Category: Prosecutorial Discretion

EFFECTS OF TRUMP SHUTDOWN, “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE” CONTINUE TO ROIL U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM, SCREW MIGRANTS WHO FAITHFULLY SHOW UP FOR “FAKE” HEARINGS! – Trump Shut Down USG Over A Bogus “National Immigration Emergency” While Deeming Immigration Courts “Nonessential!” – Would ICE Agents Dare File “Charging Documents” Containing False Information With “Real” U.S. Courts?

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/31/politics/immigration-court-fake-dates/index.html

By Catherine E. Shoichet, Angela Barajas and Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

Updated 10:15 PM ET, Thu January 31, 2019

 

Hundreds of people overflow onto the sidewalk in a line snaking around the block outside a U.S. immigration office with numerous courtrooms Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Hundreds of people overflow onto the sidewalk in a line snaking around the block outside a U.S. immigration office with numerous courtrooms Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

(CNN)More than 1,000 immigrants showed up at courts across the United States on Thursday for hearings they’d been told were scheduled but didn’t exist, a lawyers’ group said, as the Justice Department struggles with an overloaded immigration court system and the effects of the recently ended partial government shutdown.

Immigration attorneys reported that lines wrapped around the court building in San Francisco, a line stretched for blocks to get into the court in Los Angeles and hundreds of people waited outside the court in Newark, New Jersey.
Thursday’s problems are the latest example of US immigration authorities issuing a large number of inaccurate notices ordering immigrants to appear at hearings that, it later turns out, had never been scheduled.
Lawyers first told CNN last year that they’d observed a wave of what they call “fake dates” pop up. For instance, lawyers reported examples of notices to appear issued for nonexistent dates, such as September 31, and for times of day when courts aren’t open, such as midnight.
“The immigration courts have reached a new crisis point,” said Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The group said it tracked over 1,000 people showing up in courts Thursday with inaccurate hearing notices.

In Los Angeles, immigrants who had "fake dates" were given paperwork acknowledging they'd appeared at the immigration court, according to attorney Jonathan Vallejo, who provided this redacted copy of one such form.

In Los Angeles, immigrants who had “fake dates” were given paperwork acknowledging they’d appeared at the immigration court, according to attorney Jonathan Vallejo, who provided this redacted copy of one such form.

‘I’m afraid and nervous’

Inside a packed waiting room at the Arlington Immigration Court on Thursday, confused immigrants clutching paperwork asked lawyers for help. Some said they’d driven hours to get to court and had awakened at 3:30 a.m. to arrive on time.
“I’m left with a question mark. I’m wondering, ‘Why?'” said Bigail Alfaro, 39, who’s seeking asylum with her two children. “I’m afraid and nervous.”
RELATED: The government shutdown took its toll on the nation’s immigration courts
As she prepared to head into court for a scheduled hearing, immigration attorney Eileen Blessinger found herself fielding questions and asking court officials to stamp paperwork to provide proof that immigrants had shown up.
“What happened?” one woman asked her.
“You don’t have court, because they made a mistake,” Blessinger said.
At an immigration court in Atlanta, a crowd of around 40 people were turned away, almost one by one, by a Spanish-speaking court employee telling people with notices that their hearings had been “postponed.”
Among those showing up for court were parents with small children, some dressed only with hooded sweatshirts and covering themselves with blankets, with the temperature in Atlanta in the mid-20s.
“They told us they would send us another citation by mail,” said a man named Jose who asked to be identified only by his first name. “But who knows when? And the hard part is they don’t let us know with enough time, enough time to prepare ourselves.”
In Los Angeles, immigration attorney Jonathan Vallejo said he saw 30-40 people ushered into a room where they were told they didn’t have hearings and given forms acknowledging they’d appeared at the court.
“It’s absurd what’s going on,” he said.
RELATED: Trump admin faces two big deadlines on family separation policy

Two lawyers. One court. And their fight against the odds.

Two lawyers. One court. And their fight against the odds.
Problems were also seen in Dallas, Miami and San Diego, Lynch said.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the division of the Justice Department that runs the immigration courts, said the weather and government shutdown were partially to blame.
The office “was unable to proceed with hearings for some respondents who believed they had hearings scheduled,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “In some cases, the cases had been rescheduled to another date, but the lapse in appropriations prevented the immigration courts from issuing new hearing notices far enough in advance of the prior hearing date.”

An ongoing problem

President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the nation’s immigration system, specifically taking issue with the practice of releasing immigrants while they await their court dates. To remedy that, his administration has sought to hire more immigration judges in the hopes of unclogging the court.
But that has not happened — there are 409 immigration judges nationwide but nearly 80 vacancies — and the number of cases continues to grow.
For years, the number of pending cases has been slowly creeping up, as more are added to the docket than can be addressed at any given time. There are more than 800,000 cases pending, according to the Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions also created a quota system that requires judges to clear at least 700 cases a year in order to receive “satisfactory” performance evaluations. Between 2011 and 2016, judges completed 678 cases a year on average.
Judge Ashley Tabaddor, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, described judges in Los Angeles coming back this week to boxes filled to the rim with mail that had piled up over the course of the 35-day partial government shutdown.
“What this does is it adds greater delay to the cases. We were shortchanged five or four weeks of time,” Tabaddor told CNN. “Not only were we not able to hear cases that were previously cases that were scheduled, but it’s going to take time to regroup.”
RELATED: US immigration authorities detail so-called return-to-Mexico guidance for migrants
Immigration attorneys say the instances of mistakenly scheduled hearings unfairly burden immigrants and create more pressure on a system that’s already suffering from a crushing backlog.
“Imagine the stress of facing potential deportation,” North Carolina immigration attorney Jeremy McKinney said on Twitter. “You’re told show up in court or be ordered deported in your absence. You drive hundreds of miles & wait in line only to be told the court date was not real. ‘Sorry for the minor logistical errors.’ “
A NOTICE TO APPEAR AT MIDNIGHT (p. 1)
Selected portion of a source document hosted by DocumentCloud
Atlanta immigration attorney Rachel Effron Sharma says this is an example of a notice a client received, ordering the client to report to an immigration court at a time when the court was closed.
View the entire document with DocumentCloud
The US Supreme Court ruled in June that notices to appear — the charging documents that immigration authorities issue to send someone to immigration court who’s accused of being in the United States illegally — must specify the time and place of proceedings in order to be valid.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea said officials have been working to comply with the court’s requirements for notices to appear, but the lapse in funding during the partial government shutdown had delayed those administrative efforts.
“All appropriate parties are working together to solve this issue going forward,” she said.
In its statement Thursday, the Executive Office for Immigration Review said it had issued policy guidance in December and modified its system so the Department of Homeland Security and its components can directly schedule hearings.
The agency said it “does not expect any further recurrence of this type of situation.”

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

Yup, and it happened in the “Bay Area” also:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Confusion-erupts-as-dozens-show-up-for-fake-13579045.php

Tatiana Sanchez reports for the SF Chronicle:

One woman pulled her daughter out of school to make it to the courthouse on Montgomery Street. Another caught a ride from Fresno. A teenage girl and her ailing mother waited for hours, clutching documents that summoned the mother to Immigration Court Jan. 31.

But none of them got what they came for and expected: a hearing before a judge.

Dozens of people reported Thursday to hearings previously scheduled by the Department of Homeland Security at the federal San Francisco Immigration Court, only to find the appointments didn’t exist.

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Immigration attorneys described similar scenes in Chicago, Atlanta, Virginia, Miami and Texas, where long lines snaked around courthouses for hours.

Federal officials said Thursday’s problems resulted from the government shutdown delaying the process of rescheduling the hearings.

But attorneys representing immigrants called the court dates fake, and said Immigration and Customs Enforcement is sending immigrants notices to appear — charging documents instructing people accused of being in the country illegally to come to court — with court dates it knows are not real.

“Every city in every jurisdiction is doing this, obviously knowing that there really won’t be court on that date,” said Christable Lee, an immigration attorney in San Francisco. “These immigrants are standing with their kids outside with no direction. They’re afraid to stand outside on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse because there could be other immigration authorities there. It’s a really harrowing situation.”

Attorneys say the new practice stems from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, known as Pereira vs. Sessions that requires notices to appear to include a specific date and time in order to be valid. Previously, immigration authorities could send notices with the date listed as “to be determined.”

A similar situation occurred in several cities nationwide Oct. 31 when dozens of people showed up for court hearings that didn’t exist. Since then, some have reported court dates scheduled on weekends or late at night.

In a prepared statement, ICE denied giving immigrants a fake court date, saying, “Due to the recent partial lapse in government appropriations, the administrative process to resolve this issue was delayed, resulting in an expected overflow of individuals with Notices to Appear listing immigration proceedings on January 31.”

Meanwhile, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees all immigration courts, said it was “unable to proceed” with hearings for some people who “believed they had hearings scheduled” Thursday.

“In some cases, the cases had been rescheduled to another date, but the lapse in appropriations prevented the immigration courts from issuing new hearing notices far enough in advance of the prior hearing date,” the agency said in a statement. “In other cases, EOIR did not receive the Notice to Appear (NTA) in a timely manner. Immigration proceedings do not commence until the Department of Homeland Security has filed an NTA with an immigration court.”

Attorneys with the American Immigration Lawyers Association said they’ve received more than 1,000 reports of immigrants who had notices to appear in court containing fake dates, though they said it’s extremely difficult to track.

Mothers with small children, families and confused couples clutching manila folders crowded the sidewalk in San Francisco Thursday while others filled nearby coffee shops and restaurants after being told to come back a different day. The news was particularly troubling for immigrants who traveled several hours to get to the courthouse, many relying on relatives and friends for rides.

More than a dozen people waiting outside the courthouse declined to be interviewed but told The Chronicle that staff informed them court wasn’t in session Thursday. Some people who showed up in the morning were asked to come back later in the day, though it’s unclear what happened once they returned.

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

As I’ve reported before on “Courtside,” contrary to the myths promoted by Trump, DOJ, and DHS, migrants generally appear for court when they get valid notice with real hearing dates and actually have the system explained to them (usually by an attorney); ironically, it’s often EOIR (“the lovable donkey”) that “Fails to Appear” (“FTA”) with an assist from their “partners in crime” over at ICE.

Would a “real court” let the “cops” run roughshod over them and their dockets as EOIR permits ICE to do? Would a “real President” shut down the Immigration Courts over a wall that will have NO, I repeat NO, “immediate impact” on migration while forcing tens of thousands of “ready to try removal cases” to the end of dockets that already stretch out four or more years in some locations?

Part of the problem is the continuing failure since the Clinton Administration of the DOJ to implement the statutory contempt of court authority granted to the Immigration Judges by Congress approximately two decades ago! A few contempt of court orders directed at ICE Agents and the ICE Chief Counsel who are failing to control their so-called “clients,” or perhaps at Secretary Nielsen herself, would bring these absurd, illegal, time-wasting practices that actually hurt real human beings and sow chaos in our justice system to a screeching halt!

That’s why an independent Article I Immigration Court is an essential priority in fixing our immigration system, including the procedures both for granting asylum and other relief promptly, fairly, and in accordance with due process, and issuing removal orders for those who don’t qualify. The current system does neither, for reasons largely beyond the control of the Immigration Judges (although some judges at both the trial and appellate level bear responsibility for failing to carry out in a fair and unbiased manner, consistent with due process, the generous, humanitarian statutes for the granting of asylum and implementing the legal mandates for other forms of protection from persecution and torture. That’s why a transparent, merit-based selection and reappointment system, with provision for public input is essential to an Article I system).

News from the “Journalism Carousel:” Star immigration reporter Priscilla Alvarez has moved to CNN from her prior birth over at The Atlantic. Congrats to Priscilla and to CNN!

