Politics – Page 292 – immigrationcourtside.com

Senator Cory Booker Is Skeptical That Jeff Sessions Will “Seek Justice For All” As AG!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/jeff-sessions-has-made-his-case-to-be-the-attorney-general-now-the-senate-will-hear-from-supporters-and-detractors/2017/01/10/5683ce24-d796-11e6-9a36-1d296534b31e_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_sessions-1225p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.60a27c7babe2

In an unprecedented move, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) became the first U.S. Senator ever to testify against a colleague during a confirmation hearing. In the above account from the Washington Post, Senator Booker charged that:

“If confirmed, Sen. Sessions will be required to pursue justice for women, but his record indicates that he won’t,” Booker said. “He will be expected to defend the equal rights of gay and lesbian and transgender Americans, but his record indicates that he won’t. He will be expected to defend voting rights, but his record indicates that he won’t. He will be expected to defend the rights of immigrants and affirm their human dignity, but the record indicates that he won’t.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee also heard testimony from a number of Sessions’s supporters, including former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who said, according to the Post:

“Sessions is “thoroughly dedicated to the rule of law and the mission of the [Justice] department.”

The Post also reported that the Committee heard testimony from Oscar Vasquez, a former undocumented individual, who expressed the fear of many so-called “Dreamers” that as Attorney General Sessions will support the revocation of their protected status and use the information that they voluntarily furnished to the USCIS to institute removal proceedings.

During yesterday’s hearing, Senator Sessions took a somewhat ambiguous position on Dreamers. He indicated he would have no problem if President Trump decided to revoke the Executive Order establishing the DACA program, while at the same time acknowledging that there was no plan in the offing to actually place Dreamers into removal proceedings.

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Notwithstanding Senator Booker’s reservations, and those of many others in the civil rights, human rights, women’s rights, and immigrants’ rights communities, Senator Sessions will be the next Attorney General. At best, therefore, Senator Booker’s testimony was a “marker” in the event that once confirmed, Senator Sessions abandons his promise to seek justice for all Americans (which includes lawfully resident immigrants and undocumented individuals residing in the United States) and returns to the much narrower view of civil rights, human rights, women’s rights, and immigrants’ rights that he has often expressed and defended during his long Senate career.

It’s a tall order for Senator Sessions to rise above the limitations of his past and take a broader, more inclusive, more humane view of the U.S. legal system. But, for the sake of all Americans, I sincerely hope he can pull it off.

PWS

01/11/17

Post Editorial Slams Total Due Process Meltdown In U.S. Immigration Courts! Why We Need An Independent Article I Immigration Court — Now!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americas-immigration-courts-are-a-diorama-of-dysfunction/2017/01/09/38c59cf6-ceda-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html?utm_term=.2597096ea1d8

“The nation’s 58 immigration courts, administered not by the judiciary but by the Justice Department, are places of Dickensian impenetrability, operating under comically antiquated conditions. Case files are scarcely digitized. Clerks are outmatched by mountains of paper files. Translators struggle to convey evidence and legal concepts across linguistic and cultural barriers.
Disgracefully, wild disparities in outcomes and legal standards characterize the various courts, meaning that asylum seekers who appear before immigration judges in Atlanta face almost impossibly long odds and are generally ordered deported, while those in New York are usually granted relief and allowed to remain in the country.

In these courts, the idea of justice itself is so degraded, and the burnout rate so high, that some immigration lawyers have simply thrown in the towel. One of them, movingly profiled by The Post’s Chico Harlan, got sick of the charade and finally quit. “I genuinely believed these people could die if they’re sent back” to their home countries, said Elizabeth Matherne, who once represented asylum seekers. “And you’re talking to somebody” — the judge — “who is not listening.”

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Why We Need An Independent Article I Immigration Court — Now!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Not a pretty picture of Due Process in America, especially for a Court System whose noble, but forgotten, “Vision” is supposed to be “though teamwork and innovation be the world’s best administrative tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”

Undoubtedly, this downward spiral into judicial dysfunction started with the politically-motivated manipulation of the Immigration Courts and the selection system for Immigration Judges and Board of Immigration Appeals Members during the Bush Administration.

But, the Obama Administration had eight years to clean up this mess. Not only has it failed to act, but in some ways has made it even worse. Even in the disastrous Bush years, the backlog of pending cases never approached today’s level of more than 530,000, and it’s growing every day.

