"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Our Symposium’s focus will be on the practical aspects of immigration law and the current policy debates surrounding the field. Our goal is to present a compelling CLE program for immigration and non-immigration practitioners alike, as well as to provide an engaging educational experience for current law students. This year’s theme is “The Road to Rehabilitation: Reconnecting with Humanity.”
Attendees will have the opportunity to hear a variety of notable immigration attorneys, leaders, and scholars speak on current issues within the field of immigration law in the United States.
Our event is made possible through the generous sponsorship of Terry Bassham (’85) & Zulema Carrasco Bassham.
Featured Speakers and Panelists
Eduardo Beckett
Immigration Attorney featured in “Immigration Nation” Docuseries on Netflix
Shaw Drake
Staff Attorney and Policy Counsel, Border and Immigrants’ Rights, ACLU of Texas
Celina Moreno
President and CEO, Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA)
Eitan Peled
UNICEF USA Child Migration & Protection Program Manager
Cristina Rodriguez
Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Teresa Romero
President, United Farm Workers of America
Erica Schommer
Clinical Professor of Law, St. Mary’s University School of Law
Karla Vargas
Senior Attorney, Texas Civil Rights Project
Register Today. We Look Forward to Seeing You.
This CLE event is pending approval by the State Bar of Texas for 5 CLE credit hours (including 1 hour of ethics).
Registration is now open and available through February 26:
Attorney registration $85
Government employee and non-attorney registration $55
Immigration volunteer registration $25
Student registration $10 (scholarships available for St. Mary’s School of Law students only; please email lawscholar@stmarytx.edu from your St. Mary’s email address telling us why you would like to attend)
St. Mary’s School of Law faculty/staff and Scholar Volume 23 member registration is free
The Scholar: St. Mary’s Law Review on Race and Social Justice is a student-run law review at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. The goal of The Scholar is to give a voice to the voiceless and the vulnerable in our society. The Scholar publishes three issues per volume on a variety of legal topics through the lens of race and social justice. Additionally, The Scholar hosts an Immigration Symposium annually during the spring semester.
Professor Cristina Rodriguez is the co-author (with Professor Adam B. Cox of NYU Law) of the widely acclaimed book The President & Immigration Law. Recently she worked on EOIR issues for the Biden-Harris Transition Team.
Shaw Drake is Staff Attorney & Policy Counsel, Border & Immigrants’ Rights, ACLU of Texas. He was one of my all-star Refugee Law & Policy students @ Georgetown Law and a Charter Member of the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”).
Last year, I was on this outstanding program. It was one of my last “in person” appearances before COVID restrictions set in.
A recent report from the Urban Institute found that more than 1 in 6 adults in immigrant families reported avoiding a government benefit program or other help with basic needs last year because of immigration concerns. This chilling effect was so persistent that households where every foreign-born member had already been naturalized said they’re avoiding benefits. Just to be safe.
Despite an ongoing national crisis with record levels of illness, financial stress and hunger.
“More than once, pediatricians have told us they’ve had children come in so sick and so malnourished that [Child Protective Services] had been called on these families,” said Cheasty Anderson, director of immigration policy and advocacy at Children’s Defense Fund-Texas. Struggling parents believe they’re “on the horns of this dilemma,” she said. They think they must choose between accepting food and medical assistance for their children — or face possible deportation, and thus separation from their children.
That’s what the Trump administration has conditioned them to believe.
Given trends so far — particularly those declines in childhood immunizations — advocates worry that the “public charge” rule might discourage immigrants from getting themselves or their children vaccinated against covid-19. Which would affect the well-being of not just these immigrant families, of course, but their surrounding communities as well. Some advocates have expressed frustration that the Biden administration hasn’t immediately rescinded the rule. Formal repeal is likely a ways off, assuming the administration goes through the usual (cumbersome, protracted) rulemaking process.
But even if the order that Biden signed this week was really more about marketing than action, that pro-immigrant P.R. is valuable. After all, “most of the original damage was done by messaging,” as the Center for Law and Social Policy’s executive director, Olivia Golden, told me. It can, and should, be undone by the same means.
If we want immigrant families to stay healthy — and keep their nonimmigrant neighbors healthy, too — the government needs to put better policies on the books. But it needs to rebuild immigrants’ trust in those policies, too. That part may ultimately be harder.
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Read Catherine’s full op-ed at the link.
Using government resources to undermine public confidence in government. Could it get any stupider and more evil?
But, let’s not forget that the bureaucratic kakistocracy at DHS, DOJ, and other agencies happily carried out and promoted the Trump/Miller bogus, racist, anti-immigrant narratives. That’s going to make it challenging for Secretary Mayorkas and incoming AG Garland to change the policies, change the messaging (if you want to see how brutally corrupt and manipulative the DHS “PR Kakistocracy” was, check out the highly acclaimed documentary “Immigration Nation”), and change the attitudes and the reality at the “retail level” — the DHS field offices and the Immigration Courts.
But it’s a challenge they must meet and conquer — for the sake of our nation.
Also, it’s worth remembering that the Supremes’ GOP majority dishonestly bent the rules to interfere with lower Federal Court rulings that had properly blocked this invidious, White nationalist, nativist attack on American communities — targeting communities of color and low-income communities. Just another example of how the Supremes’ elitist right wing majority operates outside reality (the factual record of comments from experts opposing this bogus “rule” was simply overwhelming and basically ignored by the Trump regime and the Supremes’ majority) and without regard or understanding of the human and public policy consequences of their skewed “Dred Scottifying” rulings. They are also above accountability, which makes their abuse of the most vulnerable among us even more disgusting and cowardly.
I think it’s highly unlikely that we’d see the same tone deaf misapplication of the law if it were the Justices’ kids, grandkids, neighbors, and friends unnecessarily suffering from illness and malnutrition aggravated by racist government policies. No more Justices and Federal Judges who have spent their adult lives studiously ignoring the rights and problems of those struggling to get by in a society where the rules are designed to protect the White ruling class rather than all persons living here.
It’s very clear that for GOP Justices, most of the time, only some lives and rights matter and are worth protecting. The rest of humanity can “go pound sand” as far as they are concerned.
For Pete’s sake, guns and corporate entities get more protection from the Roberts’ Court than do asylum seekers whose lives are at stake! As Justice Sotomayor says: “This is not justice.” The question remains of why we have Supremes who all too often promote injustice and fail to resist evil?
While Donald Trump failed to pass much signature legislation and largely failed to remake the federal government in ways that cannot be immediately corrected, his landmark achievement will be his lasting contributions to the federal judiciary. Breaking the records of his predecessors, Trump seated 234 judges on the federal courts in four years, including three at the Supreme Court. That means that whatever Biden and the Democrats try to do in the coming months and years, most of the efforts will ultimately be in the hands of life-tenured judges, 30 percent of whom were named by Trump. Those judges are overwhelmingly very young, very white, and very male. A preview of what’s likely to come happened just last week, when a federal judge tapped by Trump blocked Biden’s 100-day deportation “pause” with a nationwide injunction.
