system to share data with one another, nor did they always keep records linking parents with their children. If children were released from ORR custody into the care of family or friends, the government did limited follow-up. “We give you a luggage tag for your luggage,” said Gisela Voss, a former board member of Together & Free, which supports families seeking asylum. “We separated parents from their kids and didn’t give them, like, a number.”

It took two months, until August 2018, for the administration to provide the steering committee with the phone numbers of the deported parents; a quarter of the numbers were missing. The committee began its search, making calls and performing social-media investigations. Then, in January 2019, the HHS Office of Inspector General revealed that more families had been separated than the Trump administration had previously disclosed. Nine months later, the Justice Department finally produced those names. There were 1,500 of them, and the vast majority of the parents had been deported.

. . . .

But the more that people who have dedicated their lives to this task continue to search, the more it becomes apparent that there will never be a clean resolution. There will always be another family. They know, too, that reunification solves only one problem. Families may be together again, but whether they will ever be whole is another question entirely.

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

Read the complete article at the link.

No accountability whatsoever for Trump, Miller, Sessions and the other “human rights criminals” responsible for this. As is all too common in immigration and human rights “fails” by our immigration bureaucracy, the private, pro bono and NGO sectors are left to pick up the pieces after having to fight to uphold the rule of law.

The real story here is the blatant failure of our Government to uphold the rule of law for those seeking legal refugee and the irreparable effects of that failure. Somehow we have allowed politicos and the media to reverse that story line!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-05-24

☠️🤯 IN DHS’S NEW AMERICAN GULAG (“NAG”), THEIR SPELLING MISTAKE CAN GET YOU DEPORTED! — NDPA Superstar Marty Rosenbluth Saves Another Life (For Now)!

Marty Rosenbluth Immigration Attorney Lumpkin,GA PHOTO: Linkedin
Marty Rosenbluth
Immigration Attorney
Lumpkin,GA
PHOTO: Linkedin

Marty writes on LinkedIn:

Major flying rainbow Unicorn starfish today. We actually got a client pulled off a deportation flight while the plane was on the tarmac in Louisiana. We have been emailing ICE since last week when we first heard that he had been moved from Stewart to Louisiana and was going to be deported, despite the fact that he has a hearing pending in the immigration court here. This of course would be entirely illegal, but since when does ICE care about the law? 

It wasn’t until today that we finally got ICE to admit that they were wrong!!! The poor kid is only 18 and doesn’t speak any English!!! I doubt they had an interpreter who speaks his language. He must have been scared to death!  I am sure he had no idea why he was on the plane, but I trust he was relieved when they pulled him off!  Only about a dozen emails later. 

To their credit ICE actually apologized! Sort of. They said that the asylum office had his name spelled wrong. Pffffft!!!!

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

Way to go, Marty! Thanks for all you do for American justice!  

This is what really happens when politicos and bureaucrats push for restrictions on asylum and tout summary removals. More innocent, vulnerable humans who seek only to have the U.S live up to its legal and moral obligations will die or be tortured without due process. THAT’S what “bipartisan consensus” really means.

The system is already dysfunctional. Speeding things up and eliminating legal rights will only make things worse. Why aren’t politicos discussing ways to fix the broken system, rather than penalizing asylum seekers by eliminating it? This also shows the need for life-saving representation to achieve due process!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-04-24

 

🇺🇸🗽 BIDEN MUST STOP FUELING THE XENOPHOBIC NARRATIVE ABOUT THE BORDER, SAYS MIGRATION EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO @ LA TIMES — “[T]hat narrative is false: The border is manageable, and rather than being a danger to Americans, immigrants are a net positive economically and socially.”

