Category: Representation

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! – TRUMP SCOFFLAWS OUTED AGAIN! – Judge Considers Sanctions Against Administration Officials & Their Lawyers For Lies, Disobeying Court Orders, & Continuous Course Of Unethical Behavior! — “Government Has Acted Ignobly In This Case” — Trumpsters Win “Courtside’s” Coveted Five Turkey Award!

http://www.aclumich.org/article/us-district-court-orders-release-iraqi-detainees

The ACLU reports:

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan applauds the decision of U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith to order the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release all Iraqis within 30 days.

“The law is clear that the Federal Government cannot indefinitely detain foreign nationals while it seeks to repatriate them, when there is no significant likelihood of repatriation in the reasonably foreseeable future,” wrote Judge Goldsmith in a 59-page opinion.

Judge Goldsmith also wrote that he will impose sanctions on the Government for “…failing to comply with court orders, submitting demonstrably false declarations of Government officials, and otherwise violating its litigation obligations—all of which impels this Court to impose sanctions.”

“Today’s decision is about accountability,” said ACLU senior staff attorney Miriam Aukerman. “ICE thought it could get away with lying to a federal judge. ICE thought it could get away with using indefinite detention to coerce Iraqis to accept deportation despite the dangers they face in Iraq. Today, Judge Goldsmith made it clear that ICE is not above the law.”

“It is appalling that ICE lied to the Court, and even more appalling that it did so in order to keep people wrongfully incarcerated,” said University of Michigan law professor Margo Schlanger, a cooperating attorney for the ACLU. “The Court made it absolutely clear that it will not tolerate such misconduct, and that ICE cannot simply lock people up and throw away the key.”

“We are delighted that families who have been separated for so long will finally be reunited,” said Kim Scott, an attorney at Miller Canfield who also represents the detainees. “As a result of today’s order, many of those who were unjustly detained will be home with their families for the holidays.”

Today’s ruling is the latest development in Hamama v. Adducci, a nationwide class action filed in June 2017 on behalf of hundreds of Iraqi nationals, who were arrested throughout the country without warning and threatened with immediate deportation. Many came to the U.S. as children and have lived and worked in the U.S. for decades. They now face persecution, torture, or even death in Iraq because of their religion, ethnicity, or the fact that they are Americanized. Approximately 120 Iraqis remain detained.

Read Judge Goldsmith’s order here.

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Thanks to Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis Immigration Community for passing this along. And, congrats to the ACLU for brightening the Thanksgiving Day of not only these long-abused Iraqi detainees, but also of the substantial number of us who still believe in and cherish real American values — even in the “Dark Ages” of  the Trump Administration!

Great news, and long, long overdue!  Many of us have been calling for some time now for full accountability for Trump officials and their often ethically challenged lawyers who are out to abuse and destroy our precious legal system. There was a time in the not too distant past when U.S.Government lawyers were supposed to be held to a higher standard of promoting fairness, justice, and judicial efficiency. As I used to tell newly hired INS lawyers — “The Government wins when justice prevails — regardless of which party ‘wins’ the case.” That went out the door when Trump and his corrupt cronies like Jeff Sessions stepped in.

Federal Judges finally are losing patience with the types of blatant, “in your face” abuses by the Trump Administration that undoubtedly would have landed private parties and counsel in hot water long ago.  Where’s the justice in a system that imprisons, deports, and otherwise abuses victims while letting the abusers walk free to strike again?

“[T]he Government has acted ignobly in this case, by failing to comply with court orders, submitting demonstrably false declarations of  Government officials, and otherwise violating its litigation obligations—all of which impels this Court to impose sanctions.”  — U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith

For their shockingly inappropriate and unethical conduct of and in Federal Court litigation, the Trump Administration officials involved in this and many similar abusive cases get “Courtside’s” Thanksgiving “Five Turkey Award.”

 

PWS

11-22-18

🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃

 

Related posts:

  1. SCOFFLAWS OUTED AGAIN: U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE BLOCKS TRUMP’S ILLEGAL ATTACK ON ASYLUM LAW: ORDERS PROCESSING OF ALL WHO APPLY TO RESUME! — “Whatever the scope of the president’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden!”
  2. “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE” MORPHS INTO CONTEMPT FOR COURT AS ADMINISTRATION TELLS COURT & SEPARATED FAMILIES “GO POUND SAND” — They Just Don’t Care About Humanity!
  3. HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM COURTSIDE! — I Take A Look Forward @ 2019’s Big Immigration Stories
  4. AMERICA’S “MASS ATROCITY” — Professor Kate Cronin-Furman Says Don’t Kid Yourself About What The Trump Administration Is Doing In Your Name & How “Ordinary Civil Servants” Carry Out The Unthinkable & Unacceptable!

SCOFFLAWS OUTED AGAIN: U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE BLOCKS TRUMP’S ILLEGAL ATTACK ON ASYLUM LAW: ORDERS PROCESSING OF ALL WHO APPLY TO RESUME! — “Whatever the scope of the president’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden!”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/us/judge-denies-trump-asylum-policy.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Miriam Jordan reports for the NY Times:

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to resume accepting asylum claims from migrants no matter where or how they entered the United States, dealing at least a temporary setback to the president’s attempt to clamp down on a huge wave of Central Americans crossing the border.

Judge Jon S. Tigar of the United States District Court in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order that blocks the government from carrying out a new rule that denies protections to people who enter the country illegally. The order, which suspends the rule until the case is decided by the court, applies nationally.

“Whatever the scope of the president’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,” Mr. Tigar wrote in his order.

As a caravan of several thousand people journeyed toward the Southwest border, President Trump signed a proclamation on Nov. 9 that banned migrants from applying for asylum if they failed to make the request at a legal checkpoint. Only those who entered the country through a port of entry would be eligible, he said, invoking national security powers to protect the integrity of the United States borders.

Within days, the administration submitted a rule to the federal registry, letting it go into effect immediately and without the customary period for public comment.

But the rule overhauled longstanding asylum laws that ensure people fleeing persecution can seek safety in the United States, regardless of how they entered the country. Advocacy groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union, swiftly sued the administration for effectively introducing what they deemed an asylum ban.

The advocacy groups accused the government of “violating Congress’s clear command that manner of entry cannot constitute a categorical asylum bar” in their complaint. They also said the administration had violated federal guidelines by not allowing public comment on the rule.

But Trump administration officials defended the regulatory change, arguing that the president was responding to a surge in migrants seeking asylum based on frivolous claims, which ultimately lead their cases to be denied by an immigration judge. The migrants then ignore any orders to leave, and remain unlawfully in the country.

”The president has sought to halt this dangerous and illegal practice and regain control of the border,” government lawyers said in court filings.

Mr. Trump, who had made stanching illegal immigration a top priority since his days on the campaign trail, has made no secret of his frustration over the swelling number of migrants heading to the United States. The president ordered more than 5,000 active-duty troops to the border to prevent the migrants from entering.

The new rule was widely regarded as an effort to deter Central Americans, many of whom request asylum once they reach the United States, often without inspection, from making the journey over land from their countries to the border.

United States immigration laws stipulate that foreigners who touch American soil are eligible to apply for asylum. They cannot be deported immediately. They are eligible to have a so-called credible fear interview with an asylum officer, a cursory screening that the overwhelming majority of applicants pass. As result, most of the migrants are released with a date to appear in court.

In recent years, more and more migrants have availed of the asylum process, often after entering the United States illegally. A record 23,121 migrants traveling as families were detained at the border in October. Many of the families turn themselves in to the Border Patrol rather than queue up to request asylum at a port of entry.

The Trump administration believes the migrants are exploiting asylum laws to immigrate illegally to the United States. Soaring arrivals have exacerbated a huge backlog of pending cases in the immigration courts, which recently broke the one-million mark. Many migrants skip their court dates, only to remain illegally in the country, which Mr. Trump derides as “catch and release.”

But advocates argue that many migrants are victims of violence or persecution and are entitled to seek sanctuary. Gangs are ubiquitous across El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, where lawlessness and corruption enable them to kill with impunity.

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Entirely predictable. “Many of the families turn themselves in to the Border Patrol rather than queue up to request asylum at a port of entry.”

Why aren’t ethical requirements being enforced on Government lawyers who present and defend these clearly frivolous positions in court?  Knowingly and intentionally depriving individuals of statutory, civil, and constitutional rights, while tying up Federal Judges and other “officers of the court” on frivolous political stunts directed at harming individuals on the basis of race and nationality must, at some point, be deterred!

These are not criminal proceedings, and the Administration is not entitled to a “presumption of innocence” for its lawless actions. At some point, ethical lawyers have an obligation “not to serve” a lawless Administration and to publicly disclose and oppose the Administration’s intentionally illegal actions and intentional wrongdoing aimed at migrants and communities of color in the U.S.  “Job security” doesn’t entitle Government employees, let alone those who also are members of the bar, to violate their oaths to uphold the Constitution.

And no, no matter how much the GOP appointees might want to do so, the Supremes can’t authorize the President to rewrite the clear terms of the law at his whim.

PWS

11-20-18

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”

WITH SESSIONS GONE, EOIR DIRECTOR McHENRY TAKES POINT IN ALL OUT ATTACK ON DUE PROCESS, ASYLUM SEEKERS, IMMIGRATION JUDGES, AND REALITY!

