☠️⚰️POLITICOS, MEDIA CONTINUE TO GET THE BORDER WRONG — By Mary Giovagnoli In MS — “For the present, we must stop pretending that the U.S. can pick and choose when people will leave their countries and ask for asylum at our border.”👎🏻

Mary Giovagnoli · Senior Legal Counsel, Strategy and Special Programs at Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)
PHOTO: Medium.com

The Misery Trump Left at the Border Is Finally Being Revealed – Ms. Magazine
. . . .

Trump supporters and hangers-on boast the “success” of Trump’s immigration policies, demonstrated by the supposed drop in illegal entries. But this is merely an “out of sight, out of mind” approach to managing a very real problem. It was a giant sleight of hand which hid the actual number of people seeking entry into the U.S. Biden’s policies have pulled back the curtain and like so many other aspects of Trump’s administration, it is clear that the claims of success are nothing more than fantasies.

And yet the Biden administration is not off the hook. While it did agree to permit unaccompanied children to enter the U.S. despite the Title 42 ban, it did so following a preliminary injunction issued by a federal court last November. DHS continues to expel families, as well as single men and women, under the existing Title 42 order.

. . . .

Despite the clear moral and legal imperatives to stop Title 42 expulsions, the Biden administration is clearly worried that returning to pre-pandemic processing of asylum seekers will overwhelm the system. It is also clear that they fear a political backlash if critics are able to characterize the border as out of control.

Taking these final steps takes courage and political will. Those of us who support the rights of asylum seekers have to let the administration know that doing the right thing will not tarnish its reputation and that we will work even harder to ensure that making good on humane immigration policy is not political suicide.

Protecting asylum seekers is a woman’s issue of the first order. We must encourage and challenge both the administration and Congress to live up to U.S. obligations. We must turn out at the voting booth to support candidates and elected officials who act on behalf of asylum seekers. And we must push back, every way we can, against those who hope to weaponize the border in a callous effort to turn following the law into a political liability.

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

Read Mary’s complete article at the link. Many thanks to Judge Alex Manuel of the ABA’s National Conference of the Administrative Law Judiciary for passing this along.

Surprisingly, “forced migration,” is exactly what it says it is: “FORCED migration” — not optional! As I have pointed out before: “We can diminish ourselves as nation (and are doing so), but it won’t stop human migration.”

Refugees come, because that’s what refugees do. They often come when the world is in crisis, because that’s one of the primary reasons why refugees flee. They seldom come in an orderly manner because flight to save your life doesn’t lend itself to “regularity.” How many Jews perished in Nazi-controlled areas before and during WWII waiting for visas that were never going to come?

And, what brings refugees to our borders actually has little to do with inane statements of politicos, bureaucrats, border cops, and the media. One of the main consequences of illegally “closing the border to asylum seekers” is that large numbers simply enter between ports of entry. Those who used to turn themselves in to the Border Patrol are encouraged by our short-sighted policies and unwillingness to follow our own laws just to keep on going.

We’d certainly do much better if we “canned” all the Trump-era illegal, racist nonsense, reopened border ports to asylum seekers, and encouraged them to apply there or in locations abroad. But, to make that happen we would also have to review their claims in a timely, fair, and humane manner — not “rocket science,” yet something that largely has eluded our nation, particularly since 2014.

It’s achievable. But not without much better leadership coming from experts who actually know how to deal with refugee situations in a humane and effective manner. Failed bureaucrats and grandstanding politicos, those who usually “drive the train heading for a wreck,” can’t do the job! That’s been proved time and again! Why do we insist on repeating all our mistakes? Cruelty and threats simply aren’t effective.

To emphasize Mary’s concluding point about women’s concerns, Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions and Neo-Nazi Stephen Miller made misogyny a focus of their vicious attack on people of color seeking asylum. It started with Sessions’s atrocious decision ignorantly and unlawfully targeting women refugees in Matter of A-B- and continued through Miller’s now-enjoined effort to unlawfully eradicate gender-based asylum grants. Never mind that women form the largest group of clearly identifiable refugees in the world and that femicide and violence against them driven by sexual antipathy and issues of control are rampant worldwide, particularly in the Northern Triangle.

But, a large problem here is that more than two months into the Biden Administration, Attorney General Merrick Garland has yet to repudiate Matter of A-B- and the other debilitating racist and misogynist “precedents” and grotesquely illegal anti-asylum policies of Sessions and Barr. Worse yet, he has neither stood up for the reinstatement of asylum laws and compliance with Constitutionally-required due process at the border, nor has he removed and replaced “his” Board of Immigration Appeals and taken steps to curb those of “his” Immigration “Judges” who are still engaged in furthering the Sessions/Barr White Nationalist, misogynist, anti-asylum agenda!

Interesting lack of action from a distinguished former Federal Judge who several months ago claimed great gratitude that his ancestors were given refuge from harm by the U.S. Is there some reason that those people of color and others now arriving at our borders and claiming legal protections under our laws are less deserving of fair, generous, and humane treatment?

Woman Tortured — Judge Garland’s View Of Proper Treatment of Women Seeking Asylum?
Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-03-21

BIDEN PLAN TO REFORM ASYLUM SYSTEM @ THE BORDER MAKES SENSE, BUT ONLY IF CORRECTLY IMPLEMENTED WITH THE RIGHT PERSONNEL — The Devil 👿 Is In The Details & Major Progressive Judicial Reforms @ EOIR ⚖️ Are A Prerequisite! — “Early Returns” On Actually Solving Immigration/Human Rights/Due Process Problems From “Team Biden” Not Encouraging!☹️

Frranco Ordonez — Franco Ordonez
White House Correspondent
NPR
PHOTO: Twitter

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/01/982795844/biden-administration-considers-overhaul-of-asylum-system-at-southern-border

Franco Ordonez reports for NPR:

President Biden’s top advisers promise “long-needed systemic reforms” to address a backlog of more than 1 million asylum cases in the immigration court system, which often keeps people applying for asylum waiting years to resolve their cases. That could mean some big changes to how asylum cases are processed at the southern border.

The plan the Biden administration is considering to speed up the process would take some asylum cases from the southern border out of the hands of the overloaded immigration courts under the Department of Justice and instead handle them under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, where asylum officers already process tens of thousands of cases a year, two people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to speak about administration plans told NPR exclusively.

Those familiar with the discussions say one outcome could be discouraging unauthorized migration. That’s because those who can argue for a certain fear of persecution are able to gain temporary residence and often a work permit as they wait out their cases.

. . . .

Advocates say they welcome a more efficient system, provided changes are not used as a way to expedite removals as the Trump administration did.

Eleanor Acer of Human Rights First says there are a host of reasons to allow asylum officers to conduct the first set of interviews and reduce the numbers, but she says it’s important that applicants have a chance to appeal to the court before being removed.

“The massive backlog must be dealt with,” she said. “But the answer to that problem is not to deprive asylum seekers of due process and a fair hearing, or to weaponize the asylum process to try to deter other people from seeking U.S. protection.”

The Biden administration has already ended two of the Trump administration’s programs, the Prompt Asylum Case Review and the Humanitarian Asylum Review Program, that were designed to quickly return Mexican and Central American asylum seekers suspected of having invalid claims.

POLITICS

House Passes 2 Bills Aimed At Overhauling The Immigration System

Department of Homeland Security officials declined to discuss plans to shift border cases to the asylum division.

But an administration official said last week they are now working on a number of policies and regulations to create “a better functioning asylum system.”

That includes establishing refugee processing in the region and strengthening other countries’ asylum systems.

Biden also resurrected the Central American Minors program that reunited children with parents who are in the United States legally.

The Biden administration is now seeking to “pick up the pieces” after the Trump administration, with a different set of policies that abide by U.S. law but also international obligations, Meissner said.

“We need to have access to asylum,” Meissner said, “but it needs to be done in a way that can be prompt and fair, not in a way that leads to waits of years and years and court backlogs.

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

Read the complete article at the link.

Why it could work:

Granting relief at the lowest level of the system is cost effective;
It’s easier to hire, train, and assign Asylum Officers than Immigration Judges;
Immigration Court time should be reserved for those cases where there is a real issue as to whether relief can be granted.

Why it probably won’t work:

Leadership is critical. Right now, there are only a few experts in government with the knowledge, proven leadership ability, organizational skills, and courage to lead this program.
- Two obvious names that come to mind are Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor, currently USCIS Chief Counsel, and Judge Dana Leigh Marks, one of the “founding mothers” of U.S. asylum law and pioneer of the well-founded fear standard. Both are past Presidents of the NAIJ. Neither has yet been tapped for this assignment.
- By contrast, there are a number of experts in the private/NGO sector who could lead this effort. Obvious choices would be Judge Paul Grussendorf, former Immigration Judge, Asylum Officer, UN Representative, and professor; Professor Karen Musalo, Director, Center for Refugee & Gender Studies, UC Hastings Law; Eleanor Acer, Senior Director, Refugee Protection, Human Rights First (quoted in this article); Professor Michele Pistone, Creator and Founder of the VIISTA asylum training program at Villanova Law; Professor Phil Schrag, Co-Director of the CALS Asylum Clinic at Georgetown Law and author of Baby Jails and the upcoming release The End of Asylum; Michelle Mendez, Director, Defending Vulnerable Populations at CLINIC; or Judge Ilyce Shugall of our Round Table. But, nobody of that caliber has been tapped either.
- Without creative, dynamic, expert leadership, and a different approach to personnel, the program will be yet another bureaucratic failure. In case nobody has noticed, after four years of never ending abuse, gross mismanagement, and intentional misdirection by the Trump kakistocracy, the USCIS Asylum & Refugee program is also in shambles — demoralized, disorganized, leaderless, incredibly backlogged. An obvious untapped source is retired Asylum Officers and Adjudicators who could be brought back on a limited-term basis, intensively trained by experts from a “Better EOIR,” and who often are in a position to travel frequently and on short notice.