The Justice Department has no plausible plan for dealing with this morass, which directly affects the lives and futures of millions of “real people.” Nor is there even a rudimentary plan in place to implement an e-filing system — a staple of virtually every other Federal Court System. Under the Department of Justice, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”), which is charged with administering the Immigration Courts, began “studying” the process for e-filing more than 15 years ago — so far, without achieving any visible success.

Yes, Congress has failed to pass practical, badly needed reforms of the immigration system, unnecessarily compounding the Immigration Courts’ burdens. And, yes, the Congressional approach to appropriating needed resources for the Immigration Courts has been inconsistent and all too often has lagged far beyond funding for immigration enforcement.

But, for the most part, the Immigration Courts are the responsibility of the Executive Branch and the Justice Department. The structure, supervision, and operation of the Immigration Courts is almost entirely a matter of Justice Department regulations. Judicial selections do not have to go through the cumbersome Senate confirmation process.

The Justice Department has shown neither enthusiasm nor the ability to promptly fill existing judicial vacancies through a transparent merit selection system, nor has sufficient attention been paid to locating the necessary courtroom space or planning for painfully obvious expansion needs. Even if all the existing judicial vacancies were filled, as of today there is no place to put the extra Immigration Judges. Effective judicial administration, never a point of expertise for the Justice Department, has completely disintegrated over the past decade and one-half under Administrations of both parties and a succession of Attorneys General who simply failed in their duty to run a fair, efficient, highly professional Immigration Court system.

We have not yet seen the Trump Administration’s and Attorney General Sessions’s plans for how to restore justice to the Immigration Court system. But, the preliminary rhetoric isn’t encouraging — lots of tough talk about immigration enforcement, but neither acknowledgement of nor emphasis on the accompanying equally important need for achieving and protecting due process in the Immigration Courts.

After more than three decades in the Justice Department, the Immigration Courts have not developed in a way that fulfills their essential role in insuring fairness and guaranteeing due process in the removal hearing process. Waiting for the Justice Department to appropriately reform the system is like “Waiting for Godot.” It’s more than time for bipartisan action in Congress to remove the Immigration Courts from the Department of Justice and create an independent, well-functioning Article I Immigration Court. Only then, will the Immigration Courts be able to achieve their “noble vision” of “through teamwork and innovation be the world’s best tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”

PWS

01/10/17

House GOP Pushes To Punish Sanctuary Cities — DC Establishes Legal Defense Fund To Aid Migrants

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gop-sanctuary-cities-funds_us_58730858e4b02b5f85898d46

“House Republicans are moving swiftly to punish so-called sanctuary cities, and have already introduced at least three measures to block federal funds for municipalities or college campuses that limit their cooperation with federal officials on deporting undocumented immigrants.

Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) introduced HR 83, known as the Mobilizing Against Sanctuary Cities Act, last week to strip federal funding from such jurisdictions. As mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Barletta gained a national profile for approving ordinances aimed at driving out undocumented immigrants, most of which were found unconstitutional.

“Too many mayors and local governments think that they are above federal law and place their own ideology ahead of the safety of their residents,” he told Hazleton’s Standard-Speaker. “One of the principal duties of the government is to protect its citizens, and the idea of sanctuary cities runs completely counter to that responsibility.”

Supporters of sanctuary cities argue, however, that they improve public safety by making undocumented people more willing to come forward if they witness or are victims of a crime, and sbay it can be costly or even illegal to hold arrestees longer based on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s requests.”

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that DC will,be setting up a Legal Defense Fund for migrants residing in the District:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-will-go-beyond-sanctuary-create-legal-defense-fund-for-illegal-immigrants/2017/01/09/0d6c7adc-d68e-11e6-9f9f-5cdb4b7f8dd7_story.html

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In a previous post, Nolan Rapport suggested that setting up a Legal Defense Fund not only helps the system function but also represents a “smarter approach” to helping migrants than a policy of non-cooperation with Federal immigration enforcement. Here’s a link to Nolan’s post:

http://wp.me/p8eeJm-4W

PWS

01/09/17

My Upcoming Interview With David Noriega On Vice News/HBO

I did a taped interview today with Vice News Reporter David Noriega. It was done in the freezing cold and wind outside the U.S. Department of Justice at the corner of 9th and Pennsylvania — but, it probably would have been warmer outside Lambeau Field (“Go Pack Go”). It’s possible the only “takeaway” will be “Man you guys sure look cold out there!” It was worse for David, who hails from sunny California, than those of us born and raised in the frigid winters of Wisconsin.

