Category: Racism

🤮 THE GIBSON REPORT — 06-21-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, Managing Attorney, NIJC — US “CELEBRATES” ☠️ WORLD REFUGEE DAY BY DUMPING ON REFUGEES — “The U.S. is on track to resettle only 18,962 refugees in fiscal 2022 — a fraction of the 125,000 ceiling set by President Joe Biden.”

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Managing Attorney
National Immigrant Justice Center
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

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Weekly Briefing

 

This briefing is designed as a quick-reference aggregation of developments in immigration law, practice, and policy that you can scan for anything you missed over the last week. The contents of the news, links, and events do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Immigrant Justice Center. If you have items that you would like considered for inclusion, please email them to egibson@heartlandalliance.org.

 

CONTENTS (jump to section)

  • ◦NEWS
  • ◦LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES
  • ◦RESOURCES
  • ◦EVENTS

 

PRACTICE UPDATES

 

EOIR Issues Guidance on Pre-hearing Conferences in Immigration Proceedings

AILA: EOIR issued a memo on pre-hearing conferences, stating that, “immigration judges should therefore actively and routinely encourage parties to engage in pre-hearing communications, both for the efficiency of the court and for the efficacy of the pro bono representation.”

 

Juneteenth Interviews Cancelled

USCIS: USCIS offices were closed on June 18, 2021 in observance of the Juneteenth federal holiday. All in-person appointments, including interviews and oath ceremonies (administrative and judicial), will automatically be rescheduled.

 

Updated OPLA Chicago Joint Motion to Reopen Cover Sheet (attached)

AILA: OPLA Chicago will not prioritize review of joint motion to reopen requests, unless there is an urgent reason for review identified on the JMTR Coversheet. The 30-day timeframe for review of PD requests for cases with active immigration proceedings does not apply to requests for joint motions to reopen.

 

NEWS

 

A Decade After DACA, the Rise of a New Generation of Undocumented Students

NYT: For the first time, a majority of the undocumented immigrants graduating from high schools across the United States have none of the protections offered over the past 10 years under an Obama-era program that shielded most of the so-called Dreamers from deportation and offered them access to jobs and help with college tuition… During the decade since DACA took effect in June 2012, some 800,000 young people have registered. But a long-term political solution never materialized. See also As DACA immigrant program turns 10, legal challenges persist; Republican donors to GOP leaders: Bipartisan immigration reform would ease inflation; Stories from Immigrants Who Have Grown up in the Decade of DACA.

 

U.S. Supreme Court spurns Republican bid to defend Trump immigration rule

Reuters: The unsigned one-sentence ruling “dismissed as improvidently granted” an appeal by 13 Republican state attorneys general led by Arizona’s Mark Brnovich seeking to defend the rule in court after Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration refused to do so and rescinded it. The rule widened the scope of immigrants deemed likely to become a “public charge” mainly dependent on the government for subsistence.

 

The U.S. marks World Refugee Day, even as it accepts fewer refugees

Philly Inq: The latest admissions figures are paltry, with 1,898 people admitted in May. That means the U.S. is on track to resettle only 18,962 refugees in fiscal 2022 — a fraction of the 125,000 ceiling set by President Joe Biden.

 

U.S. is rejecting over 90% of Afghans seeking to enter the country on humanitarian grounds

CBS: Since July 2021, USCIS has received over 46,000 applications from Afghans hoping to come to the U.S. through the parole process. But most parole applications from Afghans remain unresolved — and over 90% of fewer than 5,000 fully adjudicated requests have been denied, USCIS statistics shared with CBS News show. See also Biden administration eases terrorism-related restrictions for Afghan evacuees.

 

5,000 Asylum-Seekers Added to the Migrant Protection Protocols 2.0, Few Are Granted Asylum

TRAC: Cases in MPP are generally being completed within the 180-day time frame set by the administration, but the problem with low rates of access to attorneys and unusually low rates of asylum success that plagued the first implementation of MPP continue this year.

 

Immigrant Detention Numbers on Their Way Back Up After Pandemic Slump?

TRAC: After hovering around 20,000 for several months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detained population reached 24,591 at the start of June. Most of the people in detention (76 percent or 18,796) were arrested by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But immigrants arrested by ICE—a total of 5,795—were at the highest number since March 2021.

 

‘No Place for a Child’: 1 in 3 Migrants Held in Border Patrol Facilities Is a Minor

Politico: Since early 2017, one of every three people held in a Border Patrol facility was a minor, a far bigger share than has been reported before now, according to an analysis by The Marshall Project of previously unpublished official records. Out of almost 2 million people detained by the Border Patrol from February 2017 through June 2021, more than 650,000 were under 18, the analysis showed. More than 220,000 of those children, about one-third, were held for longer than 72 hours, the period established by federal court rulings and an anti-trafficking statute as a limit for border detention of children.

 

Border Patrol Brutalizing Haitian Migrants Is Now a Commemorative Coin

Vice: U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it is investigating, will take “appropriate action” if it finds CBP officers were involved in the making or distribution of the coins, and will send cease-and-desist letters to any sellers, a spokesperson told the Herald. See also I was a border patrol agent. The experience was horrifying.

 

New York’s historic Stonewall Monument holds U.S. naturalization ceremony

Reuters: A naturalization ceremony was held for 12 new citizens at the historic Stonewall Monument in New York on Friday, as the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) commemorated Pride Month.

 

LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES

 

Top Immigration Cases In 2022: Midyear Review

Law360: The federal courts handed down several important immigration rulings this year on issues ranging from border agents’ personal liability for constitutional violations to California’s authority to ban private immigration detention facilities. Here, Law360 takes a look at the most significant immigration decisions from the first half of 2022.

 

Matter of D-L-S-, 28 I&N Dec. 568 (BIA 2022)

BIA: A  respondent  who  is  subject  to  a  deferred  adjudication  that  satisfies  the  elements  of  sections 101(a)(48)(A)(i) and (ii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(48)(A)(i) and (ii) (2018), has been “convicted by a final judgment” within the meaning of the particularly serious crime bar under section 241(b)(3)(B)(ii) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(B)(ii) (2018).

 

CA1 on Credibility: Reyes Pujols v. Garland

LexisNexis: [T]he BIA upheld an adverse credibility determination that the IJ reached in part based on an inconsistency in Reyes’s story that simply was not an inconsistency. Nor can we say that absent the adverse credibility finding, Reyes’s CAT claim would necessarily fail. We therefore must vacate the BIA’s ruling affirming the IJ’s denial of that claim.

 

5th Circ. Shoots Down Nonprofit Bid To Crack Open Title 42

Law360: The Fifth Circuit on Thursday rejected a legal service provider’s attempts to open up parts of the U.S.-Mexico border to asylum-seekers by narrowing an injunction order requiring the Biden administration to enforce COVID-19 border restrictions nationwide.

 

Split 6th Circ. Gives Honduran Asylum-Seekers Another Shot

Law360: A split Sixth Circuit panel told the Board of Immigration Appeals to take another look at whether a Honduran woman and her two children can stay in the U.S. as refugees after they claimed they suffered violence and intimidation by the brutal MS-13 gang.

 

CA7 on Categorical Approach: Aguirre-Zuñiga v. Garland

LexisNexis: Because there are optical and positional isomers of methamphetamine, and the Indiana legislature chose not to limit the Indiana Statute to optical isomers at the time of Aguirre-Zuniga’s conviction, “Indiana’s generic use of ‘isomer’ in relation to methamphetamine must be broader than optical isomers.” Section 35-48-4-1.1 was facially overbroad at the time of Aguirre-Zuniga’s conviction; thus, it does not qualify as an aggravated felony under the INA.

 

8th Circ. Tosses 4th Amendment Claim In Atty Shoving Suit

Law360: The Eighth Circuit has overturned a Missouri district court’s denial of qualified immunity to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who allegedly pushed and injured an immigration attorney, saying the push did not qualify as a seizure violating the Fourth Amendment.

 

9th Circ. Denies Asylum Case Review Over Unreliable Identity

Law360: The Ninth Circuit shut down a Jamaican asylum seeker’s second quest to reopen his asylum proceedings, saying that his previous unreliable testimony justified rejecting his new claims of political strife and violence in Jamaica.

 

Deportation Law Doesn’t Block Free Speech, 9th Circ. Says

Law360: A divided Ninth Circuit on Tuesday upheld a Mexican man’s deportation from the United States, ruling that because he encouraged his son to enter the U.S. illegally, federal law prohibits him from overturning his pending removal.

 

Split 9th Circ. Revives Nicaraguan’s Asylum Bid

Law360: A split Ninth Circuit panel gave a Nicaraguan man a new chance at asylum on Monday, faulting an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals for finding the man hadn’t faced persecution despite suffering a beating and death threats for opposing the ruling government.

 

Ohio Says High Court Limits Don’t Apply To ICE Ops Case

Law360: Ohio has rebuked the Biden administration’s attempts to use a recent high court ruling to notch a Sixth Circuit victory in litigation challenging its immigration enforcement priorities, saying the justices’ new limits on courts’ injunctive immigration power warrants, at most, a remand.

 

Texas Justices Revive Family Detention Center Rule Challenge

Law360: The Texas Supreme Court on Friday revived a challenge to a state licensing rule for immigration detention centers that allegedly increased the risk of sexual assault against detained minors, overturning an appeals court’s finding that the challengers lacked standing to sue.

 

Unlawful Presence – Joint Status Report, Velasco de Gomez v. USCIS, May 25, 2022

LexisNexis: USCIS intends to modify its interpretation of 8 U.S.C. § 1189(a)(9)(B) to no longer require an applicant for adjustment to spend his or her period of inadmissibility outside of the United States and is in the process of finalizing a revised policy, including final approval by the Department of Homeland Security, and issuing new guidance to USCIS adjudicators. USCIS also affirms that it is not currently denying adjustment applications or requiring applicants to file waiver applications on the basis that an applicant returned to the United States within the period of inadmissibility under this section.

 

Advance Copy: DHS and DOS Notice on Exemption from Inadmissibility for Certain Individuals Who Assisted the U.S. in Afghanistan

AILA: Advance copy of DHS and DOS notice exempting certain individuals who assisted the United States in Afghanistan from inadmissibility under INA §212(a)(3)(B).

 

Advance Copy: DHS and DOS Notice on Exemption from Inadmissibility for Insignificant or Limited Material Support

AILA: Advance copy of DHS and DOS notice exempting individuals who provided insignificant or certain limited material support to a designated terrorist organization from inadmissibility under INA §212(a)(3)(B).

 

Advance Copy: DHS and DOS Notice on Exemption from Inadmissibility for Certain Afghan Civil Servants

AILA: Advance copy of DHS and DOS notice exempting certain individuals employed as civil servants in Afghanistan between 9/27/96 and 12/22/01, or after 8/15/21, from inadmissibility under INA §212(a)(3)(B).

 

CBP Launches Heat Mitigation Effort in Tucson, Arizona

AILA: CBP launched a heat mitigation effort in Tucson, whereby new Heat Stress Kits/Go-Bags will be distributed to 500 CBP agents. These are part of a feasibility study on heat stress awareness. Kits are meant to mitigate potential heat stress injuries and illnesses for agents and migrants alike.

 

EOIR Updates Part II of the Policy Manual

AILA: EOIR updated chapters 7.1 and 7.4 of the policy manual, and added chapter 7.6 to update procedures for credible fear screening and consideration of asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection claims by asylum officers.

 

CDC Lifts Requirement that International Air Travelers Have Negative COVID Test

AILA: The CDC issued an order rescinding a 17-month-old requirement that people arriving in the country by air test negative for COVID-19, effective at 12:01 am (ET) on Sunday, June 12, 2022, saying it is “not currently necessary.” (87 FR 36129, 6/15/22)

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

NIJC EVENTS

 

 

GENERAL EVENTS

 

 

To sign up for additional NIJC newsletters, visit:  https://immigrantjustice.org/subscribe.

 

You now can change your email settings or search the archives using the Google Group. If you are receiving this briefing from a third party, you can visit the Google Group and request to be added.

 

Elizabeth Gibson (Pronouns: she/her/ella)

Managing Attorney for Capacity Building and Mentorship

National Immigrant Justice Center

A HEARTLAND ALLIANCE Program

224 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 600, Chicago, IL 60604
T: (312) 660-1688| F: (312) 660-1688| E: egibson@heartlandalliance.org

www.immigrantjustice.org | Facebook | Twitter

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

Doubt that the “LA Declaration on Migration” is DOA? Check out these items from Elizabeth’s report:

A Decade After DACA, the Rise of a New Generation of Undocumented Students

NYT: For the first time, a majority of the undocumented immigrants graduating from high schools across the United States have none of the protections offered over the past 10 years under an Obama-era program that shielded most of the so-called Dreamers from deportation and offered them access to jobs and help with college tuition… During the decade since DACA took effect in June 2012, some 800,000 young people have registered. But a long-term political solution never materialized. See also As DACA immigrant program turns 10, legal challenges persist; Republican donors to GOP leaders: Bipartisan immigration reform would ease inflation; Stories from Immigrants Who Have Grown up in the Decade of DACA.