It’s not about deterrence. Already, this article speaks of “possible deterrent effect.” WRONG! The purpose of an asylum adjudication system is to provide fair, timely, generous adjudications of asylum eligibility in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Refugee Act of 1980, the U.N. Convention and Protocol on which it is based, and the due process clause of our Constitution. We have never had such a system, which inevitably would be more orderly and efficient, but also result in many more grants.
- The main reason why we don’t currently have a functioning asylum system, and never have had the system that asylum seekers need and deserve, is that the system is at the mercy of a bogus Executive-controlled “court” system that time and time again has been compromised by politicos seeking who use it as an enforcement tool rather than an independent court of justice.
  - In 2014, the last year that I taught Refugee Law & Policy at Georgetown Law I “graded” the U.S. Asylum system at “B-.” Not as good as it should be, but not as bad as it could be.
  - Now I’d give it an “F.” Completely dysfunctional, highly arbitrary, and a tool of institutionalized racism and White Nationalism.
- The system is ineffective as a deterrent. There is no known basis to believe that quick and often arbitrary and wrongful “rejections” are an effective deterrent. That’s particularly true because rejections are seldom explained in a reasonable, understandable manner. So, to the extent that there is a “message” it’s that you got the wrong officer or the wrong judge on the wrong day or that the U.S. legal system is inherently unfair and should be avoided by hiring a smuggler to get you to the interior of the U.S. where, as a practical matter, you have a better chance of obtaining “de facto refuge.”
- The only “efficiency and leverage” that comes from the Asylum Officer system is in quickly identifying and consistently granting a substantial number of applications. That, and only that, does actually relieve the Immigration Court system of unnecessary cases. Otherwise, “non-grants” still have to go to the Immigration Courts for de novo review. I probably granted the majority of asylum cases “referred” from the Asylum Office. That leaves plenty of room to believe that a better trained and operated system with some positive guidance and effective supervision by better Immigration Judges and a truly expert BIA would achieve substantially higher grant rates and higher efficiency at the Asylum Office, thereby keeping many cases out of court and speeding the process for asylees to obtain permanent residence and eventually U.S. citizenship!

Some assumptions appear invalid. This article also repeats the unproven assumption that a fair, just, and efficient asylum system would result in rejection of the majority of cases. I doubt that.
- Prior to the Trump disaster, approximately 75-80% of asylum applicants at the Southern Border passed “credible fear.” That the majority of them never achieved asylum was due less to the lack of merit in their claims than to factors such as: 1) lack of a system to match asylum seekers with qualified counsel; 2) wrong-headed anti-asylum precedents from the BIA that were specifically directed against asylum seekers from Latin America — basically institutionalized racism in the guise of “enforcement;” 3) poor selection, training, and motivation of Immigration Judges some of whom simply did not treat asylum seekers fairly, nor were they given any incentive to do so.
- I granted asylum or other protection to many refugees from the Northern Triangle. I probably could have granted twice that number had the BIA precedents actually fairly and reasonably interpreted asylum law to specifically cover gender-based claims and claims arising from persecution by gangs basically operating “in lieu of government authorities” in most of the Northern Triangle.
- Additionally, an honest interpretation of the CAT by the BIA would have allowed life-saving protection to be extended to many others who lacked nexus but had a high probability of torture with Government acquiescence upon return. I believe that a return to the original Acosta-Kasinga line of asylum analysis and adoption of proper CAT interpretations along the lines set forth by the (exiled) dissenting judges in Matter of J-E- would result in grants of some type of protection (asylum, withholding, or CAT) in the majority of Southern Border cases coming from the Northern Triangle that passed credible fear or reasonable fear.
- Asylum, along with refugee status, is a key form of legal immigration to the U.S. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s NOT a “loophole.” It’s the law! Studies by groups of experts such as CMS have shown the huge benefits that refugees confer on the U.S. I have no reason to believe that asylum seekers as a group are any different.
- As long as we keep treating the reality of human migration and the strengths and humanity of asylum seekers as a negative rather than a positive, we will continue to fail, as we have for decades, to fully comply with either our own laws or international conventions.

A broken, dysfunctional, unfair EOIR will continue to drag American justice down. There must be de novo review of denials by EOIR and far, far more competent review and direction in the review of credible fear denials by EOIR. A better BIA could actually set binding precedents on “credible fear” and “reasonable fear.”
- Currently, EOIR is incapable of producing either consistently fair results (particularly for asylum seekers) or the inspired legal scholarship and leadership for the asylum system to be functional and held accountable. It’s going to require all new leadership, an all new BIA, elimination of all of the Trump-era precedents that impede fairness for asylum seekers, new merit-based selection criteria for Immigration Judges, professional administration from judicial experts, and an immediate slashing of the largely self-created “backlog” of 1.3 million cases by closing and removing from the docket every case more than a year old that doesn’t relate to a priority (most are folks who would be covered by Biden’s legalization program anyway; many are eligible for relief that USCIS could grant) to get EOIR in a position to provide the necessary legal guidance and system accountability for the Asylum Office. The absurdist notion that we could or would want to remove every one of the 10-11 million undocumented residents (many performing essential services that propped us up through the pandemic) is one of the “big lies” that has prevented rational reforms of our immigration system.
- In plain terms, EOIR needs an immediate “rebuild” with a new progressive, humanitarian judiciary of experts. There is no early indication that Judge Garland either understands that “mission-critical” need or has a plan for achieving it.

As we say in the business the “devil is in the details.” Right now, I can see neither the details nor the leadership in place or “in the pipeline” to solve the debilitating problems in our asylum system that actually are undermining the entire U.S. justice system.

Biden could fix it. But, I wouldn’t count on it. That means that the only real fix in the offing will be for the NDPA to force the Administration to “get it right” through aggressive, never-ending litigation as well as continuing to seek better legislators. Highly inefficient. Yet, sometimes it’s the only way to get the attention of those in power.

If nothing else, we’ll continue to make an important historic record of the cruelty and stupidity with which the current asylum system is being administered. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can always choose to follow our “better angels.” It just takes the courage and the good judgement to get the right folks in the right jobs to make it happen.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-01-21

🤮☠️⚰️👎🏻HISTORY OF HATE: Misogyny, Vilification, Racist Hate Directed At Asian Women Has Deep Roots in U.S. Law! — Jessica Pearce Rotondi in History!

Jessica Pearce Rotondi
American Freelance Writer & Editor
PHOTO: Facebook

Before the Chinese Exclusion Act, This Anti-Immigrant Law Targeted Asian Women
The 1875 Page Act was one of the earliest pieces of federal legislation to restrict immigration to the United States.
Jessica Pearce Rotondi Mar 19, 2021
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 is often seen as the first major law to restrict immigration in the United States. But there is an earlier law that was used to effectively prevent Chinese women from immigrating to the United States: The Page Act of 1875.
Chinese Immigration in America
The first Chinese immigrants began arriving in the United States in the 1850s. Many were fleeing the economic consequences of The Opium Wars (1839-42, 1856-60), when the British fought to keep opium trafficking routes open in defiance of China’s efforts to stop the illegal trade. An ensuing series of floods and droughts drove members of the lower classes to leave their farms and seek new work opportunities abroad.
When gold was discovered in California in 1848, more and more Chinese immigrants traveled to the West Coast to join the Gold Rush. Some worked on American farms or in San Francisco’s growing textile industry. Others were employed as laborers with the Central Pacific and Transcontinental railroads—railroads which would speed up Westward expansion and facilitate
https://www.history.com/news/chinese-immigration-page-act-women?c…21-0329-03292021&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-inside-history-2021-0329 Page 1 of 7

Before the Chinese Exclusion Act, This Anti-Immigrant Law Targeted Asian Women – HISTORY 3/29/21, 11:35 PM
the movement of troops during the Civil War.
Despite their pivotal role in building the infrastructure of the United States, racism directed at Chinese immigrants was a constant from the moment they arrived on American shores.

. . . .

Both European and Asian immigrants came to the United States seeking to improve their economic well being, explains Dr. Melissa May Borja, assistant professor in the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan. But Chinese immigrants were regarded as a bigger threat.
“They were seen as a racial threat to a pure white America. They were seen as an economic threat to free white labor. They were depicted as a disease threat—a lot of anti-Chinese rhetoric hinged on portraying Chinese people as filthy and disease-ridden. They were also seen as a religious and moral threat as heathens who threatened a Christian America.”

. . . .

Chinese women were perceived as a particular type of threat: A sexual one. “They were stereotyped as promiscuous, as prostitutes,” says Borja.
While there were Chinese women working in the sex industry in the mid-19th century, they were singled out from their white peers: “Chinese women were specifically accused of spreading sexually transmitted diseases. They were scapegoated. That sexualized stereotype stuck,” says Dr. Kevin Nadal, professor at the City University of New York and vice president of the Filipino American National Historical Society.
Did you know? The earliest known Chinese woman to immigrate to America, Afong Moy, arrived in New York from Guangzhou in 1834. She had bound feet and was exhibited as a curiosity across the United States, first by traders Nathaniel and Frederick Carne and later by American promoter and circus founder P. T. Barnum.

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link.

The ugly history of abuse, vilification, sexualization, and racism directed at Asian American women has deep roots. It’s the history of the “real America” — essentially a “white’s only” sociopolitical structure engrafted on a national economy and culture built on the backs of black, Asian, Hispanic, and immigrant labor. The history that today’s GOP both doesn’t want you to learn while they generate hate directed at people of color and strive to repeat the mistakes and “reprise” the false racist narratives of the past.

PWS

03-31-21

🧑🏽‍⚖️⚖️🗽🇺🇸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!

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

The answer to the question posed is actually simple. As of today, DHS Enforcement and politicos at the DOJ “own” the so called Immigration “Courts” lock, stock, and barrel!

That’s an overt violation of the clear Fifth Amendment requirement that those whose lives and property are at stake be judged by a fair and impartial adjudicator — by definition one who is an expert in asylum law, human rights, and has demonstrated the ability to conduct fair hearings.

That’s also bad news for the Hispanic Community, because for the last four years those wholly owned “courts” have been operating with a clear bias against the civil and human rights of people of color, with Hispanic migrants and asylum seekers being a particular target — one that has adversely affected, even terrorized, Hispanic communities throughout the U.S. Hispanics are also grossly underrepresented among the “Immigration Judiciary” at both the trial and appellate levels, as well as on the Article III Bench — despite there being scores of Hispanic and other lawyers of color out here who would be head and shoulders above many of those currently holding these critical “life or death” judgeships!

