Category: Vetting

MULTI-TALENTED TAL @ CNN TAKES US TO THE S. BORDER IN PICTURES & WORDS!

http://www.cnn.com/2018/04/19/politics/secretary-nielsen-dhs-border-fence-wall-immigration/index.html

Snapshots from the US-Mexico border

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Updated 6:55 PM ET, Thu April 19, 2018

 Here are Tal’s pictures. For whatever technical reason, you’ll have to go to the original article at the link to get the captions that go with them!
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Wow! As those of you who read “Courtside” on a regular basis know, I’m a HUGE FAN of Tal’s timely, incisive, concise, and highly accessible reporting. I feature it on a regular basis. I’ve also seen her do a great job on TV and video. But, until now, I didn’t know about her skills as a photojournalist. Tal can do it all!
Also, as my colleague Judge and Super-Blogger Jeffrey Chase pointed out in one of his recent comments on this blog, pictures play an essential role in understanding the immigration saga in America.
Been there, done that in my career. Takes me back to the long past days of riding three wheelers, helicopters, Patrol Cars, looking through infrared night scopes, and even accompanying foot patrol during my days in the “Legacy INS General Counsel’s Office.” (Most often on the border south of San Diego.) We actually took the Trial Attorneys and some of the Assistant U.S. Attorneys prosecuting our cases with us to show them what it was really like at the “ground level.”
Actually doesn’t look all that much different decades later. What is painfully clear is that walls, fences, helicopters, detectors, unrealistically harsh and restrictive laws, and more detention centers (the “New American Gulag”) will never, ever “seal” our borders as some immigration hard-liners insist is possible.
At best, we can control, channel, and regulate the flow of migrants, but not halt it entirely. Human migration was taking place long before the U.S. became a nation, and I daresay that it will continue as long as there are humans left on earth. To think that walls, troops, concentration camps, harsh laws, and prisons are going to halt it completely is a mixture of arrogance and ignorance.
So, rather than pouring  more money down the drain on the same “strategies” that have been failing for decades, a “smart” border control policy would involve:
  • More realistic and generous interpretations of our refugee and asylum laws that should include most of those fleeing for their lives from the Northern Triangle;
  • A much larger and more “market based” legal immigration system for permanent and temporary migrants that would meet the legitimate needs of U.S. employers and our economy while making it attractive for most prospective workers and employers to use the legal visa system rather than the “black market” of undocumented entry;
  • A larger and more robust refugee processing program for Northern Triangle refugees so most would be screened and documented outside the U.S.;
  • Cooperation with the UNHCR and other stable countries in the Western Hemisphere to distribute the flow of long-term and temporary refugees in an equitable manner that will help both the refugees and the receiving countries;
  • Working with and investing in Mexico and Northern Triangle countries to address and correct the conditions that create migration flows to the Southern Border.
  • Providing lawyers for asylum applicants who present themselves at the Southern Border so that their claims for protection  (which actually go beyond asylum and include protection under the Convention Against Torture) can be fairly, correctly, and efficiently determined in an orderly manner in accordance with Due Process.

No, it’s unlikely to happen in my lifetime. But, I hope that future generations, including the members of the “New Due Process Army,” will find themselves in a position to abandon past mistakes, and develop the smart, wise, generous, humane, realistic, and effective immigration and refugee policies that we need to keep our “nation of immigrants” viable and vitalized for centuries to come. Until then, we’re probably going to have to watch folks repeat variations of the same painful mistakes over and over.

PWS

04-19-18

Related posts:

  1. TAL @ CNN: TRUMP’S “GONZO” IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT POLICIES LIKELY TO FAIL AND ACTUALLY AGGRAVATE FORCES DRIVING UNDOCUMENTED MIGRATION!
  2. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  3. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  4. TRUMP TREATS KIDS AS HUMAN PAWNS IN UGLY POLITICAL CHESS GAME – Administration’s Continued Spreading Of False Narrative On Migration Makes Continuing Migration Outside of Legal System Inevitable!

DON’T BELIEVE ANY OF THE “CROCODILE TEARS” BEING SHED BY TRUMP & HIS ADMINISTRATION ABOUT THE LATEST ASSAD ATROCITY IN SYRIA – THE ADMINISTRATION’S INHUMANE POLICIES HELP KILL SYRIAN REFUGEES IN AND OUT OF CAMPS ON A REGULAR BASIS – Bombs & Bluster Will Never Replace Humanitarian Assistance & Robust Refugee Resettlement

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/01/there-are-more-than-5-million-syrian-refugees-the-trump-administration-has-admitted-2-of-them/

There Are More Than 5 Million Syrian Refugees. The Trump Administration Has Admitted 2 of Them.

State Department data shows that many nations’ refugees are still effectively banned.

NOAH LANARDJAN. 29, 2018 2:21 PM

Women from Syria walk with their children in a refugee camp in Cyprus in September.Petros Karadjias/AP

The United Nations estimates that there are 5.5 million Syrian refugees. In the past three months, the United States has allowed two of them to enter the country—down from about 3,600 in the last three months of the Obama administration.

After kicking off his presidency by temporarily banning refugees, Donald Trump lifted the ban in late October. But at the same time, he increased scrutiny of refugees from 11 countries, requiring that they be admitted only if doing so fulfills “critical foreign policy interests.” Refugee advocates said that the language would effectively ban refugees from a group of mostly Muslim-majority nations. Data from the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center reviewed by Mother Jones confirms their prediction.

The United States has taken in 44 refugees from the targeted countries since Trump issued his executive order, compared to about 12,000 during the same period last year. The countries are Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mali, North Korea, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

The heightened vetting of people from those countries has driven down the total number of Muslim refugees coming to the United States. About 550 Muslim refugees have been admitted to the United States since the executive order. More than 11,000 arrived during the same period last year. The share of admitted refugees who are Muslim has dropped from 48 percent at the end of the Obama administration to 11 percent in recent months.

Under Trump’s October executive order, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would conduct a 90-day “in-depth threat assessment of each [targeted] country.” During that period, DHS said in a memo to Trump, it would only take refugees from the 11 countries “whose admission is deemed to be in the national interest and poses no threat to the security or welfare of the United States.”

The 90-day mark passed last week. But Sean Piazza, a spokesman for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a refugee resettlement agency, says the organization has not received any updates about the status of the temporary review now that the 90-day period has passed. It is unclear if it is still in effect, and DHS did not respond to a request for comment. DHS’ October memo stated that refugee admissions from the targeted countries are likely to “occur at a slower pace” beyond the 90-day deadline.

The Trump administration has tried to undermine support for accepting refugees by casting them as an economic burden. In September, the New York Times reported that White House officials had killed a draft report from the Department of Health and Human Services that found that refugees have increased government revenue by $63 billion over the past decade. The report that was ultimately published had a different calculus, documenting how much it costs to provide services to refugees but not how much they pay in taxes.

Overall, the United States in on track to resettle about 21,000 refugees this year, according to the IRC. That would be fewer than in any year since at least 1980—including 2002, when refugee admissions plummeted in the wake of 9/11. It is also less than half of the annual 45,000-refugee cap that the Trump administration set in September, which was the lowest cap ever. Historically, the United States has been considered a world leader in resettling refugees.

Before Trump assumed the presidency, it already took up to two years for refugees to be vetted and resettled, not including the time people spent fleeing their country for refugee camps. Henrike Dessaules, the communications director at the International Refugee Assistance Project, says the group has had clients who “were ready to travel, that had their medical checks, security checks, and interviews done.” Instead, “they have been completely stalled in the process,” she says.*

In 2016, the Obama administration placed its refugee limit at 85,000 people and used all but five of those slots. This year’s drop comes even though there were about 22.5 million refugees across the world in 2016, more than at any time since the United Nations’ refugee agency was founded in 1950.

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https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/06/middleeast/syria-refugees-lebanon-winter-intl/index.html

Syrian refugees escape the war, but die from the cold

CNN Digital Rebranding 2015 Ben Wedeman Photo: Jeremy Freeman
Refugees freeze to death in Lebanon 02:48

Editor’s Note: This story contains extremely graphic images of dead and wounded people.

Bekaa Valley, Lebanon (CNN) — The rocky, plowed hillside is scattered with clues of what happened that January night. A woman’s scarf. A diaper. Empty cans of tuna fish. A plastic bag of sugar. An empty box of Turkish chocolate biscuits. A single cheap Syrian-made woman’s shoe. Several white, mud-spattered rubber gloves.
It was here, last month, that 17 Syrians froze to death in a night-time snowstorm while trying to cross the mountains into Lebanon.
Three-year-old Sarah is one of the few who survived. She now lies in a bed in the Bekaa Hospital in nearby Zahleh, two intravenous tubes taped to her small right arm. Frostbite left a large dark scab on her forehead. A thick bandage covers her right cheek. Another bandage is wound around her head to cover her frostbitten right ear.
Sarah doesn’t speak. She doesn’t make a sound. Her brown eyes dart around the room — curious, perhaps confused. Her father, Mishaan al Abed, sits by her bed, trying to distract her with his cell phone.

Sarah, 3, suffers from frostbite after smugglers abandoned her and her family as they were crossing into Lebanon.

Sarah, 3, suffers from frostbite after smugglers abandoned her and her family as they were crossing into Lebanon.
No one has told Sarah that her mother Manal, her five-year-old sister Hiba, her grandmother, her aunt and two cousins died on the mountain.
“Sometimes she says, ‘I want to eat.’ That’s all,” Abed says. Sarah hasn’t mentioned anything about her ordeal, and he is hesitant to ask her.

An unfortunate reunion

Until now, Sarah hadn’t seen her father for two and a half years. He left Syria for Lebanon and found work as a house painter, leaving his family behind.
Mishaan al Abed sent money back to his wife and kids, who stayed outside the town of Abu Kamal, on the Syrian-Iraqi border.
ISIS controlled Abu Kamal from the summer of 2014 until last November, when it was retaken by Syrian government forces. Fighting still rages in the countryside around it, where Al Abed’s family lived.
Lebanese officials: 14 Syrian refugees found frozen near border
Lebanese officials: 14 Syrian refugees found frozen near border
After their house was damaged, Abed’s brother and his family, along with Abed’s wife and two children, fled to Damascus. There they paid $4,000 — a fortune for a poor family — to a Syrian lawyer who they were told had the right connections with the army, intelligence and smugglers.
The plan was for them to be driven to the border in private cars on military-only roads. From there, says Abed, they were to walk with the smugglers for half an hour into Lebanon, where they would be met by other cars.
The plan started to fall apart when snow began to fall. The smugglers abandoned the group. The family lost their way and became separated. In the dark and the cold, most of them died. It’s not clear how Sarah and a few others survived.
The only thing that is clear, says hospital director Dr. Antoine Cortas, is that “it is a miracle Sarah is still alive.”
Hidden by the darkness and the snow was a house just a few hundred steps down the mountain.