PWS

02-01-19

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. 🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️KAKISTOCRACY WATCH: AILA Blasts Appointment Of Prosecutors Without Judicial Qualifications To Top Judicial Positions in Billy the Bigot’s Weaponized Anti-Due-Process “Court” System — Dysfunction, Bias, Illegitimate Decisions Run Rampant As Congress, Article IIIs Fail to Enforce U.S. Constitution!
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  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION POLICY: “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE!” — Also, ICE Intentionally Falsifies Court Hearing Dates — Where Is The Accountability?

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/incompetence-plus-malice-add-up-to-trumps-losing-formula-on-immigration/

Bill Boyarsky writes for Truthdig:

From the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the immigration issue has defined his political profile. More than anything else, it has opened a window on his authoritarian mind, his disdain for the truth and for democratic institutions. Such contempt has revealed the dangers of Trumpism to much of a nation governed, often imperfectly, by the law. The way immigrants are locked up in detention centers without trial warns us of the possibility of a police state.

Last week, the president’s braggadocio crumbled in the face of facts and the strategic opposition of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She clearly saw beyond the façade as she took the measure of her opponent.

Trump’s signature combination of untruthfulness, ignorance and arrogance became evident to the country on Friday when maps appeared on cable television showing planes stacking up at airports, sending passengers into a state of exasperation that transcends partisan politics. Those deficiencies were further exposed when he, while putting an end to the protracted government shutdown, used his concession speech in the White House Rose Garden on Friday to rehash his lying attacks on immigrants.

Trump repeated his call for a wall, arguing that only a wall would stop the drug dealers and other criminals from coming across the southern border. But he pulled back from the “Build the Wall” promises that stirred nationalistic crowds at his rallies. “We do not need 2,000 miles of concrete wall from sea to shiny [sic] sea—we never did,” he said, insisting that he had never proposed one.

On the contrary, as Linda Qiu and Michael Tackett wrote in The New York Times:

Dozens of times during the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump promised to build a wall along the southwestern border, usually saying it would be 1,000 miles at varying heights and costs. At times the building materials changed. He mentioned concrete, steel and, at one point, even a wall that would have solar panels. But a wall and the unsupported pledge that Mexico would pay for it were foundational elements of his campaign, and Mr. Trump has continued to make similar assertions throughout his presidency.

Except on Friday. Qiu and Tackett also picked up that detail:  “ … notable was something Mr. Trump did not say, namely that Mexico would pay for the wall. …”

As he had from the beginning of his presidential campaign, Trump trafficked in falsehoods Friday in the Rose Garden when he described the immigrants trying to cross the border into the United States as dangerous criminals.

Figures from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Clearinghouse(TRAC), a respected compiler of immigration statistics, refute his claim.

As of June 30, 2018, Immigration and Customs Enforcement had 44,435 immigrants in custody. Of these, four out of five had no criminal record or had committed only a minor offense, such as a traffic violation. Of the remainder, only 16 percent had committed crimes considered serious, which includes selling marijuana, now legal in many states. Of those eventually convicted of a crime, most were for illegal entry into the United States, a misdemeanor.

Another factor to consider is the incompetence of the way Trump administers his anti-immigrant policy. His former Attorney General Jeff Sessions drastically reduced the grounds for immigrants seeking asylum in the United States. Under his plan, dangers posed to immigrants by criminal gangs or domestic violence were no longer accepted as reasons for granting asylum—a devastating legislative blow to those fleeing gang-ridden Central American countries.

Other restrictions on asylum were also imposed. When immigrants present themselves to border officers and ask for sanctuary, they are arrested for illegal entry. They are then placed in detention, awaiting a hearing in immigration court, or are deported, although courts have ordered some released.

Sessions also ordered judges in immigration courts to speed up their hearings and decision-making protocols. He claimed this directive was aimed at reducing the backlog of cases awaiting hearing in immigration court that involve immigrants either in detention or freed through the legal intervention of immigrant advocates.

The backlog, TRAC said, totals 1,098,468—more than double the waiting list in January 2017 when Trump took office. It would take immigration courts more than five years to work their way through the backlog. This explains why so many immigrants are held in detention for years without a trial in onerous conditions, and why those freed from detention are in legal limbo, subject to being stopped, questioned and improperly arrested.

When Trump shut down the government, most immigration hearings were cancelled. That gave the president a lesson in the law of unintended consequences. Rather than carry out his intent—hustling the immigrants out of the country—he has done the opposite and has increased the logjam.

In short, incompetence plus evil intentions have brought the country to this point.

Trump has been able to paper over his incompetence with bluster. The mass media has served as an accomplice. Too many stories focus on his performance. Sometimes, even his critics offer grudging admiration.

The shutdown ripped away the mask. Immigration was the central issue behind Trump’s closure of the federal government. His lies about immigration were exposed, as was his bungling execution of a cruel policy.

Bill Boyarsky
Political Correspondent
Bill Boyarsky is a political correspondent for Truthdig. He is a former lecturer in journalism at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Southern California. Boyarsky was city editor of….
*****************************************
Meanwhile, over at CBS News, Kate Smith continues her great coverage of the illegal and unethical behavior that has become the norm at DHS and which is enable and tolerated by an enfeebled politically dominated EOIR.

ICE agents told hundreds of immigrants to show up to court on Thursday or risk being deported. But lawyers say many of those hearings won’t happen because the dates ICE provided are fake.

Immigration attorneys in Chicago, Miami, Texas, and Virginia told CBS News their clients or their colleagues’ clients were issued a Notice to Appear (NTA) for hearings scheduled Jan. 31. The attorneys learned the dates weren’t real when they called the courts to confirm. ICE is required to include court dates with court notices, per a Supreme Court decision last summer, but most don’t actually reflect scheduled hearings.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association issued a “practice alert” on Tuesday evening, warning members “the next upcoming date on NTAs that appears to be fake is this Thursday.”

On Wednesday evening, the Executive Office of Immigration Review, the body that oversees all the immigration courts, instructed all attorneys with a January 31 NTA “to confirm the time and date of any hearing.”

“There will be another episode of mass confusion in the immigration courts [Thursday] as a result of the DHS’s decision to issue Notice to Appear with fake immigration court dates,” Brian Casson, a Virginia-based immigration attorney, said in an email to CBS News.

In a statement Thursday morning, an ICE spokesperson said the agency was working with the Department of Justice “regarding the proper issuance of Notices to Appear.” The spokesperson said the government shutdown “delayed” that process, “resulting in an expected overflow of individuals appearing for immigration proceedings today/January 31.”

The fake notices stem from a Supreme Court ruling last summer. Prior to the decision, ICE officials used to send immigrants NTAs with date listed as “TBD” – or “to be determined.” The immigration court would issue the migrant an official hearing notice later, said Casson.

One effect of this: The NTAs could block an immigrant’s eligibility for “cancellation of removal,” a legal residency status granted to some undocumented immigrants after 10 uninterrupted years of living in the U.S. A NTA, even without a hearing date, would interrupt the 10-year “clock,” said Jeremy McKinney, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based immigration attorney, in a telephone interview with CBS News.

A Supreme Court ruling last summer — Pereira v. Sessions — banned the practice, requiring all appearance notices to use actual dates.

However, systems weren’t in place for ICE to see the court’s schedule, so ICE issued fake dates instead. Immigrants were instructed to appear on weekends, midnight, and dates that just didn’t exist, like Sept. 31, multiple attorneys told CBS News.

On October 31, hundreds of immigrants received phony NTAs. They showed up to court for non-existent hearings to find “extraordinarily long lines,” according the recent alert from the immigration lawyers’ organization.

“It was complete dysfunction and confusion,” said McKinney.

The problem became so pervasive that on Dec. 21, the Executive Office of Immigration Review issued a rare policy memo telling ICE agents and DHS that courts would “reject any NTA in which the date or time of the scheduled hearing is facially incorrect.”

Matthew Kriezelman, a Chicago-based immigration attorney, has four clients with hearings scheduled for tomorrow. After checking with the court earlier this week, he found out that two of those appearances weren’t real: administrators had no record of the hearings and told Kriezelman his clients would have to wait until the court itself sent them a hearing date.

Kriezelman’s clients are among the lucky ones; experts estimate less than half of immigrants have legal representation. That means hundreds won’t realize their Jan. 31 hearing date was phony and will show up anyway, said Kriezelman.

The court in Chicago handles all the immigration cases in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana, meaning many immigrants could be traveling for hours on Thursday morning for a hearing that doesn’t actually exist, Kriezelman said.

When they show up, nobody will be able to assist — because of the extreme cold weather, the Chicago immigration court is scheduled to be closed on Thursday, Kriezelman said.

Failure to show up to an immigration hearing can result in immediate removal proceeding, making immigrant especially wary when they hear they don’t need to come into court after all, said Kriezelman.

“They feel like someone is screwing with them or playing a terrible joke,” Kriezelman said. “It’s really confusing for a lot of people, especially ones that are unrepresented.”

Read more CBS News immigration coverage: The country’s busiest border crossing will allow 20 people to claim asylum a day. They used to take up to 100

These Central Americans have a second chance at asylum after being “unlawfully” deported. First ICE needs to bring them back

Every congressperson along southern border opposes border wall funding

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

Bill and Kate must be “reading my mind.” Keep on exposing the truth about this cruel, dishonest, and incompetent Administration and all of the “ethics-free minions” who carry out often illegal orders! What goes around, comes around, folks.

 

 

Anybody and I mean anybody, could need a fair, impartial, and honest justice system at some point in life. Why are so many folks standing by and letting Trump and his toadies destroy it? Piece by piece, the most important foundations of our democracy are being destroyed right in plain daylight!

 

 

Also congrats to my good friend and long-time fellow member of the Beverley Hills Community United Methodist Church family Mike Tackett of the NY Times and his colleague Linda Qiu  for their continuing outstanding coverage of the truth about Trump’s disingenuous, wasteful, and cruel immigration policies. You’re making a difference, Mike and Linda!  Keep at it!

 

 

There was a time when dishonesty and falsely filling out official government documents (known as fraud or willful misrepresentation in some criminal law circles) would get a Government employee fired, prosecuted, or disciplined. Not any more. With our country headed by a grifter “Liar-in-Chief” “anything goes” unless you are a migrant, a minority, or a member of the LGBTQ community. In that case, expect “no mercy.”

 

 

Also remember that White Nationalist former AG Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions disingenuously pontificated about “the rule of law,” called DHS “a partner of EOIR,” and referred to immigration attorneys as “dirty lawyers.” He tried to cover up his gross mismanagement and political manipulation of the Immigration Courts by falsely blaming migrants, their attorneys, and the Immigration Judges themselves for the mess he himself, and also to a large extent DHS, caused.

 

 

He also spread false narratives about “widespread asylum fraud” and made the demonstrably false claim that asylum applicants were somehow a “major cause” of 11 million (mostly hard-working and law-abiding) “illegals” as he liked to contemptuously call them in his racist lingo. I doubt that there have even been 11 million asylum applicants total since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980.

 

 

Certainly, the causes for our “extra-legal” immigration system go far beyond alleged asylum fraud (which, in fact, does exist on a much smaller scale and in my experience is generally effectively uncovered, investigated, and aggressively prosecuted by DHS). They are a direct result of outdated and misguided policies that failed to recognize legitimate market forces in creating legal immigration categories and a failure to fully carry out in a good faith manner our humanitarian obligations under the refugee laws and international conventions.

 

 

Fact is, even if restrictionists like Sessions won’t admit it, the vast majority of the 11 million undocumented individuals should have been screened and admitted under our legal immigration system. The U.S. Government created the problem; so far, they have lacked the honesty, leadership, and courage to fix it in a fair and humane way that will benefit both our country and the migrants, current and future. Immigrants are America. And, except for our Native American brothers and sisters, we are all immigrants!

 

That’s why we have the “New Due Process Army!” Enlist today, and help fight the forces of  “malicious incompetence” everywhere and for as long as it takes to win the battle and vindicate the Constitutional right of everyone in American to enjoy the benefits of Due Process of law.