Karen Musalo
Professor Karen Musalo
Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Hastings Law

Karen writes in the LA Times:

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=9f2230a5-0663-484d-ae19-a64bb095d7ac

Multiple news sources report that President Biden is considering implementing executive action to try to close the U.S.-Mexico border, including to asylum seekers. It would be an extreme move, and a violation of the Refugee Act of 1980 and the country’s international obligation to protect those fleeing persecution. Only one other president — Donald Trump — has blatantly breached that obligation before. With the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext, Trump invoked Title 42 of the U.S. Code, which allowed him to curb migration in the name of public health.

Biden, who came into office harshly criticizing his predecessor’s anti-immigrant policies, now seems poised to resurrect them. Administration sources concede that the president’s border plans are driven by politics, the belief that the immigration situation is “an election liability.”

This view is no surprise. We’ve been fed a narrative that the border is in crisis, overwhelmed by an unprecedented number of immigrants who pose a grave danger to the health and safety of the nation. But that narrative is false: The border is manageable, and rather than being a danger to Americans, immigrants are a net positive economically and socially.

 . . . .

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

Read the full op-ed at the link. Thanks for speaking out, Karen!

If only Biden & Harris would listen to migration experts rather than those who erroneously claim that violating asylum laws and stomping on human and civil rights is a “winning political strategy!”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-92-24

🇺🇸🗽⚖️ “[O]ur leaders should be grand-standing with a 21st century plan that embraces immigration and immigrants for all that they can do for America,” Says Beatriz Lopez @ The Narrative Intervention on Substack!

Beatriz Lopez
Beatriz Lopez
Deputy Director
Immigration Hub
PHOTO: Immigration Hub

https://beatrizlopez.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web

Immigration is Fueling America’s Economic Boom – So Why is Migration Still A “Bad” Thing?

Immigration makes America, America.

pastedGraphic.png

BEATRIZ LOPEZ

MAR 1, 2024

This month, in case you missed it, there were several news headlines that once again proved that immigration is not just good for the U.S. economy, but freaking amazing. I’m not exaggerating – just take a look at the glorious reports revealed in February:

  • A Congressional Budget Office report found that, “The labor force in 2033 is larger by 5.2 million people, mostly because of higher net immigration. As a result of those changes in the labor force, we estimate that, from 2023 to 2034, GDP will be greater by about $7 trillion and revenues will be greater by about $1 trillion than they would have been otherwise.”
  • The most powerful economic rebound post-pandemic in the world is thanks to immigration in the U.S. The Washington Post reported, “About 50 percent of the labor market’s extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data.” Impressively, the surge in hires of immigrant workers filled “unprecedented gaps in the economy that threatened the country’s ability to recover from prolonged shutdowns.”
  • Even The New York Times piled on: “A resumption in visa processing in 2021 and 2022 jump-started employment, allowing foreign-born workers to fill some holes in the labor force that persisted across industries and locations after the pandemic shutdowns. Immigrants also address a longer-term need: replenishing the work force, a key to meeting labor demands as birthrates decline and older people retire.” The report also features a City Council president and member of the Plumbers and Steamfitters union in Indiana who says he would welcome migrants with open arms as his union is in desperate need of members.

Despite so many economists, industry and business leaders, and fellow Americans clamoring for immigrants to come to America and live and work in a small town in the middle of nowhere or somewhere, our politicians are stuck in the quicksand of deterrence, slowly sinking into policy and politics that muddle speeches and don’t make anyone want to save them.

Don’t get me wrong– I do want to save President Biden but, buddy, we need to work on those talking points. While I agree border communities and immigration officials are in dire need of resources and should be provided the proper funding and manpower, President Biden’s continual push for the Senate bipartisan bill was half futile. I get the political jab; use it, in fact, as it works against Republicans. But for the love of God stop trying to push the bill forward. It’s dead. Start planting the messaging seeds for better, more galvanizing solutions that address the border, resource welcoming communities, and deliver legal pathways. And above all center the economic and cultural contributions of Dreamers and immigrant families that Trump is eager to deport.

Humanizing the narrative is always a winning strategy. Recognizing the rewards of immigration and the hard work of immigrants, both in policies and messaging, speaks to those persuadable voters that Biden and Democrats must win over.