The real questions are:

1) What can we do about it, and

2) How can we get Judge Garland and others in the Administration to listen, put an end to “Dred Scottification,” and get started on the task of bringing due process and fundamental fairness to a totally dysfunctional and dangerously biased system?

Tune in on April 7 to join the dialogue on how we can finally force the U.S. Government to make good on its unfulfilled, even mocked, Constitutional promise of due process for all persons!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

EYORE — “Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”

PWS

03-29-21

🛥🤮🤡CRUZIN’ WITH THE CANCUN COWBOY — Texas Insurrectionist Sen. Bravely Faces Down Unarmed Asylum-Seeking Women & Children From CBP Gunboat! — Man & His Party — Devoid Of Constructive Ideas — Audition For Comedy Documentary, As Real Threats To America From Their “Magamoron” Comrades Multiply & Folks Who, Unlike Cruz, Seek To Contribute To Our Society Are Left In Danger!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/27/ted-cruz-us-mexico-border-immigration?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Erum Salam reports for The Guardian:

The Republican senator Ted Cruz has drawn criticism for taking a trip to America’s southern border as the conservative Texan politician once again became the butt of internet jokes and memes.

In the style of a wildlife documentary, Cruz captured his experience with the help of professional photographers and shared his recent journey to the US-Mexico border Thursday night on social media, where he aimed to shed light on what Republicans have dubbed a crisis.

Ted Cruz

@tedcruz

Live footage from the banks of the Rio Grande.

#BidenBorderCrisis

2:15 AM · Mar 26, 2021

20.8K

17.7K

Share this Tweet

Sporting a dark green fishing shirt and matching baseball cap with the Texas flag, Cruz spoke at a press conference where he sought to paint a dramatic picture of his experience: “On the other side of the river we have been listening to and seeing cartel members – human traffickers – right on the other side of the river waving flashlights, yelling and taunting Americans, taunting the border patrol.”

Advertisement

Upgrade to Premium and enjoy the app ad-free.

Upgrade to Premium

Despite his claims that the border situation is a direct result of the Biden administration’s immigration policies, residents in the Rio Grande Valley have said no such crisis exists. In fact, the number of border crossings under the Biden administration largely mirror those under the former Trump administration. Cruz was accompanied by 18 other Republican senators including John Cornyn, Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham.

After claiming he ran into heckling cartel members and saw a dead body floating in the Rio Grande, Cruz was derided by many, including the former congressman Beto O’Rourke who said: “You’re in a border patrol boat armed with machine guns. The only threat you face is unarmed children and families who are seeking asylum (as well as the occasional heckler).”

. . . .

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

Read more at the link about the GOP’s complete farce — while much more courageous individuals, asylum seekers, are forced to risk their lives because the U.S. is incapable of administering our own asylum laws in a fair, responsible, and competent manner. Cruz & co apparently view this as a “photo op.” Actually, it’s a human tragedy for which history will hold Cruz and his racist party largely responsible, even if the voters fail to do so.

The best solution is to hire experts from the private/NGO/academic sectors; build a functioning asylum and refugee system that will process applicants fairly, generously, predictably, and efficiently; reopen legal ports of entry; establish a robust “on site” refugee program for the Northern Triangle; and work with the international community to alleviate the causes of forced migration. Figure out how new arrivals who qualify for legal status can help rebuild our economy moving forward. Develop a humane program for returning those who don’t qualify without endangering their lives, health, and safety.

An absolutely essential part of the solution is a new, “reimagined” EOIR, staffed with real judges who are experts in asylum, human rights, and due process. An EOIR that will “through teamwork and innovation, be the world’s best courts, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” Judge Garland, where are you in American justice’s hour of dire need?

Imperfect as our current laws may be, they cover all of the foregoing. What we really need to do is follow our own laws with common sense, humanity, and a sense of urgency!

What we don’t need is more inane walls, more border enforcement directed against asylum seekers, and more cruel and illegal schemes to return refugees to back to danger without any due process. And, we certainly don’t need any more photo ops from Cruz and his GOP cronies.

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-29-21

🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️⚖️BIDEN & WARREN BELIEVE IN A DIVERSE, PROGRESSIVE FEDERAL JUDICIARY — JUDGE GARLAND CONTROLS PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT FEDERAL JUDICIARY NEXT TO THE SUPREMES — So, What’s He Waiting For? — Will He Reverse The Dems’ Maddening Failure To Grasp & Act On The Cosmic Importance & Game Changing Potential Of A Progressive Immigration Court, That Gets Beyond The Often White, Male, Enforcement, “Go Along To Get Along” Stereotypes & Showcases Diverse, Progressive “Practical Scholars,” Many Of Them Women & People Of Color?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elizabeth-warren-professional-diversity-federal-judges_n_605cbde5c5b67ad3871d9095o

Jennifer Bendery in HuffPost:

The Democratic senator has spent years calling for more public defenders and fewer corporate attorneys getting federal judgeships. Now Joe Biden agrees.

For years, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has been a lonely voice in the Senate on the need to put people with all kinds of different legal backgrounds into lifetime federal judgeships.

“We face a federal bench that has a striking lack of diversity,” she said at a 2014 event on this topic, hosted by Alliance for Justice, a progressive judicial advocacy group. “President Obama has supported some notable exceptions but … the president’s nominees have thus far been largely in line with the prior statistics.”

Warren wasn’t talking about diversity in terms of demographics like race or gender; Obama made history on those fronts with his judicial nominees. She was talking about the problem with presidents and senators ― in both parties ― routinely picking corporate attorneys and prosecutors who went to Ivy League schools to be federal judges.

If you want the nation’s courts to reflect the people they serve, Warren has argued, we need judges who have been public defenders and civil rights attorneys, people familiar with the legal needs of everyday Americans who may be living on low incomes or otherwise marginalized. A diversity of legal professionals on the federal bench means more informed decisions on issues related to economic justice and civil rights.

At last, the times are catching up with Warren.

President Joe Biden is signaling he’s ready to make professional diversity central to his judicial selection process. He hasn’t nominated anyone yet, but White House counsel Dana Remus wrote to Democratic senators in December urging them to recommend court picks to the White House as soon as possible, and said that Biden is “particularly focused on nominating individuals whose legal experiences have been historically underrepresented on the federal bench, including those who are public defenders, civil rights and legal aid attorneys, and those who represent Americans in every walk of life.”

Top Democrats in the House are putting a spotlight on the issue too, even though they don’t have a say in confirming federal judges.

“Unfortunately, we have a lot of work to do when it comes to judicial diversity,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a Thursday subcommittee hearing on this subject. “There are ways in which the federal judiciary of 2021 looks uncomfortably similar to the federal judiciary of 1921 … Somehow, despite all our progress, today’s federal judges remain, for instance, overwhelmingly male, white, former prosecutors or corporate lawyers who went to a handful of law schools.”

. . . .

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

Read the complete article at the link.

Biden is “particularly focused on nominating individuals whose legal experiences have been historically underrepresented on the federal bench, including those who are public defenders, civil rights and legal aid attorneys, and those who represent Americans in every walk of life.”

That’s basically a description of scores of immigration/human rights experts out here in the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”). Yes, they should be a primary source of appointees to the Article III Judiciary! Absolutely! But, they should also be appointed to the BIA and the Immigration Courts — now!

At present, the Immigration Courts are “administrative courts,” not part of the Article III Judiciary; therefore, Senate confirmation isn’t necessary. They are “administered” by a now “evil-clown-like” 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ DOJ bureaucracy called “EOIR.” We need to get the right progressive scholars and “disciples of due process” on the Immigration Bench — immediately, without further delay!

Immigration Courts are one of most powerful tools in American law. Also, Constitution be damned, until we get a long overdue Article I independent Immigration Court, they are completely controlled by the AG — Judge Merrick B. Garland. This is a big, big deal — nearly 600 judgeships, almost the size of the entire U.S. District Court system, are at stake!

Sessions and Barr quickly figured: Why not aggressively weaponize EOIR to undermine American democracy, institutionalize racism and misogyny, and promote White Nationalist authoritarianism? And, that’s exactly what they did — to the max. Using EOIR judgeships to reward some of their unqualified, white, nativist buddies in the process was an “added bennie.”

Grim Reaper — G. Reaper Approaches ICE Gulag With “Imbedded Captive Star Chamber” Run By EOIR, For Their “Partner” Reaper
Image: Hernan Fednan, Creative Commons License

Even the totally incomprehensible incompetence with which they administered EOIR fulfilled their “negative dream.” Dysfunctional Immigration Courts became an important tool for debilitating the entire U.S. justice system and “Dred Scottifying” (dehumanizing) persons of color before the law.

Those with compelling cases for relief, many pending for years, were shuffled off to the end of the docket. Or, if they did get a hearing, incompetent or compromised “judges” at the trial and appellate levels often arbitrarily denied their claims for bogus reasons. This disgraceful mess of a “court” actually penalized those with strong cases for relief — many who should have been done and joined our society years ago instead linger in the largely self-created EOIR “backlog” of 1.3 million cases. Or, they are condemned to endless litigation to vindicate their rights in a system intentionally rigged against them.

Star Chamber Justice — “Justice”
Star Chamber
Style

Looking for the underpinning for the idea that people of color have reduced rights to vote, political participation, and that their lives don’t really matter? Look no further than the ongoing “Dred Scottification” of asylum applicants and other people of color in Immigration Court, now enshrined in a number of bogus “precedents” issued by White Nationalist AGs and their wholly-owned BIA!

Four Horsemen — BIA Asylum Panel In Action
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

And, their job was “easy as pie” following the indolent stewardship of their Dem predecessors. When the latter finally got around to filling judicial vacancies at EOIR, every couple of years, they handed them out almost exclusively to government “insiders” — like they were “length of service” pins! Better-qualified progressive, due-process-oriented, experts, scholars, advocates, and others in the private/NGO/academic sector — folks who actually could have brought badly needed professionalism, excellence, and order to a system careening out of control — were basically “shut out” by the Dems. Interesting way to reward your potential allies!