 

PWS

01-31-19

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  3. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

“VACATION WITH A PURPOSE” THIS AUGUST: COME SPEND A WEEK OF FUN AND GROUP LEARNING WITH PROFESSOR JENNIFER ESPERANZA (BELOIT COLLEGE) AND ME AT LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY’S BEAUTIFUL BJÖRKLUNDEN CAMPUS ON THE SHORES OF LAKE MICHIGAN IN BEAUTIFUL DOOR COUNTY, WI! – Register For “American Immigration” Aug. 4-9, 2019 Here!

American Immigration

A Legal, Cultural, & Historical Approach to Understanding the Complex and Controversial Issue Dominating Our National Dialogue. All Americans are products of immigration. Even Native Americans were massively affected by the waves of European, involuntary African-American, Asian, and Hispanic migration. Are we a nation of immigrants or a nation that fears immigration? Should we welcome refugees or shun them as potential terrorists? Do we favor family members or workers? Rocket scientists or maids and landscapers? Build a wall or a welcome center? Get behind some of the divisive rhetoric and enter the dialogue in this participatory class that will give you a chance to “learn and do” in a group setting. Be part of a team designing and explaining your own immigration system. Your faculty leaders will be retired U.S. Immigration Judge Paul Wickham Schmidt, currently an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law, and Professor Jennifer Esperanza of the Beloit College Anthropology Department, who will also share her compelling experiences as the daughter of immigrants. Professor Esperanza and Judge Schmidt have successfully used their unique “legal/cultural anthropological approach” in undergraduate teaching and will now offer it in a post-graduate seminar.

Paul Wickham Schmidt ’70, retired in 2016 after 13 years as a U.S. Immigration Judge at the Arlington (VA) Immigration Court. Prior to that, he was an Appellate Immigration Judge on the Board of Immigration Appeals, U.S. Department of Justice, serving as the Chairman for six years. He also practiced business immigration law as a partner at Jones Day and managing partner of the D.C. Office of Fragomen. He was Senior Executive in the “Legacy INS” under administrations of both parties. Following graduation from Lawrence, he received a J.D from the University of Wisconsin Law School. He also received the 2010 Lucia Briggs Distinguished Achievement Award from Lawrence. Currently, he is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law, writes the blog immigrationcourtside.com, and is a frequent speaker, radio, and tv commentator on current immigration issues.

Jennifer Esperanza received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from UCLA. She also holds a M.A. from UCLA and a B.A. from USC. She has been a Professor of Anthropology at Beloit College since 2008. As one of two socio-cultural anthropologists in the Department of Anthropology, her primary areas of expertise include political economy, Southeast Asia (Indonesia and the Philippines), tourism and handicrafts, language and identity, consumerism and immigration and refugee resettlement in the United States. She believes students must learn that culture cannot be properly understood without examining its economic and political contexts. In addition to authoring a number of scholarly publications, she received a Marvin Weisberg Foundation for Human Rights Faculty Research Grant in 2015, and a Mellon Foundation research grant in 2018-19.

Date:
Sunday, August 4, 2019 to Friday, August 9, 2019
Fee(s):
$925 – Double; $1,200 – Single; $465 – Commuter
Topic(s):
Law & Politics
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Come join us this summer in Door County for an exciting and unforgettable vacation and learning experience.
Paul & Jennifer
Here’s the link for registration:

Related posts:

  1. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  2. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  3. PROFESSOR FITZ BRUNDAGE @ WASHPOST: Can We Regain Our Humanitarian Values In The Age Of Trump? — “We must shine a spotlight on cruel and illegal policies that undermine our national ideals and find the wisdom and the courage to do better.”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”

http://time.com/longform/migrants/

Haley Sweetland Edwards writes in Time Magazine:

But they were willing to do whatever it took. Going back to Guatemala was simply not an option, they said. Monterroso explained that in October, their family was forced to flee after a gang threatened to murder the children if they didn’t pay an exorbitant bribe, five months’ worth of profits from their tiny juice stall. The family hid for a day and a half in their house and then sneaked away before dawn. “There is nobody that can protect us there,” Monterroso said. “We have seen in the other cases, they kill the people and kill their children.” Her voice caught. “The first thing is to have security for them,” she said of her kids, “that nothing bad happens to them.”

All told, more than 159,000 migrants filed for asylum in the U.S. in fiscal year 2018, a 274% increase over 2008. Meanwhile, the total number of apprehensions along the southern border has decreased substantially—nearly 70% since fiscal year 2000. President Donald Trump has labeled the southern border a national crisis. He refused to sign any bill funding the federal government that did not include money for construction of a wall along the frontier, triggering the longest shutdown in American history, and when Democrats refused to budge, he threatened to formally invoke emergency powers. The President says the barrier, which was the centerpiece of his election campaign, is needed to thwart a dangerous “invasion” of undocumented foreigners.

But the situation on the southern border, however the political battle in Washington plays out, will continue to frustrate this U.S. President, and likely his successors too, and not just because of continuing caravans making their way to the desert southwest. Months of reporting by TIME correspondents around the world reveal a stubborn reality: we are living today in a global society increasingly roiled by challenges that can be neither defined nor contained by physical barriers. That goes for climate change, terrorism, pandemics, nascent technologies and cyber-attacks. It also applies to one of the most significant global developments of the past quarter-century: the unprecedented explosion of global migration.

. . . .

They abandoned their homes for different reasons: tens of millions went in search of better jobs or better education or medical care, and tens of millions more had no choice. More than 5.6 million fled the war in Syria, and a million more were Rohingya, chased from their villages in Myanmar. Hundreds of thousands fled their neighborhoods in Central America and villages in sub-Saharan Africa, driven by poverty and violence. Others were displaced by catastrophic weather linked to climate change.

Taken one at a time, each is an individual, a mixture of strengths and weaknesses, hope and despair. But collectively, they represent something greater than the sum of their parts. The forces that pushed them from their homes have combined with a series of global factors that pulled them abroad: the long peace that followed the Cold War in the developed world, the accompanying expansion of international travel, liberalized policies for refugees and the relative wealth of developed countries, especially in Europe and the U.S., the No. 1 destination for migrants. The force is tidal and has not been reversed by walls, by separating children from their parents or by deploying troops. Were the world’s total population of international migrants in 2018 gathered from the places where they have sought new lives and placed under one flag, they would be its fifth largest country.

The mass movement of people has changed the world both for better and for worse. Migrants tend to be productive. Though worldwide they make up about 3% of the population, in 2015 they generated about 9% of global GDP, according to the U.N. Much of that money is wired home—$480 billion in 2017, also according to the U.N.—where the cash has immense impact. Some will pay for the passage of the next migrant, and the smartphone he or she will keep close at hand. The technology not only makes the journey more efficient and safer—smugglers identify their clients by photos on instant-messaging—but, upon arrival, allows those who left to keep in constant contact with those who remain behind, across oceans and time zones.

Yet attention of late is mostly focused on the impact on host countries. There, national leaders have grappled with a powerful irony: the ways in which they react to new migrants—tactically, politically, culturally—shape them as much as the migrants themselves do. In some countries, migrants have been welcomed by crowds at train stations. In others, images of migrants moving in miles-long caravans through Central America or spilling out of boats on Mediterranean shores were wielded to persuade native-born citizens to lock down borders, narrow social safety nets and jettison long-standing humanitarian commitments to those in need.

. . . .

The U.S., though founded by Europeans fleeing persecution, now largely reflects the will of its Chief Executive: subverting decades of asylum law and imposing a policy that separated migrant toddlers from their parents and placed children behind cyclone fencing. Trump floated the possibility of revoking birthright citizenship, characterized migrants as “stone cold criminals” and ordered 5,800 active-duty U.S. troops to reinforce the southern border. Italy refused to allow ships carrying rescued migrants to dock at its ports. Hungary passed laws to criminalize the act of helping undocumented people. Anti-immigrant leaders saw their political power grow in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Italy and Hungary, and migration continued to be a factor in the Brexit debate in the U.K.

These political reactions fail to grapple with a hard truth: in the long run, new migration is nearly always a boon to host countries. In acting as entrepreneurs and innovators, and by providing inexpensive labor, immigrants overwhelmingly repay in long-term economic contributions what they use in short-term social services, studies show. But to maximize that future good, governments must act -rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.

. . . .

But protocols and treaties can, at best, hope to respond to the human emotions and hard realities that drive migration. No wall, sheriff or headscarf law would have prevented Monterroso and Calderón, or Yaquelin and Albertina Contreras, or Sami Baladi and Mirey Darwich from leaving their homes. Migrants will continue to flee bombs, look for better-paying jobs and accept extraordinary risks as the price of providing a better life for their children.

The question now is whether the world can come to define the enormous population of international migrants as an opportunity. No matter when that happens, Eman Albadawi, a teacher from Syria who arrived in Anröchte, Germany, in 2015, will continue to make a habit of reading German-language children’s books to her three Syrian-born kids at night. Their German is better than hers, and they make fun of her pronunciation, but she doesn’t mind. She is proud of them. At a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric is on the rise, she tells them, “We must be brave, but we must also be successful and strong.” —With reporting by Aryn Baker/Anröchte, Germany; Melissa Chan, Julia Lull, Gina Martinez, Thea Traff/New York; Ioan Grillo/Tijuana; Abby Vesoulis/Murfreesboro, Tenn.; and Vivienne Walt/Paris •

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I strongly encourage everyone to read Haley’s outstanding article at the link.  It is one of the best and most easily understandable explanations of a complex phenomenon that I have seen recently. As I always say, “lots of moving parts.” But Haley and her colleagues have distilled the fundamental truths concealed by this complexity. Congrats and appreciation to Haley and everyone who worked on this masterpiece!

Haley debunks and eviscerates the restrictionist, racist “fear and loathing” baloney that Trump and his White Nationalist gang peddle. The simple truth always has been and continues to be that America needs more immigration.

The only real question is whether we are going to be smart and funnel it into expanded legal and humanitarian channels or dumb like Trump and push the inevitable migration into an extra-legal system. The latter best serves neither our country nor the humans pushed into an underground existence where they can be exploited and are artificially prevented from achieving their full potential for themselves and for us. Right now, we have a mix skewed toward forcing far, far too many good folks to use the extra-legal system.

We’ll only be able to improve the situation by pushing the mix toward the legal and the humanitarian, rather than the extra-legal. That’s why it’s virtually impossible to have a rational immigration debate with folks like Trump who start with the racist-inspired fiction that migrants are a “threat” who can be deterred, punished, and diminished.

Contrary to Trump and the White Nationalists, the real immigration problems facing America are 1) how can we best integrate the millions of law-abiding and productive undocumented individuals already residing here into our society, and 2) how can we most fairly and efficiently insure that in the future individuals like them can be properly screened and come to our country through expanded humanitarian and legal channels. Until we resolve these, American will continue to founder with immigration and fail to maximize its many benefits. That’s bad for us, for migrants, and for the future of our nation.