Where have you gone, John Fetterman? I roll my lonely eyes at you.

Now here’s someone who’s actually sinking. Yesterday, Senator John Fetterman (PA), on an apparent quest to prove he’s a tough border security hawk, said he would support H.R. 2 except for its aim to terminate DACA. He claims to have analyzed the bill, and if he did, then I am stupid for having ever thought he was a decent guy who understood the importance of immigration in America.

As a reminder, H.R. 2 is basically a Stephen Miller wet dream (I apologize for the imagery): it would (1) end legal representation for unaccompanied children and deport them faster, (2) shut down the asylum system, (3) give any DHS secretary the authority to deny every single migrant the right to seek asylum (in other words, permanent Title 42), (4) jail and detain immigrant families, (5) eliminate humanitarian parole, (6) punish and defund faith-based organizations and NGOs for supporting newly-arrived migrants, and (7) jail and penalize immigrants who overstay their visa. (Imagine if that last one were in place when Fetterman’s wife and mother-in-law had arrived in the U.S.)

Neither H.R. 2 nor the Senate bipartisan bill are “grand bargains” unless it’s a deal scored by a used car salesman hiding the 20% annual interest rate.  When immigration is decidedly incredible for the economy, when immigrants are proudly working and thriving alongside their fellow American, when those seeking freedom and opportunity are willing to risk their lives for a leg up to work – work! – when businesses and communities are desperate for immigrants to fuel their future, our leaders should be grand-standing with a 21st century plan that embraces immigration and immigrants for all that they can do for America.

After all, immigration makes America, America.

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Pledge your support

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Thanks for speaking truth to power, Beatriz!

While Trump and Biden trade barbs and disgracefully try to ”one up” each other as to who can be the most cruel, cowardly, and dumb on “bogus border security,” the real humanitarian and asylum processing crises go unaddressed; the most vulnerable continue to suffer at the hands of a country they want to help while saving their own lives. This is a potential “win-win” that our politicians refuse to embrace!

On the plus side, Senior USDJ David Alan Ezra of the W.D. Tex., preliminarily enjoined SB 4, Texas’s extremist attempt to subvert the Constitution by taking over immigration law enforcement. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/federal-court-blocks-extreme-texas-legislation-that-would-overstep-federal-immigration-law

Texas will appeal to the too-often-lawless Fifth Circuit, so this saga is only beginning. But, at least this time the “good guys” struck first and won the opening round.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-1-24

🦸🏻‍♂️ HISTORY: CAPTAIN FRANCIS “FRANK” FOLEY WASN’T A “GO ALONG TO GET ALONG BUREAUCRAT” — He Saved 10,000 Lives! 😇

 

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William Samuel de Spretter

William Samuel is an accomplished citizen writer publishing with a specific focus on current affairs and military history.

De Spretter writes on Linkedin:

When asked in 1922 what his priorities would be if elected chancellor of Germany, then up-and-coming National Socialist leader, Adolf Hitler, answered candidly: 

“Once I’m really in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews.”

Proclaiming with vitriolic zeal, they’d be “hanged indiscriminately… until all of Germany has been completely cleansed of Jewry”, German Jews, understandably, had no desire to remain when he assumed the chancellorship in 1933…

In desperate hopes of securing safe passage to their ancestral homeland – Eretz Israel – tens of thousands flocked to the British embassy; only to be told on arrival there, “strict limits” had been imposed on the quota of Jews who’d be granted entry. 

Although, sadly, the fate of most was thus sealed, countless more would have suffered the same had it not been for the defiant courage of Britain’s Vice-Consul, then-Captain Francis “Frank” Foley. 

As a man who, in reality, was using his position as a cover for his long-serving role as an MI6 spymaster, Frank’s intelligence gathering had long confirmed that Hitler’s threats against the Jewish people were far from “empty rhetoric”.

