🇺🇸🗽⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👍🏼BREAKING — THE NDPA STRIKES BACK WITH VIGOR: 70 Human Rights, Civil Rights, Due Process, Good Government, Immigration, Equal Justice, Racial Justice, Progressive, Gender Justice Organizations Rip Garland, Monaco In Letter Protesting Their Abject Failure To Address Due Process, Racial Justice, Rule Of Law Disaster At EOIR — New, Competent, Diverse, Progressive Leadership & Judges Needed To Counteract 4 Years Of White Nationalism, Biased Hiring, “Malicious Incompetence!” — No More “Miller Lite Unhappy Hour” @ DOJ!

Four Horsemen — BIA Asylum Panel In Action
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — This picture must be changed @ EOIR NOW! There is no excuse for Garland’s & Monaco’s failure to make the end of White Nationalist bias, immediate progressive reforms, and progressive expert personnel appointments at EOIR their HIGHEST national priority. There can be NO racial and gender justice in America while Garland operates Miller’s White Nationalist Star Chambers @ EOIR! DUE PROCESS FOR MIGRANTS CAN’T “WAIT FOR GODOT!”

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mpZhBGsqCWULOqOVQDw-16lxigY2OTRL/view

May 19, 2021

The Honorable Merrick B. Garland Attorney General of the United States U.S. Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530-0001

The Honorable Lisa O. Monaco

Deputy Attorney General of the United States U.S. Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20530-0001

RE: The U.S. Department of Justice Must Review EOIR Personnel and Install New Leadership

To Attorney General Garland and Deputy Attorney General Monaco:

We, the undersigned immigration, civil rights, human rights, and democracy protection organizations, are deeply concerned that politically motivated personnel installed under the Trump administration remain in key leadership positions at the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). The prior administration appointed highly problematic personnel in positions of power throughout the EOIR, from Immigration Judges to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) members to EOIR headquarters staff. After numerous allegations of politicized hiring and mismanagement of the immigration courts, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has launched an investigation into EOIR.i The DOJ plays a critical role in the oversight and management of the immigration court system and we urge you to conduct a review of all EOIR personnel decisions made by the previous administration, immediately install new leadership to all key posts, and diversify the immigration judge corps.

DOJ and EOIR must overhaul the agency’s culture

The prior administration turned the immigration courts into a conveyor belt for deportation, systematically hiring personnel to carry out President Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda and introducing new hiring, training, and courtroom policies.ii Recent reporting has also exposed widespread sexual harassment and sexism within the agency.iii Following this investigation, the Director of EOIR was transferred to another division but DOJ and EOIR have yet to provide any plans to address the rampant misconduct.iv Critical and urgent personnel changes are needed to rehabilitate the radically transformed immigration court system that continues to cause irreparable harm and suffering for immigrants and their families.

EOIR Headquarters

We are deeply concerned that the Trump administration embedded multiple political appointees into career government leadership positions at EOIR headquarters. As Senator Durbin outlined in his recent letter, “Any such conversions to civil positions at EOIR deserve substantial scrutiny given the Trump Administration’s pernicious attempts to implement and enforce an ideological agenda by politicizing the immigration court system.”v Below are examples of Trump administration political appointees that burrowed into career positions in just the last year.

● In May of 2020, David Wetmore was hired to be the Chief Appellate Immigration Judge.vi Prior to this position, he was a political appointee for the Trump Administration, working as the Associate Deputy Attorney General in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General and, in 2017-2018, as an immigration advisor to the White House Domestic Policy Counsel.vii While in these positions, he worked closely with Stephen Miller, the well-known architect of President Trump’s anti-immigrant policies.viii David Wetmore did not have prior experience as a judge or a manager, yet he was installed in a position that serves as the general manager of all aspects of the BIA’s operation, both legal and operational.

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● In June of 2020, Tracy Short was hired to be the Chief Immigration Judge.ix Prior to this position, Tracy Short was a political appointee for the Trump Administration working as the Principal Legal Advisor for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).x While in this role, Tracy Short issued a memo on immigration enforcement, restricting ICE trial attorneys’ ability to exercise prosecutorial discretion, contributing to an immigration court backlog of over 1.3 million cases.xi Tracy Short did not have prior experience as a judge yet the position of Chief Immigration Judge is responsible for running all of the immigration courts and managing more than 500 immigration judges.xii

Appellate Judges, BIA Members, and Immigration Judges

Under the leadership of Trump Administration Attorneys General, the DOJ faced allegations of politicized hiring based on candidates perceived political or ideological views. On April 11, 2017, then-Attorney General Sessions announced that he “implemented a new, streamlined hiring plan” to reduce the time it takes to hire immigration judges.xiii However, the new plan amended the hiring process to provide political appointees with greater influence in the final selection of IJs. In addition to procedural changes, DOJ also made substantive changes to IJ hiring requirements, “over-emphasizing litigation experience to the exclusion of other relevant immigration law experience.” Both Senate and House Democrats requested an investigation with the DOJ Inspector General to examine allegations that DOJ had targeted candidates and withdrew or delayed offers for IJ and BIA positions based on their perceived political or ideological views.xiv Moreover, on March 8, 2019, then-Attorney General Barr approved a redesigned hiring plan for both immigration judges and the BIA which allowed EOIR to pack the courts with judges biased towards enforcement and/or with histories of poor judicial conduct.xv

The effects of such bias are evident in the makeup of the BIA and the immigration courts.

● BIA. Under the Trump administration, EOIR rapidly expanded the BIA from 17 to 23 members and appointed several immigration trial judges with troubling records of bias and/or abusive behavior to serve as appellate judges.xvi EOIR promoted primarily former immigration judges from the harshest immigration court jurisdictions with the lowest asylum grant rates in the nation.xvii According to a Reuters analysis, those appointments had ordered immigrants deported 87% of the time, compared to 58% for all other judges over the last 20 years.xviii

● Immigration Judges. The new hiring policies allowed the Trump administration to hire two-thirds of the more than 500 sitting immigration judges and an investigation by Reuters revealed that “judges hired under Trump ordered immigrants deported in 69% of cases, compared to 58% for judges hired as far back as the administration of President Ronald Reagan.”xix In addition to hiring an excess of former prosecutors, EOIR appointed a former employee of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) – an organization designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) – to be an immigration judge.xx

New EOIR Hires

Despite the Biden-Harris administration’s stated commitment to restoring fairness and balance to the immigration courts, the DOJ continues to rely on Trump-era policies and hiring practices that bias the immigration court system towards prosecution.xxi We are deeply concerned that instead of taking immediate steps to diversify the bench, the DOJ just appointed 17 new immigration judges and all but 1 of these judges come from enforcement-oriented backgrounds.xxii In order to begin to restore credibility to the immigration courts, DOJ and EOIR must take immediate steps to hire diverse judges who have worked for non-profits

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or in private practice. This recommendation is consistent with a 2017 EOIR-commissioned study that advised DOJ to broaden the hiring pools and outreach programs to increase diversity of experience among judges.xxvii

Sincerely,

Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus

Alianza Nacional de Campesinas

American Constitution Society

American Immigration Lawyers Association American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) America’s Voice

Arab American Association of New York

Bend the Arc: Jewish Action – Prince George’s County, MD Bridges Faith Initiative

CAIR-SV/CC

Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition

Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington Catholic Charities, NY // Immigrant and Refugee Services Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.

Catholic Legal Services, Archdiocese of Miami

Catholic Migration Services

Center for Gender & Refugee Studies

Chhaya CDC

Cleveland Jobs with Justice

Farmworker Association of Florida

Free the People Roc

Government Accountability Project

Government Information Watch

Human Rights First

Human Rights Initiative of North Texas

Immigrant ARC

Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project

Immigrant Legal Defense

Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC)

Immigration Center for Women and Children

Immigration Hub

Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice

Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP)

Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice of Western MA

La Resistencia

League of Women Voters of U.S.

Legal Aid Justice Center

Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention

Lutheran Social Services of New York

Make the Road New York

Maryland Legislative Coalition

Memphis United Methodist Immigrant Relief

National Equality Action Team (NEAT)

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National Immigrant Justice Center

National Immigration Law Center

National Immigration Project (NIP-NLG)

National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights Neighbors Link – Community Law Practice NETWORK Lobby for Social Justice

New Mexico Immigrant Law Center New Sanctuary Coalition’s Northwest Immigrant Rights Project People’s Parity Project

Public Counsel

RAICES

Refugees International

Revolving Door Project

Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network Safe Horizon

Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF)

South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)

Takoma Park Mobilization, Equal Justice Committee

TASSC (Torture Abolition & Survivors’ Support Coalition) International The Legal Aid Society (New York)

UndocuBlack Network

Unitarian Universalist Service Committee UnLocal

Women Watch Afrika

Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights

CC:

Jean King, Acting Director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review

Margy O’Herron, Senior Counsel, Office of the Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice Susan Rice, Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy

Tyler Moran, Special Assistant to the President for Immigration, Domestic Policy Council Esther Olavarria, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council for Immigration

i Senators Announce GAO Investigation of Trump Politicization of Immigration Courts as COVID-19 Crisis Rages, (Sept. 14, 2020), https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/senators-announce-gao-investigation-of-trump- politicization-of-immigration-courts-as-covid-19-crisis-rages.

ii AILA Policy Brief: Why President Biden Needs to Make Immediate Changes to Rehabilitate the Immigration Courts, (Feb. 12, 2021), https://www.aila.org/advo-media/aila-policy-briefs/policy-brief-why-president-biden-needs- to-make.

iii Tal Kopan, Bad Conduct, Leering ‘Jokes’ — Immigration Judges Stay on Bench, San Francisco Chronicle (Jan. 22, 2021), https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Sexually-inappropriate-behavior-runs-rife-in-15889003.php. iv Tal Kopan, Immigration courts director transferred – oversaw judges on bench despite misconduct, San Francisco Chronicle, (Jan. 27, 2021), https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Immigration-courts-director-transferred- 15902142.php.

v Letter from Senator Durbin to Attorney General Garland, (Apr. 20, 2021), https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Letter%20to%20DOJ%20- %20RFI%20Trump%20Appointees%20EOIR.pdf.