As a reminder, in the context of Congressional negotiations on border security, I recently put together a list of “practical fixes” to the immigration system which would address border security, humanitarian relief, and improved compliance with Constitutional Due process without major legislative changes — mostly “tweaks” and other common sense amendments that would make outsized improvements and certainly would be an improvement on squandering $5.7 billion and getting nothing but a largely symbolic “instant white elephant” border wall in return.  So, here it is again in all its hypothetical glory:  “THE SMARTS ACT OF 2019:

https://wp.me/p8eeJm-3E3

SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019

  • Federal Employees
    • Restart the Government
    • Retroactive pay raise

 

  • Enhanced Border Security
    • Fund half of “Trump’s Wall”
    • Triple the number of USCIS Asylum Officers
    • Double the number of U.S. Immigration Judges and Court Staff
    • Additional Port of Entry (“POE”) Inspectors
    • Improvements in POE infrastructure, technology, and technology between POEs
    • Additional Intelligence, Anti-Smuggling, and Undercover Agents for DHS
    • Anything else that both parties agree upon

 

  • Humanitarian Assistance
    • Road to citizenship for a Dreamers & TPSers
    • Prohibit family separation
    • Funding for alternatives to detention
    • Grants to NGOs for assisting arriving asylum applicants with temporary housing and resettlement issues
    • Require re-establishment of U.S. Refugee Program in the Northern Triangle

 

  • Asylum Process
    • Require Asylum Offices to consider in the first instance all asylum applications including those generated by the “credible fear” process as well as all so-called “defensive applications”

 

  • Immigration Court Improvements
    • Grants and requirements that DHS & EOIR work with NGOs and the private bar with a goal of achieving 100% representation of asylum applicants
    • Money to expand and encourage the training and certification of more non-attorneys as “accredited representatives” to represent asylum seekers pro bono before the Asylum Offices and the Immigration Courts on behalf of approved NGOs
    • Vacate Matter of A-B-and reinstate Matter of A-R-C-G-as the rule for domestic violence asylum applications
    • Vacate Matter of Castro-Tum and reinstate Matter of Avetisyan to allow Immigration Judges to control dockets by administratively closing certain “low priority” cases
    • Eliminate Attorney General’s authority to interfere in Immigration Court proceedings through “certification”
    • Re-establish weighing of interests of both parties consistent with Due Process as the standard for Immigration Court continuances
    • Bar AG & EOIR Director from promulgating substantive or procedural rules for Immigration Courts — grant authority to BIA to promulgate procedural rules for Immigration Courts
    • Authorize Immigration Courts to consider all Constitutional issues in proceedings
    • Authorize DHS to appeal rulings of the BIA to Circuit Courts of Appeal
    • Require EOIR to implement the statutory contempt authority of Immigration Judges, applicable equally to all parties before the courts, within 180 days
    • Bar “performance quotas” and “performance work plans” for Immigration Judges and BIA Members
    • Authorize the Immigration Court to set bonds in all cases coming within their jurisdiction
    • Fund and require EOIR to implement a nationwide electronic filing system within one year
    • Eliminate the annual 4,000 numerical cap on grants of “cancellation of removal” based on “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship”
    • Require the Asylum Office to adjudicate cancellation of removal applications with renewal in Immigration Court for those denied
    • Require EOIR to establish a credible, transparent judicial discipline and continued tenure system within one year that must include: opportunity for participation by the complainant (whether Government or private) and the Immigration Judge; representation permitted for both parties; peer input; public input; DHS input; referral to an impartial decision maker for final decision; a transparent and consistent system of sanctions incorporating principles of rehabilitation and progressive discipline; appeal rights to the MSPB

 

  • International Cooperation
    • Fund and require efforts to work with the UNHCR, Mexico, and other countries in the Hemisphere to improve asylum systems and encourage asylum seekers to exercise options besides the U.S.
    • Fund efforts to improve conditions and the rule of law in the Northern Triangle

 

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No, it wouldn’t solve all problems overnight. But, everything beyond “Trump’s Wall” would make a substantial improvement over our current situation that would benefit enforcement, border security, human rights, Due Process, humanitarian assistance, and America. Not a bad “deal” in my view!

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PWS

01-27-19

 

 

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  3. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  4. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

JUDGE SULLIVAN STUFFS TRUMP’S REQUEST TO KEEP ON VIOLATING ASYLUM LAW PENDING APPEAL — Stay Denied In Grace v. Whitaker!

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/25/politics/sullivan-asylum-ruling/index.html

Dan Berman reports for CNN:

Washington (CNN)Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan on Friday rejected a Justice Department request to stay his earlier ruling blocking the Trump administration’s policy that makes it difficult for victims fleeing domestic and gang violence to qualify for asylum in the United States.

Last month, Sullivan agreed with a group of women and children who said the policy imposed a heightened standard in reviewing their claims, concluding that the administration must stop deporting migrants currently in the US “without first providing credible fear determinations consistent with the immigration laws.”
Friday, he wrote: “The government now requests a stay, pending appeal of the Court’s Order, to enable the unlawful policies to continue to apply in all expedited removal cases, except the plaintiffs. … Defendants’ motion for stay is DENIED.”
The attorney general has full authority over the immigration courts — a separate court system which operates under the Justice Department.
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We have an Administration without shame, human decency, or, obviously, the will and skill to govern. And, a DOJ where lawyers act not as legal guardians of the people’s rights, but continue to defend the indefensible, ill serves the American people.
PWS
01-25-19

Related posts:

  1. THE HUMAN AGONY OF ASYLUM: SPEND 4 MIN. WITH MS. A-B- & HUMAN/WOMEN’S RIGHTS EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO — Beaten, Raped, & Threatened With Death By Her Husband, Hounded Throughout Her Country, Abandoned By El Salvadoran Authorities, She Sought Refuge In The U.S., Winning Her Case At The BIA — Then She Was Targeted For A Vicious Unprovoked Attack By Notorious Scofflaw Immigration Judge Stuart Couch & White Nationalist Xenophobe Jeff Sessions — She’s Still Fighting For Her Life!
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”
  4. NOTORIOUS CHILD ABUSER JEFF SESSIONS ALSO TARGETED REFUGEE WOMEN & GIRLS FOR DEATH, RAPE, TORTURE, & OTHER MAYHEM — HIS EVIL PLANS HIT A ROADBLOCK: THE LAW! — Read The Latest Commentary From Hon. Jeffrey S.Chase On Challenges To Sessions’s Effort To Pervert The Law — Matter of A-B- In Light Of Grace v. Whitaker!

PLAYING CATCH-UP: Here Are Two “Courtside Regulars” From Earlier This Week: 1) The Gibson Report 01-21-19; and 2) Nolan On Trump & The Wall From The Hill!

 

TOP UPDATES

Trump offers 3-year extension of protection for ‘dreamers’ in exchange for $5.7 billion for wall; Democrats call it a ‘non-starter’

WaPo: In addition to its immigration provisions, the package — which McConnell could move to advance as early as Tuesday, although a Thursday vote appears more likely — would reopen all parts of the government that are closed. It also would provide emergency funding for U.S. areas hit by hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters.

Cancelled Immigration Court Hearings Grow as Shutdown Continues

TRAC: Since the beginning of the federal government shutdown, most Immigration Court hearings have been cancelled. As of January 11, the estimated number of cancellations reached 42,726. Each week the shutdown continues, cancelled hearings will likely grow by another 20,000. As many as 100,000 individuals awaiting their day in court may be impacted if the shutdown continues through the end of January. See also: These states’ immigration courts are most impacted by the government shutdown.

Security, immigration controls fray as impasse over Trump’s wall stretches into its fourth week

USAToday: Of the 60,000 employees at Customs and Border Patrol, nine of 10 must report to work, checking passports and manning pieces of the border wall that have already been built. But they’re not being paid.

By the numbers: how 2 years of Trump’s policies have affected immigrants

Vox: Refugee admissions have plummeted, while rejections of asylum applications have increased. Arrests of immigrants without criminal records have returned to the levels of the first term of the Obama administration, while Trump works to make hundreds of thousands more immigrants vulnerable to deportation, by stripping them of protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program or Temporary Protected Status. And the travel ban quietly churns on.

 

US Undocumented Population Continued to Fall from 2016 to 2017, and Visa Overstays Significantly Exceeded Illegal Crossings for the Seventh Consecutive Year

CMS: The US undocumented population from Mexico fell by almost 400,000 in 2017. In 2017, for the first time, the population from Mexico constituted less than one half of the total undocumented population.

 

Pence links Trump’s push for a border wall to Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy

WaPo: Speaking Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” the vice president quoted from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as he defended Trump’s latest pitch to secure funding for a barrier along the United States’ southern border.

 

A Latino Marine veteran was detained for deportation. Then ICE realized he was a citizen.

WaPo: Richard Kessler, an immigration lawyer in Grand Rapids, Mich., said he was surprised when a woman he had worked with called to tell him that her son, a 27-year-old Marine veteran with mental-health issues, was being held in an immigration facility, apparently awaiting a possible deportation.

 

How Kirsten Gillibrand went from pushing for more deportations to wanting to abolish ICE

CNN: With Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand entering the 2020 presidential race on Tuesday, her dramatic shift on the issue of immigration over the past decade will likely be one of the central questions about her candidacy as she seeks to take on President Donald Trump.

 

NYS’ leading immigration group kicking off $1 million effort for drivers’ licenses for undocumented immigrants

DailyNews: In what could be its biggest campaign, the New York Immigration Coalition, the state’s largest immigration advocacy group, plans to spend at least $1 million on TV, radio and targeted social and digital media ads as well as billboards.

 

Deported from the U.S., now answering your calls

CBS: When U.S. consumers are calling about a hotel reservation or an airline flight, there’s a good chance a deportee in El Salvador is on the other end of the line.

Trump admin weighed targeting migrant families, speeding up deportation of children

NBC: Trump administration officials weighed speeding up the deportation of migrant children by denying them their legal right to asylum hearings after separating them from their parents, according to comments on a late 2017 draft of what became the administration’s family separation policy obtained by NBC News. The draft also shows officials wanted to specifically target parents in migrant families for increased prosecutions, contradicting the administration’s previous statements.

 

Trump administration took thousands more migrant children from parents

WaPo: The report issued by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services says no one systematically kept count of separated children until a lawsuit last spring triggered by the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, under which the government tried to criminally prosecute all parents who crossed the border illegally, taking their children from them in the process. See also As One ‘Tent City’ for Immigrant Children Closes in Texas, Another Opens in Florida.

 

IOM: 200 refugees have drowned in the Mediterranean so far this year

Al Jazeera: Last year, around 2,297 migrants died or went missing in the Mediterranean while 116,959 people reached Europe by sea. According to the IOM, sea arrivals to Europe in the first 16 days of 2019 totalled 4,216, compared with 2,365 in the same period of 2018.

 

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

Judge Orders Trump Administration To Remove 2020 Census Citizenship Question

NPR: U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ordered the administration to stop its plans to include the controversial question on forms for the upcoming national head count “without curing the legal defects” the judge identified in his 277-page opinion released on Tuesday.

Revised Interview Waiver Guidance for Form I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence

USCIS: Generally, conditional permanent residents who file a Form I-751 must appear for an interview.  However, USCIS officers may consider waiving an interview.

EOIR Releases Memo Establishing Interim Policy and Procedures for Compliance with Court Order in Grace v. Whitaker

EOIR released guidance on Grace v. Whitaker, stating that for all credible fear review hearings conducted on or after 12/19/18, IJs may not rely on several aspects of Matter of A-B- as a basis for affirming a negative credible fear determination. Guidance obtained from CGRS and ACLU.

 

USCIS Issues Policy Memo on Secure Identity Documents

USCIS issued policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual to address the policies and procedures related to secure documents, including how USCIS delivers and tracks these documents and how requestors should request a replacement or reissuance. Comments are due by 1/30/19. Policy is effective 1/16/19.

AILA Doc. No. 19011635

N-400 NOIDs

CBP Liaison Minutes: If a permanent resident, who has a pending application for naturalization in which a Notice of Intent to Deny was issued challenging whether the individual had been eligible for adjustment of status at the time that application was filed, travels abroad and presents his green card upon his return, will he be admitted as a permanent resident?  Are such cases flagged in some way? If there has only been a NOID and no action has been taken on the N-400, the individual will be admitted as an LPR. If the N-400 was denied and the individual was issued an NTA under Section 237 (but has not been served), CBP will re-issue the NTA under Section 212. If an NTA was issued and served under Section 237, the individual will be admitted as an LPR in proceedings.