For that reason, Frank was “quite unwilling to toe the line with London…”

Instead, he didn’t just “tear up the rulebook” that dictated whom he could issue lifesaving visas to but, when the “Kristallnacht” pogrom of 1938 was unleashed, he even transformed his place of residence into a safe haven for Jewish families.  

From the “Night of Broken Glass” onwards, the number of Jews filing for immigration visas increased dramatically; but still, Frank’s superiors refused to ease the stringent requirements that prevented him from granting them. 

Once again, therefore, he not only decided to “bend the rules” by easing them himself but, when he then received an official reprimand for his brave “contravention”, Frank doubled down on his rescue efforts by forging passports for Germany’s beleaguered Jewish citizens. 

Despite being fully aware that no level of diplomatic immunity would protect him if the Gestapo had uncovered his clandestine activities, Frank persevered regardless, with no fear or concern for his personal safety. 

In so doing, he enabled no fewer than 10,000 Jews to flee Hitler’s Reich; and yet, humble man that he was, Frank never spoke of his selfless deeds during his lifetime…

Incredibly, it was only after his passing, in May 1958, that his heroic exploits were revealed by his beloved wife, Katherine; and, it wasn’t until over four decades later, on this day in 1999, that he was deservedly recognized for having saved so many Jewish lives. 

Honored as a posthumous Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem, the latter paid tribute to Frank – “the British Schindler” –  by describing him as “a man of great faith and conviction…”

Indeed, “as a deeply devout Christian, Frank did nothing more than act upon his sense of justice and compassion.”

#WeRemember

Captain Francis “Frank” FoleySOURCE: Linkedin
Captain Francis “Frank” Foley
SOURCE: Linkedin

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Inspiring and timely piece of history. Thanks to Samuel for posting this on LinkedIn!

What if 600 bureaucrats had each made it their business to save 10,000 lives? The course of history would have been changed.

This is worth keeping in mind as our leaders of both parties and the immigration bureaucracy make “bullying the most vulnerable” and dehumanizing asylum seekers their daily mission. And, they brag about their cruelty and intention to violate laws in even more deadly ways! What if the same amount of effort were devoted to addressing humanitarian crises and saving lives?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-27-24

⚾️🤯 “CAN’T ANYBODY HERE PLAY THIS GAME?” — BIDEN’S “BUSH LEAGUE” DISSING OF ASYLUM SEEKERS & THEIR PROGRESSIVE SUPPORTERS COULD BE “STRIKE THREE” FOR OUR DEMOCRACY!😞 — Baseball Is A Great Example Of How Biden’s “Miller Lite” Approach To Immigration & Ignoring The Experts Is Wrong & Costly! — “[T]here are no curses except those that are self-inflicted by cheap, regressive thinking.”🤯

Casey Stengel
“The Dems’ wrong-headed “Miller Lite” approach to immigration and the border would leave Casey scratching his head. With “major league talent” available, they have put an “amateur night at the Bijou” team on the field for what is perhaps the most important season in modern American history!
PHOTO: Rudi Reit
Creative Commons

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/21/baseball-immigrants-diversity/

Jaswinder Bolina writes in WashPost:

As a former president of the United States excoriates immigrants for “poisoning the blood” of our country, as the governors of Texas and my current home state of Florida bus and fly migrants to points north — including my hometown, Chicago — my thoughts turn to baseball.

. . . .

While that inhospitable bunch has been villainizing migrants and refugees as a strain on U.S. resources, I have been marveling at how much foreign-born players have enlivened (and enriched) baseball in recent decades. Far from being poisoned, the sport has been rejuvenated by infusions of immigrants from Ohtani to Soto to Ronald Acuña Jr., Yordan Álvarez, Ha-Seong Kim, the Cubs’ Seiya Suzuki and so many others.

