Vetting – Page 74 – immigrationcourtside.com

LA TIMES: ONE OF THE “MOST REAL” AMERICANS RESPONDS TO TRUMP’S MESSAGE OF HATE AND RACISM: “Trump’s rhetoric has people expressing hatred toward Americans like me, whose ancestors have been here for generations, and now he preaches against migrants who want to come here now. Perhaps Trump should learn more about the customs of his family’s adopted homeland so he can become a leader rather than a divider of people.”

From the LA Times Editorial Section for Nov. 3, 2018:

Re “Who’s really an American?” editorial, Oct. 31

Questions over who ought to be considered American are complicated for those who do not look white. Ethnically and culturally, I am numerous things, which is a huge bonus because it helps me understand others. Because I have a significant amount of indigenous American heritage, I can honestly state that some of my people have been in North America for thousands of years.

However, within the last year, I have been told to go back where I came from. Since I don’t speak Spanish, being dumped in Mexico, presumably where these people want me to go, would be a challenge. Regardless, not one of my ancestors arrived here any later than the early 1800s.

On the other hand, President Trump’s mother, both of his paternal grandparents and two of his wives were not born in the United States. Trump’s present wife, who is our first lady, speaks English well enough to hold a casual conversation. In other words, the president’s family is a family of immigrants, and they have been welcomed here.

However, Trump’s rhetoric has people expressing hatred toward Americans like me, whose ancestors have been here for generations, and now he preaches against migrants who want to come here now. Perhaps Trump should learn more about the customs of his family’s adopted homeland so he can become a leader rather than a divider of people.

Marcella Hill, Los Angeles

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Pretty much says it all about Trump’s lack of character, morality, and qualifications to serve as President.

Regime change can start on next Tuesday! Get out the vote! Take our “country of immigrants” back from the White Nationalists (who, ironically, also are immigrants themselves, notwithstanding their ingratitude, lack of decency, and lack of any sense of REAL history — not the White Nationalist version peddled by Trump, Sessions, Miller, Bannon, Kobach, Steve King, etc.).

PWS

11-03-18

RECREATING 1939: Led By Trump’s Brand Of Selfish “It’s All About Me” Racially Charged Nationalism, Prosperous Western Democracies Are Abandoning Their Legal & Moral Commitments To Refugees! – Are We On The Verge Of A “New Holocaust” While The Free Word Looks Inward? — “[M]illions of people displaced by war or persecution will have to go without the protections once promised by a world that had agreed ‘never again.'”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/02/world/europe/trump-asylum.html

Max Fisher and Amanda Taub in the NY Times:

LONDON — President Trump’s promise to stop a caravan of Central American migrants from reaching the United States border, if necessary through military force, might seem like just another effort by the president to unilaterally dismantle international laws and accepted practices.

But there is one important difference between this and Mr. Trump’s go-it-alone defiance of climate change agreements, trade deals or arms control treaties. In attacking the long accepted means of protecting refugees and upholding stability in times of mass displacement, he’s got company. Lots and lots of company.

There is no shortage of countries that also skirt, and therefore undermine, global refugee rules. The European Union and Australia are two of the biggest offenders. Peru and Ecuador are restricting Venezuelan refugees, while Tanzania is working to push out Burundians.

Image
Stateless Rohingya migrants passing food supplies dropped by a Thai Army helicopter to others on a boat drifting in Thai waters in the Andaman Sea in 2015.CreditChristophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In 2015, as Rohingya refugees fled Myanmar on overcrowded boats, the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand — in a move that might make even Mr. Trump blush — pushed the boats out to sea, stranding them, to prevent them from reaching safe shores.

Still, countries tend to hide their violations by presenting themselves as following the letter of the law, or by dressing up anti-refugee measures in humanitarian terms. But Mr. Trump is selling his harsh treatment of asylum-seekers as deliberate. And even if he is not the first to breach the rules, he is contributing to their breakdown in ways that could have global consequences.

“The more brazen you get, like Trump, and the more frequent you get, you can easily imagine a norm being completely torn down,” said Stephanie Schwartz, a migration expert at the University of Pennsylvania, who added that Mr. Trump was “taking an ax” to “one of the strongest norms we’ve got in international law” — the right of a refugee to seek asylum.

To consider how that would happen and what it would mean, it helps to understand the basics of asylum and how Mr. Trump fits into its erosion.

. . . .

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Read the complete article at the link for a clear understanding of how refugee and asylum law is supposed to work and how immoral scofflaws like Trump, Sessions, and Miller are intentionally perverting and subverting it to satisfy their racist White Nationalist agenda.

Their final paragraph should send chills down the spine of every decent human being

The resurgence of populist and nationalist politics also bodes poorly. Us-vs-them movements, skeptical of international agreements and immigration, have little interest in asylum’s foundational concepts of global burden-sharing or universal rights.

If asylum rights were declining even in the era of sunny 1990s global liberalism, it is hard to imagine their doing much better in the era of Donald J. Trump, Viktor Orban and Vladimir V. Putin.

“It takes a really, really long time to build these norms, especially when they restrict government actions in some way,” Ms. Schwartz said. “It’s so much easier to take them down.”

If that happens, the consequences will be most felt far away from the United States-Mexico border, in places like Honduras, Myanmar, Jordan or Burundi, where millions of people displaced by war or persecution will have to go without the protections once promised by a world that had agreed “never again.”

PWS

11-03-18

WASHPOST: DON’T SEND TROOPS, GUNS, & MONEY – SEND JUDGES!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-send-troops-to-the-border-send-judges/2018/11/02/cd54d0f0-deda-11e8-85df-7a6b4d25cfbb_story.html

The Post Editorial Board writes:

PRESIDENT TRUMP has based his midterm election campaign on the specter of an “invasion” by immigrants marching from Central America to the southern border. His demagoguery is disgusting and irresponsible. But there is a real problem of migrants — one that his administration is failing to address.

Many people are crossing the border with their children and applying for asylum, overwhelming existing mechanisms for dealing with asylum seekers. They are feeding what the president calls a “catch-and-release” revolving door for migrants freed as they await hearings to adjudicate their cases, and contributing to a backlog of some 750,000 cases in immigration courts.

A rational response would be to add substantially to the approximately 350 immigration judges, who cannot handle the tens of thousands of asylum claims flooding the immigration courts annually. The administration this year hired a few dozen new judges, a fraction of what is required. As the caseload has more than quadrupled since 2006, the number of judges has not even doubled, according to congressional testimony in April by Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

Despite that, Mr. Trump has sneered at the idea of hiring more, even after aides pressed him to do so. “Who are these people?” he raged, before suggesting darkly that adding many new judges would somehow corrupt the system. “Now can you imagine the graft that must take place?” he said.

Granted, the hiring could be challenging, in vetting and cost. But any major challenge involves scaling up resources and personnel, and it’s hard to see why that’s beyond the government’s capabilities.

On the other hand, maybe Mr. Trump prefers having an issue to a solution. He has made it clear he believes the immigration question propelled him into the White House. Now, by ramping up his inflammatory rhetoric, and by advancing over-the-top measures such as sending thousands of troops to the border to fulfill a mission for which they are not trained — Congress has barred troops from law enforcement duties — it seems apparent Mr. Trump has opted for crisis instead of constructive improvements to what he rightly calls a broken system. Instead of deploying thousands of troops, why not hire hundreds of judges?

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

Certainly on the right track here!

But here’s what really needs to happen to address the issue in a rational way:

Send more Asylum Officers to do credible fear interviews at the border;
Send enough private attorneys to represent all arriving migrants before both the Asylum Office and the Immigration Courts;
Allow Asylum Officers to grant temporary withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) to the many applicants who have a probability of torture upon return, which clearly happens with “government acquiescence” — or in many cases actual participation or connivance — in the Northern Triangle;
Put the asylum claims of those granted CAT withholding on the “back burner” (thus keeping them from clogging the Immigration Courts) while working with the UNHCR and other counties in the Hemisphere (including, of course Mexico and Canada) on a more durable solution for those currently fleeing the Northern Triangle;
Otherwise, individuals who pass credible fear should be released on minimal bonds and allowed to go to locations where they will be represented by pro bono lawyers (thus avoiding the money wasted on “tent cities” and other types of expensive and arguably illegal detention) — contrary to the Trump Administration lies, almost all represented asylum applicants show up faithfully for their Immigration Court Hearings;
If the Administration wants to “prioritize” the cases of recent arrivals before the Immigration Courts, this can and should be done without creating more “Aimless Docket Reshuffling.” Not “rocket science.” Here’s how:
- Hundreds of thousands of those now unnecessarily clogging the Immigration Court dockets are long-time residents eligible to apply for “Cancellation of Removal for Non-Lawful Permanent Residents.” Take those with no serious criminal records off the Immigration Court docket and send them to USCIS Adjudications for initial processing. No rush, since only 4,000 “numbers” are available each year for grants;
- Those granted can be put in a line for green card numbers maintained by USCIS;
- Those denied who have committed serious crimes should be referred back to the Immigration Courts;
- For others who don’t qualify for cancellation of removal, the Administration should sponsor bipartisan legislation to provide legal status to such long-term residents. With Administration support, such legislation clearly could pass both Houses and be enacted into law.
The Immigration Courts could then return to real priorities: detained cases; cases of recently arrived individuals with or without asylum claims; cases of immigrants who have committed crimes; and cases of other individuals who don’t fit within our legal system, as properly administered.
Sure, this doesn’t match the “White Nationalist game plan.” But, it’s a practical, legal solution that would be good for immigration enforcement, the legal system, and the country as a whole. And, until the final step of legalization of long-term residents, it can be achieved under the current law.
And, I’ll bet you the overall cost would be much less than some of the “designed to fail” and perhaps illegal schemes now being pursued by the Administration. That’s particularly true because applications to USCIS and legalization programs actually “pay their own way” through application fees — perhaps even turning a slight profit for the Government.