In January, a group of Syrians froze to death trying to cross into Lebanon during a snowstorm.

In January, a group of Syrians froze to death trying to cross into Lebanon during a snowstorm.
Abed was expecting his family to cross over, but became concerned when he didn’t hear from them. “I was told the army had arrested people trying to cross into Lebanon. I thought it must be them. Then the intelligence services sent me a picture. I identified her as my wife.”
He opens the picture on his cell phone. It shows a lifeless woman curled up on the snow amidst thorn bushes, a red woolen cap on her head.

A struggle to cross over, a struggle to remain

More than a million Syrians have taken refuge in Lebanon, straining the resources of a country with a population of around six million. The Lebanese authorities have, to some extent, turned a blind eye to those entering the country illegally. But they have refused to allow relief groups to establish proper refugee camps, unlike Jordan and Turkey, for fear they will become permanent.
What pass for camps — officially called “informal tented settlements” — are ramshackle affairs. Syrians typically pay $100 to a landowner to build drafty, uninsulated breezeblock shelters with flimsy plastic tarpaulins as roofs.
Abu Farhan, a man in his sixties from Hama, in central Syria, lives in one of those shelters in a muddy camp outside the town of Rait, just a few kilometers from the Syrian border. His wife Fatima is ill. She is huddled next to a kerosene stove under a pile of blankets. Between coughing fits, she moans loudly. Farhan has had to borrow more than two million Lebanese pounds — around $1,300 — for her medical treatment.

Denied proper refugee camps, many Syrian refugees live in informal tented settlements.

Denied proper refugee camps, many Syrian refugees live in informal tented settlements.
Illness is just one of the perils here. Vermin, he says, is another. “There’s everything here,” he chuckles bitterly, “even things I’ve never seen before. Rats. Mice. Everything!”
The dilemma that Syrians in Lebanon face is glaringly clear. They’re not welcome here, and it’s difficult to scrape by. According to a recent report by the Norwegian Refugee Council, 71% of Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in poverty.

Point of no return

Some Syrians have returned home, but many, like Abu Musa, a man in his forties who lives in the same settlement as Farhan, insist that returning would be nothing short of suicidal. He comes from Maarat al-Numan, in Idlib province, where Syrian forces, backed by Russian warplanes, are waging an offensive against government opponents.
“Of course, I’d like to go back to Syria!” Musa exclaims, gesturing around his damp, cold hut as if that were reason enough to return home. “But Syria isn’t safe. They’re fighting in my town. My house has been destroyed.”
And thus, Syrians continue to try to make their way to Lebanon, despite the very real risks.

Over 70% of Lebanon's 1 million Syrian refugees live in poverty

Over 70% of Lebanon’s 1 million Syrian refugees live in poverty
“The people who are walking across the mountains, and taking days to cross the mountains in the middle of winter, are a testament to the fact that Syria is not safe,” said Mike Bruce of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“Until Syria is safe, until there is a lasting peace, people should not be going back to Syria.”

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With the election of the staunchly anti-American, White Nationalist, xenophobic, religiously bigoted Trump Administration, the United States forfeited any claim to moral leadership and humanitarianism on the world stage. Our anti-refugee policies also harm our allies in the region by forcing them to bear the entire responsibility for sheltering refugees.

Only the electoral removal of this truly un-American Administration and its GOP fellow travelers from power will allow us to begin the healing process. Selfishness and inhumanity are not policies — they are diseases that will consume us all if we don’t exercise our Constitutional and political rights by voting to remove the toxic leaders spreading them!

PWS

04-10-18

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  3. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: CLYDE W. FORD @ LA TIMES: “Opinion: The immigration crisis and the racism driving it have roots in Hitler’s ‘bible’”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

N. RAPPAPORT IN THE HILL: Trump Follows In Bush’s & Obama’s Footsteps By Sending National Guard To The Southern Border

http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/382136-by-sending-national-guard-to-border-trump-follows-bush-obama

Family Pictures

Nolan writes:

. . . .

Trump isn’t the first president to use the National Guard this way. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama did it when they were presidents. Their National Guard operations were successful, and Trump’s probably will be too, if his operation is similar to theirs.

Apparently, the Border Patrol feels that way too. According to Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, experience has shown that the military can supplement the work of agents on the ground.

We do not know yet how the troops will be used. The memorandum gives the secretary of Defense, working with DHS and the attorney general, 30 days to submit an action plan detailing what resources and actions are needed, including federal law enforcement and U.S. military resources.

. . . .

In any case, it doesn’t make sense to use the number of apprehensions as the criterion for determining how secure the border is. What about the aliens who were not apprehended? There is no way of knowing how many aliens succeeded in making an illegal entry without being detected by the Border Patrol.

Ultimately, Trump’s decision to send Border Patrol agents to the border should not be considered unusual or inhumane. Instead, it is a continuation of his existing immigration policies and even presidential precedent.

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As Nolan points out, sending the National Guard to the border is neither unusual nor unprecedented. But, that doesn’t mean it’s smart, effective, or cost efficient.

I’m aware of no hard evidence that sending the National Guard makes any long-term difference in border enforcement or security.

A number of commentators have also questioned whether the somewhat marginal short-term enforcement benefits of sending troops outweighs the substantial costs and negative perception issues. See e.g.,

https://www.dailysignal.com/2014/07/16/sending-military-border-good-idea/

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/04/08/what-happened-when-bush-obama-sent-troops-to-mexico-border/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/03/trump-mexico-wall-military-guards-obama-bush-not-first-president

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160421171156.htm

I see no evidence of any real security crisis at the Southern Border. Certainly, Trump’s panic about the so-called “Caravan” (actually largely made up of desperate women and children) is totally bogus, apparently based on over-hyped reports by Fox News.

It’s obvious that having blown the chance to get funding for his Wall, Trump is looking for some way to hype a non-existent “Southern Border Crisis” to show his base that he hasn’t given up on his racist approach to immigration. He also keeps raising his bogus claims that we need to further truncate the already too limited existing rights of children and asylum seekers and expand the “New American Gulag.” What total BS

There is an ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Northern Triangle causing individuals to undertake the journey North. That’s been going on for many years, and is almost certain to continue as long as folks like Trump are in charge. It’s not like Obama or Bush helped the situation either. Indeed, the US policy toward Latin America has been screwed up during my entire lifetime and shows no signs of changing.

Nothing Trump does is going to change that. Indeed, by almost any rational measure, Trump’s enforcement bluster is likely to make the situation even worse. As a number of commentators have pointed out, if Trump actually goes through with his stated wish to expel Hondurans and Salvadorans currently here in TPS status, that would almost certainly further destablilize both countries, further strengthen the hands of gangs, and guarantee an even larger northward flow.

PWS

04-09-18

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: THIS IS WHY HE STAYS: UNDERNEATH ALL THE “TRUMP NOISE” SESSIONS IS METHODICALLY ERADICATING DUE PROCESS, PERVERTING THE LAW, & TURNING ONE OF THE LARGEST FEDERAL COURT SYSTEMS INTO A “KILLING FLOOR” TARGETING OUR MOST VULNERABLE & DESERVING REFUGEES! — “[Sessions] is dumbing down the judges and treating them like assembly-line workers whose only job is to stamp out final orders of removal.”
  3. TRUMP’S MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE IS THE REAL “SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS” — AND, A GENUINE HUMAN TRAGEDY — The Legal Tools To Address The Crisis In The Northern Triangle Causing A Refugee Flow Exist; This Administration Stubbornly Refuses To Use Them!
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

JULIE HIRSHFIELD DAVIS IN THE NYT: TRUMP’S BOGUS ORDER ON SO-CALLED “CATCH & RELEASE” DOESN’T ACTUALLY DO MUCH BUT COULD BE PRELUDE TO ALL OUT ASSAULT BY OUR ROGUE, SCOFFLAW ADMINISTRATION ON CONSTITUTION AND LAWS LIMITING CIVIL DETENTION & GRANTING A FAIR RIGHT TO APPLY FOR ASYLUM!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/us/politics/trump-immigration-policy.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

Julie Hirshfield Davis reports for the NY Times:

President Trump issued a memorandum on Friday directing his administration to move quickly to bring an end to “catch and release,” the practice by which immigrants presenting themselves at the border without authorization are released from detention while waiting for their cases to be processed.

The directive does not, on its own, toughen immigration policy or take concrete steps to do so; it merely directs officials to report to the president about steps they are taking to “expeditiously end ‘catch and release’ practices.” But it is a symbolic move by Mr. Trump to use his executive action to solve a problem that he has bitterly complained Congress will not.

It also caps a week that began with the president offering tough talk on immigration and ended with his ordering the National Guard to patrol the southwestern border, a move formalized on Friday night when Defense Secretary Jim Mattis signed orders to deploy up to 4,000 troops.

“The safety and security of the American people is the president’s highest priority, and he will keep his promise to protect our country and to ensure that our laws are respected,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a statement announcing the memorandum.

“At the same time, the president continues to call on congressional Democrats to cease their staunch opposition to border security and to stop blocking measures that are vital to the safety and security of the United States,” she added.

The memo appears intended to prod the administration to move more rapidly in cracking down on unauthorized immigrants at the border, a goal laid out in an executive order Mr. Trump issued last year during his first week in office.

The latest directive instructs the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Justice and Health and Human Services to report to the president within 45 days on their efforts to ensure that those immigrants are detained, including steps taken to allocate money to build detention facilities near the borders. The agencies must also detail efforts to ensure unauthorized entrants do not “exploit” parole and asylum laws to stay in the United States, including evaluating how they determine whether migrants have “credible fear” of returning to their country of origin — the legal bar that people claiming asylum must meet to avoid prompt removal.

The memo also orders a list of existing facilities, including military sites, that could be used to detain those violating immigration law, and detailed statistics on credible claims of fear and how they have been processed since 2009.

The directive gives officials 75 days to report to Mr. Trump on additional resources or authorities they need to end catch-and-release practices. And within 60 days, it asks the secretaries of state and homeland security to submit a report on actions they are taking against countries that “refuse to expeditiously accept the repatriation of their nationals,” including whether the United States has punished them by refusing to grant visas to their citizens — and if not, why not.