 

The U.S. marks World Refugee Day, even as it accepts fewer refugees

Philly Inq: The latest admissions figures are paltry, with 1,898 people admitted in May. That means the U.S. is on track to resettle only 18,962 refugees in fiscal 2022 — a fraction of the 125,000 ceiling set by President Joe Biden.

 

U.S. is rejecting over 90% of Afghans seeking to enter the country on humanitarian grounds

CBS: Since July 2021, USCIS has received over 46,000 applications from Afghans hoping to come to the U.S. through the parole process. But most parole applications from Afghans remain unresolved — and over 90% of fewer than 5,000 fully adjudicated requests have been denied, USCIS statistics shared with CBS News show. See also Biden administration eases terrorism-related restrictions for Afghan evacuees.

 

5,000 Asylum-Seekers Added to the Migrant Protection Protocols 2.0, Few Are Granted Asylum

TRAC: Cases in MPP are generally being completed within the 180-day time frame set by the administration, but the problem with low rates of access to attorneys and unusually low rates of asylum success that plagued the first implementation of MPP continue this year.

 

Immigrant Detention Numbers on Their Way Back Up After Pandemic Slump?

TRAC: After hovering around 20,000 for several months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detained population reached 24,591 at the start of June. Most of the people in detention (76 percent or 18,796) were arrested by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But immigrants arrested by ICE—a total of 5,795—were at the highest number since March 2021.

 

‘No Place for a Child’: 1 in 3 Migrants Held in Border Patrol Facilities Is a Minor

Politico: Since early 2017, one of every three people held in a Border Patrol facility was a minor, a far bigger share than has been reported before now, according to an analysis by The Marshall Project of previously unpublished official records. Out of almost 2 million people detained by the Border Patrol from February 2017 through June 2021, more than 650,000 were under 18, the analysis showed. More than 220,000 of those children, about one-third, were held for longer than 72 hours, the period established by federal court rulings and an anti-trafficking statute as a limit for border detention of children.

 

Border Patrol Brutalizing Haitian Migrants Is Now a Commemorative Coin

Vice: U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it is investigating, will take “appropriate action” if it finds CBP officers were involved in the making or distribution of the coins, and will send cease-and-desist letters to any sellers, a spokesperson told the Herald. See also I was a border patrol agent. The experience was horrifying.

Split 6th Circ. Gives Honduran Asylum-Seekers Another Shot

Law360: A split Sixth Circuit panel told the Board of Immigration Appeals to take another look at whether a Honduran woman and her two children can stay in the U.S. as refugees after they claimed they suffered violence and intimidation by the brutal MS-13 gang.

Incorrectly trying to send women and children back to Honduras? That’s an example of our commitment to “protecting the safety, dignity, human rights, and fundamental freedoms of all migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and displaced and stateless persons regardless of their migratory status?” Duh — not even close!

Not much doubt that a competent Immigration Judge, expert in both asylum and real country conditions in Honduras (which has one of the world’s highest femicide rates), would have been able to grant this at the trial level. Instead, amateurish and biased attempts to incorrectly deny asylum to refugees continue to clutter our courts at all levels! No wonder EOIR can’t stop building “artificial backlog!”

I recently highlighted two other “case-related examples,” of the “yawning gap” between the humane promises of the LA Declaration and the lousy actual performance of EOIR on what should be easily grantable asylum cases! See, e.g.,

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/06/16/%f0%9f%8f%b4%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8fany-reason-to-deny-asylum-bia-hits-rough-sledding-from-coast-to-coast-1st-cir-bogus-adverse-credibility-9th-cir-ludicrous/.

Outrageously, EOIR is still predominantly a rogue “any reason to deny” pseudo-court where the “culture” encourages judges to contrive results, misinterpret facts, and misapply the law to wrongfully “hold down the number of grants” to Brown and Black refugees who need and deserve protection under our law and international  agreements. Indeed large portions of our domestic and international legal refugee and asylum systems remain illegally suspended or functionally inoperative!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-22-22

 

 

Related posts:

  1. 🧑🏽‍⚖️⚖️🗽🇺🇸WHO’S JUDGE IS IT ANYWAY? — The Crisis Of Independence In Our Immigration Courts! — Coming April 7, 2021! — Sponsored By The HNBA! — Don’t Miss It!
  2. 🇺🇸😎⚖️🗽👍🏼LAW YOU CAN USE:  Michelle Mendez and CLINIC Publish A New Practice Advisory on Opening & Closing Statements in Immigration Court
  3. 🛡⚔️⚖️ROUND TABLE (WITH LOTS OF HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS @ AKIN GUMP) CONTINUES TO AID NDPA ⚖️🗽🦸🏽‍♂️🦸‍♀️IN TAKING IT TO THE EOIR CLOWN SHOW🤡🧟! —  The Forces Of Bigotry, White Nationalism, “Dred Scottification,” & Malicious Incompetence Will Be Driven From The Field & Removed From  The Power They Have So Grossly & Disgracefully Abused! — Read Our Latest Amicus Brief ⚖️🗽👍👨🏽‍⚖️🤵🏻‍♀️👩‍⚖️ In Pangea II Here!
  4. THE GIBSON REPORT — 03-01-21 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — FEATURING: Under The EOIR Big Top 🎪 Robed TV Carnival Barkers Hand Out Death Sentences ☠️ With Ignorance, Indolence, Indifference, & Insult To Injury!

⚖️👩🏽‍⚖️JUDGING IN AMERICA: Will Appellate Judges On The 6th Cir. (Including a Bush II Appointee) Get Right What Trumpy Judge Drew Tipton Screwed Up? — Early Signs For Better Result On Mayorkas Memo Could Provide “Cautious Optimism” For Sending GOP States’ Frivolous Claims Packing!

https://www.courthousenews.com/biden-administration-defends-immigration-policy-before-sixth-circuit/

Biden administration defends immigration policy before Sixth Circuit

The federal government argued in defense of a policy instituted by President Biden that prioritizes the deportation of individuals deemed national security threats.

KEVIN KOENINGER / June 10, 2022/Courthouse News

CINCINNATI (CN) — Federal courts cannot impose nationwide injunctions to counteract guidance handed down by the Department of Homeland Security regarding enforcement of federal immigration law, President Joe Biden’s administration argued Friday before an appeals court.

Prioritized deportation of illegal immigrants who “pose the greatest threats to national security, public safety, and border security” is within the scope of DHS’s authority and does not run counter to established immigration law, according to the administration, which was sued by several states after the guidance was implemented in September 2021.

Ohio, Arizona and Montana challenged the “balancing test” adopted as part the guidance, claiming the discretionary nature of the analysis of an immigrant’s mental health and criminal history exceeds the statutory authority granted to DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

U.S. District Judge Michael Newman, a Donald Trump appointee, sided with the states and granted their motion for a preliminary injunction in March 2022, finding federal law “left no flexibility” when it comes to detainment of illegal immigrants during the removal process.

“The permanent guidance allows noncitizens to be released on removal-period and post-removal bond based on factors Congress did not intend DHS to consider and in contrast to DHS’s own regulations,” he said.

Shortly thereafter, a Sixth Circuit panel stayed the injunction pending the outcome of Biden’s appeal.

In its brief to the Cincinnati-based appeals court, the federal government criticized the outlandish nature of the lawsuit and cited Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton when he argued courts have no authority to adjudicate federal immigration policy.

“For most of our nation’s history, a lawsuit like this one would have been unheard of: states did not sue the federal government based on the indirect, downstream effects of federal policies,” the brief states. “And district judges did not purport to enter nationwide injunctions, which ‘take the judicial power beyond its traditionally understood uses,’ ‘incentivize forum shopping,’ and ‘short-circuit’ the judicial process by forcing appellate courts to resolve complex disputes on short notice and without the benefit of percolation or full briefing.”

The Biden administration argued the states lack standing to sue and said Newman’s decision would set a precedent to “allow the federal courts to be drawn into all manner of generalized grievances at the behest of states seeking to secure by court order what they were unable to obtain through the political process.”

. . .

Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton, a George W. Bush appointee, asked about the harm caused to the federal government if the appeals court allowed the injunction to remain in place.

“It certainly leads to confusion,” Tenny answered. “It leads to officers not being able to conduct their operations in a normal course.”

The attorney emphasized the guidance does not run counter to immigration law and requires officers to zero in on dangerous criminals because of the focus on individuals deemed threats to national security.

“It makes you start to think guidance just isn’t reviewable,” Sutton quipped.

Tenny agreed that most guidance is not. He said “there are circumstances … with guidance that requires people to do something where it could be reviewed,” but pointed out such a scenario is “worlds apart from here.”

 . . . .

Sutton pushed back against the idea of states challenging the federal government in this fashion, and said in the past, “most people would have laughed at the idea … of states coming in to challenge the guidance.”

“Let’s say you’re right,” the judge said. “I’m still trying to figure out what a victory looks like for you.”

“All that we want,” Flowers answered, “is what the district court did.”

Sutton expressed skepticism of immigration enforcement statistics cited by the states’ attorney and said he was “so dubious about relying on these numbers” because of the Covid-19 pandemic and other factors.

Flowers countered with evidence that ICE officials have gone on the record and claimed the drop in enforcement is based solely on compliance with the guidance.

“Their key theory,” Sutton said, “is that elections matter. That resonates to me when it’s very unclear what the courts could do [in this situation].”

In his rebuttal, Tenny argued no administration has ever fully enforced federal immigration law because there simply aren’t enough resources.

He also disputed the statistics cited by his opposing counsel.

“There is so much going on in the world here,” Tenny said. “To say changes in numbers is because of the guidance is extraordinary.”

U.S. Circuit Judges R. Guy Cole Jr. and Karen Moore, both Bill Clinton appointees, also sat on the panel.

Sutton said the court hopes to adhere to the three-month timeframe established at the outset of the appeal, which would set release of the panel’s opinion for early July.

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

Read the complete report at the link.

Way too early for a “Due Process Victory Dance” 💃🏻 here. Oral argument is not always an accurate predictor of results. 

But, preliminary indications were that the 6th Cir. panel might have seen through the “disingenuous  smokescreen” being thrown up by GOP Nativist State AGs and Trumpster U.S. District Judge Michael Newman. The latter was overeager to inject himself into the legitimate efforts by Mayorkas to return some rationality, order, and fiscal prudence to ICE Enforcement that was reeling and discredited by the biases and uncontrolled excesses of the Trump era.

And, thankfully, Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton also was skeptical about statistics cited by the States derived from DHS Enforcement. For example, so-called “apprehension statistics” from DHS are often distorted — in part because, as the result of the Title 42 travesty, CBP apprehended some of the same individuals over and over again without any formal determinations. 

Indeed, many of those “apprehended” merely sought  a legal determination of their right to asylum — something that both the Trump and Biden Administration have stubbornly and illegally denied to them. 

Folks who wrongfully are denied a chance to make a legal application for protection at the border and seek to turn themselves in to get some sort of review of their situation in a timely matter are not legitimate “apprehensions” nor do they pose any threat. Indeed, the threat to America here comes from lawless actions by DHS at the Southern Border, attempts by GOP-controlled States to substitute myths and nativism for legitimate policies, and overly permissive Federal Courts who have failed to put a stop to either of the foregoing abuses — indeed sometimes participating in and furthering the mocking of the rule of law and fundamental fairness! 

The statements made by Bush II appointee Chief Judge Sutton are actually in line with “traditional conservative judging” that consistently treated Executive exercises of prosecutorial discretion in immigration as beyond the scope of judicial review. In my days in INS General Counsel, we were extremely effective in defending the “hands off PD” position before Federal Judges of all philosophies.

That’s why the Garland DOJ’s failure to “wipe up the floor” with these baseless suits from out of line GOP AGs seeking to turn Federal litigation into a nativist political sideshow is so shocking to those of us who recognize how the system should, and has in the past, worked.

If the 6th Circuit does uphold the “Mayorkas Memo,” we might well be heading for a Circuit conflict. I doubt that the 5th Circuit will exercise meaningful review over Judge Tipton’s power grab in Texas. 

That could well leave it up to the Supremes — some time from now.