The question is what Biden and the Democrats can and will do in response to Trump’s enduring legacy. The new president is already making moves that indicate he understands that some of the norms and conventions that guided Barack Obama in building the judiciary are dead and gone. This week the Washington Post reported that the Biden administration is doing away with the formal American Bar Association vetting process that Democratic presidents used to abide by, because it was jettisoned by Republican presidents and because it simply lengthened the process. Biden is also hustling to put together the bipartisan commission he pledged would examine structural reforms for the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary. Former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold is a leading Democrat attempting to strengthen the left’s ability to appoint judges, to match the pace the right has set. He is the president of the American Constitution Society, the left’s answer to the Federalist Society (we spoke last year when he assumed the post). Given the potential of the current moment for big changes in the judiciary, I wanted to ask him what happens next. Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
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Read the rest of the interview at the link.
The disgraceful mess that Trump and McConnell made out of our Federal Judiciary has been a constant theme here @ Courtside over the past four years!
What’s missing from this interview are these fundamental realizations that those of us in the world of immigration and human rights know well but seem to escape most of the others looking to fundamentally change and improve the Federal Judiciary:
There are few things that go on in the Federal Judiciary, at any level, as important to human lives and the future of our nation as what takes place in Immigration Court every day;
The Immigration Courts have hit stunning new levels of dysfunction, incompetence, and intentional injustice over the past four years — they are truly an ongoing national disgrace (“America’s Star Chambers” or “Clown Courts”🤡) and a stain on the humanity of our nation, as well as an abomination that threatens to collapse our entire justice system;
Immigration law and “weaponized” Immigration Courts have been the key to the Trump regime’s attack on American democracy and our Constitutional institutions culminating in the deadly Capitol insurrection;
The Biden Administration has complete authority to fix the Immigration Courts now — no waiting for Justices or Judges to retire, “negotiating with Mitch and the Federalist Society,” waiting for the scheduling of Senate Confirmation hearings, or humoring home state Senators;
Some of the lawyers and advocates who led the legal fight to preserve American democracy over the past four years would be outstanding choices for the Immigration Judiciary (as well as the Article III Judiciary — there is no shortage of diverse progressive talent with “real life retail experience” out here in the NDPA, Russ);
A well-functioning, diverse, independent Immigration Judiciary would not just help advance and enforce the Administration’s progressive, humane, due-process-focused immigration and human rights policies, but also should become a model of “best practices” for the Article III Judiciary, and an extraordinary source of well-trained, experienced, progressive, “practical scholar jurists” for filling positions in the Article III Judiciary;
Better understanding of, and commitment to, humanely and properly administering immigration and human rights laws by Federal Judges — and the total elimination of “Dred Scottification of the other” under law — is the absolutely essential “now-missing key” to achieving racial justice and social justice in America;
America can’t afford the astounding absence of true immigration scholarship, human understanding of immigrants, practical decision making and problem solving, and an overriding commitment to due process for all persons, including asylum seekers and migrants, that now infects the Federal Court system at all levels;
Those seeking to undermine American democracy will continue to exploit the Federal Judiciary’s overall lack of understanding of immigration and human rights laws and their willing abrogation of Constitutional due process and basic concepts of fundamental fairness and human dignity for some of the most vulnerable persons among us — we must fix this problem before it destroys us!
In his first days in office, President Joe Biden has made immigration a key priority for his administration, seeking to distinguish himself from another “deporter in chief,” as activists once called President Barack Obama.
He has issued a series of executive actions aimed at dismantling the Trump administration’s nativist legacy, unveiled an ambitious legislative proposal for immigration reform, begun to roll back a program that has left asylum seekers trapped in Mexico, and sought to enact a 100-day pause on deportations.
On Tuesday, he issued another three executive orders that create a task force to reunite families separated under President Donald Trump and implement measures to remove obstacles to noncitizens seeking to naturalize, enter the US on visas, and obtain asylum or other humanitarian protections. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said to expect additional announcements, including an expansion of the US refugee program, going forward.
For immigrant communities, those changes can’t come soon enough. Democrats have long promised to create a more just immigration system, and Biden’s initial actions have built confidence among some immigrant advocates that he intends to finally deliver, though they wish he would act even more quickly on behalf of people whose lives are hanging in the balance.
The task before Biden is immense. Immigrant communities expect him not just to revert to the Obama-era approach to immigration enforcement, which involved record deportations and an expansion of family detention, but to improve on it. And while Obama failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform or even a narrow bill offering legal protections to “DREAMers” who came to the US without authorization as children, activists see immigration reform as an imperative and are counting on Biden to pass it by whatever means possible.
Though Biden has largely stood by his record as vice president, he has acknowledged that the Obama administration stumbled on immigration, particularly with regard to mass deportations.
“We took far too long to get it right,” Biden told Univision last February. “I think it was a big mistake.”
Since Obama was in office, the public has become more favorable to immigration, in part as a reaction to the shock-and-awe tactics behind the Trump administration’s high-profile travel ban and family separation policies. The Democratic Party is also more unified on immigration, a topic they once regarded as politically radioactive.
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Get the rest of Nicole’s outstanding and highly readable analysis at the link!
As she points out, a major challenge for the Biden-Harris team, Secretary Mayorkas, and incoming AG Garland will be dealing with a totally dysfunctional immigration bureaucracy at DHS and DOJ that often eagerly engaged in and helped promote “crimes against humanity” and unconstitutional dehumanization of migrants under the bogus claim to be “upholding the rule of law.” What absolute poppycock!
Biden will welcome 125,000 refugees to the U.S. in first fiscal year
By Associated Press and Nikki Schwab, Senior U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.com at 10:10 PM UTC on 04 February 2021
President Joe Biden announced Thursday his intention to massively increase the cap on annual refugee admissions to the United States
At the State Department, he said he would sign an executive order with the aim of 125,000 refugees coming to the U.S. in his first fiscal year
Refugee admissions fell to a historical low under President Donald Trump, with the current cap sitting at 15,000
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced his intention to massively increase the cap on annual refugee admissions to the United States, which fell to a historical low under Donald Trump.
In line with a campaign promise, Biden said he would set at 125,000 the cap on admissions as part of the country’s refugee resettlement program, against the current 15,000.
‘We offered safe havens for those fleeing violence or persecution’ in previous years, when America’s ‘moral leadership on refugee issues’ encouraged other nations to open their doors as well, Biden said.
‘So today I’m approving an executive order to begin the hard work of restoring our refugee admissions program to help meet the unprecedented global need,’ he added.