The subject is why the Attorney General’s role in administering the U.S. Immigration Court system is so critically important to the hundreds of thousands of individuals who depend on that system for due process and fair treatment, to the many Immigration Judges and support staff who have dedicated their professional lives to making the system work, and to our nation and its future.

The interview is scheduled to air tomorrow night, Tuesday, January 10, 2017, at 7:30 PM EST, on the “Vice News” show on HBO (which we don’t happen to have on our cable package). But, I encourage everyone with HBO access to tune in and see how David and I did, elements notwithstanding.

PWS

01/09/17

The First Target Of The Trump/Sessions Immigration Agenda Might Not Be Undocumented Individuals — “H-1B” Program That Brings Professionals and Techies In To Aid U.S. Companies Appears To Be In The Crosshairs — Some Indian Pols Rejoice At Prospect Of Relocating Silicon Valley To India!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/trump-and-sessions-plan-to-restrict-highly-skilled-foreign-workers-hyderabad-says-bring-it-on/2017/01/08/8701e0ca-d2c0-11e6-aa0c-f196d8ef0650_story.html?utm_term=.bd6585171144

“But the H-1B cap meant that the bulk of Indian tech workers stayed back. The current cap — not just from India — is 65,000, plus another 20,000 who have graduated from American universities with advanced degrees, down from almost double that at the beginning of the 2000s.

Among those who do get the visas, most ultimately return to settle and work in India. In Hyderabad, many of those returnees are confident that their city can compete with Silicon Valley for India’s brightest young minds.

K.T. Rama Rao, the son of the current chief minister, was one of them. Now he’s the minister for information technology in his father’s government. He pointed to Apple as an example of how Hyderabad could absorb the thousands of workers in a potential future with far fewer H-1Bs — or without them altogether.

“Apple is already moving their maps division here, and they’re doing that because we’re producing more G.I.S. talent than anyone else in the world,” he claimed in an interview, referring to geographic information systems. “Ideally, a president of the United States would have a balanced perspective on business, but if he wants tech firms to stay, he should create better job readiness in the U.S.”

Rao said that legislation targeting big Indian outsourcing companies would wean them away from their dependency on servicing American companies. Without the visa program, they would have to engage in new lines of work that created value in Hyderabad and not abroad, he said.

Amit Jain, now the president of Uber India, is another returnee who used to be on an H-1B. He said that the influx of American companies, as well as a growing indigenous start-up culture, could offer what Indians used to seek in the United States closer to home.

“We definitely have a more robust ecosystem here now,” he said. “We’re seeing plenty of hiring in the future.”

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I find the projected continued role of Jeff Sessions in this process interesting. While the Attorney General used to be responsible for administering the H-1B program, that ended more than a decade ago with the transfer of the adjudication functions of the “Legacy INS” to the then newly created Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) and it’s United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) Division. The Attorney General’s responsibility for the H-1B program is now strictly “in the margins:” narrow legal issues involving individuals in H-1B status occasionally arise in Immigration Court proceedings, and the Office of Immigration Litigation (“OIL”) in the Civil Division and the U.S. Attorneys are occasionally called upon to defend particular USCIS policies or interpretations of the H-1B category in Federal Court.

Normally, the moving force within an Administration on H-1B policies and reforms would be the Secretary of Homeland Security — soon to be General John Kelly. Sessions’s continued involvement as Attorney General in what normally would be DHS/USCIS issues, could presage a reincarnation of the old “Commissioner of Immigration” role. The Commissioner once headed the INS within the Department of Justice and was a powerful figure whose “finger was literally in every pie in the immigration world.”

My recollection is that one of the ideas of moving the immigration enforcement and service functions to the DHS, while leaving the Immigration Courts behind within the Department of Justice was to increase the separation of the immigration enforcement and service functions from the legal and “fair and impartial hearing” functions of the Immigration Courts. While this distinction has always worked better in theory (and, perhaps, in terms of perception) than in actual practice, it is likely to become further blurred and hampered if the Attorney General intends to assume a primary immigration enforcement and policy making role within the Administration.