The Dems’ “diverse recruiting program” for the Immigration Judiciary was to advertise the positions for about 10 minutes on the “insider online bulletin board” known as “USA Jobs.” Then, after an average two-year long, excruciatingly wasteful and mindless “Rube Goldberg-designed evaluation” by layer after layer of bureaucrats — few, if any of them actual sitting Immigration Judges — participating, in most cases they basically just selected “the next ICE prosecutor, EOIR staffer, or OIL litigator up.” But, the “beauty” of this system is that with so many layers of bureaucracy involved, nobody could be held accountable for the actual selections! Talk about a “finger-pointers’ dream.”

Oh yeah, and of course there was no room for public input and/or participation in this process. Some of the newly anointed judges actually had rather less-than-stellar reputations in the immigration community at large. Many would have drawn blank stares if mentioned to a panel of acknowledged immigration and human rights experts. Few were “household names,” except perhaps in a negative sense. No matter to the Obama folks!

During the Obama Administration, I attended a so-called “training-session” at an Immigration Judge Conference — this was “in person,” although for a number of years we got “home-video grade” training CDs. There, curiously, one of these “newbies” was selected to “educate” a group of us, many of us with decades of experience in the field and some with actual teaching credentials under their belts. Our “instructor” referred to the Government as “us,” to the respondent and counsel as “them,” and bragged that “our big wins from OIL” would make it easier to deny asylum.

Other “instructors” parroted cringingly mind boggling mis-statements of asylum law — apparently designed to fit into OIL’s preferred litigation positions. And, incredibly, this was with the “founding mother” of U.S. Asylum Law, Judge Dana Leigh Marks, who had argued and won the landmark “well-founded-fear” case INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca before the Supremes, effectively muzzled and holding her head in the audience.

In 21 years on the bench, during “EOIR training,” I was lectured to by a variety of BIA Attorney Advisors, OIL Attorneys, politicos, DHS Officials, State Department Officials, Ethics Officers, stress managers, and an occasional NGO advocate. Never, did I get to hear my colleague Judge Marks’s views on the development of asylum law since Cardoza. Sure, that didn’t stop us from carrying on a dialogue elsewhere, as we did. But, we were pretty much “on the same page.” The folks who needed to hear what Judge Marks had to say didn’t.

Hon. Diana Leigh Marks — Hon. Dana Leigh Marks
U.S. Immigration Judge
San Francisco Immigration Court
Past President, National Association of Immigration Judges

And, we wonder why Dems inevitably screw up immigration law, and end up defending highly regressive actions and “designed to fail” policies — try “baby jails,” indefinite detention, and non-English-speaking toddlers “representing themselves” in Immigration Court. I kid you not! Each of the foregoing were things that the Obama DOJ vigorously advanced and defended before Federal Courts!🤮

Will Judge Garland figure it out before it’s too late? Or, as his Obama predecessors did, will he fritter away his time with “more sexy,” but actually far less important initiatives and lofty ideals that will be effectively undermined by failing to create a progressive, expert, well functioning, professional Immigration Judiciary.

Judge Merrick Garland — Judge Merrick B. Garland, U.S. Attorney General
Official White House Photo
Public Realm

Racial justice, equal justice, and due process for all persons in America start in the Immigration Court. And, right now they are dying there! If Judge Garland doesn’t pay attention, grasp the moment, aggressively clean house, and take the long overdue, radical, courageous actions to build a better Immigration Judiciary, the whole U.S. justice system might well come crashing down upon him! And, he will have only himself to blame!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever! A Better EOIR for A Better Federal Judiciary! A Better Federal Judiciary For A Better America! Not rocket science! But, it does require vision, recognition of the problem, and the courage to solve it!

PWS

3-28-21

🏴‍☠️ADMINISTRATIONS COME & GO — BUT, INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM DIRECTED AGAINST BLACK HAITIAN MIGRANTS REMAINS A BIPARTISAN STAPLE OF U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY!

Haitians — Torch
By Bill Day
Republished by license

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:

Nicole Phillips, Legal Director, Haitiian Bridge Alliance, nmp.law@gmail.com, +1 (510) 715-2855

Tom Ricker, Policy Director, The Quixote Center, tomr.quixote@gmail.com, (301) 922-8909

Biden’s Invisible Wall: New Report Describes the Hardships that Title 42 Expulsions Create for Haitian Migrant Families and Calls on Biden to Stop Expelling Migrants to Haiti

San Diego, California, March 25, 2021 — Today, one year after the “Title 42” policy was enacted, the Haitian Bridge Alliance, Quixote Center and UndocuBlack release the report, The Invisible Wall: Title 42 and its Impacts on Haitian Migrants, and call on the Biden-Harris Administration to immediately revoke Title 42 and end expulsions to Haiti. According to Guerline Jozef, Executive Director of Haitan Bridge Alliance, “Most if not all of the expulsions to Haiti are per the Title 42 policy, which was adopted under a false pretext of the coronavirus pandemic. Title 42 is Trump’s invisible wall that effectively closed the U.S.-Mexico border to migrants.” “Our Report,” says Ms. Jozef, “presents the voices and hardships of Haitian migrant families who have been abused in immigration custody and then expelled under the Title 42 policy without the opportunity to seek legal counsel or request asylum or other protection.”

On February 1, 2021, the first day of Black History Month, the U.S. government drastically expanded removals and expulsions to Haiti. Rather than dismantle the Trump Administration’s invisible wall, the Biden-Harris Administration doubled down. More Haitians have been removed per the Title 42 policy in the weeks since President Joe Biden took office than during all of Fiscal Year 2020. The Report provides the narratives of Haitian families who were apprehended at the U.S. Mexico border within the last year under the Title 42 policy and were subject to expulsion to Haiti or Mexico.

The Report explains how Haitian migrants are expelled under the Title 42 policy without being informed whether or when they will be expelled, and without the opportunity to seek asylum or other forms of protection. “Abigale” (name changed), a Haitian woman interviewed for the Report, describes the cruelty of immigration officials during her family’s expulsion, “None of the officers ever confirmed that we were being deported. No one would even say the word deportation. None of them, through this whole process. All the families were crying on the bus, for over an hour. My husband and others kept asking what was going on, if they were deporting us. They would not tell us anything despite our desperation. It was all extremely emotional.”

“The Biden-Harris Administration has continued cruelty against immigrants,” said Patrice Lawrence, Co-director of the UndocuBLack Network. “We hope that this will not be their legacy. It is cruel to use Title 42 as a loophole for deporting immigrants in general and Black migrants in particular. It is a euphemism for removals and deportation of immigrants which the Trump Administration deemed expendable in the wider context of its eugenic agenda of creating a Whiter America and atmosphere of nativism. The invisible wall named Title 42 keeps at bay brown and Black people fleeting war, violence, poverty and disasters under the pretext of protecting Border Protection officers from COVID-19 and to minimize the number of persons in congregate settings, such as immigration detention centers. The Biden-Harris Administration continues to ignore the cry and plight of immigrants that are being forced to board a plane and are taken to the very places they escaped from. The xenophobic language of the previous Administration might be gone, but the practices still remain.”

“There is no sound public health rationale for the Title 42 ban on migrants,” says Tom Ricker, Policy Director with the Quixote Center. “The idea for the policy came not from public health officials, but from the Trump White House. The entire justification for the Title 42 policy is the claim that the United States lacks the capacity to safely detain people. Yet, the United States is holding people for weeks only to then put them on crowded planes. How do you deny someone asylum who has been placed in detention – with no legal representation at all – based on the argument that there is no capacity to detain them?”

The Report also describes the high security risks that Haitian migrants face when they are expelled to Haiti or Mexico. As one woman who was recently expelled to Haiti under Title 42 describes, “Now the country is in more turmoil so I’m even more afraid to leave [my home]. If these people find us, they would just kill us this time around.”

“Haitian migrants flee violence, instability and persecution in Haiti, then travel a long and treacherous journey to the U.S.-Mexico border seeking safety and security in the United States,” says Nicole Phillips, Legal Director of Haitian Bridge Alliance. “Instead of security, they are abused by immigration officers and – under the Title 42 policy – summarily expelled back to the country they fled without any chance to seek protection. As this Report explains, these expulsions are not only tragic, they are illegal.”

The authors offer nine recommendations. “First,” says Ms. Phillips, “the Title 42 policy must be revoked immediately. It is also critical that asylum processing resumes, while migrants are released to shelter in place with their loved ones in the United States rather than being detained. Incarceration must stop.”

The Full report can be read here.

***********

Same old song! Where’s Vice President Kamala Harris on this one?

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! Treat Haitians as persons with constitutional and human rights. End the racist travesties embodied in U.S. immigration policy that fuel racial injustice throughout America!☠️

PWS

3-28-21

🏴‍☠️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”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/24/border-crisis-migrants-media-biden/

Leon Krauze in the WashPost tells us what’s really happening at the border. WARNING: It has little to do with the myths and false narratives being peddled by the GOP, the Administration, and the media.

The current emergency at the border has found the U. S. media at its most solipsistic. Coverage seems more focused on whether the emergency should be called “a crisis” (it should) and what the political fallout for the Biden administration will be. With few exceptions — like the remarkable work of MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff or Politico’s Sabrina Rodriguez — many news outlets seem utterly uninterested in the stories of the migrants themselves.

This is wrong because it fails to provide one crucial piece of the puzzle: the very concrete context of human suffering.

. . . .

This by no means excuses the stories of anguish and confinement that have emerged over the last few weeks from within the facilities set up by the Biden administration to deal with the number of young migrants crossing the border, nor does it absolve the president himself from delivering on his promise of a humane immigration system, diametrically opposed to Trump’s cruel policies, designed in collaboration with unapologetic racist xenophobes like Stephen Miller.

The Biden administration can and should do better. But the current debate cannot ignore the very concrete despair facing thousands of immigrant families who, under the direct threat of violence or abuse, chose to push their young children to the United States, in search of safety.

If the alternative was famine, gang violence, kidnapping, rape or sexual slavery, wouldn’t you bet it all on the journey north? If more people understood this, the political debate and the coverage surrounding the crisis would be much more empathetic and we would get closer at delivering concrete, humane solutions.