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.justice.gov_eoir_page_file_1112581_download&d=DwMFAw&c=euGZstcaTDllvimEN8b7jXrwqOf-v5A_CdpgnVfiiMM&r=Wq374DTv_PXfIom65XBqoA&m=vBNdG88wJjdA06Fq_GLujzYMJw5il7nmwzf2YZX_oFg&s=S0-8lFsHprZ1S04dwj_YVFuz8G6q_w-dZPmwquinIzI&e=

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Read the memo at the above link.

  • In his last out of touch missive, McHenry said that one year was a “reasonable period” for adjudicating an asylum application in accordance with Due Process. Now it’s six months or less!
  • The “statutory limit” in section 208 never had any basis in fact.  It was a number pulled out of thin air by Congress and has never been achievable.
  • In any event, Congress’s and EOIR’s attempt to place and enforce statutory limits on adjudication can never contravene Due Process.
  • Heck, when I was in Arlington, most “affirmative” asylum cases were more than six months from filing before they even got on my docket at Master Calendar.
  • For “defensive” filings (those asylum applications filed initially with the Immigration Court), there is no way that with 1.1 million cases already on the docket and scheduled, new cases could be fairly completed within six months without massive, massive “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” that will jack up the backlog even further.
  • Given the “docket overload” in  the Immigration Courts, there simply aren’t enough qualified attorneys (particularly pro bono attorneys) available to represent asylum applicants with six months or less to prepare. Many pro bono organizations can’t even schedule “intake interviews” within six months!
  • In the Sessions mold, McHenry, who has never to my knowledge adjudicated an asylum application in his life, is attempting to “duress” judges into choosing between upholding Due Process and their oaths of office and following unreasonable agency directives aimed exclusively at screwing asylum seekers and promoting more denials.
  • The cases are more complex than ever. If anything, the DOJ should be promulgating a “blanket exemption” from the six month period given the current overall circumstances.
  • The obtuse “two standard” interpretation is completely new; although the statute has been in effect for approximately two decades, nobody has ever interpreted that way before!
  • This is an obvious, heavy handed attempt by non-judicial officials at EOIR and DOJ to interfere with and direct the independent decision making responsibilities of the Immigration Judges.
  • This system is heading down the tubes! It’s a farce! If the Article IIIs don’t put an end to it, it will go down as one of the most disgraceful mockeries of our Constitution and the rule of law since the days of Jim Crow! Not to mention a total and intentional perversion of international protection standards.

PWS

11-19-18

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. HALLOWEEN HORROR STORY: Opaque & Biased Politicized Judicial Hiring Denies Migrants The Fair & Impartial Adjudication To Which They Are Constitutionally Entitled – Given The Generous Legal Standards, A Worldwide Refugee Crisis, & Asylum Officers’ Positive Findings In Most Cases, Asylum Seekers Should Be Winning The Vast Majority Of Immigration Court Cases — Instead, They Are Being “Railroaded” By A Biased System & Complicit Article III Courts!
  3. REGIME’S NEWEST SCHEME TO SCREW ASYLUM SEEKERS: BOGUS REGS THAT WOULD ILLEGALLY & UNNECESSARILY EXTEND THE GROUNDS OF “MANDATORY DENIAL,” DECREASE ADJUDICATOR DISCRETION, & SHAFT REFUGEE FAMILIES — Regime’s Outlandish “Efficiency Rationale” Fails to Mask Their Cruelty, Racism, Fraud, Waste, & Abuse – Julia Edwards Ainsley (NBC News) & Dean Kevin R. Johnson (ImmigrationProf Blog) Report
  4. TRUTH MATTERS: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: AILA Blasts EOIR’s False & Unethical Anti-Asylum Screed! — “Together, the document’s deceptive information and polarizing rhetoric further undermines the court system’s ability to be a neutral arbiter of justice and comes at a time when there is a severe lack of public confidence in its capacity to deliver fair and timely decisions. EOIR’s skewed portrayal only demonstrates the urgent need for Congress to create an independent court, separate from DOJ.”

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema Lays Groundwork For Holding Trump’s Child Abusers & Family Separators Accountable!

https://www.justice4all.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JECM-Motion-to-Dismiss-Ruling.pdf

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts:      Rebecca Wolozin, (571) 373-0518
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, (434) 218-9376

FEDERAL COURT ALLOWS CHALLENGE TO GOVERNMENT POLICY

USING DETAINED CHILDREN AS BAIT TO ARREST FAMILIES

 

ALEXANDRIA, VA (November 16, 2018) — Yesterday, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia denied the U.S. government’s motion to dismiss Legal Aid Justice Center’s lawsuit on behalf of detained immigrant children and their families, striking a blow to a new immigration policy that has kept thousands of children unnecessarily detained for months. The Court’s decision is a victory for immigrant children and their families in Virginia and across the country.

This case is particularly significant, not only in Virginia, but nationally. Over 13,000 children are held by Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) under the policies challenged in this suit, hundreds of whom are in Virginia. Because the policies are federal policies implemented across the country, the outcome of this case will have a nationwide impact.

Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC), together with the intellectual property law firm of Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein, and Fox, brought this first-of-its-kind class action lawsuit challenging the government’s recent policy of sharing sponsor information and information about sponsors’ household members with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). That policy has resulted in ICE arrests of family and friends that came forward to bring their children home.

“The Trump administration has been carrying out a backdoor family separation agenda, keeping immigrant children apart from their families and using children as bait to break up the very families they have traveled so far and risked so much to join,” said Becky Wolozin, lead counsel and attorney with LAJC’s Immigrant Advocacy Program. “This decision is a victory for immigrant children and families. The Court has said clearly that the government cannot run roughshod over the rights of these children and their loved ones.”

The lawsuit stemmed from the experience of four children in ORR custody on Virginia who were held by the government for over five months while their relatives tried to bring them home. Three of the four children were finally reunified with their families – one just weeks before the Court’s order came down. The three children who have been reunified with their families have been dismissed from the case. One child remains in government custody, where he has been held apart from his adult sister for six months, after fleeing violence and neglect in his home country.

“For years, ORR has neglected its obligations under the Administrative Procedure Act,” said Sterne Kessler Director Salvador Bezos, lead of the firm’s immigration-focused pro bono matters. “The Administrative Procedure Act provides essential protections against this kind of agency overreach. I am proud of my colleagues’ and LAJC’s efforts to force the government to meet its obligations to the children in its custody.”

“ORR is supposed to protect vulnerable immigrant children. Instead it is placing them in harm’s way under the guise of child welfare,” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Legal Director of LAJC’s Immigrant Advocacy Program. “Their policy and its enforcement undermine successfully placing children with their families and the vast surveillance actions are destabilizing immigrant communities.”

In the November 15th ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema firmly upheld children’s right to liberty and the right to family unity for immigrant families. Judge Brinkema found that the children and their sponsors provided sufficient reason to suggest that their constitutional rights were violated, and that the government violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it enacted its ICE sharing policy earlier this year.  The case will now move forward as LAJC works to certify the class and the parties work to complete discovery.

Read the legal ruling here.

 

# # #

Legal Aid Justice Center is a statewide Virginia nonprofit organization whose mission is to strengthen the voices of low-income communities and root out the inequities that keep people in poverty. We provide legal support to immigrant communities facing legal crises and use advocacy and impact litigation to fight back against ICE enforcement and detention abuses.  More information is available at http://www.justice4all.org/current-initiatives/fighting-family-separation/

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Congrats to Rebecca, Simon, and the wonderful crew over at Legal Aid Justice in Virginia! True fighters and leaders of the New Due Process Army!

Hopefully this will pave the way not only for the end of these despicable and illegal behaviors, but also holding the Trump Administration scofflaws and their career employee accomplices who plan and execute these violations of law fully accountable for their intentionally unlawful and unconstitutional actions.

PWS

11-18-18

Related posts:

  1. FOUR TODDLERS RESCUED BY PRO BONO LAWYERS FROM DEADLY SITUATION IN CBP CUSTODY — Putrid, Unsanitary, Repressive Conditions Causing Lifetime Harm To Other Traumatized Kids — But, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost Wants You To Know That She’s Not Taking Responsibility For The Humanitarian Disaster Intentionally Engineered On Her Watch!
  2. CONTINUING JUDICIAL EDUCATION FOR ARTICLE III JUDGES: “Kids In Cages” Ought To Be Displayed Outside Every Federal Courthouse & The Supremes So That “Robed Enablers” Can See The Results Of Their Abdication Of Constitutional Duties!
  3. [BUREAU] ‘CRATS CONTINUE TO FLEE SINKING DHS SHIP AS ABUSES, LIES, COVER-UPS MOUNT — John Sanders Latest To Exit — Trump Taps Mark Morgan, Eager Architect Of Administration’s Temporarily Aborted “Community Reign of Terror” (A/K/A/ “Operation Wetback ‘19”) Program As Next Acting CBP Chief — Expect More Mindless Cruelty, Lies, False Narratives, White Nationalist Racism, Violations Of Law & Human Rights!
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

BIA’S LATEST ON CAT DETACHED FROM REALITY – MATTER OF J-R-G-P, 27 I &N DEC. 482 (BIA 2018)

3944_ed

Matter of J-R-G-P-, 27 I & N Dec. 482 (BIA 2018)

BIA HEADNOTE:

Where the evidence regarding an application for protection under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted and opened for signature Dec. 10, 1984, G.A. Res. 39/46, 39 U.N. GAOR Supp. No. 51, at 197, U.N. Doc. A/RES/39/708 (1984) (entered into force June 26, 1987; for the United States Apr. 18, 1988), plausibly establishes that abusive or squalid conditions

n pretrial detention facilities, prisons, or mental health institutions in the country of removal are the result of neglect, a lack of resources, or insufficient training and education, rather than a specific intent to cause severe pain and suffering, an Immigration Judge’s finding that the applicant did not establish a sufficient likelihood that he or she will experience “torture” in these settings is not clearly erroneous.

