Betsy Woodruff Swan – immigrationcourtside.com

🏴‍☠️REWRITING HISTORY: Billy The Bigot Barr’s Plan To Undo Bush-Era Asylum Grant Due To Pressure From Foreign Government Takes Legal Nihilism To New Depths 🤮 — Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan Reports On Matter of A-M-R-C-

https://apple.news/A8oVgQ_C-SiyOEmGp8ZZCew

He thought he had asylum. Now, he could face a death sentence.

Rashed Chowdhury was a bit player in a years-old coup. His home country wants him back. And now, his fate is in William Barr’s hands.

By BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN
07/24/2020 04:30 AM EDT

Late last month, Attorney General William Barr quietly reopened a sprawling case that spans four decades and two continents. It involves the killing of a president, a decades-old death sentence and a hard-fought battle for asylum pitting a former Bangladeshi military officer against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

For almost 15 years, the case was closed. But now, thanks to Barr, it’s back. And immigration lawyers say the move sends a chilling message to people who have received asylum in the U.S. It signals, they argue, that even after years of successful legal battles, any protection could still be revoked out of the blue.

They also say the move’s timing is inscrutable. The legal team for the military officer—wanted by Bangladesh’s government for decades—says it suspects foul play, and that if the U.S. deports him, he is all but certain to be executed.

“It’s purely a favor the Trump administration is doing for Bangladesh,” said Marc Van Der Hout, a lawyer for the man in question, Rashed Chowdhury. “And the question is, why are they doing it?”

Bangladesh’s government has for years been open about its efforts to persuade the U.S. to extradite Chowdhury—whom it calls a cold-blooded assassin. And there’s no question it will be delighted by Barr’s move.

What’s less clear is why, exactly, the attorney general reopened the case—and what he plans to do next. This story is based on exclusive interviews and legal documents reviewed by POLITICO.

. . . .

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Read the rest of Betsy’s article in Politico at the above link.

Here’s my previous coverage of the “Modern Cadaver Trial” —

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/06/22/spectacle-justice-pope-billy-convenes-%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8fcadaver-synod%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f-looks-to-exhume-decade-old-dead-case-for/

PWS

07-27-20

🏴‍☠️🆘 AMERICAN NIGHTMARE: THIS DEADLY ☠️🤮 “CLOWN SHOW” 🤡 IS A “COURT” SYSTEM? — You’ve GOT To Be Kidding! — “’Everyone feels the message is, nobody cares if you die as long as we get our numbers,’ said one worker in the office. . . . ‘I feel like half the time, I’m working on Trump’s reelection,’ said an employee in the office who spoke anonymously because of concerns about retaliation. ‘This is just a piece for him to tout when reelection time comes up about how much he’s getting done.’” — Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan Takes Us Inside “HQ” In America’s Most Morally Corrupt Court System, Where “Trumpian” Contempt For Due Process & Human Lives ☠️ Extends To Its Own Employees, Many Of Them Lower-Paid Clerical Staff!

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/doj-union-immigration-deportation-coronavirus-202075

Betsy Woodruff Swan reports for Politico:

The union for lawyers and support staff who handle Justice Department immigration appeals says their office’s working conditions put workers’ lives in danger. And employees in the DOJ office handling those immigration appeals said many suspect it’s because the department prioritizes high deportation numbers over worker safety.

“I feel like half the time, I’m working on Trump’s reelection,” said an employee in the office who spoke anonymously because of concerns about retaliation. “This is just a piece for him to tout when reelection time comes up about how much he’s getting done.”

It’s an accusation a spokesperson for the office vehemently denied. But the conflict is no longer being kept in the DOJ family; the president of that union recently filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), saying management requires too many people to come into the office, putting workers at risk of contracting Covid-19, the sickness caused by the novel coronavirus. Concerns in the office about worker safety were first reported by Government Executive.

