Guatemala – Page 26 – immigrationcourtside.com

HOW INEFFECTIVE IS THE WALL? — Here Are 376 Reasons Why The Wall As “Border Security” Is A Total Farce!

qhttps://abcnews.go.com/US/largest-single-group-migrants-tunnels-border-wall-arizona/story?id=60462672

Matt Gutman reports for ABC News:

The largest single group of asylum seekers ever to cross into the U.S. tunneled beneath the border wall near San Luis, Arizona, on Monday, voluntarily turning themselves into Customs and Border Protection, according to the agency.

Migrants can be seen marching toward Border Patrol agents by the hundreds, according to video obtained by ABC News. Smugglers dug a series of seven holes, only a few feet long beneath the steel border fence, with hundreds going beneath the wall and a smaller number clambering over it, according to CBP.

The fresh sand and scuff marks of shoes on the rusty steel were still there when ABC News visited the site on Thursday.

The agency says 179 of the record 376 people who crossed were children, including over 30 unaccompanied minors — children under 18 traveling on their own.

The overall number of unauthorized crossings has plummeted since its peak in the 2001, when CBP logged about 1.6 million apprehensions, according to government statistics. However, the demography of those crossing has changed dramatically.

(MORE: Leaked memo shows Trump administration weighed separating families at border, despite saying it was never policy)

Parents with children now comprise over 80 percent of the total apprehensions of those crossing the 2,000-mile long border with Mexico. The vast majority of them, like the group near Yuma Monday, surrender immediately or seek out Border Patrol agents in order to begin the asylum process.

CBP Yuma Border Sector Chief Anthony Porvaznik said his unit needs better border barriers, but more urgently it needs funding to provide for these families.

“That’s our No. 1 challenge that we have here in the Yuma sector, is the humanitarian problem,” Porvaznik said. “As I mentioned, 87 percent of the apprehensions here are family units and unaccompanied alien children.”

The mass crossing this week took place in a sparsely populated stretch of the border — where an old model of border barrier rises about 12 feet from the sandy ground. The stretched agency only had three agents patrolling that 26-mile-long section of the border.

It took hours to process the families, most of which were sent to the area’s chronically overcrowded central processing center in Yuma.

“In my 30 years with the Border Patrol, I have not been part of arresting a group of 376 people,” Porvaznik said. “That’s really unheard of.”

(MORE: Under President Donald Trump’s administration, more kids separated at border than originally estimated: Report)

On Thursday, hundreds of asylum seekers were being held in cinderblock cells with thick glass windows that overlooked a central bullpen where CBP agents worked to process them and provide humanitarian needs. The asylum seekers were separated into cells: fathers with sons, fathers with daughters, unaccompanied minors and mothers with children.

As in all such facilities, the CBP said it works to process them as quickly as possible, and provides basic medical care. Still, detainees eat, sleep and use the bathroom in the same room. Scraps of food mingled with silvery space blankets on the floor. In one cell, several boys had balled up the blankets into a makeshift soccer ball they were kicking around.

One man in the group said he left Guatemala eight days ago and made most of the trip by bus along with his 12-year-old daughter. They were planning to leave the processing center destined for San Diego — plane ticket in hand.

The father said he saved about $5,000 to pay a coyote to quickly get them to the border. He left a wife and two younger daughters back in Guatemala. Next to them were a mother and two daughters on their way to Cincinnati, also from Guatemala. They too traveled by bus and the journey took about eight days.

(MORE: A grandmother’s 2,700-mile journey to Tijuana’s migrant shelter and her wait for a family reunion)

Just two days after the group tunneled under the border wall in Yuma, the Border Patrol took in another huge group of migrants in New Mexico. The 247-person group, including unaccompanied minors, crossed near the Antelope Wells Port of Entry and immediately surrendered to authorities for processing.

The CBP said 24 large groups — quantified as 100 or more — have crossed the border near Lordsburg, New Mexico, just since Oct. 1, 2018.

ABC News’ Ignacio Torres and Mark Osborne contributed to this report.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to say Customs and Border Protection.

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Even the Border Patrol admits that the first priority should be humanitarian aid, something totally lost on the Trump Administration. Trump sometimes “mouths” the words “humanitarian crisis” — obviously written for him by someone else — but he doesn’t have the faintest idea of what it means or how to address it.

PWS

01-19-19

DUE PROCESS AT WORK: GENDER-BASED CLAIMS ARE WINNING: FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA, SOME U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES STAND UP FOR THE RULE OF LAW AND THE RIGHTS (& LIVES) OF REFUGEE WOMEN EVEN IN THE FACE OF A SCOFFLAW, XENOPHOBIC DOJ!

Here are two redacted “post-Matter of A-B-” decisions from U.S.Immigration Judges correctly interpreting the law to grant relief to refugee women from Central America who have been victims of gender-based persecution in the form of domestic violence.

Assistant Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Deepali Nadkarni of the Arlington Immigration Court granted this case based on a PSG of “women in Honduras.”

Nadkarni Grant – Women in Honduras PSG

And U.S. Immigration Judge Miriam Hayward of the San Francisco Immigration Court granted this case based on a PSG of “women in Mexico:”

SF IJ Hayward DV PSG grant

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Compare the outstanding organization, methodical scholarly analysis, proper use of country conditions, and logical conclusions of these decisions written by fair and impartial judges with the pages of legal gobbledygook and anti-asylum screed set forth by xenophobic politico Jeff Sessions in Matter of A-B-, 17 I&N Dec. 316 (BIA 2018).

In a properly functioning system, decisions like these would be the published precedents, not the misleading, inaccurate, and confusing decision of the Attorney General which has already been firmly rejected by U.S District Judge Sullivan in Grace v. Whitaker. Decisions like these two, if used as models, could actually help speed along the grant process in both the Asylum Office and the Immigration Courts, thus expediting justice without sacrificing Due Process.

As it is, these decisions should be helpful to counsel presenting cases of abused women in Immigration Court.

Assistant Chief Judge Nadkarni and Judge Hayward show what the U.S. Immigration Court system could be if the improper political meddling and enforcement bias were removed and the Immigration Court were allowed to operate independently. Unfortunately, there are some Immigration Judges out there who are intent not on judicial excellence, but on using Matter of A-B- to railroad refugees through the system into the “deportation mill” without Due Process. That’s why we need a diverse and independent appellate body that can reinforce “best practices” while keeping those judges who aren’t fairly and correctly applying asylum law in line and, perhaps, encouraging them to find other careers.

Congratulations to both Assistant Chief Judge Nadkarni and Judge Hayward for having the courage to stand tall for the rule of law, Due Process, and fundamental fairness for the most vulnerable in our society — the actual (if now largely discarded) mission of the U.S. Immigration Courts. I should know, since I helped draft that now-forgotten “vision statement.”

Also, many congrats to counsel Mark Stevens (who appeared before me many times in Arlington) and Kelly Engel Wells for their outstanding work and to the unnamed but still critically important ICE Assistant Chief Counsel who appear to have done an outstanding job of presenting these cases.

NOTE: Judge Miriam Hayward recently retired and has joined “Our Gang” now numbering at least 32 retired U.S. Immigration Judges and Appellate Immigration Judges.

PWS

01-17-19

THE GUARDIAN EXPOSES CONTINUING CHILD ABUSE BY ADMINISTRATION: Child Separations Underreported — Children Detained In Health-Threatening Conditions!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/17/trump-family-separations-report-latest-news-zero-tolerance-policy-immigrant-children?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Amanda Holpuch reports for The Guardian:

The Trump administration may have separated thousands of migrant children from their parents at the border for up to a year before family separation was a publicly known practice, according to a stunning government review of the health department’s role in family separation.

The US detention center where sick children receive ‘the bare minimum’

A report by the health department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) published Thursday said officials at the health department estimated “thousands of separated children” were put in health department care before a court order in June 2018 ordered the reunification of 2,600 other children.

“The total number of children separated from a parent or guardian by immigration authorities is unknown,” the report said.

In 2017, officials at the health department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) observed a steep increase in the number of children referred to ORR care who had been separated from their parents or guardians by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to the report.

In response to the increase, officials began informally tracking separations. “Thousands of children may have been separated during an influx that began in 2017, before the accounting required by the court, and HHS has faced challenges in identifying separated children,” the report said.