 

ACTIONS

 

 

RESOURCES

 

EVENTS

 

ImmProf

 

Monday, January 21, 2019

Sunday, January 20, 2019

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Friday, January 18, 2019

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Monday, January 14, 2019

 

 

AILA NEWS UPDATE

http://www.aila.org/advo-media/news/clips

 

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Family Pictures

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/426192-trump-offers-to-limit-his-border-wall-to-strategic-locations

Nolan writes:

Trump offers to limit his border wall to strategic locations

BY NOLAN RAPPAPORT, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 01/20/19 07:00 AM EST 945

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) should give serious consideration to the settlement proposal that President Donald Trump made in his televised address from the White House.
Her objection all along has been to building a wall across the entire length of the Mexican border, and Trump no longer intends to erect “a concrete structure from sea to sea.”

He has acknowledged that much of the border is already protected by natural barriers, such as mountains and water. He wants the $5.7 billion he has requested for a strategic deployment of steel barriers at high priority locations.

These barriers would not make illegal crossings impossible, but they would make illegal crossings more difficult and make it easier for the Border Patrol to apprehend crossers.

His request includes $800 million for humanitarian assistance; $805 million for drug detection technology; 2,750 more border agents and law enforcement officers; and 75 more immigration judges.

In what he describes as an effort to build trust and goodwill, the legislation he is offering to implement his proposal also would extend the status of 700,000 DACA participants for three years.

This is just a temporary measure, but the outcome of the litigation over the DACA program is uncertain, and the participants will be extremely vulnerable if the program is terminated. DACA participation is sufficient in itself to establish deportability, and they can’t apply for asylum.  There is a one-year time limit on filing asylum applications and they all have been here for more than a year.

The legislation also would extend the status of 300,000 current Temporary Protected Status recipients for three years.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has promised Trump that his bill will be brought to the floor of the Senate this week.

Trump also mentions the immigration court backlog crisis in his address. He says that it is not possible to provide an asylum hearing for every illegal crosser who sets one foot on American soil.

The asylum provisions state that aliens who are physically present in the United States may apply for asylum irrespective of their  immigration status, unless one of the stated exceptions applies.

In my opinion, the sheer number of illegal crossers is the real border crisis. It has overwhelmed our immigration courts, making it virtually impossible to enforce immigration laws..

. . . .

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Read Nolan’s complete article over on The Hill at the link.

At the time Nolan released this, he didn’t have the complete Trump proposal.  I initially thought like Nolan that there might be the seeds for agreement in there.

But, Trump misrepresented what he was offering. In reality, it was yet another bogus 1000 page anti-asylum travesty drafted by White Nationalist in Residence Stephen Miller. Clearly intended to be a non-starter. Actually, it’s much like the dishonest tactics Trump used during the “Dreamer Debacle” that he engineered for no particular reason I can think of. And, that was when the GOP actually was in control.

Also, Nolan didn’t have the benefit of the Supreme Court action leaving DACA in effect for the indefinite future.

I’ve posted lots recently on what real border security and humanitarian assistance might look like. And, the Dems appear to be at work on something along those lines; a robust $5.7 billion but more constructive border security package that provides more resources for the Asylum Office, EOIR, technology, and inspections, but doesn’t undermine fundamental asylum law, negate Wilberforce protections for unaccompanied minors, or trash our international protection obligations.

Ultimately, once the Government reopens, that approach, plus permanent status for the Dreamers, with some wall or other physical barriers for Trump still seems to be the most likely way of ”getting  to yes.”  Then again, there might be no way of getting to yes with Trump.

PWS

01-24-19

 

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  3. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  4. TWO LA TIMES EDITORIALS “SPOT ON” IN CALLING OUT TRUMP’S FAILED BORDER POLICIES, BOGUS EMERGENCY, & ABUSE OF IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY!

DENISE LU & DEREK WATKINS @ NY TIMES: A Very Clear Explanation Of How The Trump Administration’s Bias, Incompetence, & Commitment To Unfairness Have Accelerated The Demise Of The U.S. Immigration Court System

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/24/us/migrants-border-immigration-court.html

Court Backlog May Prove Bigger
Barrier for Migrants Than Any Wall

By DENISE LU and DEREK WATKINS 

Every day, dozens of migrants arrive at the southern border hoping to seek asylum and stay in the United States. President Trump champions a wall as the one thing that could keep them from starting a life in the country. Right now, the big hurdle for many migrants comes not at the border but on the other side.
. . . .
**********************************
I highly recommend the complete article, with some spectacular graphics, at the link.
The article says the Immigration Courts are “in crisis.” I say they are “in shambles!”
While this disaster has been unfolding since 2000, there is no doubt that the Trump Kakistocracy, featuring totally unqualified, biased, and managerially incompetent White Nationalist Attorney General Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions bears the major responsibility for this mockery of justice and trashing of Constitutional norms. A 50% increase in backlog created by “malicious incompetence” is beyond outrageous and a shocking example of fraud, waste, and abuse by a cabinet officer with no accountability from a GOP Congress that has long abandoned its responsibility to govern in the public interest.
Not only do the self-generated backlog and Sessions’s distortions of law form a barrier for migrants, but also a barrier to legitimate immigration enforcement, another casualty of the Trump Kakistocracy. Under Trump, DHS has become so arbitrary, capricious, and unprofessional that its “Gonzo” policies have actually spawned an “Abolish ICE” movement as well as made DHS an anathema to serious law enforcement efforts of all types across the country.
PWS
01-24-19

Related posts:

  1. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  2. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”

AMERICA’S SHAME: 🤡 “CLOWN COURTS” PLUNGE TO NEW DEPTHS UNDER TRUMP & DOJ: Unpaid Judges, Court Clerks Who Can’t Afford The Rent, Illegal Rulings & Idiotic Policies By Biased & Ignorant DOJ Politicos, Unachievable Expectations, Unnecessary Postponements Caused By Trump & DOJ, & On Top Of It All A Few Unqualified Judges Who Discriminate, Cut Corners, & Intentionally Deny Due Process, All Combine To “Tank” Already Low Morale To Incomprehensible Lows!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/government-shutdown-claims-immigration-judge-paychecks-as-court-morale-hits-a-historic-low/

Kate Smith reports for CBS News:

The nation’s roughly 400 immigration judges are getting hit hard by the government shutdown:

  • They’re about to miss their second paycheck.
  • About three-quarters have been furloughed and unable to work, which means their case backlog is growing.
  • The result: Morale is at a “historic low,” said Ashley Tabaddor, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges and a Los Angeles-based immigration herself, in an interview with CBS News.

The immigration court docket is split into two categories: Hearings for immigrants who have been detained represent about 5 to 10 percent of the docket. These cases have been uninterrupted during the shutdown and have been overseen by approximately 100 judges who aren’t getting paid.

“I’ve been using the words ‘unprecedented’ and ‘surreal,’ and yet it keeps becoming more unprecedented and more surreal,” said Tabaddor. “It’s so unfortunate that we’ve reached this level of dysfunction.”

Adding to the low morale is a the massive backlog of cases, which has risen by nearly 50 percent since President Trump took office. As of November 30 the backlog stood at just over 800,000 cases, but if the shutdown continues through February it could break one million.

Worse still for the judges is a new quota system announced in October by the Department of Justice. It said that all judges would be required to complete 700 immigration cases in the following year; if they fall behind, their job security could be on the line.

“It’s so disconnected from reality,” said Tabaddor. “Those cases just can’t be completed in the timeframe that the administration is demanding. Frankly, it’s laughable.”

Given that many judges haven’t been able to work for more than a month, will the quota be waived? DOJ hasn’t given any guidance, said Tabaddor.

“It’s not like if you miss a day of work, they work just goes away,” Tabaddor said. “Everyone knows that they minute the shutdown is over, what awaits them is 10 times worse than what they left behind.”

“Judges jobs are on the line if they don’t meet these arbitrary number,” Tabaddor said. “People are very concerned.”

A call and email to the Department of Justice were not returned, but the agency’s website said that press inquiries may not be returned because of the government shutdown.

Currently, most non-detained judges have four to five thousand hearings scheduled through 2021 and in some cases 2022, Tabaddor said, noting that “every single day on their calendar is booked.” Immigrants who had hearings originally scheduled during the shutdown will most likely be forced to wait years before they’re able to get in front of a judge.

Forcing judges to rush through their quotas could have a devastating impact on immigration hearings, said Kate Voigt, the associate director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. When forced to choose between their own job security and a through understanding of an individual’s case, many judges have gone with the former, pushing through cases without giving immigrants their due process, Voigt said.

The Department of Justice has “increased pressures on judges to churn out cases at lightning speeds, at the expense of due process and case-by-case determinations,” Voigt said in an email to CBS News.

In Charlotte, North Carolina some judges have refused to hear testimony from female asylum seekers from Central America, citing an now-overturned policy statement from former Attorney General Jeff Sessions that removed domestic and gang violence from admissible asylum criteria, said Jeremy McKinney, an immigration attorney who serves clients in North Carolina and South Carolina, in an interview with CBS News. In one asylum hearing McKinney had last year prior to the government shutdown, Judge Barry Pettino refused to let his client testify, instead denying her asylum case outright because it dealt with gender-based violence, according to McKinney.

“My client didn’t think she was going to win her case, but she certainly didn’t think we were going to be in and out in 45 minutes,” McKinney said. “If the asylum seeker never gets to take the stand under oath, never gets to tell their story, that’s a fundamental due process problem right there.”

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

In the words of the distinguished Judge Tabaddor, “surreal!” Why is it “OK” to have a court operating in the “Twilight Zone” making life or death decisions? How would you like YOUR life or YOUR loved one’s life to be determined by this dysfunctional mess?

Simply shameful! Also completely unnecessary. Trump and the DOJ are totally unqualified to run any court, let alone one with life or death authority. Congress is paralyzed. If the Article IIIs don’t step in, take this over, and require the restoration of at least rudimentary Due Process, there might not be any removals in the future!

How will they “reopen” this mess even when the “Trump shutdown” ends? Why won’t most of the overworked, underpaid, under appreciated, stressed out Court Clerks who keep this (unautomated, paper heavy) “Rube Goldberg Contraption” afloat, and who live paycheck to paycheck, have found new jobs where they are fairly paid and appreciated? Why won’t all the retirement-eligible judges head for the exits where life is better, the paychecks keep coming, and you can actively fight the Trump idiocy?

PWS

01-23-19

 

PWS

01-23-19

Related posts:

  1. HALLOWEEN HORROR STORY: Opaque & Biased Politicized Judicial Hiring Denies Migrants The Fair & Impartial Adjudication To Which They Are Constitutionally Entitled – Given The Generous Legal Standards, A Worldwide Refugee Crisis, & Asylum Officers’ Positive Findings In Most Cases, Asylum Seekers Should Be Winning The Vast Majority Of Immigration Court Cases — Instead, They Are Being “Railroaded” By A Biased System & Complicit Article III Courts!
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. EOIR TARGETS UNACCOMPANIED KIDS FOR DEPORATION RAILROAD!
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

FALSE EQUIVALENCY: No, “Trump’s Shutdown” Is Not A “Failure Of Both Parties” Or “Washington’s Fault” – It’s 100% On Trump & The GOP & Proves Beyond A Reasonable Doubt That They Are Incapable Of Governing In A Responsible & Reasonably Competent Manner!

FALSE EQUIVALENCY:  No, “Trump’s Shutdown” Is Not A “Failure Of Both Parties” Or “Washington’s Fault” – It’s 100% On Trump & The GOP & Proves Beyond A Reasonable Doubt That They Are Incapable Of Governing In A Responsible & Reasonably Competent Manner!

 

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

I’m tired of hearing all the “fake news” about “shared responsibility” for the “Trump shutdown:” The totally insane and unnecessary shutdown that he promised to inflict and that Mitch McConnell and the GOP enablers delivered against the American people.