‘It’s going to take time to rebuild what has been so badly damaged, but that’s precisely what we’re going to do.’
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Read the complete article at the link.
One of the most damaging effects of the Trump regime’s cowardly and counterproductive “war on refugees” was the withering and disappearance of the premier “resettlement infrastructure” run by NGOs. It was one of many things that made our refugee program highly efficient.
The cruelty and stupidity of a White Nationalist regime that intentionally “broke” many of the functioning parts of our society while pouring money down the drain on a far right racist agenda simply can’t be overestimated.
Thanks to President Biden for restoring humanity, common sense, and the national interest to our democracy!
Refugees have been a key part our national success. Moreover, as President Biden said in his inaugural address, “leading by example” is essential to foreign policy. If we want other developed nations to participate in resettling refugees, our own robust programs and willingness to help others in need will go a long way toward encouraging and increasing constructive responses to mass migration situations.
That is why the Justice Department must also identify categories of non priority immigration court cases that can be dismissed now. One obvious category is the estimated 460,000 cases — an astounding 37 percent of the current backlog — that involve individuals who could qualify, under current law, for legal status. It makes little sense to waste limited enforcement resources by having immigration prosecutors and judges spend years trying these cases in court, when trained adjudicators at another agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, can handle them more efficiently through paper applications.
Another category of cases that should be removed from judges’ dockets are the 200,000 cases that have been pending for more than five years. By definition, these old cases are ones that prosecutors and judges have deemed low priorities.
Biden has noted that the Obama administration “took too long” to begin fixing the nation’s immigration system. His initial steps are a promising indication that he intends to move swiftly to build the fair, humane and functional immigration enforcement system he has promised. To guarantee results, the new president must use his first 100 days to identify and remove the non priority cases bottlenecked in America’s immigration courts.
Greg Chen is senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Peter L. Markowitz is a professor of law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law where he directs the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic.
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Read the full article at the link.
Presto: 1.3 million million docket becomes 640,000. And that’s just the beginning!
Here are some more low-budget, immediate action “No-Brainers:”
Vacate all of the anti-asylum, backlog expanding “precedents” issued by Sessions, Whitaker, Barr, and the BIA over the past four years (immediately returning needed flexibility and some degree of fairness to the system);
Reassign the current BIA and replace with expert judges committed to due process who know how to grant asylum and establish precedents on how “clear grants” can be easily identified, properly documented, and consistently adjudicated (eliminate “refugee roulette” — largely a product of an “any reason to deny culture” combined with defective judicial selection, poor training, and lousy leadership);
Return all asylum cases denied over the past four years to the USCIS Asylum Office for adjudication without all the anti-asylum precedents and dehumanizing policies of the Trump regime;
Work with the private bar and NGOs to increase representation with universal representation as the goal;
Eliminate inane and demeaning “production quotas” for EOIR judges (thus placing the emphasis back on careful decision making, thoughtful analysis, and getting the correct result the first time — also restoring IJs’ ability to schedule and manage dockets).
Realistically, 500 Immigration Judges can complete approximately 250,000 to 300,000 cases annually. A combination of 1) the “Chen-Markowitz plan;” 2) the “Schmidt Addendum;” and 3) the more sensible and realistic enforcement priorities initiative already underway at DHS will have EOIR “operating in real time” (and, significantly, in the national interest) in no time at all — without legislation or busting anyone’s budget!
Of course, these initial steps are just the “tip of the iceberg” of the reforms necessary at EOIR, leading to the fulfillment of the vision of “through teamwork and innovation becoming the world’s best tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”Congress must at the earliest opportunity create an independent Article I Immigration Court to institutionalize and preserve these reforms and “best practices.”
But, in the meantime, lives and our national interests are imperiled by the current deadly (and wasteful) dysfunction @ EOIR. There is every reason to fix the system now! And, it’s not “rocket science” — just expertise and common sense.
Which leads me to another obvious point — Members of the NDPA like Chen, Markowitz, Dean Kevin Johnson, Michelle Mendez, Associate Dean Professor Jaya-Ramji Nogales, Professor Phil Schrag, Professor Michele Pistone, up and coming all-star Lauren Wyatt, Judge Dana Marks and other leaders of the NAIJ, experienced due process oriented Immigration Judges like my former BIA colleague Judge Noel Brennan, and many others like them should be in charge of this effort to reform EOIR and create a model court system.
The Biden Administration must apply the same principles to EOIR Reform that they have elsewhere: Get rid of the “middlemen” and “bring in the experts” to run the show! Articles, papers, speeches, TV interviews, encounter groups, studies, and blogs are great — but putting the right folks in the right places to take action to solve problems is much better and more efficient! Put the folks with the answers in charge!
That would not only create a “laboratory of best judicial practices” that could be applied to the floundering Article III Judiciary, but also would provide the Biden Administration with source of well-trained progressive candidates for the Article III Judiciary. Leadership, including “leading by example” is critical in any well-functioning judicial system; it has been sorely lacking at EOIR (and in the Article III Judiciary) over the past four years. As the Biden Administration has already recognized, the only real leadership among the Federal Judiciary has come from “resistors” like Judge Ashley Tabaddor, now at USCIS.
Incidentally, in her current position at USCIS, Judge Tabaddor is perfectly placed to work with EOIR in carrying out the “Chen-Markowitz plan” to get cases of those potentially eligible for residence out of the EOIR backlog and into USCIS where they can be handled more efficiently.
To state the obvious, EOIR needs more “headquarters personnel” like a hole in the head! What you need is a streamlined staff of better-qualified individuals across the board: real judges and professional judicial administrators who will restore due process and get this system functioning again — sooner rather than later.
Consequently, there is no apparent need for additional “counsel” in his office right now. To say the least, this ill-timed “example of the “Continuing Clown Show at EOIR”🤡 has already become a “internet mini-sensation!” At the very least, you should wait until Risch’s replacement arrives and let her or him make the selection.
Undoubtedly, a reformed IJ tenure program (considering not only discipline but also retention of current judges and improved professional training) that is transparent, fair, and effective is a badly needed and long overdue improvement. But, hiring another bureaucrat (on short notice, which is likely to produce a less than “best qualified” candidate) isn’t the answer.
That being said, I’ve already heard from a number of private practitioners who would love to be in charge of “professional responsibility for Immigration Judges.” They have lots of great ideas for improvements and a number of places where they would start the process immediately, if not sooner!
Vanita Gupta Nominee for Associate AG Photo: Brookings Institution, Paul Morigi, Creative Commons LicenseKristin Clarke Nominee for Assistant AG, Civil Rights Photo: NAACP, Creative Commons License
Meet the courageous, dynamic , outspoken, new human-rights-oriented leaders looking to fulfill the Constitution and make “equal justice for all” a reality @ the DOJ and for America.Sam Levine reports for The Guardian.