PANEL: APPELLATE IMMIGRATION JUDGES GREER and WENDTLAND; CROSSETT, TEMPORARY APPELLATE IMMIGRATION JUDGE

OPINION BY: JUDGE ANNE GREER

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BIA’S LATEST ON CAT DETACHED FROM REALITY – MATTER OF J-R-G-P, 27 I &N DEC. 482 (BIA 2018)

      • No dialogue, no dissent, on today’s BIA. And, yes, the reviewing courts have largely deferred to the BIA’s interpretation of “specific intent.” 
      • But, there are other plausible constructions that actually are more consistent with the purpose of the CAT to prevent the use of torture. In her dissenting opinion in Matter of J-E-, 23 I &N Dec. 291 (BIA 2002) my former colleague Judge Lory Diana Rosenberg set forth a “better view” (note, I also filed a vigorous separate dissenting opinion in J-E-):
        • “The majority’s reading of the regulations functionally converts the Senate understanding that torture must be specifically intended into a “specific intent” requirement. I disagree. I can find no basis to conclude that the Senate understanding was intended to require proof of an intent to accomplish a precise criminal act, as the majority contends is required. See Matter of J-E-, supra, at 301 (defining “specific intent”). Rather, the plain language of the text of 8 C.F.R. § 208.18(a)(5) reflects only that something more than an accidental consequence is necessary to establish the probability of torture. Id. (stating plainly that unanticipated or unintended pain and suffering that is severe enough to constitute torture is not covered). Moreover, 8 C.F.R. § 208.18(a)(4) states that a threat of infliction of severe physical pain or suffering may amount to torture.”
      • The J-R-G-P- opinion basically analogizes the intentionally pathetic efforts of the Mexican Government to deal with mental illness with the efforts of “poor countries like Haiti” at issue in Matter of J-E. 
        • But, Mexico is actually the 14th largest economy in the world (11th by consumer buying power); Haiti rates 141st. It appears Mexico in fact has more than adequate resources to deal with mental illness; it has just intentionally chosen not to do so, even knowing the severe harm constituting torture that choice intentionally inflicts on individuals.
      • The opinion also minimizes the evidence of the intentionally torturous conditions that exist in the Mexican institutional mental health system.
        • From the 2017 State Department Country Report on Mexico: Among the numerous human rights abuses: “lethal violence and sexual assault against institutionalized persons with disabilities;”
        • Here’s how the same Country Report addresses the specifically horrible treatment of institutionalized individuals with disabilities: “Abuses in mental health institutions and care facilities, including those for children, were a problem. Abuses of persons with disabilities included lack of access to justice, the use of physical and chemical restraints, physical and sexual abuse, trafficking, forced labor, disappearances, and illegal adoption of institutionalized children. Institutionalized persons with disabilities often lacked adequate medical care and rehabilitation, privacy, and clothing and often ate, slept, and bathed in unhygienic conditions. They were vulnerable to abuse from staff members, other patients, or guests at facilities where there was inadequate supervision. Documentation supporting the person’s identity and origin was lacking, and there were instances of disappearances.
        • As of August 25, the NGO Disability Rights International (DRI) reported that most residents had been moved to other institutions from the privately run institution Casa Esperanza, where they were allegedly victims of pervasive sexual abuse by staff and, in some cases, human trafficking. Two of the victims died within the first six months after transfer to other facilities, and the third was sexually abused. DRI stated the victim was raped repeatedly during a period of seven months at the Fundacion PARLAS I.A.P. and that another woman was physically abused at an institution in another state to which she was transferred.
      • Here’s the “real skinny” on how Mexico intentionally scrimps on budget and tortures those institutionalized for mental health disabilities: “THE NIGHTMARE THAT IS MEXICO’S MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM byAriel Jacoby from Medelita (https://www.medelita.com) | Thursday, Jan 21, 2016 tags: features (https://www.medelita.com/blog/category/features)health-feat-img.jpg&url=https://www.medelita.com/blog/the-nightmare-that-is-mexicos-mental– system/)
        • Though there are an estimated 10 million people with mental, visual, hearing or motor disabilities living in Mexico, the country’s mental health system is so dysfunctional that the unlucky patients under its care are colloquially referred to as “abandanodos (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/mexican-psychiatric-institution-hell/story?id=12267276)” – abandoned ones.
        • It’s an accurate description for these lost souls. A 93-page report from Disability Rights International (http://s3.amazonaws.com/nytdocs/docs/526/526.pdf) revealed the horrific living conditions at Mexican mental health facilities, which are a breeding ground for human rights violations and abuse of the handicapped patients that these institutions are meant to help. Many patients never received a clinical diagnosis of their condition and don’t have families to give them private care – these patients remain locked inside the hospitals indefinitely and become completely anonymous to the world.
        • Patients rock back and forth in urine soaked clothes or walk about soiled, feces-smeared floors without shoes. Bedsheets are an uncommon luxury; hygiene is an abstract concept in a Mexican mental hospital where some “patients and their caretakers could not fully explain how or why they were institutionalized” (New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/world/americas/01mexico.html)). Without proper oversight and the absence of any sort of registry system, it is not uncommon for mentally ill children to literally disappear from Mexican mental health facilities with no record of their name, age, or families.
        • In this dismal hole of human despair, atrocities are ubiquitous and plentiful (http://www.ipsnews.net/2011/01/appalling-conditions-in-mexicos-mental-health-institutions/). Many of the patients in these institutions have been detained against their will for years and will likely languish inside the walls of these torture chambers until their death. Psychotropic drugs are excessively relied upon to treat patients and the more aggressive patients who don’t respond to medication can be subject to forced lobotomies, which need only the approval of the facility director. Eric Rosenthal, the director of Disability Rights International, found that 1/4 of the mental health facilities were keeping patients in restraints for extended periods of time – an act that violates Article 1 of the United Nations convention against torture.

 

          • The concept of human rights has no real meaning or significance in these unregulated, inhumane environments. The investigation conducted by DRI revealed the severity and frequency of human rights violations within the walls of such state-run facilities. In one institution, a terrified blind patient admitted to being raped by one of the staff members – a claim that was quickly dismissed  by Mexican officials. 
          • In another facility, investigators discovered two young women who had been institutionalized at a young age, grew up in the hospital, and had been working as unpaid laborers for years. There exists no record of how or why these women were institutionalized and Mexican law requires no legal review to detain them indefinitely as modern-day slave laborers.
          • The director of Samuel Ramirez Hospital, one of the 31 state-run mental health facilities in Mexico, calls his own hospital “hell” and has voiced his belief that the mental health of every patient at his facility have been made worse by their institutionalization. He blames the lack of proper funding and a deficiency of properly trained personnel – at a different mental institution nearby, there are only two psychologists and one doctor to treat the 365 patients who have been institutionalized there.
          • The sad state of Mexico’s mental health system can be traced back to its government’s complex and deep-rooted political issues. Mexico’s budget for mental health makes up about 2.5% of its overall health spending. This is an improvement from the paltry 1.6% allocated to mental health a decade ago, but still significantly lower than the WHO’s recommendation of 10%. Without a significant electorate of mental health advocates, mental health lacks any real political sway in Mexico. Back in 2006, Mexico was among 96 countries who ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp? navid=13&pid=150). But it is clear that not much has changed within the system itself.

Bottom line: The BIA is using “legalese” to “normalize” sending an ill individual back to probable intentional torture in a “dismal hole of human despair.” After all, if being intentionally thrown in this kind of “torture chamber” by a country that has intentionally chosen to ignore, or in many cases aggravate, extreme human rights abuses, then who indeed could actually win protection under CAT? The message is clear — nobody! Use this case to deny ‘em all! Meet those quotas! Keep the assembly line moving!

Political officials of all Administrations have never been enthusiastic about complying with our international obligations under the CAT. Several Attorneys General, BIA Appellate Immigration Judges, and some Immigration Judges have found lots of creative ways to narrow the scope of protection, raise the standards of proof to near impossible levels, and to intentionally misconstrue country conditions against CAT applicants.

Undoubtedly, that gratifies and satisfies the desires of their political masters and handlers. Not surprisingly it comes as the Administration is denying access to asylum seekers and sending them into the CAT “reasonable fear” process.

What it doesn’t do is honestly live up to our solemn and binding international and human rights agreements, nor does it comply with Constitutional concepts of fundamental fairness and Due Process.