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The Trump Administration already stands credibly accused in at least one pending court case of violating its legal duty to consider asylum claims by individuals who apply at ports of entry on the Southern Border. Obviously, such legal violations by our Government promote illegal entry as the only way to vindicate statutory rights. Trump’s outrageous creation of a “false crisis” at the Southern Border should prompt the Article III Federal Courts to enjoin the Administration to comply with the asylum law.

Moreover, further attempts to manipulate the “credible fear” criteria against asylum seekers should also lead to Federal Court review and action against the Administration if, as appears likely, it uses biased criteria to deny the legal right  of individuals in the U.S. or at the border to apply for asylum.

Moreover, asylum applicants who are “in the United States” whether legally or illegally and are in Removal Proceedings are entitled to an individualized bond consideration (unless they are serious criminals or security risks — the overwhelming number of asylum applicants are neither). Attempts to manipulate bond criteria (which have been undertaken to some extent by the last three Administrations) have almost uniformly been rejected by the Article III Federal Courts.

Therefore, the Administration’s legal options might be limited. However, the Administration arguably might have authority under current law to detain asylum applicants who arrive at ports of entry without providing any rational reasons for doing so. That’s likely to be a hotly contested issue in litigation.

Meanwhile, it’s critically important for those of us who support American values and see through the charade being put on by the Trump Administration to elect only U.S. Senators and Representatives who will “Just Say No” to the Administration’s bogus requests for: 1) more unneeded DHS enforcement personnel; and 2) more unneeded detention space in the “New American Gulag” being created by Trump and his White Nationalist reactionaries.

Harm to the most vulnerable is harm to all of us! Join the New Due Process Army and resist the Trump Administration’s contrived assault on America! Due Process Forever! Trump & Sessions Never!

PWS

04-07-18

Related posts:

  1. HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM COURTSIDE! — I Take A Look Forward @ 2019’s Big Immigration Stories
  2. AMERICA’S “MASS ATROCITY” — Professor Kate Cronin-Furman Says Don’t Kid Yourself About What The Trump Administration Is Doing In Your Name & How “Ordinary Civil Servants” Carry Out The Unthinkable & Unacceptable!
  3. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

HON. BRUCE J. EINHORN IN WASHPOST: SESSIONS’S BLATANT ATTEMPT TO INTIMIDATE U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES TO DEPORT INDIVIDUALS IN VIOLATION OF DUE PROCESS SHOWS A SYSTEM THAT HAS HIT ROCK BOTTOM! — Are There Any “Adults” Out There In Congress Or The Article III Courts With The Guts To Stand Up & Put An End To This Perversion Of American Justice? — “Due process requires judges free of political influence. Assembly-line justice is no justice at all.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jeff-sessions-wants-to-bribe-judges-to-do-his-bidding/2018/04/05/fd4bdc48-390a-11e8-acd5-35eac230e514_story.html?utm_term=.770822e8f813

My former colleague Judge Bruce J. Einhorn writes in the Washington Post:

Bruce J. Einhorn, an adjunct professor of immigration, asylum and refugee law at Pepperdine University, served as a U.S. immigration judge from 1990 to 2007.
It’s a principle that has been a hallmark of our legal culture: The president shouldn’t be able to tell judges what to do.
No longer. The Trump administration is intent on imposing a quota system on federal immigration judges, tying their evaluations to the number of cases they decide in a year. This is an affront to judicial independence and the due process of law.
I served as a U.S. immigration judge in Los Angeles for 17 years, presiding over cases brought against foreign-born noncitizens who Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers believed were in this country illegally and should thus be removed. My responsibility included hearing both ICE’s claims and the claims from respondents for relief from removal, which sometimes included asylum from persecution and torture.
As a judge, I swore to follow the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees that “no person” (not “no citizen”) is deprived of due process of law. Accordingly, I was obliged to conduct hearings that guaranteed respondents a full and reasonable opportunity on all issues raised against them.
My decisions and the manner in which I conducted hearings were subject to review before the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals and U.S. courts of appeals. At no time was my judicial behavior subject to evaluation based on how quickly I completed hearings and decided cases. Although my colleagues on the bench and I valued efficiency, the most critical considerations were fairness, thoroughness and adherence to the Fifth Amendment. If our nativist president and his lapdog of an attorney general, Jeff Sessions, have their way, those most critical considerations will become a relic of justice.
Under the Trump-Sessions plan, each immigration judge, regardless of the nature and scope of proceedings assigned to him or her, will be required to complete 700 cases in a year to qualify for a “satisfactory” performance rating. It follows that only judges who complete more, perhaps many more, than 700 cases per year will qualify for a higher performance rating and, with it, a possible raise in pay.
Essentially, the administration’s plan is to bribe judges to hear and complete more cases regardless of their substance and complexity, with the corollary that judges who defy the quota imposed on them will be regarded as substandard and subject to penalties. The plan should be seen for what it is: an attempt to undermine judicial independence and compel immigration judges to look over their shoulders to make sure that the administration is smiling at them.
This is a genuine threat to the independence of the immigration bench. While Article III of the Constitution guarantees the complete independence of the federal district courts and courts of appeal, immigration judges are part of the executive branch. Notwithstanding the right of immigration judges to hear and decide cases as they believe they should under immigration law, they are unprotected from financial extortion and not-so-veiled political intimidation under the U.S. Administrative Procedure Actor any regulations.
Moreover, federal laws do not guarantee respondents in removal hearings a right to counsel, and a majority of those in such hearings are compelled to represent themselves before immigration judges, regardless of the complexity of their cases. Those who lack representation in removal hearings typically cannot afford it, and the funds to help legal aid organizations fill in for private attorneys are nowhere to be found.
Hearings in which respondents proceed pro se, or unrepresented, are often the most challenging and time-consuming for immigration judges, who must take care to assure that the procedural rights of those facing possible removal are protected and to guarantee that inarticulate relief claims are fully considered.
The Trump administration’s intention is clear: to intimidate supposedly independent judges to expedite cases, even if it undermines fairness — as will certainly be the case for pro se respondents. Every immigration judge knows that in general, it takes longer to consider and rule in favor of relief for a respondent than it does to agree with ICE and order deportation. The administration wants to use quotas to make immigration judges more an arm of ICE than independent adjudicators.
In my many years on the immigration bench, I learned that repressive nations had one thing in common: a lack of an independent judiciary. Due process requires judges free of political influence. Assembly-line justice is no justice at all.
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Thanks, Bruce for speaking out so forcefully, articulately, and truthfully!
Jeff Sessions is a grotesque affront to the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, American values, and human decency. Every day that he remains in office is a threat to our democracy. There could be no better evidence of why we need an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court!

Due Process Forever! Jeff Sessions Never! Join the New Due Process Army Now! The fight must go on until Sessions and his toxic “21st Century Jim Crows” are defeated, and the U.S. Immigration Courts finally are forced to deliver on the betrayed promise of “guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” Harm to the most vulnerable among us is harm to all!

PWS

04-05-18

 

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

“HAPPY EASTER” — Trump Mocks Christian Values — Trump’s Easter Message Full Of Hate, Vitriol, Racism, Lies, & Ignorance — Now Targeting Dreamers!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2018/04/01/deal-on-daca-no-more-trump-says/

Philip Rucker and David Weigel report for the Washington Post:

PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump spent his Easter morning here on an anti-immigrant tirade, declaring Sunday that there would be no deal to legalize the status of undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers” and threatening to exit the North American Free Trade Agreement unless Mexico increases border security.

Trump thrust the future of millions of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children into peril by promising “NO MORE DACA DEAL,” and he directed congressional Republicans to pass tough anti-immigration legislation.

An hour after he wished Americans a “HAPPY EASTER,” Trump fired off three tweets in which he vented, sometimes in all caps, about immigration laws he derided as “ridiculous” and “dumb” and about border enforcement he deemed dangerously lax.

In his first of the immigration-related tweets, Trump wrote, “Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. ‘Caravans’ coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!”

 It was Trump who last fall canceled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which was begun in the Obama administration to provide temporary protection to dreamers.

The president added, “Mexico has got to help us at the border. . . . They flow right through Mexico; they send them into the United States. It can’t happen that way anymore.”

President Trump’s position on DACA has taken several twists and turns over the years.(Meg Kelly, Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post)

Trump in the past has promised to show “great heart” in dealing with DACA. In his comments Sunday, he appeared to be confused about the rules of the program. To qualify, immigrants must have lived in the United States since 2007, have arrived in the country before age 16 and have been younger than 31 on June 15, 2012. No one arriving in the country after that date is eligible.

After canceling DACA, Trump said he would like to reach a deal with Congress to protect dreamers from deportation in exchange for funding to build his long-promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. The president, however, went on to reject immigration proposals from congressional Democrats in recent months.

[ Immigration bills fail in Congress, leaving ‘dreamers’ in limbo ]

“Catch and release” is not a law, but shorthand for immigration officials freeing up detention center space by allowing immigrants to remain at large if they are not seen as security risks. The Trump administration has frequently claimed that the policy ended when the new president took office.

But detention centers have continued releasing low-risk immigrants, as the backlog of immigration court cases reaches the hundreds of thousands. On March 5, Attorney General Jeff Sessions informed immigration court judges that they could rule against asylum seekers without full hearings, which conservatives see as a way, in the long term, to open more space in detention centers.

Trump — who has spent his time in Palm Beach hanging out with family, playing golf with friends and watching television — may have tweeted in response to commentary on Fox News Channel, which he is known to view regularly.

“Fox & Friends” aired a segment earlier on Sunday morning about Central American migrants traveling through Mexico en route to the United States. It carried the headline: “CARAVAN OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS HEADED TO U.S.”

Trump’s Sunday comments may have been mere musings by an impassioned “Fox & Friends” viewer and may not signal a substantive shift in administration policies. Still, White House officials have long said Trump’s tweets are official presidential statements, and he has been known to use Twitter to preview formal policy pronouncements.

Trump sent his tweets on the fourth and final day of his vacation in Palm Beach, Fla., where he has been staying at his private Mar-a-Lago Club with a small coterie of aides. White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly did not travel with him, but senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, a proponent of hard-line immigration policies, has been with Trump.

The president also has been spotted spending time — both over dinner Friday at Mar-a-Lago and on Saturday at the nearby Trump International Golf Club — with Fox host Sean Hannity. An outspoken immigration hard-liner, Hannity is a Trump booster and informal presidential adviser, in addition to hosting a radio show and prime-time Fox show.