At issue are working conditions in DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). The office oversees America’s immigration courts––which are part of the Justice Department––and lawyers there handle appeals from immigrants fighting deportation orders. Those courts face a mammoth backlog of more than one million cases, by Syracuse University’s count. Despite hiring more immigration judges, the backlog has doubled under the Trump administration.

EOIR leaders have maximized how much telework employees there can do, the spokesperson said, adding that the office “takes the safety, health, and well-being of its employees very seriously.”

But the OSHA complaint, which Politico reviewed, says the office is violating a federal law mandating workplaces be free of “hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm.”

“The agency’s actions described below are proliferating the spread of a known and deadly contagion both within our building and to our surrounding communities,” the complaint reads. The office policies “are expected to result in death and severe health complications and/or possible life-long disabilities,” it says.

The office requires most support staff to come in, rather than telework, as they deal with physical pieces of paper and files as part of their work, per the complaint. The few who can work from home can only do so once a week, and on rotating days because they share the same laptop, the complaint reads. At work, support staff sit in cubicles in a shared area, “in direct breathing paths of each other,” it says.

Nancy Sykes, the president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 3525, filed the complaint on behalf of the union. It represents non-managerial Board of Immigration Appeals employees in the office, including attorneys, paralegals, clerks, and legal assistants.

The EOIR spokesperson, meanwhile, said the office is working to implement coronavirus guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Office of Personnel Management, and the General Services Administration.

. . . .

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Read the rest of Betsy’s report at the link. Long a superstar at The Daily Beast, and an articulate “repeat panelist” on “Meet the Press” with Chuck Todd, it’s great to have Betsy “back on the immigration beat” as a part of her “new portfolio” over at Politico. I’ve always found Betsy’s clear prose and insightful analysis enlightening!

Typically within the Trump immigration kakistocracy, the harshest consequences fall jump-on the most vulnerable. In Immigration Court, it’s often unrepresented asylum seekers, some of them mere children, being railroaded through the system with regard to neither due process nor a legally correct application of asylum law. Here, the brunt of the latest EOIR assault on human dignity during the pandemic appears to fall on the support staff at the “bottom of the totem pole” of EOIR’s “bloated at the top,” yet astoundingly misdirected and consequently inefficient, bureaucracy. What a way to run the railroad — even a “Deportation Railroad!” 🚂

As my good friend and Round Table colleague, Judge Jeffrey Chase said: “In spite of having very genuine concerns, the BIA staff are generally off the radar. Thanks to Betsy for spotlighting them. The BIA staff union and the NAIJ put out a joint statement yesterday; let’s hope this begins a period of increased communication and cooperation.”

Many of us “old timers” remember a bygone era when the BIA staff was considered one of the premier places for career attorneys to work at the DOJ. This was largely because staff were treated “like family.” The BIA, in cooperation with the union, actually “pioneered” things like “flexible work schedules” and “work from home” at the DOJ. That union (of which I actually was among the “founding members” back in the 1970’s) was perhaps the first one at the DOJ to represent the interests of both attorneys and support staff. Those times sadly are long gone.

As I’ve mentioned before, under the Trump regime, EOIR “non-management” employees at all levels levels are treated with a disrespect, intentional demeaning, and callous disregard for health and welfare usually reserved for those poor souls trapped in what passes for an immigration justice system under the White Nationalist driven Trump regime. Risking employees’ lives to promote Trump’s reelection agenda? That’s actually illegal on a number of accounts. But, don’t expect any corrective actions in an era where the “rule of law” has been willfully distorted and undermined as Congress and the Article IIIs simply melt away under Trump’s contemptuous scofflaw onslaught.

Unhappily, as Betsy’s article highlights, there appears to be little chance of meaningful change unless and until enough employees actually start dropping dead, by which time it will be too late.

But, as I keep pointing out, there are “other villains” here. Despite DOJ/EOIR efforts to suppress truth, all of this basically is happening in “plain sight,” as we know from folks like Judge Ashley Tabaddor, the NAIJ, the BIA union, former Judges on the Round Table who are speaking out, courageous employees willing to “blow the whistle” anonymously, as well as reporters like Betsy, Erich Wagner at Government Executive (who “broke” this story), and Malathi Nayak at Bloomberg News, to name just a few. The unconstitutional mockery of Due Process, immigration, and asylum laws in Immigration Court hearings is documented in verbatim transcripts available to the Article III Courts and the Congress.