On her last day at the justice department in 2017, Vanita Gupta considered taking a picture as she left the agency’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. But she decided against it. Gupta, the outgoing head of the department’s civil rights division, once described as the “crown jewel” of the agency, didn’t really want to remember the moment, she told a reporter who was shadowing her for the day.
Jeff Sessions, then the incoming attorney general, was poised to unwind much of the painstaking progress Gupta, 46, and her colleagues had spent the last four years building. It was no secret that Sessions opposed the kind of court agreements the justice department used to fix unconstitutional policing policies across the country (“dangerous” and an “exercise of raw power” in Sessions’ eyes). Nor were there any illusions that Sessions would try very hard to enforce the Voting Rights Act, already on its last legs after the supreme court gutted a key provision in 2013 (Sessions described the landmark civil rights law as “intrusive”).
Many of those concerns came to pass. Trump’s justice department not only did little to enforce some of the country’s most powerful civil rights protections for minority groups, but in several cases it opposed them. It filed almost no voting rights cases and defended restrictive voting laws, tried to undermine the census, challenged affirmative action policies, sought to roll back protections for LGBTQ+ Americans, and limited the use of consent decrees to curb illegal policing practices. Gupta took a job as the head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of civil rights groups across the country, where she became one of the leading figures pushing back on the Trump administration.
Joining Gupta in that effort was Kristen Clarke, a 47-year-old former justice department lawyer who leads the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, founded in 1963 to help attorneys in private practice enforce civil rights. As her group filed voting rights and anti-discrimination lawsuits across the country over the last few years, Clarke spent hours nearly every election day briefing journalists on reports of incoming voting problems. Reports of long lines, voting machine malfunctions, translator issues – no problem was too small. The monitoring sent a message that civil rights groups would move swiftly against any whiff of voter suppression.
Now, after years of leading the fight for civil rights from outside the justice department, both women are poised to return to its top levels, where they can deploy the unmatchable resources of the federal government. Last month, Joe Biden tapped Gupta to serve as his associate attorney general, the No 3 official at the department, and Clarke to lead the civil rights division. If confirmed by the Senate, Gupta would be the first woman of color to be the associate attorney general; Clarke would be the first Black woman in her role.
“They are both independently legit civil rights champions with a long deep history,” said Justin Levitt, who worked with Gupta at the justice department and knows both women well. “They’re going to make a really spectacular, really powerful team.”
Picking two career civil rights lawyers for two of the top positions at the justice department sends an unmistakable signal that civil rights enforcement will be a top priority for the agency over the next four years. Civil rights leaders said they could not remember a prior administration in which two of the department’s highest positions were filled by civil rights attorneys, especially two such as Clarke and Gupta.
“It’s going to be really important and energizing and exciting to be able to be in conversation and discussion with people who understand the department’s role in civil rights enforcement,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), who has worked closely with both women. “But it’s also going to be exciting, and as a matter of resources, to have the department actually do civil rights enforcement.”
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Read the rest of these inspiring American profiles 🇺🇸🌟at the link. Don’t you think we need the “Vanita & Kristen” of immigration and human rights to lead the restoration effort at EOIR and the BIA?
Here are the “keys to success:”
Immigrants’ rights are human rights;
Human rights are civil rights;
There can be neither racial justice nor equal justice in America until migrants are not only fully recognized as “persons” under our Constitution, but actually treated as such (as opposed to the active “dehumanization” and “Dred Scottification” of migrants and persons of color by the Trump regime and the GOP majority on the Roberts’ Court);
You can’t possibly “win the game” with the same players who “batted for the White Nationalists” over the past four years.
And, speaking of “Jewel in the Crown.”👑 That’s exactly how many of us in the “Round Table of Former Immigration Judges” 🛡⚔️ once viewed EOIR. The “EOIR Vision” was: “Through teamwork and innovation be the worlds’s best tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”
So, Vanita, and I hope Kristen also, can imagine the anger and determination to fight with which our Round Table viewed the dismemberment of due process and weaponization of the Immigration Courts under Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr. From aspiring to be the “world’s best tribunals” to “Star Chambers” and a grotesque, dysfunctional national disgrace!
On the plus side: Both Gupta and Clarke are the daughters of immigrants. Both have written and advocated for immigrants’ rights as part of their civil rights leadership.
Caution. Obama Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch were “facially aggressive” on protecting voting rights and police reforms. Yet, at the same time they: helped DHS set deportation records; allowed EOIR to spiral toward dysfunction (to a large extent through failure to procure and properly manage resources and an indolent judicial hiring program that was both “closed and non-diverse in nature” and glacial in operation (2 years to fill an average judicial vacancy!)); supported “baby jails,” the “family gulag,” and toddlers representing themselves on asylum cases in Immigration Court; looked the other way as private prisons treated asylum seekers and migrants worse than convicted criminals; and “went along to get along” with the Administration’s misuse of the Immigration Courts as (a highly ineffective) deterrent to applications for asylum.
Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr might have been the “Kings of Aimless Docket Reshuffling” at EOIR that helped produce an astounding 1.3 million case plus “backlog.” But, it started in earnest under the Obama Administration.
That’s what I mean by the “two headed policy:” arguing for voting rights for minorities in one courtroom while simultaneously ignoring the human and civil rights of migrants in the next courtroom. Arguing for the right to vote in one case, while arguing (apparently with a straight face) that toddlers who can’t speak English have no right to legal representation in the next case.
Not only that, but with the Biden Administration apparently looking to rapidly fill upcoming Article III vacancies, the Obama DOJ’s mishandling of the Immigration Courts has deprived President Biden of the chance to draw from a diverse group of younger, progressive Immigration Judges whose practical scholarship, commitment to human rights and due process, courage, and proven ability to function in a “high stress” judicial setting would make them strong candidates for the now-reeling Article III Judiciary.
That’s certainly not to say that there aren’t some potential progressive candidates for the Article III Judiciary among today’s present, and particularly recently “retired,” (some essentially “forced out” at relatively young ages as a “matter of conscience”) Immigration Judges. There are! But, only a fraction of the number there would have been if the Obama Administration had taken the Immigration Courts with proper seriousness.
And, that’s leaving aside the lives that could have been saved and better jurisprudence that could have been “institutionalized” with better, merit-based, judicial selections at EOIR during the Obama Administration!
I sincerely hope that Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke can help Judge Garland get the job done at Justice. The “human rights/immigration world” will be cheering for you. Getting some of the folks from the New Due Process Army(“NDPA”) into key positions at EOIR and the rest of the DOJ will be an “early signal” of whether or not “Team Garland gets it.”