PWS

11-03-18

YES, THEY ARE LEGITIMATE REFUGEES — WSJ EXPOSES THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATIONS’S BOGUS NARRATIVE ON CENTRAL AMERICA – Gangs Have Basically Assumed Quasi-Governmental Authority In El Salvador – The Punishment They Inflict On Those Who Oppose Them Is Good Old Fashioned “Political Persecution” That Squarely Fits The “Refugee” Definition & Our Protection Laws! — Contrary To Sessions’s Misrepresentations, The El Salvadoran Government Clearly “Acquiesces” To The Daily Torture & Threats By Gangs Going On In The Country!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pay-or-die-extortion-economy-drives-latin-americas-murder-crisis-1541167619?mod=hp_lead_pos5

Robbie Whelan reports for the WSJ:

APOPA, El Salvador—The Congress of El Salvador agreed in April to extend the authority of jailers to keep gang leaders in solitary confinement. Over the next five days, the two reigning street gangs killed more than 100 people.

With the highest homicide rate of all countries in the world, El Salvador is a nation held hostage.

Law-enforcement officials estimate that one gang, MS-13, operates an extortion racket with little pressure from authorities in 248 of the 262 of the country’s municipalities. It battles for neighborhood control with another gang, Barrio 18, which runs its own protection scheme in nearly as many regions.

Politicians must ask permission of gangs to hold rallies or canvass in many neighborhoods, law-enforcement officials and prosecutors said. In San Salvador, the nation’s capital, gangs control the local distribution of consumer products, experts said, including diapers and Coca-Cola . They extort commuters, call-center employees, and restaurant and store owners. In the rural east, gangs threaten to burn sugar plantations unless farmers pay up.

A law-enforcement officer checks the phone of a man suspected of working as a gang lookout during a police sweep this year in a neighborhood of San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.

They have grown so pervasive that “you don’t know where the state ends and the criminal organizations begin,” said Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde, El Salvador’s minister of justice and security, who oversees the national police force.

Latin America accounts for 8% of the world’s population and a third of its homicides, which makes it one of the world’s most murderous regions. At its violent core is El Salvador, where an imported American gang culture rivals government authority, and its leaders hold sway with a surplus of money, guns and willing young men.

Unlike the major drug cartels that for years produced much of the region’s violence—using murder in the service of selling marijuana, cocaine and heroin largely to Americans—gangs in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala profit from extorting their own neighborhoods.

The gangs have evolved a more violent, chaotic economic model, one that is advancing in drug-trafficking countries, including Mexico, where large cartels have splintered into many warring groups.

Mauricio Ramirez Landaverde, El Salvador’s minister of justice and security.

“We’ve left behind the era of the cartel and the kingpin,” said Alejandro Hope, a security consultant in Mexico City. “Today, most violence in Latin America is the result of a new system that’s more diverse, harder to control, and much more local.”

While drug cartels collect profits from customers abroad, with dollars and euros trickling into local communities, these gangs steal from their own people. Documents collected in a recent federal investigation in El Salvador found that MS-13 earns as much as $600,000 a month in extortion payments from bus companies, retailers and other businesses. The payments range from a few dollars a day on each vehicle operated to hundreds of dollars a month charged to vendors in public markets.

Drug enforcement officials said El Salvador’s gangs earn about $20 million a year from extortion, with an estimated $3 million coming from businesses in San Salvador’s historic center. The gangs also sell drugs and stolen cars, adding to the revenue from legitimate businesses they have seized.

Cementing their national role, MS-13 and Barrio 18 may be El Salvador’s largest employers. The defense ministry estimates the gangs hire as many as 60,000 people as lookouts, collectors and assassins. By comparison, the two largest private employers, underwear makers Hanesbrands Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway’s Fruit of the Loom, together employ about 20,000.

. . . .

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

Read Robbie’s full article at the link.

These aren’t “your father’s neighborhood hoodlums.” No, they are organized, probably more powerful than the Government, and basically control most of the country. Opposing their will is a potential death sentence — not dissimilar to the ways in which totalitarian dictatorships operate.

Rather than wasting time and money sending troops to our borders and pledging to violate our own laws as well as international standards, the Administration needs to begin treating the Central American migration for what it is — a humanitarian refugee situation. They should begin working constructively and cooperatively with the UNHCR and governments in the Western Hemisphere to address it as a refugee situation and to develop meaningful resettlement plans as well as plans to address the chaos going on in the Northern Triangle which is creating the refugee flow in the first place!

PWS

11-02-18

TRUMP, HIS SUPPORTERS, & ENABLERS TAKE US BACK TO AMERICA’S DARKEST DAYS OF RACISM & XENOPHOBIA – Echoes Of Dred Scott & The Chinese Exclusion Laws Embodied In Disingenuous Push To Change Birthright Citizenship By Either “Executive Order” Or Unconstitutional Legislation!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/10/31/trump-takes-us-back-to-the-darkest-days-of-american-xenophobia/

John Pomphret writes in the Washington Post:

Global Opinions

Trump takes us back to the darkest days of American xenophobia

President Trump has astonished legal scholars with his claim that he can end birthright citizenship with a swipe of his pen. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

By John Pomfret

October 31 at 2:44 PM

President Trump’s vow to deny citizenship to children born in the United States to women in the country illegally not only harks back to the 1898 Supreme Court case that supposedly decided the issue for all time. He and the rest of his immigration allies also sound like the very people back then who made it their goal to make America white.

When Wong Kim Ark returned from China to San Francisco, the city of his birth, in August 1895, he was denied entry into the United States on the grounds that even though he had been born in America, the chief immigration official of the United States didn’t believe you could be both Chinese and American. That immigration official, John H. Wise, a prominent Democrat and a son of the South, had been appointed to his position as collector of the customs a few years earlier. Wise called himself a “zealous opponent of Chinese immigration” and set out to vigorously enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act, a 1882 law that banned from America all Chinese laborers. It was the first law ever to block a specific ethnic group from entry into the United States.

Democrats and union leaders were solidly behind the Exclusion Act, seeing as a threat to the white working class the industrious Chinese miners, grocery store owners, vegetable growers and traveling doctors who had populated the West. The Democrats were supported by California’s Workingmen’s Party, founded by a firebrand Irish immigrant named Denis Kearney, who organized raucous and often violent rallies around the state where the crowd would howl “The Chinese Must Go” and call for building a wall on the southern border (sound familiar?) because they believed Chinese immigrants were sneaking in from Mexico, according to archival material.

In San Francisco, Wise embraced all sorts of tactics to stop the Chinese from entering the United States. When confronted with Chinese American citizens, he demanded they provide two white witnesses who could attest to their citizenship. His agents gave English-language tests, history quizzes and geographical exams to those wishing to return to America. Wise took sadistic pleasure in denying Chinese entry, penning poems about court victories to the immigration lawyers he had beaten. “So just to make this poor Wong Fong / feel very good and nice,” went one ditty, “I’ve sent him back to China, where he can eat his mice.”

Wise opposed the idea that Chinese people should be allowed to become Americans in part because the Naturalization Act of 1870 had barred Asians from becoming naturalized Americans, reserving that right only for whites, Native populations and blacks. In 1884, Wise and his agents blocked a Chinese American man from reentering America but lost the case in district court. In August 1895, Wise got his chance again when 21-year-old Wong Kim Ark arrived in San Francisco. Wise claimed that even though Wong had been born in San Francisco in 1873, he was not really a citizen.

The fight for birthright citizenship in America

In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that citizenship belonged to everyone born on American soil.(The Washington Post)

To defend Wong, the Chinese Benevolent Association hired one of the city’s best attorneys. The U.S. government turned to Henry S. Foote, a former Confederate soldier who had served time as a prisoner of war during the Civil War. Foote asked whether any Chinese “by accident of birth” could ever become citizens if their parents were not and could never become naturalized citizens of the United States.

Trump’s rant about immigrants from “shithole countries” echoed Foote’s argument. Foote noted that Wong’s “education and political affiliations” were “entirely alien” to the United States. He was not and never could become an American, Foote said, but rather a “Chinese person and a subject of the Emperor of China.” Indeed, allowing Wong, who spent five months incarcerated on various steamships off the U.S. coast, into the United States would be dangerous, Foote argued, because Asians “must necessarily be a constant menace to the welfare of our country.”

Foote lost the case in district court, but the government decided to appeal, losing in the Supreme Court in a 6-to-2 decision in March 1898. Following the case, local worthies in San Francisco worried that the decision would tempt America’s minorities to angle for more rights. Two days after the verdict, the San Francisco Chronicle frettedthat Japanese and Native Americans might even demand the right to vote. Perhaps, the paper suggested, an amendment to the Constitution to limit “citizenship to whites and blacks” might roll that back.

Things would not improve for decades for Chinese Americans and for Asian Americans in general. By 1924, the United States had constructed a web of legislation that effectively barred any Asian immigration. It would stay in place until World War II, when the United States was shamed into dismantling the ban by its ally China. Still, Trump and his advisers look to the time when the United States locked its doors to immigration as a golden era. No wonder his rhetoric sounds so familiar.

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

Leave it to Trump, his supporters, and those who enable him to pump life into a toxic argument has long been a rallying point for xenophobes, racists, restrictionists, and others happy to support an attack on racial minorities in the U.S. Today it’s Hispanics in the crosshairs of the haters; yesterday it was African-Americans and Asians. But, the ugly motivation and the legal manipulations to justify racism and xenophobia remain the same. And no, we can’t disconnect all of the legal arguments from their social context. These aren’t just legal questions; they are moral and political ones. Lending support to Trump and his campaign of hate and racism is what it is.

As Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez said in her excellent article “Born in the Americas: Birthright Citizenship and Human Rights,” published in the Harvard Human Rights Journal in 2012:

Furthermore, none of the legal, academic, and policy debates about

birthright citizenship should be separated from their clear context of attempting

to limit access to citizenship for the children of Latino immigrants.

Human rights law requires such an analysis. The historical context

must also be taken into account. As will be discussed herein, the Fourteenth

Amendment was enacted to prevent discrimination against people of color,

including immigrants of color. For many years, throughout different waves

of immigration, birthright citizenship was the law of the land. It is no

coincidence that birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immi

grants is being seriously challenged now that the 2010 Census found that

23% of children in the United States are Hispanic, and many of their parents

are immigrants. In addition, advocates for retracting birthright citizenship

frequently rely on negative stereotypes about immigrant women. [Citations Omitted].

Culliton-Gonzalez

Amen.

PWS

11-01-18

MAX BOOT WITH SOME GREAT ADVICE FOR SAVING AMERICA: VOTE AGAINST EVERY GOP CANDIDATE!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/sick-and-tired-of-trump-heres-what-to-do/2018/10/31/72d9021e-dd26-11e8-b3f0-62607289efee_story.html

“I am sick and tired of this administration. I’m sick and tired of what’s going on. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I hope you are, too.”

— Joe Biden

I’m sick and tired, too.

I’m sick and tired of a president who pretends that a caravan of impoverished refugees is an “invasion” by “unknown Middle Easterners” and “bad thugs” — and whose followers on Fox News pretend the refugees are bringing leprosy and smallpox to the United States. (Smallpox was eliminated about 40 years ago.)

I’m sick and tired of a president who misuses his office to demagogue on immigration — by unnecessarily sending 5,200 troops to the border and by threatening to rescind by executive order the 14th Amendment guarantee of citizenship to anyone born in the United States.

I’m sick and tired of a president who is so self-absorbed that he thinkshe is the real victim of mail-bomb attacks on his political opponents — and who, after visiting Pittsburgh despite being asked by local leaders to stay away, tweeted about how he was treated, not about the victims of the synagogue massacre.

Opinion | Trump owns the Republican Party, and there’s no going back

Donald Trump has irreversibly changed the Republican Party. The upheaval might seem unusual, but political transformations crop up throughout U.S. history. (Adriana Usero, Danielle Kunitz, Robert Gebelhoff/The Washington Post)

I’m sick and tired of a president who cheers a congressman for his physical assault of a reporter, calls the press the “enemy of the people” and won’t stop or apologize even after bombs were sent to CNN in the mail.

I’m sick and tired of a president who employs the language of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jewish financier George Soros and “globalists,” and won’t apologize or retract even after what is believed to be the worst attack on Jews in U.S. history.

[Americans will head to the polls in less than a week. Here’s why some won’t.]

I’m sick and tired of a president who won’t stop engaging in crazed partisanship, denouncing Democrats as “evil,” “un-American” and “treasonous” subversives who are in league with criminals.

I’m sick and tired of a president who cares so little about right-wing terrorism that, on the very day of the synagogue shooting, he proceeded with a campaign rally, telling his supporters, “Let’s have a good time.”

I’m sick and tired of a president who presides over one of the most unethical administrations in U.S. history — with three Cabinet members resigning for reported ethical infractions and the secretary of the interior the subject of at least 18 federal investigations.

I’m sick and tired of a president who flouts norms of accountability by refusing to release his tax returns or place his business holdings in a blind trust.

I’m sick and tired of a president who lies outrageously and incessantly — an average of eight times a day — claiming recently that there are riots in California and that a bill that passed the Senate 98 to 1 had “very little Democrat support.”

I’m sick and tired of a president who can’t be bothered to work hardand instead prefers to spend his time watching Fox News and acting like a Twitter troll.

And I’m sick and tired of Republicans who go along with Trump — defending, abetting and imitating his egregious excesses.

I’m sick and tired of Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) acting like a caddie for the man he once denounced as a “kook” — just this week, Graham endorsed Trump’s call for rescinding “birthright citizenship,” a kooky idea if ever there was one.

I’m sick and tired of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who got his start in politics as a protege of the “bleeding-heart conservative” Jack Kemp, refusing to call out Trump’s race-baiting.

I’m sick and tired of Republicans who once complained about the federal debt adding $113 billion to the debt just in fiscal year 2018.

I’m sick and tired of Republicans who once championed free trade refusing to stop Trump as he launches trade wars with all of our major trade partners.

I’m sick and tired of Republicans who not only refuse to investigate Trump’s alleged ethical violations but who also help him to obstruct justice by maligning the FBI, the special counsel and the Justice Department.

Most of all, I’m sick and tired of Republicans who feel that Trump’s blatant bigotry gives them license to do the same — with Rep. Pete Olson (R-Tex.) denouncing his opponent as an “Indo-American carpetbagger,” Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis warning voters not to “monkey this up” by electing his African American opponent, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.) labeling his “Palestinian Mexican” opponent a “security risk” who is “working to infiltrate Congress,” and Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) accusing his opponent, who is of Indian Tibetan heritage, of “selling out Americans” because he once worked at a law firm that settled terrorism-related cases against Libya.

If you’re sick and tired, too, here is what you can do. Vote for Democrats on Tuesday. For every office. Regardless of who they are. And I say that as a former Republican. Some Republicans in suburban districts may claim they aren’t for Trump. Don’t believe them. Whatever their private qualms, no Republicans have consistently held Trump to account. They are too scared that doing so will hurt their chances of reelection. If you’re as sick and tired as I am of being sick and tired about what’s going on, vote against all Republicans. Every single one. That’s the only message they will understand.

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

Right on, Max! Take back our country!

PWS

11-01-18

THE GIBSON REPORT – 10-29-18 – Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esq., NY Legal Assistance Group

TOP UPDATES

Suspected synagogue shooter appears to have railed against Jews, refugees online

WaPo: The most recent postings on the Gab account believed to belong to Bowers specifically targeted the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, known as HIAS, which is one of nine organizations that works with the federal government to resettle refugees in American communities.

Trump administration considers travel ban-like order for Mexican border

Politico: Under the plan, the Trump administration would publish fast-track regulation that would restrict certain migrants’ ability to seek asylum. The regulation would be paired with a related proclamation from President Donald Trump.

Pentagon to deploy 5,000 active-duty troops to southern border to halt migrant caravan

USA Today: The Pentagon will deploy up to 5,000 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in an effort to prevent members of a migrant caravan from illegally entering the country, a U.S. official said Monday. About 2,100 National Guard troops are already fanned out across the border under an order from President Donald Trump earlier this year.

Migrant caravan: Mexico offers temporary work permits

BBC: Mexico has offered temporary work permits to migrants who register for asylum, as a big caravan of Central American migrants makes its way through the country toward the US.

New Poll Shows Voters Support Access to Asylum for Refugees

WRC: As President Donald J. Trump pursues new separation and detention policies for families fleeing violence and danger in their home countries, and threatens to arm the southern border, a new poll released today shows that the majority of likely voters—up to 70%—support allowing refugees to seek asylum in the U.S.

Counties Where ICE Arrests Concentrate

TRAC: More than a quarter (28%) of recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests of immigrants living and working in communities across America took place in just ten counties in the United States, along with their immediate surrounding locales…The county with the most arrests was San Bernardino County, California. In second place was DeKalb County, Georgia, where Atlanta is located. New York County, New York, and surrounding locales was in third place.

Asylum claims are soaring as migrant families take an administrative path, buckling the immigration system.

WaPo: The migrants coming today are increasingly Central Americans seeking asylum or some form of humanitarian protection, bearing stories of torture, gang recruitment, abusive spouses, extortionists and crooked police. They know the quickest path to a better life in the United States is now an administrative one — not through mountains or canyons but through the front gates of the country’s immigration bureaucracy.

55% Of America’s Billion-Dollar Startups Have An Immigrant Founder

Forbes: A new study from the National Foundation for American Policy finds that 55%, or 50 of 91, of the country’s $1 billion startup companies had at least one immigrant founder.

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

Supreme Court Asks for SG’s Views on Cross-Border Shooting Case

ImmProf: Amy Howe on SCOTUSBlog reports that the Supreme Court today “called for the views of the U.S. solicitor general in Swartz v. Rodriguez, a petition for review filed by Lonnie Swartz, a U.S. Border Patrol agent alleged to have shot and killed a 16-year-old Mexican boy who was walking on the Mexican side of that country’s border with the United States.

ACLU Calls for Moratorium and Files FOIA Request to DHS on Facial Recognition

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called for a moratorium, and filed a FOIA request with DHS, on the use of facial recognition technology for immigration enforcement and law enforcement purposes until Congress and the public debate, what, if any, uses of this technology should be permitted. AILA Doc. No. 18102500

USCIS Efforts Lead to Guilty Plea in Case of Unauthorized Practice of Immigration Law

USCIS announced that it helped initiate an investigation that led to guilty pleas from Veronica Perdomo, 43, for fraudulently practicing immigration law and impersonating an immigration officer. A USCIS Fraud Detection and National Security immigration officer in Charlotte received the original tip. AILA Doc. No. 18102240

AILA Submits Comments In Response to Comment Request Concerning UAC Sponsorship Review Procedures

In response to a comment request concerning UAC sponsorship review procedures, AILA noted its opposition to the proposed changes. Rather than improve the efficiently placement of unaccompanied children in suitable environments with safe caregivers, the proposed changes would impede such placement. AILA Doc. No. 18102633

RESOURCES

EVENTS

11/8/18 Protecting Migrant Children: In Search of Best Practice
11/8/18 NYIC Tour of JFK Port
11/13/18 CGRS best practices for working with medical and mental health professionals who provide expert testimony in asylum cases
11/26-28/18 CLINIC & NITA “Advocacy in Immigration Matters”
11/29/18 The Ins and Outs of Lawful Admission
12/11/18 Accidental Adjustments: How to Handle Wrongly Issued Status
12/20/18 Mental Incapacity: Merging Treatment and Enforcement
2/7/19 Basic Immigration Law 2019: Business, Family, Naturalization and Related Areas
2/8/19 Asylum, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, Crime Victim, and Other Immigration Relief 2019

ImmProf

Monday, October 29, 2018

Sunday, October 28, 2018

Saturday, October 27, 2018

Friday, October 26, 2018

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Monday, October 22, 2018

AILA NEWS UPDATE

http://www.aila.org/advo-media/news/clips

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Thanks, Elizabeth, as always!