Presumably, Senator Sessions’s specific views on how he sees his role in immigration and his plans for maintaining and improving the due process role of the Immigration Courts — currently struggling with a 500,000+ case backlog and dozens of unfilled judicial positions — will be better fleshed out during the upcoming confirmation process.

PWS

01/09/17

David Leopold Warns About Possible Five-Point Attack On Immigrants By Attorney General Sessions

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/five-chilling-ways-senator-jeff-sessions-could-attack-immigrants-as-attorney-general_us_5870022ce4b099cdb0fd2ef7

“As the nation’s top lawyer, head of the immigration court, and civil rights officer, Jeff Sessions would have access to multiple tools to harm immigrants and undermine due process. Given his rhetoric and record as a United States Senator, as well as his association with anti-immigrant extremists, there is every reason to believe he would use all of them.

Here are five ways Sessions could attempt to undermine immigrants and immigration policy if confirmed as Attorney General:

Impose his radical, anti-immigrant ideology on decisions by the federal immigration courts;

Expand the number of immigrants who are deported even though they qualify for a green card or asylum;

Reduce access to legal counsel and information about immigrants’ legal rights;

Criminalize immigrants by bringing trumped up charges against ordinary workers; and

Strong arm state and local police to become Trump deportation agents

Of course, any attempt Sessions would make to undermine civil and due process rights will be met by strong litigation from the outside. But the U.S. Senate should block his confirmation from the start, as Senator Sessions is highly unqualified for this position and has showed a profound disregard for civil and human rights.”

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Sorry, David, but Jeff Sessions has the votes to be confirmed as the next Attorney General. Those who don’t like that can rant, but that’s not going to change the reality that Donald Trump won the Presidential election and the Republicans firmly control both Houses of Congress.

When you lose elections at the national and state levels, like the Democrats did, you end up with next to no leverage on appointments or policies unless you can reach across the aisle and strike a chord with at least some Republicans. Right now, it appears that all Republican Senators, and probably a few Democrats, ewill vote for Senator Sessions’s confirmation. Whatever his pros and cons, Senator Sessions appears to have had the wisdom to be polite and cordial to his colleagues and to occasionally reach across the aisle on issues of common interest. Rightly or wrongly, that seems to count for a lot when current or former Senators come up for confirmation to Executive Branch positions.

So barring a “bombshell” next week, and I must say his record has been “flyspecked” — regardless of what he put in the Judiciary Committee questionnaire — that’s unlikely. For better or worse, Senator Session’s views on a wide variety of subjects and his conduct as a public servant over many decades are a matter of public record. Nothing in that record seems to have given pause to any of his Republican Senate colleagues.

That being said, it woulds be nice to think that upon hearing some of the criticisms, Jeff Sessions will reflect on the huge differences between being a Senator from Alabama, the Attorney General of Alabama, and a U.S. Attorney for Alabama, and the wider responsibilities of being the chief law enforcement official, legal adviser, and litigator representing all of the People of the United States, not just the Trump Administration.

David is, of course, correct to focus on Attorney General Session’s vast authority over immigration. He will control a huge and critically important U.S. Immigration Court System currently sporting a backlog of more than one-half million cases and suffering from chronically inadequate judicial administration and lack of basic technology like e-filing. While there certainly is an interrelationship among civil rights, human rights, and due process in the Immigration Courts, there is every reason to believe that Attorney General Session’s biggest impact will be in the field of immigration.

If things go as David predicts, then the battle over fundamental fairness and due process in immigration policy and the Immigration Courts is likely to be fought out in the Article III Federal Courts, which, unlike the Immigration Courts, aren’t under Executive control. That will have some drawbacks for everyone, but particularly for the Trump Administration.

And, if Sessions is wise, he’ll look back at what happened when the Bush Administration tried to promote a “rubber stamp” approach to justice and due process in the Immigration Courts. The U.S. Courts of Appeals were outraged at the patent lack of due process and fundamental fairness as “not quite ready for prime time” cases were “streamlined” and thrown into the Courts of Appeals for review with glaring factual errors and remarkable legal defects. Not totally incidentally, this also dramatically increased their workload, with judicial review of immigration matters occupying a majority of the docket in several prominent circuits.