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vi Executive Office for Immigration Review Announces New Board of Immigration Appeals Chairman, (May 29, 2020), https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1281596/download.

vii Felipe De La Hoz, The Shadow Court Cementing Trump’s Immigration Policy, The Nation, (June 30, 2020), https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-immigration-bia/.

viii Tanvi Misra, Roll Call, Tweet on July 21, 2020, https://twitter.com/Tanvim/status/1285738577087934465.

ix EOIR Announces New Chief Immigration Judge, (Jul. 2, 2020), https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1291891/download.

x Hamed Aleaziz, A Top Immigration Court Official Called For Impartiality In A Memo He Sent As He Resigned, Buzzfeed News, (Jul. 3, 2020), https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/immigration-court-official- called-impartiality-memo.

xi Hamed Aleaziz, An ICE Memo Lays Out the Differences Between Trump and Obama on Immigration Enforcement, Buzzfeed News, (Oct. 8, 2018), https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/trump-ice- attorneys-foia-memo-discretion.

xii Lydia DePillis, How Dozens of Trump’s Political Appointees Will Stay in Government After Biden Takes Over, ProPublica, (Dec. 3, 2020), https://www.propublica.org/article/how-dozens-of-trumps-political-appointees-will- stay-in-government-after-biden-takes-over.

xiii Human Rights First, Immigration Court Hiring Politicization, (Oct. 18, 2018), https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/immigration-court-hiring-polticization.

xiv Congressional Letter to DOJ’s Office of Inspector General, (May 8, 2018), https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/e/f/efd39e65-d848-487c-be07- 903b481046c2/483B788842A2BF3791F0585EBACFD50A.dems-to-horowitz.pdf.

xv AILA and the American Immigration Council Obtain EOIR Hiring Plan via FOIA Litigation, (May 5, 2020), https://www.aila.org/EOIRHiringPlan.

xvi EOIR Interim Final Rule, Expanding the Size of the Board of Immigration Appeals, 85 Fed. Reg. 18105 (Apr. 1, 2020), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/04/01/2020-06846/expanding-the-size-of-the-board-of- immigration-appeals; EOIR Interim Final Rule, Expanding the Size of the Board of Immigration Appeals, 83 Fed. Reg. 8321, (Feb. 27, 2018), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/02/27/2018-03980/expanding-the-size- of-the-board-of-immigration-appeals.

xvii Tal Kopan, AG William Barr promotes immigration judges with high asylum denial rates, San Francisco Chronicle (Aug. 23, 2019), https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/AG-William-Barr-promotes-immigration- judges-with-14373344.php; Suzanne Monyak, Immigration Board Picks Under Trump to Set Lasting Policy, Law360, May 8, 2020, https://www.law360.com/articles/1271825/immigration-board-picks-under-trump-to-set- lasting-policy.

xviii Reade Levinson, Kristina Cooke, Mica Rosenberg, Special Report: How Trump administration left indelible mark on U.S. immigration courts, Reuters, (Mar. 8, 2021), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration- trump-court-special-r/special-report-how-trump-administration-left-indelible-mark-on-u-s-immigration-courts- idUSKBN2B0179.

xix Id.

xx Colin Kalmbacher, Barr Appoints Former Research Director of SPLC-Alleged ’Hate Group’ as Immigration Judge, Law & Crime, (Jul. 18, 2020), https://lawandcrime.com/immigration/barr-appoints-former-research-director- of-splc-alleged-hate-group-as-immigration-judge/.

xxi The White House has issued several Executive Orders and proposed legislation, the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, conveying the Administration’s transformative vision and vision and commitment to building a 21st century immigration system that welcomes immigrants and refugees and keeps families together.

xxii EOIR Announces 17 New Immigration Judges, (May 6, 2021), https://www.justice.gov/eoir/file/1392116/download.

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

Thanks, friends and colleagues, for letting your collective voices for due process, human dignity, humane values, competency, common sense, racial justice, and accountability be heard! Loud and clear!

Restoring some semblance of due process, fundamental fairness, simple human decency, and competent government should NOT be so hard and time consuming in a Dem Administration that ran and was elected on promises too do just that!

The grotesque administrative incompetence and squandering of resources continuing in EOIR’s failed, “bad joke” court system demand IMMEDIATE CORRECTIVE ACTION, NOT more wasteful studying of well-documented problems for which experts have developed clear, straightforward, well-known, readily achievable, fiscally feasible solutions!

We must keep up the fight and not let up the pressure on Garland until the egregious misconduct and gross abuses at EOIR and DOJ end, progressive leadership is brought in and empowered to solve problems, and due process, expertise, and competence are restored, promoted, and honored! That’s what we voted for, not the continuing “Miller Lite” Clown Show @ EOIR! And certainly not totally inappropriate, unjustifiable continuing appointments of “Trump-list judges!” Just beyond outrageous, compounded by the lame, disingenuous, inaccurate explanation put forth by Garland’s DOJ!

Let me make it simple: NOBODY has a “RIGHT” to be an Immigration Judge! Those with legal rights are the MIGRANTS appearing before Immigration Judges. Those legal rights are being trampled every single day at EOIR under Garland just as they were under Trump! It must stop! Now!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-19-21

☠️🏴‍☠️⚰️🤮NO JUSTICE @ JUSTICE! — GARLAND ISSUES WEAK-KNEED, PERFUNCTORY “NOTHINGBURGER” PROMISING “ACCESS TO JUSTICE REFORMS” WHILE DAILY MOCKING THEM IN PRACTICE IN HIS DYSFUNCTIONAL, ANTI-DUE PROCSS, INTENTIONALLY “USER UNFRIENDLY” IMMIGRATION “COURTS” — Talk About “Lack of Credibility!”

Star Chamber Justice — “Justice”
Star Chamber Style @ EOIR; Despite the glaring problems, obvious answers, and wide availability of new progressive leadership who should already be removing the deadwood, changing ill-conceived policies, and actually SOLVING representation and other problems at EOIR — America’s most dysfunctional “court” system — Judge Garland would like to study (while ignoring) what’s wrong rather than take needed progressive action!

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-launches-review-reinvigorate-justice-department-s-commitment-access-justice

You can read it here in all of its glorious bureaucratic nothingness and hollow rhetoric:

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Attorney General Launches Review to Reinvigorate the Justice Department’s Commitment to Access to Justice

U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland today announced that the Justice Department will immediately begin work to reinvigorate its Office for Access to Justice and to restore the Justice Department’s role in leading efforts across government to seek and secure meaningful access to justice.

“Trust in the rule of law – the foundation of American democracy – depends upon the public’s faith that government seeks equal justice for all. That is the Justice Department’s core duty, and the mission upon which it was built. But without equal access to justice, the promise of equal justice under law rings hollow,” wrote Attorney General Garland in a memo to departmental leadership this afternoon.

The Attorney General directed the Justice Department’s leadership offices to immediately begin a review process that will engage all relevant stakeholders, both within the department and beyond. The review will initially explore, among other things, how the Justice Department and partners across federal, state, territorial, and tribal governments can alleviate entrenched disparities in our criminal justice system, address barriers to access in our immigration and civil legal systems, and advance health, economic, and environmental justice efforts. The Attorney General’s memo also charged Deputy Attorney General Lisa M. Monaco and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta with developing recommendations regarding the resources that will be required to reinvigorate the department’s Office for Access to Justice including a staffing strategy and placement within the department in light of its responsibilities.

The Attorney General will submit a detailed plan to the President for expanding the department’s role in leading access to justice initiatives across government within 120 days.

The Justice Department first launched an access to justice initiative in 2010. Building upon that important effort, the Office for Access to Justice was formally established in 2016 to plan, develop, and coordinate the implementation of access to justice policy initiatives of high priority to the department and the executive branch, including in the areas of criminal indigent defense and civil legal aid. However, during the prior administration, the office was effectively shuttered.

In addition to leading this strategic review within the Justice Department, Attorney General Garland will also help to lead access to justice initiatives across government as co-chair of the Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable, which the President reconvened today. That initiative will bring together more than two dozen federal departments and agencies to address the most pressing legal services challenges that low-income communities, communities of color, and many others across our country face today.

Component(s):

Office of the Attorney General

Press Release Number:

21-456

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

As always, actions speak louder than words or bureaucratic promises to “think about it, and get back to you!”

So hopefully somebody will ask Garland how the following things going on in HIS EOIR right now “assist access to justice:”

Continuous, ongoing “Aimless Docket Reshuffling“ at EOIR that generates an astounding, unnecessary, growing, unaddressed by Garland 1.3 million case backlog that generally disadvantages and wears down the private bar;
Elimination of reasonable continuances @ EOIR for the express purpose of favoring the DHS and making it more difficult to represent individuals in Immigration Court consistent with ethical requirements relating to adequate preparation and verification of claims;
“Courts” improperly located in obscure, out of the way DHS detention centers where lawyers are seldom readily available and substandard conditions are intentionally used to duress individuals into giving up viable claims;
Court schedules controlled by unqualified bureaucrats in Falls Church who arbitrarily and capriciously set cases without regard to the needs of parties for preparation time, ethical guidelines, or their workloads;
Unreasonable, shortened, cookie cutter “briefing schedules,” designed to expedite removals at the expense of quality and legal excellence and to artificially “stress out” private attorneys, many serving pro bono or low bono;
Kids and other vulnerable individuals forced to “represent” themselves in Immigration Courts;”
“Judges” who lack immigration expertise and practical experience, therefore forcing already overburdened immigration counsel to “train” these judges, who never should have been appointed in the first place;
Hiring of “judges” at the trial and appellate level renowned for their hostility to asylum seekers (particularly women and those of color) and sometimes with established records of bias, rudeness, hostility, and unprofessional conduct toward the private bar;
Systemic exclusion of private bar immigration, human rights, clinical advocates and experts from the Immigration Judiciary;
Bogus, due-process-denying “deportation quotas” that discourage scholarship and thoughtful complete litigation of life or death cases in favor of meeting artificial production requirements and timelines designed to keep the “EOIR deportation railroad” running;
Promulgation of “operating produces” for Immigration Courts by Falls Church bureaucrats who have never appeared in Immigration Court, without prior consultation with either sitting Immigration Judges or “stakeholders” in the private bar;
Failure after two decades of wasted effort and false starts to implement even a rudimentary nationwide e-filing system, thereby increasing the burden on private practitioners;
Wrong-headed, anti-immigrant “precedents” intended to discourage individuals from pursuing claims in Immigration Court and to require advocates to appeal to Courts of Appeals to have any chance of obtaining justice for their clients;
Following of “worst practices” designed to abuse and increase the stress for advocates in Immigration Court, including failure to follow best health and sanitation practices;
Failure to have any qualified progressive immigration practical scholar “on staff” at DOJ who has actually practiced before the Immigration Courts and could credibly lead the reform effort.

Actually, I’m just getting started! But, I have other things on my agenda today, and you get the point!

Unless progressive immigration advocates “raise hell” with the higher-up in the Biden Administration and on the Hill about Garland’s gross mismanagement of EOIR to date and his lack or expertise or genuine interest in long overdue, badly needed reforms, this is just another Dem “designed to fail” cosmetic effort; yet another insulting attempt by DOJ to fob off immigrants, the private bar, progressives, and their very legitimate needs with more BS “all talk, no action” ineffective policies and plans where immediate, radical progressive, due process reforms are needed, led by progressive experts!

To state the painfully obvious, Vanita Gupta has enough knowledge and enough contacts in the human rights/civil rights community to have gotten someone from the outside in to take control of EOIR, empowered to knock heads, transfer the Trump/Miller anti-due-process “denial club” crowd and their enablers out, and start recruiting and hiring competent administrators, well-qualified progressive judges, and instituting due process enhancing procedures. Things should already be operating much better; and, as many of us told the Biden Transition Team, having “due process take hold and start acting” would send much needed “shock waves” throughout the “go along to get along” bureaucracy at EOIR who assisted Trump and Miller in putting the “final nail in the coffin” of the already-reeling Immigration Courts.

Advocates and members of the NDPA, the first step in vindicating your clients’ legal rights is to insist that your rights, professionalism, and expertise be respected by those in power. Team Garland is effectively “giving you the big middle finger!” 🖕 If you don’t stand up to this outrageous, dismissive treatment from a Dem Administration, how can you make things better for your clients?

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-19-21

⚖️MOVING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, BUT SLOWLY: President Biden Orders Work To Begin On Representation Issues In Immigration Court, Re-Establishes Interagency Round Table On Civil Legal Services — Basically, Study Without Any Immediate Action!

President Joseph R.Biden
46th President of The United States
(Official portrait of Vice President Joe Biden in his West Wing Office at the White House, Jan. 10, 2013. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)..This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.)

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/05/18/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-presidential-memorandum-to-expand-access-to-legal-representation-and-the-courts/

BRIEFING ROOM

FACT SHEET: President Biden to Sign Presidential Memorandum to Expand Access to Legal Representation and the Courts

MAY 18, 2021 • STATEMENTS AND RELEASES

Today, President Biden will sign a Presidential Memorandum to expand access to legal representation and the courts. As President Biden knows from his experience as a public defender, timely and affordable access to the legal system can make all the difference in a person’s life—including by keeping an individual out of poverty, keeping an individual in his or her home, helping an unaccompanied child seek asylum, helping someone fight a consumer scam, or ensuring that an individual charged with a crime can mount a strong defense and receive a fair trial. But low-income people have long struggled to secure quality access to the legal system. Those challenges have only increased during the public health and economic crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, civil legal aid providers and public defenders have been under-resourced, understaffed, and unable to reach some of the people in greatest need of their services.