Everyone should check out Elizabeth’s “Item 5” — New Poll Shows Voters Support Access to Asylum for Refugees.

Folks like Trump, Sessions, Nielsen, Cissna, and Kobach often falsely claim to be “speaking for the American people.” But, in reality, they aren’t, and never have been. They actually represent toxic, basically un-American views on immigration and migrants that are held by a vocal and active White Nationalist minority of Americans.

The rest of us need to take back our country at the ballot box — starting next Tuesday.

PWS

11-01-18

THE HILL: RUTH ELLEN WASEM WITH SOME SAGE ADVICE ON THE CARAVAN — But, Is Anyone In The Administration Actually Interested In The Truth?

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/413206-caravan-hysteria-is-unwarranted-many-more-have-come-before

The hysteria over the caravan of Central American asylum-seekers traveling north towards the United States is spiraling out of proportion. A calm review of the facts and the historical context of migration from this hemisphere make clear that the United States has the laws and policies in place to respond humanely — in keeping with our values and our laws.

There are varied estimates of the number of people in the caravan, ranging from the Mexican government’s estimate of 3,630 migrants to the United Nations spokesperson’s estimate of 7,000 migrants. According to the Washington Post, Mexican officials report that they have processed 1,700 asylum cases. Whether the caravan will grow in numbers or dissipate remains to be seen.

What we do know is that the United States has handled much larger influxes of asylum-seekers. And we did so without sacrificing our laws and our values.

Cuba long has been a source of asylum-seekers, as Haiti has been. In 1980, for example, a mass migration of asylum-seekers, known as the Mariel boatlift, brought approximately 125,000 Cubans and 25,000 Haitians to South Florida over a six-month period. In 1992, the U.S. Coast Guard interdicted 37,618 Haitians who had set sail to the United States and took many of them to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. While the treatment of the Haitians was not our finest hour as a nation, we did pre-screen those at Guantanamo for credible fear and return others to Haiti with the option of in-country refugee processing. The estimates of migrants in the caravan are comparable to the number of Cubans (7,163) the U.S. Coast Guard and Border Patrol picked up in fiscal year 1997.

The civil wars in Central America during the 1980s prompted asylum-seekers that numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Data on asylum cases filed with the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) show that about 126,000 Nicaraguans, 126,300 Salvadorans and 41,942 Guatemalans applied for asylum in the United States from fiscal year 1981 through 1990.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in November 1998, then-Attorney General Janet Reno designated temporary protected status (TPS) for unauthorized Hondurans and Nicaraguans in the United States. In 2001, the George W. Bush administration decided to grant TPS to Salvadorans following two earthquakes that rocked El Salvador. The number of Central Americans who received these various temporary protections approached 270,000.

For those who are fearful that bad actors are hiding amid the asylum-seekers in the caravan, rest assured that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) puts all such migrants through rigorous border security screening systems. CBP collects biometric data, performs background checks, and runs them through a host of criminal and national security databases.

Lest we forget, border apprehensions of all irregular migrants (including asylum-seekers) are now at historic lows. From a peak of 1.6 million in fiscal year 2000, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended just under 304,000 last fiscal year. Research conducted by Stephanie Leutert at the University of Texas found that in fiscal year 2017 less than 0.1 percent of those apprehended — 228 migrants — were members of the MS-13 gang.

We do not need to send military troops to the border; rather, we need to adequately staff the asylum offices and immigration courts at the border. Funding for asylum officers and immigration judges has not been commensurate with the substantial increases in border security funding, despite the obvious interconnections among these functions. We also need to reinstitute in-country refugee processing in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and extend it to include adults as well as minors. Cutting assistance to Mexico and Central America — which President Trump suggests would punish the source countries into stopping the migration — most likely would exacerbate the underlying problems and increase the number of people fleeing north.

It’s time to calm down and remember that we are a nation of laws and a people of values. We can handle this.

Ruth Ellen Wasem is a clinical professor of policy at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, the University of Texas in Austin. For more than 25 years, she was a domestic policy specialist at the U.S. Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service. She has testified before Congress about asylum policy, legal immigration trends, human rights and the push-pull forces on unauthorized migration.

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Right on, Ruth! Couldn’t agree with you more. But, sadly, I doubt that anyone in this Administration is paying attention. They aren’t trying to solve the problem. Rather they see the humanitarian plight and misfortune of others as an “opportunity” to promote and advance their White Nationalist agenda of lies, racism, and fear mongering to “energize their base” in advance of the midterms (and also to divert attention from Trump’s failure to deliver on his promise to build that wall).

But, setting the record straight is always a good idea even when it falls on deaf ears. Someday, we will have wiser leaders who will be generally interested in understanding the past and using its lessons to build a better future for everyone!

PWS

10-26-17

TAL @ SF CHRONICLE: TRUMP CONSIDERING USE OF TRAVEL BAN AUTHORITY TO CLOSE SOUTHERN BORDER TO ASYLUM SEEKERS!

Trump administration considers travel ban-like order for Mexican border

By Tal Kopan

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering an executive action that could use travel ban-like authority to block certain asylum seekers at the Mexican border, sources familiar with the discussions said Thursday.

The proposal is not yet finalized and could ultimately be cast aside, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan is in the formative stages. If President Trump approved such a plan, it would represent a dramatic escalation in border enforcement as a migrant caravan works its way north through Mexico.

The administration is working rapidly to draft the possible executive action, which could effectively use the same legal authority that Trump invoked last year in imposing a ban against people from several mainly Muslim countries from traveling to the U.S., said a government source who has seen a working version of the plan and several sources who had it described to them.

“The administration is considering a wide range of administrative, legal and legislative options to address the Democrat-created crisis of mass illegal immigration,” a White House official said on condition of anonymity when asked about the effort. “No decisions have been made at this time. Nor will we forecast to smugglers or caravans what precise strategies will or will not be deployed.”

More: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Trump-administration-considers-travel-ban-like-13337662.php

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Forget Nukes, Star Wars, terrorist attacks, or cyber wars. All it takes to bring the “brave” leaders of the (formerly) most powerful nation on earth to their knees is a few thousand unarmed folks walking over a thousand miles desperately seeking justice under American law.

I knew we’d all live to regret it when the Supremes let Trump off the hook in the Travel Ban case. While some of the mealy-mouthed Justices who voted to unleash Trump from the Constitution might have thought that their spineless pleas for reason and prudence and their obsequious deference to the Executive would have a restraining effect, truth is it just emboldened him by showing that the GOP-Justices were afraid to cross him in a showdown case.

So, now Trump can just suspend any law that proves inconvenient for his White Nationalist agenda by invoking a transparently bogus “national security” rationale! Wonder whose rights will be next to go? Wonder what the Supremes will do when he comes to get them using their own misguided jurisprudence against them?

PWS

10-25-18

TRUMP LAUNCHES PREDICTABLE LARGELY FACT FREE TIRADE AGAINST DESPERATE MIGRANTS – They Aren’t A Threat To Our National Security – But, Trump & His White Nationalist Policies Of Hate & Xenophobia Are!

http://time.com/5430940/donald-trump-migrant-caravan-false-claims

Katie Reilly reports for Time:

For more than 15 years, nonprofit groups have helped hundreds of asylum-seeking migrants journey through Central America to the United States, traveling together in a caravan to make the journey safer and their plight more visible. Thousands of Central American migrants currently walking to the U.S. border are doing the same, fleeing deadly violence on a trek that has drawn international focus.

As many as 7,000 migrants, according to one local estimate, have now joined the caravan that started on Oct. 13 in Honduras, many wearing flip flops and carrying their children on a journey that will be at least 1,500 miles long, depending on which part of the U.S. border they reach.

President Donald Trump — who has long critiqued U.S. immigration policies and denigrated immigrants since the start of his presidential campaign — has made numerous baseless claims about the caravan in recent weeks, spreading alarm and touting it as a “Great Midterm issue for Republicans!” Trump has claimed, without evidence, that the group included “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners” and falsely suggested that Democrats funded the caravan. He also blamed Democrats for the current immigration laws, though Republicans currently control both chambers of Congress and the White House.

“I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emerg[enc]y,” Trump tweeted early Monday, threatening to cut off foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador for not “stopping people from leaving their country and coming illegally to the U.S.”

But videos and reporting from journalists traveling with the caravan of migrants show weary families making an arduous journey because of violence or lack of opportunity in their home countries, and no evidence that there are “unknown Middle Easterners” among the group.

“The migrants are ordinary people from Central America. They’re joining the caravans because the migration routes through Mexico are perilous for them and highly expensive,” says Elizabeth Oglesby, an associate professor of Latin American studies at the University of Arizona, who has studied Central America and human rights issues. “The more that the border has become militarized between the U.S. and Mexico, the more perilous and the more expensive the journey has become for Central Americans. So that’s why we see people coming together in the caravans.”