We need an independent U.S. Immigration Court System populated by Judges from diverse backgrounds with expertise in immigration and human rights laws, human empathy, and the courage and integrity to stand up for the full legal and human rights of the most vulnerable and endangered individuals in our legal system. Even when it could be “career threatening!”

PWS

11-16-18

 

Related posts:

  1. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  2. CONTINUING JUDICIAL EDUCATION FOR ARTICLE III JUDGES: “Kids In Cages” Ought To Be Displayed Outside Every Federal Courthouse & The Supremes So That “Robed Enablers” Can See The Results Of Their Abdication Of Constitutional Duties!
  3. WHEN ARTICLE III COURTS FAIL: U.S. “Orbits” Refugee Families To Dangerous Chaos In Guatemala Under Clearly Fraudulent “Safe Third Country” Arrangements As Feckless U.S. Courts Fail To Enforce Constitutional Due Process & U.S. Asylum Laws In Face Of Trump Regime’s Contemptuous Scofflaw Conduct!
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

DC SUPERLAWYERS LINDSAY M. HARRIS AND DREE K. COLLOPY COMPLETELY DEBUNK TRUMP’S BOGUS CLAIMS ABOUT ASYLUM SEEKERS IN WASHPOST OP-ED! Immigration lawyers like us know the truth about the people whom Trump calls an “invasion.” These asylum-seeking families, most fleeing horrific violence in Central America, where their own governments cannot protect them, are doing what is most human — trying to survive and protect their children.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/13/trumps-attack-asylum-is-based-entirely-false-claims/

President Trump’s recent action to limit asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border is just his latest attempt to scare Americans about asylum seekers, undercutting long-standing principles of decency and humanity.

And like most of what Trump says about immigrants, the rationale the administration is using to keep out asylum seekers is based on myths and deliberate obfuscations.

Trump may not like it, but seeking asylum from persecution is a core human right. This right was recognized by the world and enshrined in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has also been recognized by the United States and enshrined in our own domestic laws. Specifically, anyone “who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival . . .), irrespective of [their] status, may apply for asylum.” The Trump administration’s order will curtail this fundamental right and inevitably prompt strong legal challenges and protracted, resource-intensive litigation in our courts.

[Trump administration tightens immigration asylum rules as caravans continue to push for U.S. border]

Immigration lawyers like us know the truth about the people whom Trump calls an “invasion.” These asylum-seeking families, most fleeing horrific violence in Central America, where their own governments cannot protect them, are doing what is most human — trying to survive and protect their children.

We are asylum attorneys, but like many of our asylum-seeking clients, we are also mothers — of children ages 1 and 4, and one of us is nine months pregnant. Like most parents, we would do anything to keep our children safe. This is, indeed, the primary reason mothers decide to flee, sometimes pregnant, sometimes with small children, and take what they know and understand is the dangerous journey north — because they determine that is their best option for safety. This very human act of seeking protection for one’s children should be met with humanity, not hate-driven policies.

And the idea of an invasion isn’t the only false claim the administration is making to justify its new policy.

[Trump isn’t trying to solve border problems. He’s trying to make them look worse.]

The administration alleges that most individuals who file asylum claims don’t return to court to adjudicate them. In his Nov. 1 speech, Trump himself claimed that only 3 percent of asylum seekers show up in court. In reality, the Justice Department’s own statistics recognize that 60 percent to 75 percent of non-detained individuals show up to court, while a recent study showed that 96 percent of families with legal representation seeking asylum showed up to court.

The administration seems to assume that those seeking asylum between ports of entry are less worthy, genuine or credible than those who seek entry at the border. In reality, there are totally valid reasons people enter between ports of entry — first and foremost, the U.S. government has a track record of unlawfully turning away asylum seekers from ports of entry.

The administration assumes that asylum seekers from Central America will be safe in Mexico. Trump said in his speech earlier this month that Mexico had offered asylum to members of a large refugee caravan traveling from Central America, and that if they did not accept it, they must not be genuine asylum seekers.

[How to organize a 5,000-person migrant caravan]

Trump gets two facts wrong here. First, the United States does not have a “safe third country agreement” with Mexico (as we do have in place with Canada), which would make it a requirement for any asylum seeker who set foot on Mexican soil to seek asylum in Mexico first or be barred from pursuing asylum in the United States.

And second, the reason we don’t have such an agreement with Mexico is because Mexico is not capable of providing adequate protection for many migrants. For example, last year, the University of the District of Columbia law school’s immigration clinic handled the case of a Honduran woman who fled severe harm and targeting by a powerful transnational gang and was then attacked by Los Zetas in Mexico as she traveled with her two young children to the United States. She dutifully sought asylum in Mexico, only to be told by Mexican officials that they could not protect her from the Zetas or the gang who had targeted her in Honduras. They advised her to continue to the United States to seek meaningful protection. She was granted asylum.

[Border arrests surged to highest levels of Trump presidency in October]

The Trump administration’s rule and proclamation are grounded in rhetoric about the need to cut down on government resources devoted to asylum seekers at the southern border. However, the changes are unlikely to save government resources; while they will bar individuals who enter between ports of entry from gaining asylum, making them eligible only for withholding of removal or relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), withholding and CAT still require a court hearing, which will continue to be delayed given the backlog of now more than 1 million cases in our immigration courts.

Moreover, granting withholding or CAT relief, as opposed to asylum, will add to the creation of a permanent underclass of refugees. These refugees will be barred from a path to permanent residence, family reunification and full inclusion as members of our society. Instead, they will live in limbo.

For example, take one of the UDC law school clinic’s clients from last year. Her persecutor kidnapped her at age 17 and then kept her in a hut for six months, raping her repeatedly. After six months, he said she was his wife and warned that if she left him, he would kill her younger siblings. For the next 20 years, she endured horrific abuse at his hands, eventually escaping and making it to the United States on her third attempt. She was barred from asylum because of her unsuccessful prior attempts to enter but eventually granted withholding of removal. While she works hard legally as a nanny in the D.C. metro area, she has no right to ever sponsor her children for immigration; nor can she leave the United States without losing her status. She will live in permanent limbo and never see her children again. This rule will create the same situation for many more people like her.

This move is just the latest in a string of efforts by the Trump administration to dehumanize asylum seekers, to create an “us vs. them” mentality. The fearmongering has already contributed to the massacre of 11 Jewish Americans at a synagogue in Pittsburgh because the suspect allegedly believed the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and all Jews were assisting the “invasion” of America.

But it is not “us vs. them.” We are all human. We all breathe the same air. We all want to be free. And above all else, we want our children to be safe. We implore the Trump administration and our fellow Americans to recognize our common humanity and start treating asylum seekers like fellow human beings, rather than demons to blame, criminals to punish and monsters to detain and fear. It is our common humanity that should guide our policy. Only then can the United States begin to return to its position of moral leadership.

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

The problem is that the Trump Administration doesn’t recognize a “common humanity.” Only its own, self-interested, White Nationalist, exclusive agenda. So, there’s no “core of decency” to which one might appeal.

What if we had a different “leader?” One who paid attention to facts, respected experts, sought different views, possessed values and human compassion, and, most of all, sought to solve problems rather than using lies, slander, and slurs to dehumanize individuals and promote an essentially racist agenda!

PWS

12-15-18

Related posts:

  1. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  2. HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM COURTSIDE! — I Take A Look Forward @ 2019’s Big Immigration Stories
  3. WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE? — 9th CIRCUIT JUDGES ASSIST REGIME’S AGENTS IN COMMITTING “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” MERE YARDS FROM THE BORDER! — NDPA Leader Jodi Goodwin, Esquire, Speaks Out: “I’ve been practicing law for 25 years and the last four to five months of practicing law has broken me. I don’t want to fucking do this anymore. [Her voice breaks again] It sucks. How do you explain to people that you know they thought they were coming to a place where there’s freedom and safety and where the laws are just, but that’s not the situation? I’m very mad.”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

GONZO’S WORLD: SNL BIDS ADIEU TO “EVIL ELF!” – See It Here!

https://slate.com/culture/2018/11/jeff-sessions-robert-mueller-robert-de-niro-kate-mckinnon-saturday-night-live.html

BROW BEAT

Jeff Sessions and Robert Mueller Say Their Goodbyes on Saturday Night Live, With a Little Help From Kate McKinnon and Robert De Niro

By MATTHEW DESSEM

Robert De Niro and Kate McKinnon embrace on SNL.
Friends to the end.
NBC

It’s been an emotional week for people who love Jeff Sessions, assuming such people exist. On the one hand, Donald Trump fired Sessions the day after the election in favor of an unqualified loyalist who used to sit on the board of a hilariously fraudulent patent marketing company. On the other hand, once Sessions skulks back to Alabama, Kate McKinnon will have no further reason to play him on Saturday Night Live, which will probably be good for his reputation. But there was no way SNL would let a walking caricature like Sessions leave the national stage without a kick in the ass on his way to the wings, so McKinnon glued on her Jeff Sessions ears this week for what might be the very last time:

Sketches like this one, in which one celebrity caricature after another marches in, does his or her thing, then leaves, almost always suffer from a lack of momentum. The payoff here, the surprise appearance of Robert De Niro as Robert Mueller, is no substitute for rising action, not least because De Niro’s performance isn’t exactly worthy of Taxi Driver. Some of the individual jokes are hilarious—see, e.g., Sessions’ mug-within-a-mug—but as a whole, the sketch feels like one damn thing after another, for much, much too long. In that sense, it brilliantly captures the essence of the Trump administration, with or without Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. Best of luck to the cast member who has to squeeze into a bald cap to play Matthew Whitaker next week.

https://youtu.be/EGy-xpK-1mw

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

Kids in cages, weeping parents, families separated, refugees turned away, African-Americans brutalized by the police, domestic violence victims sent back to torture by their abusers, minority voters suppressed, prisons overflowing with minor offenders, American youth denied opportunities and threatened with removal, scientific evidence ignored, intentionally clogged courts, open season on the LGBTQ community, vigorous defense of hate speech (but not the right to protest), glorification of bias masquerading as “religion,” judges turned into border agents in robes, judges and lawyers publicly dissed, un-prosecuted corruption in government, rampant gun violence mostly generated by disgruntled White guys, journalists attacked, bogus efforts to keep migrants from knowing their rights, lies to Congress  — Man-o-Man, this Dude was just a barrel of laughs and good times! Unless, of course, you were one of the millions of men, women, and children in America who was permanently damaged or traumatized by his racist scofflaw approach to “justice” and his failure to enforce the Constitutional rights due to everyone in America. Not exactly “Janet Reno’s Dance Party!”

PWS

11-12-18

Related posts:

  1. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  2. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/jeff-sessions-donald-trump-resign-disgrace.html

Stern writes:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned on Wednesday at the request of Donald Trump. He served a little less than two years as the head of the Department of Justice. During that time, Sessions used his immense power to make America a crueler, more brutal place. He was one of the most sadistic and unscrupulous attorneys general in American history.

At the Department of Justice, Sessions enforced the law in a manner that harmed racial minorities, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. He rolled backObama-era drug sentencing reforms in an effort to keep nonviolent offenders locked away for longer. He reversed a policy that limited the DOJ’s use of private prisons. He undermined consent decrees with law enforcement agencies that had a history of misconduct and killed a program that helped local agencies bring their policing in line with constitutional requirements. And he lobbied against bipartisan sentencing reform, falsely claiming that such legislation would benefit “a highly dangerous cohort of criminals.”

Meanwhile, Sessions mobilized the DOJ’s attorneys to torture immigrant minors in other ways. He fought in court to keep undocumented teenagers pregnant against their will, defending the Trump administration’s decision to block their access to abortion. His Justice Department made the astonishing claim that the federal government could decide that forced birth was in the “best interest” of children. It also revealed these minors’ pregnancies to family members who threatened to abuse them. And when the American Civil Liberties Union defeated this position in court, his DOJ launched a failed legal assault on individual ACLU lawyers for daring to defend their clients.

The guiding principle of Sessions’ career is animus toward people who are unlike him. While serving in the Senate, he voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act because it expressly protected LGBTQ women. He opposed immigration reform, including relief for young people brought to America by their parents as children. He voted against the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He voted against a federal hate crime bill protecting gay people. Before that, as Alabama attorney general, he tried to prevent LGBTQ students from meeting at a public university. But as U.S. attorney general, he positioned himself as an impassioned defender of campus free speech.

While Sessions doesn’t identify as a white nationalist, his agenda as attorney general abetted the cause of white nationalism. His policies were designed to make the country more white by keeping out Hispanics and locking up blacks. His tenure will remain a permanent stain on the Department of Justice. Thousands of people were brutalized by his bigotry, and our country will not soon recover from the malice he unleashed.

His successor could be even worse.

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

Can’t overstate the intentional damage that this immoral, intellectually dishonest, and bigoted man has done to millions of human lives and the moral and legal fabric of our country. “The Father of the New American Gulag,” America’s most notorious unpunished child abuser, and the destroyer of Due Process in our U.S. Immigration Courts are among a few of his many unsavory legacies!

The scary thing: Stern is right — “His successor could be even worse.”  If so, the survival of our Constitution and our nation will be at risk!

PWS

11-06-18

Related posts:

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

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

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

The Post Editorial Board writes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PWS

11-03-18

 

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. COURTSIDE HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF EXPOSING THE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” COMMITTED BY THE REGIME AND THE MORAL CULPABILITY OF THOSE WHO WILLFULLY CARRY OUT & ENABLE THESE ATROCITIES — The “Mainstream Media” Is Now Channeling Courtside! — “In the meantime, no government has the right to treat people with such abject inhumanity. History will remember Trump for this, but it will also remember the people who enable such atrocious acts.”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

JOIN THE NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY (“NDPA”) & FIGHT AGAINST JEFF SESSIONS & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST ATTACK ON DUE PROCESS IN OUR IMMIGRATION COURTS! — Attend This Free Panel @ GW Law Tomorrow, Tuesday, Oct. 2 @ 3 PM

Immigration, Family Separation, Detention and Beyond: Where is the US Heading?
Alberto M. Benitez
Professor of Clinical Law Director of Immigration Clinic, GW Law
Michelle Brane
Director, Migrant Rights and Justice Program, Women’s Refugee Commission
Royce B. Murray
Policy Director American Immigration Council
This panel will discuss current issues related to the enforcement of immigration laws in the United States. The panelists will shed light on recent matters that have attracted significant media coverage, such as family separation policies, the practice of detaining families seeking asylum, and the plan advanced by the Trump Administration affecting immigrants seeking welfare benefits. The panel will discuss the domestic law implications of these issues, as well as their international law repercussions.
Closing Remarks: Paulina Vera, Supervisory Attorney, Immigration Law Clinic, GW Law Moderator: Rosa Celorio, Associate Dean, International & Comparative Legal Studies, GW Law
Tuesday, October 2, 2018 3:00-4:30 p.m.
Jacob Burns Moot Court Room [Lerner 101] Light Refreshments

Related posts:

  1. GONZO’S WORLD: AS SESSIONS RAMPS UP THE “NEW AMERICAN GULAG,” RAMPANT SEXUAL ABUSE OF FEMALE DETAINEES CERTAIN TO INCREASE! – AG’S Child Abuse Also Makes Him Complicit In Sexual Abuse! – See The Short Video By Emily Kassie Here!
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: THIS IS WHY HE STAYS: UNDERNEATH ALL THE “TRUMP NOISE” SESSIONS IS METHODICALLY ERADICATING DUE PROCESS, PERVERTING THE LAW, & TURNING ONE OF THE LARGEST FEDERAL COURT SYSTEMS INTO A “KILLING FLOOR” TARGETING OUR MOST VULNERABLE & DESERVING REFUGEES! — “[Sessions] is dumbing down the judges and treating them like assembly-line workers whose only job is to stamp out final orders of removal.”
  3. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

GONZO’S WORLD: HE FIDDLES AS ROME BURNS! — Threats To Judges, Xenophobia, Racism, Cutting Corners, Dissing Respondents & Their Lawyers, Bogus Numbers, Aimlessly Adding Bodies Fail To Stem Tide Of Backlogged Cases In An Obviously Broken System — When Will Congress &/Or The Article IIIs Do Their Jobs By Restoring Due Process, Impartiality, & Competent, Apolitical Court Management To This Sorry Caricature Of A Court System?

Here’s the latest from TRAC:

==========================================
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
==========================================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Greetings. In August 2018, Immigration Courts remained overwhelmed with record numbers of cases awaiting decision. As of August 31, 2018, the number had reached 764,561. In July, the number of cases awaiting decision was 746,049 cases. This is a significant increase – up 41 percent – compared to the 542,411 cases pending at the end of January 2017, when President Trump took office.

California, Texas, and New York have the largest backlogs in the nation at 142,260, 112,733, and 103,054 pending caseloads respectively. While California is the state with the most pending cases, New York City’s immigration court topped the list of immigration courts with highest number at 99,919 pending cases at the end of August.

To view further details see TRAC’s immigration court backlog tool:

http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/

In addition to these most recent overall figures, TRAC continues to offer free monthly reports on selected government agencies such as the FBI, ATF, DHS and the IRS. TRAC’s reports also monitor program categories such as official corruption, drugs, weapons, white collar crime and terrorism. For the latest information on prosecutions and convictions through July 2018, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/bulletins/

Even more detailed criminal enforcement information for the period from FY 1986 through August 2018 is available to TRACFed subscribers via the Express and Going Deeper tools. Go to http://tracfed.syr.edu for more information. Customized reports for a specific agency, district, program, lead charge or judge are available via the TRAC Data Interpreter, either as part of a TRACFed subscription or on a per-report basis. Go to http://trac.syr.edu/interpreter to start.

If you want to be sure to receive notifications whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

http://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1&list=imm

or follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook:

http://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
Suite 360, Newhouse II   
Syracuse, NY 13244-2100
315-443-3563

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

At approximately 20,000 more backlogged cases per month, the “Gonzo-ized” version of the US Immigration Courts are on track to jack the backlog up to 1 million by the end of FY 2019! Talk about self-inflicted, totally unnecessary chaos!