US attorney general Jeff Sessions announced the “zero tolerance” policy that made family separations possible in April 2018, but advocacy groups had been warning for months that family separations were already taking place.

In June 2018, a federal judge ordered 2,600 children to be reunited with their parents, but the health department said in the five months following the order, it was still identifying children who should have been considered separated but were not being clearly tracked in government systems.

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Alexandra Villarreal reports for The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/17/pennsylvania-detention-center-sick-children?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

At the Berks Family Residential Center, an immigrant detention facility in Leesport, Pennsylvania, advocates and former detainees say it’s normal for children held there to have health problems.

One mother, who asked to use her middle name Arely, told the Guardian that children often had fevers or vomited when she was detained at Berks. She said she watched helplessly as her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter threw up blood for three days.

Another woman – who asked to be referred to only by her middle name Fernanda because she still fears her antagonists in her home country – remembered children with the flu and respiratory illnesses, and how the on-site medical professionals would take their temperatures but never give out medicine. When Fernanda’s own daughter had fever, she had to go to the hospital just to get Tylenol, she said.

Since attorney Jacquelyn Kline began representing immigrant families detained at Berks in the summer of 2014, she said the majority of her clients have gotten sick. Usually, the illnesses have been minor. But sometimes, when common problems have gone ignored or untreated, they have spiraled to become something more.

“In my experience, [the staff] do the bare minimum and they don’t want to do more than that unless it becomes a situation where they have to do it,” Kline said. “Because they don’t address things when there are minor issues, it allows them to become more serious issues.”

One Berks resident wrote to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in late 2015 that though her son’s skin disease had spread to his genitals and bled when scratched, the clinical team had not provided him with medication.In May 2016, a three-year-old boy who had been suffering from fevers and loss of appetite for months was finally diagnosed with an intestinal parasitism after his mother found a worm in his diaper.

Berks did not respond to a request for comment. Ice’s public affairs officers are out-of-office for the duration of the government shutdown, according to an automated email from the Pennsylvania officer’s account. Ice confirmed that he is currently furloughed.

Relatives cry over the coffin of seven-year old Jakelin Caal, who died in a Texas hospital on 8 December, two days after being taken into custody by US border patrol agents. Photograph: Johan Ordóñez/AFP/Getty Images

The fact that serious medical conditions occur and go untreated for days, weeks or months while immigrant children are under the government’s protection may come as a surprise to many. But advocates who have been on the ground at detention facilities under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are well acquainted with stories such as these that point to a wider trend.

“I am surprised that more children or parents have not died while in DHS custody, given the systemic failure on the part of the government to provide medical services,” said Kathryn Shepherd, national advocacy counsel for the Immigration Justice Campaign at the American Immigration Council.

In late 2018, the deaths of two migrant children while in US custody near the southern border made national headlines and refocused attention on immigrant children who are in the country illegally. First, seven-year-old Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin died from cardiac arrest associated with dehydration on 8 December after being apprehended by DHS’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Then, on Christmas Eve, eight-year-old Felipe Gómez Alonzo became the second child in a matter of weeks to succumb to illness after being taken into custody by CBP. It was later determined that he had the flu.

At first glance, the deaths appeared an exceptional phenomenon. Homeland security secretary Kirstjen M Nielsen has said that before last December, an immigrant child had not died in CBP custody in more than a decade.

But for those familiar with the ways in which DHS holds immigrant families beyond the border through Ice, the deaths felt part of a long medical history of neglect, misdiagnoses and close calls associated with undocumented children. This history dates to at least 2014, when the department ramped up mass incarceration of immigrant families under President Barack Obama.

“I don’t think that this is a new problem,” said Shepherd. “I think that this is something that’s been a problem for a long time.”

Before accepting her current post, Shepherd served as managing attorney for a pro-bono project representing asylum-seeking families at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. Women and children detained there have beenairlifted or rushed to a hospital in an ambulance on a number of occasions, she said. Last summer, Vice News reported that a toddler had died six weeks after leaving the Ice detention center, where she contracted what started as a common cold but evolved into a deadly virus.

Eight-year-old Felipe Gómez Alonzo died on Christmas Eve after being taken into custody by DHS’s Customs and Border Protection. Photograph: Catarina Gomez/AP

Brad Berman, a clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of California- San Francisco and fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the DHS facilities he is aware of that hold immigrant families crossing through the US’s southern border appear to be “providing inadequate or substandard medical care”.

“They are violating their own standards – federal standards, as well as state standards, as well as ethical standards,” he said.

Vincent Picard, deputy assistant director to Ice public affairs, said that Ice spends more that $250m annually on healthcare for their charges. He cited the June 2017 DHS inspector general’s report that found the agency’s family residential centers to be “clean, well-organized and efficiently run”.

“Ice takes very seriously the health, safety and welfare of those in our care,” Picard said in a statement. “Ice is committed to ensuring the welfare of all those in the agency’s custody, including providing access to necessary and appropriate medical care. Comprehensive medical care is provided to all individuals in Ice custody.”

An independent medical evaluation Berman did tells a different story. He found that “the standards of pediatric medical care and mental health evaluations and care” for one immigrant child “were breached during her stay” at Berks, the Ice family detention center in Pennsylvania, in 2016. The girl, whose mother Maria requested she be referred to by her middle name Beatriz, was bedwetting after traveling to the US from El Salvador. She was nine years old.

Soon after arriving at Berks, Beatriz had several appointments with Michael Mosko, a psychologist provided by the facility. In his notes from one of the sessions, Mosko wrote that after conferring with an interpreter , he was under the impression that the bedwetting “was related to nothing more than laziness”.

After Beatriz was released from Berks, she visited a pediatric urologist and nephrologist who diagnosed her with chronic renal failure – or loss of kidney function. Though the condition was likely associated with Beatriz’s premature birth, it was exacerbated by a misdiagnosis during her time in detention, Berman said.

Now, Beatriz takes pills every night for her illness, which Maria said can’t be cured.

“She looked good when we were in El Salvador,” Maria said. “It was when she came here that she got sick.”

For Maria and Beatriz – as for many of the families from Central America who have crossed the US-Mexico border in recent years – leaving El Salvador was an attempt at self-preservation. When licensed clinical social worker Kathryn S Miller evaluated Beatriz, her report indicates that Beatriz and Maria shared stories about how the child watched her mother get robbed at knifepoint, experienced a home invasion, and overheard accounts of family friends being murdered by gang members.

Over the course of a year, Miller evaluated a handful of children who were detained at Berks. She said there was no doubt that each of them had been exposed to repeated trauma while in their home countries and had legitimate reasons for requesting asylum.

While families seeking asylum make their case, many of them fall into DHS custody and rely on the medical professionals the department supplies.

“There’s just basic needs that children have,” said Miller. “And if they’re going to be tasked with taking care of vulnerable children, they need to have the training and support to make sure they’re taking good care of them.”

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The shutdown hasn’t stopped the Administration’s many abuses of migrants and children. Clearly, a Wall is not the answer to forcing the Administration to follow the law.

PWS

01-17-19

EOIR & USCIS ISSUE COURT-REQUIRED NEW GUIDANCE ELIMINATING LARGE PORTIONS OF SESSIONS’S BOGUS GUIDANCE IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE/GANG RELATED CASES — Advocates Should Be Pushing This At All Levels In All Forums!

Dear Colleagues,

Following up on U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan’s powerful decision in Grace v. Whitaker, which found major elements of Matter of A-B- and the related USCIS Policy Memorandum to be inconsistent with the law, we are pleased to share the instructions which the Court ordered USCIS and EOIR to provide asylum officers and immigration judges conducting credible fear interviews and reviews of negative credible fear findings.  This guidance takes immediate effect and should be relied upon and cited to by advocates.

The Court declared that the following policies contained in Matter of A-B- and the related USCIS Policy Memorandum are arbitrary, capricious, and in violation of immigration law as applied to credible fear proceedings:

1.     The general rule against claims relating to domestic and gang violence.

2.     The requirement that a noncitizen whose claim involves non-governmental persecutors “show the government condoned the private actions or at least demonstrated a complete helplessness to protect the victim.”

3.     The Policy Memorandum’s rule that domestic violence-based particular social group definitions that include “inability to leave” a relationship are impermissibly circular and therefore not cognizable.