She says the caravan, which is larger than many of its annual predecessors, has grown because of how word spread on social media and because of worsening conditions in Honduras, where the murder rate is among the highest in the world and where the government has cracked down on political protestersfollowing last year’s disputed presidential election.

Oglesby says just a fraction of migrants who begin the trek make it to a U.S. point of entry each year, as many turn back or peel off if they can find work or safety in Mexico instead.

While no specific group has said it’s responsible for organizing the current caravan, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, founded in 2010, has led asylum-seeking migrants through Central America for more than 15 years, most recently in April — another caravan that drew ire from Trump. The group aims to “provide shelter and safety to migrants and refugees in transit, accompany them in their journey, and together demand respect for our human rights.” Some Pueblo Sin Fronteras leaders and organizers are involved in the current caravan.

Trump has lashed out at the caravan as an example of illegal immigration, threatening to deploy U.S. military force to “close our Southern border” and stop what he has described as a crisis. But illegal border crossings have been declining overall for more than a decade, though the number of border apprehensions fluctuates month-to-month. And under U.S. law, it is legal to petition for asylum at the border, though the process may be lengthy and ultimately unsuccessful.

“These migrant caravans are not a border crisis,” Oglesby says. “People are doing this openly and visibly, and they plan to show up at the U.S. port of entry and petition for political asylum, and that is exactly how our laws are supposed to function. The crisis comes about when U.S. border officials discourage people from political asylum, leave them on the bridges or threaten them that if they go forward with a political asylum claim, they might lose their children.”

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Katie is hardly the only informed observer to note that Trump is even more full of BS, fabricated facts, and bogus scare techniques than usual on this one.

Here’s Maegan Vasquez over at CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/22/politics/donald-trump-migrant-caravan-fact-check/index.html

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump, in a series of tweets on Monday, claimed he would declare a “national emergency” over an issue that has frequently piqued his attention — migrant caravans moving toward the United States through Central America and Mexico.

His tweets come just weeks ahead of the 2018 midterm elections and he has emphasized immigration as a key issue, without evidence accusing Democrats of pushing for overrun borders in what appears to be a naked fear campaign aimed at turning out his supporters. Immigration was a key issue in the 2016 presidential race.

Crowds of migrants, estimated to be in the thousands on Monday, resumed their long journey north on Sunday into Mexico as part of a migrant caravan originating in Central America.

Bolton and Kelly get into heated shouting match sparking resignation fears

Currently migrants are at the Central Park Miguel Hidalgo in the center of Tapachula. Organizers plan for them to begin moving north, reaching the northern city of Huixtla, which is about 20 miles north, and resting there.

The President, in his tweets, also made several questionable claims concerning immigration and the caravan. Among them: that “unknown Middle Easterners” are “mixed” in with the caravan, that he would be cutting off foreign aid over the caravan, and that Mexican authorities failed to stop migrants from coming into Mexico.

Asked later Monday about his assertion about “unknown Middle Easterners” in the caravan, Trump said: “Unfortunately, they have a lot of everybody in that group.”

“We’ve gotta stop them at the border and, unfortunately, you look at the countries, they have not done their job,” he said. “They have not done their job. Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador — they’re paid a lot of money, every year we give them foreign aid and they did nothing for us, nothing.”

Here’s what we know:

Are there “unknown Middle Easterners” “mixed” into the migrant caravan?

Trump tweeted “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed” into the migrant caravan moving toward the United States. He called this a “national emergy” (sic).

It’s unclear what “unknown Middle Easterners” Trump appears to be referring to in his tweet, since there have been no reports, in the press or publicly from intelligence agencies, to suggest there are “Middle Easterners” embedded in the caravan.

A senior counterterrorism official told CNN’s Jessica Schneider that “while we acknowledge there are vulnerabilities at both our northern and southern border, we do not see any evidence that ISIS or other Sunni terrorist groups are trying to infiltrate the southern US border.”

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday afternoon that the administration “absolutely” has evidence of Middle Easterners in the caravan, “and we know this is a continuing problem.”

However, she did not provide the specific evidence supporting that claim.

During a White House conference call with surrogates regarding the caravan, a Homeland Security official said the administration is looking into a claim from Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales that his country has been able to capture around 100 terrorists. However, the official did not offer any evidence of the Middle Eastern people who Trump claims are hiding among migrants in the caravan.

“We are looking into that claim from the President Morales on the numbers,” Jonathan Hoffman, the DHS official, said. “It is not unusual to see people from Middle Eastern countries or other areas of the world pop up and attempt to cross our borders.”

Earlier this month, Morales claimed foreign individuals linked to terrorism were captured in the country during his administration, which began in January 2016.

“We have arrested almost 100 people highly linked to terrorist groups, specifically ISIS. We have not only detained them in our territory, they have also been deported to their countries of origin. All of you here have information to that effect,” Morales said during a Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America event attended by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

There’s no direct link or correlation between Morales’ statement and Trump’s assertion about the caravan on Twitter.

The Department of Homeland Security also did not provide any evidence to bolster the President’s claim about “unknown Middle Easterns” in the caravan when asked for it by CNN on Monday.

A department official told CNN that in fiscal year 2018, Customs and Border Protection “apprehended 17,256 criminals, 1,019 gang members, and 3,028 special interest aliens from countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria and Somalia. Additionally, (Customs and Border Protection) prevented 10 known or suspected terrorists from traveling to or entering the United States every day in fiscal year 2017.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not specify any Middle Eastern countries.

Pressed about the President’s assertion that there are “unknown Middle Easterners” mixed in with the caravan, a State Department spokesperson said they understand there are several nationalities in the caravan and referred us to Department of Homeland Security for more information.

Will the administration cut off foreign aid? Can they?

Trump is threatening foreign aid over the new migrant caravan. Here’s what’s at stake.

Trump tweeted that because “Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were not able to do the job of stopping people from leaving their country and coming illegally to the U.S.,” the United States “will now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid routinely given to them.”

It’s unclear where the administration will propose to make the cuts the President appears to be talking about, and CNN has reached out to the White House and the DHS for further information.

However, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act prohibits the President from withholding — or impounding — money appropriated by Congress.

New York Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said Monday that his office has reached out to the Government Accountability Office to ensure that the President does not violated the act.

“Fortunately, Congress — not the President — has the power of the purse, and my colleagues and I will not stand idly by as this Administration ignores congressional intent,” Engel said in a statement.

Trump has made the threat of cuts to foreign aid going to Latin American countries over migrant caravans several times over the last year.

Under the Trump administration, and with the approval of the Republican-controlled Congress, there have already been significant cuts to foreign aid to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras — the three countries he mentioned Monday — and the administration plans to continue making cuts in fiscal year 2019.

Were authorities from Mexico unable to stop the migrant caravan from heading into the US?

Migrant caravan resumes march north from Mexico-Guatemala border

Trump tweeted Monday that “Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States.”

There are some 7,500 people marching north as part of a migrant caravan through Mexico, caravan organizer Dennis Omar Contreras told CNN. He said the organizers did a count of participants Monday morning.

He said the migrants will leave Mexico’s Tapachula for the town of Huixtla, which is located more than 20 miles northwest of their Monday morning location.

While Mexican authorities said before the caravan’s arrival that anyone who entered the country “in an irregular manner” could be subject to apprehension and deportation, many migrants from the caravan appear to have circumvented authorities.

CNN crews witnessed migrants jumping off a bridge at the Mexico-Guatemala border and riding rafts to reach Mexican soil.

Mexican authorities say more than 1,000 Central American migrants officially applied for refugee status in Mexico over the past three days.

It’s unclear how authorities will respond to the thousands of other migrants who are marching north.

Will the President declare a national emergency over the caravan?

It’s unclear exactly what executive action, if any, the President will take following his tweet saying that he has “alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National (emergency).”

Previous administrations have ordered troops to the US southern border, and Trump issued a similar memorandum earlier this year ordering National Guard troops to be deployed to the US-Mexico border. The memo came around the same time another, smaller migrant caravan was moving toward the US through Central America.

Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Davis, a spokesman for the Defense Department, told CNN that “beyond the National Guard soldiers currently supporting the Department of Homeland Security on our southern border, in a Title 32, U.S. Code, section 502(f) duty status under the command and control of the respective State Governors, the Department of Defense has not been tasked to provide additional support at this time.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Customs and Border Protection, referred questions about the national emergency to the White House, which did not answer to several questions for comment.

Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and the former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, told CNN that the President’s use of the term national emergency, and his potential subsequent declaration, is “a subjective judgment.”

“It is certainly true that the numbers that have been reported in this group are larger than anything that we’ve seen before this from these countries concentrated in one group,” she said.

However, she added that the reaction is “disproportionate to what’s happening.”

“I’m not saying it’s not a genuine problem, but it’s not like this is organized insurrection, in the way that its been characterized,” she added.

CNN’s Catherine Shoichet, Sarah Westwood, Ryan Browne, Jennifer Hansler, Geneva Sands, Dakin Andone, Patrick Oppmann, Natalie Gallón, Kevin Liptak and Jessica Schneider contributed to this report.

This story has been updated.

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And, here’s the ever-wonderful Tal from her “new home” over at the SF Chronicle:

Here’s what happens when the migrant caravan arrives at U.S. border

By Tal Kopan

WASHINGTON — President Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric Monday about a caravan of thousands of Central Americans making its way toward the U.S., even as uncertainty grew over what will happen to the migrants if they reach the border.

Trump has seized on the caravan as a key talking point heading into the midterm elections. The president has been pointing to the growing group of migrants as justification for his aggressive immigration proposals.

“Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States. Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy. Must change laws!” Trump tweeted Monday.