Yet, Congress and the Article III Courts let these grotesque abuses within our justice system go on largely unabated. It’s a disgusting and disturbing saga of the breakdown of America’s democratic institutions and their replacement by an authoritarian, “Third-World style” kakistocracy, headed by a dangerously incompetent and unrestrained clown 🤡 whom those charged with protecting us and our institutions refuse to hold accountable.

This November, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does!🇺🇸 We need “regime change” at all levels. And, that certainly includes a better, more courageous, more scholarly Federal Judiciary that understands immigration and human rights, believes in Due Process and fundamental fairness for all under law, and will finally stand up and put an end to these gross abuses if Congress doesn’t act first. Obviously, it’s also essential to get a new Executive committed to advancing, rather than destroying, our Constitution and the rule of law and who will strive for best, rather than worst, practices in all phases of government.

Due Process Forever! Clown Courts 🤡☠️ Never!

PWS

04-23-20

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: Beware of Billy Barr & His Minions — We Must Resist The Kakistocracy’s Vile “Power Grab”

March 21, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

Mar 22

Today’s big news came from Politico writer Betsy Woodruff Swan, who broke the story that the Department of Justice has quietly asked Congress for dramatic new powers during emergencies… emergencies like the coronavirus pandemic. She has reviewed documents from the DOJ asking Congress to give top judges the power to pause court proceedings during emergencies. This would include “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil process and proceedings.”

The executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Norman L. Reimer, explained that this “means you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying,” he said. “Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government.”

The House of Representatives, controlled by Democrats, is extremely unlikely to pass any such measures, and Mike Lee, a libertarian-leaning Republican Senator from Utah, tweeted in all caps: “OVER MY DEAD BODY.” (This prompted reminders that he had voted to acquit Trump during the impeachment trial and thus keep him in office, so, as one tweet read: “If this happens you own it.”)

Lee demanded that Trump disown the idea– he did not– and the DOJ declined to comment on the story, so it may be a trial balloon, inaccurate, or even false.

But it has gotten attention because it dovetails with recent stories that suggest those currently in power feel it is their right, and maybe their duty, to run the country in their own interest, ignoring– or suppressing– dissent.

In the last two days, we learned that the administration and Republican members of Congress heard dire warnings about the coming coronavirus and continued to lie to the American people, telling us the Democrats trying to alert us were simply bent on undermining Trump.

We also learned that Trump has refused to use the Defense Production Act, passed under President Harry S. Truman, who used it during the Korean War. This law would enable Trump to demand that American industries produce the medical equipment we currently need so badly. Business leaders say the invoking the law isn’t necessary, and Trump claims they are volunteering to produce what the nation needs in a public-private partnership. Currently there is such a critical shortage of medical equipment that some hospitals are asking people to sew basic masks at home, but today Trump announced that the clothing manufacturer Hanes is retrofitting factories to make masks; it has joined a consortium that is expected to produce 5-6 million masks weekly.

These two stories reveal the same ideology that would underlay a law permitting arrest and imprisonment without trial: that society works best when it defers to a few special people who have access to information, resources, and power. Those people, in turn, use their power to direct the lives of the rest of us in larger patterns whose benefit we cannot necessarily see. We might think we need medical supplies but, in this worldview, using the government to force individual companies to make those supplies would hurt us in the long run. This ideology argues that we are better off leaving the decisions about producing medical supplies to business leaders. Similarly, we need leaders to run our economy and government, trusting that they will lead us, as a society, toward progress.