In the meantime, the ICE Enforcement system probably will continue to reel from the unwarranted interference inflicted by Trump Judges like Tipton, Newman, and some of their righty colleagues.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-13-22

 

 

Related posts:

  1. 🏴‍☠️TRUMPY U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE DREW TIPTON BLOCKS MAYORKAS MEMO ON DHS ENFORCEMENT PRIORITIES — Immigration Enforcement Careens Out-Of-Control As Garland’s “Rational Policy Defense Team” Falters Once Again In The Face Of All-Out Assault By Nativist GOP AGs!
  2. TRASVINA RESTORES “PD” @ ICE; 6TH CIR. REJECTS CASTRO-TUM! BUT GARLAND’S FAILURES @ EOIR CONTINUE TO HAMPER BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, CAUSE CONFUSION, INCREASE BACKLOGS!  — “In performing their duties, including through implementation of this memorandum, OPLA attorneys should remain mindful that ‘[i]mmigration enforcement obligations do not consist only of initiating and conducting prompt proceedings that lead to removals at any cost. Rather, as has been said, the government wins when justice is done.’” 
  3. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  4. 🏴‍☠️CLOSING THE BORDER TO LEGAL ASYLUM SEEKERS IS A VIOLATION OF BOTH DOMESTIC & INTERNATIONAL LAW — It’s Neither Something To Tout (Biden Administration) Nor A Solution (GOP) (Except, Perhaps, In The “Hitlerian” Sense) — Our Inability To Solve A Humanitarian Situation By Acting Lawfully, Sensibly, & Humanely Is A Sign Of Gross National Weakness Spurred By Unwillingness To See The Human Tragedies We Are Promoting! — And The Lousy, Misleading, & Tone-Deaf Reporting By The Some Of The “Mainstream Media” Is Making It Worse! — Leon Krauze & Suzanne Gamboa With Simple Truths About Human Migration That Neither Pols Nor Nativists Want You To Hear! — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: Friday Mini-Essay: “Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration”

📚BOOKS:  “Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success” By Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan — Reviewed By Michael Luca @ WashPost!

Ran Abramitzky Professor of Economics and the Senior Associate Dean of the Social Sciences at Stanford University
PHOTO: Stanford.edu
Leah Pratt Boustan
Professor Leah Pratt Boustan
Economist
Princeton University
PHOTO: Princeton Website
Michael Luca
Michael Luca
Lee J. Styslinger III Associate Professor of Business Administration Harvard Business School
PHOTO: has.edu

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/06/10/what-research-really-says-about-american-immigration/

. . . .

The reality is that immigration debates are often driven more by feelings than facts. And there is often disagreement about basic facts — such as how immigration has evolved over time, how successful immigrants become once they enter the United States and how they affect the communities they enter. The problem is, in part, a lack of accessible empirical evidence on the topic.

Enter “Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success,” a book by economic historians Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan that seeks to set the record straight, using an economics tool kit and a treasure trove of data. Their mission is twofold. First, to offer a data-driven account of the history of American immigration. Second, to provide guidance into what research suggests about the design of immigration policy.

The book reflects an ongoing renaissance in the field of economic history fueled by technological advances — an increase in digitized records, new techniques to analyze them and the launch of platforms such as Ancestry — that are breathing new life into a range of long-standing questions about immigration. Abramitzky and Boustan are masters of this craft, and they creatively leverage the evolving data landscape to deepen our understanding of the past and present.

In contrast with the rags-to-riches mythology, a more systematic look at the data shows that low-income immigrants do not tend to catch up to nonimmigrant income levels in their lifetimes. Instead, financially successful immigrants tend to come from more privileged backgrounds. To name a few: the authors point out that the father of Tesla chief executive Elon Musk “co-owned an emerald mine.” EBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s “father is a surgeon who worked at Johns Hopkins University,” and his “mother has a PhD in linguistics.” Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s “father is a professor of mathematics,” and his “mother is a NASA scientist.” Looking at how many companies have been led by high-skilled immigrants, I wonder how much more innovation we are missing out on by not further opening our doors to the world’s talent. Yet these are hardly tales of huddled masses.

The case that lower-income and lower-education immigrants also meet with success rests on assessing not only the fates of immigrants themselves but also those of their children and their children’s children. As it turns out, Abramitzky and Boustan write, “children of poor immigrants from nearly every country in the world make it to the middle of the income distribution.” Immigrants from mainland China, Hong Kong and India do especially well.

The book debunks myths that immigrants dramatically increase crime and displace U.S.-born workers. Much of this work focuses on natural experiments in which sudden shocks to immigration levels have allowed for a better understanding of cause and effect. For instance, the authors point to the 1980 Mariel boatlift, which brought an influx of Cuban immigrants to the United States, especially to Miami, virtually overnight. The surge of low-income immigrants did not lead to large spikes in unemployment for U.S.-born workers. Low-skill immigrants have a history of taking jobs that would otherwise be unfilled or filled by machines. As companies around America were rushing to automate operations, the influx of Cuban immigrants to the Miami area slowed this process, and jobs went to people rather than to machines. Compared with the rest of the country, businesses in high-immigration areas have access to more workers and hence less incentive to invest in further automation.

This has implications for today’s immigration debates: The United States is expected to face a dramatic labor market shortage as baby boomers retire and lower birthrates over time result in fewer young people to replace them. Increased immigration is one approach to avoiding the crunch. Notably, the other way to avert this crisis is through further automation, enabled by rapid advances in artificial intelligence. Immigration policy will help shape the extent to which the economy relies on people vs. machines in the decades to come.

Immigration is, of course, about more than economic activity. Part of its beauty is the cultural richness and diversity that it brings. A multicultural society is greater than the sum of its parts. Miami is exciting not because of assimilation but because of the culture that its diverse population has created. It’s a city where you can find croquettes and Cuban coffees as easily as pizza and burgers. There is a rich history of immigrants bringing new cuisines, which are then adopted and adapted throughout the United States, a journey that can be seen in the evolution of Italian American food.

Drawing on the research, Abramitzky and Boustan weigh in on a number of hot-button policy issues: For instance, should the United States focus on encouraging high-education immigration? They conclude that “policies designed to deter less-educated immigrants from entering the United States are misguided.” Discussing the border wall, they argue that “no one wins from the border fencing policies.” And on the 1.5 million undocumented immigrants who arrived as children, they make a full-throated argument in favor of “providing work permits and a path to citizenship,” noting that “the barriers that undocumented children face are stumbling blocks of our own making.” On this last point, it is hard to disagree. Our treatment of undocumented children is a stain on our nation.

In the end, the authors offer an optimistic message: “Immigration contributes to a flourishing American society.” In a rapidly evolving world, Abramitzky and Boustan urge us to take “the long view, acknowledging that upward mobility takes time, and is sometimes measured at the pace of generations, rather than years.”

. . . .

Michael Luca is the Lee J. Styslinger III associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and a co-author of “The Power of Experiments: Decision Making in a Data-Driven World.”

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

Read the complete review at the link. It contains Luca’s own family immigration story.

The research highlighted by this book clearly refutes the many negative myths about migrants upon which the Trump GOP’s “campaign of hate and misinformation” is based.

But, unfortunately, I wouldn’t expect truth about immigration — no matter how compelling and well-documented — to change many minds on the far right. As Luca says: “The reality is that immigration debates are often driven more by feelings than facts.” Sadly, hate, fear, racism, resentment, and intolerance are “powerful feelings.” 

It’s going to take a combination of political power, courage and talent to exercise it boldly, education, and better values from the upcoming generations of younger Americans to overcome White Nationalism and its pernicious effects. I have to hope that there is time for the “long view” and our “better angels” to win the future.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-13-22

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. WALL? WHAT WALL? – BUREAUCRATIC BARRIERS BEST BAR TO (NEEDED) IMMIGRATION (Hey, I Could’ve Told ‘Em That!) – But, White Nationalist Goal Of Returning To A “White America” Ultimately Doomed — “You can slow the rate of Latino and Asian immigration, but it won’t make the population whiter,”. . . “It will just become less white at a slower pace.”
  3. PREVENTABLE HUMAN DISASTER: THE WANTON CRUELTY, WASTEFULNESS, & TOTAL STUPIDITY OF THE TRUMP/SESSIONS “GONZO” IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM PORTRAYED IN GRAPHIC HUMAN TERMS — The Damage To America Of Mistreating Our Families & Our Citizen Youth Will Long Outlive The Misguided Officials Carrying It Out!
  4. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?

⚖️🗽 HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST FILES PUBLIC COMMENTS POINTING OUT DUE PROCESS ERODING FLAWS IN BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S NEW ASYLUM REGULATIONS!

Mr. Magoo
Most experts view the Biden Administration’s approach to refugees, asylum, human rights, and racial justice in America as disturbingly short-sighted!
Mr. Magoo
PHOTO: Gord Webster
Creative Commons License

From Human Rights First, June 1, 2022:

 

Human Rights First yesterday submitted a public comment on the Biden administration’s Interim Final Rule that creates a new process for adjudication of some asylum claims.

 

Under the rule, asylum seekers who are placed in the expedited removal process and who establish a credible fear of persecution may be assessed in an initial full asylum interview with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Cases not granted by the Asylum Office will be referred to immigration court removal proceedings, as will other asylum cases that are not granted by the Asylum Office.
Courtesy Getty
Asylum seekers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the US-

Mexico border near Yuma, Arizona.
While Human Rights First welcomes some aspects of the rule, we expressed our concern about unreasonably fast deadlines that would sacrifice fairness, thwart efficiency, and exacerbate backlogs.  We also oppose provisions that threaten asylum seekers’ right to a full and fair hearing on their asylum claims.

 

The rule guts a crucial safeguard in the credible fear process:  it provides that the new asylum process will be conducted after subjecting asylum seekers to the fundamentally flawed expedited removal process, which has been shown to return refugees to persecution and death.

 

In our public comment on the rule and a factsheet on its concerning provisions, we have recommended changes to help asylum seekers receive timely, fair, and accurate adjudications.

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

The full HRF comment is available at the above link!

As with most Government immigration/civil/human rights programs, a large part of the problem is WHO is making these decisions, WHO is setting precedents, and WHO is overseeing the process and enforcing accountability.

  • The Biden Administration is still operating EOIR and large portions of the immigration bureaucracy at DHS with Trump-era “holdovers” who were improperly “programmed to deny” asylum.
  • There is a dearth of positive precedents from the BIA on gender-based asylum and other types of common asylum applications at the border that are routinely and wrongfully mishandled and denied.
  • There are cosmic problems resulting from failure to provide qualified representation of asylum seekers at the border.
  • Detention continues to be misused as a “deterrent” to legal claims and “punishment” for asserting  them. 
  • Despite “touting” a much larger refugee admissions program beyond the border, the Administration has failed to deliver a robust, realistic, refugee admissions program for Latin America and the Caribbean which would take pressure off the border. 
  • Racism and White Nationalism continue to drive the Administration’s dramatically inconsistent approach to White refugees from Ukraine compared with refugees of color at the Southern Border.

In plain terms, because of what the Biden Administration hasn’t done over the past 17 months, the new asylum regulations are “programmed for failure.”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-06-22

Related posts:

  1. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE REPORT: GENDER VIOLENCE ☠️⚰️DRIVES CONTINUING REFUGEE FLOW TO U.S. — Dishonesty Of Sessions’s Misogynistic Attack In Matter Of A-B- 🤮 Exposed Again! — Yet, Garland Fails To Take Action To End Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Culture @ EOIR, Even As He Also Fails To Insist On The Restoration Of The Rule Of Law @ Our Borders! —  WHY?🤯
  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. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮👎🏻IN NYT OP-ED, FORMER TRUMP DOJ ATTORNEY ERICA NEWLAND ADMITS COMPLICITY! — Having Undermined Democratic Institutions, Sold False Narratives To (Too Often Willing) Federal Judges, & Participated In Racist-Inspired “Dred Scottification” (“Dehumanization”) Of the Other Is Actually a BIG Deal! — So Is The Destruction Of Due Process & Fundamental Fairness In The Immigration Courts (Now, “Clown Courts”🤡, or “America’s Star Chambers”☠️) 
  4. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!

🏴‍☠️ATROCITY RULES! — SCOFFLAW GOP JUDGES ON 5TH CIR. RUN OVER LAW, CHEVRON, BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS, CONSTITUTION TO INFLICT GRATUITOUS ABUSE ON ALREADY ABUSED REFUGEE WOMEN OF COLOR!⚖️👎🏽 — Her Ex-Partner  in El Salvador “grabbed her by the hair, threw her on the sofa, and hit her.” But, Judge Leslie H. Southwick and his misogynist buddies had more abuse and dehumanization in store for her when she asked for legal protection!