Trump’s tweets baffled some Democrats, who had seen the president distinguish between DACA recipients and other immigrants who are in the country illegally.

“Time and time again, the president has walked away from bipartisan proposals that are exactly what he asked for,” said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “When an agreement to protect the Dreamers is reached, it will be despite this president rather than with his leadership.”

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said on Twitter that Trump had once again revealed a racial animus behind his immigration policy. “The mask of deceptions and lies with which Trump has tried to gaslight the country for months just fell away: ‘no more DACA deal.’ ” Beyer tweeted. “His true position was always anti-immigrant.”

Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), a leading advocate for a DACA deal in the House, tweeted that Trump had “demonstrated his complete ignorance” on immigration policy.

“Everyone who qualifies for DACA must show they lived in US almost 11 years ago,” he wrote. “Apparently every day is April Fool’s Day at White House.”

Conservative reaction to the tweets was relatively muted, and no Republican member of Congress had a comment or statement Sunday afternoon. At Breitbart, the tweets were reported as Trump refusing to “negotiate a deal between the GOP establishment and Democrats,” in “a return to his ‘America First’ immigration agenda.”

On Facebook, the conservative author Ann Coulter, who had condemned Trump for not securing border wall funding so far this year, urged the president to show and not tell.

“Try to get a message to the commander in chief for that wall,” she wrote.

But some Republicans joined the chorus of criticism. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a GOP primary opponent of Trump in 2016 and possibly again in 2020, tweeted in response: “A true leader preserves & offers hope, doesn’t take hope from innocent children who call America home. Remember, today is Easter Sunday. #DACA #Hope”

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), a supporter of immigration reform who represents Miami and is retiring this year, took a sarcastic approach: “Such a strong message of love and new beginnings from @realDonaldTrump on Easter Sunday.”

By calling for Republicans to use the “Nuclear Option” to pass tough immigration measures, Trump seemed to urge a parliamentary procedure by which Senate Republicans could pass legislation with a simple majority of 51 votes as opposed to the 60-vote majority required to end debate and bring a vote to the floor.

But in mid-February, just 36 of the Senate’s 51 Republicans backed an immigration bill that mirrored White House demands. Congressional negotiations on DACA stalled just weeks later, when the Supreme Court upheld a decision that prevented the Trump administration from denying new program renewals.

The court’s move effectively nixed a March 6 deadline that the administration had set for ending DACA. Before leaving for Easter recess, Congress passed an omnibus spending bill with no DACA fix, even though advocates saw that as the best must-pass vehicle for one.

Trump lashed out at Mexico in his second of the three tweets Sunday. He threatened to “stop” NAFTA unless Mexican authorities do more to secure the border with the United States.

Trump wrote: “Mexico is doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S. They laugh at our dumb immigration laws. They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!”

And in the third tweet, the president wrote, “These big flows of people are all trying to take advantage of DACA. They want in on the act!”

Trump’s tweets come amid tense negotiations over NAFTA between his administration and that of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. A call between the two men in February became testy after Trump refused to publicly affirm Peña Nieto’s position that Mexico will not pay for the wall’s construction, leading the Mexican leader to cancel a planned visit to Washington.

[ After testy call with Trump over border wall, Mexican president shelves plan to visit White House ]

Weigel reported from Washington.

Philip Rucker is the White House bureau chief for The Washington Post. He previously has covered Congress, the Obama White House, and the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns. He joined The Post in 2005 as a local news reporter.

Follow @PhilipRucker

David Weigel is a national political correspondent covering Congress and grass-roots political movements. He is the author of “The Show That Never Ends,” a history of progressive rock music.

Follow @daveweigel

**********************************
Wow, hard to know where to start on this one.
  • DACA obviously has nothing to do with any “exodus” now on the way.  Rather, those arriving appear to be mostly refugees from the Northern Triangle — primarily scared women and children. And, they are being driven north not by DACA, but by unrelenting persecution and violence by gangs fueled by the Trump Administration’s own wrongheaded and tone-deaf policies. Sometimes, folks reap what they sow!
  • Most of the new arrivals probably can establish a legal right to refuge under the law. That’s why Sessions is so anxious to manipulate and “game” the existing asylum system against them. But, that move is likely to be tied up in the Federal Courts, perhaps for decades and with a good chance of grinding the entire immigration enforcement system to a halt.
  • The “Con-Man-In -Chief” seems to have forgotten that his “enforcement overload legislative proposal” failed miserably in the Senate — garnering only 40 votes. Even if the Senate were to change the “60 vote rule” — something which neither party seems inclined to do — it’s virtually impossible that Trump would be able to round up the necessary 11 additional votes for his “mega enforcement only” program. His problem is that his proposals have offended enough members of the GOP that they are basically DOA in the Senate.
  • While “The Wall” likely would have little impact on either immigration or drugs, fact is that Trump could have gotten “His Wall” in exchange for relief for the Dreamers. He just was too biased or inept (or both) to close the deal.
  • Trump has already claimed to have eliminated the inaptly named “catch and release” program. If there is a problem now, it’s with his own policies. Moreover, to the extent that releasing aliens on bond is a function of their being determined to be neither dangers to the community nor flight risks, that appears to be constitutionally required. Trump and the GOP can fume all they want, but they can’t eliminate the US Constitution.
  • Trump now appears to be backing away of his premature claim that his “get tough rhetoric and policies on immigration enforcement” had single-handedly closed down exgtra-legal migration. Human migration is driven by forces far more powerful than Donald Trump.
  • Mexico has been known to use some methods that violate human rights to enforce migration restrictions. Encouraging them to do that puts Trump and his buddies squarely on the side of human rights violators. On a more practical note, even assuming that there were legal measures that Mexico could take to stem the flow of northward bound migrants, Trump’s disparaging and inflammatory rhetoric has done little to encourage such action on the part of the Mexican Government. And using NAFTA to threaten Mexico is hardly likely to increase Mexico’s inclination to help.
  • As a country that imports more than it exports, we need NAFTA more than Mexico does. If the US wants to “dis” one of its primary trading partners, I have little doubt that countries like China, the EU, Canada, and even India will be happy to step in and fill the void. I imagine that the Chinese would love to stick some factories just south of the Mexico-US border, for all sorts of reasons.
  • Trump’s mean-spirited and idiotic approach to immigration, as well as his inappropriate and unhinged tweets, are a continuing embarrassment to our country and create real questions as to both his intelligence and his mental stability.

Happy Easter indeed!

PWS

04-01-18

 

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  3. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  4. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!

HERE’S AN INFO PACKED “TRIPLE HEADER” FROM TAL @ CNN: Trump Administration Moves To Undermine American Values On Three Fronts: Detention Of Pregnant Women, Targeting U.S. Citizen Children In Need, & Extreme Vetting!

http://www.cnn.com/2018/03/29/politics/ice-immigration-pregnant-women/index.html

ICE rolls back pregnant detainee release policy

By Tal Kopan, CNN

The Trump administration will no longer seek to automatically release pregnant immigrants from detention — a move in line with the overall efforts by the administration to hold far more immigrants in custody than its predecessors.

The change in policy was sent by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to Congress on Thursday morning and obtained by CNN.

According to the new directive, immigration officers will no longer default to trying to release pregnant women who fall into immigration custody, either because they are undocumented or otherwise subject to deportation. The Obama administration policy urged officers to presume a pregnant woman could be released except for extreme circumstances.

But a FAQ sent with the directive makes clear that ICE is not going to detain all pregnant immigrants. The policy will require a case-by-case evaluation, the FAQ explains, and will keep in custody “only those whose detention is necessary to effectuate removal, as well as those deemed a flight risk or danger to the community.”

ICE will also lean towards releasing pregnant women if they are in their third trimester, and will also make an effort for detention facilities to provide services to pregnant women and parents.

The move follows controversial efforts by the Department of Health and Human Services to keep unaccompanied minor immigrants in custody rather than releasing them to obtain abortions, a policy that has been the subject of intense litigation.

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http://www.cnn.com/2018/03/29/politics/immigrants-rejected-government-benefits/index.html

White House reviewing plan to restrict immigrants’ use of government programs

By: Tal Kopan, CNN

The White House is reviewing a proposal that could penalize immigrants who use certain government programs, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Thursday.

The proposed rule change would substantially expand the type of benefits that could be considered as grounds to reject any immigrants’ application to extend their stay in the US or become a permanent resident and eventually a citizen.

The move continues efforts by the Trump administration to overhaul the US immigration system and the changes could have the effect of substantially tipping the scales in favor of high-income immigrants — all without requiring an act of Congress. The changes could amount to an effective income test of immigrants to the US, critics say.

The expansion would going forward include programs like children’s health insurance, tax credits and some forms of Medicaid as black marks against immigrants seeking to change their status to stay.

By including benefits used by family members of the immigrants, the proposal could also apply to benefits being used by US citizens, who may be the spouse or child of the immigrant applying for status

DHS spokesman Tyler Houlton said the proposed rule had been sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget — the final step of the approval process before it’s released.

Houlton would not comment on the specifics of the proposal, but did said that DHS is “committed to enforcing existing immigration law … and part of that is respecting taxpayer dollars.”

CNN first reported on the changes as they were in development last month. The Washington Post obtained a more recent version of the proposal on Wednesday.

Why the change matters

US law authorizes authorities to reject immigrants if they are likely to become a “public charge” — or dependent on government.

Since the 1990s, that has meant that immigrants shouldn’t use so-called “cash benefits,” but a large number of programs were exempt from consideration.

But the new rule would include programs such as some forms of Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, food stamps, subsidized health care under Obamacare and the Earned Income Tax Credit, according to the latest draft obtained by the Post.

In one change from the earlier draft obtained by CNN, educational programs that benefit children, including Head Start, will not be included under the administration’s plan. Programs like veteran’s benefits that individuals earn would also be excluded.

The rule would not explicitly prohibit immigrants or their families from accepting the benefits. Rather, it authorizes the officers who evaluate their applications for things like green cards and residency visas to count the use of these programs against the immigrant, and gives them authority to deny the immigrants visas on these grounds — even if the program was used by a family member.

The decision sets up a difficult scenario for immigrants who hope to stay in the US. If they accept any public benefits — or their family members do — they could potentially be denied future abilities to stay. That includes decisions about whether to use health insurance subsidies for them or their children, or tax credits they qualify for otherwise.

Immigrants are no more likely to qualify for these programs than the native US population, according to tables included in the documents, the Post reported. There is no substantial difference in the rate between the two groups — in some cases foreign-born residents are slightly more likely to use a program, but in some cases the native-born population is, according to the tabulations.