A source familiar with the government’s information on the caravan said there was no evidence Middle Easterners were mixing into it. It’s unclear whether Mexico will allow the group to continue the remaining 1,000-plus miles to the U.S. border without interfering.

More:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Here-s-what-happens-when-migrant-caravan-13327887.php#photo-16376169

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Actually, contrary to the false narrative put out by Trump, Sessions, Nielsen, and others, our legal system is set up to handle this situation:

USCIS could move additional Asylum Officers to ports of entry along the Southern border, particularly given the substantial advance notice;
Arriving migrants could be promptly and fairly screened for “credible fear;”
Those who pass could be matched with available pro bono lawyers and released to those locations where their lawyers and community support are located, thus insuring a high rate or appearance for asylum hearings in Immigration Court;
Those who fail credible fear could be returned to their home countries in a humane manner, perhaps working with the UNHCR;
If the Administration wants these cases to be “prioritized” in a backlogged Immigration Court system, they could remove an equal number of “low priority” older cases from the docket, thus preventing growth in the backlog and largely avoiding “Aimless Docket Reshuffling;”
The Refugee Act of 1980 could be used to establish a robust program for screening and resettlement of refugees directly from the Northern Triangle, thus both reducing the incentive to make the land journey to apply for asylum and setting a leadership example for other countries in the hemisphere to take additional refugees from the Northern Triangle;
We could work cooperatively with the UNHCR and other countries to establish shared resettlement programs for those who flee the Northern Triangle and can’t return;
We could invest more foreign aid in infrastructure, and job creation programs in the Northern Triangle which would deal with the causes of the continuing outward migration.

We do know from experience and observation what won’t work: incarceration, prosecutions, threats, family separation, child abuse, misconstruing asylum law against applicants, tirades directed against sending and transit countries, saying “we don’t want you,” etc.

PWS

10-22-18

LEXISNEXIS: SCOFFLAW NATION: New Amnesty International Reports Document Trump Administration’s Intentional Abuses Of International Refugee Protection Standards, Call For Congressional Action!

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/amnesty-international-report-illegal-pushbacks-arbitrary-detention-ill-treatment-of-asylum-seekers-in-the-united-states

Posted by Dan Kowalski at LexisNexis Immigration Community:

Amnesty International Report: Illegal Pushbacks, Arbitrary Detention & Ill-Treatment of Asylum-Seekers in the United States

Amnesty International, Oct. 11, 2018 – “The US government has deliberately adopted immigration policies and practices that caused catastrophic harm to thousands of people seeking safety in the United States, including the separation of over 6,000 family units in a four-month period more than previously disclosed by authorities, Amnesty International said in a new report released today.

USA: ‘You Don’t Have Any Rights Here’: Illegal Pushbacks, Arbitrary Detention and Ill-treatment of Asylum-seekers in the United States reveals the brutal toll of the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine and dismantle the US asylum system in gross violation of US and international law. The cruel policies and practices documented include: mass illegal pushbacks of asylum-seekers at the US–Mexico border; thousands of illegal family separations; and increasingly arbitrary and indefinite detentions of asylum-seekers, frequently without parole.

“The Trump administration is waging a deliberate campaign of widespread human rights violations in order to punish and deter people seeking safety at the US–Mexico border,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International.”

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No, desperate families seeking refuge at our Southern Border don’t pose any real threat to the U.S., regardless of what Trump might say and whether they ultimately are found qualified or unqualified to enter. What does pose a real threat to our nation and to the legal rights and future of every American is “waging a deliberate campaign of widespread human rights violations in order to punish and deter people seeking safety at the US–Mexico border.”

PWS

10-18-18

LEXISNEXIS: New Suit Highlights How Sessions & Other Trumpsters Knowingly & Intentionally Violate U.S. Asylum Laws!

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/new-legal-filing-links-high-level-trump-officials-to-asylum-turnback-policy—al-otro-lado-inc-v-nielsen

Posted by Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis:

New Legal Filing Links High-level Trump Officials to Asylum “Turnback Policy” – Al Otro Lado, Inc. v. Nielsen

American Immigration Council, Oct. 16, 2018 – “In a new court filing, asylum seekers and an immigrant rights group are challenging the Trump administration’s policy and practice of turning back asylum seekers at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border. Friday’s filing directly links high-level Trump administration officials to an official “Turnback Policy,” ordering U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials to restrict the number of asylum seekers who can access the asylum process at ports of entry. The Turnback Policy compounds other longstanding border-wide tactics CBP has implemented to prevent migrants from applying for asylum in the U.S., including lies, intimidation, coercion, verbal abuse, physical force, outright denials of access, unreasonable delay, and threats—including family separation.

The new filing was brought by the Los Angeles and Tijuana-based organization Al Otro Lado, Inc. and individual asylum seekers who are collectively represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the American Immigration Council. The attorneys allege that the Trump administration policy and practice violate U.S. and international law and subject vulnerable asylum seekers to imminent danger, deportation, or death.

“Every day we work with survivors of horrific physical and sexual violence, doing our best to provide the necessary resources to extremely vulnerable individuals. They come to our border to seek safety for themselves and their children. The United States, in implementing the Turnback Policy, cavalierly rejects thousands of these individuals, retraumatizing them and stranding them alone and destitute. It is hard to overstate the cruelty with which CBP operates,” said Nicole Ramos, Border Rights Project director at Al Otro Lado.

Attorneys say practices under the Turnback Policy are directly attributable to high-level Trump administration officials, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. The filing cites Sessions’ characterization of asylum seekers as deliberately attempting to “undermine our laws and overwhelm our system,” and Nielsen’s reference to the legally required process of receiving and processing asylum seekers at the border as a “loophole.” The filing also quotes U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers as stating, “We have orders not to let anybody in.”

“Internal CBP documents released in this case reveal that high-level CBP officials authorized a Turnback Policy as early as 2016 to restrict the flow of asylum seekers to the U.S-Mexico border,” said Melissa Crow, senior supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project. “The Turnback Policy has escalated under the Trump administration and has been buttressed by a wide range of unlawful tactics that CBP uses to deny asylum seekers access to the protection they deserve.”

Said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, “Ever since the horrors of World War II, the world’s nations have committed to giving asylum seekers the opportunity to seek safe haven. The Trump administration has turned its back on this most elementary humanitarian principle, in violation of U.S. and international law, and is subjecting vulnerable men, women and children who are fleeing horrific conditions at home to continued terror, violence and in some cases, death.”

Asylum seekers are fleeing persecution in their home countries, and suffer unspeakable harm en route to the United States at the hands of Mexican government officials, cartels, and gangs. When they are turned away at ports of entry, the lawsuit alleges, they are compelled to either enter the U.S. illegally and be prosecuted, stay trapped in Mexico where they are targeted by criminal groups, or return home to face persecution and death. The filing recounts an extensive array of inaccurate information and abusive treatment those seeking asylum have faced at the hands of U.S. border officials, including that the U.S. is no longer providing asylum or that people from specific countries are not eligible; yelling at, harassing, and assaulting asylum seekers and their children; threatening to take children away from their parents; and setting up “pre-checkpoints” that prevent asylum seekers from reaching the U.S. border. Over four consecutive days in March, CBP officials turned away Guatemalan asylum seekers, saying “Guatemalans make us sick.”

The filing amends a previous filing challenging CBP’s turnbacks of asylum seekers at ports of entry. The challenged practices were initially implemented in 2016 and greatly exacerbated by the Trump administration.

Read the filing here.

For more information, visit CCR’s case page and the American Immigration Council.

American Immigration Council, Oct. 16, 2018 – “In a new court filing, asylum seekers and an immigrant rights group are challenging the Trump administration’s policy and practice of turning back asylum seekers at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border. Friday’s filing directly links high-level Trump administration officials to an official “Turnback Policy,” ordering U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials to restrict the number of asylum seekers who can access the asylum process at ports of entry. The Turnback Policy compounds other longstanding border-wide tactics CBP has implemented to prevent migrants from applying for asylum in the U.S., including lies, intimidation, coercion, verbal abuse, physical force, outright denials of access, unreasonable delay, and threats—including family separation.

The new filing was brought by the Los Angeles and Tijuana-based organization Al Otro Lado, Inc. and individual asylum seekers who are collectively represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the American Immigration Council. The attorneys allege that the Trump administration policy and practice violate U.S. and international law and subject vulnerable asylum seekers to imminent danger, deportation, or death.

“Every day we work with survivors of horrific physical and sexual violence, doing our best to provide the necessary resources to extremely vulnerable individuals. They come to our border to seek safety for themselves and their children. The United States, in implementing the Turnback Policy, cavalierly rejects thousands of these individuals, retraumatizing them and stranding them alone and destitute. It is hard to overstate the cruelty with which CBP operates,” said Nicole Ramos, Border Rights Project director at Al Otro Lado.

Attorneys say practices under the Turnback Policy are directly attributable to high-level Trump administration officials, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. The filing cites Sessions’ characterization of asylum seekers as deliberately attempting to “undermine our laws and overwhelm our system,” and Nielsen’s reference to the legally required process of receiving and processing asylum seekers at the border as a “loophole.” The filing also quotes U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers as stating, “We have orders not to let anybody in.”

“Internal CBP documents released in this case reveal that high-level CBP officials authorized a Turnback Policy as early as 2016 to restrict the flow of asylum seekers to the U.S-Mexico border,” said Melissa Crow, senior supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project. “The Turnback Policy has escalated under the Trump administration and has been buttressed by a wide range of unlawful tactics that CBP uses to deny asylum seekers access to the protection they deserve.”

Said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, “Ever since the horrors of World War II, the world’s nations have committed to giving asylum seekers the opportunity to seek safe haven. The Trump administration has turned its back on this most elementary humanitarian principle, in violation of U.S. and international law, and is subjecting vulnerable men, women and children who are fleeing horrific conditions at home to continued terror, violence and in some cases, death.”