The shutdown is 100% a GOP responsibility, just as Trump originally threatened. The wall is at best an ineffective and overpriced method of addressing border security, particularly standing alone. And, it has absolutely nothing to do with current border security because it would take years, if not decades, to build. There is no way that it justifies shutting down the Government.

Trump’s latest offer clearly was made in bad faith. While he and Pence disingenuously presented a distortedly simple version to the public, the actual 1,000-page screed was filled with White Nationalist attacks on asylum, kids, and migrants drafted by neo-Nazi Stephen Miller as a “sharp stick in the eye” to Dems, Hispanics, refugees, and all Americans who believe in our Constitution and humane values. In other words, typical Trump/Miller/McConnell nonsense. Trump is actually offering “Dreamers” less than the Supremes have effectively guaranteed them. So, how is that a reasonable proposal or a good faith “starting point” for negotiations?

The GOP can and should join Dems in reopening Government now, no strings attached and with a much-needed pay raise for Feds, by a “veto-proof” margin. Forget Trump, his anti-American rants and schemes, and his diminishing White Nationalist “fan club.”

Then, the “Non-Bakuninist Branch” of the GOP needs to join the Dems in governing America, which Trump has proved beyond a reasonable doubt he has neither the ability nor the desire to do. Immigration should be part of that discussion; but, not the White Nationalist agenda on immigration that Trump and Miller keep pushing.

We need a realistic discussion that would strengthen protections for asylum seekers, use more smart technology, improved intelligence, Immigration Inspectors, Anti-Smuggling Officers, undercover agents, Asylum Officers, and Immigration Judges to deal with the border situation, and significantly expand legal immigration. The latter is a long overdue common-sense move to serve our country’s future needs (most reliable studies show that we need more, not less immigration), diminish the size and allure of the “extra-legal” system that arises when the law is out of whack with market realities (as ours is now), and allow DHS enforcement to focus on the “real bad guys” rather than artificially combining “bad guys” with folks coming to help us out (and help themselves and their families in the process).

Reform of the U.S. Immigration Courts which Trump and Sessions have utterly and cynically destroyed should also be on the agenda. There is only one answer: get those courts out of the politicized and incompetent U.S. Department of Justice and into an independent judicial structure where apolitical judges and professional court administrators can start fixing the absolutely disgraceful and dysfunctional mess that Sessions and his predecessors have made out of what could have been an effective and efficient provider of Due Process. Too late now! Just stop the hemorrhaging and start building something of which America can actually be proud rather than the current national embarrassment, which serves neither the individuals whose rights it was intended to protect nor legitimate DHS enforcement objectives. That’s the very definition of failure.

The Post and other mainstream media keep pushing a “false equivalency” in blaming “both sides” for the shutdown. That’s not true; the shutdown was engineered solely by Trump and the GOP BEFORE the Dems even took over the House, just as Trump had publicly and petulantly threatened.

While the Dems should look for ways to be part of the solution, the problem is Trump, the GOP, and those enablers who continue to support a fundamentally anti-American agenda that attacks our own governing institutions and the dedicated public servants who keep them running for all of us.

Every day must be a great day for Vladimir Putin with Trump and the GOP destroying America! It’s time for Dems and whatever responsible GOP legislators might remain to take the reins and save America from Trump and his Putin-serving policies before it’s too late! “Time’s a wasting” while Trump and the GOP are fiddling with our country’s security and future well-being. Unacceptable!

PWS

01-23-19

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  4. HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM COURTSIDE! — I Take A Look Forward @ 2019’s Big Immigration Stories

SPLIT DECISION: Supremes Deliver “Gut Punch” To Transgender Americans, But Give Another Round To Dreamers

SPLIT DECISION: Supremes Deliver “Gut Punch” To Transgender Americans, But Give Another Round To Dreamers

 

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

On Tuesday, a divided Supreme Court allowed a portion of Trump’s homophobic ban on certain transgender troops to go into effect. At the same time, they properly squelched the arrogantly disingenuous attempt by Trump and his “go along to get along” Solicitor General Noel Francisco to “expedite” review of lower court rulings that found that Trump, former Attorney General Sessions, and DHS acted lawlessly and without any apparent legal rationale in terminating the “DACA” program. In simple terms, decisions that required the Administration to follow the law.

Prior Solicitors General have sometimes balked at representing liars and presenting disingenuous arguments in behalf of their Government “clients.” (Actually, somewhat of a bureaucratic misnomer, because the “institutional client” is really the “People of the U.S.”  who pay Government salaries, regardless of whether they are citizens or can vote.) Not this one, who seems to savor the opportunity to carry Trump’s more than ample “dirty water” and reduce the credibility of his one-respected office to around zero. As I predicted, nobody serves Trump without being tarnished.

For the LGBTQ community, it’s a horrible signal that a narrow majority of the Supremes are unwilling to move into the 21stcentury and recognize their Constitutional rights to equal protection under the 14thAmendment as well as their rights as human beings. It’s also shockingly disrespectful to those who have stepped forward to risk their lives in the name of our country, something Trump took great pains to avoid. It’s doubly disappointing that Chief Justice John Roberts joined his far-right colleagues on this one, at least in part (he rejected the bogus argument for immediate review put forth by Francesco and instead sent the case back to the lower courts for further development).

Unlike some of his colleagues on the right, Roberts has some sense of institutional history, the horror and existential dangers to democracy of Trump as Chief Executive, and the future. Come on, “Chiefie,” we can all get smarter as we get older! Don’t blow your chance to “get on the right side of history.” Leave the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” behind in their dust and join your four more enlightened colleagues in moving America forward and showing some leadership and courage on the Supremes. As this month has shown, you might be the only person able to save America.

Paraphrasing what many pundits have said, “The Supremes can basically do anything they want, whenever they want to, for any reason they can come up with, because they are Supreme.” With that caveat in mind, the Court’s well-deserved slap down of Trump on DACA basically leaves the full protections in effect for Dreamers until the end of the Trump Administration. At that point, we’ll either get a new President, or there won’t be any country left for the “Dreamers,” the Supremes, or the rest of us to “dream about” or live in. The so-called “American Dream” will be at a tragic end. We’ll all be living in a continuing nightmare of cruelty, incompetence, and randomness.

I think the Supremes would be wise not to take up the DACA issue ever. It needs to be resolved by the lower courts, who have for the most part done a fine job, and the Congress, which hasn’t. But, assuming the Supremes do take the issue, they probably wouldn’t schedule argument before the October Term 2020. That makes it highly unlikely that they would reach and issue any final decision before the November 2020 elections. There would certainly be no reason for them to “rush to judgement” on this one.

Thus, Trump’s hollow offer of meager “Dreamer relief,” no path to green cards or citizenship and less than they have now under the court decisions, is even less of a legitimate “bargaining chip” than it was before. And, “poisoning the well” with Stephen Miller’s White Nationalist anti-asylum, child-abuse agenda shows how intellectually dishonest Trump and the GOP are and that the rancid “thousand pages of vile gibberish” that they launched as a “fake offer to reopen our Government” is a pure political stunt and an insult to 800,000 unpaid Government workers.

Moreover, all of this nonsense must be viewed in context of reality. That’s something that seldom intrudes on the daily intentionally created chaos and national dysfunction of this Administration. The Dreamers aren’t going anywhere! Almost all of them have legitimate applications for immigration relief that they can file in Immigration Court, including cancellation of removal, asylum, withholding of removal, or relief under the CAT.

Trump, Sessions, and now Whitaker have totally destroyed the U.S. Immigration Court system.  I’m not sure it will be able to reopen even when the Trump shutdown finally ends. With a politically-created backlog of well over one million cases, growing by tens of thousands with every day of the mindless Trump shutdown, virtually no “Dreamer” (other than a minute percentage who might be convicted of crimes and probably would have had their DACA status revoked or denied on that basis) would be scheduled for removal proceedings within the next four years, let alone by 2020. Indeed, if Congress doesn’t step in and provide Dreamer relief and an Article I independent Immigration Court to replace the current dysfunctional mess in the DOJ, some of these cases may well still be pending a decade from now!

This context also reaffirms the total disingenuous absurdity of SG Francisco’s argument that this is an “emergency” requiring “early intervention” by the Supremes. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only “emergency” is the one intentionally caused by his “client” Trump — by illegally and unnecessarily trying to shut down the DACA program and aggravated by his Administration’s wanton destruction of our U.S. Immigration Courts, and by the “Trump shutdown.”

The Supremes must take a “hard line” against being “sucked in” to the many bogus “emergencies” that Trump creates to detract attention from his and his party’s inability to govern in even a minimally fair and effective manner. Perhaps, it’s also time for Francisco to reread the rule of ethics for lawyers and have a “heart to heart” with his “client” about abusing the Federal Courts with semi-frivolous litigation and presenting lies as “facts.” It’s never too late to learn!

PWS

01-23-19

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

CHASE, SCHMIDT, & THE REST OF “OUR GANG” READY TO “STEP UP” TO TEACH ASYLUM LAW FOR FURLOUGHED U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES! – Read The Latest From Hon. Jeffrey Chase On How Asylum Law Can Be Properly Interpreted To Save Lives (What It’s Supposed To Do) & “Move” Dockets Without Curtailing Anyone’s Rights!

fullsizeoutput_40da.jpeg

 

IJs Grant Gender-Based Asylum Claims

As my friend Paul Schmidt announced on his excellent blog immigrationcourtside.com, immigration judges in San Francisco and Arlington, VA recently issued written decisions granting asylum to victims of domestic violence.  Notably, the decisions concluded that “Mexican females” and “women in Honduras” constituted cognizable particular social groups under applicable case law, including the former Attorney General’s decision in Matter of A-B-.

Asylum advocates have sought for many years to have the Board of Immigration Appeals recognize a particular social group defined by gender alone.  However, the BIA has declined to consider the issue.1 The need for such guidance from the Board has increased significantly since the issuance of Matter of A-B- last June.  Even under the holdings of that decision, gender continues to meet all of the criteria for a cognizable particular social group, as gender is an immutable characteristic fundamental to one’s identity, is sufficiently particular to provide a clear benchmark for inclusion, is socially distinct in all societies, and is not defined by the harm which gives rise to the applicant’s fear of persecution.

In the seven months since Matter of A-B- was issued, the BIA has yet to respond with a precedent decision affirming the continued viability of domestic violence-based asylum claims.  Nor has the BIA affirmed that gender alone may constitute a cognizable particular social group for the above reasons, in spite of the fact that its members have had years to consider the issue, and could rely on so many outstanding legal sources on the topic.  The BIA showed an ability to respond quickly in issuing a precedent decision in only two months time following the Supreme Court’s decision in Pereira v. Sessions.  So the present silence should be interpreted as a specific choice by the BIA to remain silent, likely motivated by its fear of upsetting its higher-ups in the present administration.

In the absence of guidance from the BIA, and while waiting for appeals to work their way through the circuit courts (I am aware of appeals relating to this issue currently pending in the First and Fourth Circuits), the two recent immigration judge decisions are encouraging.  In the San Francisco case, Judge Miriam Hayward (who has since retired from the bench) found “Mexican females” to constitute a cognizable particular social group. In Arlington, Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Deepali Nadkarni made the same finding for the group consisting of “women in Honduras.”  Redacted copies of their written decisions may be read here: http://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/SF-IJ-Hayward-DV-PSG-grant.pdf;  http://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nadkarni-Grant-Women-in-Honduras-PSG.pdf

In addition to their particular social group analysis, both decisions conclude that at least one central reason for the persecution suffered was the asylum applicant’s membership in the gender-defined group.  For example, in the San Francisco case, Judge Hayward found such nexus was established by a combination of specific statements made by the male persecutor (i.e. “a woman’s only job was to shut up and obey her husband,” and “I’m the man and you’re going to do what I say”); a report of an expert on domestic violence citing gender as a motivating factor for domestic violence; and a statement in a multi-agency report that violence against women in Mexico “is perpetrated, in most cases, to conserve and reproduce the submission and subordination of them derived from relationships of power.”