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

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/29/politics/immigrants-social-media-information/index.html

US to require immigrants to turn over social media handles

By Tal Kopan, CNN

The Trump administration plans to require immigrants applying to come to the United States to submit five years of social media history, it announced Thursday, setting up a potential scouring of their Twitter and Facebook histories.

The move follows the administration’s emphasis on “extreme vetting” of would-be immigrants to the US, and is an extension of efforts by the previous administration to more closely scrutinize social media after the San Bernardino terrorist attack.

According to notices submitted by the State Department on Thursday, set for formal publication on Friday, the government plans to require nearly all visa applicants to the US to submit five years of social media handles for specific platforms identified by the government — and with an option to list handles for other platforms not explicitly required.

The administration expects the move to affect nearly 15 million would-be immigrants to the United States, according to the documents. That would include applicants for legal permanent residency. There are exemptions for diplomatic and official visas, the State Department said.

The decision will not take effect immediately — the publication of the planned change to visa applications on Friday will start a 60-day clock for the public to comment on the move.

The potential scouring of social media postings by potential immigrants is sure to rankle privacy and civil liberties advocates, who have been vocal in opposing such moves going back to efforts by the Obama administration to collect such information on a more selective and voluntary basis.

Critics complain the moves, amid broader efforts by the administration, are not only invasive on privacy grounds, but also effectively limit legal immigration to the US by slowing the process down, making it more burdensome and making it more difficult to be accepted for a visa.

Federal authorities argue the moves are necessary for national security.

In addition to requiring the five years of social media history, the application will also ask for previous telephone numbers, email addresses, prior immigration violations and any family history of involvement in terrorist activities, according to the notice.

Since its early days, the administration has been telegraphing a desire to more closely dig through the backgrounds and social media histories of foreign travelers, but Thursday’s move is the first time that it will formally require virtually all applicants to come to the US to disclose that information.

After the San Bernardino terrorist attack in 2015, greater attention was placed on immigrants’ social media use, when it was revealed that one of the attackers had advocated jihad in posts on a private social media account under a pseudonym that authorities did not find before allowing her to come to the US.

The move by the Trump administration stops short of requiring passwords or access to those social media accounts, although then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly suggested last year that it was being considered.

The administration has been pursuing “extreme vetting” of foreigners as a centerpiece of its immigration and national security policy, including through the contentious travel ban that remains the subject of heavy litigation.

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

The Administration’s war on immigrants, America, and American values continues!

PWS

03-30-18

 

Related posts:

  1. TAL @ CNN: TRUMP’S “GONZO” IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT POLICIES LIKELY TO FAIL AND ACTUALLY AGGRAVATE FORCES DRIVING UNDOCUMENTED MIGRATION!
  2. PROFESSOR FITZ BRUNDAGE @ WASHPOST: Can We Regain Our Humanitarian Values In The Age Of Trump? — “We must shine a spotlight on cruel and illegal policies that undermine our national ideals and find the wisdom and the courage to do better.”
  3. CHILD ABUSE: COWARDLY ADMINISTRATION USES FALSE NARRATIVES & DISTORTED FACTS TO ATTACK PROTECTIONS FOR REFUGEE CHILDREN — Our National Morality & Human Decency In Free-fall Under Trump! — “It has been national law and policy that as adults we look out for children …. No longer.”
  4. GONZO’S WORLD: AS SESSIONS RAMPS UP THE “NEW AMERICAN GULAG,” RAMPANT SEXUAL ABUSE OF FEMALE DETAINEES CERTAIN TO INCREASE! – AG’S Child Abuse Also Makes Him Complicit In Sexual Abuse! – See The Short Video By Emily Kassie Here!

Sean McElwee @ The Nation – WHY ICE MUST GO! — A Radical Idea Whose Time Has Come! — “Next to death, being stripped from your home, family, and community is the worst fate that can be inflicted on a human, as many societies practicing banishment have recognized. It’s time to rein in the greatest threat we face: an unaccountable strike force executing a campaign of ethnic cleansing.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/its-time-to-abolish-ice/

McElwee writes:

. . . .

The call to abolish ICE is, above all, a demand for the Democratic Party to begin seriously resisting an unbridled white-supremacist surveillance state that it had a hand in creating. Though the party has moved left on core issues from reproductive rights to single-payer health care, it’s time for progressives to put forward a demand that deportation be taken not as the norm but rather as a disturbing indicator of authoritarianism.

White supremacy can no longer be the center of the immigration debate. Democrats have voted to fully fund ICE with limited fanfare, because in the American immigration discussion, the right-wing position is the center and the left has no voice. There has been disturbing word fatigue around “mass deportation,” and the threat of deportation is so often taken lightly that many have lost the ability to conceptualize what it means. Next to death, being stripped from your home, family, and community is the worst fate that can be inflicted on a human, as many societies practicing banishment have recognized. It’s time to rein in the greatest threat we face: an unaccountable strike force executing a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

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

Read the rest of McElwee’s well-written and very provocative article at the link.

Not going to happen! Yet the out of control misconduct by ICE and its leadership during this Administration certainly helps McElwee make a powerful moral, if not practical political, case for elimination. Definitely worth a read.

PWS

03-13-18

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  3. COURTSIDE HISTORY: HOW THE FOUNDING FATHERS’ RACISM ERASED A PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER! — ALSO MY: “FRIDAY ESSAY — FROM MONTICELLO TO TRUMP, MILLER, SESSIONS, AND THE GOP WHITE NATIONALISTS”
  4. MARIA SACCHETTI IN WASHPOST: INSIDE THE “NAG” (NEW AMERICAN GULAG) — CRUEL, INHUMAN, DEGRADING TREATMENT APPEARS TO BE WIDESPREAD IN SO-CALLED “CIVIL” IMMIGRATION DETENTION! — Where’s The Outrage? — Where’s The Congressional Oversight? — Why Aren’t Guys Like “Gonzo” & Homan Who Knowingly Promote Violations Of Legal & Human Rights As (Unlawful) “Immigration Deterrence” Under Investigation For Their Roles In Violating Human, Constitutional Rights!

HON. JEFFREY CHASE ON MATTER OF E-F-H-L- — SESSIONS’S OUTRAGEOUS ATTTACK ON DUE PROCESS AND RIGHTS OF VULNERABLE ASYLUM SEEKERS SHOWS WHY COURT SYSTEM CONTROLLED BY BIASED A.G. IS A FARCE!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2018/3/10/the-ags-strange-decision-in-matter-of-e-f-h-l-

The AG’s Strange Decision in Matter of E-F-H-L-

On Monday, the Attorney General’s strange decision in Matter of E-F-H-L- had many of us talking well into the night.  As background, the BIA published its precedent decision in Matter of E-F-H-L- in 2014.  The case involved an immigration judge’s decision that an asylum applicant’s claim was not deserving of a merits hearing.  Instead of a hearing at which he would have had the opportunity to testify, present witnesses, file documentary evidence, and present legal arguments, the immigration judge simply denied the case on the written application alone.  On appeal, the BIA reached the obvious conclusion that all asylum applicants merit the right to a hearing, and remanded the record back to the immigration judge for that purpose.

Four years later (i.e. this past Monday), Attorney General Jeff Sessions unexpectedly inserted himself into the matter.  It seems that by the time the record arrived back in immigration court, the respondent was now eligible to obtain lawful permanent residence based on a relative petition.  As such petition is a far more certain and direct route to legal status, and carries greater benefits, the respondent followed the common practice of withdrawing his application for asylum in order to proceed on the visa petition alone.  Furthermore, because USCIS (and not the immigration judge) has the authority to decide the visa petition, both the respondent and DHS agreed to administratively close proceedings in order to allow USCIS to adjudicate the petition (which often takes some time) without either having such effort delayed by removal proceedings, or wasting the court’s valuable time by holding unnecessary status-check hearings.  Ordinarily, once the visa petition is decided one way or the other, the parties will move the immigration judge to recalendar the case.

However, such cooperation, efficiency, and consideration is apparently not to the AG’s liking.  On Monday, he determined that because the matter was remanded for an asylum hearing, but the asylum application was subsequently withdrawn, the Board’s precedent guaranteeing asylum applicants the right to a hearing should for some reason be vacated.  He further ordered an end to administrative closure, and that the case be placed back on the IJ’s active hearing calendar, where time and taxpayer money can be wasted on unnecessary hearings, which could possibly delay USCIS in adjudicating the visa petition.

So what does all of this mean?  First, Sessions has now done away with a Board precedent decision entitling all asylum applicants to a full hearing.  The Board’s original decision in E-F-H-L- cited regulations, statute, the UNHCR Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status, case law, and common sense in reaching such conclusion.  The fact that years later, the respondent became eligible for another form of relief in no way negates the Board’s reasoned conclusion.

Additionally, the AG’s action might have a chilling effect on immigration judges.  In the past, Attorneys General have certified cases to themselves where they disagreed with a decision reached by the Board.  However, I don’t believe an AG has ever before followed a case years later all the way down to the immigration court level and chosen to certify a case because of an action taken by the immigration judge in the normal course of proceedings.  Administratively closing a proceeding to allow USCIS to adjudicate a visa petition is standard procedure – DHS agreed to such action. Yet now, immigration judges have to worry that the AG is watching. How quickly will judges administratively close under the same circumstances, even if everyone agrees it is the correct thing to do?

Furthermore, as it is extremely unlikely that Sessions is  reviewing every decision every immigration judge is making, someone – in DHS? In EOIR? – is signalling the AG’s office of cases such as this one.  Although the immigration courts and BIA are supposed to be neutral, the playing field is not level when the respondent must appeal an unfavorable to the federal circuit courts, whereas DHS can simply ask the Attorney General to reverse a decision of which it disapproves.

Copyright 2017 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

REPRINTED BY PERMISSION.

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How many innocent, vulnerable individuals will die or have their lives ruined  by the travesty of justice unfolding under Jeff Sessions before Congress takes the necessary action to free the U.S. Immigration Courts from blatant and unwarranted political interference in decision-making?

We need an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court now!

PWS

03-12-18

Related posts:

  1. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  2. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  3. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  4. GONZO’S WORLD: THIS IS WHY HE STAYS: UNDERNEATH ALL THE “TRUMP NOISE” SESSIONS IS METHODICALLY ERADICATING DUE PROCESS, PERVERTING THE LAW, & TURNING ONE OF THE LARGEST FEDERAL COURT SYSTEMS INTO A “KILLING FLOOR” TARGETING OUR MOST VULNERABLE & DESERVING REFUGEES! — “[Sessions] is dumbing down the judges and treating them like assembly-line workers whose only job is to stamp out final orders of removal.”