Asylum seekers are fleeing persecution in their home countries, and suffer unspeakable harm en route to the United States at the hands of Mexican government officials, cartels, and gangs. When they are turned away at ports of entry, the lawsuit alleges, they are compelled to either enter the U.S. illegally and be prosecuted, stay trapped in Mexico where they are targeted by criminal groups, or return home to face persecution and death. The filing recounts an extensive array of inaccurate information and abusive treatment those seeking asylum have faced at the hands of U.S. border officials, including that the U.S. is no longer providing asylum or that people from specific countries are not eligible; yelling at, harassing, and assaulting asylum seekers and their children; threatening to take children away from their parents; and setting up “pre-checkpoints” that prevent asylum seekers from reaching the U.S. border. Over four consecutive days in March, CBP officials turned away Guatemalan asylum seekers, saying “Guatemalans make us sick.”

The filing amends a previous filing challenging CBP’s turnbacks of asylum seekers at ports of entry. The challenged practices were initially implemented in 2016 and greatly exacerbated by the Trump administration.

Read the filing here.

For more information, visit CCR’s case page and the American Immigration Council.

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It’s a strange system where the victims of law violations are punished while the “perps” — folks like Sessions, Nielsen, Miller, etc — walk free and are allowed to continue their lawless behavior.

Even stranger: A guy like Sessions — a scofflaw “Jim Crow Throwback” if there ever was one — has the absolute audacity to whine, complain, and even threaten when occasionally Federal Judges intervene in relatively limited ways to force him and even Trump to comply with our country’s laws and our Constitution. But, I suppose that’s what free speech is all about. Nevertheless, Sessions’s freedom to express his opinions that mock, distort, and mischaracterize our laws doesn’t necessarily entitle him to act on those opinions in a manner inconsistent with those law.

PWS

10-18-18

HOW THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S LIES AND MISCONDUCT HAVE CREATED THE VERY “FAKE BORDER CRISIS” THAT THEY CLAIM TO DECRY (& Use To Attempt To Justify Even More Draconian Measures To Mask Their Illegal & Immoral Conduct)

https://www.texasobserver.org/u-s-and-mexican-officials-collaborating-to-stop-asylum-seekers-attorneys-allege/

Gus Bova reports for the Texas Observer:

Elsa, a Guatemalan living in Southern Mexico, knew something was wrong. Her husband began traveling a lot without explanation, and physically abusing her and their two kids. When she eventually figured out that he’d gone to work for a cartel, she left him. But in 2016, the gang came after her to collect on debts the ex-husband had skipped out on. She fled to other Mexican towns, but the cartel men tracked her down. Then she went back to Guatemala, but they found her there, too. Finally, in September, Elsa decided to gamble on Uncle Sam — but the foot of the Reynosa-Hidalgo bridge was as far as she would get.

The Trump administration has repeatedly insisted that asylum-seekers should follow the rules by turning themselves in at ports of entry. Elsa tried to do just that. As a legal Mexican resident, she even had proper documentation for herself and her two children. Still, a Mexican customs agent stopped her at the turnstile and told her she couldn’t pass. He yelled at her that they were abusing their Mexican status by seeking asylum in the United States, and he threatened to tear their papers to shreds. Scared, the family slunk back into narco-ravaged Reynosa, and into total uncertainty.

The story of Elsa, whose name the Observer has changed for her protection, was included in a petition filed last week with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a 59-year-old organization based in Washington, D.C., that investigates abuses in the Americas and issues recommendations to offending nations. The petition, filed by immigration attorneys working in the Rio Grande Valley, describes a systematic conspiracy between U.S. and Mexican customs agents to prevent asylum-seekers from requesting protection. The attorneys are asking the commission to tell both nations to stop stonewalling the law-abiding migrants.

U.S. customs agents blocking entry at the international boundary line on the Gateway International Bridge, Brownsville, July 2. COURTESY/FILING WITH THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Since June, the lawyers allege, Mexican customs officials along the Texas-Mexico border have been doing something virtually unprecedented: stopping asylum-seekers from entering the bridge, and if the migrants lack proper Mexican travel documents, the Mexican agents detain and even deport them. If an asylum-seeker makes it onto the bridge, U.S. customs officials call their Mexican counterparts to retrieve them; the Observerdocumented this phenomenon in a June story cited in the petition. In Nuevo Laredo, according to sworn affidavits from two Central American asylum-seekers, Mexican agents have demanded bribes of $500 per person to get onto the bridge. And in September, in Reynosa, they also started rejecting people, like Elsa, with Mexican papers.

“This petition highlights the reality of the U.S. working hand in glove with the Mexicans to completely shut down bridges, in violation of a number of human rights prohibitions,” said Jennifer Harbury, a longtime Rio Grande Valley attorney. Harbury has spent months documenting problems at the bridges and provided the majority of the information in the filing. According to Harbury and an affidavit from longtime Brownsville activist Mike Seifert, the international collaboration began after public outcry over long lines of asylum-seekers baking in the sun for weeks on the U.S. side of the bridges.

Harbury says in the filings that numerous Mexican agents at the Reynosa bridge have privately told her that the two governments are working together, and they’ve expressed frustration at doing the United States’ “dirty work.” Two other witnesses — a journalist and an activist — wrote similar affidavits. But U.S. customs agents have told Harbury that the Mexicans are acting alone, and a September letter she sent to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has gone unanswered. The United States began pressuring Mexico to stop migration at its southern border in 2014, and last month, Trump signaled he would redirect $20 million in foreign aid to beef up Mexico’s deportations. Neither U.S. nor Mexican immigration officials responded to Observer requests for comment.

The United States is unlikely, Harbury said, to heed the eventual request from the human rights commission. For one, the U.S. government rejects the authority of the commission’s enforcement arm, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San José, Costa Rica. (The same court recently ruled that many Latin American countries must recognize same-sex marriage.) But Harbury has higher hopes for Mexico, which is subject to the court and has an incoming leftist president in Andrés Manuel López Obrador. “I think the new president of Mexico is not going to want the commission saying they’re running dogs for Uncle Sam,” she said.

In turning the bridges into hostile territory for asylum-seekers, the Trump administration has made a mockery of its own stated immigration goals.

If Mexico stops its collaboration, then the United States would have to do its own “dirty work” of stopping asylum-seekers, and hold all liability for the potentially illegal actions. In California, a lawsuit was filed last year after border agents briefly turned away asylum-seekers all along the U.S.-Mexico border on the false premise that Trump’s inauguration had abolished asylum. That suit continues to play out.

In turning the bridges into hostile territory for asylum-seekers, the Trump administration has made a mockery of its own stated immigration goals. According to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the point of the “zero tolerance” policy was to force families to use official ports of entry instead of crossing illegally. But U.S. customs agents started stonewalling asylum-seekers at the bridges. Now, with the threat of separation gone and the bridges still a dicey proposition, families have responded accordingly: More are crossing the river illegally to turn themselves in to Border Patrol. Immigration officials, in turn, are using this apparent spike to sound the alarm about another border crisis.

Meanwhile, many asylum-seekers from Central America, Africa and the Caribbean remain stranded, paralyzed by uncertainty in dangerous Mexican border towns where gangsters prey on refugees. In an affidavit, one would-be asylum-seeker wrote that she hears “shooting day and night” in Reynosa; another simply wrote, “many people die here.” As Harbury, the attorney, put it, “they’re like a snowball in Hell down there.”

Gus Bova reports on immigration, the U.S.-Mexico border and grassroots movements for the Observer. He formerly worked at a shelter for asylum-seekers and refugees. You can contact him at bova@texasobserver.org.

Get the latest Texas Observer news, analysis and investigations via Facebook, Twitter and our weekly newsletter.

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Jeff Sessions is a key part of this legal charade and scofflaw behavior. He disingenuously asserts that individuals should be using the legal system while doing everything in his power to make it impossible for individuals to present their asylum claims at ports of entry and have them fairly heard by fair and unbiased judges in Immigration Court.

The results of these shortsighted, cruel, illegal, and ultimately ineffective policies are to: 1) enrich smugglers, 2) make the trip more dangerous for asylum seekers, virtually insuring that more will die or be abused during the journey, and 3) to enlarge and promote the already robust “extralegal system” for immigrants and refugees. When orderly processing and the legal system for immigration are shut down or made less “user friendly,” the result is unlikely to be less overall immigration; just less immigration through legal channels and more “extralegal immigration” driven by Trump, Sessions, and their fellow White Nationalists.

Remember, we can diminish ourselves as a nation (and are doing so under Trump, Sessions, Nielsen, & Miller), but that won’t stop human migration!

Many thanks to Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis Immigration Community for forwarding to me this timely and excellent reporting.

PWS

10-14-18

BIASED COURTS: EL PASO’S “HANGING JUDGES” ARE DEATH TO ASYLUM CLAIMS, EVEN THOSE THAT ARE BEING GRANTED IN MANY OTHER IMMIGRATION COURTS – The Due Process Problems In The U.S. Immigration Courts Go Much Deeper Than Jeff Sessions’s Outrageous White Nationalist Policies! — Author Justine van der Leun Presents A Meticulously Researched, Moving Report Of Unfairness That “Scotches” All Of The DOJ/EOIR “Bogus Excuses” & Exposes The Deep, Unacceptable Bias That Makes Our Immigration Courts A National Disgrace!

https://www.vqronline.org/reporting-articles/2018/10/culture-no

Here’s an excerpt from Justine van der Luen’s much longer article “A Culture of No,” published in the Fall 2018 issue of VQR (quoting me, among many others).

. . . .