Removing McHenry at EOIR was a good start! But, it’s only a small step in what has to be done to make racial justice and immigrant justice a reality at the DOJ. The “brooms and plungers” 🧹🚽 need to come out, and the sweeping and plunging has to be quick and widespread.
On the other hand, there is “no patience for another Obama Administration” out here in the real world. Every day, EOIR and DOJ are killing folks, ruining lives, and abusing the brave and dedicated attorneys of the NDPA! If the rhetoric doesn’t produce short term results and drastic improvements, you can expect the same type of aggressive litigation from the NDPA that stopped the defeated regime from completely destroying the U.S. justice system.
On Jan. 21, minibuses of contractors in hi-viz vests were still bumping along the dirt road they had built for themselves in the high desert village of Campo, California, an hour east of San Diego. Less than 24 hours before, the newly inaugurated President Joe Biden had signed an executive order declaring that “the national emergency declared by Proclamation 9844 … is terminated and that the authorities invoked in that proclamation will no longer be used to construct a wall at the southern border.”
The Trump administration’s border wall project arrived in Campo in early 2020. The area is rugged and rolling, studded with oak trees and sagebrush. It couldn’t be more different from the bustling beaches and boardwalks most people associate with San Diego.
Into this landscape came contractors who were working with dynamite and heavy machinery 24 hours a day, with funding from both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. The latter money came through the executive order rescinded by Biden, in which Trump had claimed an emergency that even he admitted was not necessary. In 2020, the emergency spending accounted for $676 million in San Diego and El Centro counties.
The borderlands in eastern San Diego County, like every inch of the United States, are the ancestral homelands of Indigenous people. San Diego County has the highest number of reservations in the country, and the Kumeyaay people lived on this land long before the border came. Over the past year, they have been fighting a 30-foot steel wall that tears through the fragile high desert and divides Kumeyaay living north of the wall from their relatives to the south.
From a vantage point on top of a peak in eastern San Diego County, the wall stretches out as a physical manifestation of the brutality and ugliness of Donald Trump’s vision of American greatness. Sagebrush bushes, which survive in a region that can kill you with heat in the summer and cold in the winter, are held back by a rusty barbed wire fence next to a double-wide dirt road which runs alongside the towering steel spine of the wall proper. The wall stands on a deep concrete foundation, backed by the empty brownness of the roadway. No effort has been made aesthetically or ecologically to make this wall belong here. It’s as if the land, plants, and animals have drawn back in revulsion at the intrusion. On the other side of the newly created dead zone, bushes and plants grow right up to the border.
. . . .
Border Patrol agents drive around the area in expensive trucks, on an expensive road, next to a barrier that cost billions of dollars, all to keep the poorest people on the planet from asking us for help. In 2018, I spent time volunteering with a migrant caravan that had arrived in Tijuana and watched U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees launch tear gas over this wall at kids who couldn’t afford shoes.
Passages for the wall have been blasted out of the fragile landscape of California’s desert, causing drainage problems, disrupting migration pathways for the area’s wildlife, and leaving huge piles of rubble. Further east, there are half-finished roads that lead to nowhere, designed to allow contractors to deploy huge machinery against the defenseless landscape. They’re now just even-more-obvious illustrations of the ridiculous nature of the whole project.
Even before the roads run out, there are gaps in the wall. Construction stepped up in the months before the election to allow for Trump to make ever more ridiculous claims about miles of wall built, sometimes this meant harder-to-build areas were skipped or two crews worked on a wall that didn’t quite meet in the middle. It would be funny if it weren’t so ugly and pointless.
. . . .
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Read the complete article at the link.
The unfinished wall is also a monument to:
The failure of the Supremes to stand up for democracy and the rule of law in the face of tyranny “supported” by blatantly bogus “pretexts;” and
The failure of our national values.
With respect to the latter, there is nothing that will bring the world’s greatest and richest “superpower” to its knees more quickly than a ragtag band of desperate unarmed humans yearning to breathe free 🗽and seeking legal protection ⚖️🧑🏽⚖️under our system! How dare they assert their legal rights and their humanity!
A girl peers out from an encampment at the U.S.-Mexico border where she and several hundred people waited to present themselves to U.S. immigration to seek asylum. / Photo by David MaungMolly O’Toole Immigration Reporter LA Times Source: LA Times website
Tuesday’s directives mandate a review, but do not end, the Remain in Mexico policy, which Biden had said he would rescind on his first day in office. Officially termed the Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP, it has forced roughly 70,000 asylum seekers back to Mexico to wait in some of the world’s most dangerous cities for immigration court hearings in the U.S. that have been largely suspended since the Trump administration effectively closed the border last March, citing COVID-19.
Human Rights First has recorded at least 1,134 public reports of murder, torture, rape and kidnapping against asylum seekers returned to Mexico under MPP. Thousands have given up.
On Jan. 20, the Homeland Security Department announced that no new asylum seekers would be subjected to MPP, telling some 30,000 migrants left in limbo at the border by Trump that they should “remain where they are, pending further official information from government officials.”
Tuesday’s directives, as described by the officials, provide little additional clarity as to how the Biden administration will process those already subjected to MPP, along with thousands of others waiting.
Ensuring that MPP and other cases are processed “humanely” while safeguarding public health amid a pandemic is “fairly complicated,” one senior official said.
“I can’t tell you exactly how long it will take to have an alternative to that policy,” the other senior official said. Those under MPP will “certainly be taken into account because of the length of time they’ve waited and the conditions they are waiting in.”
On Monday, the administration effectively dropped appeals by the Trump administration in lawsuits against MPP and the diversion of billions in federal funds for border barrier construction. The acting Homeland Security head asked the Supreme Court to remove both cases, scheduled for oral arguments later this month, from its docket.
The Biden administration has not yet said what it will do with the effective closure of the border by the Trump administration under Title 42, which Tuesday’s directives do not address. The officials Monday cited ongoing litigation over the policy for the lack of action.
Under Title 42, Trump officials rapidly expelled hundreds of thousands of migrants, including asylum seekers and unaccompanied children, without due process. Whistleblowers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the Trump White House pushed the order for political, not public health, reasons.
On Tuesday, Biden also will take steps to restore Obama-era pathways allowing vulnerable groups in Central American to apply for admission to the U.S. from within the region, officials said.
. . . .
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Read the rest of Molly’s detailed analysis of President Biden’s latest executive actions on immigration at the link.
Wonder how many more will be murdered, raped, tortured, kidnapped, robbed, extorted, get sick, or give up while their fate is being studied? Out of sight, (somewhat) out of mind. Just ask the Supremes’ majority! As long as the bodies aren’t on OUR doorsteps and we don’t have to listen to the moans, groans, and screams of the abused.