TAL @ CNN TELLS ALL ON HOW SESSIONS IS USING HIS AUTHORITY OVER THE SCREWED UP U.S. IMMIGRATION COURTS TO ATTACK DUE PROCESS & TARGET VULNERABLE ASYLUM SEEKERS — One Of My Quotes: “I think due process is under huge attack in the immigration courts. Every once in a while Sessions says something about due process, but his actions say something quite different.”

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/10/politics/sessions-immigration-appeals-decision/index.html

Sessions tests limits of immigration powers with asylum moves
Tal Kopan
By Tal Kopan, CNN
Updated 8:01 AM ET, Sat March 10, 2018

Washington (CNN)The US immigration courts are set up to give the attorney general substantial power to almost single-handedly direct how immigration law is interpreted in this country — and Jeff Sessions is embracing that authority.

Sessions quietly moved this week to adjust the way asylum cases are decided in the immigration courts, an effort that has the potential to test the limits of the attorney general’s power to dictate whether immigrants are allowed to enter and stay in the US and, immigration advocates fear, could make it much harder for would-be asylees to make their cases to stay here.
Sessions used a lesser-known authority this week to refer to himself two decisions from the Board of Immigration Appeals, the appellate level of the immigration courts. Both deal with asylum claims — the right of immigrants who are at the border or in the US to stay based on fear of persecution back home.

In one case, Sessions reached into the Board of Immigration Appeals archives and overturned a ruling from 2014 — a precedent-setting decision that all asylum cases are entitled to a hearing before their claims can be rejected. In the other, Sessions is asking for briefs on an unpublished opinion as to how much the threat of being the victim of a crime can qualify for asylum. The latter has groups puzzled and concerned, as the underlying case remains confidential, per the Justice Department, and thus the potential implications are harder to discern. Experts suspect the interest has to do with whether fear of gang violence — a major issue in Central America — can support asylum claims.
A Justice official would say only on the latter case that the department is considering the issue due to a “lack of clarity” in the court system on the subject. On the former, spokesman Devin O’Malley said the Board of Immigration Appeals’ 2014 holding “added unnecessary cases to the dockets of immigration judges who are working hard to reduce an already large immigration court backlog.”
Tightening asylum
Sessions referring the cases to himself follows other efforts during his tenure to influence the courts, the Justice Department says, in an effort to make them quicker and more efficient. In addition to expanding the number of Board of Immigration Appeals judges and hiring immigration judges at all levels at a rapid clip, the Justice Department has rolled out guidance and policies to try to move cases more quickly through the system, including possible performance measures that have the judges’ union concerned they could be evaluated on the number of closed cases.

“What is he up to? That would be speculation to say, but definitely there have been moves in the name of efficiency that, if not implemented correctly, could jeopardize due process,” said  Rená Cutlip-Mason, until last year a Justice Department immigration courts official and now a leader at the Tahirih Justice Center, a nonprofit that supports immigrant women and girls fleeing violence.
“I think it’s important that the courts balance efficiencies with due process, and any efforts that are made, I think, need to be made with that in mind,” she added.
The Board of Immigration Appeals decisions could allow Sessions to make it much harder to seek asylum in the US.
Asylum is a favorite target of immigration hardliners, who argue that because of the years-long backlog to hear cases, immigrants are coached to make asylum claims for what’s billed as a guaranteed free pass to stay in the country illegally.
Advocates, however, say the vast majority of asylum claims are legitimate and that trying to stack the decks against immigrants fleeing dangerous situations is immoral and contrary to international law. Making the process quicker, they argue, makes it harder for asylum seekers — who are often traumatized, unfamiliar with English and US law, and may not have advanced education — to secure legal representation to help make their cases. The immigration courts allow immigrants to have counsel but no legal assistance is provided by the government, unlike in criminal courts.
Reshaping the immigration courts
Beyond asylum, Sessions’ efforts could have far-reaching implications for the entire immigration system, and illustrate the unique nature of the immigration court system, which gives him near singular authority to interpret immigration laws.
Immigration cases are heard outside of the broader federal court system. The immigration courts operate as the trial- or district-level equivalent and the Board of Immigration Appeals serves as the appellate- or circuit court-level. Both are staffed with judges selected by the attorney general, who do not require any third-party confirmation.
How Trump changed the rules to arrest more non-criminal immigrants
How Trump changed the rules to arrest more non-criminal immigrants
In this system, the attorney general him or herself sits at the Supreme Court’s level, with even more authority than the high court to handpick decisions. The attorney general has the authority to refer any Board of Immigration Appeals decision to his or her office for review, and can single-handedly overturn decisions and set interpretations of immigration law that become precedent followed by the immigration courts.
The power is not absolute — immigrants can appeal their cases to the federal circuit courts, and at times those courts and, eventually, the Supreme Court will overrule immigration courts’ or Justice Department decisions. That’s especially true when cases deal with constitutional rights, said former Obama administration Justice Department immigration official Leon Fresco. Fresco added that the federal courts’ deference to the immigration courts’ interpretation of the law has decreased in the past 10 years, though that could change as more of the President’s chosen judges are added to the bench.
But Sessions could be on track to test the limits of his power, and the moves might set up further intense litigation on the subject.
“From what I can see, Sessions is really testing how far those powers really go,” said Cutlip-Mason. “The fact that the attorney general can have this much power is a very interesting way that the system’s been set up.”
Retired immigration Judge Paul Wickham Schmidt, who served for years in federal immigration agencies and the immigration courts, said that to say the immigration courts are full due process is “sort of a bait and switch.” He says despite the presentation of the courts’ decisions externally, the message to immigration judges internally is that they work for the attorney general.
“I think due process is under huge attack in the immigration courts. Every once in a while Sessions says something about due process, but his actions say something quite different.”

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The idea that the U.S. Immigration Courts can fairly adjudicate asylum cases and provide Due Process to migrants with Jeff Sessions in charge is a bad joke.

America needs an independent Article I Immigration Court.

Harm to the most vulnerable among us is harm to all of us.

PWS

03-11–17

Related posts:

  1. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. HON. JEFFREY CHASE: Speaking Out Against The “Notable Minority” Of U.S. Immigration Judges Who Demonstrated Bias Against Women & Asylum Seekers – “Think about that: some federally appointed immigration judges cheered the fact that women who had been violently raped and beaten in their country can no longer find refuge here, and will be sent back to face more violence, and possibly death. Will there be any consequences for their actions? Were the many outstanding immigration judges who have been proud to grant such cases in the past, who were saddened and sickened by this decision, able to openly jeer or weep or curse this decision? Or would that have been viewed as dangerous?”
  4. TRUMP TREATS KIDS AS HUMAN PAWNS IN UGLY POLITICAL CHESS GAME – Administration’s Continued Spreading Of False Narrative On Migration Makes Continuing Migration Outside of Legal System Inevitable!

ANA COMPOY @ QUARTZ — WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING, JEFF SESSIONS WAS HARD AT WORK DISMANTLING DUE PROCESS IN THE AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM — We’re Headed For a Monumental Train Wreck In The “REAL” Article III Courts As Sessions Tries To Force “Kangaroo Court” Work Product Down Their Throats (Again) — I’m Quoted In This Article

https://qz.com/1223294/jeff-sessions-is-quietly-remaking-the-us-immigration-system/

 

It’s been a busy week for Jeff Sessions. The US attorney general is deploying his broad powers to remake the US’s immigration system instead of waiting for Congress to pass legislation.
Late Tuesday, he filed a lawsuit against the state of California, for its policies limiting cooperation between state officers and federal immigration agents. “Federal law is the supreme law of the land,” he said in a speech in Sacramento on Wednesday.
Far more quietly, on Monday, Sessions took the unusual step of digging up an old legal decision that affirmed asylum-seekers’ right to a make their case in court—and cancelled it. That little-noticed move has the potential of doing more to further Trump’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants than his attack on so-called sanctuary jurisdictions like California.

Sessions’s choice to revisit the four-year-old case on Monday was not explained in his three-paragraph announcement. A Justice Department spokesperson tells Quartz that the decision which Session overruled had “added unnecessary cases to the dockets of immigration judges, who are working hard to reduce an already large immigration court backlog.”
The mountain of pending immigration cases, which now stands at nearly 670,000, has emerged as a major bottleneck for Trump’s administration. Regardless of their legal status, many immigrants are entitled to a day in court under the law. With US immigration courts chronically understaffed, that can take years. Many applications will likely be processed more quickly—and denied—if asylum-seekers aren’t given the chance to argue their case.
The Matter of E-F-H-L

As head of the Department of Justice, Sessions oversees the country’s immigration courts, and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA,) where parties can contest immigration judge decisions. Unlike federal or state courts, the immigration court system is not part of an independent judicial branch, but embedded within a president’s administration.

Critics—including many immigration judges—say that setup makes the court system vulnerable to political interference, and there’s evidence that both Democratic and Republican administrations have done that to further their goals.
Among the attorney general’s powers is the ability to single-handedly overwrite any decisions by the BIA, as Sessions did on Monday. The decision he is zeroing in on is related to a case dubbed “Matter of E-F-H-L,” after the initials of the person who brought it to the appellate body. E-F-H-L, a Honduran immigrant, requested asylum. He appeared before an immigration court, but didn’t get a chance to testify because the judge determined E-F-H-L had no chance of getting asylum based on his application.
E-F-H-L appealed the decision to the BIA, which found that the judge had dismissed the case prematurely. An asylum applicant, it said in its decision, “is entitled to a hearing on the merits of the applications, including an opportunity to provide oral testimony and other evidence.” By striking it, Sessions is signaling that giving asylum seekers that chance is no longer required.
Paul Schmidt, a former immigration judge, says it’s important to hear out asylum applicants even if their case doesn’t look very solid on paper. Many of them—around 20% whose cases were decided in fiscal 2017—don’t have a lawyer, and are not familiar with the kind of information that should be included in the application. Others don’t even speak English. “You can’t always tell how the case is coming out just by looking at the application,” he said.
But another retired immigration judge, Andrew Arthur, welcomed the apparent change. “Given the fact that an asylum merits case can take anywhere between two hours and several days, this authority will allow those judges to streamline their dockets and complete more cases in a timely manner,” he wrote in a post for the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for reducing undocumented immigration.
Sessions’s decision also appears to target the asylum system in particular, which he’s said is being gamed by people with false claims. The precedent it sets is bound to make it more difficult for asylum seekers to make their case.
Administrative closure