Woman Tortured
“Tough noogies, ladies, suck it up and accept your fate,” say Federal Judges Southwick, Jones, and Oldham of the 5th Cir!
Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Trial By Ordeal
No “particular social group” here says 5th Circuit Judge Southwick and his buddies Jones and Oldham. Just a little “good old fashioned trial by ordeal.” 
17th Century Woodcut
Public Realm
Source: Ancient Origins Website
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160

 

Toxic Trio of “America’s Worst & Most Cowardly Judges” sticks it to Salvadoran refugee woman who survived domestic violence in country where femicide is rampant and uncontrolled by corrupt and inept government.

Lopez Perez v. Garland, 5th Cir., 06-02-22, published

https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/20/20-60131-CV0.pdf

BEFORE:  Edith Jones (Reagan), Andrew Oldham (Trump), and Leslie H. Southwick (Bush II) Circuit Judges

OPINION: Judge Southwick

Lopez-Perez argues here that the IJ erred under Matter of A-R-C-G- by concluding that she had not established a nexus between her persecution and her social group. Further, she argues that the IJ incorrectly decided that the government of El Salvador was willing and able to protect her.2 These issues were identified in her Notice of Appeal and are preserved for our review here.

It is true that the IJ concluded that Lopez-Perez had not demonstrated the requisite nexus and further that she had not shown that the government was unable or unwilling to help her. Although the IJ’s analysis was cursory, we nonetheless conclude that his decision must be upheld because remand would be futile. Jaco, 24 F.4th at 406. The IJ intimated that Lopez-Perez’s proffered social groups — “Salvadoran women in domestic relationships who are unable to leave; or Salvadoran women who are viewed as property by virtue of their position in a domestic relationship” — were cognizable.

2 Lopez-Perez also argues for the first time that we should remand to the IJ for consideration in light of intervening decisions in Matter of A-B-, 27 I. & N. Dec. 316 (Att’y Gen. 2018) and Grace v. Whitaker, 344 F. Supp. 3d 96 (D.D.C. 2018), aff’d in part, rev’d in part sub nom. Grace v. Barr, 965 F.3d 883 (D.C. Cir. 2020). We decline this invitation. In addition to the fact that this argument was not raised in her Notice of Appeal, Matter of A- B- has been overruled, see A-B- III, 28 I. &. N Dec. 307 (Att’y Gen. 2021), and this court specifically rejected Grace in Gonzales-Veliz, 938 F.3d at 233–34. See also Meza Benitez v. Garland, No. 19-60819, 2021 WL 4998678, at *4 (5th Cir. Oct. 27, 2021) (explaining this Circuit’s rejection of Grace).

7

Case: 20-60131 Document: 00516340524 Page: 8 Date Filed: 06/01/2022

No. 20-60131

We have disagreed, holding that circularly defined social groups are not cognizable. See id. at 405; accord Gonzales-Veliz, 938 F.3d at 226. Indeed, the social groups identified in Jaco are nearly identical to those claimed by Lopez- Perez: “Honduran women who are unable to leave their domestic relationships . . . and Honduran women viewed as property because of their position in a familial relationship.” Jaco, 24 F.4th at 399. Because the IJ is bound to follow the law of this circuit on remand, he would be forced to conclude that Lopez-Perez’s social groups were not cognizable, thus ending the analysis. See In re Ramos, 23 I. & N. Dec. 336, 341 (BIA 2002) (noting that the BIA is “unquestionably bound” to follow circuit court rulings).

We DENY the petition for review.

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

It’s worthy of note that neither party challenged the propriety of the “particular social group!” So, this panel actually went beyond the issues before them to “stick it to” this abused refugee woman by gratuitously rejecting a well-established formulation of a “particular group” that has been the basis for granting protection in literally thousands of cases going back over two decades. (I note that even before A-R-C-G-, in Arlington the DHS Counsel routinely accepted this formulation of a “PSG” based on the so-called “Martin Memo” from DHS.)

Perhaps, that’s because even this panel acknowledged that the IJ’s “nexus analysis,” the actual ground of denial was “cursory.” In other words, this vulnerable women sought legal protection only to be shafted by poorly qualified Federal Judges at every level — the Immigration Court, the BIA, and the Fifth Circuit!

  • Here’s what Wade Henderson, then President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights had to say about Judge Leslie H. Southwick in opposition to his confirmation:

Given the tremendous impact that federal judges have on civil rights and liberties, and because of the lifetime nature of federal judgeships, no judge should be confirmed unless he or she demonstrates a solid commitment to protecting the rights of all Americans. Because Judge Southwick has failed to meet this burden, we must oppose his confirmation.

https://civilrights.org/resource/opposition-to-the-nomination-of-judge-leslie-h-southwick/

  • Here’s what Michael Barajas of the Texas Observer had to say about Judge Edith Jones:

JONES HAS COMPARED ANYONE WHO BUYS THE ARGUMENT THAT TEXAS LAWMAKERS INTENTIONALLY PASSED A RACIST LAW TO “AREA 51 ALIEN ENTHUSIASTS.”

https://www.texasobserver.org/fifth-circuit-appeals-judge-edith-jones/

  • Here’s what the progressive group “Suit Up Maine” had to say about Judge Andrew Oldham at the time of his confirmation:

ANDREW OLDHAM: Confirmed by the Senate on July 18, 2018. Collins voted YES; King voted NO. Nominated to be federal judge for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Oldham is young, aggressively conservative, and has been involved in controversial litigation that emphasized ideology over the law. Oldham has worked on cases aimed at limiting reproductive rights, challenging the Affordable Care Act, challenging California’s law requiring good cause for concealed carry of firearms, and challenging habeas rights, all of which were ultimately unsuccessful. He defended Texas laws that limited women’s access to abortions that were ultimately determined by the Supreme Court to put “undue burden” on women’s right to choose. His challenge to the Affordable Care Act based on the “Origination Clause” of the Constitution was dismissed by the 5th Circuit for lack of standing. He attempted to barr the use of habeas corpus claims by two plaintiffs, but appeals courts allowed the claims. He also filed an amicus brief on behalf of multiple states (including Maine) using the Second Amendment to challenge a California law requiring good cause for concealed carry of firearms. The 9th Circuit ruled that the Second Amendment does not protect a right to concealed carry of firearms. Additionally, Oldham was involved in challenging the EPA’s greenhouse gas rules under the Clean Air Act, and he defended Texas campaign finance laws that were being challenged by multiple nonprofits and political committees under the First Amendment. His record of unsuccessful attempts to shape the law according to his own conservative ideology suggests that this bias is likely to accompany him to the federal bench.

https://www.suitupmaine.org/extremist-judicial-appointments/

All these fears, criticisms, and predictions of bias have proved to be all too well-founded in the mal-performance of this “Toxic Trio” of far right ideologues.

“Heard (not Amber) on the street:

  • “So the one BIA precedent in the past 20 years that actually recognized a PSG as valid isn’t worthy of Chevron deference, but A-B- was?!!”
  • “No more judicial restraint? Why is DOJ not changing position and or dropping these cases?”
  • “The 5th Circuit decision claims to direct all IJs in the 5th NOT to apply ARCG. And, most 5th Circuit IJs are high deniers anyway, so they don’t exactly need encouragement.”
  • “Perhaps better IJs could think of creative ways to work around the 5th’s decision. But, they don’t exist in the 5th Circuit in Garland’s EOIR.”
  • “It also shows the problems caused by Garland’s failure to “redo” the BIA and the IJ corps on “Day 1.” By now, it’s too late.”

Unqualified, far-right Federal Judges, egged on and supported by Stephen Miller and GOP State AGs, have basically usurped the power of Congress and the Executive to set immigration policies. There is lots of contempt for humanity, racism, misogyny, religious intolerance, and disrespect for true individual liberty driving their vile and illegal agenda.

The Constitutional rights of all Americans and the future of our democracy is at stake here. Will enough folks wake up and resist this takeover before it ‘s too late? TBD!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-03-22

 

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”
  2. ‘SIR JEFFREY” CHASE: Garland’s “First Steps” To Eradicate Misogyny & Anti-Asylum Bias @ EOIR Are Totally Insufficient Without Progressive Personnel Changes — Regulations Will Only Be Effective If Drafted By Progressive Human Rights Experts Of Which There Currently Are NONE @ DOJ Save For Some Immigration Judges In The Field Whose Expertise, Intellectual Integrity, & Moral Courage Has Been Ignored By Team Garland! — There Will Be No Gender, Racial, Or Immigrant Justice @ Justice As Long As Garland Mindlessly Lets “Miller’s Club Denial” Operate @ BIA! — Progressives Must Turn Up The Heat On Garland To Reform & Remake EOIR With Qualified Expert Judges & Dynamic, Independent, Progressive Leaders!
  3. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️JUDICIAL REVIEW — C.A. 2 — Brace Of Bad BIA Bobbles On Basics Brings “Culture Of Denial” Into Focus — Justice Will Continue To Be Illusive @ EOIR 👎🏽 Until Garland Steps Up & Replaces His Fatally Flawed BIA With Real Judges Who Are Progressive Practical Scholars In Immigration, Due Process, Human Rights, With A Firm Commitment To Bringing Racial & Gender Equity To Now-Disgraced Immigration Courts!🤮
  4. NDPA STALWART JASON “THE ASYLUMIST” DZUBOW 🌟 QUOTED IN AP ARTICLE ABOUT REPEAL OF A-B- & L-E-A-!

🗽”My heart is full! My heart is full.” ❤️ — GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC SAVES ANOTHER LIFE!😎

GW Law Immigration Clinic Director Professor Alberto Benítez & Co-Director Paulina Vera

Please join me and Professor Vera in congratulating Immigration Clinic client, R-A-, from Nigeria, and his student-attorneys, Olivia Russo, LinLin Teng, Kennady Peek, Lea Aoun, and Megan Elman. The client’s asylum application was filed on December 3, 2018, his interview at the Asylum Office was on September 3, 2021, and he was granted asylum on May 18, 2022. We received the approval notice yesterday. The above-captioned is what R-A- said upon learning about his asylum grant.

R-A- is a gay man and LGTBQ+ activist. Throughout his entire life, R-A- experienced bullying and threats and had to keep his dating life a secret. However, things got even worse for him once he started an LGTBQ+ online magazine that received international attention. His family disowned him. A former classmate also set him up and he was physically beaten, sexually assaulted, called derogatory names, blackmailed, and outed. Since coming to the U.S., R-A- has continued to work on his online publication and volunteer for other LGBTQ+ initiatives. He hopes to one day attend law school in the U.S.

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

Alberto Manuel Benitez

Professor of Clinical Law

Director, Immigration Clinic

The George Washington University Law School

650 20th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20052

(202) 994-7463

(202) 994-4946 fax

abenitez@law.gwu.edu

THE WORLD IS YOURS…

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

Thanks for the update and for all you and your student attorneys do for American justice! Once again this shows the effect of expert representation of asylum seekers and the critical importance of winning cases at the first possible level, in this case the USCIS Asylum Office. Who knows what might have happened if this had been sent over to the “EOIR roulette wheel,” where life or death justice for immigrants has become a “high-stakes game of chance?” 🎰

Incredibly, three years ago, during the depths of the Trump regime, EOIR Executives actually misdirected agency resources into assembling bogus claims and misinformation intended to minimize and downplay the importance of representation in Immigration Court as well as to cover up the gross violations of due process that had become routine at EOIR. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/05/13/multiple-organizations-call-bs-on-eoirs-lie-sheet-no-legitimate-court-would-make-such-a-vicious-unprovoked-disingenuous-attac/

Perhaps even more remarkably, most of the folks who participated in that “intentional misdirection” remain on the agency payroll under Garland, a number in their same positions.

The lack of an Attorney General who “gets it” (apparently a staple of Dem Administrations) and who is willing to clean house and make the necessary aggressive progressive reforms to restore due process at EOIR and throughout the Immigration bureaucracy is yet another reason why the work of clinics and other battalions of the NDPA remains so critical!  With a Government whose contempt for Due Process is amply illustrated by foot-dragging on Title 42 revocation, bogus, justice-denying “Dedicated Dockets,” and an appellate body that cuts corners while eschewing positive asylum guidance that would save lives, advocates for respondents are the only folks seriously interested in carrying out our Constitution and insuring that the rule of law is honored.

