"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt and Dr. Alicia Triche, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
Eliza C. Klein, a retired immigration judge, said the asylum case backlog “creates a second class of citizens.”Credit…Taylor Glascock for The New York Times
Eliza C. Klein, who left her position as an immigration judge in Chicago in April, said the latest increase in illegal border crossings will strain the understaffed work force as they prioritize migrants who crossed recently.
That will leave some older cases to languish even longer, she said.
“This is a great tragedy because it creates a second class of citizens,” Ms. Klein, who started working as an immigration judge in the Clinton administration, said of those immigrants who have been waiting years for an answer to their case. The oldest case Ms. Klein ever adjudicated had been pending in the court for 35 years, she said.
“It’s a disgrace,” Ms. Klein said. “My perspective, my thought, is that we’re not committed in this country to having a just system.”
While crowds of migrants continued to seek refuge in the United States after the lifting of Title 42, U.S. officials said the border remained relatively orderly. About 10,000 people crossed the border on Thursday, a historically large number, but that dropped significantly to about 6,200 on Friday.
Tens of thousands of migrants continued to wait in makeshift camps on both sides of the border for a chance to request sanctuary in the United States. The administration remained concerned about overcrowding; Border Patrol held more than 24,000 migrants in custody on Friday, well over the agency’s maximum capacity of roughly 20,000 in its detention facilities.
. . . .
Mimi Tsankov, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said that to truly address the backlog, the Biden administration would need to do more than simply hire more judges. She said that the government should increase funding for better technology and bigger legal teams, and that Congress should reform the nation’s immigration laws.
“The immigration courts are failing,” said Samuel B. Cole, the judge association’s executive vice president. “There needs to be broad systemic change.”
. . . . .
Judge Charles Honeyman, who spent 24 years as an immigration judge and retired in 2020, said he came away from his job believing the United States would need to do a better job of deterring fraud while protecting those who would be harmed in their home country.
When handling an asylum case, Mr. Honeyman said he would assess the person’s application and examine the state of their home country by reading reports from the State Department and nonprofits. Many of the applicants lacked attorneys; he believes some cases that he denied might have turned out differently if the migrants had had legal representation.
In trying to root out fraud, he would compare a person’s testimony with the answers they had given to an asylum officer or Border Patrol agent.
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Read the full article at the link.
EOIR ABUSES ASYLUM SEEKERS — The Problem Goes Deeper Than The Number Of Judges: Quality & Culture Matter!
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
U.S. Immigration Judge (Retired)
Courtside Exclusive
May 16, 2023
While the NYT article notes that the majority of asylum cases are eventually denied on the merits, this data is often presented in a misleading way by the Government, and unfortunately, sometimes the media. According to TRAC Immigration, during the period Oct 2000 to April 2023, approximately 43% of asylum seekers who received a merits decision were granted asylum or some other type of relief. Approximately 57% were denied. https://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/asylum/
Even in an overall hostile system, where individuals are often required to proceed without lawyers, and grant/denial rates among Immigration Judges vary by astounding levels (so great as to present prima facie due process issues), asylum seekers succeed on the merits of their claims at a very respectable rate. In a properly staffed and administered system where the focus was on due process and fundamental fairness for individuals, that number would almost certainly be substantially higher.
Moreover, the data suggests that toward the end of the Obama Administration and during the entire Trump Administration, the asylum system was improperly manipulated to increase denials.
I think there are three reasons for the precipitous decline in asylum grant rates, largely unrelated to the merits of the claims. First, Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr overruled some of the leading administrative precedents supporting grants of asylum. In the process, they made it crystal clear that they considered Immigration Judges to be their subordinate employees within the political branch of Government and that denial, deportation, and assistance to their “partners” at DHS Enforcement (actually DHS is a party before EOIR, not a “partner”) were the preferred results at EOIR.
Second, in greatly expanding the number of Immigration Judges, Sessions and Barr appointed almost exclusively from the ranks of prosecutors and government attorneys, even elevating an inordinate number of individuals with no immigration and human rights experience whatsoever. Not only were well-qualified individuals with experience representing individuals in Immigration Court largely passed over and discouraged from applying, but some of the best Immigration Judges quit or retired prematurely as a matter of conscience because of the nakedly anti-immigrant pro enforcement “culture” promoted at EOIR.
Additionally, the nationwide appellate court and precedent setter, the BIA, was expanded and “packed” with some Immigration Judges who denied virtually all of the asylum cases coming before them and had reputations of hostility to the private bar and asylum seekers. Remarkably, Attorney General Garland has done little to address this debilitating situation at the BIA.
Third, since the latter years of the Obama Administration, when a vastly overhyped “border surge” took place, political officials of both parties have improperly “weaponized” EOIR as a “deterrent” to asylum seekers, focusing on expeditious denials of asylum rather than the due process and expert tribunal functions the agency was supposed to serve. The result has been a “culture of denial and deportation” with particular emphasis on finding ways to “say no” to women and individuals of color seeking asylum.
The NYT Article also mentions that asylum merits decisions require a higher standard of proof than “credible fear determinations.” That’s true. But the suggestion that the standards are much higher is misleading. In fact, the standards governing merits grants of asylum before the Asylum Office and EOIR are supposed to be extremely generous.
In the seminal case, INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, the Court said that “well-founded fear” is a generous standard, one that could be satisfied by a 10% chance of persecution. In implementing this holding, the BIA found in Matter of Mogharrabi that asylum could be granted even where the chances of persecution were substantially less than probable.
There is as also a regulation, 8 C.F.R. 208.13, issued under the Bush I Administration, that creates a rebuttable presumption of future persecution based on past persecution.
The problem is that none of these generous and remedial provisions relating to asylum has ever been properly, consistently, and uniformly applied within EOIR. As someone who during my time on the bench took these standards to heart, I found that a substantial majority of merits asylum cases coming before me could and should be granted under a proper application of asylum law.
Consequently, I am skeptical of judges who deny virtually all asylum claims. Likewise, I question the claims by political officials of both parties who pretend, without actual knowledge, that almost all asylum applicants at the border are “mere economic migrants” who deserve to be quickly and summarily removed.
Actually, under some circumstances, severe economic hardships can amount to persecution. Moreover, under the legally required “mixed motive” analysis for asylum, an economic aspect does not automatically obviate other qualifying grounds.
So, at its root, “credible fear” is actually an even more generous application of what is already supposed to be (but often isn’t in reality) a very generous standard for asylum. The alleged “disconnect” between the number of individuals found to have credible fear and the number actually granted asylum on the merits appears to be more a function of defective and overly restrictive decision-making at EOIR than it is of unjustified generosity of Asylum Officers screening for credible fear. It’s also important to remember that at the credible fear stage, individuals haven’t had time to marshal the substantial corroborating evidence eventually required (some would say unrealistically and unreasonably) in formal merits asylum hearings before EOIR.
Finally, just aimlessly increasing the number of Immigration Judges, without solving the systemic legal, logistical, management, quality control, training, and “cultural” problems infecting EOIR creates its own set of new problems.
Recently, a veteran practitioner before EOIR wrote the following:
In about eleven years, our local DMV went from twelve (12) judges in Baltimore and Arlington in 2012 to a hundred (100) judges in 2023 (8 BAL, 18 HYA, 30 WAS, 9 FCIAC, 14 RIAC, 21 STE). That’s an increase of 733.33%. This seismic expansion has resulted in many attorneys being overscheduled for individual hearings, which has an adverse effect on our clients, our ethical obligations, due process, and mental health.
Well-prepared attorneys, many serving pro bono or “low bono,” are absolutely essential to due process and fundamental fairness in Immigration Court, particularly in cases involving asylum and other forms of protection. For EOIR to schedule cases in a manner that does not take into consideration the legitimate needs and capacities of those practicing before their courts is nothing short of malpractice on the part of DOJ leadership.
There is a silver lining here. The EOIR judicial hiring program gives NDPA stars a chance to get on the bench at the retail level level, bring much needed balance and perspective, and to develop the credentials for future Article III judicial appointments. Since change isn’t coming “from the top,” we need to make it happen at the “grass roots level!” Keep those applications coming!
BIA Asylum Panel In Action. Garland’s largely “holdover” BIA continues to align itself with Trump’s extreme right, nativist judges, as the progressives and advocates who actually supported Dems in the last two elections are left to stew, along with their dehumanized asylum seeking clients. Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:
“Under the correct analysis, the record here compels a conclusion that Honduran rural landownership in this case is a common fundamental characteristic because Turcios-Flores should not be required to change this aspect of her identity to avoid persecution given the demonstrated importance of landownership to her. Therefore, we remand to the Board for further explanation of whether this group meets the social distinction and particularity requirements as well as the remaining asylum considerations.”
To reach their wrongconclusion that “rural landowners” are not a “particular social group,” the BIA ignored its own precedent. See, e.g., Matter of Acosta, 19 I&N Dec. 211, 233 (BIA 1985), modified on other grounds.
Class warfare and persecution of property owners was at the heart of most Marxist-Leninist Communist dictatorships.
Remarkably, under Garland, the BIA continues to parrot the same biased, restrictionist nonsense spouted by the Trumpist dissenter in this case, Judge Chad A. Readler. He was roundly criticized as unqualified by Democrats and advocates at the time of his nomination. This opposition had lots to do with his biased, anti-immigrant views flowing from his then “boss,” nativist/racist former AG Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions!
For example, it’s worth reviewing the comments of the Alliance for Justice on Reacher’s nomination:
On June 7, 2018, President Trump announced his intention to nominate a Justice Department official, Chad Readler, to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. This announcement was particularly striking for one notable reason: on that very day, Readler had become a leader in the Trump Administration’s fight to destroy the Affordable Care Act and the protections it offers to millions of Americans. Readler, as acting head of the Civil Division, filed a brief to strike down the ACA, including its protections for people with preexisting conditions. If Readler and the Trump Justice Department are successful, the ACA’s protections for tens of millions of people, including cancer patients, people with diabetes, pregnant women, and many other Americans, would be removed.
As the acting head of the Department of Justice Civil Division under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Readler defended the Trump Administration’s most odious policies, including separating immigrant children from their parents at the border, while claiming that “[e]verything that the Attorney General does that I’ve been involved with he’s . . . being very respectful of precedent and the text of the statute and proper role of agencies.”
His track record is equally atrocious in other respects. He has tried to undermine public education in Ohio; supported the efforts of Betsy DeVos to protect fraudulent for-profit schools; fought to make it harder for persons of color to vote; advanced the Trump Administration’s anti-LGBTQ and anti-reproductive rights agenda; fought to allow tobacco companies to advertise to children, including outside day care centers; sought to undermine the independence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; and advocated for executing minors.
Chad Readler’s record of diehard advocacy for right-wing causes suggests he will be anything but an independent, fair-minded jurist. Alliance for Justice strongly opposes Readler’s confirmation.
It’s remarkable and infuriating that once in office, Democrats in the Biden Administration have aligned themselves with the toxic views of extreme, nativist right wing judges whose xenophobic, atrocious views they campaigned against! They have done this in a huge “life or death” Federal Court system that they completely control and have authority to reform without legislation!
May 8, 2023—The Atlantic’s staff writer Caitlin Dickerson has won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Journalism for the September 2022 cover story, “‘We Need to Take Away Children,’” an exhaustive investigation that exposed the secret history of the Trump administration’s policy to intentionally separate migrant children from their parents; the incompetence that led the government to lose track of many children; and the intention among former officials to separate families again if Trump is reelected. Her reporting, one of the longest articles in The Atlantic’s history, laid out in painstaking detail one of the darkest chapters in recent U.S. history, exposing not only how the policy came into being and who was responsible for it, but also how all of its worst outcomes were anticipated and ignored. The investigation was edited by national editor Scott Stossel.
. . . .
In awarding Dickerson journalism’s top honor, the Pulitzer Board cited: “A deeply reported and compelling accounting of the Trump administration policy that forcefully separated migrant children from their parents resulting in abuses that have persisted under the current administration.”
The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote to staff: “This is a wonderful moment for everyone, but particularly for Caitlin, Liz, and Xochitl. There is much to say about their talents, and the talents of their editors. This is also a very proud moment for all of you who worked on these stories. Caitlin’s piece, one of the longest and most complicated stories The Atlantic has published across its 166-year history, required the unflagging work of a good portion of our comparatively small staff—from the copy-editing and fact-checking teams to our artists and designers and lawyers. Our ambitions outmatch our size, but I’m proud to say that our team rises to every challenge.”
Dickerson’s investigation exposed that U.S. officials misled Congress, the public, and the press, and minimized the policy’s implications to obscure what they were doing; that separating migrant children from their parents was not a side effect of the policy, but its intent; that almost no logistical planning took place before the policy was initiated; that instead of working to reunify families after parents were prosecuted, officials worked to keep families apart longer; and that the architects of the legislation will likely seek to reinstate it, should they get the opportunity. Over 18 months, Dickerson conducted more than 150 interviews––including the first extensive on-the-record interviews on this subject with Kirstjen Nielsen, John Kelly, and others intimately involved in the policy and its consequences at every level of government––and reviewed thousands of pages of internal government documents, some of which were turned over only after a multiyear lawsuit.
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Read the complete article at the link.
Many congrats and thanks Caitlin! Unfortunately, the message still doesn’t seem to have gotten through to politicos and policy-makers of both parties who continue to promote, tout, and sometimes employ illegal, immoral, and ineffective measures directed at migrant children and families!
Most important — no accountability for the perpetrators! Indeed, if the GOP gets power again they plan to repeat their crimes! And the Dems aren’t that much better — happily touting policies that can have the same effect, whether intended or not.
Four Central American girls at a tent for U.S. asylum seekers in Reynosa, Mexico. For years now the U.S. has forced asylum applicants to wait in Mexico, often for years and in dangerous conditions. (Shutterstock)
Retire This Dehumanizing Language About Immigrants
Human beings fleeing persecution are not a “flood” or “surge.” And it’s not “illegal” when they cross the border to seek asylum.
Last year, my client Susan called me to discuss her immigration case.
During our conversation she referenced the news that immigrants were being bused from the southern border to cities in the North, often under false promises, only to be left stranded in an unknown city.
In confusion and fear, Susan asked me: “Why do they hate us so much?”
While I couldn’t answer Susan’s question, her underlying concern highlights a startling escalation of public aggression against migrants over the past year.
There seems to be a growing “us” versus “them” mentality towards immigrants. This divisive language serves no purpose other than to divide our country, undermine the legal right to seek asylum in the United States, and cultivate a fear of the most vulnerable.
A clear example is showcased in recent media coverage of northbound migration across the U.S.-Mexico border. Many outlets describe recent migration through the Americas as a “flood,” “influx,” “wave,” or “surge”— language that reinforces the notion that migration is akin to an imminent, uncontrollable, and destructive natural disaster.
Woven into this framing is the near-constant use of the term “illegal” or “unlawful” to describe unauthorized crossings. As an advocate for immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, and trafficking, I’m alarmed by the use of this language to describe a migrant’s attempt to survive.
Moreover, it’s often simply incorrect. A noncitizen who has a well-founded fear of persecution in the country from which they’ve fled has a legal right — protected under both U.S. and international law — to enter the United States to seek asylum.
When mainstream media wield the term “illegal” as though it were synonymous with “unauthorized,” they misinform readers and falsely paint asylum seekers as criminals.
Worse still, they encourage politicians who call immigrants themselves “illegals,” a deeply dehumanizing term. And the more dehumanizing language we use, the more likely it is that we will see immigrants as the “other” to justify cruel immigration policies.
We must retire the use of this inflammatory rhetoric, which distracts from real solutions that would actually serve survivors arriving at our borders.
Migrants expelled back to their home countries are at grave risk of severe harm or death at the hands of their persecutors. Those forced to remain in Mexico as they await entry to the United States are increasingly vulnerable to organized crime or abusive and dangerous conditions in detention.
The words we use in everyday discourse mean something — they can spell out life or death for those among us who are most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Now more than ever, I’d urge the public and the media to retire the use of sensationalizing, stigmatizing, and misleading imagery and rhetoric surrounding immigration.
Now is the time to apply accuracy and humanity in our depictions of migrants. Let’s not repeat the errors of our past.
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Thanks for speaking up, MDP!
Dehumanization of the “other” has a long ugly history in the U.S., of course going back to enslaved African Americans, Native Americans, and the Chinese Exclusion Laws.
We also see that dehumanizing language has extended from asylum seekers and other migrants to the LGBTQ+ community, Asian Americans, advocates for social justice, homelessness, handicaps, economic disadvantages, women, government officials, political opponents, etc.
Dehydration is a nasty way to die! Théodore Géricault Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 France-003341B – Raft of the Medusa (16237617902).jpg Copy [[File:France-003341B – Raft of the Medusa (16237617902).jpg|France-003341B_-_Raft_of_the_Medusa_ PHOTO: Dennis Jarvis, Halifax Nova ScotiaJasmine Garsd NPR Criminal Justice Reporter PHOTO: Linkedin
In some parts of this new route they are exploring, Arellano and Cordero are already leaving bottles of fresh water in bushy areas, where people may be taking refuge from the sun.
They check to see if anyone drank from them.
Arellano picks up the bottle. “Slashed”, she sighs.
This is where Border Kindness runs into one of the biggest hurdles in drawing a new map: not climate, not geography, but people. Occasionally, when they leave these bottles of water, they return to find them destroyed.
They don’t know who is doing it – but there’s plenty of people out here who disapprove of the work they do.
“If they recognize what the water is for… they’ll slash it. In hopes people die I guess?” Arellano says.
As they move along, Arellano and Cordero find about a dozen destroyed water bottles at various locations. All mangled. They replace them.
Before calling it a day, they drive up to one last spot where a migrant was found dead from dehydration just a few months ago.
In the nearby bushes, there’s the usual: shoes, socks, also, a small child’s pink winter glove, and a tiny winter jacket. It’s baby blue and filled with caked mud. Arellano inspects its tags. “4-T”, she reads out loud. It belonged to a 4-year-old child.
They walk over to check on the water bottle they left here a few days ago, to see if anyone was able to drink.
But it, too, has been slashed open.
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Read and listen to the complete report at the link.
A sad illustration of one of my sayings: “We can diminish ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration!”
Pooja Asnani reports from Sanctuary For Families NY:
Hi all,
I wanted to share a recent asylum grant won by my colleagues, Deirdre Stradone, Amalia Chiapperino, and Kelly Becker-Smith, before IJ McKee at the NYC immigration court.
Client is Honduran Garifuna woman who survived DV and gang violence, and, importantly for the grant of asylum, forced sterilization. Below is a quick summary of the case, and I’m highlighting this asylum grant because our team, specifically Deirdre, has been seeing more and more cases of forced sterilization among Central American women.
Respondent is a forty-five-year-old Honduran Garifuna woman who has been the victim of forced sterilization, severe verbal, physical, and sexual violence, robbery and death threats by gang members, and intentional deprivation of law enforcement assistance and medical attention due to her race and gender. Overwhelming evidence affirms the horrific practice of forced sterilization against Garifuna women, as well as the high levels of domestic and gang violence in Honduras that take place with impunity. The evidence shows that government authorities largely fail to respond to complaints of abuse, or when they do respond, fail to do so effectively.
Deirdre has been collaborating with the Mt. Sinai Human Rights program to study the forced sterilization of Central American women, a topic she had encountered over and over again in her asylum cases, with the researchers agreeing that this particular violation of human rights is likely more common than is being research and reported. Deirdre has found several reports and studies conducted regarding indigenous, mainly Garifuna, women living with HIV who have been victims of this practice. As you all probably know, and stemming from the response to China’s one-child policy, forced sterilization is defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) as “per se persecution on account of political opinion.”
I wanted to share this because we’re realizing that that it may be a more wide-spread practice than we initially thought, and often times, clients don’t even realized they have been sterilized when they come to us. We have been asking specific questions about this in our intakes, and often have been sending our clients to get a medical evaluation to determine whether they have been sterilized. Unfortunately, we have had a several clients discover in the course of our representation that they had been sterilized without their consent, and we believe that many other women may have experienced this without realizing.
While we have worked on several cases with similar facts, but interestingly, this is the first asylum case we have had were the IJ (McKee) granted specifically based on the forced sterilization claim (political opinion), and not on the ARCG DV claim.
Our team at Sanctuary is working to put together a training to help issue-spot, discuss common fact patterns, and how to prepare and brief these cases; stay tuned for more details.
CC’ing the team who worked on this case, including Deirdre, if folks have questions.
Thanks,
Pooja
Deirdre Stradone Attorney Sanctuary for Families NYKelly Becker-Smith Attorney Sanctuary for Families NYAmalia Chiapperino Sanctuary for Families NY
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Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immigration Community:
Christina Brown writes: “I wanted to share the attached decision in case it is helpful to others. IJ Burgie granted the asylum claim of an indigenous Guatemalan applicant finding past persecution based on severe economic deprivation (DHS failed to rebut). She also granted based on a pattern and practice of severe economic persecution of indigenous Guatemalans.”
Many congrats and much appreciation to all involved!
Even as the Biden Administration and GOP nativists push their “big myth” that most seeking asylum at the Southern Border are “mere economic migrants” not “true refugees,” these results from those fortunate enough to have expert lawyers, fair Immigration Judges, and reasonable time to prepare, document, and present continue to show the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the racially-biased restrictionist claims. Indeed, to get to the “any reason to deny” nonsense, which also is often mis-employed by the BIA, one has to intentionally ignore or misconstrue both the real country conditions in the Northern Triangle and the inclusive “at least one central reason” mixed motive language of the INA.
These are NOT “one offs!”No, they are actually recurring situations! A properly functioning, fair, expert BIA, committed to a correct and generous interpretation of asylum laws, would have incorporated these and other recurring “grant” situations into a series of binding precedents. These, in turn, would allow lawyers, Asylum Officers, IJs, and ACCs to recognize and prioritize these cases for “fast track grants.”
That, in turn, would enable many asylum applicants to be timely admitted in legal asylum status, work authorized, and on the way to green cards and naturalization. Significantly, it would also avoid the largely self-created, self-aggravated, ever-growing EOIR backlogs that seem to “drive” the “haste makes waste,” sloppy, “any reason to deny” decision-making that still exists throughout our broken and biased asylum system.
The REAL problem here its that meritorious cases like or similar to these that require expert recognition, proper preparation and documentation, and officials committed to “protection not rejection,” are likely to be summarily rejected and wrongfully pushed back across the border by the “Biden/Miller Lite” procedures and toxic official attitudes toward asylum now being promoted by both the Administration and the GOP.
It’s disturbingly clear that the needed positive changes in the immigration legal system are NOT “coming from the top” in the Biden Administration. Consequently, in addition to recruiting, training, and mentoring ever more members of the NDPA (including non-attorney accredited representatives), to hold the system accountable, it is ESSENTIAL that we get more NDPA “practical experts” on the Immigration Bench to spread and force due process, fundamental fairness, and best interpretations/practices on a resistant system from the “retail level” — the “grass roots” if you will.
That requires that NDPA experts with the qualifications apply for Immigration Judge vacancies en masse! You can’t be selected if you don’t apply! And, without better Federal Judges at all levels not only will injustice continue to prevail for immigrants, but our entire democracy will be imperiled! Better judges for a better America!
Yes, as I have acknowledged in prior posts, EOIR can be a tough place to work. But, human lives and the future of our democracy depend on our changing the system, from “the bottom up” if that’s the only way. This system is too important, with too much at stake, to be left to the whims and false agendas of tone-deaf politicos and inept, “go along to get along” bureaucrats!
Excited to announce that I will be part of the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) National Task Force on Hispanic Law Faculty and Deans! I am honored to be included in a group of Latine law professor giants, whom I have long admired. I look forward to continuing working on a personal passion of mine, which is diversifying the legal profession and legal academia. ¡Adelante!
The Hispanic National Bar Association Launches New Task Force on
Law Faculty and Deans
Washington, DC – The Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) announces the launch of the first-of-its-kind National Task Force on Hispanic Law Faculty and Deans, aimed at addressing the alarming lack of Hispanic/Latino representation among U.S. law school professors and administrators (including deans), as well as the shortage of professional development resources specifically for Hispanic/Latino professors, deans, and other administrators already in the legal academy.
According to the most recent ABA Profile of the Legal Profession, only 5.8% of lawyers in the U.S. are Hispanic/Latino, even though we constitute over 19% of the general population. The shortage of Hispanic/Latino lawyers across the nation mirrors the paucity of Hispanics in legal academia. Only 9 of the almost 200 deans of ABA-accredited law schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia are Hispanic/Latino. Estimates have the percentage of full-time Hispanic/Latino law professors at only 5%.
Hispanic/Latino law professors and law school deans are leaders of the profession and play seminal roles in educating future generations of lawyers and law-related professionals. Legal educators are visible role models and mentors to young people aspiring to careers in law. In addition, Hispanic/Latino legal academics – like other legal academics – frequently are tapped for senior government appointments, judgeships, and other key roles in our democracy. The urgency of this initiative is heightened further by the U.S. Supreme Court’s looming affirmative action decision, which threatens to make the shortage of Hispanic/Latino law students, lawyers, and legal academics even worse.
HNBA President Mariana Bravo has appointed as Co-Chairs of the Task Force Raquel M. Matas and Anthony E. Varona. Raquel Matas is the former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Miami School of Law and has served as HNBA’s National Law School Liaison. Anthony E. Varona is Dean and Professor at Seattle University School of Law, the first law school dean of Hispanic/Latino heritage of any law school in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Varona was the first Hispanic/Latino dean at University of Miami School of Law, where he was appointed dean emeritus after the conclusion of his deanship.
President Bravo said, “An increase in the number of Hispanic/Latino law professors and law school deans will translate into an increase in law school enrollment by Hispanic and Latino/a students inspired by educators who hail from their same communities, share their backgrounds and struggles, and in many cases, share a bilingual heritage. The work of this Task Force is long overdue, and I am delighted that former Associate Dean Matas and Dean Varona, with many decades of distinguished nationally recognized service in legal education between them, will lead us in this important work.”
The Task Force will oversee the development of annual summer nationwide online workshops for prospective and existing Hispanic/Latino law faculty and law school deanship aspirants, through programs such as the Michael Olivas Summer Writing Institute and the GO LILA summer workshops, collaboration with other established workshops, and by organizing new initiatives to increase Hispanic and Latino/a diversity in the legal academy. The Task Force will plan in-person “how to become a law professor” workshops at the annual HNBA conferences, assist with matching law faculty and law dean aspirants with suitable mentors, support the professional development of and networking opportunities for currently appointed Hispanic/Latino law faculty, promote better data tracking by national accreditation and membership associations, and otherwise promote more Hispanic and Latino/a representation in the legal professoriate and decanal ranks.
In addition to Matas and Varona, the HNBA Task Force on Law Faculty and Deans will include as members nationally renowned legal education leaders, known for their dedication to diversifying the legal profession and the academy, including:
Dolores S. Atencio, Esq., Visiting Scholar, U. of Denver Latinx Center|Sturm College of Law
Steven Bender, Prof. & Assoc. Dean for Planning & Strategic Initiatives, Seattle U. School of Law
Kevin R. Johnson, Dean and Mabie-Apallas Prof. of Public Interest Law & Professor of Chicana/o Studies, UC Davis School of Law
José Roberto (Beto) Juárez, Jr., Dean & Prof., Nova Southeastern U. Broad College of Law
Jenny Martinez, Lang Prof. of Law and Dean, Stanford Law School
Margaret Montoya, Prof. Emerita of Law (and Medicine), U. of New Mexico
Jennifer Rosato Perea, Dean & Prof. of Law, DePaul U. College of Law
Hon. Jenny Rivera, Associate Judge, New York Court of Appeals
Ediberto Román, Prof. of Law, Florida International U. College of Law
Krista Contino Saumby, Esq., Assoc. Director of Career Dev., Elon University School of Law
Paulina Vera, Professorial Lecturer in Law, George Washington U. Law School
This Task Force shall operate as a Presidential Special Committee.
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The Hispanic National Bar Association is an incorporated, not-for-profit, national membership association that represents the interests of over 78,000+ Hispanic attorneys, judges, law professors, legal assistants, law students, and legal professionals in the United States and its territories. Since 1972, the HNBA has acted as a force for positive change within the legal profession by creating opportunities for Hispanic lawyers and by helping generations of lawyers to succeed.
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Congrats to Paulina, Dean Kevin Johnson, and all the other outstanding scholar/leaders named to this group. Another place where more diversity is long overdue is the Federal Bench. In particular, despite the disparate impact of Immigration Court decisions on Hispanic-American communities, they are underrepresented on the bench at EOIR.
As the awesome talent represented by this Task Force shows, it isn’t for lack of exceptionally well-qualified judicial candidates available in the private sector. It’s a recruiting and cultural problem at DOJ, along with severe credibility problems stemming from perceptions of overall hostility at EOIR to asylum seekers, other migrants, and their lawyers, often directed at Hispanics and other individuals of color. The “culture” at EOIR really can only be changed by getting on the “inside” — that means getting on the bench or into the EOIR supervisory structure.
On a positive note, one of my fellow panelists on that occasion, Hon. Claudia Cubas, is now an Immigration Judge at the Hyattsville (MD) Immigration Court!
I look forward to Paulina and other NDPA superstars 🌟 like her joining Judge Cubas on the bench in the near future. Positive change requires working “at all levels” to pump due process, fundamental fairness, and decisional excellence into a broken justice system.
Under AG Garland, at least some semblance of a “merit-based” selection system, one that honors immigration representation and human rights experience, has taken hold at EOIR. Therefore, Immigration Judge positions are the ideal “entry level” for those seeking careers in the Federal Judiciary.
Also, the “hands on” experience with making difficult decisions at the critical “retail level” of American justice will be an asset in any career path. Every correct decision at EOIR is potentially life-changing and life-saving! There aren’t many other areas where you can say that! These decisions are far, far too important to individuals and to our nation’s future to be left to the “amateur night at the Bijou” aura that unfortunately (tragically) has permeated EOIR in recent years!
Very proud to say that Paulina is a “distinguished alum” of the “Legacy” Arlington Immigration Court Internship Program and a “charter member” of the NDPA! 😎⚖️🗽
AILA is pleased to welcome this blog post from long-time AILA member Careen Shannon, Senior Counsel (formerly Partner) at Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP, and the Executive Producer of an important new documentary, “Las Abogadas: Attorneys on the Front Lines of the Migrant Crisis.” AILA members in town for the Spring Conference have a chance to see “Las Abogadas” at the Washington, DC International Film Festival on Wednesday, April 26, at 6:00 p.m., with a second show on Friday, April 28, at 8:30 p.m.
When my friend Rebecca Eichler told me that a documentary filmmaker was making a movie about her experience providing legal advice to members of a Central American migrant caravan as it made its way north through Mexico in 2018, I said, “That’s nice.” Later, when film production stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she sent me a link to a trailer and encouraged me to take a look, and I promised to do so. But I was busy managing my remote work for the Fragomen law firm where I was then a partner, and I put all thoughts of the film aside.
Then one day, I watched the trailer, and I was hooked. Here was a story that needed to be told. It wasn’t just about Rebecca, but about tenacious lawyers – mostly women – who were dedicating their lives to defending the rights of asylum seekers, reuniting migrant families torn apart by the Trump administration’s cruel family separation policy, and fighting to uphold the rule of law at a time when the few existing safeguards for migrants seeking refuge from harm were being systematically dismantled.
I reached out to the film’s Director, Victoria Bruce, who I later learned only reluctantly took my call at Rebecca’s urging, since at that point she had run out of steam – and money – and was not sure she had it in her to complete the film. But we had a great conversation, we fed off of each other’s enthusiasm for the subject matter, and by the end of our talk she had invited me to sign on as the film’s Executive Producer.
Two years into the pandemic, I decided to step down as a partner at Fragomen and dedicate myself to ensuring that this important film got made. Fast forward to today, and Las Abogadas: Attorneys on the Front Lines of the Migrant Crisis is making the rounds of film festivals, winning awards, and garnering critical acclaim. Las Abogadas (which means “the women lawyers” in Spanish) follows a group of women immigration attorneys over a multi-year odyssey as the U.S. government under Trump upends every protection for those fleeing from persecution, violence and war. The film’s narrative continues into the first two years of the Biden administration, where great hope gives way to a despair my fellow AILA members undoubtedly share, that nothing fundamental had changed in U.S. immigration policy.
. . . .
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Read the complete article at the link.
“Nothing fundamentally has changed.” Rather than listening to, recruiting, partnering with, and following the advice of those on the “front lines” of defending individual rights, freedoms, and upholding American democracy, the Biden Administration disastrously turned immigration, human rights, and racial justice policies over to a bunch of “wonks” disconnected from the preventable human tragedies and mocking of the rule of law represented by Trump’s xenophobic, White Nationalist agenda.
Today, President Biden announced his candidacy for re-election in 2024. Part of his slogan is “protecting personal freedoms” from the GOP right-wing authoritarian, police state — bedrooms, bathrooms, classrooms, voting booths, more guns, MAGA-maniacs plan to invade and regulate every aspect of your life. But Biden’s miserable performance on immigrants’ rights and his Administration’s tone-deaf “dissing” of those like the heroes of “Las Abogadas,” suggests he will need more than a slogan to energize a critical, too often ignored,“core component” of the Dem base.
He could start by watching “Las Abogadas” along with VP Harris (who “took on” the “immigration portfolio,” and has been MIA since), his politicos, and his campaign staff and heeding the message. Social justice advocates are understandably skeptical about Biden’s promises. He needs actions that advance due process, the rule of law, and humane, robust, orderly processing of refugees and asylum seekers!
As the Trump debacle demonstrated, when immigrants’ rights disappear, all other individual and personal rights in America are in the far-right’s sights! It doesn’t take much imagination (except, perhaps, for some so-called “centrist” Dems) to see how the onslaught of anti-immigrant myths, rhetoric, and legislation by the GOP right has quickly shifted to hate bills targeting gays, transgender, women, Black History, teachers, voters, election officials, rational gun control, heck, even doctors, nurses, and established medical science!
Careen Shannon Senior Counsel (formerly Partner) Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP Executive Producer “Las Abogadas: Attorneys on the Front Lines of the Migrant Crisis.” Photo: Think Immigration
Many congrats to Careen Shannon and everyone else involved in this tremendous project!
A year after Texas sent the first buses, this is clear: From a political stunt grew a network that now coordinates welcoming efforts across state lines
. . . .
When Abbot announced that he was sending the buses, many people across the country saw it for what it was: a political stunt. In a statement at the time, Abbot criticized the Biden administration as turning “a blind eye to the border crisis” and said, “Texas should not have to bear the burden of the Biden administration’s failure to secure our border.”
We can debate Abbot’s actions, and some of us undoubtedly will see a show of strength where others of us see a show of cruelty, but what is not debatable is what happened after those buses started arriving. People stepped up. From a political stunt grew a network of dedicated community members in D.C., New York and elsewhere who now coordinate across state lines to help migrants.
“What started it was no one else was going to do it,” said Madhvi Bahl, an organizer with the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, a group of community members and organizations in the D.C. region dedicated to welcoming migrants. She said that because the city didn’t get involved until months after the buses started arriving, volunteers were on their own to greet arrivals, collect supplies and raise money to provide temporary housing.
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Read Theresa’s complete article at the link.
Once again, the Biden Administration failed to take leadership and to plan for the obvious. Some have suggested that leaving asylum seekers to be political pawns for GOP nativist governors was part of the Administration’s cruel and inept “border deterrence program” which they have substituted for competently administering asylum laws.
Not for the first time, NGOs and advocates have been left to pick up the pieces from the Administration’s failed immigration policies. Fortunately, these NGOs are more talented,creative, and motivated than Administration politicos and bureaucrats.
Rev. Craig Mousin Ombudsperson Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Grace School of Applied Diplomacy DePaul University PHOTO: DePaul Website
Along the same lines as Theresa’s article, my friend and NDPA stalwart Rev. Craig Mousin reports similar successful responses in Chicago:
I forgot to add one more item of good news that your talk suggested. You mention the nativist driven bus rides from Arizona, Florida, and Texas. We have had something remarkable happen in Chicago. A group of five or six faith-based individuals and NGOS had been meeting prior to the bus trips to try and find housing for asylum-seekers. That group, the Chicago Sanctuary Working Group (SWG) meets weekly. It remains an informal group, but it now includes over 30 organizations and individuals. It has found private housing for over 100 families or individuals along with case management for the social service needs while attempting to link them to attorneys from NIJC, CLINIC, other Chicago based groups as well in some cases helping to find funding to pay low bono AILA attorneys. Housing has included individual families welcoming asylum-seekers into their homes for varied amounts of time, some temporary financial support, and some churches opening their doors. In addition, it has received a grant and now rents a building housing about 15 families along with in premise social workers. The national United Church of Christ gave it a small grant and they are hosting a Chicago-area breakfast on May 3 to encourage more congregations to open their doors or recruit individual families to offer asylum-seekers a room in their homes. Almost completely volunteer-driven, it has been an amazing response to this difficult problem. Full disclosure, my wife is on the steering committee, but the stories have been inspirational as a citizen-driven response to bad federal and state policies.
Think what could be accomplished with better Federal leadership and coordination! Why can’t the Biden Administration get its act together on social justice?
Holy card ( 1899 ) showing an illustration to the Gospel of Matthew 25, 34-36 – rear side of an obituary. Wolfgang Sauber Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
MATTHEW AT THE BORDER: ACTING ON THE MESSAGE OF CHAPTER 25
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
U.S. Immigration Judge (Retired)
Westminster Presbyterian Men’s Breakfast
April 14, 2023
I. INTRODUCTION: THE MESSAGE OF MATTHEW 25
Welcome. Thank you for inviting me and for coming out this morning.
Of course, I want to hold my friend and fellow “Badger” Dudley, the Men’s Group, honored guests, and anybody else of any importance whatsoever harmless for my remarks this morning. While I have borrowed liberally from the ideas and inspirations of others, I take sole responsibility for the views expressed in my presentation.
I don’t usually start my talks with a Biblical quote. But, since this is a church men’s breakfast, we are in the holy season, and my topic is integrally tied to Judeo-Christian values, I want to read from Matthew 25, verses 34-46:
34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;
35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
37 Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?
38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?
39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’
40 And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;
42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
44 Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’
45 Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’
46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
II. OVERVIEW
The last time I was with you, five years ago, I described the mess and rampant unfairness in our immigration system. I’d like to say that those times are behind us: That we have restored the rule of law, enhanced due process, and acted, as a nation, in a manner that showed adherence to those passages from Matthew.
But, unfortunately, I can’t do that. Not yet! Despite many promises to fix the mistakes of the past and to do better in the future, and a few successes, the current Administration has, in my view, disturbingly failed to deliver on our obligation to treat “the stranger” and “the other” — in other words, some of “the least of these” — fairly and with human dignity. Nowhere is this more harmful, discouraging, and threatening to both human life and our democracy than at our borders.
The most vulnerable among us, asylum seekers, who ask for little other than to be treated fairly and humanely under our laws, are still being victimized by dysfunctional bureaucracies more intent on deterring and rejecting than on protecting!
I’m going to tell you truths that some find uncomfortable; briefly summarize our current and proposed “built to fail system” at the borders; and tell your why it doesn’t have to be this way!
I’m going to share with you some ideas from legal and humanitarian experts on how our nation could do a far better job for ourselves and for refugees just by more creatively, boldly, and courageously exercising authorities under existing law. In other words how we as a nation could reflect on Jesus’s parable in Matthew and make it a reality.
III. UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS
Let me tell you a few truths that the “false prophets” find uncomfortable.
First, there is an internationally recognized right to seek asylum. Our law states that any person “who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including [someone] who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such [person’s] status, may apply for asylum.” [INA, 208(a)].
Second, according to the 5th Amendment to our Constitution, “no person . . . shall be . . .deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Note that it says “person,” not citizen or “lawfully present non-citizen.”
Third, according to our Supreme Court, asylum laws are to be applied generously, so that even those with just a 10% chance of suffering persecution could qualify. [INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca]. In other words, according to the Board of Immigration Appeals, the highest administrative tribunal in immigration where I once served as an appellate judge and Chair, asylum can be granted “even where [the likelihood of persecution] is significantly less than clearly probable.”[Matter of Mogharrabi].
Additionally, the Handbook of the United Nations, whose Refugee Convention we adopted and which forms the basis for our refugee and asylum laws, says that because of the traumatic situation of refugees and the understandable difficulty they have in gathering and presenting “evidence,” refugees and asylum seekers should be given “the benefit of the doubt” in adjudications.
Fourth, by definition, refugee situations are driven by a variety of life-threatening forces occurring in sending countries, most of them outside our immediate control. Therefore, attempts to use harsh applications of our laws, intentionally “user-unfriendly” procedures, and punishment such as prosecution, imprisonment in life-threatening conditions, and even family separation as “deterrents” are ultimately doomed to failure. I’ve personally watched this “play out” during my five decade career in immigration.
Friends, human migration is a reality as old as humanity itself. It existed long before the evolution of the “nation state” and will continue as long as there is human life on this earth.
Consequently, the idea of some that we can unilaterally cut off or end human migration solely by our own cruel, repressive, and unfair actions is absurd. As I always say, “We can diminish ourselves as a nation, but that won’t stop human migration.”
Fifth, America needs immigrants. Refugees and asylees are part of our legal immigration system. They should be treated as such and welcomed, rather than being dehumanized and viewed as a “loophole,” a “threat,” or“invaders.”
Unhappily, in my view, most of our past and current policies toward refugees and asylum seekers run afoul of these fundamental truths. Worse still, legislators, policy makers from both parties, and even Federal Judges have been willing to run roughshod over these fundamental principles when they believe it is personally, politically, financially, or even professionally expedient.
IV.CURRENT BORDER POLICIES
Currently, our border asylum policies, largely “holdovers” from the Trump Administration, are overwhelmingly weighted toward improper, and ultimately futile, “deterrence.” This reflects deeply imbedded nativist, often racist, views by those holding power.
Our Government currently claims that our border is “closed” to legal asylum seekers, as it has been since March 2020. Under a vestige of Trump-era policy, known as Title 42, the legal processing of asylum applicants and their admission has been suspended based on a transparently pretextual, manufactured claim of necessity to protect America from COVID.
This allows many individuals to be excluded from the U.S. without any legal process and without having a chance to make a claim for asylum or other legal protection. Others are allowed to come into the U.S. under highly discretionary — most would say arbitrary — opaque “exceptions” to Title 42 that are within the sole discretion or DHS officials without any meaningful review.
The result is a mess. Some refugees are returned to Mexico or their home countries where they are subject to abuse, extortion,exploitation, crime, torture, and sometimes death.
Others, who might or might not be refugees, are allowed into the U.S., often with inadequate screening and without clear instructions as to what they are to do next. Because the Biden Administration didn’t establish any uniform nationwide resettlement system for those allowed in, they have been subject to cruel political stunts.
One of the most well-publicized of these has been the so-called “voluntary relocation” of individuals from the border by the governors of Texas, Florida, and, until the recent election, Arizona. They are sent by these governors, without coordination or notice, to supposedly “liberal” cities such as New York, Chicago, Denver, and Washington, D.C., in the calculated hopes of overwhelming community nonprofit organizations, creating chaos, and thereby causing a “backlash” against asylum seekers and the Administration.
V. BIDEN’S LARGELY MISGUIDED PROPOSALS
The Biden Administration has made some rather halfhearted efforts to end Title 42. To date, these have been blocked by right-wing Federal Judges, mostly Trump appointees.
But, it now appears that with the overall “COVID emergency” ended by President Biden, Title 42 will also end on May 11, barring further obstructionist litigation.
Many of us had hoped that after more than two-years to work on regularizing and normalizing asylum processing, the Biden Administration would have a “ready to implement” plan for restoring order, fundamental fairness, and due process to asylum adjudication.
But, sadly, this is not the case. The Biden Administration has actually proposed what many of us consider to be “gimmick regulations” to take effect upon the expiration of Title 42. These proposals actually build upon, and in some cases expand, unfair, restrictive, ineffective policies used by the Trump Administration to “deter” asylum seekers.
Obviously, many experts have opposed these measures. A group of which I am a member, the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, filed an official comment in opposition to these proposals.
In it, we stated:
[T]he proposed rule exceeds the agencies’ authority by seeking to create a ban on asylum that contradicts Congressional intent and international law. As former Immigration Judges, we can confidently predict that the rule would result in individuals being erroneously deported even where they face a genuine threat of persecution or torture. We urge that the rule be withdrawn in its entirety.
Notably, approximately 33,000 individuals and organizations joined us in submitting comments in opposition to these regulations. Among these is the union representing the DHS Asylum Officers who claim, with justification, that applying these proposed provisions would require them to violate their oath to uphold the law.
At the heart of the Administration’s proposed changes is a new bar for those who apply for asylum other than at a port of entry and who can’t show that they have applied and been denied asylum in a country they “transited” on the way to the U.S.
Absurdly, this includes some of the most dangerous countries in the world, without well-functioning, fair asylum systems: Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, being among those often transited.
This is also a rather obvious contradiction of the statutory command I read earlier that individuals can apply for asylum regardless of whether they arrive at a port of entry.
While there are some “emergency exceptions” to these new bars, they are narrow and will be almost impossible for individuals who have made the long, difficult, and dangerous journey to establish.
The proposal also improperly raises the statutory standards for preliminary screening of these individuals by Asylum Officers from “credible fear” to “reasonable fear.” This improperly weaponizes “gatekeepers” to block access to the asylum adjudication system.
Another “centerpiece” of the proposal is to require all asylum applicants arriving at ports of entry to schedule in advance an appointment for asylum screening using a new app called “CBP One.” Unfortunately, according to those actually at the border with asylum seekers, CBP One is “not quite ready for prime time.” It’s plagued by technical glitches, including disconnection, inability to schedule appointments for all family members, failure of the “facial recognition” software with some ethnic groups, and issues of usable wi-fi in Mexico and cell phone access among some applicants.
As Senator Cory Booker (D) of New Jersey stated following a recent trip to the border:
“Even if the CBP One app [were] as efficient, user friendly, fair, and inclusive as possible – which I hope one day it will be – it would still be inherently discriminatory.”
Additionally, the “appointments” currently available for asylum seekers are woefully inadequate and often are exhausted shortly after being posted, leaving legal asylum seekers frustrated and stranded in deplorable conditions near the Mexican border.
The Administration has recognized the need to encourage applications for refugee status in or near the countries from which refugees flee. But, instead of providing for more robust refugee admissions, the Administration has circumvented existing refugee laws by creating “special programs” for nationals of five countries to apply for temporary “parole into the U.S.”
This process is restricted to only five countries: Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba, and Ukraine. The numbers of paroles are limited, and the criteria do not necessarily relate to refugee qualifications, relying heavily on the ability to obtain a U.S. sponsor in advance.
While this undoubtedly benefits some nationals of these countries, it does not prioritize refugees and it contains numerical limitations that do not apply to those seeking asylum. The arbitrary, highly discretionary nature of the parole determinations is combined with the lack of any statutory mechanism for conferring green cards upon the expiration of parole. This “limbo” situation recreates many of the ad hoc factors of parole programs prior to the Refugee Act of 1980 that Congress specifically intended to eliminate.
Another so-called “feature” of the proposed system being touted by the Administration is the negotiated ability to remove up to 30,000 non-Mexicans per month to Mexico. This is despite the well-publicized dangers awaiting them there, including the recent murders of American tourists and the “slow roasting” of 39 detained asylum seekers in a Mexican detention center fire.
The Biden Administration is also considering re-instituting so-called “family detention” and increased criminal prosecutions of those who cross the border illegally. These policies, also employed by the Trump Administration, have proved highly problematic in the past.
Then there is the mess in the individual asylum adjudication system that was weaponized and largely destroyed by the Trump Administration. Unqualified personnel, perceived to be committed to denying asylum above all else, were selected both at DHS and for Immigration Judge positions at the Immigration Courts, known as EOIR in the Department of Justice. Both the Asylum Office and EOIR are now incredibly backlogged.
As currently operated, the Immigration Courts feature a number of so-called “asylum free zones” where asylum is almost never granted by judges who are renowned for denying 90-100% of the asylum claims, far above the already grossly inflated “national average.”
Even when asylum is granted, it too often depends more upon the attitude and background of the individual Immigration Judge assigned than on the merits of the case. The U.S. Courts of Appeals regularly return cases to EOIR after pointing out very basic legal and factual errors committed by the latter in their undue haste to deny protection!
The current dysfunction at EOIR violates the commands of the law, that I read to your earlier, for due process, fairness, generosity, and applying the benefit of the doubt to asylum adjudications.
Indeed, attempting to avoid the Immigration Courts, now with an astounding 2 million backlog of pending cases, at least 800,000 of them involving asylum, appears to be one of the “drivers” of Biden Administration asylum policies. Unfortunately, in their two years in office, this Administration has done little to reform the Immigration Courts to improve expertise, efficiency, and due process and to repair the systemic damage done during the Trump Administration.
To add insult to injury, incredibly, the Biden Administration just “put on hold” one of the few potential improvements they had made to the asylum process: Allowing Asylum Officers to grant asylum to border applicants who pass credible fear. This would actually bypass the EOIR backlog without diminishing anyone’s due process rights. After pushing this change as potentially “transformational,” the Administration totally blew the implementation in a stunning show of ineptness and lack of basic preparation.
V. BETTER SOLUTIONS THROUGH EXISTING LAW
In my view, and that of other experts, we are once again heading for a systemic failure to do right by refugees and asylum seekers. The primary reason is that, in contravention of the law, the lessons of the Holocaust, which gave birth to the Refugee Convention, and the scriptures, we view refugees — “the stranger in need” — as “problems” or “statistics” to be “deterred,” “punished,” “discouraged,” and “denied.”
This is a wrong-headed — and fundamentally un-Christian — view. Refugees are fellow humans — like us — in need. They are legally entitled and deserving of our protection.
But, beyond that, they are an important source of legal immigration that our country was built upon and continues to need. Indeed most of the ancestors of those of us in this room probably came to this country fleeing or escaping something, regardless of whether or not it would have met today’s refugee definitions.
The border doesn’t have to be a source of disorder and embarrassment to our nation. There are better alternatives, even under existing law.
My experience tells me that if, instead of straining to improperly deter refugees, we use available tools to construct a fair, timely, generous, practical, expert, user-friendly legal system for refugees and asylees, the vast majority of them will use it. That will necessarily take pressure off the task of apprehending those seeking to evade the system.
What I’m going to share with you are ideas for progressive, humane, constructive improvements developed and advocated by many experts and NGOs. Certainly, these are not just my ideas.
First, we must maximize use of the existing provisions for legal screening and admission of refugees processed outside the United States. Currently, those programs are overly cumbersome and far too anemic with respect to the Western Hemisphere, particularly for countries in the Northern Triangle of Central America that are traditional “sending countries.”
Refugees screened and approved abroad arrive at our borders with documents and immediate work authorization. They are also able to bring family members and have a clear statutory path to obtaining green cards and eventually citizenship. These are important factors missing from the ad hoc parole programs instituted by this Administration.
Second, we need radical reforms of our Asylum Offices at USCIS and the Immigration Courts at EOIR. The “deadwood and nay sayers” who overpopulated these agencies during the Trump Administration must be weeded out and replaced with true subject matter experts in asylum, preferably with actual experience representing asylum seekers.
There are many asylum cases, both among arriving applicants, and languishing in the largely self-created backlogs, that could and should be prioritized and rapidly granted. Better trained and qualified Asylum Officers should be encouraged to grant asylum at or near the border whenever possible. That avoids the need to “refer” cases to the backlogged Immigration Courts.
Within EOIR, a great place to “leverage” reform would be at the BIA. That body was intentionally “packed” with some of the highest asylum-denying judges during the Trump Administration. Bringing in well-respected subject matter experts to set positive asylum precedents, establish and enforce best practices, and “ride herd” on the toxic “asylum free zones” and “deniers’ clubs” allowed to flourish among Immigration Courts would be a huge step forward.
And, for those who are found not to have a credible fear of persecution, after a fair screening system and fair rules administered by Asylum Officers who are experts, the law already provides for “summary expedited removal” without resort to full Immigration Court hearings, thus avoiding that backlogged system.
There is not, and has never been, a legitimate need to resort to Title 42 and other improper gimmicks, to deal with large migration situations. To the extent that one believes in the effectiveness of “deterrence” for those who do not have credible asylum claims, it’s built right into our existing law.
Third, the Administration should be working with the private bar, NGOs, states, and local governments to maximize access to pro bono or low bono asylum representation. Currently, far too many adjudications take place either in detention centers in intentionally obscure locations or at out of the way ports along the border.
Achieving representation needs to be a driving factor in establishing asylum processing. Indeed, studies have shown that representation not only dramatically improves results for asylum seekers but also virtually guarantees their appearance at all immigration hearings, without detention. It’s probably the biggest “bang for the buck” in asylum adjudication strategies.
The Government should also be working to encourage and, where possible, fund innovative programs like VIISTA Villanova that train non-attorneys to be “accredited representatives” for recognized non-profit organizations representing asylum seekers.
Fourth, rather than expensive and inhumane detention prisons, the Government should establish a network of “reception centers” near the border and throughout the country. These could provide safe, sanitary, residential housing, education, and even work opportunities while individuals are being timely and professionally processed for asylum. They also could be matched with legal staff.
These centers should be run by NGOs and other social service organizations with government funding. They would be a humane replacement for the privately run “detention centers” that have been the center of controversy and human rights abuses.
Fifth, the government should work with NGOs, charitable organizations, and regional economic consortiums to establish orderly, effective resettlement programs in the U.S. that would match those granted refugee or asylum status with housing and employment opportunities in areas of America where there skills can be best utilized.
Sixth, our government should continue to engage with the UN, other democratic nations, and economic development agencies to address the root causes of migration.
There are many other great ideas out here in the private sector that are being largely ignored by our Government. While nobody disputes the desirability of structural changes in our immigration laws, we could drastically improve and humanize our response to refugee situations just by more creative and robust application of already existing authorities and the expertise available in the U.S. humanitarian and NGO sectors.Approaching asylum as a humanitarian responsibility, rather than a law enforcement conundrum, is the key to escaping from the wilderness of failed “deterrence schemes” and creatinga better future for humanity.
VI. CONCLUSION
I can sum up by quoting one of the members of what I call the “New Due Process Army,” Amy R. Grenier. She said, very perceptively, that stripped of all of its legalistic complexities,“the concept of asylum is fairly simple. It’s the ability to ask for help and have someone listen to your story. And I think that that’s very easy to lose sight of.” I think that is also the message of the quote from Matthew 25 that I began with.
When we ignore these pleas for help from the most vulnerable and instead dehumanize, or as I sometimes say “Dred Scottify” them, we not only endanger their lives, but we also diminish our own humanity. I’ve never found anyone who wanted to be a refugee. And, but for the grace of God, any of us could be a refugee, at any time, often when you are least expecting it.
The problem with asylum at the border is not the law. It’s the lack of will, moral courage, vision, creativity, competence, and basic skills from those charged with implementing the law. In reality, there is plenty of flexibility in the existing law to encourage refugees to apply outside the U.S., to fairly, timely, and generously process those arriving at the border who invoke our laws, and to expeditiously remove those who don’t belong in the asylum system.
There is also plenty of legal authority to change inhumane and expensive “border jails” into “reception centers,” to increase the availability of pro bono representation, to resettle refugees and asylees in an orderly fashion, and to match the needs and skills of refugees and asylees with the needs of communities throughout the U.S.
The real issue is why is our Government wasting time and resources on cruel, legally questionable, ultimately ineffective “deterrence gimmicks” rather than solving problems, protecting the lives, and recognizing the humanity of those in need? Matthew knew what’s the right thing to do! Why don’t our elected leaders and the bureaucrats working for them?
I’ve shared with you some ideas for getting closer to “the vision of Matthew 25” in dealing with refugees and asylees. Of course, I haven’t solved the hard part — how to get the attention of politicians, legislators, bureaucrats, and judges who have largely “tuned out” the legal rights of refugees and other migrants and are all too prone to run from creative solutions, rather than embrace them.
But, hopefully, I have helped to install the first step: For all of us to recognize that contrary to what many say, we can do better for refugees and we should make doing so one of our highest national priorities. How we treat “the most vulnerable — the “least of those among us” — does affect everything else in our lives and our nation’s well-being!
We need to improve the informed dialogue, stand behind our values, and insist that those who govern us do likewise. Thank you and, as we say in the New Due Process Army, due process forever!
LOS ANGELES — The Trump administration intentionally separated thousands of migrant children from their parents at the southern border in the spring of 2018, an aggressive attempt to discourage family crossings that caused lasting trauma and drew widespread condemnation.
What is only now becoming clear, however, is that a significant number of U.S. citizen children were also removed from their parents under the so-called zero tolerance policy, in which migrant parents were criminally prosecuted and jailed for crossing the border without authorization.
Hundreds, and possibly as many as 1,000, children born to immigrant parents in the United States were removed from them at the border, according to lawyers and immigrant advocates who are working with the government to find the families.
In many cases, the U.S.-born children were placed into foster care for lengthy periods, and some have yet to be reunited with their parents, lost in the system nearly five years after the separations took place.
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Read Miriam’s full article at the link.
Notably, no accountability for public officials who intentionally violate human rights!
Trump Federal Judges Tilt Against Democracy Republished under license
Washington Post Columnist Ruth Marcus, moderates a panel discussion about chronic poverty with Education Secretary John B. King (blue tie) and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack (striped tie), during the National Association of Counties (NACo), at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park, in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016. U.S. Department of Agriculture photo by Lance Cheung.
Congratulations are in order for Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. The competition is fierce and will remain so, but for now he holds the title: worst federal judge in America.
Not simply for the poor quality of his judicial reasoning, although more, much more, on this in a bit. What really distinguishes Kacsmaryk is the loaded content of his rhetoric — not the language of a sober-minded, impartial jurist but of a zealot, committed more to promoting a cause than applying the law.
Kacsmaryk is the Texas-based judge handpicked by antiabortion advocates — he is the sole jurist who sits in the Amarillo division of the Northern District of Texas — to hear their challenge to the legality of abortion medication.
And so he did, ruling exactly as expected. In an opinion released Friday, Kacsmaryk invalidated the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion drug mifepristone and, for good measure, found that abortion medications cannot be sent by mail or other delivery service under the terms of an 1873 anti-vice law.
Even in states where abortion remains legal. Even though study after study has shown the drug to be safe and effective — far safer, for instance, than over-the-counter Tylenol. Even though — or perhaps precisely because — more than half of abortions in the United States today are performed with abortion medication.
My fury here is not because I fear that Kacsmaryk’s ruling will stand. I don’t think it will, not even with this Supreme Court. Indeed, another federal district judge — just hours after Kacsmaryk’s Good Friday ruling — issued a competing order, instructing the FDA to maintain the existing rules making mifepristone available. Even Kacsmaryk put his ruling on hold for a week; the Justice Department has already filed a notice of appeal; and the dispute is hurtling its way to the Supreme Court. (Nice work getting yourselves out of the business of deciding abortion cases, your honors.)
No, my beef is with ideologues in robes. That Kacsmaryk fits the description is no surprise. Before being nominated to the federal bench by President Donald Trump in 2017, Kacsmaryk served as deputy general counsel at the conservative First Liberty Institute. He argued against same-sex marriage, civil rights protections for gay and transgender individuals, the contraceptive mandate and, of course, Roe v. Wade.