Sessions’s sudden interest in E-F-H-L also appears to be related to a tool immigration judges often use referred to as “administrative closure.” That’s when a judge decides to put a case on the back burner instead of immediately deciding whether a person can stay in the US or should be deported.
There are several reasons why judges might delay a case’s decision. Sometimes rescheduling helps them organize their crowded docket; other times an immigrant may be in the middle of a visa application with US Citizen and Immigration Services, in which case it makes sense to wait until that process is completed, says Lenni Benson, a professor at New York Law School.
That appears to have been E-F-H-L’s case. In its decision, the BIA ordered the judge to give E-F-H-L a proper hearing, but by that time, he had applied for a family-based visa and didn’t want to follow through on his asylum claim. So the judge put the case in administrative closure. In his Monday decision, Sessions argued that since the immigrant is no longer applying for asylum, his case should be put back on the docket and resolved.
It seems odd that the head of the Justice Department would make time in his busy schedule to single out an obscure four-year-old case. But Benson says it fits within a broader effort to remove judges’ ability to put a case on hold.
Earlier this year, Sessions used his authority to pluck another case, this one involving a Guatemalan minor, to question the use of administrative closure. He is currently asking for input before taking any action, however. (Several groups, including the Safe Passage Project, a non-profit where Benson runs a program to train pro bono lawyers to represent immigrant youth, have filed a brief advocating for Sessions to keep the practice.)
If he doesn’t, the group of affected immigrants would be much broader than just asylum seekers. The use of administrative closure expanded during the Obama presidency. Because that administration’s focus was on criminals, the cases of many undocumented immigrants with a clean record became lower priorities. Administrative closure essentially took those immigrants off the list of deportation targets, even if their legal status remained unchanged.
The Trump administration, however, has made it clear it’s going after everyone who is in the country illegally. With efforts to change immigration law stalled in Congress, Sessions appears to be doing everything he can administratively to carry out Donald Trump’s vision.

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As Judge Arthur acknowledges, a “real” Due Process asylum merits hearing takes from two hours to two days — a big deal. So, his solution is to eliminate the hearing and thereby the respondent’s only chance to fully present her or his case.

Even if the respondent loses before the Immigration Judge, he or she is entitled to an appeal to the BIA and review in the Court of Appeals. Sometimes the BIA and more often the Circuit Courts disagree with the legal standards applied by the Immigration Judge. How does a respondent make a showing of what evidence supports his or her claim if not allowed to testify on that claim?

Haste makes waste. During the Ashcroft regime, there DOJ also attempted to short-circuit Due Process by  “streamlining” cases, primarily at the BIA level. The result, as I have noted before, was a tremendous mess in the Circuit Courts, as court after court found that the records sent to them for review were rife with legal errors, incomplete, inadequate, or all three.

The result was tons of remands that essentially tied up large portions of the Federal Court System as well as the DOJ on cases that were “Not Quite Ready For Prime Time.” However, many individuals who did not have the resources to appeal their cases all the way to the Circuit Courts were illegally removed from the US without receiving the fair hearings guaranteed by statute or the Due Process guaranteed by our Constitution.

Sessions, with the encouragement of folks like Judge Arthur, seems to be determined to repeat this grotesque abuse of American justice. However, this time there is a “New Due Process Army” out there with some of the top legal minds in the country prepared to fight to stop Sessions and his cohorts from violating the Constitution, our statutes, our values, and the rights of the most vulnerable among us.

Harm to one is harm to all!

PWS

05-08-18

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  3. MICHELLE BRANE @ WOMEN’S REFUGEE COMMISSION — “Why I March!”
  4. TAL @ CNN TELLS ALL ON HOW SESSIONS IS USING HIS AUTHORITY OVER THE SCREWED UP U.S. IMMIGRATION COURTS TO ATTACK DUE PROCESS & TARGET VULNERABLE ASYLUM SEEKERS — One Of My Quotes: “I think due process is under huge attack in the immigration courts. Every once in a while Sessions says something about due process, but his actions say something quite different.”

NEW SCHOLARSHIP FROM PROFESSOR RUTH ELLEN WASEM, LBJ SCHOOL @ UT TAKES ON PROBLEMS OF 21ST CENTURY IMMIGRATION GOVERNANCE — “Immigration is not a program to be administered; rather, it is a phenomenon to be managed.”

Immigration Governance for the Twenty-First

Ruth Ellen Wasem The University of Texas at Austin

6 Journal on Migration and Human Security  97 (2018)

KEY QUOTE:

Even with fragmented governance and strained resources, the US immigration system has enjoyed successes. Each year, approximately one million foreign nationals legally become permanent residents in the United States. In FY 2015 and FY 2016, the Bureau of Consular Affairs issued over 10 million visas each year to foreign nationals coming to the United States as nonimmigrants (i.e., for a temporary purpose and a temporary period of time) and over half a million visas to LPRs (Bureau of Consular Affairs 2017). CBP admitted almost 77 million foreign nationals as nonimmigrant admissions to the United States in FY 2015 (Office of Immigration Statistics 2016). That year, DOL processed 711,820 employer applications for 1,580,778 positions for temporary and permanent labor certifications Immigration Governance for the Twenty-First Century 117 (Office of Foreign Labor Certification 2016). In FY 2015, there were 730,259 LPRs who became US citizens. That same year, the United States admitted 69,920 refugees, and USCIS approved 26,124 asylees. DHS apprehended 462,388 foreign nationals and deported 444,431 foreign nationals in FY 2015. Another 253,509 foreign nationals were denied entry, and 129,122 foreign nationals returned home without a formal order of removal (Office of Immigration Statistics 2016). In FY 2016, EOIR judges received 328,122 cases and completed 273,390, including those of 8,726 foreign nationals who were granted asylum (EOIR 2017). Considerable credit is due to the people carrying out immigration-related responsibilities across the federal government.

Immigration is not a program to be administered; rather, it is a phenomenon to be managed. While there are limits to how much one government can control migration, the building blocks in Figure 3 offer a reasonable set of priorities. Effective immigration governance, coupled with laws and policies that incorporate the national interests, is key to maintaining a robust sovereign nation.

Get the entire article, which I highly recommend, at this link:

Wasem,ImmigrationGovernance21st Century

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Words of wisdom, to be sure. If only our policy makers had the same degree of understanding.

Today, we operate on an illusion that a few folks sitting in Washington, D.C. can “pull all the strings” to seal borders, override market forces, ignore international conditions and agreements, change behavior in foreign countries, and dominate forces of human migration that have been at work since before all of us were born and will continue long after we’re all gone. It’s a toxic mix of arrogance and ignorance that will leave immigration and refugee policy in tatters for years to come.

I can only hope that there are those out there in the upcoming generations who will bring to the immigration phenomenon practical scholarship, reason, humanity, fairness, and better ideas on management of our laws for the benefit of our country and humanity as a whole.

PWS

03-07-18

Related posts:

  1. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  2. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  3. WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL RIPS TRUMP/SESSIONS “GONZO” IMMIGRATION AGENDA AS “ANTI-AMERICAN!”– White Nationalist Inspired Restrictionism Is Suppressing The Real Dialogue We Should Be Having!
  4. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!

WASHPOST: ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER ACT OF WANTON CRUELTY BY NIELSEN’S DHS — “Gratuitous malice toward children is not a characteristic one generally associates with the United States, but under Ms. Nielsen’s guidance, the Department of Homeland Security seems intent on changing that.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gratuitous-cruelty-by-homeland-security-separating-a-7-year-old-from-her-mother/2018/03/04/98fae4f0-1bff-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html

Gratuitous cruelty by Homeland Security: Separating a 7-year-old from her mother

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in the White House on March 1. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
By Editorial Board March 4 at 7:11 PM
WHAT, EXACTLY, did a 7-year-old Congolese girl do to the United States to deserve the trauma that has been visited upon her — including forcible separation from her mother — by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and her immigration agents?

There is no allegation that the little girl, known in court filings only as S.S., is a terrorist, nor is there any suggestion her mother is one. Neither was involved with smuggling, nor contraband, nor lawbreaking of any other variety. Rather, S.S.’s 39-year-old mother presented herself and her daughter to U.S. officials when they crossed the border from Mexico four months ago, explaining they had fled extreme violence in Congo, and requesting asylum.

A U.S. asylum officer interviewed Ms. L, as the mother is called in a lawsuit filed on her behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union, determined that she had a credible fear of harm if she were returned to Congo and stood a decent chance of ultimately being granted asylum. Despite that preliminary finding, officials decided that the right thing to do was to wrench S.S. from her mother, whereupon the mother “could hear her daughter in the next room frantically screaming that she wanted to remain with her mother,” the lawsuit states.

The Trump administration has said that it is considering separating parents from their children as a means of deterring other families, most of them Central American, from undertaking the perilous trip necessary to reach the United States and seek asylum. Now, without any formal announcement, that cruel practice, ruled out by previous administrations, has become increasingly common, immigrant advocacy groups say. In the nine months preceding February, government agents separated children from their parents 53 times, according to data compiled by the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

Make no mistake: Ms. L and S.S. could have been placed together in a family detention center. There has been no explanation of why the determination was made to separate them; nor is there any allegation that Ms. L. is an unfit parent. The only principle at work, if it can be called that, is the idea that future asylum seekers might be deterred if they are convinced that the United States is actually a crueler and more heartless place than their native country.

Gratuitous malice toward children is not a characteristic one generally associates with the United States, but under Ms. Nielsen’s guidance, the Department of Homeland Security seems intent on changing that. A Homeland Security spokesman would not comment on this case but said that the department does not “currently” have a policy regarding separating asylum-seeking parents and children who are detained.

Separating children from their parents while they await adjudication of asylum claims is of a piece with arresting and deporting upstanding, otherwise law-abiding unauthorized immigrants who have lived and worked for decades in the United States and are the parents of U.S.-born children. That practice, too, carried out by Homeland Security deportation agents, has become far more common under the Trump administration.

Since being torn away in early November, S.S., who is being held at a facility in Chicago, has been permitted to speak with her mother, who is in a detention center in San Diego, just half a dozen times by phone. The girl, who turned 7 in December, routinely cries on the phone, according to the ACLU lawsuit. Is this the kind of protection Americans want from their Department of Homeland Security?

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It’s almost (but not quite) unfair to blame Nielsen for this garbage. After all, she was selected for the DHS position precisely because she is a gutless intellectual lightweight who will just do the foul bidding of Trump, Sessions, Kelly, and Miller no questions asked and no resistance tolerated. That’s what “government by sycophants” is all about.