4.     The Policy Memorandum’s requirement that individuals must delineate or identify any particular social group in order to satisfy credible fear based on the particular social group protected ground.

5.     The Policy Memorandum’s directive that asylum officers should apply federal circuit court case law only “to the extent that those cases are not inconsistent with Matter of A-B-.”

6.     The Policy Memorandum’s directive that asylum officers should apply only the case law of “the circuit” where the individual is “physically located during the credible fear interview.”

While the Court’s order is limited to credible fear interviews in the expedited removal process, we urge advocates to use the Court’s reasoning in merits hearings before the Asylum Office and the Immigration Court, and on review before the BIA and circuit courts. Of the six findings above, only (4) and (6) are specific to the nature of the credible fear process, which is intended to be a low screening standard, providing the applicant with the benefit of the most advantageous case law. The other four findings (1,2,3, and 5) are more broadly based on Judge Sullivan’s interpretation of key statutory terms of the refugee definition, and his reasoning should be adopted and argued in the merits context as well.

Best,

Karen

Karen Musalo

Bank of America Foundation Chair in International Law

Professor & Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies

U.C. Hastings College of the Law

200 McAllister Street

San Francisco, CA 94102

tel: 415 565-4720 fax 415 581-8824

musalok@uchastings.edu

SSRN Author Page:  http://ssrn.c

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Thanks, Karen. The actual guidance memos can be found at the link in Karen’s e-mail.

The EOIR “guidance” asserts that it applies only in credible fear reviews. While technically true, as Karen more accurately points out, the rationale of Judge Sullivan’s findings 1, 2, 3, and 5 should apply equally in removal proceedings. Even if the “captive” BIA won’t listen the real, Article III Courts should. That’s why it’s critical to challenge all A-B- denials in the Circuits. And, as I noted before, no Circuit has yet had an opportunity to review A-B-.

Most, if not all, cases denied on the basis of Sessions’s flawed decision in Matter of A–B– should be subject to remand from the Article IIIs. Just another example of how Sessions continues to harm individuals who deserve Due Process, while contributing to the largely DOJ-made backlog and wasting the time of the Article III Courts.

PWS

01-13-19

THE ABSURDITY OF TRUMP’S SHUTDOWN & ITS DEVASTATING EFFECT ON OUR ALREADY CRUMBLING IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM DETAILED IN OPEN LETTER TO CONGRESS BY NAIJ PRESIDENT, HON. A. ASHLEY TABADDOR

01092019senate

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF IMMIGRATION JUDGES
President A. Ashley Tabaddor c/o Immigration Court 606 S. Olive Street, 15th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90014 (213) 534-4491
______________________________________________________________________________________________________ January 9, 2019
Dear Senator,
As has been widely reported, the current government shutdown over U.S. immigration policy has placed an unmanageable burden on our nation’s Immigration Courts. As an Immigration Judge in Los Angeles presently on furlough and as President of the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), I am acutely aware of the impact of the current government shut down on our Immigration Courts, Immigration Judges and the parties who appear before us.
There is currently a backlog of more than 800,000 pending immigration cases (an increase of 200,000 cases in less than two years, in spite of the largest growth in the number of judges in recent history – from under 300 to over 400 U.S. Immigration Judges). We, as Immigration Judges, are responsible for determining whether claimants can remain in the United States or must be deported or detained.
Because of the crushing backlog of cases, our individual court calendars are booked, morning and afternoon, every day of the week, multiple years in advance. Some days our judges have more than 80 cases on their dockets. Every day that our courts are closed, thousands of cases are cancelled and have to be rescheduled. However, the likely re-scheduling option is – as Washington Post editorial writers suggest – plucked from a New Yorker cartoon: “Never. Does never work for you?” While this is hyperbole, it is not far from the truth. Since it is impossible to predict when these cases can reasonably be rescheduled, it might as well be “never.”
The concept of “never” cannot be accepted and does not work for the United States. It is unacceptable to prevent those who should be deported to remain here indefinitely or to prevent those who are eligible for relief from being granted relief and receive the benefit they deserve. When a hearing is delayed for years as a result of a government shutdown, individuals with pending cases can lose track of witnesses, their qualifying relatives can die or age-out and evidence already presented becomes stale. Those with strong cases, who might receive a legal
1

immigration status, see their cases become weaker. Meanwhile, those with weak cases – who should be deported sooner rather than later – benefit greatly from an indefinite delay.
Judges, as public servants, along with our fellow federal employees and people across the country, are also being asked to carry the burden of a government shut-down. Every Immigration Judge across the country is currently in a “no-pay” status. Those who have been furloughed are anxious about having been prevented from continuing to work and earn their living. The judges who have been deemed as “excepted” are serving the American people without pay and doing so with added unnecessary pressures, including the Department’s recent announcement that most hearings will no longer be accompanied with in-person interpreters, and that the judges’ previous compressed work schedules and administrative time to review cases has been cancelled. On behalf of the NAIJ, I urge you to bring a rapid end to the current shutdown.
The root cause, however, of an increasing backlog of cases, the delays, uncertainty and unfairness in U.S. Immigration Courts is that our Immigration Court and judges are directly accountable to the U.S. Attorney General, the federal government’s lead prosecutor. This underlying structural flaw has led to repeated violations of the basic tenants of our American judicial principles, that of an independent and impartial judge and court. While we are grateful to Congress for the recent allocation of additional funding to our resource starved courts, such as added Immigration Judge teams, history has proven that the issues plaguing our Immigration Courts will not be corrected simply through more funding. The enduring solution, which has been publicly supported by multiple prominent legal organizations and scholars, is to remove the Immigration Court from the Justice Department and afford it with the true independence it needs and deserves. It is long past time to vest U.S. Immigration Judges – like our counterparts in U.S. tax and bankruptcy courts – with full judicial independence under Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution.
We are available at your convenience to discuss these critical issues. Sincerely,
Hon. Ashley Tabaddor
President, National Association of Immigration Judges
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Wow! Trump is taking “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” — the REAL primary cause of the unmanageable court backlog — to new heights.

And, Judge Tabaddor isn’t even counting the 300,000 or so already closed cases that EOIR Director McHenry includes in his backlog count (undoubtedly on orders from his DOJ “handlers”)!

Nor does she include more than 300,000 Central Americans and Haitians that the Administration is mindlessly (and perhaps illegally) trying to boot out of their current status. Of course, the vast majority of the TPSers would have strong claims for “Cancellation of Removal.” So, in truth, they are not going anywhere except into the Court’s backlog. Trump will be long gone before the Immigration Courts even get to,the first of those cases!

Running hearings without in person interpreters! That’s almost a prima facie Due Process violation. I can virtually guarantee that it will result in many inadequate or disputed translations, meaning remands by the BIA and the Article IIIs for “redos.” Haste makes waste!

What if we actually invested in a system that “does Due Process right” the first time around? Certainly, it would make the system fairer and more efficient. It wouldn’t cost $5.7 billion either. Indeed some of that money could be spent on providing universal representation for asylum seekers. Or how about a functioning e-filing system which almost all other high volume courts in America also have?

Could it get any dumber than Trump shutting down the Immigration Courts, essential to immigration administration and enforcement, over immigration enforcement? No, it couldn’t!

PWS

01-12-19

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

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

Nolan writes, in part:

. . . .

Unfortunately, Trump has made it easier for them by basing his request on claims about who is crossing the border that can be disputed readily, such as that many of them are terrorists or criminals.

He should base his otherwise correct argument instead on the numbers — on the fact that the sheer number of illegal crossings has overwhelmed our immigration courts, creating a backlog crisis that has made it virtually impossible to enforce our immigration laws, and that the border cannot be secured when illegal crossers are allowed to remain here indefinitely.

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Go on over to The Hill at the link for Nolan’s complete article.

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

PWS

01-10-19

4th Cir. Finds No Nexus In Gang-Based Asylum Case – Cortez-Mendez v. Whitaker

162389.P

Cortez-Mendez v. Whitaker, 4th Cir., 01-07-19, Published

PANEL: WILKINSON and AGEE, Circuit Judges, and James P. JONES, United States District Judge for the Western District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

OPINION BY: Judge Agee

KEY QUOTE:

Cortez-Mendez disputes the IJ and BIA’s conclusion that he was threatened because of “general criminal gang activity” in his hometown. A.R. 3; see A.R. 65–66. He asserts the gangs persecuted him because his father’s disabilities caused Cortez-Mendez to be poor, “vulnerable,” and “an easy mark [without] the backing and advice of a father.” A.R. 148. Cortez-Mendez argues his persecution was pointedly discriminatory because he “knew many of his persecutors[ ] and had heard them ridicule his father and the rest of his family.” Opening Br. 11; see A.R. 56. We find his arguments unpersuasive.