Five things that could be done immediately, without study:
Vacate all the anti-asylum precedents from the AG and the BIA since 2016;
Assign some Immigration Judges whose “TRAC Record” shows that they understand asylum law and aren’t afraid to grant protection to hear any scheduled MPP cases;
Replace the BIA (or at least create an “MPP Appeals Panel”) with judges who have demonstrated excellence and expertise in asylum law;
Do not go forward with any MPP case involving an unrepresented applicant;
Bar the issuance of “in absentia orders” in MPP cases.
Outrage after survivor of El Paso mass shooting deported to Mexico
Police reportedly stopped the woman due to a non-functioning brake light, took her to a local jail and then soon deported her
Kenya Evelyn in Washington
Published:
12:00 Monday, 01 February 2021
Follow Kenya Evelyn
A survivor of a Walmart mass shooting that killed 23 people in El Paso, Texas, and targeted Latino people has been deported to Mexico, triggering widespread outrage among activists and local politicians.
Police reportedly stopped the woman – who was not named in full – due to a non-functioning brake light, then took her to a local jail. She was then placed into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), where she was soon deported to Mexico.
Best
The legal defense team working on her behalf confirmed to local KVIA that city police arrested the woman, identified as just Rosa. She was booked into the El Paso county jail annex.
Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services told local KTSM that on Wednesday, the survivor was pulled over and, during the traffic stop, found to have two, five-year-old citations still outstanding.
By Friday morning, Rosa had been deported to Cuidad Juárez where she has remained ever since.
On a Saturday morning in early August 2019, a 21-year-old man walked into the El Paso Walmart Super Center and opened fire, first into the parking lot before taking aim at the store’s entryway. The attack killed 13 Americans, eight Mexicans and one German.
. . . .
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Read the full article at the link.
Undoubtedly, it’s hard to “get a handle” on the failed DHS bureaucracy — a more than willing enforcer of Trump’s cruel, White Nationalist, often illegal immigration agenda.
But, if the Biden Administration wants to change policy, they must find the right people to do just that — sooner, rather than later! Otherwise, like past Dem Administrations, they will end up with a file (or drive) full of reasonable policy memos that everyone ignores.
It was the first reported death at the Stewart Gulag since the Trump regime’s final killing in December 2020.
With “Caretaker Bureaucrats” in charge @ DHS & DOJ, the deadly migrant killing, harming, and terrorizing policies continue unabated. Indeed, as far as I can tell, seedy DOJ lawyers are pushing forward with defending the very cruel, stupid, inhumane, and illegal policies and bankrupt legal positions that the Trump immigration kakistocracy made infamous. The same policies that Biden and Harris campaigned against! EOIR continues to crank out skewed anti-immigrant, anti-asylum jurisprudence.
The current policies are killers; the bodies continue to pile up, even if they are (quite intentionally) in obscure places like Lumpkin, GA, the “no persons land” near the Mexican border, and in dangerous and corrupt foreign nations where our Government mindlessly “orbits” other human beings without regard to what it will happen to them.
For now, these stories of death, despair, and unnecessary human suffering are largely “out of sight, out of mind.” But, they are being documented and eventually history will highlight those, from the Roberts’ Court on down, who abjured their duties to their fellow humans and abused their positions of public trust.
Due Process Forever! Death ⚰️ in The New American Gulag ☠️, never!
Dumping Asylum Seekers in Honduras Artist: Monte Wolverton Reproduced under license“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)
Here’s the opinion, with no discernible rationale for this unprincipled and irrational action:
Here’s the “death to children” ☠️⚰️ panel: Katsas, Rao, and Walker, Circuit Judges. As long as it’s not THEIR children . . . .
Bad things happen to countries that make child abuse an “official policy” and reward child abusers with lifetime judicial appointments!
The Biden Administration needs to move quickly to get a handle on what’s happening in their name at the border. Also, might want to take a look at the Government lawyers who defend the indefensible in Federal Court.
Better Judges For a Better America! No more child abusers on the Federal Bench!
🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Child Abusing Circuit Judges🤮, Never!
“The BIA erred in imposing evidentiary requirements of ongoing injury or treatment beyond the sexual assault itself in order to show persecution. Kaur’s credible testimony about the attempted gang rape is sufficient to show persecution. Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim. We grant Kaur’s petition for review and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
[Hats off to Douglas Jalaie!]
1st Calls Out Violation Of Regs, Incredibly Stupid Denial Of Reopening For Approved U Visa Petition Beneficiary Waiting For “Number:”
“Eyore In Distress” Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”
“Petitioner Carlos Antonio Granados Benitez seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA” or “Board”) denial of his motion to reopen his removal proceedings and to remand to the immigration judge (“IJ”) for further consideration in light of the fact that he had been placed on a waiting list by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) for a U-1 nonimmigrant visa (“U visa”) pursuant to the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (“VTVPA”), Pub. L. No. 106-386, § 1513(a)(2)(A), (b), 114 Stat. 1464 (2000) (codified as amended at 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(U)). Because we find that the BIA abused its discretion, in that it failed to render a reasoned decision that accords with its own precedent and policies, and it further failed to consider the position of its sister agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), we grant the petition. In so holding we join the views of the Seventh Circuit in Guerra Rocha v. Barr, 951 F.3d 848, 852- 54 (7th Cir. 2020).”
[Hats off to Paige Austin, with whom Philip L. Torrey, Make the Road New York, and the Harvard Law School Crimmigration Clinic were on brief, for petitioner, and Brian D. Straw, Gregory E. Ostfeld, and Greenberg Traurig, LLP on brief for ASISTA Immigration Assistance, Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, National Network to End Domestic Violence, Safe Horizon, and Tahirih Justice Center, amici curiae!]
3rd “Perplexed” By BIA’s Ignorance Of “Equitable Tolling,” Own Authority:
“Hey, guys, ever hear of something called “equitable tolling?” “Nah, is it spelled D-E-N-I-E-D?” “Equitable TROLLING,” I’ve heard of that?”https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/ Creative Commons License
“Because Nkomo properly raised equitable tolling before the BIA, the BIA erred in failing to consider her request for equitable tolling on the merits. We remand for the Board to do so in the first instance.”
“The BIA’s suggestion that it does not have the authority to make decisions on equitable grounds is perplexing. The BIA has authority to equitably toll the deadline for motions to reopen the precise relief Nkomo sought.”
Demeaning rape victims! ☠️🤮👎🏻 So, what else is new @ EOIR? “Gonzo” Sessions 🦹🏿♂️ set the tone for anti-asylum, racially motivated misogyny in Matter of A-B- and “his judges” have taken it from there! (I repeat my oft-made observation: What kind of “due process” system lets a characters like Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr “own” judges? How would you like to be a woman on trial for her life before a “judge” selected, directed, and “owned” by the likes of these men with clear records of “applied contempt” for equal justice? Sessions, Whitaker, Barr, & Jeffrey Rosen are gone — but their legacy of bias and injustice lives on @ EOIR!)