As a result, cases were returned to the Board of Immigration Appeals, who then returned them to the Immigration Courts for “re-dos,” in droves. The Courts of Appeals lost faith in the Executive’s ability to run a fundamentally fair, high quality Immigration Court System, and basically placed the Immigration Courts into “judicial receivership” until things stabilized at least somewhat. The waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars caused by this “haste makes waste” approach was beyond contemplation and, for a time, threatened to paralyze the entire American justice system.

Additionally, it would be a huge mistake for the Trump Administration to view the Bush Administration’s Immigration Court debacle as the product of “bleeding heart liberal appellate judges” appointed by President Bill Clinton. The criticism from Article III Judges cut across political lines. Two of the most outspoken judicial critics of the Bush Administration’s handling of the U.S. Immigration Courts were Republican appointees: then Chief Judge John M. Walker, Jr. of the Second Circuit and Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit. Indeed, Judge Walker is a cousin of former President George H.W. Bush.

Obviously, those who favor greater immigration enforcement won the election and are going to have a chance to try out their policies. But, “enhanced enforcement” is likely to be effective only if we have a fair, impartial, and totally due process oriented Immigration Court System.

In other words, the Immigration Courts must be a “level playing field” with judges who, in the words of Chief Justice Roberts, play the role of “impartial umpires” between those seeking to stay in our country and those seeking to remove them. Results from such a due-process oriented system would be more likely to inspire confidence from the U.S. Courts of Appeals, thereby increasing the stature of the Immigration Courts and their ability to achieve final resolutions at the initial, and most cost-efficient, level of our justice system. Due process and fairness in the Immigration Court System should be a nonpartisan common interest no matter where one stands on other aspects of the “immigration debate.”

We are about to find out what Attorney General Jeff Sessions has in mind for the U.S. Immigration Courts and the rest of the U.S. justice system. I’m hoping for the best, but preparing to assert the essential constitutional requirement for due process in the Immigration Courts if, as David predicts, it comes under attack.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

01/07/16

Are We On The Verge Of A “Winner Take All” Supreme Court? Will Senate Control Be Required For Future Presidents To Appoint New Justices?

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-05/the-incredible-shrinking-supreme-court

Noah Feldman, columnist and Harvard Law Professor, writes in BloombergView:

“If the incredible shrinking Supreme Court sounds unimaginable, that should count as a reason to expect the Senate Republicans to break the filibuster. But an eight-justice court seemed pretty unimaginable when Justice Scalia died last February — and it’s become a reality, at least for the moment.

Even if the filibuster is overcome, there already seems to have been long-term change in the way Supreme Court seats are filled. If the Democrats had a majority in the Senate today, it seems entirely possible that they would be saying they’d refuse to vote on Trump’s nominee for the next four years. Some version of winner-take-all confirmation politics may already be with us.”

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After reading Professor Feldman’s article, seems to me that a very plausible scenario is that if the Democrats try to block a Trump nominee, the Republicans will retaliate by extending the “nuclear option ” to Supreme Court appointments, thereby allowing Trump nominees to get through the confirmation process with a “bare majority” vote of 51. The Republicans now have 52 votes in the Senate.

Thereafter, it’s hard to imagine circumstances under which a President whose party is in the Senate minority will be able to fill any Supreme Court vacancies. Additionally, the minority party (of course, Democrats at present) will lack “leverage” to force a President to appoint so-called “mainstream” candidates. As long as all, or almost all, of the Senators in the majority party are willing to support the candidate, he or she will be confirmed, no matter how “extreme ” his or her views might be considered by the minority.

This would 1) make the Supreme Court an even bigger issue in Presidential and Senatorial elections than it is now (and it’s big right now); and 2) lead to a more polarized Supreme Court, since the only limit on a President would be his or her ability to “sell” the nominee to his own party.

Finally, I don’t see any reason why this development would stop at the Supreme Court. Why wouldn’t the Senate majority party block a President from the opposing party from appointing Federal Circuit Court and even U.S. District Judges, hoping to be able to “run the table” and fill huge numbers of vacancies if they can win back the Presidency?

PWS

01/07/17

Post Editorial Decries GOP’s Unprovoked Attack On Civil Service Merit System!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-resurrected-house-rule-threatens-open-season-on-the-civil-service/2017/01/06/89881132-d448-11e6-a783-cd3fa950f2fd_story.html?utm_term=.a8262ed56f2c

“The move follows efforts by President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team to identify employees in the Energy Department who work on climate change and jobs in the State Department devoted to gay and women’s rights. The combination of events underscores the inherent danger. Competence and performance — not adherence to ideology — should be the basis for federal employment. That is why the civil service replaced the system of political spoils.