In her decision, Judge Nadkarni held that the size of the group defined by gender does not prevent it from being defined with particularity, and noted that the BIA “has routinely recognized large groups as defined with particularity.”  It also bears mentioning that the ICE prosecutor in Judge Nadkarni’s case “conceded that the Honduran police was unable or unwilling to protect the respondent…” Without such concession in her case, Judge Hayward found that country reports and Mexican law itself were sufficient to establish that the government was unable or unwilling to protect the respondent even under the heightened standard expressed by the former AG in Matter of A-B-.

As I stated in an earlier article, immigration judges have received no guidance or training from EOIR in analyzing domestic violence claims in the aftermath of Matter of A-B-.  As a result, some immigration judges remain uncertain as to whether the law allows them to grant such claims at present.  It is hoped that these decisions will serve as a useful template for judges. It seems particularly instructive that one such decision was issued by Judge Nadkarni, a management-level judge who supervises all immigration judges sitting in the Arlington, Batavia, Buffalo, and Charlotte Immigration Courts, as well as the Headquarters court which hears cases remotely by televideo.  Judge Nadkarni is the direct boss of V. Stuart Couch, the Charlotte-based immigration judge whose refusal to grant asylum as directed by the BIA in Matter of A-B- led to the former Attorney General’s certifying that case to himself.

Congratulations to attorneys Kelly Engel Wells of Delores Street Community Services and Mark Stevens of Murray Osorio PLLC for successfully representing the asylum applicants.

In light of these decisions, and in the absence of guidance from EOIR, our group of former immigration judges and BIA members would be happy to provide sitting judges with outside training and resources on this topic.   Interested judges may contact me, and perhaps we can set up group training sessions for furloughed judged during the present shutdown.

Notes:

  1. See, e.g. Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 388, 395, n. 16, acknowledging the argument of amici “that gender alone should be enough to constitute a particular social group in this matter,” but declining to reach the issue.

Copyright 2019 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

 

JEFF CHASE

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Thanks Jeffrey! I’m “with you” all the way, my friend!
EOIR would do much better if it were to lose the venomous “(junior) partner of DHS Enforcement, no sympathy, compassion, or kindness for the most vulnerable among us, and scofflaw” persona that it acquired under White Nationalist AG Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions and act more like a real court of law (or at least a fair and impartial quasi-judicial tribunal) again.
While there is zero chance of it happening, soon to be AG Bill Barr (who grotesquely has painted himself as a great admirer of his biased and incompetent predecessor) would do himself and our country a great and lasting service if he hired a retired Federal Judge with a strong record in (positive) humanitarian law, individual due process, and court administration (e.g., a “reincarnation” of the late Judge Patricia Wald) to run and rebuild EOIR with a Due Process, independent adjudication, and judicial efficiency focus, and kept the politicos out of the process, no matter how much they might complain or not like fair results on the “deportation railway.” But, not going to happen till we get “regime change.”
Viewing “law enforcement” as a solemn responsibility to insure that individuals’ rights are protected, individuals are treated fairly regardless of status, creed, gender, or race, and that life-saving protection is generously granted whenever legally possible is as much a part of the Attorney General’s Constitutional responsibility as  booting folks out of the country. It’s sad, disturbing, and very damaging to our country, that so few Attorneys General have taken this responsibility seriously, particularly in recent years.
PWS
01-21-18

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. HON. JEFFREY CHASE: Speaking Out Against The “Notable Minority” Of U.S. Immigration Judges Who Demonstrated Bias Against Women & Asylum Seekers – “Think about that: some federally appointed immigration judges cheered the fact that women who had been violently raped and beaten in their country can no longer find refuge here, and will be sent back to face more violence, and possibly death. Will there be any consequences for their actions? Were the many outstanding immigration judges who have been proud to grant such cases in the past, who were saddened and sickened by this decision, able to openly jeer or weep or curse this decision? Or would that have been viewed as dangerous?”
  3. NY TIMES: Trump Mocks & Dehumanizes Vulnerable Refugees & His Administration Claims It’s OK To Return Them to Honduras; BUT The Facts Say The Opposite: Honduras Is An Armed Conflict Zone Where Gangs Exercise Quasi-Governmental Control & Those Who Resist Are Severely Punished, Often Maimed, Tortured Or Killed!
  4. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

TRUMP’S “OFFER” MIGHT WELL BE A STUNT – BUT, IT’S ALSO AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE DEMS TO STEP UP, SAVE LIVES, AND GOVERN RESPONSIBLY – They Should Make A Counterproposal – Here’s The “SMARTS Act Of 2019!”

There are opposing “schools of thought” on Trump’s latest immigration statement. For example, the LA Times says it another “Trump stunt to shift blame” that the Dems should resist.  https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-trump-shutdown-daca-20190119-story.html

Makes sense.

 

On the other hand, the Washington Post says that notwithstanding Trump’s annoying tactics, it’s an opportunity to reopen the Government and save the Dreamers that the Dems should pursue. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/make-a-deal-to-help-the-real-people-behind-the-rhetoric/2019/01/19/f5b18866-1c17-11e9-88fe-f9f77a3bcb6c_story.html?utm_term=.5b08d589dfa9

Also makes sense.

 

I understand the Dems reluctance to enable Trump’s “hostage taking” strategy. But, I doubt they can solve that with Trump and the GOP controlling two of the three political arms of Government.

 

Indeed, a better idea would be for Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader McConnell to get together “when the smoke clears” and see what they can do jointly to take back and fix the bipartisan Congressional budget process and protect it from overreach by Executives of both parties.  For two of the major legislative “gurus” of our age in the twilight of their careers, that would be a great “bipartisan legacy.”

 

But, for the time being, folks are suffering, and lives are in danger: Government employees, those that depend on Government, asylum applicants, Dreamers, TPSers, those in Immigration Court, and the families of all of the foregoing. So, I think the Dems should make a “robust” counterproposal that gives Trump at least part of his “Wall,” but also includes other important reforms and improvements that will diminish the impact of border migration issues in the future. Most important, almost everything in this proposal would save or improve some human lives and benefit America in the short and long run.

 

So, here’s my outline of the “SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019”

 

SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019

 

  • Federal Employees
    • Restart the Government
    • Retroactive pay raise

 

  • Enhanced Border Security
    • Fund half of “Trump’s Wall”
    • Triple the number of USCIS Asylum Officers
    • Double the number of U.S. Immigration Judges and Court Staff
    • Additional Port of Entry (“POE”) Inspectors
    • Improvements in POE infrastructure, technology, and technology between POEs
    • Additional Intelligence, Anti-Smuggling, and Undercover Agents for DHS
    • Anything else in the Senate Bill that both parties agree upon

 

  • Humanitarian Assistance
    • Road to citizenship for a Dreamers & TPSers
    • Prohibit family separation
    • Funding for alternatives to detention
    • Grants to NGOs for assisting arriving asylum applicants with temporary housing and resettlement issues
    • Require re-establishment of U.S. Refugee Program in the Northern Triangle

 

  • Asylum Process
    • Require Asylum Offices to consider in the first instance all asylum applications including those generated by the “credible fear” process as well as all so-called “defensive applications”

 

  • Immigration Court Improvements
    • Grants and requirements that DHS & EOIR work with NGOs and the private bar with a goal of achieving 100% representation of asylum applicants
    • Money to expand and encourage the training and certification of more non-attorneys as “accredited representatives” to represent asylum seekers pro bono before the Asylum Offices and the Immigration Courts on behalf of approved NGOs
    • Vacate Matter of A-B-and reinstate Matter of A-R-C-G-as the rule for domestic violence asylum applications
    • Vacate Matter of Castro-Tumand reinstate Matter of Avetisyan to allow Immigration Judges to control dockets by administratively closing certain “low priority” cases
    • Eliminate Attorney General’s authority to interfere in Immigration Court proceedings through “certification”
    • Re-establish weighing of interests of both parties consistent with Due Process as the standard for Immigration Court continuances
    • Bar AG & EOIR Director from promulgating substantive or procedural rules for Immigration Courts — grant authority to BIA to promulgate procedural rules for Immigration Courts
    • Authorize Immigration Courts to consider all Constitutional issues in proceedings
    • Authorize DHS to appeal rulings of the BIA to Circuit Courts of Appeal
    • Require EOIR to implement the statutory contempt authority of Immigration Judges, applicable equally to all parties before the courts, within 180 days
    • Bar “performance quotas” and “performance work plans” for Immigration Judges and BIA Members
    • Authorize the Immigration Court to set bonds in all cases coming within their jurisdiction
    • Fund and require EOIR to implement a nationwide electronic filing system within one year
    • Eliminate the annual 4,000 numerical cap on grants of “cancellation of removal” based on “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship”
    • Require the Asylum Office to adjudicate cancellation of removal applications with renewal in Immigration Court for those denied
    • Require EOIR to establish a credible, transparent judicial discipline and continued tenure system within one year that must include: opportunity for participation by the complainant (whether Government or private) and the Immigration Judge; representation permitted for both parties; peer input; public input; DHS input; referral to an impartial decision maker for final decision; a transparent and consistent system of sanctions incorporating principles of rehabilitation and progressive discipline; appeal rights to the MSPB

 

  • International Cooperation
    • Fund and require efforts to work with the UNHCR, Mexico, and other countries in the Hemisphere to improve asylum systems and encourage asylum seekers to exercise options besides the U.S.
    • Fund efforts to improve conditions and the rule of law in the Northern Triangle

 

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

No, it wouldn’t solve all problems overnight. But, everything beyond “Trump’s Wall” would make a substantial improvement over our current situation that would benefit enforcement, border security, human rights, Due Process, humanitarian assistance, and America. Not a bad “deal” in my view!

 

PWS

01-20-19

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. COURTSIDE HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF EXPOSING THE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” COMMITTED BY THE REGIME AND THE MORAL CULPABILITY OF THOSE WHO WILLFULLY CARRY OUT & ENABLE THESE ATROCITIES — The “Mainstream Media” Is Now Channeling Courtside! — “In the meantime, no government has the right to treat people with such abject inhumanity. History will remember Trump for this, but it will also remember the people who enable such atrocious acts.”
  4. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

COLBERT I. KING @ WASHPOST: NATION IN REGRESSION: Trump & His White Nationalist Flunkies Are An Insult To All That Rev. Martin Luther King & His Supporters, Of All Races & Religions Stood For! — From the promise of guaranteed rights to a return to the insecurity of injustice. A pluralistic America is being cynically drawn along racial lines by a president who is as far from the civility of his predecessors Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton and Obama as the charter of the Confederacy was from the Constitution.” — But, The New Due Process Army Continues MLK’s Legacy!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/martin-luther-king-jr-would-be-outraged/2019/01/18/e4a7b4c6-1a75-11e9-8813-cb9dec761e73_story.html

Colby King writes:

. . . .

The greatest contrast between the time King led the struggle for America’s legal and social transformation and now is a White House occupied by Donald Trump.

There is a long list of ways in which backtracking on civil and human rights has occurred since the election of a president who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. It ranges from discriminatory travel bans against Muslims to turning a federal blind eye to intentionally racially discriminatory state voter-suppression schemes, to opposing protections for transgender people, to inhumanely separating children from families seeking to enter the country.

Sadly, that’s not all that stands out.

Once the federal locus of the nation’s quest for racial reconciliation, today’s White House is a source of racial divisiveness and a beacon to the prejudice-warped fringes of American society. It’s no surprise that the FBI found hate crimes in America rose 17 percent in 2017, the third consecutive year that such crimes increased. In King’s day, racially loaded, hateful rhetoric could be heard across the length and breadth of the Deep South. Now, mean, disgusting and inflammatory words come out of the mouth of the president of the United States.