Cortez-Mendez presented no direct or circumstantial evidence that the gangs harassed him “on account of” his father’s disabilities as opposed to his own rejection of gang membership. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42). He provided no direct evidence that the gangs intimidated him because he was his father’s son. His only evidence of linkage to his father is that non-gang neighborhood harassers had “made fun of” him because of Marcial Cortez’s disabilities, A.R. 146–47, and the gang members who called his mother in 2005 “remembered [him] as a son of a mute and dumb person,” A.R. 176. Even if either of these groups of taunters knew about Marcial Cortez’s disabilities, it does not follow that they intimidated Cortez-Mendez because of his relation to his disabled father.See Hernandez-Avalos, 784 F.3d at 950 n.7 (“[N]ot . . . every threat that references a family member is made on account of family ties.”).

7

Indeed, the circumstantial evidence in the record reflects a different reason for Cortez-Mendez’s harassment: he rejected the gangs’ recruitment efforts. Cortez-Mendez testified that he feared the gangs would harm him “if [he] did not become a gangster” or “if [he] did not [agree] to become part of the gangs.” A.R. 175. Substantial evidence supports the IJ’s and BIA’s conclusions that the “neighborhood gangs observed the family’s poverty and concluded they could easily recruit” Cortez-Mendez, A.R. 56, and that it was after Cortez-Mendez refused to join the gangs that they threatened him, A.R. 3–4, 66. Cortez-Mendez even admitted that he left El Salvador because had rejected gang membership: “they kept asking me to join them and be a member of the gang, and that is why I fled.” A.R. 140. At most, Cortez-Mendez demonstrated that the gangs may have targeted him because of his poverty but only threatened him because he would not join their ranks. Flight from gang recruitment is not a protected ground under the INA. See Zelaya v. Holder, 668 F.3d 159, 166–67 (4th Cir. 2012); Matter of S-E-G-, 24 I. & N. Dec. 579, 589 (B.I.A. 2008). Consequently, Cortez-Mendez’s own testimony of his circumstantial fears defeats his argument that a protected ground like his relation to his disabled father was “at least one central reason for” his treatment in El Salvador.Crespin-Valladares, 632 F.3d at 127.

Furthermore, while it is not dispositive, Cortez-Mendez testified that his father and other family members still live in El Salvador and have suffered no harm. Our decision relies on whether Cortez-Mendez—and not some other person—was persecuted because of his relation to his father, see Hernandez-Avalos, 784 F.3d at 950; Crespin-Valladares, 632 F.3d at 127 n.6, but a fact we may consider with the rest is whether other family

8

members have been persecuted because of their identical family ties, see Mirisawo, 599 F.3d at 398 (“The fact that family members whose political opinions Mirisawo fears will be imputed to her have not themselves faced harm fatally undermines her claim that she will suffer persecution because of her association with them.”). The evidence in the record that Cortez-Mendez’s family—including his disabled father—remains unharmed suggests that Cortez-Mendez’s relation to his father is not the reason for the persecution he fears.

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

Primarily a failure of proof. Had there been evidence that: (1) the gang’s threats were because of the respondent’s father’s disabled status; (2) his father or other members of the family had been harmed or threatened; or (3) gangs in El Salvador had a particular antipathy toward disabled individuals and their families, the result could have been different.

Still, the fact-based nature of this outcome, and the Fourth Circuit’s carefully articulated analysis, give lie to Session’s attempt to create a “de facto presumption” against the granting of asylum cases based on domestic violence and/or harm from gangs. Each case must be separately analyzed on its facts. That will take considerable time and careful analyses by U.S. immigration Judges and the BIA — the polar opposite of Sessions’s prejudicial “judicial quotas” and his urging that Immigration Judges cut corners by prejudging gang-related cases against respondents as he suggested in Matter of A-B-.

With the backlog growing exponentially by the day as a result of Trump’s mindless shutdown, the Immigration Courts can’t possibly carry out their mission consistently with Due Process as long as they are controlled by politicos like Sessions, Whitaker, and Trump.

HISTORICAL NOTE: Both Miriswano and Crespin-Valladares, cited by the Fourth Circuit cases were my cases when I was at the Arlington Immigration Court.

PWS

01-10-19

SISTER NORMA PIMENTEL: A MESSAGE TO TRUMP FROM THE REAL BORDER

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/10/welcome-border-mr-president/

Sister Norma Pimentel in WashPost:

Norma Pimentel, a sister of the Missionaries of Jesus, is director of Catholic Charities for the Rio Grande Valley.

Dear Mr. President,

We welcome you to our community here in South Texas along the Rio Grande, which connects the United States to Mexico. I wish you could visit us. Our downtown Humanitarian Respite Center has been welcoming newcomers for the past four years.

When families cross the border, they are typically apprehended by authorities, held for a few days and released with a court date to consider their request for asylum. After they are released, we receive them at our respite center. By the time they find their way to our doors, most adults are wearing Border Patrol-supplied ankle bracelets and carrying bulky chargers to keep those devices powered up.

Helping these families has been our work since 2014, when tens of thousands of people, primarily from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, crossed into the United States through the Rio Grande Valley Sector, creating a humanitarian emergency in our community. Before the respite center opened, dozens of immigrant families, hungry, scared and in a foreign land, huddled at the bus station with only the clothes on their back, nothing to eat or drink, and nowhere to shower or sleep. They waited hours and sometimes overnight for their buses.

Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley first opened the center at Sacred Heart Church in McAllen and worked collaboratively with city officials and other faith denominations and nonprofits, such as the Salvation Army and the Food Bank, to provide newly arrived immigrants with some basic necessities. We have moved to a bigger facility since.

Every day of the year, from morning to evening, families coming over the border are welcomed at our center with smiles, a warm bowl of soup, a shower and a place to rest. Most families are exhausted and afraid, carrying little more than a few belongings in a plastic bag. They come in all forms and at all ages. Few speak any English. Most are in great need of help. Some days, we see 20 people. Other days, it’s closer to 300. In recent weeks, it has been very busy. Some stay a few hours, but many spend the night before heading on to new destinations. Since we opened, more than 100,000 have come through our doors.

We work closely with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Rio Grande Valley Sector, and our team has cultivated a culture of mutual respect and dialogue. Our center staff, in communication with the Border Patrol, prepares to receive groups of immigrants who have been released. We try to meet the need. It is vital that we keep our country safe, and I appreciate the work of the men and women in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection who are vigilant as to who enters our country. I pray for them daily.

Mr. President, if you come early in the morning, here is what you will see: The families who have spent the night are tidying up their sleeping spaces. Some are sweeping, some are helping prepare breakfast, and some are getting ready for their bus departure to other places in the United States. You will see volunteers arriving to offer a hand either preparing hygiene packets, making sandwiches, cutting vegetables, preparing the soup for the day or sorting through donated clothing. Others may assist with the intake or help a mother or father contact family living in the United States. People come from all over the state and beyond to help.

Later in the day, you will meet some of the children who are playing in our small play yard and the mothers and fathers who are watching over them. Some will be resting, as for many of them this is the first place since they left their home countries where they feel safe.

In the evening, another group of volunteers arrives to cook and serve a simple dinner of pizza or tacos, beans and rice, Sometimes local restaurants donate the dinner. Either way, the families who will remain for the night have a meal and prepare to sleep. In the morning, we send them on their way, a little better off but armed with a sign (that we give them) that reads: “ PLEASE HELP ME. I DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH. WHAT BUS DO I TAKE? THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!”

I am energized each day by the families I meet, especially the children. I am energized as well by the volunteers. They come from our local communities but also from across the United States. We witness daily how, working together, people of all faiths can focus on helping the person in front of us. Regardless of who we are and where we came from, we remain part of the human family and are called to live in solidarity with one another.

As the Most Rev. Daniel E. Flores, bishop of our diocese, says, “We must put human dignity first.”

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

This is a more accurate picture of Central American asylum seekers which reflects the inspirational qualities of courage, ingenuity, perseverance, gratitude, and industry that I found in the most of the asylum-seeking individuals and families I came in contact with over my years at the Arlington Immigration Court.

Also, Sister Norma paints a more sympathetic picture of the U.S. Border Patrol which reflects some of my experiences when I worked with them at the “Legacy INS.”

Imagine what even a few billion (or even a few million) dollars invested in humanitarian assistance like that provided by Sister Pimentel and her organization could do as opposed to wasteful spending on more largely useless walls and wasteful and inhumane detention centers.

Walls, jails, prosecutions, threats, and disingenuous de-humanizing rhetoric are not effective or acceptable ways of dealing with a humanitarian crisis.

PWS

01-10-19

DON KERWIN AT CMS WITH TRUTH ON BORDER SECURITY: “The real crisis exists in the Northern Triangle of Central America, where organized crime threatens residents with impunity and there exists a lack of stability and opportunity. “

View this email in your browser

Statement of Donald Kerwin,
Executive Director of the Center for Migration Studies,
on the US Border and Border Wall

Last evening, President Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office, asserting that there exists a crisis on our southern border which necessitates the construction of a border wall.

Despite the president’s claims that a crisis exists on the border, the facts demonstrate otherwise. The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) has released several reports which show that border crossings have dropped significantly over the past several years.

A 2016 CMS report showed that net migration from Mexico between 2010 and 2016 dropped 11 percent. The undocumented population from Mexico dropped by an additional 400,000 from 2016 to 2017. Migration from other parts of Latin America, save the Northern Triangle, also dropped significantly. The report’s overall conclusion was that the number of undocumented in the nation had dropped to 10.8 million, a new low. The report can be found at http://cmsny.org/publications/warren-undocumented-2016/.

CMS also issued a report which found that the number of persons who have overstayed their visas between 2008 and 2014 had exceeded the number of border crossers. In 2014, overstays represented two-thirds of those who joined the undocumented population. The report can be found at http://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-visa-overstays-border-wall/.

A recent study by several immigrant rights organizations, entitled Death, Damage, and Failure: Past, Present, and Future Impacts of Walls on the US-Mexico Border, details the damage caused to border communities by already existing walls and fencing along the border, and how the extension of a wall would cause economic, environmental, and human harm moving forward.

The human tragedy at our border, where thousands of children and families are fleeing persecution and violence from the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, is where this administration and Congress should focus its attention.

A series of measures designed to deter these vulnerable populations from fleeing their countries, including family separation, mandatory detention, zero tolerance, and denial of entry at the border are undermining their legal and human rights, guaranteed under both domestic and international law. They are handing themselves over to Border Patrol agents in search of protection, not trying to enter the country illegally. The Administration and Congress should act to end these inhumane policies and provide protection to vulnerable women and children.

The real crisis exists in the Northern Triangle of Central America, where organized crime threatens residents with impunity and there exists a lack of stability and opportunity. Instead of appropriating nearly $5.7 billion for an ineffective and damaging wall, Congress and President Trump should use some portion of this funding to address the push factors causing flight from the region. Addressing root causes of flight is the most humane and effective solution to outward migration.

Instead of shutting down the government over a wall, President Trump and Congress also should enact a legislative package which provides permanent status to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients, immigrant populations who have built equities in our nation. CMS has issued studies on the contributions of each of these populations, which can be found at http://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-potential-beneficiaries-of-daca-dapa/ and http://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-tps-elsalvador-honduras-haiti/.

Our nation deserves an immigration system which protects human rights and human dignity while upholding the rule of law. This requires immigration reform which honors our values and traditions as a nation of immigrants. Building walls only divides us as a country and does not address the sources of global migration.

The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) is a New York-based educational institute devoted to the study of international migration, to the promotion of understanding between immigrants and receiving communities, and to public policies that safeguard the dignity and rights of migrants, refugees, and newcomers. For more information, please visit www.cmsny.org. For more information, contact Rachel Reyes, CMS’s Director of Communications, at rreyes@cmsny.org.

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

Yeah, I know I said “enough” on Trump’s Tuesday night “Lie-O-Rama” about the Bogus “Southern Border Crisis” he created to pander for his unneeded, wasteful, and distracting border wall. But, it’s always worth hearing what a “real immigration pro” like Don, who speaks from scholarship and facts, not White Nationalist fabrications and myths, has to say.

PWS

01-09-19

TAL @ SF CHRON: Dreamer Deal To End Shutdown Seems Unlikely — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: My Essay “Let’s Govern!”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Why-a-DACA-deal-to-end-the-shutdown-is-unlikely-13517915.php?t=e29fabd761

Tal reports:

WASHINGTON — A perennial trial balloon is once more floating on the horizon: Could protecting young undocumented immigrants from deportation in exchange for border security money get Washington out of a lengthy government shutdown?

The idea is already rapidly falling back to Earth.

President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, have both brushed aside suggestions that passing protections like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program could be a way out of the shutdown, which is nearing the end of its third week with no hint of a resolution.

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DACA temporarily protects many undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. under the age of 16 from being deported. Trump, whose attempt to end DACA is tied up in the courts, said Sunday that he would “rather have the Supreme Court rule and then work with the Democrats” on extending protections for program recipients.

“They’re two different subjects,” Pelosi said last month when asked about trading DACA for Trump’s southern border wall — $5.7 billion for which he is demanding before he will sign any government funding bills for the agencies that have been shut down.

Democrats are not universally against the idea. San Mateo Rep. Jackie Speier told MSNBC last week that she “personally would support it” and “there is a willingness to look” at a DACA-for-wall money deal in the caucus. DACA protections for nearly 700,000 immigrants nationwide, 200,000 of whom are in California, are in limbo, and hundreds of thousands more would be eligible for the program.

But numerous other Democrats — including several on the influential Hispanic, Asian Pacific and black caucuses that have leadership’s ear on immigration — said a DACA deal involving wall money is a nonstarter in shutdown negotiations without serious and uncharacteristic overtures from Trump.

Here’s why it’s unlikely:

Trump thinks time, and the Supreme Court, are on his side. The White House believes the court will ultimately invalidate the Obama-era DACA program or side with Trump’s attempt to end it, which has been blocked by lower courts. When that happens, the administration believes, Trump will have more leverage to cut a better deal with Democrats desperate to keep sympathetic young DACA recipients from being deported, and Congress will be forced to deal with a dilemma it has long avoided.

Democrats don’t trust Trump, who has walked away from a number of DACA proposals in the past year. “Donald Trump is not a deal-maker, he’s a deal-breaker,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz. “We’ve seen this happen numerous times, and we’re not going to come approach him with a deal that he’s only going to take and then reject and then come back and move the goalposts on.”

Pelosi is in touch with her base, and her base isn’t eager to broach that deal. “People don’t want to trade a wall for something that isn’t even real,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “People don’t want a wall, period, and I think there’s no trust that there’s any credible negotiation around something positive on immigration, given (Trump’s) history.”

Trump wants much more on immigration than just physical border security, where there are some areas of potential compromise. A presentation that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen prepared for congressional leaders last week included calls not just for the wall, but the rollback of a bipartisan bill designed to protect human trafficking victims and a court-ordered settlement intended to safeguard immigrant children. Both of those are nonstarters with Democrats, who say the protections are needed and getting rid of them does not promote border security.

Republicans question whether Democrats are as motivated as they say they are to resolve the DACA issue. They’re skeptical Democrats want to take the political leverage off the table. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, a moderate Republican who has long worked on immigration reform, called the potential to get a deal out of the shutdown fight the “opportunity of a lifetime.”

“It requires the Democratic leadership to actually do something that they have not done in the past,” Diaz-Balart said, “which is match their rhetoric on DACA with actual action.”

Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent. Email: tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @talkopan

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

HERE’S YOUR “BONUS COVERAGE” ESSAY FROM “COURTSIDE:”

LET’S GOVERN!

By

Paul Wickham Schmidt

United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

I still think the best deal for America would be some form of “Wall for Dreamers” compromise. To me, the huge downside of “The Wall” would be more than offset by getting 800,000 great American young people — literally the future of our country – out of the shadows and contributing their maximum skills, talents, and creativity to making America really great (not the hollow mockery of “greatness’ peddled by Trump and his base).

But, Tal’s usually got her head “closer to the ground” than I do these days from my retirement perch in Alexandria. So, I’ll assume for the purposes of this piece that Tal is correct and that the “great compromise” isn’t in the cards – at least at this time.

So, where does we go from here? This is crystal clear: Trump can neither govern in America’s best interest nor can he cut any reasonable deal. So, it seems like the only alternative for America is for the Democrats in Congress to get together with the GOP and develop a plan for governing in the absence of a competent Executive. That means passage of “veto-proof” legislation that also places some specific limits and directions on Executive actions.

What could a “veto proof” compromise to reopen Government look like. Well, of course, to start it must fund the affected Government agencies through the end of the fiscal year.

But, it also could include a robust $5.9 Million “Border Security” package. Here’s what could be included:

Additional Asylum Officers;
Additional port of entry inspectors;
Additional Immigration Judges and court staff;
Additional funding for Office of Refugee Resettlement for health and safety of children;
Required e-filing and other management improvements at EOIR (including elimination of counterproductive “quotas” on judges, and providing at least one judicial law clerk for each judge);
Additional Assistant Chief Counsel for ICE;
Funding for counsel for asylum applicants and resettlement agencies;
Additional Anti-Smuggling, Intelligence, and Undercover Agents for DHS;
Smart Technology for and between ports of entry at the border and the interior;
Required improvements in management planning, hiring, and supervision within DHS;
Limitations on wasteful immigration detention (including a prohibition on long-term detention of children except in limited circumstances) and reprogramming of detention funds to alternatives to detention;
Funding for additional border fencing or fencing repairs in specific areas with an express prohibition on additional physical barriers without a specific appropriation from Congress.
Assistance to Mexico, the UNHCR, and other countries in the hemisphere to improve refugee processing and address problems in the Northern Triangle;

Sure, Trump could, and maybe would, veto it – although he’d be wise not to. And, I suppose, that veto, which would be overridden, could be the “red meat” for his base that he apparently favors over the “art of governing.”

But, in the meantime, Congress would fulfill its important role of governing in a bipartisan manner that will keep America moving forward even in the times of a weak and incompetent Executive. And, unlike the bogus “Wall,” the foregoing measures would actually contribute to our country’s security and welfare without wasting taxpayers’ money or trampling on individual rights and legal obligations. In other words, “smart governance.” That seems like a fair and worthy objective for both parties in Congress.

PWS

01-09-19

AZAM AHMED @ NY TIMES: PERVERSION OF JUSTICE: How Trump Aids Smugglers While Punishing Legitimate Asylum Seekers!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/06/world/americas/mexico-migrants-smugglers.html

Ahmed reports:

REYNOSA, Mexico — As the human smugglers stalk the bus stations, migrant shelters and twisting streets of this Mexican border town, they have no trouble collecting clients like Julian Escobar Moreno.

The Honduran migrant arrived in Reynosa, Mexico, intending to apply for asylum in the United States. But new policies north of the border have instead driven him into the hands of the city’s smuggling cartels, whose business is booming.

“I honestly don’t want to cross illegally, but I don’t really have a choice,” said Mr. Moreno, 37.

The Trump administration, which has partially shut down the federal government in a fight over funding for an enhanced border wall, has adopted a number of strategies over the last two years to deter migrants and persuade them to turn around — or not to come at all.

Its latest effort is a policy that admits only a few asylum seekers a day, if that, at border crossings. As a result of this metering, migrants are now waiting on the Mexican side of the border for weeks and months before they can submit their applications.

In Reynosa and elsewhere, the delays caused by the policy are prompting many migrants to weigh the costs and dangers of a faster option: hiring a smuggler, at an increasingly costly rate, to sneak them into the United States.

In November, the number of migrant families apprehended attempting to cross the border skyrocketed to its highest levels on record, with some of those caught having turned to smugglers at some point in their trip.

“What we have seen is that no one is getting across the border,” said Hector Silva, the director of a center providing services to migrants that sits near the banks of the Rio Grande, which separates Reynosa from McAllen, Tex. “This forces families, with all the desperation they feel, to go illegally.”

The decision to endure a long wait or illegally expedite the journey to the United States is playing out not only in Reynosa, where the crack of gunfire has become a soundtrack of the city, but across the long sweep of the United States-Mexico border, all the way to Tijuana, where a crisis is unfolding as thousands of Central Americans wait their turn to cross the border.

A visit to a Reynosa migrant shelter quickly makes it clear how many are considering the smuggling option.

“I’m scared to go to the border crossing, because they will deport me,” said Maximo Rene Arana Nunez, a Guatemalan who arrived in Reynosa a few days ago and is looking to cross. “I’m stuck here until my family in the United States can save enough money to pay for a smuggler.”

According to those recently deported, migrants who are attempting to cross and local officials, the price that smugglers can command is rising along with the demand for their services.

For those able to afford it, and willing to accept the risk, finding smugglers in Reynosa is easy. The streets seethe with smuggling cartel agents, who openly pitch their services.

The dangers of an illegal crossing are not enough to dissuade migrants. They are fearful, but many feel they have no other recourse. For many, the calculation is predicated on a simple truth: What lies behind them is worse than what may lie ahead.

“I don’t have an option, I can’t be there,” Mr. Moreno said of his native Honduras. “Our government is totally corrupt, and if the Mexicans or Americans deport me, I’m dead.”

Mr. Moreno now works 12-hour shifts on the outskirts of the city, trying to save enough to pay for a smuggler.

For other migrants in the shelter, the equation was not necessarily of life or death, but of exchanging well-known hardship for vaguer hope.

“Look, we know what the situation is in our country,” said Osman Noe Guillén, 28, who reached Reynosa with his partner shortly after their marriage, having treated the ride on the buses up from Honduras as something of a honeymoon. “We don’t know what will happen when we cross.”

Mr. Guillén gripped the hand of his wife, Lilian Marlene Menéndez, and allowed himself a smile. Blind faith and economic need were enough for them. They did not know how grim and dangerous Reynosa was before they arrived, only that it was the closest crossing from Honduras and therefore the cheapest to reach.

Yes, they had heard the angry rhetoric about migrants coming out of the United States, they said, and knew about the deportations and long waits at the border. But they didn’t care.

“Desperation makes you do crazy things,” Mr. Guillén said. “I don’t think anything would stop me. And certainly not a wall.”

The couple, having priced out the next leg of the journey with local smugglers, said they had accepted the risks of continuing. The smugglers, or polleros, are known to kill or strand migrants who falter in their payments, and to extort those who have families that can mortgage homes or drum up more money.

In recent days, the couple was quoted a price of $7,000 apiece just to make it to the banks on the Texas side of the river.

That appears to be on the higher end; many Central Americans recently have been quoted $5,500 to be ferried to reach the other side of the river. Not long ago, $4,000 was the going rate.

Some of the migrants interviewed who were planning to try the smuggling route said they still intended to apply for asylum if and when they made it to the United States.

While the United States’ revised policy toward asylum seekers is primarily aimed at dissuading Central American migrants from making the trip to the border, it is also affecting Mexican policy and the lives of Mexicans in border cities.

The mayor of Reynosa, Maki Esther Ortiz Dominguez, noted that her city, in the state of Tamaulipas, was already one of the most dangerous in Mexico. She said she is worried the situation in Reynosa could grow even worse, as migrants are either preyed upon by criminals or recruited to join their ranks.

“This policy could at any moment detonate a new crime wave here,” Ms. Ortiz Dominguez said.

In the center of the bridge that connects Reynosa with McAllen, the United States Border Patrol this summer constructed a new booth for prescreening people hoping to make it into American territory. At least two officers are on duty in the tiny structure, asking everyone who passes for their documentation.

More recently, Mexican officials have begun acting as a first line of border defense. As people queue up to cross the bridge, Mexican agents are now pulling Central Americans out of the line, demanding their paperwork and detaining them if they have not filled out the proper documentation.

Some have languished for months waiting for family members to send money to pay the fee for the paperwork.

The new approach by Mexican agents at the border was begun under pressure from the United States, said one Mexican official in Reynosa, requesting anonymity because this person was not authorized to discuss the decision publicly.

It was this new approach by the authorities in Mexico that ensnared Mr. Moreno.

Having been run out of Honduras by the notorious 18th Street gang for refusing to work for them, he believed he had a good case for political asylum in the United States and went to the bridge in Reynosa so he could start the application process.

But moments after arriving with his pregnant wife and three children at the foot of the international bridge, he and his family were stopped by Mexican officials and detained.

A few months ago, Mr. Moreno’s lack of proper paperwork would have been ignored by the Mexican authorities, according to local officials and immigration lawyers. But Mr. Moreno was held in a cell for 20 days and his family was placed in a temporary shelter.

The lure of the smugglers in Reynosa is not limited to Central Americans. Mexicans, too, employ their services, although the cost is lower — the prices charged seem to depend on just how bad the situation is in a migrant’s home country.

On a recent day in a migration office in Reynosa, a group of Mexicans sat waiting to be processed after their deportations from the United States.

“For the migration authorities, it is a job,” said Melvin Gómez, 18, who is from the Mexican state of Chiapas. “For Mexicans and Central Americans, immigration is a dream.”

Mr. Gómez had just tried crossing for the fourth time the day before.

“We have something to live for,” he said, “and that keeps us going.”

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

Trump, Sessions, & Nielsen have helped empower criminal gangs in the U.S. and the Northern Triangle with their clueless and racist-driven enforcement policies. Now they are handing out similar benefits to smugglers and human traffickers. And, in both instances, the Trumpsters have discouraged those actually trying to help law enforcement and/or comply with the law.

Yes, our immigration system needs changes. But, the only “immigration emergency” right now is that intentionally manufactured by Trump and his gang of White Nationalist incompetents. Don’t let them get away with their fraud, waste, and abuse!

PWS

01-08-19

MARY PAPENFUSS & PROFESSOR LAWRENCE LESSIG @ HUFFPOST: TRUMP & THE GOP ARE THE REAL EXISTENTIAL THREATS TO NATIONAL SECURITY! — ““The fools are they who enable this constitutional immorality,” Lessig wrote. “Those fools are the Senate Republicans, who have placed party over country, and President Trump over the Republican Party.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lawrence-lessig-donald-trump-national-emergency_us_5c32b2eae4b0d75a98320eae

Papenfuss reports:

Constitutional law expert and Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig dismissed President Donald Trump’s characterization of the immigrant situation at the Mexican border as a crisis on Sunday, then said the real national emergency was “this president.”

Asked about Trump’s threat to declare a national emergency on the southern border so that he can order his wall built without congressional approval, Lessig told MSNBC: “The man is using words that have no connection to reality.”

“He says we have a national crisis … a national emergency. I agree we have a national emergency, but the emergency is this president,” Lessig added. “The emergency is the fact we don’t have an executive who’s exercising his power in a responsible way.”

Lessig said the president can’t build his wall without the backing of Congress.

“Ultimately he has no constitutional authority to exercise the power to build this wall without Congress’ approval,” Lessig said. “These statutes were certainly not written with the intent to give a man like Donald Trump the power that he’s now claiming.”

In an opinion piece Lessig published in The Guardian on Friday, he said the Constitution would not uphold the actions of a president who shut down the government to insist on a program that was not supported by the public. Lessing referred to the situation as a “veto-ocracy,” ruled by “petulance” rather than “principle.”

If the Republicans support Trump in this, they are saying that any president can “support whatever policy he likes,” including, say, to nationalize health insurance.

“The fools are they who enable this constitutional immorality,” Lessig wrote. “Those fools are the Senate Republicans, who have placed party over country, and President Trump over the Republican Party.”

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Part of the blame for this unprecedented national disaster belongs to the Supremes’ majority for their shockingly spineless performance in the “Travel Ban Case.” By failing to stand up for the Constitution in the face of Trump’s clear record of religious and racial bias and the rest of his White Nationalist hokum, their message was clear.

Whenever Trump doesn’t want to follow the law or is thwarted by Constitutional separation of powers, all he needs to do is declare another totally bogus “national emergency.” Will the GOP appointees keep looking away while the Constitution and our republic crumble before this unscrupulous madman? Or, will Chief Justice Roberts and some of the “Gang of Five” make good on Roberts’s recent claim that “there are no GOP or Democratic Federal Judges?”

Last time it was Muslims and refugees; this time, it’s asylum seekers, kids, and families in Trump’s crosshairs; next time, maybe he’ll come for the Supremes themselves. If so, they shouldn’t look to the immoral and cowardly GOP Senate for any help!

PWS

01-08-19

PROFESSOR STEPHEN LEGOMSKY IN USA TODAY: Gender Is Clearly a “Particular Social Group” – Congress Must Amend The Law To Insure That Neither Bureaucratic Judges Nor Political Hacks Like Sessions & His Ilk Can Deprive Women & LGBTQ Individuals Of The Protections They Need & Deserve!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/01/02/gender-related-violence-grounds-asylum-refugee-women-congress-column/2415093002/

When women arrive at our shores asking only that they not be beaten, raped or murdered, delivering them to their tormentors isn’t an option.

(Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

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Our asylum laws have some gaping holes. These gaps endanger many groups, but none more so than women and girls who are fleeing domestic violence, honor killings, mass rape in wartime, gang rape by criminal gangs, and other gender-related violence. Congress must explicitly recognize gender-based persecution as a potential asylum ground.

Asylum requires a “well-founded” fear of being persecuted. But not just any persecution will do. The persecution has to occur for one of five specific reasons — your race, your religion, your nationality, your political opinion, or what the law calls your “particular social group.” Gender is notably missing from this list.

That omission is not surprising. U.S. asylum laws, like those of most other western countries, track the language of an international refugee convention that was adopted in 1951. Gender-related violence was simply not on the public radar at that time.

But it is now 2019. The historical excuse will no longer wash. With women’s marches, the MeToo movement, the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process and women’s stunning midterm electoral successes, gender-related violence is now part of our national consciousness.

Read more commentary:

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Without specific congressional recognition of gender-based persecution, women and girls fleeing the most horrific violence imaginable have had to argue that they will be persecuted because of their “particular social group.” Today that is easier said than done. The nation’s highest administrative tribunal that decides asylum claims — the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals — has been adding more andmore roadblocks to asylum claims that are based on “particular social group.”

This was not always the case. In 1985, the board defined “particular social group” as one in which membership is “immutable.” Gender, of course, meets that definition.

The immutability test makes perfect sense. If you will be persecuted only because of an innocuous characteristic that you can easily change, then you don’t need asylum. But if that characteristic cannot be changed, you have no other practical way to protect yourself. The immutability test thus allows asylum for those who need it and withholds it from those who don’t.

Justice constraints are harmful, irrational

But the board could not leave well enough alone. Along the way it invented two additional requirements. One is “social distinction.” If you claim persecution because of your membership in a “particular social group,” you must now prove that your home society describes that class of individuals as a “group.” Second, you must now prove what the board calls “particularity.” By this it means you must prove that your home society can figure out whether hypothetical other individuals are members of the group.

There are only four problems with those requirements: The board has no convincing legal authority to impose them. No one really understands what they mean. They are nearly impossible to prove. And they make no policy sense: why should the U.S. decision whether to grant asylum to someone depend on whether her home society thinks of the particular class as a “group,” or on whether the home society can tell which other individuals belong to that “group”?

Last June, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions made this bad situation worse. Overruling board precedent, he announced that, henceforth, anyone fleeing domestic violence (or, for that matter anyone fleeing gang violence) will “generally” be unable to prove either social distinction or particularity and therefore should be denied asylum. Although a federal court has blocked that decision for now, the Supreme Court will likely determine its ultimate fate.

But the problems go beyond that specific case. First, the artificial constraints that the board has imposed for all claims based on “particular social group” are both harmful and irrational. Second, it is only because gender is not on Congress’s list of specifically protected grounds that women and girls have had to fit their claims into “particular social group” in the first place.

Women would still prove need for asylum

What arguments could possibly be made for protecting people from racial or religious persecution but not from gender persecution?

Perhaps the fear is that domestic violence is too endemic, that allowing asylum would open the floodgates. We need not worry, for a woman or girl fleeing domestic violence has multiple legal burdens that minimize the numbers: She must prove that her fear is both genuine and well-founded, that the harm she fears is severe, that her government is unable or unwilling to protect her, that no place anywhere in her country would be safe, and — even if gender is added to the list — that the persecution will be inflicted because of her gender. These are all high bars, and proof requires meticulous, persuasive documentation. Canada has recognized domestic violence asylum claims since the 1990s, and no floodgates have opened.