Now, let’s hear more “simple truth” from Suzanne Gamboa over at NBC News:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/americas-immigration-impasse-self-inflicted-doesnt-rcna485

America’s immigration impasse — an endless loop across different administrations — is largely self-inflicted, because Congress has repeatedly failed to acknowledge one simple thing: Immigration happens.

Accordingly, immigration laws must be continually adjusted, reformed and revised, experts say.

“People will always want to come to the U.S., and the U.S. will always need people,” said former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who was a top immigration adviser to President George W. Bush.

Until there is a system that allows enough legal immigration to meet the economy’s needs, there will be illegal immigration, Gutierrez said.

“That’s just part of how our economy is set up. It’s part of demographics,” Gutierrez said. “Our birthrate is not high enough to be able to fill the needs of our economy.”

The coronavirus pandemic reinforced the importance of immigrant labor to the American economy, including labor by the undocumented.

It opened many Americans’ eyes to the precariousness of the U.S. food supply, which depends on immigrant and undocumented farmworkers and meat plant workers, as well as to other immigrants’ roles as essential workers, such as home health care aides, nurses and paramedics.

All of those people and many other immigrants, including young immigrants — often called “Dreamers” based on never-passed proposals in Congress called the DREAM Act — will play a key role in helping the economy recover from its pandemic bust.

But immigration requires periodic calibration, and the economics and the changing patterns are lost in the politics.

“People are going to move — as they are all around the world — where they think they can find places to better feed their children. That’s the bottom line, and that’s the history of migration to the United States,” said Luis Fraga, director of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

. . . .

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

Everyone should read the rest of the stories at the above link.

Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration

By Judge (Ret) Paul Wickham Schmidt

“Courtside” Exclusive

March 26, 2021

Notwithstanding the endlessly disingenuous and self-centered alarmist rhetoric coming from all directions on the border mess, often mindlessly regurgitated by the press (not just Fox News), the real “crisis” involves the human lives at stake and the unnecessary human misery we are causing by failing to establish, professionally staff, and fairly and competently operate the legal refugee and particularly asylum systems required by law. This “due process crisis” actually has devastating and debilitating practical effects, starting with the dysfunctional immigration, refugee, and asylum system and the beyond dysfunctional Immigration Courts.

Heck, we don’t even pretend to comply with Constitutionally-required due process of law for asylum seekers who present themselves to us seeking life-saving refuge. Most of those who show up at legally-established border ports are told that the border is “closed” and that there is no way for them to apply. OK, so they attempt to cross between ports and immediately present themselves to the Border Patrol. But, they also are told there is no way to apply and are orbited back to some of the most dangerous countries in the world without any process whatsoever, let alone due process of law. Who are we kidding with all our dishonest pontificating about “the rule of law?”

It’s a strange way to implement the statutory command that any foreign national “irrespective of . . . status, may apply for asylum,” along with a constitutional guarantee that “No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Gee, you don’t even need one of those fancy Ivy League law degrees to understand that language. You just have to be able to read, comprehend, and act.

What you do have to do to get where we are today is to view asylum seekers and other migrants (predominantly people of color) as less than human — “non-persons” in a constitutional sense. It’s what some of us call “Dred Scottification of the other” and it has accelerated over the past four years — not just in immigration.

The whole idea of a “court system” being run by the Executive who also is the chief of enforcement is beyond constitutionally preposterous. It’s a “negative tribute” to the Supremes and other Article III life-tenured judges who have grown so distant from their own humanity and immigration stories as to become willfully blind to the ongoing farce that constitutes “justice” and “due process of law” for asylum seekers and other immigrants in the U.S.

Today’s nearly non-existent “asylum system” is a deadly and illegal “catch 22,” with the Supremes sitting in their marble palace refusing to do the primary task that justifies their continued existence: enforce the Constitution against Government misbehavior and in favor of the “little guys” and the “vulnerable.” No thanks, not up to the job!

The real tragedy is that there are plenty of folks out here with the knowledge, integrity, courage, and ability to establish a legal system that would actually comply with out laws, our Constitution, and further offer the hope of constructively addressing some problems before refugees arrive at our borders. But, they remain “benched,” even by the Biden Team. So the “good guys”are going to keep attacking the corrupt and broken system in court and at the polls for as long as it takes to get some course correction — years, decades, centuries — ask most African Americans how long it takes to achieve the true justice that America promises to all, but historically has only delivered to some.

In the long run, a fair system would undoubtedly accept many more legal refugees and asylum seekers. That’s what happens in refugee situations — it’s the core of what we call “forced migration” — when you sign on to international conventions intended to prevent the “next holocaust,” and you fairly and humanely apply the rules meant to protect refugees and those who face torture. And, as they have in the past, the overwhelming number of refugees and asylees, like the overwhelming majority of immigrants (essentially all of us, except Native Americans) will adapt, fit in, and contribute to the health, wealth, and future of our nation. They will change, but so will we — ultimately for the better!

Sure, America wouldn’t be as white, “Christian” (to the extent that adherence to a nominal Christian denomination, rather than actually performing Christ’s extremely difficult, self-sacrificing, risky, compassionate mission, defines Christianity), and nominally heterosexual as it was when White Nationalist myths and whitewashed history ruled the roost. But, it would be a better nation — one that actually has a chance of prospering, realizing the full potential of all its residents, and leading the world in the 21st century. A nation that could devote more human, natural, and monetary resources to building and exporting greatness, rather than to an endless stream of cruel, inhuman, stupid, and wasteful enforcement and deterrence gimmicks.

Bottom line, folks are going to come to America, as they have throughout history. Some will stay, some won’t. But, come they will, unless and until those like Trump and the GOP create such a mess that our own people start fleeing to foreign shores. Immigration, regardless of status, is a sign of strength. Xenophobia a sign of fatal weakness.

Our real choice isn’t whether we want to “close” borders, bar refugees, and abuse children as the Cottons, Cruzes, Millers, and Hawleys advocate. It’s whether we create a robust, orderly, rational legal system to screen, regulate, and distribute the inevitable flow or whether, as we have for the past decades, we force millions to reside and work underground — part of an “extralegal” or “black market” system that pols of both parties and those who profit from that underground system have created.

Sprawling mismanaged enforcement bureaucracies, dysfunctional “courts,” armies of publicly-paid lawyers defending the indefensible, for-profit civil prisons, big agriculture, hospitality giants, loads of upwardly mobile professionals who need child care to pursue careers, communities that live off of marketing ethnic culture, meat packing conglomerates, architects and construction firms who are “building America,” even news media fixated on hyping the problem rather than fixing it (see, e.g., yesterday’s Biden press conference), the list of those who profit from a talented, hard working, reliable, loyal, yet politically and socially disenfranchised, workforce is endless.

Even the GOP’s “Cotton-Cruz crowd” benefits from having an imaginary enemy to rant and rail and gin up hate against — safe in the knowledge that the tanking of our economy, upheaval of society, and possible threat to their privilege that would result from realizing their disingenuous call to boot the entire undocumented population will never happen. Their kids and grandkids can continue to reap the privilege that comes from exploiting an essential, yet politically neutered, workforce. It’s really more about institutionalizing racism to maintain economic and political power over the eventual non-white majority that drives their bogus and ugly narratives.

We can degrade ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever! It’s a vision based on a written promise, not a “pipe dream!”

PWS

03-26-21

☠️YET ANOTHER DEADLY, ⚰️ RIDICULOUS 🤡 EOIR MELTDOWN 🤮 OUTED! — Conservative 5th Circuit Excoriates BIA & Immigration Judge For Litany Of Errors In 38-Page Smackdown — Another Wrongful Denial Of Asylum To Honduran Exhausts Patience Of Even Normally Pro-Gov. Circuit Court!

https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/unpub/18/18-60251.0.pdf

Morales Lopez v. Garland, 5th Cir., 03-19-21, unpublished

PANEL: Southwick, Graves, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges

OPINION BY: James E. Graves, Jr., Circuit Judge

KEY QUOTE:

Morales Lopez argues that the IJ improperly determined that she did not make a sufficient showing of past persecution and a well-founded fear of future persecution. Regarding past persecution, Morales Lopez argues that the IJ erroneously (1) required each incident of harm to rise to the level of persecution, (2) failed to consider all relevant incidents of harm, (3) required a showing of physical harm, and (4) failed to consider significant liberty deprivations suffered by Morales Lopez and her children. Morales Lopez further argues that (5) the substantial evidence compels a finding of past

10

Case: 18-60251 Document: 00515788451 Page: 11 Date Filed: 03/19/2021

No. 18-60251

persecution and (6) the IJ erred by failing to consider Morales Lopez’s psychological harm.

Regarding a well-founded fear of future persecution, Morales Lopez argues that the IJ erroneously (1) applied a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard instead of a reasonable-possibility standard; (2) failed to evaluate Morales Lopez’s fear of future persecution using the four-part test set forth in In re Mogharrabi; (3) conflated the past-persecution and well-founded-fear- of-future persecution analyses, (4) required Morales Lopez to offer direct proof of her persecutors’ motives, and (5) mischaracterized Ungar’s testimony. Morales Lopez further argues that (6) the substantial evidence compels a finding of a well-founded fear of future persecution.

Although we neither agree with nor reach all of Morales Lopez’s arguments, we agree with her overarching point: the IJ and the BIA improperly determined that Morales Lopez did not make a sufficient showing of past persecution and a well-founded fear of future persecution. We address Morales Lopez’s arguments in turn.

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

Judge James E. Graves, Jr. — Hon. James E. Graves, Jr.
U.S. Circuit Judge
Fifth Circuit
PHOTO: Wikipedia

Too bad this is unpublished. Once again, a Circuit Court has to provide the detailed analysis required by due process after the supposedly “expert” BIA commits error after error!

When they get below the “caption line” in an opinion, things go south fast for EOIR judges. I’d attribute that to a deadly combination of poor judicial selection, defective training, a “culture of prejudgement and denial,” large-scale overuse and misuse of the woefully inadequate and outdated “contemporaneous oral decision” format (not used by any other “court” for decisions of this importance and complexity), “haste makes waste” gimmicks, absurd “quotas,” inane “performance ratings,” constant political interference with decision-making, disastrously incompetent unprofessional docket management, and maliciously incompetent “leadership” from the DOJ. It’s an ungodly and inexcusable mess.