If that sounds like an indictment of Garland’s “leadership” on human rights, racial justice, and immigrant justice, that’s because it is!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-30-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🗽COURT REFORM: GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC STUDENTS WEIGH IN ON ARTICLE I — Emphasize Critical Due Process Need To Entirely Remove AG From Decision-Making Process!
  2. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  3. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  4. 🏴‍☠️THE PROBLEM @ THE BORDER ISN’T THAT BIDEN HAS  SOFTENED TRUMP’S RACIST, WHITE NATIONALIST, SCOFFLAW RHETORIC! — IT’S THAT BIDEN, GARLAND, & MAYORKAS HAVE FAILED TO RESTORE A ROBUST ASYLUM SYSTEM AT LEGAL PORTS OF ENTRY, STAFFED WITH EXPERT ASYLUM OFFICERS & QUALIFIED IMMIGRATION JUDGES WHO WILL GRANT ASYLUM TO THOSE QUALIFIED, END IDIOTIC TRUMP-ERA MISINTERPRETATIONS & MIS-APPLICATIONS OF ASYLUM LAW, AND ARE DEDICATED TO DUE PROCESS FOR ALL! — Administration’s  Misguided “Trump Lite” Approach Continues To Create Human Misery,☠️⚰️ Trash The Law, 🤮 Without Addressing The Real Problems Generated By Years Of “Malicious Incompetence” 🤡🆘 In U.S. Asylum & Refugee Policies!  — Jack Herrera Reports From The Border For Politico!

☠️👎🏽DEM’S CATASTROPHIC DUE PROCESS FAILURE:  AS PREDICTED, GARLAND’S “DEDICATED DOCKETS” ARE “ASYLUM FREE ZONES” TARGETING CHILDREN!🤮

“Floaters”
Garland’s vision of “justice” for refugee children appears to be little different from that of Stephen Miller and his White Nationalist predecessors at DOJ!
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)
Cindy Carcamo
Cindy Carcamo
Immigration Reporter
LA Times

Cindy Carcamo reports for the LA Times: 

BY CINDY CARCAMO STAFF WRITER

MAY 25, 2022 11:56 AM PT

After drug traffickers killed his little brother, William and his 6-year-old son, Santiago, fled Colombia last September to seek asylum in the United States.

Unbeknownst to William, who ended up in Los Angeles with a friend, he and his son immediately became part of a cohort of thousands of families in a “dedicated docket” program that the Biden administration established in 11 cities, including Los Angeles, in May 2021.

In response to a sudden rise of apprehensions last spring of families and children at the Southwest border, Biden promised the accelerated docket would resolve cases “more expeditiously and fairly.” These sorts of programs have existed in various forms under previous administrations; Biden’s program pushes immigration judges to resolve cases in 300 days, significantly shorter than the 4.5-year average of asylum cases in immigration court.

But according to a new Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA Law report, the docket’s fast-track timeline has imposed new hardships on many asylum seekers and created additional obstacles that ultimately lead to higher rates of deportation orders, sometimes based on legal technicalities.

For William — who didn’t want his last name published, fearing reprisal against his family still living in Colombia — the docket’s expeditious nature meant he had only six weeks to secure legal representation before his first court hearing, leaving him to navigate a complex and often confusing system without an attorney. Immigration officials provided him with documents heavy with legal jargon in English. He could read only in Spanish.

In addition, those on the docket are released with “alternatives to detention,” which means they are monitored, either with an ankle bracelet or via a phone application. Immigration officials shackled William with a GPS monitor on his ankle before releasing him and his son.

Ultimately, an immigration judge ordered William and his 6-year-old to be deported in “absentia” when they didn’t show up for their court hearing at U.S. Immigration Court in downtown Los Angeles. In fact, at the time the judge gave the order, William was in the building, but was three floors below the courtroom in a waiting area at the direction of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official. By the time William was told he was in the wrong place, the judge had already ordered the father and son’s removal from the U.S.

In Los Angeles, an estimated 99% of the 449 cases completed on the dedicated docket as of February of this year resulted in removal orders and about 72% of those cases were issued to people who missed their court hearing — “in absentia” — according to a report released Wednesday by the Center for Immigration Law and Policy and Immigrants’ Rights Policy Clinic at UCLA School of Law

Perhaps most striking, the report shows that almost half of those in absentia removal orders are for children, many 6 and younger.

In addition, court data analyzed in the report show that an estimated 70% of people on this particular docket don’t have legal counsel. In contrast, an estimated 33% of those on the Los Angeles court’s non-accelerated docket lack legal counsel.

The nature of the accelerated dockets made it nearly impossible for asylum-seekers to get a fair hearing, the report’s authors concluded. The high absentia rate, the report concluded, is a red flag that the dedicated docket isn’t working as it should.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Cindy’s totally disturbing article at the link!

Sadly, this news will come as no surprise to readers of “Courtside.” Having watched these types of  efforts to co-opt the Immigration Courts as a vehicle of unfair, racially motivated “deterrence” and “enforcement,” I could see that this program was going to be an unmitigated disaster at EOIR, given Garland’s failure to install progressive judicial leadership and human rights and due process expertise into the broken and biased system he inherited from Sessions and Barr.

The NDPA is going to have to “dig in” and fight Garland and Mayorkas every step of the way, at every level of the system, to save as many lives as possible from their disgraceful continuation of a “Miller Lite” White Nationalist, anti-immigrant program of abusing and dehumanizing asylum seekers — most individuals of color and many of them children or other “vulnerable individuals.” 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever! Garland’s dysfunctional, biased, leaderless, soul-less, ethically challenged EOIR, never!

PWS

05-26-22

Related posts:

  1. 🤮👎🏽WASHPOST SLAMS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FOR ABANDONING NEGOTIATIONS WITH FAMILIES WHO SUFFERED CHILD ABUSE BY SESSIONS & MILLER! — “Having condemned a policy that traumatized children and their parents, Mr. Biden now leads an administration fighting in court to deny recompense to those same families.”
  2. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!
  3. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  4. 🤮👎🏽ULTIMATE HIPOCRACY: EVEN AS AMERICA FINALLY CELEBRATES JUNETEENTH HOLIDAY, DRED SCOTT & INSTITUTIONALIZED RACIST DEHUMANIZATION REMAIN REALITIES FOR BLACKS & OTHER MIGRANTS OF COLOR AT EOIR & DHS — Imprisonment Without Trial, Bogus Bonds, Mistreatment In The New American Gulag, Jim Crow “Courts,” No Rule Of Law,  Still Realities For Those Of Color Exercising Legal Rights In Broken System!

POLITICS: KURT BARDELLA @ LA TIMES: WHAT “DEMS DON’T GET” THREATENS AMERICAN DEMOCRACY☠️: “They should do what the Republicans would do given a chance: Refuse to compromise and go on the attack. This difference, of course, is that the Democrats are going after the insurrectionist machine and defending democracy while the GOP is tearing it down.”

 

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=8323fc34-a52b-46ef-9c44-5be1f107c380

By Kurt Bardella

The question I get asked the most as someone who went from being a Republican to a Democrat is: “What’s the biggest difference between the two parties?”

The answer: Every impulse Democrats have is defensive and every impulse Republicans have is offensive.

A report in the Washington Post this week showed these dynamics at play perfectly between Democrats and Republicans on the House Jan. 6 select committee. As the Post described, Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy (Fla.) insisted that the committee focus less on former President Trump and more on the security and intelligence failures that allowed the attack on the Capitol. In response, Republican Vice Chair Liz Cheney (Wyo.) argued that the committee should keep its focus on the former president.

This is the best illustration I have come across that demonstrates how different Republicans and Democrats approach things on a tactical and, I’d say, cellular level.

When Republicans have the reins of power, they do not hesitate to go after the very top. From Barack Obama’s birth certificate to Hillary Clinton’s emails and potentially Hunter Biden’s laptop, the GOP is unapologetic about pursuing witch hunts for political gain.

Democrats, on the other hand, are always pursuing lines of legitimate oversight reluctantly. At times, it feels like they are apologizing for doing the right thing.

I think back to Trump’s first impeachment and the hesitant posture displayed by the Democrats during those proceedings. It was almost as if they were forced into it, regretted that it came to this, and moved as fast as possible to get it over with.

Democrats controlled the House majority but never forced Trump administration officials with firsthand knowledge of the events that were at the center of the impeachment inquiry to testify, such as John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney or Rick Perry, and the Republican-controlled Senate predictably torpedoed any effort to compel them to testify.

History repeated itself during Trump’s second impeachment as firsthand witnesses like Mike Pence, Mark Meadows, Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Rudolph W. Giuliani, etc., were never called to testify. Hillary Clinton, of course, was grilled by the Republican-led Benghazi committee for more than 11 hours.

It’s almost as if Democrats believe there is some prize awaiting them for showing what they would characterize as restraint. There isn’t.

. . . .

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

Read the complete article at the link.

This has been obvious in the Dems’ feckless approach to Immigration, and particularly the Immigration Courts, over the years. 

Without enacting any significant legislation, the GOP instituted an overtly racist/nativist/restrictionist program. They negated existing laws, scorned the Constitution, abrogated log-standing international agreements, and aggressively and blatantly stacked the Federal Judiciary at all levels with far-right zealots. And they have gotten away with it!

Yet, even after successfully running on programs promising a restoration of the rule of law and the Constitution in immigration and human rights, Dems have been from feckless, to timid, to complicit in the GOP’s vile programs. 

The GOP did not hesitate to “stack” the Immigration Court system at all levels with questionably qualified judges who lacked perspective, expertise, and a commitment to due process. The result was a dramatic plunge in the grant rates for asylum seekers, even though conditions in the primary sending countries have continued to worsen dramatically over the years. 

No justification for what the GOP did, and no hesitation or self-doubts about doing it! Amid tons of criticism, they just plowed ahead and did it! They “played to the most extreme elements of their base” — nobody else! They weren’t scared to take extreme actions that most polls showed the majority of American’s didn’t favor!

By contrast, the Dems approach to immigration and human rights policy is a complete mess. And, worst of all, the Immigration Courts and EOIR remain largely as the Trump regime left them. Indeed, the backlog is growing at an astounding rate, as Garland flails and fails to bring on board the “best and brightest” judges and intellectual leaders to reform EOIR into the due-process oriented “model judiciary” that it was once intended to be! 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-22-22

Related posts:

  1. 🤮👎🏽WASHPOST SLAMS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FOR ABANDONING NEGOTIATIONS WITH FAMILIES WHO SUFFERED CHILD ABUSE BY SESSIONS & MILLER! — “Having condemned a policy that traumatized children and their parents, Mr. Biden now leads an administration fighting in court to deny recompense to those same families.”
  2. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!
  3. 🇺🇸⚖️🗽NY TIMES EDITORIAL MAKES THE CASE FOR ARTICLE I — “It’s hard to imagine a more glaring conflict of interest than the nation’s top law-enforcement agency running a court system in which it regularly appears as a party.” — Garland’s Abject Failure To Fix EOIR, Bring In Experts Highlighted, As Constitutional Due Process, Ethical, Human Rights, Racial Justice, Gender Equity, Diversity, & Management Farce @ EOIR Continues Under His Disgraceful Lack Of Awareness & Failure Of Courageous, Progressive Leadership!  — Progressives Can’t Remain Silent, Must “Raise Hell” 👹With Biden Administration About Garland’s Lousy Performance @ EOIR, As He Continues To Stack Immigration “Judiciary” With “Miller Lite Holdovers” 🤮 To The Exclusion of Progressive Experts Who Helped Put Biden Administration In Office!
  4. 🆘🤮IS 11TH CIR. GROWING WEARY OF GARLAND’S SCOFFLAW BIA? —Two Trips To The Circuit, & The BIA Still Violates Own Regulations, Ignores Precedent, Spouts Gibberish While OIL’s Defense Of This Nonsense & Malfeasance By EOIR Raises Serious Ethical Questions! — THAMOTAR v. U.S. ATT’Y GEN. — Garland’s Dysfunctional & Systematically Unjust Courts Undermine OUR Democracy☠️ — Demand An IMMEDIATE End To The Scofflaw Nonsense🤡 🧹 At OUR Justice Department! 🏴‍☠️

🤮INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE/DEFECTIVE COURTS — 3rd Cir. Exposes Massive Due Process Failure @ Garland’s EOIR! — St. Ford v. A.G.

 

https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/211729p.pdf

From Judge Roth’s opinion:

The need for effective assistance of counsel applies in immigration law just as it does in criminal law. Aliens, many of whom do not speak English and some of whom are detained before their immigration hearings, can be particularly susceptible to the consequences of ineffective lawyers.

 

Petitioner Arckange Saint Ford paid a lawyer to represent him in removal proceedings, but Saint Ford’s requests for relief from deportation were denied after the lawyer failed to present important and easily available evidence going to the heart of Saint Ford’s claims. Saint Ford retained new counsel, and his new lawyer asked the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen his case because of his former attorney’s ineffective assistance. The Board declined to do so. Because Saint Ford presents a meritorious ineffective-assistance claim, we will vacate the Board’s decision and remand.

And concurring Judge Ambro had a harsh assessment of the IJ, the BIA, and most of all A.G. Garland, who has been remarkably “tone deaf” about correcting the grotesque expertise and due process problems in his “wholly owned, astoundingly dysfunctional” Immigration “Courts:”

Arckange Saint Ford will get a second shot at canceling the Government’s order of removal—that’s what matters. The majority is remanding because of his former counsel’s deficient performance at Saint Ford’s removal hearing. I agree with that and concur in full.