Hiring more new Immigration Judges won’t solve the problem because 1) if they do the job right, they will be slow and deliberative, 2) if they are slow, they will be fired, 3) but if they do it “Gonzo’s way” and give Due Process a pass, many of their cases will be sent back by the Courts of Appeals, adding to the mess.

Gonzo’s recent “My Way or the Highway” speech to new IJs where he unethically urged them to violate their oaths of office by ignoring relevant humanitarian factors in asylum cases (which actually are supposed to be humanitarian adjudications) and just crank out more removal orders to carry out the Administration’s White Nationalist agenda is a prime example of why more judicial bodies can’t solve the problem without a complete overhaul of the system to refocus it on Due Process — and only Due Process.

Someday, the Immigration Courts will become independent of the DOJ. That should include a professionally-administered, transparent, merit-based, judicial selection and retention system with provision for meaningful public input. (Such systems now are used for selection and retention of US Bankruptcy Judges and US Magistrate Judges.) When that happens, those Immigration Judges who “went along to get along” with Gonzo’s xenophobic, anti-immigrant, ignore Due Process system might be challenged to explain why they are best qualified to be retained in a new system that requires fair, impartial, and scholarly judges.

This court system can be fixed, but not by the likes of Gonzo Apocalypto; also, not without giving the Immigration Judges back authority over their dockets and leverage to rein in a totally undisciplined, irresponsible, unprofessional, and out of control ICE. (Responsible, professional, practical, humane leadership at DHS and ICE is also a key ingredient for a well-functioning and efficient court system.)

PWS

09-27-18

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  3. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

GOOD NEWS: En Banc 9th Cir. Will Rehear C.J.L.G. v. Sessions On Children’s Right To Counsel in Removal – Oral Argument Set For Dec. 10, 2018 — “Our Gang’s” Amicus Brief Appears To Have Helped!

Lee Brand, Partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in Palo Alto, CA and his amazing group of brief write gave us the good news this afternoon and sent along these orders granting the rehearing en banc and setting OA:

CJLGOrder 2 CJLGOrder

Many thanks to Lee and his dedicated group of superstar members of the “New Due Process Army” without whom this effort would not have been possible.

Here’s a copy of the Amicus Brief from “Our Gang of Retired Judges:”

2018.03.15 CJLG Amicus Brief of IJs

This is one of many important Federal Court and BIA cases in which “Our Gang” under the leadership of Judge Jeffrey Chase and Judge Lory Rosenberg have filed amicus briefs informing the courts of the realities of Immigration Court practice and the current sad state of Due Process in the courts. We’re working on some additional “assignments.” We’ll keep fighting for fairness, Due Process, and judicial independence as long as we’re “alive and kicking.”

Here’s a brief report form Jeffrey:

I am sending this to our now much larger full group.  One of the early amicus briefs in which 11 members of our gang participated was filed in support of a motion for rehearing en banc before the 9th Cir. in CJLG v. Sessions.  In that case, an IJ went forward with the asylum hearing of a 15 year old respondent who was unable to retain counsel, telling his mother that she would represent him.  Not surprisingly, asylum was denied based on the respondent’s inability to state a cognizable social group and to establish the government was unable/unwilling to control.  The ACLU filed a petition for review in the 9th Cir. arguing that minors should be assigned counsel in removal proceedings, which was dismissed by a 3 judge panel.

Today, the 9th Cir. granted the motion for rehearing en banc; oral arguments are set for Dec. 10.
So far, of the cases in which our gang submitted amicus briefs, there have been successful outcomes in Negusie (before the BIA), and in Matumona v. Sessions in the 10th Cir., in which OIL stipulated to remand for the BIA to consider the arguments raised on appeal (which concerned the impact of remote detention centers on the respondent’s ability to retain counsel).

It’s an honor to be a member of “Our Gang” and to have the opportunity to work with the many outstanding pro bono counsel and firms throughout the country who are part of the “New Due Process Army.”  The efforts of these wonderful lawyers represent the real commitment to the “rule of law” in immigration and stand in sharp contrast with the jaundiced views and insults to the legal profession publicly proclaimed by Jeff Sessions.

If you are a retired Immigration Judge or BIA Appellate Immigration Judge and would like to join our collegial group effort, please contact Jeffrey, Lory, or me. It’s a rewarding experience and a great opportunity to use your expertise to “make a difference.” It’s also a great chance to keep in touch with your judicial colleagues. It’s not all work (that’s where our wonderful pro bono lawyers come in) — we also have some fun, good times, and fond recollections in the process. (Judge Gus “Hang 10” Villageliu has promised free (non-web) surfing lessons to all new members once hurricane season is past!)

Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-20-18

Related posts:

  1. RETIRED US IMMIGRATION JUDGES FILE AMICUS BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF MINOR RESPONDENT’S RIGHT TO COUNSEL IN 9TH CIRCUIT EN BANC REQUEST – C.J.L.G. v. Sessions, 9th Cir., Filed March 15, 2018 – Read It Here!
  2. ROUND TABLE NEWS:  Getting The Due Process Message Across — 9th Cir. Orders Regime To Respond To Round Table’s Amicus Briefs in Matter of A-B- Challenges!
  3. HON. JEFFREY CHASE RETURNS WITH MORE ANALYSIS OF RETIRED JUDGES’ AMICUS BRIEF IN C.J.L.G. V. SESSIONS
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

SUPREME’S “SLEEPER CASE” PEREIRA V. SESSIONS ROILING THE WATERS IN IMMIGRATION COURTS – DHS’S & EOIR’S Questionable Approach In Thumbing Their Noses At Court’s Analysis Might Result In Hundreds Of Thousands Of Additional Unnecessary “Redos” In The Future!

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/17/648832694/supreme-court-ruling-means-thousands-of-deportation-cases-may-be-tossed-out

Joel Rose reports for NPR:

The Trump administration’s push to deport more immigrants in the country illegally has hit a legal speed bump.

For years, immigration authorities have been skipping one simple step in the process: When they served notices to appear in court, they routinely left the court date blank. Now, because of that omission and a recent Supreme Court decision, tens of thousands of deportation cases could be delayed, or tossed out altogether.

“I’m not sure if the Supreme Court knew what they were doing,” said Marshall Whitehead, an immigration lawyer in Phoenix. “But the end result of this is a major impact.”

The Supreme Court’s decision in the case known as Pereira v. Sessions didn’t get much attention when it was announced in June, partly because it seemed so technical. The court ruled 8 to 1 that immigration authorities did not follow the law when they filled out the paperwork in that case. They served an immigrant with a notice to appear in court but didn’t say when and where the hearing would be held.

Judge Halts Family Deportations For Now

NATIONAL

Judge Halts Family Deportations For Now

“Basically the Supreme Court decision said look, you’re not following the statute,” Whitehead said. “So this notice to appear was ruled as being invalid.”

That seemingly minor technicality has big implications.

Consider the case of Whitehead’s client, Jose Silva Reyes, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. He was living in Arizona, under law enforcement’s radar, for years — until 2010, when he ran a red light and got into a car accident.

Since then, Silva Reyes has been fighting in immigration court to stay in the country with his wife, a green card holder, and two kids who are citizens. He was due in court for his final deportation hearing last month, when the case against him was suddenly thrown out.

“When they told me that my case was terminated, I felt good,” Silva Reyes said, speaking through an interpreter.

Like many undocumented immigrants caught up in President Trump’s recent crackdown, Silva Reyes has been in the U.S. for more than 10 years. If you’ve lived in the U.S. for a decade without getting into trouble, and without ever getting a notice to appear in immigration court, you could be eligible to stay. Now, thanks to the Supreme Court, these immigrants can argue they never got a valid notice to appear in that 10-year time frame.

But the Supreme Court ruling could have an even wider impact.

Immigration lawyers are arguing that if any immigrant received a defective notice to appear, the whole deportation case is invalid. Silva Reyes’ lawyer, Marshall Whitehead, says he has already gotten dozens of cases tossed out using this line of reasoning.

“I’m only one attorney, and I’ve got 200 cases I’m looking at,” Whitehead said. “So you can see the massive numbers that we’re talking about across the United States.”

But the federal government is fighting back. Government lawyers are appealing, arguing that immigration authorities did eventually notify immigrants about the time and place of their hearings, just not right away. And, in August, they won an important case before the Board of Immigration Appeals, which oversees the nation’s immigration judges, that could limit the impact of the Pereira ruling.

Still, all of this is straining an already overburdened court system.

“The Supreme Court throws a monkey wrench into what was already a not very smoothly functioning system, and things just get worse,” says former immigration judge Andrew Arthur, who is now a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors lower levels of immigration.

The backlog in immigration courts has reached a record of nearly 750,000 cases, according to TRAC, an immigration research project at Syracuse University. And it’s still climbing — thanks in part to this technicality.

The Department of Justice declined to comment on the Supreme Court ruling and its impact. Attorney General Jeff Sessions hasn’t addressed it publicly. But he has criticized immigration lawyers for scouring the nation’s immigration laws, looking for loopholes.

“Good lawyers, using all of their talents and skill, work every day — like water seeping through an earthen dam — to get around the plain words of the [Immigration and Nationality Act] to advance their clients’ interests,” Sessions said earlier this month.

In this case, though, the Supreme Court found that it’s immigration authorities who have been ignoring the “plain language” of the law. Does immigration lawyer Marshall Whitehead feel bad about winning on a technicality?

“Well, technicalities is how we win and lose cases,” Whitehead said. “I’ve lost a lot of cases on technicalities.”

If it allows his clients to stay in the U.S. with their families, Whitehead says, you can call it whatever you want.

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

The “smart approach” would have been for DHS Counsel not to oppose termination, but to be prepared to exercise their right to immediately reserve the respondent with a proper NTA showing the actual time, date and place for a hearing. Not much to lose, since in most cases the respondent would stipulate to the use of any testimony or evidence taken in the prior hearing.

But, by contesting the terminations, and because the BIA wrongfully “blew off” the Supreme’s “plain language” reasoning in Matter of Bermudez-Cota, 27 I&N Dec. 441 (BIA 2018) (both Judge Jeffrey Chase and I have blogged about this recently), the DHS and EOIR have intentionally created an appealable issue in every case where the motion to terminate is denied and the respondent eventually loses.

If some or all Circuits disagree with the BIA’s interpretation (as is likely) and the Supremes stick with their prior “plain language” determination, DHS and EOIR could face the prospect of having to re-calendar hundreds of thousands of already completed cases. And for what? Nothing that I can see except the arrogance of not wanting to concede the inevitable.

And, let’s not forget that, as noted by the Supremes, the entire “Pereira mess” was self-created anyway. DHS & EOIR actually had the technology — called “interactive scheduling” — to issue valid Notices to Appear. Instead, in yet another “haste makes waste” move they cut corners rather than solving the problem.

Think we don’t need some “new competent management” over at DHS/ICE and EOIR? Guess again!

PWS

09-18-18

Related posts:

  1. 11TH CIR: BIA GETS IT WRONG IN DENYING JOURNALIST’S MTR — CONCURRING OPINION HINTS THAT MAJORITY OF “SESSIONS LEGACY BACKLOG” MIGHT HAVE BEEN ILLEGALLY INSTITUTED!
  2. EFFECTS OF TRUMP SHUTDOWN, “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE” CONTINUE TO ROIL U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM, SCREW MIGRANTS WHO FAITHFULLY SHOW UP FOR “FAKE” HEARINGS! – Trump Shut Down USG Over A Bogus “National Immigration Emergency” While Deeming Immigration Courts “Nonessential!” – Would ICE Agents Dare File “Charging Documents” Containing False Information With “Real” U.S. Courts?
  3. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

ABA PRESIDENT BOB CARLSON MAKES STRONG STATEMENT RECOGNIZING ESSENTIAL ROLE OF ATTORNEYS IN IMMIGRATOIN PROCESS, REBUTTING SESSIONS’S FALSE ATTACKS, AND ENDORSING AN ARTICLE I COURT!

Statement of ABA President Bob Carlson
Re: Immigration lawyers and judges

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11, 2018 — The American Bar Association applauds the work of lawyers who help assure fairness and due process in our nation’s immigration courts. During a visit last month to the border in Texas, I was very impressed by their hard work in difficult circumstances. Our Constitution guarantees certain rights to all people in the United States, including men, women and children who come here to escape lawlessness and violence in their home countries.

The ABA strongly supports the independence of immigration judges and immigration courts. These courts should not be subordinate to any executive branch agency, including the Justice Department. Instead, we support the creation of truly independent immigration courts and judges under Article I of the U.S. Constitution. Such an arrangement would remove any perception that politics can play a role in dispensing justice with matters of immigration.

Our American democracy rests upon the rule of law – and the rule of law rests upon the work of impartial, independent judges, as well as knowledgeable, hard-working lawyers, including immigration attorneys who pursue justice, both for the government and for immigrants who seek asylum.

With more than 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is one of the largest voluntary professional membership organizations in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.

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

Thanks to my good friend and colleague Judge Joan Churchill for alerting me to this item. Joan has been doing some great work in behalf of the Article I Immigration Court through the Immigration Committee of the ABA’s National Conference of the Administrative Law Judiciary. I just joined that Committee at her urging, and encourage all of my colleagues — retired and active — to do the same. Let Joan or me know if you would like information on how to join.

PWS

09-17-17

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  3. THE ROUNDTABLE IN ACTION: HON. ILYCE SHUGALL DELIVERS POWERFUL STATEMENT IN THE LA TIMES ON WHY SHE COULD NO LONGER SERVE AS A JUDGE IN OUR OBSCENELY DISTORTED AND UNFAIR U.S. IMMIGRATON COURT SYSTEM – “But nothing prepared me for the unprecedented, unfair and unworkable policies the Trump administration imposed on the courts and the immigration process.”
  4. HERE’S A SEPARATE LETTER ON THE URGENT NEED FOR AN ARTICLE I U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT THAT I SENT TO MY SENATORS AND CONGRESSMAN TODAY!

GONZO’S WORLD: A.G.’S “MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY” SPEECH TO NEW U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES CONTINUES TO DRAW FIRE! Hon. Jeffrey Chase & Others Criticize Sessions’s Inappropriate, Biased, & Unethical Demand That Judges Show No Mercy & Prejudge Asylum Cases Against Refugees! — Constitutional Crisis Brewing!!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2018/9/15/like-water-seeping-through-an-earthen-dam

In addressing 44 newly-hired immigration judges earlier this week, their new boss, Jeff Sessions, demonstrated not only his usual level of bias (to a group charged with acting as impartial adjudicators), but a very strange grasp of how our legal system works.

Sessions told the new class of judges that lawyers “work every day – like water seeping through an earthen dam – to get around the plain words of the INA to advance their clients’ interest.  Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the Act.”

Later in his remarks, Sessions opined that “when we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation.”

To me, the above remarks evince a complete misunderstanding of how our legal system works.

In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Katzenbach v. McClung, a landmark civil rights case.  In order to find that the federal Civil Rights Act applied to a local, family-owned barbecue restaurant in Alabama, DOJ attorneys persuaded the Supreme Court that there was federal jurisdiction under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause because of segregation’s impact on interstate commerce.  I’m no Constitutional law expert, but I’m not sure that when its authors afforded Congress the power “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,” that this is what they had in mind.  Was creatively interpreting the Commerce Clause in order to end segregation “like water seeping through an earthen dam” to get around the clear words of the Constitution?  Did ending segregation constitute, in Sessions’s opinion, doing violence to the rule of law out of a sense of sympathy for the black victims of Alabama’s racist policies?

Every positive legal development is the result of an attorney advancing a creative legal argument, often motivated by a sense of sympathy for unfair treatment of a class of individuals in need of protection.  Many landmark decisions have resulted from such attorneys offering the court an unorthodox but legally sound solution to a sympathetic injustice.  This is actually how the legal system is supposed to operate.  Our laws are made by Congress, and not the Executive branch.  When Congress drafts these laws, they and their staffers are well aware of the existence of lawyers and judges and their ability to interpret the statutory language.

Had Congress not wanted our asylum laws to be flexible, allowing them to be interpreted in myriad ways to respond to changing types of persecution carried out by different types of actors, it could have said so.  When the courts found that victims of China’s coercive family planning policies did not qualify for asylum, Congress responded by amending the statutory definition of “refugee” to cover such harm.  In the four years following the BIA’s conclusion that victims of domestic violence qualified for asylum, Congress notably did not enact legislation barring such grants.  To the contrary, after Jeff Sessions issued his decision with the intent of preventing such grants, a Republican-led Congressional committee unanimously passed a measure barring funding for government efforts to carry out Sessions’ decision, a clear rebuke by the legislative branch of Sessions’s view that such claims are illegitimate. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-led-house-committee-rebuffs-trump-administration-on-immigrant-asylum-claim-policy/2018/07/26/3c52ed52-911a-11e8-9b0d-749fb254bc3d_story.html?utm_term=.809760180e2a.

Interestingly, Sessions finds it perfectly acceptable to use unorthodox interpretations of the law when it serves his own interests.  For example,  he argues that he is upholding “religious liberty” in defending the right of bigots to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals. https://www.advocate.com/politics/2018/7/30/sessions-launches-new-lgbt-assault-religious-liberty-task-force.   The conclusion drawn from this inconsistency is that Sessions does not oppose creative interpretations of the law; he rather believes that the only proper interpretation of the law is his.

One of the problems with this approach is that Sessions doesn’t actually know anything about the law of asylum.  And yet he somehow feels entitled to belittle the analysis of the leading asylum experts in academia, the private bar, USCIS, ICE, and EOIR, all of whom have repeatedly found victims of domestic violence to satisfy all of the legal criteria for asylum.  In its 1985 decision in Matter of Acosta, (a case that Sessions cited favorably in his controversial decision), the BIA noted that the ground of “particular social group” was added to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees (which is the basis for our asylum laws) “as an afterthought.”  The BIA further noted that “it has been suggested that the notion of ‘social group’ was considered to be of broader application than the combined notions of racial, ethnic, and religious groups and that in order to stop a possible gap in the coverage of the U.N. Convention, this ground was added to the definition of refugee.”  (The full decision in Acosta can be read here:  https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/eoir/legacy/2012/08/14/2986.pdf).

As a young attorney, I learned (from the late, great asylum scholar Arthur Helton) that at the last moment, the Swedish plenipotentiary to the 1951 Convention pointed out that there were victims of Hitler and Stalin in need of protection who did not fall under the other four Convention grounds of race, religion, nationality, or political opinion.  A fifth, catch-all ground was therefore proposed to serve as a “safety net” in such cases.  In other words, the reason the particular social group category was created and is a part of our laws was because the Convention’s drafters, perhaps “like water seeping through an earthen dam,” created an intentionally nebulous legal standard out of a sense of sympathy for victims of injustice.  The ground was therefore created to be used for the exact purpose decried by Sessions.

Because of the strength of such legal authority, Sessions’s decision in Matter of A-B-, in spite of dicta to the contrary, actually still allows for the granting of domestic violence and gang violence-based asylum claims.  The decision criticized the BIA’s precedent decision in Matter of A-R-C-G- for reaching its conclusion without explaining its reasoning in adequate detail.  However, where the record is properly developed, a legally solid analysis can be shown to support granting such claims even under the standards cited by Sessions.

This is what makes Sessions comments to the new class of immigration judges so disturbing. Having appointed judges whom his Justice Department has found qualified, he should now leave it to them to exercise their expertise and independent judgment to interpret the law and determine who qualifies for asylum.  But in declaring such cases to lack validity, belittling private attorneys innovative arguments, and equating the granting of such claims to doing violence to the rule of law, Sessions aims to undermine right from the start the judicial independence of the only judges he controls.  EOIR’s management has demonstrated that it has no intention of pushing back; instead, it asks how high Sessions wants the judges to jump.

Knowing this, how likely is one of the 44 new judges to grant asylum to a victim of domestic violence who has clearly met all of the legal criteria?  New immigration judges are subject to a two-year probationary period.  It’s clear that a grant of such cases under any circumstances will be viewed unfavorably by Sessions.  In a highly publicized case, EOIR’s management criticized a judge in Philadelphia whose efforts at preserving due process they bizarrely interpreted as an act of disobedience towards Sessions, and removed the case in question and more than 80 cases like it from the judge’s docket.

So if a new judge, who may have a family to support, and a mortgage and college tuition to pay, is forced to choose between applying the law in a reasoned fashion and possibly suffering criticism and loss of livelihood, or holding his or her nose and adhering to Sessions’s views, what will the likely choice be?

Sessions concluded his remarks by claiming that the American people “have spoken in our laws and they have spoken in our elections.”  As to the latter, Americans voted against Trump’s immigration policies by a margin of 2.8 million votes.  As to the former, Congress has passed laws which have been universally interpreted by DHS, EOIR, and all leading asylum scholars as allowing victims of domestic violence to be granted asylum based on their membership in a particular social group.  It is time for this administration to honor the rule of law and to restore judicial independence to such determinations.

Copyright 2018 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

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

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/immigration-judges-hit-back-at-sessions-for-suggesting-they-show-too-much-sympathy/ar-BBNbbLK

Tal Axelrod reports in The Hill:

A union representing the country’s 350 immigration judges slammed Attorney General Jeff Sessions for comments he made that suggested they were sidestepping the law and showing too much sympathy when handling certain cases.

“When we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation,” Sessions said Monday in a speech to newly hired judges. “Your job is to apply the law – even in tough cases.”

Immigration judges, who work for the Department of Justice and are expected to follow guidelines laid out by the attorney general, said they believe Sessions was politicizing migrant cases.

“The reality is that it is a political statement which does not articulate a legal concept that judges are required to be aware of and follow,” Dana Marks, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Immigration Judges and an immigration judge in San Francisco, told BuzzFeed News. “It did appear to be a one-sided argument made by a prosecutor.”

Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, added that “we cannot possibly be put in this bind of being accountable to someone who is so clearly committed to the prosecutorial role.”

Sessions, an ideological ally of President Trump on immigration, has established additional restrictions on the types of cases that qualify for asylum and when certain cases can be suspended. He was involved in the White House’s controversial “zero tolerance” policy that led to family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border.

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http://immigrationimpact.com/2018/09/11/speech-to-new-immigration-sessions-attacks-immigration-lawyers/

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK of the American Immigration Council reports on Immigration Impact:

Rather than encourage the new class of 44 immigration judges to be fair and impartial adjudicators in his Monday morning speech, Attorney General Jeff Sessions advocated for a deeply flawed immigration court system and directed judges to carry out the Trump administration’s punitive, anti-immigration agenda.

While many would have taken the opportunity to reinforce principles of due process and fairness to new judges, Sessions instead emphasized that judges must follow his commands and encouraged judges to ignore “sympathy” when applying the law to noncitizens in their courtrooms.  He also renewed his criticisms of immigration lawyers and the noncitizens who access immigration courts each day in order to apply for immigration relief.

Throughout his speech, Sessions framed the role of immigration judges as enforcers of the law, not as neutral adjudicators in an adversarial system. He declared that the work of the new judges would “send a clear message to the world that the lawless practices of the past are over” and railed against “the problem of illegal immigration.”

Rather than be a place where individuals ask for immigration relief and impartial judges weigh the merits of each case, Sessions seemed to argue for the courts to be turned into a deportation mill. Judges would then spearhead the fight against illegal immigration.

Despite the Attorney General’s authority to establish performance standards and create new precedent for judges to follow, the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allows judges to independently make decisions on individual immigrants’ cases.

Ashley Tabaddor, the president of the union representing immigration judges, reacted to Sessions’ remarks, calling them “troubling and problematic” and accused Sessions of not “appreciat[ing] the distinction” between judges and prosecutors. “We are not one and the same as them.”

Sessions also renewed his attacks on immigration lawyers, first articulated in a 2017 speech (for which he was widely condemned) when he accused “dirty immigration lawyers” of encouraging undocumented immigrants to “make false claims of asylum [by] providing them with the magic words needed” to claim asylum.

Monday’s speech returned to a similar theme, with Sessions claiming that “good lawyers … work every day—like water seeping through an earthen dam—to get around the plain words of the INA to advance their clients’ interests. Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the Act.”

In response to this new attack, the American Immigration Lawyers Association issued a press release accusing Sessions of expressing “disdain for lawyers who take a solemn oath to uphold the law” and showing “a complete disregard for the role of independent judges in overseeing our adversarial system.”

Sessions’ ongoing assault on judicial impartiality threatens to undermine the ability of judges to make decisions based only on the facts and law in front of them.

In addition, by attacking immigration lawyers, who every day play a vital role in ensuring that noncitizens have a fair day in court, Sessions continues to demonstrate that he has little interest in fairness or justice when it comes to immigrants. Our immigration courts should reflect our American values of fairness, compassion, and due process, rather than a rejection of them.

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https://www.newsweek.com/jeff-sessions-immigration-judges-sympathy-1115512

U.S.

JEFF SESSIONS DEMANDS IMMIGRATION JUDGES SHOW NO SYMPATHY, SAYS IT DOES ‘VIOLENCE TO THE RULE OF LAW

BY

As the Trump administration continued to struggle to reunite hundreds of migrant children separated from their parents resulting from the president’s “zero-tolerance” policy, Attorney General Jeff Sessions told dozens of incoming immigration judges Monday to show no sympathy for those who appear before them in court.

“When we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation,” Sessions said. “Your job is to apply the law—even in tough cases.”

Sessions, the most powerful attorney in the country as head of the Justice Department, was speaking to 44 new immigration judges in Falls Church, Virginia.

He also took aim at lawyers who represent immigrants who were caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, suggesting they try to misconstrue immigration law “like water seeping through an earthen dam.” He told the judges it was their responsibility to “restore the rule of law” to the system.

. . . .
Read the rest of Ramsey’s article at the above link.
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There is a simple term for justice not tempered by mercy, compassion, and sympathy: INJUSTICE. Indeed, the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which includes the essential Due Process Clause, was specifically intended to protect the populace against Executive overreach of the kind that England imposed on the Colonies prior to the Revolution. That’s exactly what we’re seeing under Jeff Sessions!
As most Immigration Judges recognize, Session’s overt White Nationalism, racial bias, and absurd claims that he is “restoring the rule of law” (when in fact he is doing the exact opposite) are totally out of control.
It’s time for a “Due Process intervention” by the Article III Courts. Sessions and the DOJ must be stripped of their untenable and unconstitutional control over the Immigration Courts. Appoint a “Special Master” — someone like retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy — to run the Immigration Court System and restore Due Process and fairness until Congress does its job and creates an independent U.S. Immigration court outside the Executive Branch.
The problems aren’t going away under the Trump Administration. And, if the Article III Judiciary doesn’t act it will find itself crushed under thousands of defective removal orders that Sessions is urging the Immigration Judges to turn out without Due Process or the “fair and impartial” adjudication that it guarantees. The Article IIIs can run, but they can’t hide from this Constitutional crisis!
Sessions’s remarks are also an insult to all of the many current and former U.S Immigration Judges who, unlike Jeff Sessions, have been deciding “tough cases” for years, within the law, but with sympathy, understanding, humanity, and compassion which are also essential qualities for fair judging under our Constitutional system that Sessions neither understands nor respects. No wonder his own party judged him unqualified for an Article III judgeship years ago. He hasn’t changed a bit.
PWS
09-17-18

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