Sadly, my grim description doesn’t begin to capture just how embarrassingly unjust, unfair, dysfunctional, and just plain terrible EOIR’s “killer clown show” 🦹🏿‍♂️🤡 is. Not to mention that it is clearly unconstitutional, and a “living repudiation of due process” as currently constituted and operated. Put this pathetic imitation of a “court system”out of its misery before it causes any more destruction of human lives and irreparable damage to our justice system!

Judge Garland, where, oh where, are you in American justice’s hour of need? Stop this disgraceful mockery of justice, humanity, and common sense! Now!

In the meantime, as I had warned, Judge Garland’s previously sterling record as a jurist 👨🏻‍⚖️ is being tarnished daily by association with some of the worst jurisprudence out there, courtesy of America’s Star Chambers,🏴‍☠️ a/k/a “Clown Courts,” 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ now wholly owned by HIM, and “operated” in HIS name!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Clown Courts🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ & Star Chambers☠️🏴‍☠️⚰️, Never!

PWS

03-21-21

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!

“Floaters” — “Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers”
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)

Gabe Gutierrez reports for NBC Nightly News:

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/on-the-ground-along-the-texas-border-amid-surge-108780101899

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

Reminds me of the essay I recently posted from my friend, Don Kerwin at CMS:

The number of unaccompanied children and asylum-seekers crossing the US-Mexico border in search of protection has increased in recent weeks. The former president, his acolytes, and both extremist and mainstream media have characterized this situation as a “border crisis,” a self-inflicted wound by the Biden administration, and even a failure of US asylum policy. It is none of these things. Rather, it is a response to compounding pressures, most prominently the previous administration’s evisceration of US asylum and anti-trafficking policies and procedures, and the failure to address the conditions that are displacing residents of the Northern Triangle states of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras), as well as Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and other countries…

The real immigration crisis is not at the border, but in the failure to respond effectively to the conditions driving forced migration, to establish orderly and viable legal immigration policies, to legalize the increasingly long-tenured undocumented population, and to reform and invest sufficiently in the US asylum and immigration court systems.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/03/18/%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%97%bdmore-truth-about-the-southern-border-from-one-of-americas-%f0%9f%87%ba%f0%9f%87%b8-leading-human-rights-experts-real-needs-not-fictitious-crises-accou/

Donald M. Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies

It also echoes the words of veteran journalist Marc Cooper, posted by my friend Dan Kowalski over on LexisNexis Immigration Community:

When I was in Mexico reporting on the exodus, I would talk with dozens of migrants who were just a an hour or two away from starting their trek and, to a person, not one of them said they paid any attention to new US laws and regs as they were determined to cross no matter what. And no matter the sacrifices.

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/the-border-news-is-not-new

Dan Kowalski
Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)

Even the WashPost editorial page writers “get” the reality of human migration in a way the nativist fear-mongers never will:

Yet despite fearmongering by Republicans, the current influx is neither a public health emergency nor a national security threat. The vast majority of those allowed to enter the country will join relatives here while their asylum claims plod along. That wait is too long — it can stretch to three years or more — and the administration insists it will shrink the backlog. It has also earmarked $4 billion in aid from the pandemic relief bill for Central America — with strings attached to prevent its misuse — to attack the conditions that make life miserable there and drive migrants to seek refuge in this country.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-influx-of-migrants-isnt-a-crisis-but-it-could-become-one-without-careful-management/2021/03/19/bced56ba-874d-11eb-8a8b-5cf82c3dffe4_story.html

Trump Dumping Asylum Seekers in Hondiras — Dumping Asylum Seekers in Honduras
Artist: Monte Wolverton
Reproduced under license

Still, sadly, facts and reality seem largely irrelevant here.

Despite denials from Secretary Mayorkas, the Biden Administration appears to be believing Kevin McCarthy’s BS on some level.

Thursday, the Administration basically negotiated a “lite version” of Trump’s “Let ‘Em Die in Mexico” — essentially trading AstroZenica vaccine (which wasn’t approved for use in the U.S. anyway) for Mexico’s agreement to step up harsh enforcement measures against migrants crossing their Southern Border and to warehouse families arbitrarily rejected without due process by the U.S. under our bogus CDC directive. We already have seen how well that works out!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/daily-202-big-idea/biden-will-send-mexico-surplus-vaccine-as-us-seeks-help-on-immigration-enforcement/

Remain in Mexico — A girl peers out from an encampment at the U.S.-Mexico border where she and several hundred people waited to present themselves to U.S. immigration to seek asylum. / Photo by David Maung

Any way you cut it, the realities of human migration, the lives of the desperate individuals involved, the views of human rights experts and advocates, and our supposed commitment to international conventions, the rule of law, and Constitutional Due Process take a back seat when the “bogus border debate” shifts into high gear.

There is actually a very simple truth here: “Forced migration” is not “optional!” In fact, a number of forced migrants prefer “death in the attempt” to “death in place.”

Therefore, all the “deterrents,” “border militarization,” “Baby Jails,” and “stay home statements” won’t ultimately stop the inexorable flow (although they might temporarily divert, modulate, or vary it — usually just enough for the “powers that be” to declare “victory at sea” as a result of their failed policies while ignoring the human carnage and lost opportunities they leave behind).

Professor Philip G. Schrag
Georgetown Law
Co-Director, CALS Asylum Clinic, Author of “Baby Jails”

Sure, there is a timing factor. Weather, the “business plans” and propaganda of smugglers (Trump’s “enforcement only” policies have been a boon for them in more ways than one, not only boosting their fees, but diverting enforcement resources away from the “real” law enforcement problems at the border involving drugs and human exploitation), and Biden’s pledge to restore humanity and the rule of law to America all factor into the equation in some way.

But, they are not the the primary causes of forced migration, except to the extent that climate change (ignored and worsened by Trump and the GOP) has aggravated the poverty and economic disorder in the Northern Triangle by destroying the livelihoods of many farmers and making their land essentially worthless.

Tone-deaf GOP politicos like McCarthy and Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) apparently think the solution is to continue to mock the rule of law, violate the Constitution, and simply declare the Southern Border closed forever, al a Stephen Miller. Let families and children “die in place” in their home countries, die on the journey at the hands of other governments, or rot forever in Mexico — “Out of sight, out of mind.” As long as it isn’t happening in our country and being covered by our news outlets, who cares about human lives? That was certainly the Trump approach!

That’s hardly a “solution,” except in neo-Nazi or Soviet-era terms. The harshest and most inhuman approaches will, as they have in the past and continue to do, fail to stop desperate humans who want to survive from doing what’s necessary to save their lives and preserve their families’ futures, even when that interferes with the GOP’s “whitewashed” version of “American greatness.”

The solution involves following Constitutional due process, re-establishing the rule of law (including a radical “reform and replace” of our dysfunctional Immigration Courts), and adhering to our international obligations, both in letter and spirit. It also requires an expanded, much more robust, legal immigration system that reflects the demands of our economy, the needs of migrants, and the realities of human migration, particularly from Latin America. Like it or not, there will be more immigration.

As I have said before: “There are many ways in which we can diminish our own humanity, but none of them will stop human migration.”

Contrary to the GOP blather, immigration, voluntary, forced, coerced, legal, extra-legal, white, non-white, Christian, non-Christian, is what the real America is all about, for better or worse. Overall, immigration is a positive force for America.

Here’s a great essay on the positive nature of immigration by Pedro Gerson on Slate. Pedro is the director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the Louisiana State University Law Center, and a former immigration staff attorney at the Bronx Defenders. The latter organization has been home to a number of notable members of the NDPA.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/03/border-immigration-crisis-laws-citizenship.html

As Pedro says, human migration to America will continue notwithstanding GOP xenophobes. The only question is whether we will have the wisdom and courage to work with and take advantage of its power in constructive, creative, forward looking ways, rather than trying to “recreate Jim Crow!”

Or, will we continue, as GOP restrictionists urge, to squander resources, goodwill, and human potential on futile efforts to eradicate what is perhaps the oldest and most fundamental phenomenon of human existence?

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! Restore the rule of law! Fix The Disgraceful, Dysfunctional Immigration Courts, Judge Garland! End White Nationalist racism!

PWS

03-19-21

⚖️🗽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

In a new essay for the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS), CMS’s Executive Director Donald Kerwin writes:

The number of unaccompanied children and asylum-seekers crossing the US-Mexico border in search of protection has increased in recent weeks. The former president, his acolytes, and both extremist and mainstream media have characterized this situation as a “border crisis,” a self-inflicted wound by the Biden administration, and even a failure of US asylum policy. It is none of these things. Rather, it is a response to compounding pressures, most prominently the previous administration’s evisceration of US asylum and anti-trafficking policies and procedures, and the failure to address the conditions that are displacing residents of the Northern Triangle states of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras), as well as Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and other countries…

The real immigration crisis is not at the border, but in the failure to respond effectively to the conditions driving forced migration, to establish orderly and viable legal immigration policies, to legalize the increasingly long-tenured undocumented population, and to reform and invest sufficiently in the US asylum and immigration court systems.

READ MORE

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

Thanks Don for speaking out against the scandalous GOP complete “border BS,” all too often parroted by the so-called “mainstream press.” Read the rest of Don’s essay at the link.

Don has spent his entire career solving migration and human rights problems. The Biden Administration and everyone who believes in American democracy should listen to “practical experts” like Don, rather than ignorant, racially-motivated GOP politicos and White Nationalist nativists spouting the “same old, same old” myths, fear-mongering, and unhelpful “non-solutions.”

If xenophobic rhetoric, cruelty, officially-sanctioned child abuse, evading our own legal and humanitarian responsibilities, and “enforcement only” were the “solutions,” the “problem at the Southern Border” — which has existed in one form or another for over a half century, would long ago have been solved. We can’t solve humanitarian situations that create forced migration with unilateral law enforcement gimmicks and cruelty toward the humans fighting for their lives. Human migration long pre-existed the formation of nation states and establishment of national boundaries.