If members of Congress don’t like particular programs — Mr. Griffith is apparently peeved by a federal program that pays for the care of wild horses on federal land in the West — they can choose not to appropriate funds to implement them. If they want to change civil-service rules to target poor performance or reward good work, they have that power too. If they are incapable of properly exercising these constitutional authorities, maybe it is their salaries that should be slashed to $1.”

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In the previous blog posting, http://wp.me/p8eeJm-5v Jason Dzubow (“The Asylumist”) noted the falling morale and apprehension among civil servants involved in immigration enforcement and adjudication. He urged them to to remain at their posts and continue working for the ideals of fair and competent administration of some very difficult laws and overall “good government.”

But, as noted here and in my previous blog, http://wp.me/p8eeJm-4O these could be challenging times for the dedicated public servants whose hard work keeps our immigration system afloat and our Government functioning, in light of the unbridled hostility toward our own Government shown by the GOP at both the Congressional and Administration levels.

I agree with Jason. I hope that the numerous great folks that I came in contact with during my many years of public service “hang in there” and continue to strive to “do the right thing” every day. But, that’s easy for me to say from my current vantage point as a retiree. It’s much harder for those who are actually trying to get the job done with neither support nor appreciation from those who should be most grateful.

As an Immigration Judge at both the trial and appellate levels, I was often struck with how the fundamental difference between the countries people were fleeing and the United States was honest, reliable government committed to the common good. In most repressive countries, the government at all levels was staffed by political cronies or supporters of the ruler who viewed their government positions as a license to extort, steal, abuse, and even sometimes kill, those “on the outs” with the powers the be. Many applicants were skeptical of all governments, including our own. The concept that government officials would treat them fairly and listen to their claims with an open mind, rather than just seeking to carry out a political or personal agenda, simply wasn’t in their sphere of experience.

The Federal Civil Service isn’t perfect. It can and should be improved. But, it remains one of the “crown jewels” of our democratic republic. The hostility of some of those who comprise the political arms of our government to the concept and operation of a merit-based, nonpartisan, nonpolitical Civil Service should be of deep concern to all of us.

PWS

01/07/16

“Dreamers” Worry About Fate of DACA — Under Trump Administration, What Will Happen To The Lives They Have Built In America?

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2017/0104/For-immigrant-Dreamers-an-uncertain-future

“There is much at stake, too, for undocumented immigrants like Brady, who have grown up, gone to school, and struggled to make sense of their futures.

“I was just a kid when I came, and I really didn’t know what immigration status really meant,” says Brady, who grew up and attended public schools in Washington Heights, which New Yorkers often call “Little DR” because of the many Dominican immigrants who live there. “I wasn’t really worrying about it until my senior year in high school when I had to start thinking about colleges.”

“But when I started to really understand what my life was going to be like, I started freaking out, I started to panic,” she continues. “Why was I going to school? What is the point of going to college if I couldn’t get a career if I was an illegal immigrant?”

She pressed on, doing what a lot of low-income New Yorkers do. She volunteered at a home for the elderly, she attended summer academic programs, she made her high school honor roll and tutored younger peers.

And after getting accepted to John Jay College of Criminal Justice, she worked long hours as a bartender, off the books, to pay her way. It was overwhelming, she says, until she got a scholarship from a local civic group. “I was over the moon, full of joy and crying and happy after getting it,” she says.

She loved her days tutoring and eventually decided to become a teacher.

“As cliché and corny as this sounds, it’s like some people just have their calling,” the graduate student now says. “It took me a while to figure it out, but it truly makes my heart happy.”

Yet she still felt that she was “living in the shadows, being a part of something, but not really,” during her 20 years coming of age in the United States. Now married to a US citizen, she says Obama’s order finally helped her become “DACA-mented,” as many Dreamers call it, and be authorized to teach math in New York City public schools.”

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The possibility of a legislative compromise to help the “Dreamers” while beefing up immigration enforcement is discussed in this article by Nolan Rappaport in The Hill:

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/311243-gop-immigration-bill-gives-dreamers-a-break-hardliners-a-bone

It was also discussed in my blog of 12/30/16.