“Here in the US, there is democracy, but we still have fear,” he said. “I got asylum but if they want to make a problem, they can do it.” He was terrified that the smallest misstep, no matter how apparently meaningless, how accidental or random, could signal the difference between freedom and imprisonment—and from there, between life and death.

To beat the extreme odds in El Paso, Isaac had spent fifteen months in detention and paid thousands of dollars in legal fees to an elite lawyer who then worked dozens of pro bono hours on his appeal. This feat required an enormous amount of translated and notarized evidence discretely sent overseas by family members in Syria, the emotional and financial support of his brother and his lawyer, and the wherewithal to withstand a complex, taxing, humiliating process. How many asylum seekers could or should have to endure such an ordeal in order to gain internationally recognized rights meant to protect the persecuted?

As Isaac started over in America, other asylum seekers I had been tracking were less fortunate. Jesus Rodriguez Mendoza, the Venezuelan, had been transferred to a notorious detention center in Miami, which his legal team believed was punishment for his public protests; he remained on the El Paso docket, but now was physically separated from his lawyers, his fourth parole request denied. Berta Arias, the Honduran grandmother whose relief Judge Abbott had granted and then quickly rescinded, lost her appeal and was deported without the granddaughter she had raised. The Central American man whose brother, with an identical case, had won protection in New York City, remained in the Camp. It wasn’t only those from the Americas who were out of luck. Cambodians, Cameroonians, Guineans, and Kenyans I’d followed all had their claims denied; they had since been deported or were waiting on appeals.

One young Central American woman who had been repeatedly raped had managed to win relief, but only after her lawyer, unable to bear the thought of her client being sent home to be violated yet again, paid over $2,000 from her own pocket to fly two expert witnesses into Texas to clinch the case.

“I think in El Paso, they want to see that people died,” a young Salvadoran asylum seeker told me. He was an Evangelical Christian, who preached to local kids. Members of MS-13 had shot at him with a machine gun, killing a pedestrian who happened to be standing nearby, and kidnapped and murdered his fifteen-year-old friend who had joined him in proselytizing. The young man, his mother, and his brother made their way to the US. Despite having a devoted pro bono lawyer, he lost his asylum case, as well as his appeal, on the grounds of credibility (the judge believed he was simply an economic migrant who had invented the threats); his mother also struggled to find legal relief in El Paso.

“Maybe if I died, and then my mom asked for asylum, maybe then she can get protection,” he told me calmly. “They tried to kill me, but I didn’t die, so it’s not good enough for them.”

Justine van der Leun

Justine van der Leun is the author of several books, including We Are Not Such Things (Random House, 2016), a New York Times Editors’ Choice and Spectator Book of the Year. Her work has appeared in theNew York Times, Harper’s, the Guardian, and Oprah Magazine. She is an International Women’s Media Foundation reporting fellow and a grantee of the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.

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I encourage you to read the full article at the above link, which is accompanied by some great original illustrations by Alan Vest!

Justine highlights the real role of attorneys in our asylum system. Many of them are working on a pro bono or low fee basis or actually paying out of their own pockets! They persist under horrible working conditions and often rude, insensitive, and unprofessional treatment from judges and other government officials that would persuade most other professionals to take up another line of work. The cases are complicated and (unnecessarily) fact intensive, often requiring not only extensive research and legal knowledge, but also skilled use of expert testimony and sources translated from foreign languages.

In courts like El Paso, getting a fair result in an asylum case too often depends on making the record below and then taking an appeal — the latter itself a time-consuming “hit or miss” proposition depending on the BIA “panel” (it could be a single judge) or the Circuit in which the case arose (sadly, the 5th Circuit is notorious for taking a cavalier and tone-deaf attitude toward the law and fundamental fairness in immigration matters).

Indeed, conscientious, dedicated attorneys are far more interested in making the system function in a fair and efficient manner consistent with our Constitution than the DOJ politicos who run today’s broken court system.

Compare the reality with the intentionally false and totally disingenuous picture painted by our White Nationalist Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He refers to “dirty lawyers” who are “gaming” the system.

Apparently, Sessions’s view of “gaming” means providing vigorous and effective representation and forcing him and some of the anti-asylum judges working for him to comply with asylum law!

It’s also painfully clear that no unrepresented asylum applicant would have any chance whatsoever of receiving fairness and Due Process in El Paso.

But, instead of working with the private bar to facilitate representation and repair the damage to the Immigration Courts, Sessions has gone to great lengths to prevent effective representation of asylum seekers. He has arranged for the detention of asylum seekers in horrible conditions in obscure places where there are no lawyers; he has “speeded up” the system to make it more difficult for lawyers to effectively represent their clients; he has used unconstitutional intentional family separation to duress individuals with valid claims into abandoning them; he has made pejorative remarks about asylum seekers and their lawyers in front of Immigration Judges; and he has manipulated the substantive law against bona fide asylum seekers.

Yes, many, many Immigration Judges “buck the odds” to honor their oaths of office and guarantee fairness and Due Process for asylum seekers and other respondents. Justine points out how results differ dramatically in Immigration Courts where judges apply the law and treat respondents and their lawyers in a fair and impartial manner.

So, how can I be such a strong advocate for independence of a system that I know is badly flawed? Those of us who have actually worked in the system know that it can’t be fixed overnight.

But, getting the system out of the hands of Sessions and the DOJ politicos is an absolutely essential first step. With the advent of a true merit judicial hiring system, such as that recommended by Professor Andy Schoenholtz and others, and the establishment of a more diverse and representative Appellate Division that acts like an independent Federal Court to rein in those judges who are unfairly treating asylum applicants and force them to correctly and fairly apply the law, there will be a return of meaningful judicial dialogue and deliberation which leads to progress over time.

Notably, in Isaac’s case, the system actually worked! After many months of expensive, wasteful, and unnecessary detention and an incorrect decision below, the BIA summarily corrected the Immigration Judge’s clearly erroneous denial of Isaac’s asylum case. But corrective action by the BIA to bring anti-asylum judicial “outliers” under control is exactly what Sessions has disabled in his decision in Matter of A-B-. He basically encourages “worst practices” and enables biased Immigration Judges while criticizing the BIA’s modest attempts to bring legality and order to an out of control system. What an outrageous perversion of justice and Due Process by someone who constantly makes bogus claims to be “enforcing the rule of law!”

Additionally, by returning control over dockets and court administration to sitting judges, rather than non-judicial DOJ politicos and their agency subordinates, an independent Immigration Court can make progress toward reducing backlogs while promoting, rather than “demoting,” Due Process.

The current Immigration Court System is a farce that should outrage and disgust every fair-minded American! It will continue to malfunction and deny Due Process until we have an independent Immigration Court where all judges are required to respect the Constitution and the individual rights of those coming before them.

Join the “New Due Process Army” and force the Immigration Courts and the Article IIIs to live up to their unfilled promise of “guaranteeing fairness and Due Process for all!”

PWS

10-09-18

READ NOLAN ON FAMILY DETENTION — Congress Should Solve It!

http://discuss.ilw.com/blogs/immigrationlawblogs/389151-does-a-mandatory-detention-provision-prohibit-the-release-of-alien-families-in-expedited-removal-proceedings-by-nolan-rappaport

Nolan writes:

President Donald Trump is being criticized for detaining alien families, but President Barack Obama did the same thing in 2014, when there was a rapid increase in the number of families crossing the border illegally.

Obama’s DHS Secretary, Jeh Johnson, explained the decision this way: “Frankly, we want to send a message that our border is not open to illegal migration, and if you come here, you should not expect to simply be released.”

Opponents of Obama’s family detention policy claimed that it violated the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement, which established a nationwide policy for the detention, release, and treatment of unaccompanied alien minors.

In 1962, a U.S. Court of Appeals acknowledged that the Flores litigation focused initially on the problems facing unaccompanied minors, but it heldthat the underlying policies applied equally to alien minors who are with a parent.

This created a no-win situation in expedited removal proceedings.

Alien families that are apprehended at or near the border after making an illegal entry are placed in expedited removal proceedings. If they want asylum, they are given an opportunity to establish that they have a credible fear of persecution. If they succeed, they are placed in regular removal proceedings for an asylum hearing before an immigration judge. Otherwise, they are deported without further proceedings.

Detention is mandatory in expedited removal proceedings, “Any alien subject to the procedures under this clause shall be detained pending a final determination of credible fear of persecution and, if found not to have such a fear, until removed.”

The Board of Immigration Appeals held that the mandatory detention period ends when a credible fear has been established, but Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently directed that decision to himself for a determination of whether it should be overruled.

DHS, however, has the discretion to parole an alien in expedited removal proceedings for “urgent humanitarian reasons” or “significant public benefit.”

. . . .

Congress is aware of these problems.

A Senate Committee recently held a hearing on the implications of extending the Settlement Agreement to children who are with a parent. According to Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, (R-WI), “it is well past time for Congress to act.”

The most promising solution may be to amend the mandatory detention provision and provide funding for the development of effective alternatives to detention.

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an executive branch immigration law expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.

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Go on over to ILW.Com at the above link to read Nolan’s full article.

Nolan reminds us that this, and a number of other policies that Dems now harshly criticize, actually originated during the Obama Administration. I find it interesting to hear Jeh Johnson and others now “back pedal” from the full implications of their questionable policy decisions.

I also agree with Nolan that it would be better if Congress would solve this problem in a bipartisan manner rather than leaving it to the Federal Courts.

PWS

10-05-18

Re “Who’s really an American?” editorial, Oct. 31

However, within the last year, I have been told to go back where I came from. Since I don’t speak Spanish, being dumped in Mexico, presumably where these people want me to go, would be a challenge. Regardless, not one of my ancestors arrived here any later than the early 1800s.

Marcella Hill, Los Angeles

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