Administration after administration, of both parties, have squandered time and taxpayer money on unsuccessful efforts to “enforce their way” out of forced migration situations. Contrary to GOP blather, Democratic Administrations have been almost as fixated as the GOP with unsuccessfully “detaining, deterring, and enforcing” their way out of human problems that demand more thoughtful human solutions.

All Administrations at some point prematurely claim that their efforts have “succeeded.” None actually have succeeded in addressing the causes of the migration. Therefore, none of these “false solutions” proves “durable.”

Significantly, Don is one of the few commentators to fully grasp the integral connection between the Trump regime’s complete destruction of the integrity of the Immigration Courts and its lawless, yet highly ineffective, border policies.

Real solutions don’t kill, harm, and maim refugees and forced migrants, encourage criminal cartels and corrupt foreign officials to prey on them, and stack up desperate humans in dangerous conditions just across the border because US Government officials were too biased and incompetent to operate under any semblance of the rule of law.

We can abide by our own laws, international norms, our Constitution, human decency, and common sense. It isn’t rocket science.

But, it does require a combination of expertise, courage, humanity, and practical problem solving that has been conspicuously absent from our governing structure since 2017, and severely undervalued before that.

Also, it’s certainly not that the Biden Administration has suddenly re-established due process and the rule of law at the border. Far from it!

The vast majority of those arriving at the border, even those who are applying at legal ports of entry, are unceremoniously and summarily removed without any process at all, let alone due process of law. This is all based on a largely bogus Trump-initiated exercise of authority by the CDC to use COVID-19 as a pretext to suspend the rule of law and constitutional due process at the border.

Moreover, we shouldn’t forget that even with the Biden Administration’s gradual efforts to re-establish a legal process for asylum seekers, unaccompanied children are still being held in Government detention for far longer than the 72-hours permitted under law. This problem won’t be solved, as some GOP nativists incredibly suggest, by dumping kids back across the Mexican Border, returning them to danger in their home countries without regard to their individual situations, or forcing them to turn to smugglers to make their way to relative safety in the interior of the U.S.

Nor will it be solved by long-term detention in disgraceful and inhumane “Baby Jails!” Ask my Georgetown Law colleague and author Professor Phil Schrag of the CALS Asylum Clinic about that!

Interestingly, some of the biggest complainers spreading the “open borders myth” are Greg Abbott and other Texas GOP politicos who have prematurely “reopened their state” in the middle of a pandemic in blatant contravention of best medical and public health advice. So, you can summarily dismiss their “crocodile tears” and bogus “hand wringing” about public health and safety.

That’s particularly true since the GOP is just coming off a massive example of how their incompetent mis-governance of Texas caused unnecessary misery and loss of life among Texas residents as a result of a highly predictable and long-foreseen “weather emergency.” Why does the mainstream media often continue to treat these “political hacks,” who couldn’t “govern” their way out of a paper bag, as credible spokespersons on anything, let alone human rights situations of which they have no expertise whatsoever?

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! Re-Establish The Rule Of Law, Including Full, Robust Humanitarian Protections At The Border & In Our Disgracefully Dysfunctional Immigration “Courts.”

PWS

03-18-21

☹️MEDIA SHOULD STOP GIVING GOP TOTALLY UNWARRANTED “FREE PASS” ON “BORDER BS!” — “The situation under former president Donald Trump was substantially worse from a humanitarian and a pragmatic governing perspective: worse for the migrants, worse for the rule of law and worse for our country.” — Greg Sargent @ WashPost sets the record straight!

Greg Sargent
Opinion Writer
Washington Post

https://apple.news/Axz03Bes6T3ODoCivCDQ96g

Republicans are convinced that attacking President Biden’s border policies will win them the midterms. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has gleefully labeled the situation there “Biden’s border crisis.”

In this, Republicans are benefiting from a media debate that has gone off the rails.

There’s a huge hole in this GOP attack, but it’s rarely described clearly in news reports and commentary. You can read endless headlines warning of a “crisis.” But even if that’s so, a crisis relative to what, exactly ?

What’s missing is a serious comparison with the pre-Biden status quo. It’s as if the current situation exists in a vacuum: Before there was no crisis, and now there’s a crisis .

That’s absurd. The situation under former president Donald Trump was substantially worse from a humanitarian and a pragmatic governing perspective: worse for the migrants, worse for the rule of law and worse for our country.

Biden is cleaning up Trump’s mess

It’s true that child and teenage migrants are overwhelming our facilities.

Because they can’t get released alone, they must be held at Border Patrol facilities for 72 hours before getting transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which places them with relatives or guardians. The ORR facilities are jammed, backlogging border facilities.

This is a terrible situation. But it’s happening in large part because Biden is undoing a Trump policy that should be undone.

Due to covid-19, the previous administration turned away most asylum seekers — without hearings — under a legal provision allowing a temporary block on noncitizens from entering to protect public health.

Biden is no longer applying this provision to unaccompanied children and teenagers (while keeping it for adults), helping fuel child backlogs. But that’s a move in the right direction, both from a humanitarian and rule-of-law perspective.

Coronavirus will be tamed before long, and we have a legal obligation to allow migrants to exercise their right to seek asylum. And as David Bier notes, that provision is not for controlling migrant flows outside a genuine public health rationale. If anything, expelling adults abuses it.

So continuing to use this tool is not a tenable long-term solution to the humanitarian problem, and it’s not in keeping with the rule of law. That requires letting in the kids, and we will have to allow more adults to apply for asylum. The question is how we manage it.

. . . .

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

Read Greg’s full op-ed at the link.

I understand why Fox News, Breitbart, and the rest of the “truth averse” right wing media shills promote the GOP’s racist, xenophobic “border crisis” myths.

What I don’t get is why the so-called “mainstream media” doesn’t do its homework on the real situation on the border and the Trump-created mess facing Biden in restoring some sense of order and lawful behavior to an intentionally broken and dysfunctional system.

A few journalists like Greg, his WashPost colleague Arelis Hernandez, Cindy Carcamo (LA Times), Nicole Narea (Vox News), and Priscilla Alvarez (CNN), to name some, have taken the time to get it right (or close to right). But, far too many reporters who should know better just repeat the Abbott, McCarthy, GOP disingenuous nonsense without critical analysis or pushback.

And, what’s sorely missing is the perspective of those at the heart of this situation: the kids and families faced with such a desperate situation in their home countries that they are willing to seek mercy and refuge in a country that proudly advertises its lack of respect for their humanity, our own laws, and international norms that are supposed to insure fair and humane treatment.

They aren’t numbers, stats, bar graphs, and trend lines — they are human beings. They assert rights to apply for refuge under international norms that the U.S. has written into laws – laws we have unilaterally decided not to follow.

The overwhelming majority seek not to “evade” authorities, but to turn themselves in to our legal system: A system that functionally no longer exists at our Southern Border thanks to Trump and, to some extent, the Supremes. This is neither a “law enforcement” nor a “national security” crisis — it’s a fundamental breakdown in our legal system and a betrayal of humane values.

That’s the real problem here. It originated long before the Biden Administration. To date, no GOP politico has offered any type of constructive solution. And, too few journalists have held the GOP nativists accountable for their racist-inspired lies, misrepresentations, myths, and lack of any semblance of constructive proposals for rational, lawful, governance — real solutions for problems aggravated by their own toxic, inhumane, and often illegal policies!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-17-21

⚖️🇺🇸👍🏼🗽DEAN KEVIN JOHNSON’S SUCCINCT RESPONSE TO GREG ABBOTT’S PREDICTABLE SOUTHERN BORDER BS IS WORTH A READ! — PLUS: ARELIS HERNANDEZ OF WASHPOST WITH SOME MUCH-NEEDED TRUTH & PERSPECTIVE FROM THOSE ACTUALLY LIVING ON THE SOUTHERN BORDER: “We need more lawyers and judges, not more troops or technology.”

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2021/03/texas-governor-abbott-statement-on-unaccompanied-minor-crisis-created-by-biden-administration.html

There, of course, are pressing humanitarian issues to address along the U.S./Mexico border. But to say that this issues are a result of “open border policies” is simply wrong. No major party political leader to my knowledge is calling for “open borders.” Rather, the “open borders” mantra is something that Republican politicians invoke to attack immigration policies that they do not like.

Democrats have another explanation for the current situation at the border. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told ABC News’ “This Week” that the policies of the Trump administration, which radically transformed immigration enforcement from 2017-21, are to blame for the recent increase in unaccompanied migrant children at the southern border,

“This is a humanitarian challenge to all of us,” Pelosi said. “What the administration has inherited is a broken system at the border and they are working to correct that in the children’s interests.”

To address humanitarian concerns, Homeland Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas has directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to support an effort over the next 90 days to safely shelter unaccompanied children who make the dangerous journey to the U.S./Mexico border.

KJ

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

Thanks, Kevin, for adding some reality and perspective to the discussion. You can read Abbott’s statement at the link. Notably, the Republicans have offered no constructive solutions to this humanitarian issue, either in or out of power, other than to engage in child abuse and continually violate the laws, both international and domestic.

The criticism from the likes of Abbott, who as “Governor” of Texas has presided over a power grid disaster that actually killed and threatened the health of Texas residents and who has thumbed his nose at public health recommendations that save lives, is particularly disingenuous. And, naturally, the dangerous and deadly results of Abbott’s and the GOP’s mis-governance of Texas have fallen disproportionately on Latinos and other communities of color. The Abbott/GOP response has been to attempt to disenfranchise citizens of color in Texas!

The same can be said of GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy whose main contribution to America’s safety and security has been to whitewash the deadly assault on our Capitol that his “supreme leader” orchestrated. Again, a person with no credibility.

Those seeking a more nuanced and accurate picture of what’s really happening at the Southern Border should read the lengthy report of Arelis Hernandez in the WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/migrants-are-not-overrunning-us-border-towns-despite-the-political-rhetoric/2021/03/15/b193f3f2-8345-11eb-ac37-4383f7709abe_story.html

Migrants are not overrunning U.S. border towns, despite the political rhetoric

Leaders in Texas border towns say their economies are suffering because of pandemic restrictions on cross-border travel.