But former counsel was not the only one who made significant missteps at the hearing. The Immigration Judge did as well. I therefore would have granted Saint Ford’s initial petition for review and remanded on that basis. I write separately to explain these errors in the hope that similar ones will not be made at Saint Ford’s new hearing.

. . . .

Here, though it was reasonable to request Saint Ford corroborate his testimony about the identity and motive of his harassers, the IJ did not tell him what corroboration she needed or give him a chance to present that evidence. There is no indication she engaged in the Abdulai inquiry as required before skipping straight to “hold[ing] the lack of corroboration against [Saint Ford].” Id. (alterations adopted). She went from first to third across the pitcher’s mound. Our Abdulai inquiry is there to ensure these important corners aren’t cut.

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

What’s wrong with this picture? Going on two decades after the enactment of the REAL ID Act, this IJ gets basic corroboration wrong on a life or death asylum case. Then, she compounds the error by failing to apply a two-decades old circuit precedent. The case sails through the BIA. Then, Garland’s OIL defends the indefensible. “Corner cutting” has become institutionalized, permitted, and even encouraged in today’s broken  EOIR!

Meanwhile, it’s left to Circuit Judge Ambro to do the jobs of Garland, his failed BIA, and an IJ badly in need of remedial training! This is an expert tribunal? This is justice? This is due process? Gimmie a break! 

This is squarely on Garland! He enables and defends defective, due-process-denying decisions by EOIR. His grotesque failure to appoint and empower a BIA that will end this nonsense and insist on competent legal performance from ALL Immigration Judges in these life or death cases is disgraceful!

Cases like this also “give lie” to the bogus claims that today’s EOIR is comprised of “experts” who can be trusted to remedy due process defects, model best practices, or (perhaps most absurdly) insure that the rights of all respondents, including the unrepresented, are protected. Why is a Dem Administration running a “due process denial machine?” Why is OIL defending the indefensible? Why is Garland still the AG, despite showing little interest and scant skill in creating a due process/fundamental fairness oriented tribunal at the “retail level” of our staggering justice system! 

You don’t have to be a “rocket scientist” to trace the disrespect for the Constitutional, statutory, and human rights of migrants, largely individuals of color, to hate crimes, misogyny, curtailment of voting rights, and disrespect for equal justice and racial justice throughout our nation. The stunningly poor performance of the U.S. Immigration Courts under Garland also sets an unfortunate tone for the staggering and highly politicized Federal Court system from bottom to top!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-19-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️JUDICIAL REVIEW — C.A. 2 — Brace Of Bad BIA Bobbles On Basics Brings “Culture Of Denial” Into Focus — Justice Will Continue To Be Illusive @ EOIR 👎🏽 Until Garland Steps Up & Replaces His Fatally Flawed BIA With Real Judges Who Are Progressive Practical Scholars In Immigration, Due Process, Human Rights, With A Firm Commitment To Bringing Racial & Gender Equity To Now-Disgraced Immigration Courts!🤮
  2. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🗽COURT REFORM: GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC STUDENTS WEIGH IN ON ARTICLE I — Emphasize Critical Due Process Need To Entirely Remove AG From Decision-Making Process!
  3. 🧑🏽‍⚖️⚖️🗽🇺🇸WHO’S JUDGE IS IT ANYWAY? — The Crisis Of Independence In Our Immigration Courts! — Coming April 7, 2021! — Sponsored By The HNBA! — Don’t Miss It!
  4. 🆘🤮IS 11TH CIR. GROWING WEARY OF GARLAND’S SCOFFLAW BIA? —Two Trips To The Circuit, & The BIA Still Violates Own Regulations, Ignores Precedent, Spouts Gibberish While OIL’s Defense Of This Nonsense & Malfeasance By EOIR Raises Serious Ethical Questions! — THAMOTAR v. U.S. ATT’Y GEN. — Garland’s Dysfunctional & Systematically Unjust Courts Undermine OUR Democracy☠️ — Demand An IMMEDIATE End To The Scofflaw Nonsense🤡 🧹 At OUR Justice Department! 🏴‍☠️

PORTLAND (ME) PRESS HERALD: THE OVERTLY RACIST “GREAT REPLACEMENT LIE” IS A STAPLE OF TODAY’S GOP 🏴‍☠️— The “War On Immigrants” Was Just The Beginning Of A Deadly Racist Campaign To Eliminate Democracy & Diversity!🤮

https://www.pressherald.com/2022/05/17/our-view-great-replacement-lie-runs-deep-in-republican-politics/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Daily+Headlines%3A++RSS%3AITEM%3ATITLE&utm_campaign=PPH+DH+-+TUESDAY+%28HTML%29

Our View: ‘Great replacement’ lie runs deep in Republican politics

Party leaders tolerate radical anti-immigrant ideology, even as it motivates racist massacres like last weekend’s mass shooting in Buffalo.

. . . .

After other racist massacres, we have asked Republican leaders to repudiate this false and dangerous ideology that is taking root in their party and shun anyone who traffics in it. But they never have, and we don’t expect them to do so now. The state party has attempted to appear more friendly to immigrants this year, opening a “Multicultural Center” in Portland. But the party showed no sign of separating itself from anti-immigration figures like Lockman at the recent party convention.

Apparently, the party needs the white-power extremists, just as it needs anti-immigrant, anti-transgender, anti-vaccination and QAnon elements, who may make up only a minority of the electorate but who provide the party with its energy and enthusiasm at election time.

We expect that Republican Party leaders, candidates and officeholders– who know that there is no such thing as a “great replacement” – will continue to keep their mouths shut about the extremists in their party so that they can ride their enthusiasm to control of Congress, the Blaine House and the state Legislature in November.

They are playing with fire, and we are all at risk.

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

Read the full editorial at the link!

“We are all at risk.” Certainly, that has been my message on “Courtside” since its inception in 2016!  

That’s why it was, and continues to be, such a tragedy for our democracy that Democrats, once in power, have failed to aggressively stand up for “immigrants’ rights, due process for all, and drastic, meaningful, Immigration Court reform.”

Immigrant justice = racial justice = equal justice for all. And, the path to equal justice for all begins in the now disgracefully dysfunctional (but potentially due-process-enhancing) U.S. Immigration Courts where aggressive reforms and progressive judges in positions to “make a difference” are long overdue.

Often, the view is “clearer” from up here in Maine!

View of Linekin Bay, Maine
View of Linekin Bay, Maine

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-17-22

Related posts:

  1. CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH @ DHS: ICE DEPORTS BLACKS TO DANGER & POTENTIAL DEATH, MANY WITH NO DUE PROCESS!🏴‍☠️ — Legislators Call On Biden Administration To End Racist Enforcement Policies!
  2. 🇺🇸🏴‍☠️RACE IN AMERICA: CARRIE ROSENBAUM “GETS IT,” EVEN AS MAYORKAS, GARLAND, HARRIS & THE OTHER BIDEN HYPOCRITES PRETEND NOT TO:  “Immigration reform, and a more robust application of the Equal Protection doctrine to all those inside the country, and at our borders, is necessary to move towards meaningfully dismantling systemic racism.”
  3. 🏴‍☠️NO ACCOUNTABILITY: ONE YEAR AFTER PUBLICLY INSTIGATING A FAILED COUP, TRUMP CONTINUES TO OPENLY PLOT TO OVERTHROW DEMOCRACY, AS NEO-FASCIST GOP & ITS TOADY POLITICOS LINE UP BEHIND THE “BIG LIE!” — THE GOP, & THOSE WHO SUPPORT & ENABLE IT, HAS ACTUALLY BECOME THE BIGGEST THREAT TO THE FUTURE OF OUR REPUBLIC!🤮👎🏽🏴‍☠️
  4. 🤮👎🏽WASHPOST SLAMS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FOR ABANDONING NEGOTIATIONS WITH FAMILIES WHO SUFFERED CHILD ABUSE BY SESSIONS & MILLER! — “Having condemned a policy that traumatized children and their parents, Mr. Biden now leads an administration fighting in court to deny recompense to those same families.”

🤮GOP NATIVISTS SAY STARVE ☠️ KIDS TO SOLVE FORMULA SHORTAGE! — “Pro-Life” Seems To End @ Birth!

Starving Children
GOP nativists say starving Brown-skinned kids will solve all problems.
Feed My Starving Children (“FMSC”) — El Salvador
Creative Commons License

Bess Levin @ The Levin Report:

Bess Levin
Bess Levin
Politics & Finance Writer
Vanity Fair

The United States is in the midst of a massive formula crisis affecting some of the most vulnerable members of the population: babies. A perfect storm of numerous factors—pandemic-related supply chain delays; government bureaucracy; the stranglehold that just a few companies hold on the formula market; the closure of one of the biggest formula-manufacturing plants in the country, following the recall of contaminated batches and the death of two infants—has led to a terrifying reality for parents desperate and scrambling to feed their children. People who have the time—and many don’t—are driving long distances only to find empty shelves. Private sellers are reportedly price gouging, charging customers double or triple the normal amount. Unable to find what they need, some parents have been forced to ration formula as they search, often in vain, for more. One woman told The New York Times she recently found herself “freaking out, crying on the floor,” telling her husband, “Dude, I can’t feed our kids, I don’t know what to do.” The solution from Republicans, many of whom claim to be pro-life? Let the babies of undocumented parents starve. Or, at the very least, use the situation to demonize immigrants and score the cheapest of political points.

 

On Wednesday, Florida representative Kat Cammack tweeted a pair of photos, writing, “The first photo is from this morning at the Ursula Processing Center at the U.S. border. Shelves and pallets packed with baby formula. The second is from a shelf right here at home. Formula is scarce. This is what America last looks like.” Later, on Facebook, she claimed to have obtained the photos from a “border patrol agent” that’s been on the job for “30 years.” In the video, the congresswoman generously acknowledged that while all children deserve to eat, it’s not America’s job to feed the babies it detains.

 

“It is not the children’s fault at all,” Commack told her followers. “But what is infuriating to me is that this is another example of the ‘America Last’ agenda the Biden administration continues to perpetuate.” Cammack claims to be pro-life and only supports abortion in extreme cases in the first trimester, according to Fox News. She is cochair of the House Pro-Life Caucus and, naturally, is thrilled about the news that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.

 

One day after Cammack’s suggestion that the migrant children the U.S. government has locked up should be forced to go hungry, Texas governor Greg Abbott jumped on the bandwagon, issuing a joint statement with the National Border Patrol Council: “While mothers and fathers stare at empty grocery store shelves in a panic, the Biden administration is happy to provide baby formula to illegal immigrants coming across our southern border…. Our children deserve a president who puts their needs and survival first—not one who gives critical supplies to illegal immigrants before the very people he took an oath to serve.” Like Cammack, Abbott would like people to believe he is “pro-life,” and signed a bill last September banning abortions after six weeks, leading to a surge of copycat legislation across the country.

 

Also on Thursday, Texas congressman Troy Nehls tweeted, “Baby formula should go to Americans before illegals.” (You can probably guess where Nehls stands on abortion.) And we’re sure it’ll absolutely shock you to hear that Fox News also believes migrant children should be forced to starve to death. As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz notes, a small selection of commentary from the networks’ stars over the past two days has included: “Why are we feeding illegal babies ahead of American babies?” (Jesse Watters); “These are not people that respected our borders, our laws, and our sovereignty. Why wouldn’t all of the pallets go to American families first?” (Sean Hannity); and “Once they get here, the Biden administration will give them food supplies that you can’t buy. Those would include baby formula…. How much more of this are people going to take, you wonder? It’s too humiliating” (Tucker Carlson). Fox, of course, has been a major voice in the antiabortion movement.

 

The rank hypocrisy of claiming to want to protect the “sanctity of life,” and then casually suggesting that some lives are less important than others aside, the entire situation these conservatives are decrying wouldn‘t actually be an issue if the right wasn’t so obsessed with imprisoning people trying to seek a better life. (While detention is not strictly the domain of Republicans— and both Joe Biden and Barack Obama were and remain happy to lock migrants up—Democrats are not the ones out there suggesting we let migrant children starve.) As the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler notes, federal law literally requires the government to provide food— as well as other basic human rights— to the people it detains. If conservatives don’t want to have to follow that rule, they should probably stop demanding the government throw migrants in prison, though we have a small, sneaking suspicion they won’t. Because demonizing people who weren‘t born here is quite clearly their thing, and has been for years. As Jezebel’s Caitlin Cruz wrote on Thursday: “Migrants and immigrants of all ages are the perfect boogeymen. First, they take their jobs; now they want to take food out of babies’ mouths, while also forcing women to carry their pregnancies to term. The hypocrisy is so thick I am choking on it.