As these non-White non-Americans wow — and earn — millions with their transcendent talents, in a sport still emerging from its startlingly racist past, bigoted fictions about the “blood of our country” are being exposed. It’s true that baseball is still struggling with exploitative international recruiting practices, decreasing numbers of U.S.-born Black players and a lack of diversity among its executive ranks. Yet the increasing number of foreign-born major leaguers now counted among the best in the game’s long history dispels the self-aggrandizing myth that the United States possesses any monopoly on excellence.

The Republican presidential front-runner might argue that undocumented migrants and refugees aren’t elite athletes and are instead “animals” arriving from “s—hole countries.” But such dehumanizing insults are not only guilty of offensive fixation on national origin, ethnicity and race. They also mistake a person’s predicament for a person’s potential.

This is made plain by the origin stories of some of baseball’s biggest stars. Those same players who fashioned makeshift mitts out of milk cartons and cardboard, who rose to the game’s highest levels through arduous, harrowing and near-tragic journeys, might have languished on the other side of a barbed and militarized wall if this country’s right wing had its way.

The politicians who would build those walls, who attack immigrants for supposedly burdening our national resources, need only consider baseball’s explosive growth into a $10 billion industry and the financial value of Ohtani alone to the Dodgers — some estimate the team could make more than $1 billion off his deal over the course of a decade — to see that industries and economies thrive by inclusion, not exclusion.

Even so, ideologues seek to end inclusive practices in private industry and public education. They guarantee endless winning and new revolutions by promising to slash resources and wall off our country — all while whiffing on the most rudimentary of winning principles understood by most every baseball fan in America:

Great teams are made great by deep, diversified rosters. They are built on investment in both homegrown and international talent. And there are no curses except those that are self-inflicted by cheap, regressive thinking.

As the Republican presidential primary churns toward that party’s national convention, coincidingthis July with baseball’s annual All-Star Game, all of this will be evident to anyone ready to take a break from the campaign, take a seat in the bleachers and take in the world’s greatest ballplayers thriving at America’s game.

Jaswinder Bolina is a poet and essayist. His latest book is “English as a Second Language and Other Poems.”

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Read the full op-ed at the above link!

“Mistaking a person’s predicament for a person’s potential!” That’s exactly what Biden’s new-found attacks on asylum seekers and their advocates (his 2020 supporters!) are doing!

Biden is flying in the face of the sage advice for running on a pro-immigration, pro-asylum, pro-rule-of-law platform cogently set forth by Beatriz Lopez on Substack and reposted here on Courtsidehttps://immigrationcourtside.com/2024/02/21/%f0%9f%91%82listen-up-biden-campaign-dems-a-dynamic-latina-leader-%f0%9f%a6%b8%f0%9f%8f%bd%e2%99%80%ef%b8%8f-has-the-formula-for-success-%e2%9c%8c%ef%b8%8fon-immigration-in-2024-sequence/.

It’s not quite too late for Biden to start fixing the asylum and resettlement system at the border and elsewhere so it works in a fair and timely manner for America and forced migrants. But, he can’t do it with the lame advice he’s getting from his advisors, his own moral relativism, and the failed leadership at DOJ and DHS. He needs to move the “bush leaguers” aside, bring in, and pay attention to, some “major league talent” before it IS too late. See, e.g.,https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/12/19/%E2%9A%96%EF%B8%8F%F0%9F%A4%AF%F0%9F%91%A9%F0%9F%8F%BD%E2%9A%96%EF%B8%8F%F0%9F%91%A8%F0%9F%8F%BB%E2%9A%96%EF%B8%8F-as-garlands-backlog-hits-3-million-way-past-time-to-clean/.

It’s painful to watch the errors pile up and the game slipping away from the Dems! 😣 Meanwhile, rather than being out there helping unify and re-elect Biden and Harris, advocates are marshaling their resources and considerable energy to fight tooth and nail in courts against the Administration’s apparent bone-headed intention to violate asylum law and human rights with illegal asylum bars! Energizing former core supporters to fight against your inane and immoral actions during an election year: A “strategy” that only inept, tone-deaf Dem politicos could love!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-22-24