From the promise of guaranteed rights to a return to the insecurity of injustice. A pluralistic America is being cynically drawn along racial lines by a president who is as far from the civility of his predecessors Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton and Obama as the charter of the Confederacy was from the Constitution.

King, and the movement he led, would be outraged. The rest of us should be, too.

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

Read the full op-ed at the above link.

Very powerful! King speaks truth, reason, and humanity — in the spirit of Dr. King. Contrast that with the vile slurs, bogus race-baiting narratives, and non-policies spewing from the mouth of our racist (and incompetent) Liar/Grifter-in-Chief!

Two of my favorite MLK quotes (from the Letter from the Birmingham Jail — with acknowledgment to the Legal Aid and Justice Center from their poster hanging in my “office”)):

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Thanks to those many courageous and dedicated individuals tirelessly serving America in the New Due Process Army by resisting Trump’s illegal and anti-American policies! You, indeed, are the 21st Century continuation of Dr. King’s legacy to our country and the world! Dr. King would be proud of you! Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-21-19

Related posts:

  1. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: HIS HIGHLY DISINGENUOUS “TRIBUTE” TO DR. KING WHILE ACTIVELY UNDERMINING MLK’S VISION OF RACIAL EQUALITY IN AMERICA OUTRAGES CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCATES! — Hollow Words From An Empty Man!
  3. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: CLYDE W. FORD @ LA TIMES: “Opinion: The immigration crisis and the racism driving it have roots in Hitler’s ‘bible’”
  4. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!

IN MEMORIAM – JUDGE NATE GORDON – One Of The “Good Guys” – Tribute By Carl Shusterman, Esquire!

https://www.shusterman.com/immigration-judge-nathan-gordon/

Immigration Judge Gordon Was A Supermensch

Last week, retired Immigration Judge Nathan “Nate” Gordon passed away.  At his funeral, dozens of immigration attorneys, judges and others shared their stories of this wonderful man.

Judge Gordon changed many people’s lives in a very positive way.

I have a lot of stories about Judge Gordon.

Let me share one of them with you.

Judge Gordon – Background

Judge Gordon was born on Christmas Day in 1926 in New Jersey to Jewish immigrant parents from Eastern Europe.  He served in the US Army during World War II and graduated from New York Law School some years later.

He was employed by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) as an Attorney from 1962 to 1977. After that, he became an Immigration Judge, first in Newark, New Jersey, then in Los Angeles.

I first met Judge Gordon in the mid-1980s, after I had left the INS and entered private practice. The tremendous amount of compassion that he had for immigrants was truly impressive.  It trumped all legal standards. If he believed that a person deserved to stay in the US, Judge Gordon would find a way to make it happen.

Honor Student Miguel Perez

I remember getting a phone call one day from Congressman Mervin Dymally’s office. It concerned a young man born in El Salvador. He had been brought over the U.S.-Mexican border by his mother when he was 14 years old in order to save him from the violence of the civil war which was raging in their native country. They were immediately arrested and taken into custody by the Border Patrol.  Though they were later released on bail, the experience was so stressful for his mother that she died of a heart attack a few weeks later.

The young man, Miguel Perez, not knowing a single word of English, was placed under deportation proceedings. The process took years.  Ultimately, his application for asylum was denied by an Immigration Judge.  The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed the Judge’s decision.

By this time, Miguel had not only mastered the English language, he had become an honor student at a local university.  In his spare time, he tutored underprivileged children in South Central Los Angeles.  After learning of the BIA’s decision, he packed his bags and got ready to book a flight to El Salvador.  However, his professors and friends, horrified by the thought of what might happen to him if he returned to El Salvador, urged him to speak with his local Congressman.

The Congressman’s office arranged to have Miguel meet with me.  The next day, his story appeared on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.  We immediately appealed his case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit which overturned his denial.  Miguel was scheduled for a new hearing before an Immigration Judge.

Miguel had, by this time, lived in the U.S. for more than 7 years.  Under a law which existed at that time, he could apply for a green card through “suspension of deportation”.   He would need to show that he was a “person of good moral character” which he clearly was.  He would also need to demonstrate that he would suffer “extreme hardship” if he were forced to return to El Salvador.  This was a discretionary determination.

What he needed was a compassionate Immigration Judge.

 

Enter Immigration Judge Nathan Gordon, Supermensch

Fortunately, the Judge who had ordered Miguel deported had retired.  By a great stroke of luck, Miguel’s case was transferred to Judge Gordon.

From my previous experiences with Judge Gordon, I was certain that he would find that Miguel would suffer extreme hardship if he were forced to return to El Salvador.

I scheduled a meeting with the INS District Director.  I explained the facts of the case to him. Did the government want to look like bad guys eager to deport an honor student?  Or would he consider having the government’s attorney tell Judge Gordon that they agree that Miguel’s application should be granted?  The District Director agreed that Miguel should be granted suspension of deportation.

I told the District Director that there would be dozens of reporters and TV cameramen waiting outside the courtroom. At the hearing, we requested that Judge Gordon grant Miguel’s application for a green card.  Judge Gordon then asked the government attorney what their position was.  She told him that the government agreed that Miguel’s application should be granted.  Judge Gordon smiled and proceeded to grant Miguel’s application.

Immigration Judge Nathan Gordon

Had Judge Gordon not been assigned to the case, I doubt that the government would have agreed prior to the hearing that Miguel’s application should be approved.

Fast Forward

Miguel went on to get a Ph.D and became a distinguished professor at a public university.  He is married and is a great husband and father.

As I watched Judge Gordon’s casket being lowered into his grave last week, I thought about the thousands of immigrants like Miguel whose lives were altered in such a positive way by Judge Gordon.

Judge Nate Gordon was truly a Supermensch.

Carl Shusterman

Carl Shusterman served as an INS Trial Attorney (1976-82) before opening an 8 attorney firm specializing in immigration law. He is a Certified Specialist in Immigration Law who has testified as an expert witness before the Senate Immigration Subcommittee. Carl was featured in the February 2018 edition of SuperLawyers Magazine.

****************************************
Thanks, Carl, for a lovely and fitting tribute to a great jurist and a fine person! Judge Gordon actually took the bench shortly before I became the Deputy General Counsel at the “Legacy INS.” I became familiar with him and his work both during my time at the “Legacy INS” and during my time at the BIA. Indeed, Nate’s son, Attorney Louis Gordon, had an oral argument before a panel of the BIA sitting in Los Angeles. (Yes, there was a time, before Ashcroft, when the BIA was actually allowed to function largely along the lines of a real Federal Court and to decide to have arguments “on the road.” Now, the BIA is “confined to quarters” at Falls Church.)
Carl worked for me for a short time as a Trial Attorney at the Los Angeles Immigration Court when I was the DGC. But, he quickly found fame and fortune elsewhere.
Note how Immigration Court was once a more “user friendly” place, where there was mutual respect among the two parties and the Immigration Judge, and the objective was doing justice, not just cranking out more removal orders to keep the politicos at DOJ happy. Sadly, under Trump and his cronies at DOJ, the U.S. Immigration Court system is actually regressing in terms of expertise, professionalism, independence, and management — “stuck in reverse.”
PWS
01-17-19

Related posts:

  1. DUE PROCESS IN ACTION: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AN INDEPENDENT ARTICLE III COURT ACTS TO ENFORCE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS BEING IGNORED BY DHS & DOJ: Here’s One Family’s “Human Story” About How the 9th Circuit’s Decision In Jennings v. Rodriguez Saved Them (And Also Us)! — Bond Hearings Can Mean EVERYTHING To A Detained Immigrant & Family!
  2. EFFECTS OF TRUMP SHUTDOWN, “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE” CONTINUE TO ROIL U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM, SCREW MIGRANTS WHO FAITHFULLY SHOW UP FOR “FAKE” HEARINGS! – Trump Shut Down USG Over A Bogus “National Immigration Emergency” While Deeming Immigration Courts “Nonessential!” – Would ICE Agents Dare File “Charging Documents” Containing False Information With “Real” U.S. Courts?
  3. TWO LA TIMES EDITORIALS “SPOT ON” IN CALLING OUT TRUMP’S FAILED BORDER POLICIES, BOGUS EMERGENCY, & ABUSE OF IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY!
  4. IMMIGRATION COURTS: “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE ON STEROIDS” — With Court System Reeling & Asylum Applicants Suffering, Administration Plans Another Round Of Massive “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”), Reports Hamed Aleaziz @ BuzzFeed News!

THE HILL: NOLAN SAYS TRUMP HAS THE WRONG “BORDER CRISIS”

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/424893-there-is-a-border-crisis-its-just-not-quite-what-the-president-said-it-is

Family Pictures

Nolan writes, in part:

. . . .

Unfortunately, Trump has made it easier for them by basing his request on claims about who is crossing the border that can be disputed readily, such as that many of them are terrorists or criminals.
He should base his otherwise correct argument instead on the numbers — on the fact that the sheer number of illegal crossings has overwhelmed our immigration courts, creating a backlog crisis that has made it virtually impossible to enforce our immigration laws, and that the border cannot be secured when illegal crossers are allowed to remain here indefinitely.
**********************************************
Go on over to The Hill at the link for Nolan’s complete article.
  • Democrats aren’t destroying Trump’s credibility; he’s doing that himself with his constant lies and false narratives; this is just the latest and one of the most egregious examples;
  • By all reliable counts, illegal border crossings at the Southern Border are down substantially;
  • What is “up” are crossings by unaccompanied children and families from the Northern Triangle seeking asylum;
  • Such individuals present a humanitarian situation arising from a crisis in the Northern Triangle; but, they are not a “security threat” to the US; almost all turn themselves in at ports of entry or shortly after entering to apply for asylum under our legal system as they are entitled to do;
  • Those (other than unaccompanied children) who don’t establish a “credible fear” can be returned immediately without ever getting to the Immigration Courts (except for brief “credible fear reviews” before Immigration Judges);
  • The vast majority have a “credible fear” and should be referred to Immigration Court for full hearings on their claims in accordance with the law and our Constitution;
  • When matched with pro bono lawyers, given a clear understanding of the requirements, and time to prepare and document a claim, they appear for court hearings almost all the time;
  • Even with the Trump Administration’s “anti-asylum campaign” directed primarily at applicants from the Northern Triangle, and the lack of representation in approximately 25% of the cases, asylum claims from the Northern Triangle succeed at a rate of approximately 20%, https://wp.me/p8eeJm-3oo;
  • Undoubtedly, there is a “crisis” in our U.S. Immigration Courts — a Due Process and mismanagement crisis;
  • But, the Trump Administration with its often illegal actions and gross mismanagement, has actually managed to artificially increase the Immigration Court Backlog from just over 500,000 to more than 1.1 million in less than two years — despite having at least 100 additional Immigration Judges on duty, https://wp.me/p8eeJm-3qN;
  • Indeed, Trump’s shutdown is unnecessarily “ratcheting up” the Immigration Court backlog and initiating a new round of “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” right now;
  • In addition to not understanding the true complexities of the immigration system, the Administration’s incompetent administration of the Immigration Courts is another reason why Trump might choose to shift attention elsewhere.;
  • Somebody will have to address the Due Process and administrative mess in the Immigration Courts in a constructive manner, starting with an independent, apolitical, court structure; but it won’t be the Trump Administration.

PWS

01-10-19

 

Related posts:

  1. THE HILL: NOLAN ON THE CURRENT BORDER CRISIS
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  4. COURTSIDE HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF EXPOSING THE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” COMMITTED BY THE REGIME AND THE MORAL CULPABILITY OF THOSE WHO WILLFULLY CARRY OUT & ENABLE THESE ATROCITIES — The “Mainstream Media” Is Now Channeling Courtside! — “In the meantime, no government has the right to treat people with such abject inhumanity. History will remember Trump for this, but it will also remember the people who enable such atrocious acts.”