But there is another way to look at the world, one that is at the heart of American society. That ideology says that society works best if everyone has equal access to information and resources, and has an equal say in government. In this worldview, innovation and production come from people across society, ordinary people as well as elites, and society can overcome challenges much more effectively with a multiplicity of voices than with only a few who tend to share the same perspective. To guarantee equal access to information, resources, and government, we all must have equality before the law, including the right to liberty unless we have been charged with a crime.

For decades, now, America has increasingly moved toward the idea that a few people should consolidate wealth and power with the idea that they will most effectively use it to move America in a good direction. But the novel coronavirus pandemic has undercut the idea that a few leaders can run society most effectively. The administration’s response to this heavy challenge has been poor. And now we know that the very people who were publicly downplaying the severity of the coronavirus were told by our intelligence agencies that it was very bad indeed, and they were sharing that information with a few, favored individuals. Their leadership will literally, and quite immediately, cost a number of our lives.

But even as those embracing the idea of a hierarchical society have fallen down on the job, ordinary Americans are stepping up and demonstrating the power of the other worldview. State governors—Gavin Newsom of California, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Jay Inslee of Washington, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, David Ige of Hawaii, Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, Andrew Cuomo of New York, and Mike DeWine of Ohio—have distinguished themselves. (I’m sure I’ve forgotten some; please add them in the comments.) Not just governors, but also mayors and city councils have stepped up to the plate. So have business leaders and unions, figuring out ways to work from home and to pay workers whose jobs suddenly disappeared. Teachers have moved their classes on-line overnight; National Guard troops are delivering necessary supplies. Ordinary people all over the country are helping each other however they can.

And then there are the health care workers. What they are doing, leaping into the breach to save us all, despite their dire lack of protective gear, is heroic.

This pandemic, and the accompanying economic downturn, are a turning point. Just as Americans have done in other crises in our history, we are rediscovering that our greatest strength is not in how rich and powerful we can make a few, but rather in all of us, working together. It strikes me as no accident that it is at this moment a report has surfaced that Attorney General William Barr, a leading member of this administration, has asked for the ability to arrest and imprison people without trial, for to preserve a hierarchy under these conditions will require an extraordinary assumption of power to suppress dissent.

Notes:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/doj-coronavirus-emergency-powers-140023

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/doj-suspend-constitutional-rights-coronavirus-970935/

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-supplies.html

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/hanes-start-making-masks-health-care-professionals-treating/story

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No surprise to me that the amazing Betsy Swan Woodruff, now of Politico, is breaking this story.

The warnings about Billy Barr and his schemes come as no surprise to those of us in the New Due Process Army and the Round Table. We have been resisting the Sessions, Whitaker, Barr White Nationalist, neo-fascist, kakistocracy’s attack on Consitutional rights, the rule of law, and human decency since “Day One.”

I also appreciate Heather’s “outing” of the disgusiting disingenuous behavior of GOP Senators like Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) who claims to stand for one thing but actually voted to overlook the overwhelming evidence of Trump’s abuse of his office and enable his continuing existentially dangerous tenure.

Due Process Forever! Billy Bar & The Kakistocracy, Never!

PWS

03-22-20

KAKISTOCRACY’S COSTS: Trump’s Obsession With Immigration Enforcement @ DHS Strips Competent Leadership, Kneecaps Ability To Protect National Security, Endangers Employees & Public!

Two items. First, Shannon Pettypiece @ NBC News:

Shannon Petteypiece — Shannon Pettypiece
Senior White House Correspondent
NBC News Digital

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/dhs-faces-coronavirus-scores-vacancies-leadership-vacuum-n1160946

WASHINGTON — As President Donald Trump imposes sweeping entry restrictions in a bid to stop the spread of the coronavirus — and considers still more — he’s relying on an agency to help implement them that has been hollowed out at the top ranks in a revolving door of leadership, potentially hampering his administration’s response to the crisis.

It has been nearly a year since the Department of Homeland Security has had a Senate-confirmed leader. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, the fourth person to lead the agency in three years, has been on the job less than six months.

In addition, 65 percent of top jobs in the department are vacant or filled by acting appointees, more than in any other federal agency, according to the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that advocates for more effective government. Among the vacancies are the No. 2 official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the department’s top lawyer and the head of the country’s immigration system.