. . . .

City officials and nonprofit organizations can’t force families to stay in the hotels but Darling, the McAllen mayor, said so far no one they track has left isolation prematurely.

“We tell them if they want to leave on our buses, they need to follow our rules,” he said. The city has spent nearly $200,000 of taxpayer money it hopes will be reimbursed by the federal government, but Abbott’s rejection of Federal Emergency Management Agency funding from the Biden administration will complicate matters for localities.

Darling said his city is full of compassionate people, and they are doing the rest of the country a favor in taking care of migrant families on the front end of their journeys.

Along the border, faith organizations, local emergency managers and immigration advocates say they have learned from previous surges how best to coordinate. They are preparing to receive flights and buses full of asylum seekers, mostly recently released families with small children, to ease capacity issues that critics say the Department of Homeland Security officials should have anticipated.

Coronavirus restrictions have put capacity limits on shelters run by community organizations on the U.S. side of the border, but so far the numbers are not at 2019 levels, said Pastor Michael Smith of the Holding Institute in Laredo. Shelters and temporary detention facilities operated by the U.S. Health and Human Services’ contractors, however, are over capacity.

But without more orderly intervention, the numbers could overwhelm. The Biden administration plans to deploy FEMA to the border to help with the migration surge as the administration tries to quickly scale up space to temporarily hold and process migrants and unaccompanied children — many between the ages of 13 and 17.

“The failure to have an administrative process is causing a humanitarian crisis,” Smith said during a news conference organized by Laredo activists. “There are solutions to the issues, but they are not solutions that call for militarizing the border.”

“We need robust infrastructure at our ports of entry to handle people seeking asylum,” said Tannya Benavides, of the No Border Wall coalition. “We need more lawyers and judges, not more troops or technology.”

Arelis R. Hernandez
Southern Border Reporter
Washington Post

Great article by Arelis! I highly recommend it. My only caveat is that we need not just more lawyers and judges, certainly correct, but better Immigration Judges who are experts in asylum law, have experience representing asylum seekers, and can fairly, efficiently, and consistently identify those with valid claims to protection under the law before it was perverted by the Trump regime. Also, the Government could use more qualified Asylum Officers who could screen and finally adjudicate the grantable cases, under correct legal criteria set forth by better-qualified Immigration Judges and a completely new due-process-human rights-oriented BIA without even having to send the cases to court.

These are the bold steps necessary to get out of the cycle of “same old, same old” — which inevitably ends with harsh measures directed at asylum seeking families and children that do nothing to address the causes of forced migration. “Enforcement-only deterrent measures” never have solved, and never will solve, the long-term problem in a constructive manner. The cycle of failed, yet expensive and inhumane deterrents, just keeps repeating itself Administration after Administration.

I have already suggested tapping into retired Asylum Officers and other retired USCIS Adjudicators with the necessary asylum expertise. I’m betting that my retired Round Table colleague, and former Asylum Officer and UN Official, Judge Paul Grussendorf would be available to help lead such an effort.

To solve this problem, the Biden Administration must put some experts who understand the practicalities of refugee and asylum situations in place and let them solve the problem. It should come as no shock that the current gangs at DHS and EOIR —largely holdovers who participated in the Trump regime’s cruel, failed, and illegal “enforcement only” policies at the border — are not going to be able to get the job done. At least they can’t without some effective “adult supervision” from those committed to humane, legal, and timely processing of asylees and other migrants in full compliance with due process and best practices.

The Trump regime eschewed any attempt to build a fair, effective, timely asylum adjudication system that complied with domestic and international law as well as due process. Instead, they concentrated on eradicating the entire U.S. refugee and protection system through regulations (many enjoined), Executive Orders (some enjoined), bogus administrative “precedents,” and stacking the Immigration Courts with overtly anti-asylum or “go along to get along” “judges.” Right now, the entire system is in shambles — the most obvious example being the totally dysfunctional mess at EOIR!

To “win the game,” the Biden Administration needs to get the right players on the field. While there has been some notable progress, that hasn’t happened to date. And, with politicos like Abbott and McCarthy stirring the pot daily, time is running to get the “A Team” in place to combat their lies, distortions, and nonsense.

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-16-21

🗽🇺🇸SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: PROFESSOR HEATHER COX RICHARDSON EXPLAINS THE SITUATION AT THE SOUTHERN BORDER

From Letters From An American, March 13, 2017:

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-13-2021?r=330z7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=email

Republican pundits and lawmakers are, once again, warning of an immigration crisis at our southern border.

Texas governor Greg Abbott says that if coronavirus spreads further in his state, it will not be because of his order to get rid of masks and business restrictions, but because President Biden is admitting undocumented immigrants who carry the virus. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is also talking up the immigration issue, suggesting (falsely) that the American Rescue Plan would send $1400 of taxpayer money “to every illegal alien in America.”

Right-wing media is also running with stories of a wave of immigrants at the border, but what is really happening needs some untangling.

When Trump launched his run for the presidency with attacks on Mexican immigrants, and later tweeted that Democrats “don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country,” he was tangling up our long history of Mexican immigration with a recent, startling trend of refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (and blaming Democrats for both). That tendency to mash all immigrants and refugees together and put them on our southern border badly misrepresents what’s really going on.

Mexican immigration is nothing new; our western agribusinesses were built on migrant labor of Mexicans, Japanese, and poor whites, among others. From the time the current border was set in 1848 until the 1930s, people moved back and forth across it without restrictions. But in 1965, Congress passed the Hart-Celler Act, putting a cap on Latin American immigration for the first time. The cap was low: just 20,000, although 50,000 workers were coming annually.

After 1965, workers continued to come as they always had, and to be employed, as always. But now their presence was illegal. In 1986, Congress tried to fix the problem by offering amnesty to 2.3 million Mexicans who were living in the U.S. and by cracking down on employers who hired undocumented workers. But rather than ending the problem of undocumented workers, the new law exacerbated it by beginning the process of guarding and militarizing the border. Until then, migrants into the United States had been offset by an equal number leaving at the end of the season. Once the border became heavily guarded, Mexican migrants refused to take the chance of leaving.

Since 1986, politicians have refused to deal with this disconnect, which grew in the 1990s when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) flooded Mexico with U.S. corn and drove Mexican farmers to find work, largely in the American Southeast. But this “problem” is neither new nor catastrophic. While about 6 million undocumented Mexicans currently live in the United States, most of them–78%– are long-term residents, here more than ten years. Only 7% have lived here less than five years. (This ratio is much more stable than that for undocumented immigrants from any other country, and indeed, about twice as many undocumented immigrants come legally and overstay their visas than come illegally across the southern border.)

Since 2007, the number of undocumented Mexicans living in the United States has declined by more than a million. Lately, more Mexicans are leaving America than are coming.

What is happening right now at America’s southern border is not really about Mexican migrant workers.

. . . .

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

Read Heather’s complete article at the link.

The Biden Administration needs to stay the course and continue to treat this as the humanitarian situation that it is, rather than portraying desperate kids and families like an invading army. These issues can be addressed without engaging in egregious violations of international laws, domestic laws, and our Constitution. Even with the current flow, we are not going to be “overrun” with migrants. Indeed, by most reliable accounts, we will need increased immigration for our recovery and long-term economic well-being.

A critical piece will be revoking the Sessions/Whitaker/Barr precedents, replacing the current BIA with real judges who are experts in immigration, asylum, human rights, and due process, removing most of the cases unnecessarily lingering on the self-bloated EOIR docket, and getting some real expert guidance on asylum law and due process out there from the “new BIA” to guide decision-making at both DHS and EOIR.

Our asylum, refugee, and immigration systems can be fixed. But, not with the “players” left behind by the past regime. And, certainly not with more scofflaw, uber-enforcement-only gimmicks, cruelty, and inhumane policies like those that have failed time after time in the past.

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-14-21

RACIST MAGAMORON RON JOHNSON SHOULD HAVE HEEDED MARK TWAIN: “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to talk and remove all doubt.”🤮🤡☠️

Ron Johnson Fool — Fool
15th Century
Public Domain

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ron-johnson-capitol-riot-black-lives-matter_n_604c0313c5b636ed337a71ce

Mary Papenfuss reports for HuffPost:

In an absolutely stunning statement, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) admitted in a radio interview that he wasn’t frightened by white insurrectionists’ attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — but said he would have been “concerned” had they been Black.

Johnson accurately predicted that his racist statement to conservative radio host Joe Pags on Thursday would get him “into trouble.”

The senator noted that he has been criticized for previous remarks that he “never felt threatened” by the attack.

He added: “Now, had the tables been turned, Joe, and this’ll get me in trouble — had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election, and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.”

. . . .

**************
Read the full article at the link.

Oh Wisconsin, how far you have fallen to inflict this racist idiot on our nation!

PWS

03-14-21

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Why it could work:

Why it probably won’t work:

Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Related posts:

Tune in on April 7 to join the dialogue on how we can finally force the U.S. Government to make good on its unfulfilled, even mocked, Constitutional promise of due process for all persons!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever! A Better EOIR for A Better Federal Judiciary! A Better Federal Judiciary For A Better America! Not rocket science! But, it does require vision, recognition of the problem, and the courage to solve it!

Related posts:

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! Treat Haitians as persons with constitutional and human rights. End the racist travesties embodied in U.S. immigration policy that fuel racial injustice throughout America!☠️

Related posts:

Now, let’s hear more “simple truth” from Suzanne Gamboa over at NBC News:

Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration

By Judge (Ret) Paul Wickham Schmidt

“Courtside” Exclusive

March 26, 2021

Related posts:

Judge Garland, where, oh where, are you in American justice’s hour of need? Stop this disgraceful mockery of justice, humanity, and common sense! Now!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Clown Courts🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ & Star Chambers☠️🏴‍☠️⚰️, Never!

Related posts:

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! Restore the rule of law! Fix The Disgraceful, Dysfunctional Immigration Courts, Judge Garland! End White Nationalist racism!

Related posts:

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! Re-Establish The Rule Of Law, Including Full, Robust Humanitarian Protections At The Border & In Our Disgracefully Dysfunctional Immigration “Courts.”

Related posts:

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Related posts: