WHERE “JUSTICE” IS A CRUEL FARCE: As Career Officials Continue To Flee Or Be Thrown Off The Ship, Restrictionists Tighten Political Control Over Immigration “Courts” — Institutions Created To Insure Due Process Now Being Weaponized To Eradicate It, As Congress & Article IIIs Shirk Their Constitutional Duties!

Katie Benner
Justice Correspondent
NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/us/politics/immigration-courts-judge.html

Katie Benner writes in The NY Times:

By Katie Benner

Sept. 13, 2019

WASHINGTON — The nation’s immigration judges lost a key leader this week, the latest in a string of departures at the top of the system amid a backlog of cases and a migrant crisis at the southwestern border.

The official, David Neal, said that he would retire from his position as head of the judges’ appeals board effective Saturday. “With a heavy heart, I have decided to retire from government service,” Mr. Neal wrote in a letter sent to the board Thursday and obtained by The New York Times.

He gave no reason for his abrupt departure and asked his colleagues to “keep true to your commitment to fairness and justice.”

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No replacement has been announced, and a Justice Department spokesman declined to comment, citing a policy to not do so on personnel matters.

Mr. Neal’s decision follows a shake-up at the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the court system that adjudicates the country’s immigration cases, including asylum cases. It is part of the Justice Department, not the judicial branch.

Three of its senior career officials — MaryBeth T. Keller, the chief immigration judge; Jean King, the general counsel; and Katherine H. Reilly, the deputy director — all left their roles this summer. Ms. King stayed at the immigration office in a different post.

Mr. Neal’s departure also comes amid the backdrop of the Trump administration’s efforts to curb both illegal and legal immigration, which have taxed the immigration courts, the criminal courts and border patrols along the nation’s southwestern border and prompted long-running discontent among immigration judges that they are being used to expedite deportations.

As Mr. Trump has sought to suppress immigration and cut down on the number of people who claim asylum in the United States, he has notched two wins at the Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, justices said in an unsigned order that amid an ongoing legal battle, the administration could bar most Central American migrants from seeking asylum in the United States if they passed through another country and were not denied asylum there. That decision will allow the administration to effectively bar migration across the southwestern border by Hondurans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans and others who must travel through other countries to get to the United States.

And in July, the Supreme Court said that the Trump administration could use $2.5 billion in Pentagon money to build a barrier along the border with Mexico, which would help Mr. Trump fulfill a campaign promise to build a wall on the border to stop immigration.

Amid these hard-line policies, a vocal group of immigration judges — part of the larger total of about 400 judges and appeals judges — have been at loggerheads with the Trump administration for more than a year.

Leaders of the judges’ union have pushed back against the imposition of quotas that they have said would expedite deportations at the expense of due process. Under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, they accused the Justice Department of trying to turn the immigration courts into a deportation machine.

Mr. Sessions treated the judges “like immigration officers, not judges,” said Paul Schmidt, a former judge in the immigration courts.

Some judges have also bristled at a recent Justice Department decision that handed over the power to rule on appeals cases to the director of the office, a political appointee. The judges saw the move as an attempt to undermine their authority.

That decision also directly impacted Mr. Neal, demoting him “in practice,” by transferring his authority to decide appeals cases to the director of the office, said Ashley Tabbador, the president of the union that represents immigration judges.

“This regulation upends the entire system created to decide these cases,” Ms. Tabbador said. Should the new system run into problems, “the chairman would have been held accountable. I would have quit, too, if I were in David’s position.”

Though they are part of the Justice Department, many immigration judges view themselves as independent arbiters of the law and believe they must act within the confines of existing immigration statutes.

They have long deliberated over whether they should be part of the Justice Department — a debate that has intensified under President Trump.

Last month, tensions increased when a daily briefing that is distributed to federal immigration judges contained a link to a blog post that included an anti-Semitic reference and came from a website that regularly publishes white nationalists.

After the episode, the immigration review office said that it would stop sending the daily briefing and would not renew its contract with the service that provided it.

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

The farce taking place as the Trump DOJ politicos “remake” the Immigration Courts into a tool of DHS enforcement and repression of Due Process and fundamental fairness will go down as one of the darkest and most disturbing episodes in American legal history.

The inability or unwillingness of the other two branches of Government, Congress and the Article III Judiciary, to intervene and fulfill their Constitutional duties of protecting Due Process, fundamental fairness, equal protection, First Amendment rights of union members, and separation of powers show a catastrophic failure of American institutions that are charged with protecting and advancing all of our rights.

In the end, nobody including Trump’s tone-deaf supporters and enablers, will escape the adverse consequences of giving in to White Nationalist authoritarianism.

PWS

09-15-19

BRET STEPHENS @ NYT: “Blessed Are The Refugees” — Damned Be Trump & His Cowardly Group Of Refugee Abusers & Their Enablers!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/opinion/refugees-trump-america.html

A woman and her young daughter, no older than 6 or 7, are shopping for groceries in a corner store of a bombed-out city. It’s sometime around 1947. The war is over, the Germans are gone, the Gestapo is no longer hunting Jews. Some of their local henchmen have been imprisoned or shot. Many just took off their uniforms and returned to their former lives.

The mother speaks with the trace of a foreign accent. As she reaches for her wallet to pay, the grocer says: “Why don’t you people go back to where you came from?”

Where, precisely, would that even be? The woman had fled Moscow for Berlin as a girl, after the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917 and arrested her father, who was never to be heard from again. Later, when still in her twenties, she had fled Berlin for Milan, sometime between Hitler’s coming to power in 1933 and Mussolini’s enactment of the racial laws in 1938.

She and her daughter were citizens of no country, living under a made-up name. They had nowhere to return, no place to go, no way to stay, and nothing they could do about any of it. To go back to the Soviet Union would have been suicidal. Israel did not yet exist. Germany was out of the question. America’s doors were mostly shut.

This was the life of a refugee in postwar, pre-reconstructed Europe. It changed dramatically the following year, when Harry Truman signed the Displaced Persons Act, marking the first time that U.S. immigration policy became actively sympathetic to the utterly dispossessed.

Thanks to the law, mother and daughter arrived in New York on Nov. 13, 1950, with only $7 between them, but without the weight of fear on their backs.

What Truman did became precedent for decisions by subsequent administrations to admit other refugees: Some 40,000 Hungarians fleeing Soviet tanks after 1956 (including a young Andy Grove, later the C.E.O. of Intel); hundreds of thousands of Cubans fleeing Castro’s repression after 1959 (including a young Gloria Estefan); as many as 750,000 Soviet Jews fleeing persecution by a succession of Kremlin despots (including a young Sergey Brin).

There were so many others. More than a million Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians after the fall of Saigon. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians after Khomeini’s revolution. Over 100,000 Iraqis since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Similar numbers of Burmese. Altogether, some three million refugees have been welcomed by the U.S. since the Refugee Act of 1980, more than by any other country.

By almost any metric, America’s refugees tend to succeed, or at least their children do. Whatever they do to enrich themselves, they enrich the country a great deal more. Empirical data on immigrant success overwhelmingly confirm what common sense makes plain. People who have known tyranny tend to make the most of liberty. People who have experienced desperation usually make the most of opportunity. It’s mainly those born to freedom who have the knack for squandering it.

But beyond the material question of enrichment is the spiritual one of ennoblement. Of what can Americans be more proud than that we so often opened our doors to those for whom every other door was shut?

All of which makes this a moment of unique shame for the United States.

The Trump administration has made no secret of its xenophobia from its first days in office. The number of refugees arriving in the country plummeted from around 97,000 in 2016 to 23,000 in 2018. Last week, The Times reported that the White House was considering options to cut the numbers again by half, and perhaps even bring it down to zero.

As if to underscore the spirit of cruelty, the administration also declined to grant temporary protected status to Bahamians devastated by Hurricane Dorian. And the Supreme Court issued an order allowing for a new rule that effectively denies asylum protections for refugees arriving through a third country — a victory for executive authority when that authority is in the worst possible hands.

Critics of this column will almost certainly complain that the United States can’t possibly take everyone in — a dishonest argument since hardly anyone argues for taking in “everyone,” and a foolish argument since America will almost inevitably decline without a healthy intake of immigrants to make up for a falling birthrate.

Critics will also claim that “very bad people,” as Donald Trump likes to say, might take advantage of a generous asylum and refugee policy. Here again I’m aware of nobody advocating a “let-the-terrorists-come-too” immigration policy. Only a person incapable of kindness — a person like the president — can think that kindness and vigilance are incompatible, or that generosity is for suckers.

The mother and daughter whose story I told at the beginning of this column are, as you might have guessed, my own grandmother and mother. I thank God it was Harry Truman, not Donald Trump, who led America when they had nowhere else to turn.

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

There will be no America if Trumpism prevails, Bret.

PWS

09-14-19

SUPREME DISGRACE: Instead Of Protecting The Individual Rights Of Our Most Vulnerable Asylum Seekers, The Supremes’ Majority Joins The White Nationalist Assault On Refugee Laws & Human Dignity!

Azam Ahmed
Bureau Chief, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean
NY Times

https://apple.news/AzVf9gcH2QyOC67VugroXQg

By Azam Ahmed and Paulina Villegas

MEXICO CITY — Thousands of people fleeing persecution, most from Central America, line up at the United States’ southern border every day hoping for asylum. They wait for months, their names slowly crawling up a hand-drawn list until they are allowed to present their case to American immigration authorities.

After the United States Supreme Court issued an order this week, almost none of them will be eligible for asylum.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to enforce new rules that bar asylum applications from anyone who has not already been denied asylum in one of the countries they traveled through on their way to the United States.

The rule is among the most stringent measures taken by this administration in its battle to halt migration, upending decades of asylum and humanitarian norms. It is likely to affect hundreds of thousands of migrants traveling through Mexico to reach the United States: Eritreans and Cameroonians fleeing political violence. Nicaraguans and Venezuelans fleeing repression.

And the largest group of all: Hondurans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans escaping the twin scourges of poverty and gangs.

“This takes away all hope,” said Eddie Leonardo Caliz, 34, who left San Pedro Sula in Honduras with his wife and two kids three months ago to try to escape gang violence, and spoke from a shelter in southern Mexico. With measures like this, he said, the Trump administration “is depriving us of the opportunity to be safe.”

The new rule, which has been allowed to take effect pending legal challenges, is consistent with the Trump administration’s posture of hostility and rejection for those seeking protection in the United States.

Whether by separating families of migrants, by drastically limiting the number of asylum applications accepted on a given day or by returning those entering the United States to Mexico to await their hearings, the administration has shown a dogged determination to discourage migration.

Central American migrants at the Amar shelter in Nuevo Laredo in July.

Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York Times

And it has put tremendous pressure on Mexico to help meet its goal, threatening months ago to escalate tariffs on all Mexican goods if the nation did not buffer the surge of migrants heading to the United States from Central America and elsewhere.

Mexico responded. This week, when Mexican and American officials met in Washington to discuss progress on the issue, the Mexican delegation took great pains to show how its crackdown along its border with Guatemala and throughout the country has reduced migration flows to the United States by more than 50 percent in the last three months.

Mexico’s actions, though applauded by Trump administration officials this week, have overwhelmed its troubled migration system. The number of individuals applying for asylum in Mexico has already skyrocketed in the last few years, as the United States has tightened its borders.

This rule could add to that burden, with many more applying for asylum in Mexico, despite the danger of remaining in Mexico. Violence there has soared to the highest levels in more than two decades. Stories of migrants kidnapped along the border abound, as criminal organizations await their return from the United States or pick them off as they attempt to cross the border.

Several migrants who are making their way north said in interviews on Thursday that the new rule would not deter them. For most, the hope of a new life in the United States outweighed whatever legal worries might lie ahead.

“I know things are getting more and more complicated in the U.S.,” said Noel Hernández, 21, who was staying at a migrant shelter in Guatemala after leaving his home in Tegucigalpa, in Honduras, a few days ago.

“It’s like flipping a coin,” he said. “I either win or I lose.”

Others said they would try to make it in Mexico, despite the violence, or in Guatemala, a nation with a barely functional asylum system.

Oscar Daniel Rodríguez, 33, from San Salvador, has been in Guatemala with his wife and 3-year-old son for a month now, and says he will apply for asylum there.

He had applied for asylum in Mexico during a previous trek, and was rejected. If he is denied in Guatemala, he will try again in Mexico, he said. If they deny him again, he will try the United States.

Migrants from a caravan, along with organizers and legal observers, at the pedestrian crossing that will lead them to the U.S, in 2018.

Meghan Dhaliwal for The New York Times

“No matter how long it takes, and how long we have to wait, what we want is to give our son a better future,” he said.

Mexican asylum applicants, who don’t have to transit through another country to reach the United States, are not impacted by the new policy.

Like past efforts by the Trump administration to curb migration, Wednesday’s order could prove a burden for Mexico.

A senior Mexican official who spoke anonymously because the government has not addressed the issue publicly said that, for now, individuals who seek to apply will not fall under a previous provision, called Migrant Protection Protocol. That provision sends those applying for asylum in the United States back to Mexico to await their hearings.

Instead, migrants will either have to apply for another form of relief in the United States — with a higher bar for acceptance and fewer protections — or be deported back to their home countries.

Mexico is already playing host to tens of thousands of migrants awaiting their asylum hearings in the United States. Its migrant detention facilities can be overcrowded, unsafe and unsanitary.

Asylum applications there have soared in the last year, reaching about 50,000 through August, compared to fewer than 30,000 applications in the same period a year ago. This has placed a strain on Mexican society and on a system ill-equipped to handle such demand.

“We see detention centers crammed with migrants and children, riots, social problems arising, human rights abuses, and rising xenophobia among Mexicans,” said Jorge Chabat, a professor of international relations the University of Guadalajara. “The Mexican government has then little to no other choice but to design long-term migration policies to deal with the large number of migrants coming and staying now in Mexico.”

“There is not much else we can do,” he added, ruefully, “besides maybe lighting a candle for the Virgin of Guadalupe and praying for Trump not to be re-elected.”

Raftsmen wait for clients at a river crossing between the Guatemala-Mexico border.

Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York Times

The initial rule to block asylum sent shock waves among immigrant rights advocates when it was issued by the Trump administration in July of this year. It was almost immediately challenged in lawsuits.

The initiative was a unilateral move by the Trump administration after failed negotiations with Mexico and Guatemala to reach deals, called safe third country agreements, that would have required those countries to absorb asylum seekers who passed through them on their way to the United States.

Though Guatemala eventually caved to the administration’s pressure, and reached a safe third country agreement with the United States, Mexico remained firm in its refusal.

Now, with the Supreme Court allowing the asylum rule to go into effect, some feel the United States got what it wanted anyway — without the other countries’ consent.

“This is the latest step in terms of Trump’s policies to push Mexico to become a safe third country, and to make a big chunk of the migration flow stay in Mexico permanently and deter them from traveling north,” said Raúl Benítez, a professor of international relations at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

The Mexican government, for its part, insists the move is not the same as a safe third country arrangement, which would require a bilateral agreement and would automatically send the majority of asylum seekers back to Mexico for good.

Neither Mexican officials nor independent experts believe it will lead to an immediate influx of returnees to Mexico. Instead, it could leave those who have been returned to Mexico while they await hearings more likely to stay because they will not be granted protection in the United States.

While the new rules will inhibit most migrants from applying for asylum, there are other forms of protected status that remain open to them, though the bar to entry is much higher.

Under current asylum law, individuals must show a credible fear, which is figured to be a 10 percent chance that they will face persecution if sent back home. The threshold for the two remaining protections now — so-called withholding status and qualification under the convention against torture — is reasonable fear. To qualify, the applicant must show a probability of being persecuted back home that is greater than 50 percent.

“The people affected by this policy are the most vulnerable — those without lawyers and those without knowledge of the system,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration attorney with the Immigration Council. “Those without lawyers are being asked to meet a standard almost impossible for someone uneducated in asylum law to meet.”

Daniele Volpe contributed reporting from Guatemala City.

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

So, just why are Justices like Breyer and Kagan tarnishing their legacies by joining with their White Nationalist enabling brethren in this all out assault on the Refugee Act of 1980, the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. Constitution, Human Rights, and human dignity?

The latest Trump Administration illegal absurdity encouraged, aided, and abetted by the Supremes: Honduras, one of the most dangerous and corrupt refugee sending countries in the world without a functioning asylum system, as a “Safe Third Country.” Obviously, the actions of an Administration confident that the majority of the Supremes share their corruption and cowardice when it comes to enforcing America’s long-standing human rights obligations.

Although it might not have occurred to the geniuses of the Trump Administration, and certainly not to the Supremes’ majority who apparently believe themselves exempt from the practical consequences of their actions, each of the failed states in the Northern Triangle has a seacoast which would allow ocean transit to the U.S. without touching any other country. So, the Trump White Nationalists and their Supreme enablers could be triggering another “Golden Venture” debacle or the type of even more dangerous sea exodus that happened in the Mediterranean when the EU restricted asylum applicants at its land borders.

Or, it’s possible that smugglers will simply “sell” refugees on the very plausible idea that the U.S. refugee system and our commitment to the “rule of law” is nothing but a joke. In that case, smuggling individuals into the interior of the U.S will become an even bigger business. No way they will ever all be caught, even with ICE acting as Trump’s “New American Gestapo.” Higher risk means more profits for smugglers, more death and exploitation for migrants, and more unscreened “extralegal migration” into the U.S.

Up until Trump, the U.S. had been lucky. Most asylum seekers presented themselves at ports of entry or nearby Border Patrol Stations and trusted themselves to the U.S. asylum system for orderly processing. Even those who managed to enter the U.S. usually “affirmatively applied” through the USCIS Asylum Offices.

The current mess in the legal system was almost entirely self-created by the “malicious incompetence” on the part of the Government’s immigration enforcement authorities. The “new message” is clear: only fools should use the US legal system, which in the case of asylum now more closely resembles a Third World dictatorship.

Once folks abandon the U.S. legal system, all of the land and sea borders and indeed the entire land mass of the U.S. will potentially “come into play” for smugglers and their desperate human cargoes of forced migrants. No wall will be long and high enough, no jail cells big enough, no child abuse severe enough, and no extralegal Supreme Court endorsed racist program nasty enough to control the flow of forced migrants seeking shelter. It might well lead to an internal police force that will trample the individual rights of all Americans. But, it won’t stop human migration until the U.S. downward spiral finally reaches the point where we are no better than the “sending countries” from which people are fleeing.

The other possibility is that conditions in the sending countries improve over time so that most folks will stay put. But, the Administration has shown no interest in investing in long term solutions to forced migration.

Immigration is a sign of a strong country; xenophobia a weak and cowardly one. Unhappily, the Supremes have have abandoned the former vision and become front and center in encouraging and enabling the latter.

PWS

09-13-19

IMMIGRATION JUDGE V. STUART CROUCH SYMBOLIZES AMERICA’S GROSS DISREGARD OF CHILDREN’S RIGHTS & WELFARE!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/opinion/child-poverty-democratic-debate.html

Nicholas Kristof writes in The NY Times:

When a 2-year-old Guatemalan boy had trouble staying silent in an immigration courtroom, the judge pointed his finger at him.

“I have a very big dog in my office, and if you don’t be quiet, he will come out and bite you,” the judge, V. Stuart Couch, a former Marine, yelled at the toddler in a 2016 hearing, according to a formal complaint shared by the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy and first reported this week by Mother Jones.

“Do you want him to bite you?” Couch asked.

The boy, his mom and their advocate were all soon sobbing. Couch later acknowledged that he “did not handle the situation properly,” according to the judge who investigated the complaint, Deepali Nadkarni.

Clearly, Couch didn’t have a child’s well-being in mind on that day. But ignoring the welfare of our young is a day-to-day problem in America, where our children are falling behind those in other wealthy countries.

On Thursday, 10 Democratic presidential candidates will debate. It would be a natural opportunity to provoke a national conversation on the subject. But a question about child poverty hasn’t been asked at a presidential debate in 20 years, not since a Republican primary debate in 1999, according to the Children’s Defense Fund.

Presidential candidates have been asked about the World Series, about cursing in movies, even about flag lapel pins more recently than they have been questioned about child poverty. We’ve had 147 presidential debates in a row without a single question on the topic (here’s a petition calling for more questions on the issue). I hope Thursday’s debate won’t be the 148th.

UNICEF says America ranks No. 37 among countries in well-being of children, and Save the Children puts the United States at No. 36. European countries dominate the top places.

American infants at last count were 76 percent more likely to die in their first year than children in other advanced countries, according to an article last year in the journal Health Affairs. We would save the lives of 20,000 American children each year if we could just achieve the same child mortality rates as the rest of the rich world.

. . . .

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

Read Kristof’s complete op-ed at the link.

Couch is one of America’s worst judges. One might therefore fairly ask why he recently was “rewarded” for his bias, unprofessionalism, and documented poor performance when Trump Sycophant Barr “elevated” him to the appellate bench? Perhaps, so he can abuse more women and children across the country?

But, as the Supremes and the GOP have decided to endorse and encourage child abuse, the question is whether the Dems can get it together to end the abuse before it’s too late for America and the world.

Child abusers like Trump, Couch, Barr, and the gang over at DHS are used to getting away with it. They are encouraged by a do nothing Congress, complicit Federal Judges, and a Trump base that has declared war on traditional American values and human decency. But, the consequences of their misconduct, and the unwillingness of the US political and legal system to stand up for children, won’t end well in the long run.

In the meantime, remember the names of the abusers and their enablers, some of them serving in our highest court and as GOP Senators and Representatives.

Child abuse is wrong!

PWS

09-12-19

SUPREME TANK: COMPLICIT COURT ENDS U.S. ASYLUM PROTECTIONS BY 7-2 VOTE — Endorses Trump’s White Nationalist Racist Attack On Human Rights & Eradication Of Refugee Act Of 1980 — On 09-11-19, Supremes Celebrate By Joining Trump’s Attack On America & Humanity! — Only Justices Ginsburg & Sotomayor Have Guts To Stand Up For Constitution & Rule Of Law!

Death On The Rio Grande — Supremes Sign Death Warrants For Vulnerable Refugees, Trash Refugee Act of 1980

19a230_k53l

Cite as: 588 U. S. ____ (2019) 1 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 19A230 _________________
WILLIAM P. BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL, ET AL. v. EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT, ET AL.
ON APPLICATION FOR STAY [September 11, 2019]
The application for stay presented to JUSTICE KAGAN and by her referred to the Court is granted. The district court’s July 24, 2019 order granting a preliminary injunction and September 9, 2019 order restoring the nationwide scope of the injunction are stayed in full pending disposition of the Government’s appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of the Government’s petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is sought. If a writ of certiorari is sought and the Court denies the petition, this order shall terminate automatically. If the Court grants the petition for a writ of certiorari, this order shall terminate when the Court enters its judgment.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG joins, dissenting from grant of stay.
Once again the Executive Branch has issued a rule that seeks to upend longstanding practices regarding refugees who seek shelter from persecution. Although this Nation has long kept its doors open to refugees—and although the stakes for asylum seekers could not be higher—the Government implemented its rule without first providing the public notice and inviting the public input generally required by law. After several organizations representing immi- grants sued to stop the rule from going into effect, a federal district court found that the organizations were likely to prevail and preliminarily enjoined the rule nationwide. A

2 BARR v. EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
federal appeals court narrowed the injunction to run only circuit-wide, but denied the Government’s motion for a complete stay.
Now the Government asks this Court to intervene and to stay the preliminary decisions below. This is an extraordinary request. Unfortunately, the Court acquiesces. Because I do not believe the Government has met its weighty burden for such relief, I would deny the stay.
The Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security promulgated the rule at issue here on July 16, 2019. See 84 Fed. Reg. 33829. In effect, the rule forbids almost all Central Americans—even unaccompanied children—to apply for asylum in the United States if they enter or seek to enter through the southern border, unless they were first denied asylum in Mexico or another third country. Id., at 33835, 33840; see also 385 F. Supp. 3d 922, 929–930 (ND Cal. 2019).
The District Court found that the rule was likely unlawful for at least three reasons. See id., at 938–957. First, the court found it probable that the rule was inconsistent with the asylum statute, 94 Stat. 105, as amended, 8 U. S. C. §1158. See §1158(b)(2)(C) (requiring that any regulation like the rule be“consistent”with the statute). Section 1158 generally provides that any noncitizen “physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States . . . may apply for asylum.” §1158(a)(1). And unlike the rule, the District Court explained, the statute provides narrow, carefully calibrated exceptions to asylum eligibility. As relevant here, Congress restricted asylum based on the possibility that a person could safely resettle in a third country. See §1158(a)(2)(A), (b)(2)(A)(vi). The rule, by contrast, does not consider whether refugees were safe or resettled in Mexico—just whether they traveled through it. That blunt approach, according to the District Court, rewrote the statute. See 385 F. Supp. 3d, at 939– 947, 959.

Cite as: 588 U. S. ____ (2019) 3
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
Second, the District Court found that the challengers would likely prevail because the Government skirted typical rulemaking procedures. Id., at 947–951. The District Court noted “serious questions” about the rule’s validity because the Government effected a sea change in immigration law without first providing advance notice and opportunity for public comment. Id., at 930; see also 5 U. S. C. §553. The District Court found the Government’s purported justifications unpersuasive at the preliminary-injunction stage. 385 F. Supp. 3d, at 948–951 (discussing statutory exceptions to notice-and-comment procedures).
Last, the District Court found the explanation for the rule so poorly reasoned that the Government’s action was likely arbitrary and capricious. See id., at 951–957; 5 U. S. C. §706. On this score, the District Court addressed the Government’s principal justifications for the rule: that failing to seek asylum while fleeing through more than one country “raises questions about the validity and urgency” of the asylum seeker’s claim, 84 Fed. Reg. 33839; and that Mexico, the last port of entry before the United States, offers a fea- sible alternative for persons seeking protection from persecution, id., at 33835, 33839–33840. The District Court examined the evidence in the administrative record and explained why it flatly refuted the Government’s assumptions. 385 F. Supp. 3d, at 951–957. A “mountain of evidence points one way,” the District Court observed, yet the Government “went the other—with no explanation.” Id., at 955.
After the District Court issued the injunction, the Ninth Circuit declined the Government’s request for a complete stay, reasoning that the Government did not make the required “ ‘strong showing’ ” that it would likely succeed on the merits of each issue. ___ F. 3d ___ (2019), 2019 WL 3850928, *1 (quoting Hilton v. Braunskill, 481 U. S. 770, 776 (1987)). Narrowing the injunction to the Circuit’s borders, the Ninth Circuit expedited the appeal and permitted

4 BARR v. EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
the District Court to consider whether additional facts would warrant a broader injunction. 2019 WL 3850928, *2– *3.
The lower courts’ decisions warrant respect. A stay pending appeal is “extraordinary” relief. Williams v. Zbaraz, 442 U. S. 1309, 1311 (1979) (Stevens, J., in chambers); see also Maryland v. King, 567 U.S. 1301, 1302 (2012) (ROBERTS, C. J., in chambers) (listing stay factors). Given the District Court’s thorough analysis, and the serious questions that court raised, I do not believe the Government has carried its “especially heavy” burden. Packwood v. Senate Select Comm. on Ethics, 510 U. S. 1319, 1320 (1994) (Rehnquist, C. J., in chambers). The rule here may be, as the District Court concluded, in significant tension with the asylum statute. It may also be arbitrary and capricious for failing to engage with the record evidence contradicting its conclusions. It is especially concerning, moreover, that the rule the Government promulgated topples decades of settled asylum practices and affects some of the most vulnerable people in the Western Hemisphere—without affording the public a chance to weigh in.
Setting aside the merits, the unusual history of this case also counsels against our intervention. This lawsuit has been proceeding on three tracks: In this Court, the parties have litigated the Government’s stay request. In the Ninth Circuit, the parties are briefing the Government’s appeal. And in the District Court, the parties recently participated in an evidentiary hearing to supplement the record. In- deed, just two days ago the District Court reinstated a na- tionwide injunction based on new facts. See East Bay Sanc- tuary Covenant v. Barr, No. 4:19–cv–4073, Doc. 73 (ND Cal., Sept. 9, 2019). Notably, the Government moved to stay the newest order in both the District Court and the Ninth Circuit. (Neither court has resolved that request, though the Ninth Circuit granted an administrative stay to allow further deliberation.) This Court has not considered

Cite as: 588 U. S. ____ (2019) 5
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
the new evidence, nor does it pause for the lower courts to resolve the Government’s pending motions. By granting a stay, the Court simultaneously lags behind and jumps ahead of the courts below. And in doing so, the Court side-steps the ordinary judicial process to allow the Government to implement a rule that bypassed the ordinary rulemaking process. I fear that the Court’s precipitous action today risks undermining the interbranch governmental processes that encourage deliberation, public participation, and transparency.
***
In sum, granting a stay pending appeal should be an “extraordinary” act. Williams, 442 U. S., at 1311. Unfortunately, it appears the Government has treated this exceptional mechanism as a new normal. Historically, the Government has made this kind of request rarely; now it does so reflexively. See, e.g., Vladeck, The Solicitor General and the Shadow Docket, 133 Harv. L. Rev. (forthcoming Nov. 2019). Not long ago, the Court resisted the shortcut the Government now invites. See Trump v. East Bay Sanc- tuary Covenant, 586 U. S. ___ (2018). I regret that my colleagues have not exercised the same restraint here. I respectfully dissent.

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Justice Sotomayor’s dissent says it all, but, alas, in vain.

09-11-19 will be remembered as the day that justice, human rights, and human decency died in America!

Shame on Justices Breyer and Kagan for “going along to get along” with the dismantling of the Refugee Act of 1980. The “blood of the innocents” will be on their hands and the hands of their five colleagues.

The “Dred Scottification” (or “dehumanization”) of immigrants, Latinos, and other minorities that Justice Breyer once predicted, yet lacked the guts to speak out against in this case, is now in full swing. It will increase unabated, now that the Supremes’ sellout to authoritarian racism is assured. And don’t expect “Moscow Mitch” and his gang of toadies to put up any opposition.

The American justice system has been dismantled. But history will remember the roles of each of those “Black Robed Cowards” who participated in its demise.

With this atrocious decision, the Supremes have basically made themselves irrelevant to the battle for fairness and individual rights under the Constitution. As I have suggested before, self-created irrelevance might come back to haunt them.

PWS

09-11-19

18 YEARS AFTER 09-11, THE “BAD GUYS” ARE WINNING THE BATTLE TO DESTROY AMERICAN JUSTICE & SPLIT THE COUNTRY! — Here’s The Disturbing Proof Of What Passes For “Justice” In America Today!

https://apple.news/ATepJTbYUSAaVGl8T7Cqh6Q

Marina Pitofsky reports in The Hill:

Immigration judge told 2-year-old to be quiet or a dog would ‘bite you’: report

An immigration judge reportedly threatened a Guatemalan child who was making some noise that a “very big dog” would “come out and bite you” if the undocumented immigrant did not quiet down, according to a report by Mother Jones.

The boy was in the courtroom with his mother for an immigration hearing in March 2016 when the threat happened, Mother Jones reported, citing testimony from an independent observer present at the court.

“I have a very big dog in my office, and if you don’t be quiet, he will come out and bite you,” Judge V. Stuart Couch reportedly told the child, according to an affidavit signed by Kathryn Coiner-Collier.

Coiner-Collier was a coordinator for a Charlotte, N.C.-area legal advocacy group that assisted migrants who could not afford attorneys.

“Want me to go get the dog? If you don’t stop talking, I will bring the dog out. Do you want him to bite you?” the judge continued to tell the boy during the hearing, according to Mother Jones.

Couch later asked Coiner-Collier to carry the boy out of the courtroom and sit with him, she told Mother Jones.

The judge reportedly told Coiner-Collier that he had threatened other children but that it appeared not to be working with this particular child.

Coiner-Collier said she immediately wrote the affidavit after the case, and in a message to the mother’s attorney in 2017, she wrote “I have never lost my composure like I did that day. … I was … red in the face sobbing along with [the boy’s mother.]”

Coiner-Collier also accused Couch of turning off the courtroom’s recording device as he threatened the child, whom she described as being 2 years old even though the judge said he was 5.

The child and her mother appeared again in front of Couch in August 2017, but the case was eventually reassigned. The new judge denied their asylum claim, according to Mother Jones. They are appealing the case.

Couch and five other judges were promoted in August to the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals.

The Hill has reached out to the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review for comment.

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https://apple.news/AnmnbegntRTqguvX-bYCn8g

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

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, NBC News/AP Reports:

Rollout of ‘soul crushing’ Trump immigration policy has ‘broken the courts’

On the day she was set to see a U.S. immigration judge in San Diego last month, Katia took every precaution.

After waiting two months in Mexico to press her case for U.S. asylum, the 20-year-old student from Nicaragua arrived at the border near Tijuana three hours before the critical hearing was scheduled to start at 7:30 a.m.

But border agents didn’t even escort her into the U.S. port of entry until after 9 a.m., she said, and then she was left stranded there with a group of more than a dozen other migrants who also missed their hearings.

“We kept asking what was going on, but they wouldn’t tell us anything,” said Katia, who asked to be identified by her first name only for fear of jeopardizing her immigration case.

Bashir Ghazialam, a lawyer paid for by Katia’s aunt in the United States, convinced the judge to reschedule her case because of the transportation snafu. Later, staff at the lawyer’s office learned that at least two families in the group were ordered deported for not showing up to court.

Since it started in January, the rollout of one of the most dramatic changes to U.S. immigration policy under the Trump administration has been marked by unpredictability and created chaos in immigration courts, according to dozens of interviews with judges and attorneys, former federal officials and migrants.

The program – known as the “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP) – has forced tens of thousands of people to wait in Mexico for U.S. court dates, swamping the dockets and leading to delays and confusion as judges and staff struggle to handle the influx of cases.

In June, a U.S. immigration official told a group of congressional staffers that the program had “broken the courts,” according to two participants and contemporaneous notes taken by one of them. The official said that the court in El Paso at that point was close to running out of space for paper files, according to the attendees, who requested anonymity because the meeting was confidential.

Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former Department of Homeland Security official under presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, said the problems are “symptomatic of a system that’s not coordinating well.”

“It’s a volume problem, it’s a planning problem, it’s a systems problem and it’s an operational problem on the ground,” said Brown, now a director at the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank. “They’re figuring everything out on the fly.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) estimated that 42,000 migrants had been sent to wait in Mexico through early September. That agency and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which runs the nation’s immigration courts, referred questions about the program’s implementation to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which did not respond to requests for comment.

Huge surge, few courts

The disarray is the result of a surge in migrants, most of them Central Americans, at the U.S. southern border, combined with the need for intricate legal and logistical arrangements for MPP proceedings in a limited number of courts – only in San Diego and El Paso, initially. Rather than being released into the United States to coordinate their own transportation and legal appearances, migrants in MPP must come and go across the border strictly under U.S. custody.

Some migrants have turned up in court only to find that their cases are not the system or that the information on them is wrong, several attorneys told Reuters. Others, like Katia, have received conflicting instructions.

According to court documents seen by Reuters, Katia’s notice to appear stated that her hearing was at 7:30 a.m., while another paper she received said she should arrive at the border at 9 a.m., well after her hearing was set to start. She decided to show up at the border before dawn, according to staff in her lawyer’s office. Still, she wasn’t allowed into the border facility until hours later. Ultimately she was never bussed to the San Diego court and was told her case was closed – a fate she was able to avoid only after frantically summoning her lawyer, Ghazialam, to the border.

Most migrants in MPP – including the two families who were deported from her group at the port of entry – do not have lawyers.

In open court, judges have raised concerns that migrants in Mexico – often with no permanent address – cannot be properly notified of their hearings. On many documents, the address listed is simply the city and state in Mexico to which the migrant has been returned.

Lawyers say they fear for the safety of their clients in high-crime border cities.

A Guatemalan father and daughter were being held by kidnappers in Ciudad Juarez at the time of their U.S. hearings in early July but were ordered deported because they didn’t show up to court, according to court documents filed by their lawyer, Bridget Cambria, who said she was able to get their case reopened.

Adding to uncertainty surrounding the program, the legality of MPP is being challenged by migrant advocates. An appellate court ruled here in May that the policy could continue during the legal battle, but if it is found ultimately to be unlawful, the fate of the thousands of migrants waiting in Mexico is unclear. A hearing on the merits of the case is set for next month.

‘Unrealistic’ numbers

When the MPP program was announced on December 20, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said one of its “anticipated benefits” would be cutting backlogs in immigration courts.

In the announcement, the agency said sending migrants to wait in Mexico would dissuade “fraudsters” from seeking asylum since they would no longer be released into the United States “where they often disappear” before their hearing dates.

But the immediate impact has been to further strain the immigration courts.

A Reuters analysis of immigration court data through Aug. 1 found judges hearing MPP cases in El Paso and San Diego were scheduled for an average of 32 cases per day between January and July this year. One judge was booked for 174 cases in one day.

“These numbers are unrealistic, and they are not sustainable on a long-term basis,” said Ashley Tabaddor, head of the national immigration judge’s union.

To reduce the backlog, DHS estimates the government would need to reassign more than 100 immigration judges from around the country to hear MPP cases via video conferencing systems, according to the attendees of the June meeting with congressional staff.

Kathryn Mattingly, a spokeswoman for EOIR, said that the rescheduling was necessary to deal with the substantial volume of recent cases.

All told, the courts are now struggling with more than 930,000 pending cases of all types, according to EOIR.

As of August 1, 39% of the backlog in the San Diego court and 44% of the backlog in the El Paso court was due to MPP case loads, Reuters analysis of immigration court data showed.

Despite concerns over the system’s capacity, the government is doubling down on the program.

In a July 26 notification to Congress, DHS said it would shift $155 million from disaster relief to expand facilities for MPP hearings, and would need $4.8 million more for transportation costs. DHS said that without the funding “MPP court docket backlogs will continue to grow.”

Tent courts are set to open this month in Laredo and Brownsville, Texas, and so far more than 4,600 cases have been scheduled there to be heard by 20 judges, according to court data.

In Laredo, 20 to 27 tent courtrooms will provide video conferencing equipment so judges not based at the border can hear cases remotely, said city spokesman Rafael Benavides.

Brownsville’s mayor Trey Mendez said last month that about 60 such courtrooms were likely to be opened, though he had few details. City manager Noel Bernal told Reuters that communication with the federal government about the plans has been “less than ideal.”

‘Desperate people’

At her next hearing in San Diego in mid-September, Katia hopes to tell a judge how her participation in student demonstrations made her a target of government supporters.

Meanwhile, she said, she is living with her parents and 10-year-old brother in a fly-infested apartment with broken plumbing outside Tijuana.

The whole group is seeking asylum because of their support for the protests, according to Katia, her mother Simona, her lawyers, as well as court documents.

Recently, family members said they witnessed a shootout on their corner and Katia’s brother is now waking up with night terrors.

“They are playing games with the needs of desperate people,” said Simona, 46, who like Katia requested the family’s last names be withheld to avoid harming their case. “It’s soul crushing.”

Follow NBC Latino on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

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Of course, Judge Couch is already well-known for his bias and hostility toward asylum seekers, particularly abused women. Why else would he have been “promoted” to the position of “Appellate Immigration Judge” by “Billy the Sycophant” Barr? Obviously, the idea is to promote bias and “worst practices” as the “nationwide norm.”

And we never should forget the spineless ineptness and complicity of Congress and the Article III Courts who are watching this travesty unfold every day while essentially looking the other way. Guess that as long as it’s somebody else “in the woodshed” these dudes can “tune out” the screams of the dehumanized. But, chances are when it’s finally their rights (or the rights of someone they “care about”) at stake, there will be nothing left of our legal and Constitutional system to protect them.

Indeed, the lawless and unconstitutional “Let ‘Em Die in Mexico Program” described here is largely the responsibility of the “above the fray” Judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals who have permitted this intentionally abusive and dehumanizing program to torment refugees and their representatives with impunity.

Disgustingly, these life-tenured judges and elected representatives are lining themselves up squarely with the forces of White Nationalism and overt racism, folks like Neo-Nazi Stephen Miller.

The judicial and Congressional complicity in the abuse and torment of the most vulnerable among us and their wanton disregard for the Constitution they swore to uphold will not go unnoticed by history. This, indeed, is how democracies die and the “bad guys of the world” win.

PWS

09-11-19

RETIRED MILITARY LEADERS SPEAK OUT AGAINST TRUMP’S WANTON DESTRUCTION OF U.S. RFUGEE PROGRAM — “When we slam the door on refugees, we encourage other nations to do the same, contributing to a less compassionate and more dangerous world, one in which our military will increasingly be called to provide stability.”

Admiral Robert J. Natter — United States Navy Official photo of ADM (Line) [Now Retired] Robert J. Natter, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Plans, Policy and Operations N3/N5. As of August 1999.

Lt. Gen. Mark P. Hertling — Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Mark P. Hertling
U.S. Army

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/08/cutting-refugee-admissions-will-have-severe-consequences-us-military/

Admiral (Ret.) Robert J. Natter & Lt. General (Ret.) Mark P. Hertling write in WashPost:

Robert J. Natter is a retired U.S. Navy admiral who served as commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and U.S. Fleet Forces from 2000 to 2003. Mark P. Hertling is a retired lieutenant general who served as commanding general of U.S. Army Europe from 2011 to 2012.

America was founded as a safe haven to persecuted people and a beacon of hope, liberty and freedom to people around the world. Those themes reflect our values, and the welcoming of refugees to our shores is one of our proudest legacies and a fundamental part of who we are as a nation.

As military leaders, we spent nearly four decades defending these values. But today, a core American legacy is at risk, as the Trump administration is reportedly considering issuing severe, unprecedented cuts — potentially even zeroing out — the bipartisan U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, the established legal means of entry for these deserving people.

This week, we joined a group of 27 retired generals and admirals — all of whom have been operational leaders in military conflicts and exhibited courage in defending our values on the battlefield — in writing to President Trump expressing grave concerns about the direction of this vital program.

That’s because for many of us, welcoming refugees is not just a matter of smart policy and a reflection of our national values; it is also personal. Many of us know these refugees: They worked for and with us in our fight against terrorists and insurgents. The tangible and significant improvements we were able to make in the lives of millions as well as efforts to protect our own soldiers, sailors and Marines would not have been possible without the dedicated efforts of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan interpreters, logisticians, engineers and others.

Many of those individuals were targeted because of their assistance to us. They and their families have often been threatened for working with coalition forces, yet they bravely continued in their service at every level from translating conversations at the infantry squad level to contributing to task-force-level diplomatic missions. They may claim different cultures and speak different languages, but they have all put their lives on the line along with our citizens as part of our team.

Many of our partners continue to live in fear, given the continued hazardous situations in various parts of the world. In Iraq alone, more than 100,000 await entry to the United States. We promised our Iraqi partners support and safety when they were shoulder to shoulder with us fighting a despicable enemy. If today we turn these people away, or reduce the numbers who are allowed entry, it will be extremely difficult to ask others to assist us in the future.

Providing safety to people who assist American troops is a core function of our refugee program, but it does not stop there. We are living in a moment of unprecedented global displacement. Of the nearly 26 million refugees across the globe, most are hosted by low- and middle-income countries bordering the unstable areas that people are fleeing. A small proportion of the most vulnerable — less than 5 percent — are selected for resettlement. In addition to humanitarian assistance, resettling refugees is a concrete way that the United States offers support to these countries, while also strengthening regional stability and reducing the risk that people will be forced to return to conflict zones.

We know firsthand that both the humanitarian and strategic consequences of conflicts in Iraq, Syria, the Balkans and East and West Africa would be much worse had neighboring countries closed their borders. We also know that conflicts can restart when refugees are sent home prematurely. Of the 15 largest returns of refugees since 1990, a third have resulted in the resumption of conflict and the slaughter of innocents.

When we slam the door on refugees, we encourage other nations to do the same, contributing to a less compassionate and more dangerous world, one in which our military will increasingly be called to provide stability.

Over the past 40 years, the United States has welcomed about 3 million refugees from around the world who have gone on to contribute to and strengthen this country in immeasurable ways. The average refugee admission level across both Republican and Democratic administrations is 95,000 annually. Yet in the last two years, admissions have plummeted 75 percent.

In the next two weeks, the president will decide how many refugees we will admit in 2020. That decision will determine whether we uphold America’s legacy as a haven for the persecuted, and it will send a powerful message to the world about who we are as a people. We strongly recommend that this lifesaving humanitarian program be restored to historic bipartisan-supported levels.

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

“We also know that conflicts can restart when refugees are sent home prematurely. Of the 15 largest returns of refugees since 1990, a third have resulted in the resumption of conflict and the slaughter of innocents.”

So much for the Trump Administration’s “solution” of returning refugees and other forced migrants to danger zones in their own countries or to countries that are equally or more dangerous. Killing and abusing forced migrants through improper returns and “deterrents” intended to make them “die in place” is reminiscent of other types of “final solutions” that were disastrous for humanity. Only, this time, the U.S. is the “leader of the pack” downward rather than one of those fighting to save humanity.

A thoroughly cowardly performance by Trump and his White Nationalist gang.

Also, for the more than four decades I have been involved in immigration and refugee issues, overseas refugee admissions have received overwhelming bipartisan support. What has happened to the GOP which suddenly has “swallowed the whistle” in the face of Trump’s cowardly White Nationalism?

It appears that retired military leaders, like former U.S. Immigration Judges, can make a “full time job” out of speaking out against the stupid, counterproductive, and inhumane policies of the Trump Administration.

PWS

09-10-19

TED HESSON @ POLITICO: Is Trump Winning The Border Battle?

Ted Hesson, Immigration, Pro — Staff mugshots photographed Feb. 20, 2018. (M. Scott Mahaskey/Politico)

Someone using POLITICO for iPad wants to share this article with you:

Trump’s plan to stem border crossings gets results

Ted Hesson

President Donald Trump’s plan to force Mexico to stem the flow of migrants across the southwest border of the U.S. appears to be working. Border arrests, a metric for illegal crossings, plummeted to 51,000 in August, according to preliminary government fig…

READ ON POLITICO.COM

Download the POLITICO app for your iPhone, iPad, or Android device

Follow POLITICO on Twitter: @POLITICO

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

Trump’s “methods” are highly problematic in terms of human lives and legal requirements. Also, since the “enforcement only” approach fails to deal with the causes of forced migration, I doubt that the “success” will be sustainable in the long run.

PWS

09-08-19

CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: Trump & His GOP’s Cowardly “War On Children” Should Outrage Every American! — Join The “New Due Process Army” & Fight To Save Humanity!

Catherine writes in the Washington Post:

You’ve heard of the Wars on Drugs, Terror, Poverty, even Women. Well, welcome to the War on Children.

It’s being waged by the Trump administration and other right-wing public officials, regardless of any claimed “family values.”

For evidence, look no further than the report released Wednesday by the Department of Health and Human Services’s own inspector general. It details the trauma suffered by immigrant children separated from their parents under the Trump administration’s evil “zero tolerance” policy.

Thousands of children were placed in overcrowded centers ill-equipped to provide care for them physically or psychologically. Visits to 45 centers around the country resulted in accounts of children who cried inconsolably; who were drugged; who were promised family reunifications that never came; whose severe emotional distress manifested in phantom chest pains, with complaints that “every heartbeat hurts”; who thought their parents had abandoned them or had been murdered.

Such state-sanctioned child abuse was designed to serve as a “deterrent” for asylum-seeking families, as then-Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and other administration officials made clear.

Of course, they failed to recognize just how horrific are the conditions these asylum-seeking children are fleeing — conditions that further decreased HHS’s ability to adequately care for them.

“Staff in multiple facilities reported cases of children who had been kidnapped or raped” back in their home countries, the IG report states. Other children witnessed family members raped or murdered.

But hey, Trump believes these kiddos must be punished further for the crime of seeking refuge — a.k.a., the “invasion” of America.

Despite this and other abundant evidence that government facilities are not able to care for children for extended periods, last month, the administration also announced a new policy that would allow it to keep children (along with their families) in jail-like conditions for longer periods of time.

This is hardly the only way the administration has knowingly enacted policies that harm children.

In August, it finalized a rule that would make it more difficult for immigrants to receive green cards if they have used certain safety-net services they’re legally entitled to — or if government officials suspect they might ever use such services. Confusion and fear about the policy and whom it affects abound. This has already created a “chilling effect” for usage of social services, with immigrant parents disenrolling even their U.S.-citizen children just to be safe.

Last fall, for instance, I interviewed a green-card-holding mother who decided not to enroll her underweight newborn in a program that would have provided free formula (even though the program in question was not mentioned in the rule, and the baby is a U.S. citizen). Huge recent declines in children’s Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program enrollment are also believed to be at least partly a result of fears about this policy change.

If Your Dog Does This, It Could Be Them Signaling A Warning

And lest you think only immigrant or brown children are being targeted in this war: U.S. servicemembers’ children, of all sorts of backgrounds, are being hurt, too.

The Trump administration is siphoning billions from various defense projects to fund border wall construction, despite promises that Mexico would pay for it. This might sound unlikely to affect kids, but somehow the Trump administration found a way. Among the projects losing funds are schools for the children of U.S. servicemembers based in Kentucky, Germany and Japan, and a child-care center at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

Trump’s proposed federal budgets have likewise axed funding for other programs that serve children, such as subsidized school meals and Medicaid. Indeed, both federal and state GOP officials more broadly are still working to kill the Medicaid expansion, as well as other Affordable Care Act provisions that benefit kids.

The GOP has likewise ignored the pleas of children who want their lives protected from gun violence, or who want their futures protected from a warming planet.

A year ago, I offered a suggestion : that Democrats make children the theme of their midterm campaign. They mostly ignored me and still did okay. Nonetheless, I’m re-upping it.

Because even without Trump’s baby jails and proposed Medicaid cuts, our country’s emphasis on children’s well- being is seriously deficient.

Last year, for the first time on record, we spent a greater share of the federal budget servicing the national debt than we did on children, according to an analysis out next week from First Focus on Children. Spending on children as a share of the federal budget is also expected to shrink over the coming decade, crowded out by both debt service and spending on the elderly.

This is despite the fact that spending on children (especially low-income children) has among the highest returns on investment of any form of government spending.

Whatever the opposite of Trump’s War on Children is, that’s what Democrats should be running on.

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

Thanks, Catherine, for speaking out so clearly and articulately about what has become our #1 National Disgrace: Trump’s War On Human Decency & Future Generations and its sleazy cast of supporting characters like Pence, Kelly, Miller, Nielsen, “Big Mac With Lies,” Homan, Albence, Morgan, “Cooch Cooch,” “Gonzo Apocalypto,” Barr, Cotton, Graham, and others with their glib immorality and disregard for truth, our Constitution, the rule of law, and basic human values.

Who thought the U.S. would ever stoop so low — to use our government’s power and might to abuse defenseless, already traumatized, and highly vulnerable children. (Catherine’s article does’t even get into how, with the help of scofflaw Attorneys General Sessions and Barr and some complacent Article III Judges, the Administration has manipulated asylum law and Immigration “Court” procedures to deny children and other asylum seekers the legal protection to which they are entitled under U.S. and international laws.)

There are many groups out there in the “New Due Process Army” fighting every day against this kind of outrageous behavior by our elected leaders, their corrupt cronies, and their many “go along to get along” enablers in the bureaucracy. Join or donate to one today!

The war to save America and humanity from Trump’s vile and cowardly agenda is one that we can’t afford to lose: For the sake of future generations!

PWS

09-06-19

TAL @ SF CHRON TAKES US INSIDE EOIR’S LATEST ASSAULT ON DUE PROCESS: Lack Of Live Interpretation Causing Confusion, Delays, Misinformation, & Denials Of Fundamental Fairness In U.S. Immigration Courts — Bogus “Court” System Continues To Make Major Changes Diminishing Due Process Without Consulting Judges, Attorneys, Or The Affected Individuals!

Tal Kopan reports for the SF Chron:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Confusion-delays-as-videos-replace-interpreters-14414627.php

Confusion, delays as videos replace interpreters at immigrants’ hearings

By Tal Kopan

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has been slow to implement its new policy replacing in-person interpreters with informational videos at immigrants’ initial hearings, but the switch is causing delays and confusion where it has been introduced, including in San Francisco, observers say.

The Justice Department informed immigration judges in late June that it would replace in-person interpreters at the first court appearance for immigrants facing deportation with videos advising them of their rights. The switchover began in July.

So far, the policy has been rolled out to courts in just four cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.

It’s not clear when the policy will expand. A spokesman for the Justice Department division that oversees the courts said the agency “is taking into consideration all feedback before additional translation videos are created and the program is rolled out to further immigration courts.”

Judges and attorneys observing the courts say the change has mostly served to delay proceedings, by adding lengthy steps and information that is not necessary for all migrants to hear.

After the videos are shown, each immigrant is called up for his or her individual hearing and may have questions for the judge. Although judges are now barred from scheduling in-person interpreters for the hearings, at times interpreters can be found on short notice in the courthouses. When none is available, judges must try a telephone service to reach an interpreter.

At issue are what are called master calendar hearings — immigrants’ first appearance in courts that determine whether they can remain in the U.S. The typically rapid-fire sessions serve to inform migrants of their rights and the process they will go through. Judges also schedule their next hearings.

Many immigrants in the system are Spanish speakers, but it’s also common for Chinese, Creole, and several indigenous languages from Central America and around the world to be spoken in courtrooms.

Judges in courts that have made the change are required to play either a Spanish-dubbed or English-language video for immigrants who do not have attorneys representing them. The 20-minute video runs through a lengthy list of technical legal advisories. Videos in other languages are not yet available, but the Justice Department has plans to introduce them.

Most of the dozens of immigrants going through their initial hearings Tuesday in San Francisco were shown the video. Many of them had attorneys present who translated, and others were able to use a Spanish-speaking interpreter who was on hand. Languages spoken in court included Spanish, Punjabi, Hindi, Mandarin and Fijian.

One hearing in the courtroom of Judge Arwen Swink involved a Mongolian woman who needed translation. After about five minutes, Swink was able to secure an interpreter in her language through the telephone service Lionbridge.

Swink asked the interpreter to introduce himself to the woman, who did not have an attorney, to ensure that she understood him. The interpreter said he had trouble hearing, but court staffers brought the microphone closer to the woman and the session was able to proceed.

With an interpreter in the room, such a hearing can take five minutes or less. The woman’s case took 15 minutes.

The Chronicle has obtained transcripts of the separate videos that are played for immigrants who are in detention and not in detention, as well as an FAQ handout they receive.

Roughly a fifth of the videos are devoted to a discussion of “voluntary departure,” under which immigrants can go back to their home country without being penalized if they try to come back someday. The videos also warn immigrants of the criminal consequences of trying to re-enter the country illegally after being deported.

Legal experts and veteran immigration judges say neither topic was commonly brought up in initial hearings before the videos were introduced because they are most relevant at the end of cases, if migrants do not prevail in their bid to remain in the U.S. Several said they feared the emphasis on voluntary departures and criminal penalties could prompt immigrants with valid claims to stay in the U.S. to waive their right without fully understanding what they’re doing.

The Justice Department did not consult with the union that represents immigration judges before making the change, and has proceeded despite ongoing bargaining with the group. The result is “lots of confusion, constantly changing parameters of the program by the agency and frustration among many judges,” said Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges and an immigration judge in Los Angeles.

Tabaddor added that courts in New York and Miami have had trouble securing help by phone, and that cases have been delayed in the Los Angeles court because of shortages of interpreters.

Amiena Khan, the union’s executive vice president and a judge in New York, said the videos make for a “really long day” for unrepresented immigrants who have to wait through proceedings for all migrants who have attorneys before watching a 20-minute video. She finds herself repeating or adding key advisories when immigrants are called before her.

“There was no problem that needed to be solved by the introduction of the video,” Khan said. “What I think really bothers me is that it’s mandatory. I think if it was discretionary as a tool for the judge to use, it could be helpful. (But) it takes away our judicial independence as to what method to employ to best get through the day’s docket.”

Khan and former immigration Judge Jeffrey Chase, who reviewed the transcripts, also noted that the videos do not include information that would be important for immigrants, including that they have only one year to formally apply for asylum in the U.S.

“The information provided is misleading in a way that can lead to a noncitizen’s removal,” said Chase, who now volunteers for organizations that provide legal assistance to immigrants.

Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the transcripts show that the videos use “scare tactics” instead of informing immigrants of their rights. The videos warn immigrants against filing frivolous asylum claims, but don’t explain what asylum is, she noted.

“The videos provide an overwhelming amount of information that no one can easily digest in one setting,” Lynch said. “What’s more disturbing is that the content itself only tells one side of the story.”

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

Click on the link for Tal’s full story with links to actual transcripts of this “parody of justice.”

This is DOJ/EOIR’s “malicious incompetence” in action. Accurate interpretation is essential to Due Process and fundamental fairness as well as the hallmark of a competently and professionally run court system. Somewhere along the line, the money for interpreters was frittered away by what passes for “management” at DOJ/EOIR. And, let’s not even think about the waste of money on absurd “Immigration Judge Dashboards” while the two decades old overwhelming need for a functional nationwide e-filing system goes unmet.

Right now, Congress is paralyzed. When are the Article III Courts going to wake up, get some backbone, and enforce the U.S. Constitution by putting an end to this so-called “court system” run by prosecutors that provides not even a semblance of fair and impartial (and at least minimally competent) adjudication? No more “Clown Court!”🤡

PWS

09-05-19

INSIDE TRUMP’S “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” (“NAG”): Where So-Called “Civil Immigration Detainees” Asserting Their Legal Rights Are Punished In Ways That Would Be “Cruel & Unusual” If Applied To Convicted Criminals!

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=6efdc532-da2a-4e07-8ea4-f1876c153c07&v=sdk

Tom K. Wong writes in the LA Times:

The Trump administration has attempted to close the door on asylum seekers who are looking for refuge in the United States. But even as it blocks entry — and sends tens of thousands of asylum seekers to Mexico to wait out their immigration proceedings — thousands of families with children are also being held in federal immigration detention facilities.

Because the administration has prohibited advocacy groups, journalists, immigration attorneys and even congressional staff from entering detention facilities to document conditions and interview detainees, the public has had only anecdotal glimpses into how detainees were treated. Now we have systematic evidence to support accounts of the harsh conditions that asylum seekers experience in immigration detention. In many ways, it is worse than we thought.

From October 2018 through June 2019, the San Diego Rapid Response Network (SDRRN) assisted approximately 7,300 asylum-seeking families at their shelters. These families, who were processed and then admitted into the U.S., totaled more than 17,000 people, including 7,900 children 5 years old or younger. My team and I at the U.S. Immigration Policy Center (USIPC) at UC San Diego independently analyzed intake data collected by the SDRRN for all of these families.

In a report released last week, we found that approximately 35% of the asylum-seeking heads of households we studied reported problems related to conditions in immigration detention, treatment in immigration detention, or medical issues. This finding is alarming since it’s very likely an underestimate, because the SDRRN was focused on providing needed services to the asylum-seeking families, not administering questionnaires. Moreover, abuses or problems in detention may be underreported by asylum seekers who are afraid that raising complaints may negatively affect their asylum case.

Of those who reported issues related to conditions in detention, approximately 6 out of 10 reported food and water problems, including not having enough to eat, being fed frozen food, being fed spoiled food, not being given formula for infants, not being given water, and having to drink dirty or foul-tasting water. Approximately half reported having to sleep on the floor, having to sleep with the lights on, overcrowded conditions, confinement, and the temperature being too cold in “la hielera,” the detention facilities known as the “iceboxes.” Approximately 1 out of every 3 reported not having access to clean or sanitary toilets, being able to shower or being able to brush their teeth.

About 1 out of 10 of the asylum-seeking heads of households — or more than 700 of them — reported verbal abuse, physical abuse or some form of mistreatment in immigration detention. Examples of verbal abuse include being told “we don’t want your kind here” and “you’re an ape,” among others. Examples of physical abuse include being thrown against the wall when attempting to get a drink of water.

The data also showed the great diversity of those who arrive at the southern border to seek refuge. The majority of the asylum-seeking families came from the “Northern Triangle” of Central America — Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. However, many also came from other continents, 28 in all, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia, Kazakhstan, India, China and Vietnam, to name a few. Any changes to U.S. asylum policies meant to deter Central Americans from entering at the southern border will affect asylum seekers from all over the world who are also looking to the U.S. for safety.

We also found that just over 1 out of 5 of these families do not speak Spanish as their primary language. The languages spoken range from indigenous Central American languages — including K’iche’, Q’eqchi’ and Mam — to Creole, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Hindi, Vietnamese and Romanian, among others. This linguistic diversity presents another set of challenges.

When asylum seekers are released from detention, they are given detailed instructions on a form called the “Notice to Appear,” including instructions about their immigration court dates, times and locations. On the notice, immigration officials indicate the language that the asylum seeker was given these instructions in. For those whose primary language is not Spanish, nearly 9 out of every 10 were nevertheless given instructions in Spanish. If these families are not provided instructions about their immigration proceedings in a language they can understand, they will not be able to navigate an extremely complex legal process, which may infringe on their basic rights to due process.

From substandard conditions in immigration detention to verbal and physical abuse to serious due process concerns, the data show that the Trump administration is not abiding by its obligations under U.S. and international asylum and refugee law to treat humanely those who are seeking protection from persecution.

With the administration now determined to hold asylum-seeking families for potentially as long as it takes for their immigration proceedings to play out (which could be years), conditions may get worse. Cruelty, after all, may very well be the point.

Tom K. Wong is associate professor of political science and director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at UC San Diego.

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

What kind of country allows its leaders to impose these types of abuses on vulnerable individuals whose “crime” is seeking protection under our laws and the international conventions that they implement?

Why are “Big Mac” and other Trump sycophants at DHS allowed to lie with impunity about what is really happening in DHS detention, the real inhuman consequences of “Remain in Mexico” (a/k/a “Let ‘Em Die in Mexico”), and abuse “Safe Third Country” agreements by dishonestly pretending that Guatemala, one of the world’s most notoriously dangerous and corrupt “failed states,” meets the statutory requirements?

A key point in Professor Wong’s article is that many, probably the majority, of those released from detention receive inadequate explanations of their obligations to report current addresses and appear for both Immigration Court Hearings and separate ICE detention “check-ins.” Combined with this Administration’s obstinate refusal to work closely and cooperatively with legal services groups to maximize representation, it leads to many unnecessary, yet largely intentional on the part of DHS & EOIR, so-called “no shows.” These, in turn, get bogus “in absentia orders” from Immigration Judges operating under excruciating and inappropriate pressure to “produce numbers, not justice.” This, in turn, feeds the demonstrably false DHS narrative, oft repeated by “Big Mac With Lies” & others, that a large number of asylum seekers will “abscond” if released in the U.S.

It’s all part of a White Nationalist restrictionist immigration agenda that when finally exposed in detail after Trump and his cronies leave office will paint America as foolish, corrupt, and cowardly. Is this the “legacy” we truly want to leave to future generations?

Join the “New Due Process Army” and fight to restore the rule of law and Constitutional order and to end the corruption and daily human rights abuses of the Trump Administration!

PWS

09-0-19

9TH CIR/TRUMP “KILL ‘EM IN MEXICO PROGRAM” ENDANGERS ASYLUM SEEKERS & THOSE WHO ASSIST THEM —Judicial Disgrace Continues To Destroy Lives, Mock Humanity, Undermine The Rule of Law! — “Extortion-minded mobs view vulnerable migrants as walking ATMs.“

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-09-01/kidnapping-of-pastor-in-mexican-border-town-dramatizes-threats-to-migrants

Patrick J. McDonnell

Mexico City Bureau Chief

LA Times

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — The kidnappers came to the shelter near the U.S.-Mexico border looking for Cuban migrants, favored targets because relatives in the United States are known to pay exorbitant ransoms to free abducted loved ones.

In cartel-dominated Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, a gateway to the United States, it’s a lucrative racket: Snatch a migrant from Cuba, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela or elsewhere; commandeer their cellphones; then call U.S. relatives demanding thousands of dollars.

No need to spell out the consequences of nonpayment in the lawless Mexican border state of Tamaulipas, known for mass graves and massacres of migrants — including hundreds slain by gunmen of the Zetas cartel outside the town of San Fernando in 2010-11.

(Los Angeles Times)

On Aug. 3, when the Rev. Aaron Mendez, an evangelical pastor and head of the Amar shelter, refused the kidnappers’ demands, the thugs took him away.

The pastor entered the twilight world of Mexico’s “disappeared” — officially 37,000 and growing, with Tamaulipas state leading Mexico in the grisly statistic. Federal and state police are investigating what happened to Mendez, said Ivan Moyle, a spokesman for the Tamaulipas prosecutor’s office, who declined to comment further.

The case has dramatized the systematic fashion of abductions and shakedowns faced by migrants and others at an especially sensitive time — when U.S. authorities have been expelling tens of thousands of Central Americans, Cubans and others back to Mexico’s crime-ridden border cities under the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols, known informally as “Remain in Mexico.”

Under the program, rolled out in January in the border cities of Tijuana and San Diego — and later expanded to other U.S.-Mexico crossings — more than 37,500 U.S.-bound migrants have been returned to Mexico to wait for U.S. court hearings. Many intend to seek political asylum in the United States.

More than 3,000 have been dispatched across the Rio Grande to Tamaulipas — both to Nuevo Laredo, opposite Laredo, Texas; and to Matamoros, sister city to Brownsville, Texas — since the program was extended in July. Mexican authorities provide little housing or other aid to the returnees, who are often left on the streets to fend for themselves.

Extortion-minded mobs view vulnerable migrants as walking ATMs. They are easy prey, lacking family ties in Mexico and known to have U.S. relatives with access to dollars. Mob halcones — hawks, or lookouts — watch bus stations and other strategic spots, eyeing potential quarry.

Though drug trafficking provides the bulk of cartel income, Mexico’s organized crime groups are multibillion-dollar conglomerates that also control migrant smuggling, kidnapping and other illicit ventures, working in cahoots with corrupt police and politicians.

“There is no protection,” said Father Julio Lopez, a Catholic priest who runs the Casa de Migrante Nazareth shelter in Nuevo Laredo.

Three Honduran migrant families who returned to Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols recently recounted in interviews with the Los Angeles Times how gangsters kidnapped them, obliging relatives in the United States to pay ransoms. All three said they had alerted U.S. immigration officials that they had been abducted in Mexico — but were nonetheless sent back to Mexico.

U.S. authorities say multiple factors are considered when determining whether apprehended migrants should be sent back to Mexico, including whether they face persecution or torture. Claims by migrants are documented, authorities said, but fear of being kidnapped does not necessarily disqualify detainees from being sent back to Mexico.

“One of our main priorities in the U.S. Border Patrol is the safety and the well-being of the people that we apprehend,” said Jose A. Martinez, acting assistant chief Border Patrol agent in Laredo, Texas.

The State Department has slapped its highest security alert on Tamaulipas, noting that “armed criminal groups target public and private passenger buses as well as private automobiles traveling through Tamaulipas, often taking passengers hostage and demanding ransom payments.”

Beti Suyapa Ortega, 36, said she was unaware of the extent of the danger when she boarded a Mexican public bus last month headed for the U.S. border with her son, Robinson Javier Melara, 17. The single mother of five from the northern Honduran state of Yoro said she was fleeing maras, or gangs, that demanded weekly extortion payments at her family’s grocery store.

“The maras in Honduras are bad, but here I think they are even worse,” Ortega said.

Ortega spoke in a sweltering ground-floor waiting room in the concrete compound of Mexico’s immigration agency in Nuevo Laredo, where she and others fearful of going outside lingered for hours on plastic chairs and mats strewn on the floor.

On Aug. 4, Ortega said, she and her son were on a bus when a group of about 10 men flagged the vehicle down on the outskirts of Nuevo Laredo. The gangsters demanded that passengers produce identification and forced all foreigners off the vehicle, she said.

“We control this area!” one of the toughs declared, saying that he and the others were from the Northeast Cartel — the dominant gang in Nuevo Laredo and splinter faction of the hyper-violent Zetas mob.

Ortega and her son were taken to a house where about a dozen other migrants were being held, she said, and the kidnappers grabbed her phone. They found the number of her younger brother, Kevin Joel Ortega, 25, who had arrived in Atlanta a few months earlier. The captors snapped photos of Ortega and her son and dispatched the images to her brother, demanding $8,000 for their release, she said.

“If he didn’t pay, they said they would turn us over to ‘other people,’” Ortega said, trembling as she recalled the ominous phrasing. “My brother said it would take him time to raise the money, that he had just arrived, but please not to do anything to us.”

Ortega and her son were held for two weeks in a room with others, sleeping on the floor, receiving two daily meals — mostly beans and rice — and spending much of the time bored and watching a large flat-screen TV, she said. Her jailers did not physically harm anyone, she said, but angrily called the captives’ relatives in the United States daily, insisting on the payments.

“A time finally comes when one is not afraid anymore,” said Ortega, who was barefoot as she kept a close eye on her teenage son, the eldest of her five children, resting on the mat in the grimy Mexican immigration outpost. Her other four kids remained in Honduras.

Her brother in Atlanta was instructed to deposit the funds electronically in five different U.S. bank accounts, Ortega said.

On Aug. 18, when the money had been paid, Ortega said, she and her son were driven to a spot along the Rio Grande, where the cartel strictly controls illicit crossings, and taken across the river in an inflated tire tube.

Ortega and her son were detained in U.S. custody in Texas for two nights, she said, before being released with a court date of Dec. 10 in San Antonio.

“We told them [U.S. immigration authorities] we had been kidnapped, but they didn’t believe us,” Ortega said.

On Aug. 20, U.S. Border Patrol officers returned Ortega, her son and 18 other distraught migrants on foot to Nuevo Laredo across the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge that spans the Rio Grande, in a sullen procession repeated here daily beneath the blazing sun. Many clutched transparent plastic bags emblazoned with the seal of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and containing notices to appear in immigration court.

But Ortega, like the others huddled in the Mexican immigration depot, said she had no intention of sticking around Nuevo Laredo. She was too frightened. She and fellow migrants were waiting for bus transport to Tapachula, a Mexican city near the Guatemalan border. The one-way rides are a Mexican government initiative that serves a double purpose — removing discouraged migrants from the perilous border zone, while also diminishing the chances that they will make the long and hazardous trip back for U.S. court dates.

“We’ve had enough,” Ortega said.

Also waiting for the bus was Maria Suyapa Rodriguez, 35, and her 12-year-old son. She and her son, she said, had also been kidnapped — on Aug. 15 at the Nuevo Laredo bus terminal, one of the most treacherous spots in town. The two were released two days later when her sister in New York agreed to pay a ransom, said Rodriguez, who did not know the amount. The pair subsequently crossed the Rio Grande, she said, and surrendered to the Border Patrol, which returned them to Mexico.

Like Ortega, Rodriguez said she had given up and would forgo her Jan. 10 U.S. court date and return home to Honduras, following the tracks of so many migrants, broke and petrified of Mexican organized crime.

In one case, said Father Lopez, a Guatemalan man swallowed his phone’s SIM card to prevent kidnappers from tracking down relatives. A Honduran kidnap victim recalled flushing papers with the scrawled numbers of U.S. kin down the toilet.

Among the recent clients at Casa de Migrante Nazareth was Rosa Emilia Torrez, 45, her husband and her two children, a 12-year-old son and an infant daughter. Kidnappers grabbed the family at the Nuevo Laredo bus station July 21, Torrez said, two days after U.S. immigration authorities expelled them back to Nuevo Laredo. The family had planned to take a bus to Durango, Mexico, and wait at a relative’s home until their Sept. 25 U.S. court date, Torrez said.

Their captors released the family July 28, according to Torrez, after her brother-in-law in New Orleans paid $16,000, negotiated down from an initial demand of $32,000.

The kidnappers, Torrez said, then insisted on taking the family back across the Rio Grande to Texas, where, Torrez said, the Border Patrol arrested the family again.

Torrez said she tried to explain to the agents that the kidnappers forced them to return to the U.S. side — and that they feared being sent back to Mexico yet again — but no one paid any attention.

“We just take your fingerprints and send you back to Mexico,” the Border Patrol agent told her, Torrez said.

U.S. immigration authorities returned the family to Nuevo Laredo on Aug. 1, said Torrez, who added that her family plans to find safe housing somewhere in Mexico and show up for their immigration hearing in Texas later this month.

“We came this far,” Torrez said. “We aren’t turning back now.”

Times staff writer Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Houston and Cecilia Sanchez of The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

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Patrick J. McDonnell

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Patrick J. McDonnell is the Los Angeles Times Mexico City bureau chief. McDonnell is a native of the Bronx, where he majored in Irish-American studies and N.Y. Yankee fandom. He is a graduate of New York University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, was a Nieman fellow at Harvard and a 2014 Pulitzer finalist in international reporting for coverage from inside Syria.

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Cowardly tyrants like Trump his lying DHS lackeys like McAleenan & co. count on the complicity of at least some Federal Judges to get away with their program of undermining the rule of law and violating human rights. So far, the Ninth Circuit has obliged them when it comes to declaring “open season” on the world’s most vulnerable individuals seeking, but not finding, justice and fairness under our law.

The “Big Lie” By U.S. Border Patrol:

“One of our main priorities in the U.S. Border Patrol is the safety and the well-being of the people that we apprehend,” said Jose A. Martinez, acting assistant chief Border Patrol agent in Laredo, Texas.

Obviously, Chief Martinez is a liar. The safety and well-being of those apprehended in the U.S. not only is not a “main priority,” it’s not even “on the radar screen.” Indeed, sending folks who have passed credible fear back to Mexico to be abused and possibly Continue reading 9TH CIR/TRUMP “KILL ‘EM IN MEXICO PROGRAM” ENDANGERS ASYLUM SEEKERS & THOSE WHO ASSIST THEM —Judicial Disgrace Continues To Destroy Lives, Mock Humanity, Undermine The Rule of Law! — “Extortion-minded mobs view vulnerable migrants as walking ATMs.“

FAILED STATE: Trump & “Big Mac” Claim Guatemala Is A “Safe Third Country” For Asylum Seekers — They Lie! — The Truth Is Ugly: “Guatemala in grip of ‘mafia coalition’, says UN body in scathing corruption report!”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/28/guatemala-corruption-mafia-coalition-jimmy-morales?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

From the Guardian:

Cicig says in final report before mandate expires corruption ‘cannot be solved without profound restructuring of the state’

Associated Press in Guatemala City

Published:

17:09 Wednesday, 28 August 2019

A UN commission that spent the last 12 years investigating graft in Guatemala has described the country as “captured” by corruption in its final report, days before it is set to wrap up operations after President Jimmy Morales refused to renew its mandate.

The commission, known as Cicig for its initials in Spanish, said in its final report that there is a “mafia coalition” among members of government, the business community and private individuals that is “willing to sacrifice Guatemala’s present and future to guarantee impunity and preserve the status quo”.

The commission chief Iván Velásquez, a Colombian lawyer who has been barred by Morales’ government from entering Guatemala, said via video conference from Colombia that the report would be the commission’s last public act.

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“We almost got to the nucleus of the structures that have captured the state,” Velásquez said. “This cannot be solved without a profound restructuring of the state.”

The commission began its work in Guatemala in 2007 at the request of then-president Óscar Berger and was given responsibility for dismantling illegality in the wake of the country’s 1960-1996 civil war.

Morales accused the body of overreaching its authority last year, after the commission brought investigations against him, some of his relatives and his inner circle. He was protected from prosecution as a sitting president and has denied wrongdoing.

While many observers praised the commission for its work, which resulted in the prosecution of more than 400 people, including the former president Otto Pérez Molina, his vice-president and much of his cabinet, Morales decided that Cicig had run its course, setting up its impending departure on 3 September.

Critics saw Morales’ refusal to renew the commission’s mandate as an attempt to protect himself and those close to him.

The report said the “impunity of power” in Guatemala dates to colonial times.

Guatemala elections show corruption rampant four years after uprising toppled president

One of the reasons why corruption networks persist today, it said, is that “they have distorted democratic institutionality in their favor and they have molded the political system and designed mechanisms that allow them to occupy positions of power, manipulating legislation.”

“Between 2012 and 2015, an illicit, political-economic network took over the executive (branch), subordinated the legislative, manipulated and interfered in the election of judges to high courts and, in addition to looting the state, promoted laws and policies favoring private companies to the detriment of competition and the citizenry,” the report continued.

All that benefited drug trafficking networks, it added.

Together with Guatemalan prosecutors, the commission took down 70 organized crime networks. Those targeted for prosecution have included public officials, lawmakers, judges, businesspeople and other civilians.

It also investigated Morales’ National Convergence Front for alleged illegal political financing.

The report said illicit political money is “present in the majority of campaigns and parties” and comes from criminal organizations including drug traffickers seeking territorial control and political protection, as well as businesspeople seeking influence.

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

Seems like the life threatening lies and misuse of Government authority should be enough to remove both of these congenital liars from office.

PWS

08-31-19

IMMIGRATION COURTS: “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE ON STEROIDS” — With Court System Reeling & Asylum Applicants Suffering, Administration Plans Another Round Of Massive “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”), Reports Hamed Aleaziz @ BuzzFeed News!

https://apple.news/A3UINub7KSjuOLcKAHDJMLw

Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:

A Surge Of Immigration Judges Are Expected To Handle The Cases Of Thousands Forced To Wait In Mexico

“This will wreak havoc on court dockets across the country,” said one immigration court official.

Hamed Aleaziz

BuzzFeed News Reporter

A 10-month-old boy, whose family fled violence in El Salvador, waits in a tent in Tijuana, Mexico, for an immigration court hearing in the US.

Department of Homeland Security officials expect about 150 immigration judges from across the US will be selected to handle cases involving asylum-seekers forced to remain in Mexico while their cases proceed, according to a source with knowledge of the matter, a massive potential increase in assignments that threatens to overwhelm an already struggling court system.

Around a dozen judges currently presiding over courts in San Diego and El Paso, Texas, handle the cases of people referred under Migration Protection Protocols, the controversial Trump administration policy forcing asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico as their cases move through the immigration system. While the cases can take months or years to be scheduled, the number of individuals included in the program has expanded to more than 35,000, according to figures obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The Trump administration hopes to change that by soon opening facilities along the border to handle the cases. Officials plan to open two border courts in Texas — in Laredo and Brownsville — by the middle of September, in which they will hear up to 20 cases per day, according to a government briefing document obtained by BuzzFeed News. A DHS spokesperson said the date the facilities would open was still to be determined.

On Tuesday, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, who chairs the House DHS Appropriations Subcommittee, revealed in a letter that the agency had plans to transfer $155 million in federal disaster funds to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help fund the new facilities.

The cases heard at the border are expected to be conducted primarily via video teleconferencing, allowing for more judges across the country to be brought into the process. Assistants, working on contract, will help organize the hearings by taking roll call, send case documents to judges in other locations, and operate the video systems, according to a separate DHS planning document obtained by BuzzFeed News.

Judges assigned these cases could be forced to delay other asylum and deportation hearings that had already been scheduled, causing a ripple effect and further growing an already bloated court backlog of hundreds of thousands of cases.

People wait inside an immigration court in Miami.

“Once again immigration judges from courts across the country will have to push their home court dockets aside to preside televideo at border courts,” said one immigration court official who could not speak publicly on the matter. “This will wreak havoc on court dockets across the country.”

At a San Diego court that has presided over many “Remain in Mexico” cases for months, judges have been told to prioritize the hearings over others, according to a source with knowledge of the change. As a result, some immigrants who have waited for months or years for their previously scheduled cases will likely have their hearings delayed.

“The prioritization of MPP cases will place a huge burden on the immigration courts,” said a DOJ official involved with immigration matters. “Additionally, the postponement of previously scheduled cases will cause the backlog to grow even more, as the completion of these cases will be further delayed for months or even years.”

Rebecca Jamil, a former immigration judge under the Trump administration, said that the cases on judge’s dockets don’t go away when they are assigned new cases.

“Those families have been waiting for years to have their cases heard, and now will wait another two or three years, and due process is denied by the delay — evidence becomes stale, witnesses die, country conditions change,” she said.

The Department of Justice, which oversees the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which manages the nation’s immigration courts, is prepared to meet the demands from the DHS on any hearings, an agency spokesperson said.

The potential changes come as data revealed by Syracuse University indicates that asylum-seekers forced to wait in Mexico rarely have legal representation; just 1% of individuals are accompanied by attorneys at their hearings.

The Remain in Mexico program is one of the few hardline Trump immigration policies that has thus far survived a court injunction. While a federal court judge in San Francisco blocked the policy earlier this year, a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel allowed it to continue as a legal challenge works its way through the court process.

Asylum-seekers who were returned to Mexico under the Trump administration have faced consequences of remaining there, according to advocacy group Human Rights First. The group found more than 100 cases of people returned under the program alleging rapes, kidnappings, sexual exploitation, or assault, according to a report released this month.

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This is the result of the complete abdication of duty by the Ninth Circuit in Innovation Law Lab v. McAleenan, that lifted a proper, life-saving U.S. District Court injunction and allowed the Administration’s patently illegal and immoral “Kill ‘Em in Mexico Program” to proceed.

The solution: There is no such thing as a “fair” asylum denial under this program. Yes, not everyone meets the criteria. But, everyone is entitled to a fair chance to present a claim, free from duress, coercion, and biased judging, which is not happening.

Advocates must flood the Ninth Circuit and the other border circuits with petitions for review and other types of court actions forcing these complicit Article III “Ivory Tower Judges,” who believe they have removed themselves from the fray, with the human carnage resulting from their gross dereliction of duty to enforce the statutory and Constitutional rights of asylum seekers.

The disgusting and spineless performance of the Article IIIs in light of the Administration’s bogus, illegal actions to “deter” legitimate asylum seekers is nothing short of a national disgrace. If not corrected, it will rightfully tarnish the reputation of the Federal Courts and the individual judges involved for generations to come.

PWS

08-30-19

JUSTICE FARCE: BARR PACKS APPEALS BOARD WITH “JUDGES” KNOWN AS ANTI-ASYLUM ZEALOTS! — Body Charged With Insuring Impartiality & Due Process Now Serves As “Chief Persecutor” Of Asylum Applicants — This Is America?

https://apple.news/A4TEHyWG1TfmB-yGzUmx3YA

Noah Lanard reports for Mother Jones:

The Trump Administration’s Court-Packing Scheme Fills Immigration Appeals Board With Hardliners

In his first six years as an immigration judge in New York and Atlanta, from 1993 to 1999, William Cassidy rejected more asylum seekers than any judge in the nation. A few years ago,Earle Wilson overtook Cassidy as the harshest asylum judge on the Atlanta court, which has long been considered one of the toughest immigration courts in the country.

Now both men have been elevated to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which often has the final say over whether immigrants are deported, as part of a court-packing scheme by the Trump administration that is likely to make it even more difficult for migrants fleeing persecution to gain asylum.

Between 2013 and 2018, the average immigration judge in the country approved about 45 percent of asylum claims. The sixjudges newly promoted to the board have all approved fewer than 20 percent. Cassidy granted 4.2 percent of asylum claims. Another appointee, Stuart Couch, approved 7.9 percent. For Wilson, the figure was just 1.9 percent.

Paul Schmidt, who chaired the Board of Immigration of Appeals from 1995 to 2001, says the administration’s goal is to build a “deportation railway” in which cases move through the system as quickly as possible and then get “rubber-stamped by the Board.”

Until last year, the board had 17 members. The Trump administration expanded the board to 21 members, arguing it was necessary to handle an increase in appeals. That has allowed Attorney General William Barr to fill the panel with immigration hardliners. It’s reminiscent of President Franklin Roosevelt’s ill-fated 1937 effort to overcome Supreme Court resistance to the New Deal by adding up to six additional justices—only immigration courts are part of the Justice Department, giving the department the power to expand the Board and fill the new openings with judges sympathetic to the administration’s immigration crackdown.

The promotions of the six judges this month, first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, are part of an intensifying effort to reshape immigration courts. Earlier this month, the Justice Department moved to eliminate the immigration judges’ union, which has been highly critical of the administration’s policies. On Monday, a regulation took effect that gives the head of the immigration courts, a political appointee, the power to decide appeals if judges do not hear them quickly enough. A rule that gives board members more authority to summarily deny appeals without issuing a full opinion takes effect on Tuesday.

Lawyers who have appeared before Cassidy, Couch, and Wilson say all three have intense tempers. All of them had many of their asylum denials reversed by the Board of Immigration Appeals. Now they’ll be the ones deciding those appeals. (The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the immigration court system, did not respond to a request to comment on details in this story.)

Cassidy is most associated with his decision to deport Mark Lyttle, a US citizen who did not speak Spanish, to Mexico during a mass deportation hearing. One Georgia attorney I spoke to blamed Immigration and Customs Enforcement for Lyttle’s removal, but Lyttle asserted that he told Cassidy twice about his US citizenship.

Glenn Fogle, an Atlanta immigration attorney, concluded in 2001, “You could have Anne Frank in front of him and he would say it was implausible that she could have hidden in the house for years and not be caught.” Now he says his feelings about Cassidy haven’t changed. He described a recent case in which Cassidy rejected a Congolese client who said he had scars on his back from being persecuted in his home country. Cassidy, presiding via an aging video system, asked the man to lift up his shirt and show the scars, then said he couldn’t see them. “Judge, how on earth could you see anything with this video?” Fogle recalls asking. Cassidy denied the asylum claim, noting in his decision that he couldn’t observe the scars.

Peter Isbister, a senior attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, says Cassidy sometimes writes orders denying bond requests while Isbister is still opening his argument. If he tries to finish, Cassidy can get frustrated and say something like, “You can take it up with the board. We’re done!”

In 2010, Cassidy had an asylum denial overturned because he had written the ruling before the hearing even began. The next year, Cassidy sat down in another judge’s courtroom in his judicial robe. In what one observer described as a “surreal” scene, Cassidy then raised his hand and told how the judge how the case should be handled. Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Deepali Nadkarni admonished Cassidy for his “inappropriate conduct.” In 2016, Cassidy compared an immigrant arriving at the border to “a person coming to your home in a Halloween mask, waving a knife dripping with blood.”

Cassidy and Couch have both suggested that asylum seekers are dishonest and trying to scam their way into the country. A Charlotte immigration attorney, who requested anonymity because Couch is now handling appeals, heard Couch say he believes 85 percent of asylum seekers are lying, that 10 percent are telling the truth but not eligible for protection, and that 5 percent are both honest and eligible for asylum. Couch is also skeptical of lawyers. When an out-of-state lawyer couldn’t make it to a hearing because of a funeral, Couch called the funeral home to verify the claim, according to the Charlotte attorney.

In 2004, Couch, then a military prosecutor, attracted widespread attention for refusing to prosecute a Guantanamo detainee because he had been tortured. But as an immigration judge, Couch has almost always ruled against people who say they’ve been persecuted. He is best known among immigration attorneys for his 2015 decision to deny asylum to a woman who said she had been repeatedly physically and sexually abused by her ex-husband. One year later, the Board of Immigration Appeals overturned Couch’s ruling and ordered him to grant her asylum. But Couch again declined to do so. The case gained prominence when Jeff Sessions, then the attorney general, used it to issue a sweeping precedent that made it much harder for asylum seekers to claim domestic violence as a reason for asylum. (Couch isn’t uniformly anti-immigration—Jeremy McKinney, a North Carolina attorney and the vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, saw him lobby North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis to greatly expand Central Americans’ access to temporary visas—but has a narrow view of who qualifies for asylum.)

Wilson has the highest asylum denial rate of the six new appointees. His most notable habit is leaning back in his chair while respondents are testifying and closing his eyes so that it looks like he’s sleeping. In one case, according to an observer from Emory University’s law school, Wilson leaned back with his eyes closed for 23 minutes as an asylum seeker described the murder of her parents and siblings.

Like the others, Wilson has often been overturned by the appeals board he is now a part of. In one case, he ruled against a victim of domestic violence partly on the grounds that she had been able leave her abuser and reach the United States. “We disagree,” the Board decided. “Although the respondent did ultimately come to the United States to escape her abuser, by definition, any person applying for asylum in the United States has fled the harm that they experienced.”

Under the regulation that goes into effect Tuesday, Board members will have more authority to summarily deny appeals without providing any justification. Charles Kuck, an Atlanta attorney and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Associations, expects that to lead to an assembly-line system like the one that existed under the George W. Bush administration, when Board members sometimes issued more than 50 decisions a day.

Two decades later, one Cassidy case still sticks with Fogle. His client was a former Ethiopian government official. As he was telling his story, Fogle remembers, Cassidy jumped up, turned off the court’s audio recorder, and yelled, “Bullshit!” His client insisted he was telling the truth.

Fogle says it was among the most unprofessional behavior he has ever seen from a judge. “I’ve been around,” he says. “I will never forget that.” He adds, “That’s the guy that’s going to be adjudicating appeals from other immigration judges.

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Sounds like a Third World kakistocracy to me. And, over my years working on asylum cases, I became familiar with many of those. Never imagined the U.S. would hit these depths.

PWS

08-29-19

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