In the meantime, the New Due Process Army and the rest of us who still believe in our Constitution and humane values have to redouble our resistance to the evil of the Trumpsters and their allies. In the end, it’s a fight for the heart and soul of America as nation!

PWS

03-05-18

 

Related posts:

  1. MARIA SACCHETTI IN WASHPOST: INSIDE THE “NAG” (NEW AMERICAN GULAG) — CRUEL, INHUMAN, DEGRADING TREATMENT APPEARS TO BE WIDESPREAD IN SO-CALLED “CIVIL” IMMIGRATION DETENTION! — Where’s The Outrage? — Where’s The Congressional Oversight? — Why Aren’t Guys Like “Gonzo” & Homan Who Knowingly Promote Violations Of Legal & Human Rights As (Unlawful) “Immigration Deterrence” Under Investigation For Their Roles In Violating Human, Constitutional Rights!
  2. FOUR TODDLERS RESCUED BY PRO BONO LAWYERS FROM DEADLY SITUATION IN CBP CUSTODY — Putrid, Unsanitary, Repressive Conditions Causing Lifetime Harm To Other Traumatized Kids — But, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost Wants You To Know That She’s Not Taking Responsibility For The Humanitarian Disaster Intentionally Engineered On Her Watch!
  3. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

LAUREN MARKHAM IN THE NEW REPUBLIC: Why “Trumpism” Ultimately Will Fail – Those Ignorant of Human History & Unwilling To Learn From It Will Just Keep Repeating The Same Expensive Mistakes – “One tragic lesson of the extra-continentales is that no set of governments, however callous, can solve the migration crisis by closing its doors to refugees seeking shelter. . . . The doors will not hold, and neither will the fences. You can build a wall, but it will not work. Desperate people find a way.”

https://newrepublic.com/article/146919/this-route-doesnt-exist-map

“How efforts to block refugees and asylum-seekers from Europe have only made the global migration crisis more complex and harrowing

By LAUREN MARKHAM

By 7 p.m., the sun had set and groups of young men had begun to gather inside a small, nameless restaurant on a narrow street in Tapachula, Mexico. Anywhere else in the city, a hub of transit and commerce about ten miles north of the Guatemalan border, there would be no mistaking that you were in Latin America: The open colonial plaza, with its splaying palms and marimba players, men with megaphones announcing Jesus, and women hawking woven trinkets and small bags of cut fruit suggested as much. But inside the restaurant, the atmosphere was markedly different. The patrons hailed not from Mexico or points due south but from other far-flung and unexpected corners of the globe—India, Pakistan, Eritrea, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Congo. Men, and all of the diners were men, gathered around tables, eating not Mexican or Central American fare but steaming plates of beef curry, yellow lentils, and blistered rounds of chapati. The restaurant’s proprietor, a stern, stocky Bangladeshi man in his thirties named Sadek, circulated among the diners. He stopped at one table of South Asian men and spoke to them in Hindi about how much they owed him for the items he’d collected on their tab. The waitress, patiently taking orders and maneuvering among the crowds of men, was the only Spanish speaker in the room.

Outside, dozens of other such men, travelers from around the world, mingled on the avenue. They reclined against the walls of restaurants and smoked cigarettes on the street-side balconies of cheap hotels. They’d all recently crossed into the country from Guatemala, and most had, until recently, been held in Tapachula’s migrant detention center, Siglo XXI. Just released, they had congregated in this packed migrants’ quarter as they prepared to continue their journeys out of Mexico and into the United States. They had traveled a great distance already: a transatlantic journey by airplane or ship to Brazil; by car, bus, or on foot to Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia; through Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua; on to Honduras, Guatemala, and into Mexico. Again and again, I heard their itinerary repeated in an almost metronomic cadence, each country a link in a daunting, dangerous chain. They’d crossed oceans and continents; slogged through jungles and city slums; braved detention centers and robberies; and they were now, after many months, or even longer, tantalizingly close to their final goal of the United States and refugee status.

Police in Tapachula, a Mexican city used as a waypoint for migrants known as extra-continentales, patrol past a Cameroonian traveler (in a striped shirt).

They are the extreme outliers of a global migration crisis of enormous scale. Today, more than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes—a higher number than ever recorded, as people flee war, political upheaval, extreme poverty, natural disasters, and the impacts of climate change. Since 2014, nearly 2 million migrants have crossed into Europe by sea, typically landing in Italy or Greece. They hail from dozens of countries, but most are from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Nigeria—countries struggling with war, political repression, climate change, and endemic poverty.

Their passage to supposed safety, which takes them across Libya and the Sinai, as well as the Mediterranean, has become increasingly perilous. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, nearly 150,000 people crossed the Mediterranean in 2017. More than 3,000 are believed to have drowned. Stories of detention in Libya, as well as physical and sexual abuse, are commonplace among those who manage to make it to Europe. A recent CNN report depicted a Libyan slave auction, where people were being sold for as little as $400. Even the lucky ones who wash up on Europe’s shores may end up stuck for years in transit camps and detention centers in the south of the continent, in some cases only in the end to be deported. In 2013, in an effort to curb migration and ease the burden of migrants within its borders, the European Union began ramping up deportations. In 2016, nearly 500,000 people were deported from Europe.

While the global drivers of migration have not subsided—devastation in Syria and Afghanistan, political repression in parts of sub-Saharan Africa—200,000 fewer migrants attempted to cross into Europe in 2017 than the year before. In response to the migrant crisis, European countries have sent strong messages that newcomers are no longer welcome; they’ve built fences to stop refugees from crossing their borders and elected far-right politicians with staunchly anti-immigrant messages. Meanwhile, most asylum cases are stalled in overburdened court systems, with slim prospects for any near-term resolution, which leaves many migrants stuck in the wicked limbo of a squalid, under-resourced refugee camp or austere detention facility. Today, European authorities have stiffened their resistance not only to new arrivals, but to the hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers who arrived years before and remain in an eerie liminal zone: forbidden to live or work freely in Europe and unwilling, or often unable, to go home.

Because of the high risks of crossing and the low odds of being permitted to stay, more and more would-be asylum-seekers are now forgoing Europe, choosing instead to chance the journey through the Americas that brings them to Sadek’s restaurant in Tapachula. Each year, thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia make their way to South America and then move northward, bound for the United States—and their numbers have been increasing steadily. It’s impossible to know how many migrants from outside the Americas begin the journey and do not make it to the United States, or how many make it to the country and slip through undetected. But the number of “irregular migrants”—they’re called extra-continentales in Tapachula—apprehended on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico has tripled since 2010.

They remain a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and Central Americans crossing into the United States. But it is a hastening trickle that may well become a flood. “These ‘extra-continental’ migrants will probably increase,” said Roeland De Wilde, chief of mission for the International Organization for Migrationin Costa Rica, “given the increased difficulties in entering Europe, relative ease of entry in some South American countries, and smugglers’ increased organization across continents.”

A migrant from Bangladesh, Sadek (in a red shirt) is part restaurateur, part migratory middleman. He can help a traveler with a good meal—or a good travel agent or immigration attorney.

One tragic lesson of the extra-continentales is that no set of governments, however callous, can solve the migration crisis by closing its doors to refugees seeking shelter. All Europe has done is redirect the flow of vulnerable humanity, fostering the development of a global superhighway to move people over this great distance. The doors will not hold, and neither will the fences. You can build a wall, but it will not work. Desperate people find a way.

“Cette route,” a French-speaking man from Cameroon told me, one sweltering afternoon in Tapachula on the breezeless balcony of a hotel frequented by irregular migrants, “n’existe pas sur le map.” This route doesn’t exist on the map.”

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Read Lauren’s much longer complete article at the above link.  It’s one of the most incisive treatments of the worldwide migration phenomenon that I have seen recently. I highly recommend it.
Thanks to dedicated “Courtsider” Roxanne Lea Fantl of Richmond, VA for sending this item my way!
Shortly after I arrived at the Arlington Immigration Court, one of my wonderful colleagues told me “Paul, desperate people do desperate things. Don’t take it personally, and don’t blame them. We just do our jobs, as best we can under the circumstances.” Good advice, to be sure!
We can diminish ourselves as a nation, but that won’t stop human migration!
PWS
03-02-18

Related posts:

  1. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  2. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

ANOTHER WIN FOR THE “GOOD GUYS” (A/K/A NDPA) — GW Law Immigration Clinic Scores U Visa Win!

“Please join me in congratulating Immigration Clinic client C-R, from Venezuela.  His U nonimmigrant visa application, filed on April 30, 2014, was granted Wednesday.  C-R will be eligible to adjust status to lawful permanent residence in three years.  U nonimmigrant visas are available to aliens who within the USA have been victims of criminal activity, and who have been helpful to law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting that crime.  C-R was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of his ex-wife.  Reports are that there are at least 90,000 U visa applications pending at USCIS.

Jessica Leal, Jonathan Bialosky, Sarena Bhatia, Chen Liang,  Mark Webb, and Paulina Vera have worked on this case.

**************************************************
Alberto Manuel Benitez
Professor of Clinical Law
Director, Immigration Clinic
The George Washington University Law School
650 20th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20052
(202) 994-7463
(202) 994-4946 fax
abenitez@law.gwu.edu
THE WORLD IS YOURS…”
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Congrats to all involved!
I’m proud to say that Paulina Vera and Jessica Leal are “distinguished alums” of the Arlington Immigration Court Internship Program as well as “charter members” of the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”)!
These guys keep proving my point: with time and access to good representation, probably the majority of those who flee from the so-called Northern Triangle are eligible for immigration relief of some type.
Consequently, a rational Attorney General, committed to Due Process, would work to insure that such individuals are released after initial screening and able to go to locations where pro bono counsel are readily available and where cases are scheduled in a manner that they can be completely prepared and presented efficiently. Individuals with counsel reliably appear in Immigration Court as scheduled. He would also encourage the issuance of more favorable precedents leading to more expedited grants of relief and facilitate Immigration Judges working with DHS to have cases taken off the Immigration Court docket and granted by DHS, either at the Asylum Office or elsewhere in USCIS on an expedited basis.
Instead, Sessions treats refugees and asylum seekers as if they were criminals and seeks to use the detention system to prevent individuals from obtaining counsel and achieving due process.  His misuse of the Immigration Courts as part of a DHS enforcement regime to discourage individuals from asserting their statutory and Constitutional rights is nothing short of reprehensible!
PWS
02-28-18

Related posts:

  1. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  2. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?”