 

 

Mitch McConnell: It’s the Supreme Court’s job to issue rulings Americans don’t want

 

One of the most outrageous aspects of the news that the Supreme Court is likely to overturn Roe v. Wade is the fact that—despite what some conservatives would have people believe—a majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases and want to see the landmark decision upheld. But according to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnnell? It’s the high court’s job to issue rulings that fundamentally change life in a way Americans don’t want.

 

Speaking to NPR, the Kentucky lawmaker claimed that the whole point of the Supreme Court is to make decisions that most of the country doesn’t agree with. “For the Supreme Court to on any issue, to reach a decision contrary to public opinion it is exactly what the Supreme Court is about,” he argued. “It’s to protect basic rights, even when majorities are in favor of something else, that happens all the time.” McConnell then chose to bizarrely point to the issue of flag burning, the prohibition of which the court ruled in 1989 was a violation of the First Amendment. “If you took public opinion polls on that issue, people would overwhelmingly support a legislative prohibition of flag burning, but the Supreme Court interpreted that as a violation of the First Amendment freedom of speech.”

 

Of course, letting people burn flags is not the same as taking away the constitutional right of millions of people to make medical decisions about their own bodies, but you’ll have to forgive ole Mitchy, who’s currently trying to make people forget he’s one of the key architects of the impending obliteration of reproductive freedoms. In the interview with NPR, he claimed that his yearslong singular focus on installing conservative judges was not specifically about gutting Roe but keeping out “judicial activist[s],” a conservative smear for judges who believe in things like, for example, women having the same bodily autonomy as men. “My interest in this was unrelated to any particular issue,” he said. Naturally, he also blamed the declining trust in the court not on the appointment of people credibly accused of sexual assault (which they deny), or the revelation that at least one of them is married to someone who tried to have the 2020 election overturned, but on the left.

 

“It’s no wonder that by politicizing the Supreme Court, like the political left has, including the Democratic leader of the Senate—it would affect their approval ratings. That needs to stop,” McConnell said. “The president, who knows better, set up a commission to study the composition of the court. The Supreme Court is not broken and doesn’t need fixing.” Unsurprisingly, the GOP leader refused to say what he would do if Republicans take back the Senate and Joe Biden has an opportunity to nominate another justice, though, of course, it should already be clear. “How that plays out on individual confirmations or legislation, I’m not prepared to announce today, but we are going to see where we can cooperate,” he said, unconvincingly.

 

Rand Paul does another solid for his pal Putin

pastedGraphic.png

Texas continues its war on trans kids

Per NPR:

 

In a unanimous ruling on a controversial issue, the Texas Supreme Court on Friday has cleared the way for the state child welfare agency to resume investigating parents and doctors who provide gender-affirming care for trans youth—actions that Governor Greg Abbott has equated to child abuse. It’s a blow to Texas families with transgender children, some of whom are departing the state or considering moves because of the threat of these investigations.

 

The ruling overturns a lower court’s injunction from March 11, barring state officials from pursuing Abbott’s February 22 directive that instructed the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate “any reported instances” of a range of treatments and procedures, including the administration of hormones and puberty-blocking drugs. The parents of a transgender teen sued to stop the investigations, and in early March, District Judge Amy Clark Meachum issued a temporary order halting an investigation into the parents of the 16-year-old girl. Meachum later issued another order at the statewide level, temporarily blocking all such investigations stemming from Abbott’s directive.

 

In February, after Abbott issued his directive, the White House told The Dallas Morning News: “Conservative officials in Texas and other states across the country should stop inserting themselves into health care decisions that create needless tension between pediatricians and their patients. No parent should face the agony of a politician standing in the way of accessing life-saving care for their child.”

 

Sam Alito’s former Princeton classmate doesn’t think too highly of him

 

Millions of people have that in common with her. Per CNN:

 

Susan Squier, a former classmate of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito at Princeton University and who organized a letter protesting a leaked draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, on Thursday said she was stunned and called it “a greatest hits of misogyny.”

 

“When I read the document—I read all 98 pages of it, and mind you, I’m trained as a scholar of literature and medicine, and I look at nuance. And when I saw that he had smuggled into the document the wording from the Mississippi Gestational Age Act, which, as I understand it—now, I’m not a lawyer—but isn’t even law yet. And he was referring to unborn children rather than fetuses. I was just stunned,” Squier told CNN’s John Berman on New Day. “I mean, I have read a lot of medical history going back for doing literature and medicine, and his is like a greatest hits of misogyny.”

 

“He doesn’t consider the context,” Squier continued. “And this man was a historian at Princeton. He was a double major in history and poli sci. But it is as if he doesn’t believe history actually involves a record of things changing. Instead, it is history as, ‘let’s go back to the Salem witch trials.’ It makes me so angry.”

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

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Of course there is no causal connection between the U.S. nationwide formula shortage and providing the necessities of life to those in the DHS “New American Gulag.”

Nor are these asylum applicants illegally present in the U.S. Most were allowed in to pursue their legal right to asylum, after having been found to have a “credible fear.” Indeed, the “illegality” here is the DHS’s failure to recognize and carry out our legal and moral obligations to give all asylum seekers a fair opportunity to present their claims before impartial expert adjudicators.

Additionally, starving asylum seekers’ children would not in any way address the national shortage of formula. No, it would just be another gratuitous act of cruelty motivated by hate and racism. In other words, standard GOP policies. 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-15-22

Related posts:

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  2. ⚖️🗽MORE TRUTH ABOUT THE SOUTHERN BORDER FROM ONE OF AMERICA’S 🇺🇸 LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERTS: “Real Needs, Not Fictitious Crises Account For The Situation at US-Mexico Border,” By Donald Kerwin Center For Migration Studies
  3. 😰NO HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR FAMILIES IN “THE NEW AMERICAN GULAG”☠️⚰️ — As Kakistocracy Of War Criminals 🤮🏴‍☠️ Departs, Will President Biden Have The Wisdom & Guts To Move Beyond “The Dem Border Alarmists” & Get The Progressive Leaders 🦸🏽‍♂️⚖️ From The NDPA In Place To Bring Due Process & Order To The Border?🗽🇺🇸
  4. 👍🏼🗽⚖️🙂🇺🇸BREAKING: IN A STUNNING REVERSAL, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WILL BEGIN DISMANTLING “REMAIN IN MEXICO” PROGRAM BY SCREENING & ADMITTING THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN AWAITING ASYLUM HEARINGS! — Processing To Begin On Feb. 19!

🤮☠️DUE PROCESS DISASTER IN 4TH CIR! — Trump Judges Strip Individuals In “New American Gulag” ⚰️ Of Constitutional Rights & Human Dignity — Dissenter, Chief Judge Urbanski (WD VA) The Only Panel Member To Follow Constitution!

Gulag
Inside the Gulag
In the fine tradition of Josef Stalin, like US Presidents before him, President Biden finds it useful to have a “due process free zone” to stash people of color.

The case is Miranda v. Garland, and it’s published:

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/201828.P.pdf

Quote from Judge Marvin Quattlebaum’s wrong-headed decision, joined by fellow Trump appointee Judge Julius Richardson:

QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judge:

8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) permits the Attorney General to detain aliens1 pending their

removal hearings. And the Attorney General has adopted procedures for making that discretionary decision. Under those procedures, an alien is given notice and three opportunities to seek release by showing they are neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.

A district court determined that a class of aliens had a likelihood of establishing that those procedures violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. That court then issued a preliminary injunction ordering, on a class- wide basis, that to continue detaining an alien under § 1226(a), the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that an alien is either a flight risk or a danger to the community. The district court also required immigration judges, again on a class-wide basis, to consider an alien’s ability to pay any bond imposed and consider alternatives to detention.

However, under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1), the district court lacked jurisdiction to issue class-wide injunctive relief that enjoined or restrained the process used to conduct § 1226(a) bond hearings. As for the individual relief issued by the district court, the detention procedures adopted for § 1226(a) bond hearings provide sufficient process to

1 We realize that the use of the term “alien” has been the subject of some debate. See e.g., Martinez Rivera v. U.S. Att’y Gen., No. 20-13201, 2021 WL 2836460, at *7 (11th Cir. July 8, 2021). We use the term because Congress used it in the text of the applicable statutes, and the same term is used in the applicable regulations. Our use of the term “alien” is not intended to express any opinion, pejorative or otherwise, about the plaintiffs in this action or others challenging their detention under our immigration laws.

3

satisfy constitutional requirements. For that reason, the aliens are unable to establish a likelihood of success on their due process claims. Nor have they shown that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in their favor or that an injunction is in the public interest. Therefore, we vacate the district court’s preliminary injunction order.

A  better quote from the only Panel Judge to get it right, Chief Judge Michael Urbanski of the WDVA, (an Obama appointee) sitting by designation:

While I am mindful of the executive’s vast authority over immigration, it must still

comport with constitutional safeguards. With this balancing in mind, requiring a detained noncitizen to prove he is not a danger to the community or risk of flight is unconstitutionally onerous on an already vulnerable group of defendants and violates due process. In sum, I respectfully dissent and would affirm the district court’s conclusion that the Due Process Clause requires the government to bear the burden of proof at § 1226(a) detention hearings and remand the case to the district court for consideration of § 1252(f)(1) and the availability of class-wide declaratory relief.

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

Well, at least one judge got it right!

The Round Table ⚔️🛡 filed an amicus brief in support of the respondents in this case. Additionally, Round Table Member Judge Denise Slavin filed an affidavit (cited by the USDJ) before the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. There, Hon. Catherine C. Blake, Senior District Judge, correctly ruled for the respondents. The Trump DOJ appealed, and Garland decided to continue to advance the prior Administration’s anti-due-process position before the Fourth Circuit. 

Gosh, and Dem politicos wonder why it’s hard for them to gin up enthusiasm for the midterms!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-15-22

 

Related posts:

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  2. ☠️⚰️👎🏽BIDEN ADMINISTRATION EMBRACES “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” — SUPREMES LIKELY TO HELP THEM OUT!🤮
  3. ⚖️🗽🇺🇸👨🏻‍⚖️👩‍⚖️NEVER TOO LATE: 22 YEARS AGO, FIVE OF US DISSENTED FROM THE BIA’S “ROLLOVER” TO IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT IN THE “JOSEPH II” BOND CASE — Four Of Us Were “Exiled” For Our Views — Now, The 3rd Circuit Says We Were Right! — Gayle v. Warden!
  4. ☹️HE BEAT THE GOVERNMENT TWICE IN COURT — But, After Three Years In Jail Without Being Charged With Any Crime, Omar Ameen Still Can’t Get A Bond From Garland’s Courts —  How Can A System Where The Prosecutor Makes The Rules & Picks The Judges, Mostly From The Ranks Of Former Prosecutors, Provide The “Fair & Impartial Judging” Required By Due Process?

THE LEVIN REPORT: GOP VIEWS WOMEN AS “SEA TURTLES!”🐢

Bess Levin
Bess Levin
Politics & Finance Writer
Vanity Fair

Bess Levin @ Vanity Fair writes:

As you’ve probably heard by now, within the next few months, the Supreme Court is expected to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the national right to an abortion. If that happens, the medical procedure will be severely restricted or just outright banned in about half the country. A lot of people are extremely upset about this because, among other things, they think the government should not get to treat 50% of the population like second-class citizens, and that pregnant people should be allowed to decide what to do with their own bodies, just like men can chose to, say, have a vasectomy without a bunch of elected officials weighing in.

 

Yet somehow Montana senator Steve Daines doesn’t seem to understand why anyone would be griping about the catastrophic, dystopian situation that is about to befall women in the U.S. In fact, Daines appears to think he’s figured out a huge “gotcha” when it comes to liberals who want to ensure women have control of their own bodies: that “the left” cares more about the eggs of certain reptiles and birds than it does about human women’s eggs. Seriously.

 

Speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday, Daines opined: “If you were to take or destroy the eggs of a sea turtle—now I said the eggs, not the hatchlings that’s also a penalty but the eggs—the criminal penalties are severe: up to a $100,000 fine and a year in prison. Now why? Why do we have laws in place that protect the eggs of a sea turtle or the eggs of eagles? Because, when you destroy an egg, you’re killing a preborn baby sea turtle or preborn baby eagle. Yet when it comes to a preborn human baby, rather than a sea turtle, that baby will be stripped of all protections in all 50 states, under the Democrats’ bill that we’ll be voting on tomorrow. Is that what the America the left wants?” (Daines was referring to the Women’s Health Protection Act, legislation that would codify the constitutional right to an abortion into federal law, which the Senate failed to pass on Wednesday.)
pastedGraphic.png

Curiously, at no point in this speech lamenting that human women have too many rights compared to reptiles and birds, did Daines—who actually loves killing living things—acknowledge that humans do not lay eggs, that human embryos stay inside the mother until they are born, and that people are not endangered species. Must’ve been a mere oversight.