The federal government has a critical role to play in expanding access to the nation’s legal system and supporting the work of civil legal aid providers and public defenders. President Biden’s executive action today will reinvigorate the federal government’s role in advancing access to justice, and help ensure that the Administration’s policies and recovery efforts can reach as many individuals as possible.

The Presidential Memorandum is the Biden-Harris Administration’s latest action to protect vulnerable Americans, reform the justice system, and advance racial equity. On his first day in office, the President issued an executive order establishing a government-wide initiative to put equity at the heart of each agency’s priorities and management agenda. His discretionary budget request called for $1.5 billion in funding for grants to strengthen state and local criminal justice systems, including by investing in public defenders. Improving access to counsel in civil and criminal proceedings builds on each of these efforts.

Specifically, President Biden is directing the following actions:

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the “White House Fact Sheet” at the above link.

On one hand, this is welcome news for the NDPA and all who favor equal justice under law in America.

On the other hand, four months into his Administration, President Biden has just gotten around to undoing some of the inane, White Nationalist actions of the Trump Administration by re-establishing initiatives that failed to solve the problems under the Obama Administration only to be completely eradicated by Trump. In plain terms, more study and dialogue, no real action that helps any of the more than one one million poor souls and their loved ones caught up in Garland’s dysfunctional Immigration Courts.

I submit that the huge problems with lack of effective representation in Immigration Court were well known at the outset of the Trump Administration. Over the last four years, lots of creative ideas have surfaced and a number of states, localities, and NGOs have substantially “upped” their commitment to pro bono or low bono services for asylum seekers, detainees, and other migrants. There is lots of “practical scholarly” literature out there on the subject.

Therefore, it would have been reasonable to expect the Biden Administration to take office with specific plans in hand to immediately start building on existing structures and to have immediately re-started the dialogue with legal service providers. Instead, more than 100 days in, we have plans for more study, talk, and recommendations, but no action; the actual situation in the Immigration Courts under Garland continues rapidly to deteriorate; progressive groups of experts with plans on how to solve representation issues have basically been “frozen out” by Biden — writing op-eds, “white papers,” and studies, rather than leading the representation effort from within the Biden Administration and working as part of a team to solve problems in “real time.”

I’ve heard that some plans for improving representation, at least for “vulnerable groups,” are “in the offing” at DOJ. To date, we’ve seen nothing!

And, I can’t name anyone on “Team Garland” or in current EOIR senior management who actually has first-hand experience with pro bono representation in Immigration Court or who has previously offered concrete, positive suggestions for immediate actions to solve this pressing problem. Consequently, I’m frankly skeptical that the expertise exists, particularly at DOJ, to solve this problem without some dramatic personnel shakeups, more aggressive due process restoring actions, and bringing in progressive experts from the outside to administer and improve judging at EOIR. So far, Garland has shown little interest in addressing the dysfunction in his “wholly owned courts,” nor has he shown any ability to reach out and actively recruit the progressive experts he needs to fix EOIR.

Given the disaster of the last four years and Garland’s poor start (including “in your face” judicial appointments and retention of non-progressive Barr holdovers) its going to take a positive outreach campaign to progressives by Garland to stop the bleeding at DOJ.

Therefore, I personally view the White House announcement with “very cautious optimism,” hoping to be pleasantly surprised when it spurs immediate practical action.

Stay tuned!

🇺🇸🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-18-21

☠️🤮👎🏻⚰️OUTRAGEOUS “MILLER LITE” JUSTICE! — NO WONDER GARLAND WANTED TO KEEP HIS “JUDICIAL PICKS” SECRET! — It’s A “Two Sharp Sticks In The Eyes” Putdown Of The Human Rights/Immigration Advocacy Community That Helped Boost Biden & Harris To Their Jobs! — Tired Of Being Ignored, Disrespected, & Take For Granted? — Had Enough Of The Consistent Stupidity, Mind-Numbing Ineptitude, & Total Contempt For Constitutional Due Process @ EOIR Under Both The Dems & The GOP?

It’s “Miller Lite Time” @ Garland’s DOJ as this Dude gets the last laugh over immigration/human rights/due process advocates and experts who worked for Biden’s election! — Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com

Every member of the NDPA should be outraged by Garland’s treachery:

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/file/1392116/download

Here’s the latest farcical roster of prosecutors, government attorneys, and non-immigration experts to be inflicted on migrants and their attorneys:

NOTICE

U.S. Department of Justice

Executive Office for Immigration Review

Office of Policy

5107 Leesburg Pike

Falls Church, Virginia 22041

Contact: Communications and Legislative Affairs Division

Phone: 703-305-0289 Fax: 703-605-0365 PAO.EOIR@usdoj.gov @DOJ_EOIR

www.justice.gov/eoir

May 6, 2021

EOIR Announces 17 New Immigration Judges

FALLS CHURCH, VA – The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) today announced 17 new Immigration Judges (IJs), including one Assistant Chief Immigration Judge (ACIJ) and six Unit Chief Immigration Judges (UCIJs). ACIJs are responsible for overseeing the operations of their assigned immigration courts. In addition to their management responsibilities, they will hear cases. UCIJs serve as IJs in formal judicial hearings conducted via video teleconference and supervise the staff assigned to their virtual courtroom. IJs preside in formal judicial hearings and make decisions that are final unless formally appealed.

After a thorough application process, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed Megan B. Herndon, Wade T. Napier, Tamaira Rivera, David H. Robertson, Elizabeth Crites, Bryan E. DePowell, Nicholle M. Hempel, Kathy J. Lemke, Martinque M. Parker, David M. Paxton, Bryan D. Watson, Kenya L. Wells, and Mark R. Whitworth to their new positions; then-Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson appointed Adam Perl to his new position; then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen appointed William H. McDermott to his new position; and then-Attorney General William P. Barr appointed Elliot M. Kaplan and Jeb T. Terrien to their new positions.

Biographical information follows:

Megan B. Herndon, Assistant Chief Immigration Judge, Richmond Immigration Adjudication Center

Megan B. Herndon was appointed as an Assistant Chief Immigration Judge to begin supervisory immigration court duties and hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Herndon earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1999 from Occidental College and a Juris Doctor in 2002 from the University of San Diego School of Law. From 2020 to 2021, she served as Senior Regulatory Coordinator, Office of Visa Services, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Department of State (DOS), in the District of Columbia. From 2018 to 2020, she served as Deputy Director of Legal Affairs, Office of Visa Services, Bureau of Consular Affairs, DOS. From 2015 to 2018, she served as Chief of the Legislation and Regulations Division, Office of Visa Services, Bureau of Consular Affairs, DOS. From 2013 to 2015, she served as a Section Chief, Immigration Law and Practice Division, Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in the District of Columbia and Falls Church, Virginia. From 2009 to 2013, she served as an Appellate Counsel, OPLA, ICE, DHS, in Falls

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Church. From 2007 to 2009, she served as an Assistant Chief Counsel, OPLA, ICE, DHS, in San Diego. From 2002 to 2007, she served as an Assistant Chief Counsel, OPLA, ICE, DHS, in Los Angeles, entering on duty through the Attorney General’s Honors Program. Judge Herndon is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and State Bar of California.

Wade T. Napier, Unit Chief Immigration Judge, Richmond Immigration Adjudication Center

Wade T. Napier was appointed as a Unit Chief Immigration Judge to begin supervisory immigration adjudication center duties and hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Napier earned a Bachelor of Science in 2001 from Transylvania University and a Juris Doctor in 2005 from Northern Kentucky University–Salmon P. Chase College of Law. From 2008 to 2021, he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, in Lexington. In 2008, he served as a Staff Attorney for a Trial Court Judge, in Boone County, Kentucky. From 2005 to 2007, he worked in the Claims Litigation Department of Great American Insurance Company, in Cincinnati. Judge Napier is a member of the Kentucky Bar.

Tamaira Rivera, Unit Chief Immigration Judge, Richmond Immigration Adjudication Center

Tamaira Rivera was appointed as a Unit Chief Immigration Judge to begin supervisory immigration adjudication center duties and hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Rivera earned a Bachelor of Science in 1991 from Florida State University, a Juris Doctor in 1995 from California Western School of Law, and a Master of Laws in 2004 from The George Washington University Law School. From 2019 to 2021, she was an Immigration Practitioner with Advantage Immigration PA, in Orlando, Florida. From 2017 to 2019, she served as an Assistant Chief Counsel, Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in Orlando. From 2012 to 2017, she served as an Assistant Chief Counsel, OPLA, ICE, DHS, in San Antonio. From 2010 to 2012, she served as an Attorney Advisor and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Air Force, in San Antonio. From 2009 to 2010, she served as a Senior Democracy Fellow, U.S. Agency for International Development, in the District of Columbia. From 2007 to 2009, she was a Senior Associate Attorney and Program Manager with BlueLaw International LLP, in the District of Columbia. From 1996 to 2006, she served as a U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate, in the following locations: Madrid, Spain; Tucson, Arizona; San Antonio; and Okinawa, Japan. Judge Rivera is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the Florida Bar.

David H. Robertson, Unit Chief Immigration Judge, Richmond Immigration Adjudication Center

David H. Robertson was appointed as a Unit Chief Immigration Judge to begin supervisory immigration adjudication center duties and hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Robertson earned a Bachelor of Science in 1986 from James Madison University, a Juris Doctor in 1989 from the University of Richmond School of Law, and a Master of Laws in 1999 from the Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School. From 1990 to 2020, he served as a U.S. Army Judge Advocate in various locations throughout the U.S. and Germany. During that time, from 2010 to 2020, he served as a Military Judge in the following locations: Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Kaiserslautern, Germany; and Fort Stewart, Georgia. While serving as a Military Judge, he also presided over trials in Kuwait and Afghanistan. From 2004 to 2006, he served as a Regional Defense Counsel; from 1999 to 2001, as a Senior Defense Counsel; from 1995 to

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1997, as a Prosecutor; and from 1993 to 1995, as a Defense Counsel. From 1995 to 1996, he deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina, and from 2007 to 2008, he deployed to Kosovo. In 2020, he retired in the rank of Colonel. Judge Robertson is a member of the Virginia State Bar.

Elizabeth Crites, Immigration Judge, Chicago Immigration Court

Elizabeth Crites was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Crites earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2005 from Ball State University and a Juris Doctor in 2009 from the University of Illinois Chicago John Marshall Law School. From 2016 to 2021, she served as an Assistant Chief Counsel, Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, in Chicago. From 2009 to 2016, she was an Associate Attorney with Broyles, Kight & Ricafort PC, in Chicago. Judge Crites is a member of the Illinois State Bar.

Bryan E. DePowell, Immigration Judge, Adelanto Immigration Court

Bryan E. DePowell was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in April 2021. Judge DePowell earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2007 from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and a Juris Doctor in 2009 from Widener University Commonwealth Law School. From 2019 to 2021, he served as a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Felony Trials Division – Office of Prosecuting Attorney, City and County of Honolulu. From 2018 to 2019, he served as Chief Counsel for the House Minority Research Office, State of Hawai’i, in Honolulu. From 2012 to 2018, he was an Associate Attorney with Crisp and Associates LLC, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Judge DePowell is a member of the Hawaii State Bar and the Pennsylvania Bar.

Nicholle M. Hempel, Immigration Judge, Houston – Greenspoint Park Immigration Court

Nicholle M. Hempel was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Hempel earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1996 from California State University, Fresno and a Juris Doctor in 2000 from Chicago-Kent College of Law. From 2010 to 2021, she served as an Assistant Chief Counsel, Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, in Los Angeles. From 2003 to 2010, she served as an Assistant State Attorney with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, in Chicago. From 1998 to 2003, she served as a Law Clerk for the First Municipal District, Circuit Court of Cook County, in Chicago. Judge Hempel is a member of the Illinois State Bar.