PWS

01/05/17

Experts Doubt Trump’s Ability To Make Good On Campaign Promises Of Mass Deportations, But Do Expect Him To Have Major Impact On Immigration Enforcement

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/politics/donald-trump-immigration/index.html

A group of immigration experts on both sides of the issue interviewed by CNN all doubted that the Trump Administration would be able to carry out mass removals on the scale Trump alluded to on the campaign trail. Among the problems: Congressional funding for more enforcement and detention, severely backlogged U.S. Immigration Courts, practical problems of locating and processing undocumented individuals within the United States, and potential large scale resistance by states, cities, counties, and universities to overly aggressive enforcement efforts.

Here’s an excerpt (full article posted above):

“Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center For Immigration Studies, a non-partisan think tank in Washington, said Trump’s campaign pledges to deport millions amounted to an “Archie Bunker moment” that should not have been taken seriously.
“He’s not going to be snapping his fingers and deporting millions of people over night,” said Krikorain, whose group’s motto is “Low-Immigration, pro-immigrant.”

“That’s not realistic,” Krikorian said. “No one thinks that’s going to happen.”

But Krikorian said “it’s very plausible” that Trump could ramp up deportations by 25% or more in 2017 and return to levels seen under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, which he said reached about 400,000 a year when Bush left office.

That, he said, could be done without significant budgetary increases and despite resistance from sanctuary cities.

“I think the other side is making it seem more complicated than it needs to be,” he said.

Stephen Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at Cornell Law School, agreed that Trump would be able to have meaningful impact during the first year of his presidency, but not to the extent suggested during the campaign.

“On the campaign trail things are not nuanced. They’re black and white,” Yale-Loehr said. “It takes a while to turn the battleship of bureaucracy around.”

PWS

01/04/17

Will Workplace Immigration Raids Return Under Trump Administration?

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/illegal-immigrants-raids-deportation.html?mabReward=A4&recp=0&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine&_r=0

“But as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to take office and promises to swiftly deport two million to three million undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, bipartisan experts say they expect a return of the raids that rounded up thousands of workers at carwashes, meatpacking plants, fruit suppliers and their homes during the Bush years.

“If Trump seriously wants to step up dramatically the number of arrests, detentions and removals, I think he has to do workplace raids,” said Michael J. Wishnie, a professor at Yale Law School who represents detainees in civil rights cases.

Since the election, Mr. Trump has suggested that he plans to focus on deporting criminals. “What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers,” he told CBS News in November. “We’re getting them out of our country.”

But Mr. Trump’s advisers have said that to promptly reach his target number of deportations, the definition of who is a criminal would need to be broadened. In July 2015, the Migration Policy Institute, a bipartisan think tank, estimated that of the roughly 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally, 820,000 had criminal records — a definition Mr. Obama mostly adhered to during his second term, evicting some 530,000 immigrants convicted of crimes since 2013.

Mr. Trump would need to expand the basket to include immigrants living in the United States illegally who have been charged but not convicted of crimes, those who have overstayed visas, those who have committed minor misdemeanors like traffic infractions, and those suspected of being gang members or drug dealers.

Targeting workers for immigration-related offenses, such as using a forged or stolen Social Security number or driver’s license, produced a significant uptick in deportations under Mr. Bush. But the practice was widely criticized for splitting up families, gutting businesses that relied on immigrant labor and taking aim at people who went to work every day, rather than dangerous criminals.”

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There is no statutory or other widely accepted definition of a “criminal alien.” As shown by this article in the NY Times, it could be narrow — covering only those who are actually removable from the United States by virtue of their crimes — or broad — covering anyone who has ever had contact with the criminal justice system and is potentially removable, regardless of whether there was a conviction or whether the crime itself is the ground for removal. For example, “driving with an expired license” is not a ground for removal. But, an undocumented individual arrested for “driving without a license” could be referred by the state or local authorities to the DHS to be placed in removal proceedings before a U.S. Immigration Judge. If the Immigration Judge finds that such an individual has no legal status in the United States, and that individual cannot establish that she or he is entitled to some type of relief from removal, the Immigration Judge must enter an order of removal, regardless of the circumstances of the arrest or the overall equities of the case.