The U.S. cannot singlehandedly eradicate all violence against women and girls — even here at home. But we can at least avoid being an accomplice. When women and girls arrive at our shores asking only that they not be beaten, raped or murdered, delivering them to their tormentors is not an option. Congress should restore the original meaning of “particular social group,” and it should recognize that gender, like race and religion, belongs in the list of specifically protected grounds.

Stephen Legomsky is a professor emeritus at the Washington University School of Law, the principal author of “Immigration and Refugee Law and Policy,” and the former Chief Counsel of US Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Obama Administration.

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Steve is absolutely right! This needs a legislative solution. And, while they are at it, Congress also needs to insulate the Immigration Court against future bureaucratic and political shenanigans by creating an independent Article I Immigration Court with a merit-based judicial selection system.

Not coincidentally, the BIA added the intentionally unduly restrictive “particularity” and “social distinction” (formerly “social visibility”) requirements (remarkably, without dissent or even full en banc treatment) only after a group of BIA Judges, including me, who understood both asylum law and women’s rights, and weren’t afraid to vote accordingly, had been removed by Attorney General Ashcroft in a bogus and disingenuous politically motivated “downsizing” following the election of President George W. Bush in 2000. Since then, asylum seekers generally have had a hard time finding justice at the “captive” and politically controlled BIA.

And, the situation has become critical following the tenure of the White Nationalist, misogynist political hack Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Sessions abandoned even the pretense of fairness, deliberation, impartiality, and judicial temperament in his anti-asylum, anti-Due-Process, anti-women campaign to rewrite the law to fit his preconceived White Nationalist xenophobic agenda — one that he (understandably & fortunately) never was able to push through Congress during his tenure as a Senator.

PWS

01-04-19

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM COURTSIDE! — I Take A Look Forward @ 2019’s Big Immigration Stories

2019 Immigration Stories

Dreamer Litigation
Asylum Procedures Litigation
Continuing Collapse of Immigration Courts
- - - More bogus, anti-immigrant, anti-Due Process certification decisions from AG
    - Pereira mess in scheduling
    - Cancellation mess; hundreds of thousands eligible for relief; no plans for adjudication
    - Dockets will continue to be screwed up by failure of responsible enforcement policies by DHS, failure of prosecutorial discretion exercised by virtually all other law enforcement authorities, and mindless, inappropriate “re-docketing” of previously Administratively Closed cases for no particular reason except White Nationalist inspired meanness
    - Massive returns of asylum and other improperly decided cases to Immigration Courts by Article IIIs
- More deaths, illness, abuses resulting from Trump’s cruel, ill-conceived detention and border policies
- Mexico and Article IIIs will,”push back” against Administration’s ill-conceived plans to “dump” legitimate asylum seekers over Mexican border
- Public Charge Controversy
- TPS Termination & Litigation
  - One of Trump’s dumbest, most unnecessary, & disruptive moves will wreak havoc on the economy and the legal system
- Lots of fraud, waste, and abuse at DOJ and DHS will be exposed by House Committees
- Will new AG prove to be “Button Down Version of Jeff Sessions?”

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

😎👍🏼🍻🍾🏈❄️☃️🥳

PWS

01-01-19

PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO: Persecution Of Women In El Salvador On The Basis Of Gender Is Real & Endemic – The Administration’s Attempts To Skew The Law Against Women Refugees Is Totally Dishonest, Immoral, & Illegal!

https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/sites/default/files/Musalo_El%20Salvador_A%20Peace%20Worse%20Than%20War_30%20Yale%20J.L.%20&%20Fem.%203_20018.pdf

Here’s part of the conclusion of Karen’s article “EL SALVADOR–A PEACE WORSE THAN WAR: VIOLENCE, GENDER AND A FAILED LEGAL RESPONSE” published at 30 Yale Journal of Law & Feminism 3 (2018):

Historical and contemporary factors have given rise to the extremely high levels of violence that persist in El Salvador today. Many of the Salvadorans interviewed for this article referred to a “culture of violence” going back to the brutal Spanish Conquest and continuing into more recent history, including the 1932 Matanza and the atrocities of the country’s 12-year civil war. Gender violence exists within this broader context. However, as almost every Salvadoran source noted, violence against women is even more deeply rooted than other expressions of societal violence as the result of patriarchal norms that tolerate and affirm the most extreme forms of domination and abuse of women.

. . . .

Levels of violence, including the killings of women, have continued to rise, while impunity has remained a constant. Criticism of the persistent impunity for gender violence resulted in El Salvador’s most recent legal development: the enactment of Decree 286, which created specialized courts. However, the exclusion of the most commonly committed gender crimes–intrafamilial violence and sexual violence–from the specialized courts’ jurisdiction, and the courts’ hybrid structure, which requires that cases still be initiated in the peace courts, do not inspire optimism for positive outcomes.

Notwithstanding these considerable obstacles, the Salvadorans interviewed for this article, who have long struggled for access to justice and gender equality, maintain the hope and the belief that change is possible. In the course of multiple interviews over a six-year period (2010 to 2016), Salvadoran sources have expressed deep frustration and disappointment but have not articulated resignation or defeat.

. . . .

The Salvadorans who I interviewed for this article have provided information, insights, and perspectives that are simply not available in written reports or studies. Although they come from a range of backgrounds–governmental and non-governmental; legal professionals as well as grassroots activists–they all acknowledge the complex causes of societal violence. As discussed throughout this article, they also have specific critiques and prescriptions for what must be done in order to see any real progress. Discussions of the country’s crisis, as well as of the international community’s response, must start by listening to the voices of the Salvadorans who, despite the seemingly intractable situation of violence and impunity in which they live, have refused to abandon the struggle for justice and equality. They are inspiring in their courage and resilience. By quoting extensively from these sources, this article has sought to amplify their voices.

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Read Karen’s complete article at the above link.

Compare real scholarship and honest reflection of the experiences of women in El Salvador affected by this seemingly unending wave of persecution with the intentionally bogus picture painted by Jeff Sessions in Matter of A-B-. Hopefully, advocates will be able to use the research and expertise of Karen and others like her to enlighten fair-minded Asylum Officers and Immigration Judges, support their efforts to grant women the protection they merit as contemplated by the Refugee Act and the Convention Against Torture, and force the Article III Courts and eventually Congress to consign Sessions’s intentionally perverted reasoning to the dustbin of “Jim Crow Misogynist History” where it belongs.

Many thanks to my good friend and colleague in “Our Gang,” Judge Jeffrey Chase, for passing this link to Karen’s important scholarship along.

Due Process For All Forever!

PWS

12-31-18

Category: Guatemala

HOW INEFFECTIVE IS THE WALL? — Here Are 376 Reasons Why The Wall As “Border Security” Is A Total Farce!

THE GUARDIAN EXPOSES CONTINUING CHILD ABUSE BY ADMINISTRATION: Child Separations Underreported — Children Detained In Health-Threatening Conditions!

THE ABSURDITY OF TRUMP’S SHUTDOWN & ITS DEVASTATING EFFECT ON OUR ALREADY CRUMBLING IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM DETAILED IN OPEN LETTER TO CONGRESS BY NAIJ PRESIDENT, HON. A. ASHLEY TABADDOR

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

SISTER NORMA PIMENTEL: A MESSAGE TO TRUMP FROM THE REAL BORDER

DON KERWIN AT CMS WITH TRUTH ON BORDER SECURITY: “The real crisis exists in the Northern Triangle of Central America, where organized crime threatens residents with impunity and there exists a lack of stability and opportunity. “

Statement of Donald Kerwin,
Executive Director of the Center for Migration Studies,
on the US Border and Border Wall

TAL @ SF CHRON: Dreamer Deal To End Shutdown Seems Unlikely — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: My Essay “Let’s Govern!”

LET’S GOVERN!

By

Paul Wickham Schmidt

United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

AZAM AHMED @ NY TIMES: PERVERSION OF JUSTICE: How Trump Aids Smugglers While Punishing Legitimate Asylum Seekers!

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LET’S GOVERN!

By

Paul Wickham Schmidt

United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

😎👍🏼🍻🍾🏈❄️☃️🥳

PWS

01-01-19

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