Kathy J. Lemke, Immigration Judge, Portland Immigration Court

Kathy J. Lemke was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Lemke earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1994 from the University of Chicago and a Juris Doctor in 1997 from Arizona State University School of Law. From 2019 to 2020, she served as the City Prosecutor for Phoenix. From 2009 to 2019, she served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, in Phoenix. From 2004 to 2009, she served as an Assistant City Prosecutor for Phoenix. In 2003, she served as a Deputy County Attorney for Pinal County in Florence, Arizona. From 1998 to 2003, she served as a Deputy County Attorney for Maricopa County, in Phoenix. Judge Lemke is a member of the State Bar of Arizona and the District of Columbia Bar.

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Martinque M. Parker, Immigration Judge, Houston – Greenspoint Park Immigration Court

Martinque M. Parker was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Parker earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2005, a Bachelor of Science in 2006 from the University of Georgia, and a Juris Doctor in 2011 from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. From 2017 to 2021, she served as an Assistant Chief Counsel, Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, in Lumpkin, Georgia. From 2011 to 2017, she served as a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Judge Parker is a member of the Arkansas Bar and the State Bar of Georgia.

David M. Paxton, Immigration Judge, Houston – Greenspoint Park Immigration Court

David M. Paxton was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Paxton earned a Bachelor of Science in 1998 from Texas State University, a Master of Business Administration in 2004 from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Juris Doctor in 2009 from Santa Clara University School of Law. From 2015 to 2021, he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, in McAllen and Corpus Christi. From 2011 to 2015, he served as a Deputy District Attorney for the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office, in San Luis Obispo, California. From 2010 to 2011, he served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Criminal Division of the Northern District of California, in San Jose. From 1997 to 2004, he served as a Systems Engineer for Advanced Micro Devices and Legerity Inc., in Austin, Texas. Judge Paxton is a member of the State Bar of California.

Bryan D. Watson, Immigration Judge, Atlanta – W. Peachtree Street Immigration Court Bryan D. Watson was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Watson earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1993 from the University of Missouri, a Juris Doctor in 1996 from the University of Missouri, a Master of Arts in 2006 from Air University, and a Master of Science in 2014 from the National Defense University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as the Chief Trial Judge of the U.S. Air Force Trial Judiciary, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. From 2017 to 2019, he served as the Commandant of the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General’s School, at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. From 2014 to 2017, he served as the General Counsel of the White House Military Office, in the District of Columbia. From 1996 to 2021, he served as a U.S. Air Force Active Duty Judge Advocate, in the following locations: Moody Air Force Base, Georgia; Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming; Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama; Randolph Air Force Base, Texas; Joint Base Andrews, Maryland; Aviano Air Base, Italy; and the Pentagon, White House, Bolling Air Force Base, and Fort McNair, District of Columbia. He retired from the U.S. Air Force in 2021 as a Colonel. Judge Watson is a member of the State Bar of Georgia and the Missouri Bar.

Kenya L. Wells, Immigration Judge, Houston – Greenspoint Park Immigration Court

Kenya L. Wells was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Wells earned a Bachelor of Science in 2007 from Texas A&M University and Juris Doctor in 2010 from the University of Texas School of Law. From 2017 to 2021, he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. From 2010 to 2016, he served as an Assistant District Attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office, in New York. Judge Wells is a member of the New York State Bar.

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Mark R. Whitworth, Immigration Judge, Houston – Greenspoint Park Immigration Court

Mark R. Whitworth was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Whitworth earned a Bachelor of Journalism in 1985 and a Juris Doctor in 1993, both from the University of Texas at Austin. From 2003 to 2021, he served as an Assistant Chief Counsel, Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, in Harlingen, Texas. From 2001 to 2003, he served as an Assistant District Counsel with the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, Office of the District Counsel, Department of Justice, in Harlingen. From 1994 to 2001, he served as an Assistant Attorney General and an Assistant Managing Assistant Attorney General for the Texas Office of the Attorney General, in Harlingen. From 1993 to 1994, he was an Associate Attorney with Roerig, Oliveira and Fisher LLP, in Brownsville, Texas. Judge Whitworth is a member of the State Bar of Texas.

Adam Perl, Immigration Court, New York – Broadway Immigration Court

Adam Perl was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Perl earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2006 from Florida International University and a Juris Doctor in 2011 from St. Thomas University School of Law. From 2018 to 2021, he served as a Deputy Chief Counsel, Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in New York. From 2016 to 2018, he served as an Assistant Chief Counsel, OPLA, ICE, DHS, in Newburgh, New York; from 2014 to 2016, he served as an Assistant Chief Counsel, in New York; and from 2011 to 2014, he served as an Assistant Chief Counsel, in Los Angeles. Judge Perl is a member of the Florida Bar.

William H. McDermott, Immigration Judge, New York – Federal Plaza Immigration Court

William H. McDermott was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in April 2021. Judge McDermott earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2007 from Long Island University and a Juris Doctor in 2011 from The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law. From 2019 to 2021, he served as the Deputy State’s Attorney for Wicomico County, Maryland. From 2011 to 2019, he served as an Assistant State’s Attorney, Deputy State’s Attorney, and Ad Interim State’s Attorney, in Worcester County, Maryland. Judge McDermott is a member of the Maryland State Bar.

Elliot M. Kaplan, Unit Chief Immigration Judge, Richmond Immigration Adjudication Center

Elliot M. Kaplan was appointed as a Unit Chief Immigration Judge to begin supervisory immigration adjudication center duties and hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Kaplan earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1998 from Antioch University, a Master of Business Administration in 1982 from Whittier College, and a Juris Doctor in 1982 from Whittier Law School. From 2019 to 2020, he was Of Counsel to Kutak Rock LLP, in Kansas City, Missouri. From 2004 to 2019, he was in private practice, in Kansas City. From 1995 to 2003, he was a Partner and Founder of Daniels & Kaplan PC, in Detroit and Kansas City. From 1991 to 1994, he was Of Counsel to Berman, DeLeve, Kuchan & Chapman LLC, in Kansas City. From 1990 to 1991, he was Of Counsel to DeWitt, Zeldin & Bigus PC, in Kansas City. From 1985 to 1990, he was Of Counsel to Husch, Eppenberger, Donohue, Cornfeld & Jenkins, in Kansas City. From 1983 to 1985, he was Assistant General Counsel and Assistant Secretary of Air One Inc., in St. Louis. Judge Kaplan is a member of the Missouri Bar.

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Jeb T. Terrien, Unit Chief Immigration Judge, Richmond Immigration Adjudication Center

Jeb. T. Terrien was appointed as a Unit Chief Immigration Judge to begin supervisory immigration adjudication center duties and hearing cases in April 2021. Judge Terrien earned a Bachelor of Science in 1994 from The University of Virginia and a Juris Doctor in 1997 from Tulane Law School. From 2009 to 2021, he served as a Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney and Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, in Harrisonburg. During that time, from 2014 to 2015, he served as an Assistant Director, National Advocacy Center, Office of Legal Education, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, Department of Justice, in Columbia, South Carolina. From 2004 to 2008, he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, in Cincinnati, and the Northern District of West Virginia, in Martinsburg. From 2000 to 2004, he served as a Regional Drug Prosecutor for the Commonwealth of Virginia in Halifax, Charlotte, and Campbell Counties. From 1999 to 2000, he served as an Assistant Attorney General with the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, in Richmond. From 1998 to 1999, he served as an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney for the Accomack County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office in Accomac, Virginia. Judge Terrien is a member of the Virginia State Bar.

— EOIR —

Communications and Legislative Affairs Division

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

There’s a powerful message here NDPA! Elections DON”T matter, nor does your expertise, dedication, and hard work! Maybe it will be time to act on that message during the next election cycle. Stephen Miller? Judge “MillerLite?” What’s the real difference?

Here are some “early reactions” from the NDPA:

I just looked quickly, but was there only one new IJ coming from private practice? When I looked up the firm, it doesn’t practice immigration law.

I didn’t recognize any names. Shouldn’t the goal be to hire those with a scholarly understanding of immigration law, including at least some who have demonstrated a creative approach to asylum?

My take is why not put new IJ hiring on pause until the agency has figured out how it intends to move forward? EOIR should have their new Chief IJ in place, have revamped the IJ training, have figured out what AG precedents it intends to vacate, etc. Also, the quotas are still in place.

When new IJs with no immigration law background come on board, should they feel they can’t continue a case to study the law or consult with a colleague because they have to complete 4 cases that day to avoid being fired?

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

Ah, Justice from “Miller Lite” Justice @ Justice. What a “poke in they eyes with a sharp stick” to the immigration/human rights bar!

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

Thanks for sharing Judge Schmidt. In addition to the new hires, it’s deeply concerning that AG Garland’s DOJ is expanding its use of secretive and inaccessible immigration adjudication centers- opening a new location in Richmond, Virginia.

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Of 14 IJs appointed under Biden (Acting AG Wilkinson or AG Garland), 7 have worked for ICE, 5 have been prosecutors of other types, 2 have worked for ICE and been prosecutors, and 2 have worked as immigration defense attorneys (though these two have also worked for ICE).

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

It is completely baffling. Two working theories: 1) EOIR is just so far down Garland’s radar that he just doesn’t care or have time to care; or 2) he has made a political decision to “hang tough” on immigration for the optics and to stave off Rethuglican encroachment in the mid-terms.

Neither theory speaks well of him.

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

I don’t see how dissing the immigration/human rights bar is the key to success for the Dems in the midterms. I personally know lots of NDPA members who “busted tail” and donated lots of time and money to getting Biden & Harris elected. Don’t think that the “elections don’t matter for human rights/immigration/due process/racial justice” is going to “energize the base” for the midterms.

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

I have essentially lost hope that anything will change….

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

I guess this answers the question of whether establishing an independent, progressive, due process focused Immigration Judiciary within the Executive Branch is possible. Obviously, it isn’t! Litigation and Article I appear to be the only solutions.

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What is that old adage, “the more things change the more they stay the same”???

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

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! We need to translate Garland’s blatant disrespect, ignorance, and failure to stand up for racial justice, an end to misogyny, and progressive expertise in the Immigration Judiciary into action and resistance to his “Miller Lite” vision for the DOJ!

PWS

05-06-21

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🆘GARLAND, MAYORKAS FAIL TO CORRECT GROSS ABUSES OF DUE PROCESS CAUSED BY MPP SYSTEM! — Reopening All Of The Unconstitutionally Denied MPP Cases Should Be A “No Brainer” For Competent Officials & “Real” Judges! — Tell Judge Garland His Unconstitutional & Abusive Immigration Courts Can’t Wait To Be Fixed! — Lives Are Being Lost & Suffering Continues While He Diddles!

Kevin Sieff
Latin American Correspondent, Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/24/mexico-border-migrant-asylum-mpp/

By Kevin Sieff

April 24 at 11:16 AM CT

MATAMOROS, Mexico — Carolina had memorized the date, but she triple-checked her documents just to make sure. For months, her life had revolved around the court hearing at which she could finally make her asylum claim.

Like tens of thousands of asylum seekers who reached the U.S. border during the Trump administration, the 36-year-old from Honduras had been sent to wait in Mexico for her immigration hearing. She was told to return to the border on her court date.

So on Feb. 26, 2020, she woke up early and put on her best blouse. She said a short prayer. But not long after her bus left for Laredo, Tex., gunmen stopped the vehicle. They kidnapped Carolina and her 15-year-old daughter, took them to a stash house packed with other kidnapped migrants and demanded thousands of dollars in ransom.

By the time they were released a few days later, Carolina had missed her day in court.

Her asylum case, it turned out, had been closed in absentia because she hadn’t shown up. Of the 68,000 asylum cases processed under the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols, the policy also know as “Remain in Mexico,” 28,000 were closed for the same reason: Because asylum seekers didn’t present themselves.

. . . .

“MPP deprived people of due process and fundamental fairness,” she said. “In order to restore access to asylum in a meaningful way, the Biden administration needs to reopen cases for people ordered removed under MPP and allow them to pursue their claims safely from within the United States.”

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Read Kevin’s full article at the link.

The last statement, from Haiyun Damon-Feng, the director of the Adelante Pro Bono Project and assistant director of the William H. Gates Public Service Law Program at the University of Washington School of Law, sums it up. It’s not rocket science! It’s basic “Con Law 101” with some common sense and human decency thrown in! It’s also an essential part of the Biden Administration fulfilling basic campaign promises! Folks like Damon-Feng are the ones who should be running this system, solving the problems, and reconstructing the legal asylum system!

In what kind of “court” system are kidnapped individuals, some of them minors and children, further penalized and the Government allowed to get away with not keeping accurate addresses of individuals in their process and of knowingly sending them into danger zones? The victims remain in limbo and suffering while the perpetrators of these illegal outages — both current and former government officials — have not been held accountable. This is a national disgrace compounded by the fact that neither Judge Garland nor Secretary Mayorkas have taken corrective actions. Nor have they cleaned out the deadwood from their own legally and morally bankrupt systems and put competent individuals in charge!

Qualified Immigration Judges and competent administrators at the DOJ and DHS could have started solving these problems beginning the day after the inauguration. That 100 days into the Biden Administration this system is still operating illegally and taking a human toll is both a betrayal of campaign promises and an abuse of humanity! It’s also horrible and clearly illegal policy!

How does an Administration that is actively engaged in “Dred Scottifying” people of color at the border and in their wholly owned Immigration “Courts” — actually modern day “Star Chambers” — have any “legitimate voice” on racial justice in America?

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Human lives matter! The Constitution matters! Asylum law matters!

PWS

04-26-21

⚠️🆘JUDGE GARLAND’S FAILURE TO ADDRESS HIS DYSFUNCTIONAL IMMIGRATION COURTS CONCERNS UNION, ADVOCATES, EXPERTS, & UNDERMINES HIS LEADERSHIP ON RACIAL INJUSTICE 🏴‍☠️ — Continuation Of Trump-Miller-Sessions-Barr White Nationalist, Anti-Asylum, Racist, Misogynist Agenda, Lack Of Plan To Replace GOP Hacks & Unqualified Judges Is A “Bad Look” For New AG & Team! — Round Table Star Judge Sue Roy Speaks Out!

Suzanne Monyak
Senior Reporter, Immigration

Hon. Susan G. Roy
Law Office of Susan G. Roy, LLC
Princeton Junction, NJ
Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

https://rollcall.com/2021/04/22/despite-bidens-union-support-immigration-judges-left-waiting/

Suzanne Monyak reports for Roll Call:

. . . .

Garland has yet to indicate whether he will rescind several decisions penned by attorneys general under the previous administration. In the last four years, Trump officials limited asylum eligibility for those fleeing violence by private actors, like gang members and domestic partners, and immigration judges’ ability to maintain their own dockets.

“There’s no reason that Attorney General Garland hasn’t done a thorough review of the attorney general certifications from the last administration,” said Susan Roy, a former immigration judge. “He should rescind any of them which he can. He has the authority to do that.”

. . . .

The Biden administration has also inherited a lengthy immigration court backlog — containing roughly 1.3 million cases — that have kept immigrants facing deportation and asylum-seekers waiting years for decisions in their cases.

The Biden administration has recognized that immigration judges may be key to processing these claims quickly and efficiently. In a preview of its budget request released earlier this month, the White House proposed increasing funding for the Justice Department’s immigration court agency from $734 million to $891 million to hire 100 new immigration judges.

Immigrant advocates and former judges say freeing the immigration court system from political influences is also critical to this effort.

“Without a union, there’s no way to protect judges against political ideologies of a given administration,” Roy said.

While judicial independence has “always been a concern” with a court system housed within a federal agency, “rarely has that been as problematic as it was under the Trump administration,” she said.

. . . .

Some advocates also want to see immigration courts be removed entirely from the DOJ and made an independent court system. The issue is on the agenda for the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s virtual “day of action” on April 22.

Roy, the incoming chair of AILA’s New Jersey chapter, acknowledged that Garland faces a number of competing priorities outside of the immigration courts. But she urged the administration against letting the system fall to the wayside.

“The immigration court is a subject that needs immediate attention,” she said. “Otherwise, it’s going to collapse under its own weight.”

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Thanks, Sue!

Today’s Immigration Courts, hotbeds of inefficiency, worst practices, racial bias, misogyny, and unnecessary backlogs, undermine everything that Biden and Harris campaigned on. They also make Judge Garland’s pledge to return justice and independence to the Department of Justice look like a farce.

You simply can’t be responsible for something as totally broken, biased, and due process denying as the current Immigration Courts and have ANY shred of credibility on racial justice, independence, and “good government!”

EYORE — “Eyore In Distress”
“Why won’t Judge Garland help me get back on my feet? I”m so tired of being ‘belly up!’”

Woman Tortured — “We were waiting for Judge Garland to free us from this chamber designed by Sessions, Miller, and Barr? Why is Garland diddling as we suffer and die?”
Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Judge Garland’s concept of “justice” for refugee women and people of color seems a little out of touch — anti-asylum, misogynistic, anti-due process, xenophobic, racially charged precedents remain in place; regressive, unqualified judges on the bench; “worst practices” continue to flourish; 1.3 million case backlog builds; & He hasn’t spoken to the naij:

Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal”
17th Century Woodcut
Public Realm
Source: Ancient Origins Website
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160

Trial By Ordeal — Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal”
17th Century Woodcut
Public Realm
Source: Ancient Origins Website
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160

Judge Merrick Garland — He doesn’t look like Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions or “Billy the Bigot” Barr, but does he think like them? Or does he just not care about the lives of people of color at the border and in his Immigration “Courts” that aren’t “courts” at all by any Constitutional or rational standard? Has he ever studied “The St. Louis Incident?” He’s basically repeating it!
Official White House Photo
Public Realm

Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-23-21

FARCE @ JUSTICE: Unjust Immigration Courts Diminish All Of Us!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/letters-to-the-editor/the-unjust-nature-of-civil-court-without-counsel/2021/04/20/38a2b4a8-9e32-11eb-b2f5-7d2f0182750d_story.html

Opinion: The unjust nature of civil court without counsel

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Erica Starkey, from Columbus, Ohio, did not have the assistance of a lawyer in a legal battle for custody of two of her children. (Maddie McGarvey/For The Washington Post)

April 20, 2021 at 4:42 p.m. EDT

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Regarding the April 12 editorial “Faced with the loss of her sons, she asked for a lawyer — and was refused”:

Erica Starkey’s story exposes the unjust nature of civil court proceedings for people who cannot afford counsel. People facing deportation also face a similar “affront to justice” as immigration cases are also civil proceedings. The majority of people in detention (70 percent) have no legal representation because people facing deportation do not have the right to a public defender, leaving them to navigate an unjust legal system alone. As a result, many immigrants languish in detention facilities for months or even years, often in inhumane and deadly conditions.

We have seen leaders in communities as diverse as Philadelphia, Denver and Harris County, Tex., collaborate with advocates and lawyers to create and expand deportation defense programs that secure due process rights for all. Together with existing representation programs, these efforts that center fairness and dignity have paved the way for a federal defender system for all immigrants. This critical work must continue across all levels of government to undo the radiating impacts of continued criminalization, mass detention, and separation and deportation of immigrants, and advance a new vision of justice for our communities.

Kica Matos, New York

The writer is vice president of initiatives at the Vera Institute of Justice.

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Attorney General Merrick Garland announced with great fanfare plans to investigate the Minneapolis Police Department.

Seems quite hypocritical given the glaring lack of constitutional due process, institutionalized xenophobia, racism, misogyny, and incompetence infecting his own Immigration Courts.

How is a Department that has failed to address systematic injustice in its own dysfunctional and unfair “courts” going to credibly address problems in the rest of our American Justice system?

Due Process Forever! Tell Judge Garland To Fix His Unjust “Courts” @ Justice!

PWS

04-21-21

☠️END MISOGYNY 🤮@ EOIR, NOW! — Gorelick & Miller-Muro Are Right, But Abused Refugee Women’s Lives⚰️ Can’t Wait For Congress! — Judge Garland Must Bring Justice ⚖️ To Dysfunctional EOIR Now! — It’s Not Rocket Science! 🚀

Jamie Gorelick
American Lawyer & Public Servant
PHOTO: Creative Commons

Layli Miller-Muro
Founder & Executive Director, Tahirih Justice Center
PHOTO: Creative Commons

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/07/us-asylum-law-must-protect-women/

Jamie Gorelick is a partner at Wilmer Hale. Layli Miller-Muro is founder and CEO of the Tahirih Justice Center, a nonprofit that serves immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. Both were involved in Fauziya Kassindja’s asylum case in 1996: Gorelick was deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration and Miller-Muro was Kassindja’s student legal counsel, representing her in immigration court and at the Board of Immigration Appeals.

With the issue of migration in the news again, a glaring omission in U.S. asylum law should get more attention: The statute does not name gender as a possible ground for protection.

To be granted asylum in the United States, an applicant must be facing persecution by their government or someone that government cannot or will not control. The applicant must show that the persecution is on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in “a particular social group.” Persecution on account of gender is not included.

This makes sense when considering that the global treaty that obliges state parties to protect refugees was adopted 70 years ago, in 1951, when the legal rights of women were barely recognized. The treaty — called the Refugee Convention — says that countries have an obligation to protect those who have no choice but to flee or risk death in the face of injustice.

It is unsurprising that the needs of women facing persecution were not considered in 1951. It is also not surprising — though it is disappointing — that Congress wrote this outdated framework into the Refugee Act of 1980.

In the mid-1990s, some light was shined on this problem. Fauziya Kassindja, a 17-year-old from Togo, sought protection both from forced polygamous marriage to a much older man and from female genital mutilation. She was granted asylum after proving that she was a member of a “particular social group” — and thus covered by the Refugee Act. We were both involved in this case, which helped to crack open the door for women to argue that gender-based asylum claims should be granted under the “particular social group” category in the statute.

But progress for women has been slow and painful under a statute that does not explicitly recognize gender-based persecution. It took 14 years for the United States to grant asylum to a Guatemalan woman, Rodi Alvarado, who endured unspeakable brutalization by her husband, a former soldier. Regulations proffered by then-Attorney General Janet Reno in 2000 to protect women under the social-group category were never finalized, leaving women in the lurch. So much variance exists in the likelihood of success from court to court that filing a claim can feel like playing Russian roulette.

. . . .

This situation has been made much worse in recent years. Under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, decades of progress were nearly wiped out by the stroke of a pen. Because the highest immigration court is part of the Justice Department, he was able to single-handedly reverse key legal precedents favorable to women’s claims and issue guidance to judges limiting gender-based asylum. As a result of these changes, the safety of many immigrant women hangs by a thread. The Refugee Act urgently needs to be changed to clearly protect women who would otherwise meet the stringent requirements for asylum.

. . . .

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

Read the full op-ed at the link.

The Rest of the Story

I wrote the decision granting asylum in Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1996). Jamie Gorelick was the Deputy Attorney General during part of my tenure (1995-2001) as Chair of the BIA. Layli Miller-Muro worked for me as a BIA Attorney-Advisor for a time.

Following Kasinga, some of my colleagues and I put our careers on the line to vindicate the statutory, constitutional, and human rights of refugee women who suffered egregious persecution in the form of domestic violence. One of those cases was Rodi Alvarado (a/k/a “Ms. R-A-“), where we dissented from our majority colleagues’ misguided denial of protection to her following grotesque, clearly gender-based persecution. Matter of R-A-, 22 I&N Dec. 906, 928 (BIA 1999) (Guendelsberger,Board Member, dissenting with Schmidt, Chair, Villageliu, Rosenberg, and Moscato, Board Members). Alvarado had properly been granted asylum by an Immigration Judge, building on Kasinga, before being unjustly stripped of protection by the majority of our colleagues.

The incorrect decision in R-A- was vacated by Attorney General Reno. Finally, after a 14-year struggle, Ms. Alvarado was granted asylum in an unpublished, unappealed decision based largely on the rationale of the dissenters. In the meantime, the “gang of four” dissenters (minus Moscato) had been exiled from the BIA by Attorney General John Ashcroft, assisted by his sidekick, Kris Kobach (the infamous “Ashcroft Purge” @ the BIA).

In 2014, in Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 388 (BIA 2014), the BIA finally recognized domestic violence based on gender as a form of persecution. They did so without acknowledging the pioneering work of the R-A- dissenters 15 years earlier. By this time, domestic violence as a basis for asylum had become so well established that it wasn’t even contested by the DHS (although, curiously, the case was remanded by the BIA for additional findings on issues that were beyond reasonable dispute)!

In the meantime, at the Arlington Immigration Court, my colleagues and I had consistently granted domestic violence asylum cases based on a DHS policy position known as the “Martin Memo,” after former INS General Counsel and later DHS Deputy General Counsel Professor David Martin (who, incidentally, argued the Kasinga case before the BIA in 1996 — famous gender-based asylum expert Professor Karen Musalo argued for Kasinga). Most of those grants were unappealed by DHS. Indeed, many were so compelling and well documented that DHS joined Respondents’ counsel in moving for asylum grants following brief testimony. These cases actually became staples on my “short docket,” promoting efficiency, fairness, and becoming one of the few “working parts” of the Immigration Courts.

Tahirih Justice Center, founded by, Layli Miller-Muro, was counsel in some of these cases and served as an essential resource and inspiration for attorneys preparing domestic violence cases. It also functioned as a training center for some of the “new all-stars” of the New Due Process Army. For a time, the progress in recognizing, documenting, and vindicating the rights and humanity of female asylum seekers, at least in the Arlington Immigration Court, was one of the few shining examples of the courts, DHS, and the private/NGO bar working cooperatively to improve the quality and efficiency of justice in Immigration Court. It should have been a model for all other courts!

Sadly, in 2018, Attorney General Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, unilaterally intervened and undid two decades of progress for women refugees of color with his grossly incorrect and disingenuous decision in Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 316 (BIA 2018), overruling Matter of A-R-C-G- on completely specious grounds while intentionally misconstruing the facts of record. Significantly, Sessions’s intervention was over the objection of DHS, which had expressed continuing agreement with the A-R-C-G- framework for deciding domestic violence cases.

“Hanging by a thread,” as stated by the op-ed, unfortunately vastly understates the war on the legal rights and humanity of asylum-seeking women, particularly targeting women at color, being carried out at EOIR today. This effort is led by a BIA that has long since lost its way, basically “weaponizing” the legal distortions and vicious, openly misogynist dicta set forth by Sessions in Matter of A-B- to dehumanize, degrade, and deport vulnerable refugee women.

In numerous cases, the BIA actually intervenes at ICE’s request to reverse proper grants by courageous and scholarly Immigration Judges below. It’s all about churning out final orders of removal as a deterrent – a vile, disgusting, perverted “philosophy” advanced by Sessions, Barr, and Whitaker, and not yet effectively rejected by Judge Garland.

Yeah, I’ve read about the Judge’s “difficulties” in getting his “A-Team” on board at the DOJ. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/07/us-asylum-law-must-protect-women/. So what!

Judge Garland is in the job because he is not only an experienced DOJ senior executive, but a long-serving Federal Judge who was admired for his sense of justice. It shouldn’t take an army of “spear-carriers” and subordinates for a true leader of Judge Garland’s experience to seize control of the situation and start getting the “ship of justice” sailing in the right direction. Judge Garland’s political and bureaucratic travails are of no moment to, and pale in comparison with, the additional, unconscionable abuse and “Dred Scottification” being heaped on refugee women and their courageous representatives by his dysfunctional and unconstitutional “star chamber courts.”

“Refugee women get ‘special treatment’ in accordance with the ‘traditional values’ applied to their cases in Judge Garland’s Immigration Courts!”

Please, Pick Up The Phone & Your Pen, Judge Garland!

Not rocket science, Judge Garland! All it takes is six calls and a signature to start ending misogyny at EOIR and achieving racial justice in the America.

First three calls: Call Judge Dana Marks (SF), Judge Noel Brennan (NYC), Judge Amiena Khan (Newark) and tell them that they are detailed to the positions of Acting EOIR Director, Acting BIA Chair, and Acting Chief Immigration Judge, respectively. (The first position is vacant and the other two positions are filled by Senior Executives subject to transfer at the AG’s discretion. The current Acting Director already has an SES position to which she could return, or she could be re-installed as the
EOIR General Counsel, a job for which she is well-qualified.)

Fourth call: Call the the head of of the Justice Management Division (JMD). Ask her/him to find suitable DOJ placements for the two current incumbents mentioned above and all current members of the BIA (all of whom are either SES or “Management Officials” subject to transfer at the AG’s discretion) in other DOJ positions at the same pay level where they can do no further damage to our justice system. Ask him/her to arrange for the temporary appointment of former DOJ employees Jamie Gorelick and Layli Miller-Muro as Acting Appellate Judges at the BIA.

Calls five and six: Call Jamie Gorelick and Layli Miller-Muro. Thank them, tell them you agree with their Post op-ed, and ask (or beg) them to come to DOJ on a temporary basis to help Judges Marks, Brennan, and Khan solve the current problems with asylum adjudications and take the necessary actions to get EOIR functioning as a legitimate, independent, due-process-oriented court system. In other words, turn their cogent op-ed into a “real life action plan” for restoring due process, humanity, and common sense to the Immigration Courts, with a focus on the now totally unprofessional, wrong-headed mis-adjudication of asylum cases.

Finally, sign this order:

All precedent decisions issued to EOIR by former Attorneys General Sessions and Barr, and former Acting Attorneys General Whitaker and Wilkinson, and all their pending actions certifying cases to themselves are hereby vacated. All cases shall be returned to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) for reconsideration. In the reconsideration process, the BIA shall, among other things, honor the letter and spirit of these binding precedents:

INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987)

Matter of Mogharrabi, 19 I&N Dec. 439 (BIA 1987)

Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1996)

In the reconsideration process the BIA shall also be guided by the principle of “through teamwork, innovation, and best practices, become the world’s best tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”

See, it’s not that complicated. By the end of this year, women will get the protection to which they legally are entitled from the Immigration Courts. We all will see dramatic changes that will lead the way toward “equal justice for all’” in America and become a blueprint for the Immigration Courts to fulfill the above-stated principle.

It would also be a far better legacy for Judge Garland to be viewed as the “father of the fair, independent, expert Immigration Courts,” than to be remembered as running the most dysfunctional, unfair, and misogynistic court system in America, his current path. And, as an extra added bonus, Judge Garland, you will have a great start on building a premier source of “battle tested,” due-process-oriented, progressive jurists for future Article III appointments!

It’s a “win-win-win” that you no longer can afford to ignore, Your Honor!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-09-21

⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️CAMILLE J. MACKLER @ JUST SECURITY “GETS IT!” — How Come Judge Garland & The Biden Administration Don’t? — “If we want to re-build a better, stronger immigration system, we need to start with immigration courts.” — Get Involved! Get Angry! Say No To Institutionalized Racism, Misogyny, & Dehumanization (“Dred Scottification”) @ EOIR! Force Judge Garland To Pay Attention! Demand Change, Now!

https://www.justsecurity.org/75675/to-fix-the-immigration-system-we-need-to-start-with-immigration-courts/

Merrick Garland was recently confirmed as attorney general, bringing back a much-needed sense of impartiality and integrity to the Justice Department and the immigration court system it oversees. In this sense, his appointment is critical because, less than two months into his presidency, Joe Biden is already confronting the reality that meaningful immigration policies don’t always match up with wishful campaign promises. As thousands of migrants, especially unaccompanied minors, continue to seek safety and opportunity in the United States; as changes to interior enforcement and immigration prosecutions are slow to implement; and as advocates apprehensively watch detention facilities expand and COVID-related border closures continue, immigration remains the most divisive of all political conversations.

But rather than be overwhelmed by the challenge, perhaps there is another place to start, one that has only been alluded to in Biden’s plans and never taken up by Congress: If we want to re-build a better, stronger immigration system, we need to start with immigration courts. In a Just Security piece published in November, Gregory Chen eloquently laid out the devastating harm caused by the Trump administration’s politicization of the immigration judiciary, pointedly describing the courts as “strained to the breaking point under a massive backlog of cases and a systemic inability to render consistent, fair decisions.”

Courts are the backstop of every legal system. Their most basic function is to ensure that applications of the law are fair, not arbitrary and capricious. In the U.S. immigration system, however, most of the oversight has fallen on administrative courts housed within the Department of Justice. As Chen argues, the courts “operate under the jurisdiction of a prosecutorial agency, the Department of Justice, whose aims and political interests often conflict with the fundamental mission of delivering impartial and fair decisions.” Further exacerbating the tension, beginning in 1996 Congress expanded the executive branch’s already far-reaching power on immigration by starting a 30-year trend of limiting the federal courts’ jurisdiction over immigration issues; efforts that were only reinforced by the 2002 Homeland Security Act and 2005 REAL ID Act. The recently introduced, White House-backed, U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 only slightly restores judicial oversight, allowing district courts to review allegations of violations of certain portions of the Act. For the foreseeable future, immigration courts remain under the direction of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), a small and chronically under-funded sub-agency of the Justice Department, operating out of an office building in Falls Church, Virginia, removed from DOJ leadership in Washington, D.C.

While they by no means caused the issues that plague the EOIR today, the Trump administration’s policies put the proverbial final nail in the coffin of a quasi-functioning system, decimating the daily functions of immigration courts and showing how they can be used as political tools. The overwhelming backlog of cases –nearly 1.3 million at last count across all courts– exacerbated by the enforcement-first agenda, means that immigration judges have enormous caseloads with few support staff to help them manage the work. In addition, policies by the Trump administration removed judicial discretion from judges, prevented them from using simple control tools to manage their dockets, tied performance reviews to how many cases they closed out within a year while making it harder to avoid entering deportation orders, and created new administrative law to further restrict benefits a judge can grant. When the immigration bench pushed back, leadership dismantled the union that represented them. Hiring and rewards practices have politicized the bench even more. As Chen noted in his piece, the Trump administration “stacked the courts with appointees who are biased toward enforcement, have histories of poor judicial conduct, hold anti-immigrant views, or are affiliated with organizations espousing such views.”

This is not the hallmark of a functional legal system, and its ripple effects undermine our immigration system as a whole.

. . . .

Otherwise, we will prolong a situation that would be comical were the implications not so devastating. Returning to the individuals stranded in Mexico due to the MPP, for example – as of the time of this writing, they are being registered into a database and given COVID tests by various international organizations. Once cleared to enter the United States, they will fill out a form, by hand, which is handed to the Customs and Border Protection official. The CBP officer, overwhelmed and under-resourced as they are at the border, will then transmit this paper form to the immigration court officials, who will enter it into their systems and change the case to the appropriate court. In New York, these courts do not even have sufficient staff to assign one clerk, who also doubles as an administrative assistant, to each judge. As a result, calls to the court frequently go unanswered and are rarely returned. Furthermore, increasingly, understaffing has led to misplaced evidence submissions for pending cases. The responsibility to ensure that all of these obstacles are overcome will lie on the individual who just, finally, entered the United States.

An independent immigration judiciary, with its own resources and free from political oversight, is the only long-lasting remedy to this dysfunction. In the meantime, the agency, much like the DOJ it depends on, is in desperate need of thoughtful, measured leadership that values due process and impartiality and supports existing staff as it continues to navigate the complex problems posed by our immigration laws. There must be trained, dedicated staff ensuring efficient management of the court’s dockets and administrative systems so that the individuals whose cases are going through the courts understand what is required of them. Only then will the immigration system reflect American notions of justice, and only then can we begin to rebuild a strong, sustainable immigration system that meets our goals for foreign policy, national security, and domestic prosperity.

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

Read Camille’s full article at the link.

Not rocket science! Just following the due process clause of the Constitution; implementing asylum laws in the fair, generous, and practical way they were intended; replacing today’s failed EOIR administrators, the entire BIA, and many Immigration Judges responsible for “asylum free zones” with competent, expert professionals; and treating migrants, regardless of race, color, creed, or gender, as human beings!

If you wonder why Judge Garland is continuing to run “star chambers” masquerading as “courts” @ DOJ, join the club!

As cogently described by my friend and fellow panelist at the Hispanic National Bar Association last night, Claudia Cubas, Litigation Director at the CAIR Coalition, in what other “court” system in America are you not entitled to a timely copy of your client’s file to prepare for litigation and file applications (often with artificially truncated “filing dates” to promote “summary denials”)? Making the Immgration Courts functional is neither impossible nor that complicated. All it takes is competent leadership with the guts to “clean house” at EOIR and “kick some tail” at an intransigent, contemptuous, and out of control DHS.

So why is Judge Garland investing in the continuing, deadly “Clown Show,”🤡🦹🏿‍♂️☠️⚰️ rather than getting going on bringing “his” courts into compliance with due process? It’s not even that hard to get the right experts who could do the job in place, at least on a temporary basis.

If Judge Garland won’t do his job, what can we do to force change and rationality into this totally dysfunctional, stunningly unfair, scofflaw system? Here are some ideas from last night’s panel at the Hispanic National Bar Association (“HNBA”):

Apply for jobs at EOIR (sure, they are hidden away on “USA Jobs,” there is no effort whatsoever on Judge Garland’s part to diversify or recruit real experts, and the selection process is opaque). But, better judges, with actual experience representing migrants (particularly asylum seekers) in court, and some compassion and human understanding along with expertise, are the key to fixing the system. It’s particularly critical for minority attorneys (now a relative rarity in the “Immigration Judiciary”) to apply in overwhelming numbers and get into the system to start forcing change from within (“bore from within,” as Dan Kowalski says). Can’t complain about who’s selected if you don’t apply and compete!
Raise hell with your legislative representatives! As long as Immigration Court reform is #27 on their radar screens, the problem won’t get addressed.
Get involved with educating the public about the ungodly, un-American disaster in the Immigration “Courts” that don’t fit any normal definition of “courts” (except “kangaroo courts”). Join and support advocacy and social service groups; write op-eds; write for blogs; speak at community and church meetings; run for political office!
Sue, sue, sue, sue! Make sure that the systemic mistreatment of migrants and people of color in Judge Garland’s Immigration Courts are front and center in the Article III Courts and that we are making an historical record of where Federal Judges and public officials stand on the most critical racial and social justice issue in America today. Argue the very obvious Constitutional violations present in a system run by prosecutors, where judges can be neither fair nor impartial, and where many lack even minimal competence and qualifications for their “judicial” positions. Take the fight to the broken and dysfunctional DOJ in the only way they understand, by whacking them down in court! Make Judge Garland face and “own” his disgracefully failed, unprofessional “courts” by making it the #1 issue occupying his time. Make how he deals with the Immigration Courts his overriding “legacy” for better or worse!
Remember, GOP politicos like to use immigration as a “prop” to spread their message of racial vilification and dehumanization of the “other” because it “fires up” their White Nationalist base! By contrast, Dem politicos want to make immigration go away and pretend like the mess in the Immigration Courts doesn’t exist, can’t be fixed, isn’t that important (as in lives of migrants and asylum seekers, mainly of color, don’t count), and isn’t killing people! Don’t let either party get away with their respective dishonest, “designed for failure,” approaches!

Humanity and the future of American democracy are at stake here! They might be “Clown Courts” 🤡 but the damage they daily inflict on human lives ☠️⚰️ and values 🤮 is no laughing matter!

EOIR Clown Show Must Go T-Shirt — “EOIR Clown Show Must Go” T-Shirt Custom Design Concept

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever! Put an end to deadly “Clown Courts” 🤡 now!

PWS

04-08-21

🇺🇸⚖️STRAIGHT TALK FROM HON. JEFFREY S. CHASE: “[F]or decades the BIA has enforced the offensive, outdated message to women seeking protection from such abuse that ‘this is not their world.’ The time has come to finally put an end to this sad substitute for true administrative appellate review.”

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2021/4/6/the-bias-mansplaining-of-gender-based-asylum

Blog Archive Press and Interviews Calendar Contact

The BIA’s Mansplaining of Gender-Based Asylum

“Every woman knows what I’m talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.”

Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me

On April 5, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a published decision in Rodriguez Tornes v. Garland. The opening sentences of the decision are heartbreaking:

Since the age of five, Petitioner has been told that men will beat her if she does not submit. Her mother demanded that she learn how to do housework, how to accept spousal abuse, and how “to obey everything that [her] husband would say.” She beat Petitioner with various objects almost daily, in part to prepare her for future beatings from her husband.

But along with the darkness there was also hope. The decision’s opening paragraph concludes: “Yet Petitioner came to believe that ‘there should be equality in opinions[] and in worth’ between men and women. She became a teacher.”

Remarkably, over all the years that followed, the Petitioner’s hope survived the most brutal attempts to crush her into silence and submission. As her mother had foreseen, she endured unspeakable and repeated forms of physical and psychological torture, including beatings and rape, at the hands of her husband. Yet she continued to express the belief in her rights as an equal, and was brutally punished each time she did so, in an attempt to destroy the part of her capable of forming such belief. Neither the police nor her own family offered her any possibility of protection.

When she finally succeeded in escaping to the U.S., her abuse continued, merely transferred to the hands of another domestic partner with whom she had three children in this country. In 2017, our government deported both her and her latest abuser. Facing the prospect of continued harm in her native Mexico, her still unbroken hope guided her to the U.S. once again, where she was placed into removal proceedings.

Her hope was briefly rewarded when an Immigration Judge granted the Petitioner asylum, ruling that her persecution was on account of her feminist political opinion. The Immigration Judge alternatively held that asylum was warranted on account of the Petitioner’s membership in the particular social group consisting of “Mexican females,” which formed at least one central reason for her persecution.

It isn’t clear why ICE appealed the IJ’s decision. On appeal, the BIA acknowledged the Petitioner’s honesty and the ongoing, systemic nightmare of violence she endured because of her gender and unbroken belief that she possessed rights. And yet the BIA chose to act like a rubber stamp for the administration it served, and found a way to reverse the IJ’s well-reasoned decision. According to a concurring opinion of the circuit court, the BIA managed this by suggesting that the Petitioner’s brutal suffering was motivated by her “personal relationship” with her abuser. According to the concurrence, the BIA supported this conclusion by relying on the decision of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Matter of A-B-.

Of course, asylum applications require an individualized analysis of the facts of the specific case under consideration. Matter of A-B- involved a different asylum seeker from a different country who experienced different facts than this petitioner. So in citing A-B- to reach a conclusion so at odds with the facts of this case, the BIA’s judges were signaling their choice of a specific policy objective over their duty to neutrally apply law to specific facts.

Among the facts the BIA chose to ignore was the opinion of an expert who drew “on more than three decades of research, writing, legal representation, and lawmaking” in support of her conclusion. The expert, Prof. Nancy Lemon of the Univ. of Cal. – Berkeley Law School, explained how all of the weapons at abusers’ disposal are “tied to social belief systems that ‘men are entitled to dominate and control women because the male sex is considered superior.’” Prof. Lemon went into great detail in explaining the political nature of the mistreatment. Of course, it mattered not to the Board.

In discussing this case, an esteemed colleague pointed to a decision that the same court issued more than three decades ago. In 1987, in an opinion authored by Judge John T. Noonan, Jr., a conservative Reagan appointee, the Ninth Circuit concluded that a Salvadoran woman subjected to repeated sexual abuse and other violence by a sergeant in the Salvadoran military had been persecuted on account of her political opinion where the abuser threatened to falsely label her a “subversive if she refused to submit to his abuse.”1 In the words of Judge Noonan, the fact that the persecutor gave the asylum seeker “the choice of being subjected to physical injury and rape or being killed as a subversive does not alter the significance of political opinion…” The decision reversed the conclusion of the BIA that “the evidence attests to mistreatment of an individual, not persecution,” precisely the same finding the Board used more than three decades later in denying Ms. Rodriguez Tornes of her grant of asylum.

In 1993, Justice Samuel Alito, then sitting at the Third Circuit, wrote that “we have little doubt that feminism qualifies as a political opinion within the meaning of the relevant statutes.”2 28 years later, the Ninth Circuit cited Justice Alito’s words in Rodriguez Tornes, adding that it had reached the same conclusion in its own unpublished 1996 decision.3 These were obviously not the decisions of liberal judges forwarding a political agenda. To the contrary, these judges were able to transcend political ideology by neutrally applying law to facts; this is what judges do. As a result, the law of asylum has progressed to increasingly provide asylum protection to victims of domestic abuse. Immigration Judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic administrations have followed suit, authoring well-reasoned decisions granting asylum in numerous cases of domestic abuse, including this one.

Yet over the same period of time, the BIA has stubbornly refused to budge from its 1980s position that domestic abuse is simply a personal matter not linked to a political opinion within society. In the words of Jeff Sessions in Matter of A-B-, the vile abuse was simply due to the abuser’s “preexisting personal relationship with the victim.”4

When a mother feels compelled to begin abusing her five year old daughter to prepare her to obey her husband one day, can the inevitable spousal abuse that follows really be dismissed as just a personal matter? And when the record contained Prof. Lemon’s evidence (because expert testimony is evidence) of “a correlation between patriarchal norms that support male dominance and violence against women by intimate partners,” what unsupported overconfidence did the BIA’s judges rely on in explaining that they know better?

The BIA decided this case during the Trump Administration. For those hoping that the change in administration will usher in a change in the Board’s view, it bears noting that neither the Clinton nor Obama administrations brought about a sea change in the Board’s approach to domestic violence claims. Under Clinton, the BIA issued Matter of R-A-,5 a precedent that essentially precluded the granting of asylum to domestic violence victims based on their membership in a particular social group. The decision was vacated by then-Attorney General Janet Reno, who promised more enlightened regulations on the issue that never arrived. Similar regulations were rumored to be in the works under Eric Holder, but again did not materialize. The BIA’s one grudging concession to the political climate of the Obama era, Matter of A-R-C-G-, was later vacated by Jeff Sessions. While the BIA discussed a second decision under Obama expanding on the narrow holding of A-R-C-G-, it too never came to be.

Based on that history, it seems safe to say that without drastic action by Attorney General Merrick Garland, the BIA will continue issuing the same denials for the same reasons as before. For every individual such as Ms. Rodriguez Tornes who is able to succeed on appeal, there are countless more who merely end up as stratistics, deported to face more of the horrendous abuse that drove them here in the first place. The Ninth Circuit recently had to correct the BIA’s determination that attempted gang rape did not constitute persecution,6 and last year, reversed the Board erroneous rejection of a domestic violence victim’s particular social group on the grounds that it contained a few too many words.7 The BIA continues to be composed of the exact same group of judges who issued each of those decisions.

It is the role of the BIA to reach fair decisions by applying the applicable law to the individual facts. Doing so in the domestic violence context would require the Board to finally recognize opposition to systemic male oppression as a political opinion warranting asylum. Instead, for decades the BIA has enforced the offensive, outdated message to women seeking protection from such abuse that “this is not their world.” The time has come to finally put an end to this sad substitute for true administrative appellate review.

Notes:

Lazo-Majano v. INS, 813 F.2d 1432 (9th Cir. 1987).

Fatin v. I.N.S., 12 F.3d 1233, 1242 (3rd Cir. 1993).

Moghaddam v. I.N.S., 95 F.3d 1158 (9th Cir. 1996) (unpublished).

Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 316, 339 (A.G. 2018).

22 I&N Dec. 906 (BIA 1999).

Kaur v. Wilkinson, No. 18-73001, __ F.3d __ (9th Cir., Jan. 29, 2021).

Diaz-Reynoso v. Barr, 968 F.3d 1070 (9th Cir. 2020).

Copyright 2021, Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.

Republished by permission.

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

Different style, but the same message as I delivered yesterday about the BIA’s institutionalized racist misogyny and the strange tolerance that Attorney General Merrick Garland has exhibited to date for this type of grotesque judicial misconduct.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/04/06/%f0%9f%8f%b4%e2%80%8d%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8fbias-misogynistic-anti-asylum-ignore-the-experts-the-evidence-approach-%f0%9f%a4%ae-rebuked-again-9th-cir-slams-bia-big-time-in-rodriguez/

And, this is on top of the astounding, largely self-inflicted 1.3 million case backlog and total dysfunction generated by the BIA’s failures combined with the “maliciously incompetent” effort by DOJ politicos and EOIR bureaucrats to disguise a “deportation railroad” as “administrative review!” Leaving aside all the legal travesties, the mal-administration and waste of public resources alone would be more than enough to require the immediate replacement of EOIR “upper (mis)management” and the entire BIA with qualified judicial professionals and professional judicial administrators.

Jeffrey and I are hardly the first to expose the charade of “appellate review” at the BIA. Two decades ago, following the “Ashcroft Purge,” administrative scholar and former GOP House Counsel Peter Levinson published his seminal work “The Facade of Quasi-Judicial Independence In Immigration Appellate Adjudications” documenting the mockery of due process and legitimate judicial practices being foisted off on the public by DOJ politicos.

COURTSIDE HISTORY: LEST WE FORGET: THE “ASHCROFT PURGE” AT THE BIA IN 2003 DESTROYED THE PRETEXT OF JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE AT EOIR FOREVER – HERE’S HOW! — Read Peter Levinson’s 2004 Paper: “The Facade Of Quasi-Judicial Independence In Immigration Appellate Adjudications”

In the two decades since, legislators, DOJ Officials, and Article III Judges have done their utmost to ignore and paper over the glaring constitutional and administrative disasters identified by Peter. Not surprisingly, during that time the BIA and the Immigration Courts have descended into a slimy mass of disastrous bias, injustice, and judicial and administrative incompetence unequaled in American Justice since the heyday of the First Era of Jim Crow. (We are now in the “New Era of Jim Crow.”)

Of course, we need an independent Article I Immigration Court as a matter of the highest national priority. But, it’s not on schedule to happen tomorrow, even though it should! In the interim, Judge Garland could fix lots of the festering problems in this system. I gotta wonder if and when he is going to wake up and pay attention to the “assembly line injustice” being cranked out by “his” Immigration Courts?

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-07-21

🏴‍☠️NEW ADMINISTRATION, SAME OLD TONE-DEAF, INCOMPETENT🤡 EOIR! — Latest Attempt To Unilaterally “Micromanage” Dockets From “Falls Church Tower” Arrogantly Disses Meaningful Public Input, Compounds Problems, Ignores Best Practices, Attempts To Shift Blame For Grotesquely Mismanaged 1.3 Million Case Backlog, Mocks Due Process! — This Is NOT Justice — This Is NOT A Court!

Please see EOIR’s invitation to an information session regarding revised Case Flow Processing.

_________________________________________

Executive Office for Immigration Review

Office of Policy

Communications and Legislative Affairs Division

PAO.EOIR@usdoj.gov

703-305-0289

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

Just a few “off the top of my head” observations:

1) The process would work much better if EOIR consulted the stakeholders for their ideas before issuing any memo.

2) In the absence of a real e-filing system, the assignment of trial dates without consulting counsel as to their availability is likely to generate lots of motions for different dates.

3) In a system with 1.3 million cases, why not ask how much time counsel needs for prep and filing rather than setting arbitrary dates? “Live (or even TV) Masters” give the IJ and the parties an opportunity to “negotiate” mutually agreeable, realistic hearing dates. That, in turn, minimizes the number of motions to continue or reset and maximizes the chance of actually getting the case heard on the first scheduled Individual (Merits) Hearing date (barring more Aimless Docket Reshuffling from EOIR “management,” which is a continuing problem).

4) Given how messed up the EOIR dockets are, what’s the point of pushing for 30 day filings when the merits hearing might not be for years?

5) How do you encourage stipulations with precedents that make them worthless when the AG or BIA or IJ can choose to ignore them to deny? Stipulations seem to bind only one party: the respondent. Can’t imagine a much clearer indication of systemic bias or lack of due process and impartiality.

6) To me, this looks like just another gimmick to allow EOIR to “deny and deport” for failure to meet arbitrary filing deadlines, without EOIR committing to any reasonable limits on its own scheduling of merits hearings. The R has to “race or lose;” but, EOIR can (and does) take forever with no accountability.

7) What’s the empirical basis for all EOIR’s assumptions as to what best and most efficient practices are? How would an agency renowned for “malicious incompetence” know? Best and most efficient for whom? Falls Church bureaucrats? Politicos on the 5th Floor of the DOJ?

8) I completed lots of cases at Master, besides in absentias. In some situations, I suggested areas for stipulation or agreement, or invited joint motions to transfer to my “short calendar” if certain conditions were met. I’m not convinced that “interactive” Masters serve no purpose. I’d be interested in whether the private bar sees these procedures as an improvement. Amazing what you can actually accomplish when you have the parties and counsel in your actual presence as an IJ. Amazing what an IJ can actually teach and communicate from the bench during a “live” master.

9) To some degree, this ham-handed attempt at micromanagement “from afar and on high” looks like a restoration of the paper heavy and labor intensive chaos that existed in the system before EOIR was created in 1983 and the late Chief Judge William R. Robie “invented” Master Calendar as an essential scheduling tool that brought order from that chaos. If EOIR ever got competent court administration and created a functioning e-filing system (like almost every other tribunal in the U.S.), the private bar and actual sitting IJs could undoubtedly suggest some helpful “tune-ups” to the Master Calendar process to take advantage of efficiencies made possible through e-filling.

10) This memo also violates one of the key principles of effective judicial administration — that docket management and scheduling of cases should be left to local judges in conjunction with the private bar and the local DHS Chief Counsel. They, not bureaucrats in Falls Church or DOJ policies, are in the best position to develop the most reasonable and efficient docketing and scheduling procedures coordinator that particular court. The major contribution that “EOIR Headquarters” could make would be a functioning e-filing system — an area where they have an inexcusable two decade history of abject failure, wasted effort, and squandered public resources.

10) To me, this looks like another “designed to fail” edict from the purveyors of disaster, disorder, and injustice!

11) Other than that, it’s great!

Those wanting to contribute to an organized response to this latest “gut punch” might want to contact Michelle Mendez, Director of Defending Vulnerable Populations at CLINIC, or retired Judge Sue Roy (NJ Bar, AILA, Round Table).

On April 7, after you have attended the EOIR session, you might want to “tune in” to our panel for the Hispanic National Bar Association entitled “Who’s Judge Is It Anyway?” We’ll discuss ideas on how attorneys, particularly those from under-represented groups, can go about forcing change to the institutionalized racism, grotesque disorder, and systemic abuses of due processes, best practices, and human dignity still going on in our Immigration Courts even as the Biden Administration claims to be focusing on racial justice in America!

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/03/29/%f0%9f%a7%91%f0%9f%8f%bd%e2%80%8d%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%97%bd%f0%9f%87%ba%f0%9f%87%b8whos-judge-is-it-anyway-the-crisis-of-independence-in-our-immigration-court/

Let’s find ways to force Judge Garland out of his “ivory tower funk” and to make him start paying attention to the Constitutional mockery, amateurish jurisprudence, defiance of common sense, and racist dehumanization of “the other” going on in “his” wholly owned and beyond incompetently operated “courts!”

🇺🇸🗽⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

04–05-21

⚖️🗽WATCH, LISTEN TO PROFESSOR GEOFFREY HOFFMAN OF U. OF HOUSTON LAW DELIVER THE 2021 SKELTON LECTURE: “What Should Immigration Law Become?”

https://youtu.be/GvwuahGzZQ8

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

A few “takeaways” from one of America’s leading “practical scholars:”

Think about a new start with a “clean slate;”
Deportation is “state violence;”
Immigration Courts are constructed to provide Gov. with an unfair advantage;
No rules, no due process, no justice;
Kudos to the NDPA & the Round Table;
Trump Administration spent inordinate effort improperly skewing the law to insure everything is denied and remove equible discretion from IJs;
Good provisions that provided discretion in the past to alleviate hardship and injustice have been eliminated by Congress: suspension of deportation, JRAD, 212(c), 245(i), registry (not repealed but now virtually useless b/c of 1972 cutoff date).

👍🏼🗽Thanks, Geoffrey, and Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-04-21

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

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

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

Franco Ordonez reports for NPR:

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

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

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

. . . .

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

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

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

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

POLITICS

House Passes 2 Bills Aimed At Overhauling The Immigration System

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the complete article at the link.

Why it could work:

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

Why it probably won’t work:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-01-21

🏴‍☠️CLOSING THE BORDER TO LEGAL ASYLUM SEEKERS IS A VIOLATION OF BOTH DOMESTIC & INTERNATIONAL LAW — It’s Neither Something To Tout (Biden Administration) Nor A Solution (GOP) (Except, Perhaps, In The “Hitlerian” Sense) — Our Inability To Solve A Humanitarian Situation By Acting Lawfully, Sensibly, & Humanely Is A Sign Of Gross National Weakness Spurred By Unwillingness To See The Human Tragedies We Are Promoting! — And The Lousy, Misleading, & Tone-Deaf Reporting By The Some Of The “Mainstream Media” Is Making It Worse! — Leon Krauze & Suzanne Gamboa With Simple Truths About Human Migration That Neither Pols Nor Nativists Want You To Hear! — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: Friday Mini-Essay: “Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration”

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

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

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

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

. . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . . .

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

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

Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration

By Judge (Ret) Paul Wickham Schmidt

“Courtside” Exclusive

March 26, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PWS

03-26-21

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

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

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

PANEL: Southwick, Graves, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges

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

KEY QUOTE:

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

10

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

No. 18-60251

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PWS

03-21-21

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

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You can read it here in all of its glorious bureaucratic nothingness and hollow rhetoric:

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸🗽Due Process Forever!

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Every member of the NDPA should be outraged by Garland’s treachery:

Here’s the latest farcical roster of prosecutors, government attorneys, and non-immigration experts to be inflicted on migrants and their attorneys:

Here are some “early reactions” from the NDPA:

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! We need to translate Garland’s blatant disrespect, ignorance, and failure to stand up for racial justice, an end to misogyny, and progressive expertise in the Immigration Judiciary into action and resistance to his “Miller Lite” vision for the DOJ!

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🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Human lives matter! The Constitution matters! Asylum law matters!

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Due Process Forever!

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Due Process Forever! Tell Judge Garland To Fix His Unjust “Courts” @ Justice!

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“Refugee women get ‘special treatment’ in accordance with the ‘traditional values’ applied to their cases in Judge Garland’s Immigration Courts!”

It’s a “win-win-win” that you no longer can afford to ignore, Your Honor!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever! Put an end to deadly “Clown Courts” 🤡 now!

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🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸🗽⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

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👍🏼🗽Thanks, Geoffrey, and Due Process Forever!

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Why it could work:

Why it probably won’t work:

Due Process Forever!

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

Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration

By Judge (Ret) Paul Wickham Schmidt

“Courtside” Exclusive

March 26, 2021

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

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

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