PWS

01/04/17

The Numbers Are In — DHS FY 2016 Enforcement Stats Confirm that Obama Administration is #1 In Removals!

http://immigrationimpact.com/2017/01/04/deportation-numbers-2016/

Joshua Breisblatt writes on Immigration Impact:

“Last week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued its Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 immigration enforcement data which, coupled with the previous years’ totals under the Obama Administration, show that the total number of removals from FY 2009 to FY 2016 totaled more than 2.7 million. Simply stated, President Obama has deported more people than any other president in U.S. history.

However, underneath those numbers belie some important lessons about the changing dynamics of who is showing up at the U.S. border and how a November 2014 enforcement priorities memo shaped the number of people deported from the interior of the nation.

. . . .

This means, more would-be-asylees are arriving at the U.S. border, rather than economic migrants as in years’ past. Yet, many are being denied asylum or put through expedited deportation processes, both unworthy of the nation’s commitment to protect those in need.

Also of note, the number of individuals picked up and deported from the interior of the country is on the decline, likely due to the 2014 enforcement priorities memo that sought to avoid deporting individuals who posed no threat and have strong economic and community ties in the U.S.”

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How much enforcement is enough? Never enough, according to some. Others disagree and think we’re going way overboard. As the Trump Administration is probably going to find out, “immigration enforcement” is more often than not a “can’t win” political proposition.

PWS

01/04/17

Will Trump’s Populism Survive His Own Party’s Priorities? Only Time Will Tell

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/28/trumps-populism-is-about-to-be-tested/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_1_na&utm_term=.4a4152d9f78e

Matt O’Brien wites in Wonkblog:

“Trump might have to decide between giving up on his populism, and giving up on getting anything done. Whichever he chooses, though, there’s a good chance that wages will continue to go up and up as the labor market gets closer and closer to full employment. The irony is that they might not rise as much, at least not for the “forgotten men” and women who pushed Trump into the White House, as they otherwise would have.

The good news for Trump, though, is there are no counterfactuals in politics.”

PWS

01/04/17

Sessions No “Civil Rights Hero,” Say Former DOJ Cvil Rights Attorneys

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jeff-sessions-says-he-handled-these-civil-rights-cases-he-barely-touched-them/2017/01/03/4ddfffa6-d0fa-11e6-a783-cd3fa950f2fd_story.html

“J. Gerald Hebert is director of the Voting Rights and Redistricting Program at the Campaign Legal Center. Joseph D. Rich is co-director of the Fair Housing and Community Development Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. William Yeomans is a fellow in law and government at American University’s Washington College of Law; on Election Day, he worked as a voter protection legal volunteer for the Democratic Party of Virginia.”

All three of the authors worked for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during Senator Session’s tenure as U.S. Attorney in Alabama. Here’s part of what they have to say about the Senator’s claim to have supported important civil rights prosecutions:

“Sessions has not worked to protect civil rights. He worked against civil rights at every turn. Sessions knows that his real record on race and civil rights is harmful to his chances for confirmation. So he has made up a fake one. But many of us who were there — in Alabama in the 1980s, 1990s and beyond — are still around. We lived that story, too. And we are here to testify that Sessions has done many things throughout his 40-year career. Protecting civil rights has not been one of them.”

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Read the full op-ed from the Washington Post at the link.

PWS

01/04/17

Surprise: Bipartisanship Works Even In Our Supposedly Hyper-Partisan Climate, According To New Study!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/01/03/does-bipartisanship-even-work-in-todays-polarized-congress-yes/?hpid=hp_regional-hp-cards_rhp-card-politics%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.ffa80938ccbc

“Bipartisan lawmakers are indeed more effective. A typical lawmaker with above-average bipartisanship is about 11 percent more effective than a typical member with below-average bipartisanship. This means that a bipartisan lawmaker will push a larger legislative portfolio further through the lawmaking process. This is true even after accounting for other factors that also impact effectiveness, such as whether a member is in the majority party, head of a committee or subcommittee, or more senior.

But bipartisanship is particularly helpful for certain kinds of members. First, and unsurprisingly, it matters even more for minority-party members, who cannot move their bills forward without majority-party support.

Second, women in Congress tend to be more bipartisan, and that seems to help them be more effective. Surprisingly, bipartisanship helps women even when they are in the majority. Perhaps women are more likely to recognize that neither party has a monopoly on solutions for the policy problems they care about.”

This ties in nicely with some recent posts by Nolan Rappaport who argues that the time is right for bipartisan Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

PWS

01/03/17

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