 

Senator Ron Johnson tells pregnant people to suck it up and drive out of state for an abortion if they want one

 

In the likely event that Roe v. Wade is gutted, countless lives will be destroyed, whether it‘s that of the rape victim who will have no choice but to give birth to her attacker’s kid, the woman living in poverty who can’t afford to raise a child, the literal child who has been impregnated by an abusive family member, or the person who simply had a different set of plans for their life that did not involve becoming a parent. Not to mention, the pregnant person who decides they have no choice but to undergo an illegal, risky abortion rather than be forced to give birth. But according to Republican senator Ron Johnson? None of this is a big deal and people are being hysterical over nothing.

 

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, the Wisconsin lawmaker, who is up for reelection this year, said he doesn’t expect abortion to come up on the campaign trail because it’s basically a nonissue. “It might be a little messy for some people, but abortion is not going away,” Johnson said, an absolutely bizarre choice of words—not to mention, sentiment—given the history of women bleeding out and dying after unsafe abortions. He blithely added that though he doesn’t expect a 19th-century Wisconsin law banning abortions except to save the mother will go into effect if Roe is reversed, pregnant people can always go to neighboring Illinois if they want to obtain the medical procedure.

 

As so many people have noted, the reversal of Roe—and ensuing bans in numerous states—would disproportionately impact poor women and women of color. Those are people that, in fact, can’t necessarily just drive to Illinois (or the neighboring state that applies to them) because they can‘t get the time off of work, or don’t have a car, or have other children at home they can’t be away from for the night—or any of the many other reasons that Johnson apparently can’t think of. As for the idea that the 1849 Wisconsin law banning abortions won’t stand, Johnson is reportedly likely wrong about that too. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote last week, “Republican lawmakers for decades have made sure to preserve the 1849 ban in hopes that Roe would someday be overturned,” and the Republicans running for governor in the state “have [all] strongly opposed abortion and would be unlikely to sign legislation loosening the ban.”

 

Johnson, of course, has a long history of extremely shitty takes. As one of the most vocal proponents of Trump’s “big lie,” he repeatedly downplayed January 6, variously claiming that the attempted coup wasn’t “an armed insurrection,” even though that’s exactly what it was; that the rioters were not actually Trump supporters but “provocateurs” impersonating Trump supporters; and that he was never once worried for his life because the mob that stormed the Capitol were there to overturn an election, not protest for equal rights for Black people. He’s also a major purveyor of COVID misinformation, dispenses anti-vaccine rhetoric, and was temporarily kicked off of YouTube for promoting bogus cures. In 2010, he opposed a Wisconsin bill that would have eliminated the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse victims to bring lawsuits. And four years later, he reportedly did not tell the “police, Senate or Wisconsin officials that a former aide was allegedly sexually assaulted by a state lawmaker.”

 

So yeah, it’s not surprising that he has no earthly clue why any of this is a big deal, but that doesn’t make it any less crappy. “I just don’t think this is going to be the big political issue everybody thinks it is, because it’s not going to be that big a change,” he told the Journal, like only the absolutely most ignorant elected official can.

 

Nothing to see here, just Trump’s election coconspirator telling Pennsylvania to trash absentee ballots so it’d look like Trump won

 

Apparently John Eastman saw no potential issues here, hence putting the plot in actual writing. Per Politico:

 

Attorney John Eastman urged Republican legislators in Pennsylvania to retabulate the state’s popular vote—and throw out tens of thousands of absentee ballots—in order to show Donald Trump with a lead, according to newly unearthed emails sent in December 2020, as Trump pressured GOP lawmakers to subvert his defeat. This recalculation, he posited in an exchange with one GOP state lawmaker, “would help provide some cover” for Republicans to replace Joe Biden’s electors from the state with a slate of pro-Trump electors, part of a last-ditch bid to overturn the election results.

 

Per the exchange, Eastman suggested that GOP legislators could simply cite their concerns with Pennsylvania’s absentee ballot procedures and then use historical data to “discount each candidates’ totals by a prorated amount based on the absentee percentage those candidates otherwise received.”

 

“Having done that math, you’d be left with a significant Trump lead that would bolster the argument for the Legislature adopting a slate of Trump electors—perfectly within your authority to do anyway, but now bolstered by the untainted popular vote,” Eastman wrote in a Dec. 4, 2020 email to Pennsylvania Rep. Russ Diamond. “That would help provide some cover.”

 

The suggestion to simply throw out ballots like that was a very cool, very legal thing to do came out of a batch of emails obtained via public records requests by the Colorado Ethics Institute, which reportedly sent them to the January 6 committee. Neither the panel nor Eastman’s attorney responded to Politico’s requests for comment. Back in March, a federal judge said that Trump and Eastman “most likely” committed felonies when they tried to overturn the results of the 2020. “The illegality of the plan was obvious,” Judge David Carter wrote. Even more so now!

 

Guy whose entire shtick is to ban things from the classroom now requiring lessons about the harms of communism in the classroom

 

We’re going to guess that no, Ron DeSantis does not see the irony here. Per The Guardian:

 

Discussions of gender identity and sexual preference are banned in many Florida classrooms because of governor Ron DeSantis’s “don’t say gay” law, alongside dozens of math textbooks blocked for “prohibited topics.” Now the Republican who has loudly condemned what he sees as the “indoctrination” of young people has made another subject compulsory: students must receive at least 45 minutes’ instruction every November about the “victims of communism.”

 

In a ceremony Monday at Miami’s iconic Freedom Tower, where tens of thousands of Cuban immigrants fleeing Fidel Castro’s revolution were admitted into the US between 1962 and 1974, DeSantis signed into law House Bill 395, designating 7 November as Victims of Communism Day…. The instruction will begin in the 2023-2024 school year, DeSantis said, and will require teaching about Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro, as well as “poverty, starvation, migration, systemic lethal violence, and suppression of speech” endured under their leaderships in the Soviet Union, China and Cuba respectively.

 

Mispronouncing the name of Che Guevara as “Che Kay-Farra,” DeSantis used the ceremony to yell at students who wear T-shirts with the revolutionary leader’s image on it. “You can see at a college campus students flying the hammer and sickle from the old Soviet Union flag, you will see students that will have T-shirts with Che Guevara, you will see students that will idolize people like Mao Zedong,” he said, according to The Guardian. “That to me, this speaks of a tremendous ignorance about what those individuals represented and the evils that communism inflicted on people throughout the world…. While it’s fashionable in some circles to whitewash the history of communism, Florida will stand for truth and remain as a beachhead for freedom.”

 

Earlier this year, Florida banned public schools and private businesses from inflicting “discomfort” on white people during lessons or training about discrimination, a ridiculous law that grew out of the conservative hysteria over critical race theory. Florida, of course, now also prohibits teachers from discussing gender identity or sexual orientation in grades k–3 (and, critics say, beyond).

 

Strangely, DeSantis has not said anything about introducing a bill requiring schools to teach students about the history of petty tyrants.

 

Rep. Elise Stefanik tries her hand at comedy

pastedGraphic_1.png

 

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

Read the full “Levin Report” here:

If you would like to receive the Levin Report in your inbox daily, click here to subscribe.

If you would like to share tonight’s newsletter, links to these stories can be found here and here. Thanks for supporting the LR!

“Dehumanization” by the GOP started with the “war on immigrants” during the Trump Administration, has been enabled and furthered by GOP-appointed righty judges (see, e.g., “Dred Scottification”), and now threatens the legal and human rights of all groups that the GOP doesn’t like. That’s a big list, folks, and many of YOU and those you care about are likely on it! ☠️ 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-12-22

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  3. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️🆘NY TIMES WITH THE TRUTH: A VOTE FOR TRUMP IS A VOTE AGAINST AMERICA! — The Worst President In History, Not To Mention That Beyond Being Totally Incompetent & Unqualified, A Truly Horrible Human Being With NO Redeeming Values!
  4. 🤮NO PEACE ON EARTH GOODWILL TOWARD MEN (WOMEN, OR ESPECIALLY CHILDREN) FROM REGIME OF “BAD SANTAS” 🦹🏿‍♂️🎅🏻— Illegally Separated Families Continue To Suffer Irreparable Trauma, 😰 Volunteer Groups 😇🗽⚖️ Left To Pick Up Pieces — A Reminder That Defeated Regime Has Mocked, Disparaged, & Trashed Christ’s Values & Assaulted Humanity Over Four Christmases!🏴‍☠️🤮☠️⚰️👎🏻

“CROCK”-ODILE 🐊 TEARS 😂: Incredibly, Thomas Bemoans Lack Of Respect For Institutions That He, Ginny, & Their Far-Right Extremist Buddies Helped Destroy!🤮 — “[T]his is a guy who has spent a lifetime trying to take a battering ram to all the Supreme Court major precedents!”

Mary Papenfuss
Mary Papenfuss
Contributor
HuffPost

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/clarence-thomas-accept-roe-v-wade-bullied-live-with-critics_n_6276e62ce4b0b7c8f084fe16

Mary Papenfuss reports for HuffPost:

Critics were stunned Saturday after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas scolded Americans for not accepting controversial rulings — after his own wife battled against the results of a legitimate presidential election.

Thomas chided a distraught public in comments Friday at a judicial conference in Atlanta following the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would gut Roe v. Wade and a half-century of the right to an abortion.

He complained that Americans are “addicted” to results they want — while “not living with” rulings they oppose. He warned that the court will not be “bullied” in the face of protest. Declining respect for the law and institutions, Thomas warned, “bodes ill for a free society.”

Thomas detractors were agog. Not only has his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, refused to “live with” the presidential election, he was the sole Supreme Court justice to vote that former President Donald Trump should not have to release his White House documents to the House committee investigating last year’s insurrection.

Thomas has also repeatedly attempted to rip up legal precedence set by the court.

“The irony is so thick you wonder if it’s maybe a Clarence Thomas impersonator,” former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman said on MSNBC Saturday.

“Among other things, this is a guy who has spent a lifetime trying to take a battering ram to all the Supreme Court major precedents” of law, Litman added. “He’s now saying people don’t respect the law enough. That’s even leaving aside all the controversies he has engendered, as has his wife. It’s just … remarkable.”

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link.

There is no end to the hypocrisy and subversiveness of the Thomas Clan and the far-right.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-09-22

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SOUTHERN BORDER: BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FINALLY REVEALS PLAN FOR LIFTING TITLE 42 — Long On Enforcement, Deterrence, Punishment, Notably Short On Humanitarian Reforms, Positive Legal Guidance, Cooperation With NGOs, States, & Localities Who Welcome Refugees & Asylum Seekers !

Here it is:

https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-04/22_0426_dhs-plan-southwest-border-security-preparedness.pdf

Unfortunately, you have to get “down to the fine print” (page 13 of 20) find the paragraph that should be the “centerpiece of restoring the rule of law” — a functional legal  asylum processing at ports of entry that would encourage refugees to present themselves there for fair and humane processing rather than seeking irregular entry with the help of smugglers.

Port of Entry Processing

The imposition of the Title 42 public health Order severely restricted the ability of undocumented noncitizens to present at POEs for inspection and processing under Title 8. The closure of this immigration pathway for much of the time Title 42 has been in effect has driven people between POEs at the hands of the cartels. Returning to robust POE processing is an essential part of DHS border security efforts. Beginning in the summer of 2021, DHS restarted processing vulnerable individuals through POEs under Title 8, on a case-by-case basis for humanitarian reasons, pursuant to the exception criteria laid out in CDC’s Title 42 Order. These efforts, which we have recently expanded, offer individuals in vulnerable situations a safe and orderly method to submit their information in advance and present at POEs for inspection and subsequent immigration processing under Title 8. We also have enhanced Title 8 POE processing through the development of the CBP One mobile application, which powers advanced information submission and appointment scheduling prior to an individual presenting at a POE. We will make this tool publicly available and continue to expand its use to facilitate orderly immigration processing at POEs.

13 of 20

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

The failure of Garland to appoint a new, expert BIA committed to due process and providing fair, practical positive guidance on the generous application of asylum law foreshadowed by INS v. Cardoza Fonseca a quarter of a century ago, but never realized in practice, is likely to become a millstone around the Administration’s neck. There is no substitute for due process and fundamental fairness. The current dysfunctional, mismanaged, and inappropriately staffed EOIR is not capable of providing the necessary leadership, consistency, and accountability.

Also, in light of U.S. District Judge Robert Summerhays’s  “off the wall” decision in Arizona v. CDC, it’s not clear that Title 42 will ever be lifted. 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-29-22

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