That has led to a cascade of other unfilled jobs, a vacuum of leadership causing major decisions to be deferred and a drop in morale at the agency that was born out of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to coordinate the government’s response to threats, said people close to DHS. After a chaotic rollout over the weekend of restrictions on many travelers from Europe — where those returning to the U.S. were held for hours in cramped conditions — there are new concerns that the agency isn’t prepared to manage what’s to come.

“You have the vacancies, the musical chairs with positions throughout the organization and policies that come down without a lot of forethought putting added stress on a workforce that already has an extremely crucial job to protect the homeland,” said David Lapan, who was a spokesman for DHS during Trump’s first year in office. “So at what point do we break them?”

To Lapan, the chaotic scenes at airports over the weekend were a reminder of what happened when, in the early days of his presidency, Trump abruptly announced travel restrictions on passengers coming from predominately Muslim countries without giving DHS time to prepare.

. . . .

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Now, lets hear from the always amazing Betsy Woodruff Swan over at her “new home” Politico on how DHS has, predictably, tried to “hide the ball” on the coronavirus exposure of its own employees:

Nearly 500 Homeland Security employees are quarantined because of the novel coronavirus, and at least 13 are confirmed or presumed COVID-19 positive, according to documentation reviewed by POLITICO.

A DHS spokesperson would not to comment on the record for this story.

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The department previously revealed that eight Transportation Security Administration officers had contracted COVID-19.

But the latest numbers are higher and highlight the challenge the novel coronavirus poses to the federal workforce. More than 240,000 people work for DHS, making it the third-largest workforce in the federal government. Many of those employees interact with numerous people every day as part of their work, including employees with Customs and Border Protection and the TSA.

“The department’s leadership is going to have to pay very close attention as this public health crisis evolves,” said John Cohen, former acting undersecretary of intelligence and analysis. “It has to be concerned that its ability to carry out its core mission could be compromised if there’s a widespread outbreak of the virus among DHS personnel. And quite frankly, that’s something that federal, state, and local officials need to be concerned about across the board — that this virus will spread among first responders, law enforcement, and Homeland Security personnel, compromising the ability of those organizations to protect the public.”

. . . .

“Because of the president’s outsized focus on the immigration enforcement part of the DHS mission set — since immigration is not the only thing in DHS’ mission — the organization has been under a lot of strain over the last three years,” he said. “The focus on immigration, lots of attention, lots of presidential pressure, vacancies, changes in leadership, the government shutdown, people having to work without pay — after all of that, add on this pandemic and I think you have cause for concern about a workforce that has been under extended stress now having to endure yet more.”

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Go to the links above for the complete articles.

The vast, vast majority of so-called “civil immigration enforcement” has little to do with legitimate national security. In fact, the regime’s obsession with inflicting unnecessary cruelty and dehumanization on desperate migrants, most of whom, at worst, are merely seeking to save or improve their lives, has actually hampered the Government’s prosecutions of serious crimes, clogged courts and jails with minor immigration offenders, and reduced removals of those with serious criminal records. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/the-trump-administrations-immigration-jails-are-packed-but-deportations-are-lower-than-in-obama-era/2019/11/17/27ad0e44-f057-11e9-89eb-ec56cd414732_story.html In other words, misguided priorities, wasted resources, and unnecessary pain.

So, it’s hardly surprising that faced with a genuine crisis that threatens health and safety, the DHS is rudderless, ill-prepared to respond, and continues to hide the real human consequences of its malicious incompetence, thereby endangering both its own line employees as well as the entire U.S. public.

Betsy Woodruff Swan is one of my favorite guest panelists on “Meet the Press.” Clear, concise, articulate, analytical! I assisted Betsy occasionally in the past when she was at The Daily Beast. I hope that in her new role she will get “re-involved” in immigration coverage. In any event, great to “post” you again, Betsy!

PWS

03-19-20

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