One of my esteemed Round Table 🛡⚔️ colleagues summed up the latest set of outrageous miscarriages of justice from Falls Church:
All of these decisions demonstrate the degree of careful and detailed analysis that these cases require.And yet the BIA couldn’t keep staff attorneys after McHenry capped them at GS-13 (entry level), and keeps increasing the monthly quotas for BIA staff attorneys.Plus of course the Board Members themselves are now all these types who only review the decisions to make sure they end in the word “dismissed.”
If you were trying to create a recipe for disaster, you couldn’t have planned it better.
I heard the latter comment twice yesterday from immigration/human rights/due process experts on opposite sides of our country who observe and participate in the system at various levels.
To quote Justice Sotomayor’s recent dissent: “This is not justice.”
Historical Footnote:One of my first actions as BIA Chair in 1995 was to establish a “GS-15 Career Ladder” for all Attorney Advisors at the BIA. This made the BIA competitive with the rest of the DOJ.
It allowed us to attract and retain not only “top talent” coming from the “DOJ Honors Program” (how I got my first job at the BIA in 1973), but also outstanding career attorneys who wanted an opportunity to do research, writing, and “applied scholarship” that made a difference in individuals’ lives. Indeed, at various times the BIA has had on its staff former Senior Executives seeking a “change of focus” to a career that allowed them to do the things they liked best about the law.
One of them was a former SES colleague at the “Legacy INS” who found in transferring to a GS-15 BIA Attorney Advisor position a career satisfaction, fulfillment, and sense of meaningful contribution that person had been missing in INS management at that time.
Reducing the top grade for Attorney Advisors is not only professionally and personally demeaning, it also marks the entire organization as “second class” and shows just how stupid and incompetent (and, in recent history, overpaid) EOIR “management” has become! And, as pointed out in my colleague’s comments above, it has not only adversely affected careers but the human lives in the balance on the BIA’s docket.
As I understood my “mission” from then Attorney General Janet Reno in 1995, the BIA was supposed to be about “attracting the best and the brightest judges and supporting them with the best and brightest staff.” Essentially getting it to function like the “12th Circuit” was a description mentioned during my interview process for the Chair job.
Sadly, now, it has become an assembly line of expediency, injustice, shoddy legal work, mindless “corner cutting,” unprofessional behavior, and human misery.
To repeat my colleague’s comment: “If you were trying to create a recipe for disaster, you couldn’t have planned it better.”
All of these cases should have been resolved in the foreign national’s favor without ever getting to the Courts of Appeals! Bad judging, grossly incompetent administration, and lack of qualified, dynamic, judicial leadership from respected “practical scholars” costs lives, produces unacceptable and unfair inconsistencies, and clogs the Article III Courts with unnecessary litigation.
Indeed, the First Circuit’s decision in Granados basically reveals OIL’s “smorgasbord” of bogus arguments to uphold the BIA’s incorrect decision as “without merit” — actually frivolous! There are deep problems @ DOJ resulting from the ongoing corruption and disregard for ethics and professional leadership from the now-departed kakistocracy! They go far beyond the mess at EOIR!
Sure hope that Judge Garland, Vanita Gupta, and their incoming team @ DOJ have a comprehensive plan for replacing the BIA and reforming EOIR! The human beings suffering in this disgracefully inept and abusive “court system” and their courageous, long suffering attorneys are counting on you! Think of it this way: What if YOUR daughter were the rape victim demeaned, dehumanized, and denied justice by EOIR?
Professor Ingrid Eagly UCLA Law PHOTO: TwitterSteven Shafter, Esquire Managing Attorney Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project Los Angeles, CA Photo: Esperanza website
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Policy Counsel American Immigration Council Photo: TwitterMe
PRESS RELEASE
11 Years of Government Data Reveal That Immigrants Do Show Up for Court
WASHINGTON—A new report released today by the American Immigration Council examines 11 years of government data on the rate at which immigrants appear for hearings in U.S. immigration court. The report, “Measuring In Absentia Removal in Immigration Court,” concludes that an overwhelming 83% of immigrants attend their immigration court hearings, and those who fail to appear in court often did not receive notice or faced hardship in getting to court.
As the new administration of President Joe Biden considers how to reform the immigration system, including the immigration courts, this report reveals how reliance on detention, access to legal representation, and immigration judges’ docket management impact immigrants’ appearance rate.
The report draws on government data from 2,797,437 immigration court removal proceedings held between 2008 to 2018. It documents how individuals who were never detained and those who were released from detention proceeded through court and what obstacles they faced in pursuing their immigration cases.
The report finds that people released from immigration detention and individuals with attorneys overwhelmingly attend their hearings. Data also show that immigration judges have a vital role in maintaining due process. The findings further demonstrate that the creation of an independent structure for the immigration courts would help reduce the prevalence of unwarranted in absentia removal orders and give immigration judges more discretion in managing their dockets and individual case decisions.
The main findings of the report include:
83% of nondetained immigrants with completed or pending removal cases attended all of their hearings.
96% of nondetained immigrants represented by a lawyer attended all of their hearings.
15% of those who were ordered deported because they did not appear in court successfully reopened their cases and had their removal orders rescinded. In some years, as many as 20% of all orders of removal for missing court were later overturned.
Individuals who apply for relief from removal have especially high rates of appearance.
Appearance rates vary strongly based on the immigration court’s location.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review’s method for measuring the rate at which immigrants fail to appear in court presents a limited picture of the frequency of missed court appearances.
“The empirical research presented in this report debunks the myth that immigrants don’t show up for court,” said Ingrid Eagly, professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. “Relying on the government’s own immigration court data, co-author Steven Shafer and I find that, since 2008, 83% of all immigrants in nondetained deportation cases have attended all of their court hearings. In addition, over the 11 years of our study, 96% individuals represented by an attorney attended all of their court hearings.”
“Today’s report verifies what those who have worked in the immigration court system already knew: immigrants overwhelmingly show up in court. We hope that this data finally puts to rest a false narrative about immigrants’ appearance rates that past administrations used to justify restrictive and cruel immigration policies,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council. “After previous administrations spent years funding immigration enforcement to address a small set of individuals who miss court, the Biden administration has the opportunity change course. To ensure even higher appearance rates, the new administration should focus on updating immigration court technology, providing better resources to orient immigrants, and working to ensure that all immigrants navigating our removal system are represented by counsel. As Congress debates immigration reform, this report shows that it’s time to revisit harsh and punitive laws that require judges to enter deportation orders for a single missed hearing and which limit the ability of the government to appoint counsel.”