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“Ideologues in robes!” That’s also a good description of many of the judges appointed by Sessions and Barr to the U.S. Immigration Courts. While there have been a few improvements in the appointment process, the Biden Administration has not effectively addressed the serious institutional dysfunction and anti-immigrant bias at EOIR.
And, let’s remember, EOIR is a “court system” affecting millions of lives and futures that is 100% controlled by the Administration. If this Administration is unwilling or unable to embrace and advance progressive values in a court system they own, how are they going to address other issues of justice, gender, and racial,equity in America?
Indeed, this tone-deaf Administration is now at war with more than 33,000 progressive groups and experts about their scofflaw “death to asylum seekers” regulations. The Administration’s immoral, impractical, and illegal proposal to send up to 30,000 legal asylum seekers to Mexico without due process or fair consideration of their claims for legal protection basically replicates, and in some ways goes even beyond, Kacsmaryk‘s endorsement of the discredited and proven to be deadly “Remain in Mexico” program instituted by Trump and Miller. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=26734&action=edit.
It’s also remarkable, if not surprising, that 33,000 of us, many representing larger groups, filed written comments OPPOSING Biden’s tone-deaf, anti-due-process, anti-rule-of-law, racially-targeted, designed-to-fail, Stephen-Miller-inspired “death to asylum (and asylum seekers)” proposed regulations!https://default.salsalabs.org/Ta42828aa-7c89-4fca-a530-ab64d55d9cdf/e9c83407-de3b-4bcf-a318-704cbcd599a2. As someone who spent considerable time analyzing public comments on regulations during my career, that’s an astounding show of unified opposition.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that Biden, Harris, Garland, Mayorkas, or anyone else in the Administration will listen. But, they should!
Unfortunately, the ridiculously short 30-day comment period and that this major reversal of the positions and values that Biden and Harris campaigned upon, without meaningful input and discussion with experts who actually understand the borders and have been present there, indicates that the the comments are likely to be largely ignored. That’s going to lead to big time litigation — from both progressives and GOP nativist/restrictionists.
But, discouragingly, the Biden Administration has shown itself to be willing to tie up time and resources insanely (and not necessarily successfully) doing battle with its own would-be supporters rather than fighting the right! Just who they think is going to be the “winner” here — other than, perhaps, Donald Trump and Jim Crow— is beyond me!
James “Jim” Crow Symbol of American Racism. Biden’s ill-advised and tone-deaf nativist asylum policies appear designed to appease this guy rather than to please those who actually voted for him and other Democratic candidates!
Instead of “running away” in the face of the GOP’s scurrilous “Anti-Woke Campaign:” targeting immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Jews, Muslims, women’s reproductive rights, teachers, free speech, libraries, public education, medical science, the environment, social justice, the Federal Government, voting rights, unions, the working poor, and just about all “mainstream American” individual freedoms, the Biden Administration and Dems in general should stand up for what’s actually great about America and against the GOP’s vile, ignorant, hateful “culture warriors” and “Jim Crow racists and misogynists. Defending the legal rights and humanity of asylum seekers and other migrants would be a good place to start a real defense of American values and democracy! That is, if someone in power were really interested in those things!
On April 4, 1968, I was a senior in high school when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee. That weekend I had been attending a planning meeting in Richmond, Virginia, for mobilizing white teens from suburban churches to serve in inner-city projects in the District of Columbia and Baltimore.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Irv Williams is a native of Baltimore, with family roots in the Northern Neck of Virginia. He moved to Maine in 1973 and is a resident of Peaks Island.
Driving home on Sunday afternoon I arrived at the Baltimore city line, about five miles from my house, to find National Guard troops and tanks blocking off access to the city. I was allowed to pass only on the condition that I drive directly home.
Today I know the real reason I was allowed to pass by those armed soldiers was that my face was white, not Black. Dr. King was only 39 years old when he was murdered.
William Page was only 25 years of age when he was lynched in August 1917 in Lilian, Virginia. My mother would have been a toddler sleeping in her crib at home, just a mile away from the schoolyard in which he was hanged. Newspaper reports state that a mob of about 500 men assembled to commit the murder.
William Page would be the last Black man to be lynched in my mother’s home county of Northumberland, but the lynchings would continue on for another seven years, claiming the lives of nine additional Black men across Virginia.
I am now just a bit older than my mother was when she died. At 72, I look back over a lifetime of witnessing racial injustice through the segregation of schools and other public and private facilities. The false doctrine of “separate but equal” was then in full force throughout Virginia, where both of my parents were born and raised.
I carry childhood memories of seeing “White” and “Colored” water fountains in the county courthouse. Of visiting the family doctor whose small brick office behind his house had separate waiting rooms. Hearing my grandmother talk about “the colored” schools that a neighboring county closed for five full years rather than integrate, meanwhile taking public funds to open white academies. Knowing that nearby was a “colored beach” that was a small sliver of sand allotted to Black children. And knowing that there would never be any Black worshippers or preachers at the church revival meetings where my grandmother played piano.
Looking back at all of those memories, I know full well that the privilege to pass by those National Guard tanks in 1968 had come at the expense of others, sometimes in deadly ways.
In his 1964 book “Why We Can’t Wait,” Dr. King wrote: “Armies of officials are clothed in uniform, invested with authority, armed with the instruments of violence and death and conditioned to believe that they can intimidate, maim or kill Negroes with the same recklessness that once motivated the slaveowner.”
Now, nearly 60 years later, we see that Dr. King is still being proven right with the brutal beating death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis. It wasn’t a rope like they used on William Page, or a bullet like the one that felled Dr. King, but the stun gun, pepper spray, fists and boots of police officers who have been charged with murder in an incident that equals the terror of the August night when 500 men watched William Page die.
Must we wait for another hundred years to pass for this senseless killing to stop? The simple answer is, no, we can’t wait.
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The work of achieving due process and equal justice for all persons in America, as required by our Constitution, remains urgent and unfinished!
Indeed, under the “New Jim Crow” GOP and it’s noxious, intellectually dishonest, morally challenged “leaders,” our nation has actually regressed from some of the key achievements that Dr. King championed.
James “Jim” Crow Symbol of American Racism. If YOU don’t share the GOP White Nationalist insurrectionist “vision” of an American wracked with hate, exclusion, dehumanization, inequality, bias, bogus myths, and return to a “whitewashed history that never was,” YOU must stand against the “21st Century Jim Crow Mob” that seeks to seize control over YOUR country.
It’s particularly critical for the next generations to decide whether they want to live in a better, fairer, more tolerant world, or be forever captive in a White Supremacist, misogynist, fearful past, beholden to a “whitewashed” version of history that never was!
Sen. Cory Booker sent a letter to the heads of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection on Monday criticizing the newly rolled-out CBP One — a mobile application that allows asylum-seekers to secure an appointment with CBP to get through U.S. ports of entry.
“The United States is a beacon of hope for many around the world seeking safety and freedom. Unfortunately, migrants now have to contend with the CBP One app as the sole method to schedule asylum appointments, which has been plagued by technical problems since its introduction,” Booker told HuffPost in an emailed statement.
“We must ensure that our asylum process is just and equitable and protects those who are fleeing violence and persecution in a way that’s consistent with our nation’s most fundamental ideals,” he added.
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“Even if the CBP One app was as efficient, user friendly, fair, and inclusive as possible – which I hope one day it will be – it would still be inherently discriminatory,” reads Booker’s letter, noting the resources an individual must have to successfully navigate the application.
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Read the complete article, with a copy of Sen. Booker’s letter, at the link.
Advocates at the border have been raising problems about the apps’ poor performance and the totally inadequate number of appointments available. And, even with an appointment there’s no assurance that an individual will get a fair audience on their asylum claim. Indeed, based on the current lack of transparency and atrocious proposed regulations from the Biden Administration, unfair treatment is almost guaranteed!
Notably, the clueless Biden “policy officials” who come up with cruel gimmicks and foist defective technology on the border stay far away from having to confront the faces of the humanitarian disaster they have created. They neither have the guts to meet with nor solicit the advice of advocates, NGO workers, and dedicated volunteers who, unlike the Administration, are trying to save lives, preserve human dignity, and maintain some semblance of the rule of law at the border!
There is no excuse for the Biden Administration’s cosmically poor performance on humanitarian issues at the border. None! And, while Sen. Booker and some of his colleagues have pushed back against the Administration’s abusive approach to asylum, other Dems shamefully have just “run away” from the racially-charged, totally unnecessary, disregard for competence, expertise, and the rule of law at the border.
Another problem: The absence of legal integrity from the DOJ, ironically led by former U.S. Judge Merrick Garland, who is unwilling to stand up for the rights of asylum seekers and equal justice for all at the border.
Exactly what do Dems stand for anyway? Apparently, not much, except what they believe (however incorrectly) is “politically expedient” at any particular moment in time!