“The findings of this timely report confirm what many of us formerly on the immigration bench have known for years: represented asylum seekers appearing before fair, knowledgeable judges show up for virtually all of their immigration court hearings,” said Paul Wickham Schmidt, former immigration judge and board member for the Board of Immigration Appeals. “The findings refute one of the many ‘big lies’ and ‘bogus narratives’ promoted by the last administration to demean and dehumanize asylum seekers and wrongfully deprive them of their legal and constitutional rights. The Biden administration should pursue changes that would provide immigration judges greater independence and discretion and support the creation of an independent structure for the immigration courts.”
Lies promoted by Government officials and turned into cruel, counterproductive, and biased policies cost lives and undermine our system of justice!
A stunning 96% of represented respondents appear for all hearings! The obvious step for the Biden Administration is to “repurpose” resources squandered by the defeated kakistocracy’s cruel, expensive, ineffective “enforcement gimmicks” like detention in the “New American Gulag,” ludicrous Immigration Judge “dashboards,” walls, bogus protocols, and illegal anti-asylum rules and instead invest in public-private partnerships to achieve universal representation. Building on existing programs, it should be possible to get all respondents represented by trained and competent counsel or accredited representatives.
Notably, Professor Michele Pistone @ Villanova already runs VIISTA, an innovative, first class asylum litigation training program for accredited representatives. Put some Federal grant money into expanding it to meet the need for representation throughout America. These are “obvious steps” ignored by a captive “court system” run by malicious incompetents implementing a White Nationalist agenda.
Professor Michele Pistone Villanova Law
Combined with a restoration of the rule of law at EOIR and rational DHS enforcement priorities, that’s the way to establish manageable Immigration Court dockets compliant with Due Process and fundamental fairness. Create a model court system that will be a source of pride, rather than a national disgrace.
Of course a legislatively-enacted, independent, professionally administered expert Article I Immigration Court is absolutely necessary. But, due process and fundamental fairness can’t wait! Lives and futures, not to mention our national values, are at stake. Judge Garland must end the dysfunction and start making urgently needed improvements @ EOIR immediately!
Removing (former) Director McHenry — who promoted the kakistocracy’s anti-immigrant myths, bogus statistics, and “worst management practices” — is a great start. But, it’s certainly not the end of the urgent changes that must be made to implement Due Process and professional court administration at EOIR. In particular, the current BIA is a due process, human rights, and asylum expertise “disaster zone!”
WASHINGTON — When President Biden swore in a batch of recruits for his new administration in a teleconferenced ceremony late last week, it looked like the country’s biggest Zoom call. In fact, Mr. Biden was installing roughly 1,000 high-level officials in about a quarter of all of the available political appointee jobs in the federal government.
At the same time, a far less visible transition was taking place: the quiet dismissal of holdovers from the Trump administration, who have been asked to clean out their offices immediately, whatever the eventual legal consequences.
If there has been a single defining feature of the first week of the Biden administration, it has been the blistering pace at which the new president has put his mark on what President Donald J. Trump dismissed as the hostile “Deep State” and tried so hard to dismantle.
From the Pentagon, where 20 senior officials were ready to move in days before the Senate confirmed Lloyd J. Austin III as defense secretary, to the Voice of America, where the Trump-appointed leadership was replaced hours after the inauguration, the Biden team arrived in Washington not only with plans for each department and agency, but the spreadsheets detailing who would carry them out.
A replacement was even in the works for the president’s doctor: Dr. Sean P. Conley, who admitted to providing a rosy, no-big-deal description of Mr. Trump’s Covid-19 symptoms last year, was told to pack his medical kit. While all presidents eventually bring in their own doctor, Mr. Biden wasted no time bringing back a retired Army colonel, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who was his doctor when he was vice president.
Mr. Biden had named nearly all of his cabinet secretaries and their immediate deputies before he took office last Wednesday, most of them familiar faces from the Obama administration. But the president’s real grasp on the levers of power has come several layers down.
. . . .
Ashley Tabaddor, a constant critic of the Trump administration as the former head of the union that represents immigration judges, will take over as chief counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal legal immigration agency.
At the Justice Department — where morale was largely decimated and Biden administration officials are eager to begin reversing Trump policies on civil rights, immigration and police oversight — all of the department’s top incoming acting department heads are alumni, some of whom worked under multiple administrations.
Until Judge Merrick B. Garland is confirmed as attorney general, Monty Wilkinson, a longtime career employee who worked closely with Eric H. Holder Jr. when he was attorney general, is serving in an acting capacity.
The acting deputy attorney general is John P. Carlin, who ran the national security division of the Justice Department during the Obama administration. He is holding the office only until Lisa Monaco, who has worked closely with Mr. Carlin over the years, can be confirmed as deputy attorney general. She served as homeland security adviser under Mr. Obama and, during the Trump years, she and Mr. Carlin ran a group studying the hardest issues in cyberpolicy.
Much as the politicization of the Justice Department angered Mr. Trump’s critics, the neutering of the Environmental Protection Agency prompted outrage from progressives, and it is probably no surprise that the agency is already in the throes of transformation.
. . . .
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Read the complete article at the link.
Trump spent his first week in office spouting lies about the size of his inauguration crowd and launching a White Nationalist assault on Muslim refugees. Biden came in with a detailed plan for governing America and is putting it into effect on multiple fronts notwithstanding the crises and absolute mess left behind by the defeated kakistocracy!
The Biden-Harris plan reflects three truths:
Government is a powerful force for the common good;
Most governing takes place at the “retail level;” and
Competence, honesty, and courage count.
The Tabaddor appointment is a powerful signal to civil servants who stand up for their rights and the rights of others. Judge Tabaddor undoubtedly is one of the most talented, dynamic, and capable leaders at any level of the Federal Judiciary. But, that didn’t protect her from the DOJ/EOIR bureaucracy.
During the Trump regime, she led the effort of the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”) to expose bias and political interference with judicial functions, gross mismanagement, disregard for due process, and suppression of First Amendment free speech by the DOJ/EOIR kakistocracy.
“Billy the Bigot” Barr & his toady McHenry punished the NAIJ by filing to “decertify” the union — a move to silence Judge Tabaddor and her her colleagues and deflect Congressional attention from the ongoing chaos and dysfunction the Trump DOJ had created in the Immigration Courts.
Apparently, somebody on the Biden Team was paying attention to this travesty, recognized the grotesque abuses going on at the EOIR Clown Show🤡, and the courage and leadership shown by Judge Tabaddor in the battle for integrity and“good government.”
So far, so good. Looks like the “EOIR Clown Show”🤡 is finally “going to go” and be replaced with real judges and pros in judicial administration who will refashion it into a real, functioning, due-process-oriented, model court system that will compliment the legislative initiative to create an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court of which we all can be proud.
“Through teamwork and innovation be the world’s best tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!” Still the “right vision.” And with the right judicial leadership and judges who are experts in human rights, immigration, and “applied due process” it can become a reality!
